CHAPTER XXII.

‘FOR I WOL GLADLY YELDEN HIRE MY PLACE.’

Edgar Turchill rode over to South Hill directly after breakfast next morning. It was a hunting-day, and the meet was at a favourite spot; but he had business to do which could brook no delay, and even the delight of skimming across the Vale of the Red Horse, on a hunter well able to carry him, must give way to the more vital matter which called him to the house on the hill. So soon as Sir Vernon Lawford might be fairly supposed to be accessible to a visitor, Mr. Turchill presented himself, and asked for an interview.

He was ushered straight to Sir Vernon’s study, that sacred, and in a manner official chamber, which he had ever held in awe; a room in which the driest possible books, in the richest possible bindings, repelled the inquiring mind of an ordinary student, who, looking for Waverley, found himself confronted with Blackstone, or exploring for Byron, found himself face to face with Coke or Chitty.

Here, Sir Vernon, seated reposefully in his great red morocco armchair, listened courteously to Edgar’s relation of his love, and his hope that, subject to parental approval, his constancy might speedily be rewarded. ‘I have heard something of this before,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘My sister told me you had proposed to Daphne, and had been rejected. I was sorry the child had not better taste; for I like you very much, Turchill, as I believe you know.’

‘You have been very good to me,’ answered Edgar, reddening with the honest warmth of his feelings. ‘South Hill has been my second home. The happiest hours of my life have been spent here. Yes, Sir Vernon, Daphne certainly did refuse me in the summer; but I felt that it was my own fault. I spoke too soon. I ought to have bided my time. And last night, after the ball, I spoke again, and—’

‘With a happier result,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘But Daphne is little more than a child—no wiser than a child in her whims and fancies. I should not like a straightforward fellow like you to suffer from a school-girl’s frivolity. Do you think she knows her own mind now any better than she did in the summer, when she gave you quite a different answer? Are you sure that she is in earnest—that she is as fond of you as you are of her?’

‘I have no hope of that,’ answered Edgar, a little despondently. ‘I have been loving her ever since she came home, and my love has grown stronger with every day of my life. If she likes me well enough to marry me, I am content.’

Sir Vernon remained silent for some moments, gravely contemplating the fire, as if he were reading somebody’s history in it, and that a gloomy one.

‘I am fond enough of you to be sorry you should marry on such conditions,’ he answered, after a longish pause. ‘My younger daughter is a very pretty girl—people persecuted me with compliments about her the other night—and, I suppose, a very fascinating girl; but if she does not honestly and sincerely return your love, I say, Do not marry her. Pluck her out of your heart, Edgar, as you would a poisonous weed. Be sure, if you don’t, the poison will rankle there by-and-by, and develop its venom at the time you are least prepared for it.’

Edgar, secure in his assurance of future happiness—for what man, having won Daphne, could fail to be happy?—smiled at the unwonted energy of Sir Vernon’s address.

‘My dear sir, you take this matter too seriously,’ he replied. ‘I have no fear of the issue. Daphne’s heart is free, and it will be very hard if I cannot make myself owner of it, loving her as I do, and having her promise to marry me. I only want to be assured of your approval.’

‘That you have with all heartiness, my dear boy. But I should like to be sure that Daphne is worthy of you.’

‘Worthy of me!’ echoed Edgar, with a tender smile; ‘I wish to Heaven I were worthy of her.’

‘She is very young,’ said Sir Vernon thoughtfully.

‘Nineteen on her next birthday.’

‘But that birthday is nearly a year off. I hope you will not be in a hurry to be married.’

‘I shall defer that to your judgment; though I think, as I can never feel warmly interested in Hawksyard till I have a wife there, the sooner we are married, so far as my happiness is concerned, the better.’

‘Of course. You young men have always some all-sufficient reason for being over the border with the lady. How will your mother relish the change?’

Poor Edgar winced at the question, feeling very sure that Mrs. Turchill would take the event as her death-blow.

‘My mother is perfectly independent,’ he faltered. ‘She has her jointure.’

‘Has she not Hawksyard for her life?’

‘No; the estate was strictly entailed. I am sole master there.’

‘I am glad of that,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘It is an interesting old place.’

