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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19360-0.txt b/19360-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cde1c70 --- /dev/null +++ b/19360-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7657 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Six to Sixteen, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Six to Sixteen + A Story for Girls + +Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing + +Release Date: September 23, 2006 [EBook #19360] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of the changes +is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and +hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled and +hyphenated words is found at the end of the text. + +The following less-common character is used in this version of the book. +If it does not display properly, please try changing your font. + +ŏ o with breve + + + + +[Illustration: "'I've got a pink silk here,' said I, 'and pink shoes.'"] + + + + + SIX TO SIXTEEN. + _A STORY FOR GIRLS._ + + + BY + JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + + LONDON: + SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, + NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. + NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. + + + + +[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.] + + + + +DEDICATION. + +TO MISS ELEANOR LLOYD. + + +MY DEAR ELEANOR, + +I wish that this little volume were worthier of being dedicated to you. + +It is, I fear, fragmentary as a mere tale, and cannot even plead as an +excuse for this that it embodies any complete theory on the vexed +question of the upbringing of girls. Indeed, I should like to say that +it contains no attempt to paint a model girl or a model education, and +was originally written as a sketch of domestic life, and not as a +vehicle for theories. + +That it does touch by the way on a few of the many strong opinions I +have on the subject you will readily discover; though it is so long +since we held discussions together that I hardly know how far your views +will now agree with mine. + +If, however, it seems to you to illustrate a belief in the joys and +benefits of intellectual hobbies, I do not think that we shall differ on +that point; and it may serve, here and there, to recall one, nearly as +dear to you as to me, for whom the pleasures of life were at least +doubled by such interests, and who found in them no mean resource under +a burden heavier than common of life's pain. + +That, whatever labour I may spend on this or any other bit of +work--whatever changes or confirmations time and experience may bring to +my views of people and things--I cannot now ask her approval of the one, +or delight in the play of her strong intellect and bright wit over the +other, is an unhealable sorrow with which no one sympathizes more fully +than you. + +This story was written before her death: it has been revised without her +help. + +Such as it is, I beg you to accept it in affectionate remembrance of old +times and of many common hobbies of our girlhood in my Yorkshire home +and in yours. + + J. H. E. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAP. PAGE + + Introduction 11 + + I. My Pretty Mother--Ayah--Company 20 + + II. The Cholera Season--My Mother Goes Away--My Sixth + Birthday 26 + + III. The Bullers--Matilda takes Me up--We Fall Out--Mr. George 34 + + IV. Sales--Matters of Principle--Mrs. Minchin Quarrels with + the Bride--Mrs. Minchin Quarrels with Everybody--Mrs. + Minchin is Reconciled--The Voyage Home--A Death on Board 40 + + V. A Home Station--What Mrs. Buller thought of it--What + Major Buller thought of it 53 + + VI. Dress and Manner--I Examine Myself--My Great-Grandmother 59 + + VII. My Great-Grandmother--The Duchess's Carriage--Mrs. + O'Connor is Curious 67 + + VIII. A Family History 73 + + IX. Hopes and Expectations--Dreams and Daydreams--The + Vine--Elspeth--My Great-Grandfather 84 + + X. Thomas the Cat--My Great-Grandfather's Sketches--Adolphe + is my Friend--My Great-great-great-Grandfather Disturbs + my Rest--I Leave The Vine 96 + + XI. Matilda's News--Our Governess--Major Buller turned + Tutor--Eleanor Arkwright 103 + + XII. Poor Matilda--The Awkward Age--Mrs. Buller takes Counsel + with her Friends--The 'Milliner and Mantuamaker'--Medical + Advice--The Major Decides 120 + + XIII. At School--The Lilac Bush--Bridget's Posies--Summer-- + Health 138 + + XIV. Miss Mulberry--Discipline and Recreation--Madame-- + Conversation--Eleanor's Opinion of the Drawing-master-- + Miss Ellen's--Eleanor's Apology 146 + + XV. Eleanor's Theories reduced to Practice--Studies--The + Arithmetic-master 159 + + XVI. Eleanor's Reputation--The Mad Gentleman--Fancies and + Follies--Matilda's Health--The New Doctor 166 + + XVII. Eleanor's Health--Holy Living--The Prayer of the Son + of Sirach 175 + + XVIII. Eleanor and I are late for Breakfast--The School Breaks + Up--Madame and Bridget 179 + + XIX. Northwards--The Black Country--The Stone Country 183 + + XX. The Vicarage--Keziah--The Dear Boys--The Cook--A + Yorkshire Tea--Bed-fellows 191 + + XXI. Gardening--Drinkings--The Moors--Wading--Batrachosperma-- + The Church--Little Margaret 197 + + XXII. A New Home--The Arkwrights' Return--The Beasts--Going + to Meet the Boys--Jack's Hat-box--We Come Home a Rattler 209 + + XXIII. I Correspond with the Major--My Collection--Occupations-- + Madame Again--Fête de Village--The British Hooray 219 + + XXIV. We and the Boys--We and the Boys and our Fads--The Lamp + of Zeal--Clement on Unreality--Jack's Ointment 234 + + XXV. The "Household Album"--Sketching under Difficulties--A + New Species?--Jack's Bargain--Theories 242 + + XXVI. Manners and Customs--Clique--The Lessons of Experience-- + Out Visiting--House-pride--Dressmaking 257 + + XXVII. Matilda--Ball Dresses and the Ball--Gores--Miss + Lining--The 'Parishioner's Pennyworth' 269 + + XXVIII. I go Back to The Vine--After Sunset--A Twilight + Existence--Salad of Monk's-hood--A Royal Summons 279 + + XXIX. Home Again--Home News--The Very End 293 + + + + +SIX TO SIXTEEN. + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Eleanor and I are subject to _fads_. Indeed, it is a family failing. (By +the family I mean our household, for Eleanor and I are not, even +distantly, related.) Life would be comparatively dull, up away here on +the moors, without them. Our fads and the boys' fads are sometimes the +same, but oftener distinct. Our present one we would not so much as tell +them of on any account; because they would laugh at us. It is this. We +purpose this winter to write the stories of our own lives down to the +present date. + +It seems an egotistical and perhaps silly thing to record the +trivialities of our everyday lives, even for fun, and just to please +ourselves. I said so to Eleanor, but she said, "Supposing Mr. Pepys had +thought so about his everyday life, how much instruction and amusement +would have been lost to the readers of his Diary." To which I replied, +that as Mr. Pepys lived in stirring times, and amongst notable people, +_his_ daily life was like a leaf out of English history, and his case +quite different to the case of obscure persons living simply and +monotonously on the Yorkshire moors. On which Eleanor observed that the +simple and truthful history of a single mind from childhood would be as +valuable, if it could be got, as the whole of Mr. Pepys' Diary from the +first volume to the last. And when Eleanor makes a general observation +of this kind in her conclusive tone, I very seldom dispute it; for, to +begin with, she is generally right, and then she is so much more clever +than I. + +One result of the confessed superiority of her opinion to mine is that I +give way to it sometimes even when I am not quite convinced, but only +helped by a little weak-minded reason of my own in the background. I +gave way in this instance, not altogether to her argument (for I am sure +_my_ biography will not be the history of a mind, but only a record of +small facts important to no one but myself), but chiefly because I think +that as one grows up one enjoys recalling the things that happened when +one was little. And one forgets them so soon! I envy Eleanor for having +kept her childish diaries. I used to write diaries too, but, when I was +fourteen years old, I got so much ashamed of them (it made me quite hot +to read my small moral reflections, and the pompous account of my +quarrels with Matilda, my sentimental admiration for the handsome +bandmaster, &c., even when alone), and I was so afraid of the boys +getting hold of them, that I made a big hole in the kitchen fire one +day, and burned them all. At least, so I thought; but one volume escaped +the flames, and the fun Eleanor and I have now in re-reading this has +made me regret that I burned the others. Of course, even if I put down +all that I can remember, it will not be like having kept my diaries. +Eleanor's biography, in this respect, will be much better than mine; but +still, I remember a good deal now that I dare say I shall forget soon, +and in sixteen more years these histories may amuse us as much as the +old diaries. We are all growing up now. We have even got to speaking of +"old times," by which we mean the times when we used to wade in the +brooks and---- + +But this is beside the mark, and I must not allow myself to wander off. +I am too apt to be discursive. When I had to write leading articles for +our manuscript periodical, Jack used to laugh at me, and say, "If it +wasn't for Eleanor's disentangling your sentences, you'd put parenthesis +within parenthesis till, when you got yourself into the very inside +one, you'd be as puzzled as a pig in a labyrinth, and not know how to +get back to where you started from." And I remember Clement--who +generally disputed a point, if possible--said, "How do you know she +wouldn't get back, if you let her work out each train of thought in +peace? The curt, clean-cut French style may suit some people, whose +brains won't stretch far without getting tired; but others may have more +sympathy with a Semitic cast of mind." + +This excuse pleased me very much. It was pleasanter to believe that my +style was Semitic, than to allow, with Jack, that it tended towards that +of Mrs. Nickleby. Though at that time my notion of the meaning of the +word Semitic was not so precise as it might have been. + +Our home is a beautiful place in the summer, and in much of spring and +autumn. In winter I fancy it would look dreary to the eyes of strangers. +At night the wind comes over the top of Deadmanstone Hill, and down the +valley, whirls the last leaves off the old trees by the church, and +sends them dancing over the closely-ranged gravestones. Then up through +the village it comes, and moans round our house all night, like some +miserable being wanting to get in. The boys say it does get in, more +than enough, especially into their bedrooms; but then boys always +grumble. It certainly makes strange noises here. I have more than once +opened the back-door late in the evening, because I fancied that one of +the dogs had been hurt, and was groaning outside. + +That stormy winter after the Ladybrig murder, our fancies and the wind +together played Eleanor and me sad tricks. When once we began to listen +we seemed to hear a whole tragedy going on close outside. We could +distinguish footsteps and voices through the bluster, and then a +struggle in the shrubbery, and a _thud_, and a groan, and then a roar of +wind, half drowning the sound of flying footsteps--and then an awful +pause, and at last faint groaning, and a bump, as of some poor wounded +body falling against the house. At this point we were wont to summon +courage and rush out, with the kitchen poker and a candle shapeless with +tallow shrouds from the strong draughts. We never could see anything; +partly, perhaps, because the candle was always blown out; and when we +stood outside it became evident that what we had heard was only the +wind, and a bough of the old acacia-tree, which beat at intervals upon +the house. + +When the nights are stormy there is no room so comfortable as the big +kitchen. We first used it for parochial purposes, small night-schools, +and so forth. Then one evening, as we strolled in to look for one of +the dogs, the cook said, "You can sit here, if you like, Miss Eleanor. +_We_ always sits in the pantry on winter nights; so there'll be no one +to disturb you." And as we had some writing on hand which we did not +wish to have discussed or overlooked by other members of the family, we +settled down in great peace and comfort by the roaring fire which the +maids had heaped to keep the kitchen warm in their absence. + +We found ourselves so cosy and independent that we returned again and +again to our new study. The boys (who go away a great deal more than we +do, and are apt to come back dissatisfied with our "ways," and anxious +to make us more "like other people") object strongly to this habit of +ours. They say, "Who ever _heard_ of ladies sitting in the kitchen?" +And, indeed, there are many south-country kitchens in which I should not +at all like to sit. But we have this large, airy, spotlessly clean room, +with its stone floor, its yellow-washed walls, its tables scrubbed to +snowy whiteness, its quaint old dresser and clock and corner cupboards +of shiny black oak, and its huge fire-place and blazing fire all to +ourselves, and we have abundance of room, and may do anything we please, +so I think it is no wonder that we like it, though it be, in point of +fact, a kitchen. We cover the table, and (commonly) part of the floor, +with an amount of books, papers, and belongings of various sorts, such +as we should scruple to deluge the drawing-room with. The fire crackles +and blazes, so that we do not mind the wind, though there are no blinds +to the kitchen, and if we do not "cotter" the shutters, we look out upon +the black night, and the tall Scotch pine that has been tossed so wildly +for so many years, and is not torn down yet. + +Keziah the cook takes much pride in this same kitchen, which partly +accounts for its being in a state so suitable to our use. She "stones" +the floor with excruciating regularity. (At least, some people hate the +scraping sound. I do not mind it myself.) She "pot-moulds" the hearth in +fantastic patterns; the chests, the old chairs, the settle, the dresser, +the clock and the corner cupboards are so many mirrors from constant +polishing. She says, with justice, that "a body might eat his dinner off +anything in the place." + +We dine early, and the cooking for the late supper is performed in what +we call "the second kitchen," beyond this. I believe that what is now +the Vicarage was originally an old farmhouse, of which this same +charming kitchen was the chief "living-room." It is quite a journey, +through long, low passages, to get from the modern part of the house to +this. + +One year, when the "languages fad" was strong upon us, Eleanor and I +earned many a backache by carrying the huge volumes of the _Della +Crusca_ Italian dictionary from the dining-room shelves to the kitchen. +We piled them on the oak chest for reference, and ran backwards and +forwards to them from the table where we sat and beat our brains over +the "Divina Commedia," while the wind growled in the tall old box-trees +without, and the dogs growled in dreams upon the hearth. + +It is by this well-scrubbed table, in this kitchen, that our biographies +are to be written. They cannot be penned under the noses of the boys. + +Eleanor finds rocking a help to composition, and she is swinging +backwards and forwards in the glossy old rocking-chair, with a pen +between her lips, and a vacant gaze in her eyes, that becomes almost a +look of inspiration when the swing of the chair turns her face towards +the ceiling. For my own part I find that I can meet the crisis of a +train of ideas best upon my feet, so I pace up and down past the old +black dresser, with its gleaming crockery, like a captain on his +quarter-deck. Suddenly Eleanor's chair stands still. + +"Margery," she says, laying her head upon the table at her side, "I do +think this is a capital idea." + +"Yours will be capital," I reply, pausing also, and leaning back +against the dresser; "for you have kept your old diaries, and----" + +"My dear Margery, what if I have kept my old diaries? I've lived in this +place my whole life. Now, you have had some adventures! I quite look +forward to reading your life, Margery. You have no idea what pleasure it +gives me to think of it. I was thinking just now, if ever we are +separated in life, how I shall enjoy looking over it again and again. +You must give me yours, you know, and I will give you mine. Yes; I am +very glad we thought of it." And Eleanor begins to rock once more, and I +resume my march. + +But this quite settles the matter in my mind. To please Eleanor I would +try to do a great deal; much more than this. I will write my +autobiography. + +Though it seems rather (to use an expressive Quaker term) a "need-not" +to provide for our being separated in life, when we have so firmly +resolved to be old maids, and to live together all our lives in the +little whitewashed cottage behind the church. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +MY PRETTY MOTHER--AYAH--COMPANY. + + +My name is Margaret Vandaleur. My father was a captain in her Majesty's +202nd Regiment of Foot. The regiment was in India for six years, just +after I was born; indeed, I was not many months old when I made my first +voyage, which I fancy Eleanor is thinking of when she says that I have +had some adventures. + +Military ladies are said to be unlucky as to the times when they have to +change stations; the move often chancing at an inconvenient moment. My +mother had to make her first voyage with the cares of a young baby on +her hands; nominally, at any rate, but I think the chief care of me fell +upon our Ayah. My mother hired her in England. The Ayah wished to return +to her country, and was glad to do so as my nurse. I think that at first +she only intended to be with us for the voyage, but she stayed on, and +became fond of me, and so remained my nurse as long as I was in India. + +I have heard that my mother was the prettiest woman on board the vessel +she went out in, and the prettiest woman at the station when she got +there. Some people have told me that she was the prettiest woman they +ever saw. She was just eighteen years old when my father married her, +and she was not six-and-twenty when she died. + +[I got so far in writing my life, seated at the round, three-legged +pinewood table, with Eleanor scribbling away opposite to me. But I could +get no further just then. I put my hands before my eyes as if to shade +them from the light; but Eleanor is very quick, and she found out that I +was crying. She jumped up and threw herself at my feet. + +"Margery, dear Margery! what _is_ the matter?" + +I could only sob, "My mother, O my mother!" and add, almost bitterly, +"It is very well for you to write about your childhood, who have had a +mother--and such a mother!--all your life; but for me----" + +Eleanor knelt straight up, with her teeth set, and her hands clasped +before her. + +"I do think," she said slowly, "that I am, without exception, the most +selfish, inconsiderate, dense, unfeeling brute that ever lived." She +looked so quaintly, vehemently in earnest as she knelt in the firelight, +that I laughed in spite of my tears. + +"My dear old thing," I said, "it is I who am selfish, not you. But I am +going on now, and I promise to disturb you no more." And in this I was +resolute, though Eleanor would have burned our papers then and there, +if I had not prevented her. + +Indeed she knew as well as I did that it was not merely because I was an +orphan that I wept, as I thought of my early childhood. We could not +speak of it, but she knew enough to guess at what was passing through my +mind. I was only six years old when my mother died, but I can remember +her. I can remember her brief appearances in the room where I played, in +much dirt and contentment, at my Ayah's feet--rustling in silks and +satins, glittering with costly ornaments, beautiful and scented, like a +fairy dream. I would forego all these visions for one--only one--memory +of her praying by my bedside, or teaching me at her knee. But she was so +young, and so pretty! And yet, O Mother, Mother! better than all the +triumphs of your loveliness in its too short prime would it have been to +have left a memory of your beautiful face with some devout or earnest +look upon it--"as it had been the face of an angel"--to your only child. + +As I sit thinking thus, I find Eleanor's dark eyes gazing at me from her +place, to which she has gone back; and she says softly, "Margery, dear +Margery, do let us give it up." But I would not give it up now, for +anything whatever.] + +The first six years of my life were spent chiefly with my Ayah. I loved +her very dearly. I kissed and fondled her dark cheeks as gladly as if +they had been fair and ruddy, and oftener than I touched my mother's, +which were like the petals of a china rose. My most intimate friends +were of the Ayah's complexion. We had more than one "bearer" during +those years, to whom I was greatly attached. I spoke more Hindostanee +than English. The other day I saw a group of Lascar sailors at the +Southampton Station; they had just come off a ship, and were talking +rapidly and softly together. I have forgotten the language of my early +childhood, but its tones had a familiar sound; those dark bright faces +were like the faces of old friends, and my heart beat for a minute, as +one is moved by some remembrance of an old home. + +When my mother went out for her early ride at daybreak, before the heat +of the day came on, Ayah would hold me up at the window to see her +start. Sometimes my father would have me brought out, and take me before +him on his horse for a few minutes. But my nurse never allowed this if a +ready excuse could prevent it. Her care of me was maternal in its +tenderness, but she did not keep me tidy enough for me to be presentable +off-hand to company. + +There was always "company" wherever my mother went--gentleman company +especially. The gentlemen, in different places, and at different times, +were not the same, but they had a common likeness. I used to count them +when they rode home with my father and mother, or assembled for any of +the many reasons for which "company" hung about our homes. I remember +that it was an amusement to me to discover, "there are six to-day," or +"five to-day," and to tell my Ayah. I was even more minute. I divided +them into three classes: "the little ones, the middle ones, and the old +ones." The "little ones" were the very young men--smooth-cheeked +ensigns, etc.; the "old ones" were usually colonels, generals, or +elderly civilians. From the youngest to the oldest, officers and +civilians, they were all very good-natured to me, and I approved of them +accordingly. + +When callers came, I was often sent into the drawing-room. Great was my +dear Ayah's pride when I was dressed in pink silk, my hair being +arranged in ringlets round my head, to be shown off to the company. I +was proud of myself, and was wont rather to strut than walk into the +room upon my best kid shoes. They were pink, to match my frock, and I +was not a little vain of them. There were usually some ladies in the +room, dressed in rustling finery like my mother, but not like her in +the face--never so pretty. There were always plenty of gentlemen of the +three degrees, and they used to be very polite to me, and to call me +"little Rosebud," and give me sweetmeats. I liked sweetmeats, and I +liked flattery, but I had an affection stronger than my fancy for +either. I used to look sharply over the assembled men for the face I +wanted, and when I had found it I flew to the arms that were stretched +out for me. They were my father's. + +I remember my mother, but I remember my father better still. I did not +see very much of him, but when we were together I think we were both +thoroughly happy. I can recall pretty clearly one very happy holiday we +spent together. My father got some leave, and took us for a short time +to the hills. My clearest memory of his face is as it smiled on me, from +under a broad hat, as we made nosegays for Mamma's vases in our +beautiful garden, where the fuchsias and geraniums were "hardy," and the +sweet-scented verbenas and heliotropes were great bushes, loading the +air with perfume. + +I have one remembrance of it almost as distinct--the last. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE CHOLERA SEASON--MY MOTHER GOES AWAY--MY SIXTH BIRTHDAY. + + +We were living in a bungalow not far from the barracks at X. when the +cholera came. It was when I was within a few weeks of six years old. +First we heard that it was among the natives, and the matter did not +excite much notice. Then it broke out among the men, and the officers +talked a good deal about it. The next news was of the death of the +Colonel commanding our regiment. + +One of my early recollections is of our hearing of this. An ensign of +our regiment (one of the "little ones") called upon my mother in the +evening of the day of the Colonel's death. He was very white, very +nervous, very restless. He brought us the news. The Colonel had been ill +barely thirty-six hours. He had suffered agonies with wonderful +firmness. He was to be buried the next day. + +"He never was afraid of cholera," said Mr. Gordon; "he didn't believe it +was infectious; he thought keeping up the men's spirits was everything. +But, you see, it isn't nervousness, after all, that does it." + +"It goes a long way, Gordon," said my father. "You're young; you've +never been through one of these seasons. Don't get fanciful, my good +fellow. Come here, and play with Margery." + +Mr. Gordon laughed. + +"I am a fool, certainly," he said. "Ever since I heard of it, I have +fancied a strange, faint kind of smell everywhere, which is absurd +enough." + +"I will make you a camphor-bag," said my mother, "that ought to +overpower any faint smell, and it is a charm against infection." + +I believe Mr. Gordon was beginning to thank her, but his words ended in +a sort of inarticulate groan. He stood on his feet, though not upright, +and at last said feebly, "I beg your pardon, I don't feel quite well." + +"You're upset, old fellow; it's quite natural," said my father. "Come +and get some brandy, and you shall come back for the camphor." + +My father led him away, but he did not come back. My father took him to +his quarters, and sent the surgeon to him; and my mother took me on her +knee, and sat silent for a long time, with the unfinished camphor-bag +beside her. + +The next day I went to the end of our compound with Ayah, to see the +Colonel's funeral pass. The procession seemed endless. The horse he had +ridden two days before by my mother's side tossed its head fretfully, +as the "Dead March" wailed, and the slow tramp of feet poured endlessly +on. My mother was looking out from the verandah. As Ayah and I joined +her, a native servant, who was bringing something in, said abruptly, +"Gordon Sahib--he dead too." + +When my father returned from the funeral he found my mother in a panic. +Some friends had lately invited her to stay with them, and she was now +resolved to go. "I am sure I shall die if I stay here!" she cried, and +it ended in her going away at once. There was some difficulty as to +accommodating me and Ayah, and it was decided that, if necessary, we +should follow my mother later. + +For my own part, I begged to remain. I had no fear of cholera, and I was +anxious to dine with my father on my birthday, as he had promised that I +should. + +It was on the day before my birthday that one of the surgeons was +buried. The man next in rank to the poor Colonel was on leave, and the +regiment was commanded by our friend Major Buller, whose little +daughters were invited to spend the following evening with me. The +Major, my father, and two other officers had been pall-bearers at the +funeral. My father came to me on his return. He was slightly chilled, +and said he should remain indoors; so I had him all to myself, and we +were very happy, though he complained of fatigue, and fell asleep once +on the floor with his head in my lap. He was still lying on the floor +when Ayah took me to bed. I believe he had been unwell all the day, +though I did not know it, and had been taking some of the many specifics +against cholera, of which everybody had one or more at that time. + +Half-an-hour later he sent for a surgeon, who happened to be dining with +Major Buller. The Doctor and the Major came together to our bungalow, +and with them two other officers who happened to be of the party, and +who were friends of my father. One of them was a particular friend of my +own. He was an ensign, a reckless, kind-hearted lad "in his teens," a +Mr. Abercrombie, who had good reason to count my father as a friend. + +Mr. Abercrombie mingled in some way with my dreams that night, or rather +early morning, and when I fairly woke, it was to the end of a discussion +betwixt my Ayah, who was crying, and Mr. Abercrombie, in evening dress, +whose face bore traces of what looked to me like crying also. I was +hastily clothed, and he took me in his arms. + +"Papa wants you, Margery dear," he said; and he carried me quickly down +the passages in the dim light of the early summer dawn. + +Two or three officers, amongst whom I recognized Major Buller, fell +back, as we came in, from the bed to which Mr. Abercrombie carried me. +My father turned his face eagerly towards me, but I shrank away. That +one night of suffering and collapse had changed him so that I did not +know him again. At last I was persuaded to go to him, and by his voice +and manner recognized him as his feeble fingers played tenderly with +mine. And when he said, "Kiss me, Margery dear," I crept up and kissed +his forehead, and started to feel it so cold and damp. + +"Be a good girl, Margery dear," he whispered; "be very good to Mamma." +There was a short silence. Then he said, "Is the sun rising yet, +Buller?" + +"Just rising, old fellow. Does the light bother you?" + +"No, thank you; I can't see it. The fact is, I can't see you now. I +suppose it's nearly over. GOD'S will be done. You've got the papers, +Buller? Arkwright will be kind about it, I'm sure. You'll break it to my +wife as well as you can?" + +After another pause he said, "It's time you fellows went to bed and got +some sleep." + +But no one moved, and there was another silence, which my father broke +by saying, "Buller, where are you? It's quite dark now. Would you say +the Lord's Prayer for me, old fellow? Margery dear, put your hands with +poor Papa's." + +"I've not said my prayers yet," said I; "and you know I ought to say my +prayers, for I've been dressed a long time." + +The Major knelt simply by the bed. The other men, standing, bent their +heads, and Mr. Abercrombie, kneeling, buried his face on the end of the +bed and sobbed aloud. + +Major Buller said the Lord's Prayer. I, believing it to be my duty, said +it also, and my father said it with us to the clause "For Thine is the +kingdom, the power, and the glory," when his voice failed, and I, +thinking he had forgotten (for I sometimes forgot in the middle of my +most familiar prayers and hymns), helped him--"Papa dear! _for ever and +ever_." + +Still he was silent, and as I bent over him I heard one long-drawn +breath, and then his hands, which were enfolded with mine, fell apart. +The sunshine was now beginning to catch objects in the room, and a ray +lighted up my father's face, and showed a change that even I could see. +An officer standing at the head of the bed saw it also, and said +abruptly, "He's dead, Buller." And the Major, starting up, took me in +his arms, and carried me away. + +I cried and struggled. I had a dim sense of what had happened, mixed +with an idea that these men were separating me from my father. I could +not be pacified till Mr. Abercrombie held out his arms for me. He was +more like a woman, and he was crying as well as I. I went to him and +buried my sobs on his shoulder. Mr. George (as I had long called him, +from finding his surname hard to utter) carried me into the passage and +walked up and down, comforting me. + +"Is Papa really dead?" I at length found voice to ask. + +"Yes, Margery dear. I'm so sorry." + +"Will he go to Abraham's bosom, Mr. George?" + +"Will he go _where_, Margery?" + +"To Abraham's bosom, you know, where the poor beggar went that's lying +on the steps in my Sunday picture-book, playing with those dear old +dogs." + +Mr. Abercrombie's knowledge of Holy Scripture was, I fear, limited. +Possibly my remarks recalled some childish remembrance similar to my +own. He said, "Oh yes, to be sure. Yes, dear." + +"Do you think the dogs went with the poor beggar?" I asked. "Do you +think the angels took them too?" + +"I don't know," said Mr. George. "I hope they did." + +There was a pause, and then I asked, in awe-struck tones, "Will the +angels fetch Papa, do you think?" + +Mr. George had evidently decided to follow my theological lead, and he +replied, "Yes, Margery dear." + +"Shall you see them?" I asked. + +"No, no, Margery. I'm not good enough to see angels." + +"_I_ think you're very good," said I. "And please be good, Mr. George, +and then the angels will fetch you, and perhaps me, and Mamma, and +perhaps Ayah, and perhaps Bustle, and perhaps Clive." Bustle was Mr. +Abercrombie's dog, and Clive was a mastiff, the dog of the regiment, and +a personal friend of mine. + +"Very well, Margery dear. And now you must be good too, and you must let +me take you to bed, for it's morning now, and I have had no sleep at +all." + +"Is it to-morrow now?" I asked; "because, if it's to-morrow, it's my +birthday." And I began to cry afresh, because Papa had promised that I +should dine with him, and had promised me a present also. + +"I'll give you a birthday present," said my long-suffering friend; and +he began to unfasten a locket that hung at his watch-chain. It was of +Indian gold, with forget-me-nots in turquoise stones upon it. He opened +it and pulled out a photograph, which he tore to bits, and then trampled +underfoot. + +"There, Margery, there's a locket for you; you can throw it into the +fire, or do anything you like with it. And I wish you many happy returns +of the day." And he finally fastened it round my neck with his +Trichinopoli watch-chain, leaving his watch loose in his +waistcoat-pocket. The locket and chain pleased me, and I suffered him to +carry me to bed. Then, as he was parting from me, I thought of my father +again, and asked: + +"Do you think the angels have fetched Papa _now_, Mr. George?" + +"I think they have, Margery." + +Whereupon I cried myself to sleep. And this was my sixth birthday. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BULLERS--MATILDA TAKES ME UP--WE FALL OUT--MR. GEORGE. + + +Major Buller took me home to his house after my father's death. My +father had left his affairs in his hands, and in those of a friend in +England--the Mr. Arkwright he had spoken of. I believe they were both +trustees under my mother's marriage settlement. + +The Bullers were relations of mine. Mrs. Buller was my mother's cousin. +She was a kind-hearted, talkative lady, and good-looking, though no +longer very young. She dressed as gaily as my poor mother, though, +somehow, not with quite so good an effect. She copied my mother's style, +and sometimes wore things exactly similar to hers; but the result was +not the same. I have heard Mrs. Minchin say that my mother took a +malicious pleasure, at times, in wearing costumes that would have been +most trying to beauty less radiant and youthful than hers, for the fun +of seeing "poor Theresa" appear in a similar garb with less success. But +Mrs. Minchin's tales had always a sting in them! + +Mrs. Buller received me very kindly. She kissed me, and told me to call +her "Aunt Theresa," which I did ever afterwards. Aunt Theresa's +daughters and I were like sisters. They showed me their best frocks, and +told me exactly all that had been ordered in the parcel that was coming +out from England. + +"Don't you have your hair put in papers?" said Matilda, whose own curls +sat stiffly round her head as regularly as the rolls of a lawyer's wig. +"Are your socks like lace? Doesn't your Ayah dress you every afternoon?" + +Matilda "took me up." She was four years older than I was, which +entitled her to blend patronage with her affection for me. In the +evening of the day on which I went to the Bullers, she took me by the +hand, and tossing her curls said, "I have taken you up, Margery +Vandaleur. Mrs. Minchin told Mamma that she has taken the bride up. I +heard her say that the bride was a sweet little puss, only so childish. +That's just what Mrs. Minchin said. I heard her. And I shall say so of +you, too, as I've taken you up. You're a sweet little puss. And of +course you're childish, because you're a child," adds Miss Matilda, with +an air. For had not she begun to write her own age with two figures? + +Had I known then as much as I learned afterwards of what it meant to be +"taken up" by Mrs. Minchin, I might not have thought the comparison a +good omen for my friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs. +Minchin meant an equally hot quarrel at no very distant date. The +squabble with the bride was not slow to come, but Matilda and I fell out +first. I think she was tyrannical, and I know I was peevish. My Ayah +spoilt me; I spoke very broken English, and by no means understood all +that the Bullers said to me; besides which, I was feverishly unhappy at +intervals about my father. + +It was two months before Mrs. Minchin found out that her sweet little +puss was a deceitful little cat; but at the end of two days I had +offended Matilda, and we plunged into a war of words such as children +wage when they squabble. + +"I won't show you any more of my dresses," said Matilda. + +"I've seen them all," I boldly asserted; and the stroke told. + +"You don't know that," said Matilda. + +"Yes, I do." + +"No, you don't." + +"Well, show me the others then." + +"No, that I won't." + +"I don't care." + +"I've got a blue silk coming out from England," Matilda continued, "but +you haven't." + +"I've got a pink silk here," said I, "and pink shoes." + +"Ah, but you can't wear them now your papa's dead," said Matilda; "Mamma +says you will have to wear black for twelve months." + +I am sure Matilda did not mean to be cruel, but this blow cut me deeply. +I remember the tide of misery that seemed to flood over my mind, to this +day. I was miserable because my father was dead, and I could not go to +him for comfort. I was miserable because I was out of temper, and +Matilda had had the best of the quarrel. I was miserable--poor little +wretch!--because I could not wear my pink silk, now my father was dead. +I put my hands to my eyes, and screaming, "Papa! Papa!" I rushed out +into the verandah. + +As I ran out, some one ran in; we struck against each other, and Bustle +and I rolled over on to the floor. In a moment more I was in Mr. +Abercrombie's arms, and sobbing out my woes to him. + +I am sorry to say that he swore rather loudly when he heard what Matilda +had said, and I fancy that he lectured her when I had gone to Ayah, for +she came to me presently and begged my pardon. Of course we were at once +as friendly as before. Many another breach was there between us after +that, hastily made and quickly healed. But the bride and Mrs. Minchin +never came to terms. + +"Mr. George" remained my devoted friend. I looked for him as I used to +look for my father. The first time I saw him after I came to the Bullers +was on the day of my father's funeral. He was there, and came back with +Major Buller. I was on Mr. George's knee in a moment, with my hand +through the crape upon his sleeve. The Major slowly unfastened his +sword-belt, and laid it down with a sigh, saying, "We've lost a good +man, Abercrombie, and a true friend." + +"You don't know what a friend to me," said Mr. George impetuously. "Why, +look here, sir. A month or two ago I'd outrun the constable--I always am +getting into a mess of some sort--and Vandaleur found it out and lent me +the money." + +"You're not the first youngster he has helped by many, to my knowledge," +said Major Buller. + +"But that's not all, sir," said Mr. George, standing up with me in his +arms. "When we first went in that night, you remember his speaking +privately to me once? Well, what he said was, 'I think I'm following the +rest, Abercrombie, and I wanted to speak to you about this.' He had got +my I.O.U. in his hand, and he tore it across, and said, 'Don't bother +any more about it; but keep straight, my boy, if you can, for your +people's sake.' I'm sadly given to going crooked, sir, but if anything +could make a fellow----" + +Mr. George got no further in his sentence, but the Major seemed to +understand what he meant, for he spoke very kindly to him, and they left +me for a bit and walked up and down the verandah together. Just before +Mr. George left, I heard him say, "Have you heard anything of Mrs. +Vandaleur?" + +"I wrote to her, in the best fashion that I could," said Major Buller. +"But there's no breaking rough news gently, Abercrombie. I ought to hear +from her soon." + +But he never did hear from her. My poor mother had fled from the cholera +only to fall a victim to fever. The news of my father's death was, I +believe, the immediate cause of the relapse in which she died. + +And so I became an orphan. + +Shortly afterwards the regiment was ordered home, and the Bullers took +me with them. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +SALES--MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE--MRS. MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH THE BRIDE--MRS. +MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH EVERYBODY--MRS. MINCHIN IS RECONCILED--THE VOYAGE +HOME--A DEATH ON BOARD. + + +I only remember a little of our voyage home in the troop-ship, but I +have heard so much of it, from the elder Buller girls and the ladies of +the regiment, that I seem quite familiar with all that happened; and I +hardly know now what I remember myself, and what has been recalled or +suggested to me by hearing the other ladies talk. + +There was no lack of subjects for talk when the news came that the +regiment was ordered home. As Aunt Theresa repeatedly remarked, "There +are a great many things to be considered." And she considered them all +day long--by word of mouth. + +The Colonel (that is, the new Colonel)--he had just returned from leave +in the hills--and his wife behaved rather shabbily, it was thought. +"But," as Mrs. Minchin said, "what could you expect? They say she was +the daughter of a wholesale draper in the City. And trade in the blood +always peeps out." We knew for certain that before there was a word said +about the regiment going home, it had been settled that the Colonel's +wife should go to England, where her daughters were being educated, and +take the two youngest children with her. Her passage in the mail-steamer +was all but taken, if not quite. And then, when they heard of the +troop-ship, she stayed to go home in that. "Money can be no object to +them," said Mrs. Minchin, "for one of the City people belonging to her +has died lately, and left her--I can't tell you how many thousands. +Indeed, they've heaps of money, and now he's got the regiment he ought +to retire. And I must say, I think it's very hard on you, dear Mrs. +Buller. With all your family, senior officer's wife's accommodation +would be little enough, for a long voyage." + +"Which is no reason why my wife should have better accommodation than +she is entitled to, more than any other lady on board," observed Uncle +Buller. "The Quartermaster's wife has more children than we have, and +you know how much room she will get." + +"Quartermaster's wife!" muttered Mrs. Minchin. "She would have been +accommodated with the women of the regiment if we had gone home three +months ago (at which time Quartermaster Curling was still only a +sergeant)." + +Uncle Buller made no reply. He was not fond of Mrs. Minchin, and he +never disputed a point with her. + +One topic of the day was "sales." We all had to sell off what we did not +want to take home, and the point was to choose the right moment for +doing so. + +"I shan't be the first," said Aunt Theresa decidedly. "The first sales +are always failures somehow. People are depressed. Then they know that +there are plenty more to come, and they hang back. But further on, +people have just got into an extravagant humour, and would go +bargain-hunting to fifty sales a day. Later still, they find out that +they've got all they want." + +"And a great deal that they don't want," put in Uncle Buller. + +"Which is all the same thing," said Aunt Theresa. "So I shall sell about +the middle." Which she did, demanding her friends' condolences +beforehand on the way in which her goods and chattels would be "given +away," and receiving their congratulations afterwards upon the high +prices that they fetched. + +To do Aunt Theresa justice, if she was managing, she was quite honest. + +[Eleanor is shocked by some of the things I say about people in our own +rank of life. She believes that certain vulgar vices, such as cheating, +lying, gluttony, petty gossip, malicious mischief-making, etc., are +confined to the lower orders, or, as she wisely and kindly phrases it, +to people who know no better. She laughs at me, and I laugh at myself, +when I say (to support my own views) that I know more of the world than +she does; since what I know of the world beyond this happy corner of it +I learned when I was a mere child. But though we laugh, I can remember a +good deal. I have heard polished gentlemen lie, at a pinch, like the +proverbial pick-pocket, and pretty ladies fib as well as servant-girls. +Of course, I do not mean to say that as many ladies as servant-girls +tell untruths. But Eleanor would fain believe that the lie which Solomon +discovered to be "continually on the lips of the untaught" is not on the +lips of those who "know better" at all. As to dishonesty, too, I should +be sorry to say that customers cheat as much as shopkeepers, but I do +think that many people who ought to "know better" seem to forget that +their honour as well as their interest is concerned in every bargain. +The question then arises, do people in our rank know so much better on +these points of moral conduct than those below them? If Eleanor and her +parents are "old-fashioned" (and the boys think us quite behind the +times), I fancy, that perhaps high principle and a nice sense of honour +are not so well taught now as they used to be. Noble sentiments are not +the fashion. The very phrase provokes a smile of ridicule. But I do not +know whether the habit of uttering ignoble ones in "chaff" does not at +last bring the tone of mind down to the low level. It is so terribly +easy to be mean, and covetous, and selfish, and cowardly untrue, if the +people by whose good opinion one's character lives will comfortably +confess that they also "look out for themselves," and "take care of +Number One," and think "money's the great thing in this world," and hold +"the social lie" to be a necessary part of social intercourse. I know +that once or twice it has happened that young people with whom we have +been thrown have said things which have made high-principled Eleanor +stand aghast in honourable horror; and that that speechless indignation +of hers has been as much lost upon them as the touch of a feather on the +hide of a rhinoceros. Eleanor is more impatient than I am on such +subjects. I who have been trained in more than one school myself, am +sorry for those who have never known the higher teaching. Eleanor thinks +that modesty, delicacy of mind and taste, and uprightness in word and +deed, are innate in worthy characters. Where she finds them absent, she +is apt to dilate her nostrils, and say, in that low, emphatic voice +which is her excited tone, "There are some things that you cannot _put +into_ anybody!" and so turn her back for ever on the offender. Or, as +she once said to a friend of the boys, who was staying with us, in the +heat of argument, "I supposed that honourable men, like poets, are born, +not made." I, indeed, do believe these qualities to be in great measure +inherited; but I believe them also to come of training, and to be more +easily lost than Eleanor will allow. She has only lived in one moral +atmosphere. I think that the standard of a family or a social circle +falls but too easily; and in all humbleness of mind, I say that I have +reason to believe that in this respect, as in other matters, elevation +and amendment are possible. + +However, this is one of the many subjects we discuss, rocking and pacing +the kitchen to the howling of the wind. We have confessed that our +experience is very small, and our opinions still unfixed in the matter, +so it is unlikely that I shall settle it to my own, or anybody's +satisfaction, in the pages of this biography.] + +To return to Aunt Theresa. She was, as I said, honest. She chose a good +moment for our sale; but she did not "doctor" the things. For the credit +of the regiment, I feel ashamed to confess that everybody was not so +scrupulous. One lady sat in our drawing-room, with twenty-five pounds' +worth of lace upon her dress, and congratulated herself on having sold +some toilette-china as sound, of which she had daintily doctored two +fractures with an invaluable cement. The pecuniary gain may have been +half-a-crown. The loss in self-respect she did not seem to estimate. +Aunt Theresa would not have done it herself, but she laughed +encouragingly. It is difficult to be strait-laced with a lady who had so +much old point, and whose silks are so stiff that she can rustle down +your remonstrances. Another friend, a young officer whose personal +extravagance was a proverb even at a station in India, boasted for a +week of having sold a rickety knick-knack shelf to a man who was going +off to the hills for five-and-twenty rupees when it was not worth six. I +have heard him swear at tailors, servants, and subordinates of all +kinds, for cheating. I do not think it ever dawned upon his mind that +common honesty was a virtue in which he himself was wanting. As to Mrs. +Minchin's tales on this subject--but Mrs. Minchin's tales were not to be +relied upon. + +It was about this time that Mrs. Minchin and the bride quarrelled. In a +few weeks after her arrival, the bride knew all the ladies of the +regiment and the society of the station, and then showed little +inclination to be bear-led by Mrs. Minchin. She met that terrible lady +so smartly on one occasion that she retired, worsted, for the afternoon, +and the bride drove triumphantly round the place, and called on all her +friends, looking as soft as a Chinchilla muff, and dropping at every +bungalow the tale of something that Mrs. Minchin had said, by no means +to the advantage of the inmates. + +It was in this way that Aunt Theresa came to know what Mrs. Minchin had +said about her wearing half-mourning for my father and mother. That she +knew better than to go into deep black, which is trying to indefinite +complexions, but was equal to any length of grief in those lavenders, +and delicate combinations of black and white, which are so becoming to +everybody, especially to people who are not quite so young as they have +been. + +In the warmth of her own indignation at these unwarrantable remarks, and +of the bride's ready sympathy, Aunt Theresa felt herself in candour +bound to reveal what Mrs. Minchin had told her about the bride's having +sold a lot of her wedding presents at the sale for fancy prices; they +being new-fashioned ornaments, and so forth, not yet to be got at the +station. + +The result of this general information all round was, of course, a +quarrel between Mrs. Minchin and nearly every lady in the regiment. The +bride had not failed to let "the Colonel's lady" know what Mrs. Minchin +thought of her going home in the troop-ship, and had made a call upon +the Quartermaster's wife for the pleasure of making her acquainted with +Mrs. Minchin's warm wish that the regiment had been ordered home three +months sooner, when Mrs. Curling and the too numerous little Curlings +would not have been entitled to intrude upon the ladies' cabin. + +And yet, strange to say, before we were half-way to England, Mrs. +Minchin was friendly once more with all but the bride; and the bride was +at enmity with every lady on board. The truth is, Mrs. Minchin, though a +gossip of the deepest dye, was kind-hearted, after a fashion. Her +restless energy, which chiefly expended itself in petty social plots, +and the fomentation of quarrels, was not seldom employed also in +practical kindness towards those who happened to be in favour with her. +She was really interested--for good or for evil--in those with whose +affairs she meddled, and if she was a dangerous enemy, and a yet more +dangerous friend, she was neither selfish nor illiberal. + +The bride, on the other hand, had no real interest whatever in anybody's +affairs but her own, and combined in the highest degree those qualities +of personal extravagance and general meanness which not unfrequently go +together. + +A long voyage is no small test of temper; and it was a situation in +which Mrs. Minchin's best qualities shone. It was proportionably +unfavourable to those of the bride. Her maid was sick, and she was +slovenly. She was sick herself, and then her selfishness and discontent +knew no check. The other ladies bore their own little troubles, and +helped each other; but under the peevish egotism of the bride, her +warmest friends revolted. It was then that Mrs. Minchin resumed her sway +amongst us. + +With Aunt Theresa she was soon reconciled. Mrs. Buller's memory was +always hazy, both in reference to what she said herself, and to what was +said to her. She was too good-natured to strain it to recall past +grievances. Her indignation had not lasted much beyond that afternoon in +which the bride scattered discord among her acquaintances. She had +relieved herself by outpouring the tale of Mrs. Minchin's treachery to +Uncle Buller, and then taking him warmly to task for the indifference +with which he heard her wrongs; and had ended by laughing heartily when +he compared the probable encounter between Mrs. Minchin and the bride to +the deadly struggles of two quarrelsome "praying-mantises" in his +collection. + +[Major Buller was a naturalist, and took home some rare and beautiful +specimens of Indian insects.] + +It was an outbreak of sickness amongst the little Curlings which led to +the reconciliation with the Quartermaster's wife. Neither her kindness +of heart nor her love of managing other folks' matters would permit Mrs. +Minchin to be passive then. She made the first advances, and poor Mrs. +Curling gratefully responded. + +"I'm sure, Mrs. Minchin," said she, "I don't wonder at any one thinking +the children would be in the way, poor dears. But of course, as Curling +said----" + +"GOD bless you, my good woman," Mrs. Minchin broke in. "Don't let us go +back to that. We all know pretty well what Mrs. Seymour's made of, now. +Let's go to the children. I'm as good a sick-nurse as most people, and +if you keep up your heart we'll pull them all through before we get to +the Cape." + +But with all her zeal (and it did not stop short of a quarrel with the +surgeon) and all her devotion, which never slackened, Mrs. Minchin did +not "pull them all through." + +We were just off the Cape when Arthur Curling died. He was my own age, +and in the beginning of the voyage we had been playfellows. Of all the +children who swarmed on deck to the distraction of (at least) the +unmarried officers of the regiment, he had been the noisiest and the +merriest. He made fancy ships in corners, to which he admitted the other +children as fancy passengers, or fancy ship's officers of various +grades. Once he employed a dozen of us to haul at a rope as if we were +"heaving the log." Owing to an unexpected coil, it slackened suddenly, +and we all fell over one another at the feet of two young officers who +were marching up and down, arm-in-arm, absorbed in conversation. Their +anger was loud as well as deep, but it did not deter Arthur Curling from +further exploits, or stop his ceaseless chatter about what he would do +when he was a man and the captain of a vessel. + +He did not live to be either the one or the other. Some very rough +weather off the Cape was fatal to him at a critical point in his +illness. How Mrs. Minchin contrived to keep her own feet and to nurse +the poor boy as she did was a marvel. He died on her knees. + +The weather had been rough up to the time of his death, but it was a +calm lovely morning on which his body was committed to the deep. The +ship's bell tolled at daybreak, and all the ladies but the bride were +with poor Mrs. Curling at the funeral. Mrs. Seymour lay in her berth, +and whined complaints of "that horrid bell." She displayed something +between an interesting terror and a shrewish anger because there was "a +body on board." When she said that the Curlings ought to be thankful to +have one child less to provide for, the other ladies hurried indignantly +from the cabin. + +The early morning air was fresh and mild. The sea and sky were grey, but +peaceful. The decks were freshly washed. The sailors in various parts of +the ship uncovered their heads. The Colonel and several officers were +present. I had earnestly begged to be there also, and finding Mr. +George, I stood with my hand in his. + +Mrs. Curling's grief had passed the point of tears. She had not shed one +since the boy died, though Mrs. Minchin had tried hard to move her to +the natural relief of weeping. She only stood in silent agony, though +the Quartermaster's cheeks were wet, and most of the ladies sobbed +aloud. + +As the little coffin slid over the hatchway into the quiet sea, the sun +rose, and a long level beam covered the place where the body had gone +down. + +Then, with a sudden cry, the mother burst into tears. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A HOME STATION--WHAT MRS. BULLER THOUGHT OF IT--WHAT MAJOR BULLER +THOUGHT OF IT. + + +Riflebury, in the south of England--our next station--was a very lively +place. "There was always something going on." "Somebody was always +dropping in." "People called and stayed to lunch in a friendly way." +"One was sure of some one at afternoon tea." "What with croquet and +archery in the Gardens, meeting friends on the Esplanade, concerts at +the Rooms, shopping, and changing one's novels at the circulating +library, one really never had a dull hour." So said "everybody;" and one +or two people, including Major Buller, added that "One never had an hour +to one's self." + +"If you had any one occupation, you'd know how maddening it is," he +exclaimed, one day, in a fit of desperation. + +"Any one occupation!" cried Mrs. Buller, to whom he had spoken. "I'm +sure, Edward, I'm always busy. I never have a quiet moment from morning +to night, it seems to me. But it is so like you men! You can stick to +one thing all along, and your meals come to you as if they dropped out +of the skies, and your clothes come ready-made from the tailor's (and +very dearly they have to be paid for, too!); and when one is ordering +dinner and luncheon, and keeping one's clothes decent, and looking after +the children and the servants, and taking your card, and contriving +excuses that are not fibs for you to the people you ought to call on, +from week's end to week's end--you say one has no occupation." + +"Well, well, my dear," said the Major, "I know you have all the trouble +of the household, but I meant to say that if you had any pursuit, any +study----" + +"And as to visitors," continued Aunt Theresa, who always pursued her own +train of ideas, irrespective of replies, "I'm sure society's no pleasure +to me; I only call on the people you ought to call on, and keep up a few +acquaintances for the children's sake. You wouldn't have us without a +friend in the world when the girls come out; and really, what with +regimental duties in the morning, and insects afterwards, Edward, you +are so absorbed, that if it wasn't for a lady friend coming in now and +then, I should hardly have a soul to speak to." + +The Major was melted in a moment. + +"I am afraid I am a very inattentive husband," he said. "You must +forgive me, my dear. And this sprained ankle keeping me in makes me +cross, too. And I had so reckoned on these days at home to finish my +list of Coleoptera, and get some dissecting and mounting done. But +to-day, Mrs. Minchin brought her work directly after breakfast, and that +empty-headed fellow Elliott dropped in for lunch, and we had callers all +the afternoon, and a _coterie_ for tea, and Mrs. St. John (who seems to +get through life somehow without the most indefinite notion of how time +passes) came in just when tea was over, and you had to order a fresh +supply when we should have been dressing for dinner, and the dinner was +spoilt by waiting till she discovered that she had no idea (whoever did +know her have an idea?) how late it was, and that Mr. St. John would be +so angry. And now you want me to go in a cab to a concert at the Rooms +to meet all these people over again!" + +"I'm sure I don't care for Mrs. St. John a bit more than you do," said +Mrs. Buller. "And really she does repeat such things sometimes--without +ever looking round to see if the girls are in the room. She told me a +thing to-day that old Lady Watford had told her." + +"My dear, her ladyship's stories are well known. Cremorne's wife hears +them from her, and tells them to her husband, and he tells them to the +other fellows. I can always hear them if I wish. But I do not care to. +But if you don't like Mrs. St. John, Theresa, what on earth made you +ask her to come and sit with you in the morning?" + +"Well, my dear, what can I do?" said Mrs. Buller. "She's always saying +that everybody is so unsociable, and that she is so dull, she doesn't +know what to do with herself, and begging me to take my work and go and +sit with her in a morning. How can I go and leave the children and the +servants, just at the time of day when everything wants to be set going? +So I thought I'd better ask her to come here instead. It's a great bore, +but I can keep an eye over the house, and if any one else drops in I can +leave them together. It's not me that she wants, it's something to amuse +her. + +"You talk about my having nothing to do," Aunt Theresa plaintively +continued. "But I'm sure I can hardly sleep at night sometimes for +thinking of all I ought to do and haven't done. Mrs. Jerrold, you know, +made me promise faithfully when we were coming away to write to her +every mail, and I never find time. Every week, as it comes round, I +think I will, and can't. I used to think that one good thing about +coming home would be the no more writing for the English mail; but the +Indian mail is quite as bad. And I'm sure mail-day seems to come round +quicker than any other day of the week. I quite dread Fridays. And then +your mother and sisters are always saying I never write. And I heard +from Mrs. Pryce Smith only this morning, telling me I owed her two +letters; and I don't know what to say to her when I do write, for she +knows nobody _here_, and I know nobody _there_. And we've never returned +the Ridgeways' call, my dear. And we've never called on the Mercers +since we dined there. And Mrs. Kirkshaw is always begging me to drive +out and spend the day at the Abbey. I know she is getting offended, I've +put her off so often; and Mrs. Minchin says she is very touchy. And Mrs. +Taylor looks quite reproachfully at me because I've not been near the +Dorcas meetings for so long. But it's all very well for people who have +no children to work at these things. A mother's time is not her own, and +charity begins at home. I'm sure I never seem to be at rest, and yet +people are never satisfied. Lady Burchett says she's certain I am never +at home, for she always misses me when she calls; and Mrs. Graham says I +never go out, she's sure, for she never meets me anywhere." + +"Isn't all that just what I say?" said Major Buller, laying down his +knife and fork. (The discussion took place at dinner.) "It's the tyranny +of the idle over the busy; and why, in the name of common sense, should +it be yielded to? Why should friends be obliged, at the peril of +disparagement of their affection or good manners, to visit each other +when they do not want to go--to receive each other when it is not +convenient, and to write to each other when there is nothing to say? You +women, my dear, I must say, are more foolish in this respect than men. +Men simply won't write long letters to their friends when they've +nothing to say, and I don't think their friendships suffer by it. And +though there are heaps of idle gossiping fellows, as well as ladies with +the same qualities, a man who was busy would never tolerate them to his +own inconvenience, much less invite them to persecute him. We are more +straightforward with each other, and that is, after all, the firmest +foundation for friendship. It is partly a misplaced amiability, a phase +of the unselfishness in which you excel us, and partly also, I think, a +want of some measuring quality that makes you women exact unreasonable +things, make impossible promises, and after blandly undertaking a +multiplicity of small matters that would tax the method of a man of +business to accomplish punctually, put your whole time at the disposal +of every fool who is pleased to waste it." + +"It's all very well talking, Edward," said Aunt Theresa. "But what is +one to do?" + +"Make a stand," said the Major. "When you're busy, and can't +conveniently see people, let your servant tell them so in as many words. +The friendship that can't survive that is hardly worth keeping, I +think. Eh, my dear?" + +But I suppose the stand was to be made further on, for Major Buller took +Aunt Theresa to the concert at "the Rooms." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DRESS AND MANNER--I EXAMINE MYSELF--MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER. + + +When we began our biographies we resolved that neither of us should read +the other's till both were finished. This was partly because we thought +it would be more satisfactory to be able to go straight through them, +partly as a check on a propensity for beginning things and not finishing +them, to which we are liable, and partly from the childish habit of +"saving up the treat for the last," as we used--in "old times"--to pick +the raisins out of the puddings and lay them by for a _bonne bouche_ +when we should have done our duty by the more solid portion. + +But our resolve has given way. We began by very much wishing to break +it, and we have ended by finding excellent reasons for doing so. + +We both wish to read the biographies--why should we tease ourselves by +sticking obstinately to our first opinion? + +No doubt it would be nice to read them "straight through." But we are +rather apt to devour books at a pace unfavourable to book-digestion, so +perhaps it will be better still to read them by bits, as one reads a +thing that "comes out in numbers." + +And in short, at this point Eleanor took mine, and has read it, and I +have read hers. She lays down mine, saying, "But, my dear, you don't +remember all this?" + +Which is true. What I have recorded of my first English home is more +what I know of it from other sources than what I positively remember. +And yet I have positive memories of my own about it, too. + +I have hinted that my poor young mother did not look after me much. Also +that the Ayah, who had a mother's love and care for me, paid very little +attention to my being tidy in person or dress, except when I was +exhibited to "company." + +But my mother was dead. Ayah (after a terrible parting) was left behind +in India. And from the time that I passed into Aunt Theresa's charge, +matters were quite changed. + +I do remember the dresses I had then, and the keen interest I took in +the subject of dress at a very early age. A very keen interest was taken +in it by Aunt Theresa herself, by Aunt Theresa's daughters, and by the +ladies of Aunt Theresa's acquaintance. I think I may say that it formed +(at least one of) the principal subjects of conversation during all +those working hours of the day which the ladies so freely sacrificed to +each other. Mrs. Buller was truly kind, and I am sure that if I had +depended in every way upon her, she would have given to my costume as +much care as she bestowed upon that of her own daughters. But my parents +had not been poor; there was no lack of money for my maintenance, and +thus "no reason," as Aunt Theresa said, why my clothes should not be +"decent," and "decent" with Aunt Theresa and her friends was a synonym +for "fashionable." + +Thus my first black frock was such an improvement (in fashion) upon the +pink silk one, as to deprive my deep mourning of much of its gloom. Mrs. +(Colonel) St. Quentin could not refuse to lend one of her youngest +little girl's frocks as a copy, for "the poor little orphan"; and a bevy +of ladies sat in consultation over it, for all Mrs. St. Quentin's things +were well worth copying. + +"Keep a paper pattern, dear," said Mrs. Minchin; "it will come in for +the girls. Her things are always good." + +And Mrs. Buller kept a paper pattern. + +I remember the dress quite clearly. It is fixed in my mind by an +incident connected with it. It had six crape tucks, of which fact I was +very proud, having heard a good deal said about it. The first time Mr. +George came to our bungalow, after I had begun to wear it, I strutted up +to him holding my skirt out, and my head up. + +"Look at my black frock, Mr. George," said I; "it has got six crape +tucks." + +Matilda was most precocious in--at least--one way: she could repeat +grown-up observations of wonderful length. + +"It's the best crape," she said; "it won't spot. Cut on the bias. +They're not real tucks though, Margery. They're laid on; Mrs. Minchin +said so." + +"They are real tucks," I stoutly asserted. + +"No, they're not. They're cut on the bias, and laid on to imitate +tucks," Matilda repeated. I think she was not sorry there should be some +weak point in the fashionable mourning in which she did not share. + +I turned to Mr. George, as usual. + +"Aren't they real tucks, Mr. George?" + +But Mr. George had a strange look on his face which puzzled and +disconcerted me. He only said, "Good heavens!" And all my after efforts +were vain to find out what he meant, and why he looked in that strange +manner. + +Little things that puzzle one in childhood remain long in one's memory. +For years I puzzled over that look of Mr. George's, and the remembrance +never was a pleasant one. It chilled my enthusiasm for my new dress at +the time, and made me feel inclined to cry. I think I have lived to +understand it. + +But I was not insensible of my great loss, though I took pride in my +fashionable mourning. I do not think I much connected the two in my +mind. I did not talk about my father to any one but Mr. George, but at +night I often lay awake and cried about him. This habit certainly +affected my health, and I had become a very thin, weak child when the +home voyage came to restore my strength. + +By the time we reached Riflebury, my fashionable new dress was neither +new nor fashionable. It was then that Mrs. Minchin ferreted out a +dressmaker whom Mrs. St. Quentin employed, and I was put under her +hands. + +The little Bullers' things were "made in the house," after the pattern +of mine. + +"And one sees the fashion-book, and gets a few hints," said Mrs. Buller. + +If Mr. George was not duly impressed by my fashionable mourning, I could +(young as I was) trace the effect of Aunt Theresa's care for my +appearance on other friends in the regiment. They openly remarked on it, +and did not scruple to do so in my hearing. Callers from the +neighbourhood patronized me also. Pretty ladies in fashionably pitched +bonnets smiled, and said, "One of your little ones, Mrs. Buller? What a +pretty little thing!" and duly sympathized over the sad story which Aunt +Theresa seemed almost to enjoy relating. Sometimes it was agony to me to +hear the oft-repeated tale of my parents' death, and then again I +enjoyed a sort of gloomy importance which gave me satisfaction. I even +rehearsed such scenes in my mind when I was in bed, shedding real tears +as (in the person of Aunt Theresa) I related the sad circumstances of my +own grief to an imaginary acquaintance; and then, with dry eyes, +prolonging the "fancy" with compliments and consolations of the most +flattering nature. I always took care to fancy some circumstances that +led to my being in my best dress on the occasion. + +Gentleman company did not haunt my new home as was the case with the +Indian one. But now and then officers of the regiment called on Mrs. +Buller, and would say, "Is that poor Vandaleur's child? Dear me! Very +interesting little thing;" and speculate in my hearing on the +possibility of my growing up like my mother. + +"'Pon my soul, she _is_ like her!" said one of the "middle ones" one +day, examining me through his eyeglass, "Th' same expressive eyes, you +know, and just that graceful gracious little manner poor Mrs. Vandaleur +had. By Jove, it was a shocking thing! She was an uncommonly pretty +woman." + +"You never saw _her_ mother, my good fellow," said one of the "old ones" +who was present. "She _had_ a graceful gracious manner, if you like, and +Mrs. Vandaleur was not to be named in the same day with her. Mrs. +Vandaleur knew how to dress, I grant you----" + +"You may go and play, Margery dear," said Aunt Theresa, with kindly +delicacy. + +The "old one" had lowered his voice, but still I could hear what he +said, as Mrs. Buller saw. + +When my father was not spoken of, my feelings were very little hurt. On +this occasion my mind was engaged simply with the question whether I did +or did not inherit my mother's graces. I ran to a little looking-glass +in the nursery and examined my eyes; but when I tried to make them +"expressive," I either frowned so unpleasantly, or stared so absurdly, +that I could not flatter myself on the point. + +The girls were out; I had nothing to do; the nursery was empty. I walked +about, shaking out my skirts, and thinking of my gracious and graceful +manner. I felt a pardonable curiosity to see this for myself, and, +remembering the big glass in Aunt Theresa's room, I stole out to see if +I could make use of it unobserved. But the gentlemen had gone, and I +feared that Mrs. Buller might come up-stairs. In a few minutes, however, +the door-bell rang, and I heard the sound of a visitor being ushered +into the drawing-room. + +I seized the chance, and ran to Aunt Theresa's room. + +The mirror was "full length," and no one could see me better than I now +saw myself. Once more I attempted to make expressive eyes, but the +result was not favourable to vanity. Then I drew back to the door, and, +advancing upon the mirror with mincing steps, I threw all the grace and +graciousness of which I was conscious into my manner, and holding out my +hand, said, in a "company voice," "_Charmed_ to see you, I'm sure!" + +"_Mais c'est bien drôle!_" said a soft voice close behind me. + +I had not heard the door open, and yet there stood Aunt Theresa on the +threshold, and with her a little old lady. The little old lady had a +bright, delicately cut face, eyes of whose expressiveness there could be +no question, and large grey curls. She wore a large hat, with large bows +tied under her chin, and a dark-green satin driving-cloak lined with +white and grey fur. + +She looked like a fairy godmother, like the ghost of an ancestor--like +"somebody out of a picture." She was my great-grandmother. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER--THE DUCHESS'S CARRIAGE--MRS. O'CONNOR IS CURIOUS. + + +I was much discomfited. My position was not a dignified one at the best, +and in childhood such small shames seem too terrible ever to be +outlived. My great-grandmother laughed heartily, and Mrs. Buller, whose +sense of humour was small, looked annoyed. + +"What in the world are you doing here, Margery?" she said. + +I had little or no moral courage, and I had not been trained in high +principles. If I could have thought of a plausible lie, I fear I should +have told it in my dilemma. As it was, I could not; I only put my hand +to my burning cheek, and said: + +"Let me see!" + +I must certainly have presented a very comical appearance, but the +little old lady's smiles died away, and her eyes filled with tears. + +"It is strange, is it not," she said to Aunt Theresa, "that, after all, +I should laugh at this meeting?" + +Then, sitting down on a box by the door, she held out her hands to me, +saying: + +"Come, little Margery, there is no sin in practising one's good manners +before the mirror. Come and kiss me, dear child; I am your father's +father's mother. Is not that to be an old woman? I am your +great-grandmother." + +My great-grandmother's voice was very soft, her cheek was soft, her +cloak was soft. I buried my face in the fur, and cried quietly to myself +with shame and excitement; she stroking my head, and saying: + +"_Pauvre petite!_--thou an orphan, and I doubly childless! It is thus we +meet at last to join our hands across the graves of two generations of +those we love!" + +"It was a dreadful thing!" said Mrs. Buller, rummaging in her pocket for +a clean handkerchief. "I'm sure I never should forget it, if I lived a +thousand years. I never seemed able to realize that they were gone; it +was all so sudden." + +The old lady made no answer, and we all wept in silence. + +Aunt Theresa was the first to recover herself, and she insisted on our +coming down-stairs. A young regimental surgeon and his wife dropped in +to lunch, for which my great-grandmother stayed. We were sitting in the +drawing-room afterwards, when "Mrs. Vandaleur's carriage" was announced. +As my great-grandmother took leave of me, she took off a watch and chain +and hung them on my neck. It was a small French watch with an enamelled +back of dark blue, on which was the word "Souvenir" in small pearls. + +"I gave it to your grandfather long years ago, my child, and he gave it +back to me--before he sailed. I would only part with it to his son's +child. Farewell, _petite_! Be good, dear child--try to be good. Adieu, +Mrs. Buller, and a thousand thanks! Major Buller, I am at your service." + +Major Buller took the hand she held out to him and led the old lady to +the front door, whither we all followed them. + +Mrs. Vandaleur's carriage was before the steps. It was a very quaint +little box on two wheels, in by no means good repair. It was drawn by a +pony, white, old, and shaggy. At the pony's head stood a small boy in +decent, but not smart, plain clothes. + +"Put the mat over the wheel to save my dress, Adolphe," said the old +lady; and as the little boy obeyed her order she stepped nimbly into +the carriage, assisted by the Major. "The silk is old," she observed +complacently; "but it is my best, of course, or it would not have been +worn to-day," and she gave a graceful little bow towards Aunt Theresa; +"and I hope that, with care, it will serve as such for the rest of my +life, which cannot be very long." + +"If it wears as well as you do, Madam," said Major Buller, tucking her +in, "it may; not otherwise." + +The Surgeon was leaning over the other side of the little cart, and +seemed also to be making polite speeches. It recalled the way that men +used to hang upon my mother's carriage. The old lady smiled, and made +gracious little replies, and meanwhile deliberately took off her kid +gloves, folded, and put them into her pocket. She then drew on a pair of +old worsted ones. + +"Economy, economy," she said, smiling, and giving a hand on each side of +her to the two gentlemen. "May I trouble you for the reins? Many thanks. +Farewell, gentlemen! I cannot pretend to fear that my horse will catch +cold--his coat is too thick; but you may. Adieu, Mrs. Buller, once more. +Farewell, little one, I wish you good-morning, Madam. Adolphe, seat +yourself; make your bow, Adolphe. Adieu, dear friends!" + +She gave a flick with the whip, which the pony resented by shaking his +head; after which he seemed, so to speak, to snatch up the little cart, +my great-grandmother, and Adolphe, and to run off with them at a good +round pace. + +"What an extraordinary turn-out!" said the Surgeon's wife. (She was an +Irish attorney's daughter, with the commonest of faces, and the most +unprecedented of bonnets. She and her husband had lately "set up" a +waggonette, the expense of which just made it difficult for them to live +upon their means, and the varnish of which added a care to life.) "Fancy +driving down High Street in that!" she continued; "and just when +everybody is going out, too!" + +"Uncommon sensible little affair, I think," said the Surgeon. "Suits the +old lady capitally." + +"Mrs. Vandaleur," said Major Buller, "can afford to be independent of +appearances to an extent that would not perhaps be safe for most of us." + +"You're right there, Buller," said the Surgeon. "Wonderfully queenly she +is! That fur cloak looks like an ermine robe on her." + +"I don't think you'd like to see me in it!" tittered his wife. + +"I don't say I should," returned the Surgeon, rather smartly. + +"My dear," said Mrs. Buller, "you must make up your mind to be jealous +of the Duchess. All gentlemen are mad about her." + +"The Duchess!" said Mrs. O'Connor, in a tone of respect. "I thought you +said----" + +"Oh, she is not really a duchess, my dear; it's only a nickname. I'll +tell you all about it some day. It's a long story." + +Discovering that Mrs. Vandaleur was a family connection, and not a +chance visitor from the neighbourhood, Mrs. O'Connor apologized for her +remarks, and tried to extract the Duchess's history from Aunt Theresa +then and there. But Mrs. Buller would only promise to tell it "another +time." + +"I'm dying with curiosity," said Mrs. O'Connor, as she took leave, "I +shall run in to-morrow afternoon on purpose to hear all about it. Can +you do with me, dear Mrs. Buller?" + +"Pray come," said Aunt Theresa warmly, with an amiable disregard of two +engagements and some arrears of domestic business. + +I was in the drawing-room next day when Mrs. O'Connor arrived. + +"May I come in, dear Mrs. Buller?" she said, "I won't stay two minutes; +but I _must_ hear about the Duchess. Now, _are_ you busy?" + +"Not at all," said Aunt Theresa, who was in the midst of making up her +tradesmen's books. "Pray sit down, and take off your bonnet." + +"It's hardly worth while, for I _can't_ stay," said Mrs. O'Connor, +taking her bonnet off, and setting it down so as not to crush the +flowers. + +As Mrs. O'Connor stayed two hours and a half, and as Aunt Theresa +granted my request to be allowed to hear her narrative, I learnt a good +deal of the history of my great-grandmother. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +A FAMILY HISTORY. + + +"We are not really connected," Mrs. Buller began. "She is Margery's +great-grandmother, and Margery and I are second cousins. That's all. But +I knew her long ago, before my poor cousin Alice married Captain +Vandaleur. And I have heard the whole story over and over again." + +I have heard the story more than once also. I listened with open mouth +to Aunt Theresa at this time, and often afterwards questioned her about +my "ancestors," as I may almost call them. + +Years later I used to repeat these histories to girls I was with. When +we were on good terms they were interested to hear, as I was proud to +tell, and would say, "Tell us about your ancestors, Margery." And if we +fell out there was no surer method of annoying me than to slight the +memory of my great-great-grandparents. + +I have told their story pretty often. I shall put it down here in my own +way, for Aunt Theresa told a story rather disconnectedly. + +The de Vandaleurs (we have dropped the _de_ now) were an old French +family. There was a Duke in it who was killed in the Revolution of '92, +and most of the family emigrated, and were very poor. The title was +restored afterwards, and some of the property. It went to a cousin of +the Duke who was murdered, he having no surviving children; but they say +it went in the wrong line. The cousin who had remained in France, and +always managed to keep the favour of the ruling powers, got the title, +and remade his fortunes; the others remained in England, very poor and +very proud. They would not have accepted any favours from the new royal +family, but still they considered themselves deprived of their rights. +One of these Vandaleur _émigrés_ (the one who ought to have been the +Duke) had married his cousin. They suffered great hardships in their +escape, I fancy, and on the birth of their son, shortly after their +arrival in England, the wife died. + +There was an old woman, Aunt Theresa said, who used to be her nurse when +she was a child, in London, who had lived, as a girl, in the wretched +lodgings where these poor people were when they came over, and she used +to tell her wonderful stories about them. How, in her delirium (she was +insane for some little time before her son was born), Madame de +Vandaleur fancied herself in her old home, "with all her finery about +her," as Nurse Brown used to say. + +Nurse Brown seems to have had very little sympathy with nervous +diseases. She could understand a broken leg, or a fever, "when folks +kept their beds"; but the disordered fancies of a brain tried just too +far, the mad whims of a lady who could "go about," and who insisted upon +going about, and changing her dress two or three times a day, and +receiving imaginary visitors, and ordering her faithful nurse up and +down under the names of half-a-dozen servants she no longer possessed, +were beyond her comprehension. + +Aunt Theresa said that she and her brothers and sisters had the deepest +pity for the poor lady. They thought it so romantic that she should cry +for fresh flowers and dress herself to meet the Queen in a dirty little +lodging at the back of Leicester Square, and they were always begging to +hear "what else she did." But Nurse Brown seems to have been fondest of +relating the smart speeches in which she endeavoured to "put sense into" +the devoted French servant who toiled to humour every whim of her +unhappy mistress, instead of being "sharp with her," as Nurse Brown +advised. Aunt Theresa had some doubts whether Mrs. Brown ever did make +the speeches she reported; but when people say they said this or that, +they often only mean that this or that is what they wish they had said. + +"If she's mad, I says, shave her head, instead of dressing her hair all +day long. I've knowed mad people as foamed at the mouth and rolled their +eyes, and would have done themselves a injury but for a strait-jacket; +and I've knowed folks in fevers unreasonable enough, but they kept their +beds in a dark room, and didn't know their own mothers. Madame's ways is +beyond me, I says. _You_ calls it madness: _I_ calls it temper. +Tem--per, and no--thing else." + +Aunt Theresa used to make us laugh by repeating Nurse Brown's sayings, +and the little shake of herself with which she emphasized the last +sentence. + +If she had no sympathy for Madame de Vandaleur, she had a double share +for the poor lady's husband: "a _good_ soul," as she used to call him. +It was in vain that Jeanette spoke of the sweet temper and +unselfishness of her mistress "before these terrible days"; her conduct +towards her husband then was "enough for" Nurse Brown, so she said. No +sooner had the poor gentleman gone off on some errand for her pleasure +than she called for him to be with her, and was only to be pacified by a +fable of Jeanette's devising, who always said that "the King" had +summoned Monsieur de Vandaleur. Jeanette was well aware that, the +childless old Duke being dead, her master had succeeded to the title, +and she often spoke of him as Monsieur le Duc to his wife, which seems +to have pleased the poor lady. When he was absent, Jeanette's ready +excuse, "_Eh, Madame! Pour Monsieur le Duc--le Roi l'a fait appeller_," +was enough, and she waited patiently for his return. + +Ever-changing as her whims and fancies were, the poor gentleman +sacrificed everything to gratify them. His watch, his rings, his +buckles, the lace from his shirt, and all the few trifles secured in +their hasty flight, were sold one by one. His face was familiar to the +keepers of certain stalls near to where Covent Garden Market now stands. +He bought flowers for Madame when he could not afford himself food. He +sold his waistcoat, and buttoned his coat across him--and looked thinner +than ever. + +Then the day came when Madame wished, and he could not gratify her +wish. Everything was gone. He said, "This will kill me, Jeanette;" and +Jeanette believed him. + +Nurse Brown (according to her own account) assured Jeanette that it +would not. "Folk doesn't die of such things, says I." + +But, in spite of common-sense and experience, Monsieur de Vandaleur did +die of grief, or something very like it, within twenty-four hours of the +death of his wife, and the birth of their only son. + +For some years the faithful Jeanette supported this child by her own +industry. She was an exquisite laundress, and she throve where the Duke +and Duchess would have starved. As the boy grew up she kept him as far +as possible from common companions, treated him with as much deference +as if he had succeeded to the family honours, and filled his head with +traditions of the deserts and dignity of the de Vandaleurs. + +At last a cousin of Monsieur de Vandaleur found them out. He also was an +exile, but he had prospered better, had got a small civil appointment, +and had married a Scotch lady. It was after he had come to the help of +his young kinsman, I think, that an old French lady took a fancy to the +boy, and sent him to school in France at her own expense. He was just +nineteen when she died, and left him what little money she possessed. +He then returned to England, and paid his respects to his cousin and the +Scotch Mrs. Vandaleur. + +She congratulated herself, I have heard, that her only child, a +daughter, was from home when this visit was paid. + +Mrs. Janet Vandaleur was a high-minded, hard-headed, north-country +woman. She valued long descent, and noble blood, and loyalty to a fallen +dynasty like a Scotchwoman, but, like a Scotchwoman, she also respected +capability and energy and endurance. She combined a romantic heart with +a practical head in a way peculiar to her nation. She knew the pedigree +of every family (who had a pedigree) north of the Tweed, and was, +probably, the best housekeeper in Great Britain. She devoutly believed +her own husband to be as perfect as mortal man may be here below, whilst +in some separate compartment of her brain she had the keenest sense of +the defects and weaknesses which he inherited, and dreaded nothing more +than to see her daughter mated with one of the helpless Vandaleurs. + +This daughter, with much of her mother's strong will and practical +capacity, had got her father's _physique_ and a good deal of his +artistic temperament. Dreading the development of _de Vandaleur_ +qualities in her, the mother made her education studiously practical +and orderly. She had, like most Scotch matrons of her type, too good a +gift for telling family stories, and too high a respect for ancestral +traditions, to have quite kept herself from amusing her daughter's +childhood with tales of the de Vandaleur greatness. But after her +husband discovered his young relative, and as their daughter grew up, +she purposely avoided the subject, which had, probably, the sole effect +of increasing her daughter's interest in the family romance. Mrs. Janet +knew the de Vandaleur pedigree as well as her own, and had shown a +miniature of the late Duke in his youth to her daughter as a child on +many occasions; when she had also alluded to the fact that the title by +birth was undoubtedly in the exiled branch of the family. Miss Vandaleur +was not ignorant that the young gentleman who had just completed his +education was, if every one had their rights, Monsieur le Duc; and she +was as much disappointed to have missed seeing him as her mother was +glad that they had not met. + +For Bertrand de Vandaleur had all the virtues and the weaknesses of his +family in intense proportions. He had a hopeless ignorance of the value +of money, which was his strongest condemnation before his Scotch cousin. +He was high-minded, chivalrous, in some points accomplished, charming, +and tender-hearted. But he was weak of will, merely passive in +endurance, and quite without energy. He had a graceful, fanciful, but +almost weak intellect. I mean, it just bordered on mental deficiency; +and at times his dreamy eyes took a wildness that was said to make him +painfully like his mother in her last days. He was an absurd but +gracefully romantic idea of his family consequence. He was very +handsome, and very like the miniature of the late Duke. It was most +desirable that his cousin should not meet him, especially as she was of +the sentimental age of seventeen. So Mrs. Janet Vandaleur hastened their +return from London to their small property in Scotland. + +But there was no law to hinder Monsieur de Vandaleur from making a +Scotch tour. + +One summer's afternoon, when she had just finished the making of some +preserves, Miss Vandaleur strolled down through a little wood behind the +house towards a favourite beck that ran in a gorge below. She was +singing an old French song in praise of the beauty of a fair lady of the +de Vandaleurs of olden time. As she finished the first verse, a voice +from a short distance took up the refrain-- + + "Victoire de Vandaleur! Victoire! Victoire!" + +It was her own name as well as that of her ancestress, and she blushed +as her eyes met those of a strange young gentleman, with a sketch-book +in his hand, and a French poodle at his heels. + +"Place aux dames!" said the stranger. On which the white poodle sat up, +and his master bowed till his head nearly touched the ground. + +They had met once as children, which was introduction enough in the +circumstances. Here, at last, for Victoire, was the embodiment of all +her dreams of the de Vandaleur race. He was personally so like the +miniature, that he might have been the old Duke. He was the young one, +as even her mother allowed. For him, he found a companion whose birth +did not jar on his aristocratic prejudices, and whose strong character +was bone and marrow to his weak one. Before they reached the house Mrs. +Janet's precautions were vain. + +She grew fond of the lad in spite of herself. The romantic side of her +sympathized with his history. He was an orphan, and she had a mother's +heart. In the direct line he was a Duke, and she was a Scotchwoman. He +freely consented to settle every penny he had upon his wife, and, as his +mother-in-law justly remarked, "Many a cannier man wouldn't just have +done that." + +In fine, the young people were married with not more than the usual +difficulties beforehand. + +He was nineteen, and she was seventeen. They were my great-grandfather +and great-grandmother. + +They had only one child--a son. They were very poor, and yet they gave +him a good education. I ought to say, _she_ gave him, for everything +that needed effort or energy was done by my great-grandmother. The more +it became evident that her Bertrand de Vandaleur was less helpful and +practical than any Bertrand de Vandaleur before him, the more there +seems to have developed in her the purpose and capability inherited from +Mrs. Janet. Like many another poor and ambitious mother, she studied +Latin and Greek and algebra that she might teach her son. And at the +same time she saved, even out of their small income. She began to "put +by" from the boy's birth for his education, and when the time came he +was sent to school. + +My grandfather did well. I have heard that he inherited his father's +beauty, and was not without his mother's sense and energy. He had the de +Vandaleur quality of pleasing, with the weakness of being utterly ruled +by the woman he loved. At twenty he married an heiress. His parents had +themselves married too early to have reasonable ground for complaint at +this; but when he left his own Church for that of his wife, there came a +terrible breach between them and their only son. His mother soon +forgave him; but the father was as immovable in his displeasure as weak +people can sometimes be. Happily, however, after the birth of a grandson +peace was made, and the young husband brought his wife to visit his +parents. The heiress had some property in the West Indies, which they +proposed to visit, and they remained with the old people till just +before they sailed. It was as a keepsake at parting that my grandfather +had restored to his mother the watch which she gave to me. The child was +left in England with his mother's relations. + +My grandfather and grandmother never returned. They were among the +countless victims of the most cruel of all seas. The vessel they went +out in was lost during a week of storms. On what day or night, and in +what part of the Atlantic, no one survived to tell. + +Their orphan child was my dear father. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS--DREAMS AND DAY DREAMS--THE VINE--ELSPETH--MY +GREAT-GRANDFATHER. + + +My father was brought up chiefly by his mother's relations. The +religious question was always a difficulty as regarded the de +Vandaleurs, and I fancy extended to my own case. My guardians were not +my great-grandparents, but Major Buller, and Mr. Arkwright, a clergyman +of the Church of England. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother +were Roman Catholics. Though not my appointed guardians, they were my +nearest relations, and when my great-grandmother had held out her little +hand towards me over the side of the pony-carriage and said, "You will +let the child come to me? Soon, very soon?" Major Buller had taken her +hand in both his, and replied very cordially, "Of course, my dear madam, +of course. Whenever it is convenient to yourself and to Mr. de +Vandaleur." + +And this promise had stirred my heart with such a flutter of happy +expectation as I had not felt since I persuaded my father to promise +that I should dine with him, all alone, like a grown-up lady, on that +sad birthday on which he died. + +It is perhaps useless to try and find reasons for the fancy I took to +the "Duchess"--as Aunt Theresa called her--since it was allowed that she +fascinated every one who came near her. With the bright qualities which +made her admirable in herself, she combined the gracious art of putting +other people at ease with themselves; and, remembering how sore the +wounds of a child's self-love are, I think that her kindness must have +been very skilful to make me forgive myself for that folly of the +looking-glass enough to forget myself in admiration of her. + +Like most children, I was given to hero and heroine worship. I admired +more than one lady of Aunt Theresa's acquaintance, and had been +fascinated by some others whom I did not know, but had only seen in +church, and had longed for the time when I also should no longer trip +about in short and simple skirts, and tie up my curls with a ribbon, but +should sweep grandly and languidly in to the parade service, bury half a +pew under the festoons and furbelows of my silk dress and velvet +trimmings, sink into a nest of matchless millinery for the Litany, scent +the air with patchouli as I rose for the hymn, examine the other ladies' +bonnets through one of those eyeglasses which are supposed to make it no +longer rude to stare, and fan myself from the fatigues of the service +during the sermon. + +But even the dignity of grown-updom embellished by pretty faces and +splendid costumes did not stir my imagination as it was stirred by the +sight of my great-grandmother and by the history of her life. It was +like seeing the princess of a fairy tale with one's very own eyes. The +faces of the fine ladies I had envied were a little apt to be insipid +in expression, and to pass from the memory; but my great-grandmother's +quick, bright, earnest face was not easily to be forgotten. I made up my +mind that when I grew up I would not wear a large _chignon_ after all, +nor a bonnet full of flowers, nor a dress full of flounces, but a rather +short skirt and buckled shoes and grey curls, and a big hat with many +bows, and a green satin driving-cloak lined with fur. + +How any one, blessed with grown-up freedom of choice, could submit to be +driven about by a coach-man in a big carriage, as highly stuffed and +uninteresting as a first-class railway carriage, when it was possible to +drive one's self in a sort of toy-cart with a dear white pony as shaggy +as a dog, I could not understand. I well knew which I should choose, and +I thought so much of it that I remember dreaming that my +great-grandmother had presented me with a pony and chaise the +counterpart of her own. The dream-joy of this acquisition, and the pride +of driving up to the Bullers' door and offering to take Matilda for an +expedition, was only marred by one of those freaks which spoil the +pleasure of so many dreams. Just as Matilda appeared, full of gratitude, +and with a picnic luncheon in a basket, I became conscious that I was in +my night-gown, and had forgotten to dress. Again and again I tried to go +back in my dream and put on suitable clothes. I never accomplished it, +and only woke in the effort. + +In sober daylight I indulged no hope that Mrs. Vandaleur would give me a +carriage and pony for my very own, but I did hope that I should go out +in hers if ever I went to stay with her. Perhaps sometimes alone, +driving myself, with only the rosy-cheeked Adolphe to open the gates and +deliver me from any unexpected difficulties with the reins. But I +dreamed many a day-dream of the possible delights in store for me with +my new-found relatives, and almost counted the hours on the Duchess's +watch till she should send for me. + +As it happened, however, circumstances combined for some little time to +hinder me from visiting my great-grandmother. + +The little Bullers and I had the measles; and when we were all +convalescent, Major Buller got two months' leave, and we went away for +change of air. Then small-pox prevailed in Riflebury, and we were kept +away, even after Major Buller returned to his duties. When we did +return, before a visit to the Vandaleurs could be arranged, Adolphe fell +ill of scarlet fever, and the fear of contagion postponed my visit for +some time. + +I was eight years old when I went to stay at The Vine. This was the name +of the little cottage where my great-grandparents lived--so called +because of an old vine which covered the south wall on one side of the +porch, and crept over a framework upon the roof. I do not now remember +how many pounds of grapes it had been known to produce in one season, +and yet I ought not to have forgotten, for it was a subject on which my +great-grandfather, my great-grandmother, Adolphe, and Elspeth constantly +boasted. + +"And if they don't just ripen as the master says they do in France, it's +all for the best," said Elspeth; "for ripe grapes would be picked all +along, and the house not a penny the better for them. But green-grape +tarts and cream are just eating for a king." + +Elspeth was "general servant" at my great-grandmother's. Her aunt Mary +had come from Scotland to serve "Miss Victoire" when she first married. +As Mary's health failed, and she grew old, her young niece was sent for +to work under her. Old Mary died with her hands in my great-grandmother's, +and Elspeth reigned in her stead. + +Elspeth was an elderly woman when I first made her acquaintance. She had +a broad, bright, sensible face, and a kindly smile that won me to her. +She wore frilled caps, tied under her chin; and as to exchanging them +for "the fly-away bits of things servants stick on their heads at the +present time," Elspeth would as soon have thought of abandoning the +faith of her fathers. She was a strict but not bitter Presbyterian. She +was not tall, and she was very broad; her apparent width being increased +by the very broad linen collars which spread, almost like a cape, over +her ample shoulders. + +My great-grandmother had an anecdote of me connected with this, which +she was fond of relating. + +"And what do you think of Elspeth, little one?" she had said to me on +the first evening of my visit. + +"I think she's very big," was my reply. + +"Certainly, our good Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," said my +great-grandfather, laughing. + +I wondered if this were so; and when my great-grandmother gave me a +little yard-measure in a wooden castle, which had taken my fancy among +the treasures of her work-box, the idea seized me of measuring Elspeth +for my own satisfaction on the point. But the silken measure slipped, +and caught on the battlements of the castle, and I lost my place in +counting the figures, and at last was fain to ask Elspeth herself. + +"How tall are you, Elspeth, please? As much as a yard?" + +"Ou aye, my dear," said Elspeth, who was deeply engaged in darning a +very large hole in one of my great-grandfather's socks. + +"As much as two yards?" I inquired. + +"Eh, no, my dearie," said Elspeth. "That wad be six feet; and I'm not +just that tall, though my father was six feet and six inches." + +"How broad are you, Elspeth, please?" I persisted. "As much as a yard?" + +"I'm thinking I will be, my dear," said Elspeth, "for it takes the full +width of a coloured cotton to cut me a dress-front, and then it's not +over-big." + +"Are you as broad as two yards, do you think?" I said, drawing my ribbon +to its full length from the castle, and considering the question. + +Elspeth shook her head. She was biting the end off a piece of +darning-cotton; but I rightly concluded that she would not confess to +being two yards wide. + +"Please, I have measured Elspeth," I announced over the tea-table, "and +grandpapa is quite right." + +"Eh?" said Mr. Vandaleur, who had a trick of requiring observations to +be repeated to him by his wife. + +"She says that she has measured Elspeth, and that you are right," said +my great-grandmother. "But about what is grandpapa right, my little +one?" + +"Grandpapa said that Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," I explained. +"And so she is, for I measured her--at least, the ribbon would slip when +I measured her, so I asked her; and she's a yard tall, but not as much +as two yards; and a yard wide, but not as much as two yards. And so +grandpapa is right." + +Some of the happiest hours I spent at The Vine were spent in Elspeth's +company. I made tiny cakes, and tarts of curious shapes, when she was +busy pastry-making, and did some clear-starching on my doll's account +when Elspeth was "getting-up" my great-grandfather's cravats. + +Elspeth had strong old-fashioned notions of paying respect where it was +due. She gave Adolphe a sharp lecture one day for some lack of respect +in his manner to "Miss Margery"; and, on the other hand, she taught me +to curtsy at the door where I breakfasted with Mr. and Mrs. Vandaleur. + +Some dancing lessons that I had had in Riflebury helped me here, and +Elspeth was well satisfied with my performance. I felt very shy and +awkward the first time that I made my morning curtsy, my knees shaking +under me, and Elspeth watching from the passage; but my +great-grandfather and mother seemed to take it as a matter of course, +and I soon became quite used to it. If Mr. Vandaleur happened to be +standing in the room, he always returned my curtsy by a low bow. + +I became very fond of my great-grandfather. He was a tall, handsome old +man, with high shoulders, slightly bent by age and also by habit. He +wore a blue coat with brass buttons, that had been very well made a very +long time ago; white trousers, a light waistcoat, a frilled shirt, and a +very stiff cravat. On the wall of the drawing-room there hung a +water-colour portrait of a very young and very handsome man, with +longish wavy hair, features refined to weakness, dreamy, languid eyes, +and a coat the very image of my great-grandfather's. The picture hung +near the door; and as Mr. Bertrand Vandaleur passed in or out, I well +remember that he almost always glanced at the sketch, as people glance +at themselves in passing a mirror. + +I was too young then to notice this as being a proof that the drawing +was a portrait of himself; but I remember being much struck by the +likeness between the coat in the picture and that my great-grandfather +wore, and also by the way that the hair was thrown back from the high, +narrow forehead, just as my great-grandfather's grey hairs were combed +away from his brow. Children are great admirers of beauty too, +especially, I think, of an effeminate style of good looks, and are very +susceptible to the power of expression in faces. I had a romantic +admiration for "the handsome man by the door," and his eyes haunted me +about the room. + +I was kneeling on a chair and examining the sketch one morning, when my +great-grandfather came up to me, "Who is it, little one?" said he. + +I looked at the picture. I looked at my great-grandfather's coat. As his +eyes gazed steadily into mine, there was a likeness there also; but it +was the coat that decided me. I said, "It is you, grandpapa." + +I think this little incident just sealed our friendship. I always +remained in high favour with my great-grandfather. + +He spent a great deal of his time in painting. He never had, I believe, +had any profession. The very small income on which he and his wife had +lived was their own private fortune. I often think it must have been a +great trial to a woman of my great-grandmother's energy, that her +husband should have made no effort to add to their resources by work of +some kind. But then I cannot think of any profession that would have +suited him. He was sadly wanting in general capacity, though +accomplished much above the average, and with a fine knack in the +budding of roses. + +I thought him the grandest gentleman that ever lived, and the +pleasantest of companions. His weak but lovable nature had strong +sympathy with children, I think. I ought to say, with a child; for he +would share the fancies and humours of one child companion for hours, +but was quite incapable of managing a larger number--as, indeed, he was +of any kind of domestic administration or control. Mrs. Vandaleur was +emphatically Elspeth's mistress, if she was also her friend; but in the +absence of "the mistress" Elspeth ruled "the master" with a rod of iron. + +I quickly gained a degree of power over him myself. I discovered that if +I maintained certain outward forms of respect and courtesy, so as not to +shock my grandpapa's standard of good manners, I might make almost any +demands on his patience and good-nature. Children and pet animals make +such discoveries very quickly, and are apt to use their power somewhat +tyrannically. I fear I was no exception to the rule. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THOMAS THE CAT--MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER'S SKETCHES--ADOLPHE IS MY +FRIEND--MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER DISTURBS MY REST--I LEAVE THE +VINE. + + +My great-grandfather had, as I said, some skill in painting. He was +gifted with an intense sense of, and love for, colour. I am sure he saw +colours where other people did not. What to common eyes was a mass of +grey, or green, was to him a pleasant combination of many gay and +delicate hues. He distinguished severally the innumerable bright threads +in Nature's coat of many colours, and in simple truth I think that each +was a separate joy to him. + +He had a white Persian cat of an artistic temperament, which followed +him in his walks, dozed on the back of his arm-chair, and condescended +to share his tea when it reached a certain moderate temperature. It +never was betrayed into excitement, except when there was fish for +dinner. My great-grandfather's fasts were feasts for Thomas the cat. + +I can very clearly remember the sight of my great-grandfather pacing +slowly up and down the tiny garden at The Vine, his hands behind him, +and followed sedately by Thomas. Now and then he would stop to gaze, +with infinite contentment in his eyes, at the delicate blue-grey mist +behind the leafless trees (which in that spring sunshine were, no doubt, +of much more complex and beautiful colour to him than mere brown), or +drinking in the blue of the scillas in the border with a sigh of +satisfaction. When he paused, Thomas would pause; as he feasted his +eyes, Thomas would rub his head against his master's legs, and stretch +his own. When Elspeth had cooked the fish, and my great-grandmother had +made the tea and arranged the flowers on the table, they would come in +together and condescend to their breakfasts, with the same air about +them both of having no responsibility in life but to find out sunny +spots and to enjoy themselves. + +My great-grandfather's most charming paintings were sketches of flowers. +Ordinary stiff flower-paintings are of all paintings the most +uninteresting, I think; but his were of a very different kind. Each +sketch was a sort of idyll. Indeed, he would tell me stories of each as +he showed them. + +Long as my great-grandfather had lived, he was never a robust man, and +Elspeth's chief ideas on the subject of his sketches bore reference to +the colds he had caught, and the illnesses he had induced, by sitting in +the east winds or lying on damp grass to do this or that sketch. + +"That'll be the one the master did before he was laid by with the +rheumatics," Elspeth said, when I described one of my favourites to her. +It was a spring sketch. My great-grandfather had lain face downwards on +the lawn to do it. This was to bring his eyes on a level with the subject +of his painting, which was this: a crocus of the exquisite shades of +lilac to be seen in some varieties, just full-blown, standing up in its +first beauty and freshness from its fringe of narrow silver-striped +leaves. The portrait was not an opaque and polished-looking painting on +smooth cardboard, but a sketch--indefinite at the outer edges of the +whole subject--on water-colour paper of moderate roughness. The throat +and part of the cup of the flower stood out from some shadow at the roots +of a plant beyond; a shadow of infinite gradation, and quite without the +blackness common to patches of shade as seen by untrained eyes. From the +level of my great-grandfather's view, as he lay in the grass, the border +looked a mere strip; close behind it was a hedge dividing the garden from +a field. Just by the crocus there was a gap in the hedge, which in the +sketch was indicated rather than drawn. And round the corner of the bare +thorn branches from the hedge-bank in the field there peeped a celandine +and a daisy. They were not nearly such finished portraits as that of the +crocus. A few telling strokes of colour made them, and gave them a life +and pertness that were clever enough. Beneath the sketch was written, "La +Demoiselle. Des enfants du village la regardent." + +My great-grandfather translated this for me, and used to show me how the +"little peasants," Marguerite and Celandine, were peeping in at the +pretty young lady in her mauve dress striped with violet. + +But every sketch had its story, and often its moral; not, as a rule, a +very original one. In one, a lovely study of ivy crept over a rotten +branch upon the ground. A crimson toadstool relieved the heavy green, +and suggested that the year was drawing to a close. Beneath it was +written, "Charity." "Thus," said my great-grandfather, "one covers up +and hides the defects of one he loves." + +A study of gaudy summer tulips stood--as may be guessed--for Pride. + +"Pride," said my great-grandfather, "is a sin; a mortal sin, dear child. +Moreover, it is foolish, and also vulgar--the pride of fine clothes, +money, equipages, and the like. What is called pride of birth--the +dignity of an ancient name--this, indeed, is another thing. It is not +petty, not personal; it seems to me more like patriotism--the pride of +country." + +I did my best to describe to Elspeth both the sketch and my +great-grandfather's commentary. + +"A' pride's sinful," said Elspeth decidedly. "Pride o' wealth, and pride +o' birth. Not that I'm for objecting to a decent satisfaction in a +body's ain gude conduct and respectability. Pride o' character, that's +anither thing a'thegither, and to be respectit." + +My great-grandfather gave me a few paints, and under his directions I +daubed away, much to my own content. When I was struggling hopelessly +with the perspective of some pansies of various colours (for in +imitation of him I painted flowers), he would say, "Never mind the +shape, dear Marguerite, get the colour--the colour, my child!" And he +trained me to a quickness in the perception of colour certainly not +common at my age. + +I spent many pleasant hours, too, in the less intellectual society of +Adolphe. He dug a bed for me in a bit of spare ground, and shaped it +like a heart. He laboured constantly at this heart, making it plump by +piling up the earth, and cramming it with plants of various +kinds--perennials much in want of subdivision, and often in full +bloom--which he brought from cottage gardens of "folk he knew," and +watered copiously to "sattle 'em." + +His real name was not Adolphe, but Thomas. As this, however, had created +some confusion between him and the cat, my great-grandmother had named +him afresh, after a retainer of the de Vandaleurs in days gone by, +whose faithful service was a tradition in the family. + +I was very happy at The Vine--by day. I feel ashamed now to recall how +miserable I was at night, and yet I know I could not help it. In old +times I had always been accustomed to be watched to sleep by Ayah. After +I came to Aunt Theresa, I slept in the same room with one or more of the +other children. At The Vine, for the first time, I slept alone. + +This was not all. It was not merely the being alone in the dark which +frightened me. Indeed, a curious little wick floating on a cup of oil +was lighted at night for my benefit, but it only illumined the great +source of the terror which made night hideous to me. + +Some French refugee artist, who had been indebted to my +great-grandparents for kindness, had shown his gratitude by painting a +picture of the execution of that Duc de Vandaleur who perished in the +Revolution, my great-grandfather having been the model. It was a +wretched daub, but the subject was none the less horrible for that, and +the caricatured likeness to my great-grandfather did not make it seem +less real or more pleasant. + +That execution which was never over, this ghastly head which never found +rest in the grave, that awful-looking man who was, and yet was not, +Grandpapa--haunted me. They were the cause of certain horrible dreams, +which I can remember quite as clearly at this day as if I dreamed them +last night, and which I know I shall never forget. The dreams again +associated themselves with the picture, and my fears grew instead of +lessening as the time went by. + +Very late one night Elspeth came in and found me awake, and probably +looking far from happy. I had nothing to say for myself, but I burst +into tears. Elspeth was tenderness itself, but she got hold of a wrong +idea. I was "just homesick," she thought, and needed to be "away home +again," with "bairns like myself." + +I do not know why I never explained the real reason of my +distress--children are apt to be reticent on such occasions. I think a +panic seized upon the members of the household, that they were too old +to make a child happy. I was constantly assured that "it was very +natural," and I "had been very good." But I was sent back to Riflebury. +No one knew how loth I was to leave, still less that it was to a much +older relative than those at The Vine that I owed my expulsion--to my +great-great-great-grandfather--Monsieur le Duc de Vandaleur. + +Thomas, the cat, purred so loudly as I withdrew, that I think he was +glad to be rid of me. + +Adolphe alone was against the verdict of the household, and I think +believed that I would have preferred to remain. + +"I'm sure I thought you was quite sattled, miss," he said, as he saw me +off; and he blubbered like a baby. His transplanted perennials were +"sattled" by copious floods of water. Perhaps he hoped that tears would +settle me! + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MATILDA'S NEWS--OUR GOVERNESS--MAJOR BULLER TURNED TUTOR--ELEANOR +ARKWRIGHT. + + +The grief I felt at leaving The Vine was greatly forgotten in the warm +welcome which awaited me on my return to Riflebury. + +In a household where gossip is a principal amusement, the return of any +member from a visit is a matter for general congratulation till the new +budget is exhausted. Indeed, I plead guilty to a liking to be the first +to skim the news when Eleanor or one of the boys comes back from a +visit, at the present time. + +Matilda withdrew me from Aunt Theresa as soon as she could. + +"I am so glad to get you back, Margery dear," said she. "And now you +must tell me all your news, and I'll tell you all mine. And to begin +with--what do you think?--we've got a governess, and you and I are to +have the little room at the head of the stairs all to ourselves." + +Matilda's news was lengthy enough and interesting enough to make us late +for tea, and mine kept us awake for a couple of hours after we were +fairly in our two little iron bedsteads in the room that was now our +very own. That is to say, I told what I had to tell after we came to +bed, but my news was so tame compared with Matilda's that we soon +returned to the discussion of hers. I tried to describe my +great-grandfather's sketches, but neither Aunt Theresa in the +drawing-room, nor Matilda when we retired for the night, seemed to feel +any interest in the subject; and when Mrs. Buller asked what sort of +people called at The Vine, I felt that my reply was, like the rest of my +news, but dull. + +Matilda's, on the contrary, was very entertaining. She spoke +enthusiastically of Miss Perry, the governess. + +"She is so good-natured, Margery, you can't think. When lessons are over +she takes me walks on the Esplanade, and she calls me her dear Matilda, +and I take her arm, and she tells me all about herself. She says she +knows she's very romantic. And she's got lots of secrets, and she's told +me several already; for she says she has a feeling that I can keep a +secret, and so I can. But telling you's not telling, you know, because +she's sure to tell you herself; only you'd better wait till she does +before you say anything, for fear she should be vexed." + +Of course I promised to do so, and craned my neck out of bed to catch +Matilda's interesting but whispered revelations. + +Matilda herself was only partially in Miss Perry's confidence, and I +looked anxiously forward to the time when she would admit me also to her +secrets, though I feared she might consider me too young. My fears were +groundless, as I found Miss Perry was fond of talking about herself, and +a suitable audience was quite a secondary consideration with her. + +She was a _protégée_ of Mrs. Minchin's, who had persuaded Aunt Theresa +to take her for our governess. She was quite unfit for the position, and +did no little harm to us in her brief reign. But I do not think that our +interests had entered in the least into Mrs. Minchin's calculations in +the matter. She had "taken Miss Perry up," and to get Miss Perry a +comfortable home was her sole object. + +To do our new governess justice, she did her best to impart her own +superficial acquirements to us. We plodded regularly through French +exercises, which she corrected by a key, and she kept us at work for a +given number of hours during the day; tatting by our sides as we +practised our scales, or roasting her petticoats over the fire, whilst +Matilda and I read Mrs. Markham's _England_ or Mrs. Trimmer's _Bible +Lessons_ aloud by turns to full-stops. But when lessons were over Miss +Perry was quite as glad as we were, and the subjects of our studies had +as little to do with our holiday hours as a Sunday sermon with the rest +of the week. + +She was a great novel-reader, and I think a good many of the things she +told us of, as having happened to herself, had their real origin in the +Riflebury circulating library. For she was one of those strange +characters who indulge in egotism and exaggeration, till they seem +positively to lose the sense of what is fact and what is fiction. + +She filled our poor empty little heads with a great deal of folly, and +it was well for us that her reign was not a long one. + +She was much attached to the school-room fireside. She could not sit too +close to it, or roast herself too thoroughly for her own satisfaction. I +sometimes wondered if the bony woman who kept the library ever +complained of the curled condition of the backs of the books Miss Perry +held between her eyes and the hot coals for so many hours. + +In this highly heated state our governess was, of course, sensitive to +the smallest inlet of cooler air, and "draughts" were accordingly her +abhorrence. How we contrived to distinguish a verb from a noun, or +committed anything whatever to memory in the fever-heat and "stuffy" +atmosphere of the little room which was sacred to our studies, I do not +know. At a certain degree of the thermometer Miss Perry's face rises +before me and makes my brain spin even now. + +This was, no doubt, one cause of the very severe headaches to which +Matilda became subject about this time, though, now I look back, I do +not think she had been quite strong since we all had the measles. They +were apt to end in a fainting condition, from which she recovered by +lying on the floor. Then, if Miss Perry happened to be in good humour, +she would excuse Matilda from further lessons, invariably adding, in her +"mystery" voice--"But not a word to your mamma!" + +It was the most unjustifiable use she made of influence she gained over +us (especially over poor Matilda, who was very fond of her, and believed +in her) that she magnified her own favours at the expense of Major +Buller and my aunt. For some time they had no doubts as to the wisdom of +Mrs. Minchin's choice. + +Miss Perry was clever enough not to display her romantic side to Mrs. +Buller. She amused her, too, with Riflebury gossip, in which she was an +adept. She knew equally well how far she might venture with the Major; +and the sleight-of-hand with which she threw needlework over a novel +when Aunt Theresa came into the school-room was not more skilful than +the way in which she turned the tail of a bit of scandal into a remark +upon the weather as Uncle Buller opened the drawing-room door. + +But Miss Perry was not skilful enough to win the Major's lasting favour. +He was always slow to interfere in domestic matters, but he was not +unobservant. + +"I'm sure you see a great deal more than one would think, Edward," Aunt +Theresa would say; "although you are so wrapt up in insects and things." + +"The insects don't get into my eyes, my dear," said Major Buller. + +"And hear too," Mrs. Buller continued. "Mrs. O'Connor was saying only +the other day that you often seem to hear of things before other people, +though you do talk so little." + +"It is, perhaps, because I am not always talking that I do hear. But +Mrs. O'Connor is not likely to think of that," said the Major, rather +severely. + +He was neither blind nor deaf in reference to Miss Perry, and she was +dismissed. Aunt Theresa rather dreaded Mrs. Minchin's indignation in the +matter, I believe; but needlessly, for Miss Perry and Mrs. Minchin +quarrelled about this time, and Mrs. Minchin had then so much +information to Miss Perry's disadvantage at her fingers' ends, that it +seemed wonderful that she should ever have recommended her. + +For some little time our education progressed in a very desultory +fashion. Major Buller became perversely prejudiced against governesses, +and for a short time undertook to carry on our English lessons himself. +He made sums amusing, and geography lessons "as good as stories," though +the latter so often led (by very interesting channels) to his dearly +beloved insects, that Mrs. Buller accused him of making our lessons an +excuse for getting out his "collection." + +With "grammar" we were less successful. Major Buller was so good a +teacher that he brought out what intelligence we possessed, and led us +constantly to ask questions about anything we failed to understand. In +arithmetic this led to his helping us over our difficulties; in +geography it led, sooner or later, to the "collection"; but in English +grammar it led to stumbling-blocks and confusion, and, finally, to the +Major's throwing the book across the room, and refusing to pursue that +part of our education any further. + +"I never learnt English grammar," said the Major, "and it's quite +evident that I can't teach it." + +"If _you_ don't know grammar, Papa, then _we_ needn't," said Matilda +promptly, and being neat of disposition, she picked up the book and +proceeded to put it away. + +"I never said that I didn't know grammar," said the Major; "I fancy I +can speak and write grammatically, but what I know I got from the Latin +grammar. And, upon my soul," added Uncle Buller, pulling at his heavy +moustache, "I don't know why you shouldn't do the same." + +The idea of learning Latin pleased us greatly, and Major Buller (who had +been at Charterhouse in his boyhood) bought a copy of Dr. Russell's +_Grammar_, and we set to work. And either because the rules of the Latin +grammar bore explanation better than the English ones, or because Major +Buller was better able to explain them, we had no further difficulties. + +We were very proud of doing lessons in these circumstances, and boasted +of our Latin, I remember, to the little St. Quentins, when we met them +at the dancing-class. The St. Quentins were slender, ladylike girls, +much alike, and rendered more so by an exact similarity of costume. +Their governess was a very charming and talented woman, and when Mrs. +St. Quentin proposed that Matilda and I should share her daughters' +French lessons under Miss Airlie, Major Buller and Aunt Theresa +thankfully accepted the offer. I think that our short association with +this excellent lady went far to cure us of the silly fancies and tricks +of vulgar gossip which we had gleaned from Miss Perry. + +So matters went on for some months, much to Matilda's and my +satisfaction, when a letter from my other guardian changed our plans +once more. + +Mr. Arkwright's only daughter was going to school. He wrote to ask the +Bullers to let her break the journey by spending a night at their house. +It was a long journey, for she was coming from the north. + +"They live in Yorkshire," said Major Buller, much as one might speak of +living in Central Africa. + +Matilda and I looked forward with great interest to Miss Arkwright's +arrival. Her name, we learnt, was Eleanor, and she was nearly a year +older than Maria. + +"She'll be _your_ friend, I suppose," I said, a little enviously, in +reference to her age. + +"Of course," said Matilda, with dignity. "But you can be with us a good +deal," she was kind enough to add. + +I remember quite well how disappointed I felt that I should have so +little title to share the newcomer's friendship. + +"If she had only been ten years old, and so come between us," I +thought, "she would have been as much mine as Matilda's." + +I little thought then what manner of friends we were to be in spite of +the five years' difference in age. Indeed, both Matilda and I were +destined to see more of her than we expected. Aunt Theresa and Major +Buller came to a sudden resolution to send us also to the school where +she was going, though we did not hear of this at first. + +Long afterwards, when we were together, Eleanor asked me if I could +remember my first impression of her. For our affection's sake I wish it +had been a picturesque one; but truth obliges me to confess that, when +our visitor did at last arrive, Matilda and I were chiefly struck by the +fact that she wore thick boots, and did not wear crinoline. + +And yet, looking back, I have a very clear picture of her in my mind, +standing in the passage by her box (a very rough one, very strongly +corded, and addressed in the clearest of handwriting), purse in hand, +and paying the cabman with perfect self-possession. An upright, quite +ladylike, but rather old-fashioned little figure, somewhat quaint from +the simplicity of her dress. She had a rather quaint face, too, with a +nose slightly turned up, a prominent forehead, a charming mouth, and +most beautiful dark eyes. Her hair was rolled under and tied at the top +of her head, and it had an odd tendency to go astray about the parting. + +This was, perhaps, partly from a trick she seemed to have of doing her +hair away from the looking-glass. She stood to do it, and also (on one +leg) to put on her shoes and stockings, which amused us. But she was +always on her feet, and seemed unhappy if she sat idle. We took her for +a walk the morning after her arrival, and walked faster than we had ever +walked before to keep pace with our new friend, who strode along in her +thick boots and undistended skirts with a step like that of a kilted +Highlander. + +When we came into the town, however, she was quite willing to pause +before the shop-windows, which gave her much entertainment. + +"I'm afraid I should always be looking in at the windows if I lived in a +town," she said, "there are such pretty things." + +Eleanor laughs when I remind her of that walk, and how we stood still by +every chemist's door because she liked the smell. When anything +interested her, she stopped, but at other times she walked as if she +were on the road to some given place, and determined to be there in good +time; or perhaps it would be more just to say that she walked as if +walking were a pleasure to her. It was walking--not strolling. When she +was out alone, I know that she constantly ran when other people would +have walked. It is a north-country habit, I think. I have seen +middle-aged Scotch and Yorkshire ladies run as lightly as children. + +It was not the fashionable time of day, so that we could not, during +that walk, show Eleanor the chief characters of Riflebury. But just as +we were leaving High Street she stopped and asked, "Who is that lady?" + +"The one in the mauve silk?" said Matilda. "That is one of the cavalry +ladies. All the cavalry ladies dress grandly." + +It was a Mrs. Perowne. She was sailing languidly down the other side of +the street, in a very large crinoline, and a very long dress of pale +silk, which floated after her along the dirty pavement, much, I +remember, to my admiration. Above this was some tight-fitting thing with +a good deal of lace about it, which was crowned by a fragile and flowery +bonnet, and such a tuft of white lace at the end of a white stick as +just sheltered her nose, which was aquiline, from the sunshine. She was +prettily dressed for an open carriage, a flower-show, or a wedding +breakfast; for walking through the streets of a small, dirty town, to +change her own books at the library, her costume was ludicrously out of +place, though at the time I thought it enviably grand. The way in which +a rich skirt that would not wash, and would undoubtedly be worn again, +trailed through dust and orange-peel, and greengrocers' refuse, and +general shop-sweepings, was offensive to cleanliness alone. + +"Is she ill?" Eleanor asked. + +"No," said Matilda; "I don't think so. Why?" + +"She walks so slowly," said Eleanor, gazing anxiously at Mrs. Perowne +out of her dark eyes, "and she is so white in the face." + +"Oh, my dear!" said Matilda, laughing, "that's puff--puff, and a white +veil. It's to make her look young. I heard Mrs. Minchin tell Mamma that +she knew she was thirty-seven at least. But she dresses splendidly. If +you stay over Sunday, you'll see her close, for she sits in front of us +in church. And she has such a splendid big scent-bottle, with gold tops, +and such a lovely, tiny little prayer-book, bound in blue velvet, and a +watch no bigger than a shilling, with a monogram on the back. She took +it out several times in the sermon last Sunday, so I saw it. But isn't +her hair funny?" + +"It's a beautiful colour," said Eleanor, "only it looks different in +front. But I suppose that's the veil." + +"No, it isn't," said Matilda; "that's the new colour for hair, you know. +It's done by stuff you put on; but Miss Perry said the worst was, it +didn't always come out the same all over. Lots of ladies use it." + +"How horrid!" said Eleanor. "But what makes her walk so slow?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Matilda. "Why should she walk quick?" + +Eleanor seemed struck by this reply, and after a few minutes' pause, +said very gently, with a slight blush on her cheeks, "I'm afraid I have +been walking too fast for you. I'm used to walking with boys." + +We earnestly assured her that this was not the case, and that it was +much better fun to walk with her than with Miss Perry, who used to +dawdle so that we were often thoroughly chilled. + +In the afternoon we took her to the Esplanade, when Matilda, from her +knowledge of the people, took the lead in the conversation. I was proud +to walk on the other side of our new friend, with my best doll in my +arms. Aunt Theresa came with us, but she soon sat down to chat to a +friend, and we three strolled up and down together. I remember a pretty +bit of trimming on Eleanor's hat being blown by the wind against her +face, on which she quietly seized it, and stuffed it securely into the +band. + +"Oh, my dear!" said Matilda, in the emphatic tone in which Aunt +Theresa's lady visitors were wont to exclaim about nothing in +particular--"don't do that. It looks so pretty; and you're crushing it +_dreadfully_." + +"It got in my eyes," said Eleanor briefly. "I hate tags." + +We went home before Aunt Theresa, but as we stood near the door, Eleanor +lingered and looked wistfully up the road, which ran over a slight hill +towards the open country. + +"Would you like to stay out a little longer?" we politely asked. + +"I should rather like to go to the top of the hill," said Eleanor. +"Don't you think flat ground tires one? Shall we race up?" she added. + +We willingly agreed. I had a few yards start of Eleanor, and Matilda +rather less, and away we went. But we were little used to running, and +hoops and thin boots were not in our favour. Eleanor beat us, of course. +She seemed in no way struck by the view from the top. Indeed it was not +particularly pretty. + +"It's very flat about here," she said. "There are no big hills you can +get to the top of, I suppose?" + +We confessed that there were not, and, there being nothing more to do, +we ran down again, and went indoors. + +Eleanor dressed for the evening in her usual peripatetic way, and, +armed with a homely-looking piece of grey knitting, followed us +down-stairs. + +Her superabundant energy did not seem to find vent in conversation. We +were confidential enough now to tell each other of our homes, and she +had sat so long demurely silent, that Matilda ventured upon the +inquiry-- + +"Don't you talk much at your home?" + +"Oh yes," said Eleanor--"at least, when we've anything to say;" and I am +sure no irony was intended in the reply. + +"What are you knitting, my dear?" said Aunt Theresa. + +"A pair of socks for my brother Jack," was the answer. + +"I'm sure you're dreadfully industrious," said Mrs. Buller. + +A little later she begged Eleanor to put it away. + +"You'll tire your eyes, my dear, I'm sure; pray rest a little and chat +to us." + +"I don't look at my knitting," said Eleanor; but she put it away, and +then sat looking rather red in the face, and somewhat encumbered with +her empty hands, which were red too. + +I think Uncle Buller noticed this; for he told us to get the big +scrap-book and show it to Miss Arkwright. + +Eleanor got cool again over the book; but she said little till, pausing +before a small, black-looking print in a sheet full of rather coarse +coloured caricatures, cuttings from illustrated papers and old-fashioned +books, second-rate lithographs, and third-rate original sketches, fitted +into a close patchwork, she gave a sort of half-repressed cry. + +"My dear! What is it?" cried Matilda effusively. + +"I think," said Eleanor, looking for information to Aunt Theresa, "I +think it's a real Rembrandt, isn't it?" + +"A real what, my dear?" said Mrs. Buller. + +"One of Rembrandt's etchings," said Eleanor; "and of course I don't +know, but I think it must be an original; it's so beautifully done, and +my mother has a copy of this one. We know ours is a copy, and I think +this must be an original, because all the things are turned the other +way; and it's very old, and it's beautifully done," Eleanor repeated, +with her face over the little black print. + +Major Buller came across the room, and sat down by her. + +"You are fond of drawing?" he said. + +"Very," said Eleanor, and she threw a good deal of eloquence into the +one word. + +The Major and she forthwith plunged into a discussion of drawing, +etching, line-engraving, &c., &c. It appeared that Mrs. Arkwright +etched on copper, and had a good collection of old etchings, with which +Eleanor was familiar. It also transpired that she was a naturalist, +which led by easy stages to a promise from the Major to show Eleanor his +insects. + +They talked till bedtime, and when Aunt Theresa bade us good-night, she +said: + +"I'm glad you've found your voice, my dear;" and she added, laughing, +"But whenever Papa talks to anybody, it always ends in the collection." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +POOR MATILDA--THE AWKWARD AGE--MRS. BULLER TAKES COUNSEL WITH HER +FRIENDS--THE "MILLINER AND MANTUAMAKER"--MEDICAL ADVICE--THE MAJOR +DECIDES. + + +It was not because Major Buller's high opinion of Miss Airlie was in any +way lowered that he decided to send us to school. In fact it was only +under long and heavy pressure, from circumstances as well as from Aunt +Theresa, that he gave his consent to a plan which never quite met with +his approval. + +Several things at this time seemed to conspire to effect it. The St. +Quentins were going on long leave, and Miss Airlie would go with them. +This was a heavy blow. Then we heard of this school after Miss Airlie +had left Riflebury, a fact so opportune as to be (so Aunt Theresa said) +"quite providential." If we were to go to school, sending us to this one +would save the trouble of making personal inquiries, and perhaps a less +wise selection, for Major Buller had confidence in Mr. Arkwright's good +judgment. The ladies to whose care his daughter was confided were +probably fit to teach us. + +"It would save a great deal of trouble," my guardian confessed, and it +must also be confessed that Major Buller was glad to avoid trouble when +he could conscientiously do so. + +I think it was his warm approval of Eleanor which finally clinched the +question. He thought that she would be a good companion for poor +Matilda. + +Why I speak of her as "poor Matilda" demands some explanation. + +Before I attempt to give it I must say that there is one respect in +which our biographies must always be less satisfactory than a story that +one might invent. When you are putting down true things about yourself +and your friends, you cannot divide people neatly into the good and the +bad, the injurers and the injured, as you can if you are writing a tale +out of your head. The story seems more complete when you are able +either to lay the blame of the melancholy events on the shoulders of +some unworthy character, or to show that they were the natural +punishment of the sufferer's own misconduct. But in thinking of Matilda +and Aunt Theresa and Major Buller, or even of the Doctor and Mrs. +Buller's lady friends, this is not possible. + +The morbid condition--of body and mind--into which Matilda fell for some +time was no light misfortune either as regards her sufferings or the +discomfort it produced in the household, and I am afraid she was both +mismanaged and in fault herself. + +It is safe, at any rate, to take the blame for one's own share, and I +have often thought, with bitterness of spirit, that, child as I was, I +might have been both forbearing and helpful to Matilda at a time when +her temper was very much tried by ill-health and untoward circumstances. +We had a good many squabbles about this period. I piqued myself upon +generally being in the right, and I did not think then, as I do now, +that it is possible to be most in the right in a quarrel, and at the +same time not least to blame for it. + +Matilda certainly did by degrees become very irritable, moody, and +perverse, and her perversity developed itself in ways which puzzled poor +Aunt Theresa. + +She became silent and unsociable. She displayed a particular dislike to +the privileges of being in the drawing-room with grown-up "company," and +of accompanying Aunt Theresa when she paid her afternoon calls. She +looked very ill, and stoutly denied that she was so. She highly resented +solicitude on the subject of her health, fought obstinately over every +bottle of medicine, and was positively rude to the doctors. + +For her unsociability, I think, Miss Perry's evil influence was partly +to blame. Poor Matilda clung to her belief in our late governess when +she was no more to us than a text upon which Aunt Theresa and her +friends preached to each other against governesses in general, and the +governesses each had suffered from in particular. Our lessons with Major +Buller, and the influence of Miss Airlie's good breeding and +straightforward kindness, gave a healthier turn to our tastes; but when +Miss Airlie went away and Major Buller proclaimed a three weeks' holiday +from the Latin grammar, and we were left to ourselves, Matilda felt the +want of the flattery, the patronage, and the small excitements and +mysteries about nothing, to which Miss Perry had accustomed her. I blush +to think that my companionship was less comfort to her than it ought to +have been. As to Aunt Theresa, she was always too busy to give full +attention to anything; and this does not invite confidence. + +Another reason, I am sure, for Matilda's dislike to appearing in company +was a painful sense of her personal appearance; and as she had heard +Aunt Theresa and her friends discuss, approve, and condemn their friends +by the standard of appearances alone, ever since she was old enough to +overhear company conversation, I hardly think she was much to blame on +this point. + +Matilda was emphatically at what is called "an awkward age"; an age more +awkward with some girls than with others. I wish grown-up ladies, who +mean to be kind to their friends' daughters, would try to remember the +awkwardness of it, and not increase a naturally uncomfortable +self-consciousness by personal remarks which might disturb the composure +of older, prettier, and better-dressed people. It is bad enough to be +quite well aware that the size of one's hands and feet prematurely +foreshadow the future growth of one's figure; that these are the more +prominent because the simple dresses of the unintroduced young lady seem +to be perpetually receding from one's bony-wrists above, and shrinking +towards the calves of one's legs below, from those thin ankles on which +one is impelled to stand by turns (like a sleeping stork) through some +mysterious instinct of relieving the weak and overgrown spine. + +This, I say, is mortifying enough, and if modesty and good breeding +carry us cheerfully through a not unfelt contrast with the assured +manners and flowing draperies of Mamma's lady friends in the +drawing-room, they might spare us the announcement of what it hardly +needs gold eyeglasses to discover--that we really grow every day. +Blushes come heavily enough to hands and cheeks when to the shyness of +youth are added the glows and chills of imperfect circulation: it does +not need the stare of strangers, nor the apologies of Mamma, to stain +our doubtful complexions with a deeper red. + +All girls are not awkward at the awkward age. I speak most +disinterestedly on Matilda's behalf, for I never went through this phase +myself. It is perhaps because I am small that I can never remember my +hands, or any other part of me, feeling in my way; and my clothes--of +whatever length, breadth, or fashion--always had a happy knack of +becoming one with me in such wise that I could comfortably forget them. + +The St. Quentin girls were nearer to Matilda's age than I, but they too +were very happy and looked very nice in the hobble-de-hoy stage of +girlhood. I am sure that they much preferred the company of their young +brothers to the company of the drawing-room; but they did what they were +told to do, and seemed happy in doing it. They had, however, several +advantages over Matilda. By judicious care (for they were not naturally +robust) they were kept in good health. They kept a great many pets, and +they always seemed to have plenty to do, which perhaps kept them from +worrying about themselves. Adelaide, for instance, did all the flowers +for the drawing-room and dinner-table. Mrs. St. Quentin said she could +not do them so well herself. They had a very small garden to pick from, +but Adelaide used lots of wild-flowers and grass and ferns. She often +let me help her to fill the china jars, and she was the only person who +ever seemed to like hearing about Grandpapa's paintings. They all did +something in the house. But I believe that their greatest advantage over +poor Matilda was that they had not been accustomed to hear dress and +appearance talked about as matters of the first importance, so that +whatever defects they felt conscious of in either did not weigh too +heavily on their minds. + +On poor Matilda's they weighed heavily indeed. And she was not only +troubled by that consciousness of being plain, by which I think quite as +many girls are affected as by the vanity of being pretty (and which has +received far less attention from moralists); she was also tormented by +certain purely nervous fancies of her face being swollen, her eyes +squinting, and her throat choking, when people looked at her, which were +due to ill-health. + +Unhappily, the ill-health which was a good excuse for Matilda's +unwillingness to "play pretty" in the drawing-room was the subject on +which she was more perverse than any other. It was a great pity that she +was not frank and confiding with her mother. The detestable trick of +small concealments which Miss Perry had taught us was partly answerable +for this; but the fault was not entirely Matilda's. + +Aunt Theresa had not time to attend to her. What attention she did give, +however, made her so anxious on the subject that she took counsel with +every lady of her acquaintance, and the more she talked about poor +Matilda's condition the less leisure she had to think about it. + +"It may be more mind than body, I'm afraid," said Aunt Theresa one +afternoon, on our return from some visiting in which Matilda had refused +to share. "Mrs. Minchin says she knew a girl who went out of her senses +when she was only two years older than Matilda, and it began with her +refusing to go anywhere or see any one." + +Major Buller turned round on his chair with an anxious face, and a +beetle transfixed by a needle in his hand. + +"It was a very shocking thing," continued Aunt Theresa, taking off her +bonnet; "for she had a great-uncle in Hanwell, and her grandfather cut +his throat. I suppose it was in the family." + +Major Buller turned back again, and pinned the beetle by its proper +label. + +"I suppose it was," said he dryly; "but as there is no insanity in my +family or in yours that I'm aware of, Mrs. Minchin's case is not much to +the point." + +"Mrs. O'Connor won't believe she's ill," sighed Aunt Theresa; "_she_ +thinks it's all temper. She says her own temper was unbearable till she +had it knocked out of her at school." + +"Matilda's temper was good enough till lately," growled the Major. + +"She says Dr. O'Connor's brother, who is the medical officer of a +lunatic asylum somewhere in Tipperary," continued Aunt Theresa, +"declares all mad women go out of their minds through ill-temper. He's +written a book about it." + +"Heaven defend me, mind and body, from the theories of that astute +practitioner!" said Uncle Buller piously. + +"It's all very well making fun of it, but everybody tells one that girls +are more trouble than any number of boys. I'm sure I don't remember +giving my mother any particular trouble when I was Matilda's age, but +the stories I've heard to-day are enough to make one's hair stand on +end. Mrs. Minchin knew another girl, who lost all her appetite just like +Matilda, and she had a very sulky temper too, and at last they found out +she used to eat black-beetles. She was a Creole, or something of that +sort, I believe, but they couldn't stop her. The Minchins knew her when +they were in the West Indies, when he was in the 209th; or, at least, it +was there they heard about her. The houses swarmed with black-beetles." + +"A most useful young lady," said Uncle Buller. "Does Matilda dine on our +native beetles, my dear? She hasn't touched my humble collection." + +"Oh, if you make fun of everything----" Aunt Theresa began; but at this +moment Mrs. St. John was announced. + +After the customary civilities, Aunt Theresa soon began to talk of poor +Matilda, and Mrs. St. John entered warmly into the subject. + +To do the ladies of the regiment justice, they sympathized freely with +each other's domestic troubles; and indeed it was not for lack of taking +counsel that any of them had any domestic troubles at all. + +"Girls are a good deal more difficult to manage than boys, I'm afraid," +sighed Aunt Theresa, repeating Mrs. O'Connor's _dictum_. + +"Women are _dreadful_ creatures at any age," said Mrs. St. John to the +Major, opening her brown eyes in the way she always does when she is +talking to a gentleman. "I always _longed_ to have been a man." + +[Eleanor says she hates to hear girls say they wish they were boys. If +they do wish it, I do not myself see why they should not say so. But one +thing has always struck me as very odd. If you meet a woman who is +incomparably silly, who does not know an art or a trade by which she +could keep herself from starvation, who could not manage the +account-books of a village shop, who is unpunctual, unreasoning, and in +every respect uneducated--a woman, in short, who has, one would think, +daily reason to be thankful that her necessities are supplied by other +people, she is pretty sure to be always regretting that she is not a +man. + +Another, trick that some silly ladies have _riles_ me (as we say in +Yorkshire) far more than this odd ambition for responsibilities one is +quite incompetent to assume. Mrs. St. John had it, and as it was +generally displayed for the benefit of gentlemen, who seem as a rule to +be very susceptible to flattery, I suppose it is more a kind of +drawing-room "pretty talk" than the expression of deliberate opinions. +It consists of contrasting girls with boys and women with men, to the +disparagement of the former, especially in matters over which +circumstances and natural disposition are commonly supposed to give them +some advantage. + +I remember hearing a fat, good-natured girl at one of Aunt Theresa's +garden-parties say, with all the impressiveness of full conviction, +"Girls are far more cruel than boys, really. You know, women are _much_ +more cruel than men--oh, I'm _sure_ they are!" and the idea filled me +not less with amazement than with horror. This very young lady had been +most good-natured to us. She had the reputation of being an unselfish +and much-beloved elder sister. I do not think she would have hurt a fly. +Why she said this I cannot imagine, unless it was to please the young +gentleman she was talking to. I think he did look rather gratified. For +my own part, the idea worried my little head for a long time--children +give much more heed to general propositions of this kind than is +commonly supposed.] + +There was one disadvantage in the very fulness of the sympathy the +ladies gave each other over their little affairs. The main point was apt +to be neglected for branches of the subject. If Mrs. Minchin consulted +Mrs. Buller about a cook, that particular cook might be discussed for +five minutes, but the rest of a two hours' visit would probably be +devoted to recollections of Aunt Theresa's cooks past and present, Mrs. +Minchin's "coloured cooks" in Jamaica, and the cooks engaged by the +mothers and grandmothers of both ladies. + +Thus when Aunt Theresa took counsel with her friends about poor Matilda, +they hardly kept to Matilda's case long enough even to master the facts, +and on this particular occasion Mrs. St. John plunged at once into a +series of illustrative anecdotes of the most terrible kind, for she +always talked, as she dressed, in extremes. The moral of every story was +that Matilda should be sent to school. + +"And I'll send you over last year's numbers of the _Milliner and +Mantua-maker_, dear Mrs. Buller. There are always lots of interesting +letters about people's husbands and children, and education, and that +sort of thing, in the column next to the pastry and cooling drinks +receipts. There was a wonderfully clever letter from a 'M.R.C.S.' about +the difficulty of managing young girls, and recommending a strict school +where he had sent his daughter. And next month there were long letters +from five 'British Mothers' and 'A Countess' who had not been able to +manage their daughters, and had sent them to this school, and were in +every way satisfied. Mr. St. John declared that all the letters were +written by one person to advertise the school, but he always does say +those sort of things about anything I'm interested in." + +"You're very kind," said Mrs. Buller. + +"There was a most extraordinary correspondence, too, after that +shoemaker's daughter in Lambeth was tried for poisoning her little +brother," continued Mrs. St. John. "The _Saturday Review_ had an article +on it, I believe, only Mr. St. John can't bring papers home from the +mess, so I didn't see it. The letters were all about all the dreadful +things done by girls in their teens. There were letters from twelve +'Materfamiliases,' I know, because the editor had to put numbers to +them, and four 'Paterfamiliases,' and 'An Anxious Widower,' and 'A +Minister,' and three 'M.D.'s.' But the most awful letter was from 'A +Student of Human Nature,' and it ended up that every girl of fifteen was +a murderess at heart. If I can only lay my hand on that number---- but +I've lent it to so many people, and there was a capital paper pattern in +it too, of the _jupon à l'Impératrice_, ready pricked." + +At this point Uncle Buller literally exploded from the room. Aunt +Theresa said something about draughts, but I think even Mrs. St. John +must have been aware that it was the Major who banged the door. + +I was sitting on the footstool by the fire-place making a night-dress +for my doll. My work had been suspended by horror at Mrs. St. John's +revelations, and Major Buller's exit gave an additional shock in which I +lost my favourite needle, a dear little stumpy one, with a very fine +point and a very big eye, easy to thread, and delightful to use. + +When Mrs. St. John went away Major Buller came back. + +"I am sorry I banged the door, my dear," said he kindly, "but whatever +the tempers of girls may be made of at fifteen, mine is by no means +perfect, I regret to say, at fifty; and I _cannot_ stand that woman. My +dear Theresa, let me implore you to put all this trash out of your head +and get proper medical advice for the child at once. And--I don't like +to seem unreasonable, my dear, but--if you must read those delectable +articles to which Mrs. St. John refers, I wish you'd read them at her +house, and not bring them into ours. I'd rather the coarsest novel that +ever was written were picked up by the children, if the broad lines of +good and evil were clearly marked in it, than this morbid muddle of +disease and crime, and unprincipled parents and practitioners." + +Uncle Buller seldom interfered so warmly; indeed, he seldom interfered +at all. I think Aunt Theresa would have been glad if he would have +advised her oftener. + +"Indeed, Edward," said she, "I'll do anything you think right. And I'm +sure I wouldn't read anything improper myself, much less let the +children. And as to the _Milliner and Mantuamaker_ you need not be +afraid of that coming into the house unless I send for it. Mrs. St. John +is always promising to lend me the fashion-book, but she never remembers +it." + +"And you'll have proper advice for Matilda at once?" + +"Certainly, my dear." + +Mrs. Buller was in the habit of asking the regimental Surgeon's advice +in small matters, and of employing a civilian doctor (whose fees made +him feel better worth having) in serious illness. She estimated the +seriousness of a case by danger rather than delicacy. So the Surgeon +came to see Matilda, and having heard her cough, promised to send a +"little something," and she was ordered to keep indoors and out of +draughts, and take a tablespoonful three times a day. + +Matilda had not gone graciously through the ordeal of facing the +principal Surgeon in his uniform, and putting out her tongue for his +inspection; and his prescriptions did not tend to reconcile her to being +"doctored." Fresh air was the only thing that hitherto had seemed to +have any effect on her aches and pains, or to soothe her hysterical +irritability, and of this she was now deprived. When Aunt Theresa +called in an elderly civilian practitioner, she was so sulky and +uncommunicative, and so resolutely refused to acknowledge to any +ailments, that (his other prescriptions having failed to cure her +lassitude, and his pompous manner and professional visits rather +provoking her feverish perversity) the old doctor also recommended that +she should be sent to school. + +Medical advice is very authoritative, and yet Uncle Buller hesitated. + +"It's like packing a troublesome son off to the Colonies, my dear," said +he. "And though Dr. Brown may be justified in transferring his +responsibilities elsewhere, I don't think that parents should get rid of +theirs in this easy fashion." + +But when Eleanor came, the Major's views underwent a change. If I went +with Matilda, and we had Eleanor Arkwright for a friend, he allowed that +he would consent. + +"That is if the girl is willing to go. I will send no child of mine out +of my house against her will." + +Major Buller asked her himself. Asked with so much kindness, and +expressed such cheery hopes that change of air, regular occupation, and +the society of other young people would make her feel "stronger and +happier" than she had seemed to be of late, that to say that Matilda +would have gone anywhere and done anything her father wished is to give +a feeble idea of the gush of gratitude which his sensible and +sympathetic words awoke in her. Unfortunately she could not keep herself +from crying just when she most wanted to speak, and Uncle Buller, having +a horror of "scenes," cut short the one interview in which Matilda felt +disposed to confide in her parents. + +But she confided to me, when she came to bed that night (_I_ didn't mind +her crying between the sentences), that she was very, very sorry to have +been "so cross and stupid," and that if we were not going to school she +meant to try and be very different. I begged her to let me ask Uncle +Buller to keep us at home a little longer, but Matilda would not hear of +it. + +"No, no," she sobbed, "not now. I should like to do something he and +Mamma want, and they want us to go to school." + +For my own part I was quite willing to go, especially after I had seen +Eleanor Arkwright. So we were sent--to Bush House. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +AT SCHOOL--THE LILAC-BUSH--BRIDGET'S POSIES--SUMMER--HEALTH. + + +We knew when it was summer at Bush House, because there was a lilac-tree +by the gate, which had one large bunch of flowers on it in the summer +when Eleanor and I and Matilda were at school there. As we left the +house in double file to take our daily exercise on the high-road, the +girls would bob their heads to catch a whiff of the scent as they +passed, or to let the cool fragrant flowers brush their foreheads. On +this point Madame, our French governess, remonstrated in vain. We took +turns for the side next to the lilac, and sniffed away as long as there +was anything to smell. Even when the delicate colour began to turn +brown, and the fragrance vanished, we were loth to believe that the +blossoms were fading. + +"I think I have got a cold in my head," said Matilda, who had plunged +her nose into the cluster one day in vain. + +"You have a cough, ma foi! Mademoiselle Buller," replied Madame, who +seemed to labour under the idea that Matilda rather enjoyed this +privilege. But I had tried the lilac-bush myself with no better +success. + +"I think," I whispered to Eleanor, in English, "that we have smelt it +all up." + +"Parlez-vous français, mesdemoiselles!" cried Madame, and we filed out +into the dusty street, at the corner of which sat another of our visible +tokens of the coming of the season of flowers; a dirty, shrivelled old +Irishwoman, full of benedictions and beggary, who, all through the +summer, sold "posies" to the passers-by. We school-girls were good +customers to her. We were all more or less sentimental, more or less +homesick, and had more or less of that susceptibility to the influence +of scents which may, some day, be the basis of a new school of medicine. +One girl had cultivated pinks and _Roses de Meaux_ in her own garden "at +home," and Bridget was soon wise enough to discover that a nosegay +composed of these materials was an irresistible temptation to that +particular customer. Another had a craving for the sight and smell of +southernwood (or "old man," as Eleanor called it), and preferred it in +combination with bachelor's buttons. + +"There was an old woman 'at home' whom we used to go to tea with when we +were children--my brother and I," she said; "there were such big bunches +of southernwood by her cottage. And bachelor's buttons all round the +garden." + +The brother was dead, I knew, and there were two flattened "buttons" and +a bit of withered "old man" gummed into her Bible. "Picked the last day +we were out together. Before he was taken ill with scarlet fever," she +told me. She had the boy's portrait in a standing frame, and, little +space as we had in our bedrooms, the other girls piled their brushes and +ribbon-boxes on one side of the looking-glass as best they could, and +left the rest of the dressing-table sacred to his picture, and to the +Bible, and the jar of Bridget's flowers, which stood before the likeness +as if it had been that of a patron saint. + +For my own part I was very ignorant of the names and properties of +English flowers. I knew some by sight, from Adelaide St. Quentin's +bouquets, and from my great-grandfather's sketches; and I knew the names +of others of which Adolphe had given me plants, and of which I was glad +to see the flower. As I had plenty of pocket-money I was a liberal +customer, and I made old Bridget tell me the names of the flowers in her +bunches. I have since found out that whenever she was at fault she +composed a name upon the spot, with the ready wit and desire to please +characteristic of her nation. These names were chiefly connected with +the Blessed Virgin and the saints. + +"The Lord blesh ye, my dear," she would say; "that's 'Mary's flower';" +or, "Sure it's the 'Blessed Virgin's spinning-wheel,' and a pretty name +too!" + +A bitter-smelling herb which she commended to me as "Saints' Savory," I +afterwards learned to be tansy. + +The youngest of us, a small, silent little orphan, had bought no posy +till one day she quietly observed, "If you could get me a peony, I would +buy it." + +The peony was procured; so large, so round, and so red, that some one +unfeelingly suggested that it should be cut up for pickled cabbage. The +little miss walked home with it in her hand, looking at it as +sentimentally as if it had been a forget-me-not. As we had been +hard-hearted enough to laugh at it, we never learned the history which +made it dear. + +Madame would certainly never have allowed us to break our ranks, and +chaffer with Bridget, but that some one had been lucky enough to think +of giving her bouquets. + +Madame liked flowers--as ornaments--and was sentimental herself, after a +fashion, a sentimentality of appearances. She liked a bright spot of +colour on her sombre dresses too, and she was economical; for every day +that she had a bright bouquet a day's wear and tear was saved to her +neck-ribbons. She pinned the bright flowers by her very clean collar, +and not very clean throat, and permitted us to supply ourselves also +from Bridget's basket. + +A less pleasant sign of summer than the lilac-blossom or Bridget's +flower-basket was the heat. It was hot in the dusty, draughty streets of +the little town. The empty bedrooms at Bush House were like ovens, and +the well-filled school-room was much worse. Madame would never hear any +complaints of the heat from me or from Matilda. Summer at Bush House, in +the nature of things, could be nothing to summer in India, to which we +were accustomed. It was useless to point out that in India the rooms in +which we lived were large, well shaded, and ventilated by constant +currents of fresh air. Also that there, our heaviest meal, our longest +walk, and our hardest work were not all crowded into the hottest hours +of the day. + +"England is at no time so warm as India," said Madame. + +"I suppose we are not as hot as the cook," suggested little "Peony" as +we now called her, one very hot day, when we sat languidly struggling +through our work in the stifling atmosphere of the school-room. "I +thought of her to-day when I looked at that great fat leg of roast +mutton. We're better off than she is." + +"And she's better off than if she were in the Black Hole of Calcutta; +but that doesn't make either her or us cool," said Emma Lascelles, an +elder girl. "Don't preach, Peony; lessons are bad enough in this heat." + +"I shan't eat any dinner to-morrow, I think," said Eleanor; "I cannot +keep awake after it this weather, so it's no use." + +"I wish I were back at Miss Martin's for the summer," said another girl. + +We knew to what this referred, and Madame being by a rare chance absent, +we pressed for an account, in English, of Miss Martin's arrangements in +the hot weather. "Miss Martin's" was a school at which this girl had +been before she came to Bush House. + +"I can't think why on earth you left her," said Eleanor. + +"Well, this is nearer home for one thing, and the masters are better +here, certainly. But she did take such care of us. It wasn't everlasting +backaches, and headaches, and coughs, and pains in your side all along. +And when the weather got hot (and it was a very warm summer when I was +there), and she found we got sleepy at work after dinner, and had +headaches in the afternoon, she said she thought we had better have a +scrap meal in the middle of the day, and dine in the cool of the +evening; and so we used to have cold rice-pudding or thick +bread-and-butter, such as we should have had for tea, or anything there +was, and tumblers of water, at one, and at half-past five we used to +wash and dress; and then at six, just when we were getting done up with +the heat and work, and yet cool enough to eat, we had dinner. I can tell +you a good fat roast leg of mutton looked all right then! It cured all +our headaches, and we worked twice as well, both at midday work and at +getting lessons ready for next day after dinner. I know----" + +"Tais-toi, Lucy!" hissed Peony through her teeth. "Madame!" + +"Donnez-moi cette grammaire, Marguerite, s'il vous plait," said Lucy, as +Madame entered. + +And I gave her the grammar, and we set to work again, full of envy for +the domestic arrangements of Miss Martin's establishment during the dog +days. + +If there is a point on which Eleanor and I are quite agreed, among the +many points we discuss and do not always agree upon, it is that of the +need for a higher education for women. But ill as I think our sex +provided for in this respect, and highly as I value good teaching, I +would rather send a growing girl to a Miss Martin, even for fewer +"educational advantages," and let her start in life with a sound, +healthy constitution and a reasonable set of nerves, than have her head +crammed and her health neglected under "the first masters," and so good +an overseer as "Madame" to boot. For Madame certainly made us work, and +was herself indefatigable. + +The reckless imprudence of most girls in matters of health is +proverbial, the wisdom of young matrons in this respect is not beyond +reproach, and the lore which long and painful experience has given to +older women is apt, like other lessons from that stern teacher, to come +too late. It should at least avail to benefit their daughters, were it +not that custom prescribes that they also should be kept in the dark +till instructed in turn by the lamentable results of their ignorance, +too often only when these are past repair. + +Whether, though there are many things that women have no knowledge of, +and many more of which their knowledge is superficial, their lack of +learning on these points being erudition compared with their crass +ignorance of the laws of health, the matter is again one of education; +or whether it is an unfortunate development of a confusion between +ignorance and innocence, and of mistaken notions of delicacy, who shall +say? Unhappily, a studied ignorance of the ills that flesh is heir to is +apt to bring them in double force about one's ears, and this kind of +delicate-mindedness to bring delicacy of body in its train. Where it +guides the counsels of those in charge of numbers of young people (as in +Miss Mulberry's case), it is apt to result in the delicacy (more or +less permanent) of several bodies. + +But I am forgetting that I am not "preaching" to Eleanor by the kitchen +fire, but writing my autobiography. I am forgetting, also, that I have +not yet said who Miss Mulberry was. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +MISS MULBERRY--DISCIPLINE AND RECREATION--MADAME--CONVERSATION--ELEANOR'S +OPINION OF THE DRAWING-MASTER--MISS ELLEN'S--ELEANOR'S APOLOGY. + + +Miss Mulberry was our school-mistress, and the head of the Bush House +establishment. "Madame" was only a French mistress employed by Miss +Mulberry, though she had more to do with the pupils than Miss Mulberry +herself. + +Miss Mulberry was stout, and I think by nature disposed to indolence, +especially in warm weather. It was all the more creditable to her that +she had worked hard for many years to support a paralytic mother and a +delicate sister. The mother was dead now. Miss Ellen Mulberry, though an +invalid, gave some help in teaching the younger ones; and Bush House +had for so long been a highly-reputed establishment that Miss Mulberry +was more or less prosperous, and could afford to keep a French governess +to do the hard work. + +Miss Mulberry was very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of +propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a +favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and +between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as +"motherly," though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her +dealing with girls she was essentially a spinster. + +Her good conscience and her timidity both helped to make her feel +school-keeping a heavy responsibility, which should perhaps excuse the +fact that we suffered at Bush House from an excess of the meddlesome +discipline which seems to be _de rigueur_ in girls' schools. I think +Miss Mulberry would have felt that she had neglected her duty if we had +ever been left to our own devices for an hour. + +To growing girls, not too robust, leading sedentary lives, working very +hard with our heads, and having (wholesome and sufficient meals, but) +not as much animal food as most of us were accustomed to at home, the +_nag_ of never being free from supervision was both irritating and +depressing. Much worse off were we than boys at school. No +playing-fields had we; no leave could be obtained for country rambles +by ourselves. Our dismal exercise was a promenade in double file under +the eye and ear of Madame herself. + +True, we were allowed fifteen minutes' "recreation" together, and by +ourselves, in the school-room, just after dinner; but this inestimable +privilege was always marred by the fact that Madame invariably came for +us before the quarter of an hour had expired. No other part of school +discipline annoyed us as this did. It had that element of injustice +against which children always rebel. Why she did so remains to this day +a puzzle to me. She worked very hard for her living--a fact which did +not occur to us in those days to modify our view of her as our natural +tormentor. In breaking faith with us daily by curtailing our allotted +fifteen minutes of recreation, she deprived herself of rest to the exact +amount by which she defrauded us. + +She cannot have pined to begin to teach as soon as she had swallowed her +food! I may do her an injustice, but the only reason I can think of as a +likely one is that, by taking us unawares, she (I won't say hoped, but) +expected to find us "in mischief." + +It was a weak point of the arrangements of Bush House that Miss Mulberry +left us so much to the care of Madame. Madame was twice as energetic as +Miss Mulberry. Madame never spared herself if she never spared us. +Madame was indefatigable, and in her own way as conscientious as Miss +Mulberry herself. But Madame was not just, and she was not truthful. She +had--either no sense at all, or--a quite different sense from ours of +honour and uprightness. Perhaps the latter, for she seemed to break +promises, tell lies, open letters, pry into drawers and boxes, and +listen at keyholes from the highest sense of duty. And, which was even +worse for us, she had no belief whatever in the trustworthiness of her +pupils. + +Miss Mulberry felt it to be her duty towards our parents and guardians +to keep us under constant supervision; but Madame watched and worried +us, I am convinced, in the persuasion that we were certain to get into +mischief if we had the chance, and equally certain to do so deceitfully. +She gave us full credit (I never could trace that she saw any discredit +in deceit) for slyness in evading her authority, but flattered herself +that her own superior slyness would maintain it in spite of us. + +It vexed us all, but there were times when it irritated Eleanor almost +to frenzy. She would have been in disgrace oftener and more seriously on +the subject, but that Madame was a little afraid of her, and was, I +think, not a little fond of her. + +Madame was a clever woman, and a good teacher. She was sharp-witted, +ready of tongue, and indefatigably industrious herself; and slow, +stupid, or lazy girls found no mercy at her hands. + +Eleanor's unusual abilities, the extent of her knowledge and reading on +general subjects, the rapidity with which she picked up conversational +French and wielded it in discussions with Madame, and finally her +industry and perseverance, won Madame's admiration and good-will. I +think she almost believed that Mademoiselle Arkwright's word was to be +relied upon. + +Eleanor never toadied her, which I fear we others (we were so utterly at +her mercy!) did sometimes; assuming an interest we did not feel in her +dissertations on the greatness of France and the character of her +especial idol, the first Napoleon. + +If Madame respected Eleanor, we school-girls almost revered her. "She +talks so splendidly," Lucy said one day. + +Not that the rest of us were by any means dumb. The fact that English +was forbidden did not silence us, and on Sunday when (to Madame's +undisguised chagrin) Miss Mulberry allowed us to speak English, we +chattered like sparrows during an anthem. But Eleanor introduced a kind +of talk which was new to most of us. + +We could all chatter of people and places, and what was said on this +occasion or what happened on another. We had one good mimic (Emma), and +two or three of us were smart in description. We were observant of +details and appearances, and we could one and all "natter" over our +small grievances without wearying of the subject, and without ever +speculating on their causes, or devising remedies for them. + +But, with Eleanor, facts served more as points to talk from, than as +talk in themselves. Through her influence the Why and How of things +began to steal into our conversation. We had more discussion and less +gossip, and found it better fun. + +"One never tells you anything without your beginning to argue about it," +said one of the girls to her one day. + +"I'm very sorry," said poor Eleanor. + +"You're very clever, you mean," said Emma. "What a lawyer you'd have +made, Eleanor! While we growl at the Toad's tyranny, you make a case out +of it." + +(I regret to have to confess that, owing to a peculiarity of complexion, +Madame was familiarly known to us, behind her back, as the Toad.) + +"Well, I don't know," said Eleanor, puckering her brows and nursing her +knees, as we all sat or lounged on the school-room floor, during the +after-dinner recreation minutes, in various awkward but restful +attitudes; "I can growl as well as anybody, but I never feel satisfied +with bewailing over and over again that black's black. One wants to find +out why it's black, and if anything would make it white. Besides, I +think perhaps when one looks into one's grievances, one sees excuses for +people--there are two sides to every question." + +"There'll be one, two, three," said Emma, looking slowly round and +counting the party with a comical imitation of Eleanor's thoughtful +air--"there'll be fifteen sides to every question by the time we've all +learnt to talk like you, my dear." + +Eleanor burst out laughing, and we most of us joined her to such good +purpose, that Madame overheard us, and thought it prudent to break up +our sitting, though we had only had a short twelve minutes' rest. + +Eleanor not only set the fashion of a more reasonable style of chat in +our brief holiday hours, but she was apt to make lessons the subject of +discussions which were at first resented by the other girls. + +"I can't think," she began one day (it was a favourite way with her of +opening a discussion)--"I can't think what makes Mr. Henley always make +us put the shadows in in cobalt. Some shadows are light blue certainly, +I think, especially on these white roads, but I don't think they are +always; not in Yorkshire, at any rate. However, as far as that goes, he +paints his things all in the same colours, whatever they're meant for; +the Bay of Naples or the coast of Northumberland. By the bye, I know +that I've heard that the shadows on the snow in Canada are really +blue--bright blue." + +"You're blue, deep blue," said Emma. "How you can talk shop out of +lesson hours, Eleanor, I can't conceive. You began on grammar the other +day, by way of enlivening our ten minutes' rest." + +"I'm very sorry," said Eleanor: "I'm fond of drawing, you know." + +"Oh, do let her talk, Emma!" cried Peony. "I do so like to hear her. Why +are the shadows on the snow blue, Eleanor?" + +"I can't think," said Eleanor, "unless it has something to do with +reflection from the sky." + +Eleanor was not always discreet enough to keep her opinion of Mr. +Henley's style to herself and us. She was a very clever girl, and, like +other very young people, her cleverness was apt to be aggressive; +scorned compromises, and was not always sufficiently respectful towards +the powers that be. + +Her taste for drawing was known, and Madame taunted her one day with +having a reputation for talent in this line, when her water-colour +copies were not so effective as Lucy's; simply, I believe, with the wish +to stimulate her to excel. I am sure Madame much preferred Eleanor to +Lucy, as a matter of liking. + +"Behold, Mademoiselle!" said she, holding up one of Lucy's latest +copies, just glorified with a wide aureole of white cardboard +"mounting"; "what do you think of this?" + +"It is very like Mr. Henley's," said Eleanor warmly. "Lucy has taken +great pains, I'm sure. It's quite as good as the copy, I think." + +"But what do you think of it?" said Madame impatiently; she was too +quick-witted to be easily "put off." "Is it not beautiful?" + +"It is very smart, very gay," said Eleanor, who began to lose her +temper. "All Mr. Henley's sketches are gay. The thatch on the house +reminds me of the 'ends' of Berlin wool that are kept, after a big piece +of work, for kettle-holders. The yellow tree and the blue tree are very +pretty: there always is a yellow tree and a blue tree in Mr. Henley's +sketches. I don't know what kind of trees they are. I never do. The +trunks are pink, but that doesn't help one, for the markings on them are +always the same." + +Eleanor's French was quite good enough to give this speech its full +weight, as Madame's kindling eyes testified. She flung the drawing from +her, and was bursting forth into reply, when, by good luck, Miss +Mulberry called for her so impatiently that she was obliged to leave the +room. + +I had been repeating a lesson to Miss Ellen Mulberry, who lay on a couch +near the window, but we had both paused involuntarily to listen to +Eleanor and Madame. + +Miss Ellen was very good. She was also very gentle, and timid to +nervousness. But from her couch she saw a good deal of the daily life of +the school, and often understood matters better than those who were in +the thick of it, I think. + +When Madame had left the room, she called Eleanor to her, and in an +almost trembling voice said: + +"My dear, do you think you are quite right to speak so to Madame about +that drawing?" + +"I am very sorry, Miss Ellen," said Eleanor; "but it's what I think, and +she asked me what I thought." + +"You are very clever, my dear," said Miss Ellen, "and no one knows +better than yourself that there are more ways than one of expressing +one's opinion." + +"Indeed," Eleanor broke in, "I don't want to be rude. I'm sorry I did +speak so pertly. But oh, Miss Ellen, I wish you could see the trees my +mother draws! How can I say I like those things of Mr. Henley's? Like +green seaweeds on the end of a pink hay-fork! And we've lots of old +etchings at home, with such trees in them! Like--well, like nothing but +real trees and photographs." + +Miss Ellen took Eleanor's hand and drew her towards her. + +"My dear," said she, "you have plenty of sense; and have evidently used +it to appreciate what your dear mother has shown and taught to you. Use +it now, my dear, to ask yourself if it is reasonable to expect that men +who could draw like the old masters would teach in ordinary girls' +schools, or, if they would, that school-mistresses could afford to pay +them properly without a much greater charge to the parents of pupils +than they would be willing to bear. You have had great advantages at +home, and have learnt enough to make you able to say very smart things; +but fault-finding is an easy trade, my dear, and it would be wiser as +well as kinder to see what good you can get from poor Mr. Henley's +lessons, as to the use of the brush and colours, instead of neglecting +your drawing because you don't like his style, which, after all, you +needn't copy when you sketch from nature yourself. I will tell you, dear +child, that my sister and I have talked this matter over before. Clever +young people are apt to think that their stupid elders have never +perceived what their brilliant young wits can put straight with +half-a-dozen words. But I used to draw a little myself," continued Miss +Ellen very modestly, "and I have never liked Mr. Henley's style. But he +is such a very good old man, and so poor, that my sister has shrunk from +changing. Still, of course our pupils are the first consideration, and +we should have had another master if a much better one could have been +got. But Mr. Markham, who is the only other one within reach, is not so +painstaking and patient with his pupils as Mr. Henley; and though his +style is rather better, it is not so very superior as to lead us, on the +whole, to turn poor Mr. Henley away for him. As to Madame," said Miss +Ellen, in conclusion, "she was quite right, my dear, to contrast your +negligence with Lucy's industry, and your smart speech was not in good +taste towards her, because you know that she knows nothing of drawing, +and could not dispute the point with you. There she comes," added Miss +Ellen rather nervously. She was afraid of Madame. + +"I'll go and beg her pardon, dear Miss Ellen," said Eleanor penitently, +and rushing out of the room, she met Madame in the passage, and we heard +her pouring forth a torrent of apology and self-accusation in a style +peculiar to herself. If in her youth and cleverness she was at times a +little sharp-tongued and self-opinionated, the vehemence of her +self-reproaches when she saw herself in fault was always a joke with +those who knew her. + +"Eleanor's confessions are only to be matched by her favourite Jeremy +Taylor's," said Jack one day. + +"She's just as bumptious next time, all the same," said Clement. He had +been disputing with Eleanor, and the generous grace of meeting an +apology half-way was no part of his character. + +He had an arbitrary disposition, in which Eleanor to some extent shared. +He controlled it to fairness in discussions with men, but with men only. +With Eleanor, who persisted in thinking for herself, and was not slow to +express her thoughts, he had many hot disputes, in which he often seemed +unable to be fair, and did not always trouble himself to be reasonable. + +By his own account he "detested girls with opinions." Abroad he was +politely contemptuous of feminine ideas; at home he was apt to be rudely +so. + +But this was only one, and a later development of many-sided Clement. + +And the subject is a digression, and has no business here. