Chapter V: Petty Jealousy

THE morning following Mrs. Grey's departure from the Mill House, Mavis accompanied Rose to school. Their way led past the church and the vicarage, and through the village. And as they went, Mavis looked about her with interested eyes, admiring the picturesque creeper-covered cottages with their trim gardens and thatched roofs.

"They seem to sell everything here," she remarked, with an amused smile, as she paused before the one shop of the place, which was also the post-office, "groceries, brushes, notepaper, and medicines too, I declare!"

"We must not dawdle," said Rose, as her cousin lingered, peering into the shop window, "or we shall be late, and that won't do.'

"Would Miss Matthews be angry?" inquired Mavis. "Is she very strict?"

"Yes," nodded Rose; "mother says it's right she should be. If we were late, she would keep us in after twelve o'clock, and most likely give us each an imposition—though perhaps you would go unpunished, as it is your first day. You have never been to school before, have you?"

"Never. Mother taught me to read and write. And then a young lady, a governess who lodged at the same house that we did, used to teach me in the evenings. How many girls are there at Miss Matthews' school?"

"About a dozen—most of them are boarders. Here we are. You see it takes us quite a quarter of an hour to walk to school."

Miss Matthews' house was at the far end of the village. It was a modern red-brick villa with bow windows, over the under-blinds of one of which Mavis saw the heads of several girls. Rose led the way into the house by a side door. And, having shown her cousin where to leave her hat and jacket on one of a row of pegs in the passage, piloted her to the schoolroom, and introduced her to her schoolfellows. A few minutes later, Miss Matthews herself appeared upon the scene, followed by a young governess called Miss Forbes.

"So this is my new pupil," observed Miss Matthews, her eyes scrutinizing Mavis very kindly as she shook hands with her. "You are called Mavis, I hear," she proceeded; "it is an uncommon name and a very pretty one."

Miss Matthews was a dark, middle-aged woman with a plain, clever face, and Mavis' first impression of her was that she was very ugly, but the moment a smile lit up her countenance, she decided that she was really quite good-looking.

By-and-by, the new pupil was handed over to the governess, who classed her with several little girls varying from ten to twelve years of age. And so her school life began.

It was soon discovered that though Mavis' education had been carried on in a somewhat desultory fashion, she was by no means backward. She owned an excellent memory, and was quick to learn, taking after her father, as her uncle remarked when Rose told him how easily her cousin mastered her lessons.

"She has inherited Rupert's clever brain," he said to his wife. "You can look in her face and see she's as sharp as a needle. I hope she'll brisk up our Rose, who's one of the slow, plodding sort—like myself," he added, with a laugh.

This speech did not please his hearer, though she recognized its truth. Rose had many excellent qualities, but she was not in the least clever, as far as book-learning was concerned, and found lessons great drudgery.

Mavis was very soon on the best of terms with all the inmates of the Mill House, with the exception of her aunt, whom she found it impossible to like as well as the others, though she could not have told why she did not feel at home with her, if she had been asked for a reason. The fact was, Mrs. John failed to understand Mavis, who was naturally of a light-hearted, joyous disposition, and she was confirmed in her impression, as time went on, that the child's nature was a superficial one. When, on the morning subsequent to the day on which the 'Nineveh' had sailed from Plymouth, Mavis had received a farewell letter from her mother, over which she had shed tears, she had had her aunt's full sympathy. But when, a few hours later, she had returned from school with Rose, apparently in good spirits, her aunt had privately dubbed her a heartless little thing, being quite unaware of the brave fight the child had made against depression.

"I advise you not to make too much of Mavis," Mrs. John remarked to her husband on one occasion, after he had taken the little girl for a drive. "You will spoil her if you're not careful."

"Oh, nonsense, my dear," he replied; "there's small danger of my doing that. She's had few pleasures in her life, poor child, and our young folks have had a great many. Bob wanted to accompany me to-day—he said it was his turn—but I told him he must give up his place in the gig to his cousin."

"That was hard on the boy, John."

"Not at all. I don't see it."

But Bob himself considered that it had been very hard, for he was unaccustomed to self-sacrifice, and he liked nothing so well as driving with his father. So when, after tea, Mavis commenced telling him and Rose of the delightful time she had had, he listened in somewhat sullen silence.

"It was so kind of Uncle John to take me to Oxford," Mavis said happily. "I think it is such a lovely place, with those beautiful virginian creepers growing all over the colleges."

"The leaves will soon be off the creepers after the first frost," remarked Rose. "I'm glad you've seen them, Mavis. Some people think Oxford prettier in the autumn than at any time, but I like it in the spring, when the hawthorn and lilacs and laburnums are in flower."

"Uncle put up the horse at an inn, and took me to see T—, that was father's college, you know, and he pointed out the rooms that were father's once, and I saw the chapel and the lime-walk, and he told me such a lot about father, how clever he was, and that he won scholarships, and in that way more than half paid for his own education. Oh, how I wish mother could have been with me to-day!"

"You'll be able to tell her all about it some time," said Rose, as she noticed a shade of sadness cross her cousin's face.

"Oh yes; but not for a long, long time. How did you and Bob spend the afternoon?" Mavis asked, glancing from the sister to the brother.

"We went blackberry gathering," answered Rose.

"It was slow work," observed Bob, joining in the conversation at last. "You had the best of it, Mavis," he added, grudgingly.

