One Maid's Mischief

Volume One – Chapter One.

One of her Victims

Seven o’clock in the morning, and chee-op – chee-op – chee-op – chirrup – pee-yew– a splendid thrush waking the echoes with his loud notes; the blackbirds down in the copse whistling a soft love-song to their silent mates, waiting in their cup-like nests for the first chip of the blotched eggs; Coelebs, the chaffinch, pouring down tinkling strains from the pink-blossomed apple-trees; while the larks high above the young corn and clover, twittered their joyous hymn in rivalling accord to the May-morning sun. The dew lay heavy and cold upon the tawny, sweet-scented wallflowers, and the freshness of feeling in the shade whispered that the silvery whiteness of their hues was not far removed from frost.

So thought the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, as he stood contemplating the flower-beds in front of the quaint old Rectory, whose windows were framed in the opening blossoms of a huge snaky-stemmed wistaria, one of which windows – his own – was wide open, and had been for an hour, while its fellow over the little drawing-room was delicately draped in snowy dimity.

Geraniums formed the subject of the Reverend Arthur’s contemplation as he stood upon the closely-shaven, dewy lawn; and he had just come to the conclusion that he had better wait another week before filling his beds with the scarlet trusses, when there was the sharp sound of brass rings upon a rod. The dimity curtains were drawn aside, the casement window was opened and carefully hooked back, and the kit-cat living portrait of a pleasant plump little woman of about forty appeared in the frame.

“Arthur, I’m sure you are getting your feet wet,” she chirped.

The tall, very thin curate of Little Magnus looked dreamily up at the window, and then down at his feet, stooping a good deal to obtain a nearer view. Slowly rising, he looked up at the window again, took off his soft felt hat, smoothed his thin grey hair, and said slowly:

“No, my dear, I think not.”

“But I’m sure you must be, Arthur; it’s a very heavy dew?” cried the little lady, emphatically.

“Yes, my dear Mary,” he replied, in a slow, deprecating way, “it is a very heavy dew, but I have got on my goloshes.”

“Ho!” exclaimed the little lady, and she disappeared.

The Reverend Arthur Rosebury began to make a peculiar humming noise, somewhat suggestive of a large bumble-bee trying to practise a chant, which was his idea of singing, and was walking slowly off towards a laurel-shaded walk when the little lady once more appeared at the window.

“Arthur!”

“Yes, my dear Mary?”

“Don’t you go far away; breakfast won’t be long.”

“No, my dear Mary.”

“Where shall you be?”

“Down by the bees.”

“You’ll come when I whistle?”

“Yes, my dear Mary.”

The lady disappeared once more, and the curate of Little Magnus went slowly and deliberately down the garden of the Rectory, where he had been for many years resident; the wealthy rector, who was a canon of Dunchester, finding a sermon or two a year nearly all he could give to the little parish.

The bees were visited, both those dwelling in the round-topped, old-fashioned straw hives and the occupants of the modern square boxes, cunningly contrived to enable the proprietor to commit honied burglaries without adding bee-murder to the offence.

The bees were as busy as those immortalised by Dr Watts, and coming and going in the bright sunshine, making a glorious hum in a snowy cherry-tree close at hand, and suggesting to the curate’s mind ample supplies of the cloying sweet, about five hundredweights of which he hoped to sell at a shilling a pound.

The Reverend Arthur went slowly away, smiling in his heart – he rarely smiled visibly – happy and thankful for his lot; opened the white gate in the tall green hedge, and after closing it carefully, began to walk across the drenched grass, a couple of soft-eyed, mousy-skinned Alderney cows slowly raising their heads to stare at him, munching the grass the while, and then coming to meet him, lowing softly.

“Ah, Dewnose! Ah, Bessy,” he said, pulling the great flapping ears of each in turn, and inhaling the puffs of warm, sweet-scented breath as he passed, the cows watching him for a few moments, and then, evidently thinking fresh dewy grass preferable to the best of curates, they resumed their quiet “crop crop” of the verdant meal.

The meadow crossed, another gate led back into the garden, where a long glass-house stood with open door inviting the Reverend Arthur to enter and breathe the warm, deliciously-scented air. The sun was shining brightly and came in a shower of rays upon the red-bricked floor, broken up as it were by the silvery shoots of the vines whose leaves were fringed with drops of pearly dew.

