Sophy of Kravonia: A Novel

"What rot!" he said, but he looked at his companion uneasily. The event of the evening had stirred the superstitious fears seldom hard to stir in children.

"People don't have those marks for nothing – so mother says." Other people, no wiser, said the same thing later.

"Rot!" Basil muttered again. "Oh, well, I must go."

She glanced at him timidly. "Just come as far as our door with me. I'm afraid."

"Afraid!" He smiled scornfully. "All right!"

He walked with her to the door of Woodbine Cottage, and waited till it closed behind her, performing the escort with a bold and lordly air. Left alone in the fast-darkening night, with nobody in sight, with no sound save the ceaseless voice of the angry wind essaying new mischief in the tops of the elm-trees, he stood for a moment listening fearfully. Then he laid his sturdy legs to the ground and fled for home, looking neither to right nor left till he reached the hospitable light of his father's study. The lad had been brave in face of the visible horror; fear struck him in the moment of Julia's talk about the mark on the child's cheek. Scornful and furious at himself, yet he was mysteriously afraid.

II

THE COOK AND THE CATECHISM

Sophy Grouch had gone to lay a bunch of flowers on her father's grave. From the first Mrs. Brownlow had taught her this pious rite, and Mrs. Brownlow's deputy, the gardener's wife (in whose cottage Sophy lived), had seen to its punctual performance every week. Things went by law and rule at the Hall, for the Squire was a man of active mind and ample leisure. His household code was a marvel of intricacy and minuteness. Sophy's coming and staying had developed a multitude of new clauses, under whose benevolent yet strict operation her youthful mind had been trained in the way in which Mr. Brownlow was of opinion that it should go.

Sophy's face, then, wore a grave and responsible air as she returned with steps of decorous slowness from the sacred precincts. Yet the outer manner was automatic – the result of seven years' practice. Within, her mind was busy: the day was one of mark in her life; she had been told her destined future, and was wondering how she would like it.

Her approach was perceived by a tall and pretty girl who lay in the meadow-grass (and munched a blade of it) which bordered the path under the elm-trees.

"What a demure little witch she looks!" laughed Julia Robins, who was much in the mood for laughter that day, greeting with responsive gleam of the eyes the sunlight which fell in speckles of radiance through the leaves above. It was a summer day, and summer was in her heart, too; yet not for the common cause with young maidens; it was no nonsense about love-making – lofty ambition was in the case to-day.

"Sophy Grouch! Sophy Grouch!" she cried, in a high, merry voice.

Sophy raised her eyes, but her steps did not quicken. With the same measured paces of her lanky, lean, little legs, she came up to where Julia lay.

"Why don't you say just 'Sophy'?" she asked. "I'm the only Sophy in the village."

"Sophy Grouch! Sophy Grouch!" Julia repeated, teasingly.

The mark on Sophy's left cheek grew redder. Julia laughed mockingly. Sophy looked down on her, still very grave.

"You do look pretty to-day," she observed – "and happy."

"Yes, yes! So I tease you, don't I? But I like to see you hang out your danger-signal."

She held out her arms to the little girl. Sophy came and kissed her, then sat down beside her.

"Forgive?"

"Yes," said Sophy. "Do you think it's a very awful name?"

"Oh, you'll change it some day," smiled Julia, speaking more truth than she knew. "Listen! Mother's consented, consented, consented! I'm to go and live with Uncle Edward in London – London, Sophy! – and learn elocution – "

"Learn what?"

"E-lo-cu-tion – which means how to talk so that people can hear you ever so far off – "

"To shout?"

"No. Don't be stupid. To – to be heard plainly without shouting. To be heard in a theatre! Did you ever see a theatre?"

"No. Only a circus. I haven't seen much."

"And then – the stage! I'm to be an actress! Fancy mother consenting at last! An actress instead of a governess! Isn't it glorious?" She paused a moment, then added, with a self-conscious laugh: "Basil's awfully angry, though."

"Why should he be angry?" asked Sophy. Her own anger was gone; she was plucking daisies and sticking them here and there in her friend's golden hair. They were great friends, this pair, and Sophy was very proud of the friendship. Julia was grown up, the beauty of the village, and – a lady! Now Sophy was by no means any one of these things.

"Oh, you wouldn't understand," laughed Julia, with a blush.

"Does he want to keep company with you – and won't you do it?"

"Only servants keep company, Sophy."

"Oh!" said Sophy, obviously making a mental note of the information.

"But he's very silly about it. I've just said 'Good-bye,' to him – you know he goes up to Cambridge to-morrow? – and he did say a lot of silly things." She suddenly caught hold of Sophy and kissed her half a dozen times. "It's a wonderful thing that's happened. I'm so tremendously happy!" She set her little friend free with a last kiss and a playful pinch.

Neither caress nor pinch disturbed Sophy's composure. She sat down on the grass.

"Something's happened to me, too, to-day," she announced.

"Has it, Tots? What is it?" asked Julia, smiling indulgently; the great events in other lives are thus sufficiently acknowledged.

"I've left school, and I'm going to leave Mrs. James's and go and live at the Hall, and be taught to help cook; and when I'm grown up I'm going to be cook." She spoke slowly and weightily, her eyes fixed on Julia's face.

"Well, I call it a shame!" cried Julia, in generous indignation. "Oh, of course it would be all right if they'd treated you properly – I mean, as if they'd meant that from the beginning. But they haven't. You've lived with Mrs. James, I know; but you've been in and out of the Hall all the time, having tea in the drawing-room, and fruit at dessert, and – and so on. And you look like a little lady, and talk like one – almost. I think it's a shame not to give you a better chance. Cook!"

"Don't you think it might be rather nice to be a cook – a good cook?"

"No, I don't," answered the budding Mrs. Siddons, decisively.

"People always talk a great deal about the cook," pleaded Sophy. "Mr. and Mrs. Brownlow are always talking about the cook – and the Rector talks about his cook, too – not always very kindly, though."

"No, it's a shame – and I don't believe it'll happen."

"Yes, it will. Mrs. Brownlow settled it to-day."

"There are other people in the world besides Mrs. Brownlow."

Sophy was not exactly surprised at this dictum, but evidently it gave her thought. Her long-delayed "Yes" showed that as plainly as her "Oh" had, a little while before, marked her appreciation of the social limits of "keeping company." "But she can settle it all the same," she persisted.

"For the time she can," Julia admitted. "Oh, I wonder what'll be my first part, Tots!" She threw her pretty head back on the grass, closing her eyes; a smile of radiant anticipation hovered about her lips. The little girl rose and stood looking at her friend – the friend of whom she was so proud.

"You'll look very, very pretty," she said, with sober gravity.

Julia's smile broadened, but her lips remained shut. Sophy looked at her for a moment longer, and, without formal farewell, resumed her progress down the avenue. It was hard on tea-time, and Mrs. James was a stickler for punctuality.