CHAPTER XXIII. HARRY STANHOPE’S WANT.

Oliver had liberally allowed Harry Stanhope six months in which to ride his hobby and grow sick beyond endurance of his rôle of yeoman.

But whereas Harry had entered on the character, on a fine summer afternoon, in the attractive prospect of hay-making, corn-cutting, and hop-picking, it was midwinter, with no more agreeable occupations in view than thrashing [Pg 2]corn, pulling turnips, turning over potatoes in the pits, and ploughing a stiff clay soil under the murky sky of a short day in muggy weather, still he showed no signs of throwing up the part in satiety and disgust.

True, he had sufficient leisure to join the other farmers in presenting himself in the hunting field, and enjoying as good mounts and glorious runs as the squires or the M.F.H. himself.

It did not come under the head of sport. Harry was persuaded it lay at the core of his business, that he should attend—not only the Friarton Market, but every market within a day’s journey. He went to them no longer in his shirt sleeves, or riding a bare-backed horse as it had been taken to the watering, not even in the market cart in which he had prefigured Harry and himself crossing country—out of sight, and therefore out of danger of wounding the feelings of their aristocratic relations. [Pg 3]Harry had modified so far his Robinson Crusoe and Vicar of Wakefield notions, as to have set up a trap handsome enough to have been driven by any of his cousins. The trap was matched by an equally well-bred, delicate, costly horse, which Harry candidly admitted was not quite ‘the cheese’ for a yeoman. Yet why not, if he rented and paid the rent of the paddock in which it ran, afforded the corn for its feeds, and took care that it should do his work in running like the wind with him and Horry to the innumerable markets and sales which

the brothers found themselves forced to attend. Harry’s pride ended with his equipage. He was not to say guilty of affability; he was every man’s man, in the streets, or corn exchanges, or commercial inns where the farmers congregated. He was as ready to sit with the last man in the bar-parlour, and try return races against his trap, as to compare samples of grain in legitimate business. Harry [Pg 4]was all things to all men—not to gain some for what he fervently believed their good, but in sheer sociality—with a vain, light-hearted, light-headed love of popularity, which was at this time his ruling passion. Horace never thwarted his brother in this or any other inclination. He remained the abiding shadow inseparable from Harry’s sunshine, and in some respects a relief from its glare.

Harry was also able to derive no small amount of animation and amusement from such windfalls in the day’s routine, as brisk bouts of ratting when a stack was being pulled down, or in the granary after it was left empty; and he waited religiously every evening on the feeding of the cattle and horses in the sheds and stables.

Harry was an extremely indulgent, if totally inconsiderate, and occasionally capricious, master, whose lavish tolerance was only now and then broken, like the abounding calm of tropical seas, by a storm violent as it was brief. [Pg 5]That Harry spoilt his retainers horribly was not an objection which his servants were likely to take into account in the first flush of ‘the young squire’s’ popularity. For in spite of Harry Stanhope’s well-nigh nettled protests and vigorous acting of his part, probably because of his over-acting, the would-be yeoman was the young squire to his labourers, who in the middle of their stolidity were not altogether without shrewd observation and sound deduction.

Harry not only continued unexpectedly constant to his vocation as he believed it, he remained faithful to the earliest friendship he had claimed on his arrival at Copley Grange Farm. He went more frequently to Friarton Mill than to any other house where he was made welcome, which was saying a good deal, seeing that Harry’s life, whether in the way of his business requirements, or when he might be supposed clear of their urgent obligations, was a [Pg 6]constant round of varied visiting. Indeed, it struck Oliver that Harry grossly abused his privilege, and came intolerably often, and at absurdly unconventional seasons, from ‘early morn to dewy eve’—sometimes in the raw air before breakfast, sometimes through a setting in snowstorm after supper—to the mill-house, during this winter.

But what could Oliver do? not turn out the thoughtless lad for whom the elder man had a sneaking kindness, or close the doors against the soullessly jolly young face, which, however provocative of censure, always brought with it, when it flashed upon the man, a reflection of unimpaired freshness, and unburdened lightness of heart.

Since Fan allowed these intrusions, and even seemed to enjoy them, what was left for Oliver save to shrug his shoulders, grumble to himself, or deliver the silent hint of turning his back, after the first greeting, on his visitors? [Pg 7]For, of course, Harry dragged over Horry in his train. And Oliver often left Fan to entertain the two in one, while he read on unceremoniously at the newspaper or book with which he had been engaged on their entrance.

