“What flowers grow in my field wherewith to dress thee.”
—E. BARRETT BROWNING.
MRS. BEST departed early the next morning. It was probably a parting for
life between the two old friends; and Magdalen keenly felt the severance
from the one person whom she had always known, and on whose sympathy she
could rely. Their conversations had been very precious to her, and she
felt desolate without the entire companionship. Yet, on the other hand,
she felt as if she could have begun better with her sisters if Sophy Best
had not come with them, to hand them over, as it were, when she wanted to
start on the same level with them, and be more like their contemporary
than their authority.
They all stood on the terrace, watching the fly go down the hill, and she
turned to them and said—
“We will all settle ourselves this morning, and you will see how the land
lies, so that to-morrow we can arrange our day and see what work to do.
Thekla, when you have had a run round the garden, you might bring your
books to the dining-room and let me see how far you have gone.”
“Oh, sister, it is holidays!”
“Well, my dear, you have had a week, and your holiday time cannot last
for ever. Looking at your books cannot spoil it.”
“Yes, it will; they are so nasty.”
“Perhaps you will not always think so; but now you had better put on your
hat and your thick boots, for the grass is still very wet, and explore
the country. The same advice to you,” she added, turning to the others;
“it is warm here, but the dew lies long on the slopes.”
“We have got a great deal too much to do,” said Agatha, “for dawdling
about just now.”
Really, she was chiefly prompted by the satisfaction of not being ordered
about; and the other two followed suit, while Magdalen turned away to her
household business.
They found the housemaid in possession of the bedrooms, so that the
unpacking plans could not conveniently be begun; and while Agatha was
struggling with the straps of a book box, Thekla burst in upon them.
“Oh, Nag, Nag, there is the loveliest angel of a bicycle in the stable,
and a dear little pony besides! ‘New tyre wheels,’ he says.”
“A bicycle! Well, if she has got it for us, she is an angel indeed,”
said Vera.
“It is a big one,” said Thekla, “but the pony is a dear little thing;
Pixy is his name, and I can ride him! Do come, Flapsy, and see!
Earwaker will show you. It is he that does the oiling of Pixy and
harnessing the bicycle. I mean—”
“Tick, Tick, which does he oil and which does he harness?” said Paula.
“That little tongue wants both,” said Agatha.
“But do, do come and see,” said Thekla, not at all disconcerted by being
laughed at; and Vera came, only asserting her independence by not putting
on either hat or boots.
Thekla led the way to the stable, tucked under the hill at the back, and
presiding over a linhay, as she had already learnt to call the tiny
farm-court, containing accommodation for two cows, a pig, and sundry
fowls. There was a shed attached with a wicker pony carriage and the
bicycle, a handsome modern one, with all the newest appendages, including
the “Nevertires,” as Thekla had translated them.
But disappointment was in store for Vera. Magdalen came out during the
inspection, and was received with—
“Sister, you never told us of this beauty.”
“It was a parting present from General Mansell,” she said, “and he took
great pains to get me a very good one.”
“And you bike!”
“Oh, yes; I learnt to go out with the Colvins. But I do not venture to
use it much here, unless the road is good. Those rocks, freshly laid
towards Rockstone, would make regular havoc of the pneumatic tyres.”
Vera saw that this was prohibitive, and felt too much vexed to mention
Thekla’s version of the same; but Magdalen asked, “Have you learnt?”
“They were always going to teach me at Warner Grange, but it always
snowed, or rained, or skated, I mean we skated, or something, whenever
Hubert had time; but I am perfectly dying to learn.”
“Well, before you expire, we may teach you a little on these smoother
paths; and hire one perhaps, by the time the stones are passable. Just
at present, I think our own legs and Pixy’s are safer for that descent.”
Vera was pacified enough to look on with a certain degree of complacency,
while Thekla was enraptured at being set to take out the eggs from the
hens’ nests.
But the conclave in the sitting-room on Vera’s report decided, “Selfish
old thing, it is only an excuse! Of course we should take care not to
spoil it. It shows what will be the way with everything.”
