CHAPTER XV.

ANOTHER GUEST AT MARSHLANDS.

The following two or three weeks passed rapidly and pleasantly; but for two serious drawbacks that hindered my thorough enjoyment, I should have owned myself perfectly happy, but Mrs. Markham and Rolf were perpetual thorns in my side.

A consciousness of being disliked by any human being, however uncongenial to us, is always a disagreeable discovery. The cause of the repellent action of one mind on another may be an interesting psychological study, but in practice it brings us to a sadder and lower level. I knew Mrs. Markham honestly disliked me; but the cause of such marked disfavour utterly baffled me.

Most people found her fascinating; she was intellectual and refined, and had many good qualities, but she was not essentially womanly. Troubles and the loss of her children had hardened her; embittered by disappointment, for her married life, short as it was, had been singularly unhappy, she had come back to her father’s house a cold, resentful woman, who masked unhappiness under an air of languid indifference, and whose strong will and concealed love of power governed the whole household. “Adelaide manages us all,” Miss Cheriton would say, laughing, and I used to wonder if she ever rebelled against her sister’s dictates. I knew the squire was like wax in the hands of his eldest daughter; he was one of those indolent, peace-loving men who are always governed by their womankind; his wife had ruled him, and now his widowed daughter held the reins. I think Gay was like her father; she went on her own way and shut her eyes to anything disagreeable. It would never have done for me to quarrel openly with Mrs. Markham; common sense and respect for my mistress’s sister kept me silent under great provocation. I controlled my words, and in some measure I controlled voice and outward manner, but my inward antagonism must have revealed itself now and then by an unguarded tone.

My chief difficulty was to prevent her spoiling Joyce. After the first, she had become very fond of the child, and was always sending for her to the drawing-room, and loading her with toys and sweetmeats. Mr. Morton’s orders had been very stringent about sweetmeats, and again and again I was obliged to confiscate poor Joyce’s goodies as she called them. I had extracted from her a promise that she should eat nothing out of the nursery, and nothing could induce the child to disobey me.

“Nurse says I mustn’t, Aunt Adda,” was her constant remark, and Mrs. Markham chose to consider herself aggrieved at this childish obstinacy. She spoke to me once about it with marked displeasure.

“I have had children of my own, and I suppose I know what is good for them,” she said, with a touch of scorn in her voice; “you have no right to enforce such ridiculous rules on Joyce.”

“I have Mrs. Morton’s orders,” I replied, curtly; “Dr. Myrtle told me to be very careful of Joyce’s diet; I cannot allow her to eat things I know will hurt her,” and I continued to confiscate the goodies.

But though I was firm in all that concerned the children’s health, there were many occasions on which I was obliged to submit to Mrs. Markham’s interference; very often my plans for the day were frustrated for no legitimate cause. I was disposed to think sometimes that she acted in this way just to vex me and make me lose my temper. If we were starting for the beach, Judson would bring us a message that her mistress would prefer my taking the children into the orchard, and sometimes on a hot afternoon, when we were comfortably ensconced on the bench under the apple trees, Judson would inform us that Mrs. Markham thought we had better go down to the sea. Sometimes I yielded to these demands, if I thought the children would not suffer by them, but at other times I would tell Judson that the sun was too hot or the children too tired, and that we had better remain as we were. If this was the case, Mrs. Markham would sometimes come out herself and argue the matter, but I always stood my ground boldly; though I was perfectly aware that the afternoon’s post would convey a letter to Prince’s Gate, complaining of my impertinence in disputing her orders.

My mistress’s letters were my chief comfort, and they generally came on the morning after one of these disputes. She would write to me so affectionately, and tell me how she missed me as well as the children, and though she never alluded openly to what had occurred, there was always a little sentence of half-veiled meaning that set my mind at rest.

“My sister Gay tells me that the children are getting so brown and strong with the sea air,” she wrote once, “and that dear little Joyce has quite a nice colour. Thank you so much for your ceaseless care of them; you know I trust you implicitly, Merle, and I have no fear that you will disappoint me; your good sense will carry you safely through any little difficulty that may arise. Write to me as often as you can; your letters are so nice. I am very busy and very tired, for this ball has entailed so much work and fuss, but your letters seem to rest me.”

