The Little School-Mothers

“Well, let us hear it, let us hear it,” said Starling. “But why should we sit moped up in this fusty room? Let us come out into the garden and enjoy our pipes together: what do you say?”

“I shall be only too delighted,” said Durrant.

The two men immediately left the drawing-room. Miss Felicia, from a sheltered corner of her sister’s bedroom, watched them as they passed up and down.

“He has, my dear sister,” she remarked, “the most honourable carriage of the head: it is but to look at that man to see what he is. You, dear, at least, won’t throw any obstacle in the way of Robina’s good luck: all her life long it will be remembered in her favour that she was selected by Malcolm Durrant to be the companion of his little boy during his own absence.”

“I am not likely to put an obstacle in the way,” answered Mrs Starling, “seeing that I have small voice in any matters. Where you don’t rule me, – Felicia, – my husband does; and where my husband doesn’t, the little children do; and where the little children don’t, Robina does; and where Robina doesn’t, the servants do. I am ruled by everyone; I am the most ruled out person on earth; I have not a bit of colour or opinion left. When Bo-peep was here, I felt a little happier than I had done for some time, because the animal seemed to like me without wanting in the very least to get the upper hand of me. But there, it cannot be helped.”

“Don’t talk any more in that silly vein,” was Miss Felicia’s remark. “Each day after day as it goes, you make things quite disagreeable and contrary. I wanted to dress you nicely and bring you downstairs to tea, so that you might have the privilege of conversing yourself with the distinguished traveller; but really, what with hysterics in view, I doubt if it would not be better to leave you upstairs.”

“I am not going to have any hysterics,” said poor Mrs Starling. “I have passed all that. Perhaps Robina rules me rather less than the rest of you; but I should like to see the man who wants to be a sort of father to her. I can’t imagine why she should leave her own father; but you all think otherwise.”

“We all think otherwise,” retorted Miss Felicia with a sort of snort; “when golden chances do come in life, as a rule one isn’t such a fool as to throw them away. But now, my dear Agnes, your purple silk dress with the real lace collar will look exceedingly nice, and it will do you no harm to get into it, even if you don’t come downstairs.”

While Mrs Starling was being dressed, the men were having their smoke in the garden. Durrant made his proposal quite plainly before Mr Starling.

“I shall be absent for a year,” he said. “During that time, I want your daughter to be my little son’s companion; I, of course, paying all expenses. At the end of the year, she can, if you wish it, go back to Mrs Burton, and continue her education in that most excellent school, or she can still remain under my roof, looked after by my friend and relation, Mrs Temple, and given the best possible instruction that Eastbourne and the neighbourhood of London can supply. When she is old enough, I will myself send her to Newnham or Girton; or if she does not care for that sort of education I will give her two or three years’ foreign travel. It will be a great pleasure to me to do all this for the girl who helps my little boy during a rather lonely period of his life. I offer these advantages to your daughter because, in the first place, Ralph likes her better than any other girl he has ever seen, and in the second place, I respect and love her on her own account. During the holidays she will of course spend the time with you, unless you wish it otherwise.”

“There is no use whatever in that,” said Starling, interrupting Mr Durrant’s remarks in a somewhat gruff voice. “Robina is a good girl, and suits me uncommonly well, but she does not get on with the ladies here. Can’t tell why, I am sure – too outspoken – doesn’t suit Felicia Jennings. Felicia, between you and me, is somewhat of a bore – an excellent creature, but too much ‘don’t’ about her. Robina has got a high spirit, and she can’t stand it. That is why she went to school. Believe me, I didn’t want her to go: I miss the girl uncommonly. She takes after me – a little rough, you know.”

“I haven’t found her rough,” said Mr Durrant.

“Well, perhaps you would not call it so; but that is what the women here say. They have dinned it into my ear till at last I have got to believe it. Robina is so rough, they say, and so noisy, and so like a tomboy.”

“I need not tell you, my dear sir, that I found the child spirited and agreeable and an excellent companion. What I admire about her so much is her outspoken honesty and her truthfulness,” said Mr Durrant.

“Well, yes; she is all that: I have never found her out in a lie, never, although, to be sure, many a person might prevaricate a trifle to get away from the ‘don’ts’ of that old woman, Felicia. I am agreeable to your proposal, Mr Durrant: you can carry it out with my consent, and I have no doubt my poor wife will also fall in with your views: but I leave you, sir, to tackle the ladies yourself, for I am no match for them. Women are always slippery sort of creatures, hard to circumvent, sir, and mighty knowing. It is my belief they have twice the brains of us men. A woman can squeeze herself out of a corner where a man would be simply trapped. Now you know my opinion. Robina’s a good girl, and she may as well stay at Sunshine Lodge for a year as at Mrs Burton’s for a year. As to the holidays; if you would invite me to spend part of the time with her at Sunshine Lodge, it would save a lot of ructions; but I don’t make that a sine qua non. I am agreeable to any arrangement that suits you and the ladies.”

“Thank you; you are very kind,” said Mr Durrant.

The conversation languished a little after that, although Mr Starling tried to keep it lively by expatiating on Bo-peep’s many excellent points, and describing how truly his wife loved the little animal. Eventually, a small, clear voice interrupted the conversation, and Violet, dressed in her best and most starchy white frock, appeared on the scene. She announced in a prim little voice that tea was ready.

“You is to come in, and I may hold oo’s hand,” said Violet, giving hers at once with the utmost confidence to the stranger.

The men immediately entered the house, accompanied by the little maid. Rose was within, looking rather tearful, and seated close to her mother.

“I is not to ’peak, but I is ’onging to,” was her first remark as she fixed her cherubic eyes on the stranger’s face.

“Don’t, Rose! Keep silent,” said her aunt. “Mr Durrant, may I present you to my dear sister, Robina’s mother.”

