A Little Minx. A sketch

Front matter

\ LITTLE MI N X Popular 3/6 Novels. CAPT'N DAVYS HONEYMOON By Hall Caine. THE STORY OF A PENITENT SOUL. By Adeline Sergeant. NOR WIFE NOR MAID. By Mrs. Hungerford. THE RETURN OF THE O'MAHONY. By Harold Frederic. A LITTLE MINX. By Ada Cambridge. THE TOWER OF TADDEO. By Ouida. THE SCAPEGOAT By Hall Caine. THE BONDMAN By Hall Caine. DESPERATE REMEDIES. By Thomas Hardy. UNCLE PIPER OF PIPERS HILL. By Tasma. THE MASTER OF THE MAGICIANS Bv E. S. Phelfs and H. D. Ward. DAUGHTERS OF MEN. By Hannah Lynch. A MARKED MAN : Some Episodes in his Life. By Ada Cambridge. THE THREE MISS KINGS. By Ada Cambridge. NOT ALL IN VAIN. By Ada Cambridge. MAMMON. By Mrs. Alexander. IN THE VALLEY. By Harold Frederic PRETTY MISS SMITH. By Florence Warden. A ROMANCE OF THE CAPE FRONTIER. By Bertram Mitford. 'TWEEN SNOW AND FIRE.

By Bertram Mitford. LONDON : WM. HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET, W.C. And at all Booksel ers und Railway Bookstalls. A SKETCH u\ ADA CAMBRIDGE AUTHOR OF *A MARKED MAN,' 'THE THREE MISS KINGS, 'NOT ALL IN VAIN,' ETC. LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1893 [A II rights reserved]

Chapter I

Archdeacon Brown wanted a curate — nothing more. He had everything else that a reason able archdeacon, newly gaitered and shovel-hatted, could desire for the present. His new parish was reckoned one of the best out of Melbourne; his congregation was prosperous, liberal, and still aglow with ardent welcome for him and his family; his parsonage, which that congregation had enlarged and improved on purpose for him, regardless of expense, was the most comfortable house imaginable ; and his wife was cheerful and amiable in her new surroundings, calling him " Archdea con " whenever she spoke to him — than which no term of endearment had been sweeter in his ears when they were young together — promising to be satisfied at last with the state of life to which it had pleased God to call her. Perhaps it is unkind to mention the fact that, like many another potentate both of Church and state, they had risen from very small beginnings — risen such a long way, that the very memory of their fathers and mothers seemed to have gone be yond recall — because the new parishioners were not aware of the circumstance, and, if they had been, would have attached no importance to it.

Archdeacon Brown was their own archdeacon, the first they had had at Wooroona; and he was also their new incumbent, their new broom, their poten tial paragon, the long-desired regenerator of the parish, which had suffered from the shortcomings of all his predecessors; and they would not, at this auspicious moment, have heard a word to the dis credit of him or his. They opened their arms to him, and to his wife, and to his daughters — took them all to their hospitable and enthusiastic hearts; and they did not care what the church debt ran up to, so long as the Browns were lodged and provided for in a fitting manner. They doubled the stipend with a stroke of the pen, reckless of the certain consequences in the shape of oft repeated tea-meetings and a weary sequence of bazaars; and they gave the archdeacon a pulpit with a red velvet cushion on it for him to preach from in church ; and for his own use and possession a piano and a drawing-room carpet, a load of wood, a pig, a clutch of chickens, and a house dog.

They lent him a horse — nay, an assortment of horses — and they lent him a milch-cow; in short, they made him as comfortable as any par son in the diocese. There only remained to pro cure him a curate, who should take the rough bush-work off his hands, and enable him to con serve his precious strength and utilise it to the best advantage. Inquiries were set on foot which resulted in the selection of the Reverend John Primrose for the post. " I believe," wrote the bishop to the arch deacon, "that you will find him just what you want, and I shall be glad, for my part, to place him with you for a year or so, in order that he may acquire experience and undergo a proper training in bush-work before I entrust him with an independent charge. I fear he is not very strong, for the object of his coming to Australia is to benefit his health; but no doubt your beautiful cli mate will soon set him up, and counteract the slight consumptive tendency that I hear is all he suffers from.

My commissary sends me the best accounts of his character and abilities. He is a gentleman and an M. A. of Cambridge, and he has done well during the two years he has been in orders, as you will see by the testimonials I en close. I expect him by the next mail, and will send him up to you as soon as he arrives. He brings his wife with him." There was much more in the bishop's letter, treating of stipends and other business matters, but nothing of any interest compared with the last-quoted sentence. It was read aloud in the family circle, and was followed by a dramatic pause. "His wife!" ejaculated Mrs. Brown and her two daughters in a breath ; and they looked at each other. " Dear me ! " said Grace, the eldest daughter, with a disconcerted air. " Only two years in orders, and married already !

