Beechcroft at Rockstone

CHAPTER XXI. – BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

In the search for a new abode Mrs. Lee was in much difficulty, for it was needful to be near St. Kenelm’s, and the only vacant houses within her means were not desirable for the reception of a feeble convalescent; moreover, Mr. Gudgeon grumbled and inquired, and was only withheld by warnings enhanced by the police from carrying the whole charivari of the Salvation Army along Ivinghoe Terrace on Sunday afternoon.

Perhaps it was this, perhaps it was the fact of having discussed the situation with the two Miss Mohuns, that made Mr. White say to Alexis, ‘There are two rooms ready for your sister, as soon as Dagger says she can be moved safely. The person who nurses her had better come with her, and you may as well come back to your old quarters.’

Alexis could hardly believe his ears, but Mr. White waved off all thanks. The Mohun sisters were delighted and triumphant, and Jane came down to talk it over with her elder sister, auguring great things from that man who loved to deal in surprises.

‘That is true,’ said Sir Jasper.

‘What does that mean, Jasper?’ said his wife. ‘It sounds significant.’

‘I certainly should not be amazed if he did further surprise us all. Has it never struck you how that noontide turn of Adeline’s corresponds with his walk home from the reading-room?’

Lady Merrifield looked rather startled, but Jane only laughed, and said, ‘My dear Jasper, if you only knew Ada as well as I do! Yes, I have seen far too many of those little affairs to be taken in by them. Poor Ada! I know exactly how she looks, but she is only flattered, like a pussy-cat waggling the end of its tail—it means nothing, and never comes to anything. The thing that is likely and hopeful is, that he may adopt those young people as nephews and nieces.’

‘Might it not spoil them?’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘Oh! I did not mean that. They might work with him still. However, there is no use in settling about that. The only thing to be expected of him is the unexpected!’

‘And the thing to be done,’ added her sister, ‘is to see how and when that poor girl can be got up to Cliff House.’

To the general surprise, Dr. Dagger wished the transit to take place without loss of time. A certain look of resigned consternation crossed Kalliope’s face on being informed of her destiny, but she justified Mrs. Halfpenny’s commendation of her as the maist douce and conformable patient in the world, for she had not energy enough even to plead against anything so formidable, and she had not yet been told that Ivinghoe Terrace was her home no longer.

The next day she was wrapped in cloaks and carried downstairs between her brother and Mrs. Halfpenny, laid on a mattress in the Merrifield waggonette, which went up the hill at a foot’s pace, and by the same hands, with her old friend the caretaker’s wife going before, was taken upstairs to a beautiful large room, with a window looking out on vernal sky and sea. She was too much exhausted on her arrival to know anything but the repose on the fresh comfortable bed, whose whiteness was almost rivalled by her cheek, and Mrs. Halfpenny ordered off Alexis, who was watching her in great anxiety. However, when he came back after his afternoon’s work, it was to find that she had eaten and slept, and now lay, with her eyes open, in quiet interested admiration of a spacious and pleasant bedroom, such as to be a great novelty to one whose life had been spent in cheap lodging houses. The rooms had been furnished twenty years before as a surprise intended for the wife who never returned to occupy them, and though there was nothing extraordinary in them, there was much to content the eyes accustomed to something very like squalidness, for had not Kalliope’s lot always been the least desirable chamber in the family quarters?

At any rate, from that moment she began to recover, ate with appetite, slept and woke to be interested, and to enjoy Theodore’s letter of description of St. Wulstan’s, and even to ask questions. Alexis was ready to dance for joy when she first began really to talk to him; and could not forbear imparting his gladness to the Miss Mohuns that very evening, as well as to Mr. White, and running down after dinner with the good news to Maura, Mrs. Lee, and Lady Merrifield. Dinners with Mr. White had, on his first sojourn in that house, been a great penance, though there were no supercilious servants, for all the waiting was by the familiar housekeeper, Mrs. Osborne, who had merely added an underling to her establishment on her master’s return; but Alexis then had been utterly miserable, feeling guilty and ashamed, as one only endured on sufferance out of compassion, because his brother cast him out, and fresh from the sight of his mother’s dying bed; a terrible experience altogether, which had entirely burnt out and effaced his foolish fit of romantic calf-love, and rendered him much more of a man. Now, though not a month had passed, he seemed to be on a different footing. He was doing his work steadily, and the hope of his sister’s recovery had brightened him. Mr. White had begun to talk to him, to ask him questions about the doings of the day, and to tell him in return some of his own experiences in Italy, and in the earlier days of the town. Maura came up to see her sister every day, and tranquillised her mind when the move was explained, and anxiety as to the transport of all their worldly goods began to set in. Mrs. Lee had found a house where she could place two bedrooms and a sitting-room at the disposal of the Whites if things were to continue as before, and no hint had been given of any change, or of what was to happen when the three months’ notice given to Kalliope and Alexis should have expired.

