Penelope and the Others - Amy Walton (best book club books .txt) 📗

and it was a very serious burden. One afternoon, feeling it impossible either to forget the subject or to find any answer to it, she put away her work and went to call upon the dean's wife, Mrs Merridew. If anything could change the current of her thoughts it would be a visit to the deanery, which she considered both a pleasure and a privilege. Everything there pleased her sense of fitness and decorum, from the gravity of the servants to the majestic, ponderous furniture of the rooms, and she thought all the arrangements admirable. It is true that she did not understand Dr Merridew's portly jokes, and was rather afraid of his wife, but her approval of their five daughters was unbounded. They were models of correct behaviour--her very ideal of what young people should be in every respect. If only, she secretly sighed, Mary's girls were more like them!

The Merridews, Miss Unity was accustomed to say, were quite the "nicest" people in Nearminster, and she sincerely thought that she enjoyed their society immensely. It was, however, quite a different enjoyment to that which attended a cup of tea with old Miss Spokes, the greatest gossip in the town, and was slightly mingled with awe.

On this occasion Miss Unity was singularly favoured by fortune, although she had not gone to the deanery with any idea of finding help in her perplexity, for before she had been there five minutes the conversation took a most lucky turn. Mrs Merridew had been so much concerned lately, she said, about her dear Ethel's right shoulder. It was certainly growing out; and, indeed the four younger girls would all be much better for some dancing and drilling lessons. There was nothing she so much disliked as an awkward carriage. She was sure Miss Unity would agree with her that it was important for girls to hold themselves properly. Miss Unity, with Pennie in her mind, assented earnestly, and added that she believed Miss Cannon had a class for dancing at her school in the town.

"Oh yes, I know!" replied Mrs Merridew; "and I hear she has a very good master, Monsieur Deville; but I don't quite fancy the children going there--all the townspeople, you know. I don't think the dean would quite like it."

"Oh no! to be sure not," murmured Miss Unity.

"No, it's not quite what one would wish," continued Mrs Merridew; "but I've been wondering if I could get up a nice little class here!--just a dozen or so of children among my own friends, and have Monsieur Deville to teach them. You see he comes down to Miss Cannon every week, so there would be no difficulty about his coming on here."

Miss Unity could hardly believe her ears, for, of course, the next step on Mrs Merridew's part was to wonder if Mrs Hawthorne would let her children join the class. Could anything be more fortunate, not only because of Pennie's deportment, but because it would give her a chance of improving her acquaintance with the dean's daughters. It was the very thing of all others to be wished.

Quite stirred and excited out of her usual retirement, Miss Unity offered to lay the matter before Mrs Hawthorne in the course of a few days, when she was going to stay at Easney. She felt sure, she said, that it could be arranged; and she finally took her leave, feeling that she had at last accomplished some part of her duty towards her god-daughter, and much happier in her mind. This lasted until she reached her own door-step, and then she began to shrink from what she had undertaken to do. She had the deepest distrust of her own powers of persuasion, and as she thought of it, it seemed very unlikely to her that she should succeed in placing the subject in its proper light before Mrs Hawthorne. Never in her whole life had she ventured or wished to advise other people, or to see what was best for them. It was a bold step. "I shall say the wrong thing and offend Mary, or set her against it in some way," she said to herself. "It would have been better to leave it in Mrs Merridew's hands."

She troubled herself with this during the days that remained before her visit to Easney, and grew more anxious and desponding as time went on. If the welfare of Pennie's whole life had depended on her joining the dancing-class, poor Miss Unity could scarcely have made it of more importance.

It was, therefore, in a very wrought-up state that she arrived at the vicarage, determined to speak to Mrs Hawthorne that very same day, for until it was over she felt she should not have a moment's comfort. She had brooded over it so constantly, and held so many imaginary conversations about it, that she had become highly nervous, and was odder in manner and more abrupt in speech than ever. As she sat at tea with Mrs Hawthorne, she answered all her inquiries about Nearminster strangely at random, for she was saying to herself over and over again, "It is my duty; I must do it."

Suddenly the door was flung wide open, and Pennie threw herself hastily into the room.

"Oh mother!" she cried, "will you lend me your india-rubber?"

Miss Unity set down her tea-cup with a nervous clatter as her god-daughter advanced to greet her. Yes, Pennie certainly poked out her chin and shrugged up one shoulder. She had none of the easy grace which adorned the Merridews. All her movements were abrupt. Worst of all, on the middle finger of the hand she held out was a large black stain of ink.

