There was a great deal of confused kissing and embracing as she made her way upstairs. 'But oh, my Tedo, what has happened?' for she beheld a fine sample of Bill Harewood's violet eye.
'It was Bernard's stick went into his eye when we were playing at hockey,' said Stella. 'He did cry terribly, but Sister Constance put such nice stuff-'
'Sister Constance! oh, thank you! but hockey in the garden?'
'I thought it rather a remarkable proceeding,' quietly observed the Sister.
'I must hear more about it,' said Wilmet. 'My poor dear little man, can't he let Sister go for one instant?-Cherry dear, how are you?'
'All right now you are come. But dear little Lance, how is he looking?'
'Not much worse than you do, my Cherry,' said Wilmet, as she saw that the wizened old fairy look was come back. 'You have been worse than I knew.'
'Oh, I am all right now; and I have had such a treat of Sister Constance.'
'I want to take her back with me,' said the Sister. 'Dr. Lee would like to have her under his eye; and if you can spare her, I would write to-day, and she could go with me to-morrow.'
'It is very kind; it might be better for her.'
'Of course,' interrupted Alda, 'it is good for any one to be away from this horrid smell of baked earth, and all these riotous children.'
'Ah!' said Wilmet; 'didn't I see the shade of the lamp in the landing-place broken? How was that!'
'Oh! the children, of course,' said Alda.
But neither child spoke; and Wilmet perceived that only the twins were in the room, both hanging upon her, while she swallowed her hurried second breakfast.
'No one will tell,' said Clement. 'It was done the day I went over to Minsterham. I did all I could to find out.'
'Yes; and made them more obstinate than before,' said Alda.
Another catastrophe here suddenly struck Wilmet, namely, a long and very badly-mended rent in Stella's spotted pink frock, which, to say the truth, did not look as if it were Monday morning.
'Yes,' said Stella, 'I did try to mend it as well as I could, Sister, but there wasn't another work-a-day frock clean.'
'Your mending!' exclaimed Wilmet; 'but how did you tear it?'
'When I tumbled into the brambles, and was lost.'
'Lost, my dear? What does she mean?'
'It is quite true,' said Cherry. 'Angela and Bernard took her out fishing to Ball's hatch on Saturday, and lost her, only luckily we did not know anything about it till she was safe at home again, dear little darling!'
'But, Stella, how was it?' cried the horrified Wilmet, clasping her the closer.
'I could not bear to see the poor worms,' said Stella. 'Bear would cut them up to stick on his hook, so I got away out of sight of them, and gathered the dear little wild roses and honeysuckles; and when I wanted to find them again I couldn't, and nobody heard me when I called, and a robin looked at me, and I thought he wanted to bury me, and I ran away, and a great bush caught hold of me and scratched my legs, and tore out a great piece of the rim of my hat; and just then a good lady came by, and helped me up and to look for them, but we could not see them anywhere; so she took me to her house-such a dear little house all over roses-and she mended my hat, and I mended my frock, and she gave me some tea and plum-cake, and two dear little ponies came to the door, and a carriage, and she brought me home.'
'Who was she?'
'Miss Crabbe; she is new to the place,' said Cherry. 'Mr. Froggatt said she had only been once in the shop before. Tell Sister how you told her about yourself, Stella.'
'She asked my name,' said the child, 'and she said it was a very funny one, and she could not understand it; and then she wanted to know whose little girl I was, and I said, "Brother Felix's;" and then she said, "Have you no papa or mamma?" So I told her I hadn't a papa or mamma, but a father and mother up in heaven, and she said, "I should think so, poor little dear, if there is no one to take more care of you." I really did think she wanted to take me and keep me for an adopted child, so I told her that I had lots of dear good brothers and sisters that wanted me very much indeed, and I must go home to H. Froggatt and F. C. Underwood, High Street, Bexley.'
'I fancy,' said Cherry, 'that she thought Mr. Froggatt was Stella's grandfather, for she made him quite a speech about the neglect of the child-"such a nice-mannered little girl," she said; but she would not come in, nor let Alda be called.'
'Nor should I have gone down if Mr. Froggatt had thought proper to call me,' said Alda. 'Imagine me in his office!'
