On Sunday, Gillian’s feet found their way to the top of the garden,
where she paced meditatively up and down, hoping to see Kalliope; and
just as she was giving up the expectation, the slender black figure
appeared on the other side of the railings.
‘Oh, Miss Gillian, how kind!’
‘Kally, I am glad!’
Wherewith they got into talk at once, for Lady Merrifield’s safe arrival
and Sir Jasper’s improvement had just been telegraphed, and there was
much rejoicing over the good news. Gillian had nearly made up her mind
to confute the enemy by asking why Captain White had left Rockquay; but
somehow when it came to the point, she durst not make the venture, and
they skimmed upon more surface subjects.
The one point of union between the parishes of Rockstone and Rockquay
was a choral society, whereof Mr. Flight of St. Kenelm’s was a
distinguished light, and which gave periodical concerts in the Masonic
Hall. It being musical, Miss Mohun had nothing to do with it except
the feeling it needful to give her presence to the performances. One
of these was to take place in the course of the week, and there were
programmes in all the shops, ‘Mr. Alexis White’ being set down for more
than one solo, and as a voice in the glees.
‘Shall not you sing?’ asked Gillian, remembering that her sisters had
thought Kalliope had a good ear and a pretty voice.
‘I? Oh, no!’
‘I thought you used to sing.’
‘Yes; but I have no time to keep it up.’
‘Not even in the choruses?’
‘No, I cannot manage it’--and there was a little glow in the clear brown
cheek.
‘Does your designing take up so much time?’
‘It is not that, but there is a great deal to do at home in after hours.
My mother is not strong, and we cannot keep a really efficient servant.’
‘Oh! but you must be terribly hard-worked to have no time for
relaxation.’
‘Not quite that, but--it seems to me,’ burst out poor Kalliope,
‘that relaxation does nothing but bring a girl into difficulties--an
unprotected girl, I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’ cried Gillian, quite excited; but Kalliope had
caught herself up.
‘Never mind, Miss Gillian; you have nothing to do with that kind of
thing.’
‘But do tell me, Kally; I do want to be your friend,’ said Gillian,
trying to put her hand through.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Kalliope, smiling and evidently touched,
but still somewhat red, ‘only you know when a girl has nobody to look
after her, she has to look after herself.’
‘Doesn’t Alexis look after you?’ said Gillian, not at all satisfied to
be put off with this truism.
‘Poor Alex! He is younger, you know, and he has quite enough to do. Oh,
Miss Gillian, he is such a very dear, good boy.’
‘He has a most beautiful voice, Aunt Ada said.’
‘Yes, poor fellow, though he almost wishes he had not. Oh dear I there’s
the little bell! Good-bye, Miss Merrifield, I must run, or Mrs. Smithson
will be gone to church, and I shall be locked in.’
So Gillian was left to the enigma why Alexis should regret the beauty
of his own voice, and what Kalliope could mean by the scrapes of
unprotected girls. It did not occur to her that Miss White was her elder
by six or seven years, and possibly might not rely on her judgment and
discretion as much as she might have done on those of Alethea.
Meantime the concert was coming on. It was not an amusement that Aunt
Ada could attempt, but Miss Mohun took both her nieces, to the extreme
pride and delight of Valetta, who had never been, as she said, ‘to
any evening thing but just stupid childish things, only trees and
magic-lanterns’; and would not quite believe Gillian, who assured her in
a sage tone that she would find this far less entertaining than either,
judging by the manner in which she was wont to vituperate her music
lesson.
‘Oh! but that’s only scales, and everybody hates them! And I do love a
German band.’
‘Especially in the middle of lesson-time,’ said Gillian.
However, Fergus was to spend the evening with Clement Varley; and Kitty
was to go with her mother and sister, the latter of whom was to be one
of the performers; but it was decreed by the cruel authorities that the
two bosom friends would have their tongues in better order if they were
some chairs apart; and therefore, though the members of the two families
at Beechcroft and the Tamarisks were consecutive, Valetta was quartered
between her aunt and Gillian, with Mrs. Varley on the other side of
Miss Mohun, and Major Dennis flanking Miss Merrifield. When he had duly
inquired after Sir Jasper, and heard of Lady Merrifield’s arrival,
he had no more conversation for the young lady; and Valetta, having
perceived by force of example that in this waiting-time it was not
like being in church, poured out her observations and inquiries on her
sister.
