But we all thanked nurse very nicely for telling us the story, which was really very interesting.
And it gave us a good deal to talk about.
CHAPTER XI
MISCHIEF IN THE AIR
Yes, it gave us a good deal to talk about. Stories that do that are much the nicest; they seem to make themselves over and over, and to last so long. We talked for some days after that, about what we"d each of us do if _we_ were locked up all night alone in a church, and we made ever so many plans. And the next Sunday--that was our first one at Mossmoor,--when we all came home from church and were at dinner, Serena astonished us very much, when nurse said she"d been a very good girl, for she"s generally a dreadful fidget, by saying quite coolly--
"Oh, I didn"t mind the sermon a bit to-day, though it was very long. For I was settling all the time what I"d do if I was like Maggie in _that_ church. And I know quite well, only I won"t tell any of you. So if ever _I"m_ lost on a Sunday you"ll have a nice hunt."
She tossed back her head the way she does when she means to be aggravating.
"You silly girl," said Maud in her superior way, "you couldn"t hide in that church not to be found. You"re so boasty. And if you did, there"d be no fun in it."
Serry gave another toss, and a particular sort of a smile. That smile meant mischief.
"Miss Serena"s certainly very clever at hiding places," said nurse. "But there couldn"t be very much cleverness wanted to hide in a church; it"s not like finding out queer places you"d never think of in a house. Now, I daresay, Miss Serry, if it came a very wet day again while we"re here and Mrs. Parsley let you have a good game, as I"ve no doubt she would, I daresay you"d keep us hunting like anything."
"I daresay I could," said Serry.
But I knew by her voice that _she_ knew that nurse was speaking that way on purpose to put hiding in the church out of her head. For, as I"ve said, Serry"s very queer; for all she"s so changeable and flighty, there are times that if she takes up a thing, _nothing_ will get it from her--make her drop it, I mean,--till she"s done it. And she"d gone on so about hiding in the church that I think nurse was a little uncomfortable. Perhaps she began to wish she hadn"t told us the story of her mother, but I wouldn"t say so, for I didn"t want to vex her.
She"d been really so very kind.
After that Sunday, however, for some weeks nothing more was said about it, and we left off talking of the Maggie story. We had so many other things to do and to speak about. The weather got all right again, even better than before, for every day now was getting us nearer and nearer into the real summer; though, of course, even in the middle of summer there do come cold wet bits, just like our first day at Mossmoor. But for some time we had nothing but lovely weather.
It"s a very drying soil all about Fewforest; after two or three fine days, even in the woods, the ground is so dry that you"d think it hadn"t rained since the world was made. It"s partly with the trees being mostly firs which are so neat and bare low down--no mess of undergrowth about them. And the soil is very nice, so beautifully clean and crunchy to walk on, for it"s made of the p.r.i.c.ks that fall off the firs, in great part. It"s perfectly splendid to lie on--springy and yielding and not a bit dirty--your things don"t get soiled in the least.
They say, too, that the scent or breath of pines and firs--I think it"s rather nice to think it"s the sweet breath of the trees, don"t you?--is awfully good for coughs or illnesses to do with coughs. So it suited us very well indeed to spend a great part of our time in the woods. And certainly the girls" coughs soon went quite away. I was glad. I really could _hardly_ help hitting them sometimes when they would go on barking and whooping, even though I suppose they couldn"t stop it. They still coughed a little if they ran too fast, or if they got excited or angry.
I do believe Serry pretended it sometimes just to be aggravating, for she was in rather an aggravating humour at that time. I think it was partly from not having Hebe, who has such a good way with her, and as Anne and Maud always stick together, you see Serena was rather left to me, and I don"t pretend to have a good way with her at all, she makes me so angry. Though we get on a good deal better now than we did then.
Still, on the whole, we were very happy indeed. We did a little lessons--at least Anne and I did regularly. Miss Stirling had set me some Latin and French, and Anne didn"t want to get behind me in Latin, so she did it with me, and she was very good in helping me with my French, for she"s much farther on than me in French.
That was in the mornings, for an hour or so. Then we used to go what nurse calls a "good bracing walk," right over the heath that edges the woods, for two or three miles sometimes. We used to come in for dinner pretty hungry, I can tell you. But Mrs. Parsley didn"t mind how much she had to cook for us. She was as pleased as if you"d given her a present when nurse said she never had known our appet.i.tes so good.
