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A CHRISTMAS POSY
by
MRS MOLESWORTH
With illustrations by Walter Crane
[Illustration: GRANDMOTHER DEAR'S OLD WATCH
"Come out here for a moment, Sylvia," she called to her sister; "we can
see her as far as the corner--" P. 2]
[Illustration]
London: MacMillan And Co. 1888
TO
MY TWO LITTLE FRIENDS
Julia and Isabel
TWIN-SISTERS
LONDON, _29th February 1888_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
"GRANDMOTHER DEAR'S" OLD WATCH 1
MY PINK PET 28
AN HONEST LITTLE MAN 53
THE SIX POOR LITTLE PRINCESSES 61
BASIL'S VIOLIN 77
THE MISSING BON-BONS 124
LOST ROLLO 147
THE BLUE DWARFS 177
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"GRANDMOTHER DEAR'S" OLD WATCH--
"'Come out here for a moment, Sylvia,' she called to her
sister; 'we can see her as far as the corner.'" 2
MY PINK PET--
"One day I was playing as usual in my own little room, when
the door suddenly opened." 43
AN HONEST LITTLE MAN--
"Him has one, zank you." 55
THE SIX POOR LITTLE PRINCESSES--
"Ginevra found herself running upstairs, though not so fast
as the evening before, for fear of dropping the precious
parcel she held in her arms." 71
BASIL'S VIOLIN--
"In the pantry, when he took it into his head to pay a visit
to the footmen." 101
THE MISSING BON-BONS--
"'Yes,' said Maggie, 'I was getting the parasol.'" 139
LOST ROLLO--
"He stopped when he got up to us and began wagging his tail
and rubbing his head against us in the sweetest way." 160
THE BLUE DWARFS--
"They were sliding down the branches of the tree in all
directions." 195
GRANDMOTHER DEAR'S OLD WATCH
A FRAGMENT
PART I
"Those never loved
Who dream that they 'loved once.'"--E. B. BROWNING.
"YOU won't be long any way, dear Auntie?" said Sylvia with a little
sigh. "I don't half like your going. Couldn't you wait till the day
after to-morrow?"
"Or at least take me with you," said Molly, Sylvia's younger sister,
eagerly.
Auntie hesitated--she glanced up at as much of the sky as could be seen
through the lace-shrouded windows of their pretty Paris _salon_--it was
already beginning to grow dusky, for though only half-past three, it was
the thirty-first of December, and a dull day--and then turned with
decision towards the door.
"No, dears," she said; "I shall go more quickly alone. Sylvia's cold
would be none the better for going out so late, and I would rather you,
Molly, stayed with her. So good-bye, darlings; I shall not be long."
"I should not like to think of poor Sylvia sitting alone in the
gloaming, to-day of all days," said Auntie to herself as she made her
way down the three flights of handsome marble stairs which led to their
_appartement_. "I can see she is very sad--remembering how different it
was this day last year. And dear Molly's good spirits are an inestimable
blessing. Ah, my darlings, I may do my best, I _will_ do my best, but I
cannot make up to you for grandmother;" and with the tears in her eyes,
and many a tender thought in her heart, Auntie made her way along the
street.
The two girls were watching her, though she did not know it. There was a
tiny balcony outside the window on to which Molly stepped almost as soon
as the door had closed on Auntie.
"Come out here for a moment, Sylvia," she called to her sister; "we can
see her as far as the corner"--for the street was one of the wide
handsome avenues in the new part of Paris, and there were few
passers-by. "As far as the corner," therefore, it was easy to
distinguish Auntie's figure in its deep mourning dress--not _quite_ so
erect or active as it used to be, for Auntie was no longer young, and
this year, so nearly ended now, had brought her the greatest sorrow of
her life--as she quickly made her way.
"Dear Auntie," said Sylvia; "I wish she were back again. I am sure we
could have done without money for a day."
"_Two_ days it would have been," corrected Molly; "the bank will be
closed to-morrow, you know."
"Of course I know that," said Sylvia, a little testily.
"And there are some people coming to be paid, and Auntie never likes to
keep any one waiting," continued Molly imperturbably. "If Auntie had
only taken me with her----"
"How absurd you are!" said Sylvia. "You speak as if Auntie were a baby,
or as if no one could take care of her but you--no, dear," she broke off
hastily, "I should not speak like that. I don't mean to be cross--but
oh, Molly, how we do miss grandmother," and the quickly rising tears in
the pretty eyes raised to her sister's face at once subdued any
resentment Molly may have felt. She bent her tall figure--for, though
nearly two years younger, she was taller than her sister--and enveloped
Sylvia in a loving hug.
"My darling," she said--the mass of fair hair, which, even at eighteen,
she found it no easy matter to keep in order, mingling with Sylvia's
soft clustering chestnut locks; "my darling--of course we do--but,
Sylvia, we must try to be happy. Think how _she_ always said so. And
next year--next year may be happier. Papa and Ralph are almost sure to
be with us again by this time next year."
"_This_ year has certainly only brought us sorrow," said Sylvia
mournfully; "I wish Auntie had not gone out. I have a presentiment
something will go wrong."
"Don't be fanciful, dear; Auntie will soon be back. Come in and let us
get ready a cosy tea for her, and finish the old year as cheerfully as
we can. And oh, Sylvia--your cold!--and you've been out on the balcony
without even a shawl."
No wonder these girls loved their aunt. Since their infancy their
grandmother and she had replaced to them the mother they had never
known--and the father who was but seldom able to be with them. And now
the grief, the inexpressible grief of having lost that dearest of
grandmothers had deepened and strengthened the affection of the three
for each other. Their life was somewhat lonely at present. Grandmother
had died in the south, at the pretty villa which, after so many years
passed in it, had come to seem "home." But she had wished her
grandchildren to return to England, their real home; there, before long,
to be rejoined by their father and elder brother at present in the East.
And they were spending this winter in Paris--"on the way," as it
were--for the benefit of Sylvia's drawing and Molly's music; and partly,
too, perhaps, because the old home in the south, _without_ "grandmother
dear," would have seemed too unbearably desolate.
The curtains were drawn, the fire blazed brightly, the lamp on the
_console_ at the side of the room threw a soft pleasant glow on the
dainty table set out temptingly for "afternoon tea," which,
notwithstanding their long residence in France, Auntie and her nieces
were very fond of. And with the little exertion of making all as bright
and pretty as they could, the girls' spirits had come back.
"It _does_ look nice," said Molly approvingly, as she stepped back
towards the door to judge of the general effect. "How I do wish dear
grandmother were here to see how neat and nice it looks. I really do
think, Sylvia, that I am getting to be very 'handy,' and to have a good
deal of taste in nice little ways--just what grandmother used to wish
for me;" and the candour and honesty in her fair face as she innocently
expressed her little bit of self-approval made Sylvia turn away so that
Molly should not see the smile of amusement it was impossible altogether
to repress. For Molly's open satisfaction with herself when it seemed to
her that she deserved a little encouragement, was one of the funniest
things about her still.
"Yes, dear, it does look very nice," said Sylvia. "And---- Can that be
Auntie's ring already?" she broke off. "How very quick she has been."
And almost before she had finished the words the door was thrown hastily
open, and Auntie was beside them. But what an Auntie! Pale, looking
older by ten years than when she had left them, breathless, her lips for
a moment trembling so that she could not speak. The girls' warm words of
welcome died away as they gazed at her in terror.
"Auntie, Auntie dearest, what is it; oh, what is it?" they exclaimed,
while visions of every possible and impossible misfortune--a telegram
with bad news of papa or Ralph taking front place as the worst of
all--rushed before their imaginations with the inconceivable rapidity
with which such speculations picture themselves at such times of
excitement. Auntie struggled for self-control.
"No, no--not bad news," she whispered at last, in answer to some all but
inaudible breath which had perhaps escaped the poor children's lips.
"You must--oh, you must forgive me. It was all my own fault. I should
not have gone."
"Oh Auntie, Auntie," cried Molly, by this time in sobs, "what is it
then? Have you been run over?"
"How could Auntie be here if she had been?" said Sylvia, hardly able to
help smiling, even in the midst of her fright, at the Molly-like
question. "But oh, Auntie, do try to tell us."
Auntie was a little calmer by now. She looked up with a piteous
expression in her still white face.
"My dears, my dears," she said, "you must not be vexed with me, and yet
I feel that you have a right to be so. I have had such a misfortune--I
have lost--just now, on my way to or from the bank, I don't know
which--I have _lost_ dearest mother's--your grandmother's old watch! And
with it the locket that was always attached to it, you know--the one
with _her_ great-grandfather's and his daughter's hair."
"I know," said Molly, "gray hair on one side and bright brown like
Sylvia's on the other. Oh, Auntie, Auntie--_poor_ Auntie."
And Sylvia flung herself down beside poor Auntie and burst into tears of
sympathy. It was sweet to Aunt Laura, even in the midst of her acute
distress, to feel that their first thought was not for the loss
itself--much as it could not but touch them--but of sorrow for _her_.
"Grandmother's old watch--grandmother dear's old watch," repeated the
two girls, as if they could not believe it. The old watch they
remembered all their lives, whose face was almost as familiar to them as
that of grandmother herself--the watch and locket which seemed almost a
part of her--it was terrible, it was too bad to be true!
"How did it happen?" said Sylvia, trying to choke down her tears. "Tell
us more, Auntie. Can nothing be done? You don't think it was stolen?"
"No--I feel sure I dropped it. I remember now that it was not securely
fastened. That is what vexes me so terribly--to think it was my own
fault! Oh, Sylvia--oh, Molly, when I saw it was gone I felt as if I
should go out of my mind! It was just as I came out of the bank that I
missed it, but it may have dropped some minutes before. I was
hesitating as to whether I should have time to walk home, or if I
should take a _coupé_ so as to get back to you quicker, my dears----"
"And we had made all so cosy for you--such a dear little tea--just look,
Auntie;" and herself casting a glance round at their pretty
preparations, Molly's tears flowed afresh.
"I had a presentiment," said Sylvia. "But go on, Auntie."
"And I looked at my watch--I mean, I was going to do so," continued
Auntie, "and found it was gone. Of course I ran back to the bank, but it
was not there. I rushed up and down the street and asked everybody I
saw--I even went into some of the shops--I am afraid I must have seemed
quite dazed. Then my only idea was to get back to you, so I called a
_coupé_ and----" here poor Auntie broke down again.
"And is there nothing to be done?" repeated Sylvia.
"The coachman," said Auntie, "the coachman advised me to go to the
'commissaire de police' nearest to where I lost it. I have the name of
the street. So now that I have seen you, I will go there at once," and
she rose as she spoke. "Take my bag, Molly dear," she added, handing it
to her. "The money is in it."
"It is a good thing _it_ wasn't lost too," said Molly, whose spirits
were already beginning to reassert themselves. "But, Auntie, you must
have some tea before you go. It is _quite_ ready."
Auntie, whose hand was already on the door, was beginning to refuse when
Sylvia interrupted. "Yes, Auntie dear, you _must_," she said. "And while
you are taking it, it will give me time to get ready."
"You, my child! I will not let you come--with your cold too."
"My cold is very little, Auntie dearest; I must come--I should come,"
she added pleadingly. "You can't go about by yourself, so upset as you
are too. _Grandmother_ told me I was to take care of you. Yes, Molly
dear, I know you would go, but I am a year and nine months older,"
continued Sylvia, rising to the dignity of her nineteen years. "It is
right I should go."
She gained the day, and so did Molly, to the extent of persuading her
aunt to swallow a cup of tea,--what a different tea-taking to that they
had been looking forward to!--and in five minutes Auntie and Sylvia were
driving along the streets which the former had but so lately passed
through.
"Poor Molly," said Auntie.
"She will be getting up her hopes and expecting us to bring back good
news," said Sylvia. "Well, we _may_ find it, Auntie. They say honest
people _sometimes_ take things at once to the nearest police-office."
But this small grain of hope was quickly crushed. The "commissaire de
police" was civil, but not encouraging. The ladies would do better to
wait a day or two and then apply to the "Préfecture de Police," in other
words, the central office, where waifs and strays of private property,
should they chance to fall into honest hands, were pretty sure to be
eventually deposited.
"A day or two," repeated Auntie, appalled. "Can I do nothing at once?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "That was as Madame chose. It would do no
harm to write at once, describing the lost articles and giving her
address. But as for hearing of them at once, that was more than
improbable. It was the eve of the New Year--the worst day of all the
year on which to have such a misfortune; everybody respectable was busy
with their own affairs; and yet there were lots of beggars and such like
about the streets. If--even supposing," as if the supposition were of
the wildest--"that the watch had fallen into honest hands, a week or
ten days would probably pass before Madame would have news of it."
"And if it were deposited _here_," said Auntie timidly--"that does
sometimes happen, I suppose?"
"If it were deposited here, it would be as if it were not here," said
the commissaire sententiously. "That is to say we should send it on to
the Préfecture. I have not even the right to tell you if it is at this
moment here or not, though to give you pleasure," he proceeded with
unconscious sarcasm, "I will declare to you that it is _not_."
"Then there is no use my returning here again to inquire?"
"Not the least--write to the Préfecture making your statement, and call
there four or five days hence--no use going sooner," said the
commissaire with a wave of his hand in token of dismissal. So Auntie and
Sylvia, with sinking hearts, turned sadly away.
"Little does he understand what four or five days of suspense seem to
me," said Auntie.
"To _us_ too, dear Auntie," said Sylvia, squeezing Auntie's arm under
her cloak as they made their way home through the now dark streets,
Auntie preferring to walk now that there was plainly no more to be done
that called for haste.
"That is the worst of it--I have made this New Year time still sadder
than it need have been for you two, my darlings."
It was hard to go in with no good news for Molly, whose spirits, as
Sylvia had foreseen, had already risen to the point of feeling sure her
aunt and sister would return triumphant, treasure-retrove in hand! But
even now she was not disconcerted. "A week or ten days," she repeated,
when she had heard all there was to tell; "ah, that shows, Auntie dear,
we need not give up hope for ever so long."
She had need of her good spirits for herself, and the others too, during
the days that followed. It would be impossible and wearisome to relate
all that Auntie did and tried to do. The letters to "all in authority"
in such matters, the visits to the Préfecture de Police, to the company
who took charge of printing and posting handbills promising rewards for
the restoring to their owners of lost objects, to the famous "Montde
Piété," the great central pawnbroker's of Paris, even---- For a week and
more Auntie and the two girls, so far as it was possible for them to
help her, did little else than exhaust themselves in such efforts,
seizing every suggestion held out by sympathising friends, from the
_concierge_ to their old friend the white-haired Duchesse de St.
Gervais, who related to them a long and interesting but slightly
irrelevant story of how a diamond ring of her great-grandmother's had
been found by the cook in the heart of a cauliflower just as she was
about to boil it for dinner!
"I really think," said Auntie weariedly, as she threw herself down on
the sofa after an expedition to the office of the most widely read Paris
daily paper, where she had spent a small fortune in advertisements, "I
really think quite half the world is constantly employed in finding, or
rather searching for, the things that the other half is as constantly
employed in losing. I could fill a three-volumed novel with all I have
seen in the last few days--the strange scenes, the real tragedies of
feeling--the truly wonderful mechanism of all this world of
functionaries and offices and regulations. And some of these people have
been really so kind and sympathising--it is astonishing--one would think
they would be too sick of it all to have any feeling left."
"I am sure _anybody_ would be sorry if they understood that it was dear,
_dear_ grandmother's watch--and even if they knew nothing, any one
would be sorry if they saw your poor dear sweet little unhappy face,"
said Molly consolingly.
But though her words called forth a rather wintry smile from Auntie and
Sylvia, it was with sad hearts that all three went to bed on the night
of the ninth day since the loss.
PART II
UP ever so many pairs of steep winding stairs, somewhat later that same
evening, in a small barely furnished little room in one of the busiest
and most thickly inhabited parts of Paris, a young woman with a baby on
her knees was seated in front of a small fire. It was cold--for, alas,
in the dwellings of the poor want of fresh air and ventilation does not
mean _warmth_--and now and then she stirred the embers, though
carefully, as if anxious to extract what warmth she could without
exhausting its source.
"I must keep a little fire together for Bernard," she said to herself.
"He is late this evening. Perhaps I had better put the little one to
bed--still it is cold for her, for it would not yet be prudent to lay
her beside Paul, though he is so much better. What a blessing he is so
much better, my poor little boy! One should not complain, even though it
is hard to think of what this fortnight's illness has cost, fifty francs
at least, and my work in arrears. And to think of that watch lying there
useless all this time! Not that I would have Bernard sell it, even if we
dared. But still I can understand the temptation were it a thing one
_could_ sell, to many even poorer than we. To-morrow, if there is still
no advertisement in any of the papers, I really think I will no longer
oppose Bernard's taking it to the police, and giving up all hopes of any
reward, and even of the satisfaction of knowing its real owner has got
it. For they say lost objects sometimes lie at the Préfecture for years,
and it does not look as if the person it belongs to was very eager to
get it back, otherwise it would have been advertised or placarded.
Perhaps it is some one very rich, who has many watches; and yet--that
old locket with the date of more than a hundred years ago, so simple
too, evidently preserved as a family relic, and the watch too, old,
though still so good, as the watchmaker next door assured Bernard, worth
quite two or three hundred francs. Perhaps the owner is very distressed
about it, but still three or four hundred francs could not possibly be
to him or her what they would be to us just now! Why, even _one_ hundred
would get us nicely round the corner again!"
For Madame Bernard was a sensible little woman with no exaggeration
about her. But it is growing colder, and still her husband does not
return. She must gather the remnants of the fire together, and baby at
all costs must go to bed, and if Bernard does not soon come she herself
must go too. She cannot risk catching a bad cold herself just as Paul is
recovering from an attack of bronchitis. And she is turning to open a
door leading into the one bedroom of their _appartement_, when the
well-known sound of a latch-key in the door of the tiny vestibule
arrests her.
"Bernard, at last!" she exclaimed with a sigh of relief.
A man, young still, though older than she, entered. He was thin and pale
and poorly clad. But his face was intelligent and pleasant, and he had
an undoubted air of respectability. And to his wife's accustomed eye,
late as it was and tired as he should have been, his face had a flush of
excitement on it which half prepared her for news of some kind.
"At last," he repeated. "Yes, I am very late, but I will not grumble as
I did this evening when we were told we must work overhours, for it is
thanks to the lateness that I have--prepare yourself, my girl--I have
found the owner of the watch!"
