Маргарет Олифант
Phoebe, Junior
CHAPTER VIII
THE DORSETS
Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindostanee, which had brought them “home” at this inhospitable time of the year; and to get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture of emotions, anxious to be “very fond” of them, yet feeling difficulties in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour. They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts to win their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness, and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself, had made up her mind to “take no notice of the little wretches.”
“Fancy!” she said; “shrinking at Anne – Anne, of all people in the world! There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are John's children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must be like their mother. I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to love.”
“Oh, much, Sophy,” said Anne, drying her eyes; “they are our own flesh and blood.”
“I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and blood; at least, they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her, can I? – whom I never saw?”
The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.
“I hope they will get to like us,” she said. “Poor little darlings! everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don't wonder that they are frightened, and cry when any one comes near them. We must trust to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them – ”
“I am going to help little Ursula with her packing,” said Sophy hastily; and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was in disorder, and threw herself down in a chair by the fire, “Anne is too good to live,” she cried. “She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre —Anne! why, a little dog knows better – as I said before.”
“I don't think they are very pretty children,” said Ursula, not knowing how to reply.
“Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?” said Sophy, who was relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. “The whole question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image that does not know you, that can't respond to you, and won't perhaps when it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people it belongs to like it by instinct – but the rest of the world – ”
“Oh, Cousin Sophy!” cried Ursula, her eyes round with alarm and horror.
“You think I ought to be fond of them because they are my brother's children? We are not always very fond even of our brothers, Ursula. Don't scream; at your age it is different; but when they marry and have separate interests – if these mites go on looking at me with those big scared eyes as if they expected me to box their ears, I shall do it some day – I know I shall; instead of going on my knees to them, like Anne, to curry favour. If they had been like our family, why, that would have been some attraction. Are you pleased to go home, or would you prefer to stay here?”
“In London?” said Ursula, with a long-drawn breath, her hands involuntarily clasping each other. “Oh! I hope you won't think me very silly, but I do like London. Yes, I am pleased – I have so many presents to take to them, thanks to you and to Cousin Anne, and to Mrs. Copperhead. I am ashamed to be carrying away so much. But Carlingford is not like London,” she added, with a sigh.
“No, it is a pretty soft friendly country place, not a great cold-hearted wilderness.”
“Oh, Cousin Sophy!”
“My poor little innocent girl! Don't you think it is desolate and cold-hearted, this great sea of people who none of them care one straw for you?”
“I have seen nothing but kindness,” said Ursula, with a little heat of virtuous indignation; “there is you, and Mrs. Copperhead; and even the gentlemen were kind – or at least they meant to be kind.”
“The gentlemen?” said Sophy, amused. “Do you mean the Copperheads? Clarence perhaps? He is coming to Easton, Ursula. Shall I bring him into Carlingford to see you?”
“If you please, Cousin Sophy,” said the girl, simply. She had not been thinking any thoughts of “the gentlemen” which could make her blush, but somehow her cousin's tone jarred upon her, and she turned round to her packing. The room was littered with the things which she was putting into her box, that box which had grown a great deal too small now, though it was quite roomy enough when Ursula left home.
“Ursula, I think you are a good little thing on the whole – ”
“Oh, Cousin Sophy, forgive me! No, I am not good.”
“Forgive you! for what? Yes, you are on the whole a good little thing; not a saint, like Anne; but then you have perhaps more to try your temper. We were always very obedient to her, though we worried her, and papa always believed in her with all his heart. Perhaps you have more to put up with. But, my dear, think of poor Mrs. Copperhead, for example – ”
“Why do you always call her poor Mrs. Copperhead? she is very rich. She can make other people happy when she pleases. She has a beautiful house, and everything – ”
“And a bear, a brute of a husband.”
“Ah! Does she mind very much?” asked Ursula, with composure. This drawback seemed to her insignificant, in comparison with Mrs. Copperhead's greatness. It was only Sophy's laugh that brought her to herself. She said with some haste, putting in her dresses, with her back turned, “I do not mean to say anything silly. When people are as old as she is, do they mind? It cannot matter so much what happens when you are old.”
“Why? but never mind, the theory is as good as many others,” said Sophy. “You would not mind then marrying a man like that, to have everything that your heart could desire?”
“Cousin Sophy, I am not going to – marry any one,” said Ursula, loftily, carrying her head erect. “I hope I am not like that, thinking of such things. I am very, very sorry that you should have such an opinion of me, after living together ten days.”
