That Stick
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> That Stick
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At this Herbert writhed and remonstrated, but his uncle was inexorable.
'The fellows will be at me,' he said, as he gave Stanhope's name.
'You will see no more of Stanhope after this week. I have arranged to
send you to a tutor in Hertfordshire, who I hope will make you work, and
where, I trust, you will find companions who will give you a better idea
of what becomes a gentleman.'
In point of fact, this had been arranged for some time past, though by
the desire of Herbert's present tutor it had not been made known to the
young people, so that, coming thus, there was a sound of punishment in it
to Herbert.
The interview ended there. The annoyance, enhanced in his mind by having
come on a Sunday, brought on another attack of headache; but late in the
evening he sent for Herbert, who always had to go very early on the
Monday. It was to ask him whether he would not prefer the payment being
made to Stanhope and the other pupil after he had left them. Herbert's
scowl passed off. It was a great relief. He said they were prepared to
wait till he had his allowance, and the act of consideration softened
him, as did also the manifest look of suffering and illness, as his uncle
lay on the couch, hardly able to speak, and yet exerting himself thus to
spare the lad.
'Thank you, sir,' actually Herbert said, and then, with a gulp, 'I am
sorry about that bird--I wish I'd never told them, but it was Stanhope
who drove me to it, not believing.'
'I thought it was not your better mind,' said his uncle, holding out his
hand. 'I should like you to make me a promise, Herbert, not to make a
bet while I am away. I should go with an easier mind.'
'I will, uncle,' said Herbert, heartily reflecting, perhaps, it must be
owned, on the fewer opportunities in that line at Westhaven, except at
the regatta, but really resolving, as the only salve to his conscience.
And there was that in his face and the clasp of his hand that gave his
uncle a sense of comfort and hope.
CHAPTER XVII
ON THE SURFACE
Lady Adela, though small and pale, was one of the healthy women who seem
unable to believe in any ailments short of a raging fever; and when she
heard of neuralgia, decided that it was all a matter of imagination, and
a sort of excuse for breaking off the numerous occupations in which she
felt his value, but only as she would have acknowledged that of a good
schoolmaster. Their friendly intercourse had never ripened into
intimacy, and was still punctiliously courteous; each tacitly dreaded the
influence of the other on the Vicar-in-Church matters, and every visit of
the Westhaven family confirmed Lady Adela's belief that it was
undesirable to go below the surface.
Bertha, who came down for a day or two to assist at the breaking-up
demonstration of the High School at Colbeam, was as ever much more
cordial. The chief drawbacks with her were that cynical tone, which made
it always doubtful whether she were making game of her hearers, and the
philanthropy, not greatly tinged with religion, so as to confuse
old-fashioned minds. She used to bring down strange accounts of her
startling adventures in the slums, and relate them in a rattling style,
interluded with slang, being evidently delighted to shock and puzzle her
hearers; but still she was always good-natured in deed if not in word,
and Lord Northmoor was very grateful for her offer of hospitality to
Herbert, who was coming to London for his preliminary examination.
She had come up to call, determined to be of use to them, and she had
experience enough of travelling to be very helpful. Finding that they
shuddered at the notion of fashionable German '_baden_,' she exclaimed--
'I'll hit you off! There's that place in the Austrian Tyrol that Lettice
Bury frequents--a regular primitive place with a name--Oh, what is it,
Addie, like rats and mice?'
'Ratzes,' said Adela.
'Yes. The tourists have not molested it yet, and only natives bathe
there, so she goes every year to renovate herself and sketch, and comes
back furbished up like an old snake, with lots of drawings of impossible
peaks, like Titian's backgrounds. We'll write and tell her to make ready
for the head of her house!'
'Oh, but--' began Frank, looking to his wife.
'Would it not be intruding?' said Mary.
'She will be enchanted! She always likes to have anything to do for
anybody, and she says the scenery is just a marvel. You care for that!
You are so deliciously fresh, beauties aren't a bore to you.'
'We are glad of the excuse,' said Frank gravely.
'You look ill enough to be an excuse for anything, and Mary too! How
about a maid? Is Harte going?'
'No,' said Mary; 'she says that foreign food made her so ill once before
that she cannot attempt going again. I meant to do without.'
'That would never do!' cried Bertha. 'You have quite enough on your
hands with Northmoor, and the luggage and the languages.'
'Is not an English maid apt to be another trouble?' said Mary. 'I do not
suppose my French is good, but I have had to talk it constantly; and I
know some German, if that will serve in the Tyrol.'
