Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/207

 seldom that Gertrude achieved such a long sentence, or delivered one with so much force. It was quite plain that Mrs. Ashurst was a favourite of hers.

"Oh," said Tom, "all right! Old Mother Ashurst's coming here on a visit is she? All right!"

"And Miss Ashurst comes with her," said Maude.

"Oh Lord!" cried Tom Creswell. "Miss Prim coming too! That'll be a clear saving of the governor's vinegar and olives all the time she's here. She's a nice creature, she is." And he screwed up his mouth with an air of excessive distaste.

"Well, at all events she's going to be your father's guest, and we must all do our best to make the visit pleasant to them," said Gertrude, who, like most people who are most proud of what they do least well, thought she was playing dignity admirably.

"Oh, I don't care!" said Tom. "If the governor likes to have them here, and you two girls are so sweet upon them all of a sudden, I say, all right. Only look here—no interference with me in any way. The sight of me mustn't make the old lady break down and burst out blubbing, or anything of that sort, and no asking me how I'm getting on with my lessons, and that kind of thing. Stow that, mind!"

"You needn't trouble yourself, I think," said Maud; "it is scarcely likely that either Mrs. or Miss Ashurst will feel very keen interest in you or your pursuits."

And out of Maud's flashing eyes, and through Maud's tightly compressed lips, the sarcasm came cutting like a knife.

But when their visitors had been but a very short time established at Woolgreaves, it became evident not merely to Mr. Creswell, but to all in the house, that Master Tom had at last met with some one who could exercise influence over him, and that that some one was Marian Ashurst. It was the treatment that did it. Tom had been alternately petted and punished, scolded and spoiled, but he had never been turned into ridicule before, and when Marian tried that treatment on him he succumbed at once. He confessed he had always thought that "he could not stand chaff," and now he knew it. Marian's badinage was, as might be supposed, of a somewhat grave and serious order. Tom's bluntness, uncouthness, avarice, and self-love were constantly betraying themselves in his conversation and conduct, and each of them offered an admirable target at which Marian fired telling shots. The girls were at first astonished and then delighted, as was Mr. Creswell, who had a faint hope that under the correction thus lightly administered his son might be brought to see how objectionable were certain of his views and proceedings. The lout himself did not like it at all. His impossibility of standing "chaff," or of answering it, rendered him for the first time a nonentity in the family circle; his voice, usually loud and strident, was hushed whenever Marian came into the room. The domestic atmosphere at Woolgreaves was far more pleasant than it had been for some time, and Mr. Creswell thought that the "sweet little girl" was not merely a "dead hand at a bargain," but that she possessed the brute-taming power, in a manner hitherto undreamed of. Decidedly she was a very exceptional person, and more highly gifted than any one would suppose.

Tom hated her heartily, and chafed inwardly because he did not see his way to revenging himself on her. He had not the wit to reply when Marian turned him into ridicule, and he dared not answer her with mere rudeness, so he remained silent and sulky, brooding over his rage, and racking his brains to try and find a crack in his enemy's armour—a vulnerable place. He found it at last, but, characteristically, took no notice at the time, waiting for his opportunity. That came. One day, after luncheon, when her mother had gone up for a quiet nap, and the girls were practising duets in the music-room, Marian set out for a long walk across the hard, dry, frost-covered fields to the village; the air was brisk and bracing, and the girl was in better spirits than usual. She thoroughly appreciated the refined comforts and the luxurious living of Woolgreaves, and the conduct of the host and his nieces towards her had been so perfectly charming, that she had almost forgotten that her enjoyment of those luxuries was but temporary, and that very shortly she would have to face the world in a worse position than she had as yet occupied, and to fight the great battle of life, too, for her mother and herself. Often in the evening, as she sat in the drawing-room buried in the soft cushions of the sofa, dreamily listening to the music which the girls were playing, lazily watching her mother cozily seated in the chimney corner, and old Mr. Creswell by her, quietly beating time to the tune; the firelight flickering over the furniture, and appointments bespeaking wealth and comfort, she would fall into a kind of half-trance, in which she would believe that the