Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
"Those that Fortune makes fair she scarce makes honest; and those she makes honest she makes very ill-favourably."
We are at a children's party, Dolly and I. Jack was asked, but is too proud to come. It is five o'clock, and the sun, who has been standing over us all the afternoon, frizzling our brains, and making himself obnoxious, as he only knows how to do in the middle of July, is kindly sinking somewhat in the west. We have, with the usual insanity and waste of very young people, been playing at all manner of energetic games, and are now engaged in the comparatively mild recreation of "Kiss-in-the-ring." Kissing is not reprehensible until one is grown up, I suppose; at any rate, these little girls take their boisterous forfeits quite placidly, occasionally return them even with an artless generosity that is not half appreciated by the stolid recipients of the same.
I am not a little girl, but a big one, and there is no boy present old enough or tall enough to kiss me unless I chose. Besides, no one has caught me yet: I can beat them all. I always was good at running; that and jumping being the two doubtful accomplishments Jack has taught me to perfection.
I am laughing heartily at the dismal fate my last pursuer has just met, his white duck trousers being in fact one green smudge, from an involuntary acquaintance he has made with mother earth, when Mrs. Floyd, our hostess, comes across the garden, and by her side is that yellow-haired laddie, young Tempest. Hardly a laddie though, for he must be twenty if he is a day, and has the square, broad-shouldered figure of a man.
A not particularly clean piece of cambric dropped at my heels, and a vision of a nimble youth of tender years scurrying away in the distance, sets me off in fleet pursuit. He has a good start, so I do not catch him, but walk slowly round until I come to Teddy Minto, who is the spryest on his legs of the assembled company, next to me. He is after me like a shot; but though I take him twice round the ring, his fingers do not once touch my gown, and I dive in between Dolly and Lily Floyd, victorious. All at once young Tempest joins the ring; and presently, on receiving a dropped token from Lily, rushes after, catches, and kisses her, to her huge delight, for is he not the biggest person present? I wish Jack was here! He would not care about it though, he would think it beneath him, while I—it only shows what an insignificant creature I am—love it. I am enjoying myself down to the ground.
"Look, Nell!" cries Dolly, unloosing my hand; and turning my head, I see behind me the symbol that invites me to pursuit. Off I set with a will, but I do not come up with the hare, who is young Tempest; on the contrary, his long legs bear him away with a fleetness that moves me to grudging envy.
"I wonder," say to myself, as I walk round, swinging the pocket-handkerchief, "whether he could catch me? We will see." Gingerly I drop it behind him, swiftly I fly along; but I am not a dozen yards away when he is up with me, and I am caught, without his ever having given me a chance.
"Now for the forfeit," he says, as he lifts me from the ground and stoops his head to mine. I meet his saucy, bent face with a vigorous slap that turns it scarlet; but he never moves or blushes, only looks at me with frank, amused blue eyes, before which my sudden anger melts like snow before the sun.
"Put me down," I say, and he puts me down. "I hope I—I didn't hurt much?"—(looking up at him rather anxiously). "I did not mean to do it quite so hard, only you should not be rude, you know."
"Lily did not mind," he says, looking down on me with a queer smile.
"But Lily is not grown up," I say with dignity. "Lily is only ten."
"And you?"
"I am a great age," I say, nodding, "but I shall not tell you how much."
"Are you not tired?" he asks. "Would you not like to sit down?" I look round; the ring is broken up; the boys and girls are strolling about; Mrs. Floyd has vanished.
"I don't mind," I say; "but we are going in to tea soon." We sit down under the beech tree and look at each other. "I know who you are," I say, smiling. "You are young Mr. Tempest."
"And you are little Miss Adair," he says.
"How did you know that?"
"My father knows your father; besides, I sit opposite you in church."
"Do you?" I ask with some dismay. Can he have marked any of Jack's and my ungodly tricks during sermon time? For at St. Swithin's we sit behind papa, not beside him.
"Is that your eldest brother who sits beside you?"
"Yes," I say proudly, "that is Jack. There is nobody like him!"
"Is he here?" asks the young man, looking round.
"No, he would not come. You see he is fifteen, and he likes boys. He used to be satisfied with me, but now . . . ." A tear trickles down my nose, and I turn my head away. It is a very, very sore subject with me. "It is all such a mistake," I say, rubbing my nose and eyes hard, "that I was not a boy, you know. He and I would have been together always, whereas now——— It is very hard!"
"Very," says the young man, and indeed he seems to understand. "Who is that pretty little girl yonder? She looks like a crumpled pink rose."
"Does she not?" I ask eagerly; "that is Dolly, my sister."
"You are not a bit alike!"
"I know we are not," I say, looking at her with pride; "my sisters are all pretty, every one; I am the only unpresentable one out of the whole lot. Now, if you were to see Alice—"
"I have seen her," he says, "she is quite lovely. But you are every bit as good as Dolly, or—nicer."
"Oh, no!" I say, laughing; "you need not bother about saying anything like that to me, please; I am quite used to being plain. Nurse comforts me by saying that the ugliest children sometimes grow into the best-looking folk, but I know better."
"George," says Mrs. Floyd, bearing down upon us with all sails spread, "you promised to help me give the children their tea; are you coming?"
