Mysie had left off courting her cousin, finding that it only brought her rebuffs, and went her own way as before, pleased and honoured when Gillian would consort with her, but generally paring with her younger sister.
Dolores, though hitherto ungracious, missed her attentions, and decided that they were 'all falseness.' Wilfred absolutely did tease and annoy her whenever he could, Fergus imitated him, and Valetta enjoyed and abetted him. These three had all been against her ever since the affair of the arrow; but Wilfred had not many opportunities of tormenting her, for in the house there was a perpetual quiet supervision and influence. Mrs. Halfpenny was sure to detect traps in the passage, or bounces at the door. Miss Vincent looked daggers if other people's lesson books were interfered with. Mamma had eyes all round, and nobody dared to tease or play tricks in her presence. Hal, Gillian, and even Mysie always thwarted such amiable acts as putting a dead wasp into a shoe, or snapping a book in the reader's face; while, as to venturing into the general family active games, Dolores would have felt it like rushing into a corobboree of savages!
There was one wet afternoon when they could not even get as far as to the loft over the stables; at least the little ones could not have done so, and it was decided that it would be very cruel to them for all the others to run off, and leave them to Mrs. Halfpenny; so the plan was given up.
Partly because Lady Merrifield thought it very amiable in Mysie and Valetta to make the sacrifice, and partly to disperse the thundercloud she saw gathering on Wilfred's brow, she not only consented to a magnificent and extraordinary game at wolves and bears all over the house, but even devoted herself to keeping Mrs. Halfpenny quiet by shutting herself into the nursery to look over all the wardrobes, and decide what was to 'go down' in the family, and what was to be given away, and what must be absolutely renewed. It was an operation that Mrs. Halfpenny enjoyed so much, that it warranted her to be deaf to shrieks and trampling, and almost to forget the chances of gathers and kilting being torn out, and trap-doors appearing in skirts and pinafores.
All that time Dolores sat hunched up in her own room, reading 'Clare, or No Home,' and realizing the persecutions suffered by that afflicted child, who had just been nearly drowned in rescuing her wickedest cousin, and was being carried into her noble grandfather's house, there to be recognized by her golden hair being exactly the colour it was when she was a baby.
There were horrible growlings at times outside her door, and she bolted it by way of precaution. Once there was a bounce against it, but Gillian's voice might be heard in the distance calling off the wolves.
Then came a lull. The wolves and bears had rushed up and down stairs till they were quite exhausted and out of breath, especially as Primrose had always been a cub, and gone in the arms of Hal or Gillian; Fergus at last had rolled down three steps, and been caught by Wilfred, who, in his character of bear, hugged and mauled him till his screams grew violent. Harry had come to the rescue, and it was decided that there had been enough of this, and that there should be a grand exhibition of tableaux from the history of England in the dining-room, which of course mamma was to guess, with the assistance of any one who was not required to act.
Mama, ever obliging, hastily condemned two or three sunburnt hats and ancient pairs of shoes, to be added to the bundle for Miss Hacket's distribution, and let herself be hauled off to act audience.
'But where's Dolly?' she asked, as she looked at the assemblage on the stairs.
'Bolted into her room, like a donkey,' said Wilfred, the last clause under his breath.
'Indeed, mamma, we did ask her, and gave her the choice between wolves and bears,' said Mysie.
'Unfortunately she is bear without choosing,' said Gill.
'A sucking of her paws in a hollow tree,' chimed in Hal.
'Hush! hush!' said Lady Merrifield, looking pained; 'perhaps the choice seemed very terrible to a poor only child like that. We, who had the luck to be one of many, don't know what wild cats you may all seem to her.'
'She never will play at anything,' said Val.
'She doesn't know how to,' said Mysie.
'And won't be taught,' added Wilfred.
'But that's very dreadful,' exclaimed Lady Merrifield. 'Fancy a poor child of thirteen not knowing how to play. I shall go and dig her out!'
So there came a gentle tap at the closed door, to which Dolores answered-
'Can't you let me alone? Go away,' thinking it a treacherous ruse of the enemy to effect an entrance; but when her aunt said-
'Is there anything the matter, my dear? Won't you let me in?' she was obliged to open it.
'No, there's nothing the matter,' she allowed. 'Only I wanted them to let me alone.'
'They have not been rude to you, I hope.'
Dolores was too much afraid of Wilfred to mention the bouncing, so she allowed that no one had been rude to her, but she hated romping, which she managed to say in the tone of a rebuke to her aunt for suffering it.
However, Aunt Lily only smiled and said-
'Ah! you have not been used to wholesome exercise in large families. I dare say it seems formidable; but, my dear, you are looking quite pale. I can't allow you to stay stuffed up there, poking over a book all the afternoon. It is very bad for you. We are going to have some historical tableaux. They are to have one set, and I thought perhaps you and I would get up some for them to guess in turn.'
Dolores was not in a mood to be pleased, but she did not quite dare to say she did not choose to make herself ridiculous, and she knew there was authority in the tone, so she followed and endured.
So they beheld Alfred watching the cakes before the bright grate in the dining-room, and having his ears beautifully boxed. Also Knut and the waves, which were graphically represented by letting the wind in under the drugget, and pulling it up gradually over his feet, but these, Mysie explained, were only for the little ones. Rollo and his substitute doing homage to Charles the Simple, were much more effective; as Gillian in that old military cloak of her father's, which had seen as much service in the play-room as in the field, stood and scowled at Wilfred in the crown and mamma's ermine mantle, being overthrown by Harry at his full height.
The excitement was immense when it was announced that mamma had a tableau to represent with the help of Dolores, who was really warming a little to the interest of the thing, and did not at all dislike being dressed up with one of the boy's caps with three ostrich feathers, to accompany her aunt in hood and cloak, and be challenged by Hal, who had, together with the bow and papa's old regimental sword, been borrowed to personate the robber of Hexham. Everybody screamed with ecstasy except Fergus, who thought it very hard that he should not have been Prince Edward instead of a stupid girl.
So, to content all parties, mama undertook to bring in as many as possible, and a series from the life of Elizabeth Woodville was accordingly arranged.
She stood under the oak, represented by the hall chandelier, with Fergus and Primrose as her infant sons, and fascinated King Edward on the rocking-horse, which was much too vivant, for it reared as perpendicularly as it could, and then nearly descended on its nose, to mark the rider's feelings.