The Long Vacation

by Charlotte M. Yonge

  For in spite of all her mother had taught her, She was really remarkably fond of the water. JANE TAYLOR.

  Mr. and Mrs. Lancelot Underwood had not long been gone to their meetingwhen there ran into the drawing-room a girl a year older than Anna, witha taller, better figure, but a less clear complexion, namely Emilia, theadopted child of Mr. Travis Underwood. She found Anna freshening up theflowers, and Gerald in an arm-chair reading a weekly paper.

  "I knew I should find you," she cried, kissing Anna, while Gerald heldout a finger or two without rising. "I thought you would not be goneprimrosing."

  "A perspicacity that does you credit," said Gerald, still behind hispaper.

  "Are the cousins gone?" asked Anna.

  "Of course they are; Cousin Marilda, in a bonnet like a primrose bank,is to pick up Fernan somewhere, but I told her I was too true to myprinciples to let wild horses drag me there."

  "Let alone fat tame ones," ejaculated Gerald.

  "What did she say?" asked Anna.

  "Oh, she opened her eyes, and said she never should ask any one toact against principles, but principles in her time were for Church andState. Is Aunt Cherry in the vortex?"

  "No, she is reading to Uncle Clem, or about the house somewhere. I don'tthink she would go now at least."

  "Uncle Grin's memory would forbid," muttered Gerald. "He saw a good manythings, though he was a regular old-fashioned Whig, an Edinburgh Reviewman."

  "You've got the 'Censor' there! Oh, let me see it. My respected cousinsdon't think it good for little girls. What are you going to do?"

  "I believe the doctors want Uncle Clem to get a long leave of absence,and that we shall go to the seaside," replied Anna.

  "Oh! then you will come to us for the season! We reckon on it."

  "No, indeed, Emmie, I don't see how I can. Those two are not in theleast fit to go without some one."

  "But then mother is reckoning on our having a season together. You lostthe last."

  Gerald laughed a little and hummed--

  "If I were na to marry a rich sodger lad My friends would be dismal, my minnie be mad."

  "Don't be so disgusting, Gerald! My friends have too much sense," criedAnna.

  "But it is true enough as regards 'my minnie,'" said Emilia.

  "Well, eight daughters _are_ serious--baronet's daughters!" observedGerald in his teasing voice.

  "Tocherless lasses without even the long pedigree," laughed Anna. "Poormother."

  "The pedigree is long enough to make her keep poor Vale Leston suitorsat arm's length," mumbled Gerald; but the sisters did not hear him, forEmilia was exclaiming--

  "I mean to be a worker. I shall make Marilda let me have hospitaltraining, and either go out to Aunt Angela or have a hospital here. Comeand help me, Annie."

  "I have a hospital here," laughed Anna.

  "But, Nan dear, do come! You know such lots of swells. You would get oneinto real society if one is to have it; Lady Rotherwood, Lady Caergwent,besides all your delightful artist friends; and that would pacifymother, and make it so much pleasanter for me. Oh, if you knew what theevenings are!"

  "What an inducement!"

  "It would not be so if Annie were there. We should go out, and miss thehorrid aldermanic kind of dinners; and at home, when we had played thetwo old dears to sleep, as I have to do every night, while they nod overtheir piquet or backgammon, we could have some fun together! Now, Annie,you would like it. You do care for good society, now don't you?"

  "I did enjoy it very much when Aunt Cherry went with me, but--"

  "No buts, no buts. You would come to the laundry girls, and thecooking-class, and all the rest with me, and we should not have a drearymoment. Have you done fiddling over those flowers?"

  "Not yet; Vale Leston flowers, you know. Besides, Aunt Cherry can't bearthem not artistic."

  "Tidy is enough for Marilda. She does them herself, or the housekeeper;I can't waste time worrying over them."

  "That's the reason they always look like a gardener's prize bouquet at acountry horticultural show," said Gerald.

  "What does it signify? They are only a testimony to Sir Gorgias Midas'riches. I do hate orchids."

  "I wish them on their native rocks, poor things," said Gerald. "But poorFernan, you do him an injustice."

  "Oh, yes, he does quantities of good works, and so does Marilda, till Iam quite sick of hearing of them! The piles of begging letters they get!And then they want them read and explained, and answered sometimes."

  "A means of good works," observed Gerald.

  "How would you like it? Docketing the crumbs from Dives' table,"exclaimed Emilia.