So we go in and eat cake and drink coffee, and by-and-by, having washed our hot faces and hands, and smoothed our tumbled locks, we assemble in a large room, forty souls odd, for the purpose of dancing. The Floyds' governess sits down to the piano; but alas! whether it is the painful consciousness of their extreme neatness, or whether they are really unequal to the duties of "footing" a polka, all the little boys present hang together in groups, and look askance at the rows of shiny-cheeked, smooth-headed dansels, who are waiting to be fetched out.
This uncomfortable state of things having lasted for some time the female wit (as is usual when things are at a dead lock) comes to the rescue, and Madge Weston, a black-browed miss of twelve, rises from her seat and walks across the room to the halting army. "I shall dance with you, Clem," she says decidedly; and, taking the biggest boy by the arm, she leads him away. The spell once broken, each little girl walks boldly up to the boy that is goodliest in her eyes, and bears him off triumphantly, though some of them utter feeble protests, and show a tendency to hang back. And now they are off, giggling, ambling, floundering, and young George Tempest, entering hurriedly, looks about the room, and then comes up to me.
"I can't dance," I say confidentially, as he sits down beside me; "it is like a donkey gambolling in a drawing-room. Can you?"
Pretty well; but I should have thought you knew how; you are quite the nimblest runner I ever saw."
"One does not want to be nimble in dancing," I say gravely, "or it must be reduced to a method to answer. Jack says my head always hits the ceiling when I try to waltz."
"Miss Dolly seems to be labouring under difficulties," says my companion, glancing toward my little sister, who is ambitiously trying to reach the shoulder of the very tall lanky boy she has selected as partner; "he has lost her altogether two or three times. Supposing you and I see what we can do?"
"It would be worse than Dolly," I say, laughing. "No, no! let us sit still and look on. I want to ask you something, if you don't mind. Is Mr. Tempest your real father?"
"Yes. Why?"
"You are not a bit like him," I say, considering his comely features and the fresh bright look that, let folks say what they will about the expression that comes with years, etc., is goodly and pleasant in a young man's or a maiden's face. "He looks so dried up; so, so brown. Do you know, it is very rude, but Jack and I always call him the Mummy!"
Young George Tempest laughs, and reassures me as to a doubt that has just crossed my mind, as to whether that was a suitable remark to make to a young man about his father.
"Don't you think that on the whole papas are a great mistake, and that we should get on much better without them?"
"I don't know," says the young man, smiling, "but you surely would never say that of mothers?"
"Never!" I answer energetically; "but tell me, what does your father do? Does he expect you to talk? Does he insist on your going out walking with him, all the lot of you, except your mother?"
"I have no mother," he says soberly, "and no brothers or sisters. No, he does not make me walk unless I please; but I am his walking-stick, his pourer-out of medicine, his lacquey (rather bitterly), who wanders all over the world with him, learning no good."
"Learning no good!" I repeat. (I was always rather like a monkey, and fond of echoing other folks' words.) "Have you not a profession? Do you not do anything? You are old enough!"
"Ay!" he says, and a sudden shadow falls upon his blonde, bright face. "I was to have gone into the army, and even had my commission in the Guards, but at the last moment my father refused to let me join. He said I was his only son, that he could not live many years, and so (with a short, impatient sigh) I am knocking about with nothing on earth to do. If only Providence had sent me one or two of your brothers!"
"I have six," I say proudly; "there are five running after Dolly, but I could not spare one of them to you."
"I suppose not," he says, with a smile. "Do you ever smack their heads as you did my cheek this afternoon?"
"Sometimes! only to tell you the truth, they are getting rather beyond me. Were you angry when I slapped you this afternoon?"
"Very! I hope you will never do it again."
"But then you must never do it again."
"But I did not."
"If you were me," I say seriously, "you would be sick of the very name of kissing; we have such oceans of it at home!"
"Ah! I suppose so. Your father must be very fond of you all?"
"Very!" I say with a wry face, "but it is not he who is lavish in that respect" (I giggle inwardly at the notion of his going about the house kissing us promiscuously), "it is my sister; she is engaged, you know."
"To Lovelace? So I have heard."
"I am gooseberry, you see," I continue, "and I do get so tired of it all. Do you think our fathers and mothers ever required gooseberries?"
"I don't know," he says, laughing, "but I suppose they did pretty much the same as their children do?"
The polka is over, and very hard work the dancers have apparently found it, for they are all, boys and girls alike, crimson.
By-and-by we dance a quadrille, young Mr. Tempest and I, and he guides me through the mazes of that mysterious dance with much discretion. I wonder why the sight of two people chasséing to each other always reminds me of two amiable ponies, who curvet about face to face with each other, preparatory to turning round and letting out their heels in good honest kicks? We do not kick up our heels though; and when the dance is over go to supper, where we eat chicken and tipsy cake with the hearty and unjaded appetite of youth, and then, for it is past ten o'clock, we all say, "Good-night, and thank you,” and go away to put on our cloaks and hats.
Balaam's Ass is waiting for Dolly and me, and George Tempest takes my little red cloak from her hands, and ties the ribbons under my chin.
"Good-bye, little Red Riding Hood," he says, "and shall I ever see you again?"
"I shall be sure to run up against you sooner or latter," I say, nodding; "St. Swithins is so very little: besides, do you not live at Silverbridge, and are you not going back to live there some day?"