Mrs. Harewood explained that the year that the barristers-choristers she meant-were sixteen, when their voices were usually unserviceable, they, together with those of like age in the school, were subjected to an examination, and the foremost scholar obtained an exhibition, in virtue of which he could remain free of expense for another two years, and then could try for one of the Minsterham scholarships at one of the colleges at Cambridge. Those who failed, either had to pay like the ordinary schoolboys, or left the school.
Dear Mrs. Harewood was a perfect Malaprop, and puzzled Geraldine by continually calling the present occasion the rural meeting, and other like slips, uncommonly comical in a well-educated woman with the words she knew best.
All this, and a great deal more-about the shy woman-hating organist, and the unluckiness of the dissenter-no, precentor-having a sick wife, and the legal difficulties that prevented building a better house for the boarders than the queer long room where they lodged, between the cloister and the Bailey-the proper name of the little court by which Geraldine had come-was poured out; and kind as it was, there was a certain sense of having been talked to death.
A whole flood of Harewoods, Underwoods, and untold numbers besides, swept into the room as the bell began to ring for Evensong. Most sincere were Cherry's entreaties that she might be left alone. She could not go back to her coign of vantage, 'it had been too beautiful for her to bear more,' she said; and she severally declined offers of companionship from three female Harewoods and two sisters, telling Wilmet at last that all she wanted was to be still and alone.
Alone she was, but not still, for there was nothing to hinder the magnificent volume of sound that surged around the Cathedral from coming to her; and she could trace the service all along-in chant, pealing mighty Amens, with the hush between, in anthem, and in jubilant hymn. She was more calmly happy than in the oppressive grandeur of the morning, as she lay there, in the cool drawing-room, with the open window veiled by loose sprays of untrimmed roses, and sacred prints looking down from the walls.
The solitude lasted rather too long, when she had heard the hum and buzz of the host pouring out of the Cathedral, and still no one came. They were to go home by the 5.10 train, and every time she counted the chimes she became more alarmed lest they should be too late. Minutes dragged on. Five! It was five! Was she forgotten? Should she be only missed and remembered at the station, too late? Tired, nervous, unused to oblivion, she found tears in her eyes, and was too sorrowful and angry with her own impatience even to think of the old woman of Servia. Hark! a trampling? Had they remembered her? But oh, it would be late for the train!
In burst Lance, in his cap and little short quaint black gown.
'O Lance, I shall be too late!'
'You don't go by this train.'
'Oh dear! oh dear! Mr. Froggatt was to meet me;' and the tears started from her eyes. 'How could Felix forget?'
'Never mind, there's sure to be a fly or something.'
'Yes, but Mr. Froggatt waiting!'
'Never mind,' repeated Lance, ''tis a fine evening to air the old boss.'
'Don't, Lance; you none of you have any proper regard for Mr. Froggatt;' which, as far as Lance was concerned, was unjust, and it was well for Cherry that it was not addressed to either of the brothers who better deserved it.
What Lance did was to execute one of his peculiar summersaults, and then, making up a dismal face, to say, 'Alas! I commiserate the venerable citizen disappointed of the pleasure of driving my Lady Geraldine home from the wash as well as hisself.'
She was past even appreciating the bathos. 'It is no laughing matter, she said; 'it is so uncivil, when he is so kind. I can't imagine what Felix is thinking of?'
'Croquet,' said Lance briefly, then seeing the flushed, quivering, mortified face, he added, 'Wilmet has not forgotten you one bit, Cherry; but Alice Knevett and Robin did so want to see the fun in the mead-there's running in sacks, and all sorts of games-that there's no getting any one away; and the W's are in charge, and can't leave them to their own devices, so she said perhaps you would be more rested by lying still than rattling home.
'Oh, I dare say Wilmet is as sorry as anybody,' said Cherry rather querulously, for the needle point was pricking her again.
'And as to your dear old Froggy,' continued Lance, 'she says he told her he did not in the least expect you back by this train, and if you did not come by it, he'll stay in town for the 8.50.'
'How very good of him!' said Cherry, beginning to be consoled. 'And Felix at croquet!'
'Alice is teaching him. You never did see such a joke as old Blunderbore screwing up his eyes at the balls, and making at them with his mallet like a sledge-hammer. He and Alice and Robin and that Bisset curate are playing against Bill, two of the girls, and Shapcote-Bexley against Minsterham, and little Bobbie's a real out- and-outer. She'll make her side win by sheer cool generalship.'
'And poor little Angel?' The needle point was a pang now.
'Oh, Angel is happier than ever she was in her life. The Bishop's daughter has a turn for little kids, and has got all the small ones together in the pleached alley, playing at all manner of things.'
'Run back, Lance, to the fun. I shall do very well,' said poor Geraldine.
'I should think so, when I get you so often!' scornfully ejaculated Lancelot, drawing a dilapidated brioche from under the sofa, and squatting on it, with his dancing eyes close to her sad ones.
An effusion of spirits prompted her to lay her hands on his shoulders, kiss him on each cheek, and cry, 'O Lance, you are the very sweetest boy!'
'Sweetest treble, you mean,' said Lance quaintly; 'if you had only heard me! You should see how the old ladies in the stalls peep and whisper, and how Bill Harewood opens his mouth rather wider than it will go, and they think it is he.'
'Not for fun, Lance?'
'Well, I believe all their jaws are hung on looser than other people's. But I say, ain't you dying of thirst?'
'Perhaps Mrs. Harewood will give us some tea when she comes in.'
'If you trust to that-'
'O Lance!' she cried, alarmed at seeing him coolly ring the bell.
'Bless you, she's forgotten all about you and tea and everything! They are drinking it by the gallon in the tents; and by and by she'll roll in, ready to cry that you've had none, and mad with herself and me for giving you none; and the fire will be out, and the kettle will boil about ten minutes after you are off by the train. We'll have some this minute.'
'But, Lance-'
'But, Cherry, ain't I a walking Sahara with roaring at the tiptop of my voice to lead the clod-hoppers? How they did bellow! I owe it as a duty to the Chapter to wet my whistle.'
'One comfort is, nobody knows your coolness. Nobody comes for all your ringing.'
'Reason good! Every living soul in the house is in the Bishop's meadow, barring the old cat; I seen 'em with their cap-strings flying. But that's nothing. I know where Mother Harewood keeps her tea and sugar;' and he pounced on a tea-caddy of Indian aspect.
'Lance, if you did that to Mettie-'
'Exactly so. I don't;' and he ran out of the room, while Cherry sat up on her sofa, her petulance quite banished between amusement and desperation at such proceedings in a strange house. He came back presently with two cups, saucers, and plates, apparently picked up at hap-hazard, as no two were alike. 'My dear Lance, where have you been?'
'In the kitchen. Such a jolly arched old hole. Bill and I have done no end of Welsh rabbits there. Once when we were melting some lead, Bill let it drop into the pudding, and the Pater got it at dinner, and said it was the heaviest morsel he ever had to digest.'
'But wasn't it poison?'
'I suppose not, for you see he isn't dead. Another time, when we were melting glue, we upset a whole lot of fat, and the chimney caught fire; and wasn't that a go? Bill got a pistol out of Jack's room, and fired it up the chimney to bring the soot down; and down it came with a vengeance! He was regularly singed, and I do think the place would have been burned if it had not been too old! All the Shapcotes ran out into the court, hallooing Fire! and the engine came, but there was nothing for it to do. Oh, the face Wilmet would make to see that kitchen. Kettle's