‘What a funny room! And oh! do look at the pictures! Why has that man
got on a blue apron? Freemasons! What are Freemasons? Do they work in
embroidered blue satin aprons because they are gentlemen? I’ll tell
Fergus that is what he ought to be; he is so fond of making things--only
I am sure he would spoil his apron. What’s that curtain for? Will they
sing up there? Oh, there’s Emma Norton just come in! That must be her
father. That’s Alice Gidding, she comes to our Sunday class, and do you
know, she thought it was Joseph who was put into the den of lions. Has
not her mother got a funny head?’
‘Hush now, Val. Here they come,’ as the whole chorus trooped in and
began the ‘Men of Harlech.’
Val was reduced to silence, but there was a long instrumental
performance afterwards, during which bad examples of chattering
emboldened her to whisper--
‘Did you see Beatrice Varley? And Miss Berry, our singing-mistress--and
Alexis White? Maura says--’
Aunt Jane gave a touch and a frown which reduced Valetta to silence at
this critical moment; and she sat still through a good deal, only giving
a little jump when Alexis White, with various others, came to sing a
glee.
Gillian could study the youth, who certainly was, as Aunt Ada said,
remarkable for the cameo-like cutting of his profile, though perhaps no
one without an eye for art would have remarked it, as he had the callow
unformed air of a lad of seventeen or eighteen, and looked shy and
grave; but his voice was a fine one, and was heard to more advantage in
the solos to a hunting song which shortly followed.
Valetta had been rather alarmed at the applause at first, but she soon
found out what an opportunity it gave for conversation, and after a good
deal of popping her head about, she took advantage of the encores to
excuse herself by saying, ‘I wanted to see if Maura White was there. She
was to go if Mrs. Lee--that’s the lodger--would take her. She says Kally
won’t go, or sing, or anything, because--’
How tantalising! the singers reappeared, and Valetta was reduced to
silence. Nor could the subject be renewed in the interval between the
parts, for Major Dennis came and stood in front, and talked to Miss
Mohun; and after that Valetta grew sleepy, and nothing was to be got
out of her till all was over, when she awoke into extra animation, and
chattered so vehemently all the way home that her aunt advised Gillian
to get her to bed as quietly as possible, or she would not sleep all
night, and would be good for nothing the next day.
Gillian, however, being given to think for herself in all cases of
counsel from Aunt Jane, thought it could do no harm to beguile the
brushing of the child’s hair by asking why Kalliope would not come to
the concert.
‘Oh, it’s a great secret, but Maura told me in the cloakroom. It
is because Mr. Frank wants to be her--to be her--her admirer,’ said
Valetta, cocking her head on one side, and adding to the already crimson
colour of her cheeks.
‘Nonsense, Val, what do you and Maura know of such things?’
‘We aren’t babies, Gill, and it is very unkind of you, when you told me
I was to make friends with Maura White; and Kitty Varley is quite cross
with me about it.’
‘I told you to be kind to Maura, but not to talk about such foolish
things.’
‘I don’t see why they should be foolish. It is what we all must come to.
Grown-up people do, as Lois says. I heard Aunt Ada going on ever so long
about Beatrice Varley and that gentleman.’
‘It is just the disadvantage of that kind of school that girls talk that
sort of undesirable stuff. Gillian said to herself; but curiosity, or
interest in the Whites, prompted her to add, ‘What did she tell you?’
‘If you are so cross, I shan’t tell you. You hurt my head, I say.’
‘Come, Val, I ought to know.’
‘It’s a secret.’
‘Then you should not have told me so much.’
Val laughed triumphantly, and called her sister Mrs. Curiosity, and at
that moment Aunt Jane knocked at the door, and said Val was not to talk.
Val made an impatient face and began to whisper, but Gillian had too
much proper feeling to allow this flat disobedience, and would not
listen, much as she longed to do so. She heard her little sister
rolling and tossing about a good deal, but made herself hard-hearted on
principle, and acted sleep. On her own judgment, she would not waken the
child in the morning, and Aunt Jane said she was quite right, it would
be better to let Val have her sleep out, than send her to school fretful
and half alive. ‘But you ought not to have let her talk last night.’
As usual, reproof was unpleasing, and silenced Gillian. She hoped to
extract the rest of the story in the course of the day. But before
breakfast was over Valetta rushed in with her hat on, having scrambled
into her clothes in a hurry, and consuming her breakfast in great haste,
for she had no notion either of losing her place in the class, or of
missing the discussion of the entertainment with Kitty, from whom she
had been so cruelly parted.
Tete-a-tetes were not so easy as might have been expected between two
sisters occupying the same room, for Valetta went to bed and to sleep
long before Gillian, and the morning toilette was a hurry; besides,
Gillian had scruples, partly out of pride and partly out of
conscientiousness, about encouraging Valetta in gossip or showing her
curiosity about it. Could she make anything out from Kalliope herself?
