The Family at Misrule
by Ethel Turner · English · Gutenberg #48304 · 318,873 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Family at Misrule
Author: Ethel Turner
Illustrator: A. J. Johnson
Release date: February 18, 2015 [eBook #48304]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48304
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAMILY AT MISRULE ***
Produced by Al Haines.
*THE FAMILY AT MISRULE.*
BY
ETHEL TURNER,
AUTHOR OF
"SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS," "THE STORY OF A BABY," ETC
"Ah that spring should vanish with the Rose!
That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!"
THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM.
"To youth the greatest reverence is due."
JUVENAL.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. J. JOHNSON._
LONDON:
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,
WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.
TO
CHARLES COPE,
MY STEPFATHER AND FRIEND
E. S. T.,
LINDFIELD, SYDNEY.
*CONTENTS.*
CHAP.
I. PICKING UP THREADS
II. SCHOOL TROUBLES
III. A PASSAGE-AT-ARMS
IV. A SUMMER'S DAY
V. BETWEEN A DREAM AND A DREAM
VI. TO-MORROW
VII. A LITTLE MAID-ERRANT
VIII. ONE PARTICULAR EVENING
IX. THAT MISCHIEVOUS CUPID
X. NEEDLES AND PINS
XI. A DAY IN SYDNEY
XII. THREE COURSES ONE SHILLING
XIII. PARNASSUS AND PUDDINGS
XIV. MUSHROOMS
XV. THE GOVERNMENT OF MEG
XVI. MORE MUTINY
XVII. A DINNER PARTY
XVIII. "HOW GOOD YOU OUGHT TO BE!"
XIX. HEADACHE AND HEARTACHE
XX. MY LITTLE ONE DAUGHTER
XXI. THE SEVENTH DAY
XXII. AMARANTH OR ASPHODEL
XXIII. LITTLE FAITHFUL MEG
XXIV. "IN THE MIDNIGHT, IN THE SILENCE OF THE SLEEP-TIME"
XXV. HERE ENDETH
[Illustration: Contents tailpiece]
*THE FAMILY AT MISRULE.*
*CHAPTER I.*
*PICKING UP THREADS.*
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot?"
There was discord at Misrule.
Nell, in some mysterious way, had let down a muslin frock of last season
till it reached her ankles.
And Meg was doing her best to put her foot down upon it.
In a metaphorical sense, of course. Meg Woolcot at twenty-one was far
too lady-like to resort to a personal struggle with her young sister.
But her eyes were distressed.
"You can't say I don't look nice," Nell said. "Why, even Martha said,
'La, Miss Nell!' and held her head on one side with a pleased look for
two minutes."
"But you're such a child, Nellie," objected Meg. "you look like playing
at being grown up."
"Fifteen's very old, _I_ think," said Miss Nell, walking up and down
just for the simple pleasure of hearing the frou-frou of muslin frills
near her shoes.
"Ah well, I do think I look nice with my hair done up, and you can't
have it up with short frocks."
"Then the moral is easy of deduction," said Meg drily.
"Oh, bother morals!" was Nell's easy answer.
She tripped down the verandah steps with a glance or two over her
shoulder at the set of the back of her dress, and she crossed the lawn
to the crazy-looking summer-house.
"Oh dear!" sighed Meg.
She leaned her face on her hands, and stared sadly after the crisp,
retreating frills and the shimmer of golden hair "done up." This was
one of the days when Meg's desires to be a model eldest sister were in
the ascendency, hence the very feminine exclamation.
She had not altered very much in all these live long years--a little
taller perhaps, a little more womanly, but the eyes still had their
child-like, straightforward look, and the powdering of freckles was
there yet, albeit fainter in colouring.
She still made resolutions--and broke them. She still wrote verses--and
burnt them. To-day she was darning socks, Pip's and Bunty's. That was
because she had just made a fresh resolve to do her duty in her state of
life.
At other times she left them all to the fag end of the week, and great
was the cobbling thereof to satisfy the demands of "Clean socks, Meg,
and look sharp."
Besides darning, Meg had promised to take care of the children for the
afternoon, as Esther had gone out.
Who were the children? you will ask, thinking five years has taken that
title away from several of our young Australians.
The General is six now, and answers to the name of Peter on the
occasions that Pip does not call him Jumbo, and Bunty, Billy. Nell, who
is inclining to elegant manners, ventures occasionally in company to
address him as Rupert; but he generally winks or says "Beg pardon?" in a
vacant kind of way.
Baby also has become "Poppet," and handed down her name of long standing
to a rightful claimant who disjointed the General's nose nearly three
years ago and made our number up to seven again.
Just a wee, chubby morsel of a girl it is, with sunshiny eyes and
sunshiny hair and a ceaseless supply of sunshiny smiles.
Even her tears are sunshiny; they are so short-lived that the smiles
shine through and make them things of beauty.
The boys generally call her "The Scrap," though she is as big as most
three-year-olds. She was christened Esther.
And Poppet is still a child,--to be nine is scarcely to have reached
years of discretion.
She has lost her chubbiness, and developed abnormally long, thin legs
and arms, a surprising capacity for mischief, and the tenderest little
heart in the world.
So Meg's hands were fairly well filled for the afternoon, to keep these
three young ones in check, darn the socks, and superintend kitchen
arrangements, which meant Martha Tomlinson and the cook.
She had not bargained for the tussle with Nell too.
That young person was at a difficult age just now: too old--in her own
eyes, at any rate--to romp with Bunty and Poppet; too young to take a
place beside Meg and pay visits with Esther,--she hung between, and had
just compromised matters by letting down her frocks, as years ago Meg
had done in the privacy of her bedroom.
Her early promise of good looks was more than fulfilled, and in this
long, pale blue muslin, and "picture" hat, cornflower-trimmed, she
looked a fresh enough young beauty to be queen of a season. The golden
hair had deepened, and was twisted up in the careful, careless way
fashion dictated. The complexion was wonderfully pure and bright for
Australia, and the eyes were just as dewy and soft and sweetly lashed as
ever.
But not yet sixteen! Was ever such an impossible age for grown-up
rights? Just because she was tall and gracefully built was no reason
why she should consider herself fit to be "out," Meg
contended--especially, she added, with a touch of sisterly sarcasm, as
she had a weakness for spelling "believe" and "receive" in unorthodox
ways, and was still floundering wretchedly through her first French
author--_Le Chien du Capitaine_.
Poppet's legs dashed across the gravel path under the window; Peter's
copper-toed boots in hot pursuit shone for a second and vanished.
"Where's Baby, I wonder?" Meg said to herself.
The child had been playing with a chair a little time back, dragging it
up and down the verandah and bumping it about noisily; now all was
silent. She went to the foot of the stairs, one of Bunty's socks more
"holey" than righteous drawn over her hand.
"What you doing, Essie?" she called.
"Nosing, Mig," said a little sweet voice from a bedroom,--"nosing at
all."
"Now, Essie!"--Meg's voice took a stern note,-- "tell me what you are
doing!"
"Nosing," said the little voice; "I'se velly dood."
[Illustration: "'I'SE VELLY DOOD.'"]
"Quite sure, Essie?"
"Twite; I isn't dettin' wet a bit, Miggie."
Up the stairs Meg ran at a swift pace; that last speech was eminently
Baby's, and betokened many things.
"Oh, you wicked child!" she cried, and drove an unsummoned smile away
from her mouth corners.
The big water-jug was on the floor near the washstand, and small Essie
with slow and deep enjoyment was standing with one wee leg in the jug
and the other on the oilcloth. The state of the lace sock and little
red shoe visible betrayed the fact that the operation had been reversed
more than once.
This was an odd little characteristic of Essie's, and no amount of
scolding and even shaking could break her of it. Innumerable times she
had been found at this work of iniquity, dipping one leg after the other
in any water-jugs she found on the floor. And did Martha, in washing
floors, leave her bucket of dirty water one moment unguarded, Essie
would creep up and pop in one little leg while she stood her ground with
the other.
Meg dried her, scolding hard all the time. "All your shoes are spoiled,
Baby, you naughty girl; what _am_ I to do to you?"
"Velly solly," said Baby cheerfully.
She squeezed a tear out of her smiling eyes when Meg bade her look at
the ruin of her pretty red shoes.
"And you told me a story, Essie; you said you were good, and were not
getting wet."
Meg held the little offender away from her, and looked upon her with
stern reproach.
"But on'y my legs was dettin' wet--not me," explained Essie, with a sob
in her voice and a dimple at the corner of her mouth.
There was nothing of course to be done but put the water-jug into its
basin, and carry the small sinner downstairs in dry socks and
ankle-strap slippers that showed signs of having been wet through at
some time or other.
Bunty was lying on his back on the dining-room couch, which Meg had left
strewn with footwear waiting to be paired and rolled up.
"Oh, John!" she said vexedly, seeing her work scattered about the floor.
"John" took no notice. I should tell you, perhaps, that, since starting
to school, Bunty's baptismal name had been called into requisition by
authorities who objected to nicknames, and his family fell into the way
of using it occasionally too.
He was a big, awkward lad, tall for his thirteen years, and very loosely
built. Nell used to say complainingly that he always looked as if he
needed tightening up. His clothes never fitted him, or seemed part of
him, like other boys' clothes. His coats generally looked big and
baggy, while his trousers had a way of creeping up his ankles and
showing a piece of loose sock.
In the matter of collars he was hopeless. He had a daily allowance of
one clean one, but, even if you met him quite early in the morning,
there would be nothing but a limp, crooked piece of linen of doubtful
hue visible. He had the face of a boy at war with the world. His eyes
were sullen, brooding--his mouth obstinate. Every one knew he was the
black sheep. He knew it himself, and resented it in silence.
Poppet understood him a little--no one else. He was at perpetual enmity
with his father, who had no patience with him at all. Esther excused
him by saying he was at the hobbledehoy stage, and would grow up all
right; but she was always too busy to help him to grow. Meg's hands
were full with Pip; and Nell, after a try or two to win his confidence,
had pronounced him a larrikin, undeserving of sisters at all.
So Poppet undertook him. She was a faithful little soul, and in some
strange way just fitted into him, despite his awkward angles.
Sometimes he would tell her things, and go to a great deal of trouble to
do something she particularly wanted; but then again he would bully her
unmercifully, and make her life not worth living.
"Why don't you play cricket, or do something, John?" Meg said, snipping
off an end of cotton very energetically. "I hate to see a great boy
like you sprawling on a sofa doing nothing."
"Do you?" said John.
"What made you so late home from school? It's nearly teatime. I hope
it wasn't detention again."
"It was," said John.
"Oh, Bunty, that means Saturday taken again, doesn't it?"
"It does." John rolled over, and lay on his other side, his eyes shut.
"Bunty, why _don't_ you try?" Meg said; "you are always in scrapes for
something. Pip never got in half so many, and yet _he_ wasn't a model
boy. Will you promise me to try next week?"
There was a grunt from the sofa cushion that might be interpreted at
will as negative or affirmative.
Nell came into the room, her hat swung over her arm.
"Get up, John," she said; "what a horrid boy you are! Look at your
great muddy boots on the sofa! Meg, I don't know how you could sit
there and see him. Why, if we sat down, we'd get our dresses all
spoiled."
"Good job too," said John, not moving a hand.
Nellie regarded him with frankest disgust. "What a collar!" she said, a
world of emphasis on the "what." "I declare the street newsboys and
match-sellers look more gentlemanly than you do."
The tea-bell rang upstairs; John sat up instantly.
"I hope you saved me more pudding to-day, Meg," he said. "I never saw
such a stingy bit as you kept yesterday."
Nell's scarlet lips formed themselves into something very like "pig" as
she turned on her heel to leave the room. Then she said "Clumsy
wretch!" with startling suddenness. John had set his "great muddy boot"
down on one of her pretty flounces, and a sound of sundering stitches
smote the air.
"Beg pardon," said John, with a fiendish light of triumph in his eyes.
Then he went upstairs two steps at a time to discuss his warmed-up
dinner while the others had tea.
*CHAPTER II.*
*SCHOOL TROUBLES.*
"A heart at leisure from itself
To soothe and sympathise."
Poppet and Peter were discussing many things in general, and the mystery
of life in particular. They were sitting crouched up together in an old
tank that had been cast out in the first paddock because it leaked. It
was after tea, and Poppet had a little dead chicken in her hand that she
had picked up in the garden.
"Ith got wheelth inthide it, and when they thop ith deaded," Peter was
saying,--"thust like my thteam engine, thath what tith."
"I think being alive is very funny," Poppet said, looking earnestly at
the little lifeless body. "All those chickies was eggs, and then
sud'nly they begin running about and enjoying themselves, and _then_
sud'nly they tumble down dead, and even the doctor can't make them run
again."
"Yeth," said Peter, his eyes very thoughtful as he tried to grasp great
things. "Prapth you might tumble down like that, Poppet; all _your_
wheelth might thtop."
"Or yours," urged Poppet. Death was in her hand. She did not like to
feel that ever her active little body could lie like this fluffy, silent
one, and so made the likelihood more general.
"Yeth," said Peter; "and _oneth_, Poppet, I nearly _wath_ deaded, and
Judy thaved me."
"_You_ don't remember," Poppet said, in a voice of great scorn. "You
was only a little, tiny baby, just beginning to walk, Peter. But I was
there, and remember _everything_."
"You wath athleep, Poppet," Peter objected,--Poppet's air of superiority
irritated him. "Meg told me about it when I had the meathleth, and the
thaid that you wath athleep, tho there!"
"At any rate, Peter, I think you are old enough to stop lisping," Poppet
said severely, finding herself worsted. "You are six now, and only
babies of ten months lisp. _I_ never lisped at all."
Peter went red in the face.
"I don't lithp; you're a thtory-teller, Poppet Woolcot!" he said,
drawing in his tongue with a great effort at straight pronunciation.
Poppet jeered unkindly, then she caught sight of Bunty strolling
aimlessly about the garden, and she squeezed herself out of the tank and
stood upright.
"Don't go," said Peter. "Leth play Zoo, Poppet, and you can be the lion
thith time, and I'll feed you!"
But not even this inducement had any effect.
"I want to talk to Bunty," the little girl said, looking across with a
half-troubled light in her eyes to where Bunty's old cap was visible.
"I can play with you when he's at school. You can go and have a game
with Baby."
She went away, leaving him disconsolate, and crushed herself through a
broken paling into the garden.
She would like to have gone up to Bunty and slipped her arm through his
and asked him what had made him so exceptionally glum and silent these
last few days.
But she knew him better than that. She was very wise for her nine
years.
She fell to weeding her garden with great industry while he was walking
on the path near it. Then when he rambled farther away, she hovered
about here and there, now plucking a flower, now giving chase to a great
praying mantis. She was within a few feet of him all the time.
"What _are_ you buzznaccing about like this for?" he said at last
irritably, when her short holland frock appeared at every path he turned
down. He threw himself down on the grass, and pulled his cap over his
eyes.
"Flibberty-Gibbet had a tic in his head this morning," said the little
girl, sitting down beside him Turk fashion.
"Well, _I_ don't care," Bunty said, with almost a groan.
A look of anger crept up into the little sister's, earnest eyes.
"I 'spect it's that old Burnham again," she said wrathfully. "What's he
been doing _this_ time?"
Bunty groaned again.
"Was it your Greek?" she said, edging nearer. "Howid stuff! As if you
could be espected to get it right _always_!"
There was another smothered sound from beneath the cap.
"Was it that nasty algebra?" said the little, encouraging voice. It was
so tender and anxious and loving that the boy uncovered his eyes a
little.
"I'm in the _beastliest_ row, Poppet," he said.
Poppet's little, fair face was ashine with sympathy.
"I'd like to _hammer_ that Mr. Burnham," she said. "How did it happen,
Bunty?"
Bunty sat up and sighed. After all, it would be a relief to tell some
one; and who better than the faithful Poppet?
"Well, you know Bully Hawkins?" he said.
"Oh yes," said the little girl; and she did, excellently--by hearsay.
"Well, on Monday he was on the cricket pitch practising, and Tom Jackson
was bowling him--he'd made him. And when I went down--I was crossing it
to go up to Bruce--he jumped on me, and said I was to backstop. I said
I wasn't going to--why should I go after his blooming balls?--and he
said he'd punch my head if I didn't. And I said, 'Yes, you do,' and
walked on to Bruce. We were going to play marbles. And he came after
me, and hit me over the head and boxed my ears and twisted my arms."
"Bully!" said Poppet, with gleaming eyes. "What did you do, Bunty? did
you knock him down? I hope you made his nose bleed,--I'd--I'd have
_flattened_ him!"
Bunty gave her a look of scorn.
"He's sixteen, and the size of a prize-fighter!" he said. "I'd have
been half killed. No; Mr. Burnham was just a little way off, and I let
out a yell to him, and he came up and I told of him."
"Bunty!" said Poppet. The word came out like the report of a pistol,
and her red lips shut again very tightly to prevent any more following.
[Illustration: "MR. BURNHAM CAME UP AND I TOLD OF HIM."]
This touch of cowardice, this failure to grasp simple honour in Bunty's
character, was a perpetual grief and amazement to her little fearless
soul. But he would brook no advice nor reproach from her, as she knew
full well, and that is why her lips had closed with a snap after that
one word.
But he had seen the look of horror in her eyes.
"D'ye think I'm going to be pummelled just as that brute likes?" he
demanded angrily. "He's always bullying the fellows in our form, and
it'll do him good to get a taste of what he gives us. Mr. Burnham said
he hated a bully, and he just walked him up to the schoolroom and gave
him six."
Still Poppet was silent; her face was flushed a little, and she was
pulling up long pieces of grass with feverish diligence. In her quick
little way she saw it all, and felt acutely just how the boys would look
upon Bunty's behaviour.
"What an idiot you are, Poppet!" he said irritably, as she did not
speak; "as though a bit of a girl like you knows what it is at a boys'
school. I'm sorry I told you--I--I won't tell you the rest."
Poppet choked something down in her throat.
"Do tell me, Bunty," she said; "I didn't mean to be howid. Go on--I
only couldn't help wishing you could have foughted him instead of
telling, because--well, I espect he'll be worse to you than ever now,
and the other fellows too."
"That's it," Bunty said, with a groan. "Oh, but that's not half of it
yet, Poppet. I almost wish I was dead."
Something like a tear forced itself beneath his eyelids and trickled
down his cheeks. Poppet's. heart expanded and grew pitiful again
instantly His face was close to her knee, and wore so miserable an
expression that in a sudden little burst of love she put down her lips
and kissed him half-a-dozen times.
He sat up instantly and looked ashamed.
"How often am I to tell you I hate mugging?" he said gruffly. "If you
go on like this, I won't tell you."
"I beg your pardon," Poppet said very humbly; "really, I won't again,
Bunty. Do go on."
"Well, after that, I went round the side of the school--you know that
path, near the master's windows. Well, I'd nothing much to do, and the
bell hadn't gone, and I was just chucking my cricket ball up and down;
there was a tree, and I tried to make it go up in a straight line just
as high, and the next minute I heard a crash, and it had gone through
Mr. Hollington's window."
"Good gracious!" Poppet said, with widening eyes; then she gave a little
joyful jump. "I've got thirteen shillings, Bunty, from the pound Mr.
Hassal gave me; I'll give it to you to get it mended with. Oh, it won't
be such a very bad row; you can 'splain it all to Mr. Hollington."
"That's not all," Bunty said. "Thirteen shillings! You might as well
say ha'pennies. I stood there for a bit and no one came, and at last I
went in and looked about, and what do you think?--no one had heard!"
"Oh!" breathed Poppet. She scented the old trouble again.
"But you see it was such an awful crash. I knew it was more than the
window. And every one was out in the playground,--even Mr. Burnham had
just gone out again for something, and Mr. Hollington had gone home
early. So I first went quietly upstairs, and no one was about, so I
went into his room to get the ball, because my name was on it. And
there were two glass cases on top of one another under the window with
eggs and specimens and things in, and they were all smashed."
Poppet drew a long breath that ended in a whistle. She was wishing she
had not bought that set of gardening tools that cost six shillings, and
that shillingsworth of burnt almonds--perhaps a sovereign----
"It wasn't school-time," Bunty was whispering now, "and no one had
seen--not a soul, Poppet. Poppet, it was an accident; why should I go
and tell of myself? Why, I might have been expelled; and think what the
governor would say. So----"
"Yes," said Poppet steadily, "go on, Bunty."
He had paused, and was digging up the earth with his broken
pocket-knife. "So--go on."
"So, when we were all in afternoon school, Mr. Burnham came in and asked
who did it."
"Yes, Bunty--_dear_." A red colour had crept up into the little girl's
cheeks, her eyes were full of painful anxiety. "You said you had,
Bunty--didn't you, Bunty dear? Oh, Bunty, of _course_ you said you
had."
"No, I didn't," burst out her brother. "How could I after that, you
idiot you? What is the good telling you things? Why I didn't know what
would have happened. When he asked us separately I just said 'No' in a
hurry, and then I couldn't say 'Yes' after, could I?"
Again Poppet was silent, again there was the look of amaze and grief in
her wide, clear eyes. Bunty pulled his old cap over his face again--he
hated himself, and most of all he hated to meet the honest, sorrowful
eyes of his little sister.
"Couldn't you tell now, Bunty?" she said softly. "Go to-night--I'll come
with you to the gate--oh, do, Bunty dear. Mr. Burnham is not vewy howid
perhaps, and canings don't hurt vewy much--let's go to-night, and by
to-morrow it'll all be over."
