Chapter XI: Between Two Stools

“Do any of you happen to know when Arthur is going to be married?”

The question was Lady Millicent’s, and she asked it of her three younger children one day towards the end of May, when Arthur was absent for a few days in London, and the family dinner--not a very lively one--had been just concluded. The servants--two of them in plush and powder, with their chief in all the dignity of a white tie and glittering studs--had left the room, and milady, looking as usual fat, fair, and comfortable in her dark dress, a little _passée de mode_, ensconced her double chin within the palm of her puffy white hand, and quietly awaited a response.

The girls from either side of the richly-furnished table glanced furtively at each other, and Horace, who was feeling especially bright, in consequence of having that day received the long-looked-for notification that his examination would take place in the following week, tapped his fingers lightly against the mahogany table, with an assumed air of taking no interest in the question. He was seated in his brother’s place, a half smile--a smile in which there was much latent satire--playing over his intelligent face. Probably Lady Millicent’s real or affected interest in her son’s proceedings rather amused than disturbed him.

“Can’t anyone answer?” said Lady Millicent, who, like all great people, had an objection to being kept waiting, and who was apt to be what is vulgarly called “put out” by any apparent absence of obsequious respect. “It doesn’t give much trouble to say either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and Arthur is so extremely mysterious that I am unfortunately obliged to address myself to others for information.”

“I think it depends a good deal on his coming of age,” said Horace, who, in spite of a certain vein of cynicism which occasionally gave bitterness to his words, was sincerely attached to his brother, and ever ready to give him a helping hand.

“I don’t suppose that old Dub will make any objection to its being a case of no settlements on _our_ side--he’s such an uncommon liberal old fellow; but, as Atty says,--and upon my word I think he’s right,--it is awfully disgusting to owe everything to a woman.”

“Your poor father was of a different opinion,” said Lady Millicent drily, and with her voice lowered to the properly pathetic tone in which alone she allowed herself to speak of her dead husband. Horace turned very red at this unexpected and, as he mentally called it, indelicate remark. He was by nature an observant character, and young as he had been at the time of his father’s fatal accident, he had, without entertaining any desire to spy into peccant places, into the _rifts_, great or small, of his parents’ inner life, already seen enough with those keen eyes of his to convince him that only the outside surface of things was smooth in his stately and prosperous home. The two lads had during Cecil Vavasour’s lifetime been accustomed to hear much obsequious praise and prosternating flattery of their mother. For years they had grown up in the faith of her prudence, her large-mindedness, her liberality, and her cleverness; and it was not till long after they were fatherless that either Horace or Arthur became entirely convinced that Lady Millicent had shone with reflected lustre only, and that the good gifts for which the world had given her credit were not _hers_, but those of the husband who had borne his faculties through life with such a meek and unobtrusive grace. How far Lady Millicent was at that time aware of the fact that the eyes of not only her children but the world were opened to her shortcomings we need not now inquire. Proud and arrogant though she was, “milady” would have been very far from pleased could she have learned the truth, and known what a “falling-off was there,” where but a few short years before all tongues, both male and female, great and small, were wagging in her praise.

“Please, dear mother,” Horace said, with the angry spot deepening on his brow, “to remember that my poor father’s name can never be brought in--in--this way without giving pain to all of us. I always feel that the opinions of one that is dead should be held even more sacred than those of a person who is absent. The latter _may_ come back either to uphold or to deny them, while--”

“My dear Horace,” interrupted Lady Millicent haughtily, “this will never do; you will be thought--pardon me for saying so--a terrible bore in society if you take to laying down the law in this prosy way. I little thought when I asked you a simple question about your brother what I was bringing upon myself.”

Horace laughed good-humouredly. Like most young men, he hated a _scene_ of any kind, and was very apt, for his sisters’ sake as well as his own, to turn off Lady Millicent’s attacks with a joke.

“Thank you, ma’am, for the hint,” he said good-humouredly. “It _was_ a great mistake on my part dogmatising in such a ponderous fashion. As to your question, my dear mother, I really believe that Arthur is waiting to learn something of your wishes on the subject. As we all know, he will be twenty-one next month.”

“Yes, the parish register could have told you that,” put in Lady Millicent sarcastically; “but I confess to seeing no connection whatever between your brother’s age and his marriage.”

She fixed her eyes firmly on her son as she spoke. They were large, handsome, defiant eyes, the only good feature in her face--good, that is, if a feature can be called so which assists to give a hard and unfeminine expression to its owner’s countenance. Again Horace endeavoured to pass the matter lightly and playfully off.

“Well, it _is_ very absurd, I daresay,” he said; “but somehow or other, though, the two _do_ seem to be connected. Perhaps, as I said before, Arthur does not quite like marrying _in forma pauperis_. He may expect that the tremendously important event of his coming of age would be ushered in by a ‘ceremony’ which would require his presence. You can understand, my dear mother,” Horace went on rather hurriedly, for he felt that he was treading on dangerous ground,--“you can understand that this is rather an--an awkward subject to talk over with you; and besides, you will, I am sure, enter into his feelings about Mr. Duberly. He is, as I said before, a capital old fellow; but, nevertheless, he _may_ perhaps take it into his head to think that Arthur’s family might--might come forward--”

“Come forward! Why, the man’s father was a cowkeeper, or a butterman, or something of that kind! You don’t mean to say that _they_ are going to make difficulties?”

