The Two Sides of the Shield

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THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD

BY

CHARLOTTE M YONGE

PREFACE

It is sometimes treated as an impertinence to revive the personages of
one story in another, even though it is after the example of
Shakespeare, who revived Falstaff, after his death, at the behest of
Queen Elizabeth. This precedent is, however, a true impertinence in
calling on the very great to justify the very small!

Yet many a letter in youthful handwriting has begged for further
information on the fate of the beings that had become favourites of the
school-room; and this has induced me to believe that the following out
of my own notions as to the careers of former heroes and heroines might
not be unwelcome; while I have tried to make the story stand
independently for new readers, unacquainted with the tale in which Lady
Merrifield and her brothers and sisters first appeared.

'Scenes and Characters' was, however, published so long ago, that the
young readers of this generation certainly will only know it if it has
had the good fortune to have been preserved by their mothers. It was
only my second book, and in looking back at it so as to preserve
consistency, I have been astonished at its crudeness.

It will explain a few illusions to state that it is the story of the
motherless family of Mohuns of Beechcroft, with a kindly deaf father at
the head, Mr. Mohun, whose pet name was the Baron of Beechcroft, owing
to a romantic notion of his daughters made fun of by his sons. The
eldest sister, a stiff, sensible, dry woman, had just married and gone
to India, leaving her post to the next in age, Emily, who was much too
indolent for the charge. Lilies, the third in age, with her head full
of the kind of high romance and sentiment more prevalent thirty or
forty years ago than now, imagined that whereas the household had
formerly been ruled by duty, it now might be so by love. Of course,
confusion dire was the consequence, chiefly with the younger boys, the
scientific, cross-grained Maurice, and the high-spirited, turbulent
Reginald, all the mischief being fomented by Jane's pertness and
curiosity, and only mitigated by the honest simplicity and dutifulness
of eight years old Phyllis. The remedy was found at last in the
marriage of the eldest son William with Alethea Weston, already
Lilias's favourite friend and model.

That in a youthful composition there should be a cavalier ancestry, a
family much given to dying of consumption, and a young marquess cousin
is, perhaps, inevitable. Lord Rotherwood was Mr. Mohun's ward, and
having a dull home of his own, found his chief happiness as well as all
the best influences of his life, in the merry, highly-principled,
though easy-going life at his uncle's, whom he revered like a father,
while his eager, somewhat shatter-brained nature often made him a butt
to his cousins. All this may account for the tone of camaraderie with
which the scattered members of the family meet again, especially around
Lilias, who had, with her cleverness and enthusiasm, always been the
leading member of the group.

It should, perhaps, also be mentioned that Lord Rotherwood's greatest
friend was also Lilias's favourite brother, Claude, who had become a
clergyman and died early. Aunt Adeline had been the spoilt child and
beauty of the family, the youngest of all.

C. M. YONGE.

March 8th, 1885.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?
CHAPTER II. THE MERRIFIELDS
CHAPTER III. GOOD BYE
CHAPTER IV. TURNED IN AMONG THEM
CHAPTER V. THE FIRST WALK
CHAPTER VI. PERSECUTION
CHAPTER VII. G.F.S.
CHAPTER VIII. MY PERSECUTED UNCLE
CHAPTER IX. LETTERS
CHAPTER X. THE EVENING STAR
CHAPTER XI. SECRET EXPEDITIONS
CHAPTER XII. A HUNT
CHAPTER XIII. AN EGYPTIAN SPHINX
CHAPTER XIV. A CYPHER AND A TY
CHAPTER XV. THE BUTTERFLY'S BALL
CHAPTER XVI. THE INCONSTANCY OF CONSTANCE
CHAPTER XVII. THE STONE MELTING
CHAPTER XVIII. MYSIE AND DOLORES
CHAPTER XIX. A SADDER AND A WISER AUTHORESS
CHAPTER XX. CONFESSIONS OF A COUNTRY MOUSE
CHAPTER XXI. IN COURT AND OUT
CHAPTER XXII. NAY

THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD

CHAPTER I

WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?

A London dining-room was lighted with gas, which showed a table of
small dimensions, with a vase of somewhat dirty and dilapidated grasses
in the centre, and at one end a soup tureen, from which a gentleman had
helped himself and a young girl of about thirteen, without much
apparent consciousness of what he was about, being absorbed in a pile
of papers, pamphlets, and letters, while she on her side kept a book
pinned open by a gravy spoon. The elderly maid-servant, who set the
dishes before them, handed the vegetables and changed the plates,
really came as near to feeding the pair as was possible with people
above three years old.