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +ELEANOR'S THEORIES REDUCED TO PRACTICE--STUDIES--THE ARITHMETIC-MASTER. + + +Madame was not ungenerous to an apology. She believed in Eleanor too, +and was quite disposed to think that Eleanor might be in the right in a +dispute with anybody but herself. Perhaps she hoped to hear her triumph +in a discussion with Mr. Henley, or perhaps it was only as a punishment +for her presumptuous remarks that Madame started the subject on the +following day to the drawing-master himself. + +"Miss Arkwright says your trees are all one, Mr. Henley," she began. +(Madame's English was not perfect.) "Except that the half are yellow and +the other half blue. She knows not the kind even." + +The poor little drawing-master, who was at that moment "touching up" a +yellow tree in one of the younger girls' copies, trying by skilfully +distributed dabs to make it look less like a faded cabbage-leaf, +blushed, and laid down his brush. Eleanor, who was just beginning to +colour a copy of a mountain scene, turned scarlet, and let her first +wash dry into unmanageable shapes as she darted indignant glances at +Madame, who appeared to enjoy her bit of malice. + +"Miss Arkwright will observe that these are sketches indicating the +general effect of a scene; not tree studies." + +"I know, Mr. Henley," said poor Eleanor, in much confusion; "at least, I +mean I don't know anything about water-colour sketching, so I ought not +to have said anything; and I never thought that Madame would repeat it. +I was thinking of pencil-drawings and etchings; and I do like to know +one tree from another," she added honestly. + +"You draw in pencil yourself?" asked Mr. Henley. + +"Oh no!" said Eleanor; "at least only a little. It was my mother's +drawings I was thinking of; and how she used to show us the different +ways of doing the foliage of different trees, and the marking on the +bark of the trunks." + +Mr. Henley drew a sheet of paper from his portfolio, and took a pencil +from his case. + +"Let us see, my dear young lady, what you remember of these lessons. The +pencil is well cut. There are flat sides for shading, and sharp ends for +outlines." + +Madame's thin lips pursed with the ghost of a smile, as Eleanor, with +hot cheeks and hands, came across "the room" to put her theories in +practice. + +"I can't do it, I know," she said, as she sat down, and gave herself +one of those nervous twitches common to girls of the hobble-de-hoy age. + +But Eleanor's nervous' spasms were always mitigated by getting something +into her fingers. Pencil and paper were her favourite implements; and +after a moment's pause, and a good deal of frowning, she said: "We've a +good many oaks about us;" and forthwith began upon a bit of oak foliage. + +"It's only a spray," she said. + +"It's very good," said the drawing-master, who was now looking over her +shoulder. + +"Oak branches are all elbows," she murmured, warming to her work, and +apparently talking to herself. "So different from willows and beeches." + +"Ve-ry good," said Mr. Henley, as Eleanor fitted the branches +dexterously into the clusters of leaves; "now for a little bit of the +oak bark, if you please." + +"This is only one tree, though," said Madame, who was also looking on. +"Let us see others, mademoiselle." + +"Willows are nice to do," said Eleanor, intent upon her paper; "and the +bark is prettier than oak, I think, and easier with these long points. +My mother says branches of trees should be done from the tips inwards; +and they do fit in better, I think. Only willow branches seem as if they +ought to be done outwards, they taper so. Beech trunks are very pretty, +but the leaves are difficult, I think. Scotch pines are easy." And +Eleanor left the beech and began upon the pine, fitting in the +horizontal branches under the foliage groups with admirable effect. + +"That will do, Miss Arkwright," said the little drawing-master. "Your +mother has been a good guide to you; and Mother Nature will complete +what she has begun. Now we will look at the copy, if you please." + +Eleanor's countenance fell again. Her pink mountain had run into her +blue mountain, and the interrupted wash had dried with hard and +unmanageable outlines. Sponging was the only remedy. + +Next drawing-lesson day Mr. Henley arrived a few minutes earlier than +was his wont, staggering under a huge basket containing a large clump of +flags and waterside herbage, which he had dug up "bodily," as he said. +These he arranged on a tray, and then from the bottom of the basket +produced the broken fragments of a red earthenware jug. + +"It was such a favourite of mine, Miss Arkwright," said he; "but what is +sacred to a maid-of-all-work? My only consolation, when she smashed it +this morning, was the thought that it would serve in the foreground of +your sketch." + +Saying which, the kind-hearted little man laid the red crocks among the +weeds, and after much pulling up and down of blinds to coax a good light +on to the subject, he called Eleanor to set to work. + +"It is _very_ good of you," said Eleanor emphatically. "When I have been +so rude, too!" + +"It is a pleasure," said the old man; "and will be doubly so if you do +it well. I should like to try it myself," he added, making a few hasty +dashes with the pencil. "Ah, my dear young lady, be thankful that you +will sketch for pleasure, and not for bread! It is pleasanter to learn +than to teach." + +Out of gratitude to Mr. Henley alone, Eleanor would have done her best +at the new "study"; but apart from this the change of subject was +delightful to her. She had an accurate eye, and her outlines had +hitherto contrasted favourably with her colouring in copies of the +sketches she could not like. The old drawing-master was delighted with +her pencil sketch of his "crockery among the reeds," and Eleanor +confessed to getting help from him in the choice and use of her colours. + +"Studies" became the fashion among the more intelligent pupils at Bush +House; though I have heard that experience justified the old man's +prophecy that they would not be so popular with the parents as the +former style had been. "They like lakes, and boats, and mountains, and +ruins, and a brighter style of colouring," he had said, and, as it +proved, with truth. + +Eleanor was his favourite pupil. Indeed, she was in favour with all the +teachers. + +A certain quaint little German was our arithmetic-master; a very good +one, whose patience was often sorely tried by our stupidity or +frivolity. On such occasions he rained epithets on us, which, from his +imperfect knowledge of English, were often comical, and roused more +amusement than shame. But for Eleanor he never had a harsh word. She was +thoroughly fond of arithmetic, and "gave her mind to it," to use a good +old phrase. + +"Ah!" the little man would yell at us. "You are so light-headed! +Sometimes you do do a sum, and sometimes not; but you do never _think_. +There is not one young lady of this establishment who thinks, but Miss +Arkwright alone." + +I remember an incident connected with the arithmetic-master which +occurred just after we came, and which roused Eleanor's intense +indignation. It was characteristic, too, of Madame's ideas of propriety. + +The weather was warm, and we were in the habit of dressing for tea. Our +toilettes were of the simplest kind. Muslin garibaldis, for coolness, +and our "second-best" skirts. + +Eleanor, Matilda, and I shared one room. On the first Wednesday evening +after our arrival at Bush House we were dressing as usual, when Emma ran +in. + +"I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you," said she; "you mustn't put on your +muslin bodies to-night. The arithmetic-master is coming after tea." + +"I don't understand," said Eleanor, who was standing on one leg as +usual, and who paused in a struggle with a refractory elastic sandal to +look up with a puckered brow, and general bewilderment. "What has the +arithmetic to do with our dresses?" + +Emma's saucy mouth and snub nose twitched with amusement, as she replied +in exact mimicry of Madame's broken English: "Have you so little of +delicacy as to ask, mademoiselle? Should the young ladies of this +establishment expose their shoulders in the transparency of muslin to a +professor?" + +Matilda and I burst out laughing at Emma's excellent imitation of +Madame; but Eleanor dropped her foot to the floor with a stamp that +broke the sandal, and burst forth into an indignant torrent of words, +which was only stayed by the necessity for resuming our morning dresses, +and hastening down-stairs. There Eleanor swallowed her wrath with her +weak tea; and I remember puzzling myself, to the neglect of mine, as to +the probable connection between arithmetic-masters and transparent +bodices. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ELEANOR'S REPUTATION--THE MAD GENTLEMAN--FANCIES AND FOLLIES--MATILDA'S +HEALTH--THE NEW DOCTOR. + + +We were not jealous of Eleanor's popularity. She was popular with the +girls as well as with the teachers. If she was apt to be opinionated, +she was candid, generous, and modest. She was always willing to help any +one, and (the firmest seal of friendship!) she was utterly sincere. + +She worked harder than any of us, so it was but just that she should be +most commended. But of all who lagged behind her, and who felt Madame's +severity, and created despair in the mind of the little +arithmetic-master, the most unlucky was poor Matilda. + +Matilda and I were now on the best of terms, and the credit of this +happy condition of matters is more hers than mine. + +It was not so much that I had learned more tact and sympathy (though I +hope these qualities do ripen with years and better knowledge!) as +because Matilda did most faithfully try to fulfil the good resolutions +Major Buller's kindness had led her to make. + +So far as Matilda's ailments were mental, I think that school-life may +have been of some benefit. + +Since the torments which have taught me caution in a household haunted +by boys, I am less confidential with my diary than I used to be. And if +I do not confide all my own follies to it, I am certainly not justified +in recording other people's. + +Not that Matilda makes any secret of the hero-worship she wasted on the +man with the chiselled face and weird eyes, whom we used to see on the +Riflebury Esplanade. She never spoke to him; but neither for that matter +did his dog, a Scotch deerhound with eyes very like his master's, and a +long nose which (uncomfortable as the position must have been) he kept +always resting in his master's hand as the two paced up and down, hour +after hour, by the sea. + +What folly Miss Perry talked on the subject it boots not at this date to +record. _I_ never indulged a more fanciful feeling towards him than +wonder, just dashed with a little fear--but I would myself have liked to +know the meaning of that long gaze he and the dog sometimes turned on +us! + +We shall never know now, however, for the poor gentleman died in a +lunatic asylum. + +I hope, when they shut him up, that they found the deerhound guilty also +of some unhydrophobiac madness, and imprisoned the two friends +together! + +Of course we laugh now about Matilda's fancy for the insane gentleman, +though she declares that at the time she could never keep him out of her +head--that if she had met him thirty-four successive times on the +Esplanade, she would have borne no small amount of torture to earn the +privilege of one more turn to meet him for the thirty-fifth--and that +her rest was broken by waking dreams of the possible misfortunes which +might account for his (and the dog's) obvious melancholy, and of +impossible circumstances in which she should act as their good angel and +deliverer. + +At the time she kept her own counsel, and it was not because she had +ever heard of the weird-eyed gentleman and his deerhound that Mrs. +Minchin concluded her advice to Aunt Theresa on one occasion by a shower +of nods which nearly shook the poppies out of her bonnet, and the +oracular utterance--"She's got some nonsense or other into her head, +depend upon it. Send her to school!" + +One thing has often struck me in reading the biographies of great +people. They must have to be written in quite a different way to the +biographies of common people like ourselves. + +For instance, when a practised writer is speaking of the early days of +celebrated poets, he says quite gravely--"Like Byron, Scott, and other +illustrious men, Hogg (the Ettrick shepherd) fell in love in his very +early childhood." And of course it sounds better than if one said, "Like +Smith, and Brown, and Jones, and nine out of every ten children, he did +not wait for years of discretion to make a fool of himself." + +Not being illustrious, Matilda blushes to remember this early folly; and +not being a poet's biographer, Aunt Theresa said in a severe voice, for +the general behoof of the school-room, that "Little girls were sometimes +very silly, and got a great deal of nonsense into their heads." I do not +think it ever dawned upon her mind that girls' heads not being +jam-pots--which if you do not fill them will remain empty--the best way +to keep folly out was to put something less foolish in. + +She would have taken a great deal of trouble that her daughters might +not be a flounce behind the fashions, and was so far-seeing in her +motherly anxieties, that she junketed herself and Major Buller to many +an entertainment, where they were bored for their pains, that an +extensive acquaintance might ensure to the girls partners, both for +balls and for life when they came to require them. But after what +fashion their fancies should be shaped, or whether they had wholesome +food and tender training for that high faculty of imagination by virtue +of which, after all, we so largely love and hate, choose right or +wrong, bear and forbear, adapt ourselves to the ups and downs of this +world, and spur our dull souls to the high hopes of a better--anxiety on +these matters Mrs. Buller had none. + +As to Mrs. Minchin, she would not have known what it meant if it had +been put in print for her to read. + +Matilda's irritability was certainly repressed in public by school +discipline, and from Eleanor's companionship our interests were varied +and enlarged. But in spite of these advantages her health rapidly +declined. And this without its seeming to attract Miss Mulberry's +notice. + +Indeed, she meddled very little in the matter of our health. She kept a +stock of "family pills," which she distributed from time to time amongst +us. They cured her headaches, she said; and she seemed rather aggrieved +that they did not cure Matilda's. + +But poor Matilda's headaches brought more than their own pain to her. +They seemed to stupefy her, and make her quite incapable of work. Her +complexion took a deadly, pasty hue, one eye was almost entirely closed, +and to a superficial observer she perhaps did look--what Madame always +pronounced her--sulky. Then, no matter how fully any lesson was at her +fingers' ends, she stumbled through a series of childish blunders to +utter downfall; and Madame's wrath was only equalled by her irony. To +do Matilda justice, she often used almost incredible courage in her +efforts to learn a task in spite of herself. Now and then she was +successful in defying pain; but by some odd revenge of nature, what she +learned in such circumstances was afterwards wiped as completely from +her memory as an old sum is sponged from a slate. + +To headache and backache, to vain cravings for more fresh air, and to an +inequality of spirits and temper to which Eleanor and I patiently +submitted, Matilda still added a cough, which seemed to exasperate +Madame as much as her stupidity. + +Not that our French governess was cruelly disposed. When she took +Matilda's health in hand and gave her a tumbler of warm water every +morning before breakfast, she did so in all good faith. It was a remedy +that she used herself. + +Poor Matilda was furious both with Madame's warm-water cure and Miss +Mulberry's pill-box. She had a morbid hatred of being "doctored," which +is often characteristic of chest complaints. She struggled harder than +ever to work, in spite of her headaches; she ceased to complain of them, +and concealed her cough to a great extent, by a process known amongst us +as "smothering." The one remedy she pined for--fresh air--was the last +that either Miss Mulberry or Madame considered appropriate to any form +of a "cold." + +This craving for fresh air helped Matilda in her struggle with illness. +Our daily "promenade" was dull enough, but it was in the open air; and +to be kept indoors, either as a punishment for ill-said lessons, or as a +cure for her cough, was Matilda's great dread. + +Night after night, when Madame had paid her final visit to our rooms, +and we were safe, did Eleanor creep out of bed and noiselessly lower the +upper sash of our window to please Matilda; whilst I sat (sometimes for +an hour or more) upon the bolster of the bed in which Matilda and I +slept together, and "nursed her head." + +What quaint, pale, grave little maids we were! As full of aches and +pains, and small anxieties, and self-repression, and tender sympathy, as +any other daughters of Mother Eve. + +Eleanor and I have often since said that we believe we should make +excellent nurses for the insane, looking back upon our treatment of poor +Matilda. We knew exactly when to be authoritative, and when to +sympathize almost abjectly. I became skilful in what we called "nursing +her head," which meant much more than that I supported it on my knees. +Softly, but firmly, I stroked her brow and temples with both hands, and +passed my fingers through her hair to the back of her head. I rarely +failed to put her to sleep, and as she never woke when I laid her down, +I have since suspected myself of unconscious mesmerism. + +One night, when I had long been asleep, I was awakened by Matilda's +hysterical sobs. She "couldn't get into a comfortable position;" her +"back ached so." Our bed was very narrow, and I commonly lay so poised +upon the outer edge to give Matilda room that more than once I have +rolled on to the floor. + +We spoke in undertones, but Eleanor was awake. + +"Come and see if you can sleep with me, Margery," she said. "I lie very +straight." + +I scrambled out, and willingly crept in behind Eleanor, into her still +narrower bed; and after tearful thanks and protestations, poor Matilda +doubled herself at a restful angle, and fell asleep. + +Happily for me, I was very well. Eleanor suffered from the utter change +of mode of life a good deal; but she had great powers of endurance. + +Fatigue, and "muddle on the brain," often hindered her at night from +learning the lessons for next day. But she worked at them nevertheless; +and tasks, that by her own account she "drove into her head" in bed, +though she was quite unable to say them that evening, seemed to arrange +themselves properly in her memory before the morning. + +Matilda's ill-health came to a crisis at last. To smother a cough +successfully, you must be able to escape at intervals. On one occasion +the smothering was tried too long, and after the aggravated outburst +which ensued, the doctor was called in. The Bush House family +practitioner being absent, a new man came for him, who, after a few +glances at Matilda, postponed the examination of her lungs, and begged +to see Miss Mulberry. + +Matilda had learned her last lesson in Bush House. + +From the long interview with the doctor, Miss Mulberry emerged with a +troubled face. + +Lessons went irregularly that day. Our quarter of an hour's recreation +was as much extended as it was commonly cut short, and Madame herself +was subdued. She became a very kind nurse to Matilda, and crept many +times from her bed during the night to see if "la pauvre petite" were +sleeping, or had a wish that she could satisfy. + +Indeed, an air of remorse seemed to tinge the kindness of the heads of +Bush House to poor Matilda, which connected itself in Eleanor's mind +with a brief dialogue that she overheard between Miss Mulberry and the +doctor at the front door: + +"I feel there has been culpable neglect," said Miss Mulberry mournfully. +"But----" + +"No, no. At least, not wilful," said the doctor; "and springing from the +best motives. But I should not be doing my duty, madam, towards a lady +in your responsible position, if I did not say that I have known too +many cases in which the ill-results have been life-long, and some in +which they have been rapidly fatal." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +ELEANOR'S HEALTH--HOLY LIVING--THE PRAYER OF THE SON OF SIRACH. + + +Matilda went home, and Eleanor and I remained at Bush House. + +I fancy that when we no longer had to repress ourselves for poor +Matilda's sake, Eleanor was more sensible of her own aches and pains. +She also became rather irritable, and had more than one squabble with +Madame about this time. + +Eleanor had brought several religious books with her--books of prayers +and other devotional works. They were all new to Matilda and me, and we +began to use them, and to imitate Eleanor in various little devout +customs. + +On Sunday Eleanor used to read Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_; +but as we never were allowed to be alone, she was obliged to bring it +down-stairs. Unfortunately, the result of this was that Miss Mulberry, +having taken it away to "look it over," pronounced it "not at all proper +reading for young ladies," and it was confiscated. After this Eleanor +reserved her devotional reading for bed-time, when, if she had got +fairly through her lessons for next day, I was wont to read the Bible +and other "good books" to her in a tone modulated so as not to reach +Madame's watchful ear. + +Once she caught us. + +The books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus from the Apocrypha were favourite +reading with Eleanor, who seemed in the grandly poetical praises of +wisdom to find some encouragement under the difficulties through which +we struggled towards a very moderate degree of learning. I warmly +sympathized with her; partly because much of what I read was beautiful +to read, even when I did not quite understand it; and partly because +Eleanor had inspired me also with some of her own fervour against "the +great war of ignorance." + +But, as I said, Madame caught us at last. + +Eleanor was lying, yet dressed, upon her bed, the window was open, and +I, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was giving forth the prayer of the +Son of Sirach, with (as I flattered myself) no little impressiveness. As +the chapter went on my voice indiscreetly rose: + +"When I was yet young, or ever I went astray, I desired wisdom openly in +my prayer. + +"I prayed for her before the temple, and will seek her out even to the +end. + +"Even from the flower till the grape was ripe hath my heart delighted in +her: my foot went the right way, from my youth up I sought after her. + +"I bowed down mine ear a little, and received her, and gat much +learning. + + * * * * * + +"Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in the house of learning. + + * * * * * + +"Put your neck under the yoke, and let your soul receive instruction: +she is hard at hand to find. + +"Behold with your eyes, how that I have had but little labour, and have +gotten unto me much rest. + +"Get learning----" + +"Eh, mesdemoiselles! This is going to bed, is it? Ah! Give me that book, +then." + +I handed over in much confusion the thin S.P.C.K. copy of the +Apocrypha, bound in mottled calf, from which I had been reading; and +ordering us to go to bed at once, Madame took her departure. + +Madame could read English well, though she spoke it imperfectly. The +next day she did not speak of the volume, and we supposed her to be +examining it. Then Eleanor became anxious to get it back, and tried both +argument and entreaty, for some time, in vain. At last Madame said: + +"What is it, mademoiselle, that you so much wish to read in this volume +of the holy writings?" + +"Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are what I like best," said Eleanor. + +"Eh bien!" said Madame, nodding her head like a porcelain Chinaman, and +with a very knowing glance. "I will restore the volume, mademoiselle." + +She did restore it accordingly, with the historical narratives cut out, +and many nods and grimaces expressive of her good wishes that we might +be satisfied with it now. + +In private, Eleanor stamped with indignation (whether or no her thick +boots had fostered this habit I can't say, but Eleanor was apt to stamp +on occasion). We had our dear chapters again, however, and I promised +Eleanor a new and fine copy of the mutilated favourite as a birthday +present. + +Eleanor was very good to me. She helped me with my lessons, and +encouraged me to work. For herself, she laboured harder and harder. + +I used to think that she was only anxious to get all the good she could +out of the school, as she did not seem to have many so-called +"advantages" at home, by her own account. But I afterwards found that +she did just the same everywhere, strained her dark eyes over books, and +absorbed information whenever and wherever she had a chance. + +"I can't say you're fond of reading," said Emma one day, watching +Eleanor as she sat buried in a book, "for I'm fond of reading myself, +and we're not at all alike. I call you greedy!" + +And Eleanor laughed, and quoted a verse from one of our favourite +chapters: "They that eat me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink me +shall yet be thirsty." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +ELEANOR AND I ARE LATE FOR BREAKFAST--THE SCHOOL BREAKS UP--MADAME AND +BRIDGET. + + +Eleanor and I overslept ourselves one morning. We had been tired, and +when we did get up we hurried through our dressing, looking forward to +fines and a scolding to boot. + +But as we crept down-stairs we saw both the Misses Mulberry and Madame +conversing together on the second landing. We felt that we were +"caught," but to our surprise they took no notice of us; and as we went +down the next flight we heard Miss Mulberry say, with a sigh, +"Misfortunes never come alone." + +We soon learnt what the new misfortune was. Poor Lucy had been taken +ill. The doctor had been to see her early that morning, and had +pronounced it fever--"Probably scarlet fever; and he recommends the +school being broken up at once, as the holidays would soon be here +anyway." So one of the girls told us. + +Presently Miss Mulberry made her appearance; and we sat down to +breakfast. She ate hers hurriedly, and then made a little speech, in +which she begged us, as a personal favour, to be good; and if it was +decided that we should go, to do our best to get our things carefully +together, and to help to pack them. + +I am sure we responded to the appeal. I wonder if it struck Madame, at +this time, that it might be well to trust us a little more, as a rule? I +remember Peony's saying, "Madame told me to help myself to tea. I might +have taken two lumps of sugar, but I did not think it would be right." + +We were all equally scrupulous; we even made a point of speaking in +French, though Madame's long absences from the school-room, and the +possibility of an early break-up for the holidays, gave both opportunity +and temptation to chat in English. + +On Monday evening at tea, Miss Mulberry made another little speech. The +doctor had pronounced poor Lucy's illness to be scarlet fever, and we +were all to be sent home the next day. There were to be no more lessons, +and we were to spend the evening in packing and other preparations. + +We were very sorry for poor Lucy, but we were young; and I do not think +we could help enjoying the delights of fuss, the excitement of +responsibility and packing, and the fact that the holidays had begun. + +We were going in various directions, but it so happened that we all +contrived to go by the same train to London. Some were to be dropped +before we reached town; one lived in London; and Eleanor and I had to +wait for half-an-hour before catching a train for the north. + +For I was going to Yorkshire. The Arkwrights had asked me to spend the +holidays with Eleanor. There was now nothing to be done but for us to +go up together, all unexpected as we were. + +How we packed and talked, and ran in and out of each other's rooms! It +was late when we all got to bed that night. + +Next morning the railway omnibus came for us, and with a curious sense +of regret we saw our luggage piled up, and the little gate of Bush House +close upon us. + +As we moved off, Bridget, the nosegay-woman, drew near. Madame (who had +shed tears as she bade us adieu) opened the gate again, ran out, cried +shrilly to the driver to stop, and buying up half Bridget's basketful at +one sweep, with more tears and much excitement, flung the flowers in +amongst us. As she went backwards off the step, on to which she had +climbed, she fell upon Bridget, who, with even more excitement and I +think also with ready tears, clung to the already moving omnibus, and +turned her basket upside down over our laps. + +I have a dim remembrance of seeing her and Madame seem to fall over each +other, or into each other's arms; and then, amid a shrill torrent of +farewells and blessings in French and Irish, the omnibus rolled on, and +Bush House was hid from our eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +NORTHWARDS--THE BLACK COUNTRY--THE STONE COUNTRY. + + +We had a very noisy, happy journey to London. We chattered, and laughed, +and hopped about like a lot of birds turned out of a cage. Emma sat by +the window, and made a running commentary upon everybody and everything +we passed in a strain of what seemed to us irresistible wit and humour. +I fear that our conduct was not very decorous, but in the circumstances +we were to be excused. The reaction was overwhelming. + +Eleanor and I sobered down after we parted from the other girls, and +thus became sensible of some fatigue and faintness. We had been too much +excited to eat any of the bread-and-butter prepared for our early +breakfast at Bush House. We had run up and down and stood on our feet +about three times as much as need was; we had talked and laughed and +shaken ourselves incessantly; we had put out our heads in the wind and +sun as the train flew on; we had tried to waltz between the seats, and +had eaten two ounces of "mixed sweets" given us by the housemaid, and +deluged each other with some very heavy-scented perfume belonging to +one of us. + +After all this, Eleanor and I felt tired before our journey had begun. +We felt faint, sick, anything but hungry, and should probably have +travelled north in rather a pitiful plight, had not a motherly-looking +lady, who sat in the waiting-room reading a very dirty book of +tracts--and who had witnessed both our noisy parting from our companions +and the subsequent collapse--advised us to go to the refreshment-room +and get some breakfast. We yielded at last, out of complaisance towards +her, and were rewarded by feeling wonderfully refreshed by a solid meal. + +We laid in a stock of buns and chocolate lozenges for future +consumption, and--thanks to Eleanor's presence of mind and +experience--we got our luggage together, and started in the north train +in a carriage by ourselves. + +We talked very little now. Eleanor gazed out of her window, and I out of +mine, in silence. As we got farther north, Eleanor's eyes dilated with a +curious glow of pride and satisfaction. I had then no special attachment +to one part of England more than another, but I had never seen so much +of the country before, and it was a treat which did not lose by +comparison with the limited range of our view at Bush House. + +As we ran on, the bright, pretty, sociable-looking suburbs of London +gave way to real country--beautiful, cared-for, garden-like, with grand +timber, big houses, and grey churches, supported by the obvious +parsonage and school; and deep shady lanes, with some little cart +trotting quaintly towards the railway bridge over which we rushed, or +boys in smock-frocks sitting on a gate, and shouting friendly +salutations (as it seemed) to Eleanor and myself. Then came broad, fair +pastures of fairy green, and slow winding rivers that we overtook almost +before we had seen them, with ghostly grey pollard willows in formal +mystical borders, contrasting with such tints of pale yellow and gay +greens, which in their turn shone against low distances of soft blue and +purple, that the sense of colour which my great-grandfather had roused +in me made me almost tremble with a never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. From +this flat but most fair country, the grey towers of Peterborough +Cathedral stood up in ancient dignity; and then we ran on again. After a +while the country became less rich in colour, and grander in form. No +longer stretching flatly to low-lying distances of ethereal hue, it was +broken into wooded hills, which folded one over the other with +ever-increasing boldness of outline. Now and then the line ran through +woods of young oak, with male ferns and bracken at their feet, where the +wild hyacinths, which lie there like a blue mist in May, must for some +weeks past have made way for the present carpet of pink campion. + +And now the distance was no longer azure. Over the horizon and the lower +part of the sky a thin grey veil had come--a veil of smoke. We were +approaching the manufacturing districts. Grander and grander grew the +country, less and less pure the colouring. The vegetation was rich +almost to rankness; the well-wooded distances were heavily grey. Then +tall chimneys poured smoke over the landscape and eclipsed the sun; and +through strangely shaped furnaces and chimneys of many forms, which here +poured fire from their throats like dragons, and there might have been +the huge retorts and chemical apparatus of some giant alchemist, we ran +into the station of a manufacturing town. + +I gazed at the high blackened warehouses, chimneys, and furnaces, which +loomed out of the stifling smoke and clanging noises, with horror and +wonder. + +"What a dreadful place!" I exclaimed. "Look at those dreadful things +with flames coming out; and oh, Eleanor! there's fire coming out of the +ground there. And look at that man opening that great oven door! Oh, +what a fire! And what's he poking in it for? And do look! all the men +are black. And what a frightful noise everything makes!" + +Eleanor was looking all the time, but with a complacent expression. She +only said, "It is a very busy place. I hear trade's good just now, too." +And, "You should see the furnaces at night, Margery, lighting up all the +hills. It's grand!" + +As she sniffed up the smoke with, I might almost say, relish, I felt +that she did not sympathize with my disgust. But any discussion on the +subject was stopped by our having to change carriages, and we had just +settled ourselves comfortably once more, when I got a bit of iron +"filings" into my eye. It gave me a good deal of pain and inconvenience, +and by the time that I could look out of the window again, we had left +the black town far behind. The hills were almost mountains now, and +sloped away on all sides of us in bleak and awful grandeur. The +woodlands were fewer; we were on the moors. Only a few hours back we had +been amongst deep hedges and shady lanes, and now for hedges we had +stone walls, and for deep embowered lanes we could trace the unsheltered +roads, gleaming as they wound over miles of distant hills. Deep below us +brawled a river, with here and there a gaunt mill or stone-built hamlet +on its banks. + +I had never seen any country like this; and if I had been horrified by +the black town, my delight with the noble scenery beyond it was in +proportion. I stood at the open window, with the moor breeze blowing my +hair into the wildest elf-locks, rapturously excited as the great hills +unfolded themselves and the shifting clouds sent shifting purple shadows +over them. Very dark and stern they looked in shade, and then, in a +moment more, the cloud was past, and a broad smile of sunshine ran over +their face, and showed where cultivation was creeping up the hillside +and turning the heather into fields. + +Eleanor leaned out of the window also. Excitement, which set me +chattering, always made her silent. But her parted lips, distended +nostrils, and the light in her eyes bore witness to that strange power +which hill country sways over hill-born people. To me it was beautiful, +but to her it was home. I better understood now, too, her old complaints +of the sheltered (she called it _stuffy_) lane in which we walked two +and two when we "went into the country" at school. She used to rave +against the park palings that hedged us in on either side, and declare +her longing to tear them up and let a little air in, or at least to be +herself somewhere where "one could see a few miles about one, and +breathe some wind." + +As we stood now, drinking in the breeze, I think the same thought struck +us both, and we exclaimed with one voice: "Poor Matilda! How she would +have enjoyed this!" + +We next stopped at a rather dreary-looking station, where we got out, +and Eleanor got our luggage together, aided by a porter who seemed to +know her, and whom she seemed to understand, though his dialect was +unintelligible to me. + +"I suppose we must have a cab," said Eleanor, at last. "They don't +expect us." + +"_Tommusisinttarn_," said the porter suggestively; which, being +interpreted, meant, "Thomas is in the town." + +"To be sure, for the meat," said Eleanor. "The dog-cart, I suppose?" + +"And t'owd mare," added the porter. + +"Well, the boxes must come by the carrier. Come along, Margery, if you +don't mind a little bit of walking. We must find Thomas. We have to send +down to the town for meat," she added. + +We found Thomas in the yard of a small inn. He was just about to start +homewards. + +By Eleanor's order, Thomas lifted me into the dog-cart, and then, to my +astonishment, asked "Miss Eleanor" if she would drive. Eleanor nodded, +and, climbing on to the driver's seat, took the reins with reassuring +calmness. Thomas balanced the meat-basket behind, and "t'owd mare" +started at a good pace up a hill which would have reduced most +south-country horses to crawl. + +"Father and Mother are away still," said Eleanor, after a pause. "So +Thomas says. But they'll be back in a day or two." + +We were driving up a sandy road such as we had seen winding over the +hills. To our left there was a precipitous descent to the vale of the +river. To our right, flowers, and ferns, and heather climbed the steep +hill, broken at every few yards by tiny torrents of mountain streams. +The sun was setting over the distant Deadmanstone moors; little dropping +wells tinkled by the roadside, where dozens of fat black snails were out +for an evening stroll, and here and there a brimming stone trough +reflected the rosy tints of the sky. + +It was grey and chilly when we drove into the village. A stone +pack-horse track, which now served as footpath, had run by the road and +lasted into the village. The cottages were of stone, the walls and +outhouses were of stone, and the vista was closed by an old stone +church, like a miniature cathedral. There was more stone than grass in +the churchyard, and there were more loose stones than were pleasant on +the steep hill, up which we scrambled before taking a sharp turn into +the Vicarage grounds. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE VICARAGE--KEZIAH--THE DEAR BOYS--THE COOK--A YORKSHIRE +TEA--BED-FELLOWS. + + +It was Midsummer. The heavy foliage brushed our faces as "the old mare," +with slack reins upon her back, drew us soberly up the steep drive, and +stood still, of her own accord, before a substantial-looking house, +built--"like everything else," I thought--of stone. Huge +rose-bushes--literal _bushes_, not "dwarfs" or "standards"--the growth +of many years, bent under their load of blossoms. The old "maiden's +blush," too rare now in our bedding plant gardens, the velvety "damask," +the wee Scotch roses, the prolific white, and the curious "York and +Lancaster," with monster moss-rose trees, hung over the carriage-road. +The place seemed almost overgrown with vegetation, like the palace of +the Sleeping Beauty. + +As we turned the corner towards the house, Eleanor put out her left hand +and dragged off a great branch of "maiden's blush." She forgot the +recoil, which came against my face. All the full-blown flowers shed +their petals over me, and I made my first appearance at the Vicarage +covered with rose-leaves. + +It was Keziah who welcomed us, and I have always had an affection for +her in consequence. She was housemaid then, and took to the kitchen +afterwards. After she had been about five years at the Vicarage, she +announced one day that she wished to go. She had no reason to give but +that she "thought she'd try a change." She tried one--for a month--and +didn't like it. Mrs. Arkwright took her back again, and in kitchen and +back premises she reigns supreme to this day. + +From her we learned that Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, who had gone away for a +parson's fortnight, were still from home. We had no lack of welcome, +however. + +It seems strange enough to speak of a fire as comfortable in July. And +yet I well remember that the heavy dew and evening breeze was almost +chilly after sunset, and a sort of vault-like feeling about the rooms, +which had been for a week or more unused, made us offer no resistance +when Keziah began to light a fire. While she was doing so Eleanor +exclaimed, "Let's go and warm ourselves in the kitchen." + +Any idea of comfort connected with a kitchen was quite new to me, but I +followed Eleanor, and made my first acquaintance with the old room where +we have spent so many happy hours. + +We found the door shut; much, it seemed, to Eleanor's astonishment. But +the reason was soon evident. As our footsteps sounded on the stone +passage there arose from behind the kitchen door an utterly +indescribable din of howling, yowling, squealing, scratching, and +barking. + +"It's the dear boys!" said Eleanor, and she ran to open the door. For a +moment I thought of her brothers (who must, obviously, be maniacs!), but +I soon discovered that the "dear boys" were the dogs of the +establishment, who were at once let loose upon us _en masse_. I have a +faint remembrance of Eleanor and a brown retriever falling into each +other's arms with cries of delight; but I was a good deal absorbed by +the care of my own small person, under the heavy onslaught of dogs big +and little. I was licked copiously from chin to forehead by the more +impetuous, and smelt threateningly at the calves of my legs by the more +cautious of the pack. + +They were subsiding a little, when Eleanor said, "Oh, cook, why did you +shut them up? Why didn't you let them come and meet us?" + +"And how was I to know who it was at the door, Miss Eleanor?" replied an +elderly, stern-looking female, who, in her time, ruled us all with a rod +of iron, the dogs included. "Dear knows it's not that I want them in the +kitchen. The way them dogs behaves, Miss Eleanor, is _scandilus_." + +"Dear boys!" murmured Eleanor; on which all the dogs, who were settling +down to sleep on the hearth, wagged their tails, and threatened to move. + +"Much good it is me cleaning," cook continued, "when that great big +brown beast of yours goes roaming about every night in the shrubberies, +and comes in with his feet all over my clean floor." + +"It makes rather pretty marks, I think," said Eleanor; "like +pot-moulding, only not white. But never mind, you've me at home now to +wipe their paws." + +"They've missed you sorely," said the cook, who seemed to be softening. +"I almost think they knew it was you, they were so mad to get out." + +"Dear boys!" cried Eleanor, once more; and the dogs, who were asleep +now, wagged their tails in their dreams. + +"And there's more's missed you than them," cook continued. "But, bless +us, Miss Eleanor, you don't look much better for being in strange parts. +That young lady, too, looks as if she enjoyed poor health. Well, give me +native air, there's nothing like it; and you've not got back to yours +too soon." + +Eleanor threw her arms round the cook, and danced her up and down the +kitchen. + +"Oh, dear cookey!" she cried; "I am so glad to be back again. And do be +kind to us, and give us tea-cakes, and brown bread toast, and let the +dogs come in to tea." + +Cook pushed her away, but with a relenting face. + +"There, there, Miss Eleanor. Take that jug of hot water with you, and +take the young lady up-stairs; and when you've cleaned yourselves, I'll +have something for you to eat; and you may suit yourselves about the +dogs,--I'm sure I don't want them. You've not got so much more sensible +with all your schooling," she added. + +We went off to do her bidding, and left her muttering, "And what folks +as can edicate their own children sends 'em all out of the house for, +passes me; to come back looking like a damp handkerchief, with dear +knows what cheap living and unwholesome ways, and want of native air." + +Cook's bark was worse than her bite. + +"She gives the dear boys plenty to eat," said Eleanor; and she provided +for us that evening in the same liberal spirit. + +What a feast we had! Strong tea, and abundance of sugar and rich cream. +We laid the delicious butter on our bread in such thick clumps, that +sallow-faced Madame would have thought us in peril of our lives. There +was brown bread toast, too; and fried ham and eggs, and moor honey, and +Yorkshire tea-cakes. In the middle of the table Keziah had placed a +large punch-bowl, filled with roses. + +And all the dogs were on the hearth, and they all had tea with us. + +After tea we tried to talk, but were so sleepy that the words died away +on our heavy lips. So we took Keziah's advice and went to bed. + +"Keziah has put the chair-bed into my room, Margery dear," said Eleanor. + +"I am so glad," said I. "I would rather be with you." + +"Would you like a dog to sleep with you?" Eleanor politely inquired. "I +shall have Growler inside, and my big boy outside. Pincher is a nice +little fellow; you'd better have Pincher." + +I took Pincher accordingly, and Pincher took the middle of the bed. + +We were just dropping off to sleep when Eleanor said, "If Pincher +snores, darling, hit him on the nose." + +"All right," said I. "Good-night." I had begun a confused dream, woven +from my late experiences, when Eleanor's voice roused me once more. + +"Margery dear, if Growler _should_ get out of my bed and come on to +yours, mind you kick him off, or he and Pincher will fight through the +bed-clothes." + +But whether Pincher did snore, or Growler invade our bed, I slept much +too soundly to be able to tell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +GARDENING--DRINKINGS--THE MOORS--WADING--BATRACHOSPERMA--THE +CHURCH--LITTLE MARGARET. + + +Both Eleanor and I were visited that night by dreams of terrible +complications with the authorities at Bush House. It was a curious +relief to us to wake to clear consciences and the absolute control of +our own conduct for the day. + +It took me several minutes fairly to wake up and realize my new +position. The window being in the opposite direction (as regarded my +bed) from that of our room at Miss Mulberry's, the light puzzled me, and +I lay blinking stupidly at a spray of ivy that had poked itself through +the window as if for shelter from the sun, which was already blazing +outside. Pincher brought me to my senses by washing my face with his +tongue; which I took all the kindlier of him that he had been, of all +the dear boys, the most doubtful about the calves of my legs the evening +before. + +As we dressed, I adopted Eleanor's fashion of doing so on foot, that I +might examine her room. As is the case with the "bowers" of most +English country girls of her class, it was rich in those treasures +which, like the advertised contents of lost pocket-books, are "of no +value to any one but the owner." Prints of sacred subjects in home-made +frames, knick-knacks of motley variety, daguerreotypes and second-rate +photographs of "the boys"--_i. e._ Clement and Jack--at different ages, +and of "the dear boys" also. "All sorts of things!" as I exclaimed +admiringly. But Eleanor threatened at last to fine me if I did not get +dressed instead of staring about me, so we went down-stairs, and had +breakfast with the dogs. + +"The boys will be home soon," said Eleanor, as we devoured certain +plates of oatmeal porridge, which Keziah had provided, and which I +tasted then for the first time. "I must get their gardens tidied up +before they come. Shall you mind helping me, Margery?" + +The idea delighted me, and after breakfast we tied on our hats, rummaged +out some small tools from the porch, and made our way to the children's +gardens. They were at some little distance from the big flower-garden, +and the path that led to them was heavily shaded by shrubbery on one +side, and on the other by a hedge which, though "quickset" as a +foundation, was now a mass of honeysuckle and everlasting peas. The +scent was delicious. + +From this we came out on an open space at the top of the kitchen garden, +where, under a wall overgrown with ivy, lay the children's gardens. + +"What a wilderness!" was Eleanor's first exclamation, in a tone of +dismay, and then she added with increased vehemence, "He's taken away +the rhubarb-pot. What will Clement say?" + +"What is it, dear?" I asked. + +"It's the rhubarb-pot," Eleanor repeated. "You know Clement is always +having new fads every holidays, and he can't bear his things being +disturbed whilst he's at school. But how can I help it if I'm at school +too?" + +"Of course you can't," said I, gladly seizing upon the only point in her +story that I could understand, to express my sympathy. + +"And he got one of the rhubarb-pots last holidays," Eleanor continued. +"It was rather broken, and Thomas gave in to his having it then, so it's +very mean of him to have moved it now, and I shall tell him so. And +Clement painted church windows on it, and stuck it over a plant of ivy +at the top of the garden. He thought it would force the ivy, and he +expected it would grow big by the time he came home. He wanted it to +hang over the top, and look like a ruin. Oh, he will be so vexed!" + +The ivy plant was alive, though the "ruin" had been removed by the +sacrilegious hands of Thomas. I suggested that we should build a ruin of +stones, and train the ivy over that, which idea was well received by +Eleanor; the more so that a broken wall at the top of the croft supplied +materials, and Stonehenge suggested itself as an easy, and certainly +respectable, model. + +Meanwhile we decided to "do the weeding first," as being the least +agreeable business, and so set to work; I in a leisurely manner, +befitting the heat of the day, and Eleanor with her usual energy. She +toiled without a pause, and accomplished about treble the result of my +labours. After we had worked for a long time, she sat up, pressing her +hand to her forehead. + +"My head quite aches, Margery, and I'm so giddy. It's very odd; +gardening never made me so before I went away." + +"You work so at it," said I, "you may well be tired. What makes you work +so at things?" + +"I don't know," said Eleanor, laughing. "Cook says I do foy at things +so. But when one once begins, you know----" + +"What's _foy_?" I interrupted. "Cook says you foy--what does she mean?" + +"Oh, to foy at anything is to slave--to work hard at it. At least, not +merely hard-working, but to go at it very hotly, almost foolishly; in +fact, to foy at it, you know. Clement foys at things too. And then he +gets tired and cross; and so do I, often. What o'clock is it, Margery?" + +I pulled out my souvenir watch and answered, "Just eleven." + +"We ought to have some 'drinkings,' we've worked so hard," said Eleanor, +laughing again. "Haymakers, and people like that, always have drinkings +at eleven, you know, and dinner at one, and tea at four or five, and +supper at eight. Ah! there goes Thomas. Thomas!" + +Thomas came up, and Eleanor (discreetly postponing the subject of the +rhubarb-pot for the present) sent a pleading message to cook, which +resulted in her sending us two bottles of ginger-beer and several slices +of thick bread-and-butter. The dear boys, who had been very sensibly +snoozing in the shade, divined by some instinct the arrival of our +lunch-basket, and were kind enough to share the bread-and-butter with +us. + +"Drinkings" over, we set to work again. + +I was surprised to observe that there were four box-edged beds, but as +Eleanor said nothing about it, I made no remark. Perhaps it belonged to +some dead brother or sister. + +As the weeds were cleared away, one plant after another became +apparent. I called Eleanor's attention to all that I found, and she +seemed to welcome them as old friends. + +"Oh, that's the grey primrose; I'm so glad! And there are Jack's +hepaticas; they look like old rubbish. Don't dig deep into Jack's +garden, please, for he's always getting plants and bulbs given him by +people in the village, and he sticks everything in, so his garden really +is crammed full; and you're sure to dig into tulips, or crocuses, or +lilies, or something valuable." + +"Doesn't Clement get things given him?" said I. + +"Oh, he has plenty of plants," said Eleanor, "but then he's always +making great plans about his garden; and the first step towards his +improvements is always to clear out all the old things, and make what he +calls 'a clean sweep of the rubbish.'" + +By the time that the "twelve o'clock bell" rang from the church-tower +below, the heat was so great that we gathered up our tools and went +home. + +In the afternoon Eleanor said, "Were you ever on the moors? Did you ever +wade? Do you care about water-weeds? Did you ever eat bilberries, or +carberries?--but they're not ripe yet. Shall we go and get some +Batrachosperma, and paddle a bit, and give the dear boys a bathe?" + +"Delightful!" said I; "but do you go out alone?" + +"What should we take anybody with us for?" said Eleanor, opening her +eyes. + +I could not say. But as we dressed I said, "I'm so glad you don't wear +veils. Matilda and I used to have to wear veils to take care of our +complexion." + +Eschewing veils and every unnecessary encumbrance, we set forth, +followed by the dogs. I had taken off my crinoline, because Eleanor said +we might have to climb some walls, and I had borrowed a pair of her +boots, because my own were so uncomfortable from being high-heeled and +narrow-soled. They were too thin for stony roads also, and, though they +were prettily ornamented, they pinched my feet. + +We went upwards from the Vicarage along hot roads bordered by stone +walls. At last we turned and began to go downwards, and as we stood on +the top of the steep hill we were about to descend, Eleanor, with some +pride in her tone, asked me what I thought of the view. + +It was very beautiful. The slopes of the purple hills were grand. I saw +"moors" now. + +"The best part of it is the air, though," she said. + +The air was, in fact, wind; but of a dry, soft, exhilarating kind. It +seemed to get into our heads, and we joined hands and ran wildly down +the steep hill together. + +"What fun!" Eleanor cried, as we paused to gain breath at the bottom. +"Now you've come there'll be four of us to run downhill. We shall nearly +stretch across the road." + +At last we came to a stone bridge which spanned the river. It was not a +very wide stream, and it was so broken with grey boulders, and clumps of +rushes and overhanging ferns, that one only caught sight of the water +here and there, in tiny torrents and lakes among the weeds. + +My delight was boundless. I can neither forget nor describe those first +experiences of real country life, when Eleanor and I rambled about +together. I think she was at least as happy as I, and from time to time +we both wished with all our hearts that "the other girls" could be there +too. The least wisely managed of respectable schools has this good +point, that it enlarges one's sympathies and friendships! + +We wandered some little way up the Ewden, as Eleanor called the river, +and then, coming to a clear, running bit of stream, with a big grey +boulder on the bank hard by to leave our shoes and stockings on, we took +these off, and also our hats, and, kilting up our petticoats, plunged +bravely into the stream. + +"Wet your head!" shouted Eleanor; and following her example, as well as +I could for laughing, and for the needful efforts to keep my feet, I +dabbled my head liberally with water scooped up in the palms of my +hands. + +"Oh!" I cried, "how strong the water is, and how deliciously cold it is! +And oh, look at the little fishes! They're all round my feet. And oh, +Eleanor, call the dogs, they're knocking me down! How hard the stones +are, and oh, how slippery!" + +I fell against a convenient boulder, and Eleanor turned back, the dogs +raging and splashing around her. + +"I hope you're not treading on the Batrachosperma?" she said, anxiously. + +"What is it?" I cried. + +"It's what I've chiefly come in for," said she. "I want some to lay out. +It's a water-weed; a fresh-water alga, you know, like seaweed, only a +fresh-water plant. I'm looking for the stone it grew near. Oh, that's it +you're on! Climb up on to it out of the way, Margery dear. It's rather a +rare kind of weed, and I don't want it to be spoiled. Call the dogs, +please. Oh, look at all the bits they've broken off!" + +Eleanor dodged and darted to catch certain fragments of dark-looking +stuff that were being whirled away. With much difficulty she caught two +or three, and laid one of them in my hand. But I was not prepared for +the fact that it felt like a bit of jelly, and it slipped through my +fingers before I had time to examine the beauty of the jointed branches +pointed out by Eleanor, and in a moment more it was hopelessly lost. We +put what we had got into some dock-leaves for safety, and having waded +back to our stockings, we put on our hats and walked barefoot for a few +yards through the heather, to dry our feet, after which we resumed our +boots and stockings and set off homewards. + +"We'll go by the lower road," said Eleanor, "and look at the church." + +For some time after Eleanor had passed in through the rickety gates of +the south porch, I lingered amongst the gravestones, reading their +quaint inscriptions. Quaint both in matter and in the manner of rhyme +and spelling. As I also drew towards the porch, I looked up to see if I +could tell the time by the dial above it. I could not, nor (in spite of +my brief learning in Dr. Russell's grammar) could I interpret the Latin +motto, "_Fugit Hora. Ora_"--"The hour flies. Pray." + +As I came slowly and softly up the aisle, I fancied Eleanor was +kneeling, but a strange British shame of prayer made her start to her +feet and kept me from kneeling also; though the peculiar peace and +devout solemnity which seemed to be the very breath of that ancient +House of God made me long to do something more expressive of my feelings +than stand and stare. + +There was no handsome church at Riflebury; the one the Bullers +"attended" when we were at the seaside was new, and not beautiful. The +one Miss Mulberry took us to was older, but uglier. I had never seen one +of these old parish churches. This cathedral among the moors, with its +massive masonry, its dark oak carving, its fragments of gorgeous glass, +its ghostly hatchments and banners, and its aisles paved with the +tombstones of the dead, was a new revelation. + +I was silent awhile in very awe. I think it was a bird beginning to +chirp in the roof which made me dare to speak, and then I whispered, +"How quiet it is in here, and how cool!" + +I had hardly uttered the words when a flash of lightning made me start +and cry out. A heavy peal of thunder followed very quickly. + +"Don't be frightened, Margery dear," said Eleanor; "we have very heavy +storms here, and we had better go home. But I am so glad you admire our +dear old church. There was one very hot Sunday last summer, when a +thunderstorm came on during Evening Prayer. I was sitting in the choir, +where I could see the storm through the south transept door, and the +great stones in the transept arches. It was so cool in here, and all +along I kept thinking of 'a refuge from the storm, a shadow in the +heat,' and 'a great rock in a weary land.'" + +As we sat together at tea that evening, Eleanor went back to the subject +of the church. I made some remark about the gravestones in the aisles, +and she said, "Next time we go in, I want to show you one of them in the +chancel." + +"Who is buried there?" I asked. + +"My grandfather, he was vicar, you know, and my aunt, who was sixteen. +(My father has got the white gloves and wreath that were hung in the +church for her. They always used to do that for unmarried girls.) And my +sister; my only sister--little Margaret." + +I could not say anything to poor Eleanor. I stroked her head softly and +kissed it. + +"One thing that made me take to you," she went on, "was your name being +Margaret. I used to think she might have been like you. I have so wished +I had a sister. The boys are very dear, you know; but still boys think +about themselves, of course, and their own affairs. One has more to run +after them, you know. Not that any boys could be better than ours, +but--anyway, Margery darling, I wish you weren't here just on a visit, +but were going to stop here always, and be my sister!" + +"So do I!" I cried. "Oh! so very much, Eleanor!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A NEW HOME--THE ARKWRIGHTS' RETURN--THE BEASTS--GOING TO MEET THE +BOYS--JACK'S HATBOX--WE COME HOME A RATTLER. + + +It is not often (out of a fairy tale) that wishes to change the whole +current of one's life are granted so promptly as that wish of mine was. + +The next morning's post brought a letter from Mrs. Arkwright. They were +staying in the south of England, and had seen the Bullers, and heard all +their news. It was an important budget. They were going abroad once +more, and it had been arranged between my two guardians that I was to +remain in England for my education, and that my home was to be--with +Eleanor. Matilda was to go with her parents; to the benefit, it was +hoped, of her health. Aunt Theresa sent me the kindest messages, and +promised to write to me. Matilda sent her love to us both. + +"And the day after to-morrow they come home!" Eleanor announced. + +When the day came we spent most of it in small preparations and useless +restlessness. We filled all the flower vases in the drawing-room, put +some of the choicest roses in Mrs. Arkwright's bedroom, and made +ourselves very hot in hanging a small union-jack which belonged to the +boys out of our own window, which looked towards the high-road. Eleanor +even went so far as to provoke a severe snub from the cook, by offering +suggestions as to the food to be prepared for the travellers. + +The dogs fully understood that something was impending, and wandered +from room to room at our heels, sitting down to pant whenever we gave +them a chance, and emptying the water jug in Mr. Arkwright's +dressing-room so often that we were obliged to shut the door when Keziah +had once more filled the ewer. + +About half-an-hour after the curfew bell had rung the cab came. The dogs +were not shut up this time, and they, and we, and the Arkwrights met in +a very confused and noisy greeting. + +"GOD bless you, my dear!" I heard Mr. Arkwright say very affectionately, +and he added almost in the same breath, "Do call off the dogs, my dear, +or else take your mother's beasts." + +I suppose Eleanor chose the latter alternative, for she did not call off +the dogs, but she took away two or three tin cans with which Mr. +Arkwright was laden, and which had made him look like a particularly +respectable milkman. + +"What are they?" she asked. + +"Crassys," said Mrs. Arkwright, with apparent triumph in her tone, "and +Serpulæ, and two Chitons, and several other things." + +I thought of Uncle Buller's "collection," and was about to ask if the +new "beasts" were insects, when Eleanor, after a doubtful glance into +the cans, said, "Have you brought any fresh water?" + +Mrs. Arkwright pointed triumphantly to a big stone-bottle cased in +wickerwork, under which the cabman was staggering towards the door. It +looked like spirits or vinegar, but was, as I discovered, seawater for +the aquarium. With this I had already made acquaintance, having helped +Eleanor to wipe the mouths of certain spotted sea anemones with a +camel's-hair brush every day since my arrival. + +"The Crassys are much more beautiful," she assured me, as we helped Mrs. +Arkwright to find places for the new-comers. "We call them Crassys +because their name is Crassicornis. I don't believe they'll live, +though, they are so delicate." + +"I rather think it may be because being so big they get hurt in being +taken off the rocks," said Mrs. Arkwright, "and we were very careful +with these." + +"I'm _afraid_ the Serpulæ won't live!" said Eleanor, gazing anxiously +with puckered brows into the glass tank. + +Mrs. Arkwright was about to reply, when the dogs burst into the room, +and, after nearly upsetting both us and the aquarium, bounded out again. + +"Dear boys!" cried Eleanor. And "Dear boys!" murmured Mrs. Arkwright +from behind the magnifying glass, through which she was examining the +"beasts." + +"I wonder what they're running in and out for?" said I. + +The reason proved to be that supper was ready, and the dogs wanted us to +come into the dining-room. Mr. Arkwright announced it in more sedate +fashion, and took me with him, leaving Eleanor and her mother to follow +us. + +"In three days more," said Eleanor, as we sat down, "the boys will be +here, and then we shall be quite happy." + +Eleanor and I were as much absorbed by the prospect of the boys' arrival +as we had been by the coming of her parents. + +We made a "ruin" at the top of the little gardens, which did not quite +fulfil our ideal when all was done, but we hoped that it would look +better when the ivy was more luxuriant. We made all the beds look very +tidy. The fourth bed was given to me. + +"Now you _are_ our sister!" Eleanor cried. "It seems to make it so real +now you have got _her_ bed." + +We thoroughly put in order the old nursery, which was now "the boys' +room," a proceeding in which Growler and Pincher took great interest, +jumping on and off the beds, and smelling everything as we set it out. +Growler was Clement's dog, I found, and Pincher belonged to Jack. + +"They'll come in a cab, because of the luggage," said Eleanor, "and +because we are never quite sure when they will come; so it's no use +sending to meet them. They often miss trains on purpose to stay +somewhere on the road for fun. But I think they'll come all right this +time--I begged them to--and we'll go and meet them in the +donkey-carriage." + +The donkey-carriage was a pretty little thing on four wheels, with a +seat in front and a seat behind, each capable of holding one small +person. Eleanor had almost outgrown the front seat, but she managed to +squeeze into it, and I climbed in behind. We had dressed Neddy's head +and our own hats liberally with roses, so that our festive appearance +drew the notice of the villagers, more than one of whom, from their +cottage-doors, asked if we were going to meet "the young gentlemen," and +added, "They'll be rare and glad to get home, I reckon!" + +Impatience had made us early, and we drove some little distance before +espying the cab, which toiled uphill at much the same pace as the black +snails crawled by the roadside. Eleanor drew up by the ditch, and we +stood up and waved our handkerchiefs. In a moment two handkerchiefs were +waving from the cab-windows. We shouted, and faint hoorays came back +upon the breeze. Neddy pricked his ears, the dogs barked, and only the +cabman remained unmoved, though we could see sticks and umbrellas poked +at him from within, in the vain effort to induce him to hasten on. + +At last we met. The boys tumbled out, one on each side, and a good deal +of fragmentary luggage tumbled out after them. Clement seemed to be +rather older than Eleanor, and Jack, I thought, a little younger than +me. + +"How d'ye do, Margery?" said Jack, shaking me warmly by the hand. "I'm +awfully glad to hear the news about you; we shall be all square now, two +and two, like a quadrille." + +"How do you do, Miss Vandaleur?" said Clement. + +"Look here, Eleanor," Jack broke in again; "I'll drive Margery home in +the donkey-carriage, and you can go with Clem in the cab. I wish you'd +give me the wreath off your hat, too." + +Eleanor willingly agreed, the wreath was adjusted on Jack's hat, and we +were just taking our places, when he caught sight of the luggage that +had fallen out on Clement's side of the cab--some fishing-rods, a +squirrel in a fish-basket, and a hat-box. + +"Oh!" he screamed, "there's my hat-box! Take the reins, Margery!" and he +flew over the wheel, and returned, hat-box in hand. + +"Is it a new hat?" I asked sympathizingly. + +"A hat!" he scornfully exclaimed. "My hat's loose in the cab somewhere, +if it came at all; but all my beetles are in here, pinned to the sides. +Would you mind taking it on your knee, to be safe?" + +And having placed it there, he scrambled once more into the front seat, +and we were about to start (the cab was waiting for us, the cabman +looking on with a grim smile at Jack, whilst energetic Eleanor +rearranged the luggage inside), when there came a second check. + +"Have you got a pin?" Jack asked me. + +"I'll see," said I; "what for?" + +"To touch up Neddy with. We're going home a rattler." + +But on my earnestly remonstrating against the pin, Jack contented +himself with pointing a stick, which he assured me would "hurt much +more." + +"Now, cabby!" he cried, "keep your crawler back till we're well away. +You'd better let us go first, or we might pass you on the road, and hurt +the feelings of that spirited beast of yours. Do you like going fast, +Margery?" + +"As fast as you like," said I. + +I knew nothing whatever of horses and donkeys, or of what their poor +legs could bear; but I very much liked passing swiftly through the air. +I do not think Neddy suffered, however, though we went back at a pace +marvellously different from that at which we came. We were very light +weights, and Master Neddy was an overfed, underworked gentleman, with +the acutest discrimination as to his drivers. Jack's voice was quite +enough; the stick was superfluous. When we came to the top of the steep +hill leading down to the village, Jack asked me, "Shall we go down a +rattler?" + +"Oh, do!" said I. + +"Hold on to the hat-box, then, and don't tumble out." + +Down we went. The carriage swayed from side to side; I sat with my arms +tightly clasped round the hat-box, and felt as if I were flying straight +down on to the church-tower. It was delightful, but I noticed that Jack +did not speak till we reached the foot of the hill. Then he said, "Well, +that's a blessing! I never thought we should get safe to the bottom." + +"Then why did you drive so fast?" I inquired. + +"My dear Margery, there's no drag on this carriage; and when I'd once +given Neddy his head he couldn't stop himself, no more could I. But he's +a plucky, sure-footed little beast; and I shall walk up this hill out of +respect for him." + +I resolved to do the same, and clambered out, leaving the hat-box on the +seat. I went up to Jack, who was patting Neddy's neck, on which he stuck +out his right arm, and said, "Link!" + +"What?" said I. + +"Link," said Jack; and as he stuck out his elbow again in an +unmistakable fashion, I took his arm. + +"We call that linking, in these parts," said Jack. "Good-evening, Mrs. +Loxley. Good-evening, Peter. Thank you, thank you. I'm very glad to get +home too--I should think not!" These sentences were replies to the warm +greetings Jack received from the cottage-doors; the last to the remark, +"You don't find a many places to beat t'ould one, sir, I expect!" + +"I'm very popular in the village," said my eccentric companion, with a +sigh, as we turned into the drive. "Though I say it that shouldn't, you +think? Well! _Ita vita. Such is life's half circle_. Do you know +Leadbetter? That's the way he construed it." + +"I know you all talk in riddles," said I. + +"Well, never mind; you'll know Leadbetter, and all the old books in the +house by and by. Plenty of 'em, aren't there? The governor had a curate +once, when his throat was bad. _He_ said it was an Entertaining Library +of Useless Knowledge. I've brought home one more volume to add to it. +Second prize for chemistry. Only three fellows went in for it; which you +needn't allude to at head-quarters;" and he sighed again. + +As we passed slowly under the shadow of the heavy foliage, Jack, like +Eleanor, put up his left arm to drag down a bunch of roses. They were +further advanced now, and the shower of rose-leaves fell thickly like +snowflakes over us--over Jack and me, and Neddy and the carriage, with +the hat-box on the driving seat. We must have looked very queer, I +think, as we came up out of the overshadowed road, like dwarfs out of a +fairy tale, covered with flowers, and leading our carriage with its odd +occupant inside. + +Keziah, who had been counting the days to the holidays, ran down first +to meet us, beaming with pleasure; though when Jack, in the futile +attempt to play leap-frog with her against her will, damaged her cap, +and clung to her neck till I thought she would have been throttled, she +indignantly declared that, "Now the young gentlemen was home there was +an end of peace for everybody, choose who they might be." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +I CORRESPOND WITH THE MAJOR--MY COLLECTION--OCCUPATIONS--MADAME +AGAIN--FÊTE DE VILLAGE--THE BRITISH HOORAY. + + +I wrote to my old friends and relatives, with a full account of my new +home. Rather a comically-expressed account too, I fancy, from the bits +Uncle Buller used to quote in after years. I got charming letters from +him, piquant with his dry humour, and full of affection. Matilda +generally added a note also; and Aunt Theresa always sent love and +kisses in abundance, to atone for being too busy to write by that post. + +The fonder I grew of the Arkwrights, the better I seemed to love and +understand Uncle Buller. Apart as we were, we had now a dozen interests +in common--threads of those intellectual ties over which the changes and +chances of this mortal life have so little power. + +My sympathy was real, as well as ready, when the Major discovered a new +insect, almost invisible by the naked eye, which thenceforward bore the +terrible specific name of _Bulleriana_, suggesting a creature certainly +not less than a rhinoceros, and surrounding the Major's name with +something of the halo of immortality. He was equally glad to hear of +Jack's beetles and of my fresh-water shells. I had taken to the latter +as being "the only things not yet collected by somebody or other in the +house;" and I became so infatuated in the pursuit that I used to get up +at four o'clock in the morning to search the damp places and +water-herbage by the river, it being emphatically "the early bird who +catches" snails. After his great discovery, the Major constantly asked +if I had found a specimen of _Helix Vandaleuriana_ yet. It was a joke +between us--that new shell that I was to discover! + +I have an old letter open by me now, in which, writing of the +Arkwrights, he says, "Your dear father's daughter could have no better +home." And, as I read, my father's last hours come back before me, and I +hear the poor faint voice whispering, "You've got the papers, Buller? +Arkwright will be kind about it, I'm sure." And, "It's all dark now." +And with tears I wonder if he--with whom it is all light now--knows how +well his true friends have dealt by me, and how happy I am. + +To be busy is certainly half-way to being happy. And yet it is not so +with every kind of labour. Some occupations, however, do seem of +themselves to be peace-bringing; I mean, to be so independent of the +great good of being occupied at all. Gardening, sketching, and natural +history pursuits, for instance. Is it partly because one follows them in +the open air, in great measure?--fresh air, that mysteriously mighty +power for good! Anodyne, as well as tonic; dispeller of fever when other +remedies are powerless; and the best accredited recipe for long life. +Only partly, I think. + +One secret of the happiness of some occupations is, perhaps, that they +lift one away from petty cares and petty spites, without trying the +brain or strength unduly, as some other kinds of mental labour must do. +And how delightful is fellowship in such interests! What rivalries +without bitterness; what gossip without scandal; what gifts and +exchanges; what common interests and mutual sympathy! + +In such happy business the holidays went by. Then the question arose, +Were we to go back to school? Very earnestly we hoped not; and I think +the Arkwrights soon resolved not to send Eleanor away again. As to me, +the case was different. Mr. Arkwright felt that he must do what was best +for my education: and he wrote to consult with Major Buller. + +Fortunately for Eleanor and me, the Major was now as much prejudiced +against girls' schools as he had been against governesses; and as +masters were to be had at the nearest town, a home education was +decided upon. It met with the approval of such of my relatives as were +consulted--my great-grandmother especially--and it certainly met with +mine. + +Eleanor and I were very anxious to show that idleness was not our object +in avoiding Bush House. The one of my diaries that escaped burning has, +on the fly-leaf, one of the many "lesson plans" we made for ourselves. + +We used to get up at six o'clock, and work before breakfast. Certain +morning headaches, to which at this time I became subject, led to a +serious difference of opinion between me and Mrs. Arkwright; she +forbidding me to get up, and I holding myself to be much aggrieved, and +imputing the headaches to anything rather than what Keziah briefly +termed "book-larning upon an empty stomach." The matter was compromised, +thanks to Keziah, by that good creature's offering to bring me new milk +and bread-and-butter every morning before I began to work. She really +brought it before I dressed, and my headaches vanished. + +Though we did not wish to go back to Bush House, we were not quite +unmindful of our friends there. Eleanor wrote to thank Madame for the +flowers, and received a long and enthusiastic letter in reply--in +French, of course, and pointing out one or two blunders in Eleanor's +letter, which was in French also. She begged Eleanor to continue to +correspond with her, for the improvement of her "composition." + +Poor Madame! She was indeed an indefatigable teacher, and had a real +ambition for the success of her pupils, which, in the drudgery of her +life, was almost grand. + +Strange to say, she once came to the Vicarage. It was during the summer +succeeding that in which I came to live with the Arkwrights. She had +been in the habit of spending the holidays with a family in the country, +where, I believe, she gave some instruction in French and music in +return for her expenses. That summer she was out of health, and thinking +herself unable to fulfil her part of the bargain, she would not go. +After severe struggles with her sensitive scruples, she was persuaded to +come to us instead, on the distinct condition that she was to do nothing +in the way of "lessons," but talk French with us. + +To persuade her to accept any payment for her services was the subject +of another long struggle. The thriftiest of women in her personal +expenditure, and needing money sorely, Madame was not grasping. Indeed, +her scruples on this subject were troublesome. She was for ever pursuing +us, book in hand, and with a sun-veil and umbrella to shield her +complexion, into the garden or the hayfield, imploring us to come in out +of the wind and sun, and do "a little of dictation--of composition," or +even to permit her to hear us play that duet from the 'Semiramide,' of +which the time had seemed to her on the last occasion far from perfect. + +Her despair when Mrs. Arkwright supported our refusals was comical, and +she was only pacified at last by having the "scrap-bag" of odds and ends +of net, muslin, lace, and embroidery handed over to her, from which she +made us set after set of dainty collars and sleeves in various "modes," +sitting well under the shade of the trees, on a camp-stool, with a +camphor-bag to keep away insects, and in bodily fear of the dogs. + +Poor Madame! I thought she would have had a fit on the first night of +her arrival, when the customary civility was paid of offering her a dog +to sleep on her bed. She never got really accustomed to them, and they +never seemed quite to understand her. To the end of her stay they +snuffed at her black skirts suspiciously, as if she were still more or +less of an enigma to them. Madame was markedly civil to them, and even +addressed them from time to time as "bons enfants," in imitation of our +phrase "dear boys"; but more frequently, in watching the terms on which +they lived with the family, she would throw up her little brown hands +and exclaim, "_Ménage extraordinaire!_" + +I am sure she thought us a strange household in more ways than one, but +I think she grew fond of us. For Eleanor she had always had a liking; +about Eleanor's mother she became rhapsodical. + +"How good!" so she cried to me, "and how truthful--how altogether +truthful! What talents also, my faith! Miss Arkwright has had great +advantages. A mother extraordinary!" + +Mrs. Arkwright had many discussions with Madame on political subjects, +and also on the education of girls. On the latter their views were so +essentially different, that the discussion was apt to wax hot. Madame +came at last to allow that for English girls Madame Arkwright's views +might be just, but _pour les filles françaises_--she held to her own +opinions. + +With the boys she got on very well. At first they laughed at her; then +Clement became polite, and even learned to speak French with her after a +fashion. Jack was not only ignorant of French, but his English was so +mixed with school-boy idioms, that Madame and he seldom got through a +conversation without wonderful complications, from which, however, +Jack's expressive countenance and ready wit generally delivered them in +the long run. I do not know whether, on the whole, Madame did not like +Mr. Arkwright best of all. _Le bon pasteur_, as she styled him. + +"The Furrin Lady," as she was called in the village, was very fond of +looking into the cottages, and studying the ways of the country +generally. + +I never shall forget the occurrence of the yearly village fair or feast +during her visit: her anxiety to be present--her remarkable costume on +the occasion--and the strong conviction borne in upon Eleanor and me +that the Fat Lady in the centre booth was quite a secondary attraction +to the Furrin Lady between us, with the raw lads and stolid farmers who +had come down from the hills, with their wise sheep-dogs at their heels. +If they stared at her, however, Madame was not unobservant of them, and +the critical power was on her side. + +"These men and their dogs seem to me alike," said she. "Both of +them--they stare so much and say so little. But the looks of the dogs +are altogether the more _spirituels_," she added. + +I should not like to record all that she said on the subject of our +village feast. It was not complimentary, and to some extent the bitter +general observations on our national amusements into which her +disappointment betrayed her were justified by facts. But it was not our +fault that, in translating village feast into _fête de village_, she +had allowed her imagination to mislead her with false hopes. She had +expected a maypole, a dance of peasants, gay dresses, smiling faces, +songs, fruit, coffee, flowers, and tasteful but cheap wares of small +kinds in picturesque booths. She had adorned herself, and Eleanor and +me, with collars and cuffs of elaborate make and exquisite "get-up" by +her own hands. She wore a pale pink and a dead scarlet geranium, +together with a spray of wistaria leaf, in admirable taste, on her dark +dress. Her hat was marvellous; her gloves were perfect. She had a few +shillings in her pocket to purchase souvenirs for the household; her +face beamed in anticipation of a day of simple, sociable, uncostly +pleasure, such as we English are so lamentably ignorant of. But I think +the only English thing she had prepared herself to expect was what she +called "The Briteesh hooray." + +Dirt, clamour, oyster-shells, ginger-beer bottles, stolid curiosity, +beery satisfaction, careworn stall-keepers with babies-in-arms and +strange trust about their wares and honesty over change; +giddy-go-rounds, photograph booths, marionettes, the fat woman, the +double-headed monstrosity, and the teeming beer-houses---- + +Poor Madame! The contrast was terrible. She would not enter a booth. She +turned homewards in a rage of vexation, and shut herself up in her +bedroom (I suspect with tears of annoyance and disappointment), whilst +Eleanor and I went back into the feast, and were photographed with dear +boys and Clement. + +Clement was getting towards an age when clever youngsters are not unapt +to exercise their talents in depreciating home surroundings. He said +that it was no wonder that Madame was disgusted, and scolded us for +taking her into the feast. Jack took quite a different view of the +matter. + +"The feast's very good fun in its way," said he; "and Madame only wants +_tackling_. I'll tackle her." + +"Nonsense!" said Clement. + +"I bet you a shilling I take her through every mortal thing this +afternoon," said Jack. + +"You've cheek enough," retorted his elder brother. + +But after luncheon, when Madame was again in her room, Jack came to me +with a nosegay he had gathered, to beg me to arrange it properly, and +put a paper frill round it. With some grass and fern-leaves, I made a +tasteful bouquet, and added a frill, to Jack's entire satisfaction. He +took it up-stairs, and we heard him knock at Madame's door. After a +pause ("I'm sure she's crying again!" said Eleanor) Madame came out, and +a warm discussion began between them, of which we only heard fragments. +Madame's voice, as the shrillest, was most audible, and it rose into +distinctness as she exclaimed, "Anything sŏh dirrty, sŏh meean, sŏh +folgaire, I nevaire saw." + +Again the discussion proceeded, and we only caught a few of Jack's +arguments about "customs of the country," "for the fun of it," etc. + +"Fun?" said Madame. + +"For a joke," said Jack. + +"_Ah, c'est vrai_, for the choke," she said. + +"And _avec moi_," Jack continued. "There's French for you, Madame! Come +along!" + +Madame laughed. + +"She'll go," said Eleanor. + +"_Eh bien!_" Madame cried gaily. "For the choke. _Avec vous, Monsieur +Jack._ Ha! ha! _Allons!_ Come along!" + +"Link, Madame," said Jack, as they came down-stairs, Madame smarter than +ever, and bouquet in hand. + +"Mais _link_? What is this?" said she. + +"Take my arm," said Jack. "I'll treat you to everything." + +"Mais _treat_? What is that?" said Madame, whose beaming good-humour +only expanded the more when Jack explained that it was a pecuniary +attention shown by rustic swains to their "young women." + +As Clement came into the hall he met Madame hanging on Jack's arm, and +absolutely radiant. + +"You're not going into that beastly place again?" said he. + +"For the choke, Monsieur Clement. _Ah, oui!_ And with Monsieur Jack." + +"You may as well come, Clem," said Eleanor, and we followed, laughing. + +Madame had now no time for discontent. Jack held her fast. He gave her +gingerbread at one stall, and gingerbeer at another, and cracked nuts +for her all along. He vowed that the oyster-shells were flowers, and the +empty bottles bouquet-holders, and offered to buy her a pair of +spectacles to see matters more clearly with. + +"Couleur de rose?" laughed Madame. + +We went in a body to the marionettes, and Madame screamed as we climbed +the inclined plane to enter, and scrambled down the frail scaffolding to +the "reserved seats." These cost twopence a head, and were "reserved" +for us alone. The dolls were really cleverly managed. They performed the +closing scenes of a pantomime. The policeman came to pieces when clown +and harlequin pulled at him. People threw their heads at each other, and +shook their arms off. The transformation scene was really pretty, and it +only added to the joke that the dirty old proprietor burned the red +light under our very noses, amid a storm of chaff from Jack. + +From the marionettes we went to the fat woman. A loathsome sight, which +turned me sick; but, for some inexplicable reason, seemed highly to +gratify Madame. She and Jack came out in fits of laughter, and he said, +"Now for the two-headed monstrosity. It'll just suit you, Madame!" + +At the door, Madame paused. "Mais, ce n'est pas pour des petites +filles," she said, glancing at Eleanor and me. + +"_Feel?_" said Jack, who was struggling through the crowd, which was +dense here. "It feels nothing. It's in a bottle. Come along!" + +"All right, Madame," said Eleanor, smiling. "We'll wait for you +outside." + +We next proceeded to the photographer's, where Jack and Madame were +photographed together with Pincher. + +By Madame's desire she was now led to the "bazaar," where she bought a +collar for Pincher, two charming china boxes, in the shape of dogs' +heads, for Eleanor and her mother, a fan for me, a walking-stick for +Monsieur le Pasteur, and some fishing-floats for Clement. By this time +some children had gathered round us. The children of the district were +especially handsome, and Madame was much smitten by their rosy cheeks +and many-shaded flaxen hair. + +"Ah!" she sighed, "I must make some little presents to the children;" +and she looked anxiously over the stalls. + +"Violin, one and six," said the saleswoman. "Nice work-box for a little +girl, half-a-crown." + +"Half a fiddlestick," said Jack promptly. "What have you got for a +halfpenny?" + +"Them's halfpenny balls, whips, and dolls. Them churns and mugs is a +halfpenny; and so's the little tin plates. Them's the halfpenny monkeys +on sticks." + +"Now, Madame," said Jack, "put that half-crown back, and give me a +shilling. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. There are your +presents; and now for the children!" + +Madame showed a decided disposition to reward personal beauty, which +Jack overruled at once. + +"The prettiest? I see myself letting you! Church Sunday scholars is my +tip; and I shall put them through the Catechism test. Look here, young +un, what's your name? Who gave you this name?" + +"Ma godfeythers and godmoothers," the young urchin began. + +"That'll do," said Jack. "Take your whip, and be thankful. Now, my +little lass, who gave you this name?" + +"Me godfeythers----" + +"All right. Take your doll, and drop a curtsy; and mind you don't take +the curtsy, and drop your doll. Now, my boy, tell me how many there +be?" + +"Ten." + +"Which be they? I mean, take your monkey, and make your bow. Next child, +come up." + +Clem, Eleanor, and I kept back the crowd as well as we could; but +children pressed in on all sides. Clem brought a shilling out of his +pocket, and handed it over to Jack. + +"You've won your bet, old man," he said. + +"You're a good fellow, Clem. I say, lay it out among the halfpenny +lot--will you?--and then give them to Madame. Keep your eye open for +Dissenters, and send the Church children first." + +The forty-eight halfpennyworths proved to be sufficient for all, +however, though the orthodoxy of one or two seemed doubtful. + +Madame was tired; but the position had pleased her, and she gave away +the toys with a charming grace. We were leaving the fair when some small +urchins, who had either got or hoped to get presents, and were (I +suspected) partly impelled also by a sense of the striking nature of +Madame's appearance, set up a lusty cheer. + +Madame paused. Her eyes brightened; her thin lips parted with a smile. +In a voice of intense satisfaction, she murmured: + +"It is the Briteesh hooray!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +WE AND THE BOYS--WE AND THE BOYS AND OUR FADS--THE LAMP OF ZEAL--CLEMENT +ON UNREALITY--JACK'S OINTMENT. + + +Our life on the moors was, I suppose, monotonous. I do not think we ever +found it dull; but it was not broken, as a rule, by striking incidents. + +The coming and going of the boys were our chief events. We packed for +them when they went away. We wrote long letters to them, and received +brief but pithy replies. We spoke on their behalf when they wanted +clothes or pocket-money. We knew exactly how to bring the news of good +marks in school and increased subscriptions to cricket to bear in +effective combination upon the parental mind, and were amply rewarded by +half a sheet, acknowledging the receipt of a ten-shilling piece in a +match-box (the Arkwrights had a strange habit of sending coin of the +realm by post, done up like botanical specimens), with brief directions +as to the care of garden or collection, and perhaps a rude outline of +the head-master's nose--"In a great hurry, from your loving and grateful +Bro." + +We kept their gardens tidy, preserved their collections from dust, damp, +and Keziah, and knitted socks for them. I learned to knit, of course. +Every woman knits in that village of stone. And "between lights" +Eleanor and I plied our needles on the boys' behalf, and counted the +days to the holidays. + +We had fresh "fads" every holidays. Many of our plans were ambitious +enough, and the results would, no doubt, have been great had they been +fully carried out. But Midsummer holidays, though long, are limited in +length. + +Once we made ourselves into a Field Naturalists' Club. We girls gave up +our "spare dress wardrobe" for a museum. We subdivided the shelves, and +proposed to make a perfect collection of the flora and entomology of the +neighbourhood. Eleanor and I really did continue to add specimens whilst +the boys were at school; but they came home at Christmas devoted, body +and soul, to the drama. We were soon converted to the new fad. The +wardrobe became a side-scene in our theatre, and Eleanor and Clement +laboured day and night with papers of powdered paint, and kettles of hot +size, in converting canvas into scenery. "Theatricals" promised to be a +lasting fancy; but the next holidays were in fine weather, and we made +the drop-curtain into a tent. + +When the boys were at school, Eleanor and I were fully occupied. We took +a good deal of pains with our room: half of it was mine now. I had my +knick-knack table as well as Eleanor, my own books and pictures, my own +photographs of the boys and of the dear boys, my own pot plants, and my +own dog--a pug, given to me by Jack, and named "Saucebox." In Jack's +absence, Pincher also looked on me as his mistress. + +Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regulations of our +own devising: private codes, generally kept in cipher, for our own +personal self-discipline, and laws common to us both for the employment +of our time in joint duties--lessons, parish work, and so forth. I think +we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too often. I +make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more alone. I wonder +if I really keep them better? But if not, may GOD, I pray Him, send me +back the restless zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which +He gives in early youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in +conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful +of one's own comfort and one's own property, more self-satisfied in +leaving high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe +that one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those +good works, those great triumphs over evil, which single hands effect +sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may +have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts for +good, as if some special gifts were made to them in middle age which are +withheld from other men. Is it not rather that some few souls keep alive +the lamp of zeal and high desire which GOD lights for most of us while +life is young? + +Eleanor and I worked at our lessons by ourselves. We always had her +mother to "fall back upon," as we said. When we took up the study of +Italian in order to be able to read Dante--moved thereto by the +attractions of the long volume of Flaxman's illustrations of the 'Divina +Commedia'--we had to "fall back" a good deal on Mrs. Arkwright's +scholarship. And this in spite of all the helps the library afforded us, +the best of dictionaries, English "cribs," and about six of those +elaborate commentaries upon the poem, of which Italians have been so +prolific. + +During the winter the study of languages was commonly uppermost; in +summer sketching was more favoured. + +I do think sketching brings one a larger amount of pleasure than almost +any other occupation. And like "collecting," it is a very sociable +pursuit when one has fellow-sketchers as well as fellow-naturalists. And +this, I must confess, is a merit in my eyes, I being of a sociable +disposition! Eleanor could live alone, I think, and be happy; but I +depend largely on my fellow-creatures. + +Jack and I were talking rather sentimentally the other day about "old +times," and I said: + +"How jolly it was, that summer we used to sketch so much--all four of us +together!" + +And Jack, who was rubbing some new stuff of his own compounding into his +fishing-boots, replied: + +"Awfully. I vote we take to it again when the weather's warmer." + +But Jack is so sympathetic, he will agree with anything one says. +Indeed, I am sure that he feels what one feels--for the time, at any +rate. + +Clement is very different. He always disputes and often snubs what one +says; partly, I am sure, from a love of truth--a genuine desire to keep +himself and everybody else from talking in an unreal way, and from +repeating common ideas without thinking them out at first hand; and +partly, too, from what Keziah calls the "contradictiousness" of his +temper. He was in the room when Jack and I were talking, but he was not +talking with us. He was reading for his examination. + +All the Arkwrights can work through noise and in company, having +considerable powers of mental abstraction. I think they even sometimes +combine attention to their own work with an occasional skimming of the +topics current in the room as well. + +Some outlying feeler of Clement's brain caught my remark and Jack's +reply. + +"My dear Margery," said he, "you are at heart one of the most unaffected +people I know. Pray be equally genuine with your head, and do not +encourage Jack in his slipshod habits of thought and conversation +by----" + +"Slipshod!" interrupted Jack, holding his left arm out at full length +before him, the hand of which was shod with a fishing-boot. "Slipshod! +They fit as close as your convictions, and would be as stiff and +inexorable as logic if I didn't soften them with this newly-invented and +about-to-be-patented ointment by the warmth of a cheerful fire and +Margery's beaming countenance." + +Clement had been reading during this sentence. Then he lifted his head, +and said pointedly: + +"What I was going to advise _you_, Margery, is never to get into the +habit of adopting sentiments till you are quite sure you really mean +them. It is by the painful experience of my own folly that I know what +trouble it gives one afterwards. If ever the time comes when you want to +know your real opinion on any subject, the process of getting rid of +ideas you have adopted without meaning them will not be an easy one." + +I am not as intellectual as the Arkwrights. I can always see through +Jack's jokes, but I am sometimes left far behind when Eleanor or Clement +"take flight," as Jack calls it, on serious subjects. I really did not +follow Clement on this occasion. + +With some hesitation I said: + +"I don't know that I quite understand." + +"I'm sure you don't," said Jack. "I have feared for some time that your +hair was getting too thick for the finer ideas of this household to +penetrate to your brain. Allow me to apply a little of this ointment to +the parting, which in your case is more definite than with Eleanor; and +as our lightest actions should proceed from principles, I may mention +that the principle on which I propose to apply the Leather-softener to +your scalp is that on which the blacksmith's wife gave your cholera +medicine to the second girl, when she began with rheumatic fever--'it +did such a deal of good to our William.' Now, this unguent has done 'a +deal of good' to the leather of my boots. Why should it not successfully +lubricate the skin of your skull?" + +Only the dread of "a row" between Jack and Clem enabled me to keep +anything like gravity. + +"Don't talk nonsense, Jack!" said I, as severely as I could. (I fear +that, like the rest of the world, I snubbed Jack rather than Clement, +because his temper was sweeter, and less likely to resent it.) +"Clement, I'm very stupid, but I don't quite see how what _you_ said +applies to what _I_ said." + +"You said, 'How happy we were, that summer we went sketching!' or words +to that effect. It's just like a man's writing about the careless +happiness of childhood, when he either forgets, or refuses to advert to, +the toothache, the measles, learning his letters, the heat of the +night-nursery, not being allowed to sit down in the yard whilst his +knickerbockers were new, going to bed at eight o'clock, and having a lie +on his conscience. I have striven for more accurate habits of thought, +and I remember distinctly that you cried over more than one of your +sketches." + +"I got into the 'Household Album' with mine, however," said Jack; "and I +defy an A.R.A. to have had more difficulty in securing his position." + +"I'm afraid your appearance in the _Phycological Quarterly_ was better +deserved," said Mrs. Arkwright, without removing her eye from the +microscope she was using at a table just opposite to Clem's. + +But this demands explanation, and I must go back to the time of which +Jack and I spoke--when we used to go sketching together. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE "HOUSEHOLD ALBUM"--SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES--A NEW +SPECIES?--JACK'S BARGAIN--THEORIES. + + +Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts at +drawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun a +scrapbook, or "Household Album," as it was called, into which she pasted +such of her children's original drawings as were held good enough for +the honour; the age of the artist being taken into account. + +Jack's gift in this line was not as great as that of Clement or Eleanor, +but this was not the only reason why no drawing of his appeared in the +scrapbook. Mrs. Arkwright demanded more evidence of pains and industry +than Jack was wont to bestow on his sketches or designs. He resented his +exclusion, and made many efforts to induce his mother to accept his +hasty productions; but it was not till the summer to which I alluded +that Jack took his place in the "Household Album." + +It was during a long drive, in which we were exhibiting the country to +some friends, that Eleanor and I chose the place of that particular +sketching expedition. The views it furnished had the first, and almost +the only, quality demanded by young and tyro sketchers--they were very +pretty. + +There was some variety, too, to justify our choice. From the sandy road, +where a heathery bank afforded the convenience of seats, we could look +down into a valley with a winding stream, whose banks rose into +hillsides which lost themselves in finely-coloured mountains of +moorland. + +Farther on, a scramble on foot over walls and gates had led us into a +wooded gorge fringed with ferns, where a group of trees of particularly +graceful form roused Eleanor's admiration. + +"What a lovely view!" had burst from the lips of our friends at every +quarter of a mile; for they were of that (to me) trying order of +carriage companions who talk about the scenery as you go, as a point of +politeness. + +But the views _were_ beautiful--"Sketches everywhere!" we cried. + +"There's nothing to make a sketch _of_ round the Vicarage," we added. +"We've done the church, with the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, and +without the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, till we are sick of the +subject." + +So, the weather being fine, and even hot, we provided ourselves with +luncheon and sketching materials, and made an expedition to the point +we had selected. + +We were tired by the time we reached it. This does not necessarily damp +one's sketching ardour, but it is unfavourable to accuracy of outline, +and especially so to purity of colouring. However, we did not hesitate. +Eleanor went down to her study of birch-trees in the gorge, Clement +climbed up the bank to get the most extended view of the Ewden Valley; I +contented myself with sitting by the roadside in front of the same view, +and Jack stayed with me. + +He had come with us. Not that he often went out sketching, but our +descriptions of the beauty of the scenery had roused him to make another +attempt for the "Household Album." Seldom lastingly provided, for his +own part, with apparatus of any kind, Jack had a genius for purveying +all that he required in an emergency. On this occasion he had borrowed +Mrs. Arkwright's paint-box (without leave), and was by no means ill +supplied with pencils and brushes which certainly were not his own. He +had hastily stripped a couple of sheets from my block whilst I was +dressing, and with these materials he seated himself on that side of me +which enabled him to dip into my water-pot, and began to paint. + +Not half-way through my outline, I was just beginning to realize the +complexities of a bird's-eye view with your middle distance in a +valley, and your foreground sloping steeply upwards to your feet, when +Jack, washing out a large, dyed sable sky-brush in my pot, with an +amount of splashing that savoured of triumph, said: + +"_That's_ done!" + +I paused in a vigorous mental effort to put aside my _knowledge_ of the +relative sizes of objects, and to _see_ that a top stone of my +foreground wall covered three fields, the river, and half the river's +bank beyond. + +"_Done?_" I exclaimed. Jack put his brush into his mouth, in defiance of +all rules, and deliberately sucked it dry. Then he waved his sketch +before my eyes. + +"The effect's rather good," I confessed, "but oh, Jack, it's out of all +proportion! That gate really looks as big as the whole valley and the +hills beyond. The top of the gate-post ought to be up in the sky." + +"It would look beastly ugly if it was," replied he complacently. + +"You've got a very good tint for those hills; but the foreground is mere +scrambling. Oh, Jack, do finish it a little more! You would draw so +nicely if you had any patience." + +"How imperfectly you understand my character," said Jack, packing up his +traps. "I would sit on a monument and smile at grief with any one, this +very day, if the monument were in a grove, or even if I had an umbrella +to smile under. To sit unsheltered under this roasting sun, and make +myself giddy by gauging proportions with a pencil at the end of my nose, +or smudging my mistakes with melting india-rubber, is quite another +matter. I'm off to Eleanor. I've got another sheet of paper, and I think +trees are rather in my line." + +"I _thought_ my block looked smaller," said I, rapidly comparing Jack's +paper and my own, with a feeling for size developed by my labours. + +"Has she got a water-pot?" asked Jack. + +"She is sure to have," said I pointedly. "She always takes her own +materials with her." + +"How fortunate for those who do not!" said Jack. "Now, Margery dear, +don't look sulky. I knew you wouldn't grudge me a bit of paper to get +into the 'Household Album' with. Come down into the ravine. You're as +white as a blank sheet of Whatman's hot-pressed water-colour paper!" + +The increasing heat was really beginning to overpower me, but I refused +to leave my sketch. Jack pinned a large white pocket-handkerchief to my +shoulders--"to keep the sun from the spine"--and departed to the ravine. + +By midday my outline was in. One is no good judge of one's own work, +but I think, on the whole, that it was a success. + +It is always refreshing to complete a stage of anything. I began to feel +less hot and tired, as I passed a wash of clean water over my outline, +and laying it in the sun to dry, got out my colours and brushes. + +As I did so, one of the little gusts of wind which had been an +unpleasant feature of this very fine day, and which, threatening a +change of weather, made us anxious to finish our sketches at a sitting, +came down the sandy road. In an instant the damp surface of my block +looked rough enough to strike matches on. But impatience is not my +besetting sin, and I had endured these little catastrophes before. I +waited for the block to dry before I brushed off the sand. I also waited +till the little beetle, who had crept into my sky, and was impeded in +his pace by my first wash, walked slowly down through all my distances, +and quitted the block by the gate in the foreground. This was partly +because I did not want to hurt him, and partly because a white cumulus +cloud is a bad part of your sketch to kill a black beetle on. + +I washed over my paper once more, and holding it on my knee to dry just +as much and no more than was desirable, I looked my subject in the face +with a view to colour. + +A long time passed. I had looked and looked again; I had washed in and +washed out; I had realized the difficulty of the subject without +flinching, and had tried hard to see and represent the colouring before +me, when Clement (having exhausted his water in a similar process) came +down the hill behind me, with a surly and sunburnt face, to replenish +his bottle at a wayside water-trough. + +It was then that, as he said, he found me crying. + +"It's not because it's difficult and I'm very stupid," I whimpered. "I +don't mind working on and trying to make the best of a thing. And it's +not the wind or the sand, though it has got dreadfully into the paints, +particularly the Italian Pink; but what makes me hopeless, Clement, is +that I don't believe it would look well if I could paint it perfectly. +It looked lovely as we were driving home the other evening, but now---- +Just look at those fields, Clem; I _know_ they're green, but really and +truly I _see_ them just the same colour as this road, and I don't think +there is the difference of a shade between them and that gate-post. What +shall I do?" + +A tear fell out of my eyelashes and dropped on to my river. Clement took +the sketch from me, and dried up the tear with a bit of blotting-paper. + +Then to my amazement he gave rather a favourable verdict. It comforted +me, for Clement never says anything that he does not mean. + +"It's not _half_ bad, Margery! Wait till you see mine! How did you get +the tints of that hillside? You've a very truthful mind, that's one +thing, and a very true eye as well. I do admire the way you abstain from +filling up with touches that mean nothing." + +"Oh, Clement!" cried I, so gratified that I began to feel ready to go on +again. "Do you really think I can make anything of it?" + +"Nothing more," said Clement. "Don't put another touch. It's unfinished, +but no finishing would do any good. We've got an outlandish subject and +a bad time of day. But keep it just as it is, and three months hence, on +a cool day, you'll be pleased when you look at it." + +"Perhaps if I went on a little with the foreground," I suggested; but +even as I spoke, I put my hand to my head. + +"Go to Eleanor in the ravine, at once," said Clement imperatively. "I'll +bring your things. What _did_ make us such fools as to come out without +umbrellas?" + +"We came out in the cool of the morning," said I, as I staggered off; +"besides, it's almost impossible to hold one and paint too." + +Once in the ravine, I dropped among the long grass and ferns, and the +damp, refreshing coolness of my resting-place was delicious. + +Eleanor was not faint, neither had she been crying; but she was not much +happier with her sketch than I had been with mine. The jutting group of +birch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably. But when +she came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, her +very outline had begun to look less satisfactory. When it came to +colour--and the midday sun was darting and glittering through the +interstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of _chiaroscuro_ +to a subject already defective in point and contrast--Eleanor was almost +in despair. + +"Where's Jack?" said I, after condoling with her. + +"He tried the birches for ten minutes, and then he went up the stream to +look for _algæ_." + +At this moment Jack appeared. He came slowly towards us, looking at +something in his hand. + +"Lend me your magnifying-glass, Eleanor," said he, when he had reached +us. + +Eleanor unfastened it from her chatelaine, and Jack became absorbed in +examining some water-weed in a dock-leaf. + +"What is it?" said we. + +"It's a new species, I believe. Look, Eleanor!" and he gave her the leaf +and the glass with an almost pathetic anxiety of countenance. + +My opinion carried no weight in the matter, but Eleanor was nearly as +good a naturalist as her mother. And she was inclined to agree with +Jack. + +"It's too good to be true! But I certainly don't know it. Where did you +find it?" + +"No, thank you," said Jack derisively. "I mean to keep the habitat to +myself for the present. For _a very good reason_. Margery, my child, put +that sketch of mine into the pocket of your block. (The paper is much +about the size of your own!) It is going into the 'Household Album.'" + +We went home earlier than we had intended. Even the perseverance of +Eleanor and Clement broke down under their ill-success. Jack was the +only well-satisfied one of the party, and, with his usual good-nature, +he tried hard to infect me with his cheerfulness. + +"I think," said I, looking dolefully at my sketch, "that a good deal of +the fault must have been in my eyes. I suspect one can't see colours +properly when one is feeling sick and giddy. But the glare of the sun +was the worst. I couldn't tell red from green on my palette, so no +wonder the fields and everything else looked all the same colour. And +yet what provokes one is the feeling that an artist would have made a +sketch of it somehow. The view is really beautiful." + +"And that is really beautiful," said Eleanor, pointing to the birch +group and its background. "And what a mess I have made of it! I wish I'd +stuck to pencil. And yet, as you say, an artist would have got a picture +out of it." + +"I'll tell you what," said Jack, who was lying face downwards with my +picture spread before him, "I believe that any one who knew the dodges, +when he saw that everything looked one pale, yellowish, brownish tint +with the glare of the sun, would have boldly taken a weak wash of all +the drab-looking colours in his box right over everything, picked out a +few stones in his foreground wall, dodged in a few shadows and so on, +and made a clever sketch of it. And the same with Eleanor's. If he had +got his birch-trees half as good as hers, and had then seen what a +muddle the trees behind were in, I believe he would only have washed in +a little blue and grey behind the birches, 'indicated' (as our old +drawing-master at school calls it) a distant stem or two--and there +would have been another clever sketch for you!" + +"Another clever falsehood, you mean," said Clement hotly, "to ruin +people's taste, and encourage idle painters in showy trickery, and make +them believe they can improve upon Nature's colouring." + +"Nature's colouring varies," said Jack. "Distant trees often _are_ blue +and grey, though these, just now, are of the rankest green." + +Clement replied, Jack responded, Clement retorted, and a fierce +art-discussion raged the whole way home. + +We were well used to it. Indeed all conversations with us had a tendency +to become controversial. Over and above which there was truth in +Keziah's saying, "The young gentlemen argle-bargles fit to deave a +body's head; and dear knows what it's all about." + +Clement finished a vehement and rather didactic confession of his +art-faith as we climbed the steep hill to the Vicarage. The keynote of +it was that one ought to draw what he sees, exactly as he sees it; and +that every subject has a beauty of its own which he ought to perceive if +his perception is not "emasculated by an acquired taste for +prettinesses." + +"I shall be in the 'Household Album' this evening," said Jack, in +deliberate tones. "My next ambition is the Society of Painters in Water +Colours. The subject of my first painting is settled. Three grass fields +(haymaking over the day before yesterday). A wall in front of the first +field, a hedge in front of the second, a wall in front of the third. A +gate in the middle of the wall. A spotted pig in the middle of the +field. The sun at its meridian; the pig asleep. Motto, 'Whatever is, is +beautiful.'" + +Eleanor and I (in the interests of peace) hastened to change the +subject by ridiculing Jack's complacent conviction that his sketch would +be accepted for the "Household Album." + +And yet it was. + +The fresh-water _alga_ Jack had been lucky enough to find was a new +species, and threw Mrs. Arkwright and Eleanor into a state of the +highest excitement. But all their entreaties failed to persuade Jack to +disclose the secret of the habitat. + +"Put my sketch into the 'Household Album,' and I'll tell you all about +it," said he. + +Mrs. Arkwright held out against this for half-an-hour. Then she gave +way. Jack's sketch was gummed in (it took up a whole page, being the +full size of my block), and he told us all about the water-weed. + +It was described and figured in the _Phycological Quarterly_, and +received the specific name of _Arkwrightii_, and Jack's double triumph +was complete. + +We were very glad for his success, but it almost increased the sense of +disappointment that our share of the expedition had been so unlucky. + +"It seems such a waste," said I, "to have got to such a lovely place +with one's drawing things and plenty of time, and to come away without a +sketch worth keeping at the end, just because one doesn't know the right +way of working." + +"I think there's a good deal in what Jack said about your sketch," said +Eleanor; "and I think if one looked at the way real artists have treated +similar subjects, and then went at it again and tried to do it on a +similar principle----" + +"If ever we do go there again," Clement interrupted, "but I don't +suppose we shall--these holidays. And the way summer after summer slips +away is awful. I'm more and more convinced that it's a great mistake to +have so many hobbies. No life is long enough for more than one pursuit, +and it's ten to one you die in the middle of mastering that. One is sure +to die in the early stages of half-a-dozen." + +Clement is very apt to develop some odd theory of this kind, and to +preach it with a severity that borders on gloom. I never know what to +say, even if I disagree with him; but Eleanor takes up the cudgels at +once. + +"I don't think I agree with you," she said, giving a shove to her soft +elastic hair which did not improve the indefiniteness of the parting. +"Of course it's unsatisfactory in one way to feel one will never live to +finish things, but in another way I think it's a great comfort to feel +one can never use them up or outlive them if one lasts on to be a +hundred. And though one gets very cross and miserable with failing so +over things one works at, I don't know whether one would be so much +happier when one was at the top of the tree. I'm not sure that the +chief pleasure isn't actually in the working at things--I mean in the +drudgery of learning, rather than in the triumph of having learnt." + +"There's something in that," said Clement. And it was a great deal for +Clement to say. + +It does not take much to convert _me_ to Eleanor's views of anything. +But I do think experience bears out what she said about this matter. + +Perhaps that accounts for my having a happy remembrance of old times +when we worked at things together, even if we failed and cried over +them. + +I know that practically, now, I would willingly join the others in going +at anything, though I could not promise not to be peevish over my own +stupidity sometimes, and if I was very much tired. + +I don't think there was anything untrue in my calling the times we went +sketching together happy times--in spite of what Clement says. + +But he does rule such very straight lines all over life, and I sometimes +think one may rule them too straight--even for full truth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--CLIQUE--THE LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE--OUT +VISITING--HOUSE-PRIDE--DRESSMAKING. + + +Eleanor and I were not always at home. We generally went visiting +somewhere, at least once a year. + +I think it was good for us. Great as were the advantages of the life I +now shared over an existence wasted in a petty round of ignoble gossip +and social struggle, it had the drawback of being almost too +self-sufficing, perhaps--I am not certain--a little too laborious. I do +think, but for me, it must, at any rate, have become the latter. I am so +much less industrious, energetic, clever and good in every way than +Eleanor, for one thing, that my very idleness holds us back; and I think +a taste for gaiety (I simply mean being gay, not balls and parties), and +for social pleasure, and for pretty things, and graceful "situations" +runs in my veins with my French blood, and helps to break the current of +our labours. + +We led lives of considerable intellectual activity, constant occupation, +and engrossing interest. We were apt to "foy" at our work to the extent +of grudging meal-times and sleep. Indeed, at one time a habit obtained +with us of leaving the table in turn as we finished our respective +meals. One member of the family after another would rise, bend his or +her head for a silent "grace," and depart to the work in hand. I have +known the table gradually deserted in this fashion till Mr. Arkwright +was left alone. I remember going back one day into the room, and seeing +him so. My entrance partially aroused him from a brown study. (He was at +all times very "absent") He rose, said grace aloud for the benefit of +the company--which had dispersed--and withdrew to his library. But we +abolished this uncivilized custom in conclave, and thenceforth sat our +meals out to the end. + +So free were we in our isolation upon those Yorkshire moors from the +trammels of conventionality (one might almost say, civilization!), that +I think we should have come to begrudge the ordinary interchange of the +neighbourly courtesies of life, but for occasional lectures from Mrs. +Arkwright, and for going out visiting from time to time. + +It was not merely that a life of running in and out of other people's +houses, and chatting the same bits of news threadbare with one +acquaintance after another, as at Riflebury, would have been unendurable +by us. The rare arrival of a visitor from some distant country-house to +call at the Vicarage was the signal for every one, who could do so with +decency, to escape from the unwelcome interruption. But as we grew +older, Mrs. Arkwright would not allow this. The boys, indeed, were hard +to coerce; they "bolted" still when the door-bell rang; but domestic +authority, which is apt to be magnified on "the girls," overruled +Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother--who reasoned with us far +more than she commanded--convinced us of how much selfishness there was +in this, as in all acts of discourtesy. + +But what do we not owe to her good counsels? In how many evening talks +has she not warned us of the follies, affectations, or troubles to which +our lives might specially be liable! Against despising interests that +are not our own, or graces which we have chosen to neglect, against the +danger of satire, against the love or the fear of being thought +singular, and, above all, against the petty pride of clique. + +"I do not know which is the worst," I remember her saying, "a religious +clique, an intellectual clique, a fashionable clique, a moneyed clique, +or a family clique. And I have seen them all." + +"Come, Mother," said Eleanor, "you cannot persuade us you would not have +more sympathy with the intellectual than the moneyed clique, for +instance?" + +"I should have warmly declared so myself, at one time," said Mrs. +Arkwright, "but I have a vivid remembrance of a man belonging to an +artistic clique, to whose house I once went with some friends. My +friends were artists also, but their minds were enlarged, instead of +being narrowed, by one chief pursuit. Their special art gave them +sympathy with all others, as the high cultivation of one virtue is said +to bring all the rest in its train. But this man talked the shibboleth +of his craft over one's head to other members of his clique with a +defiance of good manners arising more from conceit than from ignorance +of the ways of society; and with a transparent intention of being +overheard and admired which reminded me of the little self-conscious +conceits of children before visitors. He was one of a large family with +the same peculiarities, joined to a devout admiration of each other. +Indeed, they combined the artistic clique and the family clique in equal +proportions. From the conversation at their table you would have +imagined that there was but one standard of good for poor humanity, that +of one 'school' of one art, and absolutely no one who quite came up to +it but the brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, or connections by +marriage of your host. Now, I honestly assure you that the only other +man really like this one that I ever met, was what is called a +'self-made' man in a commercial clique. Money was _his_ standard, and +he seemed to be as completely unembarrassed as my artist friend by the +weight of any other ideas than his own, or by any feeling short of utter +satisfaction with himself. Their contempt for the conventionalities of +society was about equal. My artist friend had passed a sweeping +criticism for my benefit now and then (there could be no conversation +where no second opinion was allowed), and it was with perhaps a shade +less of condescension--a shade more of friendliness--that my commercial +friend once stopped some remarks of mine with the knowing observation, +'Look here, ma'am. Whenever I hear this, that, and the other bragged +about a party, what I always say is this, I don't want you to tell me +what he _his_, but what he _'as_.'" + +Eleanor and I laughed merrily at the anecdote, even if we were not quite +converted to Mrs. Arkwright's views. And I must in justice add that +every visit which has taken us from home--every fresh experience which +has enlarged our knowledge of the world--has confirmed the truth of her +sage and practical advice. + +If at home we have still inclined to feel it almost a duty to be proud +of intellectual tastes, quite a duty to be proud of orthodox opinions, +and, at the worst, a very amiable weakness indeed to think that there +are no boys like our boys, a wholesome experience of having other +people's tastes and views crammed down our throats has modified our +ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the +brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack +sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a +mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of +our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the +Vicarage are ever oppressed by the dear boys. + +I'm afraid it is possible--poor dear things! + +I have positively heard people say that Saucebox is ugly, though he has +eyes like a bull-frog, and his tongue hangs quite six inches out of his +mouth, and--in warm weather or before meals--further still! However, I +keep him in very good order, and never allow him to be troublesome to +people who do not appreciate him. For I have observed that there are +people who (having no children of their own) hold very just and severe +views about spoiled boys and girls, but who (having dogs of their own) +are much less clear-sighted on the subject of spoiled terriers and +Pomeranians. And I do not want to be like that--dear as the dear boys +are! + +Certainly, seeing all sorts of people with all sorts of peculiarities is +often a great help towards trying to get rid of one's own objectionable +ones. But like the sketching, one sometimes gets into despair about it, +and though the process of learning an art may be even pleasanter than to +feel one's self a master in it, one cannot say as much for the process +of discovering one's follies. I should like to get rid of _them_ in a +lump. + +Eleanor said so one day to her mother, but Mrs. Arkwright said: "We may +hate ourselves, as you call it, when we come to realize failings we have +not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we +do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of +impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am +sure. It is one's greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt +by GOD. Just as a mother would not love her child the better for its +being turned into a model of perfection by one stroke of magic, but does +love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and +believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to +love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our +struggles with folly and sin." + +But I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is +about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about +our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in +it, and Eleanor says it will not do for us to "go off at a tangent," +and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first, +because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for +nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly, +because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these +ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished. +We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting +rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly +because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind +them. + +Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends +of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor's friends +invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were +happier together. + +I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins +living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure +to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I +think of the expression of Eleanor's face, I may almost say rapture. +Then there was a certain church-bookseller's shop in the town, which had +manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper +could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury. +There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and +oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the +garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of +such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial +interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it +was about this period. + +But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which +I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and +general ornamentation. + +The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where +my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me, +prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular +comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each +room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new +books, music, sketches, needlework, and flowers. + +"Do you know, Eleanor," said I, when we were dressing for dinner one +evening before a toilette-table that had been tastefully adorned for our +use by the daughters of the house, "I wonder if Yorkshire women _are_ as +'house-proud' as they call themselves? I think our villagers are, in the +important points of cleanliness and solid comfort, and of course we are +at the Vicarage as to _that_--Keziah keeps us all like copper kettles; +but don't you think we might have a little more house-pride about +tasteful pretty refinements? It perhaps is rather a waste of time +arranging all these vases and baskets of flowers every day, but they are +_very_ nice to look at, and I think it civilizes one." + +"_You're_ not to blame," said Eleanor decisively. "You're south-country +to the backbone, and French on the top. It is we hard north-country +folk, we business people, who neglect to cultivate 'the beautiful.' +We're quite wrong. But I think the beautiful is revenged on us," added +she with one of her quick, bright looks, "by withdrawing itself. There's +nothing comparable for ugliness to the people of a manufacturing town." + +My mind was running on certain very ingenious and tasteful methods of +hanging nosegays on the wall. + +"Those baskets with ferns and flowers in, against the wall, were lovely, +weren't they?" said I. "Do you think we shall ever be able to think of +such pretty things?" + +"We're not fools," said Eleanor briefly. "We shall do it when we set our +minds to it. Meantime, we must make notes of whatever strikes us." + +"There are plenty of jolly, old-fashioned flowers in the garden at +home," said I. It was a polite way of expressing my inward regret that +we had no tropical orchids or strange stove-plants. And Eleanor danced +round me, and improvised a song beginning: + + "There are ferns by Ewden's waters, + And heather on the hill." + +From the better adornment of the Vicarage to the better adornment of +ourselves was a short stride. Most of the young ladies in these country +homes were very prettily dressed. Not _à la_ Mrs. Perowne. Not in that +milliner's handbook style dear to "Promenades" and places of public +resort; but more daintily, and with more attention to the prettiest and +most convenient of the prevailing fashions than Eleanor's and my +costumes displayed. + +The toilettes of one young lady in particular won our admiration; and +when we learned that her pretty things were made by herself, an +overwhelming ambition seized upon us to learn to do the same. + +"Women ought to know about all house matters," said Eleanor, puckering +her brow to a gloomy extent. "Dressmaking, cookery, and all that sort of +thing; and we know nothing about any of them. I was thinking only last +night, in bed, that if I were cast away on a desert island, and had to +make a dress out of an old sail, I shouldn't have the ghost of an idea +where to begin." + +"I should," said I. "I should sew it up like a sack, make three holes +for my head and arms, and tie it round my waist with ship's rope. I +could manage Robinson Crusoe dresses; it's the civilized ones that will +be too much for me, I'm afraid." + +"I believe the sail would go twice as far if we could gore it," said +Eleanor, laughing. "But there's no waste like the wastefulness of +ignorance; and oh, Margery, it's the _gores_ I'm afraid of! If skirts +were only made the old-fashioned way, like a flannel petticoat! So many +pieces all alike--run them together--hem the bottom--gather the top--and +there you are, with everything straightforward but the pocket." + +To our surprise we found that our new fad was a sore subject with Mrs. +Arkwright. She reproached herself bitterly with having given Eleanor so +little training in domestic arts. But she had been brought up by a +learned uncle, who considered needlework a waste of time, and she knew +as little about gores as we did. She had also, unfortunately, known or +heard of some excellent mother who had trained nine daughters to such +perfection of domestic capabilities that it was boasted that they could +never in after-life employ a workwoman or domestic who would know more +of her business than her employer. And this good lady was a standing +trouble to poor Mrs. Arkwright's conscience. + +Her self-reproaches were needless. General training is perhaps quite as +good as (if not better than) special, even for special ends. In giving +us a higher education, in teaching us to use our eyes, our wits, and our +common-sense, she had put all meaner arts within our grasp when need +should urge, and opportunity serve. + +"Aunt Theresa was always dressmaking," I said to Eleanor; "but I don't +remember anything that would help us. I was so young, you know. And when +one is young one is so stupid, one really resists information." + +I was to have another chance, however, of gleaning hints from Aunt +Theresa. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +MATILDA--BALL DRESSES AND THE BALL--GORES--MISS LINING--THE +'PARISHIONER'S PENNYWORTH.' + + +The Bullers came home again. Colonel St. Quentin had retired, and when +Major Buller got the regiment, he also left the army and settled in a +pleasant neighbourhood in the south of England. As soon as Aunt Theresa +was fairly established in her new house she sent for Eleanor and me. +There was no idea of my remaining permanently. It was only a visit. + +The Major (but he was a colonel now) and his wife were very little +changed. The girls, of course, had altered greatly, and so had I. +Matilda was a fashionably-dressed young lady, with a slightly frail +appearance at times, as if Nature were still revenging the old +mismanagement and neglect. + +It did not need Aunt Theresa to tell us that she was her father's +favourite daughter. But it was no capricious favouritism, I am sure. I +believe Colonel Buller to have been one of those people whose hearts +have depths of tenderness that are never sounded. The Bush House +catastrophe had long ago been swept into the lumber-room of Aunt +Theresa's memory, but the tender self-reproach of Matilda's father was +still to be seen in all his care and indulgence of her. + +"He'll take me anywhere," said Matilda, with affectionate pride. "He +even goes shopping with me." + +We liked Matilda by far the best of the girls. Partly, no doubt, because +she was our old friend, but partly, I think, because intimacy with her +father had developed the qualities she inherited from him, and softened +others. + +To our great satisfaction we discovered that gores were no enigma to +Matilda, and she and Aunt Theresa good-naturedly undertook to initiate +us into the mysteries of dressmaking. + +There was an excellent opportunity. Eleanor was now eighteen, and +Matilda seventeen years old. Matilda was to "come out" at a county ball +that was to take place whilst we were with the Bullers, and Mrs. +Arkwright consented to let Eleanor go also. Hence ball dresses, and +hence also our opportunity for learning how to make them. For they were +to be made by a dressmaker in the house, and she did not reject our +assistance. + +The Bullers' drawing-room was divided by folding-doors, and both +divisions now overflowed with tarlatan and trimmings; but at every fresh +inroad of callers (and they were hardly less frequent than of old) we +young ones, and yards of flounces and finery with us, were swept by Aunt +Theresa into the back drawing-room, like autumn leaves before a breeze. + +The dresses were very successful, and so was the ball. I was so anxious +to hear how Eleanor had sped, that I felt quite sure that I could not go +to sleep, and that it was a farce to go to bed just when she was +beginning to dance. I went, however, at last, and had had half a +night's sound sleep before rustling, and chattering, and the light from +bed-candles woke me to hear the news. + +Matilda was looking pale, and somewhat dishevelled, and a great deal of +the costume at which we had laboured was reduced to rags. Eleanor's +dress was intact, and she herself looked perfectly fresh, partly because +she had resisted, with great difficulty, the extreme length of train +then fashionable, and partly from a sort of general compactness which +seems a natural gift with some people. Poor Matilda had nearly fainted +after one of the dances, and had brought away a violent headache; but +she declared that she had enjoyed herself, and would have stayed to +relate her adventures, but Colonel Buller would not allow it, and sent +her to bed. Eleanor slept with me, so our gossip was unopposed, except +by warnings. + +I set fire to my hair in the effort to decipher the well-filled ball +card, but we put it out, and the candle also, and chatted in bed. + +"You must have danced every dance," I said, admiringly. + +"We sat out one or two that are down," said Eleanor; "and No. 21 was +supper, but I danced all the rest." + +"There was one man you danced several times with," I said, "but I +couldn't make out his name. It looks as if it began with a G." + +"Oh, it's not his real name," said Eleanor. "It's the one he says you +used to call him by. One reason why I liked him, Margery dear, was +because he said he had been so fond of you. You were such a dear little +thing, he said. I told him the locket and chain were in good +preservation." + +"Was it Mr. George?" I cried, with so much energy that Aunt Theresa (who +slept next door) heard us, and knocked on the wall to bid us go to +sleep. + +"We're just going to," Eleanor shouted, and added in lower tones, to me, +"Yes, it was Captain Abercrombie. Colonel Buller introduced him to me. +He is so nice, and so delightfully fond of dogs and of you, Margery." + +"Shall I see him?" I asked. "I should like to see him again. He was very +good to me when I was little." + +"Oh yes," said Eleanor. "It was curious his being in the neighbourhood; +for the 202nd is in Dublin, you know. And, Margery, he says he has an +uncle in Yorkshire. He----" + +"Girls! girls!" cried Aunt Theresa; and we went to sleep. + +Soon after we returned from our visit to the Bullers, Eleanor and I +resolved to prove the benefit we had reaped from Aunt Theresa's +instructions by making ourselves some dresses of an inexpensive stuff +that we bought for the purpose. + +How well I remember the pattern! A flowering creeper, which followed a +light stem upwards through yard after yard of the material. We had +picked to pieces certain old bodies which fitted us fairly, and our +first work was to lay these patterns upon the new stuff, with weights on +them, and so to cut out our new bodies as easily as Matilda (whose +directions we were following) had prophesied that we should. When these +and the sleeves were accomplished (and they looked most business-like), +we began upon the skirts. We cut the back and the front breadths, and +duly "sloped" the latter. Then came the gores. We folded the breadths +into three parts; we took a third at one end, and two-thirds at the +other, and folded the slope accordingly. It became quite exciting. + +"Who would have thought it was so easy?" said I. + +Eleanor was almost prone upon the table, cutting the gores with large +scissors which made a thoroughly sempstress-like squeak. + +"The higher education fades from my view with every snip," she said, +laughing. "Upon my word, Margery, I begin to believe this sort of thing +_is_ our vocation. It is great fun, and there is absolutely no brain +wear and tear." + +The gores were parted as she spoke, and (to do us justice) were exactly +the shape of the tarlatan ones Aunt Theresa had cut. But when we came to +put them together, they wouldn't fit without turning one of them the +wrong side out. Eleanor had boasted too soon. We got headaches and +backaches with stooping and puzzling. We cut up all our stuff, but the +gores remained obstinate. By no ingenuity could we combine them so as to +be at once in proper order, the right side out, and the right side (of +the pattern) up. I really think we cried over them with weariness and +disappointment. + +"Algebra's a trifle to it," was poor Eleanor's conclusion. + +I went out to clear my brain by a walk, and happening, as I returned, to +meet Jack, I confided our woes to him. One could tell Jack anything. + +"You've got it wrong somehow," said Jack, "linking" me. "Come to Miss +Lining's." + +Miss Lining was our village dressmaker. A very bad one certainly, but +still she could gore a skirt. She was not a native of the village, and +signified her superior gentility by a mincing pronunciation. She had +also a hiss with the sibilants peculiar to herself. Before I could +remonstrate, Jack was knocking at the door. + +"Good-afternoon, Miss Lining. Miss Margery has been making a dress, and +she's got into a muddle with the gores. Now, how do you manage with +gores, Miss Lining?" Jack confidentially inquired, taking his hat off, +and accepting a well-dusted chair. + +There was now nothing for it but to explain my difficulties, which I +did, Miss Lining saying, "Yisss, misss," at every two or three words. +When I had said my say, she sucked the top of her brass thimble +thoughtfully for some moments, and then spoke as an oracle. + +"There's a hinside and a hout to the stuff? Yisss, misss. And a hup and +a down? Yisss, misss." + +"And quite half the gores won't fit in anywhere," I desperately +interposed. + +Miss Lining took another taste of the brass thimble, and then said: + +"In course, misss, with a patterned thing there's as many gores to throw +hout as to huse. Yisss, misss." + +"_Are there?_" said I. "But what a waste!" + +"Ho no, misss! you cuts the body out of the gores you throws hout, +misss----" + +"Well, if you get the body out of them, there must be a waist!" Jack +broke in, as he sat fondling Miss Lining's tom-cat. + +"Ho no, sir!" said Miss Lining, who couldn't have seen a joke to save +her dignity. "They cuts to good add-vantage, sir." + +The mystery was now clear to me, and Jack saw this by my face. + +"You understand?" said he briefly, setting down the cat. + +"Quite," said I. "Our mistake was beginning with the bodies. But we can +get some more stuff." + +"An odd bit always comes in," said Miss Lining, speaking, I fear, from +an experience of bits saved from the dresses of village patrons. "Yisss, +misss." + +"Well, good-afternoon, Miss Lining," said Jack, who never suffered, as +Eleanor and I sometimes did, from a difficulty in getting away from a +cottage. "Thank you very much. Have you heard from your sister at Buxton +lately?" + +"Last week, sir," said Miss Lining. + +"And how is she?" said Jack urbanely. + +He never forgot any one, and he never grudged sympathy--two qualities +which made him beloved of the village. + +"Quite well, thank you, sir, and the same to you," said Miss Lining, +beaming; "except that she do suffer a deal in her inside, sir." + +"Chamomile tea is very good for the inside, I believe," said Jack, +putting on his hat with perfect gravity. + +"So I've 'eerd--yisss, sir," said Miss Lining; "and there's something of +the same in them pills that's spoke so well of in your magazine, sir, I +think. I sent by the carrier for a box, sir, on Saturday last, and would +have done sooner, but for waiting for Mrs. Barker to pay for the +pelerine I made out of her uncle's funeral scarf. Yisss, misss." + +Jack was very seldom at a loss, but on this occasion he seemed puzzled. + +"Pills recommended in our magazine?" he said, as we strolled up towards +the Vicarage. "It's those medical tracts you and Eleanor have been +taking round lately." + +"There's nothing about pills in them," said I. "They're about drains, +and fresh air, and cleanliness. Besides, she said our magazine." + +"We don't give them any magazine but the _Parishioner's Pennyworth_ and +the missionary one," said Jack. "I'm stumped, Margery." + +But in a few minutes I was startled by his seizing me by the shoulders +and leaning against me in a paroxysm of laughter. + +"Oh, Margery, I've got it! It _is_ the _Parishioner's Pennyworth_. +There's been an advertisement at the end of it for months, like a +fly-leaf, of Norton's chamomile pills." + +And as I unravelled to Eleanor the mystery of our dressmaking +difficulties, we could hear Jack convulsing Mrs. Arkwright with a +perfect reproduction of Miss Lining's accent--"Them pills that's spoke +so well of in your magazine. Yisss, m'm." + +We got some more material, and finished the dresses triumphantly. By the +next summer we were skilful enough to use our taste with some freedom +and good success. + +I was then fifteen, and in long dresses. I remember some most tasteful +costumes which we produced; and as we contemplated them as they hung, +flounced, furbelowed, and finished, upon pegs, Eleanor said: + +"I wonder where we shall display these this year?" + +How little we knew! We had made the dresses alike, to the nicety of a +bow, because we thought it ladylike that the costumes of sisters should +be so. How far we were from guessing that they would not be worn +together after all! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +I GO BACK TO THE VINE--AFTER SUNSET--A TWILIGHT EXISTENCE--SALAD OF +MONK'S-HOOD--A ROYAL SUMMONS. + + +The few marked events of my life have generally happened on my +birthdays. It was on my fifteenth birthday that Mr. Arkwright got a +letter from one of my relations on the subject of my going to live with +my great-grandfather and grandmother. + +They were now very old. My great-grandfather was becoming "childish," +and the little dear duchess was old and frail for such a charge alone. +They had no daughter. The religious question was laid aside. My most +Protestant relatives thought my duty in the matter overwhelming, and +with all my clinging of heart to the moor home I felt myself that it was +so. + +I don't know how I got over the parting. I wandered hopelessly about +familiar spots, and wished I had made sketches of them; but how could I +know I had not all life before me? The time was short, and preparations +had to be made. This kept us quiet. At the last, Jack put in all my +luggage, and did everything for me. Then he kissed me, and said, "GOD +bless you, Margery," and "linking" Eleanor by force, led her away and +comforted her like the good, dear boy he is. Clement drove me so +recklessly down the steep hill, and over the stones, that the momentary +expectation of an upset dried my tears, and I did not see much of the +villagers' kind and too touching farewells. + +And so to the bleak station again, and the familiar old porter, whom +fate seems to leave long enough at _his_ post, and on through the +whirling railway panorama, by which one passes to so much joy and so +much sorrow--and then I was at The Vine once more. + +I wonder if I am like my great-grandmother in her youth? Some people +(Elspeth among them) declare that it is so; and others that I am like my +poor mother. I suppose I have some Vandaleur features, from an eerie +little incident which befell me on the threshold of The Vine--an +appropriate beginning to a life that always felt like a weird, shadowy +dream. + +I did not ring the bell of the outer gate on my arrival, because Adolphe +(grown up, but with the old, ruddy boy's face on the top of his man's +shoulders) was anxiously waiting for me, and devoted himself to my +luggage, telling me that Master was in the garden. Thither I ran so +hastily, that a straggling sweetbriar caught my hat and my net, and +dragged them off, sending my hair over my shoulders. My hair is not +long, however, like Eleanor's, and it curls, and I sometimes wear it +loose; so I did not stop to rearrange it, but hurried on towards my +great-grandfather, who was coming slowly to meet me from the other end +of the terrace, his hands behind his back, as of old. At least, I +thought it was to meet me; but as he came near I saw that he was +unconscious of my presence. He looked very old, his face was pale and +shrivelled, like a crumpled white kid glove; his wild blue eyes, +insensible of what was before them, seemed intently fixed on something +that no one else could see, and he was talking to himself, as we call it +when folk talk with the invisible. + +It was very silly, but I really felt the colour fading from my face with +fright. My great-grandfather's back was to the west, where a few bars of +red across the sky, as it was to be seen through the Scotch firs, were +all that remained of the sunset. That strange light was on everything, +of which modern pre-Raphaelite painters are so fond. I was tired with my +long journey and previous excitement; and when I suddenly remembered +that Mr. Vandaleur was said to have in some measure lost his reason, a +shudder came over me. In a moment more he saw me. I think my crimson +cloak caught his eye, but his welcome was hardly less alarming than his +abstraction. He started, and held up his hands, and a pained, puzzled +expression troubled his face. Then a flush, which seemed to make him +look older than the whiteness; and then, with a shrill, feeble cry of +"Victoire, ma belle!" he tottered towards me so hastily that I thought +he must have fallen; but, like a vision, a little figure flitted from +the French window of the drawing-room, and in a moment my +great-grandmother was supporting him, and soothing him with gentle +words in French. I could see now how helpless he was. For a bit he +seemed still puzzled and confused; but he clung to her and kissed her +hand, and suffered himself to be led indoors. Then I followed them, +through the window, into the room where the candles were not yet lighted +for economy's sake--the glare of the red sunset bars making everything +dark to me--with a strange sense of gloom. + +It would be hard to imagine a stronger contrast than that between my +life in my new home and my life in my home upon the moors. At the +Arkwrights' we lived so essentially with the times. Our politics, on the +whole, were liberal; our theology inclined to be broad; our ideas on +social subjects were reformatory, progressive, experimental. Scientific +subjects were a speciality of the household; and, living in a +manufacturing district, mere neighbourhood kept us with the great +current of mercantile interests. We argued each other into a general +unfixity of opinions; and, full of youthful dreams of golden ages, were +willing to believe this young world--where not yet we, but only our +words could fly--to be but upon the threshold of true civilization. +Above all, life seemed so short, our hands were so full, so over-full of +work, the daylight was not long enough for us, and we grudged meals and +sleep. + +How different it was under the shadow of this old Vine! I am very +thankful, now, that I had grace, under the sense of "wasted time," which +was at first so irritating, to hold by my supreme child-duty towards my +aged parents against the mere modern fuss of "work," against what John +Wesley called the "lust of finishing" any labour, and to serve them in +their way rather than in my own. But the change was very great. How we +"pottered" through the days!--with what needless formalities, what +slowness, what indecision! How fatiguing is enforced idleness! How +lengthy were the evening meals, where we sat, trifling with the +vine-leaves under a single dish of fruit, till the gloaming deepened +into gloom! + +At fifteen one is very susceptible of impressions; very impatient of +what one is not used to. The very four-post bed in which I slept +oppressed me, and the cracked basin held together for years by the +circular hole in the old-fashioned washstand. The execution-picture only +made me laugh now. + +Then, as to the meals. No doubt a great many people eat and drink too +much, as we are beginning to discover. Whether we at the Vicarage did, I +cannot say; but the change to the unsubstantial fare on which very old +people like the Vandaleurs keep the flickering light of life aglow was +very great; and yet in this slow, vegetating existence my appetite soon +died away. The country was flat and damp too; and by and by neuralgia +kept me awake at night, as regularly as the ghost of my +great-grandfather had done in years gone by. But it is strange how +quickly unmarked time slips on. Day after day, week after week ran by, +till a lassitude crept over me in which I felt amazed at former +ambitions, and a certain facility of sympathy, which has been in many +respects an evil, and in many a good to me, seemed to mould me to the +interests of the fading household. And so I lived the life of my +great-grandparents, which was as if science made no strides, and men no +struggles; as if nothing were to be done with the days, but to wear +through them in all patient goodness, loyal to a long-fallen dynasty, +regretful of some ancient virtues and courtesies, tender towards past +beauties and passions, and patient of succeeding sunsets, till this aged +world should crumble to its close. + +My great-grandfather came to know me again, though his mind was in a +disordered, dreary condition; from old age, Elspeth said, but it often +recalled what I had heard of the state of his mother's intellect before +her death. The dear little old lady's intellects were quite bright, and, +happily, not only entire, but cultivated. I do not know how people who +think babies and servants are a woman's only legitimate interests would +like to live with women who have either never met with, or long +outlived them. I know how my dear granny's educated mind and sense of +humour helped us over a dozen little domestic difficulties, and broke +the neck of fidgets that seemed almost inevitable at her great age and +in that confined sphere of interests. + +I certainly faded in our twilight existence, as if there were some truth +in the strange old theory that very aged people can withdraw vital force +from young companions and live upon it. But every day and hour of my +stay made me love and reverence my great-grandmother more and more, and +be more and more glad that I had come to know her, and perhaps be of +some little service to her. + +Indeed, it was my great-grandfather's condition that kept us so much +among the shadows. The old lady had a delightful youthfulness of spirit, +and took an almost wistful pleasure in hearing about our life at the +Arkwrights', as if some ambitious Scotch blood in her would fain have +kept better pace with the currents of the busy world. But when my +grandfather joined us, we had to change the subject. Modern ideas jarred +upon him. And it was seldom that he was not with us. The tender love +between the old couple was very touching. + +"It must seem strange to you, my dear, to think of such long lives so +little broken by events," said my great-grandmother. "But your dear +grandfather and I have never been apart for a day since our happy +marriage." + +I do not think they were apart for an hour whilst I was with them. He +followed her about the house, if she left him for many minutes, crying, +"Victoire! Victoire!" chiefly from love, but I was sometimes spiteful +enough to think also because he could not amuse himself. + +"The master's calling for you again," said Elspeth, with some +impatience, one day when grandmamma was teaching me a bit of dainty +cookery in the kitchen. + +"Oh, fly, petite!" she cried to me; "and say that his Majesty has +summoned the Duchess." + +Much bewildered, I ran out, and met my great-grandfather on the terrace, +crying, "Victoire! Victoire!" in fretful tones. + +"His Majesty has summoned the Duchess, sir," said I, dropping a slight +curtsy, as I generally did on disturbing the old gentleman. + +To my astonishment, this seemed quite to content him. He drew in his +elbows, and spread the palms of his hands with a very polite bow, +saying, "Bien, bien;" and after murmuring something else in French, +which I did not catch, but which I fancy was an acknowledgment of the +prior claims of royalty, he folded his hands behind his back and +wandered away down the terrace, as I rushed off to my confectionery +again. + +I found that this use of the old fable, which had calmed my +great-grandfather in past days, was no new idea. It was, in fact, a +graceful fiction which deceived nobody, and had been devised by my +great-grandmother out of deference to her husband's prejudices. In the +long years when they were very poor, their poverty was made, not only +tolerable but graceful, by Mrs. Vandaleur's untiring energy, but (though +he wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't, find any occupation by which to add to +their income) the sight of his Victoire, who should have been a duchess, +doing any menial work so distracted him, that my grandmother had to +devise some method to secure herself from his observation when she +washed certain bits of priceless lace which redeemed her old dresses +from commonness, or cooked some delicacy for Mons. le Duc's dinner, or +mended his honourable clothes. Thus Jeanette's old fable came into use; +first in jest, and then as an adopted form for getting rid of my +great-grandfather when he was in the way. It must have astonished a +practical woman like my great-grandmother to find how completely it +satisfied him. But there must have been a time when his helplessness and +impracticability tried her in many ways, before she fairly came to +realize that he never could be changed, and her love fell in with his +humours. On this point he was humoured completely, and never inquired on +what business his deceased Majesty of France required the attendance of +the Duchess that should have been! + +To do him justice, if he was a helpless he was a very tender husband. + +"He has never said a rude or unkind word to me since we were boy and +girl together," said the little old lady, with tears in her eyes. And +indeed, courtesy implies self-discipline; and even now the old man's +politeness checked his petulance over and over again. He never gave up +the habit of gathering flowers for my grandmother, and such exquisite +contrasts of colour I never saw combined by any other hand. Another +accomplishment of his was also connected with his love of plants. + +"It's little enough a man can do about a house the best of times," said +Elspeth, "and the master's just as feckless as a bairn. But he makes a +fine sallet." + +I shudder almost as I write the words. How little we thought that my +poor grandfather's one useful gift would have so fatal an ending! + +But I must put it down in order. It was the end of many things. Of my +life at The Vine among them, and very nearly of my life in this world +altogether. My great-grandfather made delicious salads. I have heard him +say that he preferred our English habit of mixing ingredients to the +French one of dressing one vegetable by itself; but he said we did not +carry it far enough, we neglected so many useful herbs. And so his +salads were compounded not only of lettuce and cress, and so forth, but +of dandelion, sorrel, and half-a-dozen other field or garden plants. +Sometimes one flavour preponderated, sometimes another, and the sauce +was always good. + +Now it is all over it seems to me that I must have been very stupid not +to have paid more attention to the strange flavour in the salad that +day. But I was thinking chiefly of the old lady, who was not very well +(Elspeth had an idea that she had had a very slight "stroke," but how +this was we cannot know now), whilst my grandfather was almost flightily +cheerful. I tasted the salad, and did not eat it, but I was the less +inclined to complain of it as they seemed perfectly satisfied. + +Then my grandmother was taken ill. At first we thought it a development +of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent +Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The +salad was full of young leaves of monk's-hood. Under what delusion my +poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were +busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from any +one. + +From the first the doctor gave us little hope, and they sank rapidly. +Their priest, for whom Adolphe made a second expedition, did not arrive +in time; they were in separate rooms, and Elspeth and I flitted from one +to the other in sad attendance. The dear little old lady sank fast, and +died in the evening. + +Then the doctor impressed on us the necessity of keeping her death from +my great-grandfather's knowledge. + +"But supposing he asks?" said I. + +"Say any soothing thing your ready wit may suggest, my dear young lady. +But the truth, in his present condition, would be a fatal shock." + +It haunted me. "Supposing he asks." And late in the evening he did ask! +I was alone with him, and he called me. + +"Marguerite, dear child, thou wilt tell me the truth. Why does my wife, +my Victoire, thy grandmother, not come to me?" + +Pondering what lie I could tell him, and how, an irresistible impulse +seized me. I bent over him and said: + +"Dear sir, the King has summoned the Duchess." + +Does the mind regain power as the body fails? My great-grandfather +turned his head, and, as his blue eyes met mine, I could not persuade +myself that he was deceived. + +"The will of his Majesty be done," he said faintly but firmly. + +The next few moments seemed like years. Had I done wrong? Had it done +him harm? Above all, what did he mean? Were his words part of one last +graceful dream of the dynasty of the white lilies, or was his loyal +submission made now to a Majesty not of France, not even of this world? +It was an intense relief to me when he spoke again. + +"Marguerite!" + +I knelt by the bedside, and he laid his hand upon my head. An exquisite +smile shone on his face. + +"Good child; pauvre petite! His Majesty will call me also, before long. +Is it not so? And then thou shalt rest." + +His fine face clouded again with a wandering, troubled look, and his +fingers fumbled the bed-clothes. I saw that he had lost his crucifix in +moving his hand to my head. I gave it him, and he clasped his hands over +it once more, and carrying it to his lips with a smile, closed his eyes +like some good child going to sleep. + +And Thou, O King of kings, didst summon him, as the dark faded into +dawn! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +HOME AGAIN--HOME NEWS--THE VERY END. + + +Now it is past it seems like a dream, my life at The Vine, with its sad +end, if indeed that can be justly called a sad end which took away +together, and with little pain, those dear souls whose married life had +not known the parting of a day, and who in death were not (even by a +day) divided. + +And so I went back to the moors. I was weak and ill when I started, but +every breath of air on my northward journey seemed to bring me strength. + +There are no events in that porter's life, I am convinced. He looked +just the same, and took me and my boxes quite coolly, though I felt +inclined to shake hands with him in my delight. I did cry for very joy +as we toiled up the old sandy hill, and the great moors welcomed me +back. Then came the church, then the Vicarage, with the union-jack out +of my window, and the villagers were at their doors--and I was at home. +Oh, how the dear boys tore me to pieces! + +There was no very special news, it seemed. Clement had been very good in +taking my class at school, and had established a cricket club. Jack had +positively found a new fungus, which would probably be named after him. +"Boy's luck," as we all said! Captain Abercrombie had been staying with +an old uncle at a place close by, only about twelve miles off. And he +was constantly driving over. "So very good-natured to the boys," Mr. +Arkwright said. And there was to be a school-children's tea on my +birthday. + +My birthday has come and gone, and I am sixteen now. Dear old Eleanor +and I have gone back to our old ways. She had left my side of our room +untouched. It was in talking of our recent parting, and all that has +come and gone in our lives, that the fancy came upon us of writing our +biographies this winter. + +And here, in the dear old kitchen, round which the wild wind howls like +music, with the dear boys dreaming at our feet, we bring them to an end. + + * * * * * + +This dusty relic of an old fad had been lying by for more than a year, +when I found it to-day, in emptying a box to send some books in to +Oxford, to Jack. + +Eleanor should have had it, for we are parted, after all; but her +husband has more interest in hers, so we each keep our own. + +She is married, to George Abercrombie, and I mean to paste the bit out +of the newspaper account of their wedding on to the end of this, as a +sort of last chapter. It would be as long as all the rest put together +if I were to write down all the ups and downs, and ins and outs, that +went before the marriage, and I suppose these things are always very +much alike. + +I like him very much, and I am going to stay with them. The wedding was +very pretty. Jack threw shoes to such an extent, that when I went to +change my white ones I couldn't find a complete pair to put on. He says +he meant to pick them up again, but Prince, our new puppy, thought they +were thrown for him, and he never brought them back. Dear boy! + +The old uncle helps George, who I believe is his heir, but at present he +sticks to the regiment. It seems so funny that Eleanor should now be +living there, and I here. In her letter to-day she says: "Fancy, +Margery, my having quarrelled with Mrs. Minchin and not known it! She +called on me to-day and solemnly forgave me, whereby I learned that she +had been 'cutting' me for six weeks. When she said, 'No doubt you +thought it very strange, Mrs. Abercrombie, that I never called on your +mother whilst she was with you,' I was obliged to get over it the best +way I could, for I dare not tell her I had never noticed it. I think my +offence was something about calls, and I must be more particular. But +George and I have been sketching at every spare moment this lovely +weather. Oh, Margery dear, I do often feel so thankful to my mother for +having given us plenty of rational interests. I could really imagine +even _our_ quarrelling or getting tired of each other, if we had nothing +but ourselves in common. As it is, you can't tell, till you have a +husband of your own, what a double delight there is in everything we do +together. As to social ups and downs, and not having much money or many +fine dresses, a 'collection' alone makes one almost too indifferent. Do +you remember Mother's saying long ago, that intellectual pleasures have +this in common with the consolations of religion, that they are such as +the world can neither give nor take away?" + +THE END. + + +_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._ + + + + +_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized, +complete, and uniform Edition published._ + +_It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol., +issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will +appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series +will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was +specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing._ + +_The following is a list of the books included in the Series--_ + + 1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES. + + 2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. + + 3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY-TALES. + + 4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING. + + 5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES. + + 6. SIX TO SIXTEEN. + + 7. LOB-LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES. + + 8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL. + + 9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS. + + 10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE + THEATRICALS, &c. + + 11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES. + + 12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN. + + 13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I. + + 14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II. + + 15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVE-COTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. + + 16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS. + + 17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--Wonder + Stories--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations. + + 18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs. + Ewing's Letters. + +S.P.C.K., NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + + +The following typographical errors have been corrected. + + Page Error + 18 sate corrected to sat + 42 sergeant). corrected to sergeant)." + 135 Indeed, Edward corrected to "Indeed, Edward + +The following words were inconsistently spelled: + + &c. / etc. + practice / practise + +The following words had inconsistent hyphenation: + + bedtime / bed-time + gingerbeer / ginger-beer + Mantuamaker / Mantua-maker + overfed / over-fed + remade / re-made + scrapbook / scrap-book + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six to Sixteen, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + +***** This file should be named 19360-0.txt or 19360-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/6/19360/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Six to Sixteen + A Story for Girls + +Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing + +Release Date: September 23, 2006 [EBook #19360] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of the changes +is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and +hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled and +hyphenated words is found at the end of the text. + +The following less-common character is used in this version of the book. +If it does not display properly, please try changing your font. + +o o with breve + + + + +[Illustration: "'I've got a pink silk here,' said I, 'and pink shoes.'"] + + + + + SIX TO SIXTEEN. + _A STORY FOR GIRLS._ + + + BY + JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + + LONDON: + SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, + NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. + NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. + + + + +[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.] + + + + +DEDICATION. + +TO MISS ELEANOR LLOYD. + + +MY DEAR ELEANOR, + +I wish that this little volume were worthier of being dedicated to you. + +It is, I fear, fragmentary as a mere tale, and cannot even plead as an +excuse for this that it embodies any complete theory on the vexed +question of the upbringing of girls. Indeed, I should like to say that +it contains no attempt to paint a model girl or a model education, and +was originally written as a sketch of domestic life, and not as a +vehicle for theories. + +That it does touch by the way on a few of the many strong opinions I +have on the subject you will readily discover; though it is so long +since we held discussions together that I hardly know how far your views +will now agree with mine. + +If, however, it seems to you to illustrate a belief in the joys and +benefits of intellectual hobbies, I do not think that we shall differ on +that point; and it may serve, here and there, to recall one, nearly as +dear to you as to me, for whom the pleasures of life were at least +doubled by such interests, and who found in them no mean resource under +a burden heavier than common of life's pain. + +That, whatever labour I may spend on this or any other bit of +work--whatever changes or confirmations time and experience may bring to +my views of people and things--I cannot now ask her approval of the one, +or delight in the play of her strong intellect and bright wit over the +other, is an unhealable sorrow with which no one sympathizes more fully +than you. + +This story was written before her death: it has been revised without her +help. + +Such as it is, I beg you to accept it in affectionate remembrance of old +times and of many common hobbies of our girlhood in my Yorkshire home +and in yours. + + J. H. E. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAP. PAGE + + Introduction 11 + + I. My Pretty Mother--Ayah--Company 20 + + II. The Cholera Season--My Mother Goes Away--My Sixth + Birthday 26 + + III. The Bullers--Matilda takes Me up--We Fall Out--Mr. George 34 + + IV. Sales--Matters of Principle--Mrs. Minchin Quarrels with + the Bride--Mrs. Minchin Quarrels with Everybody--Mrs. + Minchin is Reconciled--The Voyage Home--A Death on Board 40 + + V. A Home Station--What Mrs. Buller thought of it--What + Major Buller thought of it 53 + + VI. Dress and Manner--I Examine Myself--My Great-Grandmother 59 + + VII. My Great-Grandmother--The Duchess's Carriage--Mrs. + O'Connor is Curious 67 + + VIII. A Family History 73 + + IX. Hopes and Expectations--Dreams and Daydreams--The + Vine--Elspeth--My Great-Grandfather 84 + + X. Thomas the Cat--My Great-Grandfather's Sketches--Adolphe + is my Friend--My Great-great-great-Grandfather Disturbs + my Rest--I Leave The Vine 96 + + XI. Matilda's News--Our Governess--Major Buller turned + Tutor--Eleanor Arkwright 103 + + XII. Poor Matilda--The Awkward Age--Mrs. Buller takes Counsel + with her Friends--The 'Milliner and Mantuamaker'--Medical + Advice--The Major Decides 120 + + XIII. At School--The Lilac Bush--Bridget's Posies--Summer-- + Health 138 + + XIV. Miss Mulberry--Discipline and Recreation--Madame-- + Conversation--Eleanor's Opinion of the Drawing-master-- + Miss Ellen's--Eleanor's Apology 146 + + XV. Eleanor's Theories reduced to Practice--Studies--The + Arithmetic-master 159 + + XVI. Eleanor's Reputation--The Mad Gentleman--Fancies and + Follies--Matilda's Health--The New Doctor 166 + + XVII. Eleanor's Health--Holy Living--The Prayer of the Son + of Sirach 175 + + XVIII. Eleanor and I are late for Breakfast--The School Breaks + Up--Madame and Bridget 179 + + XIX. Northwards--The Black Country--The Stone Country 183 + + XX. The Vicarage--Keziah--The Dear Boys--The Cook--A + Yorkshire Tea--Bed-fellows 191 + + XXI. Gardening--Drinkings--The Moors--Wading--Batrachosperma-- + The Church--Little Margaret 197 + + XXII. A New Home--The Arkwrights' Return--The Beasts--Going + to Meet the Boys--Jack's Hat-box--We Come Home a Rattler 209 + + XXIII. I Correspond with the Major--My Collection--Occupations-- + Madame Again--Fte de Village--The British Hooray 219 + + XXIV. We and the Boys--We and the Boys and our Fads--The Lamp + of Zeal--Clement on Unreality--Jack's Ointment 234 + + XXV. The "Household Album"--Sketching under Difficulties--A + New Species?