The Two Sides of the Shield Read online

  'N-no; only a little falling upon Val by the boys, and Fly put a stop to that. Oh, mamma, if it were only possible to turn Dolly into Fly! I can't help saying it, we seemed to get on so much better just because we hadn't poor Dolly to make a deadweight, and tempt the boys to be tiresome: while Fly made everything go off well. I can't describe it, she didn't in the least mean to keep order or interfere, but somehow squabbles seem to die away before her, and nobody wants to be troublesome.'

  'Dear little thing! It is a very sweet disposition. But, Gill, I do believe that we shall see poor Dolly take a turn now!'

  'Well! having quarrelled with that Constance is in her favour!'

  'Try and think kindly of her trouble. Gill, and then it will be easier to be kind to her.'

  Gillian sighed. Falsehood and determined opposition to her mother were the greatest possible crimes in her eyes; and at her age it was not easy to separate the sin from the sinner.

  New Year's night was always held to be one of especial merriment, but Lady Merrifield was so much tired out by her expedition that she hardly felt equal to presiding over any sports, and proposed that instead the young folk should dance. Gillian and Hal took turns to play for them, and Uncle Reginald and Fly were in equal request as partners. It was Mysie who came to draw Dolores out of her corner, and begged her to be her partner-'If you wouldn't very much rather not,' she said, in a pleading, wistful, voice.

  Dolores would 'very much rather not;' but she saw that Mysie would be left out altogether if she did not consent, as Hal was playing and Uncle Regie was dancing with Primrose. She thought of resolutions to turn over a new leaf, and not to refuse everything so she said, 'Yes, this once,' and it was wonderful how much freshened she felt by the gay motion, and perhaps by Mysie's merry, good-natured eyes and caressing hand. After that she had another turn with Gillian and one with Hal, and even one with Fergus because, as he politely informed her, no one else would have him for a quadrille. But, just as this was in progress, and she could not help laughing at his ridiculous mistakes and contempt of rules she met Uncle Reginald's eye fixed on her in wonder 'He thinks I don't care,' thought she to herself. All her pleasure was gone, and she moved so dejectedly that her aunt, watching from the sofa, called her and told her she was over-tired, and sent her to bed.

  Dolores was tired, but not in the way which made it harder instead of easier to sleep, or, rather, she slept just enough to relax her full consciousness and hold over herself, and bring on her a misery of terror and loneliness, and feeling of being forsaken by the whole world. And when she woke fully enough to understand the reality, it was no better; she felt, then, the position she had put herself into, and almost saw in the dark, Flinders's malicious vindictive glance Constance's anger, Uncle Regie's cold, severe look and, worse than all, her father reading her letter'

  She fell again into an agony of sobbing, not without a little hope that Aunt Lily would be again brought to her side. At last the door was softly pushed open in the dark, but it was not Aunt Lily, it was Mysie's little bare feet that patted up to the bed, her arms that embraced, her cheek that was squeezed against the tearful one-'Oh, Dolly, Dolly! please don't cry so sadly!'

  'Oh! it is so dreadful, Mysie!'

  'Are you ill-like the other night?'

  'No-but-Mysie-I can't bear it!'

  'I don't want to call mamma,' said Mysie, thoughtfully, 'for she is so much tired, and Uncle Regie and Gill said she would be quite knocked up, and got her to come up to bed when we went. Dolly, would it be better if I got into your bed and cuddled you up?'

  'Oh yes! oh yes! please do, there's a dear good Mysie.'

  There was not much room, but that mattered the less, and the hugging of the warm arms seemed to heal the terrible sense of being unloved and forsaken, the presence to drive away the visions of angry faces that had haunted her; but there was the longing for fellow-feeling on her, and she said, 'That's nice! Oh, Mysie! you can't think what it is like! Uncle Regie said I didn't care, and he could never forgive deliberate deceit-and I was so fond of Uncle Regie!'

  'Oh! but he will, if you never tell a story again,' said Mysie-and, as she felt a gesture implying despair-'Yes, they do; I told a story once.'

  'You, Mysie! I thought you never did?'

