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The Two Sides of the Shield

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Two Sides of the Shield




'Did your dear mother write in it?'

'No; it was not her line. She used to write metaphysical and scientific
articles in the first-class reviews and magazines, and the Many Tongues
is what they call a society paper, you know.'

'Oh yes, I know. There are charming things about the Upper Ten
Thousand. They tell all that is going on, but I hardly ever can see
one. Mary won't take in anything about Church Bells, and we get the
Guardian when it is a week old, and my brother James has done with it.'

'Dear me! How dreadful!' said Dolores, who had been used to see all
manner of papers come in as regularly as hot rolls. 'Why, you never
can know anything! We didn't take in society papers, because father
does not care for gossip or grandees. He has other pursuits. I can
show you some of dear mother's articles. There's one called
'Unconscious Volition,' and another on the 'Progress of Species.' I'll
bring them down next time I come.'

'Have you read them?'

'No; they are too difficult. Mother was so very clever, you know.'

'She must have been,' said Constance, with a sigh; 'but how did she get
them published?'

'Sent them to the editor, of course,' said Dolores. 'They all knew
her, and were glad to get anything that she wrote.'

'Ah! that is what it is to have an introduction,' sighed Constance.

'What! have you written anything?' cried Dolores.

'Only a few little trifles,' said Constance, modestly. 'It is a great
secret, you know, a dead secret.'

'Oh! I'll keep it. I told you my secret, you know, so you might tell
me yours.'

And so to Dolores were confided sundry verses and tales on which
Constance had been wont to spend a good deal of her time in that pretty
sitting-room. She had actually sent her manuscripts to magazines, but
she had heard no more of one, and the other had been returned declined
with thanks--all for want of an introduction. Dolores was delighted to
promise that as soon as she heard from Uncle Alfred, she would get him
to patronize them, and the reading occupied several Sunday afternoons.
Dolores suggested, however, that a goody-goody story about a choir-boy
lost in the snow would never do for the Many Tongues, and a far more
exciting one was taken up, called 'The Waif of the Moorland,' being the
story of a maiden, whom a wicked step-mother was suspected of
murdering, but who walked from time to time like the 'Woman in White.'
There was only too much time for the romance; for weeks passed and
there was no answer from Mr. Flinders. It was possible that he might
have broken off his connection with the paper, only then the letter
would probably have been returned; and the other alternative was less
agreeable, that it was not worth his while to write to his niece.
While as to Maude Sefton, nothing was heard of her. Were her letters
intercepted? And so the winter side of autumn set in. Hal was gone to
Oxford, and there had been time for letters to come from Mr. Mohun,
posted from Auckland, New Zealand, where he had made a halt with his
sister, Mrs. Harry May, otherwise Aunt Phyllis. Dolores was very much
pleased to receive her letter, and to have it all to herself; but,
after all, she was somewhat disappointed in it, for there was really
nothing in it that might not have been proclaimed round the breakfast-
table, like the public letters from that quarter of the family who were
at Rawul Pindee. It told of deep-sea soundings and investigations into
the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and
albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers
for her to send to them--a very improving letter, but a good deal like
a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, 'I hope my
little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her
aunt no trouble, and to profit by her kind care. Your three cousins
here, Mary, Lily, and Maggie, are exceedingly nice girls, and much
interested about you; indeed, they wish I had brought you with me.'

Dolores read her letter over and over and over, for the pleasure of
having something all to herself, and never communicated a word about
the miscroscopic monsters her father had described, but she drew her
head back and reflected, 'He little knows,' when he spoke of her being
happy among her cousins.

Lady Merrifield likewise received a letter, about which she did not say
much to her children, but Miss Mohun, who had had a much longer one,
came over for the day to read this to her sister. In point of fact,
she had paired in childhood with her brother Maurice. She had been his
correspondent in school and college days, and being a person never
easily rebuffed, she had kept up more intercourse with him and his wife
than any others of the family had done, and he had preserved the habit
of writing to her much more freely and unreservedly than to any one
else. So the day after the New Zealand letters came, just as the
historical reading and needlework were in full force, the schoolroom
door was opened, and a brisk little figure stood there in sealskin coat
and hat.

Up jumped mamma. 'Oh! Jenny! Brownie indeed! How did you come? You
didn't walk from the station?'

