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Title: The Girls of Chequertrees
Author: Webb, Marion St. John
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Girls of Chequertrees" ***
[Illustration: PAMELA READ THE SIGNATURE OF BERYL’S MOTHER THROUGH A
BLUR OF TEARS (_P._ 120)]
*THE GIRLS OF
CHEQUERTREES*
BY
MARION ST JOHN WEBB
AUTHOR OF
’THE LITTLEST ONE’ ’THE LITTLEST ONE AGAIN’ ’KNOCK THREE TIMES’
’THE HOUSE WITH THE TWISTING PASSAGE’
ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
PERCY TARRANT
GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD.
LONDON CALCUTTA SYDNEY
_First published September 1918
by GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD.
39-41 Parker Street, Kingsway, London, W.C.2
Reprinted February 1923_
_Printed in Great Britain by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
I. THE WINDOW OPPOSITE
II. PAMELA RECEIVES A STRANGE INVITATION
III. BERYL
IV. THE ROOM WITH THE LOCKED DOOR
V. MAKING PLANS
VI. MILLICENT JACKSON GIVES SOME INFORMATION
VII. BERYL GOES THROUGH AN ORDEAL
VIII. WHICH CONCERNS A VISIT TO INCHMOOR AND A WOMAN WITH A LIMP
IX. ISOBEL MAKES TROUBLE
X. PAMELA BEFRIENDS BERYL AND MEETS ELIZABETH BAGG
XI. THE WISHING WELL
XII. IN WHICH ELIZABETH BAGG PAINTS A PICTURE AND ISOBEL HEARS SOME
PLEASANT NEWS
XIII. MR JOSEPH SIGGLESTHORNE FORGETS THE DATE
XIV. CAROLINE MAKES A DISCOVERY
XV. ABOUT A BAZAAR AND A MEETING IN THE RUINED WINDMILL
XVI. PAMELA’S WISH COMES TRUE
XVII. IN WHICH OLD SILAS LAUGHS AND ISOBEL DANCES
XVIII. THE DOOR IS UNLOCKED
XIX. BERYL CONFESSES
XX. A NEW BEGINNING
*ILLUSTRATIONS*
PAMELA READ THE SIGNATURE OF BERYL’S MOTHER THROUGH A BLUR OF TEARS
_Frontispiece_
ON THE FIRST FLOOR LANDING PAMELA POINTED OUT THE LOCKED DOOR
A WOMAN WHO FROWNED AND PUT HER FOREFINGER TO HER LIPS
A PAILFUL OF GARDEN RUBBISH DESCENDED IN A SHOWER
*THE GIRLS OF CHEQUERTREES*
*CHAPTER I*
*THE WINDOW OPPOSITE*
On a cold, damp January evening a woman sat in the dusk of a fire-lit
room gazing through the window. For half an hour she had been sitting
there fidgeting impatiently with her hands and feet every few minutes,
but never moving from the position she had taken up by the window. Her
expectant gaze was centred on the outline of a house that stood on the
opposite side of the village green at Barrowfield.
From the window, or for the matter of that from the green or the road
that encircled the green, little could be seen of the house, as the high
ivy-topped walls which surrounded the garden guarded it jealously from
prying eyes. It was only through the tall iron-rail gate set into an
arch in the stone wall that you could ascertain that the house was
flat-fronted and square, a house entirely covered with ivy, out from
whose dark, rustling leaves many windows peered like deep-set eyes. A
broad gravel path swept from the gate to a flight of white steps that
led up to the front door. The garden, stretching away on either side of
the path, appeared to be thick and bushy with shrubs and tall old trees.
This much the woman at the window had observed from the gate, and now
she was sitting—waiting.
A little breeze sprang up and scurried through the ivy leaves as if it
and they were whispering together about something. Although the house
seemed silent, it was not deserted, for presently, as it grew darker, a
light appeared in one of the lower windows and a blind was drawn—a red
blind through which the light glowed, seeming to increase in strength as
the house gradually faded into the dusk and was lost to sight.
The woman who was watching sighed and nervously bit the nail of her
thumb.
"That’s where she is," she muttered to herself, gazing at the red blind.
