A Modern Tomboy: A Story for Girls, L. T. Meade [ready to read books .txt] 📗

we go right down the cascade at the end of the lake and among the breakers. The boat will be upset, and you will have to fight for your life, unless I choose to save you. I could save you, for I have perfect control of myself in the water."

"But you don't mean to say you are going to do anything of that sort! Can't we get into the calmer part of the lake? I don't understand you," said Hughie.

"But I understand you. You don't like me, and I don't like you. From the very first you have been disagreeable. I like your little sister, but you don't want me to like her."

"Well, I think you are a bit rough on old Em," was Hughie's remark.

"What a flash that was!" said Irene; and her eyes danced with cruel pleasure. "Ah! here comes the rain."

A terrific hail-shower drenched the two children as they sat within the rocking boat. For the first time in her life Irene was really slightly frightened. Had she dared too much? Even she might not be able to get the boat out of the current just at present; and if she did not, and they really got among the breakers and over the cascade in the present storm, it might be beyond her power to save Hughie. As to herself, she was not at all afraid. She felt she could swim through anything and over anything; but she was not certain that she could swim and support a boy so big and strong as Hughie.

Then there rose before her vision the face of Rosamund—Rosamund's face with its noble expression, its clear, steadfast, dark eyes—Rosamund with her ringing voice. Oh, what influence for good she had exercised over Irene's wild, worthless, almost terrible life, and yet she was disobeying all her precepts now, and frightening poor Hughie almost to death!

"I tell you what it is," she said in a husky voice; "we will both try to get out of this current if you will make me a promise."

"It seems to me that I am spending my whole life in making promises," said Hughie. "But I will make any promise if that will help you now. Oh, what a flash that was! I expect we shall both be struck by the lightning."

"I suppose that doesn't matter. I suppose you are not afraid to die, are you?"

"I haven't thought of it," said the boy. "People of fourteen don't think much about dying, do they? But I don't think I'd be specially afraid. It might be a sort of relief to poor old Em to have only one of us to keep. But for you there is your mother and little Agnes."

"Yes; I wouldn't like to die on account of little Agnes," replied Irene very gravely. "I love her just as though she were my own little child."

"Well, I am her brother. I suppose you ought to be pleasant to me because I happen to be her brother, and Emily happens to be her sister," retorted the lad.

"That is true enough. I will tell you why I did this. I brought you out into the current to test your courage. If I do nothing, if we both sit still as we are now, in all probability you will be drowned; but if you will exert yourself and help me with all your might and main, then I will respect you as a truly courageous person, and perhaps we'll be better friends than we have hitherto been."

"What do you want me to do? I will do anything," said the boy.

"Well, look here. I will take one oar and you take the other, and we must get out of this current whatever happens. As soon as we are out of it we are safe. Oh, never mind the lightning, and don't listen to the thunder."

"It almost blinds me," said Hughie, passing his hand across his eyes as he spoke, dazzled by the vividness of the ever-increasing storm. Irene gave him strict directions.

"You are strong," she said. "When you see me pull, you must pull, too, and you must be very quick, for the nearer we get to the cascade the swifter runs the current. On a calm day I could save you, there wouldn't be a bit of fear; but on a rough day, in a storm like this, I mightn't be able to manage it. Now then, a strong pull, and a pull all together!"

The boy obeyed her directions. Whatever she might have thought of him a minute ago, he was indeed no coward. He pulled with all his might and main. Irene did likewise, and in a few minutes' time they were out of the dangerous current, in smooth water. But it was a close shave, and the girl's hands trembled and for a minute she dropped her oar.

"Never mind," she said to Hughie.

"But you look as white as death, just as though you would faint. Did that last flash touch your hair? It seemed to me that it was almost hot on my cheeks."

"No, it wasn't that; and the storm is going off," said Irene. "Somehow I am ashamed of myself. I oughtn't to have been so mean."

"Please tell me."

"I have tested you, and you are brave. You are not a coward like poor Carter."

"Who is Carter?"

"A governess I once had. I took her on to the lake, and into the central current, and she was in such terror! I wanted her to go away, and I wouldn't get out of the current, however hard she implored. But I promised to save her when we got among the breakers if only she would go afterward. She promised, and I did save her, and she is all right now; and Frosty—your dear Emily, I mean—and she are the best of friends. And I am friendly with her, too. I have been much better lately—much better since dear Rosamund came—only somehow I felt that you defied me, and I wanted to test you. I have tested you, and I respect you, for you weren't really frightened that time, and you did row all right. What a strong arm you have! I wish I had an arm like that."

Hughie colored with absolute pleasure.

"You are a plucky un," he said; "but I didn't know that you really wanted to drown me."

