If Fergus had not yet discovered the secret of perpetual motion, Gillian felt as if Aunt Jane had done so, and moreover that the greater proportion of parish matters were one vast machine, of which she was the moving power.
As she was a small spare woman, able to do with a very moderate amount of sleep, her day lasted from 6 A.M. to some unnamed time after midnight; and as she was also very methodical, she got through an appalling amount of business, and with such regularity that those who knew her habits could tell with tolerable certainty, within reasonable limits, where she would be found and what she would be doing at any hour of the seven days of the week. Everything she influenced seemed to recur as regularly as the motions of the great ruthless-looking engines that Gillian had seen at work at Belfast; the only loose cog being apparently her sister Adeline, who quietly took her own way, seldom came downstairs before eleven o’clock, went out and came in, made visits or received them, wrote letters, read and worked at her own sweet will. Only two undertakings seemed to belong to her—a mission working party, and an Italian class of young ladies; and even the presidency of these often lapsed upon her sister, when she had had one of those ‘bad nights’ of asthma, which were equally sleepless to both sisters. She was principally useful by her exquisite needlework, both in church embroidery and for sales; and likewise as the recipient of all the messages left for Miss Mohun, which she never forgot, besides that, having a clear sensible head, she was useful in consultation.
She was thoroughly interested in all her sister’s doings, and always spoke of herself as the invalid, precluded from all service except that of being a pivot for Jane, the stationary leg of the compasses, as she sometimes called herself. This repose, together with her prettiness and sweetness of manner, was very attractive; especially to Gillian, who had begun to feel herself in the grip of the great engine which bore her along without power of independent volition, and with very little time for ‘Hilda’s Experiences’.
At home she had gone on harmoniously in full acquiescence with household arrangements; but before the end of the week the very same sensations came over her which had impelled her and Jasper into rebellion and disgrace, during the brief reign of a very strict daily governess, long ago at Dublin. Her reason and sense approved of all that was set before her, and much of it was pleasant and amusing; but this was the more provoking by depriving her of the chance of resistance or the solace of complaint. Moreover, with all her time at Aunt Jane’s disposal, how was she to do her great thing? Valetta’s crewel battle cushion had been reduced to a delicious design of the battle of the frogs and mice, drawn by Aunt Ada, and which she delighted in calling at full length ‘the Batrachyomachia,’ sparing none of the syllables which she was to work below. And it was to be worked at regularly for half an hour before bed-time. Trust Aunt Jane for seeing that any one under her dominion did what had been undertaken! Only thus the spontaneity seemed to have departed, and the work became a task. Fergus meanwhile had set his affections on a big Japanese top he had seen in a window, and was eagerly awaiting his weekly threepence, to be able to complete the purchase, though no one but Valetta was supposed to understand what it had to do with his ‘great thing.’
It was quite pleasant to Gillian to have a legitimate cause of opposition when Miss Mohun made known that she intended Gillian to take a class at the afternoon Sunday-school, while the two children went to Mrs. Hablot’s drawing-room class at St. Andrew’s Vicarage, all meeting afterwards at church.
‘Did mamma wish it?’ asked Gillian.
‘There was no time to mention it, but I knew she would.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Gillian. ‘We don’t teach on Sundays, unless some regular person fails. Mamma likes to have us all at home to do our Sunday work with her.’
‘Alas, I am not mamma! Nor could I give you the time.’
‘I have brought the books to go on with Val and Ferg. I always do some of their work with them, and I am sure mamma would not wish them to be turned over to a stranger.’
‘The fact is, that young ladies have got beyond Sunday-schools!’
‘No, no, Jane,’ said her sister; ‘Gillian is quite willing to help you; but it is very nice in her to wish to take charge of the children.’
‘They would be much better with Mrs. Hablot than dawdling about here and amusing themselves in the new Sunday fashion. Mind, I am not going to have them racketing about the house and garden, disturbing you, and worrying the maids.’
‘Aunt Jane!’ cried Gillian indignantly, ‘you don’t think that is the way mamma brought us up to spend Sunday?’
‘We shall see,’ said Aunt Jane; then more kindly, ‘My dear, you are right to use your best judgment, and you are welcome to do so, as long as the children are orderly and learn what they ought.’
It was more of a concession than Gillian expected, though she little knew the effort it cost, since Miss Mohun had been at much pains to set Mrs. Hablot’s class on foot, and felt it a slight and a bad example that her niece and nephew should be defaulters. The motive might have worked on Gillian, but it was a lower one, therefore mentioned.
She had seen Mrs. Hablot at the Italian class, and thought her a mere girl, and an absolute subject of Aunt Jane’s stumbling pitifully, moreover, in a speech of Adelchi’s; therefore evidently not at all likely to teach Sunday subjects half so well as herself!
Nor was there anything amiss on that first Sunday. The lessons were as well and quietly gone through as if with mamma, and there was a pleasant little walk on the esplanade before the children’s service at St. Andrew’s; after which there was a delightful introduction to some of the old books mamma had told them of.
They were all rather subdued by the strangeness and newness of their surroundings, as well as by anxiety. If the younger ones were less anxious about their parents than was their sister, each had a plunge to make on the morrow into a very new world, and the Varleys’ information had not been altogether reassuring. Valetta had learnt how many marks might be lost by whispering or bad spelling, and how ferociously cross Fraulein Adler looked at a mistake in a German verb; while Fergus had heard a dreadful account of the ordeals to which Burfield and Stebbing made new boys submit, and which would be all the worse for him, because he had a ‘rum’ Christian name, and his father was a swell.
Gillian had some experience through her elder brothers, and suspected Master Varley of being guilty of heightening the horrors; so she assured Fergus that most boys had the same sort of Christian names, but were afraid to confess them to one another, and so called each other Bill and Jack. She advised him to call himself by his surname, not to mention his father’s title if he could help it, and, above all, not to seem to mind anything.
Her own spirits were much exhilarated the next morning by a note from Harry, the recipient of all telegrams, with tidings that the doctors were quite satisfied with Sir Jasper, and that Lady Merrifield had reached Brindisi.
