Modern Broods; Or, Developments Unlooked For
by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #7191 · 455,599 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Modern Broods; Or, Developments Unlooked For
Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7191]
Most recently updated: December 24, 2014
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7191
Credits: Transcribed from the 1900 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN BROODS; OR, DEVELOPMENTS UNLOOKED FOR ***
Transcribed from the 1900 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
MODERN BROODS,
OR
_DEVELOPMENTS UNLOOKED FOR_
* * * * *
BY
CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE.
* * * * *
“_Youth and age are scholars yet but in the lower school_.”
—TENNYSON.
* * * * *
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1900
_All rights reserved_
* * * * *
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
_First Edition_, _October_, 1900.
_Reprinted_, _November_, 1900.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
TORTOISES AND HARES 1
CHAPTER II
THE GOYLE 16
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST SUNDAY 23
CHAPTER IV
CYCLES 34
CHAPTER V
CLIPSTONE FRIENDS 45
CHAPTER VI
THE FRESCOES OF ST. KENELM’S 57
CHAPTER VII
SISTER AND SISTERS 67
CHAPTER VIII
SNOBBISHNESS 75
CHAPTER IX
GONE OVER TO THE ENEMY 80
CHAPTER X
FLOWN 93
CHAPTER XI
ADRIFT 103
CHAPTER XII
“THE KITTIWAKE” 108
CHAPTER XIII
CHIMERAS DIRE 119
CHAPTER XIV
PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED 128
CHAPTER XV
BROODS ASTRAY 135
CHAPTER XVI
THE REGIMENT OF WOMEN 146
CHAPTER XVII
FOXGLOVES AND FLIRTATIONS 158
CHAPTER XVIII
PALACES OR CHURCHES 165
CHAPTER XIX
TWO WEDDINGS 179
CHAPTER XX
FLEETING 194
CHAPTER XXI
THE ELECTRICIANS 204
CHAPTER XXII
ANGEL AND BEAR 213
CHAPTER XXIII
WILLOW WIDOWS 224
CHAPTER XXIV
CRUEL LAWYERS 237
CHAPTER XXV
BEAR AS ADVISER 245
CHAPTER XXVI
NEW PATHS 258
CHAPTER XXVII
A SENTENCE 266
CHAPTER XXVIII
SUMMONED 274
CHAPTER XXIX
SAFE 284
CHAPTER XXX
THE MAIDEN ROCKS 293
CHAPTER XXXI
THE WRECK 300
CHAPTER XXXII
ANCHORED 306
CHAPTER XXXIII
FAREWELL 310
CHAPTER I—TORTOISES AND HARES
“Whate’er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven,
Though it be what thou canst not hope to see.”
—HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
THE scene was a drawing-room, with old-fashioned heavy sash windows
opening on a narrow brick-walled town-garden sloping down to a river, and
neatly kept. The same might be said of the room, where heavy
old-fashioned furniture, handsome but not new, was concealed by various
flimsy modernisms, knicknacks, fans, brackets, china photographs and
water-colours, a canary singing loud in the window in the winter
sunshine.
“Miss Prescott,” announced the maid; but, finding no auditor save the
canary, she retreated, and Miss Prescott looked round her with a half
sigh of recognition of the surroundings. She was herself a
quiet-looking, gentle lady, rather small, with a sweet mouth and eyes of
hazel, in a rather worn face, dressed in a soft woollen and grey fur,
with headgear to suit, and there was an air of glad expectation, a little
flush, that did not look permanent, on her thin cheeks.
“Is it you, my dear Miss Prescott?” was the greeting of the older hostess
as she entered, her grey hair rough and uncovered, and her dress of
well-used black silk, her complexion of the red that shows wear and care.
“Then it is true?” she asked, as the kiss and double shake of the hand
was exchanged.
“May I ask? Is it true? May I congratulate you?”
“Oh, yes, it is true!” said Miss Prescott, breathlessly. “I suppose the
girls are at the High School?”
“Yes, they will be at home at one. Or shall I send for them?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Best. I shall like to have a little time with you
first. I can stay till a quarter-past three.”
“Then come and take off your things. I do not know when I have been so
glad!”
“Do the girls know?” asked Miss Prescott, following upstairs to a
comfortable bedroom, evidently serving also the purposes of a private
room, for writing table and account books stood near the fire.
“They know something; Kate Bell heard a report from her cousins, and they
have been watching anxiously for news from you.”
“I would not write till I knew more. I hope they have not raised their
expectations too high; for though it is enough to be an immense relief,
it is not exactly affluence. I have been with Mr. Bell going into the
matter and seeing the place,” said Miss Prescott, sitting comfortably
down in the arm-chair Mrs. Best placed for her, while she herself sat
down in another, disposing themselves for a talk over the fire.
“Mr. Bell reckons it at about £600 a year.”
“And an estate?”
“A very pretty cottage in a Devonshire valley, with the furniture and
three acres of land.”
“Oh! I believe the girls fancy that it is at least as large as Lord
Coldhurst’s.”
“Yes, I was in hopes that they would have heard nothing about it.”
“It came through some of their schoolfellows; one cannot help things
getting into the air.”
“And there getting inflated like bubbles,” said Miss Prescott, smiling.
“Well, their expectations will have a fall, poor dears!”
“And it does not come from their side of the family,” said Mrs. Best.
“Of course not! And it was wholly unexpected, was it not?”
“Yes, I had my name of Magdalen from my great aunt Tremlett; but she had
never really forgiven my mother’s marriage, though she consented to be my
godmother. She offered to adopt me on my mother’s death, and once when
my father married again, and when we lost him, she wrote to propose my
coming to live with her; but there would have been no payment, and so—”
“Yes, you dear good thing, you thought it your duty to go and work for
your poor little stepmother and her children!”
“What else was my education good for, which has been a costly thing to
poor father? And then the old lady was affronted for good, and never
took any more notice of me, nor answered my letters. I did not even know
she was dead, till I heard from Mr. Bell, who had learnt it from his
lawyers!”
“It was quite right of her. Dear Magdalen, I am so glad,” said Mrs.
Best, crossing over to kiss her; for the first stiffness had worn off,
and they were together again, as had been the solicitor’s daughter and
the chemist’s daughter, who went to the same school till Magdalen had
been sent away to be finished in Germany.
“Dear Sophy, I wish you had the good fortune, too!”
“Oh! my galleons are coming when George has prospered a little more in
Queensland, and comes to fetch me. Sophia and he say they shall fight
for me,” said Mrs. Best, who had been bravely presiding over a
high-school boarding-house ever since her husband, a railway engineer,
had been killed by an accident, and left her with two children to bring
up. “Dear children, they are very good to me.”
“I am sure you have been goodness itself to us,” said Magdalen, “in
taking the care of these poor little ones when their mother died. I
don’t know how to be thankful enough to you and for all the blessings we
have had! And that this should have come just now, especially when my
life with Lady Milsom is coming to an end.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, the little boys are old enough for school, and the Colonel is going
to take a house at Shrewsbury, where his mother will live with them, and
want me no longer.”
“You have been there seven years.”
“Yes, and very happy. When Fanny married, Lady Milsom was left alone,
and would not part with me, and then came the two little boys from India,
so that she had an excuse for retaining me; but that is over now, or will
be in a few weeks time. I had been trying for an engagement, and finding
that beside your high-school diploma young ladies I am considered quite
passée—”
“My dear! With your art, and music, and all!”
“Too true! And while I was digesting a polite hint that my terms were
too high, and therewith Agatha’s earnest appeal to be sent to Girton,
there comes this inheritance! Taking my burthen off my back, and making
me ready to throw up my heels like a young colt.”
“Ah! you will be taking another burthen, perhaps.”
“No doubt, I suppose so, but let me find it out by degrees. I can only
think as yet of having my dear girls to myself, _moi_, as the French
would say, after having seen so little of them.”
“It has been very unfortunate. Epidemics have been strangely
inconvenient.”
“Yes. First there was whooping cough here to destroy the summer
holidays; then came the Milsoms’ measles, and I could not go and carry
infection. Oh! and then Freddy broke his leg, and his grandmother was
too nervous to be left with him. And by and by some one told her the
scarlatina was in the town.”
“It really was, you know.”
“Any way, it would have been sheer selfish inhumanity to leave her, and
then she had a real illness, which frightened us all very much. Next
came influenza to every one. And these last holidays! What should the
newly-come little one from India do, but catch a fever in the Red Sea,
and I had to keep guard over the brothers at Weymouth till she was
reported safe, and I don’t believe it was infectious after all! Still, I
am tired of ‘other people’s stairs.’”
“It is nearly five years since you have been with them, except for that
one peep you took at Weston.”
“And that is a great deal at their age. Agatha was a vehement reader;
she would hardly look at me, so absorbed was she in ‘The York and
Lancaster Rose’ which I had brought her.”
“She is rather like that now. I conclude that you will wish to take them
away?”
“Not this time, at any rate till the house is fit to put over their
heads. Besides, you have so mothered them, dear Sophy, that I could not
bear to make a sudden parting.”
“There will be pain, especially over little Thekla and Polly. But if
George comes home this spring, and I go out to Queensland with him,
perhaps I should have asked you to take this house off my hands. May be
it would be prudent in you to do so even now, considering all things;
only I believe that transplanting would be good for them all.”
“I am glad you think so, for I have a perfect longing for that little
house of my own.”
“You will be able to give them a superior kind of society to what they
have had access to here. There is a good deal that I should like to talk
over with you before they come in.”
“Agatha seems to be in despair at her failure.”
“So is all the house, for we were very proud of her, and, of course, we
all thought it a fad of the examiners, but perhaps our headmistress might
not say the same. She is a good, hardworking girl though, and ambitious,
and quite worth further training.”
“I am glad of being able to secure it to her at least, and by the time
her course is finished I shall be able to judge about the others.”
“You thought of taking them in hand yourself?”
“Certainly; how nice it will be to teach my own kin, and not endless
strangers, lovable as they have been!”
“It will be very good for them all to see something of life and manners
superior to what I can give them here. You will take them into a fresh
sphere, and—as things were—besides that, I could not—I did not know
whether their lives would not lie among our people here.”
“Dear Sophy, don’t concern yourself. I am quite certain you would never
let them fall in with anything hurtful.”
“Why, no! I hope not; but if I had known what was coming, I don’t think
I should have asked you to consent to Vera and Thekla’s spending their
holidays at Mr. Waring’s country house.”
“Very worthy people, you said. I remember Tom Waring, a very nice boy;
and Jessie Dale went to school with us—I liked her. Fancy them having a
country house.”
“Waring Grange they call it. He has got on wonderfully as upholsterer,
decorator, and auctioneer. It is a very handsome one, with a garden that
gets the prizes at the horticultural shows. They are thoroughly good
people, but I was afraid afterwards that there had been a good deal of
noisiness among the young folks at Christmas. Hubert Delrio was there,
and I fancy there was some nonsense going on.”
“Ah, the Delrios! Are they here?”
“Yes, poor Fred did not make his art succeed when he had a family to
provide for, and he is the head of the Art School here. His son has a
good deal of talent, and very prudently has got taken on by the firm of
Eccles and Co., who do a great deal of architectural decoration. The boy
is doing very well, but there have been giggles and whispers that make me
rejoice that Vera should be out of the neighbourhood.”
“Is she not very pretty?”
“You will be very much struck with her, I think; and Paulina is pretty
too, and more thoughtful. She would not go with Thekla, because Waring
Grange is far from church, and she would not disturb her Christmas and
Epiphany. She is the most religious of them all, and puts me in mind of
our old missionary castles in the air.”
“Ah, what castles they were! And they seem further off than ever! Or
perhaps you will fulfil them, and go and teach the Australian blacks!”
“A very unpromising field,” said Mrs. Best, “though I hear there is a
Sister Angela at the station who does wonders with them. I hear the
quarter striking—they will be back directly.”
“Ah! before they come, we ought to talk over means! Something is owing
for these last holidays. Oh! Sophy, I cannot find words to say how
thankful I am to you for having helped me through this time, even to your
own loss! It has made our life possible.”
“Indeed, I was most thankful to do all I could for poor Agnes’ children;
and though I did not gain by them like my other boarders, I never _lost_,
and they have been a great joy to me, yes, and a help, by giving my house
a character.”
“When I recollect how utterly crushed down I felt, seven years ago, when
their mother died, and Aunt Magdalen refused help, and how despairingly I
prayed, I feel all the more that there is an answer to even feeble almost
worldly prayer.”
“That it could not be when it was that you might be enabled to do the
duty that was laid on you, my dear.”
And with the exchange of a kiss, the two good women set themselves to
practical pounds, shillings, and pence, which was just concluded when the
patter of feet up the stone steps and voices in the hall announced the
return of Mrs. Best’s boarders.
Just as Magdalen was opening the door, there darted up, with the air of a
privileged favourite, a little person of ten years old, with flying brown
hair and round rosy cheeks, exclaiming breathlessly, “Is she come?”
The answer was to take her up with a motherly hug, and “My dear little
Thekla!” There was not time for more than a hurried glance and embrace
of the three on the steps of the stair, in their sailor hats and blue
serge; but when in ten minutes more, the whole party, twenty in number,
were seated round the dining table, observation was possible. Agatha, as
senior scholar, sat at the foot of the table, fully occupied in
dispensing Irish stew. She had a sensible face, to which projecting
teeth gave a character, and a brow that would have shown itself finer but
for the overhanging mass of hair. Vera and Paulina were so much alike
and so nearly of the same age that they were often taken for twins, but
on closer inspection Vera proved to be the prettiest, with a more
delicately cut nose, clearer complexion, and bluer eyes; but Paulina,
with paler cheeks, had softer eyes, and more pencilled brows, as well as
a prettier lip and chin, though she would not strike the eye so much as
her sister. Little Thekla was a round-faced, rosy little thing, childish
for her nearly eleven years, smiling broadly and displaying enough white
teeth to make Magdalen forebode that they would need much attention if
they were not to be a desight like Agatha’s.
She sat between Mrs. Best and Magdalen; and in the first pause, when the
first course had just been distributed, she looked up with a great pair
of grey eyes, and asked, in a shrill, clear little voice, “Sister, may I
have a bicycle?”
“We will see about it, my dear,” returned Magdalen, unwilling to pledge
herself.
“But haven’t you got a fortune?” undauntedly demanded Thekla.
“Something like it, Thekla. You shall hear about it after dinner.” And
Magdalen felt her colour flushing up under all those young eyes.
“Kitty Best said—”
But here Mrs. Best interposed. “We don’t talk over such things at table,
Thekla. Take care with the gravy. Did Mr. Jones give a lesson, this
morning?”
“Yes, a very long one,” said Vera.
“It was about the exact force of the words in the Revised Version,” added
Agatha, “compared with the Greek.”
“That must have been very interesting!” said Magdalen.
Vera and her neighbour looked at one another and shrugged their
shoulders; while some one else broke in with the news that another girl
had not come back because she was down with influenza; and Magdalen,
suspecting that “shop” was not talked at table, and also that the
Scripture passage could not well be discussed there, saw that it was wise
to let the conversation drift off, by Mrs. Best’s leading, into anecdotes
of the influenza.
All were glad when grace was chanted, and the five sisters could retreat
into the drawing-room, which Mrs. Best let them have to themselves for
the half hour before Magdalen’s train, and the young ones’ return to the
High School. She was at once established with Thekla on her lap, and the
others perched round on chairs and footstools. Of course the first
question was, “And is it really true?”
“It is true, my dears, that my old great aunt has left me a house and
some money; but you must not flatter yourselves that it is a great
estate.”
“Only mayn’t I have a bicycle?” began Thekla again.
“Child, I believe you have bicycles on the brain,” said Agatha. “But,
sister, you do mean that we shall be better off, and I shall be able to
go on with my education?”
“Yes, my dear, I think I can promise you so much,” said Magdalen,
caressing the serge shoulder.
“O thanks! Girton?” cried Agatha.
“There is much that I must inquire about before I decide—”
Again came, “Elsie Warner has a bicycle, and she is no older than me!
Please, sister!”
“Hush now, my little Thekla,” said the sister kindly; “I will talk to
Mrs. Best, and see whether she thinks it will be good for you.”
Thekla subsided with a pout, and Magdalen was able to explain her
circumstances and plans a little more in detail; seeing however that the
girls had no idea of the value of money, Paulina asked whether it meant
being as well off as the Colonel and Lady Mary—
“Who keep a carriage and pair, and a butler,” interposed Vera.
“Oh no, my dear. If I keep any kind of carriage it will be only a basket
or governess cart, and a pony or donkey.”
“That’s all right,” said Agatha. “I would not be rich and stupid for the
world.”
“Small fear of that!” said Magdalen, laughing. “Our home, the Goyle, is
not more than a cottage, in a beautiful Devonshire valley—”
“What’s the name of it?”
“The Goyle. I believe it is a diminutive of Gully, a narrow ravine. It
is lovely even now, and will be delightful when you come to me in April—”
“Shall I leave school?” asked Vera. “I shall be seventeen in May.”
“You will all leave school. Mrs. Best has made it easy to me by her
wonderful goodness in keeping you on cheaper terms; but if Agatha goes to
the University you must be content to work for a time with me.”
“Oh!” cried Thekla. “Shall I have always holidays? My bicycle!”
Everybody burst out laughing at this—not a very trained cachinnation, but
more of the giggle, even in Agatha; and Magdalen answered:
“You will have plenty of time for bicycling if the hills are not too
steep, but I hope to make your lessons pleasant to you.” She did not
know whether to mention Mrs. Best’s intention of soon giving up her
house, which would have much increased her difficulties but for her
legacy; and Agatha said, “You know, I think, that Vera and Polly both
ought to make a real study of music. They both have talent, and
cultivation would do a great deal for it.”
Agatha spoke in a dogmatic way that amused Magdalen, and she said, “Well,
I shall be able to judge when we are at the Goyle. Vera, I think you
sing—”
Vera looked shy, and Agatha said, “She has a good voice, and Madame
Lardner thinks it would answer to send her to some superior Conservatoire
in process of time.”
Vera did not commit herself as to her wishes, and Mrs. Best returned to
say that if Miss Prescott wished to see the headmistress it was time to
set out for the school; and accordingly the whole party walked up
together to the school, Magdalen with Agatha, who was chiefly occupied in
explaining how entirely it was owing to the one-sidedness of the
examiners that she had not gained the scholarship. Magdalen had heard of
such examiners before from the mothers of her pupils.
She had to wish her sisters good-bye for the next three months, not
having gathered very much about them, except their personal appearance.
She administered a sovereign to each of them as they parted. Agatha
thanked her in a tone as if afraid to betray what a boon it was; Vera,
with an eager kiss, asking if she could spend it as she liked; Paulina,
with a certain grave propriety; and Thekla, of course, wanted to know
whether it would buy a bicycle, or, if not, how many rides could be
purchased from it.
When they were absorbed in the routine of the day, the interview with the
head mistress disclosed, what Magdalen had expected, that Agatha, was an
industrious, ambitious girl, with very good abilities quite worth
cultivating, though not extraordinary; that Vera had a certain sort of
cleverness, but no application and not much taste for anything but music;
and that Paulina was a good, dutiful, plodding girl, who surpassed
brighter powers by dint of diligence. The little one was a mere child,
who had not yet come much under notice from the higher authorities.
On the whole, Magdalen went away with pleasant hopes, and the
affectionate impulses of kindred blood rising within her, to complete her
term with Lady Milsom, by whom she could not well be spared till towards
Easter; while, in the meantime, her house was being repaired.
CHAPTER II—THE GOYLE
“A poor thing, but mine own.”—SHAKESPEARE.
“Thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns.”
—T. HUGHES, _Scouring of the White Horse_.
MAGDALEN PRESCOTT stood on her own little terrace. Her house was, like
many Devonian ones, built high on the slope of a steep hill, running down
into a narrow valley, and her abode was almost at the narrowest part,
where a little lively brawling stream descended from the moor amid rocks
and brushwood. If the history of the place were told, it had been built
for a shooting box, then inherited by a lawyer who had embellished and
spent his holidays there, and afterwards, his youngest daughter, a lonely
and retiring woman, had spent her latter years there.
The house was low, stone built, and roofed with rough slate, with a
narrow verandah in front, and creepers in bud covering it. Then came a
terrace just wide enough for a carriage to drive up; and below,
flower-beds bordered with stones found what vantage ground they could
between the steep slopes of grass that led almost precipitously down to
the stream, where the ground rose equally rapidly on the other side.
Moss, ivy, rhododendrons, primroses, anemones, and the promise of ferns
were there, and the adjacent beds had their full share of hepaticas and
all the early daffodil kinds. Behind and on the southern side, lay the
kitchen garden, also a succession of steps, and beyond as the ravine
widened were small meadows, each with a big stone in the midst. The
gulley, (or goyle) narrowed as it rose, and there was a disused limestone
quarry, all wreathed over with creeping plants, a birch tree growing up
all white and silvery in the middle, and above the house and garden was
wood, not of fine trees, and interspersed with rocks, but giving shade
and shelter. The opposite side had likewise fields below, with one grey
farm house peeping in sight, and red cattle feeding in one, and above the
same rocky woodland, meeting the other at the quarry; and then after a
little cascade had tumbled down from the steeper ground, giving place to
the heathery peaty moor, which ended, more than two miles off in a torr
like a small sphinx. This could not be seen from Magdalen’s territory,
but from the highest walk in her kitchen garden, she could see the square
tower of Arnscombe, her parish church; and on a clear day, the glittering
water of Rockstone bay.
