The Two Sides of the Shield Part 10

'Maude Sefton has been working Goosey Goosey Gander on a toilet-cover.'

'Oh! how sweet! We never get any new patterns here! Do come in and see, I don't know which to take; I brought three beginnings home to choose from, and I am quite undecided.'

'Mrs. Sefton draws her own patterns,' said Dolores. 'Something she gets ideas from Lorenzo Dellman--he's an artist, you know, and a regular aesthete! He made her do a dado all sunflowers last year, but they are a little gone out now, and are very staring besides, and I think she will have some nymphs dancing among almond-trees in blue vases instead, as soon as she has designed it.'

'Isn't that lovely! Oh! what would I not give for such opportunities? Do let me have your opinion.'

So Dolores went in with her, and looked at three patterns, one of tall daisies; another of odd-looking doves, one on each side of a red Etruscan vase, where the water must have been as much out of their reach as that in the pitcher was beyond the crow's; and a third, of Little Bo Peep. Having given her opinion in favour of Bo Peep, she was taken upstairs to inspect the young lady's store of crewels, and choose the colours.

Dolores neither knew nor cared anything about fancy work, but to be treated as an authority was quite soothing, and she fully believed that the mere glimpses she had had of Mrs. Sefton's work and the shop windows, enabled her to give great enlightenment to this poor country mouse; so she gladly went to the bedroom, with a muslin-worked toilet-cover, embroidered curtains, plates fastened against the wall, and table all over knick-knacks, which Miss Constance called her little den, where she could study beauty after her own bent, while her sister Mary was wholly engrossed with the useful, and could endure nothing but the prose of the last century.

Meantime Mysie had forgotten how time flew in her belief that in one minute more the young doves would want to be fed, and then in amus.e.m.e.nt at seeing them pursue their parents with low squeaks and flutterings, watching, too, the airs and graces, bowing, cooing, and laughing of the old ones. When at last she was startled by hearing eleven struck, there had to be a great hunt for Dolores in the drawing-room and garden, and when at last Miss Hacket's calls for her sister brought the tow downstairs more than ten minutes had pa.s.sed! Mysie was too much dismayed, and in too great a hurry to do anything but cry, 'Come along, Dolores,' and set off at such a gallop as to scandalize the Londoner, even when Mysie recollected that it was too public a place for running, and slackened her pace. Dolores was soon gasping, and with a st.i.tch in her side. Mysie would have exclaimed, 'What were you doing with Miss Constance?' but breathlessness happily prevented it. The way across the paddock seemed endless, and Mysie was chafed at having to hold back for her companion, who panted in distress, leant against a tree, declared she could not go on, she did not care, and then when, Mysie set off running, was seized with fright at being left alone in this vast unknown s.p.a.ce, cried after her and made a rush, soon ending in sobbing breath.

At last they were at the door, and Wilfred just coming out of the dining-room greeted them with, 'A quarter to twelve. Won't you catch it?

Oh my!'

'Are they come?' said Lady Merrifield, looking out of the schoolroom.

'My dear children! Did Miss Hacket keep you?'

'No, mamma,' gasped Mysie. 'At least it was my fault for watching the doves.'

'Ah! Mysie, I must not send you on a message next time. Mr. Poulter has been waiting these twenty minutes, and I am afraid you are not fit to take a lesson now. Dolores looks quite done up! I shall send you both to lie down on your beds and learn your poetry for an hour. And you must write an apology to Mr. Poulter this afternoon. No, don't go in now. Go up at once, Gillian shall bring your books. Does Miss Hacket come?'

'Yes, mamma,' said Mysie humbly, looking at Dolores all the time.

She was too generous to say that part of the delay had been caused by looking for her cousin, and having to adapt her pace to the slower one, but she decidedly expected the avowal from Dolores, and thought it mean not to make it. 'And, oh, the jam!' she mourned as she went upstairs.

While, on the other hand, Dolores considered what she called 'being sent to bed' an unmerited and unjust sentence given without a hearing; when their tardiness had been all Mysie's fault, not hers. She had no notion that her aunt only sent them to lie down, because they looked heated, tired, and spent, and was really letting them off their morning's lessons. It was a pity that she felt too forlorn and sullen even to complain when Gillian brought up Macaulay's 'Armada' for her to learn the first twelve lines, or she might have come to an understanding, but all that was elicited from her was a glum 'No,' when asked if she knew it already. Gillian told her not to keep her dusty boots on the bed, and she vouchsafed no answer, for she did not consider Gillian her mistress, though, after she was left to herself, she found them so tight and hot that she took them off. Then she looked over the verses rather contemptuously--she who always learnt German poetry; and she had a great mind to a.s.sert her independence by getting off the bed, and writing a letter to Maude Sefton, describing the narrow stupidity of the whole family, and how her aunt, without hearing her, had send her to be for Mysie's fault. However she felt so shaky and tired that she thought she had better rest a little first, and somehow she fell fast asleep, and was only awakened by the gong. She jumped up in haste, recollecting that the delightful sympathizing Miss Constance was coming to luncheon, and set her hair and dress to rights eagerly, observing, however, to herself, that her horrid aunt was quite capable of imprisoning her all the time for not having learnt that stupid poetry.

She hesitated a little where to go when she reached the hall, but the schoolroom door was open, and she heard a mournful voice concluding with a gasp--

'Our glorious semper eadem, the banner of our pride.'

And Miss Vincent saying, 'Now, my dear, go and wash your face, and try not to be such a dismal spectacle.'

And then Mysie came out, with heavy eyes and a mottled face, showing that she had been crying all the time she had been learning, over her own fault certainly, but likewise over mamma's displeasure and Dolly's shabbiness.