"The owner of the watch!" repeated his wife. "How? where? But you had
not the watch with you? You have not given it back? Not without----" and
the little woman hesitated; her husband seemed so pleased, so excited.
"If possibly it is a poor person," she reflected, "Bernard is quite
capable of giving it back with delight for nothing but a word of thanks!
Yet what would not forty, nay, even fifty francs be to us just now."
Still she did not like to say anything to damp his pleasure. But he read
her misgiving--he had perhaps a little enjoyed teasing her!
"Calm yourself, my child," he said, though Madame Bernard was certainly
much less excited than he; "it is all right. When I said I had found the
owner, I meant to say I know _where_ to find him, or her. Twenty minutes
ago I knew as little as you do at this moment. But coming along the
Boulevart, suddenly the light of a gas-lamp flaring up a little fell on
a yellow paper on the wall--had it been in the daytime I should never
have seen it, it was so badly placed--'fifty francs reward.' I scarcely
thought I would stop to read it at first; how many yellow posters have I
not read these last few days! But in an instant 'watch' caught my eyes.
Here is the description;" and he drew out a shabby pocket-book in which
he had copied it word for word. "You see it is our old friend, and no
other--'English watch, locket, _souvenir de famille_, etc. Owner to be
found at 99 Avenue Malmaison.' So off I go to No. 99 to-morrow morning
as early as I possibly can."
"And you will be very careful, Bernard," said his wife. "Give it up to
no one but the owner himself."
"And make sure of the reward, eh, my girl?" said he, laughing. "Yes,
yes--you may trust me. I know fifty francs will not fall to us badly
just now. And if it is a rich person I shall take it with a clear
conscience, for I really have worked to find the owner."
And in very much better spirits than they had been since the beginning
of little Paul's illness, the poor young couple betook themselves to
their night's rest.
One person at No. 99 Avenue Malmaison had not known what a good night's
rest was for some time. Poor Auntie! she was beginning to feel that she
must make an effort to resign herself, and to throw off the excessive
depression which the loss of "grandmother's" watch was causing her. It
was not fair, she argued, to make Sylvia and Molly suffer for what she
and she alone deserved to be blamed for. So she tried to look more
cheerful than she felt. I don't think her efforts deceived the two pairs
of sympathising young eyes, but the sisters nevertheless understood and
appreciated them, and felt that they too must put on a braver face than
came quite easy. So to all outward appearance the trio had recovered
their usual bearing. And Sylvia and Molly, as was only natural, went to
bed and slept soundly, though never without a last waking thought of
"Poor Auntie! oh, if the watch _could_ but be found!" while the watch's
owner tossed about in wakeful distress. The more she tried to look
bright in the day, the more impossible it seemed to forget her troubles
in the temporary oblivion of a sound sleep. "It is really wrong of me to
fret so about the loss of any _thing_," she would say to herself. "I
seem more overwhelmed than even during the first few terrible days after
mother's death. Though after all, _were_ those first few days terrible?
Just at the first when the door seems still as it were half-open, and
we feel almost as if we could see a little way _in_, where our dear ones
have gone--no, those first days are _not_ the worst."
And somehow, as she said so to herself, there seemed to fall over Auntie
a feeling of calm and peacefulness such as she had known little of for
long. Then came before her the remembrance of "grandmother dear's"
sweet, quiet face as she had seen it the last time, in the beautiful
calm of holy death. "It is _wrong_ to fret so, my child," the well-known
voice seemed to say. And listening to it Auntie fell into a quiet and
profound sleep.
It was curious--a sort of coincidence, I suppose, one would call
it--that this peaceful sleep came to poor Auntie just at the moment at
which Bernard, on his way home, espied by the light of the flaring
gas-lamp the yellow poster with its "fifty francs reward" in big black
letters!
When Auntie woke she saw at once by the light that it was much later
than her usual time. But she felt so quiet and peaceful and
rested--almost as one does on waking from the first real sleep after an
illness--that she tried to fancy she was still half-dreaming, and that
it could not yet be time to get up. A slight noise--a _very_ slight
noise it was--at the side of her bed made her at last, though
reluctantly, open her eyes again and turn slightly round. Quick ears and
watchful eyes were on the alert--
"Oh, Auntie--Auntie dear--you are awake at last. You have had a nice
sleep?"
"Very--a very sweet sleep, my darling," said Auntie, smiling, for the
last night's impressions were strong upon her. She was not going to make
herself unhappy any more about that which could not be cured.
Molly's bewildered eyes turned towards her sister.
"She looks so happy," she whispered. "Can she know, can she have heard
us talking?"
No--she had heard nothing--but _something_, some indefinable instinct
now seemed suddenly to awaken her suspicions.
"Molly--Sylvia!" she exclaimed, starting up. "What is it? What are you
saying? It cannot be----" But before she had time to say more she was
interrupted.
"Yes, it _can_ be--it _is_," they called out. And something, a softly
shining something, round and smooth, with a smaller shining thing
attached to it, dangled above her eyes.
"The watch, Auntie--grandmother dear's own old watch, and the locket! A
man--such a nice civil poor man--found them, and has brought them back,
while you were still asleep."
"And we could not bear to waken you. You looked so tired and white, and
were sleeping so quietly. But it was all right," Molly hastened to
assure her. "We lent the money--the fifty francs reward, you know--and
he was so pleased, poor man. I am afraid he is _very_ poor."
"He asked for a certificate--a little note to say he had been honest in
bringing it back," added Sylvia. "But we thought, and so did he, that it
would be better for you to write it. So he is going to call
again--to-morrow or the day after in the evening--it is such a long way
off where he lives, he says."
"What good will the certificate do him?" asked Auntie, stroking and
smoothing her dear watch all the time.
"He said it might get him promoted in the office where he works," said
Molly, "And he says the watch is a _very_ good one--he took it to a
friend of his who is a jeweller. So you see, Auntie, though he couldn't
have sold it here--you remember they told us it was impossible to sell
jewellery that isn't one's own here, as one has to tell all about where
one got it and all that--he might have kept it for himself."
"Or sent it away to be sold somewhere else," said Sylvia.
"Oh yes, no doubt he could have done something with it, if he hadn't
been really honest."
"And yet so poor," said Auntie thoughtfully. Then she looked again at
the watch with such a loving gaze that it brought tears to the girls'
eyes.
"Oh, Auntie darling, _how_ nice it is to see you looking like yourself
again," said Molly. "It seems almost, doesn't it," she added in a lower
voice, "as if its coming back were a little message from grandmother?"
How different appeared everything that happy day! How bright the
sunshine, even though but some pale wintry beams struggling through the
cold gray sky; how nice everything they had to eat seemed--was it,
perhaps, that the kind-hearted cook in her sympathy took unusual
pains?--how Auntie smiled, nay, laughed right out, when Molly suddenly
checked herself in saying something about what o'clock it was,
forgetting that it was no longer a painful subject! How grateful they
all felt to be able to go to bed in peace without the one
ever-recurring, haunting thought, "If the watch could but be found!"
And with the night came another thought to Auntie.
"Sylvia and Molly," she said the next morning, "I have been thinking so
about those poor people--the man who found the watch I mean--and his
family," for he had told them he was married and had children. "I do
feel so grateful to him. I feel that I must go and see for myself if
they are so very poor. You have the exact address?"
"Oh yes," Molly replied, "we wrote it down. But oh, Auntie dear, you
_will_ let us go with you."
Auntie hesitated a little, but yielded in the end.
"You will promise to let me go in first," she said, "just to see that it
is quite respectable, and no infectious illness or anything that could
hurt you."
* * * * *
Bernard hardly knew his little wife again when he got home that evening.
The fifty francs had greatly cheered her the night before, but their
influence could not explain the state of delight between tears and
laughter in which he found her this time.
"Oh, my friend--oh, Bernard," she exclaimed, "what a happy thing it was
for us that you found the watch's owner and took it at once! They have
been here; only fancy such distinguished ladies coming themselves so far
just to see if they could be of any service to us in return for ours to
them. That was how they put it--was it not touching? The old lady"--poor
Auntie, I don't think she would _quite_ have liked that!--"to whom
belongs the watch, so good and kind, oh, so kind; and the younger ones
two angels, _angels_ simply, I repeat it, Bernard. And when they heard
all--I could hide nothing, they questioned me with such sympathy, about
Paul's bronchitis and all--they set to work to consider how best they
could help us. The lady gave Paul, into his own little hand, another
note of fifty francs. That will clear off everything, and make us quite
as well off as before his illness; and besides that, they have a good
deal of work they want me to do, that will be well paid, better paid
than what I do for the shops. And they will try to recommend me to some
of their friends,--what I have always wished for, to work for ladies
direct instead of for the shops. Oh, Bernard, it was a happy day for us
when you found that old watch!"
There is no need to say that Auntie and her nieces were as good as their
word.
"On the whole," said Molly, with her customary philosophy, "it was
almost worth while to go through all the unhappiness for the sake of the
delight of getting the watch back again, especially as it really has
been a good thing for those nice poor people. But, Auntie, you will have
all your dresses made with watch-pockets now, won't you?"
"Indeed I will," said Auntie with a smile, "and thank you for your good
advice, my Molly. Who would think you had ever been the complacent
possessor of six pinless brooches?"
At which Molly and Sylvia both laughed, though Molly blushed a little
too.
"I am really careful now, I do think," she said. "You know, dear
Auntie," she added in a lower voice, "Sylvia and I, more than ever,
_now_, try to do and be all that _she_ wished, in little as well as in
big things. Dear, dear grandmother!"
MY PINK PET
Chapter I
"For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather----."
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
IT is getting to be "a good while ago" since I was a little girl.
Sometimes this comes home to me quite distinctly: I feel that I am
really growing an old woman, but at other times I cannot believe it. I
have to get up and cross the room and look at myself in the mirror, and
see with my own eyes the gray hairs and the wrinkles in order to
convince myself that childhood, and maidenhood, and even middle age, are
all left far behind. At these times "now" appears the dream, "then" the
reality; and, strangely enough, this very feeling, I am told, is one of
the signs of real old age, of our nearing the land that at one time we
fancied so "very far off"--farther off, it seems to me, in middle age
than in early childhood, when it is easier for us to believe in what we
cannot see, when no clouds have come between us and the true sky beyond.
I have been in many countries, and lived many different lives, since I
was a little girl. I have been months together at sea, when dry land
itself seemed almost to become a dream. I have been for long years in
India, and grown so used to burning skies and swarthy faces that I could
hardly believe in the reality of cool England, with its fresh fields and
shady lanes; yet all these scenes are growing hazy, while clearly, and
yet more clearly, there rises before me the picture of my old, old home
and childish days, of special things that happened to me then, of little
pleasures and troubles which then seemed very great, and in one sense
really were so, no doubt, for they were great to _me_.
I will tell you about a trouble I once had, if you like. I am afraid you
will hardly count it a _story_, but still some among you may find it
interesting. For, after all, children are children even nowadays, when
so much more is done to make them clever and wise than was the case when
I was a little girl; and the feeling that your parents and grandparents
had their childish sorrows and joys, and hopes and fears and wonders,
just as you have, is always a good and wholesome feeling to foster on
both your side and theirs.
Our home was in a small town in rather an out-of-the-way part of the
country. It is out of the way still, I believe, as the railways have not
gone very near it, but I know little about it now. It is many years
since I was last there, and I do not think I wish ever to see it again.
I would rather keep my memory's picture of it unchanged.
Our house stood at the outskirts of the little town; in front of it
there stretched a wide heathery common, which extended a mile or two
into the country; and over this common, at certain seasons, the west
wind blew so strongly that it was, we used to say, really like living at
the seaside. The sea was only six or eight miles away; sometimes we
fancied the wind "tasted salt."
The house itself was comfortable and old-fashioned, and had plenty of
rooms in it, which you will allow to have been necessary when I tell you
that I was the youngest of nine children, most, or at least many, of
whom had been brought up at home. My eldest sister was married--she had
always been married, I thought, for I could not remember her anything
else. My other three sisters were all more or less grown up, and the
only brother at all near my own age was away at a boarding-school. So it
came to pass that, though I had so many brothers and sisters, I was
rather a solitary little girl.
But I was not an unhappy child by any means. I had everything I wanted,
even down to a tiny little bedroom all to myself; and though I was not
perhaps indulged as much as some children I see nowadays, I don't think
I was on that account to be pitied. My parents were quiet, and perhaps
rather unusually undemonstrative; and indeed it was not then the fashion
to be very familiar with one's father and mother. We always said "sir"
and "ma'am" to them, and I never thought of entering or leaving the
drawing-room without stopping to curtsey at the door. How would you like
that, children? My father was very particular about such matters, more
so than most, perhaps, from having been many years in the army, where, I
once overheard an old brother-officer say, he had been considered rather
a "martinet," if you know what that means; and my dear mother, who by
herself, perhaps, would have been almost too gentle to keep all her
family in good order, was firm as a rock where any wish of _his_ was
concerned.
Till I was nearly nine years old I was exceedingly fond of dolls, of
which I had several of different degrees of ugliness. But about that age
I was taken away for a few weeks to visit an aunt of my mother's at the
seaside, and as we travelled all the way there and back in the coach,
our luggage had to be much less in quantity than can now be comfortably
stowed away in the van of an express train. And "Lois must leave her
dolls at home" was the decision of my sixteen-year old sister Emilia,
who, with my mother and myself, was to make the journey.
At first I was greatly distressed, though, being a very quiet and
uncomplaining child, I said little.
"Mayn't I take one?" I said humbly to my mother. "Miss Trotter or Lady
Mirabelle would take up so little room; or might I carry one in my
arms?"
Emilia, my sister, was desired to look over the dolls and report on
them. She did so, but, alas! most unfavourably.
"They are such disreputable-looking things," she said half-laughingly to
my mother, "I should really be ashamed for my aunt to see them. She
likes everything so neat, you know. And mother, Lois is really growing a
great girl--don't you think it is a good time to break her of dolls?"
So my dolls were left behind. I don't think I grieved _very_ much over
them. The excitement of the journey and the being considered a great
girl by Emilia went far to console me. Besides, I had been beginning to
find such big dolls rather inconvenient, as I did not care to play with
them in the common way merely. My great pleasure was in making them act
the different characters in some romance of my own concoction, and I
found smaller _dramatis personæ_ more easily managed. Of late I had even
tried to cut out figures in paper for this purpose, but I could not make
them anything but grotesque and ugly, and had for some time past been
"casting about" in my mind as to some less objectionable puppets.
How well I remember the first night at Sandilands! The journey I have
somehow almost forgotten. I suppose it was in no way very remarkable,
and it is not unlikely that I fell asleep in the coach, and that this
had to do with what followed.
My great-aunt was a tiny little old lady, so tiny that small as I was
myself she made me feel clumsy. Her house, too, was in proportion to
herself. She received us with the greatest affection, but was so
nervously anxious to make us comfortable that I could not but feel
strange and shyer than usual. Notwithstanding my mother's encouraging
whispers and Emilia's tugs and nods, I showed myself to sad
disadvantage, which was especially unfortunate, as I was Aunt Lois's
god-daughter, and had been brought to see her on purpose to please her.
I spilt my tea, I trod on the cat's tail, I knocked over a valuable
Indian jar filled with pot-pourri, which fortunately, however, was not
broken, till at last, in despair, my mother agreed to Emilia's repeated
suggestion that I had better go to bed.
And to bed I went, in considerable distress, though a little consoled by
the kind way in which my aunt kissed me and patted me on the back as she
said good-night.
I was to sleep in a small room, generally used as a sort of study. My
aunt had thoughtfully arranged a little bed in it for me, thinking the
only other unused bedroom, which was up at the top of the house, would
be so far away from my mother and Emilia that I should feel lonely. I
went to bed quietly, and, notwithstanding the strangeness of everything
about me, soon fell asleep. But an hour or two later, just when my
mother and aunt were sitting comfortably chatting, and Emilia trying
over some old songs on the thin-toned piano, they and the two
maid-servants in the kitchen were suddenly startled by piercing screams
from my room.
Upstairs they all ran--Emilia arriving the first.
"What is the matter, Lois?" she exclaimed. "Have you set yourself on
fire?"
I was sitting up in bed, my eyes almost starting out of my head with
fright.
"The faces, the faces!" I cried. "See, Emilia, up there!"
It was a minute or two before she could see what I meant, and by that
time my mother and aunt and the servants were all in the room. Emilia
would have scolded me, but Aunt Lois hurried forward and soothed me, oh,
so kindly, while she explained that what in my half-awakened state I had
taken for two faces were nothing but two Dutch china vases, standing on
the top of a high old-fashioned cabinet in a corner of the room. The
door having been left slightly ajar, a ray of light from the lamp on the
landing had penetrated into the room, just catching the cabinet, while
leaving everything else in darkness.
I sobbed and cried for some time, but persisted in staying where I was
instead of changing places with Emilia, as was proposed, now that I
really knew there was nothing to be afraid of.
"Brave girl!" said my aunt approvingly. "And to-morrow, for a reward,
you shall have the key of the cabinet and examine it for yourself. It is
filled with curious foreign shells, and if you care for them you shall
have some to take home with you."
And with this delightful anticipation I fell peacefully asleep.
Chapter II
MY aunt was as good as her word. The next morning, when breakfast was
over, she went up with me to my little room and unlocked the cabinet. It
was, as she had said, filled with lovely curious shells, of every size
and shape. Some of the trays were in considerable disorder.
"You may put them straight for me, Lois, my dear," she said, "and when
you have done so, you may play with them every day while you are here.
And when you go away I shall give you a few. I cannot give you many, for
the cabinet was arranged and given to me by my dear brother, who is
dead, and I should not like to spoil the look of it. But before you go
you may choose twenty to take away with you."
"Thank you, Aunt Lois," I said soberly. But she must have seen by my
face that I was pleased, for she added--
"And when I die, Lois, you shall have the cabinet and all the shells."
"Thank you, Aunt Lois," I said again, not indeed knowing what else to
say, though I felt rather uncomfortable when she talked of dying.
After this, for some days to come, I was perfectly happy. Morning, noon,
and night I was at the shells. The only trouble was that it was a grief
to me ever to leave them, and of course, as I had been brought to
Sandilands partly for the benefit of the sea-air, my mother could not
allow me to spend all my time in one small room.
One day, just after our early dinner, I had escaped to my treasures as
usual, when Emilia followed me upstairs to tell me to put on my hat and
cape for a walk by the sea-shore. My face fell, but of course I did not
venture to make any objection.
"Can't you bear to tear yourself away from your shells even for an
hour?" said Emilia. "What a queer child you are! What can you find to
play at with them; they are all arranged in perfect order long ago?"
