Maidenhood; or, the Verge of the Stream

Preface

. HIS little Tale scarcely requires a preface; the motto on the title-page explains its purport. We can only hope that those for whose amusement its pages are designed may not be disappointed with our pictures of girl-life ; and that they may recognize, in the contrast of the cousins, the superiority of straight forwardness and honesty to greatest personal or mental gifts without them. We have tried to show also that even young girls have great influence in matters of the first importance, and that, if they will throw the charm of their youth and good gifts into the scale of Right, they may be one of the counteracting agents for good against the evil influences of the age. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Kate's Grievance

A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food. Wordsworth. T was a glorious June day ; the sky a haze of warm light ; scarcely a breath of air lifted the lovely green leaves of the lime-trees ; the noonday hush of summer was broken only by the distant music of an invisible lark, ©r by the hum of the bees as they busied themselves in the ivory cells of the lilies, or in the heart of a rose, or hovered over the mignonette beds. Perfume of lilies, roses, lime-leaves, and mignonette made the air fra grant. It was an hour and scene meet only for joy and thank fulness ; yet young eyes were looking on it heedless of its loveliness, — not gladdened by the joy of nature. Kate Duncan had a grievance, and as she stood in the MAIDENHOOD. 2 flower-covered porch of the old-fashioned house which was her home, she felt too vexed and saddened to care for the beauty of the scene and hour.

It is scarcely fair to present her to our readers under such a cloud, for she was not generally an ill-tempered or discon tented girl ; but her grievance is one actually destined to influence her future life ; moreover, it happens to be the period at which the chief incidents in her girlhood begin ; therefore we have no choice. Katherine Duncan is the second daughter and fourth child of Mrs. Duncan, the widow of a Colonel in the army, who lives at the picturesque old house in the porch of which her daughter is now standing. Kate is past fifteen, a well grown, rather tall girl, healthy, lively, frank, and generally cheerful ; not pretty, and yet not unattractive. She has a purely English face — a good broad brow, a short, rather commonplace nose, a firm, well-formed chin, red smiling lips, and white teeth, and pleasant grey-blue eyes with long lashes; her complexion is fresh, clear, and healthy; her hair abundant and dark brown.

Yet she has no pretension to beauty or grace ; she is simply a nice-looking girl. Mrs. Duncan's other children were all remarkable for personal gifts. Kate's eldest sister Edith was delicately lovely, a graceful, lilylike maiden of seventeen; and her two younger sisters — Bessie, aged twelve, and Nellie, eight — were remarkably pretty children. By contrast with them Kate's homely good looks suffered ; she was always called the plain one of the family. But that family all loved her most, though she was by no means the best tempered of the seven children. Edith was very meek and saintly, one of those girls who appear to embody an angelic nature. Bessie was gentle and sympathetic; Nellie merry and good-tempered; but the boys always asserted that Kate was the " jolliest " of their sisters, and the girls looked up to her as the cleverest of all the family.

The reason of her winning so much home love was pro bably that she possessed great universality of character. She could and did throw herself readily into the joys and sorrows of others ; she understood them all instinctively ; she had, moreover, a high spirit, and was full of life and cheerfulness. Yet this latter quality had not always characterized her. A dark shadow had fallen on Kate's childhood, which had long depressed her, and from which her present grievance, in the first place, arose. From a very early age she had been especially attached to her father, and he had died when she was old enough to feel his loss keenly, being then a precocious child of nine years old. Mrs. Duncan's grief for the loss of her husband brought on an illness, which shortly afterwards compelled her to go to the south of France.

She was threatened with con sumption — a disease existing in her mother's family — and, anxious to preserve her life and health for her children's sake, she complied with the counsels of her physicians, and left England with her eldest daughter ; her baby of a few months old ; and her youngest son Bertie, who was also delicate. The two elder boys were at school. Their grandmother 1—2 MAIDENHOOD. 4 offered to take charge of Kate and Bessie during their mother's absence. Mrs. Duncan would have preferred taking them with her, but she was not rich, and, after the expenses already incurred through her husband's illness and death, and her own bad health, she was glad to accept the offer, as affording her a means of economizing. She believed that the separation from her children would be a short one ; but it lasted a year.