A glance at the leafy roof displayed so much attention needed that the Reverend Arthur, after a little contemplation and a few moral comparisons between the wild growth of the vine and that of the young and old of the parish, slowly took off his coat, lifted a heavy plank and placed it across two of the iron rafter-ties of the building; and after satisfying himself of its safety, mounting a pair of steps, climbing on to the plank, and seating himself in a very unclerical attitude, he began to snap off the redundant branches of the vine.

“Chirrup!” went a shrill whistle as the first branch was snapped, but the Reverend Arthur heard it not, and in a rapt, dreamy manner went on snapping off at their joints branch after branch just beyond where the young bunches of grapes were beginning to show.

“Chirrup!” went the whistle again, but still unheard, for the Reverend Arthur had just placed one of the succulent branches he had broken off between his lips, and, as if imitating the ways of Dewnose and Bessy, he was sedately munching away at the pleasant acid growth.

“Chirrup!” again, but this time in another direction, and, perfectly unconscious of the summons, the Reverend Arthur went on with his pruning, breakfasting the while off the tender acid shoots.

Chirrup after chirrup mingled with the songs of the birds, and at last the bustling little figure of the lady lately seen at the Rectory window appeared at the door.

“Why, here you are Arthur!” she exclaimed. “What a shame it is! You said you’d be down by the bees.”

“I’m – I’m very sorry, my dear Mary,” said the guilty truant, with a look of appeal in his face.

“That’s what you always say, sir, and here is the ham getting cold, the eggs will be quite hard, and I’ve got my feet soaking wet running all over the place.”

“I really am very sorry, my dear Mary,” said the Reverend Arthur, slowly descending from his perch.

“I never did see such a man,” cried the little lady, with her pleasant face a droll mixture of vexation and good-humour.

As she spoke she took up the curate’s long coat, and held it ready for him to put on, tip-toeing to enable him to thrust his long thin arms into the sleeves, and then tip-toeing a little more to reach up and give him a hearty kiss.

“There, I won’t be very cross,” she cried, “only there never was such a thoughtless, tiresome man before. Just look at your hands!”

“It’s only vine-juice, my dear Mary,” he said, looking at his long thin fingers in turn.

“Well, come along. You will have time to go and wash them while I change my shoes and stockings. Just look there.”

Miss Mary Rosebury made no hesitation about drawing her grey cloth dress aside to display a very prettily-shaped pair of feet and ankles, soaked with dew and muddied by the garden paths, before taking her brother, as it were, into custody and leading him up to the house.

Five minutes later they were in the prettily-furnished dining-room, before a most temptingly spread breakfast-table, where everything was clean and neat as the home of an old bachelor, tended by a maiden sister, might be expected to be. There were flowers and hand-painted screens; the linen was snowy white, and the eggs, and butter, and cream were as delicious as the coffee.

The morning prayers were read in presence of Cook and Jane; then the coffee was poured out in a dark amber stream, and for the first time the Reverend Arthur smiled.

“Really, my dear Mary,” he said, “I don’t think any two people could be happier than we are.”

“Than we should be if you would not do such foolish things, Arthur,” said the little lady, sharply.

“Foolish things, my dear?” he replied, rather blankly.

“Yes, foolish things. I don’t mind your being so fond of your garden and natural history, but it doesn’t look becoming for you to come back as you did yesterday, with a bunch of weeds in one hand, a bundle of mosses in the other, and your hat pinned all over with butterflies. The people think you half mad.”

“But I had no pill-boxes, my dear Mary, and Thompson, of the Entomological, asked me to get him some of the large sulphurs.”

“Then I wish Thompson, of the Entomological, would come down and catch his butterflies himself. Give me a bit more fat.”

“For my part I should never wish to change.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the elderly lady, slowly, as she made a very hearty breakfast. “Little Magnus is very nice and the garden very pretty, but there seems to be a something wanting. Tilt the dish and give me a little more of that gravy, Arthur. Why don’t you pass your cup?”

“And yet we have an abundance of the good things of this life, Mary, that we could not enjoy in a town.”

“Ye-es,” said the little lady, dubiously; “but still there seems to be a something wanting.”

“I think we shall have plenty of honey this year, my dear Mary.”

“So we did last year, Arthur.”

“The mushrooms are coming on very fast in the pit. By the way, what did you do with those Saint George’s agarics I brought home yesterday?”

“Threw them away.”

“My dear Mary!”

