Then there was the account of how it had been at first intended that Oberon should be represented by little Sir Adrian, with his Bexley cousin, Pearl Underwood, for his Titania; but though she was fairy enough for anything, he turned out so stolid, and uttered ‘Well met by moonlight, proud Titania,’ the only lines he ever learnt, exactly like a lesson, besides crying whenever asked to study his part, that the attempt had to be given up, and the fairy sovereigns had to be of large size, Mr. Grinstead pronouncing that probably this was intended by Shakespeare, as Titania was a name of Diana, and he combined Grecian nymphs with English fairies. So Gerald Underwood had to combine the part of Peter Quince (including Thisbe) with that of Oberon, and the queen was offered to Gillian.
‘But I had learnt Hermia,’ she said, ‘and I saw it was politeness, so I wouldn’t, and Anna Vanderkist is ever so much prettier, besides being used to acting with Gerald. She did look perfectly lovely, asleep on the moss in the scene Mrs. Grinstead painted and devised for her! There was—’
‘Oh! not only the prettiness, I don’t care for that. One gets enough of the artistic, but the fun—the dear fun.’
‘There was fun enough, I am sure,’ said Gillian. ‘Puck was Felix—Pearl’s brother, you know—eleven years old, so clever, and an awful imp—and he was Moon besides; but the worst of it was that his dog—it was a funny rough terrier at the Vicarage—was so furious at the lion, when Adrian was roaring under the skin, that nobody could hear, and Adrian got frightened, as well he might, and crept out from under it, screaming, and there fell the lion, collapsing flat in the middle of the place. Even Theseus—Major Harewood, you know, who had tried to be as grave as a judge, and so polite to the actors—could not stand that interpolation, as he called it, of “the man in the moon—not to say the dog,” came down too soon—Why, Fly—’
For Fly was in such a paroxysm of laughter as to end in a violent fit of coughing, and to bring Lady Rotherwood in, vexed and anxious.
‘Oh, mother! it was only—it was only the lion’s skin—’ and off went Fly, laughing and coughing again.
‘I was telling her about the acting or Midsummer Night’s Dream at Vale Leston,’ explained Gillian.
‘I should not have thought that a suitable subject for the day,’ said the Marchioness gravely, and Fly’s endeavour to say it was her fault for asking about it was silenced by choking; and Gillian found herself courteously dismissed in polite disgrace, and, as she felt, not entirely without justice.
It was a great disappointment that Aunt Jane did not think it well to take any of the young people to their home with her. As she said, she did not believe that they would catch anything; but it was better to be on the safe side, and she fully expected that they would spend most of the day with Mysie and Fly.
‘I wish I could go and talk to Kalliope, my dear,’ she said to Gillian; ‘but I am afraid it must wait another day.’
‘Oh, never mind,’ said Gillian, as they bade each other good-night at their doors; ‘they don’t know that I am come home, so they will not expect me.’
CHAPTER XIII. — ST. VALENTINE’S DAY
Miss Mohun came back in the dark after a long day, for once in her life quite jaded, and explaining that the health-officer and the landlord had been by no means agreed, and that nothing could be done till Sir Jasper came home and decided whether to retain the house or not.
All that she was clear about, and which she had telegraphed to Aden, was, that there must be no going back to Silverfold for the present, and she was prepared to begin lodging-hunting as soon as she received an answer.
‘And how have you got on?’ she asked, thinking all looked rather blank.
‘We haven’t been to see Fly,’ broke out Valetta, ‘though she went out on the beach, and Mysie must not stay out after dark, for fear she should cough.’
‘Mysie says they are afraid of excitement,’ said Gillian gloomily.
‘Then you have seen nothing of the others?’
‘Yes, I have seen Victoria, said Aunt Adeline, with a meaning smile.
Miss Mohun went up to take off her things, and Gillian followed her, shutting the door with ominous carefulness, and colouring all over.
‘Aunt Jane, I ought to tell you. A dreadful thing has happened!’
‘Indeed, my dear! What?’
‘I have had a valentine.’
‘Oh!’ repressing a certain inclination to laugh at the bathos from the look of horror and shame in the girl’s eyes.
‘It is from that miserable Alexis! Oh, I know I brought it on myself, and I have been so wretched and so ashamed all day.’
‘Was it so very shocking! Let me see—’
‘Oh! I sent it back at once by the post, in an envelope, saying, “Sent by mistake.”’
‘But what was it like? Surely it was not one of the common shop things?’
‘Oh no; there was rather a pretty outline of a nymph or muse, or something of that sort, at the top—drawn, I mean—and verses written below, something about my showing a lodestar of hope, but I barely glanced at it. I hated it too much.’
‘I am sorry you were in such a hurry,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘No doubt it was a shock; but I am afraid you have given more pain than it quite deserved.’
‘It was so impertinent!’ cried Gillian, in astonished, shame-stricken indignation.
‘So it seems to you,’ said her aunt, ‘and it was very bad taste; but you should remember that this poor lad has grown up in a stratum of society where he may have come to regard this as a suitable opportunity of evincing his gratitude, and perhaps it may be very hard upon him to have this work of his treated as an insult.’
‘But you would not have had me keep it and tolerate it?’ exclaimed Gillian.
‘I can hardly tell without having seen it; but you might have done the thing more civilly, through his sister, or have let me give it back to him. However, it is too late now; I will make a point of seeing Kalliope to-morrow, but in the meantime you really need not be so horribly disgusted and ashamed.’
‘I thought he was quite a different sort!’
‘Perhaps, after all, your thoughts were not wrong; and he only fancied, poor boy, that he had found a pretty way of thanking you.’
This did not greatly comfort Gillian, who might prefer feeling that she was insulted rather than that she had been cruelly unkind, and might like to blame Alexis rather than herself. And, indeed, in any case, she had sense enough to perceive that this very unacceptable compliment was the consequence of her own act of independence of more experienced heads.
