“So you will be friend, guardian, and medical attendant all in one?” said Miss Twettenham, smiling.
“Exactly,” said the little doctor. “I have never seen them; they are quite schoolgirls – children, I suppose?”
“Ye-es,” said Miss Twettenham, who had a habit of measuring a young lady’s age by its distance from her own, “they are very young.”
“No joke of a task, my dear madam, undertaking the charge of two young ladies – and I hope from my heart they are too young and plain to be attractive – make it difficult for me.”
There was a bright red spot on each of Miss Twettenham’s cheeks, and she replied with a little hesitation:
“They are both young, and you will find in Miss Stuart a young lady of great sweetness and promise.”
“Glad to hear it, my dear madam. Her father is a very dry Scot, very quaint and parsimonious, but a good fellow at heart.”
“Most punctual in his payments,” said Miss Twettenham, with dignity.
“Oh, of course, of course!” said Dr Bolter. “More so, I’ll be bound, than Perowne.”
“Mr Perowne is not so observant of dates as Mr Stuart, I must own, Dr Bolter,” said Miss Twettenham.
“No, my dear madam; but he is as rich as a Jew. Very good fellow, Perowne?”
Miss Twettenham bowed rather stiffly.
“Well, my dear madam, I am not going to rob you of your pupils for several weeks yet, but I should like to make their acquaintance and get them a little used to me before we start on our long voyage.”
“They are in the garden, Dr Bolter,” said Miss Twettenham, rising. “I will have them sent for – or would you – ”
“Like to join them in the garden? Most happy!”
Miss Twettenham led the way towards a handsome conservatory, through which there was a flight of steps descending to the lawn.
“Dear me! ah, yes!” exclaimed the doctor. “Very nice display of flowers! Would you allow me? My own collections in the jungle – passiflora – convolvulaciae – acacia.”
He drew some dry seeds from his pocket, and placed them in the old lady’s hand, she taking them with a smile and a bow; after which they descended to the soft, velvety, well-kept lawn.
“Most charming garden!” said the doctor – “quite a little paradise! but no Eves – no young ladies!”
“They are all taking their afternoon walk except Miss Stuart and Miss Perowne,” replied the old lady. “Oh!”
She uttered a sharp ejaculation as a stone struck her upon the collarbone and then fell at the doctor’s feet, that gentleman picking it up with one hand as he adjusted his double eyeglass with the other.
“Hum! ha!” he said drily. “We get our post very irregularly out in the East; but they don’t throw the letters at us over the wall.”
Miss Twettenham’s hands trembled as she hastily snatched the stone, to which a closely-folded note was attached by an india-rubber band, from the Doctor’s hands.
“What will he think of our establishment?” mentally exclaimed the poor little old lady, as she glanced at the superscription, and saw that it was for Helen Perowne. “I have never had such a thing occur since Miss Bainbridge was sent away.”
“So Miss Perowne receives notes thrown to her over the garden wall, eh?” said the little doctor severely.
“Indeed, Dr Bolter – I assure you – I am shocked – I hardly know – the young ladies have been kept in – I only discovered – ”
“Hum!” ejaculated the doctor, frowning. “I am rather surprised. Let me see,” he continued. “I suppose that fair-haired girl stooping over the flower-bed yonder is Miss Perowne, eh?”
“My sight is failing,” stammered Miss Twettenham, who was terribly agitated at the untoward incident; “but your description answers to Miss Stuart.”
“And that’s Miss Stuart is it? Hum! Too far off to see what she is like. Then I suppose that tall dark girl on the seat is Miss Perowne?”
“Tall and dark – yes,” said Miss Twettenham, in an agitated way. “Is she sitting down? You said tall?”
“Hum! no,” said the doctor, balancing his glasses; “she is standing right on the top of the back of a seat, and seems to be looking over the garden wall.”
“Oh!”
“Bless my heart! Hum! Sham or real?” muttered the doctor.
Real enough, for the agitation had been too much for the poor old lady, so proud of the reputation of her school. A note over the garden wall – a young lady looking over into the lane, perhaps in conversation with a man, and just when a stranger had arrived to act as escort for two finished pupils. It was too much.
For the first time for many years Miss Twettenham had fainted away.
Volume One – Chapter Five.
A Very Nice Little Woman
“Fainted dead away, Arthur; fainted dead away, Miss Rosebury; and until I shouted aloud there was my fair pussy peeping out of paradise over the wall to see if a young Adam was coming. Ha! ha! ha!”
“I am very much surprised, Dr Bolter,” said Miss Rosebury, severely; “I always thought the Miss Twettenham’s was a most strictly-conducted establishment?”
“So it is, my dear madam – so it is; but they’ve got one little black ewe lamb in the flock, and the old ladies told me that if my young lady had not been about to leave they’d have sent her away.”
“And very properly,” said Miss Rosebury, tightening her lips and slightly agitating her curls.
“And did the lady soon come to, Harry?” said the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, for he seemed to be much interested in his friend’s discourse over the dessert.
“Oh, yes, very soon. When I shouted, the dark nymph hopped off the garden-seat, and the fair one came running from the flowers, and we soon brought her to. Then I had a good look at the girls.”
Miss Rosebury’s rather pleasantly-shaped mouth was fast beginning to assume the form of a thin red line, so tightly were her lips compressed.
“By George, sir! what a girl! A graceful Juno, sir; the handsomest woman I ever saw. I was staggered. Bless my soul, Miss Rosebury, here’s Perowne and here’s Stuart; they say to me, ‘You may as well take charge of my girl and see her safe back here,’ and being a good-natured sort of fellow – ”
“As you always were, Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur, beaming mildly upon his friend, while Miss Rosebury’s lips relaxed a little.
“All rubbish! Stuff, man! Well, I said yes, of course, and I imagined a couple of strips of schoolgirls that I could chat to, and tell them about the sea, and tie on their pinafores before breakfast and dinner, and give them a dose of medicine once a week; while here I am dropped in for being guardian to a couple of beautiful women – girls who will set our jungles on fire with their eyes, sir. By George, it’s a startler, sir, and no mistake.”
“Dr Bolter seems to be an admirer of female beauty,” said Miss Rosebury, rather drily.
“Not a bit of it, madam. By George, no! Ladies? Why, they have always seemed to be studies to me – objects of natural history. Very beautiful from their construction, and I shouldn’t have noticed these two only that, by George! I’ve got to take charge of them – deliver them safe and sound to their papas – with care – this side up; and the first thing I find is that they’ve got eyes that will drive our young fellows wild, and one of them – the peep out of paradise one – knows it too. Nice job for a quiet