“And the best thing too, Arthur. Now, once for all, mushrooms are mushrooms; but I’m not going to have you poison yourself nor me neither with all kinds of toadstools, to gratify your love of experiment.”

The curate sighed, and there came a pause, broken by Miss Mary Rosebury saying:

“Yes, I suppose we ought to be perfectly contented, and I think I am; but sometimes it seems a pity that we should always go on like this without any change. Oh, here’s Brown.”

Volume One – Chapter Two.

A Dangerous Visitor

Miss Mary Rosebury left her chair at the breakfast-table and hurried out to the rose-covered porch as a heavy step was heard upon the gravel; and directly after a sturdy-looking man, with half-a-dozen leather bags slung from his shoulder, appeared at the door.

“Fine morning, miss. Two letters – three letters – four letters. ‘Stan’ard,’ ‘Gar’ner’s Chronkle,’ ‘Beekeep’s Junnel;’ that’s all, miss;” and before the little lady had had time to speak, the heavy step was receding over the gravel. “Four letters for you, Arthur. Shall I open them?”

“Please, my dear Mary,” said the Reverend Arthur, without evincing the slightest interest in the arrival of the post, for he was carefully filling up the holes in some well-made dry toast with the freshest of fresh butter.

Miss Mary Rosebury laid the letters upon the table while she fished a spectacle-case from her pocket, balanced her glasses upon her rather decided-looking nose, gave the two little bunches of curls on either side of her white forehead a shake, and opened the first letter, reading aloud:

“‘Messrs Spindle and Twist beg to call your attention to a very curious sherry, and’ – um – um – um – um – Ah! you don’t want to lay down sherry, do you, Arthur?”

“No, my dear Mary,” said her brother; and letter number two was opened.

“‘Mr Hazelton is now prepared to make advances upon personal security to the clergy, gentry – ’ Bah! money-lenders!” exclaimed Miss Mary Rosebury, throwing aside the second letter. “I wish these people wouldn’t bore us with their applications. What’s this?”

As she spoke she took up a large blue official-looking envelope.

“Looks important, my dear Mary,” said the Rev. Arthur, displaying a little more interest.

“Yes,” said his sister, turning the letter over. “Oh! Arthur, suppose it means preferment at last – a vicarage somewhere.”

“I don’t think I should be very much pleased, my dear Mary. I am very happy here.”

“Oh, yes, of course we are, Arthur; but as I have often said, there does seem to be a something wanting, and – ‘The directors of the New Polwheedle and Verity Friendship Tin Mining’ – Oh, dear, dear, just as if we had money to throw down Cornish mines. What’s this? I don’t know this hand. There’s a crest upon the envelope, and ‘H.B.’ in the corner. Oh! it’s from Doctor Bolter.”

“Postmark Penang?” said the Reverend Arthur. “Wondered I had not heard from him.”

“No, it’s from London. Let me see. All about specimens, I suppose.”

My Dear Rosebury, —

I’m in England for a month or two, and am coming down to see you and chat over old times. Don’t make any fuss, old fellow! Bed on a sofa will do for an old campaigner like me. I’ve got business your way – to see some young ladies at Mayleyfield – daughters of two people out in the Peninsula. Been educated at home, and I am going to be their escort back. Nuisance, but must do it; expect me to-morrow.

The Reverend Arthur Rosebury.

“Why, Arthur, he’s coming here!”

“Yes, my dear. I’m very glad!”

“But to-day, Arthur! What shall I do?”

“Do, my dear Mary? Nothing! Bolter never wants anything done for him, unless he’s very much altered, and I don’t think he will be.”

“But the young ladies at Mayleyfield? Why that must be at Miss Twettenham’s establishment!”

“Very probably, my dear!” said the Reverend Arthur, getting up to walk up and down the room. “I shall be very, very glad to see Harry Bolter. I wonder whether he has brought any specimens?”

“To be sure, I’ve heard that the Misses Twettenham have several young ladies there whose parents are in India.”

“Not India, my dear. Henry Bolter has been in the Malay Peninsula. He was at Singapore and then at Penang.”

“And the house in such a terrible muddle!” exclaimed Miss Mary. “Whatever shall I do?”

“What a little world this is,” said the Reverend Arthur. “How strange that Henry Bolter should, so to speak, have friends as near as Mayleyfield!”

“Oh, Arthur, Arthur, you really have no thought whatever! To-day is baking day!”

