Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

Armine broke in with “Nine times one are nine.”

It was an institution dating from the days when Janet made her first acquaintance with the “Little Busy Bee,” that there should be something, of some sort, said or shown to papa, whenever he was at home or free between dinner and bed-time, and it was considered something between a disgrace and a misfortune to produce nothing.

So when the two little ones had been kissed and sent off to bed, with mamma going with them to hear their prayers, Jock, on being called for, repeated a Greek declension with two mistakes in it, Bobus showed a long sum in decimals, Janet, brought a neat parallelism of the present tense of the verb “to be” in five languages—Greek, Latin, French, German, and English.

“And Allen—reposing on your honours? Eh, my boy?”

Allen looked rather foolish, and said, “I spoilt it, papa, and hadn’t time to begin another.”

“It—I suppose I am not to hear what till it has come to perfection. Is it the same that was in hand last time?”

“No, papa, much better,” said Janet, emphatically.

“What I want to see,” said Dr. Brownlow, “is something finished. I’d rather have that than ever so many magnificent beginnings.”

Here he was seized upon by Robert, with his knitted brow and a book in his hands, demanding aid in making out why, as he said, the tide swelled out on the wrong side of the earth.

His father did his best to disentangle the question, but Bobus was not satisfied till the clock chimed his doom, when he went off with Jock, who was walking on his hands.

“That’s too tough a subject for such a little fellow,” said the grandmother; “so late in the day too!”

“He would have worried his brain with it all night if he had not worked it out,” said his father.

“I’m afraid he will, any way,” said the mother. “Fancy being troubled with dreams of surging oceans rising up the wrong way!”

“Yes, he ought to be running after the tides instead of theorising about them. Carry him off, Mother Carey, and the whole brood, without loss of time.”

“But Joe, why should we not wait for you? You never did send us away all forlorn before!” she said, pleadingly. “We are all quite well, and I can’t bear going without you.”

“I had much rather all the chickens were safe away, Carey,” he said, sitting down by her. “There’s a tendency to epidemic fever in two or three streets, which I don’t like in this hot weather, and I had rather have my mind easy about the young ones.”

“And what do you think of my mind, leaving you in the midst of it?”

“Your mind, being that of a mother bird and a doctor’s wife, ought to have no objection.”

“How soon does Dr. Drew come home?”

“In a fortnight, I believe. He wanted rest terribly, poor old fellow. Don’t grudge him every day.”

“A fortnight!” (as if it was a century). “You can’t come for a fortnight. Well, perhaps it will take a week to fix on a place.”

“Hardly, for see here, I found a letter from Acton when I came in. They have found an unsophisticated elysium at Kyve Clements, and are in raptures which they want us to share—rocks and waves and all.”

“And rooms?”

“Yes, very good rooms, enough for us all,” was the answer, flinging into her lap a letter from his friend, a somewhat noted artist in water-colours, whom, after long patience, Carey’s school friend, Miss Cartwright, had married two years ago.

There was nothing to say against it, only grandmamma observed, “I am too old to catch things; Joe will let me stay and keep house for him.”

“Please, please let me stay with granny,” insisted Janet; “then I shall finish my German classes.”

Janet was granny’s child. She had slept in her room ever since Allen was born, and trotted after her in her “housewifeskep,” and the sense of being protected was passing into the sense of protection. Before she could be answered, however, there was an announcement. Friends were apt to drop in to coffee and talk in the evening, on the understanding that certain days alone were free—people chiefly belonging to a literary, scientific, and artist set, not Bohemian, but with a good deal of quiet ease and absence of formality.

This friend had just returned from Asia Minor, and had brought an exquisite bit of a Greek frieze, of which he had become the happy possessor, knowing that Mrs. Joseph Brownlow would delight to see it, and mayhap to copy it.

For Carey’s powers had been allowed to develop themselves; Mrs. Brownlow having been always housekeeper, she had been fain to go on with the studies that even her preparation for governess-ship had not rendered wearisome, and thus had become a very graceful modeller in clay—her favourite pursuit—when her children’s lessons and other occupations left her free to indulge in it. The history of the travels, and the account of the discovery, were given and heard with all zest, and in the midst others came in—a barrister and his wife to say good-bye before the circuit, a professor with a ticket for the gallery at a scientific dinner, two medical students, who had been made free of the house because they were nice lads with no available friends in town.

It was all over by half-past ten, and the trio were alone together. “How amusing Mr. Leslie is!” said the young Mrs. Brownlow. “He knows how describe as few people do.”

“Did you see Janet listening to him,” said her grandmother, “with her brows pulled down and her eyes sparkling out under them, wanting to devour every word?”

“Yes,” returned the Doctor, “I saw it, and I longed to souse that black head of hers with salt water. I don’t like brains to grow to the contempt of healthful play.”

“People never know when they are well off! I wonder what you would have said if you had had a lot of stupid dolts, boys always being plucked, &c.”

“Don’t plume yourself too soon, Mother Carey; only one chick has gone through the first ordeal.”

“And if Allen did, Bobus will.”

“Allen is quite as clever as Bobus, granny, if—” eagerly said the mother.

“If—” said the father; “there’s the point. If Allen has the stimulus, he will do well. I own I am particularly pleased with his success, because perseverance is his weak point.”

“Carey kept him up to it,” said granny. “I believe his success is quite as much her work as his own.”

“And the question is, how will he get on without his mother to coach him?”

“Now you know you are not one bit uneasy, papa!” cried his wife, indignantly. “But don’t you think we might let Janet have her will for just these ten days? There can’t be any real danger for her with grandmamma, and I should be happier about granny.”

“You don’t trust Joe to take care of me?”

“Not if Joe is to be out all day. There will be nobody to trot up and down stairs for you. Come, it is only what she begs for herself, and she really is perfectly well.”

“As if I could have a child victimised to me,” said granny.

“The little Cockney thinks the victimising would be in going to the deserts with only the boys and me,” laughed Carey; “But I think a week later will be quite time enough to sweep the cobwebs out of her brain.”

“And you can do without her?” inquired Mrs. Brownlow. “You don’t want her to help to keep the boys in order?”

“Thank you, I can do that better without her,” said Carey. “She exasperates them sometimes.”

“I believe granny is thinking whether she is not wanted to keep Mother Carey in order as well as her chickens. Hasn’t mother been taken for your governess, Carey?”

“No, no, Joe, that’s too bad. They asked Janet at the dancing-school whether her sister was not going to join.”

“Her younger sister?”

“No, I tell you, her half-sister. But Clara Acton will do discretion for us, granny; and I promise you we won’t do anything her husband says is very desperate! Don’t be afraid.”