Beechcroft at Rockstone

‘I shall! I shall,’ cried little Primrose, ‘write a whole copy-book in single lines! And won’t mamma be pleased? What shall you do, Fergus? and Val? and Mysie?’

‘I shall get to spin my peg-top so as it will never tumble down, and will turn an engine for drawing water,’ was the prompt answer of Fergus.

‘What nonsense!’ said Val; ‘you’d better settle to get your long division sums right.’

‘That s girls’ stuff,’ replied Fergus; ‘you’d better settle to leave off crying for nothing.’

‘That you had!’ said several voices, and Val very nearly cried again as she exclaimed: ‘Don’t be all so tiresome. I shall make mamma a beautiful crewel cushion, with all the battles in history on it. And won’t she be surprised!’

‘I think mamma meant more than that,’ said Mysie.

‘Oh, Mysie, what shall you do?’ asked Primrose.

‘I did think of getting to translate one of mamma’s favourite German stories quite through to her without wanting the dictionary or stumbling one bit,’ said Mysie; ‘but I am sure she meant something better and better, and I’m thinking what it is—Perhaps it is making all little Flossie Maddin’s clothes, a whole suit all oneself—Or perhaps it is manners. What do you think, Gill?’

‘I should say most likely it was manners for you,’ volunteered Harry, ‘and the extra you are most likely to acquire at Rotherwood.’

‘I’m so glad,’ said Mysie.

‘And you, Gill,’ inquired Primrose, ‘what will you do? Mine is a copy-book, and Fergus’s is the spinning-top-engines, and rule of three; and Val’s is a crewel battle cushion and not crying; and Mysie’s is German stories and manners; and what’s yours, Gill?’

‘Gill is so grown up, she is too good to want an inside thing’ announced Primrose.

‘Oh, Prim, you dear little thing,’ cried both elder brother and sister, as they thought with a sort of pang of the child’s opinion of grown-up impeccability.

‘Harry is grown up more,’ put in Fergus; ‘why don’t you ask him?’

‘Because I know,’ said Primrose, with a pretty shyness, and as they pressed her, she whispered, ‘He is going to be a clergyman.’

There was a call for Mysie and Val from upstairs, and as the younger population scampered off, Gillian said to her brother—

‘Is not it like “occupy till I come”?’

‘So I was thinking,’ said Harry gravely. ‘But one must be as young as Mysie to throw one’s “inside things” into the general stock of resolutions.’

‘Yes,’ said Gillian, with uplifted eyes. ‘I do—I do hope to do something.’

Some great thing was her unspoken thought—some great and excellent achievement to be laid before her mother on her return. There was a tale begun in imitation of Bessie Merrifield, called “Hilda’s Experiences”. Suppose that was finished, printed, published, splendidly reviewed. Would not that be a great thing? But alas, she was under a tacit engagement never to touch it in the hours of study.

CHAPTER II. – ROCKQUAY

The actual moment of a parting is often softened by the confusion of departure. That of the Merrifield family took place at the junction, where Lady Merrifield with her brother remained in the train, to be carried on to London.

Gillian, Valetta, and Fergus, with their aunt, changed into a train for Rockstone, and Harry was to return to his theological college, after seeing Mysie and Primrose off with nurse on their way to the ancestral Beechcroft, whence Mysie was to be fetched to Rotherwood. The last thing that met Lady Merrifield’s eyes was Mrs. Halfpenny gesticulating wildly, under the impression that Mysie’s box was going off to London.

And Gillian’s tears were choked in the scurry to avoid a smoking-carriage, while Harry could not help thinking—half blaming himself for so doing—that Mysie expended more feeling in parting with Sofy, the kitten, than with her sisters, not perceiving that pussy was the safety-valve for the poor child’s demonstrations of all the sorrow that was oppressing her.

Gillian, in the corner of a Rockstone carriage, had time for the full heart-sickness and tumult of fear that causes such acute suffering to young hearts. It is quite a mistake to say that youth suffers less from apprehension than does age; indeed, the very inexperience and novelty add to the alarms, where there is no background of anxieties that have ended happily, only a crowd of examples of other people’s misfortunes. The difference is in the greater elasticity and power of being distracted by outward circumstances; and thus lookers-on never guess at the terrific possibilities that have scared the imagination, and the secret ejaculations that have met them. How many times on that brief journey had not Gillian seen her father dying, her sisters in despair, her mother crushed in the train, wrecked in the steamer, perishing of the climate, or arriving to find all over and dying of the shock; yet all was varied by speculations on the great thing that was to offer itself to be done, and the delight it would give, and when the train slackened, anxieties were merged in the care for bags, baskets, and umbrellas.

