CHAPTER XI.
AN AFTERNOON’S WORK.
“YOU must not cry, Nello; for one thing you are too big to cry; or if you are not too big you are too old. You are eight—past! and then the old gentleman downstairs is such a funny, funny old man, that he will eat us, Nello, if we make a noise.”
“I don’t believe you,” said the little boy, whom England had much improved in strength. “Old men do not eat children,” but he drew back a little, and stopped crying all the same.
“We do not know no-ting about old men in England,” said Lilias—the th was still a difficulty to her; and they both pronounced their rs in a way which was unfamiliar to English ears, though the letter exists and retains its natural sound in the north country. “They are very very strange; they sit in a chair all day, like the wild beasts. I go to the door and peep in. He has no cap on his head like Don Pepé, but a bare place here, where the cap should be, and white hair. And he never moves nor speaks. Sometimes I think he will be cut out of wood; and then all at once he rises up,—and me, I run away.”
“Are you not afraid, Lilias? I should be frightened,” said the little boy, looking at her with large wondering eyes.
“That is because you are only eight, but I am twelve, and one is never frightened after twelve. I run away, and it makes me beat and thump here,” Lilias put her hand to her heart to indicate the place, “and I like it.”
“Yes,” said the little brother, “when you run it makes that beat; but I do not like it.”
“Ah, you are a baby,” said Lilias. She stood with her dark hair shaken back, and her eyes shining, an image of visionary daring. Nothing could be more unlike than these two children. The boy had all the features of his race, blue eyes, fair hair, with a touch of gold in it, a fair complexion, browned and reddened, indeed, with his long journey and the warm sun he had been used to, but already changing into the pink and white of English childhood. But there were none of the Musgrave features in Lilias. Her dark eyes, dancing with life and energy, her warm colour, clear brown with an underlying rose tint, and a downy bloomy surface which softened every outline, and her crisp, yet shining dark hair, all belonged, not only to a different species, but to a different type of race. The Musgraves were robust and strong, but their strength was not of this buoyant kind. The cloud of anxiety which had been about her on her first appearance, that mystery of doubt with which a little human creature regards the strange and novel, in whatever form, not knowing if harm or good may be coming, had floated away, and Lilias had already taken back her natural character. She was at home in the house, every room of it, though she knew that she was hidden and thrust into corners, on account of “the old gentleman downstairs.” This did not depress or trouble her, but felt like a joke, a mystification and masquerading such as is dear to childhood. She threw herself into the spirit of it with enjoyment, instead of brooding over it with melancholy consciousness, which was what Mary, forgetting childhood, as all grown people do, had feared.
The children were in the hall, which had now grown so familiar to them that they could not understand how they had ever feared it. It was one of those exceptional days which occur now and then in the winter before the turn of the year. The whole world was full of sunshine. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the great green hill in front of them rose up in dazzling clearness of relief, like a visible way of ascent into heaven. There was not a breath stirring; the trees, without a leaf upon them, printed themselves against the blue of the sky and the green of the hill, in minute perfection of branch and twig, like a photograph. The lake was as still and as blue as the sky—everything lay in the sunshine charmed and stilled, hanging motionless as it were between earth and heaven. The sense that it was mid-winter, the natural season of storms, seemed to have got into the air, which wondered over its own stillness, and into the skies, which excelled themselves in lightness and soft blueness, snatching this moment of delight with a fearful joy. Earth took that ecstasy as one who was well aware that she could not answer for the morrow. The great doorway of the hall stood wide open; it was after mid-day, and the sun streamed in, having got to the west so much earlier than in summer. Lilias and her little brother, children of the sun, were planted in the midst of it, enjoying it with unconscious exhilaration. Martuccia sat in the open doorway, basking in it, knitting; a tranquil, almost motionless figure, with that faculty of repose which is no doubt awarded to nurses in compensation for the endless calls upon their activity. She had put a little tartan shawl—congenial garment—upon her fine shoulders, and, with her silver pins and glowing black hair all whitened by the sunshine, sat perfectly motionless except for the little rustle of her hands and click of her knitting-needles. It seemed immaterial whether it might be years or moments that the robust and comely watcher should hold that peaceful guardian place. She was paying no attention to the children, yet the lightest appeal, a querulous exclamation, a longer pause than usual, anything or nothing, would have brought her to her nurselings. It was the repose of the mother, who sees everything and feels everything, even when she does not see: and the additional security which her presence brought to them, though she sat apart and had nothing to do with their talk or their play, the strong support of the background which she made, it would be hard to tell in words. They had been playing in the spacious place, all lighted and warmed through and through with sunshine. Miss Musgrave had not yet made her appearance; either she had less time to spend in her favourite resort, or the fact that it had been appropriated to the children, as specially suitable in its size and separateness for their enjoyment, had made her relinquish its use. The great bay window in the recess gave back a reflected light from the shining of the lake, which added a colder tone to the prevailing brightness; and in the old fireplace there burned a smouldering fire, half coals half wood. Every feature of the place had grown familiar to the two little things who were once so alarmed by its dark corners—so familiar that they could not understand how they had ever been afraid. The kind old spacious silent hall sheltered them with a large passive protection not unlike that of Martuccia herself.