"It's no good." A sob came from under the cap. "Oh, Poppet, it'll be
awful to-morrow! Oh, _Poppet_! Some one had seen, after all. Just as I
left school Hawkins came up to me. He hadn't been there when Burnham
asked us, and didn't hear anything till after school, and he said he saw
me coming out of Hollington's room, and creeping down the passage with a
cricket ball in my hand, and he went in to report it to Burnham just as
I came home, to pay me out for getting him a swishing."
Poppet was crying, though she hardly knew it. Such a terrible scrape,
and such a lie at the back of it--what could be the end of it?
"Oh, Bunty!" she said, and put her face right down in the long grass.
The earth and the tears got mixed, and smirched the clearness of her
skin--there was a wet, black smudge all down her poor little nose.
"Poppet!" cried Meg's voice, preceding her down the path in the dusk.
"Are you really sitting on the grass again when I've told you so often
how wet the dew makes it? John, how can you let her, when you know how
she coughs! Go to bed at once, Poppet, it's after eight; and you
haven't touched your home-lessons, John--really it's one person's work
to look after you--and where is that coat with the buttons off?"
"On my bed," "John" said sulkily.
"I wish you'd hang it up--what's the use of pegs? Poppet, go in when I
tell you--don't be naughty. Now, John, go and start your lessons. You'd
better do them in your bedroom, you make such a litter downstairs."
Meg turned to go back, Poppet's reluctant hand held fast.
"Can't I stay five minutes, _please_, Meg?" the little girl said,
looking up beseechingly.
Even in the fading light Meg saw the sweet brimming eyes and quivering
little lips.
"John!" she said angrily, "you've been bullying the poor little thing
again; I simply _won't_ have it--I shall speak to father."
"Oh, shut up!" said John; and he moved away wearily up to the house.
*CHAPTER III.*
*A PASSAGE AT ARMS.*
"Oh the day when thou goest a-wooing,
Philip, my king."
Meg was a little "put out," as it is popularly called, this
evening,--she was not generally so short with the young ones. The good
fit had worn away during the endless process of darning, and she had
jumped up at last, stuffed all the work into the gaping stocking-bag,
and said to herself that eldest sisters were mistaken and wrongful
institutions.
But that did not give Baby Essie her tea, nor yet put her lively little
ladyship to bed; and since Esther was out, there was no one else to
undertake it.
And when that was done Pip came in and asked her in his off-hand manner
to "just put a stitch in that football blazer."
The stitch meant a hundred or two, for it was slit from top to bottom.
And then Esther came home--a quieter Esther, an Esther of less brilliant
colouring than you used to know, for there are not many "fast colours"
beneath Australian skies--and with her the Captain, grown more
short-tempered with the lapse of years, and an income that did not grow
with his family. And again it was "Meg."
The seltzogene was empty. The Captain asked some one to tell him what
was the use of having a grown-up daughter--he could not answer the
question himself.
The lamb was a shade too much cooked, and the Golden Pudding a shade too
little. He wanted to know whether Meg considered it below her to
superintend domestic matters. In his young days girls, etc., etc. She
went from the dinner-table at the end of the meal with hot cheeks.
"I never chose to be eldest--I was made so; and I don't see I should be
scapegoat for everything!" she said, sitting down on the arm of the
lounge on which lay six feet of the superior sex in the shape of Pip.
There was a wrathful look in her blue eyes, and she had ruffled her fair
hair back in a way she always did in moments of annoyance.
"Why don't you make that conceited little chit help?" Pip said between
puffs at his cigar.
"Nellie!" ejaculated Meg in surprise.
"Yes, Nellie," said Pip. He looked across to where she was making a
picture beautiful to the most critical eye in a hammock a yard or two
distant. "Is her only mission in life going to be looking pretty?"
"Oh," Meg said, "she's too young, of course, Pip. Why, she's only
fifteen, though she is so tall! Oh, of course it can't be helped--only
it's annoying. But what have you got your best trousers on for, Pip,
again, and that blue tie? You had them last night and the night
before!"
Pip's handsome face coloured slowly.
"You've got a fair amount of cheek of your own, Meg," he said,
collecting the cigar ash in a little heap very carefully, and then
blowing it away with equal industry. "I wonder when you'll learn to
mind your own business. I should imagine I'm old enough to choose my
own clothes."
"Only she's a horrid, vulgar girl, that's all," Meg said slowly, and
colouring on her own account. "Pip, I don't know how you can, really I
don't--a common little dressmaker. Oh yes, we know all about it; Peter
saw you last night, and Poppet the night before."
"Peter be--Poppet be---- What the deuce do you mean spying after me?"
stormed Pip, sitting upright and looking wrathfully at his sister. "If
I choose to take a walk with a pretty girl, is it any concern of yours?"
[Illustration: "'PRETTY!' SAID NELL--'PRETTY! WHY, SHE BLACKENS HER
EYEBROWS, I'M CERTAIN.'"]
"Pretty!" said Nell, who had come up at his raised voice,--"pretty!
Why, she blackens her eyebrows, I'm certain; and you should have seen
her hat last Sunday--a green bird, some blue, lumpy plush, and a bunch
of pink chiffon."
"Upon my word," said Pip,--he was white with anger, and his eyes
blazed,--"upon my word, I've got two nice sisters. Trust a girl for
running down another pretty one. You're jealous, that's what it is,
because you know you can't hold a candle to her."
"Her father sells kerosene and butter--he's a _grocer_!" Nellie said,
with a fine swerve of her delicate lips. "Upon _my_ word, Pip, I should
think, with all the pretty girls there are about here, you might fall in
love with a lady."
"She _is_ a lady," Pip contended hotly. "She works with her needle,
perhaps--she's not been brought up in selfish idleness like you
girls--but her manners are a long sight better than yours, and she'd
blush to say small-minded things like you do."
It occurred to Meg that it _was_ small-minded, and she said no more.
But there was nothing Nellie enjoyed more than a sparring match with her
eldest brother when the advantage was on her side, and had he not called
her a conceited chit?
"There's one thing--you'd get your groceries at a reduction," she said
meditatively. "I think their sardines are only 5-1/2*d.* a tin; they'd
let _you_ have them for 5*d.* perhaps, considering all you've spent in
chocolates and eight-button gloves. Meg, I _did_ think that packet of
lovely gloves in his bedroom was for his dear little sisters, until----"
"Until you forfeited them by your abominable behaviour!" Philip cried
jesuitically.
But Nellie gave him a pitying glance. "Until I saw the size was too
utterly impossible for the hands of ladies,--o-o-h, Pip, don't, you hurt
me--ah-h-h, you're bruising my arm--stop it, Pip!"
Pip was twisting her soft, muslin-covered arms back in the torturous way
boys learn at school, and in a minute she was compelled to call for
mercy.
"Down on your knees!" he cried, forcing her down into that humble
position. "Now, apologise for all the caddish things you've said about
Miss Jones; begin at once,--now, one, two, three--say, 'I apologise.'"
"Never!" screamed Nell, struggling desperately; "I'll die first,--o-o-h,
ah-h-h, oh--'I--I--I apologise'--you donkey!"
"More than that,--'I should be glad to be half as beautiful and good and
lady-like.'"
"'B-beautiful and good and l-l-lady-like," repeated Nell, with a gasp
and a cry between each word. "Oh, Meg, make him stop!"
"'I only said those caddish things because I was jealous of her
superiority'--hurry up, now!" A scientific turn accompanied his
sentence.
"'C-caddish things because I was jealous--superiority,'--oh, Pip! Meg!
somebody, quick--he's half killing me!" Tears of pain and mortification
had started to her eyes.
"Let her go, Pip," Meg said; "you really hurt." She pulled at his arm,
and he released his victim, who fell in a heap on the floor, and said he
was "a h-h-horrid w-wretch, and she w-wished she had no brothers."
Pip picked up his hat and settled his pale blue tie, which had become
somewhat disarranged.
"Good-night; I hope you'll learn and inwardly digest your lesson, my
child," he said, going out upon the gravel.
But Nellie sprang to her feet, and called after him all down the path
till he reached the gate, "Candles, sardines, needles and pins, size
nine gloves! ask her what she blacks her eyebrows with!"
Meg was looking troubled. She was sitting on the lounge he had quitted,
and her fair brows were knitted beneath the soft, straying hair.
"Nell dear, it _is_ vulgar," she said, "and it _is_ small. I don't know
where the distinction of ladies comes in if we say things like that.
Perhaps the little dressmaker really wouldn't."
"But we are ladies," Miss Elinor said, her small head in the
air,--"nothing can alter that. Our father is a gentleman, our mother
was a lady--we are ladies."
"Not if we act like servant girls," Meg said quietly. "If you found a
bit of glass under all the conditions you'd expect to find a diamond,
and yet it didn't shine like a diamond, then it wouldn't be a diamond,
would it?"
"Now don't get elder-sistery and moralous," said Nell; albeit she was a
trifle ashamed, for she prided herself certainly upon being a little
lady to her boot toes. "Meg, I thought of doing up that white crepon
Esther gave me into a kind of evening dress, just for little evenings,
you know, at the Baileys or Courtneys, or anywhere, or when we have
people here. Would you make the body as a blouse with big frills over
the shoulders, or with a yoke and gathered into the waist? The blouse
way would be easier, for there's no lining, you know."
"Oh, the blouse, I think," Meg said, half abstractedly. "Do you know if
Poppet has gone to bed, Nell? I don't think I saw her come in, and her
cough was bad last night."
"I don't know. Meg, I'll give you half-a-crown for that silver belt of
yours; I've got a little money left in my allowance yet, and you never
wear it. Half-a-crown would buy you a new book, or one of those burnt
straw sailor-hats, and the belt would look lovely with the white dress."
The younger girl looked persuasively at the elder.
"But I gave seven-and-sixpence for it," Meg objected, "and it's nearly
new."
"But you never wear it--what's the good of a thing you don't wear?"
contended Nellie, who had set her heart upon it. "If you think it's too
little, say two shillings and that light blue blouse of mine that you
like."
Meg put the blouse on mentally.
"Well, I like myself in pale blue," she said; "yes, I'll do that--only I
hope it's not torn or anything. Oh! and Nell, I think you might go and
see if Poppet is in the garden; I've done ever so much to-day, and
you've only been reading."
But Nellie was comfortably in the hammock again among the cushions.
"Oh, Poppet never does anything _I_ tell her," she said; "you'd better
get her yourself--all the children mind you more than me, you have so
much more patience, Megsie."
So it was Meg who had disturbed the important _tete-a-tete_ between
Bunty and his little sister; Meg who had separated them abruptly, almost
unkindly, at a crisis of great moment; and Meg who had seen the little
girl actually into bed, and administered a dose of eucalyptus against
the cough.
But it was also Meg who went down in the drawing-room presently, and
played Mendelssohn's tender, exquisite Love Song, and a rippling,
laughing little bit of Grieg, and a Sonata of Beethoven's, to a father
half asleep on the sofa and a young man very wide awake on a
neighbouring chair.
And it was Poppet who made hay, and crept along the passage in her
little nightgown to the room where Bunty was sitting with his head on
his arms and misery in his eyes.
And it was Poppet who, after torrents of abuse and vituperation from the
unhappy lad, succeeded in extracting a promise that he should own up
everything bravely in the morning, and not shirk his punishment whatever
it was.
*CHAPTER IV.*
*A SUMMER'S DAY.*
"Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn."
The next day was exceedingly hot, one of those moist, breathless days
that make February the most unpleasant month in the year to Sydney
folks.
Every one in the house felt utterly limp and cross and miserable, and
daily duties were performed in as slipshod and languid a manner as
possible. The cook had made a great pan of quince jam, and brought it
into the breakfast-room on a tray for Esther to tie down. And Esther
was sitting in the rocking-chair trying to make up her mind to do it,
and wondering whether it would be easier to use string or paste. Small
Esther was making a terrible noise. She owned dolls and bricks, little
tea-services, and baby furniture--all the toys that well-regulated
little girls are supposed to love; she generally tired of them, however,
after a few minutes' play.
At present she had made a tram of six heavy leather chairs, with the
armchair for "motor," and her little sweet face was scarlet and wet with
the exertion of dragging them into place.
In addition to this she had taken the fire-irons out of the fender, and
was rowing, or in some way propelling the train forward--to her own
satisfaction, at any rate--by brandishing the tongs wildly about while
she stood in the motor and shouted and cried, "Gee up!"
"Essie," big Esther said at last, "you must be quiet. Poor mamma's head
aches. Where's your doll? That's not a pretty game."
"All bwoked," said Essie; "gee up, old twain." Bang, bang, clatter,
clatter.
"Essie, put those things away at once." Esther noticed the poker for
the first time. "You naughty girl, you are scratching the chairs
dreadfully."
"But I can't make ze twain puff-puff wifout," objected the
engine-driver, "an' we has to go to Bwisbane; det up wif you." She
leaned over the tall back of her locomotive, and made vigorous hits at
the legs of it.
So vigorous indeed that the chair went over with a crash, precipitating
Essie and the poker and tongs and shovel in four different directions.
"Oh dear," said Esther, and sighed before she attempted to go to the
rescue. Essie was always tumbling from somewhere or other and never got
much hurt, and really it was terribly hot.
"Oo-oo-oh!" said a very small voice. It quavered for a minute. If the
anxiously examined little fat knees had been scratched, it would have
broken into a despairing yell, but they were whole, and the motor had
misbehaved itself.
"Beast!" she said, picking herself up in a great hurry,--"howid old
pig!" Then she seized the poker and beat the prostrate chair with all
her small, angered strength.
"Essie," big Esther said languidly--she had found with thankfulness she
need not move from the chair,--"Essie, I shall whip you, if you use
naughty words like that."
"But I was zust dettin' to Bwisbane--so it _is_ a pig," Essie
maintained. Then she climbed up again, and the journey proceeded.
In the nursery Meg was supposed to be giving lessons to Peter and
Poppet, and superintending the more advanced studies of Nellie; for the
last nursery governess had left suddenly, and the Captain had professed
himself unable to afford another until the next quarter.
Meg used to provide herself with a book during these daily struggles, to
be indulged in at times when her supervision was not required. It had
been an "improving" book for the last month, for she had lately been
finding out how wofully ignorant she was when she talked to the young
man who had listened to her playing last night. To-day it was Browning,
because he had looked horrified to find she never read any of his poems,
on the plea that he was acknowledged to be difficult to understand.
It was a pity she chose "Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial"
for her first essay, especially as it was such a hot day; but she had
determined to read, dauntlessly, the first poem the book opened at.
"Do this sum, Poppet," she said, setting a multiplication with eight
figures in each line--"dear, _what_ a greasy slate; and Peter, if you
drop any blots on your copy, you will have to write it again this
afternoon."
Peter was sucking a little lump of ice he had stolen out of the
ice-chest. Poppet asked him for a bit to clean her slate with, but he
considered this such waste of precious material that he swallowed it in
a hurry and choked. Poppet asked if she might go and wet her sponge;
but Meg said no, it always took a quarter of an hour to do that simple
act, if she escaped from the room. So Peter offered to breathe on it
for her.
"Both of us will," said Poppet,--"you on the top half, and me on the
bottom."
Meg was taking a cursory glance at "Filippo," and groaning mentally; she
did not hear the arrangement for the slate-cleaning until the heads
bumped violently and the two began to quarrel.
"You licked it with your tongue," Poppet said.
"I never--I wath only breathing with my lipth on it," declared Peter.
"I saw the end of your tongue hanging out," Poppet maintained.
"You're a thtory-teller, Poppet." Peter's face began to get red. "I
wath only breathing, tho there."
"Peter, go and sit at the other end of the table. Poppet, if you put out
your tongue at Peter again, I shall make you stand in the corner." Meg
put a pen in the Browning to keep it open, and went over to Nell at the
window to see how "Le Chien du Capitaine" was progressing.
"Oh, Nell!" she said.
The French dictionary lay face downwards on the broad window-sill; "Le
Chien" was face upward on Nell's knee, but on the top of it was "Not
Wisely, but too Well."
"Oh!" said Nell, with a gasp, her eyes misty, her cheeks flushed,--"oh,
it's no use scolding, Meg,--I absolutely must finish this; I'm just
where Kate is--Oh, Meg, you _are_ horrid!"
For Meg had taken forcible possession of the dark green book, and had
picked up the dictionary.
"You know you are not to read in the morning," she said; "and I don't
think you ought to read a love story like this till you're eighteen at
least. Really, Nellie, it's no use me pretending to overlook you;
you've done one page of 'The Dog' in three mornings. I'll have to tell
father I must give up the pretence of teaching."
"Here, give it to me," Nellie said, sighing wistfully; "it ought to be
called 'The Pig,' I think, it's so detestable. Put 'Not Wisely' on the
table, Miggie, so I can see the title and get occasional refreshment."
Then Meg returned to the "Privilege of Burial." Her first thought, when
she had read the piece through, was that Browning was not a true poet,
however great a man he might be; and her second that Allan Courtney must
be exceedingly clever to be able to enjoy such reading; her third was
sorrow at the poor brains she felt she must possess not to be able to
enjoy it too.
She tried another at random--"Popularity." It was rather better she
decided, though she had no very clear idea of the meaning; and oh! that
terrible last verse,--was it an enigma, or could clever people see the
sense instantly?--
"Hobbs hints blue--straight he turtle eats:
Nobbs prints blue--claret crowns his cup
Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,--
Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?
What porridge had John Keats?"
The deep sigh that accompanied the third vain reading of it, disturbed
Peter in his occupation of putting flies in the ink, fishing them out,
and letting them crawl over to Poppet.
Poppet at her side of the table was similarly occupied, only she had
captured a March-fly, and it made beautifully clear tracks right across
to Peter.
"Is your sum finished, Poppet?" Meg said abstractedly, pondering even as
she spoke, what Keats, who was a god to her, had to do with porridge.
Poppet put her hand over the March-fly and confessed it was not quite.
"How many rows have you done?"
The answer came in a whisper, "Not quite one."
"I shall keep you in to do it then after four," Meg said in her sternest
voice; "and, _Peter_, look at your copy."
In the excitement of getting the half-drowned flies safely across Peter
had made a landing-place of his copy-book, and great was the inkiness of
it.
"Oh, bleth it!" he said ruefully.
[Illustration: "'PETER, LOOK AT YOUR COPY.'"]
Poppet's head was within an inch of her slate. She was working now at a
startling pace, and counting on her fingers in a loud whisper. What
would Bunty say if he came home, and she was not there to ask how he had
got on, and sympathise with the red marks that were sure to be on his
hands?
Nellie had translated five lines, and was occupied in a vain search for
the dictionary meaning of _pourra_.
"I believe it's 'pour,' and 'ra' is a misprint that's got tacked on,"
she said, "or else this beautiful dictionary has left it out, there are
ever so many words I can't find, Meg."
"Oh," said Meg, her patience flying away on sudden wings, "what is the
use of anything? I won't teach you any more, any of you. Peter wrote
far better a month ago than he does now; Poppet's taken an hour to do a
row of multiplication by six, and you are looking in the dictionary for
_pourra_. It's simply wasting all my time to sit here."
The problem, "who fished the murex up?" had not improved my eldest
heroine's temper. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes sparkled, she
threw out her hands in a little dramatic way. "You can go, Peter, you
can go and make mud pies of the universe, if you like; Poppet, you can
go too, tear your dress, and climb as many trees as you please; Nellie,
you can sit in front of the looking-glass the rest of the day and read
every novel in the house,--why should _I_ care? I won't teach any
more."
She flung herself down on the old horse-hair sofa, opened her Browning,
and turned her face to the wall.
And they all went, not at first, but presently and by degrees.
"The thaid we could," whispered Peter.
"Did she _mean_ it?" Poppet said doubtfully.
"Of courth," said Peter; "I'm going, at any rate. The thaid I wath to;
I'm not going to dithobey her," and he slipped out on tip-toe. Poppet
worked to the end of the line by seven, then she remembered she had
forgotten to "carry" all the way, and she grew afraid that Peter would
get to the birds' eggs she was putting in compartments for Bunty.
So she also, after a glance or two at her sister's back hair, slipped
off her chair and stole softly away.
And Nellie drew "Not Wisely" to her own end of the table with the aid of
a long ruler; then she followed the example of her iniquitous juniors
and departed noiselessly.
It was nearly an hour before Meg turned round again. She had lost
herself in some wonderful poems now,--"The Flight of the Duchess," "By
the Fireside," and some of the shorter love pieces; she began to see
possibilities of beauty and enjoyment, and felt glad with a great
gladness that she was able to appreciate them even in a slight degree.
Then the silence struck her. Surely if Poppet were doing her sum, her
pencil would be squeaking; and surely if Peter were engaged as he should
be on his copy, he would be breathing laboriously and giving occasional
little impatient grunts to testify to each fresh blot.
She looked round, and saw the deserted room.
"Took me at my word!" she said aloud. "They might have known I didn't
mean it, young scamps,--Nellie too."
Then she smiled indulgently. The exquisite tenderness and the strength
of the love pieces had softened and braced her at the same time.
"They're very young," she said, as she went out after them, "and--really
it's very hot."
This was all in the morning. At night there was another breeze.
Bunty did not eat his pudding. That of itself was phenomenal, for it
was brown with sultanas and had citron peel at wide intervals; generally
he managed three servings, and, even then, said they might have made it
in a bigger basin. But to-night he said "No pudding" in a sullen voice,
and kicked the legs of his chair monotonously with his boot heels.
