THE FIRST MONTH OF THEIR TROUBLE.
There are mothers and mothers. Mrs. Mainwaring was the kind of mother
who could not possibly say a harsh word to her children--she could not
be severe to them, she could never do anything but consider them the
sweetest and best of human beings. The girls ruled her, and she liked
to be ruled by them. After her husband's death, and after the first
agony of his loss had passed away, she sank into a sort of subdued
state--she began to live in the present, to be content with the little
blessings of each day, to look upon the sunshine as an unmitigated
boon, and on the girls' laughter as the sweetest music. She had been
rich in her early married life, but Captain Mainwaring had lost his
money, had lost all his large private means, through a bank failure,
and before Daisy came into the world Mrs. Mainwaring knew that she was
a very poor woman indeed. Before the captain went to India he insured
his life for £1000, and after his death Mrs. Mainwaring lived very
placidly on her small pension, and for any wants which she required
over and above what the pension could supply she drew upon the £1000.
She did not care, as a more sensible woman would have done, to invest
this little sum as so much capital; no, she preferred to let it lie in
the bank, and to draw upon it from time to time, as necessity arose.
She had no business friends to advise her, for the few acquaintances
she made at Rosebury knew nothing whatever of the value of money. Like
many another woman who has been brought up in affluence, neither had
Mrs. Mainwaring the faintest idea of how fast a small sum like £1,000
can dwindle. She felt comfortable during the latter years of her life
at the knowledge that she had a good balance in the bank. It never
occurred to her as a possibility that she who was still fairly young
could die suddenly and without warning. This event, however, took
place, and the girls were practically unprovided for.
Mrs. Mainwaring had never really worked for her children, but a mother
who had worked hard for them, and toiled, and exerted all her strength
to provide adequately for their future, might not perhaps have been
loved so well. She died and her children were broken-hearted. They
mourned for her each after her own fashion, and each according to her
individual character. Primrose retained her calmness and her common
sense in the midst of all her grief; Jasmine was tempestuous and
hysterical, bursting into laughter one minute and sobbing wildly the
next. Little Daisy felt frightened in Jasmine's presence--she did not
quite believe that mother would never come back, and she clung to
Primrose, who protected and soothed her; in short, took a mother's
place to her, and felt herself several years older on the spot.
For a month the girls grieved and shut themselves away from their
neighbors, and refused to go out, or to be in any measure comforted. A
month in the ordinary reckoning is really a very short period of time,
but to these girls, in their grief and misery, it seemed almost
endless. One night Jasmine lay awake from the time she laid her head
on the pillow till the first sun had dawned; then Primrose took
fright, and began to resume her old gentle, but still firm authority.
"Jasmine," she said, "we have got our black dresses--they are made
very neatly, and we have done them all ourselves. Staying in the house
this lovely weather won't bring dear mamma back again; we will have
tea a little earlier than usual, and go for a walk this evening."
Jasmine, whenever she could stop crying, had been longing for a walk,
but had crushed down the desire as something unnatural, and
disrespectful to dear mamma, but of course if Primrose suggested it it
was all right. Her face brightened visibly, and as to Daisy, she sat
down and began to play with the kitten on the spot.
That evening the three desolate young creatures put on their new black
dresses, and went down a long, rambling, charming country lane. The
air was delicious--Jasmine refused to cover her hot little face with a
crape veil--they came back after their ramble soothed and refreshed.
As they were walking up the village street a girl of the name of
Poppy, their laundress's child, stepped out of a little cottage,
dropped a courtesy, and said, in a tone of delight--
"Oh, Miss Mainwaring, I'm glad to see you out; and Miss Jasmine,
darling, the little canary is all reared and ready for you. I took a
sight of pains with him, and he'll sing beautiful before long. Shall I
bring him round in the morning, Miss Jasmine?"
"Yes, of course, Poppy; and I'm greatly obliged to you," answered
Jasmine, in her old bright tones. Then she colored high, felt a good
deal ashamed of herself, and hurried after Primrose, who had pulled
down her crape veil, and was holding Daisy's hand tightly.
That night the sisters all slept well; they were the better for the
fresh air, and also for the thought of seeing Poppy and the canary
which she had reared for Jasmine in the morning.
Sharp to the hour Poppy arrived with her gift; she was a pretty little
village girl, who adored the Misses Mainwaring.
"The bird will want a heap of sunshine," she said; "he's young, and my
mother says that all young things want lots and lots of sun. May I
pull up the blind in the bay window, Miss Primrose; and may I hang
Jimmy's cage just here?"
Primrose nodded. She forgot, in her interest over Jimmy, to remember
that the bay window looked directly on to the village street.
"And please, miss," said Poppy, as she was preparing to return home,
"Miss Martineau says she'll look in this evening, and that she was
glad when she saw you out last night, young ladies, and acting
sensible again."
Primrose had always a very faint color; at Poppy's words it deepened
slightly.
"We've tried to act in a sensible way all through," she said, with
gentle dignity. "Perhaps Miss Martineau does not quite understand. We
love one another very much; we are not going to be foolish, but we
cannot help grieving for our mother."
At these words Jasmine rushed out of the room and Poppy's round eyes
filled with tears.
"Oh, Miss Primrose--," she began.
"Never mind, Poppy," said Primrose; "we'll see Miss Martineau
to-night. I am glad you told us she was coming."
The neighbors at Rosebury were all of the most sociable type; the
Mainwaring girls knew every soul in the place, and when their mother
died there was quite a rush of sympathy for them, and the little
cottage might have been full from morning till night. Primrose,
however, would not have it; even Miss Martineau, who was their
teacher, and perhaps their warmest friend, was refused admittance. The
neighbors wondered, and thought the girls very extraordinary and a
little stuck-up, and their sympathy, thrown back on themselves, began
to cool.
The real facts of the case, however, were these: Primrose, Jasmine and
Daisy would have been very pleased to see Poppy Jenkins, or old Mrs.
Jones, who sometimes came in to do choring, or even the nice little
Misses Price, who kept a grocery shop at the other end of the village
street; they would also have not objected to a visit from good, hearty
Mrs. Fry, the doctor's wife, but had they admitted any of these
neighbors they must have seen Miss Martineau, and Miss Martineau, once
she got a footing in the house, would have been there morning, noon
and night.
Poor Jasmine would not have at all objected to crying away some of her
sorrow on kind Mrs. Fry's motherly breast; Primrose could have had
some really interesting talk which would have done her good with the
Misses Price; they were very religious people, and their brother was a
clergyman, and they might have said some things which would comfort
the sore hearts of the young girls. Little Daisy could have asked some
of her unceasing questions of Poppy Jenkins, and the three would
really have been the better for the visits and the sympathy of the
neighbors did not these visits and sympathy also mean Miss Martineau.
But Miss Martineau at breakfast, dinner, and tea--Miss Martineau, with
her never-ending advice, her good-natured but still unceasingly
correcting tone, was felt just at first to be unendurable. She was
sincerely fond of the girls, whom she had taught to play incorrectly,
and to read French with an accent unrecognized in Paris, but Miss
Martineau was a worry, was a great deal too officious, and so the
girls shut themselves away from her and from all other neighbors for
the first month after their mother's death.