But the afternoon languor had stolen upon the boy and girl, notwithstanding the brightness. They, had come to a pause in their round of amusement, and though half-tired, were yet looking about with all their quick senses for some new delight. A little scuffle, a little quarrel and crying fit on Nello’s part, which had been put a stop to by the warning of Lilias already recorded, had left them free for a new start, but not with the old plays, which were worn out for the moment. They made an unconscious pause, and looked about them to find some novelty; and both pounced upon one at the same moment with a burst of sudden and unlooked-for rapture. A great broad sheet of something white lay stretched out on Mary’s table, in company with an open colour-box and brushes—a sight too tempting to be resisted by any child, especially after the exhaustion of a long day’s play. It was wonderful that they had overlooked it so long. They caught sight of it simultaneously now, and the result was a sudden rush of eager curiosity. The boy got first to the goal; perhaps he had been by a second of time the first to start. He grasped one side of the white sheet with his hot little hand, and climbing into the chair which stood before it, threw himself upon the new wonder. “It is Mary’s,” said Lilias, making a feeble effort to hold him back; but her own curiosity was much stronger than her sense of duty to Mary, who allowed them to see everything and share everything she had. They both leant over the table breathless, the mysterious whiteness crackling beneath their hands. It was a sheet of dazzling white vellum, ornamented with what they considered beautiful pictures, a puzzling, yet a tempting sight to the children. It was nothing less than a genealogical tree, their own pedigree, which Miss Musgrave, skilled in such works, was preparing for her father, ornamented with emblazoned coats of arms, some of them unfinished and inviting completion with a seductive force which made the children’s hearts beat.
“What is it?” said Nello, in a tone of awe.
“I know,” said Lilias, confidently; “it is a copy. You have had no education, you don’t know what a copy is: but me, I have done them, though never any so pretty as this. Mary is a grown-up lady, old, not like us; it must be Mary’s copy. You should not touch it, you are too little.”
“I will try,” cried Nello, with his eyes upon the brushes. Already he had rubbed against something not yet dry, and had smudged the colour, to the horror of his sister. He had both his elbows upon it and the greater part of his small person.
“Oh, what have you done, you naughty boy!” cried Lilias; “you cannot do it. Let me!”
“Yes, I will do it, I will do it!” cried Nello, seizing the crackling vellum and dashing at it with a brush full of colour. Lilias had to stand and look on, sorest of miseries, while her little brother performed badly what she felt she could have done well. There was a large shield in the centre, upon which the cherished “augmentation,” the chief ornament of the Musgrave arms, was slightly drawn. Gules on a shield argent, it ought to have been—Nello made a blurred dash of bright blue, surrounded by a sea of red. “How it is pretty!” he cried in his half-foreign speech, with a crow of triumph. Colour upon colour! and such colour! the sight would have driven Mr. Musgrave wild.