Thus it chanced that, at between nine and ten years of age, Katherine was separated from her mother and her home ; at the very period also of her first grief, which was a very bitter one, for the child had passionately loved her father. He had been to her the embodiment of heroism and of every noble virtue, and had returned her childish homage with a peculiar tenderness. It could not be said that Kate was his favourite child, for his large heart embraced all his dear ones with equal affection, but there was much sympathy between this little girl and the brave soldier. Kate showed precocious talent as a very young child. No one knew how she had picked up her knowledge of reading, but she read well at four years old, and was found at six or seven abstracting books from her father's library, instead of contenting herself with those on the children's shelves.

Shakespeare and Scott were already her favourites ■ and the father, pleased at her intelligence, became himself her teacher. Colonel Duncan was a very intellectual man, a fine scholar as well as an accomplished soldier, and it was an exquisite pleasure to him to direct his little girl's fresh and eager mind. She looked up to him as the first of men. To her inno cent childish fancy he impersonated all the grand qualities of her favourite heroes of history and poetry, united with something holier and more reverence-inspiring, from being her father. All through Kate's life, the pale intellectual face of that dear parent remained impressed upon her memory, as the embodiment of the truest beauty of soul and body. To lose him was nearly as bitter a trial to this child — perhaps, considering her youth and feebleness, quite as bitter — as it was to his wife ; and — though her first agonies of grief had been soothed by the dear mother, who forgot herself for her child's sake, and Kate had been taught to look for support to Heaven, and to yield entire submission to the Divine will — it was a very sad little child who, hand in hand with her sister Bessie, entered Grandmammi Greville's drawing-room one cold winter day.

Mrs. Greville was a fine old lady, good and beneficent, but a disciplinarian of the old school, who was scandalized at untidiness and want of punctuality, and, having very little imagination, was entirely incapable of understanding the shy silent child, whose hair was rough and head down cast, and who showed nothing like the pleasure grand mamma thought she ought to have felt at coming to stay with her and Aunt Olive. The poor little ones had never been from home before ; never before absent from their mother ; and both felt chilled and very disconsolate as they glanced from the stately old lady to their Aunt Olive — a prim elderly woman, much older than their mother. MAIDENHOOD. " Come here, Katherine," said Mrs. Greville, extending her hand ; " why do you look so frightened ? Come and kiss grandmamma ; Elizabeth, come and kiss me also."

And she kissed her grandchildren formally, patting little Bessie's rosy cheek. " Now go and speak to your aunt, and don't look scared, child,"— to Kate. Aunt Olive embraced them both, more affectionately than her mother had done. " You will have a little playfellow, my dears," she said, " who will soon teach you not to be shy. Cousin Flora lives with grandmamma, you know : are you not glad of that ? " Kate raised her sad dark eyes. " I don't know," she said, simply. " You don't know ! oh, you ought to be glad, my love, to have a dear little cousin. You are glad to come and stay with grandmamma, are you not ? " " I am so sorry to leave mamma," replied the child, with a quivering lip. " Oh, yes, of course — poor mamma ! but then here is grandmamma instead. When I was a little girl I used to think it a great treat to go and stay with my grandmamma."

