"Very well."
It was not quite encouraging, but Agatha really wished to hear, and she advanced a wicker chair for her elder sister, and sat down on the window seat.
"Thank you, my dear; I do not know how much Mrs. Best has told you."
"She told us that you had always been very good to us, and that you had been our guardian ever since we lost our mother."
"Did she tell you what we have of our own that our father could leave us?"
"No."
"What amounts to about £40 a year apiece. Mrs. Best in her very great goodness has taken you four for that amount, though her proper charge is eighty."
"And she never let any one guess it," said Agatha, more warmly, "for fear we might feel the difference. How very good of her."
She seemed more impressed by Mrs. Best's bounty than by Magdalen's, but probably she took the latter as a matter of course and obligation; besides, the sense of it involved a sum in subtraction. However, this was not observed by her sister, who did not want to feel obliged.
"Now that this property has come in," continued Magdalen, "we can live comfortably together upon it for the present, and your expenses at Oxford can be paid, as well as masters in what may be needful for the others, and an allowance for dress. I suppose you will want the £40 while you are at St. Robert's, besides the regular expenses?"
"Thank you," warmly said.
"But I want you to understand, as I think you do, about the future, for you must be prepared to be independent."
"I should have wished for a career if I had been a millionaire," said Agatha.
"I believe you would, and it is well that you should have every advantage. But the others. If I left you all this property, it would not be a comfortable maintenance divided among four; and you would not like to be dependent, or to leave the last who might not marry to a pittance alone."
"Certainly not," said Agatha, with flashing eyes.
"Then you see that it is needful that you should be able to do something for yourselves. I can give one of you at a time the power of going to the University."
"I don't think Vera or Polly would wish for that," said Agatha.
"Well, what would they wish for? I can do something towards preparing them, and I can teach Thekla, but I should like to know what you think would be best for them."
"Vera's strong point is music," said Agatha. "She cares for that more than anything else, and Mr. Selby thought she had talent and might sing, only she must not strain her voice. I don't believe she will do much in any other line. And Polly-she is very good, and always does her best because it is right, but I don't think anything is any particular pleasure to her, except needlework. She is always wanting to make things for the church. She really has a better voice than Flapsy, and can play better, but that is because she is so much steadier."
"Seventeen and sixteen, are they not?"
"Yes; but Polly seems ever so much older than Flapsy."
"Mrs. Best showed me that she had higher marks. She must be a thoroughly good girl."
"That she is," cried Agatha, warmly. "She never had any task for getting into mischief."
"Well, they are both so young that a little study with me will be good for them, and there will be time to judge what they are fit for. In art I think they are not much interested."
"Paula draws pretty well, but Vera hates it. Old Mr. Delrio is always cross to her now; but-" Agatha stopped short, remembering that there might be a reason why the drawing master no longer made her a favourite pupil.
"Do you think him a good judge?"
"Yes; Mrs. Best thinks much of him. He had an artist's education, and sometimes has a picture in the Water Colour Exhibition; but I believe he did not find it answer, and so he took our school of art."
Agatha had talked sensibly throughout the conference, but not confidentially; much, in fact, as she would have discussed her sisters with Mrs. Best. She was glad that at the moment the sound of the piano set them listening. She did not feel bound to mention to "sister" any more than she would to the head mistress, that when staying at Mr. Waring's country house a sort of semi-flirtation had begun with Hubert Delrio, a young man to whose education his father had sacrificed a great deal, and who was a well-informed and intelligent gentleman in all his ways. He had engaged himself to the great firm of Eccles and Beamster, ecclesiastical decorators, and might be employed upon the intended frescoes of St. Kenelm's Church.
Ought "Sister" to be told?
But Agatha thought it would be betraying confidence to "set on the dragon"; and besides nobody ever could tell how much Vera's descriptions meant. She knew already that the sweetest countenance in the world and the loveliest dark eyes belonged to a fairly good-looking young man, and she could also suspect that the "squeeze of my hand" might be an ordinary shake, and the kneeling before the one he loved best might have been only the customary forfeit. On the whole, it would be better to let things take their course; it was not likely that either was seriously smitten, and it was more than probable that Hubert Delrio would be too busy to look after a young lady now in a different stratum, and that Vera would have found another sweetest countenance in the world.
All this passed through her mind while Magdalen listened, and pronounced-
"That is brilliant-a clever touch-only-"
"Yes, that is Vera-I know what you are noticing, but this is only amusement; she is not taking pains."
"It is very clever-especially as probably she has no music. But there-"
"Polly's? Oh, yes; she is really steady-going. That is just what you will find her. This is a charming room, sister; thank you very much."
"Make it your home, my dear."
But in reality they were not much nearer together than before the conference.
CHAPTER VII-SISTER AND SISTERS
"Have we not all, amid earth's petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a nobler life?
We lost it in the daily jar and fact,
And now live idly in a vain regret."
ADELAIDE PROCTER.
Agatha was so much absorbed in her preparation for St. Robert's that she did not pay very much heed to her younger sisters or their relations with Magdalen. She had induced them to submit to the regulation of their studies with her pretty much as if she had been Mrs. Best, looking upon her, however, as something out of date, and hardly up to recent opinions, not realising that, of late, Magdalen's world had been a wide one.
Perhaps, in Agatha's feelings, there was an undercurrent inherited from her mother, who had always felt the better connected, better educated step-daughter, a sort of alien element, exciting jealousy by her companionship to her father, and after his death, apt to be regarded as a scarcely willing, and perhaps censorious pay-master.
"Your sister might call it too expensive." "I must ask your sister." "No, your sister does not think she can afford it. I am sure she might. Her expenses must be nothing." All this had been no preparation for full sisterly confidence with "Sister," even when a sort of grudging gratitude was extracted, and Agatha had been quite old enough to imbibe an undefined antagonism, though, being a sensible girl, she repressed the manifestations, kept her sisters in order and taught them not to love but to submit, and herself remained in a state of civil coolness, without an approach beyond formal signs of affection, and such confidence.
It was the more disappointing to Magdalen, because Agatha and Paulina both showed so much unconscious likeness to their father, not only in features, but in little touches of gesture and manner. She longed to pet them, and say, "Oh, my dears, how like papa!" but the only time she attempted it, she was met by a severe, uncomprehending look and manner.
And Agatha went away to Oxford without any thawing on her part.
The only real ground that had been gained was with little Thekla, who was soon very fond of "Sister," and depended on her more and more for sympathy and amusement. Girls of seventeen and sixteen do not delight in the sports of nine-year-olds, except in the case of special pets and protégées, and Thekla was snubbed when a partner was required to assist in doll's dramas, or in evening games. Only "Sister" would play unreservedly with her, unaware or unheeding that this was looked on as keeping up the métier of governess. Indeed, Thekla's reports of schoolroom murmurs and sneers about the M.A. had to be silenced. Peace and good will could best be guarded by closed ears. Yet, even then, Thekla missed child companionship, and, even more, competition, the lack of which rendered her dull and listless over her lessons, and when reproved, she would beg to be sent to school, or, at least, to attend the High School on her bicycle. Not admiring the manners or the attainments of the specimens before her, Magdalen felt bound to refuse, and the sisters' pity kept alive the grievance.