Fated to Be Free Part 69

"Well," said Swan, drawing a deep breath, "all I have to observe is, that wives were made afore coats of mail, though coats of female would be more to the purpose here" (he meant coats of arms), "and," continued the gardener, with that chivalrous feeling which lies at the very core of gentlemanhood, "I'm not going to disparage my son, my Joey, that would be to disparage her _chice_. If she thinks he's ekal to be her husband, she'll respect him as a wife should. Why, bless you, Maria, my dear, if you come to that, there's hardly a young man alive that's ekal to his young wife, whether she be gentle or simple. They're clean above us, most on 'em. But he can rise; Joseph can rise if she'll help him."

"My word!" repeated Mrs. Swan several times over; and then added slowly, "It'll be an awk'ard thing for Swan if Mr. Mortimer should take offence about this."

Valentine was perfectly aware that something either in his manner, or his account of his own part in the matter, had much surprised them; also he thought that their poor place and preferment in this world seemed to them to be menaced by it. He did what he could to dissipate any such thoughts, and added a request that until they heard from Joseph that he was actually married nothing might be said about the matter. This request was very welcome to Mrs. Swan. It seemed to put off an eventful day, which she was not ready for even in imagination.

"Swan," said Valentine, "when he had taken leave of his hostess, this is no news to you."

"No, sir, Joseph told me all about it afore he sailed, and how he thought he'd got over it. Mr. Mortimer knows, as you're aware. Well, lastly, Joseph wrote again and told me he was fairly breaking his heart about her, and he should try his chance once more. You see, sir, his ways and fas.h.i.+ons and hers are not alike. It would not have answered here--but there they'd both have to learn perfectly new ways and manners, and speak to their feller creatures in a new language. There's hardly another Englishman for her to measure him with, and not one English lady to let her know she should have made a better match."

"Mr. Mortimer knows?"

"Ay, sir."

"And you never told your wife?"

"No, she has a good deal to hear, Mr. Valentine, besides that, and I thought I'd tell it her all at once."

Valentine saw that he was expected to ask a question here.

"What, Swanny, is something else coming off then?"

"Ay, sir; you see, Mr. Melcombe, I'm lost here, I'm ekal to something better, Mr. Mortimer knows it as well as I do. He's said as much to me more than once. What he'll do without me I'm sure I don't know, but I know well enough he'll never get such another."

"No, I don't suppose he will."

"There ain't such a gardener going--not for his weight in gold. But I'm off in the spring. I've done a'most all but break it to my wife. It's Joseph that's helping me, and for hindrance I've got a Methodist chapel and a boarded floor. There's boarded floors to her kitchen, and back kitchen, as Mr. Mortimer put in for her, because she was so rheumatic, they air what she chiefly vally's the place for. But at some of them small West India islands there's a fine opening, Joey says, for a man with a headpiece as can cultivate, and knows what crops require, and I ought to go. I'm only sixty-one or thereabouts. You'll not say anything about it, sir," he continued, as the twins, who were in the garden, came towards Valentine.

They brought him in triumph to the schoolroom, which was decorated, and full of the wedding presents the children had made for their father and the dear mamma.

"And you'll remember," said Bertram, "how you promised us--promised us _with all your might,_ that we should come to Melcombe."

"Yes, all of us," proceeded Anastasia; "he said the little ones too."

"So you should have done, you poor darlings, but for that accident,"

said Valentine.

"And we were to see the pears and apples gathered, and have such fun. Do you know that you're a sort of uncle now to us?"

"What sort? The right sort?"

"Yes, and now when shall we come?"

"I am afraid I shall be away all the winter."

"In the spring, then, and father and the dear mamma."

"It's a long time till the spring," said Valentine, with a sigh; "but if I am at Melcombe then-"

"You'll have us?"

"Yes."

"Then let it be in the Easter holidays," said Johnnie, "that I may come too."

"All right," said Valentine, and he took leave of them, and departed in one of their father's carriages for the Junction, muttering as he looked back at the house, "No, you'll never see Melcombe, youngsters. I shall be at the other end of the earth, perhaps, by that time."

"Oh, what a long time to wait!" quoth the younger Mortimers; "five months and a half to Easter--twenty-three weeks--twenty-three times seven--what a lot of days! Now, if we were going to sea, as the Brandon baby is, we shouldn't mind waiting. What a pity that such a treat should come to a little stupid thing that does nothing but sputter and crow instead of to us! Such a waste of pleasure." They had never heard of "the irony of fate," but in their youthful manner they felt it then.

So St. George Mortimer Brandon was borne off to the _Curlew_, and there, indifferent to the glory of sunsets, or the splendour of bays and harbours, he occupied his time in cutting several teeth, in learning to seize everything that came near him, and in finding out towards the end of the time how to throw or drop his toys overboard. He was even observed on a calm day to watch these waifs as they floated off, and was confidently believed to recognise them as his own property, while in such language as he knew, which was not syllabic, he talked and scolded at them, as if, in spite of facts, he meant to charge them with being down there entirely through their own perversity.

