Part 12 (2/2)

”We have native horses,” he said, with a good-humoured smile that leaped out of his eyes before it parted his lips; ”we have horses, and we have ponies, and I am afraid that a pair of the one would be as serviceable in the long run as a pair of the other in drawing it on these roads.

Are you getting out carriage-horses from England, Captain Rexford?”

The gentleman addressed continued to set the cus.h.i.+ons in their places, but in a minute he went back into the station, where by a stove he found his wife and Sophia warming themselves, the smallest children, and a pot of carriage oil.

”You know, my dears, I never felt quite clear in my own mind that it was wise of us to bring the carriage.” He held his hands to the warmth as he spoke. ”Mr. Trenholme, I find, seems to think it heavy for these roads.”

His wife heard him quite cheerfully. ”In weather like this nothing could be more desirable,” said she, ”than to have one's own comfortably cus.h.i.+oned carriage; and besides, I have always told you we owe it to our children to show the people here that, whatever misfortunes we have had, we _have_ been people of consequence.” She added after a moment in conclusion: ”Harold has brought the best grease for the wheels.”

She had her way therefore, and in course of time the ladies, and as many of the children as could be crowded into the carriage, thus commenced the last stage of their journey. The others were driven on by Trenholme.

As for the little boys, ”a good run behind,” their mother said, was just what they needed to warm them up.

They began running behind, but soon ran in front, which rather confused Mrs. Rexford's ideas of order, but still the carriage lumbered on.

CHAPTER XII.

Captain Rexford had no fortune with his second wife; and their children numbered seven daughters and three sons. It was natural that the expenses of so large a family should have proved too much for a slender income in an English town where a certain style of living had been deemed a necessity. When, further, a mercantile disaster had swept away the larger part of this income, the anxious parents had felt that there was nothing left for their children but a choice between degrading dependence on the bounty of others and emigration. From the new start in life which the latter course would give they had large hopes.

Accordingly, they gathered together all that they had, and, with a loan from a richer relative, purchased a house and farm in a locality where they were told their children would not wholly lack educational opportunities or society. This move of theirs was heroic, but whether wise or unwise remained to be proved by the result of indefinite years.

The extent of their wealth was now this new property, an income which, in proportion to their needs, was a mere pittance, and the debt to the richer relative.

The men who came to call on their new neighbour, and congratulate him on his choice of a farm, did not know how small was the income nor how big the debt, yet even they shook their heads dubiously as they thought of their own difficulties, and remarked to each other that such a large family was certainly a great responsibility.

”I wonder,” said one to another, ”if Rexford had an idea in coming here that he would marry his daughters easily. It's a natural thing, you know, when one hears of the flower of British youth leaving England for the Colonies, to imagine that, in a place like this, girls would be at a premium. I did. When we came out I said to my wife that when our little girls grew up they might pick and choose for themselves from among a dozen suitors, but--well, this isn't just the locality for that, is it?”

Both men laughed a little. They knew that, however difficult it might be to find the true explanation of the fact, the fact remained that there were no young men in Ch.e.l.laston, that boys who grew up there went as inevitably elsewhere to make their fortunes as they would have done from an English country town.

Among the ladies who came to see Mrs. Rexford and count her children, the feeling concerning her was more nearly allied to kindly commiseration than she would at all have liked had she known it. They said that Captain Rexford might succeed if his wife and daughters--Each would complete the conditional clause in her own way, but it was clear to the minds of all that the success of the Rexford farm would depend to a great extent upon the economy and good management practised in the house.

Now the Rexfords, man, woman, and child, had come with brave hearts, intending to work and to economise; yet they found what was actually required of them different from all that their fancy had pictured; and their courage, not being obliged to face those dangers to which they had adjusted it, and being forced to face much to which it was not adjusted, suffered shock, and took a little time to rally into moderate animation.