"You might have the common politeness to say thank you, I think," said
Nellie, who was officiating at nursery tea in Meg's absence. "What a
boor you are getting, John."
"Oh, go and hang yourself," he returned. He pushed his chair back from
the table, and went out of the room with lowering brows.
Poppet slipped down from her chair.
"Sit down instantly, Poppet; do you think I'm going to allow you to
behave like this?" Nellie cried. "If John has no more manners than a
larrikin, you are not to follow his example. Sit down, I tell you,
Poppet; _do_ you hear me?"
"Can't you see how white he is?" said the little girl, her lips
trembling. "Nellie, I can't stay--no, I don't want pudding." She
darted across the room and down the passage after him.
The boys' bedrooms opened on to a long landing with a high staircase
window at the end that looked straight out to the river and the great
stretch of gum trees on the Crown lands.
Bunty was standing staring out, his hands thrust in his pockets; the
setting sun was on the stained window-panes, and his face looked ghastly
in the red light.
"Was it very bad?" said the little, tender voice at his elbow.
He turned round, and looked at his young sister for a minute in silence.
"Look here, Poppet," he said, and his voice sounded strange and
strangled; "I know I tell lies and do mean things--I can't help it
sometimes, I think I was made so; but I haven't done this new thing they
say I have--Poppet, I swear I haven't."
"I know you haven't," the loving voice said; "what is it, Bunty?"
He gave her a fleeting, grateful glance. "I can't tell you, old
girl--you'll know soon enough,--every one thinks I have; it's no good me
saying anything nothing's any good in the world." He leaned his
forehead on the cold window-pane and choked something down in his
throat. "To-morrow, Poppet, they'll say all sorts of things about me;
but don't you believe them, old girl--will you?--whatever they say,
Poppet--promise me."
"I pwomise you, Bunty, faithf'lly," the little girl said, an almost
solemn light in her eyes. She could never remember Bunty quite like
this before. There was a despairing note in his voice, and really the
red sunset light made his face look dreadful.
"Give us a kiss, Poppet," he whispered, and put his face down on her
little, rough, curly head.
The child burst into tears of excitement and fright--everything seemed
so strange and unreal. Bunty had never asked her for a kiss before in
his life. She clung to him sobbing, with her small, thin arms around
his neck and her cheek against his. Both his arms were round her, he had
lifted her up to him right off the ground, and his cheeks were almost as
wet as hers.
There was a step, and he set her down again and turned away.
"Where are you going?" she asked half fearfully.
"To bed," he said gruffly. "My head aches. Good-night."
*CHAPTER V.*
*BETWEEN A DREAM AND A DREAM.*
"It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun--
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time nor thought for,
With troubles enough of your own."
Such a troubled night poor little Poppet had. Twice she woke up with a
stifled scream, and lay awake afterwards hot and trembling in the dark.
The third time she slept, she dreamed Bunty had thrown a stone at the
schoolmaster's house, which was all built of glass; she heard the
crashing and splintering of it as it came down in a heap, forms,
blackboards, boys, and masters, all flying in different directions.
Then a great voice that sounded like thunder asked if John Woolcot had
done this, and all the world seemed listening for the answer. And Bunty
was standing near a great red window, with a frightened look on his
face, and he said, "No, I never." Then there was a loud shouting and
hissing, and a dozen hands caught hold of the boy and hurried him away.
"What are they going to do with him?" some one asked of a giant who was
sitting peeling a cricket-ball as if it were an orange. And the giant,
who had Bully Hawkins' face, laughed, and said, "They're putting him in
the guillotine; listen to that snap--his head has just fallen off; I'm
going to have it for a ball because he wouldn't scout!"
The snap that woke the poor dreaming child was the banging of the
bedroom door.
Nell had just come in, gone to the glass, given her hair a few pats and
light touches, and hurriedly slipped on her best bronze shoes,--it was
nine o'clock, and some late visitors had come--men with gold buttons.
"Oh-h-h!" said the little sobbing figure, sitting up in bed.
"Oh-h-h--oh-h--oh, _Nellie_!"
"Don't be silly, Poppet; go to sleep at once,"--the elder sister gave
her a hasty pat. "Lie down, and don't be naughty; you've been eating
apples again late, I expect, and it's made you dream,--there, I must
go."
The child clung to her.
"Bunty!" she said,--"is he dead? did they take his head?--oh, Bunty!"
"You silly little thing, don't I tell you you've been dreaming!" Nellie
laid her down impatiently and tucked the clothes round her. "There, go
to sleep; I have to go down, there are visitors. I'll leave the candle
if you like."
Poppet put her head under the clothes and sobbed hysterically; the
little, narrow bed with its spring mattress was shaking.
"Oh!" said Nellie,--"oh dear, this _is_ tiresome! Poppet, do you want
anything? Would you like a drink?--oh, I'm in such a hurry,--what is
it, Poppet? What's the use of being silly, now? When a dream's gone,
it's gone. Stop crying at once, or I shall be very angry, and go and
leave you in the dark!"
The bed shook even more violently.
"M-M-Meg!" was the word that came with a choking sound from under the
counterpane,--"oh, M-M-Meg!"
"All right, I'll send her if you'll be good,--not for a minute or two,
because she's talking to some gentlemen, but as soon as I can whisper to
her. Here, drink this water before I go, and stop sobbing. You're too
big a girl to go on like this, Poppet."
Nellie's voice had a stern note in it,--she thought kindness would make
her cry more, and there really was not time to argue with her.
[Illustration: "MEG CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF SOMETHING WHITE OUTSIDE BUNTY'S
DOOR."]
Five, six, seven minutes slipped away after she had gone; then Meg came
running lightly upstairs and into the room the child shared with Nellie.
"She's too excitable--I'll have to make her go to bed earlier," she
thought, as she crossed over to the tossed bed. "Nightmare--poor little
mite!"
But there was only a pillow and a tossed heap of clothes--the bed was
empty!
"She's gone down for more light and company. How unkind of Nellie!" she
said aloud, starting off in quest of her. She looked in the different
bedrooms as she passed, then in the nursery, which was brightly lighted
but deserted.
The boys' landing was in darkness; but at the end of it she caught a
glimpse of something white outside Bunty's door.
"Poppet!" she cried, hurrying down. "Oh, Poppet, nothing on your feet,
and only your nightgown!"
She picked her up in her arms, nine years old though she was.
But the child was nearly beside herself, and struggled back to the
ground, beating with her small hands against the lower panels of the
door.
"Bunty!" she said, "Bunty! Bunty! Can't you hear me, Bunty? Oh,
Bunty!"
"John!" Meg called sharply, "answer at once!"
"What?" said Bunty's voice in its gruffest tone. "For goodness' sake
leave me alone! What on earth do you want? Don't be an idiot, Poppet."
The very gruffness and crossness of the reply reassured the child--it
was so unmistakably Buntyish. Her sobs grew less and less wild--she even
permitted Meg to lift her up in her arms again.
"Good-night, Bunty," she said in a small voice with a pitiful hiccough
at the end.
"Oh, good-night," he said.
And then Meg carried her off.
Such a tender, gentle, soothing Meg she was, even though some one was
waiting impatiently in the drawing-room and the evening was almost over.
She took the child into her own room, and put her into her own bed with
the pink rosebud hangings and pale pink mosquito nets that Poppet had
always thought the prettiest things in the world.
And she bathed her face with lavender-water, and sprinkled the same
refreshing stuff on the white, frilled pillows, and talked to her in a
pleasant, matter-of-fact way that dispelled the horrors of the night
entirely.
The little girl told her dream. She longed to pour all Bunty's troubles
into this dear, big sister's ear! But that of course was forbidden.
One thing she did venture to say, as she lay cuddled up with her face
luxuriously against Meg's soft breast.
"Dear Megsie, couldn't you be sweet and dear to Bunty too? Poor Bunty,
everybody gets on to him."
"My pet, he won't let people be nice to him," said Meg in a troubled
way.
"I don't mean kiss him or anything," the little girl said; "only don't
call him 'John'--it's such an ugly name; and don't keep saying 'Don't!';
and don't let Nellie keep telling him he's dirty and clumsy,--please,
dearest Megsie!"
Meg kissed her silently.
What a wise little child it was! What a dear little child! And oh,
what a poor little child, for it had never in its life known a mother!
Her thoughts leapt back across the years to that dear, fading memory of
her mother. She saw the bedroom, with the bright lights that seemed
strangely painful in such a place.
"I want to see them all, John, please," the voice from the pillows had
said when the Captain moved away to turn the gas down; "it can't hurt me
now."
And they had gathered up close to the white pillows that gleamed with
the loose, bright hair--all the little, frightened children,--herself,
hardly thirteen; Pip in a sailor suit and his eyes red; little dear Judy
with wild, bright eyes and trembling lips; Nellie with a headless doll
clasped in her arms; Bunty in a holland pinafore stained with jam.
Nobody heeded the tiny baby that lay just in the hollow of mother's
arm,--what was a baby, even one almost new to them all, when mother was
dying?
But the next day, when all was over, and every one was tired of crying
and feeling the world had stopped for them for ever, the strange nurse
brought in the little lonely baby and gave it to Meg to nurse, because
she was the eldest.
"You'll have to be its mother now, little miss," she said, as she laid
it in all its long, many clothes in Meg's frightened arms.
Its mother!
The scene came vividly before Meg's eyes to-night, as she sat with the
poor child close in her arms.
She bent her head in an agony of shame and sorrow.
How she had failed! how she had neglected, scolded, grown impatient
with, laughed at, her little trust! Loved her, of course; but life was
such a confusing, busy, quarrelling, pleasure-seeking kind of thing at
Misrule, and she had forgotten so often, and been so taken up with her
own affairs, that she had not had time to "be a mother" to her little
sister.
"Oh, Poppet!" she said, in a voice full of passionate regret; and Poppet
slipped her dear, thin little arms around her neck and clung closer, as
if she almost knew what the trouble was.
But presently the child fell asleep, and Meg stayed there, motionless,
on the bed edge, looking down at the small, flushed cheeks, where the
black lashes lay still heavy and wet.
There was a strange look of Judy about the little face to-night, and
altogether it made Meg forget the visitors downstairs, Alan, Nell's
impatience, everything but the little dead mother and the knowledge that
her place was not well filled. She thought of Bunty, sullen, hard,
untruthful, and growing more so every day--Bunty, whose nature no one
but Poppet had a key to, and even hers would not always turn.
If the little mother had lived, he would have been very different. Poor
lad! perhaps he was unhappy too--he had been even more gloomy and silent
than usual these last few days; she would go to him now, and try to get
into his confidence by degrees.
She slipped Poppet's little warm hand out of her own and put it softly
on the pillow.
"Well, this _is_ too bad of you," said Nellie, putting her head into the
door. "You've no regard for appearances, really, Meg. It's an hour
since you left the room, and I've been making excuses for you all the
time. Why don't you come down? There's only Esther and me to entertain
them all, and Alan Courtney's been looking at the photograph album for
half an hour, and not spoken a word. You are too bad. Sitting here
with Poppet all this time--she's asleep too. Talk about spoiling the
children!"
Meg got up, her eyelashes wet, her face very sweet in its new gravity.
"I sha'n't come down again," she said in a low tone. "Tell them Poppet
was not well, and I had to stay with her; indeed, I cannot come,
Nellie."
Nellie glanced at her impatiently; she did not understand the strange,
moved look on her sister's face--it had been unclouded and laughing an
hour ago; how could she guess she had been holding hands with the dead
all this little while?
Besides, her conscience reproached her about poor little Poppet, and it
made her feel irritable.
"I never saw any one like you for moods, Meg," she said crossly. "A
minute ago you were laughing and talking to Alan Courtney, and now
you're looking like a funeral hearse; and I think it's very rude not to
come down and say good-night. They asked me to sing the 'Venetian Boat
Song' too, and you know I can't play my own accompaniment."
"Dear Nell, another night," Meg whispered; "and hush, you will disturb
Poppet. Go down again yourself now, or Esther will be vexed. Wish them
good-night for me; I have to speak to Jo--Bunty."
Nellie's face still looked vexed. She had practised her somewhat
difficult song, and was ambitious to sing it since they all pressed her
so.
"I can see Alan thinks it strange of you vanishing like that," she said
grumblingly. "He told me to be sure to make you come down again."
Then Meg blushed--a beautiful, warm, tender blush that crept right up to
the little straying curls on her forehead. They had been talking about
books, she and Alan, before she came upstairs; and in a sudden fit of
petulance with herself she had said she was "a stupid, ignorant thing,
and would not talk to him about books again, because she knew he was
laughing at her for knowing so little."
And oh! what was it his eyes had said when they flashed that one quick,
eager look into hers? what was it that softly breathed "Meg" had meant?
Nellie had whispered in her ear the next second, "Poppet's crying
herself nearly into a fit for you; can you go to her for a minute?"
It seemed almost a week ago now since she had gone. In some indefinable
way she seemed to have grown older in that one hour, to have got away
from all these things that had engrossed her before.
"Come on; why _shouldn't_ you?" Nell said persuasively, quick to take
advantage of that sudden blush.
Just a moment Meg hesitated,--it would be very sweet to go down to the
room again and lose this heavy-heartedness in "the delight of happy
laughter, the delight of low replies."
But poor, misunderstood Bunty whom they all "got on to"--her neglected
duty! Had she any right to be enjoying herself just now, any right to
chase away these new feelings?
She turned away with a sudden lifting of head.
"No, I am not coming; say good-night for me."
"Stay away then," said Nellie in exasperation. So Meg went down the
landing once more to the boys' end.
"Bunty," she said, knocking softly, "I want to come in; may I?"
There was an impatient grunt inside.
"What on earth do you want? Can't you give a fellow a bit of peace?
What are you after now? Yes, I've put my dirty socks in the linen
basket."
"It isn't that, Bunty; I only want to talk to you for a little." Meg's
voice was very even and patient.
But "Blow being talked to!" was Bunty's grateful and polite reply. He
was weary of sisterly "talkings."
"I'm not going to lecture you or anything like that, Bunty. I _wish_
you'd open the door. What have you fastened yourself in for?" Meg beat
a little tattoo on the wood and rattled the handle.
"What a nuisance you are, Meg; why on earth can't you go away and let a
fellow be quiet? I'm not going to open the door, so there." His voice
sounded from the bed across the room; he had not even attempted to come
near the door.
"Oh, very well," said Meg, seeing it was useless, to-night, at least,
with that barrier of pine between them.
"Good-night, old fellow. I don't see why you should be so grumpy with
me."
"I'll talk to him to-morrow," she said, as she went downstairs with a
free heart to the drawing-room again.
But, alas! to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow!
*CHAPTER VI*
*TO-MORROW.*
"What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."
They did not find it out till nearly nine o'clock.
Bunty was frequently late for his breakfast, so no one remarked upon his
absence this particular morning. Only Meg kept his coffee hot, and sent
his chop back to the kitchen to be put in the oven--an unusual piece of
consideration, for she used to say he deserved everything to be cold and
greasy if he got up so late.
But Nellie, who was cutting the sandwiches as usual for his school
lunch, cried out for him. "I can't find John's lunch serviette
anywhere," she said, putting in a generous supply of fat beef. "I ask
him every day to leave it out of his bag. What a tiresome boy he is! I
won't give him another one this morning; he had one yesterday."
"Poppet, go and tell John he'll be late for school," Meg said. "Tell
him it's a quarter to nine--he won't have time to eat his breakfast."
Poppet departed, her own bright merry self again; the events of last
night had vanished from her with her dreams.
But she came back with a half-startled face. "He's not there, Meg; his
hat's gone too, and his school-bag. I 'spect he got something in the
pantry and went early; perhaps there is something on at school;
and--and--I think he must have made his bed himself, because--it--it's
made."
She looked half pitifully, half eagerly at Meg, as if asking for a
denial of her horrible suspicions. "Come and look," she said.
Meg got up and followed her; Nellie laid down the breadknife and went
too,--it was beyond credence that Bunty should be up early and make his
own bed. Peter and Essie brought up the rear, of course.
"It--it's very strange," Meg said, her face quite pale as she looked
round the room. The bed had evidently not been slept in, for no boy
could have made it look as neat as it did; it was just as Martha had
left it yesterday morning. There was a suit missing--not his best one,
but the one he wore alternate weeks at school--a couple of shirts too,
and some socks and collars. Nellie darted to his little red post-office
money-box; it had been prised open--he had lost the key long since--and
was empty.
"He had two and fourpenth ha'penny in it," said Peter, "cauth I athked
him one day."
"He's run away," said Nellie. "Oh, the bad, wicked boy!"
"Hush," said Meg. She feared for the effect the blow would have on
Poppet, and caught the child's hand and drew her to her side.
"Run away!" repeated Poppet.
Every vestige of colour had dropped out of her face; it wore a strained,
unchildlike look, and her eyes were heavy.
Meg drew her closer still and stroked her hair.
"Perhaps it's a mistake, dear. Oh, he's only gone to school, or
camping, or something, and didn't tell us; there's no need to trouble,"
she said. But she felt terribly uneasy.
Poppet did not look up. She was thinking of the red-stained window and
the kiss last night--thinking of the school troubles, and the boy's
strange behaviour, and hints at worse.
There was a loud, angry voice calling from the nursery, and every one
trooped back in amaze. What was the Captain doing in their own special
room at breakfast-time?
Esther was there, too, with horrified eyes, and Pip with a look of
fierce disgust on his face.
How red their father's face was! how his moustache bristled! Peter
shrank close up behind Meg, and wondered if it was about yesterday's
lessons.
"Father," Meg said, white to the lips, "what _is_ the matter? Esther,
can't you speak? Oh, Pip, what is it?"
"Matter!" shouted her father; "I'm disgraced--we're all disgraced.
Where is he? Heavens! I'll cut the skin off his back! Peter, get my
horsewhip; he's no son of mine! I'll turn him off--I'll have him locked
up. Where is he? where is the young thief? Only let me get hold of
him. Bring him here at once, Pip. Where's that horsewhip, Peter?"
"He's run away, we think," Nellie said in a trembling voice; and there
was a great silence for two minutes, broken only by a very deep breath
from Poppet. Then Meg's voice was heard.
"What has he done?" she said, "because--because--oh, indeed, I believe
we have all been misunderstanding the poor boy."
"Misunderstanding!" echoed her father, with almost a snort of anger.
"Read that, miss, and don't talk nonsense!"
[Illustration: "'READ THAT, MISS, AND DON'T TALK NONSENSE!'"]
He passed her a letter that had just been brought him, and Meg read it
and grew pale; Nellie read it and crimsoned; Poppet picked it up in her
little shaking hands and looked piteously from one to the other,--that
black, thick writing--oh, what was it all about?
Meg told her afterwards, for it was no use trying to put the child off,
and indeed it seemed she knew more than they did.
The letter was from the head master. It stated everything that Bunty
had confessed to Poppet about the broken window and glass cases, about
the lie he had told when taxed with it. But then the terrible part
came. On the desk five sovereigns were lying in a little heap when the
master was called out of the room; it was one of the boys' fees, and the
master was in the act of entering the amount in the book when he was
sent for. He was detained a quarter of an hour, and when he returned
the window and the glass cases were broken, and the money had gone!
Now there was no one on the top floor at all during the time, it
seemed--that was the mystery that had puzzled every one. But then it
came out that Hawkins, who was waiting in Mr. Burnham's own room for his
caning, had seen John Woolcot come creeping down the stairs just after
the crash, with a white face and the cricket-ball in his hand. Woolcot,
too, when he found his lie of no avail, had confessed to the smashing,
but denied having taken the money. The head master regretted having to
perform such a painful duty as communicating the intelligence to his
father; but there seemed no doubt that the boy had committed the theft,
and under the circumstances perhaps it would be wiser if he were removed
from the school.
No wonder the Captain raved and stormed! no wonder Esther and the elder
girls looked pale and horrified, and Pip disgusted beyond words! He was
guilty--there was no doubt of it in their minds. The fact of his running
away was sufficient proof of it; and they all remembered his strange
behaviour yesterday. It was in vain poor little Poppet protested again
and again and again that "he didn't do it--oh, indeed he didn't do it.
Yes, he had broken the glass; and yes, he had told a lie; but oh, indeed
he had not stolen."
"How do you know, miss?" her father said sharply; "what proof have you
that he didn't?"
"He told me he didn't," said the poor little mite. "Oh, he _said_ he
didn't,--oh, why won't you believe it? Meg, I tell you he _said_ he
didn't."
But even Meg could not believe, so lightly was Bunty's word held amongst
them.
For the first day the Captain was too angry even to attempt to find
traces of his son. He declared he would never own him again, never have
him inside his doors.
But afterwards, of course, he saw this was impossible, and he put the
matter in the hands of the police, gave them a full description of the
lad's personal appearance, and offered a reward for finding him.
To the head master of the school he sent a curt note stating the boy had
run away, so he could make no inquiries, and enclosing a cheque for five
pounds to make up for what was lost. Of course the cheque was a tacit
acknowledgment of his guilt.
A week slipped away without any clue being found. Then a detective
brought news.
A boy answering to the written description had gone on board a vessel to
San Francisco as cabin boy the very day in question. There seemed no
doubt as to his identity. The Captain said it was the best thing that
could have happened. It was a rough ship, and the boy would have
exceedingly hard work and discipline--it might be the making of him. He
sent a cable to reach the captain in America, when the boat arrived, to
ask him to see the lad was brought safely back in the same capacity.
