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Beechcroft at Rockstone

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #5156 · 694,397 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Beechcroft at Rockstone

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #5156]
                Most recently updated: October 12, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5156

Credits: Produced by Sandra Laythorpe and David Widger


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Produced by Sandra Laythorpe






BEECHCROFT AT ROCKSTONE

By Charlotte M Yonge




CHAPTER I. -- A DISPERSION



‘A telegram! Make haste and open it, Jane; they always make me so
nervous! I believe that is the reason Reginald always _will_ telegraph
when he is coming,’ said Miss Adeline Mohun, a very pretty, well
preserved, though delicate-looking lady of some age about forty, as her
elder sister, brisk and lively and some years older, came into the room.

‘No, it is not Reggie. It is from Lily. Poor Lily!
Jasper--accident--Come.’

‘Poor dear Lily! Is it young Jasper or old Jasper, I wonder?’

‘If it were young Jasper she would have put Japs. I am afraid it is her
husband. If so, she will be going off to him. I must catch the 11.20
train. Will you come, Ada?’

‘Oh no; I should be knocked up, and on your hands. The suspense is bad
enough at home.’

‘If it is old Jasper, we shall see in the paper to-day. I will send it
down to you from the station. Supposing it is Sir Jasper, and she wants
to go out to him, we must take in some of the children.’

‘Oh! Dear little Primrose would be nice enough, but what should we do
with that Halfpenny woman? If we had the other girls, I suppose they
would be at school all day; but surely some might go to Beechcroft. And
mind, Jane, I will not have you overtasking yourself! Do not take any of
them without having Gillian to help you. That I stipulate.’

Jane Mohun seemed as if she did not hear as these sentences were uttered
at intervals, while she stood dashing off postcards at her davenport.
Then she said, on her way to the door--

‘Don’t expect me to-night. I will send Fanny to ask one of the Wellands
to come in to you, and telegraph if I bring any one home with me.’

‘But, Jane dear--’

However, the door was shut, and by the time Miss Adeline had reached her
sister’s room, the ever-ready bag was nearly packed.

‘I only wanted to say, dear Jane, that you must give my love to dear
Lily. I am grieved--grieved for her; but indeed you must not undertake
anything rash.’ (A shake of the head, as the shoes went into their neat
bag.) ‘Do not let her persuade you to stay at Silverfold in her absence.
You cannot give up everything here.’

‘Yes, yes, Ada, I know it does not suit you. Never fear.’

‘It is not that, but you are much too useful here to drop everything,
especially now every one is away. I would willingly sacrifice myself,
but--’

‘Yes, I know, Ada dear. Now, good-bye, and take care of yourself, and
don’t be nervous. It may mean only that young Japs has twisted his
little finger.’

And with a kiss, Miss Mohun ran downstairs as fast and lightly as if
her years had been half their amount, and accomplished her orders to
Fanny--otherwise Mrs. Mount--a Beechcroft native, who, on being left
a widow, had returned to her former mistresses, bringing with her a
daughter, who had grown up into an efficient housemaid. After a few
words with her, Miss Mohun sped on, finding time at the station
to purchase a morning paper just come down, and to read among the
telegrams--



‘COLOMBO, Sept. 3rd.

‘Lieutenant-General Sir Jasper Merrifield, G.C.B., has been thrown from
his horse, and received severe injuries.’


She despatched this paper to her sister by a special messenger, whom she
had captured by the way, and was soon after in the train, knitting and
pondering.

At Silverton station she saw the pony carriage, and in it her niece
Gillian, a girl not quite seventeen, with brown eyes showing traces of
tears.

‘Mamma knew you would come,’ she said.

‘You have heard direct, of course.’

‘Yes; Claude telegraphed. The horse fell over a precipice. Papa’s leg
and three ribs are broken. Not dangerous. That is all it says; and mamma
is going out to him directly.’

‘I was quite sure she would. Well, Gillian, we must do the best we can.
Has she any plans?’

‘I think she waited for you to settle them. Hal is come; he wanted to go
with her, but she says it will cost too much, and besides, there is his
Ordination in Advent.’

‘Has she telegraphed to your uncles?’

‘To Beechcroft and to Stokesley; but we don’t quite know where Uncle
Reginald is. Perhaps he will see the paper.’

Gillian’s tears were flowing again, and her aunt said--

‘Come, my dear, you must not give way; you must do all you can to make
it better for your mother.’

‘I know,’ she answered. ‘Indeed, I didn’t cry till I sat waiting, and it
all came over me. Poor papa! and what a journey mamma will have, and
how dreadful it will be without her! But I know that it is horrid of me,
when papa and my sisters must want her so much more.’

‘That’s right--quite right to keep up before her. It does not sound to
me so bad, after all; perhaps they will telegraph again to stop her. Did
Claude ask her to come out?’

‘Oh no! There were only those few words.’

No more could be learnt till the pony stopped at the door, and Hal ran
out to hand out his aunt, and beg her privately to persuade his mother
to take him, or, if she would not consent to that, at least to have
Macrae, the old soldier-servant, with her--it was not fit for her to
travel alone.

Lady Merrifield looked very pale, and squeezed her sister close in her
arms as she said--

‘You are my great help, Jenny.’

‘And must you go?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘Without waiting to hear more?’

‘There is no use in losing time. I cannot cross from Folkestone till the
day after to-morrow, at night. I must go to London to-morrow, and sleep
at Mrs. Merrifield’s.’

‘But this does not seem to me so very bad.’

‘Oh, no, no! but when I get there in three weeks’ time, it will be just
when I shall be most wanted. The nursing will have told on the girls,
and Jasper will be feeling weary of being laid up, and wanting to take
liberties.’

‘And what will you be after such a journey?’

‘Just up to keeping him in order. Come, you have too much sense to
expostulate, Jenny.’

‘No; you would wear yourself to fiddle-strings if you stayed at home. I
only want you to take Hal, or Macrae.’

‘Hal is out of the question, I would not interfere with his preparation
on any account. Macrae would be a very costly article; and, moreover, I
want him to act major-domo here, unless you would, and that I don’t dare
to hope for.’

‘No, you must not, Lily; Ada never feels well here, nor always at
Brighton, and Emily would be too nervous to have her without me. But we
will take as many children as you please, or we have room for.’

‘That is like you, Jenny. I know William will offer to take them in at
home, but I cannot send them without Miss Vincent; and she cannot leave
her mother, who has had a sort of stroke. Otherwise I should try leaving
them here while I am away, but the poor old lady is in no state for
it--in fact, I doubt her living long.’

‘I know; you have been governess by yourself these last weeks; it will
be well to relieve her. The best way will be for us to take Mysie and
Valetta, and let them go to the High School; and there is a capital
day-school for little boys, close to St. Andrew’s, for Fergus, and
Gillian can go there too, or join classes in whatever she pleases.’

‘My Brownie! Have you really room for all those?’

‘Oh yes! The three girls in the spare room and dressing-room, and Fergus
in the little room over the porch. I will write to Fanny; I gave her a
hint.’

‘And I have no doubt that Primrose will be a delight to her aunt
Alethea, poor little dear! Yes, that makes it all easy, for in the
holidays I know the boys are sure of a welcome at the dear old home, or
Hal might have one or two of them at his Curacy.’

The gong sounded for the melancholy dinner that had to go on all the
same, and in the midst all were startled by the arrival of a telegram,
which Macrae, looking awestruck, actually delivered to Harry instead of
to his mistress; but it was not from Ceylon. It was from Colonel Mohun,
from Beechcroft: ‘Coming 6.30. Going with you. Send children here.’

Never were twenty words, including addresses, more satisfactory.
The tears came, for the first time, to Lady Merrifield’s eyes at the
kindness of her brothers, and Harry was quite satisfied that his uncle
would be a far better escort than himself or Macrae. Aunt Jane went
off to send her telegram home and write some needful letters, and Lady
Merrifield announced her arrangements to those whom they concerned.

‘Oh! mamma, don’t,’ exclaimed Valetta; ‘all the guinea-pigs will die.’

‘I thought,’ said Gillian, ‘that we might stay here with Miss Vincent to
look after us.’

‘That will not do in her mother’s state. Mrs. Vincent cannot be moved up
here, and I could not lay such a burthen on them.’

‘We would be very good,’ said Val.

‘That, I hope, you will be any way; but I think it will be easier at
Rockstone, and I am quite sure that papa and I shall be better satisfied
about you.’

‘Mayn’t we take Quiz!’ asked Fergus.

‘And Rigdum Funnidos?’ cried Valetta.

‘And Ruff and Ring?’ chimed in Mysie.

‘My dear children, I don’t see how Aunt Jane can be troubled with any
more animals than your four selves. You must ask her, only do not be
surprised or put out if she refuses, for I don’t believe you can keep
anything there.’

Off the three younger ones went, Gillian observing, ‘I don’t see how
they can, unless it was Quiz; but, mamma, don’t you think I might go to
Beechcroft with Primrose? I should be so much quieter working for the
examination there, and I could send my exercises to Miss Vincent; and
then I should keep up Prim’s lessons.’

‘Your aunt Alethea will, I know, like doing that, my dear; and I am
afraid to turn those creatures loose on the aunts without some one to
look after them and their clothes. Fanny will be very helpful; but it
will not do to throw too much on her.’

‘Oh! I thought they would have Lois--’

‘There would not be room for her; besides that, I don’t think it
would suit your aunts. You and Mysie ought to do all the mending for
yourselves and Fergus, and what Valetta cannot manage. I know you would
rather be at Beechcroft, my dear; but in this distress and difficulty,
some individual likings must be given up.’

‘Yes, mamma.’

Lady Merrifield looked rather dubiously at her daughter. She had
very little time, and did not want to have an argument, nor to elicit
murmurs, yet it might be better to see what was in Gillian’s mind before
it was too late. Mothers, very fond of their own sisters, cannot always
understand why it is not the same with their daughters, who inherit
another element of inherited character, and of another generation,
and who have not been welded together with the aunts in childhood. ‘My
dear,’ she said, ‘you know I am quite ready to hear if you have any real
reasonable objection to this arrangement.’

‘No, mamma, I don’t think I have,’ said Gillian thoughtfully. ‘The not
liking always meeting a lot of strangers, nor the general bustle, is all
nonsense, I know quite well. I see it is best for the children, but I
should like to know exactly who is to be in authority over them.’

‘Certainly Aunt Jane,’ replied Lady Merrifield. ‘She must be the
ultimate authority. Of course you will check the younger ones in
anything going wrong, as you would here, and very likely there will be
more restrictions. Aunt Ada has to be considered, and it will be a town
life; but remember that your aunt is mistress of the house, and that
even if you do think her arrangements uncalled for, it is your duty to
help the others to submit cheerfully. Say anything you please fully and
freely in your letters to me, but don’t let there be any collisions
of authority. Jane will listen kindly, I know, in private to any
representation you may like to make, but to say before the children,
“Mamma always lets them,” would be most mischievous.’

‘I see,’ said Gillian. ‘Indeed, I will do my best, mamma, and it will
not be for very long.’

‘I hope and trust not, my dear child. Perhaps we shall all meet by
Easter--papa, and all; but you must not make too sure. There may be
delays. Now I must see Halfpenny. I cannot talk to you any more, my
Gillyflower, though I am leaving volumes unsaid.

Gillian found Aunt Jane emerging from her room, and beset by her three
future guests.

‘Aunt Jane, may we bring Quiz?’

‘And Rigdum Funnidos and Lady Rigdum?’

‘And Ruff and Ring? They are the sweetest doves in the world.’

‘Doves! Oh, Mysie, they would drive your aunt Ada distracted, with
coo-roo-roo at four o’clock in the morning, just as she goes off to
sleep.’

‘The Rigdums make no noise but a dear little chirp,’ triumphantly
exclaimed Valetta.

‘Do you mean the kittens? We have a vacancy for one cat, you know.’

Oh yes, we want you to choose between Artaxerxes and the Sofy. But the
Rigdums are the eldest pair of guinea-pigs. They are so fond of me, that
I know poor old Funnidos will die of grief if I go away and leave him.’

‘I sincerely hope not, Valetta, for, indeed, there is no place to put
him in.’

‘I don’t think he would mind living in the cellar if he only saw me once
a day,’ piteously pleaded Valetta.

‘Indeed, Val, the dark and damp would surely kill the poor thing, in
spite of your attentions. You must make up your mind to separation from
your pets, excepting the kitten.’

Valetta burst out crying at this last drop that made the bucket
overflow, but Fergus exclaimed: ‘Quiz! Aunt Jane! He always goes about
with us, and always behaves like a gentleman, don’t you, Quizzy?’ and
the little Maltese, who perfectly well understood that there was trouble
in the air, sat straight up, crossed his paws, and looked touchingly
wistful.

‘Poor dear little fellow!’ said Aunt Jane; ‘yes, I knew he would be
good, but Kunz would be horribly, jealous, you see; he is an only dog,
and can’t bear to have his premises invaded.’

‘He ought to be taught better,’ said Fergus gravely.

‘So he ought,’ Aunt Jane confessed; ‘but he is too old to begin
learning, and Aunt Ada and Mrs. Mount would never bear to see him
disturbed. Besides, I really do not think Quiz would be half so well off
there as among his own friends and places here, with Macrae to take
care of him.’ Then as Fergus began to pucker his face, she added, ‘I am
really very sorry to be so disagreeable.’

‘The children must not be unreasonable,’ said Gillian sagely, as she
came up.

‘And I am to choose between Xerxes and Artaxerxes, is it?’ said Aunt
Jane.

‘No, the Sofy,’ said Mysie. ‘A Sofy is a Persian philosopher, and this
kitten has got the wisest face.’

‘Run and fetch them,’ suggested her aunt, ‘and then we can choose.
Oh,’ she added, with some relief at the thought, ‘if it is an object to
dispose of Cockie, we could manage him.’

The two younger ones were gratified, but Gillian and Mysie both
exclaimed that Cockie’s exclusive affections were devoted to Macrae, and
that they could not answer for his temper under the separation. To break
up such a household was decidedly the Goose, Fox, and Cabbage problem.
As Mysie observed, in the course of the search for the kittens, in the
make-the-best-of-it tone, ‘It was not so bad as the former moves, when
they were leaving a place for good and all.’

‘Ah, but no place was ever so good as this,’ said poor Valetta.

‘Don’t be such a little donkey,’ said Fergus consequentially. ‘Don’t you
know we are going to school, and I am three years younger than Wilfred
was?’

‘It is only a petticoat school,’ said Val, ‘kept by ladies.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘It is; I heard Harry say so.’

‘And yours is all butchers and bakers and candlestick makers.’

On which they fell on each other, each with a howl of defiance. Fergus
grabbed at Val’s pigtail, and she was buffeting him vehemently when
Harry came out, held them apart, and demanded if this were the way to
make their mother easy in leaving them.

‘She said it was a pet-pet-petticoat school,’ sobbed Fergus.

‘And so it ought to be, for boys that fight with girls.’

‘And he said mine was all butchers and bakers and candlestick makers,’
whined Valetta.

‘Then you’d better learn manners, or they’ll take you for a tramp,’
observed Harry; but at that moment Mysie broke in with a shout at having
discovered the kittens making a plaything of the best library pen-wiper,
their mother, the sleek Begum, abetting them, and they were borne off to
display the coming glories of their deep fur to Aunt Jane.

Her choice fell upon the Sofy, as much because of the convenience of the
name as because of the preternatural wisdom of expression imparted by
the sweep of the black lines on the gray visage. Mr. Pollock’s landlady
was to be the happy possessor of Artaxerxes, and the turbulent portion
of the Household was disposed of to bear him thither, and to beg Miss
Hacket to give Buff and Ring the run of her cage, whence they had
originally come, also to deliver various messages and notes.

By the time they returned, Colonel Mohun was met in the hall by his
sister. ‘Oh, Reggie, it is too good in you!’ were the words that came
with her fervent kiss. ‘Remember how many years I have been seasoned to
being “cockit up on a baggage waggon.” Ought not such an old soldier as
I to be able to take care of myself?’

‘And what would your husband say to you when you got there? And should
not I catch it from William? Well, are you packing up the youthful
family for Beechcroft, except that at Rotherwood they are shrieking for
Mysie?’

‘I know how good William and Alethea would be. This child,’ pointing to
Primrose, who had been hanging on her all day in silence, ‘is to go to
them; but as I can’t send Miss Vincent, educational advantages, as
the advertisements say, lie on the side of Rockstone; so Jenny here
undertakes to be troubled with the rabble.’

‘But Mysie? Rotherwood met me at the station and begged me to obtain her
from you. They really wish it.’

‘He does, I have no doubt.’

‘So does Madame la Marquise. They have been anxious about little Phyllis
all the summer. She was languid and off her feed in London, and did
not pick up at home as they expected. My belief is that it is too much
governess and too little play, and that a fortnight here would set
her up again. Rotherwood himself thinks so, and Victoria has some such
inkling. At any rate, they are urgent to have Mysie with the child, as
the next best thing.’

‘Poor dear little Fly!’ ejaculated Lady Merrifield; ‘but I am afraid
Mysie was not very happy there last year.’

‘And what would be the effect of all the overdoing?’ said Miss Mohun.

‘Mysie is tougher than that sprite, and I suppose there is some
relaxation,’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘Yes; the doctors have frightened them sufficiently for the present.

‘I suppose Mysie is a prescription, poor child,’ said her aunt, in a
tone that evoked from her brother--

‘Jealous, Jenny?’

‘Well, Jane,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘you know how thankful I am to
you and Ada, but I am inclined to let it depend on the letters I get
to-morrow, and the way Victoria takes it. If it is really an earnest
wish on that dear little Fly’s account, I could not withstand old
Rotherwood, and though Mysie might be less happy than she would be with
you, I do not think any harm will be done. Everything there is sound and
conscientious, and if she picks up a little polish, it won’t hurt her.’

‘Shall you give her the choice?’

‘I see no good in rending the poor child’s mind between two affections,
especially as there will be a very short time to decide in, for I shall
certainly not send her if Victoria’s is a mere duty letter.’

‘You are quite right there, Lily,’ said the Colonel. ‘The less choice
the greater comfort.’

‘Well done, sir soldier,’ said his sister Jane. ‘I say quite right too;
only, for my own sake, I wish it had been Valetta.’

‘So no doubt does she,’ said the mother; ‘but unluckily it isn’t. And,
indeed, I don’t think I wish it. Val is safer with you. As Gillian
expressed it the other day, “Val does right when she likes it; Mysie
does right when she knows it.”’

‘You have the compliment after all, Jane,’ said the Colonel. ‘Lily
trusts you with the child she doesn’t trust!’

There was no doubt the next morning, for Lady Rotherwood wrote an
earnest, affectionate letter, begging for Mysie, who, she said, had won
such golden opinions in her former visit that it would be a real benefit
to Phyllis, as much morally as physically, to have her companionship. It
was the tenderest letter that either of the sisters had ever seen from
the judicious and excellent Marchioness, full of warm sympathy for Lady
Merrifield’s anxiety for her husband, and betraying much solicitude for
her little girl.

‘It has done her good,’ said Jane Mohun. ‘I did not think she had such a
soft spot.’

‘Poor Victoria,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘that is a shame. You know she is
an excellent mother.’

‘Too excellent, that’s the very thing,’ muttered Aunt Jane. ‘Well,
Mysie’s fate is settled, and I dare say it will turn out for the best.’

So Mysie was to go with Mrs. Halfpenny and Primrose to Beechcroft,
whence the Rotherwoods would fetch her. If the lady’s letter had been
much less urgent, who could have withstood her lord’s postscript: ‘If
you could see the little pale face light up at the bare notion of seeing
Mysie, you would know how grateful we shall be for her.’

Mysie herself heard her destiny without much elation, though she was
very fond of Lady Phyllis, and the tears came into her eyes at the
thought of her being unwell and wanting her.

‘Mamma said we must not grumble,’ she said to Gillian; ‘but I shall
feel so lost without you and Val. It is so unhomish, and there’s that
dreadful German Fraulein, who was not at home last time.’

‘If you told mamma, perhaps she would let you stay,’ returned Gillian.
‘I know I should hate it, worse than I do going to Rockstone and without
you.’

‘That would be unkind to poor Fly,’ said Mysie. ‘Besides, mamma said
she could not have settling and unsettling for ever. And I shall see
Primrose sometimes; besides, I do love Fly. It’s marching orders, you
know.’

It was Valetta who made the most objection. She declared that it was not
fair that Mysie, who had been to the ball at Rotherwood, should go again
to live with lords and ladies, while she went to a nasty day-school
with butchers’ and bakers’ daughters. She hoped she should grow horridly
vulgar, and if mamma did not like it, it would be her own fault!

Mrs. Halfpenny, who did not like to have to separate Mysie’s clothes
from the rest after they were packed, rather favoured this naughtiness
by observing: ‘The old blue merino might stay at home. Miss Mysie would
be too set up to wear that among her fine folk. Set her up, that she
should have all the treats, while her own Miss Gillian was turned over
to the auld aunties!’

‘Nonsense, nurse,’ said Gillian. ‘I’m much better pleased to go and be
of some use! Val, you naughty child, how dare you make such a fuss?’ for
Valetta was crying again.

‘I hate school, and I hate Rockstone, and I don’t see why Mysie should
always go everywhere, and wear new frocks, and I go to the butchers and
bakers and wear horrid old ones.’

‘I wish you could come too,’ said Mysie; ‘but indeed old frocks are the
nicest, because one is not bothered to take so much care of them; and
lords and ladies aren’t a bit better to play with than, other people. In
fact, Ivy is what Japs calls a muff and a stick.’

Valetta, however, cried on, and Mysie went the length of repairing to
her mother, in the midst of her last notes and packings, to entreat to
change with Val, who followed on tip-toe.

‘Certainly not,’ was the answer from Lady Merrifield, who was being
worried on all sides, ‘Valetta is not asked, and she is not behaving so
that I could accept for her if she were.’