‘Daphne likes it,’ murmured Edgar fatuously.

‘I suppose you know that I can give my younger daughter no fortune?’

‘If you could give her a million, it would not make me one whit better pleased at winning her.’

‘I believe you, Edgar,’ answered Sir Vernon. ‘When a man of your mould is in love, filthy lucre has very little weight with him. There will be a residue, I have no doubt, when I am gone—a few thousands; but the bulk of my property was settled when I married Lina’s mother. I suppose you know that Lina is very pleased at the idea of having you for a brother-in-law?’

‘I know nothing, except that Daphne has consented to be my wife.’

‘Lina announced the fact to me this morning at breakfast. Daphne was not down—a headache—a little natural shyness, I daresay. Lina is very glad—very much your friend.’

‘She has always been that,’ faltered Edgar, looking back with half-incredulous wonder to the time when a word from Lina had been enough to stir the pulses of his heart, when the mention of her name was music.

‘I think I cannot do better for you than leave your happiness in Lina’s care,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘Daphne will not be married first, of course.’

‘Might they not be married on the same day?’ suggested Edgar. ‘Lina is to be married directly she comes of age, is she not?’

‘That has been proposed,’ said Sir Vernon reluctantly, ‘but I am in no hurry to lose my daughter, and I don’t think Lina is eager to leave me. In my precarious state of health it will be hard for me to bear the pain of parting.’

‘But, my dear Sir Vernon, she will be so near you—quite close at hand,’ remonstrated Edgar, inwardly revolting against this selfishness, which would delay his own happiness as well as Goring’s.

‘Don’t talk about it, Turchill,’ exclaimed Sir Vernon testily. ‘You don’t understand—you can’t enter into my feelings. My daughter is all the world to me now. What will she be when she is a wife, a mother, with a hundred different interests and anxieties plucking at her heart-strings? Why, I daresay a teething-baby would be more to her than her father, if I were on my death-bed.’

‘Indeed, Sir Vernon, you wrong her.’

‘I daresay I do. But I am devoured with jealousy when I think of her belonging to anyone else. It is the penalty she pays for having been perfect as a daughter. Our virtues, as well as our vices, are often scourges for our own backs. However, when the time comes I must bear the blow with a smiling countenance, that she may never know how hard I am hit. Only you can imagine I don’t want to hasten the evil hour. And now, as I think we understand each other, you may be off to pleasanter society than mine.’

Edgar instantly availed himself of this permission, and hastened to the morning-room, where Madoline was seated at her work-table, while Daphne twisted herself round and round on the music-stool, now talking to her sister, now playing a few bars of one of Schumann’s ‘_Kinderstücken_,’ anon picking out a popular melody she had heard the faithful Bink whistle as he weeded his flower-beds.

She started a little at Edgar’s entrance, and ‘blushed celestial red, love’s proper hue,’ much to the delight of her lover, who hung out a rosy flag on his own side, and looked as shy as any school-girl.

He shook hands with Madoline, and then went straight to the piano, and tried by a tender pressure of Daphne’s hand to express something of the rapture that was flooding his soul.

‘I have seen your father, dearest,’ he said in her ear, as she went on lightly playing little bits of Schumann. ‘He thoroughly approves—he is glad.’

‘Then I am glad if he is glad, and you are glad, and Madoline is glad,’ answered Daphne, with a smile in which there was a subtle mockery that escaped Edgar’s perception. ‘What can I do better than please everybody?’

‘You have made me the happiest man in creation.’

‘Does not every young man say that when he is engaged?’ asked Daphne laughingly. ‘I believe it is a formula. And when he has been married a year the happiest man in creation takes to quarrelling with his wife. However, I hope we may not quarrel. I will try to be as good to you as you have been to me; and that is saying a good deal.’

They lingered by the piano, Edgar pouring forth vague expressions of his delight, his gratitude, his intoxication of bliss. Daphne playing a little, and listening a little, with her eyes always on the keys, offering her lover only the lashes, dark brown with sparks of gold upon their tips, for his contemplation. But such lashes, and such eyelids, and such a lovely droop of the small classic head, were enough to satisfy a lover’s eye for longer than Edgar was required to look at them.