Kate made no answer. Aunt Olive shook her head and sighed. " Sullen, I 'm afraid," she said, aside to the old lady, but loud enough to be heard by Katherine. " Very different tc Flora, mother." "Yes," nodded Mrs. Greville. " Flora's manner is so charming," continued Aunt Olive. " Well, it will do Katherine good to be with her." Just at that moment a tall, handsome young woman, of about six or seven and twenty, entered the room, leading by the hand a little girl, just Kate's age. This lady was Miss Beaumont, the little girl's aunt, who also lived at the Grange, as Mrs. Greville's old house was called. Kate's uncle, Captain Greville — Mrs. Greville's only son — had married a Miss Beaumont, elder sister of the lady just named. She had died soon after the birth of her little girl, and Captain Greville had been thankful to give his infant into his mother's care ; and as Miss Beaumont had always — after his marriage — lived with her sister, Mrs. Gre ville offered a home to her also, an offer which was gladly accepted.

For the Beaumont sisters had been orphans from very early youth, and their uncle, Admiral Beaumont, who had protected them after their father's death, had also recently died. Ada Beaumont, at that time a handsome and very young girl, rather shrank from taking up her abode at the Grange ; for Mrs. Greville visited very little, and the country place in which she dwelt had only a small neigh bourhood ; but Ada had no choice, in her reduced circum stances ; so she accompanied her baby-niece to Mrs. Gre ville's home, which, to her, was a mere burying alive. Aunt Olive found enough interest in the village and amongst her poor people; but Ada, who lived wholly for the world, passed nine very dreary years at Rockmount after her sister's death ; finding her only consolation in spoiling her little niece (as much as such a process was possible under Mrs. Greville's strict eye) and in occasional visits to old friends in London.

" Kiss your cousins, Flora, dear," said Miss Beaumont, MAIDENHOOD. leading her pet up to the little guests, " and tell them you are glad to see them." Flora put her arms round Kate's neck, and said in the sweetest tone possible, " Darling cousin, I am so glad to see you ! " kissing her fervently as she spoke. The same salutation was repeated to Bessie ; and then grandmamma bade Flora take her cousins up to Bruce, that she might get them ready for luncheon. The little girl took Kate's hand, and led her, followed by Bessie, up the great oak staircase, and then again up another winding one, till they reached a large carpetless room, where, by the side of the fire, the nurse sat at work. " Here are my cousins, Bruce," said Flora, as she ushered them in. " Grandmamma says they are to be made neat for luncheon."

Bruce, a kind-looking, motherly woman, rose and welcomed the little visitors in a cordial, pleasant tone. " Glad to see you, young ladies. Dear, how cold you look ! Come here by the fire and warm your poor little hands, while I brush out Miss Flora's hair." The sisters gladly took the stools that Bruce placed for them by the fire. They had come off a long cold journey, and were feeling perished. As they sat basking in the cheerful warmth, Kate had time to look at her cousin. Flora Greville was a wonderfully beautiful child ; her complexion all lilies and roses, her eyes large and liquid blue, her mouth a perfect rose-bud, and her hair of the loveliest tint of gold. Kate, who had a great sense of the beautiful, thought she should certainly love this charming cousin. But very shortly her admiration was chilled by Flora's exclaiming, " Don't you hate to wear black, Kate ?

" " Yes, I hate wearing it," replied Kate, her little chest heaving with suppressed emotion ; " I hate wearing it be cause it is for my dear papa." " Oh, but I meant because it looks so dull," replied Flora. " I am as pretty again in white ; ain't I, Bruce ? " " Don't talk so foolishly, Miss Flora," said the nurse, reprovingly. " Little girls should not be vain." " But Aunt Ada says — I heard her say so to Aunt Olive the other day- — that it is a girl's duty to look pretty, and I can't do that duty in this black frock," laughing as she spoke. " Handsome is as handsome does," replied Bruce. " But of course everybody grieves to wear black on account of the cause, as your poor little cousin says." Bruce then turned her attention to Kate, and made a desperate effort to smooth out her tangled brown locks.

