Hildegarde's Home

"Beatrix Esmond."

"Bruce, Robert, King of Scotland."

"Burns, Robert, King of Scottish poets."

"Oh! oh! well, I suppose he is!" Hilda admitted reluctantly. "But Sir Walter makes an admirable viceroy. I think – who is that? Mamma, there is some one coming up the steps."

"Mrs. Grahame?" said a deep voice, as two shadowy forms emerged from the darkness. "I am delighted to meet you again. You remember Colonel Ferrers?"

"Perfectly!" said Mrs. Grahame, cordially, advancing and holding out her hand. "I am very glad to see you. Colonel Ferrers, – though I hardly do see you!" she added, laughing. "Hildegarde, here is Colonel Ferrers, whom you met this morning."

"Good evening!" said Hildegarde, thinking that mamma was very cruel.

"Delighted!" said Colonel Ferrers, bowing again; and he added, "May I be allowed to present my nephew? Mrs. Grahame, Miss Grahame, my nephew, John Ferrers."

A tall figure bowed awkwardly, and a voice murmured something which might have been a greeting in English, Choctaw, or pure Polynesian, as it was wholly unintelligible.

"It is too pleasant an evening to spend in the house," said Mrs. Grahame. "I think you will find chairs, gentlemen, by a little judicious groping. Oh! I trust you are not hurt, Mr. Ferrers?" For Mr. Ferrers had tumbled over his chair, and was now sprawling at full length on the piazza. He gathered himself up again, apparently too much abashed to say a word.

"Oh! he's all right!" said Colonel Ferrers, laughing. "He's always tumbling about; just got his growth, you see, and hasn't learned what to do with it. Well, many things have happened since we met, Mrs. Grahame; we won't say how many years it is."

"Many things, indeed!" said Mrs. Grahame with a sigh.

"Yes! yes!" said Colonel Ferrers. "Poor Grahame! met him last year in town; never saw him looking better. Well, so it goes. Changing world, my dear Madame! Poor Aytoun, too! I miss him sadly. My only neighbour. We have been together a great deal since his sisters died. Yes! yes! very glad I was to hear that he had left the property to you. Not another soul to speak to in the neighbourhood."

"Who lives in the large new house across the way?" asked Mrs. Grahame. "I know the name of the family is Loftus, but nothing more."

"Parcel of fools, I call 'em!" said Colonel Ferrers, contemptuously. "New people, with money. Loftus, sharp business man, wants to be a gentleman farmer. As much idea of farming as my stick has. Wife and daughters look like a parcel o' fools. Don't know 'em! don't want to know 'em!" Mrs. Grahame, finding this not an agreeable subject, turned the conversation upon old friends, and they were soon deep in matters of twenty years ago.

Meanwhile Hildegarde and the bashful youth had sat in absolute silence. At first Hildegarde had been too much discomposed by her mother's allusion to the morning's adventure to speak, though she was able to see afterwards how much better it was to bring up the matter naturally, and then dismiss it as a thing of no consequence, as it was, than to let it hang, an unacknowledged cloud, in the background.

As the moments went on, however, she became conscious that it was her duty to entertain Mr. Ferrers. He evidently had no idea of saying anything; her mother and Colonel Ferrers had forgotten the presence of either of them, apparently. The silence became more and more awkward. What could she say to this gawky youth, whose face she could not even see? "What a lovely day it has been!" she finally remarked, and was startled by the sound of her own voice, though she was not usually shy in the least.

"Yes," said Mr. Ferrers, "it has been a fine day."

Silence again. This would never do! "Do you play tennis?" she asked boldly.

"No – not much!" was the reply. "Doesn't pay, in hot weather."

This was not encouraging, but Hildegarde was fairly roused by this time, and had no idea of being beaten. "What do you do?" she said.

Mr. Ferrers was silent, as if considering.

"Oh – I don't know!" he said finally. "Nothing much. Poke about!" Then, after a pause, he added in explanation, "I don't live here. I only came a few days ago. I am to spend the summer with my uncle." Apparently this effort was too much for him, for he relapsed into silence, and Hildegarde could get nothing more save "Yes!" and "No!" out of him. But now Colonel Ferrers came to the rescue.

"By the way, Mrs. Grahame," he said, "I think this boy must be a relation of yours, a Scotch cousin at least. His mother was a Grahame, daughter of Robert Grahame of Baltimore. His own name is John Grahame Ferrers."

"Is it possible?" cried Mrs. Grahame, greatly surprised. "If that is the case, he is much more than a Scotch cousin. Why, Robert Grahame was my dear husband's first cousin. Their fathers were brothers. Hugh often spoke of his cousin Robert, and regretted that they never met, as they were great friends in their boyhood. And this is his son! is it possible? My dear boy, I must shake hands with you again. You are a boy, aren't you, though you are so big?"

"To be sure he is a boy!" said Colonel Ferrers, who was highly delighted with his discovery of a relationship. "Just eighteen – a mere snip of a boy! Going to college in the autumn."

"Hildegarde," continued Mrs. Grahame, "shake hands with your cousin John, and tell him how glad you are to find him."

Hildegarde held out her hand, and John Ferrers tried to find it, but found a hanging-basket instead, and knocked it over, sending a shower of damp earth over the other members of the party.

