Chapter VII: Duty's Call

"It is right to begin with the obligations of home—no other duties can possibly be substituted for them."—DICKENS.

MORE than a year has passed.

Bluebell and Heather have not yet been home. They have travelled abroad with their cousin; they have passed a season in town; and the little simple country girls have developed into brilliant young women of fashion. Mrs. Carter is beginning to wonder when they will marry. Heather has had two or three offers, but has refused them all. She charms many by her little imperious queenly ways, her bright wits, and her quick changes of mood from grave to gay.

Bluebell is always saucy and bewitching; some wonder if she can ever be serious; some, if she has a heart at all. At present, she has a persistent and devoted suitor, Sir Herbert Mowbray by name. He is not a very young man, and is silent and reserved by nature. Bluebell alone can bring the grave smile to his eye and lips. But she holds him aloof, ignores his devotion, and treats him as she treats all others, with laughing indifference.

The sisters have very few grave conversations together now. Their Bible reading is short and hurried, often missed altogether. The late hours and rush of gaiety that they live in, have already left marks on their young faces. But they appear in the brightest spirits, and Mrs. Carter is more than satisfied with the success of her training. Captain Carter looks upon them as permanent inmates of his household, and will not hear of them taking their departure.

Cyril still chaffs and criticizes their actions. He makes his brother's house his home when Parliament is sitting, but is a good part of the year in the country managing his property.

"Girls, where shall we go this summer?" said Mrs. Carter one sunny morning in July, as they sat at breakfast. "It is too stifling for words in town. I am longing for a breath of country air."

"We have four invitations for August," said Heather a little languidly, "none of which we have accepted yet."

"One of them is to Lady Grace in Scotland. I always think Scotch houses are very dull except during the shooting. What are the others?" said Mrs. Carter.

"Mrs. Finch wants us to go on a house-boat with her."

"Without me. Yes, I remember, and I think she is too go-ahead! Who are her party?"

"Mr. Finch, Major Rankin, Mr. Greeson, and a young nephew."

Mrs. Carter pursed up her mouth and looked across at her brother-in-law.

"I am not prudish," she said; "but what did you tell me about Major Rankin, Cyril?"

Cyril stroked his moustache with a superior air.

"Something best not repeated," he said. "That invitation must be declined at once."

"That is for us to settle," said Heather, quickly, with a flash in her eyes that Cyril always called the "danger signal."

"What is number three?" asked Mrs. Carter, hastily. "We will talk about accepting or declining them later."

"Lady Mowbray's," put in Bluebell. "Sir Herbert has been pestering my life out, ever since I had the letter."

"And the fourth?"

"Oh, that doesn't really count," said Heather, looking out of the window as she spoke.

"Because it is the only one that is coming off," said Cyril, coolly. "Don't pretend you have forgotten, missus, that you are coming to entertain for me. I expect the whole lot of you for a good month."

"Oh, did we promise? I must say I like being entertained better than entertaining," said Mrs. Carter with a little grimace. "I get enough of that in my own house."

"We certainly shall not give you a month," said Bluebell. "We should all be bored to death. Heather and I will give you the last week in August if you like, after we have done our other visits."

"Speak for yourself, Minnehaha! Heather will come before that if you don't."

Both girls exclaimed—

"We have never been separated in our lives. As if we would sleep apart from each other for a single night!"

"Now, my dear children, that idea is quite exploded. It is a perfect fallacy to think twins ought not to be separated. I know two fellows—twins—who led a life of misery till they took my advice; one went towards the North Pole, the other towards the South, and they quietly and firmly decided that they would never come into contact with one another again. Their life was becoming a perfect bondage to them, and when they were once away from each other, they said it was a delicious sensation to realize their individuality apart and alone from any one else's. The sooner you assert your separate individuality, the better for both of you. Now, missus, put your oar in! You know I am speaking words of wisdom. How are the silly young creatures to get husbands if they will live in one another's pockets? There, I thought the missus would rise to that bait. I will leave you to fight it out together. Men are best out of the way when husbands are under discussion!"

