In Silk Attire: A Novel

"Mr. Oldham came over next day to call upon mamma, and he was talking very seriously to her, and making her very miserable – indeed, she was crying nearly all the time – when papa came into the room."

"Oh – was it by the door that Mr. Oldham left?"

"What do you mean? Papa stood there, with that curious smile he has on his face when he puzzles and perplexes people, you know; and in a few minutes Mr. Oldham was in a terrible rage. I remember distinctly one thing papa said. 'Mr. Oldham,' he said, with a sort of twinkle in his eye, 'I am not surprised that you have the Athanasian creed in your service; for clergymen, like other men, must be allowed the use of bad language occasionally. But you should indulge yourself privately, and not frighten women when they go to pray in your church.'"

"How very wicked of him! But then, Dove, Mr. Oldham belongs to the next parish; and he had no business to go poaching on Mr. Bexley's manor."

"And so very anxious she is about you also, Will. She is sometimes very sad about papa; but she can't help seeing what a good man he is. She says to me that you are young, and that if you grow up to believe what he believes, you may not be quite the same – you know, dear, that is only a feeling she has."

"Who wouldn't be orthodox to please such a mother?" said Will.

"And I, too," said the girl, with a touch of colour in her cheek, and in rather a lower voice, "I should be grieved to think that – that – that you did not care about going to church, and that you did not believe as we do."

"What should have made you think about all these things?" asked Anerley, with some astonishment.

"Well, when you wrote to us from Jassy, saying you were coming home, mamma came to papa and begged him to lock up all those dangerous books he is so fond of. 'My dear,' he said to her, 'Will knows more about such matters than I know; for he has breathed the new atmosphere of these new times, whereas I have nothing to help me but reading.' Is it true, Will?"

"Is what true? I tell you, darling, I will be whatever you wish me to be; so don't distress your mind about it."

It was their arrival at the church-door which stopped this conversation. They entered, and seated themselves in a tall, damp pew, while a small organ was sending its smooth and solemn notes through the hushed little building.

They were not "engaged," these two; but themselves and everybody connected with them looked forward to their marriage as a matter of course. Dove Anerley was the daughter of a distant relative of Mrs. Anerley's, who had gladly escaped from a variety of misfortunes by the easy gateway of death; and Mr. Anerley had adopted the child, brought her up, and grown passionately fond of her. He was a man of very peculiar notions, which had earned for him among the vulgar the charitable title of atheist and materialist; and so this dangerous and wicked person sat down one day before his son, when the young man had come home from college, and said to him:

"Attend to what I am going to say, Will. You have a good prospect before you: you have a sound constitution, a tolerable education, and plenty of natural ability. I am not going to spoil your chances in life by letting you fancy that you will have any money at my death – do you understand? I will start you in any profession you choose; thereafter you must fight your own battle, as befits a man; and whatever I leave will go to your mother and to Dove. If you were a fool, I should make some provision for you; as it is, I won't."

"Why, you don't suppose, father, I would rob either Dove or my mother of anything you could give them?"

That was all that passed between the two men on the subject; and in time it came to be regarded as a matter of course that Dove Anerley was to inherit whatever wealth her foster-father should leave behind him, irrespective of the provision for his widow. Had Will Anerley stayed at home, and been accustomed to regard Dove as his sister, he would never have thought of marrying her. But even in his boyhood he had been of a singularly active and inquiring character; always anxious to study new subjects, new scenes, new faces; never satisfied with any achievement as an ultimate result; and so, his apprenticeship completed, instead of hiring himself out as an assistant to the engineer of some railway or other company, and spending a dull life in a dingy office, he threw himself boldly upon the world, and went up and down, acquiring such knowledge as no man can gain by the study of books. Nor was it only in professional directions that his inquiries extended! He had caught what is called "the spirit" of these times; was full of vague idealisms, particularly of a philanthropic kind; and was moved by a restless desire to trace back to first principles the commonest conditions of modern existence. That is a phase through which most young men who read books pass. Now and again only do we find a man of sufficient strength of character to preserve those gentle tendencies against the rough wear and tear of travel and its consequent experience. Great, therefore, was his delight to have a profession which allowed him to move freely about; and wherever he went the tender remembrance of Dove Anerley went with him.