--Jack's Bargain--Theories 242 + + XXVI. Manners and Customs--Clique--The Lessons of Experience-- + Out Visiting--House-pride--Dressmaking 257 + + XXVII. Matilda--Ball Dresses and the Ball--Gores--Miss + Lining--The 'Parishioner's Pennyworth' 269 + + XXVIII. I go Back to The Vine--After Sunset--A Twilight + Existence--Salad of Monk's-hood--A Royal Summons 279 + + XXIX. Home Again--Home News--The Very End 293 + + + + +SIX TO SIXTEEN. + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Eleanor and I are subject to _fads_. Indeed, it is a family failing. (By +the family I mean our household, for Eleanor and I are not, even +distantly, related.) Life would be comparatively dull, up away here on +the moors, without them. Our fads and the boys' fads are sometimes the +same, but oftener distinct. Our present one we would not so much as tell +them of on any account; because they would laugh at us. It is this. We +purpose this winter to write the stories of our own lives down to the +present date. + +It seems an egotistical and perhaps silly thing to record the +trivialities of our everyday lives, even for fun, and just to please +ourselves. I said so to Eleanor, but she said, "Supposing Mr. Pepys had +thought so about his everyday life, how much instruction and amusement +would have been lost to the readers of his Diary." To which I replied, +that as Mr. Pepys lived in stirring times, and amongst notable people, +_his_ daily life was like a leaf out of English history, and his case +quite different to the case of obscure persons living simply and +monotonously on the Yorkshire moors. On which Eleanor observed that the +simple and truthful history of a single mind from childhood would be as +valuable, if it could be got, as the whole of Mr. Pepys' Diary from the +first volume to the last. And when Eleanor makes a general observation +of this kind in her conclusive tone, I very seldom dispute it; for, to +begin with, she is generally right, and then she is so much more clever +than I. + +One result of the confessed superiority of her opinion to mine is that I +give way to it sometimes even when I am not quite convinced, but only +helped by a little weak-minded reason of my own in the background. I +gave way in this instance, not altogether to her argument (for I am sure +_my_ biography will not be the history of a mind, but only a record of +small facts important to no one but myself), but chiefly because I think +that as one grows up one enjoys recalling the things that happened when +one was little. And one forgets them so soon! I envy Eleanor for having +kept her childish diaries. I used to write diaries too, but, when I was +fourteen years old, I got so much ashamed of them (it made me quite hot +to read my small moral reflections, and the pompous account of my +quarrels with Matilda, my sentimental admiration for the handsome +bandmaster, &c., even when alone), and I was so afraid of the boys +getting hold of them, that I made a big hole in the kitchen fire one +day, and burned them all. At least, so I thought; but one volume escaped +the flames, and the fun Eleanor and I have now in re-reading this has +made me regret that I burned the others. Of course, even if I put down +all that I can remember, it will not be like having kept my diaries. +Eleanor's biography, in this respect, will be much better than mine; but +still, I remember a good deal now that I dare say I shall forget soon, +and in sixteen more years these histories may amuse us as much as the +old diaries. We are all growing up now. We have even got to speaking of +"old times," by which we mean the times when we used to wade in the +brooks and---- + +But this is beside the mark, and I must not allow myself to wander off. +I am too apt to be discursive. When I had to write leading articles for +our manuscript periodical, Jack used to laugh at me, and say, "If it +wasn't for Eleanor's disentangling your sentences, you'd put parenthesis +within parenthesis till, when you got yourself into the very inside +one, you'd be as puzzled as a pig in a labyrinth, and not know how to +get back to where you started from." And I remember Clement--who +generally disputed a point, if possible--said, "How do you know she +wouldn't get back, if you let her work out each train of thought in +peace? The curt, clean-cut French style may suit some people, whose +brains won't stretch far without getting tired; but others may have more +sympathy with a Semitic cast of mind." + +This excuse pleased me very much. It was pleasanter to believe that my +style was Semitic, than to allow, with Jack, that it tended towards that +of Mrs. Nickleby. Though at that time my notion of the meaning of the +word Semitic was not so precise as it might have been. + +Our home is a beautiful place in the summer, and in much of spring and +autumn. In winter I fancy it would look dreary to the eyes of strangers. +At night the wind comes over the top of Deadmanstone Hill, and down the +valley, whirls the last leaves off the old trees by the church, and +sends them dancing over the closely-ranged gravestones. Then up through +the village it comes, and moans round our house all night, like some +miserable being wanting to get in. The boys say it does get in, more +than enough, especially into their bedrooms; but then boys always +grumble. It certainly makes strange noises here. I have more than once +opened the back-door late in the evening, because I fancied that one of +the dogs had been hurt, and was groaning outside. + +That stormy winter after the Ladybrig murder, our fancies and the wind +together played Eleanor and me sad tricks. When once we began to listen +we seemed to hear a whole tragedy going on close outside. We could +distinguish footsteps and voices through the bluster, and then a +struggle in the shrubbery, and a _thud_, and a groan, and then a roar of +wind, half drowning the sound of flying footsteps--and then an awful +pause, and at last faint groaning, and a bump, as of some poor wounded +body falling against the house. At this point we were wont to summon +courage and rush out, with the kitchen poker and a candle shapeless with +tallow shrouds from the strong draughts. We never could see anything; +partly, perhaps, because the candle was always blown out; and when we +stood outside it became evident that what we had heard was only the +wind, and a bough of the old acacia-tree, which beat at intervals upon +the house. + +When the nights are stormy there is no room so comfortable as the big +kitchen. We first used it for parochial purposes, small night-schools, +and so forth. Then one evening, as we strolled in to look for one of +the dogs, the cook said, "You can sit here, if you like, Miss Eleanor. +_We_ always sits in the pantry on winter nights; so there'll be no one +to disturb you." And as we had some writing on hand which we did not +wish to have discussed or overlooked by other members of the family, we +settled down in great peace and comfort by the roaring fire which the +maids had heaped to keep the kitchen warm in their absence. + +We found ourselves so cosy and independent that we returned again and +again to our new study. The boys (who go away a great deal more than we +do, and are apt to come back dissatisfied with our "ways," and anxious +to make us more "like other people") object strongly to this habit of +ours. They say, "Who ever _heard_ of ladies sitting in the kitchen?" +And, indeed, there are many south-country kitchens in which I should not +at all like to sit. But we have this large, airy, spotlessly clean room, +with its stone floor, its yellow-washed walls, its tables scrubbed to +snowy whiteness, its quaint old dresser and clock and corner cupboards +of shiny black oak, and its huge fire-place and blazing fire all to +ourselves, and we have abundance of room, and may do anything we please, +so I think it is no wonder that we like it, though it be, in point of +fact, a kitchen. We cover the table, and (commonly) part of the floor, +with an amount of books, papers, and belongings of various sorts, such +as we should scruple to deluge the drawing-room with. The fire crackles +and blazes, so that we do not mind the wind, though there are no blinds +to the kitchen, and if we do not "cotter" the shutters, we look out upon +the black night, and the tall Scotch pine that has been tossed so wildly +for so many years, and is not torn down yet. + +Keziah the cook takes much pride in this same kitchen, which partly +accounts for its being in a state so suitable to our use. She "stones" +the floor with excruciating regularity. (At least, some people hate the +scraping sound. I do not mind it myself.) She "pot-moulds" the hearth in +fantastic patterns; the chests, the old chairs, the settle, the dresser, +the clock and the corner cupboards are so many mirrors from constant +polishing. She says, with justice, that "a body might eat his dinner off +anything in the place." + +We dine early, and the cooking for the late supper is performed in what +we call "the second kitchen," beyond this. I believe that what is now +the Vicarage was originally an old farmhouse, of which this same +charming kitchen was the chief "living-room." It is quite a journey, +through long, low passages, to get from the modern part of the house to +this. + +One year, when the "languages fad" was strong upon us, Eleanor and I +earned many a backache by carrying the huge volumes of the _Della +Crusca_ Italian dictionary from the dining-room shelves to the kitchen. +We piled them on the oak chest for reference, and ran backwards and +forwards to them from the table where we sat and beat our brains over +the "Divina Commedia," while the wind growled in the tall old box-trees +without, and the dogs growled in dreams upon the hearth. + +It is by this well-scrubbed table, in this kitchen, that our biographies +are to be written. They cannot be penned under the noses of the boys. + +Eleanor finds rocking a help to composition, and she is swinging +backwards and forwards in the glossy old rocking-chair, with a pen +between her lips, and a vacant gaze in her eyes, that becomes almost a +look of inspiration when the swing of the chair turns her face towards +the ceiling. For my own part I find that I can meet the crisis of a +train of ideas best upon my feet, so I pace up and down past the old +black dresser, with its gleaming crockery, like a captain on his +quarter-deck. Suddenly Eleanor's chair stands still. + +"Margery," she says, laying her head upon the table at her side, "I do +think this is a capital idea." + +"Yours will be capital," I reply, pausing also, and leaning back +against the dresser; "for you have kept your old diaries, and----" + +"My dear Margery, what if I have kept my old diaries? I've lived in this +place my whole life. Now, you have had some adventures! I quite look +forward to reading your life, Margery. You have no idea what pleasure it +gives me to think of it. I was thinking just now, if ever we are +separated in life, how I shall enjoy looking over it again and again. +You must give me yours, you know, and I will give you mine. Yes; I am +very glad we thought of it." And Eleanor begins to rock once more, and I +resume my march. + +But this quite settles the matter in my mind. To please Eleanor I would +try to do a great deal; much more than this. I will write my +autobiography. + +Though it seems rather (to use an expressive Quaker term) a "need-not" +to provide for our being separated in life, when we have so firmly +resolved to be old maids, and to live together all our lives in the +little whitewashed cottage behind the church. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +MY PRETTY MOTHER--AYAH--COMPANY. + + +My name is Margaret Vandaleur. My father was a captain in her Majesty's +202nd Regiment of Foot. The regiment was in India for six years, just +after I was born; indeed, I was not many months old when I made my first +voyage, which I fancy Eleanor is thinking of when she says that I have +had some adventures. + +Military ladies are said to be unlucky as to the times when they have to +change stations; the move often chancing at an inconvenient moment. My +mother had to make her first voyage with the cares of a young baby on +her hands; nominally, at any rate, but I think the chief care of me fell +upon our Ayah. My mother hired her in England. The Ayah wished to return +to her country, and was glad to do so as my nurse. I think that at first +she only intended to be with us for the voyage, but she stayed on, and +became fond of me, and so remained my nurse as long as I was in India. + +I have heard that my mother was the prettiest woman on board the vessel +she went out in, and the prettiest woman at the station when she got +there. Some people have told me that she was the prettiest woman they +ever saw. She was just eighteen years old when my father married her, +and she was not six-and-twenty when she died. + +[I got so far in writing my life, seated at the round, three-legged +pinewood table, with Eleanor scribbling away opposite to me. But I could +get no further just then. I put my hands before my eyes as if to shade +them from the light; but Eleanor is very quick, and she found out that I +was crying. She jumped up and threw herself at my feet. + +"Margery, dear Margery! what _is_ the matter?" + +I could only sob, "My mother, O my mother!" and add, almost bitterly, +"It is very well for you to write about your childhood, who have had a +mother--and such a mother!--all your life; but for me----" + +Eleanor knelt straight up, with her teeth set, and her hands clasped +before her. + +"I do think," she said slowly, "that I am, without exception, the most +selfish, inconsiderate, dense, unfeeling brute that ever lived." She +looked so quaintly, vehemently in earnest as she knelt in the firelight, +that I laughed in spite of my tears. + +"My dear old thing," I said, "it is I who am selfish, not you. But I am +going on now, and I promise to disturb you no more." And in this I was +resolute, though Eleanor would have burned our papers then and there, +if I had not prevented her. + +Indeed she knew as well as I did that it was not merely because I was an +orphan that I wept, as I thought of my early childhood. We could not +speak of it, but she knew enough to guess at what was passing through my +mind. I was only six years old when my mother died, but I can remember +her. I can remember her brief appearances in the room where I played, in +much dirt and contentment, at my Ayah's feet--rustling in silks and +satins, glittering with costly ornaments, beautiful and scented, like a +fairy dream. I would forego all these visions for one--only one--memory +of her praying by my bedside, or teaching me at her knee. But she was so +young, and so pretty! And yet, O Mother, Mother! better than all the +triumphs of your loveliness in its too short prime would it have been to +have left a memory of your beautiful face with some devout or earnest +look upon it--"as it had been the face of an angel"--to your only child. + +As I sit thinking thus, I find Eleanor's dark eyes gazing at me from her +place, to which she has gone back; and she says softly, "Margery, dear +Margery, do let us give it up." But I would not give it up now, for +anything whatever.] + +The first six years of my life were spent chiefly with my Ayah. I loved +her very dearly. I kissed and fondled her dark cheeks as gladly as if +they had been fair and ruddy, and oftener than I touched my mother's, +which were like the petals of a china rose. My most intimate friends +were of the Ayah's complexion. We had more than one "bearer" during +those years, to whom I was greatly attached. I spoke more Hindostanee +than English. The other day I saw a group of Lascar sailors at the +Southampton Station; they had just come off a ship, and were talking +rapidly and softly together. I have forgotten the language of my early +childhood, but its tones had a familiar sound; those dark bright faces +were like the faces of old friends, and my heart beat for a minute, as +one is moved by some remembrance of an old home. + +When my mother went out for her early ride at daybreak, before the heat +of the day came on, Ayah would hold me up at the window to see her +start. Sometimes my father would have me brought out, and take me before +him on his horse for a few minutes. But my nurse never allowed this if a +ready excuse could prevent it. Her care of me was maternal in its +tenderness, but she did not keep me tidy enough for me to be presentable +off-hand to company. + +There was always "company" wherever my mother went--gentleman company +especially. The gentlemen, in different places, and at different times, +were not the same, but they had a common likeness. I used to count them +when they rode home with my father and mother, or assembled for any of +the many reasons for which "company" hung about our homes. I remember +that it was an amusement to me to discover, "there are six to-day," or +"five to-day," and to tell my Ayah. I was even more minute. I divided +them into three classes: "the little ones, the middle ones, and the old +ones." The "little ones" were the very young men--smooth-cheeked +ensigns, etc.; the "old ones" were usually colonels, generals, or +elderly civilians. From the youngest to the oldest, officers and +civilians, they were all very good-natured to me, and I approved of them +accordingly. + +When callers came, I was often sent into the drawing-room. Great was my +dear Ayah's pride when I was dressed in pink silk, my hair being +arranged in ringlets round my head, to be shown off to the company. I +was proud of myself, and was wont rather to strut than walk into the +room upon my best kid shoes. They were pink, to match my frock, and I +was not a little vain of them. There were usually some ladies in the +room, dressed in rustling finery like my mother, but not like her in +the face--never so pretty. There were always plenty of gentlemen of the +three degrees, and they used to be very polite to me, and to call me +"little Rosebud," and give me sweetmeats. I liked sweetmeats, and I +liked flattery, but I had an affection stronger than my fancy for +either. I used to look sharply over the assembled men for the face I +wanted, and when I had found it I flew to the arms that were stretched +out for me. They were my father's. + +I remember my mother, but I remember my father better still. I did not +see very much of him, but when we were together I think we were both +thoroughly happy. I can recall pretty clearly one very happy holiday we +spent together. My father got some leave, and took us for a short time +to the hills. My clearest memory of his face is as it smiled on me, from +under a broad hat, as we made nosegays for Mamma's vases in our +beautiful garden, where the fuchsias and geraniums were "hardy," and the +sweet-scented verbenas and heliotropes were great bushes, loading the +air with perfume. + +I have one remembrance of it almost as distinct--the last. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE CHOLERA SEASON--MY MOTHER GOES AWAY--MY SIXTH BIRTHDAY. + + +We were living in a bungalow not far from the barracks at X. when the +cholera came. It was when I was within a few weeks of six years old. +First we heard that it was among the natives, and the matter did not +excite much notice. Then it broke out among the men, and the officers +talked a good deal about it. The next news was of the death of the +Colonel commanding our regiment. + +One of my early recollections is of our hearing of this. An ensign of +our regiment (one of the "little ones") called upon my mother in the +evening of the day of the Colonel's death. He was very white, very +nervous, very restless. He brought us the news. The Colonel had been ill +barely thirty-six hours. He had suffered agonies with wonderful +firmness. He was to be buried the next day. + +"He never was afraid of cholera," said Mr. Gordon; "he didn't believe it +was infectious; he thought keeping up the men's spirits was everything. +But, you see, it isn't nervousness, after all, that does it." + +"It goes a long way, Gordon," said my father. "You're young; you've +never been through one of these seasons. Don't get fanciful, my good +fellow. Come here, and play with Margery." + +Mr. Gordon laughed. + +"I am a fool, certainly," he said. "Ever since I heard of it, I have +fancied a strange, faint kind of smell everywhere, which is absurd +enough." + +"I will make you a camphor-bag," said my mother, "that ought to +overpower any faint smell, and it is a charm against infection." + +I believe Mr. Gordon was beginning to thank her, but his words ended in +a sort of inarticulate groan. He stood on his feet, though not upright, +and at last said feebly, "I beg your pardon, I don't feel quite well." + +"You're upset, old fellow; it's quite natural," said my father. "Come +and get some brandy, and you shall come back for the camphor." + +My father led him away, but he did not come back. My father took him to +his quarters, and sent the surgeon to him; and my mother took me on her +knee, and sat silent for a long time, with the unfinished camphor-bag +beside her. + +The next day I went to the end of our compound with Ayah, to see the +Colonel's funeral pass. The procession seemed endless. The horse he had +ridden two days before by my mother's side tossed its head fretfully, +as the "Dead March" wailed, and the slow tramp of feet poured endlessly +on. My mother was looking out from the verandah. As Ayah and I joined +her, a native servant, who was bringing something in, said abruptly, +"Gordon Sahib--he dead too." + +When my father returned from the funeral he found my mother in a panic. +Some friends had lately invited her to stay with them, and she was now +resolved to go. "I am sure I shall die if I stay here!" she cried, and +it ended in her going away at once. There was some difficulty as to +accommodating me and Ayah, and it was decided that, if necessary, we +should follow my mother later. + +For my own part, I begged to remain. I had no fear of cholera, and I was +anxious to dine with my father on my birthday, as he had promised that I +should. + +It was on the day before my birthday that one of the surgeons was +buried. The man next in rank to the poor Colonel was on leave, and the +regiment was commanded by our friend Major Buller, whose little +daughters were invited to spend the following evening with me. The +Major, my father, and two other officers had been pall-bearers at the +funeral. My father came to me on his return. He was slightly chilled, +and said he should remain indoors; so I had him all to myself, and we +were very happy, though he complained of fatigue, and fell asleep once +on the floor with his head in my lap. He was still lying on the floor +when Ayah took me to bed. I believe he had been unwell all the day, +though I did not know it, and had been taking some of the many specifics +against cholera, of which everybody had one or more at that time. + +Half-an-hour later he sent for a surgeon, who happened to be dining with +Major Buller. The Doctor and the Major came together to our bungalow, +and with them two other officers who happened to be of the party, and +who were friends of my father. One of them was a particular friend of my +own. He was an ensign, a reckless, kind-hearted lad "in his teens," a +Mr. Abercrombie, who had good reason to count my father as a friend. + +Mr. Abercrombie mingled in some way with my dreams that night, or rather +early morning, and when I fairly woke, it was to the end of a discussion +betwixt my Ayah, who was crying, and Mr. Abercrombie, in evening dress, +whose face bore traces of what looked to me like crying also. I was +hastily clothed, and he took me in his arms. + +"Papa wants you, Margery dear," he said; and he carried me quickly down +the passages in the dim light of the early summer dawn. + +Two or three officers, amongst whom I recognized Major Buller, fell +back, as we came in, from the bed to which Mr. Abercrombie carried me. +My father turned his face eagerly towards me, but I shrank away. That +one night of suffering and collapse had changed him so that I did not +know him again. At last I was persuaded to go to him, and by his voice +and manner recognized him as his feeble fingers played tenderly with +mine. And when he said, "Kiss me, Margery dear," I crept up and kissed +his forehead, and started to feel it so cold and damp. + +"Be a good girl, Margery dear," he whispered; "be very good to Mamma." +There was a short silence. Then he said, "Is the sun rising yet, +Buller?" + +"Just rising, old fellow. Does the light bother you?" + +"No, thank you; I can't see it. The fact is, I can't see you now. I +suppose it's nearly over. GOD'S will be done. You've got the papers, +Buller? Arkwright will be kind about it, I'm sure. You'll break it to my +wife as well as you can?" + +After another pause he said, "It's time you fellows went to bed and got +some sleep." + +But no one moved, and there was another silence, which my father broke +by saying, "Buller, where are you? It's quite dark now. Would you say +the Lord's Prayer for me, old fellow? Margery dear, put your hands with +poor Papa's." + +"I've not said my prayers yet," said I; "and you know I ought to say my +prayers, for I've been dressed a long time." + +The Major knelt simply by the bed. The other men, standing, bent their +heads, and Mr. Abercrombie, kneeling, buried his face on the end of the +bed and sobbed aloud. + +Major Buller said the Lord's Prayer. I, believing it to be my duty, said +it also, and my father said it with us to the clause "For Thine is the +kingdom, the power, and the glory," when his voice failed, and I, +thinking he had forgotten (for I sometimes forgot in the middle of my +most familiar prayers and hymns), helped him--"Papa dear! _for ever and +ever_." + +Still he was silent, and as I bent over him I heard one long-drawn +breath, and then his hands, which were enfolded with mine, fell apart. +The sunshine was now beginning to catch objects in the room, and a ray +lighted up my father's face, and showed a change that even I could see. +An officer standing at the head of the bed saw it also, and said +abruptly, "He's dead, Buller." And the Major, starting up, took me in +his arms, and carried me away. + +I cried and struggled. I had a dim sense of what had happened, mixed +with an idea that these men were separating me from my father. I could +not be pacified till Mr. Abercrombie held out his arms for me. He was +more like a woman, and he was crying as well as I. I went to him and +buried my sobs on his shoulder. Mr. George (as I had long called him, +from finding his surname hard to utter) carried me into the passage and +walked up and down, comforting me. + +"Is Papa really dead?" I at length found voice to ask. + +"Yes, Margery dear. I'm so sorry." + +"Will he go to Abraham's bosom, Mr. George?" + +"Will he go _where_, Margery?" + +"To Abraham's bosom, you know, where the poor beggar went that's lying +on the steps in my Sunday picture-book, playing with those dear old +dogs." + +Mr. Abercrombie's knowledge of Holy Scripture was, I fear, limited. +Possibly my remarks recalled some childish remembrance similar to my +own. He said, "Oh yes, to be sure. Yes, dear." + +"Do you think the dogs went with the poor beggar?" I asked. "Do you +think the angels took them too?" + +"I don't know," said Mr. George. "I hope they did." + +There was a pause, and then I asked, in awe-struck tones, "Will the +angels fetch Papa, do you think?" + +Mr. George had evidently decided to follow my theological lead, and he +replied, "Yes, Margery dear." + +"Shall you see them?" I asked. + +"No, no, Margery. I'm not good enough to see angels." + +"_I_ think you're very good," said I. "And please be good, Mr. George, +and then the angels will fetch you, and perhaps me, and Mamma, and +perhaps Ayah, and perhaps Bustle, and perhaps Clive." Bustle was Mr. +Abercrombie's dog, and Clive was a mastiff, the dog of the regiment, and +a personal friend of mine. + +"Very well, Margery dear. And now you must be good too, and you must let +me take you to bed, for it's morning now, and I have had no sleep at +all." + +"Is it to-morrow now?" I asked; "because, if it's to-morrow, it's my +birthday." And I began to cry afresh, because Papa had promised that I +should dine with him, and had promised me a present also. + +"I'll give you a birthday present," said my long-suffering friend; and +he began to unfasten a locket that hung at his watch-chain. It was of +Indian gold, with forget-me-nots in turquoise stones upon it. He opened +it and pulled out a photograph, which he tore to bits, and then trampled +underfoot. + +"There, Margery, there's a locket for you; you can throw it into the +fire, or do anything you like with it. And I wish you many happy returns +of the day." And he finally fastened it round my neck with his +Trichinopoli watch-chain, leaving his watch loose in his +waistcoat-pocket. The locket and chain pleased me, and I suffered him to +carry me to bed. Then, as he was parting from me, I thought of my father +again, and asked: + +"Do you think the angels have fetched Papa _now_, Mr. George?" + +"I think they have, Margery." + +Whereupon I cried myself to sleep. And this was my sixth birthday. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BULLERS--MATILDA TAKES ME UP--WE FALL OUT--MR. GEORGE. + + +Major Buller took me home to his house after my father's death. My +father had left his affairs in his hands, and in those of a friend in +England--the Mr. Arkwright he had spoken of. I believe they were both +trustees under my mother's marriage settlement. + +The Bullers were relations of mine. Mrs. Buller was my mother's cousin. +She was a kind-hearted, talkative lady, and good-looking, though no +longer very young. She dressed as gaily as my poor mother, though, +somehow, not with quite so good an effect. She copied my mother's style, +and sometimes wore things exactly similar to hers; but the result was +not the same. I have heard Mrs. Minchin say that my mother took a +malicious pleasure, at times, in wearing costumes that would have been +most trying to beauty less radiant and youthful than hers, for the fun +of seeing "poor Theresa" appear in a similar garb with less success. But +Mrs. Minchin's tales had always a sting in them! + +Mrs. Buller received me very kindly. She kissed me, and told me to call +her "Aunt Theresa," which I did ever afterwards. Aunt Theresa's +daughters and I were like sisters. They showed me their best frocks, and +told me exactly all that had been ordered in the parcel that was coming +out from England. + +"Don't you have your hair put in papers?" said Matilda, whose own curls +sat stiffly round her head as regularly as the rolls of a lawyer's wig. +"Are your socks like lace? Doesn't your Ayah dress you every afternoon?" + +Matilda "took me up." She was four years older than I was, which +entitled her to blend patronage with her affection for me. In the +evening of the day on which I went to the Bullers, she took me by the +hand, and tossing her curls said, "I have taken you up, Margery +Vandaleur. Mrs. Minchin told Mamma that she has taken the bride up. I +heard her say that the bride was a sweet little puss, only so childish. +That's just what Mrs. Minchin said. I heard her. And I shall say so of +you, too, as I've taken you up. You're a sweet little puss. And of +course you're childish, because you're a child," adds Miss Matilda, with +an air. For had not she begun to write her own age with two figures? + +Had I known then as much as I learned afterwards of what it meant to be +"taken up" by Mrs. Minchin, I might not have thought the comparison a +good omen for my friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs. +Minchin meant an equally hot quarrel at no very distant date. The +squabble with the bride was not slow to come, but Matilda and I fell out +first. I think she was tyrannical, and I know I was peevish. My Ayah +spoilt me; I spoke very broken English, and by no means understood all +that the Bullers said to me; besides which, I was feverishly unhappy at +intervals about my father. + +It was two months before Mrs. Minchin found out that her sweet little +puss was a deceitful little cat; but at the end of two days I had +offended Matilda, and we plunged into a war of words such as children +wage when they squabble. + +"I won't show you any more of my dresses," said Matilda. + +"I've seen them all," I boldly asserted; and the stroke told. + +"You don't know that," said Matilda. + +"Yes, I do." + +"No, you don't." + +"Well, show me the others then." + +"No, that I won't." + +"I don't care." + +"I've got a blue silk coming out from England," Matilda continued, "but +you haven't." + +"I've got a pink silk here," said I, "and pink shoes." + +"Ah, but you can't wear them now your papa's dead," said Matilda; "Mamma +says you will have to wear black for twelve months." + +I am sure Matilda did not mean to be cruel, but this blow cut me deeply. +I remember the tide of misery that seemed to flood over my mind, to this +day. I was miserable because my father was dead, and I could not go to +him for comfort. I was miserable because I was out of temper, and +Matilda had had the best of the quarrel. I was miserable--poor little +wretch!--because I could not wear my pink silk, now my father was dead. +I put my hands to my eyes, and screaming, "Papa! Papa!" I rushed out +into the verandah. + +As I ran out, some one ran in; we struck against each other, and Bustle +and I rolled over on to the floor. In a moment more I was in Mr. +Abercrombie's arms, and sobbing out my woes to him. + +I am sorry to say that he swore rather loudly when he heard what Matilda +had said, and I fancy that he lectured her when I had gone to Ayah, for +she came to me presently and begged my pardon. Of course we were at once +as friendly as before. Many another breach was there between us after +that, hastily made and quickly healed. But the bride and Mrs. Minchin +never came to terms. + +"Mr. George" remained my devoted friend. I looked for him as I used to +look for my father. The first time I saw him after I came to the Bullers +was on the day of my father's funeral. He was there, and came back with +Major Buller. I was on Mr. George's knee in a moment, with my hand +through the crape upon his sleeve. The Major slowly unfastened his +sword-belt, and laid it down with a sigh, saying, "We've lost a good +man, Abercrombie, and a true friend." + +"You don't know what a friend to me," said Mr. George impetuously. "Why, +look here, sir. A month or two ago I'd outrun the constable--I always am +getting into a mess of some sort--and Vandaleur found it out and lent me +the money." + +"You're not the first youngster he has helped by many, to my knowledge," +said Major Buller. + +"But that's not all, sir," said Mr. George, standing up with me in his +arms. "When we first went in that night, you remember his speaking +privately to me once? Well, what he said was, 'I think I'm following the +rest, Abercrombie, and I wanted to speak to you about this.' He had got +my I.O.U. in his hand, and he tore it across, and said, 'Don't bother +any more about it; but keep straight, my boy, if you can, for your +people's sake.' I'm sadly given to going crooked, sir, but if anything +could make a fellow----" + +Mr. George got no further in his sentence, but the Major seemed to +understand what he meant, for he spoke very kindly to him, and they left +me for a bit and walked up and down the verandah together. Just before +Mr. George left, I heard him say, "Have you heard anything of Mrs. +Vandaleur?" + +"I wrote to her, in the best fashion that I could," said Major Buller. +"But there's no breaking rough news gently, Abercrombie. I ought to hear +from her soon." + +But he never did hear from her. My poor mother had fled from the cholera +only to fall a victim to fever. The news of my father's death was, I +believe, the immediate cause of the relapse in which she died. + +And so I became an orphan. + +Shortly afterwards the regiment was ordered home, and the Bullers took +me with them. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +SALES--MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE--MRS. MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH THE BRIDE--MRS. +MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH EVERYBODY--MRS. MINCHIN IS RECONCILED--THE VOYAGE +HOME--A DEATH ON BOARD. + + +I only remember a little of our voyage home in the troop-ship, but I +have heard so much of it, from the elder Buller girls and the ladies of +the regiment, that I seem quite familiar with all that happened; and I +hardly know now what I remember myself, and what has been recalled or +suggested to me by hearing the other ladies talk. + +There was no lack of subjects for talk when the news came that the +regiment was ordered home. As Aunt Theresa repeatedly remarked, "There +are a great many things to be considered." And she considered them all +day long--by word of mouth. + +The Colonel (that is, the new Colonel)--he had just returned from leave +in the hills--and his wife behaved rather shabbily, it was thought. +"But," as Mrs. Minchin said, "what could you expect? They say she was +the daughter of a wholesale draper in the City. And trade in the blood +always peeps out." We knew for certain that before there was a word said +about the regiment going home, it had been settled that the Colonel's +wife should go to England, where her daughters were being educated, and +take the two youngest children with her. Her passage in the mail-steamer +was all but taken, if not quite. And then, when they heard of the +troop-ship, she stayed to go home in that. "Money can be no object to +them," said Mrs. Minchin, "for one of the City people belonging to her +has died lately, and left her--I can't tell you how many thousands. +Indeed, they've heaps of money, and now he's got the regiment he ought +to retire. And I must say, I think it's very hard on you, dear Mrs. +Buller. With all your family, senior officer's wife's accommodation +would be little enough, for a long voyage." + +"Which is no reason why my wife should have better accommodation than +she is entitled to, more than any other lady on board," observed Uncle +Buller. "The Quartermaster's wife has more children than we have, and +you know how much room she will get." + +"Quartermaster's wife!" muttered Mrs. Minchin. "She would have been +accommodated with the women of the regiment if we had gone home three +months ago (at which time Quartermaster Curling was still only a +sergeant)." + +Uncle Buller made no reply. He was not fond of Mrs. Minchin, and he +never disputed a point with her. + +One topic of the day was "sales." We all had to sell off what we did not +want to take home, and the point was to choose the right moment for +doing so. + +"I shan't be the first," said Aunt Theresa decidedly. "The first sales +are always failures somehow. People are depressed. Then they know that +there are plenty more to come, and they hang back. But further on, +people have just got into an extravagant humour, and would go +bargain-hunting to fifty sales a day. Later still, they find out that +they've got all they want." + +"And a great deal that they don't want," put in Uncle Buller. + +"Which is all the same thing," said Aunt Theresa. "So I shall sell about +the middle." Which she did, demanding her friends' condolences +beforehand on the way in which her goods and chattels would be "given +away," and receiving their congratulations afterwards upon the high +prices that they fetched. + +To do Aunt Theresa justice, if she was managing, she was quite honest. + +[Eleanor is shocked by some of the things I say about people in our own +rank of life. She believes that certain vulgar vices, such as cheating, +lying, gluttony, petty gossip, malicious mischief-making, etc., are +confined to the lower orders, or, as she wisely and kindly phrases it, +to people who know no better. She laughs at me, and I laugh at myself, +when I say (to support my own views) that I know more of the world than +she does; since what I know of the world beyond this happy corner of it +I learned when I was a mere child. But though we laugh, I can remember a +good deal. I have heard polished gentlemen lie, at a pinch, like the +proverbial pick-pocket, and pretty ladies fib as well as servant-girls. +Of course, I do not mean to say that as many ladies as servant-girls +tell untruths. But Eleanor would fain believe that the lie which Solomon +discovered to be "continually on the lips of the untaught" is not on the +lips of those who "know better" at all. As to dishonesty, too, I should +be sorry to say that customers cheat as much as shopkeepers, but I do +think that many people who ought to "know better" seem to forget that +their honour as well as their interest is concerned in every bargain. +The question then arises, do people in our rank know so much better on +these points of moral conduct than those below them? If Eleanor and her +parents are "old-fashioned" (and the boys think us quite behind the +times), I fancy, that perhaps high principle and a nice sense of honour +are not so well taught now as they used to be. Noble sentiments are not +the fashion. The very phrase provokes a smile of ridicule. But I do not +know whether the habit of uttering ignoble ones in "chaff" does not at +last bring the tone of mind down to the low level. It is so terribly +easy to be mean, and covetous, and selfish, and cowardly untrue, if the +people by whose good opinion one's character lives will comfortably +confess that they also "look out for themselves," and "take care of +Number One," and think "money's the great thing in this world," and hold +"the social lie" to be a necessary part of social intercourse. I know +that once or twice it has happened that young people with whom we have +been thrown have said things which have made high-principled Eleanor +stand aghast in honourable horror; and that that speechless indignation +of hers has been as much lost upon them as the touch of a feather on the +hide of a rhinoceros. Eleanor is more impatient than I am on such +subjects. I who have been trained in more than one school myself, am +sorry for those who have never known the higher teaching. Eleanor thinks +that modesty, delicacy of mind and taste, and uprightness in word and +deed, are innate in worthy characters. Where she finds them absent, she +is apt to dilate her nostrils, and say, in that low, emphatic voice +which is her excited tone, "There are some things that you cannot _put +into_ anybody!" and so turn her back for ever on the offender. Or, as +she once said to a friend of the boys, who was staying with us, in the +heat of argument, "I supposed that honourable men, like poets, are born, +not made." I, indeed, do believe these qualities to be in great measure +inherited; but I believe them also to come of training, and to be more +easily lost than Eleanor will allow. She has only lived in one moral +atmosphere. I think that the standard of a family or a social circle +falls but too easily; and in all humbleness of mind, I say that I have +reason to believe that in this respect, as in other matters, elevation +and amendment are possible. + +However, this is one of the many subjects we discuss, rocking and pacing +the kitchen to the howling of the wind. We have confessed that our +experience is very small, and our opinions still unfixed in the matter, +so it is unlikely that I shall settle it to my own, or anybody's +satisfaction, in the pages of this biography.] + +To return to Aunt Theresa. She was, as I said, honest. She chose a good +moment for our sale; but she did not "doctor" the things. For the credit +of the regiment, I feel ashamed to confess that everybody was not so +scrupulous. One lady sat in our drawing-room, with twenty-five pounds' +worth of lace upon her dress, and congratulated herself on having sold +some toilette-china as sound, of which she had daintily doctored two +fractures with an invaluable cement. The pecuniary gain may have been +half-a-crown. The loss in self-respect she did not seem to estimate. +Aunt Theresa would not have done it herself, but she laughed +encouragingly. It is difficult to be strait-laced with a lady who had so +much old point, and whose silks are so stiff that she can rustle down +your remonstrances. Another friend, a young officer whose personal +extravagance was a proverb even at a station in India, boasted for a +week of having sold a rickety knick-knack shelf to a man who was going +off to the hills for five-and-twenty rupees when it was not worth six. I +have heard him swear at tailors, servants, and subordinates of all +kinds, for cheating. I do not think it ever dawned upon his mind that +common honesty was a virtue in which he himself was wanting. As to Mrs. +Minchin's tales on this subject--but Mrs. Minchin's tales were not to be +relied upon. + +It was about this time that Mrs. Minchin and the bride quarrelled. In a +few weeks after her arrival, the bride knew all the ladies of the +regiment and the society of the station, and then showed little +inclination to be bear-led by Mrs. Minchin. She met that terrible lady +so smartly on one occasion that she retired, worsted, for the afternoon, +and the bride drove triumphantly round the place, and called on all her +friends, looking as soft as a Chinchilla muff, and dropping at every +bungalow the tale of something that Mrs. Minchin had said, by no means +to the advantage of the inmates. + +It was in this way that Aunt Theresa came to know what Mrs. Minchin had +said about her wearing half-mourning for my father and mother. That she +knew better than to go into deep black, which is trying to indefinite +complexions, but was equal to any length of grief in those lavenders, +and delicate combinations of black and white, which are so becoming to +everybody, especially to people who are not quite so young as they have +been. + +In the warmth of her own indignation at these unwarrantable remarks, and +of the bride's ready sympathy, Aunt Theresa felt herself in candour +bound to reveal what Mrs. Minchin had told her about the bride's having +sold a lot of her wedding presents at the sale for fancy prices; they +being new-fashioned ornaments, and so forth, not yet to be got at the +station. + +The result of this general information all round was, of course, a +quarrel between Mrs. Minchin and nearly every lady in the regiment. The +bride had not failed to let "the Colonel's lady" know what Mrs. Minchin +thought of her going home in the troop-ship, and had made a call upon +the Quartermaster's wife for the pleasure of making her acquainted with +Mrs. Minchin's warm wish that the regiment had been ordered home three +months sooner, when Mrs. Curling and the too numerous little Curlings +would not have been entitled to intrude upon the ladies' cabin. + +And yet, strange to say, before we were half-way to England, Mrs. +Minchin was friendly once more with all but the bride; and the bride was +at enmity with every lady on board. The truth is, Mrs. Minchin, though a +gossip of the deepest dye, was kind-hearted, after a fashion. Her +restless energy, which chiefly expended itself in petty social plots, +and the fomentation of quarrels, was not seldom employed also in +practical kindness towards those who happened to be in favour with her. +She was really interested--for good or for evil--in those with whose +affairs she meddled, and if she was a dangerous enemy, and a yet more +dangerous friend, she was neither selfish nor illiberal. + +The bride, on the other hand, had no real interest whatever in anybody's +affairs but her own, and combined in the highest degree those qualities +of personal extravagance and general meanness which not unfrequently go +together. + +A long voyage is no small test of temper; and it was a situation in +which Mrs. Minchin's best qualities shone. It was proportionably +unfavourable to those of the bride. Her maid was sick, and she was +slovenly. She was sick herself, and then her selfishness and discontent +knew no check. The other ladies bore their own little troubles, and +helped each other; but under the peevish egotism of the bride, her +warmest friends revolted. It was then that Mrs. Minchin resumed her sway +amongst us. + +With Aunt Theresa she was soon reconciled. Mrs. Buller's memory was +always hazy, both in reference to what she said herself, and to what was +said to her. She was too good-natured to strain it to recall past +grievances. Her indignation had not lasted much beyond that afternoon in +which the bride scattered discord among her acquaintances. She had +relieved herself by outpouring the tale of Mrs. Minchin's treachery to +Uncle Buller, and then taking him warmly to task for the indifference +with which he heard her wrongs; and had ended by laughing heartily when +he compared the probable encounter between Mrs. Minchin and the bride to +the deadly struggles of two quarrelsome "praying-mantises" in his +collection. + +[Major Buller was a naturalist, and took home some rare and beautiful +specimens of Indian insects.] + +It was an outbreak of sickness amongst the little Curlings which led to +the reconciliation with the Quartermaster's wife. Neither her kindness +of heart nor her love of managing other folks' matters would permit Mrs. +Minchin to be passive then. She made the first advances, and poor Mrs. +Curling gratefully responded. + +"I'm sure, Mrs. Minchin," said she, "I don't wonder at any one thinking +the children would be in the way, poor dears. But of course, as Curling +said----" + +"GOD bless you, my good woman," Mrs. Minchin broke in. "Don't let us go +back to that. We all know pretty well what Mrs. Seymour's made of, now. +Let's go to the children. I'm as good a sick-nurse as most people, and +if you keep up your heart we'll pull them all through before we get to +the Cape." + +But with all her zeal (and it did not stop short of a quarrel with the +surgeon) and all her devotion, which never slackened, Mrs. Minchin did +not "pull them all through." + +We were just off the Cape when Arthur Curling died. He was my own age, +and in the beginning of the voyage we had been playfellows. Of all the +children who swarmed on deck to the distraction of (at least) the +unmarried officers of the regiment, he had been the noisiest and the +merriest. He made fancy ships in corners, to which he admitted the other +children as fancy passengers, or fancy ship's officers of various +grades. Once he employed a dozen of us to haul at a rope as if we were +"heaving the log." Owing to an unexpected coil, it slackened suddenly, +and we all fell over one another at the feet of two young officers who +were marching up and down, arm-in-arm, absorbed in conversation. Their +anger was loud as well as deep, but it did not deter Arthur Curling from +further exploits, or stop his ceaseless chatter about what he would do +when he was a man and the captain of a vessel. + +He did not live to be either the one or the other. Some very rough +weather off the Cape was fatal to him at a critical point in his +illness. How Mrs. Minchin contrived to keep her own feet and to nurse +the poor boy as she did was a marvel. He died on her knees. + +The weather had been rough up to the time of his death, but it was a +calm lovely morning on which his body was committed to the deep. The +ship's bell tolled at daybreak, and all the ladies but the bride were +with poor Mrs. Curling at the funeral. Mrs. Seymour lay in her berth, +and whined complaints of "that horrid bell." She displayed something +between an interesting terror and a shrewish anger because there was "a +body on board." When she said that the Curlings ought to be thankful to +have one child less to provide for, the other ladies hurried indignantly +from the cabin. + +The early morning air was fresh and mild. The sea and sky were grey, but +peaceful. The decks were freshly washed. The sailors in various parts of +the ship uncovered their heads. The Colonel and several officers were +present. I had earnestly begged to be there also, and finding Mr. +George, I stood with my hand in his. + +Mrs. Curling's grief had passed the point of tears. She had not shed one +since the boy died, though Mrs. Minchin had tried hard to move her to +the natural relief of weeping. She only stood in silent agony, though +the Quartermaster's cheeks were wet, and most of the ladies sobbed +aloud. + +As the little coffin slid over the hatchway into the quiet sea, the sun +rose, and a long level beam covered the place where the body had gone +down. + +Then, with a sudden cry, the mother burst into tears. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A HOME STATION--WHAT MRS. BULLER THOUGHT OF IT--WHAT MAJOR BULLER +THOUGHT OF IT. + + +Riflebury, in the south of England--our next station--was a very lively +place. "There was always something going on." "Somebody was always +dropping in." "People called and stayed to lunch in a friendly way." +"One was sure of some one at afternoon tea." "What with croquet and +archery in the Gardens, meeting friends on the Esplanade, concerts at +the Rooms, shopping, and changing one's novels at the circulating +library, one really never had a dull hour." So said "everybody;" and one +or two people, including Major Buller, added that "One never had an hour +to one's self." + +"If you had any one occupation, you'd know how maddening it is," he +exclaimed, one day, in a fit of desperation. + +"Any one occupation!" cried Mrs. Buller, to whom he had spoken. "I'm +sure, Edward, I'm always busy. I never have a quiet moment from morning +to night, it seems to me. But it is so like you men! You can stick to +one thing all along, and your meals come to you as if they dropped out +of the skies, and your clothes come ready-made from the tailor's (and +very dearly they have to be paid for, too!); and when one is ordering +dinner and luncheon, and keeping one's clothes decent, and looking after +the children and the servants, and taking your card, and contriving +excuses that are not fibs for you to the people you ought to call on, +from week's end to week's end--you say one has no occupation." + +"Well, well, my dear," said the Major, "I know you have all the trouble +of the household, but I meant to say that if you had any pursuit, any +study----" + +"And as to visitors," continued Aunt Theresa, who always pursued her own +train of ideas, irrespective of replies, "I'm sure society's no pleasure +to me; I only call on the people you ought to call on, and keep up a few +acquaintances for the children's sake. You wouldn't have us without a +friend in the world when the girls come out; and really, what with +regimental duties in the morning, and insects afterwards, Edward, you +are so absorbed, that if it wasn't for a lady friend coming in now and +then, I should hardly have a soul to speak to." + +The Major was melted in a moment. + +"I am afraid I am a very inattentive husband," he said. "You must +forgive me, my dear. And this sprained ankle keeping me in makes me +cross, too. And I had so reckoned on these days at home to finish my +list of Coleoptera, and get some dissecting and mounting done. But +to-day, Mrs. Minchin brought her work directly after breakfast, and that +empty-headed fellow Elliott dropped in for lunch, and we had callers all +the afternoon, and a _coterie_ for tea, and Mrs. St. John (who seems to +get through life somehow without the most indefinite notion of how time +passes) came in just when tea was over, and you had to order a fresh +supply when we should have been dressing for dinner, and the dinner was +spoilt by waiting till she discovered that she had no idea (whoever did +know her have an idea?) how late it was, and that Mr. St. John would be +so angry. And now you want me to go in a cab to a concert at the Rooms +to meet all these people over again!" + +"I'm sure I don't care for Mrs. St. John a bit more than you do," said +Mrs. Buller. "And really she does repeat such things sometimes--without +ever looking round to see if the girls are in the room. She told me a +thing to-day that old Lady Watford had told her." + +"My dear, her ladyship's stories are well known. Cremorne's wife hears +them from her, and tells them to her husband, and he tells them to the +other fellows. I can always hear them if I wish. But I do not care to. +But if you don't like Mrs. St. John, Theresa, what on earth made you +ask her to come and sit with you in the morning?" + +"Well, my dear, what can I do?" said Mrs. Buller. "She's always saying +that everybody is so unsociable, and that she is so dull, she doesn't +know what to do with herself, and begging me to take my work and go and +sit with her in a morning. How can I go and leave the children and the +servants, just at the time of day when everything wants to be set going? +So I thought I'd better ask her to come here instead. It's a great bore, +but I can keep an eye over the house, and if any one else drops in I can +leave them together. It's not me that she wants, it's something to amuse +her. + +"You talk about my having nothing to do," Aunt Theresa plaintively +continued. "But I'm sure I can hardly sleep at night sometimes for +thinking of all I ought to do and haven't done. Mrs. Jerrold, you know, +made me promise faithfully when we were coming away to write to her +every mail, and I never find time. Every week, as it comes round, I +think I will, and can't. I used to think that one good thing about +coming home would be the no more writing for the English mail; but the +Indian mail is quite as bad. And I'm sure mail-day seems to come round +quicker than any other day of the week. I quite dread Fridays. And then +your mother and sisters are always saying I never write. And I heard +from Mrs. Pryce Smith only this morning, telling me I owed her two +letters; and I don't know what to say to her when I do write, for she +knows nobody _here_, and I know nobody _there_. And we've never returned +the Ridgeways' call, my dear. And we've never called on the Mercers +since we dined there. And Mrs. Kirkshaw is always begging me to drive +out and spend the day at the Abbey. I know she is getting offended, I've +put her off so often; and Mrs. Minchin says she is very touchy. And Mrs. +Taylor looks quite reproachfully at me because I've not been near the +Dorcas meetings for so long. But it's all very well for people who have +no children to work at these things. A mother's time is not her own, and +charity begins at home. I'm sure I never seem to be at rest, and yet +people are never satisfied. Lady Burchett says she's certain I am never +at home, for she always misses me when she calls; and Mrs. Graham says I +never go out, she's sure, for she never meets me anywhere." + +"Isn't all that just what I say?" said Major Buller, laying down his +knife and fork. (The discussion took place at dinner.) "It's the tyranny +of the idle over the busy; and why, in the name of common sense, should +it be yielded to? Why should friends be obliged, at the peril of +disparagement of their affection or good manners, to visit each other +when they do not want to go--to receive each other when it is not +convenient, and to write to each other when there is nothing to say? You +women, my dear, I must say, are more foolish in this respect than men. +Men simply won't write long letters to their friends when they've +nothing to say, and I don't think their friendships suffer by it. And +though there are heaps of idle gossiping fellows, as well as ladies with +the same qualities, a man who was busy would never tolerate them to his +own inconvenience, much less invite them to persecute him. We are more +straightforward with each other, and that is, after all, the firmest +foundation for friendship. It is partly a misplaced amiability, a phase +of the unselfishness in which you excel us, and partly also, I think, a +want of some measuring quality that makes you women exact unreasonable +things, make impossible promises, and after blandly undertaking a +multiplicity of small matters that would tax the method of a man of +business to accomplish punctually, put your whole time at the disposal +of every fool who is pleased to waste it." + +"It's all very well talking, Edward," said Aunt Theresa. "But what is +one to do?" + +"Make a stand," said the Major. "When you're busy, and can't +conveniently see people, let your servant tell them so in as many words. +The friendship that can't survive that is hardly worth keeping, I +think. Eh, my dear?" + +But I suppose the stand was to be made further on, for Major Buller took +Aunt Theresa to the concert at "the Rooms." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DRESS AND MANNER--I EXAMINE MYSELF--MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER. + + +When we began our biographies we resolved that neither of us should read +the other's till both were finished. This was partly because we thought +it would be more satisfactory to be able to go straight through them, +partly as a check on a propensity for beginning things and not finishing +them, to which we are liable, and partly from the childish habit of +"saving up the treat for the last," as we used--in "old times"--to pick +the raisins out of the puddings and lay them by for a _bonne bouche_ +when we should have done our duty by the more solid portion. + +But our resolve has given way. We began by very much wishing to break +it, and we have ended by finding excellent reasons for doing so. + +We both wish to read the biographies--why should we tease ourselves by +sticking obstinately to our first opinion? + +No doubt it would be nice to read them "straight through." But we are +rather apt to devour books at a pace unfavourable to book-digestion, so +perhaps it will be better still to read them by bits, as one reads a +thing that "comes out in numbers." + +And in short, at this point Eleanor took mine, and has read it, and I +have read hers. She lays down mine, saying, "But, my dear, you don't +remember all this?" + +Which is true. What I have recorded of my first English home is more +what I know of it from other sources than what I positively remember. +And yet I have positive memories of my own about it, too. + +I have hinted that my poor young mother did not look after me much. Also +that the Ayah, who had a mother's love and care for me, paid very little +attention to my being tidy in person or dress, except when I was +exhibited to "company." + +But my mother was dead. Ayah (after a terrible parting) was left behind +in India. And from the time that I passed into Aunt Theresa's charge, +matters were quite changed. + +I do remember the dresses I had then, and the keen interest I took in +the subject of dress at a very early age. A very keen interest was taken +in it by Aunt Theresa herself, by Aunt Theresa's daughters, and by the +ladies of Aunt Theresa's acquaintance. I think I may say that it formed +(at least one of) the principal subjects of conversation during all +those working hours of the day which the ladies so freely sacrificed to +each other. Mrs. Buller was truly kind, and I am sure that if I had +depended in every way upon her, she would have given to my costume as +much care as she bestowed upon that of her own daughters. But my parents +had not been poor; there was no lack of money for my maintenance, and +thus "no reason," as Aunt Theresa said, why my clothes should not be +"decent," and "decent" with Aunt Theresa and her friends was a synonym +for "fashionable." + +Thus my first black frock was such an improvement (in fashion) upon the +pink silk one, as to deprive my deep mourning of much of its gloom. Mrs. +(Colonel) St. Quentin could not refuse to lend one of her youngest +little girl's frocks as a copy, for "the poor little orphan"; and a bevy +of ladies sat in consultation over it, for all Mrs. St. Quentin's things +were well worth copying. + +"Keep a paper pattern, dear," said Mrs. Minchin; "it will come in for +the girls. Her things are always good." + +And Mrs. Buller kept a paper pattern. + +I remember the dress quite clearly. It is fixed in my mind by an +incident connected with it. It had six crape tucks, of which fact I was +very proud, having heard a good deal said about it. The first time Mr. +George came to our bungalow, after I had begun to wear it, I strutted up +to him holding my skirt out, and my head up. + +"Look at my black frock, Mr. George," said I; "it has got six crape +tucks." + +Matilda was most precocious in--at least--one way: she could repeat +grown-up observations of wonderful length. + +"It's the best crape," she said; "it won't spot. Cut on the bias. +They're not real tucks though, Margery. They're laid on; Mrs. Minchin +said so." + +"They are real tucks," I stoutly asserted. + +"No, they're not. They're cut on the bias, and laid on to imitate +tucks," Matilda repeated. I think she was not sorry there should be some +weak point in the fashionable mourning in which she did not share. + +I turned to Mr. George, as usual. + +"Aren't they real tucks, Mr. George?" + +But Mr. George had a strange look on his face which puzzled and +disconcerted me. He only said, "Good heavens!" And all my after efforts +were vain to find out what he meant, and why he looked in that strange +manner. + +Little things that puzzle one in childhood remain long in one's memory. +For years I puzzled over that look of Mr. George's, and the remembrance +never was a pleasant one. It chilled my enthusiasm for my new dress at +the time, and made me feel inclined to cry. I think I have lived to +understand it. + +But I was not insensible of my great loss, though I took pride in my +fashionable mourning. I do not think I much connected the two in my +mind. I did not talk about my father to any one but Mr. George, but at +night I often lay awake and cried about him. This habit certainly +affected my health, and I had become a very thin, weak child when the +home voyage came to restore my strength. + +By the time we reached Riflebury, my fashionable new dress was neither +new nor fashionable. It was then that Mrs. Minchin ferreted out a +dressmaker whom Mrs. St. Quentin employed, and I was put under her +hands. + +The little Bullers' things were "made in the house," after the pattern +of mine. + +"And one sees the fashion-book, and gets a few hints," said Mrs. Buller. + +If Mr. George was not duly impressed by my fashionable mourning, I could +(young as I was) trace the effect of Aunt Theresa's care for my +appearance on other friends in the regiment. They openly remarked on it, +and did not scruple to do so in my hearing. Callers from the +neighbourhood patronized me also. Pretty ladies in fashionably pitched +bonnets smiled, and said, "One of your little ones, Mrs. Buller? What a +pretty little thing!" and duly sympathized over the sad story which Aunt +Theresa seemed almost to enjoy relating. Sometimes it was agony to me to +hear the oft-repeated tale of my parents' death, and then again I +enjoyed a sort of gloomy importance which gave me satisfaction. I even +rehearsed such scenes in my mind when I was in bed, shedding real tears +as (in the person of Aunt Theresa) I related the sad circumstances of my +own grief to an imaginary acquaintance; and then, with dry eyes, +prolonging the "fancy" with compliments and consolations of the most +flattering nature. I always took care to fancy some circumstances that +led to my being in my best dress on the occasion. + +Gentleman company did not haunt my new home as was the case with the +Indian one. But now and then officers of the regiment called on Mrs. +Buller, and would say, "Is that poor Vandaleur's child? Dear me! Very +interesting little thing;" and speculate in my hearing on the +possibility of my growing up like my mother. + +"'Pon my soul, she _is_ like her!" said one of the "middle ones" one +day, examining me through his eyeglass, "Th' same expressive eyes, you +know, and just that graceful gracious little manner poor Mrs. Vandaleur +had. By Jove, it was a shocking thing! She was an uncommonly pretty +woman." + +"You never saw _her_ mother, my good fellow," said one of the "old ones" +who was present. "She _had_ a graceful gracious manner, if you like, and +Mrs. Vandaleur was not to be named in the same day with her. Mrs. +Vandaleur knew how to dress, I grant you----" + +"You may go and play, Margery dear," said Aunt Theresa, with kindly +delicacy. + +The "old one" had lowered his voice, but still I could hear what he +said, as Mrs. Buller saw. + +When my father was not spoken of, my feelings were very little hurt. On +this occasion my mind was engaged simply with the question whether I did +or did not inherit my mother's graces. I ran to a little looking-glass +in the nursery and examined my eyes; but when I tried to make them +"expressive," I either frowned so unpleasantly, or stared so absurdly, +that I could not flatter myself on the point. + +The girls were out; I had nothing to do; the nursery was empty. I walked +about, shaking out my skirts, and thinking of my gracious and graceful +manner. I felt a pardonable curiosity to see this for myself, and, +remembering the big glass in Aunt Theresa's room, I stole out to see if +I could make use of it unobserved. But the gentlemen had gone, and I +feared that Mrs. Buller might come up-stairs. In a few minutes, however, +the door-bell rang, and I heard the sound of a visitor being ushered +into the drawing-room. + +I seized the chance, and ran to Aunt Theresa's room. + +The mirror was "full length," and no one could see me better than I now +saw myself. Once more I attempted to make expressive eyes, but the +result was not favourable to vanity. Then I drew back to the door, and, +advancing upon the mirror with mincing steps, I threw all the grace and +graciousness of which I was conscious into my manner, and holding out my +hand, said, in a "company voice," "_Charmed_ to see you, I'm sure!" + +"_Mais c'est bien drle!_" said a soft voice close behind me. + +I had not heard the door open, and yet there stood Aunt Theresa on the +threshold, and with her a little old lady. The little old lady had a +bright, delicately cut face, eyes of whose expressiveness there could be +no question, and large grey curls. She wore a large hat, with large bows +tied under her chin, and a dark-green satin driving-cloak lined with +white and grey fur. + +She looked like a fairy godmother, like the ghost of an ancestor--like +"somebody out of a picture." She was my great-grandmother. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER--THE DUCHESS'S CARRIAGE--MRS. O'CONNOR IS CURIOUS. + + +I was much discomfited. My position was not a dignified one at the best, +and in childhood such small shames seem too terrible ever to be +outlived. My great-grandmother laughed heartily, and Mrs. Buller, whose +sense of humour was small, looked annoyed. + +"What in the world are you doing here, Margery?" she said. + +I had little or no moral courage, and I had not been trained in high +principles. If I could have thought of a plausible lie, I fear I should +have told it in my dilemma. As it was, I could not; I only put my hand +to my burning cheek, and said: + +"Let me see!" + +I must certainly have presented a very comical appearance, but the +little old lady's smiles died away, and her eyes filled with tears. + +"It is strange, is it not," she said to Aunt Theresa, "that, after all, +I should laugh at this meeting?" + +Then, sitting down on a box by the door, she held out her hands to me, +saying: + +"Come, little Margery, there is no sin in practising one's good manners +before the mirror. Come and kiss me, dear child; I am your father's +father's mother. Is not that to be an old woman? I am your +great-grandmother." + +My great-grandmother's voice was very soft, her cheek was soft, her +cloak was soft. I buried my face in the fur, and cried quietly to myself +with shame and excitement; she stroking my head, and saying: + +"_Pauvre petite!_--thou an orphan, and I doubly childless! It is thus we +meet at last to join our hands across the graves of two generations of +those we love!" + +"It was a dreadful thing!" said Mrs. Buller, rummaging in her pocket for +a clean handkerchief. "I'm sure I never should forget it, if I lived a +thousand years. I never seemed able to realize that they were gone; it +was all so sudden." + +The old lady made no answer, and we all wept in silence. + +Aunt Theresa was the first to recover herself, and she insisted on our +coming down-stairs. A young regimental surgeon and his wife dropped in +to lunch, for which my great-grandmother stayed. We were sitting in the +drawing-room afterwards, when "Mrs. Vandaleur's carriage" was announced. +As my great-grandmother took leave of me, she took off a watch and chain +and hung them on my neck. It was a small French watch with an enamelled +back of dark blue, on which was the word "Souvenir" in small pearls. + +"I gave it to your grandfather long years ago, my child, and he gave it +back to me--before he sailed. I would only part with it to his son's +child. Farewell, _petite_! Be good, dear child--try to be good. Adieu, +Mrs. Buller, and a thousand thanks! Major Buller, I am at your service." + +Major Buller took the hand she held out to him and led the old lady to +the front door, whither we all followed them. + +Mrs. Vandaleur's carriage was before the steps. It was a very quaint +little box on two wheels, in by no means good repair. It was drawn by a +pony, white, old, and shaggy. At the pony's head stood a small boy in +decent, but not smart, plain clothes. + +"Put the mat over the wheel to save my dress, Adolphe," said the old +lady; and as the little boy obeyed her order she stepped nimbly into +the carriage, assisted by the Major. "The silk is old," she observed +complacently; "but it is my best, of course, or it would not have been +worn to-day," and she gave a graceful little bow towards Aunt Theresa; +"and I hope that, with care, it will serve as such for the rest of my +life, which cannot be very long." + +"If it wears as well as you do, Madam," said Major Buller, tucking her +in, "it may; not otherwise." + +The Surgeon was leaning over the other side of the little cart, and +seemed also to be making polite speeches. It recalled the way that men +used to hang upon my mother's carriage. The old lady smiled, and made +gracious little replies, and meanwhile deliberately took off her kid +gloves, folded, and put them into her pocket. She then drew on a pair of +old worsted ones. + +"Economy, economy," she said, smiling, and giving a hand on each side of +her to the two gentlemen. "May I trouble you for the reins? Many thanks. +Farewell, gentlemen! I cannot pretend to fear that my horse will catch +cold--his coat is too thick; but you may. Adieu, Mrs. Buller, once more. +Farewell, little one, I wish you good-morning, Madam. Adolphe, seat +yourself; make your bow, Adolphe. Adieu, dear friends!" + +She gave a flick with the whip, which the pony resented by shaking his +head; after which he seemed, so to speak, to snatch up the little cart, +my great-grandmother, and Adolphe, and to run off with them at a good +round pace. + +"What an extraordinary turn-out!" said the Surgeon's wife. (She was an +Irish attorney's daughter, with the commonest of faces, and the most +unprecedented of bonnets. She and her husband had lately "set up" a +waggonette, the expense of which just made it difficult for them to live +upon their means, and the varnish of which added a care to life.) "Fancy +driving down High Street in that!" she continued; "and just when +everybody is going out, too!" + +"Uncommon sensible little affair, I think," said the Surgeon. "Suits the +old lady capitally." + +"Mrs. Vandaleur," said Major Buller, "can afford to be independent of +appearances to an extent that would not perhaps be safe for most of us." + +"You're right there, Buller," said the Surgeon. "Wonderfully queenly she +is! That fur cloak looks like an ermine robe on her." + +"I don't think you'd like to see me in it!" tittered his wife. + +"I don't say I should," returned the Surgeon, rather smartly. + +"My dear," said Mrs. Buller, "you must make up your mind to be jealous +of the Duchess. All gentlemen are mad about her." + +"The Duchess!" said Mrs. O'Connor, in a tone of respect. "I thought you +said----" + +"Oh, she is not really a duchess, my dear; it's only a nickname. I'll +tell you all about it some day. It's a long story." + +Discovering that Mrs. Vandaleur was a family connection, and not a +chance visitor from the neighbourhood, Mrs. O'Connor apologized for her +remarks, and tried to extract the Duchess's history from Aunt Theresa +then and there. But Mrs. Buller would only promise to tell it "another +time." + +"I'm dying with curiosity," said Mrs. O'Connor, as she took leave, "I +shall run in to-morrow afternoon on purpose to hear all about it. Can +you do with me, dear Mrs. Buller?" + +"Pray come," said Aunt Theresa warmly, with an amiable disregard of two +engagements and some arrears of domestic business. + +I was in the drawing-room next day when Mrs. O'Connor arrived. + +"May I come in, dear Mrs. Buller?" she said, "I won't stay two minutes; +but I _must_ hear about the Duchess. Now, _are_ you busy?" + +"Not at all," said Aunt Theresa, who was in the midst of making up her +tradesmen's books. "Pray sit down, and take off your bonnet." + +"It's hardly worth while, for I _can't_ stay," said Mrs. O'Connor, +taking her bonnet off, and setting it down so as not to crush the +flowers. + +As Mrs. O'Connor stayed two hours and a half, and as Aunt Theresa +granted my request to be allowed to hear her narrative, I learnt a good +deal of the history of my great-grandmother. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +A FAMILY HISTORY. + + +"We are not really connected," Mrs. Buller began. "She is Margery's +great-grandmother, and Margery and I are second cousins. That's all. But +I knew her long ago, before my poor cousin Alice married Captain +Vandaleur. And I have heard the whole story over and over again." + +I have heard the story more than once also. I listened with open mouth +to Aunt Theresa at this time, and often afterwards questioned her about +my "ancestors," as I may almost call them. + +Years later I used to repeat these histories to girls I was with. When +we were on good terms they were interested to hear, as I was proud to +tell, and would say, "Tell us about your ancestors, Margery." And if we +fell out there was no surer method of annoying me than to slight the +memory of my great-great-grandparents. + +I have told their story pretty often. I shall put it down here in my own +way, for Aunt Theresa told a story rather disconnectedly. + +The de Vandaleurs (we have dropped the _de_ now) were an old French +family. There was a Duke in it who was killed in the Revolution of '92, +and most of the family emigrated, and were very poor. The title was +restored afterwards, and some of the property. It went to a cousin of +the Duke who was murdered, he having no surviving children; but they say +it went in the wrong line. The cousin who had remained in France, and +always managed to keep the favour of the ruling powers, got the title, +and remade his fortunes; the others remained in England, very poor and +very proud. They would not have accepted any favours from the new royal +family, but still they considered themselves deprived of their rights. +One of these Vandaleur _migrs_ (the one who ought to have been the +Duke) had married his cousin. They suffered great hardships in their +escape, I fancy, and on the birth of their son, shortly after their +arrival in England, the wife died. + +There was an old woman, Aunt Theresa said, who used to be her nurse when +she was a child, in London, who had lived, as a girl, in the wretched +lodgings where these poor people were when they came over, and she used +to tell her wonderful stories about them. How, in her delirium (she was +insane for some little time before her son was born), Madame de +Vandaleur fancied herself in her old home, "with all her finery about +her," as Nurse Brown used to say. + +Nurse Brown seems to have had very little sympathy with nervous +diseases. She could understand a broken leg, or a fever, "when folks +kept their beds"; but the disordered fancies of a brain tried just too +far, the mad whims of a lady who could "go about," and who insisted upon +going about, and changing her dress two or three times a day, and +receiving imaginary visitors, and ordering her faithful nurse up and +down under the names of half-a-dozen servants she no longer possessed, +were beyond her comprehension. + +Aunt Theresa said that she and her brothers and sisters had the deepest +pity for the poor lady. They thought it so romantic that she should cry +for fresh flowers and dress herself to meet the Queen in a dirty little +lodging at the back of Leicester Square, and they were always begging to +hear "what else she did." But Nurse Brown seems to have been fondest of +relating the smart speeches in which she endeavoured to "put sense into" +the devoted French servant who toiled to humour every whim of her +unhappy mistress, instead of being "sharp with her," as Nurse Brown +advised. Aunt Theresa had some doubts whether Mrs. Brown ever did make +the speeches she reported; but when people say they said this or that, +they often only mean that this or that is what they wish they had said. + +"If she's mad, I says, shave her head, instead of dressing her hair all +day long. I've knowed mad people as foamed at the mouth and rolled their +eyes, and would have done themselves a injury but for a strait-jacket; +and I've knowed folks in fevers unreasonable enough, but they kept their +beds in a dark room, and didn't know their own mothers. Madame's ways is +beyond me, I says. _You_ calls it madness: _I_ calls it temper. +Tem--per, and no--thing else." + +Aunt Theresa used to make us laugh by repeating Nurse Brown's sayings, +and the little shake of herself with which she emphasized the last +sentence. + +If she had no sympathy for Madame de Vandaleur, she had a double share +for the poor lady's husband: "a _good_ soul," as she used to call him. +It was in vain that Jeanette spoke of the sweet temper and +unselfishness of her mistress "before these terrible days"; her conduct +towards her husband then was "enough for" Nurse Brown, so she said. No +sooner had the poor gentleman gone off on some errand for her pleasure +than she called for him to be with her, and was only to be pacified by a +fable of Jeanette's devising, who always said that "the King" had +summoned Monsieur de Vandaleur. Jeanette was well aware that, the +childless old Duke being dead, her master had succeeded to the title, +and she often spoke of him as Monsieur le Duc to his wife, which seems +to have pleased the poor lady. When he was absent, Jeanette's ready +excuse, "_Eh, Madame! Pour Monsieur le Duc--le Roi l'a fait appeller_," +was enough, and she waited patiently for his return. + +Ever-changing as her whims and fancies were, the poor gentleman +sacrificed everything to gratify them. His watch, his rings, his +buckles, the lace from his shirt, and all the few trifles secured in +their hasty flight, were sold one by one. His face was familiar to the +keepers of certain stalls near to where Covent Garden Market now stands. +He bought flowers for Madame when he could not afford himself food. He +sold his waistcoat, and buttoned his coat across him--and looked thinner +than ever. + +Then the day came when Madame wished, and he could not gratify her +wish. Everything was gone. He said, "This will kill me, Jeanette;" and +Jeanette believed him. + +Nurse Brown (according to her own account) assured Jeanette that it +would not. "Folk doesn't die of such things, says I." + +But, in spite of common-sense and experience, Monsieur de Vandaleur did +die of grief, or something very like it, within twenty-four hours of the +death of his wife, and the birth of their only son. + +For some years the faithful Jeanette supported this child by her own +industry. She was an exquisite laundress, and she throve where the Duke +and Duchess would have starved. As the boy grew up she kept him as far +as possible from common companions, treated him with as much deference +as if he had succeeded to the family honours, and filled his head with +traditions of the deserts and dignity of the de Vandaleurs. + +At last a cousin of Monsieur de Vandaleur found them out. He also was an +exile, but he had prospered better, had got a small civil appointment, +and had married a Scotch lady. It was after he had come to the help of +his young kinsman, I think, that an old French lady took a fancy to the +boy, and sent him to school in France at her own expense. He was just +nineteen when she died, and left him what little money she possessed. +He then returned to England, and paid his respects to his cousin and the +Scotch Mrs. Vandaleur. + +She congratulated herself, I have heard, that her only child, a +daughter, was from home when this visit was paid. + +Mrs. Janet Vandaleur was a high-minded, hard-headed, north-country +woman. She valued long descent, and noble blood, and loyalty to a fallen +dynasty like a Scotchwoman, but, like a Scotchwoman, she also respected +capability and energy and endurance. She combined a romantic heart with +a practical head in a way peculiar to her nation. She knew the pedigree +of every family (who had a pedigree) north of the Tweed, and was, +probably, the best housekeeper in Great Britain. She devoutly believed +her own husband to be as perfect as mortal man may be here below, whilst +in some separate compartment of her brain she had the keenest sense of +the defects and weaknesses which he inherited, and dreaded nothing more +than to see her daughter mated with one of the helpless Vandaleurs. + +This daughter, with much of her mother's strong will and practical +capacity, had got her father's _physique_ and a good deal of his +artistic temperament. Dreading the development of _de Vandaleur_ +qualities in her, the mother made her education studiously practical +and orderly. She had, like most Scotch matrons of her type, too good a +gift for telling family stories, and too high a respect for ancestral +traditions, to have quite kept herself from amusing her daughter's +childhood with tales of the de Vandaleur greatness. But after her +husband discovered his young relative, and as their daughter grew up, +she purposely avoided the subject, which had, probably, the sole effect +of increasing her daughter's interest in the family romance. Mrs. Janet +knew the de Vandaleur pedigree as well as her own, and had shown a +miniature of the late Duke in his youth to her daughter as a child on +many occasions; when she had also alluded to the fact that the title by +birth was undoubtedly in the exiled branch of the family. Miss Vandaleur +was not ignorant that the young gentleman who had just completed his +education was, if every one had their rights, Monsieur le Duc; and she +was as much disappointed to have missed seeing him as her mother was +glad that they had not met. + +For Bertrand de Vandaleur had all the virtues and the weaknesses of his +family in intense proportions. He had a hopeless ignorance of the value +of money, which was his strongest condemnation before his Scotch cousin. +He was high-minded, chivalrous, in some points accomplished, charming, +and tender-hearted. But he was weak of will, merely passive in +endurance, and quite without energy. He had a graceful, fanciful, but +almost weak intellect. I mean, it just bordered on mental deficiency; +and at times his dreamy eyes took a wildness that was said to make him +painfully like his mother in her last days. He was an absurd but +gracefully romantic idea of his family consequence. He was very +handsome, and very like the miniature of the late Duke. It was most +desirable that his cousin should not meet him, especially as she was of +the sentimental age of seventeen. So Mrs. Janet Vandaleur hastened their +return from London to their small property in Scotland. + +But there was no law to hinder Monsieur de Vandaleur from making a +Scotch tour. + +One summer's afternoon, when she had just finished the making of some +preserves, Miss Vandaleur strolled down through a little wood behind the +house towards a favourite beck that ran in a gorge below. She was +singing an old French song in praise of the beauty of a fair lady of the +de Vandaleurs of olden time. As she finished the first verse, a voice +from a short distance took up the refrain-- + + "Victoire de Vandaleur! Victoire! Victoire!" + +It was her own name as well as that of her ancestress, and she blushed +as her eyes met those of a strange young gentleman, with a sketch-book +in his hand, and a French poodle at his heels. + +"Place aux dames!" said the stranger. On which the white poodle sat up, +and his master bowed till his head nearly touched the ground. + +They had met once as children, which was introduction enough in the +circumstances. Here, at last, for Victoire, was the embodiment of all +her dreams of the de Vandaleur race. He was personally so like the +miniature, that he might have been the old Duke. He was the young one, +as even her mother allowed. For him, he found a companion whose birth +did not jar on his aristocratic prejudices, and whose strong character +was bone and marrow to his weak one. Before they reached the house Mrs. +Janet's precautions were vain. + +She grew fond of the lad in spite of herself. The romantic side of her +sympathized with his history. He was an orphan, and she had a mother's +heart. In the direct line he was a Duke, and she was a Scotchwoman. He +freely consented to settle every penny he had upon his wife, and, as his +mother-in-law justly remarked, "Many a cannier man wouldn't just have +done that." + +In fine, the young people were married with not more than the usual +difficulties beforehand. + +He was nineteen, and she was seventeen. They were my great-grandfather +and great-grandmother. + +They had only one child--a son. They were very poor, and yet they gave +him a good education. I ought to say, _she_ gave him, for everything +that needed effort or energy was done by my great-grandmother. The more +it became evident that her Bertrand de Vandaleur was less helpful and +practical than any Bertrand de Vandaleur before him, the more there +seems to have developed in her the purpose and capability inherited from +Mrs. Janet. Like many another poor and ambitious mother, she studied +Latin and Greek and algebra that she might teach her son. And at the +same time she saved, even out of their small income. She began to "put +by" from the boy's birth for his education, and when the time came he +was sent to school. + +My grandfather did well. I have heard that he inherited his father's +beauty, and was not without his mother's sense and energy. He had the de +Vandaleur quality of pleasing, with the weakness of being utterly ruled +by the woman he loved. At twenty he married an heiress. His parents had +themselves married too early to have reasonable ground for complaint at +this; but when he left his own Church for that of his wife, there came a +terrible breach between them and their only son. His mother soon +forgave him; but the father was as immovable in his displeasure as weak +people can sometimes be. Happily, however, after the birth of a grandson +peace was made, and the young husband brought his wife to visit his +parents. The heiress had some property in the West Indies, which they +proposed to visit, and they remained with the old people till just +before they sailed. It was as a keepsake at parting that my grandfather +had restored to his mother the watch which she gave to me. The child was +left in England with his mother's relations. + +My grandfather and grandmother never returned. They were among the +countless victims of the most cruel of all seas. The vessel they went +out in was lost during a week of storms. On what day or night, and in +what part of the Atlantic, no one survived to tell. + +Their orphan child was my dear father. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS--DREAMS AND DAY DREAMS--THE VINE--ELSPETH--MY +GREAT-GRANDFATHER. + + +My father was brought up chiefly by his mother's relations. The +religious question was always a difficulty as regarded the de +Vandaleurs, and I fancy extended to my own case. My guardians were not +my great-grandparents, but Major Buller, and Mr. Arkwright, a clergyman +of the Church of England. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother +were Roman Catholics. Though not my appointed guardians, they were my +nearest relations, and when my great-grandmother had held out her little +hand towards me over the side of the pony-carriage and said, "You will +let the child come to me? Soon, very soon?" Major Buller had taken her +hand in both his, and replied very cordially, "Of course, my dear madam, +of course. Whenever it is convenient to yourself and to Mr. de +Vandaleur." + +And this promise had stirred my heart with such a flutter of happy +expectation as I had not felt since I persuaded my father to promise +that I should dine with him, all alone, like a grown-up lady, on that +sad birthday on which he died. + +It is perhaps useless to try and find reasons for the fancy I took to +the "Duchess"--as Aunt Theresa called her--since it was allowed that she +fascinated every one who came near her. With the bright qualities which +made her admirable in herself, she combined the gracious art of putting +other people at ease with themselves; and, remembering how sore the +wounds of a child's self-love are, I think that her kindness must have +been very skilful to make me forgive myself for that folly of the +looking-glass enough to forget myself in admiration of her. + +Like most children, I was given to hero and heroine worship. I admired +more than one lady of Aunt Theresa's acquaintance, and had been +fascinated by some others whom I did not know, but had only seen in +church, and had longed for the time when I also should no longer trip +about in short and simple skirts, and tie up my curls with a ribbon, but +should sweep grandly and languidly in to the parade service, bury half a +pew under the festoons and furbelows of my silk dress and velvet +trimmings, sink into a nest of matchless millinery for the Litany, scent +the air with patchouli as I rose for the hymn, examine the other ladies' +bonnets through one of those eyeglasses which are supposed to make it no +longer rude to stare, and fan myself from the fatigues of the service +during the sermon. + +But even the dignity of grown-updom embellished by pretty faces and +splendid costumes did not stir my imagination as it was stirred by the +sight of my great-grandmother and by the history of her life. It was +like seeing the princess of a fairy tale with one's very own eyes. The +faces of the fine ladies I had envied were a little apt to be insipid +in expression, and to pass from the memory; but my great-grandmother's +quick, bright, earnest face was not easily to be forgotten. I made up my +mind that when I grew up I would not wear a large _chignon_ after all, +nor a bonnet full of flowers, nor a dress full of flounces, but a rather +short skirt and buckled shoes and grey curls, and a big hat with many +bows, and a green satin driving-cloak lined with fur. + +How any one, blessed with grown-up freedom of choice, could submit to be +driven about by a coach-man in a big carriage, as highly stuffed and +uninteresting as a first-class railway carriage, when it was possible to +drive one's self in a sort of toy-cart with a dear white pony as shaggy +as a dog, I could not understand. I well knew which I should choose, and +I thought so much of it that I remember dreaming that my +great-grandmother had presented me with a pony and chaise the +counterpart of her own. The dream-joy of this acquisition, and the pride +of driving up to the Bullers' door and offering to take Matilda for an +expedition, was only marred by one of those freaks which spoil the +pleasure of so many dreams. Just as Matilda appeared, full of gratitude, +and with a picnic luncheon in a basket, I became conscious that I was in +my night-gown, and had forgotten to dress. Again and again I tried to go +back in my dream and put on suitable clothes. I never accomplished it, +and only woke in the effort. + +In sober daylight I indulged no hope that Mrs. Vandaleur would give me a +carriage and pony for my very own, but I did hope that I should go out +in hers if ever I went to stay with her. Perhaps sometimes alone, +driving myself, with only the rosy-cheeked Adolphe to open the gates and +deliver me from any unexpected difficulties with the reins. But I +dreamed many a day-dream of the possible delights in store for me with +my new-found relatives, and almost counted the hours on the Duchess's +watch till she should send for me. + +As it happened, however, circumstances combined for some little time to +hinder me from visiting my great-grandmother. + +The little Bullers and I had the measles; and when we were all +convalescent, Major Buller got two months' leave, and we went away for +change of air. Then small-pox prevailed in Riflebury, and we were kept +away, even after Major Buller returned to his duties. When we did +return, before a visit to the Vandaleurs could be arranged, Adolphe fell +ill of scarlet fever, and the fear of contagion postponed my visit for +some time. + +I was eight years old when I went to stay at The Vine. This was the name +of the little cottage where my great-grandparents lived--so called +because of an old vine which covered the south wall on one side of the +porch, and crept over a framework upon the roof. I do not now remember +how many pounds of grapes it had been known to produce in one season, +and yet I ought not to have forgotten, for it was a subject on which my +great-grandfather, my great-grandmother, Adolphe, and Elspeth constantly +boasted. + +"And if they don't just ripen as the master says they do in France, it's +all for the best," said Elspeth; "for ripe grapes would be picked all +along, and the house not a penny the better for them. But green-grape +tarts and cream are just eating for a king." + +Elspeth was "general servant" at my great-grandmother's. Her aunt Mary +had come from Scotland to serve "Miss Victoire" when she first married. +As Mary's health failed, and she grew old, her young niece was sent for +to work under her. Old Mary died with her hands in my great-grandmother's, +and Elspeth reigned in her stead. + +Elspeth was an elderly woman when I first made her acquaintance. She had +a broad, bright, sensible face, and a kindly smile that won me to her. +She wore frilled caps, tied under her chin; and as to exchanging them +for "the fly-away bits of things servants stick on their heads at the +present time," Elspeth would as soon have thought of abandoning the +faith of her fathers. She was a strict but not bitter Presbyterian. She +was not tall, and she was very broad; her apparent width being increased +by the very broad linen collars which spread, almost like a cape, over +her ample shoulders. + +My great-grandmother had an anecdote of me connected with this, which +she was fond of relating. + +"And what do you think of Elspeth, little one?" she had said to me on +the first evening of my visit. + +"I think she's very big," was my reply. + +"Certainly, our good Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," said my +great-grandfather, laughing. + +I wondered if this were so; and when my great-grandmother gave me a +little yard-measure in a wooden castle, which had taken my fancy among +the treasures of her work-box, the idea seized me of measuring Elspeth +for my own satisfaction on the point. But the silken measure slipped, +and caught on the battlements of the castle, and I lost my place in +counting the figures, and at last was fain to ask Elspeth herself. + +"How tall are you, Elspeth, please? As much as a yard?" + +"Ou aye, my dear," said Elspeth, who was deeply engaged in darning a +very large hole in one of my great-grandfather's socks. + +"As much as two yards?" I inquired. + +"Eh, no, my dearie," said Elspeth. "That wad be six feet; and I'm not +just that tall, though my father was six feet and six inches." + +"How broad are you, Elspeth, please?" I persisted. "As much as a yard?" + +"I'm thinking I will be, my dear," said Elspeth, "for it takes the full +width of a coloured cotton to cut me a dress-front, and then it's not +over-big." + +"Are you as broad as two yards, do you think?" I said, drawing my ribbon +to its full length from the castle, and considering the question. + +Elspeth shook her head. She was biting the end off a piece of +darning-cotton; but I rightly concluded that she would not confess to +being two yards wide. + +"Please, I have measured Elspeth," I announced over the tea-table, "and +grandpapa is quite right." + +"Eh?" said Mr. Vandaleur, who had a trick of requiring observations to +be repeated to him by his wife. + +"She says that she has measured Elspeth, and that you are right," said +my great-grandmother. "But about what is grandpapa right, my little +one?" + +"Grandpapa said that Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," I explained. +"And so she is, for I measured her--at least, the ribbon would slip when +I measured her, so I asked her; and she's a yard tall, but not as much +as two yards; and a yard wide, but not as much as two yards. And so +grandpapa is right." + +Some of the happiest hours I spent at The Vine were spent in Elspeth's +company. I made tiny cakes, and tarts of curious shapes, when she was +busy pastry-making, and did some clear-starching on my doll's account +when Elspeth was "getting-up" my great-grandfather's cravats. + +Elspeth had strong old-fashioned notions of paying respect where it was +due. She gave Adolphe a sharp lecture one day for some lack of respect +in his manner to "Miss Margery"; and, on the other hand, she taught me +to curtsy at the door where I breakfasted with Mr. and Mrs. Vandaleur. + +Some dancing lessons that I had had in Riflebury helped me here, and +Elspeth was well satisfied with my performance. I felt very shy and +awkward the first time that I made my morning curtsy, my knees shaking +under me, and Elspeth watching from the passage; but my +great-grandfather and mother seemed to take it as a matter of course, +and I soon became quite used to it. If Mr. Vandaleur happened to be +standing in the room, he always returned my curtsy by a low bow. + +I became very fond of my great-grandfather. He was a tall, handsome old +man, with high shoulders, slightly bent by age and also by habit. He +wore a blue coat with brass buttons, that had been very well made a very +long time ago; white trousers, a light waistcoat, a frilled shirt, and a +very stiff cravat. On the wall of the drawing-room there hung a +water-colour portrait of a very young and very handsome man, with +longish wavy hair, features refined to weakness, dreamy, languid eyes, +and a coat the very image of my great-grandfather's. The picture hung +near the door; and as Mr. Bertrand Vandaleur passed in or out, I well +remember that he almost always glanced at the sketch, as people glance +at themselves in passing a mirror. + +I was too young then to notice this as being a proof that the drawing +was a portrait of himself; but I remember being much struck by the +likeness between the coat in the picture and that my great-grandfather +wore, and also by the way that the hair was thrown back from the high, +narrow forehead, just as my great-grandfather's grey hairs were combed +away from his brow. Children are great admirers of beauty too, +especially, I think, of an effeminate style of good looks, and are very +susceptible to the power of expression in faces. I had a romantic +admiration for "the handsome man by the door," and his eyes haunted me +about the room. + +I was kneeling on a chair and examining the sketch one morning, when my +great-grandfather came up to me, "Who is it, little one?" said he. + +I looked at the picture. I looked at my great-grandfather's coat. As his +eyes gazed steadily into mine, there was a likeness there also; but it +was the coat that decided me. I said, "It is you, grandpapa." + +I think this little incident just sealed our friendship. I always +remained in high favour with my great-grandfather. + +He spent a great deal of his time in painting. He never had, I believe, +had any profession. The very small income on which he and his wife had +lived was their own private fortune. I often think it must have been a +great trial to a woman of my great-grandmother's energy, that her +husband should have made no effort to add to their resources by work of +some kind. But then I cannot think of any profession that would have +suited him. He was sadly wanting in general capacity, though +accomplished much above the average, and with a fine knack in the +budding of roses. + +I thought him the grandest gentleman that ever lived, and the +pleasantest of companions. His weak but lovable nature had strong +sympathy with children, I think. I ought to say, with a child; for he +would share the fancies and humours of one child companion for hours, +but was quite incapable of managing a larger number--as, indeed, he was +of any kind of domestic administration or control. Mrs. Vandaleur was +emphatically Elspeth's mistress, if she was also her friend; but in the +absence of "the mistress" Elspeth ruled "the master" with a rod of iron. + +I quickly gained a degree of power over him myself. I discovered that if +I maintained certain outward forms of respect and courtesy, so as not to +shock my grandpapa's standard of good manners, I might make almost any +demands on his patience and good-nature. Children and pet animals make +such discoveries very quickly, and are apt to use their power somewhat +tyrannically. I fear I was no exception to the rule. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THOMAS THE CAT--MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER'S SKETCHES--ADOLPHE IS MY +FRIEND--MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER DISTURBS MY REST--I LEAVE THE +VINE. + + +My great-grandfather had, as I said, some skill in painting. He was +gifted with an intense sense of, and love for, colour. I am sure he saw +colours where other people did not. What to common eyes was a mass of +grey, or green, was to him a pleasant combination of many gay and +delicate hues. He distinguished severally the innumerable bright threads +in Nature's coat of many colours, and in simple truth I think that each +was a separate joy to him. + +He had a white Persian cat of an artistic temperament, which followed +him in his walks, dozed on the back of his arm-chair, and condescended +to share his tea when it reached a certain moderate temperature. It +never was betrayed into excitement, except when there was fish for +dinner. My great-grandfather's fasts were feasts for Thomas the cat. + +I can very clearly remember the sight of my great-grandfather pacing +slowly up and down the tiny garden at The Vine, his hands behind him, +and followed sedately by Thomas. Now and then he would stop to gaze, +with infinite contentment in his eyes, at the delicate blue-grey mist +behind the leafless trees (which in that spring sunshine were, no doubt, +of much more complex and beautiful colour to him than mere brown), or +drinking in the blue of the scillas in the border with a sigh of +satisfaction. When he paused, Thomas would pause; as he feasted his +eyes, Thomas would rub his head against his master's legs, and stretch +his own. When Elspeth had cooked the fish, and my great-grandmother had +made the tea and arranged the flowers on the table, they would come in +together and condescend to their breakfasts, with the same air about +them both of having no responsibility in life but to find out sunny +spots and to enjoy themselves. + +My great-grandfather's most charming paintings were sketches of flowers. +Ordinary stiff flower-paintings are of all paintings the most +uninteresting, I think; but his were of a very different kind. Each +sketch was a sort of idyll. Indeed, he would tell me stories of each as +he showed them. + +Long as my great-grandfather had lived, he was never a robust man, and +Elspeth's chief ideas on the subject of his sketches bore reference to +the colds he had caught, and the illnesses he had induced, by sitting in +the east winds or lying on damp grass to do this or that sketch. + +"That'll be the one the master did before he was laid by with the +rheumatics," Elspeth said, when I described one of my favourites to her. +It was a spring sketch. My great-grandfather had lain face downwards on +the lawn to do it. This was to bring his eyes on a level with the subject +of his painting, which was this: a crocus of the exquisite shades of +lilac to be seen in some varieties, just full-blown, standing up in its +first beauty and freshness from its fringe of narrow silver-striped +leaves. The portrait was not an opaque and polished-looking painting on +smooth cardboard, but a sketch--indefinite at the outer edges of the +whole subject--on water-colour paper of moderate roughness. The throat +and part of the cup of the flower stood out from some shadow at the roots +of a plant beyond; a shadow of infinite gradation, and quite without the +blackness common to patches of shade as seen by untrained eyes. From the +level of my great-grandfather's view, as he lay in the grass, the border +looked a mere strip; close behind it was a hedge dividing the garden from +a field. Just by the crocus there was a gap in the hedge, which in the +sketch was indicated rather than drawn. And round the corner of the bare +thorn branches from the hedge-bank in the field there peeped a celandine +and a daisy. They were not nearly such finished portraits as that of the +crocus. A few telling strokes of colour made them, and gave them a life +and pertness that were clever enough. Beneath the sketch was written, "La +Demoiselle. Des enfants du village la regardent." + +My great-grandfather translated this for me, and used to show me how the +"little peasants," Marguerite and Celandine, were peeping in at the +pretty young lady in her mauve dress striped with violet. + +But every sketch had its story, and often its moral; not, as a rule, a +very original one. In one, a lovely study of ivy crept over a rotten +branch upon the ground. A crimson toadstool relieved the heavy green, +and suggested that the year was drawing to a close. Beneath it was +written, "Charity." "Thus," said my great-grandfather, "one covers up +and hides the defects of one he loves." + +A study of gaudy summer tulips stood--as may be guessed--for Pride. + +"Pride," said my great-grandfather, "is a sin; a mortal sin, dear child. +Moreover, it is foolish, and also vulgar--the pride of fine clothes, +money, equipages, and the like. What is called pride of birth--the +dignity of an ancient name--this, indeed, is another thing. It is not +petty, not personal; it seems to me more like patriotism--the pride of +country." + +I did my best to describe to Elspeth both the sketch and my +great-grandfather's commentary. + +"A' pride's sinful," said Elspeth decidedly. "Pride o' wealth, and pride +o' birth. Not that I'm for objecting to a decent satisfaction in a +body's ain gude conduct and respectability. Pride o' character, that's +anither thing a'thegither, and to be respectit." + +My great-grandfather gave me a few paints, and under his directions I +daubed away, much to my own content. When I was struggling hopelessly +with the perspective of some pansies of various colours (for in +imitation of him I painted flowers), he would say, "Never mind the +shape, dear Marguerite, get the colour--the colour, my child!" And he +trained me to a quickness in the perception of colour certainly not +common at my age. + +I spent many pleasant hours, too, in the less intellectual society of +Adolphe. He dug a bed for me in a bit of spare ground, and shaped it +like a heart. He laboured constantly at this heart, making it plump by +piling up the earth, and cramming it with plants of various +kinds--perennials much in want of subdivision, and often in full +bloom--which he brought from cottage gardens of "folk he knew," and +watered copiously to "sattle 'em." + +His real name was not Adolphe, but Thomas. As this, however, had created +some confusion between him and the cat, my great-grandmother had named +him afresh, after a retainer of the de Vandaleurs in days gone by, +whose faithful service was a tradition in the family. + +I was very happy at The Vine--by day. I feel ashamed now to recall how +miserable I was at night, and yet I know I could not help it. In old +times I had always been accustomed to be watched to sleep by Ayah. After +I came to Aunt Theresa, I slept in the same room with one or more of the +other children. At The Vine, for the first time, I slept alone. + +This was not all. It was not merely the being alone in the dark which +frightened me. Indeed, a curious little wick floating on a cup of oil +was lighted at night for my benefit, but it only illumined the great +source of the terror which made night hideous to me. + +Some French refugee artist, who had been indebted to my +great-grandparents for kindness, had shown his gratitude by painting a +picture of the execution of that Duc de Vandaleur who perished in the +Revolution, my great-grandfather having been the model. It was a +wretched daub, but the subject was none the less horrible for that, and +the caricatured likeness to my great-grandfather did not make it seem +less real or more pleasant. + +That execution which was never over, this ghastly head which never found +rest in the grave, that awful-looking man who was, and yet was not, +Grandpapa--haunted me. They were the cause of certain horrible dreams, +which I can remember quite as clearly at this day as if I dreamed them +last night, and which I know I shall never forget. The dreams again +associated themselves with the picture, and my fears grew instead of +lessening as the time went by. + +Very late one night Elspeth came in and found me awake, and probably +looking far from happy. I had nothing to say for myself, but I burst +into tears. Elspeth was tenderness itself, but she got hold of a wrong +idea. I was "just homesick," she thought, and needed to be "away home +again," with "bairns like myself." + +I do not know why I never explained the real reason of my +distress--children are apt to be reticent on such occasions. I think a +panic seized upon the members of the household, that they were too old +to make a child happy. I was constantly assured that "it was very +natural," and I "had been very good." But I was sent back to Riflebury. +No one knew how loth I was to leave, still less that it was to a much +older relative than those at The Vine that I owed my expulsion--to my +great-great-great-grandfather--Monsieur le Duc de Vandaleur. + +Thomas, the cat, purred so loudly as I withdrew, that I think he was +glad to be rid of me. + +Adolphe alone was against the verdict of the household, and I think +believed that I would have preferred to remain. + +"I'm sure I thought you was quite sattled, miss," he said, as he saw me +off; and he blubbered like a baby. His transplanted perennials were +"sattled" by copious floods of water. Perhaps he hoped that tears would +settle me! + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MATILDA'S NEWS--OUR GOVERNESS--MAJOR BULLER TURNED TUTOR--ELEANOR +ARKWRIGHT. + + +The grief I felt at leaving The Vine was greatly forgotten in the warm +welcome which awaited me on my return to Riflebury. + +In a household where gossip is a principal amusement, the return of any +member from a visit is a matter for general congratulation till the new +budget is exhausted. Indeed, I plead guilty to a liking to be the first +to skim the news when Eleanor or one of the boys comes back from a +visit, at the present time. + +Matilda withdrew me from Aunt Theresa as soon as she could. + +"I am so glad to get you back, Margery dear," said she. "And now you +must tell me all your news, and I'll tell you all mine. And to begin +with--what do you think?--we've got a governess, and you and I are to +have the little room at the head of the stairs all to ourselves." + +Matilda's news was lengthy enough and interesting enough to make us late +for tea, and mine kept us awake for a couple of hours after we were +fairly in our two little iron bedsteads in the room that was now our +very own. That is to say, I told what I had to tell after we came to +bed, but my news was so tame compared with Matilda's that we soon +returned to the discussion of hers. I tried to describe my +great-grandfather's sketches, but neither Aunt Theresa in the +drawing-room, nor Matilda when we retired for the night, seemed to feel +any interest in the subject; and when Mrs. Buller asked what sort of +people called at The Vine, I felt that my reply was, like the rest of my +news, but dull. + +Matilda's, on the contrary, was very entertaining. She spoke +enthusiastically of Miss Perry, the governess. + +"She is so good-natured, Margery, you can't think. When lessons are over +she takes me walks on the Esplanade, and she calls me her dear Matilda, +and I take her arm, and she tells me all about herself. She says she +knows she's very romantic. And she's got lots of secrets, and she's told +me several already; for she says she has a feeling that I can keep a +secret, and so I can. But telling you's not telling, you know, because +she's sure to tell you herself; only you'd better wait till she does +before you say anything, for fear she should be vexed." + +Of course I promised to do so, and craned my neck out of bed to catch +Matilda's interesting but whispered revelations. + +Matilda herself was only partially in Miss Perry's confidence, and I +looked anxiously forward to the time when she would admit me also to her +secrets, though I feared she might consider me too young. My fears were +groundless, as I found Miss Perry was fond of talking about herself, and +a suitable audience was quite a secondary consideration with her. + +She was a _protge_ of Mrs. Minchin's, who had persuaded Aunt Theresa +to take her for our governess. She was quite unfit for the position, and +did no little harm to us in her brief reign. But I do not think that our +interests had entered in the least into Mrs. Minchin's calculations in +the matter. She had "taken Miss Perry up," and to get Miss Perry a +comfortable home was her sole object. + +To do our new governess justice, she did her best to impart her own +superficial acquirements to us. We plodded regularly through French +exercises, which she corrected by a key, and she kept us at work for a +given number of hours during the day; tatting by our sides as we +practised our scales, or roasting her petticoats over the fire, whilst +Matilda and I read Mrs. Markham's _England_ or Mrs. Trimmer's _Bible +Lessons_ aloud by turns to full-stops. But when lessons were over Miss +Perry was quite as glad as we were, and the subjects of our studies had +as little to do with our holiday hours as a Sunday sermon with the rest +of the week. + +She was a great novel-reader, and I think a good many of the things she +told us of, as having happened to herself, had their real origin in the +Riflebury circulating library. For she was one of those strange +characters who indulge in egotism and exaggeration, till they seem +positively to lose the sense of what is fact and what is fiction. + +She filled our poor empty little heads with a great deal of folly, and +it was well for us that her reign was not a long one. + +She was much attached to the school-room fireside. She could not sit too +close to it, or roast herself too thoroughly for her own satisfaction. I +sometimes wondered if the bony woman who kept the library ever +complained of the curled condition of the backs of the books Miss Perry +held between her eyes and the hot coals for so many hours. + +In this highly heated state our governess was, of course, sensitive to +the smallest inlet of cooler air, and "draughts" were accordingly her +abhorrence. How we contrived to distinguish a verb from a noun, or +committed anything whatever to memory in the fever-heat and "stuffy" +atmosphere of the little room which was sacred to our studies, I do not +know. At a certain degree of the thermometer Miss Perry's face rises +before me and makes my brain spin even now. + +This was, no doubt, one cause of the very severe headaches to which +Matilda became subject about this time, though, now I look back, I do +not think she had been quite strong since we all had the measles. They +were apt to end in a fainting condition, from which she recovered by +lying on the floor. Then, if Miss Perry happened to be in good humour, +she would excuse Matilda from further lessons, invariably adding, in her +"mystery" voice--"But not a word to your mamma!" + +It was the most unjustifiable use she made of influence she gained over +us (especially over poor Matilda, who was very fond of her, and believed +in her) that she magnified her own favours at the expense of Major +Buller and my aunt. For some time they had no doubts as to the wisdom of +Mrs. Minchin's choice. + +Miss Perry was clever enough not to display her romantic side to Mrs. +Buller. She amused her, too, with Riflebury gossip, in which she was an +adept. She knew equally well how far she might venture with the Major; +and the sleight-of-hand with which she threw needlework over a novel +when Aunt Theresa came into the school-room was not more skilful than +the way in which she turned the tail of a bit of scandal into a remark +upon the weather as Uncle Buller opened the drawing-room door. + +But Miss Perry was not skilful enough to win the Major's lasting favour. +He was always slow to interfere in domestic matters, but he was not +unobservant. + +"I'm sure you see a great deal more than one would think, Edward," Aunt +Theresa would say; "although you are so wrapt up in insects and things." + +"The insects don't get into my eyes, my dear," said Major Buller. + +"And hear too," Mrs. Buller continued. "Mrs. O'Connor was saying only +the other day that you often seem to hear of things before other people, +though you do talk so little." + +"It is, perhaps, because I am not always talking that I do hear. But +Mrs. O'Connor is not likely to think of that," said the Major, rather +severely. + +He was neither blind nor deaf in reference to Miss Perry, and she was +dismissed. Aunt Theresa rather dreaded Mrs. Minchin's indignation in the +matter, I believe; but needlessly, for Miss Perry and Mrs. Minchin +quarrelled about this time, and Mrs. Minchin had then so much +information to Miss Perry's disadvantage at her fingers' ends, that it +seemed wonderful that she should ever have recommended her. + +For some little time our education progressed in a very desultory +fashion. Major Buller became perversely prejudiced against governesses, +and for a short time undertook to carry on our English lessons himself. +He made sums amusing, and geography lessons "as good as stories," though +the latter so often led (by very interesting channels) to his dearly +beloved insects, that Mrs. Buller accused him of making our lessons an +excuse for getting out his "collection." + +With "grammar" we were less successful. Major Buller was so good a +teacher that he brought out what intelligence we possessed, and led us +constantly to ask questions about anything we failed to understand. In +arithmetic this led to his helping us over our difficulties; in +geography it led, sooner or later, to the "collection"; but in English +grammar it led to stumbling-blocks and confusion, and, finally, to the +Major's throwing the book across the room, and refusing to pursue that +part of our education any further. + +"I never learnt English grammar," said the Major, "and it's quite +evident that I can't teach it." + +"If _you_ don't know grammar, Papa, then _we_ needn't," said Matilda +promptly, and being neat of disposition, she picked up the book and +proceeded to put it away. + +"I never said that I didn't know grammar," said the Major; "I fancy I +can speak and write grammatically, but what I know I got from the Latin +grammar. And, upon my soul," added Uncle Buller, pulling at his heavy +moustache, "I don't know why you shouldn't do the same." + +The idea of learning Latin pleased us greatly, and Major Buller (who had +been at Charterhouse in his boyhood) bought a copy of Dr. Russell's +_Grammar_, and we set to work. And either because the rules of the Latin +grammar bore explanation better than the English ones, or because Major +Buller was better able to explain them, we had no further difficulties. + +We were very proud of doing lessons in these circumstances, and boasted +of our Latin, I remember, to the little St. Quentins, when we met them +at the dancing-class. The St. Quentins were slender, ladylike girls, +much alike, and rendered more so by an exact similarity of costume. +Their governess was a very charming and talented woman, and when Mrs. +St. Quentin proposed that Matilda and I should share her daughters' +French lessons under Miss Airlie, Major Buller and Aunt Theresa +thankfully accepted the offer. I think that our short association with +this excellent lady went far to cure us of the silly fancies and tricks +of vulgar gossip which we had gleaned from Miss Perry. + +So matters went on for some months, much to Matilda's and my +satisfaction, when a letter from my other guardian changed our plans +once more. + +Mr. Arkwright's only daughter was going to school. He wrote to ask the +Bullers to let her break the journey by spending a night at their house. +It was a long journey, for she was coming from the north. + +"They live in Yorkshire," said Major Buller, much as one might speak of +living in Central Africa. + +Matilda and I looked forward with great interest to Miss Arkwright's +arrival. Her name, we learnt, was Eleanor, and she was nearly a year +older than Maria. + +"She'll be _your_ friend, I suppose," I said, a little enviously, in +reference to her age. + +"Of course," said Matilda, with dignity. "But you can be with us a good +deal," she was kind enough to add. + +I remember quite well how disappointed I felt that I should have so +little title to share the newcomer's friendship. + +"If she had only been ten years old, and so come between us," I +thought, "she would have been as much mine as Matilda's." + +I little thought then what manner of friends we were to be in spite of +the five years' difference in age. Indeed, both Matilda and I were +destined to see more of her than we expected. Aunt Theresa and Major +Buller came to a sudden resolution to send us also to the school where +she was going, though we did not hear of this at first. + +Long afterwards, when we were together, Eleanor asked me if I could +remember my first impression of her. For our affection's sake I wish it +had been a picturesque one; but truth obliges me to confess that, when +our visitor did at last arrive, Matilda and I were chiefly struck by the +fact that she wore thick boots, and did not wear crinoline. + +And yet, looking back, I have a very clear picture of her in my mind, +standing in the passage by her box (a very rough one, very strongly +corded, and addressed in the clearest of handwriting), purse in hand, +and paying the cabman with perfect self-possession. An upright, quite +ladylike, but rather old-fashioned little figure, somewhat quaint from +the simplicity of her dress. She had a rather quaint face, too, with a +nose slightly turned up, a prominent forehead, a charming mouth, and +most beautiful dark eyes. Her hair was rolled under and tied at the top +of her head, and it had an odd tendency to go astray about the parting. + +This was, perhaps, partly from a trick she seemed to have of doing her +hair away from the looking-glass. She stood to do it, and also (on one +leg) to put on her shoes and stockings, which amused us. But she was +always on her feet, and seemed unhappy if she sat idle. We took her for +a walk the morning after her arrival, and walked faster than we had ever +walked before to keep pace with our new friend, who strode along in her +thick boots and undistended skirts with a step like that of a kilted +Highlander. + +When we came into the town, however, she was quite willing to pause +before the shop-windows, which gave her much entertainment. + +"I'm afraid I should always be looking in at the windows if I lived in a +town," she said, "there are such pretty things." + +Eleanor laughs when I remind her of that walk, and how we stood still by +every chemist's door because she liked the smell. When anything +interested her, she stopped, but at other times she walked as if she +were on the road to some given place, and determined to be there in good +time; or perhaps it would be more just to say that she walked as if +walking were a pleasure to her. It was walking--not strolling. When she +was out alone, I know that she constantly ran when other people would +have walked. It is a north-country habit, I think. I have seen +middle-aged Scotch and Yorkshire ladies run as lightly as children. + +It was not the fashionable time of day, so that we could not, during +that walk, show Eleanor the chief characters of Riflebury. But just as +we were leaving High Street she stopped and asked, "Who is that lady?" + +"The one in the mauve silk?" said Matilda. "That is one of the cavalry +ladies. All the cavalry ladies dress grandly." + +It was a Mrs. Perowne. She was sailing languidly down the other side of +the street, in a very large crinoline, and a very long dress of pale +silk, which floated after her along the dirty pavement, much, I +remember, to my admiration. Above this was some tight-fitting thing with +a good deal of lace about it, which was crowned by a fragile and flowery +bonnet, and such a tuft of white lace at the end of a white stick as +just sheltered her nose, which was aquiline, from the sunshine. She was +prettily dressed for an open carriage, a flower-show, or a wedding +breakfast; for walking through the streets of a small, dirty town, to +change her own books at the library, her costume was ludicrously out of +place, though at the time I thought it enviably grand. The way in which +a rich skirt that would not wash, and would undoubtedly be worn again, +trailed through dust and orange-peel, and greengrocers' refuse, and +general shop-sweepings, was offensive to cleanliness alone. + +"Is she ill?" Eleanor asked. + +"No," said Matilda; "I don't think so. Why?" + +"She walks so slowly," said Eleanor, gazing anxiously at Mrs. Perowne +out of her dark eyes, "and she is so white in the face." + +"Oh, my dear!" said Matilda, laughing, "that's puff--puff, and a white +veil. It's to make her look young. I heard Mrs. Minchin tell Mamma that +she knew she was thirty-seven at least. But she dresses splendidly. If +you stay over Sunday, you'll see her close, for she sits in front of us +in church. And she has such a splendid big scent-bottle, with gold tops, +and such a lovely, tiny little prayer-book, bound in blue velvet, and a +watch no bigger than a shilling, with a monogram on the back. She took +it out several times in the sermon last Sunday, so I saw it. But isn't +her hair funny?" + +"It's a beautiful colour," said Eleanor, "only it looks different in +front. But I suppose that's the veil." + +"No, it isn't," said Matilda; "that's the new colour for hair, you know. +It's done by stuff you put on; but Miss Perry said the worst was, it +didn't always come out the same all over. Lots of ladies use it." + +"How horrid!" said Eleanor. "But what makes her walk so slow?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Matilda. "Why should she walk quick?" + +Eleanor seemed struck by this reply, and after a few minutes' pause, +said very gently, with a slight blush on her cheeks, "I'm afraid I have +been walking too fast for you. I'm used to walking with boys." + +We earnestly assured her that this was not the case, and that it was +much better fun to walk with her than with Miss Perry, who used to +dawdle so that we were often thoroughly chilled. + +In the afternoon we took her to the Esplanade, when Matilda, from her +knowledge of the people, took the lead in the conversation. I was proud +to walk on the other side of our new friend, with my best doll in my +arms. Aunt Theresa came with us, but she soon sat down to chat to a +friend, and we three strolled up and down together. I remember a pretty +bit of trimming on Eleanor's hat being blown by the wind against her +face, on which she quietly seized it, and stuffed it securely into the +band. + +"Oh, my dear!" said Matilda, in the emphatic tone in which Aunt +Theresa's lady visitors were wont to exclaim about nothing in +particular--"don't do that. It looks so pretty; and you're crushing it +_dreadfully_." + +"It got in my eyes," said Eleanor briefly. "I hate tags." + +We went home before Aunt Theresa, but as we stood near the door, Eleanor +lingered and looked wistfully up the road, which ran over a slight hill +towards the open country. + +"Would you like to stay out a little longer?" we politely asked. + +"I should rather like to go to the top of the hill," said Eleanor. +"Don't you think flat ground tires one? Shall we race up?" she added. + +We willingly agreed. I had a few yards start of Eleanor, and Matilda +rather less, and away we went. But we were little used to running, and +hoops and thin boots were not in our favour. Eleanor beat us, of course. +She seemed in no way struck by the view from the top. Indeed it was not +particularly pretty. + +"It's very flat about here," she said. "There are no big hills you can +get to the top of, I suppose?" + +We confessed that there were not, and, there being nothing more to do, +we ran down again, and went indoors. + +Eleanor dressed for the evening in her usual peripatetic way, and, +armed with a homely-looking piece of grey knitting, followed us +down-stairs. + +Her superabundant energy did not seem to find vent in conversation. We +were confidential enough now to tell each other of our homes, and she +had sat so long demurely silent, that Matilda ventured upon the +inquiry-- + +"Don't you talk much at your home?" + +"Oh yes," said Eleanor--"at least, when we've anything to say;" and I am +sure no irony was intended in the reply. + +"What are you knitting, my dear?" said Aunt Theresa. + +"A pair of socks for my brother Jack," was the answer. + +"I'm sure you're dreadfully industrious," said Mrs. Buller. + +A little later she begged Eleanor to put it away. + +"You'll tire your eyes, my dear, I'm sure; pray rest a little and chat +to us." + +"I don't look at my knitting," said Eleanor; but she put it away, and +then sat looking rather red in the face, and somewhat encumbered with +her empty hands, which were red too. + +I think Uncle Buller noticed this; for he told us to get the big +scrap-book and show it to Miss Arkwright. + +Eleanor got cool again over the book; but she said little till, pausing +before a small, black-looking print in a sheet full of rather coarse +coloured caricatures, cuttings from illustrated papers and old-fashioned +books, second-rate lithographs, and third-rate original sketches, fitted +into a close patchwork, she gave a sort of half-repressed cry. + +"My dear! What is it?" cried Matilda effusively. + +"I think," said Eleanor, looking for information to Aunt Theresa, "I +think it's a real Rembrandt, isn't it?" + +"A real what, my dear?" said Mrs. Buller. + +"One of Rembrandt's etchings," said Eleanor; "and of course I don't +know, but I think it must be an original; it's so beautifully done, and +my mother has a copy of this one. We know ours is a copy, and I think +this must be an original, because all the things are turned the other +way; and it's very old, and it's beautifully done," Eleanor repeated, +with her face over the little black print. + +Major Buller came across the room, and sat down by her. + +"You are fond of drawing?" he said. + +"Very," said Eleanor, and she threw a good deal of eloquence into the +one word. + +The Major and she forthwith plunged into a discussion of drawing, +etching, line-engraving, &c., &c. It appeared that Mrs. Arkwright +etched on copper, and had a good collection of old etchings, with which +Eleanor was familiar. It also transpired that she was a naturalist, +which led by easy stages to a promise from the Major to show Eleanor his +insects. + +They talked till bedtime, and when Aunt Theresa bade us good-night, she +said: + +"I'm glad you've found your voice, my dear;" and she added, laughing, +"But whenever Papa talks to anybody, it always ends in the collection." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +POOR MATILDA--THE AWKWARD AGE--MRS. BULLER TAKES COUNSEL WITH HER +FRIENDS--THE "MILLINER AND MANTUAMAKER"--MEDICAL ADVICE--THE MAJOR +DECIDES. + + +It was not because Major Buller's high opinion of Miss Airlie was in any +way lowered that he decided to send us to school. In fact it was only +under long and heavy pressure, from circumstances as well as from Aunt +Theresa, that he gave his consent to a plan which never quite met with +his approval. + +Several things at this time seemed to conspire to effect it. The St. +Quentins were going on long leave, and Miss Airlie would go with them. +This was a heavy blow. Then we heard of this school after Miss Airlie +had left Riflebury, a fact so opportune as to be (so Aunt Theresa said) +"quite providential." If we were to go to school, sending us to this one +would save the trouble of making personal inquiries, and perhaps a less +wise selection, for Major Buller had confidence in Mr. Arkwright's good +judgment. The ladies to whose care his daughter was confided were +probably fit to teach us. + +"It would save a great deal of trouble," my guardian confessed, and it +must also be confessed that Major Buller was glad to avoid trouble when +he could conscientiously do so. + +I think it was his warm approval of Eleanor which finally clinched the +question. He thought that she would be a good companion for poor +Matilda. + +Why I speak of her as "poor Matilda" demands some explanation. + +Before I attempt to give it I must say that there is one respect in +which our biographies must always be less satisfactory than a story that +one might invent. When you are putting down true things about yourself +and your friends, you cannot divide people neatly into the good and the +bad, the injurers and the injured, as you can if you are writing a tale +out of your head. The story seems more complete when you are able +either to lay the blame of the melancholy events on the shoulders of +some unworthy character, or to show that they were the natural +punishment of the sufferer's own misconduct. But in thinking of Matilda +and Aunt Theresa and Major Buller, or even of the Doctor and Mrs. +Buller's lady friends, this is not possible. + +The morbid condition--of body and mind--into which Matilda fell for some +time was no light misfortune either as regards her sufferings or the +discomfort it produced in the household, and I am afraid she was both +mismanaged and in fault herself. + +It is safe, at any rate, to take the blame for one's own share, and I +have often thought, with bitterness of spirit, that, child as I was, I +might have been both forbearing and helpful to Matilda at a time when +her temper was very much tried by ill-health and untoward circumstances. +We had a good many squabbles about this period. I piqued myself upon +generally being in the right, and I did not think then, as I do now, +that it is possible to be most in the right in a quarrel, and at the +same time not least to blame for it. + +Matilda certainly did by degrees become very irritable, moody, and +perverse, and her perversity developed itself in ways which puzzled poor +Aunt Theresa. + +She became silent and unsociable. She displayed a particular dislike to +the privileges of being in the drawing-room with grown-up "company," and +of accompanying Aunt Theresa when she paid her afternoon calls. She +looked very ill, and stoutly denied that she was so. She highly resented +solicitude on the subject of her health, fought obstinately over every +bottle of medicine, and was positively rude to the doctors. + +For her unsociability, I think, Miss Perry's evil influence was partly +to blame. Poor Matilda clung to her belief in our late governess when +she was no more to us than a text upon which Aunt Theresa and her +friends preached to each other against governesses in general, and the +governesses each had suffered from in particular. Our lessons with Major +Buller, and the influence of Miss Airlie's good breeding and +straightforward kindness, gave a healthier turn to our tastes; but when +Miss Airlie went away and Major Buller proclaimed a three weeks' holiday +from the Latin grammar, and we were left to ourselves, Matilda felt the +want of the flattery, the patronage, and the small excitements and +mysteries about nothing, to which Miss Perry had accustomed her. I blush +to think that my companionship was less comfort to her than it ought to +have been. As to Aunt Theresa, she was always too busy to give full +attention to anything; and this does not invite confidence. + +Another reason, I am sure, for Matilda's dislike to appearing in company +was a painful sense of her personal appearance; and as she had heard +Aunt Theresa and her friends discuss, approve, and condemn their friends +by the standard of appearances alone, ever since she was old enough to +overhear company conversation, I hardly think she was much to blame on +this point. + +Matilda was emphatically at what is called "an awkward age"; an age more +awkward with some girls than with others. I wish grown-up ladies, who +mean to be kind to their friends' daughters, would try to remember the +awkwardness of it, and not increase a naturally uncomfortable +self-consciousness by personal remarks which might disturb the composure +of older, prettier, and better-dressed people. It is bad enough to be +quite well aware that the size of one's hands and feet prematurely +foreshadow the future growth of one's figure; that these are the more +prominent because the simple dresses of the unintroduced young lady seem +to be perpetually receding from one's bony-wrists above, and shrinking +towards the calves of one's legs below, from those thin ankles on which +one is impelled to stand by turns (like a sleeping stork) through some +mysterious instinct of relieving the weak and overgrown spine. + +This, I say, is mortifying enough, and if modesty and good breeding +carry us cheerfully through a not unfelt contrast with the assured +manners and flowing draperies of Mamma's lady friends in the +drawing-room, they might spare us the announcement of what it hardly +needs gold eyeglasses to discover--that we really grow every day. +Blushes come heavily enough to hands and cheeks when to the shyness of +youth are added the glows and chills of imperfect circulation: it does +not need the stare of strangers, nor the apologies of Mamma, to stain +our doubtful complexions with a deeper red. + +All girls are not awkward at the awkward age. I speak most +disinterestedly on Matilda's behalf, for I never went through this phase +myself. It is perhaps because I am small that I can never remember my +hands, or any other part of me, feeling in my way; and my clothes--of +whatever length, breadth, or fashion--always had a happy knack of +becoming one with me in such wise that I could comfortably forget them. + +The St. Quentin girls were nearer to Matilda's age than I, but they too +were very happy and looked very nice in the hobble-de-hoy stage of +girlhood. I am sure that they much preferred the company of their young +brothers to the company of the drawing-room; but they did what they were +told to do, and seemed happy in doing it. They had, however, several +advantages over Matilda. By judicious care (for they were not naturally +robust) they were kept in good health. They kept a great many pets, and +they always seemed to have plenty to do, which perhaps kept them from +worrying about themselves. Adelaide, for instance, did all the flowers +for the drawing-room and dinner-table. Mrs. St. Quentin said she could +not do them so well herself. They had a very small garden to pick from, +but Adelaide used lots of wild-flowers and grass and ferns. She often +let me help her to fill the china jars, and she was the only person who +ever seemed to like hearing about Grandpapa's paintings. They all did +something in the house. But I believe that their greatest advantage over +poor Matilda was that they had not been accustomed to hear dress and +appearance talked about as matters of the first importance, so that +whatever defects they felt conscious of in either did not weigh too +heavily on their minds. + +On poor Matilda's they weighed heavily indeed. And she was not only +troubled by that consciousness of being plain, by which I think quite as +many girls are affected as by the vanity of being pretty (and which has +received far less attention from moralists); she was also tormented by +certain purely nervous fancies of her face being swollen, her eyes +squinting, and her throat choking, when people looked at her, which were +due to ill-health. + +Unhappily, the ill-health which was a good excuse for Matilda's +unwillingness to "play pretty" in the drawing-room was the subject on +which she was more perverse than any other. It was a great pity that she +was not frank and confiding with her mother. The detestable trick of +small concealments which Miss Perry had taught us was partly answerable +for this; but the fault was not entirely Matilda's. + +Aunt Theresa had not time to attend to her. What attention she did give, +however, made her so anxious on the subject that she took counsel with +every lady of her acquaintance, and the more she talked about poor +Matilda's condition the less leisure she had to think about it. + +"It may be more mind than body, I'm afraid," said Aunt Theresa one +afternoon, on our return from some visiting in which Matilda had refused +to share. "Mrs. Minchin says she knew a girl who went out of her senses +when she was only two years older than Matilda, and it began with her +refusing to go anywhere or see any one." + +Major Buller turned round on his chair with an anxious face, and a +beetle transfixed by a needle in his hand. + +"It was a very shocking thing," continued Aunt Theresa, taking off her +bonnet; "for she had a great-uncle in Hanwell, and her grandfather cut +his throat. I suppose it was in the family." + +Major Buller turned back again, and pinned the beetle by its proper +label. + +"I suppose it was," said he dryly; "but as there is no insanity in my +family or in yours that I'm aware of, Mrs. Minchin's case is not much to +the point." + +"Mrs. O'Connor won't believe she's ill," sighed Aunt Theresa; "_she_ +thinks it's all temper. She says her own temper was unbearable till she +had it knocked out of her at school." + +"Matilda's temper was good enough till lately," growled the Major. + +"She says Dr. O'Connor's brother, who is the medical officer of a +lunatic asylum somewhere in Tipperary," continued Aunt Theresa, +"declares all mad women go out of their minds through ill-temper. He's +written a book about it." + +"Heaven defend me, mind and body, from the theories of that astute +practitioner!" said Uncle Buller piously. + +"It's all very well making fun of it, but everybody tells one that girls +are more trouble than any number of boys. I'm sure I don't remember +giving my mother any particular trouble when I was Matilda's age, but +the stories I've heard to-day are enough to make one's hair stand on +end. Mrs. Minchin knew another girl, who lost all her appetite just like +Matilda, and she had a very sulky temper too, and at last they found out +she used to eat black-beetles. She was a Creole, or something of that +sort, I believe, but they couldn't stop her. The Minchins knew her when +they were in the West Indies, when he was in the 209th; or, at least, it +was there they heard about her. The houses swarmed with black-beetles." + +"A most useful young lady," said Uncle Buller. "Does Matilda dine on our +native beetles, my dear? She hasn't touched my humble collection." + +"Oh, if you make fun of everything----" Aunt Theresa began; but at this +moment Mrs. St. John was announced. + +After the customary civilities, Aunt Theresa soon began to talk of poor +Matilda, and Mrs. St. John entered warmly into the subject. + +To do the ladies of the regiment justice, they sympathized freely with +each other's domestic troubles; and indeed it was not for lack of taking +counsel that any of them had any domestic troubles at all. + +"Girls are a good deal more difficult to manage than boys, I'm afraid," +sighed Aunt Theresa, repeating Mrs. O'Connor's _dictum_. + +"Women are _dreadful_ creatures at any age," said Mrs. St. John to the +Major, opening her brown eyes in the way she always does when she is +talking to a gentleman. "I always _longed_ to have been a man." + +[Eleanor says she hates to hear girls say they wish they were boys. If +they do wish it, I do not myself see why they should not say so. But one +thing has always struck me as very odd. If you meet a woman who is +incomparably silly, who does not know an art or a trade by which she +could keep herself from starvation, who could not manage the +account-books of a village shop, who is unpunctual, unreasoning, and in +every respect uneducated--a woman, in short, who has, one would think, +daily reason to be thankful that her necessities are supplied by other +people, she is pretty sure to be always regretting that she is not a +man. + +Another, trick that some silly ladies have _riles_ me (as we say in +Yorkshire) far more than this odd ambition for responsibilities one is +quite incompetent to assume. Mrs. St. John had it, and as it was +generally displayed for the benefit of gentlemen, who seem as a rule to +be very susceptible to flattery, I suppose it is more a kind of +drawing-room "pretty talk" than the expression of deliberate opinions. +It consists of contrasting girls with boys and women with men, to the +disparagement of the former, especially in matters over which +circumstances and natural disposition are commonly supposed to give them +some advantage. + +I remember hearing a fat, good-natured girl at one of Aunt Theresa's +garden-parties say, with all the impressiveness of full conviction, +"Girls are far more cruel than boys, really. You know, women are _much_ +more cruel than men--oh, I'm _sure_ they are!" and the idea filled me +not less with amazement than with horror. This very young lady had been +most good-natured to us. She had the reputation of being an unselfish +and much-beloved elder sister. I do not think she would have hurt a fly. +Why she said this I cannot imagine, unless it was to please the young +gentleman she was talking to. I think he did look rather gratified. For +my own part, the idea worried my little head for a long time--children +give much more heed to general propositions of this kind than is +commonly supposed.] + +There was one disadvantage in the very fulness of the sympathy the +ladies gave each other over their little affairs. The main point was apt +to be neglected for branches of the subject. If Mrs. Minchin consulted +Mrs. Buller about a cook, that particular cook might be discussed for +five minutes, but the rest of a two hours' visit would probably be +devoted to recollections of Aunt Theresa's cooks past and present, Mrs. +Minchin's "coloured cooks" in Jamaica, and the cooks engaged by the +mothers and grandmothers of both ladies. + +Thus when Aunt Theresa took counsel with her friends about poor Matilda, +they hardly kept to Matilda's case long enough even to master the facts, +and on this particular occasion Mrs. St. John plunged at once into a +series of illustrative anecdotes of the most terrible kind, for she +always talked, as she dressed, in extremes. The moral of every story was +that Matilda should be sent to school. + +"And I'll send you over last year's numbers of the _Milliner and +Mantua-maker_, dear Mrs. Buller. There are always lots of interesting +letters about people's husbands and children, and education, and that +sort of thing, in the column next to the pastry and cooling drinks +receipts. There was a wonderfully clever letter from a 'M.R.C.S.' about +the difficulty of managing young girls, and recommending a strict school +where he had sent his daughter. And next month there were long letters +from five 'British Mothers' and 'A Countess' who had not been able to +manage their daughters, and had sent them to this school, and were in +every way satisfied. Mr. St. John declared that all the letters were +written by one person to advertise the school, but he always does say +those sort of things about anything I'm interested in." + +"You're very kind," said Mrs. Buller. + +"There was a most extraordinary correspondence, too, after that +shoemaker's daughter in Lambeth was tried for poisoning her little +brother," continued Mrs. St. John. "The _Saturday Review_ had an article +on it, I believe, only Mr. St. John can't bring papers home from the +mess, so I didn't see it. The letters were all about all the dreadful +things done by girls in their teens. There were letters from twelve +'Materfamiliases,' I know, because the editor had to put numbers to +them, and four 'Paterfamiliases,' and 'An Anxious Widower,' and 'A +Minister,' and three 'M.D.'s.' But the most awful letter was from 'A +Student of Human Nature,' and it ended up that every girl of fifteen was +a murderess at heart. If I can only lay my hand on that number---- but +I've lent it to so many people, and there was a capital paper pattern in +it too, of the _jupon l'Impratrice_, ready pricked." + +At this point Uncle Buller literally exploded from the room. Aunt +Theresa said something about draughts, but I think even Mrs. St. John +must have been aware that it was the Major who banged the door. + +I was sitting on the footstool by the fire-place making a night-dress +for my doll. My work had been suspended by horror at Mrs. St. John's +revelations, and Major Buller's exit gave an additional shock in which I +lost my favourite needle, a dear little stumpy one, with a very fine +point and a very big eye, easy to thread, and delightful to use. + +When Mrs. St. John went away Major Buller came back. + +"I am sorry I banged the door, my dear," said he kindly, "but whatever +the tempers of girls may be made of at fifteen, mine is by no means +perfect, I regret to say, at fifty; and I _cannot_ stand that woman. My +dear Theresa, let me implore you to put all this trash out of your head +and get proper medical advice for the child at once. And--I don't like +to seem unreasonable, my dear, but--if you must read those delectable +articles to which Mrs. St. John refers, I wish you'd read them at her +house, and not bring them into ours. I'd rather the coarsest novel that +ever was written were picked up by the children, if the broad lines of +good and evil were clearly marked in it, than this morbid muddle of +disease and crime, and unprincipled parents and practitioners." + +Uncle Buller seldom interfered so warmly; indeed, he seldom interfered +at all. I think Aunt Theresa would have been glad if he would have +advised her oftener. + +"Indeed, Edward," said she, "I'll do anything you think right. And I'm +sure I wouldn't read anything improper myself, much less let the +children. And as to the _Milliner and Mantuamaker_ you need not be +afraid of that coming into the house unless I send for it. Mrs. St. John +is always promising to lend me the fashion-book, but she never remembers +it." + +"And you'll have proper advice for Matilda at once?" + +"Certainly, my dear." + +Mrs. Buller was in the habit of asking the regimental Surgeon's advice +in small matters, and of employing a civilian doctor (whose fees made +him feel better worth having) in serious illness. She estimated the +seriousness of a case by danger rather than delicacy. So the Surgeon +came to see Matilda, and having heard her cough, promised to send a +"little something," and she was ordered to keep indoors and out of +draughts, and take a tablespoonful three times a day. + +Matilda had not gone graciously through the ordeal of facing the +principal Surgeon in his uniform, and putting out her tongue for his +inspection; and his prescriptions did not tend to reconcile her to being +"doctored." Fresh air was the only thing that hitherto had seemed to +have any effect on her aches and pains, or to soothe her hysterical +irritability, and of this she was now deprived. When Aunt Theresa +called in an elderly civilian practitioner, she was so sulky and +uncommunicative, and so resolutely refused to acknowledge to any +ailments, that (his other prescriptions having failed to cure her +lassitude, and his pompous manner and professional visits rather +provoking her feverish perversity) the old doctor also recommended that +she should be sent to school. + +Medical advice is very authoritative, and yet Uncle Buller hesitated. + +"It's like packing a troublesome son off to the Colonies, my dear," said +he. "And though Dr. Brown may be justified in transferring his +responsibilities elsewhere, I don't think that parents should get rid of +theirs in this easy fashion." + +But when Eleanor came, the Major's views underwent a change. If I went +with Matilda, and we had Eleanor Arkwright for a friend, he allowed that +he would consent. + +"That is if the girl is willing to go. I will send no child of mine out +of my house against her will." + +Major Buller asked her himself. Asked with so much kindness, and +expressed such cheery hopes that change of air, regular occupation, and +the society of other young people would make her feel "stronger and +happier" than she had seemed to be of late, that to say that Matilda +would have gone anywhere and done anything her father wished is to give +a feeble idea of the gush of gratitude which his sensible and +sympathetic words awoke in her. Unfortunately she could not keep herself +from crying just when she most wanted to speak, and Uncle Buller, having +a horror of "scenes," cut short the one interview in which Matilda felt +disposed to confide in her parents. + +But she confided to me, when she came to bed that night (_I_ didn't mind +her crying between the sentences), that she was very, very sorry to have +been "so cross and stupid," and that if we were not going to school she +meant to try and be very different. I begged her to let me ask Uncle +Buller to keep us at home a little longer, but Matilda would not hear of +it. + +"No, no," she sobbed, "not now. I should like to do something he and +Mamma want, and they want us to go to school." + +For my own part I was quite willing to go, especially after I had seen +Eleanor Arkwright. So we were sent--to Bush House. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +AT SCHOOL--THE LILAC-BUSH--BRIDGET'S POSIES--SUMMER--HEALTH. + + +We knew when it was summer at Bush House, because there was a lilac-tree +by the gate, which had one large bunch of flowers on it in the summer +when Eleanor and I and Matilda were at school there. As we left the +house in double file to take our daily exercise on the high-road, the +girls would bob their heads to catch a whiff of the scent as they +passed, or to let the cool fragrant flowers brush their foreheads. On +this point Madame, our French governess, remonstrated in vain. We took +turns for the side next to the lilac, and sniffed away as long as there +was anything to smell. Even when the delicate colour began to turn +brown, and the fragrance vanished, we were loth to believe that the +blossoms were fading. + +"I think I have got a cold in my head," said Matilda, who had plunged +her nose into the cluster one day in vain. + +"You have a cough, ma foi! Mademoiselle Buller," replied Madame, who +seemed to labour under the idea that Matilda rather enjoyed this +privilege. But I had tried the lilac-bush myself with no better +success. + +"I think," I whispered to Eleanor, in English, "that we have smelt it +all up." + +"Parlez-vous franais, mesdemoiselles!" cried Madame, and we filed out +into the dusty street, at the corner of which sat another of our visible +tokens of the coming of the season of flowers; a dirty, shrivelled old +Irishwoman, full of benedictions and beggary, who, all through the +summer, sold "posies" to the passers-by. We school-girls were good +customers to her. We were all more or less sentimental, more or less +homesick, and had more or less of that susceptibility to the influence +of scents which may, some day, be the basis of a new school of medicine. +One girl had cultivated pinks and _Roses de Meaux_ in her own garden "at +home," and Bridget was soon wise enough to discover that a nosegay +composed of these materials was an irresistible temptation to that +particular customer. Another had a craving for the sight and smell of +southernwood (or "old man," as Eleanor called it), and preferred it in +combination with bachelor's buttons. + +"There was an old woman 'at home' whom we used to go to tea with when we +were children--my brother and I," she said; "there were such big bunches +of southernwood by her cottage. And bachelor's buttons all round the +garden." + +The brother was dead, I knew, and there were two flattened "buttons" and +a bit of withered "old man" gummed into her Bible. "Picked the last day +we were out together. Before he was taken ill with scarlet fever," she +told me. She had the boy's portrait in a standing frame, and, little +space as we had in our bedrooms, the other girls piled their brushes and +ribbon-boxes on one side of the looking-glass as best they could, and +left the rest of the dressing-table sacred to his picture, and to the +Bible, and the jar of Bridget's flowers, which stood before the likeness +as if it had been that of a patron saint. + +For my own part I was very ignorant of the names and properties of +English flowers. I knew some by sight, from Adelaide St. Quentin's +bouquets, and from my great-grandfather's sketches; and I knew the names +of others of which Adolphe had given me plants, and of which I was glad +to see the flower. As I had plenty of pocket-money I was a liberal +customer, and I made old Bridget tell me the names of the flowers in her +bunches. I have since found out that whenever she was at fault she +composed a name upon the spot, with the ready wit and desire to please +characteristic of her nation. These names were chiefly connected with +the Blessed Virgin and the saints. + +"The Lord blesh ye, my dear," she would say; "that's 'Mary's flower';" +or, "Sure it's the 'Blessed Virgin's spinning-wheel,' and a pretty name +too!" + +A bitter-smelling herb which she commended to me as "Saints' Savory," I +afterwards learned to be tansy. + +The youngest of us, a small, silent little orphan, had bought no posy +till one day she quietly observed, "If you could get me a peony, I would +buy it." + +The peony was procured; so large, so round, and so red, that some one +unfeelingly suggested that it should be cut up for pickled cabbage. The +little miss walked home with it in her hand, looking at it as +sentimentally as if it had been a forget-me-not. As we had been +hard-hearted enough to laugh at it, we never learned the history which +made it dear. + +Madame would certainly never have allowed us to break our ranks, and +chaffer with Bridget, but that some one had been lucky enough to think +of giving her bouquets. + +Madame liked flowers--as ornaments--and was sentimental herself, after a +fashion, a sentimentality of appearances. She liked a bright spot of +colour on her sombre dresses too, and she was economical; for every day +that she had a bright bouquet a day's wear and tear was saved to her +neck-ribbons. She pinned the bright flowers by her very clean collar, +and not very clean throat, and permitted us to supply ourselves also +from Bridget's basket. + +A less pleasant sign of summer than the lilac-blossom or Bridget's +flower-basket was the heat. It was hot in the dusty, draughty streets of +the little town. The empty bedrooms at Bush House were like ovens, and +the well-filled school-room was much worse. Madame would never hear any +complaints of the heat from me or from Matilda. Summer at Bush House, in +the nature of things, could be nothing to summer in India, to which we +were accustomed. It was useless to point out that in India the rooms in +which we lived were large, well shaded, and ventilated by constant +currents of fresh air. Also that there, our heaviest meal, our longest +walk, and our hardest work were not all crowded into the hottest hours +of the day. + +"England is at no time so warm as India," said Madame. + +"I suppose we are not as hot as the cook," suggested little "Peony" as +we now called her, one very hot day, when we sat languidly struggling +through our work in the stifling atmosphere of the school-room. "I +thought of her to-day when I looked at that great fat leg of roast +mutton. We're better off than she is." + +"And she's better off than if she were in the Black Hole of Calcutta; +but that doesn't make either her or us cool," said Emma Lascelles, an +elder girl. "Don't preach, Peony; lessons are bad enough in this heat." + +"I shan't eat any dinner to-morrow, I think," said Eleanor; "I cannot +keep awake after it this weather, so it's no use." + +"I wish I were back at Miss Martin's for the summer," said another girl. + +We knew to what this referred, and Madame being by a rare chance absent, +we pressed for an account, in English, of Miss Martin's arrangements in +the hot weather. "Miss Martin's" was a school at which this girl had +been before she came to Bush House. + +"I can't think why on earth you left her," said Eleanor. + +"Well, this is nearer home for one thing, and the masters are better +here, certainly. But she did take such care of us. It wasn't everlasting +backaches, and headaches, and coughs, and pains in your side all along. +And when the weather got hot (and it was a very warm summer when I was +there), and she found we got sleepy at work after dinner, and had +headaches in the afternoon, she said she thought we had better have a +scrap meal in the middle of the day, and dine in the cool of the +evening; and so we used to have cold rice-pudding or thick +bread-and-butter, such as we should have had for tea, or anything there +was, and tumblers of water, at one, and at half-past five we used to +wash and dress; and then at six, just when we were getting done up with +the heat and work, and yet cool enough to eat, we had dinner. I can tell +you a good fat roast leg of mutton looked all right then! It cured all +our headaches, and we worked twice as well, both at midday work and at +getting lessons ready for next day after dinner. I know----" + +"Tais-toi, Lucy!" hissed Peony through her teeth. "Madame!" + +"Donnez-moi cette grammaire, Marguerite, s'il vous plait," said Lucy, as +Madame entered. + +And I gave her the grammar, and we set to work again, full of envy for +the domestic arrangements of Miss Martin's establishment during the dog +days. + +If there is a point on which Eleanor and I are quite agreed, among the +many points we discuss and do not always agree upon, it is that of the +need for a higher education for women. But ill as I think our sex +provided for in this respect, and highly as I value good teaching, I +would rather send a growing girl to a Miss Martin, even for fewer +"educational advantages," and let her start in life with a sound, +healthy constitution and a reasonable set of nerves, than have her head +crammed and her health neglected under "the first masters," and so good +an overseer as "Madame" to boot. For Madame certainly made us work, and +was herself indefatigable. + +The reckless imprudence of most girls in matters of health is +proverbial, the wisdom of young matrons in this respect is not beyond +reproach, and the lore which long and painful experience has given to +older women is apt, like other lessons from that stern teacher, to come +too late. It should at least avail to benefit their daughters, were it +not that custom prescribes that they also should be kept in the dark +till instructed in turn by the lamentable results of their ignorance, +too often only when these are past repair. + +Whether, though there are many things that women have no knowledge of, +and many more of which their knowledge is superficial, their lack of +learning on these points being erudition compared with their crass +ignorance of the laws of health, the matter is again one of education; +or whether it is an unfortunate development of a confusion between +ignorance and innocence, and of mistaken notions of delicacy, who shall +say? Unhappily, a studied ignorance of the ills that flesh is heir to is +apt to bring them in double force about one's ears, and this kind of +delicate-mindedness to bring delicacy of body in its train. Where it +guides the counsels of those in charge of numbers of young people (as in +Miss Mulberry's case), it is apt to result in the delicacy (more or +less permanent) of several bodies. + +But I am forgetting that I am not "preaching" to Eleanor by the kitchen +fire, but writing my autobiography. I am forgetting, also, that I have +not yet said who Miss Mulberry was. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +MISS MULBERRY--DISCIPLINE AND RECREATION--MADAME--CONVERSATION--ELEANOR'S +OPINION OF THE DRAWING-MASTER--MISS ELLEN'S--ELEANOR'S APOLOGY. + + +Miss Mulberry was our school-mistress, and the head of the Bush House +establishment. "Madame" was only a French mistress employed by Miss +Mulberry, though she had more to do with the pupils than Miss Mulberry +herself. + +Miss Mulberry was stout, and I think by nature disposed to indolence, +especially in warm weather. It was all the more creditable to her that +she had worked hard for many years to support a paralytic mother and a +delicate sister. The mother was dead now. Miss Ellen Mulberry, though an +invalid, gave some help in teaching the younger ones; and Bush House +had for so long been a highly-reputed establishment that Miss Mulberry +was more or less prosperous, and could afford to keep a French governess +to do the hard work. + +Miss Mulberry was very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of +propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a +favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and +between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as +"motherly," though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her +dealing with girls she was essentially a spinster. + +Her good conscience and her timidity both helped to make her feel +school-keeping a heavy responsibility, which should perhaps excuse the +fact that we suffered at Bush House from an excess of the meddlesome +discipline which seems to be _de rigueur_ in girls' schools. I think +Miss Mulberry would have felt that she had neglected her duty if we had +ever been left to our own devices for an hour. + +To growing girls, not too robust, leading sedentary lives, working very +hard with our heads, and having (wholesome and sufficient meals, but) +not as much animal food as most of us were accustomed to at home, the +_nag_ of never being free from supervision was both irritating and +depressing. Much worse off were we than boys at school. No +playing-fields had we; no leave could be obtained for country rambles +by ourselves. Our dismal exercise was a promenade in double file under +the eye and ear of Madame herself. + +True, we were allowed fifteen minutes' "recreation" together, and by +ourselves, in the school-room, just after dinner; but this inestimable +privilege was always marred by the fact that Madame invariably came for +us before the quarter of an hour had expired. No other part of school +discipline annoyed us as this did. It had that element of injustice +against which children always rebel. Why she did so remains to this day +a puzzle to me. She worked very hard for her living--a fact which did +not occur to us in those days to modify our view of her as our natural +tormentor. In breaking faith with us daily by curtailing our allotted +fifteen minutes of recreation, she deprived herself of rest to the exact +amount by which she defrauded us. + +She cannot have pined to begin to teach as soon as she had swallowed her +food! I may do her an injustice, but the only reason I can think of as a +likely one is that, by taking us unawares, she (I won't say hoped, but) +expected to find us "in mischief." + +It was a weak point of the arrangements of Bush House that Miss Mulberry +left us so much to the care of Madame. Madame was twice as energetic as +Miss Mulberry. Madame never spared herself if she never spared us. +Madame was indefatigable, and in her own way as conscientious as Miss +Mulberry herself. But Madame was not just, and she was not truthful. She +had--either no sense at all, or--a quite different sense from ours of +honour and uprightness. Perhaps the latter, for she seemed to break +promises, tell lies, open letters, pry into drawers and boxes, and +listen at keyholes from the highest sense of duty. And, which was even +worse for us, she had no belief whatever in the trustworthiness of her +pupils. + +Miss Mulberry felt it to be her duty towards our parents and guardians +to keep us under constant supervision; but Madame watched and worried +us, I am convinced, in the persuasion that we were certain to get into +mischief if we had the chance, and equally certain to do so deceitfully. +She gave us full credit (I never could trace that she saw any discredit +in deceit) for slyness in evading her authority, but flattered herself +that her own superior slyness would maintain it in spite of us. + +It vexed us all, but there were times when it irritated Eleanor almost +to frenzy. She would have been in disgrace oftener and more seriously on +the subject, but that Madame was a little afraid of her, and was, I +think, not a little fond of her. + +Madame was a clever woman, and a good teacher. She was sharp-witted, +ready of tongue, and indefatigably industrious herself; and slow, +stupid, or lazy girls found no mercy at her hands. + +Eleanor's unusual abilities, the extent of her knowledge and reading on +general subjects, the rapidity with which she picked up conversational +French and wielded it in discussions with Madame, and finally her +industry and perseverance, won Madame's admiration and good-will. I +think she almost believed that Mademoiselle Arkwright's word was to be +relied upon. + +Eleanor never toadied her, which I fear we others (we were so utterly at +her mercy!) did sometimes; assuming an interest we did not feel in her +dissertations on the greatness of France and the character of her +especial idol, the first Napoleon. + +If Madame respected Eleanor, we school-girls almost revered her. "She +talks so splendidly," Lucy said one day. + +Not that the rest of us were by any means dumb. The fact that English +was forbidden did not silence us, and on Sunday when (to Madame's +undisguised chagrin) Miss Mulberry allowed us to speak English, we +chattered like sparrows during an anthem. But Eleanor introduced a kind +of talk which was new to most of us. + +We could all chatter of people and places, and what was said on this +occasion or what happened on another. We had one good mimic (Emma), and +two or three of us were smart in description. We were observant of +details and appearances, and we could one and all "natter" over our +small grievances without wearying of the subject, and without ever +speculating on their causes, or devising remedies for them. + +But, with Eleanor, facts served more as points to talk from, than as +talk in themselves. Through her influence the Why and How of things +began to steal into our conversation. We had more discussion and less +gossip, and found it better fun. + +"One never tells you anything without your beginning to argue about it," +said one of the girls to her one day. + +"I'm very sorry," said poor Eleanor. + +"You're very clever, you mean," said Emma. "What a lawyer you'd have +made, Eleanor! While we growl at the Toad's tyranny, you make a case out +of it." + +(I regret to have to confess that, owing to a peculiarity of complexion, +Madame was familiarly known to us, behind her back, as the Toad.) + +"Well, I don't know," said Eleanor, puckering her brows and nursing her +knees, as we all sat or lounged on the school-room floor, during the +after-dinner recreation minutes, in various awkward but restful +attitudes; "I can growl as well as anybody, but I never feel satisfied +with bewailing over and over again that black's black. One wants to find +out why it's black, and if anything would make it white. Besides, I +think perhaps when one looks into one's grievances, one sees excuses for +people--there are two sides to every question." + +"There'll be one, two, three," said Emma, looking slowly round and +counting the party with a comical imitation of Eleanor's thoughtful +air--"there'll be fifteen sides to every question by the time we've all +learnt to talk like you, my dear." + +Eleanor burst out laughing, and we most of us joined her to such good +purpose, that Madame overheard us, and thought it prudent to break up +our sitting, though we had only had a short twelve minutes' rest. + +Eleanor not only set the fashion of a more reasonable style of chat in +our brief holiday hours, but she was apt to make lessons the subject of +discussions which were at first resented by the other girls. + +"I can't think," she began one day (it was a favourite way with her of +opening a discussion)--"I can't think what makes Mr. Henley always make +us put the shadows in in cobalt. Some shadows are light blue certainly, +I think, especially on these white roads, but I don't think they are +always; not in Yorkshire, at any rate. However, as far as that goes, he +paints his things all in the same colours, whatever they're meant for; +the Bay of Naples or the coast of Northumberland. By the bye, I know +that I've heard that the shadows on the snow in Canada are really +blue--bright blue." + +"You're blue, deep blue," said Emma. "How you can talk shop out of +lesson hours, Eleanor, I can't conceive. You began on grammar the other +day, by way of enlivening our ten minutes' rest." + +"I'm very sorry," said Eleanor: "I'm fond of drawing, you know." + +"Oh, do let her talk, Emma!" cried Peony. "I do so like to hear her. Why +are the shadows on the snow blue, Eleanor?" + +"I can't think," said Eleanor, "unless it has something to do with +reflection from the sky." + +Eleanor was not always discreet enough to keep her opinion of Mr. +Henley's style to herself and us. She was a very clever girl, and, like +other very young people, her cleverness was apt to be aggressive; +scorned compromises, and was not always sufficiently respectful towards +the powers that be. + +Her taste for drawing was known, and Madame taunted her one day with +having a reputation for talent in this line, when her water-colour +copies were not so effective as Lucy's; simply, I believe, with the wish +to stimulate her to excel. I am sure Madame much preferred Eleanor to +Lucy, as a matter of liking. + +"Behold, Mademoiselle!" said she, holding up one of Lucy's latest +copies, just glorified with a wide aureole of white cardboard +"mounting"; "what do you think of this?" + +"It is very like Mr. Henley's," said Eleanor warmly. "Lucy has taken +great pains, I'm sure. It's quite as good as the copy, I think." + +"But what do you think of it?" said Madame impatiently; she was too +quick-witted to be easily "put off." "Is it not beautiful?" + +"It is very smart, very gay," said Eleanor, who began to lose her +temper. "All Mr. Henley's sketches are gay. The thatch on the house +reminds me of the 'ends' of Berlin wool that are kept, after a big piece +of work, for kettle-holders. The yellow tree and the blue tree are very +pretty: there always is a yellow tree and a blue tree in Mr. Henley's +sketches. I don't know what kind of trees they are. I never do. The +trunks are pink, but that doesn't help one, for the markings on them are +always the same." + +Eleanor's French was quite good enough to give this speech its full +weight, as Madame's kindling eyes testified. She flung the drawing from +her, and was bursting forth into reply, when, by good luck, Miss +Mulberry called for her so impatiently that she was obliged to leave the +room. + +I had been repeating a lesson to Miss Ellen Mulberry, who lay on a couch +near the window, but we had both paused involuntarily to listen to +Eleanor and Madame. + +Miss Ellen was very good. She was also very gentle, and timid to +nervousness. But from her couch she saw a good deal of the daily life of +the school, and often understood matters better than those who were in +the thick of it, I think. + +When Madame had left the room, she called Eleanor to her, and in an +almost trembling voice said: + +"My dear, do you think you are quite right to speak so to Madame about +that drawing?" + +"I am very sorry, Miss Ellen," said Eleanor; "but it's what I think, and +she asked me what I thought." + +"You are very clever, my dear," said Miss Ellen, "and no one knows +better than yourself that there are more ways than one of expressing +one's opinion." + +"Indeed," Eleanor broke in, "I don't want to be rude. I'm sorry I did +speak so pertly. But oh, Miss Ellen, I wish you could see the trees my +mother draws! How can I say I like those things of Mr. Henley's? Like +green seaweeds on the end of a pink hay-fork! And we've lots of old +etchings at home, with such trees in them! Like--well, like nothing but +real trees and photographs." + +Miss Ellen took Eleanor's hand and drew her towards her. + +"My dear," said she, "you have plenty of sense; and have evidently used +it to appreciate what your dear mother has shown and taught to you. Use +it now, my dear, to ask yourself if it is reasonable to expect that men +who could draw like the old masters would teach in ordinary girls' +schools, or, if they would, that school-mistresses could afford to pay +them properly without a much greater charge to the parents of pupils +than they would be willing to bear. You have had great advantages at +home, and have learnt enough to make you able to say very smart things; +but fault-finding is an easy trade, my dear, and it would be wiser as +well as kinder to see what good you can get from poor Mr. Henley's +lessons, as to the use of the brush and colours, instead of neglecting +your drawing because you don't like his style, which, after all, you +needn't copy when you sketch from nature yourself. I will tell you, dear +child, that my sister and I have talked this matter over before. Clever +young people are apt to think that their stupid elders have never +perceived what their brilliant young wits can put straight with +half-a-dozen words. But I used to draw a little myself," continued Miss +Ellen very modestly, "and I have never liked Mr. Henley's style. But he +is such a very good old man, and so poor, that my sister has shrunk from +changing. Still, of course our pupils are the first consideration, and +we should have had another master if a much better one could have been +got. But Mr. Markham, who is the only other one within reach, is not so +painstaking and patient with his pupils as Mr. Henley; and though his +style is rather better, it is not so very superior as to lead us, on the +whole, to turn poor Mr. Henley away for him. As to Madame," said Miss +Ellen, in conclusion, "she was quite right, my dear, to contrast your +negligence with Lucy's industry, and your smart speech was not in good +taste towards her, because you know that she knows nothing of drawing, +and could not dispute the point with you. There she comes," added Miss +Ellen rather nervously. She was afraid of Madame. + +"I'll go and beg her pardon, dear Miss Ellen," said Eleanor penitently, +and rushing out of the room, she met Madame in the passage, and we heard +her pouring forth a torrent of apology and self-accusation in a style +peculiar to herself. If in her youth and cleverness she was at times a +little sharp-tongued and self-opinionated, the vehemence of her +self-reproaches when she saw herself in fault was always a joke with +those who knew her. + +"Eleanor's confessions are only to be matched by her favourite Jeremy +Taylor's," said Jack one day. + +"She's just as bumptious next time, all the same," said Clement. He had +been disputing with Eleanor, and the generous grace of meeting an +apology half-way was no part of his character. + +He had an arbitrary disposition, in which Eleanor to some extent shared. +He controlled it to fairness in discussions with men, but with men only. +With Eleanor, who persisted in thinking for herself, and was not slow to +express her thoughts, he had many hot disputes, in which he often seemed +unable to be fair, and did not always trouble himself to be reasonable. + +By his own account he "detested girls with opinions." Abroad he was +politely contemptuous of feminine ideas; at home he was apt to be rudely +so. + +But this was only one, and a later development of many-sided Clement. + +And the subject is a digression, and has no business here. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +ELEANOR'S THEORIES REDUCED TO PRACTICE--STUDIES--THE ARITHMETIC-MASTER. + + +Madame was not ungenerous to an apology. She believed in Eleanor too, +and was quite disposed to think that Eleanor might be in the right in a +dispute with anybody but herself. Perhaps she hoped to hear her triumph +in a discussion with Mr. Henley, or perhaps it was only as a punishment +for her presumptuous remarks that Madame started the subject on the +following day to the drawing-master himself. + +"Miss Arkwright says your trees are all one, Mr. Henley," she began. +(Madame's English was not perfect.) "Except that the half are yellow and +the other half blue. She knows not the kind even." + +The poor little drawing-master, who was at that moment "touching up" a +yellow tree in one of the younger girls' copies, trying by skilfully +distributed dabs to make it look less like a faded cabbage-leaf, +blushed, and laid down his brush. Eleanor, who was just beginning to +colour a copy of a mountain scene, turned scarlet, and let her first +wash dry into unmanageable shapes as she darted indignant glances at +Madame, who appeared to enjoy her bit of malice. + +"Miss Arkwright will observe that these are sketches indicating the +general effect of a scene; not tree studies." + +"I know, Mr. Henley," said poor Eleanor, in much confusion; "at least, I +mean I don't know anything about water-colour sketching, so I ought not +to have said anything; and I never thought that Madame would repeat it. +I was thinking of pencil-drawings and etchings; and I do like to know +one tree from another," she added honestly. + +"You draw in pencil yourself?" asked Mr. Henley. + +"Oh no!" said Eleanor; "at least only a little. It was my mother's +drawings I was thinking of; and how she used to show us the different +ways of doing the foliage of different trees, and the marking on the +bark of the trunks." + +Mr. Henley drew a sheet of paper from his portfolio, and took a pencil +from his case. + +"Let us see, my dear young lady, what you remember of these lessons. The +pencil is well cut. There are flat sides for shading, and sharp ends for +outlines." + +Madame's thin lips pursed with the ghost of a smile, as Eleanor, with +hot cheeks and hands, came across "the room" to put her theories in +practice. + +"I can't do it, I know," she said, as she sat down, and gave herself +one of those nervous twitches common to girls of the hobble-de-hoy age. + +But Eleanor's nervous' spasms were always mitigated by getting something +into her fingers. Pencil and paper were her favourite implements; and +after a moment's pause, and a good deal of frowning, she said: "We've a +good many oaks about us;" and forthwith began upon a bit of oak foliage. + +"It's only a spray," she said. + +"It's very good," said the drawing-master, who was now looking over her +shoulder. + +"Oak branches are all elbows," she murmured, warming to her work, and +apparently talking to herself. "So different from willows and beeches." + +"Ve-ry good," said Mr. Henley, as Eleanor fitted the branches +dexterously into the clusters of leaves; "now for a little bit of the +oak bark, if you please." + +"This is only one tree, though," said Madame, who was also looking on. +"Let us see others, mademoiselle." + +"Willows are nice to do," said Eleanor, intent upon her paper; "and the +bark is prettier than oak, I think, and easier with these long points. +My mother says branches of trees should be done from the tips inwards; +and they do fit in better, I think. Only willow branches seem as if they +ought to be done outwards, they taper so. Beech trunks are very pretty, +but the leaves are difficult, I think. Scotch pines are easy." And +Eleanor left the beech and began upon the pine, fitting in the +horizontal branches under the foliage groups with admirable effect. + +"That will do, Miss Arkwright," said the little drawing-master. "Your +mother has been a good guide to you; and Mother Nature will complete +what she has begun. Now we will look at the copy, if you please." + +Eleanor's countenance fell again. Her pink mountain had run into her +blue mountain, and the interrupted wash had dried with hard and +unmanageable outlines. Sponging was the only remedy. + +Next drawing-lesson day Mr. Henley arrived a few minutes earlier than +was his wont, staggering under a huge basket containing a large clump of +flags and waterside herbage, which he had dug up "bodily," as he said. +These he arranged on a tray, and then from the bottom of the basket +produced the broken fragments of a red earthenware jug. + +"It was such a favourite of mine, Miss Arkwright," said he; "but what is +sacred to a maid-of-all-work? My only consolation, when she smashed it +this morning, was the thought that it would serve in the foreground of +your sketch." + +Saying which, the kind-hearted little man laid the red crocks among the +weeds, and after much pulling up and down of blinds to coax a good light +on to the subject, he called Eleanor to set to work. + +"It is _very_ good of you," said Eleanor emphatically. "When I have been +so rude, too!" + +"It is a pleasure," said the old man; "and will be doubly so if you do +it well. I should like to try it myself," he added, making a few hasty +dashes with the pencil. "Ah, my dear young lady, be thankful that you +will sketch for pleasure, and not for bread! It is pleasanter to learn +than to teach." + +Out of gratitude to Mr. Henley alone, Eleanor would have done her best +at the new "study"; but apart from this the change of subject was +delightful to her. She had an accurate eye, and her outlines had +hitherto contrasted favourably with her colouring in copies of the +sketches she could not like. The old drawing-master was delighted with +her pencil sketch of his "crockery among the reeds," and Eleanor +confessed to getting help from him in the choice and use of her colours. + +"Studies" became the fashion among the more intelligent pupils at Bush +House; though I have heard that experience justified the old man's +prophecy that they would not be so popular with the parents as the +former style had been. "They like lakes, and boats, and mountains, and +ruins, and a brighter style of colouring," he had said, and, as it +proved, with truth. + +Eleanor was his favourite pupil. Indeed, she was in favour with all the +teachers. + +A certain quaint little German was our arithmetic-master; a very good +one, whose patience was often sorely tried by our stupidity or +frivolity. On such occasions he rained epithets on us, which, from his +imperfect knowledge of English, were often comical, and roused more +amusement than shame. But for Eleanor he never had a harsh word. She was +thoroughly fond of arithmetic, and "gave her mind to it," to use a good +old phrase. + +"Ah!" the little man would yell at us. "You are so light-headed! +Sometimes you do do a sum, and sometimes not; but you do never _think_. +There is not one young lady of this establishment who thinks, but Miss +Arkwright alone." + +I remember an incident connected with the arithmetic-master which +occurred just after we came, and which roused Eleanor's intense +indignation. It was characteristic, too, of Madame's ideas of propriety. + +The weather was warm, and we were in the habit of dressing for tea. Our +toilettes were of the simplest kind. Muslin garibaldis, for coolness, +and our "second-best" skirts. + +Eleanor, Matilda, and I shared one room. On the first Wednesday evening +after our arrival at Bush House we were dressing as usual, when Emma ran +in. + +"I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you," said she; "you mustn't put on your +muslin bodies to-night. The arithmetic-master is coming after tea." + +"I don't understand," said Eleanor, who was standing on one leg as +usual, and who paused in a struggle with a refractory elastic sandal to +look up with a puckered brow, and general bewilderment. "What has the +arithmetic to do with our dresses?" + +Emma's saucy mouth and snub nose twitched with amusement, as she replied +in exact mimicry of Madame's broken English: "Have you so little of +delicacy as to ask, mademoiselle? Should the young ladies of this +establishment expose their shoulders in the transparency of muslin to a +professor?" + +Matilda and I burst out laughing at Emma's excellent imitation of +Madame; but Eleanor dropped her foot to the floor with a stamp that +broke the sandal, and burst forth into an indignant torrent of words, +which was only stayed by the necessity for resuming our morning dresses, +and hastening down-stairs. There Eleanor swallowed her wrath with her +weak tea; and I remember puzzling myself, to the neglect of mine, as to +the probable connection between arithmetic-masters and transparent +bodices. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ELEANOR'S REPUTATION--THE MAD GENTLEMAN--FANCIES AND FOLLIES--MATILDA'S +HEALTH--THE NEW DOCTOR. + + +We were not jealous of Eleanor's popularity. She was popular with the +girls as well as with the teachers. If she was apt to be opinionated, +she was candid, generous, and modest. She was always willing to help any +one, and (the firmest seal of friendship!) she was utterly sincere. + +She worked harder than any of us, so it was but just that she should be +most commended. But of all who lagged behind her, and who felt Madame's +severity, and created despair in the mind of the little +arithmetic-master, the most unlucky was poor Matilda. + +Matilda and I were now on the best of terms, and the credit of this +happy condition of matters is more hers than mine. + +It was not so much that I had learned more tact and sympathy (though I +hope these qualities do ripen with years and better knowledge!) as +because Matilda did most faithfully try to fulfil the good resolutions +Major Buller's kindness had led her to make. + +So far as Matilda's ailments were mental, I think that school-life may +have been of some benefit. + +Since the torments which have taught me caution in a household haunted +by boys, I am less confidential with my diary than I used to be. And if +I do not confide all my own follies to it, I am certainly not justified +in recording other people's. + +Not that Matilda makes any secret of the hero-worship she wasted on the +man with the chiselled face and weird eyes, whom we used to see on the +Riflebury Esplanade. She never spoke to him; but neither for that matter +did his dog, a Scotch deerhound with eyes very like his master's, and a +long nose which (uncomfortable as the position must have been) he kept +always resting in his master's hand as the two paced up and down, hour +after hour, by the sea. + +What folly Miss Perry talked on the subject it boots not at this date to +record. _I_ never indulged a more fanciful feeling towards him than +wonder, just dashed with a little fear--but I would myself have liked to +know the meaning of that long gaze he and the dog sometimes turned on +us! + +We shall never know now, however, for the poor gentleman died in a +lunatic asylum. + +I hope, when they shut him up, that they found the deerhound guilty also +of some unhydrophobiac madness, and imprisoned the two friends +together! + +Of course we laugh now about Matilda's fancy for the insane gentleman, +though she declares that at the time she could never keep him out of her +head--that if she had met him thirty-four successive times on the +Esplanade, she would have borne no small amount of torture to earn the +privilege of one more turn to meet him for the thirty-fifth--and that +her rest was broken by waking dreams of the possible misfortunes which +might account for his (and the dog's) obvious melancholy, and of +impossible circumstances in which she should act as their good angel and +deliverer. + +At the time she kept her own counsel, and it was not because she had +ever heard of the weird-eyed gentleman and his deerhound that Mrs. +Minchin concluded her advice to Aunt Theresa on one occasion by a shower +of nods which nearly shook the poppies out of her bonnet, and the +oracular utterance--"She's got some nonsense or other into her head, +depend upon it. Send her to school!" + +One thing has often struck me in reading the biographies of great +people. They must have to be written in quite a different way to the +biographies of common people like ourselves. + +For instance, when a practised writer is speaking of the early days of +celebrated poets, he says quite gravely--"Like Byron, Scott, and other +illustrious men, Hogg (the Ettrick shepherd) fell in love in his very +early childhood." And of course it sounds better than if one said, "Like +Smith, and Brown, and Jones, and nine out of every ten children, he did +not wait for years of discretion to make a fool of himself." + +Not being illustrious, Matilda blushes to remember this early folly; and +not being a poet's biographer, Aunt Theresa said in a severe voice, for +the general behoof of the school-room, that "Little girls were sometimes +very silly, and got a great deal of nonsense into their heads." I do not +think it ever dawned upon her mind that girls' heads not being +jam-pots--which if you do not fill them will remain empty--the best way +to keep folly out was to put something less foolish in. + +She would have taken a great deal of trouble that her daughters might +not be a flounce behind the fashions, and was so far-seeing in her +motherly anxieties, that she junketed herself and Major Buller to many +an entertainment, where they were bored for their pains, that an +extensive acquaintance might ensure to the girls partners, both for +balls and for life when they came to require them. But after what +fashion their fancies should be shaped, or whether they had wholesome +food and tender training for that high faculty of imagination by virtue +of which, after all, we so largely love and hate, choose right or +wrong, bear and forbear, adapt ourselves to the ups and downs of this +world, and spur our dull souls to the high hopes of a better--anxiety on +these matters Mrs. Buller had none. + +As to Mrs. Minchin, she would not have known what it meant if it had +been put in print for her to read. + +Matilda's irritability was certainly repressed in public by school +discipline, and from Eleanor's companionship our interests were varied +and enlarged. But in spite of these advantages her health rapidly +declined. And this without its seeming to attract Miss Mulberry's +notice. + +Indeed, she meddled very little in the matter of our health. She kept a +stock of "family pills," which she distributed from time to time amongst +us. They cured her headaches, she said; and she seemed rather aggrieved +that they did not cure Matilda's. + +But poor Matilda's headaches brought more than their own pain to her. +They seemed to stupefy her, and make her quite incapable of work. Her +complexion took a deadly, pasty hue, one eye was almost entirely closed, +and to a superficial observer she perhaps did look--what Madame always +pronounced her--sulky. Then, no matter how fully any lesson was at her +fingers' ends, she stumbled through a series of childish blunders to +utter downfall; and Madame's wrath was only equalled by her irony. To +do Matilda justice, she often used almost incredible courage in her +efforts to learn a task in spite of herself. Now and then she was +successful in defying pain; but by some odd revenge of nature, what she +learned in such circumstances was afterwards wiped as completely from +her memory as an old sum is sponged from a slate. + +To headache and backache, to vain cravings for more fresh air, and to an +inequality of spirits and temper to which Eleanor and I patiently +submitted, Matilda still added a cough, which seemed to exasperate +Madame as much as her stupidity. + +Not that our French governess was cruelly disposed. When she took +Matilda's health in hand and gave her a tumbler of warm water every +morning before breakfast, she did so in all good faith. It was a remedy +that she used herself. + +Poor Matilda was furious both with Madame's warm-water cure and Miss +Mulberry's pill-box. She had a morbid hatred of being "doctored," which +is often characteristic of chest complaints. She struggled harder than +ever to work, in spite of her headaches; she ceased to complain of them, +and concealed her cough to a great extent, by a process known amongst us +as "smothering." The one remedy she pined for--fresh air--was the last +that either Miss Mulberry or Madame considered appropriate to any form +of a "cold." + +This craving for fresh air helped Matilda in her struggle with illness. +Our daily "promenade" was dull enough, but it was in the open air; and +to be kept indoors, either as a punishment for ill-said lessons, or as a +cure for her cough, was Matilda's great dread. + +Night after night, when Madame had paid her final visit to our rooms, +and we were safe, did Eleanor creep out of bed and noiselessly lower the +upper sash of our window to please Matilda; whilst I sat (sometimes for +an hour or more) upon the bolster of the bed in which Matilda and I +slept together, and "nursed her head." + +What quaint, pale, grave little maids we were! As full of aches and +pains, and small anxieties, and self-repression, and tender sympathy, as +any other daughters of Mother Eve. + +Eleanor and I have often since said that we believe we should make +excellent nurses for the insane, looking back upon our treatment of poor +Matilda. We knew exactly when to be authoritative, and when to +sympathize almost abjectly. I became skilful in what we called "nursing +her head," which meant much more than that I supported it on my knees. +Softly, but firmly, I stroked her brow and temples with both hands, and +passed my fingers through her hair to the back of her head. I rarely +failed to put her to sleep, and as she never woke when I laid her down, +I have since suspected myself of unconscious mesmerism. + +One night, when I had long been asleep, I was awakened by Matilda's +hysterical sobs. She "couldn't get into a comfortable position;" her +"back ached so." Our bed was very narrow, and I commonly lay so poised +upon the outer edge to give Matilda room that more than once I have +rolled on to the floor. + +We spoke in undertones, but Eleanor was awake. + +"Come and see if you can sleep with me, Margery," she said. "I lie very +straight." + +I scrambled out, and willingly crept in behind Eleanor, into her still +narrower bed; and after tearful thanks and protestations, poor Matilda +doubled herself at a restful angle, and fell asleep. + +Happily for me, I was very well. Eleanor suffered from the utter change +of mode of life a good deal; but she had great powers of endurance. + +Fatigue, and "muddle on the brain," often hindered her at night from +learning the lessons for next day. But she worked at them nevertheless; +and tasks, that by her own account she "drove into her head" in bed, +though she was quite unable to say them that evening, seemed to arrange +themselves properly in her memory before the morning. + +Matilda's ill-health came to a crisis at last. To smother a cough +successfully, you must be able to escape at intervals. On one occasion +the smothering was tried too long, and after the aggravated outburst +which ensued, the doctor was called in. The Bush House family +practitioner being absent, a new man came for him, who, after a few +glances at Matilda, postponed the examination of her lungs, and begged +to see Miss Mulberry. + +Matilda had learned her last lesson in Bush House. + +From the long interview with the doctor, Miss Mulberry emerged with a +troubled face. + +Lessons went irregularly that day. Our quarter of an hour's recreation +was as much extended as it was commonly cut short, and Madame herself +was subdued. She became a very kind nurse to Matilda, and crept many +times from her bed during the night to see if "la pauvre petite" were +sleeping, or had a wish that she could satisfy. + +Indeed, an air of remorse seemed to tinge the kindness of the heads of +Bush House to poor Matilda, which connected itself in Eleanor's mind +with a brief dialogue that she overheard between Miss Mulberry and the +doctor at the front door: + +"I feel there has been culpable neglect," said Miss Mulberry mournfully. +"But----" + +"No, no. At least, not wilful," said the doctor; "and springing from the +best motives. But I should not be doing my duty, madam, towards a lady +in your responsible position, if I did not say that I have known too +many cases in which the ill-results have been life-long, and some in +which they have been rapidly fatal." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +ELEANOR'S HEALTH--HOLY LIVING--THE PRAYER OF THE SON OF SIRACH. + + +Matilda went home, and Eleanor and I remained at Bush House. + +I fancy that when we no longer had to repress ourselves for poor +Matilda's sake, Eleanor was more sensible of her own aches and pains. +She also became rather irritable, and had more than one squabble with +Madame about this time. + +Eleanor had brought several religious books with her--books of prayers +and other devotional works. They were all new to Matilda and me, and we +began to use them, and to imitate Eleanor in various little devout +customs. + +On Sunday Eleanor used to read Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_; +but as we never were allowed to be alone, she was obliged to bring it +down-stairs. Unfortunately, the result of this was that Miss Mulberry, +having taken it away to "look it over," pronounced it "not at all proper +reading for young ladies," and it was confiscated. After this Eleanor +reserved her devotional reading for bed-time, when, if she had got +fairly through her lessons for next day, I was wont to read the Bible +and other "good books" to her in a tone modulated so as not to reach +Madame's watchful ear. + +Once she caught us. + +The books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus from the Apocrypha were favourite +reading with Eleanor, who seemed in the grandly poetical praises of +wisdom to find some encouragement under the difficulties through which +we struggled towards a very moderate degree of learning. I warmly +sympathized with her; partly because much of what I read was beautiful +to read, even when I did not quite understand it; and partly because +Eleanor had inspired me also with some of her own fervour against "the +great war of ignorance." + +But, as I said, Madame caught us at last. + +Eleanor was lying, yet dressed, upon her bed, the window was open, and +I, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was giving forth the prayer of the +Son of Sirach, with (as I flattered myself) no little impressiveness. As +the chapter went on my voice indiscreetly rose: + +"When I was yet young, or ever I went astray, I desired wisdom openly in +my prayer. + +"I prayed for her before the temple, and will seek her out even to the +end. + +"Even from the flower till the grape was ripe hath my heart delighted in +her: my foot went the right way, from my youth up I sought after her. + +"I bowed down mine ear a little, and received her, and gat much +learning. + + * * * * * + +"Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in the house of learning. + + * * * * * + +"Put your neck under the yoke, and let your soul receive instruction: +she is hard at hand to find. + +"Behold with your eyes, how that I have had but little labour, and have +gotten unto me much rest. + +"Get learning----" + +"Eh, mesdemoiselles! This is going to bed, is it? Ah! Give me that book, +then." + +I handed over in much confusion the thin S.P.C.K. copy of the +Apocrypha, bound in mottled calf, from which I had been reading; and +ordering us to go to bed at once, Madame took her departure. + +Madame could read English well, though she spoke it imperfectly. The +next day she did not speak of the volume, and we supposed her to be +examining it. Then Eleanor became anxious to get it back, and tried both +argument and entreaty, for some time, in vain. At last Madame said: + +"What is it, mademoiselle, that you so much wish to read in this volume +of the holy writings?" + +"Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are what I like best," said Eleanor. + +"Eh bien!" said Madame, nodding her head like a porcelain Chinaman, and +with a very knowing glance. "I will restore the volume, mademoiselle." + +She did restore it accordingly, with the historical narratives cut out, +and many nods and grimaces expressive of her good wishes that we might +be satisfied with it now. + +In private, Eleanor stamped with indignation (whether or no her thick +boots had fostered this habit I can't say, but Eleanor was apt to stamp +on occasion). We had our dear chapters again, however, and I promised +Eleanor a new and fine copy of the mutilated favourite as a birthday +present. + +Eleanor was very good to me. She helped me with my lessons, and +encouraged me to work. For herself, she laboured harder and harder. + +I used to think that she was only anxious to get all the good she could +out of the school, as she did not seem to have many so-called +"advantages" at home, by her own account. But I afterwards found that +she did just the same everywhere, strained her dark eyes over books, and +absorbed information whenever and wherever she had a chance. + +"I can't say you're fond of reading," said Emma one day, watching +Eleanor as she sat buried in a book, "for I'm fond of reading myself, +and we're not at all alike. I call you greedy!" + +And Eleanor laughed, and quoted a verse from one of our favourite +chapters: "They that eat me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink me +shall yet be thirsty." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +ELEANOR AND I ARE LATE FOR BREAKFAST--THE SCHOOL BREAKS UP--MADAME AND +BRIDGET. + + +Eleanor and I overslept ourselves one morning. We had been tired, and +when we did get up we hurried through our dressing, looking forward to +fines and a scolding to boot. + +But as we crept down-stairs we saw both the Misses Mulberry and Madame +conversing together on the second landing. We felt that we were +"caught," but to our surprise they took no notice of us; and as we went +down the next flight we heard Miss Mulberry say, with a sigh, +"Misfortunes never come alone." + +We soon learnt what the new misfortune was. Poor Lucy had been taken +ill. The doctor had been to see her early that morning, and had +pronounced it fever--"Probably scarlet fever; and he recommends the +school being broken up at once, as the holidays would soon be here +anyway." So one of the girls told us. + +Presently Miss Mulberry made her appearance; and we sat down to +breakfast. She ate hers hurriedly, and then made a little speech, in +which she begged us, as a personal favour, to be good; and if it was +decided that we should go, to do our best to get our things carefully +together, and to help to pack them. + +I am sure we responded to the appeal. I wonder if it struck Madame, at +this time, that it might be well to trust us a little more, as a rule? I +remember Peony's saying, "Madame told me to help myself to tea. I might +have taken two lumps of sugar, but I did not think it would be right." + +We were all equally scrupulous; we even made a point of speaking in +French, though Madame's long absences from the school-room, and the +possibility of an early break-up for the holidays, gave both opportunity +and temptation to chat in English. + +On Monday evening at tea, Miss Mulberry made another little speech. The +doctor had pronounced poor Lucy's illness to be scarlet fever, and we +were all to be sent home the next day. There were to be no more lessons, +and we were to spend the evening in packing and other preparations. + +We were very sorry for poor Lucy, but we were young; and I do not think +we could help enjoying the delights of fuss, the excitement of +responsibility and packing, and the fact that the holidays had begun. + +We were going in various directions, but it so happened that we all +contrived to go by the same train to London. Some were to be dropped +before we reached town; one lived in London; and Eleanor and I had to +wait for half-an-hour before catching a train for the north. + +For I was going to Yorkshire. The Arkwrights had asked me to spend the +holidays with Eleanor. There was now nothing to be done but for us to +go up together, all unexpected as we were. + +How we packed and talked, and ran in and out of each other's rooms! It +was late when we all got to bed that night. + +Next morning the railway omnibus came for us, and with a curious sense +of regret we saw our luggage piled up, and the little gate of Bush House +close upon us. + +As we moved off, Bridget, the nosegay-woman, drew near. Madame (who had +shed tears as she bade us adieu) opened the gate again, ran out, cried +shrilly to the driver to stop, and buying up half Bridget's basketful at +one sweep, with more tears and much excitement, flung the flowers in +amongst us. As she went backwards off the step, on to which she had +climbed, she fell upon Bridget, who, with even more excitement and I +think also with ready tears, clung to the already moving omnibus, and +turned her basket upside down over our laps. + +I have a dim remembrance of seeing her and Madame seem to fall over each +other, or into each other's arms; and then, amid a shrill torrent of +farewells and blessings in French and Irish, the omnibus rolled on, and +Bush House was hid from our eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +NORTHWARDS--THE BLACK COUNTRY--THE STONE COUNTRY. + + +We had a very noisy, happy journey to London. We chattered, and laughed, +and hopped about like a lot of birds turned out of a cage. Emma sat by +the window, and made a running commentary upon everybody and everything +we passed in a strain of what seemed to us irresistible wit and humour. +I fear that our conduct was not very decorous, but in the circumstances +we were to be excused. The reaction was overwhelming. + +Eleanor and I sobered down after we parted from the other girls, and +thus became sensible of some fatigue and faintness. We had been too much +excited to eat any of the bread-and-butter prepared for our early +breakfast at Bush House. We had run up and down and stood on our feet +about three times as much as need was; we had talked and laughed and +shaken ourselves incessantly; we had put out our heads in the wind and +sun as the train flew on; we had tried to waltz between the seats, and +had eaten two ounces of "mixed sweets" given us by the housemaid, and +deluged each other with some very heavy-scented perfume belonging to +one of us. + +After all this, Eleanor and I felt tired before our journey had begun. +We felt faint, sick, anything but hungry, and should probably have +travelled north in rather a pitiful plight, had not a motherly-looking +lady, who sat in the waiting-room reading a very dirty book of +tracts--and who had witnessed both our noisy parting from our companions +and the subsequent collapse--advised us to go to the refreshment-room +and get some breakfast. We yielded at last, out of complaisance towards +her, and were rewarded by feeling wonderfully refreshed by a solid meal. + +We laid in a stock of buns and chocolate lozenges for future +consumption, and--thanks to Eleanor's presence of mind and +experience--we got our luggage together, and started in the north train +in a carriage by ourselves. + +We talked very little now. Eleanor gazed out of her window, and I out of +mine, in silence. As we got farther north, Eleanor's eyes dilated with a +curious glow of pride and satisfaction. I had then no special attachment +to one part of England more than another, but I had never seen so much +of the country before, and it was a treat which did not lose by +comparison with the limited range of our view at Bush House. + +As we ran on, the bright, pretty, sociable-looking suburbs of London +gave way to real country--beautiful, cared-for, garden-like, with grand +timber, big houses, and grey churches, supported by the obvious +parsonage and school; and deep shady lanes, with some little cart +trotting quaintly towards the railway bridge over which we rushed, or +boys in smock-frocks sitting on a gate, and shouting friendly +salutations (as it seemed) to Eleanor and myself. Then came broad, fair +pastures of fairy green, and slow winding rivers that we overtook almost +before we had seen them, with ghostly grey pollard willows in formal +mystical borders, contrasting with such tints of pale yellow and gay +greens, which in their turn shone against low distances of soft blue and +purple, that the sense of colour which my great-grandfather had roused +in me made me almost tremble with a never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. From +this flat but most fair country, the grey towers of Peterborough +Cathedral stood up in ancient dignity; and then we ran on again. After a +while the country became less rich in colour, and grander in form. No +longer stretching flatly to low-lying distances of ethereal hue, it was +broken into wooded hills, which folded one over the other with +ever-increasing boldness of outline. Now and then the line ran through +woods of young oak, with male ferns and bracken at their feet, where the +wild hyacinths, which lie there like a blue mist in May, must for some +weeks past have made way for the present carpet of pink campion. + +And now the distance was no longer azure. Over the horizon and the lower +part of the sky a thin grey veil had come--a veil of smoke. We were +approaching the manufacturing districts. Grander and grander grew the +country, less and less pure the colouring. The vegetation was rich +almost to rankness; the well-wooded distances were heavily grey. Then +tall chimneys poured smoke over the landscape and eclipsed the sun; and +through strangely shaped furnaces and chimneys of many forms, which here +poured fire from their throats like dragons, and there might have been +the huge retorts and chemical apparatus of some giant alchemist, we ran +into the station of a manufacturing town. + +I gazed at the high blackened warehouses, chimneys, and furnaces, which +loomed out of the stifling smoke and clanging noises, with horror and +wonder. + +"What a dreadful place!" I exclaimed. "Look at those dreadful things +with flames coming out; and oh, Eleanor! there's fire coming out of the +ground there. And look at that man opening that great oven door! Oh, +what a fire! And what's he poking in it for? And do look! all the men +are black. And what a frightful noise everything makes!" + +Eleanor was looking all the time, but with a complacent expression. She +only said, "It is a very busy place. I hear trade's good just now, too." +And, "You should see the furnaces at night, Margery, lighting up all the +hills. It's grand!" + +As she sniffed up the smoke with, I might almost say, relish, I felt +that she did not sympathize with my disgust. But any discussion on the +subject was stopped by our having to change carriages, and we had just +settled ourselves comfortably once more, when I got a bit of iron +"filings" into my eye. It gave me a good deal of pain and inconvenience, +and by the time that I could look out of the window again, we had left +the black town far behind. The hills were almost mountains now, and +sloped away on all sides of us in bleak and awful grandeur. The +woodlands were fewer; we were on the moors. Only a few hours back we had +been amongst deep hedges and shady lanes, and now for hedges we had +stone walls, and for deep embowered lanes we could trace the unsheltered +roads, gleaming as they wound over miles of distant hills. Deep below us +brawled a river, with here and there a gaunt mill or stone-built hamlet +on its banks. + +I had never seen any country like this; and if I had been horrified by +the black town, my delight with the noble scenery beyond it was in +proportion. I stood at the open window, with the moor breeze blowing my +hair into the wildest elf-locks, rapturously excited as the great hills +unfolded themselves and the shifting clouds sent shifting purple shadows +over them. Very dark and stern they looked in shade, and then, in a +moment more, the cloud was past, and a broad smile of sunshine ran over +their face, and showed where cultivation was creeping up the hillside +and turning the heather into fields. + +Eleanor leaned out of the window also. Excitement, which set me +chattering, always made her silent. But her parted lips, distended +nostrils, and the light in her eyes bore witness to that strange power +which hill country sways over hill-born people. To me it was beautiful, +but to her it was home. I better understood now, too, her old complaints +of the sheltered (she called it _stuffy_) lane in which we walked two +and two when we "went into the country" at school. She used to rave +against the park palings that hedged us in on either side, and declare +her longing to tear them up and let a little air in, or at least to be +herself somewhere where "one could see a few miles about one, and +breathe some wind." + +As we stood now, drinking in the breeze, I think the same thought struck +us both, and we exclaimed with one voice: "Poor Matilda! How she would +have enjoyed this!" + +We next stopped at a rather dreary-looking station, where we got out, +and Eleanor got our luggage together, aided by a porter who seemed to +know her, and whom she seemed to understand, though his dialect was +unintelligible to me. + +"I suppose we must have a cab," said Eleanor, at last. "They don't +expect us." + +"_Tommusisinttarn_," said the porter suggestively; which, being +interpreted, meant, "Thomas is in the town." + +"To be sure, for the meat," said Eleanor. "The dog-cart, I suppose?" + +"And t'owd mare," added the porter. + +"Well, the boxes must come by the carrier. Come along, Margery, if you +don't mind a little bit of walking. We must find Thomas. We have to send +down to the town for meat," she added. + +We found Thomas in the yard of a small inn. He was just about to start +homewards. + +By Eleanor's order, Thomas lifted me into the dog-cart, and then, to my +astonishment, asked "Miss Eleanor" if she would drive. Eleanor nodded, +and, climbing on to the driver's seat, took the reins with reassuring +calmness. Thomas balanced the meat-basket behind, and "t'owd mare" +started at a good pace up a hill which would have reduced most +south-country horses to crawl. + +"Father and Mother are away still," said Eleanor, after a pause. "So +Thomas says. But they'll be back in a day or two." + +We were driving up a sandy road such as we had seen winding over the +hills. To our left there was a precipitous descent to the vale of the +river. To our right, flowers, and ferns, and heather climbed the steep +hill, broken at every few yards by tiny torrents of mountain streams. +The sun was setting over the distant Deadmanstone moors; little dropping +wells tinkled by the roadside, where dozens of fat black snails were out +for an evening stroll, and here and there a brimming stone trough +reflected the rosy tints of the sky. + +It was grey and chilly when we drove into the village. A stone +pack-horse track, which now served as footpath, had run by the road and +lasted into the village. The cottages were of stone, the walls and +outhouses were of stone, and the vista was closed by an old stone +church, like a miniature cathedral. There was more stone than grass in +the churchyard, and there were more loose stones than were pleasant on +the steep hill, up which we scrambled before taking a sharp turn into +the Vicarage grounds. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE VICARAGE--KEZIAH--THE DEAR BOYS--THE COOK--A YORKSHIRE +TEA--BED-FELLOWS. + + +It was Midsummer. The heavy foliage brushed our faces as "the old mare," +with slack reins upon her back, drew us soberly up the steep drive, and +stood still, of her own accord, before a substantial-looking house, +built--"like everything else," I thought--of stone. Huge +rose-bushes--literal _bushes_, not "dwarfs" or "standards"--the growth +of many years, bent under their load of blossoms. The old "maiden's +blush," too rare now in our bedding plant gardens, the velvety "damask," +the wee Scotch roses, the prolific white, and the curious "York and +Lancaster," with monster moss-rose trees, hung over the carriage-road. +The place seemed almost overgrown with vegetation, like the palace of +the Sleeping Beauty. + +As we turned the corner towards the house, Eleanor put out her left hand +and dragged off a great branch of "maiden's blush." She forgot the +recoil, which came against my face. All the full-blown flowers shed +their petals over me, and I made my first appearance at the Vicarage +covered with rose-leaves. + +It was Keziah who welcomed us, and I have always had an affection for +her in consequence. She was housemaid then, and took to the kitchen +afterwards. After she had been about five years at the Vicarage, she +announced one day that she wished to go. She had no reason to give but +that she "thought she'd try a change." She tried one--for a month--and +didn't like it. Mrs. Arkwright took her back again, and in kitchen and +back premises she reigns supreme to this day. + +From her we learned that Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, who had gone away for a +parson's fortnight, were still from home. We had no lack of welcome, +however. + +It seems strange enough to speak of a fire as comfortable in July. And +yet I well remember that the heavy dew and evening breeze was almost +chilly after sunset, and a sort of vault-like feeling about the rooms, +which had been for a week or more unused, made us offer no resistance +when Keziah began to light a fire. While she was doing so Eleanor +exclaimed, "Let's go and warm ourselves in the kitchen." + +Any idea of comfort connected with a kitchen was quite new to me, but I +followed Eleanor, and made my first acquaintance with the old room where +we have spent so many happy hours. + +We found the door shut; much, it seemed, to Eleanor's astonishment. But +the reason was soon evident. As our footsteps sounded on the stone +passage there arose from behind the kitchen door an utterly +indescribable din of howling, yowling, squealing, scratching, and +barking. + +"It's the dear boys!" said Eleanor, and she ran to open the door. For a +moment I thought of her brothers (who must, obviously, be maniacs!), but +I soon discovered that the "dear boys" were the dogs of the +establishment, who were at once let loose upon us _en masse_. I have a +faint remembrance of Eleanor and a brown retriever falling into each +other's arms with cries of delight; but I was a good deal absorbed by +the care of my own small person, under the heavy onslaught of dogs big +and little. I was licked copiously from chin to forehead by the more +impetuous, and smelt threateningly at the calves of my legs by the more +cautious of the pack. + +They were subsiding a little, when Eleanor said, "Oh, cook, why did you +shut them up? Why didn't you let them come and meet us?" + +"And how was I to know who it was at the door, Miss Eleanor?" replied an +elderly, stern-looking female, who, in her time, ruled us all with a rod +of iron, the dogs included. "Dear knows it's not that I want them in the +kitchen. The way them dogs behaves, Miss Eleanor, is _scandilus_." + +"Dear boys!" murmured Eleanor; on which all the dogs, who were settling +down to sleep on the hearth, wagged their tails, and threatened to move. + +"Much good it is me cleaning," cook continued, "when that great big +brown beast of yours goes roaming about every night in the shrubberies, +and comes in with his feet all over my clean floor." + +"It makes rather pretty marks, I think," said Eleanor; "like +pot-moulding, only not white. But never mind, you've me at home now to +wipe their paws." + +"They've missed you sorely," said the cook, who seemed to be softening. +"I almost think they knew it was you, they were so mad to get out." + +"Dear boys!" cried Eleanor, once more; and the dogs, who were asleep +now, wagged their tails in their dreams. + +"And there's more's missed you than them," cook continued. "But, bless +us, Miss Eleanor, you don't look much better for being in strange parts. +That young lady, too, looks as if she enjoyed poor health. Well, give me +native air, there's nothing like it; and you've not got back to yours +too soon." + +Eleanor threw her arms round the cook, and danced her up and down the +kitchen. + +"Oh, dear cookey!" she cried; "I am so glad to be back again. And do be +kind to us, and give us tea-cakes, and brown bread toast, and let the +dogs come in to tea." + +Cook pushed her away, but with a relenting face. + +"There, there, Miss Eleanor. Take that jug of hot water with you, and +take the young lady up-stairs; and when you've cleaned yourselves, I'll +have something for you to eat; and you may suit yourselves about the +dogs,--I'm sure I don't want them. You've not got so much more sensible +with all your schooling," she added. + +We went off to do her bidding, and left her muttering, "And what folks +as can edicate their own children sends 'em all out of the house for, +passes me; to come back looking like a damp handkerchief, with dear +knows what cheap living and unwholesome ways, and want of native air." + +Cook's bark was worse than her bite. + +"She gives the dear boys plenty to eat," said Eleanor; and she provided +for us that evening in the same liberal spirit. + +What a feast we had! Strong tea, and abundance of sugar and rich cream. +We laid the delicious butter on our bread in such thick clumps, that +sallow-faced Madame would have thought us in peril of our lives. There +was brown bread toast, too; and fried ham and eggs, and moor honey, and +Yorkshire tea-cakes. In the middle of the table Keziah had placed a +large punch-bowl, filled with roses. + +And all the dogs were on the hearth, and they all had tea with us. + +After tea we tried to talk, but were so sleepy that the words died away +on our heavy lips. So we took Keziah's advice and went to bed. + +"Keziah has put the chair-bed into my room, Margery dear," said Eleanor. + +"I am so glad," said I. "I would rather be with you." + +"Would you like a dog to sleep with you?" Eleanor politely inquired. "I +shall have Growler inside, and my big boy outside. Pincher is a nice +little fellow; you'd better have Pincher." + +I took Pincher accordingly, and Pincher took the middle of the bed. + +We were just dropping off to sleep when Eleanor said, "If Pincher +snores, darling, hit him on the nose." + +"All right," said I. "Good-night." I had begun a confused dream, woven +from my late experiences, when Eleanor's voice roused me once more. + +"Margery dear, if Growler _should_ get out of my bed and come on to +yours, mind you kick him off, or he and Pincher will fight through the +bed-clothes." + +But whether Pincher did snore, or Growler invade our bed, I slept much +too soundly to be able to tell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +GARDENING--DRINKINGS--THE MOORS--WADING--BATRACHOSPERMA--THE +CHURCH--LITTLE MARGARET. + + +Both Eleanor and I were visited that night by dreams of terrible +complications with the authorities at Bush House. It was a curious +relief to us to wake to clear consciences and the absolute control of +our own conduct for the day. + +It took me several minutes fairly to wake up and realize my new +position. The window being in the opposite direction (as regarded my +bed) from that of our room at Miss Mulberry's, the light puzzled me, and +I lay blinking stupidly at a spray of ivy that had poked itself through +the window as if for shelter from the sun, which was already blazing +outside. Pincher brought me to my senses by washing my face with his +tongue; which I took all the kindlier of him that he had been, of all +the dear boys, the most doubtful about the calves of my legs the evening +before. + +As we dressed, I adopted Eleanor's fashion of doing so on foot, that I +might examine her room. As is the case with the "bowers" of most +English country girls of her class, it was rich in those treasures +which, like the advertised contents of lost pocket-books, are "of no +value to any one but the owner." Prints of sacred subjects in home-made +frames, knick-knacks of motley variety, daguerreotypes and second-rate +photographs of "the boys"--_i. e._ Clement and Jack--at different ages, +and of "the dear boys" also. "All sorts of things!" as I exclaimed +admiringly. But Eleanor threatened at last to fine me if I did not get +dressed instead of staring about me, so we went down-stairs, and had +breakfast with the dogs. + +"The boys will be home soon," said Eleanor, as we devoured certain +plates of oatmeal porridge, which Keziah had provided, and which I +tasted then for the first time. "I must get their gardens tidied up +before they come. Shall you mind helping me, Margery?" + +The idea delighted me, and after breakfast we tied on our hats, rummaged +out some small tools from the porch, and made our way to the children's +gardens. They were at some little distance from the big flower-garden, +and the path that led to them was heavily shaded by shrubbery on one +side, and on the other by a hedge which, though "quickset" as a +foundation, was now a mass of honeysuckle and everlasting peas. The +scent was delicious. + +From this we came out on an open space at the top of the kitchen garden, +where, under a wall overgrown with ivy, lay the children's gardens. + +"What a wilderness!" was Eleanor's first exclamation, in a tone of +dismay, and then she added with increased vehemence, "He's taken away +the rhubarb-pot. What will Clement say?" + +"What is it, dear?" I asked. + +"It's the rhubarb-pot," Eleanor repeated. "You know Clement is always +having new fads every holidays, and he can't bear his things being +disturbed whilst he's at school. But how can I help it if I'm at school +too?" + +"Of course you can't," said I, gladly seizing upon the only point in her +story that I could understand, to express my sympathy. + +"And he got one of the rhubarb-pots last holidays," Eleanor continued. +"It was rather broken, and Thomas gave in to his having it then, so it's +very mean of him to have moved it now, and I shall tell him so. And +Clement painted church windows on it, and stuck it over a plant of ivy +at the top of the garden. He thought it would force the ivy, and he +expected it would grow big by the time he came home. He wanted it to +hang over the top, and look like a ruin. Oh, he will be so vexed!" + +The ivy plant was alive, though the "ruin" had been removed by the +sacrilegious hands of Thomas. I suggested that we should build a ruin of +stones, and train the ivy over that, which idea was well received by +Eleanor; the more so that a broken wall at the top of the croft supplied +materials, and Stonehenge suggested itself as an easy, and certainly +respectable, model. + +Meanwhile we decided to "do the weeding first," as being the least +agreeable business, and so set to work; I in a leisurely manner, +befitting the heat of the day, and Eleanor with her usual energy. She +toiled without a pause, and accomplished about treble the result of my +labours. After we had worked for a long time, she sat up, pressing her +hand to her forehead. + +"My head quite aches, Margery, and I'm so giddy. It's very odd; +gardening never made me so before I went away." + +"You work so at it," said I, "you may well be tired. What makes you work +so at things?" + +"I don't know," said Eleanor, laughing. "Cook says I do foy at things +so. But when one once begins, you know----" + +"What's _foy_?" I interrupted. "Cook says you foy--what does she mean?" + +"Oh, to foy at anything is to slave--to work hard at it. At least, not +merely hard-working, but to go at it very hotly, almost foolishly; in +fact, to foy at it, you know. Clement foys at things too. And then he +gets tired and cross; and so do I, often. What o'clock is it, Margery?" + +I pulled out my souvenir watch and answered, "Just eleven." + +"We ought to have some 'drinkings,' we've worked so hard," said Eleanor, +laughing again. "Haymakers, and people like that, always have drinkings +at eleven, you know, and dinner at one, and tea at four or five, and +supper at eight. Ah! there goes Thomas. Thomas!" + +Thomas came up, and Eleanor (discreetly postponing the subject of the +rhubarb-pot for the present) sent a pleading message to cook, which +resulted in her sending us two bottles of ginger-beer and several slices +of thick bread-and-butter. The dear boys, who had been very sensibly +snoozing in the shade, divined by some instinct the arrival of our +lunch-basket, and were kind enough to share the bread-and-butter with +us. + +"Drinkings" over, we set to work again. + +I was surprised to observe that there were four box-edged beds, but as +Eleanor said nothing about it, I made no remark. Perhaps it belonged to +some dead brother or sister. + +As the weeds were cleared away, one plant after another became +apparent. I called Eleanor's attention to all that I found, and she +seemed to welcome them as old friends. + +"Oh, that's the grey primrose; I'm so glad! And there are Jack's +hepaticas; they look like old rubbish. Don't dig deep into Jack's +garden, please, for he's always getting plants and bulbs given him by +people in the village, and he sticks everything in, so his garden really +is crammed full; and you're sure to dig into tulips, or crocuses, or +lilies, or something valuable." + +"Doesn't Clement get things given him?" said I. + +"Oh, he has plenty of plants," said Eleanor, "but then he's always +making great plans about his garden; and the first step towards his +improvements is always to clear out all the old things, and make what he +calls 'a clean sweep of the rubbish.'" + +By the time that the "twelve o'clock bell" rang from the church-tower +below, the heat was so great that we gathered up our tools and went +home. + +In the afternoon Eleanor said, "Were you ever on the moors? Did you ever +wade? Do you care about water-weeds? Did you ever eat bilberries, or +carberries?--but they're not ripe yet. Shall we go and get some +Batrachosperma, and paddle a bit, and give the dear boys a bathe?" + +"Delightful!" said I; "but do you go out alone?" + +"What should we take anybody with us for?" said Eleanor, opening her +eyes. + +I could not say. But as we dressed I said, "I'm so glad you don't wear +veils. Matilda and I used to have to wear veils to take care of our +complexion." + +Eschewing veils and every unnecessary encumbrance, we set forth, +followed by the dogs. I had taken off my crinoline, because Eleanor said +we might have to climb some walls, and I had borrowed a pair of her +boots, because my own were so uncomfortable from being high-heeled and +narrow-soled. They were too thin for stony roads also, and, though they +were prettily ornamented, they pinched my feet. + +We went upwards from the Vicarage along hot roads bordered by stone +walls. At last we turned and began to go downwards, and as we stood on +the top of the steep hill we were about to descend, Eleanor, with some +pride in her tone, asked me what I thought of the view. + +It was very beautiful. The slopes of the purple hills were grand. I saw +"moors" now. + +"The best part of it is the air, though," she said. + +The air was, in fact, wind; but of a dry, soft, exhilarating kind. It +seemed to get into our heads, and we joined hands and ran wildly down +the steep hill together. + +"What fun!" Eleanor cried, as we paused to gain breath at the bottom. +"Now you've come there'll be four of us to run downhill. We shall nearly +stretch across the road." + +At last we came to a stone bridge which spanned the river. It was not a +very wide stream, and it was so broken with grey boulders, and clumps of +rushes and overhanging ferns, that one only caught sight of the water +here and there, in tiny torrents and lakes among the weeds. + +My delight was boundless. I can neither forget nor describe those first +experiences of real country life, when Eleanor and I rambled about +together. I think she was at least as happy as I, and from time to time +we both wished with all our hearts that "the other girls" could be there +too. The least wisely managed of respectable schools has this good +point, that it enlarges one's sympathies and friendships! + +We wandered some little way up the Ewden, as Eleanor called the river, +and then, coming to a clear, running bit of stream, with a big grey +boulder on the bank hard by to leave our shoes and stockings on, we took +these off, and also our hats, and, kilting up our petticoats, plunged +bravely into the stream. + +"Wet your head!" shouted Eleanor; and following her example, as well as +I could for laughing, and for the needful efforts to keep my feet, I +dabbled my head liberally with water scooped up in the palms of my +hands. + +"Oh!" I cried, "how strong the water is, and how deliciously cold it is! +And oh, look at the little fishes! They're all round my feet. And oh, +Eleanor, call the dogs, they're knocking me down! How hard the stones +are, and oh, how slippery!" + +I fell against a convenient boulder, and Eleanor turned back, the dogs +raging and splashing around her. + +"I hope you're not treading on the Batrachosperma?" she said, anxiously. + +"What is it?" I cried. + +"It's what I've chiefly come in for," said she. "I want some to lay out. +It's a water-weed; a fresh-water alga, you know, like seaweed, only a +fresh-water plant. I'm looking for the stone it grew near. Oh, that's it +you're on! Climb up on to it out of the way, Margery dear. It's rather a +rare kind of weed, and I don't want it to be spoiled. Call the dogs, +please. Oh, look at all the bits they've broken off!" + +Eleanor dodged and darted to catch certain fragments of dark-looking +stuff that were being whirled away. With much difficulty she caught two +or three, and laid one of them in my hand. But I was not prepared for +the fact that it felt like a bit of jelly, and it slipped through my +fingers before I had time to examine the beauty of the jointed branches +pointed out by Eleanor, and in a moment more it was hopelessly lost. We +put what we had got into some dock-leaves for safety, and having waded +back to our stockings, we put on our hats and walked barefoot for a few +yards through the heather, to dry our feet, after which we resumed our +boots and stockings and set off homewards. + +"We'll go by the lower road," said Eleanor, "and look at the church." + +For some time after Eleanor had passed in through the rickety gates of +the south porch, I lingered amongst the gravestones, reading their +quaint inscriptions. Quaint both in matter and in the manner of rhyme +and spelling. As I also drew towards the porch, I looked up to see if I +could tell the time by the dial above it. I could not, nor (in spite of +my brief learning in Dr. Russell's grammar) could I interpret the Latin +motto, "_Fugit Hora. Ora_"--"The hour flies. Pray." + +As I came slowly and softly up the aisle, I fancied Eleanor was +kneeling, but a strange British shame of prayer made her start to her +feet and kept me from kneeling also; though the peculiar peace and +devout solemnity which seemed to be the very breath of that ancient +House of God made me long to do something more expressive of my feelings +than stand and stare. + +There was no handsome church at Riflebury; the one the Bullers +"attended" when we were at the seaside was new, and not beautiful. The +one Miss Mulberry took us to was older, but uglier. I had never seen one +of these old parish churches. This cathedral among the moors, with its +massive masonry, its dark oak carving, its fragments of gorgeous glass, +its ghostly hatchments and banners, and its aisles paved with the +tombstones of the dead, was a new revelation. + +I was silent awhile in very awe. I think it was a bird beginning to +chirp in the roof which made me dare to speak, and then I whispered, +"How quiet it is in here, and how cool!" + +I had hardly uttered the words when a flash of lightning made me start +and cry out. A heavy peal of thunder followed very quickly. + +"Don't be frightened, Margery dear," said Eleanor; "we have very heavy +storms here, and we had better go home. But I am so glad you admire our +dear old church. There was one very hot Sunday last summer, when a +thunderstorm came on during Evening Prayer. I was sitting in the choir, +where I could see the storm through the south transept door, and the +great stones in the transept arches. It was so cool in here, and all +along I kept thinking of 'a refuge from the storm, a shadow in the +heat,' and 'a great rock in a weary land.'" + +As we sat together at tea that evening, Eleanor went back to the subject +of the church. I made some remark about the gravestones in the aisles, +and she said, "Next time we go in, I want to show you one of them in the +chancel." + +"Who is buried there?" I asked. + +"My grandfather, he was vicar, you know, and my aunt, who was sixteen. +(My father has got the white gloves and wreath that were hung in the +church for her. They always used to do that for unmarried girls.) And my +sister; my only sister--little Margaret." + +I could not say anything to poor Eleanor. I stroked her head softly and +kissed it. + +"One thing that made me take to you," she went on, "was your name being +Margaret. I used to think she might have been like you. I have so wished +I had a sister. The boys are very dear, you know; but still boys think +about themselves, of course, and their own affairs. One has more to run +after them, you know. Not that any boys could be better than ours, +but--anyway, Margery darling, I wish you weren't here just on a visit, +but were going to stop here always, and be my sister!" + +"So do I!" I cried. "Oh! so very much, Eleanor!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A NEW HOME--THE ARKWRIGHTS' RETURN--THE BEASTS--GOING TO MEET THE +BOYS--JACK'S HATBOX--WE COME HOME A RATTLER. + + +It is not often (out of a fairy tale) that wishes to change the whole +current of one's life are granted so promptly as that wish of mine was. + +The next morning's post brought a letter from Mrs. Arkwright. They were +staying in the south of England, and had seen the Bullers, and heard all +their news. It was an important budget. They were going abroad once +more, and it had been arranged between my two guardians that I was to +remain in England for my education, and that my home was to be--with +Eleanor. Matilda was to go with her parents; to the benefit, it was +hoped, of her health. Aunt Theresa sent me the kindest messages, and +promised to write to me. Matilda sent her love to us both. + +"And the day after to-morrow they come home!" Eleanor announced. + +When the day came we spent most of it in small preparations and useless +restlessness. We filled all the flower vases in the drawing-room, put +some of the choicest roses in Mrs. Arkwright's bedroom, and made +ourselves very hot in hanging a small union-jack which belonged to the +boys out of our own window, which looked towards the high-road. Eleanor +even went so far as to provoke a severe snub from the cook, by offering +suggestions as to the food to be prepared for the travellers. + +The dogs fully understood that something was impending, and wandered +from room to room at our heels, sitting down to pant whenever we gave +them a chance, and emptying the water jug in Mr. Arkwright's +dressing-room so often that we were obliged to shut the door when Keziah +had once more filled the ewer. + +About half-an-hour after the curfew bell had rung the cab came. The dogs +were not shut up this time, and they, and we, and the Arkwrights met in +a very confused and noisy greeting. + +"GOD bless you, my dear!" I heard Mr. Arkwright say very affectionately, +and he added almost in the same breath, "Do call off the dogs, my dear, +or else take your mother's beasts." + +I suppose Eleanor chose the latter alternative, for she did not call off +the dogs, but she took away two or three tin cans with which Mr. +Arkwright was laden, and which had made him look like a particularly +respectable milkman. + +"What are they?" she asked. + +"Crassys," said Mrs. Arkwright, with apparent triumph in her tone, "and +Serpul, and two Chitons, and several other things." + +I thought of Uncle Buller's "collection," and was about to ask if the +new "beasts" were insects, when Eleanor, after a doubtful glance into +the cans, said, "Have you brought any fresh water?" + +Mrs. Arkwright pointed triumphantly to a big stone-bottle cased in +wickerwork, under which the cabman was staggering towards the door. It +looked like spirits or vinegar, but was, as I discovered, seawater for +the aquarium. With this I had already made acquaintance, having helped +Eleanor to wipe the mouths of certain spotted sea anemones with a +camel's-hair brush every day since my arrival. + +"The Crassys are much more beautiful," she assured me, as we helped Mrs. +Arkwright to find places for the new-comers. "We call them Crassys +because their name is Crassicornis. I don't believe they'll live, +though, they are so delicate." + +"I rather think it may be because being so big they get hurt in being +taken off the rocks," said Mrs. Arkwright, "and we were very careful +with these." + +"I'm _afraid_ the Serpul won't live!" said Eleanor, gazing anxiously +with puckered brows into the glass tank. + +Mrs. Arkwright was about to reply, when the dogs burst into the room, +and, after nearly upsetting both us and the aquarium, bounded out again. + +"Dear boys!" cried Eleanor. And "Dear boys!" murmured Mrs. Arkwright +from behind the magnifying glass, through which she was examining the +"beasts." + +"I wonder what they're running in and out for?" said I. + +The reason proved to be that supper was ready, and the dogs wanted us to +come into the dining-room. Mr. Arkwright announced it in more sedate +fashion, and took me with him, leaving Eleanor and her mother to follow +us. + +"In three days more," said Eleanor, as we sat down, "the boys will be +here, and then we shall be quite happy." + +Eleanor and I were as much absorbed by the prospect of the boys' arrival +as we had been by the coming of her parents. + +We made a "ruin" at the top of the little gardens, which did not quite +fulfil our ideal when all was done, but we hoped that it would look +better when the ivy was more luxuriant. We made all the beds look very +tidy. The fourth bed was given to me. + +"Now you _are_ our sister!" Eleanor cried. "It seems to make it so real +now you have got _her_ bed." + +We thoroughly put in order the old nursery, which was now "the boys' +room," a proceeding in which Growler and Pincher took great interest, +jumping on and off the beds, and smelling everything as we set it out. +Growler was Clement's dog, I found, and Pincher belonged to Jack. + +"They'll come in a cab, because of the luggage," said Eleanor, "and +because we are never quite sure when they will come; so it's no use +sending to meet them. They often miss trains on purpose to stay +somewhere on the road for fun. But I think they'll come all right this +time--I begged them to--and we'll go and meet them in the +donkey-carriage." + +The donkey-carriage was a pretty little thing on four wheels, with a +seat in front and a seat behind, each capable of holding one small +person. Eleanor had almost outgrown the front seat, but she managed to +squeeze into it, and I climbed in behind. We had dressed Neddy's head +and our own hats liberally with roses, so that our festive appearance +drew the notice of the villagers, more than one of whom, from their +cottage-doors, asked if we were going to meet "the young gentlemen," and +added, "They'll be rare and glad to get home, I reckon!" + +Impatience had made us early, and we drove some little distance before +espying the cab, which toiled uphill at much the same pace as the black +snails crawled by the roadside. Eleanor drew up by the ditch, and we +stood up and waved our handkerchiefs. In a moment two handkerchiefs were +waving from the cab-windows. We shouted, and faint hoorays came back +upon the breeze. Neddy pricked his ears, the dogs barked, and only the +cabman remained unmoved, though we could see sticks and umbrellas poked +at him from within, in the vain effort to induce him to hasten on. + +At last we met. The boys tumbled out, one on each side, and a good deal +of fragmentary luggage tumbled out after them. Clement seemed to be +rather older than Eleanor, and Jack, I thought, a little younger than +me. + +"How d'ye do, Margery?" said Jack, shaking me warmly by the hand. "I'm +awfully glad to hear the news about you; we shall be all square now, two +and two, like a quadrille." + +"How do you do, Miss Vandaleur?" said Clement. + +"Look here, Eleanor," Jack broke in again; "I'll drive Margery home in +the donkey-carriage, and you can go with Clem in the cab. I wish you'd +give me the wreath off your hat, too." + +Eleanor willingly agreed, the wreath was adjusted on Jack's hat, and we +were just taking our places, when he caught sight of the luggage that +had fallen out on Clement's side of the cab--some fishing-rods, a +squirrel in a fish-basket, and a hat-box. + +"Oh!" he screamed, "there's my hat-box! Take the reins, Margery!" and he +flew over the wheel, and returned, hat-box in hand. + +"Is it a new hat?" I asked sympathizingly. + +"A hat!" he scornfully exclaimed. "My hat's loose in the cab somewhere, +if it came at all; but all my beetles are in here, pinned to the sides. +Would you mind taking it on your knee, to be safe?" + +And having placed it there, he scrambled once more into the front seat, +and we were about to start (the cab was waiting for us, the cabman +looking on with a grim smile at Jack, whilst energetic Eleanor +rearranged the luggage inside), when there came a second check. + +"Have you got a pin?" Jack asked me. + +"I'll see," said I; "what for?" + +"To touch up Neddy with. We're going home a rattler." + +But on my earnestly remonstrating against the pin, Jack contented +himself with pointing a stick, which he assured me would "hurt much +more." + +"Now, cabby!" he cried, "keep your crawler back till we're well away. +You'd better let us go first, or we might pass you on the road, and hurt +the feelings of that spirited beast of yours. Do you like going fast, +Margery?" + +"As fast as you like," said I. + +I knew nothing whatever of horses and donkeys, or of what their poor +legs could bear; but I very much liked passing swiftly through the air. +I do not think Neddy suffered, however, though we went back at a pace +marvellously different from that at which we came. We were very light +weights, and Master Neddy was an overfed, underworked gentleman, with +the acutest discrimination as to his drivers. Jack's voice was quite +enough; the stick was superfluous. When we came to the top of the steep +hill leading down to the village, Jack asked me, "Shall we go down a +rattler?" + +"Oh, do!" said I. + +"Hold on to the hat-box, then, and don't tumble out." + +Down we went. The carriage swayed from side to side; I sat with my arms +tightly clasped round the hat-box, and felt as if I were flying straight +down on to the church-tower. It was delightful, but I noticed that Jack +did not speak till we reached the foot of the hill. Then he said, "Well, +that's a blessing! I never thought we should get safe to the bottom." + +"Then why did you drive so fast?" I inquired. + +"My dear Margery, there's no drag on this carriage; and when I'd once +given Neddy his head he couldn't stop himself, no more could I. But he's +a plucky, sure-footed little beast; and I shall walk up this hill out of +respect for him." + +I resolved to do the same, and clambered out, leaving the hat-box on the +seat. I went up to Jack, who was patting Neddy's neck, on which he stuck +out his right arm, and said, "Link!" + +"What?" said I. + +"Link," said Jack; and as he stuck out his elbow again in an +unmistakable fashion, I took his arm. + +"We call that linking, in these parts," said Jack. "Good-evening, Mrs. +Loxley. Good-evening, Peter. Thank you, thank you. I'm very glad to get +home too--I should think not!" These sentences were replies to the warm +greetings Jack received from the cottage-doors; the last to the remark, +"You don't find a many places to beat t'ould one, sir, I expect!" + +"I'm very popular in the village," said my eccentric companion, with a +sigh, as we turned into the drive. "Though I say it that shouldn't, you +think? Well! _Ita vita. Such is life's half circle_. Do you know +Leadbetter? That's the way he construed it." + +"I know you all talk in riddles," said I. + +"Well, never mind; you'll know Leadbetter, and all the old books in the +house by and by. Plenty of 'em, aren't there? The governor had a curate +once, when his throat was bad. _He_ said it was an Entertaining Library +of Useless Knowledge. I've brought home one more volume to add to it. +Second prize for chemistry. Only three fellows went in for it; which you +needn't allude to at head-quarters;" and he sighed again. + +As we passed slowly under the shadow of the heavy foliage, Jack, like +Eleanor, put up his left arm to drag down a bunch of roses. They were +further advanced now, and the shower of rose-leaves fell thickly like +snowflakes over us--over Jack and me, and Neddy and the carriage, with +the hat-box on the driving seat. We must have looked very queer, I +think, as we came up out of the overshadowed road, like dwarfs out of a +fairy tale, covered with flowers, and leading our carriage with its odd +occupant inside. + +Keziah, who had been counting the days to the holidays, ran down first +to meet us, beaming with pleasure; though when Jack, in the futile +attempt to play leap-frog with her against her will, damaged her cap, +and clung to her neck till I thought she would have been throttled, she +indignantly declared that, "Now the young gentlemen was home there was +an end of peace for everybody, choose who they might be." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +I CORRESPOND WITH THE MAJOR--MY COLLECTION--OCCUPATIONS--MADAME +AGAIN--FTE DE VILLAGE--THE BRITISH HOORAY. + + +I wrote to my old friends and relatives, with a full account of my new +home. Rather a comically-expressed account too, I fancy, from the bits +Uncle Buller used to quote in after years. I got charming letters from +him, piquant with his dry humour, and full of affection. Matilda +generally added a note also; and Aunt Theresa always sent love and +kisses in abundance, to atone for being too busy to write by that post. + +The fonder I grew of the Arkwrights, the better I seemed to love and +understand Uncle Buller. Apart as we were, we had now a dozen interests +in common--threads of those intellectual ties over which the changes and +chances of this mortal life have so little power. + +My sympathy was real, as well as ready, when the Major discovered a new +insect, almost invisible by the naked eye, which thenceforward bore the +terrible specific name of _Bulleriana_, suggesting a creature certainly +not less than a rhinoceros, and surrounding the Major's name with +something of the halo of immortality. He was equally glad to hear of +Jack's beetles and of my fresh-water shells. I had taken to the latter +as being "the only things not yet collected by somebody or other in the +house;" and I became so infatuated in the pursuit that I used to get up +at four o'clock in the morning to search the damp places and +water-herbage by the river, it being emphatically "the early bird who +catches" snails. After his great discovery, the Major constantly asked +if I had found a specimen of _Helix Vandaleuriana_ yet. It was a joke +between us--that new shell that I was to discover! + +I have an old letter open by me now, in which, writing of the +Arkwrights, he says, "Your dear father's daughter could have no better +home." And, as I read, my father's last hours come back before me, and I +hear the poor faint voice whispering, "You've got the papers, Buller? +Arkwright will be kind about it, I'm sure." And, "It's all dark now." +And with tears I wonder if he--with whom it is all light now--knows how +well his true friends have dealt by me, and how happy I am. + +To be busy is certainly half-way to being happy. And yet it is not so +with every kind of labour. Some occupations, however, do seem of +themselves to be peace-bringing; I mean, to be so independent of the +great good of being occupied at all. Gardening, sketching, and natural +history pursuits, for instance. Is it partly because one follows them in +the open air, in great measure?--fresh air, that mysteriously mighty +power for good! Anodyne, as well as tonic; dispeller of fever when other +remedies are powerless; and the best accredited recipe for long life. +Only partly, I think. + +One secret of the happiness of some occupations is, perhaps, that they +lift one away from petty cares and petty spites, without trying the +brain or strength unduly, as some other kinds of mental labour must do. +And how delightful is fellowship in such interests! What rivalries +without bitterness; what gossip without scandal; what gifts and +exchanges; what common interests and mutual sympathy! + +In such happy business the holidays went by. Then the question arose, +Were we to go back to school? Very earnestly we hoped not; and I think +the Arkwrights soon resolved not to send Eleanor away again. As to me, +the case was different. Mr. Arkwright felt that he must do what was best +for my education: and he wrote to consult with Major Buller. + +Fortunately for Eleanor and me, the Major was now as much prejudiced +against girls' schools as he had been against governesses; and as +masters were to be had at the nearest town, a home education was +decided upon. It met with the approval of such of my relatives as were +consulted--my great-grandmother especially--and it certainly met with +mine. + +Eleanor and I were very anxious to show that idleness was not our object +in avoiding Bush House. The one of my diaries that escaped burning has, +on the fly-leaf, one of the many "lesson plans" we made for ourselves. + +We used to get up at six o'clock, and work before breakfast. Certain +morning headaches, to which at this time I became subject, led to a +serious difference of opinion between me and Mrs. Arkwright; she +forbidding me to get up, and I holding myself to be much aggrieved, and +imputing the headaches to anything rather than what Keziah briefly +termed "book-larning upon an empty stomach." The matter was compromised, +thanks to Keziah, by that good creature's offering to bring me new milk +and bread-and-butter every morning before I began to work. She really +brought it before I dressed, and my headaches vanished. + +Though we did not wish to go back to Bush House, we were not quite +unmindful of our friends there. Eleanor wrote to thank Madame for the +flowers, and received a long and enthusiastic letter in reply--in +French, of course, and pointing out one or two blunders in Eleanor's +letter, which was in French also. She begged Eleanor to continue to +correspond with her, for the improvement of her "composition." + +Poor Madame! She was indeed an indefatigable teacher, and had a real +ambition for the success of her pupils, which, in the drudgery of her +life, was almost grand. + +Strange to say, she once came to the Vicarage. It was during the summer +succeeding that in which I came to live with the Arkwrights. She had +been in the habit of spending the holidays with a family in the country, +where, I believe, she gave some instruction in French and music in +return for her expenses. That summer she was out of health, and thinking +herself unable to fulfil her part of the bargain, she would not go. +After severe struggles with her sensitive scruples, she was persuaded to +come to us instead, on the distinct condition that she was to do nothing +in the way of "lessons," but talk French with us. + +To persuade her to accept any payment for her services was the subject +of another long struggle. The thriftiest of women in her personal +expenditure, and needing money sorely, Madame was not grasping. Indeed, +her scruples on this subject were troublesome. She was for ever pursuing +us, book in hand, and with a sun-veil and umbrella to shield her +complexion, into the garden or the hayfield, imploring us to come in out +of the wind and sun, and do "a little of dictation--of composition," or +even to permit her to hear us play that duet from the 'Semiramide,' of +which the time had seemed to her on the last occasion far from perfect. + +Her despair when Mrs. Arkwright supported our refusals was comical, and +she was only pacified at last by having the "scrap-bag" of odds and ends +of net, muslin, lace, and embroidery handed over to her, from which she +made us set after set of dainty collars and sleeves in various "modes," +sitting well under the shade of the trees, on a camp-stool, with a +camphor-bag to keep away insects, and in bodily fear of the dogs. + +Poor Madame! I thought she would have had a fit on the first night of +her arrival, when the customary civility was paid of offering her a dog +to sleep on her bed. She never got really accustomed to them, and they +never seemed quite to understand her. To the end of her stay they +snuffed at her black skirts suspiciously, as if she were still more or +less of an enigma to them. Madame was markedly civil to them, and even +addressed them from time to time as "bons enfants," in imitation of our +phrase "dear boys"; but more frequently, in watching the terms on which +they lived with the family, she would throw up her little brown hands +and exclaim, "_Mnage extraordinaire!_" + +I am sure she thought us a strange household in more ways than one, but +I think she grew fond of us. For Eleanor she had always had a liking; +about Eleanor's mother she became rhapsodical. + +"How good!" so she cried to me, "and how truthful--how altogether +truthful! What talents also, my faith! Miss Arkwright has had great +advantages. A mother extraordinary!" + +Mrs. Arkwright had many discussions with Madame on political subjects, +and also on the education of girls. On the latter their views were so +essentially different, that the discussion was apt to wax hot. Madame +came at last to allow that for English girls Madame Arkwright's views +might be just, but _pour les filles franaises_--she held to her own +opinions. + +With the boys she got on very well. At first they laughed at her; then +Clement became polite, and even learned to speak French with her after a +fashion. Jack was not only ignorant of French, but his English was so +mixed with school-boy idioms, that Madame and he seldom got through a +conversation without wonderful complications, from which, however, +Jack's expressive countenance and ready wit generally delivered them in +the long run. I do not know whether, on the whole, Madame did not like +Mr. Arkwright best of all. _Le bon pasteur_, as she styled him. + +"The Furrin Lady," as she was called in the village, was very fond of +looking into the cottages, and studying the ways of the country +generally. + +I never shall forget the occurrence of the yearly village fair or feast +during her visit: her anxiety to be present--her remarkable costume on +the occasion--and the strong conviction borne in upon Eleanor and me +that the Fat Lady in the centre booth was quite a secondary attraction +to the Furrin Lady between us, with the raw lads and stolid farmers who +had come down from the hills, with their wise sheep-dogs at their heels. +If they stared at her, however, Madame was not unobservant of them, and +the critical power was on her side. + +"These men and their dogs seem to me alike," said she. "Both of +them--they stare so much and say so little. But the looks of the dogs +are altogether the more _spirituels_," she added. + +I should not like to record all that she said on the subject of our +village feast. It was not complimentary, and to some extent the bitter +general observations on our national amusements into which her +disappointment betrayed her were justified by facts. But it was not our +fault that, in translating village feast into _fte de village_, she +had allowed her imagination to mislead her with false hopes. She had +expected a maypole, a dance of peasants, gay dresses, smiling faces, +songs, fruit, coffee, flowers, and tasteful but cheap wares of small +kinds in picturesque booths. She had adorned herself, and Eleanor and +me, with collars and cuffs of elaborate make and exquisite "get-up" by +her own hands. She wore a pale pink and a dead scarlet geranium, +together with a spray of wistaria leaf, in admirable taste, on her dark +dress. Her hat was marvellous; her gloves were perfect. She had a few +shillings in her pocket to purchase souvenirs for the household; her +face beamed in anticipation of a day of simple, sociable, uncostly +pleasure, such as we English are so lamentably ignorant of. But I think +the only English thing she had prepared herself to expect was what she +called "The Briteesh hooray." + +Dirt, clamour, oyster-shells, ginger-beer bottles, stolid curiosity, +beery satisfaction, careworn stall-keepers with babies-in-arms and +strange trust about their wares and honesty over change; +giddy-go-rounds, photograph booths, marionettes, the fat woman, the +double-headed monstrosity, and the teeming beer-houses---- + +Poor Madame! The contrast was terrible. She would not enter a booth. She +turned homewards in a rage of vexation, and shut herself up in her +bedroom (I suspect with tears of annoyance and disappointment), whilst +Eleanor and I went back into the feast, and were photographed with dear +boys and Clement. + +Clement was getting towards an age when clever youngsters are not unapt +to exercise their talents in depreciating home surroundings. He said +that it was no wonder that Madame was disgusted, and scolded us for +taking her into the feast. Jack took quite a different view of the +matter. + +"The feast's very good fun in its way," said he; "and Madame only wants +_tackling_. I'll tackle her." + +"Nonsense!" said Clement. + +"I bet you a shilling I take her through every mortal thing this +afternoon," said Jack. + +"You've cheek enough," retorted his elder brother. + +But after luncheon, when Madame was again in her room, Jack came to me +with a nosegay he had gathered, to beg me to arrange it properly, and +put a paper frill round it. With some grass and fern-leaves, I made a +tasteful bouquet, and added a frill, to Jack's entire satisfaction. He +took it up-stairs, and we heard him knock at Madame's door. After a +pause ("I'm sure she's crying again!" said Eleanor) Madame came out, and +a warm discussion began between them, of which we only heard fragments. +Madame's voice, as the shrillest, was most audible, and it rose into +distinctness as she exclaimed, "Anything soh dirrty, soh meean, soh +folgaire, I nevaire saw." + +Again the discussion proceeded, and we only caught a few of Jack's +arguments about "customs of the country," "for the fun of it," etc. + +"Fun?" said Madame. + +"For a joke," said Jack. + +"_Ah, c'est vrai_, for the choke," she said. + +"And _avec moi_," Jack continued. "There's French for you, Madame! Come +along!" + +Madame laughed. + +"She'll go," said Eleanor. + +"_Eh bien!_" Madame cried gaily. "For the choke. _Avec vous, Monsieur +Jack._ Ha! ha! _Allons!_ Come along!" + +"Link, Madame," said Jack, as they came down-stairs, Madame smarter than +ever, and bouquet in hand. + +"Mais _link_? What is this?" said she. + +"Take my arm," said Jack. "I'll treat you to everything." + +"Mais _treat_? What is that?" said Madame, whose beaming good-humour +only expanded the more when Jack explained that it was a pecuniary +attention shown by rustic swains to their "young women." + +As Clement came into the hall he met Madame hanging on Jack's arm, and +absolutely radiant. + +"You're not going into that beastly place again?" said he. + +"For the choke, Monsieur Clement. _Ah, oui!_ And with Monsieur Jack." + +"You may as well come, Clem," said Eleanor, and we followed, laughing. + +Madame had now no time for discontent. Jack held her fast. He gave her +gingerbread at one stall, and gingerbeer at another, and cracked nuts +for her all along. He vowed that the oyster-shells were flowers, and the +empty bottles bouquet-holders, and offered to buy her a pair of +spectacles to see matters more clearly with. + +"Couleur de rose?" laughed Madame. + +We went in a body to the marionettes, and Madame screamed as we climbed +the inclined plane to enter, and scrambled down the frail scaffolding to +the "reserved seats." These cost twopence a head, and were "reserved" +for us alone. The dolls were really cleverly managed. They performed the +closing scenes of a pantomime. The policeman came to pieces when clown +and harlequin pulled at him. People threw their heads at each other, and +shook their arms off. The transformation scene was really pretty, and it +only added to the joke that the dirty old proprietor burned the red +light under our very noses, amid a storm of chaff from Jack. + +From the marionettes we went to the fat woman. A loathsome sight, which +turned me sick; but, for some inexplicable reason, seemed highly to +gratify Madame. She and Jack came out in fits of laughter, and he said, +"Now for the two-headed monstrosity. It'll just suit you, Madame!" + +At the door, Madame paused. "Mais, ce n'est pas pour des petites +filles," she said, glancing at Eleanor and me. + +"_Feel?_" said Jack, who was struggling through the crowd, which was +dense here. "It feels nothing. It's in a bottle. Come along!" + +"All right, Madame," said Eleanor, smiling. "We'll wait for you +outside." + +We next proceeded to the photographer's, where Jack and Madame were +photographed together with Pincher. + +By Madame's desire she was now led to the "bazaar," where she bought a +collar for Pincher, two charming china boxes, in the shape of dogs' +heads, for Eleanor and her mother, a fan for me, a walking-stick for +Monsieur le Pasteur, and some fishing-floats for Clement. By this time +some children had gathered round us. The children of the district were +especially handsome, and Madame was much smitten by their rosy cheeks +and many-shaded flaxen hair. + +"Ah!" she sighed, "I must make some little presents to the children;" +and she looked anxiously over the stalls. + +"Violin, one and six," said the saleswoman. "Nice work-box for a little +girl, half-a-crown." + +"Half a fiddlestick," said Jack promptly. "What have you got for a +halfpenny?" + +"Them's halfpenny balls, whips, and dolls. Them churns and mugs is a +halfpenny; and so's the little tin plates. Them's the halfpenny monkeys +on sticks." + +"Now, Madame," said Jack, "put that half-crown back, and give me a +shilling. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. There are your +presents; and now for the children!" + +Madame showed a decided disposition to reward personal beauty, which +Jack overruled at once. + +"The prettiest? I see myself letting you! Church Sunday scholars is my +tip; and I shall put them through the Catechism test. Look here, young +un, what's your name? Who gave you this name?" + +"Ma godfeythers and godmoothers," the young urchin began. + +"That'll do," said Jack. "Take your whip, and be thankful. Now, my +little lass, who gave you this name?" + +"Me godfeythers----" + +"All right. Take your doll, and drop a curtsy; and mind you don't take +the curtsy, and drop your doll. Now, my boy, tell me how many there +be?" + +"Ten." + +"Which be they? I mean, take your monkey, and make your bow. Next child, +come up." + +Clem, Eleanor, and I kept back the crowd as well as we could; but +children pressed in on all sides. Clem brought a shilling out of his +pocket, and handed it over to Jack. + +"You've won your bet, old man," he said. + +"You're a good fellow, Clem. I say, lay it out among the halfpenny +lot--will you?--and then give them to Madame. Keep your eye open for +Dissenters, and send the Church children first." + +The forty-eight halfpennyworths proved to be sufficient for all, +however, though the orthodoxy of one or two seemed doubtful. + +Madame was tired; but the position had pleased her, and she gave away +the toys with a charming grace. We were leaving the fair when some small +urchins, who had either got or hoped to get presents, and were (I +suspected) partly impelled also by a sense of the striking nature of +Madame's appearance, set up a lusty cheer. + +Madame paused. Her eyes brightened; her thin lips parted with a smile. +In a voice of intense satisfaction, she murmured: + +"It is the Briteesh hooray!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +WE AND THE BOYS--WE AND THE BOYS AND OUR FADS--THE LAMP OF ZEAL--CLEMENT +ON UNREALITY--JACK'S OINTMENT. + + +Our life on the moors was, I suppose, monotonous. I do not think we ever +found it dull; but it was not broken, as a rule, by striking incidents. + +The coming and going of the boys were our chief events. We packed for +them when they went away. We wrote long letters to them, and received +brief but pithy replies. We spoke on their behalf when they wanted +clothes or pocket-money. We knew exactly how to bring the news of good +marks in school and increased subscriptions to cricket to bear in +effective combination upon the parental mind, and were amply rewarded by +half a sheet, acknowledging the receipt of a ten-shilling piece in a +match-box (the Arkwrights had a strange habit of sending coin of the +realm by post, done up like botanical specimens), with brief directions +as to the care of garden or collection, and perhaps a rude outline of +the head-master's nose--"In a great hurry, from your loving and grateful +Bro." + +We kept their gardens tidy, preserved their collections from dust, damp, +and Keziah, and knitted socks for them. I learned to knit, of course. +Every woman knits in that village of stone. And "between lights" +Eleanor and I plied our needles on the boys' behalf, and counted the +days to the holidays. + +We had fresh "fads" every holidays. Many of our plans were ambitious +enough, and the results would, no doubt, have been great had they been +fully carried out. But Midsummer holidays, though long, are limited in +length. + +Once we made ourselves into a Field Naturalists' Club. We girls gave up +our "spare dress wardrobe" for a museum. We subdivided the shelves, and +proposed to make a perfect collection of the flora and entomology of the +neighbourhood. Eleanor and I really did continue to add specimens whilst +the boys were at school; but they came home at Christmas devoted, body +and soul, to the drama. We were soon converted to the new fad. The +wardrobe became a side-scene in our theatre, and Eleanor and Clement +laboured day and night with papers of powdered paint, and kettles of hot +size, in converting canvas into scenery. "Theatricals" promised to be a +lasting fancy; but the next holidays were in fine weather, and we made +the drop-curtain into a tent. + +When the boys were at school, Eleanor and I were fully occupied. We took +a good deal of pains with our room: half of it was mine now. I had my +knick-knack table as well as Eleanor, my own books and pictures, my own +photographs of the boys and of the dear boys, my own pot plants, and my +own dog--a pug, given to me by Jack, and named "Saucebox." In Jack's +absence, Pincher also looked on me as his mistress. + +Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regulations of our +own devising: private codes, generally kept in cipher, for our own +personal self-discipline, and laws common to us both for the employment +of our time in joint duties--lessons, parish work, and so forth. I think +we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too often. I +make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more alone. I wonder +if I really keep them better? But if not, may GOD, I pray Him, send me +back the restless zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which +He gives in early youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in +conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful +of one's own comfort and one's own property, more self-satisfied in +leaving high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe +that one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those +good works, those great triumphs over evil, which single hands effect +sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may +have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts for +good, as if some special gifts were made to them in middle age which are +withheld from other men. Is it not rather that some few souls keep alive +the lamp of zeal and high desire which GOD lights for most of us while +life is young? + +Eleanor and I worked at our lessons by ourselves. We always had her +mother to "fall back upon," as we said. When we took up the study of +Italian in order to be able to read Dante--moved thereto by the +attractions of the long volume of Flaxman's illustrations of the 'Divina +Commedia'--we had to "fall back" a good deal on Mrs. Arkwright's +scholarship. And this in spite of all the helps the library afforded us, +the best of dictionaries, English "cribs," and about six of those +elaborate commentaries upon the poem, of which Italians have been so +prolific. + +During the winter the study of languages was commonly uppermost; in +summer sketching was more favoured. + +I do think sketching brings one a larger amount of pleasure than almost +any other occupation. And like "collecting," it is a very sociable +pursuit when one has fellow-sketchers as well as fellow-naturalists. And +this, I must confess, is a merit in my eyes, I being of a sociable +disposition! Eleanor could live alone, I think, and be happy; but I +depend largely on my fellow-creatures. + +Jack and I were talking rather sentimentally the other day about "old +times," and I said: + +"How jolly it was, that summer we used to sketch so much--all four of us +together!" + +And Jack, who was rubbing some new stuff of his own compounding into his +fishing-boots, replied: + +"Awfully. I vote we take to it again when the weather's warmer." + +But Jack is so sympathetic, he will agree with anything one says. +Indeed, I am sure that he feels what one feels--for the time, at any +rate. + +Clement is very different. He always disputes and often snubs what one +says; partly, I am sure, from a love of truth--a genuine desire to keep +himself and everybody else from talking in an unreal way, and from +repeating common ideas without thinking them out at first hand; and +partly, too, from what Keziah calls the "contradictiousness" of his +temper. He was in the room when Jack and I were talking, but he was not +talking with us. He was reading for his examination. + +All the Arkwrights can work through noise and in company, having +considerable powers of mental abstraction. I think they even sometimes +combine attention to their own work with an occasional skimming of the +topics current in the room as well. + +Some outlying feeler of Clement's brain caught my remark and Jack's +reply. + +"My dear Margery," said he, "you are at heart one of the most unaffected +people I know. Pray be equally genuine with your head, and do not +encourage Jack in his slipshod habits of thought and conversation +by----" + +"Slipshod!" interrupted Jack, holding his left arm out at full length +before him, the hand of which was shod with a fishing-boot. "Slipshod! +They fit as close as your convictions, and would be as stiff and +inexorable as logic if I didn't soften them with this newly-invented and +about-to-be-patented ointment by the warmth of a cheerful fire and +Margery's beaming countenance." + +Clement had been reading during this sentence. Then he lifted his head, +and said pointedly: + +"What I was going to advise _you_, Margery, is never to get into the +habit of adopting sentiments till you are quite sure you really mean +them. It is by the painful experience of my own folly that I know what +trouble it gives one afterwards. If ever the time comes when you want to +know your real opinion on any subject, the process of getting rid of +ideas you have adopted without meaning them will not be an easy one." + +I am not as intellectual as the Arkwrights. I can always see through +Jack's jokes, but I am sometimes left far behind when Eleanor or Clement +"take flight," as Jack calls it, on serious subjects. I really did not +follow Clement on this occasion. + +With some hesitation I said: + +"I don't know that I quite understand." + +"I'm sure you don't," said Jack. "I have feared for some time that your +hair was getting too thick for the finer ideas of this household to +penetrate to your brain. Allow me to apply a little of this ointment to +the parting, which in your case is more definite than with Eleanor; and +as our lightest actions should proceed from principles, I may mention +that the principle on which I propose to apply the Leather-softener to +your scalp is that on which the blacksmith's wife gave your cholera +medicine to the second girl, when she began with rheumatic fever--'it +did such a deal of good to our William.' Now, this unguent has done 'a +deal of good' to the leather of my boots. Why should it not successfully +lubricate the skin of your skull?" + +Only the dread of "a row" between Jack and Clem enabled me to keep +anything like gravity. + +"Don't talk nonsense, Jack!" said I, as severely as I could. (I fear +that, like the rest of the world, I snubbed Jack rather than Clement, +because his temper was sweeter, and less likely to resent it.) +"Clement, I'm very stupid, but I don't quite see how what _you_ said +applies to what _I_ said." + +"You said, 'How happy we were, that summer we went sketching!' or words +to that effect. It's just like a man's writing about the careless +happiness of childhood, when he either forgets, or refuses to advert to, +the toothache, the measles, learning his letters, the heat of the +night-nursery, not being allowed to sit down in the yard whilst his +knickerbockers were new, going to bed at eight o'clock, and having a lie +on his conscience. I have striven for more accurate habits of thought, +and I remember distinctly that you cried over more than one of your +sketches." + +"I got into the 'Household Album' with mine, however," said Jack; "and I +defy an A.R.A. to have had more difficulty in securing his position." + +"I'm afraid your appearance in the _Phycological Quarterly_ was better +deserved," said Mrs. Arkwright, without removing her eye from the +microscope she was using at a table just opposite to Clem's. + +But this demands explanation, and I must go back to the time of which +Jack and I spoke--when we used to go sketching together. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE "HOUSEHOLD ALBUM"--SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES--A NEW +SPECIES?--JACK'S BARGAIN--THEORIES. + + +Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts at +drawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun a +scrapbook, or "Household Album," as it was called, into which she pasted +such of her children's original drawings as were held good enough for +the honour; the age of the artist being taken into account. + +Jack's gift in this line was not as great as that of Clement or Eleanor, +but this was not the only reason why no drawing of his appeared in the +scrapbook. Mrs. Arkwright demanded more evidence of pains and industry +than Jack was wont to bestow on his sketches or designs. He resented his +exclusion, and made many efforts to induce his mother to accept his +hasty productions; but it was not till the summer to which I alluded +that Jack took his place in the "Household Album." + +It was during a long drive, in which we were exhibiting the country to +some friends, that Eleanor and I chose the place of that particular +sketching expedition. The views it furnished had the first, and almost +the only, quality demanded by young and tyro sketchers--they were very +pretty. + +There was some variety, too, to justify our choice. From the sandy road, +where a heathery bank afforded the convenience of seats, we could look +down into a valley with a winding stream, whose banks rose into +hillsides which lost themselves in finely-coloured mountains of +moorland. + +Farther on, a scramble on foot over walls and gates had led us into a +wooded gorge fringed with ferns, where a group of trees of particularly +graceful form roused Eleanor's admiration. + +"What a lovely view!" had burst from the lips of our friends at every +quarter of a mile; for they were of that (to me) trying order of +carriage companions who talk about the scenery as you go, as a point of +politeness. + +But the views _were_ beautiful--"Sketches everywhere!" we cried. + +"There's nothing to make a sketch _of_ round the Vicarage," we added. +"We've done the church, with the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, and +without the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, till we are sick of the +subject." + +So, the weather being fine, and even hot, we provided ourselves with +luncheon and sketching materials, and made an expedition to the point +we had selected. + +We were tired by the time we reached it. This does not necessarily damp +one's sketching ardour, but it is unfavourable to accuracy of outline, +and especially so to purity of colouring. However, we did not hesitate. +Eleanor went down to her study of birch-trees in the gorge, Clement +climbed up the bank to get the most extended view of the Ewden Valley; I +contented myself with sitting by the roadside in front of the same view, +and Jack stayed with me. + +He had come with us. Not that he often went out sketching, but our +descriptions of the beauty of the scenery had roused him to make another +attempt for the "Household Album." Seldom lastingly provided, for his +own part, with apparatus of any kind, Jack had a genius for purveying +all that he required in an emergency. On this occasion he had borrowed +Mrs. Arkwright's paint-box (without leave), and was by no means ill +supplied with pencils and brushes which certainly were not his own. He +had hastily stripped a couple of sheets from my block whilst I was +dressing, and with these materials he seated himself on that side of me +which enabled him to dip into my water-pot, and began to paint. + +Not half-way through my outline, I was just beginning to realize the +complexities of a bird's-eye view with your middle distance in a +valley, and your foreground sloping steeply upwards to your feet, when +Jack, washing out a large, dyed sable sky-brush in my pot, with an +amount of splashing that savoured of triumph, said: + +"_That's_ done!" + +I paused in a vigorous mental effort to put aside my _knowledge_ of the +relative sizes of objects, and to _see_ that a top stone of my +foreground wall covered three fields, the river, and half the river's +bank beyond. + +"_Done?_" I exclaimed. Jack put his brush into his mouth, in defiance of +all rules, and deliberately sucked it dry. Then he waved his sketch +before my eyes. + +"The effect's rather good," I confessed, "but oh, Jack, it's out of all +proportion! That gate really looks as big as the whole valley and the +hills beyond. The top of the gate-post ought to be up in the sky." + +"It would look beastly ugly if it was," replied he complacently. + +"You've got a very good tint for those hills; but the foreground is mere +scrambling. Oh, Jack, do finish it a little more! You would draw so +nicely if you had any patience." + +"How imperfectly you understand my character," said Jack, packing up his +traps. "I would sit on a monument and smile at grief with any one, this +very day, if the monument were in a grove, or even if I had an umbrella +to smile under. To sit unsheltered under this roasting sun, and make +myself giddy by gauging proportions with a pencil at the end of my nose, +or smudging my mistakes with melting india-rubber, is quite another +matter. I'm off to Eleanor. I've got another sheet of paper, and I think +trees are rather in my line." + +"I _thought_ my block looked smaller," said I, rapidly comparing Jack's +paper and my own, with a feeling for size developed by my labours. + +"Has she got a water-pot?" asked Jack. + +"She is sure to have," said I pointedly. "She always takes her own +materials with her." + +"How fortunate for those who do not!" said Jack. "Now, Margery dear, +don't look sulky. I knew you wouldn't grudge me a bit of paper to get +into the 'Household Album' with. Come down into the ravine. You're as +white as a blank sheet of Whatman's hot-pressed water-colour paper!" + +The increasing heat was really beginning to overpower me, but I refused +to leave my sketch. Jack pinned a large white pocket-handkerchief to my +shoulders--"to keep the sun from the spine"--and departed to the ravine. + +By midday my outline was in. One is no good judge of one's own work, +but I think, on the whole, that it was a success. + +It is always refreshing to complete a stage of anything. I began to feel +less hot and tired, as I passed a wash of clean water over my outline, +and laying it in the sun to dry, got out my colours and brushes. + +As I did so, one of the little gusts of wind which had been an +unpleasant feature of this very fine day, and which, threatening a +change of weather, made us anxious to finish our sketches at a sitting, +came down the sandy road. In an instant the damp surface of my block +looked rough enough to strike matches on. But impatience is not my +besetting sin, and I had endured these little catastrophes before. I +waited for the block to dry before I brushed off the sand. I also waited +till the little beetle, who had crept into my sky, and was impeded in +his pace by my first wash, walked slowly down through all my distances, +and quitted the block by the gate in the foreground. This was partly +because I did not want to hurt him, and partly because a white cumulus +cloud is a bad part of your sketch to kill a black beetle on. + +I washed over my paper once more, and holding it on my knee to dry just +as much and no more than was desirable, I looked my subject in the face +with a view to colour. + +A long time passed. I had looked and looked again; I had washed in and +washed out; I had realized the difficulty of the subject without +flinching, and had tried hard to see and represent the colouring before +me, when Clement (having exhausted his water in a similar process) came +down the hill behind me, with a surly and sunburnt face, to replenish +his bottle at a wayside water-trough. + +It was then that, as he said, he found me crying. + +"It's not because it's difficult and I'm very stupid," I whimpered. "I +don't mind working on and trying to make the best of a thing. And it's +not the wind or the sand, though it has got dreadfully into the paints, +particularly the Italian Pink; but what makes me hopeless, Clement, is +that I don't believe it would look well if I could paint it perfectly. +It looked lovely as we were driving home the other evening, but now---- +Just look at those fields, Clem; I _know_ they're green, but really and +truly I _see_ them just the same colour as this road, and I don't think +there is the difference of a shade between them and that gate-post. What +shall I do?" + +A tear fell out of my eyelashes and dropped on to my river. Clement took +the sketch from me, and dried up the tear with a bit of blotting-paper. + +Then to my amazement he gave rather a favourable verdict. It comforted +me, for Clement never says anything that he does not mean. + +"It's not _half_ bad, Margery! Wait till you see mine! How did you get +the tints of that hillside? You've a very truthful mind, that's one +thing, and a very true eye as well. I do admire the way you abstain from +filling up with touches that mean nothing." + +"Oh, Clement!" cried I, so gratified that I began to feel ready to go on +again. "Do you really think I can make anything of it?" + +"Nothing more," said Clement. "Don't put another touch. It's unfinished, +but no finishing would do any good. We've got an outlandish subject and +a bad time of day. But keep it just as it is, and three months hence, on +a cool day, you'll be pleased when you look at it." + +"Perhaps if I went on a little with the foreground," I suggested; but +even as I spoke, I put my hand to my head. + +"Go to Eleanor in the ravine, at once," said Clement imperatively. "I'll +bring your things. What _did_ make us such fools as to come out without +umbrellas?" + +"We came out in the cool of the morning," said I, as I staggered off; +"besides, it's almost impossible to hold one and paint too." + +Once in the ravine, I dropped among the long grass and ferns, and the +damp, refreshing coolness of my resting-place was delicious. + +Eleanor was not faint, neither had she been crying; but she was not much +happier with her sketch than I had been with mine. The jutting group of +birch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably. But when +she came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, her +very outline had begun to look less satisfactory. When it came to +colour--and the midday sun was darting and glittering through the +interstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of _chiaroscuro_ +to a subject already defective in point and contrast--Eleanor was almost +in despair. + +"Where's Jack?" said I, after condoling with her. + +"He tried the birches for ten minutes, and then he went up the stream to +look for _alg_." + +At this moment Jack appeared. He came slowly towards us, looking at +something in his hand. + +"Lend me your magnifying-glass, Eleanor," said he, when he had reached +us. + +Eleanor unfastened it from her chatelaine, and Jack became absorbed in +examining some water-weed in a dock-leaf. + +"What is it?" said we. + +"It's a new species, I believe. Look, Eleanor!" and he gave her the leaf +and the glass with an almost pathetic anxiety of countenance. + +My opinion carried no weight in the matter, but Eleanor was nearly as +good a naturalist as her mother. And she was inclined to agree with +Jack. + +"It's too good to be true! But I certainly don't know it. Where did you +find it?" + +"No, thank you," said Jack derisively. "I mean to keep the habitat to +myself for the present. For _a very good reason_. Margery, my child, put +that sketch of mine into the pocket of your block. (The paper is much +about the size of your own!) It is going into the 'Household Album.'" + +We went home earlier than we had intended. Even the perseverance of +Eleanor and Clement broke down under their ill-success. Jack was the +only well-satisfied one of the party, and, with his usual good-nature, +he tried hard to infect me with his cheerfulness. + +"I think," said I, looking dolefully at my sketch, "that a good deal of +the fault must have been in my eyes. I suspect one can't see colours +properly when one is feeling sick and giddy. But the glare of the sun +was the worst. I couldn't tell red from green on my palette, so no +wonder the fields and everything else looked all the same colour. And +yet what provokes one is the feeling that an artist would have made a +sketch of it somehow. The view is really beautiful." + +"And that is really beautiful," said Eleanor, pointing to the birch +group and its background. "And what a mess I have made of it! I wish I'd +stuck to pencil. And yet, as you say, an artist would have got a picture +out of it." + +"I'll tell you what," said Jack, who was lying face downwards with my +picture spread before him, "I believe that any one who knew the dodges, +when he saw that everything looked one pale, yellowish, brownish tint +with the glare of the sun, would have boldly taken a weak wash of all +the drab-looking colours in his box right over everything, picked out a +few stones in his foreground wall, dodged in a few shadows and so on, +and made a clever sketch of it. And the same with Eleanor's. If he had +got his birch-trees half as good as hers, and had then seen what a +muddle the trees behind were in, I believe he would only have washed in +a little blue and grey behind the birches, 'indicated' (as our old +drawing-master at school calls it) a distant stem or two--and there +would have been another clever sketch for you!" + +"Another clever falsehood, you mean," said Clement hotly, "to ruin +people's taste, and encourage idle painters in showy trickery, and make +them believe they can improve upon Nature's colouring." + +"Nature's colouring varies," said Jack. "Distant trees often _are_ blue +and grey, though these, just now, are of the rankest green." + +Clement replied, Jack responded, Clement retorted, and a fierce +art-discussion raged the whole way home. + +We were well used to it. Indeed all conversations with us had a tendency +to become controversial. Over and above which there was truth in +Keziah's saying, "The young gentlemen argle-bargles fit to deave a +body's head; and dear knows what it's all about." + +Clement finished a vehement and rather didactic confession of his +art-faith as we climbed the steep hill to the Vicarage. The keynote of +it was that one ought to draw what he sees, exactly as he sees it; and +that every subject has a beauty of its own which he ought to perceive if +his perception is not "emasculated by an acquired taste for +prettinesses." + +"I shall be in the 'Household Album' this evening," said Jack, in +deliberate tones. "My next ambition is the Society of Painters in Water +Colours. The subject of my first painting is settled. Three grass fields +(haymaking over the day before yesterday). A wall in front of the first +field, a hedge in front of the second, a wall in front of the third. A +gate in the middle of the wall. A spotted pig in the middle of the +field. The sun at its meridian; the pig asleep. Motto, 'Whatever is, is +beautiful.'" + +Eleanor and I (in the interests of peace) hastened to change the +subject by ridiculing Jack's complacent conviction that his sketch would +be accepted for the "Household Album." + +And yet it was. + +The fresh-water _alga_ Jack had been lucky enough to find was a new +species, and threw Mrs. Arkwright and Eleanor into a state of the +highest excitement. But all their entreaties failed to persuade Jack to +disclose the secret of the habitat. + +"Put my sketch into the 'Household Album,' and I'll tell you all about +it," said he. + +Mrs. Arkwright held out against this for half-an-hour. Then she gave +way. Jack's sketch was gummed in (it took up a whole page, being the +full size of my block), and he told us all about the water-weed. + +It was described and figured in the _Phycological Quarterly_, and +received the specific name of _Arkwrightii_, and Jack's double triumph +was complete. + +We were very glad for his success, but it almost increased the sense of +disappointment that our share of the expedition had been so unlucky. + +"It seems such a waste," said I, "to have got to such a lovely place +with one's drawing things and plenty of time, and to come away without a +sketch worth keeping at the end, just because one doesn't know the right +way of working." + +"I think there's a good deal in what Jack said about your sketch," said +Eleanor; "and I think if one looked at the way real artists have treated +similar subjects, and then went at it again and tried to do it on a +similar principle----" + +"If ever we do go there again," Clement interrupted, "but I don't +suppose we shall--these holidays. And the way summer after summer slips +away is awful. I'm more and more convinced that it's a great mistake to +have so many hobbies. No life is long enough for more than one pursuit, +and it's ten to one you die in the middle of mastering that. One is sure +to die in the early stages of half-a-dozen." + +Clement is very apt to develop some odd theory of this kind, and to +preach it with a severity that borders on gloom. I never know what to +say, even if I disagree with him; but Eleanor takes up the cudgels at +once. + +"I don't think I agree with you," she said, giving a shove to her soft +elastic hair which did not improve the indefiniteness of the parting. +"Of course it's unsatisfactory in one way to feel one will never live to +finish things, but in another way I think it's a great comfort to feel +one can never use them up or outlive them if one lasts on to be a +hundred. And though one gets very cross and miserable with failing so +over things one works at, I don't know whether one would be so much +happier when one was at the top of the tree. I'm not sure that the +chief pleasure isn't actually in the working at things--I mean in the +drudgery of learning, rather than in the triumph of having learnt." + +"There's something in that," said Clement. And it was a great deal for +Clement to say. + +It does not take much to convert _me_ to Eleanor's views of anything. +But I do think experience bears out what she said about this matter. + +Perhaps that accounts for my having a happy remembrance of old times +when we worked at things together, even if we failed and cried over +them. + +I know that practically, now, I would willingly join the others in going +at anything, though I could not promise not to be peevish over my own +stupidity sometimes, and if I was very much tired. + +I don't think there was anything untrue in my calling the times we went +sketching together happy times--in spite of what Clement says. + +But he does rule such very straight lines all over life, and I sometimes +think one may rule them too straight--even for full truth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--CLIQUE--THE LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE--OUT +VISITING--HOUSE-PRIDE--DRESSMAKING. + + +Eleanor and I were not always at home. We generally went visiting +somewhere, at least once a year. + +I think it was good for us. Great as were the advantages of the life I +now shared over an existence wasted in a petty round of ignoble gossip +and social struggle, it had the drawback of being almost too +self-sufficing, perhaps--I am not certain--a little too laborious. I do +think, but for me, it must, at any rate, have become the latter. I am so +much less industrious, energetic, clever and good in every way than +Eleanor, for one thing, that my very idleness holds us back; and I think +a taste for gaiety (I simply mean being gay, not balls and parties), and +for social pleasure, and for pretty things, and graceful "situations" +runs in my veins with my French blood, and helps to break the current of +our labours. + +We led lives of considerable intellectual activity, constant occupation, +and engrossing interest. We were apt to "foy" at our work to the extent +of grudging meal-times and sleep. Indeed, at one time a habit obtained +with us of leaving the table in turn as we finished our respective +meals. One member of the family after another would rise, bend his or +her head for a silent "grace," and depart to the work in hand. I have +known the table gradually deserted in this fashion till Mr. Arkwright +was left alone. I remember going back one day into the room, and seeing +him so. My entrance partially aroused him from a brown study. (He was at +all times very "absent") He rose, said grace aloud for the benefit of +the company--which had dispersed--and withdrew to his library. But we +abolished this uncivilized custom in conclave, and thenceforth sat our +meals out to the end. + +So free were we in our isolation upon those Yorkshire moors from the +trammels of conventionality (one might almost say, civilization!), that +I think we should have come to begrudge the ordinary interchange of the +neighbourly courtesies of life, but for occasional lectures from Mrs. +Arkwright, and for going out visiting from time to time. + +It was not merely that a life of running in and out of other people's +houses, and chatting the same bits of news threadbare with one +acquaintance after another, as at Riflebury, would have been unendurable +by us. The rare arrival of a visitor from some distant country-house to +call at the Vicarage was the signal for every one, who could do so with +decency, to escape from the unwelcome interruption. But as we grew +older, Mrs. Arkwright would not allow this. The boys, indeed, were hard +to coerce; they "bolted" still when the door-bell rang; but domestic +authority, which is apt to be magnified on "the girls," overruled +Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother--who reasoned with us far +more than she commanded--convinced us of how much selfishness there was +in this, as in all acts of discourtesy. + +But what do we not owe to her good counsels? In how many evening talks +has she not warned us of the follies, affectations, or troubles to which +our lives might specially be liable! Against despising interests that +are not our own, or graces which we have chosen to neglect, against the +danger of satire, against the love or the fear of being thought +singular, and, above all, against the petty pride of clique. + +"I do not know which is the worst," I remember her saying, "a religious +clique, an intellectual clique, a fashionable clique, a moneyed clique, +or a family clique. And I have seen them all." + +"Come, Mother," said Eleanor, "you cannot persuade us you would not have +more sympathy with the intellectual than the moneyed clique, for +instance?" + +"I should have warmly declared so myself, at one time," said Mrs. +Arkwright, "but I have a vivid remembrance of a man belonging to an +artistic clique, to whose house I once went with some friends. My +friends were artists also, but their minds were enlarged, instead of +being narrowed, by one chief pursuit. Their special art gave them +sympathy with all others, as the high cultivation of one virtue is said +to bring all the rest in its train. But this man talked the shibboleth +of his craft over one's head to other members of his clique with a +defiance of good manners arising more from conceit than from ignorance +of the ways of society; and with a transparent intention of being +overheard and admired which reminded me of the little self-conscious +conceits of children before visitors. He was one of a large family with +the same peculiarities, joined to a devout admiration of each other. +Indeed, they combined the artistic clique and the family clique in equal +proportions. From the conversation at their table you would have +imagined that there was but one standard of good for poor humanity, that +of one 'school' of one art, and absolutely no one who quite came up to +it but the brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, or connections by +marriage of your host. Now, I honestly assure you that the only other +man really like this one that I ever met, was what is called a +'self-made' man in a commercial clique. Money was _his_ standard, and +he seemed to be as completely unembarrassed as my artist friend by the +weight of any other ideas than his own, or by any feeling short of utter +satisfaction with himself. Their contempt for the conventionalities of +society was about equal. My artist friend had passed a sweeping +criticism for my benefit now and then (there could be no conversation +where no second opinion was allowed), and it was with perhaps a shade +less of condescension--a shade more of friendliness--that my commercial +friend once stopped some remarks of mine with the knowing observation, +'Look here, ma'am. Whenever I hear this, that, and the other bragged +about a party, what I always say is this, I don't want you to tell me +what he _his_, but what he _'as_.'" + +Eleanor and I laughed merrily at the anecdote, even if we were not quite +converted to Mrs. Arkwright's views. And I must in justice add that +every visit which has taken us from home--every fresh experience which +has enlarged our knowledge of the world--has confirmed the truth of her +sage and practical advice. + +If at home we have still inclined to feel it almost a duty to be proud +of intellectual tastes, quite a duty to be proud of orthodox opinions, +and, at the worst, a very amiable weakness indeed to think that there +are no boys like our boys, a wholesome experience of having other +people's tastes and views crammed down our throats has modified our +ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the +brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack +sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a +mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of +our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the +Vicarage are ever oppressed by the dear boys. + +I'm afraid it is possible--poor dear things! + +I have positively heard people say that Saucebox is ugly, though he has +eyes like a bull-frog, and his tongue hangs quite six inches out of his +mouth, and--in warm weather or before meals--further still! However, I +keep him in very good order, and never allow him to be troublesome to +people who do not appreciate him. For I have observed that there are +people who (having no children of their own) hold very just and severe +views about spoiled boys and girls, but who (having dogs of their own) +are much less clear-sighted on the subject of spoiled terriers and +Pomeranians. And I do not want to be like that--dear as the dear boys +are! + +Certainly, seeing all sorts of people with all sorts of peculiarities is +often a great help towards trying to get rid of one's own objectionable +ones. But like the sketching, one sometimes gets into despair about it, +and though the process of learning an art may be even pleasanter than to +feel one's self a master in it, one cannot say as much for the process +of discovering one's follies. I should like to get rid of _them_ in a +lump. + +Eleanor said so one day to her mother, but Mrs. Arkwright said: "We may +hate ourselves, as you call it, when we come to realize failings we have +not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we +do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of +impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am +sure. It is one's greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt +by GOD. Just as a mother would not love her child the better for its +being turned into a model of perfection by one stroke of magic, but does +love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and +believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to +love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our +struggles with folly and sin." + +But I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is +about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about +our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in +it, and Eleanor says it will not do for us to "go off at a tangent," +and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first, +because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for +nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly, +because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these +ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished. +We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting +rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly +because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind +them. + +Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends +of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor's friends +invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were +happier together. + +I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins +living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure +to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I +think of the expression of Eleanor's face, I may almost say rapture. +Then there was a certain church-bookseller's shop in the town, which had +manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper +could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury. +There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and +oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the +garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of +such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial +interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it +was about this period. + +But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which +I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and +general ornamentation. + +The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where +my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me, +prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular +comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each +room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new +books, music, sketches, needlework, and flowers. + +"Do you know, Eleanor," said I, when we were dressing for dinner one +evening before a toilette-table that had been tastefully adorned for our +use by the daughters of the house, "I wonder if Yorkshire women _are_ as +'house-proud' as they call themselves? I think our villagers are, in the +important points of cleanliness and solid comfort, and of course we are +at the Vicarage as to _that_--Keziah keeps us all like copper kettles; +but don't you think we might have a little more house-pride about +tasteful pretty refinements? It perhaps is rather a waste of time +arranging all these vases and baskets of flowers every day, but they are +_very_ nice to look at, and I think it civilizes one." + +"_You're_ not to blame," said Eleanor decisively. "You're south-country +to the backbone, and French on the top. It is we hard north-country +folk, we business people, who neglect to cultivate 'the beautiful.' +We're quite wrong. But I think the beautiful is revenged on us," added +she with one of her quick, bright looks, "by withdrawing itself. There's +nothing comparable for ugliness to the people of a manufacturing town." + +My mind was running on certain very ingenious and tasteful methods of +hanging nosegays on the wall. + +"Those baskets with ferns and flowers in, against the wall, were lovely, +weren't they?" said I. "Do you think we shall ever be able to think of +such pretty things?" + +"We're not fools," said Eleanor briefly. "We shall do it when we set our +minds to it. Meantime, we must make notes of whatever strikes us." + +"There are plenty of jolly, old-fashioned flowers in the garden at +home," said I. It was a polite way of expressing my inward regret that +we had no tropical orchids or strange stove-plants. And Eleanor danced +round me, and improvised a song beginning: + + "There are ferns by Ewden's waters, + And heather on the hill." + +From the better adornment of the Vicarage to the better adornment of +ourselves was a short stride. Most of the young ladies in these country +homes were very prettily dressed. Not _ la_ Mrs. Perowne. Not in that +milliner's handbook style dear to "Promenades" and places of public +resort; but more daintily, and with more attention to the prettiest and +most convenient of the prevailing fashions than Eleanor's and my +costumes displayed. + +The toilettes of one young lady in particular won our admiration; and +when we learned that her pretty things were made by herself, an +overwhelming ambition seized upon us to learn to do the same. + +"Women ought to know about all house matters," said Eleanor, puckering +her brow to a gloomy extent. "Dressmaking, cookery, and all that sort of +thing; and we know nothing about any of them. I was thinking only last +night, in bed, that if I were cast away on a desert island, and had to +make a dress out of an old sail, I shouldn't have the ghost of an idea +where to begin." + +"I should," said I. "I should sew it up like a sack, make three holes +for my head and arms, and tie it round my waist with ship's rope. I +could manage Robinson Crusoe dresses; it's the civilized ones that will +be too much for me, I'm afraid." + +"I believe the sail would go twice as far if we could gore it," said +Eleanor, laughing. "But there's no waste like the wastefulness of +ignorance; and oh, Margery, it's the _gores_ I'm afraid of! If skirts +were only made the old-fashioned way, like a flannel petticoat! So many +pieces all alike--run them together--hem the bottom--gather the top--and +there you are, with everything straightforward but the pocket." + +To our surprise we found that our new fad was a sore subject with Mrs. +Arkwright. She reproached herself bitterly with having given Eleanor so +little training in domestic arts. But she had been brought up by a +learned uncle, who considered needlework a waste of time, and she knew +as little about gores as we did. She had also, unfortunately, known or +heard of some excellent mother who had trained nine daughters to such +perfection of domestic capabilities that it was boasted that they could +never in after-life employ a workwoman or domestic who would know more +of her business than her employer. And this good lady was a standing +trouble to poor Mrs. Arkwright's conscience. + +Her self-reproaches were needless. General training is perhaps quite as +good as (if not better than) special, even for special ends. In giving +us a higher education, in teaching us to use our eyes, our wits, and our +common-sense, she had put all meaner arts within our grasp when need +should urge, and opportunity serve. + +"Aunt Theresa was always dressmaking," I said to Eleanor; "but I don't +remember anything that would help us. I was so young, you know. And when +one is young one is so stupid, one really resists information." + +I was to have another chance, however, of gleaning hints from Aunt +Theresa. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +MATILDA--BALL DRESSES AND THE BALL--GORES--MISS LINING--THE +'PARISHIONER'S PENNYWORTH.' + + +The Bullers came home again. Colonel St. Quentin had retired, and when +Major Buller got the regiment, he also left the army and settled in a +pleasant neighbourhood in the south of England. As soon as Aunt Theresa +was fairly established in her new house she sent for Eleanor and me. +There was no idea of my remaining permanently. It was only a visit. + +The Major (but he was a colonel now) and his wife were very little +changed. The girls, of course, had altered greatly, and so had I. +Matilda was a fashionably-dressed young lady, with a slightly frail +appearance at times, as if Nature were still revenging the old +mismanagement and neglect. + +It did not need Aunt Theresa to tell us that she was her father's +favourite daughter. But it was no capricious favouritism, I am sure. I +believe Colonel Buller to have been one of those people whose hearts +have depths of tenderness that are never sounded. The Bush House +catastrophe had long ago been swept into the lumber-room of Aunt +Theresa's memory, but the tender self-reproach of Matilda's father was +still to be seen in all his care and indulgence of her. + +"He'll take me anywhere," said Matilda, with affectionate pride. "He +even goes shopping with me." + +We liked Matilda by far the best of the girls. Partly, no doubt, because +she was our old friend, but partly, I think, because intimacy with her +father had developed the qualities she inherited from him, and softened +others. + +To our great satisfaction we discovered that gores were no enigma to +Matilda, and she and Aunt Theresa good-naturedly undertook to initiate +us into the mysteries of dressmaking. + +There was an excellent opportunity. Eleanor was now eighteen, and +Matilda seventeen years old. Matilda was to "come out" at a county ball +that was to take place whilst we were with the Bullers, and Mrs. +Arkwright consented to let Eleanor go also. Hence ball dresses, and +hence also our opportunity for learning how to make them. For they were +to be made by a dressmaker in the house, and she did not reject our +assistance. + +The Bullers' drawing-room was divided by folding-doors, and both +divisions now overflowed with tarlatan and trimmings; but at every fresh +inroad of callers (and they were hardly less frequent than of old) we +young ones, and yards of flounces and finery with us, were swept by Aunt +Theresa into the back drawing-room, like autumn leaves before a breeze. + +The dresses were very successful, and so was the ball. I was so anxious +to hear how Eleanor had sped, that I felt quite sure that I could not go +to sleep, and that it was a farce to go to bed just when she was +beginning to dance. I went, however, at last, and had had half a +night's sound sleep before rustling, and chattering, and the light from +bed-candles woke me to hear the news. + +Matilda was looking pale, and somewhat dishevelled, and a great deal of +the costume at which we had laboured was reduced to rags. Eleanor's +dress was intact, and she herself looked perfectly fresh, partly because +she had resisted, with great difficulty, the extreme length of train +then fashionable, and partly from a sort of general compactness which +seems a natural gift with some people. Poor Matilda had nearly fainted +after one of the dances, and had brought away a violent headache; but +she declared that she had enjoyed herself, and would have stayed to +relate her adventures, but Colonel Buller would not allow it, and sent +her to bed. Eleanor slept with me, so our gossip was unopposed, except +by warnings. + +I set fire to my hair in the effort to decipher the well-filled ball +card, but we put it out, and the candle also, and chatted in bed. + +"You must have danced every dance," I said, admiringly. + +"We sat out one or two that are down," said Eleanor; "and No. 21 was +supper, but I danced all the rest." + +"There was one man you danced several times with," I said, "but I +couldn't make out his name. It looks as if it began with a G." + +"Oh, it's not his real name," said Eleanor. "It's the one he says you +used to call him by. One reason why I liked him, Margery dear, was +because he said he had been so fond of you. You were such a dear little +thing, he said. I told him the locket and chain were in good +preservation." + +"Was it Mr. George?" I cried, with so much energy that Aunt Theresa (who +slept next door) heard us, and knocked on the wall to bid us go to +sleep. + +"We're just going to," Eleanor shouted, and added in lower tones, to me, +"Yes, it was Captain Abercrombie. Colonel Buller introduced him to me. +He is so nice, and so delightfully fond of dogs and of you, Margery." + +"Shall I see him?" I asked. "I should like to see him again. He was very +good to me when I was little." + +"Oh yes," said Eleanor. "It was curious his being in the neighbourhood; +for the 202nd is in Dublin, you know. And, Margery, he says he has an +uncle in Yorkshire. He----" + +"Girls! girls!" cried Aunt Theresa; and we went to sleep. + +Soon after we returned from our visit to the Bullers, Eleanor and I +resolved to prove the benefit we had reaped from Aunt Theresa's +instructions by making ourselves some dresses of an inexpensive stuff +that we bought for the purpose. + +How well I remember the pattern! A flowering creeper, which followed a +light stem upwards through yard after yard of the material. We had +picked to pieces certain old bodies which fitted us fairly, and our +first work was to lay these patterns upon the new stuff, with weights on +them, and so to cut out our new bodies as easily as Matilda (whose +directions we were following) had prophesied that we should. When these +and the sleeves were accomplished (and they looked most business-like), +we began upon the skirts. We cut the back and the front breadths, and +duly "sloped" the latter. Then came the gores. We folded the breadths +into three parts; we took a third at one end, and two-thirds at the +other, and folded the slope accordingly. It became quite exciting. + +"Who would have thought it was so easy?" said I. + +Eleanor was almost prone upon the table, cutting the gores with large +scissors which made a thoroughly sempstress-like squeak. + +"The higher education fades from my view with every snip," she said, +laughing. "Upon my word, Margery, I begin to believe this sort of thing +_is_ our vocation. It is great fun, and there is absolutely no brain +wear and tear." + +The gores were parted as she spoke, and (to do us justice) were exactly +the shape of the tarlatan ones Aunt Theresa had cut. But when we came to +put them together, they wouldn't fit without turning one of them the +wrong side out. Eleanor had boasted too soon. We got headaches and +backaches with stooping and puzzling. We cut up all our stuff, but the +gores remained obstinate. By no ingenuity could we combine them so as to +be at once in proper order, the right side out, and the right side (of +the pattern) up. I really think we cried over them with weariness and +disappointment. + +"Algebra's a trifle to it," was poor Eleanor's conclusion. + +I went out to clear my brain by a walk, and happening, as I returned, to +meet Jack, I confided our woes to him. One could tell Jack anything. + +"You've got it wrong somehow," said Jack, "linking" me. "Come to Miss +Lining's." + +Miss Lining was our village dressmaker. A very bad one certainly, but +still she could gore a skirt. She was not a native of the village, and +signified her superior gentility by a mincing pronunciation. She had +also a hiss with the sibilants peculiar to herself. Before I could +remonstrate, Jack was knocking at the door. + +"Good-afternoon, Miss Lining. Miss Margery has been making a dress, and +she's got into a muddle with the gores. Now, how do you manage with +gores, Miss Lining?" Jack confidentially inquired, taking his hat off, +and accepting a well-dusted chair. + +There was now nothing for it but to explain my difficulties, which I +did, Miss Lining saying, "Yisss, misss," at every two or three words. +When I had said my say, she sucked the top of her brass thimble +thoughtfully for some moments, and then spoke as an oracle. + +"There's a hinside and a hout to the stuff? Yisss, misss. And a hup and +a down? Yisss, misss." + +"And quite half the gores won't fit in anywhere," I desperately +interposed. + +Miss Lining took another taste of the brass thimble, and then said: + +"In course, misss, with a patterned thing there's as many gores to throw +hout as to huse. Yisss, misss." + +"_Are there?_" said I. "But what a waste!" + +"Ho no, misss! you cuts the body out of the gores you throws hout, +misss----" + +"Well, if you get the body out of them, there must be a waist!" Jack +broke in, as he sat fondling Miss Lining's tom-cat. + +"Ho no, sir!" said Miss Lining, who couldn't have seen a joke to save +her dignity. "They cuts to good add-vantage, sir." + +The mystery was now clear to me, and Jack saw this by my face. + +"You understand?" said he briefly, setting down the cat. + +"Quite," said I. "Our mistake was beginning with the bodies. But we can +get some more stuff." + +"An odd bit always comes in," said Miss Lining, speaking, I fear, from +an experience of bits saved from the dresses of village patrons. "Yisss, +misss." + +"Well, good-afternoon, Miss Lining," said Jack, who never suffered, as +Eleanor and I sometimes did, from a difficulty in getting away from a +cottage. "Thank you very much. Have you heard from your sister at Buxton +lately?" + +"Last week, sir," said Miss Lining. + +"And how is she?" said Jack urbanely. + +He never forgot any one, and he never grudged sympathy--two qualities +which made him beloved of the village. + +"Quite well, thank you, sir, and the same to you," said Miss Lining, +beaming; "except that she do suffer a deal in her inside, sir." + +"Chamomile tea is very good for the inside, I believe," said Jack, +putting on his hat with perfect gravity. + +"So I've 'eerd--yisss, sir," said Miss Lining; "and there's something of +the same in them pills that's spoke so well of in your magazine, sir, I +think. I sent by the carrier for a box, sir, on Saturday last, and would +have done sooner, but for waiting for Mrs. Barker to pay for the +pelerine I made out of her uncle's funeral scarf. Yisss, misss." + +Jack was very seldom at a loss, but on this occasion he seemed puzzled. + +"Pills recommended in our magazine?" he said, as we strolled up towards +the Vicarage. "It's those medical tracts you and Eleanor have been +taking round lately." + +"There's nothing about pills in them," said I. "They're about drains, +and fresh air, and cleanliness. Besides, she said our magazine." + +"We don't give them any magazine but the _Parishioner's Pennyworth_ and +the missionary one," said Jack. "I'm stumped, Margery." + +But in a few minutes I was startled by his seizing me by the shoulders +and leaning against me in a paroxysm of laughter. + +"Oh, Margery, I've got it! It _is_ the _Parishioner's Pennyworth_. +There's been an advertisement at the end of it for months, like a +fly-leaf, of Norton's chamomile pills." + +And as I unravelled to Eleanor the mystery of our dressmaking +difficulties, we could hear Jack convulsing Mrs. Arkwright with a +perfect reproduction of Miss Lining's accent--"Them pills that's spoke +so well of in your magazine. Yisss, m'm." + +We got some more material, and finished the dresses triumphantly. By the +next summer we were skilful enough to use our taste with some freedom +and good success. + +I was then fifteen, and in long dresses. I remember some most tasteful +costumes which we produced; and as we contemplated them as they hung, +flounced, furbelowed, and finished, upon pegs, Eleanor said: + +"I wonder where we shall display these this year?" + +How little we knew! We had made the dresses alike, to the nicety of a +bow, because we thought it ladylike that the costumes of sisters should +be so. How far we were from guessing that they would not be worn +together after all! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +I GO BACK TO THE VINE--AFTER SUNSET--A TWILIGHT EXISTENCE--SALAD OF +MONK'S-HOOD--A ROYAL SUMMONS. + + +The few marked events of my life have generally happened on my +birthdays. It was on my fifteenth birthday that Mr. Arkwright got a +letter from one of my relations on the subject of my going to live with +my great-grandfather and grandmother. + +They were now very old. My great-grandfather was becoming "childish," +and the little dear duchess was old and frail for such a charge alone. +They had no daughter. The religious question was laid aside. My most +Protestant relatives thought my duty in the matter overwhelming, and +with all my clinging of heart to the moor home I felt myself that it was +so. + +I don't know how I got over the parting. I wandered hopelessly about +familiar spots, and wished I had made sketches of them; but how could I +know I had not all life before me? The time was short, and preparations +had to be made. This kept us quiet. At the last, Jack put in all my +luggage, and did everything for me. Then he kissed me, and said, "GOD +bless you, Margery," and "linking" Eleanor by force, led her away and +comforted her like the good, dear boy he is. Clement drove me so +recklessly down the steep hill, and over the stones, that the momentary +expectation of an upset dried my tears, and I did not see much of the +villagers' kind and too touching farewells. + +And so to the bleak station again, and the familiar old porter, whom +fate seems to leave long enough at _his_ post, and on through the +whirling railway panorama, by which one passes to so much joy and so +much sorrow--and then I was at The Vine once more. + +I wonder if I am like my great-grandmother in her youth? Some people +(Elspeth among them) declare that it is so; and others that I am like my +poor mother. I suppose I have some Vandaleur features, from an eerie +little incident which befell me on the threshold of The Vine--an +appropriate beginning to a life that always felt like a weird, shadowy +dream. + +I did not ring the bell of the outer gate on my arrival, because Adolphe +(grown up, but with the old, ruddy boy's face on the top of his man's +shoulders) was anxiously waiting for me, and devoted himself to my +luggage, telling me that Master was in the garden. Thither I ran so +hastily, that a straggling sweetbriar caught my hat and my net, and +dragged them off, sending my hair over my shoulders. My hair is not +long, however, like Eleanor's, and it curls, and I sometimes wear it +loose; so I did not stop to rearrange it, but hurried on towards my +great-grandfather, who was coming slowly to meet me from the other end +of the terrace, his hands behind his back, as of old. At least, I +thought it was to meet me; but as he came near I saw that he was +unconscious of my presence. He looked very old, his face was pale and +shrivelled, like a crumpled white kid glove; his wild blue eyes, +insensible of what was before them, seemed intently fixed on something +that no one else could see, and he was talking to himself, as we call it +when folk talk with the invisible. + +It was very silly, but I really felt the colour fading from my face with +fright. My great-grandfather's back was to the west, where a few bars of +red across the sky, as it was to be seen through the Scotch firs, were +all that remained of the sunset. That strange light was on everything, +of which modern pre-Raphaelite painters are so fond. I was tired with my +long journey and previous excitement; and when I suddenly remembered +that Mr. Vandaleur was said to have in some measure lost his reason, a +shudder came over me. In a moment more he saw me. I think my crimson +cloak caught his eye, but his welcome was hardly less alarming than his +abstraction. He started, and held up his hands, and a pained, puzzled +expression troubled his face. Then a flush, which seemed to make him +look older than the whiteness; and then, with a shrill, feeble cry of +"Victoire, ma belle!" he tottered towards me so hastily that I thought +he must have fallen; but, like a vision, a little figure flitted from +the French window of the drawing-room, and in a moment my +great-grandmother was supporting him, and soothing him with gentle +words in French. I could see now how helpless he was. For a bit he +seemed still puzzled and confused; but he clung to her and kissed her +hand, and suffered himself to be led indoors. Then I followed them, +through the window, into the room where the candles were not yet lighted +for economy's sake--the glare of the red sunset bars making everything +dark to me--with a strange sense of gloom. + +It would be hard to imagine a stronger contrast than that between my +life in my new home and my life in my home upon the moors. At the +Arkwrights' we lived so essentially with the times. Our politics, on the +whole, were liberal; our theology inclined to be broad; our ideas on +social subjects were reformatory, progressive, experimental. Scientific +subjects were a speciality of the household; and, living in a +manufacturing district, mere neighbourhood kept us with the great +current of mercantile interests. We argued each other into a general +unfixity of opinions; and, full of youthful dreams of golden ages, were +willing to believe this young world--where not yet we, but only our +words could fly--to be but upon the threshold of true civilization. +Above all, life seemed so short, our hands were so full, so over-full of +work, the daylight was not long enough for us, and we grudged meals and +sleep. + +How different it was under the shadow of this old Vine! I am very +thankful, now, that I had grace, under the sense of "wasted time," which +was at first so irritating, to hold by my supreme child-duty towards my +aged parents against the mere modern fuss of "work," against what John +Wesley called the "lust of finishing" any labour, and to serve them in +their way rather than in my own. But the change was very great. How we +"pottered" through the days!--with what needless formalities, what +slowness, what indecision! How fatiguing is enforced idleness! How +lengthy were the evening meals, where we sat, trifling with the +vine-leaves under a single dish of fruit, till the gloaming deepened +into gloom! + +At fifteen one is very susceptible of impressions; very impatient of +what one is not used to. The very four-post bed in which I slept +oppressed me, and the cracked basin held together for years by the +circular hole in the old-fashioned washstand. The execution-picture only +made me laugh now. + +Then, as to the meals. No doubt a great many people eat and drink too +much, as we are beginning to discover. Whether we at the Vicarage did, I +cannot say; but the change to the unsubstantial fare on which very old +people like the Vandaleurs keep the flickering light of life aglow was +very great; and yet in this slow, vegetating existence my appetite soon +died away. The country was flat and damp too; and by and by neuralgia +kept me awake at night, as regularly as the ghost of my +great-grandfather had done in years gone by. But it is strange how +quickly unmarked time slips on. Day after day, week after week ran by, +till a lassitude crept over me in which I felt amazed at former +ambitions, and a certain facility of sympathy, which has been in many +respects an evil, and in many a good to me, seemed to mould me to the +interests of the fading household. And so I lived the life of my +great-grandparents, which was as if science made no strides, and men no +struggles; as if nothing were to be done with the days, but to wear +through them in all patient goodness, loyal to a long-fallen dynasty, +regretful of some ancient virtues and courtesies, tender towards past +beauties and passions, and patient of succeeding sunsets, till this aged +world should crumble to its close. + +My great-grandfather came to know me again, though his mind was in a +disordered, dreary condition; from old age, Elspeth said, but it often +recalled what I had heard of the state of his mother's intellect before +her death. The dear little old lady's intellects were quite bright, and, +happily, not only entire, but cultivated. I do not know how people who +think babies and servants are a woman's only legitimate interests would +like to live with women who have either never met with, or long +outlived them. I know how my dear granny's educated mind and sense of +humour helped us over a dozen little domestic difficulties, and broke +the neck of fidgets that seemed almost inevitable at her great age and +in that confined sphere of interests. + +I certainly faded in our twilight existence, as if there were some truth +in the strange old theory that very aged people can withdraw vital force +from young companions and live upon it. But every day and hour of my +stay made me love and reverence my great-grandmother more and more, and +be more and more glad that I had come to know her, and perhaps be of +some little service to her. + +Indeed, it was my great-grandfather's condition that kept us so much +among the shadows. The old lady had a delightful youthfulness of spirit, +and took an almost wistful pleasure in hearing about our life at the +Arkwrights', as if some ambitious Scotch blood in her would fain have +kept better pace with the currents of the busy world. But when my +grandfather joined us, we had to change the subject. Modern ideas jarred +upon him. And it was seldom that he was not with us. The tender love +between the old couple was very touching. + +"It must seem strange to you, my dear, to think of such long lives so +little broken by events," said my great-grandmother. "But your dear +grandfather and I have never been apart for a day since our happy +marriage." + +I do not think they were apart for an hour whilst I was with them. He +followed her about the house, if she left him for many minutes, crying, +"Victoire! Victoire!" chiefly from love, but I was sometimes spiteful +enough to think also because he could not amuse himself. + +"The master's calling for you again," said Elspeth, with some +impatience, one day when grandmamma was teaching me a bit of dainty +cookery in the kitchen. + +"Oh, fly, petite!" she cried to me; "and say that his Majesty has +summoned the Duchess." + +Much bewildered, I ran out, and met my great-grandfather on the terrace, +crying, "Victoire! Victoire!" in fretful tones. + +"His Majesty has summoned the Duchess, sir," said I, dropping a slight +curtsy, as I generally did on disturbing the old gentleman. + +To my astonishment, this seemed quite to content him. He drew in his +elbows, and spread the palms of his hands with a very polite bow, +saying, "Bien, bien;" and after murmuring something else in French, +which I did not catch, but which I fancy was an acknowledgment of the +prior claims of royalty, he folded his hands behind his back and +wandered away down the terrace, as I rushed off to my confectionery +again. + +I found that this use of the old fable, which had calmed my +great-grandfather in past days, was no new idea. It was, in fact, a +graceful fiction which deceived nobody, and had been devised by my +great-grandmother out of deference to her husband's prejudices. In the +long years when they were very poor, their poverty was made, not only +tolerable but graceful, by Mrs. Vandaleur's untiring energy, but (though +he wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't, find any occupation by which to add to +their income) the sight of his Victoire, who should have been a duchess, +doing any menial work so distracted him, that my grandmother had to +devise some method to secure herself from his observation when she +washed certain bits of priceless lace which redeemed her old dresses +from commonness, or cooked some delicacy for Mons. le Duc's dinner, or +mended his honourable clothes. Thus Jeanette's old fable came into use; +first in jest, and then as an adopted form for getting rid of my +great-grandfather when he was in the way. It must have astonished a +practical woman like my great-grandmother to find how completely it +satisfied him. But there must have been a time when his helplessness and +impracticability tried her in many ways, before she fairly came to +realize that he never could be changed, and her love fell in with his +humours. On this point he was humoured completely, and never inquired on +what business his deceased Majesty of France required the attendance of +the Duchess that should have been! + +To do him justice, if he was a helpless he was a very tender husband. + +"He has never said a rude or unkind word to me since we were boy and +girl together," said the little old lady, with tears in her eyes. And +indeed, courtesy implies self-discipline; and even now the old man's +politeness checked his petulance over and over again. He never gave up +the habit of gathering flowers for my grandmother, and such exquisite +contrasts of colour I never saw combined by any other hand. Another +accomplishment of his was also connected with his love of plants. + +"It's little enough a man can do about a house the best of times," said +Elspeth, "and the master's just as feckless as a bairn. But he makes a +fine sallet." + +I shudder almost as I write the words. How little we thought that my +poor grandfather's one useful gift would have so fatal an ending! + +But I must put it down in order. It was the end of many things. Of my +life at The Vine among them, and very nearly of my life in this world +altogether. My great-grandfather made delicious salads. I have heard him +say that he preferred our English habit of mixing ingredients to the +French one of dressing one vegetable by itself; but he said we did not +carry it far enough, we neglected so many useful herbs. And so his +salads were compounded not only of lettuce and cress, and so forth, but +of dandelion, sorrel, and half-a-dozen other field or garden plants. +Sometimes one flavour preponderated, sometimes another, and the sauce +was always good. + +Now it is all over it seems to me that I must have been very stupid not +to have paid more attention to the strange flavour in the salad that +day. But I was thinking chiefly of the old lady, who was not very well +(Elspeth had an idea that she had had a very slight "stroke," but how +this was we cannot know now), whilst my grandfather was almost flightily +cheerful. I tasted the salad, and did not eat it, but I was the less +inclined to complain of it as they seemed perfectly satisfied. + +Then my grandmother was taken ill. At first we thought it a development +of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent +Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The +salad was full of young leaves of monk's-hood. Under what delusion my +poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were +busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from any +one. + +From the first the doctor gave us little hope, and they sank rapidly. +Their priest, for whom Adolphe made a second expedition, did not arrive +in time; they were in separate rooms, and Elspeth and I flitted from one +to the other in sad attendance. The dear little old lady sank fast, and +died in the evening. + +Then the doctor impressed on us the necessity of keeping her death from +my great-grandfather's knowledge. + +"But supposing he asks?" said I. + +"Say any soothing thing your ready wit may suggest, my dear young lady. +But the truth, in his present condition, would be a fatal shock." + +It haunted me. "Supposing he asks." And late in the evening he did ask! +I was alone with him, and he called me. + +"Marguerite, dear child, thou wilt tell me the truth. Why does my wife, +my Victoire, thy grandmother, not come to me?" + +Pondering what lie I could tell him, and how, an irresistible impulse +seized me. I bent over him and said: + +"Dear sir, the King has summoned the Duchess." + +Does the mind regain power as the body fails? My great-grandfather +turned his head, and, as his blue eyes met mine, I could not persuade +myself that he was deceived. + +"The will of his Majesty be done," he said faintly but firmly. + +The next few moments seemed like years. Had I done wrong? Had it done +him harm? Above all, what did he mean? Were his words part of one last +graceful dream of the dynasty of the white lilies, or was his loyal +submission made now to a Majesty not of France, not even of this world? +It was an intense relief to me when he spoke again. + +"Marguerite!" + +I knelt by the bedside, and he laid his hand upon my head. An exquisite +smile shone on his face. + +"Good child; pauvre petite! His Majesty will call me also, before long. +Is it not so? And then thou shalt rest." + +His fine face clouded again with a wandering, troubled look, and his +fingers fumbled the bed-clothes. I saw that he had lost his crucifix in +moving his hand to my head. I gave it him, and he clasped his hands over +it once more, and carrying it to his lips with a smile, closed his eyes +like some good child going to sleep. + +And Thou, O King of kings, didst summon him, as the dark faded into +dawn! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +HOME AGAIN--HOME NEWS--THE VERY END. + + +Now it is past it seems like a dream, my life at The Vine, with its sad +end, if indeed that can be justly called a sad end which took away +together, and with little pain, those dear souls whose married life had +not known the parting of a day, and who in death were not (even by a +day) divided. + +And so I went back to the moors. I was weak and ill when I started, but +every breath of air on my northward journey seemed to bring me strength. + +There are no events in that porter's life, I am convinced. He looked +just the same, and took me and my boxes quite coolly, though I felt +inclined to shake hands with him in my delight. I did cry for very joy +as we toiled up the old sandy hill, and the great moors welcomed me +back. Then came the church, then the Vicarage, with the union-jack out +of my window, and the villagers were at their doors--and I was at home. +Oh, how the dear boys tore me to pieces! + +There was no very special news, it seemed. Clement had been very good in +taking my class at school, and had established a cricket club. Jack had +positively found a new fungus, which would probably be named after him. +"Boy's luck," as we all said! Captain Abercrombie had been staying with +an old uncle at a place close by, only about twelve miles off. And he +was constantly driving over. "So very good-natured to the boys," Mr. +Arkwright said. And there was to be a school-children's tea on my +birthday. + +My birthday has come and gone, and I am sixteen now. Dear old Eleanor +and I have gone back to our old ways. She had left my side of our room +untouched. It was in talking of our recent parting, and all that has +come and gone in our lives, that the fancy came upon us of writing our +biographies this winter. + +And here, in the dear old kitchen, round which the wild wind howls like +music, with the dear boys dreaming at our feet, we bring them to an end. + + * * * * * + +This dusty relic of an old fad had been lying by for more than a year, +when I found it to-day, in emptying a box to send some books in to +Oxford, to Jack. + +Eleanor should have had it, for we are parted, after all; but her +husband has more interest in hers, so we each keep our own. + +She is married, to George Abercrombie, and I mean to paste the bit out +of the newspaper account of their wedding on to the end of this, as a +sort of last chapter. It would be as long as all the rest put together +if I were to write down all the ups and downs, and ins and outs, that +went before the marriage, and I suppose these things are always very +much alike. + +I like him very much, and I am going to stay with them. The wedding was +very pretty. Jack threw shoes to such an extent, that when I went to +change my white ones I couldn't find a complete pair to put on. He says +he meant to pick them up again, but Prince, our new puppy, thought they +were thrown for him, and he never brought them back. Dear boy! + +The old uncle helps George, who I believe is his heir, but at present he +sticks to the regiment. It seems so funny that Eleanor should now be +living there, and I here. In her letter to-day she says: "Fancy, +Margery, my having quarrelled with Mrs. Minchin and not known it! She +called on me to-day and solemnly forgave me, whereby I learned that she +had been 'cutting' me for six weeks. When she said, 'No doubt you +thought it very strange, Mrs. Abercrombie, that I never called on your +mother whilst she was with you,' I was obliged to get over it the best +way I could, for I dare not tell her I had never noticed it. I think my +offence was something about calls, and I must be more particular. But +George and I have been sketching at every spare moment this lovely +weather. Oh, Margery dear, I do often feel so thankful to my mother for +having given us plenty of rational interests. I could really imagine +even _our_ quarrelling or getting tired of each other, if we had nothing +but ourselves in common. As it is, you can't tell, till you have a +husband of your own, what a double delight there is in everything we do +together. As to social ups and downs, and not having much money or many +fine dresses, a 'collection' alone makes one almost too indifferent. Do +you remember Mother's saying long ago, that intellectual pleasures have +this in common with the consolations of religion, that they are such as +the world can neither give nor take away?" + +THE END. + + +_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._ + + + + +_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized, +complete, and uniform Edition published._ + +_It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol., +issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will +appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series +will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was +specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing._ + +_The following is a list of the books included in the Series--_ + + 1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES. + + 2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. + + 3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY-TALES. + + 4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING. + + 5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES. + + 6. SIX TO SIXTEEN. + + 7. LOB-LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES. + + 8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL. + + 9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS. + + 10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE + THEATRICALS, &c. + + 11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES. + + 12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN. + + 13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I. + + 14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II. + + 15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVE-COTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. + + 16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS. + + 17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--Wonder + Stories--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations. + + 18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs. + Ewing's Letters. + +S.P.C.K., NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + + +The following typographical errors have been corrected. + + Page Error + 18 sate corrected to sat + 42 sergeant). corrected to sergeant)." + 135 Indeed, Edward corrected to "Indeed, Edward + +The following words were inconsistently spelled: + + &c. / etc. + practice / practise + +The following words had inconsistent hyphenation: + + bedtime / bed-time + gingerbeer / ginger-beer + Mantuamaker / Mantua-maker + overfed / over-fed + remade / re-made + scrapbook / scrap-book + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six to Sixteen, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + +***** This file should be named 19360-8.txt or 19360-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/6/19360/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Six to Sixteen + A Story for Girls + +Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing + +Release Date: September 23, 2006 [EBook #19360] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;"> +<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Note</b></p> + +<p class="noindent">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A <a href="#trans_note">list</a> of the changes +is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and +hyphenation have been maintained. A <a href="#trans_note">list</a> of inconsistently spelled and +hyphenated words is found at the end of the text.</p> + +<p class="noindent">A less-common character is used in this version of the book: +ŏ (o with breve). If this character does not display correctly, please +change your font.</p> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 261px;"> +<a href="images/image01-full.jpg"><img src="images/image01.jpg" width="261" height="400" alt=""'I've got a pink silk here,' said I, 'and pink shoes.'"" title=""'I've got a pink silk here,' said I, 'and pink shoes.'"" /></a> +<span class="caption">“‘I’ve got a pink silk here,’ said I, ‘and pink shoes.’”</span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 250%; margin-top: 2em;">SIX TO SIXTEEN.</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 120%;"><i>A STORY FOR GIRLS.</i></p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="margin-top: 4em;">BY</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 120%;">JULIANA HORATIA EWING.</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 4em;">LONDON:<br /> +SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Northumberland Avenue, W.C.</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="margin-top: 2em;">[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.]</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead">DEDICATION.</h2> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 5em;" /> + +<p class="titlepage">TO MISS ELEANOR LLOYD.</p> + + +<p style="margin-top: 2em;"><span class="smcap">My dear Eleanor</span>,</p> + +<p style="text-indent: 4em;">I wish that this little volume were worthier of being dedicated to you.</p> + +<p>It is, I fear, fragmentary as a mere tale, and cannot even plead as an +excuse for this that it embodies any complete theory on the vexed +question of the upbringing of girls. Indeed, I should like to say that +it contains no attempt to paint a model girl or a model education, and +was originally written as a sketch of domestic life, and not as a +vehicle for theories.</p> + +<p>That it does touch by the way on a few of the many strong opinions I +have on the subject you will readily discover; though it is so long +since we held discussions together that I hardly know how far your views +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>will now agree with mine.</p> + +<p>If, however, it seems to you to illustrate a belief in the joys and +benefits of intellectual hobbies, I do not think that we shall differ on +that point; and it may serve, here and there, to recall one, nearly as +dear to you as to me, for whom the pleasures of life were at least +doubled by such interests, and who found in them no mean resource under +a burden heavier than common of life’s pain.</p> + +<p>That, whatever labour I may spend on this or any other bit of +work—whatever changes or confirmations time and experience may bring to +my views of people and things—I cannot now ask her approval of the one, +or delight in the play of her strong intellect and bright wit over the +other, is an unhealable sorrow with which no one sympathizes more fully +than you.</p> + +<p>This story was written before her death: it has been revised without her +help.</p> + +<p>Such as it is, I beg you to accept it in affectionate remembrance of old +times and of many common hobbies of our girlhood in my Yorkshire home +and in yours.</p> + +<p class="right">J. H. E.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead">CONTENTS.</h2> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 5em;" /> + + +<table border="0" width="80%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="table of contents"> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">CHAP.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdrbot">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td><a href="#SIX_TO_SIXTEEN">Introduction</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#SIX_TO_SIXTEEN">11</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">I.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">My Pretty Mother—Ayah—Company</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">20</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">II.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Cholera Season—My Mother Goes Away—My Sixth Birthday</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">26</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">III.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Bullers—Matilda takes Me up—We Fall Out—Mr. George</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">34</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Sales—Matters of Principle—Mrs. Minchin + Quarrels with the Bride—Mrs. Minchin + Quarrels with Everybody—Mrs. Minchin is + Reconciled—The Voyage Home—A Death + on Board</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">40</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">V.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">A Home Station—What Mrs. Buller thought + of it—What Major Buller thought of it</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">53</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Dress and Manner—I Examine Myself—My + Great-Grandmother</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">59</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">My Great-Grandmother—The Duchess’s Carriage—Mrs. + O’Connor is Curious</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">67</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">A Family History</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">73</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>IX.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Hopes and Expectations—Dreams and + Daydreams—The Vine—Elspeth—My + Great-Grandfather</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">84</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">X.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Thomas the Cat—My Great-Grandfather’s + Sketches—Adolphe is my Friend—My + Great-great-great-Grandfather Disturbs my + Rest—I Leave The Vine</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">96</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XI.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">Matilda’s News—Our Governess—Major + Buller turned Tutor—Eleanor Arkwright</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">103</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Poor Matilda—The Awkward Age—Mrs. + Buller takes Counsel with her Friends—The + ‘Milliner and Mantuamaker’—Medical + Advice—The Major Decides</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">120</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XIII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">At School—The Lilac Bush—Bridget’s + Posies—Summer—Health</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">138</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XIV.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Miss Mulberry—Discipline and + Recreation—Madame—Conversation—Eleanor’s + Opinion of the Drawing-master—Miss + Ellen’s—Eleanor’s Apology</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XV.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Eleanor’s Theories reduced to + Practice—Studies—The Arithmetic-master</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XVI.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Eleanor’s Reputation—The Mad + Gentleman—Fancies and Follies—Matilda’s + Health—The New Doctor</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">166</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XVII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">Eleanor’s Health—Holy Living—The Prayer + of the Son of Sirach</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">175</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XVIII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">Eleanor and I are late for Breakfast—The + School Breaks Up—Madame and Bridget</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">179</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XIX.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">Northwards—The Black Country—The + Stone Country</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">183</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>XX.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Vicarage—Keziah—The Dear Boys—The + Cook—A Yorkshire Tea—Bed-fellows</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">191</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXI.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">Gardening—Drinkings—The + Moors—Wading—Batrachosperma—The + Church—Little Margaret</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">197</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">A New Home—The Arkwrights’ Return—The + Beasts—Going to Meet the Boys—Jack’s + Hat-box—We Come Home a Rattler</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">209</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXIII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">I Correspond with the Major—My + Collection—Occupations—Madame Again—Fête + de Village—The British Hooray</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">219</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXIV.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">We and the Boys—We and the Boys and + our Fads—The Lamp of Zeal—Clement + on Unreality—Jack’s Ointment</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">234</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXV.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">The “Household Album”—Sketching under + Difficulties—A New Species?—Jack’s + Bargain—Theories</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXVI.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">Manners and Customs—Clique—The Lessons + of Experience—Out Visiting—House-pride—Dressmaking</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">257</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXVII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">Matilda—Ball Dresses and the + Ball—Gores—Miss Lining—The ‘Parishioner’s + Pennyworth’</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">269</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXVIII.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">I go Back to The Vine—After Sunset—A + Twilight Existence—Salad of Monk’s-hood—A Royal Summons</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">279</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">XXIX.</td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">Home Again—Home News—The Very End</a></td> + <td class="tdrbot"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">293</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="SIX_TO_SIXTEEN" id="SIX_TO_SIXTEEN"></a>SIX TO SIXTEEN.</h2> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 5em;" /> + +<p class="titlepage">INTRODUCTION.</p> + + +<p>Eleanor and I are subject to <i>fads</i>. Indeed, it is a family failing. (By +the family I mean our household, for Eleanor and I are not, even +distantly, related.) Life would be comparatively dull, up away here on +the moors, without them. Our fads and the boys’ fads are sometimes the +same, but oftener distinct. Our present one we would not so much as tell +them of on any account; because they would laugh at us. It is this. We +purpose this winter to write the stories of our own lives down to the +present date.</p> + +<p>It seems an egotistical and perhaps silly thing to record the +trivialities of our everyday lives, even for fun, and just to please +ourselves. I said so to Eleanor, but she said, “Supposing Mr. Pepys had +thought so about his everyday life, how much instruction and amusement +would have been lost to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> the readers of his Diary.” To which I replied, +that as Mr. Pepys lived in stirring times, and amongst notable people, +<i>his</i> daily life was like a leaf out of English history, and his case +quite different to the case of obscure persons living simply and +monotonously on the Yorkshire moors. On which Eleanor observed that the +simple and truthful history of a single mind from childhood would be as +valuable, if it could be got, as the whole of Mr. Pepys’ Diary from the +first volume to the last. And when Eleanor makes a general observation +of this kind in her conclusive tone, I very seldom dispute it; for, to +begin with, she is generally right, and then she is so much more clever +than I.</p> + +<p>One result of the confessed superiority of her opinion to mine is that I +give way to it sometimes even when I am not quite convinced, but only +helped by a little weak-minded reason of my own in the background. I +gave way in this instance, not altogether to her argument (for I am sure +<i>my</i> biography will not be the history of a mind, but only a record of +small facts important to no one but myself), but chiefly because I think +that as one grows up one enjoys recalling the things that happened when +one was little. And one forgets them so soon! I envy Eleanor for having +kept her childish diaries. I used to write diaries too, but, when I was +fourteen years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> old, I got so much ashamed of them (it made me quite hot +to read my small moral reflections, and the pompous account of my +quarrels with Matilda, my sentimental admiration for the handsome +bandmaster, &c., even when alone), and I was so afraid of the boys +getting hold of them, that I made a big hole in the kitchen fire one +day, and burned them all. At least, so I thought; but one volume escaped +the flames, and the fun Eleanor and I have now in re-reading this has +made me regret that I burned the others. Of course, even if I put down +all that I can remember, it will not be like having kept my diaries. +Eleanor’s biography, in this respect, will be much better than mine; but +still, I remember a good deal now that I dare say I shall forget soon, +and in sixteen more years these histories may amuse us as much as the +old diaries. We are all growing up now. We have even got to speaking of +“old times,” by which we mean the times when we used to wade in the +brooks and——</p> + +<p>But this is beside the mark, and I must not allow myself to wander off. +I am too apt to be discursive. When I had to write leading articles for +our manuscript periodical, Jack used to laugh at me, and say, “If it +wasn’t for Eleanor’s disentangling your sentences, you’d put parenthesis +within parenthesis till, when you got yourself into the very inside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +one, you’d be as puzzled as a pig in a labyrinth, and not know how to +get back to where you started from.” And I remember Clement—who +generally disputed a point, if possible—said, “How do you know she +wouldn’t get back, if you let her work out each train of thought in +peace? The curt, clean-cut French style may suit some people, whose +brains won’t stretch far without getting tired; but others may have more +sympathy with a Semitic cast of mind.”</p> + +<p>This excuse pleased me very much. It was pleasanter to believe that my +style was Semitic, than to allow, with Jack, that it tended towards that +of Mrs. Nickleby. Though at that time my notion of the meaning of the +word Semitic was not so precise as it might have been.</p> + +<p>Our home is a beautiful place in the summer, and in much of spring and +autumn. In winter I fancy it would look dreary to the eyes of strangers. +At night the wind comes over the top of Deadmanstone Hill, and down the +valley, whirls the last leaves off the old trees by the church, and +sends them dancing over the closely-ranged gravestones. Then up through +the village it comes, and moans round our house all night, like some +miserable being wanting to get in. The boys say it does get in, more +than enough, especially into their bedrooms; but then boys always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +grumble. It certainly makes strange noises here. I have more than once +opened the back-door late in the evening, because I fancied that one of +the dogs had been hurt, and was groaning outside.</p> + +<p>That stormy winter after the Ladybrig murder, our fancies and the wind +together played Eleanor and me sad tricks. When once we began to listen +we seemed to hear a whole tragedy going on close outside. We could +distinguish footsteps and voices through the bluster, and then a +struggle in the shrubbery, and a <i>thud</i>, and a groan, and then a roar of +wind, half drowning the sound of flying footsteps—and then an awful +pause, and at last faint groaning, and a bump, as of some poor wounded +body falling against the house. At this point we were wont to summon +courage and rush out, with the kitchen poker and a candle shapeless with +tallow shrouds from the strong draughts. We never could see anything; +partly, perhaps, because the candle was always blown out; and when we +stood outside it became evident that what we had heard was only the +wind, and a bough of the old acacia-tree, which beat at intervals upon +the house.