MORE MUTINY.
“Gently scan your brother man,
Still gentlier sister woman,
An’ if they gang a trifle wrang
To step aside is human.”
That was the first battle; another followed quickly on its heels; and
then there came a long and sorrowful peace.
Meg had been exceedingly angry about it—and with justice. She
marvelled, not only at Nellie’s rebellion, but that she should care to
mix with such “impossible” people, as she called them.
“It isn’t as if they were merely homely and uneducated,” she said; “but
their vulgarity and pretentiousness are enough to make any one sick!”
However, as Nellie was very quiet—docile even—after the one outbreak,
and as it was not possible to keep up an unfriendly spirit for ever,
she thought she had better overlook it as a first and last offence;
more especially as she remembered her own mad infatuation for Aldith
MacCarthy, when she had been even older than Nell was now.
But she warned her with much resolution in her tone.
“You only leave me one course, Nellie,” she said. “I have been left in
charge, and if you won’t obey orders—I’m sure I try to give as few as
possible—I shall be compelled to write to Mr. Hassal and ask him either
to send you to school till father comes back or else to let some one
come here whose authority you will respect.”
Then she softened, and put her arms round her sister.
“Don’t make it so hard for me, Nell,” she said, almost with tears in
her eyes; “there’s nothing in moderation I’d try to stop you, but you
really must see I can’t let you grow intimate with these people.”
But Nellie had not responded with her usual sisterly hug and kiss. She
wriggled away from the encircling arms and gave a little impatient toss
of her head.
“What a fuss you make about things, Meg!” she said pettishly. “I do
wish you’d leave me alone! I’m not a child, and I’m not going to be
ordered about like one.”
Then came the next war.
Cards for a dinner-party arrived from the “unsnubbable” Brownes—Bunty’s
adjective.
“Put them in the fire,” Pip said. “No answer is the best for such
people.”
If there had been some pretty faces among the feminine portion of the
Browne household Pip would not have been so scornful of the overtures,
but the girls were each and all undeniably plain. For the days that
intervened between the arrival of the cards and the date of the
dinner-party Meg was exceedingly busy.
She had a dressmaker in the house making winter frocks for Poppet and
Essie; that took up much of her time. Besides this, two great cases of
quinces and apples had been sent to them from Yarrahappini, and, with
Martha’s help, she was converting them into jam and jelly.
Bunty also had been unwell, and from school a day or two, and Peter
had one of his perverse fits upon him. She had not had time to give
the Fitzroy-Brownes as much as a passing thought; and as the new
daily governess made no complaint about Nellie’s morning studies she
concluded all was going on well.
Judge therefore her immeasurable amaze when, going up to the bedroom
on the date of the dinner-party, and just after nursery tea was over,
she discovered Nellie again in the act of making a “toilette.” She had
the white crepon dress on; it nearly touched the ground in front, and
trailed a little behind. There was soft lace in the neck and sleeves of
it, and on her bosom a cluster of the exquisite pink roses that climbed
all over the tool-shed. She had white suede gloves and black pretty
shoes, both new, as the gap in her small allowance testified.
Excitement had lent a brilliant colour to her cheeks; her eyes, with
their thick, curled lashes, were like stars. For one second Meg paused,
struck with the wondrous, exceeding beauty of her young sister; the
next she realised what she was dressed for.
“Where are you going?” she said, merely as a matter of form—of course
she knew.
“I’m going to the Fitzroy-Brownes at Trafalgar House for a small
dinner-party,—seven to ten, carriages at half-past,” Nellie said, with
elaborate attention to detail. “Is there anything else you would like
to know?”
Meg went a little white.
“You don’t move from this house, Nellie!” she said, and her lips set
themselves firmly. “You can take off that dress as soon as you like!”
Nellie twisted a long lace scarf round her beautiful shining head.
“It’s no use making a bother,” she said; “I’ve made up my mind to go,
and I’m going!”
“I refused the invitation,” Meg said, catching at a straw.
“But I accepted,” was Nellie’s answer. “I met Isabel yesterday and
promised.”
For ten long minutes did Meg argue, reason, coax, and appeal to
Nellie’s better judgment: the fear of Isabel’s sneers, together with
the thought of the cost of her shoes and gloves, were of more avail.
The girl was quietly obdurate; Meg found she was not even listening to
her.
“They are sending a brougham down to pick me up at the Bentleys,” she
said, when Meg was almost exhausted; “I shall miss them if I wait any
longer.” She moved to the door.
But a flame of righteous anger sprang up in Meg’s eyes. She hastened
down the corridor to Pip’s room, and laid the case in a few words
before him.
