Routledge's Every Girl's Annual

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A Chapter on Graphiology. By Rosa Baughan, Author of “Character Indicated by Handwriting/ 1 “Papers on Palmistry,” &c., &c. With

Illustrative Autographs . 545

Chapter I. Coming

fOOD gracious, Miss Jane ! we’ve got boys enough with¬ out you wishing to turn yourself into one ! It all comes of your never caring to play with dolls.

Come away from that window, do now, there’s a dear ! And just mind the children whilst I go down for the milk.”

“Miss Jane” came away from the window. There was a great deal to be seen from that nursery window in the square, even on a dull, grey November afternoon, like that on which this history opens ; and the little individual of twelve years old, appealed to by nurse, saw more sometimes than many others saw, because she had three eyes — that is to say, a mind’s eye as well as one on no xxxiv.

EVENTS.

either side of her nose. She stood in the middle of a family ; above her were Bertie, and Barbara, and Roger ; below her were Sybil, and Molly, and Baby, the three who now challenged her atten¬ tion since nurse had left them in her charge, and they all seemed determined to show her how much they needed her care.

Sybil, the pretty five-year-old, began it by seizing the fat baby in her arms, and trying her utmost to hoist her from the rug, where she was seated calmly poking tiny fingers through the high fire-guard ; whereupon Molly, Sybil’s junior by two years, came to the rescue by seizing baby’s legs, and pulling against Sybil. Loud were the screams ; instantaneous was Jane’s help. In one minute she had released the small victim, and hushing her soothingly whilst she seated herself

B

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letters in the same handwriting over and over again. This morning he had one, and he gave it to mother to read, and he said, 4 Seventeen ; a year older than Roger.* And I know I am right,” added Barbara in a tone of despair ; 44 it is what I have always seen in the distance since that bank failed last year. It is a medical pupil coming, who will spoil everything ! and then what shall we do ? ”

Barbara’s face was flushed, and she stabbed a slice of bread with the toast¬ ing fork.

4 4 Never say that before the thing comes, dear,” replied her governess quietly, 44 and when it comes you will know what to do. If you are right, you must try to make it pleasant for your father and mother, who will scarcely like it more than you do. But as all this may be fancy — why, be the boys’ bright Queen Barbara whose sun must always shine in her kingdom, and whose toast must never burn as yours is doing now. Good-night, my child.”

A warm embrace followed, to the im¬ minent peril of the toast, as Barbara said —

44 1 believe nothing ever bothered you one bit ! You must have been placid when you were a baby — placid in the schoolroom — what granny would call 4 a dear sweet girl ’ as you grew up, and now the nice thing that you always are. Did you ever have any little bothers since you cut your teeth 2 ”

Yes ; Miss Brewer thought she might count up some ; but she must spend no more time philosophising, for the kettle on her own hearth would be boiling over, and she had work to do afterwards. Then Barbara finished toasting, rang the up stairs bell, and ran up to the drawing¬ room to see if Bertie had come in. In the drawing-room she found more than she had expected. There was her mother, whom she had expected to see ; but she was not, as usual at that time, seated in the sofa-corner by the fire knitting. The lamp was on the table already, and Dr.

Bertram, who was rarely home from his medical rounds so early in the evening, was there, and he and Mrs. Bertram were deep in conversation with a stranger, an elderly gentleman, who was saying as Barbara entered the room —

44 1 know very little of the boy myself, but I am convinced it will be of the greatest advantage — ” here Barbara’s appearance interrupted him. She was about to beat a hasty retreat when her father called out :

44 Barbara ! if schoolroom tea is ready, bring a cup to Mr. Maynard.”

Quicker than she came up, she went down again to the schoolroom. There, full length on the rug lay Bertie — Bertie of the irrepressible spirits, whose health was too delicate to allow him to go to Marlborough yet with Roger, and whose mind was bent upon following his father’s footsteps, and who even now had a news¬ paper spread open before him, on which he was carefully dissecting the remains of the last stickle-back caught in the Botanical Gardens last summer, died on this day in November, a victim to over care. Jane, curled up in Uncle Hum¬ phrey’s chair, was intently watching the anatomical arrangement going on below her.

