Chapter II: Taking Shape

"Follow light and do the right—for man can half control his doom— Till you find the deathless angel, seated in the vacant tomb." TENNYSON.

JEAN TREVELYAN stood at the gate of the Rectory kitchen-garden, gazing down the lane.

She was an only child, about nine years old, of tall and slim make, with a straight back and a well-balanced head. The face was oval, but too thin for prettiness; indeed, nobody called Jean pretty. She had a pale complexion, light hair cut short like a boy's, and odd greenish-brown eyes, in sunshine yellowish like a topaz, and capable of expression to any degree. Jean wore a loose brown holland frock, and held in one hand a brown hat, round the crown of which a brown ribbon was tied. Simplicity could not further go.

"Oswald!" she cried.

No answer came.

Jean waited patiently for some seconds, a hungry look in her eyes. Then she called again:

"Oswald! Os-wald! I'm here!"

A figure emerged from the gooseberry bushes, where it had been stooping out of sight.

"What are you making that noise for, Jean?"

"I want Oswald, aunt Marie."

"Well, you must have patience. He will come in good time."

The tone was not unkind; it was only indifferent. Mrs. or Madame Collier was not a person to enter into a child's desires.

Jean had no mother. She could barely remember her mother. Mrs. Collier, the widowed sister of Mr. Trevelyan, had lived there almost as far back as Jean's memory could reach, keeping house for her brother, precisely as old Mrs. Willoughby had lived with old Sir John Devereux, keeping house for him since Sybella's infancy. Sybella's complaints of many widowers in the neighbourhood was not without foundation.

Mrs. Collier's real name was Maria. Having married a Frenchman—in virtue of which she was still known as Madame Collier—and having spent her married life abroad, she preferred to be called 'Marie.' She was perhaps some five years older than Sybella, with the air of twenty years' seniority. She was angular in make, with high cheek-bones, marked feature, iron-grey hair, and permanent sunburn. Moreover, she wore caps indoors and old fashioned bonnets out of doors. She could occasionally appear en grande tenue; yet her usual attire was a very embodiment of plainness. At this moment, she had on a rusty black alpaca, frayed at the edges; a big crochet shawl, secured in front by a skewer-like pin; and an enormous garden hat of untrimmed straw, reminiscence of foreign life.

Marie Collier had been tossed early upon her own feet, and forced to stand alone, if she would stand at all. This was bracing, to begin with! Probably she could never, under any conditions, have been turned into a helpless young (?) lady of thirty-nine, unable to endorse a cheque, but no doubt a somewhat different creature might under differing influences have emerged from the chrysalis stage of existence.

The Trevelyan nature was one which needed softening, since it stiffened easily; and softening influences had not in her case been abundant. Both her early life and her married life had been to a great extent hardening.

In some measure the same conditions surrounded the little Jean. There were barriers of repression, of non-comprehension, of outward coldness, fencing her in. But Jean was an Ingram as well as a Trevelyan. She had inherited from the two families a jumble of opposite characteristics. There was all the Trevelyan pride, with any amount of Ingram tenderness. There was the Trevelyan reserve, with the Ingram craving for sympathy. There was the Trevelyan hauteur, with the Ingram shyness. There was the Trevelyan disdain, with the Ingram susceptibility. There was all the force of the Trevelyan will, and with that there were odd touches of the Ingram readiness to yield.

Here was the rough ore of the nature, out of which the future character had to be formed. The main question was—which of the opposing elements would be fostered, which would be crushed or starved out of existence? A child of nine has begun to take shape, but the materials are soft, and malleable by a touch.

Jean did not call again, after her aunt's rebuke. She stood and watched with craving eyes, into which a look of loneliness had crept. Jean was always lonely when not with her brother Oswald. She loved Oswald with an absorbing devotion.

He had rushed away, "promising faithfully" to return in five minutes for a game of bowls. The five minutes were long past, and he had not come. Lesson-time was drawing near. In forty minutes Madame Collier, with inexorable punctuality, would summon Jean to the dingy schoolroom, where she daily spent five hours of misery. These were the first days of Oswald's midsummer holidays—old style, meaning real midsummer;—but Jean, learning at home, was not supposed to need holidays.

