The Golden Calf, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

was not fine, it was not aesthetic, it was not even elegant. A great bay window opened upon the garden, a large old-fashioned fireplace, with carved wooden chimney-piece faced the bay. The floor was polished oak, with only an island of faded Persian carpet in the centre, and Indian prayer rugs lying about here and there. There were chairs and tables of richly carved Bombay blackwood, Japanese cabinets in the recesses beside the fire-place, a five-leaved Indian screen between the fire-place and the door. There was just enough Oriental china to give colour to the room, and to relieve by glowing reds and vivid purples the faded dead-leaf tint of curtains and chair covers.

The gong began to boom as the two girls came into the room, and the rest of the family dropped in through the open windows at the same moment, Aunt Betsey bringing up the rear. There was no nursery dinner at The Knoll. Colonel Wendover allowed his children to dine with him from the day they were able to manage their knives and forks. Save on state occasions, the whole brood sat down with their father and mother to the seven o'clock dinner; as the young sprigs of the House of Orleans used to sit round good King Louis Philippe in his tranquil retirement at Claremont. Even the lisping girl who loved pigs had her place at the board, and knew how to behave herself. There was a subdued struggle for the seat next Ida, whom the Colonel had placed on his right, but Reginald, the elder of the Winchester boys, asserted his claim with a quiet firmness that proved irresistible. Grace was said with solemn brevity by the Colonel, whose sum total of orthodoxy was comprised in that brief grace, and in regular attendance at church on Sunday mornings; and then there came a period of chatter and laughter which might have been a little distracting to a stranger. Each of the boys and girls had some wonderful fact, usually about his or her favourite animal, to communicate to the father. Aunt Betsy broke in with her fine manly voice at every turn in the conversation. Ripples of laughter made a running accompaniment to everything. It was a new thing to Ida Palliser to find herself in the midst of so much happiness.

After dinner they all rushed off to play lawn tennis, carrying Ida along with them.

'It's a shame,' protested Bessie. 'I know you're tired, darling. Come and rest in a shady corner of the drawing-room.'

This sounded tempting, but it was not to be.

'No she's not,' asserted Blanche, boldly. 'You're not tired, are you, Miss Palliser?'

'Not too tired for just one game,' replied Ida. 'But you are never to call me Miss Palliser.'

'May I really call you Ida? That's too lovely.'

'May we all call you Ida?' asked Horatio. 'Don't begin by making distinctions. Blanche is no better than the rest of us.'

'Don't be jealous,' said Miss Palliser, laughing. 'I am going to be everybody's Ida.'

On this she was borne off to the garden as in a whirlwind.

There were some bamboo chairs and sofas on the grass in front of the bay window, and here the elder members of the family established themselves.

'I like that schoolfellow of Bessie's,' said Aunt Betsy, with her decided air, whereupon the Colonel and his wife assented, as they always did to any proposition of Miss Wendover's.

'She is remarkably handsome,' said the Colonel.

'She is good and thorough, and that's of much more consequence,' said his sister.

'She takes to the children, and that is so truly nice in her' murmured Mrs. Wendover.


CHAPTER IV.


WENDOVER ABBEY.

The next day was fine. The children had all been praying for fine weather, that they might entertain Miss Palliser with an exploration of the surrounding neighbourhood. Loud whoops of triumph and sundry breakdown dances were heard in the top story soon after five o'clock, for the juvenile Wendovers were early risers, and when in high spirits made themselves distinctly audible.

The eight o'clock breakfast in the old painted dining-room--all oak panelling, but painted stone colour by generations of Goths and Vandals--was even more animated than the seven o'clock dinner.

Such a breakfast, after the thick bread and butter and thin coffee at Mauleverer. Relays of hot buttered cakes, and eggs and bacon, fish, honey, fresh fruit from the garden, a picturesque confusion of form and colour on the lavishly-furnished table, and youthful appetites ready to do justice to the good cheer.

'What are you going to do with Miss Palliser?' asked the Colonel. 'Am I to take her for a drive?'

'No, father, you can't have Miss Palliser to-day. She's going in the jaunting-car,' said Reginald, talking of the lady as if she were a horse. 'We're going to take her over to the Abbey.'

The Abbey was the ancestral home of the Wendovers, now in possession of Brian Wendover, only son of the Colonel's eldest brother, and head of the house.

'Well, don't upset her oftener than you can help,' replied the father. 'I suppose you don't much mind being spilt off an outside car, Miss Palliser? I believe young ladies of your age rather relish the excitement.'

'She needn't be afraid,' said Reginald; 'I am going to drive.'

'Then we are very likely to find ourselves reposing in a ditch before the day is over,' retorted Bessie. 'I hope you--or the pony--will choose a dry one.'

'I'll risk it, ditches and all,' said Ida, good-naturedly. 'I am longing to see the Abbey.'

