CHAPTER XV.
ANOTHER GUEST AT MARSHLANDS.
he following two or three weeks passed rapidly and pleasantly; but for two serious drawbacks that hindered my thorough enjoyment, I should have owned myself perfectly happy, but Mrs. Markham and Rolf were perpetual thorns in my side.
A consciousness of being disliked by any human being, however uncongenial to us, is always a disagreeable discovery. The cause of the repellent action of one mind on another may be an interesting psychological study, but in practice it brings us to a sadder and lower level. I knew Mrs. Markham honestly disliked me; but the cause of such marked disfavour utterly baffled me.
Most people found her fascinating; she was intellectual and refined, and had many good qualities, but she was not essentially womanly. Troubles and the loss of her children had hardened her; embittered by disappointment, for her married life, short as it was, had been singularly unhappy, she had come back to her father’s house a cold, resentful woman, who masked unhappiness under an air of languid indifference, and whose strong will and concealed love of power governed the whole household. “Adelaide manages us all,” Miss Cheriton would say, laughing, and I used to wonder if she ever rebelled against her sister’s dictates. I knew the squire was like wax in the hands of his eldest daughter; he was one of those indolent, peace-loving men who are always governed by their womankind; his wife had ruled him, and now his widowed daughter held the reins. I think Gay was like her father; she went on her own way and shut her eyes to anything disagreeable. It would never have done for me to quarrel openly with Mrs. Markham; common sense and respect for my mistress’s sister kept me silent under great provocation. I controlled my words, and in some measure I controlled voice and outward manner, but my inward antagonism must have revealed itself now and then by an unguarded tone.
My chief difficulty was to prevent her spoiling Joyce. After the first, she had become very fond of the child, and was always sending for her to the drawing-room, and loading her with toys and sweetmeats. Mr. Morton’s orders had been very stringent about sweetmeats, and again and again I was obliged to confiscate poor Joyce’s goodies as she called them. I had extracted from her a promise that she should eat nothing out of the nursery, and nothing could induce the child to disobey me.
“Nurse says I mustn’t, Aunt Adda,” was her constant remark, and Mrs. Markham chose to consider herself aggrieved at this childish obstinacy. She spoke to me once about it with marked displeasure.
“I have had children of my own, and I suppose I know what is good for them,” she said, with a touch of scorn in her voice; “you have no right to enforce such ridiculous rules on Joyce.”
“I have Mrs. Morton’s orders,” I replied, curtly; “Dr. Myrtle told me to be very careful of Joyce’s diet; I cannot allow her to eat things I know will hurt her,” and I continued to confiscate the goodies.
But though I was firm in all that concerned the children’s health, there were many occasions on which I was obliged to submit to Mrs. Markham’s interference; very often my plans for the day were frustrated for no legitimate cause. I was disposed to think sometimes that she acted in this way just to vex me and make me lose my temper. If we were starting for the beach, Judson would bring us a message that her mistress would prefer my taking the children into the orchard, and sometimes on a hot afternoon, when we were comfortably ensconced on the bench under the apple trees, Judson would inform us that Mrs. Markham thought we had better go down to the sea. Sometimes I yielded to these demands, if I thought the children would not suffer by them, but at other times I would tell Judson that the sun was too hot or the children too tired, and that we had better remain as we were. If this was the case, Mrs. Markham would sometimes come out herself and argue the matter, but I always stood my ground boldly; though I was perfectly aware that the afternoon’s post would convey a letter to Prince’s Gate, complaining of my impertinence in disputing her orders.
My mistress’s letters were my chief comfort, and they generally came on the morning after one of these disputes. She would write to me so affectionately, and tell me how she missed me as well as the children, and though she never alluded openly to what had occurred, there was always a little sentence of half-veiled meaning that set my mind at rest.
“My sister Gay tells me that the children are getting so brown and strong with the sea air,” she wrote once, “and that dear little Joyce has quite a nice colour. Thank you so much for your ceaseless care of them; you know I trust you implicitly, Merle, and I have no fear that you will disappoint me; your good sense will carry you safely through any little difficulty that may arise. Write to me as often as you can; your letters are so nice. I am very busy and very tired, for this ball has entailed so much work and fuss, but your letters seem to rest me.”
Rolf was also a serious impediment to my enjoyment. Ever since I had helped him with his kite, he had attached himself to me, and insisted on joining us in all our walks, and in spending the greater part of his day with us. I was tolerably certain in my own mind that this childish infatuation excited Mrs. Markham’s jealousy. Until we had arrived she had been Rolf’s sole companion; he had accompanied her in her drives, harassed her from morning to night with his ceaseless demands for amusements, and had been the secretly dreaded torment of all the visitors to Marshlands, except Mr. Hawtry, who was rather good to him.