'I'll reconcile it to your consciences,' said Bertha triumphantly. 'It
will be a real charity. There's a bonny little Swiss girl whom some
reckless people brought home and then turned adrift. It will be a real
kindness to help her home, and you shall pick her up when you come up to
me on your way, and see my child! Oh, didn't I tell you? We had a
housemaid once who was demented enough to marry a scamp of a stoker on
one of the Thames steamers. He deserted her, and I found her living, or
rather dying, in an awful place at Rotherhithe, surrounded by tipsy
women, raging in opposite corners. I got her into a decent room, but too
late to save her life--and a good thing too; so I solaced her last
moments with a promise to look after her child, such a jolly little
mortal, in spite of her name--Boadicea Ethelind Davidina Jones. She is
two years old, and quite delicious--the darling of all the house!'
'I hope you will have no trouble with the father,' said Frank.
'I trust he has gone to his own locker, or, if not, he is only too glad
to be rid of her. I can tackle him,' said Bertha confidently. 'The
child is really a little duck!'
She spoke as if the little one filled an empty space in her heart; and,
even though there might be trouble in store, it was impossible not to be
glad of her present gladness, and her invitation was willingly accepted.
Moreover, her recommendations were generally trustworthy, and Mary only
hesitated because, she said--
'I thought, if I could do without a maid, we might take Constance. She
is doing so very well, and likely to pass so well in her examinations,
that it would be very nice to give her this pleasure.'
'Good little girl! So it would. I should like nothing better; but I am
afraid that if you took her without a maid, Emma would misunderstand it,
and say you wanted to save the expense.'
'Would it make much difference?'
'Not more than we could bear now that we are in for it, but I fear it
would excite jealousies.'
'Is that worse than leaving the poor child to Westhaven society all the
holidays?'
'Perhaps not; and Conny is old enough now to be more injured by it than
when she was younger.'
'You know I have always hoped to make her like a child of our own when
her school education is finished.'
Frank smiled, for he was likewise very fond of little Constance.
There was a public distribution of prizes, at which all the grandees of
the neighbourhood were expected to assist, and it was some consolation to
the Northmoors, for the dowager duchess being absent, that the pleasure
of taking the prize from her uncle would be all the greater--if--
The whole party went--Lady Adela, Miss Morton, and all--and were
installed in chairs of state on the platform, with the bright array of
books before them--the head-mistress telling Lady Northmoor beforehand
that her niece would have her full share of honours. No one could be a
better or more diligent girl.
It quite nerved Lord Northmoor when he looked forth upon the sea of
waving tresses of all shades of brown, while his wife watched in
nervousness, both as to how he would acquit himself and how the exertion
would affect him; and Bertha, as usual, was anxious for the credit of the
name.
He did what was needed. Nobody wanted anything but the sensible
commonplace, kindly spoken, about the advantages of good opportunities,
the conscientiousness of doing one's best. And after all, the
inferiority of mere attainments in themselves to the discipline and
dutifulness of responding to training,--it was slowly but not
stammeringly spoken, and Bertha did not feel critical or ashamed, but
squeezed Mary's hand, and said, 'Just the right thing.'
One by one the girls were summoned for their prizes, the little ones
first. Lord Northmoor had not the gift of inventing a pretty speech for
each, he could do no more than smile as he presented the book, and read
its name; but the smile was a very decided one when, in the class next to
the highest, three out of the seven prizes were awarded to Constance
Elizabeth Morton, and it might be a question which had the redder cheeks,
the uncle or the niece, as he handed them to her. It was one of the few
happinesses that he had derived from his brother's family!
After such achievements on Constance's part, it was impossible to
withhold--as they drove back to Northmoor--the proposal to take her with
them, and the effect was magical. Constance opened her eyes, bounded up,
as if she were going to fly out of the carriage, and then launched
herself, first on her uncle, then on her aunt, for an ecstatic kiss.
'Take care, take care, we shall have the servants thinking you a little
lunatic!'
'I am almost! Oh, I am so glad! To be with you and Aunt Mary all the
holidays! That would be enough! But to go and see all the places,' she
added, somehow perceiving that the desire to escape from home was, at
least ought not to be approved of, and yet there was some exultation,
when she hazarded a supposition that there was no time to go home.
