Читать книгу The Old Pincushion: or, Aunt Clotilda's Guests - Molesworth Mrs. - Страница 2

Kathleen was met at the schoolroom door by a little, pale-faced, fair-haired girl, who was just coming out.

'Oh, Kathie!' she said anxiously, 'do be quick if you're not ready for dinner. The bell's just going to ring. Have you washed your hands? No? Then let's go at once.'

'Why, are you not ready, either?' said Kathie. 'There's no excuse for you, Philippa; you've not been called downstairs to see your brother.'

'I am ready,' said Philippa. 'I've been ready ever so long. But when you didn't come at once after Miss Fraser went for you, I was so frightened that I asked if I might go to fetch a handkerchief, and I thought I'd run along the passage to see if you were coming, and to hurry you.'

'You're a good little soul,' said Kathleen condescendingly, 'but you really needn't bother about me. I've had scoldings enough by this time not to mind, I should rather think.'

Philippa looked up at her doubtfully. Kathie's hard, careless way of speaking distressed her vaguely, much as it did Neville, though she scarcely understood it. She was new to school life, and she had had the happiness till a few months ago of never being separated from her mother. So, though she was three years younger than Kathleen, there were some things she knew more of.

'I don't think you should speak that way,' she said. 'It can't be a good thing not to mind. I do think they scold us too much. Mamma never scolded at all, though of course she was sometimes vexed with me, only there was always sense in it. But I think there's generally some sense in Miss Eccles' scolding. I try to find it out, only it's rather hard,' and her soft eyes filled with tears.

'Come now, Philippa,' said Kathleen, 'don't begin to cry. You'd be ever so much nicer if you wouldn't. There, now; I'm all ready,' and she flung the towel, with which she had been wiping her hands, on to the rail as she spoke. 'Let's race back; see if you can run as fast as I without making any noise. Don't I do it splendidly? There now; the bell hasn't sounded. Won't Miss Fraser be disappointed not to have to scold?'

And it was true that a rather sour look overspread the under-teacher's face as the two children demurely entered the room.

'Did your brother bring you any letters, Kathie?' whispered Philippa, as they filed downstairs to dinner with the seven or eight girls who made up Miss Eccles' school. 'I do so want to know.'

'Yes; I have lots to tell you,' said Kathie, 'and no good news either. If I were you, Philippa, I should be crying my eyes out by this time.'

Philippa covered her ears with her hands.

'Oh! don't tell me, then, please don't,' she said. 'If it's anything sad about your mamma, or anything like that, I shall begin crying: I know I shall, whether you do or not, and then they'll all see. Don't tell me till after dinner, Kathie.'

'I've no intention of doing so,' said Kathleen, smiling rather importantly. 'I'll tell you in the garden this afternoon.'

Her smile somewhat reassured the tender-hearted little friend; still more so the fact that Kathleen's appetite was in no way affected by the news, whatever it was, that she had just heard. There was a gooseberry pudding for dinner that day, and Philippa marvelled to herself when she saw Kathie's plate sent up for a second allowance.

'I can't finish my first helping even,' she whispered, disconsolately. 'I can't help wondering if your mamma's ill, and it makes me think of my mamma. Oh, Kathie!' she went on, 'do just tell me it isn't that your mamma's ill, is it? Do tell me, or I'll never be able to finish my pudding, and they will so scold me!'

'You goose!' whispered Kathie. 'No; of course it isn't that my mamma's ill, or your mamma's ill, or anybody's mamma's ill.'

'Miss Powys and Miss Harley whispering! I am surprised at you,' said Miss Eccles' voice from behind the now diminished gooseberry pudding at the other end of the table.

'There, now,' muttered Kathie; and Philippa, feeling that her friend's reproaches as well as her teacher's disapproval would be more than she could bear, subsided, and set to work to clear her plate in earnest.

