Chapter 4 The Girls of St. Wode's by L. T. Meade
IN THE GIRLS’ BEDROOMS
Marjorie and Eileen, in soiled and much bedraggled school-party frocks, went down to dinner. Letitia, in pale-blue silk with lace ruffles, looked neat, pretty, and suitably attired; but the other two girls presented an appearance which caused poor Mrs. Chetwynd to shudder. With their really handsome faces, their wide-open intelligent eyes, their exquisitely-formed lips, and pearly rows of teeth, they were nothing but awkward, gauche, and unpresentable. Letitia was as pretty, trim, and agreeable to the eye as a young girl could be; but Eileen and Marjorie! What was to be done? Mrs. Chetwynd felt her heart sinking like lead in her breast; for there was a stubborn build about Marjorie’s chin and about the slight, very slight frown which now and then visited Eileen’s intelligent forehead. Mrs. Chetwynd perceived at a glance that if she was to mold these two girls to her ways of thinking, she would have a troublesome task before her. She was rich, and was also good-hearted, good-natured, and pleasant. It was in no way her fault if the girls took after their father, who had been not only a brave soldier, but also that strange combination, a scholar, as well, and who had died before the girls’ education was complete. He was a man of extraordinary character and determination, and had all his life been the victim of fads. Mrs. Chetwynd felt quite certain that their father was to blame for Marjorie’s and Eileen’s peculiar appearance. She was thankful that she had not asked any friends to meet the girls on their first evening home from school. She determined to make herself as pleasant as possible, and not to allude to the untidy wardrobes, the gauche appearance, and the cropped heads until the following morning.
Dinner passed quickly, for all three girls were hungry; and when they retired to the drawing-room Mrs. Chetwynd suggested a little music.
“Eileen, my darling, you sing, don’t you?” she said, turning to the younger of the twins.
“Oh, dear me, no, mother; I have not the ghost of a voice,” replied Eileen.
“But I thought that your teacher, Miss Fox, spoke highly of your musical talents?”
“She said I should play well if I practiced hard; but I did not think my very moderate gift worth cultivating,” replied Eileen, yawning slightly as she spoke. “You see, unless one has genius, there is not the least use in the present day in being musical. Only genius is tolerated; and then I don’t ever mean to be ornamental. My vogue in life is the useful. The music of the ordinary school-girl, after years of toil, is merely regarded as an accomplishment, and generally as an unpleasant one; therefore I have let my music drop.”
“Dear, dear! How extraordinary of Miss Fox not to let me know,” said Mrs. Chetwynd. “Well, Marjorie, you at least play?” said her mother.
“Yes, mother,” in a somewhat solemn style. “I can give you one of Bach’s fugues, if you like.”
“Do so, my dear. I have spent a great deal of money on your music, and should like to hear the result.”
Marjorie rose, went to the piano, sat down, and began to thunder loudly. She had scarcely any taste for music, and she played several wrong notes. Mrs. Chetwynd had a carefully trained ear, and she quite shuddered when Marjorie crashed out some of her terrible discords.
Having finished the fugue, which took a considerable time, the young girl rose from the piano amid a profound silence. Eileen had turned away and was engrossed in a book on cookery which she had picked up from a side-table. She was muttering to herself half-aloud:
“Take of flour one ounce, butter, cream, three eggs, and – ”
“What are you doing, Eileen?” said the mother.
Eileen made no reply.
Marjorie seated herself on a chair near her mother.
“I hope you liked that fugue?” she said. “I took tremendous pains learning it. I got up every morning an hour earlier than the others during the whole of last term, simply because I intended to play that fugue of Bach’s to you.”
“It was a great pity, dear,” began Mrs. Chetwynd; then she sighed and stopped.
“A pity, mother? What in the world do you mean?”
“Nothing, love; we will talk of all those things to-morrow.”
“What a terrible day to-morrow promises to be,” said Marjorie, glancing towards Eileen. “I can see that mother is going to let the vials of her wrath loose. Oh yes, you dear old mammy, you are – you cannot deny it. But we are not such dreadful girls after all. All we want to do is this: we want to go our own way.”
“Your own way, Eileen – your own way?”
“Yes, mammy, our own way; and you can go yours. Then we shall get on together like a house on fire. Now, what are you winking at me for, Letitia?”
“I was not winking at you,” said Letitia. “I was wondering if Aunt Helen would like to hear me sing.”
“Certainly, my dear; but I never knew before that you had a voice.”
“I have only a little voice; but I have made the most of my opportunities. I won’t sing if you would rather not.”
“On the contrary, dear; I should like to hear you.”
“A ballad, I suppose?” said Letitia.
“Yes; I am fond of ballads. What do you know?”
“All the usual ones, I think,” replied Letitia. “I will sing ‘Robin Adair’ if that will suit you.”
“I am fond of ‘Robin Adair,’” said the widow; “but few people can render those beautiful words to satisfaction.”
Letitia volunteered to try. She sat down to the piano; her accompaniment was fresh and rippling, her voice clear, not particularly strong, but wonderfully true. It had a note of sympathy in it too, which rang through the old room.
Mrs. Chetwynd put down her knitting with a sigh of pleasure. The two girls sat with their hands lying idly in their laps, and gazed at their cousin.
When the old ballad came to an end, Mrs. Chetwynd felt tears not far from her eyes.