"I must take him home," exclaimed Colonel Ferrers, in mock despair, "or he will destroy the whole house. Miss Hildegarde," he added, in a very kind voice, "you probably thought me an ogre this morning. I am generally regarded as such. Fact is, you frightened me more than I frightened you. We are not used to seeing young ladies here who know how to climb trees. Harry Monmouth! Wish I could climb 'em myself as I used. Best fun in the world! Come, Jack, I must get you home before you do any more mischief. Good-night, Mrs. Grahame! I trust we shall meet often!"

"I trust so, indeed!" said Mrs. Grahame heartily. "We shall count upon your being neighbourly, in the good old country sense; and as for John, he must do a cousin's duty by us, and shall in return receive the freedom of the house."

"Hum mum mum!" said John; at least, that is what it sounded like; on which his uncle seized him by the arm impatiently, and walked him off.

"Well, Mammina!" said Hildegarde, when the visitors were well out of hearing.

"Well, dear!" replied her mother placidly. "What a pleasant visit! The poor lad is very shy, isn't he? Could you make anything out of him?"

"Why, Mammina, he is a perfect goose!" exclaimed Hildegarde, warmly. "I don't think it was a pleasant visit at all. As to making anything out of that – "

"Fair and softly!" said Mrs. Grahame quietly. "In the first place, we will not criticise the guests who have just left us, because that is not pretty-behaved, as auntie would say. And in the second place – your dear father was just eighteen when I first met him, Hildegarde; and he put his foot through the flounce of my gown, upset strawberries and cream into my lap, and sat down on my new ivory fan, all at one tea-party."

"Good-night, dear mamma!" said Hildegarde meekly.

"Good-night, my darling! and don't forget that barn-door rent in your corduroy skirt, when you get up in the morning."

CHAPTER V

UNCLE AND NEPHEW

Colonel Ferrers and his nephew walked away together, the former with a quick, military stride, the latter shambling, as lads do whose legs have outgrown their understanding of them.

"Don't hunch, sir!" exclaimed the Colonel, throwing his broad shoulders back and his chin to the position of "eyes front." "Put your chin in and your chest out, and don't hunch! You have about as much carriage, my nephew Jack, as a rheumatic camel. Well!" (as poor Jack straightened his awkward length and tried to govern his prancing legs). "So Mrs. Grahame is a connection, after all; and a very charming woman, too. And how did you find the young lady, sir? Did she give you any points on tree-climbing? Ho! ho! I was wrong, though, about her being a tomboy. She hasn't the voice of one. Did you notice her voice, nephew? it is very sweet and melodious. It reminded me of – of a voice I remember."

"I like her voice!" replied Jack Ferrers. By the way, his own voice was a very pleasant one, a well-bred and good-tempered voice. "I couldn't see her face very well. I can't talk to girls!" he added. "I don't know what to say to them. Why did you tell them about mother, Uncle Tom? There was no need of their knowing."

"Why did I tell them?" exclaimed Colonel Ferrers. "Harry Monmouth! I told them, you young noodle, because I chose to tell them, and because it was the truth, and a mighty lucky thing for you, too. What with your poor mother's dying young, and your father's astonishing and supernatural wrong-headedness, you have had no bringing up whatever, my poor fellow! Talk of your going to college next year! why, you don't know how to make a bow. I present you to two charming women, and you double yourself up as if you had been run through the body, and then stumble over your own legs and tumble over everything else. Shade of Chesterfield! How am I to take you about, if this is the way you behave?"

"It was dark," said poor Jack. "And – and I don't want to be taken about, uncle, thank you. Can't I just keep quiet while I am here, and not see people? I don't know how to talk, really I don't."

"Pooh! pooh! sir," roared the Colonel, smiting the earth with his stick. "Have the goodness to hold your tongue! You know how to talk nonsense, and I request you'll not do it to me. You are my brother's son, sir, and I shall make it my business to teach you to walk, and to talk, and to behave like a rational Christian, while you are under my roof. If your father had the smallest atom of common sense in his composition – "

"Please don't say anything against father, Uncle Tom," cried the lad. "I can't stand that!" and one felt in the dark the fiery flush that made his cheeks tingle.

"Upon my soul!" cried Colonel Ferrers (who did not seem in the least angry), "you are the most astounding young rascal it has ever been my good fortune to meet. Are you aware, sir, that your father is my brother? that I first made the acquaintance of Raymond Ferrers when he was one hour old, a squeaking little scarlet wretch in a flannel blanket? Are you aware of this, pray?"

"I suppose I am," answered the lad. "But that doesn't make any difference. Nobody body must say anything against him, even if it is his own brother."

"Who is saying anything against him?" demanded Colonel Ferrers, fiercely. "He is an angel, sir; every idiot knows that. A combination of angel and infant, Raymond Ferrers is, and always has been. But the combination does not qualify him for bringing up children. Probatum est! Here we are! Now let me see if you can open the gate without fumbling, sir. If there is one thing I cannot endure, it is fumbling."

Thus adjured, Jack Ferrers opened the heavy wooden gate, and the two passed through a garden which seemed, from the fragrance, to be full of roses. The old house frowned dark and gloomy, with only one light twinkling feebly in a lower window. When they had entered, and were standing in the pleasant library, book-lined from floor to ceiling, Colonel Ferrers turned suddenly to his nephew, who was in a brown study, and dealt him a blow on the shoulder which sent him staggering half-way across the room, unexpected as it was.