shan’t, won’t, and can’t like Uncle Jasper; it’s quite impossible, I know, for me to do it; if he had any other name I might perhaps try; but Jasper, Jasper, just fancy liking anyone with such a name! He’s quite certain, with a name like that, to keep the windows tight shut in July, and insist on my wearing a fur cape in April, and eating oatmeal porridge for breakfast, and no butter and marmalade; and he’ll be always dressed in a hideous, flaring red dressing-gown, and he’s sure to have a wig, and he’ll never take a walk with me after sunset, because of some horrid old whim about catching cold. No, it’s not to be supposed that I can even tolerate Uncle Jasper; and as for going and living with him, and leaving our bright, jolly life here, it’s quite out of the question.”
The speaker was myself. At that time I was a girl of fourteen, with brown eyes, and little feet that danced in unison; with a slight figure which, in its restless activity, brings to my mind now, as I look back, the ceaseless motion of the pampas grass when the breeze touches it ever so softly; with thick, frizzy, rebellious, dark hair, that utterly refused to accommodate itself to any known fashion of hairdressing whatsoever; with a broad, intelligent brow, which sometimes wrote the word “wilfulness” much too legibly upon itself in certain wrinkles and lines, if contradiction or any kind of supposed indignity stirred up my spirit within me, as was much too often the case; with a little red mouth, which was occasionally much too resolute a mouth for a young lady who had not travelled on very far in her teens.
Both my parents had died when I was quite a little child; they had lived in India, and I had known very little of their love or care. I had no near relations in England to take me under their protection; I had spent my whole life at school, going for my holidays to the houses of different schoolfellows. I was the heiress to a small fortune of my own, which was managed by an old gentleman in the city who had been left my guardian, and who never came to visit me more than twice a year, when he paid a state call at my school, and sat with me and the head schoolmistress in the grand, chill drawing-room—into which no one ever entered save on the most solemn occasions—for two terrible hours, inquiring into my health, my studies, and my expenses, at the end of which periods I always felt as if I had been for a voyage at sea on the top of an iceberg.
Now the one thing wanting in my young life was love. I was a clever girl, and took generally a lion’s share of the prizes in the school for every kind of learning and accomplishment. I was endowed with a fair proportion of good looks, and I had quite as much money allowed me by my guardian as any girl of my age could reasonably desire. I could not say that I wished especially for anything which was not within the reach of my attainment in the circumstances in which I was placed; still, I had a vague consciousness that I did want something, and this something was love. As has been said, I had no near relations, and I was not one of those girls who seem to carry about with them a fairy machine for manufacturing affection wherever they go. My religion was at that time more of a dead form than a living spirit, warming and colouring my whole life; and thus I was wanting in the highest power of all for waking and creating love in those around us.
The two ladies who kept our school and the under-governesses were all, in a certain way, proud of me for my cleverness and good looks. But none of them tried to make their way into my heart. They were all somewhat indolent women, and as I did them credit in their school, they gave me my way far more than was good for me, and so fostered the wilfulness which was one of the worst features of my character. My schoolfellows, most of them, liked me to a certain extent; my lively chatter—for I had always a nimble tongue—made me a pleasant companion and an agreeable visitor. At the same time, however, they were all a little afraid of me, on account of the reputation I had for superior mental gifts, and not one among them ever endeavoured to be intimate with me. They went so far in their acquaintance with me—that is, as far as a thick rind of proud reserve which surrounded the inner recesses of my thoughts and feelings would allow; and when they reached this point they were content to remain without the barrier.
Things went on in this way with me till a new girl, called Lily Greenwood, came to our school. Lily was not either as clever or as pretty as I was; but there was a charm about her which I had not—the charm of a sweet, sympathetic nature, which the high, pure atmosphere of a Christian home had developed early into blossoms of rare beauty. In a month everyone in the school loved Lily. Even the girls with the prickliest tempers, who were always saying “won’t” and “shan’t,” said “will” and “shall” to Lily; and the girls with the dullest brains, who could never be either pulled or driven through the German declensions, brightened up at her magic spells, and grew quite starlike in their gleams and twinkles of intelligence; and the greedy girls got to share their most cherished dainties with her, because she set them such an example of entire, smiling, gracious unselfishness; and the very cat, who used to spit and grumble if but the skirts of our dresses touched her, came to sit on Lily’s knee, and rejoiced in being stroked by her hand.
Among the rest, I fell gradually under the witchery practised by Lily. She seemed to know by instinct that love was what I wanted, and she came and wove a web of sunbeams around me, till at length I was caught in it. I began to open my heart to her, and to let her come in, as I had never done to anyone before; and I began, too, to feel real warm affection for her. Still, I did not let Lily’s influence work upon me for good as much as it ought to have done; my pride forbade it, and I continued in most things my old wilful self.
Some few months before my story begins it had been discovered by the doctors that my chest was delicate, and that it would be beneficial for my health to spend the winter in a warmer climate. My guardian, who was always very eager to atone for his want of affection for me by most scrupulous care for my temporal well-being, at once decided that I should go to the South of France in November, and remain there till April, and came to my schoolmistress to arrange with her as to how the plan could be carried out. It was settled that Miss Dolly, the younger of our schoolmistress’s sisters, who kept the school jointly with her, should occupy, with me, a villa near Cannes, and that I should have one companion of my own age to keep me from being dull. Great was my joy when I heard that this companion was to be Lily. She was not very strong, and her father, who had lately lost his wife (on which account Lily had been sent to school), thought it a good opportunity of getting needful change for her without having to go with her himself, and leave his business as a merchant for a while.
The plan had proved a great success, as far as Lily and I were concerned. Our bodily strength increased in the warm, sweet, southern air; we learned to talk French like natives; we rejoiced in long rambles through the vineyards and among the bands of flowers which soon began to appear in the land as the fair vanguard of spring; but it cannot be said that it was exactly a season of joy and repose for Miss Dolly.