The Old Pincushion: or, Aunt Clotilda's Guests

'Are they here, Martha? My poor dear children! Are they really here?'

Neville darted forward.

'Aunt Clotilda!' he exclaimed.

In a moment her arms were round him, and she was kissing him fondly.

'Neville,' she said, 'my own dear boy! David's boy! And where is little Kathleen? Oh, my poor children! What an arrival! – what a journey! How can I have made such a mistake?'

'Kathie,' said Neville, and Kathleen slowly got up from her seat and came forward. 'She is half dead, Aunt Clotilda,' said Neville apologetically. But Miss Clotilda wanted no apologies. Her heart was far too unselfish and tender to think of anything but the children themselves.

'Kathleen!' she exclaimed. 'Can this be little Kathie? Why, my darling, you will soon be as tall as your old aunt. But all the more you must be dreadfully tired – you cannot be very strong, my dear, growing so fast. Oh, I shall never, never forgive myself. What can we give them to eat, Martha?'

Martha was already concocting something in a little pan on the fire.

'I'm heating up some milk, miss, and I'll have an egg beat in a moment, and we'd better add a spoonful of sherry wine. And there's the plum-cake, or some nice bread and butter.'

'Which would you rather have, dear children?' said Miss Clotilda.

Neville decided in favour of bread and butter, and though Kathleen said she was too tired to eat, she succeeded in the end in getting through two good slices of the delicious home-made bread and fresh butter. Thanks to this and the cup of hot milk, her spirits began to revive, and she even got the length of smiling graciously when poor Miss Clotilda's self-reproaches grew too vehement, and assuring her aunt that she would be all right again to-morrow. Indeed, it would have required a much harder heart than childish, impulsive Kathie's to have resisted any one so affectionate and devoted as their father's sister, and already Neville's eyes sparkled with pleasure as he said to himself it felt almost like having a mother again.

Then old Martha, who had been busy up-stairs, came back to say the rooms were ready, – so far ready, that is to say, as they could be on such short notice.

'Not but that they were nearly ready,' said Miss Clotilda, as she led the way; 'we were looking for you to-morrow without fail. But it was all my fault for saying I would expect you on Thursday if I did not hear to the contrary. I should have asked you to write again.'

'But I did write,' cried Neville. 'I wrote at once, and sent on the letter to Kathie to post. You should have had it yesterday morning.'

'Yes,' said Kathie, 'I – I gave it to Miss Fraser with my note to Neville, saying, that I could be ready on Wednesday. You got my note, of course, Neville. And I – yes, I am sure I gave the one for Aunt Clotilda to be posted at the same time.'

But Aunt Clotilda had never got it. So, she, at any rate, was undeserving of all the blame Kathleen had been heaping upon her in the last few hours.

'It must be that careless old John Parry,' said Miss Clotilda. 'I must speak to him in the morning. No doubt he will be bringing the letter, and say it had been overlooked or something. And, my dear children, you must forgive all deficiencies. I had arranged all so nicely. Our neighbour, Mr. Mortimer, was to lend me his covered waggonette to go to meet you in. It is too provoking!'

There were no deficiencies, however, so far, that the children were conscious of, excepting the want of their luggage. Their rooms were charming – so quaint and country-like, with a pleasant odour of lavender and dried rose leaves pervading everything. And Miss Clotilda got out her keys and opened an old wardrobe in Kathie's room, whence she chose a little nightdress of the finest material trimmed with 'real' lace, which Martha aired at the kitchen fire by way of precaution against damp, though the whole house was so dry, she assured them, that such care was really not necessary.

'It is one of Mrs. Wynne's – one of a set that she never wore,' explained Miss Clotilda, 'and it will be just about right for you, Kathie dear, for, tall as you are, you will have to grow some inches yet to be up to me. Mrs. Wynne was quite one of the old school; she had linen enough laid by to have lasted her another twenty years. And Mr. Wynne-Carr wishes all such things to be considered mine,' she added, with a little sigh, 'so I am free to give you the use of it, you see.'

This was the first allusion to the great disappointment. Tired as she was, Kathie could not help thinking of it as she was falling asleep. And her dreams were haunted by fancies about the lost will – it turned up in all sorts of places. The queerest dream of all was that she found it boiling in the pan in which Martha had heated the milk!

CHAPTER VII.

