Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

C >> Charlotte M Yonge >> Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

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Isabel received this letter while she was at breakfast with Lord
Ormersfield and Louis, and it was, of course, impossible to keep it
to herself. 'Talking of uo wages!' said the Earl. 'Send her off at
once.'

'You will despise me,' said Isabel, with tears in her eyes; 'but
there is something very touching in it, in spite of the affectation.
I believe she really means it.'

'Affectation is only matter of taste,' said Louis. 'Half the
simplicity of our day is only fashion; and Charlotte's letter, with a
few stops, and signed Chloe, would have figured handsomely in Mrs.
Radcliffe's time.'

'It does not depend on me,' said Isabel; 'James could not bear her
going before, and I am sure he will not now.'

'I think he ought not,' said Louis. 'Poor girl! I do believe the
snares of wealthy families and fidelity in obscurity, really mean
with her the pomps and vanities versus duty and affection.'

'I am sure I would not drive her back to them,' said Isabel; 'but I
am only afraid the work will be too much for her strength.'

'The willing heart goes all the way,' said Louis; 'and maybe it will
be more wholesome than London, and sitting up.'

Isabel coloured and sighed; but added, that it would be infinite
relief on the children's account to keep some one so gentle-handed,
and so entirely to be trusted.

James's decision was immediate. He called the letter a farrago, but
his laugh was mixed with tears at the faithful affection it
displayed. 'It was mere folly,' he said, 'to think of keeping her
without wages; but, if she would accept such as could be afforded
after taking a rough village girl for her food to do the hard work,
the experiment should be made, in the hope that the present straits
would only endure for a short time.

This little event seemed to have done him much good, and put him more
at peace with the world. He was grateful for Lord Ormersfield's
kindness and forbearance, and the enforced rest from work was
refreshing him; while Isabel had never been so cheerful and lively in
her life as now, when braced manfully for her work, full of energy,
and feeling that she must show herself happy and courageous to
support his depressed spirits. She was making a beginning--she was
practising herself in her nursery duties, and, to her surprise,
finding them quite charming; and little Kitty so delighted with all
she did for her, that all the hitherto unsounded depths of the
motherly heart were stirred up, and she could not think why she had
never found out her true happiness. She looked so bright and so
beautiful, that even Lord Ormersfield remarked it, pitying her for
trials which he thought she little realized; but Louis augured
better, believing that it was not ignorance but resolution which gave
animation and brilliancy to her dark eye and cheerfulness to her
smile.

Fitzjocelyn took her to Dynevor Terrace in the afternoon to settle
the matter with Charlotte; and, on the way, he took the opportunity
of telling her that he had been reading Sir Hubert, and admired him
very much, discussing him and Adeline with the same vivid interest as
her own sisters showed in them as persons, not mere personages.
Isabel said they already seemed to her to belong to a world much
farther back than the last fortnight.

'There is some puzzle in the middle,' said Louis. 'I can't make out
the hero whose addresses were so inconvenient to Adeline, and who ran
away from the pirates. He began as a crabbed old troubadour, who
made bad verses; and then he went on as a fantastic young Viscount,
skipping and talking nonsense.'

'Oh!' cried Isabel, much discomposed. 'Did I leave that piece there?
I took it to Estminster by mistake, and they told me of it. I should
have taken it out.'

'That would have been a pity,' said Louis, 'for the Viscount is a
much more living man than the old troubadour. When he had so many
plans of poems for the golden violet that he made none at all, I was
quite taken with him. I began to think I was going to have a
lesson.'

Isabel blushed and tried to laugh, but it was so unsuccessful that
Louis exclaimed in high glee--'There! I do believe I was the
fantastic Viscount! Oh! Isabel, it was too bad! I can fairly acquit
myself of skipping ever since I had the honour of your acquaintance.'

'Or of running away from the pirates,' said Isabel. 'No, it was a
great deal too bad, and very wrong indeed. It was when you did not
run away that I was so much ashamed, that I thought I had torn out
every atom. I never told any one--not even Virginia!'

Louis had a very hearty laugh, and, when Isabel gaw him so
excessively amused, she ventured to laugh too at her ancient
prejudice, and the strange chance which had made the fantastic
Viscount, Sir Roland's critic.

'You must restore him,' said Louis, returning to business. 'That old
troubadour is the one inconsistency in the story, evidently not
fitting into the original plot. I shall be delighted to sit for the
portrait.'

