The Two Sides of the Shield

‘I think we must ask Aunt Jane–’

There was a howl. ‘Oh, please, mamma, don’t let Aunt Jane get all the things! We do so want to choose.’

‘You impatient monsters! You haven’t heard me out, and you don’t deserve it.’

‘Oh, mamma, I beg your pardon!’ ‘Oh, mamma, please!’ ‘Oh, mamma, pray!’ cried the most impatient howlers, dancing round her.

‘What I was about to observe, before the interruption by the honourable members, was, that we might perhaps ask Aunt Jane and Aunt Ada to receive at luncheon a party of caterers for this same tree.’

‘Oh! oh! oh!’ ‘How delicious!’ ‘Hooray!’ ‘That’s what I call jolly fun!’

‘And, mamma,’ added Gillian, ‘perhaps we might let Miss Hacket join. I know she wants to get up something for a G.F.S. class; but mamma was attending to Primrose, and the brothers burst in.

‘There goes Gill, spoiling it all!’ exclaimed Wilfred.

‘That’s always the way,’ said Jasper. ‘Girls must puzzle everything up with some philanthropic Great Fuss Society dodge.’

‘I am sure, Jasper,’ said Gillian, ‘I don’t see why it should spoil anything to make other people happy. I thought we were told to make feasts not only for our own friends—’

‘Gill’s getting just like old Miss Hacket,’ said Wilfred.

‘Or sweet Constance,’ put in Jasper. ‘She’ll be writing poems next.’

‘Hush! hush! boys,’ said Lady Merrifield. ‘I do not mean to interfere with your pleasure, ‘but I had rather our discussions were not entirely selfish. Suppose, Gillian, we walked down to Casement Cottages, and consulted Miss Hacket.’

This was done, in the company of all the little girls, for Miss Hacket’s cats, doves, and gingerbread were highly popular; moreover, Dolores was glad of a chance sight of Constance.

‘My dear,’ said Lady Merrifield, as Gillian walked beside her, ‘you must be satisfied with giving Miss Hacket the reversion of our tree, and you and Mysie can go and help her. It will not do to make these kind of works a nuisance to your brothers.’

‘I did not think Jasper would have been so selfish as to object,’ said Gillian, almost tearfully.

‘Remember that boys have a very short time at home, and cannot be expected to care for these things like those who work in them,’ said Lady Merrifield. ‘It will not make them do so, to bore them, and take away their sense of home and liberty. At the same time, they must not expect to have everything sacrificed to them, and so I shall make Jasper understand.’

‘You won’t scold him, mamma?’

‘Can’t you, any of you, trust me, Gill?’

‘Oh! mamma! Only I didn’t want him to think. I wouldn’t do everything he liked, except that I don’t want him to be unkind about those poor girls.’

Miss Hacket was perfectly enraptured at the offer of the reversion of the Christmas-tree and its trapping. Valetta’s birthday was on the 28th of December and the tree was to be lighted on the ensuing evening for G.F.S. Moreover, the party would go to Rockstone as soon as an appointment could be made with Miss Mohun, to make selections at a great German fancy shop, recently opened there, and in full glory; and the Hacket sisters were invited to join the party, starting at a quarter to eight, and returning at a few minutes after seven, the element of darkness at each end only adding to the charm in the eyes of the children, and Valetta, with a little leap, repeated that it would be a real secret expedition.

‘Very secret indeed,’ said her mother, ‘considering how many it is known to—’

‘Yes, but it is, mamma, for everybody has a secret from everybody.’

The words made Constance and Dolores look round with a start from their colloquy under the shade of the window-curtains, but no one was thinking of them. Just as the plans were settled, Constance came forward, saying, ‘Lady Merrifield, may I have dear Dolores to spend the day with me? We neither of us wish to join your kind party to Rockstone, and we should so enjoy being together.’

‘I had much rather stay,’ added Dolores.

‘Very well,’ said Lady Merrifield, reflecting that her sisters would be grateful for the diminution of the party, and that it would be easier to keep the peace without Dolores.

The defection was hailed with joy by her cousins, though they were struck dumb at her extraordinary taste in not liking shopping.

Jasper did look rather small when his mother assured him in private he might have trusted her to see that he was not to be incommoded with Gillian’s girls, and he only observed, in excuse for his murmurs, that it made a man mad to see his sisters always off after some charity fad or other.

“‘Always’ being a few hours once a week,” she said.

‘Just when one wants her.’