"Of course I didn't want to drown you. I knew a storm was coming on, and that it would be very rough in the current to-day, and I wanted to test you; and you have proved worthy of the test, and we are in safe water now. The storm is dying away, too; and shall it be pax? Shall we be friends for the remainder of your stay at The Follies?"

"I think you are a splendid girl, although you are quite the queerest I ever came across," said the boy.

"And you are awfully plucky. Now, I tell you what it is. Mothery and I will do our best to make you a gentleman by and by. You won't be too proud if mother and I help Frosty—your Emily, as you call her—to make you into something better than a counter-jumper?"

"Would you indeed?" he asked, his eyes glowing, and the color coming into his cheeks. "You know, I always hated the thought of it, for my people were gentry. My mother was such a refined woman, something like sweet little Agnes, and it always cut me to the very heart to think that I was going down in the social scale."

"You sha'n't," said Irene. And now the pair, dripping wet, landed at the little landing-stage.

Hughie helped Irene to put the boat into the boat-house, and then they stood there together until the storm died away, and the rain had ceased, and the birds were singing once more. Then they silently shook hands each with the other, without uttering a word.

CHAPTER XXII. NOT A COUNTER-JUMPER.

The holidays came to an end on the whole satisfactorily. Irene was by no means perfect; even Agnes showed signs of being spoiled owing to the new régime. Hughie expressed a strong desire to be back at school. Miss Frost never ceased to watch the two, and the struggle within her breast did not die out. Lady Jane alone was thankful for the marked improvement in her child. Not that she saw very much of Irene, for Irene and Agnes were together almost all day long; Agnes the petted darling of the elder girl, Irene yielding to her every whim, delighting in the daring spirit which slowly but surely began to awaken in the little one. Nevertheless, the servants were unmolested, Miss Frost had a peaceful time, Lady Jane began to breathe freely, and even Hughie turned to other occupations and more or less forgot Irene and his little sister. He had never told any one of that awful time which he had spent with Irene in the boat. That secret he kept confined within his own breast; but he never could forget it; the moment when his young manhood seemed to forsake him, when the spirit of cowardice arose before him, and he felt certain that he should die; the longing which arose to his lips to implore Irene at any cost to save him; the way he kept back the words. Then her test and his acceptance of it, the victory he had really won over her, the knowledge that in the future she would treat him with respect.

Irene, with all her faults, was true to her word, and one day just when the long summer holidays were coming to an end, and when every one was talking and thinking again of school life and school affairs, and its joys and sorrows, Irene went and sat down on a low stool by her mother's side.

"You are sending me next week to the Merrimans'," she said. "I don't at all know whether I shall be able to endure it. You think me greatly improved, but I don't know that I am improved. Be that as it may, however, I want to ask you a great favor, mothery."

"What is that, my darling?" asked Lady Jane.

"You, of course, mean to go away. Rosamund said that you would. She said you would take a rest, and forget all the worries that your naughty, naughty child has given you all these years. You will do that, won't you, mothery darling?"

"Yes, I will go away," said Lady Jane. "I have arranged it. But what is your request, Irene?"

"Well, it has something to do with Hughie. You know about Miss Frost?"

"I know she is an excellent creature."

"She is; and you know how fond I am of little Agnes."

"No wonder. She is a sweet little soul," said Lady Jane; "although, sometimes, Irene"——

"Please don't!" said Irene, putting her hand to her mother's lips. "I have made a resolution. Agnes is to be my child in the future. She is to live with me always and always, mother. I couldn't do without her. She is my doll, my baby, my plaything—the creature that keeps me human. With Rosamund on one side and Agnes on the other, I can be good, mothery. But if you were to take either or both of them away, I should be worse than ever. Miss Frost must give Agnes up to me."

"I don't think she will be able to stand that. I don't see how you can expect it."

"Well, I do expect it, and I don't mean to discuss the point now. Agnes comes with me, does she not, to Mrs. Merriman's school?"

"She does. Rosamund's mother is paying for her during this term."

"And Miss Frost goes, too?"

"Yes, dear, certainly."

"Well, now, there is Hughie. Miss Frost says that she cannot give him the education sufficient to make a gentleman of him. But, mother, he is a nice boy—he is, really."

"He is quite a plain boy," said Lady Jane—"very different from his little sister—a little rough, I call him."

"But he is quite nice, all the same. Anyhow, mother, I wish it—I want him to be made a gentleman. I want him to be sufficiently educated, and I want us to help Miss Frost. We needn't take all the burden off her shoulders, for I know you pay her very well indeed; but I want him to be left at school until he is old enough to take up some profession. I don't know what he would like. I'll run and ask him now; may I?"

"But, first of all, let me consider. Why should I have this on me? I have—although you never seem to remember it, you naughty little Irene—a great many expenses."

"Yes, but you are rich, and I am your only child. I want Hughie, just because he is Agnes's brother, to be