Another aunt, Anna by name, suggested that as I was at Fullfield, I might take the opportunity of paying her a visit at Manwell, why because I was at Fullfield I don't know, as they are miles apart, counties apart I should say. However, I went because it is difficult to refuse Aunt Anna anything; she accepts no excuses. It is as well for any one who wishes to see Aunt Anna at her best to see her in her own home. She, according to Aunt Cecilia, does best in her own soil. Moreover, she is nothing without her family, it so thoroughly justifies her existence.
Aunt Anna is one of those jewels who owe a certain amount to their setting.
Her husband calls her a jewel, and as such she is known by the family in general which recalls to my mind an interesting biennial custom which was said to hold good in the Manwell family. Every time a lesser jewel made its appearance, the mother-jewel was presented with a diamond and ruby ornament of varying magnificence, with the words "The price of a good woman is far above rubies" conveniently inscribed thereon.
Aunt Anna took it all very seriously, from the tiara downward, and if diamond and ruby shoe-buckles had not involved twins, I think she would have hankered after those, but even as it was, she came in time to possess a very remarkable collection of rubies and diamonds.
Aunt Anna is very prosperous, very happy, very rich, and very contented.
She prides herself on none of these things, but only on the unprejudiced state of her maternal mind.
"Of course," she says, "I cannot help seeing that my children are more beautiful than other people's. It would be ludicrously affected and hypocritical of me if I pretended otherwise. If they were plain, I should be the first to see it, and—"
I think she was going to add "say it," but she stopped short; she invariably does at a deliberate lie, because she is a very truthful woman, and thinks a lie is a wicked thing unless socially a necessity.
I arrived at tea-time which is a thing Aunt Anna expects of her guests. I noticed that she looked a little less contented than usual, and that she even gave way to a gesture of impatience when Mrs. Blankley asked for a fifth cup of tea. Mrs. Blankley is a great advocate of temperance. In connection with which, Aunt Anna once said that she thought there should be temperance in all things beginning with "t." Which vague saying, as illustrative of her wit, was treasured up by her indulgent husband and quoted "As Anna so funnily said."
Now as Aunt Anna, we know, never says witty things unless under strong provocation, she rarely says them, for she is of an amazingly even temperament. She often says she considers cleverness a very dangerous gift. It is not one I seek for either myself or my children. It is so easy to say clever, unkind things. Every one can do it if they choose; the difficulty is not to say them.
It is evident that Aunt Anna chooses the harder part.
Mrs. Blankley, having disposed of the fifth cup of tea, expressed a desire to see the pigs. Aunt Anna never goes to see pigs, nor demands that sacrifice of Londoners, for which act of consideration I honor her; not but what I am fond of pigs, black ones and small. Aunt Anna knows that there are such things because of the continual presence of bacon in her midst. She also knows that pigs are things that get prizes. She still clings to her childish belief that streaky bacon comes from feeding the pigs one day and not the next.
Every one, like Mrs. Blankley, had a thirst to see something, and I was left alone with Aunt Anna, to discuss Pauline's wedding. As a rule, there is nothing Aunt Anna would sooner discuss, but I saw that something was worrying her, and I guessed that the unburdening of a rarely perturbed mind was imminent. It was.
"Is anything wrong?—" I asked. "Any of the children worrying you?" She nodded and pointed to a diamond and ruby brooch and said plaintively. "This one, Claud, just a little worrying."
I tried to hide a smile. "Oh, that's Claud, is it? I get a little mixed."
"I dare say, dear," she said; "but it's quite simple, really. Jack was the tiara, and so on."
"What has Claud been doing?" I asked. "Oh, nothing he can help, I feel sure. He has a temperament, I believe. What it is I don't quite know; people grow out of it, I am told. It's not so much doing things as saying them; and his friends are odd, decidedly odd. They wear curious ties, have disheveled hair, and are distinctly décolleté. I don't know if I should apply the word to men, but they are."
I suggested that these little indiscretions on the part of extreme youth need not worry her. But she said they did, in a way, because her other children were so very plain sailing. They never took any one by surprise. She then told me of poor Lady Adelaide, a near neighbor, at least as near as it was possible for any neighbor to be, considering the extent of the Manwell property, one of whose boys had written a book without her knowledge, and the other had married under exactly similar conditions.
I said I thought the writing of a book a minor offense compared to the matrimonial venture. She agreed, but said they were both upsetting because unexpected. As an instance, did I remember when Lady Victoria was butted by her pet lamb, when she was showing the Prince her white farm? It wasn't the upsetting she minded, so much as the unexpectedness of it, because the lamb had a blue ribbon round its neck!
