LONGFORD GRANGE.
An old orchard, its trees gnarled and moss-grown, their blossoms lying
thick upon the grass beneath. A little to the left the embowered gables
and red chimneys of an old house. On the right, and stretching away
towards the horizon, a wide expanse of quiet meadows starred with
buttercups, and intersected by tall hawthorn hedges. Over all the
delicate blue sky of an English summer day.
It was a typical midland landscape, a landscape that possesses a quiet
charm peculiarly its own; and Helen, swinging herself gently to and fro
in a hammock under the bright sunshine, felt as much at home as though
Longford Grange had been her habitation for as many years as it had been
days.
The sad days in Bloomsbury Square were things of the past. The dreary
house was shut up; the precious china was carefully packed away, the
chairs and tables were shrouded in their dust-sheets, and Mrs. Desmond's
household gods were temporarily, at least, at peace. It had all been
accomplished in far too great a hurry to please that lady; but Dr.
Russell's orders that the colonel was to leave London directly he was
well enough to be moved were peremptory, and Mrs. Desmond was forced to
give way to necessity. The idea, too, of a country life was by no means
pleasant to her, and she was wondering in a bewildered way what spot to
fix upon as a temporary resting-place when a letter arrived from her
half-sister, Mrs. Bayden, the wife of a country clergyman, saying that
Longford Grange, a house within a quarter of a mile of the Rectory, was
to let, and might suit her sister's purpose. The idea did not
immediately approve itself to Mrs. Desmond, who disliked the too close
neighbourhood of poor relations; but the colonel, hearing of the
suggestion, expressed a desire to fall in with it, and the matter was
settled. Helen's fate trembled in the balance for a few days, as Miss
Walker found herself unable to leave town, and Mrs. Desmond seriously
contemplated leaving her troublesome stepdaughter behind in the
governess's charge. Upon the first suggestion of such a plan to the
colonel, however, he spoke so decidedly of his determination not to be
separated from Helen that Mrs. Desmond saw that, for the present at
least, it was useless to argue the point. Dr. Russell, meeting his
little friend upon the stairs one day clenched the matter by remarking
upon her altered looks, and he went out of his way to urge upon her
parents the necessity of change of scene and a life of freedom for their
child after the evident strain she had undergone during her father's
illness. Mrs. Desmond scarcely relished this advice; but even she looked
a little anxiously at the girl, and wondered rather uncomfortably
whether Helen's curiously changed manner could be due to physical
causes. As for Colonel Desmond, he took fright at once. Helen must have
a holiday, must run wild if necessary, he declared. He was very weak
still, and in the full enjoyment of an invalid's privileges. Although
his wife positively shuddered at the idea of Helen's running wild, she
did not attempt to gainsay him, and after this there was no more
discussion about the matter. Helen went to Longford Grange without a
governess, and with a tacit understanding that, under certain
restrictions, such as early rising and punctual attendance at meals,
she was to be allowed to do pretty much as she pleased.
But in spite of her father's tenderness, of the charms of a country
life, and the delights of freedom, Helen did not recover her health or
her spirits directly. Perhaps she was by nature a little morbid, and, if
so, the unnatural repression to which she had been subjected during the
past year, and the want of wholesome sympathy and young companionship
had tended to dangerously foster such a quality. She was always brooding
over what was past, and exaggerating her own failings. Morbidly
conscious that she was an object of dislike to her stepmother, she
credited Mrs. Desmond with a depth of feeling of which that cold-natured
woman was incapable. Anxious to show her true contrition for what was
past, she was perpetually fidgeting her stepmother with small attentions
which Mrs. Desmond not only failed to appreciate, but which she ascribed
to motives of which Helen's generous, open nature was incapable. Colonel
Desmond, indeed, looked on smiling. What an improvement in Helen! To be
sure he missed the child's bright ways and frank outspoken talk. But for
this, and for his little daughter's white, oldened face, he would have
begun to believe that his Margaret's training had worked miracles. But
to see these two beginning to understand one another was worth
anything, even his illness. No doubt it was her stepmother's tender
sympathy through that sad time that had brought Helen to this mind.