  'Yes, once, when we were crossing to Ireland and nurse wouldn't let Wilfred tie our handkerchiefs together and fish over the side, and he was very angry, and threw her parasol into the sea when she wasn't looking; and I knew she would be so cross, that when she asked me if I knew what was become of it, I said 'No,' and thought I didn't, really. But then it came over me, again and again, that I had told a story, and, oh! I was so miserable whenever I thought of it-at church, and saying my prayers, you know; and mamma was poorly, and couldn't come to us at night for ever so long, but at last I could bear it no longer, I heard her say, 'Mysie is always truthful,' and then I did get it out, and told her. And, oh! she and papa were so kind, and they did quite and entirely forgive me!'

  'Yes, you told of your own accord; and they were your own-not Uncle Regie. Ah! Mysie, everybody hates me. I saw them all looking at me.'

  'No, no! Don't say such things. Dolly. None of us do anything so shocking.'

  'Yes, Jasper does, and Wilfred and Val!'

  'No! no! no! they don't hate; only they are tiresome sometimes; but if you wouldn't be cross they would be nice directly-at least Japs and Val. And 'tisn't hating with Willie, only he thinks teasing is fun.'

  'And you and Gillian. You can only just bear me.

  'No! no! no!' with a great hug, 'that's not true.'

  'You like Fly ever so much better!'

  'She is so dear, and so funny,' said Mysie, the truthful, 'but somehow, Dolly dear, do you know, I think if you and I got to love one another like real friends, it would be nicer still than even Fly-because you are here like one of us, you know; and besides, it would be more, because you are harder to get at. Will you be my own friend. Dolly?'

  'Oh, Mysie, I must!' and there was a fresh kissing and hugging.

  'And there's mamma,' added Mysie.

  'Yes, I know Aunt Lily does now; but, oh! if you had seen Uncle Alfred's face, and heard Uncle Regie,' and Dolly began to sob again as they returned on her. 'I see them whenever I shut my eyes!'

  'Darling,' whispered Mysie, 'when I feel bad at night, I always kneel up in bed and say my prayers again!'

  'Do you ever feel bad?'

  'Oh yes, when I'm frightened, or if I've been naughty, and haven't told mamma. Shall we do it, Dolly?'

  'I don't know what that has to do with it, but we'll try.'

  'Mamma told me something to say out of.'

  The two little girls rose up, with clasped hands in their bed, and Mysie whispered very low, but so that her companion heard, and said with her a few childish words of confession, pleading and entreating for strength, and then the Lord's Prayer, and the sweet old verse:-

  'I lay my body down to sleep,

  I give my soul to Christ to keep,

  Wake I at morn, as wake I never,

  I give my soul to Christ for ever.'

  'Ah! but I am afraid of that. I don't like it,' said Dolores, as they lay down again.

  'It won't make one never wake,' returned Mysie; 'and I do like to give my soul to Christ. It seems so to rest one, and make one not afraid.'

  'I don't know,' said Dolores; 'and why did you say the Lord's Prayer? That hasn't anything to do with it!'

  'Oh, Dolly, when He is our Father near, though our own dear fathers are far away, and there's deliver us from evil-all that hurts us, you know-and forgive us. It's all there.'

  'I never thought that,' said Dolores. 'I think you have some different prayers from mine. Old nurse taught me long ago. I wish you would always say yours with me. You make them nicer.'

  Mysie answered with a hug, and a murmured 'If I can,' and offered to say the 121st Psalm, her other step to comfort, and, as she said it, she resolved in her mind whether she could grant Dolores's request; for she was not s
ure whether she should be allowed to leave her room before saying her own, and she I knew enough of Dolores by this time to be aware that to say she would ask mamma's leave would put an end to all. 'I know,' was her final decision; 'I'll say my own first, and then come to Dolly's room.'

  But by that time Dolores was asleep, even if Mysie had not been too sleepy to speak.

  She meant to have rushed to the room she shared with Valetta before it was time to get up, but Lots found the black head and the brown together on Dolores's pillow, wrapped in slumber; and though Mysie flew home as soon as she was well awake, Mrs. Halfpenny descended on her while she was yet in her bath, and inflicted a sharp scolding for the malpractice of getting into her cousin's bed.

  'But Dolly was so miserable, nurse, and mamma was too tired to call.'

