Читать книгу Two Girls in the Wild - Mabel Winifred Knowles - Страница 3

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“This must be Kelsie Grange,” said Pansy, “the driver said so. Perhaps the bell has gone wrong. We’d better explore.”

“There’s a window open round there,” suggested Pearl. “I could climb through and try to find someone.”

The idea tickled Pansy immensely.

“They’d sure take us for wild Indians as Captain Ewart on the ship said they would,” she replied. “Oh, what a grand collie!” And, forgetting the waiting cab outside the iron gates, with its pile of luggage, forgetting their fears of the unknown great-aunt whom they had come so far to live with, the two lassies bounded off across the lawn to introduce themselves to that perfectly darling collie dog. And I believe their eager comradeship would have won the day with Scotty had not an upper window in the low-roofed white house been flung open and a grey-haired woman leaned out.

“Go away, you naughty girls,” she shrieked. “How dare you run all over the flower-beds and lawn! I’ll have the police. You’re trespassing.”

Back came Pansy and Pearl, panting from their run. They were bonnie, sunburned lassies barely fifteen and sixteen years of age. Pansy, the elder, was brown-haired and grey-eyed. She wore her hair in a long plait and her fair skin was freckled. Pearl was fair, and though her two plaits of hair were meant to be neat, the little curls would fluff round her ears and over her brow; she had blue eyes and the sort of nose which tilts a wee bit up and says for its owner “I like fun”.

“We’ve come to live here,” called Pansy. “The cab’s outside the gate. We’re Pansy and Pearl Wydole. You’re sure Aunt Ann.”

“We couldn’t get into the house,” added Pearl; “the bell wouldn’t ring.”

“I never heard such a tale,” said the grey-haired woman. “You’d better come indoors and explain properly! But I’m not your Aunt Ann, and you’re not coming here to turn the place upside down.”

This sounded chilling, and both lassies were looking anxious as the door opened and a crinkled-faced old servant beckoned them in.

“I wonder if Dad knew it would be like this,” whispered Pearl. Pansy squeezed her sister’s hand hard, but did not reply. Somehow the inside of Kelsie Grange seemed suffocating.

In a very dreary room with very prim furniture the grey-haired woman awaited them.

“Of course there was the letter sent by your father. I remember it now,” she said, not even asking them to sit down. “My mother, Mrs. Dangeldie, was too ill to see it, and after her death I sent a message to America telling you not to come. You’ve no claim on me. Your father had no business to suggest that my mother should take you in.”

Her listeners’ eyes were growing round in dismay.

“Do you mean the Aunt Ann who used to be kind to our Mums is dead?” asked Pansy slowly.

The grey-haired woman nodded.

“She died at Christmas-time,” she replied. “I’m your cousin Janet. The Grange belongs to me now. I can’t be troubled with children like you. You must go back to America to your father.”

“Dad is dead,” said Pearl, “and our mother died years ago. The—the ranch is sold. We haven’t a home.”

“If you please, Miss Janet,” said the voice of the servant at the door, “Sandy wull be knowing if the boxes are to be carried to the house, and his fare paid?”

“I’ve got the money,” said Pansy, pulling out her purse; “but—but—what is going to happen?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Janet Dangeldie icily. “I suppose you’ll have to stay here till something can be arranged. But you must clearly understand you are not going to live here altogether.”

“Oh!” said Pearl breathlessly, “that’s sure true. We’d—smothercate.”

Perhaps it was as well that Cousin Janet was giving orders to Grizel and did not hear.

So that is just how these two lassies from the Wild West of South California came to Scotland and Kelsie Grange.

“It’s an awful thing to know you’re not wanted,” said Pansy, as she knelt before a sturdy wooden box to do her brief unpacking. Pearl was looking out of the window. The room they were to share was very narrow and bare, but it had a glorious view of the moors.

“I wonder if there are horses here?” sighed Pearl, taking no notice of Pansy’s remark. “I’d love to saddle up and explore this prairie. It isn’t called prairie; do you remember Captain Ewart said it was moors? Well! I’d like to ride away over the moors and help some farmer round up his cattle.”

“They don’t round up here,” said Pansy. “Everything is different. Oh dear, I wonder if Aunt Ann was any nicer than Cousin Janet. But I’ll write this very night, I will, to Lizzie Quant at Lone View. Don’t you remember, Pearl, she said if we were fed up in the British Isles we were to come right back to them? I wonder if she meant it.”

Pearl shook her head.

“Sure not,” she said; “but do write. I wonder if it’s sour Cousin Janet makes me feel lonesome. But I won’t be glum. Even at Kelsie Grange there may be fun, Pansy. And if there is we shall find it.”

