Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration]
HOLIDAY STORIES
BY
RUTH LAMB
AUTHOR OF "ARTHUR GLYNN'S CHRISTMAS BOX," "HER OWN CHOICE," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD
AND 164, PICCADILLY
1892
CONTENTS
DEAR MISS MEG
CHAPTER I. MISTRESS AND MAID.—A BRIDE'S HOMECOMING.
CHAPTER II. LADY LONGRIDGE MEETS HER MATCH.
CHAPTER III. "MEN MAY COME AND MEN MAY GO,"
BUT I STAY ON FOR EVER.
CHAPTER IV. THE MOUSE HELPS THE LIONESS,
AND MARGARETTA GAINS A THIRD FRIEND.
CHAPTER V. BRIGHTER DAYS FOR MARGARETTA.
CHAPTER VI. ANXIOUS DAYS.—A PAINFUL DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER VII. WHICH SHALL IT BE? BLUE OR WHITE?
A TALE OF A PENNY
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
BORROWED FEATHERS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
A STORY OF AN ANGLE WINDOW
CHAPTER I. "STEPBROTHER DICK."
CHAPTER II. "SILENCE IS GOLDEN."
CHAPTER III. RICHARD'S WARDS.
CHAPTER IV. THE ANGLE WINDOW.
CHAPTER V. MEETING AND PARTING.
CHAPTER VI. THE FRAME HAS A PICTURE ONCE MORE.
A MERE FLIRTATION
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
BY A GIRL'S HAND
CHAPTER I. LIKE FATHER UNLIKE SON.
CHAPTER II. A PEEP INTO AN EARTHLY PARADISE,
AND A MEETING WITH EVE.
CHAPTER III. MR. WALTHEW IS FAR FROM EASY
IN HIS MIND.
CHAPTER IV. A NEW FACE.
DEAR MISS MEG
CHAPTER I.
MISTRESS AND MAID.—A BRIDE'S HOMECOMING.
"THORLEY; go and tell Miss Margaretta to make less noise. How can I get
my afternoon nap with that girl screeching and screaming loud enough to
be heard beyond the park? I suppose she thinks I cannot be disturbed
by her noise when she is out of doors, though I have told her twenty
times already that she has a voice like a railway-whistle, and that it
travels as far as one. It seems to me I cannot get out of reach of it.
Thorley, why don't you go? What are you waiting for?"
The last questions were uttered in such a shrill tone, and with such
evident irritation, that the pale face of the listener flushed, and she
answered in a frightened voice—
"I thought your ladyship was speaking to me, and I waited for you to
finish."
"I was doing nothing of the kind. I gave you an order which might
have been attended to by this time. Then I went on thinking aloud,
and you stood staring there, and listening in place of going about
your business. Go now. Wait! I cannot hear the girl's voice. She has
stopped, but she will begin again, so go all the same."
The person addressed as "Thorley" did not wait for the speaker to
change her mind again, but hastened to do her mistress's bidding.
"Poor young thing!" she murmured, as she went in search of the
offender. "It is well she can sing. Only one that has not been long
at Northbrook Hall would be likely to lift up a cheerful voice in my
mistress's hearing. I believe she would silence the very birds if she
could, but she cannot do that, thank God." And the woman listened with
gladness to a flood of melody that was being poured from scores of
bird-throats, and rejoiced again that a message from her mistress could
not stop it.
Thorley was old Lady Longridge's personal attendant, and had been
such for twenty-five years. She was a staid spinster of fifty or
thereabouts. Not that she ever told her age, or that any member of the
household would have ventured to ask it; but there were older retainers
at the Hall than herself, who could put two and two together.
There was old Jakes, for instance, who had spent sixty out of his
seventy years of life in and about the gardens. He was morally certain
that Susan Thorley would never see fifty again.
"Why, it's five-and-twenty years last May since Susan were promoted
to be maid to our old lady, and she was no chicken in those days. I
should have said she was nigh upon, if not all out thirty, though I do
not suppose she would have owned to it, any more than she would say
straight out, 'I am fifty-five to-day.' You don't catch these staid
women folks telling their age." And the old man wagged his grey pate
knowingly.
Thorley was accustomed to say of herself, "I have aged dreadfully since
I came here, and I look older than I am. Five-and-twenty years in the
service of Lady Longridge would equal forty, for wear and tear, under a
reasonable mistress."
If someone suggested that Thorley was not compelled to endure the
aggravations of the tyrannical old lady, she would reply, "If I thought
only of myself, or studied my own comfort, I should have turned my
back on the Hall many a year ago. But look at her age. She is turned
eighty-one, and her mind is as clear as ever. I may have had a deal to
put up with, and seen my hair turn grey before its time through her
worrying, but I feel proud of my mistress, who is a wonderful old lady.
Conscience reproaches me whenever I think of leaving her, and seems to
say, 'What will you be at eighty-one? You will want someone to put up
with your tempers then.' So I bear as well as I can, and if I have an
uneasy time of it, conscience tells me I am right."
