That Stick ...

Bulletins came with tolerable frequency from Ratzes, with all good accounts of mother and child, and a particular description of little Michael’s beauties; but it was only too soon announced that snow was falling, and this was soon followed by another letter saying that consultation with the best authorities within reach had decided that unless the weather were extraordinarily mild, the journey, after November set in, was not to be ventured by Lady Northmoor or so young a child.  There would be perils for any one, even the postmen and the guides, and if it were mild in one valley it might only render it more dangerous over the next Alp.  Still Mrs. Bury, a practised and enterprising mountaineer, might have attempted it; but though Mary was rapidly recovering and the language was no longer utterly impracticable, the good lady could not bear to desert her charges, or to think what might happen to them, if left alone, in case of illness or accident, so she devoted herself to them and to her studies of ice and snow, and wrote word to her family that they were to think of her as hibernating till Easter, if not Whitsuntide.

p. 147CHAPTER XXII

OUT OF JOINT

Constance had, of course, to spend her Christmas holidays at home, where she had not been for nine months.

Her brother met her at the London terminus to go down with her, and there, to her great joy, she also saw Rose Rollstone on the platform.  Herbert, whose dignity had first prompted him to seek a smoking carriage apart from his sister, thereupon decided to lay it aside and enter with them, looking rather scornful at the girls’ mutual endearments.

‘Come, Conny, Miss Rollstone has had enough of that,’ he said, ‘and here are a lot going to get in.  Oh my, the cads!  I shall have to get into the smoking carriage after all.’

‘No, don’t.  Sit opposite and we shall do very well.’

Then came the exchange of news, and—‘You’ve heard, of course, Rosie?’

‘I should think I had,’ then an anxious glance at Herbert, who answered—

p. 148‘Oh yes, mother and Ida have been tearing their hair ever since, but it is all rot!  The governor’s very welcome to the poor little beggar!’

‘Oh, that’s right!  That’s very noble of you, Herbert,’ said both the girls in a breath.

‘Well, you see, old Frank is good to live these thirty or forty years yet, and what was the good of having to wait?  Better have done with it at once, I say, and he has written me a stunning jolly letter.’

‘Oh, I was sure he would!’ cried Constance.

‘I’m to go on just the same, and he won’t cut off my allowance,’ pursued Herbert.

‘It is just as my papa says,’ put in Rose, ‘he is always the gentleman.  And you’ll be in the army still?’

‘When I’ve got through my exams; but they are no joke, Miss Rose, I can tell you.  It is Conny there that likes to sap.  What have you been doing this time, little one?’

‘I don’t know yet, but Miss Astley thinks I have done well and shall get into the upper form,’ said Constance shyly.  ‘I got on with my German while I was abroad, trying to teach Uncle Frank.’

At which Herbert laughed heartily, and demanded what sort of scholar he made.

‘Not very good,’ owned Constance; ‘he did forget so from day to day, and he asked so many questions, and was always wanting to have things explained.  But it made me know them better, and Mrs. Bury had such nice books, and she helped me.  If you want to take up French and German, Bertie—

p. 149He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Don’t spoil the passing hour, child.  I should think you would be glad enough to get away from it all.’

‘I do want to get on,’ said Constance.  ‘I must, you know, more than ever now.’

‘Oh, you mean that mad fancy of going and being a teacher?’

‘It is not a bit mad, Herbert.  Rose does not think it is, and I want you to stand by me if mamma and Ida make objections.’

‘Girls are always in such a hurry,’ grumbled Herbert.  ‘You need not make a stir about it yet.  You won’t be able to begin for ever so long.’

Rose agreed with him that it would be much wiser not to broach the subject till Constance was old enough to begin the preparation, though, with the impatience of youth to express its designs and give them form, she did not like the delay.

‘I tell you what, Con,’ finally said Herbert, ‘if you set mother and Ida worrying before their time, I shall vote it all rot, and not say a word to help you.’

Which disposed of the subject for the time, and left them to discuss happily Constance’s travels and Herbert’s new tutor and companions till their arrival at Westhaven, where Constance’s welcome was quite a secondary thing to Herbert’s, as she well knew it would be, nor felt it as a grievance, though she was somewhat amazed at seeing him fervently embraced, and absolutely cried over, with ‘Oh, my poor injured boy!’

Herbert did not like it at all, and disengaging p. 150himself rapidly, growled out his favourite expletive of ‘Rot!  Have done with that!’