Beechcroft at Rockstone

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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.'

'But what's all this about? You wanted me to look after you! Is it
that Alexis?'

'Oh, Japs! Mamma knows all about it and papa. It was only that he
was ridiculous because I was so silly as to think I could help him
with his Greek.'

'You! With his Greek! I pity him!'

'Yes. I found he soon knew too much for me,' said Gillian meekly;
'but, indeed, Japs, it wasn't very bad! He only sent me a valentine,
and Aunt Jane says I need not have been so angry.'

'A cat may look at a king,' said Jasper loftily. 'It is a horrid bad
thing for a girl to be left to herself without a brother worth
having.'

So Gillian got off pretty easily, and after all the walk was not
greatly spoilt. They coalesced again with the other three, who were
tolerably discreet, and found the debate on the White gentility had
been resumed. Ivinghoe was philosophically declaring 'that in these
days one must take up with everybody, so it did not matter if one was
a little more of a cad than another; he himself was fag at Eton to a
fellow whose father was an oilman, and who wasn't half a bad lot.'

'An oilman, Ivy,' said his sister; 'I thought he imported petroleum.'

'Well, it's all the same. I believe he began as an oilman.'

'We shall have Fergus reporting that he's a petroleuse,' put in
Jasper.

'No, a petroleuse is a woman.'

'I like Mr. White,' said Fly; 'but, Gillian, you don't think it is
true that he is going to marry your Aunt Jane?'

There was a great groan, and Japs observed---

'Some one told us Rockquay was a hotbed of gossip, and we seem to
have got it strong.'

'Where did this choice specimen come from, Fly!' demanded Ivinghoe,
in his manner most like his mother.

Fly nodded her head towards her governess in the advanced guard.

'She had a cousin to tea with her, and they thought I didn't know
whom they meant, and they said that he was always up at Rockstone.'

'Well, he is; and Aunt Jane always stands up for him,' said Gillian;
'but that was because he is so good to the workpeople, and Aunt Ada
took him for some grand political friend of Cousin Rotherwood's.'

'Aunt Jane!' said Jasper. 'Why, she is the very essence and epitome
of old maids.'

'Yes,' said Gillian. 'If it came to that, she would quite as soon
marry the postman.'

'That's lucky' said Ivinghoe. 'One can swallow a good deal, but not
quite one's own connections.'

'In fact,' said Jasper, 'you had rather be an oilman's fag than a
quarryman's---what is it?---first cousin once removed in law?'

'It is much more likely,' said Gillian, as they laughed over this,
'that Kalliope and Maura will be his adopted daughters, only he never
comes near them.'

Wherewith there was a halt. Miss Elbury insisted that Phyllis should
ride, the banks began to show promise of flowers, and, in the search
for violets, dangerous topics were forgotten, and Wilfred was
forgiven. They reached the spot marked by Fly, a field with a border
of sloping broken ground and brushwood, which certainly fulfilled all
their desires, steeply descending to a stream full of rocks, the
ground white with wood anemones, long evergreen trails of periwinkles
and blue flowers between, primroses clustering under the roots of the
trees, daffodils gilding the grass above, and the banks verdant with
exquisite feather-moss. Such a springtide wood was joy to all,
especially as the first cuckoo of the season came to add to their
delights and set them counting for the augury of happy years, which
proved so many that Mysie said they would not know what to do with
them.

'I should,' said Ivinghoe. 'I should like to live to be a great old
statesman, as Lord Palmerston did, and have it all my own way.
Wouldn't I bring things round again!'

'Perhaps they would have gone too far,' suggested Jasper, 'and then
you would have to gnaw your hand like Giant Pope, as Wilfred says.'

'Catch me, while I could do something better.'

'If one only lived long enough,' speculated Fergus, 'one might find
out what everything was made of, and how to do everything.'

'I wonder if the people did before the Flood, when they lived eight
or nine hundred years,' said Fly.

'Perhaps that is the reason there is nothing new under the sun,'
suggested Valetta, as many a child has before suggested.

'But then,' said Mysie, they got wicked.'

'And then after the Flood it had all to be begun over again,' said
Ivinghoe. 'Let me see, Methuselah lived about as long as from
William the Conqueror till now. I think he might have got to steam
and electricity.'

'And dynamite,' said Gillian. 'Oh, I don't wonder they had to be
swept away, if they were clever and wicked both!'

'And I suppose they were,' said Jasper. 'At least the giants, and
that they handed on some of their ability through Ham, to the
Egyptians, and all those queer primeval coons, whose works we are
digging up.'

'From the Conquest till now,' repeated Gillian. 'I'm glad we don't
live so long now. It tires one to think of it.'

'But we shall,' said Fly.

'Yes,' said Mysie, 'but then we shall be rid of this nasty old self
that is always getting wrong.'

'That little lady's nasty old self does so as little as any one's,'
Jasper could not help remarking to his sister; and Fly, pouncing on
the first purple orchis spike amid its black-spotted leaves, cried---

'At any rate, these dear things go on the same, without any tiresome
inventing.'

'Except God's just at first,' whispered Mysie.

'And the gardeners do invent new ones,' said Valetta.

'Invent! No; they only fuss them and spoil them, and make ridiculous
names for them,' said Fly. These darling creatures are ever so much
better. Look at Primrose there.'

'Yes,' said Gillian, as she saw her little sister in quiet ecstasy
over the sparkling bells of the daffodils; 'one would not like to
live eight hundred years away from that experience.'

'But mamma cares just as much still as Primrose does,' said Mysie.
'We must get some for her own self as well as for the church.'

'Mine are all for mamma,' proclaimed Primrose; and just then there
was a shout that a bird's nest had been found---a ring-ousel's nest on
the banks. Fly and her brother shared a collection of birds' eggs,
and were so excited about robbing the ousels of a single egg, that
Gillian hoped that Fergus would not catch the infection and abandon
minerals for eggs, which would be ever so much worse---only a degree
better than butterflies, towards which Wilfred showed a certain
proclivity.

'I shall be thirteen before next holidays,' he observed, after making
a vain dash with his hat at a sulphur butterfly, looking like a
primrose flying away.

'Mamma won't allow any "killing collection" before thirteen years
old,' explained Mysie.

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