Mr. Jervis, Vol. 2 (of 3)

Two days after this conversation, Sweet Primrose was kicking her long legs in Rookwood verandah, as she lay flat on the matting, absorbed in a picture-book. A picture-book, no matter how quaint, novel, or voluminous, never lasted this young lady for more than five minutes—as Mrs. Brande well knew. She would toss it scornfully aside, and once more begin to wander to and fro with her wearisome little parrot cry of “Amuse me, amuse me!”

At present she was on her good behaviour. She had taken an immense fancy to Mark, and she was surprisingly polite to Honor; and as she was undoubtedly a most lovely little creature, with delicate features, wistful violet eyes, and hair like spun silk, the young people were inclined to make much of her, and to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Brande were a prejudiced elderly pair, who did not know how to take the right way with children; and this particular child was disposed to favour them with a great deal of her society—and they enjoyed it.

She accompanied them about the garden,—generally walking between them, tightly holding their hands. She spent a considerable time every morning in Honor’s room, fingering all her knickknacks, unfolding her handkerchiefs, upsetting pin-boxes, and watching with undisguised interest how Honor did her hair.

The result of the inspection being, that at breakfast she was in a position to announce to the company the following gratifying statement—

“I saw Honor doing her hair; it’s long and real, like mine,” with a conceited toss of her blonde locks—“down to here,” indicating the length on her own small person. “She does not put on bits, like mamma. Mamma’s fringe is all pinned on, with long pieces that fasten it at the side, like this,” demonstrating their situation with tiny tell-tale fingers; “or like you,” turning to Mrs. Brande. “I saw your plait!”

“Well, I hope you admired it!” rejoined the lady, with somewhat staggering sang froid. “It grew on my own head once.”

And Sweet, finding that the topic was not a painful one, ceased to pursue it.

She was fond of sitting on Mark’s knee, with her arm closely locked round his neck, her cheek pressed against his, looking at pictures or listening to stories. Indeed, he seemed (as Mrs. Brande remarked) to have hypnotized her. Ben still distrusted the child, so did Ben’s grandpapa and grandmamma; but every one else appeared to think that Sweet Primrose was now quite a pattern—a reformed character. She went down to the band, exquisitely dressed, in fluffed out petticoats and fine silk stockings, in charge of her fat, jewelled ayah; there she secretly administered pinches right and left to other children, and rudely criticized their clothes. She strolled into the ladies’ room, ostensibly to look at the picture papers; and she was, among her elders, so quiet, so piano, such a dainty, flounced-out little mortal, that old acquaintances could hardly realize that this was their own original and most disagreeable “Sweet.”

It was Mrs. Brande’s birthday, and Mrs. Brande’s birthday had not been forgotten by her friends. There were cards, letters, and little presents from some of the “boys,” a lovely sachel from Honor (secretly manufactured as a surprise), bouquets, an exquisite silver lamp from Mark Jervis, which she remarked to Honor “must have cost the poor boy a frightful sum!”—last, not least, a silver photograph-frame, with “Ben’s respects.”

Mrs. Brande’s face was radiant. She went straight up to Mark with her presents in her hands.

“It was too bad of you to buy me such a grand present, and just what I was longing for—and Ben. That was your idea too! Do you know that I have a great mind to give you a kiss,” she said threateningly.

Sweet, who was playing with her porridge, stiffened with expectation, and awaited further developments with a pair of enormous eyes.

But Mrs. Brande did not carry out her menace—no; she merely said—

“You are only a boy, and I’m an old lady. How old are you, by the way, eh? I must make a note of your birthday.”

“I was twenty-six last April.”

“Twenty-six! Why, you don’t look it by five years,” sitting down before the teapot and a pile of letters and little parcels which lay beside her plate.

“Pelham always gives me diamonds,” she went on, “but I have plenty; and, in case you might suppose he had forgotten me this time, he has given me a large cheque for the new Orphanage; so I have done splendidly.”

“Did you get any chocolates?” asked Sweet, anxiously.

“No, my dear; but I’ll buy a box for you after breakfast.”

