He that will not when he may; vol. II

HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY

BY MRS. OLIPHANT IN THREE VOLUMES VOLUME II. London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1880 The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved LONDON: R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, BREAD STREET HILL.



At Markham Chase there had been great wonder and consternation at the sudden departure of the elders of the family. Bell had been called to her mother’s room in the morning, and the morals of the house, so to speak, placed in her hands. She was thirteen, a great age, quite a woman. “Harry will help you: but he is careless, and he is always out. You will promise to be very careful and look after everything,” Lady Markham had said. Bell, growing pale with the solemnity of this strange commission, gave her promise with paling cheek, and a great light of excitement in her eyes; and when they heard of it, the others were almost equally impressed. “There is something the matter with Paul,” Bell said; and when the carriage drove away the solemnity of the great house all to themselves made a still greater impression upon them. It is true that Mrs. Fry showed signs of thinking that she was the virtual head of the establishment, and Brown did not pay that deference to Bell’s orders which she expected as mamma’s deputy to receive; but still they all acknowledged the responsibility that lay upon them to conduct themselves better than girls and boys had ever conducted themselves before. The girls naturally felt this the most. They would not go out with their brothers, but stayed indoors and occupied themselves with various rather grimy pieces of needlework begun on various occasions of penitence or bad weather. To complete them felt like a proper exercise for such an occasion; and Bell caused the door to be shut and all the windows in front of the house. She and Marie established themselves in their mother’s special sanctuary—the west room; where after a while the work languished, and where the elder sister, with a sense of seniority and protection, pointed out all the pictures to Marie, and gave her their names. “That is me, when I was a baby,” said Bell, “just below the Rafil.”