Lilias uttered a cry of horror; but the work of destruction was very captivating. Close to the vellum was the original draught of the genealogical tree, from which Mary had been copying. Lilias took possession of this, and carried it away to the table in the recess. She meant only to look at it, but the temptation was too much for her. At the bottom of the page an escutcheon void of all colour gradually caught her eye, a little white space which might be made, she thought, to resemble the others with great advantage to the whole. That this came opposite to the name of John Musgrave was nothing to the child, but the sight of it wrought her by degrees into a sort of creative frenzy. She would not spoil it as Nello was doing, but to complete what was wanting could be no harm. Lilias took a brush and filled it with fine broad vermilion, a colour about which there could be no mistake, and painted the vacant shield a strong decided gules, safe from any accident. The outline was not very firm, and there were overflowings and runs of colour outside, but at all events the hue was undeniable. She was standing looking at it with a satisfied yet agitated mind, with the brush still in her hand, when her elbow was grasped by some one behind and a hand laid on her shoulder. In the start she gave, the child’s arm made a nervous jerk of the brush over the paper, and ran a tremulous line of red over some half-dozen of the kindred names. “Mary!” she cried with a sudden perception of wrong-doing. But Lilias did not weep or excuse herself. She got quite pale, with a red spot on each cheek, and stood, not even dropping the brush, looking up at her judge, with the corners of her mouth suddenly turned downwards, and a gleam of awakened understanding in her alarmed eyes.
“Lilias! I thought I could trust you; what have you been doing?” cried Mary. “And Nello?” she added, looking round with dismay at the more important work. Nello had already been roused to that instinctive sense of harm which comes with the arrival of an aggrieved person. But he did not face his victim as Lilias did. He threw down his streaming pencil on the vellum, got down from his chair in the twinkling of an eye, and fled to take shelter with Martuccia, who, ever ready to defend, and yet unaware who was wrong, put an arm round him at once and faced Miss Musgrave with prompt defiance.
“Oh Mary!” cried Lilias, trembling, “Nello did not mean it. He is so little. Nello did not know.”
Mary was not so angelically sweet as to be indifferent to the damage done, but she had not the freedom of reproof which people exercise with children familiar to them. The little meddlers were still strangers. So she restrained herself and said nothing. She went to the parchment and began to sponge off the still wet colour. Nello kept in his refuge regarding her from afar, ready to bolt behind Martuccia if she made any hostile advances and hide himself in his nurse’s skirt. But Lilias followed Miss Musgrave closely as her shadow. She watched the sponging with the gravest anxious attention. She kept herself close against Mary’s dress, touching it, and put herself in Mary’s way, and interposed her wistful face, now quite pale and troubled, between the vellum and Mary’s eyes. At last her aunt said, perhaps somewhat peevishly, “What do you want, child? You have done harm enough for one morning. Pray go out of my way.”
“Have we done much harm?” said Lilias, with strained and anxious eyes.
“Yes; you have spoiled my week’s work, you mischievous children,” said Mary, melting a little. “I shall have to do it over again. I did not expect this, Lilias, from you.”
“It was very, very bad of me,” said the child, with perfect seriousness, her eyes slowly filling; “but Nello is such a little fellow—he did not know—— ”
“Then why did you do it, Lilias?”
The child looked up searchingly into her face. “I think it must have been the devil,” she said, with portentous gravity, drawing a heavy sigh.
An impulse of laughter came to Miss Musgrave in the midst of her annoyance; but partly she restrained it for high moral reasons, and partly she was still too much annoyed to give way to laughter. “What do you know about—the devil?” she said. “I think it was your own little mischievous hands, and your curiosity.”
“Oh, I know a great deal about him. Mr. Pennithorne told us on Sunday; and Martuccia must be of the same religion as Mr. Pen, for she worships him too,” said Lilias, aware of the advantages of digression when things were so serious as they were now.
“Worships him, Lilias! You must not use such words.”
“They are always thinking of him, and they say he does everything. They are very, very afraid of him,” said Lilias seriously, “and so am I—he can do whatever he pleases; but I cannot think he is as strong as God.”
“And it was he who made you spoil my papers——?”
“Oh, Mary, not Nello—only me. Nello is such a little fellow, he did not mean it—he did not know what he was doing—— ”
“And did you?”