"A black sheep in a white farm, Aunt Anna!" I said.
"No, dear, it was white, and it was a lamb."
But to return to Lady Adelaide. Now that Aunt Anna came to think of it, the marriage was the better of the two shocks, because financially it was a success, and the book wasn't. "Books aren't," She added.
"Is that all Claud does, or, rather, his friends do?" I asked.
"No, it's not," she said. "Ever since he went to Oxford he has changed completely. He has got into his head that we are a self-centered family, and that I am a prejudiced mother, when it is the only thing I am not. I may be everything else for all I know, I may be daily breaking all the commandments without knowing it! But a prejudiced mother I am not! Before he went to Oxford he came into my bedroom one morning, and he said that he thought Maud and Edith were quite the most beautiful girls he had ever seen, and he had sat behind some famous beauty in a theatre a few nights before. I didn't ask him! I was suffering from neuralgia at the time, I remember, and he might, under the circumstances, have agreed just to soothe me, but he said it of his own accord, and he wondered if they would go up to London and walk down Bond Street with him. I said it should be arranged. They walked with him three times up and down Bond Street; he only asked for once. I am only telling you this because you will then realize what this change in him means to me. He came back from Oxford after one term and he said nothing about the girls' beauty, although I thought them improved. I didn't say so; I made some little joke about Bond Street, which he pretended not to understand. So I just said I thought the girls improved, or rather were looking very pretty, and he said, 'My dear mother, we must learn to look at these things from the point of view of the outsider. Place yourself in the position of a man of the world seeing them for the first time.'"
To begin with, Aunt Anna proceeded to explain, she could never place herself in a position to which she was not born; she did not think it right. She said that Claud then urged her to look at it from stranger's point of view, since that of man of the world was impracticable, which Aunt Anna said was a thing no mother could do, nor would she wish to do it. She left such things to actresses. Talking of actresses reminded her that Claud had even found fault with Maud as an actress, when every one knew how very excellent she was. Several newspapers, the Southshire Herald in particular, had alluded to her as one of our most talented actresses.
"We had a professional down to coach her, and he said there was really nothing he could teach her. He was a very nice man, and had all his meals with us. I went," continued Aunt Anna, "to see the great French actress who was in London in the spring, you remember? And if ever a mother went with an unprejudiced mind, I was that mother. I was prepared to think she was better than Maud, and if she had been, I should have been the first to say it. But she was not, at least not to my mind! Maud is always a lady, even on the stage, and that woman was not."
I ventured to suggest that she was perhaps not supposed to be a lady in the part. Aunt Anna said, "Perhaps not, but that does not matter; Maud would be a lady under any circumstances, whatever character she impersonated, laundress or lady. Claud says she will never act till she learns to forget herself I trust one of my daughters will never do that!"
I strove to pacify Aunt Anna, but her tender heart was wounded and she was hard to comfort.
"Claud must admire Edith's violin playing," I ventured.
Aunt Anna shook her head. "He begged me to eliminate from my mind all preconceived notions and to judge her from the unprejudiced point of view. I told Edith to put away her violin. Claud says I must call it a fiddle. I could not bear to see it. I never thought there could be such dissension in our united family."
By way of distraction, I asked if the young man at tea with the disheveled hair and startlingly unorthodox tie was a friend of Claud's, and she said, "His greatest!"
At that moment Claud came into the room, wearing a less earnest expression than usual and Aunt Anna held out a hand of forgiveness. He warmly clasped it. "Mother," he said, "Windlehurst has just told me, in strict confidence, that he considers Maud's the most beautiful face he has ever seen, except, of course, in the best period of ancient Greek art. I knew you wanted to hear the unprejudiced opinion of an unbiased outsider."
I wondered how Windlehurst would like the description! Claud went on: "I think Edith every bit as good looking, more so in some ways. Now that I have heard an unprejudiced opinion I can express mine, which you have known all along. You see, mother, people say we are a self-centered and egotistical family. I have proved that we are not."
"Dear, dearest Claud, your tie is disarranged," murmured his mother, struggling to reduce it to the dimensions of the orthodox sailor knot. "Do wait and listen to all dear Betty is telling me of dearest Pauline's wedding. So interesting. Go on, dear Betty; where had we got to?"
My correspondence regarding my summer plans was varied, and the suggestions contained therein numerous. Here are some of the letters.
