A Sage of Sixteen, etc

Front matter

A SAGE OF SIXTEEN L. B. WALFORD'S NOVELS. — »£WC3<— New Uniform Edition. Crown Svo, cloth extra, price 2s. 6d. each, with Etching Frontispiece. MR. SMITH : A Part of liia Life. THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER. COUSINS. TROUBLESOME DAUGHTERS. PAULINE. DICK NETHERBY. THE HISTORY OP A -WEEK. %* The above will be published at short intervals, and will be followed by other Works by the same Author. LONDON : SPENCER BLACKETT & HALLAM. Mat be obtained at all Booksellers and Railway Bookstalls. No spectators were within reasonable distance of tlie little bridge whereon tlie two were leaning." — Page 107, A SAGE OF SIXTEEN BY L. B. WALFORD AUTHOR OF "MR. SMITH," "THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER," "COUSINS," "NAN,1 "A MERE CHILD," ETC. ETC. WITH NUMEROUS TEXT AND FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. E. GOOD ALL LONDON SPENCER BLACKETT & HALLAM 35 ST. BRIDE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C. 1SS9 [AU Riyhts Reserved] CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE I. THE SITUATION 7 II. "miss exeter's face" ig III. " WE HAVE ONLY ONE THING IN COMMON " . -32 iv. elma's new frock 43 V. LADY ALFRETON PROPOSES A TREAT . . -55 VI. ON THE WAY TO THE FETE 66 VII. THE DUCHESS OF MERTOUN AND HER DAUGHTER . 78 VIII. " I NEVER KNEW ANY ENCOUNTER MORE MAL-A- PROPOS" 91 IX. PIERS EXPOUNDS THE WAYS OF THE WORLD . . IOO X. ELMA'S ACCOUNT OF FRIENDSHIP-MAKING . . 114 XI. THE BUD UNFOLDING 1 29 XII. MISS EXETER'S BIRTHDAY PROGRAMME . . . I44 XIII. " I ONLY WANT TO DO A LITTLE KINDNESS FOR ONCE" 156 XIV. A DRIVE IN THE PARK 164 XV. "CAN A PERSON BE IN TWO SETS OF SOCIETY AT THE SAME TIME?" 17 1 xvi. lady Mabel's ball 181 XVII. GOVERNESS AND PUPIL 1 92 XVIII. "NOT EVEN A BIT OF PINE" 203 j; CONTENTS. VI CHAP. PAGE XIX. "I WAS THANKFUL WE HAD TAKEN NOTHING!" . 211 XX.

THE GIRL AT MRS. THATCHER'S COTTAGE . .221 XXI. A LINK DISCOVERED, AND REFORM BEGUN . . 233 XXII. "YOU ARE A LIVING SHAME TO US ALL1' . . 238 XXIII. " NOW, I WONDER IF THAT BLUSH MEANT ANY THING ? " 249 XXIV. CONCLUSION

Chapter I. The Situation

HEN Elma went to Park Lane she was called "a sage." No one ever thought of calling her " a sage " at © O O Haverstock Hill. At Haverstock Hill she lived— at Park Lane she was to be found every Wednesday afternoon. Nevertheless she was scarcely more at home in, and, after a certain fashion, an inmate of, the one house than of the other. Let us explain. Elma was an orphan, and Sir Thomas Alfreton — who was a very great personage as personages go, rich, and popular, and esteemed withal — was her nearest living relation ; but for the present Sir Thomas neither had nor could have very much to do with his young ward. It had been his dead brother's expressed injunction that the little girl should be brought up by a certain Miss Exeter, and Miss Exeter was entirely out of Sir Thomas's world, and could not possibly enter into his calculations.