Rockstone and Rockquay had once been separate places—a little village perched on a cliff of a promontory, and a small fishing hamlet within the bay, but these had become merged in one, since fashion had chosen them as a winter resort. Speculators blasted away such of the rocks as they had not covered with lodging-houses and desirable residences. The inhabitants of the two places had their separate churches, and knew their own bounds perfectly well; but to the casual observer, the chief distinction between them was that Rockstone was the more fashionable, Rockquay the more commercial, although the one had its shops, the other its handsome crescents and villas. The station was at Rockquay, and there was an uphill drive to reach Rockstone, where the two Miss Mohuns had been early inhabitants—had named their cottage Beechcroft after their native home, and, to justify the title, had flanked the gate with two copper beeches, which had attained a fair growth, in spite of sea winds, perhaps because sheltered by the house on the other side.

The garden reached out to the verge of the cliff, or rather to a low wall, with iron rails and spikes at the top, and a narrow, rather giddy path beyond. There was a gate in the wall, the key of which Aunt Jane kept in her own pocket, as it gave near access to certain rocky steps, about one hundred and thirty in number, by which, when in haste, the inhabitants of Rockstone could descend to the lower regions of the Quay.

There was a most beautiful sea-view from the house, which compensated for difficulties in gardening in such a situation, though a very slight slope inwards from the verge of the cliff gave some protection to the flower-beds; and there was not only a little conservatory attached to the drawing-room at the end, but the verandah had glass shutters, which served the purpose of protecting tender plants, and also the windows, from the full blast of the winter storms. Miss Mohun was very proud of these shutters, which made a winter garden of the verandah for Miss Adeline to take exercise in. The house was their own, and, though it aimed at no particular beauty, had grown pleasant and pretty looking by force of being lived in and made comfortable.

It was a contrast to its neighbours on either side of its pink and gray limestone wall. On one side began the grounds of the Great Rockstone Hotel; on the other was Cliff House, the big and seldom-inhabited house of one of the chief partners in the marble works, which went on on the other side of the promontory, and some people said would one day consume Rockstone altogether. It was a very fine house, and the gardens were reported to be beautifully kept up, but the owner was almost always in Italy, and had so seldom been at Rockstone that it was understood that all this was the ostentation of a man who did not know what to do with his money.

Aunt Adeline met the travellers at the door with her charming welcome. Kunz, all snowy white, wagged his tight-curled tail amid his barks, at sight of Aunt Jane, but capered wildly about the Sofy’s basket, much to Valetta’s agony; while growls, as thunderous as a small kitten could produce, proceeded therefrom.

‘Kunz, be quiet,’ said Aunt Jane, in a solemn, to-be-minded voice, and he crouched, blinking up with his dark eye.

‘Give me the basket. Now, Kunz, this is our cat. Do you hear? You are not to meddle with her.’

Did Kunz really wink assent—a very unwilling assent?

‘Oh, Aunt Jane!’ from Val, as her aunt’s fingers undid the cover of the basket.

‘Once for all!’ said Aunt Jane.

‘M-m-m-m-ps-pss-psss!’ from the Sofy, two screams from Val and Fergus, a buffeting of paws, a couple of wild bounds, first on a chair-back, then on the mantelpiece, where, between the bronze candlestick and the vase, the Persian philosopher stood hissing and swearing, while Kunz danced about and barked.

‘Take her down, Gillian,’ said Aunt Jane; and Gillian, who had some presence of mind, accomplished it with soothing words, and, thanks to her gloves, only one scratch.

Meantime Miss Mohun caught up Kunz, held up her finger to him, stopped his barks; and then, in spite of the ‘Oh, don’ts,’ and even the tears of Valetta, the two were held up—black nose to pink nose, with a resolute ‘Now, you are to behave well to each other, from Aunt Jane.

Kunz sniffed, the Sofy hissed; but her claws were captive. The dog was the elder and more rational, and when set down again took no more notice of his enemy, whom Valetta was advised to carry into Mrs. Mount’s quarters to be comforted and made at home there; the united voice of the household declaring that the honour of the Spitz was as spotless as his coat!