At that moment the sound of wheels and jingling bells became audible,
and a light flickered at the top of the main road that led down to the
village from the station. The woman frowned and strained her eyes
toward the dancing light on the road. It was the station cab
approaching, jogging along at its usual pace, slowly but surely, with
stout old Tom Bagg, the driver, snugly ensconced on the box-seat.
Outside the gate of the ivy-covered house the cab came to a stand-still,
and a young girl alighted. She was plainly visible as she paused beneath
the street lamp outside the gate before entering the dark garden,
followed by Tom Bagg much beladen and struggling with boxes. In a few
minutes the old cabman came out again, and the cab jogged away back to
the station.
The woman who had watched all this intently then moved away from the
window, and, limping slightly as she walked, made her way to the fire.
Crouching down on the hearth she poked the fire into a blaze and warmed
her cold hands—her eyes fixed broodingly on the leaping flames. After a
while she pulled a chair toward her and sank into it—still with her eyes
on the fire, lost in thought.
She was aroused from her reverie by the sound of wheels and jingling
bells again, heralding the return of the cab. Instantly she got up,
limped back to the window, and peered out.
Once more the cab stopped at the gate of the ivy-covered house, and this
time two girls got out and passed through the garden gate, followed by
Tom Bagg still more beladen and struggling beneath boxes and parcels and
travelling rugs.
The woman watched until old Tom Bagg had departed again, then she gave
an odd, short laugh, and for a while stared gloomily out at the closed
iron-rail gate in the wall opposite.
Presently she said to herself, "Well—now we shall see!"
Then she pulled down her blind.
*CHAPTER II*
*PAMELA RECEIVES A STRANGE INVITATION*
A few days before the incident occurred which is recorded in the
previous chapter, Pamela Heath was standing at the dining-room window of
her home in Oldminster (a town about forty miles from Barrowfield).
Pamela, like the woman who sat watching the ivy-covered house, was also
gazing through a window—but on to a very different scene: morning, a
bright January morning, and a busy stream of people passing up and down
the sunny street.
Pamela was a tall, slim girl, about sixteen years old; she was very
pleasant to look at with her curly, chestnut-coloured hair, tied at her
neck with a brown ribbon bow, and her brown eyes and clear complexion,
which were emphasized by the dark green dress she was wearing. Strictly
speaking Pamela would not have been called pretty—in the sense that
regular features stand for prettiness; her nose was a tiny bit square at
the tip, and the distance from her nose to her upper lip was a trifle
more than beauty experts would allow, and her mouth was a little too
wide for prettiness. But those who met Pamela for the first time found
her expression of frank good-humour far more attractive than mere
prettiness. And when she was in one of her ’beamy’ moods (as her
brother Michael used to call them)—that is, when she was vivaciously
talking, and laughing, and keenly interested in making other people
enjoy themselves—then she was irresistible. However grudgingly you
admitted it, you found you _had_ to confess to yourself that you were
enjoying yourself—when Pamela was ’beamy.’
This sunny Saturday morning when we first see Pamela she stands drumming
on the window-pane with her fingers, watching for Michael to come round
the corner of the street from the post-office, where he has been to post
their father’s Saturday morning letters. Michael is her elder brother—a
year older than Pamela—and the two are great chums. There are two
sisters and another brother younger than Pamela, but they will be
introduced by and by, as Pamela is not thinking of them at the moment;
she is thinking of Michael, and wishing he would hurry up so that they
might start off on their sketching expedition.
They were both fond of sketching, and used to tramp out on Saturday
mornings with their sketch-blocks and pencils (and some sandwiches and
fruit in a satchel) and try to picture some of the beautiful scenery
outside Oldminster.
But there was to be no sketching for either of them this morning. For
on his way to the house where Pamela lived was a little old man, with a
very high bald forehead, and a top hat, and a shiny black coat—and the
news he was bringing was to drive all thoughts of sketching from their
minds for some time to come.
Long afterward Pamela remembered every detail of this Saturday morning,
all the little familiar sounds going on in the house—the clatter of
dishes downstairs; the murmur of Mother’s and Doris’s voices in the
hall, and John’s high, childish tones asking them some question—and then
their laughing at him. Father’s typewriter could be heard faintly
clicking away in the study, and in the drawing-room Olive was playing
the only tune she knew on the piano. The butcher’s cart came clattering
down the street and pulled up next door.
