COUSIN MARY.
"I think that you are wrong, Margaret. Young people must be more or less
the children of their generation."
The speaker was a cousin of Mrs. Desmond's, a certain Miss Macleod, or
Cousin Mary as she was generally called by the younger members of her
acquaintances. Mary Macleod lived in a northern county, and she and Mrs.
Desmond had never been close friends, but circumstances having brought
the former to London for a time, she had accepted her cousin's
invitation to spend a week at Bloomsbury Square.
Cousin Mary was a person to whom all confided their troubles, and
although she had only been in the house an hour or so, Mrs. Desmond was
already launched on her favourite topic, the miseries resulting from the
present pernicious system of bringing up young people. Mrs. Desmond was
rather a self-centred person, and she was quite unconscious that her
remarks were not approving themselves to her listener.
"Really, Mary," she said, glancing up in some surprise at her
companion's tone, "you don't mean to say that you have taken up with
these new-fangled notions about education? A household that exists only
for children is, in my opinion--"
She paused, becoming suddenly aware that Helen had entered the room,
book in hand as usual, and was taking up her accustomed station on a
straight-backed chair situated at a respectful distance from the
fireplace.
"You here, Helen?" she said rather sharply. "I did not hear you come in.
Don't you see my cousin, Miss Macleod? Why don't you come and say 'How
do you do?' to her?"
"I was waiting to be told to," returned the girl, with that indefinable
note of defiance in her voice which grated the more upon her stepmother
that it was impossible to discover in it any tangible cause of offence.
As Helen spoke she came forward with a lagging step and took Miss
Macleod's outstretched hand, murmuring something unintelligible, Mrs.
Desmond watching her stepdaughter with displeased eyes the while. Since
the scene narrated in the last chapter, there had been a sort of armed
neutrality between these two. Helen had submitted to the punishment
inflicted upon her for her behaviour upon that occasion with the worst
possible grace, and no single word of contrition for her fault had
passed her lips. On the contrary, she maintained a sort of sullen
reserve which annoyed even her father, and went far to deprive her of
such consolation as she might have extracted from his secret, if
unspoken, sympathy. As for Mrs. Desmond, her spirit of obstinacy was
aroused, and so far from ascribing her failure to win Helen to any fault
of her own, she clung yet more persistently than ever to her
preconceived ideas, and subjected the girl to still severer discipline.
Whilst acting thus, Mrs. Desmond considered herself the most forgiving
of mortals because she maintained a forbearing though frigid demeanour
towards her wayward stepdaughter. With her husband, indeed, she assumed
a martyr-like air whenever Helen's name was mentioned. This did not
happen often. Mrs. Desmond really loved her husband and had far too much
tact to vex him, or to sound a jarring note in his hearing
unnecessarily. Neither did she set herself designedly to lessen Helen in
her father's affection. It was more by what she left unsaid than by what
she said that she conveyed to the colonel a bad impression of Helen's
disposition, and spoilt the happy, unrestrained intercourse that had
hitherto subsisted between these two.
Such was the position of affairs at the time of Mary Macleod's visit.
That quick-witted lady had guessed it pretty accurately from her
cousin's conversation. Perhaps it interested her, for she watched Helen
keenly from the moment that she became aware of the girl's presence. She
smiled very pleasantly as Helen, in obedience to her stepmother's
command, approached the visitor, and not at all repelled, seemingly, by
the unwilling little hand that was laid in hers, she drew Helen's face
down and kissed it, saying in a warm voice, to which the slight northern
burr gave a homely sound:
"So you are my new cousin. I am a relation, you know--Cousin Mary. But,
bless me, child, how cold your hands are! Come and sit by the fire and I
will warm them."
A smile came upon Helen's face, although she drew back a little proudly.
"I am not cold, thank you," she said, and moved away.
Miss Macleod made no effort to detain her. She understood young people
too well to try to force them into friendliness, and, as I have said,
she had already made a tolerably shrewd guess as to the true state of
the case. Taking up her knitting, she continued her chat with Mrs.
Desmond in spite of the latter's rather constrained replies, for
childless Cousin Mary's passion for young people was well known in her
family, and Mrs. Desmond began to feel fidgety lest her guest might
even temporarily interfere with Helen's training. It was a relief when
the colonel entered the room smiling, happy, and friendly. After a few
words of greeting to his guest he turned to inform his wife of some
rather important news that had arrived from India by that day's mail.
Upon this Miss Macleod put down her knitting and beckoned to Helen,
pointing to a low chair by her side.
