Vivian's Lesson

by Elizabeth W. Grierson

‘I wish we had Etons,’ said Vivian to his brother when they were alone in their own room, turning over his summer suit of dark-green cloth with rather a dissatisfied air. ‘I was in Ralph’s room washing my hands before dinner, and he has a proper suit, with gray trousers and a short coat with a peak at the back, just like those Charlie Strangeways had last summer.’

‘That’s because he’s at school,’ said Ronald, who was splashing away vigorously at the washhand-stand. ‘Probably a lot of the fellows will have Etons on; I know they wear them in London a lot. But I think these green suits of ours are rather nice; besides, it doesn’t matter what boys wear, and mother has promised to get us Etons for next summer. I say, won’t Isobel look a duck in that stunning white frock, with that pale-blue sash? I hope Dorothy will grow up as pretty as she is.’

‘Isobel is just perfect,’ said Vivian emphatically. ‘I hope Aunt Dora will let her come down to us again in spring for the Easter holidays; she will make the Strangeways look astonished. They were not at home the last time she came. They always laugh at girls, but they won’t laugh at her when they see how she plays cricket. She is not like the Lister girls, who daren’t catch a ball in case it hurts their fingers. I only wish Ralph were like her,’ he added, going back to the vexed question of clothes. ‘You should have seen his face when I told him that we had only our last year’s summer suits to wear. He muttered something about “country cousins,” and offered to lend me his last year’s suit. It is too little for him, but he said it would just do for me.’

‘And I hope you snubbed him well for his impudence. I tell you what, Vivi, he is our cousin, and we must be civil to him because of Aunt Dora and Uncle Walter and Claude and Isobel; but he is a cad, an out-and-out cad, with his airs and his conceit. So don’t let me find you copying him, or I’ll give you a good licking. Wear his old clothes indeed! You had better try it.’

Ronald spoke so sharply that Vivian, who had had a sneaking hope in his heart that his brother would agree to Ralph’s proposal, dropped the subject hastily, and began to scramble into the despised green suit in a very great hurry, feeling a little ashamed of himself as he did so for despising the clothes which his mother had chosen for him, and of which, until his conversation with Ralph, he had been not a little proud.

He quite forgot his momentary vexation, however, when Isobel, a slim little white fairy, with soft blue ribbons, knocked at the door to see if he were ready to go down and practise the minuet which he had promised to dance with her.

Mrs Armitage had made a point of having her boys taught to dance, for she always maintained that it taught them to hold themselves well, and hindered them from looking as if they did not know what to do with their arms and legs when they came into a room full of strangers. Vivian especially danced exceedingly nicely for a boy of his age, and later on, as Isobel and he went through the stately measures, bowing and curtsying to each other in the middle of the great drawing-room with its brilliant lights, they made such a pretty picture that there was quite a burst of applause from the grown-ups, who had come to look after the little ones and share the fun.

‘You did that splendidly, old fellow,’ whispered Ronald, with real brotherly pride, when the performance was over, and Vivian came up to the corner where he was standing along with some of the bigger boys. ‘I shall write and tell mother that you have taken all the ladies’ hearts by storm. I heard that old dame with the eye-glasses, who is standing next Aunt Dora, ask, “Who that exceedingly nice-looking boy is?”’

‘Fudge!’ said Vivian, laughing; but he was pleased all the same, for he felt that he had shown Ralph that even a ‘country cousin’ could do some things better than he could, in spite of the fact that he did not wear an Eton suit.

The event of the evening was the Christmas tree, and there was a breathless silence as all the children gathered in the drawing-room, and were arranged in rows, the little ones in front, before the drawn curtain which separated the two rooms.