And then everything at Misrule resumed its ordinary course. Bunty was
safe, though they could not hear of him or see him for four or five
months; it was no use being unsettled any longer.
But Poppet made a small discovery one day. She found her little
money-box empty under her own bed, with a bit of dirty paper stuck in
the slit. "I'll pay you back," it said in Bunty's straggling hand; "you
said you'd lend me the thirteen shillings. I have to go, Poppet; it's no
good stopping here--no one believes you. Don't forget what you
promised. You can have my tortoise for your own. It's in the old bucket
under the house. Don't forget to feed it; it likes bits of meat as well
as bread. I'd like to say good-bye, but you always cry and make a fuss,
and I have to go. You're the only one worth anything anywhere. Oh, and
don't forget to change its water often,--well water has more insects in
than tap."
"Don't forget what you promised," repeated Nell, as she read the almost
undecipherable epistle in her turn. "What did you promise, Poppet?"
"That I would believe him," the little girl said, with a sweet,
steadfast look in her eyes.
*CHAPTER VII.*
*A LITTLE MAID-ERRANT.*
"There's nothing on earth half so holy
As the innocent heart of a child."
It was in the midst of morning lessons soon after at the Beltham Grammar
School that an odd thing happened.
It was very hot; not a breath of wind came in at the open doors and
windows--nothing but the blazing sunlight that lay in hot patches on the
floor, and slowly baked blackboards and slates and desks. It was a very
long room, this "Great Hall," as they called it; half-a-dozen classes
were at work in it, with as many masters; and at the end, on a little,
raised platform, sat Mr. Burnham in front of his desk. He was looking
through the Euclid exercises of the fourth form, and his brow kept
criss-crossing with lines of annoyance at any noise,--the hot, slumbrous
air was quite enough to bear, without the occasional down-crashing of a
pile of slates or the upsetting of a form.
Then came the loud note of the locust--the whir-r-r, and pen-inimitable
sound of its wings, inside the room, not out. Who had dared to bring
one of the prohibited creatures into school, after the endless penalties
that had been imposed for the offence? Mr. Burnham scored a red line
through one of the exercises and stood up in his place, a heavy frown on
his face.
And at the same moment a very small shadow fell just inside the entrance
door at the far end of the room, and a very small knock sounded there.
Nobody said "Come in," though a hundred and fifty pairs of eyes went in
the direction with the swiftness natural to gratitude for any break in
the monotony of morning school. Then there stepped over the threshold a
little, slight girl,--a little girl with a very short, holland frock, a
great sun-hat, and no gloves; a little girl with a white, small face,
great frightened eyes shining strangely, and soft lips very tightly
closed. Up the long, long room she went, both little hands held tightly
together in front of her. No one could tell from the way she walked how
her poor little knees were shaking and her poor little heart was
beating.
For a minute Mr. Burnham's frown did not disappear--not till he noticed
how white her face was; he told himself he had never seen a child's face
so white in all his life.
"What is it, little girl?" he said, and really thought he made his voice
quite gentle and encouraging, though to Poppet it sounded terrible.
"I----" she said--"you----" Something rose in her throat that would not
be strangled away, her face grew even whiter, and her lips, white too,
twitched a little, but the words would not come.
He took her hand, the little trembling, shut, brown hand, and held it
between his own.
"There is nothing to be afraid of, my child; tell me what it is you
want"; he drew her closer to the desk, and sat down. He seemed less
formidable in that position than towering above her--his eyes looked
strangely kind; could it really be the terrible Mr. Burnham she had
heard so much about? The hand he held fluttered a minute, then her lips
moved again:
"Bunty didn't do it," she said in a whisper.
"Eh? what?" he said, mystified.
"He didn't do it--Bunty didn't do it--oh, indeed."
"But who is Bunty? and who are you, my little maid?" Mr. Burnham said,
with a smile that lit up his thoughtful eyes.
"He's my brother," she said in a voice that had gained a little
strength.
[Illustration: "'BUNTY DIDN'T DO IT,' SHE SAID IN A WHISPER."]
Then it struck her Bunty was not so called at school.
"His name's John Woolcot," she added, with downcast eyes; "I'm Poppet."
Then Mr. Burnham remembered everything, and his eyes grew stern as he
thought of the boy there had been so much trouble with; but they
softened as they fell again on the little, white, eager face.
"And his little sister is taking up his cudgels; thankless work, I'm
afraid--eh?" he said quizzically.
Poppet was calm now,--the worst part of the ordeal was over, and she had
actually gained the dread head master's ear; she must make the most of
her time.
"Won't you believe him?" she said; "indeed he didn't do it--oh, indeed."
"What?" he asked,--"break the window--tell a lie--anything? Why, my
little child, he owned to it."
"Yes," said Poppet, "he bwoke the glass, I know; and yes, he did tell
one story." Her face fell after the last sentence, and a little red
crept into her cheek. "But he didn't take the money--oh no, no!--oh,
Bunty wouldn't be a thief--oh, not for anything and anything--oh,
indeed."
The boys were staring at the little, white-faced girl at the head
master's desk, though they could not hear what was being said.
"Would you like to come and talk to me privately?" Mr. Burnham said.
And "Oh-h-h!" was Poppet's only answer; but the gratitude in her eyes
was so intense, he guessed a little what the ordeal had been to her.
Away down the long room she went again, only this time her hand was
being held in a firm, kindly grasp.
"Oh!" she said again, when near the door a great, slouching fellow with
a big head moved to help another boy with a blackboard.
"What?" said Mr. Burnham, when they were outside; he had noticed her
intense interest.
"Was that Bull-dog Hawkins--the fellow that told?" she said.
He smiled somewhat; Hawkins was not a favourite of his, and the fitting
name sounded odd on the little girl's lips.
"His name is Hawkins," he said; "and yes, he gave the information; but
that has nothing to do with it, my child. Now, tell me what it is you
have to say."
He had taken her into a little room the walls of which were lined with
books; he drew up a chair for himself, and one for her, but she
preferred standing against his knee.
Almost she convinced him, so great was the belief in her shining eyes,
so utterly unshaken her trust. She told him everything, and he listened
patiently and attentively even to the smallest detail, asking a question
here and there, but for the most part letting her tell her story in her
own way.
When she told of the kiss by the staircase window, she broke down a
little; but he slipped his arm round her waist, and she shed her tears
on his coat sleeve,--how Bunty would have stared! She showed the dirty
scrap of paper, and he read it thoughtfully.
"If only he had never told a lie before," he said, "then perhaps----"
Oh, if only she could have flung back her head and said, "He has never
told a lie in his life, sir; never--never!"
Shame at not being able to do so made the dear, curly head droop a
little, and two more tears forced their way from under her eyelids and
fell sadly down her cheek.
"I'm sure he never will again!" she said, with sorrowful hopefulness.
"But, oh, sir, he couldn't be a thief! Oh, how _could_ he?"
"Well, I don't see how he could be altogether bad with such a little
sister," he said slowly. "What sort of a boy is he at home? Is he good
to you?"
"Oh yes," said Poppet,--"oh yes, indeed!"
And it is a fact that not a single act that disproved this came to the
little girl's mind. She remembered nothing but the times he had been
good to her.
"Twice I was sent to bed without tea, and he bwought me all his pudding
in some newspaper," she said eagerly; "and when I had difeeria, and they
wouldn't let him in, he used to climb up the creeper when no one was in
the room and smile at me through the window. An' another time I was ill
he sat on the mat outside the door all night; Meg found him in the
morning asleep with his head on the oilcloth. An' when it was my
birthday--I was nine--and he had no money, so he sold his guinea-pigs to
one of the fellows--and he liked them better than anything he'd got--and
he went and bought me a doll's pwambulator, 'cause Peter smashed mine
with filling it with stones. Oh, and lots and lots and lots of things!
He was _vewy_ good to me--oh, indeed!"
Such a flushed, little, eager face it was now--such a fluent little
tongue that told of Bunty's goodness! The child's beautiful trust,
affection, and courage had quite touched the head master's heart.
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket.
"You are a dear, brave, little girl, Poppet," he said. "By the way,
haven't you a prettier name than that?"
"Oh, it's Winifred, of course, really," said Poppet.
"Something in a name," he said, half to himself. Then aloud:
"Well, Winifred, then, just because you have believed in your brother
and done this for him, I am going to reward you in the way I know will
gladden you most."
He unlocked a tin box on the table, and counted out five sovereigns,
while the surprise in Poppet's eyes deepened every minute.
"Have you a purse?" he asked.
"No," she said in a very low tone. It made her feel fit to cry to think
he should give her money, even such a large, beautiful amount, for doing
this.
"Because I want you to give this to Captain Woolcot," he continued, "and
tell him I have had reason to doubt whether John was guilty, and until I
am perfectly sure it is not fair to the lad to take it."
How Poppet's eyes shone, albeit the tears were not dry! how her lips
smiled and quivered! and how the glad, warm colour rushed all over her
little, sweet face! Not a word of thanks she said, and he would not
have had it; only she clung very tightly to his arm for a minute, and
hid her face. When he saw it, he felt he had had more than thanks.
And that was not all he did. He took her back with him to the
schoolroom, and walked up to the raised platform, and held her hand all
the time.
"Boys," he said, in his clear, far-carrying voice, "I have reason to
believe that John Woolcot is not guilty of the theft that you have all
heard of. I wish you all to give him the benefit of the doubt, since he
is not here to clear himself. For my part, I believe him innocent."
How the boys cheered! It was not that Bunty was a special favourite,
though he had his own friends; but they felt it was expected of them,
and it was another break in the monotony to be able to do so. Besides,
they felt a vague pity and admiration for the little girl standing
there, with such a smiling, tear-wet face.
After that Mr. Burnham took her all the way home to Misrule himself.
Meg and Nellie went into the drawing-room to see him, and Poppet slipped
away. He told them what the child had done, praised her high courage
and simple faith. "If," he said, as he took his leave an hour
later,--"if all my boys had such sisters as little Poppet is, my school
would be a better place, and later, the world."
*CHAPTER VIII.*
*ONE PARTICULAR EVENING.*
"O world, as God has made it! All is beauty,
And knowing this is love, and love is duty."
It was Peter who first noticed Meg's face one particular evening. He
and Poppet were doing, or making a pretence of doing, preparation for
the next day, and Nellie was reading a novel in the only armchair the
nursery held.
Meg came in at nine o'clock--nearly an hour past the usual time to send
the little ones to bed. "Thust look at Meg'th fathe!" Peter said, and
rounded his eyes at her. Of course every one looked instantly.
It was like a blush rose. A delicate, exquisite flush had crept over
it, her eyes were soft and dewy, her lips unsteady.
"Peter dear, come to bed; now, Poppet," she said; and even in her voice
there was a new note.
Nellie laid down her book and looked at her sister in surprise. She had
only just discovered she was beautiful. Hitherto it had seemed to be
tacitly allowed that she herself had monopolised the good looks of the
family; so to discover this sudden beauty in Meg rather amazed her.
She looked to see if it had anything to do with her dress; no, she had
worn it scores of times before. It was a muslin, pale blue, rather
old-fashioned in make, for the body fitted plainly with the exception of
a slight gathering at the neck. The skirt was very long, and ended in a
crossway frill at the hem,--how graceful it made her look! In her
waistband she had stuck some cornflowers vividly blue.
And her hair! Nellie devoted a surprisingly long time daily to the
erection of an elaborate coiffeur on her own beautiful head; but surely
Meg's had a grace of its own, from its very simplicity. It was drawn
back loosely that it might wave and curl as it pleased, and then was
twisted into a shining knot halfway down her head.
And that exquisite pink in her cheeks!
"Oh, Meg!" Nellie said, half guessing, half shy.
"Dear Peter--oh, Poppet, do come!" Meg entreated. The pink had deepened,
her eyes had grown distressful. Both children rose and followed her
without a word; they had the native delicacy that every unspoiled child
possesses.
But Nellie had lost interest in her book,--what was a fictitious tale of
love, when she might hear of one in real life within these very walls?
She went downstairs and into the drawing-room. "Who's in the study,
Esther? I can hear voices," she said sharply.
Esther was reading, lying on the sofa, her dark, beautiful head against
the yellow, frilled cushions. She turned a leaf before she replied.
"Oh, only father and Alan Courtney," she said, with a studiously
matter-of-fact air.
"I _thought_ so!" Nell exclaimed, with a deep breath; then she sat down
at the foot of the sofa and looked at Esther.
"Well?" Esther said, feeling the gaze before she reached the end of the
next page; then she smiled.
"Is he really asking father?" Nell asked breathlessly.
"I'm not at the keyhole," Esther replied.
"And I wish I was," Nell said with fervour.
Then they looked at each other again, and again Esther smiled. "How
pretty she looked to-night!" she said meditatively.
"Very, very," Nell answered eagerly; "why, I couldn't help staring at
her."
"I'm very fond of Alan myself; he's a thoroughly good fellow. I think
they are excellently suited," the young stepmother said.
Nellie was silent a minute. "I wish he looked older," she said; "thirty
is the proper age for a man, _I_ think. And I'd rather he had a long,
fair moustache; his eyes are not bad; but I wish he wouldn't rumple his
hair up straight when he gets excited."
Esther smiled indulgently at Nellie's idea of a hero.
"As long as he makes her happy," she said, "I'll forgive him for being
clean-shaved. Why are you looking at me like that, Nell?"
"I was thinking how very pretty you are yet, Esther," was the girl's
answer, spoken thoughtfully. Esther's beauty did strike her on occasion,
and to-night, with the dark, bright face and rich, crinkly hair in
relief against the cushions, it was especially noticeable.
"Yet," repeated Esther, "I'm not very old, Nell, am I? Twenty-five is
not very old." Her eyes looked wistfully at the very young lovely face
of her second step-daughter.
"Oh no, dear--oh no, Esther," said Nell, quick to notice the
wistfulness; "why, of course it is very young; only--oh, _Essie_!"
"What?" said Esther in surprise.
"How _could_ you marry father?" She crept up closer, and put her
shining head down beside the dark one. "Of course I don't want to hurt
your feelings, but really he is so very middle-aged and ordinary; were
you really in _love_, Essie?"
But Esther was spared the embarrassing answer by the entrance of the
Captain and Alan.
You all saw Alan last five years ago, when he used to go on the river
boat every morning to his lectures at the university. His face is even
more earnest and grave than before; life is a serious business to this
young doctor, and the only relaxations he allows himself are football
and Meg.
His eyes are grey, deeply set; his patients and Meg think them
beautiful. His dark hair has a wave in it, and is on end, for of course
he has been somewhat excited.
The Captain does not look unamiable.
Alan has only just begun to practise, certainly; but then he has three
hundred a year of his own, and his prospects are spoken of as brilliant.
Still, he has the air of having grudgingly conferred a favour, and he
goes out to smoke his cigar and think it over.
"All well?" ask Esther's arched eyebrows. And "All is well" Alan
answers with a grave, pleasant smile.
"Dear boy, I _am_ so glad," she says. There is a moisture in her dark
eyes as she gives him her hand, for Meg is very dear to her.
[Illustration: "HE BENDS HIS TALL, BOYISH-LOOKING HEAD SUDDENLY, AND
KISSES THE HAND HE HOLDS."]
He looks at her in silence for a minute; then he bends his tall,
boyish-looking head suddenly, and kisses the hand he holds.
"I am glad too," Nellie whispers, with something like a sob in her
throat; she too holds out her hand.
"Dear little Nell!" he says; and such a happy light is in the eyes that
look down at her that she quite forgives his lack of good looks. "Dear
little Nell!"
He does not kiss _her_ hand--it is too little and childish, he
considers; but he stoops and takes a first brotherly kiss from the soft
cheek nearest to him, and though she blushes a little, she is impressed
with the dignity that attaches to a future brother-in-law.
Then he goes. Meg has refused to be visible again to-night to him, and
Nellie flies up the staircase.
"_Dear_ Meg," she pleads at the door--it is locked, and doesn't open for
a minute.
But the tone turns the key, and the sisters are in each other's arms.
Just the room you might expect Meg to have. It is fresh, simple, and
daintily pretty. The floor is covered with white China matting; the bed
hangings have loose pink roses on a white ground; the pillows have
hem-stitched frills. There is a bookcase on one wall, in which the
poets preponderate; the dressing-table is strewn with the pretty odds
and ends girls delight in; there is a writing-table that looks as if it
is used often; and in the window stands a deep wicker chair with
rose-pink cushions double frilled.
On the walls there are some water-colours of Meg's own, pretty in
colouring, but shaky as to perspective. Two lines she has illuminated
herself,--
"Lord, help us this and every day
To live more nearly as we pray."
The gold letters are a little uneven, perhaps; but she wears them in her
heart besides, so it does not matter. There is an engraving in an oak
and gold frame--"Songs of Love"; Meg loves the exquisite face of the
singer, and the back of the sweet little child. There is a long
photo-frame with a balcony rail: here is Essie all dimpled with her
sauciest smile; Poppet and Peter's heads close together like two little
bright-eyed birds; Nell, a little self-conscious with the camera so
close; Esther looking absurdly girlish; Pip in his cap and gown when
they were delightfully new. Bunty always refused to put on an engaging
smile and submit himself to the photographer, so he is not represented.
And over the mantelpiece, in an ivory frame, is an old, fading likeness
of a little thin girl with a bright face and mischievous eyes, and
rough, curly hair--Judy at ten.
It had taken all the time you have been looking at the room for the
girls to kiss each other and say little half-laughing, half-crying
words. Then Nellie forced Meg into the wicker chair, and knelt down
herself, with her arms round her sister's waist.
"You darling," she said. "Oh, Meg, how glad I am! Dear, dear Meg, I do
hope you'll be happy--impossibly happy."
It was the first connected sentence either of them had spoken.
"I couldn't be happier," was Meg's whisper.
"But always, always, dear--even when your hair is white, and there are
wrinkles here and here and here." She touched the smooth cheeks and
brow with tender fingers.
There was a little silence fraught with love, the two bright heads
leaning together; then Meg spoke, shyly, hesitatingly:
"Alan--Nell dear--you do--like him?"
"Oh, he's well enough--oh yes, I'm very fond of Alan," said Nell. "Of
course I don't consider him half good enough, though, for you."
"Oh, Nellie!" Meg looked quite distressed. "Why, it is the other way, of
course. He is so clever--oh! you don't know how clever; and I am such a
stupid thing."
"Very stupid," assented Nellie; but her smile differed.
"And he is always thinking of plans to do good to the lower classes.
Nell, you cannot think how miserable some of them are; though they don't
half realise it, they get so dulled and weary. Oh, Nellie dear, I _do_
think he is the very best man in the world." The young, sweet face was
half hidden behind the deep cushion frill.
"Well, you are the very best woman," Nell said very tenderly, and meant
it indeed.
Pretty giddy little butterfly, that she was just now, she often paused
in her flights to wish she could grow just as sweet and good and true
and unselfish as Meg without any trouble.
"The _very_ best woman," she repeated; but Meg's soft hand closed her
lips and stayed there.
"If you _knew_ how I'm always failing," she said, with a deep sigh.
"But the trying is everything," Nell said.
Then there were more tender words and wishes, and Nellie went to bed,
stealing on tip-toe down the passage, for time had flown on noiseless
wings and the household was asleep. And Meg took down the ivory frame,
and put her lips to the laughing child-face.
"Oh, Judy," she said, "I wish you knew. Dear little Judy, I _wonder_ if
you know?"
*CHAPTER IX.*
*THAT MISCHIEVOUS CUPID.*
"For boys say, Love me or I die."
University examinations are not things to be postponed with polite
little notes like inconvenient balls or picnics. And, given the early
days of December, and a young man who steadfastly refused to acknowledge
this fact, what use was it even to trouble to scan the lists?
Of course Philip was plucked.
In October he had brought down his father's wrath upon him by failing to
get through in a class examination; and any one who had had experience
of the Captain's would have thought that would have been quite enough to
make him take a good place at the end of his second year.
But, as I said, his name was conspicuous by its absence.
"Oh, Philip!" Nell said, an accent of reproach on the first syllable;
"and even that stupid Burton boy is through."
"Oh, Pip!" said Meg. "What _will_ father say?"
It was the day the lists were out at the university, and Philip had just
communicated the agreeable intelligence to his sisters in the midst of
his third pipe after dinner.
And the strange part was, he did not seem to care twopence--the orthodox
measure of indifference.
He lolled back on the lounge, and made fantastic figures with the smoke
from his pipe; he did not even seem to hear what the girls were saying.
And when he came out of his father's study, after a _mauvais quart
d'heure_ of unusual elasticity, there was not a trace of repentance on
his face, nothing but obstinacy in his eyes, and lips all pursed up for
a careless whistle when the distance from the room should be respectable
enough.
But later on in the evening Meg caught a glimpse of his face when he
thought he was quite unobserved, and its restless, unhappy look gave her
a curious feeling of surprise and anxiety.
She remembered all at once that she had quite forgotten of late to take
an interest in this eldest brother of hers.
The "time o' day" that it was just now in her life made it excusable,
perhaps. She had a latchkey to a little heaven of her own, where she
might retreat whenever earth grew troublous or commonplace; sometimes
she stayed there too long and grew forgetful. And though she had taken
Poppet as her special charge, and formed endless resolutions as to her
future treatment of poor, prodigal Bunty, she had let Pip slip away.