CHAPTER XVIII
DESDICHADO
Home--that is to say, Westhaven--was in some commotion when Herbert came
back and grimly growled out his intelligence as to his own personal
affairs. Mrs. Morton had been already apprized, in one of Lord
Northmoor's well-considered letters, of his intentions of removing his
nephew to a tutor more calculated to prepare for the army, and she had
accepted this as promotion such as was his due. However, when the pride
of her heart, the tall gentlemanly son, made his appearance in a savage
mood, her feelings were all on the other side, and those of Ida
exaggerated hers.
'So I'm to go to some disgusting hole where they grind the fellows no
end,' was Herbert's account of the matter.
'But surely with your connection there's no need for grinding?' said his
mother.
Herbert laughed, 'Much you know about it! Nobody cares a rap for
connections nowadays, even if old Frank were a connection to do a man any
good.'
'But you'll not go and study hard and hurt yourself, my dear,' said his
mother, though Herbert's looks by no means suggested any such danger,
while Ida added, 'It is not as if he had nothing else to look to, you
know. He can't keep you out of the peerage.'
'Can't he then? Why, he can and will too, for thirty or forty years more
at least.'
'I thought his health was failing,' said Ida, putting into words a hope
her mother had a little too much sense of propriety to utter.
'Bosh, it's only neuralgia, just because he is such a stick he can't take
things easy, and lark about and do every one's work--he hasn't the least
notion what a gentleman ought to do.'
'It is bred in the bone,' said his mother; 'he always was a shabby poor
creature! I always said he would not know how to spend his money.'
'He is a regular screw!' responded Herbert. 'What do you think now! He
was in no end of a rage with me just because I went with some of the
other fellows to the Colbeam races; and one can't help a bet or two, you
know. So I lost twelve pound or so, and what must he do but stop it out
of my allowance two pound at a time!'
There was a regular outcry at this, and Mrs. Morton declared her poor
dear boy should not suffer, but she would make it up to him, and Herbert
added that 'it had been unlucky, half of it was that they were riled with
him, first because he had shot a ridiculous rook with white wings that my
lady made no end of a fuss about.'
'Ah, then it is her spite,' said Ida. 'She's a sly cat, with all her
meek ways.'
Herbert was not displeased with this evening's sympathy, as he lay
outspread on the sofa, with the admiring and pitying eyes of his mother
and sister upon him; but he soon began to feel--when he had had his
grumble out, and could take his swing at home--that there could be too
much of it.
It was all very well to ease his own mind by complaining, but when he
heard of Ida announcing that he had been shamefully treated, all out of
spite for killing a white rook, his sense of justice made him declare
that the notion was nothing but girl's folly, such as no person with a
grain of sense could believe.
The more his mother and her friends persisted in treating him as an
ill-used individual, the victim of his uncle's avarice and his aunt's
spite, the more his better nature revolted and acknowledged inwardly and
sometimes outwardly the kindness and justice he had met with. It was
really provoking that any attempt to defend them, or explain the facts,
were only treated as proofs of his own generous feeling. Ida's
partisanship really did him more good than half a dozen lectures would
have done, and he steadily adhered to his promise not to bet, though on
the regatta day Ida and her friend Sibyl derided him for not choosing to
risk even a pair of gloves; and while one pitied him, the other declared
that he was growing a skinflint like his uncle.
He talked and laughed noisily enough to Ida's friends, but he had seen
enough at Northmoor to feel the difference, and he told his sister that
there was not a lady amongst the whole kit of them, except Rose
Rollstone, who was coming down for her holiday.
'Rose!' cried Ida, tossing her head. 'A servant's daughter and a hand at
a shop! What will you say next, I wonder?'
'Lady is as lady acts,' said Herbert, making a new proverb, whereat his
mother and sister in chorus rebuked him, and demanded to know whether Ida
were not a perfect lady.
At which he laughed with a sound of scoffing, and being tired of the
discussion sauntered out of the house to that inexhaustible occupation of
watching the boats come in, and smoking with old acquaintances, who were
still congenial to him, and declared that he had not become stuck-up,
though he was turned into an awful swell! Perhaps they were less bad for
him than Stanhope, for they inspired no spirit of imitation.
When he came back a later post had arrived, bringing the news of
Constance's successes and of the invitation to her to share the
expedition of her uncle and aunt. There was no question about letting
her go, but the feeling was scarcely of congratulation.
'Well, little Conny knows how to play her cards!'
'Stuff--child wouldn't know what it meant,' said Herbert glumly.
'Well,' said his sister, 'she always was the favourite, and I call it a
shame.'