“And is this really your birthday?”

“Yes. Why? Doesn’t it look like it?” triumphantly.

“I thought it was only ladies who had birthdays,” remarked this charming little guest, with a severe air; “and Mrs. Dashwood says you are not a lady.”

“Well, not by birth, my dear, though I dare say I am as well-born as she is; and, anyway, I take the pas of her in all society.”

“Whose pa?” was the sternly put question.

As Mark and Honor greeted this query with a burst of laughter, the mite looked excessively pleased with herself.

“You will soon find her quite in her best form,” muttered Mr. Brande from behind the Pioneer. Then added, in French, “She has been pretty good for a week, and that’s her very longest interval. I saw her down at the fowl-house before breakfast, Honor, with your smart white-silk parasol.”

“Mamma always talks just as you do when she is talking about me, or about anything she does not want me to know,” cried Sweet, vivaciously. “I’ve done my breakfast,” slipping off her chair, “and I’m going down to see the syce’s children. Oh, won’t I pull their hair;” and she darted away.

Sweet was possessed of a demon of unrest that morning—nothing pleased her for more than two minutes, and her indolent ayah calmly left the task of entertaining her to others. Little Miss Primrose never played games, or dressed dolls, or made shops—indeed, Sweet’s tastes were far too advanced for these tame juvenile delights; they had palled years previously. It afforded her far keener pleasure to harry her elders, and to rule her fellow-housemates with a scourge.

She wandered aimlessly about, with her piteous shrill cry of, “Amuse me, amuse me! Oh, will no one amuse me!” She had tired of Honor’s hats and new dresses, of chocolates, of Mark’s stories; and her irritating and monotonous appeal had become as maddening as the constant slamming of a door.

“Look here, Sweet. I have a grand idea,” said Mark at last. “Would you like me to draw your picture?”

“And colour it?” she asked judicially.

“Yes; and put in your blue sash, and all.”

“And my necklace?”

“Certainly—your necklace too, if you please.”

“Then do—do—do it this instant minute!”

“You must wait till I get my drawing things and paints; and you will have to sit quite, quite still for a whole hour. If you cannot do that, there will only be an ugly picture! Do you understand? My easel and things are at Haddon Hall. I must send for them; so if you like to go and smarten yourself up, you can.”

He had scarcely ceased to speak, ere the vain little creature strutted straight off to her own room, loudly calling for her ayah in imperious Hindostani.

Mrs. Brande could hardly believe her eyes when an hour later she came into the verandah, in some trepidation, to see what made Sweet so quiet, and discovered the “little blister,” as she mentally called her, seated demurely on a chair, as rigid and motionless as a statue.

“See, I’m having my picture took,” she chirped out. “But I must not move. Please look how far he has got,” nodding towards Mark, who was painting away steadily, though rather embarrassed by the loss of the use of his left arm.

Mrs. Brande and Honor went over to examine the portrait, expecting to see a feeble little outline, something done just for good nature, and to keep the child quiet. But they almost started, as their eyes fell on a roughly sketched-in head—the living, breathing face of Sweet, looking at them from the canvas, with her best—in short, her “angel” expression.

“Well, I never! Why—you are a regular artist!” gasped Mrs. Brande at last.

“A very irregular one,” he answered with a laugh. “I have not painted a portrait for more than a year. Of course I have, like every one who comes up, and can hold a brush or pencil, attempted the snows! But my snows are simply like a row of blobs of cotton wool. I cannot do landscapes, though I am pretty good at faces and animals.”

“I should rather think you were,” said Mrs. Brande, emphatically.

“Is it pretty?” called out the model imperiously. “Is it pretty, like me?”

“Who said you were pretty?” demanded Mrs. Brande.

“Every one says, ‘Oh, what a pretty little girl!’”

“It is much too nice for you, I can tell you that.” To Mark, “It is wonderful. Why, you could make your fortune as a portrait painter!”

