CHAPTER XXV. FUZZY-WUZZY.
There was no doubt whatever that Maureen's influence, once extended to Fuzzy-wuzzy, as she was universally called at Felicity, exercised a beneficial effect, but it is also true that a character like Henrietta's could not attain to anything even approaching perfection for many long years.
The poor little girl would have to fight hard for her soul, and the sad thing about her was this, that the soul within her was of a meagre and feeble quality. She was neither clever nor really affectionate. Even poor Daisy had more real life and vitality in her than Henrietta, but neither girl was worth much. No one can account for these things, but doubtless much was to be laid at the door of that selfish mother, who in the most impressionable years of their lives put them in a cheap and common school, taking care indeed of the pence and letting the pounds take care of themselves. But even so, Henrietta and Daisy would never have been great women, although they might and would have been very different from the wild, the reckless, the hopelessly naughty girls who had gone to Templemore.
Daisy's illness was the best thing that could have happened to her, but Henrietta was strong and fierce still. She dreaded death with a great terror. She never forgot the feel of Daisy's cold brow just before she woke from her trance. In consequence she could not bear to be alone at night and slept with Maureen in the Chamber of Peace, much to that poor little girl's own discomfort.
But then Maureen lived for others, and mere physical discomfort was not even to be thought of or mentioned in her vocabulary.
By slow but sure degrees Maureen began to interest the other girls at Felicity in Henrietta and Daisy. There were very few of the exceedingly naughty girls at the school just then. Henrietta was far and away the naughtiest, but she enjoyed her companions and made them laugh with funny stories of the old house at Templemore.
She had by no means Daisy's remarkable powers of mimicry, but she could take off Pegeen and Burke to the life, and the girls simply shrieked and held their sides as they listened to her.
This kind of performance became exceedingly popular in the school, and Henrietta, feeling that "nothing venture, nothing have," proceeded to take off stepfather and mumsie-pumsie and even Maureen. But when she came to this, several girls in the school, Margaret Devereux at their head, marched away with their heads in the air.
"Why, sakes alive, whatever have I done now?" said Henny.
"I don't suppose any of us will let you make game of Maureen," said a dark-eyed girl of the name of Marjorie Clarke.
"Oh, oh," said Henrietta. "Why must she be held so sacred?"
"Because she is sacred," said Marjorie.
The other girls, one and all, agreed with her. Henrietta stood silent, rubbing up her fuzzy head.
"I don't believe she'd mind," was her remark after a pause. "She's a precious darling, she'd let me if it amused me. She'd do anything in the world for me. You see, it's like this, girls. My Dysy put her in my care."
"Oh, no, she didn't. I don't believe a word of that," said Marjorie rather angrily. "And you oughtn't to speak of your dear little sister as Dysy. Her pretty name is Daisy. I don't believe you have any respect in you either for the living or the dead."
"I haven't much," said Fuzzy. "I'm made that way, you see. Goodness gracious, how can I help the way I'm made!"
She looked wild with excitement.
"I tell you what, colleens," she suddenly exclaimed. "I just dote on Maureen. I see her in the distance talking to Margaret Devereux and Daisy. I'll go to her this minute and ask her if I may take her off. She would let me do anything that amused me. She has such a great passion for me."
The girls stood silent in subdued amazement. Henrietta crossed the lawn. Maureen and Margaret were talking about Rome, Margaret taking good care not to breathe a word to Maureen about the way Fuzzy-wuzzy had gone on. Daisy was leaning on Maureen.
"Here I am, you old ducks," said Fuzzy, springing into their midst. "Now I want to ask this little precious one if she minds my taking her off. I haven't Daisy's gift in that direction, but I have it a trifle. You don't mind, do you, Maureen asthore?"
"If you really wish to take me off, Henrietta, and if it gives you pleasure, I hope I shall not be small enough to care."
"Oh, hoity-toity! We are putting on airs, aren't we?"
Here Henrietta boldly winked at Margaret. Margaret did not wink back in reply.