44 Here comes Bab ! clear away now,” sang out Jenny ; 44 oh Bertie ! don’t use my spoon for its eyes, please ! Oh ! you nasty, horrid boy ! you’ve thrown it on the bread and butter — the fishy — finny spoon ! ”

Bertie rolled over on his side in con¬ vulsions of laughter at this result of a random shot from the rug below ; but Barbara stood by the tea-tray, and grasping the teapot said, with a great groan :

44 Who do you think is in the drawing¬ room ? ”

Bertie sent his fish - bones into the corner, and pulling himself up into a sitting posture, clasped his knees as he said 44 Who 'l ” whilst Jane’s face lit up as she gasped out, 44 Uncle Humphrey ! ”

44 Uncle Humphrey ! ” reiterated Bertie,

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with a touch of scorn. “ You goose ! When you know he does not leave Bombay till next month. Go on, Bab — who is it ? ”

“I have not the remotest idea,” she replied. “ All I know is, that it is an old old man whom we have never seen before ; and the drawing-room is lighted up for him, and father and mother don't look a bit like themselves somehow, and this is the mystery. I feel sure of it ! We laughed at you, Jenny, don’t you remember, when you said ten days ago that you felt something coming — you felt it in your bones — ”

“ In your dorsal fin,” broke in Bertie with unmoved countenance, and eyes still fixed on the Queen in anxious expectation,

“We said it was one of your fancies,” she continued, " and then all those letters came, always in the same writing ; and father looked at mother yesterday and smiled, wThen I said how glad I was that we were not like Dr. Brierley’s family, whose father is obliged to have two pupils because he is not rich. And father said,

‘ Nobody is rich in the present day. We must all put our shoulder to the wheel.’ And I expect it has come to us now ! ”

“What has, the wheel in the shape of an old old man % Jolly pupil ! ” said Bertie.

Barbara explained that the visitor in the drawing-room had no doubt come to make preliminary arrangements on behalf of the coming boy ; then suddenly she recollected the cup of tea. Anxiously she pleaded with Bertie to take it to him. Bertie agreed conditionally ; that he might infuse some of his chemicals in the cheering beverage, which should neither poison it nor colour it, but which might effectually prevent that old old man from ever again desiring refreshment at five o’clock in that establishment ; nay, might even have the desired effect of filling him with wholesome fears for the safety of the imaginary pupil.

“ If you won’t let me do that, I’ll ask him straight out who he is ! ” declared Bertie.

Barbara appealed to Jane, who objected on the score of a very shabby frock and grumbled accordingly, but took it never¬ theless, not seeing that Bertie crept up stairs, and waited outside.

“ This is my second daughter,” he heard in his father’s voice, and he wondered how Jenny liked it when the stranger said, “ Ah, Fergus is very fond of little girls.” Then Jenny, with flaming cheeks, shot out of the room again, giving Bertie a warning word as she passed him, to the effect that “he was just going, and Bertie had better look sharp or he would be caught.” Bertie only had time to wrap himself in the heavy curtain which hung on one side of the drawing-room door when it opened, and he heard his mother say in that dear way of hers —

“You may rely on his having a mother’s care, and being treated like one of my own children.”

To which the elderly gentleman replied, “ My dear madam, I believe it.” Then he went away down the stairs with Dr. Bertram, and Bertie slowly unrolling the curtain, disclosed himself to the eyes of his astonished mother.

“ I was not listening, mother, but I could not help hearing. Who is Fergus ? Barbara’s in a state, and Jenny’s nose is red with excitement, and we want you.” The boy twined his arm into hers, and together they went down to the school¬ room, where, at the same moment, Dr. Bertram joined them.

Dr. Bertram’s patients used to say he was their sunshine, but to his children he was more than sunshine ; he was their strong help in all things great and small, just as their mother in her loving tender¬ ness was a strong help in another way. No hour in the day was more looked forward to by the Bertrams than this hour, when the mother always came into the schoolroom, before having the little ones down in the drawing-room. The father would come in too when he was home so early — a very rare event, and one that always brought an extra gleam of light into Barbara’s face, which, however, was

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very grave at the present moment ; Jane’s was hot, as she smarted still from the misnomer “ little girl.”

Bertie spoke before any one else.

“ Father, I was in the curtain outside the drawing-room just now, and I heard what mother said on the landing to that gentleman. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t get away in time. And now, won’t you tell us who Fergus is 1 ”

Then Dr. Bertram tried to frown, but not succeeding, he smiled instead, and told the boy, who always spoke out and came to the front on all occasions, that he had not intended yet a while to an¬ nounce the change that was coming ; but now, as Bertie had himself hurried things on in a measure, they should hear all. They all knew, he went on, that he had had heavy losses in the past year — losses which no crowd of eager patients, dense enough as it was already, would make up for many years ; they all knew, also, that, situated as he was, the father of a large family, to whom he wished to give such an education as would make them useful men and women in their generation, there must needs be heavy expenses to meet ; and so the long and the short of it was that he intended taking a pupil, one Fergus MacNair, who was coming up to London after Christmas ; and when he had passed his preliminary examination, was to study medicine at the hospital where Dr. Bertram’s name had been well known for the last twenty years. Mr. Maynard, the boy’s guardian, wished him to be in a real home, with a family who would make him feel one of themselves. Dr. Bertram was not a man of many words when anything unwelcome had to be commu¬ nicated, and now he was silent. Barbara was silent, cutting her toast into many little pieces, and apparently intent upon fitting them all into the centre of her plate. Bertie took a deep draught of tea, and then asked whether it would be for always ?

