Beechcroft at Rockstone

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(JASPER.)

'VALE LESTON PRIORY,
'25th December.
'DEAREST MOTHER---Here are my Christmas wishes that we may all be
right again at home this year, and that you could see the brace of
pheasants I killed. However, Gill and I are in uncommonly nice
quarters. I shall let her tell the long story about who is who, for
there is such a swarm of cousins, and uncles, and aunts, and when you
think you have hold of the right one, it turns out to be the other
lot. There are three houses choke full of them, and more floating
about, and all running in and out, till it gets like the little pig
that could not be counted, it ran about so fast. They are all
Underwood or Harewood, more or less, except the Vanderkists, who are
all girls except a little fellow in knickerbockers. Poor little
chap, his father was a great man on the turf, and ruined him horse
and foot before he was born, and then died of D. T., and his mother
is a great invalid, and very badly off, with no end of daughters---the
most stunning girls you ever saw---real beauties, and no mistake,
especially Emily, who is great fun besides. She is to be Helena when
we act Midsummer Night's Dream on Twelfth Night for all the natives,
and I am Demetrius, dirty cad that he is! She lives with the
Grinsteads, and Anna with the Travis Underwoods, Phyllis's young
man's bosses. If he makes as good a thing of it as they have done,
she will be no end of a swell. Mr. Travis Underwood has brought down
his hunters and gives me a mount. Claude would go stark staring mad
to see his Campeador.

'They are awfully musical here, and are always at carols or
something, and that's the only thing against them. As to Gill, she
is in clover, in raptures with every one, especially Mrs. Grinstead,
and I think it is doing her good.---Your affectionate son,
J. R. M.'

(GILLIAN.)

'DEAREST MAMMA---All Christmas love, and a message to Phyllis that I
almost forgive her desertion for the sake of the set of connections
she has brought us, like the nearest and dearest relations or more,
but Geraldine---for so she told me to call her---is still the choicest
of all. It is so pretty to see her husband---the great sculptor---wait
on her, as if she was a queen and he her knight! Anna told me that
he had been in love with her ever so long, and she refused him once;
but after the eldest brother died, and she was living at St.
Wulstan's, he tried again, and she could not hold out. I told you of
her charming house, so full of lovely things, and about Gerald, all
cleverness and spirit, but too delicate for a public school. He is
such a contrast to Edward Harewood, a great sturdy, red-haired
fellow, who is always about with Jasper, except when he---Japs, I
mean---is with Emily Vanderkist. She is the prettiest of the
Vanderkists. There are eight of them besides little Sir Adrian.
Mary always stays to look after her mother, who is in very bad
health, and has weak eyes. They call Mary invaluable and so very
good, but she is like a homely little Dutchwoman, and nobody would
think she was only twenty. Sophy, the next to her, calls herself
pupil-teacher to Mrs. William Harewood, and together they manage the
schoolroom for all the younger sisters the two little girls at the
Vicarage, and Wilmet, the only girl here at the Priory; but, of
course, no lessons are going on now, only learning and rehearsing the
parts, and making the dresses, painting the scenes, and learning
songs. They all do care so much about music here that I find I
really know hardly anything about it, and Jasper says it is their
only failing.

'They say Mr. Lancelot Underwood sings and plays better than any of
them; but he is at Stoneborough. However, he is coming over with all
the Mays for our play, old Dr. May and all. I was very much
surprised to find he was an organist and a bookseller, but Geraldine
told me about it, and how it was for the sake of the eldest brother---
"my brother," they all say; and somehow it seems as if the house was
still his, though it is so many years since he died. And yet they
are all such happy, merry people. I wish I could let you know how
delightful it all is. Sometimes I feel as if I did not deserve to
have such a pleasant time. I can't quite explain, but to be with
Geraldine Grinstead makes one feel one's self to be of a ruder, more
selfish mould, and I know I have not been all I ought to be at
Rockstone; but I don't mind telling you, now you are so soon to be at
home, Aunt Jane seems to worry me---I can't tell how, exactly---while
there is something about Geraldine that soothes and brightens, and
all the time makes one long to be better.