Lilias pressed very close against Mary’s side. Her heart was beating loudly in her brave little bosom. Her sense of crime had not been lightened by the postponement of the punishment which must, she thought, be coming. But it was not in her to fly as her brother had done. She took a furtive hold of Mary’s gown. No hope of any forgiveness was in her serious soul; yet to whom could she cling in earth and heaven but only to this inflictor of stern justice? She kept her eyes fixed on Mary’s face, that she might see the fearful doom which was coming—that would always be a help in bearing it—and kept close to her, pressing against her. “Aie-tu peur de moi? cache-toi dans mes bras”—this was the child’s impulse in her penitence and terror.
Mary forgot her vellum and its stains. She put her arm round the child, whose eyes opened a little wider thinking the judgment was coming, but who never shrank. “You will not do it again,” she said. Lilias could not understand that it was over. She bent back a little the better to see Mary’s face.
“Will you not punish me?” said the child. Between the fear and the wonder she was breathless. This was the most wonderful of all.
“No, dear—you will never do it again.”
“Nor Nello?” She put her arms round Mary’s arm, with that soft clinging which is irresistible in a child, and leant her head against her, and began to sob as if her heart would break. Then Nello, seeing the worst was over, came out from his shelter, venturing a few steps, then a few more. Forgiveness did not touch him, as punishment would have done. He came slowly, ready to turn and fly at any hostile demonstration. Nello had, as it were, an army at his back, his ships to take refuge in; but still it was with great caution that he made his advance. This little exhibition of character, however, soon melted in a more agreeable sentiment. As soon as the contingency was over, both the children, restored to a tremulous ease of mind, were seized with a common impulse of curiosity and interest. They forgot their own culpability in watching the obliteration of the damage they had done. Fortunately the discovery had been made in time, and the process of reparation, if not so exciting, was almost as interesting to them as the delicious frenzy of mischief in which they had wrought this harm. They pressed upon Mary as she worked, one at each side. When the last trace had disappeared they gave a cry of joy. How clever Mary was! She could do everything. As for Nello, he was unmoved morally by the spectacle; it had been amusing all through, all but the moment of fear, which fortunately came to nothing. But Lilias never forgot this scene, and still less did Mary forget it, whose heart seemed to be learning a hundred sweet and subtle lessons, and to whom the child, even in her naughtiness, was like an angel, leading her to depths unsounded, nay, unthought of till now.
But when they had gone away, joyous as usual, to their “tea,” which was a meal much scorned and wondered at by Martuccia, Mary went to the other table where lay the draught of the more important document upon which Lilias had been employed when she came into the hall. At this she smiled and shuddered, with a curious mixture of feelings. The little girl’s mischief had taken a symbolical form. The blank shield which represented her mother was blurred and blood-red, and a stroke like blood ran across her father’s name; and that of her father’s father, from the little pool of red in the daubed shield. Lilias knew nothing of the lives from which her little life had sprung. It was accident, caprice, a child’s fancy for bright colour—yet it made Mary shudder even when she smiled.
Another incident, which she paid less attention to—indeed, did not think of at all—happened this same evening. She went to the door where Martuccia had been seated, her own favourite place, though now in great part given up to the children and their attendant, to look out upon the evening before she left the hall. When she had looked at the sky where the early wintry sunset was just over, leaving deep gorgeous tints of red and yellow upon a blue which was deepened by coming frost, Mary’s look came back, carelessly enough, by the lower level of the long brown road. And it was with a momentary start that she found herself almost face to face with an unthought-of spectator, who was standing at the foot of the little slope, gazing intently up to the hall door. Mary was puzzled to see that though the woman’s appearance was like that of many of the older women about, she did not know her; and at the same time she was equally perplexed by a consciousness that the face looking up at her thus eagerly was not that of a stranger. She could not associate it with any name, yet she seemed acquainted with the features, which were fine, and of an unusual cast. The stranger’s look was so intense that it struck Miss Musgrave like an audible petition. “Did you want anything?” she said with natural courtesy, making a step towards her. The woman turned sharp round on her heels with a hasty wave of her hand, and went hurriedly away towards the village without further reply. Who could she be? Mary asked herself lightly, and went in and forgot all about her. The people are independent in their ways, and not grateful for a casual address, in the north.