"James was the same, he hated a sofa and would always sit in a chair. Not that he was so active, but he was stout, and stout people are more comfortable sitting up than lying on their backs."
Mollie coughed. She had either to cough or to laugh, which, of course, would never have done.
"My dear, I trust you have not caught cold," Grannie said anxiously.
"Perhaps we should close the window. Your Aunt Mary has a perfect craze for open windows, and I sometimes think there is a draught in this room."
"No, no, Grannie," Mollie protested; "I have not got the least bit of cold, and I love the open window; it is so warm to-day. It was only a tickle; I get them sometimes--tell me about when you and Mrs.
Pell were at school, please."
The two old ladies smiled at each other over their spectacles.
"That was not yesterday," Grannie repeated. "You would think very poorly of our school. We had no games, no gym-dress, no examinations such as you have; but we learnt the use of the globes very thoroughly, and we spoke French, so that we were not at a loss when we went to Paris later on. Our dancing was much more graceful than the foolish gambols with their ridiculous t.i.tles which you young people call dancing nowadays. Fox-trot, indeed! And bunny-hug. And rag-time. I never heard such names in my life! _We_ danced the Highland schottische, and the quadrille, and Sir Roger de Coverley.
And do you remember your famous curtsy, Esther? And how Madame made you show off on parents" day?"
"Indeed I do!" Mrs. Pell answered briskly. "I believe I could do it now, this moment. I have been wonderfully free of rheumatism this year."
"Do, do," Mollie begged, overlooking the insult to her beloved fox- trot in her anxiety to see a real old-fashioned curtsy.
Mrs. Pell laid her knitting on one side, rose from her chair, and walked to the middle of the room. She shook her somewhat ample black silk skirt into place, tilted her chin to an angle that gave her a decidedly haughty expression, and stood facing Grannie and Mollie.
"You must imagine yourselves to be our beloved Queen Victoria and our beautiful and gracious Alexandra, Princess of Wales," she said, looking so elegant and distinguished that Mollie suddenly felt rather small and shy, while Grannie, on the other hand, drew herself up into what was presumably the att.i.tude of Her late Majesty.
Mrs. Pell lifted her skirts with an easy turn of her pretty hands and wrists, pointed a charming foot, so small that it made Mollie gasp, and began to sink slowly down. Down, down, down she swept, her skirt billowing out around her, her shoulders square, her head erect--down till she all but touched the floor, and how she kept her balance was a perfect miracle; then slowly up, with an indescribably graceful curve of neck and elbows, till once more she stood erect, pleased and triumphant, a pretty pink flush on her cheeks.
Grannie clapped her hands. "There, Miss Mollie! That was how _we_ were taught to curtsy! There"s nothing resembling a fox about _that_!" she exclaimed, as Mrs. Pell took her seat again and resumed her knitting.
"It was perfectly lovely," Mollie agreed warmly, "but it does require the right kind of skirt, Grannie. Did anyone ever topple over at the critical moment?"
"Not that I can remember," Mrs. Pell answered; "but, of course, it required a great deal of practice, and we did many exercises before we got the length of our court curtsy. Do you remember Ellen Bathurst, Daisy?" (How funny it sounded to hear Grannie called Daisy.) "And the time all the brandy-b.a.l.l.s fell out of her pocket?
_How_ angry Madame was!"
Of course Mollie had to hear about the adventure of the brandy- b.a.l.l.s, and from that the talk drifted to memories of old friends long since dead and gone, whose names Mollie had never heard. It was a little depressing, and her thoughts wandered away to the Campbells. She wondered where she would find herself that afternoon, and then remembered with dismay that Aunt Mary was away and there would be no tunes.
But after lunch Grannie insisted upon the sofa as usual. "You shall have your lullaby," she said. "Mrs. Pell and I are going to play duets. We used to play a great deal together when we were young, and no doubt our music is just the thing for sending you to sleep; it has a base and a treble and some perfectly distinct tunes."
"Don"t be sarcastic, Grannie," Mollie laughed, as Grannie bent to kiss her. "I am sure it is beautiful music, and I like tunes myself.
Jean is the musical one of our family. She jiggles up and down the piano in no particular key and calls it "The Scent of Lilac on a June Day"."
"Well, well," said Grannie. "Times change. We are going to play selections from _Faust_, with variations. Sleep quietly till tea- time, my dear."
Mollie smiled as she listened to the selections. "--two-three, _one_-two-three, _one_--" she could hear the treble counting. "I like it," she murmured to herself rather sleepily--the morning"s conversation had not been exciting on her side. "I am glad I am not James, for this is an awfully comfortable sofa--hullo, Prue! You _are_ in a hurry to-day! I was just thinking of a nap--"
Prudence did not answer; she was listening to the piano.
"Mamma sings that," she said. "It"s _Faust_. I adore _Faust_. Don"t you? The waltz simply makes my feet go wild."
"I don"t know it," Mollie confessed. "There are so many things I don"t know. Hurry up, Prue. I have had such an aged morning; now I want a young afternoon."
"--two-three, _one_-two-three, _one_--" said Prue, taking Mollie"s hand in her own.
It was very hot. So hot that Mollie could not be bothered to move.
