I find you passing gentle.
'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar;
For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring time flowers:
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will.
_Taming of the Shrew._
It was quite an unusual event for Miss Charlotte Willoughby to be
standing on the platform watching the arrival of the London train. Her
preparation for the expedition had been made in quite a flutter of
expectation. She was resolved to do her duty thoroughly by Godfrey
Brabourne, much as she had disliked his mother. She had hopes that a
stay in a household of such strict propriety, where peace, order, and
regularity reigned supreme, might perchance work an improvement in the
boy, do something to eradicate the pernicious influence of early
training, and cause him, in after life, to own with a burst of emotion
that he dated the turning-point in his career from the moment when his
foot first trod the threshold of Edge Willoughby. This was a
consummation so devoutly to be wished, as to go far towards reconciling
the good lady to the presence of a boy in the virgin seclusion of the
house. Elsa, at her side, was stirred to the deepest depths of her
excitable temperament, each faculty poised, each nerve a-quiver as she
hung bashfully back behind her aunt.
There was a long wild howl, a dog's howl, followed by a series of sharp
yelps and a sound of scuffling; a crowd collected round the dog-box. A
small boy in an Eton suit dashed down the platform, parted the
spectators right and left, and revealed to view the panic-stricken
guard, with a bull-dog hanging to his trousers.
"Ven! Come off, you confounded brute! How dare you!" cried the little
boy in shrill tones, as he seized the dog by the collar, and dragged him
off. "Didn't I tell you, you idiot," he went on to the guard, "not to
touch him till I came! What fools people are, always meddling with what
ain't their concern. Why couldn't you let my dog alone, eh? I don't pity
you, blessed if I do," concluded he in an off-hand manner, cuffing his
dog heartily, and shaking him at the same time. "I'll teach you manners,
you scoundrel," he said, furiously; "and now, what am I to be let in for
over this job? Has he drawn blood?"
Elsa and her aunt were so absorbed, as was everyone else, in watching
this episode, as to temporarily forget their errand at the station; but
now the girl began to peer among the little crowd of bystanders, to see
if she could spy anybody who looked like Godfrey.
"Auntie," she whispered, "hasn't Godfrey come?"
"I--am not sure."
A cold fear, a presentiment, was stealing over Miss Charlotte's mind.
Something in the voice, the air, the face of the dreadful boy with the
bull-dog, reminded her uncomfortably of her deceased brother-in-law,
Valentine Brabourne. She wavered a little, while vehement and angry
recriminations went on between him and the railway-officials, noticed
with a shudder how he felt in his trousers' pockets and pulled out loose
gold, and was still in a state of miserable uncertainty when he turned
round, and demanded, in high, shrill tones:
"Isn't there anybody here to meet me from Edge Willoughby?"
Both aunt and niece started, and gasped. Then Miss Charlotte went
bravely forward.
"Are you Godfrey Brabourne?" she asked, with shaking voice, more than
half-ashamed to have to lay claim to such a boy before a little
concourse of spectators who all knew her by sight. The guard lifted his
cap, surprised, and half-apologetic.
"Pardon, mum," he grumbled, "but I do say as a young gentleman didn't
oughter travel with that dog unmuzzled. He didn't ought to do it; for
you never know where the beast'll take a fancy to bite, and a man with a
family's got hydrophobia to consider."
"Hydrophobia! Hydro-fiddlestick!" cried Godfrey, making a grimace. "He
ain't even broken the skin, and I've given you a couple of sovs.--a
deuced lot more than those bags of yours ever cost." This speech
elicited a laugh all round, and seemed to congeal Miss Charlotte's blood
in her veins. "So now you just go round the corner and treat your
friends. Why, if you had any sense, you wouldn't mind being bitten every
day for a week at that price. How d'ye do, Miss Willoughby? My aunt
Ottilie sent her kind regards, or something."
"Will you--come this way?" said Miss Charlotte, desperately, possessed
only by the idea of hastening from this scene of public disgrace. "Come,
my dear, come! If the guard is satisfied, let the matter rest. I am sure
it is very imprudent to travel with so savage a dog unmuzzled. Dear,
dear! what are you going to do with him?"
"Do with him? Nothing. He's all right; he's not mad. That ass must needs
go dragging him out of the dog-box or something, that's all. He wouldn't
hurt a fly."
Miss Charlotte paused in her headlong flight from the station.
