The Golden Calf

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'I am horribly jealous of that baby boy,' protested Bessie. 'How old is
he now?'

'Nearly five. He was two years and a half old when I was at Les
Fontaines, and that was before I went to Mauleverer Manor.'

'And you have been at Mauleverer Manor more than two years without once
going home for the holidays,' said Bessie. 'That seems hard.'

'My dear, poverty is hard. It is all of a piece. It means deprivation,
humiliation, degradation, the severance of friends. My father would have
had me home if he could have afforded it; but he couldn't. He has only
just enough to keep himself and his wife and boy. If you were to see the
little box of a house they inhabit in that tiny French village, you would
wonder that anybody bigger than a pigeon could live in so small a place.
They have a narrow garden, and there is an orchard on the slope of a hill
behind the cottage, and a long white road leading to nowhere in front. It
is all very nice in the summer, when one can live half one's life out of
doors, but I am sure I don't know how they manage to exist through the
winter.'

'Poor things!' sighed Bessie, who had a large stock of compassion always
on hand.

And then she tied a bright ribbon at the back of Ida's collar, by way of
finishing touch to the girl's simple toilet, which had been going on
while they talked, and then, Bessie in white and Ida in black, like
sunlight and shadow, they went downstairs to the drawing-room, where
Colonel Wendover was stretched on his favourite sofa, reading a county
paper. Since his retirement from active service into domestic idleness
the Colonel had required a great deal of rest, and was to be found at all
hours of the day extended at ease on his own particular sofa. During his
intervals of activity he exhibited a large amount of energy. When he was
indoors his stentorian voice penetrated from garret to cellar; when he
was out of doors the same deep-toned thunder could be heard across a
couple of paddocks. He pervaded the gardens and stables, supervised the
home farm, and had a finger in every pie.

Mrs. Wendover was sitting in her own particular arm-chair, close to her
husband's sofa--they were seldom seen far apart--with a large basket of
crewel-work beside her, containing sundry squares of kitchen towelling
and a chaos of many-coloured wools, which never seemed to arrive at any
result.

The impression which Mrs. Wendover's drawing-room conveyed to a stranger
was a general idea of homeliness and comfort. It 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
schoolboys who luxuriate in dirt.'

'You'll come, Ranie?' pleaded Bess.

'If you really wish it.'

'I do, or I shouldn't be here. But I hope you wish it too. You ought to
be longing to get out of doors on such a lovely morning. Houses were
never intended for such weather as this Come and join the birds and
butterflies, and all the happiest things in creation.'

'I must go for my hat and sunshade. I wasn't born full-dressed, like the
birds and butterflies,' replied Urania.

She ran away, leaving Bessie and Ida in the drawing-room. The younger
children having rushed in and left their mark upon the room, had now
rushed out again to the jaunting-car.

'A pretty drawing-room, isn't it?' asked Bess. 'It looks so neat and
fresh and bright after ours.'

'It doesn't look half so much like home,' said Ida.

'Perhaps not. But I believe it is just the exact thing a drawing-room
ought to be in this latter part of the nineteenth century; or, at least,
so Dr. Rylance says. How do you like the blue china? Dr. Rylance is an
amateur of blue china. He will have no other. Dresden and Sevres have no
existence for him. He recognizes nothing beyond his own particular breed
of ginger-jars.'

Miss Rylance came back, dressed as carefully as if she had been going for
a morning lounge in Hyde Park, hat and feather, pongee sunshade,
mousquetaire gloves. The Wendovers all wore their gloves in their
pockets, and cultivated blisters on the palms of their hands, as a mark
of distinction, which implied great feats in rowing, or the pulling in of
desperate horses.

Now they were all mounted on the car, just as the church clock struck
ten. Reginald gave the reins a shake, cracked his whip, and Robin, who
always knew where his young friends wanted to go, twisted the vehicle
sharply round a corner and started at an agreeable canter, expressive of
good spirits.

Robin carried them joltingly along a lovely lane till they came to a
gentle acclivity, by which time, having given vent to his exuberance, the
pony settled down into a crawl. Vainly did Reginald crack his whip--vain
even stinging switches on Robin's fat sides. Out of that crawl nothing
could move him. The sun was gaining power with every moment, and blazing
down upon the occupants of the car; but Robin cared not at all. He was an
animal of tropical origin, and had no apprehension of sunshine; his eyes
were so constructed as to accommodate themselves to a superfluity of
light.