She lived — he did not know where she lived. Lady Alfreton knew, he averred. Lady Alfreton was much attached to poor Henry's child, and had her as much at Park Lane as possible. But what could be done with a girl whose parents wished her to be brought up at a boarding-school ? Had it not been for that boarding-school, he did not see, for his part, why Elma should not have lived with them, and had Juliet's old governess, now that Juliet no longer needed her. As it was, however, as it was, Sir Thomas — shrugged his shoulders. He knew his niece if he met her on his own doorstep, or on the staircase, or if she accosted him with a " How d'ye do, uncle ? " when he was mounting for his daily ride : he probably would not have known her had she passed him in the Park, or looked down upon him from a gallery of the House of Commons.

With the rest of the family Elma was, how ever, infinitely more thought of— when they had time to think ; and more beloved — when they could find room in their hearts to love. Between one Wednesday and another (they would forget their weekly visitor, it is true. Lady Alfreton would look round astonished, when reminded by her maid that Joseph or some one must be sent to fetch the young lady before two o'clock ; but there would be no unkindness in the astonishment. Nay, it was invariably understood that her ladyship was rather pleased than otherwise when told Wednesday had come round once more — and that, so much before it had been expected ; and Juliet, coming in from the Bow, would cry, "What, Elma! here again?" quite heartily for her; aud Piers's "Hullo, Elma! half-holiday again, eh ? " would be really brisk for him, when their young cousin was seen peering over the banisters on the all-important after noons.

" How are you, young sage1? " would be Piers's next. " Very well, thank you," the " young sage " would rejoin. " Why in the world do you call me that, Cousin Piers ? " she would add, suddenly. There never was much attempt at explanation. They knew, one and all, what the term signified to them, but they did not care to enter into the subject with Elma. " I suppose they do not think you so wise at Haverstock Hill? " one day Juliet had suggested. " No, indeed," and Elma had laughed outright. At Haverstock Hill it would be "Elma, you baby ! " or "Elma, you goose ! " more likely ; and it is a fact that whereas Elma's fashionable aunt was wont to aver that, do what she would, she could not but stand in awe at times of the terrible wisdom and severe sense of that wonderful child, Miss Exeter, on the other hand, would hope that Elma's tongue had not run away with " Hullo, Elma ! half-holiday again, eh V'—Page 9. her in her uncle's house, and would be fain to stop her ears lest she should be swept away by the torrent of frivolity which would burst from the little holiday-maker on her return thence.

Thus it will be seen that my youthful heroine was regarded from two distinctly different points of view. It would have amazed good Miss Exeter as much to have heard her young charge accused of over-sobriety, as it would Lady Alfreton to have known that the unconscious mentor who gazed at her out of a pair of limpid eyes when sometimes, absorbed in an exciting topic, she would forget the child was by, and "be a little, a very little, inclined to talk as other people do, you know, my dear " (this was her ladyship's confidence thereafter) — it would indeed have struck the delinquent dumb to have known that the same Elma, before whose solemn silence her whispers had died away, would in all pro bability be called to order as a " feather-brain " and a " rattle-pate " at the close of the same day.

No two sets of ideas, no two daily routines, no two views of life generally, could have been found more absolutely opposed to each other, than those possessed by the denizens of Sir Thomas Alfreton's mansion and Miss Exeter's corner house. Elma was the sole connecting link between them. Thus Miss Exeter : " It is a great thing for my dear pupil to have such relations. They trust her so entirely to me, and trust me so entirely with her, that they never attempt to interfere with my authority, nor seek to alter my plan of education. No expense is spared, and I am permitted to carry it out as I think best for dear Elma's advantage. Her poor mother left her to my care " — here Miss Exeter would bridle softly, and the pride of her heart would let itself appear in the faint glow which overspread her cheeks — "it was Mrs. Henry Alfreton's dying request to her husband, that the education of their only child should be committed to me.