His precocity, his love of practical jokes, and his rough impertinence, made him at feud with the whole household; the servants disliked him, and were always bringing complaints of Master Rolf. I believe Judson was fond of him in a way, but then she had had charge of him from a baby.
When Rolf began to desert the drawing-room for the nursery, Mrs. Markham used all her efforts to coax him back to her side, but she might as well have spoken to the wind. Rolf played with Joyce on the beach; he raced her up and down the little hillocks in the orchard, or hunted with her for wild flowers in the lanes that surrounded Marshlands. When the children were asleep, he invaded my quiet with requests to mend his broken toys or join him in some game. I grew quite expert in rigging his new boat, and dressed toy soldiers and sailors by the dozen. Sometimes I was inclined to rebel at such waste of time, but I remembered that Rolf had no playfellows; it was better for him to be playing spillikins or go-bang with me in the nursery than lounging listlessly about the drawing-room, listening to grown-up people’s talk; a natural child’s life was better for his health. Miss Cheriton told me more than once that people who came to the house thought Rolf so much improved. Certainly he was not so pale and fretful after a long morning spent on the beach in wading knee-deep to sail his boat or digging sand wells which Joyce filled out of her bucket. When he grew too rough or boisterous I always called Joyce away, and with Hannah and myself to look after them no harm could come to the children.
I grew rather fond of Rolf, after a time, and his company would not have been irksome to me, but for his tiresome habit of repeating the speeches he had heard in the drawing-room. He always checked himself when he remembered, or when I held up my finger, but the half sentence would linger in my memory.
But this was not the worst. I soon found out that anything I told him found its way into the drawing-room; in fact, Rolf was an inveterate chatterbox. With all his good intentions, he could not hold his tongue, and mischief was often the result.
It was my habit to teach the children little lessons under the guise of a story, sometimes true, sometimes a mere invention. Rolf called them “Fenny’s Anecdotes,” but I had never discovered an anecdote about crossness.
One day I found myself being severely lectured by Mrs. Markham for teaching her son the doctrine of works. “As though we should be saved by our works, Miss Fenton!” she finished, virtuously.
I was too much puzzled to answer; I had no notion what she meant until I remembered that I had induced Rolf to part with some of his pocket-money to relieve a poor blind man that we found sitting by the wayside. Rolf had been sorry for the man, and still more for the gaunt, miserable-looking woman by his side; but when we had gone on our way, followed by voluble Irish blessings, Rolf had rather feelingly lamented his sixpence, and I had told him a little story inculcating the beauty of almsgiving, which had impressed him considerably, and he had retailed a garbled version of it to his mother—hence her rebuke to me. I forget what my defence was, only I remember I repudiated indignantly any such doctrine; but this sort of misunderstanding was constantly arising. If only Rolf would have held his tongue!
But these were mere surface troubles, and I often managed to forget that there was such a person as Mrs. Markham in the world; and, in spite of a few trifling drawbacks, I look back upon this summer as one of the happiest in my life.
I was young and healthy, and I perfectly revelled in the country sights and sounds with which I was surrounded. I hardly knew which I enjoyed most—the long delicious mornings on the beach, when I sat under the breakwater taking care of Reggie, or the afternoons in the orchard, with the brown bees humming round the hives and the children playing with Fidgets on the grass, while the old white pony looked over the fence at us, and the sheep nibbled at our side. I used to send Hannah home for an hour or two while I watched over the children; it was hard for her to be so near home and not enjoy Molly’s company; and those summer afternoons were lazy times for all of us.
I think Miss Cheriton added largely to my happiness. I had never had a friend since my school-days, and it was refreshing to me to come in contact with this bright young creature. I was a little too grave for my age, and I felt she did me good.
I soon found she resembled my mistress in one thing: she was very unselfish, and thought more of other people’s pleasures than her own. She used to say herself that it was only a sublime sort of selfishness that she liked to see everyone happy round her. “A gloomy face hinders all enjoyment,” was her constant remark. But I never knew anyone who excelled more in little kindly acts. She would bring me fruit or flowers almost daily; and when she found I was fond of reading, she selected books for me she thought I should like.
When Mrs. Markham did not use the carriage—a very rare occasion, as she had almost a monopoly of it—she would take us for long country drives, and she would contrive all sorts of little surprises for us. Once when we returned from a saunter in the lanes, we found our tea table laid in the orchard, and Miss Cheriton presiding, in a gay little hat trimmed with cornflowers and poppies. There was a basket of flowers in the centre of the table, and a heap of red and yellow fruit. We had quite a little feast that evening, and all the time we were sitting there, there were broods of chickens running over the grass, that Gay had enticed into the orchard to please the children, and grey rabbits, and an old lame duck that was her pensioner, and went by the name of Cackles.
