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

not half bad, only I think I'm a changeling. Did you ever think you were a changeling?"

"Of course not. I don't know what you mean."

"I'll explain to you. I quite like your look. May I put my arm round your waist?"

"If it pleases you," said Rosamund.

"How stiffly you speak! But I like you all the same. You are what might be called a good old sort, and there's nothing prim about you. Do you know why I came into the room just now?"

"I'm sure I cannot tell."

"Well, I'll let you know. I was listening at one of the windows, and I heard you tell mother—dear old puritanical mother—that you had crept away without leave from the learned professor, and had got into difficulties. Oh, didn't I just love you for it! There's a Miss Frost here who tries to teach me; but, bless you! she can't knock much learning into me. She is as terrified of me as she can be, is old Frosty. She and I had a squabble in the passage; she said I was not to come in because I had my red dress on. You know, it's only a year since father died, and mother is in deep mourning still; but I will wear red—it is my sort of mourning. I suppose we can all do as we please. Well, when I discovered that you were one of the naughty sort, I thought I'd have a nearer view of you, and I like you very much. You are pretty, you know, quite pretty. Not so pretty as I am! Now, look me full in the face. Did you ever see any one prettier?"

"Irene, you do talk in a wild way!"

"It is rather cheeky of you to call me Irene; but I don't much mind. I like you to be cheeky. Well, here's the swing. How high up do you want me to push you?"

"Not any way at all just at present. Let us walk about and talk before you swing me. I must know something about you. How old are you?"

"I'm sure I don't know—I've forgotten. Oh, by the way, you didn't understand me when I said I was a changeling."

"I didn't, and I don't. But why do you talk in that silly way?"

"Well, I seriously think I am, for if you had seen father when he was alive you'd have said if there was a dear—I was very fond of dad—if there was a dear, sober, conscientious old man—he was a good bit older than mother—you'd have pronounced that he was he."

"That is very funny English, Irene."

"Oh, never mind! I like to talk in a funny way. Anyhow, you'd have said that he was he. And then there is mother. You see how good she looks. She is very handsome, I know, and every one adores her, and so does her loving daughter Irene; but, all the same, I was made in a sort of fashion that I really cannot keep indoors. No rain that ever was heard of could keep me in, and no frost, either. And I have lain sometimes on the snow for an hour at a time and enjoyed it. And there's scarcely a night that I spend in bed. I get out, whatever poor old Frosty may do to keep me within bounds. I can climb up anything, and I can climb down anything, and I like to have a boat on the lake; and when they are very bad to me I spend the night there in the very centre of the lake, and they can't get at me, shout as they may. No, I never take cold."

"The only thing I am keen about is to be allowed to wear colors that I like. I love gay colors—red one day, yellow the next, the brightest blue the next I hate art shades. I am not a bit æsthetic. Once they took me to London, but I ran away home. Oh, what a time I had! I am a wild sort of thing. Now, do you suppose that any mother, of her own free-will, would have a daughter like me? Of course I am a changeling. I suppose I belong to the fairies, and my greatest wish on earth is to see them some day. Sometimes I think they will meet me in the meadows or in the forest, which is two miles away, or even in the lake, for I suppose fairies can swim. But they have never come yet. If they came I'd ask them to let me go back to them, for I do so hate indoor life and civilization and refinement. And now you see the sort I am, and if you are the sort I somehow think you are, why shouldn't we be friends? Perhaps you are a changeling, too. You know that dress doesn't suit you one bit; it is too grand and fine-ladyish; and you ought to let your hair stream down your back instead of having it tied behind with that ribbon. And you ought to have a hole in your hat instead of that grand black feather. And—oh, good gracious!—what funny boots! I never saw anything like them—all shiny, and with such pointed toes. How can you walk in them? I as often as not go barefoot all day long; but then I am a wild thing, a changeling, and I suppose, after all, you are not."

Rosamund felt herself quite interested while Irene was delivering herself of this wild harangue. She looked back at this moment, and saw Lady Jane standing in the French window. Irene's arm was still firmly clasped round Rosamund's waist. Rosamund could just catch a glimpse of the expression of Lady Jane's face, and it seemed to signify relief and approval. Rosamund said to herself, "We all have our missions in life; perhaps mine is to reclaim this wild, extraordinary creature. I shouldn't a bit mind trying. Of course, I don't approve of her; but she is lovely. She has a perfect little face, and she is just like any savage, quite untrained—a sort of free lance, in fact. Irene," she said aloud, "I am not going to let you swing me just now; but you may sit near me, and I will tell you something which may alter your views about your being a changeling."