By-and-by, when he had exhausted a lover’s capacity for talking nonsense, he made a sudden dash at the practical.

‘I want you to come and see my mother, Daphne.’

‘Have you told her?’

‘No, not yet. There has been no opportunity, you know.’

This was hardly true, since, seated opposite Mrs. Turchill at the breakfast-table that morning, Edgar had vainly endeavoured to frame the sentence which should announce his bliss, and had found an awkwardness in the revelation which required to be surmounted at more leisure.

‘I am going to tell her directly I go home. It was better to see Sir Vernon first, don’t you know. And I want you and Madoline to come over to tea this afternoon. You could drive over to Hawksyard with Daphne after luncheon, couldn’t you, Madoline?’ he asked, going over to the work-table. ‘It would be so good of you, and would please my mother so very much.’

‘Would it?’ asked Lina, smiling up at him. ‘Then it shall be done.’

The young man lingered as long as he could, consistently with his performance of that duty which he felt must not be deferred beyond luncheon time. It was hardly a good time to choose for the revelation, for Mrs. Turchill was apt to be somewhat disturbed in her temper at the mid-day meal; her patience having been exercised by sundry defalcations discovered in her morning round of the house. It might be that new milk had been given away to unauthorised recipients, or to pensioners who were only entitled to receive skimmed milk; it might be an unexplainable evanishment of home-brewed beer: or that the principal oak staircase was not so slippery as it ought to be; or that the famous pewter dinner-service was tarnished; or a favourite fender displayed spots of rust; but there was generally something, some feather-weight of domestic care which disturbed the even balance of Mrs. Turchill’s mind at this hour. Like those modern scales which can be turned by an infinitesimal portion of a human hair, so the fine balance of Mrs. Turchill’s temper required but very little to alter it.

Edgar rode home to Hawksyard in the clear bright winter noontide, feeling as much like a convicted criminal as a young man of pure mind and clear conscience well could feel. He went bustling into the dining-room, rubbing his hands, and making a great pretence of cheeriness. His mother was standing on the hearth-rug knitting a useful brown winter sock—for him, he knew. Those active knitting-needles of hers were always at work for him. He felt himself an ingrate, as he thought of her labour.

‘Well, mother; lovely weather, isn’t it, so wintry and seasonable? I hope you have had a pleasant morning.’

‘About as pleasant as I can have in a nest of vipers,’ answered Mrs. Turchill, frowning at her work, and intent upon turning a heel.

‘What’s up now?’ asked Edgar, nothing startled by the vigour of her speech.

‘The beer consumed at Christmas—I won’t say drunk, for gallons of it must have been given away—is something too dreadful to contemplate,’ replied Mrs. Turchill.

‘Never mind the beer, mother,’ answered Edgar, still rubbing his hands before the fire, and shifting from one foot to another in a manner that indicated a certain perturbation of spirit; ‘Christmas comes only once a year, you know, and the servants ought to enjoy themselves.’

‘That’s all very well, Edgar, within proper limits; but when I see them stepping over the boundary line——’

‘You feel that it’s time to put on the drag,’ interjected Edgar. ‘Of course; very right and proper. Whatever should I do without such a dear prudent mother to look after things?’

And then, suddenly remembering that the most eager desire of his heart at this very moment was to substitute a foolish young wife for this wise and experienced housekeeper, Edgar Turchill became suddenly as vermilion as the most vivid cock’s-comb in his mother’s poultry-yard. He felt that the revelation he had to make must be blurted out somehow. There was no use in prancing before the fire, making such a serious business of warming his hands.

‘I’ve been over to South Hill this morning, mother,’ he said at last, rather jerkily.

‘Have you?’ said Mrs. Turchill curtly. ‘It seems to me you never go anywhere else.’

‘Well, I’m afraid that’s a true bill,’ he answered, laughing with affected heartiness, very much as the timorous traveller whistles in a lonely wood. ‘I love the place, and the people who live in it. South Hill has been my second home ever since I was a little bit of a chap at Rugby. But this morning I have been there on very particular business. I have been having a serious talk with Sir Vernon. I wonder if you could guess the subject of our conversation, mother, and spare my blushes in telling it?’

