it was a beautiful summer’s afternoon, and the girls were seated in a circle on the lawn in front of the house. the house was an old elizabethan mansion, which had been added to from time to time—fresh additions jutting out here and running up there. there were all sorts of unexpected nooks and corners to be found in the old house—a flight of stairs just where you did not look for any, and a baize door shutting away the world at the moment when you expected to behold a long vista into space. the house itself was most charming and inviting-looking; but it was also, beyond doubt, much neglected. the doors were nearly destitute of paint, and the papers on many of the walls had completely lost their original patterns. in many instances there were no papers, only discolored walls, which at one time had been gay with paint and rendered beautiful with pictures. the windows were destitute of curtains; the carpets on the floors were reduced to holes and patches. the old pictures in the picture gallery still remained, however, and looked down on the young girls who flitted about there on rainy days with kindly, or searching, or malevolent eyes as suited the characters of those men and women who were portrayed in them.
but this was the heart of summer, and there was no need to go into the musty, fusty old house. the girls sat on the grass and held consultation.
“she is certainly coming to-morrow,” said verena. “father had a letter this morning. i heard him giving directions to old john to have the trap patched up and the harness mended. and john is going to lyndhurst road to meet her. she will arrive just about this time. isn’t it too awful?”
“never mind, renny,” said her second sister; “the sooner she comes, the sooner she’ll go. briar and patty and i have put our heads together, and we mean to let her see what we think of her and her interfering ways. the idea of aunt sophia interfering between father and us! now, i should like to know who is likely to understand the education of a girl if her own father does not.”2
“it is all because the step has gone,” continued verena. “she told us when she was leaving that she meant to write to aunt sophia. she was dreadfully cross at having to go, and the one mean thing she ever did in all her life was to make the remark she did. she said it was very little short of disgraceful to have ten girls running about the new forest at their own sweet will, without any one to guide them.”
“oh, what a nuisance the step is!” said rose, whose pet name was briar. “shouldn’t i like to scratch her! dear old paddy! of course he knows how to manage us. oh, here he comes—the angel! let’s plant him down in our midst. daisy, put that little stool in the middle of the circle; the padre shall sit there, and we’ll consult as to the advent of precious aunt sophia.”
patty, briar, and verena now jumped to their feet and ran in the direction where an elderly gentleman, with a stoop, gray hair hanging over his shoulders, and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on his nose, was walking.
“paddy, paddy! you have got to come here at once,” called out briar.
meanwhile verena took one of his arms, patty clasped the other, briar danced in front, and so they conducted him into the middle of the group.
“here’s your stool, paddy,” cried briar. “down you squat. now then, squatty-vous.”
mr. dale took off his spectacles, wiped them and gazed around him in bewilderment.
“i was construing a line of virgil,” he said. “you have interrupted me, my dears. whatever is the matter?”
“we have brought the culprit to justice,” exclaimed pauline. “paddy, forget the classics for the time being. think, just for a few moments, of your neglected—your shamefully neglected—daughters. ten of them, paddy, all running wild in the forest glades. aren’t you ashamed of yourself? don’t you feel that your moment of punishment has come? aunt sophia arrives to-morrow. now, what have you got to say for yourself?”
“but, my dear children, we can’t have your aunt sophia here. i could not dream of it. i remember quite well she came here once a long time ago. i have not got over it yet. i haven’t really.”
“but she is coming, paddy, and you know it quite well, for you got the letter. how long do you think you can put up with her?”
“only for a very short time, pauline; i assure you, my darling, she is not—not a pleasant person.”
“describe her, paddy—do,” said verena.
she spoke in her very gentlest tone, and held out one of her long white hands and allowed her father to clasp it. verena was decidedly the best-looking of the eight girls 3sitting on the grass. she was tall; her complexion was fair; her figure was naturally so good that no amount of untidy dressing could make it look awkward. her hair was golden and soft. it was less trouble to wind it up in a thick rope and hairpin it at the back of her head than to let it run wild; therefore she was not even untidy. verena was greatly respected by her sisters, and briar was rather afraid of her. all the others sat silent now when she asked the old padre to describe aunt sophia.
“my dear,” he answered, “i have not the slightest idea what her appearance is like. my memory of her is that she was fashionable and very conventional.”
“what on earth is ‘conventional’?” whispered pat.
“don’t interrupt, patty,” said verena, squeezing her father’s hand. “go on, paddy; go on, darling of my heart. tell us some more. aunt sophia is fashionable and conventional. we can look out the words in the dictionary afterwards. but you must know what she is like to look at.”
“i don’t, my dears; i cannot remember. it was a good many years ago when she came to visit us.”
“he must be prodded,” said briar, turning to renny. “look at him; he is going to sleep.”
“excuse me, girls,” said the squire, half-rising, and then sitting down again as verena’s young hand pushed him into his seat. “i have just made a most interesting discovery with regard to virgil—namely, that——”
“oh, father! we don’t want to know about it,” said briar. “now, then, renny, begin.”
“her appearance—her appearance!” said verena gently.
“whose appearance, dear?”
“why, aunt sophia’s; the lady who is coming to-morrow.”
“oh, dear!” said mr. dale; “but she must not come. this cannot be permitted; i cannot endure it.”
