Too Apt a Pupil

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BY ROBERT CUELAND/ AUTHOR OF 'BARBARA ALLAN, THE PROVOSTS DAUGHTER,' ETC. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXCI All Eights reserved CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. ARCHIE'S STORY, 1 II. MARION AND EUSTACE, " 9 III. THE GOLDEN AGE, 17 IV. THE NECTARINES, 24 V. POOR ALEC ! 33 VI. WHY NOT? . .+ 42 VII. ASSUNTA'S ARRIVAL, 50 VIII. A SKIRMISH, 58 IX. " SPEAK AND MAKE SURE, WHILE YOU ARE SAFE," 64 X. THE MOURNER CONSOLED, 74 'j XI. INDIGNANT MAIDENS, 82 XII. AN EAVESDROPPER, 89 XIII. alec's RETURN, ....... 95 XIV. AT THE JARDIN GAVOTTE, 103 'J XV. JULIE OWEN, Ill XVI. THE LOCKET, 118 XVII. ALEC PROPOSES, 127 xvin. "redintegratio," 137 XIX. DIAMONDS ARE TRUMP, 143 XX. TRANSITION TO EDINBURGH IN JANUARY, . . CONTENTS. VI XXI. DELAVOLE MEETS ASSUNTA, .... 160 XXII. ASSUNTA AND HER SON, 171 XXIII.

THE RESCUE 179 XXIV. THE VICTOR'S MEED, 188 xxv. louson's luck, 194 XXVI. SELF-COMMUNINGS, 204 XXVII. WITH THE COMPLEXION-DEALER, . . . 208 XXVIII. SECURING AN ACCOMPLICE, 214 XXIX. BIRD-LIME WASTED, 225 XXX. A MAIDENLY MAID, 232 XXXI. ON DUDDINGSTON LOCH, 239 XXXII. A VEXATIOUS INTERRUPTION, .... 247 XXXIII. AN ICE ACCIDENT, 254 XXXIV. MISS ISABEL HAS AN INSPIRATION, . . . 264 XXXV. PREPARING FOR TUESDAY, 267 XXXVI. TUESDAY, 275 XXXVII. NUX VOMICA, 281 XXXVIII. THE DISCLOSURE, 292 XXXIX. EXIT DELAVOLE, » ... 302 XL. EXEUNT OMNES, CHAPTEE I. Archie's story. Cowdenshaw is a straggling mansion of no particular date, with the incoherent importance and picturesqueness which comes of its covering a considerable space of ground, and having a sky-line broken up into masses of varying height, here a broad and solid line of roof, there a tower, steep gables, groups of chimneys, with a pointed turret now and then thrown in at random, built by successive owners, each think ing merely of his own requirements.

It had been designed in the first instance for safety, in days when the demands of convenience were not excessive, with strong thick walls, un pierced save with a grated loophole here and there till well above the head of a man on horseback, and then on the out ward side a few windows of moderate size, with more and larger ones looking down upon the court — three tiers of them — and then a steeply tilted roof, a turret at one corner, and a square tower at the side where ladies took the air upon the lead-floored summit. The flagged court was entered by an archway in a bastioned and embattled wall, having the main building on one side, the ancient kitchens on the other, and a protected pleasaunce planted with yew and holly in the rear, A the whole a bald and rugged copy of the stately chateaux of France, when that country was still allied to Scotland, and both made common cause against the English foe.

Chapter II. Marion And Eustace

Colin had barely time to alight ere Marion was in his arms with a cry of joy, her lips and nose-tip burrowing in his beard, her shock of sunny hair doing its best to blind him. She was a girl of twelve, active and lithe from much living out of doors, with large grey eyes, and sensitive crimson mouth in the pale vivacious face, now flushed for the moment with the pink of an ocean shell. " My chicken ! And are you well 1 " he asked. " And have you missed me?" " It has been lonely, daddie, since you went away. I am glad you have come back." "And see the playfellow I have brought you! — your cousin Eustace. You must bid him welcome home, and make friends with him. Think of having a boy to play with now ! " The bright eyes peered over her father's shoulder, sparkling with curiosity to descry the boy — the wonderful being she had been expecting for many days back, who was to climb trees with her for nests, and gallop on his pony at her side, like the brothers of her friends, and the heroes in the story books she loved to read about.

