Beechcroft at Rockstone

No. 3, with its blistered wall and rusty rail, was attained, Kunz was brought within the enclosure, and Gillian knocked as sharply and fast as she could, in the fear that her aunt might yet turn about and escape.

The door was opened with a rapidity that gave the impression that they had been watched, but it was by a very untidy-looking small maid, and the parlour into which they were turned had most manifestly been lately used as the family dining-room, and was redolent of a mixture of onion, cabbage, and other indescribable odours.

Nobody was there, except a black and white cat, who showed symptoms of flying at Kunz, but thought better of it, and escaped by the window, which fortunately was open, though the little maid would have shut it, but for Miss Adeline’s gasping and peremptory entreaty to the contrary. She sat on the faded sofa, looking as if she just existed by the help of her fan and scent-bottle, and when Gillian directed her attention to the case of clasps and medals and the photograph of the fine-looking officer, she could only sigh out, ‘Oh, my dear!’

There was a certain air of taste in the arrangement of the few chimney-piece ornaments, and Gillian was pleased to see the two large photographs of her father and mother which Captain White had so much valued as parting gifts. A few drawings reminded her of the School of Art at Belfast, and there was a vase of wild flowers and ferns prettily arranged, but otherwise everything was wretchedly faded and dreary.

Then came the opening of the door, and into the room rolled, rather than advanced, something of stupendous breadth, which almost took Gillian’s breath away, as she durst not look to see the effect on her aunt. If the Queen of the White Ants had been stout before, what was she now? Whatever her appearance had been in the days of comparative prosperity, with a husband to keep her up to the mark, and a desire to rank with the officers’ wives, she had let everything go in widowhood, poverty, and neglect; and as she stood panting in her old shiny black alpaca, the only thing Gillian recalled about her like old times was the black lace veil thrown mantilla fashion over her head; but now it was over a widow’s cap, and a great deal rustier than of old. Of the lovely foreigner nothing else remained except the dark eyes, and that sort of pasty sallow whiteness that looks at if for generations past cold water and fresh air had been unknown. There was no accent more interesting in her voice than a soupcon of her Irish father as she began, ‘I am sorry to have kept the lady so long waiting. Was it about the girl’s character that you came?’

‘Oh no, Mrs. White, interrupted Gillian, her shyness overpowered by the necessity of throwing herself into the breach. ‘Don’t you remember me? I am Gillian Merrifield, and this is my aunt, Miss Adeline Mohun.’

The puffy features lighted up into warmth. ‘Little Miss Gillian! And I am proud to see you! My little Maura did tell me that Miss Valetta was in her class at the High School; but I thought there was no one now who would come near the poor widow. And is your dear mamma here, Miss Gillian, and are she and your papa quite well?’

Gillian could hardly believe in such dense remoteness that her father’s accident should be unknown, but she explained all, and met with abundant sympathy, the dark eyes filled with tears, and the voice broke into sobs, as Mrs. White declared that Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield had been the best friends she ever had in her life.

But oh! that the handkerchief had been less grimy with which she mopped her eyes, as she spoke of the happy days that were gone! Gillian saw that poor Aunt Ada was in an agony to get away, and hurried out her questions for fear of being stopped. ‘How was Kalliope—was she at home?’

‘Oh no, poor Kally, she is the best girl in the world. I always say that, with all my sorrows, no one ever was more blest in their children than poor little me. Richard, my eldest, is in a lawyer’s office at Leeds. Kally is employed in the art department, just as a compliment to her relation, Mr. White. Quite genteel, superior work, though I must say he does not do as much for us as he might. Such a youth as my Alexis now was surely worthy of the position of a gentleman.’

The good lady was quite disposed to talk; but there was no making out, through her cloud of confused complaints, what her son and daughter were actually doing; and Aunt Ada, while preserving her courtesy, was very anxious to be gone, and rose to take leave at the first moment possible, though after she was on her feet Mrs. White detained her for some time with apologies about not returning her visit. She was in such weak health, so unequal to walking up the cliff, that she was sure Miss Mohun would excuse her, though Alexis and Kally would be perfectly delighted to hear of Miss Gillian’s kindness.

Gillian had not made out half what she wanted to know, nor effected any arrangement for seeing Kalliope, when she found herself out in the street, and her aunt panting with relief. ‘My dear, that woman! You don’t mean that your mother was fond of her.’

