The visitors, who were introduced by Lady Haredale as, "Our neighbours
at Ashfield, Mr Leigh, and Mrs Leigh," speedily took their leave.
Amethyst had hardly seen them; for the whole evening was dazzling and
dreamy to her, full of emotion and excitement.
It was hours before she could sleep, though a wakeful night was a new
experience to her. But when she woke the next morning rather late, she
was sensible of the light of common day, and came down fresh and
cheerful to find herself the first at breakfast, and nobody there to
receive her apologies for having overslept herself.
Breakfast was in the "library"--a pleasant room, but with no books in it
to account for its appellation; and Lady Haredale soon appeared, while
the three girls straggled in by degrees.
"Now, you bad children," said Lady Haredale gaily, as the meal
concluded, "you know you have all got to make up your minds that
Amethyst will go out with me, and that you are all still in the
school-room."
"Where is it?" asked Tory, with her lazy drawl.
"There isn't much to go out for, that I see--down here," said Una.
"Oh, you are all spoiled," said Lady Haredale. "Amethyst never saw such
a set of ignorant creatures. I shall leave her to tell you what good
little girls should be like."
There was a sweet lightsome tone in Lady Haredale's voice, that seemed
to Amethyst to indicate the most delightful relations between herself
and her daughters, though the three girls did not look responsive.
"Have you any pretty frocks, my dear?" said Lady Haredale, as she rose
to go away. "I mean to have some parties, and there will be people
here. If his lordship won't let us go to London, we must amuse
ourselves here, mustn't we? Though I don't despair of London yet."
"I don't know--I'm afraid you wouldn't think my best dress very pretty,
mamma."
"`Mamma'--how pretty the old name is on her tongue!"
Amethyst blushed.
"I'm afraid it's old-fashioned," she said, "but the Rectory girls at
Silverfold say `mamma.' Do _we_ call you `mother'?"
"Do you know," said Lady Haredale, "`mamma' is _so_ old-fashioned that I
think it's quite _chic_. And very pretty of you; go on--I like it. And
never mind the frocks. Of course it's my place to dress you up and show
you off--and I will. I'm glad you're such a pretty creature."
She kissed Amethyst lightly as she passed her, and went away, leaving
the girl embarrassed by the outspoken praise. But Amethyst knew, or
thought she knew, all about her own beauty, and accepted it as one of
the facts of life; so she roused herself in a moment, clapped her hands
together, and sprang at her sisters--seizing Una round the waist.
"Come! come! let us look at each other, let us find each other out!--How
big you all are! Come and tell me what work you are doing, and what you
each go in for; let's have a splendid talk together."
She pulled Una down beside her on the sofa, and looked smiling into her
face. She had not been grown-up so long as not to be quite ready for
companionship with these younger girls, and girls came natural to her.
Una looked back wistfully into the laughing eyes. She was as tall as
Amethyst, and her still childish dress accentuated the lanky slenderness
of her figure, which seemed weighed down by the enormous quantities of
reddish brown hair that fell over her shoulders and about her face.
Indeed she looked out of health; all the colour in her face was
concentrated in her full red lips, and her wide-open eyes were set in
very dark circles. She looked, spite of her short frock and her long
hair, older than her real age, and as unlike a natural healthy
school-girl as the most "intense" and aesthetic taste could desire.
Kattern was prettier, and, as Amethyst expressed it to herself, more
comfortable-looking, but she had a stupid face; and by far the
shrewdest, keenest glances came from Tory's darker eyes, which had an
elfish malice in them, that caused Amethyst mentally to comment on her
as "a handful for any teacher."
"We don't do any work--we're neglected," she said, perching herself on
the arm of the sofa, and looking at her sisters as they sat upon it,
with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. "I expect we
shall have some lessons now, though, we're `in the school-room,' now we
are in the country--like the Miss Leighs."
"You could not do regular lessons when you were travelling," said
Amethyst, "but I dare say you're all good at French and German. We
might have some readings together anyhow. I don't mean to be idle,
Una--you'll help me to stick to work of some kind, won't you?"
"You'd better ask me, Amethyst," said Tory. "I think education might be
amusing. Una never does anything she can help of any sort, she's always
tired or something."
"There's never anything worth doing," said Una languidly, "it's so
dull."
"It won't be so dull next week," said Kattern, with meaning, while Una
coloured and shot a savage glance at her.
"Dear me!" said Amethyst. "We shan't be dull. There are always such
heaps of things to do and to think of. But tell me about the people who
are coming next week, and about the neighbours round here."
"There are Miss Riddell and her brother," said Una. "He's the parson,
but it seems they're in society here. They'll be a bore most likely."
"And there are the Leighs," said Kattern. "There's a young Leigh, who
looks rather promising."
"And next week," said Tory, "the Lorrimores, and Damers, and Tony."
"Who is Tony?"
"Oh, Tony's quite a tame cat here," said Tory, manifestly mimicking some
one. "He's always round. My lady has him about a great deal, and he's
useful, he's got a little money. His wife ran away from him--his fault
I dare say; and now they're di--"
"Tory!" interposed Una, starting up from her lounging attitude, "be
quiet directly, you don't know what you're talking about. I won't have
it!"
"You can't help Amethyst getting to know things," said Tory in her
slowest drawl; but she gave in, and swung herself off the end of the
sofa, calling Kattern to come out in the garden.
