The Little School-Mothers

“You will have Mrs Temple to look after you.”

“I know,” said Ralph again.

“And being a manly boy, you won’t fret.”

“’Course not,” said Ralph. Whatever feeling there was in his heart, he would not let it come to the surface. “I is your own boy,” he said, after a pause. “You didn’t fret ever, did you?”

“Not to show it,” replied Mr Durrant, after a minute’s pause.

“Sank ’oo,” said Ralph. “I understand,” he repeated.

“Well, my dear boy, that part is all right: but now, to be frank with you: I prefer Robina.”

“And I like Harriet,” said Ralph.

“Do you think, Ralph, that a little boy so young as you are is the best judge of who ought really to be his companion?”

“I don’t understand,” said Ralph then. “I like Harriet best, ’cause she’s so – ”

“Ah, yes?” said Mr Durrant, in an encouraging voice. “Give me your reasons, my son; I shall listen with the greatest possible attention.”

“’Cause she is so splendid – and – and brave,” said Ralph, “and – and – noble – ”

“Is she?” said Mr Durrant. “Can you prove that?”

“Does you want me to prove it, father?”

“Yes,” said Mr Durrant then. “If Harriet is really the bravest girl of all your school-mothers, and the noblest, then – she shall stay with you as your school-mother. But it has got to be proved to me.”

“And if I can prove it,” said Ralph, “you will really, really let her stay with me as my very own school-mother?”

“Yes, Ralph.”

“Sankoo so much,” said Ralph. His little face looked very much excited and the colour flushed into his cheeks.

“Now then, that is settled,” said Mr Durrant. “You have got to prove the thing, and I have got to see that I believe all about it. We won’t worry any more for the present, for the decision is not to be come to until we return to Sunshine Lodge. Go back to your own berth, Ralph. Turn round and have another hour’s sleep, for it is too early for anyone to be up.” Ralph, quite satisfied with what he had done, immediately obeyed his father. He was just like a little sailor, and instant obedience was his watch-word. But while a small brown boy slept, the big brown man lay awake, consumed with anxious thought.

“I wish I had never given my sanction to this plan; there is something behind the scenes. Harriet brave; Harriet noble? I never yet was mistaken in a face,” was his thought. “Well, little Ralph, you have to prove it to my satisfaction, that is one comfort.” That day the little party landed at Lymington and went for a time into the New Forest under the shade of the “Immemorial Elms.” Ralph and Harriet had time to be alone for a short period. It was rather difficult now for the boy and the girl to be unobserved on these occasions. It seemed to Harriet that the eyes of all the school-mothers watched them, that Robina, in particular, followed them about with those grey eyes of hers.

Robina was true to her word. She tried to enjoy herself and was great friends with all her companions with the exception of Jane, whom she left to Harriet entirely, and with the exception of Ralph, whom, from a motive which she could not define, she left more or less to himself. This very fact distressed Mr Durrant not a little. Now, Robina and the Amberley girls were all walking under the trees, chatting and talking, and Harriet and Ralph found themselves alone.

“I has done it,” said Ralph. “I spoke to father and telled him that I wished him to choose you.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” said Harriet. She pulled Ralph’s little hand through her arm. “You will never be sorry for that, I can tell you, Ralph. I mean to give you a beautiful time when I am your school-mother.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ralph; “but ’tisn’t ’cause of the beautiful time that you’re to be my school-mother, is it, Harriet?”

Harriet looked puzzled.

“I mean,” said Ralph, “that I is going to be a big boy. Next birthday I’ll be six, then seven, then eight – I’ll be growed up in no time. When a person is growed up, then a person hasn’t to think only just of nice things. I telled father that I wanted you to be my school-mother, to stay with me all the time, ’cause you’re so brave and so noble.”

“You told him that?” said Harriet, with a short laugh: “nothing more, I hope?”

“No, nothing more, ’cause you wouldn’t let me. But, Harriet,” he said, “father did – ”

“What, dear?”