'Yes, why not? Otherwise I should have been too soon, and have
disturbed the lessons,' said Aunt Jane, in the intervals of the
greeting kisses. 'All well with the Indian folks?'

'Oh yes; they've come back from the emerald valleys of Cashmere, and
Alethea has actually sent me a primrose--just like an English one--that
they found growing there. They did enjoy it so. Have you heard from
Maurice?'

'Yes, I thought you would like to hear about Phyllis, so, having
enjoyed it with Ada, I brought it over for further enjoyment with you.'

'That's a dear old Brownie! We've a good hour before dinner. Shall we
read it to the general public, or shall we adjourn to the drawing-
room?'

"Oh! I assure you it is very instructive. Quite as much so as Miss
Sewell's 'Rome.'"

And Aunt Jane, whom Gillian had aided in disrobing herself of her
outdoor garments, was installed by the fire, and unfolded a whole
volume of thin, mauve sheets in Mr. Mohun's tiny Greek-looking
handwriting.

It was a sort of journal of his voyage. There were all the same
accounts of the minute creatures that are incipient chalk, and their
exquisite cells, made, some of coral, some of silex spicule from
sponges; the some descriptions of phosphorescent animals, meduse, and
the like, that Dolores had thought her own special treasure and
privilege, only a great deal fuller, and with the scientific terms
untranslated--indeed, Aunt Jane had now and then to stop and explain,
since she had always kept up with the course of modern discovery.
There was also much more about his shipmates, with one or two of whom
Mr. Mohun had evidently made great friends. He told his sister a great
deal about them, and his conversations with them, whereas he had only
told Dolores abut one little midshipman getting into a scrape. Perhaps
nothing else was to be expected, but it made her feel the contrast
between being treated with real confidence and as a mere child, and it
seemed to put her father further away from her than ever.

Then came the conclusion, written on shore--

'Harry May came on board to take me home with him. He is a fine,
genial fellow and his welcome did one's heart good. I never did him
justice before; but I see his good sense and superiority called into
play out here. Depend upon it, there's nothing like going to the other
end of the world to teach the value of home ties.'

'Well done, Maurice,' exclaimed Lady Merrifield; but she glanced at
Dolores and checked herself.

Miss Mohun went on, 'Phyllis met me at the door of a pleasant, English-
looking house, with all her tribe about her. She has the true 'honest
Phyl' face still, carrying me back over some thirty or forty years of
life, and as you would imagine, she is a capital mother, with all her
flock well in hand, and making themselves thoroughly useful in the
scarcity of servants; though the other matters do not seem neglected.
The eldest can talk like a well informed girl, and shows reasonable
interest in things in general; but Phyllis wants to put finishing
touches to their education, and her husband talks of throwing up his
appointment before long, as he is anxious to go home while his father
lives. I wish I had gone to Stoneborough before coming out here, now
that I see what a gratification it would have been if I could have
brought a fresh report of old Dr. May. (Somehow, I think there has been
a numbness or obtuseness about me all these last two years which
hindered me from perceiving or doing much that I now regret, since
either the change or the wholesome atmosphere of this house has wakened
me as it were. Among these ungracious omissions is what I now am much
concerned to think of, that I never went to see Lilias when I committed
my child to her charge; nor talked over her disposition. Not that I
really understand it as I ought to have done when the poor child was
left to me. I take shame to myself when Phyllis questions me about
her), but as I watch these children with their parents I am quite
convinced that the being taken under Lily's motherly wing is by far the
best thing that could have befallen Dolores, and that my absence is for
her real benefit as well as mine.'

The part between brackets was omitted by Miss Mohun in the public
reading, but the last sentence she did read, thinking it good for both
parties to hear it. However, Dolores both disliked the conclusion to
which her father had come, and still more that her aunt and cousins
should hear it, though, after all, it was only Gillian and Mysie who
remained to listen by the time the end of the letter was reached. The
long words had frightened away Valetta as soon as her appointed task of
work was finished.

Aunt Lily did not see the omitted sentence till the two sisters were
alone together later in the afternoon. It filled her eyes with tears.
'Poor Maurice,' she said; 'he wrote something of the same kind to me.'

'I expect we shall see him wonderfully shaken up and brightened when he
comes home. The numbness he talks of was half of it Mary's dislike to
us all, only I never would let her keep me aloof from him.'

'I almost wish he had taken Dolores out to Phyllis. I am not in the
least fulfilling his ideal towards her.'