“Not _difficulties_. O, no. Mr. Duberly would never run the risk of ‘dear Sophy’ losing what she had set her heart on. I believe that if she wished to marry the chimney-sweep--”

“Which would be not at all an unsuitable alliance.”

They all laughed, following Lady Millicent’s lead, that lady evidently thinking that she had made rather a happy hit. Kate, however, who was growing nervous, telegraphed to her brother a hint that he should be silent--a caution which the wilful Horace utterly disregarded.

“Poor old Atty,” Horace said, very impertinently his mother thought (in fact, it was really surprising how greatly his approaching emancipation was awakening the spirit of self-assertion in his juvenile breast),--“poor old Atty, it is terrible to think that he should be driven at his time of life by force of circumstances and adverse fate to such awful _encanaillement_ as this!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘adverse circumstances,’” said Lady Millicent, looking very stern, and rising from her chair with a considerable accession of dignity; “if young men will be extravagant and get into debt, they must take the consequences;” and having so said, Lady Millicent, after signing to her daughters to remain where they were, swept grandly out of the room.

“O, Horace, how could you!” exclaimed Kate in an awe-struck whisper.

“How could I!” mimicked Horace. “How could I what? Why, you little goose, when shall I make you understand that it is always better to take (metaphorically speaking, of course) the bull by the horns? You ought to know _that_ by this time; but, as you don’t, I can only repeat what I have said fifty times before--that, what with your grimaces and Rhoda’s tears, you are about the two silliest young women in Christendom.--Now, Roe dear,” he went on, addressing his eldest sister in a tone of mock displeasure which, together with the quaint name which he had bestowed upon the quiet and slightly sentimental girl, set Kate off--no unusual occurrence--into what Horace called a fit of the giggles,--“now, Roe dear, what in the world are you crying about now?”

“I wasn’t crying, Horace,” said Rhoda. She was rather a pretty pale-faced girl, whose tears--for her nerves were weak--came at very slight provocation to her eyelids. She had wiped one furtively away while her brother began to “chaff” her about this well-known propensity, and then was quite ready to say tremulously: “I wasn’t crying, only everything seems so uncomfortable; and it is so odd, not knowing when Arthur is to be married. I believe he has told you! Now, has he, Horace? Don’t be ill-natured;” and both the girls at once set to work to kiss and coax him.

“Paws off!” cried Horace, laughing. “No, then, he hasn’t--upon my word, he hasn’t. There! I hate not knowing the truth as much as you do; and I only wish he was to be married next week.”

“And why?” Kate eagerly exclaimed; “you usen’t to like--”

“_Usen’t!_ What grammar! You’ll want Miss Bates back again if you can’t speak your mother-tongue better than that.”

“Never mind my mother-tongue,” Kate began impatiently. “I want to be told--”

“You want to be told a thousand things that you’ve no business to know. You are both as curious as a couple of magpies; but you may chatter till midnight without getting a word out of me. I’m off to the stable for a smoke; so you needn’t bother me any more.”

In spite of the cheerful air and janty manner with which he endeavoured to conceal his troubles, Horace Vavasour did not smoke on that especial evening “the pipe of contentment;” nor could the corn-bin on which he sat be in the smallest degree considered as typical of that well-known “carpet of hope” on which the lethargic Turk is supposed to take his ease.

“It is all my mother’s fault,” he murmured to himself, as he kicked his dangling heels disconsolately against the solid oak. “If my mother would but behave like other people! If she had kept up her house and establishment in London, or even if she had given Arthur the means of living like a gentleman, I never will believe that he _could_ have got into these awful scrapes. What will happen if he does not marry soon, God knows; and yet _for_ that poor girl’s sake one ought not to wish it. I was sure how it would all be if once--” He drew a long whistling breath, and threw down the end of his cigar, crushing its last spark out with the heel of his boot. It was nine o’clock now, and the great church-like stable-bell had already called the “faithful” to evening prayers; and from force of habit, it is to be feared, rather than from a higher and more Christian cause, Horace Vavasour hurried back to the Castle. He did not seem to himself, however, to care much whether he infringed Lady Millicent’s rules on that sweet May evening or not. He was a man now, with a man’s profession, a man’s cares, and, to a certain extent, a man’s responsibilities. For years--very long years they appeared now as he looked back to them--he had nightly seen that long array of serving men and women lining the old oak wall, and, as it were, praying. He had heard his lady mother read many a blessing over their heads; but somehow or other the ceremony had not seemed to bring a blessing with it; and Horace was certainly rather consoled than otherwise with the reflection that from that day forward, for many a night to come, he would be allowed to spend his evening hours as he pleased.