There was great excitement at sight of a wet morning, for it appeared that an omnibus came round on such occasions to pick up the scholars; and Valetta thought this so delightful that she danced about exclaiming, ‘What fun!’ and only wishing for Mysie to share it. She would have rushed down to the gate umbrellaless if Aunt Jane had not caught and conducted her, while Gillian followed with Fergus. Aunt Jane looked down the vista of young faces—five girls and three boys—nodding to them, and saying to the senior, a tall damsel of fifteen,
‘Here are my children, Emma. You will take care of them, please. You are keeping order here, I suppose?’
There was a smile and bow in answer as the door closed, and the omnibus jerked away its ponderous length.
‘I’m sorry to see that Stebbing there,’ observed the aunt, as she went back; ‘but Emma Norton ought to be able to keep him in order. It is well you have no lessons out of the house to-day, Gillian.’
‘Are you going out then?’
‘Oh yes!’ said Miss Mohun, running upstairs, and presently coming back with a school-bag and a crackling waterproof cloak, but pausing as she saw Gillian at the window, nursing the Sofy, and gazing at the gray cloud over the gray sea. ‘You are not at a loss for something to do,’ she said, ‘you said you meant to write to your mother.’
‘Oh yes!’ said Gillian, suddenly fretted, and with a sense of being hunted, ‘I have plenty to do.’
‘I see,’ said Miss Mohun, turning over the books that lay on the little table that had been appropriated to her niece, in a way that, unreasonably or not, unspeakably worried the girl, ‘Brachet’s French Grammar—that’s right. Colenso’s Algebra—I don’t think they use that at the High School. Julius Caesar—you should read that up in Merivale.’
‘I did,’ said Gillian, in a voice that very nearly said, ‘Do let them alone.’
‘Well, you have materials for a very useful, sensible morning’s work, and when Ada comes down, very likely she will like to be read to.’
Off went the aunt, leaving the niece stirred into an absolute desire, instead of spending the sensible morning, to take up ‘Near Neighbours’, and throw herself into an easy-chair; and when she had conscientiously resisted that temptation, her pen would hover over ‘Hilda’s Experiences’, even when she had actually written ‘Dearest Mamma.’ She found she was in no frame to write such a letter as would be a comfort to her mother, so she gave that up, and made her sole assertion of liberty the working out of a tough double equation in Colenso, which actually came right, and put her in such good humour that she was no longer afraid of drumming the poor piano to death and Aunt Ada upstairs to distraction, but ventured on learning one of the Lieder ohne Worte; and when her Aunt Ada came down and complimented her on the sounds that had ascended, she was complacent enough to write a very cheerful letter, whilst her aunt was busied with her own. She described the Sunday-school question that had arisen, and felt sure that her father would pronounce his Gill to be a sensible young woman. Afterwards Miss Adeline betook herself to a beautiful lily of church embroidery, observing, as Gillian sat down to read to her Alphonse Karr’s Voyage autour de mon Jardin, that it was a real pleasure to listen to such prettily-pronounced French. Kunz lay at her feet, the Sofy nestled in Gillian’s lap, and there was a general sense of being rubbed down the right way.
By and by there loomed through the rain two dripping shiny forms under umbrellas strongly inclined to fly away from them—Miss Mohun and Mr. Grant, the junior curate, whom she had brought home to luncheon. Both were full of the irregularities of the two churches of Bellevue and St. Kenelm’s on the recent harvest-thanksgiving Sunday. It was hard to tell which was most reprobated, what St. Kenelm’s did or what Bellevue did not do. If the one blew trumpets in procession, the other collected the offertory in a warming-pan. Gillian had already begun to find that these misdoings supplied much conversation at Beechcroft Cottage, and began to get half weary, half curious to judge for herself of all these enormities; nor did she feel more interested in the discussion of who had missed church or school, and who needed tickets for meat, or to be stirred up to pay for their coal club.
At last she heard, ‘Well, I think you might read to her, Gillian! Oh! were not you listening? A very nice girl near here, a pupil teacher, who has developed a hip complaint, poor child. She will enjoy having visits from you, a young thing like herself.’
Gillian did not like it at all, but she knew that it would be wrong to refuse, and answered, ‘Very well,’ with no alacrity—hoping that it was not an immediate matter, and that something might happen to prevent it. But at that moment the sun came out, the rain had ceased, and there were glistening drops all over the garden; the weather quarter was clear, and after half an hours rest after dinner Aunt Jane jumped up, decreeing that it was time to go out, and that she would introduce Gillian to Lilian Giles before going on to the rest of her district.
She gathered a few delicate flowers in the little conservatory, and put them in a basket with a peach from the dessert, then took down a couple of books from the shelf. Gillian could not but acquiesce, though she was surprised to find that the one given to her was a translation of Undine.
‘The child is not badly off,’ explained Miss Mohun. ‘Her father is a superior workman. She does not exactly want comforts, but she is sadly depressed and disappointed at not being able to go on with her work, and the great need is to keep her from fretting over her troubles, and interested in something.’
Gillian began to think of one of the graceful hectic invalids of whom she had read, and to grow more interested as she followed Aunt Jane past the old church with the stout square steeple, constructed to hold, on a small side turret window, a light for the benefit of ships at sea. Then the street descended towards the marble works. There was a great quarry, all red and raw with recent blasting, and above, below, and around, rows of new little stuccoed, slated houses, for the work-people, and a large range of workshops and offices fronting the sea. This was Miss Mohun’s district, and at a better-looking house she stopped and used the knocker.
That was no distinction; all had doors with knockers and sash windows, but this was a little larger, and the tiny strip of garden was well kept, while a beautiful myrtle and pelargonium peeped over the muslin blind; and it was a very nice-looking woman who opened the door, though she might have been the better for a cap. Aunt Jane shook hands with her, rather to Gillian’s surprise, and heard that Lily was much the same.
‘It is her spirits are so bad, you see, Miss Mohun,’ she added, as she ushered them into a somewhat stuffy little parlour, carpeted and bedecked with all manner of knick-knacks, photographs, and framed certificates of various societies of temperance and providence on the gaily-papered walls. The girl lay on a couch near the fire, a sallow creature, with a big overhanging brow, made heavier by a dark fringe, and an expression that Gillian not unjustly decided was fretful, though she smiled, and lighted up a little when she saw Miss Mohun.