Pamela stopped drumming on the window and, pushing it open, leant out to
see if Michael was coming. Then it was she caught sight of a rather
round-shouldered old man in a top hat hurrying down the street, stopping
every other second to peer closely at the numbers on the gates. When he
reached Pamela’s gate he not only stopped and looked at the number but,
straightening himself up, he pushed the gate open and came in.
Pamela withdrew her head hastily and stepped back into the room.
"Whoever can this be?" she thought. "He looks rather shabby, poor
soul—I wonder if he’s come begging or trying to sell machine needles."
But the little old man’s business had nothing to do with either of these
things, as Pamela was soon to find out. A few minutes later she found
herself in her father’s study being introduced to Mr Joseph
Sigglesthorne, whose mild blue eyes and nervous manner ill accorded with
the businesslike news which he was endeavouring to convey. Mr and Mrs
Heath and Pamela sat facing the nervous little man, who had removed his
top hat of course, and now exposed the high bald forehead which gave
him, so he fancied, a slight resemblance to Shakespeare. Slight though
it was, this resemblance gave Mr Joseph Sigglesthorne a considerable
amount of happiness; it always made him feel more important directly he
took his hat off.
"Perhaps I ought to say, first of all," began Mr Sigglesthorne,
producing a pair of spectacles from his coat pocket and commencing to
polish them nervously with his handkerchief, "that I—that I am—you will
excuse me, sir, _and_ madam," he turned to Mr and Mrs Heath and inclined
his head, "that—I was going to say, I have the honour to be a kind of
distant relation of a distant relation of yours." He rubbed the glasses
a little quicker. "You remember Miss Emily Crabingway, doubtless. The
lady is, if I am not mistaken, a fourth cousin to—to madam here?" He
inclined his head again toward Mrs Heath.
"Emily Crabingway! Why, yes," said Mrs Heath. "But I haven’t seen her
for years—quite twelve years I should think."
"So she says, madam, so she says," continued Mr Sigglesthorne. "Well—I
am her second cousin once removed, if I may say so—and she has entrusted
me with a little—er—a little transaction—I mean proposal, or rather
suggestion—er—with regard to your daughter Pamela." Mr Sigglesthorne
was still polishing his glasses energetically. "Miss Emily Crabingway is
obliged to go up to Scotland—on business. That was all I had to tell
you about that part, I believe—yes, that’s correct—on _business_, she
said. She will be away for six months..." He hesitated, his eyes on
the top of the window curtains behind Mr Heath’s head. "Yes—six
months—and during that time she wants to know if Miss Pamela will go and
live at her house in Barrowfield, and look after it for her—and—" he
went on, emphasizing each word as if repeating a lesson, "certain
conditions being undertaken by Miss Pamela, and fulfilled properly—Miss
Crabingway will—er—bestow upon the young lady a sum of—if I may say so—a
not inconsiderable sum—er—in short, fifty pounds." Mr Sigglesthorne
removed his gaze from the top of the curtains to Mr Heath’s boots, which
he appeared to study intently for a space.
Mr and Mrs Heath exchanged surprised glances, but Pamela was looking
wonderingly at Mr Sigglesthorne’s magnificent forehead, and did not
move. Before any of them could speak Mr Sigglesthorne resumed:
"If Miss Pamela agrees to accept the offer she would be required to sign
this paper, promising to obey certain instructions of Miss Crabingway’s;
but doubtless you would like to read it—I have it here in my pocket."
Mr Sigglesthorne stopped polishing his glasses, and resting them on the
top of his hat, which lay on a chair beside him, he felt in his coat
pocket. But his memory had played him false; it was the wrong pocket.
He turned the contents out, but not finding what he sought he tried
another pocket, fumbling with nervous, clumsy fingers, and producing
various papers and envelopes and odd bits of string. The longer he
searched the more nervous he got. "Tut! tut!" he kept saying to
himself. "But how careless of me! Tut! tut! Exceedingly annoying!"