And Val had to turn away in floods of tears, which redoubled on being
told by the united voices of her brothers and sisters that they were
ashamed of her for being so selfish as to cry for herself when all were
in so much trouble about papa.

Lady Merrifield caught some of the last words. ‘No, my dear,’ she said.
‘That is not quite just or kind. It is being unhappy that makes poor
Val so ready to cry about her own grievances. Only, Val, come here, and
remember that fretting is not the way to meet such things. There is a
better way, my child, and I think you know what I mean. Now, to help you
through the time in an outer way, suppose you each set yourself some one
thing to improve in while I am away. Don’t tell me what it is, but let
me find out when I come home.’ With that she obeyed an urgent summons to
speak to the gardener.

‘I shall! I shall,’ cried little Primrose, ‘write a whole copy-book in
single lines! And won’t mamma be pleased? What shall you do, Fergus? and
Val? and Mysie?’

‘I shall get to spin my peg-top so as it will never tumble down, and
will turn an engine for drawing water,’ was the prompt answer of Fergus.

‘What nonsense!’ said Val; ‘you’d better settle to get your long
division sums right.’

‘That s girls’ stuff,’ replied Fergus; ‘you’d better settle to leave off
crying for nothing.’

‘That you had!’ said several voices, and Val very nearly cried again as
she exclaimed: ‘Don’t be all so tiresome. I shall make mamma a beautiful
crewel cushion, with all the battles in history on it. And won’t she be
surprised!’

‘I think mamma meant more than that,’ said Mysie.

‘Oh, Mysie, what shall you do?’ asked Primrose.

‘I did think of getting to translate one of mamma’s favourite German
stories quite through to her without wanting the dictionary or stumbling
one bit,’ said Mysie; ‘but I am sure she meant something better and
better, and I’m thinking what it is--Perhaps it is making all little
Flossie Maddin’s clothes, a whole suit all oneself--Or perhaps it is
manners. What do you think, Gill?’

‘I should say most likely it was manners for you,’ volunteered Harry,
‘and the extra you are most likely to acquire at Rotherwood.’

‘I’m so glad,’ said Mysie.

‘And you, Gill,’ inquired Primrose, ‘what will you do? Mine is a
copy-book, and Fergus’s is the spinning-top-engines, and rule of three;
and Val’s is a crewel battle cushion and not crying; and Mysie’s is
German stories and manners; and what’s yours, Gill?’

‘Gill is so grown up, she is too good to want an inside thing’ announced
Primrose.

‘Oh, Prim, you dear little thing,’ cried both elder brother and sister,
as they thought with a sort of pang of the child’s opinion of grown-up
impeccability.

‘Harry is grown up more,’ put in Fergus; ‘why don’t you ask him?’

‘Because I know,’ said Primrose, with a pretty shyness, and as they
pressed her, she whispered, ‘He is going to be a clergyman.’

There was a call for Mysie and Val from upstairs, and as the younger
population scampered off, Gillian said to her brother--

‘Is not it like “occupy till I come”?’

‘So I was thinking,’ said Harry gravely. ‘But one must be as young
as Mysie to throw one’s “inside things” into the general stock of
resolutions.’

‘Yes,’ said Gillian, with uplifted eyes. ‘I do--I do hope to do
something.’

Some great thing was her unspoken thought--some great and excellent
achievement to be laid before her mother on her return. There was a tale
begun in imitation of Bessie Merrifield, called “Hilda’s Experiences”.
Suppose that was finished, printed, published, splendidly reviewed.
Would not that be a great thing? But alas, she was under a tacit
engagement never to touch it in the hours of study.




CHAPTER II. -- ROCKQUAY



The actual moment of a parting is often softened by the confusion of
departure. That of the Merrifield family took place at the junction,
where Lady Merrifield with her brother remained in the train, to be
carried on to London.

Gillian, Valetta, and Fergus, with their aunt, changed into a train for
Rockstone, and Harry was to return to his theological college, after
seeing Mysie and Primrose off with nurse on their way to the ancestral
Beechcroft, whence Mysie was to be fetched to Rotherwood. The last thing
that met Lady Merrifield’s eyes was Mrs. Halfpenny gesticulating wildly,
under the impression that Mysie’s box was going off to London.

And Gillian’s tears were choked in the scurry to avoid a
smoking-carriage, while Harry could not help thinking--half blaming
himself for so doing--that Mysie expended more feeling in parting with
Sofy, the kitten, than with her sisters, not perceiving that pussy was
the safety-valve for the poor child’s demonstrations of all the sorrow
that was oppressing her.

Gillian, in the corner of a Rockstone carriage, had time for the full
heart-sickness and tumult of fear that causes such acute suffering to
young hearts. It is quite a mistake to say that youth suffers less from
apprehension than does age; indeed, the very inexperience and novelty
add to the alarms, where there is no background of anxieties that have
ended happily, only a crowd of examples of other people’s misfortunes.
The difference is in the greater elasticity and power of being
distracted by outward circumstances; and thus lookers-on never guess
at the terrific possibilities that have scared the imagination, and the
secret ejaculations that have met them. How many times on that brief
journey had not Gillian seen her father dying, her sisters in despair,
her mother crushed in the train, wrecked in the steamer, perishing of
the climate, or arriving to find all over and dying of the shock; yet
all was varied by speculations on the great thing that was to offer
itself to be done, and the delight it would give, and when the train
slackened, anxieties were merged in the care for bags, baskets, and
umbrellas.

Rockstone and Rockquay had once been separate places--a little village
perched on a cliff of a promontory, and a small fishing hamlet within
the bay, but these had become merged in one, since fashion had chosen
them as a winter resort. Speculators blasted away such of the rocks as
they had not covered with lodging-houses and desirable residences. The
inhabitants of the two places had their separate churches, and knew
their own bounds perfectly well; but to the casual observer, the chief
distinction between them was that Rockstone was the more fashionable,
Rockquay the more commercial, although the one had its shops, the other
its handsome crescents and villas. The station was at Rockquay, and
there was an uphill drive to reach Rockstone, where the two Miss Mohuns
had been early inhabitants--had named their cottage Beechcroft after
their native home, and, to justify the title, had flanked the gate with
two copper beeches, which had attained a fair growth, in spite of sea
winds, perhaps because sheltered by the house on the other side.

The garden reached out to the verge of the cliff, or rather to a low
wall, with iron rails and spikes at the top, and a narrow, rather giddy
path beyond. There was a gate in the wall, the key of which Aunt Jane
kept in her own pocket, as it gave near access to certain rocky steps,
about one hundred and thirty in number, by which, when in haste, the
inhabitants of Rockstone could descend to the lower regions of the Quay.

There was a most beautiful sea-view from the house, which compensated
for difficulties in gardening in such a situation, though a very slight
slope inwards from the verge of the cliff gave some protection to the
flower-beds; and there was not only a little conservatory attached to
the drawing-room at the end, but the verandah had glass shutters, which
served the purpose of protecting tender plants, and also the windows,
from the full blast of the winter storms. Miss Mohun was very proud
of these shutters, which made a winter garden of the verandah for Miss
Adeline to take exercise in. The house was their own, and, though it
aimed at no particular beauty, had grown pleasant and pretty looking by
force of being lived in and made comfortable.

It was a contrast to its neighbours on either side of its pink and gray
limestone wall. On one side began the grounds of the Great Rockstone
Hotel; on the other was Cliff House, the big and seldom-inhabited house
of one of the chief partners in the marble works, which went on on the
other side of the promontory, and some people said would one day consume
Rockstone altogether. It was a very fine house, and the gardens were
reported to be beautifully kept up, but the owner was almost always in
Italy, and had so seldom been at Rockstone that it was understood that
all this was the ostentation of a man who did not know what to do with
his money.

Aunt Adeline met the travellers at the door with her charming welcome.
Kunz, all snowy white, wagged his tight-curled tail amid his barks, at
sight of Aunt Jane, but capered wildly about the Sofy’s basket, much
to Valetta’s agony; while growls, as thunderous as a small kitten could
produce, proceeded therefrom.

‘Kunz, be quiet,’ said Aunt Jane, in a solemn, to-be-minded voice, and
he crouched, blinking up with his dark eye.

‘Give me the basket. Now, Kunz, this is our cat. Do you hear? You are
not to meddle with her.’

Did Kunz really wink assent--a very unwilling assent?

‘Oh, Aunt Jane!’ from Val, as her aunt’s fingers undid the cover of the
basket.

‘Once for all!’ said Aunt Jane.

‘M-m-m-m-ps-pss-psss!’ from the Sofy, two screams from Val and Fergus, a
buffeting of paws, a couple of wild bounds, first on a chair-back, then
on the mantelpiece, where, between the bronze candlestick and the vase,
the Persian philosopher stood hissing and swearing, while Kunz danced
about and barked.

‘Take her down, Gillian,’ said Aunt Jane; and Gillian, who had some
presence of mind, accomplished it with soothing words, and, thanks to
her gloves, only one scratch.

Meantime Miss Mohun caught up Kunz, held up her finger to him, stopped
his barks; and then, in spite of the ‘Oh, don’ts,’ and even the tears of
Valetta, the two were held up--black nose to pink nose, with a resolute
‘Now, you are to behave well to each other, from Aunt Jane.

Kunz sniffed, the Sofy hissed; but her claws were captive. The dog was
the elder and more rational, and when set down again took no more
notice of his enemy, whom Valetta was advised to carry into Mrs. Mount’s
quarters to be comforted and made at home there; the united voice of the
household declaring that the honour of the Spitz was as spotless as his
coat!

Such was the first arrival at Rockstone, preceding even Aunt Adeline’s
inquiries after Mysie, and the full explanation of the particulars of
the family dispersion. Aunt Ada’s welcome was not at all like that of
Kunz. She was very tender and caressing, and rejoiced that her sister
could trust her children to her. They should all get on most happily
together, she had no doubt.

True-hearted as Gillian was, there was something hopeful and refreshing
in the sight of that fair, smiling face, and the touch of the soft hand,
in the room that was by no means unfamiliar, though she had never slept
in the house before. It was growing dark, and the little fire lighted
it up in a friendly manner. Wherever Aunt Jane was, everything was neat;
wherever Aunt Adeline was, everything was graceful. Gillian was old
enough to like the general prettiness; but it somewhat awed Val and
Fergus, who stood straight and shy till they were taken upstairs. The
two girls had a very pretty room and dressing-room--the guest chamber,
in fact; and Fergus was not far off, in a small apartment which, as Val
said, ‘stood on legs,’ and formed the shelter of the porch.

‘But, oh dear! oh dear!’ sighed Val, as Gillian unpacked their evening
garments, ‘Isn’t there any nice place at all where one can make a mess?’

‘I don’t know whether the aunts will ever let us make a mess,’ said
Gillian; ‘they don’t look like it.’

At which Valetta’s face puckered up in the way only too familiar to her
friends.

‘Come, don’t be silly, Val. You won’t have much time, you know; you will
go to school, and get some friends to play with, and not want to make
messes here.’

‘I hate friends!’

‘Oh, Val!’

‘All but Fly, and Mysie is gone to her. I want Mysie.’

So in truth did Gillian, almost as much as her mother. Her heart sank
as she thought of having Val and Fergus to save from scrapes without
Mysie’s readiness and good humour. If Mysie were but there she should
be free for her ‘great thing.’ And oh! above all, Val’s hair--the brown
bush that Val had a delusion that she ‘did’ herself, but which her
‘doing’ left looking rather worse than it did before, and which was not
permitted in public to be in the convenient tail. Gillian advanced on
her with the brush, but she tossed it and declared it all right!

However, at that moment there was a knock. Mrs. Mount’s kindly face and
stout form appeared. She had dressed Miss Ada and came to see what she
could do for the young people, being of that delightful class of old
servants who are charmed to have anything young in the house, especially
a boy. She took Valetta’s refractory mane in hand, tied her sash,
inspected Fergus’s hands, which had succeeded in getting dirty in their
inevitable fashion, and undertook all the unpacking and arranging. To
Val’s inquiry whether there was any place for making ‘a dear delightful
mess’ she replied with a curious little friendly smile, and wonder that
a young lady should want such a thing.

‘I’m afraid we are all rather strange specimens of young ladies,’
replied Gillian; ‘very untidy, I mean.’

‘And I’m sure I don’t know what Miss Mohun and Miss Ada will say’ said
good Mrs. Mount.

‘What’s that? What am I to say?’ asked Aunt Jane, coming into the room.

But, after all, Aunt Jane proved to have more sympathy with ‘messes’
than any of the others. She knew very well that the children would be
far less troublesome if they had a place to themselves, and she said,
‘Well, Val, you shall have the boxroom in the attics. And mind, you must
keep all your goods there, both of you. If I find them about the house,
I shall--’

‘Oh, what, Aunt Jane?’

‘Confiscate them,’ was the reply, in a very awful voice, which impressed
Fergus the more because he did not understand the word.

‘You need not look so much alarmed, Fergus,’ said Gillian; ‘you are not
at all the likely one to transgress.’

‘No,’ said Valetta gravely. ‘Fergus is what Lois calls a regular old
battledore.’

‘I won’t be called names,’ exclaimed Fergus.

‘Well, Lois said so--when you were so cross because the poker had got
on the same side as the tongs! She said she never saw such an old
battledore, and you know how all the others took it up.’

‘Shuttlecock yourself then!’ angrily responded Fergus, while both aunt
and sister were laughing too much to interfere.

‘I shall call you a little Uncle Maurice instead,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘How
things come round! Perhaps you would not believe, Gill, that Aunt Ada
was once in a scrape, when she was our Mrs. Malaprop, for applying that
same epithet on hearsay to Maurice.’

This laugh made Gillian feel more at home with her aunt, and they went
up happily together for the introduction to the lumber-room, not a very
spacious place, and with a window leading out to the leads. Aunt Jane
proceeded to put the children on their word of honour not to attempt to
make an exit thereby, which Gillian thought unnecessary, since this pair
were not enterprising.

The evening went off happily. Aunt Jane produced one of the old games
which had been played at the elder Beechcroft, and had a certain
historic character in the eyes of the young people. It was one of those
variations of the Game of the Goose that were once held to be improving,
and their mother had often told them how the family had agreed to prove
whether honesty is really the best policy, and how it had been agreed
that all should cheat as desperately as possible, except ‘honest Phyl,’
who _couldn’t_; and how, by some extraordinary combination, good for
their morals, she actually was the winner. It was immensely interesting
to see the identical much-worn sheet of dilapidated pictures with the
padlock, almost close to the goal, sending the counter back almost
to the beginning in search of the key. Still more interesting was the
imitation, in very wonderful drawing, devised by mamma, of the career
of a true knight--from pagedom upwards--in pale watery Prussian-blue
armour, a crimson scarf, vermilion plume, gamboge spurs, and very
peculiar arms and legs. But, as Valetta observed, it must have been much
more interesting to draw such things as that than stupid freehand lines
and twists with no sense at all in them.

Aunt Ada, being subject to asthmatic nights, never came down to
breakfast, and, indeed, it was at an hour that Gillian thought fearfully
early; but her Aunt Jane was used to making every hour of the day
available, and later rising would have prevented the two children from
being in time for the schools, to which they were to go on the Monday.
Some of Aunt Jane’s many occupations on Saturday consisted in arranging
with the two heads of their respective schools, and likewise for the
mathematical class Gillian was to join at the High School two mornings
in the week, and for her lessons on the organ, which were to be at St.
Andrew’s Church. Somehow Gillian felt as if she were as entirely in her
aunt’s hands as Kunz and the Sofy had been!

After the early dinner, which suited the invalid’s health, Aunt Jane
said she would take Valetta and Fergus to go down to the beach with the
little Varleys, while she went to her district, leaving Gillian to read
to Aunt Ada for half an hour, and then to walk with her for a quiet turn
on the beach.

It was an amusing article in a review that Gillian was set to read, and
she did it so pleasantly that her aunt declared that she looked forward
to many such afternoon pastimes, and then, by an easier way than
the hundred and a half steps, they proceeded down the hill, the aunt
explaining a great deal to the niece in a manner very gratifying to a
girl beginning to be admitted to an equality with grown-up people.

‘There is our old church,’ said Aunt Ada, as they had a glimpse of a
gray tower with a curious dumpy steeple.

‘Do you go to church there!’

‘I do--always. I could not undertake the hill on Sundays; but Jane takes
the school-children to the St. Andrew’s service in the afternoon.’

‘But which is the parish church?’

‘In point of fact, my dear; it is all one parish. Good morning, Mr.
Hablot. My niece, Miss Gillian Merrifield. Yes, my sister is come
home. I think she will be at the High School. He is the vicar of St.
Andrew’s,’ as the clergyman went off in the direction of the steps.

‘I thought you said it was all one parish.’

‘St. Andrew’s is only a district. Ah, it was all before your time, my
dear.’

‘I know dear Uncle Claude was the clergyman here, and got St. Andrew’s
built.’

‘Yes, my dear. It was the great work and thought with him and Lord
Rotherwood in those days that look so bright now,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘Yes,
and with us all.’

‘Do tell me all about it,’ entreated Gillian; and her aunt, nothing
loth, went on.

‘Dear Claude was only five-and-twenty when he had the living. Nobody
would take it, it was such a neglected place. All Rockquay down there
had grown up with only the old church, and nobody going to it. It was
a great deal through Rotherwood. Some property here came to him, and
he was shocked at the state of things. Then we all thought the climate
might be good for dear Claude, and Jane came to live with him and help
him, and look after him. You see there were a great many of us, and
Jane--well, she didn’t quite get on with Alethea, and Claude thought she
wanted a sphere of her own, and that is the way she comes to have more
influence than any one else here. And as I am always better in this
air than anywhere else, I came soon after--even before my dear fathers
death. And oh! what an eager, hopeful time it was, setting everything
going, and making St. Andrew’s all we could wish! We were obliged to
be cautious at the old church, you know, because of not alarming the
old-fashioned people. And so we are still--’

‘Is that St. Andrew’s? Oh, it is beautiful. May I look in?’

‘Not now, my dear. You will see it another time.’

‘I wish it were our church.’

‘You will find the convenience of having one so near. And our services
are very nice with our present rector, Mr. Ellesmere, an excellent
active man, but his wife is such an invalid that all the work falls on
Jane. I am so glad you are here to help her a little. St. Andrew’s has a
separate district, and Mr. Hablot is the vicar; but as it is very poor,
we keep the charities all in one. Rotherwood built splendid schools,
so we only have an infant school for the Rockstone children. On Sunday,
Jane assembles the older children there and takes them to church; but
in the afternoon they all go to the National Schools, and then to
a children’s service at St. Andrew’s. She gets on so well with Mr.
Hablot--he was dear Claude’s curate, you see, and little Mrs. Hablot was
quite a pupil of ours. What do you think little Gerald Hablot said--he
is only five--“Isn’t Miss Mohun the most consultedest woman in
Rockquay?”’

‘I suppose it is true,’ said Gillian, laughing, but rather awestruck.

‘I declare it makes me quite giddy to count up all she has on her
hands. Nobody can do anything without her. There are so few permanent
inhabitants, and when people begin good works, they go away, or marry,
or grow tired, and then we can’t let them drop!’

‘Oh! what’s that pretty spire, on the rise of the other hill?’

‘My dear, that was the Kennel Mission Chapel, a horrid little hideous
iron thing, but Lady Flight mistook and called it St. Kenelm’s, and St.
Kenelm’s it will be to the end of the chapter.’ And as she exchanged
bows with a personage in a carriage, ‘There she is, my dear.’

‘Who? Did she build that church?’

‘It is not consecrated. It really is only a mission chapel, and he is
nothing but a curate of Mr. Hablot’s,’ said Aunt Ada, Gillian thought a
little venomously.

She asked, ‘Who?’

‘The Reverend Augustine Flight, my dear. I ought not to say anything
against them, I am sure, for they mean to be very good; but she is some
City man’s widow, and he is an only son, and they have more money than
their brains can carry. They have made that little place very beautiful,
quite oppressed with ornament--City taste, you know, and they have all
manner of odd doings there, which Mr. Hablot allows, because he says he
does not like to crush zeal, and he thinks interference would do more
harm than good. Jane thinks he ought not to stand so much, but--’

Gillian somehow felt a certain amusement and satisfaction in finding
that Aunt Jane had one disobedient subject, but they were interrupted
by two ladies eagerly asking where to find Miss Mohun, and a few steps
farther on a young clergyman accosted them, and begged that Miss Mohun
might be told the hour of some meeting. Also that ‘the Bellevue Church
people would not co-operate in the coal club.’

Then it was explained that Bellevue Church was within the bounds of
another parish, and had been built by, and for, people who did not like
the doctrine at the services of St. Andrew’s.

By this time aunt and niece had descended to the Marine esplanade, a
broad road, on one side of which there was a low sea wall, and then the
sands and rocks stretched out to the sea, on the other a broad space
of short grass, where there was a cricket ground, and a lawn-tennis
ground, and the volunteers could exercise, and the band played twice a
week round a Russian gun that stood by the flagstaff.

The band was playing now, and the notes seemed to work on Gillian’s
feet, and yet to bring her heart into her throat, for the last time she
had heard that march was from the band of her father’s old regiment,
when they were all together!

Her aunt was very kind, and talked to her affectionately and
encouragingly of the hopes that her mother would find her father
recovering, and that it would turn out after all quite an expedition of
pleasure and refreshment. Then she said how much she rejoiced to have
Gillian with her, as a companion to herself, while her sister was so
busy, and she was necessarily so much left alone.

‘We will read together, and draw, and play duets, and have quite a good
account of our employment to give,’ she said, smiling.

‘I shall like it very much,’ said Gillian heartily.

‘Dear child, the only difficulty will be that you will spoil me, and I
shall never be able to part with you. Besides, you will be such a help
to my dear Jane. She never spares herself, you know, and no one ever
spares her, and I can do so little to help her, except with my head.’

‘Surely here are plenty of people,’ said Gillian, for they were in the
midst of well-dressed folks, and Aunt Ada had more than once exchanged
nods and greetings.

