She remained for a few minutes making little suggestions about the ventilation and the nursery arrangements, which I bore as patiently as I could, though the harsh, metallic voice irritated me dreadfully. I did not wish to be disrespectful to Mrs. Markham, but I did not feel bound to obey her orders, and I knew I should tell her so if any grave dispute arose between us. I was rather relieved when she left the room at last, taking Rolf with her; but a few minutes afterwards Judson glided in on tiptoe.
“Oh, Miss Fenton,” she said, in a pathetic voice, “I am so grateful to you for promising to take charge of Master Rolf this afternoon; I thought there would be such a piece of work; Master Rolf thought he was going out in the carriage, and Mrs. Markham has friends and cannot find room for him; and what I should have done with him I hardly know, all the afternoon.”
“If Rolf is good I have no objection to take charge of him; I am very fond of children, only they must be obedient.”
“Obedience is an unknown word to Master Rolf,” returned Judson, lugubriously; “times out of number that boy has got me into trouble, just because he would not mind a word I said. Why, he got the colonel’s sword out of his mother’s wardrobe one day and nearly killed himself, and another morning he fired off his grandfather’s gun, that had been loaded by mistake, and shot poor old Pincher, not that he meant to do it; he was aiming at one of the pheasants.”
This was not pleasant to hear, and I inwardly resolved not to trust the children out of my sight; for who could tell what unforeseen accident might arise from Rolf’s recklessness?
“Mrs. Markham blames me for all that happens,” went on Judson, “and Master Rolf knows that, and there is no checking him; he is not nearly so mischievous when his mother is near, because she loses patience, and has more than once boxed his ears soundly. She spoils him dreadfully, and he takes liberties with her as no child ought to take with a parent; but now and then, when he has aggravated her past bearing, I have known her punish him pretty sharply.”
This was sad; injudicious indulgence, and injudicious severity. Who could wonder if the results were unsatisfactory?
“No one dares to say a word to him except his mother,” went on Judson; “it is just her temper when she flies out at him; but she worships the very ground he walks on. If his finger aches she thinks he is going to die, and the house is in an uproar; and yet when he is ill he is as contrary as possible, and will not take a thing from her, for all her petting and coaxing.”
It seemed a relief to Judson to pour out her woes, and I could hardly refuse to listen to her. She was evidently attached to her mistress, with whom she had lived since her marriage; but she was one of those helpless beings who are made the butt of other people’s wills and passions; she had no dignity of mind to repel even childish impertinence; her nervous, vacillating ways would only increase Rolf’s tyrannical nature.
I could understand how a high-spirited boy would resist any command enforced by that plaintive voice. A few quick concise words would influence him more than a torrent of feeble reproaches from Judson. He was not without generous impulses—what English boy is?—he had grasped at once my meaning when I rebuked him for his want of gentlemanly honour, but he was precocious and over-bearing, and had lived too much in the society of grown-up people.