Beechcroft at Rockstone

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Beechcroft at Rockstone

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

There was a certain air of taste in the arrangement of the few
chimney-piece ornaments, and Gillian was pleased to see the two large
photographs of her father and mother which Captain White had so much
valued as parting gifts. A few drawings reminded her of the School
of Art at Belfast, and there was a vase of wild flowers and ferns
prettily arranged, but otherwise everything was wretchedly faded and
dreary.

Then came the opening of the door, and into the room rolled, rather
than advanced, something of stupendous breadth, which almost took
Gillian's breath away, as she durst not look to see the effect on her
aunt. If the Queen of the White Ants had been stout before, what was
she now? Whatever her appearance had been in the days of comparative
prosperity, with a husband to keep her up to the mark, and a desire
to rank with the officers' wives, she had let everything go in
widowhood, poverty, and neglect; and as she stood panting in her old
shiny black alpaca, the only thing Gillian recalled about her like
old times was the black lace veil thrown mantilla fashion over her
head; but now it was over a widow's cap, and a great deal rustier
than of old. Of the lovely foreigner nothing else remained except
the dark eyes, and that sort of pasty sallow whiteness that looks at
if for generations past cold water and fresh air had been unknown.
There was no accent more interesting in her voice than a soupcon of
her Irish father as she began, 'I am sorry to have kept the lady so
long waiting. Was it about the girl's character that you came?'

'Oh no, Mrs. White, interrupted Gillian, her shyness overpowered by
the necessity of throwing herself into the breach. 'Don't you
remember me? I am Gillian Merrifield, and this is my aunt, Miss
Adeline Mohun.'

The puffy features lighted up into warmth. 'Little Miss Gillian!
And I am proud to see you! My little Maura did tell me that Miss
Valetta was in her class at the High School; but I thought there was
no one now who would come near the poor widow. And is your dear
mamma here, Miss Gillian, and are she and your papa quite well?'

Gillian could hardly believe in such dense remoteness that her
father's accident should be unknown, but she explained all, and met
with abundant sympathy, the dark eyes filled with tears, and the
voice broke into sobs, as Mrs. White declared that Sir Jasper and
Lady Merrifield had been the best friends she ever had in her life.

But oh! that the handkerchief had been less grimy with which she
mopped her eyes, as she spoke of the happy days that were gone!
Gillian saw that poor Aunt Ada was in an agony to get away, and
hurried out her questions for fear of being stopped. 'How was
Kalliope---was she at home?'

'Oh no, poor Kally, she is the best girl in the world. I always say
that, with all my sorrows, no one ever was more blest in their
children than poor little me. Richard, my eldest, is in a lawyer's
office at Leeds. Kally is employed in the art department, just as a
compliment to her relation, Mr. White. Quite genteel, superior work,
though I must say he does not do as much for us as he might. Such a
youth as my Alexis now was surely worthy of the position of a
gentleman.'

The good lady was quite disposed to talk; but there was no making
out, through her cloud of confused complaints, what her son and
daughter were actually doing; and Aunt Ada, while preserving her
courtesy, was very anxious to be gone, and rose to take leave at the
first moment possible, though after she was on her feet Mrs. White
detained her for some time with apologies about not returning her
visit. She was in such weak health, so unequal to walking up the
cliff, that she was sure Miss Mohun would excuse her, though Alexis
and Kally would be perfectly delighted to hear of Miss Gillian's
kindness.

Gillian had not made out half what she wanted to know, nor effected
any arrangement for seeing Kalliope, when she found herself out in
the street, and her aunt panting with relief. 'My dear, that woman!
You don't mean that your mother was fond of her.'

'I never said mamma was fond of her.'

'My dear, excuse me. It was the only reason for letting you drag me
here. I was almost stifled. What a night I shall have!'

'I am very sorry, Aunt Ada, but, indeed, I never said that mamma was
fond of her, only that papa thought very highly of her husband, and
wished us to be kind to her.'

'Well, you gave me that impression, whether you wished it or not!
Such a hole; and I'm sure she drinks gin!'

'Oh no, aunt!'

'I can't be mistaken! I really was afraid she was going to kiss
you!'

'I do wish I could have made out about Alexis and Kalliope.'

'Oh, my dear, just working like all the lot, though she shuffled
about it. I see what they are like, and the less you see of them the
better. I declare I am more tired than if I had walked a mile. How
am I ever to get up the hill again?'