“I am very glad, my dear Mary! Henry Bolter was always, I remember, fond of new bread. We used to call him Hot-roll Bolter at college.”

“Arthur!”

“Yes, my dear Mary.”

“I really am thankful that you never married! You would have worried any reasonable woman into her grave!”

“I am very sorry. I hope not, my dear Mary! I think if I had ever seen any lady I should have liked to call my wife, my whole study would have been to make her happy!”

“Yes, yes, my dear Arthur!” said the little petulant lady, placing her hands upon her tall, thin brother’s shoulders once more to pull him down to be kissed, “I know you would; but you are so tiresome.”

“I’m – I’m afraid I am, my dear Mary. I think sometimes that I must be very stupid.”

“Nonsense, Arthur; you are not. You are one of the best and cleverest of men; but you do get so lost in your studies that you forget all ordinary troubles of life. Why, there, actually you have come down this morning without any shirt-collar.”

“Have I? Have I, Mary?” said the Reverend Arthur, looking hastily in a glass. “How very foolish of me! I was anxious to get down, I suppose.”

“What we are to do for dinner I don’t know!” exclaimed Miss Mary. “The butcher won’t kill till the day after to-morrow.”

“Chickens,” suggested her brother.

“You can’t feed men always on chickens, Arthur.”

“No, no, my dear; but Henry Bolter has been a great deal in the East; and you might do a deal with chickens.”

“Oh, I know, Arthur,” said the little lady, pettishly. “Roast and boiled.”

“And curried! Bolter is sure to like curry.”

“And then grumble at it, and say it is not as good as he gets abroad. You never have anything in the garden either!”

“I have some very fine asparagus, my dear Mary.”

“Ah, well, that’s something.”

“And some forced rhubarb.”

“I could use that too. But really it is too bad to take one so by surprise. Men are so unreasonable!”

The Reverend Arthur Rosebury took a turn or two up and down the room, with a troubled look in his face, ending by stopping short before his sister.

“I – I am very sorry, my dear Mary,” he said. “Can I help you a little?”

“What by getting in the way, Arthur?” said the little lady, pettishly. “Nonsense! stuff!”

He smoothed his long, thin, closely-shaven face with one hand, gazing pensively at his sister.

“I – I used to be very fond of Henry Bolter,” he said, in a hesitating way.

“Why?” she said sharply. “I don’t believe in these very warm friendships between men!”

“It was when our father died, Mary, more than twenty years ago; and for want of a hundred pounds I thought I should have to leave college.”

“Yes?” said the little lady, sharply.

“Henry Bolter found it out, and he forced the money into my hand.”

“He did?”

“Yes, my dear Mary, and he never would let me pay it back again.”

“But didn’t you try, Arthur?”

“Four times over, my dear Mary; but he always sent the money back to me in a letter with only one word in it.”

“And what was that?”

There was a dry, half-pitiful smile in the Reverend Arthur’s face as he replied, gazing fixedly the while at his sister:

“‘Beast!’”

“What, Arthur?”

“He said ‘beast.’ He met me afterwards, and vowed he would never speak to me again if I alluded to the money, which he said was a gift; and it has never been repaid to this day.”

“Beast!” ejaculated Miss Mary, thoughtfully.

“Yes, my dear Mary, but I have that sum put away, ready for him to take when he will.”

“Of course,” said Miss Rosebury thoughtfully.

“And I should like to give Harry Bolter a warm welcome when he comes, Mary; not a welcome of corn and wine, oil, olive and honey, Mary – but a welcome from the heart, such as would please him more.”

“My dear Arthur,” cried the little lady, throwing her arms round her brother’s lank, spare form, “you mustn’t notice my crotchety ways, I’m getting an old woman – a fidgety old maid. Dr Bolter shall have as warm a welcome as I can give.”

“I knew it sister,” he said tenderly embracing her; and it was very foolish, but the eyes of both were wet with tears as the little lady snatched herself away.

“There, Arthur, now go, and don’t you come near me again except to bring me the asparagus and rhubarb, for I shall be as busy as a bee. There’s the doctor’s room to prepare.”

“No; let him have mine.”

“What, with all that litter of dried plants and flies?”

“Just what he would like.”

“There, go away.”

The Reverend Arthur Rosebury was about to say something more, but his sister checked him, and in a thoughtful dreamy way, he went slowly out into the garden, where at the end of ten minutes he had forgotten rhubarb, asparagus, even the coming of Dr Bolter, for the sun had shone out very hot, and the bees in the fourth hive beginning from the top were threatening to swarm.

