The Stokesley Secret

“A very sad and improper way of spending a Sunday evening,” said Miss Fosbrook, who had really grown quite angry.  “Anne and John, I will put an end to this teasing.  Go to bed this instant.”

They did not dare to disobey, but went off slowly with sulky footsteps, muttering to one another that Miss Fosbrook always took pipy Betty’s part; Nurse said so, and they wished Mamma was at home.  And when they came up to the nursery, Nurse pitied them.  She had never heard of a young lady doing such a thing as ordering off two poor dear children to bed for only just saying a word; but it seemed there were to be favourites now.  No, she could not put them to bed; they must wait till Mary came in from her walk; she wasn’t going to put herself out of the way for any fine London governess.

So Johnnie had another conquest over Miss Fosbrook; but Anne was uncomfortable, and went and sat in a corner, wishing she had had her punishment properly over, and kicking her brother away when he wanted to play with her.

As for Bessie, she only cried the more for Miss Fosbrook’s trying to talk to her.  It was a way of hers, perhaps from being less strong than the others, if once she started in a cry she could not leave off.

Susan told Miss Fosbrook so; and the boys tried to drag her on with a promise of a blackbird’s nest; but she thought them unfeeling to such woeful distress, and first tried to reason with Bessie, then to soothe her, till at last, finding all in vain, she thought bed the only place for the child, and led her into the house, helped her, still shaking with sobs, to undress, and was going to see her lie down in the bed which she shared with Susan.  Elizabeth was still young enough to say her prayers aloud.  The words came out in the middle of choking sobs, not as if she were much attending to them.  Miss Fosbrook knelt down by her as she was going to rise, and said in her own words,

“Most merciful God, give unto this Thy child the spirit of content, and the spirit of love, that she may bear patiently all the little trials that hurt and vex her, and win her way as Thy good soldier and servant.  Amen.”

Elizabeth held her breath to listen.  It was new and odd.  She did not like to say Amen; she did not know if the governess were not taking a liberty.  Perhaps it was a new way of telling her she was wrong—Christabel, whom she had thought on her side.

The bad temper woke up, and would not let her offer a friendly kiss.  She hid her face in the pillow, and as soon as Miss Fosbrook had shut the door, went off into a fresh gust of piteous sobs, because Miss Elizabeth Merrifield was the most miserable ill-used child in all the world.

She might be one of the most miserable, but it was not because of her ill-usage, but because she had no spirit to be cheerful, and had turned away from comfort of the right kind.  She was in such a frame as to prefer thinking everyone against her, to supposing that anything she could do would mend matters.

Christabel was much grieved at this unfortunate end to the Sunday evening.  She looked over all the boys’ birds’ eggs—they were allowed to keep two of every sort as curiosities—and listened to some wonderful stories of Henry’s about climbing trees, and shooting partridges, and she kept the remaining children quiet and amused; but she was not happy in her mind.

She thought she must have been wrong in not watching them more closely, and she felt more dislike and indignation against Johnnie than she feared was altogether right in his governess.  Also, she feared to make too much of Elizabeth, and was almost afraid that notice taught her to be still more fretful.  And yet there was a sense of being drawn to her by their two minds understanding each other, by likeness of tastes, by pity, and by a wish to protect one whom her little world oppressed.

Nurse Freeman could not be more afraid of Miss Fosbrook making favourites than she was herself.

All she could do in the matter was that which she had already done at Bessie’s bedside, and much more fully than when the little girl was listening to her.

CHAPTER V

With Monday morning began the earning of the pig.  Miss Fosbrook’s first business after prayers was to deal out the week’s allowance—sixpence to each of the four elders, threepence apiece to the three younger ones.

“May there be no fines,” she said.

“I’ll not have the hundredth part of a fine!” shouted Henry, tossing his money into the air.

Little David’s set lips expressed the same purpose.

“Please let me have a whole sixpence,” said Susan.  “If I haven’t any change, I sha’n’t spend it.”