"Your book must be very absorbing," she said smilingly as Helen obeyed.
"No, it isn't," returned the girl abruptly. "I think it is the dullest
book I ever read."
"Why don't you put it down then and talk to us?"
"Because," began Helen, with an ominous look in her stepmother's
direction, "because"--but just then that lady, who had been listening to
her husband with one ear and to Helen with the other, broke in:
"What is the dullest book you ever read?"
"This. _Amy Herbert._"
"That is grateful, Helen, seeing the pains I took to get it for you."
"And such a gorgeous-looking book too," put in the colonel, always eager
to make peace.
Helen said nothing, but drew back her chair a little with a grating
sound, while Mrs. Desmond frowned and went on:
"_Amy Herbert_ is a book that has delighted hundreds of children. I can
remember that when I was a girl, I knew every line of it. It is a pity
that you do not lay to heart some of the lessons it teaches. But young
people won't be taught nowadays."
"I think you are a little hard on young people, Margaret," put in Cousin
Mary's pleasant voice. "We grown-up people are influenced by the feelings
of our day. Books that appealed to our grandmothers don't affect us.
Children are subject to the same influences. It is quite possible--"
"I can't see it," interrupted Mrs. Desmond with most unusual vehemence.
"What was good enough for my aunts, for instance, is quite good enough
for me, and always will be, I hope."
"My dear," interposed the colonel mildly, "would you write that note for
me before dinner? It is important not to miss a single post."
Mrs. Desmond sighed gently, but rose with a resigned air to comply with
her husband's request. He followed her to her writing-table, leaving
Cousin Mary and Helen alone.
That notion of Miss Macleod's, that grown-up people and children were
not set wide as the poles asunder, but were close akin to one another,
struck Helen immensely, and made Cousin Mary seem quite an approachable
being in this young girl's eyes, and instinctively she drew closer to
this new relative with a pleasant sensation of confidence.
"I'll tell you what I was doing when you two were talking," she said,
with the sudden burst of friendliness that comes so strangely from a
lonely child. "I was thinking."
"Thinking, Helen! Were your thoughts worth a penny?"
Helen was not to be dealt lightly with. She was very serious.
"I heard what you were saying when I came into the room," she went on.
"And I wondered what you meant when you said that children must belong
to their generation."
Cousin Mary looked grave.
"It would take a long time to explain all that I meant," she said.
"Perhaps we shall have a chance of talking it over before I leave. I
didn't mean that the girls and boys of to-day have any excuse for being
naughty and rebellious. But I sometimes think that as we grown-up people
move about so much, and are tempted to grow restless and impatient, so
the same influences may affect children to a certain extent, and that a
very strict routine may be a little more irksome to them now than it was
to us thirty years ago."
"Oh, it is dreadful!--dreadful!" murmured Helen.
"Nonsense! Not dreadful, only perhaps a little tiresome."
Helen's tone had been tragic, but there was a gleam of fun in Cousin
Mary's eyes as she replied that brought a smile to the girl's face.
"Very tiresome," she said. "I hate lessons."
"They are a little wee bit trying sometimes, I grant. And yet we must
learn them; must go on learning them all our lives."
Cousin Mary's face had grown grave again, and Helen began to think her
the most perplexing person that she had ever met.
"Go on learning!" she repeated. "Grown-up people don't learn lessons."
"Not book lessons exactly, though I think I have learnt more book
lessons even since I have been grown up than I did in the school-room.
But that is a matter of choice. There are certain lessons that we must
learn, because God goes on teaching them to us until we really know
them."
"Oh! What are they?" asked Helen in an awe-struck whisper.
"I think obedience is one," replied Cousin Mary, with that little smile
lurking in her eyes again. "I am dreadfully disobedient sometimes, but I
am always sorry for it afterwards, I think. Perhaps some day I shall
learn to know that my way is not best, and then I sha'n't want to be
disobedient again."
"You disobedient!"
"It is quite true. For instance, I didn't want to come up to town at
this particular time. I very nearly said I wouldn't come. You see, my
doing so interfered with some very pleasant plans that I had made. That
was why I did not like it, although I knew all the time that I ought to
come. Now I begin to be very glad that I did not follow my own way, not
only because I have done my duty, but because I have found a new cousin
whom I mean to like very much."
The expression of Helen's face altered as she listened to her new
friend's words. Her eyes, that had been heavy and downcast, lit up; she
raised her head and threw back her hair with something of her old,
careless gesture.