'I am sorry, aunt,' said Gillian. 'Will you take my arm? Perhaps we
may meet Kalliope, if the marble people come out at four or five.
What's that bell?' as a little tinkle was heard.

'That's St. Kenelm's! Oh! you would like to go there, and it would
rest me; only there's Kunz.'

'I should like to see it very much,' said Gillian.

'Well,' said Aunt Ada, who certainly seemed to have something of the
'cat's away' feeling about her, and, moreover, trusted to avoid
meeting Kalliope. 'Just round the corner here is Mrs. Webb's, who
used to live with us before she married, Kunz will be happy with her.
Won't he, my doggie, like to go and see his old Jessie?'

So Kunz was disposed of with a very pleasant, neat-looking woman, who
begged Miss Adeline to come and have some tea after the service.

It was really a beautiful little church--'a little gem' was exactly
the term that suggested itself---very ornate, and the chief lack being
of repose, for there seemed not an inch devoid of colour or carving.
There was a choir of boys in short surplices and blue cassocks, and a
very musical service, in the course of which it was discovered to be
the Feast of St. Remigius, for after the Lesson a short discourse was
given on the Conversion of Clovis, not forgetting the sacred ampulla.

There were about five ladies present and six old women, belonging to
a home maintained by Lady Flight. The young priest, her son, had a
beautiful voice, and Gillian enjoyed all very much, and thought the
St. Andrew's people very hard and unjust; but all this went out of
her head in the porch, for while Lady Flight was greeting Miss Mohun
with empressement, and inviting her to come in to tea, Gillian had
seen a young woman who had come in late and had been kneeling behind
them.

Turning back and holding out her hands, she exclaimed---

'Kalliope! I so wanted to see you.'

'Miss Gillian Merrifield,' was the response. 'Maura told me you were
here, but I hardly hoped to see you.'

'How can I see you? Where are you? Busy?'

'I am at the marble works all day---in the mosaic department. Oh,
Miss Gillian, I owe it all to Miss Merrifield's encouraging me to go
to the School of Art. How is she? And I hope you have good accounts
of Sir Jasper?'

'He is better, and I hope my mother is just arriving. That's why we
are here; and Alethea and Phyllis are out there. They will want to
know all about you.'

At that moment Aunt Adeline looked round, having succeeded in
persuading Lady Flight that she had another engagement. She saw a
young woman in a shabby black dress, with a bag in her hand, and a
dark fringe over a complexion of clear brown, straight features, to
whom Gillian was eagerly talking.

'Ah!' she said, as Mr. Flight now came up from the vestry; 'do you
know anything of that girl?'

'Second-rate people, somewhere in Bellevue,' said the lady.

'The brother is my best tenor,' said Mr. Flight. 'She is very often
at St. Kenelm's, but I do not know any more of her. The mother
either goes to Bellevue or nowhere. They are in Bellevue Parish.'

This was quite sufficient answer, for any interference with parochial
visiting in the Bellevue district was forbidden.

Aunt Ada called to Gillian, and when she eagerly said, 'This is
Kalliope, aunt,' only responded with a stiff bow.

'I do not know what these people might have been, Gillian,' she said,
as they pursued their way to Mrs. Webb's; 'but--they must have sunk
so low that I do not think your mother can wish you to have anything
to do with them.

'Oh, Aunt Ada! Kalliope was always such a good girl!'

'She has a fringe. And she would not belong to the G.F.S.,' said
Aunt Ada. 'No, my dear, I see exactly the sort of people they are.
Your aunt Jane might be useful to them, if they would let her, but
they are not at all fit for you to associate with.'

Gillian chafed inwardly, but she was beginning to learn that Aunt Ada
was more impenetrable than Aunt Jane, and, what was worse, Aunt Jane
always stood by her sister's decision, whether she would have herself
originated it or not.

When the elder aunt came home, and heard the history of their day,
and Gillian tried to put in a word, she said---

'My dear, we all know that rising from the ranks puts a man's family
in a false position, and they generally fall back again. All this is
unlucky, for they do not seem to be people it is possible to get at,
and now you have paid your kind act of attention, there is no more to
be done till you can hear from Ceylon about them.'

Gillian was silenced by the united forces of the aunts.

'It really was a horrid place,' said Aunt Ada, when alone with her
sister; 'and such a porpoise of a woman! Gillian should not have
represented her as a favourite.'

'I do not remember that she did so,' returned Aunt Jane. 'I wish she
had waited for me. I have seen more of the kind of thing than you
have, Ada.'