Diana's:
Darling Betty,—What do you say to the Cornish coast, coves, cream, and children! As much of the coast and cream, and as little of the children as you like! David has a bachelor shoot in view, and I think sea air would do the children good. I do not propose leaving any nurses at home, or sending them away; they shall all come and run after Sara should she get into the sea, when she ought not to, but you and I will have the joy of watching her. She really is delicious paddling. Think of the rocks, and the coves, and the sands, and not of the wind or of other disadvantages that may strike you. As much as you like you shall read, and whatever you like, so long as you will, at intervals, look up and smile at me. I shall love to feel you are there, so do come, not as a professional aunt, as you sometimes describe yourself, but as your own dear self.
Your lovingDIANA
Zerlina's:
Dearest Betty,—I know how difficult you are to find disengaged, but do try and come to Cornwall with us. The children would love to have you, and I know you enjoy tearing about after them on the sands! Nurse must go home for her holiday, and the nursery-maid is so useless. But you shall do exactly as you like. I know you wouldn't mind if I left you for a day or two. Jim is so keen that I should go to the Cross-Patches, being in the neighborhood, more or less. Do write and say you will come. I do get such headaches at the seaside, and I look so awful when I get sun burnt, but it suits you.
Yours,ZERLINA
Julia's:
Betty dear,—You have simply got to come. Diana tells me she is asking you to Cornwall, and that, I know, you will not refuse, because for some extraordinary reason you can't refuse her anything. Oh! for Diana's charm for one day a week! What wouldn't I do! That woman wastes her life; I've always said so. But go to Cornwall, blazes, or anywhere you like, but come here on your way back—everywhere is on the way back from Cornwall. Because the house is to be full of William's friends and he is never perfectly at ease unless there is a bishop among them, and a bishop drives me to desperate deeds of wickedness. They always like me! Betty, in your capacity of professional something, think of me. I want helping more than any one. I don't ask you to give up Cornwall, but afterwards, don't disappoint your
JULIA.
A girl's:
Dear Miss Lisle,—I wonder if you will remember me. I am almost afraid to hope so. But I met you last summer at the Anstells' garden-party, and you passed me an ice, vanilla and strawberry mixed! I have never forgotten it. It was not so much passing the ice, lots of people did that, as the way you did it. I was very unhappy at the time, and there was something in your expression as you did it that made me feel you were unlike any one else I had ever met. I wore green muslin!
I am wondering whether you would come to Cornwall, to stay with us. The coast is lovely, and in its wildness one can forget one's self, and that, I think, is what one most wants to do! I know what a help you would be to me, if you could come, and I will tell you all my troubles when we have been together some days. One gets to know people by the sea very quickly, I think, don't you? Although I feel as if I had known you all my life. My hat was brown, mushroom.
Your sincere friend and admirer,VERONICA VOKINS
P. S.—I forgot to say that my father and mother will be delighted to see you. I have ten brothers and sisters, but there is miles of coast, and I and my five sisters have a sitting-room all to ourselves. Father says "he" must pass his examinations first. I tell you this because you will then understand. "He" won the obstacle race at the Anstells', but he was in a sack, so I expect you did not notice him!
The big, sad Thomas:
Dear Miss Lisle,—For months, in fact since the day you restored the screw to my small son, I have been trying to write to you on a subject that may or may not be distasteful to you. That it will come as a surprise I feel sure. My love for my boy must be my excuse; nothing else could justify my writing to any woman as I am about to write to you. Will you be a mother to my Thomas? It would not be honest on my part to pretend that I can offer you in myself anything but a very sad and lonely man, the best of me having gone. No one could ever,—or shall ever, take the place of my beloved wife in my heart, the remains of which I offer unreservedly to you. For the sake of my boy I am prepared to sacrifice myself, and I can at least promise you that you shall never regret by any action of mine whatever sacrifice it may entail on your part. I shall not insult you by the mention of money matters or any such things, for I feel sure that the fact of my being a rich man will make no difference in your decision as to whether or no you will be a mother to my Thomas.
Yours very sincerely,THOMAS GLYNNE
Lady Glenburnie's:
Dear Betty,—If you should be in the North,—and why not make a certainty of it?—don't forget us! A line to say when and where to meet you is all we want, and you will find the warmest of welcomes awaiting you, and your own favorite room in the turret. Don't mention nephews or nieces in answering this.
