Chapter Eight.
An Exciting Prospect.
When Mildred had been staying for a fortnight at the Deanery, a letter arrived one morning which filled Bertha and Lois with delight, inasmuch as it contained an invitation to what they exultantly described as “the picnic of the year.”
The girls had already attended several tennis parties, and had organised small excursions on their own account, driving off in the pony carriage to spend an afternoon in the country in charge of the children’s governess, but this picnic was to be on a very different scale. Mrs Newland, it appeared, gave one every summer, and understood how to do things in proper style. Her guests were to assemble at the station at a certain hour, as the first stage of the journey was by rail, but a couple of coaches were to be in readiness to convey them the remainder of the way.
Their destination was a lovely little village, nestled among the hills, where a river wound in and out, and there were woods, and dells, and waterfalls, and caverns; everything in fact that the most exacting mind could desire for a well-regulated picnic.
“And such delightful people—quite grown up! You must not imagine that it is a children’s picnic,” explained Bertha anxiously. “We are always the youngest there. We would not be allowed to go at all except that the Newlands are very old friends, and that Mother chaperones us herself. Mrs Newland takes two or three of the servants with her, and they carry hampers, and clear away the things while we amuse ourselves. We sit on the rocks in the middle of the river, and come home late at night, singing part songs on the top of the coach, with mandolin and guitar accompaniments. Oh, it’s lovely! You will enjoy yourself, Mildred!”
There was no question about that, for Mildred had the faculty of enjoying every little pleasure which came in her way, and that with a whole-heartedness and forgetfulness of drawbacks which would have been shared by few girls of her age.
Bertha and Lois had a private consultation the first time they found themselves alone after the arrival of the invitation.
“I am so glad Mil is to be with us for Mrs Newland’s picnic,” said the former. “I want her to see all the people, and I want them to see her. She will chatter away and not be in the least shy, and they will be charmed with her, for she does say such funny things! Even Father has to laugh sometimes. Er—Lois! I wonder what she is going to wear.”
“So do I!” said Lois calmly. “I’ve been wondering about that ever since the invitation came, and yet I don’t see why we should, for she has nothing with her but the old school dresses, so how can there be any choice? She is certainly very shabby. It must be horrid to have no pretty clothes. I suppose they are very poor.”
“Oh, yes, I know they are! Mildred makes no secret of it. Poor dear! it is hard for her, when she is so well-connected, too,” returned the dean’s eldest daughter, in her funny, consequential, little voice. “Her grandmother was the daughter of a very well-known man—I forget who he was, but she told me one day, and I know it was someone important. She married without her parents’ consent, and they never acknowledged her afterwards. When Mildred’s mother was grown up, one of the aunts wished to adopt her as a companion, but Mrs Moore refused to go, because she would have had to promise to have nothing more to do with her parents. The old lady was dreadfully offended, and they have never heard of her since that day.”
“And a good thing, too, if she was like some old ladies we could mention!” said Lois sharply, whereat her sister first laughed, and then sighed.
“Oh, well, it’s no use saying anything about that! What were we talking about before—Mildred’s dress? Well, there is one comfort—she always looks sweet. I dare say she will look one of the nicest there, though Mrs Newland’s friends are so smart. Don’t say anything to her about our new dresses. It might make her feel uncomfortable.”
There were no signs of discomfiture in Mildred’s manner, however, when the new dresses arrived from town a week later on. She had been romping with the children in the garden, and came dancing in through the open window of the library to find Mrs Faucit, Lady Sarah, and the two girls grouped round the table on which lay two large cardboard boxes. The lids were thrown open, the tissue paper wrappings strewn over the floor, and Mildred, looking at the contents, gave a cry of pleasure and comprehension.
“New dresses for the picnic! Oh, how lovely! Do let me look,”—and Lady Sarah’s eye-glasses went up in horrified fashion as she swung herself on to the corner of the table in her anxiety to have a good view.
The new dresses were charming, everything that the heart of girlhood could desire for the occasion; soft, creamy white, with lemon-coloured ribbons arranged in the most Frenchified style, and with big leghorn hats to match. Even Lady Sarah smiled approval, but the exclamations of the other onlookers were feeble, as compared with Mildred’s ecstatic rhapsodies.
“Oh, the darlings! Oh, the beauties! Aren’t they sweet? Look at the ducky little bows at the elbows, and the little crinkly ruchings at the neck! And the sashes!—oh, goodness, what yards of ribbon!—and yellow silk frills round the bottom—oh-h! And the hats—Bertha, you will look an angel! If I had a dress like that I should sit up all night—I’m sure I should! I could never bring myself to take it off. Oh-h!”