'I am sure I wish she had. I don't know when I shall get over the
stifling of that den; but it was just as if they were her dearest
friends.'

'Girls will be silly! And there's a feeling about the old regiment
too. I can excuse her, though I wish she had not been so impatient.
I fancy that eldest daughter is really a good girl and the mainstay
of the family.'

'But she would have nothing to do with you or the G.F.S.'

'If I had known that her father had been an officer, I might have
approached her differently. However, I will ask Lily about their
antecedents, and in six weeks we shall know what is to be done about
them.'

CHAPTER V. MARBLES

Six weeks seem a great deal longer to sixteen than to six-and-forty,
and Gillian groaned and sighed to herself as she wrote her letters,
and assured herself that so far from her having done enough in the
way of attention to the old soldier's family, she had simply done
enough to mark her neglect and disdain.

'Grizzling' (to use an effective family phrase) under opposition is a
grand magnifier; and it was not difficult to erect poor Captain White
into a hero, his wife into a patient sufferer, and Alethea's kindness
to his daughter into a bosom friendship; while the aunts seemed to be
absurdly fastidious and prejudiced. 'I don't wonder at Aunt Ada,'
she said to herself; 'I know she has always been kept under a glass
case; but I thought better things of Aunt Jane. It is all because
Kalliope goes to St. Kenelm's, and won't be in the G.F.S.'

And all the time Gillian was perfectly unaware of her own family
likeness to Dolores. Other matters conduced to a certain spirit of
opposition to Aunt Jane. That the children should have to use the
back instead of the front stair when coming in with dusty or muddy
shoes, and that their possessions should be confiscated for the rest
of the day when left about in the sitting-rooms and hall, were
contingencies she could accept as natural, though they irritated her;
but she agreed with Valetta that it was hard to insist on half an
hour's regular work at the cushion, which was not a lesson, but play.
She was angered when Aunt Jane put a stop to some sportive passes and
chatter on the stairs between Valetta and Alice Mount, and still more
so when her aunt took away Adam Bede from the former, as not
desirable reading at eleven years old.

It was only the remembrance of her mother's positive orders that
withheld Gillian from the declaration that mamma always let them read
George Eliot; and in a cooler moment of reflection she was glad she
had abstained, for she recollected that _always_ was limited to
mamma's having read most of Romola aloud to her and Mysie, and to her
having had Silas Marner to read when she was unwell in lodgings, and
there was a scarcity of books.

Such miffs about her little sister were in the natural order of
things, and really it was the 'all pervadingness,' as she called it
in her own mind, of Aunt Jane that chiefly worried her, the way that
the little lady knew everything that was done, and everything that
was touched in the house; but as long as Valetta took refuge with
herself, and grumbled to her, it was bearable.

It was different with Fergus. There had been offences certainly;
Aunt Jane had routed him out of preparing his lessons in Mrs. Mount's
room, where he diversified them with teaching the Sofy to beg, and
inventing new modes of tying down jam pots. Moreover, she had
declared that Gillian's exemplary patience was wasted and harmful
when she found that they had taken three-quarters of an hour over
three tenses of a Greek verb, and that he said it worse on the
seventh repetition than on the first. After an evening, when Gillian
had gone to a musical party with Aunt Ada, and Fergus did his lessons
under Aunt Jane's superintendence, he utterly cast off his sister's
aid. There was something in Miss Mohun's briskness that he found
inspiring, and she put in apt words or illustrations, instead of only
rousing herself from a book to listen, prompt, and sigh. He found
that he did his tasks more thoroughly in half the time, and rose in
his class; and busy as his aunt was, she made the time not only for
this, but for looking over with him those plates of mechanics in the
Encyclopaedia, which were a mere maze to Gillian, but of which she
knew every detail, from ancient studies with her brother Maurice. As
Fergus wrote to his mother, 'Aunt Jane is the only woman who has any
natural _scence_.'

Gillian could not but see this as she prepared the letters for the
post, and whatever the ambiguous word might be meant for, she had
rather not have seen it, for she really was ashamed of her secret
annoyance at Fergus's devotion to Aunt Jane, knowing how well it was
that Stebbing should have a rival in his affections. Yet she could
not help being provoked when the boy followed his aunt to the doors
of her cottages like a little dog, and waited outside whenever she
would let him, for the sake of holding forth to her about something
which wheels and plugs and screws were to do. Was it possible that
Miss Mohun followed it all? His great desire was to go over the
marble works, and she had promised to take him when it could be done;
but, unfortunately, his half-holiday was on Saturday, when the
workmen struck off early, and when also Aunt Jane always had the
pupil-teachers for something between instruction and amusement.