"Marie!" another voice called: a man's voice now.

"Yes," Madame Collier answered. She straightened herself a second time, and looked towards the house, flushed with stooping.

A gentleman came down the path with vigorous strides. He was of medium height and muscular in build, having strongly marked features. Permanent indentations stamped the brow, and the wide mouth closed habitually into a straight line; while the manner was prompt and resolute. His dress was severely clerical; the coat long.

"Marie, I want a word with you." He did not observe the motionless figure of his little daughter, and Jean was wrapped up in her patient watch. "Bad news from The Brow."

Dulveriford commonly spoke of Sybella's home as "The Brow" rather than by its full name of "Ripley Brow." The curtailment saved trouble.

Madame Collier forgot Jean, or she would have sent the child out of hearing. It was a principle with that excellent lady that children should never hear aught beyond what directly concerns themselves.

"Bad news!" she repeated, grasping with both hands her basket of gooseberries. "Mrs. Willoughby worse?"

"Not materially. I suppose it to be merely a question of weeks with her; but I do not know that she is worse to-day than yesterday. The news is from abroad. Sir Theodore is dead!"

"You don't say so! Dear me!" Madame Collier adjusted the big white skewer in her shawl, thereby showing that her feelings were not deeply stirred. "Dear, how unfortunate! But I never liked the accounts of his state."

"General Villiers arrived yesterday, bringing the boy."

"Well—!" in a tone of consent to what could not be helped. "I suppose the General will be the children's guardian."

"No. That is the strange part of the matter—General Villiers is one of the trustees. Miss Devereux is sole guardian—"

Madame Collier's eyes grew round. She set her gooseberry basket down and held up two hands, as if speech failed her.

"Sole guardian to both children. I believe her brother expressed a wish, when dying, that she would appeal to General Villiers for advice."

"She will need advice from somebody! Of all incompetent women—! Well—! I should as soon have expected—!"

"Sir Theodore has always been fond of his sister. He used to say there was plenty of natural capacity, if only it had opportunity to develop."

"Too late now! When a woman is going on for fifty, she can't be remade."

"Miss Devereux is a good way off from fifty."

"O, I know!" with a shrug of her angular shoulders. "Juvenile bonnets and ribbons can't throw dust in my eyes! You men are so easily taken in."

Madame Collier's glance fell on Jean, with a twinge of vexation at having said so much, and of consequent displeasure at Jean's presence.

"What are you doing there, Jean? Wasting your time!"

"I'm waiting for Oswald."

"Where is Oswald?" demanded Mr. Trevelyan.

"I don't know, father."

"Then why wait?" Mr. Trevelyan's manner was not stern; it was only repressed and repressing. His eyes surveyed her gravely. He might be a most affectionate father—anybody may be anything below the surface!—but the affection was not allowed to appear.

"He said he would come for a game of bowls—presently." Jean carefully abstained from saying "in five minutes," for that would have meant blame to Oswald.

"Go and find him. Don't dawdle about doing nothing."

Jean made an effort at resistance. "I don't know where he is."

"Go and see."

Jean obeyed with a heavy heart. Whichever way she went, Oswald was as likely as not to have taken the opposite road; and while she was absent, he would return to the gate. The one chance of seeing him was to wait there, and that chance was denied her. It was a small disappointment, yet a very real trouble to Jean.

Mr. Trevelyan's word was law, however. Nobody ever thought of evading it; and Jean dared not explain her trouble, for fear of an inquiry into the strict terms of their arrangement.

"I do wonder where Oswald can be," she said sorrowfully.

Jean was too honest, as well as too obedient, to linger about within view of the gate while out of her father's sight. After walking down the lane, however, she climbed a grass bank, whence she could obtain a glimpse of the spot where her hopes were centred. No signs of Oswald!

The most likely place would be down by the river. Devotion to water, indigenous in the English boy, was a marked characteristic of Oswald.

Jean made her way thither by the shortest route, which meant at the last a steep descent. Somewhat higher up, the stream flowed between rocky and overhanging strata, but here the banks were wide apart, leaving space for the water to spread itself out, rippling in a shallow flow over a floor of golden sand.