“You, Sukey! you’d better have the four farthings,” laughed Sam.  “You’ll be the first to want them.”

Susan laughed; and Miss Fosbrook, partly as an example to the plaintive Elizabeth, said, “You are so good-humoured, Susie, that I can’t find it in my heart to demand a fine—or—your hair; and there,” pointing to the stout red fingers, “did you ever behold such a black little row?”

“Oh dear!” cried Susan, in her good-humoured hearty voice, “how tiresome, when they were so clean this morning, and I’ve only just been feeding the chicken, and up in the hay-loft for the eggs, and pulling the radishes!”

“Well, go and wash and brush, and to-morrow remember the pig,” said Miss Fosbrook, unable to help comparing the radishes and the fingers for redness and for earthiness.

It was a more difficult matter when, as Elizabeth put her silver coin into her purse, John must needs repeat the stupid old joke, “There goes stingy Bet!” and Bessie put on her woeful appealing face.

“John, I shall punish you if I hear those words again.”

“I don’t mind.  Nurse says you have no business to punish me!  She did not put me to bed; and I had such fun!  Oh, such fun!” and the boy looked up with a grin that set all the others laughing.

Christabel resolutely kept silence, and hoped her looks did not show her annoyance, as the boy went on, “I got lots of goodies, for Nurse said she had no notion of no stranger punishing her children.  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!”  For Samuel had hold of his ear, and was tweaking it sharply.

“There!  Go and tell Nurse, if you like, baby!”

“Sam, indeed I can’t have my battles fought in that way!” cried the governess, much distressed, as Johnnie roared, perhaps that old Nurse might hear, and, to all attempts to find out whether he were hurt, offered only heels and fists, till Susan came back and hugged him into quiet.

“Now Johnnie has cried before breakfast on a Monday morning,” said Annie, “all the rest of the week will go wrong with him.”

“Indeed,” said Miss Fosbrook, “I hope no such thing.—Suppose we try and show Annie she is wrong, Johnnie!”

But Johnnie was sulky, and even Susan looked as if she thought this a new and dangerous notion.  Sam laughed, and said, “I wish you joy, Miss Fosbrook.  Now he’ll think he must be naughty.”

“Johnnie,” said David solemnly, “the pig.”

The pig was a very good master of the ceremonies, and kept all elbows off the table at breakfast-time; and Bessie, who was apt to stick fast in the midst of her bread and milk, and fall into disgrace for daintiness and dawdling, finished off quietly and prosperously.

Then every one was turned loose till nine o’clock.  Susan had charge of Mamma’s keys, and had to go down to the kitchen, see what the cook wanted, and put it out, but only on condition that no brother or sister ever went with her to the store-closet.  Susan was highly trustworthy, but Mamma was too wise to let her be tempted by voices begging for one plum, one almond, or the last spoonful of Jam.  It took away a great deal of the pleasure of jingling the keys, and having a voice in choosing the pudding.

The two elder boys went to their tutor, the other children to the nursery, except Elizabeth, who was rummaging in her little box, and David, whom Miss Fosbrook found perched on the ledge of the window, reading a book that did not look as if it were meant for men of his size.

But Miss Fosbrook thought David like the oldest person in the house—infinitely older than John, who could do nothing better than he except running and bawling, and a good deal older than even Hal and Sam.  Nay, there were times when he raised his steady eyes and slowly spoke out his thoughts, when she felt as if he were much more wise and serious than her twenty-years old self.

“Well, Davy,” she asked, as at the sound of the lesson-bell the little old man uncrossed his sturdy legs, closed his book, and arose with a sigh, “have you found out all about it?”

“I have found out why a pig is a profitable investment,” he answered gravely.

“And why?”

“Because he will feed upon refuse, and fatten upon cheap food,” said David, in the words of his book; “only I can’t make out why.  Do you know, Miss Fosbrook?”

“I don’t quite see what you want to know, Davy.”