Gillian felt lonely, for though she got on better with her younger
than her elder aunt, and had plenty of surface intercourse of a
pleasant kind with both, it was a very poor substitute for her
mother, or her elder sisters, and Valetta was very far from being a
Mysie.

The worst time was Sunday, when the children had deserted her for
Mrs. Hablot, and Aunt Ada was always lying down in her own room to
rest after morning service. She might have been at the Sunday-
school, but she did not love teaching, nor do it well, and she did
not fancy the town children, or else there was something of
opposition to Aunt Jane.

It was a beautiful afternoon, of the first Sunday in October, and she
betook herself to the garden with the 'Lyra Innocentium' in her hand,
meaning to learn the poem for the day. She wandered up to the rail
above the cliff, looking out to the sea. Here, beyond the belt of
tamarisks and other hardy low-growing shrubs which gave a little
protection from the winds, the wall dividing the garden of Beechcroft
Cottage from that of Cliff House became low, with only the iron-
spiked railing on the top, as perhaps there was a desire not to
overload the cliff. The sea was of a lovely colour that day, soft
blue, and with exquisite purple shadows of clouds, with ripples of
golden sparkles here and there near the sun, and Gillian stood
leaning against the rail, gazing out on it, with a longing, yearning
feeling towards the dear ones who had gone out upon it, when she
became conscious that some one was in the other garden, which she had
hitherto thought quite deserted, and looking round, she saw a figure
in black near the rail. Their eyes met, and both together exclaimed---

'Kalliope!'---'Miss Gillian! Oh, I beg your pardon!'

'How did you come here? I thought nobody did!'

'Mr. White's gardener lets us walk here. It is so nice and quiet.
Alexis has taken the younger ones for a walk, but I was too much
tired. But I will not disturb you---'

'Oh! don't go away. Nobody will disturb us, and I do so want to know
about you all. I had no notion, nor mamma either, that you were
living here, or---'

'Or of my dear father's death!' said Kalliope, as Gillian stopped
short, confused. 'I did write to Miss Merrifield, but the letter was
returned.'

'But where did you write?'

'To Swanage, where she had written to me last.'

'Oh! we were only there for six weeks, while we were looking for
houses; I suppose it was just as the Wardours were gone to Natal
too?'

'Yes, we knew they were out of reach.'

'But do tell me about it, if you do not mind. My father will want to
hear.'

Kalliope told all in a calm, matter-of-fact way, but with a strain of
deep suppressed feeling. She was about twenty-three, a girl with a
fine outline of features, beautiful dark eyes, and a clear brown
skin, who would have been very handsome if she had looked better fed
and less hardworked. Her Sunday dress showed wear and adaptation,
but she was altogether ladylike, and even the fringe that had
startled Aunt Ada only consisted of little wavy curls on the temples,
increasing her classical look.

'It was fever---at Leeds. My father was just going into a situation
in the police that we had been waiting for ever so long, and there
were good schools, and Richard had got into a lawyer's office, when
there began a terrible fever in our street---the drains were to blame,
they said---and every one of us had it, except mother and Richard, who
did not sleep at home. We lost poor little Mary first, and then papa
seemed to be getting better; but he was anxious about expense, and
there was no persuading him to take nourishment enough. I do believe
it was that. And he had a relapse---and---'

'Oh, poor Kalliope! And we never heard of it!'

'I did feel broken down when the letter to Miss Merrifield came
back,' said Kalliope. 'But my father had made me write to Mr. James
White---not that we had any idea that he had grown so rich. He and my
father were first cousins, sons of two brothers who were builders;
but there was some dispute, and it ended by my father going away and
enlisting. There was nobody nearer to him, and he never heard any
more of his home; but when he was so ill, he thought he would like to
be reconciled to "Jem," as he said, so he made me write from his
dictation. Such a beautiful letter it was, and he added a line at
the end himself. Then at last, when it was almost too late, Mr.
White answered. I believe it was a mere chance---or rather
Providence---that he ever knew it was meant for him, but there were
kind words enough to cheer up my father at the last. I believe then
the clergyman wrote to him.'

'Did not he come near you?'

