Oh the relief in such case when the top of the hill was reached, and the driver stirred up his horses to a canter, and the heavy "bus covered the level ground quickly and rumbled down the next steep hill at a good pace. How Kitty did hate it all now, and how she did love it ordinarily! Winter and summer, hitherto, she had always gone to and fro mounted high up on the front seat, and knew every curve and corner, and hill and dip; but best of all, perhaps, did she love that quick run down the steep hill, when the horses cantered along at their smartest, and the "bus came rumbling and swaying after them, as though at any moment it would break loose entirely and go its own wild way. And then would come the demurer pace as they came to the town, and the narrow streets where sharp corners had to be turned carefully, and where, from the high "bus-top, one could quite easily see into the funny little rooms of the old houses on either side. Then came the main street--to the Trenire children fit to vie in breadth and beauty with any street in any city in the world--and then home!
To Kitty it had always been the greatest joy to come home. No matter where she had stayed, or how delightful the visit had been, she had always been glad to get home again, and her heart beat faster, and her breath caught with something that was not merely excitement or pleasure, at the sight of the low, broad old house in the bare, wind-swept street, that was the only home she had known, or wanted to know. But now, for the first time, she felt no joy, only misery and indignation, and a sense of hopeless, helpless resentment that all the old joy and freedom was ended, that everything was to be altered and spoiled for them.
By degrees the "bus emptied of all pa.s.sengers but themselves, and Aunt Pike drew nearer to Kitty. "I hope," she said, "that things have gone on nicely while I have been away, and that the house has been kept in a neat and orderly fashion."
Kitty did not answer for a moment, for the simple reason that she had no answer to give. They had all been too much occupied in making the most of their spell of freedom to observe how the house was kept. "I--I believe so," she stammered at last.
"And I hope you have arranged a nice little meal for us," went on Mrs.
Pike, "to welcome Anna on her first arrival in her new home. I did not say anything about it, as I thought it would be so good for you to have the arranging of it."
At this Kitty really did jump in her seat, and her heart beat fast with shame and dismay, for she had not only not arranged a "nice little meal," but had never given a thought to any meal at all.
It is fair to say she had never been told that it was left to her to do so. When first her aunt had come Kitty had handed over to her the reins of government, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, and she had not thought it her duty to take them up again in Mrs. Pike"s absence; but it is to be feared that in any case she would not have prepared a feast of welcome for Anna. And the result was that they would arrive tired and hungry after their long, hot journey, and probably find no preparations at all made for them, no welcome, not even food enough for a meal--certainly no special feast.
Kitty had not been wilfully careless. She would have seen to things had she thought of it; but the obstinate fact remained that, if not wilfully, she had been culpably careless, and her heart sank with shame.
She hoped--oh, how devoutly she hoped--that f.a.n.n.y had been more thoughtful; but the prospect was slight, and for the rest of the way she sat in a perfect panic of dread and shame.
The very moment the omnibus drew up before the house she sprang out of it, and, regardless of what her aunt might think, rushed in and through the house to the kitchen.
"O f.a.n.n.y," she cried, desperation in face and voice; but even in that distressful moment she remembered a former occasion when Aunt Pike"s arrival had thrown her into just such a frantic state, "what about supper? Aunt Pike has asked about it, and I hadn"t even thought about it; and--oh, what _can_ I do? I suppose there is nothing in the house?"
For a second or two f.a.n.n.y went on calmly and deliberately with what she was about. "Well, miss," she said at last in her severest tone, "there is something, and a plenty, thanks to me and Miss Betty. If there "adn"t a been, it wouldn"t "ave been no manner of use to come rushing out to me now, when it"s time for it to be on the table. Of course, when folks comes unexpected that"s one thing, but--"
Kitty in her great relief did not heed f.a.n.n.y"s lecture in the least.
"O f.a.n.n.y, you are a dear," she cried joyfully. "I will do something for you some day.--Hullo! Betty," for Betty at that moment came tiptoeing into the kitchen.
""Twas Miss Betty as first thought of it," said f.a.n.n.y honestly.
"I s"pose "twould "ave come into my "ead some time, but I"m bound to say it "adn"t till Miss Betty mentioned it."
Betty beamed with pleased importance, but tried to look indifferent.
"I wanted Aunt Pike to see that we do know how to do things. What is Anna like?" she broke off to ask anxiously.
"She is like Anna exactly," said Kitty bluntly, "and no one else; she never could be. She"ll never change, not if she lives to be eighty.