The next person Miss Mohun met was Fergus, lugging upstairs, step by step, a monstrous lump of stone, into which he required her to look and behold a fascinating crevice full of glittering spar.
‘Where did you get that, Fergus?’
‘Up off the cliff over the quarry.’
‘Are you sure that you may have it?’
‘Oh yes; White said I might. It’s so jolly, auntie! Frank Stebbing is gone away to the other shop in the Apennines, where the old boss lives. What splendiferous specimens he must have the run of! Our Stebbing says ‘tis because Kally White makes eyes at him; but any way, White has got to do his work while he’s away, and go all the rounds to see that things are right, so I go after him, and he lets me have just what I like—such jolly crystals.’
‘I am sure I hope it is all right.’
‘Oh yes, I always ask him, as you told me; but he is awfully slow and mopy and down in the mouth to-day. Stebbing says he is sweet upon Gill; but I told him that couldn’t be, White knew better. A general’s daughter, indeed! and Will remembers his father a sergeant.’
‘It is very foolish, Fergus. Say no more about it, for it is not nice talk about your sister.’
‘I’ll lick any one who does,’ said Fergus, bumping his stone up another step.
Poor Aunt Jane! There was more to fall on her as soon as the door was finally shut on the two rooms communicating with one another, which the sisters called their own. Mrs. Mount’s manipulations of Miss Adeline’s rich brown hair were endured with some impatience, while Miss Mohun leant back in her chair in her shawl-patterned dressing-gown, watching, with a sort of curious wonder and foreboding, the restlessness that proved that something was in store, and meantime somewhat lazily brushing out her own thinner darker locks.
‘You are tired, Miss Jane,’ said the old servant, using the pet name in private moments. ‘You had better let me do your hair.’
‘No, thank you, Fanny; I have very nearly done,’ she said, marking the signs of eagerness on her sister’s part. ‘Oh, by the bye, did that hot bottle go down to Lilian Giles?’
‘Yes, ma’am; Mrs. Giles came up for it.’
‘Did she say whether Lily was well enough to see Miss Gillian?’
Mrs. Mount coughed a peculiar cough that her mistresses well knew to signify that she could tell them something they would not like to hear, if they chose to ask her, and it was the younger who put the question—
‘Fanny, did she say anything?’
‘Well, Miss Ada, I told her she must be mistaken, but she stuck to it, though she said she never would have breathed a word if Miss Gillian had not come back again, but she thought you should know it.’
‘Know what?’ demanded Jane.
‘Well, Miss Jane, she should say ‘tis the talk that Miss Gillian, when you have thought her reading to the poor girl, has been running down to the works—and ‘tis only the ignorance of them that will talk, but they say it is to meet a young man. She says, Mrs. Giles do, that she never would have noticed such talk, but that the young lady did always seem in a hurry, only just reading a chapter, and never stopping to talk to poor Lily after it; and she has seen her herself going down towards the works, instead of towards home, ma’am. And she said she could not bear that reading to her girl should be made a colour for such doings.’
‘Certainly not, if it were as she supposes,’ said Miss Mohun, sitting very upright, and beating her own head vigorously with a very prickly brush; ‘but you may tell her, Fanny, that I know all about it, and that her friend is Miss White, who you remember spent an evening here.’
Fanny’s good-humoured face cleared up. ‘Yes, ma’am, I told her that I was quite sure that Miss Gillian would not go for to do anything wrong, and that it could be easy explained; but people has tongues, you see.’
‘You were quite right to tell us, Fanny. Good-night.’
‘People has tongues!’ repeated Adeline, when that excellent person had disappeared. ‘Yes, indeed, they have. But, Jenny, do you really mean to say that you know all about this?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
‘Oh, I wish you had been at home to-day when Victoria came in. It really is a serious business.’
‘Victoria! What has she to do with it? I should have thought her Marchioness-ship quite out of the region of gossip, though, for that matter, grandees like it quite as much as other people.’
‘Don’t, Jane, you know it does concern her through companionship for Phyllis, and she was very kind.’
‘Oh yes, I can see her sailing in, magnificently kind from her elevation. But how in the world did she manage to pick up all this in the time?’ said poor Jane, tired and pestered into the sharpness of her early youth.
‘Dear Jenny, I wish I had said nothing to-night. Do wait till you are rested.’
‘I am not in the least tired, and if I were, do you think I could sleep with this half told?’
‘You said you knew.’
‘Then it is only about Gillian being so silly as to go down to Miss White’s office at the works to look over the boy’s Greek exercises.’
‘You don’t mean that you allowed it!’
‘No, Gillian’s impulsiveness, just like her mother’s, began it, as a little assertion of modern independence; but while she was away that little step from brook to river brought her to the sense that she had been a goose, and had used me rather unfairly, and so she came and confessed it all to me on the way home from the station the first morning after her return. She says she had written it all to her mother from the first.’
‘I wonder Lily did not telegraph to put a stop to it.’
‘Do you suppose any mother, our poor old Lily especially, can marry a couple of daughters without being slightly frantic! Ten to one she never realised that this precious pupil was bigger than Fergus. But do tell me what my Lady had heard, and how she heard it.’
‘You remember that her governess, Miss Elbury, has connections in the place.’
‘“The most excellent creature in the world.” Oh yes, and she spent Sunday with them. So that was the conductor.’
‘I can hardly say that Miss Elbury was to be blamed, considering that she had heard the proposal about Valetta! It seems that that High School class-mistress, Miss Mellon, who had the poor child under her, is her cousin.’
‘Oh dear!’
‘It is exactly what I was afraid of when we decided on keeping Valetta at home. Miss Mellon told all the Caesar story in plainly the worst light for poor Val, and naturally deduced from her removal that she was the most to blame.’
