Beechcroft at Rockstone

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

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It was worth something to see how happy the brother and sister
looked, as they went off in the gaslight, the one with the big brown
paper parcel, the other with the basket of fruit and flowers; and
Gillian's explanation to Mrs. Mount that they were old friends of her
soldiering days was quite satisfactory.

There was a grand unpacking. Aunt Ada was pleased with the late
roses, and Aunt Jane that there had been a recollection of Lilian
Giles, to whom she had thought her niece far too indifferent.
Valetta fondled the flowers, and was gratified to hear of the ardent
affection of the Begum and the health of Rigdum, though Gillian was
forced to confess that she had not transferred to him the kiss that
she had been commissioned to convey. Nobody was disappointed except
Fergus, who could not but vituperate the housemaids for the
destruction of his new patent guillotine for mice, which was to have
been introduced to Clement Varley. To be sure it would hardly ever
act, and had never cut off the head of anything save a dandelion, but
that was a trifling consideration.

A letter from Mysie was awaiting Gillian, not lengthy, for there was
a long interval between Mysie's brains and her pen, and saying
nothing about the New Zealand report. The selection of lace was much
approved, and the next day there was to be an expedition to endeavour
to get the veil matched as nearly as possible. The only dangerous
moment was at breakfast the next day, when Miss Mohun said---

'Fanny was delighted with Silverfold. Macrae seems to have been the
pink of politeness to her.'

'She must come when the house is alive again,' said Gillian. 'What
would she think of it then!'

'Oh, that would be perfectly delicious,' cried Valetta. 'She would
see Begum and Rigdum---'

'And I could show her how to work the lawn cutter,' added Fergus.

'By the bye,' said Aunt Jane, 'whom have you been lending books to?'

'Oh, to the Whites,' said Gillian, colouring, as she felt more than
she could wish. 'There were some old school-books that I thought
would be useful to them, and I was sure mamma would like them to have
some flowers and fruit.'

She felt herself very candid, but why would Aunt Jane look at those
tell-tale cheeks.

Sunday was wet, or rather 'misty moisty,' with a raw sea-fog
overhanging everything---not bad enough, however, to keep any one
except Aunt Ada from church or school, though she decidedly
remonstrated against Gillian's going out for her wandering in the
garden in such weather; and, if she had been like the other aunt,
might almost have been convinced that such determination must be for
an object. However, Gillian encountered the fog in vain, though she
walked up and down the path till her clothes were quite limp and
flabby with damp. All the view that rewarded her was the outline of
the shrubs looming through the mist like distant forests as
mountains. Moreover, she got a scolding from Aunt Ada, who met her
coming in, and was horrified at the misty atmosphere which she was
said to have brought in, and insisted on her going at once to change
her dress, and staying by the fireside all the rest of the afternoon.

'I cannot think what makes her so eager about going out in the
afternoon,' said the younger aunt to the elder. 'It is impossible
that she can have any reason for it.'

'Only Sunday restlessness,' said Miss Mohun, 'added to the reckless
folly of the "Bachfisch" about health.'

'That's true,' said Adeline, 'girls must be either so delicate that
they are quite helpless, or so strong as to be absolutely weather-
proof.'

Fortune, however, favoured Gillian when next she went to Lily Giles.
She had never succeeded in taking real interest in the girl, who
seemed to her to be so silly and sentimental that an impulse to
answer drily instantly closed up all inclination to effusions of
confidence. Gillian had not yet learnt breadth of charity enough to
understand that everybody does not feel, or express feeling, after
the same pattern; that gush is not always either folly or
insincerity; and that girls of Lily's class are about at the same
stage of culture as the young ladies of whom her namesake in the
Inheritance is the type. When Lily showed her in some little
magazine the weakest of poetry, and called it so sweet, just like
'dear Mr. Grant's lovely sermon, the last she had heard. Did he not
look so like a saint in his surplice and white stole, with his holy
face and beautiful blue eyes; it was enough to make any one feel good
to look at him,' Gillian simply replied, 'Oh, _I_ never think of the
clergyman's looks,' and hurried to her book, feeling infinitely
disgusted and contemptuous, never guessing that these poor verses,
and the curate's sermons and devotional appearance were, to the young
girl's heart, the symbols of all that was sacred, and all that was
refined, and that the thought of them was the solace of her lonely
and suffering hours. Tolerant sympathy is one of the latest lessons
of life, and perhaps it is well that only

'The calm temper of our age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree,'

for the character in course of formation needs to be guarded by
prickles.