Your affectionateMARY GLENBURNIE
Brother Archie's:
Angel Betty,—Help a brother in distress. I'm desperately in love. First of all,—how long do you suppose it will last? Forever, I think. But I can't live at this pitch for long, and my summer plans depend on it. She is lovely. Makes me long to sing hymns on Sunday evenings; you know the kind of thing—feeling, I should say! She's like Pauline, only more beautiful, I think. I will tell you all about it when we meet. There are complications. My first trouble is this: I have taken a small place in Skye with Coningsby. Now it is perfectly impossible to live with Con when one is in love; of all the unsympathetic, dried-up old crabs, he is the worst. Now the question is, can I buy him out? Have you to stay instead, ask my beloved too, save her from drowning, which in Skye should be easy, and then live happily ever afterwards. I am consumed with a desire to save her from something. It is a symptom, I know, but, Betty dear, it is serious this time. Her eyes look as if they saw into another world, which makes me feel hopeless! I don't mind you hinting something about it to Julia, if you should see her. You needn't enter into details!
Yours ever,ARCHIE
Of all the letters, Diana's was the most tempting.
Zerlina's had no power to lure. Dear Archie's little—he had so often written the same—sort of letters. Veronica Vokins' less, and the sad, big Thomas! What a curious letter! I hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry. How careful he was to point out the sacrifice on his part entailed in his offer. It was hardly flattering to me, except that he refrained from mentioning his worldly goods, or the advantages to me accruing from the bestowal thereof. I had at least looked unworldly when I had visited the small Thomas in bed; of that I was glad. And, after all, why should I mind? It is something, perhaps, to be asked to be a mother to a small fat Thomas. I wrote, refusing as kindly as I could. I dare say there are women who would accept the position. Let us hope, if one be found to do so, that she will not forget the mother part!
Dear Lady Glenburnie's letter had something of temptation lurking in it somewhere. The turret room, commanding its views of purple hills and sunsets, and the warmest of welcomes! But, again, the most aching of memories. I could not go there again under circumstances so different. If ever it could be again as it had been, how I should love it! So that invitation I declined, saying I should be in Cornwall with Diana. Lady Glenburnie would forgive the mention of Diana, I knew, and of Betty, Hugh, and Sara I said nothing, as she had stipulated.
Then I wrote to Julia saying I would go to her after I had been to Cornwall. She might need consoling by then, should Archie have proved himself recovered of the wounds inflicted by her. This I did not tell her. If I waited a little, there might be nothing to tell.
So to Cornwall I went, and found the sands and the coves and the rocks and the sea, just as Diana had said, nor was I disappointed in the back view of Sara with her petticoats tucked into her bathing-drawers. It was divine. She was delicious, too, paddling, and there were enough nurses to prevent her doing more, if necessary, and Diana and I could, if we liked, lie on the sands and watch the children. But it so happens that I love building castles and making puddings, and, curiously enough, Diana does too, and we were children once more with perhaps less hinge in our backs than formerly, but still we enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Betty, the first day, full of faith, tried to walk on the sea, and was pulled out very wet and disappointed, and her faith a little shaken, perhaps, for the moment. Hugh told her she didn't have faith hard enough. "You must go like this," and he held his breath, threatening to become purple in the face.
"Could you now?" said Betty wistfully, when Hugh was at his reddest.
"No!" he said, "because I burst. Aunt Woggles looked at me when I was just believing very hard."
Betty forgot that trouble in her infinite delight at discovering where Heaven really was. She knew if she could just row out to the silver pathway across the sea, it would lead straight to Heaven. "I know it would," she said.
Hugh objected because Heaven was in the sky, that he knew! Betty said how did he know?
"Well, look," said Hugh; "you can see it's all bright and blue and shining, and angels fly, and you can't fly on the sea, so that shows."
Betty wasn't sure of that because of flying-fish; she'd seen them in a book where "F" was for flying-fish, so she knew. But Hugh knew that angels weren't fish, because fish is good to eat and angels aren't. I was glad the culinary knowledge of Hugh and Betty didn't extend to "angels on horseback," or where should we have been in the abysses of argument?
We made expeditions which, as expeditions, were not a success. Sara objected to leaving the object of her passing affections, a starfish perhaps, and Hugh and Betty also always found treasures of their very own, which they must just watch for just a little time, in case they did something exciting. These things hinder! But still we did sometimes reach another cove, and one day, in a very secluded one, I caught sight of a pair of lovers. One can tell the most discreet of them at a glance, and more than a glance I should never have given this pair had not the girl, so much of her as I could see under a brown mushroom hat, been very pretty. Her dress too was green muslin, which was in itself compelling, and the boy with her, I felt sure, had passed no examinations. And yet they were deliriously happy, that I could tell. So the father wasn't so cruel, after all, and I doubted whether I should have been the comfort to Veronica that she had anticipated. In fact, I could easily imagine how greatly in the way I should have been. Poor professional friend! That I had at least been spared from becoming.