‘Whereas it was Miss Mellon herself! But nobody could expect Victoria to see that, and no doubt she is quite justified in not wishing for the child in her schoolroom! But, after all, Valetta is only a child; it won’t hurt her to have this natural recoil of consequences, and her mother will be at home in three weeks’ time. It signifies much more about Gillian. Did I understand you that the gossip about her had reached those august ears?’
‘Oh yes, Jane, and it is ever so much worse. That horrid Miss Mellon seems to have told Miss Elbury that Gillian has a passion for low company, that she is always running after the Whites at the works, and has secret meetings with the young man in the garden on Sunday, while his sister carries on her underhand flirtation with another youth, Frank Stebbing, I suppose. It really was too preposterous, and Victoria said she had no doubt from the first that there was exaggeration, and had told Miss Elbury so; but still she thought Gillian must have been to blame. She was very nice about it, and listened to all my explanation most kindly, as to Gillian’s interest in the Whites, and its having been only the sister that she met, but plainly she is not half convinced. I heard something about a letter being left for Gillian, and really, I don’t know whether there may not be more discoveries to come. I never felt before the force of our dear father’s saying, apropos of Rotherwood himself, that no one knows what it is to lose a father except those who have the care of his children.’
‘Whatever Gillian did was innocent and ladylike, and nothing to be ashamed of,’ said Aunt Jane stoutly; ‘of that I am sure. But I should like to be equally sure that she has not turned the head of that poor foolish young man, without in the least knowing what she was about. You should have seen her state of mind at his sending her a valentine, which she returned to him, perfectly ferociously, at once, and that was all the correspondence somebody seems to have smelt out.’
‘A valentine! Gillian must have behaved very ill to have brought that upon herself! Oh dear! I wish she had never come here; I wish Lily could have stayed at home, instead of scattering her children about the world. The Rotherwoods will never get over it.’
‘That’s the least part of the grievance, in my eyes,’ said her sister. ‘It won’t make a fraction of difference to the dear old cousin Rotherwood; and as to my Lady, it is always a liking from the teeth outwards.’
‘How can you say so! I am sure she has always been most cordial.’
‘Most correct, if you please. Oh, did she say anything about Mysie?’
‘She said nothing but good of Mysie; called her delightful, and perfectly good and trustworthy, said they could never have got so well through Phyllis’s illness without her, and that they only wished to keep her altogether.’
‘I dare say, to be humble companion to my little lady, out of the way of her wicked sisters.’
‘Jane!’
‘My dear, I don’t think I can stand any more defence of her just now! No, she is an admirable woman, I know. That’s enough. I really must go to bed, and consider which is to be faced first, she or Kalliope.’
It was lucky that Miss Mohun could exist without much sleep, for she was far too much worried for any length of slumber to visit her that night, though she was afoot as early as usual. She thought it best to tell Gillian that Lady Rotherwood had heard some foolish reports, and that she was going to try to clear them up, and she extracted an explicit account as to what the extent of her intercourse with the Whites had been, which was given willingly, Gillian being in a very humble frame, and convinced that she had acted foolishly. It surprised her likewise that Aunt Adeline, whom she had liked the best, and thought the most good-natured, was so much more angry with her than Aunt Jane, who, as she felt, forgave her thoroughly, and was only anxious to help her out of the scrape she had made for herself.
Miss Mohun thought her best time for seeing Kalliope would be in the dinner-hour, and started accordingly in the direction of the marble works. Not far from them she met that young person walking quickly with one of her little brothers.
‘I was coming to see you,’ Miss Mohun said. ‘I did not know that you went home in the middle of the day.’
‘My mother has been so unwell of late that I do not like to be entirely out of reach all day,’ returned Kalliope, who certainly looked worn and sorrowful; ‘so I manage to run home, though it is but for a quarter of an hour.’
‘I will not delay you, I will walk with you,’ and when Petros had been dismissed, ‘I am afraid my niece has not been quite the friend to you that she intended.’
‘Oh, Miss Mohun, do you know all about it? It is such a relief! I have felt so guilty towards you, and yet I did not know what to do.’
‘I have never thought that the concealment was your fault,’ said Jane.
‘I did think at first that you knew,’ said Kalliope, ‘and when I found that was not the case, I suppose I should have insisted on your being told; but I could not bear to seem ungrateful, and my brother took such extreme delight in his lessons and Miss Merrifield’s kindness, that—that I could not bear to do what might prevent them. And now, poor fellow, it shows how wrong it was, since he has ventured on that unfortunate act of presumption, which has so offended her. Oh, Miss Mohun, he is quite broken-hearted.’
‘I am afraid Gillian was very discourteous. I was out, or it should not have been done so unkindly. Indeed, in the shock, Gillian did not recollect that she might be giving pain.’
‘Yes, yes! Poor Alexis! He has not had any opportunity of understanding how different things are in your class of life, and he thought it would show his gratitude and—and—Oh, he is so miserable!’ and she was forced to stop to wipe away her tears.
‘Poor fellow! But it was one of those young men’s mistakes that are got over and outgrown, so you need not grieve over it so much, my dear. My brother-in-law is on his way home, and I know he means to see what can be done for Alexis, for your father’s sake.’
‘Oh, Miss Mohun, how good you are! I thought you could never forgive us. And people do say such shocking things.’
‘I know they do, and therefore I am going to ask you to tell me exactly what intercourse there has been with Gillian.’
Kalliope did so, and Miss Mohun was struck with the complete accordance of the two accounts, and likewise by the total absence of all attempt at self-justification on Miss White’s part. If she had in any way been weak, it had been against her will, and her position had been an exceedingly difficult one. She spoke in as guarded a manner as possible; but to such acute and experienced ears as those of her auditor, it was impossible not to perceive that, while Gillian had been absolutely simple, and unconscious of all but a kind act of patronage, the youth’s imagination had taken fire, and he had become her ardent worshipper; with calf-love, no doubt, but with a distant, humble adoration, which had, whether fortunately or unfortunately, for once found expression in the valentine so summarily rejected. The drawing and the composition had been the work of many days, and so much against his sister’s protest that it had been sent without her knowledge, after she had thought it given up. She had only extracted the confession through his uncontrollable despair, which made him almost unfit to attend to his increased work, perhaps by his southern nature exaggerated.