So reasoned the colonel, and was content. Meanwhile he and his wife
became once more a good deal absorbed in each other's society, and Helen
was left to her own devices. Lonely Helen, lying in her hammock on this
bright summer's day thinking of many things about which young heads
should not concern themselves, heard a step in the orchard, and starting
up hastily, saw a young girl, apparently about her own age, coming
towards her.
"One of those tiresome girls from the Rectory, I suppose," she said to
herself discontentedly. Helen had as yet only seen her stepmother's
relatives in church, Mrs. Desmond having hinted very strongly to her
sister that, owing to the colonel's state of health and her own
shattered nerves, intercourse between the Grange and Rectory would be
necessarily restricted, especially as regarded the young people. Agatha,
however, the eldest Rectory girl, had been presented to her aunt, in
whose eyes she had found favour, as Helen knew to her cost, having
smarted more than once under an unflattering comparison between herself
and the young lady in question.
Helen took stock of her as she advanced, a prim little figure dressed
with exceeding neatness. Her face was small and well-featured, and she
had pretty dark eyes and smooth coils of brown hair, but her lips were
thin and their expression unpleasing. She walked, too, with a short,
ungraceful step, and there was an air of demure superiority about her
which was scarcely calculated to impress favourably those of her own age
at least. "I don't like her," said Helen to herself as Agatha approached
and held out her hand with a patronizing air, observing:
"I suppose you are Helen Desmond?"
"I suppose I am," returned Helen a little mischievously, sitting up in
her hammock, but still swinging herself slowly to and fro.
Agatha's thin lips tightened. She had been annoyed that Helen had not
come forward to meet her; now she began to think her new acquaintance
not only ill-mannered but impertinent. "I daresay you don't know who I
am," she went on loftily.
"Oh, yes! I do. You are Agatha Bayden."
"How do you know that I am Agatha?"
"Because I saw you on Sunday boxing your little brother's ears behind
the churchyard wall. One of the choir boys said, 'That's Miss Agatha.'
I'm not sure he didn't say Agatha."
Agatha turned crimson.
"I have a message for you," she said, scorning a direct reply. "You are
to come to lunch with us to-day, and to spend the afternoon with us."
"Who says so?" asked Helen not very courteously.
"My mother has invited you, and my aunt says that you may come,"
returned Agatha still loftily.
The mention of Mrs. Desmond recalled Helen to her better mind. She
jumped out of the hammock.
"I must make myself tidy first," she said with a smile and a sudden
change of tone that perplexed her companion. "I oughtn't to have kept
you standing here. Will you come in and sit down while I get ready?"
"I have already spent half an hour with my aunt, and I think I had
better not disturb her again," said Agatha primly.
"Oh, no! of course not," returned Helen. "We will go to my room by the
backstairs, then we sha'n't disturb anybody."
The two girls went off together. Agatha, whose temper had been a good
deal ruffled, and who considered herself vastly Helen's superior, was
not disposed to be friendly, although Helen was already ashamed of her
blunt speeches, and tried to make amends for them by chatting pleasantly
as they went along. Her companion's frank and natural manner was not
what Agatha had expected, and she remained stiffly silent. On the
backstairs they encountered Martha, who was on her way to find Helen,
and who did not improve Agatha's temper by sending her to wait in the
library, while Helen was carried off to be tidied under Martha's own
eye, after which process she was to speak with Mrs. Desmond before
leaving the house.
"I hope, Helen, that you will behave properly," said that lady when
Helen, a little shrinking and downcast, as she always was now in her
stepmother's presence, appeared before her. "I scarcely like letting you
go, my sister's children are so well brought up. Pray be careful, and
avoid, if you can, doing anything dreadful. Don't loll in your chair at
the table, and please only speak when you are spoken to."
