Читать книгу The Twins of Emu Plains - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 6

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THE twins did not lose a moment. They edged through the crowd of girls, dodged one or two laughing queries about their bathe, and, gaining the staircase, fled up to their eyrie on the second floor. It was a little room, with a big window, and a deep window-seat from which could be seen the Bay and the big liners going up and down on their way backwards and forwards across the world. The twins loved their window-seat, and generally read their home-letters in it. But when they had read this one they faced each other with eyes wide with dismay.

Father had gone straight to his point. That was like Father: he never wasted time.

“My dear little Girls,—

“I had meant to keep the news I have to give you until you came home. But it occurs to me that it is better to let you know at once.

“This has been a very bad year for me, as you know—not that you have known everything, for Mother and I haven’t believed in worrying you unnecessarily. You’re only kiddies, and we hoped the bad times would pass. But they haven’t passed. The drought has hit me very hard: I bought stock dear last year, and had to sell them for next to nothing this year, because I hadn’t feed for them. The stock I have still are as poor as crows, and I am only keeping them alive by buying feed.

“I might have managed, however, but for an extra bit of bad luck. Before things got very bad I lent an old friend a big sum of money, expecting it to be paid back last month; and the long and the short of it is, that he’s as hard hit as I am, and hasn’t got it to pay back. Goodness knows if he’ll ever be able to pay.

“So I’ve got to retrench, and I only wish I could do it all myself, instead of involving Mother and you children. But that’s just what I can’t do. We shall have to spend just as little money as possible, and it will mean sending away the servants, living very simply, and—I must take you two from school. I hate to say it, but there’s no help for it. School costs me close on £300 a year, and I can’t spare it. Besides, we’ll need your help. I know you’ll save Mother in the house as much as you can, and I think you should be able to teach Billy for a year or so. That will save a governess. Possibly you’ll even give me a hand on the place now and then, for I must do with as little outside labour as I can. I expect I can reckon on you two when I need a couple of extra hands, mustering.”

Jo gulped at this point. “Isn’t he a darling?” she said irrelevantly.

“Well, that’s all, and I’m afraid it’s an awful bombshell for you, little chaps. It might have been better to wait to tell you, but we have always faced things, and I thought you might prefer to tell your mates yourselves, instead of having to write explanations and good-byes. I’m writing to tell Miss Dampier. I shall always be sorry that Mother’s old School had only a year’s chance at you: the School that turned out Mother has a big thing to its credit, and I was awfully glad to send you there. It is a bitter disappointment to us both to have to take you away. I wish I’d been able to manage better for you, kiddies.

“Your loving

“Father.”

“Oh, poor old chap!” said Jean. “Poor old chap!”

“Oh, isn’t it just rotten luck for him!” said Jo. “My word, Jean, we’ll have to buck up and help him!”

Which remarks Miss Dampier would certainly have condemned on principle as unladylike. But it is doubtful if Father would have found any fault.

“Mother simply isn’t fit to do much work, of course,” said Jean. “I wonder what we can do, Jo. Do you suppose we can run things for her?”

“We’ll have a jolly hard try,” responded her twin. “After all, we ought to be able to do a good bit. But—Jean—Sarah? Can you imagine Mother without Sarah!”

Sarah had been part and parcel of the Weston household as long as the twins could remember. There had never been a time when she had not ruled unquestioned in the kitchen: tall, lean to the point of scragginess, dour and short of speech, but with a heart of gold that belonged entirely to her mistress. Housemaids came and went, after the manner of housemaids, but Sarah was as the fixed stars. When sickness came she was a tower of strength: nothing came amiss to her, and she would sit up all night as tirelessly as she would work all day. Mrs. Weston was not strong, and Sarah watched over her as a warlike hen watches a delicate chick. It was unthinkable that Mother should be without her.

“But—but he said, ‘the servants.’ And there’s only Sarah and Amy.”

“Then he must mean Sarah. Well, I guess it will take a team of bullocks to drag her away!”

“Father wouldn’t keep her unless he could pay her,” Jean said. “My goodness, how poor he must have got!”

“And I ate three ices this afternoon,” said Jo, contritely. “I wish I hadn’t been such a greedy pig!”

“I did, too,” said Jean. “Why didn’t we get the letter a post earlier, and we needn’t have spent all that money going to bathe!”

“Well, it’s gone now,” Jo said, mournfully. “Anyhow, I suppose it’s only a drop in the bucket,” she sighed. “And I know he was hoping to be able to get a motor for Mother next year. Now I suppose it’s doubtful if we’ll even be able to keep the ponies.”

“The ponies?” Jean exclaimed. “You don’t mean to say you think they’ll have to go? Why, Jo—I just couldn’t imagine you without Pilot!”

Jo blinked something away rapidly.

“I can’t quite imagine myself,” she said dolefully. “Or you without Punch: it’s just as awful. But Father will simply have to keep Cruiser, Jean, ’cause he couldn’t work the place without him. That’s one comfort, at any rate.”