‘Quite true, my dear; but when there is anything to be done, then there
is a sifting! But now we have you, with all our own Lily’s spirit, I
shall be happy about Jane for this winter at least.

They were again interrupted by meeting a gentleman and lady, to whom
Gillian was introduced, and who walked on with her aunt conversing. They
had been often in India, and made so light of the journey that Gillian
was much cheered. Moreover, she presently came in sight of Val and
Fergus supremely happy over a castle on the beach, and evidently
indoctrinating the two little Varleys with some of the dramatic sports
of Silverfold.

Aunt Ada found another acquaintance, a white moustached old gentleman,
who rose from a green bench in a sunny corner, saying, ‘Ah, Miss Mohun,
I have been guarding your seat for you.’

‘Thank you, Major Dennis. My niece, Miss Merrifield.’

He seemed to be a very courteous old gentleman, for he bowed, and made
some polite speech about Sir Jasper, and, as he was military, Gillian
hoped to have heard some more about the journey when they sat down,
and room was made for her; but instead of that he and her aunt began a
discussion of the comings and goings of people she had never heard of,
and the letting or not letting of half the villas in Rockstone; and she
found it so dull that she had a great mind to go and join the siege of
Sandcastle. Only her shoes and her dress were fitter for the esplanade
than the shore with the tide coming in; and when one has just begun to
buy one’s own clothes, that is a consideration.

At last she saw Aunt Jane’s trim little figure come out on the sands
and make as straight for the children as she could, amid greetings and
consultations, so with an exclamation, she jumped up and went over
the shingle to meet them, finding an endeavour going on to make them
tolerably respectable for the walk home, by shaking off the sand, and
advising Val to give up her intention of dragging home a broad brown
ribbon of weed with a frilled edge, all polished and shiny with wet.
She was not likely to regard it as such a curiosity after a few days’
experience of Rockquay, as her new friends told her.

Kitty Varley went to the High School, which greatly modified Valetta’s
disgust to it, for the little girls had already vowed to be the greatest
chums in the world, and would have gone home with arms entwined, if Aunt
Jane had not declared that such things could not be done in the street,
and Clem Varley, with still more effect, threatened that if they were
such a pair of ninnies, he should squirt at them with the dirtiest water
he could find.

Valetta had declared that she infinitely preferred Kitty to Fly, and
Kitty was so flattered at being adopted by the second cousin of a Lady
Phyllis, and the daughter of a knight, that she exalted Val above
all the Popsys and Mopsys of her present acquaintance, and at parting
bestowed on her a chocolate cream, which tasted about equally of salt
water and hot hand--at least if one did not feel it a testimonial of
ardent friendship.

Fergus and Clement had, on the contrary, been so much inclined to punch
and buffet one another, that Miss Mohun had to make them walk before
her to keep the peace, and was by no means sorry when the gate of ‘The
Tamarisks’ was reached, and the Varleys could be disposed of.

However, the battery must have been amicable, for Fergus was crazy to
go in and see Clement’s little pump, which he declared ‘would do
it’--an enigmatical phrase supposed to refer to the great
peg-top-perpetual-motion invention. He was dragged away with difficulty
on the plea of its being too late by Aunt Jane, who could not quite turn
two unexpected children in on Mrs. Varley, and had to effect a cruel
severance of Val and Kitty in the midst of their kisses.

‘Sudden friendships,’ said Gillian, from the superiority of her age.

‘I do not think you are given that way,’ said Aunt Jane.

‘Does the large family suffice for all of you? People are so different,’
added Aunt Ada.

‘Yes,’ said Gillian. ‘We have never been in the way of caring for any
outsider. I don’t reckon Bessie Merrifield so--nor Fly Devereux, nor
Dolores, because they are cousins.’

‘Cousins may be everything or nothing,’ asserted Miss Mohun. ‘You have
been about so much that you have hardly had time to form intimacies. But
had you no friends in the officers’ families?’

‘People always retired before their children grew up to be
companionable, said Gillian. ‘There was nobody except the Whites. And
that wasn’t exactly friendship.’

‘Who were they?’ said Aunt Jane, who always liked to know all about
everybody.

‘He rose from the ranks,’ said Gillian. ‘He was very much respected, and
nobody would have known that he was not a gentleman to begin with. But
his wife was half a Greek. Papa said she had been very pretty; but, oh!
she had grown so awfully fat. We used to call her the Queen of the White
Ants. Then Kally--her name was really Kalliope--was very nice, and mamma
got them to send her to a good day-school at Dublin, and Alethea and
Phyllis used to have her in to try to make a lady of her. There used to
be a great deal of fun about their Muse, I remember; Claude thought her
very pretty, and always stood up for her, and Alethea was very fond of
her. But soon after we went to Belfast, Mr. White was made to retire
with the rank of captain. I think papa tried to get something for him
to do; but I am not sure whether he succeeded, and I don’t know any more
about them.’

‘Not exactly friendship, certainly,’ said Aunt Jane, smiling. ‘After
all, Gillian, in your short life, you have had wider experiences than
have befallen your old aunts!’

‘Wider, perhaps, not deeper, Jane,’ suggested Miss Adeline.

And Gillian thought--though she felt it would be too sentimental to
say--that in her life, persons and scenes outside her own family had
seemed to ‘come like shadows and so depart’; and there was a general
sense of depression at the partings, the anxiety, and the being
unsettled again when she was just beginning to have a home.




CHAPTER III. -- PERPETUAL MOTION



If Fergus had not yet discovered the secret of perpetual motion,
Gillian felt as if Aunt Jane had done so, and moreover that the greater
proportion of parish matters were one vast machine, of which she was the
moving power.

As she was a small spare woman, able to do with a very moderate
amount of sleep, her day lasted from 6 A.M. to some unnamed time after
midnight; and as she was also very methodical, she got through an
appalling amount of business, and with such regularity that those who
knew her habits could tell with tolerable certainty, within reasonable
limits, where she would be found and what she would be doing at any hour
of the seven days of the week. Everything she influenced seemed to recur
as regularly as the motions of the great ruthless-looking engines that
Gillian had seen at work at Belfast; the only loose cog being apparently
her sister Adeline, who quietly took her own way, seldom came downstairs
before eleven o’clock, went out and came in, made visits or received
them, wrote letters, read and worked at her own sweet will. Only two
undertakings seemed to belong to her--a mission working party, and an
Italian class of young ladies; and even the presidency of these often
lapsed upon her sister, when she had had one of those ‘bad nights’
of asthma, which were equally sleepless to both sisters. She was
principally useful by her exquisite needlework, both in church
embroidery and for sales; and likewise as the recipient of all the
messages left for Miss Mohun, which she never forgot, besides that,
having a clear sensible head, she was useful in consultation.

She was thoroughly interested in all her sister’s doings, and always
spoke of herself as the invalid, precluded from all service except that
of being a pivot for Jane, the stationary leg of the compasses, as she
sometimes called herself. This repose, together with her prettiness and
sweetness of manner, was very attractive; especially to Gillian, who
had begun to feel herself in the grip of the great engine which bore her
along without power of independent volition, and with very little time
for ‘Hilda’s Experiences’.

At home she had gone on harmoniously in full acquiescence with household
arrangements; but before the end of the week the very same sensations
came over her which had impelled her and Jasper into rebellion and
disgrace, during the brief reign of a very strict daily governess, long
ago at Dublin. Her reason and sense approved of all that was set before
her, and much of it was pleasant and amusing; but this was the more
provoking by depriving her of the chance of resistance or the solace of
complaint. Moreover, with all her time at Aunt Jane’s disposal, how
was she to do her great thing? Valetta’s crewel battle cushion had been
reduced to a delicious design of the battle of the frogs and mice, drawn
by Aunt Ada, and which she delighted in calling at full length ‘the
Batrachyomachia,’ sparing none of the syllables which she was to work
below. And it was to be worked at regularly for half an hour before
bed-time. Trust Aunt Jane for seeing that any one under her dominion
did what had been undertaken! Only thus the spontaneity seemed to have
departed, and the work became a task. Fergus meanwhile had set his
affections on a big Japanese top he had seen in a window, and was
eagerly awaiting his weekly threepence, to be able to complete the
purchase, though no one but Valetta was supposed to understand what it
had to do with his ‘great thing.’

It was quite pleasant to Gillian to have a legitimate cause of
opposition when Miss Mohun made known that she intended Gillian to take
a class at the afternoon Sunday-school, while the two children went to
Mrs. Hablot’s drawing-room class at St. Andrew’s Vicarage, all meeting
afterwards at church.

‘Did mamma wish it?’ asked Gillian.

‘There was no time to mention it, but I knew she would.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Gillian. ‘We don’t teach on Sundays, unless
some regular person fails. Mamma likes to have us all at home to do our
Sunday work with her.’

‘Alas, I am not mamma! Nor could I give you the time.’

‘I have brought the books to go on with Val and Ferg. I always do some
of their work with them, and I am sure mamma would not wish them to be
turned over to a stranger.’

‘The fact is, that young ladies have got beyond Sunday-schools!’

‘No, no, Jane,’ said her sister; ‘Gillian is quite willing to help you;
but it is very nice in her to wish to take charge of the children.’

‘They would be much better with Mrs. Hablot than dawdling about here and
amusing themselves in the new Sunday fashion. Mind, I am not going to
have them racketing about the house and garden, disturbing you, and
worrying the maids.’

‘Aunt Jane!’ cried Gillian indignantly, ‘you don’t think that is the way
mamma brought us up to spend Sunday?’

‘We shall see,’ said Aunt Jane; then more kindly, ‘My dear, you are
right to use your best judgment, and you are welcome to do so, as long
as the children are orderly and learn what they ought.’

It was more of a concession than Gillian expected, though she little
knew the effort it cost, since Miss Mohun had been at much pains to set
Mrs. Hablot’s class on foot, and felt it a slight and a bad example that
her niece and nephew should be defaulters. The motive might have worked
on Gillian, but it was a lower one, therefore mentioned.

She had seen Mrs. Hablot at the Italian class, and thought her a mere
girl, and an absolute subject of Aunt Jane’s stumbling pitifully,
moreover, in a speech of Adelchi’s; therefore evidently not at all
likely to teach Sunday subjects half so well as herself!

Nor was there anything amiss on that first Sunday. The lessons were as
well and quietly gone through as if with mamma, and there was a pleasant
little walk on the esplanade before the children’s service at St.
Andrew’s; after which there was a delightful introduction to some of the
old books mamma had told them of.

They were all rather subdued by the strangeness and newness of their
surroundings, as well as by anxiety. If the younger ones were less
anxious about their parents than was their sister, each had a plunge to
make on the morrow into a very new world, and the Varleys’ information
had not been altogether reassuring. Valetta had learnt how many marks
might be lost by whispering or bad spelling, and how ferociously cross
Fraulein Adler looked at a mistake in a German verb; while Fergus had
heard a dreadful account of the ordeals to which Burfield and Stebbing
made new boys submit, and which would be all the worse for him, because
he had a ‘rum’ Christian name, and his father was a swell.

Gillian had some experience through her elder brothers, and suspected
Master Varley of being guilty of heightening the horrors; so she assured
Fergus that most boys had the same sort of Christian names, but were
afraid to confess them to one another, and so called each other Bill and
Jack. She advised him to call himself by his surname, not to mention his
father’s title if he could help it, and, above all, not to seem to mind
anything.

Her own spirits were much exhilarated the next morning by a note from
Harry, the recipient of all telegrams, with tidings that the doctors
were quite satisfied with Sir Jasper, and that Lady Merrifield had
reached Brindisi.

There was great excitement at sight of a wet morning, for it appeared
that an omnibus came round on such occasions to pick up the scholars;
and Valetta thought this so delightful that she danced about exclaiming,
‘What fun!’ and only wishing for Mysie to share it. She would have
rushed down to the gate umbrellaless if Aunt Jane had not caught and
conducted her, while Gillian followed with Fergus. Aunt Jane looked down
the vista of young faces--five girls and three boys--nodding to them,
and saying to the senior, a tall damsel of fifteen,

‘Here are my children, Emma. You will take care of them, please. You are
keeping order here, I suppose?’

There was a smile and bow in answer as the door closed, and the omnibus
jerked away its ponderous length.

‘I’m sorry to see that Stebbing there,’ observed the aunt, as she went
back; ‘but Emma Norton ought to be able to keep him in order. It is well
you have no lessons out of the house to-day, Gillian.’

‘Are you going out then?’

‘Oh yes!’ said Miss Mohun, running upstairs, and presently coming back
with a school-bag and a crackling waterproof cloak, but pausing as she
saw Gillian at the window, nursing the Sofy, and gazing at the gray
cloud over the gray sea. ‘You are not at a loss for something to do,’
she said, ‘you said you meant to write to your mother.’

‘Oh yes!’ said Gillian, suddenly fretted, and with a sense of being
hunted, ‘I have plenty to do.’

‘I see,’ said Miss Mohun, turning over the books that lay on the
little table that had been appropriated to her niece, in a way that,
unreasonably or not, unspeakably worried the girl, ‘Brachet’s French
Grammar--that’s right. Colenso’s Algebra--I don’t think they use that at
the High School. Julius Caesar--you should read that up in Merivale.’

‘I did,’ said Gillian, in a voice that very nearly said, ‘Do let them
alone.’

‘Well, you have materials for a very useful, sensible morning’s work,
and when Ada comes down, very likely she will like to be read to.’

Off went the aunt, leaving the niece stirred into an absolute desire,
instead of spending the sensible morning, to take up ‘Near Neighbours’,
and throw herself into an easy-chair; and when she had conscientiously
resisted that temptation, her pen would hover over ‘Hilda’s
Experiences’, even when she had actually written ‘Dearest Mamma.’ She
found she was in no frame to write such a letter as would be a comfort
to her mother, so she gave that up, and made her sole assertion of
liberty the working out of a tough double equation in Colenso, which
actually came right, and put her in such good humour that she was no
longer afraid of drumming the poor piano to death and Aunt Ada upstairs
to distraction, but ventured on learning one of the Lieder ohne Worte;
and when her Aunt Ada came down and complimented her on the sounds that
had ascended, she was complacent enough to write a very cheerful letter,
whilst her aunt was busied with her own. She described the Sunday-school
question that had arisen, and felt sure that her father would pronounce
his Gill to be a sensible young woman. Afterwards Miss Adeline betook
herself to a beautiful lily of church embroidery, observing, as Gillian
sat down to read to her Alphonse Karr’s Voyage autour de mon Jardin,
that it was a real pleasure to listen to such prettily-pronounced
French. Kunz lay at her feet, the Sofy nestled in Gillian’s lap, and
there was a general sense of being rubbed down the right way.

By and by there loomed through the rain two dripping shiny forms under
umbrellas strongly inclined to fly away from them--Miss Mohun and Mr.
Grant, the junior curate, whom she had brought home to luncheon. Both
were full of the irregularities of the two churches of Bellevue and St.
Kenelm’s on the recent harvest-thanksgiving Sunday. It was hard to tell
which was most reprobated, what St. Kenelm’s did or what Bellevue did
not do. If the one blew trumpets in procession, the other collected the
offertory in a warming-pan. Gillian had already begun to find that these
misdoings supplied much conversation at Beechcroft Cottage, and began
to get half weary, half curious to judge for herself of all these
enormities; nor did she feel more interested in the discussion of who
had missed church or school, and who needed tickets for meat, or to be
stirred up to pay for their coal club.

At last she heard, ‘Well, I think you might read to her, Gillian! Oh!
were not you listening? A very nice girl near here, a pupil teacher, who
has developed a hip complaint, poor child. She will enjoy having visits
from you, a young thing like herself.’

Gillian did not like it at all, but she knew that it would be wrong to
refuse, and answered, ‘Very well,’ with no alacrity--hoping that it was
not an immediate matter, and that something might happen to prevent it.
But at that moment the sun came out, the rain had ceased, and there were
glistening drops all over the garden; the weather quarter was clear,
and after half an hours rest after dinner Aunt Jane jumped up, decreeing
that it was time to go out, and that she would introduce Gillian to
Lilian Giles before going on to the rest of her district.

She gathered a few delicate flowers in the little conservatory, and put
them in a basket with a peach from the dessert, then took down a couple
of books from the shelf. Gillian could not but acquiesce, though she was
surprised to find that the one given to her was a translation of Undine.

‘The child is not badly off,’ explained Miss Mohun. ‘Her father is a
superior workman. She does not exactly want comforts, but she is sadly
depressed and disappointed at not being able to go on with her work,
and the great need is to keep her from fretting over her troubles, and
interested in something.’

Gillian began to think of one of the graceful hectic invalids of whom
she had read, and to grow more interested as she followed Aunt Jane past
the old church with the stout square steeple, constructed to hold, on a
small side turret window, a light for the benefit of ships at sea. Then
the street descended towards the marble works. There was a great quarry,
all red and raw with recent blasting, and above, below, and around, rows
of new little stuccoed, slated houses, for the work-people, and a large
range of workshops and offices fronting the sea. This was Miss Mohun’s
district, and at a better-looking house she stopped and used the
knocker.

That was no distinction; all had doors with knockers and sash windows,
but this was a little larger, and the tiny strip of garden was well
kept, while a beautiful myrtle and pelargonium peeped over the muslin
blind; and it was a very nice-looking woman who opened the door, though
she might have been the better for a cap. Aunt Jane shook hands with
her, rather to Gillian’s surprise, and heard that Lily was much the
same.

‘It is her spirits are so bad, you see, Miss Mohun,’ she added, as
she ushered them into a somewhat stuffy little parlour, carpeted and
bedecked with all manner of knick-knacks, photographs, and framed
certificates of various societies of temperance and providence on the
gaily-papered walls. The girl lay on a couch near the fire, a sallow
creature, with a big overhanging brow, made heavier by a dark fringe,
and an expression that Gillian not unjustly decided was fretful, though
she smiled, and lighted up a little when she saw Miss Mohun.

There was a good deal said about her bad nights, and her appetite,
and how the doctor wanted her to take as much as she could, and how
everything went against her--even lardy cake and roly-poly pudding with
bacon in it!

Miss Mohun put the flowers on the little table near the girl, who smiled
a little, and thanked her in a languid dreary manner. Finding that she
had freshly been visited by the rector, Miss Mohun would not stop for
any serious reading, but would leave Miss Merrifield to read a story to
her.

‘And you ought to get on together,’ she said, smiling. ‘You are just
about the same age, and your names rhyme--Gillian and Lilian. And
Gillians mother is a Lily too.’

This the young lady lid not like, for she was already feeling it a
sort of presumption in the girl to bear a name so nearly resembling her
mother’s. She had seen a little cottage poverty, and had had a class of
little maidservants; but this level of life which is in no want, keeps a
best parlour, and does not say ma’am, was quite new to her, and she
did not fancy it. When the girls were left together, while Mrs. Giles
returned to her ironing, Gillian was the shyer of the two, and began
rather awkwardly and reluctantly--

‘Miss Mohun thought you would like to hear this. It is a sort of German
fairy tale.’

Lilian said, ‘Yes, Miss Merrifield’ in a short dry tone, completing
Gillian’s distaste, and she began to read, not quite at her best, and
was heartily glad when at the end of half an hour Mrs. Giles was heard
in parley with another visitor, so that she had an excuse for going away
without attempting conversation. She was overtaken by the children on
their way home from their schools, where they had dined. They rushed
upon her, together with the two Varleys, who wanted to take them home to
tea; and Gillian giving her ready consent, Fergus dashed home to fetch
his beloved humming-top, which was to be introduced to Clement Varley’s
pump, and in a few minutes they were off, hardly vouchsafing an answer
to such comparatively trifling inquiries as how they were placed at
their schools.

Gillian found, however, that neither of her aunts was pleased at her
having consented to the children’s going out without reference to their
authority. How did she suppose they were to come home?

‘I did not think, can’t they be fetched?’ said Gillian, startled.

‘It is not far,’ said Adeline, pitying her. ‘One of the maids--’

‘My dear Ada!’ exclaimed Aunt Jane. ‘You know that Fanny cannot go out
at night with her throat, and I never will send out those young girls on
any account.’

‘Can’t I go?’ said Gillian desperately.

‘Are not you a young girl? I must go myself.’

And go she did at a quarter to eight, and brought home the children,
looking much injured. Gillian went upstairs with them, and there was an
outburst.

‘It was horrid to be fetched home so soon, just as there was a chance of
something nice; when all the tiresome big ones had gone to dress, and we
could have had some real fun,’ said Valetta.

‘Real fun! Real sense!’ said Fergus.

‘But what had you been about all this time?’

‘Why, their sisters and a man that was there _would_ come and drink tea
in the nursery, where nobody wanted them, and make us play their play.

‘Wasn’t that nice? You are always crying out for Harry and me to come
and play with you.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t like that,’ said Val, ‘you play with us, and they only
pretended, and played with each other. It wasn’t nice.’

‘Clem said it was--forking,’ said Fergus.

‘No, spooning,’ said Val. ‘The dish ran after the spoon, you know.’

‘Well, but you haven’t told me about the schools,’ said Gillian, in
elder sisterly propriety, thinking the subject had better be abandoned.

‘Jolly, jolly, scrumptious!’ cried Fergus.

‘Oh! Fergus, mamma doesn’t like slang words. Jasper doesn’t say them.’

‘Not at home, but men say what they like at school, and the ‘bus was
scrumptious and splendiferous!’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ said Valetta; ‘I can’t bear being boxed up with
horrid rude boys.’

‘Because you are only a girl!’

‘Now, Gill, they shot with--’

‘Val, if you tell--’

‘Telling Gill isn’t telling. Is it, Gill?’

She assented.

‘They did, Gill. They shot at us with pea-shooters,’ sighed the girl.

‘Oh! it was jolly, jolly, jolly!’ cried the boy. ‘Stebbing hit the girl
who made the sour face on her cheeks, and they all squealed, and the cad
looked in and tried to jaw us.’

‘But that dreadful boy shot right into his mouth,’ said Val, while
Fergus went into an ecstasy of laughter. ‘Wasn’t it a shame, Gill?’