“That I had got to prove to him that you was brave, and was noble – he likes people who are that; and his eyes flashed. Don’t you like father’s eyes when they grow all of a sudden so very bright? Well, they growed like that when I said you was brave, and noble; only he said you must prove it.”

“Oh! you did put your foot into things,” said Harriet. “How on earth am I to prove it.”

“Why, do something brave and noble,” said Ralph. “I thought I’d tell you, ’cause father said he must know his own self, and then he’ll decide. He is going to decide as soon as ever we get back to Sunshine Lodge – oh! and there he is calling me! Now I must run to him. Coming, father, coming – this instant-minute!” and Ralph lost his hold of Harriet’s hand and flew off to meet his parent.

“Does you want me to swarm up to the top of that tall tree, father? I can, you know: I isn’t a bit frighted,” said Ralph.

Mr Durrant stood and smiled.

“You mustn’t go too far,” he said, “I don’t want you to fall and hurt yourself.”

“No,” said Ralph, “that wouldn’t be right, would it? Special ’cause there’s no water underneath. If I was to run up this tree, and run along that bough that bends over so, and it cracked, same as willow bough cracked, I – ”

Then he stopped and turned very red. Durrant was standing very upright and apparently not listening. Ralph felt a choking sensation in his throat. How very nearly he had betrayed himself!

“Was you listening, father?” he said, after a pause; and he came up and pulled the brown man by the sleeve.

“To what, my boy?”

“To a sort of nonsense I was talking.”

Instantly Mr Durrant’s face grew very stern.

“You were not talking nonsense, Ralph,” he said. “You were telling something that happened: but I don’t want to hear the rest. What I have heard doesn’t matter, for a half story is no story all: but it is not exactly true to call what really happened nonsense, and I don’t like those words from the lips of my little son. Now go up your tree; climb along any branch you like: I am below watching you.”

“Yes, yes,” said the boy, the weight of the words he had inadvertently used slipping from his mind. “Father’s below, waiting for me,” he repeated.

He climbed the tall elm tree, springing from branch to branch with the alertness of a little squirrel, and presently came down again, radiant and triumphant.

“Pluckily done, Ralph!” said his father, and he took the boy’s hand and continued to walk with him through the Forest.

“Father,” said Ralph, after a pause, “I have been telling Harriet that you must have it proved that she is both brave and noble.”

“That is right, my boy. Now let us talk of something else. There’ll be a bit of a breeze to-night: we must run the ‘Sea-Gull’ into Yarmouth Harbour. We must run in before long in order that we may be snug and in port before we have any dirty weather.” If there was one girl who was not perfectly happy during this week of sunshine, it was Jane Bush. Poor Jane was completely under Harriet’s influence. If Harriet was poor, Jane was a little poorer. Mrs Burton was one of those good Christian women who took girls, whose parents were poor, on special terms; both Harriet and Jane were girls of this sort. She had long ago made up her mind that those girls who could not afford to pay for a good education should nevertheless, if there was a vacancy at Abbeyfield, receive all the advantages of the best education she could offer.

Harriet was the daughter of an old friend, and Jane Bush was the child of a man who had once done her a service. Both these girls were received at Abbeyfield on very special terms, and Jane, in particular, was at the school almost free of any expense. Mrs Burton was not especially fond of Jane, but she remembered the time when Jane’s father had been kind to her in her need, and she was determined to give the girl all the advantages of a good education; no one knew this; it was never whispered in the school that Harriet and Jane were taken on very different terms from their companions. Their rooms were just as comfortable, their education just as complete: but the girls themselves knew, and the thought rankled sorely in each young breast.

Harriet had an aunt, it is true, who paid something for her schooling, but Jane Bush’s father paid practically nothing at all. He was a very poor artist who could scarcely make two ends meet. Jane’s mother was dead, and the girl would have been absolutely neglected but for Mrs Burton’s great kindness to her.

Jane Bush had a little brother and sister who were cared for, after a fashion, by an aunt, and, with the exception of her school-companions, they were the only people she loved in the world.