"My _dear_ Pennie," said her mother significantly as she noticed this.

"Yes, I know, mother," said Pennie immediately doubling down the offending finger, "I can't get it off. I've tried everything. You see I've been writing up the magazine, and there's such a lot of it, because the others always forget."

"Then I think I should do without their contributions," said Mrs Hawthorne.

"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Pennie reproachfully, "there'd be hardly anything in it. It's a very good one this month," she added, turning to Miss Unity. "David's sent quite a long thing on `The Habits of the Pig,' and Ambrose has written an `Ode to Spring.'"

"Then why," inquired Miss Unity, "have you so much writing to do?"

"Well, you see I'm the editor," explained Pennie, "and all the things have to be copied into the magazine in printing hand by the first of the month. So when the others forget, I do it all."

"How fast Pennie grows!" began Miss Unity hurriedly as the door closed behind her god-daughter. "You don't think so much writing makes her stoop too much?"

"Oh, no!" replied Mrs Hawthorne lightly; "it's a great amusement to her, and she gets plenty of exercise."

"Because," continued Miss Unity, speaking so fast that she was almost unintelligible, "if you thought so--I thought--that is, Mrs Merridew thought--you might like her to join a dancing-class at the deanery."

She paused, frightened at her own boldness. She had meant to approach the subject in the most delicate and gradual manner, and now she had rushed into the very thick of it at once.

Mrs Hawthorne looked puzzled; she frowned a little.

"I do not understand," she said, "what Mrs Merridew can have to do with Pennie's writing too much."

"Oh nothing, nothing in the world!" hastily replied Miss Unity; "of course not. I have always said it's for you to judge--but I said I would ask you to let the children join. Mr Deville's going to teach them. The Merridews are nice girls, don't you think?" she added wistfully, for she saw no answering approval on Mrs Hawthorne's face. "I knew I should offend Mary," she said to herself.

Even when the arrangement with all its advantages was fully explained, Mrs Hawthorne did not seem at all eager about it. She had once thought, she said, of sending the children to Miss Cannon's class, but the distance was the difficulty, and that would remain in this case.

Then Miss Unity made her last effort.

"As to that," she said breathlessly, "I thought of asking you to allow me to give Pennie some lessons, and I should be pleased for her to sleep at my house after the class every week, if you had no objection."

But Mrs Hawthorne still hesitated. It was most kind of Miss Unity, but she feared it would trouble her to have Pennie so often; yet she did not like to refuse such a very kind offer, and no doubt the lessons would be good for the child. Finally, after a great many pros and cons, it was settled that the vicar's opinion should be asked, and then Miss Unity knew that Mary had decided the matter in her own mind. Her offer was to be accepted. So she had done her best for her god-daughter, and if it were not successful her conscience would at least be at rest.

Perhaps no one realised what an effort it had been to her, and what real self-sacrifice such an offer involved. She was fond of Pennie, but to have the regularity of her household disturbed by the presence of a child every week--the bustle of arrival and departure, the risk of broken china, the possible upsetting of Betty's temper; all this was torture to look forward to, and when she went to bed she felt that she was paying dearly for a quiet conscience.

But if it was a trial to Miss Unity it was none the less so to Pennie, who looked upon herself as a sort of victim chosen out of the family to be sacrificed. She was to go alone to the deanery without Nancy, and learn to dance with the Merridews, who were almost strangers to her. It was a most dreadful idea. Quite enough to spoil Nearminster, or the most pleasant place on earth. However, mother said so, and it must be done; but from the moment she heard of it Pennie did not cease to groan and lament.

"I don't even know their names," she began one night, after she and Nancy were tucked up side by side in bed.

"Why, you know there's one called Ethel," replied Nancy, "because whenever Mrs Merridew comes here she asks how old you are, and says, `Just the age of my Ethel!'"

"I don't think I like the look of any of them much," continued Pennie mournfully, "and--oh, Nancy, I do hope I sha'n't see the dean!"

"Why?" asked Nancy. "I don't mind him a bit."

"He never makes jokes at you," said Pennie, "so of course you don't mind him; but whenever I meet him with father I know just what he'll say. `This is Miss Penelope, isn't it? and where's Ulysses?' and then he laughs. I can't laugh, because I don't know what he means, and I do feel so silly. Suppose he comes and says it before all the others!"

"I don't see that it matters if he does," replied Nancy. "You needn't take any notice. It's the dean who's silly, not you."

"It's all very well for you," said Pennie with an impatient kick at the bed-clothes; "you're not going. Oh! how I wish