"They are so pretty. I like putting their colours together," I said,
fondly touching, as I spoke, the shells of one tray, which were my
especial favourites.
"Yes, they _are_ pretty," said Emilia. "How lovely that delicate pink
one is, in the middle of those dark-brown tortoiseshell-looking ones! It
is like a princess surrounded by her slaves."
I started with pleasure. Emilia's suggestion opened a new world to me.
Here before me, in my shells, were the very puppets I had been in search
of!
"Oh, Emilia!" I exclaimed, "_what_ a good idea!"
But when she questioned me as to what I meant, I got shy again, and
refused to explain. I was afraid of her laughing at me, and hurried away
to put on my hat, more eager than ever to get back to these delightful
playfellows, as I really considered them.
And what games did I not have with them! I made them act far more
wonderful dramas than I could possibly describe to you, children. I went
through ever so many of the _Arabian Nights_ stories, with the shells
for caliphs and weseers, genii, and enchanted damsels. I acted all the
well-known old fairy tales, as well (or better) known in my childish
days as now: Cinderella and dear Beauty and Riquet with the tuft. There
was one brown shell with a little hump on its back which did splendidly
for Riquet. Then for a change to more sober life I dramatised _The
Fairchild Family_ and _Jemima Placid_, taking for my model a little book
of plays for children, whose name, if I mistake not, was _Leisure
Hours_.
But through all my fanciful transmogrifications I was constant in one
particular: the beautiful pale-rose-coloured shell which Emilia had
admired was ever my _prima donna_ and special favourite. It--I very
nearly had said "she"--was in turn the lovely wife of Hassan of Balsora,
Princess Graciosa, and Lucy Fairchild, whom, on mature consideration, I
preferred to her sister Emily, as, though not so pretty, she was never
guilty of such disgraceful conduct as eating "plum jam" on the sly and
then denying it! And when no special "actings" were on hand, and my
beautiful shell might have been supposed to be nothing but a shell, the
pleasures of my fertile imagination were by no means at an end. The
pretty thing then became a sort of beloved friend to me. I talked to it,
and imagined it talked to me; I confided to it all my hopes and fears
and disappointments, and believed, or pretended to myself to believe
rather, that the shell murmured to me in reply sweet whispers of
affection and sympathy; I carried it about with me everywhere, in a tiny
box lined with tissue-paper and cotton-wool; indeed it seems to me now
that many, perhaps most people, if they had heard what nurses call "my
goings-on," would have thought my wits decidedly wanting. But _of
course_ I told no one of my new fancy. I don't think at that time I
_could_ have done so. I lived in a happy dream-world of my own alone
with "my pink pet," for that was the only "real" name I ever gave to the
shell, and no longer in the least regretted Miss Trotter or Lady
Mirabelle, though I often "amused" my present favourite with stories of
the sayings and doings of its predecessors in my affections.
Of course my pink pet accompanied me home. There was great consultation
with my shell as to the nineteen others to be chosen, and there was one
moment's breathless suspense when my aunt told me to show her my
selection, and I gravely did so, watching her face the while.
What if she should refuse to me the gift of the one, for which I would
gladly have gone without all the others?
"You have made a very modest choice, Lois," she said at last. "Are you
sure you wouldn't like any others better? These are rather rare shells,"
she added, touching a little group of two or three that generally
figured as my pink pet's maids of honour, "but these, and this, and
this--are common enough."
"But this is the only one of the sort in the cabinet," I replied,
reddening with vexation, for my favourite had been one of those Aunt
Lois had described as "common." Actually, at the risk of losing my
beautiful shell, I could not help standing up in its defence.
"Why, that's the one I thought so pretty, isn't it?" said Emilia, coming
forward. "Lois thinks it worth its weight in gold, aunt. She keeps it in
an old pill-box, and----"
"You're _very_ unkind, Emilia," I exclaimed angrily; "you've no business
to pry into what I do."
"Hush--hush! my dear," said Aunt Lois in her fussy way, yet not
unkindly, and looking at me with some curiosity. "Give me my spectacles,
and let me see this remarkable shell better. Yes--you are right, your
young eyes are sharper than mine, it _is_ a rare shell. I think there
were only two of them in the cabinet, and one must have been broken,
though I did not know it."
Oh, how I trembled! Supposing Aunt Lois were to say she could not spare
this one precious specimen! Emilia put my thoughts into words for me,
for which I did not thank her.
"If it is the only one," she said, "of course Lois won't expect you to
give it to her." She glanced at me reproachfully. My eyes fell, but I
did not speak.
"I would not on any account go back from my promise," said my aunt. "If
the child has a special fancy for the shell, let her have it by all
means, even were it far more valuable than it is."
I could hardly speak, so great had been my suspense, but I whispered
"Thank you, Aunt Lois," in a husky voice, and I fancy by the way my aunt
again looked at me that she saw there were tears in my eyes. And the
next day we went home.
Chapter III
[Illustration: MY PINK PET
"One day I was playing as usual in my own little room, when the door
suddenly opened--" P. 43]
AFTER this I grew fonder than ever of my pink pet. But at the same time
I was more careful than before to let no one know of my queer fancy.
Emilia's remarks had alarmed me, for I had had no idea that she had
noticed my treasure. I could not bear being laughed at, and I intensely
dreaded my brothers getting hold of the story and playing me some trick
which might deprive me of my favourite. I never played with my shells
except when I was quite alone, and deeply regretted there being no key
to the lock of my room, by which I might have secured myself against
intruders. But as I had always been in the habit of playing a great deal
by myself, and had always, too, been quiet and reserved, no one took any
special notice of me or my occupations, particularly as every one in the
house was just then much occupied with preparations for the approaching
marriage of my second sister, Margaret. So I spent hours and hours by
myself--or rather not by myself, for I had for my companions far more
wonderful beings than were ever dreamt of anywhere save in a child's
brain, and with my pink pet went through more marvellous adventures by
far than Munchausen himself.
One day I was playing as usual in my own little room, when the door
suddenly opened and Emilia and Margaret came in. They were both
laughing. I started up in terror and threw my handkerchief over the
little group of shells, who had just been performing a tournament on a
cane-bottomed chair, on the seat of which, with an old piece of French
chalk, I had marked out the lists, the places for spectators, and the
daïs of honour for the queen, represented of course by my rose-coloured
shell.
"What are you doing, Lois?" said Emilia.
"Nothing, at least only playing," I said confusedly.
"We didn't suppose you were doing anything naughty," said Margaret.
"Don't look so frightened. Let us see what you are playing at."
I hesitated.
"Come now," said Emilia laughingly, "do let us have it. You had got as
far as--let me see what was it, 'Oh ladye fair, I kneel before thee,'
wasn't that it, Margaret?"
I turned upon her in sudden fury. But before I could speak, Emilia, not
noticing my excitement, had snatched away the handkerchief from the
chair, and with mischievous glee picked out my pink pet.
"See, Margaret," she cried, "this is the 'ladye fair,' Lois's familiar."
I had found my voice by now--found it indeed; it would have been better
had I remained silent.
"Oh, you mean girl!" I exclaimed. "Oh, you bad, wicked sister! You've
been listening at the door; am I not even to be allowed the privacy of
my own chamber?" I was growing dramatic in my excitement, and
unconsciously using the language of some of my persecuted heroines.
"Lois," cried Margaret, "do not excite yourself so. We did not listen at
the door, but you were speaking so loud, I assure you it was impossible
not to hear you."
Somewhat softened and yet inexpressibly annoyed, I turned to Margaret,
unfortunately in time to see that it was only by the greatest efforts
she was controlling her laughter. My words and manner had been too much
for her, anxious as she was to quell the storm.
"I will bear no more," I said passionately. "Unnatural sisters that you
are to jeer and mock at me. Give me my shell, Emilia. How dare you touch
it?"
Startled, and really a little frightened by my manner, Emilia silently
held out the shell. I snatched at it, how it was I never could
tell--whether she or I dropped it I know not, nor do I know whose foot
trod on it, but so it was. In the scuffle my treasure fell to the
ground; my pink pet was crushed into a little heap of shell dust.
"Oh, Lois, dear Lois, I am so sorry," exclaimed Emilia, all her mischief
and glee at an end. But I did not speak. For a moment I stared at the
fatal spot on the floor, then stooping down I scooped up as well as I
could the fragments of what had been so dear to me, and hiding them in
my hand rushed from the room, still without speaking. I really hardly
knew what I was doing; afterwards I remembered hearing Emilia say in a
frightened tone--
"Margaret, what can we do? I never saw Lois like that before. Can she be
going out of her mind?"
I thought I _was_ going out of my mind. Even now, children, old woman as
I am, I cannot bear to recall the misery of that time. I ran out into
the garden, and lay with my face hidden in an old deserted arbour, where
I trusted no one would come to seek me. I had put the "ashes" of my
favourite into the pill-box, and held it in my hands while I cried and
sobbed with mingled anger and grief. The afternoon went by, but no one
came to look for me.
"It must be nearly tea-time," I said to myself, though reluctant to own
that I was hungry. "No one cares what becomes of me."
Just then I heard a step approaching. It was Emilia.
"Oh, Lois!" she exclaimed; and I could tell by her voice that she had
been crying. "I have been looking everywhere for you. Oh, dear Lois, do
say you forgive me?"
"No," I said sullenly, turning from her and pushing away her
outstretched arms, "I will _never_ forgive you."
And this was my only reply to her repeated words of sorrow and
affection, till at last in despair she went away. Then, knowing that my
retreat was discovered, I got up and went into the house, up to my own
room. I sent down word by one of the servants that my head ached, and I
did not want any tea, and my mother, judging it wiser from my sisters'
account of me not to drive matters to extremity, let me have my own way.
She came up to see me, and said quietly that she hoped my head would be
better to-morrow, but that was all, and I encouraged nothing more, and
when Emilia came to my door to say good-night, I would not answer her.
The next day things were no better. By this time my continued crying had
really made my head ache more badly than it had ever ached before. I
got up and dressed, but had to lie down again, and thus I spent the day;
and when my sisters came in to see me I would not speak to them. Never,
I think, was child more perfectly miserable; and though I gave little
thought to that part of the matter, I can now see that I must have made
the whole household wretched. And yet by this time I was doing myself
the greatest injustice. I was no longer angry with Emilia. I was simply
sunk in grief. My pink pet was crushed into dust; how it had happened,
or who was to blame, I did not care. I was just broken-hearted.
I think it must have been the evening of the second day after the
tragedy of the shell that I was sitting alone in my little room, when
there came a tap at the door. "Come in," I said listlessly, never for a
moment supposing it to be any one but the housemaid. The door opened and
I glanced up. My visitor was Aunt Lois. I had forgotten all about her
coming, though I now remembered hearing that she was expected a week or
two before Margaret's marriage.
"Aunt Lois!" I exclaimed, starting up, but when I felt her bright kindly
eyes looking at me inquiringly, I grew red and turned away; but she
came forward all the more eagerly.
"So my poor little girl," she said, "I hear you have been in great
trouble."
I did not speak--I began to cry quietly.
"And some one else has been in trouble too," she said; "you have made
Emilia very unhappy."
I raised my head in surprise. "Emilia!" I repeated; "she doesn't care.
She only laughed at me."
"She _does_ care, Lois," said my aunt. "She has tried to tell you so
several times."
"Yes," I said confusedly, "she did; but I didn't think anybody cared
_really_."
"No, you have been thinking of no one but yourself, Lois; that is the
truth, dear. But now listen to me, and don't think I am going to laugh
at you. I understand how you have been feeling. Once, when I was a
little girl, I was very nearly as miserable about the loss of a--guess
now--what _do_ you think?"
I looked up with interest.
"I don't know," I said; "was it a pet bird, or something like that?"
"No," replied Aunt Lois, "nothing half so sensible. I don't think you
could guess. It was nothing but a little sugar mouse, which I had had
for some weeks, till at last one day, forgetting that it was only sugar,
I left it so close to the fire that it melted. But many times in my life
I have thought of my poor mouse with gratitude, Lois. It taught me some
good lessons. Can you guess what they were?"
"Not to care too much for things, I suppose," I said.
"Not _exactly_ that. I don't think 'caring' ever does us harm; but
_what_ one cares for, that is the thing. You will understand in good
time."
I looked up again, thoughtfully this time.
"I think I do understand, a little," I said. "You are so kind, Aunt
Lois."
"I don't like to see people unhappy if I can cheer them," she said. "Do
you, Lois?"
I did not reply.
"Shall I call Emilia?" she said. "You can make _her_ happy again."
"Please," I whispered.
Aunt Lois went to the door, and I heard her call my sister. She must
have been waiting somewhere near, for in a moment she was in the room.
She ran up to me and put her arms round me and kissed me fondly--more
fondly I think than ever any one had kissed me before.
"Dear little Lois," she said, "I have been _so_ sorry about you. Won't
you forgive me? And I have not been a good sister to you--I have left
you alone to make amusement for yourself when I might have helped you.
Aunt Lois has shown me it all, and I want to begin now quite
differently, so that you shall never feel lonely again."
I kissed her in return. Who could have helped doing so? There were tears
in her eyes--those merry bright eyes that I had never before seen
looking sad; and it seemed to me that all of a sudden I found out how
sweet and pretty Emilia was.
"Dear Emilia," I said, and then touching a little knot of
pale-rose-coloured ribbon that she happened to be wearing, and which
seemed just to match the pretty flush in her cheeks, I whispered very
low, "Will _you_ be my pink pet, Emilia?"
She laughed happily. "That reminds me," she said, and out of her pocket
she drew a tiny box, which she gave me. I opened it, and gave a little
cry of surprise. There, in a nest of cotton-wool, there lay before me,
lovely as ever, my beloved shell!
"Emilia!" I exclaimed, "where did you get it? It was broken to bits."
"I brought it," said Aunt Lois. "Don't you remember my saying there had
once been two of those rare shells? Emilia wrote to ask me to hunt all
through the cabinet to see if possibly the other was still there; and I
actually did find it. It was hidden in a very large shell, that somehow
or other it had got into--one of the large shells you seldom played
with."
"How kind of you, and of Emilia," I said. Then I looked at the shell
again. "I should like to keep it _always_," I said, "but I won't make a
pink pet of it."
And I always did keep it. It lies now in a corner of my trinket-case,
where it has lain for many years, and where little fingers have often
reverently touched it, when I told them it was a keepsake from the dear,
merry Aunt Emilia their young eyes had never seen--sister and dearest of
friends while she lived, most precious of memories when she died. For
she died many years ago; but before many years more have passed, I smile
to think that God will let us be again together, and this is one of the
thoughts that makes me not regret to feel that I am really growing into
quite an old woman.
AN HONEST LITTLE MAN
OUR Baby is very fond of coming down to dessert. I almost think it is
the greatest pleasure in his small life, especially as it is not one
that very often happens, for, of course, as a rule, he has to go to bed
before father and mother begin dinner, and dessert comes at the end of
all, even after grace, which I have often wondered at. Our Baby is four;
he has rather red hair, and merry-sad eyes, if you know what I mean; and
in summer, because his skin is so very fair--"quite lost on a boy,"
nurse says--he has a great many freckles, especially on his dear little
nose. He is a great pet, of course, but not in a very babyish way--he
seems too sensible for that; and he is very gentle and thoughtful, but
not at all "soft" or cowardly. Our Baby has a brother--he is really, of
course, brother to us all; but Baby seems to think he is only "budder"
to him--a very big, almost grown-up brother, Baby considers him, for he
is nearly seven! Well, one evening lately both these little boys came
down to dessert for a great treat, because an auntie had come on a
visit, and this was the first night. They were both so pleased.
"Brother" was chattering and laughing in what we call his "big man way,"
and Baby smiling soberly. That is his way when he is pleased, and that
reminds me how we did laugh the first night he ever came down! He was so
dreadfully solemn and quiet we thought he was going to cry, and father
said, "That child had better go to bed, he looks so miserable;" but when
I asked him if he would like to go up, he looked at me and smiled, and
said, "Oh no, Cissy. He's very happy;" and then we saw he really was,
only he thought looking solemn was the best of good manners, for
afterwards he told "Brother" he thought "gemplemens and ladies never
laughed at dinner!" But he was more at home this evening that Auntie had
come, and though he did not make any noise, any one could see he was
happy. He was sitting by Auntie, who was very pleased with him, and
without any one happening to notice, she took a cocoa-nut biscuit from a
plate in front of her and gave it to him. He took it quietly, but did
not eat it, for he saw that "Budder" had not got one, and though our
little boys are not the least jealous of each other, they are very fond
of being what they call "egwall," and if one gets anything, he likes the
other to get the same.
[Illustration: AN HONEST LITTLE MAN
"Him has one, zank you." P. 55]
Auntie went on speaking, and did not see that Baby did not eat his
biscuit, but held it tight in his little hand. And in a minute or two
mother looked round and said, "I must find something my little boys will
like." Then she drew the cocoa-nut biscuits to her and chose two, a pink
one and a white one--you must know there is nothing we children think
such a treat as cocoa-nut biscuits--and handed them to them.
"Budder" took his and said, "Thank you, mother;" but what do you think
dear Baby did? Instead of taking it, as he might easily have done,
without any one's ever knowing of the other--and, indeed, if they had
known, they couldn't have said it was naughty of him--he held out his
hand with the biscuit already in it, and said quite simply, not the
least as if he thought he was doing anything very good, "Him has one,
zank you."
"Honest little man," said mother, and then Baby's face got red, and he
did look pleased. For mother does not praise us often, but when she
does it is for something to be a little proud of, you see, and even Baby
understands that.
And Auntie turned and gave him a kiss.
"You dear little fellow," she said; and then in a minute, she added,
"that reminds me of something I came across the other day."
"What was it? Oh, do tell us, Auntie," we all cried.
Auntie smiled--we are always on the look-out for stories, and she knows
that.
"It was nothing much, dears," she said, "nothing I could make a story
of, but it was pretty, and it touched me."
"Was it a bear," said Baby, "or a woof that touched you?"
"Silly boy," said "Budder"; "how could it be a bear or a woof? Auntie
said it was something pretty."
And when she had left off laughing, she told us.
