The Long Vacation Part 21

"I should like to see Gillian in love," laughed Anna; "and I really think she is afraid of it, she looked so fierce."

The next evening there was time for a grand review in the parish school-room of all possible performers on the spot. In the midst, however, a sudden fancy flashed across Lancelot that there was something curiously similar between those two young people who occupied the stage, or what was meant to be such. Their gestures corresponded to one another, their voices had the same ring, and their eyes wore almost of the same dark colour. Now Gerald's eyes had always been the only part of him that was not Underwood, and had never quite accorded with his fair complexion.

"Hungarian, I suppose," said Lance to himself, but he was not quite satisfied.

What struck him as strange was that though dreadfully shy and frightened when off the stage, as soon as she appeared upon it, though not yet in costume, she seemed to lose all consciousness that she was not Mona.

Perhaps Mrs. Henderson could have told him. Her husband being manager and partner at Mr. White's marble works, she had always taken great interest in the young women employed, had actually attended to their instruction, a.s.sisted in judging of their designs, and used these business relations to bring them into inner contact with her, so that her influence had become very valuable. She was at the little room which she still kept at the office, when there was a knock at the door, and "Miss Schnetterling" begged to speak to her. She felt particularly tender towards the girl, who was evidently doing her best in a trying and dangerous position, and after the first words it came out--

"Oh, Mrs. Henderson, do you think I must be Mona?"

"Have you any real objection, Lydia? Mr. Flight and all of them seem to wish it."

"Yes, and I can't bear not to oblige Mr. Flight, who has been so good, so good!" cried Lydia, with a foreign gesture, clasping her hands.

"Indeed, perhaps my mother would not let me off. That is what frightens me. But if you or some real lady could put me aside they could not object."

"I do not understand you, my dear. You would meet with no unpleasantness from any one concerned, and you can be with the fairy children. Are you shy? You were not so in the fairy scenes last winter--you acted very nicely."

"Oh yes, I liked it then. It carries me away; but--oh! I am afraid!"

"Please tell me, my dear."

Lydia lowered her voice.

"I must tell you, Mrs. Henderson, mother was a singer in public once, and a dancer; and oh! they were so cruel to her, beat her, and starved her, and ill-used her. She used to tell me about it when I was very little, but now I have grown older, and the people like my voice, she is quite changed. She wants me to go and sing at the Herring-and-a-Half, but I won't, I won't--among all the tipsy men. That was why she would not let me be a pupil-teacher, and why she will not see a priest. And now--now I am sure she has a plan in her head. If I do well at this operetta, and people like me, I am sure she will get the man at the circus to take me, by force perhaps, and then it would be all her life over again, and I know that was terrible."

Poor Ludmilla burst into tears.

"Nay, if she suffered so much she would not wish to expose you to the same."

"I don't know. She is in trouble about the shop--the cigars. Oh! I should not have told! You won't--you won't--Mrs. Henderson?"

"No, you need not fear, I have nothing to do with that."

"I don't think," Lydia whispered again, "that she cares for me as she used to do when I was a little thing. Now that I care for my duty, and all that you and Mr. Flight have taught me, she is angry, and laughs at English notions. I was in hopes when I came to work here that my earnings would have satisfied her, but they don't, and I don't seem to get on."

Mrs. Henderson could not say that her success was great, but she ventured as much as to tell her that Captain Henderson could prevent any attempt to send her away without her consent.

"Oh! but if my mother went too you could not hinder it."

"Are you sixteen, my dear? Then you could not be taken against your will."

"Not till December. And oh! that gentleman, the conductor, he knew all about it, I could see, and by and by I saw him lingering about the shop, as if he wanted to watch me."

"Mr. Lancelot Underwood! Oh, my dear, you need not be afraid of him, he is a brother of Mrs. Grinstead's, a connection of Miss Mohun's; and though he is such a musician, it is quite as an amateur. But, Lydia, I do think that if you sing your best, he may very likely be able to put you in a way to make your talent available so as to satisfy your mother, without leading to anything so undesirable and dangerous as a circus."

"Then you think I ought--"

"It is a dangerous thing to give advice, but really, my dear, I do think more good is likely to come of this than harm."

CHAPTER XIII. -- TWO SIDES OF A SHIELD AGAIN

The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale.

Midsummer Night's Dream.

The earlier proofs of the Mouse-trap were brought by Lance, who had spent more time in getting them into shape than his wife approved, and they were hailed with rapture by the young ladies on seeing themselves for the first time in print. As to Gerald, he had so long been bred--as it were--to journalism that, young as he was, he had caught the trick, and 'The Inspector's Tour' had not only been welcomed by the 'Censor', but portions had been copied into other papers, and there was a proposal of publishing it in a separate brochure. It would have made the fortune of the Mouse-trap, if it had not been so contrary to its principles, and it had really been sent to them in mischief, together with The 'Girton Girl', of which some were proud, though when she saw it in print, with a lyre and wreath on the page, sober Mysie looked grave.

"Do you think it profane to parody Jane Taylor?" said Gerald.

"No, but I thought it might hurt some people's feelings, and discourage them, if we laugh at the High School."

"Why, Dolores goes to give lectures there," exclaimed Valetta.

"n.o.body is discouraged by a little good-humoured banter," said Gillian.

"n.o.body with any stuff in them."

"There must be some training in chaff though," said Gerald, "or they don't know how to take it."

"And in point of fact," said Dolores, "the upper tradesmen's daughters come off with greater honours in the High School than do the young gentlewomen."

"Very wholesome for the young Philistines," said Gerald. "The daughters of self-made men may well surpa.s.s in energy those settled on their lees."

Gerald and Dolores were standing with their backs to the wall of Ans...o...b.. Church, which Jasper Merrifield and Mysie were zealously photographing, the others helping--or hindering.

"I thought upper tradesfolk were the essence of Philistines," returned Dolores.

"The elder generation--especially if he is the son of the energetic man.

The younger are more open to ideas."

"The stolid Conservative is the one who has grown up while his father was making his fortune, the third generation used to be the gentleman, now he is the man who is tired of it."

"Tired of it, aye!" with a sigh.

"Why you are a man with a pedigree!" she returned.

"Pedigrees don't hinder--what shall I call it?--the sense of being fettered."

"One lives in fetters," she exclaimed. "And the better one likes one's home, the harder it is to shake them off."

He turned and looked full at her, then exclaimed, "Exactly," and paused, adding, "I wonder what you want. Has it a form?"

"Oh yes, I mean to give lectures. I should like to see the world, and study physical science in every place, then tell the next about it. I read all I can, and I think I shall get consent to give some elementary lectures at the High School, though Uncle Jasper does not half like it, but I must get some more training to do the thing rightly. I thought of University College. Could you get me any information about it?"