  'Then you should have called me, Miss Mysie, and I'd have sorted her well! You kenned well 'tis a thing not to be done and at your age; ye should have minded your duties better.'

  And nurse even intercepted Mysie on her way to Dolores's room, and declared she would have no messing and gossiping in one another's rooms. Miss Mysie was getting spoilt among strangers.

  Mysie went down with a strong sense of having been disobedient, as well as of grief for Dolores's disappointment. Happily mamma was late that morning, and nobody was in her room but Primrose. Poor Mysie had soon, with tears in her eyes, confessed her transgression. Her mother's tears, to her great surprise, were on her cheek together with a kiss. 'Dear child, I am not displeased. Indeed, I am not; I will tell nurse. It must not be a habit, but this was an exception, and I am only thankful you could comfort her.

  'And, mamma, may I go now to her. She said I could help her to say her prayers, and I think she only has little baby ones that her nurse taught her and she doesn't see into the Lord's Prayer.'

  'My dear, my dear, if you can help her to pray you will do the thing most sure to be a blessing to her of all.'

  And when Mysie was gone, Lady Merrifield knelt down afresh in thankfulness.

  CHAPTER XVIII. MYSIE AND DOLORES.

  Things were going on more quietly at Silverton. That is to say, there were no outward agitations, for the house was anything but quiet. Lady Merrifield had no great love for children's parties, where, as she said, they sat up too late, to eat and drink what was not good for them, and to get presents that they did not care about; and though at Dublin it had been necessary on her husband's account to give and take such civilities, she had kept out of the exchange at Silverton. But, on the other hand, there were festivals, and she promoted a full amount of special treats at home among themselves, or with only an outsider or two, and she endured any amount of noise, provided it was not quarrelsome, over-boisterous, or at unfit times.

  There was the school tea, and magic-lantern, when Mr. Pollock acted as exhibitor, and Harry as spokesman, and worked them up gradually from grave and beautiful scenes like the cedars of Lebanon, the Parthenon and Colosseum, with full explanations, through dissolving views of cottage and bridge by day and night, summer and winter, of life-boat rescue, and the siege of Sevastopol, with shells flying, on to Jack and the Beanstalk and the New Tale of a Tub, the sea-serpent, and the nose-grinding! Lady Phyllis's ecstacy was surpassing, more especially as she found her beloved little maid-of-all-work, and was introduced to all that small person's younger brothers and sisters.

  Here they met Miss Hacket, who was in charge of a class. She comported herself just as usual, and Gillian's dignity and displeasure gave way before her homely cordiality. Constance had not come, as indeed nothing but childhood, sympathy with responsibility for childhood, could make the darkness, stuffiness, and noise of the exhibition tolerable. Even Lady Merrifield trusted her flock to its two elders, and enjoyed a tete-a-tete evening with her brother, who profited by it to advise her strongly to send Dolores to their sister Jane before harm was done to her own children.

  'I would not see that little Mysie of yours spoilt for all the world,' said he.

  'Nor I; but I don't think it likely to happen.'

  'Do you know that they are always after each other, chattering in their bedrooms at night. I hear them through the floor.'

  'Only one night-Mysie told me all about it-I believe Mysie will do more for that poor child than any of us.'

  Uncle Regie shrugged his shoulders a little.

  'Yes, I know I was wrong before, when I wouldn't take Jane's warning; but that was not about one of my own, and, besides, poor Dolores is very much altered.'

  'I'll tell you what, Lily, when any one, I don't care who, man, or woman, or child, once is given up to that sort of humbug and deceit, carrying it on a that girl, Dolores, had done, I would never trust again an inch beyond what I could see. It eats into the very marrow of the bones-everything is acting afterwards.'

  'That would be saying no repentance was possible-that Jacob never could become Israel.'

  'I only say I have never seen it.'

  'Then I hope you will, nay, that you do. I believe your displeasure is the climax of all Dolly's troubles.'

  But Colonel Reginald Mohun could not forgive the having been so entirely deceived where he had so fully trusted; and there was no shaking his opinion that Dolores was essentially deceitful and devoid of feeling and that the few demonstrations of emotion that were brought before him were only put on to excite the compassion of her weakly, good-natured aunt, so he only answered, 'You always were a soft one Lily.'