However, on this day Undine was to be finished, for Gillian was in
haste to begin Katharine Ashton, which would, she thought, be much
more wholesome reality, so she went on later than usual, and came
away at last, leaving her auditor dissolved in tears over poor
Undine's act of justice.

As Mrs. Giles, full of thanks, opened the little garden-gate just as
twilight was falling, Gillian beheld Kalliope and Alexis White coming
up together from the works, and eagerly met and shook hands with
them. The dark days were making them close earlier, they explained,
and as Kalliope happened to have nothing to finish or purchase, she
was able to come home with her brother.

Therewith Alexis began to express, with the diffidence of extreme
gratitude, his warm thanks for the benefaction of books, which were
exactly what he had wanted and longed for. His foreign birth enabled
him to do this much more prettily and less clumsily than an English
boy, and Gillian was pleased, though she told him that her brother's
old ill-used books were far from worthy of such thanks.

'Ah, you cannot guess how precious they are to me!' said Alexis.
'They are the restoration of hope.'

'And can you get on by yourself?' asked Gillian. 'Is it not very
difficult without any teacher?'

'People have taught themselves before,' returned the youth, 'so I
hope to do so myself; but of course there are many questions I long
to ask.'

'Perhaps I could answer some,' said Gillian; 'I have done some
classics with a tutor.'

'Oh, thank you, Miss Merrifield,' he said eagerly. 'If you could
make me understand the force of the aorist.

It so happened that Gillian had the explanation at her tongue's end,
and it was followed by another, and another, till one occurred which
could hardly be comprehended without reference to the passage, upon
which Alexis pulled a Greek Testament out of his pocket, and his
sister could not help exclaiming---

'Oh, Alexis, you can't ask Miss Merrifield to do Greek with you out
in the street.'

Certainly it was awkward, the more so as Mrs. Stebbing just then
drove by in her carriage.

'What a pity!' exclaimed Gillian. 'But if you would set down any
difficulties, you could send them to me by Kalliope on Sunday.'

'Oh, Miss Merrifield, how very good of you!' exclaimed Alexis, his
face lighting up with joy.

But Kalliope looked doubtful, and began a hesitating 'But---'

'I'll tell you of a better way!' exclaimed Gillian. 'I always go
once a week to read to this Lilian Giles, and if I come down
afterwards to Kalliope's office after you have struck work, I could
see to anything you wanted to ask.'

Alexis broke out into the most eager thanks. Kalliope said hardly
anything, and as they had reached the place where the roads diverged,
they bade one another good-evening.

Gillian looked after the brother and sister just as the gas was being
lighted, and could almost guess what Alexis was saying, by his
gestures of delight. She did not hear, and did not guess how
Kalliope answered, 'Don't set your heart on it too much, dear fellow,
for I should greatly doubt whether Miss Gillian's aunts will consent.
Oh yes, of course, if they permit her, it will be all right.

So Gillian went her way feeling that she had found her 'great thing.'
Training a minister for the Church! Was not that a 'great thing'?

CHAPTER VIII. GILLIAN'S PUPIL

Gillian was not yet seventeen, and had lived a home life totally
removed from gossip, so that she had no notion that she was doing a
more awkward or remarkable thing than if she had been teaching a
drummer-boy. She even deliberated whether she should mention her
undertaking to her mother, or produce the grand achievement of Alexis
White, prepared for college, on the return from India; but a sense
that she had promised to tell everything, and that, while she did so,
she could defy any other interference, led her to write the design in
a letter to Ceylon, and then she felt ready to defy any censure or
obstructions from other Quarters.

