One Maid's Mischief
“Send word to Fräulein Webling’s room that we wish to see Miss Perowne and Miss Stuart,” said Miss Twettenham; and after sitting in frigid silence for a few minutes, the two young ladies were ushered into the presence of the principals.
There was a marked contrast between the girls, one being tall, with a finely-shaped oval face, dark hair, and peculiarly lustrous eyes, fringed by long black lashes; the other decidedly petite, with the clear skin, blue-grey eyes, and fair hair suggestive of the North.
The dark girl was perfectly composed, and walked over the well-worn carpet with an easy, graceful carriage, and a look of languid indifference, far from being shared by her companion, whose cheeks were flushed as she darted an uneasy look at the three sisters in turn.
The young ladies evidently expected to be asked to take chairs, but the words were not forthcoming; and after advancing a few paces, they stopped short in the midst of a chilling silence, the three sisters sitting very upright with mittened hands crossed in a peculiar way about the region of the waist of their old-fashioned dresses.
The dark girl, after a languid glance round, gave her shapely shoulders a slight shrug before half closing her eyes, and gazing through the tall, blank window at a scaly araucaria upon the lawn.
At last Miss Twettenham spoke:
“Miss Stuart,” she began, in chilling tones and with great deliberation, “speaking for myself and sisters, I must say that I sadly regret that we are under the necessity of drawing you into the discussion that is about to take place.”
“But, at the same time, my dear,” continued Miss Julia, in precisely the same formal tone, “we wish to tell you that we exonerate you from all blame in the matter.”
“And,” concluded Miss Maria, “we are glad to say that your conduct since you have been under our care has been all that could be desired.”
The fair girl made a half step forward, her eyes filling with tears, and one hand was involuntarily raised, as if she would have liked to place it in that of the last speaker; but the three sisters drew themselves up a little more rigidly, and, as if in concert, drew in a long breath.
The dark girl smiled faintly and looked bored.
“It is an unpleasant thing for you to do, Miss Stuart, to have to bear witness against your schoolfellow and companion,” resumed Miss Twettenham, her sisters tightening their lips as if to rigidly keep in the indignation they felt, and to subdue their desire to interrupt their elder, who, by right of seniority, was the principal spokeswoman upon such occasions.
The dark girl raised her eyebrows slightly, and the corners of her well-shaped mouth twitched, and were drawn down in a provokingly attractive manner.
“Will you kindly inform me, Miss Twettenham,” she said, in a low, sweet voice, full of hauteur, “why I am to be subjected to this examination? Of what am I accused?”
“Why, you know!” exclaimed Miss Maria, excitedly. “Of smiling at a man, miss!” and she seemed to shudder with indignant protest.
“My dear Maria,” exclaimed Miss Twettenham, severely, “you forget.”
“I beg your pardon, my dear Hannah!” exclaimed the younger sister, and she drew herself up and tightened her lips more and more.
“I had intended to have approached the subject with more de – I mean caution,” continued Miss Twettenham; “but since my sister has spoken out so plainly, I will only say that your conduct yesterday, Miss Perowne, places me under the necessity of confining your future walks to the garden.”
“My conduct?” said the girl, turning her dark eyes full upon the speaker.
“Your conduct, Miss Helen Perowne,” said the elder lady austerely. “It has for months past been far from in accordance with that we expect from the young ladies placed by their parents in our charge; but yesterday it culminated in the smile and look of intelligence we saw pass between you and that tall, fair gentleman who has of late haunted the outskirts of this place. I think I have your approval in what I say?” she added, turning to her sisters, who both bowed stiffly, and became more rigid than before.
“Such conduct is worse than unbecoming. It is unladylike to a degree, and what is more, displays so great a want of womanly dignity and self-respect that I am reluctantly compelled to say that we feel our endeavours to instil a right moral tone and thoroughly decorous idea of a young lady’s duties to have been thrown away.”
There was a slight twitching of the corners of the mouth and an involuntary shrugging of the shoulders here.
“You are aware, Miss Perowne, that your papa has requested us to resign you to the care of his friend, Dr Bolter, and that in a short time you will cease to be our pupil; but still, while you stay at the Firlawns, we must exact a rigid obedience to our rules, and, as I have said, your liberty must be sadly curtailed while you are in our charge.”
“As you please,” said the girl, indifferently.
“You do not deny your fault, then?”
“No,” said the girl, without turning her eyes from the window.