Alas! Harry only took the cavalier rudeness for friendliest encouragement. ‘Don’t apologise to me, old fellow,’ he would enjoin the master of the house, cheerfully. ‘It is not you I have come to see, it is Miss Constable,’ Harry would say audaciously. ‘I have come to report myself to Miss Constable. She has been so good as to take me in hand. She is making a man—that is a veritable yeoman, of me.’

And Fan lent herself to this egregious fiction. Fan, who had never interested herself in a single detail of her father and brother’s trades, who had not so much as made an exception in favour of the chicks, directed a charmed ear to all Harry Stanhope’s chatter of [Pg 8]the prices in the market, the field which was sown that day, the ox which had choked itself and been brought round in its stall the night before, the first long-legged, big-headed calf which he had bought for a song.

Sally Pope grinned at Oliver behind the backs of this most practical young couple.

Horace Stanhope began to fidget and glance jealously at the master of the house in his obliviousness. But not even the phenomena of Harry’s coming at last, once or twice, without his brother, and showing some slight self-consciousness when the unusual omission was remarked upon, roused the suspicions of the too secure and single-minded host.

One fine frosty night Harry had walked in alone, uninvited and unannounced. For Fan’s carefully-trained housemaid had become weary of announcing the perpetual visitor, and, without any rebuke from her mistress, had proceeded to treat the special duty as a work of [Pg 9]supererogation where Mr. Harry Stanhope was concerned.

Oliver had nodded and sat still in the shade at his father’s desk, turning over some papers, keeping his post mainly to preserve the liberty of pursuing his own train of reflections; while Harry Stanhope and Fan had put their heads together over the lamp on Fan’s little table in the chimney-corner, and were, according to Oliver’s conception of the situation, going over the best plans for growing corn and rearing stock, and—what was adding insult to injury in reference to Oliver’s pets, the ducks—the latest contrivances for a high development of poultry. Not satisfied with the solution of these momentous problems by lamp-light, when the pair went to the window to predict from the purple-blue sky and the glitter of the stars hung like lamps of heaven in the dark branches of the trees of Copley Grange Park, the weather to-morrow—whether skating on the [Pg 10]mill-pond would be the order of the day, or whether the frost would give way and the scent hold, so that Harry might join the hunt ten miles off—it seemed to Oliver as if they

must have started afresh to answer the whole code of agricultural questions over again, by starlight, till his patience was reduced to a shred.

At last Harry took his departure somewhat abruptly in the end.

Oliver stretched himself with vicious emphasis, and growled, this was insufferable, he did not think he could stand it much longer.

Fan, generally so quick in retort, said nothing, but she appeared to have appropriated the observation and taken it to heart; for a moment later, when she came to bid Oliver goodnight, she suddenly put her hands upon his shoulders and looked wistfully in his face with tears in her dark eyes, and her colour wavering—as he remarked with surprise. ‘You are not [Pg 11]angry, Oliver, dear?’ she said, with one of her rare caressing gestures and phrases, which coming as they did unlooked for, from a high-spirited almost hard little woman like Fan, were apt to sap a man’s defences, and melt his heart like wax on the spot. ‘You are not angry, Oliver?’ repeated Fan with a slight quaver in the wistful earnestness of her voice.

‘Of course I am not angry with you, you goose of a Fanchen?’ said Oliver with affectionate bluster. ‘How can you help Stanhope’s unconscionable coolness, which begins to be rank impudence? But why in the name of justice, should I blame you for his faults?’ enquired Oliver in all simplicity. ‘You are compelled to listen to his rigmarole in your own house, when I turn him over to you. I own I ought not to do it, to such an extent,’ admitted Oliver, contritely; ‘but the young wretch is so indefatigable in preying on our hospitality, and has acquired such a fatal [Pg 12]fluency in airing his farming bosh, that I must have some relief, or knock him down. I often admire your powers of endurance, but don’t give the beggar too much line, Fan, if you love me. I am not sure, whether, after all, his class are the finest judges of courtesy.’

