"SPOILT."
Some half-hour or so after Roland had gone, Lewis, the footman, made his
appearance at the nursery door, looking somewhat aggrieved.
"If you please, Miss Leila," he began; then catching sight of Leila
completely absorbed in her book and comfortably established by the fire,
he hesitated and turned to Chrissie.
She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by scraps of silk, ribbon,
coloured paper, and every article of furniture belonging to the
beautiful large dolls' house standing in a corner of the room.
"It's Miss Earle, please, Miss Chrissie," he began again. "She's been
here ever so long, and now she's been ringing and ringing the schoolroom
bell, till I didn't know what was the matter."
Chrissie went on calmly with her sortings.
"Well," she said, "there's nothing the matter. Tell Miss Earle we'll
come directly," and with this piece of information Lewis had to content
himself.
Chrissie glanced at Leila. Except for Jasper, quietly marshalling an
army of tin soldiers at a side-table, the sisters were alone in the
room, as Nurse and Fanny were busy in the little girls' bedroom, the
arranging and tidying of which was a much more serious affair than it
should have been, and the door of which was shut.
"Leila," said Chrissie.
No answer.
"_Leila_," more emphatically, "_Leila_!"
"Well?" and Leila's lovely dreamy dark eyes lifted themselves for a
moment.
"Didn't you hear? You might as well be stone deaf," Chrissie went on,
growing angry. "Miss Earle has sent up to say she's been waiting
hours."
"Then she told a great story," replied Leila lazily. "I'll come in a
moment, but I must just stop at a good place."
"And I must match these colours for the new drawing-room furniture
covers," said Chrissie. "I'll never get them so nice again, if Fanny
muddles them all up in the scrap drawer."
Just then her glance fell on Jasper, who had left off playing and was
standing beside her.
"I'll 'range them for you, if you like," he was beginning, but
Christabel shook her head.
"You couldn't," she said. "It's something awfully partickler. But I'll
tell you what, Japs--you run down to Miss Earle and say you'll have your
reading _first_ this morning. Tell her I'm having a spring cleaning and
all sorts of fusses. You can say I didn't know it was so late, and
we'll be down before you've half finished."
Jasper moved towards the door, but less readily than usual.
"Hurry up, child, can't you?" exclaimed Chrissie.
"Mumsey wanted us to be very good," said the little fellow timidly.
"Well, we're not being naughty. What does it matter to Miss Earle which
lessons come first? She's only a governess, and I am sure Mums pays her
well."
Her raised tone of voice had caught even Leila's unhearing ears. She
turned sharply.
"Chrissie, I'm shocked at you," she said. "That's not like a lady.
Suppose we were grown-up and had to be governesses, you wouldn't like to
be spoken to like that."
"I'm not speaking to her," muttered Chrissie, rather sullenly, though
she was already rather ashamed.
"But Jap might have said it to her," persisted Leila.
"I wouldn't," exclaimed the child indignantly, "in course I wouldn't."
"Then go off at once and say what I told you to," said Christabel, and
Jasper obeyed her.
Leila, however, for once was roused. Certain words of her mother's
about remembering that she was the elder and should set a good example
to heedless Chrissie, returned to her memory. She shut up her book with
a sigh, and stooping, began to gather together some of the dolls'
belongings. But Chrissie pushed her away.
"Leave my things alone," she said rudely.
"They're not specially yours," replied Leila. "The dolls' house belongs
to us both."
"Much you do for it," said Chrissie contemptuously. "It'd be all choked
with dust like `in a dirty old house lived a dirty old man,' if it
depended on you."
"It's in a nice mess just now, any way," remarked Leila. "Well, _I'm_
going down to the schoolroom. You can do as you please."
The last words were like a spur to impetuous Christabel.
"You shan't go off and put all the blame on me to Miss Earle," she
exclaimed, starting up. "I'm coming too. Nurse," she went on, "Nurse,"
so loudly, that the bedroom door opened and Nurse and Fanny hurried out
in alarm.
Chrissie looked up coolly. She had an irritating way of getting cool
herself as soon as she saw that she had irritated others.
"You needn't stare so," she said. "It's only about my toys and things.
I want them left _exactly_ as they are, till after lesson-time this
afternoon--exactly as they are. Don't you hear what I say, Nurse?"
waxing impatient again.
"It's impossible, Miss Chrissie," replied Nurse. "Master Jasper and I
couldn't get to the table for our dinner; and even if we sat over at the
other side, Fanny'd be sure to tread on some of those dainty little
chairs and things and break them."
Chrissie, as a matter of fact, saw the force of this, but she would not
seem to give in, so she contented herself with making a scape-goat of
the nursery-maid.