Veronica, no less than Betty, had discovered where Heaven really was, and the boy had a clearer definition of angels than Hugh. Hugh was right so far—they were in no way related to, or bore any resemblance to, fish. They were angels pure and simple, and the most beautiful of them, the most enchanting of them, wore a green muslin and a brown mushroom hat.
If I had been that young man, I should have objected to the dimensions of that hat, but he didn't, I suppose. Not having passed his examinations may have made a difference. He would later on, no doubt. It is a pity, perhaps, that men have to pass examinations; it robs them of much of their simplicity.
Zerlina discovered, to her immense surprise, that she was near enough to bring all her party to play with ours, and it was arranged that she should do so on the first fine day.
It so happened that all the days were fine, so every day Diana and I watched for the small cloud in the distance that should herald their approach, and one day it appeared, no bigger than a man's hand. When it came nearer it was considerably bigger, and it finally assumed the dimensions of Zerlina, Hyacinth, the twins, Teddy, and a small nursery-maid. Betty was immensely delighted with the twins, her one ambition in life being to have twins of her own. Failing that, and every birthday only brought fresh disappointment in its wake, the care of somebody else's was the next best thing.
They really were delicious people, so round and so solemn. Hugh, for the moment, was engrossed in Teddy; Teddy having, among other things, a knife with "things in it," most of which he was mercifully unable to open. It was the certainty of being able to do so on the part of Hugh, which made him so deliriously busy. Sara was out of it, having no one as yet to play with, and she was proud and disdainful in consequence. I knew that Betty would shortly have one twin to spare, perhaps two, but this Sara could not guess, knowing nothing of twins.
"Now, Sara," I said, "we will build a castle all for our very own selves."
"Our velly, velly own selves," said Sara, hugging her spade with ecstasy. "A velly, velly big castle."
"Very, very big," I replied.
"A bemormous castle?"
"An enormous castle," I said, starting to dig the foundations.
"Dat's a velly, velly vitty hole," said Sara.
"It's going to be a castle, darling."
"For Yaya to live in?"
"Perhaps."
"And Nannie and Aunt Woggles and Hugh and Betty and muvver?"
Sara danced with joy at the prospect, and Sara dancing in bathing-drawers was distracting. I dug industriously, however, and it was very hot. Sara looked on, occasionally watering the castle and me too.
"Not too much water, darling," I said, "because it makes Aunt Woggles so wet."
Sara subsided for the moment. "Is it a velly big castle?" she asked every now and then with evident anxiety.
"It's going to be, darling," I said.
"It's a velly, velly small castle now," she said sadly.
I dug harder and harder, and it seemed to me that the castle was becoming quite a respectable size, but Sara's interest had flagged.
"Aunt Woggles," she said.
"Yes, darling," I answered.
"Sall we dig a velly, velly deep hole, velly, velly deep, for all ve cwabs, and all ve vitty fish, and Nannie and Aunt Woggles?"
"A very big hole," I said; "but look at the lovely castle!"
"Yaya doesn't yike 'ollid ole castles," she said.
I began to dig a hole. One does these things, I find, for the Saras of this world, and Sara was for the moment enchanted, but it didn't last long.
"Yaya's so sirsty," she said. "Yaya wants a 'ponge cake."
"I think you would rather have some milk, darling," I said.
"Yaya's so sirsty," she said in a very sad voice. "Yaya would yike a 'ponge cake!"
"Very well, darling; but don't you want to dig any more?"
"No," she said. "Yaya doesn't yike digging."
Now was that fair?—digging, indeed, when it was the poor aunt who had been digging all the time. When I told Diana of this she shook her head and said,— "Betty, it frightens me. Do you think Sara will grow up that sort of woman?"
"What sort of woman?"
"Like Polly in Charles Dudley Warner's 'My Summer in a Garden.' You remember when the husband says, 'Polly, do you know who planted that squash, or those squashes?'"
"'James, I suppose.'
"'Well, yes, perhaps James did plant them, to a certain extent. But who hoed them?'
"'We did.'"
"Well, it seems to me," I said, "that she was rather a delightful person."
"In a book, absolutely delightful. I am only thinking of Sara's husband, poor man! You see Polly's husband was an American, and that makes all the difference. You remember I told you of a man I met who in decorating his house wanted to have red walls as a background to his beautiful pictures, and his wife wanted to have green. I asked him what he did, and he said he made a compromise. I said how clever of him, how did he do it? and he said, 'We had green!' You see, Betty, what an American husband means!"
"Well, to return to Sara's, you need not worry. I think he will, in all probability, be in such raptures over the possession of anything so delicious as Sara promises to be, that he will overlook these little pluralities on her part."
