Oh, no!’
‘I thought you used to sing.’
‘Yes; but I have no time to keep it up.’
‘Not even in the choruses?’
‘No, I cannot manage it’—and there was a little glow in the clear brown cheek.
‘Does your designing take up so much time?’
‘It is not that, but there is a great deal to do at home in after hours. My mother is not strong, and we cannot keep a really efficient servant.’
‘Oh! but you must be terribly hard-worked to have no time for relaxation.’
‘Not quite that, but—it seems to me,’ burst out poor Kalliope, ‘that relaxation does nothing but bring a girl into difficulties—an unprotected girl, I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’ cried Gillian, quite excited; but Kalliope had caught herself up.
‘Never mind, Miss Gillian; you have nothing to do with that kind of thing.’
‘But do tell me, Kally; I do want to be your friend,’ said Gillian, trying to put her hand through.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Kalliope, smiling and evidently touched, but still somewhat red, ‘only you know when a girl has nobody to look after her, she has to look after herself.’
‘Doesn’t Alexis look after you?’ said Gillian, not at all satisfied to be put off with this truism.
‘Poor Alex! He is younger, you know, and he has quite enough to do. Oh, Miss Gillian, he is such a very dear, good boy.’
‘He has a most beautiful voice, Aunt Ada said.’
‘Yes, poor fellow, though he almost wishes he had not. Oh dear I there’s the little bell! Good-bye, Miss Merrifield, I must run, or Mrs. Smithson will be gone to church, and I shall be locked in.’
So Gillian was left to the enigma why Alexis should regret the beauty of his own voice, and what Kalliope could mean by the scrapes of unprotected girls. It did not occur to her that Miss White was her elder by six or seven years, and possibly might not rely on her judgment and discretion as much as she might have done on those of Alethea.
Meantime the concert was coming on. It was not an amusement that Aunt Ada could attempt, but Miss Mohun took both her nieces, to the extreme pride and delight of Valetta, who had never been, as she said, ‘to any evening thing but just stupid childish things, only trees and magic-lanterns’; and would not quite believe Gillian, who assured her in a sage tone that she would find this far less entertaining than either, judging by the manner in which she was wont to vituperate her music lesson.
‘Oh! but that’s only scales, and everybody hates them! And I do love a German band.’
‘Especially in the middle of lesson-time,’ said Gillian.
However, Fergus was to spend the evening with Clement Varley; and Kitty was to go with her mother and sister, the latter of whom was to be one of the performers; but it was decreed by the cruel authorities that the two bosom friends would have their tongues in better order if they were some chairs apart; and therefore, though the members of the two families at Beechcroft and the Tamarisks were consecutive, Valetta was quartered between her aunt and Gillian, with Mrs. Varley on the other side of Miss Mohun, and Major Dennis flanking Miss Merrifield. When he had duly inquired after Sir Jasper, and heard of Lady Merrifield’s arrival, he had no more conversation for the young lady; and Valetta, having perceived by force of example that in this waiting-time it was not like being in church, poured out her observations and inquiries on her sister.
‘What a funny room! And oh! do look at the pictures! Why has that man got on a blue apron? Freemasons! What are Freemasons? Do they work in embroidered blue satin aprons because they are gentlemen? I’ll tell Fergus that is what he ought to be; he is so fond of making things—only I am sure he would spoil his apron. What’s that curtain for? Will they sing up there? Oh, there’s Emma Norton just come in! That must be her father. That’s Alice Gidding, she comes to our Sunday class, and do you know, she thought it was Joseph who was put into the den of lions. Has not her mother got a funny head?’
‘Hush now, Val. Here they come,’ as the whole chorus trooped in and began the ‘Men of Harlech.’
Val was reduced to silence, but there was a long instrumental performance afterwards, during which bad examples of chattering emboldened her to whisper—
‘Did you see Beatrice Varley? And Miss Berry, our singing-mistress—and Alexis White? Maura says—’
Aunt Jane gave a touch and a frown which reduced Valetta to silence at this critical moment; and she sat still through a good deal, only giving a little jump when Alexis White, with various others, came to sing a glee.
Gillian could study the youth, who certainly was, as Aunt Ada said, remarkable for the cameo-like cutting of his profile, though perhaps no one without an eye for art would have remarked it, as he had the callow unformed air of a lad of seventeen or eighteen, and looked shy and grave; but his voice was a fine one, and was heard to more advantage in the solos to a hunting song which shortly followed.
Valetta had been rather alarmed at the applause at first, but she soon found out what an opportunity it gave for conversation, and after a good deal of popping her head about, she took advantage of the encores to excuse herself by saying, ‘I wanted to see if Maura White was there. She was to go if Mrs. Lee—that’s the lodger—would take her. She says Kally won’t go, or sing, or anything, because—’
How tantalising! the singers reappeared, and Valetta was reduced to silence. Nor could the subject be renewed in the interval between the parts, for Major Dennis came and stood in front, and talked to Miss Mohun; and after that Valetta grew sleepy, and nothing was to be got out of her till all was over, when she awoke into extra animation, and chattered so vehemently all the way home that her aunt advised Gillian to get her to bed as quietly as possible, or she would not sleep all night, and would be good for nothing the next day.
Gillian, however, being given to think for herself in all cases of counsel from Aunt Jane, thought it could do no harm to beguile the brushing of the child’s hair by asking why Kalliope would not come to the concert.
‘Oh, it’s a great secret, but Maura told me in the cloakroom. It is because Mr. Frank wants to be her—to be her—her admirer,’ said Valetta, cocking her head on one side, and adding to the already crimson colour of her cheeks.
‘Nonsense, Val, what do you and Maura know of such things?’
‘We aren’t babies, Gill, and it is very unkind of you, when you told me I was to make friends with Maura White; and Kitty Varley is quite cross with me about it.’
‘I told you to be kind to Maura, but not to talk about such foolish things.’
‘I don’t see why they should be foolish. It is what we all must come to. Grown-up people do, as Lois says. I heard Aunt Ada going on ever so long about Beatrice Varley and that gentleman.’
‘It is just the disadvantage of that kind of school that girls talk that sort of undesirable stuff. Gillian said to herself; but curiosity, or interest in the Whites, prompted her to add, ‘What did she tell you?’
‘If you are so cross, I shan’t tell you. You hurt my head, I say.’
‘Come,