Oh, if only Eileen and Marjorie were like Letitia!
Marjorie suddenly jumped to her feet.
“Are you crying, mother?” she said, going up to her mother. “Oh, it’s just like that wicked Lettie. To hear her sing you would suppose that she was the most sentimental creature in the world: but don’t you believe a word of it, mammy. She has not one scrap of sentiment in her composition; she is the most worldly-wise little soul that I have ever come across. – Now, Lettie, don’t be a humbug; sing something in which your real feelings appear – a modern love-song, for instance, or something about fine dress, or nothing to wear, or anything else in your real style. It’s positively wrong of you to deceive mother in the way you are doing.”
Letitia looked gently reproachful. She said she did not know any song about nothing to wear, nor any song either about dress; but she would sing “Shadowland” if Mrs. Chetwynd wished it.
This song again brought the widow to the verge of tears. Lettie then rose and shut the piano.
“You at least, my dear, have derived benefit from your education,” she said. “How I wish your dear father and my dear husband were alive to hear you.”
“Father could always see through humbugs,” said Eileen to Marjorie.
“Yes,” replied Marjorie; “but don’t you see whatever mother is she is not a humbug?”
“Only we don’t want Lettie to twist her round her little finger, do we?” said Eileen.
“No; not that it greatly matters. Poor mother. I expect Lettie will do very much what we do; but I’m not sure. We must only wait and see.”
The girls retired to bed; but Mrs. Chetwynd sat up late, wishing much that she had Mrs. Acheson to consult with.
What was to be done if Marjorie and Eileen went on in this peculiar manner which they had done that evening? Really, when everything was considered, they were very little better than Belle, and Belle happened to be Mrs. Chetwynd’s bête noire.
“If only pretty, graceful, accomplished Letitia were my own daughter! She is a dear child, and yet I cannot quite cordially take to her,” thought the widow. “I don’t know what is the matter with her. I have no fault whatever to find. I suppose it is because she is not my own. Now Marjorie and Eileen rub me the wrong way every time they open their lips, and yet I love them with all my heart and soul. How handsome they are too! Anything could be done with them if only they would submit to the ordinary regulations of polite society. What terrible times these modern days are! Mothers have little or no influence over their own children. The children take the upper hand and – keep it. But I just vow that Marjorie and Eileen shall submit to me in my own house. Poor darlings, they are as loving as possible; but they have been under some dreadful pernicious influence. I could never guess that a school so highly recommended as Miss Marchland’s was would send back girls in the condition Marjorie and Eileen are in. No manners, disgraceful in appearance, and no accomplishments. What agony I went through while Marjorie was playing that fugue! She must never attempt to play in public. Eileen, who really had a taste for music, will not cultivate it, because, forsooth, she is not a genius. The two girls mean to be merely useful – merely useful, with eyes like those, and lips and teeth. My dear, dear, ridiculous children, society will soon knock all that nonsense out of your heads. Yes, I must present them both as soon as possible. I shall order their court dresses to-morrow. But that terrible cropped hair – straight too, not a scrap of curl in it. Oh dear, what is to be done; and they are both on such a large scale? They would make handsome boys. What a pity they are not boys. Dear me, I am an unhappy woman. If Letitia were my daughter, it would be plain sailing, but as it is I am at my wits’ end.”
By and by Mrs. Chetwynd went upstairs. She hesitated on the second landing, where her own room was. On the next floor were the girls’ rooms, luxuriously and beautifully furnished. It occurred to her to go up and look at her darlings asleep. She did so, opening the door of Marjorie’s room first. Marjorie was in bed, curled up as her fashion was, with the bedclothes tucked tightly round her. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and the long black lashes looked particularly handsome as they lay against her rosy cheeks. But what a condition the room was in! What was the good of a maid when girls went to bed in such a state of untidiness? Clothes tossed helter-skelter everywhere; one little shoe near the fireplace, one near the wardrobe; petticoats flopped on the nearest chair; the shabby serge dress, which Mrs. Chetwynd considered only to be fit for the next bag sent from the Kilburn Society, hanging on the brass knob of the bed.
Marjorie sighed in her sleep, and Mrs. Chetwynd bent over her.
“Dear, lovely child, I surely shall be able to mold her to my wishes,” she thought; never considering that Marjorie’s chin, with its cleft in the middle, was full of obstinacy, and that her lips were as firm as they were beautiful.
Mrs. Chetwynd went on to the next room. Eileen was also sound asleep, and her room was also untidy. The girl looked lovely, with her classical features and the long straight lashes lying upon the soft rounded cheeks. Yes, they were both singularly handsome girls, and very like one another. Of course they would do splendidly yet. Perhaps the world would appreciate them all the more for their little eccentricities. They must appear as débutantes at the very first drawing-room. Yes, to-morrow at an early hour, Madame Coray should put their presentation dresses in hand.
Mrs. Chetwynd hesitated a moment before she went into Letitia’s room. It would not be very interesting to look at Letitia asleep; but still, what she did for her own girls she invariably did for her husband’s niece.
Letitia’s room was in exquisite and perfect order, everything put neatly away, and Letitia herself lying in her little white bed with her arms folded across her chest and her hair swept back from her pretty brow. Mrs. Chetwynd could not help feeling drawn to her. She bent and kissed her on her forehead. She had not dared to do this to her own girls, fearing to awaken them.
She then went back to her room, to sleep as best she could.