Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed
Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay.—TENNYSON.
THE deferred expedition to Rockquay also began, Magdalen driving Vera and
Thekla. She was pleased with her visitors, and hoped that the girls
would feel the same, but Vera began by declaring that _that_ Miss
Merrifield was not pretty.
“Not exactly, but it is an honest, winning face.”
“So broad, and such a wide mouth, and no style at all, as I should have
expected after all that about lords and ladies! An old blue serge and
sailor hat!”
“You don’t expect people to drive about the country in silk attire?”
“Well, perhaps she is not out! Sister, do you know I am seventeen?”
“Yes, my dear, certainly.”
“Oh, look, look, there’s a dear little calf!” broke in Thekla, “and, oh!
what horns the cows have. I shall be afraid to go near them! Was it
only a sham mad bull when the little girl ran into the pond?”
“It was the railway whistle, and she had never heard it in the fields.
She rushed away in a great fright and ran into the pond, full of horrible
black mud. The gentlemen heard the scream and dragged her out, and it
would have all been fun and a good story if she had not been so much
afraid of the French lady’s maid. It is curious how the sight of those
brown eyes brought the whole scene back to me. We all grew so fond of
Mysie Merrifield in the few days we spent together, and she is very
little altered.”
“Is she out?” asked Vera once more.
“Oh, yes, she cannot be less than twenty.”
“And I am seventeen,” said Vera, returning to the charge. “I ought to be
out.”
“If there are nice invitations, I shall be quite ready to accept them for
you.”
“But I am too old for the schoolroom and lessons and masters.”
“Too old or too wise?” said Magdalen laughing.
“I have got into the highest form in everything. Every one at Filston of
my age is leaving off all the bother.”
“Not Agatha.”
“Oh, but Agatha is—!”
“Is what?
“Agatha is awfully clever, and wants to be something!”
“Something? But do you want to evaporate? To be nothing at all, I
mean,” said Magdalen, seeing her first word was bewildering, and Thekla
put in—
“Flapsy couldn’t go off in steam, could she? Isn’t that evaporating?”
“I think what she wants is to be a young lady at large! Eh, Vera? Only
I don’t quite see how that is to be managed, even if it is quite a worthy
ambition. But we will talk that over another time. Do you see how
pretty those sails are crossing the bay?”
Neither girl seemed to have eyes for the lovely blue of the sea in the
spring sunshine, nor the striking forms of ruddy peaks of rock that
enclosed it. Uneducated eyes, she thought, as she slowly manœuvred the
pony down the steep hill before coming to the Rockstone Cliff Road. The
other two girls were following her direction across field and road, and
making their observations.
“A dose of lords and ladies,” said Agatha.
“I thought they were rather nice,” said Paula.
“I see how it will be,” said Agatha. “They will patronise the M.A. as
Lady Somebody’s old governess, and she will fawn upon them and run after
them, and we shall be on those terms.”
“But I thought you meant to be a governess?”
“I shall make my own line. I know how swells look on a governess of the
_ancien régime_, and how they will introduce her as the kindly old goody
who mends my little lady’s frock!”
“The girl had not any airs,” said Paula. “She told me about the churches
down there in the town—not the ones we went to on Sunday; but there’s one
that is very low indeed, and St. Andrew’s, which is their parish church,
was suiting the moderate high church folk; and there is St. Kenelm’s,
very high indeed, Mr. Flight’s, I think I have heard of him, and it is
just the right thing, I am sure.”
“Don’t flatter yourself that the M.A. will let you have much pleasure in
it. It is just what people of her sort think dangerous.”
“But do you know, Nag, I do believe that it is the church that Hubert
Delrio was sent down to study and make a design for.”
“Whew! There will be a pretty kettle of fish if he comes down about it!
That is, if he and Flapsy have not forgotten all about the ice and the
forfeits at Warner’s Grange, as is devoutly to be hoped.”
“Do you hope it really, Nag, for Flapsy really was very much—did care
very much.”
“I have no great faith in Flapsy’s affections surviving the contact with
greater swells.”
“Poor Hubert!”
“Perhaps his will not survive common sense. I am sure I hope not for
both their sakes.”
“But, Nag, it would be very horrid of them if they had no constancy,”
declared the more romantic Paula.
“It will be a regular mess if they do have it, and bring on horrid
scrapes with the M.A. Just think. It is all very well to say she has
known Hubert all his life; but she can’t treat him as a gentleman, or she
won’t. She has a position to keep up with all these swells, and he will
be only the man who paints the church! I only hope he will not come.
There will be nothing but bother if he does, unless they both have more
sense and less constancy than you expect. Well, this really is a
splendid view. Old Mr. Delrio would be wild about it.”
Here the steep and stony hill brought them into contact with the pony
carriage, nor were there any more confidential conversations. The pony
was put up at the top of the hill leading from Rockstone to Rockquay, and
thence the party walked down for Miss Prescott to make a few purchases,
and, moreover, to begin by gratifying Thekla’s reiterated entreaty for a
bicycle, though, as she was unpractised and growing so fast, it was
decided to be better to hire a tricycle for practice, and one bicycle on
which Vera and Paula might learn the art.
The choice was a long one, and left only just time for a peep into the
two churches and a study of the hours of their services. St. Kenelm’s
was decided to be a “perfect gem,” ornaments, beauty, and all, a little
overdone, perhaps, in Magdalen’s opinion, but perfectly “the thing” in
her sisters’.
