Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 17

"It's just what Robin is coming to," observed Bobus, as his namesake stretched his arms and delivered himself of a waking howl; then suddenly becoming conscious of Mr. Ogilvie, he remained petrified, with one arm fully outstretched, the other still lifted to his head.

"Never mind, Brownlow maximus," said his master; "it was hardly fair to surprise you in private life, was it?"

The boy made no answer, but scrambled up, sheepish and disconcerted; and indeed the sun was entirely down and the dew almost falling, so that the mother called to the young ones to gather up their things and come home.

Such a collection! Bobus picked up a tin-case and basket full of flowers, interspersed with bottles of swimming insects. The trio and Armine shouldered their b.u.t.terfly-nets, and had a distribution of pill-boxes and bottles, in some of which were caterpillars intended to live, in others b.u.t.terflies dead (or dying, it may be feared) of laurel leaves. Babie had a mighty nosegay; Janet put up the sketch, which showed a good deal of power; and the whole troop moved up the slope to go home by the lanes.

"What collectors you are!" said Mr. Ogilvie.

"For the museum," answered Armine, eagerly.

"Haven't you seen our museum?" cried Barbara, who had taken his hand.

"Oh, it is such a beauty! We have got an Orobanche major, only it is not dry yet."

"I'm afraid Babie likes fine words," said her mother; "but our museum is a great amus.e.m.e.nt to us Londoners."

They all walked home together, talking merrily, and Mr. and Miss Ogilvie came in with them, on special entreaty, to share the supper--milk, fruit, bread and b.u.t.ter and cheese, and sandwiches, which was laid out on the round table in the octagon vestibule, which formed the lowest story of the tower. It was partaken of standing, or sitting at case on the window-seats, a form or two, an old carved chair, or on the stairs, the children ascending them after their meal, and after securing in their own fas.h.i.+on their treasures for the morrow. The two cousins had already bidden good-night at the gate and gone home, and the Ogilvies followed their example in ten minutes, Caroline begging Mary to come up to her as soon as Mr. Ogilvie was disposed of by school hours.

"But you will be busy?" said Mary.

"Never mind, I am afraid we are not very regular," said Carey.

It was by this time ten o'clock, and the two younger children were still to be heard shouting to one another up stairs about the leaves for their chrysalids. So when Mary came up the hill at half-past ten the next morning, she was the less surprised to find these two only just beginning breakfast, while their mother was sitting at the end of the table knitting, and hearing Janet repeat German poetry. The boys had long been in school.

Caroline jumped up and threw her arms round Mary's neck, declaring that now they would enjoy themselves. "We are very late," she added, "but these late walks make the little people sleep, and I think it is better for them than tossing about, hot and cross."

Mary was rather entertained at this new code, but said nothing, as Carey pointed out to the children how they were to occupy themselves under Janet's charge, and the work they had to do showed that for their age they had lost no time.

The drawing-room showed indeed a contrast to the chaotic state in which it had been left. It was wonderfully pleasant-looking. The windows of the deep bay were all open to the lawn, shaded with blinds projecting out into the garden, where the parrot sat perched on her pole; pleasant nooks were arranged in the two sides of the bay window, with light chairs and small writing-tables, each with its gla.s.s of flowers; the piano stood across the arc, shutting off these windows into almost a separate room; low book-cases, with chiffonier cupboards and marble tops, ran round the walls, surmounted with many artistic ornaments.

The central table was crowned with a tall gla.s.s of exquisitely-arranged gra.s.ses and wild flowers, and the choice and graceful nicknacks round it were such as might be traced to a London life in the artist world, and among grateful patients.

Brackets with vases and casts here and there projected from the walls, and some charming crayons and water-colours hung round them. The plastered walls had already been marked out in panels, and a growth of frescoes of bulrushes, ivy, and leaves of all kinds was beginning to overspread them, while on a nearer inspection the leaves proved to be fast becoming peopled with living portraits of b.u.t.terflies and other insects; indeed Mary started at finding herself in, as she thought, unpleasant proximity to a pair of c.o.c.kchafers.

"Ah! I tell the children that we shall be suspected of putting those creatures there as a trial to the old ladies' nerves," said Caroline, laughing.

"I confess they are startling to those who don't like creeping things!