There was a good deal said about her bad nights, and her appetite, and how the doctor wanted her to take as much as she could, and how everything went against her—even lardy cake and roly-poly pudding with bacon in it!
Miss Mohun put the flowers on the little table near the girl, who smiled a little, and thanked her in a languid dreary manner. Finding that she had freshly been visited by the rector, Miss Mohun would not stop for any serious reading, but would leave Miss Merrifield to read a story to her.
‘And you ought to get on together,’ she said, smiling. ‘You are just about the same age, and your names rhyme—Gillian and Lilian. And Gillians mother is a Lily too.’
This the young lady lid not like, for she was already feeling it a sort of presumption in the girl to bear a name so nearly resembling her mother’s. She had seen a little cottage poverty, and had had a class of little maidservants; but this level of life which is in no want, keeps a best parlour, and does not say ma’am, was quite new to her, and she did not fancy it. When the girls were left together, while Mrs. Giles returned to her ironing, Gillian was the shyer of the two, and began rather awkwardly and reluctantly—
‘Miss Mohun thought you would like to hear this. It is a sort of German fairy tale.’
Lilian said, ‘Yes, Miss Merrifield’ in a short dry tone, completing Gillian’s distaste, and she began to read, not quite at her best, and was heartily glad when at the end of half an hour Mrs. Giles was heard in parley with another visitor, so that she had an excuse for going away without attempting conversation. She was overtaken by the children on their way home from their schools, where they had dined. They rushed upon her, together with the two Varleys, who wanted to take them home to tea; and Gillian giving her ready consent, Fergus dashed home to fetch his beloved humming-top, which was to be introduced to Clement Varley’s pump, and in a few minutes they were off, hardly vouchsafing an answer to such comparatively trifling inquiries as how they were placed at their schools.
Gillian found, however, that neither of her aunts was pleased at her having consented to the children’s going out without reference to their authority. How did she suppose they were to come home?
‘I did not think, can’t they be fetched?’ said Gillian, startled.
‘It is not far,’ said Adeline, pitying her. ‘One of the maids—’
‘My dear Ada!’ exclaimed Aunt Jane. ‘You know that Fanny cannot go out at night with her throat, and I never will send out those young girls on any account.’
‘Can’t I go?’ said Gillian desperately.
‘Are not you a young girl? I must go myself.’
And go she did at a quarter to eight, and brought home the children, looking much injured. Gillian went upstairs with them, and there was an outburst.
‘It was horrid to be fetched home so soon, just as there was a chance of something nice; when all the tiresome big ones had gone to dress, and we could have had some real fun,’ said Valetta.
‘Real fun! Real sense!’ said Fergus.
‘But what had you been about all this time?’
‘Why, their sisters and a man that was therewouldcome and drink tea in the nursery, where nobody wanted them, and make us play their play.
‘Wasn’t that nice? You are always crying out for Harry and me to come and play with you.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t like that,’ said Val, ‘you play with us, and they only pretended, and played with each other. It wasn’t nice.’
‘Clem said it was—forking,’ said Fergus.
‘No, spooning,’ said Val. ‘The dish ran after the spoon, you know.’
‘Well, but you haven’t told me about the schools,’ said Gillian, in elder sisterly propriety, thinking the subject had better be abandoned.
‘Jolly, jolly, scrumptious!’ cried Fergus.
‘Oh! Fergus, mamma doesn’t like slang words. Jasper doesn’t say them.’
‘Not at home, but men say what they like at school, and the ‘bus was scrumptious and splendiferous!’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ said Valetta; ‘I can’t bear being boxed up with horrid rude boys.’
‘Because you are only a girl!’
‘Now, Gill, they shot with—’
‘Val, if you tell—’
‘Telling Gill isn’t telling. Is it, Gill?’
She assented.
‘They did, Gill. They shot at us with pea-shooters,’ sighed the girl.
‘Oh! it was jolly, jolly, jolly!’ cried the boy. ‘Stebbing hit the girl who made the sour face on her cheeks, and they all squealed, and the cad looked in and tried to jaw us.’
‘But that dreadful boy shot right into his mouth,’ said Val, while Fergus went into an ecstasy of laughter. ‘Wasn’t it a shame, Gill?’
‘Indeed it was’ said Gillian. ‘Such ungentlemanly boys ought not to be allowed in the omnibus.’
‘Girls shouldn’t be allowed in the ‘bus, they are so stupid,’ said Fergus. ‘That one—as cross as old Halfpenny—who was she, Val?’
‘Emma Norton! Up in the highest form!’
‘Well, she is a prig, and a tell-tale-tit besides; only Stebbing said if she did, her junior would catch it.’
‘What a dreadful bully he must be!’ exclaimed Gillian.
I’ll tell you what,’ said Fergus, in a tone of profound admiration, ‘no one can hold a candle to him at batting! He snowballed all the Kennel choir into fits, and he can brosier old Tilly’s stall, and go on just the same.’
‘What a greedy boy!’ exclaimed Val.
‘Disgusting,’ added Gillian.
‘You’re girls,’ responded Fergus, lengthening the syllable with infinite contempt; but Valetta had spirit enough to reply, ‘Much better be a girl than rude and greedy.’
‘Exactly,’ said Gillian; ‘it is only little silly boys who think such things fine. Claude doesn’t, nor Harry, nor Japs.’
‘You know nothing about it,’ said Fergus.
‘Well, but you’ve never told me about school—how you are placed, and whom you are under.’
‘Oh! I’m in middle form, under Miss Edgar. Disgusting! It’s only the third form that go up to Smiler. She knows it is no use to try to take Stebbing and Burfield.’
‘And, Gill,’ added Val, ‘I’m in second class too, and I took three places for knowing where Teheran was, and got above Kitty Varley and a girl there two years older than I am, and her name is Maura.’
‘Maura, how very odd! I never heard of any one called Maura but one of the Whites,’ said Gillian. ‘What was her surname?’
This Valetta could not tell, and at the moment Mrs. Mount came up with intent to brush Miss Valetta’s hair, and to expedite the going to bed.