Daisy sprang to the front. "If you dare!" she said in her calm voice, that voice which she had won through pain and victory. "If you really wish to amuse yourself in that disgraceful way, I for one give you up. I did not intend to say anything to Maureen, for I would not hurt her feelings for the world; but I may as well tell you quite plainly and simply that I think, when you begin to take off our relations and friends and your old home, your audience will be nil, for not another girl in the school will listen to you."
"There, take that for your impudence!" said Henrietta, and she tried to slap Daisy, who immediately walked away. Henny burst into shrieks of crying, clasped her arms around Maureen, and said, "Oh, Maureen, acushla machree, what have I done? Oh, indeed, indeed, I didn't mean it, and you know well that I love you better than anyone in the world except little lost and come again Daisy. It's only the fun in me that must bubble to the surface."
"Ah, poor Henny," said Maureen in her gentle voice. "I did so hope that you would never behave like this again. You must come immediately to Daisy and beg her pardon."
"You won't catch me begging pardons."
"Henrietta, thou art wanted," said Dinah, who just then appeared on the scene.
She took the excited girl by the hand and led her into the house, then up to the Room of Useful Employment, where Henny had spent so many wretched hours; here a bright fire was burning, and the whole room looked as neat as the proverbial new pin. Dinah dragged the punishment chair into view.
"Sit thee down, maiden," she said.
"I will not! I will not! I have just been having a lark with the girls, and——"
"Thee didst try to slap thy sister on the cheek. I saw it all. It is ordained that thou sit in the Punishment Chair for the remainder of to-day, and to-night thou dost lie in a little bed by my side."
"What! What! May I not go to Maureen?"
"Thou art not worthy, unhappy maiden." As Dinah uttered the last words, Mrs. Faithful and Nurse Annie came in.
"Henrietta," said the headmistress, "I am inexpressibly shocked, and unless you publicly after Divine Prayer to-morrow morning ask forgiveness of Maureen and your sister, I shall keep you here with Dinah for the holidays, and will not allow you to go to Rome with Maureen and Daisy."
"Oh! oh!" howled Fuzzy.
"Come now, my dear, take your punishment meekly. Maureen has nothing to do with it. What I say I mean. Come, Nurse Annie, help Dinah to place Henrietta in this chair."
So, in spite of Henrietta's frantic struggles, and her boundless rage, into the chair she was put. She was quickly tied down, not in any way uncomfortably, but nevertheless in such a fashion that she could not move her head, her arms or her hands.
Mrs. Faithful and Nurse Annie then quietly left the room. Dinah turned on the bright light of a reading lamp, and resumed her endless sewing.
"Tell me something funny, dear Dinah," said Henrietta after a pause.
Silence, absolute and complete, on the part of Dinah.
"Oh, Dinah, this is too horrible; such a punishment just for a bit of a lark. Art thou not going to speak to me?"
"No," replied Dinah; "not at all to-night."
"Oh, my word, then I'll be as naughty as ever."
Dinah folded her work gravely, then knelt down and began to pray. Henny screamed and roared and went on in her old rebellious fashion. Dinah continued to kneel in voiceless prayer. Taking it all round, it was rather a terrible scene. The infuriated girl, her angry and insulting words, and the calm woman who prayed.
At long last, that prayer, so devout and holy, had its effect. Henrietta began to sniffle, then to sob, then to cry copiously, then to call aloud for Maureen, Maureen! But still Dinah took no notice. She only got up very gently and wiped the tears from the poor swollen face, and presently rang for supper.
Henrietta made frantic efforts to catch her hand, but she was too securely fastened to attain her object. Then she sobbed afresh and Dinah knelt down once more and began to pray.
"I will stop crying if thou wilt not go on," said Henrietta at last in a frenzy. Instantly Dinah rose from her knees. She first of all wiped away Henrietta's fresh flood of tears, she then brought a little basin of warm water and bathed her swollen face, then she combed her hair, not ruffling it up according to the Fuzzy-wuzzy manner. It had not been cut for some months now and was growing long.
Henrietta hated beyond words to look a "show."
"Snip it and fuzz it, Dinah dear," she implored.
Dinah parted it quietly in the middle and put it behind her ears. She then again rang her bell.
