Amethyst. Christabel R. Coleridge
Table of Contents
Sisters.
The visitors, who were introduced by Lady Haredale as, “Our neighbours at Ashfield, Mr. Leigh, and Mrs. Leigh,” speedily took their leave. Amethyst had hardly seen them; for the whole evening was dazzling and dreamy to her, full of emotion and excitement.
It was hours before she could sleep, though a wakeful night was a new experience to her. But when she woke the next morning rather late, she was sensible of the light of common day, and came down fresh and cheerful to find herself the first at breakfast, and nobody there to receive her apologies for having overslept herself.
Breakfast was in the “library”—a pleasant room, but with no books in it to account for its appellation; and Lady Haredale soon appeared, while the three girls straggled in by degrees.
“Now, you bad children,” said Lady Haredale gaily, as the meal concluded, “you know you have all got to make up your minds that Amethyst will go out with me, and that you are all still in the school-room.”
“Where is it?” asked Tory, with her lazy drawl.
“There isn’t much to go out for, that I see—down here,” said Una.
“Oh, you are all spoiled,” said Lady Haredale. “Amethyst never saw such a set of ignorant creatures. I shall leave her to tell you what good little girls should be like.”
There was a sweet lightsome tone in Lady Haredale’s voice, that seemed to Amethyst to indicate the most delightful relations between herself and her daughters, though the three girls did not look responsive.
“Have you any pretty frocks, my dear?” said Lady Haredale, as she rose to go away. “I mean to have some parties, and there will be people here. If his lordship won’t let us go to London, we must amuse ourselves here, mustn’t we? Though I don’t despair of London yet.”
“I don’t know—I’m afraid you wouldn’t think my best dress very pretty, mamma.”
”‘Mamma’—how pretty the old name is on her tongue!”
Amethyst blushed.
“I’m afraid it’s old-fashioned,” she said, “but the Rectory girls at Silverfold say ‘mamma.’ Do we call you ‘mother’?”
“Do you know,” said Lady Haredale, ”‘mamma’ is so old-fashioned that I think it’s quite chic. And very pretty of you; go on—I like it. And never mind the frocks. Of course it’s my place to dress you up and show you off—and I will. I’m glad you’re such a pretty creature.”
She kissed Amethyst lightly as she passed her, and went away, leaving the girl embarrassed by the outspoken praise. But Amethyst knew, or thought she knew, all about her own beauty, and accepted it as one of the facts of life; so she roused herself in a moment, clapped her hands together, and sprang at her sisters—seizing Una round the waist.
“Come! come! let us look at each other, let us find each other out!—How big you all are! Come and tell me what work you are doing, and what you each go in for; let’s have a splendid talk together.”
She pulled Una down beside her on the sofa, and looked smiling into her face. She had not been grown-up so long as not to be quite ready for companionship with these younger girls, and girls came natural to her.
Una looked back wistfully into the laughing eyes. She was as tall as Amethyst, and her still childish dress accentuated the lanky slenderness of her figure, which seemed weighed down by the enormous quantities of reddish brown hair that fell over her shoulders and about her face. Indeed she looked out of health; all the colour in her face was concentrated in her full red lips, and her wide-open eyes were set in very dark circles. She looked, spite of her short frock and her long hair, older than her real age, and as unlike a natural healthy school-girl as the most “intense” and aesthetic taste could desire. Kattern was prettier, and, as Amethyst expressed it to herself, more comfortable-looking, but she had a stupid face; and by far the shrewdest, keenest glances came from Tory’s darker eyes, which had an elfish malice in them, that caused Amethyst mentally to comment on her as “a handful for any teacher.”
“We don’t do any work—we’re neglected,” she said, perching herself on the arm of the sofa, and looking at her sisters as they sat upon it, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. “I expect we shall have some lessons now, though, we’re ‘in the school-room,’ now we are in the country—like the Miss Leighs.”
“You could not do regular lessons when you were travelling,” said Amethyst, “but I dare say you’re all good at French and German. We might have some readings together anyhow. I don’t mean to be idle, Una—you’ll help me to stick to work of some kind, won’t you?”
“You’d better ask me, Amethyst,” said Tory. “I think education might be amusing. Una never does anything she can help of any sort, she’s always tired or something.”
“There’s never anything worth doing,” said Una languidly, “it’s so dull.”
“It won’t be so dull next week,” said Kattern, with meaning, while Una coloured and shot a savage glance at her.
“Dear me!” said Amethyst. “We shan’t be dull. There are always such heaps of things to do and to think of. But tell me about the people who are coming next week, and about the neighbours round here.”
“There are Miss Riddell and her brother,” said Una. “He’s the parson, but it seems they’re in society here. They’ll be a bore most likely.”
“And there are the Leighs,” said Kattern. “There’s a young Leigh, who looks rather promising.”
“And next week,” said Tory, “the Lorrimores, and Damers, and Tony.”
“Who is Tony?”
“Oh, Tony’s quite a tame cat here,” said Tory, manifestly mimicking some one. “He’s always round. My lady has him about a great deal, and he’s useful, he’s got a little money. His wife ran away from him—his fault I dare say; and now they’re di—”
“Tory!” interposed Una, starting up from her lounging attitude, “be quiet directly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I won’t have it!”
“You can’t help Amethyst getting to know things,” said Tory in her slowest drawl; but she gave in, and swung herself off the end of the sofa, calling Kattern to come out in the garden.
Una let herself drop back on the sofa, it was characteristic of her that she never sat upright a moment longer than she could help it, and looked furtively round under her hair at her sister. Amethyst, however, had encountered children before, possessed of a desire to shock their betters, and took Tory’s measure according to her lights; which were to take no notice of improper remarks, especially as Una had shut the little one up so effectually.
“Well, I must go and write to auntie,” she said; “and then shall we go out too, Una?”
“Yes, if you like,” said Una, and with a sudden impulse she put up her face to Amethyst’s, and kissed her.
During the next week or ten days Amethyst was so much taken up with her own family that the various introductions in the neighbourhood made very little impression on her. The result on her mind of these first days of intercourse was curious. She did not by any means think her home perfection. She had indeed been vaguely prepared for much that was imperfect; and she had far too clear and definite a standard not to know that her sisters really were “neglected,” and was too much accustomed to good sense not to be aware that Lady Haredale talked nonsense. But there was a glamour over her which, perhaps happily, softened all the rough edges. Amethyst fell in love with her new “mamma,” and Una conceived a sudden and vehement devotion for the