The banquet and inauguration went off fairly well. There was nothing in it worth recording, except that Rosamond pronounced that Raymond only wanted a particle of Irish fluency to be a perfect speaker; but every one was observing how ill and depressed he looked. Even Cecil began to see it herself, and to ask Lady Tyrrell with some anxiety whether she thought him altered.
'Men always look worn after a Session,' said Lady Tyrrell.
'If this really makes him unhappy!'
'My dear Cecil, that's the very proof of the necessity. If it makes him unhappy to go five miles away with his wife, it ought not. You should wean him from such dependence.'
Cecil had tears in her eyes as she said, 'I don't know! When I hear him sighing in his sleep, I long to give it up and tell him I will try to be happy here.'
'My dear child, don't be weak. If you give way now, you will rue it all your life.'
'If I could have taken to his mother, I think he would have cared more for me.'
'No. The moment her jealousy was excited she would have resumed him, and you would have been the more shut out in the cold. A little firmness now, and the fresh start is before you.'
Cecil sighed, feeling that she was paying a heavy price for that fresh start, but her hands were too full for much thought. Guests came to dinner, Mrs. Poynsett kept more to her own room, and Raymond exerted himself to talk, so that the blank of the evenings was less apparent. The days were spent at the town-hall, where the stalls were raised early enough for all the ladies, their maids and footmen, to buzz about them all day, decking them out.
Mrs. Duncombe was as usual the guiding spirit, contriving all with a cleverness that made the deficiencies of her household the more remarkable. Conny and Bee Strangeways were the best workers, having plenty of experience and resource, and being ready to do anything, however hard, dusty, or disagreeable; and to drudge contentedly, with plenty of chatter indeed, but quite as freely to a female as to a male companion; whereas Miss Moy had a knot of men constantly about her, and made a noise which was a sore trial to Cecil's heavy spirit all the first day, exclusive of the offence to her native fastidiousness. She even called upon Lady Tyrrell and Mrs. Duncombe to hold a council whether all gentlemen should not be excluded the next day, as spoiling the ladies' work, and of no use themselves; but there were one or two who really did toil, and so well that they could not be dispensed with, and Mrs. Duncombe added that it would not do to give offence.
There was a harassed look about Mrs. Duncombe herself, for much depended on the success of her husband's filly, Dark Hag. The Captain had hitherto been cautious, and had secured himself against heavy loss, so as to make the turf a tolerable speculation, on but the wonderful perfections of this animal had led him to stake much more on her than had been his wont; and though his wife was assured of being a rich woman in another week, she was not sorry for the multiplicity of occupations which hindered her mind from dwelling too much on the chances.
'How calm you look,-how I envy you!' she said, as she came to borrow some tape of Eleonora Vivian, who was fastening the pendent articles to the drapery of her sister's stall. Eleonora gave a constrained smile, feeling how little truth there was in her apparent peace, wearied out as she was with the long conflict and constant distrust. She was the more anxious to be with Lady Susan, whose every word she could believe, and she finally promised to leave home with Bee and Conny the day after the ball, and to meet their mother in London. They knew there was no chance for Lorimer, but they took her on her own terms, hoping something perhaps, and at any rate glad to be a comfort to one whom they really loved, while Lady Tyrrell was delighted to promote the visit, seeing that the family did more for Lorimer's cause than he did for himself; and in his own home who could guess the result, especially after certain other manoeuvres of her ladyship had taken effect?
Lady Tyrrell did not know, nor indeed did Conny or Bee, that, though they would meet their mother in London, she would not at once go into Yorkshire with them, but would send them to their uncle's, while she repaired to the retreat at St. Faith's. The harass of these last few weeks, especially the endeavour to make her go to the races, had removed all scruples from Lenore's mind as to leaving her home in ignorance of her intentions. To her mind, the circumstances of her brother's death had made a race-course no place for any of the family, especially that of Backsworth; gout coming opportunely to disable her father in London, and one or two other little accidents, had prevented the matter from coming to an issue while she had been in London, and the avowal of her intention to keep away had filled her father with passion at her for her absurd scruples and pretences at being better than other people. It had been Lady Tyrrell who pacified him with assurances that she would soon do better; no one wished to force her conscience, and Lenore, always on the watch, began to wonder whether her sister had any reason for wishing to keep her away, and longed the more for the house of truth and peace.
