Spring comedies (by lady M.A. Barker).

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II. A Stupid Story

CHAPTER I. love's young dream . 89

CHAPTER II.

REVENGE IS SWEET IO7

CHAPTER III.

HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY 1 24

CHAPTER IV.

WHEN HE WILL, SHALL HAVE " NAY" I39

CHAPTER V. all's well that ends well 156

CONTENTS, vii

Chapter I

rA(;K GIVE ME BACK ONE HOUR OF SCOTLAND 1 79

CHAPTER IT.

MARJORY ERASER I94

CHAPTER in.

MALCOLM MUNRO . . . . , 207

CHAPTER IV.

ALL-HALLOW E'EN 229

CHAPTER V.

A man's a man FOR A* THAT . . . . « « 250 viii CONTENTS.

Chapter VI. My Child-wife . ', ' 332

I.

A WEDDING STORY.

viii CONTENTS,

CHAPTER T.

A FOOL IN HIS FOLLY 26^ rAGK

J

CHAPTER II.

ON THE BRINK 273

•

CHAPTER III.

TEMPTATION 288

CHAPTER IV.

DISAPPOINTMENT 303

CHAPTER V.

MRS. HAVILAND 314

CHAPTER VI.

MY CHILD-WIFE . ', * 332

I.

A WEDDING STORY.

SPRING COMEDIES.

I.

A WEDDING STORY.

Chapter I. Introductory

I SUPPOSE people who are going to be mar- ^ ried think that all seasons and places are convenient and appropriate. I have heard arguments advanced in favour of a Christmas wedding, and have been often told that spring is a delightful time for choosing new bonnets and new furniture. As for the east wind — perhaps it won*t blow for more than three consecutive months this year ; and, after all, what does it matter ?

But in spite of this sophistry my convictions remain unaltered, and I hereby give notice that I Irij B refuse my consent to the marriage of all my female friends and relations unless the ceremony is arranged for Midsummer. And it must also take place in the country. A London wedding is too profoundly dispiriting. Everything and everybody looks so cold and hard and business-like. It seems a mere question of getting the whole affair over with as much speed and as little sentiment as possible. The officials have not a thought beyond their backsheesh, and argue in favour of the bride's chances of happiness in proportion to the amount of the bridegroom's fee. Poor man ! I suspect even the bridesmaids judge of his character and disposition according to the value of their lockets.

I once saw some flowers strewn before a bride at a London wedding, but the camellias and azalias had a palpable florist-look about them, not in the least like those grown in a country greenhouse. They were cut with an economy of stalk and leaf which spoke plainly of a professional knife; and the prim, smartly-dressed maidens, who allowed them to slip through their well-gloved fingers over the sooty pavement, did it with an air which said as plainly as words, "There goes eighteenpence, — this one cost half-a-crown." Even the bride could not find it in her feet to tread on them, and after we had all passed on I saw ragged, sharp-eyed children scrambling for their possession, fighting and quarrelling over the frail treasures.

No! my grandchildren and nieces, and even my goddaughters, must all be married on a fine summer's day quietly in the country, if they want to see me and my gold-headed cane at the ceremony.

Yet if any one in the world ought to have had their faith shaken in weddings, even when the June roses are in fullest beauty, I am that person, for I was once engaged to be bridesmaid at a Midsummer marriage which never came off; and it is about this failure I am going to tell you.

It all happened so very, very long ago that I have no fear of reviving painful memories in the thoughts of the principal actors ; most of them have passed away to the happy land where hearts are open and partings are over. Those who still remain behind on earth do not dislike to think or speak of that time, though it was certainly one of great family embarrassment.

School-girl friendships are proverbial. Helen Ramsay's and mine was no exception to the rule. Of course our appearance contrasted as strongly

B 2 as our characters; for I was a little pale, quiet thing, with a very decided will hidden under a meek exterior, and I ruled Helen with a firm hand. She was one of those people who like to be ruled, and that mad^ her sudden development of an invincible determination all the toovq remarkable.

