Chapter Two
“Spoilt.”

Some half-hour or so after Roland had gone, Lewis, the footman, made his appearance at the nursery door, looking somewhat aggrieved.

“If you please, Miss Leila,” he began; then catching sight of Leila completely absorbed in her book and comfortably established by the fire, he hesitated and turned to Chrissie.

She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by scraps of silk, ribbon, coloured paper, and every article of furniture belonging to the beautiful large dolls’ house standing in a corner of the room.

“It’s Miss Earle, please, Miss Chrissie,” he began again. “She’s been here ever so long, and now she’s been ringing and ringing the schoolroom bell, till I didn’t know what was the matter.”

Chrissie went on calmly with her sortings.

“Well,” she said, “there’s nothing the matter. Tell Miss Earle we’ll come directly,” and with this piece of information Lewis had to content himself.

Chrissie glanced at Leila. Except for Jasper, quietly marshalling an army of tin soldiers at a side-table, the sisters were alone in the room, as Nurse and Fanny were busy in the little girls’ bedroom, the arranging and tidying of which was a much more serious affair than it should have been, and the door of which was shut.

“Leila,” said Chrissie.

No answer.

“Leila,” more emphatically, “Leila!”

“Well?” and Leila’s lovely dreamy dark eyes lifted themselves for a moment.

“Didn’t you hear? You might as well be stone deaf,” Chrissie went on, growing angry. “Miss Earle has sent up to say she’s been waiting hours.”

“Then she told a great story,” replied Leila lazily. “I’ll come in a moment, but I must just stop at a good place.”

“And I must match these colours for the new drawing-room furniture covers,” said Chrissie. “I’ll never get them so nice again, if Fanny muddles them all up in the scrap drawer.”

Just then her glance fell on Jasper, who had left off playing and was standing beside her.

“I’ll ’range them for you, if you like,” he was beginning, but Christabel shook her head.

“You couldn’t,” she said. “It’s something awfully partickler. But I’ll tell you what, Japs – you run down to Miss Earle and say you’ll have your reading first this morning. Tell her I’m having a spring cleaning and all sorts of fusses. You can say I didn’t know it was so late, and we’ll be down before you’ve half finished.”

Jasper moved towards the door, but less readily than usual.

“Hurry up, child, can’t you?” exclaimed Chrissie.

“Mumsey wanted us to be very good,” said the little fellow timidly.

“Well, we’re not being naughty. What does it matter to Miss Earle which lessons come first? She’s only a governess, and I am sure Mums pays her well.”

Her raised tone of voice had caught even Leila’s unhearing ears. She turned sharply.

“Chrissie, I’m shocked at you,” she said. “That’s not like a lady. Suppose we were grown-up and had to be governesses, you wouldn’t like to be spoken to like that.”

“I’m not speaking to her,” muttered Chrissie, rather sullenly, though she was already rather ashamed.

“But Jap might have said it to her,” persisted Leila.

“I wouldn’t,” exclaimed the child indignantly, “in course I wouldn’t.”

“Then go off at once and say what I told you to,” said Christabel, and Jasper obeyed her.

Leila, however, for once was roused. Certain words of her mother’s about remembering that she was the elder and should set a good example to heedless Chrissie, returned to her memory. She shut up her book with a sigh, and stooping, began to gather together some of the dolls’ belongings. But Chrissie pushed her away.

“Leave my things alone,” she said rudely.

“They’re not specially yours,” replied Leila. “The dolls’ house belongs to us both.”

“Much you do for it,” said Chrissie contemptuously. “It’d be all choked with dust like ‘in a dirty old house lived a dirty old man,’ if it depended on you.”

“It’s in a nice mess just now, any way,” remarked Leila. “Well, I’m going down to the schoolroom. You can do as you please.”

The last words were like a spur to impetuous Christabel.

“You shan’t go off and put all the blame on me to Miss Earle,” she exclaimed, starting up. “I’m coming too. Nurse,” she went on, “Nurse,” so loudly, that the bedroom door opened and Nurse and Fanny hurried out in alarm.

Chrissie looked up coolly. She had an irritating way of getting cool herself as soon as she saw that she had irritated others.

