CHAPTER XV

By the time that arrangements were fully completed, Lord Hexham and the Banneret family had become quite intimate, and in a sense confidential. He had dined with them at the Cecil, where Australian friends were asked to meet him in a quiet way. He was a sociable personage, and the more he saw of his successors at Hexham Hall the more he liked them. Between cultured men of the world there is a certain freemasonry, which deprives social intercourse of all _gêne_ and awkwardness, no matter to what country they belong.

With Mrs. Banneret and her girls his Lordship was much impressed, feeling, as he told her truly, as if he had known them for years. He saw how she sympathised with him; the hard necessity for the eviction—so to speak—of this noble family, after their long and close connection with their ancient home, appealed to her tender heart. Underneath his affectedly frivolous treatment of the subject she divined, with a woman’s intuitive perception, that there was, could not but be, a sore feeling—rising at times to remorse—at the thought that, by his own neglect and indolent mental drift, he had forfeited the heritage of his race. To the family change of circumstances she never referred, but he was aware that it was in her thoughts. In her calm, undemonstrative way she conveyed the idea of regret in the abstract, as inseparable from such an exodus. And in his heart he honoured her for the unspoken sympathy.

When the Earl departed for the United Service Club in London, he wrote, thanking Mrs. Banneret and her husband for their hospitable kindness, and, for which he was even more grateful, their delicate consideration for a ruined man—conscious only too keenly of his own shortcomings and inefficient stewardship.

The merry month of May passed with credit, having provided, for once in a way, appropriate weather, including a decent average of sunshine. The midsummer month arrived in all the glory of that delicious time, of roses and lilies, with all vernal triumphs. And now, in the second week of June—flushed June—came to pass a wondrous equine exhibition, the carnival of coach and harness perfection, unapproachable for form and fashion in any other land under the sun—the meeting of the Four-in-Hand Club! What an ecstasy of excitement and admiration possessed these young people when, at the Magazine in Hyde Park, twenty coaches, utterly perfect in their appointments, lined up.

First in order was Colonel Sir Alfred Somerset’s team of chestnuts—not the famous one of three piebalds and a skewbald, so well known, so much admired, in days gone by. Next, the regimental team of the Coldstream Guards—the grey team of last year, driven by Sir Pleydell Bouverie; Mr. Hope Morley’s bays, a miracle of matching and stepping together; Colonel Frank Shuttleworth’s black browns; Lord Newlands’ favourite team of dark browns. Then comes another, at which the girls exclaimed, as original and striking—Captain Valentine’s two chestnuts, a roan and a bay; Sir Henry Ewart’s fine chestnuts, with Mr. Albert Brassey’s well-known bays. Mr. Banneret recognised the tall figure of Lord Loch, driving the Grenadier Guards’ bay team.

The horses, of course, commended themselves to the Australian family by their size, power, action, and perfect matching, except, of course, in the cases of intentional chequers of colour. Their lofty crests, their high action, the wonderful finish of harness, coach, livery, servants, and appointments generally, they admitted to transcend anything within their experience. Then the perfect ‘form’ of the drivers, gloved, hatted, ‘frockered,’ and generally turned out _à merveille_, unapproachable, unequalled in Christendom, or elsewhere.

‘They can’t help carrying themselves well,’ said Eric, ‘with bearing-reins; their heads braced up to the same angle—driven on the bar, too. Not much chance of their pulling unreasonably or getting away with the driver—full of corn and rest as they undoubtedly are. It’s a lovely sight for people who understand horses.’

‘All the same,’ contended paterfamilias, ‘they are rather heavy for any work except this show business, and would be none the worse for a blood-cross. With stages of twenty or twenty-five miles and back, our Australian teams would be easily in the lead; none the worse for it either, on the following day. But these horses are not expected to do real work.’

‘Oh, it’s idle to depreciate these turn-outs,’ said Hermione. ‘Nothing in the world can be finer! How I should like to be on the box-seat of that coach with the lovely chestnuts—Captain Quintin Dick’s, aren’t they? And going on to Hurlingham afterwards? We must have a look at the polo there, some fine day. Do we know any one there in that behalf? as I heard a lawyer say in father’s Court, one day.’

‘Yes, we do!’ stated Vanda, with some eagerness. ‘Of course there’s Captain Neil Haig; he was A.D.C. to the Governor in West Australia. He played in Melbourne, don’t you remember, against the crack Western Club. Four Englishmen against four Australians. It was a drawn game—he’s a wonderful hitter.’

