Part 50 (2/2)

Charles Cheviot was a very superior man, who had great influence with young boys, and was admirably fitted to bring about the much required reformation in the school. He came frequently to discuss his intentions with Dr. May, and his conversation was well worth being listened to; but even the Doctor found three evenings in a week a large allowance for good sense and good behaviour--the evenings treated as inviolable even by old friends like Dr. Spencer and Mr. Wilmot, the fast waning evenings of Aubrey's home life.

The rest were reduced to silence, chess, books, and mischief, except when a treat of facetious small talk was got up for their benefit. Any attempt of the ladies to join in the conversation was replied to with a condescending levity that reduced Ethel to her girlhood's awkward sense of forwardness and presumption; Mary was less disconcerted, because her remarks were never so aspiring, and Harry's wristbands sufficed her; but the never-daunted Daisy rebelled openly, related the day's events to her papa, fearless of any presence, and when she had grown tired of the guest's regular formula of expecting to meet Richard, she told him that the adult school always kept Richard away in the winter evenings; 'But if you want to see him, he is always to be found at c.o.c.ksmoor, and he would be very glad of help.'

'Did he express any such wish?' said Mr. Cheviot, looking rather puzzled.

'Oh dear, no; only I thought you had so much time on your hands.'

'Oh no--oh no!' exclaimed Mary, in great confusion, 'Gertrude did not mean--I am sure I don't know what she was thinking of.'

And at the first opportunity, Mary, for once in her life, administered to Gertrude a richly-deserved reproof for sauciness and contempt of improving conversation; but the consequence was a fancy of the idle younglings to make Mary accountable for the 'infesting of their evenings,' and as she was always ready to afford sport to the household, they thus obtained a happy outlet for their drollery and discontent, and the imputation was the more comical from his apparent indifference and her serene composure; until one evening when, as the bell rung, and mutterings pa.s.sed between Aubrey and Gertrude, of 'Day set,' and 'Cheviot's mountains lone,' the head of the family, for the first time, showed cognizance of the joke, and wearily taking down his slippered feet from their repose, said, 'Lone! yes, there's the rub! I shall have to fix days of reception if Mary will insist on being so attractive.'

Mary, with an instinct that she was blamed, began to be very sorry, but broke off amid peals of merriment, and blushes that were less easily extinguished; and which caused Ethel to tell each of the young ones privately, that their sport was becoming boy and frog work, and she would have no more of it. The Daisy was inclined to be restive; but Ethel told her that many people thought this kind of fun could never be safe or delicate. 'I have always said that it might be quite harmless, if people knew where to stop--now show me that I am right.'

And to Aubrey she put the question, whether he would like to encourage Daisy in being a nineteenth-century young lady without reticence?

However, as Mary heard no more of their mischievous wit, Ethel was quite willing to let them impute to herself a delusion that the schoolmaster was smitten with Mary, and to laugh with them in private over all the ridiculous things they chose to say.

At last Flora insisted on Ethel's coming with her to make a distant call, and, as soon as they were in the carriage, said, 'It was not only for the sake of Mrs. Copeland, though it is highly necessary you should go, but it is the only way of ever speaking to you, and I want to know what all this is about Mary?'

'The children have not been talking their nonsense to you!'

'No one ever talks nonsense to me--intentionally, I mean--not even you, Ethel; I wish you did. But I hear it is all over the town. George has been congratulated, and so have I, and one does not like contradicting only to eat it up again.'

'You always did hear everything before it was true, Flora.'

'Then is it going to be true?'

'O, Flora, can it be possible?' said Ethel, with a startled, astonished look.

'Possible! Highly obvious and proper, as it seems to me. The only doubt in my mind was whether it were not too obvious to happen.'

'He is always coming in,' said Ethel, 'but I never thought it was really for that mischief! The children only laugh about it as the most preposterous thing they can think of, for he never speaks to a woman if he can help it.'

'That may not prevent him from wanting a good wife.'

'Wanting a wife--ay, as he would want a housekeeper, just because he has got to the proper position for it; but is he to go and get our bonny Mary in that way, just for an appendage to the masters.h.i.+p?'

'Well done, old Ethel! I'm glad to see you so like yourself. I remember when we thought Mrs. Hoxton's position very sublime.'

'I never thought of positions!'

'Never! I know that very well; and I am not thinking of it now, except as an adjunct to a very worthy man, whom Mary will admire to the depths of her honest heart, and who will make her very happy.'

'Yes, I suppose if she once begins to like him, that he will,' said Ethel, slowly; 'but I can't bring myself to swallow it yet. She has never given in to his being a bore, but I thought that was her universal benevolence; and he says less to her than to any one.'

'Depend upon it, he thinks he is proceeding selon les regles.'

'Then he ought to be flogged! Has he any business to think of my Mary, without falling red-hot in love with her? Why, Hector was regularly crazy that last half-year; and dear old Polly is worth ever so much more than Blanche.'

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