One Maid's Mischief. George Manville Fenn
Dr. Bolter—I assure you—I am shocked—I hardly know—the young ladies have been kept in—I only discovered—”
“Hum!” ejaculated the doctor, frowning. “I am rather surprised. Let me see,” he continued. “I suppose that fair-haired girl stooping over the flower-bed yonder is Miss Perowne, eh?”
“My sight is failing,” stammered Miss Twettenham, who was terribly agitated at the untoward incident; “but your description answers to Miss Stuart.”
“And that’s Miss Stuart is it? Hum! Too far off to see what she is like. Then I suppose that tall dark girl on the seat is Miss Perowne?”
“Tall and dark—yes,” said Miss Twettenham, in an agitated way. “Is she sitting down? You said tall?”
“Hum! no,” said the doctor, balancing his glasses; “she is standing right on the top of the back of a seat, and seems to be looking over the garden wall.”
“Oh!”
“Bless my heart! Hum! Sham or real?” muttered the doctor.
Real enough, for the agitation had been too much for the poor old lady, so proud of the reputation of her school. A note over the garden wall—a young lady looking over into the lane, perhaps in conversation with a man, and just when a stranger had arrived to act as escort for two finished pupils. It was too much.
For the first time for many years Miss Twettenham had fainted away.
Volume One—Chapter Five.
A Very Nice Little Woman.
“Fainted dead away, Arthur; fainted dead away, Miss Rosebury; and until I shouted aloud there was my fair pussy peeping out of paradise over the wall to see if a young Adam was coming. Ha! ha! ha!”
“I am very much surprised, Dr. Bolter,” said Miss Rosebury, severely; “I always thought the Miss Twettenham’s was a most strictly-conducted establishment?”
“So it is, my dear madam—so it is; but they’ve got one little black ewe lamb in the flock, and the old ladies told me that if my young lady had not been about to leave they’d have sent her away.”
“And very properly,” said Miss Rosebury, tightening her lips and slightly agitating her curls.
“And did the lady soon come to, Harry?” said the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, for he seemed to be much interested in his friend’s discourse over the dessert.
“Oh, yes, very soon. When I shouted, the dark nymph hopped off the garden-seat, and the fair one came running from the flowers, and we soon brought her to. Then I had a good look at the girls.”
Miss Rosebury’s rather pleasantly-shaped mouth was fast beginning to assume the form of a thin red line, so tightly were her lips compressed.
“By George, sir! what a girl! A graceful Juno, sir; the handsomest woman I ever saw. I was staggered. Bless my soul, Miss Rosebury, here’s Perowne and here’s Stuart; they say to me, ‘You may as well take charge of my girl and see her safe back here,’ and being a good-natured sort of fellow—”
“As you always were, Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur, beaming mildly upon his friend, while Miss Rosebury’s lips relaxed a little.
“All rubbish! Stuff, man! Well, I said yes, of course, and I imagined a couple of strips of schoolgirls that I could chat to, and tell them about the sea, and tie on their pinafores before breakfast and dinner, and give them a dose of medicine once a week; while here I am dropped in for being guardian to a couple of beautiful women—girls who will set our jungles on fire with their eyes, sir. By George, it’s a startler, sir, and no mistake.”
“Dr. Bolter seems to be an admirer of female beauty,” said Miss Rosebury, rather drily.
“Not a bit of it, madam. By George, no! Ladies? Why, they have always seemed to be studies to me—objects of natural history. Very beautiful from their construction, and I shouldn’t have noticed these two only that, by George! I’ve got to take charge of them—deliver them safe and sound to their papas—with care—this side up; and the first thing I find is that they’ve got eyes that will drive our young fellows wild, and one of them—the peep out of paradise one—knows it too. Nice job for a quiet old bachelor, eh?”
“You don’t tell us anything about yourself, Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur; and Miss Rosebury seemed a little more at her ease.
“Nothing to tell you, my boy. Claret? Yes, thanks. Have you such a thing as a lemon, Miss Rosebury?”
Miss Rosebury had, and as she rang she smiled with satisfaction at being able to supply the wants of the bright little man who had been so true a friend to her brother in the days gone by.
“Thank you, Miss Rosebury. Tumbler—water. Thanks. The lemon is, I think, the king of fruits, and invaluable to man. Deliciously acid, a marvellous quencher of thirst, a corrective, highly aromatic, a perfect boon. I would leave all the finest wines in the world for a lemon.”
“Then you believe all intoxicating drinks to be bad, doctor?” said Miss Rosebury, eagerly.
“Except whiskey, my dear madam,” said the doctor, with a twinkle of the eye.
“Ah!” said Miss Rosebury, and the eager smile upon her lips faded; but as she saw the zest with which the doctor rolled the lemon soft, and after cutting it in half, squeezed the juice and pulp into his glass, she relaxed a little, and directly afterwards began to beam, as the doctor suddenly exclaimed:
“There, madam, smell my hands! There’s scent! Talk of eau-de-cologne, and millefleurs, and jockey club! Nothing to it! But come, Arthur, you don’t tell me about yourself.”
“About myself,” said the Reverend Arthur, smiling blandly; “I have nothing to tell. You have seen my village; you have looked at my church; you have been through my garden; and you have had a rummage in my study. There is my life.”
“A blessed one—a happy one, my dear Arthur. A perfect little home, presided over by a lady whose presence shows itself at every turn. Miss Rosebury,” said the doctor, rising, “when I think of my own vagabond life, journeying here and there with my regiment through heat and cold, in civilisation and out, and after many wanderings, come back to this peaceful spot, this little haven of rest, I see what a happy man my old friend must be, and I envy him with all my heart.”
He reseated himself, and Miss Rosebury’s lips ceased to be compressed into a tight line; and as she smiled and nodded pleasantly, she glanced across at her brother, to see if he would speak, before replying that, pleasant as their home was, they had their troubles in the parish.
“And I have no end of trouble with Arthur,” she continued. “He is so terribly forgetful!”
“He always was, my dear madam,” said the little doctor. “If you wanted him to keep an appointment in the old college days you had to write it down upon eight pieces of paper, and place one in each of his pockets, and pin the eighth in his hat. Then you might, perhaps, see him at the appointed time.”
“Oh, no, no, Harry! too bad—too bad!” murmured the Reverend Arthur, smiling and shaking his head.
“Well, really, Arthur,” said his sister, “I don’t think there is much exaggeration in what Dr. Bolter says.”
“I am very sorry,” said the Reverend Arthur, meekly. “I suppose I am far from perfect.”
“My dear old boy, you are perfect enough. You are just right; and though your dear sister here gives you a good scolding sometimes, I’ll be bound to say she thinks you are the finest brother under the sun!”