Six to Sixteen Part 4

As the little coffin slid over the hatchway into the quiet sea, the sun rose, and a long level beam covered the place where the body had gone down.

Then, with a sudden cry, the mother burst into tears.

CHAPTER V.

A HOME STATION--WHAT MRS. BULLER THOUGHT OF IT--WHAT MAJOR BULLER THOUGHT OF IT.

Riflebury, in the south of England--our next station--was a very lively place. "There was always something going on." "Somebody was always dropping in." "People called and stayed to lunch in a friendly way."

"One was sure of some one at afternoon tea." "What with croquet and archery in the Gardens, meeting friends on the Esplanade, concerts at the Rooms, shopping, and changing one's novels at the circulating library, one really never had a dull hour." So said "everybody;" and one or two people, including Major Buller, added that "One never had an hour to one's self."

"If you had any one occupation, you'd know how maddening it is," he exclaimed, one day, in a fit of desperation.

"Any one occupation!" cried Mrs. Buller, to whom he had spoken. "I'm sure, Edward, I'm always busy. I never have a quiet moment from morning to night, it seems to me. But it is so like you men! You can stick to one thing all along, and your meals come to you as if they dropped out of the skies, and your clothes come ready-made from the tailor's (and very dearly they have to be paid for, too!); and when one is ordering dinner and luncheon, and keeping one's clothes decent, and looking after the children and the servants, and taking your card, and contriving excuses that are not fibs for you to the people you ought to call on, from week's end to week's end--you say one has no occupation."

"Well, well, my dear," said the Major, "I know you have all the trouble of the household, but I meant to say that if you had any pursuit, any study----"

"And as to visitors," continued Aunt Theresa, who always pursued her own train of ideas, irrespective of replies, "I'm sure society's no pleasure to me; I only call on the people you ought to call on, and keep up a few acquaintances for the children's sake. You wouldn't have us without a friend in the world when the girls come out; and really, what with regimental duties in the morning, and insects afterwards, Edward, you are so absorbed, that if it wasn't for a lady friend coming in now and then, I should hardly have a soul to speak to."

The Major was melted in a moment.

"I am afraid I am a very inattentive husband," he said. "You must forgive me, my dear. And this sprained ankle keeping me in makes me cross, too. And I had so reckoned on these days at home to finish my list of Coleoptera, and get some dissecting and mounting done. But to-day, Mrs. Minchin brought her work directly after breakfast, and that empty-headed fellow Elliott dropped in for lunch, and we had callers all the afternoon, and a _coterie_ for tea, and Mrs. St. John (who seems to get through life somehow without the most indefinite notion of how time pa.s.ses) came in just when tea was over, and you had to order a fresh supply when we should have been dressing for dinner, and the dinner was spoilt by waiting till she discovered that she had no idea (whoever did know her have an idea?) how late it was, and that Mr. St. John would be so angry. And now you want me to go in a cab to a concert at the Rooms to meet all these people over again!"

"I'm sure I don't care for Mrs. St. John a bit more than you do," said Mrs. Buller. "And really she does repeat such things sometimes--without ever looking round to see if the girls are in the room. She told me a thing to-day that old Lady Watford had told her."

"My dear, her ladyship's stories are well known. Cremorne's wife hears them from her, and tells them to her husband, and he tells them to the other fellows. I can always hear them if I wish. But I do not care to.

But if you don't like Mrs. St. John, Theresa, what on earth made you ask her to come and sit with you in the morning?"

"Well, my dear, what can I do?" said Mrs. Buller. "She's always saying that everybody is so unsociable, and that she is so dull, she doesn't know what to do with herself, and begging me to take my work and go and sit with her in a morning. How can I go and leave the children and the servants, just at the time of day when everything wants to be set going?

So I thought I'd better ask her to come here instead. It's a great bore, but I can keep an eye over the house, and if any one else drops in I can leave them together. It's not me that she wants, it's something to amuse her.

"You talk about my having nothing to do," Aunt Theresa plaintively continued. "But I'm sure I can hardly sleep at night sometimes for thinking of all I ought to do and haven't done. Mrs. Jerrold, you know, made me promise faithfully when we were coming away to write to her every mail, and I never find time. Every week, as it comes round, I think I will, and can't. I used to think that one good thing about coming home would be the no more writing for the English mail; but the Indian mail is quite as bad. And I'm sure mail-day seems to come round quicker than any other day of the week. I quite dread Fridays. And then your mother and sisters are always saying I never write. And I heard from Mrs. Pryce Smith only this morning, telling me I owed her two letters; and I don't know what to say to her when I do write, for she knows n.o.body _here_, and I know n.o.body _there_. And we've never returned the Ridgeways' call, my dear. And we've never called on the Mercers since we dined there. And Mrs. Kirkshaw is always begging me to drive out and spend the day at the Abbey. I know she is getting offended, I've put her off so often; and Mrs. Minchin says she is very touchy. And Mrs.

Taylor looks quite reproachfully at me because I've not been near the Dorcas meetings for so long. But it's all very well for people who have no children to work at these things. A mother's time is not her own, and charity begins at home. I'm sure I never seem to be at rest, and yet people are never satisfied. Lady Burchett says she's certain I am never at home, for she always misses me when she calls; and Mrs. Graham says I never go out, she's sure, for she never meets me anywhere."