"It was the other day," she said, "I was walking along one of the
principal streets of Edinburgh, thinking to myself how bitterly cold it
was for May. Spring has been late everywhere this year, but down here in
the south, though you may think you have had something to complain of,
you can have no idea how cold we have had it; and the long light days
seem to make it worse somehow! Well, I was walking along quietly, when I
caught sight of a poor little boy hopping across the road. I say
'hopping,' because it gives you the best idea of the queer way he got
along, for he was terribly crippled, and his only way of moving was by
something between a jerk and a hop on his crutches. And yet he managed
to come so quickly! You would really have been amused to see the kind of
fly he came with, and how cleverly he dodged and darted in and out of
the cabs and carriages, for it was the busiest time of the day. And
fancy, children, his poor little legs and feet from his knees were quite
bare. That is not a very unusual sight in Edinburgh, and not by any
means at all times one to call forth pity. Indeed, I know one merry
family of boys and girls who all make a point of 'casting' shoes and
stockings when they get to the country in summer, and declare they are
much happier without. Their father and mother should be so, any way,
considering the saving in hosiers' and shoemakers' bills. But in the
case of my poor little cripple it was pitiful; for the weather was so
cold, and the thin legs and feet so red, and the poor twisted-up one
looked so specially unhappy.
"'Poor little boy,' I exclaimed to the lady I was with; 'just look at
him. Why he has hopped all across the street merely for the pleasure of
looking at the nice things in that window!'
"For by this time the boy was staring in with all his eyes at a
confectioner's close to where we were passing.
"'Give him a penny, do,' said my friend, 'or go into the shop and buy
him something.'
"We went close up to the boy, and I touched him on the shoulder. He
looked up--such a pretty, happy face he had--and I said to him--
"'Well, my man, which shall I give you, a penny or a cookie?'
"He smiled brightly, but you would never guess what he answered. Like
our 'honest little man' here," and Auntie patted Baby's head as she
spoke, "he held out his hand--not a dirty hand 'considering'--and said
cheerfully--
"'Plenty to buy some wi', thank ye, mem;' and spying into his hand I
saw, children, one halfpenny."
Auntie stopped. I think there were tears in her eyes.
"And what did you do, Auntie?" we all cried.
"What could I have done but what I did?" she said. "I don't know if it
would have been better not--better to let his simple honesty be its own
reward. I could not resist it; of course I gave him another penny! He
thanked me again quite simply; I am sure it never struck him that he had
done anything to be praised for, and I didn't praise him, I just gave
him the penny. And oh, how his bright eyes gleamed! He looked now as if
he thought he had wealth enough at his command to buy all the cookies in
the shop."
"So he hadn't only been pertending to buy," said "Budder." "Poor little
boy, he had been toosing--toosing what he would buy. I'm so glad you
gave him anoder penny, Auntie."
"He's so gad him got anoder penny," echoed Baby; though, to tell the
truth, I am not sure that he had been listening to the story. He had
been making up for lost time by crunching away at his biscuit. And when
the boys said "Good night," Auntie gave them each another biscuit, and
mother smiled and said it was because it was Auntie's first night. But
"Budder" told Baby afterwards, by some funny reasoning of his own, that
they had got another biscuit each, "'cos of that poor little boy who
wasn't greedy."
And Baby, of course, was quite satisfied, as "Budder" said so.
I think I shall always remember that little cripple boy when I see
cocoa-nut cakes, and it will make me like them, if possible, better than
ever.
THE SIX POOR LITTLE PRINCESSES
"And all the Christ Child's other gifts . . .
. . . but still--but still--
The doll seem'd all my waking thoughts to fill. . . ."
_The Doll that ne'er was Mine._
THERE were six of them, beginning with Helen and ending with Baby, and
as Helen was only twelve and Baby already five, it is easy to understand
that they were all pretty near of a size. But they weren't really
princesses. That was all Jinny's planning. Indeed most things which were
nice or amusing or at all "out-of-the-way" were Jinny's planning.
Jinny's long name was Ginevra. She came third. Helen and Agatha were in
front of her, and below her came Elspeth and Belinda and Baby. Baby had
a proper name, I suppose, but I never heard it, and so I can't tell you
what it was. And as no one ever did hear it, I don't see that it much
matters. Nor would it have mattered much if Belinda had had no proper
name either, for she was never called anything but Butter-ball. The
story was that it was because she was so fat; and as, like many fat
people, she was very good-natured, she did not mind.
They were all together in the nursery, together but alone, as was rather
often the case; for they had no kind, comfortable old nurse to spoil and
scold them by turns, poor children, only a girl that Miss Burton, the
lady whom they lived with, kept "to do the nursery work," which does not
sound like being a nice nurse at all, though I suppose Miss Burton did
not understand the difference. There were a good many things she did not
understand. She liked the children to be neatly dressed, and to have
good plain food in plenty; she was very particular that they should do
their lessons and go for a walk every day when it was fine enough, but
that was about all she thought of. She did not think they needed any fun
except what they could make for themselves, and even then it must not be
too noisy; she could not understand that they could possibly be "dull,"
caged up in their nursery. "Dull," when there were six of them to play
together! She would have laughed at the idea.
They had few story-books and fewer toys. So they had to invent stories
for themselves, and as for the toys, to make believe very much indeed.
But how they would have succeeded in either had it not been for Jinny I
should be afraid to say.
"It's a shame--a regular shame," said Ginevra. She was sitting on the
table in the middle of the room with Elspeth beside her. The two little
ones were cross-legged on the floor, very disconsolately nursing the
battered remains of two very hideous old dolls, who in their best days
could never have been anything but coarse and common, and Helen and
Agatha sat together on a chair with a book in their hands, which,
however, they were not reading. "It's a shame," Ginevra repeated; "even
the little princes in the tower had toys to play with."
"Had they?" said Helen. "Is that in the history, Jinny?"
"It's in some history; anyway, I'm sure I've heard it," Jinny replied.
"But this isn't a tower," said Agatha.
"No, it's a dungeon," replied Ginevra grimly. "And if any of you besides
me had the spirit of a true princess, you wouldn't stand it."
"We don't want to stand it any more than you do," Helen said quietly.
"But what are we to do? You don't want to run away, do you? Where could
we run to? It isn't as if papa was anywhere in England. Besides, we're
not starved or beaten, and we're in no danger of having our heads cut
off."
"I'd rather we were--there'd be some fun in that," said Princess Jinny.
"Fun!" repeated Agatha.
"Well, it wouldn't be as stupid as being shut up here in this dreary old
nursery--I mean dungeon," said Ginevra. "And now that our cruel gaoler
has refused to let us have the small solace of--of a--" she could not
find any more imposing word--"_doll_ to play with, I think the time has
come to take matters into our own hands, princesses."
"I've no objection," said Helen and Agatha, speaking together. "But what
do you mean to do?"
"You shouldn't call Miss Burton a gaoler--she isn't as bad as _that_;
besides, she's not a man," said Elspeth, who had not before spoken. "We
might call her the governor--no, governess; but that sounds so funny,
'governess of the tower,' or custo--then some word like that, of the
castle."
"But this isn't a tower--we've fixed that--nor a castle. It's just a
dungeon--that'll do very well, and it's great fun at night when we put
out the candles and grope about in the dark. And gaoler will do very
well for Miss Burton--some are quite kind, much kinder than she."
"It's all along of our never having had any mamma," said a slow, soft
little voice from the floor.
"Princess Butter-ball, what a vulgar way of speaking you have!--'all
along of'--I'm ashamed of you," said Jinny severely. "Besides, we did
have a mamma once--all except----" and she glanced at Baby, but without
finishing her sentence. For had she done so poor Princess Baby would
have burst into loud sobs; it was a very sore point with her that she
had never had a mamma at all, whereas all the others, even Butter-ball,
were perfectly sure they could remember their mother.
"If Aunt Ginevra would come home," sighed Elspeth. "We've always been
promised she would." "And she's written us kind letters," added Agatha.
"What's letters?" said Jinny contemptuously.
"Well, you needn't complain," said Helen. "She sent you a silver
mug--real silver--and that's more than any of our godmothers did for the
rest of us."
"Yes, she did," said Jinny, "and it's fortunate for us all, princesses,
that through all our troubles I have always kept that one--memento of
happier days about my person----"
"What stories, Jinny!" Agatha exclaimed. "At least it's stories if
you're being real just now. You mix up princess-ing and real, so that I
get quite muddled. But, you know, you _don't_ carry the mug about with
you."
For all answer, Princess Ginevra, after some fumbling in her pocket,
drew out a short, thick parcel wrapped in tissue paper, which she
unfolded, and held up to view a silver mug.
"There now," she said.
Agatha looked rather crestfallen.
"It must be very uncomfortable to have that lumpy thing in your pocket,
and some day Miss Burton will be asking where it's gone," she said. "I
suppose it makes you fancy yourself more a princess, but I'm getting
rather tired of fancies. Now if we only had a beautiful doll, and could
all work at dressing it, that _would_ be worth something."
"And we might go on being princesses all the same, or even more," put in
Elspeth.
"Patience," said Jinny, "patience and courage. Leave it to me. I think I
see my way. I have my eye on a trusty adherent, and if I am not much
mistaken, you shall have a doll before Christmas."
All five pricked up their ears at this--they had all at the bottom of
their hearts the greatest faith in Ginevra, though the elder ones now
and then felt it necessary to snub her a little.
"Are you in earnest, Jinny?" said Helen; "and if you are, I wish you'd
tell us what you mean. Who is the trusty adherent?"
"I know," said Agatha. "It's the red-haired boy next door. Jinny dropped
her umbrella the other day and he picked it up for her, and she stopped
to thank him--that day we had colds and couldn't go out, Helen."
"No," said Elspeth; "it was Jinny that picked up some of his books that
dropped--he was carrying such a pile of awfully messy ragged ones. He
must go to a messy school."
"He was not going to school," said Ginevra. "He was taking these old
books to--but no, I must not betray him."
"Rubbish," said Agatha; "he can't be more than nine. What could there be
to betray? _He's_ not a shut-up prince, Jinny. Do talk sense for once."
Ginevra changed her tone.
"I don't want to tell you," she said in a matter-of-fact voice, "for
fear of disappointing you all. Just wait a very few days and then I'll
tell you. But first, _supposing_ we could get a doll, what should it be
like--fair or dark?"
"Dark, black hair and brown eyes," replied all the five voices. For the
six princesses had fair curls and blue eyes, so, naturally, they
preferred a contrast.
"Hum," said Tinny. "Brown hair, perhaps, but not black. The black-haired
dolls in the shop-windows look common."
"Never mind. _Any_ haired would do so long as we got her," said Agatha.
"But don't talk about it. It does make me want her _so_ dreadfully."
Late that afternoon, just about the time that the little boy next door
would be coming home from school, a small figure with a shawl drawn over
its head might have been seen at Miss Burton's front gate. She had
waited patiently for some minutes. At last she was rewarded by the
sight, or the sound rather, for it was almost too dark to see any one,
of Master Red-Head coming up the road. When he got close to his own door
she called out. It was rather difficult to do so, for she had no idea
what his name was.
"Master--Mr.--" she began, and then changing suddenly, "boy, please, I
don't know your name."
He stopped and came up to her, exclaiming of course, "I say, who's
there? What's up?"
"It's me--Prin--I mean one of the little girls next door, the one who
picked up your old books the other day. I want to ask you something,
please."
Red-Head was all attention, and the two went on talking for some
minutes.
"You're sure he will?" said Jinny at last.
"Quite positive. I'll get all out of him I can. It's real silver, you
say."
"Real, pure silver," she replied.
"And--and it's your very own? I mean you may do what you like with it?"
Red-Head went on, for he was a boy with a conscience.
"Of course it's my own. Do you think I'd steal?" exclaimed Jinny
indignantly, so indignantly that she omitted to answer his second
question, not even asking it of herself.
"No, no, of course not. But you know--_I_ wouldn't get leave to sell my
watch though it's my own. Only I suppose it's all because you've no
father and mother to look after you. It's very hard on you to have no
toys. I suppose girls can't live without dolls. But I say, tell me again
about the doll. I'll have to do it all at once, for we're going away
for the holidays the day after to-morrow."
"You're to get all the money you can, and the very prettiest doll you
can have for the money. With brown hair, remember--not light, we're
tired of light, we've all got it ourselves--and not black, black's
common."
"And not red, I suppose. You may as well say it. I don't mind."
"Well, no," said Ginevra hesitatingly. She would not for worlds have
hurt his feelings--no princess would so treat a trusty adherent--yet she
could not pretend to a weakness for red hair. "I _think_ we'd like brown
best."
"All right. Then to-morrow afternoon, just about this time. It's a
half-holiday--we're breaking up, but it's best to wait till dark for
fear you should get a scolding. I'll be here just about this time,
with--you know what."
"Thank you, oh thank you so much," and Ginevra held out her hand, half
expecting him to kiss it, instead of which, however, he gave it a
schoolboy shake.
"I can excuse it, however; he could not be expected to understand," she
said to herself as she flew up to the nursery.
[Illustration: THE SIX POOR LITTLE PRINCESSES
"Ginevra found herself running upstairs, though not so fast as the
evening before, for fear of dropping the precious parcel she held in her
arms." P. 71]
She could scarcely sleep that night, and the next morning it was all she
could do to keep her secret. But there was plenty of determination under
Princess Jinny's fair curls, and by dint of much squeezing of her lips
together and saying to herself what a pity it would be to spoil the
beautiful "surprise," she managed to get through the morning without
doing more than dropping some mysterious hints. But how long the day
seemed, short as it really was! Would it never get dark? For it was
clear and frosty, and the afternoon, to Jinny, appeared, out of
contradiction, to be twice as long as usual of closing in.
"All comes, however, to him (or her) who waits," and the blissful moment
at last arrived when Ginevra found herself running upstairs, though not
so fast as the evening before, for fear of dropping the precious parcel
she held in her arms.
"The dear, sweet boy," she said to herself. "I'd have liked to kiss him.
Perhaps we all might when he comes home again."
For Red-Head's last words had been a charge not to forget to let him
know after the holidays if Miss Dolly was approved of.
Ginevra burst into the nursery.
"Princesses," she exclaimed, "shut your eyes, while I unwrap her. I'll
shut mine too. I haven't seen her myself."
"Is it--can it be--the doll?" they all cried, and their hearts nearly
stopped beating with excitement.
"Now," Jinny exclaimed.
They all pressed forward. All six pairs of eyes were fixed on Jinny's
lap, but not a sound was heard. A blank look of disappointment fell over
every face. Red-Head, poor Red-Head had done his best, but oh, what a
mistake! He had bought a _dressed_ doll, and as ten and sixpence, which
was all he had got for the mug, will not go very far in such articles,
it can be imagined that dolly herself, notwithstanding the gorgeousness
of her attire, fell short, lamentably short, of the poor princesses'
expectations.
"She's only china, and her hair's a put-on wig," said Agatha, with tears
in her eyes.
"Her clothes don't even take off and on, and they're not a bit like a
little girl's clothes," said Elspeth.
Ginevra said not a word; her face told of nothing less than despair.
"And poor darling Jinny has sold her mug to buy it with--all to please
us. I found it out, but it was too late to stop it," said Helen. "Jinny
darling, we must like her, we _will_--any way she'll be better than
nothing. We'll make her new clothes, and then perhaps she won't look so
vulgar," whereupon, Helen setting the example, all the five princesses
fell upon Jinny's neck and hugged and kissed her and each other amidst
their tears.
"And we mustn't tell Red-Head," said Jinny; "he'd be _so_ disappointed.
He did his best. I never thought of saying she wasn't to be dressed.
He's going away to-morrow, and of course they wouldn't change the doll
after he comes back. Besides, she _is_ better than nothing, surely?"
Christmas Eve--the six princesses sat on the window-sill looking out on
the fast-falling snow. Dolly--partially denuded of her gorgeous attire,
but looking rather woe-begone, if less self-satisfied and vulgar, for
new clothes "to take on and off," and of irreproachable good taste, are
not to be fashioned by little fingers in a day--was reposing in
Butter-ball's fat arms. They "took turns" of her, as was the fairest
arrangement under the circumstances of six little girls and only one
doll; and, true to the sound philosophy of her being "better than
nothing," a certain half-contemptuous affection for her had taken the
place of the first dislike.
Suddenly--rat-tat-tat at the front knocker.
"The postman," said Helen. "_Possibly_ there may be a Christmas card for
us."
It was for "us," but it was not a card. No; a letter, addressed outside
to Helen as the eldest, but inside beginning "My six dear little
nieces."
"From Aunt Ginevra," Helen exclaimed; "and oh, she is coming home at
last. And oh, oh, just fancy, we are all to go to live with her.
And--and----"
"Read it aloud," said Jinny quickly. But Helen was all trembling with
excitement. Jinny seized it and read.
Delightful news truly for the six imprisoned princesses!
"She _must_ be nice," said Jinny; "she writes so sweetly. And what can
the presents be that she says she is sending us for Christmas?"
Agatha looked over her shoulder.
"I have chosen what I think would have pleased me most when I was a
little girl. The box is sent off by express from Paris, where your uncle
and I are resting for a few days, so that you may have it by Christmas.
And before the new year begins, my darlings, I hope to be at last with
you."
Rat-tat-tat again. The railway van this time. Such a big box comes up to
the nursery. Dear, dear, what a business to get it opened. How the six
pairs of eyes shine, how the six pairs of hands tremble with eagerness
as each undoes her own specially marked parcel. And oh, the cries of
delight at last! What could be lovelier, what more perfect, than the six
exquisite dolls, each more beautiful than her sisters!
"Real wax, real hair, real everysing," cries Princess Baby.
"One suit of clothes ready, taking off and on ones, and lots of stuff to
make more," adds Butter-ball.
"Oh, how sweet Auntie must be, how happy we are going to be!" cry all.
But Jinny's face is sad.
"My poor, ugly dolly," she murmurs. "And oh, what shall I say if Auntie
asks for my jug?"
"We'll tell her--all of us together. It was all for our sakes you did
it, and so she can't be angry," say the other five.
"And, Jinny, I do think the old doll would make a beautiful maid for the
others; she really couldn't look vulgar in a neat print frock and white
apron."
Ginevra brightens up at this.
"All the same," she said, "I wish now we had waited a little and
believed that Auntie would come as soon as she could. I see that it
would have been better. And oh, I do so hope she won't be vexed."
She was not vexed; only very, _very_ sorry. More deeply sorry than the
princesses themselves could understand.
"I had no idea of it all," said poor Auntie. "Yet I could not have come
to you sooner, my darlings. Still--if I had known---- But it is all over
now, and you are going to be as happy as ever your Auntie can make you."
"And it's _almost_ the same as having a mamma, isn't it?" said Baby,
satisfied that in this possession she had an undoubted share.
The mug was reclaimed. And the dealer, who had paid far too little for
it, was well frightened by no less a person than Uncle himself.
