Chapter 14
She spread the roll of paper on the hall table. It was a white paper, slightly tinted, and seemed intended to represent coral branches, with starry-looking things at the ends.
"The aquarium at the Zoo," muttered Bobus; and Caroline herself, meeting Allen's eye, could not refrain from adding,
"The worms they crawled in, And the worms they crawled out."
"Mother!" cried Jock, "I thought you were going to paint it all over with jolly things."
"Frescoes," said Allen; "sha'n't you, mother?"
"If your uncle does not object," said his mother, choking down a giggle.
"Those plaster panels are so tempting for frescoes, Ellen."
"Frescoes! Why, those are those horrid improper-looking G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses in clouds and chariots on the ceilings at Belforest," observed that lady, in a half-puzzled, half-offended tone of voice, that most perilously tickled the fancy of Mother Carey and her brood! and she could hardly command her voice to make answer, "Never fear, Ellen; we are not going to attempt allegorical monstrosities, only to make a bower of green leaves and flowers such as we see round us; though after what we have seen to-day that seems presumptuous enough. Fancy, Janet! golden green trees and porcelain blue ground, all in one bath of suns.h.i.+ne. Such things must be seen to be believed in."
Poor Mrs. Robert Brownlow! She went home and sighed, as she said to her husband, "Well, what is to become of those poor things I do not know.
One would sometimes think poor Caroline was just a little touched in the head."
"I hope not," said the Colonel, rather alarmed.
"It may be only affectation," said his lady, in a consolatory tone. "I am afraid poor Joe did live with a very odd set of people--artists, and all that kind of thing. I am sure I don't blame her, poor thing! But she is worse to manage than any child, because you can't bid her mind what she is about, and not talk nonsense. When she leaves her house in such a state, and no one but that poor girl to see to anything, and comes home all over mud, raving about fairyland, and gold trees and blue ground; when she has just got into a bog in Belforest coppice--littering the whole place, too, with common wild flowers. If it had been Essie and Ellie, I should just have put them in the corner for making such a mess!"
The Colonel laughed a little to himself, and said, consolingly, "Well, well, you know all these country things are new to her. You must be patient with her."
Patient! That had to be the burthen of the song on both sides. Carey was pus.h.i.+ng back her hair with a fierce, wild sense of impatience with that calm a.s.sumption that fretted her beyond all bearing, and made her feel desolate beyond all else. She would have, she thought, done well enough alone with her children, and scrambled into her new home; but the directions, however needful, seemed to be continually insulting her understanding. When she was advised as to the best butcher and baker, there was a ring in her ears as if Ellen meant that these were safe men for a senseless creature like her, and she could not encounter them with her orders without wondering whether they had been told to treat her well.
Indeed, one of the chief drawbacks to Carey's comfort was her difficulty in attending to what her brother and sister-in-law said to her.
Something in the measured tones of the Colonel always made her thoughts wander as from a dull sermon; and this was more unlucky in his case than in his wife's--for Ellen used such reiterations that there was a fair chance of catching her drift the second or third time, if not the first, whereas
Kencroft, the home of the Colonel and his family, Mrs. Robert Brownlow's inheritance, was certainly "a picture of a place." It had probably been an appendage of the old minster, though the house was only of the seventeenth century; but that was substantial and venerable of its kind, and exceedingly comfortable and roomy, with everything kept in perfect order. Caroline could not quite think the furniture worthy of it, but that was not for want of the desire to do everything handsomely and fas.h.i.+onably. Moreover, in spite of the schoolroom and nurseryful of children, marvels of needlework and knitting adorned every table, chair, and sofa, while even in the midst of the town Kencroft had its own charming garden; a lawn, once devoted to bowls and now to croquet, an old-fas.h.i.+oned walled kitchen garden, sloping up the hill, and a paddock sufficient to make cows and pigs part of the establishment.
The Colonel had devoted himself to gardening and poultry with the mingled ardour and precision of a man who needed something to supply the place of his soldierly duties; and though his fervour had relaxed under the influence of ease, gout, and substantial flesh, enough remained to keep up apple-pie order without-doors, and render Kencroft almost a show place. The meadow lay behind the house, and a gravel walk leading along its shaded border opened into the lane about ten yards from the gate of the PaG.o.da, as Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow and the post office laboured to call it; the Folly, as came so much more naturally to everyone's lips.