'Nor would Phyllis, unless the voyage had had as much effect on her as
it seems to have had upon Maurice. So you don't get on any better?'

'Not a bit. It is a case of parallel lines. We don't often have
collisions--unless Wilfred gets an opportunity of provoking her.'

'Why don't you send that boy to school?'

'I shall after Christmas. He is quite well now, and to have him at
home is bad both for himself and the others. He needs licking into
shape as only boys can do to one another, and he is not a model for
Fergus, especially since Harry has been away.'

'What does he do?'

'Nothing very brilliant, nor of the kind one half forgives for the
drollery of it. Putting mustard into the custard was the worst, I
think; inciting the dogs to bring the cattle down on the girls when
they cross the paddock; shutting up their books when the places are
found--those are the sort of things; putting that very life-like wild
cat chauffe-pied with glaring eyes in Dolly's bed. I believe he does
such things to all, but his sisters would let him torture them rather
than complain, whereas Dolores does her best to bring them under my
notice without actually laying an information, which she is evidently
afraid to do. It is very unlucky that her coming should have been just
when we had such an element about--for it really gives her some just
cause of complaint.'

'But you say he is impartial?'

'Teasing is unfortunately his delight. He will even frighten Primrose,
but I am afraid there is active dislike making Dolores his favourite
victim; and then Val and Fergus, who don't tease actively on their own
account, have come to enjoy her discomfiture.'

"And you go on the principle of 'tolerer beaucoup?'"

'I do; hoping that it is not laziness and weakness that makes me
abstain from nagging about what is not brought before my eyes by the
children or the police--I mean Gill, Halfpenny, and Miss Vincent. Then
I scold, or I punish, and that I think maintains the principle, without
danger to truth or forbearance. At least, I hope it does. I am pretty
sure that if I punished Wilfred for every teasing trick I know, or
guess at, he would--in his present mood--only become deceitful, and
esprit de corps might make Val and Fergus the same, though I don't
think Mysie's truth could be shaken any more than honest Phyl's.'

'Besides, mutual discipline is not a thing to upset. Lily, I revere
you! I never thought you were going to turn out such a sensible
mother.'

'Well, you see, the difficulty is, that what may work for one's own
children may not work for other people's. And I confess I don't
understand her persistent repulse of Mysie.'

'Nor of you, the nasty little cat!' said Aunt Jane, with a little
fierce shake of the head.

'I do understand that a little. I am too unlike Mary for her to stand
being mothered by me.'

'There must be some other influence at work for this perverseness to
keep on so long. Tell me, did she take up with that very goosey girl,
that Miss Hacket?'

'Oh yes; she goes there every Sunday afternoon. It is the only thing
the poor child seem much to care about, and I don't think there can be
any harm in it.'

'Humph! the folly of girl is unfathomable! Oh! you may say what you
like--you who have thrown yourself into your daughters and kept them
one with you. You little know in your innocence the product of an ill-
managed boarding-school!'

'Nay,' said Lady Merrifield, a little hotly, 'I do know that Miss
Hacket is one of the most excellent people in the world, a little
tiresome and borne, perhaps, but thoroughly good, and every inch a
lady.'

'Granted, but that's not the other one--Constance is her name? My
dear, I saw her goings on at the G.F.S. affair--If she had only been a
member, wouldn't I have been at her.'

'My dear Jenny, you always had more eyes to your share than other
people.'

'And you think that being an old maid has not lessened their sharpness,
eh! Lily? Well, I can't help it, but my notion is that the sweet
Constance--whatever her sister may be--is the boarding-school miss a
little further developed into sentiment and flirtation.'

'Nay, but that would be so utterly uncongenial to a grave, reserved,
intellectual girl, brought up as Dolores has been.'

'Don't trust to that! Dolores is an interesting orphan, and the notice
of a grown-up young lady is so flattering that it carries off a great
deal of folly.'

'Well, Jenny, I must think about it. I hope I have done no harm by
allowing the friendship--the only indulgence she has seemed to wish
for; and I am afraid checking it would only alienate he still more!
Poor Maurice, when he is trusting and hoping in vain!'

