Magnum Bonum

CHAPTER XXV. THE LAND OF AFTERNOON.

And all at once they sang, "Our island home Is far beyond the wave, we will no longer roam." Tennyson.

We must pass over three more years and a half, and take up the scene in the cloistered court of a Moorish house in Algeria, adapted to European habits. The slender columns supporting the horse-shoe arches were trained with crimson passion-flower and bougainvillia, while orange and gardenia blossom scented the air, and in the midst of a pavement of mosaic marbles was a fountain, tinkling coolness to the air which was already heated enough to make it impossible to cross the court without protection from the sunshine even at nine o'clock in the morning.

Mrs. Brownlow had a black lace veil thrown over her head; and both she and the clergyman with her, in muslin-veiled hat, had large white sunshades.

"Little did we think where we should meet again, and why, Mr. Ogilvie. Do you feel as if you had got into 'Tales of the Alhambra,' or into the 'Tempest'?"

"I hope not to continue in the 'Tempest,' at any rate, after this Algier wedding."

"Though no doubt you feel, as I do, that the world goes very like a game at consequences. Who would ever have put together The Vicar of Benneton and Mary Ogilvie in the amphitheatre at Constantina, eating lion-steaks. Consequence was, an engaged ring. What the world said, 'Who would have thought it?'"

"The world in my person should say you have been Mary's kindest friend, Mrs. Brownlow. Little did I think, when I persuaded Charles Morgan to give himself six months' rest from his parish by reading with Armine, that this was to be the end of it, though I am sure there is not a man in the world to whom I am so glad to give my sister."

"And is it not delightful to see dear old Mary? She looks younger now than ever she did in her whole life, and has broken out of all her primmy governessy crust. Oh! it has been such fun to watch it, so entirely unconscious as both of them were. Mrs. Evelyn and I gloated over it together, all the more that the children had not a suspicion. I don't think Babie and Sydney realise any one being in love nearer our own times than 'Waverley' at the very latest. They received the intelligence quite as a shock. Allen said, as if they had heard that the Greek lexicon was engaged to the French grammar! It will be their first bridesmaid experience."

"Did they miss the wedding at Kenminster?"

"Yes; Jessie's old General chose to marry her in the depth of winter, when we could not think of going home. You know I have not been at Belforest for four years."

"Four years! I suppose I knew, but I did not realise it."

"Yes. You know there was the first summer, when, just as we got back to London after our Italian winter, poor Armie had such a dreadful attack on the lungs, that Dr. Medlicott said he was in more danger than when he was at Schwarenbach; and, as soon as he could move, we had to take him to Bournemouth, to get strength for going to the Riviera. I can say now that I never did expect to bring him back again! But I am thankful to say he has been getting stronger ever since, and has scarcely had a real drawback."

"Yes, I was astonished to see him looking so well. He would scarcely give a stranger the impression of being delicate."

"They told me last summer in London that the damage to the lungs had been quite outgrown, and that he would only need moderate care for the future. Indeed, we should have stayed at home this year, but last summer twelvemonth there was a fever, and that set on foot a perquisition into our drains at Belforest, and it was satisfactorily proved that we ought by good rights to have been all dead of typhoid long ago. So we turned the workmen in, and they could not of course be got out again. And then Allen fell in love with parquet and tiles, and I was weak enough to think it a good opportunity when all the floors were up. But when a man of taste takes to originality, there's no end of it. Everything has had to be made on purpose, and certain little tiles five times over; for when they did come out the right shape, they were of a colour that Allen pronounced utter demoralisation. However, we are quite determined to get home this summer, and you and Mary must meet there, and show old Kenminster to Mr. Morgan. Ah! here she comes, and I shall leave you to enjoy this lucid interval of her while Mr. Morgan is doing his last lessons with the children."

"How exactly like herself!" exclaimed Mr. Ogilvie, as Mrs. Brownlow vanished under one of the arches.

"Like! yes; but much more, much better," said Mary, eagerly.

"Ah, do you remember when you told me coming to her was an experiment, and you thought it might be better for the old friendship if you did not accept the situation?"

"You triumph at last, David; but I can confess now that for the first four years I held to that opinion, and felt that my poor Carey and I could have loved each other better if our relative situations had been different, and we had not seen so much of one another. My life used to seem to me half-unspoken remonstrance, half-truckling compliance, and nothing but our mutual loyalty to old times, and dear little Babie's affection, could have borne us through."

