The Vicar had never been a severe parent; indeed, he was thought by some to allow his children a shocking degree of licence; but such a speech as this went beyond the bounds of what he would tolerate. His face stiffened to an expression of queuing austerity; he replied in a voice of ice: “The unwarrantable language you have used, Arabella; the uncontrolled violence of your manner; the want of respect you have shown me—all these betray clearly how unfit you are to be sent into the world!”

Under the table, Sophia’s foot kicked Arabella’s ankle; across it, Mama’s eyes met hers in a warning, reproving look. The colour surged up into her cheeks; her eyes filled; and she stammered: “I beg your p-pardon, P-papa!”

He returned no answer. Mama broke the uneasy silence by calmly desiring Harry not to eat so fast; and then, just as though nothing untoward had occurred, began to talk to the Vicar about some parish business.

“What a dust you made!” Harry said presently, when the young people had fled to Mama’s dressing-room, and poured out the whole story to Bertram, who had had his dinner brought to him there, on the sofa.

“I am sick with apprehension!” Arabella said tragically. “He means to forbid me!”

“Fudge! It was only one of his scolds! Girls are such fools!”

“Ought I to go down and beg his pardon? Oh, no, I dare not! He has shut himself up in the study! What shall I do?”

“Leave it to Mama!” said Bertram, yawning. “She’s as shrewd as she can hold together, and if she means you to go to London, go you will!”

“I would not go to him now, if I were you,” said Sophia. “You are in such an agitation of spirits that you would be bound to say something unbecoming, or start to cry. And you know how much he dislikes an excess of sensibility! Speak to him in the morning, after prayers!”

This course was decided on. And then, as Arabella afterwards confided to Bertram, it was more dreadful than all the rest! Mama had done her work too well: before the Vicar’s erring daughter could utter a word of her carefully rehearsed apology, he had taken her hand, and said with his sweet, wistful smile: “My child, you must forgive your father. Indeed, I spoke to you with grave injustice yesterday! Alas, that I, who preach moderation to my children, should have so little control over my own temper!”

“Bertram, I had rather by far he had beaten me!” said Arabella earnestly.

“Lord, yes!” agreed Bertram, shuddering. “What a shocking thing! I’m glad I wasn’t downstairs! It makes me feel like the devil when he gets to blaming himself. What did you say?”

“I could not utter a word! My voice was wholly suspended by tears, as you may imagine, and I was so afraid that he would be vexed with me for not being able to contain my feelings better! But he was not. Only fancy! he took me in his arms, and kissed me, and said I was his dear, good daughter, and oh, Bertram, I’m not!”

“Well, you need not put yourself in a pucker for that,” recommended her matter-of-fact brother. “He won’t think it above a day or two. The thing is that his dejected fit is at an end.”

“Oh, yes! But it was much, much worse at breakfast! He would keep on talking to me about the London scheme—teasing me, you know, about the giddy life I should lead there, and saying that I must be sure to write very long letters home, even if I cannot get a frank for them, for he would be so much interested to hear of all my doings!”

Bertram stared at her in undisguised horror. “He did not!”

“But he did! And in the kindest way, only with that sad look in his eyes—you know! until I was ready to give up the whole scheme!”

“My God, I don’t wonder at it!”

“No, and to crown all—as though I had not borne enough!” disclosed Arabella, hunting wildly for her handkerchief, “he said I should want something pretty to wear in London, and he would have a pearl pin he wore when he was a young man made into a ring for me!”

This staggering intelligence made Bertram’s jaw drop. After a moment’s stupefaction, he said resolutely: “That settles it! I shan’t come downstairs today after all. Ten to one, if he saw me he would start to blame himself for my frisk, and I should be driven into running away to enlist, or something, because, you know, a fellow can’t stand that kind of thing!”

“No, indeed! I am sure all my pleasure has been quite cut up!”

Since Papa’s tender mood of forbearance showed every sign of continuance, Arabella fell into such an abyss of despondency that she was only saved from renouncing the London scheme by the timely intervention of Mama, who gave her thoughts a more cheerful direction by calling her into her bedroom one morning, and saying with a smile: “I have something to show you, my love, which I think you will like.”

There was a box lying open upon Mama’s dressing-table. Arabella blinked at the flash of diamonds, and uttered a long-drawn: “Oh-h!”

“My father gave them to me,” said Mrs. Tallant, sighing faintly. “Of course I have never worn them of late years, for I have no occasion to. Besides, they are scarcely suitable for a clergyman’s wife. But I have had them cleaned, and I mean to lend them to you to take with you to London. And I have asked Papa if he thinks I might give you Grandmama Tallant’s pearl necklet, and he sees no objection to it. Your Papa has never cared for sparkling stones, you know, but he thinks pearls both modest and becoming to a female. However, if Lady Bridlington takes you to any dress-parties, which I am sure she will, the diamond set would be just the thing. You see, there is the crescent to set in your hair, and a brooch, and the bracelet as well. Nothing pretentious or vulgar, such as Papa would dislike, but I know the stones are of the finest water.”