"Godfrey, I regret--I deeply regret it, but I can on no account allow
that beast to be taken up to the house. I cannot permit it--he will be
biting everybody."
"Oh, he's all right," was the cool retort. "Chain him up in the stables,
if you're funky. Leave him alone. He'll follow the trap right enough if
I'm in it. Now then, where are your cattle?"
Miss Charlotte unconsciously answered this, to her, incomprehensible
question by laying her lean hand, which trembled somewhat, on the handle
of the roomy, well-cushioned wagonette which the ladies of Edge found
quite good enough to convey them along the country lanes to shop in
Philmouth, or call on a friend. The plump, lazy horse stood swishing his
tail in the sunshine, and Acland, the deliberate, bandy-legged coachman,
was in the act of placing a smart little portmanteau on the box.
"Now then--room for that inside--just put that portmanteau inside, will
you? I'm going to drive," announced Master Godfrey; and, as he spoke, he
turned suddenly, and for the first time caught sight of Elsa.
"Godfrey," said Miss Charlotte, "this is your sister Elaine."
The boy stared a moment. Elaine's face was crimson--tears stood in her
eyes; her appearance was altogether as eccentric as it well could be,
for she wore the Sunday dress and hat to do him honor. To him, used as
he was to slim girls in tailor-made gowns, with horsy little collars and
diamond pins, perfectly-arranged hair, and gloves and shoes leaving
nothing to be desired, the effect was simply unutterably comic. He
surveyed his half-sister from head to foot, and burst into a peal of
laughter. It was all too funny. His aunt was funny, the horse and trap
funnier still; but this Elaine was funniest of all.
"What a guy!" he said to himself, a sudden feeling of wrathful disgust
taking the place of his mirth, as he angrily reflected that this strange
object bore the name of Brabourne. Aloud he said:
"I beg your pardon for laughing, but you have got such a rum hat on; I
suppose anything does for these lanes." Then before anyone could dare to
remonstrate, he was up on the box with the reins in his hand. "Now then,
Johnnie," said he to the outraged Acland, "up with you. I'm going to
drive this thing--is it a calf or a mule? Or is it a cross between an
elephant and a pig? I suppose you bring it down for the luggage. What
sort of a show have you got in your stables, eh?"
To this ribald questioning, Acland, white with fury, made answer that
the Misses Willoughbys had only one horse at present; at which the boy
laughed loudly, and confided to him his opinion that "their friends must
be an uncommon queer lot, for them to dare to show with such a
turn-out."
This dust and ashes Acland had to swallow, watching meanwhile the stout
horse, Taffy, goaded up the hills with a speed that threatened apoplexy,
and dashing down them with a rattle which seemed to more than hint at
broken springs.
And Elaine and her aunt sat inside, with Godfrey's portmanteau for
company, and said never a word. Low as had been Miss Willoughby's
expectations, little as she had been prepared to love the outcome of the
Orton training, certainly this boy exceeded her severest thought; he
out-heroded Herod.
Elsa was simply choked; she could not say one word. She scrambled out of
the wagonette at the door with a face from which the eagerness of hope
had gone, to be replaced by a burning, baleful rage. She was furious;
her self-love had been cruelly wounded, and hers was not a nature to
forget. Of course she said nothing to her aunts. They had never
encouraged her to divulge her feelings to them, and she never did. She
rushed away to her old nursery, to stamp and gesticulate in a wild
frenzy of anger and hurt feeling.
Meanwhile Godfrey walked in, scowling. He had expected dulness, but
nothing so terrible as this promised to be. Sulkily he ordered Venom,
the bull-dog, to lie down in the hall, and stumbled into the
drawing-room to shake hands, with ill-suppressed contempt, with all his
step-aunts, who sat around in silent condemnation.
Miss Ellen spoke first, thinking in her kindness to set the shy boy at
ease.
"You will be glad of some tea after your long journey; you must be
thirsty."
"Yes, I am thirsty; but I'm not very keen on tea, thanks. I'd sooner
have a B and S, if you have such a thing; or a lemon squash."
There was a dead silence.
"Oh, don't you mind if you haven't got it," he said, easily; "a glass of
beer would do."
After a moment's hesitation Miss Ellen rang the bell, and ordered "a
glass of ale," and then Miss Charlotte found her voice, and told their
guest to go and chain up his dog in the stable.
