Beechcroft at Rockstone

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'Except to his second love. That was a piteous little story too.'

'You mean his young wife's health failing as soon as he brought her
to that house which he was building for her, and then his taking her
to Italy, and never enduring to come back here again after she and
her child died. But he made a good thing of it with his quarries in
the mountains.'

'You sordid person, do you think that was all he cared for!'

'Well, I always thought of him as a great, stout, monied man, quite
incapable of romance and sensitiveness.'

'If so, don't you think he would have let that house instead of
keeping it up in empty state! There is a good deal of character in
those Whites.'

'The Captain is certainly the most marked man, except Jasper, in that
group of officers in Gillian's photograph-book.'

'Partly from the fact that a herd of young officers always look so
exactly alike---at least in the eyes of elderly spinsters.'

'Jane!'

'Let us hope so, now that it is all over. This same Dick must have
had something remarkable about him, to judge by the impression he
seems to have left on all who came in his way, and I shall like to
see his children.'

'You always do like queer people.'

'It is plain that we ought to take notice of them,' said Miss Mohun,
'and it is not wholesome for Gillian to think us backward in kindness
to friends about whom she plainly has a little romance.'

She refrained from uttering a suspicion inspired by her visit that
there had been more 'kindnesses' on her niece's part than she could
quite account for. Yet she believed that she knew how all the girl's
days were spent; was certain that the Sunday wanderings never went
beyond the garden, and, moreover, she implicitly trusted Lily's
daughter.

Gillian did not manifest as much delight and gratitude at the
invitation as her aunts expected. In point of fact, she resented
Aunt Jane's making a visit of investigation without telling her, and
she was uneasy lest there should have been or yet should be a dis-
closure that should make her proceedings appear clandestine. 'And
they are not!' said she to herself with vehemence. 'Do I not write
them all to my own mother? And did not Miss Vincent allow that one
is not bound to treat aunts like parents?'

Even the discovery of Captain White's antecedents was almost an
offence, for if her aunt would not let her inquire, why should she do
so herself, save to preserve the choice morceau for her own superior
intelligence? Thus all the reply that Gillian deigned was, 'Of
course I knew that Captain White could never have done anything to be
ashamed of.'

The weather was too wet for any previous meetings, and it was on a
wild stormy evening that the two sisters appeared at seven o'clock at
Beechcroft Cottage. While hats and waterproofs were being taken off
upstairs, Gillian found opportunity to give a warning against
mentioning the Greek lessons. It was received with consternation.

'Oh, Miss Merrifield, do not your aunts know?'

'No. Why should they? Mamma does.'

'Not yet. And she is so far off! I wish Miss Mohun knew! I made
sure that she did,' said Kalliope, much distressed.

'But why? It would only make a fuss.'

'I should be much happier about it.'

'And perhaps have it all upset.'

'That is the point. I felt that it must be all right as long as Miss
Mohun sanctioned it; but I could not bear that we should be the means
of bringing you into a scrape, by doing what she might disapprove
while you are under her care.'

'Don't you think you can trust me to know my own relations?' said
Gillian somewhat haughtily.

'Indeed, I did not mean that we are not infinitely obliged to you,'
said Kalliope. 'It has made Alexis another creature to have some
hope, and feel himself making progress.'

'Then why do you want to have a fuss, and a bother, and a chatter?
If my father and mother don't approve, they can telegraph.'

With which argument she appeased or rather silenced Kalliope, who
could not but feel the task of objecting alike ungracious and
ungrateful towards the instructor, and absolutely cruel and unkind
towards her brother, and who spoke only from a sense of the treachery
of allowing a younger girl to transgress in ignorance. Still she was
conscious of not understanding on what terms the niece and aunts
might be, and the St. Kenelm's estimate of the Beechcroft ladies was
naturally somewhat different from that of the St. Andrew's
congregation. Miss Mohun was popularly regarded in those quarters as
an intolerable busybody, and Miss Adeline as a hypochondriacal fine
lady, so that Gillian might perhaps reasonably object to put herself
into absolute subjection; so, though Kalliope might have a
presentiment of breakers ahead, she could say no more, and Gillian,
feeling that she had been cross, changed the subject by admiring the
pretty short curly hair that was being tied back at the glass.

'I wish it would grow long,' said Kalliope. 'But it always was rather
short and troublesome, and ever since it was cut short in the fever,
I have been obliged to keep it like this.'