At the end of their weary journey they had found themselves in a large wooden house, not new by any means, or smart in any of its appointments; and, as convenience is very much a matter of custom, it appeared to them inconvenient--a house in which room was set against room without vestige of lobby or pa.s.sage-way, and in which there were almost as many doors to the outside as there were windows. They had bought it and its furniture as a mere adjunct to a farm which they had chosen with more care, and when they inspected it for the first time their hearts sank somewhat within them. Captain Rexford, with impressive sadness, remarked to his wife that there was a greater lack of varnish and upholstery and of traces of the turning lathe than he could have supposed possible in--”_furniture_.” But his wife had bustled away before he had quite finished his speech. Whatever she might feel, she at least expressed no discouragement. Torture does not draw from a brave woman expressions of dismay.

That which gave both Mrs. Rexford and Sophia much perplexity in the first day or two of the new life was that the girl Eliza seemed to them to prove wholly incompetent. She moved in a dazed and weary fas.h.i.+on which was quite inconsistent with the intelligence and capacity occasionally displayed in her remarks; and had they in the first three days been able to hear of another servant, Mrs. Rexford would have abruptly cancelled her agreement with Eliza. At the end of that time, however, when there came a day on which Mrs. Rexford and Sophia were both too exhausted by unpacking and housework to take their ordinary share of responsibility, Eliza suddenly seemed to awake and shake herself into thought and action. She cleared the house of the litter of packing-cases, set their contents in order, and showed her knowledge of the mysteries of the kitchen in a manner which fed the family and sent them to bed more comfortably than since their arrival. From that day Eliza became more cheerful; and she not only did her own work, but often aided others in theirs, and set the household right in all its various efforts towards becoming a model Canadian home. If the ladies had not had quite so much to learn, or if the three little children had not been quite so helpless, Eliza's work would have appeared more effective. As it was, the days pa.s.sed on, and no tragedy occurred.

It was a great relief to Captain and Mrs. Rexford in those days to turn to Princ.i.p.al Trenholme for society and advice. He was their nearest neighbour, and had easy opportunity for being as friendly and kind as he evidently desired to be. Captain Rexford p.r.o.nounced him a fine fellow and a perfect gentleman. Captain Rexford had great natural courtesy of disposition.

”I suppose, Princ.i.p.al Trenholme,” said he blandly, as he entertained his visitor one day in the one family sitting-room, ”I suppose that you are related to the Trenholmes of----?”

Trenholme was playing with one of the little ones who stood between his knees. He did not instantly answer--indeed, Captain Rexford's manner was so deliberate that it left room for pauses. Sophia, in cloak and fur bonnet, was standing by the window, ready to take the children for their airing. Trenholme found time to look up from his tiny playmate and steal a glance at her handsome profile as she gazed, with thoughtful, abstracted air, out upon the snow. ”Not a very near connection, Captain Rexford,” was his reply; and it was given with that frank smile which always leaped first to his eyes before it showed itself about his mouth.

It would have been impossible for a much closer observer than Captain Rexford to have told on which word of this small sentence the emphasis had been given, or whether the smile meant that Princ.i.p.al Trenholme could have proved his relations.h.i.+p had he chosen, or that he laughed at the notion of there being any relations.h.i.+p at all. Captain Rexford accordingly interpreted it just as suited his inclination, and mentioned to another neighbour in the course of a week that his friend, the Princ.i.p.al of the College, was a distant relative, by a younger branch probably, of the Trenholmes of--, etc. etc., an item of news of which the whole town took account sooner or later.

To Mrs. Rexford Trenholme was chiefly useful as a person of whom she could ask questions, and she wildly asked his advice on every possible subject. On account of Captain Rexford's friendly approval, and his value to Mrs. Rexford as a sort of guide to useful knowledge on the subject of Canada in general and Ch.e.l.laston in particular, Robert Trenholme soon became intimate, in easy Canadian fas.h.i.+on, with the newcomers; that is, with the heads of the household, with the romping children and the pretty babies. The young girls were not sufficiently forward in social arts to speak much to a visitor, and with Sophia he did not feel at all on a sure footing.

<script>