Frederica and her Guardians; Or, The Perils of Orphanhood

by Margaret M. Robertson

No, it did not seem like Christmas-time to them here. In some of the sunny glades of Eastwood Park, the little Canadians could have forgotten that it was not summer, except when they looked up at the great leafless oaks and elms and beeches, which made a wide dark network of boughs between them and the sky. There were no flowers in the open park, but the grass was green, and there was ivy on the wall, and there were great holly bushes and laurels, and in Grandmamma Bentham’s garden, shut in from the winds, and having the sunshine full upon it, there were heartsease and Christmas roses. It was all very different, out of doors, from Christmas time at home. But within doors it was like the best of Christmas-times.

There was a large party assembled at Eastwood Park—sons and daughters of Col. Bentham, grandchildren, nephews and nieces, and friends of the family. Their brother Edgar was there for a few days, and his friend Captain Clare. Everard Bentham, the Colonel’s youngest son, was Edgar’s dear friend, though they were not at all alike in most respects. Everard was gay and inclined to be idle, and had caused his father some anxiety during the last year or two. But of all this nothing was known to the young Vanes. He was very kind to them, very merry and light-hearted, and they liked him dearly—almost as well as they liked Captain Clare, who was a very different sort of man.

He was older than their other friend, though not so much older as they fancied, because his hair was a little grey, and he was often grave and silent when there were others besides the children present. He was a soldier, and had been in battle many times, and had the Victoria cross and medals to show that he had done his duty on the field. He had other tokens as well. There was a faintly traced scar extending along his temple, which his hair only partially concealed, and he always wore a glove on his left hand to hide the traces of another wound.

He had much to tell the little lads about many things. He had been in their own country, had spent a winter in their own city. He had known their father and their mother, and remembered Jack and Jill, and never tired listening to all they had to tell about them, and this was one secret of his popularity doubtless.

The sisters liked him also, for similar reasons, and for better reasons. For he was a true soldier of Christ, as well as of the Queen, and had fought and won battles for Him in his day, and the very first words that he spoke to them, as he came upon them one day in old Mrs Bentham’s garden, made Selina and Frederica glad in the hope of having him for their friend.

All who came to Eastwood Park were interested in these children and very kind to them. They were kind, and they were a little curious also—that is, they watched with interest, and sometimes with amusement, the words and ways of these young Canadians, who were not in all respects just like English children. I speak of them all as children, for with all their womanliness and decision of manner, the sisters were in some respects quite as childlike as were little Hubert and Charlie. Selina was like no one else in her never-failing sweetness and cheerfulness. Tessie’s frankness and independence of speech might, under the encouragement of amused listeners, have fallen into undesirable freeness, had it not been for the gentle check of her eldest sister’s influence. She rebelled sometimes under Fred’s rather imperative hints as to what was desirable and right or otherwise, but Selina’s lightest half-spoken remonstrance never passed unheeded.

It was the same with the little lads. It was Frederica who assumed authority over them; and her little motherly ways and words, at once coaxing and determined, generally answered well with them. They were obedient and teachable usually; but they now and then appealed from her rather arbitrary rule to the gentler rule of Selina; and the way in which she used to soften and modify her sister’s decisions, while she gravely and firmly upheld her sister’s authority with their brothers, was a pretty thing to see. Frederica was careful and troubled over them and their future often; Selina was trustful and cheerful always, and not afraid.

Everybody was kind to them, and much was done to make their Christmas, not only a merry one, but a happy one. Everybody was kind to them; but, after Cecilia and her husband and their brother Edgar, they liked no one so well as Captain Clare. A good many people went away when the holidays ended, but Captain Clare stayed on, and so did Everard Bentham. Everard had been thrown from his horse, and so seriously hurt, that, much against his will, he was obliged to remain at home several weeks longer than it had been his intention to stay. He made the best of it, and amused himself as well as he could, and by-and-by got “great fun,” as he called it, out of the little Canadians. But he gave them quite as much as he got from them in the way of amusement; for he was kind as well as merry. In the way of real and lasting benefit, his intercourse with these young people did much to change his character, and influence his future life; but all this came later.

In the meantime Captain Clare was their dearest friend after their brother Edgar went away; and it was in this way that their friendship began: They were sitting—Selina and Frederica—one day in old Mrs Bentham’s garden, where the sunshine made it, to Selina at least, just like a summer day. Frederica had been reading a word or two, as her sister liked to have her do when they were alone together; and to-day it had been the first verses of the twelfth of Hebrews that she had chosen. They had not gone beyond the first two or three verses; there was enough in them to talk and wonder over.

“Perhaps it means this, Fred,” said Selina, after a minute’s silence; “these people, ‘so great a cloud of witnesses’—the people in the last chapter, you know—are all looking at us, and so we must ‘run with patience the race set before us.’ Or is it that all these people looked to Jesus, and so got strength and patience to ‘subdue kingdoms,’ to ‘stop the mouths of lions’? Don’t you remember? They were ‘destitute, afflicted, tormented,—of whom the world was not worthy.’ Oh! Fred dear, how little we know!”