Part 18 (1/2)

”Very likely they will only have one servant,--just Dorothy and no one else; and the girls will have to help in the house,” returned his mother, thoughtfully. ”That will not do them any harm, d.i.c.k: it always improves girls to make them useful. I dare say the Friary is a very small place, and then I am sure, with a little help, Dorothy will do very well.”

”But, mother,” pleaded d.i.c.k, who was somewhat comforted by this sensible view of the matter, ”do write to Nan or Phillis and beg of them to give us fuller particulars.” And, though Mrs. Mayne promised she would do so, and kept her word, d.i.c.k was not satisfied, but sat down and scrawled a long letter to Mrs. Challoner, so incoherent in its expressions of sympathy and regret that it quite mystified her; but Nan thought it perfect, and took possession of it, and read it every day, until it got quite thin and worn. One sentence especially pleased her. ”I don't intend ever to cross the threshold of the cottage again,” wrote d.i.c.k: ”in fact, Oldfield will be hateful without you all. Of course I shall run down to Hadleigh at Christmas and look you up, and see for myself what sort of a place the Friary is. Tell Nan I will get her lots of roses for her garden so she need not trouble about that; and give them my love, and tell them how awfully sorry I am about it all.”

Poor d.i.c.k! the news of his friends' misfortunes took off the edge of his enjoyment for a long time. Thanks to Nan's unselfishness, he did not in the least realize the true state of affairs; nevertheless, his honest heart was heavy at the thought of the empty cottage, and he was quite right in saying Oldfield had grown suddenly hateful to him, and, though he kept these thoughts to himself as much as possible, Mr.

Mayne saw that his son was depressed and ill at ease, and sent him away to the Swiss Tyrol, with a gay party of young people, hoping a few weeks' change would put the Challoners out of his head. Meanwhile Nan and her sisters worked busily, and their friends crowded round them, helping or hindering, according to their nature.

On the last afternoon there was a regular invasion of the cottage. The drawing-room carpet was up, and the room was full of packing-cases.

Carrie Paine had taken possession of one and her sister Sophy and Lily Twentyman had a turned-up box between them. Miss Sartoris and Gussie Scobell had wicker chairs. Dorothy had just brought in tea, and had placed before Nan a heterogeneous a.s.semblage of kitchen cups and saucers, mugs, and odds and ends of crockery, when Lady Fitzroy entered in her habit, accompanied by her sister, the Honorable Maud Burgoyne, both of whom seemed to enjoy the picnic excessively.

”Do let me have the mug,” implored Miss Burgoyne: she was a pretty little brunette with a _nez retrousse_. ”I have never drunk out of one since my nursery days. How cool it is, after the sunny roads! I think carpets ought to be abolished in the summer. When I have a house of my own, Evelyn, I mean to have Indian matting and nothing else in the warm weather.”

”I am very fond of Indian matting,” returned her sister, sipping her tea contentedly. ”Fitzroy hoped to have looked in this afternoon, Mrs.

Challoner, to say good-bye, but there is an a.s.sault-at-arms at the Albert Hall, and he is taking my young brother Algernon to see it. He is quite inconsolable at the thought of losing such pleasant neighbors, and sent all sorts of pretty messages,” finished Lady Fitzroy, graciously.

”Here is Edgar,” exclaimed Carrie Paine; ”he told us that he meant to put in an appearance; but I am afraid the poor boy will find himself _de trop_ among so many ladies.”

Edgar was the youngest Paine,--a tall Eton boy, who looked as though he would soon be too big for jackets, and an especial friend of Nan's.

”How good of you to come and say good-bye, Gar!” she said summoning him to her side, as the boy looked round him blus.h.i.+ng and half terrified. ”What have you got there under your jacket?”

”It is the puppy I promised you,” returned Edgar, eagerly; ”don't you know?--Nell's puppy? Father said I might have it.” And he deposited a fat black retriever puppy at Nan's feet. The little beast made a clumsy rush at her and then rolled over on its back. Nan took it up in high delight, and showed it to her mother.

”Isn't it good of Gar, mother? and when we all wanted a dog so! We have never had a pet since poor old Juno died; and this will be such a splendid fellow when he grows up. Look at his head and curly black paws; and what a dear solemn face he has got!”

”I am glad you like him,” replied Edgar, who was now perfectly at his ease. ”We have christened him 'Laddie:' he is the handsomest puppy of the lot, and our man Jake says he is perfectly healthy.” And then, as Nan cut him some cake, he proceeded to enlighten her on the treatment of this valuable animal.

The arrival of ”Laddie” made quite a diversion, and, when the good-byes were all said, Nan took the little animal in her arms and went with Phillis for the last time to gather flowers in the Longmead garden, and when the twilight came on the three girls went slowly through the village, bidding farewell to their old haunts.

It was all very sad, and n.o.body slept much that night in the cottage.

Nan's tears were shed very quietly, but they fell thick and fast.

”Oh, d.i.c.k, it is hard--hard!” thought the poor girl, burying her face in the pillow; ”but I have not let you know the day, so you will not be thinking of us. I would not pain you for worlds, d.i.c.k, not more than I can help.” And then she dried her eyes and told herself that she must be brave for all their sakes to-morrow; but, for all her good resolutions, sleep would not come to her any more than it did to Phillis, who lay open-eyed and miserable until morning.

CHAPTER XIII.

”I MUST HAVE GRACE.”

When the Rev. Archibald Drummond was nominated to the living of Hadleigh in Suss.e.x, it was at once understood by his family that he had achieved a decided success in life.

Hadleigh until very recently had been a perpetual curacy, and the perpetual curate in charge had lived in the large, shabby house with the green door on the Braidwood Road, as it was called. There had been some talk of a new vicarage, but as yet the first brick had not been laid, the building-committee had fallen out on the question of the site, and nothing had been definitely arranged: there was a good deal of talk, too, about the church restoration, but at the present moment nothing had been done.

Mr. Drummond had not been disturbed in his mind by the delay of the building-committee in the matter of the new vicarage, but on the topic of the church restoration he had been heard to say very bitter things,--far too bitter, it was thought, to proceed from the lips of such a new-comer. It is not always wise to be outspoken, and when Mr.

Drummond expressed himself a little too frankly on the ugliness of the sacred edifice, which until lately had been a chapel-of-ease, he had caused a great deal of dissatisfaction in the mind of his hearers; but when the young vicar, still strongly imbued with the beauties of Oxford architecture, had looked round blankly on the great square pews and galleries, and then at the wooden pulpit, and the Ten Commandments that adorned the east end, he was not quite so sure in his mind that his position was as enviable as that of other men.

Church architecture was his hobby, and, if the truth must be told, he was a little ”High” in his views; without attaching himself to the Ultra-Ritualistic party, he was still strongly impregnated with many of their ideas; he preferred Gregorian to Anglican chants, and would have had no objection to incense if his diocesan could have been brought to appreciate it too.

An ornate service was decidedly to his taste. It was, therefore, a severe mortification when he found himself compelled to minister Sunday after Sunday in a building that was ugly enough for a conventicle, and to listen to the florid voices of a mixed choir, instead of the orderly array of men and boys in white surplices to which he had been accustomed. If he had been combative by nature,--one who loved to gird his armor about him and to plunge into every sort of _melee_,--he would have rejoiced after a fas.h.i.+on at the thought of the work cut out for him, of bringing order and beauty out of this chaos; but he was by nature too impatient. He would have condemned and destroyed instead of trying to renovate.