Scenes and Characters, or, Eighteen Months at Beechcroft Part 38

Jane was much relieved by hearing her cousin talk in this manner, and answered, 'Yes, and a dismal coming home it will be; it is too late to let them know.'

Mr. Saunders now entered, and gave a very favourable account of the patient, saying that even the scars would probably disappear in a few weeks. His gig had come from Raynham, and he offered to set Mr.

Devereux down at the parsonage, a proposal which the latter was very glad to accept. Emily and Jane had leisure, when they were gone, to inquire into the manner of the accident. Phyllis answered that Maurice said that her banging the door had made the powder go off.

Jane then asked where Maurice was, and Phyllis reporting that he was in his own room, she repaired thither, and knocked twice without receiving an answer. On her call, however, he opened the door; she saw that he had been in tears, and hastened to tell him Mr.

Saunders's opinion. He fastened the door again as soon as she had entered. 'If I could have thought it!' sighed he. 'Fool that I was, not to lock the door!'

'Then you were not there? Phyllis says that she did it by banging the door. Is not that nonsense?'

'Not at all. Did I not read to you in the Year Book of Facts about the patent signal rockets, which explode with the least vibration, even when a carriage goes by? Now, mine was on the same principle.

I was making an experiment on the ingredients; I did not expect to succeed the first time, and so I took no precautions. Well!

Pyrotechnics are a dangerous science! Next time I study them it shall be at the workshop at the Old Court.'

Maurice was sincerely sorry for the consequence of his disobedience, and would have been much to be pitied had it not been for his secret satisfaction in the success of his art. He called his sister into the schoolroom to explain how it happened. The room was a dismal sight, blackened with smoke, and flooded with water, the table and part of the floor charred, a ma.s.s of burnt paper in the midst, and a stifling smell of fire. A pane of gla.s.s was shattered, and Maurice ran down to the lawn to see if he could find anything there to account for it. The next moment he returned, the powder-horn in his hand. 'See, Jenny, how fortunate that this was driven through the window with the force of the explosion. The whole place might have been blown to atoms with such a quant.i.ty as this.'

'Then what was it that blew up?' asked Jane.

'What I had put out for my rocket, about two ounces. If this half- pound had gone there is no saying what might have happened.'

'Now, Maurice,' said Jane, 'I must go back to Ada, and will you run down to the parsonage with a parcel, directed to Robert, that you will find in the hall?'

This was a device to occupy Maurice, who, as Jane saw, was so restless and unhappy that she did not like to leave him, much as she was wanted elsewhere. He went, but afraid to see his cousin, only left the parcel at the door. As he was going back he heard a shout, and looking round saw Lord Rotherwood mounted on Cedric, his most spirited horse, galloping up the lane. 'Maurice!' cried he, 'what is all this? they say the New Court is blown up, and you and half the girls killed, but I hope one part is as true as the other.'

'n.o.body is hurt but Ada,' said Maurice, 'but her face is a good deal burnt.'

'Eh? then she won't be fit for the 30th, poor child! tell me how it was, make haste. I heard it from Mr. Burnet as I came down to dinner. We have a dozen people at dinner. I told him not to mention it to my mother, and rode off to hear the truth. Make haste, half the people were come when I set off.'

The horse's caperings so discomposed Maurice that he could scarcely collect his wits enough to answer: 'Some signal rocket on a new principle--detonating powder, composed of oxymuriate--Oh!

Rotherwood, take care!'

'Speak sense, and go on.'

'Then Phyllis came in, banged the door, and the vibration caused the explosion,' said Maurice, scared into finis.h.i.+ng promptly.

'Eh! banging the door? You had better not tell that story at school.'

'But, Rotherwood, the deton--Oh! that horse--you will be off!'

'Not half so dangerous as patent rockets. Is Emily satisfied with such stuff?'

'Don't you know that fulminating silver--'

'What does Robert Devereux say?'

'Really, Rotherwood, I could show you--'

'Show me? No; if rockets are so perilous I shall have nothing to do with them. Stand still, Cedric! Just tell me about Ada. Is there much harm done?'

'Her face is scorched a good deal, but they say it will soon be right.'