The friendship between these two was rather an odd one. It had been brought on in the first place by a sort of half-contemptuous, half-pitying curiosity, with which Kathleen had seen Philippa's agony of distress on having to part with her mother. And poor Mrs. Harley, in her bewilderment, had credited Kathie with more feeling and sympathy than the girl was really conscious of.

'You will be good to her – you look as if you were sorry for her,' she said, struck by the interest in Kathleen's pretty bright eyes. 'You know what it is to be separated from your mother.'

'I – I haven't seen mamma for a long time,' Kathie replied, too honest to 'sham,' and yet feeling rather ashamed of herself. 'There are several girls here whose mothers are in India. But I will be good to Philippa. We'll all be sorry for her. I suppose it's worse when one's as big as she is. I was very little.'

And Mrs. Harley thanked her, and Philippa clung to her, and having given the promise, Kathleen kept it, even though it was sometimes a little tiresome to have to forsake the society of the merry, hearty, older girls, in order to devote herself to the poor little home-sick child. But during the last few months things had changed. Two or three of the older girls had left, and Kathleen did not care much for those that remained. And by degrees Philippa had grown to some extent reconciled to her new life, and had transferred to Kathleen some considerable share of the devotion with which her loving little heart was running over. And Philippa, young as she was, was a friend worth having; in after-years Kathleen came to see how much she owed to the child's unconscious influence.

The hour in the garden after dinner, and before lessons began again, was the hour of all the twenty-four during which Miss Eccles' pupils were the most at liberty. Before Philippa came it had usually been spent by Kathleen in playing; she was so tall and nimble that she was in great request among the older girls for lawn-tennis, or any other games, and it had been one of her small acts of self-denial – acts showing that, for all her heedless talking and surface indifference, her heart was in the right place – to give up joining in these for the sake of talking or listening to the disconsolate little stranger. But now that Philippa had learnt to understand things better, she would not allow Kathleen to make such sacrifices. Though not strong enough herself for much active exercise, she loved to watch her friend's successes, and her pale face would glow with excitement when Kathie specially distinguished herself. But to-day was to be an exception.

'You're going to play lawn-tennis, aren't you, Kathie?' said Philippa. 'I don't want to play anything; and Miss Fraser doesn't mind, when it's so hot that I won't catch cold. I'll sit near and watch you.'

'No, you just won't,' said Kathie. 'I'm not going to play. I know you are dying to hear what Neville came about, and I want to tell it to somebody, and you're the only person I can tell it to. So let's sit quietly in the old arbour – nobody will want us, and I'll tell you everything. You'll be sorry enough for me, Philippa, when you hear the first bit of it, even though it isn't nearly the worst. Just fancy' – by this time the two children were settled in the summer-house – 'papa and mamma are not coming home this year, after all.'

Philippa's blue eyes opened very widely, and a look of consternation spread over her face.

'Your papa and mamma aren't coming home?' she repeated, as if she could not take in the sense of the words. 'Oh, Kathie!' and the corners of her mouth went down, and her eyelids began to quiver in a suspicious way.

'Now, Phil, no crying,' said Kathleen, sharply. 'If I don't cry for myself, I don't see that you need to do it for me.'

'I'm so – so dreadfully sorry for you,' said Philippa apologetically.

'Thank you. I knew you'd be. But though their not coming's a dreadful disappointment, there's worse than that. It isn't only that it's put off, Philippa: it's given up altogether. I don't hardly think they'll ever come home now. I believe they'll stay out there always, till I'm grown up, and then when I'm seventeen or so, I'll be sent out to them – to a father and mother I shan't know a bit. Isn't it horrid, Philippa?'

'But why is it? What's made them change so?' asked the little girl.

'I'll tell you. Only you must listen a great deal. It's really rather hard to understand: just like a story in a book, Phil, about wills, and heirs, and lawyers, and all that.'

And in her own fashion, as intelligibly as she could, Kathleen proceeded to narrate the contents of her father's letter to Neville, and all Neville's comments thereupon, to her most interested and attentive listener.