'Three year is a long time, Lily; and you have no had three months of
her yet--'

The door opened at that moment for the afternoon tea, which was earlier
than usual, to follow of Miss Mohun's reaching the station in time for
her train. Lady Merrifield was to drive her, and it was the turn of
Dolores to go out, so that she shared the refection instead of waiting
for gouter. In the midst the Miss Hackets were announced, and there
were exclamations of great joy at the sight of Miss Mohun; as she and
Miss Hacket flew upon each other, and to the very last moment,
discussed the all-engrossing subject of G.F.S. politics.

Nevertheless, while Miss Mohun was hurrying on her sealskin in her
sister's room, she found an opportunity of saying, 'Take care, Lily, I
saw a note pass between those two.'

'My dear Jenny, how could you? You were going on the whole time about
cards and premiums and associates. Oh! yes, I know a peacock or a lynx
is nothing to you, but how was it possible? Why, I was making talk to
Constance all along, and trying to make Dolly speak of her father's
letter.'

'I might retort by talking of moles and bats! Did you never hear of
the London clergyman whose silver cream-jug, full of cream too, was
abstracted by the penitent Sunday school boy whom he was exhorting over
his breakfast-table?'

'I don't believe London curates have silver jugs or cream either!'

'A relic of past wealth, like St. Gregory's one silver dish, and
perhaps it was milk. Well, to descend to particulars. It was done
with a meaning glance, as Dolores was helping her on with her cloud,
and was instantly disposed of in the pocket.'

'I wonder what I ought to do about it,' sighed Lady Merrifield, 'If I
had seen it myself I should have no doubts. Oh! if Jasper were but
here! And yet it is hardly a thing to worry him about. It is most
likely to be quite innocent.'

'Well, then you can speak of the appearance of secrecy as bad manners.
You will have her all to yourself as you go home.'

But when the aunts came downstairs, Dolores was not there. On being
called, she sent a voice down, over the balusters, that she was not
going.

Aunt Jane shrugged her shoulders. There was barely time to reach the
train, so that it was impossible to do anything at the moment; but in
the Merrifield family bad manners and disrespect were never passed
over, Sir Jasper having made his wife very particular in that respect;
and as soon as she came home in the twilight, she looked into the
school-room, but Dolores was not there, and then into the drawing-room,
where she was found learning her lessons by firelight.

'My dear, why did you not go with your Aunt Jane and me?'

'I did not want to go. It was so cold,' said Dolores in a glum tone.

'Would it not have been kinder to have found that out sooner? If I had
not met the others in the paddock, and picked up Valetta, the chance
would have been missed, and you knew she wanted to go.'

Dolores knew it well enough. The reason she was in this room was that
all the returning party had fallen upon her; Wilfred had called her a
dog in the manger, and Gillian herself had not gainsayed him--but the
general indignation had only made her feel, 'what a fuss about the
darling.'

'Another time, too,' added Lady Merrifield, 'remember that it would be
proper to come down and speak to me instead of shouting over the
balusters in that unmannerly way; without so much as taking leave of
your Aunt Jane. If she had not been almost late for her train, I should
have insisted.'

'You might, and I should not have come if you had dragged me,' thought,
but did not say, Dolores. She only stood looking dogged, and not
attempting the 'I beg your pardon,' for which her aunt was waiting.

'I think,' said Lady Merrifield, gently, 'that when you consider it a
little, you will see that it would be well to be more considerate and
gracious. And one thing more, my dear, I can have no passing of private
notes between you and Constance Hacket. You see a good deal of each
other openly, and such doings are very silly and missish, and have an
underhand appearance such as I am sure your father would not like.'

Dolores burst out with, 'I didn't,' and as Primrose at this instant ran
in to help mamma take off her things, she turned on her heel and went
away, leaving Lady Merrifield trusting to a word never hitherto in that
house proved to be false, rather than to those glances of Aunt Jane,
which had been always held in the Mohun family to be a little too
discerning and ubiquitous to be always relied on; and it was a
satisfactory recollection that at the farewell moment when Miss Jane
professed to have observed the transaction, she had been heard saying,
'Yes, it will never do to be too slack in inquiring into antecedents,
or the whole character of the society will be given up,' and with her
black eyes fixed full upon Miss Hacket's face.




CHAPTER X.

THE EVENING STAR



'Oh, Connie dear, I had such a fright! Do you know you must never
venture to give me anything when any one is there--especially Aunt
Jane. I am sure it was her. she is always spying about?'