'No, I have never seen him; but there was a correspondence between
him and Mr. Moore, the clergyman, and Richard, and he said he was
willing to put us in the way of working for ourselves, if---if---we
were not too proud.'

'Then he did it in an unkind way,' said Gillian.

'I try to think he did not mean to be otherwise than good to us. I
told Mr. Moore that I was not fit to be a governess, and I did not
think they could get on without me at home, but that I could draw
better than I would do anything else, and perhaps I might get
Christmas cards to do, or something like that. Mr. Moore sent a card
or two of my designing, and then Mr. White said he could find work
for me in the mosaic department here; and something for my brothers,
if we did not give ourselves airs. So we came.'

'Not Richard?' said Gillian, who remembered dimly that Richard had
not been held in great esteem by her own brothers.

'No; Richard is in a good situation, so it was settled that he should
stay on there.'

'And you---'

'I am in the mosaic department. Oh, Miss Gillian, I am so grateful
to Miss Merrifield. Don't you remember her looking at my little
attempts, and persuading Lady Merrifield to get mother to let me go
to the School of Art? I began only as the girls do who are mere
hands, and now I have to prepare all the designs for them, and have a
nice little office of my own for it. Sometimes I get one of my own
designs taken, and then I am paid extra.'

'Then do you maintain them all?'

'Oh no; we have lodgers, the organist and his wife,' said Kalliope,
laughing, 'and Alexis is in the telegraph office, at the works;
besides, it turned out that this house and two more belong to us, and
we do very well when the tenants pay their rents.'

'But Maura is not the youngest of you,' said Gillian, who was rather
hazy about the family.

'No, there are the two little boys. We let them go to the National
School for the present. It is a great trial to my poor mother, but
they do learn well there, and we may be able to do something better
for them by the time they are old enough for further education.'

Just then the sound of a bell coming up from the town below was a
warning to both that the conversation must be broken off. A few
words---'I am so glad to have seen you,' and 'It has been such a
pleasure'---passed, and then each hastened down her separate garden
path.

'Must I tell of this meeting?' Gillian asked herself. 'I shall
write it all to mamma and Alethea, of course. How delightful that
those lessons that Kalliope had have come to be of so much use! How
pleased Alethea will be! Poor dear thing! How much she has gone
through! But can there be any need to tell the aunts? Would it not
just make Aunt Ada nervous about any one looking through her sweet
and lovely wall? And as to Aunt Jane, I really don't see that I am
bound to gratify her passion for knowing everything. I am not
accountable to her, but to my own mother. My people know all about
Kalliope, and she is prejudiced. Why should I be unkind and
neglectful of an old fellow-soldier's family, because she cannot or
will not understand what they really are? It would not be the
slightest use to tell her the real story. Mrs. White is fat, and
Kalliope has a fringe, goes to St. Kenelm's, and won't be in the
G.F.S., and that's enough to make her say she does not believe a word
of it, or else to make it a fresh ground for poking and prying, in
the way that drives one distracted! It really is quite a satis-
faction to have something that she can't find out, and it is not
underhand while I write every word of it to mamma.'

So Gillian made her conscience easy, and she did write a long and
full account of the Whites and their troubles, and of her
conversation with Kalliope.

In the course of that week Fergus had a holiday, asked for by some
good-natured visitor of Mrs. Edgar's. He rushed home on the previous
day with the news, to claim Aunt Jane's promise; and she undertook so
to arrange matters as to be ready to go with him to the marble works
at three o'clock. Valetta could not go, as she had her music lesson
at that time, and she did not regret it, for she had an idea that
blasting with powder or dynamite was always going on there. Gillian
was not quite happy about the dynamite, but she did not like to
forego the chance of seeing what the work of Kalliope and Alexis
really was, so she expressed her willingness to join the party, and
in the meantime did her best to prevent Aunt Ada from being driven
distracted by Fergus's impatience, which began at half-past two.

Miss Mohun had darted out as soon as dinner was over, and he was
quite certain some horrible cad would detain her till four o'clock,
and then going would be of no use. Nevertheless he was miserable
till Gillian had put on her hat, and then she could do nothing that
would content him and keep him out of Aunt Ada's way, but walk him up
and down in the little front court with the copper beeches, while she
thought they must present to the neighbours a lively tableau of a
couple of leopards in a cage.

However, precisely as the clock struck three, Aunt Jane walked up to
the iron gate. She had secured an order from Mr. Stebbing, the
managing partner, without which they would not have penetrated beyond
the gate where 'No admittance except on business' was painted.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27