'I never heard such sermons as Mr. Harewood's either; it seems as if
I had never listened before, but these go right down into one. I
cannot leave off thinking about the one last Sunday, about "making
manifest the counsels of all hearts." I see now that I was not as
much justified in not consulting Aunt Jane about Kalliope and Alexis
as I thought I was, and that the concealment was wrong. It came over
me before the beautiful early Celebration this morning, and I could
not feel as if I ought to be there till I had made a resolution to
tell her all about it, though I should like it not to be till you are
come home, and can tell her that I am not really like Dolores, as she
will be sure to think me, for I really did it, not out of silliness
and opposition, but because I knew how good they were, and I did tell
you. Honestly, perhaps there was some opposition in the spirit of
it; but I mean to make a fresh start when I come back, and you will
be near at hand then, and that will help me.

'26th.---The afternoon service of song began and I was called off. I
never heard anything so lovely, and we had a delightful evening. I
can't tell you about it now, for I am snatching a moment when I am
not rehearsing, as this must go to-day. Dr. and Miss May, and the
Lances, as they call them, are just come. The Doctor is a beautiful
old man. All the children were round him directly, and he kissed me,
and said that he was proud to meet the daughter of such a
distinguished man.

'This must go.---Your loving daughter, 'JULIANA MERRIFIELD.'

(HARRY.)

'COALHAM, Christmas Day.
'It is nearly St. Stephen's Day, for, dear mother, I have not had a
minute before to send you or my father my Christmas greeting. We
have had most joyous services, unusually well attended, David tells
me, and that makes up for the demonstration we had outside the door
last night. David is the right fellow for this place, though we are
disapproved of as south country folk. The boys are well and amused,
Wilfred much more comfortable for being treated more as a man, and
Fergus greatly come on, and never any trouble, being always dead-set
on some pursuit. It is geology, or rather mineralogy, at present,
and if he carries home all the stones he has accumulated in the back
yard, he will have a tolerable charge for extra luggage. David says
there is the making of a great man in him, I think it is of an Uncle
Maurice. Macrae writes to me in a state of despair about the drains
at Silverfold; scarlet fever and diphtheria abound at the town, so
that he says you cannot come back there till something has been done,
and he wants me to come and look at them; but I do not see how I can
leave David at present, as we are in the thick of classes for Baptism
and Confirmation in Lent, and I suspect Aunt Jane knows more about
the matter than I do.

'Gillian and Jasper seem to be in a state of great felicity at Vale
Leston---and Mysie getting better, but poor little Phyllis Devereux
has been seriously ill.---Your affectionate son, H. MERRIFIELD.'

(AUNT JANE AND AUNT ADELINE.)

'11.30, Christmas Eve.
'MY DEAREST LILY---This will be a joint letter, for Ada will finish it
to-morrow, and I must make the most of my time while waiting for the
Waits to dwell on unsavoury business. Macrae came over here with a
convoy of all sorts of "delicacies of the season," for which thank
you heartily in the name of Whites, Hablots, and others who partook
thereof, according, no doubt, to your kind intention. He was greatly
perturbed, poor man, for your cook has been very ill with diphtheria,
and the scarlet fever is severe all round; there have been some
deaths, and the gardener's child was in great danger. The doctor has
analysed the water, and finds it in a very bad state, so that your
absence this autumn is providential. If you are in haste, telegraph
to me, and I will meet your landlord there, and the sanitary
inspector, and see what can be done, without waiting for Jasper.
At any rate, you cannot go back there at once. Shall I secure a
furnished house for you here? The Rotherwoods are coming to the
hotel next door to us, as soon as Phyllis is fit to move and
infection over. Victoria will stay there with the children, and he
go back and forwards. If Harry and Phyllis May should come home, I
suppose their headquarters will be at Stoneborough; but still this
would be the best place for a family gathering. Moreover, Fergus
gets on very nicely at Mrs. Edgar's, and it would be a pity to
disturb him. On the other hand, I am not sure of the influences of
the place upon the---

'Christmas Day, 3 P.M.---There came the Waits I suppose, and Jane had
to stop and leave me to take up the thread. Poor dear Jenny, the
festival days are no days of rest to her, but I am not sure that she
would enjoy repose, or that it would not be the worse possible
penance to her. She is gone down now to the workhouse with Valetta
to take cards and tea and tobacco to the old people, not sending
them, because she says a few personal wishes and the sight of a
bright child will be worth something to the old bodies. Then comes
tea for the choir-boys, before Evensong and carols, and after that my
turn may come for what remains of the evening. I must say the church
is lovely, thanks to your arums and camellias, which Macrae brought
us just in time. It is very unfortunate that Silverfold should be in
such a state, but delightful for us if it sends you here; and this
brings me to Jenny's broken thread, which I must spin on, though I
tell her to take warning by you, when you so repented having brought
Maurice home by premature wails about Dolores. Perhaps impatience is
a danger to all of us, and I believe there is such a thing as over-
candour.