So came on the bazaar day, which Mrs. Poynsett spent in solitude, except for visits from the Rectory, and one from Joanna Bowater, who looked in while Julius was sitting with her, and amused them by her account of herself as an emissary from home with ten pounds to be got rid of from her father and mother for good neighbourhood's sake. She brought Mrs. Poynsett a beautiful bouquet, for the elderly spinsters, she said, sat on the stairs and kept up a constant supply; and she had also some exquisite Genoese wire ornaments from Cecil's counter, and a set of studs from a tray of polished pebbles sent up from Vivian's favourite lapidary at Rockpier. She had been amused to find the Miss Strangeways hunting over it to match that very simple-looking charm which Lena wore on to her watch, for, as she said, 'the attraction must either be the simplicity of it, or the general Lena-worship in which those girls indulge.'
'How does that dear child look?'
'Fagged, I think, but so does every one, and it was not easy to keep order, Mrs. Duncombe's counter was such a rendezvous for noisy people, and Miss Moy was perfectly dreadful, running about forcing things on people and refusing change.'
'And how is poor Anne enduring?'
'Like Christian in Vanity Fair as long as she did endure, for she retired to the spinsters on the back stairs. I offered to bring her home, and she accepted with delight, but I dropped her in the village to bestow her presents. I was determined to come on here; we go on Monday.'
'Shall you be at the Ordination?'
'I trust so. If mamma is pretty well, we shall both go.'
'Is Edith going to the ball on Thursday?'
'No, she has given it up. It seems as if we at least ought to recollect our Ember days, though I am ashamed to think we never did till this time last year.'
'I confess that I never heard of them,' said Mrs. Poynsett. 'Don't look shocked, my dear; such things were not taught in my time.'
Julius showed her the rubric and the prayer from the book in his pocket, knowing that the one endeared to her by association was one of the Prayer-books made easy by omission of all not needed at the barest Sunday service.
'I see,' she said, 'it seems quite right. I wish you had told me before you were ordained, my dear.'
'You kept your Ember days for me by instinct, dear mother.'
'Don't be too sure, Julius. One learns many things when one is laid on one's back.'
'Think of Herbert now,' whispered Jenny. 'I am glad he is sheltered from all this hubbub by being at the palace. I suppose you cannot go to the Cathedral, Julius?'
'No, Bindon will not come back till his brother's holiday is over, nor do I even know where to write to him. Oh! here comes Anne. Now for her impressions.'
Anne had brought her little gift for Mrs. Poynsett, and displayed her presents for Glen Fraser, but as to what she had seen it made her shudder and say, 'You were right, Julius, I did not know people could go on so! And with all those poor people ill close by. Miss Slater, who sat on the stairs just below me tying up flowers, is much grieved about a lad who was at work there till a fortnight ago, and now is dying of a fever, and harassed by all the rattling of the carriages.'
'What! close by! Nothing infectious, I hope?'
'The doctor called it gastric fever, but no one was to hear of it lest there should be an alarm; and it was too late to change the place of the bazaar, though it is so sad to have all that gaiety close at hand.'
If these were the impressions of Anne and Joanna early in the day, what were they later, when, in those not sustained by excitement, spirit and energy began to flag? Cecil's counter, with her excellent and expensive wares, and her own dignified propriety, was far less popular than those where the goods were cheaper and the saleswomen less inaccessible, and she was not only disappointed at her failure, but vexed when told that the articles must be raffled for. She could not object, but it seemed an unworthy end for what had cost her so much
