"You will like her," I said. "She is a charming girl-so sensible, and good, and unselfish, and-"
"Who told you all this about her?" interrupted Ethelbertha.
"You can see it for yourself," I answered. "The mother appears to be a nonent.i.ty, and St. Leonard himself-well, he is not a business man. It is Janie who manages everything-keeps everything going."
"What is she like?" asked Ethelbertha.
"I am telling you," I said. "She is so practical, and yet at the same time-"
"In appearance, I mean," explained Ethelbertha.
"How you women," I said, "do worry about mere looks! What does it matter? If you want to know, it is that sort of face that grows upon you. At first you do not notice how beautiful it is, but when you come to look into it-"
"And has she also formed a high opinion of d.i.c.k?" interrupted Ethelbertha.
"She will be disappointed in him," I said, "if he does not work hard and stick to it. They will all be disappointed in him."
"What"s it got to do with them?" demanded Ethelbertha.
"I"m not thinking about them," I said. "What I look at is-"
"I don"t like her," said Ethelbertha. "I don"t like any of them."
"But-" She didn"t seem to be listening.
"I know that cla.s.s of man," she said; "and the wife appears, if anything, to be worse. As for the girl-"
"When you come to know them-" I said.
She said she didn"t want to know them. She wanted to go down on Monday, early.
I got her to see-it took some little time-the disadvantages of this. We should only be adding to Robina"s troubles; and change of plan now would unsettle d.i.c.k"s mind.
"He has promised to write me," I said, "and tell me the result of his first day"s experience. Let us wait and hear what he says."
She said that whatever could have possessed her to let me take those poor unfortunate children away from her, and muddle up everything without her, was a mystery to herself. She hoped that, at least, I had done nothing irrevocable in the case of Veronica.
"Veronica," I said, "is really wishful, I think, to improve. I have bought her a donkey."
"A what?" exclaimed Ethelbertha.
"A donkey," I repeated. "The child took a fancy to it, and we all agreed it might help to steady her-give her a sense of responsibility."
"I somehow felt you hadn"t overlooked Veronica," said Ethelbertha.
I thought it best to change the conversation. She seemed in a fretful mood.
CHAPTER VIII
ROBINA"S letter was dated Monday evening, and reached us Tuesday morning.
"I hope you caught your train," she wrote. "Veronica did not get back till half-past six. She informed me that you and she had found a good deal to talk about, and that "one thing had led to another." She is a quaint young imp, but I think your lecture must have done her good. Her present att.i.tude is that of gentle forbearance to all around her-not without its dignity. She has not snorted once, and at times is really helpful. I have given her an empty scribbling diary we found in your desk, and most of her spare time she remains shut up with it in the bedroom. She tells me you and she are writing a book together. I asked her what about. She waved me aside with the a.s.surance that I would know "all in good time," and that it was going to do good. I caught sight of just the t.i.tle-page last night. It was lying open on the dressing-table: "Why the Man in the Moon looks sat upon." It sounds like a t.i.tle of yours. But I would not look further, though tempted. She has drawn a picture underneath. It is really not bad. The old gentleman really does look sat upon, and intensely disgusted.
""Sir Robert"-his name being Theodore, which doesn"t seem to suit him-turns out to be the only son of a widow, a Mrs. Foy, our next-door neighbour to the south. We met her coming out of church on Sunday morning. She was still crying. d.i.c.k took Veronica on ahead, and I walked part of the way home with them. Her grandfather, it appears, was killed many years ago by the bursting of a boiler; and she is haunted, poor lady, by the conviction that Theodore is the inheritor of an hereditary tendency to getting himself blown up. She attaches no blame to us, seeing in Sat.u.r.day"s catastrophe only the hand of the Family Curse. I tried to comfort her with the idea that the Curse having spent itself upon a futile effort, nothing further need now be feared from it; but she persists in taking the gloomier view that in wrecking our kitchen, Theodore"s "Doom," as she calls it, was merely indulging in a sort of dress rehearsal; the finishing performance may be relied upon to follow. It sounds ridiculous, but the poor woman was so desperately in earnest that when an unlucky urchin, coming out of a cottage we were pa.s.sing, tripped on the doorstep and let fall a jug, we both screamed at the same time, and were equally surprised to find "Sir Robert" still between us and all in one piece. I thought it foolish to discuss all this before the child himself; but did not like to stop her. As a result, he regards himself evidently as the chosen foe of Heaven, and is not, unnaturally, proud of himself. She called here this (Monday) afternoon to leave cards; and, at her request, I showed her the kitchen and the mat over which he had stumbled. She seemed surprised that the "Doom" had let slip so favourable a chance of accomplishing its business, and gathered from the fact added cause for anxiety. Evidently something much more thorough is in store for Master Theodore. It was only half a pound of gunpowder, she told me. Doctor Smallboy"s gardener had bought it for the purpose of raising the stump of an old elm-tree, and had left it for a moment on the gra.s.s while he had returned to the house for more brown paper. She seemed pleased with the gardener, who, as she said, might, if dishonestly inclined, have charged her for a pound. I wanted to pay for-at all events-our share, but she would not take a penny. Her late lamented grandfather she regards as the person responsible for the entire incident, and perhaps it may be as well not to disturb her view.
Had I suggested it, I feel sure she would have seen the justice of her providing us with a new kitchen range.
"Wildly exaggerated accounts of the affair are flying round the neighbourhood; and my chief fear is that Veronica may discover she is a local celebrity. Your sudden disappearance is supposed to have been heavenward. An old farm labourer who saw you pa.s.s on your way to the station speaks of you as "the ghost of the poor gentleman himself;" and fragments of clothing found anywhere within a radius of two miles are being preserved, I am told, as specimens of your remains. Boots would appear to have been your chief apparel. Seven pairs have already been collected from the surrounding ditches. Among the more public-spirited there is talk of using you to start a local museum."