To Magdalen it was a delightful view, and delightful too had been the
arranging of her house, and preparing for her sisters. All the furniture
and contents of the abode had been left to her. It was solid and
handsome of its kind, belonging to the days of the retired Q.C., and some
of it would have been displaced for what was more fresh and tasteful if
Magdalen had not consulted economy. So she depended on basket-chairs,
screens, brackets and drapery to enliven the ancient mahagony and
rosewood, and she had accumulated a good many water colours, vases and
knick-knacks. The old grand piano was found to be past its work, so that
she went the length of purchasing a cottage one for the drawing-room, and
another for the sitting-room that was to be the girls’ own property, and
on which she expended much care and contrivance. It opened into the
drawing-room, and like it, had glass doors into the verandah, as well as
another door into the little hall. The drawing-room had a bow window
looking over the fields towards the South, and this way too looked the
dining-room, in which Magdalen bestowed whatever was least interesting,
such as the “Hume and Smollett” and “Gibbon” of her grandfather’s library
and her own school books, from which she hoped to teach Thekla.
Her upstairs arrangements had for the moment been rather disturbed by
Mrs. Best’s wishing to come with her pupils; but she decided that Agatha
should at once take possession of her own pretty room, and the two next
sisters of theirs, while she herself would sleep in the dressing room
which she destined to Thekla, giving up her own chamber to Mrs. Best for
these few days, and sending Thekla’s little bed to Agatha’s room.
And there she stood, on the little terrace, thinking how lovely the
purple light on the moor was, and how all the newcomers would enjoy such
a treat.
She had abstained from meeting them at the station, having respect to the
capacities of the horse, even upon his native hills, and she had hired a
farmer’s cart to meet them and bring their luggage. Already she had a
glimpse of the carriage, toiling up one hill, then disappearing between
the hedges, and it was long before her gate, already open, was reached,
and at her own _own_ door, she received her little sister, followed by
the others. And the first word she heard even before she had time to pay
the driver was, “My dear Magdalen, what a road!”
Poor Mrs. Best! as the payment was put into the man’s hand, Magdalen
looked round and saw she looked quite worn out.
“Yes,” said Paulina, “bumped to pieces and tired to death.”
“I was afraid they had been mending the roads,” said Magdalen.
“Mending! Strewing them with rocks, if you please,” said Agatha.
“And such a distance!” added Paulina.
“Not quite three miles,” replied Magdalen. “Here is some tea to repair
you.”
“My dear Magdalen”—in a chorus—“that really is quite impossible. It must
be five, at least.”
“Your nearest town ten miles off!” sighed Vera.
“Your nearest church,” cried Paulina.
“Up in the wilds,” said Agatha.
Magdalen felt as if these speeches were so many drops of water in her
face and that of her beautiful Goyle, but she rose in its defence.
“It actually is less than three miles,” she said. “I have walked it
several times, and the cabs only charge three.”
“That is testimony,” said Mrs. Best, smiling; “but hills, perhaps, reckon
for miles in one’s feelings!”
“Particularly before you are rested,” said Magdalen, setting her down in
a comfortable wicker chair. “You will think little of it on your own
feet, Vera, and the church is much nearer, Paulina, only on the other
side of the hill.”
“May I have a bicycle of my own?” burst in Thekla, again; while every one
began laughing, and Agatha told her that Sister would think her brains
were cycling.
“With centric and concentric scribbled o’er
Cycle and epicycle orb in orb.”
“Epicycle?” cried Vera. “I saw it advertised in the _Queen_. A splendid
one.”
“Ah! Magdalen, you will think I have not taught them their Milton,” said
Mrs. Best, as both elders burst out laughing; and Agatha said, in an
undertone, “Don’t make yourself such a goose, Vera.”
“I should think it rather rough sailing for bikes,” said Paulina.
“I should have thought so, myself,” returned Magdalen; “but the Clipstone
girls do not seem to think so. I see them sailing merrily into
Rockstone.”
“You have neighbours, then?” said Vera.
“Certainly. Rockstone supplies a good deal. Here are various cards of
people whose visits are yet to be returned. Clipstone is further off;
but the daughters will be nice friends for you. I met one of them
before, when she was staying at Lord Rotherwood’s. But I am afraid your
boxes are hardly come yet. Still, you will like to take off your things
before dinner, even if you cannot unpack.”
She led the way, and disposed of each girl in her new quarters,
explaining to Agatha that her’s and her little lodger were only
temporary; but it struck upon her rather painfully that the only word of
approbation or comfort came from Mrs. Best, and there were no notes at
all of admiration of the scenery.
“Well,” she said to herself, “much is not to be expected from people who
have been tired and shaken up in a station cab over newly-mended roads!
Were they as bad when I came? But then I could look out, and did not
hear poor Sophy’s groans all the way. I rather wish she had not come
with them, though I am glad to see her again for this last time.”
Meantime the four girls had congregated in the room appropriated to Vera
and Paulina. “Here are the necessaries of life,” said Agatha, handing
out a brush and comb. “That slow wain may roll its course in utter
darkness before it comes here.”
“To the other end of nowhere,” said Vera.
“And I am so tired,” whined Thekla. “These tight boots do hurt me so! I
want to go to bed.”
Paulina was already on her knees, removing the boots and accommodating a
pair of slippers to the little feet.
“We might as well be in a desert island,” continued Vera, “shut up from
everything with an old frump.”
“Take care,” said Agatha, in warning, signing towards Thekla.
“I am sure she looks jolly and good-natured,” said Paulina.
“But did you hear what Elsie Lee always calls her, ‘our maiden aunt’?”
All three laughed, and Vera added, “All the girls say she can’t be less
than fifty.”
“Topsy! You know she is only sixteen years older than I am.”
“Well, that’s half a hundred!”
“Sixteen and nineteen, what do they make?”
“Oh, never mind your sums. She has got the face and look of half a
hundred!”
“Now, I thought her face and her dress like a girl’s,” said Paulina.
“Yes,” said Vera, “that’s just the way with old maids. They dress
themselves up youthfully and affect girlish airs, and are all the more
horrid.”
“That’s your experience!” said Agatha. “But there’s the waggon creeping
up at a snail’s pace. Let us run down and see after our things.”
CHAPTER III—THE FIRST SUNDAY
“Speed on, speed on, the footpath way,
And merrily hunt the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad tires in a mile-a.”
—SHAKESPEARE.
SUNDAY morning rose with new and bright hopes. The girls looked out at
their window, and saw that it was a beautiful morning, and that the
spring sunshine glowed upon the purple summits of the hills. Agatha
supposed there would be a pleasant walk to church; Paulina said she had
heard good accounts of the services in that part of the country; Vera
hoped that they would see what their neighbours were like, and Thekla was
delighted with the jolly garden and places to scramble in.
On this first Sunday they were let alone to explore the garden before the
walk to church, which Magdalen foresaw would be a long affair with Mrs.
Best. After their decorous stillness at breakfast, it was a contrast to
hear the merry voices and laughter outside, but it subsided as soon as
she approached, though she did not hear the murmured ripple, “Here comes
maiden aunt! Behold—Quite a spicy hat!”
In truth, Magdalen’s hat was a pretty new one, not by any means
unsuitable to her age and appearance, and altogether her air was more
stylish than the country town breeding was accustomed to; her dress
perfectly plain, but well made.
Vera was perhaps the most sensible of the perfection of the turn-out;
Agatha chiefly felt that her more decorated skirt and mantle had their
inconveniences in walking through the red mud of the lanes, impeded by
books and umbrella, which left no leisure to admire the primroses that
studded the deep banks and which delighted Thekla in the freedom of short
skirts.
Magdalen herself had enough to do in steering along such a substantial
craft as poor Mrs. Best, used to church-going along a street, and
shrouded under a squirrel mantle of many pounds weight.
Barely in time was the convoy when at last the exhausted lady was helped
over the stone stile that led to the churchyard. Highly picturesque was
the grey structure outside, but within modernism had not done much; the
chancel was feebly fitted after the ideas of the “fifties,” but the faded
woodwork of the nave was intact, and Magdalen still had to sit in the
grim pew of her predecessors.
The girls’ looks at each other might have suited the entrance to a
condemned cell, and the pulpit towered above them with a faded green
cushion, that seemed in danger of tumbling down over their heads.
The service was a plain one, but reverent and careful; the music had a
considerable element of harmonium mixed with schoolchild voices, and the
sermon from an elderly man was a good one; but when the move to go out
was made, and the young ones were beyond ear-shot of their elders, the
exclamations were, “Well, I never thought to have gone back to Georgian
era.”
“Exactly the element of our maiden aunt.”
“And nobody to be seen.”
“Naggie, why do they shut one up in boxes?”
“Just to daunt Flapsy’s roving eye, Tickle, my dear.”
“Don’t, Polly. There was nobody to be seen if we hadn’t been in a box.
Of course no one comes there but stately old farmers and their smart
daughters. I saw one with a Gainsborough hat, and a bunch of cock’s
feathers, with a scarlet cactus cocking it up behind.”
“Flapsy made use of her opportunities, you see. Being ‘emparocked in a
pew’ cannot daunt her spirit of research.”
“Now, Nag, I only meant to show you what impossible people they are.”
“Natives who will repay the study perhaps,” continued Agatha, reading as
though from a book of travels. “We were able to observe a group of the
aborigines at their devotions. Conspicuous was a not ungraceful young
female, whose head, ornamented with a plume of feathers, towered above
the enclosure in which she was secluded, while an aged fakir, hakem or
medicine man pronounced from a loftier structure resembling a sentry
box.”
“Children, children, that’s the wrong way,” came Magdalen’s voice from
behind. “You must turn into that lane. Wait a moment.”
They waited till Mrs. Best’s lagging steps allowed Magdalen to come up
with them, but dead silence fell on them when Mrs. Best observed, “You
were very merry.” They could not speak of the cause. Perhaps Magdalen
divined something, for she said, “We hope to make some improvements, and
so indeed does Mr. Earl, but he is very poor. Besides, newcomers must
work slowly.”
The doubt whether she had heard Agatha’s speech made the girls conscious
enough to keep from responding, as she meant them to do, by cheerful
criticisms, and indeed the task of cheering and dragging on Mrs. Best was
quite enough to occupy her. There was only three years difference in
their ages, but this seemed to have made a great interval between one
whose _métier_ had been to be youthful and active, and her who had to be
staid and dignified.
The early dinner passed in all demureness and formality, and the poor
visitor was too much tired for any more services to be thought of for
her. Magdalen explained that when the days would be longer, she thought
of walking to Rockstone for evensong, but now the best way was to go to
the chapel at Clipstone, which was nearer than either of the others.
“There is a lovely little chapel there, beautifully fitted up by Lord
Rotherwood and Sir Jasper Merrifield, for the hamlet,” she said.
“How far?” asked Mrs. Best.
“About a mile and a half across the fields; further by the road. You
will find your bicycles available when you know the way.”
“Don’t we go to Rockstone?” asked Paulina. “I am sure there is a really
satisfactory church there.”
“St. Kenelm’s, do you mean? That is not so near as St. Andrew’s Church,
but that is very satisfactory, and I go to one or other of them on
week-days. It is too late to come back on these spring Sundays.”
“I should not like to live among so many churches,” said Mrs. Best, “and
so far from them all!”
“You love your old parish church, like a faithful old churchwoman,” said
Magdalen. “Well, you see, I am faithful enough to go to my parish in the
morning, but I think we may be discursive afterwards. There is a Sunday
school in which I was waiting to offer help till our party was made up.”
Magdalen had looked twice for a responding smile, first from Agatha, and
then from Paulina, but none was awakened. The girls clustered together
in the bedroom, and the word “Goody” passed between them.
“Tempered by respect for my Lord and Sir Jasper,” added Agatha.
“And avoiding St. Kenelm’s because it is the real correct church,” said
Paulina.
“Oh, yes!” cried Vera. “Mr. Hubert Delrio went to see it in case Eccles
and Beamster should have an order. We must go there.”
“Of course,” said Paulina, with a sympathetic nod.
“But,” said Agatha, “there will be an embargo on all acquaintance except
the grandees at Clipstone.”
“I shall never drop old friends,” cried Vera. “I am a rock of crystal as
regards them, whatever swells may require, if they burst themselves like
the frog and the ox.”
“Well done, crystal rock; but suppose the old friends slide off and drop
you?” laughed Agatha.
Vera tossed her head; and Thekla ran in to say that Sister was ready.
The walk was shorter and pleasanter than that in the morning, over
moorland, but with a good road; but all Magdalen discovered on the walk
was that though the girls had attended botanical classes, they did not
recognise spear-wort when they saw it, and Agatha thought the old
catalogue fashions of botany were quite exploded. This was a sentiment,
and it gave hopes of something like an argument and a conversation, but
they were at that moment overtaken by the neighbouring farmer’s wife, who
wanted to give Miss Prescott some information about a setting of eggs,
which she did at some length, and with a rapid utterance of dialect that
amused, while it puzzled, Magdalen, and her inquiries and comments were
decided to be “thoroughly good-wife” by all save Thekla, who hailed the
possible ownership of a hen and chicken as almost equal to that of a
bicycle.
Magdalen further discovered that Thekla’s name in common use was
“Tickle,” or else “Tick-tick”; Paulina was, of course, Paula or Polly;
Vera had her old baby title of Flapsy, which somehow suited her restless
nervous motions, and Agatha had become Nag. Well, it was the fashion of
the day, though not a pretty one; but Magdalen recollected, with some
pain, her father’s pleasure in the selection of saintly names for his
little daughters, and she wondered how he would have liked to hear them
thus transmuted. There had been something bordering on sentiment in her
father’s character, and something in Paulina’s expression made her hope
to see it repeated by inheritance. She saw the countenance brighten out
of the morning’s antagonistic air when they entered the little chapel at
Clipstone, and saw the altar adorned and carefully decked with white
narcissus and golden daffodils.
The little chapel was old and plain, very small, but reverently cared
for. There was no choir, but the chairs of those who could sing were
placed near the harmonium, which was played by one of the young ladies
from the large gabled house to which the chapel was attached, and the
singing had the refined tones that belong to the music of cultivated
people. The congregation was evidently of poor folks from the hamlet,
dependants of the great house, and the family itself, a grey-haired,
fine-looking general, a tall dark-eyed lady, a tall youth, a schoolboy,
and four girls—one of whom was musician, and the other presided over the
school children. The service was reverent, the catechising good and
effective, the sermon brief, and summing up in a spiritual and devotional
manner; Magdalen was happy, and trusted that Paulina was so likewise.
She expected to hear some commendation as they walked home, but Vera
alone kept with her, to examine her on the names and standing of the
persons she had seen, on which there was as yet little to tell, for the
first move towards acquaintance had not yet been made. All that was
known was that there were Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield, connections of
Lord Rotherwood, who owned most of the Rockstone property, and who with
his family had once been staying in the country house where Magdalen had
been governess; but it was a long time ago, and she only recollected that
there were some nice little girls. At least she said no more, but her
friend thought the more.
“I suppose they will call?” said Vera.
“Most likely they will.”
“Has nobody called?”
“Mr. Earl, the Vicar of Arnscombe. He has promised to tell me how we can
be of use here. I believe there is great want of a lady at the Sunday
school.”
This did not interest Vera—and she went on asking questions about the
neighbourhood, and whether any of the Rockstone people had left cards,
and whether there were any parties, garden or evening, at Rockstone—more
than Magdalen could yet answer, though she was glad to promote any sort
of conversation with either of the girls who did not stand aloof from
her.
“I say, the M.A. (maiden aunt) knows nobody but that old clergyman, who
wants her to teach his Sunday school.”
“I’m out of that, thank goodness,” said Agatha.
“And Sunday schools are a delusion, only hindering the children from
going to church with their parents,” said Paulina.
“And if nobody calls, and they all think her no better than an old
governess, how awfully slow it will be,” continued Vera.
“I do not suppose that will last,” said Agatha. “There is Rockstone,
remember.”
“Ten miles off,” said Vera disconsolately. “Oh, Nag, Nag, isn’t it
horrid! We shall be just smart enough to be taken for swells, and know
nobody; and the swells won’t have us because she is a governess. We
might as well be upon a desert island at once.”
Agatha could not help laughing and repeating—
“I am out of humanity’s reach,
I must finish my journey alone—
Never hear the sweet music of speech,
I start at the sound of my own.”
“But really, Nag,” broke in Paulina, “it is horrid. Here we are
equidistant from three or four churches, and condemned to the most behind
the world of them all, and then to the one where there is this distant
fragrance of swells, instead of the only Catholic one.”
Agatha had a little more common sense than the other two, and she
responded—
“After all, you know, you are better off than if you were still at
school; and the M.A. is a good old soul at the bottom, and you may manage
her, depend on it. Though I wish she had let me go to Girton.”
Magdalen and Mrs. Best meantime were going over future prospects and old
times. Mrs. Best’s destination was Albertstown, in Queensland, where her
son George had a good practice as a doctor, and where he assured her she
would find church privileges—even a cathedral, so-called, and a
bishop—though Bishop Fulmort was always out on some expedition among the
colonists or the natives, but among his clergy there was always Sunday
service. In fact, Magdalen thought the good old lady expected to find a
town more like Filsted than the Goyle. There was a sisterhood located
there too, which tried, mostly in vain, to train the wild native women—an
attempt at which George Best laughed, though he allowed that the sisters
were splendid nurses, especially Sister Angela, who had a wonderful way
of bringing cases round.
Magdalen could feel secure that her old friend would be near kind people;
and presently Mrs. Best, returning to the actual neighbourhood, observed—
“Merrifield! It is not a common name.”
“No; but I do not think this is the same family. This is a retired
general, living in a house of Lord Rotherwood’s. I once met one of his
little girls, who came to Castle Towers with the Rotherwood party, and
though she had a brother of the name, he was evidently not the same
person.”
Mrs. Best asked no more, for tell-tale colour had arisen in Magdalen’s
cheeks; and she had been the confidante of an engagement with a certain
Henry Merrifield, who had been employed in the bank at Filsted when
Magdalen was a very young girl. His father had come down suddenly, had
found debt and dissipation, had broken all off decidedly, and no more had
been heard of the young man. It was many years previously; but those
cheeks and the tone of the reply made her suspect that there was still
poignancy in the remembrance.
CHAPTER IV—CYCLES
“What flowers grow in my field wherewith to dress thee.”
—E. BARRETT BROWNING.
MRS. BEST departed early the next morning. It was probably a parting for
life between the two old friends; and Magdalen keenly felt the severance
from the one person whom she had always known, and on whose sympathy she
could rely. Their conversations had been very precious to her, and she
felt desolate without the entire companionship. Yet, on the other hand,
she felt as if she could have begun better with her sisters if Sophy Best
had not come with them, to hand them over, as it were, when she wanted to
start on the same level with them, and be more like their contemporary
than their authority.
They all stood on the terrace, watching the fly go down the hill, and she
turned to them and said—
“We will all settle ourselves this morning, and you will see how the land
lies, so that to-morrow we can arrange our day and see what work to do.
Thekla, when you have had a run round the garden, you might bring your
books to the dining-room and let me see how far you have gone.”
“Oh, sister, it is holidays!”
“Well, my dear, you have had a week, and your holiday time cannot last
for ever. Looking at your books cannot spoil it.”
“Yes, it will; they are so nasty.”
“Perhaps you will not always think so; but now you had better put on your
hat and your thick boots, for the grass is still very wet, and explore
the country. The same advice to you,” she added, turning to the others;
“it is warm here, but the dew lies long on the slopes.”
“We have got a great deal too much to do,” said Agatha, “for dawdling
about just now.”
Really, she was chiefly prompted by the satisfaction of not being ordered
about; and the other two followed suit, while Magdalen turned away to her
household business.
They found the housemaid in possession of the bedrooms, so that the
unpacking plans could not conveniently be begun; and while Agatha was
struggling with the straps of a book box, Thekla burst in upon them.
“Oh, Nag, Nag, there is the loveliest angel of a bicycle in the stable,
and a dear little pony besides! ‘New tyre wheels,’ he says.”
“A bicycle! Well, if she has got it for us, she is an angel indeed,”
said Vera.
“It is a big one,” said Thekla, “but the pony is a dear little thing;
Pixy is his name, and I can ride him! Do come, Flapsy, and see!
Earwaker will show you. It is he that does the oiling of Pixy and
harnessing the bicycle. I mean—”
“Tick, Tick, which does he oil and which does he harness?” said Paula.
“That little tongue wants both,” said Agatha.
“But do, do come and see,” said Thekla, not at all disconcerted by being
laughed at; and Vera came, only asserting her independence by not putting
on either hat or boots.
Thekla led the way to the stable, tucked under the hill at the back, and
presiding over a linhay, as she had already learnt to call the tiny
farm-court, containing accommodation for two cows, a pig, and sundry
fowls. There was a shed attached with a wicker pony carriage and the
bicycle, a handsome modern one, with all the newest appendages, including
the “Nevertires,” as Thekla had translated them.
But disappointment was in store for Vera. Magdalen came out during the
inspection, and was received with—
“Sister, you never told us of this beauty.”