Rolf was also a serious impediment to my enjoyment. Ever since I had helped him with his kite, he had attached himself to me, and insisted on joining us in all our walks, and in spending the greater part of his day with us. I was tolerably certain in my own mind that this childish infatuation excited Mrs. Markham’s jealousy. Until we had arrived she had been Rolf’s sole companion; he had accompanied her in her drives, harassed her from morning to night with his ceaseless demands for amusements, and had been the secretly dreaded torment of all the visitors to Marshlands, except Mr. Hawtry, who was rather good to him.

His precocity, his love of practical jokes, and his rough impertinence, made him at feud with the whole household; the servants disliked him, and were always bringing complaints of Master Rolf. I believe Judson was fond of him in a way, but then she had had charge of him from a baby.

When Rolf began to desert the drawing-room for the nursery, Mrs. Markham used all her efforts to coax him back to her side, but she might as well have spoken to the wind. Rolf played with Joyce on the beach; he raced her up and down the little hillocks in the orchard, or hunted with her for wild flowers in the lanes that surrounded Marshlands. When the children were asleep, he invaded my quiet with requests to mend his broken toys or join him in some game. I grew quite expert in rigging his new boat, and dressed toy soldiers and sailors by the dozen. Sometimes I was inclined to rebel at such waste of time, but I remembered that Rolf had no playfellows; it was better for him to be playing spillikins or go-bang with me in the nursery than lounging listlessly about the drawing-room, listening to grown-up people’s talk; a natural child’s life was better for his health. Miss Cheriton told me more than once that people who came to the house thought Rolf so much improved. Certainly he was not so pale and fretful after a long morning spent on the beach in wading knee-deep to sail his boat or digging sand wells which Joyce filled out of her bucket. When he grew too rough or boisterous I always called Joyce away, and with Hannah and myself to look after them no harm could come to the children.

I grew rather fond of Rolf, after a time, and his company would not have been irksome to me, but for his tiresome habit of repeating the speeches he had heard in the drawing-room. He always checked himself when he remembered, or when I held up my finger, but the half sentence would linger in my memory.

But this was not the worst. I soon found out that anything I told him found its way into the drawing-room; in fact, Rolf was an inveterate chatterbox. With all his good intentions, he could not hold his tongue, and mischief was often the result.

It was my habit to teach the children little lessons under the guise of a story, sometimes true, sometimes a mere invention. Rolf called them “Fenny’s Anecdotes,” but I had never discovered an anecdote about crossness.

One day I found myself being severely lectured by Mrs. Markham for teaching her son the doctrine of works. “As though we should be saved by our works, Miss Fenton!” she finished, virtuously.

I was too much puzzled to answer; I had no notion what she meant until I remembered that I had induced Rolf to part with some of his pocket-money to relieve a poor blind man that we found sitting by the wayside. Rolf had been sorry for the man, and still more for the gaunt, miserable-looking woman by his side; but when we had gone on our way, followed by voluble Irish blessings, Rolf had rather feelingly lamented his sixpence, and I had told him a little story inculcating the beauty of almsgiving, which had impressed him considerably, and he had retailed a garbled version of it to his mother—hence her rebuke to me. I forget what my defence was, only I remember I repudiated indignantly any such doctrine; but this sort of misunderstanding was constantly arising. If only Rolf would have held his tongue!

But these were mere surface troubles, and I often managed to forget that there was such a person as Mrs. Markham in the world; and, in spite of a few trifling drawbacks, I look back upon this summer as one of the happiest in my life.

I was young and healthy, and I perfectly revelled in the country sights and sounds with which I was surrounded. I hardly knew which I enjoyed most—the long delicious mornings on the beach, when I sat under the breakwater taking care of Reggie, or the afternoons in the orchard, with the brown bees humming round the hives and the children playing with Fidgets on the grass, while the old white pony looked over the fence at us, and the sheep nibbled at our side. I used to send Hannah home for an hour or two while I watched over the children; it was hard for her to be so near home and not enjoy Molly’s company; and those summer afternoons were lazy times for all of us.

