Mrs Pringle shrugged her shoulders slightly, and drew her shawl closer round her. What was the use of throwing away her pearls—her higher insight? She changed the subject; and by-and-by, having no consolation of a cigar, and finding the lovely twilight chilly, though it was so beautiful, she went in, and went up-stairs to the little room in the roof where Violet lay warm and cosy, with her bright eyes still open, and turned to the soft clear sky of which her attic window was full. “Oh, mamma, was it very, very wicked to go?” said Violet. Her mother stooped to kiss the little tearful face.
“We’ll say no more about it, Vi—but you must never play truant again.”
“Never!” cried Vi, with a half sob which prolonged the word, and made it echo through the tiny chamber. Alas! there was more than penitence in that vow; there was regret, there was the ghost of a delight made doubly precious by trouble and terror. Oh no, never again! but what had all Violet’s discreet and exemplary life—a life irreproachable and full of every (nursery) virtue—to show, which could compare with the transport, and terror, and misery, and sweetness, of that one never-to-be-repeated day?
Vi had a great deal to bear afterwards, when the boys heard the story, and held over her the recollection of the “day she played truant,” with all that delight in torture which is natural to their kind. But with all this they could not take from her the memory of it, which grew dearer in proportion as she buried it in her own small bosom. The running of the water, the rustling of the leaves, the solemn drowse of noon in the full sunshine, the soft velvet rush of the foaming linn over the little fingers with which she tried to stop its torrent, and all the stirs and movements among the trees, peopled the child’s recollection for many a day. Seated at a dull window in Moray Place, looking out upon the stiff garden with its shrubs—public property, and unlovely as public property generally is—Violet could see once more her bold companion leaping from one boulder to another, with the furious Esk underneath, and feel again a delicious thrill of visionary terror. She had learned more about “the country,” about woods and wilds, and birds and squirrels, and about the sensations of explorers in a new-discovered land, than anything else could have taught her. “I too in Arcadia,” she could have said: her one day of playing truant was the possession out of which she drew most enjoyment; and I leave the gentle reader to imagine, as Violet grew older, whether she could dismiss the partner of this celestial piece of wickedness into the mere common region of indifference, and leave him there undistinguished by any preference. She was always Val’s defender afterwards, when any discussion of his merits arose among the boys; and what was more remarkable still, Mrs Pringle became Val’s warm partisan and supporter, dismissing almost with indignation any suggestion which might be made to his disfavour. She was impatient of what she called her husband’s “whimsey” about his heirship. “It is just a piece of folly,” she would say with some heat. “Are the Esksides fools to take up a false heir? or what motive could they have? Your father is a very clever man, and has a great deal of sense in a general way. But, boys, don’t you build any hopes upon this, for it’s just nonsense. You may be sure they are not the kind of folk to commit themselves, or expose the property to certain waste and destruction, with an impostor for an heir——” That he should have so important a deserter from his standard filled Mr Pringle with surprise. He was justified in thinking that it would have been natural that, right or wrong, she should have placed herself on her own boy’s side. But Mrs Pringle was a woman who was given to an opinion of her own, and was not to be persuaded out of it when once formed upon sufficient cause.
And thus the soft-paced time went on, gently, dallying with the children, spinning out long tranquil days for them, and years that seemed as if they would never be over, as he does not do with their elders. They grew up slowly like the grass, which never shows itself in the act of growing, but is, while yet we are unaware of it; the happiest of all life’s various periods—not only to the younglings, who are unconscious of it, but also to the fathers and mothers, who sometimes have an inkling of the truth. It looks long while it is in progress, thank heaven—though after, I suppose, when it is over, and the birds are out of the nest, it is like everything else in life, as short to look back upon as a tale that is told. But in the meantime there is little more to be said than that the children grew. And by-and-by Rosscraig House fell into sudden shadow, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud, and the voices in it died down into subdued sounds of old people’s voices, as had been the case before the child came to it, turning everything topsy-turvy. Val had been sent to school.
CHAPTER XIII.
The school that Valentine Ross, Lord Eskside’s grandson and heir, was sent to was, naturally, Eton. His father had been educated there, but not his grandfather, who belonged to an older fashion in education as in everything else, and was Scotch to his fingers’ tips, and to every shade of idea in his mind. Valentine was placed with the brother of the tutor who had succeeded so indifferently with his early training—a kind of mingled compensation for that failure, and keeping up of old associations—for Mr Grinder’s father had been Richard’s tutor—which satisfied Lord and Lady Eskside. The boy’s departure was no small trial to the old people. Each of them said something to him privately before he went away. Lord-Eskside took him out for a last walk, and showed him the new feus that had been marked out, and told him confidentially—recognising for the first time his partially grown-up condition—of the improvements he had been making, and the addition to the rent-roll of the estate which the feus would give—“enough to pay your school expenses, Val,” he said; and then he gave his grandson his parting advice.
“You have not to make your living by learning,” said the old lord, “therefore I don’t bid you give every moment to it that health allows; but a good scholar is always a credit to every rank in life; and if a thing is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well. But there are other things at Eton besides books. A man in the position you will hold should know men like himself—not only the outside of them, but their ways of thinking, and what’s working in their heads. The working of young heads is a sign how the tide’s going; and I want you, if it’s in you, Val, some time or other, to go on the top of the tide—not just to be dragged with the swing of it, like common lads. You’re too young for that at present, but when you’re old enough you must try to get into what societies they have—debating, or the like. I don’t know very well what you’re going to turn to. You have good abilities—very good abilities—and plenty of spirit when you like; and mind, to give yourself over to play, and nonsense games, is bairnly, not manly—I would have you recollect that.”
“Do you mean cricket, grandpapa?” said Valentine, with astonished eyes.
“I mean everything that turns a gentleman into a player, sir,” said the old lord, knitting his brows; “setting sport above the honest concerns of this life and the ruling of the world—which is what young men of good family are born for, if they like to put their hand to their work. To set up a game in the highest place is bairnly, Val—mind what I say to you—and not manly. If you mean to put your life into cricket, you had better make up your mind to earn your bread by it, and give up the other trade I’m speaking of—which is not to say you may not play to amuse yourself,” he added, dropping from the seriousness of the previous address, “and, in moderation, as much as you like; only never make a business of a mere pleasure. I am taking you into my confidence,” Lord Eskside continued, after a little pause. “I want you to go into public life at home. Your father will not, and he has his reasons, which are perhaps good enough; and I had not the time nor the possibility when I was young like you. I succeeded early, for one thing; and a Scotch representative peer does not cut much of a figure in politics. But you, my boy, have little chance of succeeding early. If your father lives to be as old as I am, you have a long career before you—and you’ll mind my advice.”