Evenly placed lay the stepping-stones, square and large, reaching to the other side. Except in occasional flood-times, an easy mode of crossing was provided thereby. Jean thought so little of running over, that she would have done it in the dark, if required, without a moment's hesitation.

A glimpse of the narrowing banks above could be obtained from the stepping-stone level. This Ripley Gorge, locally known as "The V-Gorge," was counted worth seeing by many who were conversant with Swiss scenery. One arm of the V began not far from the stepping-stones; and near the point of the V was the heaved-up rock promontory—like a coast-headland, only no sea washed its base—popularly called "The Brow."

The small Devereux property, bounded on one side by this precipice, had from it and The Gorge combined the title of "Ripley Brow;" and village colloquialism had rendered "Up at the Brow" no less descriptive of the house than of the actual promontory.

Jean raced down the slippery grass at a reckless pace, which yet was not reckless, since she was sure-footed as a goat. To follow the zigzag would have been in her eyes a dire waste of time.

Nearing the bottom, she found to her supreme delight an open penknife lying on the ground—Oswald's! Then he had come this way, and she would find him. Jean's heart leaped as she secured the knife. In that moment she heard a plaintive utterance—

"Oh! O please! Please!—O please! O come!"

Not Oswald's voice! Jean dashed downward faster still. Child as she was, she already had the instinct of helping others, more or less the gift of all purer natures.

"O please! O come!" wailed the frightened tones.

Jean reached the level belt beside the river, where a ghost of a path might be found amid coarse grass and weeds. A rough but easy descent led thence to the stepping-stones. On one of the stones, near the middle of the stream, sat a small boy, lifting up a thin and high-pitched voice of dire tribulation.

"Why, what's the matter?" cried Jean.

The sobbing lessened, but the boy did not move. Jean cleared the lower bank at a run, and tripped over the stones till she reached him.

"What's the matter?" she repeated.

"I can't get on. I'm afraid," moaned the depressed little mortal.

"There's nothing to hurt. If you fell in, you couldn't hurt. Afraid! You—a boy!" said Jean, with infinite disdain.

She had been trained to look with contempt upon cowardice, especially a boy's cowardice. Oswald never showed fear; and Oswald was her hero.

But the tender and pitying side of her nature asserted itself, when she looked at the little fellow's white cheeks; not pale only, but dead-white, as with abject terror; and at the small shaking hands.

"Come!" she said gently. "I'll take care of you. I won't let you slip. Stand up, and hold me tight. I'll take you across."

She put a protecting arm round him, and guided his steps with a mother-like care, droll yet pretty in one so young. Jean had all the instincts of womanhood, though her recollections of a mother's love were dim.

"There!" she said, as they reached the bank on the Rectory side.

His face having been turned that way, Jean had taken it for granted that he wished to cross.

"Now you are all right. You see how easy the stones are, so you won't be frightened again. Boys never ought to be afraid. Oswald isn't!" proudly, with a gleam in her greenish-brown eyes. "But you are such a mite! Where do you want to go?"

"I want to go home," came plaintively in answer.

Jean stood looking at him. He was a lovely little boy, but Jean had hardly reached an age appreciative of mere beauty. The sweet wistful eyes and delicate outlines were lost upon her. Jean's notion of a boy was of something reckless, dashing, untidy, headlong, noisy—of Oswald, in fact. This dainty small creature, with lace collar and spotless hands, by no means answered to the description.

"Where is your home?"

"Over there."

"Where? What—'The Brow!' Why, what's your name?"

"I'm Cyril John Devereux."

A pause of astonishment.

"And I'm Jean Trevelyan. But you're not—Cyril!" said Jean. "Aunt Marie said Cyril was ten years old."

"I'm ten next August."

"Ten! Stand up—straight."

Cyril obeyed.

Jean placed herself beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

"I'm ever so much the tallest—and only nine last month."

"Ah, but I shall grow," said Cyril confidently. "I'm going to be a man."

"A man!" Jean looked him all over again, disdainful and compassionate. "What a pity you weren't made a girl!"

"Father liked me best to be a boy," asserted Cyril.

Jean suddenly remembered his father's death, and as suddenly she recalled the game of bowls.