She turned away with all the forlorn pride of injury, and there were tears in her voice. Sophy, who dared not laugh in reply, to make the young heroine more angry, hastened to apologize.
“It was a silly question,” she said. “I have a very good opinion of you, Ursula. Ten days is a long time, and I know you as if we had been together all your life. I am sure you do not think anything a nice girl ought not to think; but I hope you will never be deceived and persuaded to marry any one who is like Mr. Copperhead. I mean who is not nice and young, and good, like yourself.”
“Oh, no!” cried the girl, with energy. “But most likely I shall not marry any one,” she added, with a half sigh; “Janey may, but the eldest has so much to do, and so much to think of. Cousin Anne has never married.”
“Nor Cousin Sophy either.” Sophy's laugh sounded hard to the girl. “Never mind, you will not be like us. You will marry, most likely, a clergyman, in a pretty parsonage in the country.”
“I do not think I am very fond of clergymen,” said Ursula, recovering her ease and composure. “They are always in and about, and everything has to be kept so quiet when they are studying; and then the parish people are always coming tramping upstairs with their dirty feet. When you have only one servant it is very, very troublesome. Sir Robert never gives any trouble,” she said, once more, with a soft little sigh.
“Papa?” said Sophy, somewhat surprised; “but you would not – ” she was going to say, marry papa; but when she looked at Ursula's innocent gravity, her absolute unconsciousness of the meanings which her chance words might bear, she refrained. “I think I must send Seton to help you,” she said, “you can not get through all that packing by yourself.”
“Oh yes, I am not tired. I have put in all my old things. The rest are your presents. Oh, Cousin Sophy!” said the girl, coming quickly to her and stealing two arms round her, “you have been so good to me! as if it was not enough to give me this holiday, the most delightful I ever had in my life – to send me home loaded with all these beautiful things! I shall never forget it, never, never, if I were to live a hundred years!”
“My dear!” cried Sophy, startled by the sudden energy of this embrace. Sophy was not emotional, but her eyes moistened and her voice softened in spite of herself. “But you must let me send Seton to you,” she said, hurrying away. She was excited by the day's events, and did not trust herself to make any further response; for if she “gave way” at all, who could tell how far the giving way might go? Her brother John had been married at the time when Sophy too ought to have been married, had all gone well – and, perhaps, some keen-piercing thought that she too might have had little children belonging to her, had given force and sharpness to her objections to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature, and was resting in an easy chair, and pondering what she could do to make the children love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence of Mrs. John.
“I have been talking to Ursula, who is always refreshing,” said Sophy. “I wonder whom that child will marry. She gave me to understand, in her awkward, innocent way, that she preferred papa. A laugh does one good,” Sophy added, slightly rubbing her eyes. Anne made no immediate answer. She scarcely heard indeed what her sister said.
“I think we shall get on after a while,” she said, softly. “They said their prayers very prettily, poor darlings, and let me kiss them without crying. After a while we shall get on, I don't fear.”
“Anne!” cried Sophy, “you are too much for mere human nature: you are too bad or too good for anything. I begin to hate these little wretches when I hear you speak of them so.”
“Hush!” said Anne, “I know you don't mean it. Easton will be very strange to them at first. I could not go to India for my part. A crust of bread at home would be better. Think of parting with your children just when they come to an age to understand?”
“John, I suppose, did not take children into consideration when he went away. You speak as if children were all one's life.”
“A great part of it,” said Anne, gently. “No, dear, I am not clever like you, and perhaps it is what you will call a low view; but after all it runs through everything. The flowers are used for the seed, and everything in the world is intended to keep the world going. Yes, even I, that is the good of me. I shall never be a mother, but what does that matter? There are so many children left on the world whom somebody must bring up.”
“And who are brought to you when they need you, and taken from you when they need you no longer,” said Sophy, indignantly; “you are left to bear the trouble – others have the recompense.”
“It is so in this world, my dear, all the way down, from God himself. Always looking for reward is mean and mercenary. When we do nothing, when we are of no use, what a poor thing life is,” said Anne, with a little colour rising in her cheeks, “not worth having. I think we have only a right to our existence when we are doing something. And I have my wages; I like to be of a little consequence,” she said, laughing. “Nobody is of any consequence who does not do something.”
“In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence than you.”
“So be it – I don't object,” said Anne; “but I don't think so, for they have to be directed and guided. To be without a housemaid is dreadful. The moment you think of that, you see how important the people who work are; everything comes to a stand-still without Mary, whereas there are ladies whose absence would make no difference.”
“I, for instance.”