"I--I will do my best," answered Helen, struggling with her rising
temper. "Is that all?"
Mrs. Desmond looked at her sharply. "I hope you are not going to sulk,
Helen. I should not have said this had I not recollected your forward
behaviour when my cousin, Miss Macleod, was with us. Take example from
Agatha. She is really a charming girl. So gentle and ready to please! so
full of deference for her elders! With a little polish--"
"Agatha can get into a passion and box her little brother's ears when
she thinks that no one is looking," burst out Helen.
"Helen, you shock and disgust me. How can you repeat such low gossip?"
"It isn't gossip," cried Helen. But she was already repentant. "I am
sorry I said it, though; it was mean," she went on. "I will try to
behave as you wish me to. But oh! I _wish_ I might stop at home."
"Nonsense, Helen! Go at once. I have nothing more to say to you, and I
hope you will keep your word and neither say nor do anything to shock my
sister."
The girl looked at Mrs. Desmond for a moment and then turned away
impatiently, half-choked with the indignant words that rose to her lips.
The door closed rather noisily behind her as she rushed out into the
large square hall, where her father stood sunning himself in the open
doorway.
"Dear, dearest father!" she cried, running up to him and flinging her
arms round his neck.
"Don't smother me, child," he returned, laughing and gently disengaging
himself from her embrace.
"Why, Helen," he went on, "tears! What is the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing," cried the girl eagerly, dashing them away. "I am
going to the Rectory to spend a long day. I must not keep Agatha
waiting any longer. Good-bye!"
Just then the drawing-room door opened and Mrs. Desmond appeared. She
misinterpreted the situation, of course, but she made no remark as Helen
ran past her, although she threw an indignant glance at the girl.
"What is the matter with Helen?" asked the colonel rather sharply as his
wife joined him.
She smiled disagreeably.
"Need you ask me? You have heard the child's story."
"I have heard no story. But I did hope that we should have no more of
these painful scenes."
"So did I."
This was all that passed on the subject, but once more a shadow fell
between husband and wife.
Meanwhile the girls quickly traversed the short distance that separated
the Grange from the Rectory, where Helen was coldly greeted by Mrs.
Bayden, a hard-featured woman, superficially not at all like her sister
either in manner or appearance. Their respective lots in life, too, had
been very different. Mrs. Desmond, the only daughter of their father's
first wife, had been early adopted by her mother's relations, from whom
she had inherited a considerable fortune. Mrs. Bayden was the eldest of
a numerous second family, and had married a poor clergyman while still
young. All her life had been spent in a struggle with what is perhaps
harder than real poverty--the struggle to keep up appearances on a small
income. Her husband was a quiet, well-meaning man, entirely wrapt up in
his five children, and terribly oppressed by the sameness and monotony
of his parish work. He was inclined to be fretful with his wife when
things did not run smoothly; but he shifted even his natural
responsibilities upon her shoulders, and although a little obstinate at
times, like all weak people, he always in the end deferred to her
judgment.
Mr. and Mrs. Bayden and their two youngest children, Grace and Harold,
were in the drawing-room awaiting the girls' arrival, for the
luncheon-gong had already sounded before they entered.
"I knew we should be late," said Agatha spitefully. "Helen took such a
time to beautify herself."
"Well, go at once and take off your hats," returned Mrs. Bayden
impatiently, "and then come straight to the dining-room."
The girls obeyed. Helen, who was suffering from an unusual access of
shyness, was very glad to escape the gaze of so many pairs of curious
eyes, although the relief was only temporary, for immediately she was
seated at the luncheon-table she felt the scrutiny renewed.
"Agatha, my child, you look tired," said Mr. Bayden anxiously. The
Baydens were always in a tremor over their children's health.
"I am tired," remarked Agatha fretfully.
