'Miss Gillian, you've clavered as long as is good for Miss White, and here are the whole clanjamfrie waiting in the road for you. Now be douce, my bairn, and mind you are not in the woods at home, and don't let the laddies play their tricks with Miss Primrose.'
'I must go,' said Gillian, hastily kissing Kalliope. 'The others were going to call for me. When Lady Phyllis was riding with her father she spied a wonderful field of daffodils and a valley full of moss at a place called Clipston, two miles off, and we are all going to get some for the decorations. I'll send you some. Good-bye.'
The clanjamfrie, as Mrs. Halfpenny called it, mustered strong, and Gillian's heart leapt at the resumption of the tumultuous family life, as she beheld the collection of girls, boys, dogs, and donkeys awaiting her in the approach; and, in spite of the two governesses' presence, her mind misgave her as to the likelihood of regard to the hint that her mother had given that she hoped the elder ones would try to be sober in their ways, and not quite forget what week it was. It was in their favour that Jasper, now in his last term at school, was much more of a man and less of a boy than hitherto, and was likely to be on the side of discretion, so that he might keep in order that always difficult element, Wilfred, whose two years of preparatory school as yet made him only more ingenious in the arts of teasing, and more determined to show his superiority to petticoat government. He had driven Fergus nearly distracted by threatening to use all his mineralogical specimens to make ducks and drakes, and actually confusing them together, so that Fergus repented of having exhibited them, and rejoiced that Aunt Jane had let them continue in her lumber-room till they could find a permanent home.
Wilfred had a shot for Mrs. Halfpenny, when she came down with Gillian and looked for Primrose to secure that there were no interstices between the silk handkerchief and fur collar.
'Ha, ha, old Small Change, don't you wish you may get it?'-as Primrose proved to be outside the drive on one of the donkeys. 'You've got nothing to do but gnaw your fists at us like old Giant Pope.'
'For shame, Wilfred!' said Jasper. 'My mother did Primrose's throat, nurse, so she is all right.'
'Bad form,' observed Lord Ivinghoe, shaking his head.
'I'm not going to Eton,' replied Wilfred audaciously.
'I should hope not!'-in a tone of ineffable contempt, not for Wilfred's person, but his manners, and therewith his Lordship exclaimed, 'Who's that?' as Maura came flying down with Gillian's forgotten basket.
'Oh, that's Maura White!' said Valetta.
'I say, isn't she going with us?'
'Oh no, she has to look after her sister!'
'Don't you think we might take her, Gill?' said Fly. 'She never gets any fun.'
'I don't think she ought to leave Kalliope to-day, Fly, for nurse is going down to Il Lido; and besides, Aunt Jane said we must not take
'No, they would not let us ask Kitty and Clement Varley, said Fergus disconsolately.
'I am sure she is five times as pretty as your Kitty!' returned Ivinghoe. 'She is a regular stunner.' Whereby it may be perceived that a year at Eton had considerably modified his Lordship's correctness of speech, if not of demeanour. Be it further observed that, in spite of the escort of the governesses, the young people were as free as if those ladies had been absent, for, as Jasper observed, the donkeys neutralised them. Miss Elbury, being a bad walker, rode one, and Miss Vincent felt bound to keep close to Primrose upon the other; and as neither animal could be prevailed on to moderate its pace, they kept far ahead of all except Valetta, who was mounted on the pony intended for Lady Phyllis, but disdained by her until she should be tired. Lord Ivinghoe's admiration of Maura was received contemptuously by Wilfred, who was half a year younger than his cousin, and being already, in his own estimation, a Wykehamist, had endless rivalries with him.
'She! She's nothing but a cad! Her sister is a shop-girl, and her brother is a quarryman.'
'She does not look like it,' observed Ivinghoe, while Mysie and Fly, with one voice, exclaimed that her father was an officer in the Royal Wardours.
'A private first,' said Wilfred, with boyhood's reiteration. 'Cads and quarrymen all of them-the whole boiling, old White and all, though he has got such a stuck-up house!'
'Nonsense, Will,' said Fly. 'Why, Mr. White has dined with us.'