These first three paragraphs I did not read to Ethelbertha. Fortunately they just filled the first sheet, which I took an opportunity of slipping into my pocket un.o.bserved.
"The new boy arrived on Sunday morning," she continued. "His name-if I have got it right-is William. Anyhow, that is the nearest I can get to it. His other name, if any, I must leave you to extract from him yourself. It may be Berkshire that he talks, but it sounds more like barking. Please excuse the pun; but I have just been talking to him for half an hour, trying to make him understand that I want him to go home, and maybe, as a result, I am feeling a little hysterical. Anything more rural I cannot imagine. But he is anxious to learn, and a fairly wide field is in front of him. I caught him after our breakfast on Sunday calmly throwing everything left over onto the dust-heap. I pointed out to him the wickedness of wasting nourishing food, and impressed upon him that the proper place for victuals was inside us. He never answers. He stands stock still, with his mouth as wide open as it will go-which is saying a good deal-and one trusts that one"s words are entering into him.
All Sunday afternoon he was struggling valiantly against an almost supernatural sleepiness. After tea he got worse, and I began to think he would be no use to me. We none of us ate much supper; and d.i.c.k, who appears able to understand him, helped him to carry the things out. I heard them talking, and then d.i.c.k came back and closed the door behind him. "He wants to know," said d.i.c.k, "if he can leave the corned beef over till to-morrow. Because, if he eats it all to-night, he doesn"t think he will be able to walk home."
"Veronica takes great interest in him. She has evidently a motherly side to her character, for which we none of us have given her credit. She says she is sure there is good in him. She sits beside him while he chops wood, and tells him carefully selected stories, calculated, she argues, to develop his intelligence. She is careful, moreover, not to hurt his feelings by any display of superiority. "Of course, anyone leading a useful life, such as yours," I overheard her saying to him this morning, "don"t naturally get much time for reading. I"ve nothing else to do, you see, "cept to improve myself."
"The donkey arrived this afternoon while I was out-galloping, I am given to understand, with "Opkins on his back. There seems to be some secret between those two. We have tried him with hay, and we have tried him with thistles; but he seems to prefer bread-and-b.u.t.ter. I have not been able as yet to find out whether he takes tea or coffee in the morning.
But he is an animal that evidently knows his own mind, and fortunately both are in the house. We are putting him up for to-night with the cow, who greeted him at first with enthusiasm and wanted to adopt him, but has grown cold to him since on discovering that he is not a calf. I have been trying to make friends with her, but she is so very unresponsive.
She doesn"t seem to want anything but gra.s.s, and prefers to get that for herself. She doesn"t seem to want to be happy ever again.
"A funny thing happened in church. I was forgetting to tell you. The St. Leonards occupy two pews at the opposite end from the door. They were all there when we arrived, with the exception of the old gentleman himself. He came in just before the "Dearly Beloved," when everybody was standing up. A running fire of suppressed t.i.tters followed him up the aisle, and some of the people laughed outright. I could see no reason why. He looked a dignified old gentleman in his grey hair and tightly b.u.t.toned frock coat, which gives him a somewhat military appearance. But when he came level with our pew I understood. Hurrying back from his morning round, and with no one there to superintend him, the dear old absent-minded thing had forgotten to change his breeches. From a little above the knee upward he was a perfect Christian; but his legs were just those of a disreputable sinner.
""What"s the joke?" he whispered to me as he pa.s.sed-I was in the corner seat. "Have I missed it?"
"We called round on them after lunch, and at once I was appealed to for my decision.
""Now, here"s a plain sensible girl," exclaimed the old gentleman the moment I entered the room." (You will notice I put no comma after "plain." I am taking it he did not intend one. You can employ one adjective to qualify another, can"t you?) "And I will put it to her, What difference can it make to the Almighty whether I go to church in trousers or in breeches?"
""I do not see," retorted Mrs. St. Leonard somewhat coldly, "that Miss Robina is in any better position than myself to speak with authority on the views of the Almighty"-which I felt was true. "If it makes no difference to the Almighty, then why not, for my sake, trousers?"
""The essential thing," he persisted, "is a contrite heart." He was getting very cross.
""It may just as well be dressed respectably," was his wife"s opinion.
He left the room, slamming the door.
"I do like Janie the more and more I see of her. I do hope she will let me get real chums with her. She does me so much good. (I read that bit twice over to Ethelbertha, pretending I had lost the place.) I suppose it is having rather a silly mother and an unpractical father that has made her so capable. If you and Little Mother had been proper sort of parents I might have been quite a decent sort of girl. But it"s too late finding fault with you now. I suppose I must put up with you. She works so hard, and is so unselfish. But she is not like some good people, who make you feel it is hopeless your trying to be good. She gets cross and impatient; and then she laughs at herself, and gets right again that way.
Poor Mrs. St. Leonard! I cannot help feeling sorry for her. She would have been so happy as the wife of a really respectable City man, who would have gone off every morning with a flower in his b.u.t.tonhole and have worn a white waistcoat on Sundays. I don"t believe what they say: that husbands and wives should be the opposite of one another. Mr. St.
Leonard ought to have married a brainy woman, who would have discussed philosophy with him, and have been just as happy drinking beer out of a tea-cup: you know the sort I mean. If ever I marry it will be a short-tempered man who loves music and is a good dancer; and if I find out too late that he"s clever I"ll run away from him.