Читать книгу The Manor School - L. T. Meade - Страница 7

Mrs. Mitford sighed. The color deepened in her cheeks.

"I believe," she said, with a laugh, "that Christian will resemble her grandmother in more ways than one. You know what an eccentric woman she was."

"She was a very good woman, you mean," said Mr. Mitford.

"Yes, Patrick; but eccentric—very eccentric. Do you remember when she insisted on giving up her own dinner to send it to the invalid who lived on the other side of the street? It was ridiculous of her."

"Do tell me!" said Christian suddenly. "Did granny give her dinner to a sick person at the opposite side of the street?"

Mr. Mitford laughed. His dark eyes fixed themselves on Christian's animated face. He stepped up to her, and putting his hand under her chin, looked down at the speaking, bright features.

"You are like her," he said, with a sigh, "the same eyes, the same determined chin, the same expression. Well, my child, I can wish you nothing better than to be as good as your grandmother."

"But tell me about the dinner, father."

Mr. Mitford laughed; then his face grew grave.

"We kept a most perfect cook, for your grandmother was singularly particular with regard to her food. She had a very small appetite, but she always wanted the very best prepared for her, and she could not worry herself about ordering her own food; she liked it to come as a surprise. Now, Adams suited your grandmother's palate to perfection. Day by day the most delicious little dinners were served up. Well, one evening, I don't exactly know how she discovered it, but your grandmother happened to know that there was a poor lady in the opposite house who refused to eat anything. She was poor, and the house she lived in was nothing like as large and expensive as ours. Your grandmother feared that Mrs. Stirling had not a cook to her taste, so that evening she sent her own special dinner to her. When she found she liked it she sent it again every night."

"But why couldn't she have more dinner cooked for the sick woman?" interrupted Christian.

"Ah, that was the point. Adams would only prepare this very special and choice dinner for your grandmother. She could not be worried to do it for anyone else. Had your grandmother told her that the special meals were to go to Mrs. Stirling they would not have been worth eating, so she gave her own dinner and went hungry. The thing lasted for three weeks."

"And then?" asked Christian.

"Mrs. Stirling died. The people said afterwards that your grandmother's dinners kept her alive for ten days, and that she enjoyed them so much that she used to think about them all day long until they came. The thing was just like your dear old grandmother; she was an oddity, but most unselfish."

"It was a splendid thing to do," said Christian. "It was exactly the very thing I mean to do. I always thought granny looked nice—I mean from her picture—but now I am certain about it. She is a great heroine, and I mean to copy her."

"There, Patrick!" cried his wife; "what mischief you have done by telling Christian that absurd story! There always was a vein of oddity in Christian. I hope you will speak seriously to her, and tell her that during our abs—— I mean henceforward we wish her to attend to her accomplishments, that when she is grown up, and—we have time, we will take her out and be proud of her."

Mr. Mitford continued to stand near Christian, and once again he looked into her face; then he said, with a sigh:

"A girl such as your mother has described would be quite acceptable to me. But come, Chris, what have you got in your head?"

"Only that I want to be a heroine," she said.

She stood up as she spoke. Her face looked tired.

"I want to do something big; I want people to remember me when I am dead. I'd like to have a great big obelisk put up over me, and words written on it. And I'd like it to be pointed to, and people to say, 'The woman in memory of whom that obelisk was erected was a benefactress.' That is what I'd like to be, but mother wants me to be——"

"Yes," said her father, who was frowning as well as smiling, and looking with intense earnestness at the child, "and what does mother want you to be?"

"A musician, and to be able to dance; a linguist, and a fine singer. Oh! she wants common, common things——"

"They're admirable things," said the father sternly. "I agree with your mother. But why, my dear child, should not a benefactress be able to sing and dance, and make the world brighter all round? Don't get confused in your mind, Christian. You can be as accomplished as anyone in the world and yet be a noble woman."

Christian looked puzzled. "I didn't think of that," she said. "I do so want to do something—to be a heroine—and I care so little about being just accomplished."

"You had better go to bed now, Christian," said her mother, beginning to yawn. "Always do your duty; that is the main thing. Here is a sovereign for you, pet. You can go out to-morrow and buy something."

Christian looked at it. Her face grew scarlet. Suddenly she said:

"But may I keep it? If I don't really want to spend it, may I keep it?"

"Of course you may, if you wish; but what a funny child!"

Mr. Mitford kissed his daughter with much more consideration than he was wont to give to her. Mrs. Mitford gave her a passionate hug.

"Good-night, darling," she said.

When she left the room Christian's parents looked at each other.