'I can't imagine not going anywhere to thank the person that brought home my little Star,' said Wilmet, holding her arm close round the child, and kissing her repeatedly. 'But what became of the other two?'
'I went out after them,' said Clement, 'and found them rushing wildly about after her, afraid to come home. To do them justice, I believe they were almost out of their minds, thinking she must have tumbled into the river.'
'Oh, indeed,' said Alda. 'That's your account of it.'
'Yes,' said Cherry eagerly, 'all that pretending not to care, and that it was a trick of Stella's, was nothing but reaction. And then, you know, Clem, you did improve the occasion.'
'There!' exclaimed Alda,' you see how it is, Wilmet; nothing but vindication of those two intolerable children! Now, just come, Wilmet, and see if they are to be backed up in this.'
But as Wilmet, perfectly bewildered, and feeling no hope of comprehension among so many, followed Alda from the room and up the stairs, Stella came plunging after, with a cry, 'Alda, Alda, don't hurt them!' just as from a housemaid's closet half way up, Alda was bringing to light a basin containing a dozen tadpoles twirling their shadowy tails.
'Now, Wilmet,' she solemnly said, 'do you approve of all those horrid brutes swimming in my bath?'
'They aren't in the well, I hope,' said Wilmet.
'How can you be so absurd, Wilmet? That's the way those children showed their sorrow that Clement talks about. I'll never believe but he helped them.'
'To weep them,' said a voice above; and Angela's face was seen looking out of her bush of hair over the balusters of the top storey. 'They are just like black heraldic tears.'
'You don't mean that they put them in?' asked Wilmet.
'What else should I mean?'
'And didn't she squall?' shouted Bernard; and then came a duet-
'Dame, dame, what makes your ducks to squall,
Duck to squall, duck to squall, duck to squall?
Meeting o' pollywogs! Meeting wi' pollywogs?'
'Hush, children, this is shocking,' said Wilmet, in the low impressive voice by which she could always still a tumult. 'How could you take advantage of my absence to do this?'
'Because Alda deserved it,' cried Angela, bouncing downstairs. 'There, Alda! I said I should tell of you if you told of us.'
'Angela, that is not the way to speak to your elder sister.'
'She isn't like an elder sister!' exclaimed Angel. 'Stella would be ashamed to do like her, eating up the strawberries Mr. Froggatt brought for poor Cherry when she was ill.'
'I'm sure you had your share!' retorted Alda.
'You would have them in for dessert, and you helped us, only Sister Constance and Clem left all theirs for Cherry, and then you went by yourself and ate them all up.'
The very fact of shouting out such a charge showed a state of insubordination such as might make Wilmet's hair stand on end, and she simply disbelieved so childish an accusation against her own equal in age. 'You should not say such things, Angela,' she answered, in her low tone of reproof; 'there must be a mistake.'
'I am afraid it is quite true,' said Clement's quiet voice, as he stood arrested on his way by the block upon the landing-place.
'The children make such an uproar,' said the exasperated Alda. 'I'm sure I thought Geraldine's had been taken long before, and in this parching weather fruit is quite a necessity to me.'
Wilmet was too much aghast at the admission to speak. It was a strange tangle: Clement st
anding straight and still on the landing- place; Wilmet, with Theodore humming to himself, as innocent of the fray as the tadpoles that Stella was cherishing in the cupboard doorway; Alda, flushed and angry; and on the upper flight, Angela and Bernard dancing and roaming in vehement excitement between anger and alarm. 'Well that Lance was not in this hubbub! thought deafened and amazed Wilmet.
'What has this to do with the tadpoles?' she asked, in an endeavour to comprehend.
'We said she should be served out,' sung Bernard, 'with a polly- polly-pollywog bath.'
'But, Bernard, hush!-Angel! don't you see it was no business of yours if Alda did forget?'
She was unprepared for the outbreak this brought on her. 'You, too, Wilmet! Every one backs up those children in their behaviour to me! Lady Herbert Somerville, and Clement, and all! If only Ferdinand saw it!'
'Just step up, Wilmet,' said Clement gently, 'and see whether the children are in league with me.'