Sometimes we met the getting-well children from the Home. But I rather fancy the people there had heard about the whooping-cough; for though the young lady who was with them smiled at us very nicely always, she rather shoo"d them away from us. And it was always the same round-faced, beamy-looking girl--not Miss Cross-at-first, certainly.
Then in the afternoons we mostly played or sat about the woods, coming in for tea, and sometimes, when it was very fine and mild, nurse let us go out again a little after tea. But if it was the least chilly or windy or anything, she wouldn"t let the girls go out, and then we sat all together playing games, or now and then telling stories till bed-time.
Very often dear Mrs. Parsley would come in, and we always made her sit down and talk to us. And sometimes I"d go out a stroll by myself in the evening--towards the village generally, for there was often a letter to post or some little message for nurse to the shop. And then I got another reason for walking that way in the evening, which I"ll tell you about directly.
We had been five weeks at the farm when one day we got very jolly news from mums. The news had been pretty jolly all the time; Hebe had gone on getting better, though the doctor at Ventnor had thought her very weak at first, and so she and mums had stayed on longer than they"d expected they would. But this letter told that they had really fixed a day for coming back to London, and that the nice Ventnor doctor said no air could be better for Hebe now than Fewforest, and so mums was going to bring her down the very next Friday to be with us for the last three weeks. Mums was coming herself too, to stay from Friday to Monday, for father had to be away with gran those two days. Gran was at Brighton, I think, but he was coming back now mums would be there. There was a postscript to the letter--it was to Anne,--in which mums said she might perhaps want nurse to come up to London for a few hours to see about clothes or something. "If I do," she wrote, "do you think I can trust you and Jack to take care of the two little ones? I am sure Mrs. Parsley would be most kind, but of course I do not want to give her more trouble than we can help."
"Oh," said Serena, when Anne had read all that aloud--I wished she had stopped before the postscript--"that would be fun. We"d lead old Jack a dance wouldn"t we, Maud? As for Anne, we"d find her a new book, and then she wouldn"t trouble us."
Maud looked at her with scorn, but would not condescend to speak. I do believe from that moment Serry settled to play some kind of trick if we _were_ left alone. But when I said to Anne that I hoped to goodness we shouldn"t be left in charge of Serry, she only said it would be all right; Serry made herself out worse than she was, and so on. Anne _is_ so easygoing.
Now I must tell you why I liked strolling down to the church in the evenings. It only began the week before Hebe and mums were to come. I happened to have gone to the village rather late with a letter, and, coming back, I noticed that there was some light in the church, even though it wasn"t the time for any service. And, standing still for a moment, suddenly I heard the organ begin. Some one was playing it. The door was a little open, and I went inside the porch and found I could hear quite well. It was beautiful, far nicer than on Sundays, and after a while I heard singing too. Such lovely singing--it was a woman"s voice--and she sang some of the things I liked best, and I stayed there listening as long as I dared. The next evening I couldn"t come, but the one after that I did, and she was there again, and I listened ever so long. After that I came whenever I could; sometimes she was there and sometimes not,--it was rather fun wondering if she would be. I told Anne about it, and she said she"d like awfully to come with me one evening, but we didn"t know how to manage it, for we really couldn"t tell Serry.
She"d have teased so to come too, and she"d have spoilt it all with her fidgeting, and if we"d told nurse and asked her to let us go without the little ones, Serry would have made some sort of a fuss I"m sure. So I just kept on going whenever I could, though very often there was no music. And I promised Anne that the first chance I could see I"d take her too.
Mums wrote for nurse to go up to London on the Thursday--just the day before she and Hebe were coming. Nurse was to go up by an afternoon train, and she"d get back about nine in the evening, mums wrote; and we--Anne and I--might help to put the little ones to bed, and then we might sit up till nurse came back. There was really nothing to be anxious about, Mrs. Parsley was so kind, and really we were old enough to be left an hour or two by ourselves. Still nurse seemed a little uneasy. I"m sure it was all about Serena. Anne and I promised her we"d be awfully careful and good.
"I know I can depend upon you, Master Jack," said nurse. We were alone at the time--she and I--"and really Miss Anne is wonderfully improved.
Since the diamond ornament was lost, and it being partly through her fault, she"s hardly like the same young lady. It"s an ill wind that does n.o.body any good, they say; perhaps Miss Serry will take a sensible turn after a while."
"I hope it won"t have to cost another diamond ornament, and us all having whooping-cough again--no, I suppose you can"t have it twice, but I daresay there are plenty of other illnesses just as horrid or horrider," I said rather grumpily.