As for her, she had never taken any pains to conceal from anybody her fondness for him – a fondness which had grown to be a part of her life. He was mixed up in all the finest aspirations, he was the creator of all the noblest idealisms, of her too delicately sensitive organization. In that supreme religious exaltation which is produced by fine music, by earnest prayer, or by a beautiful sunset, his was the human face towards which, unconsciously to herself, she looked for the divine sympathy and compassion which in such moments man begs from the Deity. Even now, as they stood in the old oaken pew, and as she sang sweetly and clearly that tenderest of hymns —

"Abide with me. Fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me!"

– was she guilty of any great crime in involuntarily making him the object of that impassioned cry? Her love was her religion, her religion her love; she knew not how to distinguish between them, and like the old Romans had but one word to describe this holiest feeling of her nature.

"Now, Will," she said, cheerfully, as the people streamed out of the close little building into the sweet-smelling air, "let us have a nice long walk through Woodhill Wood on our way home; it is covered with flowers just now; and then you will tell me why you did not come down last night. Everybody expected you, and dinner was as dull as it could be without you. The Hepburns were over, you know, and Mr. Drysdale, and they came half an hour too soon and sate in the drawing-room, and talked of nothing but the number of breeding partridges, and the condition of the trout, and how they hoped the orchards wouldn't suffer by this early hot weather. Only big John Hepburn – who does nothing in the world but shoot and go to hounds, you know – made papa laugh very much by stretching his long legs, yawning, and saying disconsolately, 'Ah, yes, Mr. Anerley, we're getting into the dreary summer months.' He couldn't understand why papa laughed, and said he had made no joke he was aware of."

By this time they had walked through the tall green grass of the churchyard, had clambered up the hill a bit, and left the warm sunshine for the cool shade of the wood. Only here and there did the sunlight glimmer down through the dense forest of young oak and birch; but there was no need of sunlight to make that tangled carpeting of moss and grass and wild-flowers any the brighter. All around them, and as far as they could see down the glades between the trees, the earth was thick with anemones and great clusters of primroses, here and there a few wild hyacinths among patches of tenderly veined wood-sorrel, and everywhere the blush-coloured cuckoo-flower with its coronet of pale pink buds. Hushed and still the place was, except when a jay went screaming from one tall tree to another, or some cawing rook flew past through the width of fleecy blue and white overhead.

"I stayed in town, then, Dove, to go to a little supper, and there I met Miss Brunel."

"The actress whom everybody is talking about?"

"Yes."

"You met her privately?"

"Yes; why should that astonish you?"

"Do tell me what she is like – what she said to you – did she speak to you?"

"She is a very handsome girl, with splendid hair and eyes, and the most charming manner. What amused me chiefly was the half-maternal way in which she talked to me – who might have been her father, – and the airs of profound experience which she quite unconsciously gave herself. Then all the time she was ready to be amused by the tiniest things; indeed, it was quite a pleasure to sit near her and watch the comfortable, self-satisfied, almost childish way in which she delighted herself with everything."

Will spoke quite warmly; his companion was silent for some time afterwards.

"Why are you so quiet this morning, Dove?" he asked.

"Am I more than usually quiet?" she said.

"Indeed," he continued, without taking further notice of the matter, "I was vexed with myself for not coming down last evening. The fact is, I may not have many Saturday afternoons down at the old place before I leave again. I am thinking of going to Honduras – "

"To Honduras!" she repeated, rather faintly; "why should you go to Honduras?"

"They want to sink some Artesian wells about – "

"Is there no one in Honduras can sink Artesian wells?" she asked, with a scarcely-concealed pout of vexation. "Your father says you have thrown away plenty of your life in going abroad, and that now you should settle here and get up a good connexion in your own country."

"Although Miss Brunel made me feel old by her efforts to play the mother to me, Dove, I am young enough to feel a touch of wandering blood stir in me yet."

"Send Miss Brunel to make the Artesian wells!" said Dove, with a quick flush on her face, and then she broke out laughing, partly because she was amused at herself, and partly because she was out of humour with him.