“It was a parting present from General Mansell,” she said, “and he took
great pains to get me a very good one.”
“And you bike!”
“Oh, yes; I learnt to go out with the Colvins. But I do not venture to
use it much here, unless the road is good. Those rocks, freshly laid
towards Rockstone, would make regular havoc of the pneumatic tyres.”
Vera saw that this was prohibitive, and felt too much vexed to mention
Thekla’s version of the same; but Magdalen asked, “Have you learnt?”
“They were always going to teach me at Warner Grange, but it always
snowed, or rained, or skated, I mean we skated, or something, whenever
Hubert had time; but I am perfectly dying to learn.”
“Well, before you expire, we may teach you a little on these smoother
paths; and hire one perhaps, by the time the stones are passable. Just
at present, I think our own legs and Pixy’s are safer for that descent.”
Vera was pacified enough to look on with a certain degree of complacency,
while Thekla was enraptured at being set to take out the eggs from the
hens’ nests.
But the conclave in the sitting-room on Vera’s report decided, “Selfish
old thing, it is only an excuse! Of course we should take care not to
spoil it. It shows what will be the way with everything.”
No one knew of a still more secret conclave within Magdalen’s own breast,
one of those held at times by many an elder, between the claims of
loyalty to the keepsakes of affection and old association and the
gratification of present desires. Magdalen thought of the rules of
convents forbidding the appropriation of personal trifles, and wondered
if it were wise, if stern; but for the present she decided that it could
not be her duty to risk what had been carefully and kindly selected for
her in unpractised and careless hands; and she further compromised the
matter by reckoning whether her funds, which were not excessive, would
admit of the hire or purchase of machines that might allay the burning
aspirations of her young people.
The upshot of her reckoning was that when they all met at the early
dinner, she announced, “I think we might go to Rock Quay this afternoon,
between the pony carriage and Shanks’s mare. I want to ask about some
lessons, and we could see about the hire of a bicycle for you to learn
upon.”
It was only Agatha who answered, “Thank you, but it is not worth while
for me, I shall be away so soon.”
Thekla cried out, “Me too!”—and Paulina mumbled something. In truth,
besides the thought of the bicycle in the stable, the other two had lived
enough in the country-town atmosphere to be foolishly disgusted at being
obliged to dine early. That they had always been used to it made them
only think it beneath their age as well as their dignity, and, “What a
horrid nuisance!” had been on their tongues when the bell was ringing.
Moreover, they had enough of silly prejudice about them to feel aggrieved
at the sight of hash, nice as it was with fresh vegetables, and they were
not disposed to good temper when they sat down to their meal. “They”
perhaps properly means the middle pair, for Agatha had more notion of
manners and of respect, and Thekla had an endless store of chatter about
her discoveries.
The pony-carriage was brought round in due time, but just then another
vehicle of the same kind, only prettier and with two ponies, was seen at
the gate, too late for the barbarian instinct of rushing away to hide
from morning visitors to be carried out, before Lady Merrifield and a
daughter, were up the slope and on the levelled road before the verandah.
“I think this is an old acquaintance,” said Lady Merrifield as she shook
hands, “though perhaps Mysie is grown out of remembrance.”
“Oh, yes,” said an honest open-faced maiden, eagerly putting out her
hand. “Don’t you remember, Miss Prescott, our all staying at Castle
Towers? I came with Phyllis Devereux, and she and I took poor Betty
Bernard out after blackberries, and she thought it was a mad bull when it
was a railway whistle, and ran into a cow-pond, and Cousin Rotherwood
came and Captain Grantley and got her out.”
Magdalen was smiling and nodding recollection, and added, “It was really
one of the boys.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I thought it was a crazy bull
Firing a blunderbuss—”
She paused for recollection, and Magdalen went on—
“I thought it was a crazy bull
Firing a blunderbuss;
I looked again, and, lo, it was
A water polypus.
‘Oh, guard my life,’ I said, ‘for she
Will make an awful fuss.’”
“Ah! do you remember that?” cried Mysie. “I have so often tried to
recollect what it really was when she looked again. Captain Grantley
made it, you know, when we were trying to comfort Betty.”
“I remember you and Lady Phyllis said you would go and confess to Mrs.
Bernard and take all the blame, and Lord Rotherwood said he would escort
you!”
“Yes, and Betty said it was no good, for if her mother forgave her ten
times over, still that spiteful French maid would put her to bed and say
she had no _robe convenable_,” went on Mysie. “But then you took her to
your own room, and washed her and mended her, so that she came out all
right at luncheon, and nobody knew anything, but she thought that horrid
woman guessed and tweaked her hair all the harder for it.”
“Poor child, she looked as if she were under a tyranny.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“No; but Phyllis tells me she has burst forth into liberty, bicycles, and
wild doings that would drive her parents to distraction if she dreamt of
them.”
“How is Lady Phyllis? Did I not hear that the family had gone abroad for
her health?”
“Oh yes, and I went with them. They all had influenza, and were
frightened, but it ended in our meeting with Franceska Vanderkist, the
very most charming looking being I ever did see; and Ivinghoe had fallen
in love with her when she was Miranda, and he married her like a real old
hero. Do you remember Ivinghoe?”
“No; I suppose he was one of an indistinguishable troop of schoolboys.”
“I remember Lord Rotherwood’s good nature and fun when he met the
bedraggled party,” said Magdalen, smiling.
“That is what every one remembers about him,” said Lady Merrifield,
smiling. “You have imported a large party of youth, Miss Prescott.”
“My young sisters,” responded Magdalen; “but I shall soon part with
Agatha; she is going to Oxford.”
“Indeed! To which College? I have a daughter at Oxford, and a niece
just leaving Cambridge. Such is our lot in these days. No, not this
one, but her elder sister Gillian is at Lady Catharine’s.”
“I am going to St. Robert’s,” said Agatha, abruptly.
“Close to Lady Catharine’s! Gillian will be glad to tell her anything
she would like to ask about it. You had better come over to tea some
afternoon.”
The time was fixed, and then Magdalen showed some of the advertisements
of tuition in art, music, languages, and everything imaginable, which had
begun to pour in upon her, and was very glad of a little counsel on the
reputation of each professor. Lady Merrifield saying, however, that her
experience was small, as her young people in general were not musical,
with the single exception of her son Wilfred, who was at home, reading to
go up for the Civil Service, and recreating himself with the Choral
Society and lessons on the violin. “My youngest is fifteen,” she said,
“and we provide for her lessons amongst us, except for the School of Art,
and calisthenics at the High School, which is under superior management
now, and very much improved.”
Mysie echoed, “Oh, calisthenics are such fun!” and took the reins to
drive away.
“Oh! she is very nice,” exclaimed Mysie, as they drove down the hill.
“Yes, there is something very charming about her. I wonder whether Sam
made a great mistake.”
“Mamma, what do you mean?”
“Have I been meditating aloud? You said when you met her at Castle
Towers, she asked you whether you had a brother Harry.”
“Yes, she did. I only said yes, but he was going to be a clergyman, and
when she heard his age, she said he was not the one she had known; I did
not speak of cousin Henry because you said we were not to mention him.
What was it, if I may know, mamma?”
“There is no reason that you should not, except that it is a painful
matter to mention to Bessie or any of the Stokesley cousins. Harry was
never like the rest, I believe, but I had never seen him since he was
almost a baby. He never would work, and was not fit for any
examination.”
“Our Harry used to say that Bessie and David had carried off all the
brains of the family.”
“The others have sense and principle, though. Well, they put their Hal
into a Bank at Filsted, and by and by they found he was in a great
scrape, with gambling debts; and I believe that but for the forbearance
of the partners, he might have been prosecuted for embezzling a sum—or at
least he was very near it; besides which he had engaged himself to an
attorney’s daughter, very young, and with a very disagreeable mother or
stepmother. The Admiral came down in great indignation, thought these
Prescotts had inveigled poor Henry, broke everything hastily off, and
shipped him off to Canada to his brothers, George and John. They found
some employment for him, but Susan and Bessie doubt whether they were
very kind to him, and in a few years more he was in fresh scrapes, and
with worse stains and questions of his integrity. It ended in his
running away to the States, and no trace has been found of him since. I
am afraid he took away money of his brothers.”
“How long ago was it, mamma?”
“At least twenty years. It was while we were in Malta.”
“Who would have thought of those dear Stokesley cousins having such a
skeleton in their cupboard?”
“Ah! my dear, no one knows the secrets of others’ hearts.”
“And you really think that this Miss Prescott was his love?”
“I know it was the same name, and Bessie told me that he used to talk to
her of his Magdalen, or Maidie; and when I heard of your meeting her at
Castle Towers I wondered if it were the same. And now I see what she is,
and what she is undertaking for these young sisters; I have wondered
whether your uncle was wise to insist on the utter break, and whether she
might not have been an anchor to hold him fast to his moorings.”
“Only,” said Mysie, “if he had really cared, would he have let his father
break it off so entirely?”
“I think your uncle expected implicit obedience.”
“But—,” said Mysie, and left the rest unsaid, while both she and her
mother went off into meditations on different lines on the exigencies of
parental discipline and of the requirements of full-grown hearts.
And, on the whole, the younger one was the most for strict obedience, the
experienced parent in favour of liberty. But then Mysie was
old-fashioned and dutiful.
CHAPTER V—CLIPSTONE FRIENDS
“What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed,
Or urge the flying ball.”—GRAY.
THE afternoon at Clipstone was a success. Gillian was at home, and every
one found congeners. Lady Merrifield’s sister, Miss Mohun, pounced upon
Miss Prescott as a coadjutor in the alphabet of good works needed in the
neglected district of Arnscombe, where Mr. Earl was wifeless, and the
farm ladies heedless; but they were interrupted by Mysie running up to
claim Miss Prescott for a game at croquet. “Uncle Redgie was so glad to
see the hoops come into fashion again,” and Vera and Paula hardly knew
the game, they had always played at lawn tennis; but they were delighted
to learn, for Uncle Redgie proved to be a very fine-looking retired
General, and there was a lad besides, grown to manly height; and one boy,
at home for Easter, who, caring not for croquet, went with Primrose to
exhibit to Thekla the tame menagerie, where a mungoose, called of course
Raki raki, was the last acquisition. She was also shown the kittens of
the beloved Begum, and presented with Phœbus, a tabby with a wise face
and a head marked like a Greek lyre, to be transplanted to the Goyle in
due time.
“If Sister will let me have it,” said Thekla.
“Of course she will,” said Primrose. “Mysie says she is so jolly.”
“Dear me! all the girls at our school said she was a regular Old Maid.”
“What shocking bad form!” exclaimed Primrose. “Just like cads of girls,”
muttered Fergus, unheard; for Thekla continued—“Why, they said she must
be our maiden aunt, instead of our sister.”
“The best thing going!” said Fergus.
“Maiden aunts in books are always horrid,” said Thekla.
“Then the books ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered, and spifflicated
besides,” said Fergus.
“Fergus doesn’t like anybody so well as Aunt Jane,” said Primrose,
“because nobody else understands his machines.”
Thekla made a grimace.
“Ah!” said Primrose. “I see it is just as mamma and Mysie said when they
came home, that Miss Prescott was very nice indeed, and it was famous
that she should make a home for you all, only they were afraid you seemed
as if—you might be—tiresome,” ended Primrose, looking for a word.
“Well, you know she wants to be our governess,” said Thekla.
“Well?” repeated Primrose.
“And of course no one ever likes their governess.”
This aphorism, so uttered by Thekla, provoked a yell from Primrose,
echoed by Fergus; and Primrose, getting her breath, declared that dear
Miss Winter was a great darling, and since she had gone away, more’s the
pity, mamma was real governess to herself, Valetta, and Mysie, and she
always looked at their translations and heard their reading if Gillian
was not at home.
“And they are quite grown-up young ladies!”
“Mysie is; but I don’t know about Val. Only I don’t see why any one
should be silly and do nothing if one is grown up ever so much,” said
Primrose.
“As the Eiffel Tower,” put in Fergus.
“Nonsense!” said Primrose, bent on being improving. “Don’t you know what
that old book of mamma’s says, ‘When will Miss Rosamond’s education be
finished?’ She answered ‘Never.’”
Thekla gave a groan, whether of pity for Rosamond or for herself might be
doubted; and a lop-eared rabbit was a favourable diversion.
There was a triad who seemed to be of Rosamond’s opinion regarding
education, for Agatha was eagerly availing herself of the counsel of
Gillian, and the books shown to her; with the further assistance of the
cousin, Dolores Mohun, now an accredited lecturer in technical classes,
though making her home and headquarters at Clipstone.
Thekla’s views of young ladyhood were a good deal more fulfilled by the
lessons on cycling which were going on among the other young people after
the game of croquet had ended. Every size and variety seemed to exist
among the Clipstone population, under certain regulations of not coasting
down the hills, the girls not going out alone, and never into the town,
but always “putting up” at Aunt Jane’s.
Vera and Paulina were in ecstasy, and there was a continual mounting,
attempting and nearly falling, or turning anywhere but the right, little
screams, and much laughter, Jasper attending upon Vera, who, in spite of
her failures, looked remarkably pretty and graceful upon Valetta’s
machine; while Paula, whom Mysie and Valetta were both assisting, learnt
more easily and steadily, but looked on with a few qualms as to the
entire crystal rock constancy that Vera had professed, more especially
when Jasper volunteered to come over to the Goyle and give another
lesson.
Magdalen, after her game at croquet, had spent a very pleasant time with
Lady Merrifield and her brother and sister, till they were imperiously
summoned by Primrose to come and give consent to the transfer of Phœbus,
or to choose between him and the Mufti, to whom Thekla had begun to
incline.
The whole party adjourned to the back settlements, where Magdalen was
edified by the antics of the mungoose, and admired the Begum and her
progeny with a heartiness that would have won Thekla’s heart, save that
she remembered hearing Vera say, over the domestic cat in the morning,
that M.A.’s were always devoted to cats. But, on the whole, the visit
had done much to reconcile the young sisters to their new surroundings;
books, bicycles, and kitten had reconciled them even to the intimacy with
“swells.”
The hired bicycle and tricycle had arrived in their absence, and the
moment breakfast was over the next morning, the three younger ones all
rushed off to the enjoyment, and, at ten minutes past the appointed hour
for the early reading and study, Agatha felt obliged to go out and tell
them that the M.A. was sitting like Patience on a monument, waiting for
them; on which three tongues said “Bother,” and “She ought to let us off
till the proper end of the holidays.”
“Then you should have propitiated her by asking leave after the Scripture
was done,” said Agatha; “you might have known she would not let you off
that.”
“Bother,” said Vera again; “just like an M.A.”
“I did forget,” said Paula; “and you know it was only just going through
a lesson for form’s sake, like the old superlative.”
They had, in fact, read the day before; when Thekla had made such
frightful work of every unaccustomed word, and the elders by one or two
observations had betrayed so much ignorance alike of Samuel’s history and
of the Gospel of St. Luke, that she had resolved to endeavour at a
thorough teaching of the Old and New Testaments for the first hour on
alternate days, giving one day in the week to Catechism and Prayer Book.
She asked what they had done before.
“Mrs. Best always read something at prayers.”
“Something?”
“Something out of the Bible.”
“No, the Testament.”
“I am sure it was the Bible, it was so fat.”
“And Saul was in it, and we had him yesterday.”
“That was St. Paul before he was converted,” said Paula.
There their knowledge seemed to end, and it further appeared that Mrs.
Best heard the Catechism and Collect on Sundays from the unconfirmed, and
had tried to get the Gospel repeated by heart, but had not succeeded.
“We did not think it fair,” said Vera. “None of the other houses did.”
“Yes,” said Agatha, “Miss Ferris’s did.”
“Oh, she is a regular old Prot,” said Paula, “almost a Dissenter, and it
is not the Gospel either, only texts out of her own head.”
“Polly!” said Agatha. “Texts out of her own head!”
“It is Bible, of course, only what she fancies; and they have to work out
the sermon, and if they can’t do the sermon, a text. They might as well
be Dissenters at once!” said Paula.
“Janet M’Leod is,” said Vera. “It was really Dissentish.”
Magdalen could not help saying, “So you would not learn the Gospel
because Dissenters learnt pieces of Scripture! You seem to me like the
Roman Catholic child, who said there were five sacraments, there ought to
be seven, but the Protestants had got two of them.”
She was sorry she had said it, for though Agatha laughed, the other two
drew into themselves, as if their feelings were hurt. “These are the
boarding-house habits,” she said. “What is done at the High School
itself?”
“The Vicar comes when he has time, and gives a lecture on an Epistle,”
said Agatha, “or a curate, if he doesn’t; but I was working for the
exam., and didn’t go this last term. What was it, Polly?”
“On the—on the Apollonians,” answered Paulina, hesitating.
“My dear, where did he find it?”
“I know it was something about Apollo,” said Vera.
“It was Corinthians,” said Paula. “I ought to have recollected, but the
lectures are very dull and disjointed; you said so yourself, Nag, and the
Rector is very low church.”
“So you could not learn from him!”
“Really, sister,” said Agatha, “the lectures are not well managed, they
are in too many hands, and too uncertain, and it is not easy to learn
much from them.”
“Well, that being the case, I think we had better begin at the beginning.
Suppose I ask you to say the first answer in the Catechism.”
On which Vera said they had all been confirmed except Thekla, and passed
it on to her.
However, the endeavours of that half-hour need not be recounted, and the
moment half-past ten chimed out the young ladies jumped up, and would
have been off to the bicycles, if Magdalen had not felt that the time was
come for asserting authority, and said, “Not yet, if you please. We
cannot waste whole days. You know Herr Gnadiger is coming to-morrow, and
it would be well to practise that sonata beforehand; you ought each to
practise it; Paula, you had better begin, and Vera, you prepare this
first scene of Marie Stuart to read with me when Thekla’s lessons are
over. Change over when Paula has done.”
“It is of no use my doing anything while anyone is playing,” said Vera.
“Nonsense,” Agatha muttered; but Magdalen said, “You can sit in the
drawing-room or your own room. Come, Tick-tick, where’s your slate?
Come along.”
“Don’t sulk, Flapsy,” said the elder sister, “it is of no use. The M.A.
means to be minded, and will be, and you know it is all for your good.”
“I hate my good,” said naughty Vera.
“So does every one when it is against the grain,” said Agatha; “but
remember it is a preparation for a free life of our own.”
“It is our cross,” said Paula, as she placed herself on the music stool
with a look of resignation almost comical.
Nor did her performance interfere with the equations which Agatha was
diligently working out; but Vera, though refusing to take refuge from the
piano, to which, in fact, she was perfectly inured, worried her elder as
much as she durst, by inquiries after the meaning of words, or what
horrid verb to look out in the dictionary; and it was a pleasing change
when Paula proceeded to work the same scene out for herself without
having recourse to explanations, so that Agatha was undisturbed except by
the careless notes, which almost equally worried Magdalen in the more
distant dining-room.
This was really the crisis of the battle of study. As the girls were
accustomed to it, and knew that they were of an age to be ground down,
they followed Agatha’s advice, and submitted without further open
struggle, though there was a good deal of low murmur, and the foreman’s
work was not essentially disagreeable, even while Vera maintained, what
she believed to be an axiom, that governesses were detestable, and that
the M.A. must incur the penalty of acting as such.
Very soon after luncheon appeared three figures on bicycles. Wilfred
Merrifield, with Mysie and Valetta, come to give another lesson on the
“flying circle’s speed.”
Magdalen came out with her young people to enjoy their amusement, as well
as to watch over her own precious machine, as Vera said. It was admired,
as became connoisseurs in the article; and she soon saw that Wilfred was
to be trusted with the care of it, so she consented to its being ridden
in the practice, provided it was not taken out into the lanes.
Mysie turned off from the practising, where she was not wanted, and
joined Miss Prescott in walking through the garden terraces, and planning
what would best adorn them, talking over favourite books, and enjoying
themselves very much; then going on to the quarry, where Mysie looked
about with a critical eye to see if it displayed any fresh geological
treasures to send Fergus in quest of. She began eagerly to pour forth
the sister’s never-ending tale of her brother’s cleverness, and thus they
came down the outside lane to the lower gate, seeing beforehand the
sparkle of bicycles in its immediate proximity.
It was not open, but Vera might be seen standing with one hand on the
latch, the other on Magdalen’s bicycle, her face lifted with imploring,
enticing smiles to Wilfred, who had fallen a little back, while Paula had
decidedly drawn away.
None of them had seen Magdalen and Mysie till they were round the low
stone wall and close upon them. There was a general start, and Vera
exclaimed, “We haven’t been outside! No, we haven’t! And it is not the
Rockquay Road either, sister! I only wanted a run down that lane up
above.”
Wilfred laughed a little oddly. It was quite plain that he had been
withstanding the temptress, only how long would the resistance have
lasted?
Downright Mysie exclaimed, “It would have been a great shame if you had,
and I am glad Wilfred hindered you.”
“Thank you,” said Magdalen, smiling to him. “You know better than my
sisters what Devon lanes and pneumatic tyres are!”
Perhaps Wilfred was a little vexed, though he had resisted, for he was
ready to agree with Mysie that they could not stay and drink tea.
But he did not escape his sister’s displeasure, for Mysie began at once,
“How lucky it was that we came in time. I do believe that naughty little
thing was just going to talk you over into doing what her sister had
forbidden.”
