Abbeychurch - Charlotte M. Yonge (best classic literature .txt) 📗

devices on the blotting paper, 'unworthy the attention of so wise a lady.'

'Only the dry bones of an ill-natured joke,' said Lady Merton, who had seen all that passed, from the other end of the table. She spoke so low as only to be heard by her son; but Elizabeth saw his colour deepen, and, as he rose and went to the piano, she felt sorry for him, and soon found an opportunity of reminding him that he had promised to draw something for Edward's scrap-book, and asked him if he would do so now.

'Willingly,' said Rupert, 'but only on one condition, Lizzie.'

'What?' said Elizabeth.

'That you give me back that foolish thing,' said Rupert, fixing his eyes intently on the coach and horses which he was drawing.

'There it is,' said Elizabeth, restoring it to him. 'No, no, Rupert, do not tear it up, it is the cleverest thing you ever drew, Sir Walter is excellent.'

Yet, in spite of this commendation, Rupert had torn his performance into the smallest scraps, before his sister came back to the table.

Anne had been in some anxiety ever since the conclusion of the games; but Sir Edward and Mr. Woodbourne were standing between her and the table, so that she could neither see nor hear, and when at length she had finished playing, and was released, she found Rupert and Elizabeth so quiet, and so busy with their several employments, that she greatly dreaded that all had not gone right. She bethought herself of the sketches Rupert had made in Scotland, asked him to fetch them, and by their help, she contrived to restore the usual tone of conversation between the cousins, so that the remainder of the evening passed away very pleasantly.

When Anne and Elizabeth awoke the following morning, Anne said that she had remembered, the evening before, just when it was too late to do anything, that the last Sunday Rupert had left his Prayer-book behind him at St. Austin's; and as they were to set off on their journey homewards immediately after breakfast, she asked Elizabeth whether there would be time to walk to the new church and fetch it before breakfast.

'I think it would be a very pleasant walk in the freshness of the morning, if you like to go,' said she.

'Oh yes,' said Elizabeth, 'there is plenty of time, and I should like the walk very much; but really, Anne, you spoil that idle boy in a terrible way.'

'Ah! Rupert is an only son,' said Anne; 'he has a right to be spoilt.'

'Then I hope that Horace and Edward will save each other from the same fate,' said Elizabeth; 'I do not like to see a sister made such a slave as you have been all your life.'

'Wait till Horace and Edward are at home in the holidays before you talk of slavery,' said Anne; 'there will be five slaves and two masters, that will be all the difference.'

'Well are the male kind called barons in heraldry,' said Elizabeth; 'there is no denying that they are a lordly race; but I think I would have sent Mr. Rupert up the hill himself, rather than go before breakfast, with a day's journey before me.'

'Suppose he would not go?' said Anne.

'Let him lose his Prayer-book, then,' said Elizabeth.

'But if I had rather fetch it for him?' said Anne.

'I can only answer that there are no slaves as willing as sisters,' said Elizabeth.

The two cousins had a pleasant morning walk up the hill, enjoying the freshness of the morning air, and watching the various symptoms of wakening in the town. They carried the keys of the church with them, as no clerk had as yet been appointed, and they were still in Mr. Woodbourne's possession, so that it was not necessary to call anyone to open the doors for them.

Whilst Anne was searching for the Prayer-book, Elizabeth stood in the aisle, her eyes fixed on the bright red cross in the centre window over the Altar. The sun-beams were lighting it up gloriously, and from it, her gaze fell upon the Table of Commandments, between it and the Altar. Presently, Anne came and stood by her side in silence. 'Anne,' said Elizabeth, after a few minutes, 'I will tell you what I have been thinking of. On the day when Horace laid the first stone of this church, two years ago, something put me, I am sorry to say, into one of my old fits of ill temper. It was the last violent passion I ever was in; I either learnt to control them, or outgrew them. And now, may this affair at the Consecration be the last of my self-will and self-conceit; for indeed there is much that is fearfully wrong in me to be corrected, before I can dare to think of the Confirmation.'

Perhaps we cannot take leave of Elizabeth Woodbourne at a better moment, therefore we will say no more of her, or of the other inhabitants of the Vicarage, but make a sudden transition to the conversation, which Anne had hoped to enjoy on the journey back to Merton Hall.

She had told her father of nearly all her adventures, had given Fido's history more fully, informed Rupert of all that he had missed, and was proceeding with an account of Helen. 'Really,' said she, 'I have much more hope of her being happy at home, than I had at first.'

'I will answer for it that she will be happy enough,' said Rupert; 'she has been living on flummery for the last half-year, and you cannot expect her to be contented with mutton-chops just at first.'