Gillian, not very happy about the revelations she had heard, went downstairs, and found her younger aunt alone, Miss Mohun having been summoned to a conference with one of her clients in the parish room. In her absence Gillian always felt more free and communicative, and she had soon told whatever she did not feel as a sort of confidence, including Valetta’s derivation of spooning, and when Miss Mohun returned it was repeated to her.
‘Yes,’ was her comment, ‘children’s play is a convenient cover to the present form of flirtation. No doubt Bee Varley and Mr. Marlowe believe themselves to have been most good-natured.’
‘Who is he, and will it come to anything?’ asked Aunt Ada, taking her sister’s information for granted.
‘Oh no, it is nothing. A civil service man, second cousin’s brother-in-law’s stepson. That’s quite enough in these days to justify fraternal romping.’
‘I thought Beatrice Varley a nice girl.’
‘So she is, my dear. It is only the spirit of the age, and, after all, this deponent saith not which was the dish and which was the spoon. Have the children made any other acquaintances, I wonder? And how did George Stebbing comport himself in the omnibus? I was sorry to see him there; I don’t trust that boy.’
‘I wonder they didn’t send him in solitary grandeur in the brougham,’ said Miss Ada.
Gillian held the history of the pea-shooting as a confidence, even though Aunt Jane seemed to have been able to see through the omnibus, so she contented herself with asking who George Stebbing was.
‘The son of the manager of the marble works; partner, I believe.’
‘Yes,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘the Co. means Stebbing primarily.’
‘Is he a gentleman?’
‘Well, as much as old Mr. White himself, I suppose. He is come up here—more’s the pity—to the aristocratic quarter, if you please,’ said Aunt Jane, smiling, ‘and if garden parties are not over, Mr. Stebbing may show you what they can be.’
‘That boy ought to be at a public school,’ said her sister. ‘I hope he doesn’t bully poor little Fergus.’
‘I don’t think he does,’ said Gillian. ‘Fergus seemed rather to admire him.’
‘I had rather hear of bullying than patronage in that quarter,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘But, Gillian, we must impress on the children that they are to go to no one’s house without express leave. That will avoid offence, and I should prefer their enjoying the society of even the Varleys in this house.’
Did Aunt Jane repent of her decision on the Thursday half-holiday granted to Mrs. Edgar’s pupils, when, in the midst of the working party round the dining-room table, in a pause of the reading, some one said, ‘What’s that!’—and a humming, accompanied by a drip, drop, drip, drop, became audible?
Up jumped Miss Mohun, and so did Gillian, half in consternation, half to shield the boy from her wrath. In a few moments they beheld a puddle on the mat at the bottom of the oak stairs, while a stream was descending somewhat as the water comes down at Lodore, while Fergus’s voice could be heard above—
‘Don’t, Varley! You see how it will act. The string of the humming-top moves the pump handle, and that spins. Oh!’
‘Master Fergus! Oh—h, you bad boy!’
The shriek was caused by the avenging furies who had rushed up the back stairs just as Miss Mohun had darted up the front, so as to behold, on the landing between the two, the boys, one spinning the top, the other working the pump which stood in its own trough of water, receiving a reckless supply from the tap in the passage. The maid’s scream of ‘What will your aunt say?’ was answered by her appearance, and rush to turn the cock.
‘Don’t, don’t, Aunt Jane,’ shouted Fergus; ‘I’ve almost done it! Perpetual motion.’ He seemed quite unconscious that the motion was kept up by his own hands, and even dismay could not turn him from being triumphant.
‘Oh! Miss Jane,’ cried Mrs. Mount, ‘if I had thought what they boys was after.’
‘Mop it up, Alice,’ said Aunt Jane to the younger girl. ‘No don’t come up, Ada; it is too wet for you. It is only a misdirected experiment in hydraulics.’
‘I told him not,’ said Clement Varley, thinking affairs serious.
‘Fergus, I am shocked at you,’ said Gillian sternly. ‘You are frightfully wet. You must be sent to bed.’
‘You must go and change,’ said Aunt Jane, preventing the howl about to break forth. ‘My dear boy, that tap must be let alone. We can’t have cataracts on the stairs.’
‘I didn’t mean it, Aunt Jane; I thought it was an invention,’ said Fergus.
‘I know; but another time come and ask me where to try your experiments. Go and take off those clothes; and you, Clement, you are soaking too. Run home at once.’
Gillian, much scandalised, broke out—
‘It is very naughty. At home, he would be sent to bed at once.’
‘I am not Mrs. Halfpenny, Gillian,’ said Aunt Jane coldly.
‘Jane has a soft spot for inventions, for Maurice’s sake,’ said her sister.
‘I can’t confound ingenuity and enterprise with wanton mischief, or crush it out for want of sympathy,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘Come, we must return to our needles.’
If Aunt Jane had gone into the state of wrath to be naturally expected, Gillian would have risen in arms on her brother’s behalf, and that would have been much pleasanter than the leniency which made her views of justice appear like unkindness.
This did not dispose her to be the better pleased at an entreaty from the two children to be allowed to join Mrs. Hablot’s class on Sunday. It appeared that they had asked Aunt Jane, and she had told them that their sister knew what their mother would like.
‘But I am sure she would not mind,’ said Valetta. ‘Only think, she has got a portfolio with pictures of everything all through the Bible!’
‘Yes,’ added Fergus, ‘Clem told me. There are the dogs eating Jezebel, and such a jolly picture of the lion killing the prophet. I do want to see them! Varley told me!’
‘And Kitty told me,’ added Valetta. ‘She is reading such a book to them. It is called The Beautiful Face, and is all about two children in a wood, and a horrid old grandmother and a dear old hermit, and a wicked baron in a castle! Do let us go, Gillyflower.
‘Yes,’ said Fergus; ‘it would be ever so much better fun than poking here.’
‘You don’t want fun on Sunday.’
‘Not fun exactly, but it is nicer.’
‘To leave me, the last bit of home, and mamma’s own lessons.’
‘They ain’t mamma’s,’ protested Fergus; but Valetta was touched by the tears in Gillian’s eyes, kissed her, and declared, ‘Not that.’
