John Sheldon’s Ward

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 955, 27 December 1933, Page 12

John Sheldon’s Ward

By

DOROTHEA CORBOULD.

CHAPTER 11. (Continued.) Elizabeth spoke quite calmlv, but her voice sounded sarcastic and disagreeable, her eyes were gloomy. John Sheldon with his fiancee’s beautiful face in his mind, told himself his ward was more than plain, she was positively ugly. “Well, it was a surprise, certainly,” he replied with a short laugh. “I have been routing out names and addresses of several boarding schools to send you to.” This time Miss Hyde laughed, too, and he noticed that she had rather a pleasant smile and good teeth. “Very kind of you, I’m sure,” she (rtiid, “but, you see, my education was finished last year. I have been studying music and languages since, it is true, but only as a parlour boarder at the convent where 1 went to school. Father didn’t care to have me at home. I don’t know what would have happened if be hadn't died. We never hit it off. he and I, and between him and his terrible old housekeeper I should have had a rotten time at home.” There was a pause. Elizabeth had spoken of her father as she would of any chance acquaintance whom she disliked, and without any idea that her speech placed her in a more unfavourable light than ever in the eyes of her newlyappointed guardian. “I fear you will have an equally rotten time here,” was Sheldon's next remark. “Slirimpton is one of the oldfashioned country towns where the greatest excitement is the yearly fair and cattle show. The county families are few and far between, and the young people belonging mostly to the professional element amongst us do not rise beyond croquet and tennis. You play, of course ?” “No. I hate games. The girls at the convent used to play tennis and lacrosse and croquet, but I never joined them. I didn’t care for the girls.” “Well, we have a tennis club at Garston, the other side of Slirimpton. If you change your mind I can get you in there. I am on the committee.” “Thanks. I’ll look around a bit first.” “I hope you’ll make yourself at home here and be happy with us, my aunt and myself,” John Sheldon said, after another pause. “We are homely people and lead very quiet lives.” “Oh, that will be all right, only I don't fancy Miss Sheldon quite takes to me. Of course, I know I am not attractive, or good-looking, or what is called •taking.’ I’ve been told it often enough, but I think if I had anyone to care for me and tell me of my faults I should try to make myself more agreeable. You’re too young, of course,” giving him one of her frank scrutinising glances, “but if your aunt gets to like me she won’t find me as difficult as she imagines.” To this candid avowal Sheldon could find no answer, and the conversation flagged. Then, to his great relief, Miss Hyde announced her intention of going to finish her unpacking, and left him to fill and light his pipe and stroll into the garden to think out this new aspect of affairs. Foremost in his mind was the problem as to what Myra would say when she discovered that the unwelcome disturber of the peace at “Adencroft” had turned out to be a girl of eighteen, and a very self-possessed and matter-of-fact young person into the bargain. How would they get on together when they met? Instinct answered—not at all! “John,” f?aid Miss Sheldon to her nephew as they waited for his ward to come down to dinner, “I don’t believe we shall ever be able to put up with that girl. Would you believe it? When" I went to her room to ask her if I could do anything for her she came to the door smoking a cigarette! Of course, I made no remark, except by the look I gave her, but you will really have to begin to assert your authority by forbidding her to smoke here.” John’s reply was cut short by the entrance of the culprit herself, looking plainer than ever in a frock whose shade of blue was' about the most unbecoming to her sallow complexion she could have chosen. “Hope I’m not late,” she said, scanning the two stern faces before her. “I’m a terribly unpunctual person, and you’ll have to take me as you find me, but I’m sorry.” “We will go in at once, or the fish will be spoilt,” was all the answer Miss Sheldon made in her quiet, monotonous voice. John made none; he was thinking : of his ward’s calm acceptance of the fact that he was too young to tell her of her faults. CHAPTER 111. Dinner that evening was by no means a sociable meal. As a rule John Sheldon and his aunt discussed the doings of the day while the maid was waiting at table, and then over their coffee and John’s cigarette lie told her how business had gone and how it affected the financial outlook. To-night no confidences could, of course, be exchanged. Elizabeth, who resented her tardy appearance having evidently given offence, was moody and taciturn, scarcely replying to her guardian’s efforts to draw her into conversation, and then only in monosyllables. At length, the meal at an end and the coffee tray placed before Miss Sheldon, John took out his cigarette case, selected a cigarette and lighted it. This was apparently the signal for his ward to do likewise, and she promptly obeyed it, taking a gold case from her bag on the table beside her. “A match, please,” she said, holding out her hand towards her guardian. “Look here, Miss Hyde—no, I shall call you Elizabeth, of course.” John’s voice was stern to anger; he meant to assert himself once and for all. “I must strictly forbid your smoking. It is not a nice thing for a young girl, and, in short, l object to it.” “Do you indeed, John? Of course, if you call me Elizabeth I shall call you John; and suppose I object to being forbidden to smoke? Everybody does it nowadays. When I stayed that day and a night at the hotel in London with the Van Houltzs. every women there was smoking and having cocktails. I didn’t do that, hut Mrs. Van Houltz and Eugenie did.” “That’s no argument to me,” was the reply. “I am old-fashioned, and to see a woman smoking disgusts me.” “I’m afraid you are rather a prig, John,” Miss Hy'de said calmly. “It’s your bringing-up, no doubt, and living in the country. You should go to London sometimes. I should love London, I know, if I lived there.” “You will excuse me. Miss Hyde, but do you think that is the wav to speak to your guardian?” Miss Sheldon said in her most martyr-like tones. “I hope you are not going to set his authority at