At that moment a creature smaller than herself — and she had been told that he was her senior by a year — was half lifted from the carriage, — a bundle rather than a boy, wrapped up in rugs and greatcoats. They led him up the steps, where the aunts peeled off his swathings one by one, like leaves from a bushy artichoke, and leaving as little of a core behind— a slim little fellow, who shivered in the keen Scotch air, with big black eyes glittering out under a tangle of sooty curls, long nose, and poor pinched cheeks the colour of a lemon, and not a very ripe one, for in the hollows was a blueness from the cold, which looked green upon the sallow skin. Was this the boy t She stared with rounded eyes, where disappointment and even pity were mingled with her wonder that he should be like this, destroying by his mere arrival the castles of delight she had been building during many days.

She stared till his eyes were drawn to her, and then, with the precocious feminine instinct which chooses to be sought rather than seek — for, little as the cousin was, he was still a boy — she turned her head away. Her eye caught the sparkle of the brook careering down the hollow of the Den, and she thought of the adventures she had been planning. There was the very spot where he was to have taken her in his arms and waded across, in the manner of Paul and Virginia. A group of acacias stood on the other side, which were to have represented the cabbage-palms ; and there was a bank of rhododendrons, which, with a little make-believe, would answer for bananas. But this Paul ! with those calfless little pins protruding from the knickerbockers, too manifestly unfit to carry any one save their owner across a stream !

As for retiring to the woods to live in a hut of their own building, and shoot rabbits for their living — alas ! it was impossible. There was Aunt Dorothy chafing his cold hands as though he were a baby, and proposing soup and tea to make him warm. "Welcome your cousin Eustace home to Cowdenshaw," said her father, setting her down — ■" I hope you and he are going to be friends ; " and she found herself on the ground in front of the boy. It was easy to inspect and criticise from the vantage-ground of her father's shoulder, but not at all the same to stand before him at her ease, with the big people looking on. Her eyes fell bashfully, and though she held out her hand, her foot drew back a little. It was the stranger, so disappointing to behold, who was equal to the occasion. He advanced with a little bow and took her hand, and startled her with a kiss on either cheek, saying, " Cugina," and then " Cousin," with the aplomb of a youthful dancing master ; and then looking round the circle, added something in French, which no one caught, by way of apology for his imperfect English, and which made Miss Isabel ejaculate, " What a remarkable infant !

It seems as promiscuous in languages as a parrot. I hope it understands them better." " He's a sharp lad enough, Bel, as you will soon find out," Colin observed. " He could hardly fail of that with such a mother — an extremely superior person, and quite accomplished, notwithstanding your prejudices against her." " Colin ! " both sisters exclaimed together, and then ex changed glances of dismay. Had their brother, too, succumbed before the wiles of the siren 1 — this sensible long-headed man of the world _ He had been away mostly during the years when she laid her wicked spells on poor Archie ; but he had been told of her misdeeds, and had been as indignant as any one against his cousin. Yet here he was returned from meet ing the undoer, and he seemed won over to her side. " You cannot but remember what was dear auntie's opinion of that person," Miss Dorothy said, with a tightening of the lips.

" Yes ; you were all strongly prejudiced, I know ; and no doubt Archie's marriage was a most crazy proceeding, which turned out as disastrously as could have been expected, especially for the luckless lady; but " " But she has cast her glamour over you too, Colin. Oh ! the deep, designing " " Hush, Dorothy ! Little pitchers have long ears. A lad should revere his mother. Let us talk of something else. He's Archie's son, remember, all the same, — our uncle's grandson, head of the family, and not responsible for what happened before his birth. Make much of him. He's the laird." An hour later and luncheon was over. Food and warmth had done their work upon the little stranger, and he slept upon a sofa near the fire, whose flickering caused the glows and shadows to come aud go across his features.

