Judy looked very wise and interested now.
"Why don"t you say you"d rather go into a little house?" she said; "it sounds much more interesting. A flat is an ugly name, and I am quite sure it must be an ugly place."
"That is true," said Hilda, pausing and looking straight before her with her pretty brows knit. "Oh, dear, oh, dear! I wonder what is right.
And a little house might have a garden too, mightn"t it, Judy?"
"Of course, and a fowl-house and a cote for your pigeons."
"To be sure; and when you come to see me, you should have a strip of garden to dig in all for yourself."
"Oh, should I really come to see you, Hilda? Miss Mills said that you wouldn"t want me--that you wouldn"t be bothered with me."
"That I wouldn"t be bothered with you? Why, I shall wish to have you with me quite half the time. Now, now, am I to be strangled again?
Please, Judy, abstain from embracing, and tell me whether we are to have a flat or a cottage."
"Of course you are to have a cottage, with the garden and the fowl-house."
"I declare I think I"ll take your advice, you little dear. I"ll write and tell Jasper that I"d much rather have a cottage. Now, who is that knocking at the door? Run, Judy, and see what"s wanted."
Judy returned in a moment with a telegram.
Hilda tore it open with fingers that slightly trembled.
"Oh, how joyful, how joyful!" she exclaimed.
"What is it?" asked Judy.
"Jasper is coming--my dear, dear Jasper. See what he says--"Have heard the bad news--my deepest sympathy--expect me this evening." Then I needn"t write after all. Judy, Judy, I agree with you; I feel quite happy, even though it is the dreadful day when the blow has been struck."
Judy did not say anything, she rose languidly to her feet.
"Where are you going?" asked Hilda.
"For a walk."
"Why so?"
"Miss Mills said that even though we were poor I was to take the fresh air," replied the child in a prim little voice, out of which all the spirit had gone.
She kissed Hilda, but no longer in a rapturous, tempestuous fashion, and walked soberly out of the room.
CHAPTER V.
IN A GARDEN.
I go like one in a dream, unbidden my feet know the way, To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May.
--MATHILDE BLIND.
Aunt Marjorie had cried until she could cry no longer. Hers was a slighter nature than either Mr. Merton"s or Hilda"s. In consequence, perhaps, she was able to realize the blow which had come upon them more vividly and more quickly than either her brother or niece.
Aunt Marjorie had taken a great pride in the pretty, well-ordered house.
She was a capable, a kind, and a considerate mistress. Her servants worked well under her guidance. She was set in authority over them; they liked her rule, and acknowledged it with cheerful and willing service.
No one could give such perfect little dinner-parties as Aunt Marjorie.
She had a knack of finding out each of her guests" particular weaknesses with regard to the dinner-table. She was no diplomatist, and her conversation was considered prosy; but with Mr. Merton to act the perfect host and to lead the conversation into the newest intellectual channels, with Hilda to look sweet and gracious and beautiful, and with Aunt Marjorie to provide the dinner, nothing could have been a greater success than the little party which took place on an average once a week at the sociable Rectory.
Now all these things were at an end. The servants must go; the large house--which had been added to from time to time by the Rector until it had lost all similitude to the ordinary small and cozy Rectory--the great house must remain either partly shut up or only half cleaned.
There must be no more dinner-parties, and no nice carriage for Aunt Marjorie to return calls in. The vineries and conservatories must remain unheated during the winter; the gardeners must depart. Weeds must grow instead of flowers.
Alack, and alas! Aunt Marjorie felt like a shipwrecked mariner, as she sat now in the lovely drawing room and looked out over the summer scene.
With her mind"s eye she was gazing at something totally different--she was seeing the beautiful place as it would look in six months" time; she saw with disgust the rank and obnoxious weeds, the empty grate, the dust-covered ornaments.
"It is worse for us than it would be for ordinary people," she said half aloud. "If we were just ordinary people, we could leave here and go into a tiny cottage where our surroundings would be in keeping with our means; but of course the Rector must live in the Rectory--at least I suppose so. Dear, dear! how sudden this visitation has been--truly may it be said that "all flesh is gra.s.s.""
Aunt Marjorie had a way of quoting sentences which did not at all apply to the occasion; these quotations always pleased her, however, and a slow smile now played round her lips.
The drawing-room door was opened noisily, and a fat little figure rushed across the room and sprang into her arms.
"Is that you, Babs?" she said. She cuddled the child in a close embrace, and kissed her smooth, cool cheek many times.
"Yes, of course it"s me," said Babs, in her matter-of-fact voice. "Your eyes are quite red, Auntie. Have you been crying?"
"We have had dreadful trouble, my darling--poor Auntie feels very miserable--it is about father. Your dear father has lost all his money, my child."
"Miss Mills told me that half an hour ago," said Babs; "that"s why I wanted to see you, Auntie. I has got half a sovereign in the Savings Bank. I"ll give it to father if he wants it."
"You"re a little darling," said Aunt Marjorie, kissing her again.
"There"s Judy going across the garden," said Babs. "Look at her, she has her shoulders hunched up to her ears. She"s not a bit of good; she won"t play with me nor nothing."
"That child doesn"t look at all well," said Aunt Marjorie.
She started to her feet, putting Babs on the floor. A new anxiety and a new interest absorbed her mind.
"Judy, Judy," she called; "come here, child. I have noticed for the last week," she said, speaking her thoughts aloud, "that Judy has black lines under her eyes, and a dragged sort of look about her. What can it mean?"
"She cries such a lot," said Babs in her untroubled voice. "I hear her when she"s in bed at night. I thought she had she-cups, but it wasn"t, it was sobs."
"_She-cups_--what do you mean, child? Judy, come here, darling."
"She-cups," repeated Babs. "Some people call them he-cups; but I don"t when a girl has them."