Book II Chapter 11 The Little School-Mothers by L. T. Meade
On Board the “Sea-Gull”
The next day dawned gloriously, and soon after ten o’clock the entire party were on board the pretty yacht which was known by the name of the “Sea-Gull.” She had been hired by Mr Durrant for the occasion, and was as charming a sea home as any girls could live in. The eight girls who now took possession of the pretty little cabins and who ran up and down the “companion” stairs and walked on the deck, and disported themselves so happily with the sea breezes blowing on their cheeks, and the white sails of the yacht fluttering in the breeze had never known a more enjoyable time than that first day on board the “Sea-Gull.”
The “Sea-Gull,” like a large white bird, skimmed lightly over the water. The girls were all excellent sailors. The sky was cloudless. Mr Durrant seemed absolutely to have recovered his serene good humour. Ralph was in the highest spirits, and even the school-mothers were so absorbed in their new surroundings that they had no time for trouble or care.
It was after dinner, on the first evening of their sojourn on board the “Sea-Gull” that Mr Durrant, rising from his place at the head of the table, spoke to his little party.
“Now, my children,” he said, “we have entered on a week which I hope will remain long in the memories of each and all of you—a week which it will be my endeavour to make one of pure and perfect happiness. There is no time like youth for the enjoyment of such. As we get older, we cannot quite get away from our cares, however hard we try to do so; but when we are young, we are meant to be like the young birds and the young lambs and the young puppy dogs and the young kittens—all gaiety and sunshine, and lightness of heart. I have on board this yacht with me, a crew and an excellent sea-worthy captain and a first mate and all the rest, and I also have nine young people who none of them exceed twelve years of age. This expedition is entirely carried out for the sake of one little boy and his eight school-mothers, and I trust, therefore, we shall have a very jolly time.
“On the night of our return to Sunshine Lodge, I shall have a very important decision to announce, but in the meantime, my children, let us forget all about it; let us be happy while we may; let us banish dull care; let us be, from the oldest to the youngest, each a truly happy child at heart.”
“Oh, yes,” said Robina’s voice.
The others looked round rather startled when she spoke. She was wearing a brown holland frock, which Aunt Felicia had made for her, and which was not exactly becoming, but nothing could take from the bonny expression of her open face, and her very words brought comfort to Mr Durrant’s heart.
“That girl is the girl for me,” he said to himself. “Who would compare her to Harriet Lane?” But then he noticed—and he gave a quick sigh—that Ralph’s little hand was locked in Harriet’s, and that he was standing close to the tall, thin girl.
Soon afterwards, the entire party went on deck, and Ralph, after sitting up for some time, was obliged to go down to the pretty cabin which he shared with his father.
“Oh—I am so sleepy!” he said. “I shan’t sleep without rocking, for I’ll be rocked all night by the sea, won’t I, father?”
“Yes, my son,” replied his father; “and may you sleep without dreams.”
He kissed the little brown face as he spoke. The brown eyes looked into the browner eyes of the man, and the man felt that in all the wide world there was no one so precious to him as that little child who was not yet six years of age.
“If only I could give up my life of adventure for his sake! Dare I leave him?” thought Mr Durrant. “I could, with Robina,” was his next thought.
He looked across at the group of girls, who, on different deck-chairs, were gently swaying to the pleasant rhythmic motion of the yacht. There were certainly prettier girls on board, but there was no one, to Mr Durrant’s mind, so altogether satisfactory as Robina. How was it that even at this juncture, Ralph scarcely kissed Robina at all, but clasped his arms round Harriet’s neck, and whispered something in her ear? and why did Harriet return his kiss with a sort of eager passion and then turn and talk to Jane in an undertone? Mr Durrant felt he did not like it. He was restless, in spite of himself, and though he had vowed that dull Care should not enter the “Sea-Gull,” and that during the happy week on board no contretemps should take place, he was all the time thinking, first of Harriet, and then again of Robina, and then again of Harriet.
The first two days on board passed without any sort of adventure. The party landed and saw almost all the places of interest on the Isle of Wight, and generally entered some little harbour to spend the night. The weather continued to be most propitious. There was no one either sea-sick or sorry; nevertheless, Mr Durrant felt more and more as though that choice which he was about to make were becoming one of greater anxiety each moment.