“Who was this gentleman – I should say, who is this gentleman?”
“I really do not know,” said the girl, turning from the window now with a careless look in her eyes, as if of wonder that she should be asked such a question.
“Have you had any epistolary communication?” said Miss Twettenham, sternly.
“Not the slightest,” said the girl, coldly; and then she added, after a pause, “If I had I should not have told you!”
“Miss Perowne!” exclaimed the eldest Miss Twettenham, indignantly.
“Miss Twettenham,” exclaimed the girl, drawing herself up, and with a flash from her dark eyes full of defiance, “you forget that I am no longer a child. It has suited my father’s purpose to have me detained here among school-children until he found a suitable escort for my return to the East; but I am a woman. As to that absurd episode, it is beneath my notice.”
“Beneath your notice!” exclaimed Miss Twettenham, while her sisters looked astounded.
The fair girl laid her hand upon her companion’s arm, but Helen Perowne snatched hers away.
“I say beneath my notice. A foolish young man thinks proper to stare at me and raises his hat probably at the whole school.”
“At you, Miss Helen Perowne – at you!” exclaimed Miss Twettenham.
“Possibly,” said the girl, carelessly, as the flash died out of her eyes, her lids drooped, and she let her gaze wander to the window.
“I can scarcely tell you how grieved – how hurt we feel,” continued Miss Twettenham, “to find that a young lady who has for so many years enjoyed the – the care, the instruction, the direction of our establishment, should have set so terrible an example to her fellow-pupils.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders again slightly, and her face assumed a more indifferent air.
“The time that you have to stay here, Miss Perowne, is very short,” continued the speaker; “but while you do stay it will be under rigid supervision. You may now retire to your room.”
The girl turned away, and was walking straight out of the room, but years of lessons in deportment asserted themselves, and from sheer habit she turned by the door to make a stately courtesy, frowning and biting her lip directly after as if from annoyance, and passing out with the grace and proud carriage of an Eastern queen.
“Stop, Miss Stuart,” said Miss Twettenham, as Helen Perowne’s companion was about to follow. “I wish to say a few words to you before you go – not words of anger, my dear child, for the only pain we have suffered through you is in hearing the news that you are so soon to go.”
“Oh, Miss Twettenham,” exclaimed the girl, hurrying to take the extended hands of the schoolmistress, but to find herself pressed to the old lady’s heart, an embrace which she received in turn from Miss Julia and Miss Maria.
“We have long felt that it must soon come, my dear,” chirped Miss Maria.
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Julia, in a prattling way. “You’ve done scolding now, sister, have you not?”
“Yes,” said Miss Twettenham; “but I wish to speak seriously for a minute or two, and the present seems a favourable opportunity for Grey Stuart to hear.”
The younger sisters placed the fair young girl in a chair between them, and each held a hand, while Miss Twettenham drew herself up stiffly, hemmed twice, and began:
“My dear Miss Stuart – I – I – Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!”
The poor old lady burst into a violent fit of sobbing as she rose from her seat, for nature was stronger than the stiff varnish of art with which she was encrusted; and holding her handkerchief to her eyes, she crossed the little space between them, and sank down upon her knees before Grey Stuart, passing her arms round her and drawing her to her breast.
For a few minutes nothing was heard in the stiff old-fashioned drawing-room but suppressed sobs, for the younger sisters wept in concert, and the moist contagion extended to Grey Stuart, whose tears fell fast.
There was no buckram stiffness in Miss Twettenham’s words when she spoke again, but a very tender, affectionate shake in her voice.
“It is very weak and foolish, my dear,” she said, “but we were all very much upset; for there is something so shocking in seeing one so young and beautiful as Helen Perowne deliberately defy the best of advice, and persist in going on in her own wilful way. We are schoolmistresses, my dear Grey, and I know we are very formal and stiff; but though we have never been married ladies to have little children of our own, I am sure we have grown to love those placed in our care, so that often and often, when some pupil has been taken away to go to those far-off burning lands, it has been to us like losing a child.”
“Yes – yes,” sobbed the younger sisters in concert.
“And now, my dear Grey, I think I can speak a little more firmly. You are a woman grown now, my dear, and I hope feel with us in our trouble.”
“Indeed – indeed I do!” exclaimed Grey, eagerly.
