The Two Sides of the Shield Part 7

'Yes,' said Gillian. 'You know I can manage her pretty well when it is only the little ones and they wouldn't have any pleasure otherwise.'

'Oh come, Gill,' intreated Fergus, 'or nurse will make us sit in the donkey-cart all the time while Lois picks the blackberries!'

'Mamma, do tell her not to come,' intreated Valetta, and more of them joined in with her.

'No, my dears, I don't like to vex her when she thinks she is doing her duty.'

'She wouldn't come if you did, mamma,' and there was a general outcry of intreaty that mamma would come with them, and defend them from Mrs.

Halfpenny, as Fergus, who was rather a formal little fellow, expressed it, and mamma, after a little consideration, consented to drive the pony-carriage in that direction, and to announce to Nurse Halfpenny that she herself would take charge of the children. Whereupon there was a whoop and a war-dance of jubilee, quite overwhelming to Dolores, who could not but privately ask Mysie if Nurse Halfpenny was so very cross.

'Awfully,' said Mysie, and Wilfred added--

'As savage as a bear with a sore head.'

'Like Mrs. Crabtree?' asked Dolores.

'Exactly. Jasper called her so when he wanted to lash her up, till at lash she got hold of his 'Holiday House' and threw it into the sea, and it was in Malta and we couldn't get another,' said Mysie.

'And haven't you one?'

'Yes, Gill and I save for it; but mamma only let us have it on condition we made a solemn promise never to tease nurse about it.'

'And does she go at you with that dreadful thing--what's it name--the tawse?'

'Ah! you'll soon know,' said Wilfred.

'No, no; nonsense, Fred,' said Mysie, as Dolores' face worked with consternation. 'She never hits us, not if we are ever so tiresome. Papa and mamma would not let her.'

'But why do they let her be so dreadful? Maude's nurse used to be horrid and slap her, and when her mother found it out the woman was sent away directly.'

Nurse Halfpenny isn't that sort,' said Mysie. 'Her husband was papa's colour-sergeant, and he got a sun-stroke and died, and then she came when Gillian was just born, and so weak and tiny that she would never have lived if nurse hadn't watched her day and night, and so Gillian's her favourite, except the youngest, and she is ever so good, you know.

I've heard the ladies, when we were with the dear old 111th, telling mamma how they envied her her trustworthy treasure.'

'I'm sure they might have had her at half-price,' said Wilfred. 'She's be dear at a farthing!'

At that moment Mrs. Halfpenny's voice was heard demanding if it were really her ladys.h.i.+p's pleasure to go out, fatiguing herself to the very death with all the children rampaging about her and tearing themselves to pieces, if not poisoning themselves with all sorts of nasty berries.

'Indeed I'll take care of them and bring them back safe to you,'

responded her ladys.h.i.+p, very much in the tone of one of her own children making promises. 'Put them on their brown hollands and they can't come to much harm.'

'Well, if it's your wish, ma'am, my leddy; what must be, must, but I know how it will be--you'll come back tired out, fit to drop, and Miss Val and Miss Primrose won't have a rag fit to be seen on them. But if it's your will, what must be must, for you're no better than a bairn yourself, general's lady though you be, and G.C.B.'

'No, nurse, you'll be G.C.B.--Grand Commander of the Bath--when we come home,' called out Hall, who was leaning on the banister at the bottom, and there was a general laugh, during which Dolly tardily climbed the stairs, so tardily that her aunt, meeting her, asked whether she was still tired, and if she would rather have the afternoon to arrange her room.

She said 'yes,' but not 'thank you,' and went on, relieved that Mysie did not offer to stay and help her, and yet rather offended at being left alone, while all the others went their own way. She heard them pattering and clattering, shouting and calling up and down the pa.s.sages, and then came a great silence, while they could be seen going down the drive, some on foot, some in the pony-chaise or donkey-cart.

Her things had all been unpacked and put in order, and her room had a very cheerful window. It was prettily furnished with fresh pink and white dimity, and choice-looking earthenware, but to London eyes like those of Dolores it seemed very old-fas.h.i.+oned and what she called 'poked up.' The paper was ugly, the chimney-piece was a narrow, painting thing, of the same dull, stone-colour as the door and the window-frame. And then the clear air, the perfect stillness, the absence of anything moving in the view from the window gave the citybred child a sense of dreadful loneliness and dreariness as she sat on the side of her bed, with one foot under her, gazing dolefully round her, and in he head composing her own memoirs.

'Fully occupied with their own plans and amus.e.m.e.nts, the lonely orphan was left in solitude. Her aunt knew not how her heart ached after the home she had left, but the machine of the family went its own way and trod her under its wheels.'

This was such a fine sentence that it was almost a comfort, and she thought of writing it to Maude Sefton, but as she got up to fetch her writing-case from the schoolroom, she saw that her books were standing just in the way she did not like, and with all the volumes mixed up together. So she tumbled them all out of the shelves on the floor, and at that moment Mrs. Halfpenny looked into the room.

'Well, to be sure!' she exclaimed, 'when me and Lois have been working at them books all the morning.'

'They were all nohow--as I don't like them,' said Dolores.

'Oh, very well, please yourself then, miss, if that's all the thanks you have in your pocket, you may put them up your own way, for all I care.

Only my lady will have the young ladies' rooms kept neat and orderly, or they lose marks for it.'