On the third day of the little party’s residence on board the “Sea-Gull,” Ralph, who woke very early, left his own berth and climbed into his father’s.
“Is you waking up, father?” he said. “Is you going to talk to your little brown boy?”
“Of course I am, Ralph,” answered Durrant, opening one sleepy eye, and glancing comically at Ralph as he perched himself on one side of the bed.
Ralph sat very still for a minute: then he said, in a very low, determined voice:
“I promised I’d say it: so I am going to.”
“You dear little man—you promised you’d say it:—what do you mean by that?”
“Well,” said Ralph, “it is this. I want you to choose Harriet to live with me when you is going to South Africa. I don’t want Robina: I like her next best to Harriet, but I don’t like her as well.”
“Now this is a very serious matter, Ralph,” said his father, changing his tone and becoming wide awake and alert at the moment, and taking his little boy’s hand. “You know, my dear son, that I shall be absent from home for several months.”
“I know,” said Ralph.
“You will have Mrs Temple to look after you.”
“I know,” said Ralph again.
“And being a manly boy, you won’t fret.”
“’Course not,” said Ralph. Whatever feeling there was in his heart, he would not let it come to the surface. “I is your own boy,” he said, after a pause. “You didn’t fret ever, did you?”
“Not to show it,” replied Mr Durrant, after a minute’s pause.
“Sank ’oo,” said Ralph. “I understand,” he repeated.
“Well, my dear boy, that part is all right: but now, to be frank with you: I prefer Robina.”
“And I like Harriet,” said Ralph.
“Do you think, Ralph, that a little boy so young as you are is the best judge of who ought really to be his companion?”
“I don’t understand,” said Ralph then. “I like Harriet best, ’cause she’s so—”
“Ah, yes?” said Mr Durrant, in an encouraging voice. “Give me your reasons, my son; I shall listen with the greatest possible attention.”
“’Cause she is so splendid—and—and brave,” said Ralph, “and—and—noble—”
“Is she?” said Mr Durrant. “Can you prove that?”
“Does you want me to prove it, father?”
“Yes,” said Mr Durrant then. “If Harriet is really the bravest girl of all your school-mothers, and the noblest, then—she shall stay with you as your school-mother. But it has got to be proved to me.”
“And if I can prove it,” said Ralph, “you will really, really let her stay with me as my very own school-mother?”
“Yes, Ralph.”
“Sankoo so much,” said Ralph. His little face looked very much excited and the colour flushed into his cheeks.
“Now then, that is settled,” said Mr Durrant. “You have got to prove the thing, and I have got to see that I believe all about it. We won’t worry any more for the present, for the decision is not to be come to until we return to Sunshine Lodge. Go back to your own berth, Ralph. Turn round and have another hour’s sleep, for it is too early for anyone to be up.” Ralph, quite satisfied with what he had done, immediately obeyed his father. He was just like a little sailor, and instant obedience was his watch-word. But while a small brown boy slept, the big brown man lay awake, consumed with anxious thought.
“I wish I had never given my sanction to this plan; there is something behind the scenes. Harriet brave; Harriet noble? I never yet was mistaken in a face,” was his thought. “Well, little Ralph, you have to prove it to my satisfaction, that is one comfort.” That day the little party landed at Lymington and went for a time into the New Forest under the shade of the “Immemorial Elms.” Ralph and Harriet had time to be alone for a short period. It was rather difficult now for the boy and the girl to be unobserved on these occasions. It seemed to Harriet that the eyes of all the school-mothers watched them, that Robina, in particular, followed them about with those grey eyes of hers.
Robina was true to her word. She tried to enjoy herself and was great friends with all her companions with the exception of Jane, whom she left to Harriet entirely, and with the exception of Ralph, whom, from a motive which she could not define, she left more or less to himself. This very fact distressed Mr Durrant not a little. Now, Robina and the Amberley girls were all walking under the trees, chatting and talking, and Harriet and Ralph found themselves alone.
“I has done it,” said Ralph. “I spoke to father and telled him that I wished him to choose you.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” said Harriet. She pulled Ralph’s little hand through her arm. “You will never be sorry for that, I can tell you, Ralph. I mean to give you a beautiful time when I am your school-mother.”
