Heriot's Choice Part 11

'Roy is seventeen, Aunt Milly; as he says, he is no child, and he draws such beautiful pictures. I have told him all about Dad Fabian, and he wants to have him here, and ask his advice about things. Dad could look after Roy when he goes to London. Roy and I have arranged everything.'

'My dear Polly,' began Mildred, in a reproving tone; but her remonstrance was cut short, for at that instant loud sobs were distinctly audible from the farthest room, where the girls slept.

Mildred rose at once, and softly opened the door; at the same moment there was a quick step on the stairs, and Richard's low, admonis.h.i.+ng voice reached her ear; but as the loud sobbing sounds still continued, Mildred followed him in unperceived.

'Hush, Chrissy. What is all this about? You are disturbing my father; but, as usual, you only think of yourself.'

'Please don't speak to her like that, Cardie,' pleaded Olive. 'She is not naughty; she has only woke up in a fright; she has been dreaming, I think.'

'Dreaming!--I should think so, with that light full in her eyes, those sickening German books as usual,' with a glance of disgust at the little round table, strewn with books and work, from which Olive had evidently that moment risen. 'There, hush, Chrissy, like a good girl, and don't let us have any more of this noise.'

'No, I can't. Oh, Cardie, I want mamma--I want mamma!' cried poor Chrissy, rolling on her pillow in childish abandonment of sorrow, but making heroic efforts to stifle her sobs. 'Oh, mamma--mamma--mamma!'

'Hus.h.!.+--lie silent. Do you think you are the only one who wants her?'

returned Richard, sternly; but the hand that held the bedpost shook visibly, and he turned very pale as he spoke. 'We must bear what we have to bear, Chrissy.'

'But I won't bear it,' returned the spoilt child. 'I can't bear it, Cardie; you are all so unkind to me. I want to kiss her, and put my arms round her, as I dreamt I was doing. I don't love G.o.d for taking her away, when she didn't want to go; I know she didn't.'

'Oh, hush, Chriss--don't be wicked!' gasped out Olive, with the tears in her eyes; but, as though the child's words had stung him beyond endurance, Richard turned on her angrily.

'What is the good of reasoning with a child in this state? can't you find something better to say? You are of no use at all, Olive. I don't believe you feel the trouble as much as we do.'

'Yes, she does. You must not speak so to your sister, Richard. Hush, my dear--hush;' and Mildred stooped with sorrowful motherly face over the pillow, where Chrissy, now really hysterical, was stuffing a portion of the sheet in her mouth to resist an almost frantic desire to scream. 'Go to my room, Olive, and you will find a little bottle of sal-volatile on my table. The child has been over-tired. I noticed she looked pale at supper.' And as Olive brought it to her with shaking hand and pallid face, Mildred quietly measured the drops, and, beckoning to Richard to a.s.sist her, administered the stimulating draught to the exhausted child.

Chrissy tried to push it away, but Mildred's firm, 'You must drink it, my dear,' overcame her resistance, though her painful choking made swallowing difficult.

'Now we will try some nice fresh water to this hot face and these feverish hands,' continued Mildred, in a brisk, cheerful tone; and Chrissy ceased her miserable sobbing in astonishment at the novel treatment. Every one but Dr. Heriot had scolded her for these fits, and in consequence she had used an unwholesome degree of restraint for a child: an unusually severe breakdown had been the result.

'Give me a brush, Olive, to get rid of some of this tangle. I think we look a little more comfortable now, Richard. Let me turn your pillow, dear--there, now;' and Mildred tenderly rested the child's heavy head against her shoulder, stroking the rough yellowish mane very softly.

Chrissy's sobs were perceptibly lessening now, though she still gasped out 'mamma' at intervals.

'She is better now,' whispered Mildred, who saw Richard still near them.

'Had you not better go downstairs, or your father will wonder?'

'Yes, I will go,' he returned; yet he still lingered, as though some visitings of compunction for his hardness troubled him. 'Good-night, Chrissy;' but Chrissy, whose cheek rested comfortably against her aunt's shoulder, took no notice. Possibly want of sympathy had estranged the little sore heart.

'Kiss your brother, my dear, and bid him good-night. All this has given him pain.' And as Chrissy still hesitated, Richard, with more feeling than he had hitherto shown, bent over them, and kissed them both, and then paused by the little round table.

'I am very sorry I said that, Livy.'

'There was no harm in saying it, if you thought it, Cardie. I am only grieved at that.'

'I ought not to have said it, all the same; but it is enough to drive one frantic to see how different everything is.' Then, in a whisper, and looking at Mildred, 'Aunt Milly has given us all a lesson; me, as well as you. You must try to be like her, Livy.'

'I will try;' but the tone was hopeless.

'You must begin by plucking up a little spirit, then. Well, good-night.'