'I don't think you could now,' said Isabel. 'I think the motley must
have been in the spectacles with which I looked at you.'

'Ah! it is a true poem,' said Louis, 'it must have been a great
relief to your feelings! Shall I give it back to you?

'Oh! I can't touch it now!' cried Isabel. 'You may give it to me,
and if ever I have time to think again of it, I may touch it up, but
certainly not now.'

'And when you do, pray don't omit the Viscount. I can't lose my
chance of going down to posterity.'

He went his way, while Isabel repaired to the Terrace, and found
Charlotte awaiting her answer in much trepidation.

The low wages, instead of none at all, were a great disappointment,
doing away with all the honour and sentiment, and merely degrading
her in the eyes of her companions; but her attachment conquered this
objection, and face to face with her mistress, the affectation
departed, and left remaining such honest and sincere faithfulness and
affection, that Isabel felt as if a valuable and noble-hearted friend
had suddenly been made known to her. It was a silly little fanciful
heart, but it was sound to the core; and when Isabel said, 'There
will be very hard work, Charlotte, but we will try to do our best for
Mr. Frost and the children, and we will help each other,' Charlotte
felt as if no task could be too hard if it were to be met with such a
look and smile.

'Is it settled?' asked Lord Fitzjocelyn, as Charlotte opened the door
for him.

'Oh, yes, thank you, my Lord--'

'But, Charlotte, one thing is decided. Mrs. Frost can afford no more
eau de Cologne. The first hysterics and you go!'

He passed upstairs, and found Isabel beginning to dismantle the
drawing-room--'Which you arranged for us!' she said.

A long, deep sigh was the answer, and Louis mused for some moments
ere he said--'It is hard work to say good-bye to trifles with which
departed happiness seems connected.'

'Oh, no!' cried Isabel, eagerly. 'With such a home, the happiness
cannot be departed.'

'No, not with such a home!' said Louis, with a melancholy smile; 'but
I was selfish enough to be thinking who hung that picture--'

'I don't think you were the selfish person,' said Isabel.

'Patience and work!' said Louis, rousing himself. 'Some sort of good
time _must_ come,'--and he quickly put his hand to assist in putting
the Dresden shepherd and shepherdess into retirement, observing that
they seemed the genii of the place, and he set his mind on their
restoration.

'I do not think,' said Isabel, as she afterwards narrated this scene
to her husband, 'that I ever realized his being so much attached to
Mary Ponsonby; I thought it was a convenient suitable thing in which
he followed his father's wishes, and I imagined he had quite
recovered it.'

'He did not look interesting enough? Yes! he was slow in knowing his
own mind; but his heart once given there is no recalling it, whatever
his father may wish.'

'Or my mother,' said Isabel, smiling.

'Ah! I have never asked you what your party say of him in the London
world.'

'They say he quite provokes them by being such a diligent member, and
that people debate as to whether he will distinguish himself. Some
say he does not care enough, and others, that he has too many
crotchets.'

'Just so! Public men are not made of that soft, scrupulous stuff,
which only hardens and toughens when principle is clear before him.
Well, as to society--'

'Virginia says he is hardly ever to be had; he is either at the
House, or he has something to do for his father; he slips out of
parties, and they never catch him unless they are in great want of a
gentleman to take them somewhere, and then no one is so useful.
Mamma has been setting innumerable little traps for him, but he
marches straight through them all, and only a little tone of irony
betrays that he sees through them. Every one likes him, and the only
complaint is, that he is so seldom to be seen, keeping almost
entirely to his father's set, always with his father--'

'Ay! I can bear to watch his submission better than formerly. His
attentions are in such perfect good taste that they are quite
beautiful; and his lordship has quite ceased snubbing, and begins to
have a glimmering that when Louis says something never dreamt of in
his philosophy, the defect may be in his understanding, and not in
Fitzjocelyn's.'

'I could excuse him for not always understanding Fitzjocelyn! But
there never were two kinder people in the world; and I could not have
imagined that I should ever like Lord Ormersfield half so much.'

