A Houseful of Girls Part 15

"Was he in trade?" inquired May, with some surprise. "I know he wrote _The Complete Angler_, and was a friend of Dr. Donne's and George Herbert's, and is very much thought of to this day."

"Deservedly," said Tom Robinson emphatically. "Yes, I am proud to say, he was a hosier to begin with, and a linen-draper to end with--well-to-do in both lines. They say his first wife, whom he married while he was still in business, was a niece of the Archbishop of Canterbury of the day, and his second wife, whom he married after he had retired to live on his earnings, was a half-sister of good Bishop Ken's; but I do not pretend to vouch for the truth of these statements. Now, about your father. I cannot do what you ask--I cannot in conscience.

Will you ever forgive me, 'little May'--that is what your father and mother and your sisters call you sometimes to this day, ain't it? and it is what I should have called you if I had been--your uncle say? Shall we be no longer friends?" he demanded ruefully.

"Of course we shall," said May, with a suspicion of petulance. "You are not bound to do what I bid you--I never thought that; and you are father and mother's friend--how could I help being your friend?"

"Don't try to help it," he charged her.

Tom Robinson went farther than not feeling bound to do what May begged of him, he was constrained to remonstrate in another quarter to prevent trouble and disappointment to all concerned. He screwed up his courage, and everybody knows he was a modest man, and called at the Old Doctor's House for the express purpose. He had called seldom during the past year--just often enough to keep up the form of visiting--to show that he was not the surly boor, without self-respect or consideration for the Millars, which he would have been if he had dropped all intercourse with the family because one of them had refused to marry him. But though he had begged for Dora's friends.h.i.+p when he could not have her love, and had meant what he said, the wound was too recent for him to act as if nothing had happened. In addition to the pain and self-consciousness, there was a traditional atmosphere of agitation and alarm, a kind of conventional awkwardness, together with an anxious countenance, and protection sedulously afforded by the initiated and interested spectators to Tom and Dora, which, like many other instances of countenance and protection, went far towards doing the mischief they were intended to prevent.

Tom saw through the punctilious feints and solemn stratagems clearly; Dora did the same as plainly. Indeed the two would have been idiots if they could have escaped from the discomfiting perception of the care which was taken of them and their feelings, and the fact that every eye was upon them.

The sole result was to render the couple more wretchedly uncomfortable than if they had been set aside and sentenced to the company of each other and of no one else for a bad five minutes every day of their lives.

Another unhappy consequence of their being thus elaborately spared and s.h.i.+elded was, that when by some unfortunate chance the tactics failed, the couple felt as flurried and guilty as if they had contrived the fruitless accident to serve their own nefarious ends.

Tom Robinson called on the Millars between four and five the day after May had made her raid upon him, expecting to find what was left of the family gathering together for afternoon tea. He had the ulterior design of drawing May's father and mother apart, and letting them judge for themselves the advisability of her going up at once to St. Ambrose's, before her whole heart and mind were disastrously set against her natural and honourable destiny. He was distinctly put out by finding Dora alone. As for Dora, she told a faltering tale of her father's having been called away to a poor patient who was a pensioner of her mother's, and of Mrs. Millar's having walked over to Stokeleigh with him to see what she could do for old Hannah Lightfoot; while May was spending the afternoon with the Hewetts at the Rectory.

He hesitated whether to go or stay under the circ.u.mstances, but he hated to beat an ignominious retreat, as if _he_ thought that _she_ thought he could not be beside her for a quarter of an hour without making an a.s.s of himself again and pestering her. Why should he not accept the cup of tea which she faintly offered from the hands that visibly trembled with nervousness? When he came to consider it, why should he not transact his business with Dora? She was as deeply interested as anybody, unless the culprit herself; she probably knew better what May was foolishly planning than either their father or mother did, and would convey to them the necessary information.