Fan had flushed crimson at her brother’s words. She knitted her delicate brows—black brows at the same time, and then as if she had thought better of it, her lips parted in a half-smile. ‘No, no; don’t speak treason either of me, or of another,’ she said; and then she added, a little incoherently, ‘I believe there is nobody so good and kind as you are, yourself, Oliver, in the whole world. Remember I have said so, though we quarrelled some time ago, and may quarrel again. Remember I have told you that you are always my own dear good boy, whom I have loved all through our lives, whom I love with all my heart at this moment, whom I could have [Pg 13]served, if you would have let me,’ and Fan fairly hugged Oliver, who resisted stoutly in his mystification, with a dim apprehension that he might otherwise pledge himself to something he did not in the least understand.

‘What do you mean?’ cried Oliver. ‘Is Fan also among the wheedlers? For what mighty boon can she deign to wheedle?’

‘Never mind, it is too late to ask me now—good night.’

Fan succeeded in making her retreat, and in the act of doing so, Oliver might have seen, if he had been quick at reading women’s faces, that all the soft relenting and indescribable yearning which had been in hers a moment ago, had vanished and was replaced by such unmingled exultation that the girl looked radiant.

It was the last loving altercation which passed between the brother and sister for many a day.

[Pg 14]

The next morning, Harry Stanhope wound up his offences against domestic privacy by re-appearing at Friarton Mill, as if he had slept at the gate, seeking admission to Oliver before the latter had completed his toilet. Only the most urgent business could warrant such pressing attendance. Harry himself, in his superb self-complacency and confidence, betrayed, nevertheless, a shadow of a doubt of his reception.

‘You will think I am always here, Constable?’ he said with a confused laugh.

‘Well, you are here pretty often,’ the aggrieved Oliver put it mildly. ‘I am afraid your other engagements must suffer from your paying us the compliment of being so much at Friarton Mill; and your brother—he is not with you this morning—will miss you.’

‘Oh! hang Horry!’ exclaimed Harry hastily; ‘no, I don’t mean that, of course, and old Horry won’t stand in the way. He’s all [Pg 15]right. Besides, if one’s father and mother, when a fellow possesses them, an’t counted, a brother can’t have much to say either way, can he?’

‘I don’t know what you’re after,’ said Oliver in perfect sincerity. ‘If I were a supernumerary in an old play, I ought to exclaim, “Anan,” to that last enigmatical sentence of yours.’

‘Well, it ain’t easy to come out with it,’ protested Harry, struggling with what was, for him, the most extraordinary hesitation. ‘Your sister, Constable—you must have seen she has been goodness itself to me. I know she will have to furnish the brains and backbone, for my head-piece ain’t worth much, and my pluck is of the rough and ready sort, but since she graciously consents to do for me and Horry—to make a true farmer’s wife, which will be an inestimable advantage to us—I may take it that you will not have any great objection to accepting me for a brother-in-law?’

[Pg 16]

‘Stanhope, have you lost your wits?’ burst out Oliver. ‘Come, there must be no more of this absurd nonsense. I tell you I will have no such foolish jesting where my sister is concerned.’

‘Never was farther from jesting in my life!’ declared poor Harry indignantly.

‘Then let me say, once for all, you must get rid of this idiotic idea. It won’t do. My sister is not for a fellow like you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you have somehow tumbled into the hugest blunder, and I must speak out. I can answer for Fan: she did not dream of encouraging such a vain delusion, she will be terribly vexed and annoyed. This comes of masquerading and making-believe. It seems to me you don’t want a wife for twenty years to come: when you do, take my advice—if you will excuse me for offering it, after what I have said—marry strictly within your own class; you of all fellows require such a [Pg 17]safeguard, and the more influential your wife’s people, the better both for her and you!’ muttered Oliver sotto voce. Then he resumed aloud, ‘Wait till you can persuade a lady to share your lot—if you will cultivate prudence, you may make it not a bad one—as a gentleman-farmer.’

Harry was looking at Oliver with such a strong sense of superior knowledge and wisdom that it disarmed any rising resentment on the lad’s part, at the tone of provoked disdainful repudiation of the proposal which Oliver could not help betraying. The contrast between the truth as Harry realised it and Oliver’s undoubting convictions, brought out the comic element in the affair so dear to Harry’s boyish heart, even in the serious mood which had been on him, when he ‘declared his intentions.’

‘Make-believe, indeed!’ cried Harry, lightly; ‘who plays at being miller and baker?’