</p> + +<p>When the nights are stormy there is no room so comfortable as the big +kitchen. We first used it for parochial purposes, small night-schools, +and so forth. Then one evening, as we strolled in to look for one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> of +the dogs, the cook said, “You can sit here, if you like, Miss Eleanor. +<i>We</i> always sits in the pantry on winter nights; so there’ll be no one +to disturb you.” And as we had some writing on hand which we did not +wish to have discussed or overlooked by other members of the family, we +settled down in great peace and comfort by the roaring fire which the +maids had heaped to keep the kitchen warm in their absence.</p> + +<p>We found ourselves so cosy and independent that we returned again and +again to our new study. The boys (who go away a great deal more than we +do, and are apt to come back dissatisfied with our “ways,” and anxious +to make us more “like other people”) object strongly to this habit of +ours. They say, “Who ever <i>heard</i> of ladies sitting in the kitchen?” +And, indeed, there are many south-country kitchens in which I should not +at all like to sit. But we have this large, airy, spotlessly clean room, +with its stone floor, its yellow-washed walls, its tables scrubbed to +snowy whiteness, its quaint old dresser and clock and corner cupboards +of shiny black oak, and its huge fire-place and blazing fire all to +ourselves, and we have abundance of room, and may do anything we please, +so I think it is no wonder that we like it, though it be, in point of +fact, a kitchen. We cover the table, and (commonly) part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> of the floor, +with an amount of books, papers, and belongings of various sorts, such +as we should scruple to deluge the drawing-room with. The fire crackles +and blazes, so that we do not mind the wind, though there are no blinds +to the kitchen, and if we do not “cotter” the shutters, we look out upon +the black night, and the tall Scotch pine that has been tossed so wildly +for so many years, and is not torn down yet.</p> + +<p>Keziah the cook takes much pride in this same kitchen, which partly +accounts for its being in a state so suitable to our use. She “stones” +the floor with excruciating regularity. (At least, some people hate the +scraping sound. I do not mind it myself.) She “pot-moulds” the hearth in +fantastic patterns; the chests, the old chairs, the settle, the dresser, +the clock and the corner cupboards are so many mirrors from constant +polishing. She says, with justice, that “a body might eat his dinner off +anything in the place.”</p> + +<p>We dine early, and the cooking for the late supper is performed in what +we call “the second kitchen,” beyond this. I believe that what is now +the Vicarage was originally an old farmhouse, of which this same +charming kitchen was the chief “living-room.” It is quite a journey, +through long, low passages, to get from the modern part of the house to +this.</p> + +<p>One year, when the “languages fad” was strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> upon us, Eleanor and I +earned many a backache by carrying the huge volumes of the <i>Della +Crusca</i> Italian dictionary from the dining-room shelves to the kitchen. +We piled them on the oak chest for reference, and ran backwards and +forwards to them from the table where we <a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a>sat and beat our brains over +the “Divina Commedia,” while the wind growled in the tall old box-trees +without, and the dogs growled in dreams upon the hearth.</p> + +<p>It is by this well-scrubbed table, in this kitchen, that our biographies +are to be written. They cannot be penned under the noses of the boys.</p> + +<p>Eleanor finds rocking a help to composition, and she is swinging +backwards and forwards in the glossy old rocking-chair, with a pen +between her lips, and a vacant gaze in her eyes, that becomes almost a +look of inspiration when the swing of the chair turns her face towards +the ceiling. For my own part I find that I can meet the crisis of a +train of ideas best upon my feet, so I pace up and down past the old +black dresser, with its gleaming crockery, like a captain on his +quarter-deck. Suddenly Eleanor’s chair stands still.</p> + +<p>“Margery,” she says, laying her head upon the table at her side, “I do +think this is a capital idea.”</p> + +<p>“Yours will be capital,” I reply, pausing also, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> leaning back +against the dresser; “for you have kept your old diaries, <span class="nowrap">and——”</span></p> + +<p>“My dear Margery, what if I have kept my old diaries? I’ve lived in this +place my whole life. Now, you have had some adventures! I quite look +forward to reading your life, Margery. You have no idea what pleasure it +gives me to think of it. I was thinking just now, if ever we are +separated in life, how I shall enjoy looking over it again and again. +You must give me yours, you know, and I will give you mine. Yes; I am +very glad we thought of it.” And Eleanor begins to rock once more, and I +resume my march.</p> + +<p>But this quite settles the matter in my mind. To please Eleanor I would +try to do a great deal; much more than this. I will write my +autobiography.</p> + +<p>Though it seems rather (to use an expressive Quaker term) a “need-not” +to provide for our being separated in life, when we have so firmly +resolved to be old maids, and to live together all our lives in the +little whitewashed cottage behind the church.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">MY PRETTY MOTHER—AYAH—COMPANY.</p> + + +<p>My name is Margaret Vandaleur. My father was a captain in her Majesty’s +202nd Regiment of Foot. The regiment was in India for six years, just +after I was born; indeed, I was not many months old when I made my first +voyage, which I fancy Eleanor is thinking of when she says that I have +had some adventures.</p> + +<p>Military ladies are said to be unlucky as to the times when they have to +change stations; the move often chancing at an inconvenient moment. My +mother had to make her first voyage with the cares of a young baby on +her hands; nominally, at any rate, but I think the chief care of me fell +upon our Ayah. My mother hired her in England. The Ayah wished to return +to her country, and was glad to do so as my nurse. I think that at first +she only intended to be with us for the voyage, but she stayed on, and +became fond of me, and so remained my nurse as long as I was in India.</p> + +<p>I have heard that my mother was the prettiest woman on board the vessel +she went out in, and the prettiest woman at the station when she got +there. Some people have told me that she was the prettiest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> woman they +ever saw. She was just eighteen years old when my father married her, +and she was not six-and-twenty when she died.</p> + +<p>[I got so far in writing my life, seated at the round, three-legged +pinewood table, with Eleanor scribbling away opposite to me. But I could +get no further just then. I put my hands before my eyes as if to shade +them from the light; but Eleanor is very quick, and she found out that I +was crying. She jumped up and threw herself at my feet.</p> + +<p>“Margery, dear Margery! what <i>is</i> the matter?”</p> + +<p>I could only sob, “My mother, O my mother!” and add, almost bitterly, +“It is very well for you to write about your childhood, who have had a +mother—and such a mother!—all your life; but for <span class="nowrap">me——”</span></p> + +<p>Eleanor knelt straight up, with her teeth set, and her hands clasped +before her.</p> + +<p>“I do think,” she said slowly, “that I am, without exception, the most +selfish, inconsiderate, dense, unfeeling brute that ever lived.” She +looked so quaintly, vehemently in earnest as she knelt in the firelight, +that I laughed in spite of my tears.</p> + +<p>“My dear old thing,” I said, “it is I who am selfish, not you. But I am +going on now, and I promise to disturb you no more.” And in this I was +resolute, though Eleanor would have burned our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> papers then and there, +if I had not prevented her.</p> + +<p>Indeed she knew as well as I did that it was not merely because I was an +orphan that I wept, as I thought of my early childhood. We could not +speak of it, but she knew enough to guess at what was passing through my +mind. I was only six years old when my mother died, but I can remember +her. I can remember her brief appearances in the room where I played, in +much dirt and contentment, at my Ayah’s feet—rustling in silks and +satins, glittering with costly ornaments, beautiful and scented, like a +fairy dream. I would forego all these visions for one—only one—memory +of her praying by my bedside, or teaching me at her knee. But she was so +young, and so pretty! And yet, O Mother, Mother! better than all the +triumphs of your loveliness in its too short prime would it have been to +have left a memory of your beautiful face with some devout or earnest +look upon it—“as it had been the face of an angel”—to your only child.</p> + +<p>As I sit thinking thus, I find Eleanor’s dark eyes gazing at me from her +place, to which she has gone back; and she says softly, “Margery, dear +Margery, do let us give it up.” But I would not give it up now, for +anything whatever.]</p> + +<p>The first six years of my life were spent chiefly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> with my Ayah. I loved +her very dearly. I kissed and fondled her dark cheeks as gladly as if +they had been fair and ruddy, and oftener than I touched my mother’s, +which were like the petals of a china rose. My most intimate friends +were of the Ayah’s complexion. We had more than one “bearer” during +those years, to whom I was greatly attached. I spoke more Hindostanee +than English. The other day I saw a group of Lascar sailors at the +Southampton Station; they had just come off a ship, and were talking +rapidly and softly together. I have forgotten the language of my early +childhood, but its tones had a familiar sound; those dark bright faces +were like the faces of old friends, and my heart beat for a minute, as +one is moved by some remembrance of an old home.</p> + +<p>When my mother went out for her early ride at daybreak, before the heat +of the day came on, Ayah would hold me up at the window to see her +start. Sometimes my father would have me brought out, and take me before +him on his horse for a few minutes. But my nurse never allowed this if a +ready excuse could prevent it. Her care of me was maternal in its +tenderness, but she did not keep me tidy enough for me to be presentable +off-hand to company.</p> + +<p>There was always “company” wherever my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> mother went—gentleman company +especially. The gentlemen, in different places, and at different times, +were not the same, but they had a common likeness. I used to count them +when they rode home with my father and mother, or assembled for any of +the many reasons for which “company” hung about our homes. I remember +that it was an amusement to me to discover, “there are six to-day,” or +“five to-day,” and to tell my Ayah. I was even more minute. I divided +them into three classes: “the little ones, the middle ones, and the old +ones.” The “little ones” were the very young men—smooth-cheeked +ensigns, etc.; the “old ones” were usually colonels, generals, or +elderly civilians. From the youngest to the oldest, officers and +civilians, they were all very good-natured to me, and I approved of them +accordingly.</p> + +<p>When callers came, I was often sent into the drawing-room. Great was my +dear Ayah’s pride when I was dressed in pink silk, my hair being +arranged in ringlets round my head, to be shown off to the company. I +was proud of myself, and was wont rather to strut than walk into the +room upon my best kid shoes. They were pink, to match my frock, and I +was not a little vain of them. There were usually some ladies in the +room, dressed in rustling finery like my mother, but not like her in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +the face—never so pretty. There were always plenty of gentlemen of the +three degrees, and they used to be very polite to me, and to call me +“little Rosebud,” and give me sweetmeats. I liked sweetmeats, and I +liked flattery, but I had an affection stronger than my fancy for +either. I used to look sharply over the assembled men for the face I +wanted, and when I had found it I flew to the arms that were stretched +out for me. They were my father’s.</p> + +<p>I remember my mother, but I remember my father better still. I did not +see very much of him, but when we were together I think we were both +thoroughly happy. I can recall pretty clearly one very happy holiday we +spent together. My father got some leave, and took us for a short time +to the hills. My clearest memory of his face is as it smiled on me, from +under a broad hat, as we made nosegays for Mamma’s vases in our +beautiful garden, where the fuchsias and geraniums were “hardy,” and the +sweet-scented verbenas and heliotropes were great bushes, loading the +air with perfume.</p> + +<p>I have one remembrance of it almost as distinct—the last.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">THE CHOLERA SEASON—MY MOTHER GOES AWAY—MY SIXTH BIRTHDAY.</p> + + +<p>We were living in a bungalow not far from the barracks at X. when the +cholera came. It was when I was within a few weeks of six years old. +First we heard that it was among the natives, and the matter did not +excite much notice. Then it broke out among the men, and the officers +talked a good deal about it. The next news was of the death of the +Colonel commanding our regiment.</p> + +<p>One of my early recollections is of our hearing of this. An ensign of +our regiment (one of the “little ones”) called upon my mother in the +evening of the day of the Colonel’s death. He was very white, very +nervous, very restless. He brought us the news. The Colonel had been ill +barely thirty-six hours. He had suffered agonies with wonderful +firmness. He was to be buried the next day.</p> + +<p>“He never was afraid of cholera,” said Mr. Gordon; “he didn’t believe it +was infectious; he thought keeping up the men’s spirits was everything. +But, you see, it isn’t nervousness, after all, that does it.”</p> + +<p>“It goes a long way, Gordon,” said my father.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> “You’re young; you’ve +never been through one of these seasons. Don’t get fanciful, my good +fellow. Come here, and play with Margery.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Gordon laughed.</p> + +<p>“I am a fool, certainly,” he said. “Ever since I heard of it, I have +fancied a strange, faint kind of smell everywhere, which is absurd +enough.”</p> + +<p>“I will make you a camphor-bag,” said my mother, “that ought to +overpower any faint smell, and it is a charm against infection.”</p> + +<p>I believe Mr. Gordon was beginning to thank her, but his words ended in +a sort of inarticulate groan. He stood on his feet, though not upright, +and at last said feebly, “I beg your pardon, I don’t feel quite well.”</p> + +<p>“You’re upset, old fellow; it’s quite natural,” said my father. “Come +and get some brandy, and you shall come back for the camphor.”</p> + +<p>My father led him away, but he did not come back. My father took him to +his quarters, and sent the surgeon to him; and my mother took me on her +knee, and sat silent for a long time, with the unfinished camphor-bag +beside her.</p> + +<p>The next day I went to the end of our compound with Ayah, to see the +Colonel’s funeral pass. The procession seemed endless. The horse he had +ridden two days before by my mother’s side tossed its head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> fretfully, +as the “Dead March” wailed, and the slow tramp of feet poured endlessly +on. My mother was looking out from the verandah. As Ayah and I joined +her, a native servant, who was bringing something in, said abruptly, +“Gordon Sahib—he dead too.”</p> + +<p>When my father returned from the funeral he found my mother in a panic. +Some friends had lately invited her to stay with them, and she was now +resolved to go. “I am sure I shall die if I stay here!” she cried, and +it ended in her going away at once. There was some difficulty as to +accommodating me and Ayah, and it was decided that, if necessary, we +should follow my mother later.</p> + +<p>For my own part, I begged to remain. I had no fear of cholera, and I was +anxious to dine with my father on my birthday, as he had promised that I +should.</p> + +<p>It was on the day before my birthday that one of the surgeons was +buried. The man next in rank to the poor Colonel was on leave, and the +regiment was commanded by our friend Major Buller, whose little +daughters were invited to spend the following evening with me. The +Major, my father, and two other officers had been pall-bearers at the +funeral. My father came to me on his return. He was slightly chilled, +and said he should remain indoors; so I had him all to myself, and we +were very happy, though he complained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> of fatigue, and fell asleep once +on the floor with his head in my lap. He was still lying on the floor +when Ayah took me to bed. I believe he had been unwell all the day, +though I did not know it, and had been taking some of the many specifics +against cholera, of which everybody had one or more at that time.</p> + +<p>Half-an-hour later he sent for a surgeon, who happened to be dining with +Major Buller. The Doctor and the Major came together to our bungalow, +and with them two other officers who happened to be of the party, and +who were friends of my father. One of them was a particular friend of my +own. He was an ensign, a reckless, kind-hearted lad “in his teens,” a +Mr. Abercrombie, who had good reason to count my father as a friend.</p> + +<p>Mr. Abercrombie mingled in some way with my dreams that night, or rather +early morning, and when I fairly woke, it was to the end of a discussion +betwixt my Ayah, who was crying, and Mr. Abercrombie, in evening dress, +whose face bore traces of what looked to me like crying also. I was +hastily clothed, and he took me in his arms.</p> + +<p>“Papa wants you, Margery dear,” he said; and he carried me quickly down +the passages in the dim light of the early summer dawn.</p> + +<p>Two or three officers, amongst whom I recognized Major Buller, fell +back, as we came in, from the bed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> to which Mr. Abercrombie carried me. +My father turned his face eagerly towards me, but I shrank away. That +one night of suffering and collapse had changed him so that I did not +know him again. At last I was persuaded to go to him, and by his voice +and manner recognized him as his feeble fingers played tenderly with +mine. And when he said, “Kiss me, Margery dear,” I crept up and kissed +his forehead, and started to feel it so cold and damp.</p> + +<p>“Be a good girl, Margery dear,” he whispered; “be very good to Mamma.” +There was a short silence. Then he said, “Is the sun rising yet, +Buller?”</p> + +<p>“Just rising, old fellow. Does the light bother you?”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you; I can’t see it. The fact is, I can’t see you now. I +suppose it’s nearly over. <span class="smcap">God’s</span> will be done. You’ve got the papers, +Buller? Arkwright will be kind about it, I’m sure. You’ll break it to my +wife as well as you can?”</p> + +<p>After another pause he said, “It’s time you fellows went to bed and got +some sleep.”</p> + +<p>But no one moved, and there was another silence, which my father broke +by saying, “Buller, where are you? It’s quite dark now. Would you say +the Lord’s Prayer for me, old fellow? Margery dear, put your hands with +poor Papa’s.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“I’ve not said my prayers yet,” said I; “and you know I ought to say my +prayers, for I’ve been dressed a long time.”</p> + +<p>The Major knelt simply by the bed. The other men, standing, bent their +heads, and Mr. Abercrombie, kneeling, buried his face on the end of the +bed and sobbed aloud.</p> + +<p>Major Buller said the Lord’s Prayer. I, believing it to be my duty, said +it also, and my father said it with us to the clause “For Thine is the +kingdom, the power, and the glory,” when his voice failed, and I, +thinking he had forgotten (for I sometimes forgot in the middle of my +most familiar prayers and hymns), helped him—“Papa dear! <i>for ever and +ever</i>.”</p> + +<p>Still he was silent, and as I bent over him I heard one long-drawn +breath, and then his hands, which were enfolded with mine, fell apart. +The sunshine was now beginning to catch objects in the room, and a ray +lighted up my father’s face, and showed a change that even I could see. +An officer standing at the head of the bed saw it also, and said +abruptly, “He’s dead, Buller.” And the Major, starting up, took me in +his arms, and carried me away.</p> + +<p>I cried and struggled. I had a dim sense of what had happened, mixed +with an idea that these men were separating me from my father. I could +not be pacified till Mr. Abercrombie held out his arms for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> me. He was +more like a woman, and he was crying as well as I. I went to him and +buried my sobs on his shoulder. Mr. George (as I had long called him, +from finding his surname hard to utter) carried me into the passage and +walked up and down, comforting me.</p> + +<p>“Is Papa really dead?” I at length found voice to ask.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Margery dear. I’m so sorry.”</p> + +<p>“Will he go to Abraham’s bosom, Mr. George?”</p> + +<p>“Will he go <i>where</i>, Margery?”</p> + +<p>“To Abraham’s bosom, you know, where the poor beggar went that’s lying +on the steps in my Sunday picture-book, playing with those dear old +dogs.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Abercrombie’s knowledge of Holy Scripture was, I fear, limited. +Possibly my remarks recalled some childish remembrance similar to my +own. He said, “Oh yes, to be sure. Yes, dear.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think the dogs went with the poor beggar?” I asked. “Do you +think the angels took them too?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Mr. George. “I hope they did.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then I asked, in awe-struck tones, “Will the +angels fetch Papa, do you think?”</p> + +<p>Mr. George had evidently decided to follow my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> theological lead, and he +replied, “Yes, Margery dear.”</p> + +<p>“Shall you see them?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“No, no, Margery. I’m not good enough to see angels.”</p> + +<p>“<i>I</i> think you’re very good,” said I. “And please be good, Mr. George, +and then the angels will fetch you, and perhaps me, and Mamma, and +perhaps Ayah, and perhaps Bustle, and perhaps Clive.” Bustle was Mr. +Abercrombie’s dog, and Clive was a mastiff, the dog of the regiment, and +a personal friend of mine.</p> + +<p>“Very well, Margery dear. And now you must be good too, and you must let +me take you to bed, for it’s morning now, and I have had no sleep at +all.”</p> + +<p>“Is it to-morrow now?” I asked; “because, if it’s to-morrow, it’s my +birthday.” And I began to cry afresh, because Papa had promised that I +should dine with him, and had promised me a present also.</p> + +<p>“I’ll give you a birthday present,” said my long-suffering friend; and +he began to unfasten a locket that hung at his watch-chain. It was of +Indian gold, with forget-me-nots in turquoise stones upon it. He opened +it and pulled out a photograph, which he tore to bits, and then trampled +underfoot.</p> + +<p>“There, Margery, there’s a locket for you; you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> can throw it into the +fire, or do anything you like with it. And I wish you many happy returns +of the day.” And he finally fastened it round my neck with his +Trichinopoli watch-chain, leaving his watch loose in his +waistcoat-pocket. The locket and chain pleased me, and I suffered him to +carry me to bed. Then, as he was parting from me, I thought of my father +again, and asked:</p> + +<p>“Do you think the angels have fetched Papa <i>now</i>, Mr. George?”</p> + +<p>“I think they have, Margery.”</p> + +<p>Whereupon I cried myself to sleep. And this was my sixth birthday.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">THE BULLERS—MATILDA TAKES ME UP—WE FALL OUT—MR. GEORGE.</p> + + +<p>Major Buller took me home to his house after my father’s death. My +father had left his affairs in his hands, and in those of a friend in +England—the Mr. Arkwright he had spoken of. I believe they were both +trustees under my mother’s marriage settlement.</p> + +<p>The Bullers were relations of mine. Mrs. Buller was my mother’s cousin. +She was a kind-hearted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> talkative lady, and good-looking, though no +longer very young. She dressed as gaily as my poor mother, though, +somehow, not with quite so good an effect. She copied my mother’s style, +and sometimes wore things exactly similar to hers; but the result was +not the same. I have heard Mrs. Minchin say that my mother took a +malicious pleasure, at times, in wearing costumes that would have been +most trying to beauty less radiant and youthful than hers, for the fun +of seeing “poor Theresa” appear in a similar garb with less success. But +Mrs. Minchin’s tales had always a sting in them!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Buller received me very kindly. She kissed me, and told me to call +her “Aunt Theresa,” which I did ever afterwards. Aunt Theresa’s +daughters and I were like sisters. They showed me their best frocks, and +told me exactly all that had been ordered in the parcel that was coming +out from England.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you have your hair put in papers?” said Matilda, whose own curls +sat stiffly round her head as regularly as the rolls of a lawyer’s wig. +“Are your socks like lace? Doesn’t your Ayah dress you every afternoon?”</p> + +<p>Matilda “took me up.” She was four years older than I was, which +entitled her to blend patronage with her affection for me. In the +evening of the day on which I went to the Bullers, she took me by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +hand, and tossing her curls said, “I have taken you up, Margery +Vandaleur. Mrs. Minchin told Mamma that she has taken the bride up. I +heard her say that the bride was a sweet little puss, only so childish. +That’s just what Mrs. Minchin said. I heard her. And I shall say so of +you, too, as I’ve taken you up. You’re a sweet little puss. And of +course you’re childish, because you’re a child,” adds Miss Matilda, with +an air. For had not she begun to write her own age with two figures?</p> + +<p>Had I known then as much as I learned afterwards of what it meant to be +“taken up” by Mrs. Minchin, I might not have thought the comparison a +good omen for my friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs. +Minchin meant an equally hot quarrel at no very distant date. The +squabble with the bride was not slow to come, but Matilda and I fell out +first. I think she was tyrannical, and I know I was peevish. My Ayah +spoilt me; I spoke very broken English, and by no means understood all +that the Bullers said to me; besides which, I was feverishly unhappy at +intervals about my father.</p> + +<p>It was two months before Mrs. Minchin found out that her sweet little +puss was a deceitful little cat; but at the end of two days I had +offended Matilda, and we plunged into a war of words such as children +wage when they squabble.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>“I won’t show you any more of my dresses,” said Matilda.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen them all,” I boldly asserted; and the stroke told.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know that,” said Matilda.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do.”</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Well, show me the others then.”</p> + +<p>“No, that I won’t.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got a blue silk coming out from England,” Matilda continued, “but +you haven’t.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got a pink silk here,” said I, “and pink shoes.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but you can’t wear them now your papa’s dead,” said Matilda; “Mamma +says you will have to wear black for twelve months.”</p> + +<p>I am sure Matilda did not mean to be cruel, but this blow cut me deeply. +I remember the tide of misery that seemed to flood over my mind, to this +day. I was miserable because my father was dead, and I could not go to +him for comfort. I was miserable because I was out of temper, and +Matilda had had the best of the quarrel. I was miserable—poor little +wretch!—because I could not wear my pink silk, now my father was dead. +I put my hands to my eyes, and screaming, “Papa! Papa!” I rushed out +into the verandah.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>As I ran out, some one ran in; we struck against each other, and Bustle +and I rolled over on to the floor. In a moment more I was in Mr. +Abercrombie’s arms, and sobbing out my woes to him.</p> + +<p>I am sorry to say that he swore rather loudly when he heard what Matilda +had said, and I fancy that he lectured her when I had gone to Ayah, for +she came to me presently and begged my pardon. Of course we were at once +as friendly as before. Many another breach was there between us after +that, hastily made and quickly healed. But the bride and Mrs. Minchin +never came to terms.</p> + +<p>“Mr. George” remained my devoted friend. I looked for him as I used to +look for my father. The first time I saw him after I came to the Bullers +was on the day of my father’s funeral. He was there, and came back with +Major Buller. I was on Mr. George’s knee in a moment, with my hand +through the crape upon his sleeve. The Major slowly unfastened his +sword-belt, and laid it down with a sigh, saying, “We’ve lost a good +man, Abercrombie, and a true friend.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know what a friend to me,” said Mr. George impetuously. “Why, +look here, sir. A month or two ago I’d outrun the constable—I always am +getting into a mess of some sort—and Vandaleur found it out and lent me +the money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“You’re not the first youngster he has helped by many, to my knowledge,” +said Major Buller.</p> + +<p>“But that’s not all, sir,” said Mr. George, standing up with me in his +arms. “When we first went in that night, you remember his speaking +privately to me once? Well, what he said was, ‘I think I’m following the +rest, Abercrombie, and I wanted to speak to you about this.’ He had got +my I.O.U. in his hand, and he tore it across, and said, ‘Don’t bother +any more about it; but keep straight, my boy, if you can, for your +people’s sake.’ I’m sadly given to going crooked, sir, but if anything +could make a <span class="nowrap">fellow——”</span></p> + +<p>Mr. George got no further in his sentence, but the Major seemed to +understand what he meant, for he spoke very kindly to him, and they left +me for a bit and walked up and down the verandah together. Just before +Mr. George left, I heard him say, “Have you heard anything of Mrs. +Vandaleur?”</p> + +<p>“I wrote to her, in the best fashion that I could,” said Major Buller. +“But there’s no breaking rough news gently, Abercrombie. I ought to hear +from her soon.”</p> + +<p>But he never did hear from her. My poor mother had fled from the cholera +only to fall a victim to fever. The news of my father’s death was, I +believe, the immediate cause of the relapse in which she died.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>And so I became an orphan.</p> + +<p>Shortly afterwards the regiment was ordered home, and the Bullers took +me with them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">SALES—MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE—MRS. MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH THE BRIDE—MRS. +MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH EVERYBODY—MRS. MINCHIN IS RECONCILED—THE VOYAGE +HOME—A DEATH ON BOARD.</p> + + +<p>I only remember a little of our voyage home in the troop-ship, but I +have heard so much of it, from the elder Buller girls and the ladies of +the regiment, that I seem quite familiar with all that happened; and I +hardly know now what I remember myself, and what has been recalled or +suggested to me by hearing the other ladies talk.</p> + +<p>There was no lack of subjects for talk when the news came that the +regiment was ordered home. As Aunt Theresa repeatedly remarked, “There +are a great many things to be considered.” And she considered them all +day long—by word of mouth.</p> + +<p>The Colonel (that is, the new Colonel)—he had just returned from leave +in the hills—and his wife behaved rather shabbily, it was thought. +“But,” as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> Mrs. Minchin said, “what could you expect? They say she was +the daughter of a wholesale draper in the City. And trade in the blood +always peeps out.” We knew for certain that before there was a word said +about the regiment going home, it had been settled that the Colonel’s +wife should go to England, where her daughters were being educated, and +take the two youngest children with her. Her passage in the mail-steamer +was all but taken, if not quite. And then, when they heard of the +troop-ship, she stayed to go home in that. “Money can be no object to +them,” said Mrs. Minchin, “for one of the City people belonging to her +has died lately, and left her—I can’t tell you how many thousands. +Indeed, they’ve heaps of money, and now he’s got the regiment he ought +to retire. And I must say, I think it’s very hard on you, dear Mrs. +Buller. With all your family, senior officer’s wife’s accommodation +would be little enough, for a long voyage.”</p> + +<p>“Which is no reason why my wife should have better accommodation than +she is entitled to, more than any other lady on board,” observed Uncle +Buller. “The Quartermaster’s wife has more children than we have, and +you know how much room she will get.”</p> + +<p>“Quartermaster’s wife!” muttered Mrs. Minchin. “She would have been +accommodated with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> women of the regiment if we had gone home three +months ago (at which time Quartermaster Curling was still only a +<a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a>sergeant).”</p> + +<p>Uncle Buller made no reply. He was not fond of Mrs. Minchin, and he +never disputed a point with her.</p> + +<p>One topic of the day was “sales.” We all had to sell off what we did not +want to take home, and the point was to choose the right moment for +doing so.</p> + +<p>“I shan’t be the first,” said Aunt Theresa decidedly. “The first sales +are always failures somehow. People are depressed. Then they know that +there are plenty more to come, and they hang back. But further on, +people have just got into an extravagant humour, and would go +bargain-hunting to fifty sales a day. Later still, they find out that +they’ve got all they want.”</p> + +<p>“And a great deal that they don’t want,” put in Uncle Buller.</p> + +<p>“Which is all the same thing,” said Aunt Theresa. “So I shall sell about +the middle.” Which she did, demanding her friends’ condolences +beforehand on the way in which her goods and chattels would be “given +away,” and receiving their congratulations afterwards upon the high +prices that they fetched.</p> + +<p>To do Aunt Theresa justice, if she was managing, she was quite honest.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>[Eleanor is shocked by some of the things I say about people in our own +rank of life. She believes that certain vulgar vices, such as cheating, +lying, gluttony, petty gossip, malicious mischief-making, etc., are +confined to the lower orders, or, as she wisely and kindly phrases it, +to people who know no better. She laughs at me, and I laugh at myself, +when I say (to support my own views) that I know more of the world than +she does; since what I know of the world beyond this happy corner of it +I learned when I was a mere child. But though we laugh, I can remember a +good deal. I have heard polished gentlemen lie, at a pinch, like the +proverbial pick-pocket, and pretty ladies fib as well as servant-girls. +Of course, I do not mean to say that as many ladies as servant-girls +tell untruths. But Eleanor would fain believe that the lie which Solomon +discovered to be “continually on the lips of the untaught” is not on the +lips of those who “know better” at all. As to dishonesty, too, I should +be sorry to say that customers cheat as much as shopkeepers, but I do +think that many people who ought to “know better” seem to forget that +their honour as well as their interest is concerned in every bargain. +The question then arises, do people in our rank know so much better on +these points of moral conduct than those below them? If Eleanor and her +parents are “old-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>fashioned” (and the boys think us quite behind the +times), I fancy, that perhaps high principle and a nice sense of honour +are not so well taught now as they used to be. Noble sentiments are not +the fashion. The very phrase provokes a smile of ridicule. But I do not +know whether the habit of uttering ignoble ones in “chaff” does not at +last bring the tone of mind down to the low level. It is so terribly +easy to be mean, and covetous, and selfish, and cowardly untrue, if the +people by whose good opinion one’s character lives will comfortably +confess that they also “look out for themselves,” and “take care of +Number One,” and think “money’s the great thing in this world,” and hold +“the social lie” to be a necessary part of social intercourse. I know +that once or twice it has happened that young people with whom we have +been thrown have said things which have made high-principled Eleanor +stand aghast in honourable horror; and that that speechless indignation +of hers has been as much lost upon them as the touch of a feather on the +hide of a rhinoceros. Eleanor is more impatient than I am on such +subjects. I who have been trained in more than one school myself, am +sorry for those who have never known the higher teaching. Eleanor thinks +that modesty, delicacy of mind and taste, and uprightness in word and +deed, are innate in worthy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> characters. Where she finds them absent, she +is apt to dilate her nostrils, and say, in that low, emphatic voice +which is her excited tone, “There are some things that you cannot <i>put +into</i> anybody!” and so turn her back for ever on the offender. Or, as +she once said to a friend of the boys, who was staying with us, in the +heat of argument, “I supposed that honourable men, like poets, are born, +not made.” I, indeed, do believe these qualities to be in great measure +inherited; but I believe them also to come of training, and to be more +easily lost than Eleanor will allow. She has only lived in one moral +atmosphere. I think that the standard of a family or a social circle +falls but too easily; and in all humbleness of mind, I say that I have +reason to believe that in this respect, as in other matters, elevation +and amendment are possible.</p> + +<p>However, this is one of the many subjects we discuss, rocking and pacing +the kitchen to the howling of the wind. We have confessed that our +experience is very small, and our opinions still unfixed in the matter, +so it is unlikely that I shall settle it to my own, or anybody’s +satisfaction, in the pages of this biography.]</p> + +<p>To return to Aunt Theresa. She was, as I said, honest. She chose a good +moment for our sale; but she did not “doctor” the things. For the credit +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> the regiment, I feel ashamed to confess that everybody was not so +scrupulous. One lady sat in our drawing-room, with twenty-five pounds’ +worth of lace upon her dress, and congratulated herself on having sold +some toilette-china as sound, of which she had daintily doctored two +fractures with an invaluable cement. The pecuniary gain may have been +half-a-crown. The loss in self-respect she did not seem to estimate. +Aunt Theresa would not have done it herself, but she laughed +encouragingly. It is difficult to be strait-laced with a lady who had so +much old point, and whose silks are so stiff that she can rustle down +your remonstrances. Another friend, a young officer whose personal +extravagance was a proverb even at a station in India, boasted for a +week of having sold a rickety knick-knack shelf to a man who was going +off to the hills for five-and-twenty rupees when it was not worth six. I +have heard him swear at tailors, servants, and subordinates of all +kinds, for cheating. I do not think it ever dawned upon his mind that +common honesty was a virtue in which he himself was wanting. As to Mrs. +Minchin’s tales on this subject—but Mrs. Minchin’s tales were not to be +relied upon.</p> + +<p>It was about this time that Mrs. Minchin and the bride quarrelled. In a +few weeks after her arrival, the bride knew all the ladies of the +regiment and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> society of the station, and then showed little +inclination to be bear-led by Mrs. Minchin. She met that terrible lady +so smartly on one occasion that she retired, worsted, for the afternoon, +and the bride drove triumphantly round the place, and called on all her +friends, looking as soft as a Chinchilla muff, and dropping at every +bungalow the tale of something that Mrs. Minchin had said, by no means +to the advantage of the inmates.</p> + +<p>It was in this way that Aunt Theresa came to know what Mrs. Minchin had +said about her wearing half-mourning for my father and mother. That she +knew better than to go into deep black, which is trying to indefinite +complexions, but was equal to any length of grief in those lavenders, +and delicate combinations of black and white, which are so becoming to +everybody, especially to people who are not quite so young as they have +been.</p> + +<p>In the warmth of her own indignation at these unwarrantable remarks, and +of the bride’s ready sympathy, Aunt Theresa felt herself in candour +bound to reveal what Mrs. Minchin had told her about the bride’s having +sold a lot of her wedding presents at the sale for fancy prices; they +being new-fashioned ornaments, and so forth, not yet to be got at the +station.</p> + +<p>The result of this general information all round was, of course, a +quarrel between Mrs. Minchin and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> nearly every lady in the regiment. The +bride had not failed to let “the Colonel’s lady” know what Mrs. Minchin +thought of her going home in the troop-ship, and had made a call upon +the Quartermaster’s wife for the pleasure of making her acquainted with +Mrs. Minchin’s warm wish that the regiment had been ordered home three +months sooner, when Mrs. Curling and the too numerous little Curlings +would not have been entitled to intrude upon the ladies’ cabin.</p> + +<p>And yet, strange to say, before we were half-way to England, Mrs. +Minchin was friendly once more with all but the bride; and the bride was +at enmity with every lady on board. The truth is, Mrs. Minchin, though a +gossip of the deepest dye, was kind-hearted, after a fashion. Her +restless energy, which chiefly expended itself in petty social plots, +and the fomentation of quarrels, was not seldom employed also in +practical kindness towards those who happened to be in favour with her. +She was really interested—for good or for evil—in those with whose +affairs she meddled, and if she was a dangerous enemy, and a yet more +dangerous friend, she was neither selfish nor illiberal.</p> + +<p>The bride, on the other hand, had no real interest whatever in anybody’s +affairs but her own, and combined in the highest degree those qualities +of personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> extravagance and general meanness which not unfrequently go +together.</p> + +<p>A long voyage is no small test of temper; and it was a situation in +which Mrs. Minchin’s best qualities shone. It was proportionably +unfavourable to those of the bride. Her maid was sick, and she was +slovenly. She was sick herself, and then her selfishness and discontent +knew no check. The other ladies bore their own little troubles, and +helped each other; but under the peevish egotism of the bride, her +warmest friends revolted. It was then that Mrs. Minchin resumed her sway +amongst us.</p> + +<p>With Aunt Theresa she was soon reconciled. Mrs. Buller’s memory was +always hazy, both in reference to what she said herself, and to what was +said to her. She was too good-natured to strain it to recall past +grievances. Her indignation had not lasted much beyond that afternoon in +which the bride scattered discord among her acquaintances. She had +relieved herself by outpouring the tale of Mrs. Minchin’s treachery to +Uncle Buller, and then taking him warmly to task for the indifference +with which he heard her wrongs; and had ended by laughing heartily when +he compared the probable encounter between Mrs. Minchin and the bride to +the deadly struggles of two quarrelsome “praying-mantises” in his +collection.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>[Major Buller was a naturalist, and took home some rare and beautiful +specimens of Indian insects.]</p> + +<p>It was an outbreak of sickness amongst the little Curlings which led to +the reconciliation with the Quartermaster’s wife. Neither her kindness +of heart nor her love of managing other folks’ matters would permit Mrs. +Minchin to be passive then. She made the first advances, and poor Mrs. +Curling gratefully responded.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure, Mrs. Minchin,” said she, “I don’t wonder at any one thinking +the children would be in the way, poor dears. But of course, as Curling +<span class="nowrap">said——”</span></p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">God</span> bless you, my good woman,” Mrs. Minchin broke in. “Don’t let us go +back to that. We all know pretty well what Mrs. Seymour’s made of, now. +Let’s go to the children. I’m as good a sick-nurse as most people, and +if you keep up your heart we’ll pull them all through before we get to +the Cape.”</p> + +<p>But with all her zeal (and it did not stop short of a quarrel with the +surgeon) and all her devotion, which never slackened, Mrs. Minchin did +not “pull them all through.”</p> + +<p>We were just off the Cape when Arthur Curling died. He was my own age, +and in the beginning of the voyage we had been playfellows. Of all the +children who swarmed on deck to the distraction of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> (at least) the +unmarried officers of the regiment, he had been the noisiest and the +merriest. He made fancy ships in corners, to which he admitted the other +children as fancy passengers, or fancy ship’s officers of various +grades. Once he employed a dozen of us to haul at a rope as if we were +“heaving the log.” Owing to an unexpected coil, it slackened suddenly, +and we all fell over one another at the feet of two young officers who +were marching up and down, arm-in-arm, absorbed in conversation. Their +anger was loud as well as deep, but it did not deter Arthur Curling from +further exploits, or stop his ceaseless chatter about what he would do +when he was a man and the captain of a vessel.</p> + +<p>He did not live to be either the one or the other. Some very rough +weather off the Cape was fatal to him at a critical point in his +illness. How Mrs. Minchin contrived to keep her own feet and to nurse +the poor boy as she did was a marvel. He died on her knees.</p> + +<p>The weather had been rough up to the time of his death, but it was a +calm lovely morning on which his body was committed to the deep. The +ship’s bell tolled at daybreak, and all the ladies but the bride were +with poor Mrs. Curling at the funeral. Mrs. Seymour lay in her berth, +and whined complaints of “that horrid bell.” She displayed something +between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> an interesting terror and a shrewish anger because there was “a +body on board.” When she said that the Curlings ought to be thankful to +have one child less to provide for, the other ladies hurried indignantly +from the cabin.</p> + +<p>The early morning air was fresh and mild. The sea and sky were grey, but +peaceful. The decks were freshly washed. The sailors in various parts of +the ship uncovered their heads. The Colonel and several officers were +present. I had earnestly begged to be there also, and finding Mr. +George, I stood with my hand in his.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Curling’s grief had passed the point of tears. She had not shed one +since the boy died, though Mrs. Minchin had tried hard to move her to +the natural relief of weeping. She only stood in silent agony, though +the Quartermaster’s cheeks were wet, and most of the ladies sobbed +aloud.</p> + +<p>As the little coffin slid over the hatchway into the quiet sea, the sun +rose, and a long level beam covered the place where the body had gone +down.</p> + +<p>Then, with a sudden cry, the mother burst into tears.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">A HOME STATION—WHAT MRS. BULLER THOUGHT OF IT—WHAT MAJOR BULLER +THOUGHT OF IT.</p> + + +<p>Riflebury, in the south of England—our next station—was a very lively +place. “There was always something going on.” “Somebody was always +dropping in.” “People called and stayed to lunch in a friendly way.” +“One was sure of some one at afternoon tea.” “What with croquet and +archery in the Gardens, meeting friends on the Esplanade, concerts at +the Rooms, shopping, and changing one’s novels at the circulating +library, one really never had a dull hour.” So said “everybody;” and one +or two people, including Major Buller, added that “One never had an hour +to one’s self.”</p> + +<p>“If you had any one occupation, you’d know how maddening it is,” he +exclaimed, one day, in a fit of desperation.</p> + +<p>“Any one occupation!” cried Mrs. Buller, to whom he had spoken. “I’m +sure, Edward, I’m always busy. I never have a quiet moment from morning +to night, it seems to me. But it is so like you men! You can stick to +one thing all along, and your meals come to you as if they dropped out +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> skies, and your clothes come ready-made from the tailor’s (and +very dearly they have to be paid for, too!); and when one is ordering +dinner and luncheon, and keeping one’s clothes decent, and looking after +the children and the servants, and taking your card, and contriving +excuses that are not fibs for you to the people you ought to call on, +from week’s end to week’s end—you say one has no occupation.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, my dear,” said the Major, “I know you have all the trouble +of the household, but I meant to say that if you had any pursuit, any +<span class="nowrap">study——”</span></p> + +<p>“And as to visitors,” continued Aunt Theresa, who always pursued her own +train of ideas, irrespective of replies, “I’m sure society’s no pleasure +to me; I only call on the people you ought to call on, and keep up a few +acquaintances for the children’s sake. You wouldn’t have us without a +friend in the world when the girls come out; and really, what with +regimental duties in the morning, and insects afterwards, Edward, you +are so absorbed, that if it wasn’t for a lady friend coming in now and +then, I should hardly have a soul to speak to.”</p> + +<p>The Major was melted in a moment.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid I am a very inattentive husband,” he said. “You must +forgive me, my dear. And this sprained ankle keeping me in makes me +cross, too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> And I had so reckoned on these days at home to finish my +list of Coleoptera, and get some dissecting and mounting done. But +to-day, Mrs. Minchin brought her work directly after breakfast, and that +empty-headed fellow Elliott dropped in for lunch, and we had callers all +the afternoon, and a <i>coterie</i> for tea, and Mrs. St. John (who seems to +get through life somehow without the most indefinite notion of how time +passes) came in just when tea was over, and you had to order a fresh +supply when we should have been dressing for dinner, and the dinner was +spoilt by waiting till she discovered that she had no idea (whoever did +know her have an idea?) how late it was, and that Mr. St. John would be +so angry. And now you want me to go in a cab to a concert at the Rooms +to meet all these people over again!”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I don’t care for Mrs. St. John a bit more than you do,” said +Mrs. Buller. “And really she does repeat such things sometimes—without +ever looking round to see if the girls are in the room. She told me a +thing to-day that old Lady Watford had told her.”</p> + +<p>“My dear, her ladyship’s stories are well known. Cremorne’s wife hears +them from her, and tells them to her husband, and he tells them to the +other fellows. I can always hear them if I wish. But I do not care to. +But if you don’t like Mrs. St. John, Theresa,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> what on earth made you +ask her to come and sit with you in the morning?”</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear, what can I do?” said Mrs. Buller. “She’s always saying +that everybody is so unsociable, and that she is so dull, she doesn’t +know what to do with herself, and begging me to take my work and go and +sit with her in a morning. How can I go and leave the children and the +servants, just at the time of day when everything wants to be set going? +So I thought I’d better ask her to come here instead. It’s a great bore, +but I can keep an eye over the house, and if any one else drops in I can +leave them together. It’s not me that she wants, it’s something to amuse +her.</p> + +<p>“You talk about my having nothing to do,” Aunt Theresa plaintively +continued. “But I’m sure I can hardly sleep at night sometimes for +thinking of all I ought to do and haven’t done. Mrs. Jerrold, you know, +made me promise faithfully when we were coming away to write to her +every mail, and I never find time. Every week, as it comes round, I +think I will, and can’t. I used to think that one good thing about +coming home would be the no more writing for the English mail; but the +Indian mail is quite as bad. And I’m sure mail-day seems to come round +quicker than any other day of the week. I quite dread Fridays. And then +your mother and sisters are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> always saying I never write. And I heard +from Mrs. Pryce Smith only this morning, telling me I owed her two +letters; and I don’t know what to say to her when I do write, for she +knows nobody <i>here</i>, and I know nobody <i>there</i>. And we’ve never returned +the Ridgeways’ call, my dear. And we’ve never called on the Mercers +since we dined there. And Mrs. Kirkshaw is always begging me to drive +out and spend the day at the Abbey. I know she is getting offended, I’ve +put her off so often; and Mrs. Minchin says she is very touchy. And Mrs. +Taylor looks quite reproachfully at me because I’ve not been near the +Dorcas meetings for so long. But it’s all very well for people who have +no children to work at these things. A mother’s time is not her own, and +charity begins at home. I’m sure I never seem to be at rest, and yet +people are never satisfied. Lady Burchett says she’s certain I am never +at home, for she always misses me when she calls; and Mrs. Graham says I +never go out, she’s sure, for she never meets me anywhere.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t all that just what I say?” said Major Buller, laying down his +knife and fork. (The discussion took place at dinner.) “It’s the tyranny +of the idle over the busy; and why, in the name of common sense, should +it be yielded to? Why should friends be obliged, at the peril of +disparagement of their affection or good manners, to visit each other +when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> they do not want to go—to receive each other when it is not +convenient, and to write to each other when there is nothing to say? You +women, my dear, I must say, are more foolish in this respect than men. +Men simply won’t write long letters to their friends when they’ve +nothing to say, and I don’t think their friendships suffer by it. And +though there are heaps of idle gossiping fellows, as well as ladies with +the same qualities, a man who was busy would never tolerate them to his +own inconvenience, much less invite them to persecute him. We are more +straightforward with each other, and that is, after all, the firmest +foundation for friendship. It is partly a misplaced amiability, a phase +of the unselfishness in which you excel us, and partly also, I think, a +want of some measuring quality that makes you women exact unreasonable +things, make impossible promises, and after blandly undertaking a +multiplicity of small matters that would tax the method of a man of +business to accomplish punctually, put your whole time at the disposal +of every fool who is pleased to waste it.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all very well talking, Edward,” said Aunt Theresa. “But what is +one to do?”</p> + +<p>“Make a stand,” said the Major. “When you’re busy, and can’t +conveniently see people, let your servant tell them so in as many words. +The friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>ship that can’t survive that is hardly worth keeping, I +think. Eh, my dear?”</p> + +<p>But I suppose the stand was to be made further on, for Major Buller took +Aunt Theresa to the concert at “the Rooms.”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">DRESS AND MANNER—I EXAMINE MYSELF—MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.</p> + + +<p>When we began our biographies we resolved that neither of us should read +the other’s till both were finished. This was partly because we thought +it would be more satisfactory to be able to go straight through them, +partly as a check on a propensity for beginning things and not finishing +them, to which we are liable, and partly from the childish habit of +“saving up the treat for the last,” as we used—in “old times”—to pick +the raisins out of the puddings and lay them by for a <i>bonne bouche</i> +when we should have done our duty by the more solid portion.</p> + +<p>But our resolve has given way. We began by very much wishing to break +it, and we have ended by finding excellent reasons for doing so.</p> + +<p>We both wish to read the biographies—why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> should we tease ourselves by +sticking obstinately to our first opinion?</p> + +<p>No doubt it would be nice to read them “straight through.” But we are +rather apt to devour books at a pace unfavourable to book-digestion, so +perhaps it will be better still to read them by bits, as one reads a +thing that “comes out in numbers.”</p> + +<p>And in short, at this point Eleanor took mine, and has read it, and I +have read hers. She lays down mine, saying, “But, my dear, you don’t +remember all this?”</p> + +<p>Which is true. What I have recorded of my first English home is more +what I know of it from other sources than what I positively remember. +And yet I have positive memories of my own about it, too.</p> + +<p>I have hinted that my poor young mother did not look after me much. Also +that the Ayah, who had a mother’s love and care for me, paid very little +attention to my being tidy in person or dress, except when I was +exhibited to “company.”</p> + +<p>But my mother was dead. Ayah (after a terrible parting) was left behind +in India. And from the time that I passed into Aunt Theresa’s charge, +matters were quite changed.</p> + +<p>I do remember the dresses I had then, and the keen interest I took in +the subject of dress at a very early age. A very keen interest was taken +in it by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> Aunt Theresa herself, by Aunt Theresa’s daughters, and by the +ladies of Aunt Theresa’s acquaintance. I think I may say that it formed +(at least one of) the principal subjects of conversation during all +those working hours of the day which the ladies so freely sacrificed to +each other. Mrs. Buller was truly kind, and I am sure that if I had +depended in every way upon her, she would have given to my costume as +much care as she bestowed upon that of her own daughters. But my parents +had not been poor; there was no lack of money for my maintenance, and +thus “no reason,” as Aunt Theresa said, why my clothes should not be +“decent,” and “decent” with Aunt Theresa and her friends was a synonym +for “fashionable.”</p> + +<p>Thus my first black frock was such an improvement (in fashion) upon the +pink silk one, as to deprive my deep mourning of much of its gloom. Mrs. +(Colonel) St. Quentin could not refuse to lend one of her youngest +little girl’s frocks as a copy, for “the poor little orphan”; and a bevy +of ladies sat in consultation over it, for all Mrs. St. Quentin’s things +were well worth copying.</p> + +<p>“Keep a paper pattern, dear,” said Mrs. Minchin; “it will come in for +the girls. Her things are always good.”</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Buller kept a paper pattern.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>I remember the dress quite clearly. It is fixed in my mind by an +incident connected with it. It had six crape tucks, of which fact I was +very proud, having heard a good deal said about it. The first time Mr. +George came to our bungalow, after I had begun to wear it, I strutted up +to him holding my skirt out, and my head up.</p> + +<p>“Look at my black frock, Mr. George,” said I; “it has got six crape +tucks.”</p> + +<p>Matilda was most precocious in—at least—one way: she could repeat +grown-up observations of wonderful length.</p> + +<p>“It’s the best crape,” she said; “it won’t spot. Cut on the bias. +They’re not real tucks though, Margery. They’re laid on; Mrs. Minchin +said so.”</p> + +<p>“They are real tucks,” I stoutly asserted.</p> + +<p>“No, they’re not. They’re cut on the bias, and laid on to imitate +tucks,” Matilda repeated. I think she was not sorry there should be some +weak point in the fashionable mourning in which she did not share.</p> + +<p>I turned to Mr. George, as usual.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t they real tucks, Mr. George?”</p> + +<p>But Mr. George had a strange look on his face which puzzled and +disconcerted me. He only said, “Good heavens!” And all my after efforts +were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> vain to find out what he meant, and why he looked in that strange +manner.</p> + +<p>Little things that puzzle one in childhood remain long in one’s memory. +For years I puzzled over that look of Mr. George’s, and the remembrance +never was a pleasant one. It chilled my enthusiasm for my new dress at +the time, and made me feel inclined to cry. I think I have lived to +understand it.</p> + +<p>But I was not insensible of my great loss, though I took pride in my +fashionable mourning. I do not think I much connected the two in my +mind. I did not talk about my father to any one but Mr. George, but at +night I often lay awake and cried about him. This habit certainly +affected my health, and I had become a very thin, weak child when the +home voyage came to restore my strength.</p> + +<p>By the time we reached Riflebury, my fashionable new dress was neither +new nor fashionable. It was then that Mrs. Minchin ferreted out a +dressmaker whom Mrs. St. Quentin employed, and I was put under her +hands.</p> + +<p>The little Bullers’ things were “made in the house,” after the pattern +of mine.</p> + +<p>“And one sees the fashion-book, and gets a few hints,” said Mrs. Buller.</p> + +<p>If Mr. George was not duly impressed by my fashionable mourning, I could +(young as I was) trace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> the effect of Aunt Theresa’s care for my +appearance on other friends in the regiment. They openly remarked on it, +and did not scruple to do so in my hearing. Callers from the +neighbourhood patronized me also. Pretty ladies in fashionably pitched +bonnets smiled, and said, “One of your little ones, Mrs. Buller? What a +pretty little thing!” and duly sympathized over the sad story which Aunt +Theresa seemed almost to enjoy relating. Sometimes it was agony to me to +hear the oft-repeated tale of my parents’ death, and then again I +enjoyed a sort of gloomy importance which gave me satisfaction. I even +rehearsed such scenes in my mind when I was in bed, shedding real tears +as (in the person of Aunt Theresa) I related the sad circumstances of my +own grief to an imaginary acquaintance; and then, with dry eyes, +prolonging the “fancy” with compliments and consolations of the most +flattering nature. I always took care to fancy some circumstances that +led to my being in my best dress on the occasion.</p> + +<p>Gentleman company did not haunt my new home as was the case with the +Indian one. But now and then officers of the regiment called on Mrs. +Buller, and would say, “Is that poor Vandaleur’s child? Dear me! Very +interesting little thing;” and speculate in my hearing on the +possibility of my growing up like my mother.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>“’Pon my soul, she <i>is</i> like her!” said one of the “middle ones” one +day, examining me through his eyeglass, “Th’ same expressive eyes, you +know, and just that graceful gracious little manner poor Mrs. Vandaleur +had. By Jove, it was a shocking thing! She was an uncommonly pretty +woman.”</p> + +<p>“You never saw <i>her</i> mother, my good fellow,” said one of the “old ones” +who was present. “She <i>had</i> a graceful gracious manner, if you like, and +Mrs. Vandaleur was not to be named in the same day with her. Mrs. +Vandaleur knew how to dress, I grant <span class="nowrap">you——”</span></p> + +<p>“You may go and play, Margery dear,” said Aunt Theresa, with kindly +delicacy.</p> + +<p>The “old one” had lowered his voice, but still I could hear what he +said, as Mrs. Buller saw.</p> + +<p>When my father was not spoken of, my feelings were very little hurt. On +this occasion my mind was engaged simply with the question whether I did +or did not inherit my mother’s graces. I ran to a little looking-glass +in the nursery and examined my eyes; but when I tried to make them +“expressive,” I either frowned so unpleasantly, or stared so absurdly, +that I could not flatter myself on the point.</p> + +<p>The girls were out; I had nothing to do; the nursery was empty. I walked +about, shaking out my skirts, and thinking of my gracious and graceful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +manner. I felt a pardonable curiosity to see this for myself, and, +remembering the big glass in Aunt Theresa’s room, I stole out to see if +I could make use of it unobserved. But the gentlemen had gone, and I +feared that Mrs. Buller might come up-stairs. In a few minutes, however, +the door-bell rang, and I heard the sound of a visitor being ushered +into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>I seized the chance, and ran to Aunt Theresa’s room.</p> + +<p>The mirror was “full length,” and no one could see me better than I now +saw myself. Once more I attempted to make expressive eyes, but the +result was not favourable to vanity. Then I drew back to the door, and, +advancing upon the mirror with mincing steps, I threw all the grace and +graciousness of which I was conscious into my manner, and holding out my +hand, said, in a “company voice,” “<i>Charmed</i> to see you, I’m sure!”</p> + +<p>“<i>Mais c’est bien drôle!</i>” said a soft voice close behind me.</p> + +<p>I had not heard the door open, and yet there stood Aunt Theresa on the +threshold, and with her a little old lady. The little old lady had a +bright, delicately cut face, eyes of whose expressiveness there could be +no question, and large grey curls. She wore a large hat, with large bows +tied under her chin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> and a dark-green satin driving-cloak lined with +white and grey fur.</p> + +<p>She looked like a fairy godmother, like the ghost of an ancestor—like +“somebody out of a picture.” She was my great-grandmother.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER—THE DUCHESS’S CARRIAGE—MRS. O’CONNOR IS CURIOUS.</p> + + +<p>I was much discomfited. My position was not a dignified one at the best, +and in childhood such small shames seem too terrible ever to be +outlived. My great-grandmother laughed heartily, and Mrs. Buller, whose +sense of humour was small, looked annoyed.</p> + +<p>“What in the world are you doing here, Margery?” she said.</p> + +<p>I had little or no moral courage, and I had not been trained in high +principles. If I could have thought of a plausible lie, I fear I should +have told it in my dilemma. As it was, I could not; I only put my hand +to my burning cheek, and said:</p> + +<p>“Let me see!”</p> + +<p>I must certainly have presented a very comical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> appearance, but the +little old lady’s smiles died away, and her eyes filled with tears.</p> + +<p>“It is strange, is it not,” she said to Aunt Theresa, “that, after all, +I should laugh at this meeting?”</p> + +<p>Then, sitting down on a box by the door, she held out her hands to me, +saying:</p> + +<p>“Come, little Margery, there is no sin in practising one’s good manners +before the mirror. Come and kiss me, dear child; I am your father’s +father’s mother. Is not that to be an old woman? I am your +great-grandmother.”</p> + +<p>My great-grandmother’s voice was very soft, her cheek was soft, her +cloak was soft. I buried my face in the fur, and cried quietly to myself +with shame and excitement; she stroking my head, and saying:</p> + +<p>“<i>Pauvre petite!</i>—thou an orphan, and I doubly childless! It is thus we +meet at last to join our hands across the graves of two generations of +those we love!”</p> + +<p>“It was a dreadful thing!” said Mrs. Buller, rummaging in her pocket for +a clean handkerchief. “I’m sure I never should forget it, if I lived a +thousand years. I never seemed able to realize that they were gone; it +was all so sudden.”</p> + +<p>The old lady made no answer, and we all wept in silence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>Aunt Theresa was the first to recover herself, and she insisted on our +coming down-stairs. A young regimental surgeon and his wife dropped in +to lunch, for which my great-grandmother stayed. We were sitting in the +drawing-room afterwards, when “Mrs. Vandaleur’s carriage” was announced. +As my great-grandmother took leave of me, she took off a watch and chain +and hung them on my neck. It was a small French watch with an enamelled +back of dark blue, on which was the word “Souvenir” in small pearls.</p> + +<p>“I gave it to your grandfather long years ago, my child, and he gave it +back to me—before he sailed. I would only part with it to his son’s +child. Farewell, <i>petite</i>! Be good, dear child—try to be good. Adieu, +Mrs. Buller, and a thousand thanks! Major Buller, I am at your service.”</p> + +<p>Major Buller took the hand she held out to him and led the old lady to +the front door, whither we all followed them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Vandaleur’s carriage was before the steps. It was a very quaint +little box on two wheels, in by no means good repair. It was drawn by a +pony, white, old, and shaggy. At the pony’s head stood a small boy in +decent, but not smart, plain clothes.</p> + +<p>“Put the mat over the wheel to save my dress, Adolphe,” said the old +lady; and as the little boy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> obeyed her order she stepped nimbly into +the carriage, assisted by the Major. “The silk is old,” she observed +complacently; “but it is my best, of course, or it would not have been +worn to-day,” and she gave a graceful little bow towards Aunt Theresa; +“and I hope that, with care, it will serve as such for the rest of my +life, which cannot be very long.”</p> + +<p>“If it wears as well as you do, Madam,” said Major Buller, tucking her +in, “it may; not otherwise.”</p> + +<p>The Surgeon was leaning over the other side of the little cart, and +seemed also to be making polite speeches. It recalled the way that men +used to hang upon my mother’s carriage. The old lady smiled, and made +gracious little replies, and meanwhile deliberately took off her kid +gloves, folded, and put them into her pocket. She then drew on a pair of +old worsted ones.</p> + +<p>“Economy, economy,” she said, smiling, and giving a hand on each side of +her to the two gentlemen. “May I trouble you for the reins? Many thanks. +Farewell, gentlemen! I cannot pretend to fear that my horse will catch +cold—his coat is too thick; but you may. Adieu, Mrs. Buller, once more. +Farewell, little one, I wish you good-morning, Madam. Adolphe, seat +yourself; make your bow, Adolphe. Adieu, dear friends!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>She gave a flick with the whip, which the pony resented by shaking his +head; after which he seemed, so to speak, to snatch up the little cart, +my great-grandmother, and Adolphe, and to run off with them at a good +round pace.</p> + +<p>“What an extraordinary turn-out!” said the Surgeon’s wife. (She was an +Irish attorney’s daughter, with the commonest of faces, and the most +unprecedented of bonnets. She and her husband had lately “set up” a +waggonette, the expense of which just made it difficult for them to live +upon their means, and the varnish of which added a care to life.) “Fancy +driving down High Street in that!” she continued; “and just when +everybody is going out, too!”</p> + +<p>“Uncommon sensible little affair, I think,” said the Surgeon. “Suits the +old lady capitally.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Vandaleur,” said Major Buller, “can afford to be independent of +appearances to an extent that would not perhaps be safe for most of us.”</p> + +<p>“You’re right there, Buller,” said the Surgeon. “Wonderfully queenly she +is! That fur cloak looks like an ermine robe on her.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think you’d like to see me in it!” tittered his wife.</p> + +<p>“I don’t say I should,” returned the Surgeon, rather smartly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>“My dear,” said Mrs. Buller, “you must make up your mind to be jealous +of the Duchess. All gentlemen are mad about her.”</p> + +<p>“The Duchess!” said Mrs. O’Connor, in a tone of respect. “I thought you +<span class="nowrap">said——”</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, she is not really a duchess, my dear; it’s only a nickname. I’ll +tell you all about it some day. It’s a long story.”</p> + +<p>Discovering that Mrs. Vandaleur was a family connection, and not a +chance visitor from the neighbourhood, Mrs. O’Connor apologized for her +remarks, and tried to extract the Duchess’s history from Aunt Theresa +then and there. But Mrs. Buller would only promise to tell it “another +time.”</p> + +<p>“I’m dying with curiosity,” said Mrs. O’Connor, as she took leave, “I +shall run in to-morrow afternoon on purpose to hear all about it. Can +you do with me, dear Mrs. Buller?”</p> + +<p>“Pray come,” said Aunt Theresa warmly, with an amiable disregard of two +engagements and some arrears of domestic business.</p> + +<p>I was in the drawing-room next day when Mrs. O’Connor arrived.</p> + +<p>“May I come in, dear Mrs. Buller?” she said, “I won’t stay two minutes; +but I <i>must</i> hear about the Duchess. Now, <i>are</i> you busy?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said Aunt Theresa, who was in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> midst of making up her +tradesmen’s books. “Pray sit down, and take off your bonnet.”</p> + +<p>“It’s hardly worth while, for I <i>can’t</i> stay,” said Mrs. O’Connor, +taking her bonnet off, and setting it down so as not to crush the +flowers.</p> + +<p>As Mrs. O’Connor stayed two hours and a half, and as Aunt Theresa +granted my request to be allowed to hear her narrative, I learnt a good +deal of the history of my great-grandmother.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">A FAMILY HISTORY.</p> + + +<p>“We are not really connected,” Mrs. Buller began. “She is Margery’s +great-grandmother, and Margery and I are second cousins. That’s all. But +I knew her long ago, before my poor cousin Alice married Captain +Vandaleur. And I have heard the whole story over and over again.”</p> + +<p>I have heard the story more than once also. I listened with open mouth +to Aunt Theresa at this time, and often afterwards questioned her about +my “ancestors,” as I may almost call them.</p> + +<p>Years later I used to repeat these histories to girls I was with. When +we were on good terms they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> were interested to hear, as I was proud to +tell, and would say, “Tell us about your ancestors, Margery.” And if we +fell out there was no surer method of annoying me than to slight the +memory of my great-great-grandparents.</p> + +<p>I have told their story pretty often. I shall put it down here in my own +way, for Aunt Theresa told a story rather disconnectedly.</p> + +<p>The de Vandaleurs (we have dropped the <i>de</i> now) were an old French +family. There was a Duke in it who was killed in the Revolution of ’92, +and most of the family emigrated, and were very poor. The title was +restored afterwards, and some of the property. It went to a cousin of +the Duke who was murdered, he having no surviving children; but they say +it went in the wrong line. The cousin who had remained in France, and +always managed to keep the favour of the ruling powers, got the title, +and remade his fortunes; the others remained in England, very poor and +very proud. They would not have accepted any favours from the new royal +family, but still they considered themselves deprived of their rights. +One of these Vandaleur <i>émigrés</i> (the one who ought to have been the +Duke) had married his cousin. They suffered great hardships in their +escape, I fancy, and on the birth of their son, shortly after their +arrival in England, the wife died.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>There was an old woman, Aunt Theresa said, who used to be her nurse when +she was a child, in London, who had lived, as a girl, in the wretched +lodgings where these poor people were when they came over, and she used +to tell her wonderful stories about them. How, in her delirium (she was +insane for some little time before her son was born), Madame de +Vandaleur fancied herself in her old home, “with all her finery about +her,” as Nurse Brown used to say.</p> + +<p>Nurse Brown seems to have had very little sympathy with nervous +diseases. She could understand a broken leg, or a fever, “when folks +kept their beds”; but the disordered fancies of a brain tried just too +far, the mad whims of a lady who could “go about,” and who insisted upon +going about, and changing her dress two or three times a day, and +receiving imaginary visitors, and ordering her faithful nurse up and +down under the names of half-a-dozen servants she no longer possessed, +were beyond her comprehension.</p> + +<p>Aunt Theresa said that she and her brothers and sisters had the deepest +pity for the poor lady. They thought it so romantic that she should cry +for fresh flowers and dress herself to meet the Queen in a dirty little +lodging at the back of Leicester Square, and they were always begging to +hear “what else she did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>” But Nurse Brown seems to have been fondest of +relating the smart speeches in which she endeavoured to “put sense into” +the devoted French servant who toiled to humour every whim of her +unhappy mistress, instead of being “sharp with her,” as Nurse Brown +advised. Aunt Theresa had some doubts whether Mrs. Brown ever did make +the speeches she reported; but when people say they said this or that, +they often only mean that this or that is what they wish they had said.</p> + +<p>“If she’s mad, I says, shave her head, instead of dressing her hair all +day long. I’ve knowed mad people as foamed at the mouth and rolled their +eyes, and would have done themselves a injury but for a strait-jacket; +and I’ve knowed folks in fevers unreasonable enough, but they kept their +beds in a dark room, and didn’t know their own mothers. Madame’s ways is +beyond me, I says. <i>You</i> calls it madness: <i>I</i> calls it temper. +Tem—per, and no—thing else.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Theresa used to make us laugh by repeating Nurse Brown’s sayings, +and the little shake of herself with which she emphasized the last +sentence.</p> + +<p>If she had no sympathy for Madame de Vandaleur, she had a double share +for the poor lady’s husband: “a <i>good</i> soul,” as she used to call him. +It was in vain that Jeanette spoke of the sweet temper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> and +unselfishness of her mistress “before these terrible days”; her conduct +towards her husband then was “enough for” Nurse Brown, so she said. No +sooner had the poor gentleman gone off on some errand for her pleasure +than she called for him to be with her, and was only to be pacified by a +fable of Jeanette’s devising, who always said that “the King” had +summoned Monsieur de Vandaleur. Jeanette was well aware that, the +childless old Duke being dead, her master had succeeded to the title, +and she often spoke of him as Monsieur le Duc to his wife, which seems +to have pleased the poor lady. When he was absent, Jeanette’s ready +excuse, “<i>Eh, Madame! Pour Monsieur le Duc—le Roi l’a fait appeller</i>,” +was enough, and she waited patiently for his return.</p> + +<p>Ever-changing as her whims and fancies were, the poor gentleman +sacrificed everything to gratify them. His watch, his rings, his +buckles, the lace from his shirt, and all the few trifles secured in +their hasty flight, were sold one by one. His face was familiar to the +keepers of certain stalls near to where Covent Garden Market now stands. +He bought flowers for Madame when he could not afford himself food. He +sold his waistcoat, and buttoned his coat across him—and looked thinner +than ever.</p> + +<p>Then the day came when Madame wished, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> he could not gratify her +wish. Everything was gone. He said, “This will kill me, Jeanette;” and +Jeanette believed him.</p> + +<p>Nurse Brown (according to her own account) assured Jeanette that it +would not. “Folk doesn’t die of such things, says I.”</p> + +<p>But, in spite of common-sense and experience, Monsieur de Vandaleur did +die of grief, or something very like it, within twenty-four hours of the +death of his wife, and the birth of their only son.</p> + +<p>For some years the faithful Jeanette supported this child by her own +industry. She was an exquisite laundress, and she throve where the Duke +and Duchess would have starved. As the boy grew up she kept him as far +as possible from common companions, treated him with as much deference +as if he had succeeded to the family honours, and filled his head with +traditions of the deserts and dignity of the de Vandaleurs.</p> + +<p>At last a cousin of Monsieur de Vandaleur found them out. He also was an +exile, but he had prospered better, had got a small civil appointment, +and had married a Scotch lady. It was after he had come to the help of +his young kinsman, I think, that an old French lady took a fancy to the +boy, and sent him to school in France at her own expense. He was just +nineteen when she died, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> left him what little money she possessed. +He then returned to England, and paid his respects to his cousin and the +Scotch Mrs. Vandaleur.</p> + +<p>She congratulated herself, I have heard, that her only child, a +daughter, was from home when this visit was paid.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Janet Vandaleur was a high-minded, hard-headed, north-country +woman. She valued long descent, and noble blood, and loyalty to a fallen +dynasty like a Scotchwoman, but, like a Scotchwoman, she also respected +capability and energy and endurance. She combined a romantic heart with +a practical head in a way peculiar to her nation. She knew the pedigree +of every family (who had a pedigree) north of the Tweed, and was, +probably, the best housekeeper in Great Britain. She devoutly believed +her own husband to be as perfect as mortal man may be here below, whilst +in some separate compartment of her brain she had the keenest sense of +the defects and weaknesses which he inherited, and dreaded nothing more +than to see her daughter mated with one of the helpless Vandaleurs.</p> + +<p>This daughter, with much of her mother’s strong will and practical +capacity, had got her father’s <i>physique</i> and a good deal of his +artistic temperament. Dreading the development of <i>de Vandaleur</i> +qualities in her, the mother made her education studiously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> practical +and orderly. She had, like most Scotch matrons of her type, too good a +gift for telling family stories, and too high a respect for ancestral +traditions, to have quite kept herself from amusing her daughter’s +childhood with tales of the de Vandaleur greatness. But after her +husband discovered his young relative, and as their daughter grew up, +she purposely avoided the subject, which had, probably, the sole effect +of increasing her daughter’s interest in the family romance. Mrs. Janet +knew the de Vandaleur pedigree as well as her own, and had shown a +miniature of the late Duke in his youth to her daughter as a child on +many occasions; when she had also alluded to the fact that the title by +birth was undoubtedly in the exiled branch of the family. Miss Vandaleur +was not ignorant that the young gentleman who had just completed his +education was, if every one had their rights, Monsieur le Duc; and she +was as much disappointed to have missed seeing him as her mother was +glad that they had not met.</p> + +<p>For Bertrand de Vandaleur had all the virtues and the weaknesses of his +family in intense proportions. He had a hopeless ignorance of the value +of money, which was his strongest condemnation before his Scotch cousin. +He was high-minded, chivalrous, in some points accomplished, charming, +and tender-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>hearted. But he was weak of will, merely passive in +endurance, and quite without energy. He had a graceful, fanciful, but +almost weak intellect. I mean, it just bordered on mental deficiency; +and at times his dreamy eyes took a wildness that was said to make him +painfully like his mother in her last days. He was an absurd but +gracefully romantic idea of his family consequence. He was very +handsome, and very like the miniature of the late Duke. It was most +desirable that his cousin should not meet him, especially as she was of +the sentimental age of seventeen. So Mrs. Janet Vandaleur hastened their +return from London to their small property in Scotland.</p> + +<p>But there was no law to hinder Monsieur de Vandaleur from making a +Scotch tour.</p> + +<p>One summer’s afternoon, when she had just finished the making of some +preserves, Miss Vandaleur strolled down through a little wood behind the +house towards a favourite beck that ran in a gorge below. She was +singing an old French song in praise of the beauty of a fair lady of the +de Vandaleurs of olden time. As she finished the first verse, a voice +from a short distance took up the refrain—</p> + +<p class="center">“Victoire de Vandaleur! Victoire! Victoire!”</p> + +<p class="noindent">It was her own name as well as that of her ances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>tress, and she blushed +as her eyes met those of a strange young gentleman, with a sketch-book +in his hand, and a French poodle at his heels.</p> + +<p>“Place aux dames!” said the stranger. On which the white poodle sat up, +and his master bowed till his head nearly touched the ground.</p> + +<p>They had met once as children, which was introduction enough in the +circumstances. Here, at last, for Victoire, was the embodiment of all +her dreams of the de Vandaleur race. He was personally so like the +miniature, that he might have been the old Duke. He was the young one, +as even her mother allowed. For him, he found a companion whose birth +did not jar on his aristocratic prejudices, and whose strong character +was bone and marrow to his weak one. Before they reached the house Mrs. +Janet’s precautions were vain.</p> + +<p>She grew fond of the lad in spite of herself. The romantic side of her +sympathized with his history. He was an orphan, and she had a mother’s +heart. In the direct line he was a Duke, and she was a Scotchwoman. He +freely consented to settle every penny he had upon his wife, and, as his +mother-in-law justly remarked, “Many a cannier man wouldn’t just have +done that.”</p> + +<p>In fine, the young people were married with not more than the usual +difficulties beforehand.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>He was nineteen, and she was seventeen. They were my great-grandfather +and great-grandmother.</p> + +<p>They had only one child—a son. They were very poor, and yet they gave +him a good education. I ought to say, <i>she</i> gave him, for everything +that needed effort or energy was done by my great-grandmother. The more +it became evident that her Bertrand de Vandaleur was less helpful and +practical than any Bertrand de Vandaleur before him, the more there +seems to have developed in her the purpose and capability inherited from +Mrs. Janet. Like many another poor and ambitious mother, she studied +Latin and Greek and algebra that she might teach her son. And at the +same time she saved, even out of their small income. She began to “put +by” from the boy’s birth for his education, and when the time came he +was sent to school.</p> + +<p>My grandfather did well. I have heard that he inherited his father’s +beauty, and was not without his mother’s sense and energy. He had the de +Vandaleur quality of pleasing, with the weakness of being utterly ruled +by the woman he loved. At twenty he married an heiress. His parents had +themselves married too early to have reasonable ground for complaint at +this; but when he left his own Church for that of his wife, there came a +terrible breach between them and their only son. His mother soon +forgave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> him; but the father was as immovable in his displeasure as weak +people can sometimes be. Happily, however, after the birth of a grandson +peace was made, and the young husband brought his wife to visit his +parents. The heiress had some property in the West Indies, which they +proposed to visit, and they remained with the old people till just +before they sailed. It was as a keepsake at parting that my grandfather +had restored to his mother the watch which she gave to me. The child was +left in England with his mother’s relations.</p> + +<p>My grandfather and grandmother never returned. They were among the +countless victims of the most cruel of all seas. The vessel they went +out in was lost during a week of storms. On what day or night, and in +what part of the Atlantic, no one survived to tell.</p> + +<p>Their orphan child was my dear father.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS—DREAMS AND DAY DREAMS—THE VINE—ELSPETH—MY +GREAT-GRANDFATHER.</p> + + +<p>My father was brought up chiefly by his mother’s relations. The +religious question was always a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> difficulty as regarded the de +Vandaleurs, and I fancy extended to my own case. My guardians were not +my great-grandparents, but Major Buller, and Mr. Arkwright, a clergyman +of the Church of England. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother +were Roman Catholics. Though not my appointed guardians, they were my +nearest relations, and when my great-grandmother had held out her little +hand towards me over the side of the pony-carriage and said, “You will +let the child come to me? Soon, very soon?” Major Buller had taken her +hand in both his, and replied very cordially, “Of course, my dear madam, +of course. Whenever it is convenient to yourself and to Mr. de +Vandaleur.”</p> + +<p>And this promise had stirred my heart with such a flutter of happy +expectation as I had not felt since I persuaded my father to promise +that I should dine with him, all alone, like a grown-up lady, on that +sad birthday on which he died.</p> + +<p>It is perhaps useless to try and find reasons for the fancy I took to +the “Duchess”—as Aunt Theresa called her—since it was allowed that she +fascinated every one who came near her. With the bright qualities which +made her admirable in herself, she combined the gracious art of putting +other people at ease with themselves; and, remembering how sore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> the +wounds of a child’s self-love are, I think that her kindness must have +been very skilful to make me forgive myself for that folly of the +looking-glass enough to forget myself in admiration of her.</p> + +<p>Like most children, I was given to hero and heroine worship. I admired +more than one lady of Aunt Theresa’s acquaintance, and had been +fascinated by some others whom I did not know, but had only seen in +church, and had longed for the time when I also should no longer trip +about in short and simple skirts, and tie up my curls with a ribbon, but +should sweep grandly and languidly in to the parade service, bury half a +pew under the festoons and furbelows of my silk dress and velvet +trimmings, sink into a nest of matchless millinery for the Litany, scent +the air with patchouli as I rose for the hymn, examine the other ladies’ +bonnets through one of those eyeglasses which are supposed to make it no +longer rude to stare, and fan myself from the fatigues of the service +during the sermon.</p> + +<p>But even the dignity of grown-updom embellished by pretty faces and +splendid costumes did not stir my imagination as it was stirred by the +sight of my great-grandmother and by the history of her life. It was +like seeing the princess of a fairy tale with one’s very own eyes. The +faces of the fine ladies I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> had envied were a little apt to be insipid +in expression, and to pass from the memory; but my great-grandmother’s +quick, bright, earnest face was not easily to be forgotten. I made up my +mind that when I grew up I would not wear a large <i>chignon</i> after all, +nor a bonnet full of flowers, nor a dress full of flounces, but a rather +short skirt and buckled shoes and grey curls, and a big hat with many +bows, and a green satin driving-cloak lined with fur.</p> + +<p>How any one, blessed with grown-up freedom of choice, could submit to be +driven about by a coach-man in a big carriage, as highly stuffed and +uninteresting as a first-class railway carriage, when it was possible to +drive one’s self in a sort of toy-cart with a dear white pony as shaggy +as a dog, I could not understand. I well knew which I should choose, and +I thought so much of it that I remember dreaming that my +great-grandmother had presented me with a pony and chaise the +counterpart of her own. The dream-joy of this acquisition, and the pride +of driving up to the Bullers’ door and offering to take Matilda for an +expedition, was only marred by one of those freaks which spoil the +pleasure of so many dreams. Just as Matilda appeared, full of gratitude, +and with a picnic luncheon in a basket, I became conscious that I was in +my night-gown, and had forgotten to dress. Again and again I tried to go +back in my dream and put on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> suitable clothes. I never accomplished it, +and only woke in the effort.</p> + +<p>In sober daylight I indulged no hope that Mrs. Vandaleur would give me a +carriage and pony for my very own, but I did hope that I should go out +in hers if ever I went to stay with her. Perhaps sometimes alone, +driving myself, with only the rosy-cheeked Adolphe to open the gates and +deliver me from any unexpected difficulties with the reins. But I +dreamed many a day-dream of the possible delights in store for me with +my new-found relatives, and almost counted the hours on the Duchess’s +watch till she should send for me.</p> + +<p>As it happened, however, circumstances combined for some little time to +hinder me from visiting my great-grandmother.</p> + +<p>The little Bullers and I had the measles; and when we were all +convalescent, Major Buller got two months’ leave, and we went away for +change of air. Then small-pox prevailed in Riflebury, and we were kept +away, even after Major Buller returned to his duties. When we did +return, before a visit to the Vandaleurs could be arranged, Adolphe fell +ill of scarlet fever, and the fear of contagion postponed my visit for +some time.</p> + +<p>I was eight years old when I went to stay at The Vine. This was the name +of the little cottage where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> my great-grandparents lived—so called +because of an old vine which covered the south wall on one side of the +porch, and crept over a framework upon the roof. I do not now remember +how many pounds of grapes it had been known to produce in one season, +and yet I ought not to have forgotten, for it was a subject on which my +great-grandfather, my great-grandmother, Adolphe, and Elspeth constantly +boasted.</p> + +<p>“And if they don’t just ripen as the master says they do in France, it’s +all for the best,” said Elspeth; “for ripe grapes would be picked all +along, and the house not a penny the better for them. But green-grape +tarts and cream are just eating for a king.”</p> + +<p>Elspeth was “general servant” at my great-grandmother’s. Her aunt Mary +had come from Scotland to serve “Miss Victoire” when she first married. +As Mary’s health failed, and she grew old, her young niece was sent for +to work under her. Old Mary died with her hands in my +great-grandmother’s, and Elspeth reigned in her stead.</p> + +<p>Elspeth was an elderly woman when I first made her acquaintance. She had +a broad, bright, sensible face, and a kindly smile that won me to her. +She wore frilled caps, tied under her chin; and as to exchanging them +for “the fly-away bits of things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> servants stick on their heads at the +present time,” Elspeth would as soon have thought of abandoning the +faith of her fathers. She was a strict but not bitter Presbyterian. She +was not tall, and she was very broad; her apparent width being increased +by the very broad linen collars which spread, almost like a cape, over +her ample shoulders.</p> + +<p>My great-grandmother had an anecdote of me connected with this, which +she was fond of relating.</p> + +<p>“And what do you think of Elspeth, little one?” she had said to me on +the first evening of my visit.</p> + +<p>“I think she’s very big,” was my reply.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, our good Elspeth is as wide as she is tall,” said my +great-grandfather, laughing.</p> + +<p>I wondered if this were so; and when my great-grandmother gave me a +little yard-measure in a wooden castle, which had taken my fancy among +the treasures of her work-box, the idea seized me of measuring Elspeth +for my own satisfaction on the point. But the silken measure slipped, +and caught on the battlements of the castle, and I lost my place in +counting the figures, and at last was fain to ask Elspeth herself.</p> + +<p>“How tall are you, Elspeth, please? As much as a yard?”</p> + +<p>“Ou aye, my dear,” said Elspeth, who was deeply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> engaged in darning a +very large hole in one of my great-grandfather’s socks.</p> + +<p>“As much as two yards?” I inquired.</p> + +<p>“Eh, no, my dearie,” said Elspeth. “That wad be six feet; and I’m not +just that tall, though my father was six feet and six inches.”</p> + +<p>“How broad are you, Elspeth, please?” I persisted. “As much as a yard?”</p> + +<p>“I’m thinking I will be, my dear,” said Elspeth, “for it takes the full +width of a coloured cotton to cut me a dress-front, and then it’s not +over-big.”</p> + +<p>“Are you as broad as two yards, do you think?” I said, drawing my ribbon +to its full length from the castle, and considering the question.</p> + +<p>Elspeth shook her head. She was biting the end off a piece of +darning-cotton; but I rightly concluded that she would not confess to +being two yards wide.</p> + +<p>“Please, I have measured Elspeth,” I announced over the tea-table, “and +grandpapa is quite right.”</p> + +<p>“Eh?” said Mr. Vandaleur, who had a trick of requiring observations to +be repeated to him by his wife.</p> + +<p>“She says that she has measured Elspeth, and that you are right,” said +my great-grandmother. “But about what is grandpapa right, my little +one?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Grandpapa said that Elspeth is as wide as she is tall,” I explained. +“And so she is, for I measured her—at least, the ribbon would slip when +I measured her, so I asked her; and she’s a yard tall, but not as much +as two yards; and a yard wide, but not as much as two yards. And so +grandpapa is right.”</p> + +<p>Some of the happiest hours I spent at The Vine were spent in Elspeth’s +company. I made tiny cakes, and tarts of curious shapes, when she was +busy pastry-making, and did some clear-starching on my doll’s account +when Elspeth was “getting-up” my great-grandfather’s cravats.</p> + +<p>Elspeth had strong old-fashioned notions of paying respect where it was +due. She gave Adolphe a sharp lecture one day for some lack of respect +in his manner to “Miss Margery”; and, on the other hand, she taught me +to curtsy at the door where I breakfasted with Mr. and Mrs. Vandaleur.</p> + +<p>Some dancing lessons that I had had in Riflebury helped me here, and +Elspeth was well satisfied with my performance. I felt very shy and +awkward the first time that I made my morning curtsy, my knees shaking +under me, and Elspeth watching from the passage; but my +great-grandfather and mother seemed to take it as a matter of course, +and I soon became quite used to it. If Mr. Vandaleur happened to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +standing in the room, he always returned my curtsy by a low bow.</p> + +<p>I became very fond of my great-grandfather. He was a tall, handsome old +man, with high shoulders, slightly bent by age and also by habit. He +wore a blue coat with brass buttons, that had been very well made a very +long time ago; white trousers, a light waistcoat, a frilled shirt, and a +very stiff cravat. On the wall of the drawing-room there hung a +water-colour portrait of a very young and very handsome man, with +longish wavy hair, features refined to weakness, dreamy, languid eyes, +and a coat the very image of my great-grandfather’s. The picture hung +near the door; and as Mr. Bertrand Vandaleur passed in or out, I well +remember that he almost always glanced at the sketch, as people glance +at themselves in passing a mirror.</p> + +<p>I was too young then to notice this as being a proof that the drawing +was a portrait of himself; but I remember being much struck by the +likeness between the coat in the picture and that my great-grandfather +wore, and also by the way that the hair was thrown back from the high, +narrow forehead, just as my great-grandfather’s grey hairs were combed +away from his brow. Children are great admirers of beauty too, +especially, I think, of an effeminate style of good looks, and are very +susceptible to the power of ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>pression in faces. I had a romantic +admiration for “the handsome man by the door,” and his eyes haunted me +about the room.</p> + +<p>I was kneeling on a chair and examining the sketch one morning, when my +great-grandfather came up to me, “Who is it, little one?” said he.</p> + +<p>I looked at the picture. I looked at my great-grandfather’s coat. As his +eyes gazed steadily into mine, there was a likeness there also; but it +was the coat that decided me. I said, “It is you, grandpapa.”</p> + +<p>I think this little incident just sealed our friendship. I always +remained in high favour with my great-grandfather.</p> + +<p>He spent a great deal of his time in painting. He never had, I believe, +had any profession. The very small income on which he and his wife had +lived was their own private fortune. I often think it must have been a +great trial to a woman of my great-grandmother’s energy, that her +husband should have made no effort to add to their resources by work of +some kind. But then I cannot think of any profession that would have +suited him. He was sadly wanting in general capacity, though +accomplished much above the average, and with a fine knack in the +budding of roses.</p> + +<p>I thought him the grandest gentleman that ever lived, and the +pleasantest of companions. His weak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> but lovable nature had strong +sympathy with children, I think. I ought to say, with a child; for he +would share the fancies and humours of one child companion for hours, +but was quite incapable of managing a larger number—as, indeed, he was +of any kind of domestic administration or control. Mrs. Vandaleur was +emphatically Elspeth’s mistress, if she was also her friend; but in the +absence of “the mistress” Elspeth ruled “the master” with a rod of iron.</p> + +<p>I quickly gained a degree of power over him myself. I discovered that if +I maintained certain outward forms of respect and courtesy, so as not to +shock my grandpapa’s standard of good manners, I might make almost any +demands on his patience and good-nature. Children and pet animals make +such discoveries very quickly, and are apt to use their power somewhat +tyrannically. I fear I was no exception to the rule.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">THOMAS THE CAT—MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S SKETCHES—ADOLPHE IS MY +FRIEND—MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER DISTURBS MY REST—I LEAVE THE +VINE.</p> + + +<p>My great-grandfather had, as I said, some skill in painting. He was +gifted with an intense sense of, and love for, colour. I am sure he saw +colours where other people did not. What to common eyes was a mass of +grey, or green, was to him a pleasant combination of many gay and +delicate hues. He distinguished severally the innumerable bright threads +in Nature’s coat of many colours, and in simple truth I think that each +was a separate joy to him.</p> + +<p>He had a white Persian cat of an artistic temperament, which followed +him in his walks, dozed on the back of his arm-chair, and condescended +to share his tea when it reached a certain moderate temperature. It +never was betrayed into excitement, except when there was fish for +dinner. My great-grandfather’s fasts were feasts for Thomas the cat.</p> + +<p>I can very clearly remember the sight of my great-grandfather pacing +slowly up and down the tiny garden at The Vine, his hands behind him, +and followed sedately by Thomas. Now and then he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> would stop to gaze, +with infinite contentment in his eyes, at the delicate blue-grey mist +behind the leafless trees (which in that spring sunshine were, no doubt, +of much more complex and beautiful colour to him than mere brown), or +drinking in the blue of the scillas in the border with a sigh of +satisfaction. When he paused, Thomas would pause; as he feasted his +eyes, Thomas would rub his head against his master’s legs, and stretch +his own. When Elspeth had cooked the fish, and my great-grandmother had +made the tea and arranged the flowers on the table, they would come in +together and condescend to their breakfasts, with the same air about +them both of having no responsibility in life but to find out sunny +spots and to enjoy themselves.</p> + +<p>My great-grandfather’s most charming paintings were sketches of flowers. +Ordinary stiff flower-paintings are of all paintings the most +uninteresting, I think; but his were of a very different kind. Each +sketch was a sort of idyll. Indeed, he would tell me stories of each as +he showed them.</p> + +<p>Long as my great-grandfather had lived, he was never a robust man, and +Elspeth’s chief ideas on the subject of his sketches bore reference to +the colds he had caught, and the illnesses he had induced, by sitting in +the east winds or lying on damp grass to do this or that sketch.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>“That’ll be the one the master did before he was laid by with the +rheumatics,” Elspeth said, when I described one of my favourites to her. +It was a spring sketch. My great-grandfather had lain face downwards on +the lawn to do it. This was to bring his eyes on a level with the +subject of his painting, which was this: a crocus of the exquisite +shades of lilac to be seen in some varieties, just full-blown, standing +up in its first beauty and freshness from its fringe of narrow +silver-striped leaves. The portrait was not an opaque and +polished-looking painting on smooth cardboard, but a sketch—indefinite +at the outer edges of the whole subject—on water-colour paper of +moderate roughness. The throat and part of the cup of the flower stood +out from some shadow at the roots of a plant beyond; a shadow of +infinite gradation, and quite without the blackness common to patches of +shade as seen by untrained eyes. From the level of my +great-grandfather’s view, as he lay in the grass, the border looked a +mere strip; close behind it was a hedge dividing the garden from a +field. Just by the crocus there was a gap in the hedge, which in the +sketch was indicated rather than drawn. And round the corner of the bare +thorn branches from the hedge-bank in the field there peeped a celandine +and a daisy. They were not nearly such finished portraits as that of the +crocus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> A few telling strokes of colour made them, and gave them a life +and pertness that were clever enough. Beneath the sketch was written, +“La Demoiselle. Des enfants du village la regardent.”</p> + +<p>My great-grandfather translated this for me, and used to show me how the +“little peasants,” Marguerite and Celandine, were peeping in at the +pretty young lady in her mauve dress striped with violet.</p> + +<p>But every sketch had its story, and often its moral; not, as a rule, a +very original one. In one, a lovely study of ivy crept over a rotten +branch upon the ground. A crimson toadstool relieved the heavy green, +and suggested that the year was drawing to a close. Beneath it was +written, “Charity.” “Thus,” said my great-grandfather, “one covers up +and hides the defects of one he loves.”</p> + +<p>A study of gaudy summer tulips stood—as may be guessed—for Pride.</p> + +<p>“Pride,” said my great-grandfather, “is a sin; a mortal sin, dear child. +Moreover, it is foolish, and also vulgar—the pride of fine clothes, +money, equipages, and the like. What is called pride of birth—the +dignity of an ancient name—this, indeed, is another thing. It is not +petty, not personal; it seems to me more like patriotism—the pride of +country.”</p> + +<p>I did my best to describe to Elspeth both the sketch and my +great-grandfather’s commentary.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>“A’ pride’s sinful,” said Elspeth decidedly. “Pride o’ wealth, and pride +o’ birth. Not that I’m for objecting to a decent satisfaction in a +body’s ain gude conduct and respectability. Pride o’ character, that’s +anither thing a’thegither, and to be respectit.”</p> + +<p>My great-grandfather gave me a few paints, and under his directions I +daubed away, much to my own content. When I was struggling hopelessly +with the perspective of some pansies of various colours (for in +imitation of him I painted flowers), he would say, “Never mind the +shape, dear Marguerite, get the colour—the colour, my child!” And he +trained me to a quickness in the perception of colour certainly not +common at my age.</p> + +<p>I spent many pleasant hours, too, in the less intellectual society of +Adolphe. He dug a bed for me in a bit of spare ground, and shaped it +like a heart. He laboured constantly at this heart, making it plump by +piling up the earth, and cramming it with plants of various +kinds—perennials much in want of subdivision, and often in full +bloom—which he brought from cottage gardens of “folk he knew,” and +watered copiously to “sattle ’em.”</p> + +<p>His real name was not Adolphe, but Thomas. As this, however, had created +some confusion between him and the cat, my great-grandmother had named +him afresh, after a retainer of the de Vandaleurs in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> days gone by, +whose faithful service was a tradition in the family.</p> + +<p>I was very happy at The Vine—by day. I feel ashamed now to recall how +miserable I was at night, and yet I know I could not help it. In old +times I had always been accustomed to be watched to sleep by Ayah. After +I came to Aunt Theresa, I slept in the same room with one or more of the +other children. At The Vine, for the first time, I slept alone.</p> + +<p>This was not all. It was not merely the being alone in the dark which +frightened me. Indeed, a curious little wick floating on a cup of oil +was lighted at night for my benefit, but it only illumined the great +source of the terror which made night hideous to me.</p> + +<p>Some French refugee artist, who had been indebted to my +great-grandparents for kindness, had shown his gratitude by painting a +picture of the execution of that Duc de Vandaleur who perished in the +Revolution, my great-grandfather having been the model. It was a +wretched daub, but the subject was none the less horrible for that, and +the caricatured likeness to my great-grandfather did not make it seem +less real or more pleasant.</p> + +<p>That execution which was never over, this ghastly head which never found +rest in the grave, that awful-looking man who was, and yet was not, +Grandpapa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>—haunted me. They were the cause of certain horrible dreams, +which I can remember quite as clearly at this day as if I dreamed them +last night, and which I know I shall never forget. The dreams again +associated themselves with the picture, and my fears grew instead of +lessening as the time went by.</p> + +<p>Very late one night Elspeth came in and found me awake, and probably +looking far from happy. I had nothing to say for myself, but I burst +into tears. Elspeth was tenderness itself, but she got hold of a wrong +idea. I was “just homesick,” she thought, and needed to be “away home +again,” with “bairns like myself.”</p> + +<p>I do not know why I never explained the real reason of my +distress—children are apt to be reticent on such occasions. I think a +panic seized upon the members of the household, that they were too old +to make a child happy. I was constantly assured that “it was very +natural,” and I “had been very good.” But I was sent back to Riflebury. +No one knew how loth I was to leave, still less that it was to a much +older relative than those at The Vine that I owed my expulsion—to my +great-great-great-grandfather—Monsieur le Duc de Vandaleur.</p> + +<p>Thomas, the cat, purred so loudly as I withdrew, that I think he was +glad to be rid of me.</p> + +<p>Adolphe alone was against the verdict of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> household, and I think +believed that I would have preferred to remain.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I thought you was quite sattled, miss,” he said, as he saw me +off; and he blubbered like a baby. His transplanted perennials were +“sattled” by copious floods of water. Perhaps he hoped that tears would +settle me!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">MATILDA’S NEWS—OUR GOVERNESS—MAJOR BULLER TURNED TUTOR—ELEANOR +ARKWRIGHT.</p> + + +<p>The grief I felt at leaving The Vine was greatly forgotten in the warm +welcome which awaited me on my return to Riflebury.</p> + +<p>In a household where gossip is a principal amusement, the return of any +member from a visit is a matter for general congratulation till the new +budget is exhausted. Indeed, I plead guilty to a liking to be the first +to skim the news when Eleanor or one of the boys comes back from a +visit, at the present time.</p> + +<p>Matilda withdrew me from Aunt Theresa as soon as she could.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad to get you back, Margery dear,” said she. “And now you +must tell me all your news,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> and I’ll tell you all mine. And to begin +with—what do you think?—we’ve got a governess, and you and I are to +have the little room at the head of the stairs all to ourselves.”</p> + +<p>Matilda’s news was lengthy enough and interesting enough to make us late +for tea, and mine kept us awake for a couple of hours after we were +fairly in our two little iron bedsteads in the room that was now our +very own. That is to say, I told what I had to tell after we came to +bed, but my news was so tame compared with Matilda’s that we soon +returned to the discussion of hers. I tried to describe my +great-grandfather’s sketches, but neither Aunt Theresa in the +drawing-room, nor Matilda when we retired for the night, seemed to feel +any interest in the subject; and when Mrs. Buller asked what sort of +people called at The Vine, I felt that my reply was, like the rest of my +news, but dull.</p> + +<p>Matilda’s, on the contrary, was very entertaining. She spoke +enthusiastically of Miss Perry, the governess.</p> + +<p>“She is so good-natured, Margery, you can’t think. When lessons are over +she takes me walks on the Esplanade, and she calls me her dear Matilda, +and I take her arm, and she tells me all about herself. She says she +knows she’s very romantic. And she’s got lots of secrets, and she’s told +me several already; for she says she has a feeling that I can keep a +secret,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> and so I can. But telling you’s not telling, you know, because +she’s sure to tell you herself; only you’d better wait till she does +before you say anything, for fear she should be vexed.”</p> + +<p>Of course I promised to do so, and craned my neck out of bed to catch +Matilda’s interesting but whispered revelations.</p> + +<p>Matilda herself was only partially in Miss Perry’s confidence, and I +looked anxiously forward to the time when she would admit me also to her +secrets, though I feared she might consider me too young. My fears were +groundless, as I found Miss Perry was fond of talking about herself, and +a suitable audience was quite a secondary consideration with her.</p> + +<p>She was a <i>protégée</i> of Mrs. Minchin’s, who had persuaded Aunt Theresa +to take her for our governess. She was quite unfit for the position, and +did no little harm to us in her brief reign. But I do not think that our +interests had entered in the least into Mrs. Minchin’s calculations in +the matter. She had “taken Miss Perry up,” and to get Miss Perry a +comfortable home was her sole object.</p> + +<p>To do our new governess justice, she did her best to impart her own +superficial acquirements to us. We plodded regularly through French +exercises, which she corrected by a key, and she kept us at work for a +given number of hours during the day; tatting by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> our sides as we +practised our scales, or roasting her petticoats over the fire, whilst +Matilda and I read Mrs. Markham’s <i>England</i> or Mrs. Trimmer’s <i>Bible +Lessons</i> aloud by turns to full-stops. But when lessons were over Miss +Perry was quite as glad as we were, and the subjects of our studies had +as little to do with our holiday hours as a Sunday sermon with the rest +of the week.</p> + +<p>She was a great novel-reader, and I think a good many of the things she +told us of, as having happened to herself, had their real origin in the +Riflebury circulating library. For she was one of those strange +characters who indulge in egotism and exaggeration, till they seem +positively to lose the sense of what is fact and what is fiction.</p> + +<p>She filled our poor empty little heads with a great deal of folly, and +it was well for us that her reign was not a long one.</p> + +<p>She was much attached to the school-room fireside. She could not sit too +close to it, or roast herself too thoroughly for her own satisfaction. I +sometimes wondered if the bony woman who kept the library ever +complained of the curled condition of the backs of the books Miss Perry +held between her eyes and the hot coals for so many hours.</p> + +<p>In this highly heated state our governess was, of course, sensitive to +the smallest inlet of cooler air, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> “draughts” were accordingly her +abhorrence. How we contrived to distinguish a verb from a noun, or +committed anything whatever to memory in the fever-heat and “stuffy” +atmosphere of the little room which was sacred to our studies, I do not +know. At a certain degree of the thermometer Miss Perry’s face rises +before me and makes my brain spin even now.</p> + +<p>This was, no doubt, one cause of the very severe headaches to which +Matilda became subject about this time, though, now I look back, I do +not think she had been quite strong since we all had the measles. They +were apt to end in a fainting condition, from which she recovered by +lying on the floor. Then, if Miss Perry happened to be in good humour, +she would excuse Matilda from further lessons, invariably adding, in her +“mystery” voice—“But not a word to your mamma!”</p> + +<p>It was the most unjustifiable use she made of influence she gained over +us (especially over poor Matilda, who was very fond of her, and believed +in her) that she magnified her own favours at the expense of Major +Buller and my aunt. For some time they had no doubts as to the wisdom of +Mrs. Minchin’s choice.</p> + +<p>Miss Perry was clever enough not to display her romantic side to Mrs. +Buller. She amused her, too, with Riflebury gossip, in which she was an +adept.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> She knew equally well how far she might venture with the Major; +and the sleight-of-hand with which she threw needlework over a novel +when Aunt Theresa came into the school-room was not more skilful than +the way in which she turned the tail of a bit of scandal into a remark +upon the weather as Uncle Buller opened the drawing-room door.</p> + +<p>But Miss Perry was not skilful enough to win the Major’s lasting favour. +He was always slow to interfere in domestic matters, but he was not +unobservant.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you see a great deal more than one would think, Edward,” Aunt +Theresa would say; “although you are so wrapt up in insects and things.”</p> + +<p>“The insects don’t get into my eyes, my dear,” said Major Buller.</p> + +<p>“And hear too,” Mrs. Buller continued. “Mrs. O’Connor was saying only +the other day that you often seem to hear of things before other people, +though you do talk so little.”</p> + +<p>“It is, perhaps, because I am not always talking that I do hear. But +Mrs. O’Connor is not likely to think of that,” said the Major, rather +severely.</p> + +<p>He was neither blind nor deaf in reference to Miss Perry, and she was +dismissed. Aunt Theresa rather dreaded Mrs. Minchin’s indignation in the +matter, I believe; but needlessly, for Miss Perry and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> Mrs. Minchin +quarrelled about this time, and Mrs. Minchin had then so much +information to Miss Perry’s disadvantage at her fingers’ ends, that it +seemed wonderful that she should ever have recommended her.</p> + +<p>For some little time our education progressed in a very desultory +fashion. Major Buller became perversely prejudiced against governesses, +and for a short time undertook to carry on our English lessons himself. +He made sums amusing, and geography lessons “as good as stories,” though +the latter so often led (by very interesting channels) to his dearly +beloved insects, that Mrs. Buller accused him of making our lessons an +excuse for getting out his “collection.”</p> + +<p>With “grammar” we were less successful. Major Buller was so good a +teacher that he brought out what intelligence we possessed, and led us +constantly to ask questions about anything we failed to understand. In +arithmetic this led to his helping us over our difficulties; in +geography it led, sooner or later, to the “collection”; but in English +grammar it led to stumbling-blocks and confusion, and, finally, to the +Major’s throwing the book across the room, and refusing to pursue that +part of our education any further.</p> + +<p>“I never learnt English grammar,” said the Major, “and it’s quite +evident that I can’t teach it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“If <i>you</i> don’t know grammar, Papa, then <i>we</i> needn’t,” said Matilda +promptly, and being neat of disposition, she picked up the book and +proceeded to put it away.</p> + +<p>“I never said that I didn’t know grammar,” said the Major; “I fancy I +can speak and write grammatically, but what I know I got from the Latin +grammar. And, upon my soul,” added Uncle Buller, pulling at his heavy +moustache, “I don’t know why you shouldn’t do the same.”</p> + +<p>The idea of learning Latin pleased us greatly, and Major Buller (who had +been at Charterhouse in his boyhood) bought a copy of Dr. Russell’s +<i>Grammar</i>, and we set to work. And either because the rules of the Latin +grammar bore explanation better than the English ones, or because Major +Buller was better able to explain them, we had no further difficulties.</p> + +<p>We were very proud of doing lessons in these circumstances, and boasted +of our Latin, I remember, to the little St. Quentins, when we met them +at the dancing-class. The St. Quentins were slender, ladylike girls, +much alike, and rendered more so by an exact similarity of costume. +Their governess was a very charming and talented woman, and when Mrs. +St. Quentin proposed that Matilda and I should share her daughters’ +French lessons under Miss Airlie, Major Buller and Aunt Theresa +thankfully accepted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> the offer. I think that our short association with +this excellent lady went far to cure us of the silly fancies and tricks +of vulgar gossip which we had gleaned from Miss Perry.</p> + +<p>So matters went on for some months, much to Matilda’s and my +satisfaction, when a letter from my other guardian changed our plans +once more.</p> + +<p>Mr. Arkwright’s only daughter was going to school. He wrote to ask the +Bullers to let her break the journey by spending a night at their house. +It was a long journey, for she was coming from the north.</p> + +<p>“They live in Yorkshire,” said Major Buller, much as one might speak of +living in Central Africa.</p> + +<p>Matilda and I looked forward with great interest to Miss Arkwright’s +arrival. Her name, we learnt, was Eleanor, and she was nearly a year +older than Maria.</p> + +<p>“She’ll be <i>your</i> friend, I suppose,” I said, a little enviously, in +reference to her age.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Matilda, with dignity. “But you can be with us a good +deal,” she was kind enough to add.</p> + +<p>I remember quite well how disappointed I felt that I should have so +little title to share the newcomer’s friendship.</p> + +<p>“If she had only been ten years old, and so come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> between us,” I +thought, “she would have been as much mine as Matilda’s.”</p> + +<p>I little thought then what manner of friends we were to be in spite of +the five years’ difference in age. Indeed, both Matilda and I were +destined to see more of her than we expected. Aunt Theresa and Major +Buller came to a sudden resolution to send us also to the school where +she was going, though we did not hear of this at first.</p> + +<p>Long afterwards, when we were together, Eleanor asked me if I could +remember my first impression of her. For our affection’s sake I wish it +had been a picturesque one; but truth obliges me to confess that, when +our visitor did at last arrive, Matilda and I were chiefly struck by the +fact that she wore thick boots, and did not wear crinoline.</p> + +<p>And yet, looking back, I have a very clear picture of her in my mind, +standing in the passage by her box (a very rough one, very strongly +corded, and addressed in the clearest of handwriting), purse in hand, +and paying the cabman with perfect self-possession. An upright, quite +ladylike, but rather old-fashioned little figure, somewhat quaint from +the simplicity of her dress. She had a rather quaint face, too, with a +nose slightly turned up, a prominent forehead, a charming mouth, and +most beautiful dark eyes. Her hair was rolled under and tied at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> the top +of her head, and it had an odd tendency to go astray about the parting.</p> + +<p>This was, perhaps, partly from a trick she seemed to have of doing her +hair away from the looking-glass. She stood to do it, and also (on one +leg) to put on her shoes and stockings, which amused us. But she was +always on her feet, and seemed unhappy if she sat idle. We took her for +a walk the morning after her arrival, and walked faster than we had ever +walked before to keep pace with our new friend, who strode along in her +thick boots and undistended skirts with a step like that of a kilted +Highlander.</p> + +<p>When we came into the town, however, she was quite willing to pause +before the shop-windows, which gave her much entertainment.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I should always be looking in at the windows if I lived in a +town,” she said, “there are such pretty things.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor laughs when I remind her of that walk, and how we stood still by +every chemist’s door because she liked the smell. When anything +interested her, she stopped, but at other times she walked as if she +were on the road to some given place, and determined to be there in good +time; or perhaps it would be more just to say that she walked as if +walking were a pleasure to her. It was walking—not strolling. When she +was out alone, I know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> that she constantly ran when other people would +have walked. It is a north-country habit, I think. I have seen +middle-aged Scotch and Yorkshire ladies run as lightly as children.</p> + +<p>It was not the fashionable time of day, so that we could not, during +that walk, show Eleanor the chief characters of Riflebury. But just as +we were leaving High Street she stopped and asked, “Who is that lady?”</p> + +<p>“The one in the mauve silk?” said Matilda. “That is one of the cavalry +ladies. All the cavalry ladies dress grandly.”</p> + +<p>It was a Mrs. Perowne. She was sailing languidly down the other side of +the street, in a very large crinoline, and a very long dress of pale +silk, which floated after her along the dirty pavement, much, I +remember, to my admiration. Above this was some tight-fitting thing with +a good deal of lace about it, which was crowned by a fragile and flowery +bonnet, and such a tuft of white lace at the end of a white stick as +just sheltered her nose, which was aquiline, from the sunshine. She was +prettily dressed for an open carriage, a flower-show, or a wedding +breakfast; for walking through the streets of a small, dirty town, to +change her own books at the library, her costume was ludicrously out of +place, though at the time I thought it enviably grand. The way in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +a rich skirt that would not wash, and would undoubtedly be worn again, +trailed through dust and orange-peel, and greengrocers’ refuse, and +general shop-sweepings, was offensive to cleanliness alone.</p> + +<p>“Is she ill?” Eleanor asked.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Matilda; “I don’t think so. Why?”</p> + +<p>“She walks so slowly,” said Eleanor, gazing anxiously at Mrs. Perowne +out of her dark eyes, “and she is so white in the face.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear!” said Matilda, laughing, “that’s puff—puff, and a white +veil. It’s to make her look young. I heard Mrs. Minchin tell Mamma that +she knew she was thirty-seven at least. But she dresses splendidly. If +you stay over Sunday, you’ll see her close, for she sits in front of us +in church. And she has such a splendid big scent-bottle, with gold tops, +and such a lovely, tiny little prayer-book, bound in blue velvet, and a +watch no bigger than a shilling, with a monogram on the back. She took +it out several times in the sermon last Sunday, so I saw it. But isn’t +her hair funny?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a beautiful colour,” said Eleanor, “only it looks different in +front. But I suppose that’s the veil.”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn’t,” said Matilda; “that’s the new colour for hair, you know. +It’s done by stuff you put on; but Miss Perry said the worst was, it +did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>n’t always come out the same all over. Lots of ladies use it.”</p> + +<p>“How horrid!” said Eleanor. “But what makes her walk so slow?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t know,” said Matilda. “Why should she walk quick?”</p> + +<p>Eleanor seemed struck by this reply, and after a few minutes’ pause, +said very gently, with a slight blush on her cheeks, “I’m afraid I have +been walking too fast for you. I’m used to walking with boys.”</p> + +<p>We earnestly assured her that this was not the case, and that it was +much better fun to walk with her than with Miss Perry, who used to +dawdle so that we were often thoroughly chilled.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon we took her to the Esplanade, when Matilda, from her +knowledge of the people, took the lead in the conversation. I was proud +to walk on the other side of our new friend, with my best doll in my +arms. Aunt Theresa came with us, but she soon sat down to chat to a +friend, and we three strolled up and down together. I remember a pretty +bit of trimming on Eleanor’s hat being blown by the wind against her +face, on which she quietly seized it, and stuffed it securely into the +band.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear!” said Matilda, in the emphatic tone in which Aunt +Theresa’s lady visitors were wont<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> to exclaim about nothing in +particular—“don’t do that. It looks so pretty; and you’re crushing it +<i>dreadfully</i>.”</p> + +<p>“It got in my eyes,” said Eleanor briefly. “I hate tags.”</p> + +<p>We went home before Aunt Theresa, but as we stood near the door, Eleanor +lingered and looked wistfully up the road, which ran over a slight hill +towards the open country.</p> + +<p>“Would you like to stay out a little longer?” we politely asked.</p> + +<p>“I should rather like to go to the top of the hill,” said Eleanor. +“Don’t you think flat ground tires one? Shall we race up?” she added.</p> + +<p>We willingly agreed. I had a few yards start of Eleanor, and Matilda +rather less, and away we went. But we were little used to running, and +hoops and thin boots were not in our favour. Eleanor beat us, of course. +She seemed in no way struck by the view from the top. Indeed it was not +particularly pretty.</p> + +<p>“It’s very flat about here,” she said. “There are no big hills you can +get to the top of, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>We confessed that there were not, and, there being nothing more to do, +we ran down again, and went indoors.</p> + +<p>Eleanor dressed for the evening in her usual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> peripatetic way, and, +armed with a homely-looking piece of grey knitting, followed us +down-stairs.</p> + +<p>Her superabundant energy did not seem to find vent in conversation. We +were confidential enough now to tell each other of our homes, and she +had sat so long demurely silent, that Matilda ventured upon the +inquiry—</p> + +<p>“Don’t you talk much at your home?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” said Eleanor—“at least, when we’ve anything to say;” and I am +sure no irony was intended in the reply.</p> + +<p>“What are you knitting, my dear?” said Aunt Theresa.</p> + +<p>“A pair of socks for my brother Jack,” was the answer.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you’re dreadfully industrious,” said Mrs. Buller.</p> + +<p>A little later she begged Eleanor to put it away.</p> + +<p>“You’ll tire your eyes, my dear, I’m sure; pray rest a little and chat +to us.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t look at my knitting,” said Eleanor; but she put it away, and +then sat looking rather red in the face, and somewhat encumbered with +her empty hands, which were red too.</p> + +<p>I think Uncle Buller noticed this; for he told us to get the big +scrap-book and show it to Miss Arkwright.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>Eleanor got cool again over the book; but she said little till, pausing +before a small, black-looking print in a sheet full of rather coarse +coloured caricatures, cuttings from illustrated papers and old-fashioned +books, second-rate lithographs, and third-rate original sketches, fitted +into a close patchwork, she gave a sort of half-repressed cry.</p> + +<p>“My dear! What is it?” cried Matilda effusively.</p> + +<p>“I think,” said Eleanor, looking for information to Aunt Theresa, “I +think it’s a real Rembrandt, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“A real what, my dear?” said Mrs. Buller.</p> + +<p>“One of Rembrandt’s etchings,” said Eleanor; “and of course I don’t +know, but I think it must be an original; it’s so beautifully done, and +my mother has a copy of this one. We know ours is a copy, and I think +this must be an original, because all the things are turned the other +way; and it’s very old, and it’s beautifully done,” Eleanor repeated, +with her face over the little black print.</p> + +<p>Major Buller came across the room, and sat down by her.</p> + +<p>“You are fond of drawing?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Very,” said Eleanor, and she threw a good deal of eloquence into the +one word.</p> + +<p>The Major and she forthwith plunged into a discussion of drawing, +etching, line-engraving, &c.,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> &c. It appeared that Mrs. Arkwright +etched on copper, and had a good collection of old etchings, with which +Eleanor was familiar. It also transpired that she was a naturalist, +which led by easy stages to a promise from the Major to show Eleanor his +insects.</p> + +<p>They talked till bedtime, and when Aunt Theresa bade us good-night, she +said:</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you’ve found your voice, my dear;” and she added, laughing, +“But whenever Papa talks to anybody, it always ends in the collection.”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">POOR MATILDA—THE AWKWARD AGE—MRS. BULLER TAKES COUNSEL WITH HER +FRIENDS—THE “MILLINER AND MANTUAMAKER”—MEDICAL ADVICE—THE MAJOR +DECIDES.</p> + + +<p>It was not because Major Buller’s high opinion of Miss Airlie was in any +way lowered that he decided to send us to school. In fact it was only +under long and heavy pressure, from circumstances as well as from Aunt +Theresa, that he gave his consent to a plan which never quite met with +his approval.</p> + +<p>Several things at this time seemed to conspire to effect it. The St. +Quentins were going on long leave,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> and Miss Airlie would go with them. +This was a heavy blow. Then we heard of this school after Miss Airlie +had left Riflebury, a fact so opportune as to be (so Aunt Theresa said) +“quite providential.” If we were to go to school, sending us to this one +would save the trouble of making personal inquiries, and perhaps a less +wise selection, for Major Buller had confidence in Mr. Arkwright’s good +judgment. The ladies to whose care his daughter was confided were +probably fit to teach us.</p> + +<p>“It would save a great deal of trouble,” my guardian confessed, and it +must also be confessed that Major Buller was glad to avoid trouble when +he could conscientiously do so.</p> + +<p>I think it was his warm approval of Eleanor which finally clinched the +question. He thought that she would be a good companion for poor +Matilda.</p> + +<p>Why I speak of her as “poor Matilda” demands some explanation.</p> + +<p>Before I attempt to give it I must say that there is one respect in +which our biographies must always be less satisfactory than a story that +one might invent. When you are putting down true things about yourself +and your friends, you cannot divide people neatly into the good and the +bad, the injurers and the injured, as you can if you are writing a tale +out of your head. The story seems more complete when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> you are able +either to lay the blame of the melancholy events on the shoulders of +some unworthy character, or to show that they were the natural +punishment of the sufferer’s own misconduct. But in thinking of Matilda +and Aunt Theresa and Major Buller, or even of the Doctor and Mrs. +Buller’s lady friends, this is not possible.</p> + +<p>The morbid condition—of body and mind—into which Matilda fell for some +time was no light misfortune either as regards her sufferings or the +discomfort it produced in the household, and I am afraid she was both +mismanaged and in fault herself.</p> + +<p>It is safe, at any rate, to take the blame for one’s own share, and I +have often thought, with bitterness of spirit, that, child as I was, I +might have been both forbearing and helpful to Matilda at a time when +her temper was very much tried by ill-health and untoward circumstances. +We had a good many squabbles about this period. I piqued myself upon +generally being in the right, and I did not think then, as I do now, +that it is possible to be most in the right in a quarrel, and at the +same time not least to blame for it.</p> + +<p>Matilda certainly did by degrees become very irritable, moody, and +perverse, and her perversity developed itself in ways which puzzled poor +Aunt Theresa.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>She became silent and unsociable. She displayed a particular dislike to +the privileges of being in the drawing-room with grown-up “company,” and +of accompanying Aunt Theresa when she paid her afternoon calls. She +looked very ill, and stoutly denied that she was so. She highly resented +solicitude on the subject of her health, fought obstinately over every +bottle of medicine, and was positively rude to the doctors.</p> + +<p>For her unsociability, I think, Miss Perry’s evil influence was partly +to blame. Poor Matilda clung to her belief in our late governess when +she was no more to us than a text upon which Aunt Theresa and her +friends preached to each other against governesses in general, and the +governesses each had suffered from in particular. Our lessons with Major +Buller, and the influence of Miss Airlie’s good breeding and +straightforward kindness, gave a healthier turn to our tastes; but when +Miss Airlie went away and Major Buller proclaimed a three weeks’ holiday +from the Latin grammar, and we were left to ourselves, Matilda felt the +want of the flattery, the patronage, and the small excitements and +mysteries about nothing, to which Miss Perry had accustomed her. I blush +to think that my companionship was less comfort to her than it ought to +have been. As to Aunt Theresa, she was always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> too busy to give full +attention to anything; and this does not invite confidence.</p> + +<p>Another reason, I am sure, for Matilda’s dislike to appearing in company +was a painful sense of her personal appearance; and as she had heard +Aunt Theresa and her friends discuss, approve, and condemn their friends +by the standard of appearances alone, ever since she was old enough to +overhear company conversation, I hardly think she was much to blame on +this point.</p> + +<p>Matilda was emphatically at what is called “an awkward age”; an age more +awkward with some girls than with others. I wish grown-up ladies, who +mean to be kind to their friends’ daughters, would try to remember the +awkwardness of it, and not increase a naturally uncomfortable +self-consciousness by personal remarks which might disturb the composure +of older, prettier, and better-dressed people. It is bad enough to be +quite well aware that the size of one’s hands and feet prematurely +foreshadow the future growth of one’s figure; that these are the more +prominent because the simple dresses of the unintroduced young lady seem +to be perpetually receding from one’s bony-wrists above, and shrinking +towards the calves of one’s legs below, from those thin ankles on which +one is impelled to stand by turns (like a sleeping stork) through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> some +mysterious instinct of relieving the weak and overgrown spine.</p> + +<p>This, I say, is mortifying enough, and if modesty and good breeding +carry us cheerfully through a not unfelt contrast with the assured +manners and flowing draperies of Mamma’s lady friends in the +drawing-room, they might spare us the announcement of what it hardly +needs gold eyeglasses to discover—that we really grow every day. +Blushes come heavily enough to hands and cheeks when to the shyness of +youth are added the glows and chills of imperfect circulation: it does +not need the stare of strangers, nor the apologies of Mamma, to stain +our doubtful complexions with a deeper red.</p> + +<p>All girls are not awkward at the awkward age. I speak most +disinterestedly on Matilda’s behalf, for I never went through this phase +myself. It is perhaps because I am small that I can never remember my +hands, or any other part of me, feeling in my way; and my clothes—of +whatever length, breadth, or fashion—always had a happy knack of +becoming one with me in such wise that I could comfortably forget them.</p> + +<p>The St. Quentin girls were nearer to Matilda’s age than I, but they too +were very happy and looked very nice in the hobble-de-hoy stage of +girlhood. I am sure that they much preferred the company of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> their young +brothers to the company of the drawing-room; but they did what they were +told to do, and seemed happy in doing it. They had, however, several +advantages over Matilda. By judicious care (for they were not naturally +robust) they were kept in good health. They kept a great many pets, and +they always seemed to have plenty to do, which perhaps kept them from +worrying about themselves. Adelaide, for instance, did all the flowers +for the drawing-room and dinner-table. Mrs. St. Quentin said she could +not do them so well herself. They had a very small garden to pick from, +but Adelaide used lots of wild-flowers and grass and ferns. She often +let me help her to fill the china jars, and she was the only person who +ever seemed to like hearing about Grandpapa’s paintings. They all did +something in the house. But I believe that their greatest advantage over +poor Matilda was that they had not been accustomed to hear dress and +appearance talked about as matters of the first importance, so that +whatever defects they felt conscious of in either did not weigh too +heavily on their minds.</p> + +<p>On poor Matilda’s they weighed heavily indeed. And she was not only +troubled by that consciousness of being plain, by which I think quite as +many girls are affected as by the vanity of being pretty (and which has +received far less attention from moralists);<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> she was also tormented by +certain purely nervous fancies of her face being swollen, her eyes +squinting, and her throat choking, when people looked at her, which were +due to ill-health.</p> + +<p>Unhappily, the ill-health which was a good excuse for Matilda’s +unwillingness to “play pretty” in the drawing-room was the subject on +which she was more perverse than any other. It was a great pity that she +was not frank and confiding with her mother. The detestable trick of +small concealments which Miss Perry had taught us was partly answerable +for this; but the fault was not entirely Matilda’s.</p> + +<p>Aunt Theresa had not time to attend to her. What attention she did give, +however, made her so anxious on the subject that she took counsel with +every lady of her acquaintance, and the more she talked about poor +Matilda’s condition the less leisure she had to think about it.</p> + +<p>“It may be more mind than body, I’m afraid,” said Aunt Theresa one +afternoon, on our return from some visiting in which Matilda had refused +to share. “Mrs. Minchin says she knew a girl who went out of her senses +when she was only two years older than Matilda, and it began with her +refusing to go anywhere or see any one.”</p> + +<p>Major Buller turned round on his chair with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> anxious face, and a +beetle transfixed by a needle in his hand.</p> + +<p>“It was a very shocking thing,” continued Aunt Theresa, taking off her +bonnet; “for she had a great-uncle in Hanwell, and her grandfather cut +his throat. I suppose it was in the family.”</p> + +<p>Major Buller turned back again, and pinned the beetle by its proper +label.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it was,” said he dryly; “but as there is no insanity in my +family or in yours that I’m aware of, Mrs. Minchin’s case is not much to +the point.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. O’Connor won’t believe she’s ill,” sighed Aunt Theresa; “<i>she</i> +thinks it’s all temper. She says her own temper was unbearable till she +had it knocked out of her at school.”</p> + +<p>“Matilda’s temper was good enough till lately,” growled the Major.</p> + +<p>“She says Dr. O’Connor’s brother, who is the medical officer of a +lunatic asylum somewhere in Tipperary,” continued Aunt Theresa, +“declares all mad women go out of their minds through ill-temper. He’s +written a book about it.”</p> + +<p>“Heaven defend me, mind and body, from the theories of that astute +practitioner!” said Uncle Buller piously.</p> + +<p>“It’s all very well making fun of it, but everybody tells one that girls +are more trouble than any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> number of boys. I’m sure I don’t remember +giving my mother any particular trouble when I was Matilda’s age, but +the stories I’ve heard to-day are enough to make one’s hair stand on +end. Mrs. Minchin knew another girl, who lost all her appetite just like +Matilda, and she had a very sulky temper too, and at last they found out +she used to eat black-beetles. She was a Creole, or something of that +sort, I believe, but they couldn’t stop her. The Minchins knew her when +they were in the West Indies, when he was in the 209th; or, at least, it +was there they heard about her. The houses swarmed with black-beetles.”</p> + +<p>“A most useful young lady,” said Uncle Buller. “Does Matilda dine on our +native beetles, my dear? She hasn’t touched my humble collection.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, if you make fun of <span class="nowrap">everything——”</span> Aunt Theresa began; but at this +moment Mrs. St. John was announced.</p> + +<p>After the customary civilities, Aunt Theresa soon began to talk of poor +Matilda, and Mrs. St. John entered warmly into the subject.</p> + +<p>To do the ladies of the regiment justice, they sympathized freely with +each other’s domestic troubles; and indeed it was not for lack of taking +counsel that any of them had any domestic troubles at all.</p> + +<p>“Girls are a good deal more difficult to manage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> than boys, I’m afraid,” +sighed Aunt Theresa, repeating Mrs. O’Connor’s <i>dictum</i>.</p> + +<p>“Women are <i>dreadful</i> creatures at any age,” said Mrs. St. John to the +Major, opening her brown eyes in the way she always does when she is +talking to a gentleman. “I always <i>longed</i> to have been a man.”</p> + +<p>[Eleanor says she hates to hear girls say they wish they were boys. If +they do wish it, I do not myself see why they should not say so. But one +thing has always struck me as very odd. If you meet a woman who is +incomparably silly, who does not know an art or a trade by which she +could keep herself from starvation, who could not manage the +account-books of a village shop, who is unpunctual, unreasoning, and in +every respect uneducated—a woman, in short, who has, one would think, +daily reason to be thankful that her necessities are supplied by other +people, she is pretty sure to be always regretting that she is not a +man.</p> + +<p>Another, trick that some silly ladies have <i>riles</i> me (as we say in +Yorkshire) far more than this odd ambition for responsibilities one is +quite incompetent to assume. Mrs. St. John had it, and as it was +generally displayed for the benefit of gentlemen, who seem as a rule to +be very susceptible to flattery, I suppose it is more a kind of +drawing-room “pretty talk” than the expression of deliberate opinions. +It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> consists of contrasting girls with boys and women with men, to the +disparagement of the former, especially in matters over which +circumstances and natural disposition are commonly supposed to give them +some advantage.</p> + +<p>I remember hearing a fat, good-natured girl at one of Aunt Theresa’s +garden-parties say, with all the impressiveness of full conviction, +“Girls are far more cruel than boys, really. You know, women are <i>much</i> +more cruel than men—oh, I’m <i>sure</i> they are!” and the idea filled me +not less with amazement than with horror. This very young lady had been +most good-natured to us. She had the reputation of being an unselfish +and much-beloved elder sister. I do not think she would have hurt a fly. +Why she said this I cannot imagine, unless it was to please the young +gentleman she was talking to. I think he did look rather gratified. For +my own part, the idea worried my little head for a long time—children +give much more heed to general propositions of this kind than is +commonly supposed.]</p> + +<p>There was one disadvantage in the very fulness of the sympathy the +ladies gave each other over their little affairs. The main point was apt +to be neglected for branches of the subject. If Mrs. Minchin consulted +Mrs. Buller about a cook, that particular cook might be discussed for +five minutes, but the rest of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> two hours’ visit would probably be +devoted to recollections of Aunt Theresa’s cooks past and present, Mrs. +Minchin’s “coloured cooks” in Jamaica, and the cooks engaged by the +mothers and grandmothers of both ladies.</p> + +<p>Thus when Aunt Theresa took counsel with her friends about poor Matilda, +they hardly kept to Matilda’s case long enough even to master the facts, +and on this particular occasion Mrs. St. John plunged at once into a +series of illustrative anecdotes of the most terrible kind, for she +always talked, as she dressed, in extremes. The moral of every story was +that Matilda should be sent to school.</p> + +<p>“And I’ll send you over last year’s numbers of the <i>Milliner and +Mantua-maker</i>, dear Mrs. Buller. There are always lots of interesting +letters about people’s husbands and children, and education, and that +sort of thing, in the column next to the pastry and cooling drinks +receipts. There was a wonderfully clever letter from a ‘M.R.C.S.’ about +the difficulty of managing young girls, and recommending a strict school +where he had sent his daughter. And next month there were long letters +from five ‘British Mothers’ and ‘A Countess’ who had not been able to +manage their daughters, and had sent them to this school, and were in +every way satisfied. Mr. St. John declared that all the letters were +written by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> one person to advertise the school, but he always does say +those sort of things about anything I’m interested in.”</p> + +<p>“You’re very kind,” said Mrs. Buller.</p> + +<p>“There was a most extraordinary correspondence, too, after that +shoemaker’s daughter in Lambeth was tried for poisoning her little +brother,” continued Mrs. St. John. “The <i>Saturday Review</i> had an article +on it, I believe, only Mr. St. John can’t bring papers home from the +mess, so I didn’t see it. The letters were all about all the dreadful +things done by girls in their teens. There were letters from twelve +‘Materfamiliases,’ I know, because the editor had to put numbers to +them, and four ‘Paterfamiliases,’ and ‘An Anxious Widower,’ and ‘A +Minister,’ and three ‘M.D.’s.’ But the most awful letter was from ‘A +Student of Human Nature,’ and it ended up that every girl of fifteen was +a murderess at heart. If I can only lay my hand on that number—— but +I’ve lent it to so many people, and there was a capital paper pattern in +it too, of the <i>jupon à l’Impératrice</i>, ready pricked.”</p> + +<p>At this point Uncle Buller literally exploded from the room. Aunt +Theresa said something about draughts, but I think even Mrs. St. John +must have been aware that it was the Major who banged the door.</p> + +<p>I was sitting on the footstool by the fire-place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> making a night-dress +for my doll. My work had been suspended by horror at Mrs. St. John’s +revelations, and Major Buller’s exit gave an additional shock in which I +lost my favourite needle, a dear little stumpy one, with a very fine +point and a very big eye, easy to thread, and delightful to use.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. St. John went away Major Buller came back.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry I banged the door, my dear,” said he kindly, “but whatever +the tempers of girls may be made of at fifteen, mine is by no means +perfect, I regret to say, at fifty; and I <i>cannot</i> stand that woman. My +dear Theresa, let me implore you to put all this trash out of your head +and get proper medical advice for the child at once. And—I don’t like +to seem unreasonable, my dear, but—if you must read those delectable +articles to which Mrs. St. John refers, I wish you’d read them at her +house, and not bring them into ours. I’d rather the coarsest novel that +ever was written were picked up by the children, if the broad lines of +good and evil were clearly marked in it, than this morbid muddle of +disease and crime, and unprincipled parents and practitioners.”</p> + +<p>Uncle Buller seldom interfered so warmly; indeed, he seldom interfered +at all. I think Aunt Theresa would have been glad if he would have +advised her oftener.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span><a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a>“Indeed, Edward,” said she, “I’ll do anything you think right. And I’m +sure I wouldn’t read anything improper myself, much less let the +children. And as to the <i>Milliner and Mantuamaker</i> you need not be +afraid of that coming into the house unless I send for it. Mrs. St. John +is always promising to lend me the fashion-book, but she never remembers +it.”</p> + +<p>“And you’ll have proper advice for Matilda at once?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, my dear.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Buller was in the habit of asking the regimental Surgeon’s advice +in small matters, and of employing a civilian doctor (whose fees made +him feel better worth having) in serious illness. She estimated the +seriousness of a case by danger rather than delicacy. So the Surgeon +came to see Matilda, and having heard her cough, promised to send a +“little something,” and she was ordered to keep indoors and out of +draughts, and take a tablespoonful three times a day.</p> + +<p>Matilda had not gone graciously through the ordeal of facing the +principal Surgeon in his uniform, and putting out her tongue for his +inspection; and his prescriptions did not tend to reconcile her to being +“doctored.” Fresh air was the only thing that hitherto had seemed to +have any effect on her aches and pains, or to soothe her hysterical +irritability, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> of this she was now deprived. When Aunt Theresa +called in an elderly civilian practitioner, she was so sulky and +uncommunicative, and so resolutely refused to acknowledge to any +ailments, that (his other prescriptions having failed to cure her +lassitude, and his pompous manner and professional visits rather +provoking her feverish perversity) the old doctor also recommended that +she should be sent to school.</p> + +<p>Medical advice is very authoritative, and yet Uncle Buller hesitated.</p> + +<p>“It’s like packing a troublesome son off to the Colonies, my dear,” said +he. “And though Dr. Brown may be justified in transferring his +responsibilities elsewhere, I don’t think that parents should get rid of +theirs in this easy fashion.”</p> + +<p>But when Eleanor came, the Major’s views underwent a change. If I went +with Matilda, and we had Eleanor Arkwright for a friend, he allowed that +he would consent.</p> + +<p>“That is if the girl is willing to go. I will send no child of mine out +of my house against her will.”</p> + +<p>Major Buller asked her himself. Asked with so much kindness, and +expressed such cheery hopes that change of air, regular occupation, and +the society of other young people would make her feel “stronger and +happier” than she had seemed to be of late, that to say that Matilda +would have gone anywhere and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> done anything her father wished is to give +a feeble idea of the gush of gratitude which his sensible and +sympathetic words awoke in her. Unfortunately she could not keep herself +from crying just when she most wanted to speak, and Uncle Buller, having +a horror of “scenes,” cut short the one interview in which Matilda felt +disposed to confide in her parents.</p> + +<p>But she confided to me, when she came to bed that night (<i>I</i> didn’t mind +her crying between the sentences), that she was very, very sorry to have +been “so cross and stupid,” and that if we were not going to school she +meant to try and be very different. I begged her to let me ask Uncle +Buller to keep us at home a little longer, but Matilda would not hear of +it.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” she sobbed, “not now. I should like to do something he and +Mamma want, and they want us to go to school.”</p> + +<p>For my own part I was quite willing to go, especially after I had seen +Eleanor Arkwright. So we were sent—to Bush House.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">AT SCHOOL—THE LILAC-BUSH—BRIDGET’S POSIES—SUMMER—HEALTH.</p> + + +<p>We knew when it was summer at Bush House, because there was a lilac-tree +by the gate, which had one large bunch of flowers on it in the summer +when Eleanor and I and Matilda were at school there. As we left the +house in double file to take our daily exercise on the high-road, the +girls would bob their heads to catch a whiff of the scent as they +passed, or to let the cool fragrant flowers brush their foreheads. On +this point Madame, our French governess, remonstrated in vain. We took +turns for the side next to the lilac, and sniffed away as long as there +was anything to smell. Even when the delicate colour began to turn +brown, and the fragrance vanished, we were loth to believe that the +blossoms were fading.</p> + +<p>“I think I have got a cold in my head,” said Matilda, who had plunged +her nose into the cluster one day in vain.</p> + +<p>“You have a cough, ma foi! Mademoiselle Buller,” replied Madame, who +seemed to labour under the idea that Matilda rather enjoyed this +privilege. But I had tried the lilac-bush myself with no better +success.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>“I think,” I whispered to Eleanor, in English, “that we have smelt it +all up.”</p> + +<p>“Parlez-vous français, mesdemoiselles!” cried Madame, and we filed out +into the dusty street, at the corner of which sat another of our visible +tokens of the coming of the season of flowers; a dirty, shrivelled old +Irishwoman, full of benedictions and beggary, who, all through the +summer, sold “posies” to the passers-by. We school-girls were good +customers to her. We were all more or less sentimental, more or less +homesick, and had more or less of that susceptibility to the influence +of scents which may, some day, be the basis of a new school of medicine. +One girl had cultivated pinks and <i>Roses de Meaux</i> in her own garden “at +home,” and Bridget was soon wise enough to discover that a nosegay +composed of these materials was an irresistible temptation to that +particular customer. Another had a craving for the sight and smell of +southernwood (or “old man,” as Eleanor called it), and preferred it in +combination with bachelor’s buttons.</p> + +<p>“There was an old woman ‘at home’ whom we used to go to tea with when we +were children—my brother and I,” she said; “there were such big bunches +of southernwood by her cottage. And bachelor’s buttons all round the +garden.”</p> + +<p>The brother was dead, I knew, and there were two flattened “buttons” and +a bit of withered “old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> man” gummed into her Bible. “Picked the last day +we were out together. Before he was taken ill with scarlet fever,” she +told me. She had the boy’s portrait in a standing frame, and, little +space as we had in our bedrooms, the other girls piled their brushes and +ribbon-boxes on one side of the looking-glass as best they could, and +left the rest of the dressing-table sacred to his picture, and to the +Bible, and the jar of Bridget’s flowers, which stood before the likeness +as if it had been that of a patron saint.</p> + +<p>For my own part I was very ignorant of the names and properties of +English flowers. I knew some by sight, from Adelaide St. Quentin’s +bouquets, and from my great-grandfather’s sketches; and I knew the names +of others of which Adolphe had given me plants, and of which I was glad +to see the flower. As I had plenty of pocket-money I was a liberal +customer, and I made old Bridget tell me the names of the flowers in her +bunches. I have since found out that whenever she was at fault she +composed a name upon the spot, with the ready wit and desire to please +characteristic of her nation. These names were chiefly connected with +the Blessed Virgin and the saints.</p> + +<p>“The Lord blesh ye, my dear,” she would say; “that’s ‘Mary’s flower’;” +or, “Sure it’s the ‘Blessed Virgin’s spinning-wheel,’ and a pretty name +too!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>A bitter-smelling herb which she commended to me as “Saints’ Savory,” I +afterwards learned to be tansy.</p> + +<p>The youngest of us, a small, silent little orphan, had bought no posy +till one day she quietly observed, “If you could get me a peony, I would +buy it.”</p> + +<p>The peony was procured; so large, so round, and so red, that some one +unfeelingly suggested that it should be cut up for pickled cabbage. The +little miss walked home with it in her hand, looking at it as +sentimentally as if it had been a forget-me-not. As we had been +hard-hearted enough to laugh at it, we never learned the history which +made it dear.</p> + +<p>Madame would certainly never have allowed us to break our ranks, and +chaffer with Bridget, but that some one had been lucky enough to think +of giving her bouquets.</p> + +<p>Madame liked flowers—as ornaments—and was sentimental herself, after a +fashion, a sentimentality of appearances. She liked a bright spot of +colour on her sombre dresses too, and she was economical; for every day +that she had a bright bouquet a day’s wear and tear was saved to her +neck-ribbons. She pinned the bright flowers by her very clean collar, +and not very clean throat, and permitted us to supply ourselves also +from Bridget’s basket.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>A less pleasant sign of summer than the lilac-blossom or Bridget’s +flower-basket was the heat. It was hot in the dusty, draughty streets of +the little town. The empty bedrooms at Bush House were like ovens, and +the well-filled school-room was much worse. Madame would never hear any +complaints of the heat from me or from Matilda. Summer at Bush House, in +the nature of things, could be nothing to summer in India, to which we +were accustomed. It was useless to point out that in India the rooms in +which we lived were large, well shaded, and ventilated by constant +currents of fresh air. Also that there, our heaviest meal, our longest +walk, and our hardest work were not all crowded into the hottest hours +of the day.</p> + +<p>“England is at no time so warm as India,” said Madame.</p> + +<p>“I suppose we are not as hot as the cook,” suggested little “Peony” as +we now called her, one very hot day, when we sat languidly struggling +through our work in the stifling atmosphere of the school-room. “I +thought of her to-day when I looked at that great fat leg of roast +mutton. We’re better off than she is.”</p> + +<p>“And she’s better off than if she were in the Black Hole of Calcutta; +but that doesn’t make either her or us cool,” said Emma Lascelles, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +elder girl. “Don’t preach, Peony; lessons are bad enough in this heat.”</p> + +<p>“I shan’t eat any dinner to-morrow, I think,” said Eleanor; “I cannot +keep awake after it this weather, so it’s no use.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I were back at Miss Martin’s for the summer,” said another girl.</p> + +<p>We knew to what this referred, and Madame being by a rare chance absent, +we pressed for an account, in English, of Miss Martin’s arrangements in +the hot weather. “Miss Martin’s” was a school at which this girl had +been before she came to Bush House.</p> + +<p>“I can’t think why on earth you left her,” said Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“Well, this is nearer home for one thing, and the masters are better +here, certainly. But she did take such care of us. It wasn’t everlasting +backaches, and headaches, and coughs, and pains in your side all along. +And when the weather got hot (and it was a very warm summer when I was +there), and she found we got sleepy at work after dinner, and had +headaches in the afternoon, she said she thought we had better have a +scrap meal in the middle of the day, and dine in the cool of the +evening; and so we used to have cold rice-pudding or thick +bread-and-butter, such as we should have had for tea, or anything there +was, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> tumblers of water, at one, and at half-past five we used to +wash and dress; and then at six, just when we were getting done up with +the heat and work, and yet cool enough to eat, we had dinner. I can tell +you a good fat roast leg of mutton looked all right then! It cured all +our headaches, and we worked twice as well, both at midday work and at +getting lessons ready for next day after dinner. I <span class="nowrap">know——”</span></p> + +<p>“Tais-toi, Lucy!” hissed Peony through her teeth. “Madame!”</p> + +<p>“Donnez-moi cette grammaire, Marguerite, s’il vous plait,” said Lucy, as +Madame entered.</p> + +<p>And I gave her the grammar, and we set to work again, full of envy for +the domestic arrangements of Miss Martin’s establishment during the dog +days.</p> + +<p>If there is a point on which Eleanor and I are quite agreed, among the +many points we discuss and do not always agree upon, it is that of the +need for a higher education for women. But ill as I think our sex +provided for in this respect, and highly as I value good teaching, I +would rather send a growing girl to a Miss Martin, even for fewer +“educational advantages,” and let her start in life with a sound, +healthy constitution and a reasonable set of nerves, than have her head +crammed and her health neglected under “the first masters,” and so good +an overseer as “Madame<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>” to boot. For Madame certainly made us work, and +was herself indefatigable.</p> + +<p>The reckless imprudence of most girls in matters of health is +proverbial, the wisdom of young matrons in this respect is not beyond +reproach, and the lore which long and painful experience has given to +older women is apt, like other lessons from that stern teacher, to come +too late. It should at least avail to benefit their daughters, were it +not that custom prescribes that they also should be kept in the dark +till instructed in turn by the lamentable results of their ignorance, +too often only when these are past repair.</p> + +<p>Whether, though there are many things that women have no knowledge of, +and many more of which their knowledge is superficial, their lack of +learning on these points being erudition compared with their crass +ignorance of the laws of health, the matter is again one of education; +or whether it is an unfortunate development of a confusion between +ignorance and innocence, and of mistaken notions of delicacy, who shall +say? Unhappily, a studied ignorance of the ills that flesh is heir to is +apt to bring them in double force about one’s ears, and this kind of +delicate-mindedness to bring delicacy of body in its train. Where it +guides the counsels of those in charge of numbers of young people (as in +Miss Mul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>berry’s case), it is apt to result in the delicacy (more or +less permanent) of several bodies.</p> + +<p>But I am forgetting that I am not “preaching” to Eleanor by the kitchen +fire, but writing my autobiography. I am forgetting, also, that I have +not yet said who Miss Mulberry was.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">MISS MULBERRY—DISCIPLINE AND +RECREATION—MADAME—CONVERSATION—ELEANOR’S OPINION OF THE +DRAWING-MASTER—MISS ELLEN’S—ELEANOR’S APOLOGY.</p> + + +<p>Miss Mulberry was our school-mistress, and the head of the Bush House +establishment. “Madame” was only a French mistress employed by Miss +Mulberry, though she had more to do with the pupils than Miss Mulberry +herself.</p> + +<p>Miss Mulberry was stout, and I think by nature disposed to indolence, +especially in warm weather. It was all the more creditable to her that +she had worked hard for many years to support a paralytic mother and a +delicate sister. The mother was dead now. Miss Ellen Mulberry, though an +invalid, gave some help in teaching the younger ones; and Bush<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> House +had for so long been a highly-reputed establishment that Miss Mulberry +was more or less prosperous, and could afford to keep a French governess +to do the hard work.</p> + +<p>Miss Mulberry was very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of +propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a +favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and +between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as +“motherly,” though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her +dealing with girls she was essentially a spinster.</p> + +<p>Her good conscience and her timidity both helped to make her feel +school-keeping a heavy responsibility, which should perhaps excuse the +fact that we suffered at Bush House from an excess of the meddlesome +discipline which seems to be <i>de rigueur</i> in girls’ schools. I think +Miss Mulberry would have felt that she had neglected her duty if we had +ever been left to our own devices for an hour.</p> + +<p>To growing girls, not too robust, leading sedentary lives, working very +hard with our heads, and having (wholesome and sufficient meals, but) +not as much animal food as most of us were accustomed to at home, the +<i>nag</i> of never being free from supervision was both irritating and +depressing. Much worse off were we than boys at school. No +playing-fields had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> we; no leave could be obtained for country rambles +by ourselves. Our dismal exercise was a promenade in double file under +the eye and ear of Madame herself.</p> + +<p>True, we were allowed fifteen minutes’ “recreation” together, and by +ourselves, in the school-room, just after dinner; but this inestimable +privilege was always marred by the fact that Madame invariably came for +us before the quarter of an hour had expired. No other part of school +discipline annoyed us as this did. It had that element of injustice +against which children always rebel. Why she did so remains to this day +a puzzle to me. She worked very hard for her living—a fact which did +not occur to us in those days to modify our view of her as our natural +tormentor. In breaking faith with us daily by curtailing our allotted +fifteen minutes of recreation, she deprived herself of rest to the exact +amount by which she defrauded us.</p> + +<p>She cannot have pined to begin to teach as soon as she had swallowed her +food! I may do her an injustice, but the only reason I can think of as a +likely one is that, by taking us unawares, she (I won’t say hoped, but) +expected to find us “in mischief.”</p> + +<p>It was a weak point of the arrangements of Bush House that Miss Mulberry +left us so much to the care of Madame. Madame was twice as energetic as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +Miss Mulberry. Madame never spared herself if she never spared us. +Madame was indefatigable, and in her own way as conscientious as Miss +Mulberry herself. But Madame was not just, and she was not truthful. She +had—either no sense at all, or—a quite different sense from ours of +honour and uprightness. Perhaps the latter, for she seemed to break +promises, tell lies, open letters, pry into drawers and boxes, and +listen at keyholes from the highest sense of duty. And, which was even +worse for us, she had no belief whatever in the trustworthiness of her +pupils.</p> + +<p>Miss Mulberry felt it to be her duty towards our parents and guardians +to keep us under constant supervision; but Madame watched and worried +us, I am convinced, in the persuasion that we were certain to get into +mischief if we had the chance, and equally certain to do so deceitfully. +She gave us full credit (I never could trace that she saw any discredit +in deceit) for slyness in evading her authority, but flattered herself +that her own superior slyness would maintain it in spite of us.</p> + +<p>It vexed us all, but there were times when it irritated Eleanor almost +to frenzy. She would have been in disgrace oftener and more seriously on +the subject, but that Madame was a little afraid of her, and was, I +think, not a little fond of her.</p> + +<p>Madame was a clever woman, and a good teacher.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> She was sharp-witted, +ready of tongue, and indefatigably industrious herself; and slow, +stupid, or lazy girls found no mercy at her hands.</p> + +<p>Eleanor’s unusual abilities, the extent of her knowledge and reading on +general subjects, the rapidity with which she picked up conversational +French and wielded it in discussions with Madame, and finally her +industry and perseverance, won Madame’s admiration and good-will. I +think she almost believed that Mademoiselle Arkwright’s word was to be +relied upon.</p> + +<p>Eleanor never toadied her, which I fear we others (we were so utterly at +her mercy!) did sometimes; assuming an interest we did not feel in her +dissertations on the greatness of France and the character of her +especial idol, the first Napoleon.</p> + +<p>If Madame respected Eleanor, we school-girls almost revered her. “She +talks so splendidly,” Lucy said one day.</p> + +<p>Not that the rest of us were by any means dumb. The fact that English +was forbidden did not silence us, and on Sunday when (to Madame’s +undisguised chagrin) Miss Mulberry allowed us to speak English, we +chattered like sparrows during an anthem. But Eleanor introduced a kind +of talk which was new to most of us.</p> + +<p>We could all chatter of people and places, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> what was said on this +occasion or what happened on another. We had one good mimic (Emma), and +two or three of us were smart in description. We were observant of +details and appearances, and we could one and all “natter” over our +small grievances without wearying of the subject, and without ever +speculating on their causes, or devising remedies for them.</p> + +<p>But, with Eleanor, facts served more as points to talk from, than as +talk in themselves. Through her influence the Why and How of things +began to steal into our conversation. We had more discussion and less +gossip, and found it better fun.</p> + +<p>“One never tells you anything without your beginning to argue about it,” +said one of the girls to her one day.</p> + +<p>“I’m very sorry,” said poor Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“You’re very clever, you mean,” said Emma. “What a lawyer you’d have +made, Eleanor! While we growl at the Toad’s tyranny, you make a case out +of it.”</p> + +<p>(I regret to have to confess that, owing to a peculiarity of complexion, +Madame was familiarly known to us, behind her back, as the Toad.)</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t know,” said Eleanor, puckering her brows and nursing her +knees, as we all sat or lounged on the school-room floor, during the +after-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>dinner recreation minutes, in various awkward but restful +attitudes; “I can growl as well as anybody, but I never feel satisfied +with bewailing over and over again that black’s black. One wants to find +out why it’s black, and if anything would make it white. Besides, I +think perhaps when one looks into one’s grievances, one sees excuses for +people—there are two sides to every question.”</p> + +<p>“There’ll be one, two, three,” said Emma, looking slowly round and +counting the party with a comical imitation of Eleanor’s thoughtful +air—“there’ll be fifteen sides to every question by the time we’ve all +learnt to talk like you, my dear.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor burst out laughing, and we most of us joined her to such good +purpose, that Madame overheard us, and thought it prudent to break up +our sitting, though we had only had a short twelve minutes’ rest.</p> + +<p>Eleanor not only set the fashion of a more reasonable style of chat in +our brief holiday hours, but she was apt to make lessons the subject of +discussions which were at first resented by the other girls.</p> + +<p>“I can’t think,” she began one day (it was a favourite way with her of +opening a discussion)—“I can’t think what makes Mr. Henley always make +us put the shadows in in cobalt. Some shadows are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> light blue certainly, +I think, especially on these white roads, but I don’t think they are +always; not in Yorkshire, at any rate. However, as far as that goes, he +paints his things all in the same colours, whatever they’re meant for; +the Bay of Naples or the coast of Northumberland. By the bye, I know +that I’ve heard that the shadows on the snow in Canada are really +blue—bright blue.”</p> + +<p>“You’re blue, deep blue,” said Emma. “How you can talk shop out of +lesson hours, Eleanor, I can’t conceive. You began on grammar the other +day, by way of enlivening our ten minutes’ rest.”</p> + +<p>“I’m very sorry,” said Eleanor: “I’m fond of drawing, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do let her talk, Emma!” cried Peony. “I do so like to hear her. Why +are the shadows on the snow blue, Eleanor?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t think,” said Eleanor, “unless it has something to do with +reflection from the sky.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor was not always discreet enough to keep her opinion of Mr. +Henley’s style to herself and us. She was a very clever girl, and, like +other very young people, her cleverness was apt to be aggressive; +scorned compromises, and was not always sufficiently respectful towards +the powers that be.</p> + +<p>Her taste for drawing was known, and Madame taunted her one day with +having a reputation for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> talent in this line, when her water-colour +copies were not so effective as Lucy’s; simply, I believe, with the wish +to stimulate her to excel. I am sure Madame much preferred Eleanor to +Lucy, as a matter of liking.</p> + +<p>“Behold, Mademoiselle!” said she, holding up one of Lucy’s latest +copies, just glorified with a wide aureole of white cardboard +“mounting”; “what do you think of this?”</p> + +<p>“It is very like Mr. Henley’s,” said Eleanor warmly. “Lucy has taken +great pains, I’m sure. It’s quite as good as the copy, I think.”</p> + +<p>“But what do you think of it?” said Madame impatiently; she was too +quick-witted to be easily “put off.” “Is it not beautiful?”