Two Maiden Aunts Part 5

'Tie it tight round your waist, young master,' he said; 'tie it in two or three knots.'

Those below would have given directions too, but Angel stopped them again.

'Hush! let Pete tell him; don't confuse him.'

There was dead silence again, while G.o.dfrey, looking up at Peter, struggled with his little fingers over the stiff rope. The maids came out while he was doing it, and, at their master's sign, put down the mattresses silently under the tree.

'Now come back, sir,' said Peter from above. 'Mind, you can't fall, the rope's tight, and I'll have you in a minute. Don't look down, and come along gently.'

His quiet voice seemed to give G.o.dfrey confidence and he obeyed, pushing himself along the bough. Betty hid her face against Angel, and squeezed her sister's fingers till they were hot and sore. The miller puffed with excitement and began to say something, when the innkeeper clapped his big hand over his mouth. It did not really last a minute, but it seemed an hour before Peter, standing firm in a fork of the tree, could reach the child and drag him towards him, even as the branch on which G.o.dfrey had been sitting crashed down on to the mattress at Angelica's feet. Another minute, and Peter was helping the little boy down the tree, amid a chorus of congratulation from below.

Every one had something to say, some comment to make, except Angel, who just took tight hold of G.o.dfrey's hand, as he stood quite quiet, hanging his head in the midst. She checked Betty with a gentle touch when she would have seized hold of him, though she was wanting dreadfully to hug him herself.

'Thank you all very much,' she said softly, to the people round her.

'I think we will go home now; come, G.o.dfrey.' And she led him away with Betty following. After a minute or two she said:

'G.o.dfrey, you have given us a most terrible fright. We must be very thankful you were not killed.'

'The other angels saw to me,' said G.o.dfrey.

'Yes, but we mustn't look for angels to take care of us when we go into dangerous places where we have no business to be. Why did you climb the tree, G.o.dfrey?'

'Because she said I couldn't,' said G.o.dfrey stoutly.

'Do you mean your Aunt Elizabeth? It was very naughty of you to do what she told you not. We must take you home now and leave you with Penny because we can't trust you.'

All the time her kind heart was aching over the terribleness of having to be severe with him on the very first day, the longing to catch him up and kiss him and cry over him. But she kept on saying to herself, 'We must--we must, there is n.o.body else to do it,' and so she managed to be firm. She took G.o.dfrey home, talked to him tenderly and gravely, and left him in the little room where Penny sat sewing. She felt as if she had not said half she meant, as if she had made a thousand mistakes, though she had tried her very best to be wise. G.o.dfrey had listened silently to all she said; he would think about it, Angel hoped, and perhaps by-and-bye he would say something; she must just wait. Then she went to find her sister. Betty had not come into the house, and Angel, going out to look for her, heard sounds of sobbing by the arbour. Everything Betty did was always done vehemently, and there she was now, lying full length on the gra.s.s, with her head on Demoiselle Jehanne's stone shoulder, crying as if her heart would break.

'Betty dear, don't lie there, the gra.s.s is damp,' said Angelica, leaning over her. Betty left Miss Jane to throw her arms round her sister.

'Oh, Angel,' she sobbed, 'I can't--I can't ever be it! It's no use, I can't be a maiden aunt, I know I never shall. This first day, this very first, he's nearly killed himself. Oh, Angel, if I shut my eyes, I can see him with his darling neck broken, and the funeral, and Cousin Crayshaw coming down to it and looking "I told you so." And perhaps wicked people, who might think we want his money, might say we planned it, like the Babes in the Wood's uncle, and there might be a trial, and you and me tried for making away with Bernard's little boy.'

'Betty, Betty,' gasped Angel, who never could follow the pace of Betty's imagination, 'don't say such dreadful things! G.o.dfrey's quite safe, and I'm sure you couldn't help it.'

'That's the worst of it, I couldn't help it,' sobbed Betty; 'I can't make him do as I tell him, and he won't--he won't--he won't call me Aunt Elizabeth,' and she watered Miss Jane's convolvulus with fresh tears.

'I am thinking,' said Angel hesitatingly, 'that perhaps we expected a little too much to begin with; you see, we had had no practice before, so perhaps it is natural we should make a few mistakes.'

