Book II Chapter 14 The Little School-Mothers by L. T. Meade
Patience Interferes
It was now early in September, and although the weather was quite warm, the days were of course shortening considerably. Mrs Burton’s school was to re-open on the fifteenth of September. It was now the fourth day of the month; there was, therefore, practically ten days’ holiday still remaining for the girls.
These last few days, as all school-girls know, are very precious: each one, as it arrives, seems more valuable than its predecessor. More and more pleasures seem to crowd into these last hours, more and more things are there to talk about, more and more matters to arrange. There is at once pain and pleasure mingled in each young breast: the pain of parting from the beloved friends who have been with one during the long summer vacation, the pain of giving up pleasure for discipline, of giving up freedom for a certain amount of restraint. But the girl who really longs to do her best in life does not go back to school with unmixed sensations of regret. Healthier feelings than these visit her heart. She will accomplish much in the weeks that lie before her. She will get to the other side of this and that difficulty. She will take an honourable place in the report which is sent to her parents at the end of the term. She will enjoy the healthy life of routine and wholesome discipline.
The young girls who were inmates now of Sunshine Lodge were all of them, with the exception of Harriet Lane and Jane Bush, healthy-minded. They liked their pleasant school life: they were devoted to their parents and guardians: but they were also devoted to Mrs Burton and to the teachers in that delightful home of culture, Abbeyfield School. They therefore talked much of their future as they wandered about now in the dusk before coming in to late supper; and for a time even Robina and Harriet and Jane and little Ralph were forgotten.
Had not Patience to make the very most of her last term at school? and how soon would Cecil Amberley be moved from the third to the sixth form? What would be the big prize to be competed for next Christmas? What would the new French Mademoiselle be like? and would their dear old Fräulein return once more to the school? Such and such questions occupied them: but by-and-by it was time to go indoors to dress for supper, and when they entered the house a shadow seemed to fall over their bright young spirits and they looked one at the other questioningly.
“How selfish I am?” whispered Patience Chetwold to her sister. “I forgot in the excitement of our chat all about poor Robina. Girls, we must stick to our promise and worry out this thing to the very bottom.”
“But if Robina has spoken to Mr Durrant, what is there to be done?” remarked Rose. “Mr Durrant is a very determined man, and hates anything that he considers small and mean: he will not like our interfering. You see,” continued Rose, “we have been out of this matter from the very first; the whole thing has rested between Harriet and Robina.”
“Yes,” said Patience; “and very, very cleverly has Harriet played her cards. Well, all that I can say is that if I can circumvent that horrid sly creature in favour of poor dear true-hearted Robina, I shall do so. But now, let us run upstairs and get tidy for supper. This may be Liberty Hall, girls, but Mr Durrant likes form and ceremony as much as anyone I know; and if the girls of Sunshine Lodge—as he calls us—don’t make a presentable appearance at the last meal in the day, he is always somewhat annoyed.” The different girls went off immediately to their rooms, where they arrayed themselves in pretty evening dress. The shortness of the evenings by no means took from the pleasure of being at Sunshine Lodge; in fact, of late, the evenings had been almost the most delightful part of the day. With such a host as Mr Durrant it was quite impossible to be dull. He was the best story teller and the best comrade in the world. He had a way of making every child with whom he came in contact feel perfectly at home with him. But, at the same time, that child would not dare to take an undue liberty. He expected the child to be happy—very, very happy—but he also expected and insisted on instant obedience.
“When I put my foot down, it is down,” he was heard to say; “when I order a thing to be done, that thing is to be done; there is no walking round it, or squeezing out of it, or circumventing it in any way whatsoever. My object is the pleasure of all these young people; but I am the captain of this ship—if I may be permitted to use the simile—and the general in this battlefield. The captain must be obeyed, or the ship founders; and the general must give his orders, or the battle is lost.”
The girls knew all these things, and the very fact that there was unseen discipline at Sunshine Lodge gave the final zest to their enjoyments. Ralph would not have been the charming boy he was, but for this admirable trait of his father’s. Ralph, from his earliest days had obeyed at a word, at a nod. When he was told to go to bed, he went. He was never heard to plead for one minute or two minutes more. When he was ordered to get up, he rose. When he was expected to attend to his lessons, he did so. All the same, Ralph felt himself free as a little bird in the air, and happy as any child will be who clings to his beloved father’s hand. Even when parted from his father, Ralph had metaphorically clung to that strong brown hand. When he found things difficult in his little life, he remembered it,—how firm it was, how supporting. Even when his father was not present, he did instinctively what that father wished.