He was from home so much was the excuse she made to herself now--at
lectures most of the day, and no one knew where in the evening; how
could she be all she should to him? She had kept a sisterly eye on his
clothes, darned all manner of sweet little dreams into the heels and
toes of his socks, and even embroidered him a 'varsity cap so that he
should not be jealous of the one she had worked for Alan.
But there she had stopped, and it struck her suddenly to-night that this
big, tall fellow with the manly shoulders and boyish, unhappy face was
almost as a stranger to her.
Where had all his fun, his schoolboy teasings, his high spirits and
absurdities, gone to? Surely it was only yesterday he used to pull
their hair and slaughter their dolls and come for three servings of
pudding!
She gazed at him with great earnestness as he sat motionless at the
table, looking, not at the book before him, but straight opposite at the
wall where Poppet had spilt the ink; and it came to her with a strange
pang of pain that Pip, dear old madcap, merry Pip, was a man.
All the young light had gone from his eyes; they were graver, sterner
than the boy's eyes, and yet full of a troubled unrest. Then his mouth
was firmer, and it was not only the soft, dark line of an incipient
moustache that made it seem so; the careless laughter lines around it no
longer showed, his very lips seemed to have grown straighter.
But even as Meg watched, all her heart in her eyes, those same lips
unclosed, and a half tremulous curve of pain appeared at each corner and
made them look very boyish again. He put up his hand and pushed his
crisp hair away from his forehead with a weary gesture. She could look
no longer.
She went up to the table and slipped an arm round his shoulder.
"Dear old fellow," she said; "oh, I am so sorry about the exam."
"The exam.!" he repeated. "Oh, you needn't bother, old girl; I don't
care. What's an exam. fifty years hence?"
His lips were under his own control again.
The girl's arm went from his shoulder to his neck. "Dear Pip, I wish
you'd tell me things sometimes; don't shunt me altogether because I'm
only your sister. Pip, couldn't you tell me? I know you're in trouble;
couldn't I help a bit? Dear old fellow, there's nothing I wouldn't do."
Such an earnest, loving voice it was.
But he freed his neck, and put her away almost roughly.
"Help me!" he said bitterly; "you're the last in the world who would.
Yes, I'm in trouble, perhaps; but it's a trouble you girls and Esther
would do your best to increase."
Meg's eyes filled, but she would not be repulsed. "Try me," she said.
"Is it gambling, Pip? Are you in need of money? Is it debts? Have you
done anything you daren't tell father?" She put her arm round his
shoulder again; but he stood up hastily and pushed her aside.
"It's nothing you can help, Meg. No, it's none of those things. As to
telling you, I'd sooner cut my tongue out! There, I didn't mean to hurt
you," for Meg's lips had trembled; "but oh, it would be impossible for
you to understand. Why, you'd be the first to be against me." He went
over to the door, and picked up his straw hat from the side-table on the
way.
Meg followed him. "Sha'n't you ever tell me?" she said. "Not to-night,
perhaps, as you don't want to, but another time Pip; indeed, you
shouldn't be disappointed in me. Just promise you'll tell me another
time."
"You'll know before the month's out," he said, and laughed half wildly
as he closed the door behind him.
As a matter of fact, a trivial accident happened, and she knew before
the next day was out.
They were having afternoon tea down near the river, and it being Sunday
afternoon and pleasantly cool, the Captain had strolled down with
Esther, and was seated on the grass leisurely examining some letters
that had come by the Saturday afternoon's post and been laid aside.
There was a bill amongst them that he had had no part in making, a
tailor's bill, with what seemed to him superfluous blazers, flannels,
and such things, down. On ordinary occasions he would only have
grumbled moderately and as a matter of duty, for Pip was not
particularly extravagant. But to-day, with his son's recent failure
fresh in his mind, he felt he could be explosive with perfect justice.
So he despatched Peter up to the house to request Pip's immediate
presence. Pip was on the point of going out, and came with a
half-aggrieved, half-aggressive look on his face.
But before there was time for even the preliminaries of warfare, Essie
created a diversion by tumbling out of the moored boat in which she and
Poppet were sitting into the deep, clear water of the river.
Pip's coat was off before any one had even time to scream, he flung it
into Meg's lap right over the teacups, and was swimming out to the
little dark bobbing head in less time than it takes to write it.
Nellie and Poppet had screamed, a strange, strangled cry had broken from
Esther's lips, and the Captain had put his arm round her and said,
"Don't be foolish, she's quite safe," in a sharp voice; but his face was
white under its bronze,--this little saucy-faced baby daughter of his
had crept closer to his heart than any of his other children.
Of course she was quite safe. Here was Pip scrambling up the bank
again, and holding her up in his arms, a little dripping figure in a
white frock and pinafore, one foot quite bare, the other with only the
sock on.
Such gurgling little sobs of fright and relief she gave, such leaps and
shudders of joy and terror, as they carried her up to the house wrapped
in her father's coat.
But now she was safe and unhurt Meg did not follow the rest of the
family into the bedroom with her. Instead she went into her own, and
sank down on the ottoman at the bed foot, white to the lips and
trembling like an old, old woman,--not on Essie's account, the danger
had been so short-lived, but in that breathless moment something
terrible had come to her knowledge.
[Illustration: "A LITTLE DRIPPING FIGURE IN A WHITE FROCK AND
PINAFORE."]
I told you Pip had thrown his coat to her over the tea-things; it had
fallen on her lap with a jerk, and the contents of one pocket had been
precipitated on to the tray.
A tobacco pouch, a fountain pen, and a pipe she had replaced hastily. A
letter had fallen face upwards--even in the confusion she had seen it
was addressed to "Miss Mabelle Jones," in her brother's bold writing.
But the thing that had taken all the colour and life from her face, she
had not put back in the pocket at all, when Pip had taken the coat. She
held it at the present time in her tightly shut, trembling hand, and
every minute the horror in her eyes deepened. Then she said, "Pip!" in a
low, wailing voice, and opened her hand and looked again at the thing.
The tissue paper was still there, and on its whiteness, shining bravely
up into the wild eyes above it, lay a little gold wedding-ring.
There was a step outside her door--Pip's step; he had been to his room
to change to dry things, and was coming back. For a minute he stopped,
and Meg went paler than ever; then he went on, along the passage and
down the staircase.
She could hear him in the lower hall,--could he be going out again? She
started to her feet as the door banged, and went hastily over to the
window. No; he had his old tennis cap on, and was going very slowly
across the grass towards the river, his eyes searching the ground. He
had evidently missed it already, and surmised it had fallen from the
pocket, either as he carried his coat to the house or when he flung it
to Meg. She gave him just time to get down to the water, and then, with
the small, terrible thing tightly held in her hand, she went almost
blindly down the stairs and over the grass after him.
He was kneeling down just beside the tea-things, groping about in the
long grass.
"Have you lost anything?" Meg asked, in a voice that seemed to have no
connection with herself, so faint and far away it sounded.
"Er--only the stem of my pipe," Pip said, a dull flush on his forehead.
He overturned a cup, spilt the milk into the biscuit barrel, and said
something under his breath.
"Is this what you have lost, Pip?"
Meg's voice came in almost a whisper, with a note of great yearning in
it,--oh, if only he would laugh, and give a ridiculously simple
explanation of it all! She hardly dared to look at his face for fear of
what she should find there; her hand, outstretched to him with the gold
circle on its palm, trembled like a leaf.
The scarlet leaped up into his face as if he had been a girl; his very
brow and neck and ears were deeply dyed. He snatched the ring from the
little soft palm, and held it in his own closed hand; his eyes were like
coals on fire.
But Meg faced him quietly; all her courage gathered in her hands now the
need had come.
"You were going to marry the little dressmaker, Philip," she said.
He told her a lie, two or three lies; then he abused her violently for
her interference and prying; then, kneeling as he was, he put both his
arms round her waist and prayed her, if she had any love for him, not to
try to ruin the happiness of his life.
Oh the young, wild, passionate face, the imploring words! It almost
broke Meg's heart to see him. Such a boy again,--oh, surely not a man
now,--not twenty yet, and so headstrong. She felt years and years older
than he--felt almost as if she were his mother, and he a child begging
to play with the fire.
Strange wisdom came to her. She neither railed nor mocked, reproached
nor wept. "And after you are married, what then, Pip?" she said, her
voice quite even. "Fifty pounds a year won't go very far; and I suppose
father will stop even that."
He flung back his head with its crisp waves and curls, the light came
into his eyes.
"I can work," he said, and smiled proudly.
Meg looked merely thoughtful.
"Of course you can," she said; "but of course you will get a bare
nothing at first. And, Pip, excuse me saying it, aren't you rather
selfish? _You_ might be able to rough it; but wouldn't it be very hard
on her? Dear Pip, haven't you too much pride to ask any woman in the
world to be your wife, and not have a penny to offer her or a house to
take her to?"
This was a new view of the case to Pip. It had certainly not occurred
to him it was hard on her; all the sacrifice had seemed on his side, and
he had rejoiced to make it.
"She doesn't mind; she knows I'd have to begin from the beginning," he
said, half sulkily.
"But wouldn't she rather wait? There is every chance of a bright future
before you, as you know, Pip, with all the influence father has. Pip, I
am sure she would rather wait and come to you when you are able to take
her proudly before every one, than marry you now and make you sink into
a fifth-rate clerk for the rest of your life."
She held her head on one side argumentatively; the colour was beginning
to creep back into her cheeks.
As for Pip, he was both surprised and sobered at her moderation. She
had not said a word against the girl he loved, she had not been
contemptuous; she was only laying before him, clearly and rationally,
what he had seen and refused to see himself.
The conversation spread itself out over hours; dusk was beginning to
fall before they turned to go in again. It would take half this book to
narrate everything that was said, but in the end the victory was to Meg.
When it came to the crisis she had been very firm.
Unless he would promise her, before God and before heaven, before their
dead mother and all he held holy, not to marry the girl secretly, she
should immediately inform his father, who, until he was of age, could
make the thing impossible.
If, on the other hand, he would go back to his old life and work with
all his will, as it was only right and just he should do, and if at the
end of two years he was just as much in love with her as ever, and if
there was nothing against her but her lowly position, then she, Meg,
would withdraw her opposition, and even do all she could to help him
forward. She felt safe.
"Think how much better you will know each other by then," she said
cheerfully, as they walked back to the house, both feeling they had been
near a volcano's edge. "Why, how long have you known her, Pip?"
And his answer was the least bit shamefaced.
"Three months--nearly four, at least."
He had the unpleasant feeling of having been conquered; but deep in his
secret heart there was relief; that it had been taken out of his hands.
He had known he was making shipwreck of his life, known he was bringing
bitter trouble upon his family by this hot haste; but Mabel (with two
l's and an e) had been so insistent about an immediate marriage, and he
so deeply in love and fearful of losing her, that he had felt the world
was well lost.
And what Meg said was very true. It would be more manly of him to work
first, and take a wife when he had something to keep her on.
His Spanish castles raised themselves rapidly against the early evening
sky. He would work for two or three years as never man worked yet, and
marry "Mabelle" at the end of that time; then he would take her to
England that she might grow a little more educated and polished (oh,
Pip, Pip!), and then bring her back and present her proudly to Esther
and his father and sisters.
His face looked quite young and bright again by the time they reached
the front door.
"You're a well-meaning little thing, Meg," he said, and kissed her
patronisingly; it was not in nature that he should feel quite proper
gratitude.
Meg drew a series of long breaths of relief as she took off her hat
upstairs and smoothed her hair for tea.
"Oh, _who_ would have brothers?" she asked her image in the glass; but
it only looked back at her and smiled mournfully.
*CHAPTER X.*
*NEEDLES AND PINS.*
"Something attempted, something done."
Snip, snip. Bits of silesia and common red cashmere worked their way to
the edge of the table, and from there dropped to the floor where there
was a glorious litter. Buzz, buzz, bang against the window-panes went
the body and wings of a great "meat" fly. Whirr, whirr, the
sewing-machine fled frantically over the silesia in the places where the
scissors had gone snip, snip. From the trees across the road came the
maddening sound of many locusts; the great fly on the hot window-glass
was half killing itself in the effort to outdo them in noise.
"What ever was she?" sighed Miss Mabelle Jones.
She got up from the machine with a length of grey webbing in her hand,
and looked absently about for a few minutes. She had written the
measurement of a customer's waist on the back of a card of buttons, she
remembered; but the question was, where were the buttons?
"If only he had money of his own now," she said aloud, which had no
apparent connection with waist measurements, but showed that
dressmakers' thoughts occasionally run on other things besides
gatherings, crossway flounces, and boned bodices. Then she found the
card in the leaves of the _Young Ladies' Journal_; and the comment,
"Thirty-five inches, fat old thing," had a connection.
She held the webbing against the tape measure, and cut it off at
thirty-five with quite a vicious little snip.
"Stuck up things," she muttered. "I wouldn't be seen in the plain,
common dresses they wear for anything--no style at all. Why, Miss
Woolcot's at church on Sunday was just fourpence-ha'penny print, and
nothing else."
Then she gasped, and put down the underskirt she was making in a great
hurry. Just outside the window stood Miss Woolcot herself, looking
half-hesitatingly at the fly-spotted card that said "Miss Mabelle Jones,
Costumiere and Modiste." The next minute the knocker sounded.
The father of Miss Mabelle Jones, as mentioned before, earned an honest
livelihood by vending tea and sugar, wax candles, and such--not to speak
of sardines. There were great white letters on his window that asked,
for the benefit of humanity, "Who brought down Sydney prices?" and vivid
red ones that answered boldly and with generous flourishes, "Why, Thomas
Jones of course, the People's Friend. One pound of fine white sugar
given away with every pound of tea."
The shop was at the corner. The little side-door and window had been
given to Miss Jones when she had set up for herself and lengthened her
baptismal name by two letters.
Good Mrs. Jones was cutting up carrots for haricot mutton in the back
kitchen, when her daughter burst in upon her.
"Go and let that young lady in; say I'll be down presently--say I'm
engaged for a bit," she said, pulling off as she spoke the housewifely
apron that protected the front of her mother's dress.
But "Bless us, girl" was Mrs. Jones's rather aggrieved reply; "you
always see folks in that dress, and you always let 'em in yourself.
This 'arryco won't be fit for pa if I go and leave it."
"It isn't ordinary folks--it's a real swell; it's--it's his sister, the
eldest one," said Miss Jones, in great agitation. "There, she's knocked
again; oh, for goodness' sake be quick, ma! The room's all in a mess
too."
Mrs. Jones with a sigh set aside her toothsome "'arryco" and proceeded
to the door.
"Can I see Miss Jones?" asked the pale young lady on the doorstep.
And "She'll be down presently; she's cleanin' herself," answered Mrs.
Jones, leading the way into Mabelle's room, and moving a heap of work
off a chair.
"Sit down, miss, and I'll go and 'urry her up. You can be lookin' at the
fashun plates; they're the latest styles in London"; and she kindly put
a heap of coloured supplements, depicting ladies' fearfully and
wonderfully arrayed, at Meg's elbow.
It was more than a quarter of an hour before Miss Jones made her
appearance, and oh, what a change was there!
She wore a "costume" of bright terra-cotta poplin, with insertion bands
of black lace over pink ribbon at intervals up the skirt and round the
body.
The sleeves were enormous--gigot shape; there were numberless gold and
silver bangles at her wrists, several brooches at her neck, and a
gold-headed pin was stuck through her hair. She had white canvas shoes
with tan bands.
That she was pretty there was no doubt. She had a bright complexion,
scarlet lips, and large heavily lashed brown eyes, very soft and
beautiful; her hair, which was much frizzed, was black and silky.
"I regret that circumstances over which I had no control compelled me to
keep you waiting so long; but I was engaged with some one who was in a
great hurry," she said, which sounded very well, for she had composed it
while she curled her hair.
Only she accented the second half of "circumstances," and deprived her
poor little last word of its rightful "h."
"I have plenty of time," Meg said. "It does not matter at all." Then
she paused, and in the little space of clock-ticking Miss Jones examined
her.
Meg's dress was one of the despised prints--a tiny blue spot on a white
ground, very clean and fresh. There was a band of blue belting at her
waist, and one on her sailor-hat. Her shoes were very neat, black with
shining toe-caps; her gloves fitted without a crease, and were beyond
reproach.
No jewellery at all, as Miss Jones noted, but a little gold-bar brooch
fastening her spotless collar. A lady every inch, though the dress was
home-made and had cost under five shillings.
In a vague, slow way Miss Jones felt the difference and was
dissatisfied. She almost wished she had not put on her best dress, as
it was only early morning.
"You want to see me; is it about a dress?" she asked; for Meg had half
unconsciously picked up one of the magazines and opened it at "The
Latest in Skirts."
"No," said Meg. "It is about my brother Philip I have come." She put
the paper down; and Miss Jones, somewhat overawed by the quiet dignity
of her manner, had small idea of the way her heart was beating.
"By an accident it came to my knowledge that you and my brother were
thinking of an immediate marriage," Meg said; "and I came to have a
quiet talk to you, Miss Jones, because I felt sure you could not know
quite all the unhappiness such a course would bring."
Miss Jones's fine eyelashes were lying on her cheek; her face glowed a
little with sudden colour. Pip had not been to see her the night before,
as Meg knew; he had had an engagement that she took care he should not
break, and now this early morning visit anticipated him.
"He told you?" she asked in a low tone.
"Yes, when I had found out everything," Meg answered. Then she leaned a
little more towards the pretty dressmaker.
"Miss Jones, he is such a boy, poor Philip. Since you love him so much,
how can you bear to spoil his future?"
[Illustration: "'MISS JONES, HE IS SUCH A BOY, POOR PHILIP.'"]
Miss Jones lifted her eyes and bridled a little.
"Of course, I knew you wouldn't think me good enough," she said.
"But," said Meg simply, "how could I think so? I do not know you. What
I mean is, marriage with any one till he is older would be ruin to him.
Surely you must see the unhappiness it would bring upon you both. In
the first place, what could you live upon?"
Miss Jones was silent a minute.
"He could work like other people, I suppose," she answered; "he said he
could, and I wouldn't mind going on sewing too for a bit."
"Oh, he would be willing to work, I know," Meg said; "but what could he
do? It is harder in the present state of things for sons of gentlemen
to find anything to do than labouring men. And he is not half educated
yet. Now, in a few years he will be, I trust, in very different
circumstances, and able to support a wife in comfort."
"I don't mind being rather poor," Miss Jones replied; "and I'm not going
to give him up just because you don't think me fine enough for you."
Meg looked at her steadily. "Of course," she said, "now I have found it
out, there is no possibility of a marriage for two years. My brother is
not of age, and my father naturally will forbid it."
Then she softened again, for the girl's eyes had an unhappy look in
them. "I expect I seem severe to you, Miss Jones; but, indeed, all I am
thinking of is my brother's happiness. If I thought it would truly be
for his good, I would not say a word. And you--you love him too--won't
you show your love by not standing in his light?"
"You seem to think it's as easy to give him up as drop your
'andkerchief," said Miss Jones, in a voice that shook a little. "If
you'd a young man, how d'you think you'd feel if any one came to you and
said as you couldn't make him happy because you wasn't as fine as him?"
"If I had a lover," Meg said softly, "I would not bring unhappiness upon
him for all the world. If I had a lover, and thought my love could only
do him harm, I would never see him again."
"Oh-h-h," said Miss Jones,--"oh-h dear!"
Some tears gathered on her black lashes, and slipped slowly down her
cheeks. They were clear tears too, and the lashes had not changed
colour. Meg remembered Nellie's accusation and blushed.
"W-what is it you want me to do?" the young dressmaker said. "Oh-h, you
are cruel."
Meg felt she was, but kept telling herself she must save Pip. Still,
the girl's tears and large, beautiful eyes touched her tender heart.
She put out her hand impulsively and took the one with needle-marked
fingers; she held it in hers while she talked to her gently and wisely
and firmly. She spoke of Pip's extreme youth, of his penniless
condition, his dependence on the Captain. "My father is a hard man, and
a poor man. I don't think he would ever forgive or recognise my brother
again as long as he lived," she said. "Then again, Philip has been used
to comfort and certain luxuries all his life--to mixing in good society.
He would be miserable, and make you miserable too, to go to such utterly
changed conditions. Not one unequal marriage in fifty is happy--it is
almost impossible they should be; and think how young he is."
"I 'adn't quite made up my mind," Miss Jones said, feeling she needed
some justification. "Yes, I know he'd got the ring--he bought it as
soon as I said yes; and at first I thought as it would be nice to be
married straight off, but often when he wasn't here I used to think as I
wouldn't after all."
"That was very wise of you," said Meg fervently, "very good of you. Oh,
I knew I should only have to represent things to you a little for you to
see how unwise it would be."
Miss Jones looked a little gratified, though still somewhat mournful.
She felt very much like one of the heroines in her favourite _Bow Bells_
or _Family Novelettes_, sacrificing herself in this noble manner for the
good of her lover. But secretly, like Pip, she too felt a trifle
relieved.
All her life she had been used to poverty. Things had been a little
more "genteel" with them since she had been earning money of her own;
but still there was the never-ending struggle of trying to make sixpence
buy a shillingsworth. And, from all accounts, it would only be
intensified by marriage with this handsome youth she had been so taken
with lately. She thought of a certain faithful ironmonger whose heart
had been half broken lately by her coldness to him. He was spoken of
already as a "solid" man--a shilling need only do its legitimate work if
she yielded to his entreaties and married him. Perhaps, after all, it
was unwise for a girl in her position to think of a "gentleman born";
and yet Pip's way of speaking, his nice linen cuffs and gold links, his
well-cut serge suits, had been a great happiness to her.