'But we don't want to practise on G.o.dfrey,' wailed Betty, 'and, if he gets killed while we're learning, where will be the use of us getting wise about it? Fancy us left to get quite old, two wise maiden aunts with no nephew to be aunt to, and all G.o.dfrey's dreadful money for our own, and people thinking we liked it.'

The picture was altogether too dreadful for Angel to fancy at all.

'Don't you think perhaps it's better not to think about such dreadful things happening?' she said hesitatingly; 'and Betty, do you know, I've just remembered that I don't think we half thanked Pete properly.

Shall we go down to the Place and see if we can find him?'

'I think we'd better,' said Betty, rising; 'I'm sure I ought, for he's saved G.o.dfrey's neck from being broken, and me from either dying of a broken heart or going quite mad. Fancy if you'd had to live alone, Angel, or to come and see me in an asylum, perhaps talk to me through bars. Yes, I think we'd better go and thank Pete.'

Angelica put her sister's tangled curls straight and tied on her hat, and they went together rather slowly and mournfully down the road to Oakfield Place.

They were quite at home there, and went in through the garden to the back of the house, where Patty was feeding chickens in the orchard with Nancy helping her. Nancy came running to meet the young ladies, stopping in dismay at sight of Betty's tear-stained face, and Patty asked anxiously if the young gentleman were hurt.

'Oh no, not at all, thank you,' said Angel, 'only he frightened us a good deal. Is Peter in, Patty? We wanted to thank him for being so sensible and helping G.o.dfrey so cleverly.'

Pete would be in directly, Patty thought; he had just gone to the mill, he was bound to be back soon. Mother was making the lavender bags in the storeroom, wouldn't the young ladies step in? she'd be fine and pleased; and she showed them into the house and held back Nancy, who would have followed, since she never would learn when she wasn't wanted. The store-room was a long, low room, running along the back of the house and looking on to the garden. To-day it was full of the clean, pleasant scent of lavender; there were great trays of dried lavender on the long table, and Martha Rogers sat st.i.tching away at muslin bags to put it in. Every year those lavender bags were made at Oakfield Place; they were all alike, of black muslin bound with lilac-coloured ribbon. Old Mrs. Maitland had made them herself up to the last year she lived; there were great stores of beautiful linen in the house, sheets and towels and table-cloths which she and her sisters had st.i.tched at in their young days, and they were all stowed away in big presses, with the fragrant lavender between them, until the captain should bring a wife home to Oakfield and want them. The lavender bags which she did not use herself Mrs. Maitland gave to her friends; there was no one she had been fond of who did not possess several of the little sweet-scented presents. Miss Amelia Crayshaw had had plenty of them, and Angel and Betty had received one each, long ago, one day when they had been to drink tea at the Place with their cousin before Mrs.

Maitland died. And as long as they lived the scent of lavender would always bring back to them the old house, and the sunny sloping garden, and the long, low store-room, with its deep window seats and shelves and presses, and Martha st.i.tching away at black muslin and lilac ribbon. For the captain liked to know that things were done still as they had been in his mother's lifetime, and so the lavender was gathered every year, and the bags were made to put among the stores of linen which was waiting, all snowy and fragrant, till the master of the house came home.

Martha Rogers was a tall, comely woman, with capable hands and a sensible motherly face. And, indeed, she had mothered and cosseted many a child besides her own three, and Angel and Betty Wyndham were among the number. Often and often when they were little girls they had come to Martha with their troubles, for Cousin Amelia, though she was always kind, seemed to have forgotten the long ago time when she was a child, when little things looked so big, and a broken doll or a wet birthday made all the world dark for a little while. And Penny, though she was quite ready to pet and comfort them, never had very much to suggest except kisses and sugar and a bit of cake. But Martha Rogers, though she was so big and wise and busy, had that beautiful power, which we must all learn if we are going to be helpful, sympathizing people, of remembering what it was like to be little and shy and stupid, and never talked about it being a waste of time and tears to cry over playthings, or thought that people could be comforted by sweetmeats and advice not to spoil their pretty eyes. There was a sort of strong, happy feeling about her very presence, and Angel and Betty felt it to-day as they came into the lavender-scented store-room.

Martha gave them a hearty welcome as usual.