He followed Wilmet up to the door of the barrack, an attic that he shared with Lance and Bernard, and showed the long beam that crossed it pasted with a series of little figures cut out in paper, representing a procession in elaborate vestments; and at the end a long-backed individual kneeling before the chair of a confessor, who bore a painful resemblance to the Vicar of St. Matthew's.
'We only wanted to make Tina feel at home,' giggled Angela.
'It would be no matter,' pursued Clement, 'if it were merely quizzing myself. I am used to that; but this is trenching on sacred ground.'
'Bless me, your old white beam!' exclaimed Angela, with an affected start.
'It is exceedingly improper and irreverent,' said Wilmet. 'I am ashamed that such a thing should have been done in this house.'
'Really,' said Alda, 'it seems to me very droll and clever, with no harm in it at all; only people like Clement never can take a joke.'
'You can't mean to justify such a one as this,' said Wilmet; but, to her still greater astonishment, Alda broke out,
'There! You are turning against me! You are taking Clement's part, though you didn't care what they did to me-not if it had been snakes and adders!'
This, decidedly in Mrs. Thomas Underwood's style, elicited a peal of laughter from the two naughty children, and the corners of Clements mouth relaxed, bringing Alda to a gush of tears. 'You never used to be like this to me, Wilmet.'
'I never saw you like this, dear Alda,' said Wilmet, low and gently, but in decided repression. 'Come into our room, and let me try to understand.'
So began a morning of mutual complaints, as if everybody were against everybody, agreeing in nothing but in appealing to the elder sister. First, there was Alda's story. Never had there been such a miserable time-with Geraldine interfering, fussy, fretful, fault-finding; Clement intolerable in primness and conceit, only making the children worse when he pretended to keep them in order, and making such a fuss about Geraldine, when nothing ailed her but change of weather, incurring the expense of the Dearport doctor, and bringing down the Sister upon them, so awkward to have her in the drawing-room in that dress, but Sisters always thrust themselves into families. She hoped she had shown my Lady that she was not to be overawed by a title- such affectation, not using it! No consideration for her; the servants regularly spoilt, both of them; Martha a vulgar insolent creature, and Sibby disgustingly familiar and slovenly, no good at all, not even to keep Theodore out of the way. At which Theodore, knowing no more than his own name and Alda's displeasure, set up a dismal howl; and as Wilmet chose to coax and fondle him into silence instead of scolding and turning him out, Alda went off in a huff, muttering about asylums and proper places; and Wilmet descended to the kitchen, the little weak hand clasped tight into hers.
A sore sight awaited her below; the bills of this month for luxuries of sinful extravagance in her economical eyes! Chicken and asparagus, ducks and peas, even in the height of their season, were enormities to such housekeeping as hers, and had raised the sum total to four times the amount that her foreboding soul had dreaded. It exceeded her present supplies, and was a grave addition to the expenses of the two illnesses, that were serious enough already.
Martha was eloquent, not to say defiant, in self-defence. 'You see, Miss Underwood, if I'd been let alone, or Miss Cherry had been the one to take my orders from, which we could have made it out to your satisfaction; but with Miss Halder, which expects everything to be just like what it was in the fammerly up in London, which it stands to reason as it can't; which she hasn't got no more notion than a baby of prices, nor seasons, nor nothink; which is very determined, too, which won't suffer a word from nobody; which if you hadn't been coming home, Miss Underwood, I'd have given warning, which have always given you satisfaction.'
Wilmet's satisfaction was not increased when she encountered Sibby. 'Ah, my darling Missie dear, ye're the jewel that's been longed for! The whole house has been mad entirely, and lost widout you; the children rampaging and playing pranks, and Miss Cherry dwining and pining to a skeleton, so that but for Master Clem and that holy woman, the Sisther, 'tis scarce alive ye'd have found her. Miss Alda, she's the very wonder of the worruld for jealousy and unfeelingness. I up and told her at last there was well-nigh as much differ between you and she, as between Stella and this blessed lamb that she spites; for if you have not carried off all the wit and understanding, sure 'tis you that has got all the heart, and the head, and the hands.'
'And the partial old nursey, Sibby! You see I had no time nor thought but for poor Lance, and Alda was so new to it.'
