The Little School-Mothers

Robina did so, and Mrs Starling came quite close, and bent a little out of the window, and called Bo-peep once or twice in her faint voice.

“Oh, don’t catch cold, dear!” screamed Miss Jennings from below.

“Don’t interfere, dear?” responded Mrs Starling from above.

“Isn’t he a beauty, mummy? Isn’t he a darling?” called Violet.

“He’s Wobbin’s and mine too!” cried Rose, bending her little body forward, and clasping her arms round the pony’s neck.

“Robina,” said her mother, turning to her, “put on your habit, go downstairs at once, and let me see you mount Bo-peep. I do hope you know how to spring properly into your saddle: I should like to see how you manage it.”

Robina did manage it, and to her mother’s satisfaction. The invalid was better that evening, and the next day requested once again that Bo-peep should be brought round for inspection.

And now an extraordinary thing happened: for from seeing the horse at a distance, the good lady took an unreasonable desire – at least so it seemed to Miss Jennings – to see him near: and as this could only be accomplished by coming downstairs: downstairs she came, Bo-peep was then led up to the dining-room window, and graciously received a carrot from Mrs Starling’s own hand. By and by, she too was stroking his face, and looking into his eyes, and murmuring his name in tones of the deepest affection. In short, Bo-peep was bidding fair to cure Mrs Starling.

But the fortnight which Robina was to spend at home was drawing to an end, and the day was approaching when she, Bo-peep, and Peter, were to leave Heather House en route for Sunshine Lodge. Mrs Starling was unreasonable about this. She wanted Bo-peep to remain behind, and Robina was quite willing that it should be so.

“I have got so much,” she said; “and mother loves my little horse, and I can think of him as a delightful creature to return to before I go back to school.”

But on this occasion, it was no less a person than Miss Felicia Jennings who interfered.

“No, Robina,” she said: “you don’t do anything of the sort. That great man, Malcolm Durrant, has given his orders, and I for one should be the very last person to have them disregarded. He wishes you to go to him. A command from him is like a command from Royalty, my child, and must not for a moment be disregarded. He wishes that precious little animal, Bo-peep, to accompany you, and the animal is to go. Your mother did without the pony for years, and can do so still. If indeed we could afford to have a little carriage made for her, I believe we could induce her to drive out daily with Bo-peep as her steed. But as your father can barely afford to pay your school expenses, that is not to be thought of. Now, my dear, you go in the morning: I trust you will behave well. By the way, you have offered to you, Robina, a marvellous chance in life. You have won the goodwill and esteem of no less a person than Malcolm Durrant. Oh! if only the chance were mine! If sometime you have the opportunity, tell him, my dear, how a dull old maid in a country house in England revels in his work, and admires his character. Tell him that, if you like; and endeavour, Robina, to keep down those faults which will very naturally, if he perceives them, turn him against you. For you are headstrong, and rough, and self-reliant, and above all things, you need the grace of humility.”

“Thank you, Aunt Felicia,” said Robina. “I know you are exceedingly kind, and you mean well, but perhaps Mr Durrant understands me a little better than you do.”

“Now, there you are!” said her aunt; “as impertinent as ever! Don’t – I beseech of you – make speeches of that sort to Malcolm Durrant. Now go up to your mother: she wants to see you. She thinks you are improved. I don’t; but the opinion of an old maid never signifies.”

“Oh, Aunt Felicia!”

Book Two – Chapter Five

Harriet’s Jealousy is Rekindled

It is all very well for a little girl to repent as Harriet Lane repented on that night when she followed Ralph to the gipsies’ hiding-place. Such repentances make a deep impression in life. They are never, as a rule, forgotten. They influence the character, and if they are followed by earnest resolve and patient determination to conquer in the battle, they in the end lead to victory. But let no one suppose who reads this story that a girl with such a nature as Harriet possessed could easily overcome her various faults. It is true she was now really attached to Ralph. She had never cared for a little child before; but there was something about Ralph that won her heart. At the same time this very affection of hers for the little boy added to her feelings of dislike and envy towards Robina. In her first agony of remorse for what she had done; in her terror with regard to little Ralph, and her fear that he was lost to her and to all her friends forever, she even thought gently and kindly of Robina. When Robina was made Ralph’s school-mother, and when she obtained the pony as her prize, Harriet submitted to her fate. Nevertheless, the thought of Robina rankled in her mind, and when the little girls met at Sunshine Lodge, it was Robina who was the first thorn in Harriet’s side.

Outwardly, it would have been impossible to find a merrier group than those eight girls when they arrived in a waggonette at Sunshine Lodge. Ample preparations had been made for their welcome. Arches of evergreen and flowers were put up over the gates and along the avenue; and over the front door “Welcome, Welcome” appeared in letters of flowers. In every direction smiling faces were to be seen – smiling faces at the lodge gates, smiling faces at the front door; and Mr Durrant, strong, self-reliant, holding Ralph by the hand, was the most delightful sight of all.

“Now, my children, you have come,” he said. “Ralph, greet all your little mothers. Ralph, my son, do the honours of the occasion. There are servants, my children, to show you to your rooms. We shall meet at tea-time. You will be best alone with Ralph for the time being.”