"You are not pretty, Cousin Kate," said Flora, scrutin izing her cousin with a half-frowning glance. " Are you ? " " No, not at all," replied Kate, quietly. " It is a great pity you are not ! Aunt Ada hates ugly people," said Flora. " For shame, Miss Flora ! " exclaimed Bruce. " Miss Duncan is not ugly, and your aunt does not hate ugly people ; no one does if they are good, I am sure. What would your aunt say if she heard you ? " " She would say, ' Oh, Flora ! ' " mimicking Miss Beau- MAIDENHOOD. 10 mont's rather affected tone. "But you won't tell her that I said so, will you, Brucy ? Well, Kate, you do look tidier now, and it is well for you, for granny is an awful old fidget. Don't stare, child. She is, and you '11 find her so. Before granny, one must be on one's best behaviour, I assure you."

"But," said Kate, "I don't choose to be sly. I shall behave the same before grandmamma as I do behind her back." " Oh, dear ! what a pattern ! " said Flora, sarcastically. " We shan't get on well if you are a model child, I assure you. " I am not a model child, but I hate deceit," said Kate, flashing into anger. "There, there's the luncheon bell, young ladies," inter posed Bruce ; " run down ; and pray don't quarrel." Kate soon learned that Flora was a different child in her grandmamma's presence from what she was upstairs. As soon as the children were alone, she was rude to Kate and cross to little Bessie. Finding that her cousins did not tell of her behaviour towards them, Flora exercised the most perverse tyranny over the poor children when out of the presence of their elders, till Kate, naturally hot tempered, would wax indignant, and then a scene of passion and tears would ensue.

One day, a long course of tormenting was commenced by Flora on little Bessie. She placed the child's doll out of her reach ; threw a bonnet Kate had made for it into the fire; and finally succeeded in making the gentle-tempered little Bessie cry sadly after her mamma. Kate, excessively angry, flew to the rescue, and in a paroxysm of rage struck Flora, leaving the red marks of her little fingers on her cousin's back. Flora's shrieks brought Miss Beaumont at once to the spot, and the sobbing girl related how " she had only been playing with Bessie in fun, and Kate had struck her ! " Miss Beaumont, very indignant, at once led the culprit down to the awful presence of grandmamma, where Kate heard Flora give a version of their quarrel so far from the true one that she exclaimed in fiery indignation at her falsehood.

But grandmamma silenced her at once. " I will not allow you, Katherine," she said, " to speak in this manner of your cousin. When people are angry they cannot judge fairly of anything, and your violence is quite unequalled. I am shocked to have such a naughty, unlady like girl for my grandchild. Go to your room, and remain there for the rest of the day. Your conduct is very wicked and very shocking. I am sorry that your poor little cousin should have such a bad companion." With broken-hearted sobs Kate obeyed ; and in her lonely chamber sat weeping bitterly for the tender mother far away, — for the lost happy home. By-and-bye Bruce brought her tea. " Poor child," said the good woman, kissing her, " I am sorry for you. I wish I had been in the room when it happened ; Miss Flora should not have teased your little sister if I had been there.

Miss Bessie has told me all about it, and I shall speak to your grandmamma. But, Miss Kate, you ought not to have given way to passion and struck your cousin. It was very wrong indeed, my dear, and your grandmamma MAIDENHOOD. 12 was right to punish you for it — your own mamma would say so too, I am sure." " Yes, she would," sobbed Kate. " I was wrong, I know, to strike her. But poor little Bessie ! She has no one to take care of her now but me ! " " Oh, yes, she has. I will take care of her. There, do try to stop sobbing so, my poor dear, or you will be quite ill. Here, see, I have made you a nice piece of hot toast. Try to eat it, and drink your tea." Bruce did speak to Mrs. Greville about the affray, and in consequence Flora was desired not to tease her little cousins again. But she listened to the reproof and injunction with such large innocent eyes of wonder and sorrow, and so prettily said " that she did not mean to vex her cousins ; she was only in fun ; but that they were such bad tempers : she was afraid they must have been spoiled at home;" that Mrs. Greville secretly acquitted her of everything but being too playful, and quite believed that the little Duncans were spoiled, fretful children.