BREAKFAST IN BED

Notwithstanding her great fatigue, it was very early the next morning when Kathleen woke. At first she could not remember where she was, then a slight aching in her head and stiff pains in her legs reminded her of the long and trying journey of the day before. Now that it was over, however, it really seemed like a dream.

And one glance towards the window, of which the blind had only been half drawn down, made it almost impossible to believe in the darkness and dreariness of their arrival the night before. The rain was gone; the sun, though it could not be more than six o'clock, was shining brilliantly in an unclouded sky. From where Kathie lay she could see the fresh green leaves of the trees as they moved gently in the soft summer air; she could faintly hear the birds' busy, cheerful twitter, as they flew from branch to branch.

'Oh, I do love the country!' thought the little girl, with a sudden feeling of warmth and joyfulness in her heart. 'I do wish – oh, how I do wish it were going to be our home!'

Then there returned to her the remembrance of Miss Clotilda's last words the night before. The cupboard door had not been quite shut, and it had gradually swung open, revealing piles of linen neatly arranged on one shelf, on another various dresses folded away, and on a lower shelf, which Kathie could see into more clearly, some rolls of canvas, bundles of Berlin wool, and in one corner two or three square-looking objects of various colours, which puzzled her as to what they could be.

'I will ask Aunt Clotilda,' she thought. 'I daresay she will show me Mrs. Wynne's things. Some of them must be very old and curious. What a funny room this is! – all corners, and the window such a queer shape! I feel quite in a hurry to see all the house. I daresay it is very nice – the hall and the staircase seemed beautifully wide last night, and the steps were so broad and shallow. But, oh dear! I wish my legs didn't ache so! Poor Aunt Clotilda! I am very sorry I called her stupid, and all that. She is so kind.'

But in the midst of all these thinkings she fell asleep again, and slept for more than two hours. When she woke she heard a cuckoo clock outside her room striking eight.

'Dear me!' she said to herself; 'how late it is! and I meant to be up so early;' and she was just beginning to get out of bed when a soft tap came to the door.

'Come in,' said Kathleen; and in came Aunt Clotilda, her kind face and gentle eyes looking brighter and younger by daylight, and behind her, Martha, carrying a tray covered with a snow-white cloth, on which was arranged a most dainty little breakfast for the young lady, whom Miss Clotilda evidently intended to pet a great deal to make up for yesterday's misfortunes.

'Oh, aunty,' said Kathie, 'I was just going to get up. I am so sorry to give you so much trouble,' and she lifted up her face to kiss Miss Clotilda.

'No, no, my dear,' her aunt replied. 'You are to rest to-day as much as you like. Neville is up, and he and I have had our breakfast. He peeped in an hour ago, and saw you were fast asleep, as I was glad to hear. It is just nine o'clock, so I thought you must be getting hungry.'

'Nine o'clock!' Kathleen repeated. 'Why, I thought the cuckoo struck eight.'

'He is a lazy bird,' said Miss Clotilda smiling. 'He is always an hour behind. I must get him put right – at least,' she went on, correcting herself, 'I meant to have done so. It is not worth while now. Now, dear, see if we have brought you what you like for your breakfast.

'It is delicious!' said Kathleen. 'I could live on the bread and butter alone, without anything else. And honey! Oh, how lovely! Aunt Clotilda, I have never been so petted before,' she burst out, 'never in all my life. How very good you are! Do you know I've been more than six years at school without ever having what I call a holiday till now? Do kiss me, aunty.'

Kathie's heart was fairly won. There were tears in Miss Clotilda's eyes as she stooped to kiss her.

'But they are not unkind to you at school, dear?' she said. 'If you are ever ill, for instance.'

'Oh, no, they are kind enough; but it's different – not the least like home. I can understand better already what other girls who can remember their homes meant when they said so. Philippa Harley, you know, aunty – oh no, of course you don't know; but I'll tell you about her. She has always been with her mother till lately, and she was always saying how different home was.'

Martha had by this time disappeared. Miss Clotilda sat down by the bed-side, while Kathie proceeded to eat her breakfast, chattering in the intervals.

'You make me very happy, dear Kathie, when you say you have already a home feeling with me,' said Miss Clotilda – 'very happy, and,' with the sigh that Kathleen was at no loss to translate, 'very unhappy.'

For a few moments neither spoke. Then Kathleen began again.

