A Modern Tomboy - L. T. Meade (best fiction books to read txt) 📗

little more bewildering than usual. He had never greatly approved of his wife's scheme of having girls to live with them, but had yielded to it at last under the pressure of necessity. He had no objection to the scheme on any score except that he was afraid it might absorb all his time and thoughts; for he was so constituted that he could never see a human creature, particularly a human creature in trouble, without taking that person's part and endeavoring if possible to set wrong right. And now, just what he feared had happened. He was weak and ill, and his nerves shaken, and Lady Jane had been to him, and Rosamund Cunliffe, the girl whom he most admired of all those who had come to live at Sunnyside, had directly disobeyed him, and Lady Jane had made a somewhat painful appeal to his sympathy. What was to be done?

Mrs. Merriman had hurried into the room the moment Lady Jane had left.

"Well," she said—"well, and what did Lady Jane say? And what are we going to do with that naughty girl? We ought to be firm with her. We really ought, Ralph."

The Professor looked gently at her, but did not speak.

"For Lucy's sake we ought to be firm," continued Mrs. Merriman. "Of course, I don't want to be hard on any girl; but a direct act of disobedience——"

"It is her first offence; and, after all, the girl is impulsive and has never been subject to control, and there are extenuating circumstances," said the Professor. "My dear," he continued, laying his hand on his wife's very plump shoulder, "you must speak to Lucy from yourself, not from me, dear; for I am too tired. But you must speak to her from yourself, and tell her that she is not to dictate any terms to us with regard to the pupils who come to be educated at Sunnyside. She herself is but one of the pupils. And now, dear, leave me, please."

Mrs. Merriman did so, and a moment later Rosamund entered the room. She advanced proudly, her head well thrown back, a spot of additional color on each cheek, her brown eyes brighter than usual.

"Professor," she said before he could speak a word, for he was amazed at her entering into his presence, "I know I have been a very naughty girl. I did disobey you. I did go all by myself to The Follies. I was annoyed at your strict views, and I had not been accustomed to self-control. I beg of you to forgive me, and to forgive me although I am not particularly repentant."

"What do you mean by that, Rosamund?" asked the Professor, his eyes darkening and a look of pain crossing his face.

"Because I think I have helped Lady Jane, and I want, please, Professor, your forgiveness and then your help."

As she spoke she suddenly dropped on her knees by his side and laid one hand on his knee.

"I want your help," she said, looking up into his face, "for dear Lady Jane was mother's friend, and she has got such a strange, wild, beautiful little daughter, whom nobody understands, and who is, I confess, exceedingly naughty. But I—yes, I, Professor—want to tame her."

"I have heard of her," said Professor Merriman. "There is no one living in the place who has not heard of Irene Ashleigh. The fact is, her name is a terror to the neighborhood. I have heard dreadful stories of that child, and the thought of her has weighed on my mind."

"As it is weighing on mine now," said Rosamund in a low voice, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

"My dear, you have been sent to me to be trained as I would train my own child—to be trained in this little simple school, to be educated in mind and body, not to be thrown into contact with a girl who is in no way fit to know you. At present, Rosamund, you are under masters and governors, and have, according to scriptural precepts, to obey them. By-and-by your time of emancipation will come, and you will owe allegiance only to God and those whom you love, my dear; but until that time comes it seems to me scarcely fit or advisable that you should have anything to do with Irene. I told Lady Jane so this evening."

"You told Lady Jane that?" said Rosamund, rising to her feet, her face very pale, her eyes dark as night.

"Yes, I did, for I considered it my duty."

"Then you would like me to leave you, Professor? You would like me to write to my mother and explain all the circumstances to her, and beg and implore of her to take me away?"

"You must please yourself, Rosamund," said the Professor; and now he rose and in his turn laid his hand on her shoulder. "You have a generous heart, I can see. But you have never been subjected to the rigorous laws of self-control. You showed a sad want of self-control when you disobeyed me to-day, and again I perceive it breaking out. If you cannot obey me, Rosamund, you must go. Yes, I shall be sorry to have to say it, but you must go."

"And does that mean," said Rosamund, "that I am not to see Irene, that I am not to try to help her, that I am not to be a friend to Lady Jane, that my mother's wishes in this matter are to be disregarded?"

"It means," said the Professor very gravely, "that, for the present at least, you are to have nothing whatever to do with Irene Ashleigh—nothing whatever to do with her. You understand that, Rosamund. And I give you a week, my dear, to decide. Think over the advantages of this home. Think what it means to your friends, and will eventually mean to yourself, and try to discover that I am wise in my generation, although you doubtless consider me foolish. If at the end of the week you have found out that you cannot really obey me—or, rather, that you will not—I shall have, reluctantly, to write to your mother and ask her to remove you, for the other girls cannot be contaminated with that most fatal of all sins, the sin of direct disobedience."