"Oh, all right! I'll go and cheek the old Johnnie with the stiff
collar," he said; and so sauntered out, leaving the ladies gazing
helplessly each at the other.
All tea-time the visitor was considerably subdued, perhaps by the close
proximity and severe expression of the sisterhood; but after tea Miss
Charlotte told Elsa to put on her hat and take her brother round the
garden. Once out of sight, Master Godfrey's tongue was loosed.
"Whew! What a set of old cats!" he cried. "Have you had to live with
them all your life? I'm sure I'm sorry for you, poor beggar."
Elsa's smouldering resentment was very near ablaze.
"What's the matter with my aunts?" she asked, defiantly.
"What's the matter with your aunts? By Jove! that's good. What's the
matter with _you_, that you can't see it? Such a set of old cautions!"
he burst into loud laughter. "But you've lived with them till you're
almost as bad! I never saw such a figure of fun! I say, what would you
take to walk down Piccadilly in that get-up? I'm hanged if I'd walk with
you, though?"
"How dare you?" Elsa's cheeks and eyes flamed, she shook with passion.
"How dare you speak to me like that? I hate you," she cried, "you rude,
detestable child. I wish I had never seen you! Why do you come here? And
I--I--I--was looking forward so to having you--I was! I was! I wish you
had never been born--there!"
"If she isn't snivelling, I declare! Just because I don't admire her
bed-gown! Pretty little dear, then, didn't it like to be told that it
was unbecomingly dressed? There, there, it should wear its things
hind-part-before, if it liked, and carry a tallow candle on the tip of
its nose, or any other little fancy it may have. As to asking me why I
came here," he went on, with a sudden vicious change of tone, "I can
tell you I only came because I was sent, and not because I wanted to.
Uncle Fred and Aunt Ottilie are off to Homburg, and want to be rid of
me, so they shipped me off here; and Uncle Fred told an awful whopper,
for he said it was no end of a jolly place, and I could ride and drive.
Ride what? A bantam cock? Drive what? A fantail pigeon, for that's all
the live stock I can see on the estate, unless you count the barrel on
four legs that brought us from the station, and which the old boy calls
a horse; and now where's the tennis-ground?"
"There isn't one."
"Not a tennis-ground? Well, this is pleasant, certainly. Brisk up,
whiney-piney, and tell me where's the nearest place I can get any
tennis."
"Now look here," said the girl, in a voice thick with emotion, "if you
think you are going to speak to me like this, I can tell you you are
dreadfully mistaken. How dare you!--how _dare_ you say such things! But
I know. It is because the aunts all speak to me as if I were four years
old, and order me about. You think you can do it too. But you shan't. I
am taller and older than you. I will knock you down if you tease me
again--do you hear? I will knock you down, I tell you, you impudent
child!"
Godfrey shut his left eye, poked his tongue out of the right-hand corner
of his mouth, and leered at his sister.
"You only try, my girl," he said, "you only try, and I'll make it hot
for you. You'll find out you had better be civil to me, I can tell you,
or I'll make you wish you were dead; so now."
"I shall tell my aunts----!"
"All right! You play the tell-tale, and you see what you'll get. I twig
what you want--someone to lick you into shape--you've never had a
brother. Well, now I've come, I'm going to spend my time in making you
behave yourself and look like a Christian."
She stamped her foot at him; she could hardly speak for wrath.
"Do you know how old I am?"
"No, and don't want to; I only know you're the biggest ass a man ever
had for a sister, and that if I can't improve you a little, I won't let
Aunt Ottilie have you up to town--for I wouldn't be seen with you; so
now you know my opinion."
"And you shall know mine. I think you the most cowardly, rude,
detestable boy I ever met. I hate and despise you. I only hope you will
be punished well one day for your cruelty to me."
"Well, you are a duffer! Crying if anyone says a word to you! I say,
who's the old boy coming up the path, getting over the stile at the end
of the terrace?"
The girl glanced up and recognised Mr. Fowler with a sense of passionate
relief. He was the only person to whom she dared show her moods; in a
moment she was sobbing in his arms.
"Why, Elsie, what's this?" asked the quiet voice, as he stroked back her
tumbled hair with caressing hand. "Look up, child. Is that Godfrey
yonder?"
"Oh, yes--yes--yes! And I hate him!... I ... hate him! I wish he had
never come here to make me so unhappy! He is a bad boy! I wish I had
never seen him!"