'Well, but dearest Dolly, I couldn't tell that she would be there, and
when I got your letter I could not keep it back, you know, so I made
Mary come up and call on Lady Merrifield for the chance of being able
to give it to you--and I thought it was so lucky Miss Mohun was there,
for she and Mary were quite swallowed up in their dear G.F.S.'

'You don't know Aunt Jane! And the worst of it is she always makes
Aunt Lilias twice as cross! I did get into such a row only because I
didn't want to go driving with the two old aunts in the dark and cold,
and be scolded all the way there and back.'

'When you had a letter to read too!'

'And then Aunt Lily said all manner of cross things about giving notes
between us. I was so glad I could say I didn't, for you know I didn't
give it to you, and it wasn't between us.'

'You cunning child!' laughed Constance, rather amused at the sophistry.

'Besides,' argued Dolores, 'what right has she to interfere between my
uncle and my friends and me?

'You dear! Yes, it is all jealousy!'

'I have heard--or I have read,' said Dolores, 'that when people ask
questions they have no right to put, it is quite fair to give them a
denial, or at least to go as near the wind as one can.'

'To be sure,' assented Constance, 'or one would not get on at all! But
you have no told me a word about your letters.'

'Father's letter? Oh, he tells me a great deal about his voyage, and
all the funny creatures they get up with the dredge. I think he will
be sure to write a book about them, and make great discoveries. And
now he is staying with Aunt Phyllis in New Zealand, and he is thinking,
poor father, how well off I must be with Aunt Lilias. He little
knows!'

'Oh, but you could write to him, dearest!'

'He wouldn't get the letter for so long. Besides, I don't think I
could say anything he would care about. Gentlemen don't, you know.'

'No! gentlemen can't enter into our feelings, or know what it is to be
rubbed against and never appreciated. But your uncle! Was the letter
from him?'

'Oh yes! And where do you think he is? At Darminster--editing a paper
there. It is called the Darminster Politician. He said he sent a copy
here.'

"Oh yes, I know; Mary and I could not think where it came from. It had
a piece of a story in it, and some poetry. I wonder if he would put in
my 'Evening Star.'"

'You may read his letter if you like; you see he says he would run over
to see me if it were not for the dragons.'

'I wish he could come and meet you here. It would be so romantic, but
you see Mary is half a dragon herself, and would be afraid of Lady
Merrifield'--then, reading the letter,--'How droll! How clever! What
a delightful man he must be! How very strange that all your family
should be so prejudiced against him! I'll tell you what, Dolores, I
will write and subscribe for the Darminster Politician my own self--I
must see the rest of that story--and then Mary can't make any
objection; I can't stand never seeing anything but Church Bells, and
then you can read it too, darling.'

'Oh, thank you, Connie. Then I shall have got him one subscriber, as
he asks me to do. I am afraid I shan't get any more, for I thought Aunt
Lily was in a good humour yesterday, and I put one of the little
advertisement papers he sent out on the table, and she found it, and
only said something about wondering who had sent the advertisement of
that paper that Mr. Leadbitter didn't approve of. She is so dreadfully
fussy and particular. She won't let even Gillian read anything she
hasn't looked over, and she doesn't like anything that isn't goody
goody.'

'My poor darling! But couldn't you write and get your uncle to look at
some of my poor little verses that have never seen the light?'

'I dare say I could,' said Dolores, pleased to be able to patronize.
'Oh, but you must not write on both sides of the paper, I know, for
father and mother were always writing for the press.'

'Oh, I'll copy them out fresh! Here's the 'Evening Star.' It was
suggested by the sound of the guns firing at the autumn manoevres;
here's the 'Bereaved Mother's Address to her Infant:'


'Sweet little bud of stainless white,
Thou'lt blossom in the garden of light.'


'Mary thought that so sweet she asked Miss Mohun to send it to Friendly
Leaves, but she wouldn't--Miss Mohun I mean; she said she didn't think
they would accept it, and that the lines didn't scan. Now I'm sure its
only Latin and Greek that scan! English rhymes, and doesn't scan!
That's the difference!'

'To be sure!' said Dolores, 'but Aunt Jane always does look out for
what nobody else cares about. Still I wouldn't send the baby-verses to
Uncle Alfred, for they do sound a little bit goody, and the 'Evening
Star' would be better.'

The verses were turned over and discussed until the summons came to
tea, poured out by kind old Miss Hacket, who had delighted in providing
her young guests with buttered toast and tea cakes.

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