Mr Durrant found a place close to Rose. He presently transferred this small person to his own knee, where she became radiantly happy, and then he entered into conversation with Mrs Starling. Mrs Starling, without in the least intending it, managed to convey to him the fact that she considered Robina a very rough, disobedient child, whom of course she loved, but to whom discipline was sadly necessary.

Mrs Starling was a very sweet looking woman, notwithstanding her illness, and Durrant became instantly much interested in her, and asked her a good many questions with regard to Robina. Finally, it was arranged that the momentous question of the little girl’s becoming Malcolm Durrant’s guest during his absence was to be deferred until the week after that spent by the entire happy party of school-mothers on the yacht; and Durrant promised to write to the Starlings on the subject at the end of that period.

He arrived back at Sunshine Lodge early on Monday morning, and then informed the different children that the weather report being excellent they would start on the cruise early on the following day. Nothing could exceed the delight of all the little school-mothers, and amongst them, no one was more cheerful than Harriet Lane. She had quite recovered her normal health, and was to all appearance in the highest of spirits.

That evening, she and Jane had a short conversation together.

Jane, said Harriet; “I mean, if possible, to be the girl left in charge of Ralph during his father’s absence. I know quite well all that has happened with regard to Robina. Mr Durrant wants Robina to stay with Ralph here; and he went to see her people, because he told me so; but all the same, matters won’t be quite settled until Ralph himself arranges the matter. Now Ralph wishes for me, not Robina, and I think Ralph’s wishes will in the end carry the day.”

Jane looked somewhat unhappy. After a pause, she said:

“Nothing could be more delightful than our life here, and I am looking forward to our time on board the yacht more than anything else in all the world; but you manage somehow always to give an unpleasant tone to things. I thought after the fright you got with regard to Ralph when we were at school that you would let him alone in the future; but you are just as bad as ever.”

“I am,” said Harriet; “I am worse than ever. I am not very happy at home, and I have not the advantages that Robina has.”

“Robina has one thing that you have not,” said Jane, stoutly. “She really and truly loves little children. Don’t you remember how sweet she was to Curly Pate? She has a way about her that all little children like: I suppose it is partly because she has got two little sisters of her own. Now, you do not care for children – not in your heart of hearts.”

“I don’t care for the ordinary child, and I certainly began by not loving Ralph at all,” was Harriet’s response; “but certainly I do care for him now better than I ever did for any other child. If I were left here, I should be good to him, and he would be happy. But that is not the point. I want the advantages that Mr Durrant offers – oh yes! Robina can keep her pony; that wonderful Bo-peep can go back to the Brown House and delight them all, and Robina can ride Bo-peep in the holidays. I don’t grudge her her pony, but I do grudge her Ralph. Why I – oh, but you don’t know about that.”

She stopped abruptly.

“You may as well tell me,” said Jane. “I guessed – I think we all guessed that something happened that day when you were so horribly cross and would not come with us to the sea-shore. You got poor little Ralph into no end of mischief that day, or why should you both have been taken ill that evening?”

“I will tell you, Jane,” said Harriet, “if you will promise never, never to let it out to anybody else.”

There was a girl lying in a hammock close by. That girl was Robina. She had been fast asleep. The day was hot, and she was tired from much exercise, for Mr Durrant’s parties never did let the grass grow under their feet. But she awoke now to find that Harriet and Jane were standing a few feet away. Her impulse was to say, “I am here.” The next moment, she would have uttered the words, but, hearing her own name spoken, arrested the speech that was on her lips. She did not know why, but a swift and horrible temptation came over her. She bent a little forward, and, unperceived by the two who were standing two or three feet off, could hear every word that was spoken.

“You will never tell,” began Harriet.

“No, no,” said Jane, a trifle impatiently; “if I wanted to begin to tell all the things you have confided in me, I’d have a pretty bad time of it. You know you have always plotted and planned against Robina. Well, what did you do against her that day?”

“The only thing I could do, and that was not much. You know all about the gipsies, and my following Ralph and bringing him home and my real sorrow, and my giving Ralph up to Robina; and you know how Robina won the pony?”

“Yes,” said Jane; “I know that story, I am perfectly sick of it,” she added.

“Well, that story has somehow come to an end, but another story has begun. It is this: I will tell you what really did happen. I was, oh! in such a rage; and I wouldn’t ride the horrid donkey, and you all went off without me, only Ralph – he stayed.”

“He is a dear little boy,” said Jane. “He did not want to stay, I can tell you; but he could not stand the thought of your being left all alone, so he asked his father if he might stay, and Mr Durrant said, ‘Of course.’ Mr Durrant never makes much of people being self-sacrificing; he seems to think it only right. Well, anyhow, he stayed.”

“He did,” said Harriet. “In some ways he was rather a little nuisance. He talked to me and I talked to him; and he – he – told me that he loved Robina the best.”

The girl in the hammock gave a quick catch in her breath, then a sigh of relief, but too faint to reach the girls who were talking eagerly in the shrubbery below.

“He said he loved her best; and you know that sort of little chap,” said Harriet, “he never, never could tell a lie – that is quite outside his category.”

“Oh quite, dear little man!” said Jane.

“Well, I wanted some water-lilies; and what do you think? I tried to pull some, but I couldn’t, and he – he crept along a bough. I could have prevented him, but I didn’t, for a thought got into my head.”

“What was that?”

“I knew quite well that if he crept along that bough – that willow bough that hangs over the round pond, that it wouldn’t hold his weight, and that he would fall in.”

“You knew it!” said Jane, gasping, “and you let him do it?”

“I did. I let him do it on purpose. He didn’t see me. He wanted to get the water-lilies for me, and he thought he would manage – oh, so fine! and I watched behind a shrub.”