The happy little party at Sunshine Lodge came downstairs on this special evening with a certain feeling of expectancy. The Chetwolds and the Amberleys were very much concerned to know if anything decisive had yet taken place; if Robina had met Mr Durrant and had told him her decision, if Harriet knew, and if when they all met—first of all in the pleasant drawing-room and then in the still more delightful dining-room—they would see Robina’s proud calm face looking a little prouder and a little more resolved than usual, and Harriet’s queer pale face somewhat triumphant in its expression and Jane looking queer and frightened and worried as she had always done of late.
But when they all did come downstairs, the first thing they noticed was that although Robina was in the room, and Harriet and Jane, Mr Durrant was absent. Robina was seated in a distant corner where the electric light fell full on the pages of her open book. She wore a white frock, but had not taken otherwise much pains with her appearance. Robina did not even look up when her companions entered the room. Harriet, dressed in all the finery she could lay hands on, was standing by a table talking in a low tone to Jane. Ralph, who, as a rule, never sat up to supper, was also present on this occasion. He was dancing about in that radiant fashion he had, flying excitedly from one object of interest to another.
“Oh, what do you think, Patience?” he said. “I’s got to sit up to supper to-night!”
“Have you, indeed, Ralph?” replied Patience in some surprise, “but it’s rather late for you, isn’t it?”
“It’s not at all too late,” said Harriet, just raising her eyes and glancing defiantly at Patience and then turning to Ralph. “In the absence of your father, Ralph, I give you leave to sit up,” she said.
“Sankoo, Harriet,” said Ralph, taking her hand, and giving it a most affectionate squeeze. “Oh! I is glad!” he said. “I feel quite a grown-up person to-night.”
Robina did not take the slightest notice, but Frederica now enquired eagerly if Mr Durrant were really absent.
“Yes,” said Jane; “when we came in, expecting to find him here as usual, we were told that he was obliged to go suddenly to London, but would be back here by a very early train in the morning.”
“John told us,” continued Harriet, “that Mr Durrant will return in time for breakfast; we must spend this evening as best we can without him.”
Here she glanced at Robina. Ralph, who had been pulling excitedly at Harriet’s hand without receiving any attention, now left her and ran up to Robina.
“Is you sad about anything, Robin?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” replied Robina. She laid down her book and looked full at him. He looted full back at her.
“Don’t,” he said suddenly, in a low voice.
“Why did you ask me that?” she responded.
Her tone was dropping to a whisper.
“Your eyes hurt,” said the little fellow; “they go inside me and—and—burn something.”
He touched his little breast. Robina bent forward and without a moment’s warning gave him a quick and passionate kiss.
“Hypocrite!” whispered Harriet under her breath. She called Ralph to her.
“Come here,” she said.
He went slowly and with manifest unwillingness.
“Sit there for a minute,” said Harriet.
She stalked across the room and stood in front of Robina’s chair.
“Did you mean,” she said, in a very low voice, “to do what you said you would just now?”
“Did I mean it?” replied Robina. “Yes; I meant it.”
“But Mr Durrant is away,” continued Harriet.
“Yes.”
“You will see him in the morning, will you not—I mean as soon as he comes back?”
“Yes,” said Robina again.
None of the others could hear this low-voiced conversation, but Harriet went back to the centre of the room with a satisfied expression. Ralph, who had been watching the two girls, now said in a tone of excitement:
“Has you found out what is wrong with Robin?”
“There is nothing whatever wrong with her: don’t be a goose, Ralph,” said Harriet.
But Ralph’s longing brown eyes went straight to the sorrowful girl seated by herself in the distant corner. His little child fancy returned to her in her trouble. Harriet, however, who felt now quite sure of her own position, was not going to permit Ralph to forsake her. She sat down in a chair and called him to her side.
“Who allowed you to sit up to supper?”
“Why, you, in course, Harriet.”
“Which of the school-mothers do you love best?”
“Harriet,” said Ralph, glancing again at Robina’s bowed head: “I has said it so often.”
