The blessing of my later years Was with me when a boy.--WORDSWORTH.
When Mrs. Grinstead, on her nephew's arm, came into her drawing-roomafter dinner, she was almost as much dismayed as pleased to find a longblack figure in a capacious arm-chair by the fire.
"You adventurous person," she said, "how came you here?"
"I could not help it, with the prospect of Lancey boy," he said insmiling excuse, holding out a hand in greeting to Gerald, and thankingAnna, who brought a cushion.
"Hark! there he is!" and Gerald and Anna sprang forward, but were onlyin time to open the room door, when there was a double cry of greeting,not only of the slender, bright-eyed, still youthful-looking uncle, butof the pleasant face of his wife. She exclaimed as Lancelot hung overhis brother--
"Indeed, I would not have come but that I thought he was still in hisroom."
"That's a very bad compliment, Gertrude, when I have just made myescape."
"I shall be too much for you," said Gertrude. "Here, children, take meoff somewhere."
"To have some dinner," said Geraldine, her hand on the bell.
"No, no, Marilda feasted me."
"Then don't go," entreated Clement. "It is a treat to look at you twosunny people."
"Let us efface ourselves, and be seen and not heard," returned Gertrude,sitting down between Gerald and Anna on a distant couch, whence shecontemplated the trio--Clement, of course, with the extreme pallor,languor, and emaciation of long illness, with a brow gaining in dignityand expression by the loss of hair, and with a look of weary, placidenjoyment as he listened to the talk of the other two; Lance withbright, sweet animation and cheeriness, still young-looking, thoughhis hair too was scantier and his musical tones subdued; and Geraldine,pensive in eye and lip, but often sparkling up with flashes of herinborn playfulness, and, like Clement, resting in the sunshine diffusedby Lance. This last was the editor and proprietor of the 'Pursuivant',an important local paper, and had come up on journalistic business aswell as for the fete. Gertrude meantime had been choosing carpets andcurtains.
"For," said Lance, with a smack of exultation, "we are actually goingback to our old quarters over the shop."
"Oh!" A responsive sound of satisfaction from Geraldine.
"Nothing amiss?" asked Clement.
"Far from it. We let Marshlands to great advantage, and there are manyreasons for the flitting. I ought to be at head-quarters, and besidesthere are the Sundays. We are too many now for picnicking in theclass-room, or sponging on the rectory."
"And," said Gertrude, "I dare not put his small family in competitionwith his organ."
"Besides," said Lance, "the 'Pursuivant' is more exacting, and theprinting Will Harewood's books has brought in more business--"
"But how about space? We could squeeze, but can you?"
"We have devoured our two next-door neighbours. There's for you! Youknow Pratt the dentist had a swell hall-door and staircase, which weabsorb, so we shall not eat in the back drawing-room, nor come up theflight which used to be so severe on you, Cherry."
"I can only remember the arms that helped me up. I have never left offdreaming of the dear old step springing up the stair after the day'swork, and the whistle to Theodore."
"Ah, those were the jolly old days!" returned Lance, con amore.
"Unbroken," added Clement, in the same tone.
"Better than Vale Leston?" asked Gertrude.
"The five years there were, as Felix called those last hours of delight,halcyon days," said Geraldine; "but the real home was in the rough andthe smooth, the contrivances, the achievements, the exultation at eachstep on the ladder, the flashes of Edgar, the crowded holiday times--allhappier than we knew! I hope your children will care as much."
"Vale Leston is their present paradise," said Gertrude. "You shouldsee Master Felix's face at the least hope of a visit, and even littleFulbert talks about boat and fish."
"What have you done with the Lambs?" demanded Clement.
"They have outgrown the old place in every direction, and have got aspick-and-span chess-board of a villa out on the Minsterham road."
"They have not more children than you have."
"Five Lambkins to our four, besides Gussy and Killy," said Lance;"though A--which is all that appears of the great Achilles' unluckyname--is articled to Shapcote, and as for Gussy, or rather Mr. Tanneguy,he is my right hand."
"We thought him a nice sort of youth when he was improving himself inLondon," said Clement.
"You both were very good to him," said Lance, "and those three yearswere not wasted. He is a far better sub-editor and reporter than I wasat his age, with his French wit and cleverness. The only fault I findwith him is that he longs for plate-glass and flummery instead of oldFroggatt's respectable panes."
"He has become the London assistant, who was our bugbear," saidGeraldine.
"I don't know how we should get on without him since we made 'Pur'daily," said Lance.
"How old ambitions get realized!" said Geraldine.
"Does his mother endure the retail work, or has she not higher views forhim?" asked Clement.
"In fact, ever since the first Lambkin came on the stage any one wouldhave thought those poor boys were her steps, not good old Lamb's;whereas Felix always made a point of noticing them. Gus was nine yearsold that last time he was there, while I was ill, and he left such animpression as to make him the hero model.--Aye, Gus is first-rate."
"I am glad you have not altered the old shop and office."
