walking out, and the elder ones having learnt that a new week was to be begun steadily with lessons, thought it advisable to bring themselves as little into notice as possible; but fate was sure to pursue them sooner or later, for Rachel had come down resolved on testing their acquirements, and deciding on the method to be pursued with them; and though their mamma, with a curtain instinctive shrinking both for them and for herself, had put off the ordeal to the utmost by listening to all the counsel about her affairs, it was not to be averted.
'Now, Fanny, since it seems that more cannot be done at present, let us see about the children's education. Where are their books?'
'We have very few books,' said Fanny, hesitating; 'we had not much choice where we were.'
'You should have written to me for a selection.'
'Why--so we would, but there was always a talk of sending Conrade and Francis home. I am afraid you will think them very backward, dear Rachel, especially Francie; but it is not their fault, dear children, and they are not used to strangers,' added Fanny, nervously.
'I do not mean to be a stranger,' said Rachel.
And while Fanny, in confusion, made loving protestations about not meaning that, Rachel stepped out upon the lawn, and in her clear voice called 'Conrade, Francis!' No answer. She called 'Conrade' again, and louder, then turned round with 'where can they be--not gone down on the beach?'
'Oh, dear no, I trust not,' said the mother, flurried, and coming to the window with a call that seemed to Rachel's ears like the roar of a sucking dove.
But from behind the bushes forth came the two young gentlemen, their black garments considerably streaked with the green marks of laurel climbing.
'Oh, my dears, what figures you are! Go to Coombe and get yourselves brushed, and wash your hands, and then come down, and bring your lesson books.'
Rachel prognosticated that these preparations would be made the occasion, of much waste of time; but she was answered, and with rather surprised eyes, that they had never been allowed to come into the drawing-room without looking like little gentlemen.
'But you are not living in state here,' said Rachel; 'I never could enter into the cult some people, mamma especially, pay to their drawing-room.'
The Major used to be very particular about their not coming to sit down untidy,' said Fanny. 'He said it was not good for anybody.'
Martinet! thought Rachel, nearly ready to advocate the boys making no toilette at any time; and the present was made to consume so much time that, urged by her, Fanny once more was obliged to summon her boys and their books.
It was not an extensive school library--a Latin grammar an extremely dilapidated spelling-book, and the fourth volume of Mrs. Marcet's 'Little Willie.' The other three--one was unaccounted for, but Cyril had torn up the second, and Francis had thrown the first overboard in a passion. Rachel looked in dismay. 'I don't know what can be done with these!' she said.
'Oh, then we'll have holidays till we have got books, mamma,' said Conrade, putting his hands on the sofa, and imitating a kicking horse.
'It is very necessary to see what kind of books you ought to have,' returned Rachel. 'How far have you gone in this?'
'I say, mamma,' reiterated Conrade, 'we can't do lessons without books.'
'Attend to what your Aunt Rachel says, my dear; she wants to find out what books you should have.'
'Yes, let me examine you.'
Conrade came most inconveniently close to her; she pushed her chair back; he came after her. His mother uttered a remonstrating, 'My dear!' 'I thought she wanted to examine me,' quoth Conrade. 'When Dr. M'Vicar examines a thing, he puts it under a microscope.'
It was said gravely, and whether it were malice or simplicity, Rachel was perfectly unable to divine, but she thought anyway that Fanny had no business to laugh, and explaining the species of examination that she intended, she went to work. In her younger days she had worked much at schools, and was really an able and spirited teacher, liking the occupation; and laying hold of the first book in her way, she requested Conrade to read. He obeyed, but in such a detestable gabble that she looked up appealingly to Fanny, who suggested, 'My dear, you can read better than that.' He read four lines, not badly, but then broke off, 'Mamma, are not we to have ponies? Coombe heard of a pony this morning; it is to be seen at the 'Jolly Mariner,' and he will take us to look at it.'
'The 'Jolly Mariner!' It is a dreadful place, Fanny, you never will let them go there?'
'My dear, the Major will see about your ponies when he comes.'
'We will send the coachman down to inquire,' added Rachel.
'He is only a civilian, and the Major always chooses our horses,' said Conrade.
'And I am to have one too, mamma,' added Francis. 'You know I have been out four times with the staff, and the Major said I could ride as well as Con!'
'Reading is what is wanted now, my dear, go on.'
Five lines more; but Francis and his mother were whispering together, and of course Conrade stopped to listen. Rachel saw there was no hope but in getting him alone, and at his mother's reluctant desire, he followed her to the dining-room; but there he turned dogged and indiifferent, made a sort of feint of doing what he was told, but whether she tried him in arithmetic, Latin, or dictation, he made such ludicrous blunders as to leave her in perplexity whether they arose from ignorance or impertinence. His spelling was phonetic to the highest degree, and though he owned to having done sums, he would not, or did not answer the simplest question in mental arithmetic. 'Five apples and eight apples, come, Conrade, what will they make?'
'A pie.'
That was the hopeful way in which the examination proceeded, and when Rachel attempted to say that his mother would be much displeased, he proceeded to tumble head over heels all round the room, as if he knew better; which performance broke up the seance, with a resolve on her part that when she had the books she would not be so beaten. She tried Francis, but he really did know next to nothing, and whenever he came to a word above five letters long stopped short, and when told to spell it, said, 'Mamma never made him spell;' also muttering something depreciating about civilians.
Rachel was a woman of perseverance. She went to the bookseller's, and obtained a fair amount of books, which she ordered to be sent to Lady Temple's. But when she came down the next morning, the parcel was nowhere to be found. There was a grand interrogation, and at last it turned out to have been safely deposited in an empty dog- kennel in the back yard. It was very hard on Rachel that Fanny giggled like a school-girl, and even though ashamed of herself and her sons, could not find voice to scold them respectably. No wonder, after such encouragement, that Rachel found her mission no sinecure, and felt at the end of her morning's work much as if she had been driving pigs to market, though the repetition was imposing on the boys a sort of sense of fate and obedience, and there was less active resistance, though learning it was not, only letting teaching be thrown at them. All the rest of the day, except those two hours, they ran wild about the house, garden, and beach--the latter place under the inspection of Coombe, whom, since the 'Jolly Mariner' proposal, Rachel did not in the least trust; all the less when she heard that Major Keith, whose soldier-servant he had originally been, thought very highly of him. A call at Myrtlewood was formidable from the bear-garden sounds, and delicate as Lady Temple was considered to be, unable to walk or bear fatigue, she never appeared to be incommoded by the uproar in which she lived, and had even been seen careering about the nursery, or running about the garden, in a way that Grace and Rachel thought would tire a strong woman. As to a tete-a-tete with her, it was never secured by anything short of Rachel's strong will, for the children were always with her, and she went to bed, or at any rate to her own room, when they did, and she was so perfectly able to play and laugh with them that her cousins scarcely thought her sufficiently depressed, and comparing her with what their own mother had been after ten months' widowhood, agreed that after all 'she had been very young, and Sir Stephen very old, and perhaps too much must not be expected of her.'
'The grand passion of her life is yet to come,' said Rachel.
'I hope not,' said Grace.
'You may be certain of that,' said Rachel. 'Feminine women always have it one time or other in their lives; only superior ones are exempt. But I hope I may have influence enough to carry her past it, and prevent her taking any step that might be injurious to the children.'
