Book Two – Chapter Five
Harriet’s Jealousy is Rekindled
It is all very well for a little girl to repent as Harriet Lane repented on that night when she followed Ralph to the gipsies’ hiding-place. Such repentances make a deep impression in life. They are never, as a rule, forgotten. They influence the character, and if they are followed by earnest resolve and patient determination to conquer in the battle, they in the end lead to victory. But let no one suppose who reads this story that a girl with such a nature as Harriet possessed could easily overcome her various faults. It is true she was now really attached to Ralph. She had never cared for a little child before; but there was something about Ralph that won her heart. At the same time this very affection of hers for the little boy added to her feelings of dislike and envy towards Robina. In her first agony of remorse for what she had done; in her terror with regard to little Ralph, and her fear that he was lost to her and to all her friends forever, she even thought gently and kindly of Robina. When Robina was made Ralph’s school-mother, and when she obtained the pony as her prize, Harriet submitted to her fate. Nevertheless, the thought of Robina rankled in her mind, and when the little girls met at Sunshine Lodge, it was Robina who was the first thorn in Harriet’s side.
Outwardly, it would have been impossible to find a merrier group than those eight girls when they arrived in a waggonette at Sunshine Lodge. Ample preparations had been made for their welcome. Arches of evergreen and flowers were put up over the gates and along the avenue; and over the front door “Welcome, Welcome” appeared in letters of flowers. In every direction smiling faces were to be seen – smiling faces at the lodge gates, smiling faces at the front door; and Mr Durrant, strong, self-reliant, holding Ralph by the hand, was the most delightful sight of all.
“Now, my children, you have come,” he said. “Ralph, greet all your little mothers. Ralph, my son, do the honours of the occasion. There are servants, my children, to show you to your rooms. We shall meet at tea-time. You will be best alone with Ralph for the time being.”
“Oh, my naughty, naughty, darling school-mother!” cried Ralph, flinging himself into Harriet’s arms. He did go to her first, he did cling round her neck, he did press his kisses to her thin cheek. Before anyone else, he was hers; her heart swelled with triumph. But the next minute, it sank with a feeling of ugly jealousy; for was not his clasp still tighter round Robina’s neck, and did he not whisper something into Robina’s ear, and did not Robina flush with pleasure? The other mothers also came in for a share of his rapture: but Harriet, keen to notice and observe, felt that notwithstanding the fact that he had come to her first of all, Robina must be his favourite.
The first couple of hours, however, spent at Sunshine Lodge were too brilliantly, intoxicatingly happy for even jealousy to find much scope. Harriet was hurried along with her companions from one room to another, from one point of enjoyment to another.
When they had examined the house and expressed themselves satisfied with their sweet little bedrooms, and when they had glanced at the tea-table, and observed the numbers of cakes which it contained, and the vast piles of bread and butter and the dishes full of jam and the plates of fruit and the combs of honey, and all the other imaginable good things that go to make up that meal of all meals – an English nursery tea, they were hurried off to the stables.
Here were donkeys; donkeys enough for each girl to select one as her special property; and here was Bo-peep, and Ralph’s own lovely little pony, Bluefeather. Bluefeather was black as ink, and was only called blue because Ralph liked the colour, and because the pony’s mane was so thick and strong and waved so in the wind.
Now at the sight of Bo-peep and Bluefeather standing side by side and eyeing each other with considerable appreciation, Harriet’s smouldering jealousy woke into a fierce flame. She felt a sudden sense almost of sickness stealing over her. Jane Bush was standing not far off.
“Come, Janie,” she said, all of a sudden, speaking harshly and with something of her old tone. “I am tired of looking at stupid donkeys; I don’t want to choose my donkey this evening; come and let us take a walk all by ourselves before we have to go in to tea.”
“I say,” called Ralph, “naughty school-mother, we are going to tea almost immediately.”
“Well, you can call me when you are ready for me,” said Harriet, “I shan’t be far away.”