'What Jane was going to say was that she did not think the place had
been good for either of the girls; but all that would be obviated by
your presence. If poor Miss Vincent joins you, now that she is free,
you would have your own schoolroom again, and the locality would not
make much difference. Indeed, if the Rotherwood party come by the
end of the holidays, I have very little doubt that Victoria will
allow Valetta to join Phyllis and Mysie in the schoolroom, and that
would prevent any talk about her removal from the High School. The
poor little thing has behaved as well as possible ever since, and is
an excellent companion; Jane is sure that it has been a lesson that
will last her for life, and I am convinced that she was under an
influence that you can put an end to---I mean that White family. Jane
thinks well of the eldest daughter, in spite of her fringe and of her
refusal to enter the G.F.S.; but I have good reason for knowing that
she holds assignations in Mr. White's garden on Sunday afternoons
with young Stebbing, whose mother knows her to be a most artful and
dangerous girl, though she is so clever at the mosaic work that there
is no getting her discharged. Mrs. Stebbing called to warn us
against her, and, as I was the only person at home, told me how she
had learnt from Mr. White's housekeeper that this girl comes every
Sunday alone to walk in the gardens---she was sure it must be to meet
somebody, and they are quite accessible to an active young man on the
side towards the sea. He is going in a few days to join the other
partner at the Italian quarries, greatly in order that the connection
may be broken off. It is very odd that Jane, generally so acute,
should be so blind here. All she said was, "That's just the time
Gillian is so bent on mooning in the garden." It is a mere
absurdity; Gillian always goes to the children's service, and
besides, she was absent last Sunday, when Miss White was certainly
there. But Gillian lends the girl books, and altogether patronises
her in a manner which is somewhat perplexing to us; though, as it
cannot last long, Jane thinks it better not to interfere before your
return to judge for yourself. These young people are members of the
Kennel Church congregation, and I had an opportunity of talking to
Mr. Flight about them. He says he had a high opinion of the brother,
and hoped to help him to some higher education, with a view perhaps
to Holy Orders; but that it was so clearly the youth's duty to
support his mother, and it was so impossible for her to get on
without his earnings, that he (Mr. Flight, I mean) had decided to let
him alone that his stability might be proved, or till some opening
offered; and of late there had been reason for disappointment, tokens
of being unsettled, and reports of meetings with some young woman at
his sister's office. It is always the way when one tries to be
interested in those half-and-half people,---the essential vulgarity is
sure to break out, generally in the spirit of flirtation conducted in
an underhand manner. And oh! that mother! I write all this because
you had better be aware of the state of things before your return. I
am afraid, however, that between us we have not written you a very
cheering Christmas letter.

'There is a great question about a supply of water to the town. Much
excitement is caused by the expectation of Rotherwood's visit, and it
is even said that he is to be met here by the great White himself,
whom I have always regarded as a sort of mythical personage, not to
say a harpy, always snatching away every promising family of Jane's
to the Italian quarries.

'You will have parted with the dear girls by this time, and be
feeling very sad and solitary; but it is altogether a good
connection, and a great advantage. I have just addressed to Gillian,
at Vale Leston, a coroneted envelope, which must be an invitation
from Lady Liddesdale. I am very glad of it. Nothing is so likely as
such society to raise her above the tone of these Whites.---Your
loving A. M.'

'10.30 P.M.--These Whites! Really I don't think it as bad as Ada
supposes, so don't be uneasy, though it is a pity she has told you so
much of the gossip respecting them. I do not believe any harm of
that girl Kalliope; she has such an honest, modest pair of eyes. I
dare say she is persecuted by that young Stebbing, for she is very
handsome, and he is an odious puppy. But as to her assignations in
the garden, if they are with any one, it is with Gillian, and I see
no harm in them, except that we might have been told---only that would
have robbed the entire story of its flavour, I suppose. Besides, I
greatly disbelieve the entire story, so don't be worried about it!
There---as if we had not been doing our best to worry you! But come
home, dearest old Lily. Gather your chicks under your wing, and when
you cluck them together again, all will be well. I don't think you
will find Valetta disimproved by her crisis. It is curious to hear
how she and Gillian both declare that Mysie would have prevented it,
as if naughtiness or deceit shrank from that child's very face.