Such was the first arrival at Rockstone, preceding even Aunt Adeline’s inquiries after Mysie, and the full explanation of the particulars of the family dispersion. Aunt Ada’s welcome was not at all like that of Kunz. She was very tender and caressing, and rejoiced that her sister could trust her children to her. They should all get on most happily together, she had no doubt.

True-hearted as Gillian was, there was something hopeful and refreshing in the sight of that fair, smiling face, and the touch of the soft hand, in the room that was by no means unfamiliar, though she had never slept in the house before. It was growing dark, and the little fire lighted it up in a friendly manner. Wherever Aunt Jane was, everything was neat; wherever Aunt Adeline was, everything was graceful. Gillian was old enough to like the general prettiness; but it somewhat awed Val and Fergus, who stood straight and shy till they were taken upstairs. The two girls had a very pretty room and dressing-room—the guest chamber, in fact; and Fergus was not far off, in a small apartment which, as Val said, ‘stood on legs,’ and formed the shelter of the porch.

‘But, oh dear! oh dear!’ sighed Val, as Gillian unpacked their evening garments, ‘Isn’t there any nice place at all where one can make a mess?’

‘I don’t know whether the aunts will ever let us make a mess,’ said Gillian; ‘they don’t look like it.’

At which Valetta’s face puckered up in the way only too familiar to her friends.

‘Come, don’t be silly, Val. You won’t have much time, you know; you will go to school, and get some friends to play with, and not want to make messes here.’

‘I hate friends!’

‘Oh, Val!’

‘All but Fly, and Mysie is gone to her. I want Mysie.’

So in truth did Gillian, almost as much as her mother. Her heart sank as she thought of having Val and Fergus to save from scrapes without Mysie’s readiness and good humour. If Mysie were but there she should be free for her ‘great thing.’ And oh! above all, Val’s hair—the brown bush that Val had a delusion that she ‘did’ herself, but which her ‘doing’ left looking rather worse than it did before, and which was not permitted in public to be in the convenient tail. Gillian advanced on her with the brush, but she tossed it and declared it all right!

However, at that moment there was a knock. Mrs. Mount’s kindly face and stout form appeared. She had dressed Miss Ada and came to see what she could do for the young people, being of that delightful class of old servants who are charmed to have anything young in the house, especially a boy. She took Valetta’s refractory mane in hand, tied her sash, inspected Fergus’s hands, which had succeeded in getting dirty in their inevitable fashion, and undertook all the unpacking and arranging. To Val’s inquiry whether there was any place for making ‘a dear delightful mess’ she replied with a curious little friendly smile, and wonder that a young lady should want such a thing.

‘I’m afraid we are all rather strange specimens of young ladies,’ replied Gillian; ‘very untidy, I mean.’

‘And I’m sure I don’t know what Miss Mohun and Miss Ada will say’ said good Mrs. Mount.

‘What’s that? What am I to say?’ asked Aunt Jane, coming into the room.

But, after all, Aunt Jane proved to have more sympathy with ‘messes’ than any of the others. She knew very well that the children would be far less troublesome if they had a place to themselves, and she said, ‘Well, Val, you shall have the boxroom in the attics. And mind, you must keep all your goods there, both of you. If I find them about the house, I shall—’

‘Oh, what, Aunt Jane?’

‘Confiscate them,’ was the reply, in a very awful voice, which impressed Fergus the more because he did not understand the word.

‘You need not look so much alarmed, Fergus,’ said Gillian; ‘you are not at all the likely one to transgress.’

‘No,’ said Valetta gravely. ‘Fergus is what Lois calls a regular old battledore.’

‘I won’t be called names,’ exclaimed Fergus.

‘Well, Lois said so—when you were so cross because the poker had got on the same side as the tongs! She said she never saw such an old battledore, and you know how all the others took it up.’

‘Shuttlecock yourself then!’ angrily responded Fergus, while both aunt and sister were laughing too much to interfere.

‘I shall call you a little Uncle Maurice instead,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘How things come round! Perhaps you would not believe, Gill, that Aunt Ada was once in a scrape, when she was our Mrs. Malaprop, for applying that same epithet on hearsay to Maurice.’

This laugh made Gillian feel more at home with her aunt, and they went up happily together for the introduction to the lumber-room, not a very spacious place, and with a window leading out to the leads. Aunt Jane proceeded to put the children on their word of honour not to attempt to make an exit thereby, which Gillian thought unnecessary, since this pair were not enterprising.