“All right, say it once more, or you go to bed.”
“I love you,” said the child.
“Put your arms tight around me, and kiss me, as you did round Robina just now.”
“No,” said Ralph. He put both his little hands to his sides, standing still very near Harriet, but not touching her.
“If you refuse, you go to bed.”
“All wight, Harriet,” replied the little chap.
“Then you won’t kiss me—you, who love me so dearly—you won’t kiss the Harriet who saved your life?”
“Oh—’course I love you,” said Ralph, “does you want me to kiss you like that? I only kiss when I—I—can’t help it. I am not a sort of kissing boy at all. I am like father—I think just a look is enough, and a sort of smile now and then, and a sort of feel—oh, you know it—down—deep, deep here. I doesn’t kiss father much; he doesn’t think it man-like for boys to kiss.”
“Kiss me the way you kissed Robina, and do it at once,” said Harriet, “or you go to bed.”
“No,” said Ralph again.
The other girls were scarcely listening, but this little scene between the two was drawing general attention. Patience, in particular, guessed that there was some struggle going on between Harriet and Ralph, and although she pretended to talk to her companions, she could not help listening.
“Kiss me,” repeated Harriet, guessing that she was drawing the attention of the room, and getting excited in her determination to win the victory. “Kiss me, or you go to bed!”
“No,” said Ralph again. Then he added, now putting his two hands behind him, “I won’t ever kiss you, Harriet, because you threat me—that isn’t me at all. I wouldn’t be a man-like boy if I did things ’cause o’ threats.”
“Well,” said Harriet, who was terribly afraid of not scoring the victory in this encounter, and being forced therefore to change her tactics, “kiss me because twice I risked my life for you and because I want your kiss. Do you remember when you went down beneath the soft wave and when you came up again and I caught you and—and—saved you?”
“Yes, yes!” said Ralph in a ferment of admiration. “Dear Harriet!” His arms went tightly round her neck. He kissed her twice. “And now I’s going to bed,” he said.
“What in the world do you mean by that, you little silly?”
“’Cause you said I was to go to bed if I didn’t kiss you. I didn’t kiss you ’cause of your threat; I kissed you ’cause you ’minded me of the great thing you had done. But I is going to bed, all the same.”
“No, you sit up because I order it; now don’t be a goose, and don’t paw me any more.”
Harriet stood up, yawning as she did so. Ralph sunk on to the next chair. He felt very despondent, he knew not why. Again he could not help glancing at Robina and wishing that she would not keep on reading. He found himself watching her. What a long time she was before she turned a page. Ralph thought he would count the seconds. He knew the clock, and glanced at it. Five whole minutes passed. Still Robina sat with her head of thick hair bent and without a page being turned. Ralph would have given worlds to say: “Is that a very difficult book, Robina, and can’t you read it any quicker than I can read my ‘Reading without Tears’ book?” But somehow or other, Harriet’s presence prevented his approaching Robina.
The next minute, there came the welcome relief of hearing that supper was served, and all the girls trooped into the dining-room.
Ralph had a high chair close to Harriet’s side; who told him at once carelessly that he might eat anything he liked for supper, and then devoted herself to telling amusing stories to two of the Amberleys and to Jane. But Ralph was not hungry. He was sleepy, and really wanted his bed. He was thinking very hard of his father. If only father were at home, things would be quite different. He would have said good-night long ago, and father would have come just before going downstairs, and would have kissed him, and would have said, “Good-night Ralph, old boy, sleep well, and dream good dreams, and remember to-morrow morning that you are some hours older than when you went to sleep, and ought to be some hours wiser.” And then father would go away, and Ralph would whisper to himself the old childish charm which his nurse had taught him—his nurse who died long ago, and which he had never forgotten:
“Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
Bless the bed I lie on.
Four corners to my bed:
Five angels be there spread.
Two at my head:
Two at my feet:
One at my heart, my soul to keep...”
And then in a few minutes he would have been sound asleep. He nodded his head once or twice now, and finally upset a cup of chocolate which had been placed by his side. Some of the chocolate streamed over Harriet’s white dress. She did not possess many clothes, and was consequently exceedingly angry. She tried to keep in her anger as best she could, but showed it notwithstanding all her efforts, by the colour in her cheeks and the way her pale blue eyes flashed.
