'Oh, Daisy and Pansy can't have done anything; but they were all
three there helping me mark the tennis-courts when the message
came.'
'Including the brother?'
'Yes.'
'He is a bad fellow, and I would not wish to shield him in any way,
but that such a plot should be proved against him would be a
grievous disgrace to the family.'
'I can't ever feel about them as I have done,' said Arthurine, in
tears. 'Daisy and Pansy said so much about poor dear Fred, and
every one being hard on him, and his feeling my good influence--and
all the time he was plotting this against me, with my chalk in his
hand marking my grass,' and she broke down in child-like sobs.
The mortification was terrible of finding her pinnacle of fame the
mere delusion of a sharper, and the shock of shame seemed to
overwhelm the poor girl.
'Oh, Admiral!' cried her mother, 'she cannot bear it. I know you
will be good, and manage it so as to distress her as little as
possible, and not have any publicity.'
'1 will do my best,' said the Admiral. 'I will try and get a
confession out of him, and send him off, though it is a pity that
such a fellow should get off scot-free.'
'Oh, never mind, so that my poor Arthurine's name is not brought
forward! We can never be grateful enough for your kindness.'
It was so late that the Admiral did not come back that night, and
the ladies were at breakfast when he appeared again. Foxholm had,
on finding there was no escape, confessed the fraud, but threw most
of the blame on Fred Mytton, who was in debt, not only to him but to
others. Foxholm himself seemed to have been an adventurer, who
preyed on young men at the billiard-table, and had there been in
some collusion with Fred, though the Admiral had little doubt as to
which was the greater villain. He had been introduced to the Mytton
family, who were not particular; indeed, Mr. Mytton had no objection
to increasing his pocket-money by a little wary, profitable betting
and gambling on his own account. However, the associates had no
doubt brought Bonchamp to the point of being too hot to hold them,
and Fred, overhearing the arrangement with Mrs. Rudden, had
communicated it to him--whence the autograph trick. Foxholm was
gone, and in the course of the day it was known that young Mytton
was also gone.
The Admiral promised that none of his family should mention the
matter, and that he would do his best to silence Mrs. Rudden, who
for that matter probably believed the whole letter to have been
forged, and would not enter into the enthusiasm of autographs.
'Oh, thank you! It is so kind,' said the mother; and Arthurine, who
looked as if she had not slept all night, and was ready to burst
into tears on the least provocation, murmured something to the same
effect, which the Admiral answered, half hearing--
'Never mind, my dear, you will be wiser another time; young people
will be inexperienced.'
'Is that the cruellest cut of all?' thought Miss Elmore, as she
beheld her former pupil scarcely restraining herself enough for the
farewell civilities, and then breaking down into a flood of tears.
Her mother hovered over her with, 'What is it? Oh! my dear child,
you need not be afraid; he is so kind!'
'I hate people to be kind, that is the very thing,' said Arthurine,--
'Oh! Miss Elmore, don't go!--while he is meaning all the time that
I have made such a fool of myself! And he is glad, I know he is, he
and his hateful, stupid, stolid daughters.'
'My dear! my dear!' exclaimed her mother.
'Well, haven't they done nothing but thwart me, whatever I wanted to
do, and aren't they triumphing now in this abominable man's
treachery, and my being taken in? I shall go away, and sell the
place, and never come back again.'
'I should think that was the most decided way of confessing a
failure,' said Miss Elmore; and as Mrs. Arthuret was called away by
the imperative summons to the butcher, she spoke more freely. 'Your
mother looks terrified at being so routed up again.'
'Oh, mother will be happy anywhere; and how can I stay with these
stick-in-the-mud people, just like what I have read about?'
'And have gibbeted! Really, Arthurine, I should call them very
generous!'
'It is their thick skins,' muttered she; 'at least so the Myttons
said; but, indeed, I did not mean to be so personal as it was
thought.'
'But tell me. Why did you not get on with Mesa?'
'That was a regular take-in. Not to tell one! When I began my
German class, she put me out with useless explanations.'
'What kind of explanations?'
