Christian's Mistake

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

"So do I," rejoined the boy, doubling up his fist with intense enjoyment. "Wouldn't I like to pitch into her for marrying papa! But yet," with a sudden compunction, "she gave us lots of cake. And she looked rather jolly, eh?"

"Jolly! You boys are so vulgar," said the little lady, contemptuously. "But I dare say you'll like her, for aunts say she is quite a vulgar person. As for me, I don't mean to take any notice of her at all."

"A deal she'll care for that! Who minds you? you're only a girl."

"I'm glad I'm not a big, ugly, dirty-handed, common boy." Arthur's reply was short and summary, administered by one of those dirty hands, as he was in the habit of administering what he doubtless considered justice to his much cleverer, more precocious, and very sharp-tongued sister, even though she was "a girl." It was the only advantage he had over her and he used it, chivalry not being a thing which comes natural to most boys, and it, as well as the root and core of it, loving-kindness, not having been one of the things taught in these children's nursery.

Letitia set up an outcry of injured innocence, upon which nurse, who waited at the foot of the stairs, seeing something was amiss, while not stopping to discover what it was, did as she always did under similar circumstances—she flew to the contending parties and soundly thumped them both.

"Get to bed, you naughty children; you're always quarreling," rang the sharp voice, rising above Letitia's wail, and Arthur's storm of furious sobs. The girl yielded, but the boy hung back; and it was not until after a regular stand-up fight between him and the woman—a big, sturdy woman too—that he was carried off, still desperately resisting, and shouting that he would have his revenge as soon as ever papa came home.

Letitia followed quietly enough, as if the scene were too common for her to trouble herself much about it. The only other witness to it was the portrait of the mild-faced foundress, which seemed through the shadows of centuries to look down pitifully on these motherless children, as if with a remembrance of her own two little sons, whose sorrowful tale—is it not to be found in every English History, and why repeat it here?

Motherless children indeed these were, and had been, pathetically, ever since they were born. All the womanly bringing up they had had, even in Mrs. Grey's lifetime, had come from that grim nurse, Phillis.

Phillis was not an ordinary woman. The elements of a tragedy were in her low, broad, observant, and intelligent forehead, her keen black eyes, and her full-lipped, under-hanging mouth. Though past thirty, she was still comely, and when she looked pleasant, it was not an unpleasant face. Yet there lurked in it possibilities of passion that made you tremble, especially considering that she had the charge of growing children. You did not wonder at her supremacy in the nursery, but you wondered very much that any mother could have allowed her to acquire it.

For the rest, Phillis had entered the family as Letitia's wet-nurse, with the sad story of most wet-nurses. Her own child having died, she took to her foster-child with such intensity of devotedness as to save Mrs. Grey all trouble of loving or looking after the little creature from henceforward. And so she staid, through many storms and warnings to leave, but she never did leave—she was too necessary. And, in one sense, Phillis did her duty. Physically, no children could be better cared for than the little Greys. They were always well washed, well clad, and, in a certain external sense, well managed. The "rod in pickle," which Phillis always kept in the nursery, maintained a form of outward discipline and even manners, so far as Phillis knew what manners meant; morals too, in Phillis's style of morality. Beyond that Phillis's own will—strong and obstinate as it was—made laws for itself, which the children were obliged to obey. They rebelled; sometimes they actually hated her, and yet she had great influence over them—the earliest and closest influence they had ever known. Besides, the struggle had only begun when they were old enough to have some sense of the difference between justice and injustice, submission compelled and obedience lawfully won; to infants and little children Phillis was always very tender—nay, passionately loving.