'Well, Dora,' said Miss Vincent, 'have you come to repeat your poetry?'

'No,' said Dolores. 'I went to sleep instead.'

'Oh! I'm glad of that. I wish poor Mysie had done the same. I believe it was what Lady Merrifield intended, you both looked so knocked up.'

Dolores cleared up a little at this, especially as Miss Vincent was no relation, and she thought it a good time to make her protest against mere English.

'Oh!' she said. 'I supposed that was the reason she gave me such a stupid, childish, sing-song nursery rhyme to learn. I can say lots of Schiller and some Goethe.'

'I advise you not to let any one hear you call Lord Macaulay's poem a nursery rhyme, or it might never be forgotten,' said Miss Vincent gaily.

Then seeing the cloud return to Dolores's face, she added, 'You have been brought forward in German, I see. We must try to bring your knowledge of English literature up to be even with it.'

Dolores liked this better than anything she had yet heard, chiefly because she had learnt from her books that governesses were not uniformly so cruel as aunts. And besides, she felt that she had been spared a public humiliation.

By this time the guests were ringing at the door, and Miss Vincent, with her had on, only waiting till their entrance was made to depart. Dolores asked whether to go into the drawing-room, and was told that Lady Merrifield preferred that the children should only appear in the dining-room on the sound of the gong, which was not long in being heard.

The Merrifields were trained not to chatter when there was company at table, besides Mysie and Val were in low spirits about the chance of the blackberry cookery. Miss Hacket sat on one side of Lady Merrifield, and talked about what a.s.sociates had answered her letters, and what villages would send contingents of girls, and it sounded very dull to the young people. Miss Constance was next to Hal. She looked amiable and sympathetic at Dolores on the opposite side of the table, but discussed lawn-tennis tournaments with her neighbour, which was quite as little interesting to the general public as was the G.F.S. However, as soon as Primrose had said grace, Lady Merrifield proposed to take Miss Hacket down to the stable-yard; and the whole train followed excepting the two girls, who trusted Hal to see whether their pets would suffer inconvenience. However it soon was made evident to Gillian that she was not wanted, and that Dolores and Constance had no notion of wandering about the paved courts and bare coach-houses, among the dogs and cats, guinea-pigs, and fowls. Indeed, Constance, who was at least seven years older than Gillian, and a full-blown young lady, dismissed her by saying 'that she was going to see Miss Mohun's books.'

'Oh, certainly,' said Gillian, in a voice as though she were rather surprised, though much relieved.

So off the friends went together--for of course they were to be friends.

The Miss Mohun had been uttered in a tone that clearly meant to be asked to drop it, so they were to be Dolores and Constance henceforth, if not Dolly and Cons. Dolores was such a lovely name that Constance could not mangle it, and was sure there was some reason for it. The girl had, in fact, been named after a Spanish lady, whom her mother had known and admired in early girlhood, and to whom she had made a promise of naming her first daughter after her. No doubt Dolores did not know that Mrs.

Mohun had regretted the childish promise which she had felt bound to keep in spite of her husband's dislike to the name, which he declared would be a misfortune to the child.

Dolores was really proud of its peculiarity, and delighted to have any one to sympathize with her, in that and a great deal besides, which she communicated to her new friend in the window-seat of her room. When the two ladies went home, Constance told her sister that 'dear little Dolores was a remarkable character, sadly misunderstood among those common-place people, the Merrifields, and unjustly used, too, and she should do her best for her!'

Meantime Gillian, finding herself not wanted, had repaired to the schoolroom.

'Oh, it is of no use,' sighed Mysie, disconsolately. 'I've ever so much morning's work to make up, too. And I never shall! I've muzzled my head!'

By which remarkable expression Mysie signified that fatigue, crying, and dinner had made her brains dull and heavy; but Gillian was a sensible elder sister.

'Don't try your sum yet, then,' she said. 'Practise your scales for half an hour, while I do my algebra, and then we'll go over your German verbs together. I'll tell Miss Vincent, and she wont' mind, and I think mamma will be pleased if you try.'

Gillian was too much used to noises not to be able to work an equation, and prepare her Virgil, to the sound of scales, and Mysie was a good deal restored by them and by hope.

So when at length Constance had been summoned by her sister, who tore herself away from the arrangements, being bound to five-o'clock tea elsewhere, Mysie was discovered with a face still rather woe-begone, but hopeful and persevering, and though there still was a 'bill of parcels'

where 11 and 3/4 lbs. of mutton at 13 and 1/2d. per lb. refused to come right, Lady Merrifield kissed her, said she had been a diligent child, and sent her off prancing in bliss to the old 'still-room' stove, where they were allowed a fire, basins, spoons, and strainers, and where the sugar lay in a snowy heap, and the blackberries in a sanguine pile.

'There's partiality!' thought Dolores, and scowled, as she stood at the front door still gazing after Constance.

'Won't you come, Dolly?' said Mysie. 'Or haven't you learnt your lessons?'

'No,' said Dolly, making one answer serve for both questions.

'Oh! then you can't. Shall I ask mamma to let you off?'

'No, I don't care. I don't like messes! And what's the use if you haven't a cookery cla.s.s?'

'It's such fun,' said Val.

'And our sisters did go to a cookery cla.s.s at Dublin and taught Gill,'

added Mysie.

'But if you haven't done your lessons, you can't go,' said Valetta decidedly.

Off they went, and Lady Merrifield presently crossed the hall, and saw Dolores' att.i.tude.

'My dear, are you waiting to say those verses?' she said kindly.

'I hadn't time to learn them, I went to sleep,' said Dolores.