Big Game - A Story for Girls

Relationships were somewhat strained in the Vane household during the

next few weeks, the two elder members being banded together in an

unusual partnership to bring about the confusion of the younger.

"I can't understand what you are making such a fuss about. You'll have

to give in, in the end. You a poet, indeed! What next? If you would

come down to breakfast in time, and give over burning the gas till one

o'clock in the morning, it would be more to the point than writing silly

verses. I'd be ashamed to waste my time scribbling nonsense all day

long!" So cried Agnes, in Martha-like irritation, and Ronald turned his

eyes upon her with that deep, dreamy gaze which only added fuel to the

flame.

He was not angry with Agnes, who, as she herself truly said, "did not

understand." Out of the storm of her anger an inspiration had fluttered

towards him, like a crystal out of the surf. "The Worker and the

Dreamer"--he would make a poem out of that idea! Already the wonderful

inner vision pictured the scene--the poet sitting idle on the hillside,

the man of toil labouring in the heat and glare of the fields, casting

glances of scorn and impatience at the inert form. The lines began to

take shape in his brain.

"...And the worker worked from the misty dawn,

Till the east was golden and red;

But the dreamer's dream which he thought to scorn,

Lived on when they both were dead..."

"I asked him three times over if he would have another cup of coffee,

and he stared at me as if he were daft! I believe he is half daft at

times, and he will grow worse and worse, if Margot encourages him like

this!" Agnes announced to her father, on his weary return from City.

It was one of Agnes's exemplary habits to refuse all invitations which

could prevent her being at home to welcome her father every afternoon,

and assist him to tea and scones, accompanied by a minute resume of

the bad news of the day. What the housemaid had broken; what the cat

had spilt; the parlourmaid's impertinences; the dressmaker's

delinquencies; Ronald's vapourings; the new and unabashed transgressions

of Margot--each in its turn was dropped into the tired man's cup with

the lumps of sugar, and stirred round with the cream. There was no

escaping the ordeal. On the hottest day of summer there was the boiling

tea, with the hot muffins, and the rich, indigestible cake, exactly as

they had appeared amidst the ice and snows of January; and the

accompanied recital hardly varied more. It was a positive relief to

hear that the chimney had smoked, or the parrot had had a fit.

Once a year Agnes departed on a holiday, handing over the keys to

Margot, who meekly promised to follow in her footsteps; and then,

heigho! for a fortnight of Bohemia, with every arrangement upside down,

and appearing vastly improved by the change of position. Instead of tea

in the drawing-room, two easy-chairs on the balcony overlooking the

Park; cool iced drinks sipped through straws, and luscious dishes of

fruit. Instead of Agnes, stiff and starched and tailor-made, a radiant

vision in muslin and laces, with a ruffled golden head, and distracting

little feet peeping out from beneath the frills.