  To which she only answered, 'We shall see knowing that in his present state of mind he would only set down the hopeful tokens that she perceived either to hypocrisy on the girl's side, or weakness on hers.

  Dolores had indeed gone with the others rather because she could not bear remaining to see her uncle's altered looks than because she expected much pleasure. And she had the satisfaction of sitting by Mysie, and holding her hand, which had become a very great comfort in her forlorn state-so great that she forebore to hurt her cousin's feelings by discoursing of the dissolving views she had seen at a London party. Also she exacted a promise that this station should always be hers.

  Mysie, on her side, was in some of the difficulties of a popular character, for Fly felt herself deserted, and attacked her on the first opportunity.

  'What does make you always go after Dolly instead of me, Mysie? Do you like her so much better?'

  'Oh no! but you have them all, and she has nobody.'

  'Well, but she has been so horridly naughty, hasn't she?'

  'I don't think she meant it.'

  'One never does. At least, I'm sure I don't-and mamma always says it is nonsense to say that.'

  'I'm not sure whether it is always,' said Mysie, thoughtfully, 'for sometimes one does worse than one knows. Once I made a mouse-trap of a beautiful large sheet of bluey paper, and it turned out to be an order come down to papa. Mamma and Alethea gummed it up as well as ever they could again, but all the officers had to know what had happened to it.'

  'And were you punished?'

  'I was not allowed to go into papa's room without one of the elder ones till after my next birthday, but that wasn't so bad as papa's being so vexed, and everybody knowing it; and Major Denny would talk about mice and mouse-traps every time he saw me till I quite hated my name.'

  'And I'm sure you didn't mean to cut up an important paper.'

  'No; but I did do a little wrong, for we had no leave to take anything not quite in the waste basket, and this had been blown off the table, and was on the floor outside. They didn't punish me so much I think because of that. Papa said it was partly his own fault for not securing it when he was called off. You see little wrongs that one knows turn out great wrongs that one would never think of, and that is so very dreadful, and makes me so very sorry for Dolores.'

  'I didn't think you would like a cross, naughty girl like that more than your own Fly.'

  'No, no! Fly, don't say that. I don't really like her half so well, you know, only if you would help me to be kind to her.'

  'I am sure
my mother wouldn't wish me to have anything to do with her. I don't think she would have let me come here if she had known what sort of girl she is.'

  'But your papa knew when he left you-'

  'Oh, papa! yes; but he can never see anything amiss in a Mohun; I heard her say so. And he wants me to be friends with you; dear, darling friends like him and your Uncle Claude, Mysie, so you must be, and not be always after that Dolores.'

  'I want to be friends with both. One can have two friends.'

  'No! no! no! not two best friends. And you are my best friend, Mysie, ever so much better than Alberta Fitzhugh, if only you'll come always to me this little time when I'm here, and sit by me instead of that Dolly.'

  'I do love you very much, Fly.'

  'And you'll sit by me at the penny reading to-night?'

  'I promised Dolly. But she may sit on the other side.'

  'No,' said Phyllis, with jealous perverseness. 'I don't care if that Dolly is to be on the other side, you'll talk to nobody but her! Now, Mysie, I had been writing to ask daddy to let you come home with me, you yourself, to the Butterfly's Ball, but if you won't sit by me, you may stay with your dear Dolores.'

  'Oh, Fly! When you know I promised, and there is the other side.'

  But Fly had been courted enough by all the cousinhood to have become exacting and displeased at having any rival to the honour of her hand-so she pouted and said, 'I don't care about it, if you have her. I shall sit between Val and Jasper.'

  One must be thirteen, with a dash of the sentiment of a budding friendship, to enter into all that "sitting by" involves; and in Mysie's case, here was her compassionate promise standing not only between her and the avowed preference of one so charming as Fly, but possibly depriving her of the chances of the wonders of the Butterfly's Ball. No wonder that disconsolate tears came into her eyes as she uttered another pleading, 'Oh, Fly, how can you?'

  'You must choose,' said the offended young lady; 'you can't have us both.'

  To which argument she stuck, being offended as well as scandalized at being set aside for such a culprit as Dolores, whose misdemeanours and discourtesy were equally shocking to her imagination.