“So I have been told, perhaps because there is no chance of my ever putting the advice into practice. I can catch the likeness, and make the picture resemble my sitter, but I cannot finish. After a certain point, if I go on, I spoil the whole thing.”

“Oh, please,” whined a small voice in acute agony, “don’t spoil me!”

“No need, you are quite spoiled enough,” rejoined the artist with unusual emphasis.

“Why did you never let us know of this talent, Mark? What a pleasure to your friends,” said Mrs. Brande, leaning heavily on his chair. “I wish you would make a little tiny sketch—of—Ben?”

“No sooner said than done. I must leave this to dry for to-day, so call up the next victim; I have another block ready. Ben, old man, I am going to hand you down to posterity.”

Ben did not make half as good a model as Sweet, probably because he had not one atom of personal vanity. Every now and then he disturbed his “pose” by dashing at some mocking little devil of a squirrel, who peeped through the trellis-work, and dared him to do his worst! He dared, and it invariably came to nothing.

How the morning had flown! When “P.” appeared at two o’clock, his wife rushed at him with two pictures—a sketch of Sweet, and a half-worked-in outline of Ben, to the life.

“Ben is splendid!” he exclaimed, “the twinkle in his eye, the white spot on his lip, and his Sunday-go-to-meeting expression. Ah! and let me see—my ‘Sweet,’ her most angelic and butter-would-not-melt-in-my-mouth look! Beautiful child!” apostrophizing her. “I think I can manage to remember you without the assistance of a speaking likeness!”

“Uncle Pelham, how can you be so horrid!” remonstrated Honor, taking him in to lunch.

Luncheon (tiffin) was an exceedingly merry meal. It is well that we cannot see into the future, for dinner was the most dismal repast that the present tenants had ever discussed under the red-tiled roof of Rookwood.

Mark Jervis had been ten days with the Brandes, and had never found an opportunity yet of opening his heart, or telling his secret to Miss Gordon. Now that he was under the same roof, his hopes fell low, and his courage ebbed. He believed that she would be extremely indignant when she heard the truth from his own lips, viz. that he was the millionaire! Moreover, “that diabolical child,” as, alas! he had now begun to call her, never left them alone, or out of her sight for one second. He had become an ardent convert to Mr. and Mrs. Brande’s views—though he kept his conversion strictly to himself!

That same afternoon he found that his opportunity was approaching. Sweet was engaged to a children’s party, Mrs. Brande was pledged to attend a mothers’ meeting. Mr. Brande, who was busy over some returns, said—

“Honor, you and Jervis go up the forest road and I will be after you in a quarter of an hour. No ponies, we will walk, and give ourselves a colour, and an appetite. You may as well take Ben, and give him a run among the monkeys.”

Honor and her escort set out, he with his arm still in a sling, and they walked briskly along the wide sandy carriage-road that wound up and up, at a very gentle slope among the pines. It was a delicious, still afternoon; the aromatic smell of the woods had impregnated the thin hill air, and acted on their spirits like champagne.

“Our nephew,” alluding to Ben, who was cantering gaily ahead, “seems to be enjoying himself,” remarked Jervis.

“He does; this is his favourite road. That was a happy thought about his present!”

“Yes,” with a smile, “I’m glad Mrs. Brande was so pleased. Mrs. Sladen helped me with suggestions.”

“Poor Mrs. Sladen. She says that only for you she would have been killed the day that Toby Joy sent you both down the khud—that you put out your arm and saved her, and you won’t even allow her to say so.”

“No, indeed; I certainly will not.”

“Colonel Sladen has been winning, and I have great hopes that he may allow her to go home this season.”

“I hope he will, with all my heart; if I were her, I would remain at home, for good.”

“She has not seen her children for five years, and little things forget so soon.”

“Not always,” significantly. “Our little friend has a wonderful memory!”

“No, no; but ordinary children. Sweet is extraordinary. Colonel Sladen has won ever so much money from Captain Waring, and if it pays her passage, for once gambling will have done some good. All the same, I wish he would do something better with his money. Uncle Pelham says it is such a frightful example to other young men.”