"I hope not," said nurse, "though I would really be thankful if Miss Serry would take thought. There"s never any saying what she"ll be after next. The rest of the nursery work all put together isn"t above half what the mending and tidying up of her things alone is."
Serry could take thought if she chose; she had an uncommonly, good memory when it suited her.
This was the day before nurse was going. I had found out by now that the music at the church was mostly every other evening, and as I"d heard it the night before, very likely the lady would be playing and singing again the next day. So all of a sudden I thought I"d better tell nurse about it, and get leave to go if it was a fine evening with Anne, and Mrs. Parsley would take care of the little ones.
Nurse wasn"t sure about it, but when I told her very likely Serry would be better alone with Maud and Mrs. Parsley than if we were all together the whole long evening, she gave in.
"Very well," she said, "but don"t you and Miss Anne stay out late--not above half an hour."
I promised her we wouldn"t.
Anne was very pleased, only she said wouldn"t it perhaps be better if we all four went; it would be a little treat for Serry to look forward to, and perhaps it would keep her good the rest of the time.
I thought afterwards Anne had been right, but I wouldn"t agree with her when she said it. I didn"t want Serry at all; I wouldn"t have minded Maud, but I knew Serry would spoil it all. So I said to Anne it would never do; they"d fidget or make a noise, and the lady who was playing might hear us and be vexed, and it would be horrid to have any fuss in a church, we might get scolded by the verger or possibly even the clergyman,--what _would_ father and mother and gran think of such a thing?
Anne gave in. But I gave in to her a bit too. She said it was much best to make no mystery about it. Serry was as sharp as a needle about mysteries, and she"d only set herself to find out. So that Thursday morning at breakfast--the day nurse was to be away--I said quietly, "Anne and I are going to church this evening for half an hour. Nurse, please tell Serry that she and Maud may stay with Mrs. Parsley in her kitchen while we"re out."
"Yes," said nurse. "You hear, Miss Serry and Miss Maud. It"ll make a little change for you."
"I like being in Mrs. Parsley"s kitchen for a while in the evening very much, don"t you, Serry?" said Maud.
But Serry did not answer. I think she pretended not to hear. Still she couldn"t make out now that she hadn"t been properly told.
Well, with many charges and warnings, poor nurse set off. The red-eared boy drove her to the station, and we ran over the fields by a short cut to a stile on to the road, where we could see her pa.s.s, and there we shouted out again all our messages to mums and Hebe--nurse couldn"t possibly have remembered all the things we told her to say, and it didn"t matter certainly, considering we were going to see them the very next day.
The first part of the afternoon we got on all right. We"d had dinner earlier than usual, so that nurse should be in time for the train, and after she was fairly off we went out into the woods with baskets to get all the flowers we could for mums and Hebe--I mean to make the rooms look nice for them.
There weren"t very many, for of course the spring flowers were over, and it was too early for the regular summer ones. Besides, the spring is always the best time for flowers that grow in the woods. Still we got some, pretty nice, and some trails of ivy and these pretty reddy leaves that you can find most of the year. And we got a lot of fir cones too--mums does so love the scent of them in the fire, and as people often feel a little chilly when they first come out to the country, we fixed we"d have a nice fire in the evening, and make it nearly all of the cones.
After that we went in and arranged our flowers; there"s always lots of moss in the woods, and with moss you can make a good show even with very little.
Then there came tea-time. We were a good while over tea, for even though Serry had been all right so far, both Anne and I felt a little fidgety-- Serry was almost _too_ good, if you understand.
It was half-past five, or nearer six than that, I daresay, when we had finished tea. Anne and I wanted to go to the church about a quarter to seven, meaning to be back before half-past, which was the two little ones" bed-time, so that we could help Mrs. Parsley if she needed us.
Mrs. Parsley looked rather worried when she came in to take away the tea things--not _crossly_ worried, for she was as kind as could be, but just troubled. And afterwards we knew that the reason was that an old aunt of theirs who lived a mile or two off was very ill, and had sent for her, but she didn"t like to go because of leaving us. She didn"t tell us; I almost think it would have been better if she had, for then Anne and I would have given up going out and have looked after Serry and Maud till nurse came back. Only, if we _had_ done that, very likely nothing would have happened the same, and the wond----no, I must go straight on.
Well, we played "patience," and did everything we could to please Serry till about half-past six. Did I tell you that there"s a very jolly old clock in the Parsley"s summer kitchen?--so we always know the time. Then I said to Anne I thought she might go and get ready, and we might as well start, and "you two," I said to Serry and Maud, "can go to Mrs.