'I think we shall be tolerably well roasted by the time we get to the
Abbey,' said Bessie. 'Don't you think if we were all to get down and push
the back of the car, Robin might go a little faster?'

'He'll go fast enough when he has blown a bit,' said Reg. 'Can't you
admire the landscape?'

'We could, if we were not being baked,' replied Ida.

Miss Rylance sat silent under her pongee umbrella, and wished herself in
Cavendish Square; even though western London were as empty and barren as
the great wilderness.

They were on the ridge of a hill, overlooking undulating pastures and
quiet sheep-walks, fair hills on which the yew-trees cast their dark
shadows, a broad stretch of pastoral country with sunny gleams of water
shining low in the distance.

Suddenly the road dipped, and Robin was going downhill with alarming
speed.

'This means that we shall all be in the ditch presently,' said Bessie.
'Never mind. It's only a dry bed of dock and used-up stinging nettles. We
shan't be much hurt.'

After two or three miraculous escapes they landed at the bottom of the
hill, and Ida beheld the good old gates of Kingthorpe Abbey, low iron
gates that stood open, between tall stone pillars supporting the
sculptured escutcheon of the Wendovers. There was a stone lodge on each
side of the gate, past which the car drove in triumph into an avenue of
ancient yew-trees, low and wide-spreading, with a solemn gloom that would
better have become a churchyard than a gentleman's park.

It was a noble old park, richly timbered with oaks as old as those
immemorial trees that make the glory of Stoneleigh. There was a lake in a
wooded hollow in front of the Abbey, a long low pile of stone, the newest
part of which was as old as the days of the last Tudor. Nor had much
money been spent on the restoration or decorative repair of that fine old
house. It had been kept wind and weather proof. It had been protected
against the injuries of time; and that was all. There it stood, a brave
and solid monument of the remote past, grand in its stern simplicity and
its historic associations.

'Oh, what a dear old house!' cried Ida, clasping her hands, as the car
came out of the yew-tree avenue into the open space in front of the
Abbey; a wide lawn, where four mighty cedars of Lebanon spread their
dense shadows--grave old trees--which were in somewise impostors, as they
looked older than the house, and yet had been saplings in the days of
Queen Anne. 'What a sweet old place!' repeated Ida; 'and how I envy the
rich Brian!'

'Don't you think the rich Brian's wife will be still more enviable
sneered Miss Rylance.

'That depends. She may be a Vere-de-Vereish kind of person, and pine
amongst her halls and towers,' said Ida.

'Not if she had been brought up in poverty. She would revel in the
advantages of her position as Mrs. Wendover of the Abbey,' asserted Miss
Rylance.

'Would she? The Earl of Burleigh's wife had been poor, and yet did not
enjoy being rich and great,' said Bessie. 'It killed her, poor thing. And
yet she had married for love, and had no remorse of conscience to weigh
her down.'

'She was a sensitive little fool,' said Ida; 'I have no patience with
her.'

'Modern young ladies are not easily crushed,' remarked Miss Rylance;
'they make marrying for money a profession.'

'Is that your idea of life?' asked Ida.

'No; but I understand it is yours. I heard you say you meant to marry for
money.'

'Then you must have been listening to a conversation in which you had no
concern,' Ida answered coolly. 'I never said as much to you.'

The three girls, and the chubby Eva, had alighted from the car, which was
being conveyed to the stables at a hand-gallop, and this conversation was
continued on the broad gravel sweep in front of the Abbey. Just as the
discussion was intensifying in unpleasantness, the arrival of the
pedestrians made an agreeable diversion. Blanche and her two brothers had
come by a short cut, across fields and common, had given chase to
butterflies, experimented with tadpoles, and looked for hedge-birds' eggs
in the course of their journey, and were altogether in a state of
dilapidation--perspiration running down their sunburnt faces--their hats
anyhow--their hands embellished with recent scratches--their boots coated
with clay.

'Did ever anyone see such objects?' exclaimed Bessie, who had imbibed
certain conventional ideas of decency at Mauleverer Manor: 'you ought to
be ashamed of yourselves.'