“I want to know why a pig gets fat on barley-meal, when an ox wants mange, and oil-cake and hay.  I asked Nurse, and she said little boys mustn’t ask questions; and I asked Purday, and he said it was because pigs is pigs, and oxen is oxen.  Why do you think it is, Miss Fosbrook?”

“I don’t think; I know it is because the great God has made one sort of creature to be easily fed, and made good for poor people to live upon,” said Miss Fosbrook.

David’s eyes were fixed on her as if he still had questions to ask, and she was quite afraid of her powers of answering them, for he was new in the world, and saw the strangeness of many things to which older people become used by living with them, but which are not the less strange for all that.

However, the trampling of many feet put an end to question and answer, and the day’s work had to begin with the Psalms, and reading the Morning Lessons.  Bessie was by far the best reader; and David did very well, though he made very long stops to look deliberately at any long new word, and could not bear to be told before he had mastered it for himself.  Even Susan was sadly given to gabbling and missing the little words that she thought beneath her attention; and the other two stumbled so horribly, that it was pain to hear them.

This beginning might be taken as the sign of how all would do their lessons.  It is only a child here and there, generally a lonely one, to whom lessons can be anything but a toil and an obligation.  Even with clever ones, who may be interested in some part of their study, some other branch will be disagreeable; and there is nothing in the whole world to be learnt without drudgery, so it would be unreasonable to expect lessons to be regarded as delightful; but there is one thing that is to be expected of any good child—not to enjoy lessons; not to surpass others; not to do anything surprising; only to make a conscience of doing what is required as well as possible.

Now do not many children seem to think that they are to receive as little as they can possibly take in without being punished; or that, if they make any exertion, their teachers ought to be so much obliged to them, that some great praise or reward is due to them?

Let us see whether anyone in Stokesley school-room was making a conscience of the day’s tasks.  It is not of much use to ask for any at present in Johnnie—not for a whole week, as Annie would declare; he does not know his single Latin declension; his spelling, is all abroad; his geography wild; yet though turned back once, he misses the fine by just saying his lessons passably the last time.  They perhaps ought, in strict justice, to have been sent back; but Miss Fosbrook was very glad to be saved the uproar that would have ensued, and almost wondered whether she were not timidly merciful to the horrible copy and the greasy slate.  But Johnnie had no fine, and was as proud of it as if he had been a good boy.  “She hadn’t caught him out,” he said, as if his kind governess had been his enemy.

As to Annie, her French verbs were always dreadful things to hear, and the little merry face, usually so bright, used to grow quite deplorable with the trouble she took not to use her mind.  Using her memory was bad enough, but saying things by heart was an affliction she was used to, and it was very shocking of Miss Fosbrook to require her to find out how many years Richard II. had reigned, if he began in 1377 and ended in 1399.  Susan prompted her, however; so she really got a triumph over Miss Fosbrook, and was quite saved from thinking.  Oh, but the teasing woman! she silenced Susan, and would have this poor injured Annie tell how old the tiresome man was.  “Began to reign at eleven years old, dethroned after twenty-two years; how old was he?”  Annie found bursting out crying easier than thinking, and then they all cried out, “O Nanny, the pig!” and Miss Fosbrook had the barbarity to call that foolish crying!  What might one cry for, if not at being asked how old Richard II. was?  If the fine must be paid, there was no use in stopping; so Annie howled till Miss Fosbrook turned her out to finish on the stairs; and as Nurse Freeman was out with the little ones, there was no one to comfort her; so she cried till she was tired, and when the noise ceased, Susan was allowed to come and coax her, and fetch her back to go on with her copy, as soon as her hand was steady enough.  She felt very foolish by this time, and thought David eyed her rather angrily and contemptuously; so she crept quietly to her corner, and felt sad and low-spirited all the rest of the morning.  Now that thirty-three had come into her head, it seemed so stupid not to have thought of it in time; and then she would have saved her farthing, and her eyes would not have been so hot.