Cyril sauntered out of the room after this speech.

Mrs. Carter began to improve the occasion.

"I think there is a certain amount of sense in what he says, girls. If you could make up your minds to do without each other sometimes, it would be much better for you. For instance, Lady Mowbray wants Bluebell, Lady Grace wants you, Heather."

Bluebell flushed a little, and laughed.

"I am not going to Lady Mowbray's by myself, Cousin Ida. Not if I know it! She is an irascible old lady, I have heard. Even her son says she is 'difficult,' and he is devoted to her."

"If you make up your mind to accept Sir Herbert, you must make the best of his mother," said Mrs. Carter, quietly. Then looking at Bluebell a little keenly, she said, "He spoke to me about you yesterday evening—I—I wished him success!"

Bluebell only laughed.

"Don't look like that at me, Cousin Ida! As if you are longing to congratulate me. It is premature, I assure you. If he doesn't take care, he'll find such haste will spoil his cause. I am not going to be tied or bound to any man yet. I love my liberty too much."

She danced out of the room, singing as she did so—

"I care for nobody, and somebody cares for me.
If somebody thinks he's nobody, I may care for he!"

Mrs. Carter looked a little worried.

"I hoped you would both be engaged by this time," she said to Heather, who sat gravely looking through her letters. "It isn't my fault that you are not."

"No indeed," said Heather, quickly looking up; "I am afraid we have sadly disappointed you. I had never realized till I had gone through a season what a solemn duty this business of marriage is. And sometimes, Cousin Ida, it sickens me. Life isn't all marrying and giving in marriage! You have been truly good to us, but I think Bluebell will soon do what you want. Don't worry her too much."

"And what about you?"

Heather got up from her seat, and walked over to the window. She drew her slight young figure up rather proudly.

"I would rather not discuss myself. Bluebell and I cannot part with each other yet. I think we must do our visits together. Shall we talk over them now?"

"There is one lesson I have to learn," said Mrs. Carter with a mock plaintive air. "If I can come the 'missus' over Hal and Cyril, I cannot over you two girls. Sometimes I think you look upon me as an old dowdy chaperon. I wonder if you do! It's the way of young girls nowadays."

"It will never be our way," said Heather, warmly; "Bluebell and I can never thank you enough for all the enjoyment you have given us."

Then the two sat down to earnest discussion over the forthcoming visits.

A month later, and the twins were at Rawton Cross, Cyril's property. They had visited Lady Mowbray, and had liked the hot-tempered, good-natured old lady. Bluebell was not yet formally engaged to Sir Herbert, but it was an understood thing, and Heather sometimes wondered why her sister seemed to hang back when matters had gone so far.

Cyril was a capital host. His house was a picturesque-looking Gothic building, and he filled it with pleasant guests.

Mrs. Carter was in her element at once. She said one day as she was dispensing afternoon tea on the lovely old lawn under the beech trees, "I think I would have made you a good wife, Cyril. What a pity you didn't ask me before Hal did!"

"The red coat did it," said her husband, lazily. "I felt her heart thump its admiration the first time we met, when I took her into supper at one of our regimental festivities!"

"How can you give me away so before these girls? You know you had to propose to me three times before I accepted you!"

"No," said Cyril, meditatively, as he leant back in his lounge chair and surveyed the company with lazy satisfaction, "I have found celibacy such a blessing that I have constantly congratulated myself that I have 'kept myself to myself' all these years."

"It is a shame of you," said young Mrs. Plowman, coquettishly. "Your house will never be truly comfortable till it has a mistress. And think how many single women would be only too thankful to take charge of you—"

"And my money!"

"Mercenary wretch! Whom are you saving it for?"

