The Two Sides of the Shield Read online

  It was, she thought, nearly time to go on, for the gas was being lighted. She put on her hat, and went out to look for her uncle on the platform, so as to get into a better light to see the face of her mother's little Swiss watch, which her father had just made over to her. She had just made out that there was not more than a quarter of an hour to spare, when she heard an exclamation.

  'By Jove! if that ain't Mary's little girl!' and, looking up she saw Mr. Flinders' huge, bushy, light-coloured beard. 'Is your father here?' he asked.

  'No; he sailed this afternoon.'

  'Always my luck! Ticket wasted! Sailed-really?'

  'Oh yes. We did not come back till the ship was out of harbour.'

  He muttered some exclamation, and asked-

  'Whom are you with?'

  'Uncle William. Mr. Mohun-my eldest uncle. He will be back directly.'

  Mr. Flinders whistled a note of discontent.

  'Going to rusticate with him, poor little mite?' he asked.

  'No. I'm to live with my Aunt Lilias-Lady Merrifield.'

  'Where?'

  'At Silverfold Grange, near Silverfold.'

  'Well, you'll get among the swells. They'll make you cut all your poor mother's connections. So there's an end of it. She was a good creature-she was!'

  'I'll never forget any one that belongs to her,' said Dolores. 'Oh, there's Uncle William!' as on the top of the stairs she spied the welcome sight of his grey locks and burly figure. Before he had descended, her other uncle had vanished, and she fancied she had heard something about, 'Mum about our meeting. Ta ta!'

  Uncle William's eyes being less sharp than hers, he was on his way to the waiting-room before she joined him, and as he had not seen her encounter, she would not tell him. They were settled in the carriage again, and she was tolerably refreshed. Mr. Mohun fell asleep, and she, after reading by the lamp-light as long as she could find anything to read, gazed at the odd reflections in the windows till she, too, nodded and dozed, half waking at every station.

  At last, she was aware of a stop in earnest, voices, and being called. There was her uncle saying, 'Well, Hal, here we are!' and she was lifted out and set on the platform, with gas all round. Her uncle was saying, 'We didn't get away in time for the express,' and a young man was answering, 'We'd better put Dolly into the waggonette at once. Then I'll see to the luggage.'

  Very like a parcel, so stiff were her legs, she was bundled into the dark cavern of a closed waggonette, and, after a little lumbering, her uncle and the young man got in after her, saying something about eleven o'clock.

  She was more awake now, and knew that they were driving through lighted streets, and then, after an interval, turned into darkness, upon gravel, and stopped at last before a door full of light, with figures standing up dark in it. She heard a 'Well, William!' 'Well Lily, here we are at last!' Then there were arms embracing her, and a kiss on each cheek, as a soft voice said, 'My poor little girl! They wanted to sit up for you, but it was too late, and I dare say you had rather be quiet.'

  She was led into a lamp-lit room, which dazzled her. It was spread with food, but she was too much tired to eat, and her aunt saw how it was, and telling Harry to take care of his uncle, she took the hand-though it did not close on hers-and, climbing up what seemed to Dolores an endless number of stairs, she said-

  'You are up high, my dear; but I thought you would like a room to yourself.'

  'Poked away in an attic,' was Dolores's dreamy thought; while her aunt added, to a tall, thin woman, who came out with a lamp in her hand-

  'She is so tired that she had better go to bed directly, Mrs. Halfpenny. You will make her comfortable, and don't let her be disturbed in the morning till she has had her sleep out.'

  Dolly found herself undressed, without many words, till it came to-'Your prayers, Miss Dora. I am sure you've need not to miss them.'

  She did not like to be told, besides, poor child, prayers were not much more than a form to her. She did not contest the point, but knelt down and muttered something, then laid her weary head on the pillow, was tucked up by Mrs. Halfpenny, and left in the dark. It was a dreary half sleep into which she fell. The noise of the train seemed to be still in her ears, and at the same time she was always being driven up-up-up endless stairs, by tall, cruel aunts; or they were shutting her up to do all their children's work, and keeping away father's letters from her. Then she awoke and told herself it was a dream, but she missed the noises of the street, and the patch of light on the wall from the gas lamps, and recollected that father was gone, and she was really in the power of one of these cruel aunts; and she felt like screaming, only then she might have been heard; and a great horrid clock went on making a noise like a church bell, and striking so many odd quarters that there was no guessing when morning was coming. And after all, why should she wish it to come? Oh, if she could but sleep the three years while father was away!