She tugged at Jane’s arm. Now Jane was not in the least jealous; she was charmed to possess a donkey. A pony was, of course, preferable, but to have a donkey all her own to call any name she liked for the whole of the rest of the holidays was quite enough to fill her heart with rejoicing.
“I shall call mine Thistle,” she said. “Don’t you think that is a good name, Harriet?”
“Oh, I am sure I don’t care,” said Harriet. “Call it Thistle or Nettle, or anything else you fancy; I am not interested in donkeys.”
“Well, I am,” said Jane, a little stoutly. “Why should we go away, Harriet?”
“Aren’t you going to be friends with me any more, Jane?”
“Of course, only I thought – ”
“Oh,
your
thoughts! as if they signified,” said Harriet. “Look here, Jane; do let’s walk up and down in front of the house. Of
course
we’re going to have a jolly time; but I want to have a little chat with you, with you – my old, my oldest friend – all by ourselves.”
“Oh, well,” said Jane, mollified at once, “if you are going to make me your friend, like we used to be before that dreadful day when Ralph ran away, of course I shall be glad. But I thought you were quite changed, that you were the good-girl-for-evermore sort. You know you did repent – everyone in the school knew it, and on the whole, I was glad, although you gave me up.”
While Jane was speaking, the two girls had left the yard, and had entered a little bowery path which led round to the left side of the house. Here they could be seen from the house, but could not be heard. Harriet looked full at Jane when they found themselves in this bowery retreat.
“Look here,” she said, “I must out with it.”
“Well?” said Jane, expectantly. Jane looked stouter and rounder and broader than ever. “Well?” she repeated, fixing her black eyes on Harriet’s face.
“I am not a good-for-evermore sort of girl,” said Harriet. Then she stood very still, and waited for Jane to reply.
Jane could not tell at that moment whether she was most glad or sorry. Harriet had always rather frightened her, and since the date of Harriet’s repentance she, Jane, had had what might be expressed as a very good and comfortable time. She had got into no scrapes, she had had of course no adventures; but then she had worked at her studies, and had made such admirable progress that she even won a small prize at the break-up.
Nevertheless, Jane had her own little jealousies, and although they were not so marked as Harriet’s – for her character was nothing like as strong as the character of her friend – they did rankle in her breast. To be even the one confidante of the naughty girl of the third form was better than to be no one’s confidante at all; and from the moment of Harriet’s repentance, Jane had been feeling very safe, but just a little dull, and just a tiny bit forsaken. Now, therefore, to receive the old confidence back again, to notice the daring look in Harriet’s light blue eyes, and to hear the old ring in her voice, awoke a certain very naughty pleasure in Jane.
“Oh well,” she said; “I thought your good fit couldn’t last forever. But what is it now?”
“I am just madly jealous of that Robina,” whispered Harriet.
“Oh,” said Jane; “it’s the old thing! But why can’t you leave poor Robina alone?”
“I can’t: she has got Bo-peep.”
“Well; of course she has,” said Jane. “You knew quite well she would get Bo-peep from the moment that you made such a mess of things with poor little Ralph, and he was handed over to Robina to mother him. That is no news, surely you ought to have got over that by now.”
“I ought; but I haven’t,” said Harriet; “so where’s the good of ‘oughting’ me about it?”
“I see you are the same as ever,” said Jane in a low tone in which satisfaction and perplexity were mingled.
“I am,” said Harriet, “and what is more, if they think I am going to ride one of those horrid donkeys, they are very much mistaken. You can mount on your Thistle, or your Nettle all by yourself, as far as I am concerned. If I can’t have a pony like Bo-peep or Bluefeather, I shan’t ride at all.”
“Oh, Harriet; you will make us all so unhappy, and it will look so bad, and dear Mr Durrant won’t like it.”