There was a diversion while various restoratives were pressed upon
Agatha by her parents, and then Mr. Bayden, who was kind-hearted, turned
to Helen and asked her how she liked Longford.
"I think it is a lovely place," said Helen enthusiastically.
Agatha and Grace sniggered, while their elders smiled a little
contemptuously.
"You don't call this flat country lovely, do you?" asked Mrs. Bayden.
"Is it flat?" returned Helen, colouring. "I never thought about that."
"Perhaps, mother, Helen will think Dane's End lovely, and will call the
open ditch a stream," suggested Agatha.
"I only meant," began Helen, "that after London--"
"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Bayden, "of course the country is refreshing
after London, and the Grange is pretty. The church, too, is picturesque.
You admire our fine old church, don't you?"
"Yes," said Helen faintly. She had no eye for architectural beauties,
and the scantily-filled church had struck her on Sunday as cold and
dreary.
"I suppose that our village singing sounded very poor to you after that
in the London churches," went on Mr. Bayden, the faintest suspicion of a
self-satisfied smile dawning in the corners of his mouth.
"Yes," said Helen again, but with more decision. Her musical ears had
really been tortured by the discordant sounds produced by a choir of
village boys habited in soiled surplices, and engaged apparently in a
desperate attempt to outshout one another. Her frank assent was
unfortunate, however. Mrs. Bayden was proud of her choir, which she
managed, as she did everything else in the parish, but being entirely
destitute of musical taste she was quite unaware that the results
obtained by her efforts were not musically satisfactory, although a
volume of sound was not lacking. Helen was dimly conscious that she had
said something wrong, and her relief was considerable when Harold, a lad
of about twelve, who was seated beside her, looked up into her face with
his merry blue eyes and said:
"I think our boys make a horrid noise, especially Jim Hunt. I saw you
looking at him. You can hear his voice over everybody's. I don't sing at
all when I sit by him."
"Harold, how wicked of you!" said his mother. "You don't deserve the
privilege of sitting in the choir. Jim Hunt is an excellent boy, and his
voice is most useful."
Agatha, her mother's echo, murmured, "How wicked!" upon which Harold
told her to "shut up."
"Mother, do you hear that?" cried Agatha in her high-pitched tones.
"Harold, Harold!" interposed Mr. Hayden nervously, "be good, pray. You
don't want to be punished again, do you?"
"She has no business to interfere," persisted Harold. "Mother may say
I'm wicked; she sha'n't."
"Harold!" cried Mrs. Bayden in a warning voice, after which there was an
instant's pause while hands wore joined, and Mr. Bayden murmured a hasty
and inaudible grace.
This over, Helen, accompanied by Grace and Harold, withdrew to the
school-room, Agatha remaining with her parents.
"Well, Agatha, and how did you get on at the Grange this morning?" asked
her father with some curiosity; while Mrs. Bayden, who for reasons of
her own was particularly anxious that Agatha should produce a favourable
impression on her aunt, looked up eagerly.
"I got on as well as possible, at least until I found Helen. Aunt
Margaret kept me with her for ever so long, and she asked me to go and
see her again."
"Did she? Well, perhaps she means to be kind after all," said Mr.
Bayden. "What do you say, mother?"
Mrs. Bayden was knitting vigorously, and she only replied by an
impatient movement. Agatha went on.
"As for Helen, I don't wonder that she annoys Aunt Margaret. She was
quite rude and disagreeable to me at first. Do you like her, mother?"
"I can't say I do. Still I haven't much pity for my sister. Why did she
marry at all at her time of life, and above all, why did she marry a man
with a child? She ought to have considered her nephews and nieces before
she took such a step."
Poor, over-anxious Mrs. Bayden, who had always looked forward to a time
when her rich lonely sister would take a fancy to one, if not more, of
her children, considered Helen as an interloper, and found it hard to
tolerate the girl's very existence. In addition to this, quite enough
about Helen's past misdeeds had been said to prejudice her in the
Baydens' eyes. Under the circumstances it can scarcely be wondered at,
perhaps, that her reception at the Rectory was not a very warm one.