It was I who used to spirit up Helen to achieve wonders for her music-master, and who insisted •on her trying for the prize in English composition.

" Dear me," said Helen, when the idea was first suggested to her, ** I'm quite sure I can't compose English or anything else." But her little friend marched up and down the long dingy schoolroom, declaiming with so much eloquence on the excitement of the coming strife, and the glories awaiting the Minerva Victrix of Miss Pringle's establishment, that at, last poor, worried Helen gave way, and consented to try for the sprig of gilt laurel and the accompanying smart copy of Milton's Poems.

She only stipulated that I should tell Miss Pringle of her resolution, or rather ;«;/ resolution. I glanced at her in surprise. "You don't mean to say you are afraid, Helen.?"

*' No, indeed, Edy," she said ; " who could be afraid of poor dear Miss Pringle } She always looks as if she were afraid of us. But I don't think she will believe me."

Well, I told Miss Pringle, who certainly was rather incredulous; but after a time I made her acknowledge that Helen had a chance. She dismissed me with a friendly pat on the shoulder, accompanied by the new and original remark that it would be quite an instance of the Lion and the Mouse.

This was rather more applicable in our case than most of the other similes which our friendship called forth ; for I was not so very unlike a mouse, with my little pointed face, bright eyes, and quiet movements ; whilst our glorious Helen had the tawny hair and golden-brown eyes with which we credit the conventional lion.

That sort of colouring nearly always goes with fine physical proportions, and Helen stood five feet eight in her shoes, and had the shoulders and bust of a young contadina.

Yet with all this height and breadth she did not look in the least too much for one's nerves. In the first place, she was a lady in all her thoughts and actions, perfectly natural and unaffected, with a nice voice and quiet ways. And then she was " finished off," as she said herself, so neatly ; delicate little wrists and ankles, and fairy-small hands and feet.

I don't remember whether her features were beautiful ; the portrait so deeply graven on my heart and memory is of a sweet frank face, with health and good-temper sparkling in its kind eyes, and curving pleasant lines around the mouth. I only know that although no doubt she was a handsome girl enough, she aged into a far lovelier old woman, with bright silvery hair, and the most exquisite calm and repose shed all over her. However, that is glancing much too far ahead, and it is not fair besides.

In these opening days of our life and love. Miss Ramsay was only sixteen, and I very little older. My few additional months gave me a great hold at that time over Helen, Whenever she disobeyed my advice, I brandished them verbally before, her, adding, "So I ought to know." This formula was in constant use during that last school-term, for whenever poor, easily discouraged Helen announced that no ideas on her part were forthcoming for this dreadful "Essay on True Heroism," I insisted on her perseverance, adding that I knew she could do it if she tried.

Never shall I forget that essay, and the anxiety it cost me! We were not allowed to help each other, but still all my discourses would turn on heroic deeds and words; and I considered that some very fine things were said on the subject. Helen's great stronghold was an equivalent to " suffer and be strong," and this oft-used sentiment was brought into play more than once. However, she really turned out the best paper of the lot, which is not saying very much for the others.

I thought myself that Mary Wright's was the most interesting; but that audacious damsel had actually gone into the realms of fiction for her examples, and had collected thrilling and romantic episodes, chiefly turning on unhappy and heroic lovers. Miss Pringle's face changed from red to white, and she looked ready to sink into the earth with confusion as she heard this novelette — for it was really more like that than anything else — read aloud before the parents and guardians, as well as the pupils.

Dismal were her forebodings of Mary's future. Had the thing existed in those days, she would have prophesied, as a fearful fate, that the sinner would become a sensation novelist; but as it was, she could think of nothing more dreadful than that the girl would run away with an ensign. Poor Mary ! she did nothing of the sort ; she never wrote another line, married a country doctor, and lived the quietest and happiest life possible.