'What a shame it seems!' was Philippa's first remark. 'All to go to somebody that doesn't need it. How unfair it is! Kathie, if he was really a very good, nice man, don't you think he'd give it all back to your father?'

'Papa wouldn't take it, not from him,' said Kathie indignantly, though, truth to tell, her own first idea on hearing the story had been a similar one; 'and besides – that other man's got children, and Neville says there's some law that you can't give away what comes to you if you've got children.'

'Oh,' said Philippa, meekly. 'I didn't know.'

'Of course not. How could you know, a little, girl like you? Why, I didn't till Neville told me,' said Kathie condescendingly. 'But, all the same, that part of it doesn't matter. Papa wouldn't take anything from anybody like that.'

Philippa sat silent for a little while. But though silent, she was thinking deeply. Her eyes were gazing before her, though seeing but little of the objects in view – the prim bit of London garden, with the evergreen shrubs bordering the gravel-walk, and the figures of the girls darting backwards and forwards in their light-coloured frocks, while they called out to each other in the excitement of the game. And the child's lips were compressed as if she were thinking out some knotty problem. Kathie looked at her in surprise and with growing impatience. She did not fully understand Philippa, for in reality the nine years old maiden was in some respects older than Kathleen herself. Her thoughtfulness and powers of reflection had been brought out by living in close companionship with her mother, and the dearth of playfellows of her own age had made her what servants call 'old-fashioned,' quaint, and in a sense precocious.

'What are you going to sleep about Philippa?' said Kathleen at last, irritably. 'I thought you'd have had lots of questions to ask. It's not every day one hears anything so queer and interesting as what I have been telling you.'

Philippa slowly unfastened her eyes, so to speak, from staring at vacancy, and turned them on her friend. 'It's not that I don't care, Kathie; you might know that, I'm sure. I think it's dreadful! I can't bear to think of how unhappy your papa and mamma must be, 'specially your mamma, just when she'd been planning about coming home and having you with her. I daresay she made a day list – you know what I mean – and that she'd been scratching out every day to see the long rows get shorter. I know,' she added mysteriously, 'I know mammas do do that sometimes, just as well as children.'

'I don't think mine would be quite so silly,' said Kathleen disdainfully. 'She must be pretty well used to being at the other side of the world from us by now. For my part, I don't think people should marry if they know they're going to have to live in India – not, at least, till doctors find out some sort of medicine that would keep children quite strong and well there. I do think doctors are too stupid. But still, of course,' she went on, 'I am very sorry for mamma, and I'm very sorry for us all. Not quite so sorry for myself, perhaps. I don't think I do mind so very much. I'd feel more disappointed if I couldn't go to the Fanshaws on Wednesday, and come home in a hansom with Neville. I'm made so, I suppose.'

And she flung herself back on her seat with a would-be 'Miller of the Dee' air, which, however, was rather lost on Philippa, who just glanced at her calmly.

'I don't believe you,' she said. 'You're not as bad as you would make yourself out. But I do wonder you haven't thought of one thing, Kathie, you that are so quick and clever. It came into my head the moment I heard it all.'

'What?' said Kathleen carelessly.

'Why, it's what I'd do in your place. I'd settle to find the will!'

'To find the will!' repeated Kathie, sitting bolt upright, and staring at Philippa as if she thought the little girl was taking leave of her senses. 'Me find the will! You little goose! how could I find it when that stupid Miss Clotilda and all the lawyers and people haven't been able to find it? Why, even Neville never thought of such a thing.'

'Perhaps he will, though; and if he doesn't, if I were you, I'd put it into his head. If Miss Clotilda is really stupid' —

'Oh! I don't know that she is – it's just my way of speaking.' Philippa looked rather disappointed. 'I don't know anything about her except that she's an old maid, and old maids are either crabbed or stupid; and they say she's not crabbed,' said Kathie. 'But seriously, Phil, what do you mean? How could I find the will, or even look for it? It isn't here in London, and very likely it's nowhere at all. Very likely old Mrs. Wynne never wrote it.'