" You know, Olive," she observed to her daughter, after wards, " I always said that Mary spoiled her children. She had all sorts of absurd theories about education, and poor Duncan was full of them also. Besides, she was not, for some months before she left, able to attend to her nursery." " Kate is a very strange child," said Aunt Olive. " The other day I found her up in the old lumber-room, reading so intently that she never heard me go in. I asked her what she was doing there in the cold. She did not answer directly, so I supposed that poor little Flora had offended her, and that she was sulking. But it was not so. She was quite absorbed reading the 'Midsummer Night's Dream'! I told her she must not take books from the library without leave, and that Shakespeare was not fit for a little girl to read : she had better get Mrs. Markham's History of Eng land.

She said Shakespeare's history was prettier than Mrs. Markham's, and that her mamma had given her leave to read about the fairies. I told her that while she was here she must obey me ; and I took the book from her and sent her back to the nursery." " She is certainly very clever," said grandmamma, thoughtfully ; " but those precocious children want a great deal of keeping back." " She is very troublesome," replied Aunt Olive ; " and Ada is always complaining of the way she treats Flora, whom she evidently despises, as her inferior in knowledge." " Well, well," said grandmamma, "we must do what we can to make her less conceited and more amiable. It is lucky that our permanent charge, Flora, is so charming. There are few children like her." But the efforts made by her grandmamma and aunt to improve Kate did not prove very effectual.

She grew silent and sullen, her spirit seemed broken, and her interest was gone from her studies. It was a very miserable little Kate who counted the months till her mother should come back, and submitted silently but sullenly to frequent injus tice ; listening with a feeling of indignant hatred in her poor little heart to her grandmother when she pointed out to the little girl the good example of Flora for imitation — Flora ! who was sly, selfish, and who never hesitated to tell a falsehood in order to escape reproof. MAIDENHOOD. 14 At last the long period of Mrs. Duncan's enforced ab sence from her children ended, and Kate and Bessie were summoned home. Then, in her dear and tender mother's arms, Kate sobbed out all her joy and the story of all her past suffering, and Mrs. Duncan strove to prove to her that grandmamma and Aunt Olive were not to blame ; because they had been de ceived.

But she could say little in defence of Flora ; she could only warn Kate to avoid her cousin's faults, and not to let them produce as great, though different, ones in her self ; for she was terrified at the bitter dislike Katherine expressed for her cousin, and at the child's sad and soured temper. Time, and the influences of a happy home, had, however, the effect Mrs. Duncan hoped for : the little girl brightened into something of her old self, and grew merry and kindly once more. But there still lingered in Katherine's mind a great dislike to her cousin, an extreme sensitiveness as to her own want of beauty, and an over-estimate of the value of personal gifts — the evil fruit of the seed sown while at her grandmother's. The Duncan boys, at the time our story commences, had long left school.

George had been taken into the counting house of his father's brother, Mr. Walter Duncan, a London merchant, with the prospect — as that gentleman had no sons — of a suture partnership. Charlie had gone to sea with his uncle, Captain Greville, and was now a midship man in the Royal Navy. Bertie was about to leave a private school for Harrow. Edith was still her mother's right hand ; Bessie returned Kate's former championship ■ S with the most devoted affection. In Bessie's eyes beautiful Edith was not as lovely as Kate ; and no one was half as clever. Mrs. Duncan had hitherto been the sole instructress of her daughters ; for the education of her sons had heavily taxed her income, and she had not liked to give up the old man-servant — an ex-serjeant of Colonel Duncan's for mer regiment, who had served her husband ever since he went on half-pay — or to part with her old and faithful maid.