‘The stronger at first, the sooner over,’ thought Miss Mohun; but she knew that consolation betraying her comprehension would not be safe.
One further discovery she made, namely, that on Sunday, Alexis, foolish lad, had been so wildly impatient at their having had no notice from Gillian since her return, that he had gone to the garden to explain, as he said, his sister’s non-appearance there, since she was detained by her mother’s illness. It was the only time he had ever been there, and he had met no one; but Miss Mohun felt a sinking of heart at the foreboding that the mauvaises langues would get hold of it.
The only thing to be decided on was that there must be a suspension of intercourse, at any rate, till Lady Merrifield’s arrival; not in unkindness, but as best for all. And, indeed, Kalliope had no time to spare from her mother, whose bloated appearance, poor woman, was the effect of long-standing disease.
The daughter’s heart was very full of her, and evidently it would have been a comfort to discuss her condition with this kind friend; but no more delay was possible; and Miss Mohun had to speed home, in a quandary how much or how little about Alexis’s hopeless passion should be communicated to its object, and finally deciding that Gillian had better only be informed that he had been greatly mortified by the rude manner of rejection, but that the act itself proved that she must abstain from all renewal of the intercourse till her parents should return.
But that was not all the worry of the day. Miss Mohun had still to confront Lady Rotherwood, and, going as soon as the early dinner was over, found the Marchioness resting after an inspection of houses in Rockquay. She did not like hotels, she said, and she thought the top of the cliff too bleak for Phyllis, so that they must move nearer the sea if the place agreed with her at all, which was doubtful. Miss Mohun was pretty well convinced that the true objection was the neighbourhood of Beechcroft Cottage. She said she had come to give some explanation of what had been said to her sister yesterday.
‘Oh, my dear Jane, Adeline told me all about it yesterday. I am very sorry for you to have had such a charge, but what could you expect of girls cast about as they have been, always with a marching regiment?’
‘I do not think Mysie has given you any reason to think her ill brought up.’
‘A little uncouth at first, but that was all. Oh, no! Mysie is a dear little girl. I should be very glad to have her with Phyllis altogether, and so would Rotherwood. But she was very young when Sir Jasper retired.’
‘And Valetta was younger. Poor little girl! She was naughty, but I do not think she understood the harm of what she was doing.’
Lady Rotherwood smiled.
‘Perhaps not; but she must have been deeply involved, since she was the one amongst all the guilty to be expelled.’
‘Oh, Victoria! Was that what you heard?’
‘Miss Elbury heard it from the governess she was under. Surely she was the only one not permitted to go up for the examination and removed.’
‘True, but that was our doing—no decree of the High School. Her own governess is free now, and her mother on her way, and we thought she had better not begin another term. Yes, Victoria, I quite see that you might doubt her fitness to be much with Phyllis. I am not asking for that—I shall try to get her own governess to come at once; but for the child’s sake and her mother’s I should like to get this cleared up. May I see Miss Elbury?’
‘Certainly; but I do not think you will find that she has exaggerated, though of course her informant may have done so.
Miss Elbury was of the older generation of governesses, motherly, kind, but rather prim and precise, the accomplished element being supplied with diplomaed foreigners, who, since Lady Phyllis’s failure in health, had been dispensed with. She was a good and sensible woman, as Jane could see, in spite of the annoyance her report had occasioned, and it was impossible not to assent when she said she had felt obliged, under the circumstances, to mention to Lady Rotherwood what her cousin had told her.
‘About both my nieces,’ said Jane. ‘Yes, I quite understand. But, though of course the little one’s affair is the least important, we had better get to the bottom of that first, and I should like to tell you what really happened.’
She told her story, and how Valetta had been tempted and then bullied into going beyond the first peeps, and finding she did not produce the impression she wished, she begged Miss Elbury to talk it over with the head-mistress. It was all in the telling. Miss Elbury’s young cousin, Miss Mellon, had been brought under rebuke, and into great danger of dismissal, through Valetta Merrifield’s lapse; and it was no wonder that she had warned her kinswoman against ‘the horrid little deceitful thing,’ who had done so much harm to the whole class. ‘Miss Mohun was running about over the whole place, but not knowing what went on in her own house!’ And as to Miss White, Miss Elbury mentioned at last, though with some reluctance, that it was believed that she had been on the point of a private marriage, and of going to Italy with young Stebbing, when her machinations were detected, and he was forced to set off without her.
With this in her mind, the governess could not be expected to accept as satisfactory what was not entire confutation or contradiction, and Miss Mohun saw that, politely as she was listened to, it was all only treated as excuse; since there could be no denial of Gillian’s folly, and it was only a question of degree.
And, provoking as it was, the disappointment might work well for Valetta. The allegations against Gillian were a far more serious affair, but much more of these could be absolutely disproved and contradicted; in fact, all that Miss Mohun herself thought very serious, i.e. the flirtation element, was shown to be absolutely false, both as regarded Gillian and Kalliope; but it was quite another thing to convince people who knew none of the parties, when there was the residuum of truth undeniable, that there had been secret meetings not only with the girl, but the youth. To acquit Gillian of all but modern independence and imprudent philanthropy was not easy to any one who did not understand her character, and though Lady Rotherwood said nothing more in the form of censure, it was evident that she was unconvinced that Gillian was not a fast and flighty girl, and that she did not desire more contact than was necessary.
No doubt she wished herself farther off! Lord Rotherwood, she said, was coming down in a day or two, when he could get away, and then they should decide whether to take a house or to go abroad, which, after all, might be the best thing for Phyllis.
‘He will make all the difference,’ said Miss Adeline, when the unsatisfactory conversation was reported to her.
