Beechcroft at Rockstone. Yonge Charlotte Mary
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of the frogs and mice, drawn by Aunt Ada, and which she delighted in calling at full length ‘the Batrachyomachia,’ sparing none of the syllables which she was to work below. And it was to be worked at regularly for half an hour before bed-time. Trust Aunt Jane for seeing that any one under her dominion did what had been undertaken! Only thus the spontaneity seemed to have departed, and the work became a task. Fergus meanwhile had set his affections on a big Japanese top he had seen in a window, and was eagerly awaiting his weekly threepence, to be able to complete the purchase, though no one but Valetta was supposed to understand what it had to do with his ‘great thing.’
It was quite pleasant to Gillian to have a legitimate cause of opposition when Miss Mohun made known that she intended Gillian to take a class at the afternoon Sunday-school, while the two children went to Mrs. Hablot’s drawing-room class at St. Andrew’s Vicarage, all meeting afterwards at church.
‘Did mamma wish it?’ asked Gillian.
‘There was no time to mention it, but I knew she would.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Gillian. ‘We don’t teach on Sundays, unless some regular person fails. Mamma likes to have us all at home to do our Sunday work with her.’
‘Alas, I am not mamma! Nor could I give you the time.’
‘I have brought the books to go on with Val and Ferg. I always do some of their work with them, and I am sure mamma would not wish them to be turned over to a stranger.’
‘The fact is, that young ladies have got beyond Sunday-schools!’
‘No, no, Jane,’ said her sister; ‘Gillian is quite willing to help you; but it is very nice in her to wish to take charge of the children.’
‘They would be much better with Mrs. Hablot than dawdling about here and amusing themselves in the new Sunday fashion. Mind, I am not going to have them racketing about the house and garden, disturbing you, and worrying the maids.’
‘Aunt Jane!’ cried Gillian indignantly, ‘you don’t think that is the way mamma brought us up to spend Sunday?’
‘We shall see,’ said Aunt Jane; then more kindly, ‘My dear, you are right to use your best judgment, and you are welcome to do so, as long as the children are orderly and learn what they ought.’
It was more of a concession than Gillian expected, though she little knew the effort it cost, since Miss Mohun had been at much pains to set Mrs. Hablot’s class on foot, and felt it a slight and a bad example that her niece and nephew should be defaulters. The motive might have worked on Gillian, but it was a lower one, therefore mentioned.
She had seen Mrs. Hablot at the Italian class, and thought her a mere girl, and an absolute subject of Aunt Jane’s stumbling pitifully, moreover, in a speech of Adelchi’s; therefore evidently not at all likely to teach Sunday subjects half so well as herself!
Nor was there anything amiss on that first Sunday. The lessons were as well and quietly gone through as if with mamma, and there was a pleasant little walk on the esplanade before the children’s service at St. Andrew’s; after which there was a delightful introduction to some of the old books mamma had told them of.
They were all rather subdued by the strangeness and newness of their surroundings, as well as by anxiety. If the younger ones were less anxious about their parents than was their sister, each had a plunge to make on the morrow into a very new world, and the Varleys’ information had not been altogether reassuring. Valetta had learnt how many marks might be lost by whispering or bad spelling, and how ferociously cross Fraulein Adler looked at a mistake in a German verb; while Fergus had heard a dreadful account of the ordeals to which Burfield and Stebbing made new boys submit, and which would be all the worse for him, because he had a ‘rum’ Christian name, and his father was a swell.
Gillian had some experience through her elder brothers, and suspected Master Varley of being guilty of heightening the horrors; so she assured Fergus that most boys had the same sort of Christian names, but were afraid to confess them to one another, and so called each other Bill and Jack. She advised him to call himself by his surname, not to mention his father’s title if he could help it, and, above all, not to seem to mind anything.
Her own spirits were much exhilarated the next morning by a note from Harry, the recipient of all telegrams, with tidings that the doctors were quite satisfied with Sir Jasper, and that Lady Merrifield had reached Brindisi.
There was great excitement at sight of a wet morning, for it appeared that an omnibus came round on such occasions to pick up the scholars; and Valetta thought this so delightful that she danced about exclaiming, ‘What fun!’ and only wishing for Mysie to share it. She would have rushed down to the gate umbrellaless if Aunt Jane had not caught and conducted her, while Gillian followed with Fergus. Aunt Jane looked down the vista of young faces—five girls and three boys—nodding to them, and saying to the senior, a tall damsel of fifteen,
‘Here are my children, Emma. You will take care of them, please. You are keeping order here, I suppose?’
There was a smile and bow in answer as the door closed, and the omnibus jerked away its ponderous length.
‘I’m sorry to see that Stebbing there,’ observed the aunt, as she went back; ‘but Emma Norton ought to be able to keep him in order. It is well you have no lessons out of the house to-day, Gillian.’
‘Are you going out then?’
‘Oh yes!’ said Miss Mohun, running upstairs, and presently coming back with a school-bag and a crackling waterproof cloak, but pausing as she saw Gillian at the window, nursing the Sofy, and gazing at the gray cloud over the gray sea. ‘You are not at a loss for something to do,’ she said, ‘you said you meant to write to your mother.’
‘Oh yes!’ said Gillian, suddenly fretted, and with a sense of being hunted, ‘I have plenty to do.’
‘I see,’ said Miss Mohun, turning over the books that lay on the little table that had been appropriated to her niece, in a way that, unreasonably or not, unspeakably worried the girl, ‘Brachet’s French Grammar—that’s right. Colenso’s Algebra—I don’t think they use that at the High School. Julius Caesar—you should read that up in Merivale.’
‘I did,’ said Gillian, in a voice that very nearly said, ‘Do let them alone.’
‘Well, you have materials for a very useful, sensible morning’s work, and when Ada comes down, very likely she will like to be read to.’
Off went the aunt, leaving the niece stirred into an absolute desire, instead of spending the sensible morning, to take up ‘Near Neighbours’, and throw herself into an easy-chair; and when she had conscientiously resisted that temptation, her pen would hover over ‘Hilda’s Experiences’, even when she had actually written ‘Dearest Mamma.’ She found she was in no frame to write such a letter as would be a comfort to her mother, so she gave that up, and made her sole assertion of liberty the working out of a tough double equation in Colenso, which actually came right, and put her in such good humour that she was no longer afraid of drumming the poor piano to death and Aunt Ada upstairs to distraction, but ventured on learning one of the Lieder ohne Worte; and when her Aunt Ada came down and complimented her on the sounds that had ascended, she was complacent enough to write a very cheerful letter, whilst her aunt was busied with her own. She described the Sunday-school question that had arisen, and felt sure that her father would pronounce his Gill to be a sensible young woman. Afterwards Miss Adeline betook herself to a beautiful lily of church embroidery, observing, as Gillian sat down to read to her Alphonse Karr’s Voyage autour de mon Jardin, that it was a real pleasure to listen to such prettily-pronounced French. Kunz lay at her feet, the Sofy nestled in Gillian’s lap, and there was a general sense of being rubbed down the right way.
By and by there loomed through the rain two dripping shiny forms under umbrellas strongly inclined to fly away from them—Miss Mohun and Mr. Grant, the junior curate, whom she had brought home to luncheon. Both were full of the irregularities of the two churches of Bellevue and St. Kenelm’s on the recent harvest-thanksgiving Sunday. It was hard to tell which was most reprobated, what St. Kenelm’s did or what Bellevue did not do. If