'I don't want any help,' said Dolores, crossly, and Mrs. Halfpenny shut the door with a bang. 'The menials are insulting me,' said Dolores to herself, and a tear came to her eye, while all the time there was a certain mournful satisfaction in being so entirely the heroine of a book.

She went to work upon her books, at first hotly and sharply, and very carefully putting the tallest in the centre so as to form a gradual ascent with the tops and not for the world letting a second volume stand before its elder brother, but she soon got tired, took to peeping at one or two parting gifts which she had not yet been able to read, and at last got quite absorbed in the sorrows of a certain Clare, whose golden hair was cut short by her wicked aunt, because it outshone her cousin's sandy locks. There was reason to think that a tress of this same golden hair would lead to her recognition by some grandfather of unknown magnificence, as exactly like that of his long-lost Claribel, and this might result in her a.s.suming splendours that would annihilate the aunt.

Things seemed tending to a fracture of the ice under the cruellest cousin of all, and her rescue by Clare, when they would be carried senseless into the great house, and the recognition of Clare and the discomfiture of her foes would take place. How could Dolores shut the book at such a critical moment!

So there she was sitting in the midst of her scattered books, when the galloping and scampering began again, and Mysie knocked at the door to tell her there were pears, apples, biscuits, and milk in the dining-room, and that after consuming them, lessons had to be learnt for the next day, and then would follow amus.e.m.e.nts, evening toilette, seven o'clock tea, and either games or reading aloud till bedtime. As to the books, Mysie stood aghast.

'I thought nurse and Lois had done them all for you.'

'They did them all wrong, so I took them down.'

Oh, dear! We must put them in, or there'll be a report.'

'A report!'

'Yes, Nurse Halfpenny reports us whenever she doesn't find our rooms tidy, and then we get a bad mark. Perhaps mamma wouldn't give you one this first day, but it is best to make sure. Shall I help you, or you won't have time to eat any pears?'

Dolores was thankful for help, and the books were scrambled in anyhow on the shelves; for Mysie's good nature was endangering her share of the afternoon's gouter, though perhaps it consoled her that her curiosity was gratified by a hasty glance at the backs of her cousin's story-books.

By the time the two girls got down to the dining-table, every one had left the room, and there only remained one doubtful pear, and three baked apples, besides the loaf and the jug of milk. Mysie explained that not being a regular meal, no one was obliged to come punctually to it, or to come at all, but these who came tardily might fare the worse. As to the blackberries, for which Dolores inquired, the girls were going to make jam of them themselves the next day; but Mysie added, with an effort, she would fetch some, as her cousin had had none in the gathering.

'Oh no, thank you; I hate blackberries,' said Dolores, helping herself to an apple.

'Do you?' said Mysie, blankly. 'We don't. They are such fun. You can't think how delicious the great overhanging cl.u.s.ters are in the lane. Some was up so high that Hal had to stand up in the cart to reach them, and to take Fergus up on his shoulder. We never had such a blackberrying as with mamma and Hal to help us. And only think, a great carriage came by, with some very grand people in it; we think it was the Dean; and they looked down the lane and stared, so surprised to see what great mind to call out, 'Fee, faw, fum.' You know nothing makes such a good giant as Fergus standing on Hal's shoulders, and a curtain over them to hide Hal's face. Oh dear, I wish I hadn't told you! You would have been a new person to show it to.'

Dolores made very little answer, finished her apple, and followed to the schoolroom, where an irregular verb, some geography, and some dates awaited her.

Then followed another rush of the populace for the evening meal of the live stock, but in this Dolores was too wary to share. She made her way up to her retreat again, and tried to lose the sense of her trouble and loneliness in a book. Then came the warning bell, and a prodigious scuffling, racing and chasing, accompanied by yells as of terror and roars as of victory, all cut short by the growls of Mrs. Halfpenny.

Everything then subsided. The world was dressing; Dolores dressed too, feeling hurt and forlorn at no one's coming to help her, and yet worried when Mysie arrived with orders from Mrs. Halfpenny to come to her to have her sash tied.

'I think a servant ought to come to me. Caroline always does,' said the only daughter with dignity.

'She can't, for she is putting Primrose to bed. Oh, it's so delicious to see Prim in her bath,' said Mysie, with a little skip. 'Make haste, or we shall miss her, the darling.'

Dolores did not feel pressed to behold the spectacle, and not being in the habit of dressing without a.s.sistance, she was tardy, and Mysie fidgeted about and nearly distracted her. Thus, when she reached the nursery, Primrose was already in her little white bed-gown, and was being incited by Valetta to caper about on her cot, like a little acrobat, as her sisters said, while Mrs. Halfpenny declared that 'they were making the child that rampageous, she should not get her to sleep till midnight.'

They would have been turned out much sooner, and Primrose hushed into silence, if nurse's soul had not been horrified by the state of Dolores'

hair and the general set of her garments.

'My certie!' she exclaimed--a dreadful exclamation in the eyes of the family, who knew it implied that in all her experience Mrs. Halfpenny had never known the like! And taking Dolores by the hand, she led the wrathful and indignant girl back into her bedroom, untied and tied, unb.u.t.toned and b.u.t.toned, brushed and combed in spite of the second bell ringing, the general scamper, and the sudden apparition of Mysie and Val, whom she bade run away and tell her leddys.h.i.+p that 'Miss Mohoone should come as soon as she was sorted, but she ought to come up early to have her hair looked to, for 'twas shame to see how thae fine London servants sorted a motherless bairn.'