Weariness, weakness, and holy infancy made their effectual appeal to the spinsters' hearts ; they hung over him, and tried to catch resemblances to their dead cousin, and thought no more of the woman who had brought dismay into the family. Marion crouched hard by, watching and hushed in reverent wonder at the spectacle of a boy thus overcome. The other boys she knew were strong and lusty, and always on the move. This one was so slight, so delicate of feature, with such silky hair ; the eyelids, scarcely closed, showing glimpses of the liquid eyes within, so pathetically weary under the long black lashes. He seemed one apart from any she had known, more delicate and fine ; and an impulse to care for and tend — the woman's motherly instinct to minister — awoke within her, in an engrossing enthusiasm, which compensated for the disappointment of her first expectations.

When at last he opened his ej'es, she was kneeling at his side, intently watching. He smiled to find himself an object of solicitude, and raised his hand. She took it and stroked it softly, and asked if he felt better, for she had thought he must be ill. "Oh yes," he said. "I have rested, and I am warm now." "Then come with me and see my pla}' room and all my things ; " and so the two went away together, and were friends. Marion had a governess, to whose care Eustace likewise was consigned for a time, till he should take root a little in his new country before being sent to school. His presence brought new interest into the girl's studies. The sums and Latin verbs became less dreary with a fellow-pupil to share them. Both were at about the same stage of advancement, and emulation lent a stimulus on the upward path of knowledge.

In French, however, Marion was naturally nowhere beside her cousin, who spoke both French and Italian with fluency if not with correctness, and Miss Lefevre had to fall back on the rigours of the grammar to maintain even a show of superiority with a pupil who spoke them more readily than English. She decreed that the two should always converse in French, which benefited Marion, and was a polite vexation to the aunts down-stairs, who could make nothing of what the children said, and were apt to suspect them of making game of their elders when the talk grew animated and bubbled with laughter. This was a state of feeling which rather pleased the governess, as she cherished some mute resentment against her employer's sisters, who, warned by their experience of Assunta, kept governesses and dependants severely in their place.

When lessons were over and the young people were out of doors, Marion had compensation for her inferiority in the schoolroom. It was she who took the lead. She was at home for one thing ; the servants and dogs acknowledged her as mistress ; and being country-bred, she could romp, and climb trees, and ride her pony bareback, in a way to startle the town-reared little foreigner and take away his breath. She made her father buy him a pony, and herself, in the great field behind the stables, gave him his first lessons in riding. With a shout of delight, when he would be diffidently pacing at her side, she would suddenly break into a canter, to watch his consternation, and his frantic efforts to retain the seat from which ere long he would be dislodged and roll upon the grass, while the groom ran forward to capture the runaway pony.

Then she would take alarm, to see him lie so still. She would dismount and run to him, take his head into her lap, and ask if he were hurt. And he would look up in her face with those dark eyes of his, so eloquent in their liquid lustre, which yet meant so little. And she would upbraid herself for roughness and want of consideration towards one so — she did not know what to call it ; but it was something different from anything in any one else, and delightful to minister to. At other times Eustace would get overheated with unwonted exercise, and catch cold in the unaccustomed air, and be kept indoors; and Marion would sit by him in remorse, and feel so grateful that he would still talk to her, and seem not to mind the imprisonment which she thought so dreary, and which her conscience told her it was she who had brought upon him.

Then Eustace had his accomplishments. He sang, and played accompaniments for himself by ear, in a style to fill her with wonder and respect ; and he could do anything with a pencil. He could draw ducks and geese, and men and animals, just as she asked him, in a way so much more in teresting than the illustrations of her books, which would get smeared with paint within a few days of their arrival, in her halting attempts to colour them. He was her superior in all things except bodily vigour ; and this weakness, which afforded her a pleasing sense of protection, made her yield the more willingly to him in other things. She became his protector as well as his admiring follower, made herself responsible for his boyish faults, accepted willingly the scoldings and punish ments which should have been his, and never observed in her devotion how readily he accepted her loyalty and suffered her to shoulder the blame of his misdeeds.

