There were about five ladies present and six old women, belonging to a home maintained by Lady Flight. The young priest, her son, had a beautiful voice, and Gillian enjoyed all very much, and thought the St. Andrews people very hard and unjust; but all this went out of her head in the porch, for while Lady Flight was greeting Miss Mohun with empressement, and inviting her to come in to tea, Gillian had seen a young woman who had come in late and had been kneeling behind them.
Turning back and holding out her hands, she exclaimed
Kalliope! I so wanted to see you.
Miss Gillian Merrifield, was the response. Maura told me you were here, but I hardly hoped to see you.
How can I see you? Where are you? Busy?
I am at the marble works all dayin the mosaic department. Oh, Miss Gillian, I owe it all to Miss Merrifields encouraging me to go to the School of Art. How is she? And I hope you have good accounts of Sir Jasper?
He is better, and I hope my mother is just arriving. Thats why we are here; and Alethea and Phyllis are out there. They will want to know all about you.
At that moment Aunt Adeline looked round, having succeeded in persuading Lady Flight that she had another engagement. She saw a young woman in a shabby black dress, with a bag in her hand, and a dark fringe over a complexion of clear brown, straight features, to whom Gillian was eagerly talking.
Ah! she said, as Mr. Flight now came up from the vestry; do you know anything of that girl?
Second-rate people, somewhere in Bellevue, said the lady.
The brother is my best tenor, said Mr. Flight. She is very often at St. Kenelms, but I do not know any more of her. The mother either goes to Bellevue or nowhere. They are in Bellevue Parish.
This was quite sufficient answer, for any interference with parochial visiting in the Bellevue district was forbidden.
Aunt Ada called to Gillian, and when she eagerly said, This is Kalliope, aunt, only responded with a stiff bow.
I do not know what these people might have been, Gillian, she said, as they pursued their way to Mrs. Webbs; butthey must have sunk so low that I do not think your mother can wish you to have anything to do with them.
Oh, Aunt Ada! Kalliope was always such a good girl!
She has a fringe. And she would not belong to the G.F.S., said Aunt Ada. No, my dear, I see exactly the sort of people they are. Your aunt Jane might be useful to them, if they would let her, but they are not at all fit for you to associate with.
Gillian chafed inwardly, but she was beginning to learn that Aunt Ada was more impenetrable than Aunt Jane, and, what was worse, Aunt Jane always stood by her sisters decision, whether she would have herself originated it or not.
When the elder aunt came home, and heard the history of their day, and Gillian tried to put in a word, she said
My dear, we all know that rising from the ranks puts a mans family in a false position, and they generally fall back again. All this is unlucky, for they do not seem to be people it is possible to get at, and now you have paid your kind act of attention, there is no more to be done till you can hear from Ceylon about them.
Gillian was silenced by the united forces of the aunts.
It really was a horrid place, said Aunt Ada, when alone with her sister; and such a porpoise of a woman! Gillian should not have represented her as a favourite.
I do not remember that she did so, returned Aunt Jane. I wish she had waited for me. I have seen more of the kind of thing than you have, Ada.
I am sure I wish she had. I dont know when I shall get over the stifling of that den; but it was just as if they were her dearest friends.
Girls will be silly! And theres a feeling about the old regiment too. I can excuse her, though I wish she had not been so impatient. I fancy that eldest daughter is really a good girl and the mainstay of the family.
But she would have nothing to do with you or the G.F.S.
If I had known that her father had been an officer, I might have approached her differently. However, I will ask Lily about their antecedents, and in six weeks we shall know what is to be done about them.
CHAPTER V. MARBLES
Six weeks seem a great deal longer to sixteen than to six-and-forty, and Gillian groaned and sighed to herself as she wrote her letters, and assured herself that so far from her having done enough in the way of attention to the old soldiers family, she had simply done enough to mark her neglect and disdain.
Grizzling (to use an effective family phrase) under opposition is a grand magnifier; and it was not difficult to erect poor Captain White into a hero, his wife into a patient sufferer, and Aletheas kindness to his daughter into a bosom friendship; while the aunts seemed to be absurdly fastidious and prejudiced. I dont wonder at Aunt Ada, she said to herself; I know she has always been kept under a glass case; but I thought better things of Aunt Jane. It is all because Kalliope goes to St. Kenelms, and wont be in the G.F.S.