‘I don’t know! But even if he did, and I don’t think he will, I won’t have Valetta waiting for his decision and admitted on sufferance.’
‘Shall you send her back to school?’
‘No. Poor Miss Vincent is free, and quite ready to come here. Fergus shall go and sleep among his fossils in the lumber-room, and I will write to her at once. She will be much better here than waiting at Silverton, though the Hacketts are very kind to her.’
‘Yes, it will be better to be independent. But all this is very unfortunate. However, Victoria will see for herself what the children are. She has asked me to take a drive with her to-morrow if it is not too cold.’
‘Oh yes, she is not going to make an estrangement. You need not fear that, Ada. She does not think it your fault.’
Aunt Jane pondered a little as to what to say to the two girls, and finally resolved that Valetta had better be told that she was not to do lessons with Fly, as her behaviour had made Lady Rotherwood doubt whether she was a good companion. Valetta stamped and cried, and said it was very hard and cross when she had been so sorry and every one had forgiven her; but Gillian joined heartily with Aunt Jane in trying to make the child understand that consequences often come in spite of pardon and repentance. To Gillian herself, Aunt Jane said as little as possible, not liking even to give the veriest hint of the foolish gossip, or of the extent of poor Alexis White’s admiration; for it was enough for the girl to know that concealment had brought her under a cloud, and she was chiefly concerned as to how her mother would look on it. She had something of Aunt Jane’s impatience of patronage, and perhaps thought it snobbish to seem concerned at the great lady’s displeasure.
Mysie was free to run in and out to her sisters, but was still to do her lessons with Miss Elbury, and Fly took up more of her time than the sisters liked. Neither she nor Fly were formally told why their castles vanished into empty air, but there certainly was a continual disappointment and fret on both sides, which Fly could not bear as well as when she was in high health, and poor Mysie’s loving heart often found it hard to decide between her urgent claims and those of Valetta!
But was not mamma coming? and papa? Would not all be well then? Yes, hearts might bound at the thought. But where was Gillian’s great thing?’
Miss Vincent’s coming was really like a beginning of home, in spite of her mourning and depressed look. It was a great consolation to the lonely woman to find how all her pupils flew at her, with infinite delight. She had taken pains to bring a report of all the animals for Valetta, and she duly admired all Fergus’s geological specimens, and even undertook to print labels for them.
Mysie would have liked to begin lessons again with her; but this would have been hard on Fly, and besides, her mother had committed her to the Rotherwoods, and it was better still to leave her with them.
The aunts were ready with any amount of kindness and sympathy for the governess’s bereavement, and her presence was a considerable relief in the various perplexities.
Even Lady Rotherwood and Miss Elbury had been convinced, and by no means unwillingly, that Gillian had been less indiscreet than had been their first impression; but she had been a young lady of the period in her independence, and was therefore to be dreaded. No more garden trystes would have been possible under any circumstances, for the house and garden were in full preparation for the master, who was to meet Lord Rotherwood to consult about the proposed water-works and other designs for the benefit of the town where they were the chief landowners.
CHAPTER XIV. — THE PARTNER
The expected telegram arrived two days later, requesting Miss Mohun to find a lodging at Rockstone sufficient to contain Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield, and a certain amount of sons and daughters, while they considered what was to be done about Silverfold.
‘So you and I will go out house-hunting, Gillian?’ said Aunt Jane, when she had opened it, and the exclamations were over.
‘I am afraid there is no house large enough up here,’ said her sister.
‘No, it is an unlucky time, in the thick of the season.’
‘Victoria said she had been looking at some houses in Bellevue.’
‘I am afraid she will have raised the prices of them.’
‘But, oh, Aunt Jane, we couldn’t go to Bellevue Church!’ cried Gillian.
‘Your mother would like to be so near the daily services at the Kennel,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘Yes, we must begin with those houses. There’s nothing up here but Sorrento, and I have heard enough of its deficiencies!’
At that moment in came a basket of game, grapes, and flowers, with Lady Rotherwood’s compliments.
‘Solid pudding,’ muttered Miss Mohun. ‘In this case, I should almost prefer empty praise. Look here, Ada, what a hamper they must have had from home! I think I shall, as I am going that way, take a pheasant and some grapes to the poor Queen of the White Ants; I believe she is really ill, and it will show that we do not want to neglect them.’
‘Oh, thank you, Aunt Jane!’ cried Gillian, the colour rising in her face, and she was the willing bearer of the basket as she walked down the steps with her aunt, and along the esplanade, only pausing to review the notices of palatial, rural, and desirable villas in the house-agent’s window, and to consider in what proportion their claims to perfection might be reduced.
As they turned down Ivinghoe Terrace, and were approaching the rusty garden-gate, they overtook Mrs. Lee, the wife of the organist of St. Kenelm’s, who lodged at Mrs. White’s. In former times, before her marriage, Mrs. Lee had been a Sunday-school teacher at St. Andrew’s, and though party spirit considered her to have gone over to the enemy, there were old habits of friendly confidence between her and Miss Mohun, and there was an exchange of friendly greetings and inquiries. When she understood their errand she rejoiced in it, saying that poor Mrs. White was very poorly, and rather fractious, and that this supply would be most welcome both to her and her daughter.
‘Ah, I am afraid that poor girl goes through a great deal!’
‘Indeed she does, Miss Mohun; and a better girl never lived. I cannot think how she can bear up as she does; there she is at the office all day with her work, except when she runs home in the middle of the day—all that distance to dish up something her mother can taste, for there’s no dependence on the girl, nor on little Maura neither. Then she is slaving early and late to keep the house in order as well as she can, when her mother is fretting for her attention; and I believe she loses more than half her night’s rest over the old lady. How she bears up, I cannot guess; and never a cross word to her mother, who is such a trial, nor to the boys, but looking after their clothes and their lessons, and keeping them as good and nice as can be. I often say to my husband, I am sure it is a lesson to live in the house with her.’