They were inseparable ; and his theatrical fancy would captivate her with devices of quaint mischief of which she had never dreamt. There stood in the middle of the green house a fountain, which never played but in the heat of July, when the glass was thrown open on all sides to catch a wandering breeze ; and over its basin stood a marble naiad. One day, when the aunts were gone across the county on a round of calls, it occurred to Eustace to play at paganism, and insti tute a rite':in honour of the white divinity. The two mad caps set to work among the tubs and flower-pots to arrange a grove about the image with palms and oleanders, and to enclose it in a pyramid of brightly blooming plants taken from the neighbouring shelves. It was vastly pretty ; and the worshippers, to complete the pomp, arrayed themselves in glittering stuffs which decorated the adjoining room, and marched round their shrine, singing snatches of such proces sional litanies of the South as Eustace could remember.

They sang louder and ever louder as they went, till at length, in an accession of dervish-like devotion, Eustace turned on the water to complete the pageant. The jets shot upward, and fell back a drenching shower, soaking the leafage and breaking the tender flower-sprays with its weight ; and then something overbalanced, and something else yielded in con sequence, and there came a crash, and the pyramid collapsed in weltering ruin. Eustace tried to check the deluge ; but the tap was stiff, and the water poured over him in a stream. He desisted ; and the two, dismayed at what they had done, tore off their bedabbled finery and ran away, while the water plashed on in its destructive dance, flooding the conservatory and reducing the squelched exotics to a heap of mire. It was an hour before a servant, coming into the drawing room, discovered the catastrophe and alarmed the gardeners.

They came too late to save their plants, and were still, with injured mien, removing the devastation, when the ladies re turned from their visiting, and stood horrified at the view. " Those dreadful children ! " they cried in unison. " Oh ! what a — what a mess ! " And then antiphonally, each taking up her plaint from the other and bringing the chorus to a climax : " And see the Moorish embroideries Jeannie gathered with such trouble in Tangier ! — that were so much admired ! — lying in a puddle of water ! — crumpled and torn ! — besmirched with mud, and just not fit to look at ! It's that vapouring, pernicious brat of a boy, you may be sure ! Marion is not the same child she was before his coming. Colin will rue not letting him stay abroad." It was evening when the fugitives, driven home by hunger and the signs of coming darkness, returned to the house.

They would fain have stolen to their rooms and allowed the inevitable storm to pass, and a new day to arise, before show ing face ; but on emerging from the shrubbery they found themselves in presence of the aunts. " The culprits ! Here they are ! " Miss Dorothy exclaimed. " I do not wonder at your being ashamed to show yourselves. What have you been about _ How came you to wreck the conservatory? — demolishing plants and flower-stands, and spoiling the drawing-room furniture. If I were your father I would whip you both and send you straight to bed." "It's all my fault, Aunt Dorothy," Marion answered, coming boldly forward. " I did not know how to turn off the water, and so we ran away." " And a pretty mess you have made of it. What tempted you to turn the water on ? Go up to bed at once, and do not venture down again till you can say that you are really sorry.

And you, Eustace, have you nothing to say ? Have you had no hand in the transaction ? " " He had none, Aunt Dorothy, except doing as I wanted. It was I who wished to play at paganism. Send me to bed. I deserve it." " And you go too, Eustace," cried Miss Isabel. " Standing there mum and innocent, like a timid mouse. You would let her take your scolding, and never say a word to shield her. Little sneak ! After her this moment, you cowardly little whelp ! " as the boy winced before her angry face as from a blow. He had known what beating was in his early days, and was slow to inculpate himself in consequence. " Here comes your Uncle Colin. You had better be off before he sees you." Eustace needed no further exhortation. He was gone before the master of the house appeared. " You had better send that nephew of yours to school, Colin, if you want to make a man of him — a strict school, I would suggest, where the good old-fashioned methods are still in force.