'Come in, Miss Angel, come in, Miss Betty dear; 'tis a while since I saw you. Sit ye down here, Miss Angel, out of the draught. Bless your heart, my dear, where are your roses? But, of course, Patty's just told me the fright you've got about the young gentleman--a little Turk, to be sure; but there, boys will be boys, won't they, and never easy till they're in mischief one way or the other.'

Angel began to answer her, and then suddenly, at the kind hearty words, her composure broke down, and she dropped her face in her hands and cried as Betty had done.

'It's my fault, Martha,' faltered Betty, in explanation, 'it was me he was with, and I couldn't stop him doing it. And he's got n.o.body but us to look to, you know, and how are we ever going to teach him?'

Martha Rogers looked from one of the sisters to the other, and then she stuck her needle into the black muslin and came over to Angelica, and began stroking her bowed head with her broad tender hand.

'Poor dears! poor little ladies!' she said gently; 'bless your hearts, my dears, if you take on like this every time the young gentleman takes a frolic you'll have your hair white before you're twenty.'

'But, Martha,' sighed Betty, 'you know he did what I told him not to do.'

'Ay, did he, Miss Betty dear; and many's the time, I doubt, he'll take his own way again, like the rest of us, and be sorry for it, sure enough.'

'But if I can't make him obey me,' said Betty dolefully, 'there's n.o.body but us, you know.'

'Miss Betty dear, not all the King's army and navy can't make the smallest bit of a child obey them if he won't. You can tell a child what's right and punish him if he does wrong, but you can't make him do what you want, like you can drive a nail into a board. I'll warrant you've told him he's been a bad boy and put you both about, and scared everybody.'

'Yes, I told him,' said Angel, lifting her face, 'but, Martha, I don't know if he minded.'

'He'll mind by-and-bye, if he didn't then, Miss Angelica, and be worse vexed to think he's hurt you than to have nigh broken his neck.'

Angel looked gravely up at her.'

'Martha,' she said simply, 'you are always so good to us, and you know we have to be everything to G.o.dfrey, and we have no one else to ask, so you will tell me what you think. Of course we want G.o.dfrey to obey us for love--it would break my heart if he didn't love us--but still he must be punished if he does wrong, and there is no one else to do it.

Sha'n't we find it very hard to make him care for us, and yet treat him rightly and wisely?'

Martha Rogers sat down again in the chair where she had been st.i.tching the lavender bags, but she did not take up her work. She smoothed her large ap.r.o.n down thoughtfully once or twice and then she began to speak slowly, looking beyond Angel out of the window.

'You'll pardon me, Miss Angelica, I'm only just one that's been a child myself and seen myself over again in my own children, but this is how it seems to me. I think when we're bits of boys and girls, before we've learnt much of how other folks do things, the Lord gives us a very good notion of what's fair and right, and we look to see older folks have the same. When I was a young wife, Miss Angel, and Patty yonder was in her cradle, my grannie, that brought me up, said much the same thing to me. "Martha," says she, "yon little la.s.s'll meet a many unfair things, and a many contrairy things to puzzle her before she's a grown woman; don't let her meet 'em in her mother, my dear. Let her have some one she can hold on to, and reckon on to blame her when she's wrong and praise her when she's right. If she breaks your best jug by accident don't go for to scold her, but if she takes a bit of sugar on the sly ye may take the birch to her." If young master's like most of the little lads I've known, Miss Angel, he'll put them first that loves him well enough to put what's fair before what's pleasant for him or for them.'

'But, Martha,' said Angel earnestly, 'you were older than we are, and you had your grannie to ask, and we are so afraid of making mistakes.'

'Miss Angelica, you'll forgive me for what I'm going to say. I'm not making light, missy dear, but what can you do more than do your best, and show him what's right and punish him when he's wrong, and say your prayers for him, and love him all you can; but remember all the time that there's One wiser than you loves him better still.'

And here Martha took up the lavender bag and began st.i.tching away at the lilac ribbon binding. But she had to leave off after a minute, for Betty sprang up suddenly and put her arms round her neck and kissed her, and Angel looked at her across the table with earnest, grateful eyes.

'Thank you, Martha, so very much,' she said; 'you do help us so beautifully, better than any one else could!'

'I just tell you what I told myself, Miss Angel dear, and, mind you, my dear young ladies, I don't believe we've ever a job given us to do but we're taught the way, so we really want to learn.'