None of the "girl-graduates" ever performed a heroic action, as far as I know, in spite of the run upon heroes and the hero-worship which that essaycalled forth.

Helen's performance was correct, even to insipidity ; and perhaps it was due to the revulsion of feeling produced by Mary Wright's romance that Miss Pringle, who gave the casting vote, decided that "Yours, my dear Helen, is the best example of English composition, and I have much pleasure," &c. &c.

When Helen took home her laurel spray and her splendidly bound book, Mrs. Ramsay seized on the occasion to declare that she meant to leave oft parting with her daughter. The poor lady was very lonely in her large empty house, and missed Helen's delightful companionship more and more €very time that the holidays ended. The fatal Monday of school-boy notoriety was only Black to Mrs. Ramsay, who was quite wretched when the time arrived to send the girl back to her school ; and it was the mother who had to be consoled and comforted by anticipations of how soon the next holidays would come round, not the pupil.

I.J A WEDDING STORY. 9

Miss Pringle always took both Helen's and my joy at returning to Holly House as a tribute to the scholastic charms of that establishment ; whereas the happiness of meeting each other there was our great attraction to its prim precincts.

Helen invited me over and over again to come and visit he •, but I was too popular a little personage in my own quiet home to be spared for a single day during holiday-time. The boys scouted the idea of Edy*s going away for a whole week, and thought me a selfish monster if I mentioned the subject ; whilst dear, gentle mamma — ah! how long, how very long it is since those days — ^said plaintively, "You know, Edy, it isn't as if there were any more girls to help me, but you really do get through so much, and amuse the boys so well, that we can't spare you."

I was very glad not to be easily parted with, and made Helen quite envious by dwelling a good deal on the duties and cares of an elder sister with half a dozen school-boy brothers.

And yet many people would have envied Helen, and not me ; for, so far as our dim earth-sight could reach, her future looked calm and secure, whilst mine was pretty sure to be full of cares and anxieties; but still I would not have changed fates with her for lo SPRING COMEDIES. [i.

the whole world. She was an only daughter — indeed an only child now — for her brother had died some years before we met at Miss Pringle's "Finishing Establishment," and her mother only lived for Helen's happiness in the present, and Helen's welfare in the future.

Mrs. Ramsay's life was rather a dull one ; she was too perfectly comfortable and correct in all her circumstances and surroundings to lead anything but a monotonous existence. She did not possess a poor relation in the world, who might have turned up unexpectedly with a startling tale of a new and crushing misfortune, to vary her existence. Her means were ample and secure, and she had not even delicate health to amuse her.

When Helen was at school, therefore, her days passed slowly and heavily enough. For about a month after her child left, Mrs. Ramsay used to go into the empty room every day, and sit down in the girl's low chair by the window, crying lonely tears until her maid or her housekeeper found her out and scolded her well. Then she kept away until a few weeks before the joyful date of Helen's return, when she commenced happy little flutterings

towards the beloved but forbidden chamber, and

•

every order given inside or outside Holm Bush bore

I.] A WEDDING STORY. ii

reference to something which was to conduce towards Miss Helen's comfort or her pleasure.

What wonder was it then that, in such an atmosphere of peace and plenty, Helen grew like a statelylily, and ripened in body and soul like a peach in the sunshine ?

Sometimes I used to think she had not much depth of character, because, in spite of her really excellent spirits, she looked so placid. I was always in a ferment, with a thousand little cares of my own and everybody else's on my shoulders; and I strongly suspect I must have been a conceited little puss, who thought she knew better than anyone else. I quite enjoyed my sovereignty at Miss Pringle's, for all the girls, more or less, deferred to my opinion, partly because I was so quick at my lessons that I never fell into disgrace with the teachers, and partly because Helen adored and believed in me, and they all adored Helen.