As for Dora, she was thinking in a restless fever, "I hope--I hope he does not see how much I mind being alone with him. It is just because I am not used to it. How I wish somebody would come in,--not mother, perhaps, for she would start and look put out herself, and sit down without so much as getting rid of her sunshade; and, oh dear, not May, for she would stare, and I do not know what on earth she would think--some wild absurdity, I dare say; anyhow, she would look exactly what she thought."

"Look here, Miss Dora," he said abruptly; "you don't think your sister May ought to renounce the object of her education hitherto, and your father's views for her, in order to do like Miss Phyllis Carey? You are aware that May has become enamoured of Phyllis Carey's example, and is bent on following in her footsteps; but it won't do, and I have told her so. I trust n.o.body suspects me of encouraging young ladies to become shop-women," he added, with a slightly foolish laugh, "as old actors used to be accused of decoying young men of rank and fas.h.i.+on into going on the stage, and recruiting sergeants of beguiling country b.u.mpkins into taking the king's s.h.i.+lling."

"Has May spoken to you about it?" cried Dora, startled out of her engrossing private reflections. "What a child she is! I am sorry she has troubled you; she ought not to have done that. I hope you will excuse her."

"Don't speak of it," he said a little stiffly, as he put down his cup and signified he would have no more tea.

"And you said no," remarked Dora, with an involuntary fall of her voice reflecting the sinking of her heart. "Of course you could not do otherwise. It was a foolish notion. I am afraid Phyllis Carey is enough of a nuisance to Miss Franklin--and other people. It is hard that you should be bothered by these girls. Only I suspect poor 'little May' will be most dreadfully, unreasonably disappointed;" and there was an attempt to smile and a quiver of the soft lips which she could not hide.

"I am not bothered, and I hate to disappoint your sister,--I trust you understand that," he said quickly and earnestly. "But it would be sacrificing her and overturning your father's arrangements for her--disappointing what I am sure are among his dearest wishes."

She did not ask, like May, why he did not count himself sacrificed. She only said shyly and wistfully, "I knew it was out of the question, but if it had not been so, or if there had been any other way, it would have been such a boon to poor May not to be torn from home." At the harrowing picture thus conjured up her voice fairly shook, and the tears started into her dovelike eyes.

"Home," he said impatiently, "is not everything; at least, not the home from which every boy must go, as a matter of course. 'Torn from home' in order to go to school! Surely the first part of the sentence is tall language."

"It is neither too tall nor too strong where May is concerned," said Dora, rousing herself to plead May's cause. "She has not been away from home and from father--especially from mother, and one or other of the rest of us, for longer than a week since she was born."

"Then the sooner she begins the better for her," he said brutally, as it sounded to himself, to the loving, shrinking girl he was addressing.

"She has always been the little one, the pet," urged Dora; "she will not know what to do without some of us to take care of her and be good to her."

"But she must go away some day," he continued his remonstrance. "How old is your sister?"

"She was seventeen last Christmas," Dora answered shamefacedly.

"Why, many a woman is married before she is May's age," he protested.

"Many a woman has left her native country, gone among strangers, and had to maintain her independence and dignity unaided, by the time she was seventeen. Queen Charlotte was not more than sixteen when she landed in England and married George the Third."

Dora could not help laughing, as he meant her to do. "May and Queen Charlotte! they are as far removed as fire and water. But," she answered meekly, "I know the Princess Royal was no older when she went to Berlin; and poor Marie Antoinette was a great deal younger, as May would have reminded me if she had been here, in the old days when she travelled from Vienna to Paris. But there--it is all so different. They were princesses from whom a great deal is expected, and the Princess Royal was the eldest instead of the youngest of the Queen's children."

"Does seniority make so great a difference?" he said, with an inflection of his voice which she noticed, though he hastened to make her forget it by speaking again gravely the next minute. "Should May not learn to stand alone? Would it not be dwarfing and cramping her, all her life probably, to give way to her now. Can it ever be too early to acquire self-reliance, and is it not one of the most necessary lessons for a responsible human being to learn? Besides, '_ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_.' It is only the first wrench which will hurt her. She will find plenty of fresh interests and congenial occupations at St.