Have you many old ladies, Carey?"

"Not very many. I fancy they don't take to me more than I take to them, so we are mutually satisfied."

"But is that a good thing?" said Mary anxiously.

"I don't know," said Carey, indifferently. "At least I do know," she added, "that I always used to be told I didn't try to make small talk, and I can do it less than ever now that it is the smallest of small, and my heart faints from it. Oh Mary!"

"My poor dear Caroline! But you say that you were told you ought to do it?"

"Well, yes. Dear granny wished it; but I think that was rather with a view to Joe's popularity, and we haven't any patients to think of now. I should think the less arrant gossip the children heard, the better."

"But is it well to let them despise everybody?"

"Then the less they see of them, the better!"

"For shame, Carey!"

"Well, Mary, I dare say I am naughty. I do feel naughtier now than ever I did in my life; but I can't help it! It just makes me mad to be worried or tied down," and she pushed back her hair so that her unfortunate cap was only withheld from tumbling entirely off by the pin that held it.

"Oh, that wretched cap!" she cried, jumping up, petulantly, and going to the gla.s.s to set it to rights, but with so hasty a hand that the pin became entangled in her hair, and it needed Mary's quiet hand to set it to rights; "it's just an emblem of all the rest of it; I wouldn't wear it another day, but that I'm afraid of Ellen and Robert, and it perfectly drives me wild. And I know Joe couldn't have borne to see me in it." At the Iris.h.i.+sm of which she burst out laughing, and laughed herself into the tears that had never come when they were expected of her.

Mary caressed and soothed her, and told her she could well guess it was sadder to her now than even at first.

"Well, it is," said Carey, looking up. "If one was sent out to sea in a boat, it wouldn't be near so bad as long as one could see the dear old sh.o.r.e still, as when one had got out--out into the wide open--with nothing at all."

And she stretched out her hands with a dreary, yearning gesture into the vacant s.p.a.ce, such as it went to her friend's heart to see.

"Ah! but there's a haven at the end."

"I suppose there is," said Carey; "but it's a long way off, and there's dying first, and when people want to begin about it, they get so conventional, and if there's one thing above another that I can't stand, it is being bored."

"My poor child!"

"There, don't be angry with me, because I'm telling you just what I am!"

Before any more could be said Janet opened the door, saying, "Mother, Emma wants to see you."

"Oh! I forgot," cried Carey, hurrying off, while Janet came forward to the guest in her grown-up way, and asked--

"Have you been to the Water-Colour Exhibition, Miss Ogilvie?"

"Yes; Mr. Acton took me one Sat.u.r.day afternoon."

"Oh! then he would be sure to show you Nita Ray's picture. I want so much to know how it strikes people."

And Janet had plunged into a regular conversation about exhibitions, pictures, artists, concerts, lectures, &c., before her mother came back, talking with all the eagerness of an exile about her native country. As a governess in her school-room, Miss Ogilvie had had little more than a key-hole view of all these things; but then what she had seen and heard had been chiefly through the Actons, and thus coincided with Janet's own side of the world, and they were in full discussion when Caroline came back.

"There, I've disposed of the butcher and baker!" she said. "Now we can be comfortable again."

Mary expected Janet to repair to her own lessons, or to listen to those scales which Babie might be heard from a distance playing; but she only appealed to her mother about some picture of last year, and sat down to her drawing, while the conversation on pictures and books continued in animated style. So far from sending her away, Mary fancied that Carey was rather glad to keep to surface matters, and to be prevented from another outbreak of feeling.

The next interruption was from the children, each armed with a pile of open books on the top of a slate. Carey begged Mary to wait, and went outside the window with them, sitting down under a tree whence the murmured sounds of repet.i.tion could be heard, lasting about twenty minutes between the two, and then she returned, the little ones jumping on each side of her, Armine begging that Miss Ogilvie would come and see the museum, and Barbara saying that Jock wanted to help to show it off.

"Well, run now and put your own corners tidy," suggested their mother.

"If Jock does not stay in the playground, he will come back in a quarter of an hour."

"And Mr. Ogilvie will come then. I invited him," said Babie.

At which Carey laughed incredulously; but Janet, observing that she must go and see that the children did not do more harm than good, walked off, and Mary said--

"I should not wonder if he did act on the invitation."