‘Indeed it was’ said Gillian. ‘Such ungentlemanly boys ought not to be
allowed in the omnibus.’

‘Girls shouldn’t be allowed in the ‘bus, they are so stupid,’ said
Fergus. ‘That one--as cross as old Halfpenny--who was she, Val?’

‘Emma Norton! Up in the highest form!’

‘Well, she is a prig, and a tell-tale-tit besides; only Stebbing said if
she did, her junior would catch it.’

‘What a dreadful bully he must be!’ exclaimed Gillian.

I’ll tell you what,’ said Fergus, in a tone of profound admiration, ‘no
one can hold a candle to him at batting! He snowballed all the Kennel
choir into fits, and he can brosier old Tilly’s stall, and go on just
the same.’

‘What a greedy boy!’ exclaimed Val.

‘Disgusting,’ added Gillian.

‘You’re girls,’ responded Fergus, lengthening the syllable with infinite
contempt; but Valetta had spirit enough to reply, ‘Much better be a girl
than rude and greedy.’

‘Exactly,’ said Gillian; ‘it is only little silly boys who think such
things fine. Claude doesn’t, nor Harry, nor Japs.’

‘You know nothing about it,’ said Fergus.

‘Well, but you’ve never told me about school--how you are placed, and
whom you are under.’

‘Oh! I’m in middle form, under Miss Edgar. Disgusting! It’s only the
third form that go up to Smiler. She knows it is no use to try to take
Stebbing and Burfield.’

‘And, Gill,’ added Val, ‘I’m in second class too, and I took three
places for knowing where Teheran was, and got above Kitty Varley and a
girl there two years older than I am, and her name is Maura.’

‘Maura, how very odd! I never heard of any one called Maura but one of
the Whites,’ said Gillian. ‘What was her surname?’

This Valetta could not tell, and at the moment Mrs. Mount came up with
intent to brush Miss Valetta’s hair, and to expedite the going to bed.

Gillian, not very happy about the revelations she had heard, went
downstairs, and found her younger aunt alone, Miss Mohun having been
summoned to a conference with one of her clients in the parish room. In
her absence Gillian always felt more free and communicative, and she had
soon told whatever she did not feel as a sort of confidence, including
Valetta’s derivation of spooning, and when Miss Mohun returned it was
repeated to her.

‘Yes,’ was her comment, ‘children’s play is a convenient cover to the
present form of flirtation. No doubt Bee Varley and Mr. Marlowe believe
themselves to have been most good-natured.’

‘Who is he, and will it come to anything?’ asked Aunt Ada, taking her
sister’s information for granted.

‘Oh no, it is nothing. A civil service man, second cousin’s
brother-in-law’s stepson. That’s quite enough in these days to justify
fraternal romping.’

‘I thought Beatrice Varley a nice girl.’

‘So she is, my dear. It is only the spirit of the age, and, after all,
this deponent saith not which was the dish and which was the spoon. Have
the children made any other acquaintances, I wonder? And how did George
Stebbing comport himself in the omnibus? I was sorry to see him there; I
don’t trust that boy.’

‘I wonder they didn’t send him in solitary grandeur in the brougham,’
said Miss Ada.

Gillian held the history of the pea-shooting as a confidence, even
though Aunt Jane seemed to have been able to see through the omnibus, so
she contented herself with asking who George Stebbing was.

‘The son of the manager of the marble works; partner, I believe.’

‘Yes,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘the Co. means Stebbing primarily.’

‘Is he a gentleman?’

‘Well, as much as old Mr. White himself, I suppose. He is come up
here--more’s the pity--to the aristocratic quarter, if you please,’ said
Aunt Jane, smiling, ‘and if garden parties are not over, Mr. Stebbing
may show you what they can be.’

‘That boy ought to be at a public school,’ said her sister. ‘I hope he
doesn’t bully poor little Fergus.’

‘I don’t think he does,’ said Gillian. ‘Fergus seemed rather to admire
him.’

‘I had rather hear of bullying than patronage in that quarter,’ said
Miss Mohun. ‘But, Gillian, we must impress on the children that they are
to go to no one’s house without express leave. That will avoid offence,
and I should prefer their enjoying the society of even the Varleys in
this house.’

Did Aunt Jane repent of her decision on the Thursday half-holiday
granted to Mrs. Edgar’s pupils, when, in the midst of the working party
round the dining-room table, in a pause of the reading, some one said,
‘What’s that!’--and a humming, accompanied by a drip, drop, drip, drop,
became audible?

Up jumped Miss Mohun, and so did Gillian, half in consternation, half to
shield the boy from her wrath. In a few moments they beheld a puddle on
the mat at the bottom of the oak stairs, while a stream was descending
somewhat as the water comes down at Lodore, while Fergus’s voice could
be heard above--

‘Don’t, Varley! You see how it will act. The string of the humming-top
moves the pump handle, and that spins. Oh!’

‘Master Fergus! Oh--h, you bad boy!’

The shriek was caused by the avenging furies who had rushed up the back
stairs just as Miss Mohun had darted up the front, so as to behold, on
the landing between the two, the boys, one spinning the top, the other
working the pump which stood in its own trough of water, receiving a
reckless supply from the tap in the passage. The maid’s scream of ‘What
will your aunt say?’ was answered by her appearance, and rush to turn
the cock.

‘Don’t, don’t, Aunt Jane,’ shouted Fergus; ‘I’ve almost done it!
Perpetual motion.’ He seemed quite unconscious that the motion was
kept up by his own hands, and even dismay could not turn him from being
triumphant.

‘Oh! Miss Jane,’ cried Mrs. Mount, ‘if I had thought what they boys was
after.’

‘Mop it up, Alice,’ said Aunt Jane to the younger girl. ‘No don’t come
up, Ada; it is too wet for you. It is only a misdirected experiment in
hydraulics.’

‘I told him not,’ said Clement Varley, thinking affairs serious.

‘Fergus, I am shocked at you,’ said Gillian sternly. ‘You are
frightfully wet. You must be sent to bed.’

‘You must go and change,’ said Aunt Jane, preventing the howl about to
break forth. ‘My dear boy, that tap must be let alone. We can’t have
cataracts on the stairs.’

‘I didn’t mean it, Aunt Jane; I thought it was an invention,’ said
Fergus.

‘I know; but another time come and ask me where to try your experiments.
Go and take off those clothes; and you, Clement, you are soaking too.
Run home at once.’

Gillian, much scandalised, broke out--

‘It is very naughty. At home, he would be sent to bed at once.’

‘I am not Mrs. Halfpenny, Gillian,’ said Aunt Jane coldly.

‘Jane has a soft spot for inventions, for Maurice’s sake,’ said her
sister.

‘I can’t confound ingenuity and enterprise with wanton mischief, or
crush it out for want of sympathy,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘Come, we must
return to our needles.’

If Aunt Jane had gone into the state of wrath to be naturally expected,
Gillian would have risen in arms on her brother’s behalf, and that would
have been much pleasanter than the leniency which made her views of
justice appear like unkindness.

This did not dispose her to be the better pleased at an entreaty from
the two children to be allowed to join Mrs. Hablot’s class on Sunday. It
appeared that they had asked Aunt Jane, and she had told them that their
sister knew what their mother would like.

‘But I am sure she would not mind,’ said Valetta. ‘Only think, she has
got a portfolio with pictures of everything all through the Bible!’

‘Yes,’ added Fergus, ‘Clem told me. There are the dogs eating Jezebel,
and such a jolly picture of the lion killing the prophet. I do want to
see them! Varley told me!’

‘And Kitty told me,’ added Valetta. ‘She is reading such a book to them.
It is called The Beautiful Face, and is all about two children in a
wood, and a horrid old grandmother and a dear old hermit, and a wicked
baron in a castle! Do let us go, Gillyflower.

‘Yes,’ said Fergus; ‘it would be ever so much better fun than poking
here.’

‘You don’t want fun on Sunday.’

‘Not fun exactly, but it is nicer.’

‘To leave me, the last bit of home, and mamma’s own lessons.’

‘They ain’t mamma’s,’ protested Fergus; but Valetta was touched by the
tears in Gillian’s eyes, kissed her, and declared, ‘Not that.’

Whether it were on purpose or not, the next Sunday was eminently
unsuccessful; the Collects were imperfect, the answers in the Catechism
recurred to disused babyish blunders; Fergus twisted himself into
preternatural attitudes, and Valetta teased the Sofy to scratching
point, they yawned ferociously at The Birthday, and would not be
interested even in the pony’s death. Then when they went out walking,
they would not hear of the sober Rockstone lane, but insisted on the
esplanade, where they fell in with the redoubtable Stebbing, who chose
to patronise instead of bullying ‘little Merry’--and took him off to the
tide mark--to the agony of his sisters, when they heard the St. Andrew’s
bell.

At last, when the tempter had gone off to higher game, Fergus’s Sunday
boots and stockings were such a mass of black mud that Gillian had to
drag him home in disgrace, sending Valetta into church alone. She would
have put him to bed on her own responsibility, but she could not master
him; he tumbled about the room, declaring Aunt Jane would do no such
thing, rolled up his stockings in a ball, and threw them in his sister’s
face.

Gillian retired in tears, which she let no one see, not even Aunt Ada,
and proceeded to record in her letter to India that those dreadful boys
were quite ruining Fergus, and Aunt Jane was spoiling him.

However, Aunt Jane, having heard what had become of the youth, met
him in no spoiling mood; and though she never knew of his tussle with
Gillian, she spoke to him very seriously, shut him into his own room, to
learn thoroughly what he had neglected in the morning, and allowed him
no jam at tea. She said nothing to Gillian, but there were inferences.

The lessons went no better on the following Sunday; Gillian could
neither enforce her authority nor interest the children. She avoided
the esplanade, thinking she had found a nice country walk to the common
beyond the marble works; but, behold, there was an outbreak of drums
and trumpets and wild singing. The Salvation Army was marching that way,
and, what was worse, yells and cat-calls behind showed that the Skeleton
Army was on its way to meet them. Gillian, frightened almost out of her
wits, managed to fly over an impracticable-looking gate into a field
with her children, but Fergus wanted to follow the drum. After that she
gave in. The children went to Mrs. Hablot, and Gillian thought she saw
‘I told you so’ in the corners of Aunt Jane’s eyes.

It was a further offence that her aunt strongly recommended her going
regularly to the High School instead of only attending certain classes.
It would give her far more chance of success at the examination to work
with others and her presence would be good for Valetta. But to reduce
her to a schoolgirl was to be resented on Miss Vincent’s account as well
as her own.




CHAPTER IV. -- THE QUEEN OF THE WHITE ANTS



The High School was very large. It stood at present at the end of a
budding branch of Rockquay, where the managers, assisted by the funds
advanced by Lord Rotherwood and that great invisible potentate, the head
of the marble works, had secured and adapted a suitable house, and a
space round it well walled in.

The various classes of students did not see much of each other, except
those who were day boarders and spent the midday recreation time
together. Even those in the same form were only together in school, as
the dressing-room of those who dined there was separate from that of the
others, and they did not come in and out at the same time. Valetta had
thus only really made friends with two or three more Rockstone girls of
about her own age besides Kitty Yarley, with whom she went backwards and
forwards every day, under the escort provided in turn by the families of
the young ladies.

Gillian’s studies were for three hours in the week at the High School,
and on two afternoons she learnt from the old organist at Rockstone
Church. She went and came alone, except when Miss Mohun happened to
join her, and that was not often, ‘For,’ said that lady to her sister,
‘Gillian always looks as if she thought I was acting spy upon her. I
wish I could get on with that girl; I begin to feel almost as poor Lily
did with Dolores.’

‘She is a very good girl,’ said Miss Adeline.

‘So she is; and that makes it all the more trying to be treated like the
Grand Inquisitor.’

‘Shall I speak to her? She is always as pleasant as possible with me.’

‘Oh no, don’t. It would only make it worse, and prevent you from having
her confidence.’

‘Ah, Jane, I have often thought your one want was gentleness,’ said Miss
Ada, with the gesture of her childhood--her head a little on one side.
‘And, besides, don’t you know what Reggie used to call your ferret look?
Well, I suppose you can’t help it, but when you want to know a thing and
are refraining from asking questions, you always have it more or less.’

‘Thank you, Ada. There’s nothing like brothers and sisters for telling
one home-truths. I suppose it is the penalty of having been a regular
Paul Pry in my childhood, in spite of poor Eleanor making me learn
“Meddlesome Matty” as soon as I could speak. I always _do_ and always
_shall_ have ringing in my ears--


          ‘“Oh! what a pretty box is this,
            I’ll open it,” said little Miss.’


‘Well, you know you always do know or find out everything about
everybody, and it is very useful.’

‘Useful as a bloodhound is, eh?’

‘Oh no, not that, Jenny.’

‘As a ferret, or a terrier, perhaps. I suppose I cannot help that,
though,’ she added, rather sadly. ‘I have tried hard to cure the slander
and gossip that goes with curiosity. I am sorry it results in repulsion
with that girl; but I suppose I can only go on and let her find out that
my bark, or my eye, is worse than my bite.’

‘You are so good, so everything, Jenny,’ said Adeline, ‘that I am sure
you will have her confidence in time, if only you won’t poke after it.’

Which made Miss Mohun laugh, though her heart was heavy, for she had
looked forward to having a friend and companion in the young generation.

Gillian meantime went her way.

One morning, after her mathematical class was over, she was delayed
for about ten minutes by the head mistress, to whom she had brought a
message from her aunt, and thus did not come out at noon at the same
time as the day scholars. On issuing into the street, where as yet there
was hardly any traffic, except what was connected with the two schools,
she perceived that a party of boys were besetting a little girl who was
trying to turn down the cross road to Bellevue, barring her way, and
executing a derisive war-dance around her, and when she, almost crying,
made an attempt to dash by, pulling at her plaited tail, with
derisive shouts, even Gillian’s call, ‘Boys, boys, how can you be so
disgraceful!’ did not check them. One made a face and put his tongue
out, while the biggest called out, ‘Thank you, teacher,’ and Gillian
perceived to her horror, that they were no street boys, but Mrs.
Edgar’s, and that Fergus was one of them. That he cried in dismay,
‘Don’t, Stebbing! It’s my sister,’ was no consolation, as she charged in
among them, catching hold of her brother, as she said,

‘I could not believe that you could behave in such a disgraceful
manner!’

All the other tormentors rushed away headlong, except Stebbing, who, in
some compunction, said--

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Merrifield, I had no notion it was you.’

‘You are making it no better,’ said Gillian. ‘The gentlemen I am used
to know how to behave properly to any woman or girl. My father would be
very sorry that my brother has been thrown into such company.’

And she walked away with her head extremely high, having certainly given
Master Stebbing a good lesson. Fergus ran after her. ‘Gill, Gill, you
won’t tell.’

‘I don’t think I ever was more shocked in my life,’ returned Gillian.

‘But, Gill, she’s a nasty, stuck-up, conceited little ape, that Maura
White, or whatever her ridiculous name is. They pretend her father was
an officer, but he was really a bad cousin of old Mr. White’s that ran
away; and her mother is not a lady--a great fat disgusting woman, half a
nigger; and Mr. White let her brother and sister be in the marble works
out of charity, because they have no father, and she hasn’t any business
to be at the High School.’

‘White, did you say? Maura White!’ exclaimed Gillian. ‘Captain White
dead! Oh, Fergus! it must be Captain White. He was in the dear old Royal
Wardours, and papa thought so much of him! To think of your going and
treating his daughter in that shocking way!’

‘It was what Stebbing said,’ gruffly answered Fergus.

‘If you let yourself be led by these horrid cads--’

‘He is no such thing! He is the crack bat of Edgar’s--’

‘A boy is a cad who can’t behave himself to a girl because she is poor.
I really think the apology to me was the worst part or the matter. He
only treats people well when he sees they can take care of themselves.’

‘I’ll tell him about Captain White,’ said Fergus, a little abashed.

‘Yes. And I will get the aunts to call on Mrs. White, and that may help
them to a better level among these vulgar folk.’

‘But you won’t--’ said Fergus, with an expressive pause.

‘I won’t get you into trouble, for I think you are sorry you treated one
of our own in such a manner.’

‘I wouldn’t, indeed, if I had known.’

‘I shall only explain that I have found out whom Maura belongs to. I
should go and see them at once, only I must make Val find out where she
lives.’

So Gillian returned home, communicating the intelligence with some
excitement that she had discovered that Valetta’s schoolmate, Maura
White, was none other than the daughter of her father’s old
fellow-soldier, whose death shocked her greatly, and she requested to go
and call on Mrs. White as soon as she could learn her abode.

However, it seemed to be impossible that any one should live in
Rockstone unknown to Aunt Jane.

‘White?’ she said. ‘It can’t be the Whites down by Cliffside. No;
there’s a father there, though he generally only comes down for Sunday.’

‘I am sure there are some Whites on the Library list,’ said Miss Ada.

‘Oh yes; but she washes! I know who they must be. I know in Bellevue
there are some; but they go to the Kennel Church. Didn’t you come home,
Ada, from that function you went to with Florence, raving about the
handsome youth in the choir?’

‘Oh yes, we thought it such an uncommon, foreign face, and he looked
quite inspired when he was singing his solo.’

‘Yes; I found out that his name was White, a clerk or something in the
marble works, and that he had a mother and sister living at Bellevue. I
did see the sister when I went to get the marble girls into the G.F.S.,
but she said something foolish about her mother not liking it.’

‘Yes; nobody under the St. Kenelm influence ever will come into the
G.F.S.’

‘But what is she doing?’ asked Gillian. ‘Do you mean Kalliope?’

‘I suppose I do. I saw a rather nice-looking young woman in the
department where they make Florentine mosaic, and I believe they said
she was Miss White, but she cut me off very short with her mother, so I
had no more to do with her.’

‘I am sure mamma would wish me to call on Mrs. White,’ said Gillian.

‘There’s no reason against it,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘I will go with you the
first day I can.’

When would that be, wondered Gillian. She told Valetta to talk to
Maura and learn the name of the house; and this was ascertained to be 3
Ivinghoe Terrace, Bellevue Road, but Val had very little opportunity of
cultivating the acquaintance of town girls, who did not stay to dinner,
as she had to go home immediately after school, under Emma Norton’s
escort, and perhaps she was not very ardent in the cause, for Kitty
Varley and her other friends did not like the child, and she was more
swayed by them than perhaps she liked to confess to her sister.

Each morning at breakfast Gillian hoped that Aunt Jane would lay out her
day so as to call on Mrs. White; but first there was the working party,
then came the mothers’ meeting, followed by afternoon tea at Mrs.
Hablot’s for some parish council. On the third day, which might have
been clear, ‘a miserable creature,’ as Gillian mentally called her,
wrote to beg the Misses Mohun to bring themselves and her niece to
make up a lawn-tennis set, since some one had failed. Gillian vainly
protested that she did not care about lawn tennis, and could not play
unless Jasper was her partner; and Aunt Jane so far sided with her as to
say it was very inconvenient, and on such short notice they ought not to
be expected. But Aunt Ada clearly wanted to go; and so they went. It was
a beautiful place, but Gillian could not enjoy herself, partly because
she knew so few of the people, but more because she was vexed and
displeased about the Whites. She played very badly; but Aunt Jane, when
pressed into the service, skipped about with her little light figure and
proved herself such a splendid player, doing it so entirely con amore,
that Gillian could not but say to herself, ‘She was bent on going; it
was all humbug her pretending to want to refuse.’

That afternoon’s dissipation had made it needful to do double work the
next day, and Gillian was again disappointed. Then came Saturday, when
Miss Mohun was never available, nor was she on Monday; and when it
appeared that she had to go to a meeting at the Cathedral town on
Tuesday, Gillian grew desperate, and at her tete-a-tete meal with Aunt
Ada, related the whole history of the Whites, and her great desire to
show kindness to her father’s old brother-officer’s family, and how much
she was disappointed.

Miss Adeline was touched, and indeed, fond as she was of her sister, she
could not help being flattered by Gillian’s preference and confidence.

‘Well, my deal, this is a nice day, not too hot or too cold; I do not
see why I should not walk down with you and call. If I find it too far,
we can take a cab to go back.’

‘Oh, thank you, Aunt Ada; it is very very kind of you, and there is no
knowing when Aunt Jane may be able to go. I don’t like to close up my
Indian letter till I can say I have seen them.’

Gillian fidgeted a good deal lest, before her aunt’s postprandial repose
was over, visitors should come and put a stop to everything, and she
looked ready to cut the throat of a poor lady in a mushroom hat, who
came up to leave a message for Miss Mohun about a possible situation for
one of her class of boys.

However, at last they started, Kunz and all, Miss Adeline quite infected
by Gillian’s excitement.

‘So your father and mother were very fond of them.’

‘Papa thought very highly of him, and was very sorry he had to return,’
said Gillian.

‘And she was a beautiful Greek.’

Gillian began to be quite afraid of what she might have said.

‘I don’t think she is more than half Greek,’ she said. ‘I believe her
mother was a Gorfiote, but her father was English or Irish. I believe he
kept a shop in Malta.’

‘Quite a mixture of nationalities then, and no wonder she is beautiful.
That youth had a very striking profile; it quite reminded me of a gem as
I saw it against the dark pillar.’

‘I did not say she was very beautiful now,’ said Gillian, feeling a
qualm as she recollected the Queen of the White Ants, and rather oddly
divided between truthfulness, fear of alarming her aunt into turning
back, and desire of giving her a little preparation.

‘Ah! those southern beauties soon go on. Some one told me that Lord
Byron’s “Maid of Athens,” whose portrait I used to think the loveliest
thing in the world, became a great stout woman, but was quite a mother
to all the young Englishmen about. I remember I used to try to hold my
head and keep my eyelids down like the engraving in an old book that had
been my mother’s.’

‘Oh! I think I have seen it at Beechcroft,’ said Gillian, very much
amused, for she now perceived whence arose Aunt Ada’s peculiar turn of
the head and droop of the eyelashes, and how the conscious affectation
of childhood had become unconsciously crystallised.