"Yes, Betty, of course; but does that sort of thing last?"
"You ought to know, to a certain extent."
"Ah! but then David is such a dear."
"I think it is quite likely that Sara will find a dear too."
"I hope so, oh! how I hope so!" said Diana. "I often wonder what it must be to find you have given your daughter to some one who is unkind to her. I can hardly imagine so great a sorrow! I dare not even think of David the day Betty marries. He says he thinks it must be worse for a father than a mother."
"I wonder," I said. "I think a mother perhaps has a greater belief in the goodness of men; a woman, a happy woman certainly, has so little knowledge of men, other than her own."
"Yes," said Diana, "a good father and a good husband give one a very deep rooted faith and belief in the goodness of mankind generally. How we are prosing, Betty!"
Zerlina meanwhile sat on a rock, of the hardness of which she complained. She found fault with our cove, the sun was too hot and the wind was too strong. But then she had driven ten miles in a wagonette under Teddy and the twins, so it was no wonder she grumbled a little.
"I can't think," she said plaintively, "why my hair doesn't look nice when it blows about in the wind, and I hate myself sun burnt. I can't bear seeing my nose wherever I look. You and Betty are the stuff martyrs are made of. It would be comparatively easy to walk to the stake if you had the right amount of hair hanging down behind; without it, no amount of religious conviction would avail. Oh dear, I used to have such lots, before I had measles! I hardly knew what to do with it!"
"That's rather what we find with Betty's," said Diana; "we plait it up as tight as we can, don't we, darling?" she said, re-tying the ribbon which secured Betty's very thick pigtail.
"I had twice as much as Betty, at her age, I'm sure," said Zerlina, forgetting a photograph which stands on Jim's dressing-table, of a small fat girl with very little hair and that rather scraggy. But what does it matter? These are the sort of traditions women cling to.
Someone suggested building a steamship in the sand, grown-ups, children, and all, and Hugh was told to go and make a second-class berth. He retired to a short distance, and no sound coming from his direction, we looked round and saw him in ecstatic raptures, rocking himself backward and forward.
"What are you doing, Hugh?" we said.
"Well," said Hugh, "I was told to make a second-class berth. I suppose that means twins, and I 'm nursing them."
Zerlina took it quite well, and was easily persuaded that there was no insult intended to her twins in particular.
A few minutes later Sara appeared, triumphant, having apparently found a small child to play with.
"Who is your little friend, Sara?" I asked.
She shook her head. She didn't know, but he was delicious to play with for all that, and she bore him off in triumph.
He was not long unsought, for a young girl came anxiously towards us and said, "Have you seen a little boy?"
It reminded me a little of the story, the other way round, of a lost boy who asked a man, "Please, sir, have you seen a man without a little boy, because if you have, I'm the little boy."
She looked as anxious and as distraught as that little boy must have looked, I am sure.
"I think," said Diana, "you will find him behind that rock.—Sara," called Diana, "bring the little boy here."
A small portion of Sara's person appeared round the rock:—"We're velly busy," she said.
So rapidly do women make friendships!
"He's quite safe," said Diana; "your little brother, I suppose?"
The girl blushed. "No, I'm his mother," she said.
She looked so young and so pretty, and her hair must have moved Zerlina to tears, it was so beautiful, and grew so prettily on her forehead. But she looked too young to be searching for lost babies all by herself.
"How old is he?" asked Diana.
"He's three," she said; then added, "his father never saw him; he went to the war soon after we were married, and he was killed. Baby is just like him," and she unfastened a miniature she wore on a chain round her neck and handed it to Diana.
I am sure Diana saw nothing but a blur, but she managed to say, "You must be glad! Come and see my little girl, she is very much the same age."
"What an extraordinarily communicative person!" said Zerlina as they walked off. "Just imagine telling strangers the whole of your history like that. I wonder if her husband left her well off."
"Can't you see he did?" I said.
"No; I don't think she is very well dressed, but you never can tell with that picturesque style of dressing. It may or may not be expensive; even that old embroidery only means probably that she had a grandmother. It is a terrible thing for a girl of that age to be left with a boy to bring up. I know, Betty, just what you are thinking—cold, heartless, mercenary Zerlina! But I'm practical."
When Diana came back, I could see in her face that she knew all about the poor little widow. It is wonderful what a comfort it seems to be even to strangers to confide in Diana. For one thing I feel sure they know that she won't tell, and that makes all the difference. It is a relief sometimes to tell some one, although some things can be better borne when nobody knows. But I imagine there was little bitterness in the sorrow of this girl widow. She too had learned something from Diana, for she turned to me and said, "Are you a relation of Captain Lisle?"
