“Do not distress yourself for me,” said Miss Fortescue. “We have all been to blame in the past, and we must face it and do our best. I am sure it will all come right in the end. Your children and Reginald’s, dear Edith, cannot be really selfish.”
Mrs Fortescue tried to smile.
“Perhaps I have been selfish in not being stricter with them,” she said. “My one idea was to make them happy, and with the boys it seems to have done no harm.”
“Roland has had the discipline of school for several years,” said Aunt Margaret; “and as for little Jasper—well, really, he seems one of those sweet natures that can’t be spoilt.”
“And I fancy he has had rather a Cinderella-like life in the nursery, boy though he is,” said his mother. “How strange it seems that selfishness in some should be good training for those who suffer from it.”
“But, on the other hand, there is the good example,” replied Miss Fortescue. “I have noticed several times that the little fellow’s gentleness and sweetness have made his sisters ashamed of themselves—Chrissie especially. And Jasper is not very strong, you know, whereas the girls are overflowing with health, which may be a bar to sympathy sometimes—all good gifts may be abused. But I do hope that the great change in their lives may prove a blessing in disguise to our little girls.”
“I had hoped so too,” said their mother. “Indeed, Miss Earle said something of the kind before she left. She had begun to feel very discouraged.”
“And other discipline will be sent if they do not profit by this,” said Miss Fortescue almost solemnly. “But let us hope that they will.”
Life, however, as the days went on, was by no means as peaceful and happy in the small house in Spenser Terrace as it might have been, and should have been. And but for Aunt Margaret’s unfailing sympathy and hopefulness I scarcely think Mrs Fortescue could have kept up at all. For she knew that she must be cheerful when her husband was at home. Life was far from easy for him at present; he was working hard in ways that were new to him, and more trying than if he had been a younger man, and a bright welcome and peaceful evenings were certainly due to him. More than once she tried to make her little daughters understand this, and for a few hours, a day or two at most, it seemed to impress them. But, alas! all too soon the old habits overmastered them again: Leila was as lazy and self-absorbed as ever; Chrissie disobedient and defiant.
Mrs Fortescue, with some difficulty, had found a daily governess, living near them, who was glad to come for the morning hours and take the children for a walk when lessons were over. She was a simple, good-natured girl, well taught and well able to teach up to a certain point, but she was a very different sort of governess from Miss Earle, and very soon both Leila and Christabel began to take advantage of her simplicity and half-timid manners.