Mrs Heath tried to ease the situation by murmuring something polite, but
Pamela was suddenly seized with an intense desire to start laughing. Mr
Sigglesthorne looked so funny and perplexed, and he kept dropping his
papers on the floor in his nervousness, and once he knocked his hat
down, and the glasses too. Pamela, almost choking with the effort of
keeping her face straight, was glad of the opportunity of rescuing the
hat and placing it back on the chair; she was thankful to be able to do
anything at all instead of sitting still and trying to keep serious. Mr
Sigglesthorne’s apologies and thanks for his hat were profuse.
At length, after going through five pockets, Mr Sigglesthorne found what
he wanted, to everybody’s relief.
"Perhaps I should mention," he said, as he handed an envelope across to
Pamela, "that Miss Crabingway is inviting three other young
girls—somewhere about Miss Pamela’s age—to stay at her house also—but
you will see about that, though, in the letter."
Pamela opened the envelope and spread out the sheet of paper it
contained so that her mother and father could read it at the same time.
It was a sheet of foolscap paper covered with black, spiky handwriting,
writing which Mrs Heath recognized as Miss Emily Crabingway’s from the
Christmas card she received from her every year, the interchange of
Christmas cards being the only communication she had held with this
distant cousin of hers for the last twelve years.
"Read it aloud, Pamela," said her father. So Pamela read the following
letter:
CHEQUERTREES,
BARROWFIELD,
_January 3rd_
DEAR PAMELA,
Although I have not seen you since you were four years old, I have a
fancy that I should like you to come to Barrowfield and look after my
house and its inmates while I am away on business....
Here Mr Sigglesthorne smiled and nodded his head vigorously, and leaning
back in his chair began to polish his glasses again.
... I shall be away for six months, and during that time—if you agree to
come—you must promise to obey the following instructions. You will
please sign your name under them and give the paper to Mr Sigglesthorne,
who is acting for me in this matter, as I am unable to come and visit
you myself owing to my urgent call from home.
These are the instructions to be obeyed:
1. While you are staying under my roof you are not to visit, nor invite
to the house, any relatives whatsoever.
2. No letters are to be written home, but one postcard every month may
be sent; and you may only receive post-cards, no letters, from your
relatives—and then only one card each month.
3. On no account may you try to open the locked-up room at the end of
the first floor landing. Nor may you peer through the keyhole.
A faint chuckle escaped Mr Sigglesthorne, a fleeting, scarcely audible
chuckle which he suffocated immediately. There was a blank space after
the ’instructions’ for Pamela to sign her name; and then a few more
lines ended the letter.
I am leaving my two trusted servants, Martha and Ellen, to cook, and
clean the house. When I return at the end of six months I will hand
over to you—providing you have not broken any of the above
conditions—the sum of £50, which is deposited meanwhile with my banker.
(Enclosed you will find banker’s guarantee for same.)
I am likewise offering the same sum of money to three other girls who
are being asked to come and stay at my house, and to whom I want you to
act as hostess. The girls’ names are: Beryl Cranswick, Isobel Prior,
and Caroline Weston.
Send me a wire to reach me by Saturday evening saying whether you accept
this invitation or not. If you accept you must arrive at Barrowfield
not later than Tuesday next.
Trusting you will be sensible and wire ’yes,’
Yours sincerely,
EMILY CRABINGWAY
There was silence for a few moments when Pamela finished reading. She
handed the banker’s guarantee across to her father, who took it without
a word.
"Well!" queried Mr Sigglesthorne, polishing nervously.
"Well," said Mrs Heath, "I think we must have a little time to consider
the matter."
"Why does Miss Crabingway want to cut me off from you all like that,
Mother, for six whole months?" burst out Pamela.
Mrs Heath shook her head and looked across at Mr Sigglesthorne, who,
catching her inquiring glance, shook his head also.
"I know no more than I have told you, madam," he said. "Miss Crabingway
sent for me—she has been very good to me occasionally, when I have been
temporarily embarrassed for money—if you will excuse my introducing such
a subject—and asked me to go and see the parents of the young ladies she
wished to invite, and present them personally with her letter and
instructions. I have already seen one of the young ladies——"
"And is she willing to come—the one you’ve seen?" asked Pamela.