Some of Thorley's acquaintances credited her with at least one other
motive for remaining at Northbrook. Lady Longridge was reputed
wealthy, though she professed to be poor and unable to spare money for
much-needed repairs and renewals within and around her home. She was
always quarrelling with her relatives, and altering her will, or adding
codicils to disinherit one and reinstate another.
At one time she would declare that none of her own kindred should ever
possess a penny that she could bequeath to an outsider; at another she
would quote the old proverb about blood being thicker than water, and
rail against those who left their own families out in the cold when
disposing of their wealth.
That quarter of a century of service had not been without its
disturbing elements. Lady Longridge's temper often got the better of
her, and Thorley usually had to bear the brunt of these outbreaks.
The woman was wonderfully patient, but this fact often had a different
effect on her mistress from what might have been expected. It only
made her more provoking, and on several occasions Thorley had received
notice to quit. At first these breaches between mistress and maid had
been patched up by mutual concessions, but by degrees Thorley became
less placable. Then the old lady found that all advances for a renewal
of the former relations must come from herself.
Thorley performed all her duties during the month she was under notice
with the greatest exactitude, but she only spoke when spoken to and
said no needless word, but packed her boxes and made ready to go to
another situation. With such a character for long service, fidelity,
patience, and trustworthiness, there were plenty of doors ready to open
for Thorley's admission, plenty of places where her duties would be
of a pleasanter character, and where, as she indignantly put it, "One
might expect to have peace, a kind word sometimes, and get a bit of
credit for trying with all one's heart to do right."
So Lady Longridge became convinced that Thorley could do better than
stay at Northbrook, but that she would herself find it very difficult
to replace Thorley.
The squabble always ended in the same way. The old lady would offer her
hand to her departing maid and wish her well in a new place. Then she
would break down and say that she was a miserable old woman for whom
nobody cared, and that she was being left to die in her loneliness and
helplessness by the one creature in whom she could trust.
The maid's tears would then accompany the mistress's; Thorley's boxes
would be unpacked, and Lady Longridge promptly paid any expenses that
might have been incurred in arranging for the new situation.
It was noticed that after each of these quarrels, Thorley had a day
out accorded her without a murmur, and that as invariably she paid a
visit to the savings bank. She would have wages to deposit there, no
doubt, but it was whispered that Thorley found these little scenes very
profitable, each reconciliation being sealed with a present. At any
rate, she stayed at the Hall and bore a great deal of ill-temper and
many hard words from Lady Longridge with more patience than any servant
not inured thereto by many years of experience could have been expected
to manifest.
The old lady had been more than usually provoking on that fair spring
day, when the birds and her granddaughter, Margaretta, were carolling
in company, and Thorley was on her way to silence the girl.
The errand was very distasteful to Thorley. If there was a creature on
earth that the woman loved with a true, unselfish affection, it was
Margaretta, who had spent the last few months of her life in that dull
house, once the home of her dead father. Now it was the home of the
girl herself, or the best substitute for one that she could claim.
Not that it was the first time Margaretta Longridge had been an inmate
of Northbrook Hall. She had lived there off and on from the time of
her birth until she was twelve years old, and now after an absence of
nearly three, it was settled that she should remain permanently with
her grandmother.
This was perhaps the best arrangement that could be made under the
circumstances. But there were plenty of people who said that to condemn
the fair young girl of fifteen to live in that gloomy, tumble-down
house, and under the guardianship of that terrible old lady, was only a
shade better than burying her alive.
The circumstances were these. Lady Longridge had been left a widow
at twenty-eight, with one son and three daughters. By her husband's
will, she was appointed their sole guardian, and she ruled them with
enough of firmness and a scant expenditure of tenderness until each
was emancipated by attaining the age of twenty-one, and receiving a
handsome sum from the estate.
The daughters, being well dowered, soon married, and without exception
resided far-away from Northbrook, which they seldom visited, and then
only for a few days at a time.
Philip, the one son, seemed likely to remain a bachelor. His home was
nominally with his mother, but he was fond of travelling, and ever on
the look-out for new countries to explore, consequently he never stayed
long at the Hall. The brevity of his visits rather than the fact of his
being her only son, probably conduced to the good understanding between
him and his mother. She had really no time to begin fault-finding
before the packing process was in full operation, and Philip was
preparing for a new journey. Even Lady Longridge did not like to
quarrel with her son when he was about to leave her for an indefinite
period.
She rejoiced in his bachelor estate, for, so long as Sir Philip
remained unmarried, her rule at Northbrook would be undisturbed.
As to her daughters, she would say, when someone suggested that it was
a pity they were not nearer, "Nearer! They are better where they are.
If we met oftener we should quarrel. As it is, we have a week of each
other's society now and then, and we can be happy and love one another
for that time. But we never get beyond the week. We know the length of
our affections' tether, and we keep within bounds."
"But mother and daughters, Lady Longridge!" the old clergyman would
say, with uplifted hands and eyes.
"What of that? We get enough of each other in a week, and we part
friends. If we had a fortnight we should not part at all, or at any
rate we should go through no formal farewells. We should have ceased
to speak to each other six days earlier, the previous one having been
spent in mutual recrimination. We know our little failings, and we
strive to keep out of the way of temptation."