“You needn’t stare so,” she said. “It’s only about my toys and things. I want them left exactly as they are, till after lesson-time this afternoon – exactly as they are. Don’t you hear what I say, Nurse?” waxing impatient again.

“It’s impossible, Miss Chrissie,” replied Nurse. “Master Jasper and I couldn’t get to the table for our dinner; and even if we sat over at the other side, Fanny’d be sure to tread on some of those dainty little chairs and things and break them.”

Chrissie, as a matter of fact, saw the force of this, but she would not seem to give in, so she contented herself with making a scape-goat of the nursery-maid.

“Fanny is an awkward, clumsy creature, I’ll allow,” she said, with an air of great magnanimity, “so you may move them, or make her do it. But if she breaks one single thing I’ll complain to Mamma; I will indeed,” with a very lordly air, as she got up from the floor and prepared to follow Leila downstairs.

Nurse had the self-control to say nothing till the young lady was out of hearing, but as she and Fanny began together to clear the confused heap out of danger’s way, she could not resist saying to the girl, “To hear the child speak you’d think she never broke or spoilt a thing in her life! She’s worse than Miss Leila, and she’s bad enough, always half in a dream over her books. But Miss Chrissie’s worse. The losings and breakings!”

“Yes,” Fanny agreed, “and the messing with paint and gum and ink. Those new blouses. Nurse, are just covered with spots, and between them I don’t think they’ve a brooch with a pin to it.”

Nurse sighed, and the sigh was not a selfish one.

Downstairs, in the meantime, Miss Earle had, unwillingly enough, judged it wisest to make the best of things and to waste no more time, by beginning Jasper’s lessons in accordance with the message from Christabel, which the little fellow delivered much more politely than he had received it.

But the governess was far from satisfied.

She was young, excellently qualified for her post, and really interested in the children, as they were far from wanting in intelligence and love of knowledge, and now and then the lessons went swimmingly; brightly enough even to satisfy her own enthusiasm. But at other and more frequent times there was, alas, a very different story to tell, a sadly disappointing report to make, and Miss Earle almost began to despair. She had not been with the Fortescues very long, and she was intensely anxious to give satisfaction to their kind mother, who had behaved to her with the greatest consideration and liberality, and it grieved her to feel that, unless she could gain more influence over the girls, she must resign her charge of them.

“They are completely ‘out of hand,’ as it were,” she found herself one day obliged to say to Mrs Fortescue. “They don’t seem to know what ‘must’ means; in fact, in their different ways, their only idea is to do what they like and not what they don’t, and yet they are so clever and honest and they can be such darlings,” and she looked up almost with tears in her eyes. “It is discipline they need,” she added, “and – ” hesitating a little, “unselfishness – thought for others.”

She need not have hesitated. Mrs Fortescue knew it was all true.

“I suppose the simple explanation is that I – we – have spoilt them,” she said sadly. “And now it is beginning to show. But Jasper, Miss Earle, the youngest – he should be the most spoilt.”

Miss Earle shook her head.

“And he is not spoilt at all!” she exclaimed. “He is not a very quick child, perhaps, but he is painstaking and attentive. He will do very well. And as to obedience and thoughtfulness – why, he has never given me a moment’s trouble.”

This talk had taken place some time ago. Over and over again the young governess had tried to hit upon some way of really impressing her pupils more lastingly, of checking their increasing self-will and heedlessness. For we don’t stand still in character; if we are not improving, it is greatly to be feared we are falling off. Now and then she felt happier, but never for more than a day or two, and this morning – this cold winter morning when she herself had got up long before it was light, to do some extra bookwork, and attend to her invalid sister’s breakfast – this morning was again to bring disappointment.

How cosy and comfortable the schoolroom looked as she came in, and held out her cold hands to the fire!

“Really, they are lucky children,” she thought, as she remembered the bare walls and carpetless floor and meagre grates of the good but far from homelike great school where she herself had been educated. “How good they should be,” as her glance wandered round the pretty, library-like little room. “But perhaps it is not easy to be unselfish if one has everything one wants, every wish gratified!”

