Читать книгу Frederica and her Guardians; Or, The Perils of Orphanhood - Margaret M. Robertson - Страница 4

Table of Contents

A whole week of holidays!—unexpected, unhoped-for holidays! For Mrs Glencairn was a Scotch lady, and had small respect for days “appointed by men.” All the days in the year were good days to a Godfearing people, said she; and as a general thing, Easter passed in their school just like any other time. But this year there was to be a whole week of holidays, whatever might be the reason. The pupils who stayed wearied themselves with conjectures as to why it had so happened; but the happy little girls who could go home to enjoy them, accepted the boon without a question, content with the fact itself.

Content! That hardly expresses the feelings of the little Vanes as they went dancing down the street, unconsciously jostling the many church-goers in their joyful excitement. Perfect happiness was in their hearts, shone in their faces, and rang out in their voices, and people as they passed turned again to look at them, so charming was the sight to see. They were happy in their own holiday, and happy in the thought that their coming home would make a holiday for their mother and Selina and their little brothers.

“And I am sure there will be some flowers out in the garden,” said Theresa,—“hyacinths or snowdrops, at least. And all the walks will be so neat and the borders. That is one good thing about Mrs Ascot, she does see that the garden is beautifully kept.”

“Yes, very. But I only hope mama will be well. It is so lovely to-day; and we must have a drive. It will make no difference though Dixen be busy in the garden, because I shall drive myself.”

“But will mama like that, do you think?” asked Theresa doubtfully.

“Of course she will like it, and Selina too. They have perfect confidence in me,” said Frederica firmly. “And as for Prickly Polly,”—she shrugged her shoulders.

“But no, my children! What shall I say to your papa when you shall be brought home in little morsels, and the carriage, and your dear mama!” And Theresa clasped her hands, and threw back her head with an air so ludicrously like Mrs Ascot, that her sister laughed merrily.

“She will go to church to-day. What if we should meet her?”

“Oh! she would be sure to go back with us. Let us go down the other way!”

Laughing and running, the girls turned into a narrow street. In their haste they ran against a little old gentleman just stepping out from an office door. They did not quite overturn him, but they startled him out of his good manners, and he uttered an angry exclamation in French. Then, as they turned to apologise, he exclaimed, “The young ladies Vane! What next, I wonder?”

“Mr St. Cyr! a thousand pardons.” They had been speaking English all the way down the street, but they spoke French to him, and both the girls dropped their very best curtseys.

“It must be that my little cousins have come to get their wills made, or their marriage contracts drawn, in all this haste.”

Mr St. Cyr was the gentleman to whom their grandfather had committed the arrangement of his affairs; it was he who still managed the property; and through his hands their mother’s income came still.

“I was going to church this morning, but I shall be happy to defer it for you. You need not have been in such haste, however.”

The girls laughed, and apologised again.

“We were running away from Prickly Polly,” said Theresa.

“From Madame Marie Pauline Precoe Ascot,” explained Frederica.

“Is she coming after you? You had much better come in here,” said Mr St. Cyr, pretending great fright.

“Oh, no! But she is sure to go to church today, and we thought we might meet her. And if she knew we were going home, it might shorten her devotions.”

“If she knew we had a holiday, she would want to come home to vex us. We are not among her favourites—especially Fred.”

“Ah! that is it, is it?” said Mr St. Cyr. “She is hard on you, is she? I hope you do not let her trouble you too much.”

“By no means,” said Frederica with dignity. “On the contrary, I think I trouble her far more.”

“I can conceive it possible,” said Mr St. Cyr with a shrug. “But are you sure you can find your way home by these streets? See, I will go with you, and show you past the corner below. And let us hope that Madame Pauline will confess all her sins to-day; and I fancy that might ensure her absence till nightfall at least. And my young ladies, the next time you come to me in your troubles, pray don’t begin by knocking me down.”

“Pardon us, Cousin Cyprien. It was very careless,” said Frederica, eagerly. “But really and truly, may I come to you with my troubles? I mean, of course, when I have any. I have none now,” she added, laughing.

Mr St. Cyr did not laugh. He looked gravely into the bright face before him, so gravely that the laughing eyes looking up at him grew grave too.

“I hope it will be a long time before you need my help in trouble, little cousin. How old are you now? Let us see.”

Instead of turning at the corner, as he meant to do, he walked on with them.

