"I want to be alone with you," he said.
I looked back. We were too late; Helena and Miss Jillgall had nearly overtaken us. My sister was on the point of speaking to Philip, when she seemed to change her mind, and only looked at him. Instead of looking at her in return, he kept his eyes cast down and drew figures on the pathway with his stick. I think Helena was out of temper; she suddenly turned my way. "Why didn't you wait for me?" she asked.
Philip took her up sharply. "If Eunice likes seeing the river better than waiting in the street," he said, "isn't she free to do as she pleases?"
Helena said nothing more; Philip walked on slowly by himself. Not knowing what to make of it, I turned to Miss Jillgall.
"Surely Philip can't have quarreled with Helena?" I said.
Miss Jillgall answered in an odd off-hand manner: "Not he! He is a great deal more likely to have quarreled with himself."
"Why?"
"Suppose you ask him why?"
It was not to be thought of; it would have looked like prying into his thoughts. "Selina!" I said, "there is something odd about you to-day. What is the matter? I don't understand you."
"My poor dear, you will find yourself understanding me before long." I thought I saw something like pity in her face when she said that.
"My poor dear?" I repeated. "What makes you speak to me in that way?"
"I don't know--I'm tired; I'm an old fool-- I'll go back to the house."
Without another word, she left me. I turned to look for Philip, and saw that my sister had joined him while I had been speaking to Miss Jillgall. It pleased me to find that they were talking in a friendly way when I joined them. A quarrel between Helena and my husband that is to be--no, my husband that shall be--would have been too distressing, too unnatural I might almost call it.
Philip looked along the backward path, and asked what had become of Miss Jillgall. "Have you any objection to follow her example?" he said to me, when I told him that Selina had returned to the town. "I don't care for the banks of this river."
Helena, who used to like the river at other times, was as ready as Philip to leave it now. I fancy they had both been kindly waiting to change our walk, till I came to them, and they could study my wishes too. Of course I was ready to go where they pleased. I asked Philip if there was anything he would like to see, when we got into the streets again.
Clever Helena suggested what seemed to be a strange amusement to offer to Philip. "Let's take him to the Girls' School," she said.
It appeared to be a matter of perfect indifference to him; he was, what they call, ironical. "Oh, yes, of course. Deeply interesting! deeply interesting!" He suddenly broke into the wildest good spirits, and tucked my hand under his arm with a gayety which it was impossible to resist. "What a boy you are!" Helena said, enjoying his delightful hilarity as I did.
CHAPTER XXIV.
EUNICE'S DIARY.
On entering the schoolroom we lost our gayety, all in a moment. Something unpleasant had evidently happened.
Two of the eldest girls were sitting together in a corner, separated from the rest, and looking most wickedly sulky. The teachers were at the other end of the room, appearing to be ill at ease. And there, standing in the midst of them, with his face flushed and his eyes angry--there was papa, sadly unlike his gentle self in the days of his health and happiness. On former occasions, when the exercise of his authority was required in the school, his forbearing temper always set things right. When I saw him now, I thought of what the doctor had said of his health, on my way home from the station.
Papa advanced to us the moment we showed ourselves at the door.
He shook hands--cordially shook hands--with Philip. It was delightful to see him, delightful to hear him say: "Pray don't suppose, Mr. Dunboyne, that you are intruding; remain with us by all means if you like." Then he spoke to Helena and to me, still excited, still not like himself: "You couldn't have come here, my dears, at a time when your presence was more urgently needed." He turned to the teachers. "Tell my daughters what has happened; tell them why they see me here--shocked and distressed, I don't deny it."
We now heard that the two girls in disgrace had broken the rules, and in such a manner as to deserve severe punishment.
One of them had been discovered hiding a novel in her desk. The other had misbehaved herself more seriously still--she had gone to the theater. Instead of expressing any regret, they had actually dared to complain of having to learn papa's improved catechism. They had even accused him of treating them with severity, because they were poor girls brought up on charity. "If we had been young ladies," they were audacious enough to say, "more indulgence would have been shown to us; we should have been allowed to read stories and to see plays."
All this time I had been asking myself what papa meant, when he told us we could not have come to the schoolroom at a better time. His meaning now appeared. When he spoke to the offending girls, he pointed to Helena and to me.
"Here are my daughters," he said. "You will not deny that they are young ladies. Now listen. They shall tell you themselves whether my rules make any difference between them and you. Helena! Eunice! do I allow you to read novels? do I allow you to go to the play?"
We said, "No"--and hoped it was over. But he had not done yet. He turned to Helena.
"Answer some of the questions," he went on, "from my Manual of Christian Obligation, which the girls call my catechism." He asked one of the questions: "If you are told to do unto others as you would they should do unto you, and if you find a difficulty in obeying that Divine Precept, what does your duty require?"
It is my belief that Helena has the materials in her for making another Joan of Arc. She rose, and answered without the slightest sign of timidity: "My duty requires me to go to the minister, and to seek for advice and encouragement."
"And if these fail?"
"Then I am to remember that my pastor is my friend. He claims no priestly authority or priestly infallibility. He is my fellow-Christian who loves me. He will tell me how he has himself failed; how he has struggled against himself; and what a blessed reward has followed his victory--a purified heart, a peaceful mind."
Then papa released my sister, after she had only repeated two out of all the answers in Christian Obligation, which we first began to learn when we were children. He then addressed himself again to the girls.
"Is what you have just heard a part of my catechism? Has my daughter been excused from repeating it because she is a young lady? Where is the difference between the religious education which is given to my own child, and that given to you?"
The wretched girls still sat silent and obstinate, with their heads down. I tremble again as I write of what happened next. Papa fixed his eyes on me. He said, out loud: "Eunice!"--and waited for me to rise and answer, as my sister had done.