"Indeed I think I did," Mavis agreed, with a smile. Then, becoming aware by the expression of Bob's face that he was displeased, she inquired, "Would you have liked to have gone to Oxford instead of me this afternoon?"

"Rather!" he exclaimed. "Father took you for a drive last Saturday, too!" he reminded her, in a way which showed he resented the fact.

"Bob!" exclaimed Rose, in an expostulating tone.

"Well, it's not fair that father should make more of Mavis than of us," he grumbled, "I know mother thinks so too."

"For shame!" cried Rose, her kind heart touched by the hurt expression on her cousin's face. "Don't take any notice of what he says, Mavis."

"I didn't know he wanted to go this afternoon," murmured Mavis, looking distressed, "but I suppose one of you would have gone, if I had not been here. I—I am very sorry."

"There is nothing to be sorry about," Rose replied. "There, I believe you've made her cry," she said, turning upon her brother with indignation, as Mavis slipped quietly out of the room. "I saw tears in her eyes. You are very selfish, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Bob. If father makes much of Mavis, it's only because he wants her to be happy with us. It's so sad that her mother should have had to go away and leave her."

"I didn't mean to make her cry," Bob answered. "I call her a great baby!"

"She's quite a little girl, of course," said Rose, who, being two years her cousin's senior, felt almost grown up in comparison to her, "but I don't consider her at all babyish. See how little fuss she made when her mother left!"

"I don't believe she cared—not much, heard mother say so to Jane; she said Mavis was singing a few hours after Aunt Margaret had gone, and people don't sing if they're sad."

Rose did not argue the point. Instead, she went upstairs in search of Mavis, whom she found in her bedroom, sitting on a chair by the window in the dark.

"What are you doing, Mavis?" she asked.

"Nothing," Mavis answered, "only thinking, and—and wishing that mother had left me in London with Miss Tompkins. I never guessed Bob wanted to go this afternoon, I never thought that I was taking his place!"

"It was very selfish and unkind of him to speak as he did, and father would be very angry if he knew he had done so. Think no more of it, Mavis. You haven't been crying, have you?"

"No," Mavis answered. "I've been praying," she added, after a minute's pause.

"Praying?" Rose was surprised. "But it isn't bedtime," she said, "I always say my prayers night and morning, don't you?"

"Yes, and odd times besides, whenever I feel I want to. It—it comforts me. It's so nice to think Jesus is always near to hear one, isn't it, and to remember He understands what other people can't? I expect Bob thinks it was very selfish of me to go to Oxford with Uncle John—"

"I shall tell father how he spoke to you!" Rose broke in, impetuously.

"Oh, don't, please don't!" implored Mavis. "Don't let us say any more about it. Promise you won't."

Rose gave the required promise, and the two little girls went downstairs together. Bob, who was now ashamed of the jealous spirit he had exhibited, found an opportunity during the evening of telling Mavis he was sorry if he had seemed unkind, and that he was really glad that she had enjoyed the afternoon.

September was nearly out now, but the fine weather continued, so that the young folks were able to spend their spare time out-of-doors. They had several blackberrying expeditions, from which they returned laden with luscious fruit, which Jane converted into bramble jelly. Mavis soon knew the prettiest walks around W—, and learnt the dangerous places in the river, where the water was deep and swift.

Sometimes in their rambles, the children came upon Mr. Moseley, who generally stopped and talked to them. Rose and Bob, like many country children, were shy, and had little to say for themselves. But Mavis, on the contrary, was always ready to further a conversation.

"You should have heard Mavis chattering to the Vicar this afternoon," said Bob to his mother, one Saturday evening. "I should think she talked to him for quite half an hour."

"Oh, quite!" agreed Mavis.

"I hope he did not think you a forward little girl, Mavis," said her aunt gravely, with a note of rebuke in her voice.

Mavis coloured indignantly, and a quick retort rose to her lips, but she refrained from uttering it, and kept silence.

"Mr. Moseley asked Mavis what she thought of Oxford, and she told him," explained Rose. "And then he questioned her about Aunt Margaret, and when the 'Nineveh' was due to arrive at Sydney, and of course, she had to answer him."

"Yes," assented her mother, "that was quite right. But little girls must not be too ready with their tongues."

"Rose isn't," said Bob, with a mischievous glance at his sister. "She scarcely spoke a word to Mr. Moseley this afternoon."

"I-I don't know Mr. Moseley very well," stammered poor Rose, "and I was shy, I suppose. So were you, Bob, for that matter."

"Bob is three years your junior, Rose," said her mother. "At your age, you ought not to be shy. Why could you not talk to the Vicar as well as Mavis?"

Rose hung her head and made no response, whilst her cousin felt very uncomfortable. Mavis was fully conscious, by this time, that her aunt did not approve of her, that she regarded her with critical eyes, and that she was always displeased if any one noticed her more than her cousins. And these facts prevented her from being as happy as she otherwise would have been at the Mill House. She was never quite at her ease in her aunt's presence, and certainly never at her best. And yet, Mrs. John had no intention of being otherwise than just and kind to her little niece, and was vexed when she observed that Mavis' affection for her uncle was deepening day by day, whilst she held more and more aloof from herself.

"Aunt Lizzie doesn't like me," Mavis thought frequently, and she would wonder if she could have possibly done anything to evoke her aunt's displeasure. "I try to please her, but I see she doesn't care for me, and I'm afraid I don't care for her—much."