defiance. Remember he has absolute control over you till you are 21. It is scarcely wise to begin by rebelling against him.” “And may I aok if you call it rebelling against him to object to being made to give up one of the only pleasures 1 have, just because he thinks differently to other people? Don't any of the girls about here smoke?” suddenly turning to John. “Certainly not. They would be horrified at the idea.” “Great Caesar! What a place to live in! Well, of course, I don’t want to make myself disagreeable first go off, so—” .She put the cigarette back into her ca&e and shut the latter with a loud snap. Then her manner suddenly changed. The grey eyes lost their gloomy expression and gazed with wistful friendliness at the two people who, she knew, were sitting in unfriendly judgment upon her. “Look here,” she began, and now her eyes were fixed upon the spoon she was carefully tilting on her coffee cup, “1 badly want you two to like me and be kind to me. 1 know I’ve a beastly temper and am awfully difficult to manage sometimes, but you must try to realise how it feels to have had nobody to care for you all your life. My father hated me because my mother died soon after 1 was born. He was devoted to her, and was always telling me how beautiful she was and how strange he thought it that she should have had such an ugly daughter. As a child he never took any notice of me at all, and when I was old enough to go to school packed me off to St. Anne’s Convent at Montreal, where I remained till I was nearly 17. Then I went to Millport. Home, did I say? It was never that to me. My father and I quarrelled from morning till night, and his old housekeeper, of course, took his part against me. I was everything that was bad in his eyes, and I certainly did appear at my very worst when with him. At last, when I could stand it no longer, I told father that if lie didn't let me go away again I would leave Millport on my own account, so he sent me back to the convent as a boarder, and I studied music and languages in the hope that I should be able to earn my own living as a teacher. Then niv father died —and you know the rest. T was only too thankful to be sent here, to England, to make my home far away from the hated memories of my unhappy childhood; but if you cannot like me, or at any rate try to put up with me, I roallv don’t know what is to become of me. I am sure you will allow that there is some excuse for me, however, in the fact that nobody has ever cared for me sufficiently to understand me; that I have become so accustomed to being sneered at for my unattractive appearance and taunted with being so morose and ill-tempered that no one can do anything with me. that I have actually prided myself on being an object of dislike and, in some cases, fear. T have never had any friends whose friendship I cared for, or who cared for mine; but now everything is different. If this is to be my home I want to be happy in it. if there is such a thing as happiness for me; and I can’t be if you, John, and Miss Sheldon, make up your minds to follow the general rule and dislike me.” Though Dame Nature had not endowed Elizabeth Hyde with beauty of form or feature, she had at least endeavoured to make up for it by bestowing upon her certain attributes which, if the girl learned to use them properly, would far to make up for the want of mere good looks; and one was a singularly attractive voice, low-pitched, and with a slight huskinese in its tone which made it fascinating to listen to. Both John Sheldon and his aunt found it so, and the girl’s frank avowal of her own shortcomings and her desire to stand well in their regard, touched them both. Miss Sheldon’s monotonous, martvr-like tones broke the short silence at the close of Elizabeth’s speech. “I am sure, my dear,” she said, “that both my nephew and I have no desire to be anything but kind and friendly; but we have led very quiet lives here, just the two of us. and perhaps we do not quite realise that things may be different in the world beyond Slirimpton. Therefore we must rm>:e allowances for each other, and I am sure I speak for John as well as myself when I say that we shall do our best to make you happy with us if you, on your part, will respect what you may perhaps consider absurd prejudices on ours.” “Well, I’ll promise not to smoke, for one thing, if it annoys you,” Elizabeth said rather regretfully. “I got into the habit of it at Millport. I think I began it to annoy father, and then I found it so soothing to my temper that I kept on with it, but I daresay I shall soon break myself of it.” “I’ll get you some of our Shrimpton rock, and you can eat that instead,” John said, laughing. “I know a fellow who has given up smoking and eats sweets all day long.” “You're a smoker yourself, though.” “Yes, I prefer a pipe, however, to cigarettes as a bad temper antidote, but I don’t smoke one indoors out of respect to Aunt Lucy’s feelings, who hates the sight of my beloved old briar.” “My dear John! 1 never said—” “No, not in so many words, perhaps, for fear of hurting my feelings. Shall we go into the garden? Elizabeth hasn’t seen my wonderful arbour —all my very own work.” And as they strolled about the pretty garden, so beautifully kept, with its soft velvety lawns and bods of gay flowers, the pergola covered with Dorothy Perkins and crimson ramblers, and at last seated themselves in John’s arbour, covered with roses and containing comfortable wicker chairs and a table, where presently Miss Sheldon left them to go and see if the henhouse down in the paddock was safely locked up for the night, Elizabeth realised that though her guardian had not ratified his aunt’s little speech in words, he was trying to intimate his intention to be friendly and to make her sojourn at “Adencroft” as pleasant as circumstances permitted, the said circumstances being the absence of genial companionship with young people of her own age and the pleasures which youth usually craves for. She told him again of her early clays, her studies and her ambition to make a career for herself, and John listened and sympathised, and told her in his turn of her father’s letter to his father ami of his own consent to undertake the care of her during her minority, because.he knew that his father would never have allowed his old friend’s daughter to be alone in the world if it rested with, liiw to prevent it.

(To be continued daily.)