“I shall be fifteen my next birthday. It comes in August,” said Frederica.

“Fifteen!” repeated Mr St. Cyr. “But what a little creature you are! It is a pity.”

“I am as tall as mama,” said Frederica with dignity.

“Yes, I suppose so. She was just such another child. Ah! how the years pass!”

“I shall grow yet, I have no doubt,” said Frederica.

“Ah! well! we will hope so. And be quick about it. If you were only as tall as your sister at home now, we might strain a point, and call your education finished, and send you home to your mother. You must have learned quantities of things all these years, eh?”

“Oh! quantities!” said Frederica gravely. “But, Mr St. Cyr, I am not very big, I know. Still I could be a comfort to mama all the same.”

“And she needs comfort you think?”

“It gives her pleasure to have us at home.”

“And she has not so many pleasures, these days,” said Mr St. Cyr. “But it would not do, I fear, not yet. Why, you are a mere child! I had no idea! Not nearly so mature as her mother was at her age,” continued he, not to her, but to himself. “Well, so much the better. The more a child the better. The longer a child the better. She is so like her mother, too. The same sweet smiling eyes. Ah! there are so great mistakes made in this life!”

“Mr St. Cyr,” said Frederica in a moment, “I am very little, I know, but Mrs Glencairn says I have a great deal of good sense, if I would only use it; and I daresay if you were to tell papa that I have learned enough of things, and that I ought to stay at home with mama and Selina, I don’t think he would object.”

Mr St. Cyr only answered by that wonderful shrug of his shoulders, which he could make to express anything—surprise, doubt, utter disbelief; and Frederica went on:

“Indeed, Mrs Glencairn thinks I am very sensible, and so does Miss Robina. Will you tell papa to let me stay at home, Mr St. Cyr?”

“And you think he would do it for me?” said he with an odd smile. “You are too young—much too young. If I had my way, you should remain a happy child for years and years yet—no millinery, no balls, no admiration, for seven years at least. Ah! when I think of your mother, and see you looking at me with her happy eyes! But what is the use of going over all this? I shall, be late for church, and I must bid you good day. And if I shall see—what is this you call her, little one?—Prickly Polly!—I shall send her wool-gathering, shall I? And then you can pass the day without her.”

They all laughed.

“Oh! I am not the least afraid of her; though I am not very big,” said Frederica.

“But you may send her to gather wool, all the same,” said Theresa.

Then they went quietly on their way. There was no dancing along the street after that, as Mr St. Cyr saw when he turned at the corner of the square to look after them.

“She is like her mother,” said he to himself, “but more like her grandmother, that shrewd little Jewess, with her ‘good sense,’ as madame the schoolmistress says. Ah! if she had lived, that poor foolish child would not have been suffered to make that great mistake in life. But I must go to church. How many times have I said that I would not permit myself to care for her children as I have cared for her, to have my heart torn by ingratitude, or by indifference, which is as ill to bear. If, indeed, through them I could wound the self-love and vanity of their father, and so avenge the wrongs of my friend’s child, the poor Theresa—ah! then I might care for them, and fight for them against him to the death.” And with this Christian sentiment in his heart, the little man went up the great cathedral steps to pray.

In the meantime the two girls were walking slowly down the street.

“I like Cousin Cyprien very much,” said Frederica, gravely.

“Yes, so do I,” said her sister. “But then he is not our cousin, you know.”

“Well, he was grandpapa’s cousin; and if he is not ours, we have none. I like him.”

“Madame Ascot is our cousin quite as much as he.”

“Madame Ascot, indeed! Don’t be silly, Tessie;” and she shrugged her shoulders in Mr St. Cyr’s fashion. “I wish I had gone to church with Mr St. Cyr. I mean I wish I had offered to go. He would have been pleased.”

“But papa would not have been pleased, Fred.”

“He would not have cared about my going to church. He would not have been pleased that I should go to give pleasure to Mr St. Cyr. He does not like him; I wonder why.”

“Oh! you know very well. It is because of grandpapa’s will.”

“Mama likes him. She says he is a good and just man. He is very religious.”

“So is Madame Ascot,” said Tessie. “I don’t admire religious people.”

“But then there are so many ways of being religious. Miss Baines’ religion made her strong and patient to bear pain. And she was good and kind always.”