Then came the tiresome waiting, the unnecessary waste of time – the footman’s cross face at the door, when she felt obliged to ring and send up a rather peremptory summons, a summons only responded to by Jasper, burdened with Chrissie’s far from satisfactory message – followed, just when Miss Earle was getting interested in the little boy’s reading, by a bang at the door and the younger girl’s noisy entrance, for she had overtaken Leila on the staircase and insisted on a race, in which, of course, she had been the winner.

“Chrissie!” exclaimed Miss Earle, surprised and remonstrant. “My dear child, you should not burst into the room in that way. It is too startling.”

“Yes, do speak to her, Miss Earle,” said Leila, in a complaining tone, with which their governess at one time would have had more sympathy than she now felt. For truly the little girls’ quarrels were almost always “six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.”

“She nearly knocked me downstairs and I was coming quite quietly.”

“And in the meantime neither of you has said good-morning to me, and it is eighteen minutes past the half-hour,” Miss Earle continued. “Besides which, you know you should be here before I come, with your books and all ready.”

Both children were silent. Then Christabel said, rather sullenly —

“I sent a message by Jasper. I suppose he didn’t give it properly.”

“He gave it as properly as a message that was not a proper one could be given,” was the reply, and Miss Earle’s voice was very cold.

“I must keep up my authority, such as it is,” she said to herself, “but oh, what a pity it is to have so constantly to find fault, when I love them and we might be so happy together.”

It was a bad beginning for the morning’s lessons, and as was to be expected, things did not go smoothly. In their hearts both Leila and Christabel were feeling rather ashamed of themselves, but outwardly this only showed itself by increased sleepy inattention in the one, and a kind of noisy defiance in the other. But Miss Earle knew children too well to “pile on the agony,” and said no more, hoping that the interest they really felt in their work would gradually clear the atmosphere.

So she gave them some history notes to copy out correctly, while Jasper went on with his reading.

He was not a very quick child, as I think I have said already, but it was impossible to feel vexed with him, as he did his very best – getting pink all over his fair little face when he came to some very difficult word. Nor was it always easy to help laughing at his comical mistakes, but a smile of amusement on his teacher’s face never hurt his feelings. It was different, however, when Chrissie burst into a roar at his solemnly narrating that “the gay-oler locked the door of the cell on the prisoner.”

“The what, my dear?” said Miss Earle.

Jasper’s eyes were intently fixed on the word.

“Go-aler,” he announced triumphantly.

Then came his sisters noisy laughter, and the child’s eyes filled with tears.

“Be silent, Chrissie,” said Miss Earle sternly, and Chrissie’s face just then was not pleasant to see.

Nor did she recover her good temper till the French lesson came and her translation was found to have only two faults, whereas Leila’s rejoiced in five!

On fine days the three children went for a walk with Miss Earle from twelve to one – that, at least, was the rule. But how seldom was it obeyed! At a quarter to twelve they were sent upstairs to get ready, but in spite of Nurse’s and Fanny’s doing their best, it was rarely, if ever, that Leila and Chrissie made their appearance again till ten or twenty minutes past the proper time. And to-day was no exception. Nurse brought them downstairs herself, almost in tears.

“Miss Earle,” she began, “I don’t know what to do. Will you – can you say anything to the young ladies? I did so want to tell their Mamma that they had been good while she was away, and it’s worse than ever. Miss Leila’s been reading all the time I was trying to dress her, and Miss Chrissie pulled off her hat three times and stamped on it.”

“She put it all on one side. I looked like Falstaff in it,” said Christabel coolly.

“Then why do you not put it on yourself?” said Miss Earle, as they went out.

“Why should I, when they’re there to dress us?” was the reply. Miss Earle was silent. Chrissie repeated her question.

“I don’t think there is any use in my answering you,” she said at last. “We look at these things in such a different way, according to different ideas.”

Chrissie grew more amiable at this. She liked to be spoken to as if she were grown-up.

“You may as well explain,” she said condescendingly. “Tell me how you mean.”

“I mean that if I were rich enough to have half-a-dozen maids to dress me – or nurses to make a baby of me – I should be, and at your age should have been, ashamed to be as helpless as you and Leila are,” said Miss Earle.