'He is improved. Louis's exclusive devotion has not been lost on
him. Holdsworth has been sitting with me, and talking of the great
change in the parish. He told me that at his first arrival here,
seven years ago, when he was very young, he found himself quite
disheartened and disgusted by the respectability of the place. Every
one was cold, distant, correct, and self-esteeming; so perfectly
contented with themselves and the routine, that he felt all his
ardour thrown away, and it seemed to him that he was pastor to a
steam-engine--a mere item in the proprieties of Ormersfield. He was
almost ready to exchange, out of weariness and impatience, when
Fitzjocelyn came home, and awoke fresh life and interest by his
absurdities, his wonderful philanthropies, and extraordinary schemes.
His sympathy and earnestness were the first refreshment and
encouragement; and Holdsworth declares that no one can guess the
benefit that he was to him even when he was most ridiculous. Since
that, he says, the change has been striking, though so gradual.
Louis has all the same freshness and energy, but without the
fluctuation and impetuosity. And his example of humility and
sincerity has worked, not only in reclaiming the wild outlying
people, but even awakening the comfortable dependents from their
self-satisfaction. Even Frampton is far from the impenetrable person
he used to be.'

'And I suppose they have done infinite good to the wild Marksedge
people!'

'Some are better, some are worse. I believe that people always are
worse when they reject good. I am glad to find, too, that the
improvements answer in a pecuniary point of view. His Lordship is
amazed at his son's sagacity, and they have never been so much at
ease in money matters.'

'Indeed! Well, I must own that I have always been struck with the
very small scale on which things are done here. Just the mere margin
of what is required by their station, barely an indulgence!'

'I fancy you must look into subscriptions for Fitzjocelyn's means,'
said James; 'and for the rest, they have no heart for new furniture
till he marries.'

'Well! I wonder if Mary is worth so much heart! It might be the
best thing for him if she would find some worthy merchant. He is
very young still, and looks younger. I should like him to begin the
world again.'

'Ha! Isabel, you want to cook up a romance of your own for him.'

James was recovering cheerfulness. He thought he was bracing himself
to bear bravely with an unmerited wrong. The injustice of his
sentence hid from him the degree of justice; and with regard to his
own temper, he knew better what he restrained than what he expressed,
and habitually gave himself credit for what he did not say or do.
There was much that was really good in his present spirit, and it was
on the way to be better; but his was not the character to be
materially altered by the first brunt of a sudden shock. It was a
step that he had brought himself to forgive the trustees. He did not
yet see that he had any need to be forgiven.

At the end of three weeks James and Isabel returned to their home,
and to their new way of life; and Fitzjocelyn had only time to see
that they were beginning their struggle with good courage, before the
meeting of Parliament summoned him to London.

Isabel fully justified Miss Faithfull's prediction. She was too
truly high-minded to think any task beneath her; and with her heart
in, not out of her immediate work, she could not fail to be a happier
woman. Success gave as much pleasure in a household duty as in an
accomplishment--nay, far more when it was a victory over herself, and
an increase to the comfort of her husband. Her strength was much
tried, and the children often fatigued and harassed her; but there
was unspeakable compensation in their fondness and dependence on her,
and even in the actual services themselves. The only wonder began to
be how she could have ever trusted them in any hands but her own.
Her husband's affection and consideration were sources of joy ever
renewed; and though natural irritability and pressing anxieties might
now and then betray him into a hasty word, his penitence so far
surpassed the momentary pain it might have cost her, that she was
obliged to do her utmost to comfort him. She sometimes found herself
awkward or ignorant, and sometimes flagged from over-exertion; yet
throughout, James's approval, and her own sense that she was striving
to do her best, kept her mind at rest. Above all, the secret of her
happiness was, that the shock of adversity had awakened her from her
previous deadness and sluggishness of soul, and made her alive to a
feeling of trust and support, a frame of mind ever repenting, ever
striving onwards. Thus she went bravely through the very class of
trials that she would once have thought merely lowering, inglorious,
and devoid of poetry. What would have been in itself sordid, gained
a sweetness from the light of love and duty, and never in all her
dreamy ease had she been as cheerful and lighthearted as in the midst
of hardship and rigid economy. Her equable temper and calm composure
came to her aid; and where a more nervous and excitable woman would
have preyed upon herself, and sunk under imaginary troubles, she was
always ready to soothe and sustain the anxious and sensitive nature
of her husband. After all, hers was the lightest share of the trial.
To her, the call was to act, and to undergo misfortunes occasioned by
no fault of hers; to him, the call was the one most galling to an
active and eager man--namely, to endure, and worse, to see endured,
the penalty of his own errors. In vain did he seek for employment.
A curacy, without a fair emolument, would have been greater poverty
than their present condition, as long as the house was unlet; and,
though he answered advertisements and made applications, the only
eligible situations failed; and he knew, among so many candidates,
the last to be chosen would be a person of violent temper, unable to
bear rebuke. Disappointment came upon disappointment, and the
literary work, with which, through Louis's exertions, he had been
supplied, was not likely to bring in any speedy return.