“Yes; and he has no luck. He might just as well draw a cheque, and send it to the secretary to distribute among the members, for it is only a loss of time, and would amount to precisely the same thing in the end.”

“Minus the delightful excitement of gambling, you forgot that! It seems too bad to squander money in that way—when there is such poverty and misery everywhere. Even a few pounds can do wonders, and change people’s lives altogether. Sometimes it appears to me that money is in wrong hands—and its owners don’t recognize their responsibilities.”

“A great fortune is a great responsibility,” remarked her companion gravely. “It is so hard to know when to give, and when not to give. I think people with moderate incomes have much the best of it.”

“It is a capital joke, if any one could but hear us—deploring the drawbacks of wealth, you and I—the two poor relations. At least I speak for myself,” with a merry smile.

“And I must speak for myself. I have long wished to tell you something, Miss Gordon. I have rather shirked doing it, because I’m afraid you will be vexed; but——”

The sudden snapping of a twig on the edge of the bank overhanging the road caused him to glance up. There stood a large leopard, in the act of springing; like a flash it alighted just a yard behind them, and then bounded back with poor Ben in its mouth! It all was the work of two seconds.

“Oh, Ben—poor Ben!” shrieked Honor, frantically. “Let us save him; we must save him.”

Jervis snatched the alpenstock from her hand, and ran up the bank. Leopards are notorious cowards; the brute halted one instant, dropped his prey, and sprang lightly away among the undergrowth.

But, alas! poor Ben was stone dead; three minutes ago he had been full of life, now a bite in his throat had ended his happy existence; there he lay, with his eyes wide open, fixed in an expression of frozen horror. His death was on him almost ere he knew it; he was dead as he was carried off the road.

As he lay limp across Honor’s lap, her tears trickled slowly, and dropped on his still warm body.

Aunt Sara—who was to tell her? Oh, what an ending to her birthday! And she had often dreaded this end for Ben—almost as if it was a presentiment, and had always been so urgent to have him home by sundown. There was scarcely a house in Shirani that had not paid toll to the “lugger buggas,” as the natives call them, who were specially keen about dogs—short-haired dogs, and who hung about paths and cookhouses in their vicinity after dark. But this murder had been done in broad daylight, long ere it was even dusk.

“Come, Miss Gordon,” said her escort, “you really must not take on like this; you have only known him three months, and——”

“Don’t say he was only a dog!” she interrupted indignantly.

“Well then, I won’t, and I feel most awfully cut up myself. Yes,” in answer to her upward glance, “I am indeed. It is something to know that his end was instantaneous—he scarcely suffered at all.”

“And how is this to be broken to them?”

“Mr. Brande is coming after us. I will go and tell him, if you will wait here. No, on second thoughts, that would never do to leave you alone, and that brute in the wood—not that I believe he would face a human being. Ah, here comes your uncle.”

The tragedy was gradually broken to Mrs. Brande, and deep was her grief when her little dead dog was brought in, and laid at her feet. All the native household mourned (whether sincerely, or from their servile instincts, who shall say?). The only one who did not mourn was Sweet, who candidly exclaimed, as she cut a happy caper—

“Nasty ugly dog! I am so glad he is dead!”

Fortunately Mrs. Brande did not hear her, or she would probably have sent her straight out of the house, to test the comforts of the dâk bungalow.

Poor Mrs. Brande had cried so much that she was not fit to be seen; she did not appear at dinner. Next morning Ben’s unfinished sketch called forth another flood of tears, and she was not presentable all the forenoon.

Meanwhile Sweet posed for her portrait, and chattered incessantly. She had been to a large party, and no other little girl had worn gold bangles, or pink garters with satin rosettes. So she had frankly assured her audience, Mark and Honor—the latter was surrounded by quite a stack of books, and intent on solving an acrostic in the World.

“The tea was pretty good,” continued Sweet, affably. “I got nine crackers and a fan, and a little china doll quite naked; but the sweets were not Pelitis’s, only bazaar-made, I am sure. Percy Holmes tried to kiss me, and I scratched his face, and he cried. Such a Molly! I shall always call him Baby Holmes!”

