something awfully partickler. But I’ll tell you what, Japs – you run down to Miss Earle and say you’ll have your reading first this morning. Tell her I’m having a spring cleaning and all sorts of fusses. You can say I didn’t know it was so late, and we’ll be down before you’ve half finished.”
Jasper moved towards the door, but less readily than usual.
“Hurry up, child, can’t you?” exclaimed Chrissie.
“Mumsey wanted us to be very good,” said the little fellow timidly.
“Well, we’re not being naughty. What does it matter to Miss Earle which lessons come first? She’s only a governess, and I am sure Mums pays her well.”
Her raised tone of voice had caught even Leila’s unhearing ears. She turned sharply.
“Chrissie, I’m shocked at you,” she said. “That’s not like a lady. Suppose we were grown-up and had to be governesses, you wouldn’t like to be spoken to like that.”
“I’m not speaking to her,” muttered Chrissie, rather sullenly, though she was already rather ashamed.
“But Jap might have said it to her,” persisted Leila.
“I wouldn’t,” exclaimed the child indignantly, “in course I wouldn’t.”
“Then go off at once and say what I told you to,” said Christabel, and Jasper obeyed her.
Leila, however, for once was roused. Certain words of her mother’s about remembering that she was the elder and should set a good example to heedless Chrissie, returned to her memory. She shut up her book with a sigh, and stooping, began to gather together some of the dolls’ belongings. But Chrissie pushed her away.
“Leave my things alone,” she said rudely.
“They’re not specially yours,” replied Leila. “The dolls’ house belongs to us both.”
“Much you do for it,” said Chrissie contemptuously. “It’d be all choked with dust like ‘in a dirty old house lived a dirty old man,’ if it depended on you.”
“It’s in a nice mess just now, any way,” remarked Leila. “Well, I’m going down to the schoolroom. You can do as you please.”
The last words were like a spur to impetuous Christabel.
“You shan’t go off and put all the blame on me to Miss Earle,” she exclaimed, starting up. “I’m coming too. Nurse,” she went on, “Nurse,” so loudly, that the bedroom door opened and Nurse and Fanny hurried out in alarm.
Chrissie looked up coolly. She had an irritating way of getting cool herself as soon as she saw that she had irritated others.
“You needn’t stare so,” she said. “It’s only about my toys and things. I want them left exactly as they are, till after lesson-time this afternoon – exactly as they are. Don’t you hear what I say, Nurse?” waxing impatient again.
“It’s impossible, Miss Chrissie,” replied Nurse. “Master Jasper and I couldn’t get to the table for our dinner; and even if we sat over at the other side, Fanny’d be sure to tread on some of those dainty little chairs and things and break them.”
Chrissie, as a matter of fact, saw the force of this, but she would not seem to give in, so she contented herself with making a scape-goat of the nursery-maid.
“Fanny is an awkward, clumsy creature, I’ll allow,” she said, with an air of great magnanimity, “so you may move them, or make her do it. But if she breaks one single thing I’ll complain to Mamma; I will indeed,” with a very lordly air, as she got up from the floor and prepared to follow Leila downstairs.
Nurse had the self-control to say nothing till the young lady was out of hearing, but as she and Fanny began together to clear the confused heap out of danger’s way, she could not resist saying to the girl, “To hear the child speak you’d think she never broke or spoilt a thing in her life! She’s worse than Miss Leila, and she’s bad enough, always half in a dream over her books. But Miss Chrissie’s worse. The losings and breakings!”
“Yes,” Fanny agreed, “and the messing with paint and gum and ink. Those new blouses. Nurse, are just covered with spots, and between them I don’t think they’ve a brooch with a pin to it.”
Nurse sighed, and the sigh was not a selfish one.
Downstairs, in the meantime, Miss Earle had, unwillingly enough, judged it wisest to make the best of things and to waste no more time, by beginning Jasper’s lessons in accordance with the message from Christabel, which the little fellow delivered much more politely than he had received it.
But the governess was far from satisfied.
She was young, excellently qualified for her post, and really interested in the children, as they were far from wanting in intelligence and love of knowledge, and now and then the lessons went swimmingly; brightly enough even to satisfy her own enthusiasm. But at other and more frequent times there was, alas, a very different story to tell, a sadly disappointing report to make, and Miss Earle almost began to despair. She had not been with the Fortescues very long, and she was intensely anxious to give satisfaction to their kind mother, who had behaved to her with the greatest consideration and liberality, and it grieved her to feel that, unless she could gain more influence over the girls, she must resign her charge of them.
“They are completely ‘out of hand,’ as it were,” she found herself one day obliged to say to Mrs Fortescue. “They don’t seem to know what ‘must’ means; in fact, in their different ways, their only idea is to do what they like and not what they don’t, and yet they are so clever and honest and they can be such darlings,” and she looked up almost with tears in her eyes. “It is discipline they need,” she added, “and – ” hesitating a little, “unselfishness – thought for others.”
She need not have hesitated. Mrs Fortescue knew it was all true.
“I suppose the simple explanation is that I – we – have spoilt them,” she said sadly. “And now it is beginning to show. But Jasper, Miss Earle, the youngest – he should be the most spoilt.”
Miss Earle shook her head.
“And he is not spoilt at all!” she exclaimed. “He is not a very quick child, perhaps, but he is painstaking and attentive. He will do very well. And as to obedience and thoughtfulness – why, he has never given me a moment’s trouble.”
This talk had taken place some time ago. Over and over again the young governess had tried to hit upon some way of really impressing her pupils more lastingly, of checking their increasing self-will and heedlessness. For we don’t stand still in character; if we are not improving, it is greatly to be feared we are falling off. Now and then she felt happier, but never for more than a day or two, and this morning – this cold winter morning when she herself had got up long before it was light, to do some extra bookwork, and attend to her invalid sister’s breakfast – this morning was again to bring disappointment.
How cosy and comfortable the schoolroom looked as she came in, and held out her cold hands to the fire!
“Really, they are lucky children,” she thought, as she remembered the bare walls and carpetless floor and meagre grates of the good but far from homelike great school where she herself had been educated. “How good they should be,”