Una let herself drop back on the sofa, it was characteristic of her that
she never sat upright a moment longer than she could help it, and looked
furtively round under her hair at her sister. Amethyst, however, had
encountered children before, possessed of a desire to shock their
betters, and took Tory's measure according to her lights; which were to
take no notice of improper remarks, especially as Una had shut the
little one up so effectually.
"Well, I must go and write to auntie," she said; "and then shall we go
out too, Una?"
"Yes, if you like," said Una, and with a sudden impulse she put up her
face to Amethyst's, and kissed her.
During the next week or ten days Amethyst was so much taken up with her
own family that the various introductions in the neighbourhood made very
little impression on her. The result on her mind of these first days of
intercourse was curious. She did not by any means think her home
perfection. She had indeed been vaguely prepared for much that was
imperfect; and she had far too clear and definite a standard not to know
that her sisters really were "neglected," and was too much accustomed to
good sense not to be aware that Lady Haredale talked nonsense. But
there was a glamour over her which, perhaps happily, softened all the
rough edges. Amethyst fell in love with her new "mamma," and Una
conceived a sudden and vehement devotion for the pretty, cheerful,
chattering elder sister, who was so unlike any one in her previous
experience. Amethyst forgot to criticise what her mother said or did,
when the way of saying it or doing it was so congenial to one who shared
the same soft gaiety of nature; and Una, suffering, poor child, in many
ways, from the "neglect" of which Tory had too truly spoken, followed
all Amethyst's suggestions, and clung to her with ever-increasing
affection.
A lady was recommended by Miss Riddell to come every morning and teach
the three girls, and though Amethyst did not exactly share in the
lessons, she talked about them, and helped in the preparation of them,
and made them the fashion, and Tory at least began, as she had said, to
find education interesting. This home-life went on as a background
during all the ensuing weeks, when outer interests began to assert
themselves, and the flood of life for Amethyst rolled on fast and full.
But all along, and at first especially, there were many intervals filled
up with teaching her sisters the delights of country walks and
primrose-pickings; with reading her favourite books to them, stirring
them up about their lessons, and, all unintentionally, in giving them
something else to think of than the vagaries of their elders' life.
A "school-room" had really been provided for them, high up in one of the
corners of the house, with a window in its angle which caught the sun
all day, and looked over the pretty, rough open country in which
Cleverley lay. Here, with flowers and books and girlish rummage, was
the most home-like spot the Haredale girls had ever known; and here late
one sunny afternoon lounged Una, curled up in the corner of an old
sofa--doing, as was still too often the case, absolutely nothing.
Suddenly a light step came flying up the stairs, and Amethyst ran into
the room, and stood before her in the full glory of the early evening
sunlight, saying in her fresh girlish voice--
"Look, Una--look!"
Amethyst was already in her white dinner-dress, and round her neck was
clasped a broad band of glowing purple jewels. Stars of deep lustrous
colour gleamed in her hair and on her bosom, her eyes shone in the
sunshine, which poured its full glory on her innocent eager face, which
in that clear and searching light seemed to share with the jewels a sort
of heavenly radiance, a splendour of light and colour from a fairer and
purer world.
"Amethyst," exclaimed Una, starting up, "you look like an angel."
Amethyst laughed, and stepping out of the sunlight, came and knelt down
by Una's side; no longer a heavenly vision of light and colour, but a
happy-faced girl, decorated with quaint and splendid ornaments of
amethysts set with small diamonds.
"Mamma says that she has given me my own jewels. She says she was so
fond of these beautiful stones that she made up her mind to call me
after them, and I am to wear them whenever I can. Aren't they lovely?"
"Yes," said Una; "I didn't know my lady had them still. They're just
fit for you."
Amethyst took off the splendid necklet, and held it in her hands.
"They're too beautiful to be vain of," she said, dreamily. "It's rather
nice to have a stone and colour of one's own. I used to think amethysts
and purple rather dull when we chose favourites at school. Amethyst
means temperance, you know. It's a dull meaning, but I expect it's a
very useful one for me now."
"Why, what do you mean?" said Una.
"Well!" said Amethyst, "I do enjoy everything so very much. I feel as
if music, and dancing, and going out with mother, and having pretty
things to wear, would be so very delightful. So if the most delightful
things of all remind me that I mustn't let myself go, but be temperate
in all things, it ought to be getting some good out of the beauty,
oughtn't it?"
Amethyst spoke quite simply, as one to whom various little methods of
self-discipline were as natural a subject of discussion as various
methods of study.
"I hope you'll never look different from what you did just now," said
Una, in a curious strained voice, and laying her head on her sister's
shoulder; "but it's all going to begin."
"Why, Una, what is it?" as the words ended in a stifled sob. "Headache
again? You naughty child, I'm sure you want tonics, or sea air, or
something. And I wish you would let me plait all this hair into a tail,
it is much too hot and heavy for you."
"Oh no, no! not now," said Una, now fairly crying, "not just now--let it
alone. I don't want to be grown-up!"
"A tail doesn't look grown-up," said Amethyst in a matter-of-fact voice.
"Any way there's nothing to cry about. If you want to come down and
see the people after dinner, you must lie still now and rest. But you
ought to go to bed early, and get a good-night. When people cry for
nothing, it shows they're ill."
"I dare say it does, but I'm not ill," said Una.
"Then you're silly," said Amethyst, with cheerful briskness; but Una did
not resent the tone. She gave Amethyst a long clinging kiss, and then
lay back on the sofa; while her sister went off to arrange the jewels to
her satisfaction, in preparation for the first state dinner-party at
which she was to make her appearance.