Poor Red-Head never knew how he had failed. But Auntie, who got to know
his father and mother, was able, without hurting his feelings, to make
him understand that little boys do well to keep out of such transactions
even when inspired by the kindest of motives.
BASIL'S VIOLIN
"THANK you so much for telling me about it. I am pleased, for it is just
what I wanted to hear of."
"And I am so glad for Herr Wildermann's sake. It rarely happens in this
world that one hears of a want and a supply at the same time;" and the
speaker, laughing as she said the last words, shook hands once again
with her hostess and left her.
Lady Iltyd went to the window,--a low one, leading on to the garden, and
looked out. Then she opened it and called out clearly, though not very
loudly--
"Basil, Basi--i--il, are you there, my boy?"
"Yes, mother; I'm coming." And from among the bushes, at a very short
distance, there emerged a rather comical little figure. A boy of eight
or nine, with a bright rosy face and short dark hair. Over his sailor
suit he had a brown holland blouse, which once, doubtless, had been
clean, but was certainly so no longer. It stuck out rather bunchily
behind, owing to the large collar and handkerchief worn beneath, and as
the child was of a sturdy make to begin with, and was extra flushed with
his exertions, it was no wonder that his mother stopped in what she was
going to say to laugh heartily at her little boy.
"You look like a gnome, Basil," she said. "What have you been doing to
make yourself so hot and dirty?"
"Transplanting, mother. It's nearly done. I've taken a lot of the little
wood plants that I have in my garden and put them down here among the
big shrubs, where it's cool and damp. It was too dry and sunny for them
in my garden, Andrew says. They're used to the nice, shady, damp sort of
places in the wood, you see, mother."
"But it isn't the time for transplanting, Basil. It is too late."
"It won't matter, Andrew says, mother. I've put them in such a beautiful
wet corner. But I'm awfully hot, and I'm rather dirty."
"Rather," said his mother. "And, Basil, your lessons for to-morrow? It's
four o'clock, and you know what your father said about having them done
before you come down to dessert."
Basil shook himself impatiently.
"Oh bother!" he said; "whenever I'm a little happy somebody begins about
something horrid. I've such a lot of lessons to-day. And it's a
half-holiday. I think it is the greatest shame to call it a
half-holiday, and then give more lessons to do than any other day."
At the bottom of her heart Lady Iltyd was a little of Basil's opinion;
but she felt it would do no good, and might do a great deal of harm to
say so. Basil went as a day-scholar to a very good private school at
Tarnworth, the little country town two miles off. He rode there on his
pony in the morning, and rode home again at four o'clock. He liked his
schoolfellows, and did not _dis_like his teachers, but he could not bear
lessons! There was this much excuse for him, that he was not a clever
boy in the sense of learning quickly. On the contrary, he learned
slowly, and had to read a thing over several times before he understood
it. Sometimes he would do so patiently enough; but sometimes--and these
"times," I fear, came more frequently than the good ones--he was so
_im_patient, so easily discouraged, that it was not a pleasant task to
superintend his lessons' learning. Yet he was not without a queer kind
of perseverance of his own--he could not bear to go to bed leaving any
of his lessons unfinished, and he would go on working at them with a
sort of dull, hopeless resolution that was rather piteous, till one
reflected that, after all, he might just as well look cheerful about it.
But to look cheerful in the face of difficulties was not Basil's "way."
With the first difficulty vanished all his brightness and good temper,
and all he could do was to work on like a poor little over-driven slave,
with no pleasure or satisfaction in his task. And many an evening
bedtime was long past before his lessons were ready, for though Basil
well knew how long he took to learn them, and how the later he put them
off the harder they grew, there was no getting him to set to work at
once on coming home. He would make one excuse after another--"it was not
worth while beginning till after tea," or his little sister Blanche had
begged him to play with her just for five minutes, and they "hadn't
noticed how late it was," or--or--it would be impossible to tell all the
reasons why Basil never could manage to begin his lessons so as to get
them done at a reasonable hour. So that at last his father had made the
rule of which his mother reminded him--that he was not to come down to
dessert unless his lessons were done.
Now, not coming down to dessert meant more to Basil than it sounds, and
nothing was a greater punishment to him. It was not that he was too fond
of nice things, for he was not at all a greedy boy, though he liked an
orange, or a juicy pear, or a macaroon biscuit as much as anybody, and
he liked, too, to be neatly dressed, and sit beside his father in the
pretty dining-room, by the nicely arranged table with the flowers and
the fruit and the sparkling wine and shining glass. For though Basil was
not in some ways a clever child, he had great taste for pretty and
beautiful things. But it was none of the things I have mentioned that
made him so _very_ fond of "coming down to dessert." It was another
thing. It was his mother's playing on the piano.
Every evening when Lady Iltyd left the dining-room, followed by Basil
and Blanche, she used to go straight to the grand piano which stood
in one corner of the library, where they generally sat, and there she
would play to the children for a quarter of an hour or so, just whatever
they asked for. She needed no "music paper," as Blanche called it; the
music seemed to come out of her fingers of itself. And this was Basil's
happiest moment of the day. Blanche liked it too, but not as much as
Basil. She would sometimes get tired of sitting still, and begin to
fidget about, so that now and then her mother would tell her to run
off to bed without waiting for nurse to come for her. But not so Basil.
There he would sit,--or lie perhaps, generally on the white fluffy
rug before the fire,--with the soft dim light stealing in through the
coloured glass of the high windows, or in winter evenings with no light
but that of the fire fitfully dancing on the rows and rows and _rows_
of books that lined the walls from floor to ceiling, only varied here
and there by the portrait of some powdered-haired great-grandfather or
grandmother smiling, or sometimes, perhaps, frowning down on their
funny little descendant in his sailor-suit, with his short-cropped,
dark head. A quaint little figure against the gleaming white fur,
dreaming--what?--he could not have told you, for he had not much
cleverness in telling what he thought. But his music-dreams were very
charming nevertheless, and in after life, whenever anything beautiful or
exquisite came in his way, Basil's thoughts always flew back to the old
library and his mother's playing.
For long he had imagined that nothing of music kind could be more
delightful. But a short time before this little story begins a new
knowledge had come to him. At a concert at Tarnworth--for once or twice
a year there were good concerts at the little town--he had heard a
celebrated violinist play, and it seemed to Basil as if a new world had
opened to him.
"Mother," he said, when the concert was over, looking up at his mother
with red cheeks and sparkling eyes, "it's better than the piano--that
little fiddle, I mean. It's like--like----"
"Like what, my boy?"
"I can't say it," said Basil, "but it's like as if the music didn't
belong to _here_ at all. Like as if it came out of the air someway,
without notes or anything. I think if I was an awfully clever man I
could say things out of a fiddle, far better than write them in books."
His mother smiled at him.
"But you mustn't call it a fiddle, Basil. A violin is the right name."
"Violin," repeated Basil thoughtfully. And a few minutes later, when
they were in the carriage on their way home, "Mother," he said, "do you
think I might learn to play the violin?"
"I should like it very much," said his mother. "But I fear there is no
teacher at Tarnworth. I will inquire, however. Only, Basil, there is one
thing. The violin is difficult, and you don't like difficulties."
Basil opened his eyes.
"Difficult," he said, and as he spoke he put up his left arm as he had
seen the violinist do, sawing the air backwards and forwards with an
imaginary bow in his right--"difficult! I _can't_ fancy it would be
difficult. But any way, I'd awfully like to learn it."
This had been two or three months ago. Lady Iltyd had not forgotten
Basil's wish; and, indeed, if she had been inclined to do so, I don't
think Basil would have let her. For at least two or three times a week
he asked her if she had found a violin teacher yet, and whether it
wouldn't be a good plan to write to London for a violin. For, at the
bottom of his heart, Basil had an idea which he did not quite like to
express, in the face of what his mother had said as to the difficulty of
violin playing, namely, that teaching at all would be unnecessary!
"If I only had a violin in my arms," he used to say to himself as he
fiddled away with his invisible bow, "I am _sure_ I could make it sing
out whatever I wanted."
And I am afraid that this idea of violin playing which had taken such a
hold of him, did not help him to do his lessons any the quicker. He
would fall into a brown study in the middle of them, imagining himself
with the longed-for treasure in his possession, and almost _hearing_ the
lovely sounds, to wake up with a start to a half-finished Latin exercise
or French verb on the open copy-book before him, so that it was really
no wonder that the complaint, evening after evening repeated, "Basil
hasn't finished his lessons," at last wore out his father's patience.
We have been a long time of returning to the garden and listening to the
conversation between Basil and his mother.
"Yes, I think it's a shame," repeated Basil, _àpropos_ of Wednesday
afternoon lessons.
"But it can't be altered," said his mother, "and instead of wasting time
in grumbling, I think it would be much better to set to work. And Basil,
listen. If you really exert yourself to the utmost, you may still get
your lessons done in time this evening. And if they _are_ done in time,
and you can come down to dessert, I shall have something to tell you in
the library after dinner."
"Something to tell me," repeated Basil, looking rather puzzled. "How do
you mean, mother? Something nice, do you mean?"
He did not take up ideas very quickly, and now and then looked puzzled
about things that would have been easily understood by most children.
"Nice, of course it is nice, you stupid old fellow," said his mother,
laughing. "Are you in a brown study, Basil? That bodes ill for your
lessons. Come, rouse yourself and give _all_ your attention to them, and
let me see a bright face at dessert. _Of course_ it is something 'nice'
I have to tell you, or I wouldn't make a bribe of it, would I? It's very
wrong to bribe you, isn't it?"
"I don't know," said Basil. "I don't think it can be if you do it. Kiss
me, mother. I'll try to do my lessons quickly," and lifting up his rosy
face for his mother's kiss, he ran off. "But oh, how I do hate them!" he
said to himself as he ran.
After all, "they" were not so very difficult to-day, or perhaps Basil
really did try hard for once. However that may have been, the result was
a happy one. At dessert two bright little people made their appearance
in the dining-room, and before his father had time to ask him the
question he had hitherto so dreaded, the boy burst out with the good
news--
"All done, father, every one, more than half an hour ago."
"Yes," said Blanche complacently, "he's been _werry_ good. He's put his
fingers in his ears, and kept bumming to himself _such_ a lot, and he
hasn't played the vi'lin one time."
"Played the violin!" repeated her father. "What does she mean? You
didn't tell me Basil had already be----" he went on, turning to the
children's mother; but she hastily interrupted him.
"Blanche means playing an imaginary violin," she said, smiling. "Ever
since Basil heard Signor L---- at Tarnworth, his head has been running
on violins so, that he stops in the middle of his lessons to refresh
himself with a little inaudible music."
As she spoke she got up and moved towards the door.
"Bring your biscuits and fruit into the library, children," she said.
"You can eat them there. I'm not going to play to you this evening.
We're going to talk instead."
Up jumped Basil.
"I don't want any fruit," he said, "I really don't. Blanche, you stay
with father and eat all you want. I want to be a little while alone with
mother in the library. Mayn't I, mother?" he added coaxingly. "Blanche
doesn't mind."
"You are really very complimentary to _me_," said his father, laughing.
"Why should Blanche mind?"
"I doesn't," said Blanche, very contentedly watching her father peeling
a pear for her. So Basil and his mother went off together for their
talk.
"About the 'something nice,' mother?" began Basil.
"Well, my boy, I'm quite ready to tell you. Mrs. Marchcote was here
to-day. You know who I mean--the lady who lives in that pretty house at
the end of Tarnworth High Street. You pass it every morning going to
school."
"I know," said Basil, nodding his head. "But I don't care about Mrs.
Marchcote, mother. Is she going to have a children's party--is that it?
I don't think I care about parties, mother." And his face looked rather
disappointed.
"Basil, Basil, how impatient you are! I never said anything about a
children's party. Mrs. Marchcote told me something quite different from
that. Listen, Basil. A young German--Herr Wildermann is his name--has
come to Tarnworth in hopes of making his living by teaching the violin.
He can give pianoforte lessons also, but he plays the violin better. He
plays it, she says, _very_ beautifully. He has got no pupils yet, Basil.
But--who do you think is going to be his first one?"
Basil gazed at his mother. For a moment he felt a little puzzled.
"Mother," he said at last, "do you mean--oh, mother, _are_ you going to
let me have lessons? Shall I have a dear little violin of my own? Oh,
mother, mother!"
And he jumped up from the rug where he had been lying at his mother's
feet, and looked as if he were ready to turn head over heels for joy!
"Yes, my boy," said his mother; "you are going to have your first lesson
the day after to-morrow, and Herr Wildermann is to choose you a violin.
But listen, Basil, and think well of what I say. It is _not_ easy to
learn to play the violin. Even if a child has a great deal of
taste--talent even--for music, it requires great patience and
perseverance to learn to play the violin at all well. No instrument
requires more patience before you can arrive at anything really good. I
would not say all this to another child--I would let Blanche, for
instance, find out the difficulties for herself, and meet them as they
come, cheerfully and brightly as she always does. But you are so
exaggerated about difficulties, Basil, that I want to save yourself and
me vexation and trouble before you begin the violin. You are too
confident at first, and you cannot believe that there will be
difficulties, and then you go to the other extreme and lose heart. Now,
I warn you that the violin is _very_ difficult. And it is not a thing
you _must_ learn--not like your lessons at school. It will be a great,
an immense pleasure to you once you master it, but unless you resolve to
be patient and persevering and _hopeful_ in learning it, you had better
not begin it."
Lady Iltyd spoke very earnestly. She was anxious to make an impression
on Basil, for she saw more clearly than any one the faults of his
character, and longed to help him to overcome them. For a moment or two
Basil remained silent, for he was, as she had hoped he would be, struck
by what she had said, and was thinking over it. Then he jumped up, and
throwing his arms round his mother's neck, kissed her very lovingly.
"Mother dear," he said, "I do want to learn it, and I will try. Even if
it is very difficult, I'll try. You'll see if I won't, for I do love
music, and I love _you_, mother. And I would like to please you."
Lady Iltyd kissed him in return.
"My own dear boy," she said, "you will please me very much if you
overcome that bad habit of losing heart over difficulties."
"He may learn more things than music in learning the violin," she
thought to herself.
But as Basil went upstairs to bed, fiddling at his invisible violin all
the way, and whistling the tune he liked to fancy he was playing, _he_
said to himself: "I do mean to try, but I _can't_ believe it is so
difficult as mother says."
PART II
THAT same afternoon an elderly woman was sitting alone by the window of
a shabby little parlour over a grocer's shop in the High Street of
Tarnworth. She had a gentle, careworn face--a face that looked as if its
owner had known much sorrow, but had not lost heart and patience. She
was knitting--knitting a stocking, but so deftly and swiftly that it was
evident she did not need to pay any attention to what her fingers were
doing. Her eyes,--soft, old, blue eyes, with the rather sad look those
clear blue eyes often get in old age,--gazed now and then out of the
window--for from where she sat a corner of the ivy-covered church tower
was to be seen making a pleasant object against the sky--and now and
then turned anxiously towards the door.
"He is late, my poor Ulric," she said to herself. "And yet I almost
dread to see him come in, with the same look on his face--always the
same sad disappointment! Ah, what a mistake it has been, I fear, this
coming to England--but yet we did it for the best, and it seemed so
likely to succeed here where there are two or three such good schools
and no music teacher. We did it for the best, however, and there is no
use regretting it. The good God sees fit to try us--but still we must
trust Him. Ah, if it were only I, but my poor boy!"
And the old eyes filled with slow-coming tears.
They were hastily brushed away, however, for at that moment the door
opened and a young man, breathless with excitement, hurried into the
room.
"Mother!" he exclaimed, but before he could say more she interrupted
him.
"What is it, my boy? What is it, Ulric?" she exclaimed. "No bad news,
surely?"
"Bad news, mother dear? I scarcely see what more bad news _could_ come
to us. As long as we have each other, what is there for us to lose? But
I did not mean to speak gloomily this morning, for I have brought you
_good_ news. Fancy, mother, only fancy--I have got a pupil at last."
"My Ulric--that _is_ good news!" said poor Frau Wildermann.
"And who knows what it may lead to," said the young man. "I have always
heard that the _first_ pupil is the difficulty--once started, one gets
on rapidly. Especially if the pupil is one likely to do one credit, and
I fancy this will be the case with this boy. Mrs. Marchcote--it is
through her kindness I have been recommended--says he has unusual taste
for music. He has been longing to learn the violin."
"Who is he?" asked the mother.
"The son of Sir John Iltyd--one of the principal families here. I could
not have a better introduction. I am to go the day after
to-morrow--three lessons a week, and well paid."
He went on to explain all about the terms to his mother, who listened
with a thankful heart, as she saw Ulric's bright eyes and eager, hopeful
expression.
"He has not looked like that for many a long day," she thought to
herself, "and the help has not come too soon. Ulric would have been even
more unhappy had he known how very little we have left."
And she felt glad that she had struggled on without telling her son
quite the worst of things. What would she not have borne for him--how
had she not struggled for him all these years? He was the only one left
her, the youngest and last of her children, for the other three had died
while still almost infants, and Ulric had come to them when she and her
husband were no longer young, and had lost hopes of ever having a child
to cheer their old age. So never was a son more cherished. And he
deserved it. He had been the best of sons, and had tried in his boyish
way to replace his father, though he was only twelve years old when that
father died. Since then life had been hard on them both, doubly hard,
for each suffered for the other even more than personally, and yet in
another sense not so hard as if either had been alone. They had had
misfortune after misfortune--the little patrimony which had enabled Frau
Wildermann to yield to Ulric's darling wish of being a musician by
profession, had been lost by a bad investment just as his musical
education was completed, and it seemed too late in the day for him to
try anything else. And so for a year or two they had struggled on,
faring not so badly in the summer when living is cheaper, and Ulric
often got engagements for the season in the band at some watering-place,
but suffering sadly in the long, cold German winters--suffering as those
do who will not complain, who keep up a respectable appearance to the
last. And then came the idea of emigrating to England, suggested to them
by a friend who had happened to hear of what seemed like an opening at
Tarnworth, where they had now been for nearly two months without finding
any pupils for Ulric, or employment of any kind in his profession for
the young musician.
So it is easy to understand the delight with which he accepted Lady
Iltyd's proposal, made to him by Mrs. Marchcote.
It would be difficult to say which of the two, master or pupil, looked
forward the more eagerly to the first music-lesson. Basil dreamed of it
night and day. Herr Wildermann on his side built castles in the air
about the number of pupils he was to have, and the fame he was to gain
through his success with Lady Iltyd's boy. Poor fellow, it was not from
vanity that his mind dwelt on and so little doubted this same wonderful
success!
