THE OLD LATIN GRAMMAR
Master Francis was still writing busily when I went back to the nursery.
He looked pale and tired, and once or twice I heard him sigh. I knew it
was not good for him to be stooping so long over his lessons, especially
as the children had not been out all that day.
'Really,' I said, half to myself, but his ears were quick and he heard
me, 'Miss Bess has done nothing but mischief this afternoon. I feel
sometimes as if I couldn't manage her.'
The boy looked up quickly.
'O nurse!' he said, 'please don't speak like that. I mean I wouldn't for
anything have uncle or auntie think I had put her out, or that there had
been any trouble. It just comes over her sometimes like that, and she's
very sorry afterwards. I suppose Lally and I haven't spirits enough for
her, she is so clever and bright, and it must be dull for her, now and
then.'
'I'm sure, Master Francis, my dear,' I said, 'no one could be kinder and
nicer with Miss Bess than you; and as for cleverness, she may be quick
and bright, but I'd like to know where she'd be for her lessons but for
you helping her many a time.'
I was still feeling a bit provoked with Miss Bess, I must allow.
'I'm nearly three years older, you know,' replied Master Francis, though
all the same I could see a pleased look on his face. It wasn't that he
cared for praise--boy or man, I have never in my life known any human
being so out and out humble as Mr. Francis; it's that that gives him his
wonderful power over others, I've often thought,--but he did love to
think he was of the least use to any of those he was so devoted to.
'I'm so glad to help her,' he said softly. 'Nurse,' he added after a
little silence, 'I do feel so sad about things sometimes. If I had been
big and strong, I might have looked forward to doing all sorts of things
for them all, but now I often feel I can never be anything but a
trouble, and such an expense to uncle and aunt. You really don't know
what my leg costs,' he added in a way that made me inclined both to
laugh and cry at once.
'Dear Master Francis,' I said, 'you shouldn't take it so.' I should have
liked to say more, but I felt I could scarcely do so without hinting at
blame where I had no right to do so.
He didn't seem to notice me.
'If it had to be,' he went on in the same voice, 'why couldn't I have
been a girl, or why couldn't one of them have been a boy? That would
have stopped it being quite so bad for poor auntie.'
'Whys and wherefores are not for us to answer, my dear, though things
often clear themselves up when least expected,' I said. 'And now I must
see what Miss Bess is after, that's to say if you've got your writing
finished.'
'It's just about done,' he said, 'and I'm sure Bess won't tease any
more. Do fetch her in, nurse. Why, baby! what is it, my pet?' he added,
for there was Miss Augusta standing beside him, having deserted her toys
on the hearthrug. For, though without understanding anything we had been
saying, she had noticed the melancholy tone of her cousin's voice.
'Poor F'ancie,' she said pitifully. 'So tired, Baby wants to kiss thoo.'
[Illustration: 'Poor F'ancie,' she said pitifully. 'So tired, Baby wants
to kiss thoo.']
The boy picked her up in his arms, and I saw the fair shaggy head and
fat dimpled cheeks clasped close and near to his thin white face, and if
there were tears in Master Francis's eyes I am sure it wasn't anything
to be ashamed of. Never was a braver spirit, and no one that knows him
now could think him less a hero could they look back over the whole of
his life.
I found Miss Bess sitting quietly with the pincushion on her lap, by the
window, making patterns with the pins, apparently quite content. She had
not been crying, indeed it took a great deal to get a tear from that
child, she had such a spirit of her own. Still she was sorry for what
she had done, and she bore no malice, that I could see by the clear look
in her pretty eyes as she glanced up at me.
'Nurse,' she said, though more with the air of a little queen granting a
favour than a tiresome child asking to be forgiven, 'I'm not going to
tease any more. It's gone now, and I'm going to be good. I'm very sorry
for making Lally cry, though she is a little silly--of course I wouldn't
care to do it if she wasn't,--and I'm _dreadfully_ sorry for poor old
Franz's exercise. Look what I have been doing to make me remember,' and
I saw that she had marked the words 'Bess sorry' with the pins. 'If you
leave it there for a few days, and just say "pincushion" if you see me
beginning again, it'll remind me.'
It wasn't very easy for me to keep as grave as I wished, but I answered
quietly--
'Very well, Miss Bess, I hope you'll keep to what you say,' and we went
back, quite friendly again, to the other room.
Master Francis and she began settling what games they would play, and I
took the opportunity of slipping upstairs to the attic to call Miss
Lally down. She came running out, as bright as could be, and gave me her
knitting to hide away for her.
'Nursie,' she said, 'I really think there's good fairies in the attic.
I've got on so well. Four whole rows all round and none stitches
dropped.'