However, fortune favoured her, for she came out of her class only a few
steps behind little Maura; and as some of Mr. Edgar’s boys were about,
the child naturally regarded her as a protector.
Maura was quite as pretty as her elders, and had more of a southern
look. Perhaps she was proportionably precocious, for she returned
Gillian’s greeting without embarrassment, and was quite ready to enter
into conversation and show her gratification at compliments upon her
brother’s voice.
‘And does not Kalliope sing? I think she used to sing very nicely in the
old times.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Maura; ‘but she doesn’t now.’
‘Why not? Has not she time?’
‘That’s not all’ said Maura, looking significant, and an interrogative
sound sufficed to bring out--‘It is because of Mr. Frank.’
‘Mr. Frank Stebbing?’
‘Yes. He was always after her, and would walk home with her after the
practices, though Alexis was always there. I know that was the reason
for I heard la mamma mia trying to persuade her to go on with the
society, and she was determined, and would not. Alex said she was quite
right, and it is very tiresome of him, for now she never walks with us
on Sunday, and he used to come and give us bonbons and crackers.’
‘Then she does not like him?’
‘She says it is not right or fitting, because Mr. and Mrs. Stebbing
would be against it; but mamma said he would get over them, if she would
not be so stupid, and he could make her quite a lady, like an officer’s
daughter, as we are. Is it not a pity she won’t, Miss Gillian?’
‘I do not know. I think she is very good,’ said Gillian.
‘Oh! but if she would, we might all be well off again,’ said little
worldly-minded Maura; ‘and I should not have to help her make the beds,
and darn, and iron, and all sorts of horrid things, but we could live
properly, like ladies.’
‘I think it is more ladylike to act uprightly,’ said Gillian.
Wherewith, having made the discovery, and escorted Maura beyond the
reach of her enemies, she parted with the child, and turned homewards.
Gillian was at the stage in which sensible maidens have a certain
repugnance and contempt for the idea of love and lovers as an
interruption to the higher aims of life and destruction to family
joys. Romance in her eyes was the exaltation of woman out of reach, and
Maura’s communications inclined her to glorify Kalliope as a heroine,
molested by a very inconvenient person, ‘Spighted by a fool, spighted
and angered both,’ as she quoted Imogen to herself.
It would be a grand history to tell Alethea of her friend, when she
should have learnt a little more about it, as she intended to do on
Sunday from Kalliope herself, who surely would be grateful for some
sympathy and friendship. Withal she recollected that it was Indian-mail
day, and hurried home to see whether the midday post had brought any
letters. Her two aunts were talking eagerly, but suddenly broke off as
she opened the door.
‘Well, Gillian--’ began Aunt Ada.
‘No, no, let her see for herself,’ said Aunt Jane.
‘Oh! I hope nothing is the matter?’ she exclaimed, seeing a letter to
herself on the table.
‘No; rather the reverse.’
A horrible suspicion, as she afterwards called it, came over Gillian as
she tore open the letter. There were two small notes. The first was--
‘DEAR LITTLE GILL--I am going to give you a new brother. Mother will
tell you all.--Your loving sister,
‘P. E. M.’
She gasped, and looked at the other.
‘DEAREST GILLIAN--After all you have heard about Frank, perhaps you
will know that I am very happy. You cannot guess how happy, and it is
so delightful that mamma is charmed with him. He has got two medals and
three clasps. There are so many to write to, I can only give my poor
darling this little word. She will find it is only having another to be
as fond of her as her old Alley.’
Gillian looked up in a bewildered state, and gasped ‘Both!’
Aunt Jane could not help smiling a little, and saying, ‘Yes, both at one
fell swoop.’
‘It’s dreadful,’ said Gillian.
‘My dear, if you want to keep your sisters to yourself, you should not
let them go to India, said Aunt Ada.
‘They said they wouldn’t! They were quite angry at the notion of being
so commonplace,’ said Gillian.
‘Oh, no one knows till her time comes!’ said Aunt Jane.
Gillian now applied herself to her mother’s letter, which was also
short.
‘MY DEAREST GILLYFLOWER--I know this will be a great blow to you, as
indeed it was to me; but we must not be selfish, and must remember that
the sisters’ happiness and welfare is the great point. I wish I could
write to you more at length; but time will not let me, scattered as are
all my poor flock at home. So I must leave you to learn the bare public
facts from Aunt Jane, and only say my especial private words to you. You
are used to being brevet eldest daughter to me, now you will have to be
so to papa, who is mending fast, but, I think, will come home with me.