No one knew of a still more secret conclave within Magdalen’s own breast,
one of those held at times by many an elder, between the claims of
loyalty to the keepsakes of affection and old association and the
gratification of present desires. Magdalen thought of the rules of
convents forbidding the appropriation of personal trifles, and wondered
if it were wise, if stern; but for the present she decided that it could
not be her duty to risk what had been carefully and kindly selected for
her in unpractised and careless hands; and she further compromised the
matter by reckoning whether her funds, which were not excessive, would
admit of the hire or purchase of machines that might allay the burning
aspirations of her young people.
The upshot of her reckoning was that when they all met at the early
dinner, she announced, “I think we might go to Rock Quay this afternoon,
between the pony carriage and Shanks’s mare. I want to ask about some
lessons, and we could see about the hire of a bicycle for you to learn
upon.”
It was only Agatha who answered, “Thank you, but it is not worth while
for me, I shall be away so soon.”
Thekla cried out, “Me too!”—and Paulina mumbled something. In truth,
besides the thought of the bicycle in the stable, the other two had lived
enough in the country-town atmosphere to be foolishly disgusted at being
obliged to dine early. That they had always been used to it made them
only think it beneath their age as well as their dignity, and, “What a
horrid nuisance!” had been on their tongues when the bell was ringing.
Moreover, they had enough of silly prejudice about them to feel aggrieved
at the sight of hash, nice as it was with fresh vegetables, and they were
not disposed to good temper when they sat down to their meal. “They”
perhaps properly means the middle pair, for Agatha had more notion of
manners and of respect, and Thekla had an endless store of chatter about
her discoveries.
The pony-carriage was brought round in due time, but just then another
vehicle of the same kind, only prettier and with two ponies, was seen at
the gate, too late for the barbarian instinct of rushing away to hide
from morning visitors to be carried out, before Lady Merrifield and a
daughter, were up the slope and on the levelled road before the verandah.
“I think this is an old acquaintance,” said Lady Merrifield as she shook
hands, “though perhaps Mysie is grown out of remembrance.”
“Oh, yes,” said an honest open-faced maiden, eagerly putting out her
hand. “Don’t you remember, Miss Prescott, our all staying at Castle
Towers? I came with Phyllis Devereux, and she and I took poor Betty
Bernard out after blackberries, and she thought it was a mad bull when it
was a railway whistle, and ran into a cow-pond, and Cousin Rotherwood
came and Captain Grantley and got her out.”
Magdalen was smiling and nodding recollection, and added, “It was really
one of the boys.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I thought it was a crazy bull
Firing a blunderbuss—”
She paused for recollection, and Magdalen went on—
“I thought it was a crazy bull
Firing a blunderbuss;
I looked again, and, lo, it was
A water polypus.
‘Oh, guard my life,’ I said, ‘for she
Will make an awful fuss.’”
“Ah! do you remember that?” cried Mysie. “I have so often tried to
recollect what it really was when she looked again. Captain Grantley
made it, you know, when we were trying to comfort Betty.”
“I remember you and Lady Phyllis said you would go and confess to Mrs.
Bernard and take all the blame, and Lord Rotherwood said he would escort
you!”
“Yes, and Betty said it was no good, for if her mother forgave her ten
times over, still that spiteful French maid would put her to bed and say
she had no _robe convenable_,” went on Mysie. “But then you took her to
your own room, and washed her and mended her, so that she came out all
right at luncheon, and nobody knew anything, but she thought that horrid
woman guessed and tweaked her hair all the harder for it.”
“Poor child, she looked as if she were under a tyranny.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“No; but Phyllis tells me she has burst forth into liberty, bicycles, and
wild doings that would drive her parents to distraction if she dreamt of
them.”
“How is Lady Phyllis? Did I not hear that the family had gone abroad for
her health?”
“Oh yes, and I went with them. They all had influenza, and were
frightened, but it ended in our meeting with Franceska Vanderkist, the
very most charming looking being I ever did see; and Ivinghoe had fallen
in love with her when she was Miranda, and he married her like a real old
hero. Do you remember Ivinghoe?”
“No; I suppose he was one of an indistinguishable troop of schoolboys.”