I think Miss Cheriton added largely to my happiness. I had never had a friend since my school-days, and it was refreshing to me to come in contact with this bright young creature. I was a little too grave for my age, and I felt she did me good.

I soon found she resembled my mistress in one thing: she was very unselfish, and thought more of other people’s pleasures than her own. She used to say herself that it was only a sublime sort of selfishness that she liked to see everyone happy round her. “A gloomy face hinders all enjoyment,” was her constant remark. But I never knew anyone who excelled more in little kindly acts. She would bring me fruit or flowers almost daily; and when she found I was fond of reading, she selected books for me she thought I should like.

When Mrs. Markham did not use the carriage—a very rare occasion, as she had almost a monopoly of it—she would take us for long country drives, and she would contrive all sorts of little surprises for us. Once when we returned from a saunter in the lanes, we found our tea table laid in the orchard, and Miss Cheriton presiding, in a gay little hat trimmed with cornflowers and poppies. There was a basket of flowers in the centre of the table, and a heap of red and yellow fruit. We had quite a little feast that evening, and all the time we were sitting there, there were broods of chickens running over the grass, that Gay had enticed into the orchard to please the children, and grey rabbits, and an old lame duck that was her pensioner, and went by the name of Cackles.

“Oh, auntie, do have another feast,” Joyce would say to her, almost daily; but Miss Cheriton could not always be with us; visitors were very plentiful at Marshlands, and Gay’s company was much courted by the young people of Netherton and Orton-upon-Sea.

I knew Mr. Hawtry was a constant visitor, for we often met him in our walks; and it seemed to me that his face was always set in the direction of Marshlands.

When Rolf was with us he was never allowed to pass without notice, and then he would stop and speak to the children, especially to Joyce, who soon got over her shyness with him.

“Mother says Mr. Hawtry comes to see Aunt Gay,” Rolf remarked once, when he was out of hearing; “she told grandpapa so one day, and asked him if it would not be a good thing; and grandpapa laughed and nodded; you know his way. What did mother mean?”

“No doubt she meant that Mr. Hawtry was a kind friend,” I returned, evasively. How is one to silence a precocious child? But of course it was easy to understand Mrs. Markham’s hint.

I wondered sometimes if Mr. Hawtry were a favoured suitor. He and Miss Cheriton certainly seemed on the best of terms; she always seemed glad to see him, but her manner was very frank with him.

I took it into my head that Gay had more than one admirer. I deduced this inference from a slight occurrence that took place one day.

I was on the terrace with the children one morning, when a young clergyman in a soft felt hat came up the avenue. I knew him at once as the boyish-faced curate at Netherton Church, who had read the service the last two Sundays. I had liked his voice and manner, they were so reverent, but I remembered that I thought him very young. He was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, and though not exactly handsome, had a bright, pleasant-looking face.

Rolf hailed him at once as an old acquaintance. “Holloa, Mr. Rossiter; it is no use your going on to the house; mother is not well and cannot see you, and Aunt Gay is with the bees.”

Mr. Rossiter seemed a little confused at this. He stopped and regarded Rolf with some perplexity.

“I am sorry Mrs. Markham is not well, but perhaps I can see Mr. Cheriton.”

“Oh, grandpapa has gone to Orton; there is only me at home; you see, Miss Fenton does not count. If you want Aunt Gay I will show you the way to the kitchen garden.” And as Mr. Rossiter accepted this offer with alacrity, they went off together.

We were going down to the beach that morning, and I was only waiting for Hannah to get the perambulator ready, but as a quarter of an hour elapsed and Rolf did not make his appearance, Joyce and I went in search of him.

I found him standing by the beehives, talking to Miss Cheriton and Mr. Rossiter. They all looked very happy, and Mr. Rossiter was laughing at something the boy had said; such a ringing, boyish laugh it was.

When I called Rolf they all looked round, and Miss Cheriton came forward to speak to me. I thought she looked a little uncomfortable, and I never saw her with such a colour.