But our happy, busy school-days came to an end soon after Miss Ramsay had distinguished herself, and astonished even her warmest admirers, by gaining the prize for English composition. In the letter which told me of Mrs. Ramsay's determination to keep her daughter at home in future, Helen said : " It is all the fault of that essay. I really should have liked to have gone back once more to Miss Pringle's, but mamma says if I am clever enough to write prize essays I need not return to school. Of course I am glad to remain at home for some reasons, but I shall miss you dreadfully, Edy ; and neither you nor Mrs. Maude shall have one moment's peace until you promise to come and pay me a long, long visit." I did not go to Holm Bush just then, and one thing added to another kept Helen and me apart for nearly two years.

At last the younger boys left off having measles and scarlatina, and the elder ones began to pay visits to their own schoolfellows during the holidays.

Also, there came a pause in my constant copying for papa, as he took the first five volumes of his great biographical work, consisting of nearly everybody's memoir, up to London to be published ; and mamma's only sister — a pale-faced, languid widow — returned from India, and I could depend on the new source of interest thus aroused at home, to keep my dear little pet mother from missing her active, elf-like daughter.

When I felt quite at ease about home duties and home cares, I wrote and told Helen that I could come now and pay her this long-promised visit ; she seemed, by her reply, to be just as fond of me as ever ; and never was there a warmer welcome given to a weary traveller than that which greeted me when I reached Holm Bush late one raw autumn evening, two years from the time when Helen and I had parted, with quivering lips and tearstained eyelids, under the stately portals of Miss Pringle's Finishing Establishment.

I had only come about fifty miles, but I had been all day about it, for I had travelled with an old friend and neighbour by the Velocity stage-coach ; and I wish that the luxurious young people of the present day, who grumble at everything, could have felt how even my young bones ached after that tiresome journey. I don't think we were so often killed in our travels as people are now, but there is this to be said, that, when an accident did happen to the Velocity or any other coach, there were no wires to flash the dreadful tidings all over the country in an hour or two, and so raise a momentary storm of pity and anger in men's breasts. No, we broke our necks or dislocated our joints in strict retirement, and without exciting any compassion except among our fellow-travellers. About a week, or often more, after a stage-coach accident had happened, .a vague rumour would be whispered about, which in its turn took the shape and form of a short newspaper paragraph ; this was immediately contradicted, and long after even the principal actors had ceased to take an interest in the story of their mishap, a certain portion of the truth was administered homoeopathically to the public.

Chapter II. Holm Bush

A FRIENDLY and amiable critic has just said to me, "But there's no Mr. Ramsay!"

I do not intend that there should be a Mr. Ramsay, for I never saw and hardly ever heard of him. It may perhaps be as well to state here, however, that he died soon after Helen was born, leaving, as he thought, a moderate dot for the baby girl, and a fine fortune to the sturdy threeyear-old boy, of whom he was dotingly fond. The little fellow missed his father dreadfully, and showed his grief and his remembrance in a thousand touching ways. A whole year after, when the child sickened of the complaint which ended his short earth-life, his last baby words were an entreaty that his father might be told how sick Tony was, and how badly he wanted his dadda to kiss and make him well.

Helen told me all this when we first began to exchange our little domestic confidences. She was saying that she had never known a real anxiety or a grief, for this blank in her small home circle had been long ago filled up by the gracious healing hand of Time, drawing her mother's heart closer and closer to her own, year by year.

Now I have positively done with the long retrospective glance which possesses so much fascination for the old, and I will go on with my story, passing briefly over that first autumnal visit to Holm Bush.

The weather was bad : I remember it far more distinctly than the meteorological vagaries of last year; and I can hear now the dismal plash of the rain against the windows in Helen's room as we sat by the fire the night after I arrived. My first evening at Holm Bush gives me back only a dim, shifting scene of lights and flowers and gay colours ; for my journey had so thoroughly shaken and tired me, that I could be conscious of nothing except the blessedness of rest and warmth and an early departure to bed.