Whether it were on purpose or not, the next Sunday was eminently unsuccessful; the Collects were imperfect, the answers in the Catechism recurred to disused babyish blunders; Fergus twisted himself into preternatural attitudes, and Valetta teased the Sofy to scratching point, they yawned ferociously at The Birthday, and would not be interested even in the pony’s death. Then when they went out walking, they would not hear of the sober Rockstone lane, but insisted on the esplanade, where they fell in with the redoubtable Stebbing, who chose to patronise instead of bullying ‘little Merry’—and took him off to the tide mark—to the agony of his sisters, when they heard the St. Andrew’s bell.
At last, when the tempter had gone off to higher game, Fergus’s Sunday boots and stockings were such a mass of black mud that Gillian had to drag him home in disgrace, sending Valetta into church alone. She would have put him to bed on her own responsibility, but she could not master him; he tumbled about the room, declaring Aunt Jane would do no such thing, rolled up his stockings in a ball, and threw them in his sister’s face.
Gillian retired in tears, which she let no one see, not even Aunt Ada, and proceeded to record in her letter to India that those dreadful boys were quite ruining Fergus, and Aunt Jane was spoiling him.
However, Aunt Jane, having heard what had become of the youth, met him in no spoiling mood; and though she never knew of his tussle with Gillian, she spoke to him very seriously, shut him into his own room, to learn thoroughly what he had neglected in the morning, and allowed him no jam at tea. She said nothing to Gillian, but there were inferences.
The lessons went no better on the following Sunday; Gillian could neither enforce her authority nor interest the children. She avoided the esplanade, thinking she had found a nice country walk to the common beyond the marble works; but, behold, there was an outbreak of drums and trumpets and wild singing. The Salvation Army was marching that way, and, what was worse, yells and cat-calls behind showed that the Skeleton Army was on its way to meet them. Gillian, frightened almost out of her wits, managed to fly over an impracticable-looking gate into a field with her children, but Fergus wanted to follow the drum. After that she gave in. The children went to Mrs. Hablot, and Gillian thought she saw ‘I told you so’ in the corners of Aunt Jane’s eyes.
It was a further offence that her aunt strongly recommended her going regularly to the High School instead of only attending certain classes. It would give her far more chance of success at the examination to work with others and her presence would be good for Valetta. But to reduce her to a schoolgirl was to be resented on Miss Vincent’s account as well as her own.
The High School was very large. It stood at present at the end of a budding branch of Rockquay, where the managers, assisted by the funds advanced by Lord Rotherwood and that great invisible potentate, the head of the marble works, had secured and adapted a suitable house, and a space round it well walled in.
The various classes of students did not see much of each other, except those who were day boarders and spent the midday recreation time together. Even those in the same form were only together in school, as the dressing-room of those who dined there was separate from that of the others, and they did not come in and out at the same time. Valetta had thus only really made friends with two or three more Rockstone girls of about her own age besides Kitty Yarley, with whom she went backwards and forwards every day, under the escort provided in turn by the families of the young ladies.
Gillian’s studies were for three hours in the week at the High School, and on two afternoons she learnt from the old organist at Rockstone Church. She went and came alone, except when Miss Mohun happened to join her, and that was not often, ‘For,’ said that lady to her sister, ‘Gillian always looks as if she thought I was acting spy upon her. I wish I could get on with that girl; I begin to feel almost as poor Lily did with Dolores.’
‘She is a very good girl,’ said Miss Adeline.
‘So she is; and that makes it all the more trying to be treated like the Grand Inquisitor.’
‘Shall I speak to her? She is always as pleasant as possible with me.’
‘Oh no, don’t. It would only make it worse, and prevent you from having her confidence.’
‘Ah, Jane, I have often thought your one want was gentleness,’ said Miss Ada, with the gesture of her childhood—her head a little on one side. ‘And, besides, don’t you know what Reggie used to call your ferret look? Well, I suppose you can’t help it, but when you want to know a thing and are refraining from asking questions, you always have it more or less.’
‘Thank you, Ada. There’s nothing like brothers and sisters for telling one home-truths. I suppose it is the penalty of having been a regular Paul Pry in my childhood, in spite of poor Eleanor making me learn “Meddlesome Matty” as soon as I could speak. I alwaysdoand alwaysshallhave ringing in my ears—
‘“Oh! what a pretty box is this,I’ll open it,” said little Miss.’
‘Well, you know you always do know or find out everything about everybody, and it is very useful.’
‘Useful as a bloodhound is, eh?’
‘Oh no, not that, Jenny.’
‘As a ferret, or a terrier, perhaps. I suppose I cannot help that, though,’ she added, rather sadly. ‘I have tried hard to cure the slander and gossip that goes with curiosity. I am sorry it results in repulsion with that girl; but I suppose I can only go on and let her find out that my bark, or my eye, is worse than my bite.’
‘You are so good, so everything, Jenny,’ said Adeline, ‘that I am sure you will have her confidence in time, if only you won’t poke after it.’
Which made Miss Mohun laugh, though her heart was heavy, for she had looked forward to having a friend and companion in the young generation.
Gillian meantime went her way.
One morning, after her mathematical class was over, she was delayed for about ten minutes by the head mistress, to whom she had brought a message from her aunt, and thus did not come out at noon at the same time as the day scholars. On issuing into the street, where as yet there was hardly any traffic, except what was connected with the two schools, she perceived that a party of boys were besetting a little girl who was trying to turn down the cross road to Bellevue, barring her way, and executing a derisive war-dance around her, and when she, almost crying, made an attempt to dash by, pulling at her plaited tail, with derisive shouts, even Gillian’s call, ‘Boys, boys, how can you be so disgraceful!’ did not check them. One made a face and put his tongue out, while the biggest called out, ‘Thank you, teacher,’ and Gillian perceived to her horror, that they were no street boys, but Mrs. Edgar’s, and that Fergus was one of them. That he cried in dismay, ‘Don’t, Stebbing! It’s my sister,’ was no consolation, as she charged in among them, catching hold of her brother, as she said,
‘I could not believe that you could behave in such a disgraceful manner!’
All the other tormentors rushed away headlong, except Stebbing, who, in some compunction, said—
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Merrifield, I had no notion it was you.’
