Chapter XI “A Nice Enough Little Dog, as Dogs Go.”
“Is there anything else you’re wanting, Miss Monica?”
And Mary Ann, who had been for the last half-hour engaged in arranging everything for the comfort and convenience of her young mistress, paused as she reached the door of the apartment, half-schoolroom, half-boudoir, which Monica called her “prison-house,” and looked towards the occupant of a low couch that had been drawn up to the open window.
“Oh, yes, you might put those books where I can reach them,” and Monica indicated a pile of library books which were lying on a low bookcase in a corner of the room. The maid obeyed, and placed them on a table by Monica’s side, on which she kept the various things with which she vainly endeavoured to while away the tedium of the long, long days.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else, miss?”
“I don’t think there is, thanks.” And the housemaid was just departing, when she was recalled by the sound of her name.
“Oh, Mary Ann!”
“Yes, miss?”
“Which is your evening out?”
“Fridays, Miss Monica,” said the girl, astonishment expressed in both face and voice. Whatever could be coming to their young lady? Never before had she taken the slightest interest in the outings of her grandmother’s domestics!
“Let me see, to-day is Friday,” mused Monica, “could you do an errand for me while you are out this evening, Mary Ann?”
“Well, miss, it all depends,” replied the under-housemaid, cautiously. “Where would it be, miss?”
“Oh, it’s only to take back these books and get me some fresh ones from Bell’s Library,” said Monica. “Are you fond of reading, Mary Ann?”
“La, yes, miss,” admitted the girl with a giggle. “Cook says I get right down wropt up in my book, and they have to shake me sometimes, when I’m sittin’ readin’ in the kitchen of a evening, for I never ’ears no one a-speakin’ when I’m deep in my story.”
“Well, I daresay I could lend you a book, now and again,” said Monica graciously. “And you think you could go to Bell’s this evening?”
“Why, yes, Miss Monica, I’ll go with pleasure,” said the girl, delighted at the prospect of the loan of some books. “Me and Jim (that’s my young man, miss,” she explained with a simper and a blush) “we generally strolls down High Street, and I can easy pop in and get ’em.”
“Well, here is a list of half a dozen,” said Monica, handing her a paper. “Ask them to give you any three that are in, and tell them who they’re for.”
“Very good, Miss Monica,” and Mary Ann finally departed.
Left to herself, Monica began to wonder how she should pass the weary hours of that hot June day.
“I wish Olive hadn’t been yesterday, now,” she mused; “because there is not the faintest chance of her coming over again to-day; she said she would come to-morrow if she could. Oh, dear! I do think some of the girls might come. I’d rather have Elsa, or even that little Amethyst Drury, than nothing but my own company all day long. I do wish I could have a dog, it would not be so sickeningly dull then.” And she heaved a weary sigh of discontent. “What a nuisance this horrid sprain is! You simply can’t do anything but read, when you can’t move your leg, and I hate needlework. I’m glad I thought of getting Mary Ann to go for some fresh books. Heigho! I wish I hadn’t hurried so over the last one yesterday, I should have had some left to read now, but it was so fascinating I couldn’t leave off once I began.”
At that moment a footfall was heard on the richly carpeted stairway, and Mrs. Beauchamp opened the door. Monica looked up in astonishment; it was quite an hour earlier than her grandmother usually paid her morning visit.
“Good morning, Monica,” she said, as she bent and just touched the girl’s forehead with cold, undemonstrative lips, “I hope your ankle is going on well.”
“Oh, I suppose it is, but I wish it had never been ill,” replied Monica with grim humour. “I’m sick of lying here.”
“You have only yourself to blame,” was the old lady’s unconsoling reply; “if you had not been disobedient, all this would have been avoided.” And she waved her slender white hand expressively towards Monica’s injured limb.
With a pout, Monica looked out of the window, muttering something about “the same old tale.”