“A savage, old, selfish bear. It was only the lane.”
“Full of crystals as sharp as needles, enough to cut any tyre in two,”
said Mysie.
“Like your tongue, eh, Mysie?”
“Well, you did not do it! That is a comfort. You would not let her
transgress, and ruin her sister’s good bicycle.”
“She is an uncommonly pretty little sprite, and the selfish hag of a
sister only left orders that I was to take care of the bike! I could see
where there was a stone as well as anybody else.”
“Hag!” angrily cried Mysie, “she is the only nice one of the whole lot.
Vera is a nasty little thing, or she would never think of meddling with
what does not belong to her, or trying to persuade you to allow it.”
“I call it abominable selfishness, dog in the mangerish, to shut up such
a machine as that, and condemn her sisters to one great lumbering one.”
“That’s one account,” said Valetta. “Paula said it was only till they
had learnt to ride properly, and till the stones have a little worn in.”
“Yes,” said Mysie, “I could see Vera is an exaggerating monkey, just
talking over and deluding Will, just as men like when they get a silly
fit.”
By this time Wilfred had thought it expedient to put his bicycle to
greater speed, and indulge in a long whistle to show how contemptible he
thought his sisters as he went out of hearing.
“Paulina is nice and good,” said Valetta, “she has heard all about St.
Kenelm’s, and wants to go there. Yes, and she means to be a Sister of
Charity, only she is afraid her sister is narrow and low church.”
“That is stuff and nonsense,” said Mysie. “I have had a great deal of
talk with Miss Prescott. She loves all the same books that we do. She
is going to have G. F. S. and Mothers’ Union, and all at poor Arnscombe,
and she told me to call her Magdalen.”
With which proofs of congeniality Valetta could not choose but be
impressed.
CHAPTER VI—THE FRESCOES OF ST. KENELM’S
Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed
Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay.—TENNYSON.
THE deferred expedition to Rockquay also began, Magdalen driving Vera and
Thekla. She was pleased with her visitors, and hoped that the girls
would feel the same, but Vera began by declaring that _that_ Miss
Merrifield was not pretty.
“Not exactly, but it is an honest, winning face.”
“So broad, and such a wide mouth, and no style at all, as I should have
expected after all that about lords and ladies! An old blue serge and
sailor hat!”
“You don’t expect people to drive about the country in silk attire?”
“Well, perhaps she is not out! Sister, do you know I am seventeen?”
“Yes, my dear, certainly.”
“Oh, look, look, there’s a dear little calf!” broke in Thekla, “and, oh!
what horns the cows have. I shall be afraid to go near them! Was it
only a sham mad bull when the little girl ran into the pond?”
“It was the railway whistle, and she had never heard it in the fields.
She rushed away in a great fright and ran into the pond, full of horrible
black mud. The gentlemen heard the scream and dragged her out, and it
would have all been fun and a good story if she had not been so much
afraid of the French lady’s maid. It is curious how the sight of those
brown eyes brought the whole scene back to me. We all grew so fond of
Mysie Merrifield in the few days we spent together, and she is very
little altered.”
“Is she out?” asked Vera once more.
“Oh, yes, she cannot be less than twenty.”
“And I am seventeen,” said Vera, returning to the charge. “I ought to be
out.”
“If there are nice invitations, I shall be quite ready to accept them for
you.”
“But I am too old for the schoolroom and lessons and masters.”
“Too old or too wise?” said Magdalen laughing.
“I have got into the highest form in everything. Every one at Filston of
my age is leaving off all the bother.”
“Not Agatha.”
“Oh, but Agatha is—!”
“Is what?
“Agatha is awfully clever, and wants to be something!”
“Something? But do you want to evaporate? To be nothing at all, I
mean,” said Magdalen, seeing her first word was bewildering, and Thekla
put in—
“Flapsy couldn’t go off in steam, could she? Isn’t that evaporating?”
“I think what she wants is to be a young lady at large! Eh, Vera? Only
I don’t quite see how that is to be managed, even if it is quite a worthy
ambition. But we will talk that over another time. Do you see how
pretty those sails are crossing the bay?”
Neither girl seemed to have eyes for the lovely blue of the sea in the
spring sunshine, nor the striking forms of ruddy peaks of rock that
enclosed it. Uneducated eyes, she thought, as she slowly manœuvred the
pony down the steep hill before coming to the Rockstone Cliff Road. The
other two girls were following her direction across field and road, and
making their observations.
“A dose of lords and ladies,” said Agatha.
“I thought they were rather nice,” said Paula.
“I see how it will be,” said Agatha. “They will patronise the M.A. as
Lady Somebody’s old governess, and she will fawn upon them and run after
them, and we shall be on those terms.”
“But I thought you meant to be a governess?”
“I shall make my own line. I know how swells look on a governess of the
_ancien régime_, and how they will introduce her as the kindly old goody
who mends my little lady’s frock!”
“The girl had not any airs,” said Paula. “She told me about the churches
down there in the town—not the ones we went to on Sunday; but there’s one
that is very low indeed, and St. Andrew’s, which is their parish church,
was suiting the moderate high church folk; and there is St. Kenelm’s,
very high indeed, Mr. Flight’s, I think I have heard of him, and it is
just the right thing, I am sure.”
“Don’t flatter yourself that the M.A. will let you have much pleasure in
it. It is just what people of her sort think dangerous.”
“But do you know, Nag, I do believe that it is the church that Hubert
Delrio was sent down to study and make a design for.”
“Whew! There will be a pretty kettle of fish if he comes down about it!
That is, if he and Flapsy have not forgotten all about the ice and the
forfeits at Warner’s Grange, as is devoutly to be hoped.”
“Do you hope it really, Nag, for Flapsy really was very much—did care
very much.”
“I have no great faith in Flapsy’s affections surviving the contact with
greater swells.”
“Poor Hubert!”
“Perhaps his will not survive common sense. I am sure I hope not for
both their sakes.”
“But, Nag, it would be very horrid of them if they had no constancy,”
declared the more romantic Paula.
“It will be a regular mess if they do have it, and bring on horrid
scrapes with the M.A. Just think. It is all very well to say she has
known Hubert all his life; but she can’t treat him as a gentleman, or she
won’t. She has a position to keep up with all these swells, and he will
be only the man who paints the church! I only hope he will not come.
There will be nothing but bother if he does, unless they both have more
sense and less constancy than you expect. Well, this really is a
splendid view. Old Mr. Delrio would be wild about it.”
Here the steep and stony hill brought them into contact with the pony
carriage, nor were there any more confidential conversations. The pony
was put up at the top of the hill leading from Rockstone to Rockquay, and
thence the party walked down for Miss Prescott to make a few purchases,
and, moreover, to begin by gratifying Thekla’s reiterated entreaty for a
bicycle, though, as she was unpractised and growing so fast, it was
decided to be better to hire a tricycle for practice, and one bicycle on
which Vera and Paula might learn the art.
The choice was a long one, and left only just time for a peep into the
two churches and a study of the hours of their services. St. Kenelm’s
was decided to be a “perfect gem,” ornaments, beauty, and all, a little
overdone, perhaps, in Magdalen’s opinion, but perfectly “the thing” in
her sisters’.
This St. Andrew’s fulfilled to her mind, being handsome, reverent, and
decorous in all the arrangements, while to the younger folk it was “all
very well,” but quite of the old times. Little did they know of “old
times” beyond the quarter century of their birth! Poor old Arnscombe
might feebly represent them, but even that had struggled out of the
modern “dark ages.” Magdalen had decided on talking to Agatha and seeing
how far she understood the situation, and she came to her room to put her
in possession now that Mrs. Best had left the guest chamber free.
“This is your home when you are here. You must put up any belongings
that you do not want to take to St. Robert’s.”
“Thank you; it is a nice pleasant room.”
“And, my dear, may I stay a few minutes? I think we had better have a
talk, and quite understand one another.”
“Very well.”
It was not quite encouraging, but Agatha really wished to hear, and she
advanced a wicker chair for her elder sister, and sat down on the window
seat.
“Thank you, my dear; I do not know how much Mrs. Best has told you.”
“She told us that you had always been very good to us, and that you had
been our guardian ever since we lost our mother.”
“Did she tell you what we have of our own that our father could leave
us?”
“No.”
“What amounts to about £40 a year apiece. Mrs. Best in her very great
goodness has taken you four for that amount, though her proper charge is
eighty.”
“And she never let any one guess it,” said Agatha, more warmly, “for fear
we might feel the difference. How very good of her.”
She seemed more impressed by Mrs. Best’s bounty than by Magdalen’s, but
probably she took the latter as a matter of course and obligation;
besides, the sense of it involved a sum in subtraction. However, this
was not observed by her sister, who did not want to feel obliged.
“Now that this property has come in,” continued Magdalen, “we can live
comfortably together upon it for the present, and your expenses at Oxford
can be paid, as well as masters in what may be needful for the others,
and an allowance for dress. I suppose you will want the £40 while you
are at St. Robert’s, besides the regular expenses?”
“Thank you,” warmly said.
“But I want you to understand, as I think you do, about the future, for
you must be prepared to be independent.”
“I should have wished for a career if I had been a millionaire,” said
Agatha.
“I believe you would, and it is well that you should have every
advantage. But the others. If I left you all this property, it would
not be a comfortable maintenance divided among four; and you would not
like to be dependent, or to leave the last who might not marry to a
pittance alone.”
“Certainly not,” said Agatha, with flashing eyes.
“Then you see that it is needful that you should be able to do something
for yourselves. I can give one of you at a time the power of going to
the University.”
“I don’t think Vera or Polly would wish for that,” said Agatha.
“Well, what would they wish for? I can do something towards preparing
them, and I can teach Thekla, but I should like to know what you think
would be best for them.”
“Vera’s strong point is music,” said Agatha. “She cares for that more
than anything else, and Mr. Selby thought she had talent and might sing,
only she must not strain her voice. I don’t believe she will do much in
any other line. And Polly—she is very good, and always does her best
because it is right, but I don’t think anything is any particular
pleasure to her, except needlework. She is always wanting to make things
for the church. She really has a better voice than Flapsy, and can play
better, but that is because she is so much steadier.”
“Seventeen and sixteen, are they not?”
“Yes; but Polly seems ever so much older than Flapsy.”
“Mrs. Best showed me that she had higher marks. She must be a thoroughly
good girl.”
“That she is,” cried Agatha, warmly. “She never had any task for getting
into mischief.”
“Well, they are both so young that a little study with me will be good
for them, and there will be time to judge what they are fit for. In art
I think they are not much interested.”
“Paula draws pretty well, but Vera hates it. Old Mr. Delrio is always
cross to her now; but—” Agatha stopped short, remembering that there
might be a reason why the drawing master no longer made her a favourite
pupil.
“Do you think him a good judge?”
“Yes; Mrs. Best thinks much of him. He had an artist’s education, and
sometimes has a picture in the Water Colour Exhibition; but I believe he
did not find it answer, and so he took our school of art.”
Agatha had talked sensibly throughout the conference, but not
confidentially; much, in fact, as she would have discussed her sisters
with Mrs. Best. She was glad that at the moment the sound of the piano
set them listening. She did not feel bound to mention to “sister” any
more than she would to the head mistress, that when staying at Mr.
Waring’s country house a sort of semi-flirtation had begun with Hubert
Delrio, a young man to whose education his father had sacrificed a great
deal, and who was a well-informed and intelligent gentleman in all his
ways. He had engaged himself to the great firm of Eccles and Beamster,
ecclesiastical decorators, and might be employed upon the intended
frescoes of St. Kenelm’s Church.
Ought “Sister” to be told?
But Agatha thought it would be betraying confidence to “set on the
dragon”; and besides nobody ever could tell how much Vera’s descriptions
meant. She knew already that the sweetest countenance in the world and
the loveliest dark eyes belonged to a fairly good-looking young man, and
she could also suspect that the “squeeze of my hand” might be an ordinary
shake, and the kneeling before the one he loved best might have been only
the customary forfeit. On the whole, it would be better to let things
take their course; it was not likely that either was seriously smitten,
and it was more than probable that Hubert Delrio would be too busy to
look after a young lady now in a different stratum, and that Vera would
have found another sweetest countenance in the world.
All this passed through her mind while Magdalen listened, and pronounced—
“That is brilliant—a clever touch—only—”
“Yes, that is Vera—I know what you are noticing, but this is only
amusement; she is not taking pains.”
“It is very clever—especially as probably she has no music. But there—”
“Polly’s? Oh, yes; she is really steady-going. That is just what you
will find her. This is a charming room, sister; thank you very much.”
“Make it your home, my dear.”
But in reality they were not much nearer together than before the
conference.
CHAPTER VII—SISTER AND SISTERS
“Have we not all, amid earth’s petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a nobler life?
We lost it in the daily jar and fact,
And now live idly in a vain regret.”
ADELAIDE PROCTER.
AGATHA was so much absorbed in her preparation for St. Robert’s that she
did not pay very much heed to her younger sisters or their relations with
Magdalen. She had induced them to submit to the regulation of their
studies with her pretty much as if she had been Mrs. Best, looking upon
her, however, as something out of date, and hardly up to recent opinions,
not realising that, of late, Magdalen’s world had been a wide one.
Perhaps, in Agatha’s feelings, there was an undercurrent inherited from
her mother, who had always felt the better connected, better educated
step-daughter, a sort of alien element, exciting jealousy by her
companionship to her father, and after his death, apt to be regarded as a
scarcely willing, and perhaps censorious pay-master.
“Your sister might call it too expensive.” “I must ask your sister.”
“No, your sister does not think she can afford it. I am sure she might.
Her expenses must be nothing.” All this had been no preparation for full
sisterly confidence with “Sister,” even when a sort of grudging gratitude
was extracted, and Agatha had been quite old enough to imbibe an
undefined antagonism, though, being a sensible girl, she repressed the
manifestations, kept her sisters in order and taught them not to love but
to submit, and herself remained in a state of civil coolness, without an
approach beyond formal signs of affection, and such confidence.
It was the more disappointing to Magdalen, because Agatha and Paulina
both showed so much unconscious likeness to their father, not only in
features, but in little touches of gesture and manner. She longed to pet
them, and say, “Oh, my dears, how like papa!” but the only time she
attempted it, she was met by a severe, uncomprehending look and manner.
And Agatha went away to Oxford without any thawing on her part.
The only real ground that had been gained was with little Thekla, who was
soon very fond of “Sister,” and depended on her more and more for
sympathy and amusement. Girls of seventeen and sixteen do not delight in
the sports of nine-year-olds, except in the case of special pets and
_protégées_, and Thekla was snubbed when a partner was required to assist
in doll’s dramas, or in evening games. Only “Sister” would play
unreservedly with her, unaware or unheeding that this was looked on as
keeping up the _métier_ of governess. Indeed, Thekla’s reports of
schoolroom murmurs and sneers about the M.A. had to be silenced. Peace
and good will could best be guarded by closed ears. Yet, even then,
Thekla missed child companionship, and, even more, competition, the lack
of which rendered her dull and listless over her lessons, and when
reproved, she would beg to be sent to school, or, at least, to attend the
High School on her bicycle. Not admiring the manners or the attainments
of the specimens before her, Magdalen felt bound to refuse, and the
sisters’ pity kept alive the grievance.
She had, however, decided on granting the bicycles. She had found plenty
of use for her own, for it was possible with prudent use of it, avoiding
the worst parts of the road, to be at early celebration at St. Andrew’s,
and get to the Sunday school at Arnscombe afterwards; and Paulina, with a
little demur, decided on giving her assistance there.
At a Propagation of the Gospel meeting at the town hall, the Misses
Prescott were introduced to the Reverend Augustine Flight, of St.
Kenelm’s, and his mother, Lady Flight, who sat next to Magdalen, and
began to talk eagerly of the designs for the ceiling of their church, and
the very promising young artist who was coming down from Eccles and
Beamster to undertake the work.
The church had not yet been seen, and the conversation ended in the
sisters coming back to tea, at which Paula was very happy, for the talk
had something of the rather exclusive High Church tone that was her
ideal. She had seen it in books, but had never heard it before in real
life, and Vera was in a restless state, longing to hear whether the
promising young artist was really Hubert Delrio, and hoping, while she
believed that she feared, that she should blush when she heard his name.
However, she did not, though Mr. Flight unfolded his rough plans for the
frescoes, which were to be of virgin and child martyrs, Magdalen
hesitating a little over those that seemed too legendary; while old Lady
Flight, portly and sentimental, declared them so sweet and touching.
After tea, they went on to the church. Just at the entrance of the
porch, Vera clutched at Paula, with the whisper, “Wasn’t that Wilfred
Merrifield? There, crossing?”
“Nonsense,” was Paula’s reply, as she lingered over the illuminated list
of the hours of services displayed at the door, and feeling as if she had
attained dreamland, as she saw two fully habited Sisters enter, and bend
low as they did so.
The church was very elaborately ornamented, small, but showing that no
expense had been spared, though there was something that did not quite
accord with Magdalen’s ideas of the best taste; so that when they went
out she answered Paula’s raptures of admiration somewhat coldly, or what
so appeared to the enthusiastic girl.
The next day, meeting Miss Mohun over cutting out for a working party,
Magdalen asked her about the Flights and St. Kenelm’s.
“He is an excellent good man,” said Jane Mohun, “and has laid out immense
sums on the church and parish.”
“All his own? Not subscription?”
“No. He is the only son of a very rich City man, a brewer, and came here
with his mother as a curate, as a good place for health. They found a
miserable little corrugated-iron place, called the Kennel Chapel, and
worked it up, raising the people, and doing no end of good till it came
to be a district, as St. Kenelm’s.”
“Very ornamental?”
“Oh, very,” said Jane, warming out of caution, as she felt she might
venture showing city gorgeousness all over. “But it is infinitely to his
credit. He had a Fortunatus’ purse, and was a spoilt child—not in the
bad sense—but with an utterly idolising mother, and he tried a good many
experiments that made our hair stand on end; but he has sobered down, and
is a much wiser man now—though I would not be bound to admire all he
does.”
“I see there are Sisters? Do they belong to his arrangements?”
“Yes. They are what my brother calls Cousins of Mercy. The elder one
has tried two or three Sisterhoods, and being dissatisfied with all the
rules, I fancy she has some notion of trying to set up one on her own
account at Mr. Flight’s. They are both relations of his mother, and are
really one of his experiments—fancy names and fancy rules, of course. I
believe the young one wanted to call herself Sister Philomena, but that
he could not stand. So they act as parish women here, and they do it
very well. I liked Sister Beata when I have come in contact with her,
and I am sure she is an excellent nurse. They will do your nieces no
harm, though I don’t like the irregular.”
Of this assurance Magdalen felt very glad, when at the door of the parish
room, where the ladies were to hold a working party for the missions,
Carrigaboola Missions at Albertstown, she and her nieces were introduced
to the two ladies in hoods and veils; and Paula’s eyes sparkled with
delight as she settled into a chair next to Sister Mena. She looked as
happy as Vera looked bored! Conversation was not possible while a
missionary memoir was being read aloud, but the history of Mother
Constance, once Lady Herbert Somerville, but then head at Dearport, and
founder of the Daughter Sisterhood at Carrigaboola. To the Merrifields
it was intensely interesting, and also to Magdalen; but all the time she
could see demonstrations passing between Paula and Sister Mena, a
nice-looking girl, much embellished by the setting of the hood and veil,
as if the lending of a pair of scissors or the turning of a hem were an
act of tender admiration. So sweet a look came out on Paula’s face that
she longed to awaken the like. Vera meantime looked as if her only
consolation lay in the neighbourhood of a window, whence she could see up
the street, as soon as she had found whispers to Mysie Merrifield treated
as impossible.
The party at the Goyle had begun to fall into regular habits, and
struggles were infrequent. There was study in the forenoon, walks or
cycle expeditions in the afternoon, varied by the lessons in music and in
art, which Vera and Paula attended on Wednesdays and Fridays, the one in
the morning, the other after dinner. It was possible to go to St.
Andrew’s matins at ten o’clock before the drawing class, and to St.
Kenelm’s at five, after the music was over. Magdalen, whenever it was
possible, went with her sisters on their bicycles to St. Andrew’s, and
sometimes devised errands that she might join them at St. Kenelm’s, but
neither could always be done by the head of the household. And she could
perceive that her company was not specially welcome.
Valetta, the only one of the Clipstone family whose drawing was worth
cultivating, used to ride into Rockstone, escorted by her brother
Wilfred, who was in course of “cramming” with a curate on his way to his
tutor, and Vera found in casual but well-cultivated meetings and
partings, abundant excitement in “nods and becks and wreathed smiles,”
and now and then in the gift of a flower.
Paula on the other hand found equal interest and delight in meetings with
Sister Mena, especially after a thunderstorm had driven the two to take
refuge at what the Sisters called “the cell of St. Kenelm,” and tea had
unfolded their young simple hearts to one another! Magdalen had called
on the Sisters and asked them to tea at the Goyle, and there had come to
the conclusion that Sister Beata was an admirable, religious, hardworking
woman, of strong opinions, and not much cultivated, with a certain
provincial twang in her voice. She had a vehement desire for
self-devotion and consecration, but perhaps not the same for obedience.
She sharply criticised all the regulations of the Sisterhoods with which
she was acquainted, wore a dress of her own device, and with Sister Mena,
a young cousin of her own, meant to make St. Kenelm’s a nucleus for a
Sisterhood of her own invention.