“Oh Ralph, how careless and awkward you are! Really, you must not do this sort of thing again.”
“I is seepy: I really want to go to bed,” said Ralph. “I am awfu’ sorry, Harriet, and when you saved my life and all! Oh, let me sop it up.”
He took his own table-napkin and tried to repair the mischief, but Harriet pulled her dress roughly out of his hands and, telling the other girls that she must go away to wash the stains out, left the room.
“Now, Ralph,” said Patience, when this had happened; “if I were you I would go straight off to my by-by downy nest; you know you are just longing to be in it.”
“I is,” said Ralph, “but I mustn’t go, must I, Robina?”
He looked straight at Robina for guidance.
“I don’t know,” replied Robina, just glancing at him, and then looking away.
“But Robina, do tell him to go,” said Patience. “If any two people at the present moment are supposed to have authority over Ralph, you and Harriet are those individuals. Harriet has gone away to mop her dress, and Ralph looks quite white with fatigue.”
“I cannot interfere,” said Robina.
“Very well,” said Patience; “then I will: I am a school-mother too. This sort of thing has got to end. Come, Ralph, I shall take you to bed.”
“But won’t Harriet be—be—angry?” said the little fellow, his lips quivering.
“You leave the matter to me,” said Patience. She looked strong and determined. “Your father would wish it,” she said; and at these words and at the cool feel of her hand, Ralph yielded to his own inclinations and left the room with her.
When they got upstairs, however, he asked her once or twice rather piteously if she thought Harriet would mind.
“I will see that she doesn’t,” said Patience. “You leave it to me, Ralph.”
“Oh but,” said Ralph, as he got into his little pyjamas, “she has been so awfully brave, you know—saved my life, you know.”
“Yes, I know all that,” said Patience, “and I know of course that you are very grateful to her; but I do wonder something, Ralph.”
“What is that?” asked the child.
“If you understand the difference between very grateful to a person and loving a person very dearly?” Ralph looked immensely puzzled.
“I mean this,” said Patience, wondering at her own audacity. “You say that Harriet saved your life.”
“Yes,” said Ralph, with great determination. “Her did.”
“But before she saved your life, you didn’t care for her so very, very much, did you?”
“Not so awfully as all that,” said Ralph, considering his words.
“But afterwards?” continued Patience.
“Couldn’t help it arterards,” said Ralph. “Her did it twice, you know.”
Patience did not know, but she was determined to treasure up the information given unwittingly by Ralph.
“Well,” she said after a minute’s pause, “I understand of course quite well that you are awfully obliged to her and all that, and that perhaps you do love her. But you don’t love her better than your father, do you?”
“Better nor father?” said Ralph. “In course not?”
“But did he ever save your life?”
“No,” said Ralph; “but then he is father.”
“I see quite well, my wise little man,” said Patience, tucking him up and kissing him. “Now Robina never saved your life: but you—you love her notwithstanding that?”
“Awful much!” said Ralph.
“I saw you kiss her to-night,” said Patience.
“Cause I love her so much,” said Ralph.
“Good-night now, Ralph. Sleep very sound.”
“Wait till I say my ‘Matthew, Mark,’” said Ralph.
He closed his eyes, repeated the old song rapidly and, before the last words had come to an end, was asleep.
Patience went downstairs. By this time Harriet had returned. She had been forced to remove the poor chocolate-stained white frock and to put on another, which did not make her look half so well dressed. She was still feeling cross and sore. As soon as she entered the room, her first exclamation was, “Where is Ralph?”
“Gone to bed,” said Frederica Chetwold.
“Gone to bed?” said Harriet. “Who has given Ralph leave to go to bed?”
“Patience took him to bed. You had better not interfere about it,” said Frederica: “for if you do,” she continued, “we’ll all tell Mr Durrant in the morning. You are not school-mother yet, so don’t be over sure of things.”
At that moment, Robina got up and left the room. Harriet sank down in a chair. She was trembling with suppressed passion.
“I wonder,” she said, after a pause, “why you all dislike me as you do. Of course,” she added, “there can be but one explanation, and that is, jealousy.”
“Not at all,” said Patience. “As a matter of fact, I don’t believe there is a girl amongst us who would change with you; for to change with you, Harriet Lane, would be to possess your nature, and that is what none of us wish for. But we are quite determined to see justice done to Ralph.”