'Aunty, even though the house isn't going to be yours any more, or ours, you'll show us all the things in it, won't you?'

'Certainly, my dear. I want you to know it well, and to remember it always,' Miss Clotilda replied.

Kathie's glance just then fell on the lace frills of her night-gown, and thence strayed to the half-open cupboard.

'What are those queer-looking square things of different colours in there, aunty?' she asked.

Miss Clotilda's glance followed hers. Just at that moment Neville put his head in at the door, and asked if he might come in. His face beamed with pleasure when he saw Kathleen and his aunt chatting together so 'friendlily.'

'Those things in the cupboard?' said Miss Clotilda. 'Oh! they are some of Mrs. Wynne's pincushions. I wrapped up the new ones – one or two she had just finished, poor dear, when she was taken ill – and those are some old ones that were to have been fresh covered. I have lots of beautiful pieces of old-fashioned silk.'

'Oh, how nice!' said Kathleen. 'I hope you will let me see them, aunty. But please tell me' —

At that moment, however, Martha came to the door to say that John Williams had called for orders about fetching the trunks from the station.

'He must have some writing to show, he says,' said the old woman. 'But he's so stupid – maybe he doesn't understand.'

'It's better, perhaps, to give him a note to the station-master,' said Miss Clotilda. 'I'll come and speak to him.'

'I'll write the note,' said Neville running off.

'Aunty,' said Kathie, as Miss Clotilda was preparing to follow him, 'mayn't I get up now? I'm only a little stiff, but I'm not at all tired; and I'm in such a hurry to see the house, and the garden, and everything.'

'Very well, dear,' her aunt replied. 'Martha will get your bath ready. Can you manage with the things you have till your trunk comes this evening?'

'Oh, yes,' said Kathleen. 'My frock did not get wet at all. It's only rather crushed. And I brought my house shoes in my hand-bag. Philippa made me; she said it was such a good plan.'

'She must be a very sensible little girl,' said Miss Clotilda.

'She's a dear little girl every way,' said Kathie. 'I'm sure you'd like her dreadfully, aunty.'

She was feeling very cordial to Philippa this morning, thinking how much the little girl had tried to influence her to come to Ty-gwyn.

'But for her,' thought Kathleen, 'I'm not at all sure that I would have come. I was so sure I shouldn't like Aunt Clotilda.'

As soon as she was dressed she ran off in search of Neville, who was 'somewhere about,' old Martha told her. She found him in the garden, and together they began their explorings. By daylight the White House was far from the desolate-looking place they had fancied it the night before. It was a long house, built half-way up a gentle slope, and the entrance was, so to speak, at the back. You did not see anything of the pretty view on which looked out the principal rooms till you had crossed the large, dark-wainscoted hall, and made your way down the long corridor from whence opened the drawing-room, and library and dining-room, all large and pleasant rooms, with old-fashioned furniture, and everywhere the same faint scent, which Kathleen had noticed more strongly up-stairs, of lavender and dried rose-leaves. This part of the house was more modern than the hall and kitchens, and two other rooms, in the very old days the 'parlours,' no doubt – now called the study and the office. For the house had been added to by a Mr. Wynne, the late owner's father, a grand-uncle to David and Clotilda Powys.

'Then the old part is very old indeed, I suppose?' said Neville to his aunt, who by this time had joined them.

'Very old indeed,' she said. 'And up-stairs it seems very rambling, for there are good rooms built over the pantry and dairy and the other offices, all of which are very large. I had it all planned in my head,' she went on, 'and even Mrs. Wynne herself used often to talk of what rooms would suit you all best when it came to be your father's. Up this little stair' – for by this time they were on the first floor again – 'there are two rooms which would have made such nice nurseries for little Vida, and the "office," as we call it, could easily have been turned into a very pleasant schoolroom.'

The children were delighted with it all. Up-stairs, indeed, it was precisely the sort of house to captivate young people. It was so full of mysterious passages and unexpected staircases, and corner windows and queer doors, and steps up and steps down, that it seemed larger than it really was, and of course the usual praise was pronounced upon it, that it would be 'just the place for a game at hide-and-seek.'

Then when the house had been seen, Miss Clotilda sent them out, with directions not to wander too far, as they must be home for dinner at two o'clock.