By the Easter holidays Mrs. Halfpenny began to get rather restless as to the overlooking of the boys’ wardrobes; and, indeed, she thought so well of her patient’s progress as to suggest to Mr. White that the lassie would do very well if she had her sister to be with her in the holidays, and she herself would come up every day to help at the getting up, for Kalliope was now able to be dressed and to lie on a couch in the dressing-room, where she could look out over the bay, and she had even asked for some knitting.

‘And really, Miss Gillian, you could not do her much harm if you came up to see her,’ said the despot. ‘So you may come this very afternoon, if ye’ll be douce, and not fash her with any of your cantrips.’

Gillian did not feel at all in a mood for cantrips as she slowly walked up the broad staircase, and was ushered into the dressing-room, cheerful with bright fire and April sunshine, and with a large comfortable sofa covered with a bright rug, where Kalliope could enjoy both window and fire without glare. The beauty of her face so much depended on form and expression that her illness had not lessened it. Gillian had scarcely seen her since the autumn, and the first feeling was what an air of rest and peace had succeeded the worn, harassed look then almost perpetual. There was a calmness now that far better suited the noble forehead, dark pencilled eyebrows, and classical features in their clear paleness; and with a sort of reverence Gillian bent over her, to kiss her and give her a bunch of violets. Then, when the thanks had passed, Gillian relieved her own shyness by exclaiming with admiration at a beautiful water-coloured copy of an early Italian fresco, combining the Nativity and Adoration of the Magi, that hung over the mantelpiece.

‘Is it not exquisite?’ returned Kalliope. ‘I do so much enjoy making out each head and dwelling on them! Look at that old shepherd’s simple wonder and reverence, and the little child with the lamb, and the contrast with the Wise Man from the East, whose eyes look as if he saw so much by faith.’

‘Can you see it from there?’ asked Gillian, who had got up to look at these and further details dwelt on by Kalliope.

‘Yes. Not at first; but they come out on me by degrees. It is such a pleasure, and so kind of Mr. White to have put it there. He had it hung there, Mrs. Halfpenny told me, instead of his own picture just before I came in here.’

‘Well, he is not a bad-looking man, but it is no harm to him or his portrait to say that this is better to look at!’

‘It quite does me good! And see,’ pointing to a photograph of the Arch of Titus hung on the screen that shielded her from the door, ‘he sends in a fresh one by Alexis every other day.

‘How very nice! He really seems to be a dear old man. Don’t you think so?’

‘I am sure he is wonderfully kind, but I have only seen him that once when he came with Sir Jasper, and then I knew nothing but that when Sir Jasper was come things must go right.’

‘Of course; but has he never been to see you now that you are up and dressed?’

‘No, he lavishes anything on me that I can possibly want, but I have only seen him once—never here.’

‘It is like Beauty and the Beast!’

‘Oh no, no; don’t say that!’

‘Well, George Stebbing really taught Fergus to call him a beast, and you—Kally—I won’t tease you with saying what you are.’

‘I wish I wasn’t, it would be all so much easier.’

‘Never mind! I do believe the Stebbings are going away! Does Maura never see him?’

‘She has met him on the stairs and in the garden, but she has her meals here. I trust by the time her Easter holidays are over I may be fit to go back with her. But I do hope I may be able to copy a bit of that picture first, though, any way, I can never forget it.’

‘To go on as before?’ exclaimed Gillian, with an interrogative sigh of wonder.

‘If that notice of dismissal can be revoked,’ said Kalliope.

But would you like it—must you?’

‘I should like to go back to my girls,’ said Kalliope; ‘and things come into my head, now I am doing nothing, that I want to work out, if I might. So, you see, it is not at all a pity that I must.’

And why is it must?’ said Gillian wistfully. ‘You have to get well first.’

Yes, I know that; but, you see, there are Maura and Petros. They must not be thrown on Alexis, poor dear fellow! And if he could only be set free, he might go on with what he once hoped for, though he thinks it is his duty to give all that entirely up now and work obediently on. But I know the longing will revive, and if I only could improve myself, and be worth more, it might still be possible.’

‘Only you must not begin too soon and work yourself to death.’

‘Hardly after such a rest,’ said Kalliope. ‘It is not work I mind, but worry’—and then a sadder look crossed her for a moment, and she added, ‘I am so thankful.’

‘Thankful?’ echoed Gillian.