Heather, who had been listening to this silently, now got up and sauntered away. Sometimes the empty chit-chat of society disgusted her. She had never really become accustomed to it, and other, graver thoughts were now occupying her mind.

She turned her steps to a winding path that led into the woods close by. Walking along, she found herself soon between steep banks of moss and fern, and with a long-drawn breath of delight, she sprang up, and curling herself up amongst the ferns, she rested her head against an old tree, and proceeded to read and re-read a letter which seemed to cause her much anxious thought.

Time went on, and still she sat there. Bright-eyed rabbits, with startled ears, peeped over the high ferns to look at this intruder. A squirrel darted over the branches above her, and the wood-pigeons came and cooed in the top of some tall elms close by.

Heather did not heed them. She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. Her brows were puckered, and her face looked harassed. Then she took out a pencil from her pocket, and began making rapid calculations on paper. A heavy sigh followed, and then her quiet was suddenly disturbed.

"Found at last, Regina!"

It was only Cyril who called her by this nickname, and he stood over her with an amused look in his eyes.

"Now what may I ask has suddenly driven you to solitude? In love at last?"

Heather looked up startled, and a little annoyed. "Do you never feel you would like to be alone?" she said, trying to speak carelessly.

"Oh yes, very often. But beautiful maidens must not be allowed to waste their sweetness on the desert air. Major Canning has been hunting for you. Jack Bedford is distrait at your absence, and each supposes you are having a 'tête-à-tête' with Frank Rushton, who has also disappeared."

Heather gave another sigh.

"I wish you could be serious," she said, "then I might confide in you. I would just as soon tell you as Cousin Ida, because you can keep things quiet, and she cannot."

He threw himself down on the grass beside her.

"I am your elder brother. Now, child, tell it out!"

A pink flush rose to Heather's face. She hesitated, then plunged into her perplexity.

"Cousin Cyril, I have a letter here from one of our old servants, Rachael. It is not the first one I have received in such a strain. I used to think I was very good at money matters, but somehow or other now, Bluebell and I cannot keep within our incomes. Both these last two quarters, I am ashamed to say, we have overdrawn at our bank. There are things that must be seen to at once at home, repairs to our small farm. We have not the money to send. And worse than all, there are two or three old people to whom our grandmother always paid a small weekly pittance. Rachael asks me to send the amount for the next quarter, and—and I cannot do it."

"Hard up!" said Cyril with a quiet smile. "Borrow from me, till you get round the corner!"

Heather drew her head up proudly.

"Never," she said. "I will not go further into debt. I feel disgraced and ashamed when I think of the sums we have been lavishing on our amusements and dress, whilst our dear old people at home are actually in want."

She paused, then went on rapidly—

"I dare say you cannot understand, but the villagers have always looked to us for relief, and grandmother used to give a great deal away. I promised her before she died that we would continue to do the same. It is only lately that I have found it impossible to keep my promise. We are spending a good deal of money, and do not seem able to draw in."

"The only thing for you to do is to let or sell your old home. You will never go back to live there again, so why have the expense of keeping it all up for the sake of two old servants? Pension them off, let the farm go, and you will find yourself the richer."

Cyril spoke with easy indifference, but he was watching her very keenly the while.

Heather flashed round upon him impetuously. "Is pleasure before duty your only clue out of the difficulty?"

He smiled.

"I thought you had forgotten there was such a word as duty these past twelve months," he said; "we who follow fashion's fancy will have none of such an old-fashioned article!"

Heather looked straight before her with compressed lips and flashing eyes.

"There is one way out of the difficulty," she said determinedly, "and that is the way we must take."

"Into the Bankruptcy Court?"

"We must go home, and stay there!"

He looked at her curiously, then sprang to his feet.

"Away with such a dark thought! Let us return to lighter and brighter realities. Come and have a row on the river!"

Heather gave a sigh, put her letter in her pocket, and was her bright self again when she joined the others still on the lawn.

But she had made a resolve in her own heart, and that resolve she meant to keep.