The Carroll Girls.
by Mabel Quiller-Couch.
CHAPTER I.
Up and down, to and fro, backwards and for wards over the sunny garden the b.u.t.terflies, white, sulphur, and brown, flitted and fluttered, lightly poising on currant-bush or flower, loving life as they basked in the sunshine; and Penelope lay and watched them. What did it matter to them that the garden was neglected, the gra.s.s rank and uncut, the currant-bushes barren from neglect, the lilacs old and blossomless?
It mattered no more to them than it did to Penelope, lying so lazy and happy in the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s.
Penelope had never known the garden other than it was now, except, perhaps, at very far-distant intervals when a visitor was expected-- usually Aunt Julia, when a shilling or so had to be found to pay a gardener to come and "tidy up." She herself was always better pleased when he did not come, for almost invariably he charged too much, or Lydia said he did, and would tell him of it, not too politely, and tell her mistress that she was encouraging robbery; and Mrs. Carroll--who would far rather pay too much and hear no more about it than be bothered--would be worried, and Lydia would be cross; and to Penelope it seemed a pity to be made so uncomfortable for the sake of sixpence or a shilling.
She could not bear jars and discords. These, though, were troubles that occurred but seldom to ruffle the surface of her usually happy life.
As a rule, like the b.u.t.terflies, she saw only the sunshine, and the green things growing, and nothing of the sordidness and neglect of everything about her. If she did, if things jarred or fretted her, she just walked away, far out into the country and the woods where everything was peaceful, and nothing seemed to matter; and out there she would very soon recover again and become her old happy self.
There were three other Carroll children--Esther, the eldest, Angela, and Poppy, the baby of them all. Penelope was the second, aged nearly twelve.
"Four girls! isn"t it dreadful?" Esther sometimes sighed. "But there, I suppose it is better than some of us being boys, for now we _can_ hand our clothes down from one to the other, and if we couldn"t I am afraid the younger ones would often have to go without."
In the thirteen short years of her life poor Esther had grown to know all the shifts and economies and discomforts of poverty only too well.
She had seen, so to speak, the rise and fall of her family, and at last had become almost the only prop which kept it from falling altogether.
She could remember when the house was always full of company and life and laughter, when her mother always wore pretty frocks and beautiful jewels, and drove everywhere in their own carriage. She could remember gay dinner-parties, when she used to creep out of bed and sit on the stairs to listen to the singing in the drawing-room.
The scent of certain flowers still brought back the memory of those days, when she and Penelope used to go down in their prettiest frocks to dessert, and were given dainty sweets and fruits, and were made much of.
Then there came a dark time when, although she was so young, she felt vaguely that there was trouble overshadowing them, and saw it, too, reflected in her father"s face; and the darkest day of all was when Grandpa Carroll came, and with scarcely a word or a glance for the children, went at once to the library with her father, and departed again that same night, leaving gloom and misery behind him. All the rest of the day, she remembered, her father remained shut up in the library, and her mother locked herself, weeping, in her bedroom; and Esther and Penelope went to bed that night without any good-night kiss from either; and worse than that, Esther heard nurse and Jane, the housemaid, talking in low, mysterious tones, and knew that they were talking of her parents" and their affairs; and, as any child would, bitterly resented it.
"Why don"t you go downstairs, Jane?" she said at last, when she could endure it no longer; "you know mother doesn"t allow gossiping in the nursery."
But she had only a shaking from nurse, and a rude answer from Jane, which made her anger burn hotter than ever. She lay awake a long time that night, trying to make sense of what they had been saying, but it was not until years later that she really understood.
The next day Jane had had a month"s notice given her, not because she gossiped in the nursery, or was rude to Esther--Esther never told tales about the servants--but because Mr. Carroll said briefly that they must manage with fewer servants and cut down all expenses. For that same reason the children"s pony was taken away and sold a few days later, and from that time it seemed to Esther it had been nothing but cutting down and giving up and doing with less and less. It was only a few months after the pony was sold that Poppy was born, and soon after that they left their old home and went to live in a little house where they had no library and no nursery, and no stables or horses, and the children had to play in the dining-room; and Esther"s chief recollection of this time was her constant struggle to prevent Penelope and Angela and the new baby from crying or making too much noise, for she knew by the frown on her father"s face that he was worried and bothered by it, and she could not bear to see him looking gloomy, or to hear the children scolded.