And all the time Gillian was perfectly unaware of her own family likeness to Dolores. Other matters conduced to a certain spirit of opposition to Aunt Jane. That the children should have to use the back instead of the front stair when coming in with dusty or muddy shoes, and that their possessions should be confiscated for the rest of the day when left about in the sitting-rooms and hall, were contingencies she could accept as natural, though they irritated her; but she agreed with Valetta that it was hard to insist on half an hours regular work at the cushion, which was not a lesson, but play. She was angered when Aunt Jane put a stop to some sportive passes and chatter on the stairs between Valetta and Alice Mount, and still more so when her aunt took away Adam Bede from the former, as not desirable reading at eleven years old.
It was only the remembrance of her mothers positive orders that withheld Gillian from the declaration that mamma always let them read George Eliot; and in a cooler moment of reflection she was glad she had abstained, for she recollected that always was limited to mammas having read most of Romola aloud to her and Mysie, and to her having had Silas Marner to read when she was unwell in lodgings, and there was a scarcity of books.
Such miffs about her little sister were in the natural order of things, and really it was the all pervadingness, as she called it in her own mind, of Aunt Jane that chiefly worried her, the way that the little lady knew everything that was done, and everything that was touched in the house; but as long as Valetta took refuge with herself, and grumbled to her, it was bearable.
It was different with Fergus. There had been offences certainly; Aunt Jane had routed him out of preparing his lessons in Mrs. Mounts room, where he diversified them with teaching the Sofy to beg, and inventing new modes of tying down jam pots. Moreover, she had declared that Gillians exemplary patience was wasted and harmful when she found that they had taken three-quarters of an hour over three tenses of a Greek verb, and that he said it worse on the seventh repetition than on the first. After an evening, when Gillian had gone to a musical party with Aunt Ada, and Fergus did his lessons under Aunt Janes superintendence, he utterly cast off his sisters aid. There was something in Miss Mohuns briskness that he found inspiring, and she put in apt words or illustrations, instead of only rousing herself from a book to listen, prompt, and sigh. He found that he did his tasks more thoroughly in half the time, and rose in his class; and busy as his aunt was, she made the time not only for this, but for looking over with him those plates of mechanics in the Encyclopaedia, which were a mere maze to Gillian, but of which she knew every detail, from ancient studies with her brother Maurice. As Fergus wrote to his mother, Aunt Jane is the only woman who has any natural scence.
Gillian could not but see this as she prepared the letters for the post, and whatever the ambiguous word might be meant for, she had rather not have seen it, for she really was ashamed of her secret annoyance at Ferguss devotion to Aunt Jane, knowing how well it was that Stebbing should have a rival in his affections. Yet she could not help being provoked when the boy followed his aunt to the doors of her cottages like a little dog, and waited outside whenever she would let him, for the sake of holding forth to her about something which wheels and plugs and screws were to do. Was it possible that Miss Mohun followed it all? His great desire was to go over the marble works, and she had promised to take him when it could be done; but, unfortunately, his half-holiday was on Saturday, when the workmen struck off early, and when also Aunt Jane always had the pupil-teachers for something between instruction and amusement.
Gillian felt lonely, for though she got on better with her younger than her elder aunt, and had plenty of surface intercourse of a pleasant kind with both, it was a very poor substitute for her mother, or her elder sisters, and Valetta was very far from being a Mysie.
The worst time was Sunday, when the children had deserted her for Mrs. Hablot, and Aunt Ada was always lying down in her own room to rest after morning service. She might have been at the Sunday-school, but she did not love teaching, nor do it well, and she did not fancy the town children, or else there was something of opposition to Aunt Jane.
It was a beautiful afternoon, of the first Sunday in October, and she betook herself to the garden with the Lyra Innocentium in her hand, meaning to learn the poem for the day. She wandered up to the rail above the cliff, looking out to the sea. Here, beyond the belt of tamarisks and other hardy low-growing shrubs which gave a little protection from the winds, the wall dividing the garden of Beechcroft Cottage from that of Cliff House became low, with only the iron-spiked railing on the top, as perhaps there was a desire not to overload the cliff. The sea was of a lovely colour that day, soft blue, and with exquisite purple shadows of clouds, with ripples of golden sparkles here and there near the sun, and Gillian stood leaning against the rail, gazing out on it, with a longing, yearning feeling towards the dear ones who had gone out upon it, when she became conscious that some one was in the other garden, which she had hitherto thought quite deserted, and looking round, she saw a figure in black near the rail. Their eyes met, and both together exclaimed
Kalliope!Miss Gillian! Oh, I beg your pardon!