'Good-night, Cardie,' was the listless answer, as she suffered him to kiss her cheek. 'It was only Olive's ordinary want of demonstration,'

Richard thought, as he turned away, a little relieved by his voluntary confession; 'only one of her cold, tiresome ways.'

Only one of her ways!

Long after Chrissy had fallen into a refres.h.i.+ng sleep, and Mildred had crept softly away to sleepy, wondering Polly, Olive sat at the little round table with her face buried in her arms, both hid in the loosely-dropping hair.

'I could have borne him to have said anything else but this,' she moaned. 'Not feel as they do, not miss her as much, my dear, beautiful mother, who never scolded me, who believed in me always, even when I disappointed her most;--oh, Cardie, Cardie, how could you have found it in your heart to say that!'

CHAPTER VI

CAIN AND ABEL

'There was a little stubborn dame Whom no authority could tame; Restive by long indulgence grown, No will she minded but her own.'--Wilkie.

Chrissy was sufficiently unwell the next day to make her aunt's petting a wholesome remedy. In moments of languor and depression even a whimsical and erratic nature will submit to a winning power of gentleness, and Chriss's flighty little soul was no exception to the rule: the petting, being a novelty, pleased and amused her, while it evidently astonished the others. Olive was too timid and awkward, and Richard too quietly matter-of-fact, to deal largely in caresses, while Roy's demonstrations somehow never included Contradiction Chriss.

Chriss unfortunately belonged to the awkward squad, whose manoeuvres were generally held to interfere with every one else. People gave her a wide berth; she trod on their moral corns and offended their tenderest prejudices; she was growing up thin-lipped and sharp-tongued, and there was a spice of venom in her words that was not altogether childlike.

'My poor little girl,' thought Mildred, as she sat beside her working; 'it is very evident that the weeds are growing up fast for lack of attention. Some flowers will only grow in the suns.h.i.+ne; no child's nature, however sweet, will thrive in an atmosphere of misunderstanding and constant fault-finding.'

Chrissy liked lying in that cool room, arranging Aunt Milly's work-box, or watching her long white fingers as they moved so swiftly. Without wearying the overtasked child, Mildred kept up a strain of pleasant conversation that stimulated curiosity and raised interest. She had even leisure and self-denial enough to lay aside a half-crossed darn to read a story when Chriss's nerves seemed jarring into fretfulness again, and was rather pleased than otherwise when, at a critical moment, long-drawn breaths warned her that she had fallen into a sound sleep.

Mildred sat and pondered over a hundred new plans, while tired Chriss lay with the sweet air blowing on her and the bees humming underneath the window. Now and then she stole a glance at the little figure, rec.u.mbent under the heartsease quilt. 'She would be almost pretty if those sharp lines were softened and that tawny tangle of hair arranged properly; she has nice long eyelashes and a tolerably fair skin, though it would be the better for soap and water,' thought motherly Mildred, with the laudable anxiety of one determined to make the best of everything, though a secret feeling still troubled her that Chrissy would be the least attractive to her of the four.

Chrissy's sleep lengthened into hours; that kindly foster-nurse Nature often taking restorative remedies of forcible narcotics into her own hands. She woke hungry and talkative, and after partaking of the tempting meal her aunt had provided, submitted with tolerable docility when Mildred announced her intention of making war with the tangles.

'It hurts dreadfully. I often wish I were bald--don't you, Aunt Milly?'

asked Chrissy, wincing in spite of her bravery.

'In that case you will not mind if I thin some of this s.h.a.gginess,'

laughed Mildred, at the same time arming herself with a formidable pair of shears. 'I wonder you are not afraid of Absalom's fate when you go bird-nesting.'

'I wish you would cut it all off, like Polly's,' pleaded Chriss, her eyes sparkling at the notion. 'It makes my head so hot, and it is such a trouble. It would be worth anything to see Cardie's face when I go downstairs, looking like a clipped sheep; he would not speak to me for a week. Do please, Aunt Milly.'

'My dear, do you think that such a desirable result?'

'What, making Cardie angry? I like to do it of all things. He never gets into a rage like Roy--when you have worked him up properly--but his mouth closes as though his lips were iron, as though it would never open again; and when he does speak, which is not for a very long time, his words seem to clip as sharp as your scissors--"Christine, I am ashamed of you!"'

'Those were the very words I wanted to use myself.'

'What?' and Chrissy screwed herself round in astonishment to look in her aunt's grave face. 'I am quite serious, I a.s.sure you, Aunt Milly. I sha'n't mind if I look like a singed pony, or a convict; Rex is sure to call me both. Shall I fetch a pudding-basin and have it done--as Mrs.

Stokes always does little Jem's?'

'Hush, Chrissy; this is pure childish nonsense. There! I've trimmed the refractory locks: you look a tidy little girl now. You have really very pretty hair, if you would only keep it in order,' continued Mildred, trying artfully to rouse a spark of womanly vanity; but Chriss only pouted.

'I would rather be like the singed pony.'