Part 20 (1/2)

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 finis.h.i.+ng 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.'