  At last, however, she fell into a really calm sleep, and when she awoke, the room was full of light, but her watch had stopped; she had been too much tired to remember to wind it; and she lay a little while hearing sounds that made it clear that the world was astir, and she could see that preparations had been made for her getting up.

  'They shan't begin by scolding me for being late,' she thought, and she began her toilette.

  Just as she came to her hair, the old nurse knocked and asked whether she wanted help.

  'Thank you, I've been used to dress myself,' said Dolores, rather proudly.

  'I'll help you now, missy, for prayers are over, and they are all gone to breakfast, only my lady said you were not to be disturbed, and Miss Mysie will be up presently again to bring you down.'

  She spoke low, and in an accent that Dolores afterwards learnt was Scotch; and she was a tall, thin, bony woman, with sandy hair, who looked as if she had never been young. She brushed and plaited the dark hair in a manner that seemed to the owner more wearisome and less tender than Caroline's fashion; and did not talk more than to inquire into the fashion of wearing it, and to say that Miss Mohun's boxes had been sent from London, demanding the keys that they might be unpacked.

  'I can do that myself,' said Dolores, who did not like any stranger to meddle with her things.

  'Ye could tak them oot, nae doubt, but I must sort them. It's my lady's orders,' said Mrs. Halfpenny, with all the determination of the sergeant, her husband, and Dolores, with a sense of despair, and a sort of expectation that she should be deprived of all her treasures on one plea or another, gave up the keys.

  Mrs. Halfpenny then observed that the frock which had been worn for the last two days on the railway, and evening and morning, needed a better brushing and setting to rights than she had had time to give it. She had better take out another. Which box were her frocks in?

  Dolores expected her heartless relations to insist on her leaving off her mourning, and she knew she ought to struggle and shed tears over it; but, to tell the truth, she was a good deal tired of her hot and fusty black; and when she had followed Mrs. Halfpenny into a passage where the boxes stood uncorded; and the first dress that came to light was a pretty fresh-looking holland that had been sent home just before the accident, she exclaimed-

  'Oh, let me put that on.'

  'Bless me, miss, it has blue braid, and you in mourning for your poor mamma!'

  Dolores stood abashed, but a grey alpaca, which she had always much disliked, came out next, and Mrs. Halfpenny decided that with her black ribbons that would do, though it turned out to be rather shockingly short, and to show a great display of black legs; but as the box containing the clothes in present wear had not come to hand, this must stand for the present-and besides, a voice was heard, saying, 'Is Dora ready?' and a young person darted up, put her arms round her neck, and kissed her before she knew what she was about. 'Mamma said I should come because I am just your age, thirteen and a half,' she said. 'I'm Mysie, though my proper name is Maria Millicent.'

  Dolores looked her over. She was a good deal t
aller than herself, and had rich-looking shining brown hair, dark brown eyes full of merriment, and a bright rosy colour, and she danced on her active feet as if she were full of perpetual life. 'All happy and not caring,' thought Dolores.

  'Now don't fash Miss Mohun with your tricks. She has stood like a lamb,' said Mrs. Halfpenny reprovingly. 'There, we'll not keep her to find an apron.'

  'I don't wear pinafores,' said Mysie, 'but I don't mind pretty aprons like this. 'Why, my sisters had them for tennis, before they went out to India. Come along, Dora,' grasping her hand.

  'My name isn't Dora,' said the new-comer, as they went down the passage.

  'No,' said Mysie, in a low voice; 'but mamma told Gill-that's Gillian, and me, that we had better not tell anybody, because if the boys heard they might tease you so about it; for Wilfred is a tease, and there's no stopping him when mamma isn't there. So she said she would call you Dora, or Dolly, whichever you liked, and you are not a bit like a Dolly.'

  'They always called me Dolly,' said Dolores; 'and if I am not to have my name, I like that best; but I had rather have my proper name.'