“Well, until he has completed his course at the hospital, I hope,” said Dr. Bertram, decidedly ; then, glancing at his watch, he started up, adding that he had two or three professional calls to make in the neighbourhood ; but in passing his second daughter’s chair, he put his hands on her shoulders, and looking down into the somewhat wistful face, he said : “ And what is my dreamer of dreams thinking about 1 ”

She put her arms round his neck, and pulled his head down close to hers that she might whisper. He looked puzzled for a moment ; then, raising his head, made answer : “No, mamma says he is to have the other room ; so the attic will be safe. Are you satisfied 1 ”

Yes, more than satisfied ; for that attic was a wonderful stronghold of Jane’s. To the others it was merely a garret, containing lumber and an ancient tailless rocking-horse. Ah ! but they did not know where she used to ride to on that horse.

“ That boy won’t be here in the Christmas holidays, will he 1 ” asked Barbara of her father, as his hand was on the door.

“ Yes, Bab, he will,” was the reply. “You are thinking that Roger will not relish it; whereas, I am thinking that for Roger it may be a great gain, as Fergus MacNair is a worker, and so perhaps somebody else may be fired to work at his holiday-task.”

He had gone before Barbara could answer, which perhaps was well for all ; for if ever a cloud arose between her and her father, it was on the subject of Roger and school-work. She was very jealous for that brother ; she gloried in him; so did they all. He was first in athletics, captain of his house-eleven, captain in the football twenty, but he loved not books. His father chafed sorely sometimes ; as, for instance, when the report came and bore no testimony to any brilliant progress in point of studies. It was in vain at such moments for Bertie to speak of signal successes in the field chronicled by the school magazine.

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The mother noted Barbara’s rising colour as the girl suppressed a strong impulse to speak up for her favourite brother. “ I am so sorry, dears — so very sorry,” said Mrs. Bertram, before she left them to go into the drawing-room and play with the little ones, “ that this should be such a disagreeable prospect to you all. You must try and help your father and me by making the best of it, for it is not pleasant to us either ; it is a case of duty, and we must do it.”

“ Isn’t it pleasant to you and father ? ” cried out Bertie, in his hearty, impetuous way ; “ then we will make it so ! I know I shall like him if he hasn’t red hair and freckles, and if he doesn’t pitch into my laboratory. I wonder if he knows how to make toffee.” But when his mother had gone, Bertie looked up sideways out of his soft grey eyes at Barbara, and said : “ Poor queen ! she doesn’t much like it, does she? ”

Barbara pushed herself away from the tea-table, and subsided into Uncle Humphrey’s chair. It was the seat that was always taken when weighty matters at home or abroad were about to be discussed, so that the words, “ Take Uncle Humphrey’s chair,” had come to mean amongst themselves that Parlia¬ ment was about to sit.

“ It is very, very , very, horrid ! ” she ex¬ claimed, “ he will be in the way of every¬ thing ; how can we ever be all the same jolly party with a strange Scotch boy in the middle of us all ? How shall we ever get talks with father in the evening, when he will have to coach this pupil ? And when Roger hears that we shall have this Fergus hanging about all the Christ¬ mas holidays what will he say ? And then the theatricals ! Of course he will be wanting to act, and will just spoil it all ! Make toffee indeed ! I shall never let him come in here on Saturday after¬ noons.”

“Yes you will, if we can get him to stir,” suggested Bertie ; “ and look here, we don’t know that he’s not nice.”

“ Yes, I do,” protested unreasonable

Barbara, petulantly. “I know exactly what he will be — tall, bony, carroty, out¬ growing all his clothes, and talking broad Scotch. It’s horrid, Bertie, to have strangers coming to live in one’s home, and you and Jenny both think so too, and won’t say so. I am honest and speak my mind. You know you are both on my side really.”

“ Well, you see I can’t be, if you mean to bully him,” said Bertie, leaning his chin on his hands, “because I told the mother I’d like him.”

“ I don’t mean to bully him,” objected Barbara, colouring up as though the purity of her queenly dignity were stained by the very imputation ; “ but I know this, that you can’t make your¬ self like anyone.”

