Girls of the Forest Part 4

"Whom are you addressing by that hideous name?" said Miss Sophia. "Do you mean to tell me you call your father Paddy?"

"We all do," said Penelope.

"Of course we do," said Verena, who had followed behind.

"That is our name for the dear old boy," said Pauline, who stood just behind Verena, while all the other children stood behind Pauline.

It was in this fas.h.i.+on that the entire party invaded Mr. Dale's sanctum.

Miss Tredgold gazed around her, her face filled with a curious mixture of amazement and indignation.

"I had an intuition that I ought to come here," she said aloud. "I did not want to come, but I obeyed what I now know was the direct call of duty. I shall stay here as long as I am wanted. My mission will be to bring order out of chaos--to reduce all those who entertain rebellion to submission--to try to turn vulgar, hoydenish little girls into ladies."

"Oh, oh! I say, aunty, that is hard on us!" burst from Josephine.

"My dear, I don't know your name, but it is useless for you to make those ugly exclamations. Whatever your remarks, whatever your words, I shall take no notice. You may struggle as you will, but I am the stronger. Oh!

here comes---- Is it possible? My dear Henry, what years it is since we met! Don't you remember me--your sister-in-law Sophia? I was but a little girl when you married my dear sister. It is quite affecting to meet you again. How do you do?"

Miss Tredgold advanced to meet her brother-in-law. Mr. Dale put both his hands behind his back.

"Are you sorry to see me?" asked Miss Tredgold. "Oh, dear, this is terrible!"

The next instant the horrified man found that Miss Tredgold had kissed him calmly and with vigor on each cheek. Even his own children were never permitted to kiss Mr. Dale. To tell the truth, he was the last sort of person anybody would care to kiss. His face resembled a piece of parchment, being much withered and wrinkled and dried up. There was an occasion in the past when Verena had taken his scholarly hand and raised it to her lips, but even that form of endearment he objected to.

"I forgive you, dear," he said; "but please don't do it again. We can love each other without these marks of an obsolete and forgotten age.

Kissing, my dear, is too silly to be endured in our day."

That Miss Tredgold should kiss him was therefore an indignity which the miserable man was scarcely likely to get over as long as he lived.

"And now, girls," said the good lady, turning round and facing her astonished nieces, "I have a conviction that your father and I would have a more comfortable conversation if you were not present. Leave the room, therefore, my dears. Go quietly and in an orderly fas.h.i.+on."

"Perhaps, children, it would be best," said Mr. Dale.

He felt as though he could be terribly rude, but he made an effort not to show his feelings.

"There is no other possible way out of it," he said to himself. "I must be very frank. I must tell her quite plainly that she cannot stay. It will be easier for me to be frank without the children than with them."

So the girls left the room. Penelope, going last, turned a plump and bewildered face towards her aunt.

But Miss Tredgold took no more notice of Penelope than she did of the others. When the last pair of feet had vanished down the pa.s.sage, she went to the door and locked it.

"What are you doing that for?" asked Mr. Dale.

"My dear Henry, I locked the door because I wish to have a quiet word with you. I have come here--I will say it plainly--for the sole purpose of saving you."

"Of saving me, Sophia! From what?"

"From the grievous sin you are committing--the sin of absolutely and completely neglecting the ten daughters given to you by Providence. Do you do anything for them? Do you try in the least to help them? Are you in any sense of the word educating them? I scarcely know the children yet, but I must say frankly that I never came across more terribly neglected young people. Their clothes are in rags, they are by no means perfectly clean in their persons, and they look half-starved. Henry, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! I wonder my poor sister doesn't turn in her grave! When I think that Alice was their mother, and that you are bringing them up as you are now doing, I could give way to tears. But, Henry, tears are not what are required. Action is the necessary thing. I mean to act, and nothing will turn me from that resolution."

"But, my dear Sophia, I have not met you for years. To be frank with you, I had almost forgotten your existence. I am a terribly busy man, Sophia--a scholar--at least, I hope so. I do not think the children are neglected; they are well, and no one is ever unkind to them. There is no doubt that we are poor. I am unable to have the house done up as poor Alice would have liked to see it; and I have let the greater part of the ground, so that we are not having dairy produce or farm produce at present. The meals, therefore, are plain."