"What do you mean by that?" said Irene, and she looked doubtful. "I cannot sit long," she continued. "Be as quick as ever you can."

"Yes, I will, and afterward"——

"Afterward I will go into the house and get Frosty to give us tea, and we will take it in the boat together. We will get into the very middle of the stream, where no human being can call us back, and we will have a right good time."

"Will you ask your mother's leave first?"

"Indeed I won't. I never ask her leave. I never ask any one's leave. I never trouble mother much, because she cries so badly when I vex her; but I don't mind how hard Frosty cries. Frosty is terribly afraid of me, but she has stayed with me longer than any other governess. They mostly go at the end of a week or a fortnight; but Frosty has been with me for close on four months. She is very worried. She was quite fat when she came, and now she is a sort of walking skeleton, and it is all owing to me, because I do work her so hard and terrify her so; and she can't teach me anything, however hard she tries. I tell you I'm a changeling, and changelings can't be taught. She told me the other night that she believed me. She looked as white as a sheet when she said the words, and I did laugh so, and clapped my hands. I woke mother, and mother came into the room; and Frosty told mother what I had said, and poor mother cried. I said, 'Never mind, mother. I am fond of you, but I like frightening Frosty.'

"Then Frosty went away to her own room, and I thought, of course, she would give notice the next day, but she didn't. She is very poor, and has to earn her own bread somehow. I expect that is why she stays."

"Well," said Rosamund stoutly, "I will say this, Irene, that you are—whether changeling or not—an exceedingly naughty girl. There, now!"

Irene opened those deep sapphire-blue eyes, which were one of her greatest charms, to their fullest extent; her little mouth pouted, and some pearly teeth showed beneath. She clinched her small hands, and then said stoutly, "Hurrah! I admire your courage. They never dare tell me I am naughty. I rule the house; they are all quite terrified of me."

"Well, I am not a scrap afraid of you," said Rosamund.

"Aren't you? What a relief! Well, come on; I can't sit still any longer. I have got to order our tea to be sent to the boat, and we will get into mid-stream and keep all the world at bay. Can't you tell me there what you wanted to say?"

"No; I will tell you now, and I am not at all sure that I am going in the boat with you, for Lady Jane said I had done wrong to come here; and if I did wrong to come, I suppose I must try and do right, for I can't talk of your faults while I have such a lot of my own."

"Oh, hurrah! You are nicer than ever. I am glad you are full of faults too. Do say why you think I am not a changeling."

"Because my mother told me that long ago your mother was rather naughty, although she is so good now. So I think, perhaps, when you are her age you will be good too."

"Oh, horror! Heaven preserve us!" cried Irene. "That is the final straw. Ever to sink into the apathy of my beloved mother would be beyond endurance. But there, I am off to Frosty, and you will have to come into the boat with me."

Irene flew fleet as the wind from Rosamund's side. Notwithstanding her exceedingly ugly red dress, its shortness, its uncouth make, she ran as gracefully as a young fawn. Soon she had disappeared round the corner, and as soon as she had done so Lady Jane was seen tripping across the grass. She motioned Rosamund to her side.

"She took to you," she said. "She seems to like you. Are you going to be good to her?" said the lady, her lips trembling as she spoke.

"If I can. Oh, I know she is very naughty; but she is so beautiful!" said Rosamund, with sudden enthusiasm, her own pretty dark eyes filling with tears.

"You are a sweet girl!" said Lady Jane. "Perhaps God has sent you here to effect the means of reform. Only sometimes I fear——But here she comes. She must not see me talking to you. If she thought that we were in league all would be lost."

Before Rosamund could reply, or even ask Lady Jane if she might go into the boat with Irene, that young lady had darted to her side.

"Now, what were you saying to the Mumsy-pums? I don't allow any one to talk in a confidential way to my Mumsy-pums except myself. Now, I was just watching you, and you kept nodding your head all the time. What were you saying? I know you were talking about me. What was the dear Pums saying with regard to her changeling? Was she running me down—eh?"

"No, nothing of the sort," said Rosamund stoutly.

"Then I know," said Irene, knitting her black eyebrows till they almost met in her anxiety to express herself clearly; "she was telling you to have a good influence over me. She always begins like that with the new governesses. She has an interview with them the morning after they arrive. They are generally by that time reduced to a state of pulp, and she