Volume One – Chapter Three.

The Young Ladies

“The Firlawns, Mayleyfield, educational establishment for the daughters of officers and gentlemen in the Indian civil service, conducted by the Misses Twettenham,” as it said in the old circulars, for none were ever issued now. Thirty years of the care of young people, committed to their charge by parents compelled to reside in the East, had placed the Misses Twettenham beyond the need of circular or other advertising advocate. For it was considered a stroke of good fortune by Indian and other officials if vacancies could be found at the Firlawns for their daughters; in fact the Misses Twettenham might have doubled their numbers and their prices too, but they were content to keep on in their old conservative way, enjoying the confidence of their patrons, and really acting the parts of mothers to the young ladies committed to their charge.

It was a difficult task as well as an onerous one, this care of girls from the ages of ten or twelve up to even twenty and one-and-twenty, especially when it is taken into consideration that, whatever the emergency, the parents would be in India, China, or the Eastern islands – one or two months’ distance by letter, sometimes more.

It was not often that there were troubles, though, at the Firlawns, for the Misses Twettenham’s was a kindly as well as rigid rule. Sickness of course there was from time to time. Sadder still, they had had deaths; but there were times when some young lady of more than ordinary volatility would try to assert herself and resent the bonds that the elderly sisters insisted upon tying round her and keeping her back.

There were occasionally handsome curates at Mayleyfield. There was a particularly good-looking young doctor’s assistant once in the town; and at times Squire Morden’s soldier and sailor sons would return home for a short stay, when a misguided pupil would form a most hopeless attachment, and even go so far as to receive a smuggled note.

Woe be to her if she did! It was sure to be discovered; and if such a course was persisted in the doom was certain. Transportation was the sentence. Word was sent to mamma and papa in India, China, or wherever they might be, and Miss Rebellious had to leave the school.

These were very, very rare cases, for there was scarcely a girl who did not look upon the elderly sisters as their best of friends; but such accidents had occurred, and there was trouble at the Firlawns now.

“Never,” said Miss Twettenham to her sisters twain – “never, my dear Julia – never, my dear Maria, in the whole course of my experience, have I met with so determined, so obstinate a girl!”

“She is very beautiful,” said Miss Julia.

“And it promises to be a fatal gift,” said Miss Maria.

“Yes,” said the eldest Miss Twettenham; “and if it were not for the letter we have received saying that Dr Bolter was coming to fetch her away, I should certainly have been compelled to insist upon her being recalled.”

“I don’t think she means harm, dear Hannah,” said Miss Maria.

“No young lady brought up here could mean harm, Maria,” said Miss Twettenham, severely; “but to witness in her such a terrible display of – of – of – I really cannot find a word.”

“Coquetry,” suggested Miss Julia.

“Well, coquetry,” said Miss Twettenham, taking the word unwillingly, as if it were too bad to touch. “It is a terrible love of admiration!”

“What did she say, Hannah, when you spoke to her?”

“Laughed, my dear, in the most barefaced way, and said that it was all nonsense.”

“But that dreadful half-haughty, half-shy way in which she looked at him!” said Miss Maria.

“And she almost smiled,” said Miss Julia.

“Quite smiled!” said Miss Twettenham, severely. “I saw her smile at him; and then, when he lifted his hat, she raised her eyes and stared at him in a haughty, astonished way, as if she had never given him the slightest encouragement.”

“It is very shocking,” murmured Miss Maria.

“But I think she blushed a little,” remonstrated Miss Julia, as if to try and find some slight extenuating circumstance for the benefit of the most handsome pupil at the Firlawns.

“That I deny!” exclaimed Miss Twettenham. “It was only the reflection from the lining of her sunshade! I repeat it, sisters; I am very – very glad she is going away!”

“So am I,” said Miss Julia; “and yet I am sorry, for she is a very beautiful girl, and I am sure she is affectionate.”

“What is beauty without ballast, my dear Julia? or affection that goes floating about like a gossamer without a stay?” said Miss Twettenham severely, and her sisters sighed.

“I consider it most reprehensible. And now I think we will have her down.”

The three grey, elderly ladies seated themselves in three stiff-backed, uneasy chairs, wool-worked by former pupils; and as soon as they had settled themselves in severe attitudes, Miss Twettenham gave a long wool-worked bell-pull a decided tug.