‘Look here, my boy,’ she said, ‘you don’t want your sisters to be selfish, useless, fine ladies—never doing any one any good. If they take up good works, they can’t drop them entirely to wait on you. Gillian does give up a great deal, and it would be kinder to forbear a little, and not treat all she does as an injury to yourself.’

‘I only meant to get a rise out of her.’

‘You are quite welcome to do that, provided it is done in good nature. Gill is quite sound stuff enough to be laughed at! But, I say, my Japs, I should prefer your letting Dolores alone; she has not learned to be laughed at yet, and has not come even to the stage for being taught to bear it.’

‘She looks fit to turn the cream sour,’ observed Jasper. ‘I say, mamma, you don’t want me to go on this shopping business, do you?’

‘Not by any means, sir.’

Happily, the chance of a day’s rabbit shooting presented itself at a warren some miles off, and Harry undertook the care of Wilfred, who gave his word of honour to obey implicitly and take no liberties with the guns. Fergus would gladly have gone with them, but he was still young enough to be sensible of the attractions of toy-shops. Only Primrose had to be left to the nursery, and there was no need to waste pity on her, for on such an occasion Mrs. Halfpenny would relax her mood, and lay herself out to be agreeable, when she had exhausted her forebodings about her leddyship making herself ill for a week gaun rampaging about with all the bairns, as if she was no better than one herself.

‘I shall let Miss Mohun do most of the rampaging, nurse; but, if it is fine, will you take Miss Primrose into the town and let her choose her own cards. I have given her a florin, and if you make the most of that for her, she will be as happy as going with us.’

‘That I will, my leddy. Bairns is easy content when ye ken how to sort ‘em.’

‘And, nurse, I believe there will be a box from Sir Jasper at the station. It may come home in the waggonette that takes us. Will you and Macrae get it safe into the store-room, for I don’t want the children to see it too soon?’

There was nothing but satisfaction in the house on the morning of the expedition. The untimely candle-light breakfast was only a fresh element of delight, and so was the paling gas at the station, the round, red sun peeping out through a yellow break between grey sky and greyer woods; the meeting Miss Hacket in her fur cloak, the taking of the tickets, the coughing of the train, the tumbling into one of the many empty carriages, the triumphant start,—all seemed as fresh and delicious as if the young people had never taken a journey before in all their lives. The fog in the valleys, the sleepy villages, the half-roused stations, all gave rise to exclamations, and nothing was regretted but that the windows would get clouded over.

Even the waiting at the junction had its charms, for it was enlivened by a supplementary breakfast on rolls and milk! and at a few minutes past eleven the train was drawing up at Rockstone, and Aunt Jane, sealskins and all, was beckoning from the platform, hurrying after the carriage as it swept past, and holding out a hand to jump the party from the door.

There she was, ready to take them to the most charming and cheapest shops, where the coins burning in those five pockets would go the furthest. Go in a cab? No, I thank you, it is far more delightful to walk. So mamma and Miss Hacket were stowed away in the despised vehicle, to make the purchases that nobody cared about, or which were to be unseen and unknown till the great day; while Aunt Jane undertook to guide the young people through the town, for her house was at the other end of it securing the Christmas-cards on the way, if nothin’ else. For, though all the cards and gifts to mamma, and a good many besides, were of domestic manufacture, some had to be purchased, and she knew, this wonderful woman, where to get cards of former seasons at reduced prices to suit their youthful finances.

Considerable patience was requisite before all the choices were made, and the balance cast between cards and presents, and Miss Mohun got her quartette past all the shop windows, to the seaside villa, shut in by tamarisks, which Aunt Adeline believed to be the only place that suited her health. Mamma and Miss Hacket had already arrived, and filled the little vestibule with parcels and boxes.

Then the early dinner! The aunts had anticipated their Christmas turkey for that goodly company to help them eat it, but afterwards there was only time for a mince pie all round; for more than half the work remained to be done by all except mamma, who would stay and rest with Aunt Ada, having finished all that could not be deputed.

However, first she had a conference in private with Aunt Jane, who undertook therein to come to Silverton for Valetta’s birthday, and add astonishment and mystery sufficient to satisfy such of the public as were weary of Christmas-trees. She added, however, ‘You will think I am always at you. Lily, but did you know that Flinders is living at Darminster?’

‘No; but it is five and twenty miles off, and he has never troubled us.’

‘Don’t be too secure. He is in connection with that low paper—the Politician—which methinks, is the place where those remarkable poems of Miss Constance’s have appeared.’

‘Is it not the way of poetry of that calibre to see the light in county papers?’

‘This seems to me of a lower calibre than is likely to get in without private interest.’

‘But to my certain knowledge the child has neither written to, nor heard of the man all this time.’