Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

“Nor anything else in this happy town,” was the answer, accompanied by a ruffling over of the papers.

“For shame, David! The first day of the term!”

“It is the dead weight of Brownlows, my dear. Only think! There’s another lot coming! A set of duplicates. They haven’t even the sense to vary the Christian names. Three more to be admitted to-morrow.”

“That accounts for a good deal!”

“You are laughing at me, Mary; but did you never know what it is to feel like Sisyphus? Whenever you think you have rolled it a little way, down it comes, a regular dead weight again, down the slope of utter indifference and dulness, till it seems to crush the very heart out of you!”

“Have you really nobody that is hopeful?”

“Nobody who does not regard me as his worst enemy, and treat all my approaches with distrust and hostility. Mary, how am I to live it down?”

“You speak as if it were a crime!”

“I feel as if it were one. Not of mine, but of the pedagogic race before me, who have spoilt the relations between man and boy; so that I cannot even get one to act as a medium.”

“That would be contrary to esprit de corps.”

“Exactly; and the worst of it is, I am not one of those genial fellows, half boys themselves, who can join in the sports con amore; I should only make a mountebank of myself if I tried, and the boys would distrust me the more.”

“Quite true. The only way is to be oneself, and one’s best self, and the rest will come.”

“I’m not so sure of that. Some people mistake their vocation.”

“Well, when you have given it a fair trial, you can turn to something else. You are getting the school up again, which is at least one testimony.”

David Ogilvie made a sound as if this were very base kind of solace, and his sister did not wonder when she remembered the bright hopes and elaborate theories with which he had undertaken the mastership only nine months ago. He was then fresh from the university, and the loss of constant intercourse with congenial minds had perhaps contributed as much as the dulness of the Kenminster youth to bring him into a depressed state of health and spirits, which had made his elder sister contrive to spend her Easter at the seaside with him, and give him a few days at the beginning of the term. Indeed, she was anxious enough about him, when he went down to the old grammar-school, to revolve the possibility of acceding to his earnest wish, and coming to live with him, instead of continuing in her situation as governess.

He came back to luncheon next day with a brightened face, that made his sister say, “Well, have you struck some sparks?”

“I’ve got some new material, and am come home saying, ‘What’s in a name?’”

“Eh! Is it those very new Brownlows, that seemed yesterday to be the last straw on the camel’s back?”

“I wish you could have seen the whole scene, Mary. There were half-a-dozen new boys to be admitted, four Brownlows! Think of that! Well, there stood manifestly one of the old stock, with the same oval face and sleepy brown eyes, and the very same drawl I know so well in the ‘No—a—’ to the vain question, ‘Have you done any Latin?’ And how shall I do justice to the long, dragging drawl of his reading? Aye, here’s the sentence I set him on: ‘The—Gowls—had—con—sen—ted—to—accept—a—sum—of—gold—and—retire. They were en—gagged—in—wag—ging out the sum—required, and—’ I had to tell him what to call Brennus, and he proceeded to cast the sword into the scale, exclaiming, just as to a cart-horse, ‘Woh! To the Worsted’ (pronounced like yarn). After that you may suppose the feelings with which I called his ditto, another Joseph Armine Brownlow; and forth came the smallest sprite, with a white face and great black eyes, all eagerness, but much too wee for this place. ‘Begun Latin?’ ‘Oh, yes;’ and he rattled off a declension and a tense with as much ease as if he had been born speaking Latin. I gave him Phaedrus to see whether that would stump him, and I don’t think it would have done so if he had not made os a mouth instead of a bone, in dealing with the ‘Wolf and the Lamb.’ He was almost crying, so I put the Roman history into his hand, and his reading was something refreshing to hear. I asked if he knew what the sentence meant, and he answered, ‘Isn’t it when the geese cackled?’ trying to turn round the page. ‘What do you know about the geese?’ said I. To which the answer was, ‘We played at it on the stairs! Jock and I were the Romans, and Mother Carey and Babie were the geese.’”

“Poor little fellow! I hope no boys were there to listen, or he will never hear the last of those geese.”

“I hope no one was within earshot but his brothers, who certainly did look daggers at him. He did very well in summing and in writing, except that he went out of his way to spell fish, p h y c h, and shy, s c h y; and at last, I could not resist the impulse to ask him what Magna Charta is. Out came the answer, ‘It is yellow, and all crumpled up, and you can’t read it, but it has a bit of a great red seal hanging to it.’”

“What, he had seen it?”

“Yes, or a facsimile, and what was more, he knew who signed it. Whoever taught that child knew how to teach, and it is a pity he should be swamped among such a set as ours.”

“I thought you would be delighted.”

“I should be, if I had him alone, but he must be put with a crew who will make it their object to bully him out of his superiority, and the more I do for him, the worse it will be for him, poor little fellow; and he looks too delicate to stand the ordeal. It is sheer cruelty to send him.”