" " Most unnatural," said Charlotte, the young est, with a slightly exasperated laugh. " A curate is always supposed to be at the service and dis posal of his incumbent's daughters. I quite looked to have him to escort me out and about, and in due time to offer me his hand and heart." "Why you, more than me?" demanded Grace. "Hush, hush!" said Mrs. Brown. "Don't talk nonsense. I should be very sorry to have either of you thinking of marrying a curate. So far, it is a good thing that Mr. Primrose is out of the question ; his being married will doubtless save us many annoyances. Though I doubt " — looking at her husband — "whether the parish will approve of it." " I can't see how it can matter to the parish," said the archdeacon. Mrs. Brown made no immediate rejoinder ; she was very thoughtful.

"And do you think it is a good thing to have a man of that sort ? " she presently inquired. "A Cambridge M.A. — some people make such a fuss of a university degree." " They don't know anything of degrees here ; it is all rubbish to them." The archdeacon cast aside the suggestion irritably, which was not his habit. Having begun his sacerdotal career in the Wesleyan denomination, and never having seen the inside of a university himself, he had a natural prejudice against university men ; and he under stood exactly what his wife meant when she ap pealed to it. At the same time he was flattered by the bishop's choice, and pleased to be entrusted with the training of Mr. Primrose. " It is a great thing to have a gentleman to work with you," he said, smoothing his silk waistcoat over his portly stomach.

" It is— it is," assented Mrs. Brown, who had also recognised the compliment paid to her archdeacon's rank and merits. "It will make a great difference to us all, as he must necessarily be so much about the house. And if his wife is nice," she added hopefully, " it will be pleasant for the girls — very pleasant, and convenient in many ways." They made up their minds that his wife would be nice, and that her domestic companionship and parochial assistance would be of the utmost value. They waxed quite fervent in their anticipations of the many ways in which she might be utilised, and of the great acquisition that she would be. And when they had done talking together, they went out to return calls, and to tell all the leading families of Wooroona about it. " It will be so nice to have a lady who is English" said Mrs. Brown repeatedly, as she went from house to house ; " the ordinary stamp of curate's wife I really could not have put up with."

And the leading families, though more or less prejudiced in favour of local produce as a general rule, agreed that it was certainly an advantage in a curate's wife to have been brought up at home. They suggested that it might be an advantage in a curate also — since colonial clergy men of the archdeacon's pattern were not to be picked up every day. Upon the whole, it was manifest that Mrs. Primrose was to be hospitably received, though of course not with the enthusiasm that had attended Mrs. Brown's arrival. The air was still throbbing with the commotion of that event, and it was too early to get up steam again above a moderate pressure. She — for that became her local designation — arrived on a Saturday evening. In the morning the archdeacon received a letter from her hus band, in which that gentleman begged to thank Mrs. Brown for so kindly inviting him and his wife to the parsonage until they could establish themselves in a home of their own, and to inti mate, with polite regrets, that they had made other arrangements.

Mrs. Primrose thought it would give less trouble if they went to the hotel at once, and the landlord of the Black Swan had their rooms ready for them. He hoped to call upon the archdeacon in the evening, and was en tirely at his service for the following day. There was no mention of travelling arrangements, and altogether the letter was not agreeable to Mrs. Brown. "Why don't they come to us, when they know we expect them ? " she rather imperiously de manded, " and how absurd to go to the Black Swan — as if that was a proper place for them ! As for giving trouble — rubbish ! It is very nice of her to think of that, but she ought to have left me to know my own business best. If I had thought it a trouble, I should not have asked them." Mrs. Brown was put out by this little act of independence — unseemly independence on the part of young people in their position — and by the frustration of her carefully considered plans.

Nevertheless, she took a walk to the Black Swan, carrying a bouquet for Mrs. Primrose with her ; saw the landlady, overhauled the two rooms pro vided for the expected guests, suggested the bill of fare for their dinner — for it was seven-o'clock dinner they had ordered, not the modest and ap propriate high tea — and was otherwise solicitous for their comfort and welfare. She left a mes sage to the effect that she hoped to see them at the parsonage in the evening, and went home soothed. It was summer weather, and the days were long. Her daughters were still playing tennis on the new-made lawn, as when she had left them an hour before, though preparations for the evening meal were visible through the dining-room win dows. She sauntered into the garden and sat down to watch them, with a smile on her face; she thought there were no such handsome or clever girls as hers in all that country, or in the wide world, and was so sure of it that she did not mind saying so when in a confidential mood.

