Читать книгу Sweet Content - Molesworth Mrs. - Страница 3

When I said “a pleasant day for November,” I think I should have left out the two last words. For they rather sound as if November was rarely pleasant, and though this may be the case in some parts of England it is certainly not so with us. Our Novembers are generally this way: there are some perfectly horrible days, rain, rain, slow and hopeless; not heavy, but so steady that you long to give a shake to the clouds and tell them to be quick about it. And then for a day or two, everything and everywhere are just sopping; it’s almost worse than the rain, for the sky still looks grim and sulky and as if it more than half thought of beginning again. But then– there comes sometimes a little wind, and faint gleams of sunshine, sparkle out, growing steadier and fuller, and then we generally have a few days together of weather that for pleasantness can scarcely be matched. They are soft, quiet, dreamy days; the sunshine is never bright exactly, but gentle and a little melancholy. There is a queer feeling of having been naughty and being forgiven: the wind comes in little whispering sobs, like a tiny child that can’t leave off crying all at once; the whole world seems tired and yet calm and hopeful in a far-off sort of way. Somehow these days make me feel much gooder (“better” doesn’t do so well) than even the brightest and loveliest spring or summer-time. They make me think more of Heaven – and they make me dreadfully sorry for all the naughty selfish thoughts and feelings I have had. Altogether there is something about them I can’t put in words, though once – I will come to that “once” later on – some one said a thing that seemed to explain it almost exactly.

And this day – the day we went to the Yew Trees – it was the first time mamma and I had been there for very long – was one of those days. It was not late in November, so though it had been raining tremendously only the day before, the clearing-up process had been got through much more expeditiously than usual, and the sun had of course rather more strength still with which to help.

“The wind has been pretty busy in the night,” said papa. “He must have sent out all his elves to work. I scarcely remember ever seeing the roads dry up so quickly.”

“But they are rather untidy elves all the same, papa,” I replied – I do like when papa says these funny kinds of things – “just look what a lot of their brushes and dusters they have left about.”

We were driving along Crook’s Lane as I spoke – the road to the Yew Trees goes that way, right through Crook’s Wood, and I pointed to lots of boughs and branches, many of them still with their leaves on, that had been blown off in the night.

“Yes,” said papa, laughing.

We were in the pony-carriage; at least we call it the pony-carriage, though it is much too big for Hoppo to draw, and at that time we drove a rather small horse, a cob, of papa’s in it. I did feel so happy and nice. Papa was driving and I was beautifully wrapped up in the seat behind, which is really quite as comfortable as the front one. It seemed to me I had never scented the air so fresh and sweet before, nor heard the birds’ mild autumn chirpings so touching and tender.

The Yew Trees is only about a mile from us, and over the fields it is still nearer. We were soon there, and old Martha, knowing we were coming, had got the door open and the front steps cleaned. It did not look at all desolate outside, for the garden had been kept tidy in a plain sort of way. The trees which give their name to the house make a short avenue from the gate; some of them are very fine yews, I believe, though I always think them rather gloomy.

Inside, the rooms of course seemed bare and chilly. I had never thoroughly explored it before, and I was surprised to find how large it was. Mamma, of course, knew every chink and cranny, and she took me all over while papa was speaking to a man – a builder, who had come by appointment to meet him. It was found that the partition between the two odd little rooms on the ground floor was a very thin one and could be taken away quite easily, and, to mamma’s great pleasure, papa decided on this.

“It will make such a nice bright schoolroom,” she said, as we went upstairs. “And here,” she went on, “is the room Bessie and I used to have. Isn’t it a nice room, Connie? Long ago, I remember, I used to fancy that if ever my little Evie had a sister, and we came to live here some day, I would have it beautifully done up for my own girls.”

Mamma’s voice faltered a little as she said this. I was not feeling cross or impatient just then, so I answered her more gently than I am afraid I sometimes did when she alluded to my little dead brothers and sister.

“Well, mamma dear,” I said, “if you do it up very prettily now it will be a great pleasure to the one little girl you still have beside you, and also to the two stranger little girls. I am sure, too, that if Eva knew about it, she would be pleased. And perhaps she does.”

“Darling! My own Sweet Content!” said mamma. She thought me so good for what after all was a great deal a fancy, though a harmless one, to please myself.

“It shall be done, Connie dearest, if I can possibly manage it,” said mamma. “I wonder if the man downstairs has anything to do with the papering and painting?”

It turned out that he had – in little country towns you don’t find separate shops for everything, you know. This was the very man in whose window I had seen the lovely rose paper. So it was settled that on our way home we should call in and look at several wall papers. And soon after, we left the Yew Trees and drove off again.