“Oh, my naughty, naughty, darling school-mother!” cried Ralph, flinging himself into Harriet’s arms. He did go to her first, he did cling round her neck, he did press his kisses to her thin cheek. Before anyone else, he was hers; her heart swelled with triumph. But the next minute, it sank with a feeling of ugly jealousy; for was not his clasp still tighter round Robina’s neck, and did he not whisper something into Robina’s ear, and did not Robina flush with pleasure? The other mothers also came in for a share of his rapture: but Harriet, keen to notice and observe, felt that notwithstanding the fact that he had come to her first of all, Robina must be his favourite.

The first couple of hours, however, spent at Sunshine Lodge were too brilliantly, intoxicatingly happy for even jealousy to find much scope. Harriet was hurried along with her companions from one room to another, from one point of enjoyment to another.

When they had examined the house and expressed themselves satisfied with their sweet little bedrooms, and when they had glanced at the tea-table, and observed the numbers of cakes which it contained, and the vast piles of bread and butter and the dishes full of jam and the plates of fruit and the combs of honey, and all the other imaginable good things that go to make up that meal of all meals – an English nursery tea, they were hurried off to the stables.

Here were donkeys; donkeys enough for each girl to select one as her special property; and here was Bo-peep, and Ralph’s own lovely little pony, Bluefeather. Bluefeather was black as ink, and was only called blue because Ralph liked the colour, and because the pony’s mane was so thick and strong and waved so in the wind.

Now at the sight of Bo-peep and Bluefeather standing side by side and eyeing each other with considerable appreciation, Harriet’s smouldering jealousy woke into a fierce flame. She felt a sudden sense almost of sickness stealing over her. Jane Bush was standing not far off.

“Come, Janie,” she said, all of a sudden, speaking harshly and with something of her old tone. “I am tired of looking at stupid donkeys; I don’t want to choose my donkey this evening; come and let us take a walk all by ourselves before we have to go in to tea.”

“I say,” called Ralph, “naughty school-mother, we are going to tea almost immediately.”

“Well, you can call me when you are ready for me,” said Harriet, “I shan’t be far away.”

She tugged at Jane’s arm. Now Jane was not in the least jealous; she was charmed to possess a donkey. A pony was, of course, preferable, but to have a donkey all her own to call any name she liked for the whole of the rest of the holidays was quite enough to fill her heart with rejoicing.

“I shall call mine Thistle,” she said. “Don’t you think that is a good name, Harriet?”

“Oh, I am sure I don’t care,” said Harriet. “Call it Thistle or Nettle, or anything else you fancy; I am not interested in donkeys.”

“Well, I am,” said Jane, a little stoutly. “Why should we go away, Harriet?”

“Aren’t you going to be friends with me any more, Jane?”

“Of course, only I thought – ”

“Oh, your thoughts! as if they signified,” said Harriet. “Look here, Jane; do let’s walk up and down in front of the house. Of course we’re going to have a jolly time; but I want to have a little chat with you, with you – my old, my oldest friend – all by ourselves.”

“Oh, well,” said Jane, mollified at once, “if you are going to make me your friend, like we used to be before that dreadful day when Ralph ran away, of course I shall be glad. But I thought you were quite changed, that you were the good-girl-for-evermore sort. You know you did repent – everyone in the school knew it, and on the whole, I was glad, although you gave me up.”

While Jane was speaking, the two girls had left the yard, and had entered a little bowery path which led round to the left side of the house. Here they could be seen from the house, but could not be heard. Harriet looked full at Jane when they found themselves in this bowery retreat.

“Look here,” she said, “I must out with it.”

“Well?” said Jane, expectantly. Jane looked stouter and rounder and broader than ever. “Well?” she repeated, fixing her black eyes on Harriet’s face.

“I am not a good-for-evermore sort of girl,” said Harriet. Then she stood very still, and waited for Jane to reply.

Jane could not tell at that moment whether she was most glad or sorry. Harriet had always rather frightened her, and since the date of Harriet’s repentance she, Jane, had had what might be expressed as a very good and comfortable time. She had got into no scrapes, she had had of course no adventures; but then she had worked at her studies, and had made such admirable progress that she even won a small prize at the break-up.

Nevertheless, Jane had her own little jealousies, and although they were not so marked as Harriet’s – for her character was nothing like as strong as the character of her friend – they did rankle in her breast. To be even the one confidante of the naughty girl of the third form was better than to be no one’s confidante at all; and from the moment of Harriet’s repentance, Jane had been feeling very safe, but just a little dull, and just a tiny bit forsaken. Now, therefore, to receive the old confidence back again, to notice the daring look in Harriet’s light blue eyes, and to hear the old ring in her voice, awoke a certain very naughty pleasure in Jane.

“Oh well,” she said; “I thought your good fit couldn’t last forever. But what is it now?”

“I am just madly jealous of that Robina,” whispered Harriet.

“Oh,” said Jane; “it’s the old thing! But why can’t you leave poor Robina alone?”

“I can’t: she has got Bo-peep.”

“Well; of course she has,” said Jane. “You knew quite well she would get Bo-peep from the moment that you made such a mess of things with poor little Ralph, and he was handed over to Robina to mother him. That is no news, surely you ought to have got over that by now.”

“I ought; but I haven’t,” said Harriet; “so where’s the good of ‘oughting’ me about it?”

“I see you are the same as ever,” said Jane in a low tone in which satisfaction and perplexity were mingled.

“I am,” said Harriet, “and what is more, if they think I am going to ride one of those horrid donkeys, they are very much mistaken. You can mount on your Thistle, or your Nettle all by yourself, as far as I am concerned. If I can’t have a pony like Bo-peep or Bluefeather, I shan’t ride at all.”