Come along up, and get ready. Oh, I _am_ so glad you thought about the supper, Betty dear. How clever you are! Aunt Pike would have thought worse of me than ever if you hadn"t, and--"
"Um!" responded Betty, with a toss of her head, "perhaps if Aunt Pike knew that if it hadn"t been for me she"d have had no supper, she wouldn"t say rude things about me again. I think it"s awfully hard.
If you don"t do things you are scolded, and if you _do_ do them you are called too self--self-confidential."
"I wouldn"t mind what I was called," said Kitty, as she hurried away to get ready, "as long as I could manage to do the right thing sometimes, and not always forget till too late."
CHAPTER X.
LESSONS, ALARMS, AND WARNINGS.
The days that followed were strange and very trying. It was not at all easy for any of them to settle down to the new life. Kitty, though, did not feel the giving up of the keys and the _role_ of housekeeper as much as she had expected to; for, in the first place, the keys had generally been lost, and in the second, she had never really "kept house" in the true meaning of the term, and it really was a great relief to find the meals appearing regularly and satisfactorily without any effort on her part, or, perhaps, one should say, without any remorse, or occasion for remorse, for not having made any effort.
It was really a comfort, too, not to have to try to manage the servants, or blame herself for not doing so. But, on the other hand, they all missed their freedom dreadfully--their freedom of speech and act, their freedom in getting up and going to bed, in their goings and comings; for Aunt Pike believed, quite rightly, of course, in punctuality and early rising, and keeping oneself profitably employed, and she disapproved strongly of their roaming the country over, as they had done, as strongly as she disapproved of their sitting on garden walls, wandering in and out of stables, coach-house, and kitchen, talking to the servants, or teasing Jabez.
Jabez grew quite moped during the weeks that followed, for he was not even allowed to come into the kitchen for a comforting cup of tea as of old. "And if anybody can"t have a bit of a clack sometimes," groaned poor Jabez, "nor a cup of tea neither, why he might so well be dumb to once. I"ve ackshally got to talk to the "orses and the cat to keep my powers of speech from leaving me."
Life seemed very dull and dreary to all the household, except, perhaps, to Mrs. Pike and Dr. Trenire. The latter was too busy just then to realize the changes going on in his home; while Mrs. Pike was fully occupied with all that lay at her hand to do.
Anna"s presence did not add at all to the liveliness of the house.
She was shy and nervous. Of Dan she was, or pretended to be, quite afraid, and if she happened to have blossomed into talk during his absence, she would stop the moment he appeared--a habit which annoyed him extremely. To Betty, who was to have been her special companion, she showed no desire to attach herself, but to Kitty she clung in a most embarra.s.sing fashion, monopolizing her in a way that Kitty found most irksome, and made Betty furious, for hitherto Kitty had been Betty"s whenever Betty needed her. Now she was rarely to be found without Anna.
But Kitty, along with the others, never felt that she could trust Anna; and they could not throw off the feeling that they had a spy in their midst.
And, worst of all, the beautiful summer days glided away unappreciated, and there were many bitter groans over what might have been had they been alone. They thought longingly of the excursions and picnics, the drives, and the free happy days in the open that they might have had.
"I do think it is so silly," cried Betty, "to have one"s meals always at the same time, sitting around a table in a room in a house, when one can enjoy them _ever_ so much more if they come at all sorts of times, and in all sorts of places."
"Oh, but it wouldn"t be right to have them like that often," said Anna primly. "You would have indigestion if you didn"t have your meals at regular hours." Anna was always full of ideas as to what was right and good for her health.
"I didn"t know I had an indigestion," said Betty shortly, with a toss of her head, "and you wouldn"t either, Anna, if you didn"t think so much about it." Which was truer than Betty imagined. "I think it is a pity you talk so much about such things."
In September Dan went off to school. He was very homesick and not at all happy when the last day came--a fact which consoled Kitty somewhat for all the pleasure and excitement he had shown up to that point.
"If it hadn"t been for Aunt Pike and Anna I believe he would have been frightfully sorry all the time," she told herself, "instead of seeming as though he was quite glad to go."
"You"ll--you"ll write to a fellow pretty often, won"t you, Kit?" he asked, coming into her room for about the fiftieth time, and wandering about it irresolutely. He spoke in an off-hand manner, and made a show of looking over her bookshelves whilst he was speaking. But Kitty understood, and in her heart she vowed that nothing should prevent her writing, neither health, nor work, nor other interests. Dan wanted her letters, and Dan should have them.