It was agreed, _nem. con._, that a party should be made up for Hurlingham the next time there was a match on. Following which arrangement the conversation became general, until, shortly after one o’clock, Mr. Lovegrove gave the word, and the procession, headed by the President, Lord Ancaster, moved off; some of the coaches going on to Hurlingham, as arranged in the programme.

‘There can’t be anything finer under the sun, for form and finish,’ declared Reggie, ‘but the American coaching in Australia for cross-country work, over bad roads, for speed and punctuality has greatly the advantage. Their coaches and teams, of course, do not compare in the matter of appearance, and are not expected to. But the passengers are better accommodated, and the American cross-handed style of holding the reins gives better, greater power over the team. Think, for instance, of having to handle six or seven horses at night—three in the lead, with a heavily loaded coach and indifferent roads. The lamps too, placed on high, are more numerous, thus throwing the light farther out ahead. The service is more efficient and satisfactory than the English fashion, which prevailed in Australia until quite recently.’

‘Everything in its own place,’ said Mrs. Banneret. ‘The pioneer work in Britain was finished centuries ago. In our Greater Britain it has only lately begun. Our young men have rough work and different results to look to. Let us hope that they may learn in time to combine use and ornament.’

‘That’s where these English fellows beat us, I must say,’ interposed Eric. ‘Looking at them there, sitting up as if they were only intended to drive accurately, to advertise their teams and their tailors, one might think that they couldn’t do anything else—never had done. There could be no greater mistake. They _have_ done all sorts of things—great things, many of them—but you’d never know it from themselves. The Englishman doesn’t talk. You must hear his exploits from some one else. You never will from himself.’

‘I’m afraid people don’t think that way about us,’ said Vanda dolefully. ‘In fact, they say just the opposite sometimes—when they quote Anthony Trollope, who frequently mentioned the word “blow,” which is Australian for “boast.” That will be rectified by and by. We are a baby nation, so far, but will calm down to the regular, steady, solid Anglo-Saxon march. We’re only excitable—being in the midst of “war’s alarms” at present—likely enough to be dragged in, too, if these Russian cruisers keep on raiding our commerce.’

‘Oh, Vanda! you don’t say so?’ said Hermione, who was not disposed to throw down the gauntlet to Russia just yet, though much in sympathy with Japan. ‘Think what a dreadful thing war is!’

‘It’s a much more dreadful thing,’ said her sister, ‘not to fight to the death for home and hearth. Think of dear old Australia being overrun by the Yellow Peril, or even our kind friends, the Russians and Germans.’

‘But surely there can be no danger of the Chinese making war upon us? Consider how unwarlike a people they are! and how thousands of them would fly before disciplined troops.’

‘I am not so sure of that,’ said Mr. Banneret. ‘General Gordon was of opinion that, if well led by European officers, in whom they had confidence, they were equal to any troops in the world. As for the danger of the irruption of the Goths and Vandals, the late Sir Henry Parkes, a veteran statesman, was of opinion during the latter years of his life that Australia’s greatest danger in the future would be from the proximity of such nations as China and Japan, immensely superior in numbers, and becoming gradually possessed of all the scientific arms of precision. He probably had in his mind China and Japan, the inhabitants of which countries, our legislators, led by the labour party, have laid themselves out to insult and degrade.’

‘Seems unfair, doesn’t it?’ said Reggie. ‘In our policy of “Government by the poor,” they scarcely grasped the idea of a combined Japanese and Chinese force,—with a score of ironclads, landing an army corps in North Queensland, and marching south!’

‘But what would England’s Navy be doing all the time?’ demanded Vanda.

‘England’s Navy,’ replied Reggie, ‘might have something else to do at that particular time—more especially if Russia, Germany, and perhaps France, chose to consider it a befitting time to teach these proud islanders that the “sea, and all that in them is,” was not their inalienable birthright. Besides, it’s a long way to come, and our noble army of town-bred artisans, back-block shearers, swagmen, and shepherds would make no great stand against their countless hordes. The coast all looted, with banks and treasuries rifled, as also private property of all kinds; the city population helpless in the hands of the ruthless spoilers. Think of it! It would then be a case of “Oh, weep for fair Australia!” as an Australian poet sang a year or two since.’

‘What a ghastly picture—a kind of Verestchagin nightmare! It’s enough to freeze the blood in one’s veins. And what power could come to our aid? Oh, I know! Blood is thicker than water. When it came to the actual spectacle of a British Commonwealth submerged beneath a flood of barbarism, America would come to our aid. The “Stars and Stripes” would “chip in,” as they say. The Dominion of Canada, more loyal than Britain itself——’

‘New Zealand too—that makes a respectable number of Allied Forces,’ said her father, smiling at the girl’s eagerness.