Having no nursery they had no nurse--no real nurse; they had a "cook-general" and a "nurse-housemaid" as the advertis.e.m.e.nts put it, and, in common with most persons who profess to be able to "turn their hands to anything," they could do few things, and nothing well. So it fell to Esther and her mother to take care of the babies, and as Mrs. Carroll had not yet learnt to take care of herself even, a very heavy burden rested on little serious-faced Esther.
It was better when the summer came, though, for then the family made another move. True it was to a yet smaller house, and more things had to be given up; but the smaller house was in a little village called Framley, and the little village had woods lying behind it, and here was nursery large enough for any number of children to laugh in or cry to their hearts" content, without disturbing any one; and Esther"s heart was relieved of one big worry, and the children soon learnt to laugh a again, and play, and make as much noise as their hearts desired.
Summer, though, cannot last for ever, and woods do not make an ideal nursery in winter. The perplexed frown was beginning to pucker Esther"s brow again when once more they were called on to relinquish something.
The nurse-housemaid had to be sent away, and they had to learn how to manage with one servant; and it was just about that time that she heard her father say one day, "It will really be easier for you, dear, when I am gone," at which her mother burst into tears and wailed something Esther could not quite understand, about being left to bear all the worries alone. "It is much worse for those who are left than for those who go,"
she cried.
"But you will have the children," Mr. Carroll said sadly.
"Yes, four of them to feed and bring up on two hundred a year, and only one servant to help me. I don"t know how any one can expect me to do it.
I"ve not had a new gown myself for nearly a year."
"It shall not be for long, dear, if I can help it," her husband had said, very patiently. "As soon as possible I will send for you and the children. But it is no use to take you all out until I have a home of some sort ready for you; it would be greater misery than this."
But Mrs. Carroll had only wept more and more, until the children began to weep too, though they did not know for what.
Soon after that there had been a great deal of upset and excitement in the house: big boxes stood about on the landing, and the children were told that daddy was packing--he was going away to Canada, where they were all to join him soon. For a few days this news filled them with a pleasant excitement, and for months after their father had gone Esther and Penelope talked and talked of what they would do when they got to Canada, and Penelope dragged out an old trunk and began to pack a curious a.s.sortment of things that she thought peculiarly suitable for that country.
But as time went on she found she needed the things, and by degrees the thought of Canada became dim, and of no immediate interest to them.
They were excited at first when their father"s letters came because they thought each one would bring the longed-for summons; then they grew almost to dread them, for their mother always broke out into tears and wailings on reading them, finally locking herself in her room for the rest of the day, and the children were left to themselves to try to throw off the load of oppression and wretchedness which weighed on them even while they played. The memory of the wretchedness of those days remained with them to the end of their lives.
Two, three, four years pa.s.sed by, and gradually they forgot Canada, and Mrs. Carroll ceased to weep on receipt of a letter from her husband; but whether it was that she grew more used to her trouble, or that the news was better, the children did not know, though Esther often longed to.
So things were on that sunny May day when Penelope lay dreaming and watching the b.u.t.terflies in the neglected garden, and Esther made a milk pudding in the kitchen, and the two younger children played about the house, while nearer and nearer came the postman bearing the letter that was to alter all their lives for them.
Esther had just finished making her pudding, and Poppy had that moment succeeded in inveigling Angela into the cupboard under the stairs and turning the key on her, when footsteps came up the path, a letter dropped in through the letter-box, and a postman"s rat-tat sounded to the furthermost corner of the little house.
The post was the princ.i.p.al excitement of the day to the little Carrolls, and there was usually a race to the door to try to be first to seize the letters. This time Poppy had a clear start, for Esther was in the kitchen, and Angela was safely under lock and key.
