A Modern Tomboy by L. T. Meade (e book reading free TXT) 📖

Mumsy dear, did you?"

"No, Irene; I was occupied with other things—with sad, very sad memories. This is the anniversary of your dear, your precious father's death."

Irene had the grace to be silent for a moment. After a pause she said, "I did remember that yesterday morning; and knowing that you'd be frightfully dumpy—oh, mummy! you know you never are cheerful—I thought I'd have a spree on my own account. So I tell you what I did, mothery."

Lady Jane looked with absolute fear into Irene's face. After a time her eyes slowly welled up with tears.

"I can't imagine what I have done," she said. "I often wonder beyond words why I am given such a very naughty child—a child who understands me so very little, who cannot sympathize with my sorrows and cannot understand my griefs, and who contrives to make others miserable. It is your cruelty that is so terrible, Irene."

"My cruelty!" said Irene, opening her bright eyes wide. Something seemed to hurt her. It was the first time Lady Jane had ever seen a spark of real feeling in this extraordinary child. "Well, now, listen," she said. "I spent the night with Rosamund—dear Rosamund Cunliffe."

"You ran away from home and spent the night at the Merrimans'?"

"Oh, you needn't be afraid. I didn't even occupy one of their rooms long, and certainly didn't break bread with them. I wouldn't break bread in the house with that Lucy for all you could give me. Nevertheless, I spent the night with Rosamund. Oh, she is a splendid creature! She is jolly enough, and she is brave enough. Why, she let me strike her on the cheek as hard as ever I could, and didn't utter a word. I wanted her to lock the door, and she had some queer notions about it that I couldn't fathom; and when I struck her on her cheek, she only just offered me the other, and said, 'You may do what you like, but I will not lock the door.'

"Now, mother, if you'd stand up to me like that I'd just respect you. Anyhow, I respect Rosamund, and I dare say I'd have had to spend the night in her room, or perhaps even have had to come home, but something most welcome happened. Thank goodness, Rosamund isn't a prig! She's awfully passionate, and has plenty of strong feelings. She's not a bit a goody-goody; I'd just hate her like anything if she were. But that Lucy—you know that prim thing, the daughter of the Professor and Mrs. Merriman? Well, she came into the room, and I was under the bed in a twinkling. She argued with Rosamund and found fault with her, and got dear old Rose into a towering passion. Well, after that I could do what I liked with her. She did lock the door, although she vowed she wouldn't at first; and we got out through the window, and spent the night in the summer-house in the plantation. I put my head on her lap, and she put her arms round me and tried to keep me warm; and then I went off to sleep so happily, for somehow or other—I didn't think I could ever love anybody, but somehow or other there is a sort of feeling in me that perhaps is love for her. I think I could even be good for her.

"In the morning she walked with me as far as The Follies, and I have been for the last few hours very busy. There'll be a good deal of excitement amongst the servants to-day. I did hope that the wood-lice would settle Frosty; but now you have interfered. Why can't you let her go? She's no manner of use to me. Can't you give her whatever salary she has now, and send her back to London, or wherever she lives?"

"And let you grow up wild, Irene, with no one to teach you—for you will not learn from me?"

"Well, mother, I shall never learn anything from Frosty. Oh, what a morning it is! Is that the footman I hear outside? I expect he has discovered."

Just then James, who had been in the family for the last five or six years, came staggering into the room. He had been caught by a booby-trap which Irene had placed just over his pantry door, and a shower of spiders and caterpillars and other offensive insects had fallen all over him. His face was deadly pale, and he declared that he had been severely stung.

"There were wasps there," he said, "and I have been stung in the cheek and on the hand; and, madam, I don't really know what to do."

"It was a booby-trap. You look beautiful, James!" said Irene.

James flashed her an angry glance. Poor Lady Jane started to the rescue. What was she to do with this intolerable child?