Indeed nothing delighted him so much as to see a little harmless break in the even gentleness of the young girl's manner. It was like the rustling of a piece of tissue paper, or the crumpling of a rose-leaf; the little petulances of which she was sometimes guilty were but a source of amusement to both of them.

CHAPTER VI.

CHESNUT BANK

At last they reached the brow of the hill, and beneath them lay St. Mary-Kirby, the sunlight falling lightly on the grey church, the white wooden cottages, the broad green common, and on two tall-necked swans floating on the glasslike mill-head.

Mr. Anerley's house – known in the neighbourhood as Chesnut Bank – was separated from the common by a large circular pond which was fed by a spring, and that again was divided from the house by a tall hedge, a row of short limes with black stems and young green leaves, and a pretty large lawn. Behind the house was a long garden now almost smothered in blossom, and along the carriage-drive stood rows of lilacs and acacias, with here and there an almond-tree, which bore a sprinkling of deep pink flowers. It was an old-fashioned house of red brick, the original builder's intention having clearly been to sacrifice to inside comfort outside appearance. When Mr. Anerley, therefore, had one side of it partly rebuilt, he had no scruple in adorning the drawing-room with French windows, which opened out upon the lawn, while the dining-room at the other side of the building had two large bay windows of the usual height from the ground. The house, nevertheless, was very snug and comfortable; and if you looked across the common and the pond, and saw it nestled among the thick foliage of lime and lilac and birch, you would say it was a very charming little country residence.

When Dove and her companion got down to this sheltered little place, they found it as usual alive with children. The gathering together from all his friends and relations of whatever small boys and girls they could spare, was a hobby of Mr. Anerley's. He liked to keep a perpetual children's party going at Chesnut Bank; and there was not a governess in one of his friends' houses who did not owe to him many a grateful holiday. Then this monstrous ogre of a materialist, who already smelt of brimstone in the nostrils of the people around, was as careful about the proprieties and go-to-bed prayers of the little ones as he was convinced that amusement ought to be their chief education. Indeed he once caught the Buttons of the small establishment amusing himself and a companion by teaching a little boy to repeat some highly improper phrases, and before the youthful joker knew where he was he felt the lithe curl of a horsewhip round his legs – a sensation he remembered for many a day after while gaily polishing his spoons and washing out his decanters.

At this moment a little girl was seated at the piano laboriously playing a hymn-tune possessed of no very recondite chords; while on the lawn in front Mr. Anerley lay at full length, a book between his face and the sunshine. Mrs. Anerley sat on a low chair beside him, also reading, a large deerhound at her feet; while two or three more children were scampering over the lawn, occasionally "coming a cropper" over a croquet-hoop. She was a pretty little woman, with dark brown hair and eyes – nervous, sensitive, and full of the tenderest idealisms – altogether a noble, affectionate, and lovable little woman. Her husband was a rather tall and spare man, with short rough grey hair and whiskers, an aquiline nose, and gentle grey eyes. He was a keen sportsman and a languid student: a man who liked to cover his weaknesses of sentiment with a veil of kindly humour; and seemed to live very easily and comfortably, considering that he was accused of harbouring materialism – that terrible quicklime, which, according to some profound calculators, is about to shrivel up the heavens and the earth, and all the gentle humanities which have been growing up through so many thousand years.

"Hillo, Will," said Mr. Anerley, as the young man approached and kissed his mother, "why didn't you come down last night?"

"Old Hubbard got me to stay in town with him that we might go to a supper."

"He told me he would likely see you; and asked us all to walk over to the Place in the evening. Poor man, he has never been himself since the Lord Chamberlain refused to let him attend a levee as the Count von Schönstein. Will, when anybody offers you 30,000*l.* a year, don't take it."

"I won't, father."

"Hubbard used to be as jolly, happy, and stupid a man as you could wish to meet; and since he got that money left him, he has been the most miserable of mortals. I asked him yesterday why he did not go amongst the city people, become a councillor, or alderman, or mayor, or get a baronetcy by buying a railway, or do something of the kind; and he crushed me with his contemptuous silence. He must have spent a lot of money in buying his countship; and yet he can't get one of the old families to look at him. If some indigent lady does not marry him, or if the Prince of Wales does not pick him up as a butt, he will die of spleen."