“I remember Lord Rotherwood’s good nature and fun when he met the
bedraggled party,” said Magdalen, smiling.
“That is what every one remembers about him,” said Lady Merrifield,
smiling. “You have imported a large party of youth, Miss Prescott.”
“My young sisters,” responded Magdalen; “but I shall soon part with
Agatha; she is going to Oxford.”
“Indeed! To which College? I have a daughter at Oxford, and a niece
just leaving Cambridge. Such is our lot in these days. No, not this
one, but her elder sister Gillian is at Lady Catharine’s.”
“I am going to St. Robert’s,” said Agatha, abruptly.
“Close to Lady Catharine’s! Gillian will be glad to tell her anything
she would like to ask about it. You had better come over to tea some
afternoon.”
The time was fixed, and then Magdalen showed some of the advertisements
of tuition in art, music, languages, and everything imaginable, which had
begun to pour in upon her, and was very glad of a little counsel on the
reputation of each professor. Lady Merrifield saying, however, that her
experience was small, as her young people in general were not musical,
with the single exception of her son Wilfred, who was at home, reading to
go up for the Civil Service, and recreating himself with the Choral
Society and lessons on the violin. “My youngest is fifteen,” she said,
“and we provide for her lessons amongst us, except for the School of Art,
and calisthenics at the High School, which is under superior management
now, and very much improved.”
Mysie echoed, “Oh, calisthenics are such fun!” and took the reins to
drive away.
“Oh! she is very nice,” exclaimed Mysie, as they drove down the hill.
“Yes, there is something very charming about her. I wonder whether Sam
made a great mistake.”
“Mamma, what do you mean?”
“Have I been meditating aloud? You said when you met her at Castle
Towers, she asked you whether you had a brother Harry.”
“Yes, she did. I only said yes, but he was going to be a clergyman, and
when she heard his age, she said he was not the one she had known; I did
not speak of cousin Henry because you said we were not to mention him.
What was it, if I may know, mamma?”
“There is no reason that you should not, except that it is a painful
matter to mention to Bessie or any of the Stokesley cousins. Harry was
never like the rest, I believe, but I had never seen him since he was
almost a baby. He never would work, and was not fit for any
examination.”
“Our Harry used to say that Bessie and David had carried off all the
brains of the family.”
“The others have sense and principle, though. Well, they put their Hal
into a Bank at Filsted, and by and by they found he was in a great
scrape, with gambling debts; and I believe that but for the forbearance
of the partners, he might have been prosecuted for embezzling a sum—or at
least he was very near it; besides which he had engaged himself to an
attorney’s daughter, very young, and with a very disagreeable mother or
stepmother. The Admiral came down in great indignation, thought these
Prescotts had inveigled poor Henry, broke everything hastily off, and
shipped him off to Canada to his brothers, George and John. They found
some employment for him, but Susan and Bessie doubt whether they were
very kind to him, and in a few years more he was in fresh scrapes, and
with worse stains and questions of his integrity. It ended in his
running away to the States, and no trace has been found of him since. I
am afraid he took away money of his brothers.”
“How long ago was it, mamma?”
“At least twenty years. It was while we were in Malta.”
“Who would have thought of those dear Stokesley cousins having such a
skeleton in their cupboard?”
“Ah! my dear, no one knows the secrets of others’ hearts.”
“And you really think that this Miss Prescott was his love?”
“I know it was the same name, and Bessie told me that he used to talk to
her of his Magdalen, or Maidie; and when I heard of your meeting her at
Castle Towers I wondered if it were the same. And now I see what she is,
and what she is undertaking for these young sisters; I have wondered
whether your uncle was wise to insist on the utter break, and whether she
might not have been an anchor to hold him fast to his moorings.”
“Only,” said Mysie, “if he had really cared, would he have let his father
break it off so entirely?”
“I think your uncle expected implicit obedience.”
“But—,” said Mysie, and left the rest unsaid, while both she and her
mother went off into meditations on different lines on the exigencies of
parental discipline and of the requirements of full-grown hearts.
And, on the whole, the younger one was the most for strict obedience, the
experienced parent in favour of liberty. But then Mysie was
old-fashioned and dutiful.