Nurse Annie appeared. She was given certain directions in Dinah's clear voice. Ten minutes later supper was brought in for the naughty but now hungry girl. It was quite a plain supper, not the tempting supper which Dinah used to give her. There was a slice of cold meat and a piece of bread, no butter, a little salt, and a glass of cold water.
Dinah cut up the meat into strips and fed Henrietta.
"Oh, thou art worse than ever," said Henrietta.
Dinah made no reply.
Henrietta was so hungry that she dared not refuse the food. She ate every crumb, also, of the bread. She drained the glass of cold water.
Dinah then looked at the clock. She fell down close to Henrietta and suddenly resumed her prayers.
The whole thing was awful, heartbreaking. Henrietta said in a voice which was strangled with misery, "I'll be good, I'll be good. I want to go to bed. Let me go to bed at once, Dinah dear."
Dinah's soft dove eyes were fixed on her face. She asked with her eyes the question she would not put into words. Her beautiful eyes said, "Wilt thee humiliate thyself to-morrow morning?"
Henrietta could not mistake the language. She gave a vigorous nod and let her hair tumble about her head. Immediately Dinah unfastened the slipknots which bound the girl and conveyed her to her own bedroom.
It was a little room not at all like the Chamber of Peace. It was very plain, even severe. Dinah had put away her work and extinguished the reading-lamp before she left the Room of Useful Employment.
She undressed Henrietta and put her into bed. She then lay down beside her, but only partly undressed herself. That is, she merely exchanged her quiet Quaker dress and cap and apron for a dressing-gown also made of the Quaker grey. She then stretched herself beside Henrietta.
Henrietta suddenly clutched one of her hands and kissed it.
"Oh, Dinah, Dinah dear!"
No words of any sort came from Dinah.
Henrietta was so weary that she dropped asleep. She slept all night long without moving.
Early in the morning Dinah got up. Henrietta was still sleeping. Dinah got out one of the hideous punishment dresses—the grey stuff with the ugly sort of white overall.
"I won't—I won't wear that," cried Henny.
Dinah made no comment, but just at this moment Nurse Annie appeared with a sitz-bath. Between Nurse Annie and Dinah, Henrietta was powerless. She was fed with bread-and-milk, quite nourishing and good. Then the punishment dress was put on. Afterwards, between Nurse Annie and Dinah, she went slowly downstairs to the great hall. Maureen was present and Daisy. Prayers were about to begin.
All the love of all the world seemed to shine out of Maureen's eyes. Every girl in the school stared at the culprit in the punishment dress, but Maureen did not even see the dress. She was looking beyond it into the heart of the girl.
Prayers began as usual and came to an end. Then there was a pause, significant, rather appalling.
Suddenly Maureen rose and, taking Henrietta's little cold hand, said, "Come, darling!"
"To the world's end with you, asthore," was Henrietta's reply.
Maureen took her straight up to Daisy.
"Daisy," said Maureen, "she has come to tell you that she is very, very sorry."
"I am indeed, most truly," said Henrietta, and there was absolute conviction in her voice.
"Then of course I forgive you, Fuzzy darling—darling! It was your trying to take off our dearest Maureen that hurt my very soul."
Here she touched Maureen with infinite love and tenderness on the shoulder.
"I quite forgive our Henny," she said.
"Then, my dear Henrietta," said Mrs. Faithful, "there is an end of the matter. You have expressed sorrow and are quite forgiven. Maureen, darling, take her upstairs and remove her punishment frock. We sincerely trust there will not be a repetition of this terrible scene."
During the rest of that day Henrietta was quiet, clinging to Maureen and Daisy and talking very little, but the day after she recovered her usual spirits, for hers was not a nature ever to fret deeply or long.
She ceased, however, to cultivate her gift of mimicry, which was in itself too slight to be of any value.
The Christmas holidays were fast approaching, and Maureen, Henrietta, Daisy and Dominic were to meet the beloved Rector in Rome. Maureen's heart beat high with delight. Henrietta and Daisy were also excited, but not to the same degree.
At last the day when they were to start arrived. They were to be exactly four weeks away. Henrietta enjoyed the travelling very much. They got to Rome at midnight of the second day.