“paddy, you have given john directions to fetch her. now, then, what is she like?”
“i don’t know, children. i haven’t the slightest idea.”
“prod, renny! prod!”
“padre,” said verena, “is she old or young?”
“old, i think; perhaps neither.”
“write it down, briar. she is neither old nor young. paddy, is she dark or fair?”
“i really can’t remember, dear. a most unpleasant person.”
“put down that she is—not over-beautiful,” said verena. “paddy, must we put on our best dresses when she comes—our sunday go-to-meeting frocks, you know?”
“children, wear anything on earth you like, but in heaven’s name let me go away now! only to think that she will be here to-morrow! why did miss stapleton leave us? it is really too terrible.”4
“she left,” said briar, her eyes twinkling, “because we would call her step, which means step-mother. she was so dreadfully, dreadfully afraid that you might find it out.”
“oh, children, how incorrigible you are! the poor woman! i’d sooner have married—— i—i never mean to marry anybody.”
“of course you don’t, padre. and you may go now, darling,” said verena. “go, and be happy, feeling that your daughters will look after you. you are not lonely, are you, darling, with so many of us? now go and be very happy.”
eight pairs of lips blew kisses to the departing figure. mr. dale shambled off, and disappeared through the open window into his study.
“poor dear!” said verena, “he has forgotten our existence already. he only lives when he thinks of virgil. most of his time he sleeps, poor angel! it certainly is our bounden duty to keep him away from aunt sophia. what a terror she must be! fancy the situation. eight nieces all in a state of insurrection, and two more nieces in the nursery ready to insurrect in their turn!”
“something must be done,” interrupted pauline. “nurse is the woman to help us. forewarned is forearmed. nurse must put us up to a wrinkle or two.”
“then let’s go to her at once,” said verena.
they all started up, and, verena leading the way, they went through the little paddock to the left of the house, and so into a yard, very old-fashioned and covered with weeds and cobble-stones. there were tumble-down stables and coach-houses, hen-houses, and buildings, useful and otherwise, surrounding the yard; and now in the coach-house, which for many years had sheltered no carriage of any sort, sat nurse busy at work, with two little children playing at her feet.
“don’t mind the babies at present,” said verena. “don’t snatch them up and kiss them, briar. patty, keep your hands off. nurse, we have come.”
“so i see, miss verena,” said nurse.
she lifted her very much wrinkled old face and looked out of deep-set, black eyes full at the young girl.
“what is it, my darling child?”
“how are we to bear it? shall we fall on our knees and get round you in a little circle? we must talk to you. you must advise us.”
“eh, dears!” said nurse. “i am nearly past that sort of thing. i’m not as young as i wor, and master and me we’re both getting old. it doesn’t seem to me to matter much now whether a body’s pretty or not, or whether you dress beautiful, or whether a thing is made to look pretty or otherwise. we’re all food for worms, dears, all of us, and where’s the use of fashing?”5
“how horrid of you, nurse!” said verena. “we have got beautiful bodies, and our souls ought to be more beautiful still. what about the resurrection of the body, you dreadful old nurse?”
“oh, never mind me, dears; it was only a sort of dream i were dreaming of the funeral of your poor dear mother, who died when this dear lamb was born.”
here nurse patted the fat arm of the youngest hope of the house of dale, little marjorie, who looked round at her with rosy face and big blue eyes. marjorie was between three and four years old, and was a very beautiful little child. verena, unable to restrain herself any longer, bent down and encircled marjorie with her strong young arms and clasped her in an ecstatic embrace.
“there, now,” she said; “i am better. i forbid all the rest of you girls to touch marjorie. penelope, i’ll kiss you later.”
penelope was seven years old—a dark child with a round face—not a pretty child, but one full of wisdom and audacity.
“whatever we do,” verena had said on several occasions, “we must not let penelope out of the nursery until she is quite eight years old. she is so much the cleverest of us that she’d simply turn us all round her little finger. she must stay with nurse as long as possible.”
“i know what you are talking about,” said penelope. “it’s about her, and she’s coming to-morrow. i told nurse, and she said she oughtn’t never to come.”
“no, that she oughtn’t,” said nurse. “the child is alluding to miss tredgold. she haven’t no call here, and i don’t know why she is coming.”
“look here, nurse,” said verena; “she is coming, and nothing in the world will prevent her doing so. the thing we have to consider is this: how soon will she go?”
“she’ll go, i take it,” said nurse, “as soon as ever she finds out she ain’t wanted.”
“and how are we to tell her that?” said verena. “now, do put on your considering-cap at once, you wise old woman.”
“yes, do show us the way out, for we can’t have her here,” said briar. “it is absolutely impossible. she’ll try to turn us into fine ladies, and she’ll talk about the dresses we should have, and she’ll want father to get some awful woman to come and live with us. she’ll want the whole house to be turned topsy-turvy.”
“eh!” said nurse, “i’ll tell you what it is. ladies like miss tredgold need their comforts. she won’t find much comfort here, i’m thinking. she’ll need her food well cooked, and that she won’t get at the dales. she’ll need her room pretty and spick-and-span; she won’t get much of that sort of thing at the dales. my dear young ladies, 6you leave the house as it is, and, mark my words, miss tredgold will go in a week’s time at the latest.”
