Hugh Crichton's Romance. Coleridge Christabel Rose
never have corrected an exercise nor set a sum if she had not been so minded; but she had replied to the offer of freedom with scorn and contempt: “Did sister think she should be happier for being idle?” and set to work with all her might and main to “enlarge the minds and improve the tone” of her sister’s pupils, introducing new studies, new authors, and new ideas; talking over Miss Venning – or sometimes, perhaps, talking her down – with an equal amount of self-confidence and self-devotion.
In Miss Clarissa’s girlish days no such possibility of freedom had been offered to her. Nine or ten years ago, during the long illness of their mother, and while the brothers who filled up the wide gaps between the three sisters had been yet unsettled in life, the circumstances of the school had required more personal exertion; and when Clarissa was at the end of her teens she had been too busy – teaching all the English, that the resident governess might be French – to consider if it was desirable for the pupils to read Thackeray or to learn Latin and Euclid. Clarissa was a good girl and did her duty; but now, at eight and twenty, she felt as if life might have offered her something more than school-keeping. She told Flossy that she should like to marry a Duke and drink chocolate out of Sèvres china – and the scandalised Flossy perceived neither the twinkle of the sleepy blue eyes nor the wistful fall of the well-curved mouth, the delicate prettiness of which gave to the small curly-haired Clarissa a look of youth which neither the absence of Sèvres china nor the presence of young ladies had hitherto impaired. Flossy’s eyes were always wide open and rarely twinkled, though they often laughed.
They brightened into a laugh now, as she repeated her remark —
“You don’t suppose, Clarissa, that people settle the exact spot beforehand!”
“Really, Flossy, my experience is limited; but, as Mary says, as Arthur lives in the house with Mysie, I think he might have managed matters at home.”
“Oh, but,” said Flossy, “now he has sister on his side, you see.”
“Yes, Mary; you’re in the scrape,” said Clarissa.
“Really, my dear, I don’t see that at all. I am not responsible for Miss Crofton now, beyond her German and music lessons.”
“I suppose she might do much better,” said Clarissa.
“She couldn’t do better,” said Florence, decidedly, in her full rich voice. Will it quite detract from Flossy’s character for feminine softness if it be owned that she spoke rather loud? “Arthur has very good prospects, and is the very nicest young man I know.”
“Dear me! Flossy,” said Clarissa. “I thought you considered matrimony a mistake.”
“By no means,” emphatically returned Flossy; “when everything is suitable and people are fond of each other. I don’t think I shall ever wish to marry anyone myself; and how anyone can say life is wanting in interest I can’t conceive; but I should never be so absurd as to lay down general principles. That is where people fall into error. And besides,” she concluded heartily, “anyone could see dear little Mysie was fond of Arthur, and I am so glad she will be happy!”
“Well, there are more words than hers and Arthur’s to that,” said Clarissa.
“Mrs Crichton never objects to anything,” said Flossy; “and as for Mr Crichton, surely he won’t be so horrid.”
“Well, I could not help it,” said Miss Venning.
“No,” returned Flossy; “and as Mysie is not exactly a girl it doesn’t signify.”
Mysie was eighteen and a week; but Flossy used the term “girl” in a strictly technical sense.
“Dear me!” she continued, “my class will be waiting for me.” And as she ran into the house Miss Venning looked after her.
“I think young men have very strange tastes,” she said.
“Because Flossy has no lovers?” said Clarissa, with a slight emphasis.
“Well, I am sure I do not want her to have any,” returned Miss Venning, with a smile at her sisterly partiality.
“Dear me, no, Mary! Flossy won’t be fit for a lover for five years at least. She has all the world to reform first!”
Miss Venning laughed as she went to tend her beautiful roses, and Clarissa, left alone, wandered on till she sat down under an acacia tree. She threw herself back on the soft turf, and gazed up at the sky through its veil of delicate dancing foliage, while she caught the fast-falling white blossoms in her hand. It was a childish attitude and a childish action; but it may have been absently done, for she was still smiling at the joke of the surprised lovers. At last the smile trembled and ceased, and she hid her face on the mossy turf. Lying there on the grass, with her little slim figure and curly head, she looked like a girl escaped from school, fretting over her tasks or dreaming of fairy princes. But Miss Clarissa was twenty-eight, and a schoolmistress; and had tasks to set instead of to learn, and no lovers to dream of, past, present, or future. So she soon sat upright, brushed off the acacia blossoms, and went into the house to get ready for tea.
Meanwhile, Flossy had taken her way to the long sunny school-room, where sat some twelve or fifteen girls reading Wilhelm Tell with the German governess – all, save one or two, evincing in tone, look, or manner a conviction that German and hot afternoons were incompatible elements. There was a little brightening as Miss Florence paused on her way to the dining-room, where her own class of younger ones were preparing their lessons. Mysie sat with her clear eyes fixed on her book, her soft round face pinker than usual, her little figure very still, her pencil in her hand. Was she taking notes of the lesson?
“Have you written out your translation, Mysie?” said Flossy, mischievously.
“No, Miss Florence,” said Mysie, in formal school-girl fashion; but she could hardly restrain her little quivering smile.
“These young ladies are idle, Miss Florence,” said their teacher.
“That is very wrong of them,” returned Flossy. “There is only one excuse for being idle – ” then, as Mysie looked up with a start, she added, “the hot weather.”
Neither romance not hot weather interfered with Miss Florence’s energy over her German lesson, and the sleepy little schoolgirls had small chance with their brisk young teacher. A bell rang, Flossy fired a concluding question at the sleepiest and stupidest, extracted an entirely wrong answer, and, but slightly disconcerted – for was not she used to it? – ran off to her room, arranged her dress, stuck a great red rose in her hair, and came down to tea.
Miss Florence was much admired by her pupils, and had a sort of half-sympathetic, half-genial pleasure in their admiration. Besides, her rose was as a flag to celebrate the festal occurrence of the afternoon. “I always like to wear pretty things when I feel jolly,” she would say; “and if ever you see me going about in a drab dress and a brown veil you may be quite sure I’ve had a disappointment!”
“Then,” said Clarissa, “if you buy that very pink silk I shall think you have had an offer.”
“Oh, no; think I don’t want one.”
Flossy crushed her rose under a big straw hat, when she was set free after tea, and took her way merrily along the fields to Redhurst. The way was very pretty, and the evening lights very charming; but Flossy scurried along, much too full of human nature to care for any other. She had been half playfellow and half teacher to Mysie for years, and had grown up in familiar intercourse with all the household, and was on terms with Arthur of mutual lecturing and teasing.
Redhurst was a square, red house, with white facings; and stood in the midst of pretty, park-like meadows, through which ran the shallow, sedge-grown river, which, nearer Oxley, merged in the sleepy canal. The garden came down to the river’s brim, and great white fierce swans and little furry black ducks swam up and down under the willows. The field-path led to an old white stone bridge, looking like a small model of one of those over the Thames, and across it Flossy came into the garden which led up to a terrace and steps in front of the house. So far the garden was rather stiff and old-fashioned, but croquet hoops profaned the soft turf, garden chairs and