"If his name is Archie," I said, "I am his sister."
"I've met him," and she blushed.
This, then, was the girl Archie longed to save from drowning, and who inspired him with a desire to sing hymns on Sunday evenings. Dear old Archie! I could imagine his tender, susceptible heart going out to the little widow. But I said to myself, "It's no good, Archie dear, not yet at all events, not while she looks as she does over the sea," for I was sure it was far away in a grave on the lonely veldt that her heart was buried.
"He is so devoted to children, isn't he?" she said. "He was so good to my baby. I find that men are so extraordinarily fond of children. I am afraid they will spoil him."
Whereupon the baby burst into a long dissertation on a present he had lately received. It sounded something like this:—
"Mormousman give boy a yockerile an a epelan, anye yockerile yanan yan all over de jurnmer yunder de hoha an eberelyyare."
He then proceeded to turn bead over heels, or try to, and was sharply rebuked by Sara, who rearranged his garments with stern severity, and then was about to show him the right method, when she in turn was stopped by Nannie.
One of the twins arrived at this moment to say that Hugh had called him bad names. Betty the peacemaker explained that Hugh had called him a wicket keeper, and the twin had thought he had called him a wicked keeper. So that was all right. We suggested that, in any case, the twin wasn't the best person to be wicket keeper. But he went in twice running to make up, and Hugh gave him several puddings as well. "Puddings," the nursery-maid explained, were first balls, and didn't count.
"Betty," I said, "you've got a hole in your stocking!"
"I hope it 's not a Jacob's ladder," said Betty.
"Hush, darling, hush," said Hugh; "you know we mustn't be irreverent!"
It was during an interval when we rested and drank milk and ate cake, those of us who would or could, that we discovered that the little widow was staying with a very old friend of my father's and mother's.
"And where does Lady Mary live?" asked Diana.
"Just over there. Do come and see her; she will be so delighted to see you and to show you the garden, which is quite famous."
The following day Diana got a delightful letter from Lady Mary asking us to go to luncheon, or to tea, or to both, or whatever we liked best, so long as it was at once, and that we stayed a long time, and brought all the children. She offered to send for us, but going in a donkey-cart was a stipulation on the part of the children, otherwise they could not or would not tear themselves away from the sand and all its fascinations. Sara was particularly offended at having to get out to tea, and more so at not being allowed to go in her bathing-drawers. But a mushroom hat trimmed with daisies appeased her, and even at that early age she saw the incongruity of that hat and those nether garments. They were packed, Hugh, Betty, Sara, and the nursery-maid, into the donkey-cart. Betty was supposed to drive, but Hugh and Sara had so large a share in the stage direction of that donkey, that I wonder we ever arrived. We did. Our approach was not dignified. The donkey would eat the lawn at the critical moment, and neither the stern rebukes of Sara, nor the gentle persuasion of Betty, had any effect; neither, to tell the truth, had the chastisements of Hugh. Of Diana's efforts and mine it is unnecessary to speak; they only made us very hot. As to Nannie, she said she would rather have ten children to deal with.
There were horribly tidy and beautifully dressed people walking about on the lawn, people who had never, I felt sure, been called upon to speak unkindly to a donkey. It was a little tactless of them, I thought, in view of our flushed cheeks, to appear so calm and cool, but they were quite kind, and I noticed that Diana as usual held a little court of her own, not entirely as the mother of Sara, either. Hugh and Betty too made friends, and hearing shouts of laughter coming from Hugh's audience, I went, aunt-like, to see what was happening, and I heard Hugh saying:—
"I've got another! What did the skeleton—"
"Hugh," I said, "I want you!"
"I'm asking riddles, Aunt Woggles."
"Yes, but have you seen the tortoise?"
The situation was saved.
I look back to the rest of that afternoon, and it is all blur and confusion. I remember the loveliness of the gardens, the peeps of distant moorland through arches of pink ramblers. I remember how the sun shone and how beautiful everything was, and above all and through all those confused memories I hear the quiet, gentle voice of Lady Mary as she talked to me of things of which I had thought no one knew anything. She asked me, I remember, if I would like to see the garden, and I loved her for her graciousness, her affection, and for her love for my mother. I could see even in the way she looked at me that it was of my mother he was thinking, and I remember, in answer to her question whether I liked the garden, saying I thought it was quite beautiful and so peaceful!
She said, "That is what I feel, the peace of it all. But you, dear Betty, are too young to feel that. It is as we grow older that the promise of peace holds out so much. But to the young, life is before them!"
