The Little School-Mothers

by L. T. Meade

A Discovery.

Malcolm Durrant might be a great traveller, and doubtless was; but all the same, Mr Starling felt annoyed at being disturbed in his Sunday nap. Great people did not raise enthusiasm within his breast: he believed in them, of course, and would have been quite interested to hear some of the said Malcolm Durrant’s adventures, had that gentleman been kind enough to tell them. But on a hot August afternoon, sleep was more refreshing than anything else, and he was not in the best of humours, when he entered the room where his guest was waiting for him.

Robina—Something was about to happen which would be to Robina’s advantage. As a matter of fact, she was his favourite child. He had a much better time when she was at home than when she was at school. She suited him, as he himself expressed it, down to the ground. She “ragged” him, as she called it. She was not at all afraid of him. She made him laugh. She encouraged him to be more noisy at meals than Miss Felicia thought was seemly in the house with a great invalid. He had yielded to Miss Felicia’s representations that school was necessary for Robina. She had gone to school, and some one else had discovered her virtues, for she had come back accompanied by a very valuable adjunct—no less a thing than a live pony, a spirited animal which could gallop and canter and trot and look all that was bright and intelligent. This animal, provided with a side-saddle and attendant groom whose wages were paid by some one else was a great addition to the ménage at the Brown House. When Robina went away to Sunshine Lodge, accompanied by the pony and the groom and the side-saddle, Edward Starling had missed his child and her belongings a great deal. He wondered what else was to be expected of him, and nodded curtly now to the stranger as he entered the room.

“Glad to see you, of course, sir,” he said. “How is Robina?”

“Very well, thank you,” said Durrant.

“You are a great person, Mr Durrant,” said Starling: “that is, you have made a great name for yourself. But be that as it may, I hold with the words, ‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’ You are a man, sir, and I am another, and Robina is my child. Now, my sister-in-law, who between ourselves is a right good sort but a bit of a goose, considers you not a man, but an archangel, with a halo round you. Now I see neither the archangel nor the halo, but a person who at present is enjoying the society of my pleasing young daughter. I understand that you have come to say something to me about her. What, Mr Durrant, may that something be?”

“A very outspoken something,” replied Durrant. “I am exceedingly glad, Mr Starling, that you speak to me as you do. I am not an archangel, and I wear no halo. I am an ordinary man. Circumstances have placed me, on several occasions, in positions of extreme danger where, if I had not used an Englishman’s pluck, I should have been worsted in the battle. I only did, sir, what you or any other man would have done under the circumstances. But now—to come to your child. I want to know if you will grant me a very great favour.”

“Well, let us hear it, let us hear it,” said Starling. “But why should we sit moped up in this fusty room? Let us come out into the garden and enjoy our pipes together: what do you say?”

“I shall be only too delighted,” said Durrant.

The two men immediately left the drawing-room. Miss Felicia, from a sheltered corner of her sister’s bedroom, watched them as they passed up and down.