'But it suits you,' said Gillian. 'And it is exactly the thing now.'

'That is the worst of it. It looks as if I wore it so on purpose.
However, all our hands know that I cannot help it, and so does Lady
Flight.'

The girl looked exceedingly well, though little Alice, the maid,
would not have gone out to tea in such an ancient black dress, with
no relief save a rim of white at neck and hands, and a tiny silver
Maltese cross at the throat. Maura had a comparatively new gray
dress, picked out with black. She was a pretty creature, the Irish
beauty predominating over the Greek, in her great long-lashed brown
eyes, which looked radiant with shy happiness. Miss Adeline was
perfectly taken by surprise at the entrance of two such uncommon
forms and faces, and the quiet dignity of the elder made her for a
moment suppose that her sister must have invited some additional
guest of undoubted station.

Valetta, who had grown fond of Maura in their school life, and who
dearly loved patronising, pounced upon her guest to show her all
manner of treasures and curiosities, at which she looked in great
delight; and Fergus was so well satisfied with her comprehension of
the principles of the letter balance, that he would have taken her
upstairs to be introduced to all his mechanical inventions, if the
total darkness and cold of his den had not been prohibitory.

Kalliope looked to perfection, but was more silent than her sister,
though, as Miss Mohun's keen eye noted, it was not the shyness of a
conscious inferior in an unaccustomed world, but rather that of a
grave, reserved nature, not chattering for the sake of mere talk.

Gillian's photograph-book was well looked over, with all the brothers
and sisters at different stages, and the group of officers. Miss
Mohun noted the talk that passed over these, as they were identified
one by one, sometimes with little reminiscences, childishly full on
Gillian's part, betraying on Kalliope's side friendly acquaintance,
but all in as entirely ladylike terms as would have befitted Phyllis
or Alethea. She could well believe in the words with which Miss
White rather hastened the turning of the page, 'Those were happy
days---I dare not dwell on them too much!'

'Oh, I like to do so!' cried Gillian. 'I don't want the little ones
ever to forget them.'

'Yes---you! But with you it would not be repining.'

This was for Gillian's ear alone, as at that moment both the aunts
were, at the children's solicitation, engaged on the exhibition of a
wonderful musical-box---Aunt Adeline's share of her mother's wedding
presents---containing a bird that hovered and sung, the mechanical
contrivance of which was the chief merit in Fergus's eyes, and which
had fascinated generations of young people for the last sixty years.
Aunt Jane, however, could hear through anything---even through the
winding-up of what the family called 'Aunt Ada's Jackdaw,' and she
drew her conclusions, with increasing respect and pity for the young
girl over whose life such a change had come.

But it was not this, but what she called common humanity, which
prompted her, on hearing a heavy gust of rain against the windows, to
go into the lower regions in quest of a messenger boy to order a
brougham to take the guests home at the end of the evening.

The meal went off pleasantly on the whole, though there loomed a
storm as to the ritual of St. Kenelm's; but this chiefly was owing to
the younger division of the company, when Valetta broke into an
unnecessary inquiry why they did not have as many lights on the altar
at St. Andrew's as at St. Kenelm's, and Fergus put her down with
unceremoniously declaring that Stebbing said Flight was a donkey.

Gillian came down with what she meant for a crushing rebuke, and the
indignant colour rose in the cheeks of the guests; but Fergus
persisted, 'But he makes a guy of himself and a mountebank.'

Aunt Jane thought it time to interfere. 'Fergus,' she said, 'you had
better not repeat improper sayings, especially about a clergyman.'

Fergus wriggled.

'And,' added Aunt Ada, with equal severity, 'you know Mr. Flight is a
very kind friend to little Maura and her sister.'

'Indeed he is,' said Kalliope earnestly; and Maura, feeling herself
addressed, added, 'Nobody but he ever called on poor mamma, till Miss
Mohun did; no, not Lady Flight.'

'We are very grateful for his kindness,' put in Kalliope, in a
repressive tone.

'But,' said Gillian, 'I thought you said he had seemed to care less
of late.'

'I do not know,' said Miss White, blushing; 'music seems to be his
chief interest, and there has not been anything fresh to get up since
the concert.'