There was certainly not much fun to be got out of supper in the dark dining-room with Cousin Janet watching every morsel they ate.

“I suppose,” said Miss Dangeldie coldly, as she noticed the novel way her visitors placed their knives and forks, “they don’t teach table manners in the Wild West. But it’s usual to use your napkin, Pansy, and not your handkerchief.”

Pansy was really anxious to win approval. She had always been the one to “take care” of Pearl, and her feeling of responsibility reminded her that really and truly they might have to live all their lives with this prim relative. It was unlucky that at this moment the pepper got up her nose, and she promptly smothered the atitcho in her clean table napkin.

Cousin Janet grew pink with horror.

“Really,” she said, rising from her chair, “I might as well have been sitting at table with two bears! You will have to be taught decent behaviour at once. I shall see the lawyer your father mentioned in his letter, and no doubt a school will be found for you.”

Pansy and Pearl looked at each other.

“Lizzie Quant said you’d raise the school stunt,” said Pansy, “but sure we shouldn’t like it. If you don’t want us, we’ll hire out at a farm till we hear from California.”

Here was defiance. Cousin Janet stiffened, but she began to think too.

Charles Wydole, in sending his daughters home, would have made provision for them. She would not be out of pocket in keeping them, and Miss Dangeldie was much too careful of her neighbours’ opinion to allow these orphan cousins to be turned away from her door.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said tartly to Pansy. “Go to bed and behave as ladies should do. I daresay you’ll have to stay here, for a time at least. I shall see the lawyer before I make any promises.”

“And we,” added Pansy to Pearl as they climbed the stairs, “will write to Lizzie Quant. I’m aching already for the prairie.”

Pearl laughed.

“So am I,” she replied, “but I shall have fun first. I’ve discovered the kitchen, Pansy, and the cook is real young. I believe we’ll be chums with her. And I do want to explore the moor prairie.”

Pansy and Pearl were no sleepy heads. If they were not up and out with the dawn, they had managed to reach the gardens very soon after. And even if they had cried themselves to sleep last night, their spirits were gay as larks this morning.

Over the lawn they raced, searching for Scotty. Hurrah! Pearl heard prisoner-whines first, and the collie greeted them as quite old friends.

Out on to the moors they climbed, laughing, singing. What a wild, up-and-down place this was. How black the fir trees looked. Pearl climbed one for fun and pelted Pansy with cones. Then they discovered a tarn deep in the hollow between high banks.

Dared they bathe?

“We needn’t undress,” suggested Pearl; “our things will soon dry. Take off your boots and stockings.”

It was too tempting, and the merry cries of their laughter echoed round the hills.

Oh, how hungry they were too!

“Our skirts do look rather draggly,” said Pansy. “Cousin Janet will be mad if we shed water over her chairs. Shall we light a fire and dry them?”

“We might ask that dandy little cook,” hinted Pearl. “I’m empty. She would give us cake before we starved.”

I think Jean, the rosy-faced cook, must have had rather a shock at sight of those very draggled figures appearing at the scullery door; but beaming smiles told her there had been no accident, and soon the visitors were perched on the kitchen table, munching cake, whilst their skirts were baked dry in the oven.

“You’ll like fun, Jean,” coaxed Pearl. “I know it, sure! Can’t we live with you in the kitchen? Don’t call us Miss. No one does in America. I’m Pearl, though Dad called me Paul Pry. We were sure more Peter and Paul than Pansy and Pearl. Shall we show you how to make flat pie?”

Jean giggled. She had never met young ladies like this. They made her laugh, and when Jean started to laugh she often couldn’t stop. If she could have stopped, she would have told those two that Grizel and her mistress would be horrified to see them prancing about the kitchen in blouses and grey knickers. Also, that to play “cooks” in the Grange kitchen would be accounted an unheard of liberty.

Pansy and Pearl had no idea of wrongdoing. Warmed and refreshed, they were all on the go for fresh occupation. Maybe, too, they wanted to show Jean that ranch girls could handle cookery as well as horses.

It was fun exploring for the flour-tub, fun to peel the apples, fun to roll out the paste, and still more fun when Andy, the garden boy, upset the coals over the kitchen floor in sheer amaze at sight of the strange cooks.

But, oh! it wasn’t fun at all—to Jean or Andy—when the kitchen door was flung open and in walked Grizel.

Grizel was house-parlourmaid at the Grange, and she matched Cousin Janet perfectly. No wonder Jean and Andy were afraid of them. Andy—the coward—fled with a howl, leaving Pansy shovelling back the scattered coal. Pearl, however, who was just whisking a flat pie from the oven—no, not the one holding the skirts—offered it boldly for inspection.

“It’s called flat pie in America,” she explained.