She was half-sitting, half-lying on a bed of bracken, and around her she could see the supine forms of four other children--Prudence and Grizzel, d.i.c.k and Jerry--all lying in various att.i.tudes of exhaustion and apparently all asleep. Mollie was too lazy to turn her head, but she could see that they were in a wood. The trees were the eternal gum trees, with their monotonous grey trunks and perpetual blue-green foliage. They were not growing in the neighbourly manner of trees in an English wood, nor did they throw the cool green shade of elms and beeches, but still in their own way they formed a wood. Mollie lay with her back propped up against one of the grey trunks, her arms behind her head, and her eyes blinking sleepily. She wondered where Hugh was.
"You _are_ a lazy lot," said a voice behind her. "I have been helping in the vineyards all morning, and I"ve discovered a new kind of grape. Mr. von Greusen thinks it might turn out to be a good champagne grape. The carts are coming down; don"t you want to see them?"
As he spoke Hugh came round and stood at Mollie"s side. He wore a coat of tussore silk, and his shirt was open at the neck; a wide pith helmet was on his head, draped with a striped pugaree with broad ends hanging down his back, and further decorated with vine leaves, which looked rather droopy in the heat. He held out a hand to Mollie and pulled her up, looking scornfully at the rec.u.mbent figures of Jerry and d.i.c.k.
"What a way to spend the time!" he exclaimed. "Their eyes tight shut and their legs spread out like dried fruit. _They"ll_ never discover a new grape and have the most famous champagne in the world called after them. Come on!"
Mollie had been listening for a little while to a distant rumble. It now resolved itself into the uneven racketty grind of heavy cart- wheels on a rough track. She went forward with Hugh, and, shading her eyes from the glare of the sun, looked up the road which wound between the trees of the wood they were in. As she watched, the carts came into view round a bend of the track, and soon they were pa.s.sing before her. A team of six oxen drew each heavy load--such a load as Mollie had never seen in her life. Grapes! Grapes piled up like turnips! They had been thrown in by careless hands accustomed to working with rich harvests, and here and there they hung over the sides, or dropped to the ground, to be trodden under foot by indifferent beasts and weary men.
The noise of trampling feet and creaking wheels disturbed the sleepers, who, one by one, got up and came beside Mollie and Hugh.
There was a smell of hot grapes in the air, mingled with the smell of sweating oxen, dry gra.s.s, and pungent eucalyptus, and the spilled juice of grapes mixing with the hot dust of the track added a peculiar aroma of its own to the general nosegay, as d.i.c.k described it. Mollie thought that she could never remember smelling anything so thirst-inducing in all her days. When the last cart had disappeared down the winding road, and the noisy rattle had died away to a distant rumble again, Hugh sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree and stretched his arms.
"Where are they going?" asked d.i.c.k, now wideawake and curious. "What happens next?"
"They"re going to Mr. von Greusen"s place to be made into wine,"
Hugh answered, "and it"s a funny thing that however nice grapes are raw they are all equally nasty when turned into wine. Some go sour and black and you call it claret, and some go sharp and yellow and you call it Frontignac or any other silly yellow name. What _I_ should like to invent would be a kind of drink that tasted of grapes, fresh sweet grapes. I"d add a dash of peach, and a slice or two of melon, and a bottle of soda-water. And just enough powdered sugar. And ice."
"Let"s go and get the things now and make it this very minute," said Grizzel, tying on her sun-bonnet and making ready to start. "I"m _so_ thirsty."
"It"s too late to-day, and besides I"m tired. There was a man up there who wanted to know all sorts of things about the vineyards.
Mr. von Greusen was too busy to go round with him, so he sent me. He was pleased with me for discovering that grape. The man"s name is John Smith. I think he is French."
Mollie laughed.
"What are you laughing at?" asked Hugh, looking all ready to be offended.
"Oh--nothing--I"m not laughing," Mollie declared; "it"s only a sort of tickle; I get it sometimes."
"John Smith isn"t exactly a French name," said Jerry. "Why do you think he is French?"
"Because he called Mr. von Greusen a "vigneron" and talked about "hectares" instead of acres, and "hectolitres" instead of gallons, and he told me how vines were trained in Champagne and Burgundy and Languedoc--all very Frenchy. Mr. von Greusen never talks like that.
He was interested in my new grape, but he"s afraid it won"t go on being like it is now. He says it has about one chance in a hundred.
I don"t mind betting you sixpence it _will_ be a champagne grape."
"I don"t mind betting you sixpence he isn"t French if his name is John Smith," said Jerry. "You might as well call yourself a Scotsman named Chung Li Chang."
"Oh--names! Names are nothing out here," Hugh said loftily. "We can call ourselves what we please. This is the Land of Liberty. Besides, Papa knows a Scotsman called Devereux, so there you are."
"Faugh!" said Jerry scornfully. "That"s nothing! Everyone knows that Scotland is full of French names."
"I suppose you are trying to say "sfaw"," said Hugh coldly. "There is nothing to sfaw about. Lots of Chinese people come to Australia and call themselves John Smith if they choose."
"Faugh!" Jerry repeated.
"Sfaw!" said Hugh.