‘I am sure she is an excellent girl,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘I wish we could do anything to help her.’
‘I know you are a real friend, Miss Mohun, and never was there any young person who was in greater need of kindness; though it is none of her fault. She can’t help her face, poor dear; and she has never given any occasion, I am sure, but has been as guarded and correct as possible.’
‘Oh, I was in hopes that annoyance was suspended at least for a time!’
‘You are aware of it then, Miss Mohun? Yes, the young gentleman is come back, not a bit daunted. Yesterday evening what does he do but drive up in a cab with a great bouquet, and a basketful of grapes, and what not! Poor Kally, she ran in to me, and begged me as a favour to come downstairs with her, and I could do no less. And I assure you, Miss Mohun, no queen could be more dignified, nor more modest than she was in rejecting his gifts, and keeping him in check. Poor dear, when he was gone she burst out crying—a thing I never knew of her before; not that she cared for him, but she felt it a cruel wrong to her poor mother to send away the grapes she longed after; and so she will feel these just a providence.’
‘Then is Mrs. White confined to her room?’
‘For more than a fortnight. For that matter the thing was easier, for she had encouraged the young man as far as in her lay, poor thing, though my husband and young Alexis both told her what they knew of him, and that it would not be for Kally’s happiness, let alone the offence to his father.’
‘Then it really went as far as that?’
‘Miss Mohun, I would be silent as the grave if I did not know that the old lady went talking here and there, never thinking of the harm she was doing. She was so carried away by the idea of making a lady of Kally. She says she was a beauty herself, though you would not think it now, and she is perfectly puffed up about Kally. So she actually lent an ear when the young man came persuading Kally to get married and go off to Italy with him, where he made sure he could come over Mr. White with her beauty and relationship and all—among the myrtle groves—that was his expression—where she would have an association worthy of her. I don’t quite know how he meant it to be brought about, but he is one who would stick at nothing, and of course Kally would not hear of it, and answered him so as one would think he would never have had the face to address her again, but poor Mrs. White has done nothing but fret over it, and blame her daughter for undutifulness, and missing the chance of making all their fortunes—breaking her heart and her health, and I don’t know what besides. She is half a foreigner, you see, and does not understand, and she is worse than no one to that poor girl.’
‘And you say he is come back as bad as ever.’
‘Or worse, you may say, Miss Mohun; absence seems only to have set him the more upon her, and I am afraid that Mrs. White’s talk, though it may not have been to many, has been enough to set it about the place; and in cases like that, it is always the poor young woman as gets the blame—especially with the gentleman’s own people.’
‘I am afraid so.’
‘And you see she is in a manner at his mercy, being son to one of the heads of the firm, and in a situation of authority.’
‘What can she do all day at the office?’
‘She keeps one or two of the other young ladies working with her,’ said Mrs. Lee; ‘but if any change could be made, it would be very happy for her; though, after all, I do not see how she could leave this place, the house being family property, and Mr. White their relation, besides that Mrs. White is in no state to move; but, on the other hand, Mr. and Mrs. Stebbing know their son is after her, and the lady would not stick at believing or saying anything against her, though I will always bear witness, and so will Mr. Lee, that never was there a more good, right-minded young woman, or more prudent and guarded.’
‘So would Mr. Flight and his mother, I have no doubt.’
‘Mr. Flight would, Miss Mohun, but’—with an odd look—‘I fancy my lady thinks poor Kally too handsome for it to be good for a young clergyman to have much to say to her. They have not been so cordial to them of late, but that is partly owing to poor Mrs. White’s foolish talk, and in part to young Alexis having been desultory and mopy of late—not taking the interest in his music he did. Mr. Lee says he is sure some young woman is at the bottom of it.’
Miss Mohun saw her niece’s ears crimson under her hat, and was afraid Mrs. Lee would likewise see them. They had reached the front of the house, and she made haste to take out a visiting-card and to beg Mrs. Lee kindly to give it with the basket, saying that she would not give trouble by coming to the door.
And then she turned back with Gillian, who was in a strange tumult of shame and consternation, yet withal, feeling that first strange thrill of young womanhood at finding itself capable of stirring emotion, and too much overcome by these strange sensations—above all by the shock of shame—to be able to utter a word.
I must make light of it, but not too light, thought Miss Mohun, and she broke the ice by saying, ‘Poor foolish boy—’
‘Oh, Aunt Jane, what shall I do?’
‘Let it alone, my dear.’
‘But that I should have done so much harm and upset him so’—in a voice betraying a certain sense of being flattered. ‘Can’t I do anything to undo it?’
‘Certainly not. To be perfectly quiet and do nothing is all you can do. My dear, boys and young men have such foolish fits—more in that station than in ours, because they have none of the public school and college life which keeps people out of it. You were the first lady this poor fellow was brought into contact with, and—well, you were rather a goose, and he has been a greater one; but if he is let alone, he will recover and come to his senses. I could tell you of men who have had dozens of such fits. I am much more interested about his sister. What a noble girl she is!’
‘Oh, isn’t she, Aunt Jane. Quite a real heroine! And now mamma is coming, she will know what to do for her!’
‘I hope she will, but it is a most perplexing case altogether.’
‘And that horrid young Stebbing is come back too. I am glad she has that nice Mrs. Lee to help her.’
‘And to defend her,’ added Miss Mohun. ‘Her testimony is worth a great deal, and I am glad to know where to lay my hand upon it. And here is our first house, “Les Rochers.” For Madame de Sevigne’s sake, I hope it will do!’