“Hasn’t he brothers?”

“Oh, yes! I was going to tell you, two bigger boys, another Robert and John Brownlow—about eleven and nine years old. The younger one is a sort of black spider monkey, wanting the tail. We shall have some trouble with that gentleman, I expect.”

“But not the old trouble?”

“No, indeed; unless the atmosphere affects him. He answered as no boy of twelve can do here; and as to the elder one, I must take him at once into the fifth form, such as it is.”

“Where have they been at school?”

“At a day school in London. They are Colonel Brownlow’s nephews. Their father was a medical man in London, who died last summer, leaving a young widow and these boys, and they have just come down to live in Kenminster. But it can’t be owing to the school. No school would give all three that kind of—what shall I call it?—culture, and intelligence, that they all have; besides, the little one has been entirely taught at home.”

“I wonder whether it is their mother’s doing?”

“I am afraid it is their father’s. The Colonel spoke of her as a poor helpless little thing, who was thrown on his hands with all her family.”

After the morning’s examination and placing of the boys, there was a half-holiday; and the brother and sister set forth to enjoy it together, for Kenminster was a place with special facilities for enjoyment. It was built as it were within a crescent, formed by low hills sloping down to the river; the Church, school, and other remnants of the old collegiate buildings lying in the flat at the bottom, and the rest of the town, one of the small decayed wool staples of Somerset, being in terraces on the hill-side, with steep streets dividing the rows. These were of very mixed quality and architecture, but, as a general rule, improved the higher they rose, and were all interspersed with gardens running up or down, and with a fair sprinkling of trees, whose budding green looked well amid the yellow stone.

On the summit were some more ornamental villa-like houses, and grey stone buildings with dark tiled roofs, but the expansion on that side had been checked by extensive private grounds. There were very beautiful woods coming almost close to the town, and in the absence of the owner, a great moneyed man, they were open to all those who did not make themselves obnoxious to the keepers; and these, under an absentee proprietor, gave a free interpretation to rights of way. Thither were the Ogilvies bound, in search of primrose banks, but their way led them past two or three houses on the hill-top, one of which, being constructed on supposed Chinese principles of architecture, was known to its friends as “the Pagoda,” to its foes as “the Folly.” It had been long untenanted, but this winter it had been put into complete repair, and two rooms, showing a sublime indifference to consistency of architecture, had been lately built out with sash windows and a slated roof, contrasting oddly with the frilled and fluted tiles of the tower from which it jutted.

Suddenly there sounded close to their ears the words—“School time, my dear!”

Starting and looking round for some impertinent street boy, Mr. Ogilvie exclaimed, “What’s that?”

“Mother Carey! We are all Mother Carey’s chickens.”

“See, there,” exclaimed Mary, and a great parrot was visible on the branch of a sumach, which stretched over the railings of the low wall of the pagoda garden. “O you appropriate bird,—you surely ought not to be here!”

To which the parrot replied, “Hic, haec, hoc!” and burst out in a wild scream of laughing, spreading her grey wings, and showing intentions of flying away; but Mr. Ogilvie caught hold of the chain that hung from her leg.

Just then voices broke out—

“That’s Polly! Where is she? That’s you, Jock, you horrid boy.”

“Well, I didn’t see why she shouldn’t enjoy herself.”

“Now you’ve been and lost her. Poll, Poll!”

“I have her!” called back Mr. Ogilvie. “I’ll bring her to the gate.”

Thanks came through the hedge, and the brother and sister walked on.

“It’s old Ogre. Cut!” growled in what was meant to be an aside, a voice the master knew full well, and there was a rushing off of feet, like ponies in a field.

When the sheep gate was reached, a great furniture van was seen standing at the door of the “Folly,” and there appeared a troop of boys and girls in black, eager to welcome their pet.

“Thank you, sir; thank you very much. Come, Polly,” said the eldest boy, taking possession of the bird.

“I think we have met before,” said the schoolmaster to the younger ones, glad to see that two—i.e. the new Robert and Armine Brownlow—had not joined in the sauve qui peut.

Nay, Robert turned and said, “Mother, it is Mr. Ogilvie.”

Then that gentleman was aware that one of the black figures had a widow’s cap, with streamers flying behind her in the breeze, but while he was taking off his hat and beginning, “Mrs. Brownlow,” she held out her hands to his sister, crying, “Mary, Mary Ogilvie,” and there was an equally fervent response. “Is it? Is it really Caroline Allen?” and the two friends linked eager hands in glad pressure, turning, after the first moment, towards the house, while Mary said, “David, it is my dear old schoolfellow; Carey, this is my brother.”

“You were very kind to these boys,” said Carey, warmly shaking hands with him. “The name sounded friendly, but I little thought you were Mary’s brother. Are you living here, Mary? How delightful!”