She grew more and more anxious as they found some difficulty in making
out Ivinghoe Terrace, and found it at last to be a row of rather
dilapidated little houses, apparently built of lath and stucco, and
of that peculiar meanness only attained by the modern suburb. Aunt Ada
evidently did not like it at all, and owned herself almost ready to
turn back, being sure that Valetta must have made some mistake. Gillian
repeated that she had always said the Whites were very poor, but she
began to feel that her impatience had misled her, and that she would
have been better off with the aunt who was used to such places, and
whose trim browns and crimsons were always appropriate everywhere,
rather than this dainty figure in delicate hues that looked only fit for
the Esplanade or the kettledrum, and who was becoming seriously uneasy,
as Kunz, in his fresh snowiness, was disposed to make researches among
vulgar remains of crabs and hakes, and was with difficulty restrained
from disputing them with a very ignoble and spiteful yellow cur of low
degree.

No. 3, with its blistered wall and rusty rail, was attained, Kunz was
brought within the enclosure, and Gillian knocked as sharply and fast as
she could, in the fear that her aunt might yet turn about and escape.

The door was opened with a rapidity that gave the impression that they
had been watched, but it was by a very untidy-looking small maid, and
the parlour into which they were turned had most manifestly been lately
used as the family dining-room, and was redolent of a mixture of onion,
cabbage, and other indescribable odours.

Nobody was there, except a black and white cat, who showed symptoms of
flying at Kunz, but thought better of it, and escaped by the window,
which fortunately was open, though the little maid would have shut it,
but for Miss Adeline’s gasping and peremptory entreaty to the contrary.
She sat on the faded sofa, looking as if she just existed by the help of
her fan and scent-bottle, and when Gillian directed her attention to
the case of clasps and medals and the photograph of the fine-looking
officer, she could only sigh out, ‘Oh, my dear!’

There was a certain air of taste in the arrangement of the few
chimney-piece ornaments, and Gillian was pleased to see the two large
photographs of her father and mother which Captain White had so much
valued as parting gifts. A few drawings reminded her of the School of
Art at Belfast, and there was a vase of wild flowers and ferns prettily
arranged, but otherwise everything was wretchedly faded and dreary.

Then came the opening of the door, and into the room rolled, rather than
advanced, something of stupendous breadth, which almost took Gillian’s
breath away, as she durst not look to see the effect on her aunt. If
the Queen of the White Ants had been stout before, what was she now?
Whatever her appearance had been in the days of comparative prosperity,
with a husband to keep her up to the mark, and a desire to rank with the
officers’ wives, she had let everything go in widowhood, poverty, and
neglect; and as she stood panting in her old shiny black alpaca, the
only thing Gillian recalled about her like old times was the black
lace veil thrown mantilla fashion over her head; but now it was over
a widow’s cap, and a great deal rustier than of old. Of the lovely
foreigner nothing else remained except the dark eyes, and that sort of
pasty sallow whiteness that looks at if for generations past cold water
and fresh air had been unknown. There was no accent more interesting in
her voice than a soupcon of her Irish father as she began, ‘I am sorry
to have kept the lady so long waiting. Was it about the girl’s character
that you came?’

‘Oh no, Mrs. White, interrupted Gillian, her shyness overpowered by the
necessity of throwing herself into the breach. ‘Don’t you remember me? I
am Gillian Merrifield, and this is my aunt, Miss Adeline Mohun.’

The puffy features lighted up into warmth. ‘Little Miss Gillian! And I
am proud to see you! My little Maura did tell me that Miss Valetta was
in her class at the High School; but I thought there was no one now
who would come near the poor widow. And is your dear mamma here, Miss
Gillian, and are she and your papa quite well?’

Gillian could hardly believe in such dense remoteness that her father’s
accident should be unknown, but she explained all, and met with abundant
sympathy, the dark eyes filled with tears, and the voice broke into
sobs, as Mrs. White declared that Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield had
been the best friends she ever had in her life.

But oh! that the handkerchief had been less grimy with which she mopped
her eyes, as she spoke of the happy days that were gone! Gillian saw
that poor Aunt Ada was in an agony to get away, and hurried out her
questions for fear of being stopped. ‘How was Kalliope--was she at
home?’

‘Oh no, poor Kally, she is the best girl in the world. I always say
that, with all my sorrows, no one ever was more blest in their children
than poor little me. Richard, my eldest, is in a lawyer’s office at
Leeds. Kally is employed in the art department, just as a compliment to
her relation, Mr. White. Quite genteel, superior work, though I must say
he does not do as much for us as he might. Such a youth as my Alexis now
was surely worthy of the position of a gentleman.’

The good lady was quite disposed to talk; but there was no making out,
through her cloud of confused complaints, what her son and daughter were
actually doing; and Aunt Ada, while preserving her courtesy, was very
anxious to be gone, and rose to take leave at the first moment possible,
though after she was on her feet Mrs. White detained her for some time
with apologies about not returning her visit. She was in such weak
health, so unequal to walking up the cliff, that she was sure Miss Mohun
would excuse her, though Alexis and Kally would be perfectly delighted
to hear of Miss Gillian’s kindness.

Gillian had not made out half what she wanted to know, nor effected
any arrangement for seeing Kalliope, when she found herself out in the
street, and her aunt panting with relief. ‘My dear, that woman! You
don’t mean that your mother was fond of her.’

‘I never said mamma was fond of her.’

‘My dear, excuse me. It was the only reason for letting you drag me
here. I was almost stifled. What a night I shall have!’

‘I am very sorry, Aunt Ada, but, indeed, I never said that mamma was
fond of her, only that papa thought very highly of her husband, and
wished us to be kind to her.’

‘Well, you gave me that impression, whether you wished it or not! Such a
hole; and I’m sure she drinks gin!’

‘Oh no, aunt!’

‘I can’t be mistaken! I really was afraid she was going to kiss you!’

‘I do wish I could have made out about Alexis and Kalliope.’

‘Oh, my dear, just working like all the lot, though she shuffled about
it. I see what they are like, and the less you see of them the better.
I declare I am more tired than if I had walked a mile. How am I ever to
get up the hill again?’

‘I am sorry, aunt,’ said Gillian. ‘Will you take my arm? Perhaps we may
meet Kalliope, if the marble people come out at four or five. What’s
that bell?’ as a little tinkle was heard.

‘That’s St. Kenelm’s! Oh! you would like to go there, and it would rest
me; only there’s Kunz.’

‘I should like to see it very much,’ said Gillian.

‘Well,’ said Aunt Ada, who certainly seemed to have something of the
‘cat’s away’ feeling about her, and, moreover, trusted to avoid meeting
Kalliope. ‘Just round the corner here is Mrs. Webb’s, who used to live
with us before she married, Kunz will be happy with her. Won’t he, my
doggie, like to go and see his old Jessie?’

So Kunz was disposed of with a very pleasant, neat-looking woman, who
begged Miss Adeline to come and have some tea after the service.

It was really a beautiful little church--‘a little gem’ was exactly the
term that suggested itself--very ornate, and the chief lack being of
repose, for there seemed not an inch devoid of colour or carving. There
was a choir of boys in short surplices and blue cassocks, and a very
musical service, in the course of which it was discovered to be the
Feast of St. Remigius, for after the Lesson a short discourse was given
on the Conversion of Clovis, not forgetting the sacred ampulla.

There were about five ladies present and six old women, belonging to
a home maintained by Lady Flight. The young priest, her son, had a
beautiful voice, and Gillian enjoyed all very much, and thought the St.
Andrew’s people very hard and unjust; but all this went out of her
head in the porch, for while Lady Flight was greeting Miss Mohun with
empressement, and inviting her to come in to tea, Gillian had seen a
young woman who had come in late and had been kneeling behind them.

Turning back and holding out her hands, she exclaimed--

‘Kalliope! I so wanted to see you.’

‘Miss Gillian Merrifield,’ was the response. ‘Maura told me you were
here, but I hardly hoped to see you.’

‘How can I see you? Where are you? Busy?’

‘I am at the marble works all day--in the mosaic department. Oh, Miss
Gillian, I owe it all to Miss Merrifield’s encouraging me to go to the
School of Art. How is she? And I hope you have good accounts of Sir
Jasper?’

‘He is better, and I hope my mother is just arriving. That’s why we are
here; and Alethea and Phyllis are out there. They will want to know all
about you.’

At that moment Aunt Adeline looked round, having succeeded in persuading
Lady Flight that she had another engagement. She saw a young woman in
a shabby black dress, with a bag in her hand, and a dark fringe over
a complexion of clear brown, straight features, to whom Gillian was
eagerly talking.

‘Ah!’ she said, as Mr. Flight now came up from the vestry; ‘do you know
anything of that girl?’

‘Second-rate people, somewhere in Bellevue,’ said the lady.

‘The brother is my best tenor,’ said Mr. Flight. ‘She is very often at
St. Kenelm’s, but I do not know any more of her. The mother either goes
to Bellevue or nowhere. They are in Bellevue Parish.’

This was quite sufficient answer, for any interference with parochial
visiting in the Bellevue district was forbidden.

Aunt Ada called to Gillian, and when she eagerly said, ‘This is
Kalliope, aunt,’ only responded with a stiff bow.

‘I do not know what these people might have been, Gillian,’ she said, as
they pursued their way to Mrs. Webb’s; ‘but--they must have sunk so low
that I do not think your mother can wish you to have anything to do with
them.

‘Oh, Aunt Ada! Kalliope was always such a good girl!’

‘She has a fringe. And she would not belong to the G.F.S.,’ said Aunt
Ada. ‘No, my dear, I see exactly the sort of people they are. Your aunt
Jane might be useful to them, if they would let her, but they are not at
all fit for you to associate with.’

Gillian chafed inwardly, but she was beginning to learn that Aunt Ada
was more impenetrable than Aunt Jane, and, what was worse, Aunt Jane
always stood by her sister’s decision, whether she would have herself
originated it or not.

When the elder aunt came home, and heard the history of their day, and
Gillian tried to put in a word, she said--

‘My dear, we all know that rising from the ranks puts a man’s family
in a false position, and they generally fall back again. All this is
unlucky, for they do not seem to be people it is possible to get at,
and now you have paid your kind act of attention, there is no more to be
done till you can hear from Ceylon about them.’

Gillian was silenced by the united forces of the aunts.

‘It really was a horrid place,’ said Aunt Ada, when alone with her
sister; ‘and such a porpoise of a woman! Gillian should not have
represented her as a favourite.’

‘I do not remember that she did so,’ returned Aunt Jane. ‘I wish she
had waited for me. I have seen more of the kind of thing than you have,
Ada.’

‘I am sure I wish she had. I don’t know when I shall get over the
stifling of that den; but it was just as if they were her dearest
friends.’

‘Girls will be silly! And there’s a feeling about the old regiment too.
I can excuse her, though I wish she had not been so impatient. I fancy
that eldest daughter is really a good girl and the mainstay of the
family.’

‘But she would have nothing to do with you or the G.F.S.’

‘If I had known that her father had been an officer, I might have
approached her differently. However, I will ask Lily about their
antecedents, and in six weeks we shall know what is to be done about
them.’




CHAPTER V. -- MARBLES



Six weeks seem a great deal longer to sixteen than to six-and-forty,
and Gillian groaned and sighed to herself as she wrote her letters, and
assured herself that so far from her having done enough in the way of
attention to the old soldier’s family, she had simply done enough to
mark her neglect and disdain.

‘Grizzling’ (to use an effective family phrase) under opposition is a
grand magnifier; and it was not difficult to erect poor Captain White
into a hero, his wife into a patient sufferer, and Alethea’s kindness
to his daughter into a bosom friendship; while the aunts seemed to be
absurdly fastidious and prejudiced. ‘I don’t wonder at Aunt Ada,’ she
said to herself; ‘I know she has always been kept under a glass case;
but I thought better things of Aunt Jane. It is all because Kalliope
goes to St. Kenelm’s, and won’t be in the G.F.S.’

And all the time Gillian was perfectly unaware of her own family
likeness to Dolores. Other matters conduced to a certain spirit of
opposition to Aunt Jane. That the children should have to use the back
instead of the front stair when coming in with dusty or muddy shoes,
and that their possessions should be confiscated for the rest of the day
when left about in the sitting-rooms and hall, were contingencies she
could accept as natural, though they irritated her; but she agreed with
Valetta that it was hard to insist on half an hour’s regular work at
the cushion, which was not a lesson, but play. She was angered when
Aunt Jane put a stop to some sportive passes and chatter on the stairs
between Valetta and Alice Mount, and still more so when her aunt took
away Adam Bede from the former, as not desirable reading at eleven years
old.

It was only the remembrance of her mother’s positive orders that
withheld Gillian from the declaration that mamma always let them read
George Eliot; and in a cooler moment of reflection she was glad she
had abstained, for she recollected that _always_ was limited to mamma’s
having read most of Romola aloud to her and Mysie, and to her having had
Silas Marner to read when she was unwell in lodgings, and there was a
scarcity of books.

Such miffs about her little sister were in the natural order of things,
and really it was the ‘all pervadingness,’ as she called it in her own
mind, of Aunt Jane that chiefly worried her, the way that the little
lady knew everything that was done, and everything that was touched in
the house; but as long as Valetta took refuge with herself, and grumbled
to her, it was bearable.

It was different with Fergus. There had been offences certainly; Aunt
Jane had routed him out of preparing his lessons in Mrs. Mount’s room,
where he diversified them with teaching the Sofy to beg, and inventing
new modes of tying down jam pots. Moreover, she had declared that
Gillian’s exemplary patience was wasted and harmful when she found that
they had taken three-quarters of an hour over three tenses of a Greek
verb, and that he said it worse on the seventh repetition than on the
first. After an evening, when Gillian had gone to a musical party with
Aunt Ada, and Fergus did his lessons under Aunt Jane’s superintendence,
he utterly cast off his sister’s aid. There was something in Miss
Mohun’s briskness that he found inspiring, and she put in apt words or
illustrations, instead of only rousing herself from a book to listen,
prompt, and sigh. He found that he did his tasks more thoroughly in half
the time, and rose in his class; and busy as his aunt was, she made the
time not only for this, but for looking over with him those plates of
mechanics in the Encyclopaedia, which were a mere maze to Gillian, but
of which she knew every detail, from ancient studies with her brother
Maurice. As Fergus wrote to his mother, ‘Aunt Jane is the only woman who
has any natural _scence_.’

Gillian could not but see this as she prepared the letters for the post,
and whatever the ambiguous word might be meant for, she had rather not
have seen it, for she really was ashamed of her secret annoyance at
Fergus’s devotion to Aunt Jane, knowing how well it was that Stebbing
should have a rival in his affections. Yet she could not help being
provoked when the boy followed his aunt to the doors of her cottages
like a little dog, and waited outside whenever she would let him, for
the sake of holding forth to her about something which wheels and plugs
and screws were to do. Was it possible that Miss Mohun followed it all?
His great desire was to go over the marble works, and she had promised
to take him when it could be done; but, unfortunately, his half-holiday
was on Saturday, when the workmen struck off early, and when also Aunt
Jane always had the pupil-teachers for something between instruction and
amusement.

Gillian felt lonely, for though she got on better with her younger than
her elder aunt, and had plenty of surface intercourse of a pleasant kind
with both, it was a very poor substitute for her mother, or her elder
sisters, and Valetta was very far from being a Mysie.

The worst time was Sunday, when the children had deserted her for Mrs.
Hablot, and Aunt Ada was always lying down in her own room to rest after
morning service. She might have been at the Sunday-school, but she
did not love teaching, nor do it well, and she did not fancy the town
children, or else there was something of opposition to Aunt Jane.

It was a beautiful afternoon, of the first Sunday in October, and she
betook herself to the garden with the ‘Lyra Innocentium’ in her hand,
meaning to learn the poem for the day. She wandered up to the rail above
the cliff, looking out to the sea. Here, beyond the belt of tamarisks
and other hardy low-growing shrubs which gave a little protection from
the winds, the wall dividing the garden of Beechcroft Cottage from that
of Cliff House became low, with only the iron-spiked railing on the
top, as perhaps there was a desire not to overload the cliff. The sea
was of a lovely colour that day, soft blue, and with exquisite purple
shadows of clouds, with ripples of golden sparkles here and there near
the sun, and Gillian stood leaning against the rail, gazing out on it,
with a longing, yearning feeling towards the dear ones who had gone
out upon it, when she became conscious that some one was in the other
garden, which she had hitherto thought quite deserted, and looking
round, she saw a figure in black near the rail. Their eyes met, and both
together exclaimed--

‘Kalliope!’--‘Miss Gillian! Oh, I beg your pardon!’

‘How did you come here? I thought nobody did!’

‘Mr. White’s gardener lets us walk here. It is so nice and quiet. Alexis
has taken the younger ones for a walk, but I was too much tired. But I
will not disturb you--’

‘Oh! don’t go away. Nobody will disturb us, and I do so want to know
about you all. I had no notion, nor mamma either, that you were living
here, or--’

‘Or of my dear father’s death!’ said Kalliope, as Gillian stopped short,
confused. ‘I did write to Miss Merrifield, but the letter was returned.’

‘But where did you write?’

‘To Swanage, where she had written to me last.’

‘Oh! we were only there for six weeks, while we were looking for houses;
I suppose it was just as the Wardours were gone to Natal too?’

‘Yes, we knew they were out of reach.’

‘But do tell me about it, if you do not mind. My father will want to
hear.’

Kalliope told all in a calm, matter-of-fact way, but with a strain of
deep suppressed feeling. She was about twenty-three, a girl with a fine
outline of features, beautiful dark eyes, and a clear brown skin, who
would have been very handsome if she had looked better fed and less
hardworked. Her Sunday dress showed wear and adaptation, but she was
altogether ladylike, and even the fringe that had startled Aunt Ada only
consisted of little wavy curls on the temples, increasing her classical
look.

‘It was fever--at Leeds. My father was just going into a situation in
the police that we had been waiting for ever so long, and there were
good schools, and Richard had got into a lawyer’s office, when there
began a terrible fever in our street--the drains were to blame, they
said--and every one of us had it, except mother and Richard, who did not
sleep at home. We lost poor little Mary first, and then papa seemed to
be getting better; but he was anxious about expense, and there was no
persuading him to take nourishment enough. I do believe it was that. And
he had a relapse--and--’

‘Oh, poor Kalliope! And we never heard of it!’

‘I did feel broken down when the letter to Miss Merrifield came back,’
said Kalliope. ‘But my father had made me write to Mr. James White--not
that we had any idea that he had grown so rich. He and my father were
first cousins, sons of two brothers who were builders; but there was
some dispute, and it ended by my father going away and enlisting. There
was nobody nearer to him, and he never heard any more of his home; but
when he was so ill, he thought he would like to be reconciled to “Jem,”
 as he said, so he made me write from his dictation. Such a beautiful
letter it was, and he added a line at the end himself. Then at last,
when it was almost too late, Mr. White answered. I believe it was a mere
chance--or rather Providence--that he ever knew it was meant for him,
but there were kind words enough to cheer up my father at the last. I
believe then the clergyman wrote to him.’

‘Did not he come near you?’

‘No, I have never seen him; but there was a correspondence between him
and Mr. Moore, the clergyman, and Richard, and he said he was willing
to put us in the way of working for ourselves, if--if--we were not too
proud.’

‘Then he did it in an unkind way,’ said Gillian.

‘I try to think he did not mean to be otherwise than good to us. I told
Mr. Moore that I was not fit to be a governess, and I did not think they
could get on without me at home, but that I could draw better than I
would do anything else, and perhaps I might get Christmas cards to do,
or something like that. Mr. Moore sent a card or two of my designing,
and then Mr. White said he could find work for me in the mosaic
department here; and something for my brothers, if we did not give
ourselves airs. So we came.’

‘Not Richard?’ said Gillian, who remembered dimly that Richard had not
been held in great esteem by her own brothers.

‘No; Richard is in a good situation, so it was settled that he should
stay on there.’

‘And you--’

‘I am in the mosaic department. Oh, Miss Gillian, I am so grateful to
Miss Merrifield. Don’t you remember her looking at my little attempts,
and persuading Lady Merrifield to get mother to let me go to the School
of Art? I began only as the girls do who are mere hands, and now I have
to prepare all the designs for them, and have a nice little office of my
own for it. Sometimes I get one of my own designs taken, and then I am
paid extra.’

‘Then do you maintain them all?’

‘Oh no; we have lodgers, the organist and his wife,’ said Kalliope,
laughing, ‘and Alexis is in the telegraph office, at the works; besides,
it turned out that this house and two more belong to us, and we do very
well when the tenants pay their rents.’

‘But Maura is not the youngest of you,’ said Gillian, who was rather
hazy about the family.

‘No, there are the two little boys. We let them go to the National
School for the present. It is a great trial to my poor mother, but they
do learn well there, and we may be able to do something better for them
by the time they are old enough for further education.’

Just then the sound of a bell coming up from the town below was
a warning to both that the conversation must be broken off. A few
words--‘I am so glad to have seen you,’ and ‘It has been such a
pleasure’--passed, and then each hastened down her separate garden path.

‘Must I tell of this meeting?’ Gillian asked herself. ‘I shall write it
all to mamma and Alethea, of course. How delightful that those lessons
that Kalliope had have come to be of so much use! How pleased Alethea
will be! Poor dear thing! How much she has gone through! But can there
be any need to tell the aunts? Would it not just make Aunt Ada nervous
about any one looking through her sweet and lovely wall? And as to Aunt
Jane, I really don’t see that I am bound to gratify her passion for
knowing everything. I am not accountable to her, but to my own mother.
My people know all about Kalliope, and she is prejudiced. Why should I
be unkind and neglectful of an old fellow-soldier’s family, because she
cannot or will not understand what they really are? It would not be
the slightest use to tell her the real story. Mrs. White is fat, and
Kalliope has a fringe, goes to St. Kenelm’s, and won’t be in the G.F.S.,
and that’s enough to make her say she does not believe a word of it, or
else to make it a fresh ground for poking and prying, in the way that
drives one distracted! It really is quite a satis-faction to have
something that she can’t find out, and it is not underhand while I write
every word of it to mamma.’

