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Yes, poor mamma did look dreadfully tired, and through the outside cheeriness of papa's words and manner I could see that he was feeling very sad and dull.
I hurried in, and we were soon all at tea in the pretty drawing-room. George and I did not always have tea downstairs, but to-day somehow there seemed no question of our not doing so. I waited till mamma had had some tea and was looking a little less white and done up, and then I said half-frightenedly —
'Did you see any nice little house at Kirke?' though in my heart I felt sure they hadn't, or they would not have come back, looking so disappointed.
Mamma shook her head.
'I am afraid, dearie,' she began, but papa interrupted her —
'No,' he said decidedly, 'we saw nothing the least possible to call "nice," except one or two places far and away too dear. And of course we knew already that there are plenty of nice houses to be got, if expense had not to be considered so closely. There is no good beating about the bush with George and Ida,' he went on, turning to mamma. 'Now that we have so thoroughly taken them into our confidence it is best to tell them everything. And the truth is,' he continued, leaning back in his chair with a rather rueful smile, 'I am really feeling almost in despair. I am afraid we shall have to give up the idea of staying at Kirke.'
'Yet there are so many advantages about it,' said mamma quickly. 'And there is, after all, that tiny house in the Western Road.'
'Horrid poky little hole,' said papa. 'I cannot bear to think of you in it. I would almost rather you went about in a caravan like the gypsies we passed on the road.'
'Yes,' I agreed, 'I wouldn't mind that at all – not in summer, at least.'
'Ah, but unluckily, my dear child, "it is not always May,"' he replied, though I was pleased to see he held out his cup for some more tea (I have found out that things do seem much worse when one is tired or hungry!) and that his voice sounded more like itself.
'And it isn't always winter either,' said mamma cheerfully. 'Let us be as happy as we can while we are together, and enjoy this nice spring weather. I am glad, if sad things had to happen, that they did not come to us in November or December. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd will find some nicer house for us.'
'Does he know about – about our having to leave Eastercove?' I asked.
Mamma nodded.
'Yes,' she replied. 'We stopped there on our way back, and papa went in and told him.'
I felt glad of that. It would prepare him for Dods's anxiety about a scholarship.
'By the bye,' mamma continued, 'how fast they are getting on with the new parish room! I was looking at it while I was waiting for you, Jack' (that's papa), 'and it seems really finished. Are they not beginning to take away the iron room already?'
'Lloyd says it is to be sold here, or returned to the makers for what they will give, next week,' papa replied. 'It has served its purpose very well indeed these two or three years. If – '
'If what?' said mamma.
Poor papa shrugged his shoulders.
'Oh, it's no good thinking of it now,' he answered. 'I was only going to say – forgetting – that if Geordie and Ida liked I might buy it and add it on to the hut. It would make into two capital little bedrooms for very little cost, and Lloyd happened to say to-day that the makers would rather sell it for less where it stands than have the expense of taking it back to London. They keep improving these things; it is probably considered old-fashioned already.'
Geordie and I looked at each other. How lovely it would have been! Just what we had always longed for – to be allowed really to live at the hut now and then. And with two more rooms we could have had Hoskins with us, and then mamma wouldn't have been nervous about it. But as papa said, there was no use in thinking about it now.
'Will the people who are coming to live here have the hut too?' I asked.
Papa did not seem to pay much attention to what I said. He was thinking deeply, and almost started as I turned to him with the question.
'I do not know,' he replied. 'It has not been alluded to.'
'I hope not,' said mamma. 'If we stay at Kirke, as I still trust we may, it would be nice to come up there to spend an afternoon now and then. It is so far from the house that we would not seem like intruders. Though, of course, once they see how nice it is, they may want to have it as a bathing-box.'
'That's not very likely,' said papa. 'They seem elderly people, and the son is a great sufferer from rheumatism. That is why they have taken such a fancy to this place – the scent of pine woods and the air about them are considered so good for illnesses of that kind. And sea-air suits him too, and they think it a wonderful chance to have all this as well as a dry climate and fairly mild winters. Yes – we who live here are uncommonly lucky.'
He strolled to the window as he spoke and stood looking out without speaking. Then he turned again.