A sneaking, cowardly little wretch ! He leads Marion into all manner of mischief, and then leaves her alone to bear the brunt." "Poor lad ! Assunta can be tempestuous, I daresay, when it is a child that thwarts her. But she has been poor. Let us think tolerantly of her, and of her boy." "And get ourselves flooded out some day with his cantrips. Take care he does not experiment with fire next, and burn the house to the ground ! " And so Eustace was packed off to school, and Marion for her sins became once more a lonely child.

Chapter III. The Golden Age

Breakfast was over. Marion had retired to the schoolroom with her governess, Colin still lingered over his letters, Miss Isabel was compounding a delicious puddle of cream and heart of roll for the white cat wliich crouched by her chair, looking up in her face and purring in anticipation of the feast. Miss Dorothy looked across to her brother, waiting till he should have done, lost patience at last, and let the sugar tongs fall with a clatter in their bowl to rouse him, and then observed — " That child is wearing to skin and bone, brother ! Have you not noticed . We must do something. She has no appetite, and just mopes about the house the livelong day. She frets. I am sure of it." " Bid the doctor send her a tonic," quoth Miss Isabel. " Iron, for instance. I have faith in iron. It picks me up invariably, when I feel dawny."

" Turn the child into a ' jawhole ' _ * Not if I know it ! " cried the father. " She is twenty years too young yet to be consulting the doctor for a fit of the megrims. Physic makes more sick people than it cures. We'll send her to school — give her companions of her own age. That's what she is fretting for." " Colin ! " the sisters exclaimed together. 1 A sink. i; " Not that ! " Dorothy went on. " What a house it would be without Marion ! " "And the child herself ! " added Isabel. " So young ! So guileless ! Who can tell what influences she might be exposed to in a school ? Who can answer for the kind of girls and governesses she may be thrown with ? — even if the mistress have the very highest recommendations. It would be sure to spoil her manners, make her abrupt and awkward, like the hobbledehoys of long ago.

It seems to me the old order of things is reversed nowadays. It is the boys who are silky and soft-spoken, while the girls push out their elbows, tramp their feet, and speak in deep chest voices. Keep her at home, Colin, yet a while, I entreat. . Miss Lefevre is a most deserv ing person, and brings her on as well as any one can desire. Keep her at home, and see her grow up as you would have her, under your own eye. Time enough to send her to Brighton, or Neuilly, or somewhere, the year before she is to come out, just to give the finishing touch, and make her like other people." " I have no wish to send her away, I am sure. It was yourselves who spoke of doing something with her — and physicking I will not have. She is just hankering after her lost playfellow." " And who brought him here, Colin ?

I am sure / could never recognise the propriety of that step — the son of that odious foreign woman ! " " Tush, Bel ! Why talk nonsense ? The boy is the heir of entail. It was but right to bring him here and accustom him to the place which is his own." " And unsettle Marion's mind 1 You see the evil con sequences of it already." "I see no consequence whatever to regret. Why should the cousins not be friends 1 When we are gone they will be the nearest of kin to one another. If they were to take a lasting fancy, I for one should not object. It would just keep Marion here for life ; and I ask no better than that her fortune may remain with the Cranstouns of Cowdenshaw. Do you think it would gratify me to see my money go to re build some dilapidated peerage, leaving my uncle's heir no better off than he was himself ?

He would be poorer — too poor to live in this new house, which takes more to keep it up than his grandfather ever possessed." " Don't speak of it, Colin ! To think that Assunta may come here as mistress yet ! — as mother of the laird. It is possible. Enough to make our poor aunt turn in her grave ! Providence will never, surely, permit such desecration. I have faith in Providence. He is sure to do what is right." " For shame, Bel ! Would you even Providence to back ing you in your grudges ? Can it be right in you to harbour ill-will so long _ " Bel groaned aloud. Had Colin gone over to the enemy ? Could it be that he cherished a lurking kindness for the woman who had manifested her admiration for him but too plainly, if in vain, ere she turned her blandishments on the more susceptible Archie .