"And her extraordinary sweetness and humility, Mary."

"Yes, I allow that. Very few employers would have treated me as she did, knowing how I regretted much that went on in her household. However, when I met her at Pontresina, after the boys' terrible adventure in Switzerland, there was an indefinable change. I cannot tell whether it is owing to the constant being with such a boy as Armine, while he was for more than a year between life and death, or whether it was from the influence of living with Mrs. Evelyn; but she has certainly ever since had the one thing that was wanting to all her sweetness and charm."

"I never thought so!"

"No; but you were never a fair judge. I think she has owed unspeakably much to Mrs. Evelyn, who, so far as I can see, is the first person who, at any rate since the break-up of the original home, made conscientiousness, or indeed religion, appear winning to her, neither stiff, nor censorious, nor goody."

"Is not this close combination of the two families rather odd?"

"I don't think it is. Poor Lord Fordham is very fond of Armine, and he hates the being driven abroad every winter so much, that the meeting Armine is the only pleasant ingredient. And it has been convenient for Sydney to join our school-room party. I was very glad also, that these last two summers, there have been visits at Fordham. Staying there has given Mrs. Brownlow and the younger ones some insight into what the life at Belforest might be, but never has been; and they will not be kept out of it any longer."

"Then they are going home!"

"After the London season."

"Why, little Barbara is surely not coming out yet?"

"No; but Elvira is."

"Ah! by the bye, was I not told that I was to have two weddings?"

"Allen wished it, but the Elf won't hear of it. She says she had no notion of turning into a stupid old married woman before she has had any fun."

"Does she care for him?"

"I don't think she is capable of caring for any one much. I don't know whether she may ever soften with age; but-"

"Say it, Mary-out with it."

"I never saw such a heartless little butterfly! She did not care a rush when her good old grandfather died, and I don't believe she has one fraction more love for Mrs. Brownlow, or Allen, or anybody else. The best thing I can see is that she is too young to perceive the prudence of securing Allen; but perhaps that is only frivolity, and he, poor fellow, is so devoted to her, that it is quite provoking to see how she trifles with and torments him."

"Isn't it rather good for the great Mr. Brownlow? Not much besides has contradicted him, I should imagine."

"His mother thinks that it is the perpetual restlessness in which Elvira keeps him that renders him so unsettled, and that if they were once married he would have some peace of mind, and be able to begin life in earnest. But to hurry on the marriage is such a fearful risk, with such a creature as that sprite, that she has persuaded him to wait, and let the child be satisfied by this season in London, that she may not think they are cheating her of her young lady life."

"It is on the cards, I suppose, that she might see some one whom she preferred to him?"

"Which might, in some aspects of the matter, be the best thing possible; but Mrs. Brownlow would have many conscientious scruples about the property, and Allen would be in utter despair."

"Though, of course, all this would be far better than exposing that tropical-natured Spanish butterfly to meeting the subject of a grand passion too late," said Mr. Ogilvie.

"Yes; of course that must be in his mother's mind, though I don't suppose she expresses it even to herself. Miss Evelyn is coming out too, and is to be presented, which reconciles the younger ones to putting off all their schemes for working at Belforest, after the true Fordham and story-book fashion. Besides, Mrs. Brownlow always feels that she has a duty towards Elvira, even apart from Allen."

"And what do you think of Allen? He seems very pleasant and gentlemanly."

"That's just what he is! He has always been as agreeable and nice as possible all these eight years that I have been with them, and has treated me entirely as his mother's old friend. I can't help liking Allen very much, and wondering what he would have been if-if he had had to work for his living-or if Elvira had not been such a little tormenting goose-or if, all manner of ifs-indeed; but they all resolve themselves into one question if there be much stuff in him!"

"If not, he is the only one of the family without, except, perhaps, Jock."

"Oh! if you saw Jock now, you would not doubt that there's plenty of substance in him! He has been a very different person ever since his illness in Switzerland, as full of life and fun as ever, but thoroughly in earnest about doing right. He had an immense number of marks for the army examination, and seems by all accounts to be keeping up to regular work, now that it is more voluntary."

"Is he not rather wasted on the Guards!"