“Are you going down to the beach? I wish I could come too, it is such a lovely morning, but Mr. Rossiter wants me to go to the schools; Miss Parsons, the schoolmistress, is ill, and they need help. It is so tiresome,” speaking with a pettish, spoilt-child air, turning to the young clergyman; “Miss Parsons always does get ill at inconvenient times.”

“I know you would not fail us if it were ever so inconvenient,” answered Mr. Rossiter, looking full at her—he had such nice clear eyes; “you are far too kind to desert us in such a strait.”

But she made no answer to this, and went back to the beehive, and after a moment’s irresolution Mr. Rossiter followed her.

“Do you like Mr. Rossiter?” asked Rolf, in his blunt way, as we walked down the avenue. “I do, awfully; he is such a brick. He plays cricket with me sometimes, and he has promised to teach me to swim, only mother won’t let him, in spite of all grandpapa says about my being brought up like a girl. Grandpapa means me to learn to swim and ride, only mother is so frightened ever since the black pony threw me. I am to have a quieter one next year.”

“Have you known Mr. Rossiter long?” I asked, carelessly.

“Oh, pretty long. Mother can’t bear him coming so often to the house; she says he is so awkward, and then he is poor. Mother doesn’t like poor people; she always says it is their own fault; that they might get on better. Do you know, Fenny, Mr. Rossiter has only two little rooms at Mrs. Saunders’, you know that low house looking on the cornfields; quite poky little rooms they are, because mother and I went there. Mother asked him if he did not find it dreadfully dull at Netherton, and he laughed and said, ‘Oh, dear no;’ he had never been more comfortable; the people at Netherton were so kind and hospitable; and though mother does not like him, he comes just as often as though she did.” And I soon verified Rolf’s words; Mr. Rossiter came very often to Marshlands.

(_To be continued._)

I ONLY WISH I HAD.

BY MEDICUS.

There are five hundred of my lady readers, at the very least, who can easily guess the reason why Medicus did not appear before them so regularly last summer.

“Five hundred!” I think I hear some girls say; “why are these five hundred in the secret? And what about all the other thousands?”

Stay, and I will tell you. For four months this last season I was “on the road,” travelling in my own chariot—I am surely not wrong in calling it a chariot, seeing it is twenty feet in length—throughout the length and breadth of Merrie England, and I put down the minimum of Girl’s Own readers who visited this chariot and its owner at five hundred, though, seeing that schools with their teachers, numbering from twenty to seventy, sometimes paid a visit to me, all of whom were ardent admirers of the “beautifully and tastefully illustrated G. O. P.”—the girls’ own words—a thousand might be nearer the mark.

But what, it may be asked, has this to do with the non-appearance of Medicus before his readers? Why, everything; because I find it all but impossible to do literary work “on the road.”

I might have done more, though.

“I only wish I had.”

And these words form the text on which I desire this month to speak a few homely words to my girls, young or not young.

“I only wish I had.” How often a medical man hears those same words; spoken, it may be, with blanched lips, by some poor mortal who is languishing on a bed of sickness and pain. “I only wish I had.” Had what? Taken better care of health while it lasted.

I sat by the bedside of a poor girl some years ago, and heard her repeat those same words frequently. I had somewhat more time to spare then than I have now, or I could not have sat there for an hour or two at a time reading to her or to myself. She did not speak much, being in the final stage of consumption, but she assured me again and again it was “such company” to have me there, so what could I do?

“I wish I had.” These words, it seemed to me, were too often on her lips. Sometimes it was only the first two words, “I wish,” she breathed, as if the weakened lungs and voice refused to add the others. I think I see Esther D—— even now, a long, thin, pale hand on the coverlet, a white, thin face, with a flush on the high cheeks, little blue veins meandering over the temples, and sad blue eyes, with dark dilated and glistening pupils.

“I wish I had.” Wish she had what? Taken a word or two of advice I gave her in a friendly way, just before she started for the seaside on a holiday trip.