"A letter from daddy," she shouted, recognising the stamp; and in she flew with it to her mother.
Mrs. Carroll, roused from her reading, laid aside her novel and bottle of smelling-salts to take the letter. Having secured and handed over the prize, Poppy danced off again. She was far more interested, at that moment, in her prisoner, whose kicks on the door and screams of rage had brought Esther to her rescue.
Esther, having released one sister, strolled wearily out into the garden to seek another and a little rest. She was very tired and very depressed; but the garden did not look inviting when she got there.
"How can you like this untidy old place?" she cried, as she made her way through the long rank gra.s.s.
"Oh, Esther, come gently, do! Look, oh do look at that lovely dragon-fly!
Did you ever see such a beauty? Don"t disturb him. Oh, do be careful!"
But Esther looked with only half-interest at the gorgeous insect; then, turning away a little impatiently, "I don"t know how you can be out here so much and not try to make it a little tidier," she said vexedly.
"I only wish I had a machine, or shears or something, and more time, and I would do something to it."
Esther was by nature a very neat and dainty little person, with none of Penelope"s dreamy indifference to her surroundings. The untidy garden with its air of neglect would have been irritating to her if it had belonged to some one else, but being their own, and feeling responsible for it, it vexed her so she could hardly endure to stay in it.
If the others could have had their way, they would have had all their meals out there, but not so Esther; the sight of the poor neglected spot would have quite destroyed her appet.i.te, though no one loved having meals out-of-doors better than she did. She often took the children to tea in the woods, but _that_ was different; the woods were always lovely, and just what they should be.
Esther"s earlier years had given her a brief experience of how things should be done, and how they should look, and she had never forgotten; Penelope, on the other hand, had forgotten, or never noticed Angela and Poppy, fired by Esther"s example, had spasmodic pa.s.sions for improving the house or garden, during which every one suffered more or less, and they themselves were exhausted long before the huge tasks they had undertaken were half completed.
So here and there the garden showed cleared and scarred patches where the children had "worked," which meant that they had begun to "tidy" by pulling up everything that grew, after which they would sc.r.a.pe the bed over with a rake and replace in a prim row as many of the plants as they could get in, and a day or two later the eye would be caught by a square of brown earth, broken by a row of sorry-looking dead or dying plants standing conspicuous and solitary against the wild, untrained vegetation round about, while a later search would perhaps reveal, under the tangled litter in the path, one of the best dinner-knives, covered with rust, and other lost treasures, such as a trowel, scissors, and occasionally a silver fork.
To Esther these attempts were merely depressing and irritating; they seemed only to emphasise their helplessness, and the uselessness of trying to make things better.
"Nothing is right here, somehow," she complained to Penelope now, "neither the house, nor the garden, nor ourselves. Look at us!" throwing out her hands dramatically. "We aren"t educated, or dressed properly, or--or anything. Look at that," stretching out her foot, and eyeing disdainfully the clumsy shoe which disfigured it. "We aren"t fit to go anywhere, and we can"t ask any one here because the house is never fit to be seen, or the meals, or--"
"Never mind," said Penelope placidly. She was used to Esther"s outbursts, but, though quite unable to sympathise, she was ready with attempts at comfort. "You don"t want to know any one but ourselves, do you?
I don"t."
"No-o," admitted Esther. "But we ought to. It--well, it is always supposed to be right. We shall grow up like savages, Aunt Julia says, and not be fit to talk to any one or go anywhere, and we shan"t have any friends; and every one _ought_ to make nice friends; it looks so bad if one has none--"
"Miss Esther! Miss Esther!" called a sharp voice from the kitchen door.
"You must all come in at once. Your ma wants you immejutly--all of you."
Esther rose, a little anxious pucker gathering on her brow as she remembered the Canadian letter.
"Come along, Pen," she said impatiently. "I wonder what it is. Bad news from father, I expect."
"P"r"aps it"s good news," said Penelope hopefully, rising with a sigh of regret at having to leave her nest and the sunshine and the b.u.t.terflies.