"Oh, I can't wait. I'm forgetting," she cried. "I must find Oswald."

"Aunt Sybella said there was a boy called Oswald."

"He's my brother!" proudly again.

"Is he nice? Is he like you?" The violet eyes were fixed upon Jean with unspeakable admiration.

"Nice! There never was such a boy as Oswald in all the world—never!" declared the little sister, her soul shining in her face. "No, he isn't like me. Oh, of course not! I'm ugly; and he is—Oh, you don't know Oswald yet! Wait till you do! He is—he is—just Oswald!" cried Jean rapturously, as if the name implied everything.

"You're not ugly."

"Yes, I am. Everybody says so. It doesn't matter. I've got Oswald."

"Shall I like him?"

"I shouldn't like you, if you didn't."

Cyril looked thoughtful.

Jean was longing to be off; but a sense of this little fellow's helplessness restrained her.

"Where do you mean to go?" she asked.

"I don't know the way back."

"Why, over the stones, of course—as you came."

"Oh, I can't. I couldn't go across again—it frightened me."

"But you're a boy. You ought not to be frightened. Oswald never is."

Cyril glanced at the river and shivered, tears filling his eyes. "I can't," he said.

A whoop rang out, and Jean's contemplative face changed to one of delight.

"Oswald!" passed her lips, as a boy came rushing along the grass-grown path beside the river.

A genuine boy this time—strong and vigorous, hot and muddy, round-faced and rosy, nearly twice the size of the little baronet, though only two years or so his senior. His complexion was sunburnt, his hands were soiled, the cap was slipping off his tumbled hair, the trousers were torn at his knees.

"Hallo, Jean! Did you think I was lost? I say—what shrimp have you fished up there?"

Jean sprang to meet her brother.

"It's Cyril Devereux," she whispered energetically. "He's come home, and his father is dead, and he's afraid of the stepping-stones."

"Whew!" Oswald contented himself with this brief commentary. "Well, come along; just time for a game of bowls."

Jean was nearly torn in half, between the pulling of her own desires on the one hand, and the pulling of duty on the other hand. Her whole soul was bent upon the promised game with the brother whom her little heart worshipped. But this poor small baronet, with his dread of the river, how could he ever find his way home?

It was one of those everyday occasions, when the child's decision one way or the other, does much towards the formation of that child's character. Either the bent towards right, the devotion to duty—the Pflichttreue—is strengthened, and the passion of self-pleasing is weakened; or vice versa.

Jean was sorely tempted; but her home training from babyhood had aimed to teach her one thing—always to do the Right, irrespective of cost to self. Such early training is an untold power for after-good. Every time the will conquers, it gains strength; every time it is overcome, it loses strength. Mere habit, one way or the other, has the compelling force of iron bands in later life. These bands were already in process of formation; and Jean did not hesitate long.

"I can't," she said; "he doesn't know the way round by the bridge. I must show him."

"Rubbish! A boy not able to find his way!"

"He isn't like most boys. He is so—funny!" Jean said, lowering her voice. "So little!"

"Little goose! Time he should learn to be like other boys."

Jean was silent.

"Well, you needn't ask me to come back for a game with you another day! That's all."

Jean's heart was ready to break under his displeasure, yet she stood to her duty.

"I'll make haste," she tried to say.

"Make haste to lessons, you mean! Stuff! Well—will you come?"

"I can't," she murmured.

"Then you're an ass! I shan't play with you again."

Oswald dashed off in a huff, and Jean's eyes were full.

She turned to the other child:

"Come," she said huskily, "we've got to make haste."

"Was that boy cross with you?" demanded Cyril, as they set off. He clenched his tiny hand, and the blue eyes sparkled. "If anybody is cross with you, I'd like—I'd like to fight him."

"No, you wouldn't! He is my brother. You are never to fight Oswald."

"But I will, if he is cross to you."

"It doesn't matter. He is only sorry I can't play. And so am I," added Jean, her chest heaving. "You must learn to get over those stones, you know. Boys never ought to be cowards."

Cyril looked up gravely.

"No, I won't," he said. "Father wouldn't like me to be a coward. I'll try to get over the stones all alone—some day."