Grace was tall, with too wide shoulders and a too small waist ; and though her hair, eyes, and com plexion were good, her nose was broad and her lips thick — features that even the blindest mother had to own were "irregular," and not usually re garded with admiration. Mrs. Brown owned it, but with a confident feeling that the whole was perfect if the parts were not. "What /j it," she would say, "that makes the child so good-looking ? You see she has not a regular feature in her face, and yet one must remark her anywhere." This was the modest way she spoke of Grace to her casual acquaintances; in the bosom of the family there were no reservations. It was boldly believed and declared that the eldest sister was faultlessly beautiful. She was herself — Grace Brown — and any other nose or mouth would have spoiled her.

She had no possible rival, except Charlotte, the youngest. Mrs. Brown did think Lottie was as pretty as Grace when she was play ing tennis and had a colour. Lottie thought so too ; so did Grace. They were a mutual admiration society. Charlotte was rather low in stature, but with a neat, slim figure — a better figure than her sister's ; and her hair and eyes were dark, her nose straight, her lips thin, and her skin sallow and bloodless. If you had asked the opinion of the leading families of Wooroona, they would have told you that the Miss Browns — the blonde and the brunette, as they liked to be called — were nice, pretty, pleasant girls. That was the first impres sion they made upon the place. And so they were — as nice, pretty, and pleasant as ordinary girls, and no more and no less. But Mrs. Brown, sitting down to look at them, was lost in admiration.

She didn't know which of them looked most lovely, in her white cambric frock, with the flush and shine of excitement in her cheeks and eyes. " Which ? " the mother asked herself, with a heart beating high ; and it was a large question. It meant a great deal. On one side of the net the girls were playing as partners, and on the other a good-looking man of forty or thereabouts was beating them single-handed — not because he wished, but because he could not help it ; and what Mrs. Brown wanted to know was this : " Which of them is the fairest in his eyes ? Which of them will he ask for ? " For Mr. Colin Mackenzie was the great man of the parish and neighbourhood — a wealthy widower, without encumbrance, and with a house that was the show-place of the district — everything that Mrs. Brown could wish for in a suitor for one or other of her incomparable girls, for whom so few were worthy.

He was conventionally styled a squatter, but was only so in respect of vast runs in Queensland; all his noble property of Darriwell, three miles out of Wooroona, was his own. And he had lately returned from a course of European travel, undertaken to distract his mind after Mrs. Mackenzie's death, with an apparent intention to settle himself afresh, and therefore, in the order of nature, to take a second partner when he found one to suit him. The archdeacon's wife had marked him for her own, and so had Grace. With that loyalty to one another which was characteristic of the family, Lottie forbore to prejudice her sister's interests by any pretensions on her own account. "Only, if he should choose me instead of you, you won't expect me to refuse him, will you ?" she would say some times in moments of confidence.

And Grace did not expect it, of course, though she felt that it was an unlikely contingency; and she "played fair" — with some unnecessary ostentation — being a most high-principled young lady. That he should choose one of them was a thing settled in the household, and a thing that occupied a great deal of anxious attention. It had to be considered in connection with all other matters — even the advent of Mrs. Primrose. A curate's wife was regarded as innoc uous as a woman, and as a chaperone she was expected to be invaluable. Many a little indul gence might be permitted in her company which the mother could not personally countenance without laying herself open to injurious remarks; and many a pleasant little arrangement had been suggested for the furtherance of cherished but un mentioned designs, depending entirely upon the good offices of Mrs. Primrose.

" I have been telling Mr. Mackenzie," said Grace, walking by his side towards her mother when the game was over, " that we are expecting our new curate and his wife to-night ; and he says he and Mr. Primrose belong to the same college." Mr. Mackenzie, who had arrived during her ab sence at the Black Swan, shook hands with his would-be mother-in-law, while she beamed upon the pair with her maternal eyes. He used to know a Harry Primrose when he was at Trinity, he said, and was told that this one was Jack, Harry's youngest brother, who had been a little schoolboy in those days. All the Primroses went to Trinity. They were a nice family. He had once spent a Christmas at their house, and it was very jolly. " Indeed ! " Mrs. Brown responded, with her prim, company smile. "How very interesting! And what kind of boy was he ?"