Therefore I should under no circumstances have agreed to forego my claim," she w-ould continue with renewed animation ; " but it is pleasant to feel that such a suggestion has never even been hinted at ; and what is more, that since neither Sir Thomas nor Lady Alfreton have so much as once made an inquiry or a request, I may hope that they repose an equal confidence in me to thatwhich was expressed by the other members of the family, when it became known that Elma was to become an inmate of my house. Nothing that Sir Thomas or Lady Alfreton could possibly bestow upon their niece is equal, in my opinion, to their abstaining from all interruption of her studies and direction of her time." Good creature ! Had she but guessed to what she owed such abstention ! Hark to Elma's aunt on the same subject.

" Yes, of course, my dear, what Juliet says is very true. We are all fond of Elma — poor dear Henry's only child, you know ; but then what can we do ? How her poor dear mother could ever have dreamed of making such a request, and how my poor dear brother-in-law could ever have been so quixotic as to carry it out, I cannot, no, I can not imagine. I call it being cruel to his own daughter. Sir Thomas thought himself obliged to let all Captain Alfreton's arrangements stand," pursued the speaker, plaintively, "and — oh, did I not tell you what they were ? No ? The truth is this — but I am really ashamed to acknowledge it — that the child is at school some where in a remote part of London ; at — at Haverstock Hill, in short, — at a Miss Exeter's school ; Miss Exeter having been governess to Mrs. Henry Alfreton, and having no doubt established a sort of hold over her.

I know nothing about Miss Exeter nor her school," Lady Alfreton would proceed ; " I told Sir Thomas that he really could not expect me to know, and he quite agreed. Had Elma been left entirely to us, we would have done the best we could for her, but, as it is, she is quite out of our hands, and in Miss Exeter's. She cannot be in the hands of two people at once, can she ? I have no doubt Miss Exeter is a worthy creature, but a school at Haverstock Hill, you know ! I can not imagine why she should have it there ; I am sure there are plenty of other places — there is a school just round the corner here ; and if Elma had but been placed there, it would only have been my maid's running in and running out — but, however, there is no use in saying anything now. As long as Captain Alfreton — Henry, you know — was alive, we were not required to know anything about the child, and — and — " here even the very fine lady would move in her chair with a dim uneasiness, and a sense of being on thin ice — " and indeed poor Henry never asked nor expected it " — (Elma had only been once within her uncle's doors at the period thus referred to) — " but directly Sir Thomas heard of his brother's death," the narrator would recommence more briskly, " he said the very first thing, ' We must see more of that little girl.' Ever since then, we have done all we can for Elma.

She spends every half-holiday with us — that is, every Wed nesday afternoon — though it is such a distance to send, and then she has always to be sent back again as well. We do not grudge the trouble. Elma is a favourite with us all ; and Sir Thomas has begun to say something about having her down at the Towers in the autumn. As soon as she leaves this tiresome school — that is, as soon as she is eighteen, for I am told she' is to remain with Miss Exeter until she is eighteen — it will be different. We can then beo-in to consider what is to be done. Whether Sir Thomas will have her to live with us or not, I do not know. It must depend upon circum stances. But for the present, and as long as we have a mere school-girl to deal with, we can do no more than we do already. It is simply out of the question that there can be any constant comings and goings, and tiresome letters, and interviews, and appeals, between this Miss Exeter and ourselves.

As she has managed hitherto, so she must continue to manage. Sir Thomas pays the bills, and there it ends." With which com plete exposition of the subject, Sir Thomas's wife, who had a way of suddenly letting go her hold of energy and interest as soon as she had got to the length of her tether, would sink back upon her sofa-cushion exhausted, and fan away the last breath of a troublesome subject. But, to be sure, Elma knew nothing of all this. How was she to know ? Who was to tell her? She was, as even her aunt had acknowledged, a favourite, and a favourite who had no idea that she could ever have been anything else. It had never, from the first, occurred to her to doubt her welcome in the strange house, nor to wonder why it should have been strange. After the second visit, she had felt as much at home in it as if she had been born within its precincts.