It had been the work of the one eccentric man in Mrs. Robert Brownlow's family, and was thus her property. It had hung long on hand, being difficult to let, and after making sufficient additions, it had been decided that, at a nominal rent, it would house the family thrown upon the hands of the good Colonel.
CHAPTER VII. -- THE COLONEL'S CHICKENS.
They censured the bantam for strutting and crowing, In those vile pantaloons that he fancied looked knowing; And a want of decorum caused many demurs Against the game chicken for coming in spurs.
The Peac.o.c.k at Home.
Left to themselves, Mother Carey, with Janet and old nurse, completed their arrangements so well that when Jessie looked in at five o'clock, with a few choice flowers covering a fine cuc.u.mber in her basket, she exclaimed in surprise, "How nice you have made it all look, I shall be so glad to tell mamma."
"Tell her what?" asked Janet.
"That you have really made the room look nice," said Jessie.
"Thank you," said her cousin, ironically. "You see we have as many hands as other people. Didn't Aunt Ellen think we had?"
"Of course she did," said Jessie, a pretty, kindly creature, but slow of apprehension; "only she said she was very sorry for you."
"And why?" cried Janet, leaping up in indignation.
"Why?" interposed Allen, "because we are raw c.o.c.kneys, who go into raptures over primroses and wild hyacinths, eh, Jessie?"
"Well, you have set them up very nicely," said Jessie; "but fancy taking so much trouble about common flowers."
"What would you think worth setting up?" asked Janet. "A big dahlia, I suppose, or a great red cactus?"
"We have a beautiful garden," said Jessie: "papa is very particular about it, and we always get the prize for our flowers. We had the first prizes for hyacinths and forced roses last week, and we should have had the first for forced cuc.u.mbers if the gardener at Belforest had not had a spite against Spencer, because he left him for us. Everybody said there was no comparison between the cuc.u.mbers, and Mr. Ellis said--"
Janet had found the day before how Jessie could prattle on in an endless quiet stream without heeding whether any one entered into it or replied to it; but she was surprised at Allen's toleration of it, though he changed the current by saying, "Belforest seems a jolly, place."
"But you've only seen the wood, not the gardens," said Jessie.
"I went down to the lake with Mr. Ogilvie," said Allen, "and saw something splendiferous looking on the other side."
"Oh! they are beautiful!" cried Janet, "all laid out in ribbon gardens and with the most beautiful terrace, and a fountain--only that doesn't play except when you give the gardener half-a-crown, and mamma says, that is exorbitant--and statues standing all round--real marble statues."
"Like the groves of Blarney," muttered Janet:
"Heathen G.o.ddesses most rare, Homer, Venus, and Nebuchadnezzar, All standing naked in the open air."
Allen, seeing Jessie scandalised, diverted her attention by asking, "Whom does it belong to?"
"Mr. Barnes," said Jessie; "but he is hardly ever there. He is an old miser, you know--what they call a millionaire, or mill-owner; which is it?"
"One is generally the French for the other," put in Janet.
"Never mind her, Jessie," said Allen, with a look of infinite displeasure at his sister. "What does he do which keeps him away?"
"I believe he is a great merchant, and is always in Liverpool," said Jessie. "Any way, he is a very cross old man, and won't let anybody go into his park and gardens when he comes down here; and he is very cruel too, for he disinherited his own nephew and niece for marrying. Only think Mrs. Watson at the grocer's told our Susan that there's a little girl, who is his own great-niece, living down at River Hollow Farm with Mr. and Mrs. Gould, just brought up by common farmers, you know, and he won't take any notice of her, nor give one farthing for bringing her up.
Isn't it shocking? And even when he is at home, he only has two chops or two steaks, or just a bit of kidney, and that when he is literally rolling in gold."
Jessie opened her large brown eyes to mark her horror, and Allen, made a gesture of exaggerated sympathy, which his sister took for more earnest than it was, and she said, scornfully, "I should like to see him literally rolling in gold. It must be like Midas. Do you mean that he sleeps on it, Jessie? How hard and cold!"
"Nonsense," said Jessie; "you know what I mean."
"I know what literally rolling in gold means, but I don't know what you mean."
"Don't bully her, Janet," said Allen; "we are not so stupid, are we, Jessie? Come and show me the walnut-tree you were telling me about."