Mrs. Ramsay was so deliciously motherly in all her ways that I did not feel in the least strange or shy with her ; and when she came the first night f

I.] A WEDDIl^G STORY. 17

to kiss me after I was in bed, she could not keep her hands from giving the bedclothes that final smooth and tuck which tells, more than any action I know, of a soft womanly nature. I don't believe the Ladies who w^ant their Rights now-a-days, could do it if they tried.

A good night's sleep is Nature's own patent medicine for the young, to be taken in any quantity, and warranted never to fail in effecting a cure. I slept the clock round, as old nurses say, and woke perfectly strong and well again. Helen had charged me on no account to get up until she came to see me, and had given strict orders that I was not to be disturbed before I rang my bell.

It would not do to confess what time of day the clock hands annpunced when, after the tidy elderly housemaid — head chambermaids as they were called then — had answered my summons and drawn the thick curtains back, my lazy eyes travelled slowly, resting on each unfamiliar object by the way, towards the chimney-piece. I only know that I felt so thoroughly demoralized it seemed of little consequence now what enormity in the way of lying in bed was committed ; so, instead of being startled or shocked to see the lateness of the hour, I merely said, " Tell Miss Ramsay I am awake, and would be glad to see her, please."

C

*' I'll tell the mistress if you please, Miss," answered Martha. " Miss Helen, she's in the stables with Mr. Charles — leastways Mr. Kenneth, and she wont be in, not just yet. Miss."

" Have they done breakfast, then i " I asked, with some slight dawning sense of shame. Martha glanced at the clock, as if wondering to what hours I had be^n accustomed, and said, *'0h yes. Miss, times and times ago ; but Mrs, Ramsay ordered breakfast to be served in Miss Helen's mornin' room whenever you was pleased tq want it,"

'* Qh, that's next door, isn't it, Martha ? " I inquired ; " so I will get up directly. And I suppose I can go in there in my dressing-gown, can't I } "

" Yes, Miss, certingly," was Martha's demure reply, as she curtsied herself towards the door, and left me to get out of that delicious bed wherein I had found such stores of comfort and rest, as well as a fresh supply of strength and high spirits — that is, high spirits for me ; but at my best I was a repressed little creature in those days, and had an absurd fancy that the more staid and undemonstrative I was, the more people would look up to me. It must have made me very uninteresting to strangers; but at all events it is a comfort to perceive that the damsels of the present day are not likely to fall into their grandmothers'

errors. They can scarcely reproach themselves for prim steadiness.

I felt very small and lost, I remember, in that large room ; my own tiny apartment at home not being much bigger than one of its spacious cupboards, but the fact was that the boys had accumulated such treasures in the shape of birds' eggs and birds* skins, and screens of feathers, little mats of imperfectly tanned mouse-hides, models and powder-flasks, that, as they outgrew the nursery, I gradually gave up one room after another to them, and had retreated to a last fastness, whose strength consisted in its cramped proportions.

As I went on with my toilette in the large room at Holm Bush I thought to myself, "Did I not see a young gentleman last night .^ Of course I did, tall and fair, rather like Helen herself. She has never told me anything about him : perhaps he has only just come ; " and yet, saying this, I felt as perfectly persuaded as if Mrs. Ramsay herself had announced it, that Mr. Charles, " leastways Mr. Kenneth," either was now, or was going to be, Helen's lover.

I don't know how I jumped to that conviction, but I became quite certain that the affair was

C 2 arranged ; and by the time I had finished dressing, my speculations had reached the point of wondering where they would live. Near this of course, little Miss Absolute decided, shaking her neat head with its frightful bows of hair as shining and glossy as hard brushing could make them. I gave one more twitch to my huge gigdt sleeves, noticed with satisfaction that my waist was quite as high up under my arms as Helen's had been last night, glanced at my shoes to see that their broad ribbon sandals were crossed precisely at the right angle, and tapped at the morning-room door.

