Part 9 (1/2)
Nan's frame of mind was slightly monotonous. What would d.i.c.k say, and how would this affect certain vague hopes she had lately cherished?
Then she thought of Mr. Mayne, and s.h.i.+vered, and a sense of coldness and remote fear stole over her.
One could hardly blame her for this sweet dual selfishness, that was not selfishness. She was thinking less of herself than of a certain vigorous young life that was becoming strongly entwined with hers. It was all very well to say that d.i.c.k was d.i.c.k; but what could the most obstinate will of even that most obstinate young man avail against such a miserable combination of adverse influences,--”when the stars in their courses fought against Sisera”? And at this juncture of her thoughts she could feel Phillis's hand folding softly over hers with a most sisterly pressure of full understanding and sympathy. Phillis had no d.i.c.k to stand sentinel over her private thoughts; she was free to be alert and vigilant for others. Nevertheless, her forehead was puckered up with hard thinking, and her silence was so very expressive that Dulce sat and looked at her with grave unsmiling eyes, the innocent child-look in them growing very pathetic at the speechlessness that had overtaken them. As for Mrs. Challoner, she still moaned feebly from time to time, as she stretched her numb hands towards the comforting warmth. They were fine delicate hands, with the polished look of old ivory, and there were diamond rings on them that twinkled and shone as she moved them in her restlessness.
”They shall all go; I will keep nothing,” she said, regarding them plaintively; for they were heirlooms, and highly valued as relics of a wealthy past. ”It is not this sort of thing that I mind. I would live on a crust thankfully, if I could only keep my children with me.” And she looked round at the blooming faces of her girls with eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with maternal fondness.
Poor Dulce's lips quivered, and she made a horrified gesture.
”Oh, mamsie, don't talk so. I never could bear crusts, unless they were well b.u.t.tered. I like everything to be nice, and to have plenty of it,--plenty of suns.h.i.+ne, and fun, and holiday-making, and friends; and--and now you are talking as though we must starve, and never have anything to wear, and go nowhere and be miserable forever?” And here Dulce broke into actual sobs; for was she not the petted darling? and had she not had a life so gilded by suns.h.i.+ne that she had never seen the dark edge of a single cloud? So that even Nan forgot d.i.c.k for a moment, and looked at her young sister pityingly; but Phillis interposed with bracing severity:
”Don't talk such nonsense, Dulce. Of course we must eat to live, and of course we must have clothes to wear. Aren't Nan and I thinking ourselves into headaches by trying to contrive how even the crusts you so despise are to be bought?” which was hardly true as far as Nan was concerned, for she blushed guiltily over this telling point in Phillis's eloquence. ”It only upsets mother to talk like this.” And then she touched the coals skilfully, till they spluttered and blazed into fury. ”There is the Friary, you know,” she continued, looking calmly round on them, as though she felt herself full of resources.
”If Dulce chooses to make herself miserable about the crusts, we have, at least, a roof to shelter us.”
”I forgot the Friary,” murmured Nan, looking at her sister with admiration; and, though Mrs. Challoner said nothing, she started a little as though she had forgotten it too. But Dulce was not to be comforted.
”That horrid, dismal, pokey old cottage!” she returned, with a shrill rendering of each adjective. ”You would have us go and live in that damp, musty, fusty place?”
Phillis gave a succession of quick little nods.
”I don't think it particularly dismal, or Nan either,” she returned, in her brisk way. Phillis always answered for Nan, and was never contradicted. ”It is not dear Glen Cottage, of course, but we could not begin munching our crusts here,” she continued, with a certain grim humor. Things were apparently at their worst; but at least she,--Phillis,--the clever one, as she had heard herself called, would do her best to keep the heads of the little family above water. ”It is a nice little place enough if we were only humble enough to see it; and it is not damp, and it is our own,” running up the advantages as well as she could.
”The Friary!” commented her mother, in some surprise: ”to think of that queer old cottage coming into your head! And it so seldom lets.
And people say it is dear at forty pounds a year; and it is so dull that they do not care to stay.”
”Never mind all that, mammy,” returned Phillis, with a grave business-like face. ”A cottage, rent-free, that will hold us, is not to be despised; and Hadleigh is a nice place, and the sea always suits you. There is the house, and the furniture, that belongs to us; and we have plenty of clothes for the present. How much did Mr. Trinder think we should have in hand?”
Then her mother told her, but still mournfully, that they might possibly have about a hundred pounds. ”But there are my rings and that piece of point-lace that Lady Fitzroy admired so----” but Phillis waved away that proposition with an impatient frown.
”There is plenty of time for that when we have got through all the money. Not that a hundred pounds would last long, with moving, and paying off the servants, and all that sort of thing.”
Then Nan, who had worn all along an expression of admiring confidence in Phillis's resources, originated an idea of her own.
”The mother might write to Uncle Francis, perhaps;” but at this proposition Mrs. Challoner sat upright and looked almost offended.
”My dear Nan, what a preposterous idea! Your uncle Francis!”
”Well, mammy, he is our uncle; and I am sure he would be sorry if his only brother's children were to starve.”
”You are too young to know any better,” returned Mrs. Challoner, relapsing into alarmed feebleness; ”you are not able to judge. But I never liked my brother-in-law,--never; he was not a good man. He was not a person whom one could trust,” continued the poor lady, trying to soften down certain facts to her innocent young daughters.
Sir Francis Challoner had been a black sheep,--a very black sheep indeed: one who had dyed himself certainly to a most sable hue; and though, for such prodigals, there may be a late repentance and much killing of fatted calves, still Mrs. Challoner was right in refusing to intrust herself and her children to the uncertain mercies of such a sinner.
Now, Nan knew nothing about the sin; but she did think that an uncle who was a baronet threw a certain reflected glory or brightness over them. Sir Francis might be that very suspicious character, a black sheep; he might be landless, with the exception of that ruined tenement in the North; nevertheless, Nan loved to know that he was of their kith and kin. It seemed to settle their claims to respectability, and held Mr. Mayne in some degree of awe; and he knew that his own progenitors had not the faintest trace of blue blood, and numbered more aldermen than baronets.
It would have surprised and grieved Nan, especially just now, if she had known that no such glory remained to her,--that Sir Francis Challoner had long filled the cup of his iniquities, and lay in his wife's tomb in some distant cemetery, leaving a certain red-headed Sir Harry to reign in his stead.
”I don't think we had better talk anymore,” observed Phillis, somewhat brusquely: and then she exchanged meaning looks with Nan. The two girls were somewhat dismayed at their mother's wan looks; her feebleness and uncertainty of speech, the very vagueness of her lamentations, filled them with sad forebodings for the future. How were they to leave her, when they commenced that little fight with the world? She had leaned on them so long that her helplessness had become a matter of habit.
Nan understood her sister's warning glance, and she made no further allusion to Sir Francis; she only rose with a.s.sumed briskness, and took her mother in charge.