  'Oh, very well,' said Mysie; 'it is more out of the way, only it is very long.'

  By this time they had descended a long narrow flight of uncarpeted stairs, 'the back ones,' as Mysie explained, and had reached a slippery oak hall with high-backed chairs, and all the odds and ends of a family-garden hats, waterproofs, galoshes, bats, rackets, umbrellas, etc., ranged round, and a great white cockatoo upon a stand, who observed-'Mysie, Cockie wants his breakfast,' as they went by towards the door, whence proceeded a hubbub of voices and a clatter of knives and jingle of teaspoons and cups, a room that as Mysie threw open the door seemed a blaze of sunshine, pouring in at the large window, and reflected in the glass and silver. Yes, and in the bright eyes and glossy hair of the party who sat round the breakfast-table, further brightened by the fire, pleasant in the early autumn.

  Eyes, as it seemed to Dolores, eyes without number were levelled on her, as Mysie led her in, saying-

  'Here's a place by mamma; she kept it for you, between her and Uncle William.'

  'No, don't all jump up at once and rush at her,' said Lady Merrifield. 'Give her a little time. Here, my dear;' and she held out her hand and drew in the stranger to her, kissing her kindly, and placing her in a chair close to herself, as she presided over the teacups-not at the end, but at the middle of the table-while all that could be desired to eat and drink found its way at once to Dolores, who had arrived at being hungry now, and was glad to have the employment for hands and eyes, instead of feeling herself gazed at. She was not so much occupied, however, as not to perceive that Uncle William's voice had a free, merry ring in it, such as she had never heard in his visits to her father, and that there was a great deal of fun and laughter going on over the thin sheets of an Indian letter, which Aunt Lily was reading aloud.

  No one seemed to be attending to anything else, when Dolores ventured to cast a glance around and endeavour to count heads as she sat between her uncle and aunt. Two boys and a girl were opposite. Harry, who had come to meet them last night, was at one end of the table, a tall girl, but still a schoolroom girl, was at the other, and Mysie had been lost sights of on her own side of the table; also there was a very tiny girl on a high chair on the other side of her mamma. 'Seven,' thought Dolores with sinking heart. 'Eight oppressors!'

  They were mostly brown-eyed, well-grown creatures. One boy, at the further corner, had a cast in his eye, and was thin and wizen-looking, and when he saw her eyes on him, he made up an ugly face, which he got rid of like a flash of lightning before any one else could see it, but her heart sank all the more for it. He must be Wilfred, the teaser.

  Aunt Lilias was a tall, slender woman, dressed in some kind of soft grey, with a little carnation colour at her throat, and a pretty lace cap on her still rich, abundant, dark brown hair, where diligent search could only detect a very few white threads. Her complexion was always of a soft, paly, brunette tint, and though her cheeks showed signs that she was not young, her dark, soft, long-lashed eyes and sweet-looking lips made her face full of life and freshness; and the figure and long slender hands had the kind of grace that some people call willowy, but which is perhaps more like the general air of a young birch tree, or, as Hal had once said, 'Early pointed architecture reminded him of his mother.'

  The little one was getting restless, and two of the boys began filliping crumbs at one another.

  'Wilfred! Fergus!' said the mother quite low and gently; but they stopped directly. 'We will say grace,' she said, lifting the little one down. 'Now, Primrose.'

  Every one stood up, to Dolores' surprise, a pair of little fat hands were put together, a little clear voice said a few words of thanksgiving perfectly pronounced.

  'You may go, if you like,' she said. 'Hal, take care of Prim.'

  Up jumped the two boys and a sprite of a girl, who took the hand of little Primrose, a beautiful little maiden with rich chestnut wavy curls. They all paused at the door, the boys making a salute, the girls a little curtsey. Primrose's was as pretty a little 'bob' as ever was seen.

  'I am glad you keep that custom up,' said Mr. Mohun.

  'Jasper had been brought up to it, and wished it to be the habit among us; and I find it a great protection against bouncing and rudeness.'

  But Dolly's blood boiled at such stupid, antiquated, military nonsense. She would never give in to it, if they made her live on bread and water!