‘Yes, indeed! For Sir Jasper’s coming and saving us at that dreadful moment, and my being able to keep up as long as dear mamma wanted me, and then Mrs. Halfpenny being spared by dear Lady Merrifield to give me such wonderful care and kindness, and little Theodore being so happily placed, and this rest—such a strange quiet rest as I never knew before. Oh! it is all so thankworthy’—and the great tears came to dim her eyes. ‘It seems sent to help me to take strength and courage for the future. “He hath helped me hitherto.”’

‘And you are better?’

‘Yes, much better. Quite comfortable as long as I am quite still.’

‘And content to be still?’

‘Yes, I’m very lazy.’

It was a tired voice, and Gillian feared her half-hour was nearly over, but she could not help saying—

‘Do you know, I think it will be all nicer now. Mr. White is doing so much, and Mr. Stebbing hates it so, that Mrs. Stebbing says he is going to dissolve the partnership and go away.’

‘Then it would all be easier. It seems too good to be true.’

‘And that man Mr. White. He must do something for you! He ought.’

‘Oh no! He has done a great deal already, and has not been well used. Don’t talk of that.’

‘I believe he is awfully rich. You know he is building an Institute for the workmen, and a whole row of model cottages.’

‘Yes, Alexis told me. What a difference it will make! I hope he will build a room where the girls can dine and rest and read, or have a piano; it would be so good for them.’

‘You had better talk to him about it.’

‘I never see him, and I should not dare.’

‘I’ll tell my aunts. He always does what Aunt Ada tells him. Is that really all you wish?’

‘Oh! I don’t wish for anything much—I don’t seem able to care now dear mamma is where they cease from troubling, and I have Alec again.’

‘Well, I can’t help having great hopes. I can’t see why that man should not make a daughter of you! Then you would travel and see mountains and pictures and everything. Oh, should you not like that?’

‘Like? Oh, one does not think about liking things impossible! And for the rest, it is nonsense. I should not like to be dependent, and I ought not.’

‘You don’t think what is to come next?’

‘No, it would be taking thought for the morrow, would it not? I don’t want to, while I can’t do anything, it would only make me fret, and I am glad I am too stupid still to begin vexing myself over it. I suppose energy and power of considering will come when my heart does not flutter so. In the meantime, I only want to keep quiet, and I hope that’s not all laziness, but some trust in Him who has helped me all this time.’

‘Miss Gillian, you’ve clavered as long as is good for Miss White, and here are the whole clanjamfrie waiting in the road for you. Now be douce, my bairn, and mind you are not in the woods at home, and don’t let the laddies play their tricks with Miss Primrose.’

‘I must go,’ said Gillian, hastily kissing Kalliope. ‘The others were going to call for me. When Lady Phyllis was riding with her father she spied a wonderful field of daffodils and a valley full of moss at a place called Clipston, two miles off, and we are all going to get some for the decorations. I’ll send you some. Good-bye.’

The clanjamfrie, as Mrs. Halfpenny called it, mustered strong, and Gillian’s heart leapt at the resumption of the tumultuous family life, as she beheld the collection of girls, boys, dogs, and donkeys awaiting her in the approach; and, in spite of the two governesses’ presence, her mind misgave her as to the likelihood of regard to the hint that her mother had given that she hoped the elder ones would try to be sober in their ways, and not quite forget what week it was. It was in their favour that Jasper, now in his last term at school, was much more of a man and less of a boy than hitherto, and was likely to be on the side of discretion, so that he might keep in order that always difficult element, Wilfred, whose two years of preparatory school as yet made him only more ingenious in the arts of teasing, and more determined to show his superiority to petticoat government. He had driven Fergus nearly distracted by threatening to use all his mineralogical specimens to make ducks and drakes, and actually confusing them together, so that Fergus repented of having exhibited them, and rejoiced that Aunt Jane had let them continue in her lumber-room till they could find a permanent home.

Wilfred had a shot for Mrs. Halfpenny, when she came down with Gillian and looked for Primrose to secure that there were no interstices between the silk handkerchief and fur collar.

‘Ha, ha, old Small Change, don’t you wish you may get it?’—as Primrose proved to be outside the drive on one of the donkeys. ‘You’ve got nothing to do but gnaw your fists at us like old Giant Pope.’

‘For shame, Wilfred!’ said Jasper. ‘My mother did Primrose’s throat, nurse, so she is all right.’

‘Bad form,’ observed Lord Ivinghoe, shaking his head.

‘I’m not going to Eton,’ replied Wilfred audaciously.

‘I should hope not!’—in a tone of ineffable contempt, not for Wilfred’s person, but his manners, and therewith his Lordship exclaimed, ‘Who’s that?’ as Maura came flying down with Gillian’s forgotten basket.

‘Oh, that’s Maura White!’ said Valetta.

‘I say, isn’t she going with us?’

‘Oh no, she has to look after her sister!’