"Catch me! But we are enlarging the reading-room, and the new pressdemands space. Then there's a dining-room for the young men, and whatdo you think I've got? We (not Froggatt, Underwood, and Lamb, but theChurch Committee) have bought St. Oswald's buildings for a coffee hoteland young men's lodging-house."
"Our own, old house. Oh! is Edgar's Great Achilles there still?"
"I rushed up to see. Alas! the barbarians have papered him out. But whatdo you think I've got? The old cupboard door where all our heights weremarked on our birthdays."
"He set it up in his office," said Gertrude. "I think he danced roundit. I know he brought me and all the children to adore it, and showedus, just like a weather record, where every one shot up after themeasles, and where Clement got above you, Cherry, and Lance remained abonny shrimp."
"A great move, but it sounds comfortable," said Clement.
"Yes; for now Lance will get a proper luncheon, as he never has donesince dear old Mrs. Froggatt died," said Gertrude, "and he is an animalthat needs to be made to eat! Then the children want schooling of thenew-fashioned kinds."
All this had become possible through Fulbert's legacy between hisbrothers and unmarried sister, resulting in about L4000 apiece; besideswhich the firm had gone on prospering. Clement asked what was thepresent circulation of the 'Pursuivant', and as Lance named it,exclaimed--
"What would old Froggatt have said, or even Felix?"
"It is his doing," said Lance, "the lines he traced out."
"My father says it is the writing with a conscience," said Gertrude.
"Yes, with life, faculty, and point, so as to hinder the conscience frombeing a dead weight," added Geraldine.
"No wonder," said Lance, "with such contributors as the Harewoods, andsuch a war-correspondent as Aubrey May."
Just then the door began to open, and a black silk personagedisconsolately exclaimed--
"Master Clement! Master Clem! Wherever is the boy gone, when he ought tobe in his bed?"
"Ha, Sibby!" cried Lance, catching both hands, and kissing the cheery,withered-apple cheeks of the old nurse. "You see your baby has begun torun alone."
"Ah, Master Lance, 'twas your doing. You always was the mischief."
"No indeed, Sibby, the long boy did it all by himself, before ever I wasin the house; but I'll bring him back again."
"May I not stay a little longer, Sibby," said Clement, rather piteously,"to hear Lance sing? I have been looking forward to it all day."
; "If ye'll take yer jelly, sir," said Sibby, "as it's fainting ye'll be,and bringing our hearts into our mouths."
So Sibby administered her jelly, and heard histories of Lance'schildren, then, after exacting a promise that Master Lance should onlysing once, she withdrew, as peremptory and almost as happy as in heronce crowded nursery.
"What shall that once be, Clem?" asked Lance.
"'Lead, kindly Light.'"
"Is it not too much?" he inquired, glancing towards his widowed sister.
"I want it as much as he does," she answered fervently.
At thirty-eight Lance's voice was, if possible, more perfect insweetness, purity, and expression than it had been at twenty, and neverhad the poem, connected with all the crises of their joint lives, comemore home to their hearts, filling them with aspiration as well asmemory.
Then Lance helped his brother up, and was surprised, after thosecheerful tones, to feel the weight so prone and feeble, that Gerald'ssupport on the other side was welcome. Mrs. Grinstead followed to takeGertrude to her room and find her children's photographs.
The two young people began to smile as soon as they were left alone.
"Did you ever see Bexley?" asked Anna.
"Yes--an awful hole," and both indulged in a merry laugh.
"My mother mentions it with pious horror," said Anna.
"Life is much more interesting when it is from hand to mouth," saidGerald, with a yawn. "If I went in for sentiment, which I don't, itwould be for Fiddler's Ranch; though it is now a great city calledViolinia, with everything like everything else everywhere."
"Not Uncle Lance."
"Certainly not. For a man with that splendid talent to bury it behind acounter, mitigated by a common church organ, is as remarkable as absurd;though he seems to thrive on it. It is a treat to see such innocentrapture, all genuine too!"
"You worn-out old man!" laughed Anna. "Aunt Cherry has always said thatself-abnegation is the secret of Uncle Lance's charm."
"All very well in that generation--ces bons jours quand nous etionssi miserables," said Gerald, in his low, maundering voice. "Prosperitymeans the lack of object."
"Does it?"
"In these days when everything is used up."
"Not to those two--"
"Happy folk, never to lose the sense of achievement!"
"Poor old man! You talk as if you were twenty years older than UncleLance."
"I sometimes think I am, and that I left my youth at Fiddler's Ranch."
Wherewith he strolled to the piano, and began to improvise something soyearning and melancholy that Anna was not sorry when her uncle came backand mentioned the tune the old cow died of.
Was Gerald, the orphan of Fiddler's Ranch, to be always the spoilt childof prosperity and the creature of modern life, with more aspirationsthan he saw how to fulfil, hampered as he was by duties, scruples, andaffections?
CHAPTER III. -- DARBY AND JOAN