But it didn’t! Miss Mohun got no farther than the hall before she detected a scent of gas; and they had to betake themselves to the next vacant abode. The investigating nature had full scope in the various researches that she made into parlour, kitchen, and hall, desperately wearisome to Gillian, whose powers were limited to considering how the family could sit at ease in the downstairs rooms, how they could be stowed away in the bedrooms, and where there were the prettiest views of the bay. Aunt Jane, becoming afraid that while she was literally ‘ferreting’ in the offices Gillian might be meditating on her conquest, picked up the first cheap book that looked innocently sensational, and left her to study it on various sofas. And when daylight failed for inspections, Gillian still had reason to rejoice in the pastime devised for her, since there was an endless discussion at the agent’s, over the only two abodes that could be made available, as to prices, repairs, time, and terms. They did not get away till it was quite dark and the gas lighted, and Miss Mohun did not think the ascent of the steps desirable, so that they went round by the street.
‘I declare,’ exclaimed Miss Mohun, ‘there’s Mr. White’s house lighted up. He must be come!’
‘I wonder whether he will do anything for Kalliope,’ sighed Gillian.
‘Oh, Jenny,’ exclaimed Miss Adeline, as the two entered the drawing-room. ‘You have had such a loss; Rotherwood has been here waiting to see you for an hour, and such an agreeable man he brought with him!’
‘Who could it have been?’
‘I didn’t catch his name—Rotherwood was mumbling in his quick way—indeed, I am not sure he did not think I knew him. A distinguished-looking man, like a picture, with a fine white beard, and he was fresh from Italy; told me all about the Carnival and the curious ceremonies in the country villages.’
‘From Italy? It can’t have been Mr. White.’
‘Mr. White! My dear Jane! this was a gentleman—quite a grand-looking man. He might have been an Italian nobleman, only he spoke English too well for that, though I believe those diplomates can speak all languages. However, you will see, for we are to go and dine with them at eight o’clock—you, and I, and Gillian.’
‘You, Ada!’
‘Oh! I have ordered the chair round; it won’t hurt me with the glasses up. Gillian, my dear, you must put on the white dress that Mrs. Grinstead’s maid did up for you—it is quite simple, and I should like you to look nice! Well—oh, how tired you both look! Ring for some fresh tea, Gillian. Have you found a house?’
So excited and occupied was Adeline that the house-hunting seemed to have assumed quite a subordinate place in her mind. It really was an extraordinary thing for her to dine out, though this was only a family party next door; and she soon sailed away to hold counsel with Mrs. Mount on dresses and wraps, and to get her very beautiful hair dressed. She made by far the most imposing appearance of the three when they shook themselves out in the ante-room at the hotel, in her softly-tinted sheeny pale-gray dress, with pearls in her hair, and two beautiful blush roses in her bosom; while her sister, in black satin and coral, somehow seemed smaller than ever, probably from being tired, and from the same cause Gillian had dark marks under her brown eyes, and a much more limp and languid look than was her wont.
Fly was seated on her father’s knee, looking many degrees better and brighter, as if his presence were an elixir of life, and when he put her down to greet the arrivals, both she and Mysie sprang to Gillian to ask the result of the quest of houses. The distinguished friend was there, and was talking to Lady Rotherwood about Italian progress, and there was only time for an inquiry and reply as to the success of the search for a house before dinner was announced—the little girls disappeared, and the Marquess gave his arm to his eldest cousin.
‘Grand specimen of marble, isn’t he!’ he muttered.
‘Ada hasn’t the least idea who he is. She thinks him a great diplomate,’ communicated Jane in return, and her arm received an ecstatic squeeze.
It was amusing to Jane Mohun to see how much like a dinner at Rotherwood this contrived to be, with my lady’s own footman, and my lord’s valet waiting in state. She agreed mentally with her sister that the other guest was a very fine-looking man, with a picturesque head, and he did not seem at all out of place or ill-at-ease in the company in which he found himself. Lord Rotherwood, with a view, perhaps, to prolonging Adeline’s mystification, turned the conversation to Italian politics, and the present condition and the industries of the people, on all of which subjects much ready information was given in fluent, good English, with perhaps rather unnecessarily fine words. It was only towards the end of the dinner that a personal experience was mentioned about the impossibility of getting work done on great feast days, or of knowing which were the greater—and the great dislike of the peasant mind to new methods.
When it came to ‘At first, I had to superintend every blasting with gelatine,’ the initiated were amused at the expression of Adeline’s countenance, and the suppressed start of frightful conviction that quivered on her eyelids and the corners of her mouth, though kept in check by good breeding, and then smoothed out into a resolute complacency, which convinced her sister that having inadvertently exalted the individual into the category of the distinguished, she meant to abide staunchly by her first impression.
Lady Rotherwood, like most great ladies in public life, was perfectly well accustomed to have all sorts of people brought home to dinner, and would have been far less astonished than her cousins at sitting down with her grocer; but she gave the signal rather early, and on reaching the sitting-room, where Miss Elworthy was awaiting them, said—
‘We will leave them to discuss their water-works at their ease. Certainly residence abroad is an excellent education.’
‘A very superior man,’ said Adeline.
‘Those self-made men always are.’
‘In the nature of things, added Miss Mohun, ‘or they would not have mounted.’
‘It is the appendages that are distressing,’ said Lady Rotherwood, ‘and they seldom come in one’s way. Has this man left any in Italy?’
‘Oh no, none alive. He took his wife there for her health, and that was the way he came to set up his Italian quarries; but she and his child both died there long ago, and he has never come back to this place since,’ explained Ada.
‘But he has relations here,’ said Jane. ‘His cousin was an officer in Jasper Merrifield’s regiment.’
She hoped to have been saying a word in the cause of the young people, but she regretted her attempt, for Lady Rotherwood replied—
‘I have heard of them. A very undeserving family, are they not?’
Gillian, whom Miss Elworthy was trying to entertain, heard, and could not help colouring all over, face, neck, and ears, all the more for so much hating the flush and feeling it observed.
Miss Mohun’s was a very decided, ‘I should have said quite the reverse.’
‘Indeed! Well, I heard the connection lamented, for his sake, by—what was her name? Mrs. Stirling—or—’
‘Mrs. Stebbing,’ said Adeline. ‘You don’t mean that she has actually called on you?’