'What, because you've been such a good girl, and got such honours and
prizes?' demanded Herbert.
'Nonsense, Herbert,' said his mother. 'Ida's education was finished, you
know.'
'Oh, she wasn't a bit older than Conny is now.'
'And I don't hold with all that study, science and logic, and what d'ye
call it; that's no use to any one,' continued his mother. 'It's not as
if your sisters had to be governesses. Give me a girl who can play a
tune on the piano and make herself agreeable. Your uncle may do as he
pleases, but he'll have Constance on his hands. The men don't fancy a
girl that is always after books and lectures.'
'Not of your sort, perhaps,' said Herbert, 'but I don't care what I bet
that Conny gets a better husband than Ida.'
'It stands to reason,' Ida said, almost crying, 'when uncle takes her
about to all these fine places and sets her up to be the favourite--just
the youngest. It's not fair.'
'As if she wasn't by a long chalk the better of the two,' said Herbert.
'Now, Bertie,' interposed his mother, 'I'll not have you teasing and
running down your sister, though I do say it is a shame and a slight to
pick out the youngest, when poor Ida is so delicate, and both of you two
have ever so much better a right to favours.'
'That's a good one!' muttered Herbert, while Ida exclaimed--
'Of course, you know, aunt has always been nasty to me, ever since I said
ma said I was not strong enough to be bothered with that horrid school;
and as to poor Herbert, they have spited him because he shot that--'
'Shut up, Ida,' shouted Herbert. 'I wouldn't go with them if they went
down on their knees to me! What should I do, loafing about among a lot
of disputing frog-eaters, without a word of a Christian language, and old
Frank with his nose in a guide-book wanting me to look at beastly
pictures and rum old cathedrals. You would be a fish out of water, too,
Ida. Now Conny will take to it like a house afire, and what's more, she
deserves it!'
'Well, ma,' put in the provoked Ida, 'I wonder you let Conny go, when it
would do me so much good, and it is so unfair.'
'My dear, you don't understand a mother's feelings. I feel the slight
for you, but your uncle must be allowed to have his way. He is at all
the expense, and to refuse for Conny would do you no good.'
'Except that she will be more set up than ever,' murmured Ida.
'Oh, come now! I wonder which looks more like the set-up one,' said
Herbert, whose wider range had resulted in making him much alive to Ida's
shortcomings, and who looked on at her noisy style of flirtation with the
eye of a grave censor. Whatever he might be himself, he knew what a
young lady ought to be.
He triumphed a little when, during the few days spent in London,
Constance wrote of a delightful evening when, while her uncle and aunt
and Miss Morton had gone to an entertainment for Bertha's match-box
makers, she had been permitted to have Rose Rollstone to spend the time
with her, the carriage, by their kind contrivance, fetching the girl both
in going and coming.
The two young things had been thoroughly happy together. Rose had gone
on improving herself; her companions in the art embroidery line were
girls of a good class, with a few ladies among them, and their tone was
good and refined. It was the fashion among them to attend the classes,
Bible and secular, put in their way, and their employers conscientiously
attended to their welfare, so that Rose was by no means an unfitting
companion for the High School maiden, and they most happily compared
notes over their very different lives, when they were not engaged in
playing with little Cea, as the unwieldy name of Miss Morton's _protegee_
had been softened. She was a very pretty little creature, with big blue
eyes and hair that could be called golden, and very full of life and
drollery, so that she was a treat to both; and when the housemaid, whose
charge she was, insisted on her coming to bed, they begged to superintend
her evening toilet, and would have played antics with her in her crib
half the night if they had not been inexorably chased away.
Then they sat down on low stools in the balcony, among the flowers, in
convenient proximity for the caresses they had not yet outgrown, and had
what they called 'a sweet talk.'
Constance had been much impressed with the beauty of the embroidery, and
thought it must be delightful to do such things.
'Yes, for the forewoman,' said Rose, 'but there's plenty of dull work;
the same over and over again, and one little stitch ever so small gone
amiss throws all wrong. Miss Grey told us to recollect it was just like
our lives!'
'That's nice!' said Constance. 'And it is for the Church and Almighty
God's service?'
'Some of it,' said Rose, 'but there's a good deal only for dresses, and
furniture, and screens.'
'Don't you feel like Sunday when you are doing altar-cloths and stools?'
asked Constance reverently.