‘I never said mamma was fond of her.’

‘My dear, excuse me. It was the only reason for letting you drag me here. I was almost stifled. What a night I shall have!’

‘I am very sorry, Aunt Ada, but, indeed, I never said that mamma was fond of her, only that papa thought very highly of her husband, and wished us to be kind to her.’

‘Well, you gave me that impression, whether you wished it or not! Such a hole; and I’m sure she drinks gin!’

‘Oh no, aunt!’

‘I can’t be mistaken! I really was afraid she was going to kiss you!’

‘I do wish I could have made out about Alexis and Kalliope.’

‘Oh, my dear, just working like all the lot, though she shuffled about it. I see what they are like, and the less you see of them the better. I declare I am more tired than if I had walked a mile. How am I ever to get up the hill again?’

‘I am sorry, aunt,’ said Gillian. ‘Will you take my arm? Perhaps we may meet Kalliope, if the marble people come out at four or five. What’s that bell?’ as a little tinkle was heard.

‘That’s St. Kenelm’s! Oh! you would like to go there, and it would rest me; only there’s Kunz.’

‘I should like to see it very much,’ said Gillian.

‘Well,’ said Aunt Ada, who certainly seemed to have something of the ‘cat’s away’ feeling about her, and, moreover, trusted to avoid meeting Kalliope. ‘Just round the corner here is Mrs. Webb’s, who used to live with us before she married, Kunz will be happy with her. Won’t he, my doggie, like to go and see his old Jessie?’

So Kunz was disposed of with a very pleasant, neat-looking woman, who begged Miss Adeline to come and have some tea after the service.

It was really a beautiful little church—‘a little gem’ was exactly the term that suggested itself—very ornate, and the chief lack being of repose, for there seemed not an inch devoid of colour or carving. There was a choir of boys in short surplices and blue cassocks, and a very musical service, in the course of which it was discovered to be the Feast of St. Remigius, for after the Lesson a short discourse was given on the Conversion of Clovis, not forgetting the sacred ampulla.

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. Andrew’s 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 day—in the mosaic department. Oh, Miss Gillian, I owe it all to Miss Merrifield’s 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. That’s 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. Kenelm’s, 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. Webb’s; ‘but—they 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 sister’s 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 man’s 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 don’t 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 there’s 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 soldier’s 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 Alethea’s kindness to his daughter into a bosom friendship; while the aunts seemed to be absurdly fastidious and prejudiced. ‘I don’t 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. Kenelm’s, and won’t 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 hour’s 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 mother’s 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 mamma’s 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. Mount’s 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 Gillian’s 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 Jane’s superintendence, he utterly cast off his sister’s aid. There was something in Miss Mohun’s 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 Fergus’s 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. White’s 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! don’t 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 father’s 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 fever—at 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 lawyer’s office, when there began a terrible fever in our street—the drains were to blame, they said—and 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 relapse—and—’

‘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 White—not 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 chance—or rather Providence—that 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, if—if—we 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. Don’t 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.’

Just then the sound of a bell coming up from the town below was a warning to both that the conversation must be broken off. A few words—‘I am so glad to have seen you,’ and ‘It has been such a pleasure’—passed, and then each hastened down her separate garden path.

‘Must I tell of this meeting?’ Gillian asked herself. ‘I shall write it all to mamma and Alethea, of course. How delightful that those lessons that Kalliope had have come to be of so much use! How pleased Alethea will be! Poor dear thing! How much she has gone through! But can there be any need to tell the aunts? Would it not just make Aunt Ada nervous about any one looking through her sweet and lovely wall? And as to Aunt Jane, I really don’t see that I am bound to gratify her passion for knowing everything. I am not accountable to her, but to my own mother. My people know all about Kalliope, and she is prejudiced. Why should I be unkind and neglectful of an old fellow-soldier’s family, because she cannot or will not understand what they really are? It would not be the slightest use to tell her the real story. Mrs. White is fat, and Kalliope has a fringe, goes to St. Kenelm’s, and won’t be in the G.F.S., and that’s enough to make her say she does not believe a word of it, or else to make it a fresh ground for poking and prying, in the way that drives one distracted! It really is quite a satis-faction to have something that she can’t find out, and it is not underhand while I write every word of it to mamma.’

So Gillian made her conscience easy, and she did write a long and full account of the Whites and their troubles, and of her conversation with Kalliope.