"Well, that was Sir James Evelyn's doing. They are glad enough to have him there to look after his friend, Mr. Evelyn, and it was one of the cases where the decision for life has to be made before the youth is old enough to understand his full capabilities. I expect Lucas, to give him his right name, will do something distinguished yet, perhaps be a great General; and I hope Sir James has interest enough to get him employment before he has eaten his heart out on drill and parade. Now that Armine's health is coming round, I do leave Caroline very happy about the younger half of her family."

"And the elder half?"

"Well! I sometimes think that there must have been something defective in the management of that excellent doctor and his mother, as if they had never taught the children proper loyal respect for her! The three younger ones have it all right, and the two elder sons are as fond of her as possible; but she never had any authority over those three from the first. Only Allen is too gentle and has too much good taste to show it; while as to the other two, Bobus's contempt is of a kindly, filial, petting description; Janet's, a nasty, defiant, overt disregard."

"Impossible! They could not dare to despise her."

"They do, for the very things that are best in her; and so far I think the Evelyn intercourse has been unlucky, since they ascribe her greater religiousness to what it suits their democratic notions to scorn. Not that there is much to complain of in Bobus's manner when we do see him. He only uses little stings of satire, chiefly about Lord Fordham. I don't think he would knowingly pain his mother if he could help it; and for that reason there is a reserve between them."

"He is eating his terms in the Temple, is he not? And Janet? Is she studying medicine still? Does she mean to practise?"

"I can't make out. She has only been with us twice in these four years, once at Sorrento and once in London; but she has a very active dislike to Mrs. Evelyn, and vexes her mother by making no secret of it. I believe she is to take her degree at Zurich this spring, but I don't think she means to practise. She is too well off for the drudgery, but she is bent on making researches of some kind, and I think I heard of some plan of her going to attend lectures, to which her degree may admit her, but I am not sure where. The two Miss Rays seem to be happy to escort her anywhere, and that is a sort of comfort to Mrs. Brownlow. Miss Ray keeps us informed of their comings and goings, for Janet seldom deigns to write."

"It is very strange that there should be such alienation, and from such a mother."

"The two characters are as unlike as can be, but I have always thought there must be some cause that no one but Janet herself could perhaps explain. I cannot help thinking that she has some definite purpose in this study of medicine; for I do not think it is for the sake either of the emancipation of women or of general philanthropy. They must be an odd party. Miss Ray attends to the household matters, mends the clothes, and pays the bills. Nita sketches, reads at the libraries, and talks at the table d'hote, like a strong-minded woman, as she is; and Janet goes her own way. Bobus looked in on them once and described them to us with great gusto."

There Mary's face became illuminated as a step approached, and a gentleman with grizzled hair, and a thoughtful, gentle face came out, and sat down on her other side.

He had been college tutor to her brother, though not much older, and had stayed on at Oxford, till two years back he had taken a much neglected living. His health had broken down under the severe work of organising, and he had accepted the easy task of reading with Armine Brownlow for the winter in a perfect climate, as a welcome mode of recruiting his strength. He had truly recruited it in an unexpected manner, and was about to take home with him one who would prove such a helpmeet as would lighten all the troubles and difficulties that had weighed so heavily on him, and remove some of them entirely.

So he came out and testified to the remarkable ability and zeal he had found in his pupil, and likewise to the spirit of industry which had prevented the desultory life of travelling and ill-health from having made him nearly so much behindhand as might have been expected. If he only had health to work steadily for the next two years, he would be quite as well prepared to matriculate at the university as all but the very foremost scholars from the public schools. Mr. Morgan thought his intellect equal to that of his brother Robert, who had taken a double first-class, but of a finer order, being open to those poetical instincts which went for nothing with the materialistic Bobus.

Wherewith the friends fell into conversation more immediately interesting to themselves, while at the other end of the court, sheltered by a great orange-tree, a committee of the "Traveller's Joy" was held.

For that serial still survived, though it could never be called a periodical, since it was an intermittent, and sometimes came out very rapidly, sometimes with intervals of many months; but it was always sent to, and greatly relished by, the absent members of the original party, at first at Eton, and later, two in their barracks, and one at his college at Oxford, whither, to his great satisfaction, he had gone by means of a well-won scholarship, not at his aunt's expense.