“Yes, you can though,” maintained Bertie ; “ there was that old gardener who used to cut the grass in the square. I couldn’t bear him once upon a time ; I always thought he was as sour as his face, till one day he found that beautiful carcase of a rat — don’t you remember ? — and he gave it to me, and we both of us had a regular good talk about it because it was such a rum thing find¬ ing it there ; and after I boiled it and skinned it, and scraped it — don’t you remember? — and prepared the skeleton, I gave him one of the ribs that fell out, and he had it mounted for a pin, and we have been chums ever since.”

“ Ah, yes ! you might get to like an old gardener,” observed Barbara, medi¬ tatively, thinking that the threatened inmate was a more difficult matter in the way of liking.

“Jenny, why don’t you speak?” said Bertie, turning round on his elbow. “Something’s coming, surely, after all this while.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking,” she said in a quaint, decided manner, “ and this is what I think : now that Uncle Hum¬ phrey’s coming home nothing will ever be very bad again.”

A smile of extreme content rippled all over her face at the very thought

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of the ship that would soon be steam¬ ing homewards, although Bertie again reminded her that it had not left Bombay yet.

“ I know — I know,” she said, nodding her head, “but still he's coming.”

“I don’t see that he will be able to make things better,” said the despond¬ ing Barbara, “ because after three years grandmamma will be wanting him always.”

“ But still, he will be somewhere about,” said Jane, in a most comforting tone ; “ there will be no sea between, and he will make everything right.”

CHAPTER, II.

UNCLE AND NIECE.

There was a house which the Ber¬ trams loved almost as much as their own home, and that was their grand¬ mother’s house at Croydon. Now this grandmamma Maxwell was the mother of their Uncle Humphrey, “ than whom a greater or a better man has never lived, my dears,” she would often say ; and verily her grandchildren believed her, as well they might, for if ever there was a brave, true-hearted gentle¬ man who did his duty and had a gentle word and a helping hand for every one, that man was Uncle Hum¬ phrey. Jane used to say that he was Hercules, King Arthur, and Henry V. rolled into one. Barbara said he was just Uncle Humphrey and that was enough ; there never had been and there never would be another like him, so why call him by any other name ? Bertie always maintained it was ten thousand pities he was not a doctor. And Roger ? well, Roger rarely said much about him ; it was not his way to talk, but he and his uncle were like two boys together — two brothers. Marlborough alone would have been a strong bond, if there had been no other link, for Uncle Humphrey was an old Marlburian, and his name lived there still as the name of a “ good man all round” — even as the life of those past school-days throbbed and thrilled still through him, in spite of the fourteen years that had gone since the day that he said good-bye to the Wiltshire downs. There was the name “ Humphrey Max¬ well ” cut on the desk in the House class¬ room, looking almost as fresh as though it were only done yesterday ; and there be¬ neath it had the nephew inscribed “ Roger Maxwell Bertram,” with a mighty resolve to follow close upon the heels of his uncle in all things athletic, but whether he would tread in his footsteps along that march of intellect which would lead him to the upper sixth was a matter of vague speculation in Roger’s mind.

Seeing all this enthusiasm for Uncle Humphrey we can in some degree under¬ stand what the young Bertrams felt three years ago when it was announced that he was going out to India. They were all staying at their grandmother s at the time, for her house had indiarubber walls, and could expand to take in any number, as her own dear capacious old heart could stretch itself to take in any number of children to be loved. Her son’s heart was just such another — very large, very soft, and very strong. Well can the Bertrams remember that afternoon on which the news came to them. It was a hot summer day, and they were sitting beneath the oak-tree at the end of the lawn, eating straw¬ berries ; the little ones were with nurse in the kitchen-garden down below, for there was a steep descent by a winding path from the flowers to the vegetables in that garden. Grandmamma was seated in the open drawing-room win¬ dow, reading and napping alternately. Suddenly, through the garden - door, and across the hall, the children under the oak saw the house-door open, and Uncle Humphrey come in. They saw him pass straight along the corri¬ dor to the drawing-room, only nodding to them on his way, and then the dear, drowsy figure in the window disap¬ peared from the picture-frame of Venetian

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blinds and muslin curtains, and there was a silence and a stillness ; no one went in and no one came out. Even Roger, intent on waxing his cricket-bat, glanced towards the drawing-room win¬ dow and the garden-door occasionally, and said at last :

“ There must be something up with granny or Uncle Humphrey, for the church-clock has chimed the hymn-tune without her putting her head out as she always does, to say, 4 Listen, dears, to the sweet old tune,’ and Hep has barked under the drawing-room window for the last five minutes without Uncle Hum¬ phrey taking any notice of him.”

