THE BULLERS--MATILDA TAKES ME UP--WE FALL OUT--MR. GEORGE.
Major Buller took me home to his house after my father's death. My
father had left his affairs in his hands, and in those of a friend in
England--the Mr. Arkwright he had spoken of. I believe they were both
trustees under my mother's marriage settlement.
The Bullers were relations of mine. Mrs. Buller was my mother's cousin.
She was a kind-hearted, talkative lady, and good-looking, though no
longer very young. She dressed as gaily as my poor mother, though,
somehow, not with quite so good an effect. She copied my mother's style,
and sometimes wore things exactly similar to hers; but the result was
not the same. I have heard Mrs. Minchin say that my mother took a
malicious pleasure, at times, in wearing costumes that would have been
most trying to beauty less radiant and youthful than hers, for the fun
of seeing "poor Theresa" appear in a similar garb with less success. But
Mrs. Minchin's tales had always a sting in them!
Mrs. Buller received me very kindly. She kissed me, and told me to call
her "Aunt Theresa," which I did ever afterwards. Aunt Theresa's
daughters and I were like sisters. They showed me their best frocks, and
told me exactly all that had been ordered in the parcel that was coming
out from England.
"Don't you have your hair put in papers?" said Matilda, whose own curls
sat stiffly round her head as regularly as the rolls of a lawyer's wig.
"Are your socks like lace? Doesn't your Ayah dress you every afternoon?"
Matilda "took me up." She was four years older than I was, which
entitled her to blend patronage with her affection for me. In the
evening of the day on which I went to the Bullers, she took me by the
hand, and tossing her curls said, "I have taken you up, Margery
Vandaleur. Mrs. Minchin told Mamma that she has taken the bride up. I
heard her say that the bride was a sweet little puss, only so childish.
That's just what Mrs. Minchin said. I heard her. And I shall say so of
you, too, as I've taken you up. You're a sweet little puss. And of
course you're childish, because you're a child," adds Miss Matilda, with
an air. For had not she begun to write her own age with two figures?
Had I known then as much as I learned afterwards of what it meant to be
"taken up" by Mrs. Minchin, I might not have thought the comparison a
good omen for my friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs.
Minchin meant an equally hot quarrel at no very distant date. The
squabble with the bride was not slow to come, but Matilda and I fell out
first. I think she was tyrannical, and I know I was peevish. My Ayah
spoilt me; I spoke very broken English, and by no means understood all
that the Bullers said to me; besides which, I was feverishly unhappy at
intervals about my father.
It was two months before Mrs. Minchin found out that her sweet little
puss was a deceitful little cat; but at the end of two days I had
offended Matilda, and we plunged into a war of words such as children
wage when they squabble.
"I won't show you any more of my dresses," said Matilda.
"I've seen them all," I boldly asserted; and the stroke told.
"You don't know that," said Matilda.
"Yes, I do."
"No, you don't."
"Well, show me the others then."
"No, that I won't."
"I don't care."
"I've got a blue silk coming out from England," Matilda continued, "but
you haven't."
"I've got a pink silk here," said I, "and pink shoes."
"Ah, but you can't wear them now your papa's dead," said Matilda; "Mamma
says you will have to wear black for twelve months."
I am sure Matilda did not mean to be cruel, but this blow cut me deeply.
I remember the tide of misery that seemed to flood over my mind, to this
day. I was miserable because my father was dead, and I could not go to
him for comfort. I was miserable because I was out of temper, and
Matilda had had the best of the quarrel. I was miserable--poor little
wretch!--because I could not wear my pink silk, now my father was dead.
I put my hands to my eyes, and screaming, "Papa! Papa!" I rushed out
into the verandah.
As I ran out, some one ran in; we struck against each other, and Bustle
and I rolled over on to the floor. In a moment more I was in Mr.
Abercrombie's arms, and sobbing out my woes to him.
I am sorry to say that he swore rather loudly when he heard what Matilda
had said, and I fancy that he lectured her when I had gone to Ayah, for
she came to me presently and begged my pardon. Of course we were at once
as friendly as before. Many another breach was there between us after
that, hastily made and quickly healed. But the bride and Mrs. Minchin
never came to terms.
"Mr. George" remained my devoted friend. I looked for him as I used to
look for my father. The first time I saw him after I came to the Bullers
was on the day of my father's funeral. He was there, and came back with
Major Buller. I was on Mr. George's knee in a moment, with my hand
through the crape upon his sleeve. The Major slowly unfastened his
sword-belt, and laid it down with a sigh, saying, "We've lost a good
man, Abercrombie, and a true friend."
"You don't know what a friend to me," said Mr. George impetuously. "Why,
look here, sir. A month or two ago I'd outrun the constable--I always am
getting into a mess of some sort--and Vandaleur found it out and lent me
the money."
"You're not the first youngster he has helped by many, to my knowledge,"
said Major Buller.
"But that's not all, sir," said Mr. George, standing up with me in his
arms. "When we first went in that night, you remember his speaking
privately to me once? Well, what he said was, 'I think I'm following the
rest, Abercrombie, and I wanted to speak to you about this.' He had got
my I.O.U. in his hand, and he tore it across, and said, 'Don't bother
any more about it; but keep straight, my boy, if you can, for your
people's sake.' I'm sadly given to going crooked, sir, but if anything
could make a fellow----"
Mr. George got no further in his sentence, but the Major seemed to
understand what he meant, for he spoke very kindly to him, and they left
me for a bit and walked up and down the verandah together. Just before
Mr. George left, I heard him say, "Have you heard anything of Mrs.
Vandaleur?"
"I wrote to her, in the best fashion that I could," said Major Buller.
"But there's no breaking rough news gently, Abercrombie. I ought to hear
from her soon."
But he never did hear from her. My poor mother had fled from the cholera
only to fall a victim to fever. The news of my father's death was, I
believe, the immediate cause of the relapse in which she died.
And so I became an orphan.
Shortly afterwards the regiment was ordered home, and the Bullers took
me with them.