Isn’t that news?
‘Your loving mother.’
‘They have told you all about it, Aunt Jane!’ said Gillian.
‘Yes; they have been so cruel as not even to tell you the names of these
robbers? Well, I dare say you had rather read my letter than hear it.’
‘Thank you very much, Aunt Jane! May I take it upstairs with me?’
Consent was readily given, and Gillian had just time for her first
cursory reading before luncheon.
‘DEAREST JENNY--Fancy what burst upon me only the day after my
coming--though really we ought to be very thankful. You might perhaps
have divined what was brewing from the letters. Jasper knew of one and
suspected the other before the accident, and he says it prevented him
from telegraphing to stop me, for he was sure one or both the girls
would want their mother. Phyllis began it. Hers is a young merchant
just taken into the great Underwood firm. Bernard Underwood, a very nice
fellow, brother to the husband of one of Harry May’s sisters--very much
liked and respected, and, by the way, an uncommonly handsome man. That
was imminent before Jasper’s accident, and the letter to prepare me must
be reposing in Harry’s care. Mr. Underwood came down with Claude to
meet me when I landed, and I scented danger in his eye. But it is all
right--only his income is entirely professional, and they will have to
live out here for some time to come.
‘The other only spoke yesterday, having abstained from worrying his
General. He is Lord Francis Somerville, son to Lord Liddesdale, and a
captain in the Glen Lorn Highlanders, who have not above a couple of
years to stay in these parts. He was with the riding party when Jasper
fell, and was the first to lift him; indeed, he held him all the time
of waiting, for poor Claude trembled too much. He was an immense help
through the nursing, and they came to know and depend on him as nothing
else would have made them do; and they proved how sincerely right-minded
and good he is. There is some connection with the Underwoods, though I
have not quite fathomed it. There is no fear about home consent, for it
seems that he is given to outpourings to his mother, and had heard that
if he thought of Sir Jasper Merrifield’s daughter his parents would
welcome her, knowing what Sir J. is. There’s for you! considering
that we have next to nothing to give the child, and Frank has not much
fortune, but Alethea is trained to the soldierly life, and they will be
better off than Jasper and I were.
‘The worst of it is leaving them behind; and as neither of the gentlemen
can afford a journey home, we mean to have the double wedding before
Lent. As to outfit, the native tailors must be chiefly trusted to, or
the stores at Calcutta, and I must send out the rest when I come home.
Only please send by post my wedding veil (Gillian knows where it is),
together with another as like it as may be. Any slight lace decorations
to make us respectable which suggest themselves to you and her might
come; I can’t recollect or mention them now. I wish Reginald could come
and tell you all, but the poor fellow has to go home full pelt about
those Irish. Jasper is writing to William, and you must get business
particulars from him, and let Gillian and the little ones hear, for
there is hardly any time to write. Phyllis, being used to the idea,
is very quiet and matter-of-fact about it. She hoped, indeed, that I
guessed nothing till I was satisfied about papa, and had had time to
rest. Alethea is in a much more April condition, and I am glad Frank
waited till I was here on her account and on her father’s. He is going
on well, but must keep still. He declares that being nursed by two pair
of lovers is highly amusing. However, such homes being found for two
of the tribe is a great relief to his mind. I suppose it is to one’s
rational mind, though it is a terrible tug at one’s heart-strings. You
shall hear again by the next mail. A brown creature waits to take this
to be posted.--
Your loving sister,
L. M.’
Gillian came down to dinner quite pale, and to Aunt Ada’s kind ‘Well,
Gillian?’ she could only repeat, ‘It is horrid.’
‘It is hard to lose all the pretty double wedding,’ said Aunt Ada.
‘Gillian does not mean that,’ hastily put in Miss Mohun.
‘Oh no,’ said Gillian; ‘that would be worse than anything.’
‘So you think,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘but believe those who have gone through
it all, my dear, when the wrench is over, one feels the benefit.’
Gillian shook her head, and drank water. Her aunts went on talking, for
they thought it better that she should get accustomed to the prospect;
and, moreover, they were so much excited that they could hardly have
spoken of anything else. Aunt Jane wondered if Phyllis’s betrothed were
a brother of Mr. Underwood of St. Matthew’s, Whittingtown, with whom she
had corresponded about the consumptive home; and Aunt Ada regretted the
not having called on Lady Liddesdale when she had spent some weeks at
Rockstone, and consoled herself by recollecting that Lord Rotherwood
would know all about the family. She had already looked it out in the
Peerage, and discovered that Lord Francis Cunningham Somerville was the
only younger son, that his age was twenty-nine, and that he had three
sisters, all married, as well as his elder brother, who had children
enough to make it improbable that Alethea would ever be Lady Liddesdale.