Ambrose's. In a week, a fortnight, she will not miss you too much."

Dora shook her head incredulously. It was little he knew of May, with her fond family attachments, and her helplessness when left to herself in common things.

"Follow my advice, Miss Dora," he said, rising to take his leave, "don't aid and abet Miss May in seeking to s.h.i.+rk her obligations.

Unquestionably the one nearest to her at present is that she should go to St. Ambrose's. Don't prevent her from beginning to think and act for herself--not like a charming child, but in the light of her dawning womanhood."

He gave a swift glance round him as he spoke, and a recollection which had been in the background of both their thoughts during the whole of the interview, flashed into the foreground. It was of that day a year ago, a breezy spring day like this, when, as it seemed, there were the same jonquils in the jar on the chimney-piece, and the same cherry-blossom seen through the window against the blue sky, and he had asked her with his heart on his lips, and the happiness of his life at stake, to be his wife, and she had told him, with agitation and distress almost equal to his, that he could never be anything to her. He caught her half-averted eyes, and felt the whole scene was present with her as with him once more, and the consciousness brought back all his old shyness and reserve, and hurried his leave-taking. The slightest touch to her hand, and he had bowed himself out and was gone.

"How silly he must think me," Dora reflected, walking up and down the empty room in perturbation, "both about poor 'little May,' and about remembering the last time we were alone together. I dare say he is right about May, though men never do understand what girls feel. If she should fall ill, and break her heart, and die of home-sickness--such things have happened before now--I wonder what he would say then about her learning to stand alone? Very likely he would a.s.sert that St.

Ambrose's is not St. Petersburg, or even Shetland or the Scilly Isles.

It is not far away, and if she were not well or happy, she could come back in half a day, as the other girls could come down from London. But then he would despise her, for as quiet and good-natured as he is, and though people have said that he himself had no proper pride in consenting to have a shop. And I don't think May could bear contempt from anybody whom she had ever looked on as a friend. Men are hard--the best of them are, and they don't understand. He is kind--I am sure he means it all in kindness; but he is not yielding; he is as masterful as when he dragged the dogs to the edge of the bank and let them drop into the Dewes for their good. He will never be turned from what he thinks right. I wish he had not guessed what I could not help remembering--he was quick enough in doing that; and I could not tell him that I did not imagine for a moment--I was not so foolish--that he was under the same delusion he suffered from twelve months ago. If he had been oftener here in the interval, and we had met and been together naturally as we used to be, sometimes, I should have forgotten all about it, and so would he, no doubt. But how could I help thinking of it when there has always been such a point made of mother or some one else being present when he called? I am certain it is quite unnecessary and a great mistake. He will not speak to me again as he spoke that day. There is no danger of his running away with me," Dora told herself with an unsteady laugh. "I hope he is not under the impression that I did not think and act for myself when I was forced to do it. Because, although they all knew about it, and of course Annie and the others teased me about 'Robinson's,' and the colour of his hair, and his size, father and mother told me to decide for myself, and I did not hesitate for a moment. I could no more have borne to leave them all of my own free will than May could. Surely it was proof positive I did not like him in that way," Dora represented to herself with the greatest emphasis.

Tom Robinson was marching home with his hands in his pockets and his hat drawn over his eyes. "How hard she must think me--little short of a pragmatical, supercilious brute--not to do my best to keep 'little May'

at home, where the child wants to be. I asked her to let me call myself her friend, and this is the first specimen of my friends.h.i.+p! she will take precious good care not to ask for another. She will be horribly dull left by herself without one girl companion, only the old people.

These sisters were so happy together--I liked to see them, perhaps all the more because I had neither brothers nor sisters of my own--I thought it was an a.s.surance of what they might be in other relations of life. I suppose she will tackle that little spitfire of a dog which I inflicted on them. May will lay her parting injunctions on Dora to plague herself perpetually with the monster, and these will be like dying words to Dora, she will sooner die herself than intermit a single hara.s.sing attention. And it will be impossible for her to avoid many deprivations.

