The Pillars of the House; Or, Under Wode, Under Rode, Vol. 1 (of 2). Yonge Charlotte Mary
or art! I love art more than anything, and it is the speediest.'
The conversation was broken, for just then Wilmet was seen peering about with an anxious, careful eye.
'What is it, my deputy Partlet?' asked her father. 'Which of your brood are you looking for?'
'I can't see Robina,' said Wilmet anxiously. 'She was swinging just now, but neither she nor Lance is with the big boys.'
'Flown up higher,' said Mr. Underwood, pretending to spy among the branches. 'Flapsy, come down! Bobbie, where are you?'
A voice answered him; and in another moment Robina and Lance stood in the glade, and with them a girl newly come to her teens, whom they pulled forward, crying, 'She says she's our cousin!'
'Indeed,' said Mr. Underwood: 'I am sure you are very much obliged to her.'
'I am Mary Alda Underwood,' said the girl abruptly; 'and I'm sure there must be a very naughty boy here. He had put these poor little things up a tree, and run away.'
'No, no! He only put us up because Tina bothered about it!' screamed Lance and Robina at once; 'he wasn't naughty. We were being monkeys.'
'Black spider-monkeys,' added Robina.
'And I swung about like a real one, Father,' said Lance, 'and was trying to get Bobbie down, only she grew afraid.'
'It was ten feet from the ground,' said Mary Alda, impressively, 'and they had lost their way; but they told me who they were. I'm come down with my father to see the place.'
Mr. Underwood heartily shook hands with her, thanked her, and asked where her father was.
'Gone out with the man to see a farm two miles off,' she said. 'He told me I might stay in the house, or roam where I liked, and I saw you all looking so happy; I've been watching you this long time.'
'Indeed!' said Mr. Underwood, 'till you captured two of us! Well, we are obliged for the introduction, especially if you are to be our neighbour.'
'And my cousins will be friends with me,' continued Mary Alda. 'I'm all alone, you know.'
'No, I did not know,' said Mr. Underwood. 'Are you the only child?'
'Yes,' she said, looking wistfully at the groups around her; 'and it is very horrid—oh dear! who is that pretty one? No, there's another of them!'
Mr. Underwood laughed heartily. 'I suppose you mean Wilmet and Alda,' he said. 'Come, girls, and see your new cousin—Mary, did you say?—Your name backward, Alda Mary.'
'Mary,' she repeated. 'Papa calls me Mary, but Mamma wants it to be Marilda all in one word, because she says it is more distinguished; but I like a sensible name like other people.'
Mr. Underwood was much amused. He felt he had found a character in his newly-discovered cousin. She was Underwood all over in his eyes, used to the characteristic family features, although entirely devoid of that delicacy and refinement of form and complexion that was so remarkable in himself and in most of his children, who were all, except poor little Cherry, a good deal alike, and most of them handsome. There was a sort of clumsiness in the shape of every outline, and a coarseness in the colouring, that made her like a bad drawing of one of his own girls; the eyes were larger, the red of the cheeks was redder, the lips were thicker, the teeth were irregular; the figure, instead of being what the French call élancé, was short, high-shouldered, and thick-set, and the head looked too large. She was over-dressed, too, with a smart hat and spangled feather, a womanly silk mantle and much-trimmed skirt, from which a heavy quilling had detached itself, and was trailing on the ground; her hands were ungloved, and showed red stumpy fingers, but her face had a bright open honest heartiness of expression, and a sort of resolute straightforwardness, that attracted and pleased him; and, moreover, there was something in the family likeness, grotesque as it was, that could not but arouse a fellow-feeling in his warm and open heart, which neither neglect nor misfortune had ever chilled.
'I think I should have known you,' he said, smiling. 'Here! let me introduce you; here is our little lame white-hearted Cherry, and the twins, as like as two peas. Wilmet, Alda—here!'
'Shall I mend your frock?' was Wilmet's first greeting, as she put her hand in her pocket, and produced a little housewife.
'Oh, thank you! You've got a needle and thread! What fun!'
'The little ones are very apt to tear themselves, so I like to have it ready.'
'How delicious! And you mend for them? I wish I had any one to mend for. Please show me, and let me do it. I tried to tear the nasty thing off, but it would not come. I wish Mamma would let me wear sensible print like yours.'
'Are you laughing at us?' said Wilmet rather bluntly.
'No, indeed, not a bit,' said Marilda, or Mary Alda, eagerly. 'If you only knew how tiresome it all is.'
'What is?'
'Why, being fine—having a governess, and talking French, and learning to dance, and coming down into the drawing-room. Then Grandmamma Kedge tells me how she used to run about in pattens, and feed the chickens, and scrub the floor, and I do so wish I was her. Can you scrub, and do those nice things?'
'Not a floor,' said Wilmet; 'and we live in the town.'
'So have we done till now; but Papa is going to get this place, because he says it is family property; and I hope he will, for they will never be able to screw me up here as they do at home. I say, which is Fulbert? Won't your father punish him?'
'Oh, no! You should not have told, Marilda. We never tell Papa of little tricks of the boys.'
'But the little darling might have broken her neck.'
'Oh! life in a large family is made up of might haves,' said Alda.
'Why, I do declare there's a smaller still! What a little duck!' and she pounced upon Angela.
'We have a smaller than that,' said Wilmet—'Bernard, only we left him at home.'
'Tell me all your names!' cried Marilda, delighted.
She was perfectly happy, and chattered on in great delight in her downright voice, as much at ease as if she had known them all her life. She shared their tea, and wanted Mr. Underwood to come and see her father at the house; but as she could not promise his early return, and it was necessary to get the van under weigh before five, this could not be.
However, she would not leave them till they were all packed into the van, and then only parted with repeated kisses and auguries of many future meetings; so that the children looked down a vista of unlimited enjoyment of Centry Park. Edgar, little gentleman as he was, saw her as far back on the way as he could venture.
CHAPTER III
FORTUNATUS' PURSE
'Out, base mechanical churl!'—
Weeks went on, and nothing more was heard of 'Marilda' except the wishes and wonderings of the children. Alda decided that she was one of the heartless fine ladies one heard of in books—and no wonder, when her father was in trade, and she looked so vulgar; while Wilmet contended against her finery, and Cherry transferred the heartlessness to her cruel father and mother, and Robina never ceased to watch for her from the window, even when Felix and Edgar for very weariness had prohibited the subject from being ever mentioned, and further checked it by declaring that Marilda looked like a cow.
There was plenty besides to think of; and the late summer and early autumn rolled cheerily away. The wonderful remnant of Felix's birth-day gift was partly applied to the hire of a chair for Geraldine upon every favourable evening; and as the boys themselves were always ready to act as horses, they obtained it on moderate terms, which made the sum hold out in a marvellous manner. And not only were these drives delight unimaginable to the little maid, but the frequent breaths of pure air seemed to give her vigour; she ate more, smiled more, and moved with less pain and difficulty, so that the thought of a partial recovery began to seem far less impossible.
The children trooping about her, she used to be drawn to the nearest bit of greensward, tree, or copse, and there would occupy herself with