Mrs Faucit looked at the fair, flushed face with mingled approval and pity. “Poor, dear child!” she said to herself as she left the room in answer to a summons from a servant; “very few girls of her age would be so entirely free from envy. I wish I had ventured to order a dress for her at the same time; but I was afraid she might not like it. I wonder what she is going to wear?”
The same question had occurred to another person, and not being possessed of the same delicacy of mind as the dean’s wife, Lady Sarah saw no reason why her curiosity should not be gratified.
“And when is your dress to arrive?” she inquired. “What have you ordered for yourself, my dear?”
“I—I ordered!” Mildred fairly gasped. The idea of “ordering” anything was so supremely ridiculous. “I haven’t ordered anything!”
“Indeed! You brought your dress with you, I presume. Still I think, Miss Mildred, that you might have honoured your hostess by making the same preparation for yourself which she thinks it necessary to make for her own daughters.”
“Why, dear me,” cried Mildred, still too much swallowed up with amazement at the extraordinary suggestion to have room for indignation. “Why, dear me, I’d be only too delighted to order a dozen if I could; but where on earth should I get the money to pay for them? I never had a dress like that in my life. I don’t suppose I ever shall have one!”
“Then what are you going to wear, if one may ask?”
Poor Mildred smoothed down the folds of the blue crepe dress. The romp in the garden had not improved its condition; it was looking sadly crumpled and out of condition, but it had been washed a dozen times, and had a delightful knack of issuing from the ordeal a softer and more becoming shade than before. With certain little accessories, already planned, she did not despair of a satisfactory result.
“Well, I thought Mrs Faucit would be so kind as to allow the laundress to get up this dress. It is the only suitable thing I have, and I was going to—”
“Suitable! That thing! Do you mean to say that you seriously intend to wear the dress you have on to a picnic given by Mrs Newland?”
Lois bit her lip and turned aside. Bertha began hastily to cover up the dainty white folds which showed the crumpled blue in such unfavourable contrast. Mildred drooped her eyelids, and answered with that smouldering calm which precedes a storm.
“I am. That is certainly my intention.”
“And you mean to say you have no better dress than that in your possession?”
“This is my best dress. Yes! I have no better.”
“And your mother actually allowed you to come away with such a wardrobe! Preposterous, I call it! People who cannot provide for themselves respectably have no business to accept invitations, in my opinion!”
Now it happened that this morning Lady Sarah had risen with a bad headache, one of the consequences of which had been to make her even more fault-finding towards Mildred than usual. The old discussion about her hair had been resumed after breakfast; she had been reproved for leaving the door open; for shutting the door, for speaking too loudly; for mumbling so indistinctly that it was impossible to hear; for one imaginary offence after another, until finally she had run away in despair and taken refuge with the children in the garden. It was not only the present annoyance, therefore, it was the accumulated irritation of the morning, with which the girl had to fight at this moment, and the conflict was too hard for her strength.
As she herself would have described it, she went hot and cold all over, something went “fizz” in her brain, and the next moment she leapt down from the table and confronted Lady Sarah with flaming cheeks and eyes ablaze with anger.
“And—who—asked—your—opinion? What business is it of yours what I wear? I didn’t come here on your invitation—I was asked by Mrs Faucit, and so long as she is satisfied you have no right to say a word. How dare you find fault with my mother before my face? How dare you question what she thinks right to do? you—you unkind, interfering,—disagreeable old woman!”
There was an awful silence. Lady Sarah appeared transfixed with astonishment; her jaw fell, her eyes protruded from their sockets. The twins instinctively clasped hands, and Mrs Faucit, arrested, in the act of re-entering the room, by the sound of the last few words, stood motionless in the doorway, her face eloquent of pained surprise.
Mildred glanced from one to the other. She was trembling from head to foot, her heart beat with suffocating throbs. For one moment she succeeded in maintaining her attitude of defiance; but when she met the grave scrutiny of Mrs Faucit’s eyes, she burst into a storm of tears and rushed from the room. Reaction had set in, and her own irritation was as nothing to the shock which followed as she realised that—fresh from Mrs Faucit’s praise and her own congratulations,—she had given way to an outburst of temper which must have horrified all who heard it.
She crouched down on a corner of her bedroom sofa and sobbed as if her heart would break. The old intolerable pangs of homesickness woke up again and dragged at her heart; the longing for her own place, her own people, above all, for the precious mother who always sympathised and understood.
Perhaps Mrs Faucit would be so disgusted that she would send her straight back to school. Well! at this moment the thought of the quiet house and of Mardie’s loving kindness was by no means unwelcome. At school, at least, everyone was kind—the very servants went out of their way to give her pleasure—there was no terrible Lady Sarah to stare at her through gold-rimmed eye-glasses, and criticise and find fault from morning till night.
It was in reality less than ten minutes, but it seemed like hours to Mildred before the door opened to admit Bertha and Lois, and a fresh outburst of sobbing was the only notice which she took of their entrance.