  The uncle and aunt, who perhaps had lengthened out their breakfast from politeness to her, had finished when she had, and the pony-chaise came to the door, in which Hal was to drive Uncle William to the station. Everybody flocked to the door to bid him good-bye, and then Aunt Lilias stooped down to ask Dolores if she were quite rested and felt quite well, Mysie standing anxiously by as if she felt her a great charge.

  'Quite well, quite rested, thank you,' the girl answered in her stiff, shy way.

  'There is half an hour to spare before Miss Vincent comes. The children generally spend it in feeding the creatures. I am not going to give a holiday, because I think people get more pleasantly acquainted over something, than over nothing, to do, but you need not begin lessons to-day if you had rather settle your thoughts and write your letters.'

  'I had rather begin at once,' said Dolores, who thought she would now establish her pre-eminence at the cost of any amount of jealousy.

  'Very well, then, when you hear the gong-'

  'Mamma,' said Mysie solemnly, after long waiting, 'she says she had rather not be called out of her name.'

  'I thought you had been called Dolly, my dear.'

  'Yes, at home,' with a strong emphasis.

  'Well, my dear, I dare say it may be better to keep to your proper name at once. We won't take liberties with it, till you feel as if you could call this home,' said Lady Merrifield, looking as if she would have kissed her niece on the slightest encouragement, but no one ever looked less kissable than Dolores Mohun at that moment. Was it not cruel and hypocritical to talk of this tiresome multitude as ever making home?

  CHAPTER IV. TURNED IN AMONG THEM

  'Do you like pets?' asked Mysie eagerly, as her mother left the two girls together.

  'I never had any,' said Dolores.

  'Oh how dreadful! Why, old Cockie, and Aga and Begum, the two oldest pussies, have been everywhere with us. And, besides, there's Basto, the big Pyrenean dog, and,-oh, here comes little Quiz, mamma's little Maltese-Quiz, Quiz.'

  Dolores started, she did not like either dogs or cats; and the little spun-glass looking dog smelt about her.

  'I must go and feed my guinea-pig,' said Mysie; 'won't you come? Here are some over shoes and Poncho.'

  Dolores was afraid Poncho was another beast, but it turned out to be a sort of cape, and she discovered that all the cloaks and most of the sticks had names of their own. She was afraid to be left standing on the steps alone lest any amount of animals or boys should fall on her there, so she consente
d to accompany Mysie, who shuffled along in a pair of overshoes vastly too big for her, since she had put her cousin into the well-fitting ones. She chattered all the way.

  'We do like this place so. It is the nicest we have ever been in. All that is wanting is that papa will buy it, and then we shall never go away again.'

  It was a pleasant place, though not grand; a homely-looking, roomy, red-brick house, covered with creepers-the Virginian one with its leaves just beginning to be painted. There was a bright sunny garden full of flowers in front, and then a paddock, with cows belonging to a farmer, Mysie said. It was her ambition to have them of their own 'when papa came home,' when all good things were to happen. Behind there were large stable-yards and offices, too large for Lady Merrifield's one horse and one pony, and thus available for the children's menagerie of rabbits, guinea-pigs, magpie, and the like. On the way Mysie was only too happy to explain the family as she called it, when she had recovered from her astonishment that Dolores, always living in England, could not 'count up her cousins.' 'Why they always had been shown their photographs on a Sunday evening after the Bible pictures, and even little Primrose knew all the likeness, even of those she had never seen.'

  The catalogue of names and ages followed.

  Dolores heard it with a feeling of bewilderment, and a sense that one Maude was worth all the eight put together with whom she was called on to be familiar. She found herself standing in a court, rather grass-grown, where Gillian, with little Primrose by her side, was flinging peas to a number of pigeons, grey, white, and brown, who fluttered round her. Valetta and Fergus were on the granary steps, throwing meal and sop mixed together to a host of cackling, struggling fowls, who tried to leap over each other's backs. Wilfred seemed busy at some hutches where some rabbits twitched their noses at cabbage leaves. Mysie proceeded to minister to some black and rust-coloured guinea-pigs, which Dolores thought very ugly, uninteresting, and odorous.