“I know you do, my darling, so now listen. You know how sweet a jewel is a woman’s modesty, and how great a safeguard is her innocency? I need say little to you of yourself, now that you are going far across the sea; but we, my sisters and I, pray earnestly for your help in trying to exercise some influence over Helen’s future. You will be together, and I know what your example will be; but still I shudder as I think of what her future is to be, out there at some station where ladies are so few that they all get married as soon as they go out.”
This was rather an incongruous ending to Miss Twettenham’s speech, but the old lady’s eyes bespoke her trouble, and she went on:
“It seems to me, my dear, that, with her love of admiration, she will be like a firebrand in the camp, and I shudder when I think of what Mr Perowne will say, when I’m sure, sisters, we have striven our very best.”
“Indeed, indeed we have.”
“Then we can do no more,” sighed Miss Twettenham, who now smiled in a very pleasant, motherly way. “There, Grey, my dear, I am not going to cross-examine you about this naughty child, and we will say no more now. Some tender young plants grow as they are trained, and some persist in growing wild. I tremble for our handsome pupil, and shall often wonder in the future how she fares, but promise me that you will be to her the best of friends.”
“Indeed I will,” said Grey earnestly.
“It will be a thankless office,” said Miss Julia.
“And cause you many a heartache, Grey Stuart,” said Miss Maria.
“Yes, but Grey Stuart will not pay heed to that when she knows it is her duty,” said Miss Twettenham, smiling. “Leave us now, my dear; we must have a quiet talk about Helen, and our arrangements while she stays. Good-bye, my child.”
The good-bye on the old lady’s lips was a genuine God be with you, and an affectionate kiss touched Grey Stuart’s cheek, as she left the room, fluttered and in trouble about her schoolfellow, as the prophetic words of her teachers kept repeating themselves in her ears.
Volume One – Chapter Four.
Dr Bolter’s Question
“Dr Bolter, ma’am,” said the elderly manservant, seeking Miss Twettenham the next afternoon, as she was sunning herself in a favourite corner of the garden, where a large heavily-backed rustic seat stood against the red-brick wall.
The pupils were out walking with her two sisters – all save Helen Perowne and Grey Stuart, who were prisoners; and Miss Twettenham was just wondering how it was that a little tuft of green, velvety moss should have fallen from the wall upon her cap, when the old serving-man came up.
“Dr Bolter! Dear me! So soon!” exclaimed the old lady, glancing at Helen Perowne, book in hand, walking up and down the lawn, while Grey Stuart was at some little distance, tying up the blossoms of a flower.
Miss Twettenham entered the drawing-room, and then stood gazing in wonder at the little plump, brisk-looking man, with a rosy face, in spite of the deep bronze to which it was burned by exposure to the sun and air.
He was evidently about seven or eight and forty, but full of life and energy; a couple of clear grey eyes looking out from beneath a pair of rather shaggy eyebrows – for his face was better supplied with hirsute appendages than his head – a large portion of which was very white and smooth, seeming to be polished to the highest pitch, and contrasting strangely with his sunbrowned face.
As Miss Twettenham entered, the little doctor was going on tiptoe, with open hands, towards the window, where he dexterously caught a large fly, and after placing it conveniently between the finger and thumb of his left hand, he drew a lens from his waistcoat pocket, and began examining his prize.
“Hum! Yes,” he said, in a low, thoughtful tone, “decided similarity in the trunk. Eyes rather larger. Intersection of – I beg your pardon! Miss Twettenham?”
The lady bowed, and looked rather dignified. Catching flies and examining them in her drawing-room by means of a lens was an unusual proceeding, especially when there were so many much worthier objects for examination in the shape of pupils’ drawings and needlework about the place.
Miss Twettenham softened though directly, for the manners of Dr Bolter were, she owned, perfect. Nothing could have been more gentlemanly than the way in which he waited for her to be seated, and then, after a chatty introduction, came to the object of his visit.
“You see, my dear madam, it happens so opportunely my being in England. Perowne and Stuart are both old friends and patients, and of course they did not like the idea of their daughters being entrusted to comparative strangers.”
“So you will be friend, guardian, and medical attendant all in one?” said Miss Twettenham, smiling.
“Exactly,” said the little doctor. “I have never seen them; they are quite schoolgirls – children, I suppose?”
“Ye-es,” said Miss Twettenham, who had a habit of measuring a young lady’s age by its distance from her own, “they are very young.”