"At your age, I should have thought the young ladies would bear
anything from you without retorting, and that they would be unhappy if
they did not see you often."
"No fear of that," was the earnest response. "They will not lose an
hour's rest owing to anxiety on my account. And to be frank with you,
I think it is very good of them to come at all. The journey costs
something, and takes time. They count the hours whilst they are here,
and long for the last to come. They know they have nothing to gain,
for, lest they should forget, I remind them every time that they
have had their fortunes; also, that I have nothing to leave, and if
I had, they would not get a penny of it. Frankness promotes a good
understanding. I take care to prevent false hopes."
The rector, Dr. Darley, was going to reply, but one of Lady Longridge's
peculiarities was a liking for saying her own say at great length, and
then calmly ending an interview.
"I will say good-bye now," she added, extending two fingers, though
her visitor had shown no intention of rising to leave. "When I write
to my daughters, I will not fail to mention that you alluded to them
as 'young ladies.' I like to please people when I can, and it costs
nothing to do it."
Lady Longridge was quite the most impracticable of the kind old
rector's parishioners. He knew her too well to suppose that she would
listen to him, so he quietly took his leave.
Sir Philip was the youngest of the family, but at length he brought
home the wife whose possible coming had been the one thing his mother
feared. He was thirty-nine when this happened, and he had been absent a
full year, when he returned accompanied by a beautiful girl less than
half his age—in fact, barely eighteen.
"Mother," he said, "this is my wife. Make her welcome for my sake, to
begin with. You will do so for her own when you know her better."
The expression of his mother's face as he made this announcement was
something never to be forgotten. She had risen at her son's approach
and stood erect, her head on a level with Sir Philip's, for she was
very tall, and at sixty-five had not lost a hair's-breadth of her
height. At the slight fair girl whom he was putting forward with his
left arm, whilst he extended his right to greet his mother, Lady
Longridge did not deign to glance. She looked past her and straight
into the face of her son, whilst she locked her mittened hands one
within the other, without appearing to see the one he extended.
"It is a pity that when you decided to bring a wife to Northbrook, you
forgot the fact of your mother's existence. Had you written, I should
have arranged for her and your fitting reception. We would have had a
rustic fête, a gathering of tenants, the carriage unhorsed, and a team
of enthusiastic cottagers to draw you and your bride home in triumph;
perhaps even a triumphal arch at the entrance of the park. Why, Philip!
The forgetting your mother has made your homecoming of no more account
than that of old Jakes' son, who was married the other day."
Sir Philip moved uneasily, and his eyes fell before the half-angry,
half-sarcastic look of his mother, whilst his wife shrank back within
the encircling arm that had gently urged her towards Lady Longridge.
"We desired none of these things," he said. "Florence has known a
great sorrow, too recently to allow of her entering into the spirit
of such festivities as you speak of. The one thing we both wish for
is a welcome from yourself. To some extent we can command it from all
beside."
It was proverbial of Lady Longridge that she would indulge her temper
at any cost of discomfort to others, but that self-interest would
induce her to subdue all outward sign of anger. She would not forget
her grievance, but she would bide her time. Her son's last words
brought certain unpalatable facts to mind and effected a change in her
manner. He was master of Northbrook Hall, and, if he willed it, she
must give up the place of mistress to his wife. Quick as lightning the
thought flashed through her mind, "Philip has never cared to live here.
Is it likely that marriage will entirely change his habits, and that
he who has been wandering the world over for more than half his life
will settle down to the dull life of a country gentleman? I may remain
mistress of the Hall to the end of the chapter."
Aloud, Lady Longridge said, but in softened tones, "I think, Philip,
you must admit that I have cause for displeasure. That your mother
should know nothing of your marriage until you brought your wife
under the roof to which she herself came, a bride in all honour,
five-and-forty years ago, shows scant courtesy in an only son. But you
are master here, and we must try to make up for the want of a more
formal welcome as best we may."
She extended her hand, which her son took, and once again he would have
urged his wife forward. The latter, however, gave one terrified glance
at Lady Longridge's face, then turned away, and clinging to her husband
cried out, "Take me away, Philip. I care not where we go, but do not
let us stay here. I thought I should find a mother in yours."
It was vain to attempt to bring the two together. The lovely, fair
young wife, a bride of less than a month, was dressed in mourning,
which betokened recent bereavement.
It was evident that she was ill-fitted to bear the trial of such a
meeting, when she had hoped for a genuine homecoming, and to find a
mother in Lady Longridge. But the sight of that tall figure, with its
clasped hands, the look of dislike shot from the keen black eyes,
together with the mocking words, so startled the girl, that she was
terrified into the display of feeling already described, and which
added greatly to the uneasiness of her husband.
There was nothing left for him but to lead his weeping wife to the room
always kept in readiness for his reception, and to comfort her as best
he might, until, wearied with her long journey and all she had gone
through, she slept like a tired child.
There were servants enough to minister to the bodily wants of the pair,
and, amongst others, Susan Thorley, my lady's own maid, and at that
time sixteen years younger than she is represented at the beginning
of this chapter, was sent to offer her aid, and "Mind you find out
everything you can about the girl," said her mistress, as she sent her
on the former errand.