“Oh, auntie, do have another feast,” Joyce would say to her, almost daily; but Miss Cheriton could not always be with us; visitors were very plentiful at Marshlands, and Gay’s company was much courted by the young people of Netherton and Orton-upon-Sea.
I knew Mr. Hawtry was a constant visitor, for we often met him in our walks; and it seemed to me that his face was always set in the direction of Marshlands.
When Rolf was with us he was never allowed to pass without notice, and then he would stop and speak to the children, especially to Joyce, who soon got over her shyness with him.
“Mother says Mr. Hawtry comes to see Aunt Gay,” Rolf remarked once, when he was out of hearing; “she told grandpapa so one day, and asked him if it would not be a good thing; and grandpapa laughed and nodded; you know his way. What did mother mean?”
“No doubt she meant that Mr. Hawtry was a kind friend,” I returned, evasively. How is one to silence a precocious child? But of course it was easy to understand Mrs. Markham’s hint.
I wondered sometimes if Mr. Hawtry were a favoured suitor. He and Miss Cheriton certainly seemed on the best of terms; she always seemed glad to see him, but her manner was very frank with him.
I took it into my head that Gay had more than one admirer. I deduced this inference from a slight occurrence that took place one day.
I was on the terrace with the children one morning, when a young clergyman in a soft felt hat came up the avenue. I knew him at once as the boyish-faced curate at Netherton Church, who had read the service the last two Sundays. I had liked his voice and manner, they were so reverent, but I remembered that I thought him very young. He was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, and though not exactly handsome, had a bright, pleasant-looking face.
Rolf hailed him at once as an old acquaintance. “Holloa, Mr. Rossiter; it is no use your going on to the house; mother is not well and cannot see you, and Aunt Gay is with the bees.”
Mr. Rossiter seemed a little confused at this. He stopped and regarded Rolf with some perplexity.
“I am sorry Mrs. Markham is not well, but perhaps I can see Mr. Cheriton.”
“Oh, grandpapa has gone to Orton; there is only me at home; you see, Miss Fenton does not count. If you want Aunt Gay I will show you the way to the kitchen garden.” And as Mr. Rossiter accepted this offer with alacrity, they went off together.
We were going down to the beach that morning, and I was only waiting for Hannah to get the perambulator ready, but as a quarter of an hour elapsed and Rolf did not make his appearance, Joyce and I went in search of him.
I found him standing by the beehives, talking to Miss Cheriton and Mr. Rossiter. They all looked very happy, and Mr. Rossiter was laughing at something the boy had said; such a ringing, boyish laugh it was.
When I called Rolf they all looked round, and Miss Cheriton came forward to speak to me. I thought she looked a little uncomfortable, and I never saw her with such a colour.
“Are you going down to the beach? I wish I could come too, it is such a lovely morning, but Mr. Rossiter wants me to go to the schools; Miss Parsons, the schoolmistress, is ill, and they need help. It is so tiresome,” speaking with a pettish, spoilt-child air, turning to the young clergyman; “Miss Parsons always does get ill at inconvenient times.”
“I know you would not fail us if it were ever so inconvenient,” answered Mr. Rossiter, looking full at her—he had such nice clear eyes; “you are far too kind to desert us in such a strait.”
But she made no answer to this, and went back to the beehive, and after a moment’s irresolution Mr. Rossiter followed her.
“Do you like Mr. Rossiter?” asked Rolf, in his blunt way, as we walked down the avenue. “I do, awfully; he is such a brick. He plays cricket with me sometimes, and he has promised to teach me to swim, only mother won’t let him, in spite of all grandpapa says about my being brought up like a girl. Grandpapa means me to learn to swim and ride, only mother is so frightened ever since the black pony threw me. I am to have a quieter one next year.”
“Have you known Mr. Rossiter long?” I asked, carelessly.
“Oh, pretty long. Mother can’t bear him coming so often to the house; she says he is so awkward, and then he is poor. Mother doesn’t like poor people; she always says it is their own fault; that they might get on better. Do you know, Fenny, Mr. Rossiter has only two little rooms at Mrs. Saunders’, you know that low house looking on the cornfields; quite poky little rooms they are, because mother and I went there. Mother asked him if he did not find it dreadfully dull at Netherton, and he laughed and said, ‘Oh, dear no;’ he had never been more comfortable; the people at Netherton were so kind and hospitable; and though mother does not like him, he comes just as often as though she did.” And I soon verified Rolf’s words; Mr. Rossiter came very often to Marshlands.
(To be continued.)