“Dear Mr Durrant!” echoed Harriet in a tone of great contempt. “He ought not to expect a girl like me to ride a donkey; it is a sort of reproach to me, that it is!”
“Oh, Harriet! I never knew anyone quite so kind as Mr Durrant; and then you will vex little Ralph; think of that; you do love Ralph.”
“Yes,” said Harriet, thoughtfully. “On the whole, I love him very much. I never cared for a little boy before; he is quite the nicest child I have ever come across, but there are some things even about him that I cannot bear. I want him to stop calling me his naughty school-mother. It is like for ever and for ever bringing up my little adventure with him. I am going to speak to him about that. He shan’t go on with it; I mean to put a stop to it.”
“Oh, but he does it so innocently,” said Jane.
“It vexes me,” interrupted Harriet, “and he shan’t go on with it. Then I do want him not to show such a marked preference for Robina when I am by. I wish – I do wish – ”
“What?” said Jane.
“That I could yet get him really to love me best. The fact is this, Janie. I don’t like Robina one little scrap more than I ever liked her; and if I could open Ralph’s eyes, and get him to see that she is not a bit nice really; why – that would be something worth living for.”
“I don’t know how you are to manage it,” said Jane; “and I think,” she added, “even if you could do it, it would be a very horrid thing to do.”
“Oh! what a goody you are turning into!” was Harriet’s response. “Well, I am going to put my wits in soak; I generally think out a way when I have pondered it long enough. Oh, trust me, Janie; and all I want from you is this – ”
“What?” asked Janie.
“Your help when the time comes.”
“Oh, dear!” said Jane. “That means something wicked!”
“You have a nice opinion of me, Jane.”
“But it does, doesn’t it?” said Jane. “I cannot tell you how mean I felt when I had to praise you all day long that day when I was Ralph’s school-mother. I got positively sick of the feeling: I don’t want to have to do that again.”
“You won’t,” said Harriet. “It will be something quite different now. But there’s the tea-bell, and I am hungry. I am so thankful that we need not stand any longer in that yard looking at those hideous donkeys. Let us run to the house; let’s see who’ll be there first!”
The tea was quite as delightful as healthy appetites and cheerful faces round the board, and merry laughter and gay young voices could make it. Mr Durrant himself was present at the tea-table, but he did not preside. It was Robina who on this occasion was given the position of tea-maker.
“I am going to be fed and petted and fussed over,” said Mr Durrant. “I say, you eight little mothers, you have got to mother me a bit; you have got to keep my plate well supplied. I have a ravening wolf inside me, and he must be well fed. I am good for any amount of cakes, and jam, and bread and butter; so see you feed me. Don’t keep me waiting an instant when my plate gets empty; and I am a whale on tea, I can tell you; cup after cup I shall want. The little mothers must keep me going with fresh cups of tea. Yes, Robina shall preside to-day – she is the good school-mother – and Harriet to-morrow, and so on, and so on. Now then, let us fall into place. Ralph, my son, take the lead; you are the gentleman of the house on this occasion.”
Book Two – Chapter Six
An Eventful Morning
The tea came to an end without any special adventure and afterwards the children disported themselves to their hearts’ content in the gardens.
The gardens were very extensive. There were paddocks and lawns, and running streams where some of the little mothers declared they could see tiny minnows and other minute fish darting about; and there was a round pond with water-lilies on it and there were many swings, and hammocks in the trees. Besides these delights, there were walled-in fruit gardens, and great glass-houses inside which grew those rarest and most fascinating flowers, orchids.
The children were allowed to explore all the houses on condition that they picked nothing and invariably shut the doors behind them. They all had a great deal to see and to talk over, and even Harriet forgot her jealousy and laughed and joked with the others. Bed-time came all too soon. Eight sleepy little girls went up to their different rooms and laid their heads on their pillow’s, and fell sound asleep, and eight very happy little girls, thoroughly refreshed and full of joyful anticipation, awoke on the following morning.