Her grandmother, who was slightly deaf, did not catch the words, but she saw the gesture, and drew her own conclusions. With a sigh, Mrs. Beauchamp wished, for the hundredth time, that she had never undertaken the charge of this troublesome granddaughter; her coming into the prim household had made an end of all its restful quiet, and she never seemed free from anxiety about her. And yet—Conrad had intreated her so earnestly to have his only and much-loved child, and at the time she had seemed tractable enough. But oh! how greatly Monica had altered in eighteen short months; perhaps she had had mistaken ideas about her upbringing; perhaps, if she had been a little less strict in minor matters, things might have gone more smoothly; perhaps old Dr. Marley was right when he said: “It is easier to lead than to drive young people.”
With these thoughts in her mind, the old lady made a proposition that nearly took Monica’s breath away; so unexpected was it.
“I have been thinking that perhaps you might have a small dog of some kind, Monica; it would be company for you while you are laid up.”
“Oh, grandmother!” was all the girl could find to say; but the look of intense pleasure which irradiated her whole face, entirely transforming it, was sufficient reward to Mrs. Beauchamp for the very real concession she was making; for, of all things, a mischievous, gambolling dog indoors, who would be sure to bark or whine just when she was having a little nap, was one that she objected to most.
“Of course, it must be a very nice quiet one, Monica, small and well-trained. Perhaps Richards might hear of one somewhere.”
“Oh! grandmother, do you remember that day you decided I was to go to school?” Monica questioned, eagerly; “because Tom had just been telling me about a jolly little wire-haired terrier his father wanted a home for, when you sent for me.”
“I do remember something of the sort, Monica,” said the old lady, “but even if the dog were still to be had, it might not be just what we want.”
“Well, I do wish you would send round to the stables and ask, grandmother,” said Monica, coaxingly “because we could have him at once, I expect. We might have to wait ever so long before Richards came across one, he is so dreadfully slow. And it is so dull up here, all alone.”
“Well, I will see what can be done.”
And the old lady departed, a comfortable feeling of having given pleasure warming her cold, reserved heart; while Monica reiterated again and again, in words which jarred terribly on her aristocratic nerves: “It’s most awfully kind of you, grandmother! It will be jolly to have a dog of my own.”
To say that Monica waited patiently for results would be untrue. She was far too excited and eager about the matter to do that; but as she was alone, except for a flying visit from Barnes, who brought her some lunch, and as she could not move her leg, her impatience had a salutary amount of check. She could not think how it was her grandmother had ever brought her mind to think of such a thing, knowing well how keenly she objected to animals indoors; it puzzled her a good deal, especially after her disobedience earlier in the week. And Monica grew quite repentant for her misdeeds, as she considered the unexpected favour she was being granted.
An hour or so later a peculiar scratching noise along the corridor outside made Monica listen intently, and a second after there came a hesitating knock at the door.
“Come in,” cried Monica, who was all excitement; and the door opened to admit Tom, the little stable-boy, who was leading the cutest looking wire-haired terrier imaginable, and was closely followed by Barnes.
“Oh, you darling!” cried Monica, who was infatuated with the dog at first sight; “do bring him close, Tom.”
“Yes, miss,” said Tom, with alacrity, pulling his forelock, and grinning all over his bright little face, as he clutched hold of the bit of strap that did duty for a collar, and dragged the terrier up to Monica’s couch. “I hope you’re better, miss,” he ventured to say shyly, for Barnes, of whom he stood greatly in awe, was looking severely at him, and he had been bidden “to mind his behaviour.”
“Oh, yes,” said Monica, carelessly; she had no thoughts to spare on herself just then. “What’s his name, Tom? Do put him up beside me.”
“Be careful, now,” said Barnes, a trifle sharply; she was not best pleased at this introduction into the household. “Remember your leg, Miss Monica.”
“All right, Barnes, don’t fidget! See, he’s as quiet as possible. Good boy, dear old fellow!” and Monica stroked the ginger coloured head, and looked into the liquid brown eyes which had a wistful expression in them. He pricked up his ears at the tones of endearment, and licked her hands in response.