'You cannot lose your way,' she said, 'if you take a good view all round. The sea is only a mile off on two sides – west and south – and this house therefore faces the sea, though the little hill in front hides it.'

'The sea!' exclaimed Kathie. 'Why, aunty, if I had known we were so near the sea, I should have been in such a hurry to see it, I wouldn't have slept all night. Did you know, Neville?'

'I didn't know it was so near,' said Neville.

'Go up the little hill, and then you will understand where you are,' said Miss Clotilda. 'There is the old church, too, and the ruins of the abbey beside it. You will find there is plenty to see at Hafod.'

'I don't care much for churches,' said Kathie, 'but I'd like to see the ruins.'

'Then set off at once; it is fine and sunny just now, but I don't think the weather is very settled. Near the sea we have to expect sudden changes,' said Miss Clotilda.

The children eagerly followed her advice. They climbed up the hill, which they reached by a path through the garden, and then they were well rewarded for their trouble. The view before them was a beautiful and uncommon one. At their feet, so to speak, lay the wide-stretching ocean, sparkling and gleaming in the sunshine, and further inland stood the grand old church and ruins, with the white cottages of the scattered village dotted about in various directions.

'How queer it is to see that great church in such a little place!' said Kathleen. 'It doesn't seem to belong to it, and yet it looks grander than if it was in the middle of a town; doesn't it, Neville?'

'I suppose there was a great monastery, or something like that, here once,' said Neville; 'perhaps before there was any village at all. I think I have read something about it. We must ask Aunt Clotilda. Isn't it a beautiful place, Kathleen? Oh, don't you wish dreadfully it was going to be our home?'

Kathleen sighed. She had not before understood how much she should wish it.

'Look there, Neville,' she said, pointing to a white thread which wound over the hills, sometimes hidden for a little, then emerging again, 'that must be the road from Frewern Bay that we came along last night. Don't we seem far away from London and from everywhere? Do you like the feeling? I think I rather do, except for poor old Phil.'

But Neville did not at once answer her. He was standing with his eyes fixed on the sea.

'I don't feel so far from papa and mamma here as in London,' he said; 'I like it for that.'

Kathleen's gaze followed his.

'Poor papa and mamma!' she said. 'Oh, Neville, how I wish we could find the will!'

They spent the rest of the morning, greatly to their own satisfaction, in visiting the ruins, and, as by a fortunate chance the door was open, the church also. It was so unlike anything they had ever seen, that even Kathie was full of admiration, and determined to learn all she could of its history.

'We must ask Aunt Clotilda to tell us all about it,' she said. 'I daresay she has books where we can read about it, too. Papa and mamma would be pleased if we – oh dear! there it comes in about that will to spoil things again! I suppose it's best not to write much about things here to them; it would only make it seem worse to them.'

'Perhaps it would,' said Neville; 'but we can say lots about Aunt Clotilda, and that will please papa and mamma. Oh, Kathie, don't you like her?'

Kathie grew rather red.

'Yes,' she said, 'I do. I like her awfully. I love her, Neville, and – and – I'm very sorry I called her stupid, and all that.'

'Dear Kathie,' said Neville, 'you didn't know her.'

'Well, no more did you,' said Kathleen; 'but you're much better than me, Neville. So is Philippa.'

'Dear Kathie,' said Neville again, 'it's only that you've not had mamma with you, or anybody like that. I was older than you, you know, when they left us. And Philippa's always had her mother. But now you have aunty.'

'Yes,' said Kathleen; but she sighed as she said it.

They turned to go home again, for they had not yet half explored the garden, which bid fair to be quite as delightful as the house. A little door in the wall was standing half open, and peeping in, they saw that it led by a footpath to the front door. There Miss Clotilda was standing talking to a funny-looking old man with a canvas bag slung over his back. Miss Clotilda seemed rather annoyed, and was speaking very earnestly.

'You are sure, then, John Parry, quite sure, you have not dropped or left it at the wrong house, or anything like that?'

The old man only smiled amiably in a sort of superior way.

'Sure, miss? To be sure I am. You'll see miss, the letter has never been posted. Good-day to you, miss. Indeed, I am glad the young gentleman and lady's got safe here;' and he trotted off.

'It's about your letter, Neville,' said his aunt. 'I was certain it would turn up this morning. But it has not come, and it makes me uneasy. Just think, if one of your dear papa's letters was to be lost. I have got fidgety about letters and papers, I suppose.'

