Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 62

"One who never looks down on anybody," said Babie, thoughtfully.

"What nonsense!" rejoined the Elf; "as if any lady could like to hear grandpapa maunder, and Mary scold and scream at the farm people, just like the old peahen."

"Miss Ogilvie said poor Mary was overstrained with having more to attend to than she could properly manage, and that made her shrill."

"I know it makes her very disagreeable; and so they all are. I hate the place, and I don't see why I should go," grumbled Elvira.

"You will when you are older, and know what proper feeling is," said Miss Ogilvie, who had come within earshot of the last words. "Go and put on your hat; I have ordered the pony carriage."

"Shall I go, Miss Ogilvie?" asked Babie, as Elfie marched off sullenly, since her governess never allowed herself to be disobeyed.

"I think I had better go, my dear; Elfie may be under more restraint with me."

"Please give old Mr. Gould and Mary and Kate my love, and I will run and ask for some fruit for you to take to them," said Babie, her tender heart longing to make compensation.

Miss Ogilvie and her pouting companion were received by a fas.h.i.+onable--nay, extra fas.h.i.+onable--looking person, whom Mary and Kate Gould called Cousin Lisette, and the old farmer, Eliza Gould. While the old man in his chair in the sun in the hot little parlour caressed, and asked feeble repet.i.tions of questions of his impatient granddaughter, the lady explained that she had thrown up an excellent situation as instructress in a very high family to act in the same capacity to her motherless little cousins. She professed to be enchanted to meet Miss Ogilvie, and almost patronised.

"I know what the life is, Miss Ogilvie, and how one needs companions.h.i.+p to keep up one's spirits. Whenever you are left alone, and would drop me a line, I should be quite delighted to come and enliven you; or whenever you would like to come over here, there's no interruption by uncle; and he, poor old gentleman, is quite--quite pa.s.se. The children I can always dismiss. Regularity is my motto, of course, but I consider that an exception in favour of my own friends does no harm, and indeed it is no more than I have a right to expect, considering the sacrifices that I have made for them. Mary, child, don't cross your ankles; you don't see your cousin do that. Kate, you go and see what makes Betsy so long in bringing the tea. I rang long ago."

"I will go and fetch it," said Mary, an honest, but hara.s.sed-looking girl.

"Always in haste," said Miss Gould, with an effort at good humour, which Miss Ogilvie direfully mistrusted. "No, Mary, you must remain to entertain your cousin. What are servants for but to wait on us? She thinks nothing can be done without her, Miss Ogilvie, and I am forced to act repression sometimes."

"Indeed we do not wish for any tea," said Miss Ogilvie, seeing Elvira look as black as thunder; "we have only just dined."

"But Elfie will have some sweet-cake; Elfie likes auntie's sweet-cake, eh?" said the old man.

"No, thank you," said Elfie, glumly, though in fact she did care considerably for sweets, and was always buying bonbons.

"No cake! Or some strawberries--strawberries and cream," said her grandfather. "Mr. Allen always liked them. And where is Mr. Allen now, my dear?"

"Gone to Norway. It's the fifth time I've told him so," muttered Elvira.

"And where is Mr. Robert? And Mr. Lucas?" he went on. "Fine young gentlemen all of them; but Mr. Allen is the pleasant-spoken one. Ain't he coming down soon? He always looks in and says, 'I don't forget your good cider, Mr. Gould,'" and there was a feeble chuckling laugh and old man's cough.

"Do let me go into the garden; I'm quite faint," cried Elvira, jumping up.

It was true that the room was very close, rather medicinal, and not improved by Miss Gould's perfumes; but there was an alacrity about Elfie's movements, and a vehemence in the manner of her rejection of the said essences, which made her governess not think her case alarming, and she left her to the care of the young cousins, while trying to make up for her incivility by courteously listening to and answering her grandfather, and consuming the tea and sweet-cake.

When she went out to fetch her pupil to say goodbye, Miss Gould detained her on the way to obtain condolence on the "dreadful trial that old uncle was," and speak of her own great devotion to him and the children, and the sacrifices she had made. She said she had been at school with Elvira's poor mamma, "a sweetly pretty girl, poor dear, but so indulged."

And then she tried to extract confidences as to Mrs. Brownlow's intentions towards the child, in which of course she was baffled.