Sister Mena had been bred up in a Sisterhood’s school, from five years
old and upwards, and had no near relatives. Mr. Flight was Saint, Pope
and hero to both, and Mena knew little beyond the horizon of St.
Kenelm’s, but she and Paula were fascinated with one another; and
Magdalen saw more danger in interfering than in acquiescing, though she
gave no consent to Paulina’s aspirations after admission into the perfect
Sisterhood that was to be.
CHAPTER VIII—SNOBBISHNESS
“Why then should vain repinings rise,
That to thy lover fate denies
A nobler name, a wide domain?”—SCOTT.
THE friendship with the Sisters was about three weeks old when, one
morning, scaffold poles were being erected in the new side aisle of St.
Kenelm’s Church, and superintending them was a tall dark-haired young
man. There was a start of mutual recognition; and by and by he met Paula
and Vera in the porch, and there were eager hand-clasps and greetings, as
befitted old friends meeting in a strange place.
“Mr. Hubert! I heard you were coming!”
“Miss Vera! Miss Paula! This is a pleasure.”
Then followed an introduction of Sister Mena, whose elder companion was
away, attending a sick person.
“May I ask whether you are living here?”
“Two miles off at the Goyle, at Arnscombe, with our sister.”
“So I heard! I shall see you again.” And he turned aside to give an
order, bowing as he did so.
“Is he the artist of those sweet designs?” asked Sister Mena.
“Did we not tell you?”
“And now he is going to execute them? How delicious!”
“I trust so! We must see him again. We have not heard of Edie and
Nellie, nor any one.”
“He will call on you?” said Sister Mena.
“I do not think so,” said Paula. “At least his father is really an
artist, but he is drawing-master at the High School, and Hubert works for
this firm. They are not what you call in society, and our sister is all
for getting in with Lady Merrifield and General Mohun and all the swells,
so it would never do for him to call.”
“She would first be stiff and stuck up,” said Vera, “and I could not
stand that.”
“I thought she was so kind,” said Mena.
“You don’t understand,” said Vera. “She would be kind to a workman in a
fever; but this sort—oh, no.”
“To be on an equality with the man painting the church?” said Paula.
“No, indeed! not if he were Fra Angelico and Ary Scheffer and
Michelangelo rolled into one.”
At that moment the subject referred to in that mighty conglomeration
reappeared. He was a handsome young man, his touch of Italian blood
showing just enough to give him a romantic air; and Sister Philomena
listened, much impressed by the interchange of question and answer about
“Edie and Nellie,” and the dear Warings, and the happy Christmas at the
Grange; and Vera blushed again, and Paula coloured in sympathy, as it
appeared that Mr. Delrio had never had such a splendid time.
The colloquy was ended by Mr. Flight being descried, approaching with his
mother, whereupon the two girls fled away like guilty creatures.
Presently Vera exclaimed, “Oh, Polly dear, what a complication! Poor
dear fellow! he cares for me as much as ever.”
“And you will be staunch to him in spite of all the worldly allurements,”
said Paula.
“Well, I mean Mr. Wilfred Merrifield is not half so handsome,” returned
Vera.
“Nor is he engaged in sacred work; only bent on frivolity,” said Paula;
“yet see how the M.A. encourages him with tennis and games and nonsense.”
Poor M.A., when the encouragement had only been some general merriment,
and a few games on the lawn Paulina, who had heard many confidences when
Vera returned from Waring Grange, believed altogether in the true love of
the damsel and Hubert Delrio, who had been wont to single out the
prettiest of the girls at Filstead, and she was resolved to do all she
could in their cause, being schoolgirl enough to have no scruple as to
secrecy towards Magdalen, though on the next opportunity she poured out
all to Sister Philomena’s by no means unwilling ears.
Lovers had never fallen within the young Sister’s experience, either
personally or through friends; and they had only been revealed to her in
a few very carefully-selected tales, where they were more the necessary
machinery than the main interest, for she had been bred up in an
orphanage by Sister Beata, and had never seen beyond it. So to her
Paula’s story, little as there was of it, was a perfect romance, and it
gained in colour when she related it to her senior.
Sister Beata hesitated a little, having rather more knowledge of the
world, remembering that Vera Prescott was not eighteen years old, and
doubting whether an underhand intimacy ought to be encouraged; but then
Mr. Flight had spoken of Mr. Delrio as a highly praiseworthy young man,
of decided Catholic principles; he was regular at Church services, and
had dined or supped at the Vicarage. The intercourse, as the girls had
explained, had been sanctioned by Mrs. Best in their native town, where
all parties were well known, and thus there could be no harm in letting
it continue. While as to the elder Miss Prescott, she was understood to
be unduly bent on county and titled society, and to be exclusive towards
inferiors. Moreover, she was an attendant at St. Andrew’s Church, and
thus regarded as out of the pale of sympathy of the St. Kenelm’s flock.
So no obstacle was put in the way of the gossips, for they were really
nothing more, except that there was admiration of the designs for the
side chapel, which were of the Scripture children on one side, and on the
other of child martyrs. Now and then there was a reference to the
chilliness and hardship of living with an unsympathising sister, and
being obliged to go to churches of which they did not approve. Sometimes
too there were airy castles of a distant future to be shared by the
magnificent architect, together with Vera, while Paula nursed in the
convent with Mother Beata and Sister Philomena.
But all this did not prevent an excitement and eager laughter and chatter
whenever Wilfred Merrifield came in the way, and he certainly was enough
attracted by Vera’s pretty face and lively graces to make his sisters
think him very absurd; but his mother had seen so many passing fancies
among her elder sons as to hold that blindness was better than serious
treatment.
There was the further effect that Magdalen had no suspicion that the
vehement attraction to St. Kenelm’s went beyond the harmless quarter of
the two nursing Sisters and some hero worship of Mr. Flight. Miss Mohun,
who knew everything, had indeed hinted that something foolish might be
going on there; but Magdalen had not decided on the mutual fairness of
the two congregations, and deferred investigation till Agatha should come
home, when she would have a reasonable, if cold, person to deal with.
Nor did Thekla’s chatter excite any suspicion; for the only time when she
had been present at a meeting with Mr. Delrio, she had been half bribed,
half threatened into silence, and she was quite schoolgirl enough to feel
that such was the natural treatment of authority, though she had become
really fond of “sister.”
CHAPTER IX—GONE OVER TO THE ENEMY
“Can I teach thee, my beloved? can I teach thee?”
E. B. BROWNING.
AGATHA came home in due time, and Magdalen sent her sister to meet her at
the station, where they found a merry Clipstone party in the waggonette
waiting for Gillian, who was to come home at the same time. There was so
much discussion of the new golf ground, that Vera had hardly a hand or a
glance to bestow on Mr. Delrio, who jumped out of the same train, shook
hands with Agatha, and bestirred himself in finding her luggage and
calling a cab.
“How he is improved! What a pleasing, gentlemanly fellow he looks!” she
exclaimed, as she waved her thanks, while driving off in the cab.
“Is he not?” said Paula, while Vera bridled and blushed. “You will be
delighted with his work. I never saw anything more lovely than little
St. Cyriac the martyr.”
“He is taken from Mrs. Henderson’s little boy,” added Vera; “such a dear
little darling.”
“And his mother is to be done; indeed, he has sketched her for St.
Juliet.”
“Flapsy! St. Romeo, too, I suppose?”
“Nonsense, Nag! There really was a St. Juliet or Julitta, and she was
his mother, and they both were martyrs. I will tell you all the
history,” began Paula; but Agatha interposed.
“You must like having him down here. Sister must be much pleased with
him. She used to like old Mr. Delrio.”
“Well, we have not said much about him,” owned Paula. “He does not seem
to wish it, or expect to be in with swells.”
“We could not stand his being treated like a common house-painter and
upholsterer,” added Vera.
“Surely no one does so,” said Agatha.
“Not exactly,” said Paula; “at least, he has had supper at St. Kenelm’s
Vicarage with Lady Flight, and luncheon at Carrara with Captain and Mrs.
Henderson.”
“Because he was _doing_ the child,” interposed Vera; “and Thekla says
that Primrose Merrifield says that her Aunt Jane—that is, old Miss
Mohun—says that Lady Flight is not a gentlewoman.”
“What has that to do with Magdalen?”
“Why, she is so taken up with those swells of hers, especially now that
there is a talk of Lord Somebody’s yacht coming in, that she would never
treat him as on equal terms, but just keep him at a distance, like a mere
decorator.”
“That seemed to me just what you were doing,” said Agatha, “when he was
so kind and helpful about my box.”
“Oh, _they_ were all there, and we did not want to be talked of,” said
Vera, blushing. “He understands.”
“He understands,” repeated Paula. “We do see him at the church and at
the Sisters’. Those dear Sisters! There is no nonsense about them. You
will love them, Nag.”
“Well, it does not seem to me to be treating our own sister Magdalen
fairly.”
“The M.A.!” said Vera, in a tone of wonder.
“No; not to be intimate with a person you do not introduce to her,
because you do not think she would consider him as on equal terms.”
“Sister Beata quite approves,” added Paula, sincerely, not guessing how
little Sister Beata knew of the situation, of which she only heard
through the medium of her own representations to Sister Mena.
The two girls rushed into the charms of these two Sisters, and the plan
for an entertainment for the maidens of the Guild of St. Milburgha, at
which they were to assist. It lasted up to the gate of the Goyle, where
Magdalen and Thekla were ready to meet them; and they trooped merrily up
the hill, Agatha keeping to Magdalen’s side in a way that struck her as
friendly and affectionate. It seemed to be more truly coming _home_ than
the elder sister had dared to anticipate; nor, indeed, did she feel the
veiled antagonism to herself that had previously disappointed her.
The talk was about St. Robert’s, about Oxford in general, the new
friends, the principal, the games, the debates, the lectures, the
sermons, the celebrities, the undergraduates, the concerts, the chapels,
the boats, the architecture; all were touched on for further discussion
by and by as they sat at the evening meal, and then on the chairs and
cushions in the verandah; and through all there was no exclusion of the
elder sister, but rather she was the one who could appreciate the
interest of what Agatha had seen and heard; and even she was allowed to
enter into the amusement of an Oxford _bon mot_, sometimes, indeed, when
it was far beyond Paula and Vera.
There was no doubt that the term had much improved Agatha even in
appearance and manner. She held herself better, pronounced better,
uttered no slangish expressions, and twice she repressed little
discourtesies on the part of her sisters, and neglects such as were not
the offspring of tender familiarity, but of an indifference akin to
rudeness. Magdalen had endured, knowing how bad it was for their
manners, but unwilling to become more of an annoyance than could be
helped. The indescribable difference in Agatha’s whole manner sent
Magdalen to bed happier than she had been since the arrival of her
sisters, and feeling as if Agatha had come to her own side of a barrier.
Perhaps it was quite true; for the last two months had been a time of
growth with the maiden, changing her from a schoolgirl to a student, from
the “brook to the river.” She had, indeed, studied hard, but that she
had always done, as being clever, intellectual and ambitious. The
difference had been from her intercourse with persons slightly her
elders, but who did not look on authorities as natural enemies, to be
tolerated for one’s own good. There had been a development of the
conscience and soul even in this first term that made her regard her
elder sister not merely with a sense of compulsory gratitude and duty,
but with sympathy and fellow feeling, which were the more excited when
she saw her own chilliness of last spring carried further by the two
young girls.
So breakfast went off merrily; and after the round of the garden and the
pets, Agatha promised to come, when summoned, to hear how well Thekla
could read French. In the meantime she waited in the morning-room,
looking at her sisters’ books; Vera pushed aside the Venetian blind.
“Don’t come in that way, Flapsy!” called Paula. “You’ll be heard in the
dining-room, and the M.A. will tremble at your dusty feet.”
“They aren’t dusty,” said Vera, pulling up the blind with a clatter.
“Aren’t they?” laughed Paula, pointing.
“You had better go and wipe them,” said Agatha.
“I don’t believe in M.A.’s fidgets,” returned Vera.
“But I do, in proper deference to the head of the house,” said Agatha,
gravely.
“Murder in Irish!” cried Vera, bouncing away, while Paula argued,
“Really, Nag, life is not long enough to attend to all the M.A.’s little
worries.”
“Polly, dear, I am afraid we have been on a wrong tack with our sister.
I don’t like calling her by that name.”
“You began it!” exclaimed Vera, dashing in by the door as she spoke.
“I could not have meant it as a nickname to be always in use.”
“Oh yes, you did, I remember”—and an argument was beginning, which Agatha
cut short by saying, “Any way, it is bad taste.”
“Nag has been so much among the real M.A. that she is tender about their
title.”
“She wants to be one herself,” said Vera; “and so she will if she goes on
getting learned and faddy.”
“In both senses?” said Paula.
Agatha laughed a little, but added, “No, Polly, the thing is that it is
hardly kind or right to put that sort of label upon a person like
Magdalen—who has done so much for us—and—”
The perverse young hearts could not bear a touch on the chord of
gratitude; and Paula burst in, “Label or libel, do you mean?”
“It becomes a libel as you use it.”
“Do you want us to call her sister or Magdalen, the whole scriptural
mouthful at once?”
“I believe that to call her Magdalen or Maidie, as my father did, would
make her feel nearer to us than the formal way of saying ‘Sister.’”
“I don’t mind about changing,” said Paula. “She can never be the same to
us as dear Sister Mena.”
“She is so tiresome,” added Vera. “She bothers so over my music; calling
out if I make ever so small a slip, and making me go over all again.”
“Well she may,” said Paula. “She is making little Tick play so nicely.
Just listen! But I can’t bear her dragging us off to that horrid old
Arnscombe Church and the nasty stuffy Sunday school.”
“That reminds me,” said Agatha; “Gillian Merrifield met a relation of Mr.
Earl’s, who said that Miss Prescott had brought quite new life and spirit
to the poor old man, who had been getting quite out of heart for want of
any one to help and sympathise with him.”
“Then he ought to make his services more Catholic,” said Paula. “But
nothing will wean her from the old parochial idea. Why, she would not
let me give my winter stockings to Sister Beata’s poor girls, but made me
darn them and put them by.”
“Yes, and mine, which were bad enough to give away, she made me darn
first,” cried Vera. “She is ever so much worse than the superlative
about mending one’s clothes.”
“There ought to be another degree of comparison,” said
Paula,—“Botheratissima!”
“For, only think!” said Vera. “She won’t let us have new hats, but only
did up the old ones, and not with feathers, though there is such a love
at Tebbitts’s at Rockstone.”
“She says it is cruel,” said Paula.
“Cruel to me, I am sure; and what difference does it make when the birds
are once killed?”
“Well, she did give us those lovely wreaths of lilies,” said Paula.
“Of course, but nothing to make them stylish! What’s the good of being
out if one is to have nothing _chic_? And she won’t let me have a hockey
outfit. She says she must see more of it to be able to judge whether to
let us play!”
“That just means seeing whether her dear Merrifields do,” said Paula.
“Gillian did at St. Catherine’s. But you will know soon. Did I not hear
something about a garden party?”
“Oh, yes; she is talking of one, but it will be all swells and croquet,
and deadly dull.”
“I thought you seemed to be getting on well with the swells, if you mean
the Merrifields, especially Wilfred, if that is his name.”
“Bil—Bil! Oh, he is all very well,” said Vera, “if he would not be
always so silly and come after me! As if I cared!”
“And only think,” said Paula, “that she was going to have it on the very
day that St. Milburga’s Guild has their festival! Just as if it was on
purpose!”
“Did you ask her to keep clear of your engagements?”
“I told her, but I don’t think she listened.” And as another grievance
suggested itself to Vera, she declared, “And she won’t let us join the
Girls’ Magazine Club, because she saw one she didn’t like on somebody’s
table. As if we were little babies!”
“She won’t let us order books at the library, but gets such awfully slow
ones,” chimed in Paula, “or only baby stories fit for Thekla. She made
me return that book dear Sister Mena lent me, because she said it was
Roman Catholic.”
“And hasn’t she got Thomas à Kempis on her table? and I’m sure he was
Roman Catholic. There’s consistency!”
“You don’t understand,” began Agatha. “He was a great Saint before the
Catholics became so Roman.”
“Oh, never mind! It is anything to thwart us,” cried Vera. “It is ever
so much worse than school.”
“But,” began Agatha, and the tone of consideration to that one
conjunction caused an outburst. “Oh, Nag, Nag, if you are gone over to
the enemy, what will life be worth?”
As that terrible question was propounded, in burst Thekla with, “Oh, Nag,
Nag, they are cutting the hay in the high torr field, and sister says we
may go and see them before I read my French.”
“Oh!” cried Vera, with a prolongation into a groan, “is she going to be
tiresome?”
“She has come to be quite a don,” said Paula; “but never mind, we will
soon make her all right again.”
The two sisters had to go to their different classes in the afternoon,
and wanted Agatha to go with them; but it was a very warm day, and she
preferred resting in the garden, and, to Magdalen’s surprise and
pleasure, conversation with her. At first it was about Oxford matters,
very interesting, but public and external to the home, and it did not
draw the cords materially closer; but when Thekla had privately decided
that even hanging upon the newly recovered Nag was not worth the
endurance of anything so tedious, and had gone off to assist her beloved
old gardener in gathering green gooseberries, Magdalen observed that she
was a very pleasant little pupil, and was getting on very well,
especially with arithmetic.
“That was the strong point in the junior classes,” said Agatha; “better
taught than it was in my time.”
“I wish she could have more playfellows,” said Magdalen. “She would like
to go to the High School at Rockquay, but there are foundations I should
wish to lay before having her out of my own hands.”
“I should think you were her best playfellow. She seems very fond of
you, and very happy.”
“Yes,” said Magdalen, rather wistfully. “I think she generally is so.”
“Maidie! may I call you by the old home name?” And as Magdalen answered
with a kiss and tearful smile, “Do tell me, please, if Polly and Flapsy
are nice to you?”
Magdalen was taken by surprise at the pressure of the hand and the eyes
that gazed into her face full of expression.
She could not keep the drops from rushing to her own eyes, though she
smiled through them and said, “As nice as they know how.”
“I am afraid I know what that means,” said Agatha.
“If I only knew how to prevent their looking on me as their governess,”
continued Magdalen; “but I must have got into the groove, and I suppose I
do not always remember how much must be tolerated if love has to be won;
and Paula is a thoroughly good girl.”
“Yes, I am sure she wishes to be,” said Agatha. “Are those Sisters nice
that she talks of so eagerly?”
“They are very excellent women, but somehow I should have had more
confidence in them if they were not unattached, or belonged to some
regular Sisterhood. I wish she had taken instead to Mysie Merrifield,
who is more of my sort; but no one can control those likings.”
“I don’t think Gillian very attractive; she is so wrapped up in her
work,” confessed Agatha.
“You will see them all, I hope, for I am giving a garden party next week,
perhaps. Have not they told you?”
“Oh, yes; but Polly seemed bent on its not clashing with some festival at
St. Kenelm’s.”
“Therefore I had not fixed the day till I had heard what is settled. I
have invited people for Thursday, which will hardly interfere.”
“Did you know that the young man who is painting the ceiling at St.
Kenelm’s Church is old Mr. Delrio’s son Hubert?”
“Indeed! Is he staying here? We must ask him to come up to luncheon or
to tea. I am glad he is doing so well. I heard Eccles and Beamster were
to do the decorations; I suppose they employ him. I should think it was
a very good line to get into.”
This was on a Friday; and the next day Magdalen proposed driving down in
the cool of the evening to see the decorations at St. Kenelm’s and their
artist; but it turned out that he was gone to spend Sunday at the
Cathedral city, and all that could be done was to admire the designs, and
listen to Paula’s enthusiastic explanation.
Magdalen consulted Agatha whether to send young Delrio a card for the
garden party; but they decided that it was too late for an invitation to
be sent, though a spoken one might have been possible. Besides, it was
not likely to be pleasant to a stranger who knew no one but the Flights
and Hendersons, and those professionally. Agatha told her sisters, and
with one voice they declared that they would not see him patronised;
while Agatha’s acute senses doubted whether Vera’s objection was not
secretly based on the embarrassment of a double flirtation with him and
with Wilfred Merrifield.
Indeed, Vera told her gaily: “Only think, Nag, I did have a jolly ride on
the M.A.’s bike after all.”
“Indeed! Then she lent it to you.”
“Not she! But she and the little kid were safe gone to Avoncester, and
Paula was with her dear Sisters, so Will and I took a jolly spin along
the cliff road; and it was such screaming fun. Only once we thought we
saw old Sir Jasper coming, and we got behind a barn, but it turned out to
be only a tripper, and we had such a laugh.”
“Paula does not know?”
“What would be the good of telling her, with her little nun’s schoolgirl
mind? She would only make no end of a fuss about a mere bit of fun and
nonsense.”
“I think if Wilfred Merrifield was afraid to meet his father, it showed a
sense of wrong.”
“Sir Jasper is a horrid old martineau, who never gives them any peace at
home, but is always after them.”
“A martinet, I suppose you mean. I don’t think that makes it any better.
I should not be happy till Magdalen knew.”
“Why, no harm was done! There’s her precious machine all safe! It was
just for the fun of the thing, and to try how it goes. One can’t be kept
in like a blessed baby! She never has guessed it. That’s the fun of
it.”