“You are very unkind to say so, Sophy; all the same, if you were to do more, you would be happier, my dear.”
“To do what? go on my knees to those wax dolls, and entreat them to let me pet them and make idols of them – as you will do?”
“Well, how are you getting on now?” said Sir Robert, coming in. “Ah! I see, you have the window open; but the room is still very warm. When they get to Easton they will have their own rooms of course. I don't want to reflect upon John, but it is rather a burden this he has saddled us with. Mrs. John's mother is living, isn't she? I think something might have been said at least, on her part, some offer to take her share.”
Sophy gave her sister a malicious glance, but promptly changed her tone, and took up her position in defence of the arrangement, with that ease which is natural in a family question.
“Of course,” she said, “your grandchildren, Dorsets, and the heir, probably, as Robert has no boy, could go nowhere, papa, but to us. It may be a bore, but at least John showed so much sense; for nothing else could be – ”
“John does not show very much sense in an ordinary way. What did he want with a wife and children at his age? The boy is five, isn't he? and the father only thirty – absurd! I did not marry till I was thirty, though I had succeeded before that time, and was the only son and the head of the family. John was always an ass,” said Sir Robert, with a crossness which sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the room was higher than usual, and the habits of his evening interfered with. He was capable of sacrificing something of much more importance to his family, but scarcely of sacrificing his comfort, which is the last and most painful of efforts.
“That may be very true,” said Sophy, “but all the same, it is only right that the children should be with us. Mrs. John's people are not well off. Her mother has a large family of her own. The little things would have been spoiled, or they would have been neglected; and after all, they are Dorsets, though they are not like John.”
“Well, well, I suppose you are right,” said Sir Robert, grumbling, “and, thank Heaven, to-morrow we shall be at home.”
Anne had scarcely said a word, though it was she who was most deeply concerned about the children. She gave her sister a hug when Sir Robert relapsed into the evening paper, and then stole upstairs to look at the poor babies as they lay asleep. She was not a mother, and never would be. People, indeed, called her an old maid, and with reason enough, though she was little over thirty; for had she been seventy, she could not have been more unlikely to marry. It was not her vocation. She had plenty to do in the world without that, and was satisfied with her life. The sad reflection that the children whom she tended were not her own, did not visit her mind, as, perhaps, it had visited Sophy's, making her angry through the very yearning of nature. Anne was of a different temperament, she said a little prayer softly in her heart for the children and for her sister as she stooped over the small beds. “God bless the children – and, oh, make my Sophy happy!” she said. She had never asked for nor thought of happiness to herself. It had come to her unconsciously, in her occupations, in her duties, as natural as the soft daylight, and as little sought after. But Sophy was different. Sophy wanted material for happiness – something to make her glad; she did not possess it, like her sister, in the quiet of her own heart. And from the children's room Anne went to Ursula's, where the girl, tired with her packing, was brushing her pretty hair out before she went to bed. Everything was ready, the drawers all empty, the box full to overflowing, and supplemented by a large parcel in brown paper; and what with the fatigue and the tumult of feeling in her simple soul, Ursula was ready to cry when her cousin came in and sat down beside her.
“I have been so happy, Cousin Anne. You have been so good to me,” she said.
“My dear, everybody will be good to you,” said Miss Dorset, “so long as you trust everybody, Ursula. People are more good than bad. I hope when you come to Easton you will be still happier.”
Ursula demurred a little to this, though she was too shy to say much. “Town is so cheerful,” she said. It was not Sir Robert's way of looking at affairs.
“There is very little difference in places,” said Anne, “when your heart is light you are happy everywhere.” Ursula felt that it was somewhat derogatory to her dignity to have her enjoyment set down to the score of a light heart. But against such an assertion what could she say?
CHAPTER IX
COMING HOME
The party which set out from Suffolk Street next morning was a mighty one; there were the children, the ayah, the new nurse whom Anne had engaged in town, to take charge of her little nephews as soon as they got accustomed to their new life; and Seton, the ancient serving-woman, whom the sisters shared between them; and Sir Robert's man, not to speak of Sir Robert himself and the Miss Dorsets and Ursula. Easton was within a dozen miles of Carlingford, so that they all travelled together as far as that town. The Dorset party went farther on to the next station, from which they had still six miles to travel by carriage. They set down Ursula on the platform with her box and her parcel, and took leave of her, and swept out of the station again, leaving her rather forlorn and solitary among the crowd. “Disgraceful of May not to send some one to meet the child. I suppose he knew she was coming,” said Sir Robert. And Ursula had something of the same feeling, as she stood looking wistfully about her. But as soon as the train was gone, her name was called in a somewhat high-pitched voice, and turning round she found herself hugged by Janey, while Johnnie, fresh from school, seized her bag out of her hand by way of showing his satisfaction.