The evening went off happily. Aunt Jane produced one of the old games which had been played at the elder Beechcroft, and had a certain historic character in the eyes of the young people. It was one of those variations of the Game of the Goose that were once held to be improving, and their mother had often told them how the family had agreed to prove whether honesty is really the best policy, and how it had been agreed that all should cheat as desperately as possible, except ‘honest Phyl,’ who couldn’t; and how, by some extraordinary combination, good for their morals, she actually was the winner. It was immensely interesting to see the identical much-worn sheet of dilapidated pictures with the padlock, almost close to the goal, sending the counter back almost to the beginning in search of the key. Still more interesting was the imitation, in very wonderful drawing, devised by mamma, of the career of a true knight—from pagedom upwards—in pale watery Prussian-blue armour, a crimson scarf, vermilion plume, gamboge spurs, and very peculiar arms and legs. But, as Valetta observed, it must have been much more interesting to draw such things as that than stupid freehand lines and twists with no sense at all in them.

Aunt Ada, being subject to asthmatic nights, never came down to breakfast, and, indeed, it was at an hour that Gillian thought fearfully early; but her Aunt Jane was used to making every hour of the day available, and later rising would have prevented the two children from being in time for the schools, to which they were to go on the Monday. Some of Aunt Jane’s many occupations on Saturday consisted in arranging with the two heads of their respective schools, and likewise for the mathematical class Gillian was to join at the High School two mornings in the week, and for her lessons on the organ, which were to be at St. Andrew’s Church. Somehow Gillian felt as if she were as entirely in her aunt’s hands as Kunz and the Sofy had been!

After the early dinner, which suited the invalid’s health, Aunt Jane said she would take Valetta and Fergus to go down to the beach with the little Varleys, while she went to her district, leaving Gillian to read to Aunt Ada for half an hour, and then to walk with her for a quiet turn on the beach.

It was an amusing article in a review that Gillian was set to read, and she did it so pleasantly that her aunt declared that she looked forward to many such afternoon pastimes, and then, by an easier way than the hundred and a half steps, they proceeded down the hill, the aunt explaining a great deal to the niece in a manner very gratifying to a girl beginning to be admitted to an equality with grown-up people.

‘There is our old church,’ said Aunt Ada, as they had a glimpse of a gray tower with a curious dumpy steeple.

‘Do you go to church there!’

‘I do—always. I could not undertake the hill on Sundays; but Jane takes the school-children to the St. Andrew’s service in the afternoon.’

‘But which is the parish church?’

‘In point of fact, my dear; it is all one parish. Good morning, Mr. Hablot. My niece, Miss Gillian Merrifield. Yes, my sister is come home. I think she will be at the High School. He is the vicar of St. Andrew’s,’ as the clergyman went off in the direction of the steps.

‘I thought you said it was all one parish.’

‘St. Andrew’s is only a district. Ah, it was all before your time, my dear.’

‘I know dear Uncle Claude was the clergyman here, and got St. Andrew’s built.’

‘Yes, my dear. It was the great work and thought with him and Lord Rotherwood in those days that look so bright now,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘Yes, and with us all.’

‘Do tell me all about it,’ entreated Gillian; and her aunt, nothing loth, went on.

‘Dear Claude was only five-and-twenty when he had the living. Nobody would take it, it was such a neglected place. All Rockquay down there had grown up with only the old church, and nobody going to it. It was a great deal through Rotherwood. Some property here came to him, and he was shocked at the state of things. Then we all thought the climate might be good for dear Claude, and Jane came to live with him and help him, and look after him. You see there were a great many of us, and Jane—well, she didn’t quite get on with Alethea, and Claude thought she wanted a sphere of her own, and that is the way she comes to have more influence than any one else here. And as I am always better in this air than anywhere else, I came soon after—even before my dear fathers death. And oh! what an eager, hopeful time it was, setting everything going, and making St. Andrew’s all we could wish! We were obliged to be cautious at the old church, you know, because of not alarming the old-fashioned people. And so we are still—’

‘Is that St. Andrew’s? Oh, it is beautiful. May I look in?’

‘Not now, my dear. You will see it another time.’

‘I wish it were our church.’