'I suppose there will be for the winter,' said Miss Mohun, and
therewith the conversation was safely conducted away to musical
subjects, in which some of the sisters' pride and affection for their
brothers peeped out; but Gillian was conscious all the time that
Kalliope was speaking with some constraint when she mentioned Alexis,
and that she was glad rather to dwell on little Theodore, who had
good hopes of the drawing prize, and she seriously consulted Miss
Mohun on the pupil-teachership for him, as after he had passed the
seventh standard he could not otherwise go on with his education,
though she did not think he had much time for teaching.

'Would not Mr. White help him further?' asked Miss Mohun.

'I do not know. I had much rather not ask,' said Kalliope. 'We are
too many to throw ourselves on a person who is no near relation, and
he has not seemed greatly disposed to help.'

'Your elder brother?'

'Oh, poor Richard, he is not earning anything yet. I can't ask him.
If I only knew of some school I could be sure was safe and good and
not too costly, Alexis and I would try to manage for Theodore after
the examination in the spring.'

The Woodward schools were a new light to her, and she was eagerly
interested in Miss Mohun's explanations and in the scale of terms.

Meantime Miss Adeline got on excellently with the younger ones, and
when the others were free, proposed for their benefit a spelling
game. All sat round the table, made words, and abstracted one
another's with increasing animation, scarcely heeding the roaring of
the wind outside, till there was a ring at the bell.

'My brother has come for us,' said Kalliope.

'Oh, but it is not fit for you to walk home,' said Miss Mohun. 'The
brougham is coming by and by; ask Mr. White to come in,' she added,
as the maid appeared with the message that he was come for his
sisters.

There was a confusion of acknowledgments and disclaimers, and word
was brought back that Mr. White was too wet to come in. Miss Mohun,
who was not playing, but prompting Fergus, jumped up and went out to
investigate, when she found a form in an ancient military cloak,
trying to keep himself from dripping where wet could do mischief.
She had to explain her regret at his having had such a walk in vain;
but she had taken alarm on finding that rain was setting in for the
night, and had sent word by the muffin-boy that the brougham would be
wanted, contriving to convey that it was not to be paid for.

Nothing remained to be said except thanks, and Alexis emerged from
the cloak, which looked as if it had gone through all his father's
campaigns, took off his gaiters, did his best for his boots, and,
though not in evening costume, looked very gentleman-like and
remarkably handsome in the drawing-room, with no token of awkward
embarrassment save a becoming blush.

Gillian began to tremble inwardly again, but the game had just ended
in her favour, owing to Fergus having lost all his advantages in Aunt
Jane's absence, besides signalising himself by capturing Maura's
'bury,' under the impression that an additional R would combine that
and straw into a fruit.

So the coast being cleared, Miss Adeline greatly relieved her niece's
mind by begging, as a personal favour, to hear the song whose renown
at the concert had reached her; and thus the time was safely spent in
singing till the carriage was announced, and good-nights exchanged.

Maura's eyes grew round with delight, and she jumped for joy at the
preferment.

'Oh!' she said, as she fervently kissed Valetta, 'it is the most
delightful evening I ever spent in the whole course of my life,
except at Lady Merrifield's Christmas-tree! And now to go home in a
carriage! I never went in one since I can remember!'

And Kalliope's 'Thank you, we have enjoyed ourselves very much,' was
very fervent.

'Those young people are very superior to what I expected,' said Aunt
Adeline. 'What fine creatures, all so handsome; and that little
Maura is a perfect darling.'

'The Muse herself is very superior,' said Miss Mohun. 'One of those
home heroines who do the work of Atlas without knowing it. I do not
wonder that the marble girls speak of her so enthusiastically.'

How Gillian might have enjoyed all this, and yet she could not,
except so far that she told herself that thus there could be no
reasonable objection made by her aunts to intercourse with those whom
they so much admired.

Yet perhaps even then she would have told all, but that, after having
bound over Kalliope to secrecy, it would be awkward to confess that
she had told all. It would be like owning herself in the wrong, and
for that she was not prepared. Besides, where would be the secrecy
of her 'great thing'?

CHAPTER IX. GAUGING AJEE

Without exactly practising to deceive, Gillian began to find that
concealment involved her in a tangled web; all the more since Aunt
Jane had become thoroughly interested in the Whites, and was
inquiring right and left about schools and scholarships for the
little boys.