“Unless his awful sense of duty makes him sell Cruiser and ride some old crock,” Jean said. “It would be just like him to do that. But we’ll make mother put her foot down about it—he won’t do it if he realizes how we’d all hate to see him riding any horse except Cruiser.”

Jo nodded agreement.

“I wonder Mother didn’t write,” she said. “But I suppose she’s pretty busy: and she’s just waiting to talk it all out when we get home. How do you think we’ll get on at teaching Billy?”

Jean laughed.

“Oh, there will be a good deal of wool flying, now and then,” she said. “Billy hasn’t been exactly all jam for the governesses—he won’t be keen on obeying a mere pair of sisters. Perhaps it would have been as well if we’d had a bit of experience as prefects first.” She hesitated, looking out across the Bay at the sunset sky, against which the tall masts of a wheat-ship showed black and slender. “And only this afternoon we were scared blue at the very idea of becoming prefects!”

“Well, it needn’t scare us now,” Jo said, drily. “Oh, Jean, it’s going to be hateful to leave!”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Jean said. “And it’s hateful to have to tell every one—so we’d better get it over as soon as we can. Let’s go and see Miss Dampier, and then tell the girls.”

“All right,” Jo answered. “And if young Pearlie Alexander patronizes us I’ll—I’ll—well, I’ll cease to be a perfect lady immediately!”

“You’ll have to begin by being one, first,” responded her twin. “And so far, there hasn’t been any sign of it!” At which they managed to laugh, and so took not uncheerful countenances to the study where Miss Dampier sat reading the evening paper.

The Head was not at all cheery. She was to be bereft of so many of her seniors that next year’s discipline presented something of a problem to her; in addition, she was genuinely fond of the twins and of their mother, and sympathized very heartily in their difficulties. She spoke so kindly that Jo and Jean found her suddenly more human than they had ever imagined that she could be, and talked freely to her of their disappointment and their hopes and fears for the future. It came upon both with a shock of horror, later on, that they had used slang expressions several times, and that the Head had never seemed to notice it!

She dismissed them at length, and they went slowly down the passage that led to the senior girls’ studies. No preparation was done on the last nights of term; already the holiday spirit had infected every one. From the big schoolroom came the notes of a piano and a shouted chorus that showed that the junior school was making merry. Several of the studies they passed were in darkness, their doors ajar, their owners released from the tedium of nightly toil. Helen Forester’s door was also ajar, but light streamed from it, and the sound of many voices. The twins looked in.

“Hullo, you two!” Nita Anderson greeted them. “We thought you had succumbed to the mingled effects of bathing and ice-cream. And then an awestruck junior reported that you had gone to Miss Dampier’s room. Anything wrong?”

“Pretty awfully wrong—for us,” Jo said. “We’ve got to leave school!”

“Oh—twinses!” Helen Forester’s voice was a cry of distress. She crossed the room quickly, putting an arm round each. “Not—not your mother?”

“Oh, no. Mother’s all right,” Jean answered “It’s just horrid old money.” Her face was flushed, but she kept her head up, looking bravely at the concerned faces round her. “Father’s been awfully hard hit by the drought—he kept things from us as long as ever he could, hoping they’d pull round, and they haven’t. The stock haven’t anything to eat, and he’s buying feed.”

She stopped, on the verge of further revelations. Suddenly she realized that her father would not like her to speak of the friend to whom he had lent money, and who had failed to return it.

“Got to cut down expenses.” Jo took up the story. “School-bills are simply awful, of course, ’specially for people as fond of ices as we are! House-expenses, too—we’re going to be cooks and bottlewashers, and teach Billy in the intervals. Billy doesn’t respect us at all, so I don’t know how that’s going to answer. But we shan’t have a dull moment.”

She stopped abruptly: so far she had rattled on, but she knew that her voice would not carry her much farther. She was desperately afraid of pity. But no one pitied them.

“Well, you are bricks!” Helen said, cheerily. “Such a chance: we always talk, or think, about doing things for our people, but it generally ends in their doing everything for us, in the same old way. Now you two are really going to do things. You’ll have no end of fun.”

Her eyes sought Ellen Webster’s, saying silently, “Back me up!” Ellen responded promptly.

“Woe is me!” she said, dismally. “Here are you off to Ceylon, Helen, and all the others to frivol or be artistic, and who is going to support me? I’d depended on the twinses. They were going to be kept under my eagle eye and gradually hatched into the perfect prefect! Now they’ll be fully-fledged housekeepers, and they’ll look down on me as a little schoolgirl. It isn’t fair!”

This point of view had very naturally failed to present itself to Jean and Jo. It had not occurred to them that any one could possibly feel aggrieved at their going. Being only human, they found it cheering.

“But we don’t want to go a bit——” they began.

“Oh, you think you don’t. But wait until you’ve been home a few months, running things, and see how you’d feel at the idea of coming back—back to being put in your place by Smithy, and asked at short notice for the subjunctive of a hideous irregular French verb, or made to walk in a crocodile every day! Catch either of you giving up your independence, once you’ve got it!”