Jotapata's lengthy romance had died a natural death in the winter that had been spent between Egypt and Palestine. So far from picking up ideas from it there, Babie, in the actual sight of Mount Hermon's white crown, had begged not to be put in mind of such nonsense, and had never recurred to it; but the wells of fancy had never been dried, and the young people were happily putting together their bits of journal, their bits of history, the description of the great amphitheatre, a poem of Babie's on St. Louis's death, a spirited translation in Scott-like metre of Armine's of the opening of the AEneid, also one from the French, by Sydney, on Arab customs, and all Lord Fordham had been able to collect about Hippo, also "The Single Eye," by Allen, and "Marco's Felucca," by Armine and Babie in partnership, and a fair proportion of drollery.

"There was a space left for the wedding, the greatest event the 'Traveller's Joy' had ever had on record," said Sydney, as she touched up the etching at the top of her paper, sitting on a low stool by a low mother-of-pearl inlaid Eastern table.

"The greatest and the last," chimed in Babie, as she worked away at the lace she was finishing for the bride.

"I don't see why it should be the last of the poor old 'Joy,'" said Lord Fordham, sorting the MSS. which were scattered round him on the ground.

"Well, somehow I feel as if we had come to the end of a division of our lives," returned Babie.

"Having done with swaddling bands, eh, Infanta?" said Lord Fordham, while Armine hastily sketched in pen and ink, Babie, with her hair flying and swaddling bands off, executing a war-dance. She did not like it.

"For shame, Armine! Don't you know how dreadful it is to lose dear Miss Ogilvie?"

"Of course, Babie," said her brother, "I didn't think you were such a Babie as not to know that things go by contraries."

"It is too tender a spot for irony, Armie," said Lord Fordham.

"Well," said Armine, "I shall be obliged to do something outrageous presently, so look out!"

"Not really!" said Sydney.

"Yes, really," said Babie, recovering; "I see what he means. He would like to do anything rather than sit and think that this is the last time we shall all be together again in this way."

"I'm sure I don't see why we should not," said Sydney. "To say nothing of meetings in England; Duke and Armine have only to cough three times in October, and we should all go off together again, and be as jolly as ever."

"I don't mean to cough," said Armine, gravely, "I've wasted enough of my life already."

"In our company, eh?" said Sydney, "or are you to be taken by contraries?"

"No," said Armine. "One has duties, and lotus-eating is uncommonly nice, but it won't do to go on for ever. I wouldn't have given in to it this winter if Allen hadn't _floored_ us."

"And then when you thought I had got a tutor, and should do some good with him," chimed in Babie, he must needs go and fall in love and spoil our Miss Ogilvie."

The disgust with which she uttered the words was so comic, that all the others burst out laughing.

And Fordham said--

"The Land of Afternoon was too strong for him. Shall you really pine much for Miss Ogilvie, Infanta?"

"I shall miss her dreadfully," said Babie," and I think it is very stupid of her to leave mother, whom she has known all her life, and all of us, for a strange man she never saw till four months ago."

"Oh, Babie, you to be the author of a chivalrous romance!" said Fordham.

"I was young and silly then," said the young lady, who was within a month of sixteen.

"And all your romances are to be henceforth without love," said Armine.

"I think they would be much more sensible," said Babie. "Why do you all laugh so? Don't you see how stupid poor Allen always is? And it can even spoil Miss Ogilvie, and make her inattentive."

"Poor Allen," echoed one or two voices, in the same low tone, for as they peeped out beyond the orange-tree, Allen might be seen, extended on a many-coloured rug, in an exceedingly deplorable attitude.

"O yes," said Sydney; "but if one has such a-such a-such an object as that, one must expect to be stupid and miserable sometimes!"

"She must have been worrying him again," said Babie.

"O yes, didn't you see?" said Armine. "No, I remember you didn't go out riding early to-day."

"No, I was finishing Miss Ogilvie's wedding lace."

"Well, that French captain, that Elfie went on with at the commandant's ball, came riding up in full splendour, and trotted alongside of her, chattering away, she bowing and smiling, and playing off all her airs, and at last letting him give her a great white flower. Didn't you see it in her breast at breakfast? Poor Allen was looking as if he had eaten wormwood all the time when he was forced to fall back upon me, and I suppose he has been having it out with her and has got the worst of it."

"O, it is that, is it?" said Lord Fordham; "I thought she wanted to pique Allen, she was so empressee with me."

"If people will be so foolish as to care for a pretty face," sagely said Sydney.