'Oh, Kathie!' exclaimed Philippa, 'I do think you can't have a very good mind to fancy such things. She would have had to be a really naughty old lady to have pretended so, and tricked everybody for nothing. Of course she must have written it; you told me the letter with nothing in it was marked "Directions where to find my will."'

'Ye-es,' said Kathleen, 'so it was. But what then? It seems to me the first thing to do would be to find the paper that should have been in that envelope.'

'Of course,' said Philippa, her face flushing. 'I never thought of that. You see, Kathie, you are quick and clever when you really think.'

'I never said I wasn't,' Kathleen replied composedly. 'But that's the beginning and end of my thinking about this thing. Let's talk about something else now, Phil.'

'No,' said the little girl decidedly. 'I don't care to talk of anything else. Just think, Kathie, how lovely it would be if you did find it, and all came right, and your papa and mamma came home to that beautiful place in Wales; you'd invite me sometimes for the holidays, wouldn't you?'

'Of course,' said Kathie heartily. 'I never thought of that. But by-the-by, Phil, you should be glad of this going wrong if you care for me. I'd have been leaving school if it had been all right.'

'I know, said Philippa quietly. 'I did think of that, and of course it would break my heart for you to go. But I'd rather it did break —quite,' she went on, as if she understood thoroughly all about the process, 'rather than that your poor papa and mamma shouldn't be able to come home, and you all be happy together at that lovely place.'

'I don't know that it's lovely,' observed Kathie. 'I fancy it's just a funny old-fashioned place. But it's in the country and near the sea – I love the country and the sea – of course it would be awfully nice. It's very good of you, Phil, to care about it all so much. I only wish it would come right. If I could find that paper or the will! It wouldn't matter which. If I were there, I'd hunt. I'd poke into all sorts of corners, that perhaps Aunt Clotilda has never thought of.'

'Well, I think you should manage to go there,' said Philippa. 'I don't see why your aunt shouldn't ask you to pay her a visit while she's still there, now that the old lady is dead.'

'Yes; I think she might,' Kathleen agreed. 'Any way, it would be a change from that going to Bognor for three weeks that I dislike so. I am so sick of Bognor. And you won't be there, Phil; you're going to your grandmother's.'

'Yes,' said Philippa; 'I didn't much want to go while I thought you were to be here. But if you were going away, I shouldn't mind.'

'I'll ask Neville about it,' said Kathie. 'He has said something once or twice about wishing I could go to Aunt Clotilda, but I always told him I shouldn't like it, and that unless papa and mamma regularly ordered me to go, I wouldn't. I do so dislike old maids.'

'Why, who do you know that's old maids?' asked Philippa. 'Why do you dislike them?'

'Oh! there's Miss Eccles – and, after all, I'm not sure that I do dislike her. No, I don't think I do,' she went on, meditatively. 'But there's Miss Fraser; there now, Philippa, we may dislike her – nasty, spying, sharp, spiteful thing!'

Philippa considered. It never occurred even to her to dispute the right of all the school to dislike Miss Fraser – her mind was considering another aspect of the question.

'But are you sure she is an old maid?' she said. 'She can't be more than twenty. When do old maids begin?'

'I don't know,' Kathie replied vaguely. 'I don't think there's any settled age. I suppose it's just that some are always going to be old maids. But let's talk of something nicer, Phil. Let's plan that place in Wales – Ty – Tig – I can't say the name of it in Welsh, but I know it means the White House. Let's plan all about it, how the rooms go, and everything, and fancy you're coming to stay with us there. Let me see – shall it be haunted?'

'No, no,' cried Philippa, with a little scream, putting her hands over her ears, relapsing suddenly into the sort of plaintive childishness which made her such an inconsistent little person. 'No, no, Kathie. It's very unkind of you to frighten me. I'll never come to stay with you if you're going to plan that it's haunted.'

'Then it shan't be,' said Kathie reassuringly. 'Don't be silly, Phil.'