"There are a lot more traps laid for the other servants," said Irene under her breath. "I didn't want poor old James to be stung by the wasps. They stung me when I was catching them, but I didn't cry out. I never cry out when I have pain. I wonder which insect stings worst? I ought to have a few handy for the worst of the servants. The only one I don't want to part with is cook, for cook is so much afraid of me that she will give me any unwholesome food I like to ask her for. When dear Rose comes we will have a feast. Oh, won't we have fun! I wonder—I do wonder—when she will come?"

Lady Jane left the room, and returned with a blue-bag, which she applied to James's swollen hand and cheek. The frightened servant said he did not think he could keep his situation much longer; but Lady Jane begged of him to be patient. Irene had disappeared.

"It is the kind of shock, your ladyship," he said to his mistress. "It's that I can't bear. There was I a-walking in as innocent as you please into my pantry, carrying the hot dishes from your ladyship's breakfast. I just touched a string, and found a shower of the most venomous insects crawling all over me. I dropped the dish on the spot, and if it hadn't been a silver one it would have been in shivers. And how was she to know that it wouldn't be your ladyship's best Sèvres or Crown Derby? How am I to endure it, my lady?"

"She is a very naughty girl, and I will certainly punish her," said Lady Jane, with a sigh. "But now, James, go about your business. The remedies I have used will soon take the pain out of your stings, and you will be all right again."

"There's poor Miss Frost," continued the man; "she has swallowed living beasts. It's all over the house, the story of Miss Irene giving her them horrors instead of her pills. It's the most dreadful thing I ever heard tell of."

"I don't believe she is really seriously hurt at all. But I will see what can be done," said Lady Jane.

She sat for a time lost in thought. Irene must be sent away—school must be resorted to. She must not any longer be allowed to render The Follies a home of terror to every individual who lived there. But what school would take such a naughty girl? For an instant Lady Jane thought of the Merrimans. But no, that was worse than useless. Was there any school in any part of the world that would receive such a hopeless character as poor Irene seemed to be turning into? Lady Jane could not tell.

Lady Jane was in the midst of her meditations, and a more confused, distracted poor woman it would be difficult to find in the length and breadth of the land, when suddenly she heard a step in the hall, a frank young voice—not Irene's, but bright and young and full of courage—and the next instant Rosamund Cunliffe entered the room.

"May I speak to you, Lady Jane?"

James was mournfully removing the remainder of the breakfast. His face was not improved by the blue-bag, and his expression was that of a hunted animal. The butler, in high dudgeon, had retired to his own apartment, where he had locked and barred the door in order to prevent any pranks of that imp, as he privately styled Irene. The other servants were tremblingly attending to their duties; but all smelled mischief in the air.

Two such awful things did not often occur on the same day as the possible poisoning of Miss Frost and the terrible usage to which innocent James had been subjected.

"We're none of us safe!" quoth the cook. "It's best to give notice."

"But then wages is so high," said the kitchen-maid. "There ain't a place like it in the country round—plenty of us, and half our time our own. What my mother says to me is, 'You must put up with something, Sukey; and if you hadn't Miss Irene you'd have low wages and 'ard work.' So I said I'd grin and bear it."

"Well, that's my notion, too," said the cook. "I say over and over, 'I'll grin and bear it;' and when the child comes to me and asks me so pretty for the most unwholesome food—though nothing, for that matter, seems to disagree with her—why, I haven't the 'eart to refuse."

"You haven't the courage, you mean," said James, who entered the kitchen at that moment. "If you had my poor face you'd have something to say."

"Oh, your poor face!" said the cook in an indignant tone. "It'll be well afore you're twice married. You take note of that."

James left the kitchen in a huff to return to his duties in the breakfast-room. It was there that Rosamund found him when she burst in upon Lady Jane.

"I have come to see you. Can I have a talk with you where we can be alone?" said the girl.

Perhaps in all the world no sight could have been so welcome at that moment to poor Lady Jane as Rosamund's bright face. The courage in it, the knowledge that Irene respected