All within were her friends. When her own joyous peal of the door-bell was heard — Elma always rang her own bell and rapped her own knock — the most apathetic, supercilious John Thomas in the world would half-smile to himself as he strolled leisurely towards the door. When Lady Alfreton's dressing-room door would fly open and the little figure fly in, the unsym pathetic, unresponsive Abigail engaged in at tendance, who had only the shortest of answers and crossest of faces for her own mistress, would respond almost pleasantly to Miss Elma's greet ing. Elma's aunt would suffer herself to be kissed with some approach to complaisance. Juliet would permit her hat to be torn from her head and perched upon her cousin's, and B her gloves, laces, and ribbons to be severally tried on and tossed about, without remon strance. And Piers — Piers would come home to luncheon the days that Elma was to be in Park Lane.

Chapter II

"MISS EXETER'S FACE." 'HERE was something so fresh and fragrant, so daisy-like and dewy-like, in the bright young creature wTho thus from time to time woke up the jaded house hold into something like life, by the force of her own exuberance and effervescence, that the name whereby she was best known there would have seemed strangely out of place to a chance visitor. What was there, what could there ever be, to suggest the idea ' OO of a " sage " about this sunny-faced, dimpling Elma? It was certainly no great proof of superior wisdom to spin like a humming-top all over the floors of the great, solemn reception rooms ; to whirl in and out of the windows on the balcony, inspect every card upon the mantelpiece, inquire into every innovation, turn every pocket of the mansion, as it were, outside in.

Elma would pull open her aunt's wardrobe, tumble about the articles on her toilet-table, peer into her jewel-cases, try on her newest mantles and bonnets, and trail her best silk skirts in front of the mirror, with a delight which it did one's heart good to see. Elma had an interest in everybody, and a thousand questions to ask about every new-comer who entered the household. Her aunt and cousins received through her the most of whatever information they possessed about the inferior members of it. She could tell them wThere Jane came from, and what was Susan's parent age. She would apply for a remedy when Joseph had the toothache. Even Lady Alfreton found herself obliged to be pleased, when in structed that her own maid had known Elma's mother's maid. There was a great deal of the child, but there was nothing of the sa°*e, in all this.

But for all that, the sobriquet, bestowed by Piers, stuck. It had chanced to be given on a day when the family party had been augmented by the addition of some of his own aud Juliet's friends at luncheon, Elma being present. A topic had been started, such a topic as is current enough in a London dining-room, not particularly ob jectionable, but new to simple, unsophisticated ears. Elma had drunk in every word, and every word had made her blue eyes enlarge, and her innocent heart wonder and meditate. This had been shown upon her face. All at once the talkers had ceased, some of them a shade confusedly ; aud Juliet had, perhaps for the first time in her life, spoken sharply to her young cousin ; and Piers had laughed. They had demanded of what she was thinking, and she had coloured a little, but had truthfully owned to reflections not exactly such as were usuid in Park Lane, to which no one had known very well how to reply ; and Piers, with another laugh, had called her "a sage."

Whenever the same scene recurred, and from time to time it would recur, it inevitably con cluded with Elma's hearing herself so styled. Lady Alfreton adopted the term, Juliet rang the changes on it, and even Sir Thomas knew to whom it referred. It might be that one and all fancied in it some curious kind of antidote towards certain faint, uneasy qualms which would now and again steal across their consciences when Elma was by. It might be that they considered it a counter-charge to the solemn gaze which, in spite of themselves, could not but be felt dis concerting from such a chit. O With Elma herself they could not be angry ; she was such an irresistible, irrepressible little witch, they said ; but they rebelled in their secret souls alike against her silent protest, or against the utterance which they themselves would extort.

It was all Miss Exeter, they would tell each other aside — Miss Exeter's doino* O — Miss Exeter's teaching ; and by-and-by they came to dub the face which was the bugbear O of the party— "Miss Exeter's face." When there had been a " Miss Exeter's face " visible during any period of a Park Lane half-holiday, something of this kind might be heard after wards. " Juliet, my love, do learn to be a little more careful before that child." " Mamma, I thought I was careful. I meant * O to be most particularly careful." " Recollect that she knows nothing of the world." " Recollect, mamma ? We have no chance of forgetting." O O "And you would not wish to vex her?" "Vex Elma? No, indeed. But, mamma" " Well, my love ? " " Was I ever — at any time, when I was ever so young, and had seen ever so little — was I ever like what Elma is now ?