'Helen does not find so much fault with the mutton-chops as with the pepper Lizzie adds to them,' said Anne.

'I should be sorry to live without pepper,' said Rupert.

'I am not so sure of that,' said Lady Merton.

'At least you do not wish to have enough to choke you,' said Anne; 'you must have it in moderation.'

'I think Lizzie is learning moderation,' said Lady Merton; 'she is acquiring more command of impulse, and Helen more command of feeling, so that I think there is little danger of their not agreeing.'

'Is it not curious, Mamma,' said Anne, 'that we should have been talking of the necessity of self-control, just before we set out on this visit, when I told you that line of Burns was your motto; and now we find that the want of it is the reason of all that was wrong between those two sisters. I wonder whether we could make out that any more of the follies we saw in this visit were caused by the same deficiency in anyone else.'

'Beginning at home?' said Sir Edward.

'Of course, Papa,' said Anne; 'I know that my failure in self-control has done mischief, though I cannot tell how much. I laughed at the Hazlebys continually, in spite of Mamma's warning, and encouraged Lizzie to talk of them when I had better not have done so; and I allowed myself to be led away by eagerness to hear that foolish lecture. I suppose I want control of spirits.'

'And now having finished our own confession, how merrily we begin upon our neighbours!' said Rupert; 'whom shall we dissect first?'

'Indeed, Rupert,' said Anne, 'I do not want to make the most of their faults, I only wish to study their characters, because I think it is a useful thing to do. Now I do not see that Kate's faults are occasioned by want of self-control; do you think they are, Mamma?'

'Do you think that piece of thistle-down possesses any self-control?' said Rupert.

'You mean that Kate does not control her own conduct at all, but is drifted about by every wind that blows,' said Anne; 'yes, it was Miss Hazleby's influence that made her talk so much more of dress than usual, and really seem sillier than I ever saw her before.'

'And what do you say of the fair Harriet herself?' said Rupert.

'Nothing,' said Anne.

'And Mrs. Hazleby is her daughter in a magnifying glass,' said Rupert; 'a glorious specimen of what you all may come to. And Mrs. Woodbourne?'

'Oh! I have nothing to do with the elders,' said Anne; 'but if you want me to find you a fault in her, I shall say that she ought to control her unwillingness to correct people. And now we have discussed almost everyone.'

'From which discussion,' said Rupert, 'it appears that of all the company at Abbeychurch, the sole possessor of that most estimable quality, the root of all other excellencies, is--your humble servant.'

On this unfortunate speech of poor Rupert's, father, mother, and sister, all set up a shout of laughter, which lasted till Rupert began to feel somewhat enraged.

'Oh! I did not say that I had done with everybody,' said Anne; 'but, perhaps, whatever I might think, I might not have presumed--'

'O Rupert!' said Lady Merton,

'Could some fay the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us--'

'Mamma's beloved Burn's Justice again,' interrupted Rupert.

'No, no, we do not mean to let our mouths be stopped,' said Lady Merton; 'such a challenge must be answered.'

'Shew him no mercy, Anne,' said Sir Edward; 'he likes pepper.'

'Pray, Rupert,' said Anne, 'what would you have been without self-control, if, possessing such a quantity of it, you still allowed so much spirit of mischief to domineer over you, that you frightened Dora out of her wits about Winifred, and tormented Helen all the way to Whistlefar, and worst of all, that you could not help writing that wicked poem, and then pretending that it was mine; why, it was an outrage upon us all, it would have been bad enough if the name had belonged to no one, but when you knew that he was a real man--'

'And that Miss Hazleby wrote his name on purpose that something of the kind might be done,' said Rupert; 'I gratified her beyond measure, and then was so kind and disinterested as to give you the credit of it, if you would have accepted it. You may be sure that she will shew the poem to her hero, and tell him what a charming fellow that young Rupert Merton is.'

'Now just listen, Mamma,' said Anne; 'I begged of Mr. Rupert not to write anything about Fido in the Conglomeration on Saturday evening; and because I did so, he would write nothing on his own account, but pretending to read my verses, he brings out a horrible composition about a certain Mr. Francis Hollis, who, Miss Hazelby had been telling us, had been the means of her going to an officers' ball, at Hull, and whom she had danced with--'

'Capital, capital!' cried Rupert; 'I never heard all this; I did not know how good my poem was, I knew the truth by intuition.'

'But having heard this made it all the worse for me,' said Anne; 'and Mamma, this dreadful doggerel--'

'Anne, I declare--' cried Rupert.

'And, Mamma, this dreadful doggerel,' proceeded Anne, 'proposed to send Fido's heart to this Mr. Hollis, and so put him in raptures with a gift from Miss Hazleby, and fill his mind with visions of a surrogate, and a