‘But the mere conception of such a calamity,’ he continued, ‘makes one’s flesh creep. When one reckons up the toil and thought which the subduing of the wilderness has cost, the labour and the treasure expended in building up these fair cities—these grand provinces, this population of British blood and nurture, not inferior to any people in the world; to believe that the fruit of heroic colonisation, for which noble lives have been spent, noble blood shed, should have been all for nought—for worse than nothing—for ruin and desolation—the degradation of a nation, as in the old-world chronicles, about which we read, and take no heed; then, and then indeed, might one come to doubt the purpose of the Most High, the Divine plan of Providence, the beneficent scheme of the Universe.’

* * * * *

The business of the installation of the new family was not completed without a fair allowance of work and labour, even excitement.

There necessarily remained much to do before the final arrangements were complete. An additional morning-room for the girls was to be chosen, in which to write and make society arrangements, to receive their friends, to hold informal afternoon teas, and to perform any kind of needlework, and literary pastime, quietly and reposefully.

Of course furniture for some of the principal reception-rooms had to be purchased and arranged. Grave councils were held before this scheme could be carried out. But at length everything was completed, and the collective taste of the family fully satisfied.

Then the first step, an important one in county neighbourhoods at home or abroad, was taken—the Bannerets went to church _en famille_. The Vicar, the Rev. and Honourable Cyril Courtenay, had called, as soon after their arrival as was consistent with etiquette, in advance of his lady parishioners. This proceeding he justified on the ground of his wish to make himself acquainted with the religious tendencies of the new Squire and the rest of the family, with whom, by virtue of his position, he would be brought into closer than ordinary contact.

He was agreeably surprised to find at the first interview with the new potentate and his wife that harmonious relations were likely to exist. Mr. Banneret, as an Anglican churchman, was quite prepared to join cordially with Mr. Courtenay in promoting the welfare of the parish; promising at once liberal donations to the funds of the charitable societies, nursing clubs, and all such benevolent arrangements for the welfare of the poor. Mrs. Banneret had acted in similar positions before, and was quite willing to take a leading part in Dorcas societies, and other institutions for the benefit of widows, and labourers’ families, such as are always in a state of chronic or accidental distress in the most happily situated parishes.

The Vicar, speaking for the laymen of his diocese, was thankful, he might say, most grateful to Providence, that had so ‘shaped our ends,’ in a manner so unforeseen, while so beneficial to the church and to the needs of this long-neglected parish. Mrs. Courtenay, he needed not to say, would be only too happy to work in concert with Mrs. Banneret in all parish and church matters. She would pay her respects on an early date to the new Lady of the Manor. So the Vicar took his departure, leaving the Hall, as he told his wife, in a much more cheerful state of mind than had formerly been his experience after interviews with the ruling powers of Hexham.

Rarely, indeed, had he been able to extract subscriptions for urgent needs of the church, however strongly he might paint the discreditable state of the venerable edifice and the poverty of the village poor. Lord Hexham was uniformly polite—he could not be otherwise to the Vicar, a contemporary of his own at Cambridge, and a personal friend. But his logic was unanswerable: he had no money to spare—hadn’t had for years—never should have again, as far as he could make out. Lady Hexham was refined and courteous, but the parable was unaltered. She could hardly pay for the girls’ frocks, for the boys’ uniforms; next year they might not have bread to eat. Rents were falling; certainly the agent received them, and disposed of them mysteriously to a bank, she heard. Only a fraction seemed to come their way. Once upon a time the tenants paid cheerfully; even admitted—wonderful to relate—that they had sold their crops well, had had a good year. But even so, when butter, beef and mutton, cheese and fruit, came in from the colonies and America in overwhelming quantities, what was the use of a good season if the prices went down to depths unheard of—and stayed there? As for the agent, it was needless to think of asking _him_ to reduce a rent on cottage or holding, however small.

‘It’s asking me to rob his Lordship of his dues, simply, or else the mortgagee, which comes to the same thing. I’m powerless—otherwise should have been happy—_most_ happy to contribute. As a private individual you are welcome to my guinea annually, as usual.’