The one was a dark, thin man, with a good deal of white in his thick
beard and scanty hair, the absence of which made the breadth of his
forehead the more remarkable. The girl would have shown an equally
remarkable brow, but that her dark hair was cut square over it, so as
to take off from its height, and give a heavy over-hanging look to the
upper part of the face, which below was tin and sallow, well-featured,
but with a want of glow and colour. The thick masses of dark hair were
plaited into a very long thick tail behind, hanging down over a black
evening frock, whose white trimmings were, like everything else about
the place, rather dingy. She was far less absorbed than her father,
and raised a quick, wistful brown eye whenever he made the least sound,
or shuffled his papers. Indeed, it seemed that she was reading in
order to distract her anxiety rather than for the sake of occupation.

It was not till after the last pieces of cheese had been offered and
refused, and the maid had retired, leaving some dull crackers and
veteran biscuits, with two decanters and a claret-jug, that he spoke.

'Dolores!'

'Yes, father.'

But he only cleared his throat, and looked at his letter again, while
she fixed her eager eyes upon him so earnestly that he let his fall
again, and looked once more over his letters before he spoke again.

'Dolores,' and the tone was dry, as if all feeling were driven from it.

'Yes, father.'

'You know that I have accepted this appointment?'

'Yes, father.'

'And that I shall be absent three years at the least?'

'Yes.'

'Then comes the question, how you are to be disposed of in the
meantime?'

'Could not I go with you?' she said, under her breath.

'No, my dear.' And somehow the tone had more tenderness in it, though
it was so explicit. 'I shall have no fixed residence, no one with whom
to leave you; and the climate is not fit for you. Your Aunt Lilias has
kindly offered to take charge of you.'

'Oh, father!'

'Well?'

'If you would only let me stay here with Caroline and Fraulein. I like
it so much better.'

'That cannot be, Dolly. I have this morning promised to let the house
as it is to Mr. Smithson.'

'And Caroline?'

'If Caroline takes my advice, she will remain here as his housekeeper,
and I think she will. Well, what is it? You do not mean that you
would prefer going to your Aunts Jane and Ada?'

'Oh no, no; only if I might go to school.'

'This is nonsense, Dolores. It will be much better for you on all
accounts to be with your aunt at Silverfold. I have no fear that she
and her girls will not do their best to make you happy and good, and to
give you what you have sadly wanted, my poor child. I have always
wished you could have seen more of her.'

There could be no doubt from the tone, in the mind of any one who knew
Mr. Maurine Mohun, that the decision was final; but perhaps Dolores
would have asked more if the door-bell had not rung at the moment and
Mr. Smithson had not been announced. Fate was closing in on her. She
retired into her book, and remained as long as she possibly could, for
the sake of seeing her father and hearing his voice; but after a time
she was desired to call Caroline, and to go to bed herself, for it was
a good deal past nine o'clock.

She had been aware, she could hardly tell how, that her father had been
offered a government appointment connected with the Fiji Islands, and
then that, glad to escape from the dreariness which had settled down on
the house since his wife's death, about eighteen months previously, he
had accepted it, and she had speculated much on her probable fate; but
had never before been officially informed of his designs for himself or
for her.

He was a barrister, who spent all his leisure time on scientific
studies, and his wife had been equally devoted to the same pursuits.
Dolores had been her constant companion; but after the mother's death,
from an accident on a glacier, a strange barrier of throwing himself
into the ways of a girl past the charms of infancy. It was as if they
had lost their interpreter.

The German governess, chosen by Mrs. Mohun, was very German indeed, and
greatly occupied in her own studies. When she found that the armes-
liebes Madchen shrank from being wept over and caressed on the mournful
return, she decided that the English had no feeling, and acquiesced in
the routine of lessons and expeditions to classes. She was never
unkind, but she did not try to be a companion; and old Caroline was
excellent in the attention she paid to the comforts of her master and
his daughter, but had no love of children, and would not have
encouraged familiarities, even if Dolores had not been too entirely a
drawing-room child to offer them.

The morning came, and everything went on as usual; Dolores poured out
the coffee, Mr. Mohun read his Times, Fraulein ate as usual, but
afterwards he asked for a few minutes' conversation with Fraulein. All
that Dolores heard of the result of it was 'So,' and then lessons went
on until twelve o'clock, when it was the custom that the girl should
have an hour's recreation, which was, in any tolerable weather, spent
in the gardens of the far west Crescent, where she lived. There she
was nearly certain of meeting her one great friend, Maude Sefton, who
was always sent out for her airing at the same time.

