_MILLICENT'S "BOYS."_
BERYL'S guess that her visit to Mrs. Cumming was for purposes of
"inspection" lay near the mark.
"You are within such easy distance of Bath," Diana had written to
Millicent,—"could you not just manage, out of pity for me, to invite
Beryl to your lodgings for a few days, and see what sort of being she
has turned out? An opinion beforehand would be an immense help. Two
years ago, she was one of the most unpromising of school girls. If she
has learnt to behave herself,—and at seventeen she ought,—I suppose
I can't well get out of giving her a home for the present. Everybody
seems to expect it of me. But I do not want to commit myself in a
hurry—one learns wisdom as one grows older. Do pray try, my dear, to
bring it about, and send me a report of her. I don't believe Uncle
Josiah would mind, and you know you can always get your own way with
him if you choose. It only wants a little management. Tell him it
would be a kindness to Beryl, and so forth. He is sure to give in, if
he thinks it will be a benevolent action. The last year's reports of
Beryl have been good, but one does not really know what they are worth,
and Mrs. Brigstock is a common sort of person. I am dreadfully afraid
sometimes that I made quite a mistake in sending Beryl there, and that
she may have turned out a vulgar girl, whom we shall all be ashamed
of. If she has, I simply 'cannot' have her in my house. It would fret
me to death. But after all, how could I have afforded anything better?
It is quite dreadful, the way money runs through one's fingers. Now
do, Millie dear, help me in this. I am sure it is little enough of
assistance that I get from anybody."
Millicent Cumming did not exactly follow the course suggested. She went
indeed to her uncle with the required petition, but she told him quite
frankly about Diana's anxieties, and explained the proposed kindness as
being primarily towards Diana herself, though no doubt the visit would
be a pleasure to Beryl. Mr. Crosbie disliked strangers, and he grumbled
a good deal, but he yielded.
They had lodgings in one of the large houses on the cliff, facing the
Prince Consort Gardens, with the sea beyond. Millicent sat in the
window, sewing, on the afternoon of the day when Beryl was expected.
She would have gone to the station to meet her visitor, but Mr. Crosbie
placed a veto on the plan.
"He was not going to let Millie knock herself up for anybody. What
was the good of girls if they could not be independent? Elderly folks
always had to be dancing attendance on young folks in these days,—spoil
them out and out,—" and so forth. For Mr. Crosbie was much the same
that he had been five years earlier, just as kindhearted and just as
discontented. Some men grumble their way through life as unceasingly
as an ill-set wheel creaks throughout a journey,—good men too, many
of them, little realising how dark a blot on the Christian character
is the habit of complaining. Mr. Crosbie was by no means aware of the
defect in himself. It was always somebody else that had done wrong, or
somebody else's fault that things were not right.
Millicent did not like Beryl to arrive unwelcomed, but she gave in, as
she always did give in on minor points, to Mr. Crosbie's wishes, for
the sake of peace. And she sat quietly sewing in the window, now and
then lifting her eyes to the broad waters beyond and below the cliff
gardens,—brown and green and streaky waters, any kind of colour except
the orthodox ocean-blue. Millicent at thirty-six had silver hairs
showing on either side of her fair brow, and certain shady hollows in
her face, though still Madonna-like in serene beauty. Her boys counted
that no woman in the world ever came near "mother" in looks, though
perhaps one of the two made a small mental reservation in favour of
Pearl Fordyce, looking upon himself almost as disloyal for the same.
The twin brothers, now nineteen in age, were changed. Ivor was tall
and broad, sunburnt and vigorous. The likeness between the two, so
marked in boyish days, had lessened much in the developments of the
past five years. The strength and energy due to the twain seemed all to
have flowed into the frame of Ivor, while mental growth seemed rather
to have favoured Escott. Not that the young officer, now on leave of
absence from his regiment, was wanting in intellect of fair ordinary
calibre, but certainly his tastes were not bookish. He could wade
through a novel occasionally, and he had had one in his hand during the
five minutes since his return to the drawing-room. Also a newspaper
possessed interests for him, and he studied with tolerable diligence
so much of military lore as appeared necessary for advance in his
profession. Further than this, he cared little to go. He was a fine
young fellow, handsome and popular, and extremely fond of his mother,
and she was unlimitedly proud of him.
