The Long Vacation Read online

  My reason haply more To bandy word for word and frown for frown; But now I see our lances are but straws! SHAKESPEARE.

  Lancelot saw his brother's doctors the next morning, and communicatedto his wife the upshot of the interview when they were driving to theirmeeting in Mrs. Grinstead's victoria, each adorned with a big bunch ofprimroses.

  "Two doctors! and not Tom," said Gertrude.

  "Both Brownlows. Tom knows them well, and wrote. One lives at theEast-end, and is sheet anchor to Whittingtonia. He began with Clement,but made the case over to the cousin, the fashionable one, when we madethe great removal."

  "So they consulted?"

  "And fairly see the way out of the wood, though not by any means quit ofit, poor Tina; but there's a great deal to be thankful for," said Lance,with a long breath.

  "Indeed there is!" said the wife, with a squeeze of the hand. "But isthere any more to be feared?"

  "Everything," Lance answered; "heart chiefly, but the lungs are notsafe. He has been whirling his unfortunate machine faster and faster,till no wonder the mainspring has all but broken down. His ideal alwayswas working himself to death, and only Felix could withhold him, sonow he has fairly run himself down. No rest from that tremendous parishwork, with the bothers about curates, school boards and board schools,and the threatened ritual prosecution, which came to nothing, butworried him almost as much as if it had gone on, besides all the troubleabout poor Alda, and the loss of Fulbert took a great deal out of him.When Somers got a living, there was no one to look after him, and henever took warning. So when in that Stinksmeech Mission he breathedpestiferous air and drank pestiferous water, he was finished up. They'vegot typhus down there--a very good thing too," he added vindictively.

  "I put it further back than Mr. Somers' going," said Gertrude. "He neverwas properly looked after since Cherry married. What is he to do now?"

  "Just nothing. If he wishes to live or have a chance of working again,he must go to the seaside and vegetate, attempt nothing for the next sixmonths, nor even think about St. Matthew's for a year, and, as they toldme afterwards, be only able to go on cautiously even then."

  "How did he take it?"

  "He laid his head against Cherry, who was standing by his chair, putan arm round her, and said, 'There!' and she gave him such a smile asI would not have missed seeing on any account. 'Mine now,' she said.'Best!' he said. He is too much tired and worn out to vex himself aboutanything."

  "Where are they to go? Not to Ewmouth, or all the family worries wouldcome upon them. Alda would give him no peace."

  "Certainly not there. Brownlow advises Rockquay. His delicate brother isa curate there, and it agrees with him better than any other place. SoI am to go and see for a house for them. It is the very best thing forCherry."

  "Indeed it is. Was not she like herself last night? Anna says she hasnever brightened up so much before! I do believe that if Clement goes onmending, the dear person will have a good time yet; nay, all the betternow that she is free to be a thorough-going Underwood again."

  "You Underwooder than Underwood!"

  "Exactly! I never did like--Yes, Lance, I am going to have it out. I dothink Clement would have done better to let her alone."

  "He did let her alone. He told me so."

  "Yes, but she let out to me the difference between that time and the oneof the first offer when dear Felix could not keep back his delight atkeeping her; whereas she could not help seeing that she was a burthen onClement's soul, between fear of neglecting her and that whirl of parishwork, and that St. Wulstan's Hall was wanted for the girls' school.Besides, Wilmet persuaded her."

  "She did. But it turned out well. The old man worshipped her, and shewas very fond of him."

  "Oh! very well in a way, but you know better, Lance."

  "Well, perhaps he did not begin young enough. He was a good, religiousman, but Pro Ecclesia Dei had not been his war-cry from his youth, andhe did not understand, and thought it clerical; good, but outside hislife. Still, she was happy."

  "Petting, Society, Art, travels! I had rather have had our two firstyears of tiffs than all that sort of happiness."

  "Tiffs! I thought we might have gone in for the Dunmow flitch."

  "You might! Do you mean that you forget how fractious and nasty andabominable I was, and how many headaches I gave you?"

  "Only what you had to put up with."

  "You don't recollect that first visit of my father's, when I was sofrightfully cross because you said we must ask the Lambs and Bruces todinner? You came down in the morning white as a ghost, an owl in itsblinkers, and though I know you would rather have died than have uttereda word, no sooner were you off than he fell upon me with, 'Mrs. Daisy,I give you to understand that you haven't a husband made of such toughcommodity as you are used to at home, and if you worry him you will haveto rue it.'"

  "What an ass I must have looked! Did I really go playing the martyr?"

  "A very smiling martyr, pretending to be awfully jolly. I believe Irequited papa by being very cross."

  "At his interfering, eh? No wonder."

  "Chiefly to conceal my fright, but I did begin trying not to fly out asI used to do, and I was frightened whenever I did so."

  "Poor Daisy! That is why you always seemed to think every headache yourfault."

  "The final effect--I won't say cure--was from that book on educationwhich said that a child should never know a cross word or look betweenfather and mother. So you really have forgotten how horrid I could be?"

  "Or never felt it! But to return to our muttons. I can't believeotherwise than that Cherry liked her old man, and if their parallellines did not meet, she never found it out."

  "That is true. She liked him and leant on him, and was constantlypleased and amused as well as idolized, but I don't think the deepplaces in her heart were stirred. Then there were constraints. He couldnot stand Angela's freaks. And his politics--"

  "He was not so very much advanced."

  "Enough not to like the 'Pursuivant' to lie about, nor her writing forit, even about art or books; nor did his old bones enjoy the rivers atVale Leston. Now you will see a rebound."

  "Or will she be too tender of him to do what he disliked?"

  "That will be the test. Now she has Clement, I expect an article willcome on the first book they read together."

  Lance laughed, but returned to defend his sister.

  "Indeed she was attached to him. She was altogether drooping and crushedat Vale Leston in the autumn."

  "It was too soon. She was overdone with the multitudes, and in fact itwas more the renewal of the old sorrow than the new one. Anna tells methat when they returned there was the same objectless depression. Shewould not take up her painting again, she said it was of no use, therewas no one to care. I remember her being asked once to do something forthe Kyrle Society, and Mr. Grinstead did not like it, but now Clement'sillness has made a break, and in a new place, with him to occupy herinstead of only that dawdling boy, you will see what you shall see!"

  "Ah! Gerald!" was the answer, in a doubtful, wistful tone, just as theyarrived.

  CHAPTER IV. -- SLUM, SEA, OR SEASON