" " Never," replied Lady Alfreton. with the most absolute truth. " Never ! " she would con tinue, with rising energy and emphasis ; " it is all Miss Exeter's doing." Which, however, was, we may inform our reader, neither the truth, nor anything like it. Miss Exeter, an excellent creature, simple, humble-minded, single-hearted, and devoted to " duty," in whatsoever form it presented itself, was the last person in the world to have instructed her pupil in abhorrence of the world's ways, its fashions and follies, for the very plain reason that she knew little or nothing about them herself. Had Elma gone to her — but Elma would have scorned to go to her, or to any one, telling tales behind backs. Elma might think her own thoughts, and feel her own feelings, and turn over the same in her own young mind after the occasion which had called them forth had gone by — but not a word to Miss Exeter.

Miss Exeter only knew that Lady Alfreton had taken her niece to pleasant places, and given her pretty presents, and let her depart with kind injunctions to come again. She only heard that the cousins had been busy with this aud that, and had allowed Elma to join in what they were doing ; that Juliet had let her be present whilst trying on her new Court dress, and Piers had shown her the whole collection of photographs he had brought back with him from his foreign travels. Miss Exeter thought the Alfretons must be delightful, cultivated, high bred people, aud was more and more convinced of the benefit to the orphan Elma that must arise from her relationship to such a house, as time went on. No syllable ever dropped from the loyal lips of the little one to dispel such an illusion. Whatever she might see, whatever she might hear, that grieved, or hurt, or amazed her youthful spirit during the hours spent in the gay saloons of her uncle's house, was her own secret, to be shared by nobody, and confided to nobody.

And to be sure she loved the dear ones who were her own and almost her only kindred, and clung to them with all the tenacity of a warm, passionate nature, which loves as naturally as a tendril clings. Had she been merely tolerated by her uncle, aunt, and cousins, Elma would still have yielded them a portion of her heart ; but when, through the very force of her own ardour, she had awakened something like a responsive attachment — indeed, quite a creditable attach ment for such languid, sluggish natures — within O ' OO their bosoms, it was not to be wondered at that every Alfreton of them all was held to by her through thick and thin, their virtues magnified, their charms dilated upon, and their short comings beheld in reverential silence. It said something for such a disposition that these last were neither excused nor overlooked.

Elma, perceiving all, still loved. There was a touch of the Divine in this. " But do be a little more careful," Lady Alfreton would murmur, more and more often, as time passed. " Do, Piers, recollect that at those sort of fifth-rate schools they work in all kinds of ideas into the children's minds. I would not have Elma think us a perfect set of heathens." " What did I say to start that idea, ma'am ? I wrns not more heathenish than usual, was I?" " Did you not see the child's face when you talked of your river-party on Sunday ? " "Eh? Was that it? No, upon my word ; I would not have mentioned it if I had known. She did not like the notion for Sunday, I suppose. By Jove ! I thought all that sort of thino* was exploded now-a-days. But Elma looked at me, did she ? Well," slowly, " well, I'm sorry.

If you had given me the hint, I would have stopped." " And Juliet running on about that flirting Mrs. , I forget her name — that American woman ! There, again, Elma sat with her eyes on her plate, and her cheeks quite pink. She is getting to understand now. She is sixteen, you know ; and I fancy she understands a good deal more than she did. We really must take a little more heed of her," and the speaker moved un easily in her chair. " But she must learn to hear things said," O * quoth Juliet, twirling her parasol with lazy grace. " It won't do for us all to hold our tongues whenever Elma is by." " No — no. No, certainly, we must not feel the poor child to be in the way," replied her mother. " I am quite fond of Elma now, and would not for anything that she should come to seem in any way an intruder.