Elvira was found ranging among the strawberries, with Mary and Kate looking on somewhat dissatisfied.

Both the poor girls looked constrained and unhappy, and Miss Ogilvie wondered whether "Cousin Lisette's" evident intentions of becoming a fixture would be for their good or the reverse.

"Are you better, my dear?" asked she, affectionately.

"Yes, it was only the room," said Elvira.

"You are a good deal there, are not you?" said Miss Ogilvie to Mary, who had the white flabby look of being kept in an unwholesome atmosphere.

"Yes," said Mary, wistfully, "but grandpapa does not like having me half so much as Elvira. He is always talking about her."

"You had better come back to him now, Elfie," said Miss Ogilvie.

"It makes me ill," said Elvira, with her crossest look.

Her governess laid her hand on her shoulder, and told her in a few decided words, in the lowest possible voice, that she was not going away till she had taken a properly respectful and affectionate leave of her grandfather. Whereupon she knew further resistance was of no use, and going hastily to the door of the room, called out--

"Good-bye, then, grandpapa."

"Ah! my little beauty, are you there?" he asked, in a tone of bewildered pleasure, holding out the one hand he could use.

Elvira was forced to let herself be held by it. She hoped to kiss his brow, and escape; but the poor knotted fingers which had once been so strong, would not let her go, and she had to endure many more kisses and caresses and blessings than her proud thoughtless nature could endure before she made her escape. And then "Cousin Lisette" insisted on a kiss for the sake of her dear mamma; and Elfie could only exhale her exasperation by rus.h.i.+ng to the pony-carriage, avoiding all kisses to her young cousins, taking the driving seat, and whipping up the ponies more than their tender-hearted mistress would by any means have approved.

Miss Ogilvie abstained from either blame or argument, knowing that it would only make her worse; and recollecting the old Undine theory, wondered whether the Elf would ever find her soul, and think with tender regret of the affection she was spurning.

The next day the travellers started, sleeping a couple of nights in Hyde Corner, for convenience of purchases and preparations.

They were to meet Mrs. Evelyn at the station; but Janet, who foretold that she would be another Serene Highness, soured by having missed the family t.i.tle, r.e.t.a.r.ded their start till so late that there could be no introduction on the platform; but seats had to be rushed for, while a servant took the tickets.

However, a tall, elderly, military-looking gentleman with a great white moustache, was standing by the open door of a carriage.

"Miss Brownlow," said he, handing them in--Babie first, next Janet, and then Elvira.

He then bowed to Miss Ogilvie, took his seat, handed in the appurtenances, received, showed, and pocketed the tickets, negotiated Janet's purchase of newspapers, and const.i.tuted himself altogether cavalier to the party.

Sir James Evelyn! Janet had no turn for soldiers, and was not gratified; but Elvira saw that her blue eyes and golden hair were producing the effect she knew how to trace; so she was graciously pleased to accept Punch, and to smile a bewitching acceptance of the seat a.s.signed to her opposite to the old general.

Barbara was opposite to Mrs. Evelyn, and next to Sydney, a girl a few months older than herself, but considerably taller and larger. Mother and daughter were a good deal alike, save that the girl was fresh plump, and rosy, and the mother worn, with the red colouring burnt as it were into her thin cheeks. Yet both looked as if smiles were no strangers to their lips, though there were lines of anxiety and sorrow traced round Mrs. Evelyn's temples. Their voices were sweet and full, and the elder lady spoke with a tender intonation that inspired Babie with trustful content and affection, but caused Janet to pa.s.s a mental verdict of "Sugared milk and water."

She immersed herself in her Pall Mall, and left Babie to exchange sc.r.a.ps of intelligence from the brother's letters, and compare notes on the journey.

By-and-by Mrs. Evelyn retired into her book, and the two little girls put their heads together over a newly-arrived acrostic, calling on Elfie to a.s.sist them.

"Do you like acrostics?" she said, peeping up through her long eyelashes at the old general.

"Oh, don't tease Uncle James," hastily interposed Sydney, as yet inexperienced in the difference between the importunities of a merely nice-looking niece, and the blandishments of a brilliant stranger. Sir James said kindly--

"What, my dear?"

And when Elvira replied--

"Do help us to guess this. What does man love most below?" he put on a droll face, and answered--

"His pipe."