'A patent of nobility, said Jasper, smiling.
'I don't care,' said Wilfred; 'if other people choose to chum with old stonemasons and convicts, I don't.'
'Wilfred, that is too bad,' said Gillian. 'It is very wrong to talk in that way.'
'Oh!' said the audacious Wilfred, 'we all know who is Gill's Jack!'
'Shut up, Will!' cried Fergus, flying at him. 'I told you not to-'
But Wilfred bounded up a steep bank, and from that place of vantage went on-
'Didn't she teach him Greek, and wasn't he spoony; and didn't she send back his valentine, so that-'
Fergus was scrambling up the bank after him, enraged at the betrayal of his confidence, and shouting inarticulately, while poor Gillian moved on, overwhelmed with confusion, and Fly uttered the cutting words, 'Perfectly disgusting!'
'Ay, so it was!' cried the unabashed Wilfred, keeping on at the top of the bank, and shaking the bushes at every pause. 'So he broke down the rocks, and ran away with the tin, and enlisted, and went to prison. Such a sweet young man for Gill!'
Poor Gillian! was her punishment never to end? That scrape of hers, hitherto so tenderly and delicately hinted at, and which she would have given worlds to have kept from her brothers, now shouted all over the country! Sympathy, however, she had, if that would do her any good. Mysie and Fly came on each side of Ivinghoe, assuring him, in low eager voices, of the utter nonsense of the charge, and explaining ardently; and Jasper, with one bound, laid hold of the tormentor, dragged him down, and, holding his stick over him, said-
'Now, Wilfred, if you don't hold your tongue, and not behave like a brute, I shall send you straight home.'
'It's quite true,' growled Wilfred. 'Ask her.'
'What does that signify? I'm ashamed of you! I've a great mind to thrash you this instant. If you speak another word of that sort, I shall. Now then, there are the governesses trying to stop to see what's the row. I shall give you up to Miss Vincent, if you choose to behave so like a spiteful girl.'
A sixth-form youth was far too great a man to be withstood by one who was not yet a public schoolboy at all; and Wilfred actually obeyed, while Jasper added to Fergus-
'How could you be such a little ass as to go and tell him all that rot?'
'It was true,' grumbled Fergus.
'The more reason not to go cackling about it like an old hen, or a girl! Your own sister! I'm ashamed of you both. Mind, I shall thrash you if you mention it again.'
Poor Fergus felt the accusation of cackling unjust, since he had only told Wilfred in confidence, and that had been betrayed, but he had got his lesson on family honour, and he subsided into his wonted look-out for curious stones, while Gillian was overtaken by Jasper- whether willingly or not, she hardly knew-but his first word was, 'Little beast!'
'You didn't hurt him, I hope,' said Gill, accepting the invitation to take his arm.
'Oh no! I only threatened to make him walk with the governesses and the donkeys.'
'Asses and savants to the centre,' said Gillian; 'like the orders to the French army in Egypt.'
'But what's all this about? You wanted me to look after you! Is it that Alexis?'
'Oh, Japs! Mamma knows all about it and papa. It was only that he was ridiculous because I was so silly as to think I could help him with his Greek.'
'You! With his Greek! I pity him!'
'Yes. I found he soon knew too much for me,' said Gillian meekly; 'but, indeed, Japs, it wasn't very bad! He only sent me a valentine, and Aunt Jane says I need not have been so angry.'
'A cat may look at a king,' said Jasper loftily. 'It is a horrid bad thing for a girl to be left to herself without a brother worth having.'
So Gillian got off pretty easily, and after all the walk was not greatly spoilt. They coalesced again with the other three, who were tolerably discreet, and found the debate on the White gentility had been resumed. Ivinghoe was philosophically declaring 'that in these days one must take up with everybody, so it did not matter if one was a little more of a cad than another; he himself was fag at Eton to a fellow whose father was an oilman, and who wasn't half a bad lot.'
'An oilman, Ivy,' said his sister; 'I thought he imported petroleum.'
'Well, it's all the same. I believe he began as an oilman.'