"Well?" said Meg softly, breaking in at length upon her train of
thought.
"Oh, I s'pose I'll give him up," she answered, somewhat ungraciously.
"How good you are!" Meg said.
"Of course it's 'ard and all that; but I don't want to make him un'appy
and his family set against him--I'd rather sacrifice myself." Miss
Jones cast down her lashes and looked heroic. "I suppose, though, I'll
have a fine piece of work with him when he comes."
Meg had no doubt of it.
"But you will be very firm, won't you?" she said anxiously. "Remember,
you have promised me to leave him quite free--to refuse to be even
engaged for at least two years."
"Oh, I'll manage him, someway; but I quite expect he will want to shoot
either himself or me," was the dressmaker's answer, spoken with a
certain melancholy enjoyment.
Then Meg shook hands with her warmly, affectionately even--she felt she
almost loved her--and took her departure.
"But Pip will never forgive me," she said to herself, as she walked home
again. "Oh, never, never, never!"
*CHAPTER XI.*
*A DAY IN SYDNEY.*
"To Mr. O'Malley in foreign parts."
Once a month Martha Tomlinson had a day's holiday. She generally chose
Wednesdays, because, she used to say, if there was any luck flying about
in a week, that was the day on which it fell to earth. She certainly
had illustrations for her theory that Poppet at least used to think were
wonderful. For instance, one Wednesday she had picked up a sixpence
with a horseshoe on the side the Queen's head is generally seen--the
omen had struck her as almost good enough to be married on. Another time
the young man she "went walking with" had been within an ace of buying a
pee-wit hat that was cheap certainly, but was moth-eaten in a place or
two. If, now, she had gone on Thursday, it would have been too late to
prevent it, and Tuesday it would have been too soon. It was a clear
case of luck, there was no doubt.
One time, indeed, she had been tempted to take a Thursday instead, as
the weather looked threatening on the Wednesday; but after a little
deliberation, she thought it would be better to keep to her rule. And on
the Thursday she had almost gone there was a collision between the river
boat and one going to Balmain,--no one hurt certainly, but then, as she
very truly remarked, there might have been. There had never been a
collision in the memory of any of the family, for she questioned each
and all, on a Wednesday.
The man in corduroy trousers still came to see her, and they still only
talked of their marriage as the "far-off divine event" of their lives;
in all probability they would be talking of it just the same ten years
hence. They were not like the usual happy-go-lucky, improvident
Australians of their class, who married first, and wondered where the
bread and meat were coming from second.
Malcolm was a Scotchman, and was saving up to buy a house of his own--he
did not believe in lining landlords' pockets with his earnings. It
would, with the strip of land he wanted, be four hundred odd pounds, and
he had already saved L75. Martha had L15 in the bank, but then hers
would have to go in furniture and clothing. Pip calculated that Malcolm
would be seventy-two, and Martha a gay young thing of sixty-nine, by the
time the house was built and furnished; but Martha was more hopeful, and
did not leave such a margin for the "strikes" Malcolm seemed to revel
in.
Now this particular Wednesday, Martha had asked, as a great favour, that
Poppet might go with her to town. The little girl was her favourite
among all the children, and her warm heart quite ached to see the child
moping as she had done since Bunty's disappearance. Every day, while
the nursery tea-things were being washed up, Poppet used to stand beside
her, with big mournful eyes, wondering "if just this minute Bunty was
climbing a mast; if he was very tired of salt meat and weevily biscuits;
if his feet got very cold swilling the decks down; if--if--if----"
Martha's brother had been a sailor, so Martha knew more about life on
board ship than any one else in the house; hence her great attraction.
Esther, after a consultation with Meg, gave permission; the child was
fretting herself thin and pale, and any change did her good.
Of course when Poppet was dressed and standing on the verandah, engaged
in the vexatious task of pulling her gloves over her little brown hands,
Peter wanted to come too.
"You're a thneak, Poppet, going and having pleathure, and me thtuck here
doing nothing," he said. "I'm coming too."
"In that dirty old suit, and mud on the end of your nose?" said Poppet,
with the virtuous tone a spotless white frock, whole stockings, and
clean boots made justifiable.
"Of courth I can wath my noth, and the thuit ithn't dirty if you bruth
it." He took out a crumpled ball of handkerchief, dipped one corner in
the goldfish bowl inside the hall door, and polished his small nose with
great energy. "There, ith it off?"
Martha came out, resplendent in a green cashmere made in the very latest
style, a green hat with pink ostrich feathers, and a green parasol.
Peter looked impressed, and said nothing more about accompanying them;
Poppet was nobody, of course, even though her new boots had twelve
buttons against his own six; but even his young soul felt the
impossibility of a sailor suit no longer new being seen within a yard of
that magnificent new costume of Martha's.
He contented himself with looking after them enviously as they went down
the drive, and kicking the verandah post with his small strong boots.
"Tthuck up thingth!" he muttered, turning away to look for means of
amusement. "I'll thutht pay that Poppet out."
Martha had ideas of her own as to the proper way a holiday should be
spent, and had determined Poppet should have a day she would long
remember. One thing only Poppet asked for, and that was that they should
walk about Circular Quay for a little time and look at the great ships,
and especially any that were bound for America.
In her pocket the little girl had a blotted note she had written some
days ago. On the envelope, in very bad, unsteady writing, there was
this strange address:--
"TO BUNTY IN AMERICA.
"On the ship _Isabela_ plese will the capten give this to Bunty."
There was a pencil mark through Bunty, and John Woolcot was written in
brackets.
Inside the envelope was much paper and many smudges made by the tears
that fell all the time the pen went slowly along the lines.
"Oh Bunty do come home, Bunty dere there is nothing to be fritened of.
Mr. Barnham doesn't beleeve you took it and the boys chered you like
anything and Meg is going to be nice always the tortus is very well and
I give it beefstake every day I can get any you would be serprised to
see what it can eat. Oh Bunty do be quick home oh you mite have told me
you were going Bunty I'd have come with you or anything do you have to
go up the masts. I'm so fritened you'll fall overbord I've put 10 pense
in here so you can buy things when you're on shore I wish I had more
Martha says the biskits are full of weevuls. Dere Bunty oh do come home
quick quick oh Bunty if only you'll come I'll always do things for you
and never grumbil whatever it is I know I used to be horid and grumbling
before but just you see do you have to swil the deks with no boots.
Martha says so. Oh dere Bunty DO come home. I've beleeved you all the
time Bunty dere of corse.
"Your loving sister,
"POPPET.
"P.S.--Be sure to come quick."
For a long time the little girl could think of no possible way of
getting this letter to her brother. Meg had said the post-office would
be no use, for in all probability the boat bearing it would pass in mid
ocean the one bringing Bunty back.
But it had struck Poppet lately that if only she could give it to the
captain of some other boat going to America, he would know just where
the boat was and be able to send it on.
That was the hope that was making her eyes grow full of light as the
river boat got nearer and nearer to Sydney, and hundreds of tall masts
and interlacing yards stood against the blue of the sky or the
brown-grey of the great warehouses.
How beautiful the harbour looked to-day! There was a cool breeze
blowing, and it ruffled the waters into a million little broken waves
that leaped and danced in the clear morning sunshine.
Up near the Quay there was all the picturesque untidiness and bustle of
busy shipping; but out farther the sun and the waves and the drifting
clouds had it their own way, and made a hundred shifting pictures.
Sometimes a white sail glittered in the sun, then a brown one would make
a spot of warm colour. The great boats to Manly left long majestic
trails of white foam behind them, and little skiffs got into the wash
and rocked joyously.
On the North Shore the many buildings showed white and clean in the
sunlight; farther to the left the houses were fewer, and beautiful
gardens stretched down to the water's edge. Still farther away, across
the white-tipped waves, were shores with backgrounds of thickly-growing
gums; and higher, the soft blue line of hills.
Poppet's very heart was in her eyes as the boat stopped at the Erskine
Street Wharf and the gangway was put down. She pinched Martha's arm
gently and whispered to her not to forget.
Martha spoke to a sailor who was sitting smoking on an inverted cask.
She "supposed the boats to America went from the Quay, didn't they
now?--or was it from Wooloomooloo?"
But he "supposed there were boats and boats to America. There was sich
as the _Mariposa_, which carried swells and was a fine boat; and sich as
the _Jenny Lind_, which took oil and was not a fine boat!"
"Do you know the _Isabella_?" said Poppet's little eager voice.
"Captain Brown?--well, I reckon I do, little miss," he said, and chewed
a bit of tobacco thoughtfully. "Bloomin' old tub! I was on her five
year."
Poppet nearly fell upon him,--she could not wait while he said all he
knew about it in his slow roundabout way.
"Is he a cruel man? don't they have vegetables to eat? do the little
boys have to go up the masts? are there weevils in the biscuits? oh! and
won't he let them have their boots on when they swill the decks?"
But it turned out that the _Isabella_ he was on was a schooner plying
between Melbourne and the South Sea Islands. He rather fancied there
was a brig of the same name that went to San Francisco or Boston, or
"one of those places."
Poppet's face had fallen again.
"Do you know of _any_ boats that go to America?" she said in a forlorn
tone. "Oh, do please try and think if you know of _any_."
Martha explained rapidly, _sotto voce_: "The young lady's brother had
run away, and was on that boat; she was fretting her little heart out to
get a letter to him; couldn't he pacify her some way? she herself knew
it was impossible."
The sailor looked kindly at the little sweet face under its
broad-brimmed hat.
"I have a mate on the _Jenny Lind_, little miss,--how'd it be if I gave
him the letter? He's a good-hearted chap, and would try his best; he'd
be sure to know where the _Isabella is_, and could easy send it."
"That would be best, Miss Poppet dear," said Martha; "give it to this
nice kind man and he'll send it."
"Is he going to America soon? Do you think he would see the
_Isabella_?" the little sad voice said.
And the sailor's answer was certainly very reassuring: the _Jenny Lind_
sailed in two days, and was sure to meet the _Isabella_, in which case
the letter would be delivered into Bunty's hands.
Poppet handed over her letter with a sigh of relief; she had hardly
dared to hope a boat would leave so soon.
Martha thanked the man, opened her green parasol, and walked on. Poppet
lingered half a minute.
"If you should happen to meet him anywhere," she said hurriedly,--"you
might, you know, as you're a sailor too: he's a tallish little boy, with
brown eyes, and his hair's rather rough,--you won't forget, will you?"
"Not I," he said warmly, shaking the small hand she held out,--"a
tallish little boy with brown eyes,--oh! I'd easy know him."
Then she caught up Martha, who was beckoning impatiently, and felt a
load was off her mind.
Such a morning they had! They went to the waxworks in George Street
first, and saw bush-rangers, an aboriginal murderer, and other pleasing
characters, with life-like eyelashes and surprisingly beautiful
complexions. Then they climbed all the way to the top of the Town
Hall--Martha knew the caretaker--and had the pleasure of seeing the city
in miniature far below. The Cathedral being next door came in for a
turn, but seemed rather flat after the waxworks. After that they went
through the five arcades systematically, flattening their noses at each
interesting window, and telling each other what they would buy if they
had the money.
[Illustration: "THEY WENT TO THE WAXWORKS IN GEORGE STREET FIRST."]
It was twelve o'clock when they had finished with the Strand, and they
were to meet Malcolm, who was going to take them somewhere to lunch, at
half-past one.
"There's just time for the Botanicking Gardens," said Martha, wiping her
heated face and setting her splendid hat straight at one of the narrow
slits of mirror in the arcade.
So away they posted, up King Street, down Macquarie Street, and away
down the broad, beautiful, shady walk in the Domain.
There was not time to "do" the Gardens thoroughly, so they only walked
rapidly up some of the paths, paused for a moment to look at the blue
harbour beyond the low sea wall, and then walked three times solemnly
and backwards around the wishing-tree near the entrance gates.
"What did you wish, Martha?" Poppet said, as they walked up again
towards the statue of Captain Cook, where they were to meet Malcolm. "I
hope you wished about Bunty."
But Martha had been selfish enough to desire fervently that Malcolm
should never go on strike again.
"Oh, you never get your wish if you tell what it is," she said
evasively.
"Don't you?" said Poppet anxiously. "Oh dear, and I was nearly telling
mine. You can't guess in the slightest, Martha, can you? You have no
idea, have you, Martha?"
"Not the slightest," said Martha of the warm heart,--"not the least
little bit, Miss Poppet."
"And you always get your wish, Martha?"
"Oh, of course."
Years after, Poppet's faith in that wonderful wishing-tree was unshaken.
*CHAPTER XII.*
*THREE COURSES, ONE SHILLING.*
"Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday's wounds which smarted and bled
Are healed with the healing which night has shed."
Poppet had been for lunch with Esther or Meg to the Fresh Food and Ice
Company, Quong Tart's, and such places on various occasions. But the
restaurant to which Malcolm and Martha took her was quite a new
experience. She did not know the name of the street it was in, but it
was not very far from the Quay, and there was a rather mixed, if
interesting, assembly of diners. Not that it was a particularly
low-class place; it had a very good name for the excellency of its food
and its moderate prices, and its patrons comprised poor clerks who
minded fashion less than a good dinner,--tradesmen, sailors, and
occasional wharf labourers. Martha had asked Malcolm whether, as she
had Poppet with her, they had better go to some place higher up town.
Malcolm, who dined there regularly, seemed to see no reason why he
should change his custom for a little slip of a girl under ten.
As for Poppet, it was all one with her where she went, and while Martha
and Malcolm were studying the bill of fare, she fell to watching some
sailors at an adjoining table with the deepest interest.
"Now, Miss Poppet," said Martha, "what will you have? Me and Malcolm
have fixed on sucking pig, sweet potatoes and baked pumpkin, but I think
you'd better have something plainer; there's roast mutton, or corned
beef, or beefsteak pie."
"Why," said Poppet, "we have _those_ things at home. No, I'll have
sucking pig too, please, Martha; I like tasting new things."
"Did you ever!" remarked Martha, looking troubled; "it might make you
ill, Miss Poppet dear. Have corned beef like a good little girl."
But Poppet could be firm on occasion. She did not dine at a restaurant
every day, and when she did she had no intention of confining herself to
ordinary things.
"Sucking pig for two," said Malcolm to the waiter, and paused for
Poppet's order.
"For three," said Poppet, softly but firmly. While he had gone to
execute the order, she occupied herself with considering what pudding
she would have. There were five or six down on the list: plum duff,
apple pie and custard, treacle rolypoly, stewed pears, and macaroni and
cheese. She was wavering between macaroni and plum duff, when the
waiter returned with the three great steaming plates of sucking pig and
vegetables.
Malcolm and Martha were soon busily occupied, both considering it would
be sheer wilful waste, after paying a shilling each, to leave an atom on
their plates; but Poppet found a very little satisfying, and fell to
watching the sailors again.
She heard them give their orders--five of them, each a different meat
and different vegetables; she wondered how the waiter could keep it all
in his head, and watched quite anxiously when he returned with the tray
to see if he made any mistake.
Just behind the screen where they filled the trays somebody stood
handing plate after plate to the one busy waiter. Presently, as the
place filled more and more she heard him say he must have some one to
help at once, a number of people were waiting.
A boy in a long white apron stepped out from the screen, a tray with
three corned beefs, two sucking pigs, and a roast mutton in his hand.
"Miss Poppet, dear, do eat up your potato," said Martha, pausing with a
knifeload midway between her plate and mouth. But Poppet's face was
deadly pale, and in her eyes was a look of strange wildness.
"She's ill," said Martha; "I knew she oughtn't to have it." She looked
at Malcolm in a helpless way for a second, and then pushed back her
chair to go round to the child.
But Poppet flung up her arms, and with a wild, piercing shriek darted
from her place and flew across the room.
There was a crash of crockery, one of those slow, piece-after-piece
crashes, when you wonder if there can be anything left to be broken,
angry words from the waiter and manager, confusion and laughter on the
part of the diners, blankest amazement on the faces of Martha and
Malcolm, and in the midst a small girl in a white frock and big hat
clinging frantically to "a tallish little boy with brown eyes and dark,
rough hair,"--a shabby, white-faced boy in a waiter's apron.
"Oh-h-h-h!" she sobbed, "oh-h-h! oh-h-h-h! _Bunty!_" She laughed and
sobbed and laughed again.
This extraordinary scene went on for two or three minutes; then the
manager recovered his wits and began to storm, and Martha, still wearing
an expression of stupefaction, made her way to the group.
Malcolm, after an expressive shoulder shrug, returned to his sucking
pig, which he was enjoying immensely.
[Illustration: "POPPET FLUNG UP HER ARMS, AND WITH A WILD, PIERCING
SHRIEK FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM."]
"There's nothing them kids _could_ do as 'ud surprise me," he said, as
he took a fresh supply of mustard and settled down again.
He had known the family for seven years, so the remark was not
unjustifiable. Martha had withdrawn to a back room with the manager.
She explained that his young waiter was the son of a gentleman; she gave
him Captain Woolcot's address that he might be reimbursed for the
breakages.
"But 'owever he got 'ere, so help me, I can't imagine," she said. "Why,
he's in America." She put out her hand to touch the lad and feel if he
were real flesh and blood, the evidence of her senses could not be
accredited. "It's really you, is it?" she said slowly.
But Bunty did not answer; he seemed half stupefied, and was standing
perfectly still, while Poppet sobbed and asked questions and clung to
him.
Such a tall, gaunt boy he had grown. His face was thin and sharp, there
was a look of silent suffering in his eyes and round his lips, his
clothes hung loosely on him, and were threadbare to the last degree.
"Get your hat and come with us, Master John," she said, a touch of her
old sharpness in her manner to him. "Don't take on so, Miss Poppet.
Hush! every one is looking at you; be quiet now, an we'll go to the
Gardens, or somewhere where we can talk, and then we'll go home."
"I can't go home," Bunty said faintly.
He wondered if those five terrible months behind him were a dream; or if
little trembling Poppet, who was holding him so tightly, was a vision
his disordered imagination had called up.
"Oh, I can't go home, of course," he said, and pushed his thick hair
back in a tired kind of way. "Hush, Poppet; go home with Martha like a
good girl, and, on no account, say you've seen me. Promise me----"
He did not wait for an answer, however, but made fresh confusion by
fainting dead away on the floor at Martha's feet.
The manager of the restaurant felt himself a very ill-used man that such
things should happen at his busiest time; but he was not inhuman, and
the boy's deathly face and the little girl's exceeding distress touched
him. Besides, Malcolm was his most regular customer; it would be unwise
to offend him. So he helped to lift the boy into an inner room, gave
Martha brandy and water, and recommended burnt feathers.
"I'll go and send a tellygrum for the Captain," Malcolm said, picking up
his hat. He too felt ill-used, for there were some choice morsels still
on his plate, and there was no knowing when he would get his pudding.
But Poppet caught his coat sleeve.
"Not father, on _any_ account," she said. "Esther, or Meg, or even
Pip--but oh, not father!"
"No, you'd better not fetch the Captain," Martha said. "Oh no, he
wouldn't do at all. Better telegraph for Miss Meg--she's got a head on
her. The missus is ill with a headache, so it's no good fetching
her--yes, send for Miss Meg."
It was between half-past one and two when all this happened; at five
Bunty was half-sitting, half-lying on the old, springless sofa in the
nursery. Poppet had squeezed herself on the half-inch of space he had
left, and was gazing at him, a look of great content and unspeakable
love on her little face; and Meg on the low rocking-chair beside them
was holding a hand of each.
The others had been turned out. Bunty lay with his face to the wall and
his lips shut in a dogged kind of way when they had all crowded round
asking questions; and at last Meg, seeing he was totally unfit for any
excitement or distress, persuaded them to leave him to Poppet and
herself till he was stronger.
And when the room was quiet, and Meg rocking softly to and fro, and
Poppet occasionally rubbing her smooth little cheek against his old
coat, he told them everything of his own accord.
He had not been to America at all, he had never even heard of a boat
called the _Isabella_; it must have been some other boy the police had
heard of, and a chance resemblance that made them connect the two.
He had been in or near Sydney all the time, living he hardly knew how.
The first month he had done odd jobs, fetched and carried for a grocer
in Botany. Then he had managed to get a place on a rough farm in the
Lane Cove district, where he was paid four shillings a week and given
board and lodging--of a kind. But there had been a long spell of rainy
weather and rough westerly winds, and he had been in wet things
sometimes from morning to night.
"And it gave me fever--rheumatic--pretty badly," he said; "so they
shipped me down to the hospital here in Sydney."
Poppet buried her nose in the sofa cushion, and Meg gave an exclamation
of horror.
"And you didn't tell the people who you were, and send for us?" she
said, wondering if this could be the same boy who, when he was small,
required the sympathies of the house if he scratched his knees.
"How could I?" was Bunty's low reply, "when you didn't know about
_that_!"
Meg held his hand closer.
"Didn't the people at the hospital ask who you were?" she said.
"I told them I hadn't any home, and my name was John Thomson," he
answered. "Of course they thought I was nothing but a farm boy. Well,
I was there a long time--about two months, I think; it seemed like
years."
Meg's face was pale, and her eyes full of hot tears.
She pictured the poor lad lying in that hospital bed week after week,
strange faces all around him, strange hands ministering to him,--weak,
racked with pain, and yet with almost incredible strength of mind
persevering in his determination not to let his family know anything.