“Alas, no; I am only keeping holiday with David. I go back to-morrow.”

“Then stay now, stay and let me get all I can of you, in this frightful muddle,” entreated Caroline. “Chaos is come again, but you won’t mind.”

“I’ll come and help you,” said Mary. “David, you must go on alone and come back for me.”

“Can’t I be of use?” offered David, feeling rather shut out in the cold; “I see a bookcase. Isn’t that in my line?”

“And here’s the box with its books,” said Janet. “Oh! mother, do let that be finished off at least! Bobus, there are the shelves, and I have all their pegs in my basket.”

The case was happily in its place against the wall, and Janet had seized on her recruit to hold the shelves while she pegged them, while the two friends were still exchanging their first inquiries, Carey exclaiming, “Now, you naughty Mary, where have you been, and why didn’t you write?”

“I have been in Russia, and I didn’t write, because nobody answered, and I didn’t know where anybody was.”

“In Russia! I thought you were with a Scottish family, and wrote to you to the care of some laird with an unearthly name.”

“But you knew that they took me abroad.”

“And Alice Brown told me that letters sent to the place in Scotland would find you. I wrote three times, and when you did not answer my last—” and Caroline broke off with things unutterable in her face.

“I never had any but the first when you were going to London. I answered that. Yes, I did! Don’t look incredulous. I wrote from Sorrento.”

“That must have miscarried. Where did you address it.”

“To the old place, inside a letter to Mrs. Mercer.”

“I see! Poor Mrs. Mercer went away ill, and did not live long after, and I suppose her people never troubled themselves about her letters. But why did not you get ours.”

“Mrs. McIan died at Venice, and the aunts came out, and considering me too young to go on with the laird and his girls, they fairly made me over to a Russian family whom we had met. Unluckily, as I see now, I wrote to Mrs. Mercer, and as I never heard more I gave up writing. Then the Crimean War cut me off entirely even from David. I had only one letter all that time.”

“How is it that you are a governess? I thought one was sure of a pension from a Russian grandee!”

“These were not very grand grandees, only counts, and though they paid liberally, they could not pension one. So when I had done with the youngest daughter, I came to England and found a situation in London. I tried to look up our old set, but could not get on the track of anyone except Emily Collins, who told me you had married very soon, but was not even sure of your name. Very soon! Why, Caroline, your daughter looks as old as yourself.”

“I sometimes think she is older! And have you seen my Eton boy?”

“Was it he who received the delightful popinjay, who ‘Up and spak’ so much to the purpose?” asked Mr. Ogilvie.

“Yes, it was Allen. He is the only one you did not see in the morning. Did they do tolerably?”

“I only wish I had any boys who did half as well,” said Mr. Ogilvie, the lads being gone for more books.

“I was afraid for John and Armine, for we have been unsettled, and I could not go on so steadily with them as before,” she said eagerly, but faltering a little. “Armine told me he blundered in Phaedrus, but I hope he did fairly on the whole.”

“So well that if you ask my advice, I should say keep him to yourself two years more.”

“Oh! I am so glad,” with a little start of joy. “You’ll tell his uncle? He insisted—he had some impression that they were very naughty boys, whom I could not cope with, poor little fellows.”

“I can decidedly say he is learning more from you than he would in school among those with whom, at his age, I must place him.”

“Thank you, thank you. Then Babie won’t lose her companion. She wanted to go to school with Armie, having always gone on with him. And the other two—what of them? Bobus is sure to work for the mere pleasure of it—but Jock?”

“I don’t promise that he may not let himself down to the standard of his age and develop a capacity for idleness, but even he has time to spare, and he is at that time of life when boys do for one another what no one else can do for them.”

“The Colonel said the boys were a good set and gentlemanly,” said Carey wistfully.

“I think I may say that for them,” returned their master. “They are not bad boys as boys go. There is as much honour and kindliness among them as you would find anywhere. Besides, to boys like yours this would be only a preparatory school. They are sure to fly off to scholarships.”

“I don’t know,” said Carey. “I want them to be where physical science is an object. Or do you think that thorough classical training is a better preparation than taking up any individual line?”

“I believe it is easier to learn how to learn through languages than through anything else.”

“And to be taught how to learn is a much greater thing than to be crammed,” said Carey. “Of course when one begins to teach oneself, the world has become “mine oyster,” and one has the dagger. The point becomes how to sharpen the dagger.”

At that moment three or four young people rushed in with arms full of books, and announcing that the uncle and aunt were coming. The next moment they appeared, and stood amazed at the accession of volunteer auxiliaries. Mr. Ogilvie introduced his sister, while Caroline explained that she was an old friend,—meanwhile putting up a hand to feel for her cap, as she detected in Ellen’s eyes those words, “Caroline, your cap.”