“We didn't come up till we could make sure that the Dorsets were out of the way,” said Janey, “and, oh, is it really you? I am so glad to get you home.”
“Why didn't you want to see the Dorsets? They are the kindest friends we have in the world,” said Ursula. “How is papa? Is he in a good humour? And the rest? Why did not some more come to meet me? I made sure there would be four at least.”
“Amy and Robin have gone out to tea – they didn't want to go; but papa insisted. Oh, he is very well on the whole. And Reginald is at home, of course, but I thought you would like me best. Johnnie came to carry the bag,” said Janey with a natural contempt for her younger brother. “What a big parcel! You must have been getting quantities of presents, or else you must have packed very badly, for I am sure there was lots of room in the trunk when you went away.”
“Oh, Janey, if you only knew what I have got there!”
“What?” said Janey, with quiet but composed interest. It never occurred to her that she could have any individual concern in the contents of the parcels. She was a tall girl who had outgrown all her frocks, or rather did outgrow them periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders, which would not curl or crêper, or do anything that hair ought to do. She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts of impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the kind of angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, but very maladroit, who is a greater nuisance to herself and everybody else than even a school-boy, which is saying a good deal. Things broke in her hands as they never broke in anybody else's; stuffs tore, furniture fell to the ground as she passed by. Ursula carefully kept her off the parcel and gave it to Johnnie. One of the railway porters, when all the rest of the passengers were disposed of, condescended to carry her trunk, and thus they set out on their way home. The parsonage was close to St. Roque, at the other end of Grange Lane. They had to walk all the way down that genteel and quiet suburban road, by the garden walls over which, at this season, no scent of flowers came, or blossomed branches hung forth. There were red holly-berries visible, and upon one mossy old tree a gray bunch of mistletoe could be seen on the other side of the street. But how quiet it was! They scarcely met a dozen people between the station and St. Roque.
“Oh, Janey, is everybody dead?” said Ursula. “How dull it is! You should see London – ”
“Ursula,” said Janey firmly, “once for all, I am not going to stand this London! A nasty, smoky, muddy place, no more like Carlingford than – I am like you. You forget I have been in London; you are not speaking to ignorant ears,” said Janey, drawing herself up, “and your letters were quite bad enough. You are not going to talk of nothing but your disagreeable London here. Talk to people who have never seen it!” said the girl, elevating her shoulders with the contempt of knowledge.
“That time you were at the dentist's – ” said Ursula, “and call that seeing London! Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy took me everywhere. We went to drive in the Park. We went to the Museum and the National Gallery. And, oh! Janey, listen! we went to the theatre: think of that!”
“Well, I should like to go to the theatre,” said Janey, with a sigh. “But you told me in your letter. That's what comes of being the eldest. Unless you get married, or something, nobody will ever think of taking me.”
“You are five years younger than I am,” said Ursula, with dignity. “Naturally, people don't think of a girl at your age. You must wait till you are older, as I have had to do. Janey! guess what is in that?”
“Your new dress – your ball-dress. If it isn't crumpled as you said, you can't have danced very much. I know my dress will be in tatters if I ever go to a ball.”
“I danced as much as I wished. I did not know many people,” said Ursula, drawing herself up. “Of course at this time of the year nobody is in town, and we hardly knew any one – and of course – ”
“Of course, you only knew the fashionable people who are out of town in winter,” cried Janey, with a laugh which echoed along the street. Ursula had not come home from London to be laughed at by her younger sister, she who had been petted by the Dorsets, and whose opinion even Sir Robert had asked on various occasions. She felt this downfall all the more deeply that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over again, and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many experiences acquired in that momentous time. Poor Ursula! ten days is quite long enough to form habits at her age, and she had been taken care of, as young ladies are taken care of in society; accompanied or attended wherever she went, and made much of. To find herself thus left to arrive and get home as she pleased, with nobody but Janey to meet her, was a terrible falling-off; and to be laughed at by Janey was the last step of all. Tears filled her eyes, she turned her shoulder to her companion, averting her head; and this was all poor Ursula had to look to. The dreary Carlingford street, papa finding fault, everything going wrong, and Janey laughing at her! To be Cousin Anne's maid, or governess to the little Indian children would be better than this. For five minutes more she walked on in offended silence, saying nothing, though Janey, like the school-girl she was, made frequent use of her elbow to move her sister.