So that rainy day ended more cheerfully than it had begun.
Unluckily, however, the worst of the mischief caused by Miss Bess's
heedlessness didn't show for some little time to come. The next Latin
lesson passed off by all accounts very well, especially for Miss Bess.
For, thanks to her new resolutions, she was in a most biddable mood,
and quite ready to take her cousin's advice as to learning her list of
words again, giving up half an hour of her playtime on purpose.
She came dancing upstairs in the highest spirits.
'Nursie,' she said,--and when she called me so I knew I was in high
favour,--'I'm getting so good, I'm quite frightened at myself. Papa said
I had never known my lessons so well.'
'I am very glad, I am sure, my love; and I hope,' I couldn't help
adding, 'that Master Francis got some of the praise of it.'
For Master Francis was following her into the room, looking not quite so
joyful. Miss Bess seemed a little taken aback.
'Do you know,' she said, 'I never thought of it. I was so pleased at
being praised.' And as the child was honesty itself, I was certain it
was just as she said.
'I'll run down now,' she went on, 'and tell papa that it was Franz who
helped me.'
'No, please don't,' said the boy, catching hold of her. 'I am as pleased
as I can be, Bess, that you got praised, and it's harder for you than
for me, or even for Lally, to try hard at lessons, for you've always
got such a lot of other things taking you up; and I wouldn't like,' he
added slowly, 'for uncle to think I wanted to be praised. You see I'm
older than you.'
'I'm sure you don't get too much praise ever, poor Franz!' said Miss
Bess. 'Your exercise was as neat as neat, and yet papa wasn't pleased
with it.'
Then I understood better why Master Francis looked a little sad.
'It was the one I had to copy over,' he said.
All the same he wouldn't let Miss Bess go down to her papa. Sir Hulbert
was busy, he knew; he had several letters to write, he had heard him
say, so Miss Bess had to give in.
'I'll tell you what it is,' she said. 'People who are generally rather
naughty, like me,'--Miss Bess was in a humble mood!--'get made a great
fuss about when they're good. But people who are always good, like
Franz, never get any praise for it, and if ever they do the least bit
wrong, they are far worse scolded.'
This made Master Francis laugh. It was something, as Miss Bess said,
among the children themselves. Miss Lally, who was always loving and
gentle to her cousin, he just counted upon in a quiet steady sort of
way. But a word of approval from flighty Miss Bess would set him up as
if she'd been the Queen herself.
That was a Friday. The next Latin day was Tuesday. Of course I don't
know much about such things myself, but the lessons were taken in turns.
One day they'd words and writing exercises out of a book on purpose, and
another day they'd have regular Latin grammar, out of a thick old book,
which had been Sir Hulbert's own when he was a boy, and which he thought
a great deal of. Lesson-books were still expensive too, and even in
small things money was considered at Treluan. It was on that Tuesday
then that, to my distress, I saw that Master Francis had been crying
when he came back to the nursery. It was the first time I had seen his
eyes red, and he had been trying to make them right again, I'm sure, for
he hadn't come straight up from the library. Miss Bess was not with him;
it was a fine day and she had gone out driving with her mamma, having
been dressed all ready and her lesson shortened for once on purpose.
I didn't seem to notice Master Francis, sorry though I felt, but Miss
Lally burst out at once.
'Francie, darling,' she said, running up to him and throwing her arms
round him. 'What's the matter? It isn't your leg, is it?'
'I wouldn't mind that, you know, Lally,' he said.
'But sometimes, when the pain's been dreadful bad, it squeezes the tears
out, and you can't help it,' she said.
'No,' he answered, 'it isn't my leg. I think I'd better not tell you,
Lally, for you might tell it to Bess, and I just won't have her know.
Everything's been so nice with her lately, and it just would seem as if
I'd got her into trouble.'
'Was papa vexed with you for something?' the child went on. 'You'd
better tell me, Francie, I really won't tell Bess if you don't want me,
and I'm sure nursie won't. I'm becustomed to keeping secrets now.
Sometimes secrets are quite right, nursie says.'
I could scarcely help smiling at her funny little air.
'It wasn't anything _very_ much, after all,' said Master Francis. 'It
was only that uncle said----,' and here his voice quivered and he
stopped short.
'Tell it from the beginning,' said Miss Lally in her motherly way, 'and
then when you get up to the bad part it won't seem so hard to tell.'
It was a relief to him to have her sympathy, I could see, and I think he
cared a little for mine too.