Leila, who was listening, wriggled a little. Chrissie tossed her head.

“I’m not helpless. I can do anything I choose to do.”

“Indeed,” said their governess drily, “I should not have thought it.”

“But why should we?” said Leila, “We don’t need to.”

“Why should you learn to be self-helpful and, to a certain extent, independent?” replied Miss Earle. “I should say, for two reasons. Because it would be good for your own characters, and also because nobody can tell what they may not have to do sooner or later, and surely it is best to be a little prepared for the chances and changes of life.”

“I suppose you mean we might be sent to school some day,” said Chrissie; “but we shan’t – that’s certain.”

“I meant nothing in particular. I was only answering your question. But I must add something. If you do let yourselves be treated like babies, at least you should be as nice as babies generally are – healthy babies, I mean – to those who treat them kindly.”

Both the girls grew red at this, and Miss Earle was glad to see it.

“I don’t fink I was a very nice baby,” said Jasper consideringly. “Mumsey says I cried lots. That’s why I must try to be good now.”

“Poor Jasper!” said Miss Earle, “perhaps you were a very delicate baby.”

“I fink p’raps I was,” he said with satisfaction. “I can’t remember very well, but I don’t fink I meaned to be naughty.”

“You did roar,” said Leila; “I can remember it; or rather squealed. You weren’t big enough to roar.”

“Everybody’s got to be naughty some time or other,” remarked Chrissie jauntily. “I know you think Lell and me horridly bad, Miss Earle, but p’raps we’ll turn out awfully good after all.”

“I hope so,” said their governess, smiling. Then she added rather gravely, “I wish, dears, you could understand how much sorrow and regret you would save yourselves in the future if you would really try to be more thoughtful now,” and for a few minutes both little girls seemed impressed. Then, to change the subject, Christabel began again —

“Mummy’s coming back on Monday, Miss Earle. Roland’s had a letter, and he thinks she’s very worried.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” said Miss Earle. “Well, any way, let us try to have a cheerful report waiting for her, as far as we are concerned.”

And the rest of the walk passed in a most pleasant way.

But, alas! the children’s dinner, which the two girls had with their governess downstairs, was a cause of irritation, for, without being “greedy,” I am afraid I must allow that they were very “dainty,” which is almost as bad.

“I hate cutlets done like this,” said Chrissie. “They’re so dry. I like them with that nice reddy sauce.”

“Tomatoes,” said Leila. “So do I. And I don’t see why we should have plain potatoes, instead of mashed or browned, just because Mummy’s away.”

She pushed her plate from her.

“Leila,” said Miss Earle sternly, “go on with your dinner,” and as there was nothing else to eat, and Leila was hungry, she had to do so.

Then came the next course.

“Apple pudding! I hate cooked apples!” exclaimed Christabel. “Is there no cream, Lewis?”

No – there was no cream.

“What a hateful dinner,” both children complained, and as they saw Miss Earle about to speak, Chrissie interrupted her.

“I know what you’re going to say – all that about poor children who have nothing to eat, and that we should be thankful to have anything. But I’ve heard it hundreds of times, and I don’t see why we should have nasty things, all the same. It doesn’t make it any better for the poor children.”

“If your food were not nice, perhaps I would agree with you, but as things are, I cannot,” said Miss Earle.

But eat her apple pudding Chrissie would not, and as she had really not had enough dinner for a strong, healthy child as she was, her temper was by no means at its best for afternoon lessons, and Miss Earle walked home, feeling sadly discouraged.

“I must tell Mrs Fortescue that I’m making no way with them,” she thought. “Things have gone too far. I do not see how one is to get any lasting impression on them. And yet, I am so sorry to disappoint their mother! I wonder if she is really in trouble? What would those children do if actual misfortunes came over them?”

A sort of presentiment, caused greatly, no doubt, by her sincere interest in her pupils, and anxiety about them, seemed to add to her depression.

“I wish I had heard what Roland said,” she thought. “He is a good sort of boy. Perhaps he was only trying to make the girls more considerate for their mother just now.”