“Ursula!” the girl said at last, with a more potent nudge, “what's the matter? won't you speak to me?” And Janey, who had her own disappointment too, and had expected to be received with enthusiasm, burst out crying, regardless of appearances, in the middle of the street.
“Janey, for Heaven's sake – people will see you! I am sure it is I who should cry, not you,” said Ursula, in sudden distress.
“I don't care who sees me,” sobbed Janey. “You have been enjoying yourself while we have stayed at home, and instead of being pleased to come back, or glad to see us – Oh, how can you be so cold-hearted?” she said with a fresh burst of tears.
Here the other side of the question suddenly dawned upon Ursula. She had been enjoying herself while the others stayed at home. It was quite true. Instead of feeling the shock of difference she should have thought of those who had never been so lucky as she was, who had never seen anything out of Carlingford. “Don't be so foolish, Janey,” she said, “I am glad; – and I have brought you such beautiful presents. But when you do nothing but laugh – ”
“I am sure I didn't laugh to hurt. I only laughed for fun!” cried Janey, drying her eyes not without a little indignation; and thus peace was made, for indeed one was dying to tell all that happened, and the other dying to hear. They walked the rest of the way with their heads very close together, so absorbed that the eldest brother, coming out of the gate as they approached, stood looking at them with a smile on his face for some time before they saw him. A slight young man, not very tall, with dark hair, like Ursula's, and a somewhat anxious expression, in correct English clerical dress.
“Has it all begun already?” he said, when they came close up to him, but without perceiving him, Ursula's face inspired with the pleasure of talking, as Janey's was with the eager delight of listening. The house was built in the ecclesiastical style, with gables and mullioned windows, which excluded the light, at least, whether or not they inspired passers-by with a sense of correct art, as they were intended to do. It was next door to the church, and had a narrow strip of shrubbery in front, planted with somewhat gloomy evergreens. The gate and door stood always open, except when Mr. May himself, coming or going, closed them momentarily, and it cannot be denied that there were outward and visible signs of a large, somewhat unruly family inside.
“Oh, Reginald!” cried Ursula. “You have come home!”
“Yes – for good,” he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Or for bad – who can tell? At all events, here I am.”
“Why should it be for bad?” cried Janey, whose voice was always audible half-way up the street. “Oh, Ursula, something very nice has happened. He is to be warden of the old college, fancy! That is being provided for, papa says; and a beautiful old house.”
“Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some old person who was chosen.”
“But papa says he can live at home and let the house,” cried Janey. “There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman, papa thinks; it is nice, because there is no work – but look at Reginald, he does not like it a bit; he is never satisfied, I am sure, I wish it was me – ”
“Come in,” said Reginald hastily, “I don't want all my affairs, and my character besides, to be proclaimed from the house-tops.” Janey stopped indignant, to make some reply, and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she feared, with an energetic pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been playing in the little square hall, which was strewed with doll's clothes, and with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation. Some old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one of which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of Anne Dorset's orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these imperfections.
“Oh, what a muddle!” she cried; “I don't wonder that Reginald does not care for living at home.”
“Oh, I wish papa heard you!” cried Janey loudly, as Ursula led the way into the drawing-room, which was not much tidier than the hall. There was a basket-full of stockings to be mended, standing on the old work-table. Ursula felt, with a sinking of the heart, that they were waiting for her arrival, and that Janey had done nothing to them. More toys and more old school-books were tossed about upon the faded old carpet. The table-cover hung uneven, one end of it dragging upon the floor. The fire was burning very low, stifled in dust and white ashes. How dismal it looked! not like a place to come home to. “Oh, I don't wonder Reginald is vexed to be made to live at home,” she said once again to herself, with tears in her eyes.
“I hope you have enjoyed yourself,” her brother said, as she dropped wearily into the old easy-chair. “We have missed you very much; but I don't suppose you missed us. London was very pleasant, I suppose, even at this time of the year?”
“Oh, pleasant!” said Ursula. “If you had been with me, how you would have liked it! Suffolk Street is only an inn, but it is a very nice inn, what they call a private hotel. Far better than the great big places on the American principle, Sir Robert says. But we dined at one of those big places one day, and it was very amusing. Scores of people, and great mirrors that made them look hundreds. And such quantities of lights and servants; but Sir Robert thought Suffolk Street very much the best. And I went to two theatres and to a ball. They were so kind. Sophy Dorset laughs at me sometimes, but Anne is an angel,” said Ursula fervently. “I never knew any one so good in my life.”