“I would not return her kindness in such an unladylike way when she is
trusting you, Vera.”
Did Magdalen know what had been done? She did guess, for there was a
mark on the wheel that she did not remember to have known before, and it
cost her a bitter pang of mistrust; but she abstained from inquiries,
thinking that they might only do harm. But she bought a chain for her
bicycle; and Agatha felt more shame than did Vera, who tried to believe
herself amused by her tacit sense of emancipation.
CHAPTER X—FLOWN
“Till now thy soul hath been all glad and gay,
Bid it arise and look on grief to-day.”
ADELAIDE PROCTOR.
THERE was a Guild at St. Kenelm’s which was considered by the promoters
to be superior to the Girls’ Friendly Society, and which comprised about
a dozen young women, who attended classes held by Sister Beata, and
occasional modest entertainments given by Lady Flight.
One of these was to take place the day before Miss Prescott’s garden
party. It was to be given at Carrara, the very pretty grounds on the top
of the cliff, belonging to Captain Henderson, the managing partner in the
extensive marble works of Mr. White, who lived at Rocca Marina, in the
Riviera. Mrs. Henderson had resided in Mr. Flight’s parish, and been a
member of his congregation, and while he was absent for a day or two she
had put her garden at the service of the Guild of St. Milburga’s for the
day.
Of course Vera and Paula were delighted to assist; but Thekla was too
young for the amusements of grown-up maidens, and was much better pleased
to help her two elder sisters in preparations for the next day, placing
tennis nets, arranging croquet hoops, mustering chairs by the verandah,
and adorning tables with flowers. Agatha’s assistance was heartily
given, as making it her own concern, and, for that reason above all
others, it was a happy day, though a very tiring one, to Magdalen, in
spite of the sultry atmosphere and the sight of lurid-looking clouds over
the moors, which did not augur well for the next day’s weather, and
caused all the arrangement of chairs and rugs to be prudently broken up
and deposited under the verandah.
This was done, and the evening meal had been taken, and Thekla had gone
to bed before some flashes of lightning made the two sisters wish to see
the other pair at home, especially as Vera was much afraid of lightning,
and Paula apt to be made quite ill by it.
The storm rolled on, bringing violent gusts of wind and hail, though not
at the very nearest, and such a hurricane of wind and rain ensued that
the two watchers concluded that the two girls must have been housed for
the night by some of the friends at Rock Quay, and it was near midnight,
when just as they had gone to their rooms, a carriage was heard ascending
the hill, and they had reached the door before Paulina sprang out with
the cry, “Is she come home?” Then at sight of the blank faces of dismay,
she seized hold of Agatha’s hands and began to sob. Mr. Flight had
stepped out of the car at the same moment, and answered the incoherent
questions and exclamations.
“Young Delrio offered to take photographs of the party, and that was the
last time she was seen.”
“Yes,” sobbed Paula, “Sister Mena saw her there. We were trying to get
up croquet, and then I missed her. I tried to find her when the
lightning began, but I could not find her anywhere, though I looked in
all the summer-houses!”
“At Mrs. Henderson’s? or Miss Mohun’s? or the Sisters’?” asked Magdalen,
catching alarm from each denial. “She might have gone home with one of
the girls.”
“She would be wild in such a storm,” said Agatha, “and not know what she
was about.”
“Sister Beata and I have gone to each house,” said Mr. Flight.
“When did you say you saw her last?”
“I saw her when we were grouped,” said Paula; “Sister Mena, when she was
helping him to put up his photos.”
“The strange thing is,” said Mr. Flight, “though no doubt it will be
explained, that Delrio is missing too.”
“Hubert Delrio!” exclaimed Agatha. “Impossible! He must have taken her
into the church to be out of the storm.”
“We have tried,” said the clergyman. And as the round of suggestions
began to be despairingly reiterated, he said, hesitating, “Miss Mohun
told me that she thought she had seen a boat, Captain Henderson’s, she
believed, in the cave with some one rocking in it; and certainly that
little boat was there, when on the hope, if it can be called a hope, I
ran down the steps to look.”
“Would it not have been put into the boathouse out of the rain?” said
Agatha.
“The gardener was gone home, out of reach round the point, but we shall
know to-morrow.”
“He thinks they may have rowed out and been caught in the storm,” cried
Paula, bursting into fresh weeping; and Magdalen saw the conjecture
confirmed by Mr. Flight’s countenance.
“I am afraid it is the least distressing—the least unsatisfactory idea,”
said he, in much agitation. “I thought Mr. Delrio an excellent young
man; and she,” indicating his companion, “tells me you know him and his
family well.”
“Oh, yes,” said Agatha and Magdalen in one breath. “We have known his
father all our lives. Nothing can be more respectable.”
“And Hubert is as steady and good as possible,” continued Agatha. “His
mother used to come to Mrs. Best and praise him, till we were quite tired
of his name; I am sure he is all right.”
“Or I should be much deceived in him,” said the clergyman.
Yet there was an idea in Paulina’s mind. Could Vera have poured out such
an exaggerated tale of oppression and unhappiness as to have induced her
old playfellow to carry her off to his mother at Filsted? She had given
some such hint to Mr. Flight on the way; but he had not seemed to hear or
attend, and he was now promising to let the sisters know as soon as
possible in the morning whether anything had been discovered, and to
telegraph to Filsted and to the office in London if he should see
occasion.
Then he drove off, in what would have been almost daylight but for the
pelting of the storm; and after a vain attempt to make Paula swallow some
nourishment, Magdalen thought it kinder to let Agatha carry her off to
bed, and then she confessed, what really gave a certain hope, that the
pair had been in the habit of murmuring against “sister” so much that,
considering poor Vera’s propensity to strong language, it was quite
possible that Hubert might think her cruelly oppressed, and for a freak
carry her off to his mother to be consoled.
Agatha tried to believe it, for the sake of hushing the exhausted Paula,
who almost went into hysterics, as she laughed at the notion of
to-morrow’s telegram that Vera was safe at Filsted; and then allowed
herself to be calmed enough to sleep, while Agatha revolved the notion,
but found herself unable seriously to believe, that sufficient grievance
could be brought against sister to induce any man in his senses to take
such a step. But then Paula had inferred that he was a lover, and Agatha
did not know of what lovers might be capable, and she could not but blame
herself for not having given more importance to the semi-confidences of
her sisters on the first day of her arrival. It was all misery; and the
two poor girls could find no solace in the morning, save in talking to
Magdalen, though that involved the confession of all the murmurs against
her, the distrust of her kindness, and the explanation of the interviews,
which, as far as Paula had ever witnessed them, were absolutely harmless,
the only pity being in their concealment.
Magdalen was manifestly as wretched as they, or even more so, being
convinced of her own shortcoming in not having won the affection or
confidence that would have made all open between them. She could not
understand why Hubert Delrio should not have been made known to her.
“We thought,” said Paula, “we thought you might not think him
enough—enough—of a gentleman for your sort of society.”
“I think you might have trusted me to know what was due to an old
friend,” said Magdalen “but, oh, I ought to have made you feel that we
could think together.”
“Perhaps,” said Agatha, “there was a little consciousness on poor dear
Vera’s part that she did not want you to know the terms she was on.”
They had tried only to let Thekla know that they were much alarmed
because Vera had gone out in a boat and not returned. It was observable
that, on the principle that where there is life there is hope, Paula
clung to the notion that Vera’s having fled to Filsted; while the two
elder sisters, perhaps because they better knew what such a flight might
seem to others, would almost have preferred to suppose there had been a
fatal accident in the midst of youthful, innocent sport.
The two were lingering sadly over their uneaten breakfast, talking more
freely when they had sent Thekla to feed her pets, when Mr. Flight came
up on his bicycle; but it was plain at the first moment that he had no
good news.
Nothing had been heard. It only appeared that one of the young gardeners
at Carrara had taken Captain Henderson’s boat without leave, to fetch one
of the girls, but on entering the cove had found the boathouse locked.
He had moored the boat to a stake for want of the ring that secured it
within. When the storm threatened he ran down to recover it, but it was
gone, and he had concluded that the gardeners had put it into the
boathouse. It now appeared that they had not seen it, and were very
angry at its having been meddled with. An oar had drifted up with the
morning tide, and had been recognised as belonging to the boat; but such
a gale was blowing that it was impossible to put out to sea or make any
search round the coast. Words could hardly describe the distress of Mr.
Flight or of his ladies at not having better looked after the young girl;
Sister Beata for never having thoroughly attended to the matter; and
Sister Mena for having accepted confidences which, if she had only
guessed it, told her more than there really was to be known. Both these
two were inclined to the elopement idea, partly because it was the least
shocking, and partly because they had looked at Vera’s grievances through
her own spectacles, and partly from their unlimited notions of young
men’s wickedness. Their vicar was not of the same opinion, knowing
Hubert better, and besides having found his work, his orders to his
subordinates, and the belongings at the lodgings in a state that showed
that whatever he had done had been unpremeditated. Sending off notes to
stop the garden party was a sort of occupation, broken by many signs,
much listening, and much sorrowful discussion, not quite vain, since it
made Paulina more one with Magdalen than ever before. Poor old Mr.
Delrio arrived in the afternoon, a thin, grey-haired and bearded old man,
who could only make it too certain that Paula’s theory of the innocent
flight to Filsted was impossible. Moreover, he was as certain as a
father could be, intimate with, and therefore confident of, his eldest
son, that though Hubert might indulge in a little lively flirtation, it
could never be otherwise than perfectly harmless. In the terrible
suspense and restlessness, he went vibrating about in the torrents of
moorland rain between Rock Quay and the Goyle, on the watch for telegrams
from the office in London or his wife at home, or for the discovery of
anything from the sea, or searching in his son’s lodgings, where nothing
was found that did not show him to have been a pure-hearted young man,
devoted to his art, and fond of poetry. Sundry compositions were in the
blotting-book, one, indeed, to Vera’s name, under the supposition (a
wrong one) {100} that it meant “true,” but mostly rough copies of a poem
about the Saints Julitta and her child Cyriac. Hope sank as another
stormy day rose; and still the poor old artist lingered in hopes of news
by some returning craft which might have picked up the derelict. His
chief comfort was in walking about between the showers with Magdalen, as
an old friend, and trying to think of the two as innocent creatures,
engulfed like mayflies in the stream.
Sister Mena came over, wanting to join Paula in bewailing entreaties; but
Paula, in youthful hard-hearted wilfulness, declared that it was
impossible to see her; and it fell to Magdalen to try to discuss the
grief with her.
It turned out that Mr. Flight had spoken severely to her and to the far
less implicated Sister Beata, declaring his confidence in them destroyed,
so that they had begun to consider of throwing up their work in his
parish. “And it was all my fault,” said Mena; “Sister Beata really knew
nothing, or hardly anything of what Vera told me.”
“Indeed, I can quite understand that you had hardly experience enough to
know that it might be wiser not to encourage what was not quite open.”
“But I thought,—I thought you—”
“That I was unkind and unsympathising.”
“Oh, you never could have been—”
“Indeed I never meant to be, but I am afraid it seemed so to my young
sisters. I can quite see how you thought you were acting kindly.”
“Oh, that is so good of you.”
“And perhaps I, being only an elder sister, you would not feel that I was
the only authority the poor girls have to look to; and that it would have
been kinder to help them to be content with me.”
“I did not know what you could be,” said Mena, greatly soothed and
surprised by her caresses.
“We often do go on in ignorance, and get on a wrong tack; but you know
God pardons our mistakes, and I do believe that you will be wiser for all
this sorrow, and better able to rise to your work. I am sure, however it
ends, that is the reason that such blows are sent to us.”
Mena went back sorrowful and chastened, but tenderly hopeful. If Miss
Prescott could forgive, surely Mr. Flight could, and One still greater.
CHAPTER XI—ADRIFT
“She splashed, and she dashed, and she turned herself round,
And heartily wished herself safe on the ground.”
JANE TAYLOR.
AND where were the missing pair?
Vera had lingered about, fancying she was helping to pack the
photographic apparatus, while the others dispersed. Presently, seeing no
one near, Hubert Delrio said, in a gentle diffident voice, “It would be a
great pleasure to me if I might ask you to listen to the verses on St.
Cyriac and his mother that the design brought with it.”
“I should love it better than anything,” said Vera, highly flattered.
“If you would come down this way, there is a charming secluded cove,
where we should be free from interruption.”
“How deliciously romantic! Quite stunning!” cried Vera, as her cavalier
conducted her down a steep path along the side of the cliff to the stony
beach, where a few red rocks had been manipulated into a tiny harbour,
with a boathouse for the little skiff in which Captain Henderson was wont
to go round to the marble works on the other side of the headland. The
boat looked very inviting as it lay swinging gently in the sluggish waves
in the advancing shade of the tall cliff; and Vera exclaimed with delight
as she was assisted into it, and placed herself comfortably on the
cushion, with one hand dabbling in the cool translucent wave. Hubert
Delrio opened his manuscript and began to read his ballad, if so it was
to be called, being the history of the little boy of four years old, who,
being taken with his mother before the tribunal at Tarsus, was lifted on
the proprætor’s knee, but struggled, crying out, “I am a Christian!” till
the proprætor, in a rage, hurled him down. His skull was fractured on
the marble pavement, and his mother gave thanks for his soul’s safety,
when she too was sentenced to be beheaded. Great pains had been taken
with the noble-minded tale; and the verses had considerable merit, more,
perhaps, than Vera could appreciate. But to read such a production of
his own, in such surroundings, to the auditor whom youthful fancy most
preferred, was such luxury to both that it was no wonder that under the
broad shady hat with the lily wreath she was nodding in the gentle
breeze, the lapping of the waves, and the soft cadence of the poetry,
till at an effective passage on the mother’s death, the poet looked up,
expecting to receive a responsive glance from those blue eyes.
Not only were they hidden, but the cliff was farther off. The mooring
rope and the stake were dragging behind in the water. The tide had
turned, and the boat was already out of reach of the rock where it had
been drawn up. His exclamation of dismay awoke Vera, who would have
started up with a little shriek, but for his, “Don’t! Don’t! I’ll row
back.”
But he was a landsman, whose only knowledge of the water was in an
occasional bathe, or in a river steamer; and his first attempt at placing
the oars in the rowlocks resulted in one falling overboard, while he
helplessly grasped the other; and Vera screamed again.
“Don’t be frightened, my dear! Dearest, don’t! We must be seen. Some
one will come out and help us.”
“Can’t you get on with one oar? They do in pictures.”
“Punting? Yes, but there must be a bottom. No, don’t move, whatever you
do. There can’t be any danger. Fishermen must be about. Or we shall be
seen from the cliffs.”
“They are getting farther off! Can’t you shout?”
Hubert shouted, and Vera added her shriller cries; but all in vain, and
the outgoing tide was carrying them, not towards the quay and marble
rocks, but farther to sea. The waves grew rougher and had crests of
foam, and discomfort began. Once the feather of a steamer was seen on
the horizon. They waved handkerchiefs and redoubled their shouts, and
Hubert had to hold his companion to prevent her from leaping up; but they
never were within the vessel’s ken, and she went on her way, while the
sea bore them farther and farther.
The shore was growing dim and indistinct, the sun was sinking, and the
cloud, that had at first shown only a golden border, was lifting tall
perpendicular masses, while the tossing of the little boat became more
and more distressing. Anxiety and sense of responsibility kept Hubert
from feeling physical discomfort; but Vera began to cry, and to declare
that it would be the death of her if she were not landed immediately.
“If it were only possible!” sighed Delrio.
“There must be some way! You are so stupid! Oh! There was a flash of
lightning.”
“Summer lightning.”
“No such thing! There will be a storm, and we shall be drowned. Oh, I
wish I had never listened to your nonsense, and got into this horrible
boat.” She was in a state for scolding, and scold she did, as the clouds
rose higher, and sheets of lightning more decided. “How could you? You,
who know nothing about boats, and going on, on, with those horrid
tiresome verses—not minding anything—I wish I had never come near you!”
Vainly the poor young fellow tried to get in a word of consolation; it
only made her scold the more, till there was no question that the storm
was raging overhead; the hail rattled and splashed, the waves raised them
to a height, then subsided into endless depths; the thunder pealed, and
she clung to Hubert, too frightened for screaming. His fear was that the
cockleshell of a boat should fill and founder; he tried to bale out the
water with his hat, and to make her assist, but she seemed incapable, and
he could only devise laying her down in the bottom of the boat with his
coat over her, hiding her face in terror. Her hat had long ago been
blown away, and her hair was flapping about. Ejaculations were in his
heart, if not on his lips, and once or twice she cried out something
like, “Save me!” but in general it was, “We are sinking! Hold me! We
are going! Paula! Nag!” clutching at his legs, so as to hamper him in
the baling out the water.
The hail passed, but there was a solid sheet of rain descending on them,
undistinguishable from the foam that rushed over them as they went down,
down, down. Vera was silenced; and Hubert, drenched and nearly beaten
out of life, almost welcomed every downward plunge as the last, tried to
commend his spirit, and was amazed to find his little boat lifted up
again, and the black darkness not so absolute.
CHAPTER XII—“THE KITTIWAKE”
“Good luck to your fishing! Whom watch ye to-night?
A man of mean, or a man of might?”—SCOTT.
SOMETHING black was before the tossed boat! Yes, and light, not
lightning. A human voice seemed to be on the blast. Hubert Delrio
essayed to shout, but his voice was gone, or was blown away. He
understood that a vessel must be above him. Would it finish all by
running him down? He perceived that he was bidden to catch something. A
rope! His benumbed hands and the heaving of the boat made him fail once,
twice, and he was being swept away as at last he did grasp a rope, and
was drawn, as it ground his hands, close to the dark wall that rose
above, with lights visible.
“Cheer up! cheer up!” he cried to Vera. “Thank God, we are saved!”
Response from her there was none; but he could hear the yell of inquiry
from ahead, and answered, “Here! Two! A woman!”
A second rope was lowered. “Lash her to it.” But as it was evident that
Delrio could do nothing but hold on, and that his companion was helpless,
a sailor descended from no great elevation, and, in another moment, the
senseless girl was hoisted up and received on deck; and, with some
assistance, Hubert was also on board, thinking of nothing but the
breathless question, “Is she safe?”
“Oh, yes! She will soon come round! Here! They will see to her.” As
she was carried away, and Hubert had a perception that she was received
by female hands, but he was utterly exhausted, and unable to see or
speak, till some stimulant had been poured down his throat, and even then
he could hardly ask, “Is she safe?
“Yes, yes! All right! Reviving fast! Here! Take some more! Bed is
ready! Get rid of those clothes!” It was an elderly, grey-haired man
who spoke, and Hubert was in no condition to resist, as the yacht was
pitching considerably, though after the boat the motion was almost rest.
He instinctively shook his head at the glass, but swallowed what was
forced upon him, and managed to say, “Thanks—sitting in boat—drifted
off—Rock Quay.”
“All right! Never mind. Take him down. My berth, Ivy—Jephson. Tuck
him in. Don’t let him speak! Never mind, my lad! We will hear all
about it to-morrow!”
Meantime, Vera, though reviving, was conscious of very little, save a
soft pillow, tender hands, and warm drink that choked her; and then she
fell asleep, though still she was aware of a strange tossing going on all
night, and by and by she found herself secured into a sort of narrow
shelf, and murmuring female voices were at hand. As she moved, she
heard, “There, you are better now. You can take this, then you will be
more comfortable.”
Her eyes had opened to a curious sort of twilight, and there was a fair
girlish head over her, with a sweet smiling face. An elderly
weather-beaten face in a hood next appeared, and a brown hand holding a
cup closed over the top, in invalid fashion, and a kind strong arm
slightly raised her with, “There, there, poor dear! The spirit, my lady
dear, the spirit! That’s right, now then.”
“You _must_ be a baby;” and a merry reassuring smile broke out as the
draught was administered. Vera tasted, thanked, swallowed, felt giddy,
and lay down, hearing a lively bit of self-gratulation. “There, Mrs.
Griggs, I’m getting my sea legs!” followed by an ignominious stumble as
Mrs. Griggs caught the cup in good time as the vessel gave a lurch which
completed Vera’s awakening in the fear of being shaken out on the floor.
She looked round to find herself in a tiny room, cushioned throughout,
with strange dancing confused light coming in, and the few articles of
furniture carefully secured. Two young figures were there, both dressed
in stout blue serge, with white trimmings; one, the darker, beside her
bed, had a face full of kindness and solicitude, yet of fun dimpling over
continually; the other, even in that dim light, striking Vera as
something out of the loveliest visions of romance, so fair and beautiful
was the countenance.
A man’s voice was at the door. “Fly! Francie! How is she?”
“Much better! Nearly well! Good morning, Papa dear. Is he all right?”
“As sound as a bell! Ha!” As the door escaped, the curtain over it
shook, and he nearly fell against it, saving himself with his hands.
“That was exercise!” As the young girls came tumbling up and disappeared
behind the curtain, where, however, the voices could be plainly heard,
“Had any sleep to-night or this morning?”
“Between whiles! O yes! All our bones are still whole, as I hope yours
and Ivy’s are.”
“Come and see. Griggs is getting breakfast under difficulties
insurmountable to any one but a sea-grasshopper! I came to call you
damsels, and present my inquiries to Miss Prescott.”