'I am glad--we will send to inquire to-morrow, but I cannot come--ha, ha! a new infernal machine. Good-bye, Friar Bacon.'

Away he went, and Maurice stood looking after him with complacent disdain. 'There they go, Cedric and Rotherwood, equally well provided with brains! What is the use of talking science to either?'

It was late when he reached the house, and his two sisters shortly came down to tea, with news that Adeline was asleep and Phyllis was going to bed. The accident was again talked over.

'Well,' said Emily, 'I do not understand it, but I suppose papa will.'

'The telling papa is a bad part of the affair, with William and Eleanor there too,' said Jane.

'I do not mean to speak to Phyllis about it again,' said Emily, 'it makes her cry so terribly.'

'It will come out fast enough,' sighed Maurice. 'Good-night.'

More than once in the course of the night did poor Phyllis wake and cry, and the next day was the most wretched she had ever spent; she was not allowed to stay in the nursery, and the schoolroom was uninhabitable, so she wandered listlessly about the garden, sometimes creeping down to the churchyard, where she looked up at the old tower, or pondered over the graves, and sometimes forgetting her troubles in converse with the dogs, in counting the rings in the inside of a foxglove flower, or in rescuing tadpoles stranded on the broad leaf of a water-lily.

Her sisters and brothers were not less forlorn. Emily sighed and lamented; Adeline was feverish and petulant; and Jane toiled in vain to please and soothe both, and to comfort Maurice; but with all her good-temper and good-nature she had not the spirit which alone could enable her to be a comfort to any one. Ada whined, fretted, and was disobedient, and from Maurice she met with nothing but rebuffs; he was silent and sullen, and spent most of the day in the workshop, slowly planing sc.r.a.ps of deal board, and watching with a careless eye the curled shavings float to the ground.

In the course of the afternoon Alethea and Marianne came to inquire after the patient. Jane came down to them and talked very fast, but when they asked for a further explanation of the cause of the accident, Jane declared that Maurice said it was impossible that any one who did not understand chemistry should know how it happened, and Alethea went away strongly reminded that it was no affair of hers.

Notes pa.s.sed between the New Court and the vicarage, but Mr. Devereux was feeling the effect of his yesterday's exertion too much to repeat it, and no persuasion of the sisters could induce Maurice to visit him.

CHAPTER XXII: THE BARONIAL COURT

'Still in his eyes his soul revealing, He dreams not, knows not of concealing, Does all he does with single mind, And thinks of others that are kind.'

The travellers were expected to arrive at about seven o'clock in the evening, and in accordance with a well-known taste of Eleanor's, Emily had ordered no dinner, but a substantial meal under the name of tea. When the sound of carriage wheels was heard, Jane was with Adeline, Maurice was in his retreat at the Old Court, and it was with no cheerful alacrity that Emily went alone into the hall. Phyllis was already at the front door, and the instant Mr. Mohun set foot on the threshold, her hand grasped his coat, and her shrill voice cried in his ear, 'Papa, I am very sorry I blew up the gunpowder and burnt Ada.'

'What, my dear? where is Ada?'

'In bed. I blew up the gunpowder and burnt her face,' repeated Phyllis.

'We have had an accident,' said Emily, 'but I hope it is nothing very serious, only poor Ada is a sad figure.'

In another moment Mr. Mohun and Eleanor were on the way to the nursery; Lilias was following, but she recollected that a general rush into a sickroom was not desirable, and therefore paused and came back to the hall. The worst was over with Phyllis when the confession had been made. She was in raptures at the sight of the baby, and was presently showing the nurse the way upstairs, but her brother William called her back: 'Phyllis, you have not spoken to any one.'

Phyllis turned, and came down slowly in her most ungainly manner, believing herself in too great disgrace to be noticed by anybody, and she was quite surprised and comforted to be greeted by her brothers and Lily just as usual.

'And how did you meet with this misfortune?' asked Mr. Hawkesworth.

'I banged the door, and made it go off,' said Phyllis.

'What can you mean?' said William, in a tone of surprise, which Phyllis took for anger, and she hid her face to stifle her sobs.

'No, no, do not frighten her,' said Claude's kind voice.