“Oh, yes,” said Ralph; “but ’tisn’t ’cause of the beautiful time that you’re to be my school-mother, is it, Harriet?”
Harriet looked puzzled.
“I mean,” said Ralph, “that I is going to be a big boy. Next birthday I’ll be six, then seven, then eight—I’ll be growed up in no time. When a person is growed up, then a person hasn’t to think only just of nice things. I telled father that I wanted you to be my school-mother, to stay with me all the time, ’cause you’re so brave and so noble.”
“You told him that?” said Harriet, with a short laugh: “nothing more, I hope?”
“No, nothing more, ’cause you wouldn’t let me. But, Harriet,” he said, “father did—”
“What, dear?”
“That I had got to prove to him that you was brave, and was noble—he likes people who are that; and his eyes flashed. Don’t you like father’s eyes when they grow all of a sudden so very bright? Well, they growed like that when I said you was brave, and noble; only he said you must prove it.”
“Oh! you did put your foot into things,” said Harriet. “How on earth am I to prove it.”
“Why, do something brave and noble,” said Ralph. “I thought I’d tell you, ’cause father said he must know his own self, and then he’ll decide. He is going to decide as soon as ever we get back to Sunshine Lodge—oh! and there he is calling me! Now I must run to him. Coming, father, coming—this instant-minute!” and Ralph lost his hold of Harriet’s hand and flew off to meet his parent.
“Does you want me to swarm up to the top of that tall tree, father? I can, you know: I isn’t a bit frighted,” said Ralph.
Mr Durrant stood and smiled.
“You mustn’t go too far,” he said, “I don’t want you to fall and hurt yourself.”
“No,” said Ralph, “that wouldn’t be right, would it? Special ’cause there’s no water underneath. If I was to run up this tree, and run along that bough that bends over so, and it cracked, same as willow bough cracked, I—”
Then he stopped and turned very red. Durrant was standing very upright and apparently not listening. Ralph felt a choking sensation in his throat. How very nearly he had betrayed himself!
“Was you listening, father?” he said, after a pause; and he came up and pulled the brown man by the sleeve.
“To what, my boy?”
“To a sort of nonsense I was talking.”
Instantly Mr Durrant’s face grew very stern.
“You were not talking nonsense, Ralph,” he said. “You were telling something that happened: but I don’t want to hear the rest. What I have heard doesn’t matter, for a half story is no story all: but it is not exactly true to call what really happened nonsense, and I don’t like those words from the lips of my little son. Now go up your tree; climb along any branch you like: I am below watching you.”
“Yes, yes,” said the boy, the weight of the words he had inadvertently used slipping from his mind. “Father’s below, waiting for me,” he repeated.
He climbed the tall elm tree, springing from branch to branch with the alertness of a little squirrel, and presently came down again, radiant and triumphant.
“Pluckily done, Ralph!” said his father, and he took the boy’s hand and continued to walk with him through the Forest.
“Father,” said Ralph, after a pause, “I have been telling Harriet that you must have it proved that she is both brave and noble.”
“That is right, my boy. Now let us talk of something else. There’ll be a bit of a breeze to-night: we must run the ‘Sea-Gull’ into Yarmouth Harbour. We must run in before long in order that we may be snug and in port before we have any dirty weather.” If there was one girl who was not perfectly happy during this week of sunshine, it was Jane Bush. Poor Jane was completely under Harriet’s influence. If Harriet was poor, Jane was a little poorer. Mrs Burton was one of those good Christian women who took girls, whose parents were poor, on special terms; both Harriet and Jane were girls of this sort. She had long ago made up her mind that those girls who could not afford to pay for a good education should nevertheless, if there was a vacancy at Abbeyfield, receive all the advantages of the best education she could offer.
Harriet was the daughter of an old friend, and Jane Bush was the child of a man who had once done her a service. Both these girls were received at Abbeyfield on very special terms, and Jane, in particular, was at the school almost free of any expense. Mrs Burton was not especially fond of Jane, but she remembered the time when Jane’s father had been kind to her in her need, and she was determined to give the girl all the advantages of a good education; no one knew this; it was never whispered in the school that Harriet and Jane were taken on very different terms from their companions. Their rooms were just as comfortable, their education just as complete: but the girls themselves knew, and the thought rankled sorely in each young breast.
