Читать книгу The Mean-Wells - Mabel Quiller-Couch - Страница 5

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BY the time Dr. Carlyon and the children had finished discussing the sea and the sky, they had reached the end of the level high ground and come to a steep descent, at the bottom of which was another little stretch of level road, and then a long, long, rather steep hill up—Lareggan Hill it was called. The country around Trelint was very hilly indeed; as a rule, if you weren’t going up a hill you were going down one. Betsy trotted down now in fine style, and along the bit of level ground, and the pace at which she went carried her a little way up the hill before her, but not far. She considered she had done her duty when she had trotted up a little way, and was at perfect liberty to crawl up the rest of it at her own pace.

As soon as they slackened speed Priscilla looked up expectantly; it was always her duty to drive up the hills when she was out with her father, while he read aloud. As a rule, Dr. Carlyon handed the reins over to her at once, and took out his book. He was a great reader, and a very busy man, and unless he read while on his rounds he would have been scarcely ever able to do so at all. When Hocking was driving him he read “to himself,” but when Priscilla was his companion he almost always read aloud to her. Priscilla loved these readings and these drives more than anything, for though there was often much that she could not understand, there was also a great deal that she could, and some that she put her own meaning to, and some that her father explained.

But to-day Dr. Carlyon forgot to hand over the reins. Perhaps he was still busy thinking of the answers to Priscilla’s questions, or perhaps Loveday and her pink parasol made things seem different. At last, after looking at him questioningly for a few moments—as well as she could, that is to say, with Loveday between them—she reached out her hand and touched the reins.

“Father, wouldn’t you like me to drive now, while you have a nice little read?”

“Dear, dear,” said Dr. Carlyon, “I had quite forgotten. But can you drive, squeezed up as you are?”

“It is rather a squash,” sighed Priscilla. “Don’t you think we might have the strap undone, father?”

Her father looked down at them as well as he could for the pink sunshade.

“I think you might,” he said. “I don’t want to take four halves of daughters home to mother. I tell you what we will do: Loveday and her parasol shall sit on the box-seat behind me, with her feet on your seat; then she will be safe, unless she deliberately throws herself out over the back, and I should think that a young woman with a new paint-box and that pretty sunshade would try hard not to.”

Dr. Carlyon made Betsy stand still for a moment across the road, with her nose in the hedge, where she contentedly munched the grass while they re-arranged themselves. Loveday was quite pleased with the change, for she had not been able to hold up her sunshade with any comfort to herself or any one else, so far. If she were not poking it into Priscilla’s eye, she was digging her father in the ear, while if she held it over her shoulder and out behind her, she could not see it, and that, of course, was what she particularly wanted to do. So she gladly took the seat given her, and was not only rid of the strap, but was able to hold her parasol out over the back and stare at it all the time. She thought it threw quite a pretty pink glow over her face; at least, when she shut one eye, and screwed the other round until she could see her own nose, her nose looked quite pink, and if her nose did, of course her face did. She asked Priscilla about it, but Priscilla was busy attending to the arrangement of the rugs and the reins, and then to her driving.

Dr. Carlyon coaxed Betsy out of the hedge, produced a book, and on they went again. It was really very lovely; the sun was shining, but the breeze was cool and soft, and the larks were singing and soaring up, up, up, till nothing was left of them but their voices; then down, down, down, with a swoop and a flutter, until they were so low that the children could see them hovering and darting like big brown musical butterflies. The scent of clover wafted out from the fields, and of honeysuckle from the hedges.

“Oh, I am so glad I was born,” exclaimed Priscilla, with a deep-drawn sigh of satisfaction.

Dr. Carlyon smiled.

“I hope you will always say the same, and in that same voice, Prissy,” he said. “Now, what shall we read? I have the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ here; shall I read to you about the Babes in the Wood?”

“Please,” said Priscilla.

She wondered a little that her father should have chosen anything so babyish. He brought out all kinds of books and papers to read to her, but they were always grown-up books and papers, and, as I said before, Priscilla very often did not understand them. But to-day it was quite thrilling and fascinating, and Priscilla listened with a face of deepest sympathy and not a smile, as she heard of the poor dying parents, and the woes of the hapless children.