"You know it is not only that," said Babie; "Allen is bound in honour to marry Elvira, to repair the great injustice. It is a great pity she will not marry him now at once, but I think she is afraid, because then, you know, she would get to have a soul, like Undine, and she doesn't want one yet."

"That's a new view of the case," said Lord Fordham in his peculiar lazy manner, "and taken allegorically it may be the true one."

"But one would like to have a soul," said Sydney.

"I'm not sure," said Babie, with a great look of awe. "One would know it was best, but it would be very tremendous to feel all sorts of thoughts and perceptions swelling up in one."

"If that is the soul," said Armine.

"Which is the soul?" said Babie, "our understanding, or our feelings, or both?"

"Both," said Sydney, undoubtingly.

"I don't know," said Babie. "Poor little Chico has double the heart of his mistress."

"It is quite true," said Fordham. "We may share intellect with demons, but we do share what is called heart with animals."

"I think good animals have a sort of soul," observed Armine.

"And of course, Elvira has a soul," said Sydney, who was getting bewildered.

"Theologically speaking-yes," said Armine, making them all laugh, "and I suppose Undine hadn't. But it was sense and heart that was wanting."

"The heart would bring the sense," said Lord Fordham, "and so we have come round to the Infanta's first assertion that the young lady shrinks from the awakening."

"I'll tell you what she really does care for," said Babie, "and what I believe would waken up her soul much better than marrying poor Allen,"

The announcement was so extraordinary that they all turned their heads to listen.

"Her old black nurse at San Ildefonso," said Babie. "I believe going back there would do her all the good in the world."

"There's something in that notion," said Armine. "She is always better-tempered in a hot country."

"Yes," added Babie, "and you didn't see her when somebody advised our trying the West Indies for the winter. Her eyes gleamed, and she panted, and I didn't know what she was going to do. I told mother at night, but she said she was afraid of going there, because of the yellow fever, and that San Ildefonso had been made a coaling-station by the Americans, so it would only disappoint her. But Elfie looked-- -I never saw any one look as she did-fit to kill some one when she found it was given up, and she did not get over it for ever so long."

"Take care; here's an apparition," said Armine, as a brilliant figure darted out in a Moorish dress, rich jacket, short full white tunic, full trousers tied at the ankles, coins pendulous on the brow, bracelets, anklets, and rows of pearls. It was a dress on which Elvira had set her heart in readiness for fancy balls; it had been procured with great difficulty and expense, and had just come home from the French modiste who had adapted it to European wear.

Allen started up in admiration and delight. Even Mr. Morgan was roused to make an admiring inspection of the curious ornaments and devices; and Elvira, with her perfect features, rich complexion, dark blue eyes, Titian coloured hair, fine figure, and Oriental air, formed a splendid study.

Lord Fordham begged her to stand while he sketched her; and Babie, with Sydney, was summoned to try on the bridesmaids' apparel.

The three girls, Elvira, Sydney, and Barbara acted as bridesmaids the next day, when, in the English chapel, Mr. Ogilvie gave his sister to his old friend, to begin her new life as a clergyman's wife.

What could be called Elvira de Menella's character? Those who knew her best, such as Barbara Brownlow, would almost have soon have thought of ascribing a personal character to a cloud as to her. She smiled into glorious loveliness when the sun shone; she was gloomy and thunderous when displeased, and though she had a passionate temper, and could be violent, she had no fixed purpose, but drifted with the external impulse of the moment. She had not much mind or power of learning, and was entirely inattentive to anything intellectual, so that education had not been able at the utmost to do more than fit her to pass in the crowd, and could get no deeper; and what principles she had it was not easy to tell. Not that she did or said objectionable things, since she had outgrown her childish outbreaks; but she seemed to have no substance, and to be kept right by force of circumstances. She had the selfishness of any little child, and though she had never been known to be untruthful, this might be because there was not the slightest temptation to deceive. She was just as much the spoilt child, to all intents and purposes, as if she had been the heiress; perhaps more so, for Mrs. Brownlow had always been so remorseful for the usurpation as to be extra indulgent-lenient to her foibles, and lavish in gifts and pleasures, even inconveniencing herself for her fancies; whilst Allen had, from the first, treated her with the devotion of a lover. No stranger had ever supposed that she was not the equal in all respects of the rest of the family, nor had she realised it herself.