Agatha and her mother, indeed, considered that they had done all that
was needed, but Mr. Bayden had some qualms of conscience with regard to
the lonely young stranger within their gates.
"Poor child!" he said, as he rose from his chair preparatory to starting
on his usual afternoon potter in his parish, "we must be kind to her,
Agatha. I daresay she has had a rough bringing up."
"She has had every advantage with my sister," snapped Mrs. Bayden. "She
was exceedingly brusque at luncheon, and she ought, _at least_, to have
learnt better manners by this time. Our choir isn't good enough for her,
indeed! I only hope that her example won't make Harold naughtier than
ever."
"I don't see how anything could do that," observed Agatha.
"Well, Agatha," returned her mother persuasively, "I think you had
better go upstairs to the others now. Your aunt doesn't care for Helen,
I know, but still she mightn't be pleased if she thought that we had
neglected her."
Agatha obeyed rather reluctantly. Mrs. Bayden's eyes followed her with
admiring glances. Agatha was her mother's idol. Not disposed to be over
gentle even with her children, to all of whom she was honestly devoted,
Mrs. Bayden could never find it in her heart to speak a hasty word to
Agatha. The girl was well aware of her mother's weakness, and although,
to do her justice, she was an excellent and helpful daughter, she had
imbibed so high an opinion of her own talents, and of herself generally
from this circumstance, that to everyone, save her parents, she was
often insufferably overbearing. Then, too, she had been made the sharer
of all her mother's hopes and plans, and neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bayden had
any secrets from her. Her opinion was a distinct factor in the family
councils, and her sharp, often pert, remarks about their friends and
neighbours were rather encouraged than checked. Even her two big
brothers were not allowed to tease her with impunity when they were at
home for their holidays, whilst her authority was upheld in the rigid
obedience that she tried to exact from Grace and Harold.
Perhaps for all her faults and foibles Agatha was rather to be pitied
than blamed, but Helen was scarcely likely to see them in that light,
and she may be pardoned for experiencing a sensation of disgust on
seeing Agatha enter the school-room and calmly sweep away some chips of
wood and cardboard out of which Harold, with some wire and a few rough
tools, was trying to construct what he called an organ. Harold had a
taste for mechanics, and was always dreaming of inventions. He did not
often find such a sympathetic listener as Helen, to whom he was
explaining his plans, and who was deeply interested in the description
of his designs for cardboard organ-pipes and other contrivances.
"I think tin would be better," she was saying gravely as Agatha walked
in. "I will ask my father--"
"Harold, you know that you oughtn't to make such a mess in this room.
Clear it away at once."
Harold, whose face had been glowing with enthusiasm, looked up and saw
his sister. His whole expression altered.
"I sha'n't," he said.
"Sha'n't indeed! you'll have to," and Agatha raised the table-cloth
whereon the litter lay, and swept Harold's treasures on to the floor.
"There, now, you have spoilt those pipes, and they took me hours to
make," screamed Harold, rushing at his sister and pushing her backward.
"I hate you. You are a horrid disagreeable thing. I will never forgive
you."
"You bad, wicked boy!" cried Agatha, holding his hands; "this is the end
of all those fine promises that you made last Sunday. Supposing you were
to die in one of those dreadful passions, you would go to hell."
"It is you who are wicked to speak like that," interposed Helen, unable
to witness the scene in silence any longer. "You provoked him, you know
you did."
"Children, children, what is the matter?"
The combatants stopped their hostilities and turned round. Mrs. Bayden,
on her way upstairs, had heard the noise of the scuffle and had appeared
upon the scene.
"It is Harold, of course, as usual," said Agatha, recovering her
self-possession at once. "He will do his silly carpentering here, and
you know you have often told him he is only to do it in the barn. I was
only trying to make him obedient, and he flew at me and pushed and
kicked me."