‘Is there any objection to her?’ asked Lady Rotherwood, with a glance to see whether the girl was listening.
‘Oh no, no! only he is a mere mason—or quarryman, who has grown rich,’ said Adeline.
The hostess gave a little dry laugh.
‘Is that all? I thought you had some reason for disapproving of her. I thought her rather sensible and pleasing.’
Cringing and flattering, thought Jane; and that is just what these magnificent ladies like in the wide field of inferiors. But aloud she could not help saying, ‘My principal objection to Mrs. Stebbing is that I have always thought her rather a gossip—on the scandalous side.’ Then, bethinking herself that it would not be well to pursue the subject in Gillian’s presence, she explained where the Stebbings lived, and asked how long Lord Rotherwood could stay.
‘Only over Sunday. He is going to look over the place to-morrow, and next day there is to be a public meeting about it. I am not sure that we shall not go with him. I do not think the place agrees with Phyllis.’
The last words were spoken just as the two gentlemen had come in from the dining-room, rather sooner than was expected, and they were taken up.
‘Agrees with Phyllis! She looks pounds—nay, hundred-weights better than when we left home. I mean to have her down to-morrow on the beach for a lark—castle-building, paddling—with Mysie and Val, and Fergus and all. That’s what would set her up best, wouldn’t it, Jane?’
Jane gave a laughing assent, wondering how much of this would indeed prove castle-building, though adding that Fergus was at school, and that it was not exactly the time of year for paddling.
‘Oh, ah, eh! Well, perhaps not—forestalling sweet St. Valentine—stepping into their nests they paddled. Though St. Valentine is past, and I thought our fortunes had been made, Mr. White, by calling this the English Naples, and what not.’
‘Those are the puffs, my lord. There is a good deal of difference even between this and Rocca Marina, which is some way up the mountain.’
‘It must be very beautiful,’ said Miss Ada.
‘Well, Miss Mohun, people do say it is striking.’ And he was drawn into describing the old Italian mansion, purchased on the extinction of an ancient family of nobles, perched up on the side of a mountain, whose feet the sea laved, with a terrace whence there was a splendid view of the Gulf of Genoa, and fine slopes above and below of chestnut-trees and vineyards; and therewith he gave a hearty invitation to the company present to visit him there if ever they went to Italy, when he would have great pleasure in showing them many bits of scenery, and curious remains that did not fall in the way of ordinary tourists.
Lady Rotherwood gratefully said she should remember the invitation if they went to the south, as perhaps they should do that very spring.
‘And,’ said Ada, ‘you are not to be expected to remain long in this climate when you have a home like that awaiting you.’
‘Don’t call it home, Miss Mohun,’ he said. ‘I have not had that these many years; but I declare, the first sound of our county dialect, when I got out at the station, made my heart leap into my mouth. I could have shaken hands with the fellow.’
‘Then I hope you will remain here for some time. There is much wanting to be set going,’ said Jane.
‘So I thought of doing, and I had out a young fellow, who I thought might take my place—my partner’s son, young Stebbing. They wrote that he had been learning Italian, with a view to being useful to me, and so on; but when he came out, what was he but a fine gentleman—never had put his hand to a pick, nor a blasting-iron; and as to his Italian, he told me it was the Italian of Alfieri and Leopardi. Leopardi’s Italian it might be, for it was a very mottled or motley tongue, but he might as well have talked English or Double-Dutch to our hands, or better, for they had picked up the meaning of some orders from me before I got used to their lingo. And then he says ‘tis office work and superintendence he understands. How can you superintend, I told him, what you don’t know yourself? No, no; go home and bring a pair of hands fit for a quarryman, before I make you overlooker.’
This was rather delightful, and it further appeared that he could answer all Jane’s inquiries after her beloved promising lads whom he had deported to the Rocca Marina quarries.
They were evidently kindly looked after, and she began to perceive that it was not such a bad place after all for them, more especially as he was in the act of building them a chapel, and one of his objects in coming to England was to find a chaplain; and as Lord Rotherwood said, he had come to the right shop, since Rockquay in the spring was likely to afford a choice of clergy with weak chests, or better still, with weak-chested wives, to whom light work in a genial climate would be the greatest possible boon.
Altogether the evening was very pleasant, only too short. It was a curious study for Jane Mohun how far Lady Rotherwood would give way to her husband. She always seemed to give way, but generally accomplished her own will in the end, and it was little likely that she would allow the establishment to await the influx of Merrifields, though certainly Gillian had done nothing displeasing all that evening except that terrible blushing, for which piece of ingenuousness her aunt loved her all the better.
At half-past ten next morning, however, Lord Rotherwood burst in to borrow Valetta for a donkey-ride, for which his lady had compounded instead of the paddling and castle-building, and certainly poor Val could not do much to corrupt Fly on donkey back, and in his presence. He further routed out Gillian, nothing loth, from her algebra, bidding her put on her seven-leagued boots, and not get bent double—and he would fain have seized on his cousin Jane, but she was already gone off for an interview with the landlord of the most eligible of the two houses.
Gillian and Valetta came back very rosy, and in fits of merriment. Lord Rotherwood had paid the donkey-boys to stay at home, and let him and Gillian take their place. They had gone out on the common above the town, with most amusing rivalries as to which drove the beast worst, making Mysie umpire. Then having attained a delightfully lonely place, Fly had begged for a race with Valetta, which failed, partly because Val’s donkey would not stir, and partly because Fly could not bear the shaking; and then Lord Rotherwood himself insisted on riding the donkey that wouldn’t go, and racing Gillian on the donkey that would—and he made his go so effectually that it ran away with him, and he pulled it up at last only just in time to save himself from being ignominiously stopped by an old fishwoman!
He had, as Aunt Jane said, regularly dipped Gill back into childhood, and she looked, spoke, and moved all the better for it.