Harriet had an aunt, it is true, who paid something for her schooling, but Jane Bush’s father paid practically nothing at all. He was a very poor artist who could scarcely make two ends meet. Jane’s mother was dead, and the girl would have been absolutely neglected but for Mrs Burton’s great kindness to her.
Jane Bush had a little brother and sister who were cared for, after a fashion, by an aunt, and, with the exception of her school-companions, they were the only people she loved in the world.
Now, the thought of that five pounds, which was to be hers if Harriet was lucky enough to be selected as school-mother to Ralph, visited her heart again and again. What wonders could she not achieve with so large a sum? Why, five pounds! Five pounds meant one hundred shillings, and one hundred shillings meant two hundred sixpences and four hundred threepences! and as to the pennies which that mighty sum represented—Jane felt that she was not old enough yet even to begin to calculate the magnitude of the amount! Yes, if she helped Harriet—she, who had always helped her more or less, would be the happy possessor of that sum. What could she not do for little Bobbie and small, round, black-eyed Miriam if she had five pounds of her own? She remembered too well the sordid condition of these poor little ones; how many things they wanted; how shabby were their little wardrobes; how thin their winter frocks; how bitterly Miriam complained of the cold, and how Bobbie cried when his chilblains hurt him!
While the others were singing and laughing and making merry on board the “Sea-Gull,” and Jane’s very round cheeks got rounder and browner and her eyes blacker and more staring, and people said to themselves, “What a commonplace, careless sort of little girl that is and what an uninteresting face she has,” they little guessed that Jane’s heart was full of care, that she was thinking of Bobbie and Miriam and the things that might be done for their happiness if only she was the possessor of five pounds.
She was completely under Harriet’s spell, and never more so than at the present moment when Harriet dangled before her so tempting a bait. Now Harriet, exceedingly annoyed at what Ralph had communicated, sought her chosen friend.
“Well, Jane,” she said, “this is Friday. We shall be back at Sunshine Lodge on Tuesday next, and then the great decision has to be made. Have you thought of anything?”
“Have I thought of anything?” said Jane, almost crossly. “I am always thinking of things, Harriet, you know very well.”
“But if you don’t think of something good and clever, you may as well not think at all,” said Harriet. “Now, do you know that I don’t like my present position at all. There’s that horrid Robina—she is exactly the sort of girl who, to spoil my chances, would equally spoil her own. She said as much, and if we don’t manage to circumvent her between now and Tuesday, all will be up.”
“I would do anything in all the world to help you, as you know, Harriet,” said Jane; “but please tell me what circumvent means?”
“Why, get the better of her, of course, you goose! You really are too silly,” said Harriet. “Well, how are we to get the better of her? I want you to tell me.”
“I wish I could!”
“Oh, you don’t think at all!” said Harriet in a fretful tone. “If, instead of romping and joking and laughing all day with that silly Vivian or Rose or any of the other girls, you were to put on your considering cap, you would soon find a way to earn your five pounds.”
“I want it most dreadfully,” said Jane: “but please tell me how I am to earn it, Harriet. What is it you want me to do?”
“Well, I tell you what I want you to do. I want you to do; two things. To prove in some sort of fashion to Mr Durrant that Robina is deceitful—yes, that is it, deceitful; he thinks more of truth than of anything under the sun—and that I am exceedingly brave, and exceedingly noble. I gave Ralph the hint to tell his father that I was both brave and noble—you know all about that as far as is connected with the pond. Well, what do you think Mr Durrant has said? He says that if Ralph can prove his words, he will elect me as the school-mother. The deed will be done. There will be no getting out of it; but it has got to be proved—how? I leave you, Jane, to find out a way.”
“Oh, it isn’t so easy,” said Poor Jane.
“You want your five pounds, don’t you?” said Harriet, with a sneer.
“Yes, I want it awfully. I heard from Bobbie and Miriam this morning and—”
“I don’t want to hear about those tiresome children. Now let us come to the boat; they are calling us: don’t you hear them?”