Beechcroft at Rockstone Part 43

'So they ought,' said Lord Rotherwood, and there it ended, chatter in the train not being considered desirable.

Gillian longed to show Mysie and Geraldine Grinstead to each other, and the first rub with her hostess occurred when the next morning she proposed to take a cab and go to Brompton.

'Is not your first visit due to your grandmother?' said Lady Rotherwood.

'You might walk there, and I will send some one to show you the way.'

'We must not go there till after luncheon,' said Gillian. 'She is not ready to see any one, and Bessie Merrifield cannot be spared; but I know Mrs. Grinstead will like to see us, and I do so want Mysie to see the studio.'

'My dear' (it was not a favourable my dear), 'I had rather you did not visit any one I do not know while you are under my charge.'

'She is Phyllis's husband's sister,' pleaded Gillian.

Lady Rotherwood made a little bend of acquiescence, but said no more, and departed, while Gillian inly raged. A few months ago she would have acted on her own responsibility (if Mysie would not have been too much shocked), but she had learnt the wisdom of submission in fact, if not in word, for she growled about great ladies and exclusiveness, so that Mysie looked mystified.

It was certainly rather dull in the only half-revivified London house, and Belgrave Square in Lent did not present a lively scene from the windows. The Liddesdales had a house there, but they were not to come up till the season began; and Gillian was turning with a sigh to ask if there might not be some books in Fly's schoolroom, when Mysie caught the sound of a bell, and ventured on an expedition to find her ladyship and ask leave to go to church.

There, to their unexpected delight, they beheld not only Bessie, but a clerical-looking back, which, after some watching, they so identified that they looked at one another with responsive eyes, and Gillian doubted whether this were recompense for submission, or reproof for discontent.

Very joyful was the meeting on the steps of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and an exchange of 'Oh! how did you come here? Where are you?'

Harry had come up the day before, and was to go and meet the travellers at Southampton with his uncle, Admiral Merrifield, who had brought his eldest daughter Susan to relieve her sister or a.s.sist her. Great was the joy and eager the talk, as first Bessie was escorted by the whole party back to grandmamma's house, and then Harry accompanied his sisters to Belgrave Square, where he was kept to luncheon, and Lady Rotherwood was as glad to resign his sisters to his charge as he could be to receive them.

He had numerous commissions to execute for his vicar, and Gillian had to a.s.sist the masculine brains in the department of Church needlework, actually venturing to undertake some herself, trusting to the tuition of Aunt Ada, a proficient in the same; while Mysie reverently begged at least to hem the borders.

Then they revelled in the little paradises of books and pictures in Northumberland Avenue and Westminster Sanctuary, and went to Evensong at the Abbey, Mysie's first sight thereof, and nearly the like to Gillian, since she only remembered before a longing not to waste time in a dull place instead of being in the delightful streets.

'It is a thing never to forget,' she said under her breath, as they lingered in the nave.

'I never guessed anything could make one feel so,' added Mysie, with a little sigh of rapture.

'That strange unexpected sense of delight always seems to me to explain, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive,"' said Harry.

Mysie whispered--

'Beneath thy contemplation Sink heart and voice opprest!'

'Oh, Harry, can't we stay and see Henry VII.'s Chapel, and Poets'

Corner, and Edward I.'s monument?' pleaded the sister.

'I am afraid we must not, Gill. I have to see after some vases, and to get a lot of things at the Stores, and it will soon be dark. If I don't go to Southampton to-morrow, I will take you then. Now then, feet or cab?'

'Oh, let us walk! It is ten times the fun.'

'Then mind you don't jerk me back at the crossings.'

There are few pleasures greater of their kind than that of the youthful country cousin under the safe escort of a brother or father in London streets. The sisters looked in at windows, wondered and enjoyed, till they had to own their feet worn out, and submit to a four-wheeler.

'An hour of London is more than a month of Rockquay, or a year of Silverfold,' cried Gillian.

'Dear old Silverfold,' said Mysie; 'when shall we go back?'

'By the bye,' said Harry, 'how about the great things that were to be done for mother?'

'Primrose is all right,' said Mysie. 'The dear little thing has written a nice copybook, and hemmed a whole set of handkerchiefs for papa. She is so happy with them.'

'And you, little Mouse?'

'I have done my translation--not quite well, I am afraid, and made the little girl's clothes. I wonder if I may go and take them to her.'

'And Val has finished her crewel cushion, thanks to the aunts,' said Gillian.

'Fergus's machine, how about that? Perpetual motion, wasn't it?'

'That has turned into mineralogy, worse luck,' said Gillian.

'Gill has done a beautiful sketch of Rockquay,' added Mysie.

'Oh! don't talk of me,' said Gillian. 'I have only made a most unmitigated mess of everything.'

But here attention was diverted by Harry's exclaiming--

'Hullo! was that Henderson?'

'Nonsense; the Wardours are at Cork.'

'He may be on leave.'

'Or retired. He is capable of it.'

'I believe it was old Fangs.'

The discussion lasted to Belgrave Square.

And then Sunday was spent upon memorable churches and services under the charge of Harry, who was making the most of his holiday. The trio went to Evensong at St. Wulstan's, and a grand idea occurred to Gillian--could not Theodore White become one of those young choristers, who had their home in the Clergy House.

CHAPTER XVIII. -- FATHER AND MOTHER

The telegram came early on Monday morning. Admiral Merrifield and Harry started by the earliest train, deciding not to take the girls; whereupon their kind host, to mitigate the suspense, placed himself at the young ladies' disposal for anything in the world that they might wish to see.

It was too good an opportunity of seeing the Houses of Parliament to be lost, and the spell of Westminster Abbey was upon Mysie.

Cousin Rotherwood was a perfect escort, and declared that he had not gone through such a course of English history since he had taken his cousin Lilias and his sister Florence the same round more years ago than it was civil to recollect. He gave a sigh to the great men he had then let them see and hear, and regretted the less that there was no possibility of regaling the present pair with a debate. It was all like a dream to the two girls. They saw, but suspense was throbbing in their hearts all the time, and qualms were crossing Gillian as she recollected that in some aspects her father could be rather a terrible personage when one was wilfully careless, saucy to authorities, or unable to see or confess wrong-doing; and the element of dread began to predominate in her state of expectation. The bird in the bosom fluttered very hard as the possible periods after the arrivals of trains came round; and it was not till nearly eight o'clock that the decisive halt of wheels was heard, and in a few moments Mysie was in the dearest arms in the world, and Gillian feeling the moustached kiss she had not known for nearly four long years, and which was half-strange, half-familiar.