All that he could do was to take more than his part in domestic
trifles, such as most men would have scorned, and to relieve his wife
as far as possible of the children, often at the cost of his writing.
He bore the brunt of many a trial of which she was scarcely aware--
slights from the harsh vulgar, and compassion from the kind vulgar;
and the proud self-assertion was gone which had hardened him to all
such stings. To his lot fell the misery of weighing and balancing
what comforts could best be cut off without positive injury to his
wife and little ones. To consider whether an empty house should be
repaired for a doubtful tenant, to make the venture, and have it
rejected, was a severe vexation, when the expense trenched on
absolute necessaries, and hardly less trying was it to be forced to
accept the rent of the House Beautiful, knowing how ill it could be
spared; and yet, that without it he must lapse into the hopeless
abyss of debt. Moreover, there was

The terrible heart thrill
To have no power of giving

to some of the poor who had learnt to look to the Terrace in his
grandmother's time, and meals were curtailed, that those in greater
need might not be left quite unaided.

Nor was this the only cause for which James underwent actual stern
privation. The reign of bad cookery was over. Charlotte, if
unmethodical, was delicately neat; and though she kept them waiting
for their dinner, always served it up with the precision of past
prosperity. Cheap cookery and cottage economy were the study, and
the results were pronounced admirable; but the master was the
dispenser; and when a modicum of meat was to make nourishing a
mountain of rice, or an ocean of broth, it would occur to him, as he
helped Isabel, that the piece de resistance would hardly hold out for
the kitchen devourers. He would take the recipe at its word, and
dine on the surrounding structure; and in spite of the cottage
economy, he was nearly as hungry after dinner as before it, and
people began to say that he had never recovered his looks since his
illness. These daily petty acts of self-denial and self-restraint
had begun to tame his spirit and open his eyes in a manner that
neither precept nor example had yet effected.

Charlotte had imbibed to the full the spirit of patient exertion
which pervaded the house. Mrs. Martha had told her she was a foolish
girl, and would be tired of the place in a fortnight; but when she
did not see her tired, she would often rush in after her two
mistresses were shut up for the evening, scold Charlotte for her want
of method, and finish all that was left undone, while Charlotte went
up to the nursery to release her mistress. As to novels and
sentiment, they had gone after Sir Hubert; and though Charlotte was
what Martha expressively called 'fairly run off her feet,' she had
never looked better nor happier. Her mistress treated her like a
friend; she doted on the children, and the cook was out of the
kitchen; Delaford was off her mind, and neither stairs nor even
knife-cleaning could hurt her feelings. To be sure, her subordinate,
a raw girl from Marksgedge, devoured all that was set before her, and
what was not eatable, she broke; but as she had been sent from home
with no injunctions but to 'look sharp and get stout,' so she was
only fulfilling her vocation, and on some question of beer, her
mother came and raved at Charlotte, and would have raved at Mrs.
Frost, if her dignified presence had not overawed her. So she only
took the girl away in offence, and Charlotte was much happier with an
occasional charwoman to share her labours.

There was much happiness in No. 5, notwithstanding that the spring
and summer of 1851 were very hard times; and perhaps felt the more,
because the sunny presence of Louis Fitzjocelyn did not shine there
as usual.

He was detained in London all the Easter recess by his father's
illness. Lord Ormersfield was bound hand and foot by a severe attack
of rheumatism, caught almost immediately after his going to London.
It seemed to have taken a strong hold of his constitution, and
lingered on for weeks, so that he could barely move from his armchair
by the fire, and began to give himself up as henceforth to be a
crippled old man--a view out of which Louis and Sir Miles Oakstead
tried by turns to laugh him; indeed, Sir Miles accused him of wanting
to continue his monopoly of his son--and of that doubly-devoted
attention by which Louis enlivened his convalescence.