How, there was living with old Mrs. Maxwell a certain Beatrice. She was not her daughter, and she was not her niece, nor in fact any “ relation,” as people say ; but Mrs. Maxwell had told her grandchildren of relationships as strong as blood, and stronger, and she always called Beatrice her child.

The Bertrams could not remember “ grandmamma’s ” without Beatrice ; she was an essential part of the life, and the light, and the charm of that household. And at the very moment that Roger made that remark about something being up, they saw Beatrice pass quickly down the corridor from the drawing-room, and turning quickly away from the garden-door, run up the staircase, as though she did not wish them to see her.

Jane, whose sharp little eyes saw everything, was almost sure that she had been crying. All this afternoon is remembered so distinctly by the Ber¬ trams, because it marked the first great event in their life ; and so, the hot sun¬ shine, the lengthening shadows, the drowsy hum of bees, the luscious frag¬ rance of strawberries, the laughter of children in the distance, made themselves into so many parts of one vivid picture. Then the old church-clock had chimed the quarter, and at the same instant Uncle Humphrey — alone — walked down the garden steps and across the lawn, and stood in their midst. He did not look as a if he had been crying; his was a face that seemed always to be able to catch a gleam of sunshine somehow, even on cloudy days. Certainly just now there was a trouble in his deep blue eyes, and his thick brown hair was tumbled as if he had been running his fingers through it many times, as he always did when perplexed. He stood in silence for a minute or two ; he pulled at the oakleaves over his head, and he flung them into Barbara’s lap ; then he helped him¬ self to strawberries out of their cabbageleaf, and at last he said suddenly —

44 I am going out to Bombay in Oc¬ tober ; ” whereupon Bertie, hitherto in¬ tently investigating on all fours the hole of a wild bee, at the top of the bank, rolled all the way down to the bottom, and when he could find his breath de¬ manded —

“ Who says so ? ”

Practical Barbara gasped out —

“ For how long ? ”

Sturdy Roger groaned —

“ Why on earth are you going ? 99 Dreamy little Jane cried out —

4 4 Oh, Uncle Humphrey ! and your stories of the old heroes will all go away with you.”

Looking at them one and all in his honest cheery way, the uncle set to work to answer all these questions.

44 Who says so ? Well, a stern mis¬ tress.”

44 Hot granny ! ” almost shrieked Jane.

44 Ho, no,” he laughed. 44 1 mean Ma¬ dame necessity, twin-sister to the old law-giver Duty. Your favourite heroes knew them both well, Jenny, and my fine stories would be all humbug therefore if I did not make the attempt (at least) to go and do likewise. I hope not, to be away for more than three years, Bar¬ bara — ”

0 ! the chorus of wails that rose up into the summer air at those words ! It was enough to stun the bees and butter¬ flies, and certainly it sent a robin flying from the adjacent rockery to the very top

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of the oak-tree. Three years ! why they seemed a lifetime to those four.

“ I shall be in the eleven by that time, perhaps,” said Roger.

“ I hope you will,” returned the uncle, “ and you want to know why I am going ? Because business calls me. My partner, Mr. Bellairs, is coming home, too ill ever to go out there again ; and the juniors must have an older and more experienced head with them for a bit before they are left to themselves. So Bellairs will work here in my place, whilst I work out there in his, do you see ? A man’s business, whatever it may be, is his duty, so long as he has clean hands, and a pure heart, — and he must go at it hammer and tongs, tooth and nail — and then, when those three years are gone - ”

Here Uncle Humphrey stopped, and gave a great deep sigh, and looked away into the lower garden, where nurse, with baby Molly in her arms, was playing at ball with Sybil ; but little Jane, as she stole her hand into his, fancied he was not thinking of nurse or Sybil. When he brought his eyes back again to the oak-tree, there was Beatrice standing in its shadow with them — Beatrice in her cool white dress and shady hat, whose eyes were more gentle than ever that after¬ noon, and surely her smile had never been so sweet.

“ Oh, Beatrice ! ” cried Barbara, “ Uncle Humphrey is going away to India for three years.”

“ Beatrice knows,” whispered Jane.

“ I know, dear ; I know,” said Beatrice, with the tiniest tremble about her mouth.

Uncle Humphrey tilted Roger out of a garden-chair, and placed it for her, saying—

“We must all be brave for granny’s sake — and good gracious ! what a great deal you all have to do whilst I am away. Roger will be working up to be captain of the school — captain of the eleven — first in everything. Barbara will be such a queen in the schoolroom, that I shall have to bow down on my knees before her.”