"Isn't all that just what I say?" said Major Buller, laying down his knife and fork. (The discussion took place at dinner.) "It's the tyranny of the idle over the busy; and why, in the name of common sense, should it be yielded to? Why should friends be obliged, at the peril of disparagement of their affection or good manners, to visit each other when they do not want to go--to receive each other when it is not convenient, and to write to each other when there is nothing to say? You women, my dear, I must say, are more foolish in this respect than men.

Men simply won't write long letters to their friends when they've nothing to say, and I don't think their friendships suffer by it. And though there are heaps of idle gossiping fellows, as well as ladies with the same qualities, a man who was busy would never tolerate them to his own inconvenience, much less invite them to persecute him. We are more straightforward with each other, and that is, after all, the firmest foundation for friendship. It is partly a misplaced amiability, a phase of the unselfishness in which you excel us, and partly also, I think, a want of some measuring quality that makes you women exact unreasonable things, make impossible promises, and after blandly undertaking a multiplicity of small matters that would tax the method of a man of business to accomplish punctually, put your whole time at the disposal of every fool who is pleased to waste it."

"It's all very well talking, Edward," said Aunt Theresa. "But what is one to do?"

"Make a stand," said the Major. "When you're busy, and can't conveniently see people, let your servant tell them so in as many words.

The friendship that can't survive that is hardly worth keeping, I think. Eh, my dear?"

But I suppose the stand was to be made further on, for Major Buller took Aunt Theresa to the concert at "the Rooms."

CHAPTER VI.

DRESS AND MANNER--I EXAMINE MYSELF--MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.

When we began our biographies we resolved that neither of us should read the other's till both were finished. This was partly because we thought it would be more satisfactory to be able to go straight through them, partly as a check on a propensity for beginning things and not finishing them, to which we are liable, and partly from the childish habit of "saving up the treat for the last," as we used--in "old times"--to pick the raisins out of the puddings and lay them by for a _bonne bouche_ when we should have done our duty by the more solid portion.

But our resolve has given way. We began by very much wishing to break it, and we have ended by finding excellent reasons for doing so.

We both wish to read the biographies--why should we tease ourselves by sticking obstinately to our first opinion?

No doubt it would be nice to read them "straight through." But we are rather apt to devour books at a pace unfavourable to book-digestion, so perhaps it will be better still to read them by bits, as one reads a thing that "comes out in numbers."

And in short, at this point Eleanor took mine, and has read it, and I have read hers. She lays down mine, saying, "But, my dear, you don't remember all this?"

Which is true. What I have recorded of my first English home is more what I know of it from other sources than what I positively remember.

And yet I have positive memories of my own about it, too.

I have hinted that my poor young mother did not look after me much. Also that the Ayah, who had a mother's love and care for me, paid very little attention to my being tidy in person or dress, except when I was exhibited to "company."

But my mother was dead. Ayah (after a terrible parting) was left behind in India. And from the time that I pa.s.sed into Aunt Theresa's charge, matters were quite changed.

I do remember the dresses I had then, and the keen interest I took in the subject of dress at a very early age. A very keen interest was taken in it by Aunt Theresa herself, by Aunt Theresa's daughters, and by the ladies of Aunt Theresa's acquaintance. I think I may say that it formed (at least one of) the princ.i.p.al subjects of conversation during all those working hours of the day which the ladies so freely sacrificed to each other. Mrs. Buller was truly kind, and I am sure that if I had depended in every way upon her, she would have given to my costume as much care as she bestowed upon that of her own daughters. But my parents had not been poor; there was no lack of money for my maintenance, and thus "no reason," as Aunt Theresa said, why my clothes should not be "decent," and "decent" with Aunt Theresa and her friends was a synonym for "fashionable."

Thus my first black frock was such an improvement (in fashion) upon the pink silk one, as to deprive my deep mourning of much of its gloom. Mrs.

(Colonel) St. Quentin could not refuse to lend one of her youngest little girl's frocks as a copy, for "the poor little orphan"; and a bevy of ladies sat in consultation over it, for all Mrs. St. Quentin's things were well worth copying.

"Keep a paper pattern, dear," said Mrs. Minchin; "it will come in for the girls. Her things are always good."

And Mrs. Buller kept a paper pattern.

I remember the dress quite clearly. It is fixed in my mind by an incident connected with it. It had six c.r.a.pe tucks, of which fact I was very proud, having heard a good deal said about it. The first time Mr.

George came to our bungalow, after I had begun to wear it, I strutted up to him holding my skirt out, and my head up.

"Look at my black frock, Mr. George," said I; "it has got six c.r.a.pe tucks."

Matilda was most precocious in--at least--one way: she could repeat grown-up observations of wonderful length.

"It's the best c.r.a.pe," she said; "it won't spot. Cut on the bias.

They're not real tucks though, Margery. They're laid on; Mrs. Minchin said so."

"They are real tucks," I stoutly a.s.serted.

"No, they're not. They're cut on the bias, and laid on to imitate tucks," Matilda repeated. I think she was not sorry there should be some weak point in the fashionable mourning in which she did not share.

I turned to Mr. George, as usual.

"Aren't they real tucks, Mr. George?"