It was Mrs. Turchill’s turn to assume the cock’s-comb’s flaming hue.

‘If you have done anything to blush for, Edgar, I am sorry for you,’ she observed sternly. ‘Your father was one of the most respectable men in Warwickshire, and the most looked up to, or my father would not have allowed me to marry him.’

‘You are taking me a trifle too literally, mother,’ answered Edgar, laughing uneasily. ‘I hope there is nothing disreputable in a man of my age falling in love and wanting to be married. That’s the only crime I have to confess this morning. Yesterday afternoon I asked Daphne to be my wife, and she consented; and this morning I settled it all with Sir Vernon. We are to be married on the same day as Goring and Madoline—at least, Sir Vernon said something to that effect.’

‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Mrs. Turchill freezingly. ‘Indeed! And now Miss Daphne has consented and Sir Vernon has consented, and the very wedding-day is fixed, you do me the honour to inform me. I thank you from my heart, Edgar, for the respect and affection, the consideration and regard, you have shown for me in this matter. I am not likely to forget your conduct.’

‘Dearest mother,’ gasped Edgar affrightedly, for the icy indignation of his parent’s speech and manner went beyond the worst he had feared, ‘surely you are not offended—surely——’

‘But it is only what I might reasonably have expected,’ pursued Mrs. Turchill, ignoring the interruption. ‘It is only what I ought to have looked for. When a mother devotes herself day and night to her son; when she studies his welfare and his comfort in everything; when she sits up with him night after night with the measles—quite unnecessarily, as the doctor said at the time—and reduces herself to a shadow when he has the scarlatina; when she worries herself about him every time he gets damp feet, and endures agony every hour of the day while he is out shooting; this is pretty sore to be the result. He is caught by the first pretty face he sees, and his mother becomes a cipher in his estimation.’

‘Believe me that is not my case, dear mother,’ protested Edgar, putting his arm round the matron’s waist, which she made as inflexible as she possibly could for the occasion, and trying to kiss her, which she would not allow. ‘You will never cease to be valued and dear. Do you suppose there is no room in my heart for you and Daphne? I know she is a mere child, a positive baby, to place at the head of a house which you have managed so cleverly all these years; but everything in this life must have a beginning, don’t you know, and I rely upon you for teaching Daphne how to manage her house.’

‘That kind of thing cannot be taught, Edgar,’ answered his mother severely. ‘It must be the gradual growth of years in an adaptable mind. I don’t believe Daphne Lawford will ever be a housekeeper. It is not in her. You might as well expect a butterfly to sit upon its eggs with the patience of a farm-yard hen. However,’ sighed Mrs. Turchill, ‘you have chosen for yourself.’

‘Did you suppose I should let anyone else choose for me in such a matter, mother?’

‘I am sorry for my lovely stock of house-linen. The tea-cloths will get used in the stable; and the kitchen-cloths will be made away with by wholesale.’

‘Never mind a few tea-cloths, mother.’

‘But it is not a few, it is a great many. I daresay that out of the twelve dozen that are now in the linen-closet you won’t have two dozen sound ones a twelvemonth after your marriage.’

‘I think I should survive even that loss, mother, if you were happy,’ answered Edgar lightly.

‘How could I possibly be happy knowing the waste and destruction of things that I have taken so much trouble to get together? I’m sure I feel positively ill at the idea of the best glass and china under the authority of a girl of eighteen; your great grandmother’s Crown Derby dessert-set, which I have often been told is priceless.’

‘Yes, mother, by people who don’t want to buy it. If you wanted to sell it, you would hear a very different story. However, I don’t see any reason why Daphne should not be able to take care of the dessert-plates——’

‘I have always kept chamois-leather over each plate,’ interrupted Mrs. Turchill, with a pensive shake of her head. ‘Will she take as much trouble?’

‘Or why there should be waste and destruction anywhere. Daphne will not be the first young wife who ever had to take care of a house, and I know by the way she learnt to row how easy it is to teach her anything.’