“Justice done to Ralph?” said Harriet.
“Yes: and to Robina. We know what has happened to-night, for Robina told us.”
“Oh, she told you!” said Harriet. “That is so like her.”
“Yes; she said she was not going to compete. Now, she must have a reason for that, and Frederica and I and Rose and Cecil and Vivian are all absolutely resolved to find out what that reason is. We have been invited to this house and have been given this happy time, because in a sort of way we also are Ralph’s school-mothers. You expect a great triumph in the morning, Harriet. Well all I can say is this: look out for storms.”
“It is that horrid, horrid Robina! There is no spiteful thing she would not do against me,” said Harriet. “But Ralph loves me best. I don’t pretend that I don’t want the post: I do want it. I haven’t a happy home like most of you: and to be Ralph’s school-mother, and to live here would be of great moment to me. It would mean all my future being assured. You can’t think what it would mean; for you don’t any of you know what it is to be—oh—poor!” Harriet’s face turned very pale.
“Ralph does love me, and why should not he? and if Mr Durrant is contented to choose me, and Robina doesn’t want to be school-mother—”
“Robina doesn’t want to be school-mother!” interrupted Patience. “You are either a goose or a liar, Harriet; for you know that in her heart of hearts, Robina is dying to be school-mother to little Ralph—and not for your horrid worldly reasons, but because she—she loves him! Oh, we did think that you repented that time at school, but your conduct since you came here has puzzled us dreadfully.”
Harriet, however, had now recovered herself. This attack on the part of her school-fellows was unexpected, and at first she was almost thrown off her usual balance of mind. Her customary self-possession very nearly deserted her, but now she recovered it.
“After all,” she said, “you may think what you please. By this time to-morrow I shall be established in my position, and I don’t think either Ralph or his father will regret it. As you, Patience, have taken it upon you to order Ralph to bed—a thing which I imagine you will never have the power to do again—I shall not disturb him to-night: but when I am his school-mother, he will do what I wish, please understand: he will have passed out of your life, Patience, and out of the lives of all the rest of you, and you need not call yourselves by the ridiculous name of school-mothers any longer. You will be back to your horrid school life, and I wish you joy of it. I shall stay here, and be happy. I wish, however, to say one thing. I think it exceedingly shabby of Robina to give up the contest at the eleventh hour. It shows that notwithstanding your high opinion of her she is a coward at heart. She is so certain that she will be beaten, that she won’t wait to witness her own discomfiture. Ralph choose Robina, indeed! There never was any chance of that.”
“No,” said Patience, “and that brings us to another thing. Dear little Ralph told me that you saved his life—”
“Good gracious!” said Harriet: “didn’t you all see me do it?”
“Yes, but he said you saved his life twice. When was the first occasion?”
Harriet bit her lips.
“Children exaggerate things,” she said after a pause. “I did risk my own life for Ralph at Totland Bay, and the dear little man got confused.”
“I don’t think so,” said Patience; “he is never confused about things. Well, at any rate, Harriet, we should like you to explain that remark of Ralph’s to-morrow to Mr Durrant before the great decision is finally come to.”
“Your likings or not likings, Patience Chetwold, will probably not be of the slightest consequence,” said Harriet, leaving the room as she spoke with her head in the air.
The moment she had gone, the rest of the girls drew close together.
“Now listen,” said Patience. “I have talked to that poor child. In his heart of hearts he doesn’t really love Harriet. She would be a cruel and dreadful girl to leave him with. Didn’t you watch her to-night, and didn’t you see how she was forcing him to do something, and how he was refusing, and how she was making him do it in the end? and didn’t you notice the way he hugged Robina? Oh! it’s Robina he loves in his heart of hearts: he doesn’t care for Harriet, but she has got the poor little darling into her power, and he is such a brave pet, and is so impressed by his sense of gratitude to her, he will do anything for her. Now, girls, we have a great deal to do between now and eleven o’clock to-morrow morning. We have to get our evidence together.”
“Oh what, Patience, what?” asked Rose: while the others clustered round her.
“Let me see,” said Patience. “You, of course, Frederica, and you three Amberley girls will help me. There are five of us in all. Robina must not lose this chance: Harriet must not get the victory. The person to approach on the subject is Jane Bush.”