So Gillian made her conscience easy, and she did write a long and full
account of the Whites and their troubles, and of her conversation with
Kalliope.

In the course of that week Fergus had a holiday, asked for by some
good-natured visitor of Mrs. Edgar’s. He rushed home on the previous
day with the news, to claim Aunt Jane’s promise; and she undertook so
to arrange matters as to be ready to go with him to the marble works at
three o’clock. Valetta could not go, as she had her music lesson at that
time, and she did not regret it, for she had an idea that blasting with
powder or dynamite was always going on there. Gillian was not quite
happy about the dynamite, but she did not like to forego the chance of
seeing what the work of Kalliope and Alexis really was, so she expressed
her willingness to join the party, and in the meantime did her best to
prevent Aunt Ada from being driven distracted by Fergus’s impatience,
which began at half-past two.

Miss Mohun had darted out as soon as dinner was over, and he was quite
certain some horrible cad would detain her till four o’clock, and then
going would be of no use. Nevertheless he was miserable till Gillian had
put on her hat, and then she could do nothing that would content him and
keep him out of Aunt Ada’s way, but walk him up and down in the little
front court with the copper beeches, while she thought they must present
to the neighbours a lively tableau of a couple of leopards in a cage.

However, precisely as the clock struck three, Aunt Jane walked up to
the iron gate. She had secured an order from Mr. Stebbing, the managing
partner, without which they would not have penetrated beyond the gate
where ‘No admittance except on business’ was painted.

Mr. Stebbing himself, a man with what Valetta was wont to call a grisly
beard, met them a little within the gate, and did the honours of the
place with great politeness. He answered all the boy’s questions, and
seemed much pleased with his intelligence and interest, letting him see
what he wished, and even having the machinery slacked to enable him
to perceive how it acted, and most delightful of all, in the eyes of
Fergus, letting him behold some dynamite, and explaining its downward
explosion. He evidently had a great respect for Miss Mohun, because she
entered into it all, put pertinent questions, and helped her nephew if
he did not understand.

It was all dull work to Gillian, all that blasting and hewing and
polishing, which made the place as busy as a hive. She only wished she
could have seen the cove as once it was, with the weather-beaten rocks
descending to the sea, overhung with wild thrift and bramble, and with
the shore, the peaceful haunts of the white sea-birds; whereas now the
fresh-cut rock looked red and wounded, and all below was full of ugly
slated or iron-roofed sheds, rough workmen, and gratings and screeches
of machinery.

It was the Whites whom she wanted to see, and she never came upon the
brother at all, nor on the sister, till Mr. Stebbing, perhaps observing
her listless looks, said that they were coming to what would be more
interesting to Miss Merrifield, and took them into the workrooms, where
a number of young women were busy over the very beautiful work by
which flowers and other devices were represented by inlaying different
coloured marbles and semi-precious stones in black and white, so as to
make tables, slabs, and letter-weights, and brooches for those who could
not aspire to the most splendid and costly productions.

Miss Mohun shook hands with ‘the young ladies’ within the magic circle
of the G.F.S., and showed herself on friendly terms of interest with
all. From a little inner office Miss White was summoned, came out, and
met an eager greeting from Gillian, but blushed a little, and perhaps
had rather not have had her unusual Christian name proclaimed by the
explanation--

‘This is Kalliope White, Aunt Jane.’

Miss Mohun shook hands with her, and said her niece had been much
pleased at the meeting, and her sister would be glad to hear of her,
explaining to Mr. Stebbing that Captain White had been a
brother-officer of Sir Jasper Merrifield.

Kalliope had a very prettily-shaped head, with short hair in little
curls and rings all over it. Her whole manner was very quiet and
unassuming, as she explained and showed whatever Mr. Stebbing wished.
It was her business to make the working drawings for the others, and
to select the stones used, and there could be no doubt that she was a
capable and valuable worker.

Gillian asked her to show something designed by herself, and she
produced an exquisite table-weight, bearing a spray of sweet peas.
Gillian longed to secure it for her mother, but it was very expensive,
owing to the uncommon stones used in giving the tints, and Mr. Stebbing
evidently did not regard it with so much favour as the jessamines and
snowdrops, which, being of commoner marbles, could be sold at a rate
fitter for the popular purse. Several beautiful drawings in her office
had been laid aside as impracticable, ‘unless we had a carte blanche
wedding order,’ he said, with what Gillian thought a sneer.

She would gladly have lingered longer, but this was a very dull room
in Fergus’s estimation, and perhaps Aunt Jane did not desire a long
continuance of the conversation under Mr. Stebbing’s eyes, so Gillian
found herself hurried on.

Mr. Stebbing begged Miss Mohun to come in to his wife, who would have
tea ready, and this could not be avoided without manifest incivility.
Fergus hoped to have been introduced to the haunts of his hero, but
Master George was gone off in attendance on his brother, who was
fishing, and there was nothing to relieve the polite circle of the
drawing-room--a place most aesthetically correct, from cornice to
the little rugs on the slippery floor. The little teacups and the
low Turkish table were a perfect study to those who did not--like
Fergus--think more of the dainty doll’s muffins on the stand, or the
long-backed Dachshund who looked for them beseechingly.

Mrs. Stebbing was quite in accordance with the rest, with a little row
of curls over her forehead, a terra-cotta dress, and a chain of watch
cocks, altogether rather youthful for the mother of a grown-up son,
engaged in his father’s business.

She was extremely civil and polite, and everything went well except for
a certain stiffness. By and by the subject of the Whites came up, and
Mr. Stebbing observed that Miss Merrifield seemed to know Miss White.

‘Oh yes,’ said Gillian eagerly; ‘her father was in my father’s regiment,
the Royal Wardours.’

‘A non-commissioned officer, I suppose,’ said Mrs. Stebbing.

‘Not for a good many years,’ said Gillian. ‘He was lieutenant for six
years, and retired with the rank of captain.’

‘I know they said he was a captain,’ said Mrs. Stebbing; ‘but it is very
easy to be called so.’

‘Captain White was a real one,’ said Gillian, with a tone of offence.
‘Every one in the Royal Wardours thought very highly of him.’

‘I am sure no one would have supposed it from his family,’ said Mrs.
Stebbing. ‘You are aware, Miss Mohun, that it was under disgraceful
circumstances that he ran away and enlisted.’

‘Many a youth who gets into a scrape becomes an excellent soldier, even
an officer,’ said Miss Mohun.

‘Exactly so,’ said Mr. Stebbing. ‘Those high-spirited lads are the
better for discipline, and often turn out well under it. But their
promotion is an awkward thing for their families, who have not been
educated up to the mark.’

‘It is an anomalous position, and I have a great pity for them,’ said
Miss Mohun. ‘Miss White must be a very clever girl.’

‘Talented, yes,’ said Mr. Stebbing. ‘She is useful in her department.

‘That may be,’ said Mrs. Stebbing; ‘but it won’t do to encourage her.
She is an artful, designing girl, I know very well--’

‘Do you know anything against her?’ asked Miss Mohun, looking volumes of
repression at Gillian, whose brown eyes showed symptoms of glaring like
a cat’s, under her hat.

‘I do not speak without warrant, Miss Mohun. She is one of those demure,
proper-behaved sort that are really the worst flirts of all, if you’ll
excuse me.’

Most thankful was Miss Mohun that the door opened at that moment to
admit some more visitors, for she saw that Gillian might at any moment
explode.

‘Aunt Jane,’ she exclaimed, as soon as they had accomplished their
departure, ‘you don’t believe it?’

‘I do not think Miss White looks like it,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘She seemed
a quiet, simple girl.’

‘And you don’t believe all that about poor Captain White?’

‘Not the more for Mrs. Stebbing’s saying so.’

‘But you will find out and refute her. There must be people who know.’

‘My dear, you had better not try to rake up such things. You know that
the man bore an excellent character for many years in the army, and you
had better be satisfied with that,’ said Miss Jane for once in her life,
as if to provoke Gillian, not on the side of curiosity.

‘Then you do believe it!’ went on Gillian, feeling much injured for her
hero’s sake, and wearing what looked like a pertinacious pout.

‘Truth compels me to say, Gillian, that the sons of men, even in a
small way of business, are not apt to run away and enlist without some
reason.’

‘And I am quite sure it was all that horrid old White’s fault.’

‘You had better content yourself with that belief.’

Gillian felt greatly affronted, but Fergus, who thought all this very
tiresome, broke in, after a third attempt--

‘Aunt Jane, if the pulley of that crane--’

And all the way home they discussed machinery, and Gillian’s heart
swelled.

‘I am afraid Gillian was greatly displeased with me,’ said Miss Mohun
that evening, talking it over with her sister. ‘But her captain might
have a fall if she went poking into all the gossip of the place about
him.’

‘Most likely whatever he did would be greatly exaggerated,’ said
Adeline.

‘No doubt of it! Besides, those young men who are meant by nature for
heroes are apt to show some Beserkerwuth in their youth, like Hereward
le Wake.’

‘But what did you think of the girl?’

‘I liked her looks very much. I have seen her singing in the choruses
at the choral society concert, and thought how nice her manner was. She
does justice to her classical extraction, and is modest and ladylike
besides. Mrs. Stebbing is spiteful! I wonder whether it is jealousy.
She calls her artful and designing, which sounds to me very much as if
Master Frank might admire the damsel. I have a great mind to have the
two girls to tea, and see what they are made of.’

‘We had much better wait till we hear from Lily. We cannot in the least
tell whether she would wish the acquaintance to be kept up. And if
there is anything going on with young Stebbing, nothing could be more
unadvisable than for Gillian to be mixed up in any nonsense of that
sort.’




CHAPTER VI. -- SINGLE MISFORTUNES NEVER COME ALONE



On Sunday, Gillian’s feet found their way to the top of the garden,
where she paced meditatively up and down, hoping to see Kalliope; and
just as she was giving up the expectation, the slender black figure
appeared on the other side of the railings.

‘Oh, Miss Gillian, how kind!’

‘Kally, I am glad!’

Wherewith they got into talk at once, for Lady Merrifield’s safe arrival
and Sir Jasper’s improvement had just been telegraphed, and there was
much rejoicing over the good news. Gillian had nearly made up her mind
to confute the enemy by asking why Captain White had left Rockquay; but
somehow when it came to the point, she durst not make the venture, and
they skimmed upon more surface subjects.

The one point of union between the parishes of Rockstone and Rockquay
was a choral society, whereof Mr. Flight of St. Kenelm’s was a
distinguished light, and which gave periodical concerts in the Masonic
Hall. It being musical, Miss Mohun had nothing to do with it except
the feeling it needful to give her presence to the performances. One
of these was to take place in the course of the week, and there were
programmes in all the shops, ‘Mr. Alexis White’ being set down for more
than one solo, and as a voice in the glees.

‘Shall not you sing?’ asked Gillian, remembering that her sisters had
thought Kalliope had a good ear and a pretty voice.

‘I? Oh, no!’

‘I thought you used to sing.’

‘Yes; but I have no time to keep it up.’

‘Not even in the choruses?’

‘No, I cannot manage it’--and there was a little glow in the clear brown
cheek.

‘Does your designing take up so much time?’

‘It is not that, but there is a great deal to do at home in after hours.
My mother is not strong, and we cannot keep a really efficient servant.’

‘Oh! but you must be terribly hard-worked to have no time for
relaxation.’

‘Not quite that, but--it seems to me,’ burst out poor Kalliope,
‘that relaxation does nothing but bring a girl into difficulties--an
unprotected girl, I mean.’

‘What do you mean?’ cried Gillian, quite excited; but Kalliope had
caught herself up.

‘Never mind, Miss Gillian; you have nothing to do with that kind of
thing.’

‘But do tell me, Kally; I do want to be your friend,’ said Gillian,
trying to put her hand through.

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Kalliope, smiling and evidently touched,
but still somewhat red, ‘only you know when a girl has nobody to look
after her, she has to look after herself.’

‘Doesn’t Alexis look after you?’ said Gillian, not at all satisfied to
be put off with this truism.

‘Poor Alex! He is younger, you know, and he has quite enough to do. Oh,
Miss Gillian, he is such a very dear, good boy.’

‘He has a most beautiful voice, Aunt Ada said.’

‘Yes, poor fellow, though he almost wishes he had not. Oh dear I there’s
the little bell! Good-bye, Miss Merrifield, I must run, or Mrs. Smithson
will be gone to church, and I shall be locked in.’

So Gillian was left to the enigma why Alexis should regret the beauty
of his own voice, and what Kalliope could mean by the scrapes of
unprotected girls. It did not occur to her that Miss White was her elder
by six or seven years, and possibly might not rely on her judgment and
discretion as much as she might have done on those of Alethea.

Meantime the concert was coming on. It was not an amusement that Aunt
Ada could attempt, but Miss Mohun took both her nieces, to the extreme
pride and delight of Valetta, who had never been, as she said, ‘to
any evening thing but just stupid childish things, only trees and
magic-lanterns’; and would not quite believe Gillian, who assured her in
a sage tone that she would find this far less entertaining than either,
judging by the manner in which she was wont to vituperate her music
lesson.

‘Oh! but that’s only scales, and everybody hates them! And I do love a
German band.’

‘Especially in the middle of lesson-time,’ said Gillian.

However, Fergus was to spend the evening with Clement Varley; and Kitty
was to go with her mother and sister, the latter of whom was to be one
of the performers; but it was decreed by the cruel authorities that the
two bosom friends would have their tongues in better order if they were
some chairs apart; and therefore, though the members of the two families
at Beechcroft and the Tamarisks were consecutive, Valetta was quartered
between her aunt and Gillian, with Mrs. Varley on the other side of
Miss Mohun, and Major Dennis flanking Miss Merrifield. When he had duly
inquired after Sir Jasper, and heard of Lady Merrifield’s arrival,
he had no more conversation for the young lady; and Valetta, having
perceived by force of example that in this waiting-time it was not
like being in church, poured out her observations and inquiries on her
sister.

‘What a funny room! And oh! do look at the pictures! Why has that man
got on a blue apron? Freemasons! What are Freemasons? Do they work in
embroidered blue satin aprons because they are gentlemen? I’ll tell
Fergus that is what he ought to be; he is so fond of making things--only
I am sure he would spoil his apron. What’s that curtain for? Will they
sing up there? Oh, there’s Emma Norton just come in! That must be her
father. That’s Alice Gidding, she comes to our Sunday class, and do you
know, she thought it was Joseph who was put into the den of lions. Has
not her mother got a funny head?’

‘Hush now, Val. Here they come,’ as the whole chorus trooped in and
began the ‘Men of Harlech.’

Val was reduced to silence, but there was a long instrumental
performance afterwards, during which bad examples of chattering
emboldened her to whisper--

‘Did you see Beatrice Varley? And Miss Berry, our singing-mistress--and
Alexis White? Maura says--’

Aunt Jane gave a touch and a frown which reduced Valetta to silence at
this critical moment; and she sat still through a good deal, only giving
a little jump when Alexis White, with various others, came to sing a
glee.

Gillian could study the youth, who certainly was, as Aunt Ada said,
remarkable for the cameo-like cutting of his profile, though perhaps no
one without an eye for art would have remarked it, as he had the callow
unformed air of a lad of seventeen or eighteen, and looked shy and
grave; but his voice was a fine one, and was heard to more advantage in
the solos to a hunting song which shortly followed.

Valetta had been rather alarmed at the applause at first, but she soon
found out what an opportunity it gave for conversation, and after a good
deal of popping her head about, she took advantage of the encores to
excuse herself by saying, ‘I wanted to see if Maura White was there. She
was to go if Mrs. Lee--that’s the lodger--would take her. She says Kally
won’t go, or sing, or anything, because--’

How tantalising! the singers reappeared, and Valetta was reduced to
silence. Nor could the subject be renewed in the interval between the
parts, for Major Dennis came and stood in front, and talked to Miss
Mohun; and after that Valetta grew sleepy, and nothing was to be got
out of her till all was over, when she awoke into extra animation, and
chattered so vehemently all the way home that her aunt advised Gillian
to get her to bed as quietly as possible, or she would not sleep all
night, and would be good for nothing the next day.

Gillian, however, being given to think for herself in all cases of
counsel from Aunt Jane, thought it could do no harm to beguile the
brushing of the child’s hair by asking why Kalliope would not come to
the concert.

‘Oh, it’s a great secret, but Maura told me in the cloakroom. It
is because Mr. Frank wants to be her--to be her--her admirer,’ said
Valetta, cocking her head on one side, and adding to the already crimson
colour of her cheeks.

‘Nonsense, Val, what do you and Maura know of such things?’

‘We aren’t babies, Gill, and it is very unkind of you, when you told me
I was to make friends with Maura White; and Kitty Varley is quite cross
with me about it.’

‘I told you to be kind to Maura, but not to talk about such foolish
things.’

‘I don’t see why they should be foolish. It is what we all must come to.
Grown-up people do, as Lois says. I heard Aunt Ada going on ever so long
about Beatrice Varley and that gentleman.’

‘It is just the disadvantage of that kind of school that girls talk that
sort of undesirable stuff. Gillian said to herself; but curiosity, or
interest in the Whites, prompted her to add, ‘What did she tell you?’

‘If you are so cross, I shan’t tell you. You hurt my head, I say.’

‘Come, Val, I ought to know.’

‘It’s a secret.’

‘Then you should not have told me so much.’

Val laughed triumphantly, and called her sister Mrs. Curiosity, and at
that moment Aunt Jane knocked at the door, and said Val was not to talk.

Val made an impatient face and began to whisper, but Gillian had too
much proper feeling to allow this flat disobedience, and would not
listen, much as she longed to do so. She heard her little sister
rolling and tossing about a good deal, but made herself hard-hearted on
principle, and acted sleep. On her own judgment, she would not waken the
child in the morning, and Aunt Jane said she was quite right, it would
be better to let Val have her sleep out, than send her to school fretful
and half alive. ‘But you ought not to have let her talk last night.’

As usual, reproof was unpleasing, and silenced Gillian. She hoped to
extract the rest of the story in the course of the day. But before
breakfast was over Valetta rushed in with her hat on, having scrambled
into her clothes in a hurry, and consuming her breakfast in great haste,
for she had no notion either of losing her place in the class, or of
missing the discussion of the entertainment with Kitty, from whom she
had been so cruelly parted.

Tete-a-tetes were not so easy as might have been expected between two
sisters occupying the same room, for Valetta went to bed and to sleep
long before Gillian, and the morning toilette was a hurry; besides,
Gillian had scruples, partly out of pride and partly out of
conscientiousness, about encouraging Valetta in gossip or showing her
curiosity about it. Could she make anything out from Kalliope herself?
However, fortune favoured her, for she came out of her class only a few
steps behind little Maura; and as some of Mr. Edgar’s boys were about,
the child naturally regarded her as a protector.

Maura was quite as pretty as her elders, and had more of a southern
look. Perhaps she was proportionably precocious, for she returned
Gillian’s greeting without embarrassment, and was quite ready to enter
into conversation and show her gratification at compliments upon her
brother’s voice.

‘And does not Kalliope sing? I think she used to sing very nicely in the
old times.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Maura; ‘but she doesn’t now.’

‘Why not? Has not she time?’

‘That’s not all’ said Maura, looking significant, and an interrogative
sound sufficed to bring out--‘It is because of Mr. Frank.’

‘Mr. Frank Stebbing?’

‘Yes. He was always after her, and would walk home with her after the
practices, though Alexis was always there. I know that was the reason
for I heard la mamma mia trying to persuade her to go on with the
society, and she was determined, and would not. Alex said she was quite
right, and it is very tiresome of him, for now she never walks with us
on Sunday, and he used to come and give us bonbons and crackers.’

‘Then she does not like him?’

‘She says it is not right or fitting, because Mr. and Mrs. Stebbing
would be against it; but mamma said he would get over them, if she would
not be so stupid, and he could make her quite a lady, like an officer’s
daughter, as we are. Is it not a pity she won’t, Miss Gillian?’

‘I do not know. I think she is very good,’ said Gillian.

‘Oh! but if she would, we might all be well off again,’ said little
worldly-minded Maura; ‘and I should not have to help her make the beds,
and darn, and iron, and all sorts of horrid things, but we could live
properly, like ladies.’

‘I think it is more ladylike to act uprightly,’ said Gillian.

Wherewith, having made the discovery, and escorted Maura beyond the
reach of her enemies, she parted with the child, and turned homewards.
Gillian was at the stage in which sensible maidens have a certain
repugnance and contempt for the idea of love and lovers as an
interruption to the higher aims of life and destruction to family
joys. Romance in her eyes was the exaltation of woman out of reach, and
Maura’s communications inclined her to glorify Kalliope as a heroine,
molested by a very inconvenient person, ‘Spighted by a fool, spighted
and angered both,’ as she quoted Imogen to herself.

It would be a grand history to tell Alethea of her friend, when she
should have learnt a little more about it, as she intended to do on
Sunday from Kalliope herself, who surely would be grateful for some
sympathy and friendship. Withal she recollected that it was Indian-mail
day, and hurried home to see whether the midday post had brought any
letters. Her two aunts were talking eagerly, but suddenly broke off as
she opened the door.

‘Well, Gillian--’ began Aunt Ada.

‘No, no, let her see for herself,’ said Aunt Jane.

‘Oh! I hope nothing is the matter?’ she exclaimed, seeing a letter to
herself on the table.

‘No; rather the reverse.’

A horrible suspicion, as she afterwards called it, came over Gillian as
she tore open the letter. There were two small notes. The first was--


‘DEAR LITTLE GILL--I am going to give you a new brother. Mother will
tell you all.--Your loving sister,

‘P. E. M.’


She gasped, and looked at the other.