“No joke of a task, my dear madam, undertaking the charge of two young ladies – and I hope from my heart they are too young and plain to be attractive – make it difficult for me.”
There was a bright red spot on each of Miss Twettenham’s cheeks, and she replied with a little hesitation:
“They are both young, and you will find in Miss Stuart a young lady of great sweetness and promise.”
“Glad to hear it, my dear madam. Her father is a very dry Scot, very quaint and parsimonious, but a good fellow at heart.”
“Most punctual in his payments,” said Miss Twettenham, with dignity.
“Oh, of course, of course!” said Dr Bolter. “More so, I’ll be bound, than Perowne.”
“Mr Perowne is not so observant of dates as Mr Stuart, I must own, Dr Bolter,” said Miss Twettenham.
“No, my dear madam; but he is as rich as a Jew. Very good fellow, Perowne?”
Miss Twettenham bowed rather stiffly.
“Well, my dear madam, I am not going to rob you of your pupils for several weeks yet, but I should like to make their acquaintance and get them a little used to me before we start on our long voyage.”
“They are in the garden, Dr Bolter,” said Miss Twettenham, rising. “I will have them sent for – or would you – ”
“Like to join them in the garden? Most happy!”
Miss Twettenham led the way towards a handsome conservatory, through which there was a flight of steps descending to the lawn.
“Dear me! ah, yes!” exclaimed the doctor. “Very nice display of flowers! Would you allow me? My own collections in the jungle – passiflora – convolvulaciae – acacia.”
He drew some dry seeds from his pocket, and placed them in the old lady’s hand, she taking them with a smile and a bow; after which they descended to the soft, velvety, well-kept lawn.
“Most charming garden!” said the doctor – “quite a little paradise! but no Eves – no young ladies!”
“They are all taking their afternoon walk except Miss Stuart and Miss Perowne,” replied the old lady. “Oh!”
She uttered a sharp ejaculation as a stone struck her upon the collarbone and then fell at the doctor’s feet, that gentleman picking it up with one hand as he adjusted his double eyeglass with the other.
“Hum! ha!” he said drily. “We get our post very irregularly out in the East; but they don’t throw the letters at us over the wall.”
Miss Twettenham’s hands trembled as she hastily snatched the stone, to which a closely-folded note was attached by an india-rubber band, from the Doctor’s hands.
“What will he think of our establishment?” mentally exclaimed the poor little old lady, as she glanced at the superscription, and saw that it was for Helen Perowne. “I have never had such a thing occur since Miss Bainbridge was sent away.”
“So Miss Perowne receives notes thrown to her over the garden wall, eh?” said the little doctor severely.
“Indeed, Dr Bolter – I assure you – I am shocked – I hardly know – the young ladies have been kept in – I only discovered – ”
“Hum!” ejaculated the doctor, frowning. “I am rather surprised. Let me see,” he continued. “I suppose that fair-haired girl stooping over the flower-bed yonder is Miss Perowne, eh?”
“My sight is failing,” stammered Miss Twettenham, who was terribly agitated at the untoward incident; “but your description answers to Miss Stuart.”
“And that’s Miss Stuart is it? Hum! Too far off to see what she is like. Then I suppose that tall dark girl on the seat is Miss Perowne?”
“Tall and dark – yes,” said Miss Twettenham, in an agitated way. “Is she sitting down? You said tall?”
“Hum! no,” said the doctor, balancing his glasses; “she is standing right on the top of the back of a seat, and seems to be looking over the garden wall.”
“Oh!”
“Bless my heart! Hum! Sham or real?” muttered the doctor.
Real enough, for the agitation had been too much for the poor old lady, so proud of the reputation of her school. A note over the garden wall – a young lady looking over into the lane, perhaps in conversation with a man, and just when a stranger had arrived to act as escort for two finished pupils. It was too much.
For the first time for many years Miss Twettenham had fainted away.
Volume One – Chapter Five.
A Very Nice Little Woman
“Fainted dead away, Arthur; fainted dead away, Miss Rosebury; and until I shouted aloud there was my fair pussy peeping out of paradise over the wall to see if a young Adam was coming. Ha! ha! ha!”
“I am very much surprised, Dr Bolter,” said Miss Rosebury, severely; “I always thought the Miss Twettenham’s was a most strictly-conducted establishment?”
“So it is, my dear madam – so it is; but they’ve got one little black ewe lamb in the flock, and the old ladies told me that if my young lady had not been about to leave they’d have sent her away.”