'I'll remember about the hut,' he said. 'I don't fancy these good people would be likely to be fussy or ill-natured or to think you intruding. Their letters are so well-bred and considerate.'
We felt glad to hear that.
'Mamma,' I said, 'we have made the hut so nice and tidy for to-morrow – Sunday, you know. You and papa will come and have tea there, won't you? It will be the first time this year' (and 'the last perhaps' seemed whispered into my mind, though I did not utter the words), for the spring-coming had been uncertain and we had all had colds.
Mamma looked at papa.
'Yes,' he said; 'certainly we will. And the little ones too, Ida?'
'Of course,' I said, and then I went off to talk about cakes – and muffins if possible, to please Dods – to Hoskins, the result of the interview proving very satisfactory.
When I came back to the drawing-room the little ones were there – Denzil, solemn as usual; Esmé hopping and skipping about and chattering thirteen to the dozen, as usual, too! She is three or four years older now, and beginning to 'sober down,' as they say, so I hope if she ever reads this, which certainly will not be for three or four or more years from now, she will have gone on sobering down, enough to understand what a 'flibbertigibbet' (that is a word of Hoskins's which I think very expressive) she was, and not to be hurt at my description of her. For I do love her dearly, and I always have loved her dearly, and I should be sorry for her ever to lose her good spirits, though it is already a comfort that she sometimes sits still now, and listens to what is said to her.
All the same, that part of our lives which I am writing this story about, would have been much duller and harder but for our butterfly's funny, merry ways.
This afternoon she was especially laughing and mischievous, and it made me feel a little cross. I was tired, I daresay, with all the work we had been doing, and the sadness that had come upon us so suddenly, and I did want to be quiet and talk sensibly. It was a little papa's fault too, I must say. He is sometimes rather like a boy still, though he has four big children. He hates being unhappy! I don't think he would mind my saying so of him, and he got mischievous and teased Esmé, to make her say funny things, as she often does.
And I suppose I looked rather too grave, for, after a little, mamma whispered to me —
'Ida, dear, don't look so dreadfully unhappy; you almost make me wish we had not told you anything till we were obliged to do so.'
'I don't look worse than Geordie,' I replied, in a whisper too, 'or – or,' as I happened just then to catch sight of my younger brother's face, 'than Denzil.'
At this mamma did burst out laughing – a real merry laugh, which, in spite of my crossness, I was pleased to hear.
'My dear!' she exclaimed, 'who has ever seen Denzil anything but solemn! And as he knows nothing, it has certainly not to do with what we are all thinking about. He was the solemnest baby even that ever was seen, though many babies are solemn. I used to feel quite ashamed of my frivolity when Denny was only a couple of months old. And – no, poor old Geordie is trying to cheer up, so you must too.'
Yes, it was true. Geordie was laughing and playing with Esmé and papa, though I know his heart was quite as heavy as mine. Geordie is very particularly good in some ways. So I resolved to choke down, or at least to hide, my sadness – and still more the sort of crossness I had been feeling. It was not exactly real ill-tempered crossness, but the kind of hating being unhappy and thinking that other people are unhappy too, which comes with troubles when one isn't used to them especially, and isn't patient and unselfish, though one wants to be.
However, I managed to look more amiable after mamma's little warning – still more, I think, after her hearty laugh. Her laughing always seems to drive away crossness and gloominess; it is so pretty and bright, and so real.
And I was helped too by another thing, though as yet it had scarcely taken shape in my mind, or even in my fancy. But it was there all the same, fluttering about somewhere, as if waiting for me to catch hold of it and make something of it. Just yet I did not give myself time to think it out. All I felt was a sort of presentiment that somewhere or somehow there was a way out of our troubles, or rather out of one part of them, and that I was going to find it before long. And I am quite sure that sometimes the thinking a thing out is more than half done by our brains before we know it – much in the same way that we – Dods and I – are quite sure that putting a lesson-book under your pillow at night helps you to know what you have to learn out of it by the next morning. Lots of children believe this, though none of us can explain it, and we don't like to speak of it for fear of being laughed at. But I don't mind writing about it, as I shall not hear if people do laugh at it or not.