Offended as he was with his sister, he could not refuse to uphold her
in a matter like this—especially as he had such a vast contempt for the
“mushrooms.”
He caught Nellie on the staircase.
“Don’t be such a little idiot!” he said. “Go and take that frippery off
at once!”
“Go and mind your own business, Philip Woolcot!” retorted Nellie.
“Well, of all little donkeys!” he said. “Do you actually mean to say,
Meg, she was going off on her own hook, without you or me or any one?”
“I certainly do think she’s losing her senses!” Meg said in
exasperation.
Philip surveyed her in silence for a minute—her exquisite, childish,
unformed beauty even appealed to his coldly fraternal eyes. He smiled
almost benignly.
“Be a good little chicken,” he said; “wait three or four years, and you
shall revel in this sort of thing till you find it’s all vanity.”
Three or four years! Nellie’s eyes flashed defiance at them both.
“I’m _going_,” she said, in a low, very determined voice. She brushed
past Meg and went down five stairs.
But “Are you, my lady?” quoth Pip. He jumped the steps, caught her, and
held her fast.
She struggled violently—anger and excitement lent her unnatural
strength—and she freed herself at length, and fled in wild, mad haste
down the stairs and to the front door. Once in the brougham, which was
only a little way off, and she knew she could bid defiance to all the
Megs and Pips in the world!
But Pip’s blood was up. He had no intention of letting a little chit
like Nellie get the upper hand of him, even if there were no real
object at stake. As it was, the thought of his pretty, innocent
little sister in the company of the “off crowd” of men he had seen
young Fitzroy-Browne take home, and the loud women with whom he felt
instinctively the girls consorted, made him shudder.
“Are you going to stay at home quietly?” he said, fire in his dark eyes
as he caught her by the arms just as she was pulling the door handle
back.
“No, I’m not!” she said stormily.
For answer he picked her right up in his arms as if she had been Poppet.
“Where shall I put her, Meg? I’m going to lock her up,” he called
breathlessly; she was not fragilely light.
Meg was a little startled at such a summary proceeding; then she
decided rapidly it was the only thing to be done at the juncture.
“Here!” she cried, “in her own bedroom.” She flung open the door, and
he strode down the passage with his struggling burden in its dainty
dress and sweet, crushed roses.
They left her the light. There was a shelf of books to occupy her
if so she liked, also her work-basket, with a fleecy cloud she was
crocheting; she would be able to fill the time. But they locked the
door very carefully, and took the key downstairs with them.
“You must have been exceedingly careless, Meg, to let her get to know
them,” Pip said, with masculine inclination to locate blame.
Meg told of the introduction and subsequent meetings—how it
seemed impossible to get the people to accept the frequent if
delicately-conveyed hints that their acquaintance was not desired. She
kept the tennis episode to herself, for she feared it would only make
him more harsh and overbearing to Nellie, and do no good.
When they were separating some time later she looked wistfully up at
him.
“Dear Pip, aren’t you ever going to forgive me?” she said; “can’t you
see I only did it for your good? Do let us kiss and be friends again.”
He looked at her very coldly and sternly; the old bitter curve showed
at his mouth.
“No,” he said, “I shall never forgive you while I live, Meg.” Then he
turned and went out of the room.
Meg went upstairs, tired, dispirited. Tears smarted in her eyes from
her rebuff. Nellie, she knew, was thinking hard thoughts of her; Alan
had not written to-day, for some reason or other; and all the world
seemed wrong. She went into her room and sat down, with a sob and some
splashing tears, in the dark by the window.
[Illustration: “HER DESCENT FROM HER OWN BEDROOM WAS ALMOST EASY.”]
Such a great calm sky of pale, sweet stars; such a hushed, faint breath
in the tall gum trees; such a low soothing lapping of little river
waves!
In an hour she was very strong again; her eyes were dry and calm and
brave; there was a great, sweet peace in her heart.
She thought she would read for a little time, and grow still calmer.
There was her Browning on the writing table—he had strengthened her
often since she had begun to know him; and there were a couple of books
Alan had lent her: “At the Roots of the Mountains,” and something of
Pierre Loti’s. She fingered them a moment.
But first she would go and speak to Nellie, who would be calmer too by
now,—poor pretty Nellie, with her childish defiance and longings for
“other things.” She went down the passage, softly, by Peter’s room and
Bunty’s. The light was shining beneath Nellie’s door; the poor little
prisoner was not asleep, then.
She stopped and inserted the key with a flush of shame: how ignominious
it must feel to be locked in!
“Dear Nell——” she began, and then stopped aghast.
The room was empty.