"I like you very, very much," she said, "although you do say such
strange things. I wish--"
Just then Cousin Mary's ball of wool fell from her lap and rolled away
to some distance. Helen sprang to her feet and rushed to fetch it. At
the same time Mrs. Desmond left her writing-table, and, shivering a
little, rejoined her cousin by the fire. As she did so Helen brushed
past her, holding the recovered ball in her hands. The action was not a
courteous one, and Mrs. Desmond's displeasure was not mitigated by
observing the girl's heightened colour and altered expression.
"You are exceedingly awkward and clumsy," she said, smoothing her laces,
which had been displaced by Helen's rough contact. "I wonder what my
cousin will think of such a little barbarian. You had better say
good-night and go to bed at once. Perhaps that will teach you to be more
careful in future."
Helen's face fell. Accustomed as she was to her stepmother's constant
fault finding, to be reproved in this fashion and sent to bed like a
baby before Cousin Mary stung her into fresh rebellion.
"It is still only a quarter to eight," she said, glancing at the clock.
"Why should I go to bed before my usual hour? I have done nothing wrong.
I couldn't help knocking up against you just now."
"Helen"--and for once the colonel's tone was really stern, for the
insolence of his daughter's tone angered him. "Helen, how dare you speak
in that way to your mother? Go to bed instantly, and don't let me see
you again until you are ready to apologize."
For a moment Helen stood transfixed. Never in all her life had her
father spoken to her so before. Every vestige of colour left her face;
her white lips just moved, but no words came. Then she turned round and
walked quietly out of the room, forgetting even to slam the door behind
her.
"I suppose that we have to thank you for being spared a scene, Mary,"
said Mrs. Desmond as she sank into her chair with a deep sigh.
"I'm afraid that Helen is too much for Margaret," observed the colonel,
addressing his visitor, but looking anxiously at his wife.
"Why don't you send her to a good school then?" asked the former
briskly. "It's a lonely life for her here, poor child!"
"Because, Mary," interposed Mrs. Desmond, "I do not approve of a school
training for girls; and I shall never shirk a duty that I have
undertaken for my dear husband's sake, however painful and wearing it
may be."
The colonel pressed his wife's hand, while Miss Macleod went on:
"And yet in this case a school training might be the best. Probably the
child is too much alone and needs young society."
"Nonsense, Mary! Was not I brought up alone in this very house? Helen
has many more indulgences than I ever had, and yet I was always happy
and contented."
"But I should say, Margaret, that your disposition and Helen's are
totally different. I can remember you a prim little girl sitting up in
your high chair working your sampler or repeating Watt's hymns. And do
you recollect your horror when I once went out of doors while I was
putting on my gloves and afterwards proposed to race round the square?
Ladies never did such things, you said. Now I have a suspicion that
Helen might be very easily induced to race anybody along Regent Street."
The colonel smiled. There was a time when he used to boast of his little
girl's high spirits and untamed ways.
"She has--" he began, but his wife interposed:
"I remember you, Mary, as a regular hoyden," she observed, and was about
to go on when the announcement of dinner put an end to the conversation.
Mrs. Desmond could be a very pleasant companion when she chose, and upon
this occasion she did choose, being anxious not only to obliterate from
her husband's mind the painful impression caused by Helen's conduct, but
also to convince her cousin that her marriage was an entirely happy one.
Dinner was excellent and daintily served. In the evening an old friend
of the colonel's dropped in, and there was plenty of bright talk.
Colonel Desmond seemed profoundly contented, and his wife scarcely less
so. Only Cousin Mary's thoughts wandered sometimes away from the
cheerful voices and the pretty drawing-room, with its bright lights and
fragrant flowers, to a small darkened chamber somewhere overhead, where
she suspected that a forlorn little figure might be tossing restlessly
and a young soul hardening for want of the love that is its right.
"Poor young thing!" thought Cousin Mary, longing in her eager way to run
to the rescue, and yet knowing that she must bide her time if she would
not make bad worse. But, thinking thus, the softness of her cousin's
manner and the ancient endearments that passed between husband and wife
had rather an irritating effect upon her. Once or twice there was a
sharpness in her speech that a little astonished the good colonel.
"I expected from what I heard to find your cousin a charming woman," he
said when he and his wife were alone together. "She has a pleasant
enough face, but rather a sharp tongue, hasn't she?"
"Poor Mary!" laughed Mrs. Desmond softly. "She is a good soul at heart.
A little hard, no doubt, but she has many excellent points."