‘Easy to teach her to row, or to ride, or to play lawn-tennis, or to do anything frivolous and useless, I have no doubt,’ retorted his mother; ‘but I don’t believe it is in her to learn careful ways, and the management of servants. I only hope the waste and destruction will stop at the house-linen. I only hope she won’t bring ruin upon you; but when I think how many a young man of good means has been utterly ruined by an extravagant wife——’

‘Upon my word, mother,’ protested Edgar, with a dash of resentment, feeling that this was too much, ‘you are making a perfect raven of yourself, instead of being cheery and pleasant, as I expected you to be. I’m sorry I have not been able to choose a wife more to your liking as a daughter-in-law; but marriage is one of the few circumstances of life in which selfishness is a duty, and a man must please himself at any hazard of displeasing other people. I don’t believe there’s a man who was at the Hunt Ball the other night who won’t envy me my good luck.’

‘Very likely; since men are influenced by mere outside prettiness,’ said Mrs. Turchill. ‘Though even there Daphne is by no means faultless. Her nose is too short.’

‘Now, mother, you have been so good to me all my life that it would be a very unnatural thing if you were to begin to be unkind all at once, and in a crisis of my life in which I most need your love,’ pleaded Edgar with genuine feeling.

He put his arm round his mother’s waist, which, this time, was less inflexible than before. He turned the matron’s face towards his, and, lo! her eyes were full of tears.

‘It would be very strange, indeed, if I could deny you anything,’ she said, strangling a sob. ‘There never was a child so much indulged as you were. If you had cried for the moon, it would have quite worried me that I wasn’t able to get it for you.’

‘And you would have given me a stable-lantern instead,’ answered Edgar, smiling. ‘Yes, best of mothers, you have always been indulgent, and you are going to be indulgent now, and you will take Daphne to your heart of hearts, and be as fond of her as if she were that baby-girl you lost, grown up to womanhood.’

‘Don’t, Edgar, don’t!’ cried Mrs. Turchill, fairly overcome. ‘Her bassinet is in the little oak room. I was looking at it yesterday. I have never got over that loss.’

‘You will think she has come back to you some day, when you have a little granddaughter,’ said Edgar tenderly.

His mother, once reduced to the pathetic mood, was perfectly tractable. Edgar petted and soothed her; protested somewhat recklessly that the chief desire of Daphne’s life was to gain her affection; announced the intended afternoon visit; and obtained his mother’s promise of a gracious reception.

When Miss Lawford and her sister arrived at about half-past four the drawing-room wore a hospitable aspect; a huge log burning in the Elizabethan fire-place; flowers of a homely kind—chrysanthemums and Christmas roses, crocuses and snow-drops—about the rooms; and an old-fashioned silver tea-tray on an old-fashioned sofa-table, nothing of Adam or Chippendale or Queen Anne about it, but a good old ponderous piece of rosewood furniture, almost as heavy as a house.

Mrs. Turchill received her guests with gracious smiles and with a heartiness that took Daphne by surprise. She had made up her mind that she was going to be snubbed, and a dash of timidity gave a new grace to her beauty. She was very grave, and seemed, to Mrs. Turchill’s scrutinising eye, to be fully awakened to the responsibilities of her position. Could she but remain in this better frame of mind she might fairly be trusted with the Derby dessert-service and the piled-up treasures of the linen-closet.

Mrs. Turchill made Daphne sit on the sofa by her side while she poured out the tea, and was positively affectionate in her manner.

‘You will be making tea in this pot before long,’ she said, with a loving glance at the fluted teapot. ‘It is not a good pourer. You’ll have to learn the knack of holding it exactly in the right position.’

‘I hope you are not sorry,’ faltered Daphne in a very low voice, meaning about the event generally, not with any special reference to the teapot.

‘Well, my dear, I am too truthful a woman to deny that it was a blow,’ returned Mrs. Turchill candidly. Edgar had kept out of the way when the sisters arrived, wishing his mother to have Daphne all to herself for a little while. ‘I suppose that kind of thing must always be a blow to a mother. “My son’s my son till he gets him a wife,” you know.’

‘I hope Edgar will never be any less your son than he is at this moment,’ said Daphne. ‘I should not like him so well as I do if thought his regard for me could make him one shade less devoted to you.’

