The Long Vacation. Charlotte M. Yonge
When Mrs. Grinstead, on her nephew’s arm, came into her drawing-room after dinner, she was almost as much dismayed as pleased to find a long black figure in a capacious arm-chair by the fire.
“You adventurous person,” she said, “how came you here?”
“I could not help it, with the prospect of Lancey boy,” he said in smiling excuse, holding out a hand in greeting to Gerald, and thanking Anna, who brought a cushion.
“Hark! there he is!” and Gerald and Anna sprang forward, but were only in time to open the room door, when there was a double cry of greeting, not only of the slender, bright-eyed, still youthful-looking uncle, but of the pleasant face of his wife. She exclaimed as Lancelot hung over his brother—
“Indeed, I would not have come but that I thought he was still in his room.”
“That’s a very bad compliment, Gertrude, when I have just made my escape.”
“I shall be too much for you,” said Gertrude. “Here, children, take me off somewhere.”
“To have some dinner,” said Geraldine, her hand on the bell.
“No, no, Marilda feasted me.”
“Then don’t go,” entreated Clement. “It is a treat to look at you two sunny people.”
“Let us efface ourselves, and be seen and not heard,” returned Gertrude, sitting down between Gerald and Anna on a distant couch, whence she contemplated the trio—Clement, of course, with the extreme pallor, languor, and emaciation of long illness, with a brow gaining in dignity and expression by the loss of hair, and with a look of weary, placid enjoyment as he listened to the talk of the other two; Lance with bright, sweet animation and cheeriness, still young-looking, though his hair too was scantier and his musical tones subdued; and Geraldine, pensive in eye and lip, but often sparkling up with flashes of her inborn playfulness, and, like Clement, resting in the sunshine diffused by Lance. This last was the editor and proprietor of the ‘Pursuivant’, an important local paper, and had come up on journalistic business as well as for the fete. Gertrude meantime had been choosing carpets and curtains.
“For,” said Lance, with a smack of exultation, “we are actually going back to our old quarters over the shop.”
“Oh!” A responsive sound of satisfaction from Geraldine.
“Nothing amiss?” asked Clement.
“Far from it. We let Marshlands to great advantage, and there are many reasons for the flitting. I ought to be at head-quarters, and besides there are the Sundays. We are too many now for picnicking in the class-room, or sponging on the rectory.”
“And,” said Gertrude, “I dare not put his small family in competition with his organ.”
“Besides,” said Lance, “the ‘Pursuivant’ is more exacting, and the printing Will Harewood’s books has brought in more business—”
“But how about space? We could squeeze, but can you?”
“We have devoured our two next-door neighbours. There’s for you! You know Pratt the dentist had a swell hall-door and staircase, which we absorb, so we shall not eat in the back drawing-room, nor come up the flight which used to be so severe on you, Cherry.”
“I can only remember the arms that helped me up. I have never left off dreaming of the dear old step springing up the stair after the day’s work, and the whistle to Theodore.”
“Ah, those were the jolly old days!” returned Lance, con amore.
“Unbroken,” added Clement, in the same tone.
“Better than Vale Leston?” asked Gertrude.
“The five years there were, as Felix called those last hours of delight, halcyon days,” said Geraldine; “but the real home was in the rough and the smooth, the contrivances, the achievements, the exultation at each step on the ladder, the flashes of Edgar, the crowded holiday times—all happier than we knew! I hope your children will care as much.”
“Vale Leston is their present paradise,” said Gertrude. “You should see Master Felix’s face at the least hope of a visit, and even little Fulbert talks about boat and fish.”
“What have you done with the Lambs?” demanded Clement.
“They have outgrown the old place in every direction, and have got a spick-and-span chess-board of a villa out on the Minsterham road.”
“They have not more children than you have.”
“Five Lambkins to our four, besides Gussy and Killy,” said Lance; “though A—which is all that appears of the great Achilles’ unlucky name—is articled to Shapcote, and as for Gussy, or rather Mr. Tanneguy, he is my right hand.”
“We thought him a nice sort of youth when he was improving himself in London,” said Clement.
“You both were very good to him,” said Lance, “and those three years were not wasted. He is a far better sub-editor and reporter than I was at his age, with his French wit and cleverness. The only fault I find with him is that he longs for plate-glass and flummery instead of old Froggatt’s respectable panes.”
“He has become the London assistant, who was our bugbear,” said Geraldine.
“I don’t know how we should get on without him since we made ‘Pur’ daily,” said Lance.
“How old ambitions get realized!” said Geraldine.
“Does his mother endure the retail work, or has she not higher views for him?” asked Clement.
“In fact, ever since the first Lambkin came on the stage any one would have thought those poor boys were her steps, not good old Lamb’s; whereas Felix always made a point of noticing them. Gus was nine years old that last time he was there, while I was ill, and he left such an impression as to make him the hero model.—Aye, Gus is first-rate.”
“I am glad you have not altered the old shop and office.”
“Catch me! But we are enlarging the reading-room, and the new press demands space. Then there’s a dining-room for the young men, and what do you think I’ve got? We (not Froggatt, Underwood, and Lamb, but the Church Committee) have bought St. Oswald’s buildings for a coffee hotel and young men’s lodging-house.”
“Our own, old house. Oh! is Edgar’s Great Achilles there still?”
“I rushed up to see. Alas! the barbarians have papered him out. But what do you think I’ve got? The old cupboard door where all our heights were marked on our birthdays.”
“He set it up in his office,” said Gertrude. “I think he danced round it. I know he brought me and all the children to adore it, and showed us, just like a weather record, where every one shot up after the measles, and where Clement got above you, Cherry, and Lance remained a bonny shrimp.”
“A great move, but it sounds comfortable,” said Clement.
“Yes; for now Lance will get a proper luncheon, as he never has done since dear old Mrs. Froggatt died,” said Gertrude, “and he is an animal that needs to be made to eat! Then the children want schooling of the new-fashioned kinds.”
All this had become possible through Fulbert’s legacy between his brothers and unmarried sister, resulting in about £4000 apiece; besides which the firm had gone on prospering. Clement asked what was the present circulation of the ‘Pursuivant’, and as Lance named it, exclaimed—
“What would old Froggatt have said, or even Felix?”
“It is his doing,” said Lance, “the lines he traced out.”
“My father says it is the writing with a conscience,” said Gertrude.
“Yes,