'It has been a very happy, successful Christmas Day, full of
rejoicing. May you be feeling the same; that joy has made us one in
many a time of separation.---Your faithful old Brownie,
J. MOHUN.'

(GILLIAN AGAIN.)

'ROWTHORPE, 20th January.

'DEAREST MAMMA---This is a Sunday letter. I am writing it in a
beautiful place, more like a drawing-room than a bed-room, and it is
all very grand; such long galleries, such quantities of servants, so
many people staying in the house, that I should feel quite lost but
for Geraldine. We came so late last night that there was only just
time to dress for dinner at eight o'clock. I never dined with so
many people before, and they are all staying in the house. I have
not learnt half of them yet, though Lady Liddesdale, who is a nice,
merry old lady, with gray hair, called her eldest granddaughter,
Kitty Somerville, and told her to take care of me, and tell me who
they all were. One of them is that Lord Ormersfield, whom Mysie ran
against at Rotherwood, and, do you know, I very nearly did the same;
for there is early Celebration at the little church just across the
garden. Kitty talked of calling for me, but I did not make sure,
because I heard some one say she was not to go if she had a cold;
and, when I heard the bell, I grew anxious and started off, and I
lost my way, and thought I should never get to the stairs; but just
as I was turning back, out came Lord and Lady Ormersfield. He looks
quite young, though he is rather lame---I shall like all lame people,
for the sake of Geraldine---and Lady Ormersfield has such a motherly
face. He laughed, and said I was not the first person who had lost
my way in the labyrinths of passages, so I went on with them, and
after all Kitty was hunting for me! I sat next him at breakfast,
and, do you know, he asked me whether I was the sister of a little
downright damsel he met at Rotherwood two years ago, and said he had
used her truthfulness about the umbrella for a favourite example to
his small youngest!

'When I hear of truthfulness I feel a sort of shock. "Oh, if you
knew!" I am ready to say, and I grow quite hot. That is what I am
really writing about to-day. I never had time after that Christmas
Day at Vale Leston to do more than keep you up to all the doings; but
I did think: and there were Mr. Harewood's sermons, which had a real
sting in them, and a great sweetness besides. I have tried to set
some down for you, and that is one reason I did not say more. But
to-day, after luncheon, it is very quiet, for Kitty and Constance are
gone to their Sunday classes, and the gentlemen and boys are out
walking, except Lord Somerville, who has a men's class of his own,
and all the old ladies are either in their rooms, or talking in
pairs. So I can tell you that I see now that I did not go on in a
right spirit with Aunt Jane, and that I did poor Val harm by my
example, and went very near deception, for I did not choose to
believe that when you said "If Aunt J. approves," you meant about
Alexis White's lessons; so I never told her or Kalliope, and I
perceive now that it was not right towards either; for Kally was very
unhappy about her not knowing. I am very sorry; I see that I was
wrong all round, and that I should have understood it before, if I
had examined myself in the way Mr. Harewood dwelt upon in his last
Sunday in Advent sermon, and never gone on in such a way.

'I am not going to wait for you now, but shall confess it all to Aunt
Jane as soon as I go home, and try to take it as my punishment if she
asks a terrible number of questions. Perhaps I shall write it, but
it would take such a quantity of explanation, and I don't want Aunt
Ada to open the letter, as she does any that come while Aunt Jane is
out.

'Please kiss my words and forgive me, as you read this, dear mamma; I
never guessed I was going to be so like Dolores.

'Kitty has come to my door to ask if I should like to come and read
something nice and Sundayish with them in her grandmamma's dressing-
room.---So no more from your loving GILL.'

CHAPTER XII. TRANSFORMATION

'Well, now for the second stage of our guardianship!' said Aunt Ada,
as the two sisters sat over the fire after Valetta had gone to bed.
'Fergus comes back to-morrow, and Gillian---when?'

'She does not seem quite certain, for there is to be a day or two at
Brompton with this delightful Geraldine, so that she may see her
grandmother---also Mr. Clement Underwood's church, and the Merchant of
Venice---an odd mixture of ecclesiastics and dissipations.'

'I wonder whether she will be set up by it.'