She looked bright, strong, and beautiful that day, though I could tell, from her transparent skin, her too soft hair and drooping eyelashes, that in her veins were the seeds of our island illness, and that it would need but little to fan it into flame.

“I mean to enjoy myself thoroughly,” she said, her eyes dancing with good humour.

“Yes,” I said, as I bade her good-bye, “but not excitedly, Esther; and remember what I said about night air, damp feet, and warm clothing.”

There was a little impatient toss of the head, and just about half a frown, and I smiled, expecting her to say, “Oh, bother!” but she did not.

Well, poor Esther died.

But I know of nothing more sad when one is ill than the thought that the illness might have been avoided.

“I wish I had been more careful.”

If you let your thimble fall, it will drop to the ground, will it not? This is a law of Nature; and as sure and certain is every other law of Nature. Nature will forgive, but she never will forget. If you, for example, sit in wet clothes, evaporation takes place; in other words, the damp of your clothes passes off in steam, and, as water requires so much heat to convert it into steam, it takes this heat from the nearest source, and that is from your body. It absorbs animal heat. What is the consequence? Why, baby there could understand this simple lesson in physiology. The consequence is that the surface of the body becomes chilled. Well, then another law of Nature comes into force. The law is this: Cold contracts. Cold contracts everything, even iron. Witness the difference in the length of railway iron rails in summer and winter. Given a sun-heat of, say, one hundred and twenty degrees, and they are all close together at the ends. Given a winter temperature of thirty-two degrees, or under, and the rails do not touch, but gap.

And the cold on the surface of the body contracts the veins and arteries. With what result? With the result that the blood is to some extent squeezed—to use simple language—out of them, and, as it must flow somewhere, it rushes in upon the internal organs of the body.

Now, we all of us have some one organ weaker than the others, and it is this organ that suffers from a surfeit of blood in its veins, driven inwards by a chill. It may be Miss Ada’s liver, and she has in consequence “a horrid bilious attack,” as I have heard it called, or it may be worse, suppression of the bile entirely, followed naturally by blood poisoning and jaundice.

It may be Miss Ada’s lungs. The blood is driven in upon the surface thereof; this surface becomes congested and red, though no one can see it. Nature tries to relieve the congestion by throwing off through the walls of the veins or arteries the watery portion of the blood. This tickles the lungs, and a cough is the result. But the very act of coughing increases the mischief tenfold, and what was at first water may become matter.

Nor may the mischief end here; for, if inclined to have consumption, the tubercle, as it is called, will now be deposited in the lung surface or tissue. Why? Because, the veins being congested and enlarged, the flow through them is more sluggish. I do hope I’m making myself understood! The flow, I say, is more sluggish, and deleterious matter, that otherwise would have been washed or carried away in the secretions, gets time and opportunity to settle.

Now do you understand how a chill from a draught or from damp clothing may cause mischief of even a fatal character?

Will you take my advice, and wear judicious clothing, or will you wait till the mischief is done, and then say, “I wish I had”?

Mind, I do not wish you to go about, even during the cold months of winter, swaddled with as much clothing as a mummy, but I do wish you to wear woollen clothing—next the skin, at all events.

Age has nothing at all to do with it. The young are even more apt to catch deadly colds than the older or middle-aged.

I often wish there was some woollen material manufactured in this country—thin, warm, and soft, with a smooth surface that would render it perfectly suitable for underclothing for the most delicate-skinned girl. Flannel, such as is sold in the shops, has its good points, but it really has many objectionable ones. I hear new flannel extolled. I may be fastidious, but I really do not care for its perfume. Then there are your woollen jerseys, or whatever you call them, and merino ditto. Why, they are so rough, I, myself, would rather fall back upon silk.

In Germany, I believe, they have a material that is eminently suitable for the purpose I am advocating.

There is a chance for some manufacturer to come to the front. Meanwhile, our girls will go on wearing linen and catching colds; and I do assure my readers that they would be both astonished and shocked were I to tell them the average number of fatal illnesses brought on annually in England from neglect of proper precautions for the preservation of health.

But if winter hath its dangers from cold, and wet, and frost, neither is summer exempt.