She would have shown Gillian the record, but received the ungracious
answer, ‘I hate swells.’
‘Let her alone, Ada,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘it is a very sore business. She
will be better by and by.’
There ensued a little discussion how the veil at Silverfold was to be
hunted up, or if Gillian and her aunt must go to do so.
‘Can you direct Miss Vincent?’ asked Miss Mohun.
‘No, I don’t think I could; besides, I don’t like to set any one to poke
and meddle in mamma’s drawers.’
‘And she could hardly judge what could be available,’ added Miss Ada.
‘Gillian must go to find it,’ said Aunt Jane; ‘and let me see, when have
I a day? Saturday is never free, and Monday--I could ask Mrs. Hablot to
take the cutting out, and then I could look up Lily’s Brussels--’
There she caught a sight of Gillian’s face. Perhaps one cause of the
alienation the girl felt for her aunt was, that there was a certain
kindred likeness between them which enabled each to divine the other’s
inquiring disposition, though it had different effects on the elder and
younger character. Jane Mohun suspected that she had on her ferret look,
and guessed that Gillian’s disgusted air meant that the idea of her
turning over Lady Merrifield’s drawers was almost as distasteful as that
of the governess’s doing it.
‘Suppose Gillian goes down on Monday with Fanny,’ she said. ‘She could
manage very well, I am sure.’
Gillian cleared up a little. There is much consolation in being of a
little importance, and she liked the notion of a day at home, a quiet
day, as she hoped in her present mood, of speaking to nobody. Her aunt
let her have her own way, and only sent a card to Macrae to provide for
meeting and for food, not even letting Miss Vincent know that she
was coming. That feeling of not being able to talk about it or be
congratulated would wear off, Aunt Jane said, if she was not worried or
argued with, in which case it might become perverse affectation.
It certainly was not shared by the children. Sisters unseen for three
years could hardly be very prominent in their minds. Fergus hoped that
they would ride to the wedding upon elephants, and Valetta thought it
very hard to miss the being a bridesmaid, when Kitty Varley had already
enjoyed the honour. However, she soon began to glorify herself on the
beauty of Alethea’s future title.
‘What will Kitty Varley and all say?’ was her cry.
‘Nothing, unless they are snobs, as girls always are,’ said Fergus.
‘It is not a nice word,’ said Miss Adeline.
‘But there’s nothing else that expresses it, Aunt Ada,’ returned
Gillian.
‘I agree to a certain degree,’ said Miss Mohun; ‘but still I am not sure
what it does express.’
‘Just what girls of that sort are,’ said Gillian. ‘Mere worshippers of
any sort of handle to one’s name.’
‘Gillian, Gillian, you are not going in for levelling,’ cried Aunt
Adeline.
‘No,’ said Gillian; ‘but I call it snobbish to make more fuss about
Alethea’s concern than Phyllis’s--just because he calls himself Lord--’
‘That is to a certain degree true,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘The worth of the
individual man stands first of all, and nothing can be sillier or in
worse taste than to parade one’s grand relations.’
‘To parade, yes,’ said Aunt Adeline; ‘but there is no doubt that good
connections are a great advantage.’
‘Assuredly,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘Good birth and an ancestry above shame
are really a blessing, though it has come to be the fashion to sneer
at them. I do not mean merely in the eyes of the world, though it
is something to have a name that answers for your relations being
respectable. But there are such things as hereditary qualities, and
thus testimony to the existence of a distinguished forefather is worth
having.’
‘Lily’s dear old Sir Maurice de Mohun to wit,’ said Miss Adeline. ‘You
know she used to tease Florence by saying the Barons of Beechcroft had a
better pedigree than the Devereuxes.’
‘I’d rather belong to the man who made himself,’ said Gillian.
‘Well done, Gill! But though your father won his own spurs, you can’t
get rid of his respectable Merrifield ancestry wherewith he started in
life.’
‘I don’t want to. I had rather have them than horrid robber Borderers,
such as no doubt these Liddesdale people were.’
There was a little laughing at this; but Gillian was saying in her own
mind that it was a fine thing to be one’s own Rodolf of Hapsburg, and
in that light she held Captain White, who, in her present state of mind,
she held to have been a superior being to all the Somervilles--perhaps
to all the Devereuxes who ever existed.