Thus she babbled on garrulously, with her infantile gossip. Suddenly she seemed struck by an important thought, and gravely asked, with a widening of her big violet eyes—

“What does detrimental mean—de-tri-men-tal?” pronouncing the word as if she had got it by heart.

“You had better ask Miss Gordon,” replied Mark. “Miss Gordon, there is a dictionary at your hand.”

“Oh, what does it matter?” exclaimed Honor, who was beginning to be rather distrustful of Sweet’s seemingly artless questions.

“Find out, find out!” cried the imp, swinging her legs impatiently to and fro. “I want to know, and I am sitting very nicely—am I not?”

Mark made a sign to Miss Gordon to humour her, adding—

“I never saw such a small person for picking up big words.”

“Here it is,” said Honor, at length, “and much good may it do you!” reading out—“Detrimental—injurious, hurtful, prejudiced.”

“That’s what Mrs. Kane said he was,” pointing a gleeful finger at the young man. “A shocking detrimental, and that Mrs. Brande was a fool to have him here.”

“Sweet! How dare you repeat such things?” cried Honor, with blazing cheeks. “You know it is very wrong. What a naughty little girl you are!”

“But she said it,” boldly persisted Sweet; “and she is grown up.”

“She was joking, of course; grown people often joke.”

“She said a great deal. She said that——”

“Hus-s-sh! We don’t want to hear tales,” breathlessly interrupted Honor.

“She said,” screamed a piping triumphant voice, high above the hus-s-sh, “he was in love with you!”

“Now,” cried Honor, her passion having risen beyond all control, as she surveyed the pert, self-complacent little model—she dared not look at Mark Jervis—“I told you not to repeat stories. I have told you that over and over again, and yet you delight in doing it because it annoys people—and you do it with impunity. No one has ever punished you—but—I shall punish you.”

And before Mark guessed at what was about to happen, Miss Gordon—actively precipitate in her resentment—had snatched the picture from the easel before him, and torn it into four pieces!

“There!” she cried breathlessly, “you can get off that chair at once, Sweet. Mr. Jervis has done with you.”

Sweet opened her great violet eyes, and gazed in incredulous amazement. Never had she been so served. She had always hitherto made people angry, uncomfortable, or shocked, and gone scathless, and had invariably enjoyed what is known in sporting circles as “a walk over.”

Never had she seen such an angry young lady. How red her cheeks were—how brightly her eyes glittered. Then Sweet’s gaze fastened on her own picture, her mouth opened wide, and gave vent to an ear-splitting yell, as she tumbled off her chair, like a canary off its perch, and lay on the verandah, kicking and screaming.

“After all,” said Jervis, with an air of humble deprecation, “you need not have been so angry with the poor little beggar; she only spoke the truth.” (That he was a detrimental, or that he was in love with her—which?)

Attracted by vociferous shrieks, Mr. and Mrs. Brande rushed upon the scene from opposite doors. The languid ayah also appeared, and raised up her sobbing charge, who now and then varied her sobs by a shrill squeal of fury.

“What is it?” cried Mr. Brande, eagerly appealing to Honor and Mark. “I thought you were putting her to torture—at last!”

“What is it, dearie? What is it? tell me!” pleaded Mrs. Brande. “Come to me, lovey, and tell me all about it, doatie. There now—there now,” making dabs with her handkerchief at the child’s eyes.

“That,” suddenly stiffening herself in the ayah’s arms, and pointing a trembling finger at the guilty party, “that pig girl, tore up my pretty, pretty picture, because—I told her Mrs. Kane said that Mark was in love with her—she did say it, at the tea to Mrs. King, and that beast of a girl has torn my picture—and I’ll tell my mamma, I will—I will—and Mrs. Kane did say it—and Mrs. King said——”

“For Heaven’s sake, take her away!” shouted Mr. Brande, excitedly.

Thereupon Sweet was promptly carried off, kicking desperately, and still shrieking out, “She did say it. She did—she did—she did!”