‘Well, my dear, time will show,’ replied Mrs. Turchill doubtfully. ‘As a rule young wives are very selfish; they expect to monopolise their husbands’ affection. All I hope is that you love Edgar as he deserves to be loved. There never was a worthier young man, and no girl could hope for a better husband than he will make.’

To this exhortation Daphne replied nothing. She sat with downcast eyes, stirring her tea; and Mrs. Turchill, taking this silence for maidenly reserve, transferred her attentions to Madoline.

‘I am so sorry Mr. Goring did not drive over with you,’ she said. ‘I quite expected him.’

‘You are very kind,’ answered Lina. ‘He has gone to London. I had a telegram from Euston Station an hour ago. Gerald has some business to settle with his London lawyers, and is likely to be away for some days.’

‘I’m afraid you must find South Hill very dull in his absence,’ suggested Mrs. Turchill politely.

‘I miss him very much; but I don’t think I am very dull. My father occupies a good deal of my time; and then there is Daphne, who has generally plenty to say for herself.’

‘Meaning that I am an insatiable chatterer,’ said Daphne, laughing. ‘I’m afraid it was Dibb—I mean Martha, an old schoolfellow of mine—who got me into the habit of talking so much.’

‘Was she a great talker?’

‘Quite the contrary. She rarely opened her mouth except to put something into it, so I acquired the pernicious habit of talking for two.’

Edgar now came in, and seeing Daphne and his mother seated side by side upon the sofa, felt himself exalted to the seventh heaven of tranquil joy. This and this only was needed to fill his cup of bliss: that his mother should be content, that life should flow on smoothly in the old grooves.

‘Well, Daphne, how do you like the look of Hawksyard in the winter?’

‘I think it is quite the nicest old place in the world. I haven’t seen much of the world; but I can’t imagine a more interesting old house.’

‘You will like it better and better as you become acquainted with it,’ said Mrs. Turchill. ‘It is one of the most convenient houses I ever saw, and I have seen a good many in my time. My husband’s mother was a capital housekeeper, and she did not rest till she had made the domestic arrangements as near perfection as was possible in her time. I have tried to follow in her footsteps.’

‘And to make perfection still more perfect,’ said Edgar.

‘There are modern inventions and improvements, Edgar, which your grandmother knew nothing about. Not that I hold with them all. If you are not tied for time,’ added Mrs. Turchill, addressing herself to the two young ladies, ‘I should very much like to show Daphne the domestic offices. It would give her an idea of what she will have to deal with by-and-by.’

Daphne, who knew about as much as a butterfly knows of the management of a house, smiled faintly but said nothing. She had come to Hawksyard determined to make herself pleasing to Mrs. Turchill, if it were possible, for Edgar’s sake.

‘I ventured to tell them to take out the horses,’ said Edgar, ‘knowing that you don’t dine till eight.’

‘I shall be pleased to stay as long as Mrs. Turchill likes,’ answered Madoline; whereupon the matron, acknowledging this speech with a gracious bend, rose from her sofa, took her key-basket from the table, and led the way to the corridor in which opened those china and linen stores which were the supreme delight of her soul.

Swelling with pride and the consciousness of duty done, she displayed and descanted on her treasures and the convenient arrangement thereof; the old diamond-cut glass; the Bow, the Staffordshire, the Swansea, the Derby cups and saucers, and plates and dishes—crockery bought in the common way of life, and now of inestimable value. She showed her goodly piles of linen and damask, which a Flemish housewife might have envied. She led her guests to the dairy, which in its smaller and humbler way was as neat and dainty and ornamental as Her Majesty’s dairy at Frogmore. She talked learnedly of butter-making, cream-cheeses, and the disposal of skim milk. Daphne wondered to find how large a science was this domestic management of which she knew absolutely nothing.

‘A house of this kind requires a great deal of care and a great deal of thought,’ said Mrs. Turchill with a solemn air. ‘Old servants are a great comfort, but they have their drawbacks, and require to be kept in check. With a young, inexperienced mistress I’m afraid they will be tempted to take many liberties.’

Mrs. Turchill concluded her speech with a gentle sigh, and a regretful glance at Daphne—not an unfriendly look, by any means; but it expressed her foreboding of future ruin for the house of Hawksyard.