Mystery has a certain charm. Infinite knowledge of human nature was
shown in the text, 'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in
secret is pleasant'; and it would be hard to define how much
Gillian's satisfaction was owing to the sense of benevolence, or to
the pleasure of eluding Aunt Jane, when, after going through her
chapter of Katharine Ashton, in a somewhat perfunctory manner, she
hastened away to Miss White's office. This, being connected with the
showroom, could be entered without passing through the gate with the
inscription---'No admittance except on business.' Indeed, the office
had a private door, which, at Gillian's signal, was always opened to
her. There, on the drawing-desk, lay a Greek exercise and a
translation, with queries upon the difficulties for Gillian to
correct, or answer in writing. Kalliope had managed to make that
little room a pleasant place, bare as it was, by pinning a few of her
designs on the walls, and always keeping a terracotta vase of flowers
or coloured leaves upon the table. The lower part of the window she
had blocked with transparencies delicately cut and tinted in
cardboard---done, as she told Gillian, by her little brother Theodore,
who learnt to draw at the National School, and had the same turn for
art as herself. Altogether, the perfect neatness and simplicity of
the little room gave it an air of refinement, which rendered it by no
means an unfit setting for the grave beauty of Kalliope's countenance
and figure.

The enjoyment of the meeting was great on both sides, partly from the
savour of old times, and partly because there was really much that
was uncommon and remarkable about Kalliope herself. Her father's
promotion had come exactly when she and her next brother were at the
time of life when the changes it brought would tell most on their
minds and manners. They had both been sent to schools where they had
associated with young people of gentle breeding, which perhaps their
partly foreign extraction, and southern birth and childhood, made it
easier for them to assimilate. Their beauty and brightness had led
to a good deal of kindly notice from the officers and ladies of the
regiment, and they had thus acquired the habits and ways of the class
to which they had been raised. Their father, likewise, had been a
man of a chivalrous nature, whose youthful mistakes had been the
outcome of high spirit and romance, and who, under discipline,
danger, suffering, and responsibility, had become earnestly
religious. There had besides been his Colonel's influence on him,
and on his children that of Lady Merrifield and Alethea.

It had then been a piteous change and darkening of life when, after
the crushing grief of his death, the young people found themselves in
such an entirely different stratum of society. They were ready to
work, but they could not help feeling the mortification of being
relegated below the mysterious line of gentry, as they found
themselves at Rockquay, and viewed as on a level with the clerks and
shop-girls of the place. Still more, as time went on, did they miss
the companionship and intercourse to which they had been used. Mr.
Flight, the only person in a higher rank who took notice of them, and
perceived that there was more in them than was usual, was after all
only a patron---not a friend, and perhaps was not essentially enough
of a gentleman to be free from all airs of condescension even with
Alexis, while he might be wise in not making too much of an approach
to so beautiful a girl as Kalliope. Besides, after a fit of
eagerness, and something very like promises, he had apparently let
Alexis drop, only using him for his musical services, and not doing
anything to promote the studies for which the young man thirsted, nor
proposing anything for the younger boys, who would soon outgrow the
National School.

Alexis had made a few semi-friends among the musical youth of the
place; but there was no one to sympathise with him in his studious
tastes, and there was much in his appearance and manners to cause the
accusation of being 'stuck-up'---music being really the only point of
contact with most of his fellows of the lower professional class.

Kalliope had less time, but she had, on principle, cultivated kindly
terms with the young women employed under her. Her severe style of
beauty removed her from any jealousy of her as a rival, and she was
admired---almost worshipped---by them as the glory of the workshop.
They felt her superiority, and owned her ability; but nobody there
was capable of being a companion to her. Thus the sister and brother
had almost wholly depended upon one another; and it was like a breath
from what now seemed the golden age of their lives when Gillian
Merrifield walked into the office, treating Kalliope with all the
freedom of an equal and the affection of an old friend. There was
not very much time to spare after Gillian had looked at the
exercises, noted and corrected the errors, and explained the
difficulties or mistakes in the translation from Testament and
Delectus, feeling all the time how much more mastery of the subject
her pupil had than Mr. Pollock's at home had ever attained to.

However, Kalliope always walked home with her as far as the opening
of Church Cliff Road, and they talked of the cleverness and goodness
of the brothers, except Richard at Leeds, who never seemed to be
mentioned; how Theodore kept at the head of the school, and had hopes
of the drawing prize, and how little Petros devoured tales of
battles, and would hear of nothing but being a soldier. Now and
then, too, there was a castle in the air of a home for little Maura
at Alexis's future curacy. Kalliope seemed to look to working for
life for poor mother, while Theodore should cultivate his art.
Oftener the two recalled old adventures and scenes of their
regimental days, and discussed the weddings of the two Indian
sisters.

Once, however, Kalliope was obliged to suggest, with a blushing
apology, that she feared Gillian must go home alone, she was not
ready.