Mr Bickersteth’s house was between the Yew Trees and the town. As we were passing the gate it opened, and Lady Honor came out. She was walking slowly, for she was not strong now, and she was an old lady. In my eyes very old, for I could not remember her anything else. Papa drew up when he saw her, and jumped down.

“We have just been at the Yew Trees,” he said. “My wife and Connie are so interested in getting it made nice for your friends.”

“Ah, yes!” said Lady Honor, looking pleased, “we heard from Frank Whyte this morning that it is settled. Very good of you to go yourself to look over the house, my dear Mrs Percy. And Connie, too! That is an honour – however in this case you will be rewarded. You will find the Whyte girls delightful and most desirable companions for her, Mrs Percy, Evey especially.”

Mamma grew rather white, and gave a little gasp.

“Evie,” she whispered (I spell it “Evie,” because I know that was how mamma thought it), “do you hear, Connie?”

“Yes, of course,” I said rather sharply. No one else noticed mamma, for Lady Honor had turned to papa. I felt half provoked. I wished the little Whyte girl had not been called “Evie.”

“Mamma will always be mixing her up with our Evie, and thinking her a sort of an angel,” I thought to myself, and something very like a touch of ugly jealousy crept into my heart. Just at that moment, unluckily, Lady Honor glanced my way again.

“Are you quite well again, Connie?” she said. “You don’t look very bright, my dear. She needs companionship, doctor – companionship of her own age, as I have always told you. It will do her good in every way, yes, in every way,” and she tapped the umbrella which she was carrying emphatically on the ground, while she nodded her head and looked at me with the greatest satisfaction in her bright old eyes. I am not sure that there was not a little touch of mischief mingled with the satisfaction – a sort of good-natured spitefulness, if there could be such a thing! And perhaps it was not to be wondered at: “bright” I certainly was not looking, and indeed I fear there must have been something very like sulkiness in my face just then. “Sweet Content,” Lady Honor went on, half under her breath, as if speaking to herself, “a very pretty name and a very lovely character. I was telling the Whyte children about it when I was with them the other day.”

Mamma flushed with pleasure, but I felt inwardly furious. I was sure the old lady was mocking at me; afterwards I felt glad that papa had not seen my face just then.

For the rest of the way, after we had said good-bye to Lady Honor, I was quite silent. If it had not been for very shame, I would have asked to be put down at our own house when we passed it instead of going on to Fuller’s shop. And mamma’s gentle coaxing only made me crosser.

“I am sure you are too tired, darling,” she kept saying. “You don’t think you have caught cold? Do say, if you feel at all chilly?”

And when I grunted some short, surly reply, she only grew more and more anxious, till at last papa turned round and looked at me.

“She is all right, Rose,” he said. “It is as mild as possible – leave the child alone. At the same time, Connie,” he added to me, “you must answer your mother more respectfully. You have nothing to be so cross about, my dear.”

I felt startled and almost frightened. It was very seldom papa found fault with me. Yet there was something in his tone which prevented my feeling angry; something in his tone and in his eyes too. It was as if he was a little sorry for me. I felt myself redden, and I think one or two tears crept up.

“I am sorry,” I said, gently.

Papa’s face brightened at once, and this made it easier for me to master myself. We were just at Fuller’s by this time. I went in with papa and mamma, and after a minute or two I found it was not difficult to talk as usual, and to feel really interested in the papers. Papa and mamma chose very nice ones for the dining- and drawing-rooms, and I was asked my opinion about them all, especially about the schoolroom one. Then came the bedroom ones, most of which were quickly decided upon. I grew very anxious indeed when mamma asked to see the pale-grey-with-roses one, which had been in the window a week or two ago. Fuller’s man knew it at once and brought it out.

“It is beautiful,” he said, “a French paper, but expensive.”

And so it was, dearer than the one chosen for the dining-room! But papa glanced at it and then at me with a smile.

“Yes,” he said, “I will have that one for the bedroom to the right – the room off the passage up the first stair.”

“Oh, papa, thank you,” I said earnestly. And I meant it.

I have told all these little things to make you understand as well as I can, the mixture of feelings I had about the Whyte children even before I ever saw them. Now I will skip a bit of time, and go on to tell about how things actually turned out.

