Jasper

The last words were like a spur to impetuous Christabel.

“You shan’t go off and put all the blame on me to Miss Earle,” she exclaimed, starting up. “I’m coming too. Nurse,” she went on, “Nurse,” so loudly, that the bedroom door opened and Nurse and Fanny hurried out in alarm.

Chrissie looked up coolly. She had an irritating way of getting cool herself as soon as she saw that she had irritated others.

“You needn’t stare so,” she said. “It’s only about my toys and things. I want them left exactly as they are, till after lesson-time this afternoon – exactly as they are. Don’t you hear what I say, Nurse?” waxing impatient again.

“It’s impossible, Miss Chrissie,” replied Nurse. “Master Jasper and I couldn’t get to the table for our dinner; and even if we sat over at the other side, Fanny’d be sure to tread on some of those dainty little chairs and things and break them.”

Chrissie, as a matter of fact, saw the force of this, but she would not seem to give in, so she contented herself with making a scape-goat of the nursery-maid.

“Fanny is an awkward, clumsy creature, I’ll allow,” she said, with an air of great magnanimity, “so you may move them, or make her do it. But if she breaks one single thing I’ll complain to Mamma; I will indeed,” with a very lordly air, as she got up from the floor and prepared to follow Leila downstairs.

Nurse had the self-control to say nothing till the young lady was out of hearing, but as she and Fanny began together to clear the confused heap out of danger’s way, she could not resist saying to the girl, “To hear the child speak you’d think she never broke or spoilt a thing in her life! She’s worse than Miss Leila, and she’s bad enough, always half in a dream over her books. But Miss Chrissie’s worse. The losings and breakings!”

“Yes,” Fanny agreed, “and the messing with paint and gum and ink. Those new blouses. Nurse, are just covered with spots, and between them I don’t think they’ve a brooch with a pin to it.”

Nurse sighed, and the sigh was not a selfish one.

Downstairs, in the meantime, Miss Earle had, unwillingly enough, judged it wisest to make the best of things and to waste no more time, by beginning Jasper’s lessons in accordance with the message from Christabel, which the little fellow delivered much more politely than he had received it.

But the governess was far from satisfied.

She was young, excellently qualified for her post, and really interested in the children, as they were far from wanting in intelligence and love of knowledge, and now and then the lessons went swimmingly; brightly enough even to satisfy her own enthusiasm. But at other and more frequent times there was, alas, a very different story to tell, a sadly disappointing report to make, and Miss Earle almost began to despair. She had not been with the Fortescues very long, and she was intensely anxious to give satisfaction to their kind mother, who had behaved to her with the greatest consideration and liberality, and it grieved her to feel that, unless she could gain more influence over the girls, she must resign her charge of them.

“They are completely ‘out of hand,’ as it were,” she found herself one day obliged to say to Mrs Fortescue. “They don’t seem to know what ‘must’ means; in fact, in their different ways, their only idea is to do what they like and not what they don’t, and yet they are so clever and honest and they can be such darlings,” and she looked up almost with tears in her eyes. “It is discipline they need,” she added, “and – ” hesitating a little, “unselfishness – thought for others.”

She need not have hesitated. Mrs Fortescue knew it was all true.

“I suppose the simple explanation is that I – we – have spoilt them,” she said sadly. “And now it is beginning to show. But Jasper, Miss Earle, the youngest – he should be the most spoilt.”

Miss Earle shook her head.

“And he is not spoilt at all!” she exclaimed. “He is not a very quick child, perhaps, but he is painstaking and attentive. He will do very well. And as to obedience and thoughtfulness – why, he has never given me a moment’s trouble.”

This talk had taken place some time ago. Over and over again the young governess had tried to hit upon some way of really impressing her pupils more lastingly, of checking their increasing self-will and heedlessness. For we don’t stand still in character; if we are not improving, it is greatly to be feared we are falling off. Now and then she felt happier, but never for more than a day or two, and this morning – this cold winter morning when she herself had got up long before it was light, to do some extra bookwork, and attend to her invalid sister’s breakfast – this morning was again to bring disappointment.

How cosy and comfortable the schoolroom looked as she came in, and held out her cold hands to the fire!

“Really, they are lucky children,” she thought, as she remembered the bare walls and carpetless floor and meagre grates of the good but far from homelike great school where she herself had been educated. “How good they should be,” as her glance wandered round the pretty, library-like little room. “But perhaps it is not easy to be unselfish if one has everything one wants, every wish gratified!”