Only we must educate her, and that we cannot do as long as she is only here once a week. As long as we cannot educate her we must" "Let her educate us," suggested Piers. "All right. You lead, Juliet, and I'll follow. You keep your thumb on American beauties and their pastimes, and I'll maintain the silence of the grave about Sunday river-parties." " She is growing very pretty, don't you think, mamma? " was Juliet's next. "Sweet-looking, at least," replied Lady Alfre ton, doubtfully, " hardly pretty. Hardly formed enough. In a few years' time " " She will have lost all the beauty she possesses," suddenly interposed her son, with a bluntness and decision of tone so unusual as to cause both his auditors to look round. " She will be like a hundred other girls of her age," he went on. " She will look as they do, talk as they do, hang about from morning to night as they do ; daub her face, and screw up her hair, aud stick out her elbows " " Piers !

" Both mother's and daughter's voices cried " Fie ! " upon him, in the solitary indignant word. "Oh, it's all right," said he. "Of course I know. Of course they don't do some things, and they have got to do the other things ; and Juliet could prove to me in a thousand ways that a thousand and one of her dear friends never touch their hair, their eyes, or their pearl-coloured brows. Juliet never does so herself, except when it is absolutely necessary, and all the pretty girls in town would be quite shocked by such a suggestion. I know — I know," with a mocking wave of the hand. " Elma will be shocked too, by-and-by. And she will vow her waist is naturally only nineteen inches round (though we have all seen this nineteen inches gradually come, and though there is a fine, healthy de velopment at present) ; and she will trim up the colour in her cheeks till there is none of the original left, or about as much as there was of the old material in the Irishman's coat ; and she will frizz and burn her hair " " He is talking utter nonsense," cried Juliet, driven at last to bay.

"Piers, you are too utterly absurd. You — you — what has made you break out like this ? What do you mean by attacking us all like this ? Because we do not wear frocks and sashes, and have our hair hang ing down over our shoulders " " Heaven forbid ! " " Then what are you finding fault with ? What have we done — I, and the rest of my friends — that you should be so bitter, so violent ? " " It's true, you know7." " Even if it were true, why have you never said it before ? Why have you always seemed pleased to meet the girls I bring here, and been civil to them, and " "My dear child, would you have had me uncivil ? Would you have liked me to go up to your bosom friend and say, ' Take off that wig,' or, ' Wash your face ' ? I can do it next time, if you choose." " I never knew you had an idea on the subject."

" Nor did I, till I was taught." " Taught them, or taught that you had them ? " "Both." " How did you learn ? " " Oh, I learnt." How? When?" " I think I know," said another voice softly, unusually softly for Lady Alfreton ; " at least I sometimes fancy that I feel something of the same. I cannot tell how it is, but once or twice lately I have caught myself wishing Juliet's friends would not be quite so much — look quite so " she stopped. " So what, mamma ? " " So different from Elma," said Piers, promptly. " But never mind, Juliet, cheer up ; in a couple of years' time no one will make that complaint. Elma will be Elma no longer. One season in town, one three months of the life we lead, will do all that is required. She will have lost every trace of" But the door opened, and the sentence re mained unfinished.

Chapter III

" WE HA VE ONLY ONE THING IN COMMON." OULD it be as they all thought ? Would the Elma of eighteen summers be another being, a disenchanted, dis- O7 ** illusioned, practical, prosaic creature, as compared with the Elma of two years before ? We shall see. At the earlier date my heroine was at any rate happy in her ignoronce and innocence, and most happy of all in knowing her own bliss. Contrary to all precedent, and in defiance of every established rule, the young girl not only persisted in being well content under Miss Exeter's prim, old-fashioned rule, but in de fending and maintaining her right to be so, and this in spite of her aunt's rueful visage, her cousin Juliet's sincere compassion, and the quizzings of her other cousin Piers. She was happy — very happy — at Haverstock Hill. Miss Exeter was kind and good, and spoke the truth.