"How could you _help_ sending for us?" she said, in a low tone.
He moved his head a little restlessly.
"I knew you were all sick of me, and ashamed of me. I know I'm not like
the rest of you, and I kept saying I'd get well and work hard and do
something to make you respect me before I came back."
Respect him! In Poppet's eyes Nelson was less of a hero, Gordon had
infinitely less claim to glory.
"Two or three times I nearly told the nurse," he continued,
half-shamefacedly; "the pain was pretty bad, I couldn't go to sleep for
it, and I thought I'd like Poppet to come,"--he gave her hand a rough
squeeze,--"but then I used to stuff the blanket in my mouth and bite it,
and it kept me from telling her. I used to have to shut my eyes so I
shouldn't see her coming to my end of the ward; I used to get so
frightened I'd say it without meaning to."
"And then," said Meg--the narration was almost too painful--"what did
you do then--when you got better?"
The rest of the story he hurried over; it made him shudder a little to
think of it all, now he was lying in this dear old room with two faces
full of love close to him.
He had not been strong enough for any regular work after he came from
the hospital. He had twelve shillings of his wages left, and this kept
him for a fortnight, with the help of what he received for an odd job or
two. The last week had been the worst of all. On Saturday he had
elevenpence only left; he lived on it that day, Sunday, and Monday,
sleeping in the Domain at night. On Tuesday he had in the course of his
wanderings come to Malcolm's favourite restaurant, and lingered around
it, trying to feed his poor hungry body with the appetising smells that
issued from the door. At last he could bear it no longer; he went in
and asked if they wanted a boy to wash up or wait, offering to do so in
return for food and a bed at night. They had been very pushed for help,
for one of the waiters had fallen ill, and they told him he could try it
for a day or two. All Tuesday he worked hard there, washing up, peeling
potatoes, running errands; the meals seemed more than ample repayment to
him in his half-starved state.
On Wednesday the absent waiter had sent word to say he would be at his
duties the following day. Just as Bunty was lading his tray to carry it
round he dropped a couple of tumblers,--he had broken two or three
things the previous day,--and the manager in annoyance told him he could
stay the rest of the day but need not come back to-morrow. Sick at heart
at the thought of the streets again, the poor boy had picked up his tray
and gone out into the big room with it.
And the next minute there came that wild, glad shriek, and Poppet had
flung herself upon him half mad with joy.
Just as the tale ended Nellie burst into the room. She went straight
over to the sofa and fell down on her knees beside it.
"Oh, how can you ever forgive us, Bunty!" she said, tears brimming over
in her eyes. "Oh, Bunty, I shall never forgive myself, never!"
Esther had followed, her face' shining with gladness. "Mr. Burnham is
here," she said, "and----"
"Bunty never did it, 'twath Bully Hawkinth!" burst out Peter, pushing
Nellie aside, and actually trying to kiss his injured brother in his
excitement.
Bunty rose to his feet, pale, trembling.
"What is it, Esther?" he said. "Nellie--tell me!"
"Only it _was_ young Hawkins after all who took the money," said Esther,
in tones that trembled with gladness for the news, and grief for the
poor boy's unmerited sufferings. "He broke his collar bone at football
yesterday, and he thought at first he was going to die; he confessed it
to his mother, and made her send word to school. Mr. Burnham has come
straight here with the news, and says he can never forgive himself for
all you have suffered over it."
"Oh, Bunty! how hateful we were not to believe you," said Nellie, wiping
her eyes; "we don't deserve for you to speak to us."
But Bunty put his poor rough head down on the cushions again, and great
hard sobs broke from him, sobs that he was bitterly ashamed of, but that
he had absolutely no strength to restrain.
No one would ever know quite how wretched this thing had made him.
However warm the welcome home had been, there would always have been
that cloud.
The relief was almost too much for him in his weak state.
At night, when Meg was tucking Poppet up in bed, the little girl sat up
suddenly.
"Meg, that is the most wonderfullest tree in the world," she said in a
low, almost reverential tone.
Meg asked her to explain, and she told how she and Martha had walked
backwards three times, around the "wishing-tree" in the Botanical
Gardens.
Meg stooped down and kissed the dear little face; how she envied Poppet
to-day! she was the only one who had had faith all the time.
"What did you wish?" she asked, though she knew without telling.
"That Bunty might be found this vewy day, and that they might find out
about the money."
"But I think I know a little girl who has said that in her prayers every
day for five months," whispered Meg. "Which do you think answered, God
or the tree?"
The little girl was quiet for a minute, then she knelt up on her pillow
and drooped her sweet, grave face with its closed eyelids over her two
small hands.
When she cuddled down among the clothes again, she drew Meg's bright
head down to her.
"I was thanking Him," she said.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*PARNASSUS AND PUDDINGS.*
"When for the first time Nature says plain 'No
To some 'Yes' in you, and walks over you
In gorgeous sweeps of scorn."
Pip had not spoken to Meg for over three weeks. There had been one fiery
outbreak consequent upon Miss Jones' dismissal of him. When he learnt
Meg had been to her he had accused his sister of treachery, of trying to
ruin his happiness; he had been willing, he said, to put off the
question of marriage for a year or two, but no power on earth would have
made him promise to give Mabelle up.
And she had given him up! Put him aside as if he had been a schoolboy,
or a worn-out glove! And with astonishing firmness. He had even seen
her already walking out with a man who sold saucepans and kettles and
fire-grates in the one business street of the suburb.
No wonder his cup of bitterness seemed running over; no wonder he felt
Meg had sinned beyond forgiveness in thus interfering.
His last examination had not, it was found, been hopelessly bad, and he
had been granted a "_post mortem_." But even then he did not attempt to
work. He used certainly, to stay in his bedroom, where his table stood
with its wild confusion of books and papers, but he would sit hour after
hour staring moodily in front of him, with never a glance at the
Todhunter or Berkeley that so urgently required his attention. Or he
would read poetry, lying full length on his bed,--Keats, Shelley, and
Byron, tales of blighted passion and hopeless grief, till his eyes would
ache with the tears his young manhood forbade to fall, tears of huge
self-pity and misery.
Surely since the creation there had been no one quite so wretched, so
utterly bereft of all that made life worth living! How grey and
monotonous stretched out the future before him! The probable length of
his life made him aghast. The sheer uselessness of living, the hollow
mockery of the sunshine and laughter and birds' songs, and the
intolerable length of hours and days, seemed each day to strike him with
fresh force.
After a certain time his mood induced poetic outpourings. He thought
himself just as wretched,--even more so, indeed; but the mere fact that
his feelings were able to relieve themselves in this way showed the
first keenness was passing.
[Illustration: "HE WOULD SIT HOUR AFTER HOUR STARING MOODILY IN FRONT OF
HIM."]
Sheet after sheet of University paper was covered with wild, impassioned
addresses in the shape of sonnets and odes, or, when the pen was too
full for studied forms, of eloquent blank verse.
For instance, the following poem struck him as exceptionally fine. He
composed it at midnight, after eating his heart out in misery all the
day. It was written in his blackest writing, as might be expected, and
upon a sheet of grey note paper,--the University buff had suddenly
offended his sense of fitness.
"Oh, what is life when all its joys are fled!
I am in love with Death's long dreamful ease.
Over my head I hear th' unwelcome tread
Of future years; my aching eye still sees
New suns arise and set, and seasons wane.
I would take arms against this sea of pain,
I would embrace Earth's sea and sink to rest,
For ever lulled upon her soothing breast!
I would fling off this gift of Life, as you,
O bitter Love, flung me aside, your you!
O Love, O Love, O bitter, beauteous Love,
Heartless and cold, but still my one fair dove!
What is this life that some find strangely fair,
When but to think brings sorrow and despair?
What is this life when love, your love, lies dead,
And mine, too much alive, slays me instead?
I will give up, go down,--there is a sea,
A winding sheet, kept cool and green for me.
I will give up, go down! Yet, Love, but smile,
But stretch to me that hand so soft and white,
That seemed my own, that sad, sweet little while,
And all grows day, for ever dead the night."
He was not at all sure when he read it the eighth or ninth time that the
mantle of the "Sun-treader" had not fallen upon him, that Helicon's
drying fount would not spring up afresh at his bidding.
Other men in love, he knew, had made verses, but they were of the
mawkish, sentimental kind his more fastidious taste rejected, the kind
that generally began something like--
"Oh, Star of Beauty, all the night
Thou shinest in the sky;
For thee the dark doth grow quite bright--
Oh, hear my plaintive sigh!"
His, he felt, were strong with the strength born of fathomless misery,
and sweet with the bitter-sweet of undying and spurned love.
One day he met Mabelle; she was walking to church with her fat, honest
old mother, who preferred a man of saucepans with money far before one
of irreproachable shirt cuffs and empty pockets.
She smiled at him from her brown, beautifully lashed eyes, a kind of
for-goodness-sake-try-to-make- the-best-of-it-and-don't-look-so-tragic
smile, but he interpreted it as a sign of softening. When he got home
he sent her the poem,--if anything in the wide world could touch her
beautiful, stony heart he thought that would.
He entrusted it to the common post, and waited with an undisciplined
heart for the answer.
It came on a Monday morning. Poppet took it from the postman and
carried it up to him, but she was too busy with a scheme of Bunty's to
notice how white he turned, and how his hand trembled.
It was painfully short and to the point:--
"What's the use of writing poetery to me when all's up and done with? I
showed it to Ma and Pa and some one else, and they thort it very fine;
but said you oughtent to write it as some one else writes poetery for me
now. I think it's very nice of course and I'll keep it this time but
don't send any more.
"Your friend only and nothing more,
"Miss JONES (not Mabelle).
"P.S.--I suppose I may as well tell you as I'm engaged to be married to
Mr. Wilkes."
That was Pip's death-blow, and, if a paradox may be allowed, from that
minute he began to live again.
The thought that his cherished poem had been submitted to the critical
gaze of a man who sold frying pans and wrote "poetery" himself, stung
him to madness. He sat down and attacked his hydrostatics with savage
frenzy to prevent himself doing anything desperate.
He even played in a football match the next week, a thing he had not
done for a long time; and he took food less under protest.
But Meg he could not forgive; his manner to her, if compelled to speak,
was cold and contemptuous; when possible he totally ignored her
presence.
The girl found such conduct very hard indeed to bear from her favourite
brother, especially as it was only her keen anxiety for his welfare that
had made her act as she had done; she bore it in silence, however, and
without reproaching him. Some day, she knew, he would thank her from
his heart, and for the present she must content herself to lie under the
ban of his displeasure.
To solace herself she took to making puddings, learning the
technicalities of meat cooking, and concocting queer-smelling bottles of
stuff she labelled mushroom ketchup, tomato sauce, and Australian
chutnee in her neatest hand.
Esther smiled a little when first these operations began. Meg had
hitherto expressed the frankest dislike for culinary engagements.
Nellie laughed openly.
"Her 'prentice hand she tried on us,
And then she cooked for Alan, oh!"
she said one day, shaking her head as she eyed a surprisingly
queer-looking conglomeration Meg called amber pudding.
"Many thanks, but no, Meg dearest; I think I will finish with honest
bread and cheese!"
"Esther?" said Meg, pausing with uplifted tablespoon, and taking no
notice of Nell's sarcasm beyond blushing finely. "You'll try a little,
won't you? I'm sure it's very nice."
But even Esther looked dubious; the frothed icing on top had an elegant
appearance certainly, but underneath was a mass of strange colour and
consistency.
"Dear Meg," she said, "I am like the French lady, you know,--I eat only
my acquaintances. Nellie, pass me the cheese."
But this sort of thing did not damp Meg's spirits, not at least for more
than a day or two.
Perhaps the next three or four puddings would be long-established
favourites that no one could take exception to, but after that there
would appear one or two of French title and unknown quantities. Now and
again indeed they turned out brilliant successes, that every one praised
and longed for more of; but most often, it must be confessed, they were
failures, very trying to the tempers and digestions of all who ventured
on a helping.
"It was well to be Alan," Nellie said, "with nine innocent people
submitting themselves daily to the dangers of poisoning or lifelong
indigestion, just that in future he might escape and have his palate
continually pleased."
"If I can't practise on my own family," demanded Meg, smiling however,
"how am I to get experience? All of you have excellent digestions, so it
will not do you any real harm."
And she persevered with so much determination that they only groaned
inwardly when a "confection a la Marguerite," as Nellie called it, took
the place of old favourites, such as plum puddings, apple pies,
roly-polys and Queens. Every one accepted their portion in meekness,
and really tried to say encouraging things, especially if her face was
hot and anxious.
Bunty was just beginning to find his place in the family again. But he
was a changed boy. No one could doubt that those five hard months had
had the most beneficial effect on his character, although they had made
him so white and hollow-cheeked. He was stronger morally, more
self-reliant. The rough usage he had received seemed to have quite
dissipated his cowardice, and with it the inclination to falsehood. He
was almost pitifully careful not to make the slightest untrue statement
about anything; and now the barriers of reserve between himself and Meg
were broken down, she was able to help him more, and put herself more in
his place.
Poppet was as much as ever his faithful little companion; there was
absolutely nothing the child would not have done for this dear,
recovered brother. She even consulted Meg as to the practicability of
learning Latin, just that she might look up his words for him every
evening in the dictionary.
But as three-syllabled words in her own language made her pucker up her
poor little brows, and as English grammar still had power to draw weary,
dispirited tears, Meg advised a short postponement.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*MUSHROOMS.*
"In what will all this ostentation end?"
A new house had been built lately not very far from Misrule, a grand,
showy-looking place, or red brick, in the Elizabethan style, which the
suburbs of Sydney are just beginning to affect largely.
The grounds were laid out by a landscape gardener, and there were velvet
lawns, carpet beds, and terraces reaching down to the river, where at
Misrule there was only a wilderness of a garden with broken palings, and
a couple of sloping paddocks where long rank grass and poppies
flourished. Then the carriage drive,--such a grand, smooth, red sweep,
serpentining up to the great porch. The Misrule drive was hardly red at
all; the gravel had mostly vanished, the dead leaves were generally of
Vallambrosian thickness, and weeds raised cheerful heads at intervals.
The name of the people who had built the new house was
Browne,--Fitzroy-Browne, with a hyphen and an e.
Mr. Fitzroy-Browne was a railway contractor, and had builded himself an
ample fortune out of a Government that not yet had need to cheese-pare.
There were three or four Misses Fitzroy-Browne, that fashionable
boarding-schools, dressmakers, and several seasons had done their best
for. There was a Mr. Fitzroy-Browne junior, who waxed his moustache,
wore clothes of chessboard device, and kept racehorses. And there was
Mamma Fitzroy-Browne, who was fat and good-natured, and said "Bless yer
'art" with a cheeriness refreshing in these days of ceremony, and then
pulled herself up short and looked unhappy.
Poor Mamma Browne! who sometimes thought wistfully of the long-dead days
when Papa had been only an honest navvy, and her little girls and boy
too small to snub and suppress her, and order her about.
Mamma Browne, who had liked her little old "best" room, with its big
round table, holding the Bible, three gilt-edged books, and some wax
grapes under a glass shade, far better than her grand new drawing-room,
that was like a furniture show-place, all mirrors and cabinets, and
green and gold.
How many Mamma Brownes there are in Australia! It is quite pitiful.
Good dear creatures, with their bones too set to adapt themselves to the
change the golden days have brought; poor simple-minded things, who,
having consistently left "h" out of their language for forty or fifty
years, cannot remember it now till an embarrassed cough or a blush and
sneer from a Miss Hyphen Browne makes their old hearts ache for shame of
themselves.
Dear housewives, who wasted not their husbands' substance in the old
days, and now bring down vials of contempt from the daughters for
anxious watchfulness over reckless servants! Sociable old bodies, to
whom a cup of tea in the kitchen with a gossiping friend had been
happiness, but "At Homes," thronged with stylish people whose speech
fairly bristled with h's and g's, bewildering misery.
Comfortable women who have weaknesses for violet, crimson, and bright
brown, with large bonnets heavily trimmed, and are sternly arrayed in
fashionable no colours, and for bonnets forced to wear a bit of jet, a
flyaway bow and strings, that they say piteously feels as if they had no
head covering at all.
I should like to build a Home for them, these dear, fat, snubbed orphans
of society that is altogether too fine for them--I said _fat_, because
if you notice it is always the fat ones who get into trouble: the thin
ones can shape themselves into place better,--to build a Home full of
small cosy rooms, with centre tables, and chairs, not artistically
arranged but set straight against the walls, with vases (pronounced
vorses) in pairs everywhere, waxen fruit and flowers under glass, and
china animals that never were on sea or land. There should always be a
tea-pot, warmly cosied, cups big enough to hold more than one mouthful
and not sufficiently precious to make one uncomfortable, plates of cake,
cut, not in finikin finger strips, but in good hearty wedges.
These to be in readiness for all the dear old vulgar friends who had not
got to fortune yet and loved to "drop in."
And if I had a uniform at all for my orphans it should be of a good warm
purple, with plenty of fringe and plush and buttons; and the standard
weight of the bonnets should be thirteen ounces.
All this because of Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne!
Captain Woolcot had told Esther she need not call when the new people
came to the district: he said he "hated mushroom growths, especially
when they were so pretentiously gilt-edged,"--which was rather a mixed
metaphor, by the way but no one could tell him so.
For some time therefore all the young Woolcots saw of the "mushrooms"
was on Sundays, when a pew that had belonged to two sweet old
maids--grey-clad always, sisters and lovers, never apart even in their
recent deaths--blossomed out into a gay dressmaker's showroom, from
which all the congregation could during sermon time take useful notes
for the renovation of their wardrobes.
Nellie's hats were good signs of the times. The boys chaffed and
scorned her unmercifully, but the poor child had such a weakness for
having things "in fashion" that for her very life, when the Misses
Fitzroy-Browne's trimmings were all severely at the back of their hats,
she could not leave hers at the front. Or if their frills crept up into
the middle of their skirts and had an insertion heading, how could she
be strong-minded enough to let hers remain on the hem with only a
gathering thread at the top?
Poor Nellie! she had a great, secret hankering for the flesh-pots of
Egypt. The love of pretty things amounted to a passion with her, and
the shabby carpets, scratched furniture, and ill-kept grounds of Misrule
were a source of real trouble to her.
Privately, she took a great interest in the rich Brownes, and envied
them not a little. Their grand house and beautiful grounds, their army
of trained servants, their splendid carriages and horses, and their
heaps of dresses and jewellery seemed to the half-grown girl the most
desirable things on earth.
But if you had put it to the test whether she would change Esther's
beautiful, quiet grace of manner for Mrs. Browne's nervous fussiness;
her soldierly, upright father for little, mean-looking Mr. Browne;
handsome, careless Pip, who looked like a king in his flannels and old
cricket cap, for Mr. Theodore Fitzroy-Browne of the careful toilets and
bold eyes; or sweet, gracious Meg, who always said the right thing at
the right time, for one of the over-dressed, gushing Miss Brownes, I
think--even with all the money thrown in--she would have clung to
Misrule.
For their part, the Brownes took a great interest in the Woolcot family,
and felt themselves much aggrieved that, with all their shabbiness, they
had been too "stuck-up" to call upon them.
They would have liked Pip for their "At Homes" and dances; and the
young, grave-faced doctor, who was always turning in at the Misrule
gate; Meg, who looked "such a lady"; and Nellie, whose beautiful face
would be so great an attraction to--at any rate--the masculine portion
of their guests.
When, after some five or six months, no cards from Captain, Mrs., and
Miss Woolcot had been deposited at the shrine of their wealth, they
began to make overtures themselves.
[Illustration: "MEG AND NELLIE HAD BEEN HELPING TO DECORATE THE CHURCH
ONE AFTERNOON."]
Meg and Nellie had been helping to decorate the church one
afternoon,--it was Easter-time,--when two of the Misses Browne came in,
followed by a man in livery, bearing a great basket of exquisite white
roses, and kosmea. Mrs. Macintosh, the clergyman's wife, introduced the
girls to each other, since they were so close, and they hammered their
fingers and exchanged civilities together for the next hour.
Miss Browne at the end of that time wanted to know if they were not
passionately fond of tennis.
"Oh yes--very," said Nellie. "We love it!"
"Of course you have a court?"
"Only a chip one the boys made; but it does very well."
It was Meg's answer. Nellie grew red, and wondered why her sister could
not have contented herself with "Yes, of course!" seeing there was small
chance the Fitzroy-Brownes would ever be asked inside the gates of
Misrule.
Miss Browne was silent a minute, then she said,--
"We have three beautiful grass courts. I wish, Miss Woolcot, you would
come up and have a game with us sometimes--and your sister, of course;
we should be glad to see your brother as well, if he would care to
come."
Meg tried not to look surprised, and did her best to find "the right
word for the right place."
"Thank you very much," she said; "but our afternoons are very much
filled, I am afraid we should not be able to."
"Then come in the morning," urged Miss Browne. "We always practise in
the morning--it fills the time, for, of course, there is nothing else
for us to do."
"I am always busy in the morning, and my brother is at lectures," Meg
said; "thank you all the same."
"Well, your sister," said Miss Browne. "Won't you come, Miss Nellie?
You can't be busy as well."
Nell looked at Meg as much as to say, "Why can't we?" but Meg was
somewhat annoyed at the persistency.
"I am very sorry, but Nellie still studies in the morning," she said,
just a little stiffly; "she is not old enough to be emancipated yet."