'Can't I help you? what have you to do?'

Kalliope attempted some excuse of putting away designs, but presently
peeped from the window, and Gillian, with excited curiosity, imitated
her, and beheld, lingering about, a young man in the pink of fashion,
with a tea-rose in his buttonhole and a cane in his hand.

'Oh, Kally,' she cried, 'does he often hang about like this waiting
for you?'

'Not often, happily. There! old Mr. Stebbing has come out, and they
are walking away together. We can go now.'

'So he besets you, and you have to keep out of his way,' exclaimed
Gillian, much excited. 'Is that the reason you come to the garden
all alone on Sunday?'

'Yes, though I little guessed what awaited me there,' returned
Kalliope; 'but we had better make haste, for it is late for you to be
returning.'

It was disappointing that Kalliope would not discuss such an
interesting affair; but Gillian was sensible of the danger of being
so late as to cause questions, and she allowed herself to be hurried
on too fast for conversation, and passing the two Stebbings, who, no
doubt, took her for a 'hand.'

'Does this often happen?' asked Gillian.

'No; Alec walks home with me, and the boys often come and meet me.
Oh, did I tell you that the master wants Theodore to be a pupil-
teacher? I wish I knew what was best for him.'

'Could not he be an artist?'

'I should like some one to tell me whether he really has talent worth
cultivating, dear boy, or if he would be safer and better in an
honourable occupation like a school-master.'

'Do you call it honourable?'

'Oh yes, to be sure. I put it next to a clergyman's or a doctor's
life.'

'Not a soldier's?'

'That depends,' said Kalliope.

'On the service he is sent upon, you mean? But that is his
sovereign's look-out. He "only has to obey, to do or die."'

'Yes, it is the putting away of self, and possible peril of life,
that makes all those grandest,' said Kalliope, 'and I think the
schoolmaster is next in opportunities of doing good.'

Gillian could not help thinking that none of all these could put away
self more entirely than the girl beside her, toiling away her beauty
and her youth in this dull round of toil, not able to exercise the
instincts of her art to the utmost, and with no change from the
monotonous round of mosaics, which were forced to be second rate, to
the commonest household works, and the company of the Queen of the
White Ants.

Gillian perceived enough of the nobleness of such a life to fill her
with a certain enthusiasm, and make her feel a day blank and
uninteresting if she could not make her way to the little office.

One evening, towards the end of the first fortnight, Alexis himself
came in with a passage that he wanted to have explained. His sister
looked uneasy all the time, and hurried to put on her hat, and stand
demonstratively waiting, telling Gillian that they must go, the
moment the lesson began to tend to discursive talk, and making a most
decided sign of prohibition to her brother when he showed a
disposition to accompany them.

'I think you are frightfully particular, Kally,' said Gillian, when
they were on their way up the hill. 'Such an old friend, and you
there, too.'

'It would never do here! It would be wrong,' answered Kalliope, with
the authority of an older woman. 'He must not come to the office.'

'Oh, but how could I ever explain to him? One can't do everything in
writing. I might as well give up the lessons as never speak to him
about them.'

There was truth in this, and perhaps Alexis used some such arguments
on his side, for at about every third visit of Gillian's he dropped
in with some important inquiry necessary to his progress, which was
rapid enough to compel Gillian to devote some time to preparation, in
order to keep ahead of him.

Kalliope kept diligent guard, and watched against lengthening the
lessons into gossip, and they were always after hours when the hands
had gone away. The fear of being detected kept Gillian ready to
shorten the time.

'How late you are!' were the first words she heard one October
evening on entering Beechcroft Cottage; but they were followed by
'Here's a pleasure for you!'

'It's from papa himself! Open it! Open it quick,' cried Valetta,
dancing round her in full appreciation of the honour and delight.

Sir Jasper said that his daughter must put up with him for a
correspondent, since two brides at once were as much as any mother
could be supposed to undertake. Indeed, as mamma would not leave
him, Phyllis was actually going to Calcutta, chaperoned by one of the
matrons of the station, to make purchases for both outfits, since
Alethea would not stir from under the maternal wing sooner than she
could help.