They awoke to the fact that the sun was shining, that the sky was blue, and that the sea in the distance was one dazzling blaze of sparkling waves and exquisite colour.
At breakfast-time, Mr Durrant arranged that the entire party should ride down to the beach, where those who wished could bathe, and those who did not could play on the sands until it was time for early dinner. Dinner was to be at one o’clock, and this was to be followed by a long drive, which was to terminate in a vast picnic tea, where real tea was to be made, and cakes, bread and butter and other things consumed. The party were to return to Sunshine Lodge rather late, and then Mr Durrant would amuse them with a marvellous magic lantern which he possessed, and would show them, as he expressed it, some of his adventures in South Africa.
“Father doesn’t often do that sort of thing,” whispered Ralph to his school-mother Robina. “He doesn’t even like to talk ’bout his ’ventures, ’cept when he’s special pleased. So you’re all in good luck, I can tell you.”
“Oh, we are just too happy for anything!” said Robina.
“Now then, children,” called Mr Durrant’s voice from the other end of the table; “if you have had sufficient breakfast, will you disperse, please, and shall we all meet in the porch in a quarter of an hour? Our different steeds will be waiting for us, and we can each mount and ride away.”
It was at this moment that Jane cast a fearful, half-admiring, half-beseeching glance at Harriet. Now but for this glance of Jane’s it is quite possible that Harriet might have thought better of her conversation of the previous day, and might have even mounted on her donkey’s back and ridden off, a happy, laughing child to the sea-shore. Harriet adored the sea, having been brought up there when quite a little child. She could bathe; and swim like a little fish; and it did dart through her mind how very superior she would be to her companions when she was swimming about and they had to content themselves with simply ducking up and down in the water. Mr Durrant would be sure to admire her when he saw what a good swimmer she was. Harriet craved more for admiration than for anything else in the world. But now that look of Jane’s recalled her to her remark of the previous evening.
She had vowed that nothing would induce her to mount a donkey. At any sacrifice, therefore, she must keep her word. If Jane thought little of her, the world would indeed be coming to an end.
Accordingly, she sat very still, munching her bread and butter slowly, and looking straight before her. Robina, on the other hand, was in great excitement. She talked openly and, as Harriet said to herself, in the most abominable taste, of the delicious ride she would have on Bo-peep’s back to the sea-shore.
“You will ride with me on Bluefeather; won’t you, Ralph?” she said to the little boy.
“In course I will!” he said.
In his white drill sailor-suit Ralph made the most lovely little picture. Harriet looked up at that moment, and caught his eye. Ralph, quick to perceive when anyone was in trouble, immediately left Robina, and flew to Harriet’s side.
“What can I do for you, naughty school-mother?” he said.
“Look here, Ralph; I won’t be called by that name,” said Harriet. “I dislike it very much. If you think me naughty, you ought not to speak to me.”
“Oh – I – I love you!” said Ralph.
“Then show it in some less unpleasant way,” said Harriet, who now that she had given tongue to some of her grievance, flew in a regular passion; “and,” she added, rising as she spoke, “I don’t know what the rest of you mean to do, but I shan’t ride this morning. I don’t like riding donkeys, so that’s all about it.” She got up and marched from the room. Mr Durrant had already gone. The eyes of the rest of the school-mothers followed her, and Jane’s face grew first white and then pink.
“Oh Jane,” said Robina, the minute Harriet had gone, “what
is
the matter now? I am sure I don’t mind riding one of the donkeys and Harriet can have Bo-peep. Do run after her and tell her so; do, please, Jane. It’ll spoil all our fun if she doesn’t come down; please get her to come.”
“But,” said Ralph, “I know father will want you to ride Bo-peep, Robina; for he said so last night. He said he had not seen you yet on Bo-peep, and he was ever so anxious to, and ’sides – your habit wouldn’t fit Harriet: Harriet is much thinner than you.”