They spied each other issuing from their doors, met, linked their arms,
and entered together. Maude was a tall, rosy girl, with a great yellow
bush down her back, half a year older than Dolores, and a great deal
bigger.

'My dearest Doll!'

'Oh yes, it is come.'

'Then he is really going? I heard the pater and mater talking about it
yesterday, and they said it would be an excellent thing for him.'

'Oh, Maude! Then they did not say anything about what we hoped?'

'What, the mater's offering for you to come and live with us, darling?
Oh no; and I's afraid it is of no use to ask her, for she said of
herself, that she knew Mr. Mohun had sisters, and--'

'And what? Tell me, Maude. You must!'

'Well, then, you know you made me, and I think it is a shame. She said
she was glad she wasn't one of them, for you were such a peculiar
child.'

'Dear me, Maude, you needn't mind telling me that! I'm sure I don't
want to be like everybody else.'

'And are you going to one of your aunts?'

'Yes, to Aunt Lilias. Oh, Maude, he would not hear a word against it,
and I know it will be so horrid! Aunts are always nasty!'

'Kate is very fond of her aunt,' said Maude, who did not happen to have
any personal experiences to oppose to this sweeping assertion.

'Oh, I don't mean proper aunts, but aunts that have orphans left to
them.'

'But you are not an orphan, darling.'

'I dare say I shall be. 'Tis a horrible climate, and there are no end
of cannibals there, so that he would not take me out for anything,--and
sharks, and volcanoes, and hurricanes.'

'I don't think they eat people there now.'

'It's bad enough if they don't! And you know those aunts begin pretty
well, while they are in fear of the father, but then they get worse.'

'There was Ada Morton,' said Maude, in a tone of conviction, 'and Anna
Ross.'

'Oh yes, and another book, 'Rose Turquand.' It was a grown-up book,
that I read once--long ago,' said Dolores, who had in her mother's time
been allowed a pretty free range of 'book-box.'

"And there's 'Under the Shield,' but that was a boy."

'There are lots and lots,' said Dolores. 'They are ever so much worse
than the stepmothers! Not that there is any fear of that!' she added
quickly.

'But isn't this Aunt Lilias nice? It's a pretty name. Which is she?
You have one aunt a Lady Something, haven't you?'

'Yes, it is this one, Lady Merrifield. Her husband is a general, Sir
Jasper Merrifield, and he is gone out to command in some place in
India; but she cannot stand the climate, and is living at home at a
place called Silverfold, with a whole lot of children. I think two are
gone out with their father, but there are a great many more.'

'Don't you know them at all?'

'No, and don't want to! I think my aunts were unkind to mother!'

'Oh!' exclaimed Maude.

'I am sure of it. They were horrid, stuck-up, fine ladies, and looked
down on her, though she was ever so much nicer, and cleverer, and more
intellectual than they; and she looked down on them.'

'Are you sure?' asked Maude, to whom it was as good as a story.

'Yes, indeed. She was civil, of course, because they were father's
sisters, but I know she couldn't bear them. If any of them came to
London, there was a calling, but all very stupid, and a dining at Lord
Rotherwood's; but she never would, except once, when I can hardly
remember, go to stay at their slow places in the country. I've heard
father try to persuade her when they didn't think I understood. You
know we always went abroad, or to the sea or something, except last
year, when we were at Beechcroft. That wasn't so bad, for there were
lots of books, and Uncle Reginald was there, and he is jolly.'

'Can't you get Mr. Mohun to send you there?'

'No, I don't think they would have me, for every body there is grown
up, and father seems to have a wish for me to be with this Aunt Lilias,
because she has a schoolroom.'

'I wonder he should wish it, if she was unkind to Mrs. Mohun.'

'Well, she was out of the way most of the time. They have lived at
Malta and Gibraltar, and Belfast, and all sorts of places, so they will
all have regular garrison frivolous manner, and think of nothing but
officers and balls. I know she was a beauty, and wants to be one
still.'

'Maude, whose father was a professor, looked quite appalled and said--

'You will be the one to infuse better things.' She felt quite proud of
the word.

'Perhaps,' returned Dolores; 'they always do that in time, but not
till they've been awfully bullied. All the cousins are jealous, and
the aunt spites them because they are nicer and prettier than her own.'

'Yes,' said Maude, 'but then there's always some tremendously nice boy-
cousin, or uncle, or something, that makes up for it all. Will Sir
Jasper Merrifield's eldest son be a Sir?'

'Oh no; he's not a baronet, but a G.C.B., Knight Grand Cross of the
Bath, that is. Besides, I don't care for love, and titles, and all
that nonsense, though father is first cousin to Lord Rotherwood.'