‘You are making it no better,’ said Gillian. ‘The gentlemen I am used to know how to behave properly to any woman or girl. My father would be very sorry that my brother has been thrown into such company.’
And she walked away with her head extremely high, having certainly given Master Stebbing a good lesson. Fergus ran after her. ‘Gill, Gill, you won’t tell.’
‘I don’t think I ever was more shocked in my life,’ returned Gillian.
‘But, Gill, she’s a nasty, stuck-up, conceited little ape, that Maura White, or whatever her ridiculous name is. They pretend her father was an officer, but he was really a bad cousin of old Mr. White’s that ran away; and her mother is not a lady—a great fat disgusting woman, half a nigger; and Mr. White let her brother and sister be in the marble works out of charity, because they have no father, and she hasn’t any business to be at the High School.’
‘White, did you say? Maura White!’ exclaimed Gillian. ‘Captain White dead! Oh, Fergus! it must be Captain White. He was in the dear old Royal Wardours, and papa thought so much of him! To think of your going and treating his daughter in that shocking way!’
‘It was what Stebbing said,’ gruffly answered Fergus.
‘If you let yourself be led by these horrid cads—’
‘He is no such thing! He is the crack bat of Edgar’s—’
‘A boy is a cad who can’t behave himself to a girl because she is poor. I really think the apology to me was the worst part or the matter. He only treats people well when he sees they can take care of themselves.’
‘I’ll tell him about Captain White,’ said Fergus, a little abashed.
‘Yes. And I will get the aunts to call on Mrs. White, and that may help them to a better level among these vulgar folk.’
‘But you won’t—’ said Fergus, with an expressive pause.
‘I won’t get you into trouble, for I think you are sorry you treated one of our own in such a manner.’
‘I wouldn’t, indeed, if I had known.’
‘I shall only explain that I have found out whom Maura belongs to. I should go and see them at once, only I must make Val find out where she lives.’
So Gillian returned home, communicating the intelligence with some excitement that she had discovered that Valetta’s schoolmate, Maura White, was none other than the daughter of her father’s old fellow-soldier, whose death shocked her greatly, and she requested to go and call on Mrs. White as soon as she could learn her abode.
However, it seemed to be impossible that any one should live in Rockstone unknown to Aunt Jane.
‘White?’ she said. ‘It can’t be the Whites down by Cliffside. No; there’s a father there, though he generally only comes down for Sunday.’
‘I am sure there are some Whites on the Library list,’ said Miss Ada.
‘Oh yes; but she washes! I know who they must be. I know in Bellevue there are some; but they go to the Kennel Church. Didn’t you come home, Ada, from that function you went to with Florence, raving about the handsome youth in the choir?’
‘Oh yes, we thought it such an uncommon, foreign face, and he looked quite inspired when he was singing his solo.’
‘Yes; I found out that his name was White, a clerk or something in the marble works, and that he had a mother and sister living at Bellevue. I did see the sister when I went to get the marble girls into the G.F.S., but she said something foolish about her mother not liking it.’
‘Yes; nobody under the St. Kenelm influence ever will come into the G.F.S.’
‘But what is she doing?’ asked Gillian. ‘Do you mean Kalliope?’
‘I suppose I do. I saw a rather nice-looking young woman in the department where they make Florentine mosaic, and I believe they said she was Miss White, but she cut me off very short with her mother, so I had no more to do with her.’
‘I am sure mamma would wish me to call on Mrs. White,’ said Gillian.
‘There’s no reason against it,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘I will go with you the first day I can.’
When would that be, wondered Gillian. She told Valetta to talk to Maura and learn the name of the house; and this was ascertained to be 3 Ivinghoe Terrace, Bellevue Road, but Val had very little opportunity of cultivating the acquaintance of town girls, who did not stay to dinner, as she had to go home immediately after school, under Emma Norton’s escort, and perhaps she was not very ardent in the cause, for Kitty Varley and her other friends did not like the child, and she was more swayed by them than perhaps she liked to confess to her sister.
Each morning at breakfast Gillian hoped that Aunt Jane would lay out her day so as to call on Mrs. White; but first there was the working party, then came the mothers’ meeting, followed by afternoon tea at Mrs. Hablot’s for some parish council. On the third day, which might have been clear, ‘a miserable creature,’ as Gillian mentally called her, wrote to beg the Misses Mohun to bring themselves and her niece to make up a lawn-tennis set, since some one had failed. Gillian vainly protested that she did not care about lawn tennis, and could not play unless Jasper was her partner; and Aunt Jane so far sided with her as to say it was very inconvenient, and on such short notice they ought not to be expected. But Aunt Ada clearly wanted to go; and so they went. It was a beautiful place, but Gillian could not enjoy herself, partly because she knew so few of the people, but more because she was vexed and displeased about the Whites. She played very badly; but Aunt Jane, when pressed into the service, skipped about with her little light figure and proved herself such a splendid player, doing it so entirely con amore, that Gillian could not but say to herself, ‘She was bent on going; it was all humbug her pretending to want to refuse.’
That afternoon’s dissipation had made it needful to do double work the next day, and Gillian was again disappointed. Then came Saturday, when Miss Mohun was never available, nor was she on Monday; and when it appeared that she had to go to a meeting at the Cathedral town on Tuesday, Gillian grew desperate, and at her tete-a-tete meal with Aunt Ada, related the whole history of the Whites, and her great desire to show kindness to her father’s old brother-officer’s family, and how much she was disappointed.
Miss Adeline was touched, and indeed, fond as she was of her sister, she could not help being flattered by Gillian’s preference and confidence.
‘Well, my deal, this is a nice day, not too hot or too cold; I do not see why I should not walk down with you and call. If I find it too far, we can take a cab to go back.’
‘Oh, thank you, Aunt Ada; it is very very kind of you, and there is no knowing when Aunt Jane may be able to go. I don’t like to close up my Indian letter till I can say I have seen them.’
Gillian fidgeted a good deal lest, before her aunt’s postprandial repose was over, visitors should come and put a stop to everything, and she looked ready to cut the throat of a poor lady in a mushroom hat, who came up to leave a message for Miss Mohun about a possible situation for one of her class of boys.
