Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood - Charlotte Yonge 9 стр.

Oh, jolly, jolly! first-rate! shouted Armine in ecstasy. Its just like Paris in the cloud! More, more, Babie. You are Venus, you know.

Master Armine, Miss Barbara! For shame, exclaimed the nurses voice. All getting into the carpet, and in your clothes, I do declare! A whole case of best arrowroot wasted, and worse.

Twas Jessies doing, replied Jock. She told me.

Jessie, decidedly the most like Venus of the party, being a very pretty girl, with an oval face and brown eyes, had retreated, and was with infinite disgust brushing the white powder out of her dress, only in answer ejaculating, Those boys!

Jock had not only opened the case, but had opened it upside down, and the classical performances of Armine and Barbara had powdered themselves and everything around, while the draught that was rushing through all the wide open doors and windows dispersed the mischief far and wide.

Can you do nothing but laugh, Caroline? gravely said Mrs. Brownlow. Janet, shut that window. Children, out of the way! If you were mine, I should send you to bed.

Theres no bed to be sent to, muttered Jock, running round to give a sly puff to the white heap, diffusing a sprinkling of white powder over his aunts dress.

Jock, said his mother with real firmness and indignation in her voice, that is not the way to behave. Beg your aunts pardon this instant.

And to everyones surprise the imp obeyed the hand she had laid on him, and muttered something like, beg pardon, though it made his face crimson.

His uncle exclaimed, Thats right, my boy, and his aunt said, with dignity, Very well, well say no more about it.

Mary Ogilvie was in the meantime getting some of the powder back into the tin, and Janet running in from the kitchen with a maid, a soup tureen, and sundry spoons, everyone became busy in rescuing the remainsin the midst of which there was a smash of glass.

Jock again! quoth Janet.

Oh, mother! called out Jock. Its so long! I thought Id get the feather-brush to sweep it up with, and the other end of it has been and gone through this stupid lamp.

Things are not unapt to be and go through, where you are concerned, Mr. Jock, I suspect, said Mr. Ogilvie. Suppose you were to come with me, and your brothers too, and be introduced to the swans on the lake at Belforest.

The boys brightened up, the mother said, Thank you most heartily, if they will not be a trouble, and Babie put her hand entreatingly into the schoolmasters, and said, Me too?

What, Venus herself! I thought she had disappeared in the cloud! Let her come, pray, Mrs. Brownlow.

I thought the children would have been with their cousins, observed the aunt.

So we were, returned Armine; but Johnnie and Joe ran away when they saw Mr. Ogilvie coming.

Babie having by this time had a little black hat tied on, and as much arrowroot as possible brushed out of her frock; Carey warned the schoolmaster not to let himself be chattered to death, and he walked off with the three younger ones.

Caroline would have kept her friend, but Mary, seeing that little good could be gained by staying with her at present, replied that she would take the walk now, and return to her friend in a couple of hours time; and Carey was fain to consent, though with a very wistful look in her eyes.

At the end of that time, or more, Janet met the party at the garden gate. You are to go down to my uncles, children, she said; mother has one of her very bad headaches.

There was an outcry that they must take her the flowers, of which their hands and arms were full; but Janet was resolute, though Babie was very near tears.

To-morrowto-morrow, she said. She must lie still now, or she wont be able to do anything. Run away, Babie, theyll be waiting tea for you. Allens there. Hell take care of you.

I want to give Mother Carey those dear white flowers, still entreated Babie.

Ill give them, my dear. They want you down thereEllie and Esther.

I dont want to play with Ellie and Essie, sturdily declared Barbara. They say it is telling falsehoods when one wants to play at anything.

They dont understand pretending, said Armine. Do let us stay, Janet, well not make one smallest little atom of noise, if Jock doesnt stay.

You cant, said Janet, for theres nothing for you to eat, and nurse and Susan are as savage as Carribee islanders.

This last argument was convincing. The children threw their flowers into Janets arms, gave their hands to Miss Ogilvie, and Babie between her two brothers, scampered off, while Miss Ogilvie uttered her griefs and regrets.

My mother would like to see you, said Janet; indeed, I think it will do her good. She told me to bring you in.

Such a day of fatigue, began Mary.

That and all the rest of it, said Janet moodily.

Is she subject to headaches?

No, she never had one, till Janet broke off, for they had reached her mothers door.

