The Young Step-Mother Part 95

Mr. Kendal's plans were unpopular, and two or three untoward circ.u.mstances combined to lead to his being regarded as a tyrant. He could not do things gently, and had not a conciliating manner. Had he been more free spoken, real oppression would have been better endured than benefits against people's will. He interfered to prevent some Sunday trading; and some of the Tibb's Alley tenants who ought to have gone at midsummer, chose to stay on and set him at defiance till they had to be forcibly ejected; whereupon Ulick O'More showed that he was not thoroughly Anglicised by demanding if, under such circ.u.mstances, it was safe to keep the window shutters unclosed at night, Mr. Kendal's head was such a beautiful mark under the lamp.

If not a mark for a pistol, he was one for the disaffected blackguard papers, which made up a pathetic case of a helpless widow with her bed taken away from under her, ending with certain vague denunciations which were read with roars of applause at the last beer shop which could not be cleared till Christmas, while the closing of the rest sent herds thither; and papers were nightly read; representing the Nabob expelling the industrious from the beloved cottages of their ancestors, by turns, to swell his own overgrown garden, or to found a convent, whence, as a disguised Jesuit, he meant to convert all Bayford to popery.

As Albinia wrote to Genevieve, they were in a state of siege, for only in the middle of the day did Mr. Kendal allow the womankind to venture out without an escort, the evening was disturbed by howlings at the gate, and all sorts of petty acts of spite were committed in the garden, such as injuring trees, stealing fruit, and carrying off the children's rabbits. Let that be as it might, Genevieve owned herself glad to come to hospitable Willow Lawn, though sorry for the cause.

Poor Mr. Rainsforth, after vainly striving to recruit his health at Torquay during the vacation, had been sentenced to give up his profession, and ordered to Madeira, and Genevieve was upon the world again.

The Kendals claimed her promise of a long visit, or rather that she should come home, and take time and choice in making any fresh engagement, nay, that she should not even inquire for a situation till after Christmas. And after staying to the last moment when she could help the Rainsforths, she proposed to spend a day or two with her aunt at the convent, and then come to her friends at Bayford.

Mr. Kendal drove his ladies to fetch her. He had lately indulged the household with a large comfortable open carriage with two horses, a rival to Mr. O'More's notable car, where he used to drive in an easy lounging fas.h.i.+on on one side, with Hyder Ali to balance him on the other.

This was a grand shopping day, an endless business, and as the autumn day began to close in, even Mr. Kendal's model patience was nearly exhausted before they called for their little friend. There was something very sweet and appropriate in her appearance; her dress, without presuming to share their mourning, did not insult it by gay colouring; it was a quiet dark violet and white checked silk, a black mantle, and black velvet bonnet with a few green leaves to the lilac flowers, and the face when at rest was softly pensive, but ready to respond with cheerful smiles and grateful looks. She had become more English, and had dropped much foreign accent and idiom, but without losing her characteristic grace and power of disembarra.s.sing those to whom she spoke, and in a few moments even Sophy had lost all sense of meeting under awkward or melancholy circ.u.mstances, and was talking eagerly to her dear old sympathizing friend.

There was a great exchange of tidings; Genevieve had much to tell of her dear Rainsforths, the many vicissitudes of anxiety in which she had shared, and of the children's ways of taking the parting; and of the dear little f.a.n.n.y who seemed to have carried away so large a piece of her susceptible heart, that Sophy could not help breaking out, 'Well, I do think it is very hard to make yourself a bit of a mother's heart, only to have it torn out again.'

Albinia smiled, and said, 'After all, Sophy, happiness in this world is in such loving, only we don't find it out till the rent has been made.'

'And some people can get fond of anything,' said Sophy.

'I'm sure,' said Genevieve, 'every one is so kind to me I can't help it.'

'I was not blaming you,' said Sophy. 'People are the better for it, but I cannot like except where I esteem, and that does not often come.'

'Oh! don't you think so?' cried Genevieve.

'I don't mean moderate approval. That may extend far, and with it good-will, but there is a deep, concentrated feeling which I don't believe those who like every one can ever have, and that is life.'

Perhaps the deepening twilight favoured the utterance of her feelings, for, as they were descending a hill, she said, 'Mamma, that was the place where Maurice was brought back to me.'

She had before pa.s.sed it in silence, but in the dark she was not afraid of betraying the expression that the thrill of exquisite recollection brought to her countenance; and leaning back in her corner indulged in listening to the narration, as Albinia, unaware of the special point of the episode, related Maurice's desperate enterprise, going on to dilate on the benefit of having Mr. O'More at the bank rather than Andrew Goldsmith.

'Ah!' said Genevieve, 'it is he who wants to pull down our dear old house. I shall quarrel with him.'

'Genevieve making common cause with the obstructives of Bayford, as if he had not enemies enough!'

'What's that light in the sky?' exclaimed Sophy, starting up to speak to her father on the driving seat.

'A bonfire,' said Mr. Kendal. 'If we had remembered that it was the 5th of November, we would not have stayed out so late.' The next moment he drew up the horses, exclaiming, 'Mr. Hope, will you have a lift?'