"She is going to make up her mind and wire to-day to Miss Crabingway,
and if she wires ’yes’ she will post on to me the paper of instructions,
duly signed, to my address by Monday morning." Mr Sigglesthorne stood
up and began gathering his belongings together preparatory to taking his
leave. "I will leave you my address; will you kindly send me your
paper, if you decide to accept? Unfortunately, you have very little time
to consider the matter—only a few hours—as Miss Crabingway is expecting
your wire this evening.... Now is there anything more you would like to
ask me, madam, or sir?" he asked politely.
But although Mrs Heath put one or two anxious questions, he could throw
no further light on the matter than before.
"I think—if you will forgive my saying so—that it is just a whim—a fancy
on Miss Crabingway’s part. I feel sure your daughter will be well cared
for at Barrowfield—and if she does not like it (although I suppose I
shouldn’t say this) she can always come home—and forfeit the fifty
pounds, can’t she?"
"Yes, that’s true," said Mrs Heath.
"H’m, h’m ... yes—anyway, we can talk the matter over together and wire
by this afternoon," said Mr Heath.
"This is my address," said Mr Sigglesthorne, handing Pamela a thumbed
and dog-eared visiting-card on which was printed: "Joseph Sigglesthorne,
Fig Tree Court, Inner Temple, London." "And now, if you will kindly
excuse me, I must hurry away, as I have other visits to pay this
morning."
Mrs Heath invited him to stay and have some refreshment before he went,
but he declined, saying that he must lose no time in informing the other
young ladies of Miss Crabingway’s invitation. So shaking hands all
round he departed, leaving them not a little perplexed.
No sooner was he gone than Doris and Michael burst into the study,
anxious to know what the queer little old man’s business with Pamela
could be. They were soon told all about it, and read Miss Crabingway’s
letter with much curiosity.
Doris, who was a year younger than Pamela, was as unlike her sister in
looks as she was in temperament. Doris was pale, very pale, with very
fair hair and eyelashes, and light blue eyes. She was inclined to be
pessimistic and over-anxious about most things, and lived up to this
reputation on the present occasion.
Michael, with handsome features, an infectious laugh, and
chestnut-coloured hair (like Pamela’s), was nothing if not optimistic;
he and Pamela were always getting sighed over by Doris because of the
levity shown by them over things which Doris considered "too important
to be laughed at." But to-day Michael’s optimism seemed to have
suddenly deserted him, and he put down Miss Crabingway’s letter in
silence.
Pamela was watching his face anxiously. "What do you think about it,
Michael?" she asked.
"I don’t know. I suppose it’s all right. What do you think about it
yourself, Pam?" he said. ("Six whole months! And only a few miserable
post-cards! Whatever was old Miss Crabingway thinking of!" said Michael
to himself.)
"After all, it’s a very simple matter," said Mr Heath. "Pamela to look
after Miss Crabingway’s house for six months. There’s nothing in that.
Six months’ rest from her studies won’t harm her, and she can keep up
her sketching and take some books with her.... It’ll be quite a
holiday."
"It’s only those restrictions about not being allowed to see any of
us—and—and that curious mention of a locked door..." said Mother.
"Ah, yes! I don’t like the sound of that at all," said Doris, shaking
her head.
"Oh, come now—it may be only her private and personal belongings she’s
put in that room," said Mr Heath.
"It _might_ be, of course," said Doris, in a tone that implied that
nothing was more unlikely.
"Of course that must be it," continued Mr Heath (from whom Michael and
Pamela inherited their optimism). "Miss Crabingway wouldn’t want all
those strange girls upsetting her personal things.... And remember the
fifty pounds—it’ll be most useful for Pamela. But still, you must
decide yourself, Pamela, what you would rather do."
"I _don’t_ want to go—and I _do_—if you know what I mean," said Pamela.
They understood what she meant. But the matter had to be decided
immediately, and so they all sat down and began to discuss it from each
and every point of view, until at length, after much hesitation, Pamela
made up her mind to accept Miss Crabingway’s invitation.
Later in the day she and Michael walked round to the post-office and
sent off the wire to Barrowfield; and Pamela also sent the signed paper
off to Mr Sigglesthorne.