'Oh, about the Swiss being under the Empire, or something, and she
_WOULD_ go into parallels of Saxon words, and English poetry, such
as our Fraulein never troubled us with. But I showed her it would
not _DO_.'
'So instead of learning what you had not sense to appreciate, you
wanted to teach your old routine.'
'But, indeed, she could not pronounce at all well, and she looked
ever so long at difficult bits, and then she even tried to correct
_ME_.'
'Did she go on coming after you silenced her?'
'Yes, and never tried to interfere again.'
'I am afraid she drew her own conclusions about High Schools.'
'Oh, Miss Elmore, you used to like us to be thorough and not
discursive, and how could anybody brought up in this stultifying
place, ages ago, know what will tell in an exam?'
'Oh! Arthurine. How often have I told you that examinations are not
education. I never saw so plainly that I have not educated you.'
'I wanted to prepare Daisy and Pansy, and they didn't care about her
prosing when we wanted to get on with the book.'
'Which would have been the best education for them, poor girls, an
example of courtesy, patience, and humility, or _GETTING ON_, as you
call it?'
'Oh! Miss Elmore, you are very hard on me, when I have just been so
cruelly disappointed.'
'My dear child, it is only because I want you to discover why you
have been so cruelly disappointed.'
It would be wearisome to relate all that Arthurine finally told of
those thwartings by the Merrifields which had thrown her into the
arms of the Mytton family, nor how Miss Elmore brought her to
confess that each scheme was either impracticable, or might have
been injurious, and that a little grain of humility might have made
her see things very differently. Yet it must be owned that the good
lady felt rather like bending a bow that would spring back again.
Bessie Merrifield had, like her family, been inclined to conclude
that all was the fault of High Schools. She did not see Miss Elmore
at first, thinking the Arthurets not likely to wish to be intruded
upon, and having besides a good deal to think over. For she and her
father had talked over the proposal, which pecuniarily was so
tempting, and he, without prejudice, but on principle, had concurred
with her in deciding that it was her duty not to add one touch of
attractiveness to aught which supported a cause contrary to their
strongest convictions. Her father's approbation was the crowning
pleasure, though she felt the external testimony to her abilities,
quite enough to sympathise with such intoxication of success as to
make any compliment seem possible. Miss Elmore had one long talk
with her, beginning by saying--
'I wish to consult you about my poor, foolish child.'
'Ah! I am afraid we have not helped her enough!' said Bessie. 'If
we had been more sympathetic she might have trusted us more.'
'Then you are good enough to believe that it was not all folly and
presumption.'
'I am sure it was not,' said Bessie. 'None of us ever thought it
more than inexperience and a little exaltation, with immense good
intention at the bottom. Of course, our dear old habits did look
dull, coming from life and activity, and we rather resented her
contempt for them; but I am quite sure that after a little while,
every one will forget all about this, or only recollect it as one
does a girlish scrape.'
'Yes. To suppose all the neighbourhood occupied in laughing at her
is only another phase of self-importance. You see, the poor child
necessarily lived in a very narrow world, where examinations came,
whatever I could do, to seem everything, and she only knew things
beyond by books. She had success enough there to turn her head, and
not going to Cambridge, never had fair measure of her abilities.
Then came prosperity--'
'Quite enough to upset any one's balance,' said Bessie. 'In fact,
only a very sober, not to say stolid, nature would have stood it.'
'Poor things! They were so happy--so open-hearted. I did long to
caution them. "Pull cup, steady hand."'
'It will all come right now,' said Bessie. 'Mrs Arthuret spoke of
their going away for the winter; I do not think it will be a bad
plan, for then we can start quite fresh with them; and the intimacy
with the Myttons will be broken, though I am sorry for the poor
girls. They have no harm in them, and Arthurine was doing them
good.'
'A whisper to you, Miss Merrifield--they are going back with me, to
be prepared for governesses at Arthurine's expense. It is the only
thing for them in the crash that young man has brought on the
family.'
'Dear, good Arthurine! She only needed to learn how to carry her
cup.'