The Long Vacation Part 20

"Yes; I am sure the idea is dreadful to her."

"Could you not put her in the way of getting trained?" asked Gerald of his uncle.

"I must hear her first."

"I will bring her up to the Choral Society tonight," said Mr. Flight.

"What did you call her?" said Geraldine.

"Some German or foreign name, Schnetterling, and the school calls her Lydia."

At that moment the council was invaded, as it sat in Miss Mohun's drawing-room, upon rugs and wicker chairs, to be refreshed with tea. In burst a whole army of Merrifields, headed by little Primrose, now a tall girl of twelve years old, more the pet of the family than any of her elders had been allowed to be. Her cry was--

"Oh, mamma, mamma, here's the very one for the captain of the buccaneers!"

The startling announcement was followed by the appearance of a tall, stalwart, handsome young man of a certain naval aspect, whom Lady Merrifield introduced as Captain Armytage.

"We must congratulate him, Gillian," she said. "I see you are gazetted as commander."

Primrose, who had something of the licence of the youngest, observed--

"We have been telling him all about it. He used to be Oliver Cromwell in 'How Do You Like It?' and now he will be a buccaneer!"

"Oliver Cromwell, you silly child!" burst out Gillian, with a little shake, while the rest fell into fits of laughing.

"I fear it was a less distinguished part," said Captain Armytage.

"May I understand that you will help us?" said Lancelot. "I heard of you at Devereux Castle."

"I don't think you heard much of my capabilities, especially musical ones. I was the stick of the party," said Captain Armytage.

It was explained that Captain Armytage had actually arrived that afternoon at the Cliff Hotel, and had walked over to call at Clipstone, whence he found the young ladies setting out to walk to Rockstone.

He could not deny that he had acted and sung, though, as he said, his performance in both cases was vile. Little Miss Primrose had most comically taken upon her to patronize him, and to offer him as buccaneer captain had been a freak of her own, hardly to be accounted for, except that Purser Briggs's unsuitableness had been discussed in her presence.

"Primrose is getting to be a horrid little forward thing," observed Gillian to her aunt.

"A child of the present," said Miss Mohun. "Infant England! But her suggestion seems to be highly opportune."

"I don't believe he can sing," growled Gillian, "and it will be just an excuse for his hanging about here."

There was something in Gillian's "savagery" which gave Aunt Jane a curious impression, but she kept it to herself.

Late in the evening Lance appeared in his sister's drawing-room with--

"I have more hopes of it. I did not think it was feasible when Anna wrote to me, but I see my way better now. That parson, Flight, has a good notion of drilling, and that recruit of the little Merrifield girl, Captain Armytage, is worth having."

"If he roared like a sucking dove we would have him, only to silence that awful boatswain," said Gerald; "and as to the little Cigaretta, she is a born prima donna."

"Your Miranda? Are you content with her?" said his aunt.

"She is to the manner born. Lovely voice, acts like a dragon, and has an instinct how to stand and how to hold her hands."

"Coming in drolly with her prim dress and bearing. Though she was dreadfully frightened," said Lance. "Being half-foreign accounts for something, I suppose, but it is odd how she reminds me of some one.

No doubt it is of some singer at a concert. What did they say was her name?"

"Ludmilla Schnetterling, the Little b.u.t.terfly they call her. Foreign on both sides apparently," said Gerald. "Those dainty ankles never were bred on English clods."

"I wonder what her mother is," said Mrs. Grinstead.

"By the bye, I think it must have been her mother that I saw that morning when little Felix dragged me to a cigar-shop in quest of an ornamental crab--a handsome, slatternly hag sort of woman, who might have been on the stage," said Lance.

"Sells fishing-tackle, twine, all sorts," came from Adrian.

"Have you been there?" asked his sister, rather disturbed.

"Of course! All the fellows go! It is the jolliest place for"--he paused a moment--"candies and ginger-beer."

"I should have thought there were nicer places!" sighed Anna.

"You have yet to learn that there is a period of life when it is a joy to slip out of as much civilization as possible," said Lance, putting his sentence in involved form so as to be the less understood by the boys.

"Did you say that Flight had got hold of them?" asked Clement.

"Hardly. They are R.C.'s, it seems; and as to the Mother b.u.t.terfly, I should think there was not much to get hold of in her; but Mrs.

Henderson takes interest in her marble-workers, and the girl is the sort of refined, impressible creature that one longs to save, if possible.

To-morrow I am going to put you all through your parts, Master Gerald, so don't you be out of the way."

"One submits to one's fate," said Gerald, "hoping that virtue may be its own reward, as it is in the matter of 'The Inspector's Tour', which the 'Censor' accepts, really enthusiastically for a paper, though the Mouse-trap would have found it--what shall I say?--a weasel in their snare."

"Does it indeed?" cried Anna, delighted. "I saw there was a letter by this last post."

"Aye--invites more from the same pen," he replied lazily.

"Too much of weasel for the 'Pursuivant' even?" said Geraldine.

"Yes," said Lance; "these young things are apt to tear our old traps and flags to pieces. By the bye, who is this Captain Armytage, who happily will limit Purser Briggs to 'We split, we split, we split,' or something a.n.a.logous?"

"I believe," said Gerald, "that he joined the Wills-of-the-Wisp, that company which was got up by Sir Lewis Willingham, and played at Devereux Castle a year or two ago. Some one told me they were wonderfully effective for amateurs."

"That explains the acquaintance with Lady Merrifield," said Mrs.

Grinstead.

"Oh, yes," said Anna. "Mysie told me all about it; and how Mr. David Merrifield married the nicest of them all, and how much they liked this Captain Armytage."

"Was not Mysie there when he arrived?"

"No, she was gone to see the Henderson children, but Gillian looked a whole sheaf of daggers at him. You know what black brows Gillian has, and she drew them down like thunder," and Anna imitated as well as her fair open brows would permit, "turning as red as fire all the time."

"That certainly means something," said Geraldine, laughing.