“And very properly,” said Miss Rosebury, tightening her lips and slightly agitating her curls.
“And did the lady soon come to, Harry?” said the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, for he seemed to be much interested in his friend’s discourse over the dessert.
“Oh, yes, very soon. When I shouted, the dark nymph hopped off the garden-seat, and the fair one came running from the flowers, and we soon brought her to. Then I had a good look at the girls.”
Miss Rosebury’s rather pleasantly-shaped mouth was fast beginning to assume the form of a thin red line, so tightly were her lips compressed.
“By George, sir! what a girl! A graceful Juno, sir; the handsomest woman I ever saw. I was staggered. Bless my soul, Miss Rosebury, here’s Perowne and here’s Stuart; they say to me, ‘You may as well take charge of my girl and see her safe back here,’ and being a good-natured sort of fellow – ”
“As you always were, Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur, beaming mildly upon his friend, while Miss Rosebury’s lips relaxed a little.
“All rubbish! Stuff, man! Well, I said yes, of course, and I imagined a couple of strips of schoolgirls that I could chat to, and tell them about the sea, and tie on their pinafores before breakfast and dinner, and give them a dose of medicine once a week; while here I am dropped in for being guardian to a couple of beautiful women – girls who will set our jungles on fire with their eyes, sir. By George, it’s a startler, sir, and no mistake.”
“Dr Bolter seems to be an admirer of female beauty,” said Miss Rosebury, rather drily.
“Not a bit of it, madam. By George, no! Ladies? Why, they have always seemed to be studies to me – objects of natural history. Very beautiful from their construction, and I shouldn’t have noticed these two only that, by George! I’ve got to take charge of them – deliver them safe and sound to their papas – with care – this side up; and the first thing I find is that they’ve got eyes that will drive our young fellows wild, and one of them – the peep out of paradise one – knows it too. Nice job for a quiet old bachelor, eh?”
“You don’t tell us anything about yourself, Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur; and Miss Rosebury seemed a little more at her ease.
“Nothing to tell you, my boy. Claret? Yes, thanks. Have you such a thing as a lemon, Miss Rosebury?”
Miss Rosebury had, and as she rang she smiled with satisfaction at being able to supply the wants of the bright little man who had been so true a friend to her brother in the days gone by.
“Thank you, Miss Rosebury. Tumbler – water. Thanks. The lemon is, I think, the king of fruits, and invaluable to man. Deliciously acid, a marvellous quencher of thirst, a corrective, highly aromatic, a perfect boon. I would leave all the finest wines in the world for a lemon.”
“Then you believe all intoxicating drinks to be bad, doctor?” said Miss Rosebury, eagerly.
“Except whiskey, my dear madam,” said the doctor, with a twinkle of the eye.
“Ah!” said Miss Rosebury, and the eager smile upon her lips faded; but as she saw the zest with which the doctor rolled the lemon soft, and after cutting it in half, squeezed the juice and pulp into his glass, she relaxed a little, and directly afterwards began to beam, as the doctor suddenly exclaimed:
“There, madam, smell my hands! There’s scent! Talk of eau-de-cologne, and millefleurs, and jockey club! Nothing to it! But come, Arthur, you don’t tell me about yourself.”
“About myself,” said the Reverend Arthur, smiling blandly; “I have nothing to tell. You have seen my village; you have looked at my church; you have been through my garden; and you have had a rummage in my study. There is my life.”
“A blessed one – a happy one, my dear Arthur. A perfect little home, presided over by a lady whose presence shows itself at every turn. Miss Rosebury,” said the doctor, rising, “when I think of my own vagabond life, journeying here and there with my regiment through heat and cold, in civilisation and out, and after many wanderings, come back to this peaceful spot, this little haven of rest, I see what a happy man my old friend must be, and I envy him with all my heart.”
He reseated himself, and Miss Rosebury’s lips ceased to be compressed into a tight line; and as she smiled and nodded pleasantly, she glanced across at her brother, to see if he would speak, before replying that, pleasant as their home was, they had their troubles in the parish.
“And I have no end of trouble with Arthur,” she continued. “He is so terribly forgetful!”
“He always was, my dear madam,” said the little doctor. “If you wanted him to keep an appointment in the old college days you had to write it down upon eight pieces of paper, and place one in each of his pockets, and pin the eighth in his hat. Then you might, perhaps, see him at the appointed time.”