Charlotte Yonge - Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

The Colonel turned aside with the master to discuss the matter, and the ladies went into the drawing-room, the new room opening on the lawn, under a verandah, with French windows. It was full of furniture in the most dire confusion. Mrs. Robert Brownlow wanted to clear off at once the desks and other things that seemed school-room properties, saying that a little room downstairs had always served the purpose.

“That must be nurse’s sitting-room,” said Carey.

“Old nurse! She can be of no use, my dear!”

“Oh yes, she is; she has lived with us ever since dear grandmamma married, and has no home, and no relations. We could not get on without dear old nursey!”

“Well, my dear, I hope you will find it answer to keep her on. But as to this room! It is such a pity not to keep it nice, when you have such handsome furniture too.”

“I want to keep it nice with habitation,” said Caroline. “That’s the only way to do it. I can’t bear fusty, shut-up smart rooms, and I think the family room ought to be the pleasantest and prettiest in the house for the children’s sake.”

“Ah, well,” said Mrs. Brownlow, with a serene good nature, contrasting with the heat with which Caroline spoke, “it is your affair, my dear, but my boys would not thank me for shutting them in with my pretty things, and I should be sorry to have them there. Healthy country boys like to have their fun, and I would not coop them up.”

“Oh, but there’s the studio to run riot in, Ellen,” said Carey. “Didn’t you see? The upper story of the tower. We have put the boy’s tools there, and I can do my modelling there, and make messes and all that’s nice,” she said, smiling to Mary, and to Allen, who had just come in.

“Do you model, Carey?” Mary asked, and Allen volunteered to show his mother’s groups and bas-reliefs, thereby much increasing the litter on the floor, and delighting Mary a good deal more than his aunt, who asked, “What will you do for a store-room then?”

“Put up a few cupboards and shelves anywhere.”

It is not easy to describe the sort of air with which Mrs. Robert Brownlow received this answer. She said nothing but “Oh,” and was perfectly unruffled in a sort of sublime contempt, as to the hopelessness of doing anything with such a being on her own ground.

There did not seem overt provocation, but poor Caroline, used to petting and approval, chafed and reasoned: “I don’t think anything so important as a happy home for the boys, where they can have their pursuits, and enjoy themselves.”

Mrs. Brownlow seemed to think this totally irrelevant, and observed, “When I have nice things, I like to keep them nice.”

“I like nice boys better than nice things,” cried Carey.

Ellen smiled as though to say she hoped she was not an unnatural mother, and again said “Oh!”

Mary Ogilvie was very glad to see the two gentlemen come in from the hall, the Colonel saying, “Mr. Ogilvie tells me he thinks Armine too small at present for school, Caroline.”

“You know I am very glad of it, Robert,” she said, smiling gratefully, and Ellen compassionately observed, “Poor little fellow, he is very small, but country air and food will soon make a man of him if he is not overdone with books. I make it a point never to force my children.”

“No, that you don’t,” said Caroline, with a dangerous smile about the corners of her mouth.

“And my boys do quite as well as if they had their heads stuffed and their growth stunted,” said Ellen. “Joe is only two months older than Armine, and you are quite satisfied with him, are you not, Mr. Ogilvie?”

“He is more on a level with the others,” said Mr. Ogilvie politely; “but I wish they were all as forward as this little fellow.”

“Schoolmasters and mammas don’t always agree on those points,” said the Colonel good-humouredly.

“Very true,” responded his wife. “I never was one for teasing the poor boys with study and all that. I had rather see them strong and well grown. They’ll have quite worry enough when they go to school.”

“I’m sorry you look at me in that aspect,” said Mr. Ogilvie.

“Oh, I know you can’t help it,” said the lady.

“Any more than Trois Echelles and Petit Andre,” said Carey, in a low voice, giving the two Ogilvies the strongest desire to laugh.

Just then out burst a cry of wrath and consternation, making everyone hurry out into the hall, where, through a perfect cloud of white powder, loomed certain figures, and a scandalised voice cried “Aunt Caroline, Jock and Armine have been and let all the arrowroot fly about.”

“You told me to be useful and open parcels,” cried Jock.

“Oh, jolly, jolly! first-rate!” shouted Armine in ecstasy. “It’s just like Paris in the cloud! More, more, Babie. You are Venus, you know.”

“Master Armine, Miss Barbara! For shame,” exclaimed the nurse’s voice. “All getting into the carpet, and in your clothes, I do declare! A whole case of best arrowroot wasted, and worse.”

“‘Twas Jessie’s doing,” replied Jock. “She told me.”

Jessie, decidedly the most like Venus of the party, being a very pretty girl, with an oval face and brown eyes, had retreated, and was with infinite disgust brushing the white powder out of her dress, only in answer ejaculating, “Those boys!”

Jock had not only opened the case, but had opened it upside down, and the classical performances of Armine and Barbara had powdered themselves and everything around, while the draught that was rushing through all the wide open doors and windows dispersed the mischief far and wide.

“Can you do nothing but laugh, Caroline?” gravely said Mrs. Brownlow. “Janet, shut that window. Children, out of the way! If you were mine, I should send you to bed.”

“There’s no bed to be sent to,” muttered Jock, running round to give a sly puff to the white heap, diffusing a sprinkling of white powder over his aunt’s dress.

“Jock,” said his mother with real firmness and indignation in her voice, “that is not the way to behave. Beg your aunt’s pardon this instant.”

And to everyone’s surprise the imp obeyed the hand she had laid on him, and muttered something like, “beg pardon,” though it made his face crimson.

His uncle exclaimed, “That’s right, my boy,” and his aunt said, with dignity, “Very well, we’ll say no more about it.”

Mary Ogilvie was in the meantime getting some of the powder back into the tin, and Janet running in from the kitchen with a maid, a soup tureen, and sundry spoons, everyone became busy in rescuing the remains—in the midst of which there was a smash of glass.

“Jock again!” quoth Janet.

“Oh, mother!” called out Jock. “It’s so long! I thought I’d get the feather-brush to sweep it up with, and the other end of it has been and gone through this stupid lamp.”

“Things are not unapt to be and go through, where you are concerned, Mr. Jock, I suspect,” said Mr. Ogilvie. “Suppose you were to come with me, and your brothers too, and be introduced to the swans on the lake at Belforest.”

The boys brightened up, the mother said, “Thank you most heartily, if they will not be a trouble,” and Babie put her hand entreatingly into the schoolmaster’s, and said, “Me too?”

“What, Venus herself! I thought she had disappeared in the cloud! Let her come, pray, Mrs. Brownlow.”

“I thought the children would have been with their cousins,” observed the aunt.

“So we were,” returned Armine; “but Johnnie and Joe ran away when they saw Mr. Ogilvie coming.”

Babie having by this time had a little black hat tied on, and as much arrowroot as possible brushed out of her frock; Carey warned the schoolmaster not to let himself be chattered to death, and he walked off with the three younger ones.