It was impossible to be dejected after this, or even to contemplate abandoning the London scheme. What with the trimming of hats, hemming of handkerchiefs, embroidering of slippers for the Squire, the arrival of her gowns from Harrowgate, and the knitting of a new purse for Papa, together with all the ordinary duties which fell to her lot, Arabella had no time to indulge in morbid reflections. Everything went on prosperously: the Caterhams’ retiring governess expressed herself all willingness to chaperon Arabella on the journey; the Squire discovered that by driving only a few miles out of the way she could spend a day or two with her Aunt Emma, at Arksey, and so rest the horses; Bertram’s collar-bone knit itself again; and even Betsy recovered from her sore throat. Not until the Squire’s carriage actually stood at the Parsonage gate, waiting to take up the travellers, with all the trunks strapped securely behind it, and Mama’s dressing-case (also lent for the occasion) placed tenderly within the vehicle, did the mood of depression again descend upon Arabella. Whether it was Mama’s embrace, or Papa’s blessing, or Baby Jack’s fat little hand waving farewell which overcame her, it would have been hard to say, but her feelings were quite overset, and it was a lady dissolved in tears whom Bertram thrust forcibly into the carriage. It was long before she could be composed again, nor was her companion of much support to her, since an excessive sympathy, coupled perhaps with the natural melancholy of a female obliged by circumstances to seek a new post, caused her to weep quite as bitterly in her comer of the capacious carriage.

While familiar landmarks were still to be observed out of the windows, Arabella’s tears continued to flow, but by the time the carriage had reached an unknown countryside they had ceased, and after sniffing cautiously at the vinaigrette, proffered in a trembling hand by Miss Blackburn, she was able to dry her wet cheeks, and even to derive a sensible degree of comfort from the opulence of the huge sealskin pillow-muff lying on her lap. This, with the tippet round her throat, had been sent to her with her Aunt Eliza’s love—the same who had once given Mama a set of pink Indian muslin underwear. Even though one had never left one’s home before, one could not be wholly given over to wretchedness when one’s hands were tucked into a muff as large as any depicted in La Belle Assemblee. So large, indeed, was it, that Papa—But it would be wiser not to think of Papa, or any of the dear ones at home, perhaps. Better to fix one’s attention on the countryside, and one’s thoughts on the delights ahead.

To a young lady who had never been farther afield than to York—and that only when Papa had taken her and Sophia to be confirmed in the Minster—every new thing seen on the road was a matter for eager interest and exclamation. To those accustomed to the rapid mode of travel achieved by post-chaises, a journey in a somewhat ponderous carriage drawn by two horses, chosen more for their stamina than their speed, would have seemed slow beyond all bearing. To Arabella it was adventure, while to Miss Blackburn, inured by long custom to the horrors of the stage, it was unlooked-for comfort. Both ladies, therefore, soon settled down to enjoy themselves, thought the refreshments they were offered at the various halts excellent, found nothing to complain of in the beds at the posting-houses, and could not conceive of a more delightful way of undertaking a long journey. They were made very welcome at Arksey, where Aunt Emma received them with the greatest kindness, and the exclamation that Arabella was so like her dear Mama that she had nearly fainted away at the sight of her.

They spent two days at Arksey before taking the road again, and Arabella was quite sorry to leave the large, untidy house, so kind had Aunt Emma been, and so jolly all her cheerful cousins. But Timothy-coachman reported the horses to be quite fresh and ready for the road again, so there could be no lingering. They set forth once more, followed by the shouted good wishes and many handwavings of Aunt Emma’s family.

After all the fun and the hospitality at Arksey, it did seem to be a little tedious to be sitting all day in a carriage, and once or twice, when a post-chaise-and-four dashed by, or some sporting curricle, with a pair of quick-goers harnessed to it, was encountered, Arabella found herself wishing that the Squire’s carriage were not quite so large and unwieldy, and his horses less strengthy and rather more speedy beasts. It would have been pleasant, too, to have been able to have had a fresh pair poled-up when one of Uncle John’s cast a shoe, instead of having to wait in a stuffy inn parlour while it was reshod; and Arabella, eating her dinner in the coffee-room of some posting-house, could not quite forebear a look of envy when some smart chaise drove into the courtyard, with horses sweating, and ostlers running out with a fresh team for the impatient traveller. Nor could she help wishing, once she had watched the mail-coach sweep through a turnpike, that Uncle John had provided the groom not with a horse-pistol, for which there did not seem to be the slightest occasion, but with a yard of tin, that he might have blown up for the pike in that same lordly style.

The weather, which had been cold but bright in Yorkshire, worsened as they drove farther south. It was raining in Lincolnshire, and the landscape looked sodden. Not many people were to be seen on the road, and the prospect was so uninviting that Miss Blackburn said that it was a pity they had not had the forethought to provide themselves with a travelling chessboard, with which, in default of looking out of the windows, they might have whiled away the time. At Tuxford they were unlucky enough to find the New Castle Arms without a bed to spare, and were obliged to put up at a smaller and by far less genteel inn, where the sheets had been so ill-aired that Miss Blackburn not only lay and shivered in her bed all night, but arose in the morning with a sore throat, and. a tickling at the back of her nose which presaged a cold in the head. Arabella, who, for all her air of fragility, rarely succumbed to minor ailments, was not a penny the worse for the experience, but her north-country soul had been offended by the dust she had seen under her bed, and she was beginning to think that it would be a relief to reach her journey’s end. It was vexing to discover, just as she had packed Mama’s dressing-case, and was ready to leave the inn, that one of the traces needed repair, for it had been arranged that they should spend the following night at Grantham, which, the guide-book informed her, lay some twenty-nine or thirty miles on from Tuxford. She hoped very much that the coachman would not decide that his horses could go no farther than to Newark, but since he was something of a despot, and had no opinion of fast travelling, it seemed more than likely that he would. However, the trace was mended in fairly good time, and they reached Newark in time to eat a late luncheon. Here, while he baited his horses, the coachman fell out with one of the ostlers, who asked him whether it was the King’s state coach he had there; and this so much affronted him that he was quite as anxious as Arabella to reach Grantham that evening.