There are more partings to be faced in the future. Millar is an old man, even if he could hope to pay up the bank's calls and make some provision for his widow and daughters. It was a pity poor Dora could not care for me, when there need have been no partings where we two were concerned, save that material separation of death which is quoted in the marriage service. She would not have believed, nor I either, that it could touch the spiritual side of the question and the love which is worth having, that is G.o.d-like and belongs to immortality. I might have done what I could if Dora had married me, so far as the other girls would have let me, to serve as a buffer between the family and the adversity which I am afraid not all their high spirit and gallant fight will hold entirely at bay. It was not to be, and there is an end on't. I wonder where I found the heart, and the cheek too for that matter, to bully Dora about May, though, Heaven knows, I spoke no more than the truth. Well, she has her revenge, and I am punished for it. It cut me up at the time to hurt her, and the recollection of having contradicted and pained so sweet and gentle a creature is very much as if I had dealt a lamb a blow or wrung a pigeon's neck--on principle."

Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Millar bustled into her drawing-room with an expression of mingled annoyance and excited expectation on her still comely face.

"My dear Dora, I am so sorry; he gave his name to Jane, and she has told me who has been calling in my absence. I wish I had not left you by yourself. But who was to guess that Tom Robinson would call this afternoon? It must have been exceedingly disagreeable for you."

"I don't know," said Dora, vaguely and desperately; "we must meet sometimes when there is n.o.body by, if we continue to live in the same town. I wish you would not mind it for me, mother, and keep on trying to avoid such accidents, for I really think it makes them worse when they do happen."

"Very well, my dear, you know your own feelings best," said Mrs. Millar, a little puzzled. In her day it was reckoned no more than what was due to maidenly delicacy and social propriety to preserve a respectful distance between a rejected man and his rejector. As if the gentleman might, as Dora had said, carry off the lady by force, or shoot her or himself with the pistol hidden in his breast!

CHAPTER XVI.

ROSE'S FOLLY AND ANNIE'S WISDOM.

Annie Millar not only warmed to her work in St. Ebbe's, she recovered her full glow of health and spirits. She not only liked her nursing, she enjoyed her holiday hours intensely with the peculiarly keen enjoyment of busy women doing excellent service in the world. If any one wishes to know what such enjoyment is like let him have recourse to a great authority. "_In the few hours of holiday that--only now and then--they (a nursing sisterhood) allow themselves, they show none of the weariness that sometimes follows the industry of toiling after self-amus.e.m.e.nt.

Reaction, after great strain on the powers of self-sacrifice and endurance that they have to exert, may be thought to account in some part for the happy result; but, whatever the cause, their society has in it all that can best and most surely attract--grace, freshness, and natural charm._"[1]

[Footnote 1: Kinglake in his _History of the Crimean War_, vol. vi. p. 436.]

Rose felt as if she had never sufficiently appreciated Annie before. She was very proud of her sister now when she came to Welby Square, and everybody, whether in Mrs. Jennings's set or in Hester's, was struck with Annie's beauty and brightness.

Even Hester Jennings saw nothing to find fault with on the ornamental side of a girl who had gone in so heartily for the serious business of life, nine-tenths of whose hours were occupied with grave tasks, to which Hester owned honestly that she with all her public spirit was not equal.

Annie's face was not only the most unclouded, her laugh the merriest of all the faces and laughs which appeared and were heard in Welby Square.

She became almost as much of a peacemaker, a smoother-down of rough interludes, an allayer of irritating ebullitions, as Dora was wont to be at home.

"Annie is so much improved," Rose wrote to May, "I never saw her looking prettier. She is just splendid when she comes out of St. Ebbe's for an afternoon and evening. Everybody is delighted to see her, and wants to have her for his or her particular friend. She and I have such jolly walks and talks; she hardly ever calls me back or puts me down now."