"Oh, Harold!" sighed Mrs. Bayden, "how could you? Fancy if you had
injured your sister seriously."
"It isn't true," began Harold, but his mother stopped him.
"I want to hear no more. I have heard too much already. That
rubbish"--pointing to the wood and cardboard on the floor--"must be
given to me. Pick it up."
Harold, his face dark and lowering, obeyed, and the "rubbish," tenderly
placed in a wastepaper basket, was handed to his mother.
"You will take care of it, won't you?" he said, with a little break in
his voice.
"No, Harold, I must do my duty. You must be punished for your conduct. I
shall burn these things."
Harold could not guess all that her mistaken sternness cost his mother.
With a cry like that of a wounded animal he rushed away, and Helen
stepped forward.
"Please don't burn those things," she said, "Agatha really did provoke
him. I should have been quite as angry, perhaps angrier, if anyone had
treated me as she did Harold."
"I am quite ready to believe that, Helen," returned Mrs. Bayden with a
curious smile. "When you remember the terrible consequences of your own
conduct, you will not wonder that I am anxious to save Harold from the
scourge of an ungoverned temper."
Helen shrank back as though she had received a blow. Mrs. Bayden was
quite right, she thought. Her interference could never do any good. But
she was still smarting under the sense of injustice, although she was
not the sufferer upon this occasion.
"Why didn't you tell your mother that Harold wasn't to blame?" she asked
Grace indignantly when Mrs. Bayden and Agatha had gone, and those two
were left alone.
Grace shrugged her shoulders.
"It wouldn't have been any good," she said; "mother always takes
Agatha's part. Besides, she and Harold are always quarrelling. It's just
as often his fault as hers. I wish he was at school like the other boys.
But come along out into the garden. We can take books with us and
read."
Nothing loth, Helen agreed. They found a shady spot, and Grace, who
liked nothing so much as reading, was soon deep in her book. But Helen
was restless and ill at ease. Her attention wandered, and she could
think of nothing but Harold.
"I think I will go for a stroll," she said presently. "You needn't come.
I like wandering about by myself."
Grace was too comfortable to move. She merely nodded her assent, and
went on with her book.
Thus left free to follow her own devices, Helen searched all over the
garden for Harold, but without success. She was just giving up the
search in despair when she heard a rustling noise inside the shrubbery.
Pushing her way amongst the bushes with some difficulty, she came upon a
spot that had been cleared, and there she found Harold digging away with
might and main. He was so intent upon his work that he did not at first
notice her approach, and she watched him with some amusement as he flung
down each spadeful of earth, striking it sharply several times with his
spade as he did so.
At length he became aware that he was no longer alone, and looked round
sharply.
"However did you find me out?" he asked.
"I have been looking for you, and I heard a noise in the shrubbery and
guessed that I might find you here."
"I'm glad you've come. I liked you directly I saw you; and you took my
part."
Helen was silent. She had rather a wise little head on her shoulders,
and an instinct warned her not to discuss his sister's behaviour with
Harold.
"Don't you wonder what I'm doing?" he went on.
"You are digging, aren't you?"
"Yes; I come here when I am too angry to do anything else, and I slash
away at the earth until I grow quite happy again."
Helen smiled.
"What a good idea! I can guess exactly how you feel."
"Can you? Well, don't tell anyone. If Agatha knew, she would be sure to
say that I was in mischief, and then I should be forbidden to come here
again."
"I won't say a word. Go on digging, and I will stop and watch you."
Harold threw down his spade.
"I don't want to dig any more. I say, shall we sit on the top of the
wall and talk? There is a place just there overlooking the road from
where one can see everything that goes by without being seen one's
self."