'It's very queer,' said Neville. 'All our other letters have come quite rightly.'

'Yes,' said Miss Clotilda. 'However, my dears, as I've got you safe here I must not grumble.'

She went back into the house to fetch her garden-hat, in which, Kathie could not help whispering to Neville, she did look a funny old dear. For the hat was about the size of a small clothes-basket, and Miss Clotilda despised all such invisible modes of fastening as elastic and hat-pins. She secured her head-dress with a good honest pair of black ribbon strings, firmly tied, for Ty-gwyn was a blowy place, as might have been expected from its nearness to the sea.

The three spent the rest of the morning most happily in the garden, visiting, too, the now disused dairy, and the poultry-yard, where Miss Clotilda's cocks and hens, in blissful ignorance of the fate before them, were clucking and pecking about.

'I must fatten and kill them all off before the autumn,' she said; 'at least, nearly all. I could not have the heart to kill my special pets. I will give some to the neighbours.'

'Aunty,' said Kathleen, as they were returning to the house, 'there is something I wanted to ask you, and I can't remember what it is.'

Miss Clotilda's memory could not help her.

'Perhaps you will think of it afterwards,' she said.

And probably Kathie would have done so, had it not happened that her aunt had that morning, while the children were out, closed and locked the old cupboard in the little girl's room. So there was nothing to remind her of what she had been on the point of asking Miss Clotilda about Mrs. Wynne's old pincushions.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEWS FROM PHILIPPA

The next two or three days passed most pleasantly. The weather, as if to make up for its bad behaviour on the day of their journey, was particularly fine, and the children were out from morning till night. Old Martha thought privately to herself that it was a good thing the neighbours were so kind, for they were even 'better than their word,' in sending all sorts of good things to Ty-gwyn for the Captain's children, as Neville and Kathleen's appetites, thanks to the change of air and the sea breezes, were really rather alarming. And Miss Clotilda was so perfectly happy to see them both so bright and well, that she tried to banish all painful thoughts as much as she could.

Still they were there; and when the poor lady was alone in her room at night, it was often more than she could do to restrain her tears. For the happier the children were, the more she learned to love them, the more bitterly, as was natural, did she feel the disappointment of not being able to hope to see much more of them. But she said little or nothing of her feelings, and the children – Kathie especially – little suspected their depth. Kathie was living entirely in the present; she but rarely gave a thought to the ideas Philippa had suggested. And Neville, though less carelessly light-hearted and forgetful, was slower both of thought and speech. He could see nothing to be done, and for some time he rather shrank from coming upon the subject with his aunt.

It came to be spoken of at last, however, and this was how it happened.

One morning, about the fourth or fifth of their visit, old John Parry, with a great air of importance, as if he were doing her a special service, handed to Kathleen a rather fat letter, addressed to herself.

'You see, miss, to be sure I never make no mistakes,' he said.

For he was quite aware that Miss Clotilda still in her heart, somehow or other, associated him with the mysterious loss of Neville's letter, and he wished to keep up his dignity in the eyes of the stranger young lady.

'Oh yes, thank you,' said Kathie, not quite knowing what else to say. For in London one's personal acquaintance with the postman – or postmen, rather – is necessarily of the slightest.

'What a comical old fellow he is!' she said to herself, as she ran off. 'I daresay he did lose the letter, after all. How amused Phil would be at the people here, and the funny way they talk! Dear old Phil! I wonder what she has got to say, and what she has written such a long letter about?' For the moment she got it in her hand she recognised little Philippa's careful, childish handwriting on the envelope.

'Aren't you coming out, Kathie?' Neville called out from some mysterious depths, where he was absorbed in arranging his fishing-tackle.

'Not yet. I've got a long letter from Philippa. You'll find me in the library if you look in in a few minutes.'

And in a comfortable corner of the deep window seat Kathie established herself to enjoy Philippa's budget. It was in the library that Miss Clotilda and the children spent most of their time. The drawing-room was a more formal and less cosy room, and the library gave old Martha less to do in the way of dusting and daily putting to rights. It was a dear old room, filled with books from floor to ceiling, many of them doubtless of little value, others probably of great worth in a connoisseur's eyes – had connoisseurs ever come to Ty-gwyn – for all were old, very old.