</p> + +<p>“It is very smart, very gay,” said Eleanor, who began to lose her +temper. “All Mr. Henley’s sketches are gay. The thatch on the house +reminds me of the ‘ends’ of Berlin wool that are kept, after a big piece +of work, for kettle-holders. The yellow tree and the blue tree are very +pretty: there always is a yellow tree and a blue tree in Mr. Henley’s +sketches. I don’t know what kind of trees they are. I never do. The +trunks are pink, but that doesn’t help one, for the markings on them are +always the same.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor’s French was quite good enough to give this speech its full +weight, as Madame’s kindling eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> testified. She flung the drawing from +her, and was bursting forth into reply, when, by good luck, Miss +Mulberry called for her so impatiently that she was obliged to leave the +room.</p> + +<p>I had been repeating a lesson to Miss Ellen Mulberry, who lay on a couch +near the window, but we had both paused involuntarily to listen to +Eleanor and Madame.</p> + +<p>Miss Ellen was very good. She was also very gentle, and timid to +nervousness. But from her couch she saw a good deal of the daily life of +the school, and often understood matters better than those who were in +the thick of it, I think.</p> + +<p>When Madame had left the room, she called Eleanor to her, and in an +almost trembling voice said:</p> + +<p>“My dear, do you think you are quite right to speak so to Madame about +that drawing?”</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry, Miss Ellen,” said Eleanor; “but it’s what I think, and +she asked me what I thought.”</p> + +<p>“You are very clever, my dear,” said Miss Ellen, “and no one knows +better than yourself that there are more ways than one of expressing +one’s opinion.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed,” Eleanor broke in, “I don’t want to be rude. I’m sorry I did +speak so pertly. But oh, Miss Ellen, I wish you could see the trees my +mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> draws! How can I say I like those things of Mr. Henley’s? Like +green seaweeds on the end of a pink hay-fork! And we’ve lots of old +etchings at home, with such trees in them! Like—well, like nothing but +real trees and photographs.”</p> + +<p>Miss Ellen took Eleanor’s hand and drew her towards her.</p> + +<p>“My dear,” said she, “you have plenty of sense; and have evidently used +it to appreciate what your dear mother has shown and taught to you. Use +it now, my dear, to ask yourself if it is reasonable to expect that men +who could draw like the old masters would teach in ordinary girls’ +schools, or, if they would, that school-mistresses could afford to pay +them properly without a much greater charge to the parents of pupils +than they would be willing to bear. You have had great advantages at +home, and have learnt enough to make you able to say very smart things; +but fault-finding is an easy trade, my dear, and it would be wiser as +well as kinder to see what good you can get from poor Mr. Henley’s +lessons, as to the use of the brush and colours, instead of neglecting +your drawing because you don’t like his style, which, after all, you +needn’t copy when you sketch from nature yourself. I will tell you, dear +child, that my sister and I have talked this matter over before. Clever +young people are apt to think that their stupid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> elders have never +perceived what their brilliant young wits can put straight with +half-a-dozen words. But I used to draw a little myself,” continued Miss +Ellen very modestly, “and I have never liked Mr. Henley’s style. But he +is such a very good old man, and so poor, that my sister has shrunk from +changing. Still, of course our pupils are the first consideration, and +we should have had another master if a much better one could have been +got. But Mr. Markham, who is the only other one within reach, is not so +painstaking and patient with his pupils as Mr. Henley; and though his +style is rather better, it is not so very superior as to lead us, on the +whole, to turn poor Mr. Henley away for him. As to Madame,” said Miss +Ellen, in conclusion, “she was quite right, my dear, to contrast your +negligence with Lucy’s industry, and your smart speech was not in good +taste towards her, because you know that she knows nothing of drawing, +and could not dispute the point with you. There she comes,” added Miss +Ellen rather nervously. She was afraid of Madame.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go and beg her pardon, dear Miss Ellen,” said Eleanor penitently, +and rushing out of the room, she met Madame in the passage, and we heard +her pouring forth a torrent of apology and self-accusation in a style +peculiar to herself. If in her youth and cleverness she was at times a +little sharp-tongued and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> self-opinionated, the vehemence of her +self-reproaches when she saw herself in fault was always a joke with +those who knew her.</p> + +<p>“Eleanor’s confessions are only to be matched by her favourite Jeremy +Taylor’s,” said Jack one day.</p> + +<p>“She’s just as bumptious next time, all the same,” said Clement. He had +been disputing with Eleanor, and the generous grace of meeting an +apology half-way was no part of his character.</p> + +<p>He had an arbitrary disposition, in which Eleanor to some extent shared. +He controlled it to fairness in discussions with men, but with men only. +With Eleanor, who persisted in thinking for herself, and was not slow to +express her thoughts, he had many hot disputes, in which he often seemed +unable to be fair, and did not always trouble himself to be reasonable.</p> + +<p>By his own account he “detested girls with opinions.” Abroad he was +politely contemptuous of feminine ideas; at home he was apt to be rudely +so.</p> + +<p>But this was only one, and a later development of many-sided Clement.</p> + +<p>And the subject is a digression, and has no business here.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">ELEANOR’S THEORIES REDUCED TO PRACTICE—STUDIES—THE ARITHMETIC-MASTER.</p> + + +<p>Madame was not ungenerous to an apology. She believed in Eleanor too, +and was quite disposed to think that Eleanor might be in the right in a +dispute with anybody but herself. Perhaps she hoped to hear her triumph +in a discussion with Mr. Henley, or perhaps it was only as a punishment +for her presumptuous remarks that Madame started the subject on the +following day to the drawing-master himself.</p> + +<p>“Miss Arkwright says your trees are all one, Mr. Henley,” she began. +(Madame’s English was not perfect.) “Except that the half are yellow and +the other half blue. She knows not the kind even.”</p> + +<p>The poor little drawing-master, who was at that moment “touching up” a +yellow tree in one of the younger girls’ copies, trying by skilfully +distributed dabs to make it look less like a faded cabbage-leaf, +blushed, and laid down his brush. Eleanor, who was just beginning to +colour a copy of a mountain scene, turned scarlet, and let her first +wash dry into unmanageable shapes as she darted indignant glances at +Madame, who appeared to enjoy her bit of malice.</p> + +<p>“Miss Arkwright will observe that these are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> sketches indicating the +general effect of a scene; not tree studies.”</p> + +<p>“I know, Mr. Henley,” said poor Eleanor, in much confusion; “at least, I +mean I don’t know anything about water-colour sketching, so I ought not +to have said anything; and I never thought that Madame would repeat it. +I was thinking of pencil-drawings and etchings; and I do like to know +one tree from another,” she added honestly.</p> + +<p>“You draw in pencil yourself?” asked Mr. Henley.</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” said Eleanor; “at least only a little. It was my mother’s +drawings I was thinking of; and how she used to show us the different +ways of doing the foliage of different trees, and the marking on the +bark of the trunks.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Henley drew a sheet of paper from his portfolio, and took a pencil +from his case.</p> + +<p>“Let us see, my dear young lady, what you remember of these lessons. The +pencil is well cut. There are flat sides for shading, and sharp ends for +outlines.”</p> + +<p>Madame’s thin lips pursed with the ghost of a smile, as Eleanor, with +hot cheeks and hands, came across “the room” to put her theories in +practice.</p> + +<p>“I can’t do it, I know,” she said, as she sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> down, and gave herself +one of those nervous twitches common to girls of the hobble-de-hoy age.</p> + +<p>But Eleanor’s nervous’ spasms were always mitigated by getting something +into her fingers. Pencil and paper were her favourite implements; and +after a moment’s pause, and a good deal of frowning, she said: “We’ve a +good many oaks about us;” and forthwith began upon a bit of oak foliage.</p> + +<p>“It’s only a spray,” she said.</p> + +<p>“It’s very good,” said the drawing-master, who was now looking over her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Oak branches are all elbows,” she murmured, warming to her work, and +apparently talking to herself. “So different from willows and beeches.”</p> + +<p>“Ve-ry good,” said Mr. Henley, as Eleanor fitted the branches +dexterously into the clusters of leaves; “now for a little bit of the +oak bark, if you please.”</p> + +<p>“This is only one tree, though,” said Madame, who was also looking on. +“Let us see others, mademoiselle.”</p> + +<p>“Willows are nice to do,” said Eleanor, intent upon her paper; “and the +bark is prettier than oak, I think, and easier with these long points. +My mother says branches of trees should be done from the tips inwards; +and they do fit in better, I think. Only willow branches seem as if they +ought to be done outwards, they taper so. Beech trunks are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> very pretty, +but the leaves are difficult, I think. Scotch pines are easy.” And +Eleanor left the beech and began upon the pine, fitting in the +horizontal branches under the foliage groups with admirable effect.</p> + +<p>“That will do, Miss Arkwright,” said the little drawing-master. “Your +mother has been a good guide to you; and Mother Nature will complete +what she has begun. Now we will look at the copy, if you please.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor’s countenance fell again. Her pink mountain had run into her +blue mountain, and the interrupted wash had dried with hard and +unmanageable outlines. Sponging was the only remedy.</p> + +<p>Next drawing-lesson day Mr. Henley arrived a few minutes earlier than +was his wont, staggering under a huge basket containing a large clump of +flags and waterside herbage, which he had dug up “bodily,” as he said. +These he arranged on a tray, and then from the bottom of the basket +produced the broken fragments of a red earthenware jug.</p> + +<p>“It was such a favourite of mine, Miss Arkwright,” said he; “but what is +sacred to a maid-of-all-work? My only consolation, when she smashed it +this morning, was the thought that it would serve in the foreground of +your sketch.”</p> + +<p>Saying which, the kind-hearted little man laid the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> red crocks among the +weeds, and after much pulling up and down of blinds to coax a good light +on to the subject, he called Eleanor to set to work.</p> + +<p>“It is <i>very</i> good of you,” said Eleanor emphatically. “When I have been +so rude, too!”</p> + +<p>“It is a pleasure,” said the old man; “and will be doubly so if you do +it well. I should like to try it myself,” he added, making a few hasty +dashes with the pencil. “Ah, my dear young lady, be thankful that you +will sketch for pleasure, and not for bread! It is pleasanter to learn +than to teach.”</p> + +<p>Out of gratitude to Mr. Henley alone, Eleanor would have done her best +at the new “study”; but apart from this the change of subject was +delightful to her. She had an accurate eye, and her outlines had +hitherto contrasted favourably with her colouring in copies of the +sketches she could not like. The old drawing-master was delighted with +her pencil sketch of his “crockery among the reeds,” and Eleanor +confessed to getting help from him in the choice and use of her colours.</p> + +<p>“Studies” became the fashion among the more intelligent pupils at Bush +House; though I have heard that experience justified the old man’s +prophecy that they would not be so popular with the parents as the +former style had been. “They like lakes, and boats, and mountains, and +ruins, and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> brighter style of colouring,” he had said, and, as it +proved, with truth.</p> + +<p>Eleanor was his favourite pupil. Indeed, she was in favour with all the +teachers.</p> + +<p>A certain quaint little German was our arithmetic-master; a very good +one, whose patience was often sorely tried by our stupidity or +frivolity. On such occasions he rained epithets on us, which, from his +imperfect knowledge of English, were often comical, and roused more +amusement than shame. But for Eleanor he never had a harsh word. She was +thoroughly fond of arithmetic, and “gave her mind to it,” to use a good +old phrase.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” the little man would yell at us. “You are so light-headed! +Sometimes you do do a sum, and sometimes not; but you do never <i>think</i>. +There is not one young lady of this establishment who thinks, but Miss +Arkwright alone.”</p> + +<p>I remember an incident connected with the arithmetic-master which +occurred just after we came, and which roused Eleanor’s intense +indignation. It was characteristic, too, of Madame’s ideas of propriety.</p> + +<p>The weather was warm, and we were in the habit of dressing for tea. Our +toilettes were of the simplest kind. Muslin garibaldis, for coolness, +and our “second-best” skirts.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>Eleanor, Matilda, and I shared one room. On the first Wednesday evening +after our arrival at Bush House we were dressing as usual, when Emma ran +in.</p> + +<p>“I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you,” said she; “you mustn’t put on your +muslin bodies to-night. The arithmetic-master is coming after tea.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand,” said Eleanor, who was standing on one leg as +usual, and who paused in a struggle with a refractory elastic sandal to +look up with a puckered brow, and general bewilderment. “What has the +arithmetic to do with our dresses?”</p> + +<p>Emma’s saucy mouth and snub nose twitched with amusement, as she replied +in exact mimicry of Madame’s broken English: “Have you so little of +delicacy as to ask, mademoiselle? Should the young ladies of this +establishment expose their shoulders in the transparency of muslin to a +professor?”</p> + +<p>Matilda and I burst out laughing at Emma’s excellent imitation of +Madame; but Eleanor dropped her foot to the floor with a stamp that +broke the sandal, and burst forth into an indignant torrent of words, +which was only stayed by the necessity for resuming our morning dresses, +and hastening down-stairs. There Eleanor swallowed her wrath with her +weak tea; and I remember puzzling myself, to the neglect of mine, as to +the probable connection between arithmetic-masters and transparent +bodices.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">ELEANOR’S REPUTATION—THE MAD GENTLEMAN—FANCIES AND FOLLIES—MATILDA’S +HEALTH—THE NEW DOCTOR.</p> + + +<p>We were not jealous of Eleanor’s popularity. She was popular with the +girls as well as with the teachers. If she was apt to be opinionated, +she was candid, generous, and modest. She was always willing to help any +one, and (the firmest seal of friendship!) she was utterly sincere.</p> + +<p>She worked harder than any of us, so it was but just that she should be +most commended. But of all who lagged behind her, and who felt Madame’s +severity, and created despair in the mind of the little +arithmetic-master, the most unlucky was poor Matilda.</p> + +<p>Matilda and I were now on the best of terms, and the credit of this +happy condition of matters is more hers than mine.</p> + +<p>It was not so much that I had learned more tact and sympathy (though I +hope these qualities do ripen with years and better knowledge!) as +because Matilda did most faithfully try to fulfil the good resolutions +Major Buller’s kindness had led her to make.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>So far as Matilda’s ailments were mental, I think that school-life may +have been of some benefit.</p> + +<p>Since the torments which have taught me caution in a household haunted +by boys, I am less confidential with my diary than I used to be. And if +I do not confide all my own follies to it, I am certainly not justified +in recording other people’s.</p> + +<p>Not that Matilda makes any secret of the hero-worship she wasted on the +man with the chiselled face and weird eyes, whom we used to see on the +Riflebury Esplanade. She never spoke to him; but neither for that matter +did his dog, a Scotch deerhound with eyes very like his master’s, and a +long nose which (uncomfortable as the position must have been) he kept +always resting in his master’s hand as the two paced up and down, hour +after hour, by the sea.</p> + +<p>What folly Miss Perry talked on the subject it boots not at this date to +record. <i>I</i> never indulged a more fanciful feeling towards him than +wonder, just dashed with a little fear—but I would myself have liked to +know the meaning of that long gaze he and the dog sometimes turned on +us!</p> + +<p>We shall never know now, however, for the poor gentleman died in a +lunatic asylum.</p> + +<p>I hope, when they shut him up, that they found the deerhound guilty also +of some unhydrophobiac madness, and imprisoned the two friends +together!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>Of course we laugh now about Matilda’s fancy for the insane gentleman, +though she declares that at the time she could never keep him out of her +head—that if she had met him thirty-four successive times on the +Esplanade, she would have borne no small amount of torture to earn the +privilege of one more turn to meet him for the thirty-fifth—and that +her rest was broken by waking dreams of the possible misfortunes which +might account for his (and the dog’s) obvious melancholy, and of +impossible circumstances in which she should act as their good angel and +deliverer.</p> + +<p>At the time she kept her own counsel, and it was not because she had +ever heard of the weird-eyed gentleman and his deerhound that Mrs. +Minchin concluded her advice to Aunt Theresa on one occasion by a shower +of nods which nearly shook the poppies out of her bonnet, and the +oracular utterance—“She’s got some nonsense or other into her head, +depend upon it. Send her to school!”</p> + +<p>One thing has often struck me in reading the biographies of great +people. They must have to be written in quite a different way to the +biographies of common people like ourselves.</p> + +<p>For instance, when a practised writer is speaking of the early days of +celebrated poets, he says quite gravely—“Like Byron, Scott, and other +illustrious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> men, Hogg (the Ettrick shepherd) fell in love in his very +early childhood.” And of course it sounds better than if one said, “Like +Smith, and Brown, and Jones, and nine out of every ten children, he did +not wait for years of discretion to make a fool of himself.”</p> + +<p>Not being illustrious, Matilda blushes to remember this early folly; and +not being a poet’s biographer, Aunt Theresa said in a severe voice, for +the general behoof of the school-room, that “Little girls were sometimes +very silly, and got a great deal of nonsense into their heads.” I do not +think it ever dawned upon her mind that girls’ heads not being +jam-pots—which if you do not fill them will remain empty—the best way +to keep folly out was to put something less foolish in.</p> + +<p>She would have taken a great deal of trouble that her daughters might +not be a flounce behind the fashions, and was so far-seeing in her +motherly anxieties, that she junketed herself and Major Buller to many +an entertainment, where they were bored for their pains, that an +extensive acquaintance might ensure to the girls partners, both for +balls and for life when they came to require them. But after what +fashion their fancies should be shaped, or whether they had wholesome +food and tender training for that high faculty of imagination by virtue +of which, after all, we so largely love and hate, choose right or +wrong,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> bear and forbear, adapt ourselves to the ups and downs of this +world, and spur our dull souls to the high hopes of a better—anxiety on +these matters Mrs. Buller had none.</p> + +<p>As to Mrs. Minchin, she would not have known what it meant if it had +been put in print for her to read.</p> + +<p>Matilda’s irritability was certainly repressed in public by school +discipline, and from Eleanor’s companionship our interests were varied +and enlarged. But in spite of these advantages her health rapidly +declined. And this without its seeming to attract Miss Mulberry’s +notice.</p> + +<p>Indeed, she meddled very little in the matter of our health. She kept a +stock of “family pills,” which she distributed from time to time amongst +us. They cured her headaches, she said; and she seemed rather aggrieved +that they did not cure Matilda’s.</p> + +<p>But poor Matilda’s headaches brought more than their own pain to her. +They seemed to stupefy her, and make her quite incapable of work. Her +complexion took a deadly, pasty hue, one eye was almost entirely closed, +and to a superficial observer she perhaps did look—what Madame always +pronounced her—sulky. Then, no matter how fully any lesson was at her +fingers’ ends, she stumbled through a series of childish blunders to +utter downfall; and Madam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>e’s wrath was only equalled by her irony. To +do Matilda justice, she often used almost incredible courage in her +efforts to learn a task in spite of herself. Now and then she was +successful in defying pain; but by some odd revenge of nature, what she +learned in such circumstances was afterwards wiped as completely from +her memory as an old sum is sponged from a slate.</p> + +<p>To headache and backache, to vain cravings for more fresh air, and to an +inequality of spirits and temper to which Eleanor and I patiently +submitted, Matilda still added a cough, which seemed to exasperate +Madame as much as her stupidity.</p> + +<p>Not that our French governess was cruelly disposed. When she took +Matilda’s health in hand and gave her a tumbler of warm water every +morning before breakfast, she did so in all good faith. It was a remedy +that she used herself.</p> + +<p>Poor Matilda was furious both with Madame’s warm-water cure and Miss +Mulberry’s pill-box. She had a morbid hatred of being “doctored,” which +is often characteristic of chest complaints. She struggled harder than +ever to work, in spite of her headaches; she ceased to complain of them, +and concealed her cough to a great extent, by a process known amongst us +as “smothering.” The one remedy she pined for—fresh air—was the last +that either Miss Mulberry or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> Madame considered appropriate to any form +of a “cold.”</p> + +<p>This craving for fresh air helped Matilda in her struggle with illness. +Our daily “promenade” was dull enough, but it was in the open air; and +to be kept indoors, either as a punishment for ill-said lessons, or as a +cure for her cough, was Matilda’s great dread.</p> + +<p>Night after night, when Madame had paid her final visit to our rooms, +and we were safe, did Eleanor creep out of bed and noiselessly lower the +upper sash of our window to please Matilda; whilst I sat (sometimes for +an hour or more) upon the bolster of the bed in which Matilda and I +slept together, and “nursed her head.”</p> + +<p>What quaint, pale, grave little maids we were! As full of aches and +pains, and small anxieties, and self-repression, and tender sympathy, as +any other daughters of Mother Eve.</p> + +<p>Eleanor and I have often since said that we believe we should make +excellent nurses for the insane, looking back upon our treatment of poor +Matilda. We knew exactly when to be authoritative, and when to +sympathize almost abjectly. I became skilful in what we called “nursing +her head,” which meant much more than that I supported it on my knees. +Softly, but firmly, I stroked her brow and temples<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> with both hands, and +passed my fingers through her hair to the back of her head. I rarely +failed to put her to sleep, and as she never woke when I laid her down, +I have since suspected myself of unconscious mesmerism.</p> + +<p>One night, when I had long been asleep, I was awakened by Matilda’s +hysterical sobs. She “couldn’t get into a comfortable position;” her +“back ached so.” Our bed was very narrow, and I commonly lay so poised +upon the outer edge to give Matilda room that more than once I have +rolled on to the floor.</p> + +<p>We spoke in undertones, but Eleanor was awake.</p> + +<p>“Come and see if you can sleep with me, Margery,” she said. “I lie very +straight.”</p> + +<p>I scrambled out, and willingly crept in behind Eleanor, into her still +narrower bed; and after tearful thanks and protestations, poor Matilda +doubled herself at a restful angle, and fell asleep.</p> + +<p>Happily for me, I was very well. Eleanor suffered from the utter change +of mode of life a good deal; but she had great powers of endurance.</p> + +<p>Fatigue, and “muddle on the brain,” often hindered her at night from +learning the lessons for next day. But she worked at them nevertheless; +and tasks, that by her own account she “drove into her head” in bed, +though she was quite unable to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> say them that evening, seemed to arrange +themselves properly in her memory before the morning.</p> + +<p>Matilda’s ill-health came to a crisis at last. To smother a cough +successfully, you must be able to escape at intervals. On one occasion +the smothering was tried too long, and after the aggravated outburst +which ensued, the doctor was called in. The Bush House family +practitioner being absent, a new man came for him, who, after a few +glances at Matilda, postponed the examination of her lungs, and begged +to see Miss Mulberry.</p> + +<p>Matilda had learned her last lesson in Bush House.</p> + +<p>From the long interview with the doctor, Miss Mulberry emerged with a +troubled face.</p> + +<p>Lessons went irregularly that day. Our quarter of an hour’s recreation +was as much extended as it was commonly cut short, and Madame herself +was subdued. She became a very kind nurse to Matilda, and crept many +times from her bed during the night to see if “la pauvre petite” were +sleeping, or had a wish that she could satisfy.</p> + +<p>Indeed, an air of remorse seemed to tinge the kindness of the heads of +Bush House to poor Matilda, which connected itself in Eleanor’s mind +with a brief dialogue that she overheard between Miss Mulberry and the +doctor at the front door:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>“I feel there has been culpable neglect,” said Miss Mulberry mournfully. +“<span class="nowrap">But——”</span></p> + +<p>“No, no. At least, not wilful,” said the doctor; “and springing from the +best motives. But I should not be doing my duty, madam, towards a lady +in your responsible position, if I did not say that I have known too +many cases in which the ill-results have been life-long, and some in +which they have been rapidly fatal.”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">ELEANOR’S HEALTH—HOLY LIVING—THE PRAYER OF THE SON OF SIRACH.</p> + + +<p>Matilda went home, and Eleanor and I remained at Bush House.</p> + +<p>I fancy that when we no longer had to repress ourselves for poor +Matilda’s sake, Eleanor was more sensible of her own aches and pains. +She also became rather irritable, and had more than one squabble with +Madame about this time.</p> + +<p>Eleanor had brought several religious books with her—books of prayers +and other devotional works. They were all new to Matilda and me, and we +began<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> to use them, and to imitate Eleanor in various little devout +customs.</p> + +<p>On Sunday Eleanor used to read Jeremy Taylor’s <i>Holy Living and Dying</i>; +but as we never were allowed to be alone, she was obliged to bring it +down-stairs. Unfortunately, the result of this was that Miss Mulberry, +having taken it away to “look it over,” pronounced it “not at all proper +reading for young ladies,” and it was confiscated. After this Eleanor +reserved her devotional reading for bed-time, when, if she had got +fairly through her lessons for next day, I was wont to read the Bible +and other “good books” to her in a tone modulated so as not to reach +Madame’s watchful ear.</p> + +<p>Once she caught us.</p> + +<p>The books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus from the Apocrypha were favourite +reading with Eleanor, who seemed in the grandly poetical praises of +wisdom to find some encouragement under the difficulties through which +we struggled towards a very moderate degree of learning. I warmly +sympathized with her; partly because much of what I read was beautiful +to read, even when I did not quite understand it; and partly because +Eleanor had inspired me also with some of her own fervour against “the +great war of ignorance.”</p> + +<p>But, as I said, Madame caught us at last.</p> + +<p>Eleanor was lying, yet dressed, upon her bed, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> window was open, and +I, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was giving forth the prayer of the +Son of Sirach, with (as I flattered myself) no little impressiveness. As +the chapter went on my voice indiscreetly rose:</p> + +<p>“When I was yet young, or ever I went astray, I desired wisdom openly in +my prayer.</p> + +<p>“I prayed for her before the temple, and will seek her out even to the +end.</p> + +<p>“Even from the flower till the grape was ripe hath my heart delighted in +her: my foot went the right way, from my youth up I sought after her.</p> + +<p>“I bowed down mine ear a little, and received her, and gat much +learning.</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="letter-spacing: 2em;">* * * * * *</p> + +<p>“Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in the house of learning.</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="letter-spacing: 2em;">* * * * * *</p> + +<p>“Put your neck under the yoke, and let your soul receive instruction: +she is hard at hand to find.</p> + +<p>“Behold with your eyes, how that I have had but little labour, and have +gotten unto me much rest.</p> + +<p>“Get <span class="nowrap">learning——”</span></p> + +<p>“Eh, mesdemoiselles! This is going to bed, is it? Ah! Give me that book, +then.”</p> + +<p>I handed over in much confusion the thin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> S.P.C.K. copy of the +Apocrypha, bound in mottled calf, from which I had been reading; and +ordering us to go to bed at once, Madame took her departure.</p> + +<p>Madame could read English well, though she spoke it imperfectly. The +next day she did not speak of the volume, and we supposed her to be +examining it. Then Eleanor became anxious to get it back, and tried both +argument and entreaty, for some time, in vain. At last Madame said:</p> + +<p>“What is it, mademoiselle, that you so much wish to read in this volume +of the holy writings?”</p> + +<p>“Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are what I like best,” said Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“Eh bien!” said Madame, nodding her head like a porcelain Chinaman, and +with a very knowing glance. “I will restore the volume, mademoiselle.”</p> + +<p>She did restore it accordingly, with the historical narratives cut out, +and many nods and grimaces expressive of her good wishes that we might +be satisfied with it now.</p> + +<p>In private, Eleanor stamped with indignation (whether or no her thick +boots had fostered this habit I can’t say, but Eleanor was apt to stamp +on occasion). We had our dear chapters again, however, and I promised +Eleanor a new and fine copy of the mutilated favourite as a birthday +present.</p> + +<p>Eleanor was very good to me. She helped me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> with my lessons, and +encouraged me to work. For herself, she laboured harder and harder.</p> + +<p>I used to think that she was only anxious to get all the good she could +out of the school, as she did not seem to have many so-called +“advantages” at home, by her own account. But I afterwards found that +she did just the same everywhere, strained her dark eyes over books, and +absorbed information whenever and wherever she had a chance.</p> + +<p>“I can’t say you’re fond of reading,” said Emma one day, watching +Eleanor as she sat buried in a book, “for I’m fond of reading myself, +and we’re not at all alike. I call you greedy!”</p> + +<p>And Eleanor laughed, and quoted a verse from one of our favourite +chapters: “They that eat me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink me +shall yet be thirsty.”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">ELEANOR AND I ARE LATE FOR BREAKFAST—THE SCHOOL BREAKS UP—MADAME AND +BRIDGET.</p> + + +<p>Eleanor and I overslept ourselves one morning. We had been tired, and +when we did get up we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> hurried through our dressing, looking forward to +fines and a scolding to boot.</p> + +<p>But as we crept down-stairs we saw both the Misses Mulberry and Madame +conversing together on the second landing. We felt that we were +“caught,” but to our surprise they took no notice of us; and as we went +down the next flight we heard Miss Mulberry say, with a sigh, +“Misfortunes never come alone.”</p> + +<p>We soon learnt what the new misfortune was. Poor Lucy had been taken +ill. The doctor had been to see her early that morning, and had +pronounced it fever—“Probably scarlet fever; and he recommends the +school being broken up at once, as the holidays would soon be here +anyway.” So one of the girls told us.</p> + +<p>Presently Miss Mulberry made her appearance; and we sat down to +breakfast. She ate hers hurriedly, and then made a little speech, in +which she begged us, as a personal favour, to be good; and if it was +decided that we should go, to do our best to get our things carefully +together, and to help to pack them.</p> + +<p>I am sure we responded to the appeal. I wonder if it struck Madame, at +this time, that it might be well to trust us a little more, as a rule? I +remember Peony’s saying, “Madame told me to help myself to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> tea. I might +have taken two lumps of sugar, but I did not think it would be right.”</p> + +<p>We were all equally scrupulous; we even made a point of speaking in +French, though Madame’s long absences from the school-room, and the +possibility of an early break-up for the holidays, gave both opportunity +and temptation to chat in English.</p> + +<p>On Monday evening at tea, Miss Mulberry made another little speech. The +doctor had pronounced poor Lucy’s illness to be scarlet fever, and we +were all to be sent home the next day. There were to be no more lessons, +and we were to spend the evening in packing and other preparations.</p> + +<p>We were very sorry for poor Lucy, but we were young; and I do not think +we could help enjoying the delights of fuss, the excitement of +responsibility and packing, and the fact that the holidays had begun.</p> + +<p>We were going in various directions, but it so happened that we all +contrived to go by the same train to London. Some were to be dropped +before we reached town; one lived in London; and Eleanor and I had to +wait for half-an-hour before catching a train for the north.</p> + +<p>For I was going to Yorkshire. The Arkwrights had asked me to spend the +holidays with Eleanor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> There was now nothing to be done but for us to +go up together, all unexpected as we were.</p> + +<p>How we packed and talked, and ran in and out of each other’s rooms! It +was late when we all got to bed that night.</p> + +<p>Next morning the railway omnibus came for us, and with a curious sense +of regret we saw our luggage piled up, and the little gate of Bush House +close upon us.</p> + +<p>As we moved off, Bridget, the nosegay-woman, drew near. Madame (who had +shed tears as she bade us adieu) opened the gate again, ran out, cried +shrilly to the driver to stop, and buying up half Bridget’s basketful at +one sweep, with more tears and much excitement, flung the flowers in +amongst us. As she went backwards off the step, on to which she had +climbed, she fell upon Bridget, who, with even more excitement and I +think also with ready tears, clung to the already moving omnibus, and +turned her basket upside down over our laps.</p> + +<p>I have a dim remembrance of seeing her and Madame seem to fall over each +other, or into each other’s arms; and then, amid a shrill torrent of +farewells and blessings in French and Irish, the omnibus rolled on, and +Bush House was hid from our eyes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">NORTHWARDS—THE BLACK COUNTRY—THE STONE COUNTRY.</p> + + +<p>We had a very noisy, happy journey to London. We chattered, and laughed, +and hopped about like a lot of birds turned out of a cage. Emma sat by +the window, and made a running commentary upon everybody and everything +we passed in a strain of what seemed to us irresistible wit and humour. +I fear that our conduct was not very decorous, but in the circumstances +we were to be excused. The reaction was overwhelming.</p> + +<p>Eleanor and I sobered down after we parted from the other girls, and +thus became sensible of some fatigue and faintness. We had been too much +excited to eat any of the bread-and-butter prepared for our early +breakfast at Bush House. We had run up and down and stood on our feet +about three times as much as need was; we had talked and laughed and +shaken ourselves incessantly; we had put out our heads in the wind and +sun as the train flew on; we had tried to waltz between the seats, and +had eaten two ounces of “mixed sweets” given us by the housemaid, and +deluged each other with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> some very heavy-scented perfume belonging to +one of us.</p> + +<p>After all this, Eleanor and I felt tired before our journey had begun. +We felt faint, sick, anything but hungry, and should probably have +travelled north in rather a pitiful plight, had not a motherly-looking +lady, who sat in the waiting-room reading a very dirty book of +tracts—and who had witnessed both our noisy parting from our companions +and the subsequent collapse—advised us to go to the refreshment-room +and get some breakfast. We yielded at last, out of complaisance towards +her, and were rewarded by feeling wonderfully refreshed by a solid meal.</p> + +<p>We laid in a stock of buns and chocolate lozenges for future +consumption, and—thanks to Eleanor’s presence of mind and +experience—we got our luggage together, and started in the north train +in a carriage by ourselves.</p> + +<p>We talked very little now. Eleanor gazed out of her window, and I out of +mine, in silence. As we got farther north, Eleanor’s eyes dilated with a +curious glow of pride and satisfaction. I had then no special attachment +to one part of England more than another, but I had never seen so much +of the country before, and it was a treat which did not lose by +comparison with the limited range of our view at Bush House.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>As we ran on, the bright, pretty, sociable-looking suburbs of London +gave way to real country—beautiful, cared-for, garden-like, with grand +timber, big houses, and grey churches, supported by the obvious +parsonage and school; and deep shady lanes, with some little cart +trotting quaintly towards the railway bridge over which we rushed, or +boys in smock-frocks sitting on a gate, and shouting friendly +salutations (as it seemed) to Eleanor and myself. Then came broad, fair +pastures of fairy green, and slow winding rivers that we overtook almost +before we had seen them, with ghostly grey pollard willows in formal +mystical borders, contrasting with such tints of pale yellow and gay +greens, which in their turn shone against low distances of soft blue and +purple, that the sense of colour which my great-grandfather had roused +in me made me almost tremble with a never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. From +this flat but most fair country, the grey towers of Peterborough +Cathedral stood up in ancient dignity; and then we ran on again. After a +while the country became less rich in colour, and grander in form. No +longer stretching flatly to low-lying distances of ethereal hue, it was +broken into wooded hills, which folded one over the other with +ever-increasing boldness of outline. Now and then the line ran through +woods of young oak, with male ferns and bracken at their feet, where the +wild<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> hyacinths, which lie there like a blue mist in May, must for some +weeks past have made way for the present carpet of pink campion.</p> + +<p>And now the distance was no longer azure. Over the horizon and the lower +part of the sky a thin grey veil had come—a veil of smoke. We were +approaching the manufacturing districts. Grander and grander grew the +country, less and less pure the colouring. The vegetation was rich +almost to rankness; the well-wooded distances were heavily grey. Then +tall chimneys poured smoke over the landscape and eclipsed the sun; and +through strangely shaped furnaces and chimneys of many forms, which here +poured fire from their throats like dragons, and there might have been +the huge retorts and chemical apparatus of some giant alchemist, we ran +into the station of a manufacturing town.</p> + +<p>I gazed at the high blackened warehouses, chimneys, and furnaces, which +loomed out of the stifling smoke and clanging noises, with horror and +wonder.</p> + +<p>“What a dreadful place!” I exclaimed. “Look at those dreadful things +with flames coming out; and oh, Eleanor! there’s fire coming out of the +ground there. And look at that man opening that great oven door! Oh, +what a fire! And what’s he poking in it for? And do look! all the men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +are black. And what a frightful noise everything makes!”</p> + +<p>Eleanor was looking all the time, but with a complacent expression. She +only said, “It is a very busy place. I hear trade’s good just now, too.” +And, “You should see the furnaces at night, Margery, lighting up all the +hills. It’s grand!”</p> + +<p>As she sniffed up the smoke with, I might almost say, relish, I felt +that she did not sympathize with my disgust. But any discussion on the +subject was stopped by our having to change carriages, and we had just +settled ourselves comfortably once more, when I got a bit of iron +“filings” into my eye. It gave me a good deal of pain and inconvenience, +and by the time that I could look out of the window again, we had left +the black town far behind. The hills were almost mountains now, and +sloped away on all sides of us in bleak and awful grandeur. The +woodlands were fewer; we were on the moors. Only a few hours back we had +been amongst deep hedges and shady lanes, and now for hedges we had +stone walls, and for deep embowered lanes we could trace the unsheltered +roads, gleaming as they wound over miles of distant hills. Deep below us +brawled a river, with here and there a gaunt mill or stone-built hamlet +on its banks.</p> + +<p>I had never seen any country like this; and if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> I had been horrified by +the black town, my delight with the noble scenery beyond it was in +proportion. I stood at the open window, with the moor breeze blowing my +hair into the wildest elf-locks, rapturously excited as the great hills +unfolded themselves and the shifting clouds sent shifting purple shadows +over them. Very dark and stern they looked in shade, and then, in a +moment more, the cloud was past, and a broad smile of sunshine ran over +their face, and showed where cultivation was creeping up the hillside +and turning the heather into fields.</p> + +<p>Eleanor leaned out of the window also. Excitement, which set me +chattering, always made her silent. But her parted lips, distended +nostrils, and the light in her eyes bore witness to that strange power +which hill country sways over hill-born people. To me it was beautiful, +but to her it was home. I better understood now, too, her old complaints +of the sheltered (she called it <i>stuffy</i>) lane in which we walked two +and two when we “went into the country” at school. She used to rave +against the park palings that hedged us in on either side, and declare +her longing to tear them up and let a little air in, or at least to be +herself somewhere where “one could see a few miles about one, and +breathe some wind.”</p> + +<p>As we stood now, drinking in the breeze, I think the same thought struck +us both, and we exclaimed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> with one voice: “Poor Matilda! How she would +have enjoyed this!”</p> + +<p>We next stopped at a rather dreary-looking station, where we got out, +and Eleanor got our luggage together, aided by a porter who seemed to +know her, and whom she seemed to understand, though his dialect was +unintelligible to me.</p> + +<p>“I suppose we must have a cab,” said Eleanor, at last. “They don’t +expect us.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Tommusisinttarn</i>,” said the porter suggestively; which, being +interpreted, meant, “Thomas is in the town.”</p> + +<p>“To be sure, for the meat,” said Eleanor. “The dog-cart, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“And t’owd mare,” added the porter.</p> + +<p>“Well, the boxes must come by the carrier. Come along, Margery, if you +don’t mind a little bit of walking. We must find Thomas. We have to send +down to the town for meat,” she added.</p> + +<p>We found Thomas in the yard of a small inn. He was just about to start +homewards.</p> + +<p>By Eleanor’s order, Thomas lifted me into the dog-cart, and then, to my +astonishment, asked “Miss Eleanor” if she would drive. Eleanor nodded, +and, climbing on to the driver’s seat, took the reins with reassuring +calmness. Thomas balanced the meat-basket behind, and “t’owd mare” +started at a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> pace up a hill which would have reduced most +south-country horses to crawl.</p> + +<p>“Father and Mother are away still,” said Eleanor, after a pause. “So +Thomas says. But they’ll be back in a day or two.”</p> + +<p>We were driving up a sandy road such as we had seen winding over the +hills. To our left there was a precipitous descent to the vale of the +river. To our right, flowers, and ferns, and heather climbed the steep +hill, broken at every few yards by tiny torrents of mountain streams. +The sun was setting over the distant Deadmanstone moors; little dropping +wells tinkled by the roadside, where dozens of fat black snails were out +for an evening stroll, and here and there a brimming stone trough +reflected the rosy tints of the sky.</p> + +<p>It was grey and chilly when we drove into the village. A stone +pack-horse track, which now served as footpath, had run by the road and +lasted into the village. The cottages were of stone, the walls and +outhouses were of stone, and the vista was closed by an old stone +church, like a miniature cathedral. There was more stone than grass in +the churchyard, and there were more loose stones than were pleasant on +the steep hill, up which we scrambled before taking a sharp turn into +the Vicarage grounds.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">THE VICARAGE—KEZIAH—THE DEAR BOYS—THE COOK—A YORKSHIRE +TEA—BED-FELLOWS.</p> + + +<p>It was Midsummer. The heavy foliage brushed our faces as “the old mare,” +with slack reins upon her back, drew us soberly up the steep drive, and +stood still, of her own accord, before a substantial-looking house, +built—“like everything else,” I thought—of stone. Huge +rose-bushes—literal <i>bushes</i>, not “dwarfs” or “standards”—the growth +of many years, bent under their load of blossoms. The old “maiden’s +blush,” too rare now in our bedding plant gardens, the velvety “damask,” +the wee Scotch roses, the prolific white, and the curious “York and +Lancaster,” with monster moss-rose trees, hung over the carriage-road. +The place seemed almost overgrown with vegetation, like the palace of +the Sleeping Beauty.</p> + +<p>As we turned the corner towards the house, Eleanor put out her left hand +and dragged off a great branch of “maiden’s blush.” She forgot the +recoil, which came against my face. All the full-blown flowers shed +their petals over me, and I made my first appearance at the Vicarage +covered with rose-leaves.</p> + +<p>It was Keziah who welcomed us, and I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> always had an affection for +her in consequence. She was housemaid then, and took to the kitchen +afterwards. After she had been about five years at the Vicarage, she +announced one day that she wished to go. She had no reason to give but +that she “thought she’d try a change.” She tried one—for a month—and +didn’t like it. Mrs. Arkwright took her back again, and in kitchen and +back premises she reigns supreme to this day.</p> + +<p>From her we learned that Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, who had gone away for a +parson’s fortnight, were still from home. We had no lack of welcome, +however.</p> + +<p>It seems strange enough to speak of a fire as comfortable in July. And +yet I well remember that the heavy dew and evening breeze was almost +chilly after sunset, and a sort of vault-like feeling about the rooms, +which had been for a week or more unused, made us offer no resistance +when Keziah began to light a fire. While she was doing so Eleanor +exclaimed, “Let’s go and warm ourselves in the kitchen.”</p> + +<p>Any idea of comfort connected with a kitchen was quite new to me, but I +followed Eleanor, and made my first acquaintance with the old room where +we have spent so many happy hours.</p> + +<p>We found the door shut; much, it seemed, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> Eleanor’s astonishment. But +the reason was soon evident. As our footsteps sounded on the stone +passage there arose from behind the kitchen door an utterly +indescribable din of howling, yowling, squealing, scratching, and +barking.</p> + +<p>“It’s the dear boys!” said Eleanor, and she ran to open the door. For a +moment I thought of her brothers (who must, obviously, be maniacs!), but +I soon discovered that the “dear boys” were the dogs of the +establishment, who were at once let loose upon us <i>en masse</i>. I have a +faint remembrance of Eleanor and a brown retriever falling into each +other’s arms with cries of delight; but I was a good deal absorbed by +the care of my own small person, under the heavy onslaught of dogs big +and little. I was licked copiously from chin to forehead by the more +impetuous, and smelt threateningly at the calves of my legs by the more +cautious of the pack.</p> + +<p>They were subsiding a little, when Eleanor said, “Oh, cook, why did you +shut them up? Why didn’t you let them come and meet us?”</p> + +<p>“And how was I to know who it was at the door, Miss Eleanor?” replied an +elderly, stern-looking female, who, in her time, ruled us all with a rod +of iron, the dogs included. “Dear knows it’s not that I want them in the +kitchen. The way them dogs behaves, Miss Eleanor, is <i>scandilus</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Dear boys!” murmured Eleanor; on which all the dogs, who were settling +down to sleep on the hearth, wagged their tails, and threatened to move.</p> + +<p>“Much good it is me cleaning,” cook continued, “when that great big +brown beast of yours goes roaming about every night in the shrubberies, +and comes in with his feet all over my clean floor.”</p> + +<p>“It makes rather pretty marks, I think,” said Eleanor; “like +pot-moulding, only not white. But never mind, you’ve me at home now to +wipe their paws.”</p> + +<p>“They’ve missed you sorely,” said the cook, who seemed to be softening. +“I almost think they knew it was you, they were so mad to get out.”</p> + +<p>“Dear boys!” cried Eleanor, once more; and the dogs, who were asleep +now, wagged their tails in their dreams.</p> + +<p>“And there’s more’s missed you than them,” cook continued. “But, bless +us, Miss Eleanor, you don’t look much better for being in strange parts. +That young lady, too, looks as if she enjoyed poor health. Well, give me +native air, there’s nothing like it; and you’ve not got back to yours +too soon.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor threw her arms round the cook, and danced her up and down the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear cookey!” she cried; “I am so glad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> to be back again. And do be +kind to us, and give us tea-cakes, and brown bread toast, and let the +dogs come in to tea.”</p> + +<p>Cook pushed her away, but with a relenting face.</p> + +<p>“There, there, Miss Eleanor. Take that jug of hot water with you, and +take the young lady up-stairs; and when you’ve cleaned yourselves, I’ll +have something for you to eat; and you may suit yourselves about the +dogs,—I’m sure I don’t want them. You’ve not got so much more sensible +with all your schooling,” she added.</p> + +<p>We went off to do her bidding, and left her muttering, “And what folks +as can edicate their own children sends ’em all out of the house for, +passes me; to come back looking like a damp handkerchief, with dear +knows what cheap living and unwholesome ways, and want of native air.”</p> + +<p>Cook’s bark was worse than her bite.</p> + +<p>“She gives the dear boys plenty to eat,” said Eleanor; and she provided +for us that evening in the same liberal spirit.</p> + +<p>What a feast we had! Strong tea, and abundance of sugar and rich cream. +We laid the delicious butter on our bread in such thick clumps, that +sallow-faced Madame would have thought us in peril of our lives. There +was brown bread toast, too; and fried ham and eggs, and moor honey, and +Yorkshire tea-cakes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> In the middle of the table Keziah had placed a +large punch-bowl, filled with roses.</p> + +<p>And all the dogs were on the hearth, and they all had tea with us.</p> + +<p>After tea we tried to talk, but were so sleepy that the words died away +on our heavy lips. So we took Keziah’s advice and went to bed.</p> + +<p>“Keziah has put the chair-bed into my room, Margery dear,” said Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad,” said I. “I would rather be with you.”</p> + +<p>“Would you like a dog to sleep with you?” Eleanor politely inquired. “I +shall have Growler inside, and my big boy outside. Pincher is a nice +little fellow; you’d better have Pincher.”</p> + +<p>I took Pincher accordingly, and Pincher took the middle of the bed.</p> + +<p>We were just dropping off to sleep when Eleanor said, “If Pincher +snores, darling, hit him on the nose.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said I. “Good-night.” I had begun a confused dream, woven +from my late experiences, when Eleanor’s voice roused me once more.</p> + +<p>“Margery dear, if Growler <i>should</i> get out of my bed and come on to +yours, mind you kick him off, or he and Pincher will fight through the +bed-clothes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>But whether Pincher did snore, or Growler invade our bed, I slept much +too soundly to be able to tell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">GARDENING—DRINKINGS—THE MOORS—WADING—BATRACHOSPERMA—THE +CHURCH—LITTLE MARGARET.</p> + + +<p>Both Eleanor and I were visited that night by dreams of terrible +complications with the authorities at Bush House. It was a curious +relief to us to wake to clear consciences and the absolute control of +our own conduct for the day.</p> + +<p>It took me several minutes fairly to wake up and realize my new +position. The window being in the opposite direction (as regarded my +bed) from that of our room at Miss Mulberry’s, the light puzzled me, and +I lay blinking stupidly at a spray of ivy that had poked itself through +the window as if for shelter from the sun, which was already blazing +outside. Pincher brought me to my senses by washing my face with his +tongue; which I took all the kindlier of him that he had been, of all +the dear boys, the most doubtful about the calves of my legs the evening +before.</p> + +<p>As we dressed, I adopted Eleanor’s fashion of doing so on foot, that I +might examine her room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> As is the case with the “bowers” of most +English country girls of her class, it was rich in those treasures +which, like the advertised contents of lost pocket-books, are “of no +value to any one but the owner.” Prints of sacred subjects in home-made +frames, knick-knacks of motley variety, daguerreotypes and second-rate +photographs of “the boys”—<i>i. e.</i> Clement and Jack—at different ages, +and of “the dear boys” also. “All sorts of things!” as I exclaimed +admiringly. But Eleanor threatened at last to fine me if I did not get +dressed instead of staring about me, so we went down-stairs, and had +breakfast with the dogs.</p> + +<p>“The boys will be home soon,” said Eleanor, as we devoured certain +plates of oatmeal porridge, which Keziah had provided, and which I +tasted then for the first time. “I must get their gardens tidied up +before they come. Shall you mind helping me, Margery?”</p> + +<p>The idea delighted me, and after breakfast we tied on our hats, rummaged +out some small tools from the porch, and made our way to the children’s +gardens. They were at some little distance from the big flower-garden, +and the path that led to them was heavily shaded by shrubbery on one +side, and on the other by a hedge which, though “quickset” as a +foundation, was now a mass of honeysuckle and everlasting peas. The +scent was delicious.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>From this we came out on an open space at the top of the kitchen garden, +where, under a wall overgrown with ivy, lay the children’s gardens.</p> + +<p>“What a wilderness!” was Eleanor’s first exclamation, in a tone of +dismay, and then she added with increased vehemence, “He’s taken away +the rhubarb-pot. What will Clement say?”</p> + +<p>“What is it, dear?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“It’s the rhubarb-pot,” Eleanor repeated. “You know Clement is always +having new fads every holidays, and he can’t bear his things being +disturbed whilst he’s at school. But how can I help it if I’m at school +too?”</p> + +<p>“Of course you can’t,” said I, gladly seizing upon the only point in her +story that I could understand, to express my sympathy.</p> + +<p>“And he got one of the rhubarb-pots last holidays,” Eleanor continued. +“It was rather broken, and Thomas gave in to his having it then, so it’s +very mean of him to have moved it now, and I shall tell him so. And +Clement painted church windows on it, and stuck it over a plant of ivy +at the top of the garden. He thought it would force the ivy, and he +expected it would grow big by the time he came home. He wanted it to +hang over the top, and look like a ruin. Oh, he will be so vexed!”</p> + +<p>The ivy plant was alive, though the “ruin” had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> been removed by the +sacrilegious hands of Thomas. I suggested that we should build a ruin of +stones, and train the ivy over that, which idea was well received by +Eleanor; the more so that a broken wall at the top of the croft supplied +materials, and Stonehenge suggested itself as an easy, and certainly +respectable, model.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile we decided to “do the weeding first,” as being the least +agreeable business, and so set to work; I in a leisurely manner, +befitting the heat of the day, and Eleanor with her usual energy. She +toiled without a pause, and accomplished about treble the result of my +labours. After we had worked for a long time, she sat up, pressing her +hand to her forehead.</p> + +<p>“My head quite aches, Margery, and I’m so giddy. It’s very odd; +gardening never made me so before I went away.”</p> + +<p>“You work so at it,” said I, “you may well be tired. What makes you work +so at things?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Eleanor, laughing. “Cook says I do foy at things +so. But when one once begins, you <span class="nowrap">know——”</span></p> + +<p>“What’s <i>foy</i>?” I interrupted. “Cook says you foy—what does she mean?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, to foy at anything is to slave—to work hard at it. At least, not +merely hard-working, but to go at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> it very hotly, almost foolishly; in +fact, to foy at it, you know. Clement foys at things too. And then he +gets tired and cross; and so do I, often. What o’clock is it, Margery?”</p> + +<p>I pulled out my souvenir watch and answered, “Just eleven.”</p> + +<p>“We ought to have some ‘drinkings,’ we’ve worked so hard,” said Eleanor, +laughing again. “Haymakers, and people like that, always have drinkings +at eleven, you know, and dinner at one, and tea at four or five, and +supper at eight. Ah! there goes Thomas. Thomas!”</p> + +<p>Thomas came up, and Eleanor (discreetly postponing the subject of the +rhubarb-pot for the present) sent a pleading message to cook, which +resulted in her sending us two bottles of ginger-beer and several slices +of thick bread-and-butter. The dear boys, who had been very sensibly +snoozing in the shade, divined by some instinct the arrival of our +lunch-basket, and were kind enough to share the bread-and-butter with +us.</p> + +<p>“Drinkings” over, we set to work again.</p> + +<p>I was surprised to observe that there were four box-edged beds, but as +Eleanor said nothing about it, I made no remark. Perhaps it belonged to +some dead brother or sister.</p> + +<p>As the weeds were cleared away, one plant after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> another became +apparent. I called Eleanor’s attention to all that I found, and she +seemed to welcome them as old friends.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s the grey primrose; I’m so glad! And there are Jack’s +hepaticas; they look like old rubbish. Don’t dig deep into Jack’s +garden, please, for he’s always getting plants and bulbs given him by +people in the village, and he sticks everything in, so his garden really +is crammed full; and you’re sure to dig into tulips, or crocuses, or +lilies, or something valuable.”</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t Clement get things given him?” said I.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he has plenty of plants,” said Eleanor, “but then he’s always +making great plans about his garden; and the first step towards his +improvements is always to clear out all the old things, and make what he +calls ‘a clean sweep of the rubbish.’”</p> + +<p>By the time that the “twelve o’clock bell” rang from the church-tower +below, the heat was so great that we gathered up our tools and went +home.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon Eleanor said, “Were you ever on the moors? Did you ever +wade? Do you care about water-weeds? Did you ever eat bilberries, or +carberries?—but they’re not ripe yet. Shall we go and get some +Batrachosperma, and paddle a bit, and give the dear boys a bathe?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Delightful!” said I; “but do you go out alone?”</p> + +<p>“What should we take anybody with us for?” said Eleanor, opening her +eyes.</p> + +<p>I could not say. But as we dressed I said, “I’m so glad you don’t wear +veils. Matilda and I used to have to wear veils to take care of our +complexion.”</p> + +<p>Eschewing veils and every unnecessary encumbrance, we set forth, +followed by the dogs. I had taken off my crinoline, because Eleanor said +we might have to climb some walls, and I had borrowed a pair of her +boots, because my own were so uncomfortable from being high-heeled and +narrow-soled. They were too thin for stony roads also, and, though they +were prettily ornamented, they pinched my feet.</p> + +<p>We went upwards from the Vicarage along hot roads bordered by stone +walls. At last we turned and began to go downwards, and as we stood on +the top of the steep hill we were about to descend, Eleanor, with some +pride in her tone, asked me what I thought of the view.</p> + +<p>It was very beautiful. The slopes of the purple hills were grand. I saw +“moors” now.</p> + +<p>“The best part of it is the air, though,” she said.</p> + +<p>The air was, in fact, wind; but of a dry, soft, exhilarating kind. It +seemed to get into our heads,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> and we joined hands and ran wildly down +the steep hill together.</p> + +<p>“What fun!” Eleanor cried, as we paused to gain breath at the bottom. +“Now you’ve come there’ll be four of us to run downhill. We shall nearly +stretch across the road.”</p> + +<p>At last we came to a stone bridge which spanned the river. It was not a +very wide stream, and it was so broken with grey boulders, and clumps of +rushes and overhanging ferns, that one only caught sight of the water +here and there, in tiny torrents and lakes among the weeds.</p> + +<p>My delight was boundless. I can neither forget nor describe those first +experiences of real country life, when Eleanor and I rambled about +together. I think she was at least as happy as I, and from time to time +we both wished with all our hearts that “the other girls” could be there +too. The least wisely managed of respectable schools has this good +point, that it enlarges one’s sympathies and friendships!</p> + +<p>We wandered some little way up the Ewden, as Eleanor called the river, +and then, coming to a clear, running bit of stream, with a big grey +boulder on the bank hard by to leave our shoes and stockings on, we took +these off, and also our hats, and, kilting up our petticoats, plunged +bravely into the stream.</p> + +<p>“Wet your head!” shouted Eleanor; and following<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> her example, as well as +I could for laughing, and for the needful efforts to keep my feet, I +dabbled my head liberally with water scooped up in the palms of my +hands.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” I cried, “how strong the water is, and how deliciously cold it is! +And oh, look at the little fishes! They’re all round my feet. And oh, +Eleanor, call the dogs, they’re knocking me down! How hard the stones +are, and oh, how slippery!”</p> + +<p>I fell against a convenient boulder, and Eleanor turned back, the dogs +raging and splashing around her.</p> + +<p>“I hope you’re not treading on the Batrachosperma?” she said, anxiously.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” I cried.</p> + +<p>“It’s what I’ve chiefly come in for,” said she. “I want some to lay out. +It’s a water-weed; a fresh-water alga, you know, like seaweed, only a +fresh-water plant. I’m looking for the stone it grew near. Oh, that’s it +you’re on! Climb up on to it out of the way, Margery dear. It’s rather a +rare kind of weed, and I don’t want it to be spoiled. Call the dogs, +please. Oh, look at all the bits they’ve broken off!”</p> + +<p>Eleanor dodged and darted to catch certain fragments of dark-looking +stuff that were being whirled away. With much difficulty she caught two +or three, and laid one of them in my hand. But I was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> prepared for +the fact that it felt like a bit of jelly, and it slipped through my +fingers before I had time to examine the beauty of the jointed branches +pointed out by Eleanor, and in a moment more it was hopelessly lost. We +put what we had got into some dock-leaves for safety, and having waded +back to our stockings, we put on our hats and walked barefoot for a few +yards through the heather, to dry our feet, after which we resumed our +boots and stockings and set off homewards.</p> + +<p>“We’ll go by the lower road,” said Eleanor, “and look at the church.”</p> + +<p>For some time after Eleanor had passed in through the rickety gates of +the south porch, I lingered amongst the gravestones, reading their +quaint inscriptions. Quaint both in matter and in the manner of rhyme +and spelling. As I also drew towards the porch, I looked up to see if I +could tell the time by the dial above it. I could not, nor (in spite of +my brief learning in Dr. Russell’s grammar) could I interpret the Latin +motto, “<i>Fugit Hora. Ora</i>”—“The hour flies. Pray.”</p> + +<p>As I came slowly and softly up the aisle, I fancied Eleanor was +kneeling, but a strange British shame of prayer made her start to her +feet and kept me from kneeling also; though the peculiar peace and +devout solemnity which seemed to be the very breath of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> ancient +House of God made me long to do something more expressive of my feelings +than stand and stare.</p> + +<p>There was no handsome church at Riflebury; the one the Bullers +“attended” when we were at the seaside was new, and not beautiful. The +one Miss Mulberry took us to was older, but uglier. I had never seen one +of these old parish churches. This cathedral among the moors, with its +massive masonry, its dark oak carving, its fragments of gorgeous glass, +its ghostly hatchments and banners, and its aisles paved with the +tombstones of the dead, was a new revelation.</p> + +<p>I was silent awhile in very awe. I think it was a bird beginning to +chirp in the roof which made me dare to speak, and then I whispered, +“How quiet it is in here, and how cool!”</p> + +<p>I had hardly uttered the words when a flash of lightning made me start +and cry out. A heavy peal of thunder followed very quickly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be frightened, Margery dear,” said Eleanor; “we have very heavy +storms here, and we had better go home. But I am so glad you admire our +dear old church. There was one very hot Sunday last summer, when a +thunderstorm came on during Evening Prayer. I was sitting in the choir, +where I could see the storm through the south transept door, and the +great stones in the transept arches. It was so cool in here, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> all +along I kept thinking of ‘a refuge from the storm, a shadow in the +heat,’ and ‘a great rock in a weary land.’”</p> + +<p>As we sat together at tea that evening, Eleanor went back to the subject +of the church. I made some remark about the gravestones in the aisles, +and she said, “Next time we go in, I want to show you one of them in the +chancel.”</p> + +<p>“Who is buried there?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“My grandfather, he was vicar, you know, and my aunt, who was sixteen. +(My father has got the white gloves and wreath that were hung in the +church for her. They always used to do that for unmarried girls.) And my +sister; my only sister—little Margaret.”</p> + +<p>I could not say anything to poor Eleanor. I stroked her head softly and +kissed it.</p> + +<p>“One thing that made me take to you,” she went on, “was your name being +Margaret. I used to think she might have been like you. I have so wished +I had a sister. The boys are very dear, you know; but still boys think +about themselves, of course, and their own affairs. One has more to run +after them, you know. Not that any boys could be better than ours, +but—anyway, Margery darling, I wish you weren’t here just on a visit, +but were going to stop here always, and be my sister!”</p> + +<p>“So do I!” I cried. “Oh! so very much, Eleanor!”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">A NEW HOME—THE ARKWRIGHTS’ RETURN—THE BEASTS—GOING TO MEET THE +BOYS—JACK’S HATBOX—WE COME HOME A RATTLER.</p> + + +<p>It is not often (out of a fairy tale) that wishes to change the whole +current of one’s life are granted so promptly as that wish of mine was.</p> + +<p>The next morning’s post brought a letter from Mrs. Arkwright. They were +staying in the south of England, and had seen the Bullers, and heard all +their news. It was an important budget. They were going abroad once +more, and it had been arranged between my two guardians that I was to +remain in England for my education, and that my home was to be—with +Eleanor. Matilda was to go with her parents; to the benefit, it was +hoped, of her health. Aunt Theresa sent me the kindest messages, and +promised to write to me. Matilda sent her love to us both.</p> + +<p>“And the day after to-morrow they come home!” Eleanor announced.</p> + +<p>When the day came we spent most of it in small preparations and useless +restlessness. We filled all the flower vases in the drawing-room, put +some of the choicest roses in Mrs. Arkwright’s bedroom, and made +ourselves very hot in hanging a small union-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>jack which belonged to the +boys out of our own window, which looked towards the high-road. Eleanor +even went so far as to provoke a severe snub from the cook, by offering +suggestions as to the food to be prepared for the travellers.</p> + +<p>The dogs fully understood that something was impending, and wandered +from room to room at our heels, sitting down to pant whenever we gave +them a chance, and emptying the water jug in Mr. Arkwright’s +dressing-room so often that we were obliged to shut the door when Keziah +had once more filled the ewer.</p> + +<p>About half-an-hour after the curfew bell had rung the cab came. The dogs +were not shut up this time, and they, and we, and the Arkwrights met in +a very confused and noisy greeting.</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">God</span> bless you, my dear!” I heard Mr. Arkwright say very affectionately, +and he added almost in the same breath, “Do call off the dogs, my dear, +or else take your mother’s beasts.”</p> + +<p>I suppose Eleanor chose the latter alternative, for she did not call off +the dogs, but she took away two or three tin cans with which Mr. +Arkwright was laden, and which had made him look like a particularly +respectable milkman.</p> + +<p>“What are they?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Crassys,” said Mrs. Arkwright, with apparent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> triumph in her tone, “and +Serpulæ, and two Chitons, and several other things.”</p> + +<p>I thought of Uncle Buller’s “collection,” and was about to ask if the +new “beasts” were insects, when Eleanor, after a doubtful glance into +the cans, said, “Have you brought any fresh water?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arkwright pointed triumphantly to a big stone-bottle cased in +wickerwork, under which the cabman was staggering towards the door. It +looked like spirits or vinegar, but was, as I discovered, seawater for +the aquarium. With this I had already made acquaintance, having helped +Eleanor to wipe the mouths of certain spotted sea anemones with a +camel’s-hair brush every day since my arrival.</p> + +<p>“The Crassys are much more beautiful,” she assured me, as we helped Mrs. +Arkwright to find places for the new-comers. “We call them Crassys +because their name is Crassicornis. I don’t believe they’ll live, +though, they are so delicate.”</p> + +<p>“I rather think it may be because being so big they get hurt in being +taken off the rocks,” said Mrs. Arkwright, “and we were very careful +with these.”</p> + +<p>“I’m <i>afraid</i> the Serpulæ won’t live!” said Eleanor, gazing anxiously +with puckered brows into the glass tank.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arkwright was about to reply, when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> dogs burst into the room, +and, after nearly upsetting both us and the aquarium, bounded out again.</p> + +<p>“Dear boys!” cried Eleanor. And “Dear boys!” murmured Mrs. Arkwright +from behind the magnifying glass, through which she was examining the +“beasts.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder what they’re running in and out for?” said I.</p> + +<p>The reason proved to be that supper was ready, and the dogs wanted us to +come into the dining-room. Mr. Arkwright announced it in more sedate +fashion, and took me with him, leaving Eleanor and her mother to follow +us.</p> + +<p>“In three days more,” said Eleanor, as we sat down, “the boys will be +here, and then we shall be quite happy.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor and I were as much absorbed by the prospect of the boys’ arrival +as we had been by the coming of her parents.</p> + +<p>We made a “ruin” at the top of the little gardens, which did not quite +fulfil our ideal when all was done, but we hoped that it would look +better when the ivy was more luxuriant. We made all the beds look very +tidy. The fourth bed was given to me.</p> + +<p>“Now you <i>are</i> our sister!” Eleanor cried. “It seems to make it so real +now you have got <i>her</i> bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>We thoroughly put in order the old nursery, which was now “the boys’ +room,” a proceeding in which Growler and Pincher took great interest, +jumping on and off the beds, and smelling everything as we set it out. +Growler was Clement’s dog, I found, and Pincher belonged to Jack.</p> + +<p>“They’ll come in a cab, because of the luggage,” said Eleanor, “and +because we are never quite sure when they will come; so it’s no use +sending to meet them. They often miss trains on purpose to stay +somewhere on the road for fun. But I think they’ll come all right this +time—I begged them to—and we’ll go and meet them in the +donkey-carriage.”</p> + +<p>The donkey-carriage was a pretty little thing on four wheels, with a +seat in front and a seat behind, each capable of holding one small +person. Eleanor had almost outgrown the front seat, but she managed to +squeeze into it, and I climbed in behind. We had dressed Neddy’s head +and our own hats liberally with roses, so that our festive appearance +drew the notice of the villagers, more than one of whom, from their +cottage-doors, asked if we were going to meet “the young gentlemen,” and +added, “They’ll be rare and glad to get home, I reckon!”</p> + +<p>Impatience had made us early, and we drove some little distance before +espying the cab, which toiled uphill at much the same pace as the black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +snails crawled by the roadside. Eleanor drew up by the ditch, and we +stood up and waved our handkerchiefs. In a moment two handkerchiefs were +waving from the cab-windows. We shouted, and faint hoorays came back +upon the breeze. Neddy pricked his ears, the dogs barked, and only the +cabman remained unmoved, though we could see sticks and umbrellas poked +at him from within, in the vain effort to induce him to hasten on.</p> + +<p>At last we met. The boys tumbled out, one on each side, and a good deal +of fragmentary luggage tumbled out after them. Clement seemed to be +rather older than Eleanor, and Jack, I thought, a little younger than +me.</p> + +<p>“How d’ye do, Margery?” said Jack, shaking me warmly by the hand. “I’m +awfully glad to hear the news about you; we shall be all square now, two +and two, like a quadrille.”</p> + +<p>“How do you do, Miss Vandaleur?” said Clement.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Eleanor,” Jack broke in again; “I’ll drive Margery home in +the donkey-carriage, and you can go with Clem in the cab. I wish you’d +give me the wreath off your hat, too.”</p> + +<p>Eleanor willingly agreed, the wreath was adjusted on Jack’s hat, and we +were just taking our places, when he caught sight of the luggage that +had fallen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> out on Clement’s side of the cab—some fishing-rods, a +squirrel in a fish-basket, and a hat-box.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” he screamed, “there’s my hat-box! Take the reins, Margery!” and he +flew over the wheel, and returned, hat-box in hand.</p> + +<p>“Is it a new hat?” I asked sympathizingly.</p> + +<p>“A hat!” he scornfully exclaimed. “My hat’s loose in the cab somewhere, +if it came at all; but all my beetles are in here, pinned to the sides. +Would you mind taking it on your knee, to be safe?”</p> + +<p>And having placed it there, he scrambled once more into the front seat, +and we were about to start (the cab was waiting for us, the cabman +looking on with a grim smile at Jack, whilst energetic Eleanor +rearranged the luggage inside), when there came a second check.</p> + +<p>“Have you got a pin?” Jack asked me.</p> + +<p>“I’ll see,” said I; “what for?”</p> + +<p>“To touch up Neddy with. We’re going home a rattler.”</p> + +<p>But on my earnestly remonstrating against the pin, Jack contented +himself with pointing a stick, which he assured me would “hurt much +more.”</p> + +<p>“Now, cabby!” he cried, “keep your crawler back till we’re well away. +You’d better let us go first, or we might pass you on the road, and hurt +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> feelings of that spirited beast of yours. Do you like going fast, +Margery?”</p> + +<p>“As fast as you like,” said I.</p> + +<p>I knew nothing whatever of horses and donkeys, or of what their poor +legs could bear; but I very much liked passing swiftly through the air. +I do not think Neddy suffered, however, though we went back at a pace +marvellously different from that at which we came. We were very light +weights, and Master Neddy was an overfed, underworked gentleman, with +the acutest discrimination as to his drivers. Jack’s voice was quite +enough; the stick was superfluous. When we came to the top of the steep +hill leading down to the village, Jack asked me, “Shall we go down a +rattler?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do!” said I.</p> + +<p>“Hold on to the hat-box, then, and don’t tumble out.”</p> + +<p>Down we went. The carriage swayed from side to side; I sat with my arms +tightly clasped round the hat-box, and felt as if I were flying straight +down on to the church-tower. It was delightful, but I noticed that Jack +did not speak till we reached the foot of the hill. Then he said, “Well, +that’s a blessing! I never thought we should get safe to the bottom.”</p> + +<p>“Then why did you drive so fast?” I inquired.</p> + +<p>“My dear Margery, there’s no drag on this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> carriage; and when I’d once +given Neddy his head he couldn’t stop himself, no more could I. But he’s +a plucky, sure-footed little beast; and I shall walk up this hill out of +respect for him.”</p> + +<p>I resolved to do the same, and clambered out, leaving the hat-box on the +seat. I went up to Jack, who was patting Neddy’s neck, on which he stuck +out his right arm, and said, “Link!”</p> + +<p>“What?” said I.</p> + +<p>“Link,” said Jack; and as he stuck out his elbow again in an +unmistakable fashion, I took his arm.</p> + +<p>“We call that linking, in these parts,” said Jack. “Good-evening, Mrs. +Loxley. Good-evening, Peter. Thank you, thank you. I’m very glad to get +home too—I should think not!” These sentences were replies to the warm +greetings Jack received from the cottage-doors; the last to the remark, +“You don’t find a many places to beat t’ould one, sir, I expect!”</p> + +<p>“I’m very popular in the village,” said my eccentric companion, with a +sigh, as we turned into the drive. “Though I say it that shouldn’t, you +think? Well! <i>Ita vita. Such is life’s half circle</i>. Do you know +Leadbetter? That’s the way he construed it.”</p> + +<p>“I know you all talk in riddles,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Well, never mind; you’ll know Leadbetter, and all the old books in the +house by and by. Plenty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> ’em, aren’t there? The governor had a curate +once, when his throat was bad. <i>He</i> said it was an Entertaining Library +of Useless Knowledge. I’ve brought home one more volume to add to it. +Second prize for chemistry. Only three fellows went in for it; which you +needn’t allude to at head-quarters;” and he sighed again.</p> + +<p>As we passed slowly under the shadow of the heavy foliage, Jack, like +Eleanor, put up his left arm to drag down a bunch of roses. They were +further advanced now, and the shower of rose-leaves fell thickly like +snowflakes over us—over Jack and me, and Neddy and the carriage, with +the hat-box on the driving seat. We must have looked very queer, I +think, as we came up out of the overshadowed road, like dwarfs out of a +fairy tale, covered with flowers, and leading our carriage with its odd +occupant inside.</p> + +<p>Keziah, who had been counting the days to the holidays, ran down first +to meet us, beaming with pleasure; though when Jack, in the futile +attempt to play leap-frog with her against her will, damaged her cap, +and clung to her neck till I thought she would have been throttled, she +indignantly declared that, “Now the young gentlemen was home there was +an end of peace for everybody, choose who they might be.”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">I CORRESPOND WITH THE MAJOR—MY COLLECTION—OCCUPATIONS—MADAME +AGAIN—FÊTE DE VILLAGE—THE BRITISH HOORAY.</p> + + +<p>I wrote to my old friends and relatives, with a full account of my new +home. Rather a comically-expressed account too, I fancy, from the bits +Uncle Buller used to quote in after years. I got charming letters from +him, piquant with his dry humour, and full of affection. Matilda +generally added a note also; and Aunt Theresa always sent love and +kisses in abundance, to atone for being too busy to write by that post.</p> + +<p>The fonder I grew of the Arkwrights, the better I seemed to love and +understand Uncle Buller. Apart as we were, we had now a dozen interests +in common—threads of those intellectual ties over which the changes and +chances of this mortal life have so little power.</p> + +<p>My sympathy was real, as well as ready, when the Major discovered a new +insect, almost invisible by the naked eye, which thenceforward bore the +terrible specific name of <i>Bulleriana</i>, suggesting a creature certainly +not less than a rhinoceros, and surrounding the Major’s name with +something of the halo of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> immortality. He was equally glad to hear of +Jack’s beetles and of my fresh-water shells. I had taken to the latter +as being “the only things not yet collected by somebody or other in the +house;” and I became so infatuated in the pursuit that I used to get up +at four o’clock in the morning to search the damp places and +water-herbage by the river, it being emphatically “the early bird who +catches” snails. After his great discovery, the Major constantly asked +if I had found a specimen of <i>Helix Vandaleuriana</i> yet. It was a joke +between us—that new shell that I was to discover!</p> + +<p>I have an old letter open by me now, in which, writing of the +Arkwrights, he says, “Your dear father’s daughter could have no better +home.” And, as I read, my father’s last hours come back before me, and I +hear the poor faint voice whispering, “You’ve got the papers, Buller? +Arkwright will be kind about it, I’m sure.” And, “It’s all dark now.” +And with tears I wonder if he—with whom it is all light now—knows how +well his true friends have dealt by me, and how happy I am.</p> + +<p>To be busy is certainly half-way to being happy. And yet it is not so +with every kind of labour. Some occupations, however, do seem of +themselves to be peace-bringing; I mean, to be so independent of the +great good of being occupied at all. Gardening,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> sketching, and natural +history pursuits, for instance. Is it partly because one follows them in +the open air, in great measure?—fresh air, that mysteriously mighty +power for good! Anodyne, as well as tonic; dispeller of fever when other +remedies are powerless; and the best accredited recipe for long life. +Only partly, I think.</p> + +<p>One secret of the happiness of some occupations is, perhaps, that they +lift one away from petty cares and petty spites, without trying the +brain or strength unduly, as some other kinds of mental labour must do. +And how delightful is fellowship in such interests! What rivalries +without bitterness; what gossip without scandal; what gifts and +exchanges; what common interests and mutual sympathy!</p> + +<p>In such happy business the holidays went by. Then the question arose, +Were we to go back to school? Very earnestly we hoped not; and I think +the Arkwrights soon resolved not to send Eleanor away again. As to me, +the case was different. Mr. Arkwright felt that he must do what was best +for my education: and he wrote to consult with Major Buller.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for Eleanor and me, the Major was now as much prejudiced +against girls’ schools as he had been against governesses; and as +masters were to be had at the nearest town, a home education<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> was +decided upon. It met with the approval of such of my relatives as were +consulted—my great-grandmother especially—and it certainly met with +mine.</p> + +<p>Eleanor and I were very anxious to show that idleness was not our object +in avoiding Bush House. The one of my diaries that escaped burning has, +on the fly-leaf, one of the many “lesson plans” we made for ourselves.</p> + +<p>We used to get up at six o’clock, and work before breakfast. Certain +morning headaches, to which at this time I became subject, led to a +serious difference of opinion between me and Mrs. Arkwright; she +forbidding me to get up, and I holding myself to be much aggrieved, and +imputing the headaches to anything rather than what Keziah briefly +termed “book-larning upon an empty stomach.” The matter was compromised, +thanks to Keziah, by that good creature’s offering to bring me new milk +and bread-and-butter every morning before I began to work. She really +brought it before I dressed, and my headaches vanished.</p> + +<p>Though we did not wish to go back to Bush House, we were not quite +unmindful of our friends there. Eleanor wrote to thank Madame for the +flowers, and received a long and enthusiastic letter in reply—in +French, of course, and pointing out one or two blunders in Eleanor’s +letter, which was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> French also. She begged Eleanor to continue to +correspond with her, for the improvement of her “composition.”</p> + +<p>Poor Madame! She was indeed an indefatigable teacher, and had a real +ambition for the success of her pupils, which, in the drudgery of her +life, was almost grand.</p> + +<p>Strange to say, she once came to the Vicarage. It was during the summer +succeeding that in which I came to live with the Arkwrights. She had +been in the habit of spending the holidays with a family in the country, +where, I believe, she gave some instruction in French and music in +return for her expenses. That summer she was out of health, and thinking +herself unable to fulfil her part of the bargain, she would not go. +After severe struggles with her sensitive scruples, she was persuaded to +come to us instead, on the distinct condition that she was to do nothing +in the way of “lessons,” but talk French with us.</p> + +<p>To persuade her to accept any payment for her services was the subject +of another long struggle. The thriftiest of women in her personal +expenditure, and needing money sorely, Madame was not grasping. Indeed, +her scruples on this subject were troublesome. She was for ever pursuing +us, book in hand, and with a sun-veil and umbrella to shield<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> her +complexion, into the garden or the hayfield, imploring us to come in out +of the wind and sun, and do “a little of dictation—of composition,” or +even to permit her to hear us play that duet from the ‘Semiramide,’ of +which the time had seemed to her on the last occasion far from perfect.</p> + +<p>Her despair when Mrs. Arkwright supported our refusals was comical, and +she was only pacified at last by having the “scrap-bag” of odds and ends +of net, muslin, lace, and embroidery handed over to her, from which she +made us set after set of dainty collars and sleeves in various “modes,” +sitting well under the shade of the trees, on a camp-stool, with a +camphor-bag to keep away insects, and in bodily fear of the dogs.</p> + +<p>Poor Madame! I thought she would have had a fit on the first night of +her arrival, when the customary civility was paid of offering her a dog +to sleep on her bed. She never got really accustomed to them, and they +never seemed quite to understand her. To the end of her stay they +snuffed at her black skirts suspiciously, as if she were still more or +less of an enigma to them. Madame was markedly civil to them, and even +addressed them from time to time as “bons enfants,” in imitation of our +phrase “dear boys”; but more frequently, in watching the terms on which +they lived with the family, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> would throw up her little brown hands +and exclaim, “<i>Ménage extraordinaire!</i>”</p> + +<p>I am sure she thought us a strange household in more ways than one, but +I think she grew fond of us. For Eleanor she had always had a liking; +about Eleanor’s mother she became rhapsodical.</p> + +<p>“How good!” so she cried to me, “and how truthful—how altogether +truthful! What talents also, my faith! Miss Arkwright has had great +advantages. A mother extraordinary!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arkwright had many discussions with Madame on political subjects, +and also on the education of girls. On the latter their views were so +essentially different, that the discussion was apt to wax hot. Madame +came at last to allow that for English girls Madame Arkwright’s views +might be just, but <i>pour les filles françaises</i>—she held to her own +opinions.</p> + +<p>With the boys she got on very well. At first they laughed at her; then +Clement became polite, and even learned to speak French with her after a +fashion. Jack was not only ignorant of French, but his English was so +mixed with school-boy idioms, that Madame and he seldom got through a +conversation without wonderful complications, from which, however, +Jack’s expressive countenance and ready wit generally delivered them in +the long run. I do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> know whether, on the whole, Madame did not like +Mr. Arkwright best of all. <i>Le bon pasteur</i>, as she styled him.</p> + +<p>“The Furrin Lady,” as she was called in the village, was very fond of +looking into the cottages, and studying the ways of the country +generally.</p> + +<p>I never shall forget the occurrence of the yearly village fair or feast +during her visit: her anxiety to be present—her remarkable costume on +the occasion—and the strong conviction borne in upon Eleanor and me +that the Fat Lady in the centre booth was quite a secondary attraction +to the Furrin Lady between us, with the raw lads and stolid farmers who +had come down from the hills, with their wise sheep-dogs at their heels. +If they stared at her, however, Madame was not unobservant of them, and +the critical power was on her side.</p> + +<p>“These men and their dogs seem to me alike,” said she. “Both of +them—they stare so much and say so little. But the looks of the dogs +are altogether the more <i>spirituels</i>,” she added.</p> + +<p>I should not like to record all that she said on the subject of our +village feast. It was not complimentary, and to some extent the bitter +general observations on our national amusements into which her +disappointment betrayed her were justified by facts. But it was not our +fault that, in translating village feast into <i>fête<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> de village</i>, she +had allowed her imagination to mislead her with false hopes. She had +expected a maypole, a dance of peasants, gay dresses, smiling faces, +songs, fruit, coffee, flowers, and tasteful but cheap wares of small +kinds in picturesque booths. She had adorned herself, and Eleanor and +me, with collars and cuffs of elaborate make and exquisite “get-up” by +her own hands. She wore a pale pink and a dead scarlet geranium, +together with a spray of wistaria leaf, in admirable taste, on her dark +dress. Her hat was marvellous; her gloves were perfect. She had a few +shillings in her pocket to purchase souvenirs for the household; her +face beamed in anticipation of a day of simple, sociable, uncostly +pleasure, such as we English are so lamentably ignorant of. But I think +the only English thing she had prepared herself to expect was what she +called “The Briteesh hooray.”</p> + +<p>Dirt, clamour, oyster-shells, ginger-beer bottles, stolid curiosity, +beery satisfaction, careworn stall-keepers with babies-in-arms and +strange trust about their wares and honesty over change; +giddy-go-rounds, photograph booths, marionettes, the fat woman, the +double-headed monstrosity, and the teeming beer-houses——</p> + +<p>Poor Madame! The contrast was terrible. She would not enter a booth. She +turned homewards in a rage of vexation, and shut herself up in her +bed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>room (I suspect with tears of annoyance and disappointment), whilst +Eleanor and I went back into the feast, and were photographed with dear +boys and Clement.</p> + +<p>Clement was getting towards an age when clever youngsters are not unapt +to exercise their talents in depreciating home surroundings. He said +that it was no wonder that Madame was disgusted, and scolded us for +taking her into the feast. Jack took quite a different view of the +matter.</p> + +<p>“The feast’s very good fun in its way,” said he; “and Madame only wants +<i>tackling</i>. I’ll tackle her.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense!” said Clement.</p> + +<p>“I bet you a shilling I take her through every mortal thing this +afternoon,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“You’ve cheek enough,” retorted his elder brother.</p> + +<p>But after luncheon, when Madame was again in her room, Jack came to me +with a nosegay he had gathered, to beg me to arrange it properly, and +put a paper frill round it. With some grass and fern-leaves, I made a +tasteful bouquet, and added a frill, to Jack’s entire satisfaction. He +took it up-stairs, and we heard him knock at Madame’s door. After a +pause (“I’m sure she’s crying again!” said Eleanor) Madame came out, and +a warm discussion began between them, of which we only heard fragments. +Madame’s voice, as the shrillest, was most audible, and it rose into +dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>tinctness as she exclaimed, “Anything sŏh dirrty, sŏh meean, +sŏh folgaire, I nevaire saw.”</p> + +<p>Again the discussion proceeded, and we only caught a few of Jack’s +arguments about “customs of the country,” “for the fun of it,” etc.</p> + +<p>“Fun?” said Madame.</p> + +<p>“For a joke,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ah, c’est vrai</i>, for the choke,” she said.</p> + +<p>“And <i>avec moi</i>,” Jack continued. “There’s French for you, Madame! Come +along!”</p> + +<p>Madame laughed.</p> + +<p>“She’ll go,” said Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“<i>Eh bien!</i>” Madame cried gaily. “For the choke. <i>Avec vous, Monsieur +Jack.</i> Ha! ha! <i>Allons!</i> Come along!”</p> + +<p>“Link, Madame,” said Jack, as they came down-stairs, Madame smarter than +ever, and bouquet in hand.</p> + +<p>“Mais <i>link</i>? What is this?” said she.</p> + +<p>“Take my arm,” said Jack. “I’ll treat you to everything.”</p> + +<p>“Mais <i>treat</i>? What is that?” said Madame, whose beaming good-humour +only expanded the more when Jack explained that it was a pecuniary +attention shown by rustic swains to their “young women.”</p> + +<p>As Clement came into the hall he met Madame hanging on Jack’s arm, and +absolutely radiant.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>“You’re not going into that beastly place again?” said he.</p> + +<p>“For the choke, Monsieur Clement. <i>Ah, oui!</i> And with Monsieur Jack.”</p> + +<p>“You may as well come, Clem,” said Eleanor, and we followed, laughing.</p> + +<p>Madame had now no time for discontent. Jack held her fast. He gave her +gingerbread at one stall, and gingerbeer at another, and cracked nuts +for her all along. He vowed that the oyster-shells were flowers, and the +empty bottles bouquet-holders, and offered to buy her a pair of +spectacles to see matters more clearly with.</p> + +<p>“Couleur de rose?” laughed Madame.</p> + +<p>We went in a body to the marionettes, and Madame screamed as we climbed +the inclined plane to enter, and scrambled down the frail scaffolding to +the “reserved seats.” These cost twopence a head, and were “reserved” +for us alone. The dolls were really cleverly managed. They performed the +closing scenes of a pantomime. The policeman came to pieces when clown +and harlequin pulled at him. People threw their heads at each other, and +shook their arms off. The transformation scene was really pretty, and it +only added to the joke that the dirty old proprietor burned the red +light under our very noses, amid a storm of chaff from Jack.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>From the marionettes we went to the fat woman. A loathsome sight, which +turned me sick; but, for some inexplicable reason, seemed highly to +gratify Madame. She and Jack came out in fits of laughter, and he said, +“Now for the two-headed monstrosity. It’ll just suit you, Madame!”</p> + +<p>At the door, Madame paused. “Mais, ce n’est pas pour des petites +filles,” she said, glancing at Eleanor and me.</p> + +<p>“<i>Feel?</i>” said Jack, who was struggling through the crowd, which was +dense here. “It feels nothing. It’s in a bottle. Come along!”</p> + +<p>“All right, Madame,” said Eleanor, smiling. “We’ll wait for you +outside.”</p> + +<p>We next proceeded to the photographer’s, where Jack and Madame were +photographed together with Pincher.</p> + +<p>By Madame’s desire she was now led to the “bazaar,” where she bought a +collar for Pincher, two charming china boxes, in the shape of dogs’ +heads, for Eleanor and her mother, a fan for me, a walking-stick for +Monsieur le Pasteur, and some fishing-floats for Clement. By this time +some children had gathered round us. The children of the district were +especially handsome, and Madame was much smitten by their rosy cheeks +and many-shaded flaxen hair.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” she sighed, “I must make some little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> presents to the children;” +and she looked anxiously over the stalls.</p> + +<p>“Violin, one and six,” said the saleswoman. “Nice work-box for a little +girl, half-a-crown.”</p> + +<p>“Half a fiddlestick,” said Jack promptly. “What have you got for a +halfpenny?”</p> + +<p>“Them’s halfpenny balls, whips, and dolls. Them churns and mugs is a +halfpenny; and so’s the little tin plates. Them’s the halfpenny monkeys +on sticks.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Madame,” said Jack, “put that half-crown back, and give me a +shilling. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. There are your +presents; and now for the children!”</p> + +<p>Madame showed a decided disposition to reward personal beauty, which +Jack overruled at once.</p> + +<p>“The prettiest? I see myself letting you! Church Sunday scholars is my +tip; and I shall put them through the Catechism test. Look here, young +un, what’s your name? Who gave you this name?”</p> + +<p>“Ma godfeythers and godmoothers,” the young urchin began.</p> + +<p>“That’ll do,” said Jack. “Take your whip, and be thankful. Now, my +little lass, who gave you this name?”</p> + +<p>“Me <span class="nowrap">godfeythers——”</span></p> + +<p>“All right. Take your doll, and drop a curtsy; and mind you don’t take +the curtsy, and drop your doll. Now, my boy, tell me how many there +be?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Ten.”</p> + +<p>“Which be they? I mean, take your monkey, and make your bow. Next child, +come up.”</p> + +<p>Clem, Eleanor, and I kept back the crowd as well as we could; but +children pressed in on all sides. Clem brought a shilling out of his +pocket, and handed it over to Jack.</p> + +<p>“You’ve won your bet, old man,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You’re a good fellow, Clem. I say, lay it out among the halfpenny +lot—will you?—and then give them to Madame. Keep your eye open for +Dissenters, and send the Church children first.”</p> + +<p>The forty-eight halfpennyworths proved to be sufficient for all, +however, though the orthodoxy of one or two seemed doubtful.</p> + +<p>Madame was tired; but the position had pleased her, and she gave away +the toys with a charming grace. We were leaving the fair when some small +urchins, who had either got or hoped to get presents, and were (I +suspected) partly impelled also by a sense of the striking nature of +Madame’s appearance, set up a lusty cheer.</p> + +<p>Madame paused. Her eyes brightened; her thin lips parted with a smile. +In a voice of intense satisfaction, she murmured:</p> + +<p>“It is the Briteesh hooray!”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">WE AND THE BOYS—WE AND THE BOYS AND OUR FADS—THE LAMP OF ZEAL—CLEMENT +ON UNREALITY—JACK’S OINTMENT.</p> + + +<p>Our life on the moors was, I suppose, monotonous. I do not think we ever +found it dull; but it was not broken, as a rule, by striking incidents.</p> + +<p>The coming and going of the boys were our chief events. We packed for +them when they went away. We wrote long letters to them, and received +brief but pithy replies. We spoke on their behalf when they wanted +clothes or pocket-money. We knew exactly how to bring the news of good +marks in school and increased subscriptions to cricket to bear in +effective combination upon the parental mind, and were amply rewarded by +half a sheet, acknowledging the receipt of a ten-shilling piece in a +match-box (the Arkwrights had a strange habit of sending coin of the +realm by post, done up like botanical specimens), with brief directions +as to the care of garden or collection, and perhaps a rude outline of +the head-master’s nose—“In a great hurry, from your loving and grateful +Bro.”</p> + +<p>We kept their gardens tidy, preserved their collections from dust, damp, +and Keziah, and knitted socks for them. I learned to knit, of course. +Every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> woman knits in that village of stone. And “between lights” +Eleanor and I plied our needles on the boys’ behalf, and counted the +days to the holidays.</p> + +<p>We had fresh “fads” every holidays. Many of our plans were ambitious +enough, and the results would, no doubt, have been great had they been +fully carried out. But Midsummer holidays, though long, are limited in +length.</p> + +<p>Once we made ourselves into a Field Naturalists’ Club. We girls gave up +our “spare dress wardrobe” for a museum. We subdivided the shelves, and +proposed to make a perfect collection of the flora and entomology of the +neighbourhood. Eleanor and I really did continue to add specimens whilst +the boys were at school; but they came home at Christmas devoted, body +and soul, to the drama. We were soon converted to the new fad. The +wardrobe became a side-scene in our theatre, and Eleanor and Clement +laboured day and night with papers of powdered paint, and kettles of hot +size, in converting canvas into scenery. “Theatricals” promised to be a +lasting fancy; but the next holidays were in fine weather, and we made +the drop-curtain into a tent.</p> + +<p>When the boys were at school, Eleanor and I were fully occupied. We took +a good deal of pains with our room: half of it was mine now. I had my +knick-knack table as well as Eleanor, my own books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> and pictures, my own +photographs of the boys and of the dear boys, my own pot plants, and my +own dog—a pug, given to me by Jack, and named “Saucebox.” In Jack’s +absence, Pincher also looked on me as his mistress.</p> + +<p>Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regulations of our +own devising: private codes, generally kept in cipher, for our own +personal self-discipline, and laws common to us both for the employment +of our time in joint duties—lessons, parish work, and so forth. I think +we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too often. I +make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more alone. I wonder +if I really keep them better? But if not, may <span class="smcap">God</span>, I pray Him, send me +back the restless zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which +He gives in early youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in +conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful +of one’s own comfort and one’s own property, more self-satisfied in +leaving high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe +that one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those +good works, those great triumphs over evil, which single hands effect +sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may +have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +good, as if some special gifts were made to them in middle age which are +withheld from other men. Is it not rather that some few souls keep alive +the lamp of zeal and high desire which <span class="smcap">God</span> lights for most of us while +life is young?</p> + +<p>Eleanor and I worked at our lessons by ourselves. We always had her +mother to “fall back upon,” as we said. When we took up the study of +Italian in order to be able to read Dante—moved thereto by the +attractions of the long volume of Flaxman’s illustrations of the ‘Divina +Commedia’—we had to “fall back” a good deal on Mrs. Arkwright’s +scholarship. And this in spite of all the helps the library afforded us, +the best of dictionaries, English “cribs,” and about six of those +elaborate commentaries upon the poem, of which Italians have been so +prolific.</p> + +<p>During the winter the study of languages was commonly uppermost; in +summer sketching was more favoured.</p> + +<p>I do think sketching brings one a larger amount of pleasure than almost +any other occupation. And like “collecting,” it is a very sociable +pursuit when one has fellow-sketchers as well as fellow-naturalists. And +this, I must confess, is a merit in my eyes, I being of a sociable +disposition! Eleanor could live alone, I think, and be happy; but I +depend largely on my fellow-creatures.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>Jack and I were talking rather sentimentally the other day about “old +times,” and I said:</p> + +<p>“How jolly it was, that summer we used to sketch so much—all four of us +together!”</p> + +<p>And Jack, who was rubbing some new stuff of his own compounding into his +fishing-boots, replied:</p> + +<p>“Awfully. I vote we take to it again when the weather’s warmer.”</p> + +<p>But Jack is so sympathetic, he will agree with anything one says. +Indeed, I am sure that he feels what one feels—for the time, at any +rate.</p> + +<p>Clement is very different. He always disputes and often snubs what one +says; partly, I am sure, from a love of truth—a genuine desire to keep +himself and everybody else from talking in an unreal way, and from +repeating common ideas without thinking them out at first hand; and +partly, too, from what Keziah calls the “contradictiousness” of his +temper. He was in the room when Jack and I were talking, but he was not +talking with us. He was reading for his examination.</p> + +<p>All the Arkwrights can work through noise and in company, having +considerable powers of mental abstraction. I think they even sometimes +combine attention to their own work with an occasional skimming of the +topics current in the room as well.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>Some outlying feeler of Clement’s brain caught my remark and Jack’s +reply.</p> + +<p>“My dear Margery,” said he, “you are at heart one of the most unaffected +people I know. Pray be equally genuine with your head, and do not +encourage Jack in his slipshod habits of thought and conversation +<span class="nowrap">by——”</span></p> + +<p>“Slipshod!” interrupted Jack, holding his left arm out at full length +before him, the hand of which was shod with a fishing-boot. “Slipshod! +They fit as close as your convictions, and would be as stiff and +inexorable as logic if I didn’t soften them with this newly-invented and +about-to-be-patented ointment by the warmth of a cheerful fire and +Margery’s beaming countenance.”</p> + +<p>Clement had been reading during this sentence. Then he lifted his head, +and said pointedly:</p> + +<p>“What I was going to advise <i>you</i>, Margery, is never to get into the +habit of adopting sentiments till you are quite sure you really mean +them. It is by the painful experience of my own folly that I know what +trouble it gives one afterwards. If ever the time comes when you want to +know your real opinion on any subject, the process of getting rid of +ideas you have adopted without meaning them will not be an easy one.”</p> + +<p>I am not as intellectual as the Arkwrights. I can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> always see through +Jack’s jokes, but I am sometimes left far behind when Eleanor or Clement +“take flight,” as Jack calls it, on serious subjects. I really did not +follow Clement on this occasion.</p> + +<p>With some hesitation I said:</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that I quite understand.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you don’t,” said Jack. “I have feared for some time that your +hair was getting too thick for the finer ideas of this household to +penetrate to your brain. Allow me to apply a little of this ointment to +the parting, which in your case is more definite than with Eleanor; and +as our lightest actions should proceed from principles, I may mention +that the principle on which I propose to apply the Leather-softener to +your scalp is that on which the blacksmith’s wife gave your cholera +medicine to the second girl, when she began with rheumatic fever—‘it +did such a deal of good to our William.’ Now, this unguent has done ‘a +deal of good’ to the leather of my boots. Why should it not successfully +lubricate the skin of your skull?”</p> + +<p>Only the dread of “a row” between Jack and Clem enabled me to keep +anything like gravity.</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk nonsense, Jack!” said I, as severely as I could. (I fear +that, like the rest of the world, I snubbed Jack rather than Clement, +because his temper was sweeter, and less likely to resent it.) +“Clement,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> I’m very stupid, but I don’t quite see how what <i>you</i> said +applies to what <i>I</i> said.”</p> + +<p>“You said, ‘How happy we were, that summer we went sketching!’ or words +to that effect. It’s just like a man’s writing about the careless +happiness of childhood, when he either forgets, or refuses to advert to, +the toothache, the measles, learning his letters, the heat of the +night-nursery, not being allowed to sit down in the yard whilst his +knickerbockers were new, going to bed at eight o’clock, and having a lie +on his conscience. I have striven for more accurate habits of thought, +and I remember distinctly that you cried over more than one of your +sketches.”</p> + +<p>“I got into the ‘Household Album’ with mine, however,” said Jack; “and I +defy an A.R.A. to have had more difficulty in securing his position.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid your appearance in the <i>Phycological Quarterly</i> was better +deserved,” said Mrs. Arkwright, without removing her eye from the +microscope she was using at a table just opposite to Clem’s.</p> + +<p>But this demands explanation, and I must go back to the time of which +Jack and I spoke—when we used to go sketching together.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">THE “HOUSEHOLD ALBUM”—SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES—A NEW +SPECIES?—JACK’S BARGAIN—THEORIES.</p> + + +<p>Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts at +drawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun a +scrapbook, or “Household Album,” as it was called, into which she pasted +such of her children’s original drawings as were held good enough for +the honour; the age of the artist being taken into account.</p> + +<p>Jack’s gift in this line was not as great as that of Clement or Eleanor, +but this was not the only reason why no drawing of his appeared in the +scrapbook. Mrs. Arkwright demanded more evidence of pains and industry +than Jack was wont to bestow on his sketches or designs. He resented his +exclusion, and made many efforts to induce his mother to accept his +hasty productions; but it was not till the summer to which I alluded +that Jack took his place in the “Household Album.”</p> + +<p>It was during a long drive, in which we were exhibiting the country to +some friends, that Eleanor and I chose the place of that particular +sketching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> expedition. The views it furnished had the first, and almost +the only, quality demanded by young and tyro sketchers—they were very +pretty.</p> + +<p>There was some variety, too, to justify our choice. From the sandy road, +where a heathery bank afforded the convenience of seats, we could look +down into a valley with a winding stream, whose banks rose into +hillsides which lost themselves in finely-coloured mountains of +moorland.</p> + +<p>Farther on, a scramble on foot over walls and gates had led us into a +wooded gorge fringed with ferns, where a group of trees of particularly +graceful form roused Eleanor’s admiration.</p> + +<p>“What a lovely view!” had burst from the lips of our friends at every +quarter of a mile; for they were of that (to me) trying order of +carriage companions who talk about the scenery as you go, as a point of +politeness.</p> + +<p>But the views <i>were</i> beautiful—“Sketches everywhere!” we cried.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing to make a sketch <i>of</i> round the Vicarage,” we added. +“We’ve done the church, with the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, and +without the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, till we are sick of the +subject.”</p> + +<p>So, the weather being fine, and even hot, we provided ourselves with +luncheon and sketching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> materials, and made an expedition to the point +we had selected.</p> + +<p>We were tired by the time we reached it. This does not necessarily damp +one’s sketching ardour, but it is unfavourable to accuracy of outline, +and especially so to purity of colouring. However, we did not hesitate. +Eleanor went down to her study of birch-trees in the gorge, Clement +climbed up the bank to get the most extended view of the Ewden Valley; I +contented myself with sitting by the roadside in front of the same view, +and Jack stayed with me.</p> + +<p>He had come with us. Not that he often went out sketching, but our +descriptions of the beauty of the scenery had roused him to make another +attempt for the “Household Album.” Seldom lastingly provided, for his +own part, with apparatus of any kind, Jack had a genius for purveying +all that he required in an emergency. On this occasion he had borrowed +Mrs. Arkwright’s paint-box (without leave), and was by no means ill +supplied with pencils and brushes which certainly were not his own. He +had hastily stripped a couple of sheets from my block whilst I was +dressing, and with these materials he seated himself on that side of me +which enabled him to dip into my water-pot, and began to paint.</p> + +<p>Not half-way through my outline, I was just beginning to realize the +complexities of a bird’s-eye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> view with your middle distance in a +valley, and your foreground sloping steeply upwards to your feet, when +Jack, washing out a large, dyed sable sky-brush in my pot, with an +amount of splashing that savoured of triumph, said:</p> + +<p>“<i>That’s</i> done!”</p> + +<p>I paused in a vigorous mental effort to put aside my <i>knowledge</i> of the +relative sizes of objects, and to <i>see</i> that a top stone of my +foreground wall covered three fields, the river, and half the river’s +bank beyond.</p> + +<p>“<i>Done?</i>” I exclaimed. Jack put his brush into his mouth, in defiance of +all rules, and deliberately sucked it dry. Then he waved his sketch +before my eyes.</p> + +<p>“The effect’s rather good,” I confessed, “but oh, Jack, it’s out of all +proportion! That gate really looks as big as the whole valley and the +hills beyond. The top of the gate-post ought to be up in the sky.”</p> + +<p>“It would look beastly ugly if it was,” replied he complacently.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got a very good tint for those hills; but the foreground is mere +scrambling. Oh, Jack, do finish it a little more! You would draw so +nicely if you had any patience.”</p> + +<p>“How imperfectly you understand my character,” said Jack, packing up his +traps. “I would sit on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> monument and smile at grief with any one, this +very day, if the monument were in a grove, or even if I had an umbrella +to smile under. To sit unsheltered under this roasting sun, and make +myself giddy by gauging proportions with a pencil at the end of my nose, +or smudging my mistakes with melting india-rubber, is quite another +matter. I’m off to Eleanor. I’ve got another sheet of paper, and I think +trees are rather in my line.”</p> + +<p>“I <i>thought</i> my block looked smaller,” said I, rapidly comparing Jack’s +paper and my own, with a feeling for size developed by my labours.</p> + +<p>“Has she got a water-pot?” asked Jack.</p> + +<p>“She is sure to have,” said I pointedly. “She always takes her own +materials with her.”</p> + +<p>“How fortunate for those who do not!” said Jack. “Now, Margery dear, +don’t look sulky. I knew you wouldn’t grudge me a bit of paper to get +into the ‘Household Album’ with. Come down into the ravine. You’re as +white as a blank sheet of Whatman’s hot-pressed water-colour paper!”</p> + +<p>The increasing heat was really beginning to overpower me, but I refused +to leave my sketch. Jack pinned a large white pocket-handkerchief to my +shoulders—“to keep the sun from the spine”—and departed to the ravine.</p> + +<p>By midday my outline was in. One is no good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> judge of one’s own work, +but I think, on the whole, that it was a success.</p> + +<p>It is always refreshing to complete a stage of anything. I began to feel +less hot and tired, as I passed a wash of clean water over my outline, +and laying it in the sun to dry, got out my colours and brushes.</p> + +<p>As I did so, one of the little gusts of wind which had been an +unpleasant feature of this very fine day, and which, threatening a +change of weather, made us anxious to finish our sketches at a sitting, +came down the sandy road. In an instant the damp surface of my block +looked rough enough to strike matches on. But impatience is not my +besetting sin, and I had endured these little catastrophes before. I +waited for the block to dry before I brushed off the sand. I also waited +till the little beetle, who had crept into my sky, and was impeded in +his pace by my first wash, walked slowly down through all my distances, +and quitted the block by the gate in the foreground. This was partly +because I did not want to hurt him, and partly because a white cumulus +cloud is a bad part of your sketch to kill a black beetle on.</p> + +<p>I washed over my paper once more, and holding it on my knee to dry just +as much and no more than was desirable, I looked my subject in the face +with a view to colour.</p> + +<p>A long time passed. I had looked and looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> again; I had washed in and +washed out; I had realized the difficulty of the subject without +flinching, and had tried hard to see and represent the colouring before +me, when Clement (having exhausted his water in a similar process) came +down the hill behind me, with a surly and sunburnt face, to replenish +his bottle at a wayside water-trough.</p> + +<p>It was then that, as he said, he found me crying.</p> + +<p>“It’s not because it’s difficult and I’m very stupid,” I whimpered. “I +don’t mind working on and trying to make the best of a thing. And it’s +not the wind or the sand, though it has got dreadfully into the paints, +particularly the Italian Pink; but what makes me hopeless, Clement, is +that I don’t believe it would look well if I could paint it perfectly. +It looked lovely as we were driving home the other evening, but now—— +Just look at those fields, Clem; I <i>know</i> they’re green, but really and +truly I <i>see</i> them just the same colour as this road, and I don’t think +there is the difference of a shade between them and that gate-post. What +shall I do?”</p> + +<p>A tear fell out of my eyelashes and dropped on to my river. Clement took +the sketch from me, and dried up the tear with a bit of blotting-paper.</p> + +<p>Then to my amazement he gave rather a favourable verdict. It comforted +me, for Clement never says anything that he does not mean.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>“It’s not <i>half</i> bad, Margery! Wait till you see mine! How did you get +the tints of that hillside? You’ve a very truthful mind, that’s one +thing, and a very true eye as well. I do admire the way you abstain from +filling up with touches that mean nothing.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Clement!” cried I, so gratified that I began to feel ready to go on +again. “Do you really think I can make anything of it?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing more,” said Clement. “Don’t put another touch. It’s unfinished, +but no finishing would do any good. We’ve got an outlandish subject and +a bad time of day. But keep it just as it is, and three months hence, on +a cool day, you’ll be pleased when you look at it.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps if I went on a little with the foreground,” I suggested; but +even as I spoke, I put my hand to my head.</p> + +<p>“Go to Eleanor in the ravine, at once,” said Clement imperatively. “I’ll +bring your things. What <i>did</i> make us such fools as to come out without +umbrellas?”</p> + +<p>“We came out in the cool of the morning,” said I, as I staggered off; +“besides, it’s almost impossible to hold one and paint too.”</p> + +<p>Once in the ravine, I dropped among the long grass and ferns, and the +damp, refreshing coolness of my resting-place was delicious.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>Eleanor was not faint, neither had she been crying; but she was not much +happier with her sketch than I had been with mine. The jutting group of +birch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably. But when +she came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, her +very outline had begun to look less satisfactory. When it came to +colour—and the midday sun was darting and glittering through the +interstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of <i>chiaroscuro</i> +to a subject already defective in point and contrast—Eleanor was almost +in despair.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Jack?” said I, after condoling with her.</p> + +<p>“He tried the birches for ten minutes, and then he went up the stream to +look for <i>algæ</i>.”</p> + +<p>At this moment Jack appeared. He came slowly towards us, looking at +something in his hand.</p> + +<p>“Lend me your magnifying-glass, Eleanor,” said he, when he had reached +us.</p> + +<p>Eleanor unfastened it from her chatelaine, and Jack became absorbed in +examining some water-weed in a dock-leaf.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” said we.</p> + +<p>“It’s a new species, I believe. Look, Eleanor!” and he gave her the leaf +and the glass with an almost pathetic anxiety of countenance.</p> + +<p>My opinion carried no weight in the matter, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> Eleanor was nearly as +good a naturalist as her mother. And she was inclined to agree with +Jack.</p> + +<p>“It’s too good to be true! But I certainly don’t know it. Where did you +find it?”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you,” said Jack derisively. “I mean to keep the habitat to +myself for the present. For <i>a very good reason</i>. Margery, my child, put +that sketch of mine into the pocket of your block. (The paper is much +about the size of your own!) It is going into the ‘Household Album.’”</p> + +<p>We went home earlier than we had intended. Even the perseverance of +Eleanor and Clement broke down under their ill-success. Jack was the +only well-satisfied one of the party, and, with his usual good-nature, +he tried hard to infect me with his cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>“I think,” said I, looking dolefully at my sketch, “that a good deal of +the fault must have been in my eyes. I suspect one can’t see colours +properly when one is feeling sick and giddy. But the glare of the sun +was the worst. I couldn’t tell red from green on my palette, so no +wonder the fields and everything else looked all the same colour. And +yet what provokes one is the feeling that an artist would have made a +sketch of it somehow. The view is really beautiful.”</p> + +<p>“And that is really beautiful,” said Eleanor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> pointing to the birch +group and its background. “And what a mess I have made of it! I wish I’d +stuck to pencil. And yet, as you say, an artist would have got a picture +out of it.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what,” said Jack, who was lying face downwards with my +picture spread before him, “I believe that any one who knew the dodges, +when he saw that everything looked one pale, yellowish, brownish tint +with the glare of the sun, would have boldly taken a weak wash of all +the drab-looking colours in his box right over everything, picked out a +few stones in his foreground wall, dodged in a few shadows and so on, +and made a clever sketch of it. And the same with Eleanor’s. If he had +got his birch-trees half as good as hers, and had then seen what a +muddle the trees behind were in, I believe he would only have washed in +a little blue and grey behind the birches, ‘indicated’ (as our old +drawing-master at school calls it) a distant stem or two—and there +would have been another clever sketch for you!”</p> + +<p>“Another clever falsehood, you mean,” said Clement hotly, “to ruin +people’s taste, and encourage idle painters in showy trickery, and make +them believe they can improve upon Nature’s colouring.”</p> + +<p>“Nature’s colouring varies,” said Jack. “Distant trees often <i>are</i> blue +and grey, though these, just now, are of the rankest green.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Clement replied, Jack responded, Clement retorted, and a fierce +art-discussion raged the whole way home.</p> + +<p>We were well used to it. Indeed all conversations with us had a tendency +to become controversial. Over and above which there was truth in +Keziah’s saying, “The young gentlemen argle-bargles fit to deave a +body’s head; and dear knows what it’s all about.”</p> + +<p>Clement finished a vehement and rather didactic confession of his +art-faith as we climbed the steep hill to the Vicarage. The keynote of +it was that one ought to draw what he sees, exactly as he sees it; and +that every subject has a beauty of its own which he ought to perceive if +his perception is not “emasculated by an acquired taste for +prettinesses.”</p> + +<p>“I shall be in the ‘Household Album’ this evening,” said Jack, in +deliberate tones. “My next ambition is the Society of Painters in Water +Colours. The subject of my first painting is settled. Three grass fields +(haymaking over the day before yesterday). A wall in front of the first +field, a hedge in front of the second, a wall in front of the third. A +gate in the middle of the wall. A spotted pig in the middle of the +field. The sun at its meridian; the pig asleep. Motto, ‘Whatever is, is +beautiful.’”</p> + +<p>Eleanor and I (in the interests of peace) hastened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> to change the +subject by ridiculing Jack’s complacent conviction that his sketch would +be accepted for the “Household Album.”</p> + +<p>And yet it was.</p> + +<p>The fresh-water <i>alga</i> Jack had been lucky enough to find was a new +species, and threw Mrs. Arkwright and Eleanor into a state of the +highest excitement. But all their entreaties failed to persuade Jack to +disclose the secret of the habitat.</p> + +<p>“Put my sketch into the ‘Household Album,’ and I’ll tell you all about +it,” said he.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arkwright held out against this for half-an-hour. Then she gave +way. Jack’s sketch was gummed in (it took up a whole page, being the +full size of my block), and he told us all about the water-weed.</p> + +<p>It was described and figured in the <i>Phycological Quarterly</i>, and +received the specific name of <i>Arkwrightii</i>, and Jack’s double triumph +was complete.</p> + +<p>We were very glad for his success, but it almost increased the sense of +disappointment that our share of the expedition had been so unlucky.</p> + +<p>“It seems such a waste,” said I, “to have got to such a lovely place +with one’s drawing things and plenty of time, and to come away without a +sketch worth keeping at the end, just because one doesn’t know the right +way of working.”</p> + +<p>“I think there’s a good deal in what Jack said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> about your sketch,” said +Eleanor; “and I think if one looked at the way real artists have treated +similar subjects, and then went at it again and tried to do it on a +similar <span class="nowrap">principle——”</span></p> + +<p>“If ever we do go there again,” Clement interrupted, “but I don’t +suppose we shall—these holidays. And the way summer after summer slips +away is awful. I’m more and more convinced that it’s a great mistake to +have so many hobbies. No life is long enough for more than one pursuit, +and it’s ten to one you die in the middle of mastering that. One is sure +to die in the early stages of half-a-dozen.”</p> + +<p>Clement is very apt to develop some odd theory of this kind, and to +preach it with a severity that borders on gloom. I never know what to +say, even if I disagree with him; but Eleanor takes up the cudgels at +once.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I agree with you,” she said, giving a shove to her soft +elastic hair which did not improve the indefiniteness of the parting. +“Of course it’s unsatisfactory in one way to feel one will never live to +finish things, but in another way I think it’s a great comfort to feel +one can never use them up or outlive them if one lasts on to be a +hundred. And though one gets very cross and miserable with failing so +over things one works at, I don’t know whether one would be so much +happier when one was at the top of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> tree. I’m not sure that the +chief pleasure isn’t actually in the working at things—I mean in the +drudgery of learning, rather than in the triumph of having learnt.”</p> + +<p>“There’s something in that,” said Clement. And it was a great deal for +Clement to say.</p> + +<p>It does not take much to convert <i>me</i> to Eleanor’s views of anything. +But I do think experience bears out what she said about this matter.</p> + +<p>Perhaps that accounts for my having a happy remembrance of old times +when we worked at things together, even if we failed and cried over +them.</p> + +<p>I know that practically, now, I would willingly join the others in going +at anything, though I could not promise not to be peevish over my own +stupidity sometimes, and if I was very much tired.</p> + +<p>I don’t think there was anything untrue in my calling the times we went +sketching together happy times—in spite of what Clement says.</p> + +<p>But he does rule such very straight lines all over life, and I sometimes +think one may rule them too straight—even for full truth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">MANNERS AND CUSTOMS—CLIQUE—THE LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE—OUT +VISITING—HOUSE-PRIDE—DRESSMAKING.</p> + + +<p>Eleanor and I were not always at home. We generally went visiting +somewhere, at least once a year.</p> + +<p>I think it was good for us. Great as were the advantages of the life I +now shared over an existence wasted in a petty round of ignoble gossip +and social struggle, it had the drawback of being almost too +self-sufficing, perhaps—I am not certain—a little too laborious. I do +think, but for me, it must, at any rate, have become the latter. I am so +much less industrious, energetic, clever and good in every way than +Eleanor, for one thing, that my very idleness holds us back; and I think +a taste for gaiety (I simply mean being gay, not balls and parties), and +for social pleasure, and for pretty things, and graceful “situations” +runs in my veins with my French blood, and helps to break the current of +our labours.</p> + +<p>We led lives of considerable intellectual activity, constant occupation, +and engrossing interest. We were apt to “foy” at our work to the extent +of grudging meal-times and sleep. Indeed, at one time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> a habit obtained +with us of leaving the table in turn as we finished our respective +meals. One member of the family after another would rise, bend his or +her head for a silent “grace,” and depart to the work in hand. I have +known the table gradually deserted in this fashion till Mr. Arkwright +was left alone. I remember going back one day into the room, and seeing +him so. My entrance partially aroused him from a brown study. (He was at +all times very “absent”) He rose, said grace aloud for the benefit of +the company—which had dispersed—and withdrew to his library. But we +abolished this uncivilized custom in conclave, and thenceforth sat our +meals out to the end.</p> + +<p>So free were we in our isolation upon those Yorkshire moors from the +trammels of conventionality (one might almost say, civilization!), that +I think we should have come to begrudge the ordinary interchange of the +neighbourly courtesies of life, but for occasional lectures from Mrs. +Arkwright, and for going out visiting from time to time.</p> + +<p>It was not merely that a life of running in and out of other people’s +houses, and chatting the same bits of news threadbare with one +acquaintance after another, as at Riflebury, would have been unendurable +by us. The rare arrival of a visitor from some distant country-house to +call at the Vicarage was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> signal for every one, who could do so with +decency, to escape from the unwelcome interruption. But as we grew +older, Mrs. Arkwright would not allow this. The boys, indeed, were hard +to coerce; they “bolted” still when the door-bell rang; but domestic +authority, which is apt to be magnified on “the girls,” overruled +Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother—who reasoned with us far +more than she commanded—convinced us of how much selfishness there was +in this, as in all acts of discourtesy.</p> + +<p>But what do we not owe to her good counsels? In how many evening talks +has she not warned us of the follies, affectations, or troubles to which +our lives might specially be liable! Against despising interests that +are not our own, or graces which we have chosen to neglect, against the +danger of satire, against the love or the fear of being thought +singular, and, above all, against the petty pride of clique.</p> + +<p>“I do not know which is the worst,” I remember her saying, “a religious +clique, an intellectual clique, a fashionable clique, a moneyed clique, +or a family clique. And I have seen them all.”</p> + +<p>“Come, Mother,” said Eleanor, “you cannot persuade us you would not have +more sympathy with the intellectual than the moneyed clique, for +instance?”</p> + +<p>“I should have warmly declared so myself, at one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> time,” said Mrs. +Arkwright, “but I have a vivid remembrance of a man belonging to an +artistic clique, to whose house I once went with some friends. My +friends were artists also, but their minds were enlarged, instead of +being narrowed, by one chief pursuit. Their special art gave them +sympathy with all others, as the high cultivation of one virtue is said +to bring all the rest in its train. But this man talked the shibboleth +of his craft over one’s head to other members of his clique with a +defiance of good manners arising more from conceit than from ignorance +of the ways of society; and with a transparent intention of being +overheard and admired which reminded me of the little self-conscious +conceits of children before visitors. He was one of a large family with +the same peculiarities, joined to a devout admiration of each other. +Indeed, they combined the artistic clique and the family clique in equal +proportions. From the conversation at their table you would have +imagined that there was but one standard of good for poor humanity, that +of one ‘school’ of one art, and absolutely no one who quite came up to +it but the brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, or connections by +marriage of your host. Now, I honestly assure you that the only other +man really like this one that I ever met, was what is called a +‘self-made’ man in a commercial clique. Money was <i>his</i> standard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> and +he seemed to be as completely unembarrassed as my artist friend by the +weight of any other ideas than his own, or by any feeling short of utter +satisfaction with himself. Their contempt for the conventionalities of +society was about equal. My artist friend had passed a sweeping +criticism for my benefit now and then (there could be no conversation +where no second opinion was allowed), and it was with perhaps a shade +less of condescension—a shade more of friendliness—that my commercial +friend once stopped some remarks of mine with the knowing observation, +‘Look here, ma’am. Whenever I hear this, that, and the other bragged +about a party, what I always say is this, I don’t want you to tell me +what he <i>his</i>, but what he <i>’as</i>.’”</p> + +<p>Eleanor and I laughed merrily at the anecdote, even if we were not quite +converted to Mrs. Arkwright’s views. And I must in justice add that +every visit which has taken us from home—every fresh experience which +has enlarged our knowledge of the world—has confirmed the truth of her +sage and practical advice.</p> + +<p>If at home we have still inclined to feel it almost a duty to be proud +of intellectual tastes, quite a duty to be proud of orthodox opinions, +and, at the worst, a very amiable weakness indeed to think that there +are no boys like our boys, a wholesome experience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> of having other +people’s tastes and views crammed down our throats has modified our +ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the +brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack +sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a +mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of +our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the +Vicarage are ever oppressed by the dear boys.</p> + +<p>I’m afraid it is possible—poor dear things!</p> + +<p>I have positively heard people say that Saucebox is ugly, though he has +eyes like a bull-frog, and his tongue hangs quite six inches out of his +mouth, and—in warm weather or before meals—further still! However, I +keep him in very good order, and never allow him to be troublesome to +people who do not appreciate him. For I have observed that there are +people who (having no children of their own) hold very just and severe +views about spoiled boys and girls, but who (having dogs of their own) +are much less clear-sighted on the subject of spoiled terriers and +Pomeranians. And I do not want to be like that—dear as the dear boys +are!</p> + +<p>Certainly, seeing all sorts of people with all sorts of peculiarities is +often a great help towards trying to get rid of one’s own objectionable +ones. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> like the sketching, one sometimes gets into despair about it, +and though the process of learning an art may be even pleasanter than to +feel one’s self a master in it, one cannot say as much for the process +of discovering one’s follies. I should like to get rid of <i>them</i> in a +lump.</p> + +<p>Eleanor said so one day to her mother, but Mrs. Arkwright said: “We may +hate ourselves, as you call it, when we come to realize failings we have +not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we +do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of +impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am +sure. It is one’s greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt +by <span class="smcap">God</span>. Just as a mother would not love her child the better for its +being turned into a model of perfection by one stroke of magic, but does +love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and +believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to +love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our +struggles with folly and sin.”</p> + +<p>But I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is +about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about +our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in +it, and Eleanor says it will not do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> for us to “go off at a tangent,” +and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first, +because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for +nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly, +because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these +ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished. +We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting +rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly +because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind +them.</p> + +<p>Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends +of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor’s friends +invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were +happier together.</p> + +<p>I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins +living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure +to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I +think of the expression of Eleanor’s face, I may almost say rapture. +Then there was a certain church-bookseller’s shop in the town, which had +manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper +could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury. +There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and +oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the +garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of +such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial +interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it +was about this period.</p> + +<p>But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which +I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and +general ornamentation.</p> + +<p>The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where +my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me, +prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular +comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each +room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new +books, music, sketches, needlework, and flowers.</p> + +<p>“Do you know, Eleanor,” said I, when we were dressing for dinner one +evening before a toilette-table that had been tastefully adorned for our +use by the daughters of the house, “I wonder if Yorkshire women <i>are</i> as +‘house-proud’ as they call themselves? I think our villagers are, in the +important points of cleanliness and solid comfort, and of course<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> we are +at the Vicarage as to <i>that</i>—Keziah keeps us all like copper kettles; +but don’t you think we might have a little more house-pride about +tasteful pretty refinements? It perhaps is rather a waste of time +arranging all these vases and baskets of flowers every day, but they are +<i>very</i> nice to look at, and I think it civilizes one.”</p> + +<p>“<i>You’re</i> not to blame,” said Eleanor decisively. “You’re south-country +to the backbone, and French on the top. It is we hard north-country +folk, we business people, who neglect to cultivate ‘the beautiful.’ +We’re quite wrong. But I think the beautiful is revenged on us,” added +she with one of her quick, bright looks, “by withdrawing itself. There’s +nothing comparable for ugliness to the people of a manufacturing town.”</p> + +<p>My mind was running on certain very ingenious and tasteful methods of +hanging nosegays on the wall.</p> + +<p>“Those baskets with ferns and flowers in, against the wall, were lovely, +weren’t they?” said I. “Do you think we shall ever be able to think of +such pretty things?”</p> + +<p>“We’re not fools,” said Eleanor briefly. “We shall do it when we set our +minds to it. Meantime, we must make notes of whatever strikes us.”</p> + +<p>“There are plenty of jolly, old-fashioned flowers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> in the garden at +home,” said I. It was a polite way of expressing my inward regret that +we had no tropical orchids or strange stove-plants. And Eleanor danced +round me, and improvised a song beginning:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“There are ferns by Ewden’s waters,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And heather on the hill.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">From the better adornment of the Vicarage to the better adornment of +ourselves was a short stride. Most of the young ladies in these country +homes were very prettily dressed. Not <i>à la</i> Mrs. Perowne. Not in that +milliner’s handbook style dear to “Promenades” and places of public +resort; but more daintily, and with more attention to the prettiest and +most convenient of the prevailing fashions than Eleanor’s and my +costumes displayed.</p> + +<p>The toilettes of one young lady in particular won our admiration; and +when we learned that her pretty things were made by herself, an +overwhelming ambition seized upon us to learn to do the same.</p> + +<p>“Women ought to know about all house matters,” said Eleanor, puckering +her brow to a gloomy extent. “Dressmaking, cookery, and all that sort of +thing; and we know nothing about any of them. I was thinking only last +night, in bed, that if I were cast away on a desert island, and had to +make a dress<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> out of an old sail, I shouldn’t have the ghost of an idea +where to begin.”</p> + +<p>“I should,” said I. “I should sew it up like a sack, make three holes +for my head and arms, and tie it round my waist with ship’s rope. I +could manage Robinson Crusoe dresses; it’s the civilized ones that will +be too much for me, I’m afraid.”</p> + +<p>“I believe the sail would go twice as far if we could gore it,” said +Eleanor, laughing. “But there’s no waste like the wastefulness of +ignorance; and oh, Margery, it’s the <i>gores</i> I’m afraid of! If skirts +were only made the old-fashioned way, like a flannel petticoat! So many +pieces all alike—run them together—hem the bottom—gather the top—and +there you are, with everything straightforward but the pocket.”</p> + +<p>To our surprise we found that our new fad was a sore subject with Mrs. +Arkwright. She reproached herself bitterly with having given Eleanor so +little training in domestic arts. But she had been brought up by a +learned uncle, who considered needlework a waste of time, and she knew +as little about gores as we did. She had also, unfortunately, known or +heard of some excellent mother who had trained nine daughters to such +perfection of domestic capabilities that it was boasted that they could +never in after-life employ a workwoman or domestic who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> would know more +of her business than her employer. And this good lady was a standing +trouble to poor Mrs. Arkwright’s conscience.</p> + +<p>Her self-reproaches were needless. General training is perhaps quite as +good as (if not better than) special, even for special ends. In giving +us a higher education, in teaching us to use our eyes, our wits, and our +common-sense, she had put all meaner arts within our grasp when need +should urge, and opportunity serve.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Theresa was always dressmaking,” I said to Eleanor; “but I don’t +remember anything that would help us. I was so young, you know. And when +one is young one is so stupid, one really resists information.”</p> + +<p>I was to have another chance, however, of gleaning hints from Aunt +Theresa.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">MATILDA—BALL DRESSES AND THE BALL—GORES—MISS LINING—THE +‘PARISHIONER’S PENNYWORTH.’</p> + + +<p>The Bullers came home again. Colonel St. Quentin had retired, and when +Major Buller got the regiment, he also left the army and settled in a +pleasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> neighbourhood in the south of England. As soon as Aunt Theresa +was fairly established in her new house she sent for Eleanor and me. +There was no idea of my remaining permanently. It was only a visit.</p> + +<p>The Major (but he was a colonel now) and his wife were very little +changed. The girls, of course, had altered greatly, and so had I. +Matilda was a fashionably-dressed young lady, with a slightly frail +appearance at times, as if Nature were still revenging the old +mismanagement and neglect.</p> + +<p>It did not need Aunt Theresa to tell us that she was her father’s +favourite daughter. But it was no capricious favouritism, I am sure. I +believe Colonel Buller to have been one of those people whose hearts +have depths of tenderness that are never sounded. The Bush House +catastrophe had long ago been swept into the lumber-room of Aunt +Theresa’s memory, but the tender self-reproach of Matilda’s father was +still to be seen in all his care and indulgence of her.</p> + +<p>“He’ll take me anywhere,” said Matilda, with affectionate pride. “He +even goes shopping with me.”</p> + +<p>We liked Matilda by far the best of the girls. Partly, no doubt, because +she was our old friend, but partly, I think, because intimacy with her +father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> had developed the qualities she inherited from him, and softened +others.</p> + +<p>To our great satisfaction we discovered that gores were no enigma to +Matilda, and she and Aunt Theresa good-naturedly undertook to initiate +us into the mysteries of dressmaking.</p> + +<p>There was an excellent opportunity. Eleanor was now eighteen, and +Matilda seventeen years old. Matilda was to “come out” at a county ball +that was to take place whilst we were with the Bullers, and Mrs. +Arkwright consented to let Eleanor go also. Hence ball dresses, and +hence also our opportunity for learning how to make them. For they were +to be made by a dressmaker in the house, and she did not reject our +assistance.</p> + +<p>The Bullers’ drawing-room was divided by folding-doors, and both +divisions now overflowed with tarlatan and trimmings; but at every fresh +inroad of callers (and they were hardly less frequent than of old) we +young ones, and yards of flounces and finery with us, were swept by Aunt +Theresa into the back drawing-room, like autumn leaves before a breeze.</p> + +<p>The dresses were very successful, and so was the ball. I was so anxious +to hear how Eleanor had sped, that I felt quite sure that I could not go +to sleep, and that it was a farce to go to bed just when she was +beginning to dance. I went,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> however, at last, and had had half a +night’s sound sleep before rustling, and chattering, and the light from +bed-candles woke me to hear the news.</p> + +<p>Matilda was looking pale, and somewhat dishevelled, and a great deal of +the costume at which we had laboured was reduced to rags. Eleanor’s +dress was intact, and she herself looked perfectly fresh, partly because +she had resisted, with great difficulty, the extreme length of train +then fashionable, and partly from a sort of general compactness which +seems a natural gift with some people. Poor Matilda had nearly fainted +after one of the dances, and had brought away a violent headache; but +she declared that she had enjoyed herself, and would have stayed to +relate her adventures, but Colonel Buller would not allow it, and sent +her to bed. Eleanor slept with me, so our gossip was unopposed, except +by warnings.</p> + +<p>I set fire to my hair in the effort to decipher the well-filled ball +card, but we put it out, and the candle also, and chatted in bed.</p> + +<p>“You must have danced every dance,” I said, admiringly.</p> + +<p>“We sat out one or two that are down,” said Eleanor; “and No. 21 was +supper, but I danced all the rest.”</p> + +<p>“There was one man you danced several times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> with,” I said, “but I +couldn’t make out his name. It looks as if it began with a G.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s not his real name,” said Eleanor. “It’s the one he says you +used to call him by. One reason why I liked him, Margery dear, was +because he said he had been so fond of you. You were such a dear little +thing, he said. I told him the locket and chain were in good +preservation.”</p> + +<p>“Was it Mr. George?” I cried, with so much energy that Aunt Theresa (who +slept next door) heard us, and knocked on the wall to bid us go to +sleep.</p> + +<p>“We’re just going to,” Eleanor shouted, and added in lower tones, to me, +“Yes, it was Captain Abercrombie. Colonel Buller introduced him to me. +He is so nice, and so delightfully fond of dogs and of you, Margery.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I see him?” I asked. “I should like to see him again. He was very +good to me when I was little.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” said Eleanor. “It was curious his being in the neighbourhood; +for the 202nd is in Dublin, you know. And, Margery, he says he has an +uncle in Yorkshire. <span class="nowrap">He——”</span></p> + +<p>“Girls! girls!” cried Aunt Theresa; and we went to sleep.</p> + +<p>Soon after we returned from our visit to the Bullers, Eleanor and I +resolved to prove the benefit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> we had reaped from Aunt Theresa’s +instructions by making ourselves some dresses of an inexpensive stuff +that we bought for the purpose.</p> + +<p>How well I remember the pattern! A flowering creeper, which followed a +light stem upwards through yard after yard of the material. We had +picked to pieces certain old bodies which fitted us fairly, and our +first work was to lay these patterns upon the new stuff, with weights on +them, and so to cut out our new bodies as easily as Matilda (whose +directions we were following) had prophesied that we should. When these +and the sleeves were accomplished (and they looked most business-like), +we began upon the skirts. We cut the back and the front breadths, and +duly “sloped” the latter. Then came the gores. We folded the breadths +into three parts; we took a third at one end, and two-thirds at the +other, and folded the slope accordingly. It became quite exciting.</p> + +<p>“Who would have thought it was so easy?” said I.</p> + +<p>Eleanor was almost prone upon the table, cutting the gores with large +scissors which made a thoroughly sempstress-like squeak.</p> + +<p>“The higher education fades from my view with every snip,” she said, +laughing. “Upon my word, Margery, I begin to believe this sort of thing +<i>is</i> our vocation. It is great fun, and there is absolutely no brain +wear and tear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The gores were parted as she spoke, and (to do us justice) were exactly +the shape of the tarlatan ones Aunt Theresa had cut. But when we came to +put them together, they wouldn’t fit without turning one of them the +wrong side out. Eleanor had boasted too soon. We got headaches and +backaches with stooping and puzzling. We cut up all our stuff, but the +gores remained obstinate. By no ingenuity could we combine them so as to +be at once in proper order, the right side out, and the right side (of +the pattern) up. I really think we cried over them with weariness and +disappointment.</p> + +<p>“Algebra’s a trifle to it,” was poor Eleanor’s conclusion.</p> + +<p>I went out to clear my brain by a walk, and happening, as I returned, to +meet Jack, I confided our woes to him. One could tell Jack anything.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got it wrong somehow,” said Jack, “linking” me. “Come to Miss +Lining’s.”</p> + +<p>Miss Lining was our village dressmaker. A very bad one certainly, but +still she could gore a skirt. She was not a native of the village, and +signified her superior gentility by a mincing pronunciation. She had +also a hiss with the sibilants peculiar to herself. Before I could +remonstrate, Jack was knocking at the door.</p> + +<p>“Good-afternoon, Miss Lining. Miss Margery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> has been making a dress, and +she’s got into a muddle with the gores. Now, how do you manage with +gores, Miss Lining?” Jack confidentially inquired, taking his hat off, +and accepting a well-dusted chair.</p> + +<p>There was now nothing for it but to explain my difficulties, which I +did, Miss Lining saying, “Yisss, misss,” at every two or three words. +When I had said my say, she sucked the top of her brass thimble +thoughtfully for some moments, and then spoke as an oracle.</p> + +<p>“There’s a hinside and a hout to the stuff? Yisss, misss. And a hup and +a down? Yisss, misss.”</p> + +<p>“And quite half the gores won’t fit in anywhere,” I desperately +interposed.</p> + +<p>Miss Lining took another taste of the brass thimble, and then said:</p> + +<p>“In course, misss, with a patterned thing there’s as many gores to throw +hout as to huse. Yisss, misss.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Are there?</i>” said I. “But what a waste!”</p> + +<p>“Ho no, misss! you cuts the body out of the gores you throws hout, +<span class="nowrap">misss——”</span></p> + +<p>“Well, if you get the body out of them, there must be a waist!” Jack +broke in, as he sat fondling Miss Lining’s tom-cat.</p> + +<p>“Ho no, sir!” said Miss Lining, who couldn’t have seen a joke to save +her dignity. “They cuts to good add-vantage, sir.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The mystery was now clear to me, and Jack saw this by my face.</p> + +<p>“You understand?” said he briefly, setting down the cat.</p> + +<p>“Quite,” said I. “Our mistake was beginning with the bodies. But we can +get some more stuff.”</p> + +<p>“An odd bit always comes in,” said Miss Lining, speaking, I fear, from +an experience of bits saved from the dresses of village patrons. “Yisss, +misss.”</p> + +<p>“Well, good-afternoon, Miss Lining,” said Jack, who never suffered, as +Eleanor and I sometimes did, from a difficulty in getting away from a +cottage. “Thank you very much. Have you heard from your sister at Buxton +lately?”</p> + +<p>“Last week, sir,” said Miss Lining.</p> + +<p>“And how is she?” said Jack urbanely.</p> + +<p>He never forgot any one, and he never grudged sympathy—two qualities +which made him beloved of the village.</p> + +<p>“Quite well, thank you, sir, and the same to you,” said Miss Lining, +beaming; “except that she do suffer a deal in her inside, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Chamomile tea is very good for the inside, I believe,” said Jack, +putting on his hat with perfect gravity.</p> + +<p>“So I’ve ’eerd—yisss, sir,” said Miss Lining; “and there’s something of +the same in them pills that’s spoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> so well of in your magazine, sir, I +think. I sent by the carrier for a box, sir, on Saturday last, and would +have done sooner, but for waiting for Mrs. Barker to pay for the +pelerine I made out of her uncle’s funeral scarf. Yisss, misss.”</p> + +<p>Jack was very seldom at a loss, but on this occasion he seemed puzzled.</p> + +<p>“Pills recommended in our magazine?” he said, as we strolled up towards +the Vicarage. “It’s those medical tracts you and Eleanor have been +taking round lately.”</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing about pills in them,” said I. “They’re about drains, +and fresh air, and cleanliness. Besides, she said our magazine.”</p> + +<p>“We don’t give them any magazine but the <i>Parishioner’s Pennyworth</i> and +the missionary one,” said Jack. “I’m stumped, Margery.”</p> + +<p>But in a few minutes I was startled by his seizing me by the shoulders +and leaning against me in a paroxysm of laughter.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Margery, I’ve got it! It <i>is</i> the <i>Parishioner’s Pennyworth</i>. +There’s been an advertisement at the end of it for months, like a +fly-leaf, of Norton’s chamomile pills.”</p> + +<p>And as I unravelled to Eleanor the mystery of our dressmaking +difficulties, we could hear Jack convulsing Mrs. Arkwright with a +perfect reproduction of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> Miss Lining’s accent—“Them pills that’s spoke +so well of in your magazine. Yisss, m’m.”</p> + +<p>We got some more material, and finished the dresses triumphantly. By the +next summer we were skilful enough to use our taste with some freedom +and good success.</p> + +<p>I was then fifteen, and in long dresses. I remember some most tasteful +costumes which we produced; and as we contemplated them as they hung, +flounced, furbelowed, and finished, upon pegs, Eleanor said:</p> + +<p>“I wonder where we shall display these this year?”</p> + +<p>How little we knew! We had made the dresses alike, to the nicety of a +bow, because we thought it ladylike that the costumes of sisters should +be so. How far we were from guessing that they would not be worn +together after all!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">I GO BACK TO THE VINE—AFTER SUNSET—A TWILIGHT EXISTENCE—SALAD OF +MONK’S-HOOD—A ROYAL SUMMONS.</p> + + +<p>The few marked events of my life have generally happened on my +birthdays. It was on my fifteenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> birthday that Mr. Arkwright got a +letter from one of my relations on the subject of my going to live with +my great-grandfather and grandmother.</p> + +<p>They were now very old. My great-grandfather was becoming “childish,” +and the little dear duchess was old and frail for such a charge alone. +They had no daughter. The religious question was laid aside. My most +Protestant relatives thought my duty in the matter overwhelming, and +with all my clinging of heart to the moor home I felt myself that it was +so.</p> + +<p>I don’t know how I got over the parting. I wandered hopelessly about +familiar spots, and wished I had made sketches of them; but how could I +know I had not all life before me? The time was short, and preparations +had to be made. This kept us quiet. At the last, Jack put in all my +luggage, and did everything for me. Then he kissed me, and said, “<span class="smcap">God</span> +bless you, Margery,” and “linking” Eleanor by force, led her away and +comforted her like the good, dear boy he is. Clement drove me so +recklessly down the steep hill, and over the stones, that the momentary +expectation of an upset dried my tears, and I did not see much of the +villagers’ kind and too touching farewells.</p> + +<p>And so to the bleak station again, and the familiar old porter, whom +fate seems to leave long enough at <i>his</i> post, and on through the +whirling railway pano<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>rama, by which one passes to so much joy and so +much sorrow—and then I was at The Vine once more.</p> + +<p>I wonder if I am like my great-grandmother in her youth? Some people +(Elspeth among them) declare that it is so; and others that I am like my +poor mother. I suppose I have some Vandaleur features, from an eerie +little incident which befell me on the threshold of The Vine—an +appropriate beginning to a life that always felt like a weird, shadowy +dream.</p> + +<p>I did not ring the bell of the outer gate on my arrival, because Adolphe +(grown up, but with the old, ruddy boy’s face on the top of his man’s +shoulders) was anxiously waiting for me, and devoted himself to my +luggage, telling me that Master was in the garden. Thither I ran so +hastily, that a straggling sweetbriar caught my hat and my net, and +dragged them off, sending my hair over my shoulders. My hair is not +long, however, like Eleanor’s, and it curls, and I sometimes wear it +loose; so I did not stop to rearrange it, but hurried on towards my +great-grandfather, who was coming slowly to meet me from the other end +of the terrace, his hands behind his back, as of old. At least, I +thought it was to meet me; but as he came near I saw that he was +unconscious of my presence. He looked very old, his face was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> pale and +shrivelled, like a crumpled white kid glove; his wild blue eyes, +insensible of what was before them, seemed intently fixed on something +that no one else could see, and he was talking to himself, as we call it +when folk talk with the invisible.</p> + +<p>It was very silly, but I really felt the colour fading from my face with +fright. My great-grandfather’s back was to the west, where a few bars of +red across the sky, as it was to be seen through the Scotch firs, were +all that remained of the sunset. That strange light was on everything, +of which modern pre-Raphaelite painters are so fond. I was tired with my +long journey and previous excitement; and when I suddenly remembered +that Mr. Vandaleur was said to have in some measure lost his reason, a +shudder came over me. In a moment more he saw me. I think my crimson +cloak caught his eye, but his welcome was hardly less alarming than his +abstraction. He started, and held up his hands, and a pained, puzzled +expression troubled his face. Then a flush, which seemed to make him +look older than the whiteness; and then, with a shrill, feeble cry of +“Victoire, ma belle!” he tottered towards me so hastily that I thought +he must have fallen; but, like a vision, a little figure flitted from +the French window of the drawing-room, and in a moment my +great-grandmother was supporting him, and soothing him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> with gentle +words in French. I could see now how helpless he was. For a bit he +seemed still puzzled and confused; but he clung to her and kissed her +hand, and suffered himself to be led indoors. Then I followed them, +through the window, into the room where the candles were not yet lighted +for economy’s sake—the glare of the red sunset bars making everything +dark to me—with a strange sense of gloom.</p> + +<p>It would be hard to imagine a stronger contrast than that between my +life in my new home and my life in my home upon the moors. At the +Arkwrights’ we lived so essentially with the times. Our politics, on the +whole, were liberal; our theology inclined to be broad; our ideas on +social subjects were reformatory, progressive, experimental. Scientific +subjects were a speciality of the household; and, living in a +manufacturing district, mere neighbourhood kept us with the great +current of mercantile interests. We argued each other into a general +unfixity of opinions; and, full of youthful dreams of golden ages, were +willing to believe this young world—where not yet we, but only our +words could fly—to be but upon the threshold of true civilization. +Above all, life seemed so short, our hands were so full, so over-full of +work, the daylight was not long enough for us, and we grudged meals and +sleep.</p> + +<p>How different it was under the shadow of this old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> Vine! I am very +thankful, now, that I had grace, under the sense of “wasted time,” which +was at first so irritating, to hold by my supreme child-duty towards my +aged parents against the mere modern fuss of “work,” against what John +Wesley called the “lust of finishing” any labour, and to serve them in +their way rather than in my own. But the change was very great. How we +“pottered” through the days!—with what needless formalities, what +slowness, what indecision! How fatiguing is enforced idleness! How +lengthy were the evening meals, where we sat, trifling with the +vine-leaves under a single dish of fruit, till the gloaming deepened +into gloom!</p> + +<p>At fifteen one is very susceptible of impressions; very impatient of +what one is not used to. The very four-post bed in which I slept +oppressed me, and the cracked basin held together for years by the +circular hole in the old-fashioned washstand. The execution-picture only +made me laugh now.</p> + +<p>Then, as to the meals. No doubt a great many people eat and drink too +much, as we are beginning to discover. Whether we at the Vicarage did, I +cannot say; but the change to the unsubstantial fare on which very old +people like the Vandaleurs keep the flickering light of life aglow was +very great; and yet in this slow, vegetating existence my appetite soon +died away. The country was flat and damp too; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> by and by neuralgia +kept me awake at night, as regularly as the ghost of my +great-grandfather had done in years gone by. But it is strange how +quickly unmarked time slips on. Day after day, week after week ran by, +till a lassitude crept over me in which I felt amazed at former +ambitions, and a certain facility of sympathy, which has been in many +respects an evil, and in many a good to me, seemed to mould me to the +interests of the fading household. And so I lived the life of my +great-grandparents, which was as if science made no strides, and men no +struggles; as if nothing were to be done with the days, but to wear +through them in all patient goodness, loyal to a long-fallen dynasty, +regretful of some ancient virtues and courtesies, tender towards past +beauties and passions, and patient of succeeding sunsets, till this aged +world should crumble to its close.</p> + +<p>My great-grandfather came to know me again, though his mind was in a +disordered, dreary condition; from old age, Elspeth said, but it often +recalled what I had heard of the state of his mother’s intellect before +her death. The dear little old lady’s intellects were quite bright, and, +happily, not only entire, but cultivated. I do not know how people who +think babies and servants are a woman’s only legitimate interests would +like to live with women who have either never met with, or long +outlived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> them. I know how my dear granny’s educated mind and sense of +humour helped us over a dozen little domestic difficulties, and broke +the neck of fidgets that seemed almost inevitable at her great age and +in that confined sphere of interests.</p> + +<p>I certainly faded in our twilight existence, as if there were some truth +in the strange old theory that very aged people can withdraw vital force +from young companions and live upon it. But every day and hour of my +stay made me love and reverence my great-grandmother more and more, and +be more and more glad that I had come to know her, and perhaps be of +some little service to her.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it was my great-grandfather’s condition that kept us so much +among the shadows. The old lady had a delightful youthfulness of spirit, +and took an almost wistful pleasure in hearing about our life at the +Arkwrights’, as if some ambitious Scotch blood in her would fain have +kept better pace with the currents of the busy world. But when my +grandfather joined us, we had to change the subject. Modern ideas jarred +upon him. And it was seldom that he was not with us. The tender love +between the old couple was very touching.</p> + +<p>“It must seem strange to you, my dear, to think of such long lives so +little broken by events,” said my great-grandmother. “But your dear +grandfather and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> I have never been apart for a day since our happy +marriage.”</p> + +<p>I do not think they were apart for an hour whilst I was with them. He +followed her about the house, if she left him for many minutes, crying, +“Victoire! Victoire!” chiefly from love, but I was sometimes spiteful +enough to think also because he could not amuse himself.</p> + +<p>“The master’s calling for you again,” said Elspeth, with some +impatience, one day when grandmamma was teaching me a bit of dainty +cookery in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Oh, fly, petite!” she cried to me; “and say that his Majesty has +summoned the Duchess.”</p> + +<p>Much bewildered, I ran out, and met my great-grandfather on the terrace, +crying, “Victoire! Victoire!” in fretful tones.</p> + +<p>“His Majesty has summoned the Duchess, sir,” said I, dropping a slight +curtsy, as I generally did on disturbing the old gentleman.</p> + +<p>To my astonishment, this seemed quite to content him. He drew in his +elbows, and spread the palms of his hands with a very polite bow, +saying, “Bien, bien;” and after murmuring something else in French, +which I did not catch, but which I fancy was an acknowledgment of the +prior claims of royalty, he folded his hands behind his back and +wandered away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> down the terrace, as I rushed off to my confectionery +again.</p> + +<p>I found that this use of the old fable, which had calmed my +great-grandfather in past days, was no new idea. It was, in fact, a +graceful fiction which deceived nobody, and had been devised by my +great-grandmother out of deference to her husband’s prejudices. In the +long years when they were very poor, their poverty was made, not only +tolerable but graceful, by Mrs. Vandaleur’s untiring energy, but (though +he wouldn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, find any occupation by which to add to +their income) the sight of his Victoire, who should have been a duchess, +doing any menial work so distracted him, that my grandmother had to +devise some method to secure herself from his observation when she +washed certain bits of priceless lace which redeemed her old dresses +from commonness, or cooked some delicacy for Mons. le Duc’s dinner, or +mended his honourable clothes. Thus Jeanette’s old fable came into use; +first in jest, and then as an adopted form for getting rid of my +great-grandfather when he was in the way. It must have astonished a +practical woman like my great-grandmother to find how completely it +satisfied him. But there must have been a time when his helplessness and +impracticability tried her in many ways, before she fairly came to +realize that he never could be changed, and her love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> fell in with his +humours. On this point he was humoured completely, and never inquired on +what business his deceased Majesty of France required the attendance of +the Duchess that should have been!</p> + +<p>To do him justice, if he was a helpless he was a very tender husband.</p> + +<p>“He has never said a rude or unkind word to me since we were boy and +girl together,” said the little old lady, with tears in her eyes. And +indeed, courtesy implies self-discipline; and even now the old man’s +politeness checked his petulance over and over again. He never gave up +the habit of gathering flowers for my grandmother, and such exquisite +contrasts of colour I never saw combined by any other hand. Another +accomplishment of his was also connected with his love of plants.</p> + +<p>“It’s little enough a man can do about a house the best of times,” said +Elspeth, “and the master’s just as feckless as a bairn. But he makes a +fine sallet.”</p> + +<p>I shudder almost as I write the words. How little we thought that my +poor grandfather’s one useful gift would have so fatal an ending!</p> + +<p>But I must put it down in order. It was the end of many things. Of my +life at The Vine among them, and very nearly of my life in this world +altogether. My great-grandfather made delicious salads. I have heard him +say that he preferred our English habit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> mixing ingredients to the +French one of dressing one vegetable by itself; but he said we did not +carry it far enough, we neglected so many useful herbs. And so his +salads were compounded not only of lettuce and cress, and so forth, but +of dandelion, sorrel, and half-a-dozen other field or garden plants. +Sometimes one flavour preponderated, sometimes another, and the sauce +was always good.</p> + +<p>Now it is all over it seems to me that I must have been very stupid not +to have paid more attention to the strange flavour in the salad that +day. But I was thinking chiefly of the old lady, who was not very well +(Elspeth had an idea that she had had a very slight “stroke,” but how +this was we cannot know now), whilst my grandfather was almost flightily +cheerful. I tasted the salad, and did not eat it, but I was the less +inclined to complain of it as they seemed perfectly satisfied.</p> + +<p>Then my grandmother was taken ill. At first we thought it a development +of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent +Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The +salad was full of young leaves of monk’s-hood. Under what delusion my +poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were +busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from any +one.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>From the first the doctor gave us little hope, and they sank rapidly. +Their priest, for whom Adolphe made a second expedition, did not arrive +in time; they were in separate rooms, and Elspeth and I flitted from one +to the other in sad attendance. The dear little old lady sank fast, and +died in the evening.</p> + +<p>Then the doctor impressed on us the necessity of keeping her death from +my great-grandfather’s knowledge.</p> + +<p>“But supposing he asks?” said I.</p> + +<p>“Say any soothing thing your ready wit may suggest, my dear young lady. +But the truth, in his present condition, would be a fatal shock.”</p> + +<p>It haunted me. “Supposing he asks.” And late in the evening he did ask! +I was alone with him, and he called me.</p> + +<p>“Marguerite, dear child, thou wilt tell me the truth. Why does my wife, +my Victoire, thy grandmother, not come to me?”</p> + +<p>Pondering what lie I could tell him, and how, an irresistible impulse +seized me. I bent over him and said:</p> + +<p>“Dear sir, the King has summoned the Duchess.”</p> + +<p>Does the mind regain power as the body fails? My great-grandfather +turned his head, and, as his blue eyes met mine, I could not persuade +myself that he was deceived.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>“The will of his Majesty be done,” he said faintly but firmly.</p> + +<p>The next few moments seemed like years. Had I done wrong? Had it done +him harm? Above all, what did he mean? Were his words part of one last +graceful dream of the dynasty of the white lilies, or was his loyal +submission made now to a Majesty not of France, not even of this world? +It was an intense relief to me when he spoke again.</p> + +<p>“Marguerite!”</p> + +<p>I knelt by the bedside, and he laid his hand upon my head. An exquisite +smile shone on his face.</p> + +<p>“Good child; pauvre petite! His Majesty will call me also, before long. +Is it not so? And then thou shalt rest.”</p> + +<p>His fine face clouded again with a wandering, troubled look, and his +fingers fumbled the bed-clothes. I saw that he had lost his crucifix in +moving his hand to my head. I gave it him, and he clasped his hands over +it once more, and carrying it to his lips with a smile, closed his eyes +like some good child going to sleep.</p> + +<p>And Thou, O King of kings, didst summon him, as the dark faded into +dawn!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<p class="titlepage">HOME AGAIN—HOME NEWS—THE VERY END.</p> + + +<p>Now it is past it seems like a dream, my life at The Vine, with its sad +end, if indeed that can be justly called a sad end which took away +together, and with little pain, those dear souls whose married life had +not known the parting of a day, and who in death were not (even by a +day) divided.