It was only horrid, Valetta said, that Mysie should sleep in a different house; but almost as much of her company was vouchsafed on the ensuing day, Sunday, for Miss Elbury had relations at Rockquay, and was released for the entire day; and Fly was still so tired in the morning that she was not allowed to get up early in the day.
Her mother, however, came in to go to church with Adeline Mohun, and Gillian, who had heard so much of the great Marchioness, was surprised to see a small slight woman, not handsome, and worn-looking about the eyes. At the first glance, she was plainly dressed; but the eye of a connoisseur like Aunt Ada could detect the exquisiteness of the material and the taste, and the slow soft tone of her voice; and every gesture and phrase showed that she had all her life been in the habit of condescending-in fact, thought Gillian, revolving her recent experience, though Lady Liddesdale and all her set are taller, finer-looking people, they are not one bit so grand-no, not that- but so unapproachable, as I am sure she is. She is gracious, while they are just good-natured!
Aunt Ada was evidently pleased with the graciousness, and highly delighted to have to take this distinguished personage to church. Mysie was with her sisters, Valetta was extremely anxious to take her to the Sunday drawing-room class-whether for the sake of showing her to Mrs. Hablot, or Mrs. Hablot to her, did not appear.
Gillian was glad to be asked to sit with Fly in the meantime. It was a sufficient reason for not repairing to the garden, and she hoped that Kalliope was unaware of her return, little knowing of the replies by which Fergus repaid Alexis for his assistance in mineral hunting. She had no desire to transgress Miss Mohun's desire that no further intercourse should take place till she herself had spoken with Kalliope.
She found little Phyllis Devereux a great deal taller and thinner than the droll childish being who had been so amusing two years before at Silverfold, but eagerly throwing herself into her arms with the same affectionate delight. All the table was spread with pretty books and outlined illuminations waiting to be painted, and some really beautiful illustrated Sunday books; but as Gillian touched the first, Fly cried out, 'Oh, don't! I am so tired of all those things! And this is such a stupid window. I thought at least I should see the people going to church, and this looks at nothing but the old sea and a tiresome garden.'
'That is thought a special advantage,' said Gillian, smiling.
'Then I wish some one had it who liked it!'
'You would not be so near us.'
'No, and that is nice, and very nice for Mysie. How are all the dear beasts at Silverfold-Begum, and all?'
'I am afraid I do not know more about them than Mysie does. Aunt Jane heard this morning that she must go down there to-morrow to meet the health-man and see what he says; but she won't take any of us because of the diphtheria and the scarlet fever being about.'
'Oh dear, how horrid those catching things are! I've not seen Ivinghoe all this winter! Ah! but they are good sometimes! If it had not been for the measles, I should never have had that most delicious time at Silverfold, nor known Mysie. Now, please tell me all about where you have been, and what you have been doing.'
Fly knew some of the younger party that Gillian had met at Rowthorpe; but she was more interested in the revels at Vale Leston, and required a precise description of the theatricals, or still better, of the rehearsals. Never was there a more appreciative audience, of how it all began from Kit Harewood, the young sailor, having sent home a lion's skin from Africa, which had already served for tableaux of Androcles and of Una-how the boy element had insisted on fun, and the child element on fairies, and how Mrs. William Harewood had suggested Midsummer Night's Dream as the only combination of the three essentials, lion, fun, and fairy, and pronounced that education had progressed far enough for the representation to be 'understanded of the people,' at least by the 6th and 7th standards. On the whole, however, comprehension seemed to have been bounded by intense admiration of the little girl fairies, whom the old women appeared to have taken for angels, for one had declared that to hear little Miss Cherry and Miss Katie singing their hymns like the angels they was, was just like Heaven. She must have had an odd notion of 'Spotted snakes with double tongues.' Moreover, effect was added to the said hymns by Uncle Lance behind the scenes.
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.'
Beechcroft at Rockstone Page 18