“Miss Pardie is very religious—the cross thing,” said Theresa, “and so is Fanny Green. But she listens to the girl’s conversation while she says her prayers. And Mattie Holt tells tales, and is very disagreeable. I don’t admire religious people.”

“But then their religion cannot be of the right kind. There must be some good in the right religion, if we only could be sure what the right is.”

“Oh, I daresay they are all good after a fashion. One kind is good for one, and another kind for another.”

“But, Tessie, that is nonsense. How can things be equally good that are exactly opposite? And I know that Mrs Ascot thinks papa and the rest of us all wrong. And you should have seen her scornful look, when I told her once that Miss Baines was a religious woman. And I know that Mrs Glencairn and Miss Robina, among themselves, call Mrs Ascot ‘a poor benighted creature.’ They cannot all be right.”

“Oh! well! what does it matter?” said her sister, impatiently. “Why should you care what Mrs Ascot thinks, or Mrs Glencairn either?”

“Still, one would like to know. Mr St. Cyr is good, but then Mrs Ascot is not; and they have just the same religion, though I don’t suppose Mr St. Cyr goes so often to church, or to confession, as she does. And Miss Baines was good, and her religion was quite different. As for papa and the rest of us, I don’t think we have any at all.”

“Well, that shows that it doesn’t matter about religion. I am sure mama is much nicer than Madame Ascot, and she has no religion at all you say, and Madame says the same.”

“Mama is a Jewess, at least her mother was,” said Frederica; “but she is certainly not religious in her way. One ought to have a religion of some kind, only how is one to know when one has that which is right?”

“There is the Bible,” said Tessie, hesitating.

“Yes, Miss Baines says it is the book of books, and mama approves of it too. She has one, you know, only it is in Hebrew. I shall ask some one about it,—which is the right kind I mean.”

“Papa, for instance, or Mr St. Cyr. But one would tell you one thing, and the other another, and you would be just in the same place. Only I think papa would just laugh at you.”

“I suppose so. But there must be some way of finding out the truth.”

“Better go and ask the bishop,” said Tessie, laughing. “But then there are two bishops, and which is the right? Don’t be a goose, Fred.”

“I am quite serious, I assure you, for the moment,” added she. “And indeed, it is a thing to be quite serious about.”

“If we had gone to the convent, as Mr St. Cyr and Madame Ascot wished, instead of to Mrs Glencairn’s, we should have known all about it. But then it is quite right that we should be of the same religion as papa. Still I think he did not care himself, only he wished to vex Mr St. Cyr.”

Frederica said nothing for a minute, and her sister added—

“We ought to learn about it in church: that is what we go to church for, I suppose.”

“Yes, and I like to go very well, but I get very sleepy during the sermon, especially when we go with Miss Robina. I try to listen sometimes; but of course all that is meant for grown-up people, and I don’t understand it.”

“Were you not just telling Mr St. Cyr that you are grown up? But I think you are very stupid to bother about it. If people say their prayers and are nice and obliging, and all that, I think that is quite enough. I am sure mama is good, and so is Selina, and what is the use talking so much about religion, as though that would make any difference?”

“Yes, mama is good, and Selina, but I am not, at least very often I am not. And there must be some way of finding out what is wrong and what is right.”

“Of course there is—your own conscience,” said Tessie, triumphantly. “Hasn’t Mrs Glencairn often told you?”

Frederica shook her head.

“But there must be something more than that. I wish I knew.”

“Say your prayers and go to church, that is religion, everybody knows. But to be good and nice is something quite different. I think you are very silly, with all your wishes and talking, and I beg you won’t say anything to Selina about it. She thinks of things afterwards, and you are not to vex her. And don’t look like that, or I shall wish you had gone to church with Mr St. Cyr. But you will forget all about it before to-morrow. That is one comfort.”

“Very likely; but that does not prove anything;” said Frederica. “Everybody ought to have some kind of religion; and sometimes, when I used to see Miss Baines so happy in the midst of all her pain and trouble, I thought of poor mama, and wished that she could know all about it. But I won’t say anything to Selina just yet.”

“No, nor ever, unless you are a goose. Here we are at home. Won’t they be glad?” And the little girl ran up the broad stone steps, and danced out her impatience while she was made to wait for the opening of the door.

“No,” said Frederica, as she stood at her side; “I am not going to spoil our visit with religion, at any rate; and I daresay you are right, Tessie, and I may forget all about it before the week is over.”