“But we shan’t be independent—you seem to forget there’s Mother.”

“No—but I know you two!” said Ellen darkly. “I’ve been vice-captain for a year, and I pity your hapless parents!”

“Yes, poor things!” Nita agreed. “Of course, they won’t be hapless for ever—the drought will break, and stock will go up with a rush, and they’ll become horribly rich——”

“This isn’t a story,” said Jo, regarding her sternly. “It’s real life.”

“Well, that’s what I’m talking about,” said Nita, much injured. “This is the way it happens in the best circles. I wish you wouldn’t interrupt me just as I get thrilling. Where was I?—oh, yes, horribly rich, and then they’ll send the twinses to France and Switzerland, to finish off, and they’ll be touring the world when they ought to be thinking of Junior Public Exams. Their characters will be ruined, of course, but they’ll have a gorgeous time!”

“Yes,” said Grace. “Then they’ll come home and find me painting for a crust, in a torn overall, and they’ll charitably give me three-and-elevenpence for my landscapes——”

“And sell them at a jumble sale!” put in Nita cruelly.

“Oh, I suppose so. That’s how great charitable reputations are worked up. And they’ll look at me through lorgnettes, and say to themselves, ‘Dear me, and to think we were at school with that old thing! Hasn’t she grown into a perfect haybag?’ Because, being purse-proud and ignorant, they won’t know an artistic figure when they see it. And they’ll ask me what has become of that queer, gawky Nita Anderson, and I shall reply, ‘Oh, quite dropped out of decent society—she’s taken to golf!’ ”

The soft drawl ceased abruptly, as the outraged Nita picked up the artistic one in her muscular arms and deposited her on the sofa, where she sat upon her, to keep her quiet, she explained. When the tumult caused by this interlude had subsided—it had managed to include most of those present—the twins were so weak with laughter that their troubles seemed faint and far-off things. The cheery chaff went on—they were somehow the centre of it, and they knew that every one else was trying to “buck them up.” It was only decent to respond; “blues” were for private consumption only, and must not be allowed to darken end-of-term gatherings. So the twins became as cheerful as anyone, and put away resolutely the spectres of drought and unpaid bills and household worries. Later on, these would have their place; to-night was to-night, and every one must be merry.

Bed-time came, and, one by one, the girls drifted away until there were only Helen and Ellen Webster left. The twins were perched, cross-legged, on each end of the Chesterfield couch, and Ellen looked at them, her queer, elfin face, with its sharp features, settling into its accustomed gravity.

“Well, I’ve ragged all the evening, but I’m going to be serious for two minutes,” she said: “just long enough to say I’m horribly sorry you’re going.”

“Thanks,” the twins said, nodding at her. “But we’d never have made decent prefects, Ellen—truly.”

“I’ve my own opinion about that. But apart from being prefects, I’m going to miss you. You don’t seem to consider I’ve a thought apart from prefecting!”

“Well, we’re going to miss you. Oh, my goodness, how we’re going to miss every one!” Jo breathed. “Even the irregular verbs and the crocodile. We’ve had an awful lot of fun this year!”

“I don’t look forward to nearly so much as I’ve had,” sighed Ellen. “You two cheerful lunatics will be gone, for one thing: so will Helen, whom I mustn’t call a lunatic, because she’s Captain, but who is very cheerful. And nearly all the old set will be gone, and I’ll be left like a pelican on the housetop. But it’s worst of all for you, because you’ll have worries as well. I just wanted you to know I was sorry.”

“You’ve all been jolly good,” Jean said. “I don’t suppose we realize the worries yet. Of course we’ve never been rich, but we’ve had all we wanted. That’s one way of being rich, I expect. But it’s going to be horrid to think Father and Mother have worries we can’t help.”

“But you are going to help. Look at all you’ll be saving them.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t seem like making money. If only we could keep Sarah for Mother—’cause Sarah understands all about her, and she’s as good as a nurse if she’s ill. I wouldn’t care how hard we worked, if only we could keep Sarah. But it’s no use wishing. No one is much good when they aren’t even sixteen yet,” finished Jo, with an utter lack of grammar and a woe-begone expression.

“No—as far as making money goes, you can’t expect to be marvels,” Ellen agreed. “But do remember that you’re helping when you save, because that will help you yourselves—ever so much.”

“You’re going to help in dozens of ways, and most of all by bucking them up,” said Helen firmly. “No worries can be half so bad with you cheery twinses about. You’ve just got to go home and be Knights of the Cheerful Countenance, and that’s something a long way better than money. And don’t forget that bad times don’t last for ever—especially if you make up your mind not to regard them as bad. Now, just uncurl yourselves from those sofa-ends and go off to bed, or Miss Dampier will ask if I’ve already ceased to be Captain!”

“The twins loved their window-seat, and generally read their home-letters in it.”

The Twins of Emu Plains][Page 43