"A pale, lanky little scrap. We used to think him rather a muff and cry-baby ; but then he was only nine or ten, and his people spoiled him. It was fifteen years ago and more. Of course, he is quite different now." "I should hope so," said Mrs. Brown. "And do you happen to know anything of his wife ? " " Nothing at all. Until Miss Charlotte told me this afternoon, I did not know there was such a person. It seems very absurd — little Jacky with a wife." "Not at all," retorted Lottie. "Why should it be absurd ? I think it is very nice. We are very glad she is coming, and we are going to be very fond of her; and I hope you'll be polite, and call upon her and pay her proper attentions. If you do, we will reward you by taking her over to Dar riwell as soon as we can to spend a long after noon. You can show us the house and the gar dens, and regale us with strawberries and cream.

That will give her a pleasant impression of the country, to begin with. "I shall be proud," said Mr. Mackenzie, " though I confess I don't expect much from Jack Primrose's taste. It will be very immature, I fancy." " You wouldn't have a man of twenty-six mar ried to an old woman, would you ? We hope she will be a girl like ourselves, so that we can make a companion of her; and, of course, she will be," said Lottie. " I have made up my mind that she's charming." "You had better stay and take tea with us," said Mrs. Brown, who had reckoned up the re sources of her larder while this dialogue had been going on. " Then you will see her at once. They are to come in at nine o'clock." Mr. Mackenzie hesitated, being a punctual and punctilious person in his own house, to be generally relied on by a reliable housekeeper, but he al lowed himself to be persuaded to stay to tea.

It was the first time he had done so, though he had had several invitations. His horse was put in the stable ; he was taken to the archdeacon's room to wash his hands and brush his hair; and the girls put on their best dresses in his honour, while Mrs. Brown made hasty and lavish additions to the bill of fare. There was great though unacknowledged rejoicing over the event. No one believed that Mr. Mackenzie had been induced to make himself so agreeable by the mere prospect of seeing Mrs. Primrose or of renewing his early acquaintance with the Reverend John. And, after all, Mrs. Primrose did not appear. At nine o'clock the ladies were in the drawing room with their guest, the archdeacon having re tired to his study to look over his sermon, when the door-bell rang and Mr. Primrose was an nounced — only Mr. Primrose — a tall, thin, fair whiskered, delicate - looking, gentle - mannered young man, in whom Mr. Mackenzie did recog nise, though with an effort, his schoolboy friend.

They made him very welcome; they were glad to see him ; they liked him ; they kept him late, and entertained him with wine and cake and their best conversation. But they were dissatisfied with him for not bringing his wife, and with her for not coming. " She was tired after her journey, and was not inclined to see any one," said Mr. Primrose, quite naturally. "I left her going to bed. I was sure you would not expect her to come when she was tired." "Oh, of course not," replied Mrs. Brown; " and I suppose we shall see her some time."

Chapter II

So it was on Sunday morning that Mrs. Prim rose made her first appearance in the parish. It was a bright and beautiful morning, and all the leading families went to church in force. Mr. Mackenzie drove from Darriwell in his large wag gonette, bringing his housekeeper and half a dozen servants; and, though early in his pew (which was at the top of the church and at right angles to the parsonage pew), found it occupied by people who had been ousted from their own, waiting to see the new curate and the new curate's wife. The former, of course, was expected to be the great attraction. It had become generally known that there was a Mrs. as well as a Mr. Primrose, but until they saw her she did not count for much. Mr. Primrose came in first, as the organ was playing, at the archdeacon's heels, and went to kneel down in the little chancel.

He looked very nice indeed, in his well-cut garments, that were all fresh and spruce, with his long, white hands and long, delicately featured face ; and the congregation thoroughly approved of him. He read the lessons in a pleasant, gentlemanly voice, and, though his sermon was not more original or pro found than sermons usually are, his language was correct and chaste, and his sentiments all that could be desired. The impression that he made was entirely satisfactory, save in so far as his fragile appearance and a suspicious cough suggested some physical unfitness for that rough bush-work which he was specially engaged to at tend to. But, interesting as he was, he was of little consequence compared with his wife. When Mrs. Primrose was ushered into church by Mrs. Brown through the vestry door — in full view of the second largest congregation that had ever as sembled within those walls — every eye was turned upon her, and she created an instant and all pervading sensation, which survived throughout the service, and threw the new curate, sermon and all, into the shade.