She asked their master about them, and heard that they were among his
best scholars, and that their home lessons had always been carefully
attended to by their elder brother and sister. In fact, he was most
anxious to retain Theodore, to be trained for a pupil-teacher, the
best testimony to his value! Aunt Jane came home full of the
subject, relating what the master said of Alexis White, and that he
had begun by working with him at Latin and mathematics; but that they
had not had time to go on with what needed so much study and
preparation.

'In fact, said Miss Mohun, 'I have a suspicion that if a certificated
schoolmaster could own any such thing, the pupil knew more than the
teacher. When your father comes home, I hope he will find some way
of helping that lad.'

Gillian began to crimson, but bethought herself of the grandeur of
its being found that she was the youth's helper. 'I am glad you have
been lending him books,' added Aunt Jane.

What business had she to know what had not been told her? The sense
of offence drove back any disposition to consult her. Yet to teach
Alexis was no slight task, for, though he had not gone far in Greek,
his inquiries were searching, and explaining to him was a different
thing from satisfying even Mr. Pollock. Besides, Gillian had her own
studies on hand. The Cambridge examinations were beginning to assume
larger proportions in the Rockquay mind, and 'the General Screw
Company,' as Mr. Grant observed, was prevailing.

Gillian's knowledge was rather discursive, and the concentration
required by an examination was hard work to her, and the time for it
was shortened by the necessity of doing all Alexis's Greek exercises
and translations beforehand, and of being able to satisfy him why an
error was not right, for, in all politeness, he always would know why
it did not look right. And there was Valetta, twisting and groaning.
The screw was on her form, who, unless especially exempted, were to
compete for a prize for language examination.

Valetta had begun by despising Kitty Varley for being excepted by her
mother's desire and for not learning Latin; but now she envied any
one who had not to work double tides at the book of Caesar that was
to be taken up, and Vercingetorix and his Arverni got vituperated in
a way that would have made the hair of her hero-worshipping mother
fairly stand on end.

But then Lilias Mohun had studied him for love of himself, not for
dread of failure.

Gillian had been displeased when Fergus deserted her for Aunt Jane as
an assistant, but she would not have been sorry if Valetta had been
off her hands, when she was interrupted in researches after an idiom
in St. John's Gospel by the sigh that this abominable dictionary had
no verb oblo, or in the intricacies of a double equation by despair
at this horrid Caesar always hiding away his nominatives out of
spite.

Valetta, like the American child, evidently regarded the Great Julius
in no other light than as writer of a book for beginners in Latin,
and, moreover, a very unkind one; and she fully reciprocated the
sentiment that it was no wonder that the Romans conquered the world,
since they knew the Latin grammar by nature.

Nor was Gillian's hasty and sometimes petulant assistance very
satisfactory to the poor child, since it often involved hearing 'Wait
a minute,' and a very long one, 'How can you be so stupid?' 'I told
you so long ago'; and sometimes consisted of a gabbling translation,
with rapidly pointed finger, very hard to follow, and not quite so
painstaking as when Alexis deferentially and politely pointed out the
difficulties, with a strong sense of the favour that she was doing
him.

Not that these personal lessons often took place. Kalliope never
permitted them without dire necessity, and besides, there was always
an uncertainty when Gillian might come down, or when Alexis might be
able to come in.

One day when Aunt Jane had come home with a story of how one of her
'business girls' had confessed to Miss White's counsel having only
just saved her from an act of folly, it occurred to Aunt Adeline to
say---

'It is a great pity you have not her help in the G.F.S.'

'I did not understand enough about her before, and mixed her up with
the ordinary class of business girls. I had rather have her a member
for the sake of example; but if not, she would be a valuable
associate. Could not you explain this to her without hurting her
feelings, as I am afraid I did, Gill? I did not understand enough
about her when I spoke to her before.'

Gillian started. The conversation that should have been so pleasant
to her was making her strangely uncomfortable.

'I do not see how Gill is to get at her,' objected the other aunt.
'It would be of no great use to call on her in the nest of the Queen
of the White Ants. I can't help recollecting the name, it was so
descriptive.'

'Yes; it was on her mother's account that she refused, and of course
her office must not be invaded in business hours.'

'I might call on her there before she goes home,' suggested Gillian,
seeing daylight.

'You cannot be walking down there at dusk, just as the workmen come
away' exclaimed Aunt Ada, making the colour so rush into Gillian's
cheeks that she was glad to catch up a screen.

'No,' said Miss Mohun emphatically; 'but I could leave her there at
five o'clock, and go to Tideshole to take old Jemmy Burnet his
jersey, and call for her on the way back.'