'I daresay we ought, but we aren't,' retorted Horatio. 'I found a tadpole
in an advanced stage of transmutation, Miss Palliser, and it has almost
converted me to Darwinism. Given a single step and you may accept the
whole ladder. If from tadpoles frogs, why not from monkeys man?'

'Go and be a Darwinian, and don't prose,' said Blanche, impatiently. 'We
are going to show Ida the Abbey. How do you like the outside, darling?'
asked the too-affectionate girl, favouring Miss Palliser with the full
weight of her seven stone and three-quarters.

'I adore it. It is like a page out of an old chronicle.'

'Isn't it?' gasped Blanche; 'and you can fancy the fat old monks sitting
on those stone benches, nodding in the sunshine. The house is hardly
altered a bit since it was an actual abbey, except that half a dozen
cells have been knocked into one comfortable bedroom. The long dark
passages are just the same as they were when those sly old monks went
gliding up and down them--such dear old passages, smelling palpably of
ghosts.'

'Mice,' said Horatio.

'No, sir, ghosts. Do you suppose my sense of smell is of such inferior
quality that I can't distinguish a ghost from a mouse?'

'Now, how about luncheon?' demanded Horatio. 'I propose that we all go
and sit under that prime old cedar and discuss the contents of the picnic
basket before we discuss the Abbey.'

'Why, it isn't half-past eleven,' said Bessie.

'Ah,' sighed Blanche, 'I'm afraid it's too early for lunch. We should
have nothing left to look forward to all the rest of the day.'

'There'd be afternoon tea at Aunt Betsy's to build upon, said Horry. 'I
gave her to understand we were to have something good: blue gages from
the south wall, cream to a reckless extent.'

'Strawberry jam and pound-cake,' suggested Eva.

'If you go on like that you'll make me distracted with hunger,' said
Blanche, a young person who at the seaside wanted twopence to buy buns
directly after she had swallowed her dinner.

Bessie and Miss Rylance had been walking up and down the velvet sward
beside the beds of dwarf roses and geraniums, with a ladylike stateliness
which did credit to their training at Mauleverer. Ida was the centre of
the juvenile group.

'Come and see the Abbey,' exclaimed Horry, putting his arm through Miss
Palliser's, 'and at the stroke of one we will sit down to lunch under the
biggest of the cedars--the tree which according to tradition was planted
by John Evelyn himself, when he came on a visit to Sir Tristram
Wendover.'

They all trooped into the Abbey, the hall door standing open, as in a
fairy tale. Bessie and Urania followed at a more sober pace; but Ida had
given herself over to the children, and they did what they liked with
her, Blanche hanging on her bodily all the time.

They were now joined by Reginald, who appeared mysteriously from the back
premises, where he had been seeing Robin eat his corn, having a fixed
idea that it was in the nature of all grooms and stablemen to cheat
horses.

The Abbey was furnished with a sober grandeur, in perfect tone with its
architecture. Everything was solid and ponderous, save here and there,
where in some lady's bower there appeared the spindle-legged tables and
inlaid cabinets of the Chippendale period, which had an air of newness
where all else was so old. The upper rooms were low and somewhat dark,
the heavily mullioned windows being designed to exclude rather than to
admit light. There was much tapestry, subdued in hue, but in good
condition, and as frankly uninteresting in subject as the generality of
old English needlework.

Below, the rooms were large and lofty, rich in carved chimney pieces,
well preserved panelling, and old oak furniture. There were some fine
pictures, from Holbein downwards, and the usual array of family
portraits, which the boys and girls explained and commented upon
copiously.

'There's my favourite ancestor, Sir Tristram,' cried Blanche pointing to
a dark-eyed cavalier, with strongly-marked brow and bronzed visage. 'He
was middle-aged when that picture was painted, but I know he was handsome
in his youth. The face is still in the family.'

'Of course it is,' said Horatio--'on my shoulders.'

'Your shoulders!' ejaculated Blanche, contemptuously. 'As if my Sir
Tristram ever resembled you. He fought in all the great battles, from
Edgehill to Worcester,' continued the girl; 'and he was wounded seven
times; and he was true to his master through every trial; and he had all
the Wendover plate melted down; and he followed Charles the Second into
exile; he mortgaged his estate to raise money for the king; and he
married a very lovely French woman, who introduced turned-up noses into
the family,' concluded Blanche, giving her tip-tilted nose a complacent
toss.

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