Heartsease; Or, The Brother's Wife Part 49

She sat down on a tombstone, and placed the child before her. After an hour's walk, there was a general exclamation of amus.e.m.e.nt and compa.s.sion, on seeing Theodora and the child still in the same positions.

'She will never say it at all now, poor child,' said Violet; 'she can't--she must be stupefied.'

'Then we had better send down the tent to cover Theodora for the night,'

said Arthur.

'As if Theodora looking at her in that manner was not enough to drive off all recollection!' said John.

'It is too much!' said Lord Martindale. 'Arthur, go, and tell her it is high time to go home, and she must let the poor child off.'

Arthur shrugged his shoulders, saying, 'You go, John.'

'Don't you think it might do harm to interfere?' said John to his father.

'Interfere by no means,' said Arthur. 'It is capital sport. Theodora against dirty child! Which will you back, Percy? Hollo! where is he? He is in the thick of it. Come on, Violet, let us be in for the fun.'

'Patience in seven flounces on a monument!' observed Mr. Fotheringham, in an undertone to Theodora, who started, and would have been angry, but for his merry smile. He then turned to the child, whose face was indeed stupefied with sullenness, as if in the resistance she had forgotten the original cause. 'What! you have not said it all this time? What's your name? I know you are a Benson, but how do they call you?' said he, speaking with a touch of the dialect of the village, just enough to show he was a native.

'Ellen,' said the girl.

'Ellen! that was your aunt's name. You are so like her. I don't think you can be such a very stupid child, after all. Are you? Suppose you try again. What is it Miss Martindale wants you to say?'

The child made no answer, and Theodora said, 'The Little Busy Bee.'

'Oh! that's it. Not able to say the Busy Bee? That's a sad story. D'ye think now I could say it, Ellen?'

'No!' with an astonished look, and a stolid countrified tone.

'So you don't think I'm clever enough! Well, suppose I try, and you set me right if I make mistakes. "How doth the great idle wasp--"'

'Busy bee!' cried the child, scandalized.

By wonderful blunders, and ingenious halts, he drew her into prompting him throughout, then exclaimed, 'There! you know it much better. I thought you were a clever little girl! Come, won't you say it once, and let me hear how well it sounds?'

She was actually flattered into repeating it perfectly.

'Very well. That's right. Now, don't you think you had better tell Miss Martindale you are sorry to have kept her all this time?'

She hung her head, and Theodora tried to give him a hint that the apology was by no means desired; but without regarding this, he continued, 'Do you know I am come from Turkey, and there are plenty of ladies there, who go out to walk with a sack over their heads, but I never saw one of them sit on a tombstone to hear a little girl say the Busy Bee. Should you like to live there?'

'No.'

'Do you suppose Miss Martindale liked to sit among the nettles on old Farmer Middleton's tombstone?'

'No.'

'Why did she do it then? Was it to plague you?'

'Cause I wouldn't say my hymn.'

'I wonder if it is not you that have been plaguing Miss Martindale all the time. Eh? Come, aren't you sorry you kept her sitting all this time among the nettles when she might have been walking to Colman's Weir, and gathering such fine codlings and cream as Mrs. Martindale has there, and all because you would not say a hymn that you knew quite well? Wasn't that a pity?'

'Yes,' and the eyes looked up ingenuously.

'Come and tell her you are sorry. Won't you? There, that's right,' and he dictated as she repeated after him, as if under a spell, 'I'm sorry, ma'am, that I was sulky and naughty; I'll say it next Sunday, and make no fuss.'

'There, that will do. I knew you would be good at last,' said Percy, patting her shoulder, while Theodora signified her pardon, and they turned homewards, but had made only a few steps before the gallop of clumsy shoes followed, and there stood Ellen, awkwardly presenting a bunch of the willow herb. Theodora gave well-pleased thanks, and told her she should take them as a sign she was really sorry and meant to do better.

'And as a trophy of the force of Percy's pathetic picture of Miss Martindale's seven flounces among the nettles on Farmer Middleton's tombstone,' said Arthur.

'You certainly are very much obliged to him,' said her father.

'And most ungratefully she won't confess it,' said Arthur.

'I despise coaxing,' said Theodora.

'The question is, what you would have done without it,' said John.

'As if I could not subdue a little sprite like that!'

'You certainly might if it was a question of physical force,' said Percy, as he seemed to be measuring with his eye the strength of Theodora's tall vigorous person.

'I spoke of moral force.'

'There the sprite had decidedly the advantage. You could "gar her greet," but you could not "gar her know." She had only to hold out; and when Miss Martindale found it time to go home to dinner, and began to grow ashamed of her position, the victory was hers.'

'He has you there, Theodora,' said Arthur.

'I don't know what he is driving at,' said Theodora.

'I am trying to find out whether Miss Martindale has the power of confessing that she was in a sc.r.a.pe.'

'That you may triumph,' said Theodora.

'No, not for the sake of triumph, but of old times,' he answered, in a lower, more serious tone.

Theodora's face softened, and drawing nearer, she asked, 'How are old times to be satisfied by such an admission?'

'Because then candour used to boast of conquering pride,' said Percy, now speaking so as to be heard by her alone.

'Well. It was becoming a predicament, and you rescued me very ingeniously. There, will that content you?' said Theodora, with one of the smiles the more winning because so rare. I am perfectly ready to own myself in the wrong when I see it.'

'When you see it,' said Percy, drily.

'I was wrong just now not to confess my obligation, because Arthur teased and triumphed; but I don't see why you all treat me as if I was wrong to set myself to subdue the child's obstinacy.'

'Not wrong, but mistaken,' said Percy. 'You forgot your want of power to enforce obedience. You wanted victory, and treated her with the same determination she was treating you with. It was a battle which had the hardest will and could hold out longest.'