That Stick ...

The more his mother and her friends persisted in treating him as an ill-used individual, the victim of his uncle’s avarice and his aunt’s spite, the more his better nature revolted and acknowledged inwardly and sometimes outwardly the kindness and justice he had met with.  It was really provoking that any attempt to defend them, or explain the facts, were only treated as proofs of his own generous feeling.  Ida’s partisanship really did him more good than half a dozen lectures would have done, and he steadily adhered to his promise not to bet, though on the regatta day Ida and her friend Sibyl derided him for not choosing to risk even a pair of gloves; and while one pitied him, the other declared that he was growing a skinflint like his uncle.

He talked and laughed noisily enough to Ida’s friends, but he had seen enough at Northmoor to feel the difference, and he told his sister that there was not a lady amongst the whole kit of them, except Rose Rollstone, who was coming down for her holiday.

p. 123‘Rose!’ cried Ida, tossing her head.  ‘A servant’s daughter and a hand at a shop!  What will you say next, I wonder?’

‘Lady is as lady acts,’ said Herbert, making a new proverb, whereat his mother and sister in chorus rebuked him, and demanded to know whether Ida were not a perfect lady.

At which he laughed with a sound of scoffing, and being tired of the discussion sauntered out of the house to that inexhaustible occupation of watching the boats come in, and smoking with old acquaintances, who were still congenial to him, and declared that he had not become stuck-up, though he was turned into an awful swell!  Perhaps they were less bad for him than Stanhope, for they inspired no spirit of imitation.

When he came back a later post had arrived, bringing the news of Constance’s successes and of the invitation to her to share the expedition of her uncle and aunt.  There was no question about letting her go, but the feeling was scarcely of congratulation.

‘Well, little Conny knows how to play her cards!’

‘Stuff—child wouldn’t know what it meant,’ said Herbert glumly.

‘Well,’ said his sister, ‘she always was the favourite, and I call it a shame.’

‘What, because you’ve been such a good girl, and got such honours and prizes?’ demanded Herbert.

‘Nonsense, Herbert,’ said his mother.  ‘Ida’s education was finished, you know.’

‘Oh, she wasn’t a bit older than Conny is now.’

p. 124‘And I don’t hold with all that study, science and logic, and what d’ye call it; that’s no use to any one,’ continued his mother.  ‘It’s not as if your sisters had to be governesses.  Give me a girl who can play a tune on the piano and make herself agreeable.  Your uncle may do as he pleases, but he’ll have Constance on his hands.  The men don’t fancy a girl that is always after books and lectures.’

‘Not of your sort, perhaps,’ said Herbert, ‘but I don’t care what I bet that Conny gets a better husband than Ida.’

‘It stands to reason,’ Ida said, almost crying, ‘when uncle takes her about to all these fine places and sets her up to be the favourite—just the youngest.  It’s not fair.’

‘As if she wasn’t by a long chalk the better of the two,’ said Herbert.

‘Now, Bertie,’ interposed his mother, ‘I’ll not have you teasing and running down your sister, though I do say it is a shame and a slight to pick out the youngest, when poor Ida is so delicate, and both of you two have ever so much better a right to favours.’

‘That’s a good one!’ muttered Herbert, while Ida exclaimed—

‘Of course, you know, aunt has always been nasty to me, ever since I said ma said I was not strong enough to be bothered with that horrid school; and as to poor Herbert, they have spited him because he shot that—’

‘Shut up, Ida,’ shouted Herbert.  ‘I wouldn’t go with them if they went down on their knees to me!  What should I do, loafing about among a p. 125lot of disputing frog-eaters, without a word of a Christian language, and old Frank with his nose in a guide-book wanting me to look at beastly pictures and rum old cathedrals.  You would be a fish out of water, too, Ida.  Now Conny will take to it like a house afire, and what’s more, she deserves it!’

‘Well, ma,’ put in the provoked Ida, ‘I wonder you let Conny go, when it would do me so much good, and it is so unfair.’

‘My dear, you don’t understand a mother’s feelings.  I feel the slight for you, but your uncle must be allowed to have his way.  He is at all the expense, and to refuse for Conny would do you no good.’

‘Except that she will be more set up than ever,’ murmured Ida.

‘Oh, come now!  I wonder which looks more like the set-up one,’ said Herbert, whose wider range had resulted in making him much alive to Ida’s shortcomings, and who looked on at her noisy style of flirtation with the eye of a grave censor.  Whatever he might be himself, he knew what a young lady ought to be.