'So do I! They are all remarkably good people; but then good people
do sometimes spoil the most of all, for they are too unselfish to
snub. And on the other hand, seeing the world sometimes has the
wholesome effect of making one feel small---'

'My dear Jenny!'

'Oh! I did not mean you, who are never easily effaced; but I was
thinking of youthful bumptiousness, fostered by country life and
elder sistership.'

'Certainly, though Valetta is really much improved, Gillian has not
been as pleasant as I expected, especially during the latter part of
the time.'

'Query, was it her fault or mine, or the worry of the examination, or
all three?'

'Perhaps you did superintend a little too much at first. More than
modern independence was prepared for, though I should not have
expected recalcitration in a young Lily; but I think there was more
ruffling of temper and more reserve than I can quite understand.'

'It has not been a success. As dear old Lily would have said, "My
dream has vanished," of a friend in the younger generation, and now
it remains to do the best I can for her in the few weeks that are
left, before we have her dear mother again.'

'At any rate, you have no cause to be troubled about the other two.
Valetta is really the better for her experience, and you have always
got on well with the boy.'

Fergus was the first of the travellers to appear at Rockstone. Miss
Mohun, who went to meet him at the station, beheld a small figure
lustily pulling at a great canvas bag, which came bumping down the
step, assisted by a shove from the other passengers, and threatening
for a moment to drag him down between platform and carriages.

'Fergus, Fergus, what have you got there? Give it to me. How
heavy!'

'It's a few of my mineralogical specimens,' replied Fergus. 'Harry
wouldn't let me put any more into my portmanteau---but the peacock and
the dendrum are there.'

Already, without special regard to peacock or dendrum, whatever that
article might be, Miss Mohun was claiming the little old military
portmanteau, with a great M and 110th painted on it, that held
Fergus's garments.

He would scarcely endure to deposit the precious bag in the omnibus,
and as he walked home his talk was all of tertiary formations, and
coal measures, and limestones, as he extracted a hammer from his
pocket, and looked perilously disposed to use it on the vein of
crystals in a great pink stone in a garden wall. His aunt was
obliged to begin by insisting that the walls should be safe from
geological investigations.

'But it is such waste, Aunt Jane. Only think of building up such
beautiful specimens in a stupid old wall.'

Aunt Jane did not debate the question of waste, but assured him that
equally precious specimens could be honestly come by; while she felt
renewed amusement and pleasure at anything so like the brother
Maurice of thirty odd years ago being beside her.

It made her endure the contents of the bag being turned out like a
miniature rockery for her inspection on the floor of the glazed
verandah outside the drawing-room, and also try to pacify Mrs.
Mount's indignation at finding the more valuable specimens, or, as
she called them, 'nasty stones' and bits of dirty coal, within his
socks.

Much more information as to mines, coal, or copper, was to be gained
from him than as to Cousin David, or Harry, or Jasper, who had spent
the last ten days of his holidays at Coalham, which had procured for
Fergus the felicity of a second underground expedition. It was left
to his maturer judgment and the next move to decide how many of his
specimens were absolutely worthless; it was only stipulated that he
and Valetta should carry them, all and sundry, up to the lumber-room,
and there arrange them as he chose;---Aunt Jane routing out for him a
very dull little manual of mineralogy, and likewise a book of Maria
Hack's, long since out of print, but wherein 'Harry Beaufoy' is
instructed in the chief outlines of geology in a manner only perhaps
inferior to that of "Madame How and Lady Why," which she reserved for
a birthday present. Meantime Rockstone and its quarries were almost
as excellent a field of research as the mines of Coalham, and in a
different line.

'How much nicer it is to be a boy than a girl!' sighed Valetta, as
she beheld her junior marching off with all the dignity of hammer and
knapsack to look up Alexis White and obtain access to the heaps of
rubbish, which in his eyes held as infinite possibilities as the
diamond fields of Kimberley. And Alexis was only delighted to bestow
on him any space of daylight when both were free from school or from
work, and kept a look-out for the treasures he desired. Of course,
out of gratitude to his parents---or was it out of gratitude to his
sister? Perhaps Fergus could have told, if he had paid the slightest
attention to such a trifle, how anxiously Alexis inquired when Miss
Gillian was expected to return. Moreover, he might have told that
his other model, Stebbing, pronounced old Dick White a beast and a
screw, with whom his brother Frank was not going to stop.

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