Society had very little chance with Fitzjocelyn now, unless he was
fairly hunted out by the Earl, who was always haunted by ungrounded
alarms for his health and spirits, and never allowed him to fail in
the morning rides, which were in fact his great refreshment, as much
from the quiet and the change of scene, as from the mere air and
exercise.

'Father,' said he, coming in one day a little after Easter, 'you are
a very wise man!'

'Eh!' said the Earl, looking up in wonder and expectation excited by
this prelude, hoping for the fulfilment of some political prediction.

'He is a wise man,' proceeded Louis, 'who does not put faith in
treasures, especially butlers; also, who does not bring a schoolboy
to London with nothing to do!'

'What now?' said the Earl. 'Is young Conway in a scrape?'

'I am,' said Fitzjocelyn; 'I have made a discovery, and I don't
exactly see what to do with it. You see I have been taking the boy
out riding with me, as the only thing I could well do for him these
holidays. You must know he is very good and patronizing; I believe
he thinks he could put me up to a few things in time. Well, to-day,
as we passed a questionable-looking individual, Walter bowed, as if
highly elated by the honour of his acquaintance, and explained to me
that he was the celebrated--I forget who, but that's owing to my
defective education. The fact is, that this Delaford, to whom my
aunt implicitly trusts, has been introducing this unlucky boy to a
practical course of Bell's Life--things that I went through Eton, and
never even heard of.' And he detailed some of them.

'No more than she might have expected,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'And what is to be done?'

'I should say, never interfere between people and their servants,
still less between them and their sons. You will do no good.'

'I cannot see this go on!' cried Louis. 'The boy told me all, by way
of showing me his superiority. I believe he wants to introduce me to
some of his distinguished friends. They flatter him, and make him a
great man; and as to any scruples about his mother, Delaford has
disposed of her objections as delicate weaknesses. When I began to
look grave, the poor boy set it down to my neglected training, always
spending my holidays in the country, and not knowing what fast men
are up to.'

'And so he goes to destruction--just the sort of boy that does,' said
the Earl, with due acquiescence in the course of the world.

'He need not,' exclaimed Louis. 'He is a nice boy, a very nice boy,
if only he cared for his mother, or knew right from wrong.'

Lord Ormersfield smiled at these slight exceptions.

'He is heartily fond of Isabel,' said Louis. 'If I thought Jem could
do any good, I would send for him; but he has made my auut so much
afraid of unworldliness just now, that I only wonder she lets Miss
King stay on.'

'You had better leave it alone,' said the Earl, 'unless you can do
anything with the boy. I am glad that I am not his guardian!'

'I wish I was,' sighed Louis.

'I suppose you will grow older some day,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'However, I see you will not be contented without going your own way
to work.'

'When the Earl saw his son the next day, Louis looked radiant at
having taken one step. He had seen his aunt, and she had endured the
revelation with more equanimity than he could have supposed possible.
'It was a house where they took things easily,' as he said; a house
where nothing was more feared than a scene; and Lady Conway had
thanked her nephew greatly for his communication; promised what he
did not ask, that he should not be betrayed to Walter; assured him
that the butler should be dismissed, without giving any reason,
before the summer holidays; and for the few remaining days before
Walter returned to Eton, she thought she might reckon on her dear
Fitzjocelyn for keeping his eye upon him: no doubt all would be right
when Delaford was once gone.

It was the old want of a high standard--the love of ease rather than
the love of right. The Earl laughed at her short-sighted policy, and
resented her saddling Louis with the care of her son; while Louis
philosophized upon good-nature, and its use and abuse.

Whether Mr. Delaford learnt that Sir Walter had betrayed him to Lord
Fitzjocelyn, or whether he took alarm from the young gentleman being
kept under surveillance, he scented danger; and took the initiative,
by announcing to my Lady that he intended to retire from his
situation into private life at the month's end.

Lady Conway rejoiced in being spared the fabrication by which she had
intended to dismiss her paragon without hurting his feelings, thanked
Fitzjocelyn more than ever, and was sure that dear Walter would do
very well.

But no sooner had Delaford departed than a series of discoveries
began to be made. Lady Conway's bills reached back to dates far
beyond those of the cheques which she had put into Delaford's hands
to pay them, and a tissue of peculation began to reveal itself, so
alarming and bewildering to her, that she implored her nephew to
investigate it for her.

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