You see, dear reader, I had given up the wild notion of breakfasting in my dressing-gown. The idea had only sprung from the recklessness of finding myself in bed at nearly midday. With the shock of the cold water on my face, I had returned to the regions of common sense and propriety. Besides, I was so interested in thinking out the subject of Mr. Charles, and settling all his and Helen's future lives, that I found myself dressed as usual before I knew what stage of my toilette had been reached.

The door of the morning-room was opened, as my fingers touched its handle, by Mrs. Ramsay herself, who seemed delighted to perceive how completely, both in letter and in spirit, I had obeyed

I.] A WEDDING STORY. ai

her injunctions to sleep well, and she now considered the only thing to prescribe was a good breakfast.

She was one of those active women who would really be much happier poor, — or we'll say poor-/,?//, — ^than rich, for she liked doing things herself, especially for those dear to her ; and her household was unfortunately so numerous and so well drilled, that she never had the least scope for her love of movement and serving. Although it was quite foreign to my nature and habits to stand still and be waited on, I perceived that Mrs. Ramsay was so pleased to bustle about, that I gave myself up to her kind will, and walked about the room whilst she fussed over the arrangement of the fire and screen, a comfortable chair, and so forth.

I daresay you would not admire Helen's room very much if you contrasted it with the smart chintz boudoirs of the present day ; but I felt thoroughly at home in it at once, and after all that is the highest praise you can give to any room in any house. No doubt, of a fine day, the view over the Park to the distant hills was a lovely one; but my first outlook only showed me driving rain, bending trees, and eddying flying leaves, through a blurred and indistinct haze of cloud and mist.

I turned towards the corner where Helen's harp stood, securely fastened up in its stamped leathern case. " Ah, the idle puss, she wants Edy to play duets with her," I thought ; but I asked Mrs. Ramsay if Helen practised steadily.

*' N — o — no, not very steadily lately," she acknowledged ; and the mother's deprecating air and faltering voice made me feel still more sure of the truth of my little romance : however, I said nothing, but went on exploring Helen's apartment.

She had collected all the most old-fashioned articles of furniture in the house — quaint inlaid chairs with spidery legs, marvellously upright sofas, and two or three really beautiful carved oak chests, but the greatest success was a narrow recess in one corner, which Miss Ramsay had filled with a tall Indian cabinet, on whose shelves was set forth an elaborate toilette service in filagree silver. The mirror itself had grown black with age and damp, but its frame was exquisite ; and the chasing of all the bottles and pots for confection of roses, elder-flowerwater, and what not, rendered them works of art. No amount of out-door bad weather could make that room look dull with its great beautiful pot of autumn flowers and its effective bits of colour, glowing out of an old red arm-chair or a table-cover contrived from a gay Indian shawl.

Suddenly I felt with a pang that, after all, it was the thought that Helen had taken pleasure in arranging these details, that she had lately sat in the old red-leather chair, and would perhaps come in directly to the circle of bright warmth around the open hearth, which constituted the chief charm of the room. If there was any truth in my idea about Mr. Kenneth, what would become of Mrs. Ramsay ? Who would make up to me for the loss of Helen ? One always thinks at first of the marriage of any one very near and dear to them, as if the tidings were those of death, not of happy love. " What shall I do without her?" is a sister's first thought, even when she is glad of the news so shily whispered.

I felt desperately anxious to know the worst at once, so I came back to the sofa on the large, though somewhat faded, Turkish rug before the blazing hearth. Mrs. Ramsay was standing with one foot on a quaint brass fender which shone like gold, and I felt sure, little as I had studied her face, that a new expression had come into it since we last met. She looked happy and proud, but there was a wistful tenderness in the deep blue eyes which had not always been there ; I perceived also a slight flutter in her way of moving, and she started if spoken to suddenly. Indeed she shrank back as if I had struck her when, not being able to keep silence any longer, I asked quite abruptly,