"And insufficient; I have no doubt of that," said Miss Tredgold.

"They are very plain," he answered. "Perhaps you like dainty food; most ladies of your age do. I must be as frank with you as you are with me.

You won't like our table. Sometimes we do without meat for a week at a time."

"I do not care if you never touch meat again," said Miss Sophia. "Thank goodness, with all my faults, I am not greedy."

"What a pity!" murmured Mr. Dale.

"What was that you said? Do you like greedy women?"

"No, Sophia; but I want to put matters so straight before you that you will consider it your bounden duty to leave The Dales."

"Where my duty calls me I stay, whatever the circ.u.mstances, and however great the inconveniences," remarked Miss Sophia.

"Well, Sophia, your att.i.tude and manner and words distress me considerably. But I must speak to you again. I am busy now over a most important matter. I have just discovered----"

"A gold mine on your estate?"

"No; something fifty times more valuable--a new rendering----"

"Of what, may I ask?"

"'The n.o.blest meter ever moulded by the lips of man.' Bowen is quite wrong in his translation; I am about to prove it. I allude to Virgil's _aeneid_."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Miss Tredgold, "is the man staring mad? Now, my dear fellow, you have got to put up with me. I can tell you plainly that it will be no treat to live with you. If it were not for my sister I would leave this house and let you and your family go your own way to destruction; but as Alice was so fond of me, and did her best for me when I was a little girl, I mean to do my best for your children."

"But in what way, Sophia? I told you I was poor. I am poor. I cannot afford a governess. Verena can darn quite nicely, and she knows a little about plain needlework. She turned a skirt of her own a month ago; her work seemed quite creditable, for I did not notice it one way or the other."

"Oh, you man--you man!" said Miss Tredgold.

"And the other children are also learning to use the needle; and most of them can read, for all the novels that I happen to possess have been removed from the bookshelves. The girls can read, they can write, and they can use their needles. They are thoroughly happy, and they are healthy. They do not feel the heat of summer or the cold of winter. The food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant, but they are satisfied with it. They don't worry me much. In short, it is only fair to say that I am not well enough off to keep you here. I cannot possibly give you the comforts you require. I should be glad, therefore, my dear Sophia, if you would be kind enough to leave The Dales."

"Now listen to me, Henry. I have resolved to stay, and only force will turn me out. My heavier luggage is coming by the carrier to-morrow. I brought a small trunk in that awful little conveyance which you sent to meet me. As to the money question, it needn't trouble you, for I shall pay for all extras which my presence requires. As to luxuries, I am indifferent to them. But I mean the girls to eat their food like ladies, and I mean the food to be well cooked; and also everything in the house shall be clean, and there shall be enough furniture in the rooms for the ordinary requirements of ordinary gentlefolks. I shall stay here for at least three months, and if at the end of that time you do not say to me, 'Sophia, I can never thank you enough for what you have done,' I shall be surprised. Now I have stated exactly the position of things, and, my dear Henry, you are welcome to go back to your work. You can study your beloved Virgil and gloat over your discovery; but for goodness' sake come to dinner to-night looking like a gentleman."

"My wardrobe is a little in abeyance, Sophia. I mean that I--I have not put on an evening coat for years."

"You probably have one at the back of nowhere," said Miss Tredgold in a contemptuous tone. "But, anyhow, put on the best you have got. Believe me, I have not come to this house to sit down with my hands before me. I have come to work, to renovate, to restore, to build up. Not another word, Henry. I have put the matter into a nutsh.e.l.l, and you and your children must learn to submit to the arrival of Sophia Tredgold."

At these words the good lady unlocked the door and stepped out.

As she walked down the pa.s.sage she heard the quick trampling of many feet, and it occurred to her that some of the girls must have been listening at the keyhole.

"I can't allow that sort of thing again," she said to herself. "But now--shall I take notice?"

She stood for a moment thinking. The color came into her cheeks and her eyes looked bright.

"For my sister's sake I will put up with a good deal," was her final comment; and then she went into the hall.