'Well,' he began, 'it's all about that Latin grammar--no, not the
lesson,' seeing that Miss Lally was going to interrupt him, 'but the
book. Uncle's fat old Latin grammar, you know, Lally. We didn't use it
last Friday, it wasn't the day, and we hadn't needed to look at it
ourselves since last Wednesday--that was the ink-spilling day. So it was
not found out till to-day; and--and uncle was--so--so vexed when he saw
how spoilt it was, and the worst of it was I began something about it
having been Bess, and that she hadn't told me, and that made uncle much
worse----.' Here Master Francis stopped, he seemed on the point of
crying again, and he was a boy to feel very ashamed of tears, as I have
said.
'I don't think Miss Bess could have known the book had got inked,' I
said. 'And I scarce see how it happened, unless the ink got spilt on the
table, and it may have been lying open--I've seen Miss Bess fling her
books down open on their faces, so to speak, many a time,--and it may
have dried in and been shut up when all the books were cleared away, and
no one noticed.'
'Yes,' said Master Francis eagerly, 'that's how it must have been. I
never meant that Bess had done it and hidden it. I said it in a hurry
because I was so sorry for uncle to think I hadn't taken care of his
book, and I was very sorry about the book too. But I made it far worse.
Uncle said it was mean of me to try to put my carelessness upon another,
a younger child, and a girl; O Lally! you never heard him speak like
that; it was _dreadful_.'
'Was it worse than that time when big Jem put the blame on little Pat
about the dogs not being fed?' asked Miss Lally very solemnly.
Master Francis flushed all over.
'You needn't have said that, Lally,' he said turning away. 'I'm not so
bad as that, any way.'
It was very seldom he spoke in that voice to Miss Lally, and she hadn't
meant to vex him, poor child, though her speech had been a mistake.
'Come, come, Master Francis,' I said, 'you're taking the whole thing too
much to heart, I think. Perhaps Sir Hulbert was worried this morning.'
'No, no,' said Master Francis, 'he spoke quite quietly. A sort of cold,
kind way, that's much worse than scolding. He said whatever Bess's
faults were, she was quite, quite open and honest, and of course I know
she is; but he said that this sort of thing made him a little afraid
that my being delicate and not--not like other boys, was spoiling me,
and that I must never try to make up for not being strong and manly by
getting into mean and cunning ways to defend myself.'
Young as she was, Miss Lally quite understood; she quite forgot all
about his having been vexed with her a moment before.
'O Francie!' she cried, running to him and flinging her arms round him,
in a way she sometimes did, as if he needed her protection; 'how could
papa say so to you? Nobody could think you mean or cunning. It's only
that you're too good. I'll tell Bess as soon as she comes in, and she'll
tell papa all about it, then he'll see.'
'No, dear,' said Master Francis, 'that's just what you mustn't do. Don't
you remember you promised?'
Miss Lally's face fell.
'Don't you see,' Master Francis went on, 'that _would_ look mean? As if
I had made Bess tell on herself to put the blame off me. And I do want
everything to be happy with Bess and me ourselves as long as I am here.
It won't be for so very long,' he added. 'Uncle says it will be a very
good thing indeed for me to go to school.'
This was too much for Miss Lally, she burst out crying, and hugged
Master Francis tighter than before. I had got to understand more of her
ways by now, and I knew that once she was started on a regular sobbing
fit, it soon got beyond her own power to stop. So I whispered to Master
Francis that he must help to cheer her up, and between us we managed to
calm her down. That was just one of the things so nice about the dear
boy, he was always ready to forget about himself if there was anything
to do for another.
Miss Bess came back from her drive brimming over with spirits, and
though it would have been wrong to bear her any grudge, it vexed me
rather to see the other two so pale and extra quiet, though Master
Francis did his best, I will say, to seem as cheerful as usual.
Miss Bess's quick eyes soon saw there had been something amiss. But I
passed it off by saying Miss Lally had been troubled about something,
but we weren't going to think about it any more.
Think about it I did, however, so far as it concerned Master Francis,
especially. Till now I had been always pleased to see that his uncle was
really much attached to the boy, and ready to do him justice. But this
notion, which seemed to have begun in Sir Hulbert's mind, that just
because the poor child was delicate and in a sense infirm, he must be
mean spirited and unmanly in mind, seemed to me a very sad one, and
likely to bring much unhappiness. Nor could I feel sure that my lady was
not to blame for it. She was frank and generous herself, but inclined to
take up prejudices, and not always careful enough in her way of speaking
of those she had any feeling against.
I did what I could, whenever I had any opportunity, to stand up for the
boy in a quiet way, and with all respect to those who were his natural
guardians. But, on the whole, much as I knew we should miss him in the
nursery, I was scarcely sorry to hear not many weeks after the little
events I have been telling about, that Master Francis's going to school
was decided upon. It was to be immediately after the Christmas holidays,
and we were now in the month of October.