With civil speeches and scant coin the Rev. Cyril had perforce to be content. He recognised the justice of the argument. The family would have subscribed reasonably, if not liberally, to all the customary calls upon the Lord of the Manor, if the head of the house could have afforded it. But he could not afford it, and there was an end of the matter. The parish, the tenantry, and the neighbours—a few staunch friends of the family perhaps excepted—would be not sorry to exchange an impecunious proprietor, too poor and hampered by debts and mortgages to do anything for sport or charity, unable to entertain, or in almost any way to keep up an appearance befitting the descendants of Raoul de ——, who had ‘come over with the Conqueror,’ and having _more majorum_ married the heiress of ——, had entered into possession of the Hexham lands and feudal privileges, together with as much of the adjacent common land as a rapacious Norman baron, high in favour with an unscrupulous sovereign, could by force or fraud manage to appropriate. The descendants of such a man should have been able to not only freely disburse the customary manorial dues, but to keep up all state and dignity befitting the position. As he could not, the villagers concluded that it was the next best thing to welcome the new family, who, though they had come from a wild sort of country—as they’d heard tell on—called Horstrailier—seemed a decentish sort, and, anyhow, were well off, and did the thing respectable. So the village church bells were rung, and the new family was greeted by a crowd of some fifty odd souls, comprising a large proportion of women and children, who hurrahed, and made formal demonstrations of welcome, as the carriage and a string of railway cabs, with servants and luggage, passed through the Tudor gateway, and drew up inside the more ornately modern portico of the baronial hall.

The girls at once rushed up to their rooms, where, as their own maid and some other house servants had been sent down the day before, they were able to appreciate the view and make ready for lunch. This meal they professed themselves ready to enjoy with a true country appetite—as the morning had been more or less exciting, even in a sense fatiguing. It was fortunately a fine day, so that the beauty of the grass, the foliage, the surrounding landscape, impressed them strongly.

‘Oh, what an Eden of a place!’ said Hermione. ‘How happy we shall be! How thankful we ought to consider ourselves in having come into such a delightful home, and, what is of more consequence, having the means to keep it up.’

‘Oh, yes!’ assented Vanda, ‘we ought to have a good time, but I’m not sure that we shall be really happier than we were in dear old Sydney, when we first went to live in Charlotte Bay Place. What a glorious view there was of the Heads and the harbour! What boating picnics we used to have! I should like to go back there some day. Here we shall have to live a quiet English country life, being good to the poor, and so on, like the girls in Jane Austen’s books. There’ll be no adventure about it. I suppose the Vicar will want us to teach in his Sunday school.’

‘You needn’t teach there if you don’t wish. Mother won’t compel you, I’m sure,’ replied Hermione. ‘I think I shall rather like it after all the racketing and gaiety we’ve had in London. I feel as if a reposeful life here would be a pleasing change. My conscience has been troubling me lately, for taking all the good things of life and making no return. It seems so selfish and ungrateful.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Vanda, ‘perhaps one would feel more contented if one had a few good works to put on the credit side of the account. I know I’ve been rather dissipated lately. This quiet country life may do us good, in more ways than one. Oh, mother’ (as Mrs. Banneret came in to see if the young people were ready, and to notify that the great bell for luncheon was about to clang), ‘Hermione and I have just resolved to be good. We are going to visit the poor, and teach in the Sunday school, and do our duty, just like the Jane Austen girls.’

‘I am very pleased to hear it, my dears; only I don’t wish you to take such a resolution in any but a serious sense, and an earnest resolve to do your duty and set an example, as far as in you lies, to the people among whom our lot for some years, if not always, will be cast. You have had all the rational amusement, and quite a full allowance of what the world calls pleasure, to last you for some time. I quite agree with you that it will be a good opportunity to begin in some respects a different and, with God’s grace, a higher life.’

On the Sunday morning following this important conversation, the Banneret family made their appearance in the roomy enclosure which had been for many generations consecrated to the use of the Lord of the Manor, his family, and apparently as many of his relations and dependants as he chose thus to honour. The church was fairly well filled, as it happened, much to the gratification of the Vicar, who was not displeased to note the presence of neighbouring magnates, with their wives, who from time to time directed an intermittent gaze towards the new occupants of the Hall pew. Arnold Banneret with his wife and daughters made a good appearance therein. Indeed it had been for some years unoccupied, during the absence of the family abroad: such being the traditional custom. Mrs. Banneret and her daughters were well but quietly dressed—her wish to that effect having been gently but firmly expressed. ‘We have recently come from town,’ she said; ‘it is reported, no doubt, that we are very rich. In this quiet place nothing could be more vulgar than any display of fashion bordering upon finery.’ This settled the matter. The dresses were studiously plain; so much so, that the rustics of the congregation were secretly disappointed in not seeing unusual splendour, doubting in consequence whether the new-comers were so rich as they had been led to believe.