'I wish I did,' said Rose; 'but I don't do much of that kind yet, and one
can't keep up the being serious over it always, you know. Indeed, Miss
Grey does not wish us to be dull; she reads to us when there is time, and
explains the symbols that have to be done; but part of the time it is an
amusing book, and she says she does not mind cheerful talk, only she
trusts us not to have gossip she would not like to hear.'
'I wonder,' said Constance, 'whether I should have come with you if all
this had not happened? It must be very nice.'
'But your school is nice?'
'Oh yes. I do love study, and those Saturdays and Sundays at Northmoor,
they are delicious! Uncle Frank reads with me about religion, you know.'
'Like our dear Bible class?'
'Yes; I never understood or felt anything before; he puts it so as it
comes home,' said Constance, striving to express herself. 'Then I have a
dear little class at the Sunday school.'
'I am to have one, by and by.'
'Mine are sweet little things, and I work for them on Saturdays, while
Aunt Mary reads to me. I do like teaching--and, do you know, Rose, I
think I shall be a High School teacher!'
'Oh, Conny, I thought you were all so rich and grand!'
'No, we are not,' said Constance lazily; 'we have nothing but what Uncle
Frank gives us, and I can't bear the way mamma and Ida are always trying
to get more out of him, when I know he can't always do what he likes, and
nasty people think him shabby. I am sure I ought to work for myself.'
'But if Herbert is a lord?'
'I hope he won't be for a long long time,' cried Constance. 'Besides, I
am sure he would want all his money for himself! And as to being a
teacher, Aunt Mary was, and Miss Arden, who is so wise and good, is one.
If I was like them I think it would be doing real work for God and
good--wouldn't it, Rose? Oh dear, oh dear, there's the carriage stopping
for you!'
CHAPTER XIX
THE DOLOMITES
The summer was a very hot one, and the travellers, in spite of the charm
of new scenes, and the wonders of everything to their unsophisticated
eyes, found it trying. Constance indeed was in a state of constant
felicity and admiration, undimmed except by the flagging of her two
fellow-travellers in the heated and close German railway cars. Her
uncle's head suffered much, and Lady Northmoor secretly thought her
maid's refusal to accompany them showed her to be a prudent woman.
However, the first breath of mountain air was a grand revival to Lord
Northmoor, and at Innsbruck he was quite alive, and walked about in
fervent delight, not desisting till he and Constance had made out every
statue on Maximilian's monument. His wife was so much tired and
worn-out, that she heartily rejoiced in having provided him with such a
good little companion, though she was disappointed at being obliged to
fail him, and get what rest she could at the hotel. But then, as she
told him, if he learnt his way about it now, he would be able to show it
all to her when they had both gained strength at Ratzes.
Bertha had obtained full instructions and a welcome for them from Mrs.
Bury, a kindly person, who, having married off her children while still
in full health and vigour, remained at the service of any relation who
needed her, and in the meantime resorted to out-of-the-way places abroad.
The railway took them to Botzen, which was hotter still, and thence on to
Castelruth, whence there was no means of reaching Ratzes but by mule or
_chaise a porteux_. Both alike were terrible to poor Mary; however, she
made up her mind to the latter, and all the long way was to her a dream
of terror and discomfort, and of trying to admire--what she knew she
ought to admire--the wonderful pinnacle-like aiguilles of the Schern
cleaving the air. For some time the way lay over the great plateau of
the Scisser Alp--a sea of rich grass, full of cattle, where her husband
and niece kept on trying to bring their mules alongside of her to make
her participate in their ecstasy, and partake of their spoils--mountain
pink, celestially blue gentian, brilliant poppy, or the like. Here the
principal annoyance was that their mules were so obstinately bent on not
approaching her that she was in constant alarm for them, while Constance
was absolutely wild with delight, and even grave Frank was exhilarated by
the mountain air into boyish spirits, such as impressed her, though she
resolutely prevented herself from lowering them by manifesting want of
sympathy, though the aiguilles that they admired seemed to her savage,
and the descent, along a perilous winding road, cut out among precipices,
horrified her--on, on, through endless pine forests, where the mules
insisted on keeping her in solitude, and where nothing could be seen
beyond the rough jolting path. At last, when a whole day had gone by,
and even Constance sat her mule in silence and looked very tired, the fir
trees grew more scanty. The aiguilles seemed in all their wildness to be
nodding overhead; there was a small bowling-green, a sort of chalet in
two divisions, united by a gallery: but Mary saw no more, for at that
moment a loose slippery stone gave way, and the bearers stumbled and
fell, dragging the chair so that it tipped over.
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