  "A clerk or secretary could do it," said Anna.

  "Of course. Now if you have finished those flowers, do come out with me.I want to go into Ponter's Court, and Fernan won't let me go alone."

  "Have you any special object?" said Gerald lazily, "or is it to refreshyourself with the atmosphere?"

  "That dear boy--that Silky--has been taken up, and they've sent him to areformatory."

  "What a good thing!"

  "Yes, only I don't believe he did it! It was that nasty little BillNosey. I am sure that he got hold of the lady's parcel, and stuffed itinto Silky's cap."

  Emilia spoke with a vehemence that made them both laugh, and Geraldsaid--

  "But if he is in a reformatory, what then? Are we to condole with hisafflicted family, or bring Bill Nosey to confess?"

  "I thought I would see about it," said Emilia vaguely.

  "Well, I decline to walk in the steps of the police as an amateur! Howabout the Dicksons?"

  "Drifted away no one knows where. That's the worst of it. Those poorthings do shift about so."

  "Yes. I thought we had got hold of those boys with the gymnasium. Butwork wants regulating."

  "Oh, Gerald, I am glad you are coming. Now I am free! Just fancy, theyhad a horrid, stupid, slow dinner-party on Easter Monday, of all theburgomasters and great One-eyers, and would not let me go down and singto the match-girls!"

  "You had the pleasure of a study of the follies of wealth instead of thefollies of poverty."

  "Oh, to hear Mrs. Brown discourse on her troubles with her first,second, and third coachman!"

  "Was the irresistible Ferdinand Brown there?"

  "Yes, indeed, with diamond beetle studs and a fresh twist to hismoustache. It has grown long enough to be waxed."

  "How happy that fellow would be if he were obliged to dig! I should liketo scatter his wardrobe over Ponter's Court."

  "There, Nan, have you finished?" as Anna swept the scattered leaves intoa basket. "Are you coming?"

  "I don't think I shall. You would only talk treason--well--socialtreason all the way, and you don't want me, and Aunt Cherry would haveto lunch alone, unless you wait till after."

  "Oh no, I know a scrumptious place for lunch," said Gerald. "You areright, Annie, one lady is quite enough on one's hands in such regions.You have no jewellery, Emmie?"

  "Do you see any verdure about me?" she retorted.

  So when Gerald's tardy movements had been overcome, off they startedto their beloved slum, Emilia looking as if she were setting forth forElysium, and they were seen no more, even when five o'clock tea wasspread, and Anna making it for her Uncle Lance and his wife, who hadjust returned, full of political news; and likewise Lance said that hehad picked up some intelligence for his sister. He had met General Mohunand Sir Jasper Merrifield, both connections of the Underwoods.

  General Mohun lived with his sister at Rockstone, Sir Jasper, hisbrother-in-law, at Clipstone, not far off, and they both recommendedRockquay and its bay "with as much praise," said Lance, "as theinhabitants ever give of a sea place."

  "Very good, except for the visitors," said Geraldine.

  "Exactly so. Over-built, over-everythinged, but still tolerable. TheGeneral lives there with his sister, and promises to write to me abouthouses, and Sir Jasper in a house a few miles
off."

  "He is Bernard's father-in-law?"

  "Yes," said Gertrude; "and my brother Harry married a sister of LadyMerrifield, a most delightful person as ever I saw. We tell my fatherthat if she were not out in New Zealand we should all begin to bejealous, he is so enthusiastic about Phyllis."

  "You have never told us how Dr. May is."

  "It is not easy to persuade him that he is not as young as he was," saidGertrude.

  "I should say he was," observed Lance.

  "In heart--that's true," said Gertrude; "but he does get tired, and goesto sleep a good deal, but he likes to go and see his old patients, asmuch as they like to have him, and Ethel is always looking after him. Itis just her life now that Cocksmoor has grown so big and wants her less.Things do settle themselves. If any one had told her twenty years agothat Richard would have a great woollen factory living, and Cocksmoorand Stoneborough meet, and a separate parish be made, with a disgustingpaper-mill, two churches, and a clergyman's wife--(what's the female ofwhipper-snapper, Lance?)--who treats her as--"

  "As an extinct volcano," murmured Lance.

  "She would have thought her heart would be broken," pursued Gertrude."Whereas now she owns that it is the best thing, and a great relief,for she could not attend to Cocksmoor and my father both. We want her totake a holiday, but she never will. Once she did when Blanche and Hectorcame to stay, but he was not happy, hardly well, and I don't think shewill ever leave him again."