Next day, although none of the usual noisy tokens of Helen's presence in
the house were lacking, neither she nor her governess appeared at
luncheon. Cousin Mary judged it wiser to ask no questions, but she sat
in the drawing-room long after Mrs. Desmond disappeared to dress for
that evening's dinner-party, hoping to catch a glimpse of the young
culprit. But although she allowed herself only ten minutes for dressing,
and was obliged in consequence to put on her plainest gown in place of
the more elaborate one she had proposed wearing, she caught never a
glimpse of Helen. Just, however, as she was closing her bed-room door
behind her she heard her name called.
"Cousin Mary!"
The voice came in an eager whisper from the landing above.
"Cousin Mary, do just wait one minute."
"I'll wait five if you like, although I'm a wee bit late."
There was a rush down the stairs.
"O!" cried Helen, "please don't speak so loud. The old cat will hear if
you do. The old cat is her maid. She is always trying what she can find
out. The servants--but, O! I didn't come to say this. Look here! I know
there was going to be a dinner party to-night, and I knew that she would
have flowers, and I was determined that you should have some too. So I
ran away from old Walker this afternoon. I gave her such a fright you
should have seen her face. And I bought _these_."
As Helen, breathless and triumphant, finished speaking, she placed a
bunch of lilies of the valley in Cousin Mary's hand.
"My dear child! I scarcely know what to say. O, yes! of course I will
wear them," in answer to a blank look of dismay on Helen's face. "I
thank you, dear, indeed I do. But, O! Helen, why did you do wrong for
me? And, dear child, I have missed you all day."
Helen's face hardened.
"Has she been setting you against me too?"
"Helen, I can't stop now. I promise to wear your flowers and to think of
you all the evening. Will you promise me something?"
"If I can."
"Will you try to put all unkind and ungenerous thoughts out of your head
until I can see you again?"
"I don't know what you mean by ungenerous. Other people--"
There was a step on the stairs. Helen flew away, and Cousin Mary, going
her way down, nearly fell into the arms of Mrs. Desmond's maid.
"I was coming up, miss, to see if I could assist you," said that
individual demurely.
Cousin Mary put her aside rather coldly and proceeded to the
drawing-room, where the guests were already gathered, and where Mrs.
Desmond glanced at her cousin with some displeasure. This was
occasioned not only by the lateness of Miss Macleod's arrival, but by
the plainness of her attire, which, in Mrs. Desmond's opinion, was
emphasized by a great bunch of lilies of the valley pinned carelessly in
the front of her bodice without any attempt at arrangement, and looking,
as that lady afterwards said, as if they had just come from the nearest
greengrocer--a guess that came considerably nearer to the truth than
most guesses do.
Dinner was a long and rather tedious affair. Cousin Mary's neighbours
were not particularly entertaining, and although she tried to exert
herself to talk her thoughts wandered constantly to the lonely child
upstairs. In the drawing-room matters were still worse. Most of the
ladies present were known to each other, and their small gossip sounded
quite meaningless to an utter stranger like Miss Macleod. Mrs. Desmond,
who, to do her justice, was never negligent of her duties as a hostess,
noticed her cousin's abstraction, and tried more than once to draw her
into the conversation, but without much success. When the gentlemen
appeared there was a little very indifferent music, and then the company
dispersed. Cousin Mary was heartily glad to find herself once more in
her own room. But although she had pleaded fatigue in the drawing-room
she seemed in no hurry to get into bed. Replacing her silk dress by a
soft Cashmere gown, she opened her door and listened. Presently she
heard Mrs. Desmond come up the stairs to her own room on the floor
below. Cousin Mary peeped over the banisters and saw that the maid was
in attendance. She waited until she heard the bed-room door close upon
mistress and maid, and then she walked quietly upstairs, smiling to
herself all the time.
Arrived upon the landing, she looked about her, and presently espying a
door standing partly open, and, peeping in, she saw at once she had
reached her goal, for by the faint light that came in through the
uncurtained window she could discern Helen lying in bed and tossing
about restlessly.
"Are you awake, Helen?" asked Cousin Mary softly.
Helen sat up in bed.
"Oh!" she cried, "have you really come to see me? I was afraid to expect
you. And yet--"
"Yet you had a notion that I might come."
As Cousin Mary spoke she closed the door quietly and walked up to
Helen's bed. Then she struck a light and lit a small lamp that she
carried in her hand. After this she made Helen lie down, shook up her
pillow, and covered her up; and then, drawing a chair close up to the
bedside, she sat down herself.
"Are you going to stop for a little while?" asked Helen with glistening
eyes.
"For a little while, yes. Not for long, though; you ought to have been
asleep hours ago."