As the service proceeded, the thought came into the mind of this Australian squire of the many differing localities and positions in which he, with his wife and children, had worshipped before they came to this lordly abode. Not infrequently had he been the officiating lay minister, reading the Burial Service over the dead miner, victim of some sudden landslip or premature explosion; reciting the words of the litany, now sounding in his ears, in a half-finished wooden building, roofed with eucalyptus bark or corrugated iron; driving miles through snow for the purpose, or in mid-summer crossing the brick-red plain, amid dust and simoom-like blasts. Through all these incongruous scenes, and from these and a hundred other various parts played by him in the great drama of life, he had emerged safe and unharmed. Not only unharmed, but placed in this position of honour and dignity—by no merit of his own, but by the operation of, apparently, the primary forces of Nature. Riches, too, had been added for the further advantage and enjoyment of those whom he loved more—yes, far more, than his own life. Ought he not then, out of the fulness of a heart welling over with gratitude, to echo the solemn prayer of the concluding litany?

At the conclusion of the service, the mail-phaetons, dog-carts, carriages, and other vehicles showed that some at least of the parishioners had a distance to come, which necessitated driving. The party from the Hall were scarcely a half-mile from the church, so that there was no need for taking out the carriage. The family, as a whole, were good pedestrians—‘The short walk was quite a pleasure,’ as Vanda told every one, ‘and it would have been absurd to take out the horses.’

When Lord Hexham returned to his family at Bruges, after a concluding week in London, in which to show himself to his clubs, and have a little social companionship with old friends and comrades, he took with him a letter from Mrs. Banneret, of so sympathetic and unaffectedly kind a nature, that Lady Hexham nearly relented. She would have been indeed more than human if she had not felt the least little bit of envy and jealousy of these people from a far country, who had entered into their labours, so to speak, for no other reason than the chance possession of more money than they knew what to do with. Hard, no doubt, did it seem to her, that while she and her girls had to stint and save, scarcely able to afford themselves decent frocks, the daughters of these _nouveaux riches_ should have their Paris gowns noticed in every fashion paper, and described as ‘confections,’ and so on, of the latest style. They were also seen at Ascot, royal Ascot, these new dwellers in their ancestral halls, their property in which, owing to the extravagance of one generation and the apathetic indifference of the next, had gradually declined, and was now lost to the family for ever.

However, his Lordship’s persistent advocacy of their claims to consideration gradually weakened her prejudices, finally inducing her to reply to Mrs. Banneret’s letter in manner approaching to the spirit in which it was written.

‘You know, my dear,’ he had said, in one of the discussions about ways and means which had followed his return to the peaceful home-life at Bruges, ‘it really was an immense relief our getting hold of such a lot of hard cash for poor old Hexham. It puts us and our credit in such a different position from what it has been for years.’

‘I daresay it has, but I don’t want any more credit, if you please—we have had more than was good for us all along. What sort of people are they? I suppose the girls are good-looking? That’s what _you_ mean by crediting them with all the virtues.’

‘They certainly are; but it’s very unfair of you to talk in that jealous way. If you saw Mrs. Banneret, not to mention her husband and the sons.’

‘Oh, there are sons, then?’

‘Yes, very fine young fellows; one of them rowed three in the Cambridge eight this year—which beat your favourite Oxford crew, my lady. They’re handsome too.’

‘Well, I can’t be jealous of _them_, can I?’

‘No, nor of any girl or woman alive, as you well know—say you know it, dear, won’t you? You’re only trying to draw me?’

‘I suppose I must forgive you, as usual, though you’ve stayed away an unconscionable time, and spent more money in London than you ought to have done—now haven’t you?’

‘I had to complete arrangements—and—er—er—there were business details. Hang it! if a man can’t have a little amusement when he gets a cheque for a couple of hundred thousand, after being mewed up in a place like this for years, when is he to have it? And the old clubs were so pleasant, and the fellows so glad to see me again, y’know!’

‘Oh yes, I know! And ready to play bridge and billiards, no doubt. So you think I’d like to pay Mrs. What’s-her-name a visit, and see the old place again? Perhaps it would be rather a lark.’

‘Don’t be reckless, dear! That’s not your line, but _if_ you could manage it, some day, when the girls are at their pensions, I guarantee that you’d enjoy it. It would please them awfully—and _me_, if that counts.’

‘Well, perhaps I’ll see about it—but don’t be sure just yet.’