Bring her in, said a weary voice, and Mary found herself beside a low iron bed, where Carey, shaking off the handkerchief steeped in vinegar and water on her brow, and showing a tear-stained, swollen-eyed face, threw herself into her friends arms.

But she did not cry now, her tears all came when she was alone, and when Mary said something of being so sorry for her headache, she said, Oh! its only with knocking ones head against a mattress like mad people, in such a matter-of-fact voice, that Mary for a moment wondered whether she had really knocked her head.

Mary doubted what to say, and wetted the kerchief afresh with the vinegar and water.

Oh, Mary, I wish you were going to stay here.

I wish! I wish I could, my dear!

I think I could be good if you were here! she sighed. Oh, Mary, why do they say that troubles make one good?

They ought, said Mary.

They dont, said Carey. They make me wicked! and she hid her face in the pillow with a great gasp.

My poor Carey! said the gentle voice.

Oh! I want to tell you all about it. Oh! Mary, we have been so happy! and what a wail there was in the tone. But I cant talk, she added faintly, it makes me sick, and thats all her doing too.

Dont try, said Mary tenderly. We know where to find each other now, and you can write to me.

I will, said Caroline; I can write much better than tell. And you will come back, Mary?

As soon as I can get a holiday, my dear, indeed I will.

Carey was too much worn out not to repose on the promise, and though she was unwilling to let her friend go, she said very little more.

Mary longed to give her a cup of strong coffee, and suggested it to Janet; but headaches were so new in the family, that domestic remedies had not become well-known. Janet instantly rushed down to order it, but in the state of the house at that moment, it was nearly as easy to get a draught of pearls.

But she shall have it, Miss Ogilvie, said Janet, putting on her hat. Wheres the nearest grocer?

Oh, never mind, my dear, sighed the patient. It will go off of itself, when I can get to sleep.

You shall have it, returned Janet.

And Mary having taken as tender a farewell as Caroline was able to bear, they walked off together; but the girl did not respond to the kindness of Miss Ogilvie.

She was too miserable not to be glum, too reserved to be open to a stranger. Mary guessed a little of the feeling, though she feared that an uncomfortable daughter might be one of poor Careys troubles, and she could not guess the girls sense of banishment from all that she had enjoyed, society, classes, everything, or her feeling that the Magnum Bonum itself was imperilled by exile into the land of dulness, which of course the poor child exaggerated in her imagination. Her only consolation was to feel herself the Masterman Ready of the shipwreck.

CHAPTER VI. ENCHANTED GROUND

The headache had been carried off by a good nights rest; a droll, scrambling breakfast had been eaten, German fashion, with its headquarters on the kitchen table; and everybody running about communicating their discoveries. Bobus and Jock had set off to school, and poor little Armine, who firmly believed that his rejection was in consequence of his confusion between os, ossis, and os, oris, and was very sore about it, had gone with Allen and Barbara to see them on their way, and Mother Carey and Janet had agreed to get some real work done and were actually getting through business, when in rushed, rosy and eager, Allen, Armine, and Babie, with arms stretched and in breathless haste.

Mother Carey! Oh, mother! mammie, dear! come and see!

Comewhere?

To fairy-land. Get her bonnet, Babie.

Out of doors, you boy? just look there!

Oh! bother all that! It can wait.

Do pray come, mother, entreated Armine; you never saw anything like it!

What is it? Will it take long? said she, beginning to yield, as Babie danced about with her bonnet, Armine tugged at her, and Allen look half-commanding, half-coaxing.

She is not to know till she sees! No, dont tell her, said Armine. Bandage her eyes, Allen. Heres my silk handkerchief.

And Janet. She mustnt see, cried Babie, in ecstasy.

Im not coming, said Janet, rather crossly. Im much too busy, and it is only some nonsense of yours.

Thank you, said Allen, laughing; mother shall judge of that.

It does seem a shame to desert you, my dear, said Carey, but you see

What Janet was to see was stifled in the flap of the handkerchief with which Allen was binding her eyes, while Armine and Babie sang rapturously

an invocation to which, sooth to say, she had become so much accustomed that it prevented her from expecting a fairy-land where it was not necessary to make believe very much.

Janet so entirely disapproved of the puerile interruption that she never looked to see how Allen and Babie managed the bonnet. She only indignantly picked up the cap which had fallen from the sofa to the floor, and disposed of it for securitys sake on the bronze head of Apollo, which was waiting till his bracket could be put up.