"How can I go to sleep when I am so--so _dreadfully_ unhappy?" Helen's
eyes that had been glistening a minute ago were filled with tears, and
her voice grew tremulous. "I hate being such a baby," she went on,
dashing away the rebellious tears with an angry hand. "I never let her
see me cry. Only--only, somehow, when any one is very kind like you
are----"
"Silly child!" said Cousin Mary, taking the girl's hand, "don't you know
that you are making your own troubles out of that sore little heart of
yours?"
"My own troubles! You don't understand, or you wouldn't say that. Why
should I do as she tells me? She isn't my mother. My father and I were
happy before she came, and now even father doesn't love me. I met him on
the stairs to-day and he asked me if I was sorry, and just because I
said I wasn't he went on and never spoke another word to me. He didn't
use to want me to be sorry, he wanted me to be happy."
"And yet you weren't always happy then, Helen."
"Oh, yes! I was; at least nearly always."
"Had you no troubles? Did nothing ever go wrong? Were there no tears?"
"Well, of course, sometimes things went wrong. But it was quite, quite
different then."
"You believe that your father loved you then, don't you, Helen?"
"I know he did."
"And yet, loving you as he did, he saw that you must have some better
training than he was able to give you; and he wished to make a happy
home for you. He did his best for you, and you make things very hard for
him. I think he might truly say that his little daughter does not love
him."
"But I do, even now. I would do anything in the world for him."
"You show your affection very curiously, Helen."
Helen was silent, and Cousin Mary went on. "When one loves a person
truly one ceases to think of one's own happiness so much."
"But I can't do anything to make him happy now."
"You could do a very great deal."
"How?"
"By helping to make his home happy, by being respectful and obedient to
your stepmother, and by trying to become what she wishes to see you."
"I never could please her if I tried ever so hard."
"But have you ever tried?"
Helen was again silent.
"I know it wouldn't be quite easy at first, dear. But if you were to say
to yourself when you feel your temper rising, 'It is for my father's
sake,' it would be possible, I think. Love makes so many things easy."
Helen lay very still. There was silence for a few minutes, and then
Cousin Mary spoke again. "You were rude yesterday evening, my child;
your father was quite right to reprove you. You caused him a great deal
of pain. Won't you make amends to him by telling him and your stepmother
that you are sorry?"
Still no reply from Helen, and Cousin Mary was heaving a sigh of
disappointment, when suddenly the bed-clothes were flung violently on
one side, and Helen sprang to her feet.
"I will go at once," she exclaimed. "She--I mean mamma--can't be in bed
yet. I shall be able to go to sleep when I have seen her and kissed my
father. And I suppose, Cousin Mary, that I ought to tell her that I ran
away from Miss Walker to-day. Well, never mind, I will tell it all, and
then I shall start fresh to-morrow. Wherever _can_ my dressing-gown be?"
Cousin Mary had some difficulty in dissuading this impulsive child from
executing her project. Miss Macleod, however, shrewdly suspected that
Mrs. Desmond would decline to receive her stepdaughter's apologies at
that late hour, and that a fresh scene would be the only outcome of such
an injudicious proceeding. Helen, rather crestfallen, at length allowed
herself to be coaxed back into bed again, and then Cousin Mary crept
down to the smoking-room and persuaded the colonel, who was sitting
rather gloomily over his expiring fire, to come upstairs and say
good-night to his repentant daughter. He did not require much
persuasion, and the moonlight shone through the little attic window upon
three very happy faces, as Cousin Mary looked on at the reconciliation
of father and daughter.
"A thousand thanks for looking after my little girl," whispered the
colonel to Mary as they went down-stairs together. "She--she----"
"She has the makings of a fine woman," interposed the latter warmly,
"but you must not repress her too much. Send her away from home. It will
be best, believe me."
"Well, well, we must see," returned the colonel hesitatingly. "I must
talk it over with Margaret. And, by the bye, let us say nothing of what
has taken place to-night until Helen has made her peace. You understand.
Good night, good night!"
So saying, and walking very cautiously, the colonel crept down-stairs
to his own quarters, while Cousin Mary, shrugging her shoulders a little
impatiently, sought her own room.
As for Helen, she was soon asleep and dreaming of dainty feasts in which
she was participating. She had been dreadfully hungry, for she had
indignantly refused to eat the only food that had been brought to her in
her disgrace. In the sincerity of her penitence, however, she resolved
to bear the pangs of hunger in dignified silence, and if her
dream-feasts were not very satisfying they answered their purpose, for
the hours flew by and she never stirred until the morning.