She was a slim and girlish creature, with a charming, bright-eyed face — really a remarkably pretty young woman, as the dullest could see. But it was not her beauty that made her such a surprise and curiosity to these bush-folks; it was her step and air — an air of distinction and repose, which was quite unaffected by the ordeal she was supposed to be passing through; and it was her dress, the cut and quality of which was such as to make every woman in the church look dowdy. It was not a rich dress, nor gay in colour, but even the men could dimly recognise its superiority to those that were brought in contact with it. The ladies saw it and felt it in a moment; the mint stamp of the first-class London dressmaker was patent to their more instructed intelligence. And such a bonnet it was that crowned the perfect cos tume ! — a little fluffy thing, made of no one knew what, but nestling to her graceful head as if it had grown there.

If this was the curate's wife, she was an entirely new type (to Wooroona), and pat ently destined to make a mark of some sort upon the history of the parish. So the leading families instinctively surmised, and their instinct did not mislead them. Mr. Mackenzie sat within arm's length of her, and the impression upon him was very strong. He was a man of the world, and he saw in her, if not a woman of the world — and she was over young to be that yet — at least one who knew that there was such a place, and something of its con stitution and dimensions. This was a refreshing discovery. Her dress he did not take much notice of — at any rate, he could not have described even so much as its colour had he been asked to do so ; he felt it rather than saw it — inhaled its fine har monies like a perfume, and wondered how the Miss Browns, seated one on either side of her, could make such guys of themselves.

He was negatively conscious of the perfections of the young matron's costume by an entirely new per ception of crude tastelessness in those of the girls, who were in the very van of fashion, as of modern culture generally, in this place, and whose style had hitherto rather pleased him than not. He did not study Mrs. Primrose in detail — he did not care how she or her garments were made up ; he only judged by the result, which charmed him. He stood before her — his seat facing the east, while hers was on a line with the north wall — with grave eyes either on his book or abstractedly fixed upon the window over her head ; but he bestowed upon her a concentrated and unswerving attention, which would have flattered her very much had she known of it. And if she did not know of it, she probably made a good guess, for it was the sort of thing she was accustomed to.

Very modest and demure she looked, with her pretty eyes also bent upon her book, and her sweet little mouth, be tween the delicate but decided nose and the equally delicate and decided chin, reverently com posed; but, all the same, she was aware, the in stant she entered the church, that there was at least one "presentable" man in the congregation, and she maintained an interest in him throughout the service, as he did in her. For his part, he neither knew nor cared how the lessons were read, nor what the sermon was about — Jack Primrose was superseded altogether as an object of curi osity and criticism ; but, for her part, she was able to regard them both intelligently, and all else that went on around her. Considering the short time she had been in Wooroona, she reckoned up with tolerable accuracy the comforts and discomforts that were likely to attend her residence in that place; and in the first category she placed Colin Mackenzie, while still ignorant of his name, and in the second she placed Mrs. Brown, while her acquaintance with that lady was only ten minutes old.

Mrs. Primrose, though born to be an important person, was nobody to speak of from the social point of view. Her father was a medical man in an English county town, and she was the fourth of a family of children far too large to admit of any endowment of the daughters in the father's life time, over and above a comfortable trousseau and a cheque for a few hundreds as a wedding present. In her case the wedding was so recent that the clothes she wore were a part of her outfit, still quite new and fresh ; and the few hundreds intact, reserved for the buying of furniture when she and Jack should set up their house. They had not set up a house yet. The honeymoon, a series of fare well visits, and the voyage, had absorbed the few months of their married life. It was only now, in this Australian up-country township, that they were prepared to undertake the responsibilities of an establishment — to rent a cottage, engage a servant, and unpack their stock of plate and linen and the wedding gifts which had seemed so long unused ; and they both looked forward with deep delight to the enjoyment of these matrimonial circumstances.

They were a very happy young couple — happy, and hopeful, and content ; but still they were a pair of whom a woman would say, "What made that man marry that girl?" and of whom one of the opposite sex would as naturally remark, " How could that girl marry that man?" There seemed no fitness in either to be the com plement of the other, except that both were young, well-bred, and amiable. Of course, it had happened quite naturally in the ordinary way. Though lovers had been frequent in the doctor's household, lovers who could afford to have "intentions" had not. There was a Captain Drummond, of the militia, whose pres ence with the red-coats and the spring flowers had for several seasons (of six weeks each) made Mrs. Primrose's native town a paradise to her; and there was a dark-eyed Austrian count, whom she met when on a visit to a wealthy travelling aunt, and who followed her about the Continent with a persistence that could be attributed to only one cause; not to speak of Will Evelyn, son and heir of Sir William at the Flail, who used to gaze at her all service-time from his curtained pew in church, and hang about her at dances and tennis parties in a state of hopeless fascination.