‘You will find the convenience of having one so near. And our services are very nice with our present rector, Mr. Ellesmere, an excellent active man, but his wife is such an invalid that all the work falls on Jane. I am so glad you are here to help her a little. St. Andrew’s has a separate district, and Mr. Hablot is the vicar; but as it is very poor, we keep the charities all in one. Rotherwood built splendid schools, so we only have an infant school for the Rockstone children. On Sunday, Jane assembles the older children there and takes them to church; but in the afternoon they all go to the National Schools, and then to a children’s service at St. Andrew’s. She gets on so well with Mr. Hablot—he was dear Claude’s curate, you see, and little Mrs. Hablot was quite a pupil of ours. What do you think little Gerald Hablot said—he is only five—“Isn’t Miss Mohun the most consultedest woman in Rockquay?”’

‘I suppose it is true,’ said Gillian, laughing, but rather awestruck.

‘I declare it makes me quite giddy to count up all she has on her hands. Nobody can do anything without her. There are so few permanent inhabitants, and when people begin good works, they go away, or marry, or grow tired, and then we can’t let them drop!’

‘Oh! what’s that pretty spire, on the rise of the other hill?’

‘My dear, that was the Kennel Mission Chapel, a horrid little hideous iron thing, but Lady Flight mistook and called it St. Kenelm’s, and St. Kenelm’s it will be to the end of the chapter.’ And as she exchanged bows with a personage in a carriage, ‘There she is, my dear.’

‘Who? Did she build that church?’

‘It is not consecrated. It really is only a mission chapel, and he is nothing but a curate of Mr. Hablot’s,’ said Aunt Ada, Gillian thought a little venomously.

She asked, ‘Who?’

‘The Reverend Augustine Flight, my dear. I ought not to say anything against them, I am sure, for they mean to be very good; but she is some City man’s widow, and he is an only son, and they have more money than their brains can carry. They have made that little place very beautiful, quite oppressed with ornament—City taste, you know, and they have all manner of odd doings there, which Mr. Hablot allows, because he says he does not like to crush zeal, and he thinks interference would do more harm than good. Jane thinks he ought not to stand so much, but—’

Gillian somehow felt a certain amusement and satisfaction in finding that Aunt Jane had one disobedient subject, but they were interrupted by two ladies eagerly asking where to find Miss Mohun, and a few steps farther on a young clergyman accosted them, and begged that Miss Mohun might be told the hour of some meeting. Also that ‘the Bellevue Church people would not co-operate in the coal club.’

Then it was explained that Bellevue Church was within the bounds of another parish, and had been built by, and for, people who did not like the doctrine at the services of St. Andrew’s.

By this time aunt and niece had descended to the Marine esplanade, a broad road, on one side of which there was a low sea wall, and then the sands and rocks stretched out to the sea, on the other a broad space of short grass, where there was a cricket ground, and a lawn-tennis ground, and the volunteers could exercise, and the band played twice a week round a Russian gun that stood by the flagstaff.

The band was playing now, and the notes seemed to work on Gillian’s feet, and yet to bring her heart into her throat, for the last time she had heard that march was from the band of her father’s old regiment, when they were all together!

Her aunt was very kind, and talked to her affectionately and encouragingly of the hopes that her mother would find her father recovering, and that it would turn out after all quite an expedition of pleasure and refreshment. Then she said how much she rejoiced to have Gillian with her, as a companion to herself, while her sister was so busy, and she was necessarily so much left alone.

‘We will read together, and draw, and play duets, and have quite a good account of our employment to give,’ she said, smiling.

‘I shall like it very much,’ said Gillian heartily.

‘Dear child, the only difficulty will be that you will spoil me, and I shall never be able to part with you. Besides, you will be such a help to my dear Jane. She never spares herself, you know, and no one ever spares her, and I can do so little to help her, except with my head.’

‘Surely here are plenty of people,’ said Gillian, for they were in the midst of well-dressed folks, and Aunt Ada had more than once exchanged nods and greetings.

‘Quite true, my dear; but when there is anything to be done, then there is a sifting! But now we have you, with all our own Lily’s spirit, I shall be happy about Jane for this winter at least.

They were again interrupted by meeting a gentleman and lady, to whom Gillian was introduced, and who walked on with her aunt conversing. They had been often in India, and made so light of the journey that Gillian was much cheered. Moreover, she presently came in sight of Val and Fergus supremely happy over a castle on the beach, and evidently indoctrinating the two little Varleys with some of the dramatic sports of Silverfold.