Anyway it did happen to me this time, that something worked the cobweb ideas that were beginning to float about in my brain into a real touchable or speakable plan, before the 'awake' side of it – of my brain, I mean – knew that anything of the kind was there.
I will try to tell quite exactly how this came about. But first I must say that I don't think George was feeling so very bad after all, for the last thing he said to me that evening as we went up to bed was, 'I do hope Hoskins has managed to get some muffins for to-morrow.'
CHAPTER III
'IT'S A WONDERFUL IDEA, IDA'
I remember that I fell asleep very quickly that night. Of course, like most children when they are well, I generally did. But that night it would not have been very surprising if I had kept awake and even got into a tossing-about, fidgety state, just from thinking about the strange, sudden trouble and change that were coming into our lives.
On the contrary, I seemed to drop straight down into unconsciousness almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, and I must have slept several hours straight off without even dreaming, or at least dreaming anything that I could remember. For when I awoke the dawn was creeping in, and though I felt too lazy and comfortable to get up to look out, I knew that sunrise could not be far off. It was that time of early morning when one almost fancies that sun and moon stop a moment or two to say a word to each other on their way, though of course I know enough astronomy now to understand that those fancies are only fancies. And yet there is a kind of truth in them, for the sun and moon, and the stars too, have to do with all of us people living on this earth; indeed, we owe everything to the sun; and so it is not altogether fancy to think of him, great big kind thing that he is, as a wonderful friend, and of the little gentle moon as taking his place, as it were, when he is at work on the other side. And the curious, mingled sort of light in the room, faint and dreamy, though clear too, made me think to myself, 'The sun is saying, "How do you do?" and the moon, "Good-bye."'
But I soon shut my drowsy eyes again, though not to fall asleep again at once. On the contrary, I grew awaker and awaker, as I began to feel that my mind or memory or brain – I don't know which to call it – had something to tell me.
What was it?
I seemed almost to be listening. And gradually it came to me – the knowledge of the idea that had been working itself out during my sleep from the thoughts that had been there jumbled up together the day before. And when I got clear hold of what it was, I nearly called out, I felt so struck and startled at first, just as if some one had said it to me, though with astonishing quickness it spread itself out before me as a really possible and even sensible plan, with nothing dreamy or fanciful about it.
It was this.
'Why should not we all – mamma, that is to say, and we four children – why should we not live altogether at the hut during the year, or more perhaps, that papa would have to be away?'
It may seem to those who read this story – if ever there are readers of it – a wild idea that had thus come to me. But 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating,' as Hoskins is fond of saying. So please wait a little before you judge.
And no sooner had the idea got into words than all the bits of it began to place themselves in order like the pieces of a dissected puzzle-map, or, still better, like the many-coloured skeins of silk in the pretty fairy story where the touch of the wand made them all arrange themselves. Still more – no sooner had the first vague thoughts settled down than others came to join them, each finding its own corner in the building that I began to see was not a castle in the air but a good solid piece of work.
It would be so healthy and airy, and yet not damp; nor, with proper care, need it be very cold, even in winter. It would be near enough to Kirke for Geordie to go on with his lessons with Mr. Lloyd, and for us to feel we had old friends close at hand, who would understand all about us, and very likely be kinder than ever. It would be near enough to home – dear Eastercove – indeed, it would be Eastercove – for us to take lots of furniture and things from the house to furnish as much more as was needed and to make it comfortable and even pretty, without emptying Eastercove house at all. There was, as I have said, such a lot of stored-away extra furniture and old carpets and curtains and blankets and all sorts of things up in the great attic, and Hoskins kept them all so nice and tidy, and without moths or mildew or horrible things like that, that it was quite a pleasure to go up there sometimes. It was like a very neat shop for second-hand things, which is more than can be said for most box-rooms or lumber-rooms, I fancy.
And the moving these things would be no expense, and there would be no travelling expenses for any of us, and – the last idea that came into my head was the best of all. The old parish room! The iron room that Mr. Lloyd had told papa about the afternoon before! They wanted to get rid of it and would sell it for almost nothing. Even if 'almost nothing' meant – I could not guess how much or how little – a few pounds, perhaps – it would be far, far less than the rent of a house, however small, and it would make into two or even three little rooms, easily. Perhaps it would be enough just to divide it by screens or curtains, perhaps —
Oh, the 'perhapses' that came crowding into my head when I had thought of the old parish room! I could scarcely lie still another minute – I felt in such a desperate hurry to tell Geordie of the wonderful thought that had come to me. But it was still far from getting-up time; I knew it would be very selfish and unkind to wake up poor old Dods in what would seem to him the middle of the night, for he was a very sound sleeper, and had hard enough work to get his eyes properly open by seven o'clock.