However, at last they started, Kunz and all, Miss Adeline quite infected by Gillian’s excitement.
‘So your father and mother were very fond of them.’
‘Papa thought very highly of him, and was very sorry he had to return,’ said Gillian.
‘And she was a beautiful Greek.’
Gillian began to be quite afraid of what she might have said.
‘I don’t think she is more than half Greek,’ she said. ‘I believe her mother was a Gorfiote, but her father was English or Irish. I believe he kept a shop in Malta.’
‘Quite a mixture of nationalities then, and no wonder she is beautiful. That youth had a very striking profile; it quite reminded me of a gem as I saw it against the dark pillar.’
‘I did not say she was very beautiful now,’ said Gillian, feeling a qualm as she recollected the Queen of the White Ants, and rather oddly divided between truthfulness, fear of alarming her aunt into turning back, and desire of giving her a little preparation.
‘Ah! those southern beauties soon go on. Some one told me that Lord Byron’s “Maid of Athens,” whose portrait I used to think the loveliest thing in the world, became a great stout woman, but was quite a mother to all the young Englishmen about. I remember I used to try to hold my head and keep my eyelids down like the engraving in an old book that had been my mother’s.’
‘Oh! I think I have seen it at Beechcroft,’ said Gillian, very much amused, for she now perceived whence arose Aunt Ada’s peculiar turn of the head and droop of the eyelashes, and how the conscious affectation of childhood had become unconsciously crystallised.
She grew more and more anxious as they found some difficulty in making out Ivinghoe Terrace, and found it at last to be a row of rather dilapidated little houses, apparently built of lath and stucco, and of that peculiar meanness only attained by the modern suburb. Aunt Ada evidently did not like it at all, and owned herself almost ready to turn back, being sure that Valetta must have made some mistake. Gillian repeated that she had always said the Whites were very poor, but she began to feel that her impatience had misled her, and that she would have been better off with the aunt who was used to such places, and whose trim browns and crimsons were always appropriate everywhere, rather than this dainty figure in delicate hues that looked only fit for the Esplanade or the kettledrum, and who was becoming seriously uneasy, as Kunz, in his fresh snowiness, was disposed to make researches among vulgar remains of crabs and hakes, and was with difficulty restrained from disputing them with a very ignoble and spiteful yellow cur of low degree.
No. 3, with its blistered wall and rusty rail, was attained, Kunz was brought within the enclosure, and Gillian knocked as sharply and fast as she could, in the fear that her aunt might yet turn about and escape.
The door was opened with a rapidity that gave the impression that they had been watched, but it was by a very untidy-looking small maid, and the parlour into which they were turned had most manifestly been lately used as the family dining-room, and was redolent of a mixture of onion, cabbage, and other indescribable odours.
Nobody was there, except a black and white cat, who showed symptoms of flying at Kunz, but thought better of it, and escaped by the window, which fortunately was open, though the little maid would have shut it, but for Miss Adeline’s gasping and peremptory entreaty to the contrary. She sat on the faded sofa, looking as if she just existed by the help of her fan and scent-bottle, and when Gillian directed her attention to the case of clasps and medals and the photograph of the fine-looking officer, she could only sigh out, ‘Oh, my dear!’
There was a certain air of taste in the arrangement of the few chimney-piece ornaments, and Gillian was pleased to see the two large photographs of her father and mother which Captain White had so much valued as parting gifts. A few drawings reminded her of the School of Art at Belfast, and there was a vase of wild flowers and ferns prettily arranged, but otherwise everything was wretchedly faded and dreary.
Then came the opening of the door, and into the room rolled, rather than advanced, something of stupendous breadth, which almost took Gillian’s breath away, as she durst not look to see the effect on her aunt. If the Queen of the White Ants had been stout before, what was she now? Whatever her appearance had been in the days of comparative prosperity, with a husband to keep her up to the mark, and a desire to rank with the officers’ wives, she had let everything go in widowhood, poverty, and neglect; and as she stood panting in her old shiny black alpaca, the only thing Gillian recalled about her like old times was the black lace veil thrown mantilla fashion over her head; but now it was over a widow’s cap, and a great deal rustier than of old. Of the lovely foreigner nothing else remained except the dark eyes, and that sort of pasty sallow whiteness that looks at if for generations past cold water and fresh air had been unknown. There was no accent more interesting in her voice than a soupcon of her Irish father as she began, ‘I am sorry to have kept the lady so long waiting. Was it about the girl’s character that you came?’
‘Oh no, Mrs. White, interrupted Gillian, her shyness overpowered by the necessity of throwing herself into the breach. ‘Don’t you remember me? I am Gillian Merrifield, and this is my aunt, Miss Adeline Mohun.’
The puffy features lighted up into warmth. ‘Little Miss Gillian! And I am proud to see you! My little Maura did tell me that Miss Valetta was in her class at the High School; but I thought there was no one now who would come near the poor widow. And is your dear mamma here, Miss Gillian, and are she and your papa quite well?’
Gillian could hardly believe in such dense remoteness that her father’s accident should be unknown, but she explained all, and met with abundant sympathy, the dark eyes filled with tears, and the voice broke into sobs, as Mrs. White declared that Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield had been the best friends she ever had in her life.
But oh! that the handkerchief had been less grimy with which she mopped her eyes, as she spoke of the happy days that were gone! Gillian saw that poor Aunt Ada was in an agony to get away, and hurried out her questions for fear of being stopped. ‘How was Kalliope—was she at home?’
‘Oh no, poor Kally, she is the best girl in the world. I always say that, with all my sorrows, no one ever was more blest in their children than poor little me. Richard, my eldest, is in a lawyer’s office at Leeds. Kally is employed in the art department, just as a compliment to her relation, Mr. White. Quite genteel, superior work, though I must say he does not do as much for us as he might. Such a youth as my Alexis now was surely worthy of the position of a gentleman.’
The good lady was quite disposed to talk; but there was no making out, through her cloud of confused complaints, what her son and daughter were actually doing; and Aunt Ada, while preserving her courtesy, was very anxious to be gone, and rose to take leave at the first moment possible, though after she was on her feet Mrs. White detained her for some time with apologies about not returning her visit. She was in such weak health, so unequal to walking up the cliff, that she was sure Miss Mohun would excuse her, though Alexis and Kally would be perfectly delighted to hear of Miss Gillian’s kindness.