“Oh, how dreadful!” she cried, as, later on, her father read slowly through all the dreadful things that happened to the wicked old man. “And his children let him die in the workhouse? They must have been very bad children. I don’t believe the poor Babes would have done so, if they had been alive. Loveday and I would have taken care——”

“No, I wouldn’t!” broke in Loveday. “It served him right for wanting them to be killed. I wouldn’t have given him anything if he had asked me—oh, ever so many times—not even a hot-water bottle, or an ‘extra-strong’ peppermint like Ellen takes. I’d—I’d have pulled all his teefs out.”

“He wouldn’t have minded, I expect, if he had had a shilling for each,” said Priscilla, forgetting the wrongs of the Babes, and remembering her own. “Father, I had two teeth out a little while ago, and I didn’t have even a penny given me, but Loveday had a shilling for one!”

“You poor little injured mortal,” cried her father, laughing down at her. “I expect, though, you have two nice teeth in place of them by this time; that is something to be grateful for. Many people would be glad of two nice, strong, new teeth.”

“Yes,” said Priscilla, nodding her head gravely. “Miss Potts would. Do you know, father, she had out all hers, and nobody ever gave her anything. Doesn’t it seem unkind? And she hasn’t got any brothers, or sisters either—she has lost them all.”

“Dear, dear, how sad! Have you and Miss Potts been telling your woes to each other, and mingling your tears? ”

“I didn’t cry,” said Priscilla, “but my throat felt funny. It must be dreadful to be an ‘only’!”

“I wish I was,” said a little voice over their shoulders with a deep, deep sigh; “then p’r’aps I should be able to drive sometimes.”

Priscilla turned round, shocked and indignant.

“Well, Loveday, you can’t have everything!” she cried. “You’ve got a paint-box, and I haven’t; and you’ve got a parasol, and I——”

“But I can’t paint here,” protested Loveday. “I want to go home now to see if my paint-box is all safe,” she added suddenly.

Priscilla’s eyes twinkled wickedly.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if Geoffrey is home using all your paints.”

Loveday’s face fell, and her eyes filled with anxiety.

“Do you really think so? Do you really, Prissy?” she asked. Then her face brightened. “Oh no; he can’t be, ’cause I hid them where I know he wouldn’t think of looking!”

“Would you like to come and sit between us again?” asked her father.

“No, fank you; but I’d like Priscilla to sit here, and I’d have her place and drive. She may hold my parasol if she likes—if she doesn’t open it,” she added.

“Priscilla is too big to sit where you are. Would you like to sit down on the mat at our feet?”

“No, fank you; but I’d like to sit where Priscilla is.”

“But where can Priscilla sit?”

“Can’t she walk just a little way?”

“I am afraid not.”

“Well, I’d like to sit in her seat,” persisted Loveday; “and put my head on yours, and go to sleep.”

“Oh, so you want my place as well as Prissy’s! You aren’t at all a greedy little person, are you? Where are we to sit? On the shafts, or the steps, or must we run behind? I will tell you what we will do. I will sit in Priscilla’s place and hold you on my knee, and Priscilla shall have the box-seat and drive us. Will that please your High Mightiness?”

“Yes, that will be lovely,” agreed Loveday, quite delighted; “and I’ll hold my parasol over us both.”

“That will be charming; only try not to take out both my eyes. What would mother say if you took back my two eyes on two tips of your sunshade?”

“Mine isn’t a sunshade,” said Loveday.

“Parasol, then. What is the difference between a parasol and a sunshade? Do tell me, for I don’t know.”

“I don’t know what a sunshade is, I’m sure,” said Loveday, with a lofty air, “but this is a parasol. I know it said so in the letter that came with it, and the person who bought it ought to know.”

“Which has Priscilla? A sunshade or a parasol?”

“Priscilla hasn’t got either. You see, her birthday is in the winter; it would be silly to give her a parasol.”

“I understand. If your birthday is in the winter, you don’t feel the sun. I expect that is why no one ever gave me one.”

At which idea Loveday shrieked with laughter. “Fancy daddy with a parasol!” she cried. “What a silly daddy you would look!”

And in her excitement she lowered her own, and caught it in Priscilla’s hair.

“Poor Priscilla won’t have a wig or a parasol either, if you aren’t more careful of her,” said Dr. Carlyon, trying to rescue his eldest daughter’s curls from his younger daughter’s parasol.