[Pg 18]

‘Not I!’ denied Oliver hotly. ‘I have taken up my father’s business, which is no unusual thing for a tradesman’s son to do, and I have not adopted it as a mere makeshift, or as the last resource for a man who would otherwise be idle; I desire to make it the object of my life; I do not think any honest trade is unworthy of the dedication of the trader’s talents to render it as good in every respect as possible. I trust to do no discredit to my father’s business.’

‘At least you need not be so cocky over other people whose fathers had not the luck to be in trade,’ remonstrated Harry. ‘As to not wanting a wife—I being a farmer, and having no competent young woman with my interest at heart,’ went on Harry, his blue eyes twinkling, ‘to look after the butter and cheese, the feeding of the calves, the fattening of the geese, and the multiplying of the eggs and chickens, when I find I have quite enough to do, even [Pg 19]with Horry for my aide, to manage the labourer fellows in the fields and offices, and attend the markets—if you think I don’t want a wife dreadfully, it is little you know of a yeoman’s difficulties. As to consenting to try for an imitation farmer’s wife, why you yourself politely hinted a minute ago that there was quite enough of the mock article at Copley Grange Farm already. No, thanks. I knew exactly what the position was when Aggie spent her holiday weeks at the Farm. The babe could not have told barley from oats if they had not been in the ear; and though that did

not matter much, I am morally certain she was shaky on the important question of hens’ nests—whether they were not to be found in bushes, if not on tree-tops. She spoilt all the dairy produce while she was here, by insisting on dabbling in it in her ignorance, my housekeeper complained. And the child was always begging to be amused, and seeking to [Pg 20]go and look at the horses and cattle when it was not convenient and I ought to have been hard at work elsewhere. She would not be put off with Horry’s escort; fact was, all my energies were employed in keeping the peace between the little girl and the cantankerous old man.’

Oliver was forced to laugh, but he laughed harshly. ‘Stanhope, you’re a donkey if you propose to marry my sister, that she may act as your head dairymaid and principal hen-wife. That is not her forte,’ he said.

‘Do you mean to insult me?’ cried Harry, firing up in spite of his easy temper. ‘By Jove, you may thank Fan if I bear it. I may have cracked an ill-timed joke, but it was you who tempted me to it. Fan believes me; she understands how I love and honour her, and choose her before all other women; and if she does me the honour to choose me in return, I suppose she is at liberty to make [Pg 21]her choice? Not even a Turk of a brother, since he is not her father, and she is of age, can prevent it,’ ended Harry defiantly.

‘This preposterous stuff must be put an end to. I will see my sister.’ Oliver flung out of his room, and encountered Fan hovering over the breakfast-table, and looking fresh yet pale, like a solitary daisy blooming in a sheltered corner.

[Pg 22]

CHAPTER XXIV. FAN’S TRIUMPH.

‘Come along, Fan, to the front door, where the fellow has retreated. Here is a fluke, but the sooner you deal with it the better; you must spoil your breakfast, and have done with it. Harry Stanhope is as mad as a hatter this morning, and nothing will bring him back to soberness of mind save your giving him his congé in so many words. This is speaking plainly. Are you not amazed? I imagine you never apprehended such a desperately moonshiny business from Stanhope, who’s in a general way commonplace and matter-of-fact in his greenness. But come along, it will not do to keep the young idiot waiting.’

[Pg 23]

‘But what if there are two of us as mad as hatters?’ said Fan, blushing and brightening up like the white daisy when the red tips of its petals catch the beams of the sun.

‘Fan, you cannot be so crazy, so weak to imbecility!’ cried Oliver, incredulously; and then, as his unbelief began to be shaken by her looks, still more than her words, he protested passionately on her account: ‘A boy like Harry Stanhope! the merest boy in his fancies, as you have had abundant proof; hardly responsible for his actions, not fit to know his own mind, as sure to change as the wind.’

‘He is not so much younger a boy than you are, Oliver,’ said Fan, with restrained spirit. ‘He is a little older than I am in years, and I don’t feel so very youthful in spirit. I should be inclined to think I was capable of knowing my own mind, and being held responsible [Pg 24]for my actions. But, no doubt, women are a great deal older, in proportion, than men. You are all boys to us,’ said Fan, with demure motherliness. ‘I have even ventured to call a sage like you a boy.’