Guided most carefully by her eldest son, and with the two little ones dancing and singing round her, and alternately stopping each others mouths when any premature disclosure was apprehended, pausing in wonder when the cuckoo note, never heard before, came on them, making them laugh with glee.

Thus she was conducted much further than she expected. She heard the swing of the garden gate and felt her feet on the road and remonstrated, but she was coaxed on and through another gate, and a path where Allen had to walk in front of her, and the little ones fell behind.

Then came an eager Now.

Her eyes were unbound, and she beheld what they might well call enchanted ground.

She was in the midst of a curved bank where the copsewood had no doubt been recently cut away, and which was a perfect marvel of primroses, their profuse bunches standing out of their wrinkled leaves at every hazel root or hollow among the exquisite moss, varied by the pearly stars of the wind-flower, purple orchis spikes springing from black-spotted leaves, and deep-grey crested dog-violets. On one side was a perfect grove of the broad-leaved, waxen-belled Solomons seal, sloping down to moister ground where was a golden river of king-cups, and above was a long glade between young birch-trees, their trunks gleaming silvery white, the boughs over head breaking out into foliage that looked yellow rather than green against the blue sky, and the ground below one sheet of that unspeakably intense purple blue which is only produced by masses of the wild hyacinth.

There! said Allen.

There! re-echoed the children. Oh mammy, mammy dear! Is it not delicious?

Carey held up her hand in silence, for a nightingale was pouring out his song close by; she listened breathlessly, and as it ceased she burst into tears.

O mother! cried Allen, it is too much for you.

No, dear boy, it isit isonly too beautiful. It is what papa always talked of and would have so enjoyed.

Do you think he has better flowers up there? asked Babie. I dont think they can be much better.

And without waiting for more she plunged down among the primroses and spread her little self out with a scream of ecstasy.

And verily the strange sense of rapture and enchantment was no less in the mother herself. There is no charm perhaps equal to that of a primrose bank on a sunny day in spring, sight, sound, scent all alike exquisite. It comes with a new and fresh delight even to those to whom this is an annual experience, and to those who never saw the like before it gives, like the first sight of the sea or of a snowy mountain, a sensation never to be forgotten. Fret, fatigue, anxiety, sorrow all passed away like dreams in that sweet atmosphere. Carey, like one of her children, absolutely forgot everything in the charm and wonder of the scene, in the pure, delicate unimaginable odour of the primroses, in debating with Allen whether (cockneys that they were) it could be a nightingale singing by day when every goose is cackling, in listening to the marvellous note, only pausing to be answered from further depths, in the beauty of the whole, and in the individual charm of every flower, each heavily-laden arch of dark blue-bells with their curling tips, so infinitely more graceful than their pampered sister, the hyacinth of the window-glass, of each pure delicate anemone she gathered, with its winged stem, of the smiling primrose of that inimitable tint it only wears in its own woodland nest; and when Allen lighted on a bed of wood-sorrel, with its scarlet stems, lovely trefoil leaves, and purple striped blossoms like insects wings, she absolutely held her breath in an enthusiasm of reverent admiration. No one can tell the happiness of those four, only slightly diminished by Armines getting bogged on his way to the golden river of king-cups, and his mother in going after him, till Allen from an adjacent stump pulled them out, their feet deeply laden with mud.

They had only just emerged when the strokes of a great bell came pealing up from the town below; Allen and his mother looked at each other in amused dismay, then at their watches. It was twelve oclock! Two hours had passed like as many minutes, and the boys would be coming home to dinner.

Ah! well, we must go, said Carey, as they gathered up their armloads of flowers. You naughty children to make me forget everything.

You are not sorry you came though, mother. It has done you good, said Allen solicitously. He was the most affectionate of them all.

Sorry! I feel as if I cared for nothing while I have a place like that to drink up delight in.

With which they tried to make their way back to the path again, but it was not immediately to be found; and their progress was further impeded by a wood-pigeon dwelling impressively on the notes Take two cows, Taffy; Taffy take TWO! and then dashing out, flapping and grey, in their faces, rather to Barbaras alarm, and then by Armines stumbling on his first birds nest, a wrens in the moss of an old stump, where the tiny bird unadvisedly flew out of her leafy hole full before their eyes. That was a marvel of marvels, a delight equal to that felt by any explorer the world has seen. Armine and Barbara, who lived in one perpetual fairy tale, were saying to one another that