Helen needed no persuasion. Assisted by Harold, who climbed like a cat,
she easily scaled the wall, and, sheltered from observation by the leafy
branches of an overhanging copper beech, they soon fell into pleasant
talk. So deeply interesting were their mutual confidences, that it was
not until a glimpse of Mrs. Desmond's victoria going by rapidly recalled
Helen to a recollection of the impropriety of her present position that
she remembered Grace, whom she had left so unceremoniously, and who
would probably be seeking her, as the afternoon was wearing on.
"What's the matter?" asked Harold, seeing Helen's face fall.
"There is mamma going to the Rectory. She said that she might fetch me."
"Why don't you say mother? Mamma sounds so funny."
"Because she isn't my _mother_."
Both were silent for a moment. Harold's questioning blue eyes looked
curiously into Helen's face, but it betrayed nothing. Helen was too
deep-natured to wear her heart upon her sleeve. She knew quite well that
Mrs. Desmond disliked the word mamma, considering it underbred; but the
girl had told herself that she would call no stranger mother, and she
kept her word.
"I suppose that I ought to have been with Grace all this time," she
said, breaking silence. "Come along, Harold, and let us find her
quickly."
"Never mind Grace. She never cares for anybody when she has a book, and
she didn't want you to come at all. I expect it is about tea-time, and
the best thing we can do is to go straight back to the school-room."
Unfortunately, in order to reach the house it was necessary to pass
right under the drawing-room windows. Mrs. Desmond's victoria had
deposited her at the Rectory some time before Harold and Helen could
return thither, and she clearly discerned the two untidy little figures
scudding across the lawn.
"Dear me! Is that Helen?" she asked. "I told her to be ready when I
called for her."
Mrs. Bayden, who, with Agatha's assistance, was dispensing tea, looked
up nervously.
"Helen! I hope not. I thought that the school-room tea had gone up some
time ago. Agatha, would you--"
"It is Helen," broke in Agatha abruptly. "She ran away from Grace and
left her alone all the afternoon. Of course she has been with Harold.
Birds of a feather, you know. Shall I tell her to come to you at once,
Aunt Margaret?"
"Do, my dear," said Mrs. Desmond. "I wish Helen were more like your
girl, Susan," she went on as Agatha left the room.
"Agatha is one in a thousand," returned Mrs. Bayden, her sharp voice
growing almost soft.
"Yes," observed Mr. Bayden plaintively. "If all our children were but
like her! There's Harold now. Would you believe it, I met him in the
garden early in the afternoon, and I spoke to him quite gently, and he
rushed past me saying, 'I hate you all, I hate you all!' Such terrible
language to use to a father."
"I'm afraid that it is all your own fault, Richard," returned Mrs.
Desmond unsympathetically. "You spoil your children. I positively
shudder to think of what the world will come to when--"
"But you yourself admit that Agatha is all that can be desired,"
interrupted Mrs. Bayden impatiently. She was by no means pleased that
her husband should expose Harold's naughtiness to an outsider.
"Agatha seems a good girl," replied Mrs. Desmond coldly. "She needs
forming, of course; but considering that she has spent all her life in a
country village one must not blame her for that. As for Harold, why
don't you send him to school?"
"Because, Margaret, I can't afford it at present," said Mrs. Bayden
bluntly.
"An excellent reason, my dear Susan. It is a pity that you can't manage,
though, to discipline him at home. Why don't you take him in hand,
Richard?"
Mr. Bayden sighed deeply and looked imploringly at his sister-in-law.
"How can I?" he said. "My children are so dear to me. And then I have
other cares. The parish--"
"Oh! by the way, talking of the parish," interrupted Mrs. Desmond,
"things seem to be very badly managed here. Two different families have
been at the Grange begging since we came. There can't be any poverty
here, and besides--Why, Helen, what have you been doing to yourself?"
This last was addressed to her stepdaughter, who had been marched down
by Agatha, and who was now brought summarily into the drawing-room.
"I--I have only been in the garden," said Helen, painfully conscious of
tumbled hair, soiled hands, and torn frock.
"Only in the garden! What are those green marks on your dress?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Helen, beginning to brush herself
vigorously and making bad worse.