"Well, I think it's very mean of you, you know," was Miss Browne's
answer; but she had not taken offence, for Meg's tone had been pleasant.
"Still, if ever you can find time, we shall be delighted to see you; we
are always at home on Tuesdays and Fridays, evenings as well as
afternoons; or if you just sent me a little note to say you were coming
I would stay in."
Again Meg thanked her politely, if not warmly, and managed not to commit
herself to a promise. She moved away, however, from the danger of it as
soon as she could, and helped Mrs. Macintosh to decorate the chancel
with kosmea and asparagus grass.
But the Misses Browne kept the not unwilling Nellie close to them,
chattering to her, flattering her adroitly, altogether treating her as
if she were quite grown up, instead of not yet sixteen.
She was much easier to get on with than Meg, although she was a little
shy. They found out from her, by dint of much questioning, that the
young man with earnest eyes was Dr. Alan Courtney, and that--"yes, he
was engaged to Meg." They learnt that Pip was in his second year, and
went out a great deal; also that he played tennis splendidly, and had
won the singles tournament at the University, but that he liked football
much better. That the thin boy with brown, rough hair was John, and the
little bright-faced girl who wore big hats and always sat next to him
was Winifred. How Poppet would have smiled to hear her baptismal name!
That Pete--Rupert and Essie were the "second family," and that the tall,
beautiful girl they at first had thought was the eldest Miss Woolcot was
the step-mother. Meg intimated to Nellie it was glove-putting-on time,
and tried to draw her away, but Mrs. Courtney came up at the moment and
engaged her attention.
"I _wish_ you could have come to tennis," the eldest Miss Browne said,
"or to our evenings; we have such awfully jolly ones."
Nellie admitted, half hesitatingly, that she should like to "very much
indeed."
"It's a shame for a pretty girl like you to stay at home," Miss Isabel
said. "It isn't fair to the poor men, my dear."
Nellie blushed exquisitely, and both the Misses Browne thought she was
the sweetest-looking girl they had ever seen.
"I'm not out yet, of course," she said shyly. "I suppose I shall go to
places when I'm as old as Meg."
But they seemed to think that was a very old-fashioned notion. When
they were fifteen, and even younger, they said, _they_ had gone to
parties and no end of things.
"I don't suppose you could just run up to us one day next week by
yourself, and have a game with us?" insinuated Miss Browne, who would
fain show the glories of Trafalgar House to this young girl, who was
trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her well-worn gloves from their gaze.
Nellie was "afraid not," but the "not" was very dubious; she was
wondering if she could not manage it in some way, and when Meg, released
from Mrs. Courtney, came down the church for her, the first seeds of the
intimacy had been sown.
*CHAPTER XV.*
*THE GOVERNMENT OF MEG.*
"Alas! how easily things go wrong."
A week later, cards, very thick, gilt-edged, and perfumed, arrived at
Misrule, requesting the pleasure of the company of Mr. Philip and the
Misses Woolcot's company at an "At Home" at Trafalgar House.
Pip said it was "fair cheek." Meg raised her eyebrows, but Nellie
longed ardently to accept, and almost wept when a formal answer pleading
regret and a prior engagement was sent in return.
A fortnight passed, and more cards arrived.
MR. AND MRS. FITZROY-BROWNE.
_The Misses Woolcot,_
FRIDAY EVENING.
_Dancing. R.S.V.P._
Meg left out the "prior engagement" this time in her reply, and merely
"regretted the Misses Woolcot could not have the pleasure, etc."
But the girls gushed over Nellie just as much whenever they met her.
She used to go occasionally to the Parsonage to play mild tennis with
Mr. Macintosh's delicate son, who had been ordered the exercise. The
Misses Browne also went there at times; they considered that to visit
there on equal terms was a hall mark of gentility, and persevered
therefore, even though they yawned afterwards all through the drive
home.
They always drove wherever they were going, they seemed to think foot
exercise below them. It was even said that when they went to return a
call of the Macarthys who lived two doors off, they went in their great
open carriage, with high-stepping horses, coachman, and footman
complete. So, also, whenever they went to the little homely Parsonage
on the hill top, the imposing equipage took them there, the footman
stood in petrified state while they alighted, and afterwards handed the
two racquets out with as much ceremony as if he was assisting in some
public function.
Innate good taste sometimes whispered to Nellie that these things ought
not to be so, but she generally chose to be conveniently blind.
How could she find fault with them when they petted her and flattered
her till her silly little head was swimming? when they pressed gifts
upon her,--a gold bangle that one of them wore and she had admired, a
brooch with a tiny chrysophrase heart, even a parasol composed of
billowy chiffon. She had the good sense certainly to refuse the
presents, though she looked at them with longing eyes, but none the less
she admired and envied girls who had it in their power to make the
offers.
"Your people seem determined not to come to our house," Miss Isabel said
one day on the Parsonage tennis ground.
"They--they have so many engagements," said Nellie, with hesitating
mendacity and a blush of distress. What would they say if they knew the
contempt the cards met with at Misrule?
Miss Browne spoke of the great ballroom at Trafalgar House, of
illuminated grounds, of the throngs of guests; to Nellie, who had not
yet been allowed more harmful dissipation than tea-parties, picnics, and
children's romps, it sounded entrancing. "Yes, I should love to come,"
she said wistfully, as they once again regretted she should not give the
world an opportunity to see her beauty.
The child naturally was flattered that two grown-up young ladies should
take so much notice of her, and tell her so frequently of her good
looks; it seemed strange, even to her, that with all their money and
friends they should trouble to make much of a girl of her age who never
wore anything more expensive than muslin, crepon or serge, and always
trimmed her own hats.
The reason was that the Misses Browne, though they had really taken a
genuine liking to the shy, beautiful-faced child, had a great respect
for the name of Woolcot, the high esteem in which the family was held,
peccadilloes notwithstanding, and envied greatly their unquestioned
entry into the society that, strive as they would, opened not its doors
for them. And they thought, if they could once get on to a friendly
footing at Misrule, other people in the neighbourhood who had looked
coldly on them hitherto would immediately hold out hands of friendship,
and come to their doors with the magic bits of pasteboard they so
desired.
The best means to this end they considered would be to dazzle the eyes
of the family with the luxury and unstinted wealth at Trafalgar House.
But Nellie was the only one they could get hold of, so they fed her
young vanity without stint, and tried to lure her up to the great red
mansion.
"Yes, I should love to come," she had said on this occasion. They were
standing on the Parsonage court after a sett, Nell in a pink cambric
blouse and well-worn serge skirt, the Misses Browne in elaborate
costumes of Liberty silk with crossed tennis racquets worked all round
the skirts.
"Well, _come_," they said,--"don't wait for the others; we want
_you_,--why can't you come even if they won't?"
"Oh," said Nell, who had not dreamed of independent action, "how could I
if Esther and Meg don't?"
Miss Browne gave a little laughing sneer.
"What a good little girl it is! Does it always ask permission for
everything, and do exactly as it's told? Why, when we were your age we
never dreamt even of consulting our parents where we went, and they
never dreamt of interfering. Why, it's a very old-fashioned notion to
be in bondage like that to your parents."
Nell flushed half-shamefacedly.
She began to believe that she really gave in too much to her elders,
that she ought to have more freedom, and be more independent, now she
was nearly "grown up."
"Perhaps I will come some day," she said a little uncertainly.
"Just show them a few times that you are not a child, to be dictated to
as they wish," advised Miss Isabel; "after that it will be quite easy.
Why, I'd just like to hear ma or pa say we shouldn't go here or mustn't
go there, shouldn't you, Beatrice?"
Beatrice's laugh of utter scorn was sufficient answer. "Why, it's just
the other way," she said: "we tell ma what to do."
"Some day" Nellie had said, but had not imagined how soon the day would
be offered to her.
General Blaxland, the head of the forces in New South Wales, had decided
to send a certain Lieutenant Holloway and Captain Birsted to India, with
a view to gaining information from the forces there about several
reforms he wished to introduce into the colony.
Just at the last Lieutenant Holloway fell ill, and the General had asked
our Captain whether he could manage to tear himself away from the bosom
of his family for the time required, or whether they must send one of
the younger lieutenants. The Captain had asked for a day to think it
over, hastened home to Misrule, and told Esther if she would go with him
he would accept, for it would be a delightful holiday for both.
Esther was charmed with the idea. India had always seemed a kind of
beautiful enchanted country to her, where Arabian Night kind of
entertainments went on from morning to night. She begged for small
Essie's company, but the Captain would not hear of such a tie. So as
they would only be away four months Esther at length consented, and
delivered her baby into Meg's care with numberless injunctions.
There was one week of wild confusion at Misrule. The children had
holidays from lessons; dressmaking and millinery seemed going on all
over the house; trunks, cabin boxes, and portmanteaux stood gaping open
in Esther's room, and the Captain had a fit of intense irritability all
the time.
Monday, the day the _Orotava_ started, came at last, and Meg awoke from
the confused dream she had been in all the week to find herself on the
Quay waving a wet handkerchief to a boat almost out of sight, and only
refraining from more tears by a hastily got up argument between Peter
and Essie.
"Ze tissed me last," said Essie, trying to derive tearful superiority
from the fact.
"The waved to me latht, tho there!" Peter said.
"Ze never!" said Essie.
"The did!" cried Peter.
Meg thought it time to put away her handkerchief and interpose herself
between the two "grass orphans," or the quarrel would end in Essie
slapping Peter, and Peter growing red and pushing her down on the
ground.
Every one was looking a little grave and upset. It is impossible to see
a great ship bearing our dear ones move slowly away toward the wide,
terrible ocean without quickened heart-beatings, and serious if not
misty eyes, even if they are only going for a very little time, and
accidents are unheard-of things with such splendid ships.
Meg proposed an adjournment.
"Let's go and have tea and cakes or ice-creams at Quong Tart's" she
said.
"Who'll pay?" asked Bunty the practical.
Meg waited a moment; she half hoped Pip would come with them, his own
merry self again, and offer to "go halves," but he made no movement.
"I might take it out of the housekeeping money just this once," she
said. "Seven of us,--that would be three-and-six; only, Peter, you
mustn't ask for ice-cream too if you have a custard roll or anything;
every one can only have one thing, or it makes it too expensive."
Pip moved away.
"Won't you come, Pip?" she said half beseechingly, and catching his coat
sleeve.
But he gave her a cold look.
"No, thanks," he said, and walked off.
So only six of them went to drown their grief in tea and ice-cream.
There had been talk of asking Mrs. Hassal to come down and look after
Misrule and its inmates for the four months; but then, what would have
become of Yarrahappini?
Meg begged her father to have no one. Surely, she said, for that short
time she was capable of being head of the house. The cook was a married
woman, and would give an air of steadiness to the place; Martha was
thoroughly reliable; and Pat had the virtue of doing as he was told.
There would be herself and Pip in authority, with Nellie as
aide-de-camp; Bunty was a changed character; and as to Poppet, Peter,
and Essie, any one with a little tact could manage them.
So it was decided at last, and Meg picked up the reins of government
with a pleasurable feeling of responsibility and no misgivings whatever.
Pip felt he had done his duty for the time when he spoke a word in
season to Peter and threatened "hidings" innumerable if he waxed
obstreperous.
But the aide-de-camp was tried and proved wanting,--all the trouble that
followed came through her.
Meg, who desired everything to go on smoothly and pleasantly, made a
point of consulting Nellie in many things, and treating her as an equal
in age. As it happened, it was the worst policy she could adopt just
then, for it strengthened the younger girl's growing ideas of
independence.
A little firmness--a mother's firmness--and the enforcement of
unquestioned authority at this juncture would have saved her from many a
subsequent heartache. But alas! there was no mother, and Meg's rule was
certainly not despotic, though it was firm in its way, and answered
excellently with the young ones.
"Where are you going, Nell?" she said one afternoon, going up into the
bedroom, and finding her young sister in the midst of as elaborate a
toilet as her simple clothes would allow.
"Up to Trafalgar House for tennis, that's all!" Nell replied, in a tone
whose studied nonchalance was somewhat overdone.
Meg fairly gasped. Was she going to have open rebellion among her
subjects as soon as this?
"You are going to do nothing of the kind, I hope," she said, with
considerable warmth in her tone. "What are you thinking of? Of course
you can't accept hospitality from people we refuse to visit!"
"Oh, that's all nonsense!" Nellie replied, fluffing a strand of hair
backward with the comb and pinning it up into a roll. "I consider
Esther and you were very rude and unneighbourly not to call on them, and
it's no reason I should be impolite as well!"
"But you can't do such an impossible thing!" Meg cried. "Don't be such
a child, Nellie. Go to the Parsonage, or the Courtneys, or anywhere if
you want a game; but, for goodness' sake, keep away from that horrid
place!"
[Illustration: "'NELLIE, I FORBID YOU TO GO!' MEG CRIED."]
Nellie proceeded quietly with her dressing, the resolute light in her
eyes not a whit diminished. She buttoned her blue tennis blouse, brushed
some specks of dust off her skirt, and put a piece of clean belting in
her silver waist-clasp.
"I can't believe you're in earnest," Meg began again; "why, you _must_
remember father expressly said we were not to go!"
"He did not tell me; he only said Esther needn't call,--that's not
forbidding _me_!" Nell said calmly.
She put on her sailor hat, stuck the pins through with great care, and
made a few little deft dabs at her fluffy side hair. Then she put on
her very best gloves and picked up her racquet.
"Nellie, I _forbid_ you to go!" Meg cried, finding neither reasoning nor
asking would answer. "Remember, I have been left here in charge of you
all, and I absolutely _forbid_ you to go near those Brownes!"
"Pooh!" said Nellie, "I'm nearly as old as you--I'm too big to be
forbidden. Give your orders to Peter and Poppet--I'm _going_!"
And she went.
*CHAPTER XVI.*
*MORE MUTINY.*
"Gently scan your brother man.
Still gentlier sister woman,
An' if they gang a trifle wrang
To step aside is human."
That was the first battle; another followed quickly on its heels; and
then there came a long and sorrowful peace.
Meg had been exceedingly angry about it--and with justice. She
marvelled, not only at Nellie's rebellion, but that she should care to
mix with such "impossible" people, as she called them.
"It isn't as if they were merely homely and uneducated," she said; "but
their vulgarity and pretentiousness are enough to make any one sick!"
However, as Nellie was very quiet--docile even--after the one outbreak,
and as it was not possible to keep up an unfriendly spirit for ever, she
thought she had better overlook it as a first and last offence; more
especially as she remembered her own mad infatuation for Aldith
MacCarthy, when she had been even older than Nell was now.
But she warned her with much resolution in her tone.
"You only leave me one course, Nellie," she said. "I have been left in
charge, and if you won't obey orders--I'm sure I try to give as few as
possible--I shall be compelled to write to Mr. Hassal and ask him either
to send you to school till father comes back or else to let some one
come here whose authority you will respect."
Then she softened, and put her arms round her sister.
"Don't make it so hard for me, Nell," she said, almost with tears in her
eyes; "there's nothing in moderation I'd try to stop you, but you really
must see I can't let you grow intimate with these people."
But Nellie had not responded with her usual sisterly hug and kiss. She
wriggled away from the encircling arms and gave a little impatient toss
of her head.
"What a fuss you make about things, Meg!" she said pettishly. "I do
wish you'd leave me alone! I'm not a child, and I'm not going to be
ordered about like one."
Then came the next war.
Cards for a dinner-party arrived from the "unsnubbable" Brownes--Bunty's
adjective.
"Put them in the fire," Pip said. "No answer is the best for such
people."
If there had been some pretty faces among the feminine portion of the
Browne household Pip would not have been so scornful of the overtures,
but the girls were each and all undeniably plain. For the days that
intervened between the arrival of the cards and the date of the
dinner-party Meg was exceedingly busy.
She had a dressmaker in the house making winter frocks for Poppet and
Essie; that took up much of her time. Besides this, two great cases of
quinces and apples had been sent to them from Yarrahappini, and, with
Martha's help, she was converting them into jam and jelly.
Bunty also had been unwell, and from school a day or two, and Peter had
one of his perverse fits upon him. She had not had time to give the
Fitzroy-Brownes as much as a passing thought; and as the new daily
governess made no complaint about Nellie's morning studies she concluded
all was going on well.
Judge therefore her immeasurable amaze when, going up to the bedroom on
the date of the dinner-party, and just after nursery tea was over, she
discovered Nellie again in the act of making a "toilette." She had the
white crepon dress on; it nearly touched the ground in front, and
trailed a little behind. There was soft lace in the neck and sleeves of
it, and on her bosom a cluster of the exquisite pink roses that climbed
all over the tool-shed. She had white suede gloves and black pretty
shoes, both new, as the gap in her small allowance testified.
Excitement had lent a brilliant colour to her cheeks; her eyes, with
their thick, curled lashes, were like stars. For one second Meg paused,
struck with the wondrous, exceeding beauty of her young sister; the next
she realised what she was dressed for.
"Where are you going?" she said, merely as a matter of form--of course
she knew.
"I'm going to the Fitzroy-Brownes at Trafalgar House for a small
dinner-party,--seven to ten, carriages at half-past," Nellie said, with
elaborate attention to detail. "Is there anything else you would like
to know?"
Meg went a little white.
"You don't move from this house, Nellie!" she said, and her lips set
themselves firmly. "You can take off that dress as soon as you like!"
Nellie twisted a long lace scarf round her beautiful shining head.
"It's no use making a bother," she said; "I've made up my mind to go,
and I'm going!"
"I refused the invitation," Meg said, catching at a straw.
"But I accepted," was Nellie's answer. "I met Isabel yesterday and
promised."
For ten long minutes did Meg argue, reason, coax, and appeal to Nellie's
better judgment: the fear of Isabel's sneers, together with the thought
of the cost of her shoes and gloves, were of more avail. The girl was
quietly obdurate; Meg found she was not even listening to her.
"They are sending a brougham down to pick me up at the Bentleys," she
said, when Meg was almost exhausted; "I shall miss them if I wait any
longer." She moved to the door.
But a flame of righteous anger sprang up in Meg's eyes. She hastened
down the corridor to Pip's room, and laid the case in a few words before
him.
Offended as he was with his sister, he could not refuse to uphold her in
a matter like this--especially as he had such a vast contempt for the
"mushrooms."
He caught Nellie on the staircase.
"Don't be such a little idiot!" he said. "Go and take that frippery off
at once!"
"Go and mind your own business, Philip Woolcot!" retorted Nellie.
"Well, of all little donkeys!" he said. "Do you actually mean to say,
Meg, she was going off on her own hook, without you or me or any one?"
"I certainly do think she's losing her senses!" Meg said in
exasperation.
Philip surveyed her in silence for a minute--her exquisite, childish,
unformed beauty even appealed to his coldly fraternal eyes. He smiled
almost benignly.
"Be a good little chicken," he said; "wait three or four years, and you
shall revel in this sort of thing till you find it's all vanity."
Three or four years! Nellie's eyes flashed defiance at them both.
"I'm _going_," she said, in a low, very determined voice. She brushed
past Meg and went down five stairs.
But "Are you, my lady?" quoth Pip. He jumped the steps, caught her, and
held her fast.
She struggled violently--anger and excitement lent her unnatural
strength--and she freed herself at length, and fled in wild, mad haste
down the stairs and to the front door. Once in the brougham, which was
only a little way off, and she knew she could bid defiance to all the
Megs and Pips in the world!
But Pip's blood was up. He had no intention of letting a little chit
like Nellie get the upper hand of him, even if there were no real object
at stake. As it was, the thought of his pretty, innocent little sister
in the company of the "off crowd" of men he had seen young
Fitzroy-Browne take home, and the loud women with whom he felt
instinctively the girls consorted, made him shudder.
"Are you going to stay at home quietly?" he said, fire in his dark eyes
as he caught her by the arms just as she was pulling the door handle
back.
"No, I'm not!" she said stormily.
For answer he picked her right up in his arms as if she had been Poppet.
"Where shall I put her, Meg? I'm going to lock her up," he called
breathlessly; she was not fragilely light.
Meg was a little startled at such a summary proceeding; then she decided
rapidly it was the only thing to be done at the juncture.
"Here!" she cried, "in her own bedroom." She flung open the door, and
he strode down the passage with his struggling burden in its dainty
dress and sweet, crushed roses.
They left her the light. There was a shelf of books to occupy her if so
she liked, also her work-basket, with a fleecy cloud she was crocheting;
she would be able to fill the time. But they locked the door very
carefully, and took the key downstairs with them.
"You must have been exceedingly careless, Meg, to let her get to know
them," Pip said, with masculine inclination to locate blame.
Meg told of the introduction and subsequent meetings--how it seemed
impossible to get the people to accept the frequent if
delicately-conveyed hints that their acquaintance was not desired. She
kept the tennis episode to herself, for she feared it would only make
him more harsh and overbearing to Nellie, and do no good.
When they were separating some time later she looked wistfully up at
him.
"Dear Pip, aren't you ever going to forgive me?" she said; "can't you
see I only did it for your good? Do let us kiss and be friends again."
He looked at her very coldly and sternly; the old bitter curve showed at
his mouth.
"No," he said, "I shall never forgive you while I live, Meg." Then he
turned and went out of the room.
Meg went upstairs, tired, dispirited. Tears smarted in her eyes from
her rebuff. Nellie, she knew, was thinking hard thoughts of her; Alan
had not written to-day, for some reason or other; and all the world
seemed wrong. She went into her room and sat down, with a sob and some
splashing tears, in the dark by the window.
[Il
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