Grizel’s little eyes nearly disappeared into her head.

“And it’s impudence, Miss, that we call it in Scotland,” said she in awful tones. “Jean, you’ll be hearing of this from the mistress. As for young Andy, it’s his father I’ll be talkin’ to. The verra idea! Spoiling the mistress’s food, wastin’ her flour, and darin’ to walk about as bold as brass wi’ nothin’ but breeches to cover your legs.”

Jean looked frightened and began to tidy up; there were tears in her eyes and her hands shook. Pearl, on the contrary, seemed to be meditating throwing that flat pie at the scolder’s head. Pansy, having cleared up the coal, tried to pour oil on troubled waters. That was Pansy’s way, and you’ll know it was not her fault if she was not always successful.

“We got our skirts wet in the dandy pond,” she explained; “they’ll be dry now. And we’ll sure not waste the flat pie. It’s good.”

“More than I can say for you, Miss,” retorted Grizel. “The idea! Skirts in the oven which is made for the cooking of food. Me poor mistress! It’s worse than wild Indians, it is. You’ll not dare to have such goin’s on again in your kitchen, Jean, or you’ll have your notice.”

“It was not Jean’s fault,” began Pansy, whilst Pearl added to Grizel’s wrath by flinging her arm round Jean’s neck and kissing her. “Perhaps Cousin Janet will understand.”

Poor Pansy! She would have had sore lips kissing the blarney stone before she could have persuaded her indignant relative that they had done no harm.

“After all my goodness, too, in taking you in,” concluded Miss Dangeldie. “But I shall see the lawyer to-day, and something must be arranged before the house is torn down over my head.”

Pearl longed to retort, but Pansy’s warning glance checked her.

“I’ve written to Lizzie Quant,” Pansy whispered to her sister. “And—and we must wait. Till we hear, I guess we’d better stay outside the house as much as possible. I hope poor Jean don’t get into a row.”

Whether Jean got into a row or not the girls did not at once hear, for Cousin Janet strictly forbade them to put their noses inside the kitchen.

Luckily it was a fine day, and the girls found plenty to do wandering over the moors.

“There don’t seem many people living around,” said Pansy. “I wonder where the village is that we saw yesterday? We’ll ask the boy with red hair who upset the coal. He’ll tell us where to look for adventures. There are sure to be places to see—caves and castles and witches’ towers, like Dad used to tell us of.”

It took quite a while to find their way back to the Grange, but the girls had been trained to this, and arrived—oh, lucky for them!—in time for boiled mutton.

Cousin Janet was going to see the lawyer in the afternoon, and Pansy got the idea she was figuring how much they were going to cost if they ate at all meals as they did at this one. Poor old Cousin Janet! The girl with her young life before her felt real pity for the narrow limits which had made the elder woman grow so mean and grasping.

“I’ll not be home for tea,” said Miss Dangeldie, “but we’ll have meat tea at six.”

Pansy nodded.

“Sure, same as we did on the ranch,” she agreed; “the boys came in late after herding the cattle, and you guess it wouldn’t have been any use just filling them up with cake.”

To which remark Cousin Janet did not deign a reply.

The first thing to be done after dinner was to find Andy, but alas! the latter was away on an errand, and the girls spent the time fixing what they were pleased to call a camping ground amongst the fir trees in a hollow. They had never been girl guides, but the latter would have joyed in seeing how clever these prairie girls were in contriving a bivouac with branches and “scrub”, till quite a cosy nest was formed.

“We’ll get hammocks,” said Pearl, “and camp out, like we did in Silver Birch Clearing. And bathe without our clothes in the pool. If only Cousin Janet turned us out of doors we should have much nicer times.”

“Except when we got hungry,” laughed Pansy as they walked back to the Grange. It was a very excited Andy they found holding a dead, half-grown chick in his hand.

“It’s that ginger cat o’ Mr. Salford’s,” he cried angrily. “I saw her wi’ my own eyes, but they’ll no’ believe it. Wait till I catch her.”

“Is that her?” asked Pearl—whose grammar often needed blue pencilling—and she pointed to the grimmest of ginger cats perched in a chestnut tree.

Andy grew scarlet.

“If I could just catch her,” he groaned, “and tie the puir chick round her thievin’ neck.”

“It’s a rustler cat,” breathed Pearl delightedly. “Rustlers are outlaws, Andy; there are bands of them in California. P’raps you’ve heard of the James Boys. Well, they were rustlers. That cat can be one of the James Boys, and we’re the Mounted Police. Come right on.”

“Cousin Janet might——” began Pansy.

But wisdom was cast to the winds at sight of Pearl already half up the chestnut tree—and Andy heading off that wicked ginger cat from the greenhouse wall.