‘DEAREST GILLIAN--After all you have heard about Frank, perhaps you
will know that I am very happy. You cannot guess how happy, and it is
so delightful that mamma is charmed with him. He has got two medals and
three clasps. There are so many to write to, I can only give my poor
darling this little word. She will find it is only having another to be
as fond of her as her old Alley.’


Gillian looked up in a bewildered state, and gasped ‘Both!’

Aunt Jane could not help smiling a little, and saying, ‘Yes, both at one
fell swoop.’

‘It’s dreadful,’ said Gillian.

‘My dear, if you want to keep your sisters to yourself, you should not
let them go to India, said Aunt Ada.

‘They said they wouldn’t! They were quite angry at the notion of being
so commonplace,’ said Gillian.

‘Oh, no one knows till her time comes!’ said Aunt Jane.

Gillian now applied herself to her mother’s letter, which was also
short.


‘MY DEAREST GILLYFLOWER--I know this will be a great blow to you, as
indeed it was to me; but we must not be selfish, and must remember that
the sisters’ happiness and welfare is the great point. I wish I could
write to you more at length; but time will not let me, scattered as are
all my poor flock at home. So I must leave you to learn the bare public
facts from Aunt Jane, and only say my especial private words to you. You
are used to being brevet eldest daughter to me, now you will have to be
so to papa, who is mending fast, but, I think, will come home with me.
Isn’t that news?

‘Your loving mother.’


‘They have told you all about it, Aunt Jane!’ said Gillian.

‘Yes; they have been so cruel as not even to tell you the names of these
robbers? Well, I dare say you had rather read my letter than hear it.’

‘Thank you very much, Aunt Jane! May I take it upstairs with me?’

Consent was readily given, and Gillian had just time for her first
cursory reading before luncheon.


‘DEAREST JENNY--Fancy what burst upon me only the day after my
coming--though really we ought to be very thankful. You might perhaps
have divined what was brewing from the letters. Jasper knew of one and
suspected the other before the accident, and he says it prevented him
from telegraphing to stop me, for he was sure one or both the girls
would want their mother. Phyllis began it. Hers is a young merchant
just taken into the great Underwood firm. Bernard Underwood, a very nice
fellow, brother to the husband of one of Harry May’s sisters--very much
liked and respected, and, by the way, an uncommonly handsome man. That
was imminent before Jasper’s accident, and the letter to prepare me must
be reposing in Harry’s care. Mr. Underwood came down with Claude to
meet me when I landed, and I scented danger in his eye. But it is all
right--only his income is entirely professional, and they will have to
live out here for some time to come.

‘The other only spoke yesterday, having abstained from worrying his
General. He is Lord Francis Somerville, son to Lord Liddesdale, and a
captain in the Glen Lorn Highlanders, who have not above a couple of
years to stay in these parts. He was with the riding party when Jasper
fell, and was the first to lift him; indeed, he held him all the time
of waiting, for poor Claude trembled too much. He was an immense help
through the nursing, and they came to know and depend on him as nothing
else would have made them do; and they proved how sincerely right-minded
and good he is. There is some connection with the Underwoods, though I
have not quite fathomed it. There is no fear about home consent, for it
seems that he is given to outpourings to his mother, and had heard that
if he thought of Sir Jasper Merrifield’s daughter his parents would
welcome her, knowing what Sir J. is. There’s for you! considering
that we have next to nothing to give the child, and Frank has not much
fortune, but Alethea is trained to the soldierly life, and they will be
better off than Jasper and I were.

‘The worst of it is leaving them behind; and as neither of the gentlemen
can afford a journey home, we mean to have the double wedding before
Lent. As to outfit, the native tailors must be chiefly trusted to, or
the stores at Calcutta, and I must send out the rest when I come home.
Only please send by post my wedding veil (Gillian knows where it is),
together with another as like it as may be. Any slight lace decorations
to make us respectable which suggest themselves to you and her might
come; I can’t recollect or mention them now. I wish Reginald could come
and tell you all, but the poor fellow has to go home full pelt about
those Irish. Jasper is writing to William, and you must get business
particulars from him, and let Gillian and the little ones hear, for
there is hardly any time to write. Phyllis, being used to the idea,
is very quiet and matter-of-fact about it. She hoped, indeed, that I
guessed nothing till I was satisfied about papa, and had had time to
rest. Alethea is in a much more April condition, and I am glad Frank
waited till I was here on her account and on her father’s. He is going
on well, but must keep still. He declares that being nursed by two pair
of lovers is highly amusing. However, such homes being found for two
of the tribe is a great relief to his mind. I suppose it is to one’s
rational mind, though it is a terrible tug at one’s heart-strings. You
shall hear again by the next mail. A brown creature waits to take this
to be posted.--

Your loving sister,

L. M.’


Gillian came down to dinner quite pale, and to Aunt Ada’s kind ‘Well,
Gillian?’ she could only repeat, ‘It is horrid.’

‘It is hard to lose all the pretty double wedding,’ said Aunt Ada.

‘Gillian does not mean that,’ hastily put in Miss Mohun.

‘Oh no,’ said Gillian; ‘that would be worse than anything.’

‘So you think,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘but believe those who have gone through
it all, my dear, when the wrench is over, one feels the benefit.’

Gillian shook her head, and drank water. Her aunts went on talking, for
they thought it better that she should get accustomed to the prospect;
and, moreover, they were so much excited that they could hardly have
spoken of anything else. Aunt Jane wondered if Phyllis’s betrothed were
a brother of Mr. Underwood of St. Matthew’s, Whittingtown, with whom she
had corresponded about the consumptive home; and Aunt Ada regretted the
not having called on Lady Liddesdale when she had spent some weeks at
Rockstone, and consoled herself by recollecting that Lord Rotherwood
would know all about the family. She had already looked it out in the
Peerage, and discovered that Lord Francis Cunningham Somerville was the
only younger son, that his age was twenty-nine, and that he had three
sisters, all married, as well as his elder brother, who had children
enough to make it improbable that Alethea would ever be Lady Liddesdale.
She would have shown Gillian the record, but received the ungracious
answer, ‘I hate swells.’

‘Let her alone, Ada,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘it is a very sore business. She
will be better by and by.’

There ensued a little discussion how the veil at Silverfold was to be
hunted up, or if Gillian and her aunt must go to do so.

‘Can you direct Miss Vincent?’ asked Miss Mohun.

‘No, I don’t think I could; besides, I don’t like to set any one to poke
and meddle in mamma’s drawers.’

‘And she could hardly judge what could be available,’ added Miss Ada.

‘Gillian must go to find it,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘and let me see, when have
I a day? Saturday is never free, and Monday--I could ask Mrs. Hablot to
take the cutting out, and then I could look up Lily’s Brussels--’

There she caught a sight of Gillian’s face. Perhaps one cause of the
alienation the girl felt for her aunt was, that there was a certain
kindred likeness between them which enabled each to divine the other’s
inquiring disposition, though it had different effects on the elder and
younger character. Jane Mohun suspected that she had on her ferret look,
and guessed that Gillian’s disgusted air meant that the idea of her
turning over Lady Merrifield’s drawers was almost as distasteful as that
of the governess’s doing it.

‘Suppose Gillian goes down on Monday with Fanny,’ she said. ‘She could
manage very well, I am sure.’

Gillian cleared up a little. There is much consolation in being of a
little importance, and she liked the notion of a day at home, a quiet
day, as she hoped in her present mood, of speaking to nobody. Her aunt
let her have her own way, and only sent a card to Macrae to provide for
meeting and for food, not even letting Miss Vincent know that she
was coming. That feeling of not being able to talk about it or be
congratulated would wear off, Aunt Jane said, if she was not worried or
argued with, in which case it might become perverse affectation.

It certainly was not shared by the children. Sisters unseen for three
years could hardly be very prominent in their minds. Fergus hoped that
they would ride to the wedding upon elephants, and Valetta thought it
very hard to miss the being a bridesmaid, when Kitty Varley had already
enjoyed the honour. However, she soon began to glorify herself on the
beauty of Alethea’s future title.

‘What will Kitty Varley and all say?’ was her cry.

‘Nothing, unless they are snobs, as girls always are,’ said Fergus.

‘It is not a nice word,’ said Miss Adeline.

‘But there’s nothing else that expresses it, Aunt Ada,’ returned
Gillian.

‘I agree to a certain degree,’ said Miss Mohun; ‘but still I am not sure
what it does express.’

‘Just what girls of that sort are,’ said Gillian. ‘Mere worshippers of
any sort of handle to one’s name.’

‘Gillian, Gillian, you are not going in for levelling,’ cried Aunt
Adeline.

‘No,’ said Gillian; ‘but I call it snobbish to make more fuss about
Alethea’s concern than Phyllis’s--just because he calls himself Lord--’

‘That is to a certain degree true,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘The worth of the
individual man stands first of all, and nothing can be sillier or in
worse taste than to parade one’s grand relations.’

‘To parade, yes,’ said Aunt Adeline; ‘but there is no doubt that good
connections are a great advantage.’

‘Assuredly,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘Good birth and an ancestry above shame
are really a blessing, though it has come to be the fashion to sneer
at them. I do not mean merely in the eyes of the world, though it
is something to have a name that answers for your relations being
respectable. But there are such things as hereditary qualities, and
thus testimony to the existence of a distinguished forefather is worth
having.’

‘Lily’s dear old Sir Maurice de Mohun to wit,’ said Miss Adeline. ‘You
know she used to tease Florence by saying the Barons of Beechcroft had a
better pedigree than the Devereuxes.’

‘I’d rather belong to the man who made himself,’ said Gillian.

‘Well done, Gill! But though your father won his own spurs, you can’t
get rid of his respectable Merrifield ancestry wherewith he started in
life.’

‘I don’t want to. I had rather have them than horrid robber Borderers,
such as no doubt these Liddesdale people were.’

There was a little laughing at this; but Gillian was saying in her own
mind that it was a fine thing to be one’s own Rodolf of Hapsburg, and
in that light she held Captain White, who, in her present state of mind,
she held to have been a superior being to all the Somervilles--perhaps
to all the Devereuxes who ever existed.




CHAPTER VII. -- AN EMPTY NEST



There had been no injunctions of secrecy, and though neither Miss Mohun
nor Gillian had publicly mentioned the subject, all Rockquay who cared
for the news knew by Sunday morning that Lady Merrifield’s two elder
daughters were engaged.

Gillian, in the course of writing her letters, had become somewhat
familiarised with the idea, and really looked forward to talking it over
with Kalliope. Though that young person could hardly be termed Alethea’s
best friend, it was certain that Alethea stood foremost with her, and
that her interest in the matter would be very loving.

Accordingly, Kalliope was at the place of meeting even before Gillian,
and anxiously she looked as she said--

‘May I venture--may I ask if it is true?’

‘True? Oh yes, Kally, I knew you would care.’

‘Indeed, I well may. There is no expressing how much I owe to dear Miss
Alethea and Lady Merrifield, and it is such a delight to hear of them.’

Accordingly, Gillian communicated the facts as she knew them, and
offered to give any message.

‘Only my dear love and congratulations,’ said Kalliope, with a little
sigh. ‘I should like to have written, but--’

‘But why don’t you, then?’

‘Oh no; she would be too much engaged to think of us, and it would only
worry her to be asked for her advice.’

‘I think I know what it is about,’ said Gillian.

‘How? Oh, how do you know? Did Mr. Flight say anything?’

‘Mr. Flight?’ exclaimed Gillian. ‘What has he to do with it?’

‘It was foolish, perhaps; but I did hope he might have helped Alexis,
and now he seems only to care for his music.’

‘Helped him! How?’

‘Perhaps it was unreasonable, but Alexis has always been to good
schools. He was getting on beautifully at Leeds, and we thought he would
have gained a scholarship and gone on to be a clergyman. That was what
his mind has always been fixed upon. You cannot think how good and
devoted he is,’ said Kalliope with a low trembling voice; ‘and my father
wished it very much too. But when the break-up came, Mr. White made our
not being too fine, as he said, to work, a sort of condition of doing
anything for us. Mr. Moore did tell him what Alexis is, but I believe he
thought it all nonsense, and there was nothing to be done. Alexis--dear
fellow--took it so nicely, said he was thankful to be able to help
mother, and if it was his duty and God’s will, it was sure to come
right; and he has been plodding away at the marble works ever since,
quite patiently and resolutely, but trying to keep up his studies in the
evening, only now he has worked through all his old school-books.’

‘And does not Mr. Flight know that I will help him?’

‘Well, Mr. Flight means to be kind, and sometimes seems to think much of
him; but it is all for his music, I am afraid. He is always wanting new
things to be learnt and practised, and those take up so much time; and
though he does lend us books, they are of no use for study, though they
only make the dear boy long and long the more to get on.’

‘Does not Mr. Flight know?’

‘I am not sure. I think he does; but in his ardour for music he seems
to forget all about it. It does seem such a pity that all Alexis’s time
should be wasted in this drudgery. If I could only be sure of more extra
work for my designs, I could set him free; and if Sir Jasper were
only at home, I am sure he would put the boy in the way of earning his
education. If it were only as a pupil teacher, he would be glad, but
then he says he ought not to throw all on me.’

‘Oh, he must be very good!’ exclaimed Gillian. ‘I am sure papa will help
him! I wish I could. Oh!’--with a sudden recollection--‘I wonder what
books he wants most. I am going to Silverfold to-morrow, and there are
lots of old school-books there of the boys’, doing nothing, that I know
he might have.’

‘Oh, Miss Gillian, how good of you! How delighted he would be!’

‘Do you know what he wants most?’

‘A Greek grammar and lexicon most of all,’ was the ready answer. ‘He has
been trying to find them at the second-hand shop ever so long, but I am
afraid there is no hope of a lexicon. They are so large and expensive.’

‘I think there is an old one of Jasper’s, if he would not mind its back
being off, and lots of blots.’

‘He would mind nothing. Oh, Miss Gillian, you can’t think how happy he
will be.

‘If there is anything else he wants very much, how could he let me
know?’ mused Gillian. ‘Oh, I see! What time are you at the works?’

‘Alex is there at seven; I don’t go till nine.’

‘I am to be at the station at 8.40. Could you or Maura meet me there and
tell me?’

To this Kalliope agreed, for she said she could be sure of getting to
her post in time afterwards, and she seemed quite overjoyed. No one
could look at her without perceiving that Alexis was the prime thought
of her heart, and Gillian delighted her by repeating Aunt Adeline’s
admiration of his profile, and the general opinion of his singing.

‘I am so sorry you have had to give it up,’ she added.

‘It can’t be helped,’ Kalliope said; ‘and I really have no time.’

‘But that’s not all,’ said Gillian, beginning to blush herself.

‘Oh! I hope there’s no gossip or nonsense about _that_,’ cried Kalliope,
her cheeks flaming.

‘Only--’

‘Not Maura? Naughty little girl, I did not think she knew anything. Not
that there is anything to tell,’ said Kalliope, much distressed; ‘but it
is dreadful that there should be such talk.’

‘I thought it was _that_ you meant when you said you wanted advice.’

‘No one could advise me, I am afraid,’ said the girl. ‘If we could only
go away from this place! But that’s impossible, and I dare say the fancy
will soon go off!’

‘Then you don’t care for him?’

‘My dear Miss Gillian, when I have seen _gentlemen_!’ said Kalliope, in
a tone that might have cured her admirer.

They had, however, talked longer than usual, and the notes of the
warning bell came up, just when Gillian had many more questions to ask,
and she had to run down the garden all in a glow with eagerness and
excitement, so that Aunt Ada asked if she had been standing in the sea
wind. Her affirmative was true enough, and yet she was almost ashamed of
it, as not the whole truth, and there was a consciousness about her all
the afternoon which made her soon regret that conversation was chiefly
absorbed by the younger one’s lamentations that they were not to
accompany her to Silverfold, and by their commissions. Fergus wanted a
formidable amount of precious tools, and inchoate machines, which Mrs.
Halfpenny had regarded as ‘mess,’ and utterly refused to let his aunts
be ‘fashed’ with; while Valetta’s orders were chiefly for the visiting
all the creatures, so as to bring an exact account of the health and
spirits of Rigdum Funnidos, etc., also for some favourite story-books
which she wished to lend to Kitty Varley and Maura White.

‘For do you know, Gill, Maura has never had a new story-book since mamma
gave her Little Alice and her Sister, when she was seven years old! Do
bring her Stories They Tell Me, and On Angel’s Wings.’

‘But is not that Mysie’s?’

‘Oh yes, but I know Mysie would let her have it. Mysie always let Maura
have everything of hers, because the boys teased her.’

‘I will bring it; but I think Mysie ought to be written to before it is
lent.’

‘That is right, Gillian,’ said Miss Mohun; ‘it is always wiser to be
above-board when dealing with other people’s things, even in trifles.’

Why did this sound like a reproach, and as if it implied suspicion that
Gillian was not acting on that principle? She resented the feeling. She
knew she might do as she liked with the boys’ old books, for which they
certainly had no affection, and which indeed her mother had talked of
offering to some of those charities which have a miscellaneous appetite,
and wonderful power of adaptation of the disused. Besides, though no one
could have the least objection to their being bestowed on the Whites,
the very fact of this being her third secret meeting with Kalliope was
beginning to occasion an awkwardness in accounting for her knowledge of
their needs. It was obvious to ask why she had not mentioned the first
meeting, and this her pride would not endure. She had told her parents
by letter. What more could be desired?

Again, when she would not promise to see either Miss Vincent or the Miss
Hackets, because ‘she did not want to have a fuss,’ Aunt Jane said she
thought it a pity, with regard at least to the governess, who might
feel herself hurt at the neglect, ‘and needless secrets are always
unadvisable.’

Gillian could hardly repress a wriggle, but her Aunt Ada laughed,
saying, ‘Especially with you about, Jenny, for you always find them
out.’

At present, however, Miss Mohun certainly had no suspicion. Gillian was
very much afraid she would think proper to come to the station in
the morning; but she was far too busy, and Gillian started off in
the omnibus alone with Mrs. Mount in handsome black silk trim, to be
presented to Mr. Macrae, and much enjoying the trip, having been well
instructed by Fergus and Valetta in air that she was to see.

Kalliope was descried as the omnibus stopped, and in a few seconds
Gillian had shaken hands with her, received the note, and heard the
ardent thanks sent from Alexis, and which the tattered books--even if
they proved to be right--would scarcely deserve. He would come with
his sister to receive the parcel at the station on Gillian’s return--at
5.29, an offer which obviated any further difficulties as to conveyance.

Mrs. Mount was intent upon the right moment to run the gauntlet for the
tickets; and had it been otherwise, would have seen nothing remarkable
in her charge being accosted by a nice-looking ladylike girl. So on they
rushed upon their way, Gillian’s spirits rising in a curious sense of
liberty and holiday-making.

In due time they arrived, and were received by Macrae with the pony
carriage, while the trees of Silverfold looked exquisite in their autumn
red, gold, and brown.

But the dreariness of the deserted house, with no one on the steps but
Quiz, and all the furniture muffled in sheets, struck Gillian more than
she had expected, though the schoolroom had been wakened up for her, a
bright fire on the hearth, and the cockatoo highly conversational,
the cats so affectionate that it was difficult to take a step without
stumbling over one of them.

When the business had all been despatched, the wedding veil disinterred,
and the best Brussels and Honiton safely disposed in a box, when an
extremely dilapidated and much-inked collection of school-books had been
routed out of the backstairs cupboard (commonly called Erebus) and duly
packed, when a selection of lighter literature had been made with a view
both to Valetta and Lilian; when Gillian had shown all she could to
Mrs. Mount, visited all the animals, gone round the garden, and made two
beautiful posies of autumn flowers, one for her little sister and the
other for Kalliope, discovered that Fergus’s precious machine had been
ruthlessly made away with, but secured his tools,--she found eating
partridge in solitary grandeur rather dreary work, though she had all
the bread-sauce to herself, and cream to her apple tart, to say nothing
of Macrae, waiting upon her as if she had been a duchess, and conversing
in high exultation upon the marriages, only regretting that one
gentleman should be a civilian; he had always augured that all his young
ladies would be in the Service, and begging that he might be made aware
of the wedding-day, so as to have the bells rung.

To express her own feelings to the butler was not possible, and his glee
almost infected her. She was quite sorry when, having placed a choice
of pears and October peaches before her, he went off to entertain Mrs.
Mount; and after packing a substratum of the fruit in the basket for the
Whites, she began almost to repent of having insisted on not returning
to Rockstone till the four o’clock train, feeling her solitary liberty
oppressive; and finally she found herself walking down the drive in
search of Miss Vincent.

She had to confess to herself that her aunt was quite right, and that
the omission would have been a real unkindness, when she saw how worn
and tired the governess looked, and the brightness that flashed over the
pale face at sight of her. Mrs. Vincent had been much worse, and though
slightly better for the present was evidently in a critical state, very
exhausting to her daughter.

Good Miss Hacket at that moment came in to sit with her, and send the
daughter out for some air; and it was well that Gillian had had some
practice in telling her story not too disconsolately, for it was
received with all the delight that the mere notion of a marriage
seems to inspire, though Phyllis and Alethea had scarcely been seen at
Silverfold before they had gone to India with their father.

Miss Hacket had to be content with the names before she hastened up
to the patient; but Miss Vincent walked back through the paddock with
Gillian, talking over what was more personally interesting to the
governess, the success of her own pupils, scattered as they were, and
comparing notes upon Mysie’s letters. One of these Miss Vincent had just
received by the second post, having been written to announce the great
news, and it continued in true Mysie fashion:--


‘Cousin Rotherwood knows all about them, and says they will have a
famous set of belongings. He will take me to see some of them if we go
to London before mamma comes home. Bernard Underwood’s sister is married
to Mr. Grinstead, the sculptor who did the statue of Mercy at the
Gate that Harry gave a photograph of to mamma, and she paints pictures
herself. I want to see them; but I do not know whether we shall stay in
London, for they do not think it agrees with Fly. I do more lessons than
she does now, and I have read through all Autour de mon Jardin. I have
a letter from Dolores too, and she thinks that Aunt Phyllis and all
are coming home to make a visit in England for Uncle Harry to see his
father, and she wishes very much that they would bring her; but it is
not to be talked about for fear they should be hindered, and old Dr. May
hear of it and be disappointed; but you won’t see any one to tell.’