Then came the tiresome waiting, the unnecessary waste of time – the footman’s cross face at the door, when she felt obliged to ring and send up a rather peremptory summons, a summons only responded to by Jasper, burdened with Chrissie’s far from satisfactory message – followed, just when Miss Earle was getting interested in the little boy’s reading, by a bang at the door and the younger girl’s noisy entrance, for she had overtaken Leila on the staircase and insisted on a race, in which, of course, she had been the winner.

“Chrissie!” exclaimed Miss Earle, surprised and remonstrant. “My dear child, you should not burst into the room in that way. It is too startling.”

“Yes, do speak to her, Miss Earle,” said Leila, in a complaining tone, with which their governess at one time would have had more sympathy than she now felt. For truly the little girls’ quarrels were almost always “six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.”

“She nearly knocked me downstairs and I was coming quite quietly.”

“And in the meantime neither of you has said good-morning to me, and it is eighteen minutes past the half-hour,” Miss Earle continued. “Besides which, you know you should be here before I come, with your books and all ready.”

Both children were silent. Then Christabel said, rather sullenly —

“I sent a message by Jasper. I suppose he didn’t give it properly.”

“He gave it as properly as a message that was not a proper one could be given,” was the reply, and Miss Earle’s voice was very cold.

“I must keep up my authority, such as it is,” she said to herself, “but oh, what a pity it is to have so constantly to find fault, when I love them and we might be so happy together.”

It was a bad beginning for the morning’s lessons, and as was to be expected, things did not go smoothly. In their hearts both Leila and Christabel were feeling rather ashamed of themselves, but outwardly this only showed itself by increased sleepy inattention in the one, and a kind of noisy defiance in the other. But Miss Earle knew children too well to “pile on the agony,” and said no more, hoping that the interest they really felt in their work would gradually clear the atmosphere.

So she gave them some history notes to copy out correctly, while Jasper went on with his reading.

He was not a very quick child, as I think I have said already, but it was impossible to feel vexed with him, as he did his very best – getting pink all over his fair little face when he came to some very difficult word. Nor was it always easy to help laughing at his comical mistakes, but a smile of amusement on his teacher’s face never hurt his feelings. It was different, however, when Chrissie burst into a roar at his solemnly narrating that “the gay-oler locked the door of the cell on the prisoner.”

“The what, my dear?” said Miss Earle.

Jasper’s eyes were intently fixed on the word.

“Go-aler,” he announced triumphantly.

Then came his sisters noisy laughter, and the child’s eyes filled with tears.

“Be silent, Chrissie,” said Miss Earle sternly, and Chrissie’s face just then was not pleasant to see.

Nor did she recover her good temper till the French lesson came and her translation was found to have only two faults, whereas Leila’s rejoiced in five!

On fine days the three children went for a walk with Miss Earle from twelve to one – that, at least, was the rule. But how seldom was it obeyed! At a quarter to twelve they were sent upstairs to get ready, but in spite of Nurse’s and Fanny’s doing their best, it was rarely, if ever, that Leila and Chrissie made their appearance again till ten or twenty minutes past the proper time. And to-day was no exception. Nurse brought them downstairs herself, almost in tears.

“Miss Earle,” she began, “I don’t know what to do. Will you – can you say anything to the young ladies? I did so want to tell their Mamma that they had been good while she was away, and it’s worse than ever. Miss Leila’s been reading all the time I was trying to dress her, and Miss Chrissie pulled off her hat three times and stamped on it.”

“She put it all on one side. I looked like Falstaff in it,” said Christabel coolly.

“Then why do you not put it on yourself?” said Miss Earle, as they went out.

“Why should I, when they’re there to dress us?” was the reply. Miss Earle was silent. Chrissie repeated her question.

“I don’t think there is any use in my answering you,” she said at last. “We look at these things in such a different way, according to different ideas.”

Chrissie grew more amiable at this. She liked to be spoken to as if she were grown-up.

“You may as well explain,” she said condescendingly. “Tell me how you mean.”

“I mean that if I were rich enough to have half-a-dozen maids to dress me – or nurses to make a baby of me – I should be, and at your age should have been, ashamed to be as helpless as you and Leila are,” said Miss Earle.

Leila, who was listening, wriggled a little. Chrissie tossed her head.

“I’m not helpless. I can do anything I choose to do.”