'And you never saw any of them?'

'Yes, Aunt Lilias was at the Charing Cross Hotel with Uncle Jasper and
the two eldest daughters, Alethea and Phyllis, and some more of them,
just before they sailed; and father took me there on Sunday to
luncheon; but there were so many people, and such a talk, and such a
bustle, that I hardly knew which was which. Aunt Jane and Aunt Ada
were a talking that it made my head turn round; but I saw how affected
Aunt Lilias is, and I knew that whenever they looked at me they said
'poor child,' and I always hate any one who does that! All I was
afraid of then was that father would let Aunt Jane and Aunt Ada come
and live with us; but this is ever so much worse.'

'You have such a lot of aunts and uncles!' said Maude, 'and I have not
got anything but one old uncle.'

'Uncles are all very well,' said Dolores, said Maude. 'There are the
two Miss Mohuns--'

'Oh, that's beginning at the wrong end. Aunt Ada is the youngest of
them all, and she thinks she is a young lady still, and wears little
curls on her forehead, and a tennis pinafore, and makes her waist just
like a wasp. She and Aunt Jane live together at Rockquay, because she
has bad health--at least she has whenever she likes; and Aunt Jane does
all sorts of charities and worries, and sets everybody to rights,' said
Dolly, in a very grown-up voice, speaking partly from her own
observation, and partly repeating what she had caught from her elders.

'Oh yes, I know her,' said Maude. 'She asked me questions about all I
did, and she did bother mamma so about a maid she recommended that we
are never going to take another from her.'

'Aunt Phyllis comes between them, I believe; but she has married a
sailor captain and gone to settle in New Zealand, and I have not seen
her since I was a very little girl. Then there's Aunt Emily, who is a
very great swell indeed. Her husband was a canon, Lord Henry Grey; but
he is dead, and she lives at Brighton, a regular fat, comfortable down-
pillow of a woman, who isn't bad to lunch with, only she sends one out
to the Parade with her maid, as if one was a baby. Mother used to
laugh at her. And I think there was an older one who went to India and
died long ago.'

'I have seen your two uncles. There's Major Mohun. Oh! he is fun!'

'Yes, dear old Uncle Regie! I wish he was not in Ireland. He will be
so sorry to miss seeing father off, but he can't get leave. And there
was a clergyman who is dead, and father grieved for very much. I think
he did something to make them all nicer to mother, for it was just
after that we went to stay at Beechcroft with Uncle William. You know
him, and how mother used to call him the very model of a country
squire; and I like his wife, Aunt Alethea. Only it is very pokey and
slow down there, and they are always after flannel petticoats and soup
kitchens, and all the old fads that are exploded. I should get awfully
tired of it before a year was out, only I should not be teased with
strange children, and there would be no one to be jealous of me.'

'Can't you get your father to change and send you there?'

'Not a chance. You see Aunt Lilias had offered, and they haven't, and
I must go on with my education. I hope, though I shall have no
advantages, I shall still be able to go up for the Cambridge
examination, if Aunt Lilias has not prejudices, as I dare say she has,
since of course none of her own will be able to try.'

'You'll come up to us for the examination, Dolly dear, and we shall do
it together, and that will be nice!'

'If they will let me; but I don't expect to be allowed to do anything
that I wish. Only perhaps father may be come home by that time.'

'Is it three years?'

'Yes. It is a terrible time, isn't it? However, when I'm seventeen
perhaps he will talk to me, and I can really keep house.'

'And then you'll come back here?'

'Do you know, Maudie--listen--I've another uncle, belonging to mother.'

'Oh, Dolly! I thought she had no one!'

'He told me he was my Uncle Alfred once when he met me in the park with
Fraulein, and gave me a note for mother. He is called Mr. Flinders.'

'But I thought your mother was daughter to Professor Hay?'

'But this is a half-brother; my grandmother was married before. Uncle
Alfrey has an immense light beard, and I think he is very poor. He
came once or twice to see mother, and they always sent me out of the
room; but I am sure she gave him money--not father's housekeeping
money, but what she got for herself by writing. Once I heard father go
out of the house, saying, 'Well, it's your own to do as you please
with.' And then mother went to her room, and I know she cried. It was
the only time that ever mother cried!' And as Maude listened, much
impressed--'Once when she had got eleven pounds, and we were going to
have bought father such a binocular for a secret as a birthday present,
Mr. Flinders came, and she gave him ten of it, and we could only buy
just a few slides for father. And she told me she was grieved, but she
could not help it, and it would be time for me to understand when I was
older.'