Rosamund bowed her head. The tears she could not repress brimmed to her eyes. Suddenly she flung off the Professor's detaining hand.

"Oh, you are hard!" she said. "Is no one to help a girl who will soon become irreclaimable? Why, already I have an influence over her."

But the Professor did not answer.

"Give yourself a week," he said after a long pause; "then come to me again with your resolution."

She was about to leave the room when he again laid his hand on her arm.

"Give me your word of honor, Rosamund Cunliffe, that you do not go again to The Follies until the week is up."

She looked at him, struggled to speak, but remained silent.

"Your word of honor," he repeated, "you do not go to The Follies until the week is up."

"My word of honor!" she said then in a faltering tone. "I will not go on one condition, that you allow me to write to Lady Jane."

"You may do that if you promise to tell her the exact truth, that you are on parole for a week. At the end of that time you may come to a decision. God grant it may be a right one! I trust you, but leave me now, please, dear."

Rosamund left the room.

CHAPTER VIII. THE RECTORY.

On the following Wednesday all the girls belonging to Mrs. Merriman's school, accompanied by Miss Archer, went to have tea with the Singletons. Even Rosamund was interested in this visit. She did not say much about it. She had been rather silent and, as Jane Denton said, "off color" for the last few days. She had forgotten to be wild or cantankerous. She had even ceased to notice Lucy; and as to her lessons, she had gone through the tasks assigned to her with sufficient promptitude and sufficient correctness to win fairly good remarks from the two governesses and from the different teachers who came to visit the little school. Of Irene Ashleigh she absolutely refused to speak. With regard to her adventure on Sunday she also kept a profound silence. No one, not even Jane Denton, could induce her to alter her mind with regard to this particular. Jane was anxious about her friend. Laura Everett said that she did not think Rosamund Cunliffe nearly as interesting as when she first met her. Phyllis Flower looked wise and mysterious, as she always did, and everything settled down to a monotonous and yet harmonious contentment at Sunnyside.

Nevertheless, Wednesday was thought a good deal about, and the girls of the entire school—for every single one was invited—headed by Lucy and accompanied by Miss Archer, started to walk to the Rectory.

Now, Rosamund's interest in this expedition was on no account to examine the "Leaves," as naughty Irene called the rector's daughters; but she wanted to watch Miss Carter, and if possible to get a word with her, and to induce her to tell her something more with regard to the wild and mischievous girl whom, nevertheless, she could not get for a moment out of her head.

When the young people arrived at the Rectory they found the rector's daughters waiting for them, not dressed in their quaint green dresses as on Sunday, but in simple white, with green ribbons, however, round their white straw hats. They looked particularly pretty and interesting, and Rosamund could not help feeling that under different circumstances she might have been glad to make friends with them. Maud, the eldest girl, had very straight, well-formed features. She was intensely fair, with large, clear blue eyes; and her hair, golden, with warm shades in it, hung below her waist. Her little mouth was small and rosy and very firm. She had a pretty cleft in her chin, a good carriage; and, in short, she was just the sort of girl to captivate other girls. Beyond doubt she had for some time acted as mother to her sisters; for Alice, the next in age, was about two years younger. Then came Bertha and Mary, pretty little girls of nine and ten years of age, and then Ivy and Jasmine.

They made an interesting group as they clustered round the girls from Sunnyside and bade them welcome, Maud taking the lead, and finally attaching herself to Rosamund; for she guessed, in some sort of instinctive way, that Rosamund had more character than the other school-girls, and would be more likely to interest her.

"Come and walk with me, won't you?" she said. "I want to introduce you to dear Miss Carter. She is longing to see you. She knows—we all know—about your wonderful escapade on Sunday."

Rosamund felt herself turning pale just for a moment: then the color flooded her cheeks.

"I would rather not speak about Sunday, if you don't mind," she said.

"Certainly I don't mind," replied Maud in a very quiet and lady-like way. "That is, if you would really rather not," she continued after a pause. "We know a great deal of Irene Ashleigh from Miss Carter, and we are all interested in her."

"I should have thought you would have hated her," said Rosamund suddenly.

"No—not exactly. She has a sort of fascination for us. Whenever we want dear Carter to make us thoroughly happy, or to give us a great treat, we get her to tell us about this wild, this formidable little Irene. She could not do it at first, poor thing! for, you know—but I can't speak of that to-day. Oh! here she is, coming down the path. Ah, Miss Carter," called Maud, "this is Rosamund"——

"Rosamund Cunliffe," said Rosamund.

"Rosamund Cunliffe, the girl who was so plucky and went on the lake with Irene Ashleigh on Sunday afternoon."

"You were very fortunate," said Miss Carter, speaking in a prim voice. "It was, I