It seemed not improbable. Since his uncle's death he had forwarded her the allowance for the young laird's maintenance. This had necessitated correspondence, as she knew ; and then the necessity of saving his ward from the rearing of a petty trader had carried him to Nice, where he had seen her again, and perhaps — perhaps — who could be sure ? — had yielded to her spell. Argument was useless, Isabel inferred. It is always useless, the sober sisterhood believe, to attempt to argue purblind man out of an infatuation for the objectionably attractive of their sex. She could only fold her hands with a sigh, and endeavour to put her trust in that Providence who must needs be of her proper way of thinking, and for the sake of the world's good government would be sure to balk the designs of Assunta and all her like.

" What are we to do, then," she said, in haste to drop the painful subject, " to find a companion for Marion ? Perhaps Dorothy and I ought to call oftener round the neighbourhood. But so few of them have young people of our girl's age. By the by, there is a Lady Mary at Montalto ; and we have not been there for a great while." " Lady Mary is sixteen," said Miss Dorothy. " You will gain nothing by making advances in that quarter. The Countess shows no inclination to be intimate with her neighbours down here. She brings her society, like her dresses and her servants, from London, and squares accounts with the local gentry at her yearly ball." " Colin might manage it. Why not have Lord Upperberry over here to shoot ? " " What would he shoot in May, Isabel 1 " " He might fish, then. As long as he is killing something he will be amused."

"I doubt it, Bel; and I am very sure it would be no amusement to me," said Colin. "The honour of his lord ship's company at dinner once a-year is as much as I can stand. Why I should keep up even that I scarcely know, except that we have always done it. The Cranstouns were here before the first Upperberry purchased Tibbie's Rigg and christened it Montalto Castle, and yet we have been submit ting to their pretensions ever since. No ; if you want Lady Mary's intimacy you must find some other road to it. But what ails you against the young Warrenders ? Marion gets on capitally with them. Why not ask some of them over ? They arrived for the summer last week. I wonder you have not been to see them. I could ask Mrs Warrender to take Marion for a fortnight to cheer her up. Yes, that will be an excellent thing to do."

" I have nothing to say against Mr Warrender ; but " " I should think not. Bob is a splendid fellow — the best partner man ever had. Such a head for business ! Sees through everything. And let me tell you, Dorothy, he is as well born as you are yourself, though his money is mostly his own making — just like my own." "It was Mrs Warrender I was thinking of." " An admirable woman, so sensible, and such a mother ! " " Certainly, Colin ; but she is Glasgow." " Stuff! The woman has got to be from somewhere." " Yes ; but she is — you know quite well what I mean. You need not pretend not to understand the difference be tween town and county. The tone of those rich, extrava gant, gorgeous townspeople is — is — I don't want to be un kind, aud I forget the nice French word for it — but it jars." " Rubbish !

A jolly kindly woman, with a brood of fine, healthy, well-conditioned youngsters. I wonder what better companions Marion could have than the children of her father's partner ? Better far than a score of Lady Marys with their French governesses, whom we know little or nothing about." And so it was settled. Miss Lefevre was sent home for a holiday, and Marion went over to Baltrivity to Mrs Warren der's care. It was a new experience to the little girl, who had always lived at home, an object of solicitude to her elders, obeyed and tended by the whole household as its future mistress — who, with the one exception, had known those of her own age only by an occasional forenoon spent ceremoniously in their company — to find herself one of a colony of racketing young sters, whooping and shouting, and making free with each other in all possible ways ; some older than herself, who ordered their juniors as a matter of right, some younger, who submitted or rebelled as occasion prompted, and who in turn had rabbits and puppies, and such small deer, over whom to lord it — a noisy jolly crew, and the best of friends.