“She will soon be all right! Francie and I are so proud of having had a
real downright adventure.”
“I trust she will not be the worse, and will—excuse me, and regard me as
incognito.”
This was said as another lurch drove the grizzled head into the cabin;
and recovering in another upheaval they all disappeared, leaving Vera in
a dreaming state, whence she was only half roused when Mrs. Griggs
returned to administer breakfast, so far as she could taste it, under
exhortations, pettings, and scoldings; and she very soon fell asleep
again, and was thus left, sensible all the time of tossings and
buffetings, but so worn out by the five hours of the boat, and so liable
to be made ill by the motion of the vessel, that it was thought best to
leave her to sleep in her berth.
She was only aware of voices above talking and laughing, or sailor calls
being shouted out, or now and then of some one coming to look at her, and
insisting on her taking food.
It was not till late in the afternoon that she awoke from what seemed
like a strange long uneasy dream, and found one of the girls sitting by
her and telling her she was better now.
“Yes,” said Vera, trying to raise herself, finding something over her
head, and falling back on the pillow; “but what is it? Where is this?”
“_This_ is somewhere out in the Channel, near off Guernsey, Griggs says,
but we cannot put in anywhere till the gale goes down.”
“What is it? Is it a ship, then?”
“O yes,” said the girl, laughing; “a yacht, the _Kittiwake_. Sir Robert
Audley has lent it to my brother, and we are all going to see the
Hebrides and Staffa and Iona.”
“Not to take me all up there?” groaned poor Vera, in horror. “Can’t you
put me out somewhere, anywhere?”
“Don’t be afraid,” was the much-amused reply. “As soon as ever we can
put in anywhere, we can telegraph to Rock Quay and put you ashore to go
home; but we can only run before the wind while the sea is so high. I
wish you could come on deck, it is so jolly!”
“Oh! it was too dreadful!”
“Beating about in the boat! It must have been, Mr. Delrio told us.”
“It was so stupid in him never to see that we had got loose, and were
drifting off,” said Vera, who had never thought of inquiring after him.
“My father and Griggs think he behaved quite like a hero,” was the
answer. “He must have managed very well to keep you afloat, and saved
you all this time.”
“I suppose so,” said Vera. “We always did know him, or I should not have
let him get me into that boat, when he minded nothing but his verses.”
“Those verses, they came all limp and wet out of his pocket, and Francie
made him let her dry them and copy them out; and she is so delighted with
them. It really is well it is too late to call the baby Cyriac.”
“The baby?”
“Oh, yes. We had to leave him behind, though Francie was ready to break
her heart over it; but they said that nothing would do for Ivinghoe—after
this second influenza—but a sea voyage, so she had to make up her mind to
leave him to my mother.”
Vera was in a state of bewilderment, caring a great deal more for herself
and her own sensations than for any of her surroundings; and her next
question was, “When do you think we shall be out of this?”
“We shall put into harbour somewhere as soon as the wind lulls. We
cannot venture yet, though we do steam; and then we can telegraph. I am
longing to relieve Miss Prescott. We can take you home all the way. We
were on our way into Rock Quay to take up Mysie Merrifield if she can go.
It really was a wonderful and most merciful thing that we made you out
just as it was getting light before running you down. My father saw you
first, and old Griggs would hardly believe it, but then we heard Mr.
Delrio’s hail! But it was a terrible business getting you up the ship’s
side.”
“I did not know anything about it. It was so dreadful in the lightning.
And my new hat was blown away. And what is become of all my clothes?”
“Mrs. Griggs has them, and is drying them. We will lend you a hat to
land in.”
“Oh, when we do! I wish I had never got into that boat, but Hubert
Delrio did persuade me so.”
“And he is an old friend?”
“Yes, he is come to paint the roof of St. Kenelm’s Church, and we want to
be attentive to him because my eldest sister would be sure to be cross
and keep him at a distance, being only that sort of wall painter, you
know, and his father a drawing master.”
“My father is very much pleased with him, and thinks him a very superior
young man. They have been sitting on deck together, talking as much as
they could about architecture and Italy, with their breath all blown away
every moment. There! You are really getting better! If you would eat
something and come on deck you would be well! I will call the sea gnat,
and see what we have.”
It was all very wonderful to Vera; and she began to be interested and to
forget her troubles. A slice of very salt ham was brought to her and a
glass of something, she did not know what, and asked if she could have
some tea.
“You could have tea if you like, but there’s no milk. You see, we ought
to have been in at Rock Quay yesterday evening, and our stores were not
adapted to hold out any longer! We shall have another curious
experience, though Mrs. Griggs says it won’t be so bad as once when they
were off the coast of Ireland, and when they put into a bay with a queer
name, all Kill and Bally, they could get nothing but potatoes and goat’s
milk.”
“Who is Mrs. Griggs?”
“She is wife to the sailing master; and, like the Norsemen, her home is
on the wave, at least in the yacht, for she always lives in it, and her
cabin is quite a sight; she is great fun, she cooks when there is
anything to cook, and is stewardess and everything. Francie and I knew a
maid would be a vain encumbrance, so we are taking care of ourselves,
and, if you will let me, I will try and set your hair to rights.”
It was in a fearful tangle, after five hours at sea, and many more in the
berth in the cabin; but Vera was able to sit up in a dainty
dressing-gown, and submit to treatment not quite that of a hairdresser,
but made as lively as could be by little jokes and kindly apologies at
any extra hard pull at the knots, which really seemed “as if a witch had
twined them;” and the two began to feel well acquainted with each other
over the operation, though Vera was somewhat impressed when she observed
that the brush was ivory handled.
Her bicycling skirt was in tolerable condition, but her once delicate
blue blouse was past renovation, so she was invested with a borrowed
white one, and led in triumph to the saloon, just as the beautiful
“Francie” came to call “Phyllis,” and give a helping hand. There were
two gentlemen besides Hubert Delrio, and there was a general rejoicing
welcome; but Vera did not think Hubert made half enough inquiries or
apologies, before she was seated at the table, where everything was
secured, and the fare was not very sumptuous or various, being chiefly
some concoction of rice and scraps of salt beef, which Francie said was a
shame, eating up the poor sailors’ fare; also there was potted meat, and
cheese, but all the fresh bread was gone, and they praised Mrs. Griggs’
construction of ham and rice with all the warmth and drollery each could
contribute. Vera began to be puzzled as to who every one was, for no
names except Phyl, Fly, Francie and Ivy were heard, and the merry
grey-haired head of the family was “Father” or “Papa” to every one,
except of course Mr. Delrio, who, however, seemed at his ease, and took a
fair share in the talk, and once or twice Vera thought he said, “my
lord,” but she did not believe it.
“I find you are a friend of a special pet of mine, Mysie Merrifield,”
said the father.
“I know her a little,” stammered Vera, “but Primrose best.”
“Nearer your age, eh? But Mysie is our gem! It looks fit for going on
deck.”
After the apology for a dinner, the young married pair went their way, he
to endeavour to add a fish to their provisions, she to look on; the
father and Delrio went where the latter could best study the wonderful
tints of sunset over the purple retreating clouds, and the still agitated
foaming sea,—sights that seemed to be filling him with enchantment, and
revealing effects in colour, while his delight was evidently a new
pleasure to his companion.
Vera was afraid to move, and sat on a deck chair, with her back to the
sunset, while Phyllis, who perhaps would have liked to share in the
admiration, sat by her, so that Vera began to accept her as a special
friend, and to pour out the explanation of how she came to be tossing in
an open boat with this one companion.
“You see, poor fellow,” she said, simpering, “he has been always so
devoted to me. Everybody observed it, and I could not help just
gratifying him a little.”
“He does seem to be very full of promise,” said Phyllis. “I suppose Miss
Prescott is much pleased with him.”
“My sister Magdalen, do you mean? Well, we have not introduced him to
her yet. You see, he is _only_ painting the church, and she is so
devoted to swells, and makes such a fuss about our manners.”
“Indeed! But surely you could not go out with him without her knowing
it.”
“She was not at this St. Milburgha’s Guild, you know, and Sisters Beata
and Mena knew all about it. Oh, yes, she lets us go to them at St.
Kenelm’s, but they are not swells enough for her.”
“Mr. Flight’s Sisterhood, are not they?”
“And Primrose Merrifield says that Wilfred declares that they are not
ladies; but that’s all jealousy, you know, because Will doesn’t like my
friends, and Magdalen is altogether gone upon grandees.”
“Fancy!” was all that Phyllis managed to say.
“She doesn’t want us to be friends with anybody who don’t belong to some
one with a handle to her name. So foolish and stuck up! So we knew she
would not be kind to Hubert.”
“I think you had better have tried. I thought her one of the kindest
people in the world.”
“Ah! but, you know, unfortunately she has been a governess, and that
teaches toadying.”
At that moment “Phyl” was called to see the first star over the sea, and
ran up to her father, so as to conceal how nearly she was laughing.
Hubert Delrio came towards Vera.
“Can you forgive me, Vera?” he said. “I shall speak to your sister as
soon as I am at home, and ask her forgiveness, and—”
“Oh, yes! yes! But do tell me who these people are.”
“Did you not know? That most kind of men, is Lord Rotherwood. Those are
Lord and Lady Ivinghoe, and—”
“Lady Phyllis! Oh!”
CHAPTER XIII—CHIMERAS DIRE
“Qu’allait-il faire dans cette galère?”
FRENCH COMEDY.
VERA’S first thorough awakening the next morning was to hear outside the
door, “Are you up, Fly?”
“I shall be in a minute or two. Do you want me?”
“You are a dab at _parlez-vous_. I want you to come ashore with me and
cater for the starving crew.”
“What fun! Anon, anon, Sir!”
Vera then perceived that she had been bestowed in Lady Phyllis’ cabin,
and that the proper owner was dressing herself in haste before the little
shelf of a toilette table. So great had been the confusion of last
night’s discovery that the poor silly child had only thought of hurrying
out of sight and tumbling into bed without speaking to any one, and she
had not distinctly known, when Lady Phyllis came down a good deal later
and disposed of herself on the sofa, that Mrs. Griggs had made ready for
her. And now the only thing she could think of was to say, “Oh! Lady
Phyllis, I didn’t know.”
“Take care! Don’t knock your head! We ought to have remembered that
Boreas, or whichever it was, was hardly a sufficient introduction. Are
you all right now? You had better go to sleep again till I bring
something to eat. We are lying to off some little Breton fishing
village, and I am going with my brother to get some provisions, and
telegraph if we can.”
It was long before they came back. Vera had another nap, dressed
herself, grew very hungry, and came out to find Lord Rotherwood fishing,
and his daughter-in-law watching for the boat to put out from the white
houses with grey roofs, which, clustered round their church-tower, seemed
descending to the water’s edge. They were equally famished, though Mrs.
Griggs stewed up the poor remnants of last night’s banquet; but at last
the little boat appeared, gaily dancing over the waves, and Phyllis
making signals of success.
“Oh, yes, you may be thankful, you poor starving beings! Here, Mrs.
Griggs! Accept, and do all you can! Here are eggs, and some milk and
fresh water, four _poulets_, such as they are, and a huge monster of a
crab; but all the bread is leavened, and you little guess what Ivy and I
had to go through before we were allowed to buy anything. We were had up
to the Mayor, and had to _constater_ all manner of things about our ship,
to prove that we were no smugglers.”
“I thought the fat old rogue would have come out to visit the yacht
before he would have allowed us a morsel,” said Lord Ivinghoe.
“In which case you might have been found a skeleton, father, like Sir
Hugh Willoughby! And as to our telegrams, they won’t go till the
diligence gets to St. Malo, and what they will make of them there is
another question. I did not dare to send more than one, for fear they
should get mixed up.”
Vera heard the joyous chaff as it fluttered round her, not half
understanding it any more than if it had been a strange tongue, and not
always guessing the cause of the fits of laughter, chiefly at Lord
Ivinghoe’s misadventures, over which his little sister and his father
were well pleased to tease his correctness, and his young wife looked a
little hurt at his being tormented. He could not remember that
_braconnier_ was a poacher by land, not by sea, and very unnecessarily
disclaimed to the Maire being such a thing. His father, he said, “was
_gentilhomme anglais en_—what’s a yacht?—_yac_. (Nonsense! that’s a
long-haired ox. No!) _Non point contrabandiste_, _mais galérien dans
galère_.” “And there I interposed,” said Phyllis, “for fear we should be
boarded as escaped _galériens_.”
“Why, galley was a pleasure-boat sometimes,” said Ivinghoe, and his wife
supported him with “Cleopatra’s galley.”
“Well done, Francie! To your oars for Ivy’s defence,” said Lord
Rotherwood. “How did you defend us, Fly, from being towed into harbour
at Brest as runaway convicts?”
“She gabbled away most eloquently to the Maire, almost as fluently as a
born French-woman,” said Ivinghoe, “and persuaded him at last that it was
not necessary to come on board to inspect us, nor even to detain us till
he had sent for instructions to St. Malo.”
“As Ivy managed matters, I thought we might be kept as hostages,” said
Phyllis.
“But, thanks to her blandishments, the solemn official vouchsafed to send
off a messenger for us with a telegram.”
“I do not think he sent directions to pursue our suspicious _galère_,”
added Phyllis; “but I own I shall be glad to be under the lee of old
England again.”
“What was your telegram?”
“Brevity was safest, nor had we money enough for two; so all I attempted
was, ‘Delrio to Flight, Rock Quay. Both safe. Picked up by
_Kittiwake_.’ I thought that would be the quickest means of relieving
anxiety, as we were not sure of other addresses; and as to ‘home,’ Mamma
probably hardly was aware of the storm, or, if she were, she knew the
capabilities of yachts and of Griggs.”
“Right!” returned his father. “Poor Miss Prescott! she must have given
you up for lost. Have you been improving your mind with French
telegrams?” he added, turning to Delrio.
“No, my lord, I found my way to the church, a wonderful piece of old
Norman!—if it may so be called.”
“I see you have been sketching.”
Griggs here interposed with tidings that eggs and coffee were ready in
the saloon, the worthy pair having had respect to the general famine, and
prepared what could be made ready in haste. Those who had eaten ashore
sat by, making an amusing account of their reception, and difficulties
with language and peasants, for, this not being an ordinary place of
call, nothing was ready for sale.
Vera, finding herself for the first time in distinguished company, which
desired to set her at ease, began to be at ease, and to desire to shine,
so she giggled whenever she perceived the slightest excuse, even when
Lord Ivinghoe handed her the eggs, and, hoped she had not too British an
appetite for French eggs; and Lady Ivinghoe asked if she had seen the
fowls, and whether their feathers were ruffled up like a hen’s that had
been given to Aunt Cherry. Her little sister Joan, she added, had asked
whether eating the eggs would make her hair curl.
“Or stand on end,” said Phyllis.
“As I am afraid Miss Prescott’s is doing till your telegram reaches her.
Did you say it was to go from St. Malo?”
“Yes. I thought that the safest place to have a comprehensible message
copied.”
“To whom did you say?” asked Lady Ivinghoe.
“‘Delrio to Flight.’ Oh, they will know his name and address fast enough
when it gets to Rock Quay.”
“He is the clergyman at St. Kenelm’s,” put in Vera, in explanation; “very
very advanced Ritualist, you know.”
“Indeed!” was the answer.
“Oh, yes, that he is. My sister Polly is perfectly devoted to him; but
we don’t go to his church, except now and then, because my eldest sister
is just one of those very old-fashioned people, you know, who want
everything horrid and dull.”
“That is hardly what our cousins think of Miss Prescott,” said Phyllis.
“I am so sorry for her anxiety! But I was not sure of the name of her
place.”
“The Goyle! Isn’t it frightful?” said Vera.
“You say she was unprepared for your adventure?”
“Oh, yes, quite. Her notions are so dreadfully proper and old fashioned.
She hasn’t got any sympathy, has she, Hubert?”
“I don’t know,” he said gravely. “I have always had the greatest respect
for her.”
“Respect! So you ought. That’s just the thing one has for a slow dear
old fogey,” she said, laughing, “Oh, Hubert!” There was a silence, and
Lord Rotherwood made an observation upon the wind.
Vera perceived an awkwardness, and, by way of repairing it, afterwards
thought it expedient to communicate to Lady Phyllis that it might be a
pity she had said “Hubert.” It was so awkward, only he was such an old
acquaintance.
“I should have thought the awkwardness was incurred long ago,” said Lady
Phyllis. “Come, you will have no more concealments from Miss Prescott,
will you? You will be ever so much more comfortable, and find out how
kind she is.”
“Oh, but!—” Vera wanted to talk over all her grievances for the pleasure
of talking, saying very much what she had said before, and Phyllis tried
to endure and put in as much sense as she could, without lecturing the
girl, who struck her as the very silliest she had ever encountered; but
she was continually called off to admire the receding French coast, or to
look at the creatures brought up by dredging. She always took care to
call Vera, and not let her feel herself left out; but Vera, if in
solitude for a moment, reflected on the neglect shown of little people by
great ones; and when called up to see uncanny slimy creatures, or even
transparent balls like watery umbrellas, only was disgusted and
horrified.
She began to guess, rather truly, that Lady Phyllis wanted to hinder a
_tête-à-tête_ between her and Hubert Delrio. In fact, Lord Rotherwood,
who was much more of a sympathetic, confidence-inviting personage than
his stiffer, much older seeming son, had said to his daughter, “Don’t let
that poor lad and the girl get together alone, Fly; the boy thinks he is
bound to make her an offer.”
“Oh, father! Surely not!”
“No more than if they had been two babies in a walnut shell. So I told
him, but people don’t see what infants they are themselves, and I want to
hinder him from putting his foot in it before he has seen her
aunt—cousin—sister, or whoever it is that has the charge of her; and she
has depicted to him a Gorgon, with Medusa’s hair, claws and all—a fancy
sketch, isn’t it?”
“Of course, sentimental schoolgirl colours! Mysie thinks her
delightful.”
“At any rate, let him get a dose of common sense before committing
himself. He is a capital fellow, sure to rise; has the soul and head and
hands for it, but he ought not to weight himself with a drag.”
“Do you think he is really in love with her?”
Lord Rotherwood waved his hands. “He thinks so, but nobody knows with
those boys! I had to tell him at last that I would not have any
philandering on board _my_ ship; and whatever he might think it his duty
to say, must be put off for aunt—sister—Gorgon—Medusa or what not. And I
don’t think he’s very bad, Fly, for he modestly asked permission to
sketch Francie’s head for St. Mildred, or Milburg, or somebody; and was
ready to run crazy about the tints on that dogfish. The young fellow is
in the queerest state between the artist and the lover! delight and
shame! I should like to take him north with us; the colours of the
cliffs in the Isles would soon drive out Miss Victoria—what’s her name?”
“You don’t think him like Stephen in the _Mill on the Floss_, who ought
to have married Maggie Tulliver.”
“I believe that is his precedent—but it is sheer stuff—pure accident—as a
respectable old householder like me is ready to testify to the Gorgons
and Chimeras dire—Grundys and all. We must encounter Rock Quay, Fly, if
it is only to rescue this unlucky youth.”
“What is he doing now? Oh, I see; drawing Francie, who sits as stiff as
a Saint of Burne-Jones! Well, I’ll have an eye to them! Vera! Have you
finished _Rudder Grange_?”
“Not quite. I can’t make out who Lord Edward was.”
“Why, the big dog! Did you think he was Pomona’s hero?”
“I don’t know. Wasn’t Pomona very silly?”
“If life was to be taken from story-books,” said Phyllis, in a very
didactic mood; “but you see she imbibed the best side, what they really
taught her of good.”
“I thought, when you gave me the book, it was to be an adventure like
mine, not all standing still in an old river. What do you think Hubert
Delrio ought to do after persuading me into such an awful predicament?”
“Tell your sister he is very sorry that you two foolish children got into
such a scrape, and very thankful that you were saved.”
“We are very thankful to Lord Rotherwood.”
“I didn’t mean to him. To some One else,” said Phyllis, reverently.
“Oh, of course,” said Vera. “But what _do_ you think, Lady Phyllis?”
(Since her discovery of the title she made a liberal use of it.) “What
do you think people will say?”
“That a little girl has had a dangerous adventure and a happy escape.”
“I am seventeen, Lady Phyllis!”
“One is nothing like grown up at seventeen! I declare there’s a big
steamer coming into sight. I wonder if it belongs to the Channel Fleet!”
Nothing more sentimental could be extracted for the rest of the voyage.
CHAPTER XIV—PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED
“I marry without more ado,
My dear Dick Red Cap, what say you?”
COWPER.
THE telegram had been received about mid-day; and Mr. Flight rushed up
with it to the Goyle, just in time to prevent poor old Mr. Delrio from
starting hopelessly home. It had suffered a good deal in spelling and
precision, in spite of Lady Phyllis’s precautions; but “both safe” was
understood, as it was known in Rock Quay that “Lord Rotherwood and
family,” as the papers had it, were yachting in the _Kittiwake_ and might
be expected in the bay.
Agatha and Paula threw their arms round one another and cried; Magdalen,
with a choke in her voice, struggled to ask Mr. Flight to lead them in a
few words of thanksgiving; and as soon as these were over, Thekla
expressed her hopes that they had been cast on a desert island and would
bring home Man Friday.