And in due course came the day after to-morrow, neither hastened nor
retarded by the eagerness with which it was looked forward to.
"What a beautiful home! The child cannot but be refined and tender in
nature who has been brought up in such a home," thought Herr Wildermann,
ready at all times to think the best, and more than usually inclined
to-day to see things through rose-coloured spectacles.
He was walking up the long avenue of elms, leading to the Hall. The
weather was lovely, already hot, however, and he would have liked to
take off his hat and let the breeze--what there was of it, that is to
say--play on his forehead. But he had not a free hand, for he was loaded
with no less than three violins, his own and two others, what are called
half and three-quarters sized, as, till he saw his little pupil, he
could not tell which would suit him. He did look rather a comical
object, I daresay, to the tall footman at the door, but not so to the
eager child who had spent the last hour at least in peeping out to see
if his master was not yet coming.
"Mother," he exclaimed, rushing back into the room, "he's come. And
he's brought loads of violins."
"_Loads_," repeated Lady Iltyd, smiling down at her boy, whose rosy
cheeks and bright eyes were still rosier and brighter than usual; "well,
among them it is to be hoped there will be one to suit you."
Then she turned to Ulric, who was standing in the doorway, half dazzled
by the brightness of the pretty room into which he was ushered after the
darker hall, and still more confused by his intense anxiety to please
the graceful lady who was greeting him so kindly, and to win the liking
of the child he was to teach. But Basil's mother's pleasant manner soon
set him at his ease, and in a minute or two he was opening the violin
cases and discussing which would be the right size for the boy. Basil
gazed and listened in silence. At the first glance Herr Wildermann had
felt a little disappointed. His new pupil was not certainly a poetical
looking child! His short sturdy figure and round rosy face spoke of the
perfection of hearty boyish life, but nothing more. But his breathless
eagerness, the intense interest in his eyes--most of all the look in his
face as he listened to a little caprice which Ulric played on his own
violin as a sort of introduction to the lesson, soon made the musician
change his opinion.
"He has it--he has the musician's soul. One can see it!" he half said,
half whispered to Lady Iltyd, though he had the good sense to understand
what might have seemed a little cold in her answer.
"I think Basil truly loves music," she said, "but you will join with me,
I am sure, Herr Wildermann, in telling him that to be a musician at all,
to play _well_ above all, takes much patience and perseverance. Nothing
in this world can be done without trouble, can it?"
"Ah no," said Herr Wildermann, "that is true."
But Basil, whose fingers were fidgeting to touch at last the violin and
dainty bow, said nothing.
"I will leave you," said his mother. "I think you will find it better to
be alone with Basil, Herr Wildermann."
And she left the room.
She listened with some anxiety to the sounds which now and then made
their way to the room where she sat writing. Sweet clear sounds
occasionally from the master's violin, but mingled, it must be
confessed, with others the reverse of musical. Squeakings and gruntings,
and a dreadful sort of scraping whine, not to be described in words.
"My poor Basil," thought his mother, though it was a little difficult
not to smile at a _most_ unearthly shriek that just then reached her
ears. "I hope he is not losing his temper already."
But she waited quietly till the sounds ceased. Then came the soft sweet
notes of a melody which she knew well, played by Herr Wildermann alone;
and a few minutes after she saw among the trees the tall thin figure of
the young German, laden with but two violins this time as he made his
way down the avenue.
She waited a minute or two to see if Basil would come to her. Then, as
he did not, she returned to the morning room where he had had his
lesson. He was still there, standing by the window, but she was pleased
to hear as she went in that he was humming to himself the air that Ulric
had played last.
"Well, Basil?" she said, "and how did you get on?"
The boy turned round--there was a mixture of expressions on his face. A
rather dewy look about his eyes made his mother wonder for a moment if
he had been crying. But when he spoke it was so cheerfully that she
thought she must have been mistaken.
"He plays _so_ beautifully, mother," he said.
"Yes," she replied. "I knew he did. I heard him one day at Mrs.
Marchcote's, and I listened this morning."
"You listened, mother?" he said. "Did you hear how awfully it squeaked
with me?"
"Of course," said Lady Iltyd, in a matter-of-fact way; "it is always so
at first."
Basil seemed relieved.
"Yes," he said, "_he_ said so too. But I don't mind. He says I shall
very soon be able to make it sound prettily--to get nice _sounds_, you
know, even before I can play tunes, if----" and Basil hesitated.
"If what?"
"If I practise a lot. But I think I shall. It's rather fun after all,
and I do so like to have that ducky little violin in my arms. It does
feel so jolly," and he turned with sparkling eyes again to the dainty
little case containing his new treasure.
His mother was pleased. The first brunt of disappointment which she was
sure Basil had felt, whether he owned to it or not, had passed off
better than she had expected.
[Illustration: BASIL'S VIOLIN
"----In the pantry, when he took it into his head to pay a visit to the
footmen." P. 101]
And for some days his energy continued. At all hours, when the boy was
at home, unearthly squeaks and shrieks were to be heard in various parts
of the house, for it was not at all Basil's way to confine his
practisings to his own quarters. Anywhere that came handy--on the
staircase, in the pantry, when he took it into his head to pay a visit
to the footmen, the boy and his violin were to be seen at all sorts of
odd hours, and alas, still more surely to be _heard_! For a while his
mother thought it best not to interfere, she did not wish to check his
ardour, and the second and third lessons went off, as far as she could
judge, very well. But gradually the violin grew less talkative--a day,
then a couple of days, then even longer, passed without its voice being
heard, and one day, towards the close of the fifth or sixth lesson, Lady
Iltyd, going into the room, saw a look she knew too well on her little
son's face. He flung down the violin and turned to Herr Wildermann--
"I _can't_ play any more--nasty thing--I believe it's got a bad fairy
inside it," he said, half in fun, half in petulance.
"Why, Basil----" began his mother, but her glance happening at the
moment to fall on the young German, she stopped short, startled at the
look of intense distress that overspread his features. "He thinks I
shall blame _him_, poor fellow," she thought, and, with her quick
kindliness, she tried, indirectly, to reassure him.
"Don't look so grave about this silly little boy, Herr Wildermann," she
said brightly. "Suppose you drive away the bad fairy by playing to us,
and let lazy Basil rest a little."
Basil's face, which had clouded over at the beginning of this speech,
brightened up again. He flung himself down on the rug with the air of
one intending to enjoy himself. And for the next ten minutes or so not a
sound was heard but the exquisite tones of the master's violin,
thrilling with intensity, then warbling like a bird in the joyous
spring-time, bringing the tears to the boy's eyes with its tender
pathos, and then flushing his cheeks with excitement, till at last they
died away in the distance as it were, as if returning to the enchanted
land from whence they came.
Basil gave a deep sigh.
"Ah," he said, in a low voice, "to play like _that_----"
Herr Wildermann's face lighted up.
"He _has_ it--he loves it so much, madame," he said half apologetically
to Lady Iltyd.
"Yes," she said, but her tone was rather grave. "But it is not enough to
love it. He must learn not to be so easily discouraged. You know, my
boy, what I said to you at the beginning," she went on, turning to
Basil, "it is not a _necessity_ to learn the violin. I would rather you
gave it up than make it a worry and vexation to yourself and others."
Basil stopped her with a kiss.
"It's only when the bad fairy comes," he said. "Don't be vexed with me,
mother. I'm in a beautiful good temper now."
A day or two after this, Basil's mother left home for a fortnight. She
said a few words to him before she went, about his violin lessons, but
not much, for she had heard him practising again with more attention,
and she had begun to hope his impatience and discouragement had been
merely a passing fit. So she only repeated to him what she had said
already. Basil listened in silence, with an expression on his face she
did not quite understand. But she thought it better to say no more,
especially when the boy flung his arms round her neck, and repeated more
than once--
"I do want to please you, little mother; I do, I do," he cried; and her
last sight of him, as the carriage drove away, was standing with his
violin in his arms at the hall-door, pretending to fiddle away at a
great rate.
"He is only a baby, after all," said Lady Iltyd to herself. "I must not
be too anxious about his faults. This fortnight will test his
perseverance about the violin. If he is not going to be steady about it,
he must give it up."
Alas! the fortnight tested Basil and found him wanting. There were some
excuses perhaps. It was very hot, and the half-yearly examinations were
coming on. In his parents' absence it had been arranged that he was to
stay later at school so as to get his lessons done before coming home--a
very necessary precaution; for without his mother at hand to keep him up
to his work, it is to be doubted if the lessons would often have been
finished before midnight! Basil would not have gone to bed and left them
undone--that was not his way; but he would have wasted three hours over
what with energy and cheerfulness might have been well done in one. At
school, under the eye of a master, this was less likely to occur--the
boy was to some extent _forced_ to give his attention and keep up his
spirit, though the master, whose business it was to superintend the
lessons preparing, found his labours increased in no trifling way during
the fortnight of Basil's staying later.
And when he got home after all this hard work, the boy felt inclined for
a romp with Blanche, or a stroll in the garden, far more than for
practising the violin! Half-holidays, too, in hot weather, presented
many temptations. The hay was down in the park on the side nearest the
house, the strawberries were at their prime; there seemed always
something else to do than struggling with the capricious little
instrument, whose "contrariness," as he called it, really made Basil
sometimes fancy it was bewitched.
"You've got it inside you; why won't you let it come out for me as well
as for him?" he would say, addressing his violin, half in fun, half in
petulance, after some vain but not very sustained effort to draw out of
it tones in any way approaching those which in Herr Wildermann's hands
seemed to come of themselves. "No, I've no patience with you. It's too
bad," and down he would fling violin and bow, declaring to himself he
would never touch them again. But when the day for the music lesson
came round, and Herr Wildermann drew out some few lovely notes before
Basil was ready to begin, all the boy's impatience disappeared, and he
listened as if entranced till his master recalled his attention. And
thus, seeing the child's undoubted love for music, Ulric could not yet
feel altogether discouraged, though again there were times when he
doubted if his efforts would ever succeed in making a musician of the
boy.
"But as long as he likes it so much," he would say to himself, "and
provided he does not _wish_ to give it up, it would be wrong of me to
suggest it. In any case it is for his mother to judge."
Before the fortnight was over, however, Herr Wildermann's patience was
sorely tried. There came a day on which, with a sudden outburst of
temper, Basil refused to try any more, and only by dint of promising to
play to him for a quarter of an hour after the lesson was over, could
his master get him to make any effort. Nor was it worth much when made.
And poor Ulric walked home that day to the little lodging over the
grocer's shop with a heavy heart.
PART III
IN the first pleasant excitement of her return home and finding the
children well, and to all appearance happy, Lady Iltyd did not think of
what had, nevertheless, been often in her mind during her
absence--namely, Basil's violin!
But the day after, when he came back from school and was beginning to
tell her all he had been busied about while she was away, the question
soon came to her lips, "And what about your violin, my boy?"
Basil hesitated--then his rosy face grew rosier than before, and he
stood first upon one leg and then upon the other, a habit of his when
not quite easy in his mind.
"Well?" said Lady Iltyd.
Then out it came.
"Mother," he began, "I didn't like to tell you yesterday just when you
first came back, but I was going to tell you. I know you'll be vexed,
but I must tell you the truth. I haven't got on a bit--I tried to
practise at first, but I _can't_ get to play, and I hate it--I mean I
hate not being able to play--and please, mother, I want to leave it
off."
A rather sad look came over Lady Iltyd's face, but she only said
quietly--
"Very well, Basil. You have quite made up your mind, I suppose?"
"Yes," he replied. "You know you always said, mother, I needn't go on
with it if I didn't--if it was too difficult," for he could not
truthfully say "if I didn't care for it."
"Yes. I told you it was no _necessity_. Very well, then, I will tell
Herr Wildermann to-morrow."
"But, mother," Basil hesitated, "I didn't want you to be vexed about
it."
"I am not _vexed_," his mother replied. "My disappointment is another
matter. But I will keep to what I said. It is better for you to give it
up than to make a trouble of it to yourself and others. Now run away,
for I am busy."
Basil went out of the room slowly, and not feeling altogether happy in
his mind. "It isn't fair of mother," he said to himself; "she told me I
needn't go on with it if I didn't like, and she never said she'd be
vexed if I gave it up, and she is vexed." But he would not remember how
much and often his mother had warned him before he began, how she had
told him of the patience and perseverance required, and how he had
refused to believe her! And, boy-like, he soon forgot all about it in a
game with Blanche and the dogs in the garden, or remembered it only with
a feeling of relief that he need not cut short his play to go in to
practise his unlucky violin. But a remark of his little sister's rather
destroyed his equanimity.
"I'm going in now, Basil," she said with the little "proper" air she
sometimes put on; "I've not finished my scales yet, and I won't have
time after tea. And you should go in for your violin, Basil. Come
along."
"No," said Basil, rolling himself again lazily on the smooth lawn; "I'm
not going to bother with it any more. I've given it up."
Blanche's eyes opened wide.
"Oh, Basil!" she exclaimed. "How sorry mother will be!"
"Rubbish," said Basil, roughly. "Mother always said I might leave it off
if I liked. I don't want you to preach to me, Blanche." Upon which
Blanche walked away, her little person erect with offended dignity.
Basil did not feel happy, but he called the dogs to him and went off
whistling.
The next day was a half-holiday. Basil came home at mid-day, and the
violin lesson was in the afternoon.
"Am I to have a lesson to-day, mother?" said the boy at luncheon.
"Herr Wildermann is coming," replied his mother, "it would be very rude
to let him come for nothing. I will see him first, and then you can go
to him for the hour. If he likes to play to you instead of your having a
lesson, I do not care. It does not signify _now_."
The idea would have been very much to Basil's taste, but the tone in
which his mother said that "now," made him again feel vexed. He tried to
fancy he had cause for being so, for he would not own to the real
truth--that he was vexed with himself, and that "himself" deserved it.
"It isn't fair," he repeated half sullenly.
Two hours later he was summoned to the library. Herr Wildermann had come
fully a quarter of an hour before--he had heard his ring, and he knew
his mother was in the drawing-room waiting for him. When he entered the
library he thought at first there was no one there--the violin cases lay
open on the table, the music-stand was placed ready as usual; but that
was all. No pleasant voice met him with a friendly greeting in broken
English and words of kindly encouragement.
"Can Herr Wildermann have gone already?" thought the boy. "He might have
waited to say good-bye. What did Sims call me for if he had gone?"
And he was turning to leave the room with a mixture of
feelings--irritation and some disappointment, mingled nevertheless with
a certain sense of relief, for he had dreaded this last lesson--when a
slight, a very slight sound seeming to come from somewhere near the
windows, caught his ear. He had come into the room more softly than his
wont, and his footfall had made no sound on the thick carpet. The person
who was hidden by the curtains had not heard him, had no idea any one
was in the room, for through a sort of half-choked sob the child heard
two or three confused words which, though uttered in German, were easy
enough to understand--
"My mother, ah, my poor mother! How can I tell her? Oh, my mother!"
And startled and shocked, Basil stopped short in the question that was
on his lips. "Who's there? Is it you, Blanche?" he had been on the
point of saying, when the words caught his ears.
"It must be Herr Wildermann--can he be _crying_?" said Basil to himself,
his cheeks growing red as the idea struck him. "What should I do?"
He had no time to consider the question, for as he stood in perplexity
his little dog Yelpie, who had followed him into the room, suddenly
becoming aware of the state of things, dashed forward with a short sharp
bark.
"Yelpie--Yelpie," cried Basil; "be quiet, Yelpie. It's only Herr
Wildermann. Don't you know him, Yelpie? What a stupid you are!"
He went on talking fast to give the young German time to recover
himself, for, on hearing Basil's voice, Ulric had come forward from the
shelter of the curtains. He was not red, but pale,--very pale, with a
look of such intense misery in his eyes, that Basil's momentary feeling
of contempt entirely faded into one of real anxiety and sympathy.
"Are you ill, Herr Wildermann? You look so strange. Is your mother ill?
Is anything dreadful the matter?" he asked hurriedly, pressing forward
nearer to the young man.
Ulric tried to smile, but it was a poor attempt, and he felt that it was
so. Suddenly a sort of weak, faint feeling came over him--he had walked
over to the Park in the full heat of the day, and the meals that were
eaten over the grocer's shop were very frugal!--he had not been prepared
for the news that had met him. "Could I--might I have a glass of water,
Master Basil?" he said, drawing to him a chair and dropping into it.
"I'll ring for--no, stay, I'll fetch it myself," said Basil, with quick
understanding. "I shouldn't like the servants to know he had been
_crying_--poor man," he thought to himself as he left the room. And in
two minutes he was back with a glass of wine and water.
"I made Sims put some sherry in it," he said half apologetically.
"You've knocked yourself up somehow, Herr Wildermann, haven't you?"
And Ulric drank obediently, and managed this time to smile more
successfully. "How kind and thoughtful the boy was--how could he be the
cause of such sorrow, if indeed he understood it!" thought the young man
to himself.
"I--yes--perhaps it was the hot sun," he said confusedly, as he put down
the glass. "Thank you, very much. I am all right now. Had we not better
begin? Not that I am hurried," he went on. "I can stay a full hour from
now. I have no engagements--nothing to hurry me home," he added sadly,
for in his heart he was thinking how he dreaded the return home, and
what he would have to tell his poor old mother.
"But what's the matter?" persisted Basil, who, now that the ice was
broken, felt inclined to get to the bottom of things. "What are you so
troubled about--what were you----?" He hesitated and stopped short, and
again his rosy cheeks grew redder than usual.
Herr Wildermann looked up. He was still very pale, but he did not seem
self-conscious or ashamed.
"You saw my distress?" he said quietly. "Ah, well, I could not help
it--the thought of my poor mother----" He turned away and bit his lips.
"I thought you knew the cause of it," he went on; "your lady mother, did
you not know--did she not tell you that she meant to-day to give me
notice that the lessons are to cease--that this is to be the last?"
Basil opened his mouth as if he meant to say something, and stood there,
forgetting to shut it again, and staring up in Ulric's face, though no
words came. Ulric, after waiting a moment or two, turned away and began
arranging the violins. Then at last the boy ejaculated--
"Herr Wildermann, you--you don't mean to say----" and stopped short
again.