'The rich Brian's Abbey,' said Bessie, laughing. 'What a pity he is not at home for you to see him too! Do you think Brian will be back before Ida's holidays are over, father?'

'I never know what that young man is going to do,' answered the Colonel. 'When last I heard from him he was fishing in Norway. He doesn't care much about the sport, he tells me; indeed, he was never a very enthusiastic angler; but he likes the country and the people. He ought to stay at home, and stand for the county at the next election. A young man in his position has no business to be idle.'

'Is he clever?' asked Ida.

'Too clever for my money,' answered the Colonel. 'He has too much book-learning, and too little knowledge of men and things. What is the good of a man being a fine Greek scholar if he knows nothing about the land he owns, or the cattle that graze upon it, and has not enough tact to make himself popular in his own neighbourhood? Brian is a man who would starve if his bread depended on his own exertions.'

'He's a jolly kind of cousin for a fellow to have,' suggested Horry, looking up from his eggs and bacon. 'He lets us do what we like at the Abbey. By the way, Blanche, have you packed the picnic basket?'

'Yes.'

'What have you put in?'

'That's my secret,' answered Blanche. 'Do you think I am going to tell you what you are to have for lunch? That would spoil all the fun.'

'Blanche isn't half a bad caterer,' said Reg. 'I place myself in her hands unreservedly; I will only venture to hint that I hope she hasn't forgotten the chutnee, Tirhoot, and plenty of it. What's the good of having a father who was shoulder to shoulder with Gough in the Punjab, if we are to run short of Indian condiments?'

At nine o'clock the young people were all ready to start. The jaunting-car held five, including the driver; Bessie and her friend were to occupy one side, Eva, the round child who loved pigs, was to have a seat, and a place was to be kept for Miss Rylance, who was to be invited to join the exploration party, much to the disgust of the Winchester lads, who denounced her as a stuck-up minx, and distinguished her with various other epithets of an abusive character selected from a vocabulary known only to Wyckhamists. Blanche and Horatio and a smaller boy, called Ernest, who was dressed like a gillie, and had all the wildness of a young Highlander, were to walk, with the occasional charity of a lift.

The jaunting-car was drawn by a large white pony, fat and pampered, overfed with dainties from the children's tables, and petted and played with until he had become almost human in his intelligence, and a match for his youthful masters in cunning and mischief. This impish animal had been christened Robin Goodfellow, a name that was shortened for convenience to Robin. Robin's eagerness to depart was now made known to the family by an incessant rattling of his bit.

Reginald took the reins, and got into his seat with the quiet grandeur of a celebrity in the four-in-hand club. Ida and Bessie were handed to their places by Horatio, the chubby Eva scrambled into her seat, with a liberal display of Oxford blue stocking, under the shortest of striped petticoats; and off they drove to the cottage, Dr. Rylance's miniature dwelling, where the plate-glass windows were shining in the morning sun, and the colours of the flower-beds were almost too bright to be looked at.

Bessie found Miss Rylance in the dainty little drawing-room, all ebonized wood and blue china, as neat as an interior by Mieris. The fair Urania was yawning over a book of travels--trying to improve a mind which was not naturally fertile--and she was not sorry to be interrupted by an irruption of noisy Wendovers, even though they left impressions of their boots on the delicate tones of the carpet, and made havoc of the cretonne chair-covers.

Miss Rylance had no passion for country life. Fields and trees, hills and winding streams, even when enlivened by the society of the lower animals, were not all-sufficient for her happiness. It was all very well for her father to oscillate between Cavendish Square and Kingthorpe, avoiding the expense and trouble of autumn touring, and taking his rest and his pleasure in this rustic retreat. But her summer holidays for the last three years had been all Kingthorpe, and Miss Rylance detested the picturesque village, the busy duck-pond, the insignificant hills, which nobody had ever heard of, and the monotonous sequence of events.

'We are going to the Abbey for a nice long day, taking our dinner with us, and coming round to Aunt Betsy's to tea on our way home,' said Bessie, as if she were proposing an entirely novel excursion; 'and we want you to come with us, Ranie.'

Miss Rylance stifled a yawn. She had been trying to pin her thoughts to a particular tribe of Abyssinians, who fought all the surrounding tribes, and always welcomed the confiding stranger with a shower of poisoned arrows. She did not care for the Wendover children, but they were better than those wearisome Abyssinians.

'You are very kind, but I know the Abbey so well,' she said, determined to yield her consent as a favour.

'Never mind that. Ida has never seen it. We are going to show her everything. We want her to feel one of us.'

'We shall have a jolly lunch,' interjected Blanche. 'There are some lemon cheesecakes that I made myself yesterday afternoon. Cook was in a good temper, and let me do it.'

'I hope you washed your hands first,' said Horatio. 'I'd sooner cook had made the cheesecakes.'

'Of course I washed my hands, you too suggestive pig. But I should-hope that in a general way my hands are cleaner than cook's. It is only