“Yes; I never thought of that,” replied Robina. “Well, I do wish she wouldn’t be so troublesome. Shall I go and find her, and try and bring her round to a proper sense of things; it is too hard that she should spoil all the fun.”
“No, don’t; there is no use in it,” said Jane.
“But I will,” said Robina; “she must not be so inconsiderate. Think what dear Mr Durrant will say. Ralph, my darling, come with me and coax poor Harriet. You know she loves you very much.”
“Yes; let’s coax her,” said Ralph.
He took Robina’s hand and they left the dining-room. As they were going upstairs Ralph said, still clinging hard to Robina’s hand:
“I love Harriet, but I love you much, much,
much
the best.”
“Love us both,” said Robina, “and don’t say which of us you love best.”
“Oh, I can’t help it,” said Ralph. “Harriet’s nice sometimes, but you are nice always, and I am very glad you have got Bo-peep.”
“Well, we must do our very best to make Harriet come with us to-day,” said Robina, and she knocked as she spoke at that young lady’s door.
A sulky voice from within murmured something, and Robina opened the door. Harriet was standing with her back to the door. She was pretending to gaze out of the window. When the knock came, she imagined that it was Jane, coming to expostulate with her. Had this happened, she would probably have given vent to her feelings in no measured language; but when she turned and saw Robina, the smouldering fire in her breast rose to white heat.
“Go away!” she said, just glancing at Robina and Ralph and then resuming her position with her back to them. “I am busy at present: go away.”
“You aren’t busy, Harriet,” said Ralph, laughing; “why, you’re doing nothing at all.”
“Yes I am; I am thinking; go away, both of you, I don’t wish to talk to you.”
“Oh, Harriet!” said Ralph. There was a cry of pain in his voice, and just for a minute Harriet’s resolve to be intensely disagreeable wavered; but Robina’s voice recalled her to her worst self.
“Ralph, I must!” she whispered. Then she said aloud: “I do want you to ride Bo-peep this morning, Harriet. And you can easily wear my habit, although it may be a little big for you. Please, Harriet, do come downstairs and be nice and jolly with us all. You shall ride Bo-peep, and I will ride whichever donkey you have selected. I love riding a donkey, it is such fun.”
“Oh!” said Harriet; “oh! – before I’d demean myself to tell such lies! You love to ride on a donkey, do you? Then ride one, I am sure I don’t care. But as to my demeaning myself by getting on your pony’s back – I may be small, but I’m not as small as all that! No: go, both of you; I hate and detest you both. Ralph, you need not consider me your mother any more. I am not your school-mother – I am nothing at all to you. I am just a very cross, angry girl and oh, do go away, please!”
“Come, Ralph,” said Robina.
She took the little boy to the door. She opened the door; she pushed Ralph outside.
“You are just angry, Harriet,” she said then; “but I know you will be sorry by and by; and indeed, indeed, neither Ralph nor I are what you think us.”
“Oh go – go!” said Harriet; and Robina went.
The moment this happened, Harriet flew to the door, and locked it.
“Now am I to be left in peace?” she thought. She was in a white heat of rage. At that moment, there was no bitter, angry, nor desperate thing she would not say. She knew perfectly well that she had injured her own cause; that now Ralph could never love her. Had she not told him to his face that she hated him? – little Ralph, who had never from his birth had one harsh word addressed to him. Had she not said – oh, with such vehemence, such hot, angry rage, that she detested him, that she could not bear him in her presence? Well, she did not care. She was in too great a fury at present to regret her own words. Robina and Ralph had taken her at her word: they had gone away. There was absolute stillness upstairs. Sunshine Lodge was a big house, and to Harriet’s bedroom not a sound penetrated. She could not even hear the merry voices of the gay cavalcade that must even now be starting for the sea-shore.