How did you come here? I thought nobody did!
Mr. Whites gardener lets us walk here. It is so nice and quiet. Alexis has taken the younger ones for a walk, but I was too much tired. But I will not disturb you
Oh! dont go away. Nobody will disturb us, and I do so want to know about you all. I had no notion, nor mamma either, that you were living here, or
Or of my dear fathers death! said Kalliope, as Gillian stopped short, confused. I did write to Miss Merrifield, but the letter was returned.
But where did you write?
To Swanage, where she had written to me last.
Oh! we were only there for six weeks, while we were looking for houses; I suppose it was just as the Wardours were gone to Natal too?
Yes, we knew they were out of reach.
But do tell me about it, if you do not mind. My father will want to hear.
Kalliope told all in a calm, matter-of-fact way, but with a strain of deep suppressed feeling. She was about twenty-three, a girl with a fine outline of features, beautiful dark eyes, and a clear brown skin, who would have been very handsome if she had looked better fed and less hardworked. Her Sunday dress showed wear and adaptation, but she was altogether ladylike, and even the fringe that had startled Aunt Ada only consisted of little wavy curls on the temples, increasing her classical look.
It was feverat Leeds. My father was just going into a situation in the police that we had been waiting for ever so long, and there were good schools, and Richard had got into a lawyers office, when there began a terrible fever in our streetthe drains were to blame, they saidand every one of us had it, except mother and Richard, who did not sleep at home. We lost poor little Mary first, and then papa seemed to be getting better; but he was anxious about expense, and there was no persuading him to take nourishment enough. I do believe it was that. And he had a relapseand
Oh, poor Kalliope! And we never heard of it!
I did feel broken down when the letter to Miss Merrifield came back, said Kalliope. But my father had made me write to Mr. James Whitenot that we had any idea that he had grown so rich. He and my father were first cousins, sons of two brothers who were builders; but there was some dispute, and it ended by my father going away and enlisting. There was nobody nearer to him, and he never heard any more of his home; but when he was so ill, he thought he would like to be reconciled to Jem, as he said, so he made me write from his dictation. Such a beautiful letter it was, and he added a line at the end himself. Then at last, when it was almost too late, Mr. White answered. I believe it was a mere chanceor rather Providencethat he ever knew it was meant for him, but there were kind words enough to cheer up my father at the last. I believe then the clergyman wrote to him.
Did not he come near you?
No, I have never seen him; but there was a correspondence between him and Mr. Moore, the clergyman, and Richard, and he said he was willing to put us in the way of working for ourselves, ififwe were not too proud.
Then he did it in an unkind way, said Gillian.
I try to think he did not mean to be otherwise than good to us. I told Mr. Moore that I was not fit to be a governess, and I did not think they could get on without me at home, but that I could draw better than I would do anything else, and perhaps I might get Christmas cards to do, or something like that. Mr. Moore sent a card or two of my designing, and then Mr. White said he could find work for me in the mosaic department here; and something for my brothers, if we did not give ourselves airs. So we came.
Not Richard? said Gillian, who remembered dimly that Richard had not been held in great esteem by her own brothers.
No; Richard is in a good situation, so it was settled that he should stay on there.
And you
I am in the mosaic department. Oh, Miss Gillian, I am so grateful to Miss Merrifield. Dont you remember her looking at my little attempts, and persuading Lady Merrifield to get mother to let me go to the School of Art? I began only as the girls do who are mere hands, and now I have to prepare all the designs for them, and have a nice little office of my own for it. Sometimes I get one of my own designs taken, and then I am paid extra.
Then do you maintain them all?
Oh no; we have lodgers, the organist and his wife, said Kalliope, laughing, and Alexis is in the telegraph office, at the works; besides, it turned out that this house and two more belong to us, and we do very well when the tenants pay their rents.
But Maura is not the youngest of you, said Gillian, who was rather hazy about the family.
No, there are the two little boys. We let them go to the National School for the present. It is a great trial to my poor mother, but they do learn well there, and we may be able to do something better for them by the time they are old enough for further education.