No – there was nothing for it but to lie still and be as patient as I could. It would be interesting to watch the light growing stronger and changing; it was already doing so in a curious way, as the cold, thin moonshine gave place to the sun, even then
warmer somehow in its tone than the fullest moon-rays ever are.
'Yes,' I thought, 'they have met and passed each other by now, I should think. I wonder – if – '
Strange to say, I cannot finish the sentence, for I don't know what I was going to wonder! In spite of all my eagerness and excitement I knew nothing more, till – the usual summons, in Hoskins's voice —
'Miss Ida, my dear, it's the quarter-past. You were sleeping soundly – I could scarcely find it in my heart to awake you. But it's Sunday morning, and you know it doesn't do to be late – and a beautiful spring morning too as ever was seen.'
I could scarcely believe my ears.
'Oh, Hoskins!' I exclaimed, 'I am sleepy. I was awake a good bit quite early, and I had no idea I had gone off again. I was so awake, thinking.'
The talking thoroughly roused me, and almost at once all the 'thinking' came back to me, so that by the time I was dressed, even though Sunday morning dressing needed a little more care and attention than every day's, I had got it all clear and compact and ready, as it were, for Geordie's cool inspection.
To my great satisfaction he had had a good fit that morning of getting up promptly and being down the first after me, instead of, as often happened, the last after everybody.
'Geordie,' I exclaimed, when I caught sight of him standing at the dining-room window, staring out – or perhaps I should say' gazing,' for staring is an ugly word, and the garden that morning was looking so particularly pretty – 'Geordie, I am just bursting to talk to you. Is it any use beginning before papa and mamma come down, do you think?'
Geordie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
'Yes,' he said; 'we have five minutes, or ten perhaps. Is it anything particular?'
'Of course it is,' I replied, 'or I wouldn't say I was bursting to tell it you. And I think and hope it is something that will please you very much. You are to listen well and not interrupt me and say "nonsense," before you have taken it into your mind and thought it over.'
I saw he already was looking interested, and I was glad of it. His face had been so sad when he first turned at the sound of my voice, and I well knew why. I can almost always understand Geordie and very often guess what he is thinking of. He has such dear blue eyes, but they are the kind that can look very melancholy sometimes. I do hope he will have a happy life when he grows up – I am pretty sure he will deserve it. Even now that he has been a good long while at school – big public school, I mean – he is just the same to me as ever. When he comes home for the holidays it seems as if he had never been away.
'I won't interrupt you – or say "nonsense," if I can help it,' he answered, with a little fun in his voice and smile coming in his eyes.
Then I told him. I need not repeat all I said, as I have written a lot of it already. But it must have been rather hard for Geordie not to interrupt me. It all bubbled out so fast – all the splendid ideas and good reasons and perhapses – one on the top of the other, so that if he hadn't been pretty well accustomed to my ways he could scarcely have understood. It was quite interesting and exciting, as I went on, to watch the expression in his face – his cheeks grew pink, then crimson, and his eyes brighter and brighter. I soon saw I was not going to be snubbed.
But real want of breath, and then the sound of mamma's skirts coming across the hall with a pretty soft rustle – I don't think any one else's skirts move so nicely; they seem to match her, not like that noisy flustering that is like saying, 'Here I am; I expect to be attended to' – made me stop at last. There was only time for George to whisper —
'It's a wonderful idea, Ida. I'll think a lot and then we'll talk about it, by ourselves, first, of course.'
'We mustn't think about it in church,' I replied in the same tone; 'we must try, I suppose, Dods, not to think of it in church – part of the time, at least. I don't see that it would matter so much during the first lesson, and perhaps one of the psalms, if they are very long ones.'
'No – o, perhaps not,' he said, and then we both ran forward to kiss mamma.