'Ah, Missie dear, you were always the one to vindicate her, but 'tis no use! Newness! 'Twasn't newness that makes her turn the back of her hand to this darling innocent, till he cries if he's left a moment with her.-Ay, my precious, what would have become of you and me but for Masther Clem?-I tell you, Miss Wilmet, I never thought that long boy the aquil of his brothers till I saw him in time of need. Yer father himself-Heaven be his bed!-couldn't have been tenderer with Theodore nor Miss Cherry, by night or by day, an' never a cross word when he was bothered past his life with Miss Alda's ugliness an' the children's boldness.
'Oh, those children! What is come to them, Sibby?'
'Only funning and merriment, Missie dear. They'd never have had to be faulted if Miss Alda had let Miss Cherry deal with them; but she could neither rule them herself, nor bear to see them ruled; and though she was like a mad cow if they played their pranks on her, she backs them up if Miss Cherry, or Master Clem, or even the Sisther, do but say a word to them, so 'tis no wonder if the poor dears have been a bit off their heads, but they'll be as quiet as doves now ye're back again. Oh, Missie dear, my own child, but it's you that are the light of my eyes, looking the blooming beauty that you are.'
The foster-mother's genuine compliment could not lighten the load that had grown every moment heavier, and more compunctious for the deaf ear she had turned to Clement. Wilmet said a word or two of apology to him when she met him on the stairs, loaded with books to study in the garden.
'Never mind,' he magnanimously answered, 'it is all right now you are come, and it was impossible before. Only, please do say something warm to Sister Constance, for Alda is barely civil to her.'
'I am very sorry; I did not think Alda had that sort of prejudice,' said Wilmet, whose instinct of defence of Alda had wonderfully diminished.
'The chief prejudice came of my sending for her,' said Clement.
'Besides, Sister Constance spoke out very sharply about the strawberries and when we had a couple of chickens, and Alda scolded me for helping her to a leg instead of a wing, Sister Constance said, "Oh, I supposed you had them on Geraldine's account;" and she gives the children leave to do anything Sister Constance objects to. These things are hardly their fault. But, I say, Mettie, now you are come, and it is all right, do you think I might go to St. Matthew's? The Vicar and Mr. Sterling are alone, while the other curates are holiday-making, and they say I could really be of some use to them, and they would give me some help with this read
ing for my examination. Somers is there too, and I have not seen him since Christmas.'
'Indeed,' said Wilmet, 'no one has deserved a holiday more than you, Clement! You have done your best.'
This-almost the first home praise or thanks that had fallen to his lot-elicited that real grace of humility for which poor self- conscious Clement really strove. 'I have tried, Mettie,' he said, with tears in his eyes; 'but it was not as if it had been one of the others. There must be something very wrong about me, to make me so disagreeable.'
'You have gained two hearts,' said Wilmet, 'Sibby's and this little fellow's.'
For Theodore had attached himself limpet fashion to Clement, who with difficulty piled his books so as to leave a hand free for him.
'He had better come with me,' said Wilmet; 'your reading must have been dreadfully interrupted.'
'It has, rather,' said Clement, whose examination was in alarming proximity; 'but I don't mind him, I can work to his tunes as well as Felix can; and all is right now you are come.'
That was the burthen of every one's song. It came next from Cherry, whom she found in her own room; 'There was so much bustle in the sitting-room,' she said.
'My dear, you have gone through a great deal!'
'"There's nae luck about the house when our gude man's awa',"' said Cherry. 'Clem played and whistled that so often, that Alda begged never to hear it again; but unluckily Tedo had caught it, and I don't think she quite believes he doesn't hum it on purpose! But now, how delicious it is to have got at least our gude woman! And, oh dear! Wilmet, I beg your pardon; but you do look so lovely, I can't help telling you so! or is it the pleasure of seeing you?'
'My poor Cherry! I did not think half enough about you.'
'That would have done no good. Most of this rose out of my own crossness and horridness. If I could only be anxious without being peevish!'
'Now, Cherry, don't waste time in telling me it was your own fault; I know all about that! I really want to understand how it has all been with Alda and Clement. I am afraid Alda has not been behaving nicely.'
The Pillars of the House, V1 Page 47