"You don't know! It looks to me as if you had been climbing _trees_."
"Oh, no! indeed I haven't," said Helen, thankful to be able to deny so
terrible an accusation.
"What have you been doing, then?"
"I--I only climbed a wall."
"Climbed a wall! What for?"
"To sit there."
"This is the child for whom no expense has been spared," observed Mrs.
Desmond tragically to her sister. "Dancing lessons, drilling lessons,
deportment, this last especially, have been dinned into her from morning
till night. And yet your Agatha knows how to behave herself better than
she does."
There was a pause. Mrs. Desmond indulged in a deep sigh, and the
Baydens, a little nettled at this half-contemptuous reference to Agatha,
remained silent.
"Come," went on the injured lady presently, addressing Helen. "I am
sorry that I ever allowed you to come here. I knew that you would
disgrace me. Say good-bye to my sister."
"Good-bye!" said Helen, giving her hand awkwardly to Mrs. Bayden.
"Oh! you must let her come again," observed good-natured Mr. Bayden.
"She didn't mean to do anything wrong, I'm sure. And I daresay it was
quite as much Harold's fault as hers. Pray, don't be angry with the poor
child."
Ejaculating a few conciliatory remarks of this kind, Mr. Bayden
accompanied his sister-in-law to her carriage, standing bareheaded in
the porch until she passed out of sight.
"Really," he observed fretfully as he re-entered the drawing-room and
threw himself into an armchair, "really, my dear, you must shield me
from your sister as much as possible. I shrink from no sacrifice for my
dear children's sake, as you know; but pray don't let her attack me
again. It was most unfeeling of her to speak as she did about the
parish. Indeed, it was worse than unfeeling, it was positively
disrespectful to speak in that way to a clergyman. I, too, who toil in
my parish from one year's end to another! She positively spoke as if I
didn't do my duty."
"Do you think, Richard, that it is pleasant for me to hear our children
slightingly spoken of?" returned Mrs. Bayden. "But I bear it, and so
must you. As for parish matters, Margaret knows no more about the
management of a parish than she does about children. It won't do to
quarrel with her, though."
"Well, spare me, spare me, that is all I ask," said Mr. Bayden. "Really
I feel half sorry for that poor child Helen."
"I expect that she is quite able to take care of herself," answered the
wife. "You mustn't forget that she nearly killed her father by her
behaviour in London."
"That was very shocking, certainly," murmured Mr. Bayden. "Give me
another cup of tea, my dear. By the way, Betty Smith has been attacking
me again about her daughter. These people are never satisfied. They are
a most ungrateful set. And Joseph Hall spoke to me about my new stole.
Did you ever hear such impertinence? Just as if I were accountable to my
people for anything I choose to do."
This, the waywardness of their flock in indulging in every Briton's
birthright, the privilege of private judgment, was a congenial topic
with the worthy couple. In its discussion they temporarily forgot their
grievances against Mrs. Desmond, who, meanwhile, with Helen seated
beside her, drove home in silence. The root of her increased bitterness
against her stepdaughter lay in that little incident that had occurred
in the morning. But of this Helen could not be aware, and the poor
child, recalling all her good resolutions, began once more to exaggerate
her own shortcomings, and to wonder miserably why it was that she was so
hopelessly stupid and bad. And yet, in spite of everything, she did not
regret her visit to the Rectory. Agatha and Grace might be cold and
disagreeable, and sneer at her whenever she opened her lips, but Harold
with his eager face and his odd fancies was quite different. If only she
and Harold might meet sometimes, she felt that she could bear the snubs
of his family with a good deal of equanimity. And in planning how she
could help Harold, and how she could manage to interest her father in
her new friend, Helen forgot her own wrongs, and forgot even to be angry
when her stepmother told her that her company would not be required in
the drawing-room that evening. When our heads are full of others it is
wonderful how insignificant our own personal concerns become.