“‘E ’ave took to you, an’ no mistake, miss,” said Tom, with huge delight. “Jack ’e ’ave been called, miss,” he added, in answer to Monica’s query, “but you’ll find ’im a grander name, miss, now.”
“No, I think Jack will do very well,” said Monica, and the little dog, who knew by her fondling that he was being loved and made much of, gave a little grunt of satisfaction, and curled himself round on the couch beside his new mistress.
“Isn’t he sweet, Barnes?”
“Oh, he’s a nice enough little dog, as dogs go, Miss Monica, but I have no particular fancy for them,” was the maid’s somewhat grudging reply. And then she added: “Now then, my boy, you’d better be off to your work again.”
“Yes’m. Good mornin’, miss,” stammered Tom, in confusion, for Barnes’ repelling tones made him feel as if he had done something wrong.
“Oh, good-bye, Tom. I’m awfully glad to have Jack,” said Monica, with a bright smile, which made the little lad feel at ease again, and remained in his memory for many a day. “I shall be coming out on the lawn in a few days’ time, and then you must come round and see him.”
The little newcomer proved an endless source of pleasure and amusement to Monica; he had such quaint ways, and made himself thoroughly happy and contented in his new home. Even Mrs. Beauchamp was obliged to confess that he was no trouble; he spent hours curled up on the rug which was thrown over Monica’s knees, as if he had been accustomed to an invalid mistress all his life.
“You wait until this tiresome sprain is well,” Monica would often say to him, “and then you shall have a very different existence, Jack.”
The old doctor made great friends with him when he came to see his patient the next morning, and went off chuckling with pleasure over the result of his plain-speaking to Mrs. Beauchamp, a few days before.
“She’ll get on fast enough now,” he said to himself, as he trotted down the drive; “young folk want young things about them, and up there,” with a suggestive glance backward at the stately residence he had just left, “they are all as old as Methuselah. She looked a totally different being this morning, from the sulky, discontented girl I saw last time. But I don’t deny she’s a handful—takes after her mother, I suppose. Conrad was as nice a fellow as ever breathed, but I never had much of a fancy for his wife, poor thing; she was too much of a woman of the world for old Henry Marley. But there, he isn’t, by any means, all he ought to be.” And the dear old doctor sighed as he realised how far short he was of being a true copy of the Great Example.
The doctor had not long left, when a footman called at Carson Rise, with a basket containing some magnificent peaches and hot-house flowers, “with Mrs. Howell’s compliments, and she would be glad to know how the young lady was.”
Mrs. Beauchamp was out for a drive, so the parlourmaid came up to Monica for a message.
“Oh, Harriet, how lovely!” cried the girl; “do take them out carefully while I write a little note to send back. How very kind of Mrs. Howell.”
“The same lady has sent every day to enquire for you, miss,” said the maid, who was very much impressed by the grandeur of the Howell livery, and the importance of the individual who wore it.
“Has she really? No one has mentioned it before,” said Monica; “I ought to have been told.” And there was a suggestion of displeasure in her tones.
“Mrs. Beauchamp knew, miss, of course, and so did Barnes,” Harriet hastened to say, in defence of herself.
“Very well, Harriet, it was not your fault,” said Monica, and she busied herself in writing a little girlish note of thanks, which brought tears of pleasure and gratification to the eyes of the good-natured, motherly woman who received it, and then slipped it into her pocket for fear her tyrannical young daughter should come across it, and make fun of it. For Lily Howell had not yet grown reconciled to the idea of “that Monica Beauchamp” getting into her home, and prying into everything, and then going off to make fun of all the mistakes she knew her mother must have made.
There had been a great scene upon her return home, on the Monday evening, and she had exclaimed long and loudly against the fate which had allowed such an unfortunate thing to come to pass.
Mrs. Howell, instead of severely reprimanding her daughter for being so insulting and rude, had wept feebly, and bowed beneath the angry girl’s storm of words; but in her heart she treasured the remembrance of the kind words and very real gratitude of a daughter of the aristocracy to a poor, common-place woman, such as she was allowed no opportunity of forgetting that she, Caroline Howell, was.