"To say what?" asked the young German, but without much tone of interest
in his voice. He had quite mastered himself by now--a sort of dull,
hopeless resignation was coming over him--it did not seem to matter what
Basil said about it; it was all settled, and the momentary gleam of
good-fortune which had so raised his hopes had faded into the dark
again. "We must go back to Germany," he was saying to himself. "Somehow
or other I must scrape together money enough to take my mother back to
her own country. There at least she need not starve. I can earn our
daily bread, even if I have to give up music for ever."
But again Basil's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Herr Wildermann," said the boy, speaking now with eagerness, and
throwing aside his hesitation, "is it possible that it is about my
lessons that you're unhappy? Does it _matter_ to you if I give them up?
I never thought of it."
"Master Basil," said the young man sadly, "it does not signify now. It
is all settled. But I do not blame you. It is not your fault--at least,
it is not exactly your fault. You are so young, and the violin is very
difficult. I am sorry to lose you as a pupil, for I think you could have
learnt well, if you had had more hopefulness and perseverance."
And again he turned away as if there were no more to be said.
But Basil was not to be so easily satisfied.
"Herr Wildermann," he exclaimed, going nearer to his master and pulling
him gently by the sleeve, "that can't be all. I daresay you're vexed at
my giving it up when you've tried so hard to teach me, but that wouldn't
make you so _dreadfully_ sorry. Herr Wildermann, do tell me all about
it? Is it because--because of the money?" he whispered at last. "Are you
so--does it matter so much?"
Ulric turned his pale face to the boy. Its expression was still
sad--very sad, but quiet and resigned.
"Yes, my child," he said composedly. "Why should I hide it? There is no
shame in it--yes, it is because of the money. We are _very_ poor. And
also I had hoped much from giving you lessons. I thought if I succeeded
as I expected it would have brought me other pupils."
Basil gazed up in the young man's face for a moment or two without
speaking. He did not take in ideas very quickly, and perhaps he had
never before in his life thought so seriously as at this moment.
"I see," he said at last. "I did not understand before. If I had
known--but even now it is not too late, Herr Wildermann. I need not give
up my lessons. I will ask mother to let me go on with them, and you will
see she will agree in a moment."
A gleam of pleasure lighted up Ulric's pale face, but it faded almost as
quickly as it had come.
"Thank you for your kind thought, my little friend," he said; "but what
you propose would not be right. It would not be right for your mother to
pay me money for teaching you when she had decided that she did not want
me to teach you any more. It would be a mere charity to me--it would be
more honest for me to ask for charity at once," he went on, the colour
mounting to his face. "No, Basil, it could not be; but thank you as
much. Now let us go on with our lesson."
Basil understood, but was not satisfied. The lesson passed quietly.
Never had the boy so thoroughly given his attention, or tried so hard
to overcome the difficulties which had so disheartened him.
"It is too bad," he said to himself; "but it is all my own fault. I
believe I could have got on if I had really tried. And now it is too
late. He wouldn't give me lessons now, for he would think it was only
for him."
Suddenly an idea struck him.
"Herr Wildermann," he said, "won't you do _this_? Suppose I ask for just
six lessons more, and I _will_ try. You'll see if I don't. Well, after
these six, if I'm not getting on any better, it'll be given up. But if I
am, and if I really _want_ to go on, you won't think it's not right,
will you?"
Ulric hesitated.
"No," he said; "I have no scruples in going on teaching you, for I feel
certain you could learn well if you were more hopeful. But you must
explain it all to your mother, and--and----" He stopped short, and then
went on resolutely. "I will not be ashamed. It is for my
mother--anything for her. It was only the feeling, my boy--but perhaps
you are too young to understand--the feeling that it was almost like
asking charity."
"I do understand," exclaimed Basil, "and I don't think I need tell
mother _yet_, Herr Wildermann. I don't want to promise again, and
perhaps not keep my promise. I'll just ask for the six lessons, and tell
mother I can't tell her why just yet. And then think how surprised
she'll be if I really do get on;" and the boy's eyes sparkled with
delight. But to Ulric's there came tears of thankfulness.
If Lady Iltyd suspected in part what had worked the change in Basil's
ideas and prompted his request, she was too wise to say so. His petition
for six lessons more was granted willingly, but not lightly.
"Do you really mean to profit by them, Basil?" she asked. "If so, I am
only too willing that you should go on and give yourself a fair trial."
"That is it, mother," said the boy eagerly, "I want to see, to try if I
can't do better. At least that is _partly_ it," he went on, for he had
already told her that he could not explain the whole just yet.
So poor Ulric Wildermann went home with a lighter heart than he had
expected. He hoped much from these six lessons, for it was evident that
Basil meant to put his heart into them.
"I need not tell my mother of my fears," thought Ulric to himself, "for
they may, after all, prove to be only fears, and what would be the use
of making her miserable in such a case?" And he was so bright and
cheerful that evening in the little sitting-room over the grocer's shop,
that even his mother's eyes failed to discover that he had had more than
usual anxiety that day.
One week, two weeks, three weeks passed. It was the day of the last of
the six lessons.
"Mother," said Basil that morning when he was starting for school. "I
have my violin lesson this afternoon when I come home, you know. Herr
Wildermann told me to ask you if you would come in to-day while I am
playing. Not at the beginning, please, but about half-way through. He
wants you to see if I am getting on better," and then, with a very happy
kiss, he was off.
Lady Iltyd had left Basil quite to himself about his violin these last
weeks. She had not _heard_ much of his practising, but she had noticed
that he got his school lessons done quickly and without needing to be
reminded, and then regularly disappeared in his own quarters, and she
had her private hopes and expectations.
Nor were they disappointed. What cannot be done with patience and
cheerfulness? Those three weeks had seen more progress made than the
three months before, and Basil's eyes danced with pleasure when he left
off playing and stood waiting to hear what his mother would say.
She said nothing, but she drew him to her and kissed him tenderly, and
Basil, peeping up half shyly--for somehow, as he told Blanche
afterwards, "mother's _pleased_ kisses" always made him feel a little
shy--saw a glimmer of tears in her eyes.
"You _are_ pleased, mother?" he whispered, and another kiss was the
answer. Then the young stranger came forward.
"Herr Wildermann, I must thank you for all the trouble you have taken. I
am more than pleased," said Lady Iltyd warmly. "How have you succeeded
so well? You have taught him more than his music--you have taught him to
persevere, and to keep up heart in spite of difficulties."
"He has taught himself, madame," said Ulric eagerly, his face flushing.
"It was his kind heart that gave him what he needed. Ah, Master Basil,"
he went on, turning to his little pupil, "I must now tell the whole, and
then it will be to say if you are still to continue your lessons."
"The whole" was soon told, and it is easy to understand that it did not
lessen Lady Iltyd's pleasure. She had been glad to find her boy capable
of real effort and determination--she was still more glad to find that
the new motive which had prompted these was unselfish sympathy and
kindness.
"I thank you _again_, Herr Wildermann," she said, when the young man had
told her all, "you have, as I said, taught Basil more lessons than you
knew. And your mother is happy to have so good a son."
Better days began for the young music-master. Thanks to Basil's mother
and to Basil himself, for the boy became a pupil who would have done
credit to any master, Herr Wildermann gradually made his way in the
neighbourhood he had chosen for his new home, and his old mother's later
days were passed in peace and comfort. He always counted Tarnworth his
home, though as time went on he came to be well known as one of the
first violinists of the day, in London and others of the great capitals
of Europe.
But sometimes when his success and popularity were at the highest, he
would turn to the friend who had been his first pupil, and say half
regretfully--
"_You_ might excel me if you chose, Basil. I could sometimes find it in
my heart to wish that you too had been born a poor boy with his way to
make in the world."
And Basil Iltyd would laugh as he told Uric that his affection made him
over-estimate his pupil's talent.
"Though, such as it is," he added, "I have to thank you for having drawn
it out, and added untold pleasure to my life."
For though Basil had too many other duties to attend to for it to be
possible for him to devote very much time to music, he never neglected
it, and never forgot the gratitude he owed his mother for encouraging
his boyish taste.
"Above all," Lady Iltyd used often to say, "as in mastering the violin,
you gained your first battle over impatience and want of perseverance."
"My first but not my last," he would answer brightly. For Basil came to
be known for steady, cheerful determination, which, after all, is worth
many more brilliant gifts in the journey through life, which to even the
most fortunate is uphill and rugged and perplexing at times.
THE MISSING BON-BONS
A TRUE STORY
CHAPTER I
"Let it either be grave or glad
If only it may be true."
DEAR me, such a lot of children! At first you could hardly have believed
that they were all brothers and sisters--such a number there seemed, and
several so nearly of a size. There were--let me see--two, three, four,
actually five girls of varying heights, the two elder, twins apparently,
for in all respects they resembled each other so closely; three or four
boys, too, from Jack of fourteen to little hop-o'-my-thumb Chris of six.
There they were all together in the large empty playroom at Landell's
Manor, dancing, jumping, shouting, as only a roomful of perfectly
healthy children, under the influence of some unusual and delightful
excitement, can dance, and jump, and shout.
"Miss Campbell's coming to-day--joy, joy!" exclaimed one or two of the
little girls.
"Miss Campbell is coming, hurrah, hurrah!" sang Jack to the tune
irresistibly suggested by the words, and others joining in the chorus,
till the next boy created a diversion by starting the rival air of--
"Home for the holidays here we be,
Out of the clutches of L.L.D."
"'Tisn't home for the holidays," objected the smallest girl but one.
"Miss Campbell's never going to school no more. Her's coming home for
all-a-ways."
But in defiance of her remonstrance, the stirring strains continued,
till suddenly through the clamour a tiny shrill voice made itself heard.
"Let Towzer sing, let Towzer sing," it pleaded. "Towzer wants to sing
all be-lone."
There was a rush in the three-year-old baby's direction.
"Sing, of course she shall, the darling!" cried Maggie, the
"Jack-in-the-middle" of the five little sisters, and the first to reach
the small aspirant to vocal honours. "She shall stand on the table," she
continued, struggling breathlessly with "Towzer," as she tried to lift
her in her arms, "and----"
"Out of the way, Maggie. Out of the way, Flop!" shouted Jack, charging
down ruthlessly on to the little girls, sending Maggie to the
right-about and Flop to the left. "You are not to try to lift Towzer,
Maggie; mother has said so, ever so many times. You'll be dropping her
and smashing her to pieces some day, the way you smashed Lady
Rosalinda--you're far too little. There now, Towzer, my pet," as he
safely established her on the sturdy wooden table; "sing, and we'll all
clap."
Maggie retreated resentfully, muttering as she did so, "I'm not
little--I'm seven; and Towzer isn't made of wax."
"Silence," shouted Jack, and the baby began her song.
"Miss Tammel are coming out of L. D.," she began. Shouts of laughter.
"Go on, darling; that's beautiful. Clap, clap, can't you! She thinks
we're laughing at her," said Jack, the latter part of his speech an
"aside" to the audience.
But it was too late; Towzer's feelings were deeply wounded.
"Towzer won't sing no more, naughty Jack, and naughty Patty, and Edith,
and naughty all boys and girls to laugh at Towzer," she cried, her very
blue eyes filling with tears. She was such a pretty little girl, "fair,
fair, with" not "golden," I should rather say, "silvern hair," so very
pale were the soft silky locks that clustered round her little head. How
she ever came to be called "Towzer," her real name being Angela, would
have puzzled any one unused to the extraordinary things invented by
children's brains, and the queer grotesque charm which the "rule of
contrary," especially as applied to nicknames, seems to possess for
them.
Towzer's tears flowed piteously; everybody at once was trying to console
her, and poor Towzer was all but suffocated among them, when there came
a sudden interruption--a maid servant appeared at the door.
"Master Jack and Master Max," she said as soon as she could make herself
heard, "your mamma wished me to say as she hoped you were remembering
about finishing your lessons early, for Miss Campbell's train is due at
Stapleham at five, and your papa's ordered the carriage at four, and
will be annoyed if you're not ready. And Miss Patty, I was to say," she
was continuing, when suddenly she caught sight of "the baby" still on
the table, in a sad state of crush and discomposure, as, Jack and Max
having already rushed off, all the remaining children were fighting for
her possession. "Now that is too bad, I do declare! What are you all
pulling and dragging at the dear child for? Making her cry, too. Miss
Maggie, you've been teasing her, I'm certain--you're always in mischief.
I'm sure I don't know whatever nurse will say--Miss Hangela's frock just
clean on! I'm sure I hope Miss Campbell will keep you in better order, I
do; for since your mamma's been ill, it's just dreadful the way you go
on."
"I didn't make her cry," "And I'm sure I didn't," cried Patty and Edith
at once.
"Then it's Miss Maggie, as usual; you come too, Miss Florence,"
said Dawson, as she walked off with the rescued Towzer in her arms
and Flop at her heels, taking no notice of Maggie's indignant
exclamation--"You're a nasty, horrid, cross thing, Dawson! and I only
hope Miss Campbell will set you down when she comes."
Great things were evidently expected of "Miss Campbell," and by no one
in the house was her return looked for more eagerly than by her invalid
mother, who had of late found the care of her many boys and girls,
weigh heavily on her. For this reason Eleanor, the eldest daughter of
the family, a girl of seventeen, had been recalled from a school in
Paris sooner than would otherwise have been the case, and it was her
expected arrival this very evening that had caused all the playroom
commotion. It was a year, fully a year, since she had been at home, and
it was no wonder that all her brothers and sisters rejoiced at her
return, for she was kind and unselfish, bright and merry, and the old
Manor House without her had lost half its sunshine.
Five o'clock--all the children are already at the windows, some at the
door, though "she cannot be here till six or half-past," says mamma; and
nurse valiantly refuses to put on Towzer's second clean frock for
another hour at least.
Six o'clock at last--five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter past--oh, how
slowly the time goes! At last wheels, unmistakable wheels up the drive!
Jack's head poked ever so far out of the carriage window on one side,
and Max's on the other. A general shriek, "They've come! they've come!"
and in another minute Eleanor is in her mother's arms, to be released
from them only to be hugged and re-hugged and hugged again; while from
every direction comes the cry, "Miss Campbell has come, dear Miss
Campbell." "Miss Tammel are tum, dear Miss Tammel."
* * * * *
At last they are all in bed--Jack, Max, Harry, Chris, Patty, Edith,
Maggie, Flop, and Towzer; and Miss Campbell is free to sit quietly
beside her mother's sofa, with her soft thin hands in hers.
"Oh, dear Eleanor, how nice it is to have you home again!"
"Oh, dear mamma, how nice it is to be at home again!"
Then they talked together of many things--of Eleanor's school-life and
friends, of all that had happened at home while she was away, of all the
girl hoped to do to help her mother.
"I shall be so thankful if you do not find the children too much for
you," said Mrs. Campbell. "You see, Miss Fanshawe is excellent as a
daily governess, but she could not possibly stay here altogether, on
account of her invalid father; if only it is not putting too much on
you, my darling," she added anxiously.
Eleanor stooped over and kissed her mother.
"Don't fear, dear; I may make mistakes, but I shall learn. They are
dear children; how funny it is how my old name for myself has clung to
me! I could fancy myself a baby again when I heard that tiny Towzer
calling me 'Miss Tammel.'"
"You will never get them to call you anything else," said her mother.
"It must sound rather odd to strangers."
"And at school I was always Eleanor! But how glad I am to be 'Miss
Tammel' again. I have brought some small presents for the children," she
went on; "books for Patty and Edith, and dolls for the three little ones
and a few bon-bons--not many, but coming from Paris I thought they would
expect some. There are two little boxes exactly alike for Flop and
Towzer, and a rather larger one for Maggie. So there will be no excuse
for squabbling."
"No; that will be very nice. Poor Maggie," said Mrs. Campbell; "I fear
you will find her the most troublesome. She is an 'odd' one; perhaps
that has to do with it, but somehow she seems always getting into
scrapes, and I fancy the others are a little sharp on her. She has a
queer temper, but she is a very clever child."
"She is honest and truthful, however, is she not?" said Eleanor. "I can
stand anything if a child is that; but deceitfulness----" Her fair
young brow contracted, and a slightly hard expression came over her
face.
"I hope so," said her mother; "I have no reason to think otherwise. But
she has an extraordinary vivid imagination, and she is curiously
impressionable--the sort of child that might be worked upon to imagine
what was not true."
"Still truth is truth. There can be no excuse for a falsehood," said
Eleanor.
"Mother is too indulgent and gentle in some ways," she thought. "I must
look after Maggie, and be firm with her."
"But gentleness encourages truth, where severity might crush it," said
her mother softly, as if she had heard Eleanor's unspoken words.
Miss Campbell made no reply, but she pressed her mother's hand.
"And the day after to-morrow, mother dear, you will be leaving us!" she
said regretfully.
"Yes, but only for a month; and now that you are here, your father and I
can leave with such lightened hearts. I feel sure that the change to St.
Abbots will do me good now," replied Mrs. Campbell cheerfully.
CHAPTER II
TO-MORROW--the first part of it at least--found the excitement scarcely
less great than on the day of Miss Campbell's arrival. For there were
the presents to distribute! A delightful business to all concerned, as
Eleanor had invariably succeeded in choosing "just what I wanted more
than anything," and the hugs she had again to submit to were really
alarming, both as to quantity and quality. And among all the children
none hugged her more than Maggie.
"It's like Santa Claus morning--goodies too," she exclaimed, dancing
about in delight.
"Don't talk nonsense, you silly child," said Patty, who was of a prosaic
and literal turn of mind. "You wouldn't believe, Miss Campbell," she
went on, turning to her elder sister, "would you, that Maggie last
Christmas went and told Flop that Santa Claus was a real old man, and
that he really came down the chimney, and poor Flop wakened in the
night, quite frightened--screaming--and so mamma said Maggie was never
to speak about Santa Claus again, and you _are_ doing so, Maggie," she
wound up with, virtuously.
"But it's so pretty about Santa Claus, and so funny, isn't it, Miss
Campbell?" said Maggie, peering up into Eleanor's face with her bright,
restless, gray-green eyes.
"Nothing can be funny or pretty that mamma tells you not to talk about,
Maggie," said Miss Campbell.
"Oh no; I know that, and I didn't mean to speak of it again. But except
for that--if Flop hadn't got frightened, it would be nice, wouldn't it?
I have such a lot of fairies all my own, and I wanted Flop to have some,
and she wouldn't."
"She was very wise; and I think, Maggie, you might find some better
things to amuse yourself with than such fancies," said Eleanor rather
severely.
Maggie's face fell.
"I'm always naughty," she whispered to herself. "Even Miss Campbell
thinks me so already, and I'm sure fairies teach me to be good."
In her vague childish way she had been looking forward to full sympathy
from her eldest sister, and her hard tone disconcerted her.