Bertha slipped an arm round her waist. Lois sniffed in sympathy from afar.
“Never mind her, Mil!” she cried. “Don’t cry. You couldn’t possibly have anything prettier than the blue crepe,” but at this Mildred raised her face in eager protest.
“Oh, I’m not crying about that! I don’t care a rap about the dress, but—but she made me so furious. It had been going on all morning, and I c-couldn’t bear it any longer. I am so ashamed. I can’t bear to think of it. I don’t know what I said.”
The twins exchanged furtive glances.
“You called her ‘an interfering, disagreeable old woman’!” whispered Bertha with bated breath, glancing half fearfully at the door as she spoke. “I—I felt as if the world were coming to an end! As if the ceiling would fall down over our heads! Oh, Mil, you should have seen her face! I never saw anyone look so astonished in my life, but the curious part of it is that I don’t think she was angry. She knew she had no right to speak as she had done, and I believe she admired you for being indignant. Perhaps you will be better friends after this.”
“No, we won’t!” said Mildred, setting her chin stubbornly; “because I won’t, if she will. I’ll never forgive her. It is not Lady Sarah I care about—it is your mother. Oh, I can’t forget her face, she looked so shocked! She stared at me with such horrified eyes. Is she awfully angry, do you think?”
“I haven’t spoken to her. She sent us out of the room directly after you left, but she didn’t seem angry, only quiet and grieved.”
“Oh, oh, oh! what shall I do? I hate people to be grieved! I detest it! It’s fifty thousand times worse than being angry. If people are angry you can defend yourself and take your own part, but if they are ‘grieved’ you can only feel a wretch, as if you had no right to live. Oh, dear, what will she think of me! It was only the other day she was saying that I kept my temper so well, and now I’ve disgraced myself for ever! She will never, never forgive me!”
Before the girls could say anything by way of comfort, Mrs Faucit herself entered the room and walked straight towards the couch on which Mildred was sitting. She looked pale and distressed, but the manner in which she put her arm round the girl’s waist was certainly not suggestive of anger.
“I am so very sorry that this scene should have occurred, Mildred,” she said; “but I have been having a talk with Lady Sarah, and she takes all the blame upon herself. She is sorry that she spoke as she did, and I think she will be more considerate of your feelings for the future. I said the other day that I knew you must often feel provoked, and how pleased I felt to know that you controlled your temper. I wish, dear,” she sighed heavily, “I wish you had gone on as you began! It would have been a great relief to me; but perhaps it was too much to expect. You are young and impulsive.”
“Oh, no, no! don’t make excuses! I am a wretch, I know I am!” sobbed Mildred penitently. “It was hateful of me to speak rudely to a guest of yours—so old, too. Mother would be miserable if she knew. But it was so maddening! I bore it as long as she found fault with me, but when she began criticising Mother—saying that she didn’t dress me properly, and had no right to allow me to come here,—I couldn’t keep quiet any longer—I couldn’t! It made me too furious. I was obliged to explode.”
“I know! I know. I am sorry the girls’ dresses were ever brought down—that was the beginning of it all. Mildred, dear, I hope you won’t think any more of what Lady Sarah said on that subject. I noticed how pretty your dress looked when you first arrived, and we will see that it is made fresh and bright again for the picnic. It came into my mind to order a dress for you like the ones which the girls are to wear, but I was not sure if you would like it, or if it would seem as if I were dissatisfied with what your mother had provided.”
Mildred threw her arms round the speaker with one of her bear-like hugs.
“All, you know! you understand!” she cried; “you are so different. It was sweet and lovely of you to think of it, but I’d rather not. If people don’t care to have me in my old clothes, I’d rather stay away altogether. But I have ever so many pretty things stored away in my box—new gloves,—ribbons,—a lace collar. I can make myself quite respectable. Don’t be worried, Mrs Faucit, please! I’ll try to be good and not vex you again. Do please take your forehead out of crinkles.”
Mrs Faucit laughed at that, and stroked the golden head with a caressing hand. She had grown very fond of her young visitor during the last few weeks, and found her coaxing ways quite irresistible.
“Dear Mildred!” she cried, “Poor Mildred! I am so sorry that your visit should be spoiled in this way, but remember what I told you the other day, dear, and try to avoid harsh judgments. It is a great concession for Lady Sarah to have acknowledged herself in the wrong in a dispute with a girl of your age; you must show how generous and forbearing you can be in return. I hope that after this you may be really good friends.”
Mildred said nothing, but her lips closed with an expression which Bertha and Lois recognised. They had seen it at school on more than one memorable occasion. Mildred was the dearest girl in the world, but she did not find it easy to forgive when her animosity had been aroused.