"Upon my word," said Mr. Mitford, "Christian astonished me to-night."

"I do trust she won't grow up odd!" was Mrs. Mitford's answer.

"My dear," said her husband, "don't you see that the child is a budding genius? I always thought so, but to-night I am sure of it. I wish I hadn't accepted that appointment, Mary. It is very sad to be parted from that young creature, the only child we have, for six long years."

Mrs. Mitford began to cry.

"Don't, Mary," said her husband in a distressed voice. "It is worse for me to see you mope even than to see Christian moping."

"What I feel so awful," said Mrs. Mitford, "is her not knowing—her thinking that we are to go on as usual. Poor Christian!"

"It is best," said her husband in a decided voice. "I could not stand her tears; I am afraid I am a sad coward, but it's a fact. Of course, she will get over it."

"Get over it," said Mrs. Mitford, with a laugh. "Of course she will. She'll just fret for a bit at first. But that is a splendid school, isn't it?"

"Yes; I went to see it. I liked everything about it. Miss Peacock is a woman in a thousand."

"She will be very happy," said Mrs. Mitford. "She wants companions, and Miss Neil will be nice to her when she takes her there. She won't have time to fret. Time flies when you are young. She'll be too busy to fret; don't you think so, Patrick?"

"I hope so," he answered; "but I don't believe she is an ordinary child. There, Mary! don't let us talk about her now any more. We must settle other matters to-night."

He pulled some papers out of his pocket, and soon husband and wife were absorbed in abstruse calculations.

Meanwhile Christian put her treasured sovereign into the box which contained all her money.

"Certainly fortune seems to favor me," thought the child. "I shall have eight sovereigns now. Won't Rosy and I have a time!"

She sat down near the fire and began to think. Presently nurse came in.

"Tut, tut, Miss Christian!" she said; "you aint to be dreaming there any longer. You're to go to bed."

"Nursey, I love you," said Christian suddenly.

She ran to the old woman and put her arms round her neck.

"Nursey, did you ever hear that wonderful story about my granny?"

"What story, darling?"

"About her giving her nice, lovely dinner to the dying woman."

"It was like her," said nurse.

"Did you know my granny, nurse?"

"Know her?" exclaimed nurse. "Rather! There weren't her like anywhere to be found. She was always too good for——"

Nurse drew herself up abruptly. She had meant to say, "Too good for the present Mrs. Mitford," but she restrained herself.

"There wasn't her like in God's world," she continued. "Dear, it were a sorrowful day when she died."

"Was she very old?" asked Christian.

"No, lovey, not specially—a little past sixty."

"That sounds very old," exclaimed Christian.

"It aint when you come up to it," said nurse. "I'm sixty-five, and I don't count myself such an old woman. It's wonderful what a different view you take of sixty when you are, so to speak, nigh to it."

Christian did not find this an interesting subject. She said after a moment:

"Was granny like me—in appearance, I mean?"

"Well, now, darling, sometimes it has come over me that you have got her build; but you being young and she old, it's difficult to say. Still, I own that you have got her build."

"Father thinks that perhaps I have got her spirit."

"God be thanked if that is so, Miss Christian. It was her wish that you should be called Christian. It was her own name; she inherited it from the Quakers. Her grandfather was a Quaker, and a very strict one; and her mother was called Christian, and then you were, darling. She thought a sight of the name. She said the one thing that fretted her in not having a daughter of her own was not being able to call her Christian."

"Was she fond of me when I came?" asked Christian.

"Yes; she'd often take you in her arms and kiss you, and say that she hoped the spirit of her grandfather, Quaker Joseph Bunn, would descend upon you. But there! you aint to be stopping up any more, so up to bed you go."

Christian went to bed. She felt very thoughtful. Her conscience did not prick her at the thought of running away. She was still firmly convinced that even her father, who had seemed much nicer than usual to-night, would not mind when once she was out of sight.

"'Out of sight, out of mind' with father and mother," thought the little girl. "And I could never, never live in a strict-discipline school."

Nevertheless Christian knew as she dropped asleep that her grandmother would not have acted as she was going to do. Having always held herself in strict discipline, she would not run away from it. She would obey; she would subdue herself.

"Then I can't be like granny," thought Christian, turning restlessly from side to side on her pillow, "for I want my own way; and I won't go to school, for the school mother has described is a sort of prison."

With an effort she turned her thoughts from her granny and her own secret desire to resemble her, and she thought, until sleep visited her, of Rosy. For the very next day Rosy was to come, and Rosy was to tell her all she had discovered; and they were finally to make their plans, for the time when Christian would run away from Russell Square was close at hand.