They would have to ride quite three miles to that part of Eastbourne where Mr Durrant had arranged that bathing tents were to be erected on the beach. Harriet sat down on the low window-sill, clasped her hands and looked out. Why was she here? She might have been as jolly as the others. Oh, no; of course she could not possibly be merry and gay like the rest of the children; it was not in her nature. Nevertheless, she had looked forward to her time at Sunshine Lodge. She had made a great boast to her brothers and sisters and to her home companions, of the gay and delightful time she was about to have. Well, why was not she having it? The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the distant sea looked, oh! so inviting. The crisp waves were even now coming up on the sands and retreating again with their everlasting ‘I wish, I wish’ sort of sound. There were the donkeys for the contented children to ride, and there was the kindest of all hosts to give them every happiness. Why was she out of it?
“Because I am so mad, and bad!” she thought; and then she covered her face with her hands and burst into angry tears.
Harriet was neither sorry nor repentant, as she had been on that occasion when little Ralph was lost. She was furious at once with herself and with Robina, and even with Ralph. Why did Robina come prying and spying to her room? and why did she dare to bring Ralph with her? and then why did she make that detestable, hypocritical offer to her? Harriet, indeed, to be seen riding Robina’s pony! – the pony given to Robina by Mr Durrant because she had been so kind to his little son! What a martyr Robina would look on one of the donkeys! and what a monster of selfishness she, Harriet, would appear riding on Bo-peep’s back! Oh, yes: Robina wanted to serve her own ends when she would bestow on Harriet the favour of letting her ride her pony.
“She thinks she is not sure of Ralph: she thinks she is not quite sure of Mr Durrant. She meant to clinch matters with both of them by her pretended unselfishness this morning,” thought the furious girl.
“But I have circumvented her: I am glad I have.” However angry one may be; however furious one’s passions may become, it is difficult to keep up the anger and the commotion and the fierce storm within the breast when there is no one to listen, no one to watch, no one, either, to sympathise or to blame. In the stillness of her little room Harriet’s angry heart cooled down. Her cheeks no longer blazed with fury, her eyes no longer flashed. After her time of storm, she felt a sort of reaction which made her cold and dull and miserable. She was not a bit repentant, except in as far as regarded her own pleasure. But she was weary, and came to the conclusion that her life at Sunshine Lodge would not be such a happy one after all.
When she had reached this stage of discomfort and depression, there came a tap at her room door, and one of the maids tried to turn the handle. Harriet then remembered that she had locked the door. She went and opened it. The girl asked with a smiling face if she could arrange the young lady’s room.
“Certainly,” said Harriet. “I am going out.”
She took a big straw hat from a peg on the door and put it on her head.
“I made sure, miss, that you were away to the shore with the others.”
“I did not go with them,” said Harriet.
“I hope, miss,” said the girl, glancing at Harriet, and observing the red rims round her eyes, “I hope that you ain’t ill, miss.”
“No, I am quite well, thank you; but the fact is, I don’t care for donkey rides. I am going out now, so you can arrange my room as soon as you like.”
“Thank you, miss,” replied the girl.
Harriet ran downstairs. The hall door stood wide open: a little gentle breeze came in and fluttered the leaves of some books on the hall table. The air was sun-laden, and Harriet was glad to get out-of-doors. The little place seemed still and undisturbed; but by and by she came to a gardener’s boy, and then to the gardener himself. They both touched their hats to her. She wandered on and on. Presently, she reached the round pond. Here the water-lilies grew in profusion – great yellow cups, and still larger white ones. Harriet felt that desire which comes to almost every child to possess herself of some of the great waxen blossoms. She bent forward and tried to pick one. She could not manage it, however, for the flowers with their thick stems were hard to gather, and she knew that were she to try any harder she might fall into the pond. This she had no wish to do, and contented herself with standing by the bank.
As she was thus standing, wondering what she should do next, she heard a clear little voice say:
“Hallo there!” and Ralph bounded out of a thick undergrowth close by.
“Ralph?” said Harriet. She felt herself colouring. Shame absolutely filled her eyes.