Gillian had not made out half what she wanted to know, nor effected any arrangement for seeing Kalliope, when she found herself out in the street, and her aunt panting with relief. ‘My dear, that woman! You don’t mean that your mother was fond of her.’
‘I never said mamma was fond of her.’
‘My dear, excuse me. It was the only reason for letting you drag me here. I was almost stifled. What a night I shall have!’
‘I am very sorry, Aunt Ada, but, indeed, I never said that mamma was fond of her, only that papa thought very highly of her husband, and wished us to be kind to her.’
‘Well, you gave me that impression, whether you wished it or not! Such a hole; and I’m sure she drinks gin!’
‘Oh no, aunt!’
‘I can’t be mistaken! I really was afraid she was going to kiss you!’
‘I do wish I could have made out about Alexis and Kalliope.’
‘Oh, my dear, just working like all the lot, though she shuffled about it. I see what they are like, and the less you see of them the better. I declare I am more tired than if I had walked a mile. How am I ever to get up the hill again?’
‘I am sorry, aunt,’ said Gillian. ‘Will you take my arm? Perhaps we may meet Kalliope, if the marble people come out at four or five. What’s that bell?’ as a little tinkle was heard.
‘That’s St. Kenelm’s! Oh! you would like to go there, and it would rest me; only there’s Kunz.’
‘I should like to see it very much,’ said Gillian.
‘Well,’ said Aunt Ada, who certainly seemed to have something of the ‘cat’s away’ feeling about her, and, moreover, trusted to avoid meeting Kalliope. ‘Just round the corner here is Mrs. Webb’s, who used to live with us before she married, Kunz will be happy with her. Won’t he, my doggie, like to go and see his old Jessie?’
So Kunz was disposed of with a very pleasant, neat-looking woman, who begged Miss Adeline to come and have some tea after the service.
It was really a beautiful little church—‘a little gem’ was exactly the term that suggested itself—very ornate, and the chief lack being of repose, for there seemed not an inch devoid of colour or carving. There was a choir of boys in short surplices and blue cassocks, and a very musical service, in the course of which it was discovered to be the Feast of St. Remigius, for after the Lesson a short discourse was given on the Conversion of Clovis, not forgetting the sacred ampulla.
There were about five ladies present and six old women, belonging to a home maintained by Lady Flight. The young priest, her son, had a beautiful voice, and Gillian enjoyed all very much, and thought the St. Andrew’s people very hard and unjust; but all this went out of her head in the porch, for while Lady Flight was greeting Miss Mohun with empressement, and inviting her to come in to tea, Gillian had seen a young woman who had come in late and had been kneeling behind them.
Turning back and holding out her hands, she exclaimed—
‘Kalliope! I so wanted to see you.’
‘Miss Gillian Merrifield,’ was the response. ‘Maura told me you were here, but I hardly hoped to see you.’
‘How can I see you? Where are you? Busy?’
‘I am at the marble works all day—in the mosaic department. Oh, Miss Gillian, I owe it all to Miss Merrifield’s encouraging me to go to the School of Art. How is she? And I hope you have good accounts of Sir Jasper?’
‘He is better, and I hope my mother is just arriving. That’s why we are here; and Alethea and Phyllis are out there. They will want to know all about you.’
At that moment Aunt Adeline looked round, having succeeded in persuading Lady Flight that she had another engagement. She saw a young woman in a shabby black dress, with a bag in her hand, and a dark fringe over a complexion of clear brown, straight features, to whom Gillian was eagerly talking.
‘Ah!’ she said, as Mr. Flight now came up from the vestry; ‘do you know anything of that girl?’
‘Second-rate people, somewhere in Bellevue,’ said the lady.
‘The brother is my best tenor,’ said Mr. Flight. ‘She is very often at St. Kenelm’s, but I do not know any more of her. The mother either goes to Bellevue or nowhere. They are in Bellevue Parish.’
This was quite sufficient answer, for any interference with parochial visiting in the Bellevue district was forbidden.
Aunt Ada called to Gillian, and when she eagerly said, ‘This is Kalliope, aunt,’ only responded with a stiff bow.
‘I do not know what these people might have been, Gillian,’ she said, as they pursued their way to Mrs. Webb’s; ‘but—they must have sunk so low that I do not think your mother can wish you to have anything to do with them.
‘Oh, Aunt Ada! Kalliope was always such a good girl!’
‘She has a fringe. And she would not belong to the G.F.S.,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘No, my dear, I see exactly the sort of people they are. Your aunt Jane might be useful to them, if they would let her, but they are not at all fit for you to associate with.’
Gillian chafed inwardly, but she was beginning to learn that Aunt Ada was more impenetrable than Aunt Jane, and, what was worse, Aunt Jane always stood by her sister’s decision, whether she would have herself originated it or not.
When the elder aunt came home, and heard the history of their day, and Gillian tried to put in a word, she said—
‘My dear, we all know that rising from the ranks puts a man’s family in a false position, and they generally fall back again. All this is unlucky, for they do not seem to be people it is possible to get at, and now you have paid your kind act of attention, there is no more to be done till you can hear from Ceylon about them.’
Gillian was silenced by the united forces of the aunts.
‘It really was a horrid place,’ said Aunt Ada, when alone with her sister; ‘and such a porpoise of a woman! Gillian should not have represented her as a favourite.’
‘I do not remember that she did so,’ returned Aunt Jane. ‘I wish she had waited for me. I have seen more of the kind of thing than you have, Ada.’
‘I am sure I wish she had. I don’t know when I shall get over the stifling of that den; but it was just as if they were her dearest friends.’
‘Girls will be silly! And there’s a feeling about the old regiment too. I can excuse her, though I wish she had not been so impatient. I fancy that eldest daughter is really a good girl and the mainstay of the family.’
‘But she would have nothing to do with you or the G.F.S.’
‘If I had known that her father had been an officer, I might have approached her differently. However, I will ask Lily about their antecedents, and in six weeks we shall know what is to be done about them.’