Would I have girls wear wool in summer? Undoubtedly.

Wool is not only a protection against cold, but against intense heat as well. It is a go-between, so to speak.

We all know that thatched houses are warm in winter and cool in summer, but possibly the words of Stanley, the great African traveller, may be new to many, although the truth they contain rests upon the same natural basis as that about thatched houses. I cannot give the exact words of this truly great man, but they are to this effect:—

“The only way a European can withstand the intense heat of tropical Africa is by wearing garments of wool.”

This is very easily understood. Wool is a non-conductor. In winter, therefore, it conserves or retains the internal or animal heat, and in summer it will defend the skin and the blood from becoming fevered by the scorching rays of the sun.

I do not expect my youngest readers to be interested in one-half of what I am now writing, but I most earnestly desire their mothers and guardians to lay my words to heart, and to act upon them, so that they may not hereafter have to say, with sighs of regret—

“I wish I had.”

There is one other little matter I wish to point out to my thoughtful mamma-readers, with regard to clothing, and that is, the absurdity of not having dress, either for boys or girls, made the same thickness at the back as at the front.

It really is ridiculous to clothe the chest in front and leave it to starve between the shoulders. I have before now pointed out to you that people catch colds in the chest far more often from chills caught from behind. _Verbum sap._

Well, now I shall change my tune, and go on to another subject which also has a bearing upon colds and coughs and ill-health of every kind engendered by wintry weather.

One-half of the people in this country are not breakfast-eaters.

Are you really a breakfast-eater? Do you get hungry as soon as you have had your bath? As soon as you have said your good-morning, do your eyes roam over the table-cloth with a wholesome desire to know what is on board? If you are healthy, and have discussed that matutinal meal, nothing can hurt you all day. You may walk through the most unwholesome streets and lanes in the City, and come forth intact.

On the other hand, do you feel languid when you get up? Do you cast a longing, lingering glance behind you as you commence to dress? Do you come downstairs caring little what is to eat? Are your fingers numb and cold? Do you require to slowly sip a cup of tea before getting an appetite even for toast and butter, and that new-laid egg you have to coax yourself to eat? If so you are not in health. Go not anywhere during the day where you are likely to breathe a tainted air, or be influenced by cold or damp. If you do not take my advice in this respect you may live to say—“I wish I had.”

But have I no remedy to suggest for my breakfastless readers?

Oh, yes, I have! There is a cause for everything. Your want of appetite in the morning may depend on one or other of many things. To be sure, it may be constitutional. You may have a weak heart and be altogether delicate in consequence. But ten to one you have nothing of the sort. Besides, if your heart be only functionally weak, do not forget that it is a muscular organ, as much so as your forearm or biceps, and, like the biceps, can be strengthened by good food and plenty of pleasant exercise in the open air.

But there are other reasons why appetite absents itself at the breakfast hour. As my space is nearly filled, I can but name a few.

Late suppers are inimical to health in the morning. They create restless nights, or, if the nights be not restless quite, the sleep is not refreshing. The stomach ought to sleep as well as other organs; and if it does not, depend upon it that it will not be fit for its duties next morning.

Badly ventilated rooms. Sleeping in a room where there is not an abundance of fresh air is poisoning to the blood. The carbonic is not burned off therefrom, and dulness and lethargy are the result. You awake in the morning feeling your sleep has done you little good, feeling you would like just another hour. Believe me, if you slept as long thus as Rip Van Winkle, you would feel precisely the same when you opened your eyes.

Want of exercise and neglect of the bath also destroy the appetite for the morning meal.

And medicines will not make up for want of obedience to Nature’s laws. But if you return to these with heart and soul, then a mixture of infusion of quassia, say a tablespoonful, with ten drops of dilute phosphoric acid, and twenty of the compound tincture of bark, may be taken with great benefit, a quarter of an hour before breakfast and dinner.

See, then, to your appetite as well as clothing, especially in cold, inclement weather, and may you never have those bitter, regretful words to utter—“I wish I had.”

THE INHERITANCE OF A GOOD NAME.

BY LOUISA MENZIES.