“We came to see how you were getting on,” said the Colonel, kindly.

“Thank you, we are getting on capitally. And oh, Robert, Mr. Ogilvie will tell you; he thinks Armine too—too—I mean he thinks he had better not go into school yet,” she added, thankful that she had not said “too clever for the school.”

The Colonel turned aside with the master to discuss the matter, and the ladies went into the drawing-room, the new room opening on the lawn, under a verandah, with French windows. It was full of furniture in the most dire confusion. Mrs. Robert Brownlow wanted to clear off at once the desks and other things that seemed school-room properties, saying that a little room downstairs had always served the purpose.

“That must be nurse’s sitting-room,” said Carey.

“Old nurse! She can be of no use, my dear!”

“Oh yes, she is; she has lived with us ever since dear grandmamma married, and has no home, and no relations. We could not get on without dear old nursey!”

“Well, my dear, I hope you will find it answer to keep her on. But as to this room! It is such a pity not to keep it nice, when you have such handsome furniture too.”

“I want to keep it nice with habitation,” said Caroline. “That’s the only way to do it. I can’t bear fusty, shut-up smart rooms, and I think the family room ought to be the pleasantest and prettiest in the house for the children’s sake.”

“Ah, well,” said Mrs. Brownlow, with a serene good nature, contrasting with the heat with which Caroline spoke, “it is your affair, my dear, but my boys would not thank me for shutting them in with my pretty things, and I should be sorry to have them there. Healthy country boys like to have their fun, and I would not coop them up.”

“Oh, but there’s the studio to run riot in, Ellen,” said Carey. “Didn’t you see? The upper story of the tower. We have put the boy’s tools there, and I can do my modelling there, and make messes and all that’s nice,” she said, smiling to Mary, and to Allen, who had just come in.

“Do you model, Carey?” Mary asked, and Allen volunteered to show his mother’s groups and bas-reliefs, thereby much increasing the litter on the floor, and delighting Mary a good deal more than his aunt, who asked, “What will you do for a store-room then?”

“Put up a few cupboards and shelves anywhere.”

It is not easy to describe the sort of air with which Mrs. Robert Brownlow received this answer. She said nothing but “Oh,” and was perfectly unruffled in a sort of sublime contempt, as to the hopelessness of doing anything with such a being on her own ground.

There did not seem overt provocation, but poor Caroline, used to petting and approval, chafed and reasoned: “I don’t think anything so important as a happy home for the boys, where they can have their pursuits, and enjoy themselves.”

Mrs. Brownlow seemed to think this totally irrelevant, and observed, “When I have nice things, I like to keep them nice.”

“I like nice boys better than nice things,” cried Carey.

Ellen smiled as though to say she hoped she was not an unnatural mother, and again said “Oh!”

Mary Ogilvie was very glad to see the two gentlemen come in from the hall, the Colonel saying, “Mr. Ogilvie tells me he thinks Armine too small at present for school, Caroline.”

“You know I am very glad of it, Robert,” she said, smiling gratefully, and Ellen compassionately observed, “Poor little fellow, he is very small, but country air and food will soon make a man of him if he is not overdone with books. I make it a point never to force my children.”

“No, that you don’t,” said Caroline, with a dangerous smile about the corners of her mouth.

“And my boys do quite as well as if they had their heads stuffed and their growth stunted,” said Ellen. “Joe is only two months older than Armine, and you are quite satisfied with him, are you not, Mr. Ogilvie?”

“He is more on a level with the others,” said Mr. Ogilvie politely; “but I wish they were all as forward as this little fellow.”

“Schoolmasters and mammas don’t always agree on those points,” said the Colonel good-humouredly.

“Very true,” responded his wife. “I never was one for teasing the poor boys with study and all that. I had rather see them strong and well grown. They’ll have quite worry enough when they go to school.”

“I’m sorry you look at me in that aspect,” said Mr. Ogilvie.

“Oh, I know you can’t help it,” said the lady.

“Any more than Trois Echelles and Petit Andre,” said Carey, in a low voice, giving the two Ogilvies the strongest desire to laugh.

Just then out burst a cry of wrath and consternation, making everyone hurry out into the hall, where, through a perfect cloud of white powder, loomed certain figures, and a scandalised voice cried “Aunt Caroline, Jock and Armine have been and let all the arrowroot fly about.”

“You told me to be useful and open parcels,” cried Jock.

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

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

“‘Twas Jessie’s 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.”

“There’s 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 aunt’s dress.

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

And to everyone’s 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, “That’s right, my boy,” and his aunt said, with dignity, “Very well, we’ll 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 remains—in the midst of which there was a smash of glass.

“Jock again!” quoth Janet.

“Oh, mother!” called out Jock. “It’s so long! I thought I’d 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 schoolmaster’s, 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.