‘Don’t you think we might take her, Gill?’ said Fly. ‘She never gets any fun.’

‘I don’t think she ought to leave Kalliope to-day, Fly, for nurse is going down to Il Lido; and besides, Aunt Jane said we must not take all Rockquay with us.’

‘No, they would not let us ask Kitty and Clement Varley, said Fergus disconsolately.

‘I am sure she is five times as pretty as your Kitty!’ returned Ivinghoe. ‘She is a regular stunner.’ Whereby it may be perceived that a year at Eton had considerably modified his Lordship’s correctness of speech, if not of demeanour. Be it further observed that, in spite of the escort of the governesses, the young people were as free as if those ladies had been absent, for, as Jasper observed, the donkeys neutralised them. Miss Elbury, being a bad walker, rode one, and Miss Vincent felt bound to keep close to Primrose upon the other; and as neither animal could be prevailed on to moderate its pace, they kept far ahead of all except Valetta, who was mounted on the pony intended for Lady Phyllis, but disdained by her until she should be tired. Lord Ivinghoe’s admiration of Maura was received contemptuously by Wilfred, who was half a year younger than his cousin, and being already, in his own estimation, a Wykehamist, had endless rivalries with him.

‘She! She’s nothing but a cad! Her sister is a shop-girl, and her brother is a quarryman.’

‘She does not look like it,’ observed Ivinghoe, while Mysie and Fly, with one voice, exclaimed that her father was an officer in the Royal Wardours.

‘A private first,’ said Wilfred, with boyhood’s reiteration. ‘Cads and quarrymen all of them—the whole boiling, old White and all, though he has got such a stuck-up house!’

‘Nonsense, Will,’ said Fly. ‘Why, Mr. White has dined with us.’

‘A patent of nobility, said Jasper, smiling.

‘I don’t care,’ said Wilfred; ‘if other people choose to chum with old stonemasons and convicts, I don’t.’

‘Wilfred, that is too bad,’ said Gillian. ‘It is very wrong to talk in that way.’

‘Oh!’ said the audacious Wilfred, ‘we all know who is Gill’s Jack!’

‘Shut up, Will!’ cried Fergus, flying at him. ‘I told you not to—’

But Wilfred bounded up a steep bank, and from that place of vantage went on—

‘Didn’t she teach him Greek, and wasn’t he spoony; and didn’t she send back his valentine, so that—’

Fergus was scrambling up the bank after him, enraged at the betrayal of his confidence, and shouting inarticulately, while poor Gillian moved on, overwhelmed with confusion, and Fly uttered the cutting words, ‘Perfectly disgusting!’

‘Ay, so it was!’ cried the unabashed Wilfred, keeping on at the top of the bank, and shaking the bushes at every pause. ‘So he broke down the rocks, and ran away with the tin, and enlisted, and went to prison. Such a sweet young man for Gill!’

Poor Gillian! was her punishment never to end? That scrape of hers, hitherto so tenderly and delicately hinted at, and which she would have given worlds to have kept from her brothers, now shouted all over the country! Sympathy, however, she had, if that would do her any good. Mysie and Fly came on each side of Ivinghoe, assuring him, in low eager voices, of the utter nonsense of the charge, and explaining ardently; and Jasper, with one bound, laid hold of the tormentor, dragged him down, and, holding his stick over him, said—

‘Now, Wilfred, if you don’t hold your tongue, and not behave like a brute, I shall send you straight home.’

‘It’s quite true,’ growled Wilfred. ‘Ask her.’

‘What does that signify? I’m ashamed of you! I’ve a great mind to thrash you this instant. If you speak another word of that sort, I shall. Now then, there are the governesses trying to stop to see what’s the row. I shall give you up to Miss Vincent, if you choose to behave so like a spiteful girl.’

A sixth-form youth was far too great a man to be withstood by one who was not yet a public schoolboy at all; and Wilfred actually obeyed, while Jasper added to Fergus—

‘How could you be such a little ass as to go and tell him all that rot?’

‘It was true,’ grumbled Fergus.

‘The more reason not to go cackling about it like an old hen, or a girl! Your own sister! I’m ashamed of you both. Mind, I shall thrash you if you mention it again.’

Poor Fergus felt the accusation of cackling unjust, since he had only told Wilfred in confidence, and that had been betrayed, but he had got his lesson on family honour, and he subsided into his wonted look-out for curious stones, while Gillian was overtaken by Jasper—whether willingly or not, she hardly knew—but his first word was, ‘Little beast!’

‘You didn’t hurt him, I hope,’ said Gill, accepting the invitation to take his arm.

‘Oh no! I only threatened to make him walk with the governesses and the donkeys.’

‘Asses and savants to the centre,’ said Gillian; ‘like the orders to the French army in Egypt.’