Mr. Hope, rather to the ladies' surprise, took the vacant place beside Sophy, instead of climbing up to the box. He had been to see his intended parish, and was an enviable man, for he was as proud of it as if it had been an intended wife, and Albinia, who knew it for a slice of dreary heath, was entertained with his raptures. Church, schools, and parsonage, each in their way were perfection or at least promised to be, and he had never been so much elevated or so communicative. The speechless little curate seemed to have vanished.

The road, as may be remembered, did not run parallel with the curve of the river, but cutting straight across, entered Bayford over the hill, pa.s.sing a small open bit of waste land, where stood a few cottages, the outskirts of the town.

Suddenly coming from an overshadowed lane upon this common, a glare of light flashed on them, showing them each other's faces, and casting the shadow of the carriage into full relief. The horses s.h.i.+ed violently, and they beheld an enormous bonfire raised on a little knoll about twenty yards in front of them, surrounded by a dense crowd, making every species of hideous noise.

Mr. Kendal checked the horses' start, and Mr. Hope sprang to their heads. They were young and scarcely trustworthy, their restless movements showed alarm, and it was impossible to turn them without both disturbing the crowd and giving them a fuller view of the object of their terror. Mr. Kendal came down, and reconnoitring for a moment, said, 'You had better get out while we try to lead them round, we will go home by Squash Lane.'

Just then a brilliant glow of white flame, and a tremendous roar of applause, put the horses in such an agony, that they would have been too much for Mr. Hope, had not Mr. Kendal started to his a.s.sistance, and a man standing by likewise caught the rein. He was a respectable carpenter who lived on the heath, and touching his hat as he recognised them, said, 'Sir, if the ladies would come into my house, and you too, sir.

The people are going on in an odd sort of way, and Mrs. Kendal would be frightened. I'll take care of the carriage.'

Mr. Kendal went to the side of the carriage, and asked the ladies if they were alarmed.

'O no!' answered Albinia, 'it is great fun;' and as the horses fidgeted again, 'it feels like a review.'

'You had better get out,' he said; 'I must try to back the horses till I can turn them without running over any one. Will you go into the house?

You did not expect to find Bayford so riotous,' he added with a smile, as he a.s.sisted Genevieve out.

'You are not going to get up again,' said Albinia, catching hold of him, and in her dread of his committing himself to the mercy of the horses, returning unmeaning thanks to the carpenter's urgent requests that she would take refuge in his house.

In fact, the scene was new and entertaining, and on the farther side of the road, sheltered by the carriage, the party were entirely apart from the throng, which was too much absorbed to notice them, only a few heads turning at the rattling of the harness, and the ladies were amused at the bright flame, and the dark figures glancing in and out of the light, the shouts of delight and the merry faces.

'There's Guy Fawkes,' cried Albinia, as a procession of scarecrows were home on chairs amid thunders of acclamation; 'but whom have they besides? Here are some new characters.'

'Most lugubrious looking,' said Genevieve. 'I cannot make out the shouts.'

'It is the Nabob,' said Mr. Kendal. 'Perhaps you do not know that is my alias. This is my execution.'

The carpenter implored them to come in, and Mr. Hope added his entreaties, but Mr. Kendal would not leave the horses, and the ladies would not leave him; and they all stood still while his effigy was paraded round the knoll, the mark of every squib, the object of every invective that the rabble could roar out at the top of their voices.

Jesuits and Papists; Englishmen treated like blackamoor slaves in the Indies; honest folk driven out of house and home; such was the burthen of the cries that a.s.sailed the grim representative carried aloft, while the real man stood unmoved as a statue, his tall, powerful figure unstirred, his long driving-whip resting against his shoulder without betraying the slightest motion, neither firm lip nor steady eye changing. Genevieve, with tears in her eyes, exclaimed, 'Oh! this is madness! Will no one tell them how wicked they are?'

'Never mind, my dear,' said Mr. Kendal, pressing the hand that in her fervour she had laid on his arm, 'they will come to their senses in time. No, Mr. Hope, I beg you will not interfere, they are in no state for it; they have done no harm as yet.'

'I wonder what the police are about?' cried Albinia, indignantly.

'They are too few to do any good,' said Mr. Kendal. 'It may be better that they are not incensing the mob. It will all go off quietly when this explosion has relieved their feelings.'

They felt as if there were something grand in this perfectly dispa.s.sionate reception of the outrage, and they stood awed and silenced, Sophy leaning on him.

'It will soon be over now,' he said, 'they are poking up the name to receive me.'

'Hark! what's that?'

The mob came swaying back, and a rich voice swelled above all the din, 'Boys, boys, is it burning your friends you are? Then, for the first time, Mr. Kendal started, and muttered, 'foolish lad! is he here?'

Confused cries rose again, but the other voice gained the mastery.

'So you call that undertaker-looking figure there Mr. Kendal. Small credit to your taste. You want to burn him. What for?'

'For being a Nabob and a tyrant,' was the shout.

'Much you know of Nabobs! No; I'll tell you what it's for. It is because his son got his death fighting for his queen and his country a year ago, and on his death-bed bade him do his best to drive the fever from your doors, and shelter you and save you from the Union in your old age. Is that a thing to burn him for?'

'We want no Irish papists here!' shouted a blackguard voice.

'Serve him with the same sauce.'

'I never was a papist,' was the indignant reply. 'No more was he; but I've said that the place shan't disgrace itself, and--'