Betty Trevor. Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
comment thereon, for, as he frequently observed to his wife when she confided to him her troubles over Betty’s eccentricities, boys and girls who are in the transition stage between childhood and maturity are apt to become a trifle restless and eccentric, and it was wisdom to be for the most part judiciously blind, interfering only in cases of right and wrong. Let the little maid run with a loose rein for a time. She would soon settle down, and be the first to laugh at her own foibles.
Mrs. Trevor took her place, looking round on her assembled children with the pretty, half-appealing little smile which was her greatest charm. She was slight and graceful, not stout and elderly, like other people’s mothers. In the morning light she often looked wan and tired, but in the kindly lamplight she seemed more like Betty’s sister than the mother of a rapidly growing up family.
Miles sat at her right hand, a tall, somewhat heavy-looking youth, with enormous hands and feet, a square, determined jaw, and deep-set brown eyes. Even a casual glance at him was sufficient to show that he was going to make a man of power and determination, but, like Betty, he was passing through his awkward stage, and was often neither easy nor agreeable to live with.
Jack was just a mischievous schoolboy, with protruding ears and twinkling eyes. One can see a score like him any day, marching, marching along the street with satchels of books; but his twin sister had a more striking personality. Jill was a mystery to her relations and friends. She had ordinary brown hair, and not too much of that, light blue eyes with indifferent lashes, a nose a shade more impertinent than Betty’s own, a big mouth, and a powdering of freckles under her eyes; yet with those very ordinary equipments she managed to rank as a beauty among her schoolmates, and to attract more admiration than is vouchsafed to many people whose features might have been turned out of a classic mould. Betty used to ponder wistfully over the secret of Jill’s charm, and think it hard lines that it had not been given to herself, who would have cared for it so much more. Jill didn’t care a pin how she looked. She wanted to “have fun,” to invite Nora Bruce to tea as often as possible, to buy a constant supply of a special sort of almond toffee which was offered for sale at a shop which she passed on the way to school, to be a first-form girl and have one of the new desks, and, incidentally, to pass the Cambridge examination if it could be done without too much “fag.” She put on her clothes any way, did her hair in the twinkling of an eye, and the effect was uniformly charming.
“If she’s untidy, she’s picturesque; if I’m untidy, I’m a fright. It’s mean!” soliloquised Betty discontentedly. Every day she lived she was the more convinced that the world was topsy-turvy, and that she herself was the only person who was competent to set it to rights.
Pam was just Pam; like herself, and no one else in the world. A dear little, wide-eyed, pointed-chinned kitten, everybody’s tease, and pet, and conscience all in one, for those clear child eyes seemed to see through all pretences, and what she thought she put into words without a shadow of fear or hesitation.
It was a very plain, almost a frugal, repast, but the table looked cheerful and pretty with the pink-shaded lamp in the centre, surrounded by the four little bowls of flowers which it was one of Betty’s duties to keep fresh, and there was no lack of lively conversation.
Mrs. Trevor had had a trying day, and several of her worries must of necessity be discussed with her husband later on, but she would allow no hint of them to escape until he had been fed and rested, and in the same manner all the children searched their memories for the pleasantest event which they had experienced to retail for his benefit.
“I was top to-day, father,” Jack announced proudly; “answered every single question in Latin, and read off my translation like a book. If I liked to stew, I believe I could lick Johnston all the time. He was pretty sick at having to go down; looked as glum as an old owl for the rest of the morning.”
“He takes his work more seriously than you do, my boy. You say you could be top if you liked: I am glad to hear it; but why don’t you like? You can’t surely prefer a lower place?”
“Oh, well, there’s reason in all things!” returned Jack, with a vagueness which his brothers and sisters had apparently little difficulty in understanding, for they laughed, and sniggered meaningly to each other.
“Such a waste of time, when there is football to be played!”
“A full back has to keep his energy for his work, and not fritter it away over stupid books. That’s about it, isn’t it, Jack?” they teased, while Dr. Trevor said between a sigh and a smile—
“Ah, well, my boy, you are old enough to judge for yourself how your time should be spent! If you win a scholarship, I’ll manage to help you through a ’Varsity course, but I can’t afford to keep you there unassisted. Remember it is your whole career which is at stake.”
“All right, father, I will work,” said Jack easily.
He was an affectionate boy, who disliked disappointing his parents, but unfortunately he disliked work even more. He was rather sorry now that he had mentioned his easy victory over the redoubtable Johnston. The pater would expect him to be top every day, whereas he had only just put on a spurt to show what he could do if he chose. Suppose he did lose the scholarship, it wouldn’t be so bad after all, he could still play footer on Saturday afternoons!
The doctor’s glance had wandered, as if for consolation, to his elder son—Miles the strenuous, the indefatigable, who had a passion for work for work’s sake. He was going through the practical stage of an engineer’s training, and left the house at six o’clock each morning, to return in the afternoon clad in workman’s clothes, incredibly greasy and dirty. Betty suffered agonies in case “they”—that wonderful impersonal “they” who overclouded her life—should think he was really and truly an ordinary workman! On one occasion Miles had joined her on the doorstep as she was returning from an afternoon walk, and she had distinctly seen the curtains of the Pampered Pet’s drawing-room move, as if someone were peeping out from behind, when, as she confided to Jill later on, “her cheeks turned k–r–rimson with mortification!”
“Well, Miles, my boy, did you take your little invention with you to-day, and were you able to show it to the manager?”
“Yes, I took it all right.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said it was all right.”
“Does that mean that he acknowledged that it was an improvement on the present method? Did he feel inclined to give it a trial?”
“Oh yes, it went all right. He said it would do.”
“But that’s capital! Capital! I congratulate you heartily! Didn’t Mr. Davidson seem pleased that you should have hit on such a bright idea?”
“Oh, he said it was all right.”
Miles made a determined attack on his plate, as if pleading to be left alone to enjoy his dinner in peace. Since the days of his babyhood he had shown a strong inventive genius, and now it was his delight to spend his spare moments working in his little cupboard sanctum at home, striving to improve on any bit of machinery which struck him as falling short of perfection. It was a very simple thing which he had attempted, but in machinery, as in many other things, trifles are all-important, and it was a triumph indeed that a lad of nineteen should have hit on an improvement which was considered worth a trial.
Dr. Trevor and his wife exchanged smiles of happy satisfaction. They yearned to ask a dozen more questions, but refrained out of sympathy with that natural masculine reserve which they understood so well. Betty, however, was less considerate.
“I do think you might tell us a little more about it, Miles!” she cried resentfully. “You know we are all dying of curiosity. I can’t think why it is that boys can never give a decent account of anything that has happened! Now, if it had been me, I should have begun at the very beginning, from the moment I entered the works, and told you how I felt as I went upstairs, and how I began to speak to the manager, and what he said, and how he looked, and—”
“What colour of