All that, I remember quite clearly, and a little more. I can still see Lady Mary, so beautiful, so calm, so confident in the peace which the future held for her. Then all of a sudden came these words, "Betty, I liked your hero so much; what happened?"
It was a too sudden opening of prison doors. I was blinded by the light. I could say nothing. My secret, I felt, was wrested from me. I had ceased almost to try to hide it, it seemed so safe. What—could I say?
Lady Mary went on: "It is not from curiosity that I ask, but from a very real and deep interest. Your dear mother used so often to talk of your future. Her love for you was very wonderful, Betty."
I looked away to the purple hills and longed to escape, but she laid her hand on mine with a gentle pressure. "I liked him so much. His gentle chivalry appealed to me; it is a thing one does not meet every day. Some one, I remember, described him as being as hard as nails and full of sentiment, which was a charming description of a delightful character and a rare combination. All women, I think, would have their heroes strong, and the sentiment makes all the difference in life. If it is money, Betty dear, as I imagine it is, that must come right. It was money?"
"His father got into difficulties, no fault of his own, that—and friends made mischief."
"And he is helping his father," continued Lady Mary. "And while he is doing that, he thinks he has no right to bind a woman."
How could I say when I didn't know? "Men make that mistake; they forget how much easier it is for a woman to wait bound than to be free, not knowing. They don't distinguish between the woman who wants to get married and the woman who loves. Remember, Betty, how hard it must be for him. I am not sure that his is not the harder part."
"If he cares," I said.
"I am sure he cares," said Lady Mary softly. "There are secrets that are not mine, Betty, but there is one that is—the money shall come right. I had been looking out for a hero for some time when I met yours. This is strictly between ourselves, and you must remember that all my young people are so ludicrously well off, that an old woman doing as she likes with her own will do no one any harm. If I had had children, that, of course, would have made a difference. To me, who have lived the quiet life I have lately lived, the soldier, the man of action, appeals very strongly. Much as I love this place, it seems to me that I should love it still more if it came as quiet after a storm, a haven of rest after the battle of life."
Then she spoke of Diana. "Hers is a wonderful character, and I often think how beautiful it is that she should follow your dear mother at Hames."
"You feel that?" I said.
"Very, very strongly, dear. How happy it must have made her to feel that her grandchildren should have such a mother. I may be wrong, and you will smile at an old woman's prejudice and think that she is looking back with prejudiced eyes into that wonderful past which is always so much better than any present. I am not, but still it seems to me that Diana has something that all young people have not got nowadays, a reverence for the old, an admiration for the good, and a pity for the poor and distressed. These things take you far through life, dear, and, combined with her wonderful vitality and beauty, make her a power.
"Talking of your beautiful mother, it was said years ago that she was the only woman of whom I had ever been jealous. I am old enough to tell you these things. It is the privilege of the old to enlist the sympathies of the young! But it was not true. I had every reason to be jealous, as had most women I ever saw, but jealousy in connection with anything so perfect as your mother, I think, was not possible. Her beauty was of the kind which disarms jealousy. It was beyond comparison or criticism. It seemed to belong to another world, and yet she was so tender to the sinners, so understanding, so full of loving kindness. Hers was a beauty of the soul as well as the body, and that beauty is as remote from the everyday prettiness as the earth is from the stars. Her expression had something of the divine in it, as if she had seen God face to face. I see the same look coming in Diana's face. Old Sir George used to say it would be worth committing a sin to be forgiven by your mother. He said her look was a benediction."
As I said good-by to Lady Mary, she held my hand and said, "Betty dear, you will some day forgive an interfering old woman, and in days to come, when you look to these distant hills, you will remember this day with a kind thought for your beautiful mother's old friend."
"Isn't Lady Mary a darling?" said Diana, as we walked home through the scented lanes on that most wonderful of summer evenings. "You look as if you had been seeing visions, Betty, quite dazed like, as Nannie used to say."
"I often see visions," I said.
"Have you been crying, Aunt Woggles?" said Hugh. "Were all the peaches gone when you got back?"
Betty slipped her little hand into mine. "You promised to let me walk with you for a little. Shall we pick honeysuckle, supposing we see any?"
"Yes, we will, darling."
"Supposing you can't reach it," she said.
"There is always some within reach."
"I suppose grown-ups can always reach things," said Betty.
Later, in the quiet darkness of the night, I could picture the garden, the roses, the distant moor, Lady Mary's beautiful face, but I could not bring myself to believe that I had really heard those words, "I am sure that he cares."
Surely I had dreamed them, or Lady Mary had, because if they were true, why had he said nothing? How should he have told her what he could not tell me?