‘There, what have I done?’ exclaimed Miss Vincent in dismay. ‘But I had
only just got the letter, and had barely glanced through it.’

‘Besides, who would have thought of Mysie having any secrets?’ said
Gillian.

‘After all, I suppose no harm is done; for you can’t have any other
connection with these Mays.’

‘Oh yes, there will be; for I believe a brother of this man of Phyllis’s
married one of the Miss Mays, and I suppose we shall have to get mixed
up with the whole lot. How I do hate strangers! But I’ll take care, Miss
Vincent, indeed I will. One is not bound to tell one’s aunts everything
like one’s mother.’

‘No,’ said Miss Vincent decidedly, ‘especially when it is another
person’s secret betrayed through inadvertence.’ Perhaps she thought
Gillian looked dangerously gratified, for she added: ‘However, you know
poor Dolores did not find secrecy answer.’

‘Oh, there are secrets and secrets, and aunts and aunts!’ said Gillian.
‘Dolores had no mother.’

‘It makes a difference,’ said Miss Vincent. ‘I should never ask you to
conceal anything from Lady Merrifield. Besides, this is not a matter of
conduct, only a report.’

Gillian would not pursue the subject. Perhaps she was a little
disingenuous with her conscience, for she wanted to carry off the
impression that Miss Vincent had pronounced concealment from her aunts
to be justifiable; and she knew at the bottom of her heart that her
governess would condemn a habit of secret intimacy with any one being
carried on without the knowledge of her hostess and guardian for the
time being,--above all when it was only a matter, of waiting.

It is a fine thing for self-satisfaction to get an opinion without
telling the whole of the facts of the case, and Gillian went home in
high spirits, considerably encumbered with parcels, and surprising Mrs.
Mount by insisting that two separate packages should be made of the
books.

Kalliope and Alexis were both awaiting her at the station, their
gratitude unbounded, and finding useful vent by the latter fetching a
cab and handing in the goods.

It was worth something to see how happy the brother and sister looked,
as they went off in the gaslight, the one with the big brown paper
parcel, the other with the basket of fruit and flowers; and Gillian’s
explanation to Mrs. Mount that they were old friends of her soldiering
days was quite satisfactory.

There was a grand unpacking. Aunt Ada was pleased with the late roses,
and Aunt Jane that there had been a recollection of Lilian Giles, to
whom she had thought her niece far too indifferent. Valetta fondled the
flowers, and was gratified to hear of the ardent affection of the Begum
and the health of Rigdum, though Gillian was forced to confess that she
had not transferred to him the kiss that she had been commissioned
to convey. Nobody was disappointed except Fergus, who could not
but vituperate the housemaids for the destruction of his new patent
guillotine for mice, which was to have been introduced to Clement
Varley. To be sure it would hardly ever act, and had never cut off
the head of anything save a dandelion, but that was a trifling
consideration.

A letter from Mysie was awaiting Gillian, not lengthy, for there was
a long interval between Mysie’s brains and her pen, and saying nothing
about the New Zealand report. The selection of lace was much approved,
and the next day there was to be an expedition to endeavour to get the
veil matched as nearly as possible. The only dangerous moment was at
breakfast the next day, when Miss Mohun said--

‘Fanny was delighted with Silverfold. Macrae seems to have been the pink
of politeness to her.’

‘She must come when the house is alive again,’ said Gillian. ‘What would
she think of it then!’

‘Oh, that would be perfectly delicious,’ cried Valetta. ‘She would see
Begum and Rigdum--’

‘And I could show her how to work the lawn cutter,’ added Fergus.

‘By the bye,’ said Aunt Jane, ‘whom have you been lending books to?’

‘Oh, to the Whites,’ said Gillian, colouring, as she felt more than she
could wish. ‘There were some old school-books that I thought would
be useful to them, and I was sure mamma would like them to have some
flowers and fruit.’

She felt herself very candid, but why would Aunt Jane look at those
tell-tale cheeks.

Sunday was wet, or rather ‘misty moisty,’ with a raw sea-fog overhanging
everything--not bad enough, however, to keep any one except Aunt
Ada from church or school, though she decidedly remonstrated against
Gillian’s going out for her wandering in the garden in such weather;
and, if she had been like the other aunt, might almost have been
convinced that such determination must be for an object. However,
Gillian encountered the fog in vain, though she walked up and down the
path till her clothes were quite limp and flabby with damp. All the view
that rewarded her was the outline of the shrubs looming through the mist
like distant forests as mountains. Moreover, she got a scolding
from Aunt Ada, who met her coming in, and was horrified at the misty
atmosphere which she was said to have brought in, and insisted on her
going at once to change her dress, and staying by the fireside all the
rest of the afternoon.

‘I cannot think what makes her so eager about going out in the
afternoon,’ said the younger aunt to the elder. ‘It is impossible that
she can have any reason for it.’

‘Only Sunday restlessness,’ said Miss Mohun, ‘added to the reckless
folly of the “Bachfisch” about health.’

‘That’s true,’ said Adeline, ‘girls must be either so delicate that they
are quite helpless, or so strong as to be absolutely weather-proof.’

Fortune, however, favoured Gillian when next she went to Lily Giles. She
had never succeeded in taking real interest in the girl, who seemed
to her to be so silly and sentimental that an impulse to answer drily
instantly closed up all inclination to effusions of confidence.
Gillian had not yet learnt breadth of charity enough to understand that
everybody does not feel, or express feeling, after the same pattern;
that gush is not always either folly or insincerity; and that girls of
Lily’s class are about at the same stage of culture as the young ladies
of whom her namesake in the Inheritance is the type. When Lily showed
her in some little magazine the weakest of poetry, and called it so
sweet, just like ‘dear Mr. Grant’s lovely sermon, the last she had
heard. Did he not look so like a saint in his surplice and white stole,
with his holy face and beautiful blue eyes; it was enough to make any
one feel good to look at him,’ Gillian simply replied, ‘Oh, _I_ never
think of the clergyman’s looks,’ and hurried to her book, feeling
infinitely disgusted and contemptuous, never guessing that these poor
verses, and the curate’s sermons and devotional appearance were, to the
young girl’s heart, the symbols of all that was sacred, and all that was
refined, and that the thought of them was the solace of her lonely and
suffering hours. Tolerant sympathy is one of the latest lessons of life,
and perhaps it is well that only


          ‘The calm temper of our age should be
           Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree,’


for the character in course of formation needs to be guarded by
prickles.

However, on this day Undine was to be finished, for Gillian was in
haste to begin Katharine Ashton, which would, she thought, be much more
wholesome reality, so she went on later than usual, and came away at
last, leaving her auditor dissolved in tears over poor Undine’s act of
justice.

As Mrs. Giles, full of thanks, opened the little garden-gate just as
twilight was falling, Gillian beheld Kalliope and Alexis White coming up
together from the works, and eagerly met and shook hands with them.
The dark days were making them close earlier, they explained, and as
Kalliope happened to have nothing to finish or purchase, she was able to
come home with her brother.

Therewith Alexis began to express, with the diffidence of extreme
gratitude, his warm thanks for the benefaction of books, which were
exactly what he had wanted and longed for. His foreign birth enabled him
to do this much more prettily and less clumsily than an English boy, and
Gillian was pleased, though she told him that her brother’s old ill-used
books were far from worthy of such thanks.

‘Ah, you cannot guess how precious they are to me!’ said Alexis. ‘They
are the restoration of hope.’

‘And can you get on by yourself?’ asked Gillian. ‘Is it not very
difficult without any teacher?’

‘People have taught themselves before,’ returned the youth, ‘so I hope
to do so myself; but of course there are many questions I long to ask.’

‘Perhaps I could answer some,’ said Gillian; ‘I have done some classics
with a tutor.’

‘Oh, thank you, Miss Merrifield,’ he said eagerly. ‘If you could make me
understand the force of the aorist.

It so happened that Gillian had the explanation at her tongue’s end, and
it was followed by another, and another, till one occurred which could
hardly be comprehended without reference to the passage, upon which
Alexis pulled a Greek Testament out of his pocket, and his sister could
not help exclaiming--

‘Oh, Alexis, you can’t ask Miss Merrifield to do Greek with you out in
the street.’

Certainly it was awkward, the more so as Mrs. Stebbing just then drove
by in her carriage.

‘What a pity!’ exclaimed Gillian. ‘But if you would set down any
difficulties, you could send them to me by Kalliope on Sunday.’

‘Oh, Miss Merrifield, how very good of you!’ exclaimed Alexis, his face
lighting up with joy.

But Kalliope looked doubtful, and began a hesitating ‘But--’

‘I’ll tell you of a better way!’ exclaimed Gillian. ‘I always go once
a week to read to this Lilian Giles, and if I come down afterwards to
Kalliope’s office after you have struck work, I could see to anything
you wanted to ask.’

Alexis broke out into the most eager thanks. Kalliope said hardly
anything, and as they had reached the place where the roads diverged,
they bade one another good-evening.

Gillian looked after the brother and sister just as the gas was being
lighted, and could almost guess what Alexis was saying, by his gestures
of delight. She did not hear, and did not guess how Kalliope answered,
‘Don’t set your heart on it too much, dear fellow, for I should greatly
doubt whether Miss Gillian’s aunts will consent. Oh yes, of course, if
they permit her, it will be all right.

So Gillian went her way feeling that she had found her ‘great thing.’
Training a minister for the Church! Was not that a ‘great thing’?




CHAPTER VIII. -- GILLIAN’S PUPIL



Gillian was not yet seventeen, and had lived a home life totally removed
from gossip, so that she had no notion that she was doing a more awkward
or remarkable thing than if she had been teaching a drummer-boy. She
even deliberated whether she should mention her undertaking to her
mother, or produce the grand achievement of Alexis White, prepared for
college, on the return from India; but a sense that she had promised to
tell everything, and that, while she did so, she could defy any other
interference, led her to write the design in a letter to Ceylon, and
then she felt ready to defy any censure or obstructions from other
Quarters.

Mystery has a certain charm. Infinite knowledge of human nature was
shown in the text, ‘Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in
secret is pleasant’; and it would be hard to define how much Gillian’s
satisfaction was owing to the sense of benevolence, or to the pleasure
of eluding Aunt Jane, when, after going through her chapter of Katharine
Ashton, in a somewhat perfunctory manner, she hastened away to Miss
White’s office. This, being connected with the showroom, could be
entered without passing through the gate with the inscription--‘No
admittance except on business.’ Indeed, the office had a private door,
which, at Gillian’s signal, was always opened to her. There, on the
drawing-desk, lay a Greek exercise and a translation, with queries upon
the difficulties for Gillian to correct, or answer in writing. Kalliope
had managed to make that little room a pleasant place, bare as it was,
by pinning a few of her designs on the walls, and always keeping a
terracotta vase of flowers or coloured leaves upon the table. The lower
part of the window she had blocked with transparencies delicately
cut and tinted in cardboard--done, as she told Gillian, by her little
brother Theodore, who learnt to draw at the National School, and had
the same turn for art as herself. Altogether, the perfect neatness
and simplicity of the little room gave it an air of refinement, which
rendered it by no means an unfit setting for the grave beauty of
Kalliope’s countenance and figure.

The enjoyment of the meeting was great on both sides, partly from the
savour of old times, and partly because there was really much that was
uncommon and remarkable about Kalliope herself. Her father’s promotion
had come exactly when she and her next brother were at the time of life
when the changes it brought would tell most on their minds and manners.
They had both been sent to schools where they had associated with
young people of gentle breeding, which perhaps their partly foreign
extraction, and southern birth and childhood, made it easier for them to
assimilate. Their beauty and brightness had led to a good deal of kindly
notice from the officers and ladies of the regiment, and they had thus
acquired the habits and ways of the class to which they had been raised.
Their father, likewise, had been a man of a chivalrous nature, whose
youthful mistakes had been the outcome of high spirit and romance, and
who, under discipline, danger, suffering, and responsibility, had become
earnestly religious. There had besides been his Colonel’s influence on
him, and on his children that of Lady Merrifield and Alethea.

It had then been a piteous change and darkening of life when, after the
crushing grief of his death, the young people found themselves in such
an entirely different stratum of society. They were ready to work, but
they could not help feeling the mortification of being relegated below
the mysterious line of gentry, as they found themselves at Rockquay, and
viewed as on a level with the clerks and shop-girls of the place. Still
more, as time went on, did they miss the companionship and intercourse
to which they had been used. Mr. Flight, the only person in a higher
rank who took notice of them, and perceived that there was more in them
than was usual, was after all only a patron--not a friend, and perhaps
was not essentially enough of a gentleman to be free from all airs of
condescension even with Alexis, while he might be wise in not making too
much of an approach to so beautiful a girl as Kalliope. Besides, after
a fit of eagerness, and something very like promises, he had apparently
let Alexis drop, only using him for his musical services, and not doing
anything to promote the studies for which the young man thirsted, nor
proposing anything for the younger boys, who would soon outgrow the
National School.

Alexis had made a few semi-friends among the musical youth of the place;
but there was no one to sympathise with him in his studious tastes, and
there was much in his appearance and manners to cause the accusation of
being ‘stuck-up’--music being really the only point of contact with most
of his fellows of the lower professional class.

Kalliope had less time, but she had, on principle, cultivated kindly
terms with the young women employed under her. Her severe style of
beauty removed her from any jealousy of her as a rival, and she was
admired--almost worshipped--by them as the glory of the workshop.
They felt her superiority, and owned her ability; but nobody there was
capable of being a companion to her. Thus the sister and brother had
almost wholly depended upon one another; and it was like a breath from
what now seemed the golden age of their lives when Gillian Merrifield
walked into the office, treating Kalliope with all the freedom of an
equal and the affection of an old friend. There was not very much time
to spare after Gillian had looked at the exercises, noted and
corrected the errors, and explained the difficulties or mistakes in the
translation from Testament and Delectus, feeling all the time how much
more mastery of the subject her pupil had than Mr. Pollock’s at home had
ever attained to.

However, Kalliope always walked home with her as far as the opening of
Church Cliff Road, and they talked of the cleverness and goodness of the
brothers, except Richard at Leeds, who never seemed to be mentioned; how
Theodore kept at the head of the school, and had hopes of the drawing
prize, and how little Petros devoured tales of battles, and would hear
of nothing but being a soldier. Now and then, too, there was a castle in
the air of a home for little Maura at Alexis’s future curacy. Kalliope
seemed to look to working for life for poor mother, while Theodore
should cultivate his art. Oftener the two recalled old adventures and
scenes of their regimental days, and discussed the weddings of the two
Indian sisters.

Once, however, Kalliope was obliged to suggest, with a blushing apology,
that she feared Gillian must go home alone, she was not ready.

‘Can’t I help you? what have you to do?’

Kalliope attempted some excuse of putting away designs, but presently
peeped from the window, and Gillian, with excited curiosity, imitated
her, and beheld, lingering about, a young man in the pink of fashion,
with a tea-rose in his buttonhole and a cane in his hand.

‘Oh, Kally,’ she cried, ‘does he often hang about like this waiting for
you?’

‘Not often, happily. There! old Mr. Stebbing has come out, and they are
walking away together. We can go now.’

‘So he besets you, and you have to keep out of his way,’ exclaimed
Gillian, much excited. ‘Is that the reason you come to the garden all
alone on Sunday?’

‘Yes, though I little guessed what awaited me there,’ returned Kalliope;
‘but we had better make haste, for it is late for you to be returning.’

It was disappointing that Kalliope would not discuss such an interesting
affair; but Gillian was sensible of the danger of being so late as to
cause questions, and she allowed herself to be hurried on too fast for
conversation, and passing the two Stebbings, who, no doubt, took her for
a ‘hand.’

‘Does this often happen?’ asked Gillian.

‘No; Alec walks home with me, and the boys often come and meet me. Oh,
did I tell you that the master wants Theodore to be a pupil-teacher? I
wish I knew what was best for him.’

‘Could not he be an artist?’

‘I should like some one to tell me whether he really has talent
worth cultivating, dear boy, or if he would be safer and better in an
honourable occupation like a school-master.’

‘Do you call it honourable?’

‘Oh yes, to be sure. I put it next to a clergyman’s or a doctor’s life.’

‘Not a soldier’s?’

‘That depends,’ said Kalliope.

‘On the service he is sent upon, you mean? But that is his sovereign’s
look-out. He “only has to obey, to do or die.”’

‘Yes, it is the putting away of self, and possible peril of life, that
makes all those grandest,’ said Kalliope, ‘and I think the schoolmaster
is next in opportunities of doing good.’

Gillian could not help thinking that none of all these could put away
self more entirely than the girl beside her, toiling away her beauty and
her youth in this dull round of toil, not able to exercise the instincts
of her art to the utmost, and with no change from the monotonous round
of mosaics, which were forced to be second rate, to the commonest
household works, and the company of the Queen of the White Ants.

Gillian perceived enough of the nobleness of such a life to fill
her with a certain enthusiasm, and make her feel a day blank and
uninteresting if she could not make her way to the little office.

One evening, towards the end of the first fortnight, Alexis himself came
in with a passage that he wanted to have explained. His sister
looked uneasy all the time, and hurried to put on her hat, and stand
demonstratively waiting, telling Gillian that they must go, the moment
the lesson began to tend to discursive talk, and making a most decided
sign of prohibition to her brother when he showed a disposition to
accompany them.

‘I think you are frightfully particular, Kally,’ said Gillian, when they
were on their way up the hill. ‘Such an old friend, and you there, too.’

‘It would never do here! It would be wrong,’ answered Kalliope, with the
authority of an older woman. ‘He must not come to the office.’

‘Oh, but how could I ever explain to him? One can’t do everything in
writing. I might as well give up the lessons as never speak to him about
them.’

There was truth in this, and perhaps Alexis used some such arguments on
his side, for at about every third visit of Gillian’s he dropped in with
some important inquiry necessary to his progress, which was rapid enough
to compel Gillian to devote some time to preparation, in order to keep
ahead of him.

Kalliope kept diligent guard, and watched against lengthening the
lessons into gossip, and they were always after hours when the hands had
gone away. The fear of being detected kept Gillian ready to shorten the
time.

‘How late you are!’ were the first words she heard one October evening
on entering Beechcroft Cottage; but they were followed by ‘Here’s a
pleasure for you!’

‘It’s from papa himself! Open it! Open it quick,’ cried Valetta, dancing
round her in full appreciation of the honour and delight.

Sir Jasper said that his daughter must put up with him for a
correspondent, since two brides at once were as much as any mother could
be supposed to undertake. Indeed, as mamma would not leave him, Phyllis
was actually going to Calcutta, chaperoned by one of the matrons of the
station, to make purchases for both outfits, since Alethea would not
stir from under the maternal wing sooner than she could help.

At the end came, ‘We are much shocked at poor White’s death. He was an
excellent officer, and a good and sensible man, though much hampered
with his family. I am afraid his wife must be a very helpless being. He
used to talk about the good promise of one of his sons--the second, I
think. We will see whether anything can be done for the children when
we come home. I say we, for I find I shall have to be invalided before
I can be entirely patched up, so that mamma and I shall have a sort of
postponed silver wedding tour, a new variety for the old folks “from
home.”’

‘Oh, is papa coming home?’ cried Valetta.

‘For good! Oh, I hope it will be for good,’ added Gillian.

‘Then we shall live at dear Silverfold all the days of our life,’ added
Fergus.

‘And I shall get back to Rigdum.’

‘And I shall make a telephone down to the stables,’ were the cries of
the children.

The transcendent news quite swallowed up everything else for some time;
but at last Gillian recurred to her father’s testimony as to the White
family.

‘Is the second son the musical one?’ she was asked, and on her
affirmative, Aunt Jane remarked, ‘Well, though the Rev. Augustine Flight
is not on a pinnacle of human wisdom, his choir practices, etc., will
keep the lad well out of harm’s way till your father can see about him.’

This would have been an opportunity of explaining the youth’s aims and
hopes, and her own share in forwarding them; but it had become difficult
to avow the extent of her intercourse with the brother and sister, so
entirely without the knowledge of her aunts. Even Miss Mohun, acute as
she was, had no suspicions, and only thought with much satisfaction that
her niece was growing more attentive to poor Lilian Giles, even to the
point of lingering.

‘I really think, she said, in consultation with Miss Adeline, ‘that we
might gratify that damsel by having the White girls to drink tea.’

‘Well, we can add them to your winter party of young ladies in
business.’

‘Hardly. These stand on different ground, and I don’t want to hurt their
feelings or Gillian’s by mixing them up with the shopocracy.’

‘Have you seen the Queen of the White Ants?’

‘Not yet; but I mean to reconnoitre, and if I see no cause to the
contrary, I shall invite them for next Tuesday.’

‘The mother? You might as well ask her namesake.’

‘Probably; but I shall be better able to judge when I have seen her.’

So Miss Mohun trotted off, made her visit, and thus reported, ‘Poor
woman! she certainly is not lovely now, whatever she may have been;
but I should think there was no harm in her, and she is effusive in
her gratitude to all the Merrifield family. It is plain that the absent
eldest son is the favourite, far more so than the two useful children
at the marble works; and Mr. White is spoken of as a sort of tyrant,
whereas I should think they owed a good deal to his kindness in giving
them employment.’

‘I always thought he was an old hunks.’

‘The town thinks so because he does not come and spend freely here; but
I have my doubts whether they are right. He is always ready to do his
part in subscriptions; and the employing these young people as he does
is true kindness.’

‘Unappreciated.’

‘Yes, by the mother who would expect to be kept like a lady in idleness,
but perhaps not so by her daughter. From all I can pick up, I think
she must be a very worthy person, so I have asked her and the little
schoolgirl for Tuesday evening, and I hope it will not be a great
nuisance 

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