At the end came, 'We are much shocked at poor White's death. He was
an excellent officer, and a good and sensible man, though much
hampered with his family. I am afraid his wife must be a very
helpless being. He used to talk about the good promise of one of his
sons---the second, I think. We will see whether anything can be done
for the children when we come home. I say we, for I find I shall
have to be invalided before I can be entirely patched up, so that
mamma and I shall have a sort of postponed silver wedding tour, a new
variety for the old folks "from home."'

'Oh, is papa coming home?' cried Valetta.

'For good! Oh, I hope it will be for good,' added Gillian.

'Then we shall live at dear Silverfold all the days of our life,'
added Fergus.

'And I shall get back to Rigdum.'

'And I shall make a telephone down to the stables,' were the cries of
the children.

The transcendent news quite swallowed up everything else for some
time; but at last Gillian recurred to her father's testimony as to
the White family.

'Is the second son the musical one?' she was asked, and on her
affirmative, Aunt Jane remarked, 'Well, though the Rev. Augustine
Flight is not on a pinnacle of human wisdom, his choir practices,
etc., will keep the lad well out of harm's way till your father can
see about him.'

This would have been an opportunity of explaining the youth's aims
and hopes, and her own share in forwarding them; but it had become
difficult to avow the extent of her intercourse with the brother and
sister, so entirely without the knowledge of her aunts. Even Miss
Mohun, acute as she was, had no suspicions, and only thought with
much satisfaction that her niece was growing more attentive to poor
Lilian Giles, even to the point of lingering.

'I really think, she said, in consultation with Miss Adeline, 'that
we might gratify that damsel by having the White girls to drink tea.'

'Well, we can add them to your winter party of young ladies in
business.'

'Hardly. These stand on different ground, and I don't want to hurt
their feelings or Gillian's by mixing them up with the shopocracy.'

'Have you seen the Queen of the White Ants?'

'Not yet; but I mean to reconnoitre, and if I see no cause to the
contrary, I shall invite them for next Tuesday.'

'The mother? You might as well ask her namesake.'

'Probably; but I shall be better able to judge when I have seen her.'

So Miss Mohun trotted off, made her visit, and thus reported, 'Poor
woman! she certainly is not lovely now, whatever she may have been;
but I should think there was no harm in her, and she is effusive in
her gratitude to all the Merrifield family. It is plain that the
absent eldest son is the favourite, far more so than the two useful
children at the marble works; and Mr. White is spoken of as a sort of
tyrant, whereas I should think they owed a good deal to his kindness
in giving them employment.'

'I always thought he was an old hunks.'

'The town thinks so because he does not come and spend freely here;
but I have my doubts whether they are right. He is always ready to
do his part in subscriptions; and the employing these young people as
he does is true kindness.'

'Unappreciated.'

'Yes, by the mother who would expect to be kept like a lady in
idleness, but perhaps not so by her daughter. From all I can pick
up, I think she must be a very worthy person, so I have asked her and
the little schoolgirl for Tuesday evening, and I hope it will not be
a great nuisance to you, Ada.'

'Oh no,' said Miss Adeline, good humouredly, 'it will please Gillian,
and I shall be interested in seeing the species, or rather the
variety.'

'Var Musa Groeca Hibernica Militaris,' laughed Aunt Jane.

'By the bye, I further found out what made the Captain enlist.'

'Trust you for doing that!' laughed her sister.

'Really it was not on purpose, but old Zack Skilly was indulging me
with some of his ancient smuggling experiences, in what he evidently
views as the heroic age of Rockquay. "Men was men, then," he says.
"Now they be good for nought, but to row out the gentlefolks when the
water is as smooth as glass." You should hear the contempt in his
voice. Well, a promising young hero of his was Dick White, what used
to work for his uncle, but liked a bit of a lark, and at last hit one
of the coastguard men in a fight, and ran away, and folks said he had
gone for a soldier. Skilly had heard he was dead, and his wife had
come to live in these parts, but there was no knowing what was true
and what wasn't. Folks would talk! Dick was a likely chap, with
more life about him than his cousin Jem, as was a great man now, and
owned all the marble works, and a goodish bit of the town. There was
a talk as how the two lads had both been a courting of the same maid,
that was Betsy Polwhele, and had fallen out about her, but how that
might be he could not tell. Anyhow, she was not wed to one nor
t'other of them, but went into a waste and died.'

'I wonder if it was for Dick's sake. So Jem was not constant
either.'

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