But it was after he was gone that the blow of his departure was felt most, and then the blank seemed almost too great to be borne. It was so great that the girls were really almost glad when their own school opened, that they might have an entirely new life in place of the old one so changed.
"Though I would rather go right away, ever so far, to a boarding school," declared Betty, "where everything and everybody would be quite, quite different." But Kitty could not agree to this. It was quite bad enough for her as it was; to leave Gorlay would be more than she could bear.
"Hillside," the school to which they were being sent--the only one of its kind in Gorlay, in fact--was about ten minutes" walk from Dr.
Trenire"s house. It was quite a small school, consisting of about a dozen pupils only, several of whom were boarders; and Miss Richards (the head of it), Miss Melinda (her sister), and a French governess instructed the twelve.
"It is not, in the strict sense of the word, a school," Miss Richards always remarked to the parents of new pupils. "We want it to be "a home from home" for our pupils, and I think I may say it is that."
"If our homes were in the least bit like it we should never want any holidays," one girl remarked; but we know that it is almost a point of honour with some girls never to admit--until they have left it--that school is anything but a place of exile and unhappiness,--though when they have left it they talk of it as all that was delightful.
Amongst the boarders, and loudest in their complaints of all they had to endure, were Lettice and Maude Kitson, who had been placed there by their step-mother for a year to "finish" their education before they "came out." It was a pity, for they were too old for the school, and it would have been better for themselves and every one had they been sent amongst older girls and stricter teachers, where they would not have been the leading pupils and young ladies of social importance.
They laughed and scoffed at the usual simple tastes and amus.e.m.e.nts of schoolgirls, and, one being seventeen and the other eighteen, they considered themselves women, who, had it not been for their unkind stepmother, would have been out in society now instead of at school grinding away at lessons and studies quite beneath them. Their talk and their ideas were worldly and foolish too, and as they lacked the sense and the good taste which might have checked them, they were anything but improving to any girls they came in contact with.
Kitty had never liked either of the Kitson girls; they had nothing in common, and everything Lettice and Maude did jarred on her. They seemed to her silly and vulgar, and they did little petty, mean things, and laughed and sneered at people in a way that hurt Kitty"s feelings.
Yet now, so great was her nervous dread of the school and all the strangers she would have to meet, she felt quite pleased that there would be at least those two familiar faces amongst them. "And that will show how much I dread it," she said miserably to Betty the night before.
"Think of my being glad to see the Kitsons!"
"Oh well," said Betty cheerfully, "they will be some one to speak to, and they will tell us the ways of the school, so that we shan"t look silly standing about not knowing what to do. They won"t let the others treat us as they treat new girls sometimes either, and that will be a good thing," which was Betty"s chief dread in going to the school.
Anna expressed no opinion on the matter at all. She was more than usually nervous and fidgety in her manner, but she said nothing; and whether she greatly dreaded the ordeal, or was quite calmly indifferent about it, no one could tell.
But the feelings of the three as they walked to the school that first morning were curiously alike, yet unlike. All three were very nervous.
Kitty felt a longing, such as she could hardly resist, to rush away to Wenmere Woods and never be heard of again. Betty was so determined that no one should guess the state of tremor she was in, lest they should take advantage of it and tease her, that she quite overdid her air of calm indifference, and appeared almost rudely contemptuous. Anna, though outwardly by far the most nervous of the three, had her plans ready and her mind made up. She was not going to be put upon, and she was not going to let any one get the better of her; at the same time she was going to be popular; though how she was going to manage it all she could not decide until she saw her fellow-pupils and had gathered something of what they were like. In the meantime nothing escaped her sharp eyes or ears. All that Kitty or Betty could tell her about the school, or Miss Richards, or the girls, especially the Kitsons, she drank in and stored up in her memory, and they would have been astonished beyond measure could they have known how much her hasty wandering glances told her, resting, as they did, apparently on nothing.
Before the first morning was over she knew that Helen Rawson was admired but feared; that Joyce Pea.r.s.e was the most popular girl in the school, and had taken a dislike to herself, but liked Kitty and Betty; that Netta Anderson was Miss Richards"s favourite pupil, and that she herself did not like Netta; and that Lettice Kitson was not very wise and not very honourable, and that Maude was the same, but was the more clever of the two.