She looked at us, and I saw her face brighten when she saw that ours were not very sad or dull. I think she had been afraid that in his wish to help her, papa had put too much of the burden on us two, considering how young we were then.
'My darlings!' she said, in a rather low voice, 'my own brave boy and girl,' and I am almost sure the tears came into her eyes. But the smiles came too.
'What a lovely day it is going to be!' she went on, as she glanced out of the window. 'I am so glad. We must put cares aside as much as we can and try to be happy and hopeful.'
'Yes, dear mamma,' I answered cheerfully, and with all the delightful exciting ideas in my head, it was quite easy to be bright, as you can understand, 'yes, we are going to have a nice day. Geordie and I' – I glanced at him; he had not exactly said so, but I knew he would not mind, – 'Geordie and I want to go down to the hut very soon after luncheon, if you say we may, to get it all ready for you and papa and the little ones, to come to tea.'
'All right,' said mamma, though I saw a tiny shadow cross her face as I spoke, and I knew she was thinking to herself that very likely it would be our last Sunday afternoon tea-party for a very long time, perhaps for ever, as far as the hut was concerned! But these solemn kinds of 'perhapses' are always in our lives, and if we were always thinking of them, it would be more than our minds and hearts could bear. We should not forget them, but I am sure we are not meant to be gloomy about them. Still, at the best, even if my grand plan was carried out, there was plenty to be sad about, I knew. Poor papa's going so far away, first and worst of all, and worst of course for mamma, for though we loved him dearly, she must love him, I suppose, still more.
He came into the room just as these thoughts were flying about my brain. I thought he looked more tired and troubled than mamma – men are not so patient and not always so good at hiding their feelings as some women. At least I think so!
We two, however, were really feeling cheerful, and I think our brightness made it easier for mamma to be, at least, less sad than she would otherwise have been. And I said to myself —
'Papa will cheer up too if he likes our idea, and I really can't see why he should not like it.'
So breakfast got on pretty well on the whole, and as soon as it was over, Dods and I went off for a talk. How we did talk! But first of all – that was so like Dods – he pulled out his watch and looked what o'clock it was.
'It's just half-past nine, Ida,' he said, 'and we must be quite ready by half-past ten. So let's talk till ten, no longer; it always takes you twenty minutes or half an hour to get dressed for church, and you know it vexes papa to be kept waiting. And to-day it's really very important not to vex him at all, if anything is to come of our plan.'
'Very well,' I said; 'I promise to go in at ten.'
Then we went to one of our favourite garden seats and set to work at our idea. It grew and grew; we kept thinking of new bits to it, each saying something which made the other think of something else, till by ten o'clock we began to feel as if it were all quite settled – 'cut and dry.'
The very last thing I called out to Geordie as we ran in was about a certain old breakfast set of china we had espied in one of our visits to the garret.
'Yes,' I was saying, 'those willow pattern cups and things would do beautifully. It wouldn't matter their being odd, for then mamma wouldn't mind if some got broken. And very likely, Doddie, things will get broken, more than – '
'What are you talking about, my dear child?' said mamma's voice, and, looking round, I saw that she was just coming out of the drawing-room on her way upstairs to get ready for church. 'You don't mean to say that your tea-things at the hut are all broken?'
'Oh no, no, mamma dear,' I replied in a great hurry, and feeling myself grow red, though I don't think she noticed it; 'they are all right – none broken, and only one saucer chipped. But – I was only saying – we might need more some time.'
'Ah, well!' said mamma, with a little sigh, 'not at present, at any rate.'
And oh how I wished I could tell her of the plan at once! But of course it was best to wait a little.
I shall never forget that morning at church, and how awfully difficult it was to give my attention. I found myself counting up the things we should need to make the hut comfortable, even while my voice was saying the responses quite correctly, and any one noticing me would very likely have thought I was being quite good and listening rightly. Dods, whom I glanced at now and then, was looking very grave but not unhappy. I felt sure he was being much better than I – I mean about listening to what he heard and thinking of the words he said – though afterwards he told me that he too had found it difficult.
'What was most bothering me,' he said, 'was about the new rooms – the old parish room, I mean. What do you think, Ida – should it be made into a dining-room and drawing-room, or – '