'I don't think this Uncle Alfrey can be nice,' said Maude.

''Tis quite disgusting if he kisses me,' said Dolly; 'but you see he is
poor, and all the Mohuns are stuck up, except father, and they wanted
mother to despise him, and not help him. And you see, she stuck to
him. I don't like him much; but you see nobody ever was like her! Oh,
Maude, if she wasn't dead!'

And poor Dolores cried as she had not done even at the time of the
accident, or in the terrible week that followed, or at the desolate
home coming.

CHAPTER II

THE MERRIFIELDS.

The cool twilight of a long sunny summer's day was freshening the
pleasant garden of a country house, and three people were walking
slowly along a garden path enjoying the contrast with the heat, glare,
and noise of the day. The central one was a tall, slender lady, with a
light shawl hung round her shoulders. On one side was a youth who had
begun to overtop her, on the other a girl of shorter and sturdier
mould, who only reached up to her shoulder.

'So she is coming!' the girl said.

'Yes, Uncle Maurice has answered my letter very kindly.'

'I should think he would be very much obliged,' observed the boy.

'Please, mamma, do tell us all about it,' said the girl. 'You know I
stopped directly when you made me a sign not to go on asking questions
before the little ones. And you said you should have to make us your
friends while papa and the grown-ups are away.'

'Well, Gillian, I know you can be discreet when you are warned, and
perhaps it is best that you should know how things stand. Do you
remember anything about it, Hal?'

'Only a general perception that there were tempests in the higher
regions, but I think that was more from hearing Alley and Phyl talk
than from my native sagacity.'

'So I should suppose, since you were only six years old, at the
utmost.'

'But Uncle Maurice always was under a cloud, wasn't he, especially at
Beechcroft, where I never saw him or his wife in the holidays except
once, when I believe she was not at all liked, and was thought to be
very proud, and stuck-up, and pretentious.'

'But was she just nobody? not a lady?' cried Gillian. 'Aunt Emily
always called her, '"Poor thing."'

'Perhaps she did the same by Aunt Emily,' returned Hal.

'And I am sure I have heard Aunt Ada say that she wasn't a lady; and
Aunt Jane that she had all sorts of discreditable connections.'

'Come now, Gill, if you chatter so, how is mamma to get a word in
between?'

'I'm afraid we have all been hard on her, poor thing!'

'There now, mamma has done it, just like Aunt Emily!'

'Anybody would be poor who got killed in a glacier!'

'No, but one doesn't say poor when people are--nice.'

'When I said poor,' now put in Lady Merrifield, 'it was not so much
that I was thinking of her death as of her having come into a family
where nobody welcomed her, and I really do not suppose it was her
fault.'

'Moreover, she seemed to do very well without a welcome,' added Hal.

'Who is interrupting now?' cried Gillian, 'but was she a lady?'

'I never saw her, you know,' said the mother; 'but from all I ever
heard of her, I should think she was, and cleverer and more highly
educated than any of us.'

'Yes,' said Hal, 'that was the kind of pretension that exasperated them
all at Beechcroft, especially Uncle William.'

'I wonder if Dolores will have it!' said Gillian. 'I suppose she will
know much more than we do.'

'Probably, being the only child of such parents, and with every
advantage London can give. Maurice was always much the cleverest of us
all, and with a very strong mechanical and scientific turn, so that I
now think it might have been better to have let him follow his bent.
But when we were young there was a good deal of mistrust of anything
outside the beaten tracks of gentlemanlike professions, and my dear old
father did not like what he heard of the course of study for those
lines. Things were not as they are now. So Maurice went to Cambridge,
and was fifth wrangler of his year, and then had to go to the bar. It
somehow always gave him a thwarted, injured feeling of working against
the grain, and he cultivated all these scientific pursuits to the
utmost, getting more and more into opinions and society that distressed
grandpapa and Uncle William. So he fell in with Mr. Hay, a professor
at a German university. I can hear William's tone of utter contempt
and disgust. I believe this poor man was exceedingly learned, and had
made some remarkable discoveries, but he was very poor, and lived in
lodgings at Bonn with his daughter in the small way people are content
to do in Germany. As to his opinions, we all took it for granted that
he was a freethinker; but I can't tell how that might be. Maurice
lodged in the same house one year when he went to learn German and
attend lectures, and he went back again every long vacation. At last
came your dear grandfather's death. Maurice hurried away from
Beechcroft immediately after the funeral, and the next thing that was
heard of him was that he had married Miss Hay. It was no wonder that
your Uncle William was bitterly hurt and offended at the apparent
disrespect to our father, and would make no move towards Maurice.'

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