"Fanny is an awkward, clumsy creature, I'll allow," she said, with an
air of great magnanimity, "so you _may_ move them, or make her do it.
But if she breaks one single thing I'll complain to Mamma; I will
indeed," with a very lordly air, as she got up from the floor and
prepared to follow Leila downstairs.
Nurse had the self-control to say nothing till the young lady was out of
hearing, but as she and Fanny began together to clear the confused heap
out of danger's way, she could not resist saying to the girl, "To hear
the child speak you'd think she never broke or spoilt a thing in her
life! She's worse than Miss Leila, and she's bad enough, always half in
a dream over her books. But Miss Chrissie's worse. The losings and
breakings!"
"Yes," Fanny agreed, "and the messing with paint and gum and ink. Those
new blouses. Nurse, are just covered with spots, and between them I
don't think they've a brooch with a pin to it."
Nurse sighed, and the sigh was not a selfish one.
Downstairs, in the meantime, Miss Earle had, unwillingly enough, judged
it wisest to make the best of things and to waste no more time, by
beginning Jasper's lessons in accordance with the message from
Christabel, which the little fellow delivered much more politely than he
had received it.
But the governess was far from satisfied.
She was young, excellently qualified for her post, and really interested
in the children, as they were far from wanting in intelligence and love
of knowledge, and now and then the lessons went swimmingly; brightly
enough even to satisfy her own enthusiasm. But at other and more
frequent times there was, alas, a very different story to tell, a sadly
disappointing report to make, and Miss Earle almost began to despair.
She had not been with the Fortescues very long, and she was intensely
anxious to give satisfaction to their kind mother, who had behaved to
her with the greatest consideration and liberality, and it grieved her
to feel that, unless she could gain more influence over the girls, she
must resign her charge of them.
"They are completely `out of hand,' as it were," she found herself one
day obliged to say to Mrs Fortescue. "They don't seem to know what
`must' means; in fact, in their different ways, their only idea is to do
what they like and not what they don't, and yet they are so clever and
honest and they _can_ be such darlings," and she looked up almost with
tears in her eyes. "It is discipline they need," she added, "and--"
hesitating a little, "unselfishness--thought for others."
She need not have hesitated. Mrs Fortescue knew it was all true.
"I suppose the simple explanation is that I--we--have spoilt them," she
said sadly. "And now it is beginning to show. But Jasper, Miss Earle,
the youngest--he _should_ be the most spoilt."
Miss Earle shook her head.
"And he is not spoilt at all!" she exclaimed. "He is not a very quick
child, perhaps, but he is painstaking and attentive. He will do very
well. And as to obedience and thoughtfulness--why, he has never given
me a moment's trouble."
This talk had taken place some time ago. Over and over again the young
governess had tried to hit upon some way of really impressing her pupils
more lastingly, of checking their increasing self-will and heedlessness.
For we don't stand still in character; if we are not improving, it is
greatly to be feared we are falling off. Now and then she felt happier,
but never for more than a day or two, and this morning--this cold winter
morning when she herself had got up long before it was light, to do some
extra bookwork, and attend to her invalid sister's breakfast--this
morning was again to bring disappointment.
How cosy and comfortable the schoolroom looked as she came in, and held
out her cold hands to the fire!
"Really, they are lucky children," she thought, as she remembered the
bare walls and carpetless floor and meagre grates of the good but far
from homelike great school where she herself had been educated. "How
good they should be," as her glance wandered round the pretty,
library-like little room. "But perhaps it is _not_ easy to be unselfish
if one has everything one wants, every wish gratified!"
Then came the tiresome waiting, the unnecessary waste of time--the
footman's cross face at the door, when she felt obliged to ring and send
up a rather peremptory summons, a summons only responded to by Jasper,
burdened with Chrissie's far from satisfactory message--followed, just
when Miss Earle was getting interested in the little boy's reading, by a
bang at the door and the younger girl's noisy entrance, for she had
overtaken Leila on the staircase and insisted on a race, in which, of
course, she had been the winner.
"Chrissie!" exclaimed Miss Earle, surprised and remonstrant. "My dear
child, you should not burst into the room in that way. It is too
startling."
"Yes, do speak to her, Miss Earle," said Leila, in a complaining tone,
with which their governess at one time would have had more sympathy than
she now felt. For truly the little girls' quarrels were almost always
"six of one and half-a-dozen of the other."
"She nearly knocked me downstairs and I was coming quite quietly."
"And in the meantime neither of you has said good-morning to me, and it
is eighteen minutes past the half-hour," Miss Earle continued. "Besides
which, you know you should be here before I come, with your books and
all ready."