The Goyle ladies walked over to Clipstone with the good news, and the
whole party went down afterwards to Rockstone to look out for yachts, and
inquire about possibilities. The _Kittiwake_ being a steamer, light and
swift, might be expected in harbour in the course of the night, and Mr.
Delrio meant to wait for her at his son’s lodgings. The ladies wished
they could do the same; and Paula was allowed to accept Sister Beata’s
humble entreaty to house her. But they did not know how long before the
telegraph from St. Malo the _Kittiwake_ from St. Cadoc had spread her
wings and hoisted her feather, for, happily, her coals had held out
better than her provisions. So, as they were looking their last look
from the cliffs of Beechcroft Miss Mohun exclaimed, “A steamer! a yacht!
_Kittiwake_!”
Glasses were rushed for, and unaccustomed eyes could trace the graceful
course through the gentle evening waves towards the quay.
Every one was on the quay in time to receive the boat, which, rowed by
four smart sailors, was seen with the party of six, two sailor hats, and
one red cap being at once spied out among the female figures. Then two
hats were waved and answered by cheers of welcome; and the figures were
recognised, and unnecessarily numerous hands stretched out to assist the
landing from the plank extended to the boat.
Vera was put first by her kind rescuers, Lord Rotherwood’s hand guiding
her to the rail, and, after an insecure step or so, she found herself in
the arms of Paulina, sobbing for joy; and the little cluster of sisters
seemed to know nothing else, except Thekla, who presently, in the
confusion of the greetings, was found by Lord Rotherwood looking about
vaguely, and saying, “But where’s their man Friday?”
“You must accept me for him,” said he. “’Tis Friday, unless we have lost
our reckoning! I hope you think me something promising in the way of
savages!”
Young Delrio’s first proceeding, even while his father was wringing his
hand in speechless welcome and thankfulness, was to turn to Captain
Henderson. “Sir, your boat is safe, it will be brought in to-morrow. I
am much concerned, and beg your forgiveness, but I had no idea that it
was yours till Griggs found your name. Only one oar is lost, and a
cushion, which I will replace.”
“Say no more, pray,” said Captain Henderson. “The fault was my
servant’s, who took it without leave, and left it out. He must repair
the very slight damage.”
Miss Mohun wanted the whole troop to come up to Beechcroft to drink tea,
and her relations consented; but the hearts of the Prescotts were a great
deal too full for them not to wish to be alone together; and after
Magdalen had given her hand to Lord Rotherwood with a fervent, “You know
what I would say, my lord—beyond all words,” they turned homewards; but
Mr. Flight ran after them to say in a low voice, “Can we meet to-morrow
at eight for a service of thanksgiving?” And this was gladly accepted.
Hubert was dragged off by his father.
“Nonsense! they don’t want your apologies and explanations. It would
only be besetting them. Come home with me, and don’t be a fool! But
write a few lines to your poor mother, after the intolerable fright you
have given her; meddling and presuming where you had no business. A
Providence it is that you are not half across the Atlantic, if not at the
bottom of it.”
Of course this was the reaction of great anxiety; but however meekly
Hubert submitted to the queer outpouring of affection, and however
thankful they both were, and glad and content over the particulars of the
youth’s work and progress, still he was not to be withheld from laying
hand and heart at Vera Prescott’s feet, as he insisted was due to her and
her family after the compromising situation in which he had placed her.
His father said it was talking novels and folly; but he was a man of
three and twenty, and could not well be stopped, as he was earning his
own livelihood, and had always been irreproachable. So Mr. Delrio had to
leave the matter, only expressing discouragement, and insisting that it
must be no more than an engagement.
The thanksgiving took place as arranged, and Lord Rotherwood, his
daughter, and Mysie were there. For indeed there had been danger enough
during the thunderstorm to make the safety of the _Kittiwake_ a matter of
thankfulness, though the rescue of the boat had caused it to be almost
forgotten in the history of the night.
Lady Flight had begged that all would come to breakfast with her, and
this was accepted by the Goyle party; but the Clipstone pony-carriage was
waiting for the others, and they could not accede to Lady Flight’s
impromptu, and rather nervous, invitation. But before they started Lord
Rotherwood managed to say a few words aside to Miss Prescott of the
impression he had divined from his voyage with Hubert Delrio, whom he
thought a young man of great ability and promise, and of excellent
principles, but with a chivalry it was quite refreshing to see in youth,
perhaps ready to strain honourable scruples almost too far for his own
good or that of others.
Magdalen thought she perceived what had been in the marquis’s mind when,
immediately after her return home, Hubert and Vera came up, hand in hand,
and he informed her of their mutual attachment.
“I am afraid, Miss Prescott,” he said, “that we may not have acted
rightly or squarely by you; and this last adventure was a most unhappy
result of my careless awkwardness and preoccupation.”
“It was the merest accident. We all quite understand. It is not to be
thought of.”
“You are very good to say so, but—”
Both he and Magdalen wished that Vera had not been present, blushing and
smiling, or rather simpering; and as Hubert hesitated over his “but,”
Magdalen said:
“Vera, my dear, Hubert and I can talk over this better without you. You
had better go and find Paula.”
“Only, sister, please do understand that I care for Hubert with all my
heart,” said Vera, much less childishly than Magdalen had expected.
However, she went, while Magdalen succeeded in saying what she had
intended—that Hubert must not consider himself in the smallest degree
bound by what had been accident, entirely unintentional and innocent.
“You are generous, Miss Prescott. You understand! But the world! It
was public.”
“Never mind the world. You see what sensible people think.”
“But, indeed, Miss Prescott, I cannot leave you to suppose I am only
actuated by the fact of that awkward situation. Of course that would
never have been if I did not deeply, entirely love your sister. It has
only precipitated matters. I entreat of you to give her to me, as one
who is—who is devoted to her! If my station is inferior I will work—”
“That is not the point. Vera is too young for such things. What does
your father say?”
“My father sees that I am right.”
“I see what that means,” said Magdalen, smiling. “But where is he? I
should like to talk to him.”
Mr. Delrio, pretty well knowing what was going on, was found endeavouring
to distract his mind by sketching the Goyle. He and Magdalen walked up
and down the drive together, perfectly agreeing that it would be
senseless cruelty to permit an early marriage between these two young
people, and that it was a pity there should be an engagement; but this
could hardly be prevented, since Mr. Delrio could only give advice, and
leave a self-supporting worthy son to judge for himself; but the elder
sister and the trustee could stipulate for delay till Vera should be of
age.
So Hubert was called, and acquiesced, cheerfully observing that he
trusted that four years would make him able to render Vera’s life an easy
and pleasant one; and after heartily thanking both Miss Prescott and his
father, he went off to rejoice the heart of the maiden, who was sitting
under the pear-tree, watching with anxious eyes.
CHAPTER XV—BROODS ASTRAY
“But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
Corrupts the strength of Heaven-descended will,
And ever weaker grows through acted crime,
Or seeming genial venial fault.”
—TENNYSON.
“MAN Friday hope piccaniny live well—bring her buckra fish from sea!”
Such was the greeting from Lord Rotherwood to Thekla when the whole party
walked over in time for tea on the lawn, before church at Clipstone, as
he presented her with a facsimile oyster which he had hunted up in a
sweet shop, making an absurd bow and scrape.
Poor Thekla coloured, and mumbled a shy, “Thank you, my—my—” having had a
lecture from Vera on treating a marquis with over familiarity and it was
left to Primrose to ask where Friday learnt nigger language. “By nature,
Missy buckra,” he responded; “all same nigger everywhere.” And he
repeated his bow so drolly that Primrose’s laugh carried Thekla’s along
with it, as Lady Phyllis walked up with, “Come, father, you are wanted to
congratulate.”
“Eh! Am I? So they have perpetrated it, have they? More’s the pity is
what I should say in the Palace of Truth; but the maiden has landed a
better fish than she knows—that is, if she have landed him.”
“There! take care, don’t be tiresome, Papa!” admonished Lady Phyllis,
drawing him on, when he met Vera with a courtly manner, and, “I hope I
see you recovered, Miss Prescott, and able to rejoice in the pleasant
consequences of your adventure.”
Vera blushed, and looked very pretty and modest, making not much answer
as she retreated among her contemporaries to show them her ring, a hoop
of pearls, which Wilfred insisted were Roman pearls, fishes’ eyes, most
appropriate; but Flapsy felt immeasurably older than Wilfred to-day, and
able to despise his teasing, though Hubert Delrio was not present, and
indeed Wilfred was not disposed to bestow much of his attention upon her,
having much more inclination to beset his cousin, Lady Phyllis, who
surely ought to perceive that he had attained at least the same height as
his brother Jasper, and could, in his absence, pose as the young man of
the household.
Phyllis had not much to say to him, nor after the first to Vera, though
she duly admired the ring so exultantly shown, and accepted the assurance
that Hubert was the dearest fellow in the world. But there was no
getting any condolence out of her upon the misery of having to wait four
whole years. She said, “It was a very good thing! There was her cousin
Gillian, who had insisted on waiting three years to finish her
education.”
“Oh, but dear Hubert likes me as I am,” simpered Vera.
“You might wish that he should find more in you to like. Gillian,” said
Phyllis, coming up to her and Agatha, “I want you to assure Vera that
four years is not such a great trial in waiting.”
“It is what I have been trying to persuade her,” said Agatha; “she is
hardly seventeen.”
“And I would not have been married at seventeen for anything,” said
Gillian to the pouting Vera. “I want to be more worth having.”
Vera did not like it, she had heard the like at home, and she fell back
upon Valetta, while the others walked on. “Poor little Flapsy!” said
Agatha, “I do hope this engagement may make more of a woman of her.”
“My father was very much struck by Mr. Delrio,” said Phyllis, “both as
artist and personally.”
“You must be glad of the time for putting her up to his level,” said
Gillian.
“Do you think such things are to be done?” asked Agatha.
“Yes,” said Phyllis stoutly. “You may not make her able to be a Senior
Wrangler—(Oh you are Oxford!)—or capable of it, like this Gillyflower;
but you can get the stuff into her that makes a sound sensible wife.”
Gillian caught a little hopeless sigh of “_can_,” and answered it with,
“When all this effervescence is blown off, then will be the time for
working at the substance, and she may be all the better wife—especially
for the artist temperament, if she is of the homely sort.”
“How angry she would be if she heard you say so!” returned Agatha. “Yet
certainly I do feel relieved that wifehood is to be my poor Flapsy’s
portion, for she is not of the sort that can stand alone and make her own
way.”
“There will always be plenty of such women in the world,” said Gillian.
“So much the better for the world,” retorted Phyllis, who had never shown
any symptoms of exclusive devotion to any one of the other sex, except
her father.
One thing Agatha wanted to know, and dared not ask, namely, what
impression Vera had made in the _Kittiwake_ and what Hubert had said
about her; for she and Paula had begun to remark that, lover as he was,
not a word about her heroism had escaped him. And it was as well that
she did not hear what the extra plain spoken Primrose did not spare the
boasting Thekla. “Cousin Rotherwood and Fly both say they can’t think
how Mr. Delrio got on with such a silly little hysterical goose upon his
hands; and that it is a foolish romantic unlucky notion that he ought to
be engaged to her. I think Mamma will tell Miss Prescott so.”
The _Kittiwake_, having arrived three days later than had been expected,
there had been an amount of revolution in the general arrangements. The
break up of the High School was to be on an early day of the next week.
It had become a much more extensive and public matter than in the days of
Valetta and Maura, though these were not so very long ago, and there was
a great day of exhibitions and speeches to the parents and neighbourhood
generally. Two ladies had been secured for the purpose, Elizabeth
Merrifield and Miss Arthuret, and the former arrived on the Saturday
afternoon, but as the Rotherwood party almost overflowed Clipstone, she
was transferred to Miss Mohun.
After the death of their parents, about three years previously, Susan and
Elizabeth had gone to live at Coalham, and to be useful to their brother
David’s parish; Susan betaking herself to the poor, and Bessie finding
herself specially available in the various forms of improvement
undertaken by ladies in modern days. To her own surprise, and her
sister’s discomfiture, her talent as a public speaker had become
developed. With a little assistance from her sister-in-law Agnes’s
unwilling stage experience, and entreaties, not easily to be withstood,
came from various quarters that she would come and advocate the good
cause.
Of course she was ever welcome at Clipstone, and she walked up thither
with General Mohun, arriving just after the others from the Goyle; and in
the general confusion of greetings, and the Babel of cousinly tongues,
there were no introductions nor naming of names. Bessie declared herself
delighted with the chance of seeing Lady Ivinghoe, whom she considered
more to realise the beauty of women than any one she had hitherto beheld,
and the fair face had not lost its simplicity, but rather gained in
loveliness by the sweetness of early motherhood, as she and Phyllis sat
by Mysie, regaling her with tales of what they regarded as the remarkable
precocity of the infant Claude, reluctantly left to his grandmother.
“But where’s Dolores?” asked Bessie. “I miss her among the swarm of
mice!”
“Dolores is at Vale Leston,” answered Gillian. “She has been a long time
making up her mind to go there, to Gerald’s home; and now she is there,
they will not let her go till some birthday is over.”
“Uncle Felix’s!” whispered Franceska to Mysie. “You know it was dear
Gerald’s place. She had never seen it.”
Another voice was now raised, asking, “What had become of Miss Arthuret?”
“She only comes down on Monday,” said Bessie. “Just in time for the
meeting. She is too valuable to come for more than one meeting.”
“But who is she?”
“Arthurine Arthuret? She is a girl, or rather woman, who has some
property at Stokesley. In fact, she is one of those magnets that seem to
attract inheritance without effort—like the Hapsburgs, though happily she
makes a most beneficent, though, sometimes, original use of them.”
“Is not that very dangerous?” said Aunt Lily.
“The first came to her early, and coming into it very young, and
overflowing with new ideas, she began rather grotesquely; but she has
tamed down a good deal since, and really has done an immense deal of good
in finding employment for people, making improvements and the like,
though she is Sam’s pet aversion, a tremendous Liberal, almost a
Socialist. They are so like cat and dog that Susan and I were really
glad to be away from Stokesley, especially at election times; but
altogether she is an admirable person.”
Lady Merrifield thought she detected a start of Miss Prescott at the name
Stokesley, and that her eyes looked anxiously at the speaker. Bessie was
not of the sandy part of the family. Was the unattractive schoolboy,
once seen, like his sisters? All that was observable was startling
similitudes to her own children, though in them the elements of the
handsome dark Mohun generally predominated.
But by and by, in a quiet moment, Bessie suddenly asked, “Did you say her
name was Magdalen?”
Lady Merrifield laughed. “Four years _may_ do a good deal at that time
of life,” she said. “I suppose no time ever so changes—changes—what
shall I say?—eyes—views—characters. Only constancy in absence is the
dangerous thing. There are distinguished examples of—of the mischief of
being constant without knowing what one is constant to. Virulent
constancy, as Mrs. Malaprop has it.”
Magdalen thanked and smiled. Perhaps there was a certain virulent
constancy in a remote corner of her heart which had been revived by a
certain indescribable look in the eyes and contour of Bessie Merrifield.
And Bessie herself, while sitting under the verandah with Lady
Merrifield, while all the others were walking down to embark Lord and
Lady Ivinghoe in the yacht, suddenly repeated, “Did you say that her name
was Magdalen?”
“Yes; I saw it startled you, my dear.”
“It revived an old, old story. I do not know whether there was anything
in it. Who or what is she, Aunt Lily? I only know her as the sister of
the girl that the Ivinghoes picked up.”
“She is the owner of a little property at Arnscombe, and has taken home
her four young half-sisters to live with her, after having slaved for
them as a governess till she came into this inheritance. She is an
excellent person.”
“Ah! Was her house at Filsted?”
“I am not sure. Yes, I think the young ones were at school there. You
think—”
“I feel certain. May I tell you, Aunt Lily? Some of the others cannot
bear to mention my poor Hal; but to me the worst of the sting is gone,
since I know he repented.”
“My dear, I should be very glad to hear. Your father and mother never
mention your brother, and we were away at the time.”
“Poor Hal! I am afraid there was a weakness in him. He never had that
determination that carried all the others on. He never could get through
an examination, and my father put him into a bank at Filsted. By and by,
after some years, came a letter telling my father he was gambling very
seriously, getting into temptation, and engaging himself to an attorney’s
daughter. It was while I was living with grandmamma, and he used
sometimes to look in on me, and talk to me about this Magdalen. Once he
showed me her photograph and I thought I knew her face again. But my
father went off, very angry. I have always feared he found poor Hal on
the verge of tampering with the bank money, but he never would say a
word. He broke everything up, put an end to the engagement if there was
one, and sent Hal off to John and George, who had just got their farm in
Manitoba, and were getting on by dint of hard work.”
“They have done very well, have they not?”
“Yes, by working and living harder than any day labourer at Stokesley.
Hal could not stand it, and—and I’m afraid the boys were not very
merciful to him, poor fellow, and he got something to do in Winnipeg.
There he fell in with a speculator called Golding, they all did in fact;
he was a plausible man, whom they all liked, and used to put up at his
house when they took waggons in with their produce. He had a daughter,
and Johnnie got engaged to her, or thought he was. They all were
persuaded to put money into a horrid building speculation,—Henry, what he
had brought out, the other two what they had realised. Well, suddenly it
all ended. They were all gone, Golding, daughter, Hal and all—yes,
all—the money the other boys had put in the thing, off to the States, as
we suppose! No trace ever found.”
“Really no trace?”
“None! The poor boys lost all they had, and were obliged to begin over
again.”
“And has really nothing been heard of this unfortunate Hal?”
“There is one thing that does give me a hope. There did come to
Stokesley a letter from a Brisbane bank, addressed to J. and G.
Merrifield, to the care of Rear-Admiral Merrifield, and in it were bank
bills up to the value of what the boys had been robbed of, about two
hundred and fifty pounds. Poor Henry must have repented, and wished to
make restitution.”
“Was there no name, no clue?”
“None at all. We know no more.”
“But was there no inquiry made at Brisbane?”
“It was when my father was very ill. The parcel was not opened at first.
I have been always sorry he never heard of it; but after all there was no
asking of forgiveness, nor anything that could be answered. The boys got
it with the tidings of our dear father’s death. John came home to see
about things, George stayed to look after his Stokesley. They were well
over their troubles by that time, and they gave the restored money to
David for his churches.”
“And no more was done, not even by David?” said Lady Merrifield, thinking
over what she had heard from Geraldine Grinstead, and how the Underwoods
would have accepted such a token from their lost sheep.
“David did write to Brisbane to the bank, but there never was any answer.
There is no knowing how it might have been, if any one had gone out and
done his best; but you see we were all much taken up with home duties and
cares, and I am afraid we have not dwelt enough upon our poor boy, and he
had much against him. The discipline from my dear father, that all the
elders responded to with a sort of loyal exultation, only frightened him
and made him shifty. They despised him, and I do not think any of us
were as kind to him as we ought to have been; though on the whole he
liked me the best, for he cared for books and quiet pursuits, such as all
laughed at, except David. I wish he could have seen more of David.”
“Did your mother hear of this ray of hope?”
“Susan thought it best not to tell her. We used to hear her murmuring
his name among all ours in her prayers, Susie, Sam, Hal, Bessie, and so
on; but she never was herself enough to understand, and they thought it
might only stir her up to expect to see him. Oh, Aunt Lily, I don’t
think you—any of you—would have gone on so; but you are all much more
affectionate and demonstrative than our branch of the family.”
“Ah, my dear, I am sure there was a pang in your mother’s heart that she
never durst mention,” said Lady Merrifield, her imagination dwelling in
terror on her Wilfred, the one child in whom she could not help detecting
the weakness of character of his unhappy cousin. “Depend upon it,
Bessie, her prayers were hovering round him all the time, and bringing
that act of restitution, though she was not allowed to hear of it.”
“I had not thought of that,” said Bessie, in a low tone, “though I think
David has. I have heard his voice choke over an intercession for the
absent.”
“Think of it now, my dear, and do not let habitual reserve hinder you
from speaking of it to Susan and David, though most likely they have the
habit already. Who knows what united prayer may do with Him who deviseth
means to bring home His banished?”
Steps returning, Bessie wiped away her tears in haste, actually the first
she had shed for the lost Hal, though there was a heartache too deep for
tears.
CHAPTER XVI—THE REGIMENT OF WOMEN
“And happier than the merriest games
Is the joy of our new and nobler aims.”
F. R. HAVERGAL.
MISS MOHUN and Miss Merrifield encountered Miss Prescott and Agatha among
a perfect herd of cycles, making Bessie laugh over the recollections of
the horror caused at Stokesley by the arrival of Arthurine Arthuret on a
tricycle twelve years previously.
The place was the Town Hall, the High School having proved too small for
the number of the intended audience, and Lord Rotherwood having been
captured, in spite of the _Kittiwake_ being pronounced ready to sail, and
all the younger passengers being actually on board, entertaining a party
from Clipstone. There he sat enthroned on the platform, with portraits
of himself, his Elizabethan ancestor, and the Prince of Wales overhead,
and, in _propria persona_ on either side, the Mayor of Rockstone, Captain
Henderson, and a sprinkling of the committee, Jane, of course, being one;
while in the space beneath was a sea of hats, more or less beflowered and
befeathered.
Lord Rotherwood began by complaining of an act of piracy! After being
exposed to a tempest and forced to put in for supplies, here he was
captured, and called upon to distribute prizes! He perceived that it
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