"Now run off, dears, quickly," said Eleanor; "you've got your goodies
safe."
Off they trotted, Towzer's little fat hands clasping tight her
treasures.
"Dollies and doodies; Towzer and Flop dot just the same," she said with
delight to nurse when they reached their own domain.
"And don't you think, dearie, you'd better let nurse keep the goodies
for you? See here, dears," said nurse to the two little girls, "we'll
put both boxes up on the high chest of drawers, where they'll be quite
safe, and you shall have some every day. Shall we finish Miss Flop's
first and then Miss Baby's? It'll keep them fresher, not to have one box
opened till the other's done. Miss Maggie, I suppose you'll keep your
own?"
"Yes," said Maggie; and so it was arranged.
"I'll keep mine till my birthday, and then I'll have a fairy feast, and
invite Flop and Towzer," was Maggie's secret determination, which,
however, she communicated to no one. And though she spent a great part
of her playtime unobserved in arranging and rearranging the pretty
bon-bons, not one found its way to her mouth. Her birthday was to be in
a fortnight.
The next day Mr. and Mrs. Campbell left home, and Eleanor's reign began;
auspiciously enough to all appearance.
"You'll be gentle with them all, dear, especially Maggie; they have not
been under regular discipline for some time, you know?" said Mrs.
Campbell as she kissed Eleanor.
"Of course, mamma dear; can't you trust me?" was the reply, with the
slightest touch of reproach; and to herself the girl whispered, "Real
kindness and gentleness are not incompatible with firmness, however."
On the fourth day the calm was interrupted. Eleanor had just returned
from a drive to Stapleham, to fetch the afternoon letters, when she was
seized upon by Patty and Edith in hot indignation.
"Miss Campbell! Miss Campbell!" they cried. "What do you think that
naughty, greedy, mean Maggie has done? She's stolen poor Towzer's
goodies--all of them--at least, half--the box was half full, nurse says,
and though nurse all but saw her, she will say she didn't take them, and
there was no one else in the night nursery this afternoon. Maggie was
left in alone for half an hour, because she had a little cold, and when
nurse and the little ones came in Towzer's box was gone."
Eleanor leant on the hall table for a moment. A sick faint feeling went
through her. Maggie, her own sister, to be capable of such a thing! To
her rigorous inexperience it seemed terrible. The idea that taking what
was not one's own and then denying it was hardly, at seven years old, to
be described by the terms such actions on the part of an older person
would deserve, would have seemed to her weak tampering with evil.
"Oh, Patty," she exclaimed, "are you sure?"
"Come up and see for yourself. Nurse will tell you," said the twins, too
eagerly indignant to notice or pity their sister's distress; and Eleanor
followed their advice.
The charge seemed sadly well founded. Nurse described the position of
the boxes.
"Up on the high chest of drawers, where none of the littler ones than
Miss Maggie could climb," she said. Flop's was empty, Towzer's still
half full, when they went out that afternoon, and nurse returning
unexpectedly, had caught sight of Maggie running out of the night
nursery--"where she had no business to be. I had told her to stay in the
other room by the fire, and there's nothing of hers in there; for you
know, miss, she sleeps in Miss Patty's room."
"And what reason did she give for being there?"
"She got very red, miss, and at first wouldn't say anything; but I saw
she had been clambering up--a chair was dragged out of its place--and
so then she said it was to stretch out of the window to gather some of
the ivy leaves to ornament her goodies. And I was that silly, I believed
her," said nurse, with considerable self-disgust.
"You didn't look at the bon-bons then?"
"Never thought of them, miss, till we came in, and the little ones asked
for some, and I reached up and found only the one box, and that empty."
"And you've looked all about? You're sure it hasn't fallen down?"
"Oh dear, no! Of course I looked everywhere. Besides, I saw Miss Maggie
after something in there," said nurse conclusively, "and my parasol that
always lies on the drawers was on the floor when I came in."
"Maggie," said Eleanor, "do you hear that? You must have climbed up to
the drawers."
"Yes," said Maggie; "I did."
Eleanor breathed more freely.
"What for?"
Maggie hesitated.
"I wanted the parasol to hook the leaves," she said; "I saw it when I
stood on the chair."
"Patty," said Eleanor, "go and see if there are any leaves on Maggie's
goodies."
[Illustration: THE MISSING BON-BONS
"Yes," said Maggie, "I was getting the parasol." P. 139]
Patty returned. No, there were none.
"Well, Maggie?" said Eleanor.
"I know there aren't. I didn't get them. Nurse scolded me, and I didn't
like to go back to get them."
"Was she near the window when you saw her, nurse?"
"No, miss; she was nearer to the drawers, and so was the chair."
"Yes," said Maggie, "I was getting the parasol."
Eleanor said no more, but, rather to nurse's annoyance, went herself to
the night nursery and thoroughly examined it. There was no trace of the
lost bon-bons.
"And supposing she has eaten the bon-bons, where is the box?" she said.
"She may have thrown it in the fire; very likely she didn't mean to keep
the box. She may have slipped it into her pocket in a fright," said
nurse. But no trace of it was now to be seen in Maggie's pocket.
"Maggie," said Eleanor, "I cannot send you to your room on account of
your cold. But no one is to speak to you till you confess all. I shall
ask you again at bedtime, and I trust you will then speak the truth. Now
Patty, and Edith, and Flop, remember Maggie's not to be spoken to."
"Nasty greedy thing; and not one of her own goodies eaten," muttered
Patty. "I'm sure no one will want to speak to her."
"Hush, Patty. Don't cry, Towzer darling," said Eleanor, for poor Towzer
was sobbing bitterly, though her grief was inconsistent in its objects.
"No doodies, and poor Maggie!" was her lament.
To divert her "Miss Tammell" carried her off to the drawing-room. And
thus Maggie was sent to Coventry.
By bedtime her features were hardly to be recognised, so blurred and
swollen with crying was the poor little face. But still there was no
confession. "I didn't touch Towzer's goodies," she persisted over and
over again. Eleanor's heart ached, but still duty must be done.
"How can she persist so?" she said, turning to nurse.
"Yes indeed, Miss Maggie, how can you?" said nurse. "It would almost
make one believe her if there was a chance of it, but I've had every bit
of furniture out of the room, or turned about just to make sure. Miss
Maggie's a queer child, once she takes a thing into her head; but she's
not exactly obstinate either."
So Maggie, "unshriven and unforgiven," was put to bed in her misery,
with no kind kiss or loving "good-night." "If she would but own to it,
dreadful though it is," sighed Eleanor. But two days--two days, and,
worse still, two nights--went by, and still the child held out. Eleanor
herself began to feel quite ill, and Maggie grew like a little ghost.
Her character seemed to have changed strangely--she flew into no
passions, and called no one any names; apparently she felt no
resentment, only misery. But how terribly crushing was the Pariah-like
life she led in the nursery, probably none of those about her had the
least idea of. On the third morning there came a change.
"Miss Campbell! Miss Campbell!" said Patty and Edith, slipping with bare
feet and night-gowned little figures into their sister's room--quite
against orders, but it was a great occasion--"wake up, wake up, Maggie's
confessed!"
And so it proved. There sat Maggie upright in her cot, with flushed face
and excited eyes.
"I took them, Miss Campbell. I did take Towzer's goodies, and eatened
them up."
Eleanor sat down on the side of the little bed.
"Oh, Maggie!" she said reproachfully. "How could you! But, still more,
how could you deny it so often?"
Maggie looked at her bewilderedly, then meeting the stern reproach in
her sister's eyes, hid her face in the bed-clothes while she murmured
something about not having remembered before.
"Hush!" said Eleanor, "don't make things worse by false excuses."
"Make her tell all about it," whispered Patty.
"No," said Eleanor; "it would only tempt her to invent palliations. It
is miserable enough--I don't want to hear any more."
What "palliations" were, to Patty was by no means clear.
"At least," she persisted, "you might ask her what she did with the
box."
Maggie caught the words.
"I didn't touch the box," she said, "only the goodies."
"Oh, what a story!" exclaimed the twins.
"Be quiet, children; I will not have any more said. Don't you see what
it will lead her into," said Eleanor.
But some of her old spirit seemed to have returned to Maggie. Her eyes
sparkled with eagerness as she repeated, "I didn't touch the box; no, I
never did. Only the goodies."
"Maggie, you are to say no more, but listen to me," said Eleanor. Then
sending Patty and Edith away, she spoke to the culprit as earnestly as
she knew how of the sin of which she had been guilty, ending by making
her repeat after her a few simple words of prayer for pardon. All this
Maggie received submissively, only whispering, as if to herself, "But I
do think God might have made me remember before!" which remark Eleanor
judged it best to ignore. Then she kissed Maggie, and the child clung to
her affectionately. But still Eleanor could not feel satisfied; there
was a dreamy vagueness about the little girl, a want, it seemed to
Eleanor, of realising her fault to the full, which puzzled and perplexed
her. Still Maggie was restored to favour, and in a day or two seemed
much the same as usual, even flying into a passion when, contrary to
Eleanor's order, the subject was alluded to in the nursery and curiosity
expressed as to what had become of the box. "I don't mind you saying I
took the goodies," she said. "I did; but I never touched the box."
A week, ten days, went by. It was the evening before Maggie's birthday.
All the children were in bed, Jack and Max at their lessons in their
own room, when a tap came at the door of the library, where Miss
Campbell was sitting alone, and in answer to her "come in," nurse
entered. She looked pale and discomposed. Eleanor could almost have
fancied she had been crying.
"What is the matter?" she exclaimed.
"This, Miss Campbell, this is the matter," said nurse, laying a little
box on the table; "and, oh! when I think what that poor child suffered,
I feel as if I could never forgive myself."
"Flop's box!" said Eleanor, bewildered; "it can't be--surely it is
Towzer's--and," as she opened it, "half full of bon-bons!"
"Yes, miss; just as it was left."
"And Maggie never touched them?"
"Never touched them, miss," said nurse solemnly. Then she explained. A
dressmaker from the neighbouring town had been in the nursery the day
the bon-bons were missed, fitting nurse in the very room where they
were. And on this person's return home, she had found the little box
among the folds of the material. "I remember tossing a lot of things up
on to the drawers to be out of the way, because Miss Baby would climb on
to my bed, where they were, and I thought she would crush them," said
nurse; "and Miss Weaver never thought it of any consequence, or she
would have brought it before. It's a long walk from Stapleham, and she
knew she would be coming in a few days with my new dress, so thought it
wouldn't matter."
Nurse was so genuinely distressed that Eleanor could not find it in her
heart to say anything to add to her trouble. Besides, how could she, of
all others, do so?
"I," she reflected, "with mamma's warning in my ears. Ah yes, I see now
what she meant by Maggie's impressionableness, and imaginativeness, and
the tender treatment she needs."
The next day Eleanor herself told Maggie of the discovery, and showed
her the box. For a moment an expression of extreme perplexity clouded
the child's face. Then like a sudden ray of sunshine, light broke over
it.
"I know, Miss Campbell!" she exclaimed, "I know how it was. I thinkened
and thinkened so much about it that at last I dreamed it. But only about
the goodies, not the box. So I didn't tell a story, did I, Miss
Campbell? Dreams aren't stories."
"No, darling. And will you forgive me for doubting you?" said Eleanor.
"But how could you help it, Miss Campbell, dear Miss Campbell?" cried
Maggie, without a touch of resentment.
So Maggie was cleared, and the new sympathy with her, born of this
grievous mistake, never failed her on the part of her eldest sister; and
Maggie's temper and odd ways gradually softened down into no worse
things than unusual energy and very decided talent. She became
undoubtedly the "clever woman of the family," but as her heart expanded
with her head, Eleanor had good reason to feel happy pride in her young
sister. And when the mother came home, after a month's absence, to find
all prospering under Miss Campbell's care, and Eleanor felt free to tell
her all that happened--which by letter, for fear of troubling her, she
had refrained from doing--she felt that her one misgiving as to her
eldest daughter's influence over the younger ones was removed. The
lesson of the missing bon-bons would never be forgotten. Poor Maggie's
three days of suffering had not been in vain.
LOST ROLLO
CHAPTER I
EVER since Persis and I were quite little there was one thing we longed
for more than anything else. I think most children have some great wish,
or fancy, perhaps grown-up people would call it, like that. But with
many it changes, especially of course if they get the thing--_then_ they
set to work longing and planning for something else. But Persis and I
didn't change--not even when we got it, or thought we had got it, for
good. We wished for it for so long that it really seemed to grow with
us; the older and bigger we grew, the stronger and bigger our wish
seemed to grow. We were only seven and five--that sounds rather awkward,
but I don't see how else to put it, for Persis is a girl, so I must put
her age first!--she was seven and I was five (that sounds better), when
we first began wishing for it. It was a story that first put it into our
heads, and after that, nearly every story we read or heard seemed to
have to do with it somehow, and to put it still more into them. And we
were--I mean to say Persis was eleven, and I was nine when what we
thought was going to be the fulfilment of our wish came. That was really
a long time. Four years--four summers and winters and autumns and
springs--to keep on thinking about a thing and wishing for it!
I have not yet said what it was we wished for so much. It was to have a
dog of our very own. Not a stupid little dog, though even that would
perhaps have been better than nothing, but a great beautiful _big_ dog.
We did change about a little, as to the exact kind we wished for most,
but that was partly because at first we didn't understand very well
about all the sorts of big dogs there are, and whatever kind we happened
to read about or see a picture of, we fancied would be the nicest. But
in the end we came back pretty near to what we had begun with. We
settled that we would like a collie best of all, because they are so
faithful and intelligent, and as the dog in the story which had made us
think of it first was a sheep-dog. That was almost the same thing, for
though all sheep-dogs are not collies, all collies _are_ sheep-dogs.
It was two years ago that it all happened. I am eleven now, and Persis
of course is thirteen, as she is two years older. That year we didn't
know where we were to go to for the holidays. Papa is a lawyer; I can't
exactly tell you what kind of a lawyer, but I think he is rather a grand
one, for he is always very busy, and I know he can't do half what people
want him to do, though there are many lawyers in London who have very
little indeed to do, mamma says. I always think it is such a pity papa
can't give them some of _his_ work, isn't it? But with being so busy, of
course he gets very few holidays, and sometimes he can't tell till just
the day or so before whether he will be able to go away or not. And
mamma doesn't like to go without him, so two or three times we children
have had to be sent away alone with our governess and Eliza the
schoolroom maid, and we don't like that at all.
It was getting very near the holidays, already the middle of July, and
though we had several times asked mamma where we were going, she had
never been able to tell us, and at last she got tired of our asking, and
said in her rather vexed voice--she has a vexed voice, and a _very_
vexed voice as well, but when it isn't as bad as either of these we
call it her "_rather_ vexed" voice.
"Persis and Archie, I wish you would not ask the same thing so often.
When I have anything to tell you I promise you I will do so at once."
Then _we_ promised we would not tease her about it any more, though we
could not help talking about it a good deal to ourselves.
"I'm afraid we're going to be sent with Miss Ellis and Eliza like last
year," I said.
"It'll be too bad--two years running," Persis replied. "But it wouldn't
be nearly so bad if we had a dog, would it, Archie? Miss Ellis couldn't
be so frightened then of going on nice long walks. But it's no use
thinking about it. Mamma will never let us have one, I'm afraid."
For though mamma is very kind to animals--she wouldn't hurt any creature
for the world, and she doesn't even like killing a wasp--she does not
care much about pets, particularly not in town. She always says they are
not happy except in the country. At least she used to say so. I think
she has rather changed her opinion now.
"No," I said, sighing; "I'm afraid it's best to try to leave off
thinking about it. We have thought about it such a long time, Persis."
But I don't think our fixing not to think any more about it really did
make us leave off doing so. The only sensible way of putting a thing out
of your head is by putting something else there instead, and this
happened to us just then, though it didn't make us really forget about
our dog for _good_, of course.
One morning, about a week after the day she had told us we weren't to
tease any more, mamma called us into the drawing-room.
"Persis and Archie," she said, "I promised I would tell you as soon as I
knew myself about going to the country. And you have been good children
in not teasing again about it. So I am pleased to have good news for
you. We are going next week to a lovely place where you have never been
before. It is on the borders of Wildmoor--that beautiful great moor
where I used sometimes to go when I was little. There are lovely walks,
and it is _quite_ country, so I hope you will be very happy there."
"And we are _all_ going--you and papa too?" we said.
"Yes, _all_," mamma answered, smiling. "Would you rather have gone
without us?"
Of course she only said that to tease us--she knew quite well we
wouldn't. And of course we both jumped up and hugged her and told her
she was a very naughty little mamma to speak like that.
"We like Miss Ellis very well, you know, mamma," said Persis, "but still
we _couldn't_ like going with her as well as with you and papa."
"Indeed," said mamma, "and supposing, just _supposing_ Miss Ellis
couldn't come too, would it spoil your pleasure very much?"
We looked rather grave at this, for we hardly knew what to answer. It
seemed unkind to say we should _not_ much mind, for Miss Ellis is really
very kind, especially when we are left alone with her. But yet it
wouldn't have been true to say it _would_ spoil our pleasure, and if you
children are _real_ children who read this, or even if you are big
people who haven't forgotten about being children, you will know how
nice it is sometimes to get quite away from lessons and lesson-books,
and as it were to forget all about them--to be something like lambs, or
squirrels, or rabbits, in one's feelings, just thinking about nothing
except how lovely the sunshine is, and the grass, and the trees, and
being alive altogether. And I don't think it does us any harm, for
afterwards, I think it makes us like lessons better again, when we come
back to them, partly because it's a change, and partly too because after
so much play, the least we can do is to try to work well. But still it
seemed unkind to Miss Ellis to say we wouldn't mind.
At last Persis, who generally thinks of the right thing to say, looked
up brightly.
"If Miss Ellis herself didn't mind, and was perhaps going to see her own
friends and be very happy, _then_ we wouldn't mind, mamma."
Mamma smiled.
"That's right, Persis, and that's just how it is. Miss Ellis is going to
have a holiday, so you and Archie may enjoy your own holiday with clear
consciences."
We were awfully glad after that. Everything seemed right.
"If _only_," I said, "we had our dog, Bruno, Persis."
For we had given our fancy dog a name, and spoke him as if he really
lived.
"Hush, Archie," said Persis, "you promised to leave off thinking about
him. It seems greedy to want everything. Just _fancy_ what we have
compared with poor children. Lots of them don't even have one single
day in the country, Archie," which made me feel rather ashamed of
wishing for anything more. It was good of Persis to put it that way.