The Last of the Mortimers. Маргарет Олифант

so much to live on for the whole year through as papa had to pay for my dressmaker’s bill. He had just been worrying me about it that morning, so I remember. But they weren’t miserable! no more than you are, godmamma! not one half, nor a quarter, nor a hundredth part so miserable as I am! And the woman looked so cheerful and right with the baby in her arms, and all the cleaning to do—I cried and ran off home when I got out of that house. I was ashamed, just dead ashamed, godmamma, and nothing else.—Doing good!—oh!—I think if I were the little girl, coming in to hold the baby, and help to clean, I might get some good myself. But then nobody will understand me whatever I say. I don’t want to invent things to ‘employ my time.’ Employing one’s time is about as bad as improving one’s mind. I want to have something real to do, something that has to be done and nobody but me to do it; and I don’t mind in the least whether I should like it or not.”

      “Well, dear,” said I, “you’re not nineteen yet; plenty of time. I dare say you’ll have your hard work some day or other, and won’t like it any more than the rest of us. Have patience, it will all come in time.”

      “Then, I suppose,” said Sara, with a little toss of her provoking little head, “I had better just go to sleep till that time comes.”

      “Well, my love, papa would save a good deal, no doubt, if there were no dressmaker’s bills. You inconsistent little witch! Here you tell me how disgusted you are with being a rich man’s daughter and having nothing to do, yet you cut off your hair to save time, and go on quite composedly spending as much as would keep a poor family—and more than one poor family, I suspect—on your dressmaker’s bill. Little Sara, what do you mean?”

      “The two things have no connection,” said Sara, tossing her head again; “I never pretended that I wanted to save papa’s money. What’s the good of it? I like pretty things to wear, and I don’t care the very least in the world how much money papa has in the bank, or wherever he keeps it. He told me once it was my own means I was wasting, for, of course, it would be all mine when he died,” she went on, her eyes twinkling with proud tears and wounded feeling; “as if that made any difference! But I’ll tell you what, godmamma. If he was to portion out all the money to ourselves and so many other people, just enough to live upon, you’d see how happy I should be in muslin frocks. I know I should! and keep everything so snug and nice at home.”

      “Oh, you deluded little child!” said I; “don’t you know there’s ever so much nasty work to do, before everything can be nice as we always have it? Should you like to be a housemaid with your little velvet paws, you foolish little kitten? You don’t know what you’re saying.”

      “But I do, though—and I could scratch too,” said the wild little puss, with a glance out of her black eyes which confounded me. I thought the child had gone out of her wits altogether. No wonder her poor father called her contrairy, poor hapless man.

      This conversation took place after dinner, when we two went back to the drawing-room. Mr. Cresswell had returned to Chester in his brougham, and Sarah had gone out all by herself for her drive. Perhaps little Sara, after being so aggravated at dinner, would not have gone with my sister even had she been asked; but her godmamma did not ask her. Dear, dear, what a very strange world this is! Poor Sarah chose to go out alone, driving drearily through the winterly trees and hedges; she chose always to turn aside from the village, which might have been a little cheerful, and she never dreamt of calling anywhere, poor soul! I have lived a quiet life enough, but I could not get on without a smile here and a word there, and the sight of my fellow-creatures at least. However, I have no call to censure neighbours, much less my sister. This is how Sara Cresswell and I had time for our long conversation. I broke it off short now, thinking it was about time for Sarah to come in.

      “Now little Sara,” said I, “we’ll drop the question what you’re to do as a general question just now; but your godmamma will be in directly. What shall you do while you’re here? Should you like to come and set my papers straight? It’s nice, tiresome, sickening work. It always gives me a headache, but I can’t trust a servant to do it. I think it’s the very work for you.”

      “But, dear godmamma, here’s a novel,” said Sara, who was sunk deep in an easy-chair, and had not the very slightest intention of obeying me, “just the very one I wanted, and I see by the first chapter that Emily is my own very favourite heroine. I’ll do it to-morrow, please—to-morrow morning, not to-day.”

      “But it must be done to-day.”

      “Oh, must! why must? You have only to do what you please—you are not obliged to keep time like a dressmaker or a clerk,” said Sara, reading all the while.

      “Oh, you child!” said I; “suppose papa’s dinner was waiting, or his stockings to mend, would you let them stand till you had finished your novel? Oh, you deluded little thing, is that the good workwoman you would be?”

      Before I had finished speaking Sara had started like a little sprite out of her chair, tossed the novel into the corner of a distant sofa, and went off like the wind to the library, where I did my business and kept my papers. I had to hurry after her as quickly as I could. A pretty job she would have made of it, had she done it alone!

      Chapter VIII

      IF there is one thing I dislike more than another, it is the housemaid, or even Ellis, meddling with my papers. I don’t scold a great deal, in a general way, but I will allow that I don’t spare any of them when they flutter my accounts and receipts about in setting things to rights. So in the course of nature the things get dusty; and I quite expected to see poor little Sara grow pale and give in before she was half through the year’s accounts. But nobody knows the spirit that is in that child. After she had once roused herself to do it, she held at it without an idea of yielding. I saw her look now and again at her little toys of hands, but I took no notice; and on she went at the papers manfully, putting them in as regular order as I could have done myself. It was not such a very important business after all, but still it’s a comfort to see a person set to anything with a will, especially a little spoilt wilful creature that never had anything to do but her own pleasure all her life.

      Nearly an hour after we had come into the library somebody came with a gentle knock to the door; thinking it was Ellis, I said, “Come in,” without looking up, waiting for him to speak. But while I sat quietly going on with my business, with Sara close by rustling her papers, I was quite startled and shaken all at once to hear a voice close by me which I did not hear half a dozen times in a twelvemonth, the voice of Carson, Sarah’s maid.

      “Bless me, what’s the matter?” I said, looking up at the sound, being really too much startled to notice what she said.

      “Nothing, I hope, ma’am,” said Carson, who was very precise and particular. “But my missis is not come in, ma’am, from her drive, and I thought I’d make bold to ask if she was going anywhere as I didn’t know?”

      “Sarah not come back from her drive?” said I, looking at my watch; “why, we’ve had lights this half hour, Carson; it’s getting towards five o’clock.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” said Carson, briefly, not allowing for my surprise, “that is just what I said.”

      This pulled me up a little, as you may suppose; but I was seriously put out about Sarah, when I really saw how the matter stood.

      “I know nothing about where she was going. Dear, dear, can anything have happened?” I cried, getting a little flustered and anxious; then I jumped up, as was natural, and looked out at the window; though of course nothing was to be seen there but the shrubbery and a corner of the flower-garden. “But I can’t think what could have happened either. The horses are very steady, and Jacob is care itself; besides, we’d have heard directly if anything had gone wrong. No, no, there can’t have been any accident. My sister was just in her usual, Carson, eh?”

      “Just in her usual ma’am,” said Carson, like an echo of my voice.

      “Then, dear, what can be the matter? it’s only some accident, of course,” said I; “I don’t mean accident, only some chance turn out of the way, or something. Bless me, to think of Sarah out after