So the modest establishment continued as it had always existed, except that she put down her carriage, and the Colonel's horse was now only a pensioner in the pad dock. The widowed mother abjured society, and gave her whole life to her children and the poor. But she often regretted that she could not give them better musical teaching than her own, and also a German master. Marsden was not far from the old abbey town of Romsey, but still too far from it to make it easj7 to obtain masters from thence (had good ones at that time resided in it) except at great expense. Mrs. Duncan, therefore, experienced great pleasure one morning, at receiving a letter from her brother, Captain Greville, proposing that she should receive his daughter Flora into her home, to be educated with her daughters ; and offering at the same time to pay a handsome salary for a governess, who would teach under Mrs. Duncan's supervision.

" He could recommend," he wrote, " for that post a young lady — the orphan daughter of an old messmate of his own — who was admirably qualified for her office." MAIDENHOOD. 16 " She is a lady," he added, " by birth as well as education, a first-rate musician, educated in Germany ; intelligent, good tempered, and I believe high principled. Flora has seen her and likes her, and I think my nieces will also. For Flora, the change to your home will be of the first importance. She needs a younger atmosphere and better teaching than she has at present. Moreover, she requires discipline of another kind than that exercised by our dear old mother, and Sister Olive. Flora is too old for her age, and it will be conferring an inestimable boon both on me and on her, if you will consent to receive my motherless child, and thus give her young companions."

Mrs. Duncan gave a glad assent to her brother's welcome proposal ; and the affair was settled unknown to any of the young people except Edith, who was her mother's confidante and counsellor. But on the morning of the day our story commences, Mrs. Duncan had announced to her family at breakfast the startling news that Cousin Flora was coming to live with them, and that she would be accompanied by a governess ! Kate uttered a cry of dismay at the tidings. " Cousin Flora ! oh, mamma ! " "My dear," said Mrs. Duncan, "surely you will be glad to welcome your cousin ? " " Oh, mamma ! have you forgotten how unhappy she made Bessie and me ? " " But that was more than six years ago, my love. She was only a little child then. She is fifteen now, and would laugh at her former follies, I have no doubt."

Kate shivered. " Mamma, she has never really changed," she said. " I shall not get on with Flora, I am sure. I feel a presentiment of future unhappiness from her living here." " Kate, you will greatly displease me if you encourage such unkind feelings," said her mother ; " they are much worse in you now than Flora's childish faults were in her so long ago." Kate made no answer ; but the sunshine went out of her face for the whole morning, and she looked more like the sad child of six or seven years ago than she had done since she had been restored to her home. And this was Kate's grievance, which, while she waited for Bessie to walk with her, made her blind to the glory of summer and deaf to the music of the lark.

Chapter II. Cousin Flora

A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament. Wordsworth. s^^^lHE home of the Duncans was a picturesque old G^II dwelling, which had been a nunnery in the sixi__|______l^ teenth century. It was of no great size, though roomy and convenient. At each end of the front of the house was an advancing gable, and in the middle of the low centre range of buildings was a bell-tower. Each gable contained a large room ; one was a morning-room, the other the school-room. On each side of the entrance were the drawing and dining-rooms. There were many passages and steps about the house, the latter leading to small cell-like chambers. The balusters of the staircase were finely carved oak ; the high mantelpieces, also of carved wood, probably dated from Queen Anne's reign ; a long gallery-like passage ran along the whole length of the back of the old house ; and to every one of the few large bed-rooms — i.e., those in the gables and over the dining and drawing-rooms — were attached large closets, which had probably once been oratories.

The porch, which was of some size, and built of ancient stone, was covered with a trelliswork of wood, up which ran honeysuckle, roses, and jessamine. In front of the house was a lawn, sprinkled with flower beds, and having two very ancient tulip-trees on each side of the centre drive. Round the lawn grew large horse chestnut-trees and beeches. The land belonging to the house consisted of a garden, an orchard, a grove, and a paddock, about twenty acres in all. It was nearly surrounded by a bright little trout stream, which went babbling and dancing along between its flowery banks till it widened at one point into a picturesque sheet of water, washing the roots of the old trees which formed the tiny grove. At this spot a point of land ran out into the stream, at the end of which a mighty oak spread its arms over the water.