But strange to say, Millicent did not lean upon Ivor. All the leaning
in which she indulged was upon her other boy, the puny wraith-like
faced being, lying on a sofa, with hollow cheeks, and large eyes, and
long thin fingers. Millicent loved both her sons intensely, and lived
for them both, but around Escott her very heart-strings were twined.
It was said that he had no strength of constitution, that he read too
much and thought too much. Reading may be stopped, but not thinking,
so it was a difficult case to deal with. He was not in a consumption,
but from the age of sixteen, he had dwindled and shrunk out of
comparatively healthy boyhood into sickly young-manhood; and two terms
at college, away from his mother's care, had broken him down utterly.
To Escott, the trial was great of being thus cut off from all the work
in life, which he had planned and for which he longed. To his mother,
the trial was not less, for she knew his to be no common order of
mind, and she had looked to see him distinguish himself. But both were
patient,—outwardly at least.
Ivor perused his novel steadily for full ten minutes, and then threw it
down. "Mother, I'm going out. Anything I can do for you?"
"There would have been," she said, looking up: "if I had expected you
in so early. I should have liked you to meet Beryl Fordyce at the
station. But I thought you were engaged, so I would not suggest it."
"So I thought this morning. I forgot Miss Fordyce. Can't I go now?"
"Too late. She is a quarter of an hour over-due already."
"What a lazy set she will count us, sitting here at our ease, and
leaving her to fend for herself. I wonder if she is like the excitable
little being whom we took out primrosing."
"She is older," said Escott.
"That stands to reason, five years having elapsed. Pearl and she must
be almost strangers by this time. They will live together now, I
suppose, mother?"
Millicent moved her head in doubtful style. "The decision rests with
your aunt," she said. "I hope it may be so. We must try to make the
poor child happy while she is with us."
"It has been rather a forlorn look-out for her certainly," Ivor said,
sauntering to the window. "Here she is, mother,—cab, box, and all."
He was off like a shot to the front door.
Millicent looked at Escott, smiling. "Good boy,—he never fails in
politeness," she said. "I shall make him take her for some long walks."
Beryl came in composedly, much more at her ease in a silent way than
Millicent had expected. She was evidently prepared to be received as
an entire stranger, and her formal manner rendered impossible the kind
kiss which Millicent would have given. For Millicent had often thought
pityingly of the banished girl.
But somehow Beryl was one of those people whom one does not kiss
easily. She sat down as requested, and returned a succession of
brief answers to Millicent's questions. Her journey had been quite
comfortable, and she was not at all tired; and she agreed that the day
was fine, and she had never seen Weston before. And she liked the sea
pretty well; and she would not have known Mrs. Cumming's sons again.
Millicent, always easily checked, found her powers of small talk
failing fast. She took Beryl upstairs without further delay, told her
how soon afternoon tea would be ready, asked if she had lunched, sent a
maid to unstrap the box, and returned to the drawing-room.
"Hopelessly dull," Ivor said, with a shrug. "Not the least
objectionable, but, commonplace to the last degree."
"Not quite so pretty as Pearl," said Millicent.
"Mother!" both cried indignantly.
"Don't let us condemn her in a hurry as too—too—utterly uninteresting,"
laughed Millicent. "At all events, she is not unladylike."
"It's a case of negative excellence," said Ivor. "Not unladylike, and
not downright ugly, and not positively disagreeable,—but a sort of
colourless stage bordering on all three."
"Ivor, you have to take her out for long walks, and act showman to
Weston," said Escott, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
"I shall decamp. Mother, 'do' probe her and find out what she can talk
about. I'm up to anything—except philosophy, crewels, or silence.
Good-bye; I'll be back to dinner," and Ivor disappeared.