'Or she could walk home with me,' murmured the voice behind the
screen.

Gillian felt with dismay that all these precautions as to her escort
would render her friend more scrupulous than ever as to her visits.
To have said, 'I have several times been at the office,' would have
been a happy clearance of the ground, but her pride would not bend to
possible blame, nor would she run the risk of a prohibition. 'It
would be the ruin of hope to Alexis, and mamma knows all,' said she
to herself.

It was decided that she should trust to Kalliope to go back with her,
for when once Aunt Jane get into the very fishy hamlet of Tideshole,
which lay beyond the quarries, there was no knowing when she might
get away, since

'Alike to her were time and tide,
November's snow or July's pride.'

So after a few days, too wet and tempestuous for any expedition, they
set forth accompanied by Fergus, who rushed in from school in time to
treat his aunt as a peripatetic 'Joyce's scientific dialogues.'
Valetta had not arrived, and Gillian was in haste to elude her,
knowing that her aunt would certainly not take her on to Tideshole,
and that there would be no comfort in talking before her; but it was
a new thing to have to regard her little sister in the light of a
spy, and again she had to reason down a sense of guiltiness.
However, her aunt wanted Valetta as little as she did; and she had
never so rejoiced in Fergus's monologue, 'Then this small fly-wheel
catches into the Targe one, and so--- Don't you see?' ---only pausing
for a sound of assent.

Unacquainted with the private door, Miss Mohun entered the office
through the showroom, exchanging greetings with the young saleswomen,
and finding Miss White putting away her materials.

Shaking hands, Miss Mohun said---

'I have brought your friend to make a visit to you while I go on to
Tideshole. She tells me that you will be kind enough to see her on
her way home, if you are going back at the same time.'

'I shall be delighted,' said Kalliope, with eyes as well as tongue,
and no sooner were she and Gillian alone together than she joyfully
exclaimed---

'Then Miss Mohun knows! You have told her.

'No---'

'Oh!' and there were volumes in the intonation. 'I was alarmed when
she came in, and then so glad if it was all over. Dear Miss
Merrifield---'

'Call me Gillian; I have told you to do so before! Phyllis is Miss
Merrifield, and I won't be so before my time,' said Gillian,
interrupting in a tone more cross than affectionate.

'I was going to say,' pursued Kalliope, 'that the shock her entrance
gave to me proved all the more that we cannot be treating her
properly.

'Never mind that! I did not come about that. She is quite taken
with you, Kally, and wants you more than ever to be a Friendly Girl,
because she thinks it would be so good for the others who are under
you.'

'They have told me something about it,' said Kalliope thoughtfully.

'She fancied' added Gillian, 'that perhaps she did not make you
understand the rights of it, not knowing that you were different from
the others.'

'Oh no, it was not that,' said Kalliope. 'Indeed, I hope there is no
such nonsense in me. It was what my dear father always warned us
against; only poor mamma always gets vexed if she does not think we
are keeping ourselves up, and she had just been annoyed at---
something, and we did not know then that it was Lady Merrifield's
sister.'

This was contradictory, but it was evident that, while Kalliope
disowned conceit of station for herself, she could not always cross
her mother's wishes. It was further elicited that if Lady Flight had
taken up the matter there would have been no difficulty. Half a year
ago the Flights had seemed to the young Whites angelic and
infallible, and perhaps expectations had been founded on their
patronage; but there had since been a shadow of disappointment, and
altogether Kalliope was less disposed to believe that my Lady was
correct in pronouncing Miss Mohun's cherished society as
'dissentish,' and only calculated for low servant girls and ladies
who wished to meddle in families.

Clanship made Gillian's indignation almost bring down the office, and
her eloquence was scarcely needed, since Kalliope had seen the value
to some of her 'hands' from the class, the library, the recreation-
room, and the influence of the ladies, above all, the showing them
that it was possible to have variety and amusement free from vulgar
and perilous dissipation; but still she hesitated. She had no time,
she said; she could not attend classes, and she was absolutely
necessary at home in the evenings; but Gillian assured her that
nothing was expected from her but a certain influence in the right
direction, and the showing the younger and giddier that she did not
think the Society beneath her.

'I see all that,' said Kalliope; 'I wish I had not been mistaken at
first; but, Miss Mer---Gillian, I do not see how I can join it now.'

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