There is nothing so unreasonable as infancy, excepting the maturer stages of life.

His parents thought all this deeply interesting. So did the old uncle, who put down the name of St. George Mortimer Brandon for a large legacy, and was treated by the legatee with such distinguis.h.i.+ng preference as seemed to suggest that he must know what he was about, and have an eye already to his own interests.

Four months and a half. The Mortimers did not find them so long in pa.s.sing as in antic.i.p.ation, and whether they were long or short to their father and his new wife, they did not think of considering. Only a sense of harmony and peace appeared to brood over the place, and they felt the sweetness of it, though they never found out its name. There was more freedom than of yore. Small persons taken with a sudden wish to go down and see what father and mamma were about could do so; one would go tapping about with a little crutch, another would curl himself up at the end of the room, and never seem at all in the way. The new feminine element had great fascinations for them, they made pictures for Emily, and brought her flowers, liking to have a kiss in return, and to feel the softness of her velvet-gown.

The taller young people, instead of their former tasteless array, wore delightfully pretty frocks and hats, and had other charming decorations chosen for them. They began to love the memory of their dead mother.

What could she not have been to them if she had lived, when only a step-mother was so sweet and so dear and so kind? And mamma had said to them long before she had thought of marrying father, that their mother would have greatly wished them to please their father's wife, and love her if they could. Nothing was so natural as to do both, but it was nice, to be sure, that she would have approved.

It was not long after John Mortimer and his wife returned from their very short wedding tour that they had a letter from Valentine, and he had spoken so confidently of his intended absence in the south of Europe during the later autumn and the whole winter, that they were surprised to find he had not yet started, and surprised also at the excessive annoyance, the unreasonable annoyance he expressed at having been detained to be a witness at some trial of no great importance. The trial had not come on so soon as it should have done, and he was kept lingering on at this dull, melancholy Melcombe, till he was almost moped to death.

Emily folded up this letter with a sensation of pain and disappointment.

She had hoped that prosperity would do so much for Valentine, and wondered to find him dissatisfied and restless, when all that life can yield was within his reach.

His next letter showed that he meant to stay at Melcombe all the winter.

He complained no more; but from that time, instead of stuffing his letters with jokes, good and bad, he made them grave and short, and Emily was driven to the conclusion that rumour must be right, the rumour which declared that young Mr. Melcombe was breaking his heart for that pretty, foolish Laura.

At last the Easter holidays arrived, Johnnie came home, and forthwith Emily received a letter from Valentine with the long-promised invitation. The cherry orchards were in blossom, the pear-trees were nearly out; he wanted his sister and John Mortimer to come, and bring the whole tribe of children, and make a long stay with him. Some extraordinary things were packed up as presents for cousin Val, an old and much-loved leader, and Emily allowed more pets and more toys to accompany the cavalcade than anybody else would have thought it possible to get into two carriages. The little crutch, happily, was no longer wanted.

All the country was white with blossom when Valentine met his guests at the door of Melcombe House. It was late in the afternoon. Emily thought her brother looked thin, but the children rus.h.i.+ng round him, and taking possession of him, soon made her forget that, and the unwelcome thought of Laura, for she saw his almost boyish delight in his young guests, and they made him sit down, and closed him in, thrusting up, with tyrannous generosity, cages of young starlings, all for him, and demanding that a room, safe from cats, should immediately be set aside for them. Then two restless, yelping puppies were proudly brought forward, hugged in their owner's arms. Emily, who loved a stir, and a joyous chattering, felt her spirits rise. Her marriage had drawn the families yet nearer together, and for the rest of that evening she pleased herself with the thought.

The next morning she wanted to see this beautiful house and garden.

Valentine was showman, and the whole family accompanied her, wandering among the great white pear-trees, and the dark yews, then going into the stable-yard, to see the strange, old out-buildings, with doors of heavy, ancient oak, and then on to the glen.

Valentine did not seem to care about his beautiful house, he rather disparaged it.

"You're not to say, 'it's well enough,' when it's beautiful," observed Anastasia.

Then with what was considered by the elder portion of the party to be a pretty specimen of childish sagacity, Hugh admonished his little sister--

"But he mustn't praise his own things; that's not good manners. He talks in this way to make us think that he's not conceited; but he really knows in his heart that they're very handsome."

"Is he grander than father, mamma dear?" asked Anastasia.

"I don't think so, my sweet," answered Emily laughing. "I see you are not too grand, Val, to use your father's old repeater."

"No," said Valentine, who had been consulting rather a shabby old watch, and who now excused himself for leaving the party on the ground of an appointment that he had made. "This, and a likeness of him that I have in the house, are among the things I most value."

What did the appointment matter to them?