Things almost never turn out as one expects, the older one gets the more one sees this, especially about things one has thought of and planned a good deal. I had planned the first seeing the Whytes ever so many times in my own mind, always in the same way, you know, but with little additions and improvements the more I thought it over. The general idea of my plan was this. It was to be a lovely day: I was to ride over with papa one morning, Hoppie was to be looking his sweetest, and as we rode up to the house I was to see (and pretend not to see, of course) a lot of heads peeping out of a window to admire the little girl and her pony. Then we should be shown into the drawing-room, which I had furnished in my own mind rather shabbily and stiffly, and Captain and Mrs Whyte would come in and begin thanking papa for all his kindness, and would speak to me very nicely and rather admiringly, and Mrs Whyte would sigh a very little as if she wished her daughters were more like me. She would say how very much they wanted to know me, and she would beg papa to stay a few minutes longer while she called them. She would be very kind, but rather fussy and anxious. Then the girls would come in, looking very eager but shy. They were to be smaller than I, and younger-looking, very shabbily dressed, but nice, and very admiring. I would talk to them encouragingly, and they would tell me how beautiful they thought the rose paper, and that Lady Honor had told them I had chosen it – at least, perhaps it should be Lady Honor, I was not quite sure – sometimes I planned that papa should smile and it should come out by accident, as it were. Then this should lead us to talk of flowers, and I would tell them how they might make winter nosegays to brighten up the drawing-room a little, and I would promise them some flowers out of our conservatory, and papa would ask Mrs Whyte to let them come to have tea with me the next day, and they would look delighted though half afraid, and they would all come to the door to see me mount, and, and – on and on I would go for hours, in my fancies, of which “I” and “we” were always the centre, the pivot on which everything else revolved!

Now I will tell what really happened.

It was about six weeks after the day that I had gone with papa and mamma to the Yew Trees. So it was within a fortnight of Christmas. Mamma and I had been to the Yew Trees again once or twice to see how things were getting on, but for the last ten days or so we had not gone, as the Whytes’ two servants and their furniture had come, and the house was now, therefore, to all intents and purposes theirs, and one morning a letter from Captain Whyte to papa announced that he and Mrs Whyte and “some of our numerous youngsters” were to arrive the same day.

“Poor things,” said mamma, with a little shiver, “how I do pity them removing at this season.”

“But it isn’t cold,” said papa. “So far it has been an unusually mild winter, though certainly we have had a disagreeable amount of rain.”

He glanced out as he spoke. It was not raining, but it looked dull and gloomy.

“I suppose there is nothing we can do to help the Whytes?” said mamma. “You will tell me, Tom, if you think there is.”

“I almost think the kindest thing in such circumstances is to leave people alone till they shake down a little,” he replied. “However, I shall be passing that way this evening, and I’ll look in for a moment. Captain Whyte won’t mind me.”

I didn’t think any one could ever “mind” papa! I suppose it comes partly from his being a doctor and knowing so much about home things, children and illnesses, and so on, that he is so wonderfully sensible and handy and tender in his ways – “like a woman,” Prudence says; but indeed I don’t think there are many women like him– and I don’t think it can be all from his being a doctor, it must be a good deal from his own kind, tender, sympathising heart.

“Please find out how soon we can go to see them at the Yew Trees,” I said. “Perhaps I might ride there with you some morning on Hop-o’-my-thumb before mamma goes regularly to call.”

“We’ll see,” said papa, as he went off. Of course, I was thinking of my imaginary programme, but papa did not know that.

When he came home that night I was disappointed to find that he had not seen any of the Whytes. Captain Whyte was out, and Mrs Whyte, after all, had not yet come. “Only Miss Whyte and two of the young gentlemen,” the servant had said, and as papa had no very particular reason for calling, he had not asked to see “Miss Whyte.”

“Do you think she is one of the little girls?” I asked.

Papa shook his head.

“I don’t know. She may be an aunt who has come to help,” he said.

This idea rather annoyed me. I had not planned for a helpful aunt; it disarranged things.

“Never mind, Connie,” said mamma, thinking I was disappointed. “We shall soon know all about them. I should think we might call early next week. The old-fashioned rule in a country-place is to wait till you have seen people in church,” she added.

This was Wednesday. It was a good while to wait till next Monday or Tuesday. However, I set to work at my fancies again, determining all the same to ride past the Yew Trees, as often as I could this week. It would be rather nice and romantic for them to have seen me riding about without knowing who I was, before they actually met me.

Whom I meant by “they” I am not quite sure. I fancy I did the Whyte girls the compliment of placing them next in importance to myself in my drama.

“I wonder,” I thought, “if Lady Honor told them nicely of my being called ‘Sweet Content,’ or if she said it mockingly. It was horrid of her if she did.”