</p> + +<p>And so I went back to the moors. I was weak and ill when I started, but +every breath of air on my northward journey seemed to bring me strength.</p> + +<p>There are no events in that porter’s life, I am convinced. He looked +just the same, and took me and my boxes quite coolly, though I felt +inclined to shake hands with him in my delight. I did cry for very joy +as we toiled up the old sandy hill, and the great moors welcomed me +back. Then came the church, then the Vicarage, with the union-jack out +of my window, and the villagers were at their doors—and I was at home. +Oh, how the dear boys tore me to pieces!</p> + +<p>There was no very special news, it seemed. Clement had been very good in +taking my class at school, and had established a cricket club. Jack had +positively found a new fungus, which would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> probably be named after him. +“Boy’s luck,” as we all said! Captain Abercrombie had been staying with +an old uncle at a place close by, only about twelve miles off. And he +was constantly driving over. “So very good-natured to the boys,” Mr. +Arkwright said. And there was to be a school-children’s tea on my +birthday.</p> + +<p>My birthday has come and gone, and I am sixteen now. Dear old Eleanor +and I have gone back to our old ways. She had left my side of our room +untouched. It was in talking of our recent parting, and all that has +come and gone in our lives, that the fancy came upon us of writing our +biographies this winter.</p> + +<p>And here, in the dear old kitchen, round which the wild wind howls like +music, with the dear boys dreaming at our feet, we bring them to an end.</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="letter-spacing: 2em;">* * * * * *</p> + +<p>This dusty relic of an old fad had been lying by for more than a year, +when I found it to-day, in emptying a box to send some books in to +Oxford, to Jack.</p> + +<p>Eleanor should have had it, for we are parted, after all; but her +husband has more interest in hers, so we each keep our own.</p> + +<p>She is married, to George Abercrombie, and I mean to paste the bit out +of the newspaper account<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> of their wedding on to the end of this, as a +sort of last chapter. It would be as long as all the rest put together +if I were to write down all the ups and downs, and ins and outs, that +went before the marriage, and I suppose these things are always very +much alike.</p> + +<p>I like him very much, and I am going to stay with them. The wedding was +very pretty. Jack threw shoes to such an extent, that when I went to +change my white ones I couldn’t find a complete pair to put on. He says +he meant to pick them up again, but Prince, our new puppy, thought they +were thrown for him, and he never brought them back. Dear boy!</p> + +<p>The old uncle helps George, who I believe is his heir, but at present he +sticks to the regiment. It seems so funny that Eleanor should now be +living there, and I here. In her letter to-day she says: “Fancy, +Margery, my having quarrelled with Mrs. Minchin and not known it! She +called on me to-day and solemnly forgave me, whereby I learned that she +had been ‘cutting’ me for six weeks. When she said, ‘No doubt you +thought it very strange, Mrs. Abercrombie, that I never called on your +mother whilst she was with you,’ I was obliged to get over it the best +way I could, for I dare not tell her I had never noticed it. I think my +offence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> was something about calls, and I must be more particular. But +George and I have been sketching at every spare moment this lovely +weather. Oh, Margery dear, I do often feel so thankful to my mother for +having given us plenty of rational interests. I could really imagine +even <i>our</i> quarrelling or getting tired of each other, if we had nothing +but ourselves in common. As it is, you can’t tell, till you have a +husband of your own, what a double delight there is in everything we do +together. As to social ups and downs, and not having much money or many +fine dresses, a ‘collection’ alone makes one almost too indifferent. Do +you remember Mother’s saying long ago, that intellectual pleasures have +this in common with the consolations of religion, that they are such as +the world can neither give nor take away?”</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="margin-top: 4em;">THE END.</p> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 50%" /> + +<p class="titlepage"><i>Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-top: 3em;"><i>The present Series of Mrs. Ewing’s Works is the only authorized, +complete, and uniform Edition published.</i></p> + +<p><i>It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol., +issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will +appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series +will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was +specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing.</i></p> + +<p><i>The following is a list of the books included in the Series—</i></p> + +<ul style="list-style-type: none;"> + <li> 1. MELCHIOR’S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES.</li> + <li> 2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY’S REMEMBRANCES.</li> + <li> 3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY-TALES.</li> + <li> 4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING.</li> + <li> 5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES.</li> + <li> 6. SIX TO SIXTEEN.</li> + <li> 7. LOB-LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES.</li> + <li> 8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL.</li> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> + 9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS.</li> + <li>10. THE PEACE EGG—A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY—HINTS FOR PRIVATE THEATRICALS, &c.</li> + <li>11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES.</li> + <li>12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN.</li> + <li>13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I.</li> + <li>14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II.</li> + <li>15. JACKANAPES—DADDY DARWIN’S DOVE-COTE—THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE.</li> + <li>16. MARY’S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS.</li> + <li>17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand—Wonder Stories—Tales of the + Khoja, and other translations.</li> + <li>18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs. Ewing’s Letters.</li> +</ul> + +<hr class="bbox" style="width: 50%" /> + + +<p class="titlepage">S.P.C.K., <span class="smcap">Northumberland Avenue</span>, <span class="smcap">London</span>, W.C.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;"> +<p class="center noindent"><a name="trans_note" id="trans_note"></a><b>Transcriber’s Note</b></p> + +<p class="noindent">The following typographical errors have been corrected.</p> + +<table style="margin-left: 0%;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="typos"> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">Page</td> + <td>Error</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr1">18</a></td> + <td>sate corrected to sat</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr2">42</a></td> + <td>sergeant). corrected to sergeant).”</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr3">135</a></td> + <td>Indeed, Edward corrected to “Indeed, Edward</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p class="noindent">The following words had inconsistent spelling:</p> + +<p class="noindent">&c. / etc.<br /> +practice / practise</p> + +<p class="noindent">The following words had inconsistent hyphenation:</p> + +<p class="noindent">bedtime / bed-time<br /> +gingerbeer / ginger-beer<br /> +Mantuamaker / Mantua-maker<br /> +overfed / over-fed<br /> +remade / re-made<br /> +scrapbook / scrap-book</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six to Sixteen, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + +***** This file should be named 19360-h.htm or 19360-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/6/19360/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/19360-h/images/image01-full.jpg b/19360-h/images/image01-full.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..587ab69 --- /dev/null +++ b/19360-h/images/image01-full.jpg diff --git a/19360-h/images/image01.jpg b/19360-h/images/image01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..933a342 --- /dev/null +++ b/19360-h/images/image01.jpg diff --git a/19360.txt b/19360.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4ba4e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/19360.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7657 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Six to Sixteen, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Six to Sixteen + A Story for Girls + +Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing + +Release Date: September 23, 2006 [EBook #19360] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of the changes +is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and +hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled and +hyphenated words is found at the end of the text. + +The following less-common character is used in this version of the book. +If it does not display properly, please try changing your font. + +o o with breve + + + + +[Illustration: "'I've got a pink silk here,' said I, 'and pink shoes.'"] + + + + + SIX TO SIXTEEN. + _A STORY FOR GIRLS._ + + + BY + JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + + LONDON: + SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, + NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. + NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. + + + + +[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.] + + + + +DEDICATION. + +TO MISS ELEANOR LLOYD. + + +MY DEAR ELEANOR, + +I wish that this little volume were worthier of being dedicated to you. + +It is, I fear, fragmentary as a mere tale, and cannot even plead as an +excuse for this that it embodies any complete theory on the vexed +question of the upbringing of girls. Indeed, I should like to say that +it contains no attempt to paint a model girl or a model education, and +was originally written as a sketch of domestic life, and not as a +vehicle for theories. + +That it does touch by the way on a few of the many strong opinions I +have on the subject you will readily discover; though it is so long +since we held discussions together that I hardly know how far your views +will now agree with mine. + +If, however, it seems to you to illustrate a belief in the joys and +benefits of intellectual hobbies, I do not think that we shall differ on +that point; and it may serve, here and there, to recall one, nearly as +dear to you as to me, for whom the pleasures of life were at least +doubled by such interests, and who found in them no mean resource under +a burden heavier than common of life's pain. + +That, whatever labour I may spend on this or any other bit of +work--whatever changes or confirmations time and experience may bring to +my views of people and things--I cannot now ask her approval of the one, +or delight in the play of her strong intellect and bright wit over the +other, is an unhealable sorrow with which no one sympathizes more fully +than you. + +This story was written before her death: it has been revised without her +help. + +Such as it is, I beg you to accept it in affectionate remembrance of old +times and of many common hobbies of our girlhood in my Yorkshire home +and in yours. + + J. H. E. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAP. PAGE + + Introduction 11 + + I. My Pretty Mother--Ayah--Company 20 + + II. The Cholera Season--My Mother Goes Away--My Sixth + Birthday 26 + + III. The Bullers--Matilda takes Me up--We Fall Out--Mr. George 34 + + IV. Sales--Matters of Principle--Mrs. Minchin Quarrels with + the Bride--Mrs. Minchin Quarrels with Everybody--Mrs. + Minchin is Reconciled--The Voyage Home--A Death on Board 40 + + V. A Home Station--What Mrs. Buller thought of it--What + Major Buller thought of it 53 + + VI. Dress and Manner--I Examine Myself--My Great-Grandmother 59 + + VII. My Great-Grandmother--The Duchess's Carriage--Mrs. + O'Connor is Curious 67 + + VIII. A Family History 73 + + IX. Hopes and Expectations--Dreams and Daydreams--The + Vine--Elspeth--My Great-Grandfather 84 + + X. Thomas the Cat--My Great-Grandfather's Sketches--Adolphe + is my Friend--My Great-great-great-Grandfather Disturbs + my Rest--I Leave The Vine 96 + + XI. Matilda's News--Our Governess--Major Buller turned + Tutor--Eleanor Arkwright 103 + + XII. Poor Matilda--The Awkward Age--Mrs. Buller takes Counsel + with her Friends--The 'Milliner and Mantuamaker'--Medical + Advice--The Major Decides 120 + + XIII. At School--The Lilac Bush--Bridget's Posies--Summer-- + Health 138 + + XIV. Miss Mulberry--Discipline and Recreation--Madame-- + Conversation--Eleanor's Opinion of the Drawing-master-- + Miss Ellen's--Eleanor's Apology 146 + + XV. Eleanor's Theories reduced to Practice--Studies--The + Arithmetic-master 159 + + XVI. Eleanor's Reputation--The Mad Gentleman--Fancies and + Follies--Matilda's Health--The New Doctor 166 + + XVII. Eleanor's Health--Holy Living--The Prayer of the Son + of Sirach 175 + + XVIII. Eleanor and I are late for Breakfast--The School Breaks + Up--Madame and Bridget 179 + + XIX. Northwards--The Black Country--The Stone Country 183 + + XX. The Vicarage--Keziah--The Dear Boys--The Cook--A + Yorkshire Tea--Bed-fellows 191 + + XXI. Gardening--Drinkings--The Moors--Wading--Batrachosperma-- + The Church--Little Margaret 197 + + XXII. A New Home--The Arkwrights' Return--The Beasts--Going + to Meet the Boys--Jack's Hat-box--We Come Home a Rattler 209 + + XXIII. I Correspond with the Major--My Collection--Occupations-- + Madame Again--Fete de Village--The British Hooray 219 + + XXIV. We and the Boys--We and the Boys and our Fads--The Lamp + of Zeal--Clement on Unreality--Jack's Ointment 234 + + XXV. The "Household Album"--Sketching under Difficulties--A + New Species?--Jack's Bargain--Theories 242 + + XXVI. Manners and Customs--Clique--The Lessons of Experience-- + Out Visiting--House-pride--Dressmaking 257 + + XXVII. Matilda--Ball Dresses and the Ball--Gores--Miss + Lining--The 'Parishioner's Pennyworth' 269 + + XXVIII. I go Back to The Vine--After Sunset--A Twilight + Existence--Salad of Monk's-hood--A Royal Summons 279 + + XXIX. Home Again--Home News--The Very End 293 + + + + +SIX TO SIXTEEN. + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Eleanor and I are subject to _fads_. Indeed, it is a family failing. (By +the family I mean our household, for Eleanor and I are not, even +distantly, related.) Life would be comparatively dull, up away here on +the moors, without them. Our fads and the boys' fads are sometimes the +same, but oftener distinct. Our present one we would not so much as tell +them of on any account; because they would laugh at us. It is this. We +purpose this winter to write the stories of our own lives down to the +present date. + +It seems an egotistical and perhaps silly thing to record the +trivialities of our everyday lives, even for fun, and just to please +ourselves. I said so to Eleanor, but she said, "Supposing Mr. Pepys had +thought so about his everyday life, how much instruction and amusement +would have been lost to the readers of his Diary." To which I replied, +that as Mr. Pepys lived in stirring times, and amongst notable people, +_his_ daily life was like a leaf out of English history, and his case +quite different to the case of obscure persons living simply and +monotonously on the Yorkshire moors. On which Eleanor observed that the +simple and truthful history of a single mind from childhood would be as +valuable, if it could be got, as the whole of Mr. Pepys' Diary from the +first volume to the last. And when Eleanor makes a general observation +of this kind in her conclusive tone, I very seldom dispute it; for, to +begin with, she is generally right, and then she is so much more clever +than I. + +One result of the confessed superiority of her opinion to mine is that I +give way to it sometimes even when I am not quite convinced, but only +helped by a little weak-minded reason of my own in the background. I +gave way in this instance, not altogether to her argument (for I am sure +_my_ biography will not be the history of a mind, but only a record of +small facts important to no one but myself), but chiefly because I think +that as one grows up one enjoys recalling the things that happened when +one was little. And one forgets them so soon! I envy Eleanor for having +kept her childish diaries. I used to write diaries too, but, when I was +fourteen years old, I got so much ashamed of them (it made me quite hot +to read my small moral reflections, and the pompous account of my +quarrels with Matilda, my sentimental admiration for the handsome +bandmaster, &c., even when alone), and I was so afraid of the boys +getting hold of them, that I made a big hole in the kitchen fire one +day, and burned them all. At least, so I thought; but one volume escaped +the flames, and the fun Eleanor and I have now in re-reading this has +made me regret that I burned the others. Of course, even if I put down +all that I can remember, it will not be like having kept my diaries. +Eleanor's biography, in this respect, will be much better than mine; but +still, I remember a good deal now that I dare say I shall forget soon, +and in sixteen more years these histories may amuse us as much as the +old diaries. We are all growing up now. We have even got to speaking of +"old times," by which we mean the times when we used to wade in the +brooks and---- + +But this is beside the mark, and I must not allow myself to wander off. +I am too apt to be discursive. When I had to write leading articles for +our manuscript periodical, Jack used to laugh at me, and say, "If it +wasn't for Eleanor's disentangling your sentences, you'd put parenthesis +within parenthesis till, when you got yourself into the very inside +one, you'd be as puzzled as a pig in a labyrinth, and not know how to +get back to where you started from." And I remember Clement--who +generally disputed a point, if possible--said, "How do you know she +wouldn't get back, if you let her work out each train of thought in +peace? The curt, clean-cut French style may suit some people, whose +brains won't stretch far without getting tired; but others may have more +sympathy with a Semitic cast of mind." + +This excuse pleased me very much. It was pleasanter to believe that my +style was Semitic, than to allow, with Jack, that it tended towards that +of Mrs. Nickleby. Though at that time my notion of the meaning of the +word Semitic was not so precise as it might have been. + +Our home is a beautiful place in the summer, and in much of spring and +autumn. In winter I fancy it would look dreary to the eyes of strangers. +At night the wind comes over the top of Deadmanstone Hill, and down the +valley, whirls the last leaves off the old trees by the church, and +sends them dancing over the closely-ranged gravestones. Then up through +the village it comes, and moans round our house all night, like some +miserable being wanting to get in. The boys say it does get in, more +than enough, especially into their bedrooms; but then boys always +grumble. It certainly makes strange noises here. I have more than once +opened the back-door late in the evening, because I fancied that one of +the dogs had been hurt, and was groaning outside. + +That stormy winter after the Ladybrig murder, our fancies and the wind +together played Eleanor and me sad tricks. When once we began to listen +we seemed to hear a whole tragedy going on close outside. We could +distinguish footsteps and voices through the bluster, and then a +struggle in the shrubbery, and a _thud_, and a groan, and then a roar of +wind, half drowning the sound of flying footsteps--and then an awful +pause, and at last faint groaning, and a bump, as of some poor wounded +body falling against the house. At this point we were wont to summon +courage and rush out, with the kitchen poker and a candle shapeless with +tallow shrouds from the strong draughts. We never could see anything; +partly, perhaps, because the candle was always blown out; and when we +stood outside it became evident that what we had heard was only the +wind, and a bough of the old acacia-tree, which beat at intervals upon +the house. + +When the nights are stormy there is no room so comfortable as the big +kitchen. We first used it for parochial purposes, small night-schools, +and so forth. Then one evening, as we strolled in to look for one of +the dogs, the cook said, "You can sit here, if you like, Miss Eleanor. +_We_ always sits in the pantry on winter nights; so there'll be no one +to disturb you." And as we had some writing on hand which we did not +wish to have discussed or overlooked by other members of the family, we +settled down in great peace and comfort by the roaring fire which the +maids had heaped to keep the kitchen warm in their absence. + +We found ourselves so cosy and independent that we returned again and +again to our new study. The boys (who go away a great deal more than we +do, and are apt to come back dissatisfied with our "ways," and anxious +to make us more "like other people") object strongly to this habit of +ours. They say, "Who ever _heard_ of ladies sitting in the kitchen?" +And, indeed, there are many south-country kitchens in which I should not +at all like to sit. But we have this large, airy, spotlessly clean room, +with its stone floor, its yellow-washed walls, its tables scrubbed to +snowy whiteness, its quaint old dresser and clock and corner cupboards +of shiny black oak, and its huge fire-place and blazing fire all to +ourselves, and we have abundance of room, and may do anything we please, +so I think it is no wonder that we like it, though it be, in point of +fact, a kitchen. We cover the table, and (commonly) part of the floor, +with an amount of books, papers, and belongings of various sorts, such +as we should scruple to deluge the drawing-room with. The fire crackles +and blazes, so that we do not mind the wind, though there are no blinds +to the kitchen, and if we do not "cotter" the shutters, we look out upon +the black night, and the tall Scotch pine that has been tossed so wildly +for so many years, and is not torn down yet. + +Keziah the cook takes much pride in this same kitchen, which partly +accounts for its being in a state so suitable to our use. She "stones" +the floor with excruciating regularity. (At least, some people hate the +scraping sound. I do not mind it myself.) She "pot-moulds" the hearth in +fantastic patterns; the chests, the old chairs, the settle, the dresser, +the clock and the corner cupboards are so many mirrors from constant +polishing. She says, with justice, that "a body might eat his dinner off +anything in the place." + +We dine early, and the cooking for the late supper is performed in what +we call "the second kitchen," beyond this. I believe that what is now +the Vicarage was originally an old farmhouse, of which this same +charming kitchen was the chief "living-room." It is quite a journey, +through long, low passages, to get from the modern part of the house to +this. + +One year, when the "languages fad" was strong upon us, Eleanor and I +earned many a backache by carrying the huge volumes of the _Della +Crusca_ Italian dictionary from the dining-room shelves to the kitchen. +We piled them on the oak chest for reference, and ran backwards and +forwards to them from the table where we sat and beat our brains over +the "Divina Commedia," while the wind growled in the tall old box-trees +without, and the dogs growled in dreams upon the hearth. + +It is by this well-scrubbed table, in this kitchen, that our biographies +are to be written. They cannot be penned under the noses of the boys. + +Eleanor finds rocking a help to composition, and she is swinging +backwards and forwards in the glossy old rocking-chair, with a pen +between her lips, and a vacant gaze in her eyes, that becomes almost a +look of inspiration when the swing of the chair turns her face towards +the ceiling. For my own part I find that I can meet the crisis of a +train of ideas best upon my feet, so I pace up and down past the old +black dresser, with its gleaming crockery, like a captain on his +quarter-deck. Suddenly Eleanor's chair stands still. + +"Margery," she says, laying her head upon the table at her side, "I do +think this is a capital idea." + +"Yours will be capital," I reply, pausing also, and leaning back +against the dresser; "for you have kept your old diaries, and----" + +"My dear Margery, what if I have kept my old diaries? I've lived in this +place my whole life. Now, you have had some adventures! I quite look +forward to reading your life, Margery. You have no idea what pleasure it +gives me to think of it. I was thinking just now, if ever we are +separated in life, how I shall enjoy looking over it again and again. +You must give me yours, you know, and I will give you mine. Yes; I am +very glad we thought of it." And Eleanor begins to rock once more, and I +resume my march. + +But this quite settles the matter in my mind. To please Eleanor I would +try to do a great deal; much more than this. I will write my +autobiography. + +Though it seems rather (to use an expressive Quaker term) a "need-not" +to provide for our being separated in life, when we have so firmly +resolved to be old maids, and to live together all our lives in the +little whitewashed cottage behind the church. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +MY PRETTY MOTHER--AYAH--COMPANY. + + +My name is Margaret Vandaleur. My father was a captain in her Majesty's +202nd Regiment of Foot. The regiment was in India for six years, just +after I was born; indeed, I was not many months old when I made my first +voyage, which I fancy Eleanor is thinking of when she says that I have +had some adventures. + +Military ladies are said to be unlucky as to the times when they have to +change stations; the move often chancing at an inconvenient moment. My +mother had to make her first voyage with the cares of a young baby on +her hands; nominally, at any rate, but I think the chief care of me fell +upon our Ayah. My mother hired her in England. The Ayah wished to return +to her country, and was glad to do so as my nurse. I think that at first +she only intended to be with us for the voyage, but she stayed on, and +became fond of me, and so remained my nurse as long as I was in India. + +I have heard that my mother was the prettiest woman on board the vessel +she went out in, and the prettiest woman at the station when she got +there. Some people have told me that she was the prettiest woman they +ever saw. She was just eighteen years old when my father married her, +and she was not six-and-twenty when she died. + +[I got so far in writing my life, seated at the round, three-legged +pinewood table, with Eleanor scribbling away opposite to me. But I could +get no further just then. I put my hands before my eyes as if to shade +them from the light; but Eleanor is very quick, and she found out that I +was crying. She jumped up and threw herself at my feet. + +"Margery, dear Margery! what _is_ the matter?" + +I could only sob, "My mother, O my mother!" and add, almost bitterly, +"It is very well for you to write about your childhood, who have had a +mother--and such a mother!--all your life; but for me----" + +Eleanor knelt straight up, with her teeth set, and her hands clasped +before her. + +"I do think," she said slowly, "that I am, without exception, the most +selfish, inconsiderate, dense, unfeeling brute that ever lived." She +looked so quaintly, vehemently in earnest as she knelt in the firelight, +that I laughed in spite of my tears. + +"My dear old thing," I said, "it is I who am selfish, not you. But I am +going on now, and I promise to disturb you no more." And in this I was +resolute, though Eleanor would have burned our papers then and there, +if I had not prevented her. + +Indeed she knew as well as I did that it was not merely because I was an +orphan that I wept, as I thought of my early childhood. We could not +speak of it, but she knew enough to guess at what was passing through my +mind. I was only six years old when my mother died, but I can remember +her. I can remember her brief appearances in the room where I played, in +much dirt and contentment, at my Ayah's feet--rustling in silks and +satins, glittering with costly ornaments, beautiful and scented, like a +fairy dream. I would forego all these visions for one--only one--memory +of her praying by my bedside, or teaching me at her knee. But she was so +young, and so pretty! And yet, O Mother, Mother! better than all the +triumphs of your loveliness in its too short prime would it have been to +have left a memory of your beautiful face with some devout or earnest +look upon it--"as it had been the face of an angel"--to your only child. + +As I sit thinking thus, I find Eleanor's dark eyes gazing at me from her +place, to which she has gone back; and she says softly, "Margery, dear +Margery, do let us give it up." But I would not give it up now, for +anything whatever.] + +The first six years of my life were spent chiefly with my Ayah. I loved +her very dearly. I kissed and fondled her dark cheeks as gladly as if +they had been fair and ruddy, and oftener than I touched my mother's, +which were like the petals of a china rose. My most intimate friends +were of the Ayah's complexion. We had more than one "bearer" during +those years, to whom I was greatly attached. I spoke more Hindostanee +than English. The other day I saw a group of Lascar sailors at the +Southampton Station; they had just come off a ship, and were talking +rapidly and softly together. I have forgotten the language of my early +childhood, but its tones had a familiar sound; those dark bright faces +were like the faces of old friends, and my heart beat for a minute, as +one is moved by some remembrance of an old home. + +When my mother went out for her early ride at daybreak, before the heat +of the day came on, Ayah would hold me up at the window to see her +start. Sometimes my father would have me brought out, and take me before +him on his horse for a few minutes. But my nurse never allowed this if a +ready excuse could prevent it. Her care of me was maternal in its +tenderness, but she did not keep me tidy enough for me to be presentable +off-hand to company. + +There was always "company" wherever my mother went--gentleman company +especially. The gentlemen, in different places, and at different times, +were not the same, but they had a common likeness. I used to count them +when they rode home with my father and mother, or assembled for any of +the many reasons for which "company" hung about our homes. I remember +that it was an amusement to me to discover, "there are six to-day," or +"five to-day," and to tell my Ayah. I was even more minute. I divided +them into three classes: "the little ones, the middle ones, and the old +ones." The "little ones" were the very young men--smooth-cheeked +ensigns, etc.; the "old ones" were usually colonels, generals, or +elderly civilians. From the youngest to the oldest, officers and +civilians, they were all very good-natured to me, and I approved of them +accordingly. + +When callers came, I was often sent into the drawing-room. Great was my +dear Ayah's pride when I was dressed in pink silk, my hair being +arranged in ringlets round my head, to be shown off to the company. I +was proud of myself, and was wont rather to strut than walk into the +room upon my best kid shoes. They were pink, to match my frock, and I +was not a little vain of them. There were usually some ladies in the +room, dressed in rustling finery like my mother, but not like her in +the face--never so pretty. There were always plenty of gentlemen of the +three degrees, and they used to be very polite to me, and to call me +"little Rosebud," and give me sweetmeats. I liked sweetmeats, and I +liked flattery, but I had an affection stronger than my fancy for +either. I used to look sharply over the assembled men for the face I +wanted, and when I had found it I flew to the arms that were stretched +out for me. They were my father's. + +I remember my mother, but I remember my father better still. I did not +see very much of him, but when we were together I think we were both +thoroughly happy. I can recall pretty clearly one very happy holiday we +spent together. My father got some leave, and took us for a short time +to the hills. My clearest memory of his face is as it smiled on me, from +under a broad hat, as we made nosegays for Mamma's vases in our +beautiful garden, where the fuchsias and geraniums were "hardy," and the +sweet-scented verbenas and heliotropes were great bushes, loading the +air with perfume. + +I have one remembrance of it almost as distinct--the last. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE CHOLERA SEASON--MY MOTHER GOES AWAY--MY SIXTH BIRTHDAY. + + +We were living in a bungalow not far from the barracks at X. when the +cholera came. It was when I was within a few weeks of six years old. +First we heard that it was among the natives, and the matter did not +excite much notice. Then it broke out among the men, and the officers +talked a good deal about it. The next news was of the death of the +Colonel commanding our regiment. + +One of my early recollections is of our hearing of this. An ensign of +our regiment (one of the "little ones") called upon my mother in the +evening of the day of the Colonel's death. He was very white, very +nervous, very restless. He brought us the news. The Colonel had been ill +barely thirty-six hours. He had suffered agonies with wonderful +firmness. He was to be buried the next day. + +"He never was afraid of cholera," said Mr. Gordon; "he didn't believe it +was infectious; he thought keeping up the men's spirits was everything. +But, you see, it isn't nervousness, after all, that does it." + +"It goes a long way, Gordon," said my father. "You're young; you've +never been through one of these seasons. Don't get fanciful, my good +fellow. Come here, and play with Margery." + +Mr. Gordon laughed. + +"I am a fool, certainly," he said. "Ever since I heard of it, I have +fancied a strange, faint kind of smell everywhere, which is absurd +enough." + +"I will make you a camphor-bag," said my mother, "that ought to +overpower any faint smell, and it is a charm against infection." + +I believe Mr. Gordon was beginning to thank her, but his words ended in +a sort of inarticulate groan. He stood on his feet, though not upright, +and at last said feebly, "I beg your pardon, I don't feel quite well." + +"You're upset, old fellow; it's quite natural," said my father. "Come +and get some brandy, and you shall come back for the camphor." + +My father led him away, but he did not come back. My father took him to +his quarters, and sent the surgeon to him; and my mother took me on her +knee, and sat silent for a long time, with the unfinished camphor-bag +beside her. + +The next day I went to the end of our compound with Ayah, to see the +Colonel's funeral pass. The procession seemed endless. The horse he had +ridden two days before by my mother's side tossed its head fretfully, +as the "Dead March" wailed, and the slow tramp of feet poured endlessly +on. My mother was looking out from the verandah. As Ayah and I joined +her, a native servant, who was bringing something in, said abruptly, +"Gordon Sahib--he dead too." + +When my father returned from the funeral he found my mother in a panic. +Some friends had lately invited her to stay with them, and she was now +resolved to go. "I am sure I shall die if I stay here!" she cried, and +it ended in her going away at once. There was some difficulty as to +accommodating me and Ayah, and it was decided that, if necessary, we +should follow my mother later. + +For my own part, I begged to remain. I had no fear of cholera, and I was +anxious to dine with my father on my birthday, as he had promised that I +should. + +It was on the day before my birthday that one of the surgeons was +buried. The man next in rank to the poor Colonel was on leave, and the +regiment was commanded by our friend Major Buller, whose little +daughters were invited to spend the following evening with me. The +Major, my father, and two other officers had been pall-bearers at the +funeral. My father came to me on his return. He was slightly chilled, +and said he should remain indoors; so I had him all to myself, and we +were very happy, though he complained of fatigue, and fell asleep once +on the floor with his head in my lap. He was still lying on the floor +when Ayah took me to bed. I believe he had been unwell all the day, +though I did not know it, and had been taking some of the many specifics +against cholera, of which everybody had one or more at that time. + +Half-an-hour later he sent for a surgeon, who happened to be dining with +Major Buller. The Doctor and the Major came together to our bungalow, +and with them two other officers who happened to be of the party, and +who were friends of my father. One of them was a particular friend of my +own. He was an ensign, a reckless, kind-hearted lad "in his teens," a +Mr. Abercrombie, who had good reason to count my father as a friend. + +Mr. Abercrombie mingled in some way with my dreams that night, or rather +early morning, and when I fairly woke, it was to the end of a discussion +betwixt my Ayah, who was crying, and Mr. Abercrombie, in evening dress, +whose face bore traces of what looked to me like crying also. I was +hastily clothed, and he took me in his arms. + +"Papa wants you, Margery dear," he said; and he carried me quickly down +the passages in the dim light of the early summer dawn. + +Two or three officers, amongst whom I recognized Major Buller, fell +back, as we came in, from the bed to which Mr. Abercrombie carried me. +My father turned his face eagerly towards me, but I shrank away. That +one night of suffering and collapse had changed him so that I did not +know him again. At last I was persuaded to go to him, and by his voice +and manner recognized him as his feeble fingers played tenderly with +mine. And when he said, "Kiss me, Margery dear," I crept up and kissed +his forehead, and started to feel it so cold and damp. + +"Be a good girl, Margery dear," he whispered; "be very good to Mamma." +There was a short silence. Then he said, "Is the sun rising yet, +Buller?" + +"Just rising, old fellow. Does the light bother you?" + +"No, thank you; I can't see it. The fact is, I can't see you now. I +suppose it's nearly over. GOD'S will be done. You've got the papers, +Buller? Arkwright will be kind about it, I'm sure. You'll break it to my +wife as well as you can?" + +After another pause he said, "It's time you fellows went to bed and got +some sleep." + +But no one moved, and there was another silence, which my father broke +by saying, "Buller, where are you? It's quite dark now. Would you say +the Lord's Prayer for me, old fellow? Margery dear, put your hands with +poor Papa's." + +"I've not said my prayers yet," said I; "and you know I ought to say my +prayers, for I've been dressed a long time." + +The Major knelt simply by the bed. The other men, standing, bent their +heads, and Mr. Abercrombie, kneeling, buried his face on the end of the +bed and sobbed aloud. + +Major Buller said the Lord's Prayer. I, believing it to be my duty, said +it also, and my father said it with us to the clause "For Thine is the +kingdom, the power, and the glory," when his voice failed, and I, +thinking he had forgotten (for I sometimes forgot in the middle of my +most familiar prayers and hymns), helped him--"Papa dear! _for ever and +ever_." + +Still he was silent, and as I bent over him I heard one long-drawn +breath, and then his hands, which were enfolded with mine, fell apart. +The sunshine was now beginning to catch objects in the room, and a ray +lighted up my father's face, and showed a change that even I could see. +An officer standing at the head of the bed saw it also, and said +abruptly, "He's dead, Buller." And the Major, starting up, took me in +his arms, and carried me away. + +I cried and struggled. I had a dim sense of what had happened, mixed +with an idea that these men were separating me from my father. I could +not be pacified till Mr. Abercrombie held out his arms for me. He was +more like a woman, and he was crying as well as I. I went to him and +buried my sobs on his shoulder. Mr. George (as I had long called him, +from finding his surname hard to utter) carried me into the passage and +walked up and down, comforting me. + +"Is Papa really dead?" I at length found voice to ask. + +"Yes, Margery dear. I'm so sorry." + +"Will he go to Abraham's bosom, Mr. George?" + +"Will he go _where_, Margery?" + +"To Abraham's bosom, you know, where the poor beggar went that's lying +on the steps in my Sunday picture-book, playing with those dear old +dogs." + +Mr. Abercrombie's knowledge of Holy Scripture was, I fear, limited. +Possibly my remarks recalled some childish remembrance similar to my +own. He said, "Oh yes, to be sure. Yes, dear." + +"Do you think the dogs went with the poor beggar?" I asked. "Do you +think the angels took them too?" + +"I don't know," said Mr. George. "I hope they did." + +There was a pause, and then I asked, in awe-struck tones, "Will the +angels fetch Papa, do you think?" + +Mr. George had evidently decided to follow my theological lead, and he +replied, "Yes, Margery dear." + +"Shall you see them?" I asked. + +"No, no, Margery. I'm not good enough to see angels." + +"_I_ think you're very good," said I. "And please be good, Mr. George, +and then the angels will fetch you, and perhaps me, and Mamma, and +perhaps Ayah, and perhaps Bustle, and perhaps Clive." Bustle was Mr. +Abercrombie's dog, and Clive was a mastiff, the dog of the regiment, and +a personal friend of mine. + +"Very well, Margery dear. And now you must be good too, and you must let +me take you to bed, for it's morning now, and I have had no sleep at +all." + +"Is it to-morrow now?" I asked; "because, if it's to-morrow, it's my +birthday." And I began to cry afresh, because Papa had promised that I +should dine with him, and had promised me a present also. + +"I'll give you a birthday present," said my long-suffering friend; and +he began to unfasten a locket that hung at his watch-chain. It was of +Indian gold, with forget-me-nots in turquoise stones upon it. He opened +it and pulled out a photograph, which he tore to bits, and then trampled +underfoot. + +"There, Margery, there's a locket for you; you can throw it into the +fire, or do anything you like with it. And I wish you many happy returns +of the day." And he finally fastened it round my neck with his +Trichinopoli watch-chain, leaving his watch loose in his +waistcoat-pocket. The locket and chain pleased me, and I suffered him to +carry me to bed. Then, as he was parting from me, I thought of my father +again, and asked: + +"Do you think the angels have fetched Papa _now_, Mr. George?" + +"I think they have, Margery." + +Whereupon I cried myself to sleep. And this was my sixth birthday. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE BULLERS--MATILDA TAKES ME UP--WE FALL OUT--MR. GEORGE. + + +Major Buller took me home to his house after my father's death. My +father had left his affairs in his hands, and in those of a friend in +England--the Mr. Arkwright he had spoken of. I believe they were both +trustees under my mother's marriage settlement. + +The Bullers were relations of mine. Mrs. Buller was my mother's cousin. +She was a kind-hearted, talkative lady, and good-looking, though no +longer very young. She dressed as gaily as my poor mother, though, +somehow, not with quite so good an effect. She copied my mother's style, +and sometimes wore things exactly similar to hers; but the result was +not the same. I have heard Mrs. Minchin say that my mother took a +malicious pleasure, at times, in wearing costumes that would have been +most trying to beauty less radiant and youthful than hers, for the fun +of seeing "poor Theresa" appear in a similar garb with less success. But +Mrs. Minchin's tales had always a sting in them! + +Mrs. Buller received me very kindly. She kissed me, and told me to call +her "Aunt Theresa," which I did ever afterwards. Aunt Theresa's +daughters and I were like sisters. They showed me their best frocks, and +told me exactly all that had been ordered in the parcel that was coming +out from England. + +"Don't you have your hair put in papers?" said Matilda, whose own curls +sat stiffly round her head as regularly as the rolls of a lawyer's wig. +"Are your socks like lace? Doesn't your Ayah dress you every afternoon?" + +Matilda "took me up." She was four years older than I was, which +entitled her to blend patronage with her affection for me. In the +evening of the day on which I went to the Bullers, she took me by the +hand, and tossing her curls said, "I have taken you up, Margery +Vandaleur. Mrs. Minchin told Mamma that she has taken the bride up. I +heard her say that the bride was a sweet little puss, only so childish. +That's just what Mrs. Minchin said. I heard her. And I shall say so of +you, too, as I've taken you up. You're a sweet little puss. And of +course you're childish, because you're a child," adds Miss Matilda, with +an air. For had not she begun to write her own age with two figures? + +Had I known then as much as I learned afterwards of what it meant to be +"taken up" by Mrs. Minchin, I might not have thought the comparison a +good omen for my friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs. +Minchin meant an equally hot quarrel at no very distant date. The +squabble with the bride was not slow to come, but Matilda and I fell out +first. I think she was tyrannical, and I know I was peevish. My Ayah +spoilt me; I spoke very broken English, and by no means understood all +that the Bullers said to me; besides which, I was feverishly unhappy at +intervals about my father. + +It was two months before Mrs. Minchin found out that her sweet little +puss was a deceitful little cat; but at the end of two days I had +offended Matilda, and we plunged into a war of words such as children +wage when they squabble. + +"I won't show you any more of my dresses," said Matilda. + +"I've seen them all," I boldly asserted; and the stroke told. + +"You don't know that," said Matilda. + +"Yes, I do." + +"No, you don't." + +"Well, show me the others then." + +"No, that I won't." + +"I don't care." + +"I've got a blue silk coming out from England," Matilda continued, "but +you haven't." + +"I've got a pink silk here," said I, "and pink shoes." + +"Ah, but you can't wear them now your papa's dead," said Matilda; "Mamma +says you will have to wear black for twelve months." + +I am sure Matilda did not mean to be cruel, but this blow cut me deeply. +I remember the tide of misery that seemed to flood over my mind, to this +day. I was miserable because my father was dead, and I could not go to +him for comfort. I was miserable because I was out of temper, and +Matilda had had the best of the quarrel. I was miserable--poor little +wretch!--because I could not wear my pink silk, now my father was dead. +I put my hands to my eyes, and screaming, "Papa! Papa!" I rushed out +into the verandah. + +As I ran out, some one ran in; we struck against each other, and Bustle +and I rolled over on to the floor. In a moment more I was in Mr. +Abercrombie's arms, and sobbing out my woes to him. + +I am sorry to say that he swore rather loudly when he heard what Matilda +had said, and I fancy that he lectured her when I had gone to Ayah, for +she came to me presently and begged my pardon. Of course we were at once +as friendly as before. Many another breach was there between us after +that, hastily made and quickly healed. But the bride and Mrs. Minchin +never came to terms. + +"Mr. George" remained my devoted friend. I looked for him as I used to +look for my father. The first time I saw him after I came to the Bullers +was on the day of my father's funeral. He was there, and came back with +Major Buller. I was on Mr. George's knee in a moment, with my hand +through the crape upon his sleeve. The Major slowly unfastened his +sword-belt, and laid it down with a sigh, saying, "We've lost a good +man, Abercrombie, and a true friend." + +"You don't know what a friend to me," said Mr. George impetuously. "Why, +look here, sir. A month or two ago I'd outrun the constable--I always am +getting into a mess of some sort--and Vandaleur found it out and lent me +the money." + +"You're not the first youngster he has helped by many, to my knowledge," +said Major Buller. + +"But that's not all, sir," said Mr. George, standing up with me in his +arms. "When we first went in that night, you remember his speaking +privately to me once? Well, what he said was, 'I think I'm following the +rest, Abercrombie, and I wanted to speak to you about this.' He had got +my I.O.U. in his hand, and he tore it across, and said, 'Don't bother +any more about it; but keep straight, my boy, if you can, for your +people's sake.' I'm sadly given to going crooked, sir, but if anything +could make a fellow----" + +Mr. George got no further in his sentence, but the Major seemed to +understand what he meant, for he spoke very kindly to him, and they left +me for a bit and walked up and down the verandah together. Just before +Mr. George left, I heard him say, "Have you heard anything of Mrs. +Vandaleur?" + +"I wrote to her, in the best fashion that I could," said Major Buller. +"But there's no breaking rough news gently, Abercrombie. I ought to hear +from her soon." + +But he never did hear from her. My poor mother had fled from the cholera +only to fall a victim to fever. The news of my father's death was, I +believe, the immediate cause of the relapse in which she died. + +And so I became an orphan. + +Shortly afterwards the regiment was ordered home, and the Bullers took +me with them. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +SALES--MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE--MRS. MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH THE BRIDE--MRS. +MINCHIN QUARRELS WITH EVERYBODY--MRS. MINCHIN IS RECONCILED--THE VOYAGE +HOME--A DEATH ON BOARD. + + +I only remember a little of our voyage home in the troop-ship, but I +have heard so much of it, from the elder Buller girls and the ladies of +the regiment, that I seem quite familiar with all that happened; and I +hardly know now what I remember myself, and what has been recalled or +suggested to me by hearing the other ladies talk. + +There was no lack of subjects for talk when the news came that the +regiment was ordered home. As Aunt Theresa repeatedly remarked, "There +are a great many things to be considered." And she considered them all +day long--by word of mouth. + +The Colonel (that is, the new Colonel)--he had just returned from leave +in the hills--and his wife behaved rather shabbily, it was thought. +"But," as Mrs. Minchin said, "what could you expect? They say she was +the daughter of a wholesale draper in the City. And trade in the blood +always peeps out." We knew for certain that before there was a word said +about the regiment going home, it had been settled that the Colonel's +wife should go to England, where her daughters were being educated, and +take the two youngest children with her. Her passage in the mail-steamer +was all but taken, if not quite. And then, when they heard of the +troop-ship, she stayed to go home in that. "Money can be no object to +them," said Mrs. Minchin, "for one of the City people belonging to her +has died lately, and left her--I can't tell you how many thousands. +Indeed, they've heaps of money, and now he's got the regiment he ought +to retire. And I must say, I think it's very hard on you, dear Mrs. +Buller. With all your family, senior officer's wife's accommodation +would be little enough, for a long voyage." + +"Which is no reason why my wife should have better accommodation than +she is entitled to, more than any other lady on board," observed Uncle +Buller. "The Quartermaster's wife has more children than we have, and +you know how much room she will get." + +"Quartermaster's wife!" muttered Mrs. Minchin. "She would have been +accommodated with the women of the regiment if we had gone home three +months ago (at which time Quartermaster Curling was still only a +sergeant)." + +Uncle Buller made no reply. He was not fond of Mrs. Minchin, and he +never disputed a point with her. + +One topic of the day was "sales." We all had to sell off what we did not +want to take home, and the point was to choose the right moment for +doing so. + +"I shan't be the first," said Aunt Theresa decidedly. "The first sales +are always failures somehow. People are depressed. Then they know that +there are plenty more to come, and they hang back. But further on, +people have just got into an extravagant humour, and would go +bargain-hunting to fifty sales a day. Later still, they find out that +they've got all they want." + +"And a great deal that they don't want," put in Uncle Buller. + +"Which is all the same thing," said Aunt Theresa. "So I shall sell about +the middle." Which she did, demanding her friends' condolences +beforehand on the way in which her goods and chattels would be "given +away," and receiving their congratulations afterwards upon the high +prices that they fetched. + +To do Aunt Theresa justice, if she was managing, she was quite honest. + +[Eleanor is shocked by some of the things I say about people in our own +rank of life. She believes that certain vulgar vices, such as cheating, +lying, gluttony, petty gossip, malicious mischief-making, etc., are +confined to the lower orders, or, as she wisely and kindly phrases it, +to people who know no better. She laughs at me, and I laugh at myself, +when I say (to support my own views) that I know more of the world than +she does; since what I know of the world beyond this happy corner of it +I learned when I was a mere child. But though we laugh, I can remember a +good deal. I have heard polished gentlemen lie, at a pinch, like the +proverbial pick-pocket, and pretty ladies fib as well as servant-girls. +Of course, I do not mean to say that as many ladies as servant-girls +tell untruths. But Eleanor would fain believe that the lie which Solomon +discovered to be "continually on the lips of the untaught" is not on the +lips of those who "know better" at all. As to dishonesty, too, I should +be sorry to say that customers cheat as much as shopkeepers, but I do +think that many people who ought to "know better" seem to forget that +their honour as well as their interest is concerned in every bargain. +The question then arises, do people in our rank know so much better on +these points of moral conduct than those below them? If Eleanor and her +parents are "old-fashioned" (and the boys think us quite behind the +times), I fancy, that perhaps high principle and a nice sense of honour +are not so well taught now as they used to be. Noble sentiments are not +the fashion. The very phrase provokes a smile of ridicule. But I do not +know whether the habit of uttering ignoble ones in "chaff" does not at +last bring the tone of mind down to the low level. It is so terribly +easy to be mean, and covetous, and selfish, and cowardly untrue, if the +people by whose good opinion one's character lives will comfortably +confess that they also "look out for themselves," and "take care of +Number One," and think "money's the great thing in this world," and hold +"the social lie" to be a necessary part of social intercourse. I know +that once or twice it has happened that young people with whom we have +been thrown have said things which have made high-principled Eleanor +stand aghast in honourable horror; and that that speechless indignation +of hers has been as much lost upon them as the touch of a feather on the +hide of a rhinoceros. Eleanor is more impatient than I am on such +subjects. I who have been trained in more than one school myself, am +sorry for those who have never known the higher teaching. Eleanor thinks +that modesty, delicacy of mind and taste, and uprightness in word and +deed, are innate in worthy characters. Where she finds them absent, she +is apt to dilate her nostrils, and say, in that low, emphatic voice +which is her excited tone, "There are some things that you cannot _put +into_ anybody!" and so turn her back for ever on the offender. Or, as +she once said to a friend of the boys, who was staying with us, in the +heat of argument, "I supposed that honourable men, like poets, are born, +not made." I, indeed, do believe these qualities to be in great measure +inherited; but I believe them also to come of training, and to be more +easily lost than Eleanor will allow. She has only lived in one moral +atmosphere. I think that the standard of a family or a social circle +falls but too easily; and in all humbleness of mind, I say that I have +reason to believe that in this respect, as in other matters, elevation +and amendment are possible. + +However, this is one of the many subjects we discuss, rocking and pacing +the kitchen to the howling of the wind. We have confessed that our +experience is very small, and our opinions still unfixed in the matter, +so it is unlikely that I shall settle it to my own, or anybody's +satisfaction, in the pages of this biography.] + +To return to Aunt Theresa. She was, as I said, honest. She chose a good +moment for our sale; but she did not "doctor" the things. For the credit +of the regiment, I feel ashamed to confess that everybody was not so +scrupulous. One lady sat in our drawing-room, with twenty-five pounds' +worth of lace upon her dress, and congratulated herself on having sold +some toilette-china as sound, of which she had daintily doctored two +fractures with an invaluable cement. The pecuniary gain may have been +half-a-crown. The loss in self-respect she did not seem to estimate. +Aunt Theresa would not have done it herself, but she laughed +encouragingly. It is difficult to be strait-laced with a lady who had so +much old point, and whose silks are so stiff that she can rustle down +your remonstrances. Another friend, a young officer whose personal +extravagance was a proverb even at a station in India, boasted for a +week of having sold a rickety knick-knack shelf to a man who was going +off to the hills for five-and-twenty rupees when it was not worth six. I +have heard him swear at tailors, servants, and subordinates of all +kinds, for cheating. I do not think it ever dawned upon his mind that +common honesty was a virtue in which he himself was wanting. As to Mrs. +Minchin's tales on this subject--but Mrs. Minchin's tales were not to be +relied upon. + +It was about this time that Mrs. Minchin and the bride quarrelled. In a +few weeks after her arrival, the bride knew all the ladies of the +regiment and the society of the station, and then showed little +inclination to be bear-led by Mrs. Minchin. She met that terrible lady +so smartly on one occasion that she retired, worsted, for the afternoon, +and the bride drove triumphantly round the place, and called on all her +friends, looking as soft as a Chinchilla muff, and dropping at every +bungalow the tale of something that Mrs. Minchin had said, by no means +to the advantage of the inmates. + +It was in this way that Aunt Theresa came to know what Mrs. Minchin had +said about her wearing half-mourning for my father and mother. That she +knew better than to go into deep black, which is trying to indefinite +complexions, but was equal to any length of grief in those lavenders, +and delicate combinations of black and white, which are so becoming to +everybody, especially to people who are not quite so young as they have +been. + +In the warmth of her own indignation at these unwarrantable remarks, and +of the bride's ready sympathy, Aunt Theresa felt herself in candour +bound to reveal what Mrs. Minchin had told her about the bride's having +sold a lot of her wedding presents at the sale for fancy prices; they +being new-fashioned ornaments, and so forth, not yet to be got at the +station. + +The result of this general information all round was, of course, a +quarrel between Mrs. Minchin and nearly every lady in the regiment. The +bride had not failed to let "the Colonel's lady" know what Mrs. Minchin +thought of her going home in the troop-ship, and had made a call upon +the Quartermaster's wife for the pleasure of making her acquainted with +Mrs. Minchin's warm wish that the regiment had been ordered home three +months sooner, when Mrs. Curling and the too numerous little Curlings +would not have been entitled to intrude upon the ladies' cabin. + +And yet, strange to say, before we were half-way to England, Mrs. +Minchin was friendly once more with all but the bride; and the bride was +at enmity with every lady on board. The truth is, Mrs. Minchin, though a +gossip of the deepest dye, was kind-hearted, after a fashion. Her +restless energy, which chiefly expended itself in petty social plots, +and the fomentation of quarrels, was not seldom employed also in +practical kindness towards those who happened to be in favour with her. +She was really interested--for good or for evil--in those with whose +affairs she meddled, and if she was a dangerous enemy, and a yet more +dangerous friend, she was neither selfish nor illiberal. + +The bride, on the other hand, had no real interest whatever in anybody's +affairs but her own, and combined in the highest degree those qualities +of personal extravagance and general meanness which not unfrequently go +together. + +A long voyage is no small test of temper; and it was a situation in +which Mrs. Minchin's best qualities shone. It was proportionably +unfavourable to those of the bride. Her maid was sick, and she was +slovenly. She was sick herself, and then her selfishness and discontent +knew no check. The other ladies bore their own little troubles, and +helped each other; but under the peevish egotism of the bride, her +warmest friends revolted. It was then that Mrs. Minchin resumed her sway +amongst us. + +With Aunt Theresa she was soon reconciled. Mrs. Buller's memory was +always hazy, both in reference to what she said herself, and to what was +said to her. She was too good-natured to strain it to recall past +grievances. Her indignation had not lasted much beyond that afternoon in +which the bride scattered discord among her acquaintances. She had +relieved herself by outpouring the tale of Mrs. Minchin's treachery to +Uncle Buller, and then taking him warmly to task for the indifference +with which he heard her wrongs; and had ended by laughing heartily when +he compared the probable encounter between Mrs. Minchin and the bride to +the deadly struggles of two quarrelsome "praying-mantises" in his +collection. + +[Major Buller was a naturalist, and took home some rare and beautiful +specimens of Indian insects.] + +It was an outbreak of sickness amongst the little Curlings which led to +the reconciliation with the Quartermaster's wife. Neither her kindness +of heart nor her love of managing other folks' matters would permit Mrs. +Minchin to be passive then. She made the first advances, and poor Mrs. +Curling gratefully responded. + +"I'm sure, Mrs. Minchin," said she, "I don't wonder at any one thinking +the children would be in the way, poor dears. But of course, as Curling +said----" + +"GOD bless you, my good woman," Mrs. Minchin broke in. "Don't let us go +back to that. We all know pretty well what Mrs. Seymour's made of, now. +Let's go to the children. I'm as good a sick-nurse as most people, and +if you keep up your heart we'll pull them all through before we get to +the Cape." + +But with all her zeal (and it did not stop short of a quarrel with the +surgeon) and all her devotion, which never slackened, Mrs. Minchin did +not "pull them all through." + +We were just off the Cape when Arthur Curling died. He was my own age, +and in the beginning of the voyage we had been playfellows. Of all the +children who swarmed on deck to the distraction of (at least) the +unmarried officers of the regiment, he had been the noisiest and the +merriest. He made fancy ships in corners, to which he admitted the other +children as fancy passengers, or fancy ship's officers of various +grades. Once he employed a dozen of us to haul at a rope as if we were +"heaving the log." Owing to an unexpected coil, it slackened suddenly, +and we all fell over one another at the feet of two young officers who +were marching up and down, arm-in-arm, absorbed in conversation. Their +anger was loud as well as deep, but it did not deter Arthur Curling from +further exploits, or stop his ceaseless chatter about what he would do +when he was a man and the captain of a vessel. + +He did not live to be either the one or the other. Some very rough +weather off the Cape was fatal to him at a critical point in his +illness. How Mrs. Minchin contrived to keep her own feet and to nurse +the poor boy as she did was a marvel. He died on her knees. + +The weather had been rough up to the time of his death, but it was a +calm lovely morning on which his body was committed to the deep. The +ship's bell tolled at daybreak, and all the ladies but the bride were +with poor Mrs. Curling at the funeral. Mrs. Seymour lay in her berth, +and whined complaints of "that horrid bell." She displayed something +between an interesting terror and a shrewish anger because there was "a +body on board." When she said that the Curlings ought to be thankful to +have one child less to provide for, the other ladies hurried indignantly +from the cabin. + +The early morning air was fresh and mild. The sea and sky were grey, but +peaceful. The decks were freshly washed. The sailors in various parts of +the ship uncovered their heads. The Colonel and several officers were +present. I had earnestly begged to be there also, and finding Mr. +George, I stood with my hand in his. + +Mrs. Curling's grief had passed the point of tears. She had not shed one +since the boy died, though Mrs. Minchin had tried hard to move her to +the natural relief of weeping. She only stood in silent agony, though +the Quartermaster's cheeks were wet, and most of the ladies sobbed +aloud. + +As the little coffin slid over the hatchway into the quiet sea, the sun +rose, and a long level beam covered the place where the body had gone +down. + +Then, with a sudden cry, the mother burst into tears. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A HOME STATION--WHAT MRS. BULLER THOUGHT OF IT--WHAT MAJOR BULLER +THOUGHT OF IT. + + +Riflebury, in the south of England--our next station--was a very lively +place. "There was always something going on." "Somebody was always +dropping in." "People called and stayed to lunch in a friendly way." +"One was sure of some one at afternoon tea." "What with croquet and +archery in the Gardens, meeting friends on the Esplanade, concerts at +the Rooms, shopping, and changing one's novels at the circulating +library, one really never had a dull hour." So said "everybody;" and one +or two people, including Major Buller, added that "One never had an hour +to one's self." + +"If you had any one occupation, you'd know how maddening it is," he +exclaimed, one day, in a fit of desperation. + +"Any one occupation!" cried Mrs. Buller, to whom he had spoken. "I'm +sure, Edward, I'm always busy. I never have a quiet moment from morning +to night, it seems to me. But it is so like you men! You can stick to +one thing all along, and your meals come to you as if they dropped out +of the skies, and your clothes come ready-made from the tailor's (and +very dearly they have to be paid for, too!); and when one is ordering +dinner and luncheon, and keeping one's clothes decent, and looking after +the children and the servants, and taking your card, and contriving +excuses that are not fibs for you to the people you ought to call on, +from week's end to week's end--you say one has no occupation." + +"Well, well, my dear," said the Major, "I know you have all the trouble +of the household, but I meant to say that if you had any pursuit, any +study----" + +"And as to visitors," continued Aunt Theresa, who always pursued her own +train of ideas, irrespective of replies, "I'm sure society's no pleasure +to me; I only call on the people you ought to call on, and keep up a few +acquaintances for the children's sake. You wouldn't have us without a +friend in the world when the girls come out; and really, what with +regimental duties in the morning, and insects afterwards, Edward, you +are so absorbed, that if it wasn't for a lady friend coming in now and +then, I should hardly have a soul to speak to." + +The Major was melted in a moment. + +"I am afraid I am a very inattentive husband," he said. "You must +forgive me, my dear. And this sprained ankle keeping me in makes me +cross, too. And I had so reckoned on these days at home to finish my +list of Coleoptera, and get some dissecting and mounting done. But +to-day, Mrs. Minchin brought her work directly after breakfast, and that +empty-headed fellow Elliott dropped in for lunch, and we had callers all +the afternoon, and a _coterie_ for tea, and Mrs. St. John (who seems to +get through life somehow without the most indefinite notion of how time +passes) came in just when tea was over, and you had to order a fresh +supply when we should have been dressing for dinner, and the dinner was +spoilt by waiting till she discovered that she had no idea (whoever did +know her have an idea?) how late it was, and that Mr. St. John would be +so angry. And now you want me to go in a cab to a concert at the Rooms +to meet all these people over again!" + +"I'm sure I don't care for Mrs. St. John a bit more than you do," said +Mrs. Buller. "And really she does repeat such things sometimes--without +ever looking round to see if the girls are in the room. She told me a +thing to-day that old Lady Watford had told her." + +"My dear, her ladyship's stories are well known. Cremorne's wife hears +them from her, and tells them to her husband, and he tells them to the +other fellows. I can always hear them if I wish. But I do not care to. +But if you don't like Mrs. St. John, Theresa, what on earth made you +ask her to come and sit with you in the morning?" + +"Well, my dear, what can I do?" said Mrs. Buller. "She's always saying +that everybody is so unsociable, and that she is so dull, she doesn't +know what to do with herself, and begging me to take my work and go and +sit with her in a morning. How can I go and leave the children and the +servants, just at the time of day when everything wants to be set going? +So I thought I'd better ask her to come here instead. It's a great bore, +but I can keep an eye over the house, and if any one else drops in I can +leave them together. It's not me that she wants, it's something to amuse +her. + +"You talk about my having nothing to do," Aunt Theresa plaintively +continued. "But I'm sure I can hardly sleep at night sometimes for +thinking of all I ought to do and haven't done. Mrs. Jerrold, you know, +made me promise faithfully when we were coming away to write to her +every mail, and I never find time. Every week, as it comes round, I +think I will, and can't. I used to think that one good thing about +coming home would be the no more writing for the English mail; but the +Indian mail is quite as bad. And I'm sure mail-day seems to come round +quicker than any other day of the week. I quite dread Fridays. And then +your mother and sisters are always saying I never write. And I heard +from Mrs. Pryce Smith only this morning, telling me I owed her two +letters; and I don't know what to say to her when I do write, for she +knows nobody _here_, and I know nobody _there_. And we've never returned +the Ridgeways' call, my dear. And we've never called on the Mercers +since we dined there. And Mrs. Kirkshaw is always begging me to drive +out and spend the day at the Abbey. I know she is getting offended, I've +put her off so often; and Mrs. Minchin says she is very touchy. And Mrs. +Taylor looks quite reproachfully at me because I've not been near the +Dorcas meetings for so long. But it's all very well for people who have +no children to work at these things. A mother's time is not her own, and +charity begins at home. I'm sure I never seem to be at rest, and yet +people are never satisfied. Lady Burchett says she's certain I am never +at home, for she always misses me when she calls; and Mrs. Graham says I +never go out, she's sure, for she never meets me anywhere." + +"Isn't all that just what I say?" said Major Buller, laying down his +knife and fork. (The discussion took place at dinner.) "It's the tyranny +of the idle over the busy; and why, in the name of common sense, should +it be yielded to? Why should friends be obliged, at the peril of +disparagement of their affection or good manners, to visit each other +when they do not want to go--to receive each other when it is not +convenient, and to write to each other when there is nothing to say? You +women, my dear, I must say, are more foolish in this respect than men. +Men simply won't write long letters to their friends when they've +nothing to say, and I don't think their friendships suffer by it. And +though there are heaps of idle gossiping fellows, as well as ladies with +the same qualities, a man who was busy would never tolerate them to his +own inconvenience, much less invite them to persecute him. We are more +straightforward with each other, and that is, after all, the firmest +foundation for friendship. It is partly a misplaced amiability, a phase +of the unselfishness in which you excel us, and partly also, I think, a +want of some measuring quality that makes you women exact unreasonable +things, make impossible promises, and after blandly undertaking a +multiplicity of small matters that would tax the method of a man of +business to accomplish punctually, put your whole time at the disposal +of every fool who is pleased to waste it." + +"It's all very well talking, Edward," said Aunt Theresa. "But what is +one to do?" + +"Make a stand," said the Major. "When you're busy, and can't +conveniently see people, let your servant tell them so in as many words. +The friendship that can't survive that is hardly worth keeping, I +think. Eh, my dear?" + +But I suppose the stand was to be made further on, for Major Buller took +Aunt Theresa to the concert at "the Rooms." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DRESS AND MANNER--I EXAMINE MYSELF--MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER. + + +When we began our biographies we resolved that neither of us should read +the other's till both were finished. This was partly because we thought +it would be more satisfactory to be able to go straight through them, +partly as a check on a propensity for beginning things and not finishing +them, to which we are liable, and partly from the childish habit of +"saving up the treat for the last," as we used--in "old times"--to pick +the raisins out of the puddings and lay them by for a _bonne bouche_ +when we should have done our duty by the more solid portion. + +But our resolve has given way. We began by very much wishing to break +it, and we have ended by finding excellent reasons for doing so. + +We both wish to read the biographies--why should we tease ourselves by +sticking obstinately to our first opinion? + +No doubt it would be nice to read them "straight through." But we are +rather apt to devour books at a pace unfavourable to book-digestion, so +perhaps it will be better still to read them by bits, as one reads a +thing that "comes out in numbers." + +And in short, at this point Eleanor took mine, and has read it, and I +have read hers. She lays down mine, saying, "But, my dear, you don't +remember all this?" + +Which is true. What I have recorded of my first English home is more +what I know of it from other sources than what I positively remember. +And yet I have positive memories of my own about it, too. + +I have hinted that my poor young mother did not look after me much. Also +that the Ayah, who had a mother's love and care for me, paid very little +attention to my being tidy in person or dress, except when I was +exhibited to "company." + +But my mother was dead. Ayah (after a terrible parting) was left behind +in India. And from the time that I passed into Aunt Theresa's charge, +matters were quite changed. + +I do remember the dresses I had then, and the keen interest I took in +the subject of dress at a very early age. A very keen interest was taken +in it by Aunt Theresa herself, by Aunt Theresa's daughters, and by the +ladies of Aunt Theresa's acquaintance. I think I may say that it formed +(at least one of) the principal subjects of conversation during all +those working hours of the day which the ladies so freely sacrificed to +each other. Mrs. Buller was truly kind, and I am sure that if I had +depended in every way upon her, she would have given to my costume as +much care as she bestowed upon that of her own daughters. But my parents +had not been poor; there was no lack of money for my maintenance, and +thus "no reason," as Aunt Theresa said, why my clothes should not be +"decent," and "decent" with Aunt Theresa and her friends was a synonym +for "fashionable." + +Thus my first black frock was such an improvement (in fashion) upon the +pink silk one, as to deprive my deep mourning of much of its gloom. Mrs. +(Colonel) St. Quentin could not refuse to lend one of her youngest +little girl's frocks as a copy, for "the poor little orphan"; and a bevy +of ladies sat in consultation over it, for all Mrs. St. Quentin's things +were well worth copying. + +"Keep a paper pattern, dear," said Mrs. Minchin; "it will come in for +the girls. Her things are always good." + +And Mrs. Buller kept a paper pattern. + +I remember the dress quite clearly. It is fixed in my mind by an +incident connected with it. It had six crape tucks, of which fact I was +very proud, having heard a good deal said about it. The first time Mr. +George came to our bungalow, after I had begun to wear it, I strutted up +to him holding my skirt out, and my head up. + +"Look at my black frock, Mr. George," said I; "it has got six crape +tucks." + +Matilda was most precocious in--at least--one way: she could repeat +grown-up observations of wonderful length. + +"It's the best crape," she said; "it won't spot. Cut on the bias. +They're not real tucks though, Margery. They're laid on; Mrs. Minchin +said so." + +"They are real tucks," I stoutly asserted. + +"No, they're not. They're cut on the bias, and laid on to imitate +tucks," Matilda repeated. I think she was not sorry there should be some +weak point in the fashionable mourning in which she did not share. + +I turned to Mr. George, as usual. + +"Aren't they real tucks, Mr. George?" + +But Mr. George had a strange look on his face which puzzled and +disconcerted me. He only said, "Good heavens!" And all my after efforts +were vain to find out what he meant, and why he looked in that strange +manner. + +Little things that puzzle one in childhood remain long in one's memory. +For years I puzzled over that look of Mr. George's, and the remembrance +never was a pleasant one. It chilled my enthusiasm for my new dress at +the time, and made me feel inclined to cry. I think I have lived to +understand it. + +But I was not insensible of my great loss, though I took pride in my +fashionable mourning. I do not think I much connected the two in my +mind. I did not talk about my father to any one but Mr. George, but at +night I often lay awake and cried about him. This habit certainly +affected my health, and I had become a very thin, weak child when the +home voyage came to restore my strength. + +By the time we reached Riflebury, my fashionable new dress was neither +new nor fashionable. It was then that Mrs. Minchin ferreted out a +dressmaker whom Mrs. St. Quentin employed, and I was put under her +hands. + +The little Bullers' things were "made in the house," after the pattern +of mine. + +"And one sees the fashion-book, and gets a few hints," said Mrs. Buller. + +If Mr. George was not duly impressed by my fashionable mourning, I could +(young as I was) trace the effect of Aunt Theresa's care for my +appearance on other friends in the regiment. They openly remarked on it, +and did not scruple to do so in my hearing. Callers from the +neighbourhood patronized me also. Pretty ladies in fashionably pitched +bonnets smiled, and said, "One of your little ones, Mrs. Buller? What a +pretty little thing!" and duly sympathized over the sad story which Aunt +Theresa seemed almost to enjoy relating. Sometimes it was agony to me to +hear the oft-repeated tale of my parents' death, and then again I +enjoyed a sort of gloomy importance which gave me satisfaction. I even +rehearsed such scenes in my mind when I was in bed, shedding real tears +as (in the person of Aunt Theresa) I related the sad circumstances of my +own grief to an imaginary acquaintance; and then, with dry eyes, +prolonging the "fancy" with compliments and consolations of the most +flattering nature. I always took care to fancy some circumstances that +led to my being in my best dress on the occasion. + +Gentleman company did not haunt my new home as was the case with the +Indian one. But now and then officers of the regiment called on Mrs. +Buller, and would say, "Is that poor Vandaleur's child? Dear me! Very +interesting little thing;" and speculate in my hearing on the +possibility of my growing up like my mother. + +"'Pon my soul, she _is_ like her!" said one of the "middle ones" one +day, examining me through his eyeglass, "Th' same expressive eyes, you +know, and just that graceful gracious little manner poor Mrs. Vandaleur +had. By Jove, it was a shocking thing! She was an uncommonly pretty +woman." + +"You never saw _her_ mother, my good fellow," said one of the "old ones" +who was present. "She _had_ a graceful gracious manner, if you like, and +Mrs. Vandaleur was not to be named in the same day with her. Mrs. +Vandaleur knew how to dress, I grant you----" + +"You may go and play, Margery dear," said Aunt Theresa, with kindly +delicacy. + +The "old one" had lowered his voice, but still I could hear what he +said, as Mrs. Buller saw. + +When my father was not spoken of, my feelings were very little hurt. On +this occasion my mind was engaged simply with the question whether I did +or did not inherit my mother's graces. I ran to a little looking-glass +in the nursery and examined my eyes; but when I tried to make them +"expressive," I either frowned so unpleasantly, or stared so absurdly, +that I could not flatter myself on the point. + +The girls were out; I had nothing to do; the nursery was empty. I walked +about, shaking out my skirts, and thinking of my gracious and graceful +manner. I felt a pardonable curiosity to see this for myself, and, +remembering the big glass in Aunt Theresa's room, I stole out to see if +I could make use of it unobserved. But the gentlemen had gone, and I +feared that Mrs. Buller might come up-stairs. In a few minutes, however, +the door-bell rang, and I heard the sound of a visitor being ushered +into the drawing-room. + +I seized the chance, and ran to Aunt Theresa's room. + +The mirror was "full length," and no one could see me better than I now +saw myself. Once more I attempted to make expressive eyes, but the +result was not favourable to vanity. Then I drew back to the door, and, +advancing upon the mirror with mincing steps, I threw all the grace and +graciousness of which I was conscious into my manner, and holding out my +hand, said, in a "company voice," "_Charmed_ to see you, I'm sure!" + +"_Mais c'est bien drole!_" said a soft voice close behind me. + +I had not heard the door open, and yet there stood Aunt Theresa on the +threshold, and with her a little old lady. The little old lady had a +bright, delicately cut face, eyes of whose expressiveness there could be +no question, and large grey curls. She wore a large hat, with large bows +tied under her chin, and a dark-green satin driving-cloak lined with +white and grey fur. + +She looked like a fairy godmother, like the ghost of an ancestor--like +"somebody out of a picture." She was my great-grandmother. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER--THE DUCHESS'S CARRIAGE--MRS. O'CONNOR IS CURIOUS. + + +I was much discomfited. My position was not a dignified one at the best, +and in childhood such small shames seem too terrible ever to be +outlived. My great-grandmother laughed heartily, and Mrs. Buller, whose +sense of humour was small, looked annoyed. + +"What in the world are you doing here, Margery?" she said. + +I had little or no moral courage, and I had not been trained in high +principles. If I could have thought of a plausible lie, I fear I should +have told it in my dilemma. As it was, I could not; I only put my hand +to my burning cheek, and said: + +"Let me see!" + +I must certainly have presented a very comical appearance, but the +little old lady's smiles died away, and her eyes filled with tears. + +"It is strange, is it not," she said to Aunt Theresa, "that, after all, +I should laugh at this meeting?" + +Then, sitting down on a box by the door, she held out her hands to me, +saying: + +"Come, little Margery, there is no sin in practising one's good manners +before the mirror. Come and kiss me, dear child; I am your father's +father's mother. Is not that to be an old woman? I am your +great-grandmother." + +My great-grandmother's voice was very soft, her cheek was soft, her +cloak was soft. I buried my face in the fur, and cried quietly to myself +with shame and excitement; she stroking my head, and saying: + +"_Pauvre petite!_--thou an orphan, and I doubly childless! It is thus we +meet at last to join our hands across the graves of two generations of +those we love!" + +"It was a dreadful thing!" said Mrs. Buller, rummaging in her pocket for +a clean handkerchief. "I'm sure I never should forget it, if I lived a +thousand years. I never seemed able to realize that they were gone; it +was all so sudden." + +The old lady made no answer, and we all wept in silence. + +Aunt Theresa was the first to recover herself, and she insisted on our +coming down-stairs. A young regimental surgeon and his wife dropped in +to lunch, for which my great-grandmother stayed. We were sitting in the +drawing-room afterwards, when "Mrs. Vandaleur's carriage" was announced. +As my great-grandmother took leave of me, she took off a watch and chain +and hung them on my neck. It was a small French watch with an enamelled +back of dark blue, on which was the word "Souvenir" in small pearls. + +"I gave it to your grandfather long years ago, my child, and he gave it +back to me--before he sailed. I would only part with it to his son's +child. Farewell, _petite_! Be good, dear child--try to be good. Adieu, +Mrs. Buller, and a thousand thanks! Major Buller, I am at your service." + +Major Buller took the hand she held out to him and led the old lady to +the front door, whither we all followed them. + +Mrs. Vandaleur's carriage was before the steps. It was a very quaint +little box on two wheels, in by no means good repair. It was drawn by a +pony, white, old, and shaggy. At the pony's head stood a small boy in +decent, but not smart, plain clothes. + +"Put the mat over the wheel to save my dress, Adolphe," said the old +lady; and as the little boy obeyed her order she stepped nimbly into +the carriage, assisted by the Major. "The silk is old," she observed +complacently; "but it is my best, of course, or it would not have been +worn to-day," and she gave a graceful little bow towards Aunt Theresa; +"and I hope that, with care, it will serve as such for the rest of my +life, which cannot be very long." + +"If it wears as well as you do, Madam," said Major Buller, tucking her +in, "it may; not otherwise." + +The Surgeon was leaning over the other side of the little cart, and +seemed also to be making polite speeches. It recalled the way that men +used to hang upon my mother's carriage. The old lady smiled, and made +gracious little replies, and meanwhile deliberately took off her kid +gloves, folded, and put them into her pocket. She then drew on a pair of +old worsted ones. + +"Economy, economy," she said, smiling, and giving a hand on each side of +her to the two gentlemen. "May I trouble you for the reins? Many thanks. +Farewell, gentlemen! I cannot pretend to fear that my horse will catch +cold--his coat is too thick; but you may. Adieu, Mrs. Buller, once more. +Farewell, little one, I wish you good-morning, Madam. Adolphe, seat +yourself; make your bow, Adolphe. Adieu, dear friends!" + +She gave a flick with the whip, which the pony resented by shaking his +head; after which he seemed, so to speak, to snatch up the little cart, +my great-grandmother, and Adolphe, and to run off with them at a good +round pace. + +"What an extraordinary turn-out!" said the Surgeon's wife. (She was an +Irish attorney's daughter, with the commonest of faces, and the most +unprecedented of bonnets. She and her husband had lately "set up" a +waggonette, the expense of which just made it difficult for them to live +upon their means, and the varnish of which added a care to life.) "Fancy +driving down High Street in that!" she continued; "and just when +everybody is going out, too!" + +"Uncommon sensible little affair, I think," said the Surgeon. "Suits the +old lady capitally." + +"Mrs. Vandaleur," said Major Buller, "can afford to be independent of +appearances to an extent that would not perhaps be safe for most of us." + +"You're right there, Buller," said the Surgeon. "Wonderfully queenly she +is! That fur cloak looks like an ermine robe on her." + +"I don't think you'd like to see me in it!" tittered his wife. + +"I don't say I should," returned the Surgeon, rather smartly. + +"My dear," said Mrs. Buller, "you must make up your mind to be jealous +of the Duchess. All gentlemen are mad about her." + +"The Duchess!" said Mrs. O'Connor, in a tone of respect. "I thought you +said----" + +"Oh, she is not really a duchess, my dear; it's only a nickname. I'll +tell you all about it some day. It's a long story." + +Discovering that Mrs. Vandaleur was a family connection, and not a +chance visitor from the neighbourhood, Mrs. O'Connor apologized for her +remarks, and tried to extract the Duchess's history from Aunt Theresa +then and there. But Mrs. Buller would only promise to tell it "another +time." + +"I'm dying with curiosity," said Mrs. O'Connor, as she took leave, "I +shall run in to-morrow afternoon on purpose to hear all about it. Can +you do with me, dear Mrs. Buller?" + +"Pray come," said Aunt Theresa warmly, with an amiable disregard of two +engagements and some arrears of domestic business. + +I was in the drawing-room next day when Mrs. O'Connor arrived. + +"May I come in, dear Mrs. Buller?" she said, "I won't stay two minutes; +but I _must_ hear about the Duchess. Now, _are_ you busy?" + +"Not at all," said Aunt Theresa, who was in the midst of making up her +tradesmen's books. "Pray sit down, and take off your bonnet." + +"It's hardly worth while, for I _can't_ stay," said Mrs. O'Connor, +taking her bonnet off, and setting it down so as not to crush the +flowers. + +As Mrs. O'Connor stayed two hours and a half, and as Aunt Theresa +granted my request to be allowed to hear her narrative, I learnt a good +deal of the history of my great-grandmother. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +A FAMILY HISTORY. + + +"We are not really connected," Mrs. Buller began. "She is Margery's +great-grandmother, and Margery and I are second cousins. That's all. But +I knew her long ago, before my poor cousin Alice married Captain +Vandaleur. And I have heard the whole story over and over again." + +I have heard the story more than once also. I listened with open mouth +to Aunt Theresa at this time, and often afterwards questioned her about +my "ancestors," as I may almost call them. + +Years later I used to repeat these histories to girls I was with. When +we were on good terms they were interested to hear, as I was proud to +tell, and would say, "Tell us about your ancestors, Margery." And if we +fell out there was no surer method of annoying me than to slight the +memory of my great-great-grandparents. + +I have told their story pretty often. I shall put it down here in my own +way, for Aunt Theresa told a story rather disconnectedly. + +The de Vandaleurs (we have dropped the _de_ now) were an old French +family. There was a Duke in it who was killed in the Revolution of '92, +and most of the family emigrated, and were very poor. The title was +restored afterwards, and some of the property. It went to a cousin of +the Duke who was murdered, he having no surviving children; but they say +it went in the wrong line. The cousin who had remained in France, and +always managed to keep the favour of the ruling powers, got the title, +and remade his fortunes; the others remained in England, very poor and +very proud. They would not have accepted any favours from the new royal +family, but still they considered themselves deprived of their rights. +One of these Vandaleur _emigres_ (the one who ought to have been the +Duke) had married his cousin. They suffered great hardships in their +escape, I fancy, and on the birth of their son, shortly after their +arrival in England, the wife died. + +There was an old woman, Aunt Theresa said, who used to be her nurse when +she was a child, in London, who had lived, as a girl, in the wretched +lodgings where these poor people were when they came over, and she used +to tell her wonderful stories about them. How, in her delirium (she was +insane for some little time before her son was born), Madame de +Vandaleur fancied herself in her old home, "with all her finery about +her," as Nurse Brown used to say. + +Nurse Brown seems to have had very little sympathy with nervous +diseases. She could understand a broken leg, or a fever, "when folks +kept their beds"; but the disordered fancies of a brain tried just too +far, the mad whims of a lady who could "go about," and who insisted upon +going about, and changing her dress two or three times a day, and +receiving imaginary visitors, and ordering her faithful nurse up and +down under the names of half-a-dozen servants she no longer possessed, +were beyond her comprehension. + +Aunt Theresa said that she and her brothers and sisters had the deepest +pity for the poor lady. They thought it so romantic that she should cry +for fresh flowers and dress herself to meet the Queen in a dirty little +lodging at the back of Leicester Square, and they were always begging to +hear "what else she did." But Nurse Brown seems to have been fondest of +relating the smart speeches in which she endeavoured to "put sense into" +the devoted French servant who toiled to humour every whim of her +unhappy mistress, instead of being "sharp with her," as Nurse Brown +advised. Aunt Theresa had some doubts whether Mrs. Brown ever did make +the speeches she reported; but when people say they said this or that, +they often only mean that this or that is what they wish they had said. + +"If she's mad, I says, shave her head, instead of dressing her hair all +day long. I've knowed mad people as foamed at the mouth and rolled their +eyes, and would have done themselves a injury but for a strait-jacket; +and I've knowed folks in fevers unreasonable enough, but they kept their +beds in a dark room, and didn't know their own mothers. Madame's ways is +beyond me, I says. _You_ calls it madness: _I_ calls it temper. +Tem--per, and no--thing else." + +Aunt Theresa used to make us laugh by repeating Nurse Brown's sayings, +and the little shake of herself with which she emphasized the last +sentence. + +If she had no sympathy for Madame de Vandaleur, she had a double share +for the poor lady's husband: "a _good_ soul," as she used to call him. +It was in vain that Jeanette spoke of the sweet temper and +unselfishness of her mistress "before these terrible days"; her conduct +towards her husband then was "enough for" Nurse Brown, so she said. No +sooner had the poor gentleman gone off on some errand for her pleasure +than she called for him to be with her, and was only to be pacified by a +fable of Jeanette's devising, who always said that "the King" had +summoned Monsieur de Vandaleur. Jeanette was well aware that, the +childless old Duke being dead, her master had succeeded to the title, +and she often spoke of him as Monsieur le Duc to his wife, which seems +to have pleased the poor lady. When he was absent, Jeanette's ready +excuse, "_Eh, Madame! Pour Monsieur le Duc--le Roi l'a fait appeller_," +was enough, and she waited patiently for his return. + +Ever-changing as her whims and fancies were, the poor gentleman +sacrificed everything to gratify them. His watch, his rings, his +buckles, the lace from his shirt, and all the few trifles secured in +their hasty flight, were sold one by one. His face was familiar to the +keepers of certain stalls near to where Covent Garden Market now stands. +He bought flowers for Madame when he could not afford himself food. He +sold his waistcoat, and buttoned his coat across him--and looked thinner +than ever. + +Then the day came when Madame wished, and he could not gratify her +wish. Everything was gone. He said, "This will kill me, Jeanette;" and +Jeanette believed him. + +Nurse Brown (according to her own account) assured Jeanette that it +would not. "Folk doesn't die of such things, says I." + +But, in spite of common-sense and experience, Monsieur de Vandaleur did +die of grief, or something very like it, within twenty-four hours of the +death of his wife, and the birth of their only son. + +For some years the faithful Jeanette supported this child by her own +industry. She was an exquisite laundress, and she throve where the Duke +and Duchess would have starved. As the boy grew up she kept him as far +as possible from common companions, treated him with as much deference +as if he had succeeded to the family honours, and filled his head with +traditions of the deserts and dignity of the de Vandaleurs. + +At last a cousin of Monsieur de Vandaleur found them out. He also was an +exile, but he had prospered better, had got a small civil appointment, +and had married a Scotch lady. It was after he had come to the help of +his young kinsman, I think, that an old French lady took a fancy to the +boy, and sent him to school in France at her own expense. He was just +nineteen when she died, and left him what little money she possessed. +He then returned to England, and paid his respects to his cousin and the +Scotch Mrs. Vandaleur. + +She congratulated herself, I have heard, that her only child, a +daughter, was from home when this visit was paid. + +Mrs. Janet Vandaleur was a high-minded, hard-headed, north-country +woman. She valued long descent, and noble blood, and loyalty to a fallen +dynasty like a Scotchwoman, but, like a Scotchwoman, she also respected +capability and energy and endurance. She combined a romantic heart with +a practical head in a way peculiar to her nation. She knew the pedigree +of every family (who had a pedigree) north of the Tweed, and was, +probably, the best housekeeper in Great Britain. She devoutly believed +her own husband to be as perfect as mortal man may be here below, whilst +in some separate compartment of her brain she had the keenest sense of +the defects and weaknesses which he inherited, and dreaded nothing more +than to see her daughter mated with one of the helpless Vandaleurs. + +This daughter, with much of her mother's strong will and practical +capacity, had got her father's _physique_ and a good deal of his +artistic temperament. Dreading the development of _de Vandaleur_ +qualities in her, the mother made her education studiously practical +and orderly. She had, like most Scotch matrons of her type, too good a +gift for telling family stories, and too high a respect for ancestral +traditions, to have quite kept herself from amusing her daughter's +childhood with tales of the de Vandaleur greatness. But after her +husband discovered his young relative, and as their daughter grew up, +she purposely avoided the subject, which had, probably, the sole effect +of increasing her daughter's interest in the family romance. Mrs. Janet +knew the de Vandaleur pedigree as well as her own, and had shown a +miniature of the late Duke in his youth to her daughter as a child on +many occasions; when she had also alluded to the fact that the title by +birth was undoubtedly in the exiled branch of the family. Miss Vandaleur +was not ignorant that the young gentleman who had just completed his +education was, if every one had their rights, Monsieur le Duc; and she +was as much disappointed to have missed seeing him as her mother was +glad that they had not met. + +For Bertrand de Vandaleur had all the virtues and the weaknesses of his +family in intense proportions. He had a hopeless ignorance of the value +of money, which was his strongest condemnation before his Scotch cousin. +He was high-minded, chivalrous, in some points accomplished, charming, +and tender-hearted. But he was weak of will, merely passive in +endurance, and quite without energy. He had a graceful, fanciful, but +almost weak intellect. I mean, it just bordered on mental deficiency; +and at times his dreamy eyes took a wildness that was said to make him +painfully like his mother in her last days. He was an absurd but +gracefully romantic idea of his family consequence. He was very +handsome, and very like the miniature of the late Duke. It was most +desirable that his cousin should not meet him, especially as she was of +the sentimental age of seventeen. So Mrs. Janet Vandaleur hastened their +return from London to their small property in Scotland. + +But there was no law to hinder Monsieur de Vandaleur from making a +Scotch tour. + +One summer's afternoon, when she had just finished the making of some +preserves, Miss Vandaleur strolled down through a little wood behind the +house towards a favourite beck that ran in a gorge below. She was +singing an old French song in praise of the beauty of a fair lady of the +de Vandaleurs of olden time. As she finished the first verse, a voice +from a short distance took up the refrain-- + + "Victoire de Vandaleur! Victoire! Victoire!" + +It was her own name as well as that of her ancestress, and she blushed +as her eyes met those of a strange young gentleman, with a sketch-book +in his hand, and a French poodle at his heels. + +"Place aux dames!" said the stranger. On which the white poodle sat up, +and his master bowed till his head nearly touched the ground. + +They had met once as children, which was introduction enough in the +circumstances. Here, at last, for Victoire, was the embodiment of all +her dreams of the de Vandaleur race. He was personally so like the +miniature, that he might have been the old Duke. He was the young one, +as even her mother allowed. For him, he found a companion whose birth +did not jar on his aristocratic prejudices, and whose strong character +was bone and marrow to his weak one. Before they reached the house Mrs. +Janet's precautions were vain. + +She grew fond of the lad in spite of herself. The romantic side of her +sympathized with his history. He was an orphan, and she had a mother's +heart. In the direct line he was a Duke, and she was a Scotchwoman. He +freely consented to settle every penny he had upon his wife, and, as his +mother-in-law justly remarked, "Many a cannier man wouldn't just have +done that." + +In fine, the young people were married with not more than the usual +difficulties beforehand. + +He was nineteen, and she was seventeen. They were my great-grandfather +and great-grandmother. + +They had only one child--a son. They were very poor, and yet they gave +him a good education. I ought to say, _she_ gave him, for everything +that needed effort or energy was done by my great-grandmother. The more +it became evident that her Bertrand de Vandaleur was less helpful and +practical than any Bertrand de Vandaleur before him, the more there +seems to have developed in her the purpose and capability inherited from +Mrs. Janet. Like many another poor and ambitious mother, she studied +Latin and Greek and algebra that she might teach her son. And at the +same time she saved, even out of their small income. She began to "put +by" from the boy's birth for his education, and when the time came he +was sent to school. + +My grandfather did well. I have heard that he inherited his father's +beauty, and was not without his mother's sense and energy. He had the de +Vandaleur quality of pleasing, with the weakness of being utterly ruled +by the woman he loved. At twenty he married an heiress. His parents had +themselves married too early to have reasonable ground for complaint at +this; but when he left his own Church for that of his wife, there came a +terrible breach between them and their only son. His mother soon +forgave him; but the father was as immovable in his displeasure as weak +people can sometimes be. Happily, however, after the birth of a grandson +peace was made, and the young husband brought his wife to visit his +parents. The heiress had some property in the West Indies, which they +proposed to visit, and they remained with the old people till just +before they sailed. It was as a keepsake at parting that my grandfather +had restored to his mother the watch which she gave to me. The child was +left in England with his mother's relations. + +My grandfather and grandmother never returned. They were among the +countless victims of the most cruel of all seas. The vessel they went +out in was lost during a week of storms. On what day or night, and in +what part of the Atlantic, no one survived to tell. + +Their orphan child was my dear father. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS--DREAMS AND DAY DREAMS--THE VINE--ELSPETH--MY +GREAT-GRANDFATHER. + + +My father was brought up chiefly by his mother's relations. The +religious question was always a difficulty as regarded the de +Vandaleurs, and I fancy extended to my own case. My guardians were not +my great-grandparents, but Major Buller, and Mr. Arkwright, a clergyman +of the Church of England. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother +were Roman Catholics. Though not my appointed guardians, they were my +nearest relations, and when my great-grandmother had held out her little +hand towards me over the side of the pony-carriage and said, "You will +let the child come to me? Soon, very soon?" Major Buller had taken her +hand in both his, and replied very cordially, "Of course, my dear madam, +of course. Whenever it is convenient to yourself and to Mr. de +Vandaleur." + +And this promise had stirred my heart with such a flutter of happy +expectation as I had not felt since I persuaded my father to promise +that I should dine with him, all alone, like a grown-up lady, on that +sad birthday on which he died. + +It is perhaps useless to try and find reasons for the fancy I took to +the "Duchess"--as Aunt Theresa called her--since it was allowed that she +fascinated every one who came near her. With the bright qualities which +made her admirable in herself, she combined the gracious art of putting +other people at ease with themselves; and, remembering how sore the +wounds of a child's self-love are, I think that her kindness must have +been very skilful to make me forgive myself for that folly of the +looking-glass enough to forget myself in admiration of her. + +Like most children, I was given to hero and heroine worship. I admired +more than one lady of Aunt Theresa's acquaintance, and had been +fascinated by some others whom I did not know, but had only seen in +church, and had longed for the time when I also should no longer trip +about in short and simple skirts, and tie up my curls with a ribbon, but +should sweep grandly and languidly in to the parade service, bury half a +pew under the festoons and furbelows of my silk dress and velvet +trimmings, sink into a nest of matchless millinery for the Litany, scent +the air with patchouli as I rose for the hymn, examine the other ladies' +bonnets through one of those eyeglasses which are supposed to make it no +longer rude to stare, and fan myself from the fatigues of the service +during the sermon. + +But even the dignity of grown-updom embellished by pretty faces and +splendid costumes did not stir my imagination as it was stirred by the +sight of my great-grandmother and by the history of her life. It was +like seeing the princess of a fairy tale with one's very own eyes. The +faces of the fine ladies I had envied were a little apt to be insipid +in expression, and to pass from the memory; but my great-grandmother's +quick, bright, earnest face was not easily to be forgotten. I made up my +mind that when I grew up I would not wear a large _chignon_ after all, +nor a bonnet full of flowers, nor a dress full of flounces, but a rather +short skirt and buckled shoes and grey curls, and a big hat with many +bows, and a green satin driving-cloak lined with fur. + +How any one, blessed with grown-up freedom of choice, could submit to be +driven about by a coach-man in a big carriage, as highly stuffed and +uninteresting as a first-class railway carriage, when it was possible to +drive one's self in a sort of toy-cart with a dear white pony as shaggy +as a dog, I could not understand. I well knew which I should choose, and +I thought so much of it that I remember dreaming that my +great-grandmother had presented me with a pony and chaise the +counterpart of her own. The dream-joy of this acquisition, and the pride +of driving up to the Bullers' door and offering to take Matilda for an +expedition, was only marred by one of those freaks which spoil the +pleasure of so many dreams. Just as Matilda appeared, full of gratitude, +and with a picnic luncheon in a basket, I became conscious that I was in +my night-gown, and had forgotten to dress. Again and again I tried to go +back in my dream and put on suitable clothes. I never accomplished it, +and only woke in the effort. + +In sober daylight I indulged no hope that Mrs. Vandaleur would give me a +carriage and pony for my very own, but I did hope that I should go out +in hers if ever I went to stay with her. Perhaps sometimes alone, +driving myself, with only the rosy-cheeked Adolphe to open the gates and +deliver me from any unexpected difficulties with the reins. But I +dreamed many a day-dream of the possible delights in store for me with +my new-found relatives, and almost counted the hours on the Duchess's +watch till she should send for me. + +As it happened, however, circumstances combined for some little time to +hinder me from visiting my great-grandmother. + +The little Bullers and I had the measles; and when we were all +convalescent, Major Buller got two months' leave, and we went away for +change of air. Then small-pox prevailed in Riflebury, and we were kept +away, even after Major Buller returned to his duties. When we did +return, before a visit to the Vandaleurs could be arranged, Adolphe fell +ill of scarlet fever, and the fear of contagion postponed my visit for +some time. + +I was eight years old when I went to stay at The Vine. This was the name +of the little cottage where my great-grandparents lived--so called +because of an old vine which covered the south wall on one side of the +porch, and crept over a framework upon the roof. I do not now remember +how many pounds of grapes it had been known to produce in one season, +and yet I ought not to have forgotten, for it was a subject on which my +great-grandfather, my great-grandmother, Adolphe, and Elspeth constantly +boasted. + +"And if they don't just ripen as the master says they do in France, it's +all for the best," said Elspeth; "for ripe grapes would be picked all +along, and the house not a penny the better for them. But green-grape +tarts and cream are just eating for a king." + +Elspeth was "general servant" at my great-grandmother's. Her aunt Mary +had come from Scotland to serve "Miss Victoire" when she first married. +As Mary's health failed, and she grew old, her young niece was sent for +to work under her. Old Mary died with her hands in my great-grandmother's, +and Elspeth reigned in her stead. + +Elspeth was an elderly woman when I first made her acquaintance. She had +a broad, bright, sensible face, and a kindly smile that won me to her. +She wore frilled caps, tied under her chin; and as to exchanging them +for "the fly-away bits of things servants stick on their heads at the +present time," Elspeth would as soon have thought of abandoning the +faith of her fathers. She was a strict but not bitter Presbyterian. She +was not tall, and she was very broad; her apparent width being increased +by the very broad linen collars which spread, almost like a cape, over +her ample shoulders. + +My great-grandmother had an anecdote of me connected with this, which +she was fond of relating. + +"And what do you think of Elspeth, little one?" she had said to me on +the first evening of my visit. + +"I think she's very big," was my reply. + +"Certainly, our good Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," said my +great-grandfather, laughing. + +I wondered if this were so; and when my great-grandmother gave me a +little yard-measure in a wooden castle, which had taken my fancy among +the treasures of her work-box, the idea seized me of measuring Elspeth +for my own satisfaction on the point. But the silken measure slipped, +and caught on the battlements of the castle, and I lost my place in +counting the figures, and at last was fain to ask Elspeth herself. + +"How tall are you, Elspeth, please? As much as a yard?" + +"Ou aye, my dear," said Elspeth, who was deeply engaged in darning a +very large hole in one of my great-grandfather's socks. + +"As much as two yards?" I inquired. + +"Eh, no, my dearie," said Elspeth. "That wad be six feet; and I'm not +just that tall, though my father was six feet and six inches." + +"How broad are you, Elspeth, please?" I persisted. "As much as a yard?" + +"I'm thinking I will be, my dear," said Elspeth, "for it takes the full +width of a coloured cotton to cut me a dress-front, and then it's not +over-big." + +"Are you as broad as two yards, do you think?" I said, drawing my ribbon +to its full length from the castle, and considering the question. + +Elspeth shook her head. She was biting the end off a piece of +darning-cotton; but I rightly concluded that she would not confess to +being two yards wide. + +"Please, I have measured Elspeth," I announced over the tea-table, "and +grandpapa is quite right." + +"Eh?" said Mr. Vandaleur, who had a trick of requiring observations to +be repeated to him by his wife. + +"She says that she has measured Elspeth, and that you are right," said +my great-grandmother. "But about what is grandpapa right, my little +one?" + +"Grandpapa said that Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," I explained. +"And so she is, for I measured her--at least, the ribbon would slip when +I measured her, so I asked her; and she's a yard tall, but not as much +as two yards; and a yard wide, but not as much as two yards. And so +grandpapa is right." + +Some of the happiest hours I spent at The Vine were spent in Elspeth's +company. I made tiny cakes, and tarts of curious shapes, when she was +busy pastry-making, and did some clear-starching on my doll's account +when Elspeth was "getting-up" my great-grandfather's cravats. + +Elspeth had strong old-fashioned notions of paying respect where it was +due. She gave Adolphe a sharp lecture one day for some lack of respect +in his manner to "Miss Margery"; and, on the other hand, she taught me +to curtsy at the door where I breakfasted with Mr. and Mrs. Vandaleur. + +Some dancing lessons that I had had in Riflebury helped me here, and +Elspeth was well satisfied with my performance. I felt very shy and +awkward the first time that I made my morning curtsy, my knees shaking +under me, and Elspeth watching from the passage; but my +great-grandfather and mother seemed to take it as a matter of course, +and I soon became quite used to it. If Mr. Vandaleur happened to be +standing in the room, he always returned my curtsy by a low bow. + +I became very fond of my great-grandfather. He was a tall, handsome old +man, with high shoulders, slightly bent by age and also by habit. He +wore a blue coat with brass buttons, that had been very well made a very +long time ago; white trousers, a light waistcoat, a frilled shirt, and a +very stiff cravat. On the wall of the drawing-room there hung a +water-colour portrait of a very young and very handsome man, with +longish wavy hair, features refined to weakness, dreamy, languid eyes, +and a coat the very image of my great-grandfather's. The picture hung +near the door; and as Mr. Bertrand Vandaleur passed in or out, I well +remember that he almost always glanced at the sketch, as people glance +at themselves in passing a mirror. + +I was too young then to notice this as being a proof that the drawing +was a portrait of himself; but I remember being much struck by the +likeness between the coat in the picture and that my great-grandfather +wore, and also by the way that the hair was thrown back from the high, +narrow forehead, just as my great-grandfather's grey hairs were combed +away from his brow. Children are great admirers of beauty too, +especially, I think, of an effeminate style of good looks, and are very +susceptible to the power of expression in faces. I had a romantic +admiration for "the handsome man by the door," and his eyes haunted me +about the room. + +I was kneeling on a chair and examining the sketch one morning, when my +great-grandfather came up to me, "Who is it, little one?" said he. + +I looked at the picture. I looked at my great-grandfather's coat. As his +eyes gazed steadily into mine, there was a likeness there also; but it +was the coat that decided me. I said, "It is you, grandpapa." + +I think this little incident just sealed our friendship. I always +remained in high favour with my great-grandfather. + +He spent a great deal of his time in painting. He never had, I believe, +had any profession. The very small income on which he and his wife had +lived was their own private fortune. I often think it must have been a +great trial to a woman of my great-grandmother's energy, that her +husband should have made no effort to add to their resources by work of +some kind. But then I cannot think of any profession that would have +suited him. He was sadly wanting in general capacity, though +accomplished much above the average, and with a fine knack in the +budding of roses. + +I thought him the grandest gentleman that ever lived, and the +pleasantest of companions. His weak but lovable nature had strong +sympathy with children, I think. I ought to say, with a child; for he +would share the fancies and humours of one child companion for hours, +but was quite incapable of managing a larger number--as, indeed, he was +of any kind of domestic administration or control. Mrs. Vandaleur was +emphatically Elspeth's mistress, if she was also her friend; but in the +absence of "the mistress" Elspeth ruled "the master" with a rod of iron. + +I quickly gained a degree of power over him myself. I discovered that if +I maintained certain outward forms of respect and courtesy, so as not to +shock my grandpapa's standard of good manners, I might make almost any +demands on his patience and good-nature. Children and pet animals make +such discoveries very quickly, and are apt to use their power somewhat +tyrannically. I fear I was no exception to the rule. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THOMAS THE CAT--MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER'S SKETCHES--ADOLPHE IS MY +FRIEND--MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER DISTURBS MY REST--I LEAVE THE +VINE. + + +My great-grandfather had, as I said, some skill in painting. He was +gifted with an intense sense of, and love for, colour. I am sure he saw +colours where other people did not. What to common eyes was a mass of +grey, or green, was to him a pleasant combination of many gay and +delicate hues. He distinguished severally the innumerable bright threads +in Nature's coat of many colours, and in simple truth I think that each +was a separate joy to him. + +He had a white Persian cat of an artistic temperament, which followed +him in his walks, dozed on the back of his arm-chair, and condescended +to share his tea when it reached a certain moderate temperature. It +never was betrayed into excitement, except when there was fish for +dinner. My great-grandfather's fasts were feasts for Thomas the cat. + +I can very clearly remember the sight of my great-grandfather pacing +slowly up and down the tiny garden at The Vine, his hands behind him, +and followed sedately by Thomas. Now and then he would stop to gaze, +with infinite contentment in his eyes, at the delicate blue-grey mist +behind the leafless trees (which in that spring sunshine were, no doubt, +of much more complex and beautiful colour to him than mere brown), or +drinking in the blue of the scillas in the border with a sigh of +satisfaction. When he paused, Thomas would pause; as he feasted his +eyes, Thomas would rub his head against his master's legs, and stretch +his own. When Elspeth had cooked the fish, and my great-grandmother had +made the tea and arranged the flowers on the table, they would come in +together and condescend to their breakfasts, with the same air about +them both of having no responsibility in life but to find out sunny +spots and to enjoy themselves. + +My great-grandfather's most charming paintings were sketches of flowers. +Ordinary stiff flower-paintings are of all paintings the most +uninteresting, I think; but his were of a very different kind. Each +sketch was a sort of idyll. Indeed, he would tell me stories of each as +he showed them. + +Long as my great-grandfather had lived, he was never a robust man, and +Elspeth's chief ideas on the subject of his sketches bore reference to +the colds he had caught, and the illnesses he had induced, by sitting in +the east winds or lying on damp grass to do this or that sketch. + +"That'll be the one the master did before he was laid by with the +rheumatics," Elspeth said, when I described one of my favourites to her. +It was a spring sketch. My great-grandfather had lain face downwards on +the lawn to do it. This was to bring his eyes on a level with the subject +of his painting, which was this: a crocus of the exquisite shades of +lilac to be seen in some varieties, just full-blown, standing up in its +first beauty and freshness from its fringe of narrow silver-striped +leaves. The portrait was not an opaque and polished-looking painting on +smooth cardboard, but a sketch--indefinite at the outer edges of the +whole subject--on water-colour paper of moderate roughness. The throat +and part of the cup of the flower stood out from some shadow at the roots +of a plant beyond; a shadow of infinite gradation, and quite without the +blackness common to patches of shade as seen by untrained eyes. From the +level of my great-grandfather's view, as he lay in the grass, the border +looked a mere strip; close behind it was a hedge dividing the garden from +a field. Just by the crocus there was a gap in the hedge, which in the +sketch was indicated rather than drawn. And round the corner of the bare +thorn branches from the hedge-bank in the field there peeped a celandine +and a daisy. They were not nearly such finished portraits as that of the +crocus. A few telling strokes of colour made them, and gave them a life +and pertness that were clever enough. Beneath the sketch was written, "La +Demoiselle. Des enfants du village la regardent." + +My great-grandfather translated this for me, and used to show me how the +"little peasants," Marguerite and Celandine, were peeping in at the +pretty young lady in her mauve dress striped with violet. + +But every sketch had its story, and often its moral; not, as a rule, a +very original one. In one, a lovely study of ivy crept over a rotten +branch upon the ground. A crimson toadstool relieved the heavy green, +and suggested that the year was drawing to a close. Beneath it was +written, "Charity." "Thus," said my great-grandfather, "one covers up +and hides the defects of one he loves." + +A study of gaudy summer tulips stood--as may be guessed--for Pride. + +"Pride," said my great-grandfather, "is a sin; a mortal sin, dear child. +Moreover, it is foolish, and also vulgar--the pride of fine clothes, +money, equipages, and the like. What is called pride of birth--the +dignity of an ancient name--this, indeed, is another thing. It is not +petty, not personal; it seems to me more like patriotism--the pride of +country." + +I did my best to describe to Elspeth both the sketch and my +great-grandfather's commentary. + +"A' pride's sinful," said Elspeth decidedly. "Pride o' wealth, and pride +o' birth. Not that I'm for objecting to a decent satisfaction in a +body's ain gude conduct and respectability. Pride o' character, that's +anither thing a'thegither, and to be respectit." + +My great-grandfather gave me a few paints, and under his directions I +daubed away, much to my own content. When I was struggling hopelessly +with the perspective of some pansies of various colours (for in +imitation of him I painted flowers), he would say, "Never mind the +shape, dear Marguerite, get the colour--the colour, my child!" And he +trained me to a quickness in the perception of colour certainly not +common at my age. + +I spent many pleasant hours, too, in the less intellectual society of +Adolphe. He dug a bed for me in a bit of spare ground, and shaped it +like a heart. He laboured constantly at this heart, making it plump by +piling up the earth, and cramming it with plants of various +kinds--perennials much in want of subdivision, and often in full +bloom--which he brought from cottage gardens of "folk he knew," and +watered copiously to "sattle 'em." + +His real name was not Adolphe, but Thomas. As this, however, had created +some confusion between him and the cat, my great-grandmother had named +him afresh, after a retainer of the de Vandaleurs in days gone by, +whose faithful service was a tradition in the family. + +I was very happy at The Vine--by day. I feel ashamed now to recall how +miserable I was at night, and yet I know I could not help it. In old +times I had always been accustomed to be watched to sleep by Ayah. After +I came to Aunt Theresa, I slept in the same room with one or more of the +other children. At The Vine, for the first time, I slept alone. + +This was not all. It was not merely the being alone in the dark which +frightened me. Indeed, a curious little wick floating on a cup of oil +was lighted at night for my benefit, but it only illumined the great +source of the terror which made night hideous to me. + +Some French refugee artist, who had been indebted to my +great-grandparents for kindness, had shown his gratitude by painting a +picture of the execution of that Duc de Vandaleur who perished in the +Revolution, my great-grandfather having been the model. It was a +wretched daub, but the subject was none the less horrible for that, and +the caricatured likeness to my great-grandfather did not make it seem +less real or more pleasant. + +That execution which was never over, this ghastly head which never found +rest in the grave, that awful-looking man who was, and yet was not, +Grandpapa--haunted me. They were the cause of certain horrible dreams, +which I can remember quite as clearly at this day as if I dreamed them +last night, and which I know I shall never forget. The dreams again +associated themselves with the picture, and my fears grew instead of +lessening as the time went by. + +Very late one night Elspeth came in and found me awake, and probably +looking far from happy. I had nothing to say for myself, but I burst +into tears. Elspeth was tenderness itself, but she got hold of a wrong +idea. I was "just homesick," she thought, and needed to be "away home +again," with "bairns like myself." + +I do not know why I never explained the real reason of my +distress--children are apt to be reticent on such occasions. I think a +panic seized upon the members of the household, that they were too old +to make a child happy. I was constantly assured that "it was very +natural," and I "had been very good." But I was sent back to Riflebury. +No one knew how loth I was to leave, still less that it was to a much +older relative than those at The Vine that I owed my expulsion--to my +great-great-great-grandfather--Monsieur le Duc de Vandaleur. + +Thomas, the cat, purred so loudly as I withdrew, that I think he was +glad to be rid of me. + +Adolphe alone was against the verdict of the household, and I think +believed that I would have preferred to remain. + +"I'm sure I thought you was quite sattled, miss," he said, as he saw me +off; and he blubbered like a baby. His transplanted perennials were +"sattled" by copious floods of water. Perhaps he hoped that tears would +settle me! + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MATILDA'S NEWS--OUR GOVERNESS--MAJOR BULLER TURNED TUTOR--ELEANOR +ARKWRIGHT. + + +The grief I felt at leaving The Vine was greatly forgotten in the warm +welcome which awaited me on my return to Riflebury. + +In a household where gossip is a principal amusement, the return of any +member from a visit is a matter for general congratulation till the new +budget is exhausted. Indeed, I plead guilty to a liking to be the first +to skim the news when Eleanor or one of the boys comes back from a +visit, at the present time. + +Matilda withdrew me from Aunt Theresa as soon as she could. + +"I am so glad to get you back, Margery dear," said she. "And now you +must tell me all your news, and I'll tell you all mine. And to begin +with--what do you think?--we've got a governess, and you and I are to +have the little room at the head of the stairs all to ourselves." + +Matilda's news was lengthy enough and interesting enough to make us late +for tea, and mine kept us awake for a couple of hours after we were +fairly in our two little iron bedsteads in the room that was now our +very own. That is to say, I told what I had to tell after we came to +bed, but my news was so tame compared with Matilda's that we soon +returned to the discussion of hers. I tried to describe my +great-grandfather's sketches, but neither Aunt Theresa in the +drawing-room, nor Matilda when we retired for the night, seemed to feel +any interest in the subject; and when Mrs. Buller asked what sort of +people called at The Vine, I felt that my reply was, like the rest of my +news, but dull. + +Matilda's, on the contrary, was very entertaining. She spoke +enthusiastically of Miss Perry, the governess. + +"She is so good-natured, Margery, you can't think. When lessons are over +she takes me walks on the Esplanade, and she calls me her dear Matilda, +and I take her arm, and she tells me all about herself. She says she +knows she's very romantic. And she's got lots of secrets, and she's told +me several already; for she says she has a feeling that I can keep a +secret, and so I can. But telling you's not telling, you know, because +she's sure to tell you herself; only you'd better wait till she does +before you say anything, for fear she should be vexed." + +Of course I promised to do so, and craned my neck out of bed to catch +Matilda's interesting but whispered revelations. + +Matilda herself was only partially in Miss Perry's confidence, and I +looked anxiously forward to the time when she would admit me also to her +secrets, though I feared she might consider me too young. My fears were +groundless, as I found Miss Perry was fond of talking about herself, and +a suitable audience was quite a secondary consideration with her. + +She was a _protegee_ of Mrs. Minchin's, who had persuaded Aunt Theresa +to take her for our governess. She was quite unfit for the position, and +did no little harm to us in her brief reign. But I do not think that our +interests had entered in the least into Mrs. Minchin's calculations in +the matter. She had "taken Miss Perry up," and to get Miss Perry a +comfortable home was her sole object. + +To do our new governess justice, she did her best to impart her own +superficial acquirements to us. We plodded regularly through French +exercises, which she corrected by a key, and she kept us at work for a +given number of hours during the day; tatting by our sides as we +practised our scales, or roasting her petticoats over the fire, whilst +Matilda and I read Mrs. Markham's _England_ or Mrs. Trimmer's _Bible +Lessons_ aloud by turns to full-stops. But when lessons were over Miss +Perry was quite as glad as we were, and the subjects of our studies had +as little to do with our holiday hours as a Sunday sermon with the rest +of the week. + +She was a great novel-reader, and I think a good many of the things she +told us of, as having happened to herself, had their real origin in the +Riflebury circulating library. For she was one of those strange +characters who indulge in egotism and exaggeration, till they seem +positively to lose the sense of what is fact and what is fiction. + +She filled our poor empty little heads with a great deal of folly, and +it was well for us that her reign was not a long one. + +She was much attached to the school-room fireside. She could not sit too +close to it, or roast herself too thoroughly for her own satisfaction. I +sometimes wondered if the bony woman who kept the library ever +complained of the curled condition of the backs of the books Miss Perry +held between her eyes and the hot coals for so many hours. + +In this highly heated state our governess was, of course, sensitive to +the smallest inlet of cooler air, and "draughts" were accordingly her +abhorrence. How we contrived to distinguish a verb from a noun, or +committed anything whatever to memory in the fever-heat and "stuffy" +atmosphere of the little room which was sacred to our studies, I do not +know. At a certain degree of the thermometer Miss Perry's face rises +before me and makes my brain spin even now. + +This was, no doubt, one cause of the very severe headaches to which +Matilda became subject about this time, though, now I look back, I do +not think she had been quite strong since we all had the measles. They +were apt to end in a fainting condition, from which she recovered by +lying on the floor. Then, if Miss Perry happened to be in good humour, +she would excuse Matilda from further lessons, invariably adding, in her +"mystery" voice--"But not a word to your mamma!" + +It was the most unjustifiable use she made of influence she gained over +us (especially over poor Matilda, who was very fond of her, and believed +in her) that she magnified her own favours at the expense of Major +Buller and my aunt. For some time they had no doubts as to the wisdom of +Mrs. Minchin's choice. + +Miss Perry was clever enough not to display her romantic side to Mrs. +Buller. She amused her, too, with Riflebury gossip, in which she was an +adept. She knew equally well how far she might venture with the Major; +and the sleight-of-hand with which she threw needlework over a novel +when Aunt Theresa came into the school-room was not more skilful than +the way in which she turned the tail of a bit of scandal into a remark +upon the weather as Uncle Buller opened the drawing-room door. + +But Miss Perry was not skilful enough to win the Major's lasting favour. +He was always slow to interfere in domestic matters, but he was not +unobservant. + +"I'm sure you see a great deal more than one would think, Edward," Aunt +Theresa would say; "although you are so wrapt up in insects and things." + +"The insects don't get into my eyes, my dear," said Major Buller. + +"And hear too," Mrs. Buller continued. "Mrs. O'Connor was saying only +the other day that you often seem to hear of things before other people, +though you do talk so little." + +"It is, perhaps, because I am not always talking that I do hear. But +Mrs. O'Connor is not likely to think of that," said the Major, rather +severely. + +He was neither blind nor deaf in reference to Miss Perry, and she was +dismissed. Aunt Theresa rather dreaded Mrs. Minchin's indignation in the +matter, I believe; but needlessly, for Miss Perry and Mrs. Minchin +quarrelled about this time, and Mrs. Minchin had then so much +information to Miss Perry's disadvantage at her fingers' ends, that it +seemed wonderful that she should ever have recommended her. + +For some little time our education progressed in a very desultory +fashion. Major Buller became perversely prejudiced against governesses, +and for a short time undertook to carry on our English lessons himself. +He made sums amusing, and geography lessons "as good as stories," though +the latter so often led (by very interesting channels) to his dearly +beloved insects, that Mrs. Buller accused him of making our lessons an +excuse for getting out his "collection." + +With "grammar" we were less successful. Major Buller was so good a +teacher that he brought out what intelligence we possessed, and led us +constantly to ask questions about anything we failed to understand. In +arithmetic this led to his helping us over our difficulties; in +geography it led, sooner or later, to the "collection"; but in English +grammar it led to stumbling-blocks and confusion, and, finally, to the +Major's throwing the book across the room, and refusing to pursue that +part of our education any further. + +"I never learnt English grammar," said the Major, "and it's quite +evident that I can't teach it." + +"If _you_ don't know grammar, Papa, then _we_ needn't," said Matilda +promptly, and being neat of disposition, she picked up the book and +proceeded to put it away. + +"I never said that I didn't know grammar," said the Major; "I fancy I +can speak and write grammatically, but what I know I got from the Latin +grammar. And, upon my soul," added Uncle Buller, pulling at his heavy +moustache, "I don't know why you shouldn't do the same." + +The idea of learning Latin pleased us greatly, and Major Buller (who had +been at Charterhouse in his boyhood) bought a copy of Dr. Russell's +_Grammar_, and we set to work. And either because the rules of the Latin +grammar bore explanation better than the English ones, or because Major +Buller was better able to explain them, we had no further difficulties. + +We were very proud of doing lessons in these circumstances, and boasted +of our Latin, I remember, to the little St. Quentins, when we met them +at the dancing-class. The St. Quentins were slender, ladylike girls, +much alike, and rendered more so by an exact similarity of costume. +Their governess was a very charming and talented woman, and when Mrs. +St. Quentin proposed that Matilda and I should share her daughters' +French lessons under Miss Airlie, Major Buller and Aunt Theresa +thankfully accepted the offer. I think that our short association with +this excellent lady went far to cure us of the silly fancies and tricks +of vulgar gossip which we had gleaned from Miss Perry. + +So matters went on for some months, much to Matilda's and my +satisfaction, when a letter from my other guardian changed our plans +once more. + +Mr. Arkwright's only daughter was going to school. He wrote to ask the +Bullers to let her break the journey by spending a night at their house. +It was a long journey, for she was coming from the north. + +"They live in Yorkshire," said Major Buller, much as one might speak of +living in Central Africa. + +Matilda and I looked forward with great interest to Miss Arkwright's +arrival. Her name, we learnt, was Eleanor, and she was nearly a year +older than Maria. + +"She'll be _your_ friend, I suppose," I said, a little enviously, in +reference to her age. + +"Of course," said Matilda, with dignity. "But you can be with us a good +deal," she was kind enough to add. + +I remember quite well how disappointed I felt that I should have so +little title to share the newcomer's friendship. + +"If she had only been ten years old, and so come between us," I +thought, "she would have been as much mine as Matilda's." + +I little thought then what manner of friends we were to be in spite of +the five years' difference in age. Indeed, both Matilda and I were +destined to see more of her than we expected. Aunt Theresa and Major +Buller came to a sudden resolution to send us also to the school where +she was going, though we did not hear of this at first. + +Long afterwards, when we were together, Eleanor asked me if I could +remember my first impression of her. For our affection's sake I wish it +had been a picturesque one; but truth obliges me to confess that, when +our visitor did at last arrive, Matilda and I were chiefly struck by the +fact that she wore thick boots, and did not wear crinoline. + +And yet, looking back, I have a very clear picture of her in my mind, +standing in the passage by her box (a very rough one, very strongly +corded, and addressed in the clearest of handwriting), purse in hand, +and paying the cabman with perfect self-possession. An upright, quite +ladylike, but rather old-fashioned little figure, somewhat quaint from +the simplicity of her dress. She had a rather quaint face, too, with a +nose slightly turned up, a prominent forehead, a charming mouth, and +most beautiful dark eyes. Her hair was rolled under and tied at the top +of her head, and it had an odd tendency to go astray about the parting. + +This was, perhaps, partly from a trick she seemed to have of doing her +hair away from the looking-glass. She stood to do it, and also (on one +leg) to put on her shoes and stockings, which amused us. But she was +always on her feet, and seemed unhappy if she sat idle. We took her for +a walk the morning after her arrival, and walked faster than we had ever +walked before to keep pace with our new friend, who strode along in her +thick boots and undistended skirts with a step like that of a kilted +Highlander. + +When we came into the town, however, she was quite willing to pause +before the shop-windows, which gave her much entertainment. + +"I'm afraid I should always be looking in at the windows if I lived in a +town," she said, "there are such pretty things." + +Eleanor laughs when I remind her of that walk, and how we stood still by +every chemist's door because she liked the smell. When anything +interested her, she stopped, but at other times she walked as if she +were on the road to some given place, and determined to be there in good +time; or perhaps it would be more just to say that she walked as if +walking were a pleasure to her. It was walking--not strolling. When she +was out alone, I know that she constantly ran when other people would +have walked. It is a north-country habit, I think. I have seen +middle-aged Scotch and Yorkshire ladies run as lightly as children. + +It was not the fashionable time of day, so that we could not, during +that walk, show Eleanor the chief characters of Riflebury. But just as +we were leaving High Street she stopped and asked, "Who is that lady?" + +"The one in the mauve silk?" said Matilda. "That is one of the cavalry +ladies. All the cavalry ladies dress grandly." + +It was a Mrs. Perowne. She was sailing languidly down the other side of +the street, in a very large crinoline, and a very long dress of pale +silk, which floated after her along the dirty pavement, much, I +remember, to my admiration. Above this was some tight-fitting thing with +a good deal of lace about it, which was crowned by a fragile and flowery +bonnet, and such a tuft of white lace at the end of a white stick as +just sheltered her nose, which was aquiline, from the sunshine. She was +prettily dressed for an open carriage, a flower-show, or a wedding +breakfast; for walking through the streets of a small, dirty town, to +change her own books at the library, her costume was ludicrously out of +place, though at the time I thought it enviably grand. The way in which +a rich skirt that would not wash, and would undoubtedly be worn again, +trailed through dust and orange-peel, and greengrocers' refuse, and +general shop-sweepings, was offensive to cleanliness alone. + +"Is she ill?" Eleanor asked. + +"No," said Matilda; "I don't think so. Why?" + +"She walks so slowly," said Eleanor, gazing anxiously at Mrs. Perowne +out of her dark eyes, "and she is so white in the face." + +"Oh, my dear!" said Matilda, laughing, "that's puff--puff, and a white +veil. It's to make her look young. I heard Mrs. Minchin tell Mamma that +she knew she was thirty-seven at least. But she dresses splendidly. If +you stay over Sunday, you'll see her close, for she sits in front of us +in church. And she has such a splendid big scent-bottle, with gold tops, +and such a lovely, tiny little prayer-book, bound in blue velvet, and a +watch no bigger than a shilling, with a monogram on the back. She took +it out several times in the sermon last Sunday, so I saw it. But isn't +her hair funny?" + +"It's a beautiful colour," said Eleanor, "only it looks different in +front. But I suppose that's the veil." + +"No, it isn't," said Matilda; "that's the new colour for hair, you know. +It's done by stuff you put on; but Miss Perry said the worst was, it +didn't always come out the same all over. Lots of ladies use it." + +"How horrid!" said Eleanor. "But what makes her walk so slow?" + +"Well, I don't know," said Matilda. "Why should she walk quick?" + +Eleanor seemed struck by this reply, and after a few minutes' pause, +said very gently, with a slight blush on her cheeks, "I'm afraid I have +been walking too fast for you. I'm used to walking with boys." + +We earnestly assured her that this was not the case, and that it was +much better fun to walk with her than with Miss Perry, who used to +dawdle so that we were often thoroughly chilled. + +In the afternoon we took her to the Esplanade, when Matilda, from her +knowledge of the people, took the lead in the conversation. I was proud +to walk on the other side of our new friend, with my best doll in my +arms. Aunt Theresa came with us, but she soon sat down to chat to a +friend, and we three strolled up and down together. I remember a pretty +bit of trimming on Eleanor's hat being blown by the wind against her +face, on which she quietly seized it, and stuffed it securely into the +band. + +"Oh, my dear!" said Matilda, in the emphatic tone in which Aunt +Theresa's lady visitors were wont to exclaim about nothing in +particular--"don't do that. It looks so pretty; and you're crushing it +_dreadfully_." + +"It got in my eyes," said Eleanor briefly. "I hate tags." + +We went home before Aunt Theresa, but as we stood near the door, Eleanor +lingered and looked wistfully up the road, which ran over a slight hill +towards the open country. + +"Would you like to stay out a little longer?" we politely asked. + +"I should rather like to go to the top of the hill," said Eleanor. +"Don't you think flat ground tires one? Shall we race up?" she added. + +We willingly agreed. I had a few yards start of Eleanor, and Matilda +rather less, and away we went. But we were little used to running, and +hoops and thin boots were not in our favour. Eleanor beat us, of course. +She seemed in no way struck by the view from the top. Indeed it was not +particularly pretty. + +"It's very flat about here," she said. "There are no big hills you can +get to the top of, I suppose?" + +We confessed that there were not, and, there being nothing more to do, +we ran down again, and went indoors. + +Eleanor dressed for the evening in her usual peripatetic way, and, +armed with a homely-looking piece of grey knitting, followed us +down-stairs. + +Her superabundant energy did not seem to find vent in conversation. We +were confidential enough now to tell each other of our homes, and she +had sat so long demurely silent, that Matilda ventured upon the +inquiry-- + +"Don't you talk much at your home?" + +"Oh yes," said Eleanor--"at least, when we've anything to say;" and I am +sure no irony was intended in the reply. + +"What are you knitting, my dear?" said Aunt Theresa. + +"A pair of socks for my brother Jack," was the answer. + +"I'm sure you're dreadfully industrious," said Mrs. Buller. + +A little later she begged Eleanor to put it away. + +"You'll tire your eyes, my dear, I'm sure; pray rest a little and chat +to us." + +"I don't look at my knitting," said Eleanor; but she put it away, and +then sat looking rather red in the face, and somewhat encumbered with +her empty hands, which were red too. + +I think Uncle Buller noticed this; for he told us to get the big +scrap-book and show it to Miss Arkwright. + +Eleanor got cool again over the book; but she said little till, pausing +before a small, black-looking print in a sheet full of rather coarse +coloured caricatures, cuttings from illustrated papers and old-fashioned +books, second-rate lithographs, and third-rate original sketches, fitted +into a close patchwork, she gave a sort of half-repressed cry. + +"My dear! What is it?" cried Matilda effusively. + +"I think," said Eleanor, looking for information to Aunt Theresa, "I +think it's a real Rembrandt, isn't it?" + +"A real what, my dear?" said Mrs. Buller. + +"One of Rembrandt's etchings," said Eleanor; "and of course I don't +know, but I think it must be an original; it's so beautifully done, and +my mother has a copy of this one. We know ours is a copy, and I think +this must be an original, because all the things are turned the other +way; and it's very old, and it's beautifully done," Eleanor repeated, +with her face over the little black print. + +Major Buller came across the room, and sat down by her. + +"You are fond of drawing?" he said. + +"Very," said Eleanor, and she threw a good deal of eloquence into the +one word. + +The Major and she forthwith plunged into a discussion of drawing, +etching, line-engraving, &c., &c. It appeared that Mrs. Arkwright +etched on copper, and had a good collection of old etchings, with which +Eleanor was familiar. It also transpired that she was a naturalist, +which led by easy stages to a promise from the Major to show Eleanor his +insects. + +They talked till bedtime, and when Aunt Theresa bade us good-night, she +said: + +"I'm glad you've found your voice, my dear;" and she added, laughing, +"But whenever Papa talks to anybody, it always ends in the collection." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +POOR MATILDA--THE AWKWARD AGE--MRS. BULLER TAKES COUNSEL WITH HER +FRIENDS--THE "MILLINER AND MANTUAMAKER"--MEDICAL ADVICE--THE MAJOR +DECIDES. + + +It was not because Major Buller's high opinion of Miss Airlie was in any +way lowered that he decided to send us to school. In fact it was only +under long and heavy pressure, from circumstances as well as from Aunt +Theresa, that he gave his consent to a plan which never quite met with +his approval. + +Several things at this time seemed to conspire to effect it. The St. +Quentins were going on long leave, and Miss Airlie would go with them. +This was a heavy blow. Then we heard of this school after Miss Airlie +had left Riflebury, a fact so opportune as to be (so Aunt Theresa said) +"quite providential." If we were to go to school, sending us to this one +would save the trouble of making personal inquiries, and perhaps a less +wise selection, for Major Buller had confidence in Mr. Arkwright's good +judgment. The ladies to whose care his daughter was confided were +probably fit to teach us. + +"It would save a great deal of trouble," my guardian confessed, and it +must also be confessed that Major Buller was glad to avoid trouble when +he could conscientiously do so. + +I think it was his warm approval of Eleanor which finally clinched the +question. He thought that she would be a good companion for poor +Matilda. + +Why I speak of her as "poor Matilda" demands some explanation. + +Before I attempt to give it I must say that there is one respect in +which our biographies must always be less satisfactory than a story that +one might invent. When you are putting down true things about yourself +and your friends, you cannot divide people neatly into the good and the +bad, the injurers and the injured, as you can if you are writing a tale +out of your head. The story seems more complete when you are able +either to lay the blame of the melancholy events on the shoulders of +some unworthy character, or to show that they were the natural +punishment of the sufferer's own misconduct. But in thinking of Matilda +and Aunt Theresa and Major Buller, or even of the Doctor and Mrs. +Buller's lady friends, this is not possible. + +The morbid condition--of body and mind--into which Matilda fell for some +time was no light misfortune either as regards her sufferings or the +discomfort it produced in the household, and I am afraid she was both +mismanaged and in fault herself. + +It is safe, at any rate, to take the blame for one's own share, and I +have often thought, with bitterness of spirit, that, child as I was, I +might have been both forbearing and helpful to Matilda at a time when +her temper was very much tried by ill-health and untoward circumstances. +We had a good many squabbles about this period. I piqued myself upon +generally being in the right, and I did not think then, as I do now, +that it is possible to be most in the right in a quarrel, and at the +same time not least to blame for it. + +Matilda certainly did by degrees become very irritable, moody, and +perverse, and her perversity developed itself in ways which puzzled poor +Aunt Theresa. + +She became silent and unsociable. She displayed a particular dislike to +the privileges of being in the drawing-room with grown-up "company," and +of accompanying Aunt Theresa when she paid her afternoon calls. She +looked very ill, and stoutly denied that she was so. She highly resented +solicitude on the subject of her health, fought obstinately over every +bottle of medicine, and was positively rude to the doctors. + +For her unsociability, I think, Miss Perry's evil influence was partly +to blame. Poor Matilda clung to her belief in our late governess when +she was no more to us than a text upon which Aunt Theresa and her +friends preached to each other against governesses in general, and the +governesses each had suffered from in particular. Our lessons with Major +Buller, and the influence of Miss Airlie's good breeding and +straightforward kindness, gave a healthier turn to our tastes; but when +Miss Airlie went away and Major Buller proclaimed a three weeks' holiday +from the Latin grammar, and we were left to ourselves, Matilda felt the +want of the flattery, the patronage, and the small excitements and +mysteries about nothing, to which Miss Perry had accustomed her. I blush +to think that my companionship was less comfort to her than it ought to +have been. As to Aunt Theresa, she was always too busy to give full +attention to anything; and this does not invite confidence. + +Another reason, I am sure, for Matilda's dislike to appearing in company +was a painful sense of her personal appearance; and as she had heard +Aunt Theresa and her friends discuss, approve, and condemn their friends +by the standard of appearances alone, ever since she was old enough to +overhear company conversation, I hardly think she was much to blame on +this point. + +Matilda was emphatically at what is called "an awkward age"; an age more +awkward with some girls than with others. I wish grown-up ladies, who +mean to be kind to their friends' daughters, would try to remember the +awkwardness of it, and not increase a naturally uncomfortable +self-consciousness by personal remarks which might disturb the composure +of older, prettier, and better-dressed people. It is bad enough to be +quite well aware that the size of one's hands and feet prematurely +foreshadow the future growth of one's figure; that these are the more +prominent because the simple dresses of the unintroduced young lady seem +to be perpetually receding from one's bony-wrists above, and shrinking +towards the calves of one's legs below, from those thin ankles on which +one is impelled to stand by turns (like a sleeping stork) through some +mysterious instinct of relieving the weak and overgrown spine. + +This, I say, is mortifying enough, and if modesty and good breeding +carry us cheerfully through a not unfelt contrast with the assured +manners and flowing draperies of Mamma's lady friends in the +drawing-room, they might spare us the announcement of what it hardly +needs gold eyeglasses to discover--that we really grow every day. +Blushes come heavily enough to hands and cheeks when to the shyness of +youth are added the glows and chills of imperfect circulation: it does +not need the stare of strangers, nor the apologies of Mamma, to stain +our doubtful complexions with a deeper red. + +All girls are not awkward at the awkward age. I speak most +disinterestedly on Matilda's behalf, for I never went through this phase +myself. It is perhaps because I am small that I can never remember my +hands, or any other part of me, feeling in my way; and my clothes--of +whatever length, breadth, or fashion--always had a happy knack of +becoming one with me in such wise that I could comfortably forget them. + +The St. Quentin girls were nearer to Matilda's age than I, but they too +were very happy and looked very nice in the hobble-de-hoy stage of +girlhood. I am sure that they much preferred the company of their young +brothers to the company of the drawing-room; but they did what they were +told to do, and seemed happy in doing it. They had, however, several +advantages over Matilda. By judicious care (for they were not naturally +robust) they were kept in good health. They kept a great many pets, and +they always seemed to have plenty to do, which perhaps kept them from +worrying about themselves. Adelaide, for instance, did all the flowers +for the drawing-room and dinner-table. Mrs. St. Quentin said she could +not do them so well herself. They had a very small garden to pick from, +but Adelaide used lots of wild-flowers and grass and ferns. She often +let me help her to fill the china jars, and she was the only person who +ever seemed to like hearing about Grandpapa's paintings. They all did +something in the house. But I believe that their greatest advantage over +poor Matilda was that they had not been accustomed to hear dress and +appearance talked about as matters of the first importance, so that +whatever defects they felt conscious of in either did not weigh too +heavily on their minds. + +On poor Matilda's they weighed heavily indeed. And she was not only +troubled by that consciousness of being plain, by which I think quite as +many girls are affected as by the vanity of being pretty (and which has +received far less attention from moralists); she was also tormented by +certain purely nervous fancies of her face being swollen, her eyes +squinting, and her throat choking, when people looked at her, which were +due to ill-health. + +Unhappily, the ill-health which was a good excuse for Matilda's +unwillingness to "play pretty" in the drawing-room was the subject on +which she was more perverse than any other. It was a great pity that she +was not frank and confiding with her mother. The detestable trick of +small concealments which Miss Perry had taught us was partly answerable +for this; but the fault was not entirely Matilda's. + +Aunt Theresa had not time to attend to her. What attention she did give, +however, made her so anxious on the subject that she took counsel with +every lady of her acquaintance, and the more she talked about poor +Matilda's condition the less leisure she had to think about it. + +"It may be more mind than body, I'm afraid," said Aunt Theresa one +afternoon, on our return from some visiting in which Matilda had refused +to share. "Mrs. Minchin says she knew a girl who went out of her senses +when she was only two years older than Matilda, and it began with her +refusing to go anywhere or see any one." + +Major Buller turned round on his chair with an anxious face, and a +beetle transfixed by a needle in his hand. + +"It was a very shocking thing," continued Aunt Theresa, taking off her +bonnet; "for she had a great-uncle in Hanwell, and her grandfather cut +his throat. I suppose it was in the family." + +Major Buller turned back again, and pinned the beetle by its proper +label. + +"I suppose it was," said he dryly; "but as there is no insanity in my +family or in yours that I'm aware of, Mrs. Minchin's case is not much to +the point." + +"Mrs. O'Connor won't believe she's ill," sighed Aunt Theresa; "_she_ +thinks it's all temper. She says her own temper was unbearable till she +had it knocked out of her at school." + +"Matilda's temper was good enough till lately," growled the Major. + +"She says Dr. O'Connor's brother, who is the medical officer of a +lunatic asylum somewhere in Tipperary," continued Aunt Theresa, +"declares all mad women go out of their minds through ill-temper. He's +written a book about it." + +"Heaven defend me, mind and body, from the theories of that astute +practitioner!" said Uncle Buller piously. + +"It's all very well making fun of it, but everybody tells one that girls +are more trouble than any number of boys. I'm sure I don't remember +giving my mother any particular trouble when I was Matilda's age, but +the stories I've heard to-day are enough to make one's hair stand on +end. Mrs. Minchin knew another girl, who lost all her appetite just like +Matilda, and she had a very sulky temper too, and at last they found out +she used to eat black-beetles. She was a Creole, or something of that +sort, I believe, but they couldn't stop her. The Minchins knew her when +they were in the West Indies, when he was in the 209th; or, at least, it +was there they heard about her. The houses swarmed with black-beetles." + +"A most useful young lady," said Uncle Buller. "Does Matilda dine on our +native beetles, my dear? She hasn't touched my humble collection." + +"Oh, if you make fun of everything----" Aunt Theresa began; but at this +moment Mrs. St. John was announced. + +After the customary civilities, Aunt Theresa soon began to talk of poor +Matilda, and Mrs. St. John entered warmly into the subject. + +To do the ladies of the regiment justice, they sympathized freely with +each other's domestic troubles; and indeed it was not for lack of taking +counsel that any of them had any domestic troubles at all. + +"Girls are a good deal more difficult to manage than boys, I'm afraid," +sighed Aunt Theresa, repeating Mrs. O'Connor's _dictum_. + +"Women are _dreadful_ creatures at any age," said Mrs. St. John to the +Major, opening her brown eyes in the way she always does when she is +talking to a gentleman. "I always _longed_ to have been a man." + +[Eleanor says she hates to hear girls say they wish they were boys. If +they do wish it, I do not myself see why they should not say so. But one +thing has always struck me as very odd. If you meet a woman who is +incomparably silly, who does not know an art or a trade by which she +could keep herself from starvation, who could not manage the +account-books of a village shop, who is unpunctual, unreasoning, and in +every respect uneducated--a woman, in short, who has, one would think, +daily reason to be thankful that her necessities are supplied by other +people, she is pretty sure to be always regretting that she is not a +man. + +Another, trick that some silly ladies have _riles_ me (as we say in +Yorkshire) far more than this odd ambition for responsibilities one is +quite incompetent to assume. Mrs. St. John had it, and as it was +generally displayed for the benefit of gentlemen, who seem as a rule to +be very susceptible to flattery, I suppose it is more a kind of +drawing-room "pretty talk" than the expression of deliberate opinions. +It consists of contrasting girls with boys and women with men, to the +disparagement of the former, especially in matters over which +circumstances and natural disposition are commonly supposed to give them +some advantage. + +I remember hearing a fat, good-natured girl at one of Aunt Theresa's +garden-parties say, with all the impressiveness of full conviction, +"Girls are far more cruel than boys, really. You know, women are _much_ +more cruel than men--oh, I'm _sure_ they are!" and the idea filled me +not less with amazement than with horror. This very young lady had been +most good-natured to us. She had the reputation of being an unselfish +and much-beloved elder sister. I do not think she would have hurt a fly. +Why she said this I cannot imagine, unless it was to please the young +gentleman she was talking to. I think he did look rather gratified. For +my own part, the idea worried my little head for a long time--children +give much more heed to general propositions of this kind than is +commonly supposed.] + +There was one disadvantage in the very fulness of the sympathy the +ladies gave each other over their little affairs. The main point was apt +to be neglected for branches of the subject. If Mrs. Minchin consulted +Mrs. Buller about a cook, that particular cook might be discussed for +five minutes, but the rest of a two hours' visit would probably be +devoted to recollections of Aunt Theresa's cooks past and present, Mrs. +Minchin's "coloured cooks" in Jamaica, and the cooks engaged by the +mothers and grandmothers of both ladies. + +Thus when Aunt Theresa took counsel with her friends about poor Matilda, +they hardly kept to Matilda's case long enough even to master the facts, +and on this particular occasion Mrs. St. John plunged at once into a +series of illustrative anecdotes of the most terrible kind, for she +always talked, as she dressed, in extremes. The moral of every story was +that Matilda should be sent to school. + +"And I'll send you over last year's numbers of the _Milliner and +Mantua-maker_, dear Mrs. Buller. There are always lots of interesting +letters about people's husbands and children, and education, and that +sort of thing, in the column next to the pastry and cooling drinks +receipts. There was a wonderfully clever letter from a 'M.R.C.S.' about +the difficulty of managing young girls, and recommending a strict school +where he had sent his daughter. And next month there were long letters +from five 'British Mothers' and 'A Countess' who had not been able to +manage their daughters, and had sent them to this school, and were in +every way satisfied. Mr. St. John declared that all the letters were +written by one person to advertise the school, but he always does say +those sort of things about anything I'm interested in." + +"You're very kind," said Mrs. Buller. + +"There was a most extraordinary correspondence, too, after that +shoemaker's daughter in Lambeth was tried for poisoning her little +brother," continued Mrs. St. John. "The _Saturday Review_ had an article +on it, I believe, only Mr. St. John can't bring papers home from the +mess, so I didn't see it. The letters were all about all the dreadful +things done by girls in their teens. There were letters from twelve +'Materfamiliases,' I know, because the editor had to put numbers to +them, and four 'Paterfamiliases,' and 'An Anxious Widower,' and 'A +Minister,' and three 'M.D.'s.' But the most awful letter was from 'A +Student of Human Nature,' and it ended up that every girl of fifteen was +a murderess at heart. If I can only lay my hand on that number---- but +I've lent it to so many people, and there was a capital paper pattern in +it too, of the _jupon a l'Imperatrice_, ready pricked." + +At this point Uncle Buller literally exploded from the room. Aunt +Theresa said something about draughts, but I think even Mrs. St. John +must have been aware that it was the Major who banged the door. + +I was sitting on the footstool by the fire-place making a night-dress +for my doll. My work had been suspended by horror at Mrs. St. John's +revelations, and Major Buller's exit gave an additional shock in which I +lost my favourite needle, a dear little stumpy one, with a very fine +point and a very big eye, easy to thread, and delightful to use. + +When Mrs. St. John went away Major Buller came back. + +"I am sorry I banged the door, my dear," said he kindly, "but whatever +the tempers of girls may be made of at fifteen, mine is by no means +perfect, I regret to say, at fifty; and I _cannot_ stand that woman. My +dear Theresa, let me implore you to put all this trash out of your head +and get proper medical advice for the child at once. And--I don't like +to seem unreasonable, my dear, but--if you must read those delectable +articles to which Mrs. St. John refers, I wish you'd read them at her +house, and not bring them into ours. I'd rather the coarsest novel that +ever was written were picked up by the children, if the broad lines of +good and evil were clearly marked in it, than this morbid muddle of +disease and crime, and unprincipled parents and practitioners." + +Uncle Buller seldom interfered so warmly; indeed, he seldom interfered +at all. I think Aunt Theresa would have been glad if he would have +advised her oftener. + +"Indeed, Edward," said she, "I'll do anything you think right. And I'm +sure I wouldn't read anything improper myself, much less let the +children. And as to the _Milliner and Mantuamaker_ you need not be +afraid of that coming into the house unless I send for it. Mrs. St. John +is always promising to lend me the fashion-book, but she never remembers +it." + +"And you'll have proper advice for Matilda at once?" + +"Certainly, my dear." + +Mrs. Buller was in the habit of asking the regimental Surgeon's advice +in small matters, and of employing a civilian doctor (whose fees made +him feel better worth having) in serious illness. She estimated the +seriousness of a case by danger rather than delicacy. So the Surgeon +came to see Matilda, and having heard her cough, promised to send a +"little something," and she was ordered to keep indoors and out of +draughts, and take a tablespoonful three times a day. + +Matilda had not gone graciously through the ordeal of facing the +principal Surgeon in his uniform, and putting out her tongue for his +inspection; and his prescriptions did not tend to reconcile her to being +"doctored." Fresh air was the only thing that hitherto had seemed to +have any effect on her aches and pains, or to soothe her hysterical +irritability, and of this she was now deprived. When Aunt Theresa +called in an elderly civilian practitioner, she was so sulky and +uncommunicative, and so resolutely refused to acknowledge to any +ailments, that (his other prescriptions having failed to cure her +lassitude, and his pompous manner and professional visits rather +provoking her feverish perversity) the old doctor also recommended that +she should be sent to school. + +Medical advice is very authoritative, and yet Uncle Buller hesitated. + +"It's like packing a troublesome son off to the Colonies, my dear," said +he. "And though Dr. Brown may be justified in transferring his +responsibilities elsewhere, I don't think that parents should get rid of +theirs in this easy fashion." + +But when Eleanor came, the Major's views underwent a change. If I went +with Matilda, and we had Eleanor Arkwright for a friend, he allowed that +he would consent. + +"That is if the girl is willing to go. I will send no child of mine out +of my house against her will." + +Major Buller asked her himself. Asked with so much kindness, and +expressed such cheery hopes that change of air, regular occupation, and +the society of other young people would make her feel "stronger and +happier" than she had seemed to be of late, that to say that Matilda +would have gone anywhere and done anything her father wished is to give +a feeble idea of the gush of gratitude which his sensible and +sympathetic words awoke in her. Unfortunately she could not keep herself +from crying just when she most wanted to speak, and Uncle Buller, having +a horror of "scenes," cut short the one interview in which Matilda felt +disposed to confide in her parents. + +But she confided to me, when she came to bed that night (_I_ didn't mind +her crying between the sentences), that she was very, very sorry to have +been "so cross and stupid," and that if we were not going to school she +meant to try and be very different. I begged her to let me ask Uncle +Buller to keep us at home a little longer, but Matilda would not hear of +it. + +"No, no," she sobbed, "not now. I should like to do something he and +Mamma want, and they want us to go to school." + +For my own part I was quite willing to go, especially after I had seen +Eleanor Arkwright. So we were sent--to Bush House. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +AT SCHOOL--THE LILAC-BUSH--BRIDGET'S POSIES--SUMMER--HEALTH. + + +We knew when it was summer at Bush House, because there was a lilac-tree +by the gate, which had one large bunch of flowers on it in the summer +when Eleanor and I and Matilda were at school there. As we left the +house in double file to take our daily exercise on the high-road, the +girls would bob their heads to catch a whiff of the scent as they +passed, or to let the cool fragrant flowers brush their foreheads. On +this point Madame, our French governess, remonstrated in vain. We took +turns for the side next to the lilac, and sniffed away as long as there +was anything to smell. Even when the delicate colour began to turn +brown, and the fragrance vanished, we were loth to believe that the +blossoms were fading. + +"I think I have got a cold in my head," said Matilda, who had plunged +her nose into the cluster one day in vain. + +"You have a cough, ma foi! Mademoiselle Buller," replied Madame, who +seemed to labour under the idea that Matilda rather enjoyed this +privilege. But I had tried the lilac-bush myself with no better +success. + +"I think," I whispered to Eleanor, in English, "that we have smelt it +all up." + +"Parlez-vous francais, mesdemoiselles!" cried Madame, and we filed out +into the dusty street, at the corner of which sat another of our visible +tokens of the coming of the season of flowers; a dirty, shrivelled old +Irishwoman, full of benedictions and beggary, who, all through the +summer, sold "posies" to the passers-by. We school-girls were good +customers to her. We were all more or less sentimental, more or less +homesick, and had more or less of that susceptibility to the influence +of scents which may, some day, be the basis of a new school of medicine. +One girl had cultivated pinks and _Roses de Meaux_ in her own garden "at +home," and Bridget was soon wise enough to discover that a nosegay +composed of these materials was an irresistible temptation to that +particular customer. Another had a craving for the sight and smell of +southernwood (or "old man," as Eleanor called it), and preferred it in +combination with bachelor's buttons. + +"There was an old woman 'at home' whom we used to go to tea with when we +were children--my brother and I," she said; "there were such big bunches +of southernwood by her cottage. And bachelor's buttons all round the +garden." + +The brother was dead, I knew, and there were two flattened "buttons" and +a bit of withered "old man" gummed into her Bible. "Picked the last day +we were out together. Before he was taken ill with scarlet fever," she +told me. She had the boy's portrait in a standing frame, and, little +space as we had in our bedrooms, the other girls piled their brushes and +ribbon-boxes on one side of the looking-glass as best they could, and +left the rest of the dressing-table sacred to his picture, and to the +Bible, and the jar of Bridget's flowers, which stood before the likeness +as if it had been that of a patron saint. + +For my own part I was very ignorant of the names and properties of +English flowers. I knew some by sight, from Adelaide St. Quentin's +bouquets, and from my great-grandfather's sketches; and I knew the names +of others of which Adolphe had given me plants, and of which I was glad +to see the flower. As I had plenty of pocket-money I was a liberal +customer, and I made old Bridget tell me the names of the flowers in her +bunches. I have since found out that whenever she was at fault she +composed a name upon the spot, with the ready wit and desire to please +characteristic of her nation. These names were chiefly connected with +the Blessed Virgin and the saints. + +"The Lord blesh ye, my dear," she would say; "that's 'Mary's flower';" +or, "Sure it's the 'Blessed Virgin's spinning-wheel,' and a pretty name +too!" + +A bitter-smelling herb which she commended to me as "Saints' Savory," I +afterwards learned to be tansy. + +The youngest of us, a small, silent little orphan, had bought no posy +till one day she quietly observed, "If you could get me a peony, I would +buy it." + +The peony was procured; so large, so round, and so red, that some one +unfeelingly suggested that it should be cut up for pickled cabbage. The +little miss walked home with it in her hand, looking at it as +sentimentally as if it had been a forget-me-not. As we had been +hard-hearted enough to laugh at it, we never learned the history which +made it dear. + +Madame would certainly never have allowed us to break our ranks, and +chaffer with Bridget, but that some one had been lucky enough to think +of giving her bouquets. + +Madame liked flowers--as ornaments--and was sentimental herself, after a +fashion, a sentimentality of appearances. She liked a bright spot of +colour on her sombre dresses too, and she was economical; for every day +that she had a bright bouquet a day's wear and tear was saved to her +neck-ribbons. She pinned the bright flowers by her very clean collar, +and not very clean throat, and permitted us to supply ourselves also +from Bridget's basket. + +A less pleasant sign of summer than the lilac-blossom or Bridget's +flower-basket was the heat. It was hot in the dusty, draughty streets of +the little town. The empty bedrooms at Bush House were like ovens, and +the well-filled school-room was much worse. Madame would never hear any +complaints of the heat from me or from Matilda. Summer at Bush House, in +the nature of things, could be nothing to summer in India, to which we +were accustomed. It was useless to point out that in India the rooms in +which we lived were large, well shaded, and ventilated by constant +currents of fresh air. Also that there, our heaviest meal, our longest +walk, and our hardest work were not all crowded into the hottest hours +of the day. + +"England is at no time so warm as India," said Madame. + +"I suppose we are not as hot as the cook," suggested little "Peony" as +we now called her, one very hot day, when we sat languidly struggling +through our work in the stifling atmosphere of the school-room. "I +thought of her to-day when I looked at that great fat leg of roast +mutton. We're better off than she is." + +"And she's better off than if she were in the Black Hole of Calcutta; +but that doesn't make either her or us cool," said Emma Lascelles, an +elder girl. "Don't preach, Peony; lessons are bad enough in this heat." + +"I shan't eat any dinner to-morrow, I think," said Eleanor; "I cannot +keep awake after it this weather, so it's no use." + +"I wish I were back at Miss Martin's for the summer," said another girl. + +We knew to what this referred, and Madame being by a rare chance absent, +we pressed for an account, in English, of Miss Martin's arrangements in +the hot weather. "Miss Martin's" was a school at which this girl had +been before she came to Bush House. + +"I can't think why on earth you left her," said Eleanor. + +"Well, this is nearer home for one thing, and the masters are better +here, certainly. But she did take such care of us. It wasn't everlasting +backaches, and headaches, and coughs, and pains in your side all along. +And when the weather got hot (and it was a very warm summer when I was +there), and she found we got sleepy at work after dinner, and had +headaches in the afternoon, she said she thought we had better have a +scrap meal in the middle of the day, and dine in the cool of the +evening; and so we used to have cold rice-pudding or thick +bread-and-butter, such as we should have had for tea, or anything there +was, and tumblers of water, at one, and at half-past five we used to +wash and dress; and then at six, just when we were getting done up with +the heat and work, and yet cool enough to eat, we had dinner. I can tell +you a good fat roast leg of mutton looked all right then! It cured all +our headaches, and we worked twice as well, both at midday work and at +getting lessons ready for next day after dinner. I know----" + +"Tais-toi, Lucy!" hissed Peony through her teeth. "Madame!" + +"Donnez-moi cette grammaire, Marguerite, s'il vous plait," said Lucy, as +Madame entered. + +And I gave her the grammar, and we set to work again, full of envy for +the domestic arrangements of Miss Martin's establishment during the dog +days. + +If there is a point on which Eleanor and I are quite agreed, among the +many points we discuss and do not always agree upon, it is that of the +need for a higher education for women. But ill as I think our sex +provided for in this respect, and highly as I value good teaching, I +would rather send a growing girl to a Miss Martin, even for fewer +"educational advantages," and let her start in life with a sound, +healthy constitution and a reasonable set of nerves, than have her head +crammed and her health neglected under "the first masters," and so good +an overseer as "Madame" to boot. For Madame certainly made us work, and +was herself indefatigable. + +The reckless imprudence of most girls in matters of health is +proverbial, the wisdom of young matrons in this respect is not beyond +reproach, and the lore which long and painful experience has given to +older women is apt, like other lessons from that stern teacher, to come +too late. It should at least avail to benefit their daughters, were it +not that custom prescribes that they also should be kept in the dark +till instructed in turn by the lamentable results of their ignorance, +too often only when these are past repair. + +Whether, though there are many things that women have no knowledge of, +and many more of which their knowledge is superficial, their lack of +learning on these points being erudition compared with their crass +ignorance of the laws of health, the matter is again one of education; +or whether it is an unfortunate development of a confusion between +ignorance and innocence, and of mistaken notions of delicacy, who shall +say? Unhappily, a studied ignorance of the ills that flesh is heir to is +apt to bring them in double force about one's ears, and this kind of +delicate-mindedness to bring delicacy of body in its train. Where it +guides the counsels of those in charge of numbers of young people (as in +Miss Mulberry's case), it is apt to result in the delicacy (more or +less permanent) of several bodies. + +But I am forgetting that I am not "preaching" to Eleanor by the kitchen +fire, but writing my autobiography. I am forgetting, also, that I have +not yet said who Miss Mulberry was. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +MISS MULBERRY--DISCIPLINE AND RECREATION--MADAME--CONVERSATION--ELEANOR'S +OPINION OF THE DRAWING-MASTER--MISS ELLEN'S--ELEANOR'S APOLOGY. + + +Miss Mulberry was our school-mistress, and the head of the Bush House +establishment. "Madame" was only a French mistress employed by Miss +Mulberry, though she had more to do with the pupils than Miss Mulberry +herself. + +Miss Mulberry was stout, and I think by nature disposed to indolence, +especially in warm weather. It was all the more creditable to her that +she had worked hard for many years to support a paralytic mother and a +delicate sister. The mother was dead now. Miss Ellen Mulberry, though an +invalid, gave some help in teaching the younger ones; and Bush House +had for so long been a highly-reputed establishment that Miss Mulberry +was more or less prosperous, and could afford to keep a French governess +to do the hard work. + +Miss Mulberry was very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of +propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a +favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and +between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as +"motherly," though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her +dealing with girls she was essentially a spinster. + +Her good conscience and her timidity both helped to make her feel +school-keeping a heavy responsibility, which should perhaps excuse the +fact that we suffered at Bush House from an excess of the meddlesome +discipline which seems to be _de rigueur_ in girls' schools. I think +Miss Mulberry would have felt that she had neglected her duty if we had +ever been left to our own devices for an hour. + +To growing girls, not too robust, leading sedentary lives, working very +hard with our heads, and having (wholesome and sufficient meals, but) +not as much animal food as most of us were accustomed to at home, the +_nag_ of never being free from supervision was both irritating and +depressing. Much worse off were we than boys at school. No +playing-fields had we; no leave could be obtained for country rambles +by ourselves. Our dismal exercise was a promenade in double file under +the eye and ear of Madame herself. + +True, we were allowed fifteen minutes' "recreation" together, and by +ourselves, in the school-room, just after dinner; but this inestimable +privilege was always marred by the fact that Madame invariably came for +us before the quarter of an hour had expired. No other part of school +discipline annoyed us as this did. It had that element of injustice +against which children always rebel. Why she did so remains to this day +a puzzle to me. She worked very hard for her living--a fact which did +not occur to us in those days to modify our view of her as our natural +tormentor. In breaking faith with us daily by curtailing our allotted +fifteen minutes of recreation, she deprived herself of rest to the exact +amount by which she defrauded us. + +She cannot have pined to begin to teach as soon as she had swallowed her +food! I may do her an injustice, but the only reason I can think of as a +likely one is that, by taking us unawares, she (I won't say hoped, but) +expected to find us "in mischief." + +It was a weak point of the arrangements of Bush House that Miss Mulberry +left us so much to the care of Madame. Madame was twice as energetic as +Miss Mulberry. Madame never spared herself if she never spared us. +Madame was indefatigable, and in her own way as conscientious as Miss +Mulberry herself. But Madame was not just, and she was not truthful. She +had--either no sense at all, or--a quite different sense from ours of +honour and uprightness. Perhaps the latter, for she seemed to break +promises, tell lies, open letters, pry into drawers and boxes, and +listen at keyholes from the highest sense of duty. And, which was even +worse for us, she had no belief whatever in the trustworthiness of her +pupils. + +Miss Mulberry felt it to be her duty towards our parents and guardians +to keep us under constant supervision; but Madame watched and worried +us, I am convinced, in the persuasion that we were certain to get into +mischief if we had the chance, and equally certain to do so deceitfully. +She gave us full credit (I never could trace that she saw any discredit +in deceit) for slyness in evading her authority, but flattered herself +that her own superior slyness would maintain it in spite of us. + +It vexed us all, but there were times when it irritated Eleanor almost +to frenzy. She would have been in disgrace oftener and more seriously on +the subject, but that Madame was a little afraid of her, and was, I +think, not a little fond of her. + +Madame was a clever woman, and a good teacher. She was sharp-witted, +ready of tongue, and indefatigably industrious herself; and slow, +stupid, or lazy girls found no mercy at her hands. + +Eleanor's unusual abilities, the extent of her knowledge and reading on +general subjects, the rapidity with which she picked up conversational +French and wielded it in discussions with Madame, and finally her +industry and perseverance, won Madame's admiration and good-will. I +think she almost believed that Mademoiselle Arkwright's word was to be +relied upon. + +Eleanor never toadied her, which I fear we others (we were so utterly at +her mercy!) did sometimes; assuming an interest we did not feel in her +dissertations on the greatness of France and the character of her +especial idol, the first Napoleon. + +If Madame respected Eleanor, we school-girls almost revered her. "She +talks so splendidly," Lucy said one day. + +Not that the rest of us were by any means dumb. The fact that English +was forbidden did not silence us, and on Sunday when (to Madame's +undisguised chagrin) Miss Mulberry allowed us to speak English, we +chattered like sparrows during an anthem. But Eleanor introduced a kind +of talk which was new to most of us. + +We could all chatter of people and places, and what was said on this +occasion or what happened on another. We had one good mimic (Emma), and +two or three of us were smart in description. We were observant of +details and appearances, and we could one and all "natter" over our +small grievances without wearying of the subject, and without ever +speculating on their causes, or devising remedies for them. + +But, with Eleanor, facts served more as points to talk from, than as +talk in themselves. Through her influence the Why and How of things +began to steal into our conversation. We had more discussion and less +gossip, and found it better fun. + +"One never tells you anything without your beginning to argue about it," +said one of the girls to her one day. + +"I'm very sorry," said poor Eleanor. + +"You're very clever, you mean," said Emma. "What a lawyer you'd have +made, Eleanor! While we growl at the Toad's tyranny, you make a case out +of it." + +(I regret to have to confess that, owing to a peculiarity of complexion, +Madame was familiarly known to us, behind her back, as the Toad.) + +"Well, I don't know," said Eleanor, puckering her brows and nursing her +knees, as we all sat or lounged on the school-room floor, during the +after-dinner recreation minutes, in various awkward but restful +attitudes; "I can growl as well as anybody, but I never feel satisfied +with bewailing over and over again that black's black. One wants to find +out why it's black, and if anything would make it white. Besides, I +think perhaps when one looks into one's grievances, one sees excuses for +people--there are two sides to every question." + +"There'll be one, two, three," said Emma, looking slowly round and +counting the party with a comical imitation of Eleanor's thoughtful +air--"there'll be fifteen sides to every question by the time we've all +learnt to talk like you, my dear." + +Eleanor burst out laughing, and we most of us joined her to such good +purpose, that Madame overheard us, and thought it prudent to break up +our sitting, though we had only had a short twelve minutes' rest. + +Eleanor not only set the fashion of a more reasonable style of chat in +our brief holiday hours, but she was apt to make lessons the subject of +discussions which were at first resented by the other girls. + +"I can't think," she began one day (it was a favourite way with her of +opening a discussion)--"I can't think what makes Mr. Henley always make +us put the shadows in in cobalt. Some shadows are light blue certainly, +I think, especially on these white roads, but I don't think they are +always; not in Yorkshire, at any rate. However, as far as that goes, he +paints his things all in the same colours, whatever they're meant for; +the Bay of Naples or the coast of Northumberland. By the bye, I know +that I've heard that the shadows on the snow in Canada are really +blue--bright blue." + +"You're blue, deep blue," said Emma. "How you can talk shop out of +lesson hours, Eleanor, I can't conceive. You began on grammar the other +day, by way of enlivening our ten minutes' rest." + +"I'm very sorry," said Eleanor: "I'm fond of drawing, you know." + +"Oh, do let her talk, Emma!" cried Peony. "I do so like to hear her. Why +are the shadows on the snow blue, Eleanor?" + +"I can't think," said Eleanor, "unless it has something to do with +reflection from the sky." + +Eleanor was not always discreet enough to keep her opinion of Mr. +Henley's style to herself and us. She was a very clever girl, and, like +other very young people, her cleverness was apt to be aggressive; +scorned compromises, and was not always sufficiently respectful towards +the powers that be. + +Her taste for drawing was known, and Madame taunted her one day with +having a reputation for talent in this line, when her water-colour +copies were not so effective as Lucy's; simply, I believe, with the wish +to stimulate her to excel. I am sure Madame much preferred Eleanor to +Lucy, as a matter of liking. + +"Behold, Mademoiselle!" said she, holding up one of Lucy's latest +copies, just glorified with a wide aureole of white cardboard +"mounting"; "what do you think of this?" + +"It is very like Mr. Henley's," said Eleanor warmly. "Lucy has taken +great pains, I'm sure. It's quite as good as the copy, I think." + +"But what do you think of it?" said Madame impatiently; she was too +quick-witted to be easily "put off." "Is it not beautiful?" + +"It is very smart, very gay," said Eleanor, who began to lose her +temper. "All Mr. Henley's sketches are gay. The thatch on the house +reminds me of the 'ends' of Berlin wool that are kept, after a big piece +of work, for kettle-holders. The yellow tree and the blue tree are very +pretty: there always is a yellow tree and a blue tree in Mr. Henley's +sketches. I don't know what kind of trees they are. I never do. The +trunks are pink, but that doesn't help one, for the markings on them are +always the same." + +Eleanor's French was quite good enough to give this speech its full +weight, as Madame's kindling eyes testified. She flung the drawing from +her, and was bursting forth into reply, when, by good luck, Miss +Mulberry called for her so impatiently that she was obliged to leave the +room. + +I had been repeating a lesson to Miss Ellen Mulberry, who lay on a couch +near the window, but we had both paused involuntarily to listen to +Eleanor and Madame. + +Miss Ellen was very good. She was also very gentle, and timid to +nervousness. But from her couch she saw a good deal of the daily life of +the school, and often understood matters better than those who were in +the thick of it, I think. + +When Madame had left the room, she called Eleanor to her, and in an +almost trembling voice said: + +"My dear, do you think you are quite right to speak so to Madame about +that drawing?" + +"I am very sorry, Miss Ellen," said Eleanor; "but it's what I think, and +she asked me what I thought." + +"You are very clever, my dear," said Miss Ellen, "and no one knows +better than yourself that there are more ways than one of expressing +one's opinion." + +"Indeed," Eleanor broke in, "I don't want to be rude. I'm sorry I did +speak so pertly. But oh, Miss Ellen, I wish you could see the trees my +mother draws! How can I say I like those things of Mr. Henley's? Like +green seaweeds on the end of a pink hay-fork! And we've lots of old +etchings at home, with such trees in them! Like--well, like nothing but +real trees and photographs." + +Miss Ellen took Eleanor's hand and drew her towards her. + +"My dear," said she, "you have plenty of sense; and have evidently used +it to appreciate what your dear mother has shown and taught to you. Use +it now, my dear, to ask yourself if it is reasonable to expect that men +who could draw like the old masters would teach in ordinary girls' +schools, or, if they would, that school-mistresses could afford to pay +them properly without a much greater charge to the parents of pupils +than they would be willing to bear. You have had great advantages at +home, and have learnt enough to make you able to say very smart things; +but fault-finding is an easy trade, my dear, and it would be wiser as +well as kinder to see what good you can get from poor Mr. Henley's +lessons, as to the use of the brush and colours, instead of neglecting +your drawing because you don't like his style, which, after all, you +needn't copy when you sketch from nature yourself. I will tell you, dear +child, that my sister and I have talked this matter over before. Clever +young people are apt to think that their stupid elders have never +perceived what their brilliant young wits can put straight with +half-a-dozen words. But I used to draw a little myself," continued Miss +Ellen very modestly, "and I have never liked Mr. Henley's style. But he +is such a very good old man, and so poor, that my sister has shrunk from +changing. Still, of course our pupils are the first consideration, and +we should have had another master if a much better one could have been +got. But Mr. Markham, who is the only other one within reach, is not so +painstaking and patient with his pupils as Mr. Henley; and though his +style is rather better, it is not so very superior as to lead us, on the +whole, to turn poor Mr. Henley away for him. As to Madame," said Miss +Ellen, in conclusion, "she was quite right, my dear, to contrast your +negligence with Lucy's industry, and your smart speech was not in good +taste towards her, because you know that she knows nothing of drawing, +and could not dispute the point with you. There she comes," added Miss +Ellen rather nervously. She was afraid of Madame. + +"I'll go and beg her pardon, dear Miss Ellen," said Eleanor penitently, +and rushing out of the room, she met Madame in the passage, and we heard +her pouring forth a torrent of apology and self-accusation in a style +peculiar to herself. If in her youth and cleverness she was at times a +little sharp-tongued and self-opinionated, the vehemence of her +self-reproaches when she saw herself in fault was always a joke with +those who knew her. + +"Eleanor's confessions are only to be matched by her favourite Jeremy +Taylor's," said Jack one day. + +"She's just as bumptious next time, all the same," said Clement. He had +been disputing with Eleanor, and the generous grace of meeting an +apology half-way was no part of his character. + +He had an arbitrary disposition, in which Eleanor to some extent shared. +He controlled it to fairness in discussions with men, but with men only. +With Eleanor, who persisted in thinking for herself, and was not slow to +express her thoughts, he had many hot disputes, in which he often seemed +unable to be fair, and did not always trouble himself to be reasonable. + +By his own account he "detested girls with opinions." Abroad he was +politely contemptuous of feminine ideas; at home he was apt to be rudely +so. + +But this was only one, and a later development of many-sided Clement. + +And the subject is a digression, and has no business here. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +ELEANOR'S THEORIES REDUCED TO PRACTICE--STUDIES--THE ARITHMETIC-MASTER. + + +Madame was not ungenerous to an apology. She believed in Eleanor too, +and was quite disposed to think that Eleanor might be in the right in a +dispute with anybody but herself. Perhaps she hoped to hear her triumph +in a discussion with Mr. Henley, or perhaps it was only as a punishment +for her presumptuous remarks that Madame started the subject on the +following day to the drawing-master himself. + +"Miss Arkwright says your trees are all one, Mr. Henley," she began. +(Madame's English was not perfect.) "Except that the half are yellow and +the other half blue. She knows not the kind even." + +The poor little drawing-master, who was at that moment "touching up" a +yellow tree in one of the younger girls' copies, trying by skilfully +distributed dabs to make it look less like a faded cabbage-leaf, +blushed, and laid down his brush. Eleanor, who was just beginning to +colour a copy of a mountain scene, turned scarlet, and let her first +wash dry into unmanageable shapes as she darted indignant glances at +Madame, who appeared to enjoy her bit of malice. + +"Miss Arkwright will observe that these are sketches indicating the +general effect of a scene; not tree studies." + +"I know, Mr. Henley," said poor Eleanor, in much confusion; "at least, I +mean I don't know anything about water-colour sketching, so I ought not +to have said anything; and I never thought that Madame would repeat it. +I was thinking of pencil-drawings and etchings; and I do like to know +one tree from another," she added honestly. + +"You draw in pencil yourself?" asked Mr. Henley. + +"Oh no!" said Eleanor; "at least only a little. It was my mother's +drawings I was thinking of; and how she used to show us the different +ways of doing the foliage of different trees, and the marking on the +bark of the trunks." + +Mr. Henley drew a sheet of paper from his portfolio, and took a pencil +from his case. + +"Let us see, my dear young lady, what you remember of these lessons. The +pencil is well cut. There are flat sides for shading, and sharp ends for +outlines." + +Madame's thin lips pursed with the ghost of a smile, as Eleanor, with +hot cheeks and hands, came across "the room" to put her theories in +practice. + +"I can't do it, I know," she said, as she sat down, and gave herself +one of those nervous twitches common to girls of the hobble-de-hoy age. + +But Eleanor's nervous' spasms were always mitigated by getting something +into her fingers. Pencil and paper were her favourite implements; and +after a moment's pause, and a good deal of frowning, she said: "We've a +good many oaks about us;" and forthwith began upon a bit of oak foliage. + +"It's only a spray," she said. + +"It's very good," said the drawing-master, who was now looking over her +shoulder. + +"Oak branches are all elbows," she murmured, warming to her work, and +apparently talking to herself. "So different from willows and beeches." + +"Ve-ry good," said Mr. Henley, as Eleanor fitted the branches +dexterously into the clusters of leaves; "now for a little bit of the +oak bark, if you please." + +"This is only one tree, though," said Madame, who was also looking on. +"Let us see others, mademoiselle." + +"Willows are nice to do," said Eleanor, intent upon her paper; "and the +bark is prettier than oak, I think, and easier with these long points. +My mother says branches of trees should be done from the tips inwards; +and they do fit in better, I think. Only willow branches seem as if they +ought to be done outwards, they taper so. Beech trunks are very pretty, +but the leaves are difficult, I think. Scotch pines are easy." And +Eleanor left the beech and began upon the pine, fitting in the +horizontal branches under the foliage groups with admirable effect. + +"That will do, Miss Arkwright," said the little drawing-master. "Your +mother has been a good guide to you; and Mother Nature will complete +what she has begun. Now we will look at the copy, if you please." + +Eleanor's countenance fell again. Her pink mountain had run into her +blue mountain, and the interrupted wash had dried with hard and +unmanageable outlines. Sponging was the only remedy. + +Next drawing-lesson day Mr. Henley arrived a few minutes earlier than +was his wont, staggering under a huge basket containing a large clump of +flags and waterside herbage, which he had dug up "bodily," as he said. +These he arranged on a tray, and then from the bottom of the basket +produced the broken fragments of a red earthenware jug. + +"It was such a favourite of mine, Miss Arkwright," said he; "but what is +sacred to a maid-of-all-work? My only consolation, when she smashed it +this morning, was the thought that it would serve in the foreground of +your sketch." + +Saying which, the kind-hearted little man laid the red crocks among the +weeds, and after much pulling up and down of blinds to coax a good light +on to the subject, he called Eleanor to set to work. + +"It is _very_ good of you," said Eleanor emphatically. "When I have been +so rude, too!" + +"It is a pleasure," said the old man; "and will be doubly so if you do +it well. I should like to try it myself," he added, making a few hasty +dashes with the pencil. "Ah, my dear young lady, be thankful that you +will sketch for pleasure, and not for bread! It is pleasanter to learn +than to teach." + +Out of gratitude to Mr. Henley alone, Eleanor would have done her best +at the new "study"; but apart from this the change of subject was +delightful to her. She had an accurate eye, and her outlines had +hitherto contrasted favourably with her colouring in copies of the +sketches she could not like. The old drawing-master was delighted with +her pencil sketch of his "crockery among the reeds," and Eleanor +confessed to getting help from him in the choice and use of her colours. + +"Studies" became the fashion among the more intelligent pupils at Bush +House; though I have heard that experience justified the old man's +prophecy that they would not be so popular with the parents as the +former style had been. "They like lakes, and boats, and mountains, and +ruins, and a brighter style of colouring," he had said, and, as it +proved, with truth. + +Eleanor was his favourite pupil. Indeed, she was in favour with all the +teachers. + +A certain quaint little German was our arithmetic-master; a very good +one, whose patience was often sorely tried by our stupidity or +frivolity. On such occasions he rained epithets on us, which, from his +imperfect knowledge of English, were often comical, and roused more +amusement than shame. But for Eleanor he never had a harsh word. She was +thoroughly fond of arithmetic, and "gave her mind to it," to use a good +old phrase. + +"Ah!" the little man would yell at us. "You are so light-headed! +Sometimes you do do a sum, and sometimes not; but you do never _think_. +There is not one young lady of this establishment who thinks, but Miss +Arkwright alone." + +I remember an incident connected with the arithmetic-master which +occurred just after we came, and which roused Eleanor's intense +indignation. It was characteristic, too, of Madame's ideas of propriety. + +The weather was warm, and we were in the habit of dressing for tea. Our +toilettes were of the simplest kind. Muslin garibaldis, for coolness, +and our "second-best" skirts. + +Eleanor, Matilda, and I shared one room. On the first Wednesday evening +after our arrival at Bush House we were dressing as usual, when Emma ran +in. + +"I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you," said she; "you mustn't put on your +muslin bodies to-night. The arithmetic-master is coming after tea." + +"I don't understand," said Eleanor, who was standing on one leg as +usual, and who paused in a struggle with a refractory elastic sandal to +look up with a puckered brow, and general bewilderment. "What has the +arithmetic to do with our dresses?" + +Emma's saucy mouth and snub nose twitched with amusement, as she replied +in exact mimicry of Madame's broken English: "Have you so little of +delicacy as to ask, mademoiselle? Should the young ladies of this +establishment expose their shoulders in the transparency of muslin to a +professor?" + +Matilda and I burst out laughing at Emma's excellent imitation of +Madame; but Eleanor dropped her foot to the floor with a stamp that +broke the sandal, and burst forth into an indignant torrent of words, +which was only stayed by the necessity for resuming our morning dresses, +and hastening down-stairs. There Eleanor swallowed her wrath with her +weak tea; and I remember puzzling myself, to the neglect of mine, as to +the probable connection between arithmetic-masters and transparent +bodices. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ELEANOR'S REPUTATION--THE MAD GENTLEMAN--FANCIES AND FOLLIES--MATILDA'S +HEALTH--THE NEW DOCTOR. + + +We were not jealous of Eleanor's popularity. She was popular with the +girls as well as with the teachers. If she was apt to be opinionated, +she was candid, generous, and modest. She was always willing to help any +one, and (the firmest seal of friendship!) she was utterly sincere. + +She worked harder than any of us, so it was but just that she should be +most commended. But of all who lagged behind her, and who felt Madame's +severity, and created despair in the mind of the little +arithmetic-master, the most unlucky was poor Matilda. + +Matilda and I were now on the best of terms, and the credit of this +happy condition of matters is more hers than mine. + +It was not so much that I had learned more tact and sympathy (though I +hope these qualities do ripen with years and better knowledge!) as +because Matilda did most faithfully try to fulfil the good resolutions +Major Buller's kindness had led her to make. + +So far as Matilda's ailments were mental, I think that school-life may +have been of some benefit. + +Since the torments which have taught me caution in a household haunted +by boys, I am less confidential with my diary than I used to be. And if +I do not confide all my own follies to it, I am certainly not justified +in recording other people's. + +Not that Matilda makes any secret of the hero-worship she wasted on the +man with the chiselled face and weird eyes, whom we used to see on the +Riflebury Esplanade. She never spoke to him; but neither for that matter +did his dog, a Scotch deerhound with eyes very like his master's, and a +long nose which (uncomfortable as the position must have been) he kept +always resting in his master's hand as the two paced up and down, hour +after hour, by the sea. + +What folly Miss Perry talked on the subject it boots not at this date to +record. _I_ never indulged a more fanciful feeling towards him than +wonder, just dashed with a little fear--but I would myself have liked to +know the meaning of that long gaze he and the dog sometimes turned on +us! + +We shall never know now, however, for the poor gentleman died in a +lunatic asylum. + +I hope, when they shut him up, that they found the deerhound guilty also +of some unhydrophobiac madness, and imprisoned the two friends +together! + +Of course we laugh now about Matilda's fancy for the insane gentleman, +though she declares that at the time she could never keep him out of her +head--that if she had met him thirty-four successive times on the +Esplanade, she would have borne no small amount of torture to earn the +privilege of one more turn to meet him for the thirty-fifth--and that +her rest was broken by waking dreams of the possible misfortunes which +might account for his (and the dog's) obvious melancholy, and of +impossible circumstances in which she should act as their good angel and +deliverer. + +At the time she kept her own counsel, and it was not because she had +ever heard of the weird-eyed gentleman and his deerhound that Mrs. +Minchin concluded her advice to Aunt Theresa on one occasion by a shower +of nods which nearly shook the poppies out of her bonnet, and the +oracular utterance--"She's got some nonsense or other into her head, +depend upon it. Send her to school!" + +One thing has often struck me in reading the biographies of great +people. They must have to be written in quite a different way to the +biographies of common people like ourselves. + +For instance, when a practised writer is speaking of the early days of +celebrated poets, he says quite gravely--"Like Byron, Scott, and other +illustrious men, Hogg (the Ettrick shepherd) fell in love in his very +early childhood." And of course it sounds better than if one said, "Like +Smith, and Brown, and Jones, and nine out of every ten children, he did +not wait for years of discretion to make a fool of himself." + +Not being illustrious, Matilda blushes to remember this early folly; and +not being a poet's biographer, Aunt Theresa said in a severe voice, for +the general behoof of the school-room, that "Little girls were sometimes +very silly, and got a great deal of nonsense into their heads." I do not +think it ever dawned upon her mind that girls' heads not being +jam-pots--which if you do not fill them will remain empty--the best way +to keep folly out was to put something less foolish in. + +She would have taken a great deal of trouble that her daughters might +not be a flounce behind the fashions, and was so far-seeing in her +motherly anxieties, that she junketed herself and Major Buller to many +an entertainment, where they were bored for their pains, that an +extensive acquaintance might ensure to the girls partners, both for +balls and for life when they came to require them. But after what +fashion their fancies should be shaped, or whether they had wholesome +food and tender training for that high faculty of imagination by virtue +of which, after all, we so largely love and hate, choose right or +wrong, bear and forbear, adapt ourselves to the ups and downs of this +world, and spur our dull souls to the high hopes of a better--anxiety on +these matters Mrs. Buller had none. + +As to Mrs. Minchin, she would not have known what it meant if it had +been put in print for her to read. + +Matilda's irritability was certainly repressed in public by school +discipline, and from Eleanor's companionship our interests were varied +and enlarged. But in spite of these advantages her health rapidly +declined. And this without its seeming to attract Miss Mulberry's +notice. + +Indeed, she meddled very little in the matter of our health. She kept a +stock of "family pills," which she distributed from time to time amongst +us. They cured her headaches, she said; and she seemed rather aggrieved +that they did not cure Matilda's. + +But poor Matilda's headaches brought more than their own pain to her. +They seemed to stupefy her, and make her quite incapable of work. Her +complexion took a deadly, pasty hue, one eye was almost entirely closed, +and to a superficial observer she perhaps did look--what Madame always +pronounced her--sulky. Then, no matter how fully any lesson was at her +fingers' ends, she stumbled through a series of childish blunders to +utter downfall; and Madame's wrath was only equalled by her irony. To +do Matilda justice, she often used almost incredible courage in her +efforts to learn a task in spite of herself. Now and then she was +successful in defying pain; but by some odd revenge of nature, what she +learned in such circumstances was afterwards wiped as completely from +her memory as an old sum is sponged from a slate. + +To headache and backache, to vain cravings for more fresh air, and to an +inequality of spirits and temper to which Eleanor and I patiently +submitted, Matilda still added a cough, which seemed to exasperate +Madame as much as her stupidity. + +Not that our French governess was cruelly disposed. When she took +Matilda's health in hand and gave her a tumbler of warm water every +morning before breakfast, she did so in all good faith. It was a remedy +that she used herself. + +Poor Matilda was furious both with Madame's warm-water cure and Miss +Mulberry's pill-box. She had a morbid hatred of being "doctored," which +is often characteristic of chest complaints. She struggled harder than +ever to work, in spite of her headaches; she ceased to complain of them, +and concealed her cough to a great extent, by a process known amongst us +as "smothering." The one remedy she pined for--fresh air--was the last +that either Miss Mulberry or Madame considered appropriate to any form +of a "cold." + +This craving for fresh air helped Matilda in her struggle with illness. +Our daily "promenade" was dull enough, but it was in the open air; and +to be kept indoors, either as a punishment for ill-said lessons, or as a +cure for her cough, was Matilda's great dread. + +Night after night, when Madame had paid her final visit to our rooms, +and we were safe, did Eleanor creep out of bed and noiselessly lower the +upper sash of our window to please Matilda; whilst I sat (sometimes for +an hour or more) upon the bolster of the bed in which Matilda and I +slept together, and "nursed her head." + +What quaint, pale, grave little maids we were! As full of aches and +pains, and small anxieties, and self-repression, and tender sympathy, as +any other daughters of Mother Eve. + +Eleanor and I have often since said that we believe we should make +excellent nurses for the insane, looking back upon our treatment of poor +Matilda. We knew exactly when to be authoritative, and when to +sympathize almost abjectly. I became skilful in what we called "nursing +her head," which meant much more than that I supported it on my knees. +Softly, but firmly, I stroked her brow and temples with both hands, and +passed my fingers through her hair to the back of her head. I rarely +failed to put her to sleep, and as she never woke when I laid her down, +I have since suspected myself of unconscious mesmerism. + +One night, when I had long been asleep, I was awakened by Matilda's +hysterical sobs. She "couldn't get into a comfortable position;" her +"back ached so." Our bed was very narrow, and I commonly lay so poised +upon the outer edge to give Matilda room that more than once I have +rolled on to the floor. + +We spoke in undertones, but Eleanor was awake. + +"Come and see if you can sleep with me, Margery," she said. "I lie very +straight." + +I scrambled out, and willingly crept in behind Eleanor, into her still +narrower bed; and after tearful thanks and protestations, poor Matilda +doubled herself at a restful angle, and fell asleep. + +Happily for me, I was very well. Eleanor suffered from the utter change +of mode of life a good deal; but she had great powers of endurance. + +Fatigue, and "muddle on the brain," often hindered her at night from +learning the lessons for next day. But she worked at them nevertheless; +and tasks, that by her own account she "drove into her head" in bed, +though she was quite unable to say them that evening, seemed to arrange +themselves properly in her memory before the morning. + +Matilda's ill-health came to a crisis at last. To smother a cough +successfully, you must be able to escape at intervals. On one occasion +the smothering was tried too long, and after the aggravated outburst +which ensued, the doctor was called in. The Bush House family +practitioner being absent, a new man came for him, who, after a few +glances at Matilda, postponed the examination of her lungs, and begged +to see Miss Mulberry. + +Matilda had learned her last lesson in Bush House. + +From the long interview with the doctor, Miss Mulberry emerged with a +troubled face. + +Lessons went irregularly that day. Our quarter of an hour's recreation +was as much extended as it was commonly cut short, and Madame herself +was subdued. She became a very kind nurse to Matilda, and crept many +times from her bed during the night to see if "la pauvre petite" were +sleeping, or had a wish that she could satisfy. + +Indeed, an air of remorse seemed to tinge the kindness of the heads of +Bush House to poor Matilda, which connected itself in Eleanor's mind +with a brief dialogue that she overheard between Miss Mulberry and the +doctor at the front door: + +"I feel there has been culpable neglect," said Miss Mulberry mournfully. +"But----" + +"No, no. At least, not wilful," said the doctor; "and springing from the +best motives. But I should not be doing my duty, madam, towards a lady +in your responsible position, if I did not say that I have known too +many cases in which the ill-results have been life-long, and some in +which they have been rapidly fatal." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +ELEANOR'S HEALTH--HOLY LIVING--THE PRAYER OF THE SON OF SIRACH. + + +Matilda went home, and Eleanor and I remained at Bush House. + +I fancy that when we no longer had to repress ourselves for poor +Matilda's sake, Eleanor was more sensible of her own aches and pains. +She also became rather irritable, and had more than one squabble with +Madame about this time. + +Eleanor had brought several religious books with her--books of prayers +and other devotional works. They were all new to Matilda and me, and we +began to use them, and to imitate Eleanor in various little devout +customs. + +On Sunday Eleanor used to read Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_; +but as we never were allowed to be alone, she was obliged to bring it +down-stairs. Unfortunately, the result of this was that Miss Mulberry, +having taken it away to "look it over," pronounced it "not at all proper +reading for young ladies," and it was confiscated. After this Eleanor +reserved her devotional reading for bed-time, when, if she had got +fairly through her lessons for next day, I was wont to read the Bible +and other "good books" to her in a tone modulated so as not to reach +Madame's watchful ear. + +Once she caught us. + +The books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus from the Apocrypha were favourite +reading with Eleanor, who seemed in the grandly poetical praises of +wisdom to find some encouragement under the difficulties through which +we struggled towards a very moderate degree of learning. I warmly +sympathized with her; partly because much of what I read was beautiful +to read, even when I did not quite understand it; and partly because +Eleanor had inspired me also with some of her own fervour against "the +great war of ignorance." + +But, as I said, Madame caught us at last. + +Eleanor was lying, yet dressed, upon her bed, the window was open, and +I, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was giving forth the prayer of the +Son of Sirach, with (as I flattered myself) no little impressiveness. As +the chapter went on my voice indiscreetly rose: + +"When I was yet young, or ever I went astray, I desired wisdom openly in +my prayer. + +"I prayed for her before the temple, and will seek her out even to the +end. + +"Even from the flower till the grape was ripe hath my heart delighted in +her: my foot went the right way, from my youth up I sought after her. + +"I bowed down mine ear a little, and received her, and gat much +learning. + + * * * * * + +"Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in the house of learning. + + * * * * * + +"Put your neck under the yoke, and let your soul receive instruction: +she is hard at hand to find. + +"Behold with your eyes, how that I have had but little labour, and have +gotten unto me much rest. + +"Get learning----" + +"Eh, mesdemoiselles! This is going to bed, is it? Ah! Give me that book, +then." + +I handed over in much confusion the thin S.P.C.K. copy of the +Apocrypha, bound in mottled calf, from which I had been reading; and +ordering us to go to bed at once, Madame took her departure. + +Madame could read English well, though she spoke it imperfectly. The +next day she did not speak of the volume, and we supposed her to be +examining it. Then Eleanor became anxious to get it back, and tried both +argument and entreaty, for some time, in vain. At last Madame said: + +"What is it, mademoiselle, that you so much wish to read in this volume +of the holy writings?" + +"Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are what I like best," said Eleanor. + +"Eh bien!" said Madame, nodding her head like a porcelain Chinaman, and +with a very knowing glance. "I will restore the volume, mademoiselle." + +She did restore it accordingly, with the historical narratives cut out, +and many nods and grimaces expressive of her good wishes that we might +be satisfied with it now. + +In private, Eleanor stamped with indignation (whether or no her thick +boots had fostered this habit I can't say, but Eleanor was apt to stamp +on occasion). We had our dear chapters again, however, and I promised +Eleanor a new and fine copy of the mutilated favourite as a birthday +present. + +Eleanor was very good to me. She helped me with my lessons, and +encouraged me to work. For herself, she laboured harder and harder. + +I used to think that she was only anxious to get all the good she could +out of the school, as she did not seem to have many so-called +"advantages" at home, by her own account. But I afterwards found that +she did just the same everywhere, strained her dark eyes over books, and +absorbed information whenever and wherever she had a chance. + +"I can't say you're fond of reading," said Emma one day, watching +Eleanor as she sat buried in a book, "for I'm fond of reading myself, +and we're not at all alike. I call you greedy!" + +And Eleanor laughed, and quoted a verse from one of our favourite +chapters: "They that eat me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink me +shall yet be thirsty." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +ELEANOR AND I ARE LATE FOR BREAKFAST--THE SCHOOL BREAKS UP--MADAME AND +BRIDGET. + + +Eleanor and I overslept ourselves one morning. We had been tired, and +when we did get up we hurried through our dressing, looking forward to +fines and a scolding to boot. + +But as we crept down-stairs we saw both the Misses Mulberry and Madame +conversing together on the second landing. We felt that we were +"caught," but to our surprise they took no notice of us; and as we went +down the next flight we heard Miss Mulberry say, with a sigh, +"Misfortunes never come alone." + +We soon learnt what the new misfortune was. Poor Lucy had been taken +ill. The doctor had been to see her early that morning, and had +pronounced it fever--"Probably scarlet fever; and he recommends the +school being broken up at once, as the holidays would soon be here +anyway." So one of the girls told us. + +Presently Miss Mulberry made her appearance; and we sat down to +breakfast. She ate hers hurriedly, and then made a little speech, in +which she begged us, as a personal favour, to be good; and if it was +decided that we should go, to do our best to get our things carefully +together, and to help to pack them. + +I am sure we responded to the appeal. I wonder if it struck Madame, at +this time, that it might be well to trust us a little more, as a rule? I +remember Peony's saying, "Madame told me to help myself to tea. I might +have taken two lumps of sugar, but I did not think it would be right." + +We were all equally scrupulous; we even made a point of speaking in +French, though Madame's long absences from the school-room, and the +possibility of an early break-up for the holidays, gave both opportunity +and temptation to chat in English. + +On Monday evening at tea, Miss Mulberry made another little speech. The +doctor had pronounced poor Lucy's illness to be scarlet fever, and we +were all to be sent home the next day. There were to be no more lessons, +and we were to spend the evening in packing and other preparations. + +We were very sorry for poor Lucy, but we were young; and I do not think +we could help enjoying the delights of fuss, the excitement of +responsibility and packing, and the fact that the holidays had begun. + +We were going in various directions, but it so happened that we all +contrived to go by the same train to London. Some were to be dropped +before we reached town; one lived in London; and Eleanor and I had to +wait for half-an-hour before catching a train for the north. + +For I was going to Yorkshire. The Arkwrights had asked me to spend the +holidays with Eleanor. There was now nothing to be done but for us to +go up together, all unexpected as we were. + +How we packed and talked, and ran in and out of each other's rooms! It +was late when we all got to bed that night. + +Next morning the railway omnibus came for us, and with a curious sense +of regret we saw our luggage piled up, and the little gate of Bush House +close upon us. + +As we moved off, Bridget, the nosegay-woman, drew near. Madame (who had +shed tears as she bade us adieu) opened the gate again, ran out, cried +shrilly to the driver to stop, and buying up half Bridget's basketful at +one sweep, with more tears and much excitement, flung the flowers in +amongst us. As she went backwards off the step, on to which she had +climbed, she fell upon Bridget, who, with even more excitement and I +think also with ready tears, clung to the already moving omnibus, and +turned her basket upside down over our laps. + +I have a dim remembrance of seeing her and Madame seem to fall over each +other, or into each other's arms; and then, amid a shrill torrent of +farewells and blessings in French and Irish, the omnibus rolled on, and +Bush House was hid from our eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +NORTHWARDS--THE BLACK COUNTRY--THE STONE COUNTRY. + + +We had a very noisy, happy journey to London. We chattered, and laughed, +and hopped about like a lot of birds turned out of a cage. Emma sat by +the window, and made a running commentary upon everybody and everything +we passed in a strain of what seemed to us irresistible wit and humour. +I fear that our conduct was not very decorous, but in the circumstances +we were to be excused. The reaction was overwhelming. + +Eleanor and I sobered down after we parted from the other girls, and +thus became sensible of some fatigue and faintness. We had been too much +excited to eat any of the bread-and-butter prepared for our early +breakfast at Bush House. We had run up and down and stood on our feet +about three times as much as need was; we had talked and laughed and +shaken ourselves incessantly; we had put out our heads in the wind and +sun as the train flew on; we had tried to waltz between the seats, and +had eaten two ounces of "mixed sweets" given us by the housemaid, and +deluged each other with some very heavy-scented perfume belonging to +one of us. + +After all this, Eleanor and I felt tired before our journey had begun. +We felt faint, sick, anything but hungry, and should probably have +travelled north in rather a pitiful plight, had not a motherly-looking +lady, who sat in the waiting-room reading a very dirty book of +tracts--and who had witnessed both our noisy parting from our companions +and the subsequent collapse--advised us to go to the refreshment-room +and get some breakfast. We yielded at last, out of complaisance towards +her, and were rewarded by feeling wonderfully refreshed by a solid meal. + +We laid in a stock of buns and chocolate lozenges for future +consumption, and--thanks to Eleanor's presence of mind and +experience--we got our luggage together, and started in the north train +in a carriage by ourselves. + +We talked very little now. Eleanor gazed out of her window, and I out of +mine, in silence. As we got farther north, Eleanor's eyes dilated with a +curious glow of pride and satisfaction. I had then no special attachment +to one part of England more than another, but I had never seen so much +of the country before, and it was a treat which did not lose by +comparison with the limited range of our view at Bush House. + +As we ran on, the bright, pretty, sociable-looking suburbs of London +gave way to real country--beautiful, cared-for, garden-like, with grand +timber, big houses, and grey churches, supported by the obvious +parsonage and school; and deep shady lanes, with some little cart +trotting quaintly towards the railway bridge over which we rushed, or +boys in smock-frocks sitting on a gate, and shouting friendly +salutations (as it seemed) to Eleanor and myself. Then came broad, fair +pastures of fairy green, and slow winding rivers that we overtook almost +before we had seen them, with ghostly grey pollard willows in formal +mystical borders, contrasting with such tints of pale yellow and gay +greens, which in their turn shone against low distances of soft blue and +purple, that the sense of colour which my great-grandfather had roused +in me made me almost tremble with a never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. From +this flat but most fair country, the grey towers of Peterborough +Cathedral stood up in ancient dignity; and then we ran on again. After a +while the country became less rich in colour, and grander in form. No +longer stretching flatly to low-lying distances of ethereal hue, it was +broken into wooded hills, which folded one over the other with +ever-increasing boldness of outline. Now and then the line ran through +woods of young oak, with male ferns and bracken at their feet, where the +wild hyacinths, which lie there like a blue mist in May, must for some +weeks past have made way for the present carpet of pink campion. + +And now the distance was no longer azure. Over the horizon and the lower +part of the sky a thin grey veil had come--a veil of smoke. We were +approaching the manufacturing districts. Grander and grander grew the +country, less and less pure the colouring. The vegetation was rich +almost to rankness; the well-wooded distances were heavily grey. Then +tall chimneys poured smoke over the landscape and eclipsed the sun; and +through strangely shaped furnaces and chimneys of many forms, which here +poured fire from their throats like dragons, and there might have been +the huge retorts and chemical apparatus of some giant alchemist, we ran +into the station of a manufacturing town. + +I gazed at the high blackened warehouses, chimneys, and furnaces, which +loomed out of the stifling smoke and clanging noises, with horror and +wonder. + +"What a dreadful place!" I exclaimed. "Look at those dreadful things +with flames coming out; and oh, Eleanor! there's fire coming out of the +ground there. And look at that man opening that great oven door! Oh, +what a fire! And what's he poking in it for? And do look! all the men +are black. And what a frightful noise everything makes!" + +Eleanor was looking all the time, but with a complacent expression. She +only said, "It is a very busy place. I hear trade's good just now, too." +And, "You should see the furnaces at night, Margery, lighting up all the +hills. It's grand!" + +As she sniffed up the smoke with, I might almost say, relish, I felt +that she did not sympathize with my disgust. But any discussion on the +subject was stopped by our having to change carriages, and we had just +settled ourselves comfortably once more, when I got a bit of iron +"filings" into my eye. It gave me a good deal of pain and inconvenience, +and by the time that I could look out of the window again, we had left +the black town far behind. The hills were almost mountains now, and +sloped away on all sides of us in bleak and awful grandeur. The +woodlands were fewer; we were on the moors. Only a few hours back we had +been amongst deep hedges and shady lanes, and now for hedges we had +stone walls, and for deep embowered lanes we could trace the unsheltered +roads, gleaming as they wound over miles of distant hills. Deep below us +brawled a river, with here and there a gaunt mill or stone-built hamlet +on its banks. + +I had never seen any country like this; and if I had been horrified by +the black town, my delight with the noble scenery beyond it was in +proportion. I stood at the open window, with the moor breeze blowing my +hair into the wildest elf-locks, rapturously excited as the great hills +unfolded themselves and the shifting clouds sent shifting purple shadows +over them. Very dark and stern they looked in shade, and then, in a +moment more, the cloud was past, and a broad smile of sunshine ran over +their face, and showed where cultivation was creeping up the hillside +and turning the heather into fields. + +Eleanor leaned out of the window also. Excitement, which set me +chattering, always made her silent. But her parted lips, distended +nostrils, and the light in her eyes bore witness to that strange power +which hill country sways over hill-born people. To me it was beautiful, +but to her it was home. I better understood now, too, her old complaints +of the sheltered (she called it _stuffy_) lane in which we walked two +and two when we "went into the country" at school. She used to rave +against the park palings that hedged us in on either side, and declare +her longing to tear them up and let a little air in, or at least to be +herself somewhere where "one could see a few miles about one, and +breathe some wind." + +As we stood now, drinking in the breeze, I think the same thought struck +us both, and we exclaimed with one voice: "Poor Matilda! How she would +have enjoyed this!" + +We next stopped at a rather dreary-looking station, where we got out, +and Eleanor got our luggage together, aided by a porter who seemed to +know her, and whom she seemed to understand, though his dialect was +unintelligible to me. + +"I suppose we must have a cab," said Eleanor, at last. "They don't +expect us." + +"_Tommusisinttarn_," said the porter suggestively; which, being +interpreted, meant, "Thomas is in the town." + +"To be sure, for the meat," said Eleanor. "The dog-cart, I suppose?" + +"And t'owd mare," added the porter. + +"Well, the boxes must come by the carrier. Come along, Margery, if you +don't mind a little bit of walking. We must find Thomas. We have to send +down to the town for meat," she added. + +We found Thomas in the yard of a small inn. He was just about to start +homewards. + +By Eleanor's order, Thomas lifted me into the dog-cart, and then, to my +astonishment, asked "Miss Eleanor" if she would drive. Eleanor nodded, +and, climbing on to the driver's seat, took the reins with reassuring +calmness. Thomas balanced the meat-basket behind, and "t'owd mare" +started at a good pace up a hill which would have reduced most +south-country horses to crawl. + +"Father and Mother are away still," said Eleanor, after a pause. "So +Thomas says. But they'll be back in a day or two." + +We were driving up a sandy road such as we had seen winding over the +hills. To our left there was a precipitous descent to the vale of the +river. To our right, flowers, and ferns, and heather climbed the steep +hill, broken at every few yards by tiny torrents of mountain streams. +The sun was setting over the distant Deadmanstone moors; little dropping +wells tinkled by the roadside, where dozens of fat black snails were out +for an evening stroll, and here and there a brimming stone trough +reflected the rosy tints of the sky. + +It was grey and chilly when we drove into the village. A stone +pack-horse track, which now served as footpath, had run by the road and +lasted into the village. The cottages were of stone, the walls and +outhouses were of stone, and the vista was closed by an old stone +church, like a miniature cathedral. There was more stone than grass in +the churchyard, and there were more loose stones than were pleasant on +the steep hill, up which we scrambled before taking a sharp turn into +the Vicarage grounds. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE VICARAGE--KEZIAH--THE DEAR BOYS--THE COOK--A YORKSHIRE +TEA--BED-FELLOWS. + + +It was Midsummer. The heavy foliage brushed our faces as "the old mare," +with slack reins upon her back, drew us soberly up the steep drive, and +stood still, of her own accord, before a substantial-looking house, +built--"like everything else," I thought--of stone. Huge +rose-bushes--literal _bushes_, not "dwarfs" or "standards"--the growth +of many years, bent under their load of blossoms. The old "maiden's +blush," too rare now in our bedding plant gardens, the velvety "damask," +the wee Scotch roses, the prolific white, and the curious "York and +Lancaster," with monster moss-rose trees, hung over the carriage-road. +The place seemed almost overgrown with vegetation, like the palace of +the Sleeping Beauty. + +As we turned the corner towards the house, Eleanor put out her left hand +and dragged off a great branch of "maiden's blush." She forgot the +recoil, which came against my face. All the full-blown flowers shed +their petals over me, and I made my first appearance at the Vicarage +covered with rose-leaves. + +It was Keziah who welcomed us, and I have always had an affection for +her in consequence. She was housemaid then, and took to the kitchen +afterwards. After she had been about five years at the Vicarage, she +announced one day that she wished to go. She had no reason to give but +that she "thought she'd try a change." She tried one--for a month--and +didn't like it. Mrs. Arkwright took her back again, and in kitchen and +back premises she reigns supreme to this day. + +From her we learned that Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, who had gone away for a +parson's fortnight, were still from home. We had no lack of welcome, +however. + +It seems strange enough to speak of a fire as comfortable in July. And +yet I well remember that the heavy dew and evening breeze was almost +chilly after sunset, and a sort of vault-like feeling about the rooms, +which had been for a week or more unused, made us offer no resistance +when Keziah began to light a fire. While she was doing so Eleanor +exclaimed, "Let's go and warm ourselves in the kitchen." + +Any idea of comfort connected with a kitchen was quite new to me, but I +followed Eleanor, and made my first acquaintance with the old room where +we have spent so many happy hours. + +We found the door shut; much, it seemed, to Eleanor's astonishment. But +the reason was soon evident. As our footsteps sounded on the stone +passage there arose from behind the kitchen door an utterly +indescribable din of howling, yowling, squealing, scratching, and +barking. + +"It's the dear boys!" said Eleanor, and she ran to open the door. For a +moment I thought of her brothers (who must, obviously, be maniacs!), but +I soon discovered that the "dear boys" were the dogs of the +establishment, who were at once let loose upon us _en masse_. I have a +faint remembrance of Eleanor and a brown retriever falling into each +other's arms with cries of delight; but I was a good deal absorbed by +the care of my own small person, under the heavy onslaught of dogs big +and little. I was licked copiously from chin to forehead by the more +impetuous, and smelt threateningly at the calves of my legs by the more +cautious of the pack. + +They were subsiding a little, when Eleanor said, "Oh, cook, why did you +shut them up? Why didn't you let them come and meet us?" + +"And how was I to know who it was at the door, Miss Eleanor?" replied an +elderly, stern-looking female, who, in her time, ruled us all with a rod +of iron, the dogs included. "Dear knows it's not that I want them in the +kitchen. The way them dogs behaves, Miss Eleanor, is _scandilus_." + +"Dear boys!" murmured Eleanor; on which all the dogs, who were settling +down to sleep on the hearth, wagged their tails, and threatened to move. + +"Much good it is me cleaning," cook continued, "when that great big +brown beast of yours goes roaming about every night in the shrubberies, +and comes in with his feet all over my clean floor." + +"It makes rather pretty marks, I think," said Eleanor; "like +pot-moulding, only not white. But never mind, you've me at home now to +wipe their paws." + +"They've missed you sorely," said the cook, who seemed to be softening. +"I almost think they knew it was you, they were so mad to get out." + +"Dear boys!" cried Eleanor, once more; and the dogs, who were asleep +now, wagged their tails in their dreams. + +"And there's more's missed you than them," cook continued. "But, bless +us, Miss Eleanor, you don't look much better for being in strange parts. +That young lady, too, looks as if she enjoyed poor health. Well, give me +native air, there's nothing like it; and you've not got back to yours +too soon." + +Eleanor threw her arms round the cook, and danced her up and down the +kitchen. + +"Oh, dear cookey!" she cried; "I am so glad to be back again. And do be +kind to us, and give us tea-cakes, and brown bread toast, and let the +dogs come in to tea." + +Cook pushed her away, but with a relenting face. + +"There, there, Miss Eleanor. Take that jug of hot water with you, and +take the young lady up-stairs; and when you've cleaned yourselves, I'll +have something for you to eat; and you may suit yourselves about the +dogs,--I'm sure I don't want them. You've not got so much more sensible +with all your schooling," she added. + +We went off to do her bidding, and left her muttering, "And what folks +as can edicate their own children sends 'em all out of the house for, +passes me; to come back looking like a damp handkerchief, with dear +knows what cheap living and unwholesome ways, and want of native air." + +Cook's bark was worse than her bite. + +"She gives the dear boys plenty to eat," said Eleanor; and she provided +for us that evening in the same liberal spirit. + +What a feast we had! Strong tea, and abundance of sugar and rich cream. +We laid the delicious butter on our bread in such thick clumps, that +sallow-faced Madame would have thought us in peril of our lives. There +was brown bread toast, too; and fried ham and eggs, and moor honey, and +Yorkshire tea-cakes. In the middle of the table Keziah had placed a +large punch-bowl, filled with roses. + +And all the dogs were on the hearth, and they all had tea with us. + +After tea we tried to talk, but were so sleepy that the words died away +on our heavy lips. So we took Keziah's advice and went to bed. + +"Keziah has put the chair-bed into my room, Margery dear," said Eleanor. + +"I am so glad," said I. "I would rather be with you." + +"Would you like a dog to sleep with you?" Eleanor politely inquired. "I +shall have Growler inside, and my big boy outside. Pincher is a nice +little fellow; you'd better have Pincher." + +I took Pincher accordingly, and Pincher took the middle of the bed. + +We were just dropping off to sleep when Eleanor said, "If Pincher +snores, darling, hit him on the nose." + +"All right," said I. "Good-night." I had begun a confused dream, woven +from my late experiences, when Eleanor's voice roused me once more. + +"Margery dear, if Growler _should_ get out of my bed and come on to +yours, mind you kick him off, or he and Pincher will fight through the +bed-clothes." + +But whether Pincher did snore, or Growler invade our bed, I slept much +too soundly to be able to tell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +GARDENING--DRINKINGS--THE MOORS--WADING--BATRACHOSPERMA--THE +CHURCH--LITTLE MARGARET. + + +Both Eleanor and I were visited that night by dreams of terrible +complications with the authorities at Bush House. It was a curious +relief to us to wake to clear consciences and the absolute control of +our own conduct for the day. + +It took me several minutes fairly to wake up and realize my new +position. The window being in the opposite direction (as regarded my +bed) from that of our room at Miss Mulberry's, the light puzzled me, and +I lay blinking stupidly at a spray of ivy that had poked itself through +the window as if for shelter from the sun, which was already blazing +outside. Pincher brought me to my senses by washing my face with his +tongue; which I took all the kindlier of him that he had been, of all +the dear boys, the most doubtful about the calves of my legs the evening +before. + +As we dressed, I adopted Eleanor's fashion of doing so on foot, that I +might examine her room. As is the case with the "bowers" of most +English country girls of her class, it was rich in those treasures +which, like the advertised contents of lost pocket-books, are "of no +value to any one but the owner." Prints of sacred subjects in home-made +frames, knick-knacks of motley variety, daguerreotypes and second-rate +photographs of "the boys"--_i. e._ Clement and Jack--at different ages, +and of "the dear boys" also. "All sorts of things!" as I exclaimed +admiringly. But Eleanor threatened at last to fine me if I did not get +dressed instead of staring about me, so we went down-stairs, and had +breakfast with the dogs. + +"The boys will be home soon," said Eleanor, as we devoured certain +plates of oatmeal porridge, which Keziah had provided, and which I +tasted then for the first time. "I must get their gardens tidied up +before they come. Shall you mind helping me, Margery?" + +The idea delighted me, and after breakfast we tied on our hats, rummaged +out some small tools from the porch, and made our way to the children's +gardens. They were at some little distance from the big flower-garden, +and the path that led to them was heavily shaded by shrubbery on one +side, and on the other by a hedge which, though "quickset" as a +foundation, was now a mass of honeysuckle and everlasting peas. The +scent was delicious. + +From this we came out on an open space at the top of the kitchen garden, +where, under a wall overgrown with ivy, lay the children's gardens. + +"What a wilderness!" was Eleanor's first exclamation, in a tone of +dismay, and then she added with increased vehemence, "He's taken away +the rhubarb-pot. What will Clement say?" + +"What is it, dear?" I asked. + +"It's the rhubarb-pot," Eleanor repeated. "You know Clement is always +having new fads every holidays, and he can't bear his things being +disturbed whilst he's at school. But how can I help it if I'm at school +too?" + +"Of course you can't," said I, gladly seizing upon the only point in her +story that I could understand, to express my sympathy. + +"And he got one of the rhubarb-pots last holidays," Eleanor continued. +"It was rather broken, and Thomas gave in to his having it then, so it's +very mean of him to have moved it now, and I shall tell him so. And +Clement painted church windows on it, and stuck it over a plant of ivy +at the top of the garden. He thought it would force the ivy, and he +expected it would grow big by the time he came home. He wanted it to +hang over the top, and look like a ruin. Oh, he will be so vexed!" + +The ivy plant was alive, though the "ruin" had been removed by the +sacrilegious hands of Thomas. I suggested that we should build a ruin of +stones, and train the ivy over that, which idea was well received by +Eleanor; the more so that a broken wall at the top of the croft supplied +materials, and Stonehenge suggested itself as an easy, and certainly +respectable, model. + +Meanwhile we decided to "do the weeding first," as being the least +agreeable business, and so set to work; I in a leisurely manner, +befitting the heat of the day, and Eleanor with her usual energy. She +toiled without a pause, and accomplished about treble the result of my +labours. After we had worked for a long time, she sat up, pressing her +hand to her forehead. + +"My head quite aches, Margery, and I'm so giddy. It's very odd; +gardening never made me so before I went away." + +"You work so at it," said I, "you may well be tired. What makes you work +so at things?" + +"I don't know," said Eleanor, laughing. "Cook says I do foy at things +so. But when one once begins, you know----" + +"What's _foy_?" I interrupted. "Cook says you foy--what does she mean?" + +"Oh, to foy at anything is to slave--to work hard at it. At least, not +merely hard-working, but to go at it very hotly, almost foolishly; in +fact, to foy at it, you know. Clement foys at things too. And then he +gets tired and cross; and so do I, often. What o'clock is it, Margery?" + +I pulled out my souvenir watch and answered, "Just eleven." + +"We ought to have some 'drinkings,' we've worked so hard," said Eleanor, +laughing again. "Haymakers, and people like that, always have drinkings +at eleven, you know, and dinner at one, and tea at four or five, and +supper at eight. Ah! there goes Thomas. Thomas!" + +Thomas came up, and Eleanor (discreetly postponing the subject of the +rhubarb-pot for the present) sent a pleading message to cook, which +resulted in her sending us two bottles of ginger-beer and several slices +of thick bread-and-butter. The dear boys, who had been very sensibly +snoozing in the shade, divined by some instinct the arrival of our +lunch-basket, and were kind enough to share the bread-and-butter with +us. + +"Drinkings" over, we set to work again. + +I was surprised to observe that there were four box-edged beds, but as +Eleanor said nothing about it, I made no remark. Perhaps it belonged to +some dead brother or sister. + +As the weeds were cleared away, one plant after another became +apparent. I called Eleanor's attention to all that I found, and she +seemed to welcome them as old friends. + +"Oh, that's the grey primrose; I'm so glad! And there are Jack's +hepaticas; they look like old rubbish. Don't dig deep into Jack's +garden, please, for he's always getting plants and bulbs given him by +people in the village, and he sticks everything in, so his garden really +is crammed full; and you're sure to dig into tulips, or crocuses, or +lilies, or something valuable." + +"Doesn't Clement get things given him?" said I. + +"Oh, he has plenty of plants," said Eleanor, "but then he's always +making great plans about his garden; and the first step towards his +improvements is always to clear out all the old things, and make what he +calls 'a clean sweep of the rubbish.'" + +By the time that the "twelve o'clock bell" rang from the church-tower +below, the heat was so great that we gathered up our tools and went +home. + +In the afternoon Eleanor said, "Were you ever on the moors? Did you ever +wade? Do you care about water-weeds? Did you ever eat bilberries, or +carberries?--but they're not ripe yet. Shall we go and get some +Batrachosperma, and paddle a bit, and give the dear boys a bathe?" + +"Delightful!" said I; "but do you go out alone?" + +"What should we take anybody with us for?" said Eleanor, opening her +eyes. + +I could not say. But as we dressed I said, "I'm so glad you don't wear +veils. Matilda and I used to have to wear veils to take care of our +complexion." + +Eschewing veils and every unnecessary encumbrance, we set forth, +followed by the dogs. I had taken off my crinoline, because Eleanor said +we might have to climb some walls, and I had borrowed a pair of her +boots, because my own were so uncomfortable from being high-heeled and +narrow-soled. They were too thin for stony roads also, and, though they +were prettily ornamented, they pinched my feet. + +We went upwards from the Vicarage along hot roads bordered by stone +walls. At last we turned and began to go downwards, and as we stood on +the top of the steep hill we were about to descend, Eleanor, with some +pride in her tone, asked me what I thought of the view. + +It was very beautiful. The slopes of the purple hills were grand. I saw +"moors" now. + +"The best part of it is the air, though," she said. + +The air was, in fact, wind; but of a dry, soft, exhilarating kind. It +seemed to get into our heads, and we joined hands and ran wildly down +the steep hill together. + +"What fun!" Eleanor cried, as we paused to gain breath at the bottom. +"Now you've come there'll be four of us to run downhill. We shall nearly +stretch across the road." + +At last we came to a stone bridge which spanned the river. It was not a +very wide stream, and it was so broken with grey boulders, and clumps of +rushes and overhanging ferns, that one only caught sight of the water +here and there, in tiny torrents and lakes among the weeds. + +My delight was boundless. I can neither forget nor describe those first +experiences of real country life, when Eleanor and I rambled about +together. I think she was at least as happy as I, and from time to time +we both wished with all our hearts that "the other girls" could be there +too. The least wisely managed of respectable schools has this good +point, that it enlarges one's sympathies and friendships! + +We wandered some little way up the Ewden, as Eleanor called the river, +and then, coming to a clear, running bit of stream, with a big grey +boulder on the bank hard by to leave our shoes and stockings on, we took +these off, and also our hats, and, kilting up our petticoats, plunged +bravely into the stream. + +"Wet your head!" shouted Eleanor; and following her example, as well as +I could for laughing, and for the needful efforts to keep my feet, I +dabbled my head liberally with water scooped up in the palms of my +hands. + +"Oh!" I cried, "how strong the water is, and how deliciously cold it is! +And oh, look at the little fishes! They're all round my feet. And oh, +Eleanor, call the dogs, they're knocking me down! How hard the stones +are, and oh, how slippery!" + +I fell against a convenient boulder, and Eleanor turned back, the dogs +raging and splashing around her. + +"I hope you're not treading on the Batrachosperma?" she said, anxiously. + +"What is it?" I cried. + +"It's what I've chiefly come in for," said she. "I want some to lay out. +It's a water-weed; a fresh-water alga, you know, like seaweed, only a +fresh-water plant. I'm looking for the stone it grew near. Oh, that's it +you're on! Climb up on to it out of the way, Margery dear. It's rather a +rare kind of weed, and I don't want it to be spoiled. Call the dogs, +please. Oh, look at all the bits they've broken off!" + +Eleanor dodged and darted to catch certain fragments of dark-looking +stuff that were being whirled away. With much difficulty she caught two +or three, and laid one of them in my hand. But I was not prepared for +the fact that it felt like a bit of jelly, and it slipped through my +fingers before I had time to examine the beauty of the jointed branches +pointed out by Eleanor, and in a moment more it was hopelessly lost. We +put what we had got into some dock-leaves for safety, and having waded +back to our stockings, we put on our hats and walked barefoot for a few +yards through the heather, to dry our feet, after which we resumed our +boots and stockings and set off homewards. + +"We'll go by the lower road," said Eleanor, "and look at the church." + +For some time after Eleanor had passed in through the rickety gates of +the south porch, I lingered amongst the gravestones, reading their +quaint inscriptions. Quaint both in matter and in the manner of rhyme +and spelling. As I also drew towards the porch, I looked up to see if I +could tell the time by the dial above it. I could not, nor (in spite of +my brief learning in Dr. Russell's grammar) could I interpret the Latin +motto, "_Fugit Hora. Ora_"--"The hour flies. Pray." + +As I came slowly and softly up the aisle, I fancied Eleanor was +kneeling, but a strange British shame of prayer made her start to her +feet and kept me from kneeling also; though the peculiar peace and +devout solemnity which seemed to be the very breath of that ancient +House of God made me long to do something more expressive of my feelings +than stand and stare. + +There was no handsome church at Riflebury; the one the Bullers +"attended" when we were at the seaside was new, and not beautiful. The +one Miss Mulberry took us to was older, but uglier. I had never seen one +of these old parish churches. This cathedral among the moors, with its +massive masonry, its dark oak carving, its fragments of gorgeous glass, +its ghostly hatchments and banners, and its aisles paved with the +tombstones of the dead, was a new revelation. + +I was silent awhile in very awe. I think it was a bird beginning to +chirp in the roof which made me dare to speak, and then I whispered, +"How quiet it is in here, and how cool!" + +I had hardly uttered the words when a flash of lightning made me start +and cry out. A heavy peal of thunder followed very quickly. + +"Don't be frightened, Margery dear," said Eleanor; "we have very heavy +storms here, and we had better go home. But I am so glad you admire our +dear old church. There was one very hot Sunday last summer, when a +thunderstorm came on during Evening Prayer. I was sitting in the choir, +where I could see the storm through the south transept door, and the +great stones in the transept arches. It was so cool in here, and all +along I kept thinking of 'a refuge from the storm, a shadow in the +heat,' and 'a great rock in a weary land.'" + +As we sat together at tea that evening, Eleanor went back to the subject +of the church. I made some remark about the gravestones in the aisles, +and she said, "Next time we go in, I want to show you one of them in the +chancel." + +"Who is buried there?" I asked. + +"My grandfather, he was vicar, you know, and my aunt, who was sixteen. +(My father has got the white gloves and wreath that were hung in the +church for her. They always used to do that for unmarried girls.) And my +sister; my only sister--little Margaret." + +I could not say anything to poor Eleanor. I stroked her head softly and +kissed it. + +"One thing that made me take to you," she went on, "was your name being +Margaret. I used to think she might have been like you. I have so wished +I had a sister. The boys are very dear, you know; but still boys think +about themselves, of course, and their own affairs. One has more to run +after them, you know. Not that any boys could be better than ours, +but--anyway, Margery darling, I wish you weren't here just on a visit, +but were going to stop here always, and be my sister!" + +"So do I!" I cried. "Oh! so very much, Eleanor!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A NEW HOME--THE ARKWRIGHTS' RETURN--THE BEASTS--GOING TO MEET THE +BOYS--JACK'S HATBOX--WE COME HOME A RATTLER. + + +It is not often (out of a fairy tale) that wishes to change the whole +current of one's life are granted so promptly as that wish of mine was. + +The next morning's post brought a letter from Mrs. Arkwright. They were +staying in the south of England, and had seen the Bullers, and heard all +their news. It was an important budget. They were going abroad once +more, and it had been arranged between my two guardians that I was to +remain in England for my education, and that my home was to be--with +Eleanor. Matilda was to go with her parents; to the benefit, it was +hoped, of her health. Aunt Theresa sent me the kindest messages, and +promised to write to me. Matilda sent her love to us both. + +"And the day after to-morrow they come home!" Eleanor announced. + +When the day came we spent most of it in small preparations and useless +restlessness. We filled all the flower vases in the drawing-room, put +some of the choicest roses in Mrs. Arkwright's bedroom, and made +ourselves very hot in hanging a small union-jack which belonged to the +boys out of our own window, which looked towards the high-road. Eleanor +even went so far as to provoke a severe snub from the cook, by offering +suggestions as to the food to be prepared for the travellers. + +The dogs fully understood that something was impending, and wandered +from room to room at our heels, sitting down to pant whenever we gave +them a chance, and emptying the water jug in Mr. Arkwright's +dressing-room so often that we were obliged to shut the door when Keziah +had once more filled the ewer. + +About half-an-hour after the curfew bell had rung the cab came. The dogs +were not shut up this time, and they, and we, and the Arkwrights met in +a very confused and noisy greeting. + +"GOD bless you, my dear!" I heard Mr. Arkwright say very affectionately, +and he added almost in the same breath, "Do call off the dogs, my dear, +or else take your mother's beasts." + +I suppose Eleanor chose the latter alternative, for she did not call off +the dogs, but she took away two or three tin cans with which Mr. +Arkwright was laden, and which had made him look like a particularly +respectable milkman. + +"What are they?" she asked. + +"Crassys," said Mrs. Arkwright, with apparent triumph in her tone, "and +Serpulae, and two Chitons, and several other things." + +I thought of Uncle Buller's "collection," and was about to ask if the +new "beasts" were insects, when Eleanor, after a doubtful glance into +the cans, said, "Have you brought any fresh water?" + +Mrs. Arkwright pointed triumphantly to a big stone-bottle cased in +wickerwork, under which the cabman was staggering towards the door. It +looked like spirits or vinegar, but was, as I discovered, seawater for +the aquarium. With this I had already made acquaintance, having helped +Eleanor to wipe the mouths of certain spotted sea anemones with a +camel's-hair brush every day since my arrival. + +"The Crassys are much more beautiful," she assured me, as we helped Mrs. +Arkwright to find places for the new-comers. "We call them Crassys +because their name is Crassicornis. I don't believe they'll live, +though, they are so delicate." + +"I rather think it may be because being so big they get hurt in being +taken off the rocks," said Mrs. Arkwright, "and we were very careful +with these." + +"I'm _afraid_ the Serpulae won't live!" said Eleanor, gazing anxiously +with puckered brows into the glass tank. + +Mrs. Arkwright was about to reply, when the dogs burst into the room, +and, after nearly upsetting both us and the aquarium, bounded out again. + +"Dear boys!" cried Eleanor. And "Dear boys!" murmured Mrs. Arkwright +from behind the magnifying glass, through which she was examining the +"beasts." + +"I wonder what they're running in and out for?" said I. + +The reason proved to be that supper was ready, and the dogs wanted us to +come into the dining-room. Mr. Arkwright announced it in more sedate +fashion, and took me with him, leaving Eleanor and her mother to follow +us. + +"In three days more," said Eleanor, as we sat down, "the boys will be +here, and then we shall be quite happy." + +Eleanor and I were as much absorbed by the prospect of the boys' arrival +as we had been by the coming of her parents. + +We made a "ruin" at the top of the little gardens, which did not quite +fulfil our ideal when all was done, but we hoped that it would look +better when the ivy was more luxuriant. We made all the beds look very +tidy. The fourth bed was given to me. + +"Now you _are_ our sister!" Eleanor cried. "It seems to make it so real +now you have got _her_ bed." + +We thoroughly put in order the old nursery, which was now "the boys' +room," a proceeding in which Growler and Pincher took great interest, +jumping on and off the beds, and smelling everything as we set it out. +Growler was Clement's dog, I found, and Pincher belonged to Jack. + +"They'll come in a cab, because of the luggage," said Eleanor, "and +because we are never quite sure when they will come; so it's no use +sending to meet them. They often miss trains on purpose to stay +somewhere on the road for fun. But I think they'll come all right this +time--I begged them to--and we'll go and meet them in the +donkey-carriage." + +The donkey-carriage was a pretty little thing on four wheels, with a +seat in front and a seat behind, each capable of holding one small +person. Eleanor had almost outgrown the front seat, but she managed to +squeeze into it, and I climbed in behind. We had dressed Neddy's head +and our own hats liberally with roses, so that our festive appearance +drew the notice of the villagers, more than one of whom, from their +cottage-doors, asked if we were going to meet "the young gentlemen," and +added, "They'll be rare and glad to get home, I reckon!" + +Impatience had made us early, and we drove some little distance before +espying the cab, which toiled uphill at much the same pace as the black +snails crawled by the roadside. Eleanor drew up by the ditch, and we +stood up and waved our handkerchiefs. In a moment two handkerchiefs were +waving from the cab-windows. We shouted, and faint hoorays came back +upon the breeze. Neddy pricked his ears, the dogs barked, and only the +cabman remained unmoved, though we could see sticks and umbrellas poked +at him from within, in the vain effort to induce him to hasten on. + +At last we met. The boys tumbled out, one on each side, and a good deal +of fragmentary luggage tumbled out after them. Clement seemed to be +rather older than Eleanor, and Jack, I thought, a little younger than +me. + +"How d'ye do, Margery?" said Jack, shaking me warmly by the hand. "I'm +awfully glad to hear the news about you; we shall be all square now, two +and two, like a quadrille." + +"How do you do, Miss Vandaleur?" said Clement. + +"Look here, Eleanor," Jack broke in again; "I'll drive Margery home in +the donkey-carriage, and you can go with Clem in the cab. I wish you'd +give me the wreath off your hat, too." + +Eleanor willingly agreed, the wreath was adjusted on Jack's hat, and we +were just taking our places, when he caught sight of the luggage that +had fallen out on Clement's side of the cab--some fishing-rods, a +squirrel in a fish-basket, and a hat-box. + +"Oh!" he screamed, "there's my hat-box! Take the reins, Margery!" and he +flew over the wheel, and returned, hat-box in hand. + +"Is it a new hat?" I asked sympathizingly. + +"A hat!" he scornfully exclaimed. "My hat's loose in the cab somewhere, +if it came at all; but all my beetles are in here, pinned to the sides. +Would you mind taking it on your knee, to be safe?" + +And having placed it there, he scrambled once more into the front seat, +and we were about to start (the cab was waiting for us, the cabman +looking on with a grim smile at Jack, whilst energetic Eleanor +rearranged the luggage inside), when there came a second check. + +"Have you got a pin?" Jack asked me. + +"I'll see," said I; "what for?" + +"To touch up Neddy with. We're going home a rattler." + +But on my earnestly remonstrating against the pin, Jack contented +himself with pointing a stick, which he assured me would "hurt much +more." + +"Now, cabby!" he cried, "keep your crawler back till we're well away. +You'd better let us go first, or we might pass you on the road, and hurt +the feelings of that spirited beast of yours. Do you like going fast, +Margery?" + +"As fast as you like," said I. + +I knew nothing whatever of horses and donkeys, or of what their poor +legs could bear; but I very much liked passing swiftly through the air. +I do not think Neddy suffered, however, though we went back at a pace +marvellously different from that at which we came. We were very light +weights, and Master Neddy was an overfed, underworked gentleman, with +the acutest discrimination as to his drivers. Jack's voice was quite +enough; the stick was superfluous. When we came to the top of the steep +hill leading down to the village, Jack asked me, "Shall we go down a +rattler?" + +"Oh, do!" said I. + +"Hold on to the hat-box, then, and don't tumble out." + +Down we went. The carriage swayed from side to side; I sat with my arms +tightly clasped round the hat-box, and felt as if I were flying straight +down on to the church-tower. It was delightful, but I noticed that Jack +did not speak till we reached the foot of the hill. Then he said, "Well, +that's a blessing! I never thought we should get safe to the bottom." + +"Then why did you drive so fast?" I inquired. + +"My dear Margery, there's no drag on this carriage; and when I'd once +given Neddy his head he couldn't stop himself, no more could I. But he's +a plucky, sure-footed little beast; and I shall walk up this hill out of +respect for him." + +I resolved to do the same, and clambered out, leaving the hat-box on the +seat. I went up to Jack, who was patting Neddy's neck, on which he stuck +out his right arm, and said, "Link!" + +"What?" said I. + +"Link," said Jack; and as he stuck out his elbow again in an +unmistakable fashion, I took his arm. + +"We call that linking, in these parts," said Jack. "Good-evening, Mrs. +Loxley. Good-evening, Peter. Thank you, thank you. I'm very glad to get +home too--I should think not!" These sentences were replies to the warm +greetings Jack received from the cottage-doors; the last to the remark, +"You don't find a many places to beat t'ould one, sir, I expect!" + +"I'm very popular in the village," said my eccentric companion, with a +sigh, as we turned into the drive. "Though I say it that shouldn't, you +think? Well! _Ita vita. Such is life's half circle_. Do you know +Leadbetter? That's the way he construed it." + +"I know you all talk in riddles," said I. + +"Well, never mind; you'll know Leadbetter, and all the old books in the +house by and by. Plenty of 'em, aren't there? The governor had a curate +once, when his throat was bad. _He_ said it was an Entertaining Library +of Useless Knowledge. I've brought home one more volume to add to it. +Second prize for chemistry. Only three fellows went in for it; which you +needn't allude to at head-quarters;" and he sighed again. + +As we passed slowly under the shadow of the heavy foliage, Jack, like +Eleanor, put up his left arm to drag down a bunch of roses. They were +further advanced now, and the shower of rose-leaves fell thickly like +snowflakes over us--over Jack and me, and Neddy and the carriage, with +the hat-box on the driving seat. We must have looked very queer, I +think, as we came up out of the overshadowed road, like dwarfs out of a +fairy tale, covered with flowers, and leading our carriage with its odd +occupant inside. + +Keziah, who had been counting the days to the holidays, ran down first +to meet us, beaming with pleasure; though when Jack, in the futile +attempt to play leap-frog with her against her will, damaged her cap, +and clung to her neck till I thought she would have been throttled, she +indignantly declared that, "Now the young gentlemen was home there was +an end of peace for everybody, choose who they might be." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +I CORRESPOND WITH THE MAJOR--MY COLLECTION--OCCUPATIONS--MADAME +AGAIN--FETE DE VILLAGE--THE BRITISH HOORAY. + + +I wrote to my old friends and relatives, with a full account of my new +home. Rather a comically-expressed account too, I fancy, from the bits +Uncle Buller used to quote in after years. I got charming letters from +him, piquant with his dry humour, and full of affection. Matilda +generally added a note also; and Aunt Theresa always sent love and +kisses in abundance, to atone for being too busy to write by that post. + +The fonder I grew of the Arkwrights, the better I seemed to love and +understand Uncle Buller. Apart as we were, we had now a dozen interests +in common--threads of those intellectual ties over which the changes and +chances of this mortal life have so little power. + +My sympathy was real, as well as ready, when the Major discovered a new +insect, almost invisible by the naked eye, which thenceforward bore the +terrible specific name of _Bulleriana_, suggesting a creature certainly +not less than a rhinoceros, and surrounding the Major's name with +something of the halo of immortality. He was equally glad to hear of +Jack's beetles and of my fresh-water shells. I had taken to the latter +as being "the only things not yet collected by somebody or other in the +house;" and I became so infatuated in the pursuit that I used to get up +at four o'clock in the morning to search the damp places and +water-herbage by the river, it being emphatically "the early bird who +catches" snails. After his great discovery, the Major constantly asked +if I had found a specimen of _Helix Vandaleuriana_ yet. It was a joke +between us--that new shell that I was to discover! + +I have an old letter open by me now, in which, writing of the +Arkwrights, he says, "Your dear father's daughter could have no better +home." And, as I read, my father's last hours come back before me, and I +hear the poor faint voice whispering, "You've got the papers, Buller? +Arkwright will be kind about it, I'm sure." And, "It's all dark now." +And with tears I wonder if he--with whom it is all light now--knows how +well his true friends have dealt by me, and how happy I am. + +To be busy is certainly half-way to being happy. And yet it is not so +with every kind of labour. Some occupations, however, do seem of +themselves to be peace-bringing; I mean, to be so independent of the +great good of being occupied at all. Gardening, sketching, and natural +history pursuits, for instance. Is it partly because one follows them in +the open air, in great measure?--fresh air, that mysteriously mighty +power for good! Anodyne, as well as tonic; dispeller of fever when other +remedies are powerless; and the best accredited recipe for long life. +Only partly, I think. + +One secret of the happiness of some occupations is, perhaps, that they +lift one away from petty cares and petty spites, without trying the +brain or strength unduly, as some other kinds of mental labour must do. +And how delightful is fellowship in such interests! What rivalries +without bitterness; what gossip without scandal; what gifts and +exchanges; what common interests and mutual sympathy! + +In such happy business the holidays went by. Then the question arose, +Were we to go back to school? Very earnestly we hoped not; and I think +the Arkwrights soon resolved not to send Eleanor away again. As to me, +the case was different. Mr. Arkwright felt that he must do what was best +for my education: and he wrote to consult with Major Buller. + +Fortunately for Eleanor and me, the Major was now as much prejudiced +against girls' schools as he had been against governesses; and as +masters were to be had at the nearest town, a home education was +decided upon. It met with the approval of such of my relatives as were +consulted--my great-grandmother especially--and it certainly met with +mine. + +Eleanor and I were very anxious to show that idleness was not our object +in avoiding Bush House. The one of my diaries that escaped burning has, +on the fly-leaf, one of the many "lesson plans" we made for ourselves. + +We used to get up at six o'clock, and work before breakfast. Certain +morning headaches, to which at this time I became subject, led to a +serious difference of opinion between me and Mrs. Arkwright; she +forbidding me to get up, and I holding myself to be much aggrieved, and +imputing the headaches to anything rather than what Keziah briefly +termed "book-larning upon an empty stomach." The matter was compromised, +thanks to Keziah, by that good creature's offering to bring me new milk +and bread-and-butter every morning before I began to work. She really +brought it before I dressed, and my headaches vanished. + +Though we did not wish to go back to Bush House, we were not quite +unmindful of our friends there. Eleanor wrote to thank Madame for the +flowers, and received a long and enthusiastic letter in reply--in +French, of course, and pointing out one or two blunders in Eleanor's +letter, which was in French also. She begged Eleanor to continue to +correspond with her, for the improvement of her "composition." + +Poor Madame! She was indeed an indefatigable teacher, and had a real +ambition for the success of her pupils, which, in the drudgery of her +life, was almost grand. + +Strange to say, she once came to the Vicarage. It was during the summer +succeeding that in which I came to live with the Arkwrights. She had +been in the habit of spending the holidays with a family in the country, +where, I believe, she gave some instruction in French and music in +return for her expenses. That summer she was out of health, and thinking +herself unable to fulfil her part of the bargain, she would not go. +After severe struggles with her sensitive scruples, she was persuaded to +come to us instead, on the distinct condition that she was to do nothing +in the way of "lessons," but talk French with us. + +To persuade her to accept any payment for her services was the subject +of another long struggle. The thriftiest of women in her personal +expenditure, and needing money sorely, Madame was not grasping. Indeed, +her scruples on this subject were troublesome. She was for ever pursuing +us, book in hand, and with a sun-veil and umbrella to shield her +complexion, into the garden or the hayfield, imploring us to come in out +of the wind and sun, and do "a little of dictation--of composition," or +even to permit her to hear us play that duet from the 'Semiramide,' of +which the time had seemed to her on the last occasion far from perfect. + +Her despair when Mrs. Arkwright supported our refusals was comical, and +she was only pacified at last by having the "scrap-bag" of odds and ends +of net, muslin, lace, and embroidery handed over to her, from which she +made us set after set of dainty collars and sleeves in various "modes," +sitting well under the shade of the trees, on a camp-stool, with a +camphor-bag to keep away insects, and in bodily fear of the dogs. + +Poor Madame! I thought she would have had a fit on the first night of +her arrival, when the customary civility was paid of offering her a dog +to sleep on her bed. She never got really accustomed to them, and they +never seemed quite to understand her. To the end of her stay they +snuffed at her black skirts suspiciously, as if she were still more or +less of an enigma to them. Madame was markedly civil to them, and even +addressed them from time to time as "bons enfants," in imitation of our +phrase "dear boys"; but more frequently, in watching the terms on which +they lived with the family, she would throw up her little brown hands +and exclaim, "_Menage extraordinaire!_" + +I am sure she thought us a strange household in more ways than one, but +I think she grew fond of us. For Eleanor she had always had a liking; +about Eleanor's mother she became rhapsodical. + +"How good!" so she cried to me, "and how truthful--how altogether +truthful! What talents also, my faith! Miss Arkwright has had great +advantages. A mother extraordinary!" + +Mrs. Arkwright had many discussions with Madame on political subjects, +and also on the education of girls. On the latter their views were so +essentially different, that the discussion was apt to wax hot. Madame +came at last to allow that for English girls Madame Arkwright's views +might be just, but _pour les filles francaises_--she held to her own +opinions. + +With the boys she got on very well. At first they laughed at her; then +Clement became polite, and even learned to speak French with her after a +fashion. Jack was not only ignorant of French, but his English was so +mixed with school-boy idioms, that Madame and he seldom got through a +conversation without wonderful complications, from which, however, +Jack's expressive countenance and ready wit generally delivered them in +the long run. I do not know whether, on the whole, Madame did not like +Mr. Arkwright best of all. _Le bon pasteur_, as she styled him. + +"The Furrin Lady," as she was called in the village, was very fond of +looking into the cottages, and studying the ways of the country +generally. + +I never shall forget the occurrence of the yearly village fair or feast +during her visit: her anxiety to be present--her remarkable costume on +the occasion--and the strong conviction borne in upon Eleanor and me +that the Fat Lady in the centre booth was quite a secondary attraction +to the Furrin Lady between us, with the raw lads and stolid farmers who +had come down from the hills, with their wise sheep-dogs at their heels. +If they stared at her, however, Madame was not unobservant of them, and +the critical power was on her side. + +"These men and their dogs seem to me alike," said she. "Both of +them--they stare so much and say so little. But the looks of the dogs +are altogether the more _spirituels_," she added. + +I should not like to record all that she said on the subject of our +village feast. It was not complimentary, and to some extent the bitter +general observations on our national amusements into which her +disappointment betrayed her were justified by facts. But it was not our +fault that, in translating village feast into _fete de village_, she +had allowed her imagination to mislead her with false hopes. She had +expected a maypole, a dance of peasants, gay dresses, smiling faces, +songs, fruit, coffee, flowers, and tasteful but cheap wares of small +kinds in picturesque booths. She had adorned herself, and Eleanor and +me, with collars and cuffs of elaborate make and exquisite "get-up" by +her own hands. She wore a pale pink and a dead scarlet geranium, +together with a spray of wistaria leaf, in admirable taste, on her dark +dress. Her hat was marvellous; her gloves were perfect. She had a few +shillings in her pocket to purchase souvenirs for the household; her +face beamed in anticipation of a day of simple, sociable, uncostly +pleasure, such as we English are so lamentably ignorant of. But I think +the only English thing she had prepared herself to expect was what she +called "The Briteesh hooray." + +Dirt, clamour, oyster-shells, ginger-beer bottles, stolid curiosity, +beery satisfaction, careworn stall-keepers with babies-in-arms and +strange trust about their wares and honesty over change; +giddy-go-rounds, photograph booths, marionettes, the fat woman, the +double-headed monstrosity, and the teeming beer-houses---- + +Poor Madame! The contrast was terrible. She would not enter a booth. She +turned homewards in a rage of vexation, and shut herself up in her +bedroom (I suspect with tears of annoyance and disappointment), whilst +Eleanor and I went back into the feast, and were photographed with dear +boys and Clement. + +Clement was getting towards an age when clever youngsters are not unapt +to exercise their talents in depreciating home surroundings. He said +that it was no wonder that Madame was disgusted, and scolded us for +taking her into the feast. Jack took quite a different view of the +matter. + +"The feast's very good fun in its way," said he; "and Madame only wants +_tackling_. I'll tackle her." + +"Nonsense!" said Clement. + +"I bet you a shilling I take her through every mortal thing this +afternoon," said Jack. + +"You've cheek enough," retorted his elder brother. + +But after luncheon, when Madame was again in her room, Jack came to me +with a nosegay he had gathered, to beg me to arrange it properly, and +put a paper frill round it. With some grass and fern-leaves, I made a +tasteful bouquet, and added a frill, to Jack's entire satisfaction. He +took it up-stairs, and we heard him knock at Madame's door. After a +pause ("I'm sure she's crying again!" said Eleanor) Madame came out, and +a warm discussion began between them, of which we only heard fragments. +Madame's voice, as the shrillest, was most audible, and it rose into +distinctness as she exclaimed, "Anything soh dirrty, soh meean, soh +folgaire, I nevaire saw." + +Again the discussion proceeded, and we only caught a few of Jack's +arguments about "customs of the country," "for the fun of it," etc. + +"Fun?" said Madame. + +"For a joke," said Jack. + +"_Ah, c'est vrai_, for the choke," she said. + +"And _avec moi_," Jack continued. "There's French for you, Madame! Come +along!" + +Madame laughed. + +"She'll go," said Eleanor. + +"_Eh bien!_" Madame cried gaily. "For the choke. _Avec vous, Monsieur +Jack._ Ha! ha! _Allons!_ Come along!" + +"Link, Madame," said Jack, as they came down-stairs, Madame smarter than +ever, and bouquet in hand. + +"Mais _link_? What is this?" said she. + +"Take my arm," said Jack. "I'll treat you to everything." + +"Mais _treat_? What is that?" said Madame, whose beaming good-humour +only expanded the more when Jack explained that it was a pecuniary +attention shown by rustic swains to their "young women." + +As Clement came into the hall he met Madame hanging on Jack's arm, and +absolutely radiant. + +"You're not going into that beastly place again?" said he. + +"For the choke, Monsieur Clement. _Ah, oui!_ And with Monsieur Jack." + +"You may as well come, Clem," said Eleanor, and we followed, laughing. + +Madame had now no time for discontent. Jack held her fast. He gave her +gingerbread at one stall, and gingerbeer at another, and cracked nuts +for her all along. He vowed that the oyster-shells were flowers, and the +empty bottles bouquet-holders, and offered to buy her a pair of +spectacles to see matters more clearly with. + +"Couleur de rose?" laughed Madame. + +We went in a body to the marionettes, and Madame screamed as we climbed +the inclined plane to enter, and scrambled down the frail scaffolding to +the "reserved seats." These cost twopence a head, and were "reserved" +for us alone. The dolls were really cleverly managed. They performed the +closing scenes of a pantomime. The policeman came to pieces when clown +and harlequin pulled at him. People threw their heads at each other, and +shook their arms off. The transformation scene was really pretty, and it +only added to the joke that the dirty old proprietor burned the red +light under our very noses, amid a storm of chaff from Jack. + +From the marionettes we went to the fat woman. A loathsome sight, which +turned me sick; but, for some inexplicable reason, seemed highly to +gratify Madame. She and Jack came out in fits of laughter, and he said, +"Now for the two-headed monstrosity. It'll just suit you, Madame!" + +At the door, Madame paused. "Mais, ce n'est pas pour des petites +filles," she said, glancing at Eleanor and me. + +"_Feel?_" said Jack, who was struggling through the crowd, which was +dense here. "It feels nothing. It's in a bottle. Come along!" + +"All right, Madame," said Eleanor, smiling. "We'll wait for you +outside." + +We next proceeded to the photographer's, where Jack and Madame were +photographed together with Pincher. + +By Madame's desire she was now led to the "bazaar," where she bought a +collar for Pincher, two charming china boxes, in the shape of dogs' +heads, for Eleanor and her mother, a fan for me, a walking-stick for +Monsieur le Pasteur, and some fishing-floats for Clement. By this time +some children had gathered round us. The children of the district were +especially handsome, and Madame was much smitten by their rosy cheeks +and many-shaded flaxen hair. + +"Ah!" she sighed, "I must make some little presents to the children;" +and she looked anxiously over the stalls. + +"Violin, one and six," said the saleswoman. "Nice work-box for a little +girl, half-a-crown." + +"Half a fiddlestick," said Jack promptly. "What have you got for a +halfpenny?" + +"Them's halfpenny balls, whips, and dolls. Them churns and mugs is a +halfpenny; and so's the little tin plates. Them's the halfpenny monkeys +on sticks." + +"Now, Madame," said Jack, "put that half-crown back, and give me a +shilling. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. There are your +presents; and now for the children!" + +Madame showed a decided disposition to reward personal beauty, which +Jack overruled at once. + +"The prettiest? I see myself letting you! Church Sunday scholars is my +tip; and I shall put them through the Catechism test. Look here, young +un, what's your name? Who gave you this name?" + +"Ma godfeythers and godmoothers," the young urchin began. + +"That'll do," said Jack. "Take your whip, and be thankful. Now, my +little lass, who gave you this name?" + +"Me godfeythers----" + +"All right. Take your doll, and drop a curtsy; and mind you don't take +the curtsy, and drop your doll. Now, my boy, tell me how many there +be?" + +"Ten." + +"Which be they? I mean, take your monkey, and make your bow. Next child, +come up." + +Clem, Eleanor, and I kept back the crowd as well as we could; but +children pressed in on all sides. Clem brought a shilling out of his +pocket, and handed it over to Jack. + +"You've won your bet, old man," he said. + +"You're a good fellow, Clem. I say, lay it out among the halfpenny +lot--will you?--and then give them to Madame. Keep your eye open for +Dissenters, and send the Church children first." + +The forty-eight halfpennyworths proved to be sufficient for all, +however, though the orthodoxy of one or two seemed doubtful. + +Madame was tired; but the position had pleased her, and she gave away +the toys with a charming grace. We were leaving the fair when some small +urchins, who had either got or hoped to get presents, and were (I +suspected) partly impelled also by a sense of the striking nature of +Madame's appearance, set up a lusty cheer. + +Madame paused. Her eyes brightened; her thin lips parted with a smile. +In a voice of intense satisfaction, she murmured: + +"It is the Briteesh hooray!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +WE AND THE BOYS--WE AND THE BOYS AND OUR FADS--THE LAMP OF ZEAL--CLEMENT +ON UNREALITY--JACK'S OINTMENT. + + +Our life on the moors was, I suppose, monotonous. I do not think we ever +found it dull; but it was not broken, as a rule, by striking incidents. + +The coming and going of the boys were our chief events. We packed for +them when they went away. We wrote long letters to them, and received +brief but pithy replies. We spoke on their behalf when they wanted +clothes or pocket-money. We knew exactly how to bring the news of good +marks in school and increased subscriptions to cricket to bear in +effective combination upon the parental mind, and were amply rewarded by +half a sheet, acknowledging the receipt of a ten-shilling piece in a +match-box (the Arkwrights had a strange habit of sending coin of the +realm by post, done up like botanical specimens), with brief directions +as to the care of garden or collection, and perhaps a rude outline of +the head-master's nose--"In a great hurry, from your loving and grateful +Bro." + +We kept their gardens tidy, preserved their collections from dust, damp, +and Keziah, and knitted socks for them. I learned to knit, of course. +Every woman knits in that village of stone. And "between lights" +Eleanor and I plied our needles on the boys' behalf, and counted the +days to the holidays. + +We had fresh "fads" every holidays. Many of our plans were ambitious +enough, and the results would, no doubt, have been great had they been +fully carried out. But Midsummer holidays, though long, are limited in +length. + +Once we made ourselves into a Field Naturalists' Club. We girls gave up +our "spare dress wardrobe" for a museum. We subdivided the shelves, and +proposed to make a perfect collection of the flora and entomology of the +neighbourhood. Eleanor and I really did continue to add specimens whilst +the boys were at school; but they came home at Christmas devoted, body +and soul, to the drama. We were soon converted to the new fad. The +wardrobe became a side-scene in our theatre, and Eleanor and Clement +laboured day and night with papers of powdered paint, and kettles of hot +size, in converting canvas into scenery. "Theatricals" promised to be a +lasting fancy; but the next holidays were in fine weather, and we made +the drop-curtain into a tent. + +When the boys were at school, Eleanor and I were fully occupied. We took +a good deal of pains with our room: half of it was mine now. I had my +knick-knack table as well as Eleanor, my own books and pictures, my own +photographs of the boys and of the dear boys, my own pot plants, and my +own dog--a pug, given to me by Jack, and named "Saucebox." In Jack's +absence, Pincher also looked on me as his mistress. + +Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regulations of our +own devising: private codes, generally kept in cipher, for our own +personal self-discipline, and laws common to us both for the employment +of our time in joint duties--lessons, parish work, and so forth. I think +we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too often. I +make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more alone. I wonder +if I really keep them better? But if not, may GOD, I pray Him, send me +back the restless zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which +He gives in early youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in +conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful +of one's own comfort and one's own property, more self-satisfied in +leaving high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe +that one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those +good works, those great triumphs over evil, which single hands effect +sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may +have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts for +good, as if some special gifts were made to them in middle age which are +withheld from other men. Is it not rather that some few souls keep alive +the lamp of zeal and high desire which GOD lights for most of us while +life is young? + +Eleanor and I worked at our lessons by ourselves. We always had her +mother to "fall back upon," as we said. When we took up the study of +Italian in order to be able to read Dante--moved thereto by the +attractions of the long volume of Flaxman's illustrations of the 'Divina +Commedia'--we had to "fall back" a good deal on Mrs. Arkwright's +scholarship. And this in spite of all the helps the library afforded us, +the best of dictionaries, English "cribs," and about six of those +elaborate commentaries upon the poem, of which Italians have been so +prolific. + +During the winter the study of languages was commonly uppermost; in +summer sketching was more favoured. + +I do think sketching brings one a larger amount of pleasure than almost +any other occupation. And like "collecting," it is a very sociable +pursuit when one has fellow-sketchers as well as fellow-naturalists. And +this, I must confess, is a merit in my eyes, I being of a sociable +disposition! Eleanor could live alone, I think, and be happy; but I +depend largely on my fellow-creatures. + +Jack and I were talking rather sentimentally the other day about "old +times," and I said: + +"How jolly it was, that summer we used to sketch so much--all four of us +together!" + +And Jack, who was rubbing some new stuff of his own compounding into his +fishing-boots, replied: + +"Awfully. I vote we take to it again when the weather's warmer." + +But Jack is so sympathetic, he will agree with anything one says. +Indeed, I am sure that he feels what one feels--for the time, at any +rate. + +Clement is very different. He always disputes and often snubs what one +says; partly, I am sure, from a love of truth--a genuine desire to keep +himself and everybody else from talking in an unreal way, and from +repeating common ideas without thinking them out at first hand; and +partly, too, from what Keziah calls the "contradictiousness" of his +temper. He was in the room when Jack and I were talking, but he was not +talking with us. He was reading for his examination. + +All the Arkwrights can work through noise and in company, having +considerable powers of mental abstraction. I think they even sometimes +combine attention to their own work with an occasional skimming of the +topics current in the room as well. + +Some outlying feeler of Clement's brain caught my remark and Jack's +reply. + +"My dear Margery," said he, "you are at heart one of the most unaffected +people I know. Pray be equally genuine with your head, and do not +encourage Jack in his slipshod habits of thought and conversation +by----" + +"Slipshod!" interrupted Jack, holding his left arm out at full length +before him, the hand of which was shod with a fishing-boot. "Slipshod! +They fit as close as your convictions, and would be as stiff and +inexorable as logic if I didn't soften them with this newly-invented and +about-to-be-patented ointment by the warmth of a cheerful fire and +Margery's beaming countenance." + +Clement had been reading during this sentence. Then he lifted his head, +and said pointedly: + +"What I was going to advise _you_, Margery, is never to get into the +habit of adopting sentiments till you are quite sure you really mean +them. It is by the painful experience of my own folly that I know what +trouble it gives one afterwards. If ever the time comes when you want to +know your real opinion on any subject, the process of getting rid of +ideas you have adopted without meaning them will not be an easy one." + +I am not as intellectual as the Arkwrights. I can always see through +Jack's jokes, but I am sometimes left far behind when Eleanor or Clement +"take flight," as Jack calls it, on serious subjects. I really did not +follow Clement on this occasion. + +With some hesitation I said: + +"I don't know that I quite understand." + +"I'm sure you don't," said Jack. "I have feared for some time that your +hair was getting too thick for the finer ideas of this household to +penetrate to your brain. Allow me to apply a little of this ointment to +the parting, which in your case is more definite than with Eleanor; and +as our lightest actions should proceed from principles, I may mention +that the principle on which I propose to apply the Leather-softener to +your scalp is that on which the blacksmith's wife gave your cholera +medicine to the second girl, when she began with rheumatic fever--'it +did such a deal of good to our William.' Now, this unguent has done 'a +deal of good' to the leather of my boots. Why should it not successfully +lubricate the skin of your skull?" + +Only the dread of "a row" between Jack and Clem enabled me to keep +anything like gravity. + +"Don't talk nonsense, Jack!" said I, as severely as I could. (I fear +that, like the rest of the world, I snubbed Jack rather than Clement, +because his temper was sweeter, and less likely to resent it.) +"Clement, I'm very stupid, but I don't quite see how what _you_ said +applies to what _I_ said." + +"You said, 'How happy we were, that summer we went sketching!' or words +to that effect. It's just like a man's writing about the careless +happiness of childhood, when he either forgets, or refuses to advert to, +the toothache, the measles, learning his letters, the heat of the +night-nursery, not being allowed to sit down in the yard whilst his +knickerbockers were new, going to bed at eight o'clock, and having a lie +on his conscience. I have striven for more accurate habits of thought, +and I remember distinctly that you cried over more than one of your +sketches." + +"I got into the 'Household Album' with mine, however," said Jack; "and I +defy an A.R.A. to have had more difficulty in securing his position." + +"I'm afraid your appearance in the _Phycological Quarterly_ was better +deserved," said Mrs. Arkwright, without removing her eye from the +microscope she was using at a table just opposite to Clem's. + +But this demands explanation, and I must go back to the time of which +Jack and I spoke--when we used to go sketching together. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE "HOUSEHOLD ALBUM"--SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES--A NEW +SPECIES?--JACK'S BARGAIN--THEORIES. + + +Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts at +drawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun a +scrapbook, or "Household Album," as it was called, into which she pasted +such of her children's original drawings as were held good enough for +the honour; the age of the artist being taken into account. + +Jack's gift in this line was not as great as that of Clement or Eleanor, +but this was not the only reason why no drawing of his appeared in the +scrapbook. Mrs. Arkwright demanded more evidence of pains and industry +than Jack was wont to bestow on his sketches or designs. He resented his +exclusion, and made many efforts to induce his mother to accept his +hasty productions; but it was not till the summer to which I alluded +that Jack took his place in the "Household Album." + +It was during a long drive, in which we were exhibiting the country to +some friends, that Eleanor and I chose the place of that particular +sketching expedition. The views it furnished had the first, and almost +the only, quality demanded by young and tyro sketchers--they were very +pretty. + +There was some variety, too, to justify our choice. From the sandy road, +where a heathery bank afforded the convenience of seats, we could look +down into a valley with a winding stream, whose banks rose into +hillsides which lost themselves in finely-coloured mountains of +moorland. + +Farther on, a scramble on foot over walls and gates had led us into a +wooded gorge fringed with ferns, where a group of trees of particularly +graceful form roused Eleanor's admiration. + +"What a lovely view!" had burst from the lips of our friends at every +quarter of a mile; for they were of that (to me) trying order of +carriage companions who talk about the scenery as you go, as a point of +politeness. + +But the views _were_ beautiful--"Sketches everywhere!" we cried. + +"There's nothing to make a sketch _of_ round the Vicarage," we added. +"We've done the church, with the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, and +without the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, till we are sick of the +subject." + +So, the weather being fine, and even hot, we provided ourselves with +luncheon and sketching materials, and made an expedition to the point +we had selected. + +We were tired by the time we reached it. This does not necessarily damp +one's sketching ardour, but it is unfavourable to accuracy of outline, +and especially so to purity of colouring. However, we did not hesitate. +Eleanor went down to her study of birch-trees in the gorge, Clement +climbed up the bank to get the most extended view of the Ewden Valley; I +contented myself with sitting by the roadside in front of the same view, +and Jack stayed with me. + +He had come with us. Not that he often went out sketching, but our +descriptions of the beauty of the scenery had roused him to make another +attempt for the "Household Album." Seldom lastingly provided, for his +own part, with apparatus of any kind, Jack had a genius for purveying +all that he required in an emergency. On this occasion he had borrowed +Mrs. Arkwright's paint-box (without leave), and was by no means ill +supplied with pencils and brushes which certainly were not his own. He +had hastily stripped a couple of sheets from my block whilst I was +dressing, and with these materials he seated himself on that side of me +which enabled him to dip into my water-pot, and began to paint. + +Not half-way through my outline, I was just beginning to realize the +complexities of a bird's-eye view with your middle distance in a +valley, and your foreground sloping steeply upwards to your feet, when +Jack, washing out a large, dyed sable sky-brush in my pot, with an +amount of splashing that savoured of triumph, said: + +"_That's_ done!" + +I paused in a vigorous mental effort to put aside my _knowledge_ of the +relative sizes of objects, and to _see_ that a top stone of my +foreground wall covered three fields, the river, and half the river's +bank beyond. + +"_Done?_" I exclaimed. Jack put his brush into his mouth, in defiance of +all rules, and deliberately sucked it dry. Then he waved his sketch +before my eyes. + +"The effect's rather good," I confessed, "but oh, Jack, it's out of all +proportion! That gate really looks as big as the whole valley and the +hills beyond. The top of the gate-post ought to be up in the sky." + +"It would look beastly ugly if it was," replied he complacently. + +"You've got a very good tint for those hills; but the foreground is mere +scrambling. Oh, Jack, do finish it a little more! You would draw so +nicely if you had any patience." + +"How imperfectly you understand my character," said Jack, packing up his +traps. "I would sit on a monument and smile at grief with any one, this +very day, if the monument were in a grove, or even if I had an umbrella +to smile under. To sit unsheltered under this roasting sun, and make +myself giddy by gauging proportions with a pencil at the end of my nose, +or smudging my mistakes with melting india-rubber, is quite another +matter. I'm off to Eleanor. I've got another sheet of paper, and I think +trees are rather in my line." + +"I _thought_ my block looked smaller," said I, rapidly comparing Jack's +paper and my own, with a feeling for size developed by my labours. + +"Has she got a water-pot?" asked Jack. + +"She is sure to have," said I pointedly. "She always takes her own +materials with her." + +"How fortunate for those who do not!" said Jack. "Now, Margery dear, +don't look sulky. I knew you wouldn't grudge me a bit of paper to get +into the 'Household Album' with. Come down into the ravine. You're as +white as a blank sheet of Whatman's hot-pressed water-colour paper!" + +The increasing heat was really beginning to overpower me, but I refused +to leave my sketch. Jack pinned a large white pocket-handkerchief to my +shoulders--"to keep the sun from the spine"--and departed to the ravine. + +By midday my outline was in. One is no good judge of one's own work, +but I think, on the whole, that it was a success. + +It is always refreshing to complete a stage of anything. I began to feel +less hot and tired, as I passed a wash of clean water over my outline, +and laying it in the sun to dry, got out my colours and brushes. + +As I did so, one of the little gusts of wind which had been an +unpleasant feature of this very fine day, and which, threatening a +change of weather, made us anxious to finish our sketches at a sitting, +came down the sandy road. In an instant the damp surface of my block +looked rough enough to strike matches on. But impatience is not my +besetting sin, and I had endured these little catastrophes before. I +waited for the block to dry before I brushed off the sand. I also waited +till the little beetle, who had crept into my sky, and was impeded in +his pace by my first wash, walked slowly down through all my distances, +and quitted the block by the gate in the foreground. This was partly +because I did not want to hurt him, and partly because a white cumulus +cloud is a bad part of your sketch to kill a black beetle on. + +I washed over my paper once more, and holding it on my knee to dry just +as much and no more than was desirable, I looked my subject in the face +with a view to colour. + +A long time passed. I had looked and looked again; I had washed in and +washed out; I had realized the difficulty of the subject without +flinching, and had tried hard to see and represent the colouring before +me, when Clement (having exhausted his water in a similar process) came +down the hill behind me, with a surly and sunburnt face, to replenish +his bottle at a wayside water-trough. + +It was then that, as he said, he found me crying. + +"It's not because it's difficult and I'm very stupid," I whimpered. "I +don't mind working on and trying to make the best of a thing. And it's +not the wind or the sand, though it has got dreadfully into the paints, +particularly the Italian Pink; but what makes me hopeless, Clement, is +that I don't believe it would look well if I could paint it perfectly. +It looked lovely as we were driving home the other evening, but now---- +Just look at those fields, Clem; I _know_ they're green, but really and +truly I _see_ them just the same colour as this road, and I don't think +there is the difference of a shade between them and that gate-post. What +shall I do?" + +A tear fell out of my eyelashes and dropped on to my river. Clement took +the sketch from me, and dried up the tear with a bit of blotting-paper. + +Then to my amazement he gave rather a favourable verdict. It comforted +me, for Clement never says anything that he does not mean. + +"It's not _half_ bad, Margery! Wait till you see mine! How did you get +the tints of that hillside? You've a very truthful mind, that's one +thing, and a very true eye as well. I do admire the way you abstain from +filling up with touches that mean nothing." + +"Oh, Clement!" cried I, so gratified that I began to feel ready to go on +again. "Do you really think I can make anything of it?" + +"Nothing more," said Clement. "Don't put another touch. It's unfinished, +but no finishing would do any good. We've got an outlandish subject and +a bad time of day. But keep it just as it is, and three months hence, on +a cool day, you'll be pleased when you look at it." + +"Perhaps if I went on a little with the foreground," I suggested; but +even as I spoke, I put my hand to my head. + +"Go to Eleanor in the ravine, at once," said Clement imperatively. "I'll +bring your things. What _did_ make us such fools as to come out without +umbrellas?" + +"We came out in the cool of the morning," said I, as I staggered off; +"besides, it's almost impossible to hold one and paint too." + +Once in the ravine, I dropped among the long grass and ferns, and the +damp, refreshing coolness of my resting-place was delicious. + +Eleanor was not faint, neither had she been crying; but she was not much +happier with her sketch than I had been with mine. The jutting group of +birch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably. But when +she came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, her +very outline had begun to look less satisfactory. When it came to +colour--and the midday sun was darting and glittering through the +interstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of _chiaroscuro_ +to a subject already defective in point and contrast--Eleanor was almost +in despair. + +"Where's Jack?" said I, after condoling with her. + +"He tried the birches for ten minutes, and then he went up the stream to +look for _algae_." + +At this moment Jack appeared. He came slowly towards us, looking at +something in his hand. + +"Lend me your magnifying-glass, Eleanor," said he, when he had reached +us. + +Eleanor unfastened it from her chatelaine, and Jack became absorbed in +examining some water-weed in a dock-leaf. + +"What is it?" said we. + +"It's a new species, I believe. Look, Eleanor!" and he gave her the leaf +and the glass with an almost pathetic anxiety of countenance. + +My opinion carried no weight in the matter, but Eleanor was nearly as +good a naturalist as her mother. And she was inclined to agree with +Jack. + +"It's too good to be true! But I certainly don't know it. Where did you +find it?" + +"No, thank you," said Jack derisively. "I mean to keep the habitat to +myself for the present. For _a very good reason_. Margery, my child, put +that sketch of mine into the pocket of your block. (The paper is much +about the size of your own!) It is going into the 'Household Album.'" + +We went home earlier than we had intended. Even the perseverance of +Eleanor and Clement broke down under their ill-success. Jack was the +only well-satisfied one of the party, and, with his usual good-nature, +he tried hard to infect me with his cheerfulness. + +"I think," said I, looking dolefully at my sketch, "that a good deal of +the fault must have been in my eyes. I suspect one can't see colours +properly when one is feeling sick and giddy. But the glare of the sun +was the worst. I couldn't tell red from green on my palette, so no +wonder the fields and everything else looked all the same colour. And +yet what provokes one is the feeling that an artist would have made a +sketch of it somehow. The view is really beautiful." + +"And that is really beautiful," said Eleanor, pointing to the birch +group and its background. "And what a mess I have made of it! I wish I'd +stuck to pencil. And yet, as you say, an artist would have got a picture +out of it." + +"I'll tell you what," said Jack, who was lying face downwards with my +picture spread before him, "I believe that any one who knew the dodges, +when he saw that everything looked one pale, yellowish, brownish tint +with the glare of the sun, would have boldly taken a weak wash of all +the drab-looking colours in his box right over everything, picked out a +few stones in his foreground wall, dodged in a few shadows and so on, +and made a clever sketch of it. And the same with Eleanor's. If he had +got his birch-trees half as good as hers, and had then seen what a +muddle the trees behind were in, I believe he would only have washed in +a little blue and grey behind the birches, 'indicated' (as our old +drawing-master at school calls it) a distant stem or two--and there +would have been another clever sketch for you!" + +"Another clever falsehood, you mean," said Clement hotly, "to ruin +people's taste, and encourage idle painters in showy trickery, and make +them believe they can improve upon Nature's colouring." + +"Nature's colouring varies," said Jack. "Distant trees often _are_ blue +and grey, though these, just now, are of the rankest green." + +Clement replied, Jack responded, Clement retorted, and a fierce +art-discussion raged the whole way home. + +We were well used to it. Indeed all conversations with us had a tendency +to become controversial. Over and above which there was truth in +Keziah's saying, "The young gentlemen argle-bargles fit to deave a +body's head; and dear knows what it's all about." + +Clement finished a vehement and rather didactic confession of his +art-faith as we climbed the steep hill to the Vicarage. The keynote of +it was that one ought to draw what he sees, exactly as he sees it; and +that every subject has a beauty of its own which he ought to perceive if +his perception is not "emasculated by an acquired taste for +prettinesses." + +"I shall be in the 'Household Album' this evening," said Jack, in +deliberate tones. "My next ambition is the Society of Painters in Water +Colours. The subject of my first painting is settled. Three grass fields +(haymaking over the day before yesterday). A wall in front of the first +field, a hedge in front of the second, a wall in front of the third. A +gate in the middle of the wall. A spotted pig in the middle of the +field. The sun at its meridian; the pig asleep. Motto, 'Whatever is, is +beautiful.'" + +Eleanor and I (in the interests of peace) hastened to change the +subject by ridiculing Jack's complacent conviction that his sketch would +be accepted for the "Household Album." + +And yet it was. + +The fresh-water _alga_ Jack had been lucky enough to find was a new +species, and threw Mrs. Arkwright and Eleanor into a state of the +highest excitement. But all their entreaties failed to persuade Jack to +disclose the secret of the habitat. + +"Put my sketch into the 'Household Album,' and I'll tell you all about +it," said he. + +Mrs. Arkwright held out against this for half-an-hour. Then she gave +way. Jack's sketch was gummed in (it took up a whole page, being the +full size of my block), and he told us all about the water-weed. + +It was described and figured in the _Phycological Quarterly_, and +received the specific name of _Arkwrightii_, and Jack's double triumph +was complete. + +We were very glad for his success, but it almost increased the sense of +disappointment that our share of the expedition had been so unlucky. + +"It seems such a waste," said I, "to have got to such a lovely place +with one's drawing things and plenty of time, and to come away without a +sketch worth keeping at the end, just because one doesn't know the right +way of working." + +"I think there's a good deal in what Jack said about your sketch," said +Eleanor; "and I think if one looked at the way real artists have treated +similar subjects, and then went at it again and tried to do it on a +similar principle----" + +"If ever we do go there again," Clement interrupted, "but I don't +suppose we shall--these holidays. And the way summer after summer slips +away is awful. I'm more and more convinced that it's a great mistake to +have so many hobbies. No life is long enough for more than one pursuit, +and it's ten to one you die in the middle of mastering that. One is sure +to die in the early stages of half-a-dozen." + +Clement is very apt to develop some odd theory of this kind, and to +preach it with a severity that borders on gloom. I never know what to +say, even if I disagree with him; but Eleanor takes up the cudgels at +once. + +"I don't think I agree with you," she said, giving a shove to her soft +elastic hair which did not improve the indefiniteness of the parting. +"Of course it's unsatisfactory in one way to feel one will never live to +finish things, but in another way I think it's a great comfort to feel +one can never use them up or outlive them if one lasts on to be a +hundred. And though one gets very cross and miserable with failing so +over things one works at, I don't know whether one would be so much +happier when one was at the top of the tree. I'm not sure that the +chief pleasure isn't actually in the working at things--I mean in the +drudgery of learning, rather than in the triumph of having learnt." + +"There's something in that," said Clement. And it was a great deal for +Clement to say. + +It does not take much to convert _me_ to Eleanor's views of anything. +But I do think experience bears out what she said about this matter. + +Perhaps that accounts for my having a happy remembrance of old times +when we worked at things together, even if we failed and cried over +them. + +I know that practically, now, I would willingly join the others in going +at anything, though I could not promise not to be peevish over my own +stupidity sometimes, and if I was very much tired. + +I don't think there was anything untrue in my calling the times we went +sketching together happy times--in spite of what Clement says. + +But he does rule such very straight lines all over life, and I sometimes +think one may rule them too straight--even for full truth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--CLIQUE--THE LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE--OUT +VISITING--HOUSE-PRIDE--DRESSMAKING. + + +Eleanor and I were not always at home. We generally went visiting +somewhere, at least once a year. + +I think it was good for us. Great as were the advantages of the life I +now shared over an existence wasted in a petty round of ignoble gossip +and social struggle, it had the drawback of being almost too +self-sufficing, perhaps--I am not certain--a little too laborious. I do +think, but for me, it must, at any rate, have become the latter. I am so +much less industrious, energetic, clever and good in every way than +Eleanor, for one thing, that my very idleness holds us back; and I think +a taste for gaiety (I simply mean being gay, not balls and parties), and +for social pleasure, and for pretty things, and graceful "situations" +runs in my veins with my French blood, and helps to break the current of +our labours. + +We led lives of considerable intellectual activity, constant occupation, +and engrossing interest. We were apt to "foy" at our work to the extent +of grudging meal-times and sleep. Indeed, at one time a habit obtained +with us of leaving the table in turn as we finished our respective +meals. One member of the family after another would rise, bend his or +her head for a silent "grace," and depart to the work in hand. I have +known the table gradually deserted in this fashion till Mr. Arkwright +was left alone. I remember going back one day into the room, and seeing +him so. My entrance partially aroused him from a brown study. (He was at +all times very "absent") He rose, said grace aloud for the benefit of +the company--which had dispersed--and withdrew to his library. But we +abolished this uncivilized custom in conclave, and thenceforth sat our +meals out to the end. + +So free were we in our isolation upon those Yorkshire moors from the +trammels of conventionality (one might almost say, civilization!), that +I think we should have come to begrudge the ordinary interchange of the +neighbourly courtesies of life, but for occasional lectures from Mrs. +Arkwright, and for going out visiting from time to time. + +It was not merely that a life of running in and out of other people's +houses, and chatting the same bits of news threadbare with one +acquaintance after another, as at Riflebury, would have been unendurable +by us. The rare arrival of a visitor from some distant country-house to +call at the Vicarage was the signal for every one, who could do so with +decency, to escape from the unwelcome interruption. But as we grew +older, Mrs. Arkwright would not allow this. The boys, indeed, were hard +to coerce; they "bolted" still when the door-bell rang; but domestic +authority, which is apt to be magnified on "the girls," overruled +Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother--who reasoned with us far +more than she commanded--convinced us of how much selfishness there was +in this, as in all acts of discourtesy. + +But what do we not owe to her good counsels? In how many evening talks +has she not warned us of the follies, affectations, or troubles to which +our lives might specially be liable! Against despising interests that +are not our own, or graces which we have chosen to neglect, against the +danger of satire, against the love or the fear of being thought +singular, and, above all, against the petty pride of clique. + +"I do not know which is the worst," I remember her saying, "a religious +clique, an intellectual clique, a fashionable clique, a moneyed clique, +or a family clique. And I have seen them all." + +"Come, Mother," said Eleanor, "you cannot persuade us you would not have +more sympathy with the intellectual than the moneyed clique, for +instance?" + +"I should have warmly declared so myself, at one time," said Mrs. +Arkwright, "but I have a vivid remembrance of a man belonging to an +artistic clique, to whose house I once went with some friends. My +friends were artists also, but their minds were enlarged, instead of +being narrowed, by one chief pursuit. Their special art gave them +sympathy with all others, as the high cultivation of one virtue is said +to bring all the rest in its train. But this man talked the shibboleth +of his craft over one's head to other members of his clique with a +defiance of good manners arising more from conceit than from ignorance +of the ways of society; and with a transparent intention of being +overheard and admired which reminded me of the little self-conscious +conceits of children before visitors. He was one of a large family with +the same peculiarities, joined to a devout admiration of each other. +Indeed, they combined the artistic clique and the family clique in equal +proportions. From the conversation at their table you would have +imagined that there was but one standard of good for poor humanity, that +of one 'school' of one art, and absolutely no one who quite came up to +it but the brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, or connections by +marriage of your host. Now, I honestly assure you that the only other +man really like this one that I ever met, was what is called a +'self-made' man in a commercial clique. Money was _his_ standard, and +he seemed to be as completely unembarrassed as my artist friend by the +weight of any other ideas than his own, or by any feeling short of utter +satisfaction with himself. Their contempt for the conventionalities of +society was about equal. My artist friend had passed a sweeping +criticism for my benefit now and then (there could be no conversation +where no second opinion was allowed), and it was with perhaps a shade +less of condescension--a shade more of friendliness--that my commercial +friend once stopped some remarks of mine with the knowing observation, +'Look here, ma'am. Whenever I hear this, that, and the other bragged +about a party, what I always say is this, I don't want you to tell me +what he _his_, but what he _'as_.'" + +Eleanor and I laughed merrily at the anecdote, even if we were not quite +converted to Mrs. Arkwright's views. And I must in justice add that +every visit which has taken us from home--every fresh experience which +has enlarged our knowledge of the world--has confirmed the truth of her +sage and practical advice. + +If at home we have still inclined to feel it almost a duty to be proud +of intellectual tastes, quite a duty to be proud of orthodox opinions, +and, at the worst, a very amiable weakness indeed to think that there +are no boys like our boys, a wholesome experience of having other +people's tastes and views crammed down our throats has modified our +ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the +brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack +sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a +mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of +our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the +Vicarage are ever oppressed by the dear boys. + +I'm afraid it is possible--poor dear things! + +I have positively heard people say that Saucebox is ugly, though he has +eyes like a bull-frog, and his tongue hangs quite six inches out of his +mouth, and--in warm weather or before meals--further still! However, I +keep him in very good order, and never allow him to be troublesome to +people who do not appreciate him. For I have observed that there are +people who (having no children of their own) hold very just and severe +views about spoiled boys and girls, but who (having dogs of their own) +are much less clear-sighted on the subject of spoiled terriers and +Pomeranians. And I do not want to be like that--dear as the dear boys +are! + +Certainly, seeing all sorts of people with all sorts of peculiarities is +often a great help towards trying to get rid of one's own objectionable +ones. But like the sketching, one sometimes gets into despair about it, +and though the process of learning an art may be even pleasanter than to +feel one's self a master in it, one cannot say as much for the process +of discovering one's follies. I should like to get rid of _them_ in a +lump. + +Eleanor said so one day to her mother, but Mrs. Arkwright said: "We may +hate ourselves, as you call it, when we come to realize failings we have +not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we +do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of +impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am +sure. It is one's greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt +by GOD. Just as a mother would not love her child the better for its +being turned into a model of perfection by one stroke of magic, but does +love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and +believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to +love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our +struggles with folly and sin." + +But I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is +about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about +our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in +it, and Eleanor says it will not do for us to "go off at a tangent," +and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first, +because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for +nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly, +because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these +ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished. +We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting +rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly +because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind +them. + +Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends +of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor's friends +invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were +happier together. + +I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins +living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure +to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I +think of the expression of Eleanor's face, I may almost say rapture. +Then there was a certain church-bookseller's shop in the town, which had +manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper +could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury. +There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and +oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the +garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of +such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial +interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it +was about this period. + +But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which +I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and +general ornamentation. + +The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where +my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me, +prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular +comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each +room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new +books, music, sketches, needlework, and flowers. + +"Do you know, Eleanor," said I, when we were dressing for dinner one +evening before a toilette-table that had been tastefully adorned for our +use by the daughters of the house, "I wonder if Yorkshire women _are_ as +'house-proud' as they call themselves? I think our villagers are, in the +important points of cleanliness and solid comfort, and of course we are +at the Vicarage as to _that_--Keziah keeps us all like copper kettles; +but don't you think we might have a little more house-pride about +tasteful pretty refinements? It perhaps is rather a waste of time +arranging all these vases and baskets of flowers every day, but they are +_very_ nice to look at, and I think it civilizes one." + +"_You're_ not to blame," said Eleanor decisively. "You're south-country +to the backbone, and French on the top. It is we hard north-country +folk, we business people, who neglect to cultivate 'the beautiful.' +We're quite wrong. But I think the beautiful is revenged on us," added +she with one of her quick, bright looks, "by withdrawing itself. There's +nothing comparable for ugliness to the people of a manufacturing town." + +My mind was running on certain very ingenious and tasteful methods of +hanging nosegays on the wall. + +"Those baskets with ferns and flowers in, against the wall, were lovely, +weren't they?" said I. "Do you think we shall ever be able to think of +such pretty things?" + +"We're not fools," said Eleanor briefly. "We shall do it when we set our +minds to it. Meantime, we must make notes of whatever strikes us." + +"There are plenty of jolly, old-fashioned flowers in the garden at +home," said I. It was a polite way of expressing my inward regret that +we had no tropical orchids or strange stove-plants. And Eleanor danced +round me, and improvised a song beginning: + + "There are ferns by Ewden's waters, + And heather on the hill." + +From the better adornment of the Vicarage to the better adornment of +ourselves was a short stride. Most of the young ladies in these country +homes were very prettily dressed. Not _a la_ Mrs. Perowne. Not in that +milliner's handbook style dear to "Promenades" and places of public +resort; but more daintily, and with more attention to the prettiest and +most convenient of the prevailing fashions than Eleanor's and my +costumes displayed. + +The toilettes of one young lady in particular won our admiration; and +when we learned that her pretty things were made by herself, an +overwhelming ambition seized upon us to learn to do the same. + +"Women ought to know about all house matters," said Eleanor, puckering +her brow to a gloomy extent. "Dressmaking, cookery, and all that sort of +thing; and we know nothing about any of them. I was thinking only last +night, in bed, that if I were cast away on a desert island, and had to +make a dress out of an old sail, I shouldn't have the ghost of an idea +where to begin." + +"I should," said I. "I should sew it up like a sack, make three holes +for my head and arms, and tie it round my waist with ship's rope. I +could manage Robinson Crusoe dresses; it's the civilized ones that will +be too much for me, I'm afraid." + +"I believe the sail would go twice as far if we could gore it," said +Eleanor, laughing. "But there's no waste like the wastefulness of +ignorance; and oh, Margery, it's the _gores_ I'm afraid of! If skirts +were only made the old-fashioned way, like a flannel petticoat! So many +pieces all alike--run them together--hem the bottom--gather the top--and +there you are, with everything straightforward but the pocket." + +To our surprise we found that our new fad was a sore subject with Mrs. +Arkwright. She reproached herself bitterly with having given Eleanor so +little training in domestic arts. But she had been brought up by a +learned uncle, who considered needlework a waste of time, and she knew +as little about gores as we did. She had also, unfortunately, known or +heard of some excellent mother who had trained nine daughters to such +perfection of domestic capabilities that it was boasted that they could +never in after-life employ a workwoman or domestic who would know more +of her business than her employer. And this good lady was a standing +trouble to poor Mrs. Arkwright's conscience. + +Her self-reproaches were needless. General training is perhaps quite as +good as (if not better than) special, even for special ends. In giving +us a higher education, in teaching us to use our eyes, our wits, and our +common-sense, she had put all meaner arts within our grasp when need +should urge, and opportunity serve. + +"Aunt Theresa was always dressmaking," I said to Eleanor; "but I don't +remember anything that would help us. I was so young, you know. And when +one is young one is so stupid, one really resists information." + +I was to have another chance, however, of gleaning hints from Aunt +Theresa. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +MATILDA--BALL DRESSES AND THE BALL--GORES--MISS LINING--THE +'PARISHIONER'S PENNYWORTH.' + + +The Bullers came home again. Colonel St. Quentin had retired, and when +Major Buller got the regiment, he also left the army and settled in a +pleasant neighbourhood in the south of England. As soon as Aunt Theresa +was fairly established in her new house she sent for Eleanor and me. +There was no idea of my remaining permanently. It was only a visit. + +The Major (but he was a colonel now) and his wife were very little +changed. The girls, of course, had altered greatly, and so had I. +Matilda was a fashionably-dressed young lady, with a slightly frail +appearance at times, as if Nature were still revenging the old +mismanagement and neglect. + +It did not need Aunt Theresa to tell us that she was her father's +favourite daughter. But it was no capricious favouritism, I am sure. I +believe Colonel Buller to have been one of those people whose hearts +have depths of tenderness that are never sounded. The Bush House +catastrophe had long ago been swept into the lumber-room of Aunt +Theresa's memory, but the tender self-reproach of Matilda's father was +still to be seen in all his care and indulgence of her. + +"He'll take me anywhere," said Matilda, with affectionate pride. "He +even goes shopping with me." + +We liked Matilda by far the best of the girls. Partly, no doubt, because +she was our old friend, but partly, I think, because intimacy with her +father had developed the qualities she inherited from him, and softened +others. + +To our great satisfaction we discovered that gores were no enigma to +Matilda, and she and Aunt Theresa good-naturedly undertook to initiate +us into the mysteries of dressmaking. + +There was an excellent opportunity. Eleanor was now eighteen, and +Matilda seventeen years old. Matilda was to "come out" at a county ball +that was to take place whilst we were with the Bullers, and Mrs. +Arkwright consented to let Eleanor go also. Hence ball dresses, and +hence also our opportunity for learning how to make them. For they were +to be made by a dressmaker in the house, and she did not reject our +assistance. + +The Bullers' drawing-room was divided by folding-doors, and both +divisions now overflowed with tarlatan and trimmings; but at every fresh +inroad of callers (and they were hardly less frequent than of old) we +young ones, and yards of flounces and finery with us, were swept by Aunt +Theresa into the back drawing-room, like autumn leaves before a breeze. + +The dresses were very successful, and so was the ball. I was so anxious +to hear how Eleanor had sped, that I felt quite sure that I could not go +to sleep, and that it was a farce to go to bed just when she was +beginning to dance. I went, however, at last, and had had half a +night's sound sleep before rustling, and chattering, and the light from +bed-candles woke me to hear the news. + +Matilda was looking pale, and somewhat dishevelled, and a great deal of +the costume at which we had laboured was reduced to rags. Eleanor's +dress was intact, and she herself looked perfectly fresh, partly because +she had resisted, with great difficulty, the extreme length of train +then fashionable, and partly from a sort of general compactness which +seems a natural gift with some people. Poor Matilda had nearly fainted +after one of the dances, and had brought away a violent headache; but +she declared that she had enjoyed herself, and would have stayed to +relate her adventures, but Colonel Buller would not allow it, and sent +her to bed. Eleanor slept with me, so our gossip was unopposed, except +by warnings. + +I set fire to my hair in the effort to decipher the well-filled ball +card, but we put it out, and the candle also, and chatted in bed. + +"You must have danced every dance," I said, admiringly. + +"We sat out one or two that are down," said Eleanor; "and No. 21 was +supper, but I danced all the rest." + +"There was one man you danced several times with," I said, "but I +couldn't make out his name. It looks as if it began with a G." + +"Oh, it's not his real name," said Eleanor. "It's the one he says you +used to call him by. One reason why I liked him, Margery dear, was +because he said he had been so fond of you. You were such a dear little +thing, he said. I told him the locket and chain were in good +preservation." + +"Was it Mr. George?" I cried, with so much energy that Aunt Theresa (who +slept next door) heard us, and knocked on the wall to bid us go to +sleep. + +"We're just going to," Eleanor shouted, and added in lower tones, to me, +"Yes, it was Captain Abercrombie. Colonel Buller introduced him to me. +He is so nice, and so delightfully fond of dogs and of you, Margery." + +"Shall I see him?" I asked. "I should like to see him again. He was very +good to me when I was little." + +"Oh yes," said Eleanor. "It was curious his being in the neighbourhood; +for the 202nd is in Dublin, you know. And, Margery, he says he has an +uncle in Yorkshire. He----" + +"Girls! girls!" cried Aunt Theresa; and we went to sleep. + +Soon after we returned from our visit to the Bullers, Eleanor and I +resolved to prove the benefit we had reaped from Aunt Theresa's +instructions by making ourselves some dresses of an inexpensive stuff +that we bought for the purpose. + +How well I remember the pattern! A flowering creeper, which followed a +light stem upwards through yard after yard of the material. We had +picked to pieces certain old bodies which fitted us fairly, and our +first work was to lay these patterns upon the new stuff, with weights on +them, and so to cut out our new bodies as easily as Matilda (whose +directions we were following) had prophesied that we should. When these +and the sleeves were accomplished (and they looked most business-like), +we began upon the skirts. We cut the back and the front breadths, and +duly "sloped" the latter. Then came the gores. We folded the breadths +into three parts; we took a third at one end, and two-thirds at the +other, and folded the slope accordingly. It became quite exciting. + +"Who would have thought it was so easy?" said I. + +Eleanor was almost prone upon the table, cutting the gores with large +scissors which made a thoroughly sempstress-like squeak. + +"The higher education fades from my view with every snip," she said, +laughing. "Upon my word, Margery, I begin to believe this sort of thing +_is_ our vocation. It is great fun, and there is absolutely no brain +wear and tear." + +The gores were parted as she spoke, and (to do us justice) were exactly +the shape of the tarlatan ones Aunt Theresa had cut. But when we came to +put them together, they wouldn't fit without turning one of them the +wrong side out. Eleanor had boasted too soon. We got headaches and +backaches with stooping and puzzling. We cut up all our stuff, but the +gores remained obstinate. By no ingenuity could we combine them so as to +be at once in proper order, the right side out, and the right side (of +the pattern) up. I really think we cried over them with weariness and +disappointment. + +"Algebra's a trifle to it," was poor Eleanor's conclusion. + +I went out to clear my brain by a walk, and happening, as I returned, to +meet Jack, I confided our woes to him. One could tell Jack anything. + +"You've got it wrong somehow," said Jack, "linking" me. "Come to Miss +Lining's." + +Miss Lining was our village dressmaker. A very bad one certainly, but +still she could gore a skirt. She was not a native of the village, and +signified her superior gentility by a mincing pronunciation. She had +also a hiss with the sibilants peculiar to herself. Before I could +remonstrate, Jack was knocking at the door. + +"Good-afternoon, Miss Lining. Miss Margery has been making a dress, and +she's got into a muddle with the gores. Now, how do you manage with +gores, Miss Lining?" Jack confidentially inquired, taking his hat off, +and accepting a well-dusted chair. + +There was now nothing for it but to explain my difficulties, which I +did, Miss Lining saying, "Yisss, misss," at every two or three words. +When I had said my say, she sucked the top of her brass thimble +thoughtfully for some moments, and then spoke as an oracle. + +"There's a hinside and a hout to the stuff? Yisss, misss. And a hup and +a down? Yisss, misss." + +"And quite half the gores won't fit in anywhere," I desperately +interposed. + +Miss Lining took another taste of the brass thimble, and then said: + +"In course, misss, with a patterned thing there's as many gores to throw +hout as to huse. Yisss, misss." + +"_Are there?_" said I. "But what a waste!" + +"Ho no, misss! you cuts the body out of the gores you throws hout, +misss----" + +"Well, if you get the body out of them, there must be a waist!" Jack +broke in, as he sat fondling Miss Lining's tom-cat. + +"Ho no, sir!" said Miss Lining, who couldn't have seen a joke to save +her dignity. "They cuts to good add-vantage, sir." + +The mystery was now clear to me, and Jack saw this by my face. + +"You understand?" said he briefly, setting down the cat. + +"Quite," said I. "Our mistake was beginning with the bodies. But we can +get some more stuff." + +"An odd bit always comes in," said Miss Lining, speaking, I fear, from +an experience of bits saved from the dresses of village patrons. "Yisss, +misss." + +"Well, good-afternoon, Miss Lining," said Jack, who never suffered, as +Eleanor and I sometimes did, from a difficulty in getting away from a +cottage. "Thank you very much. Have you heard from your sister at Buxton +lately?" + +"Last week, sir," said Miss Lining. + +"And how is she?" said Jack urbanely. + +He never forgot any one, and he never grudged sympathy--two qualities +which made him beloved of the village. + +"Quite well, thank you, sir, and the same to you," said Miss Lining, +beaming; "except that she do suffer a deal in her inside, sir." + +"Chamomile tea is very good for the inside, I believe," said Jack, +putting on his hat with perfect gravity. + +"So I've 'eerd--yisss, sir," said Miss Lining; "and there's something of +the same in them pills that's spoke so well of in your magazine, sir, I +think. I sent by the carrier for a box, sir, on Saturday last, and would +have done sooner, but for waiting for Mrs. Barker to pay for the +pelerine I made out of her uncle's funeral scarf. Yisss, misss." + +Jack was very seldom at a loss, but on this occasion he seemed puzzled. + +"Pills recommended in our magazine?" he said, as we strolled up towards +the Vicarage. "It's those medical tracts you and Eleanor have been +taking round lately." + +"There's nothing about pills in them," said I. "They're about drains, +and fresh air, and cleanliness. Besides, she said our magazine." + +"We don't give them any magazine but the _Parishioner's Pennyworth_ and +the missionary one," said Jack. "I'm stumped, Margery." + +But in a few minutes I was startled by his seizing me by the shoulders +and leaning against me in a paroxysm of laughter. + +"Oh, Margery, I've got it! It _is_ the _Parishioner's Pennyworth_. +There's been an advertisement at the end of it for months, like a +fly-leaf, of Norton's chamomile pills." + +And as I unravelled to Eleanor the mystery of our dressmaking +difficulties, we could hear Jack convulsing Mrs. Arkwright with a +perfect reproduction of Miss Lining's accent--"Them pills that's spoke +so well of in your magazine. Yisss, m'm." + +We got some more material, and finished the dresses triumphantly. By the +next summer we were skilful enough to use our taste with some freedom +and good success. + +I was then fifteen, and in long dresses. I remember some most tasteful +costumes which we produced; and as we contemplated them as they hung, +flounced, furbelowed, and finished, upon pegs, Eleanor said: + +"I wonder where we shall display these this year?" + +How little we knew! We had made the dresses alike, to the nicety of a +bow, because we thought it ladylike that the costumes of sisters should +be so. How far we were from guessing that they would not be worn +together after all! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +I GO BACK TO THE VINE--AFTER SUNSET--A TWILIGHT EXISTENCE--SALAD OF +MONK'S-HOOD--A ROYAL SUMMONS. + + +The few marked events of my life have generally happened on my +birthdays. It was on my fifteenth birthday that Mr. Arkwright got a +letter from one of my relations on the subject of my going to live with +my great-grandfather and grandmother. + +They were now very old. My great-grandfather was becoming "childish," +and the little dear duchess was old and frail for such a charge alone. +They had no daughter. The religious question was laid aside. My most +Protestant relatives thought my duty in the matter overwhelming, and +with all my clinging of heart to the moor home I felt myself that it was +so. + +I don't know how I got over the parting. I wandered hopelessly about +familiar spots, and wished I had made sketches of them; but how could I +know I had not all life before me? The time was short, and preparations +had to be made. This kept us quiet. At the last, Jack put in all my +luggage, and did everything for me. Then he kissed me, and said, "GOD +bless you, Margery," and "linking" Eleanor by force, led her away and +comforted her like the good, dear boy he is. Clement drove me so +recklessly down the steep hill, and over the stones, that the momentary +expectation of an upset dried my tears, and I did not see much of the +villagers' kind and too touching farewells. + +And so to the bleak station again, and the familiar old porter, whom +fate seems to leave long enough at _his_ post, and on through the +whirling railway panorama, by which one passes to so much joy and so +much sorrow--and then I was at The Vine once more. + +I wonder if I am like my great-grandmother in her youth? Some people +(Elspeth among them) declare that it is so; and others that I am like my +poor mother. I suppose I have some Vandaleur features, from an eerie +little incident which befell me on the threshold of The Vine--an +appropriate beginning to a life that always felt like a weird, shadowy +dream. + +I did not ring the bell of the outer gate on my arrival, because Adolphe +(grown up, but with the old, ruddy boy's face on the top of his man's +shoulders) was anxiously waiting for me, and devoted himself to my +luggage, telling me that Master was in the garden. Thither I ran so +hastily, that a straggling sweetbriar caught my hat and my net, and +dragged them off, sending my hair over my shoulders. My hair is not +long, however, like Eleanor's, and it curls, and I sometimes wear it +loose; so I did not stop to rearrange it, but hurried on towards my +great-grandfather, who was coming slowly to meet me from the other end +of the terrace, his hands behind his back, as of old. At least, I +thought it was to meet me; but as he came near I saw that he was +unconscious of my presence. He looked very old, his face was pale and +shrivelled, like a crumpled white kid glove; his wild blue eyes, +insensible of what was before them, seemed intently fixed on something +that no one else could see, and he was talking to himself, as we call it +when folk talk with the invisible. + +It was very silly, but I really felt the colour fading from my face with +fright. My great-grandfather's back was to the west, where a few bars of +red across the sky, as it was to be seen through the Scotch firs, were +all that remained of the sunset. That strange light was on everything, +of which modern pre-Raphaelite painters are so fond. I was tired with my +long journey and previous excitement; and when I suddenly remembered +that Mr. Vandaleur was said to have in some measure lost his reason, a +shudder came over me. In a moment more he saw me. I think my crimson +cloak caught his eye, but his welcome was hardly less alarming than his +abstraction. He started, and held up his hands, and a pained, puzzled +expression troubled his face. Then a flush, which seemed to make him +look older than the whiteness; and then, with a shrill, feeble cry of +"Victoire, ma belle!" he tottered towards me so hastily that I thought +he must have fallen; but, like a vision, a little figure flitted from +the French window of the drawing-room, and in a moment my +great-grandmother was supporting him, and soothing him with gentle +words in French. I could see now how helpless he was. For a bit he +seemed still puzzled and confused; but he clung to her and kissed her +hand, and suffered himself to be led indoors. Then I followed them, +through the window, into the room where the candles were not yet lighted +for economy's sake--the glare of the red sunset bars making everything +dark to me--with a strange sense of gloom. + +It would be hard to imagine a stronger contrast than that between my +life in my new home and my life in my home upon the moors. At the +Arkwrights' we lived so essentially with the times. Our politics, on the +whole, were liberal; our theology inclined to be broad; our ideas on +social subjects were reformatory, progressive, experimental. Scientific +subjects were a speciality of the household; and, living in a +manufacturing district, mere neighbourhood kept us with the great +current of mercantile interests. We argued each other into a general +unfixity of opinions; and, full of youthful dreams of golden ages, were +willing to believe this young world--where not yet we, but only our +words could fly--to be but upon the threshold of true civilization. +Above all, life seemed so short, our hands were so full, so over-full of +work, the daylight was not long enough for us, and we grudged meals and +sleep. + +How different it was under the shadow of this old Vine! I am very +thankful, now, that I had grace, under the sense of "wasted time," which +was at first so irritating, to hold by my supreme child-duty towards my +aged parents against the mere modern fuss of "work," against what John +Wesley called the "lust of finishing" any labour, and to serve them in +their way rather than in my own. But the change was very great. How we +"pottered" through the days!--with what needless formalities, what +slowness, what indecision! How fatiguing is enforced idleness! How +lengthy were the evening meals, where we sat, trifling with the +vine-leaves under a single dish of fruit, till the gloaming deepened +into gloom! + +At fifteen one is very susceptible of impressions; very impatient of +what one is not used to. The very four-post bed in which I slept +oppressed me, and the cracked basin held together for years by the +circular hole in the old-fashioned washstand. The execution-picture only +made me laugh now. + +Then, as to the meals. No doubt a great many people eat and drink too +much, as we are beginning to discover. Whether we at the Vicarage did, I +cannot say; but the change to the unsubstantial fare on which very old +people like the Vandaleurs keep the flickering light of life aglow was +very great; and yet in this slow, vegetating existence my appetite soon +died away. The country was flat and damp too; and by and by neuralgia +kept me awake at night, as regularly as the ghost of my +great-grandfather had done in years gone by. But it is strange how +quickly unmarked time slips on. Day after day, week after week ran by, +till a lassitude crept over me in which I felt amazed at former +ambitions, and a certain facility of sympathy, which has been in many +respects an evil, and in many a good to me, seemed to mould me to the +interests of the fading household. And so I lived the life of my +great-grandparents, which was as if science made no strides, and men no +struggles; as if nothing were to be done with the days, but to wear +through them in all patient goodness, loyal to a long-fallen dynasty, +regretful of some ancient virtues and courtesies, tender towards past +beauties and passions, and patient of succeeding sunsets, till this aged +world should crumble to its close. + +My great-grandfather came to know me again, though his mind was in a +disordered, dreary condition; from old age, Elspeth said, but it often +recalled what I had heard of the state of his mother's intellect before +her death. The dear little old lady's intellects were quite bright, and, +happily, not only entire, but cultivated. I do not know how people who +think babies and servants are a woman's only legitimate interests would +like to live with women who have either never met with, or long +outlived them. I know how my dear granny's educated mind and sense of +humour helped us over a dozen little domestic difficulties, and broke +the neck of fidgets that seemed almost inevitable at her great age and +in that confined sphere of interests. + +I certainly faded in our twilight existence, as if there were some truth +in the strange old theory that very aged people can withdraw vital force +from young companions and live upon it. But every day and hour of my +stay made me love and reverence my great-grandmother more and more, and +be more and more glad that I had come to know her, and perhaps be of +some little service to her. + +Indeed, it was my great-grandfather's condition that kept us so much +among the shadows. The old lady had a delightful youthfulness of spirit, +and took an almost wistful pleasure in hearing about our life at the +Arkwrights', as if some ambitious Scotch blood in her would fain have +kept better pace with the currents of the busy world. But when my +grandfather joined us, we had to change the subject. Modern ideas jarred +upon him. And it was seldom that he was not with us. The tender love +between the old couple was very touching. + +"It must seem strange to you, my dear, to think of such long lives so +little broken by events," said my great-grandmother. "But your dear +grandfather and I have never been apart for a day since our happy +marriage." + +I do not think they were apart for an hour whilst I was with them. He +followed her about the house, if she left him for many minutes, crying, +"Victoire! Victoire!" chiefly from love, but I was sometimes spiteful +enough to think also because he could not amuse himself. + +"The master's calling for you again," said Elspeth, with some +impatience, one day when grandmamma was teaching me a bit of dainty +cookery in the kitchen. + +"Oh, fly, petite!" she cried to me; "and say that his Majesty has +summoned the Duchess." + +Much bewildered, I ran out, and met my great-grandfather on the terrace, +crying, "Victoire! Victoire!" in fretful tones. + +"His Majesty has summoned the Duchess, sir," said I, dropping a slight +curtsy, as I generally did on disturbing the old gentleman. + +To my astonishment, this seemed quite to content him. He drew in his +elbows, and spread the palms of his hands with a very polite bow, +saying, "Bien, bien;" and after murmuring something else in French, +which I did not catch, but which I fancy was an acknowledgment of the +prior claims of royalty, he folded his hands behind his back and +wandered away down the terrace, as I rushed off to my confectionery +again. + +I found that this use of the old fable, which had calmed my +great-grandfather in past days, was no new idea. It was, in fact, a +graceful fiction which deceived nobody, and had been devised by my +great-grandmother out of deference to her husband's prejudices. In the +long years when they were very poor, their poverty was made, not only +tolerable but graceful, by Mrs. Vandaleur's untiring energy, but (though +he wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't, find any occupation by which to add to +their income) the sight of his Victoire, who should have been a duchess, +doing any menial work so distracted him, that my grandmother had to +devise some method to secure herself from his observation when she +washed certain bits of priceless lace which redeemed her old dresses +from commonness, or cooked some delicacy for Mons. le Duc's dinner, or +mended his honourable clothes. Thus Jeanette's old fable came into use; +first in jest, and then as an adopted form for getting rid of my +great-grandfather when he was in the way. It must have astonished a +practical woman like my great-grandmother to find how completely it +satisfied him. But there must have been a time when his helplessness and +impracticability tried her in many ways, before she fairly came to +realize that he never could be changed, and her love fell in with his +humours. On this point he was humoured completely, and never inquired on +what business his deceased Majesty of France required the attendance of +the Duchess that should have been! + +To do him justice, if he was a helpless he was a very tender husband. + +"He has never said a rude or unkind word to me since we were boy and +girl together," said the little old lady, with tears in her eyes. And +indeed, courtesy implies self-discipline; and even now the old man's +politeness checked his petulance over and over again. He never gave up +the habit of gathering flowers for my grandmother, and such exquisite +contrasts of colour I never saw combined by any other hand. Another +accomplishment of his was also connected with his love of plants. + +"It's little enough a man can do about a house the best of times," said +Elspeth, "and the master's just as feckless as a bairn. But he makes a +fine sallet." + +I shudder almost as I write the words. How little we thought that my +poor grandfather's one useful gift would have so fatal an ending! + +But I must put it down in order. It was the end of many things. Of my +life at The Vine among them, and very nearly of my life in this world +altogether. My great-grandfather made delicious salads. I have heard him +say that he preferred our English habit of mixing ingredients to the +French one of dressing one vegetable by itself; but he said we did not +carry it far enough, we neglected so many useful herbs. And so his +salads were compounded not only of lettuce and cress, and so forth, but +of dandelion, sorrel, and half-a-dozen other field or garden plants. +Sometimes one flavour preponderated, sometimes another, and the sauce +was always good. + +Now it is all over it seems to me that I must have been very stupid not +to have paid more attention to the strange flavour in the salad that +day. But I was thinking chiefly of the old lady, who was not very well +(Elspeth had an idea that she had had a very slight "stroke," but how +this was we cannot know now), whilst my grandfather was almost flightily +cheerful. I tasted the salad, and did not eat it, but I was the less +inclined to complain of it as they seemed perfectly satisfied. + +Then my grandmother was taken ill. At first we thought it a development +of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent +Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The +salad was full of young leaves of monk's-hood. Under what delusion my +poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were +busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from any +one. + +From the first the doctor gave us little hope, and they sank rapidly. +Their priest, for whom Adolphe made a second expedition, did not arrive +in time; they were in separate rooms, and Elspeth and I flitted from one +to the other in sad attendance. The dear little old lady sank fast, and +died in the evening. + +Then the doctor impressed on us the necessity of keeping her death from +my great-grandfather's knowledge. + +"But supposing he asks?" said I. + +"Say any soothing thing your ready wit may suggest, my dear young lady. +But the truth, in his present condition, would be a fatal shock." + +It haunted me. "Supposing he asks." And late in the evening he did ask! +I was alone with him, and he called me. + +"Marguerite, dear child, thou wilt tell me the truth. Why does my wife, +my Victoire, thy grandmother, not come to me?" + +Pondering what lie I could tell him, and how, an irresistible impulse +seized me. I bent over him and said: + +"Dear sir, the King has summoned the Duchess." + +Does the mind regain power as the body fails? My great-grandfather +turned his head, and, as his blue eyes met mine, I could not persuade +myself that he was deceived. + +"The will of his Majesty be done," he said faintly but firmly. + +The next few moments seemed like years. Had I done wrong? Had it done +him harm? Above all, what did he mean? Were his words part of one last +graceful dream of the dynasty of the white lilies, or was his loyal +submission made now to a Majesty not of France, not even of this world? +It was an intense relief to me when he spoke again. + +"Marguerite!" + +I knelt by the bedside, and he laid his hand upon my head. An exquisite +smile shone on his face. + +"Good child; pauvre petite! His Majesty will call me also, before long. +Is it not so? And then thou shalt rest." + +His fine face clouded again with a wandering, troubled look, and his +fingers fumbled the bed-clothes. I saw that he had lost his crucifix in +moving his hand to my head. I gave it him, and he clasped his hands over +it once more, and carrying it to his lips with a smile, closed his eyes +like some good child going to sleep. + +And Thou, O King of kings, didst summon him, as the dark faded into +dawn! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +HOME AGAIN--HOME NEWS--THE VERY END. + + +Now it is past it seems like a dream, my life at The Vine, with its sad +end, if indeed that can be justly called a sad end which took away +together, and with little pain, those dear souls whose married life had +not known the parting of a day, and who in death were not (even by a +day) divided. + +And so I went back to the moors. I was weak and ill when I started, but +every breath of air on my northward journey seemed to bring me strength. + +There are no events in that porter's life, I am convinced. He looked +just the same, and took me and my boxes quite coolly, though I felt +inclined to shake hands with him in my delight. I did cry for very joy +as we toiled up the old sandy hill, and the great moors welcomed me +back. Then came the church, then the Vicarage, with the union-jack out +of my window, and the villagers were at their doors--and I was at home. +Oh, how the dear boys tore me to pieces! + +There was no very special news, it seemed. Clement had been very good in +taking my class at school, and had established a cricket club. Jack had +positively found a new fungus, which would probably be named after him. +"Boy's luck," as we all said! Captain Abercrombie had been staying with +an old uncle at a place close by, only about twelve miles off. And he +was constantly driving over. "So very good-natured to the boys," Mr. +Arkwright said. And there was to be a school-children's tea on my +birthday. + +My birthday has come and gone, and I am sixteen now. Dear old Eleanor +and I have gone back to our old ways. She had left my side of our room +untouched. It was in talking of our recent parting, and all that has +come and gone in our lives, that the fancy came upon us of writing our +biographies this winter. + +And here, in the dear old kitchen, round which the wild wind howls like +music, with the dear boys dreaming at our feet, we bring them to an end. + + * * * * * + +This dusty relic of an old fad had been lying by for more than a year, +when I found it to-day, in emptying a box to send some books in to +Oxford, to Jack. + +Eleanor should have had it, for we are parted, after all; but her +husband has more interest in hers, so we each keep our own. + +She is married, to George Abercrombie, and I mean to paste the bit out +of the newspaper account of their wedding on to the end of this, as a +sort of last chapter. It would be as long as all the rest put together +if I were to write down all the ups and downs, and ins and outs, that +went before the marriage, and I suppose these things are always very +much alike. + +I like him very much, and I am going to stay with them. The wedding was +very pretty. Jack threw shoes to such an extent, that when I went to +change my white ones I couldn't find a complete pair to put on. He says +he meant to pick them up again, but Prince, our new puppy, thought they +were thrown for him, and he never brought them back. Dear boy! + +The old uncle helps George, who I believe is his heir, but at present he +sticks to the regiment. It seems so funny that Eleanor should now be +living there, and I here. In her letter to-day she says: "Fancy, +Margery, my having quarrelled with Mrs. Minchin and not known it! She +called on me to-day and solemnly forgave me, whereby I learned that she +had been 'cutting' me for six weeks. When she said, 'No doubt you +thought it very strange, Mrs. Abercrombie, that I never called on your +mother whilst she was with you,' I was obliged to get over it the best +way I could, for I dare not tell her I had never noticed it. I think my +offence was something about calls, and I must be more particular. But +George and I have been sketching at every spare moment this lovely +weather. Oh, Margery dear, I do often feel so thankful to my mother for +having given us plenty of rational interests. I could really imagine +even _our_ quarrelling or getting tired of each other, if we had nothing +but ourselves in common. As it is, you can't tell, till you have a +husband of your own, what a double delight there is in everything we do +together. As to social ups and downs, and not having much money or many +fine dresses, a 'collection' alone makes one almost too indifferent. Do +you remember Mother's saying long ago, that intellectual pleasures have +this in common with the consolations of religion, that they are such as +the world can neither give nor take away?" + +THE END. + + +_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._ + + + + +_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized, +complete, and uniform Edition published._ + +_It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol., +issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will +appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series +will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was +specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing._ + +_The following is a list of the books included in the Series--_ + + 1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES. + + 2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. + + 3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY-TALES. + + 4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING. + + 5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES. + + 6. SIX TO SIXTEEN. + + 7. LOB-LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES. + + 8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL. + + 9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS. + + 10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE + THEATRICALS, &c. + + 11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES. + + 12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN. + + 13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I. + + 14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II. + + 15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVE-COTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. + + 16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS. + + 17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--Wonder + Stories--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations. + + 18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs. + Ewing's Letters. + +S.P.C.K., NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + + +The following typographical errors have been corrected. + + Page Error + 18 sate corrected to sat + 42 sergeant). corrected to sergeant)." + 135 Indeed, Edward corrected to "Indeed, Edward + +The following words were inconsistently spelled: + + &c. / etc. + practice / practise + +The following words had inconsistent hyphenation: + + bedtime / bed-time + gingerbeer / ginger-beer + Mantuamaker / Mantua-maker + overfed / over-fed + remade / re-made + scrapbook / scrap-book + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six to Sixteen, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX TO SIXTEEN *** + +***** This file should be named 19360.txt or 19360.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/6/19360/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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