This St. Andrew’s fulfilled to her mind, being handsome, reverent, and
decorous in all the arrangements, while to the younger folk it was “all
very well,” but quite of the old times. Little did they know of “old
times” beyond the quarter century of their birth! Poor old Arnscombe
might feebly represent them, but even that had struggled out of the
modern “dark ages.” Magdalen had decided on talking to Agatha and seeing
how far she understood the situation, and she came to her room to put her
in possession now that Mrs. Best had left the guest chamber free.
“This is your home when you are here. You must put up any belongings
that you do not want to take to St. Robert’s.”
“Thank you; it is a nice pleasant room.”
“And, my dear, may I stay a few minutes? I think we had better have a
talk, and quite understand one another.”
“Very well.”
It was not quite encouraging, but Agatha really wished to hear, and she
advanced a wicker chair for her elder sister, and sat down on the window
seat.
“Thank you, my dear; I do not know how much Mrs. Best has told you.”
“She told us that you had always been very good to us, and that you had
been our guardian ever since we lost our mother.”
“Did she tell you what we have of our own that our father could leave
us?”
“No.”
“What amounts to about £40 a year apiece. Mrs. Best in her very great
goodness has taken you four for that amount, though her proper charge is
eighty.”
“And she never let any one guess it,” said Agatha, more warmly, “for fear
we might feel the difference. How very good of her.”
She seemed more impressed by Mrs. Best’s bounty than by Magdalen’s, but
probably she took the latter as a matter of course and obligation;
besides, the sense of it involved a sum in subtraction. However, this
was not observed by her sister, who did not want to feel obliged.
“Now that this property has come in,” continued Magdalen, “we can live
comfortably together upon it for the present, and your expenses at Oxford
can be paid, as well as masters in what may be needful for the others,
and an allowance for dress. I suppose you will want the £40 while you
are at St. Robert’s, besides the regular expenses?”
“Thank you,” warmly said.
“But I want you to understand, as I think you do, about the future, for
you must be prepared to be independent.”
“I should have wished for a career if I had been a millionaire,” said
Agatha.
“I believe you would, and it is well that you should have every
advantage. But the others. If I left you all this property, it would
not be a comfortable maintenance divided among four; and you would not
like to be dependent, or to leave the last who might not marry to a
pittance alone.”
“Certainly not,” said Agatha, with flashing eyes.
“Then you see that it is needful that you should be able to do something
for yourselves. I can give one of you at a time the power of going to
the University.”
“I don’t think Vera or Polly would wish for that,” said Agatha.
“Well, what would they wish for? I can do something towards preparing
them, and I can teach Thekla, but I should like to know what you think
would be best for them.”
“Vera’s strong point is music,” said Agatha. “She cares for that more
than anything else, and Mr. Selby thought she had talent and might sing,
only she must not strain her voice. I don’t believe she will do much in
any other line. And Polly—she is very good, and always does her best
because it is right, but I don’t think anything is any particular
pleasure to her, except needlework. She is always wanting to make things
for the church. She really has a better voice than Flapsy, and can play
better, but that is because she is so much steadier.”
“Seventeen and sixteen, are they not?”
“Yes; but Polly seems ever so much older than Flapsy.”
“Mrs. Best showed me that she had higher marks. She must be a thoroughly
good girl.”
“That she is,” cried Agatha, warmly. “She never had any task for getting
into mischief.”
“Well, they are both so young that a little study with me will be good
for them, and there will be time to judge what they are fit for. In art
I think they are not much interested.”
“Paula draws pretty well, but Vera hates it. Old Mr. Delrio is always
cross to her now; but—” Agatha stopped short, remembering that there
might be a reason why the drawing master no longer made her a favourite
pupil.
“Do you think him a good judge?”
“Yes; Mrs. Best thinks much of him. He had an artist’s education, and
sometimes has a picture in the Water Colour Exhibition; but I believe he
did not find it answer, and so he took our school of art.”
Agatha had talked sensibly throughout the conference, but not
confidentially; much, in fact, as she would have discussed her sisters
with Mrs. Best. She was glad that at the moment the sound of the piano
set them listening. She did not feel bound to mention to “sister” any
more than she would to the head mistress, that when staying at Mr.
Waring’s country house a sort of semi-flirtation had begun with Hubert
Delrio, a young man to whose education his father had sacrificed a great
deal, and who was a well-informed and intelligent gentleman in all his
ways. He had engaged himself to the great firm of Eccles and Beamster,
ecclesiastical decorators, and might be employed upon the intended
frescoes of St. Kenelm’s Church.
Ought “Sister” to be told?
But Agatha thought it would be betraying confidence to “set on the
dragon”; and besides nobody ever could tell how much Vera’s descriptions
meant. She knew already that the sweetest countenance in the world and
the loveliest dark eyes belonged to a fairly good-looking young man, and
she could also suspect that the “squeeze of my hand” might be an ordinary
shake, and the kneeling before the one he loved best might have been only
the customary forfeit. On the whole, it would be better to let things
take their course; it was not likely that either was seriously smitten,
and it was more than probable that Hubert Delrio would be too busy to
look after a young lady now in a different stratum, and that Vera would
have found another sweetest countenance in the world.
All this passed through her mind while Magdalen listened, and pronounced—
“That is brilliant—a clever touch—only—”
“Yes, that is Vera—I know what you are noticing, but this is only
amusement; she is not taking pains.”
“It is very clever—especially as probably she has no music. But there—”
“Polly’s? Oh, yes; she is really steady-going. That is just what you
will find her. This is a charming room, sister; thank you very much.”
“Make it your home, my dear.”
But in reality they were not much nearer together than before the
conference.