  "Mrs. Rivers is working still in London?"

  "Oh yes; I don't know what the charities of all kinds and descriptionswould do without her."

  "No," said Clement from his easy-chair. "She is a most valuable person.She has such good judgment."

  "It has been her whole life ever since poor George Rivers' fatalaccident," said Gertrude. "I hardly remember her before she was married,except a sense that I was naughty with her, and then she was terriblysad. But since she gave up Abbotstoke to young Dickie May she hasbeen much brighter, and she can do more than any one at Cocksmoor. Shemanages Cocksmoor and London affairs in her own way, and has two housesand young Mrs. Dickie on her hands to boot."

  "How many societies is she chairwoman of?" said Lance. "I countedtwenty-four pigeon-holes in her cabinet one day, and I believe there wasa society for each of them; but I must say she is quiet about them."

  "It is fine to see the little hen-of-the-walk of Cocksmoor lower hercrest to her!" said Gertrude, "when Ethel has not thought it worth whileto assert herself, being conscious of being an old fogey."

  "And your Bishop?"

  "Norman? I do believe he is coming home next year. I think he reallywould if papa begged him, but that he--my father, I mean--said he wouldnever do so; though I believe nothing would be such happiness to himas to have Norman and Meta at home again. You know they came home onGeorge's death, but then those New Somersetas went and chose him Bishop,and there he is for good."

  "For good indeed," said Clement; "he is a great power there."

  "So are his books," added Geraldine. "Will Harewood sets great store bythem. Ah! I hear our young folks--or is that a carriage?"

  Emilia and Gerald came in simultaneously with Marilda, expanded into aportly matron, as good-humoured as ever, and better-looking than longago.

  She was already insisting on Gerald's coming to a party of hers andbringing his violin, and only interrupted her persuasions to greet andcongratulate Clement.

  Gerald, lying back on a sofa, and looking tired, only replied in abantering, lazy manner.

  "Ah! if I asked you to play to the chimney-sweeps," she said, "you wouldcome fast enough, you idle boy. And you, Annie, do you know you arecoming to me for the season when your uncle and aunt go out of town?"

  "Indeed, Cousin Marilda, thank you, I don't know it, and I don't believeit."

  "Ah, we'll see! You haven't thought of the dresses you two are to havefor the Drawing-Room from Worth's, and Lady Caergwent to present you."

  Anna shook her head laughingly, while Gerald muttered--

  "Salmon are caught with gay flies."

  They closed round the tea-table while Marilda sighed--

  "Alda's daughters are not like herself."

  "A different generation," said Geraldine.

  "See the Beggars Opera," said Lance--

  "'I wonder any man alive will ever rear a daughter, For when she's drest with care and cost, and made all neat and gay, As men should serve a cucumber, she throws herself away.'"

  "Ah! your time has not come yet, Lance. Your little girls are at acomfortable age."

  "There are different ways of throwing oneself away," said Clement."Perhaps each generation says it of the next."

  "Emmie is not throwing herself away, except her chances," said Marilda."If she would only think of poor Ferdy Brown, who is as good a fellow asever lived!"

  "Not much chance of that," said Geraldine.

  Their eyes all met as each had glanced at the tea-table, where Emiliaand Gerald were looking over a report together, but Geraldine shook herhead. She was sure that Gerald did not think of his cousins otherwisethan as sisters, but she was by no means equally sure of Emilia, to whomhe was certainly a hero.

  Anna had not heard the last of the season. Her mother wrote to her, andalso to Geraldine, whom she piteously entreated not to let Anna loseanother chance, in the midst of her bloom, when she could get goodintroductions, and Marilda would do all she could for her.

  But Anna was obdurate. She should never see any one in society likeUncle Clem. She had had a taste two years ago, and she wished for nomore. She should see the best pictures at the studios before leavingtown, and she neither could nor would leave her uncle and aunt tothemselves. So the matter remained in abeyance till the place of sojournhad been selected and tried; and meantime Gerald spent what remained ofthe Easter vacation in a little of exhibitions with Anna, a little ofslumming with Emilia, a little of society impartially with swells andartists, and a good deal of amiable lounging and of modern reading ofall kinds. His aunt watched, enjoyed, yet could not understand, hisuncle said, that he was an undeveloped creature.

  CHAPTER V. -- A HAPPY SPRITE