During the next few days Pamela lived in a state of excited rush and
hurry. There seemed so much to be done, so many friends to see and say
good-bye to; so many clothes to get ready and pack; so much shopping to
do; and then there were a hundred and one odd jobs that she meant to
attend to before she went away, and never got time to see to any of them
after all. Everybody seemed very kind and anxious to help her as much
as they could. Even John and twelve-year-old Olive begged to be allowed
to help, and proposed that they should take a hand at packing Pamela’s
trunk. Olive, indeed, could not be persuaded that her help was not
needed until she had been pacified with the gift of Pamela’s glove-box
and a scent satchet to keep for herself. That was always the easiest
way to divert Olive’s ambitions—make her a present of something you
didn’t want and she quickly forgot what she had been clamouring for a
few minutes earlier. John, who was two years younger than Olive, was
the ’baby’ of the family in name only. John was sturdy, noisy, and
emphatic in all he said and did—and was not so easily put off with
gifts. He would accept the gift and then go on asking for the other
thing as well. Fortunately he was not so insistent on helping to pack
as on being allowed to sit on the lid of the trunk to squash it down
when it was full and about to be locked. This little matter was easily
arranged, and when everything was quite ready he was called in, asked to
be so obliging as to cast his weight on to the top of the trunk—which he
did with great alacrity—and the trunk was locked in triumph.
On the Monday night Mother came into Pamela’s bedroom and wished her an
extra good-night.
"Be sure to come home if you are unhappy, dear. Or if you are ill or
anything—let me know—and bother the old fifty pounds," said Mother.
"Promise me, Pamela—or I shall be so unhappy."
So Pamela promised. "But I’m sure to be all right, Mother, and you’re
not to worry about me at all, dear. But do take care of yourselves, all
of you, till I come back."
Pamela said good night quite cheerfully, but after her mother had gone
downstairs again she found that she did not feel cheerful a bit. She
began to think things like "This is the last time I shall sleep in my
own little room," and "This is the last time I shall hear Michael
whistling on his way upstairs," until she made herself cry. Then she
scolded herself for being so silly, and fell asleep.
*CHAPTER III*
*BERYL*
When Pamela alighted at Barrowfield station on the Tuesday afternoon
daylight was beginning to fade and a fine drizzling rain had set in.
She gazed round the deserted platform, and gave a shiver as a chilly
little breeze rustled past her, stirring the loose bits of paper on the
stone paving and making the half-closed door of the General Waiting Room
creak dismally as it pushed it farther open. Pamela had been sitting
for an hour and a half in the train, and she felt cold and stiff and
suddenly depressed. She was the only passenger to get out at
Barrowfield, and the only living soul about the place as far as she
could see was a porter, who now came strolling down the platform and
took charge of her luggage.
"Where to, miss?" inquired the porter; and his voice at once reminded
Pamela of the voice of a man who used to come round selling muffins in
Oldminster, and this made her conjure up an instant’s vision of home and
Mother and Michael and all of them sitting round the fire while Doris
toasted muffins for tea. It was a ridiculous thing to think of at this
moment, but she could not help it. How she wished she were at home,
toasting muffins.... But the man was waiting.
"Miss Crabingway’s house, Chequertrees," she answered. "Is it far from
here?"
"’Bout a mile an’ ’arf, Chequertrees is," said the porter.
"Oh, dear," said Pamela. "Well, can I get a cab or anything?"
Before the porter could reply the sound of heavy footsteps was heard on
the wooden floor of the station entrance, and the next moment Tom Bagg
hove into sight. Of course Pamela did not know what his name was then,
though she knew it well enough afterward; you could not help knowing it
if you stayed in Barrowfield more than a couple of hours, because Mr
Bagg was a local celebrity. However, all Pamela knew at present was that
a fat, burly man with an enormous waterproof cape and a waterproof hat
stood before her. Here was the very person she wanted—the Barrowfield
cab-man. He touched his hat with a fat forefinger.
"Evenin’, miss. Ascuse me, but are you the young lady for
Chequertrees?" he asked.
When Pamela had informed him that she was, he told her that he had had
instructions from Miss Crabingway to convey her and her luggage from the
station.
So Pamela got into the welcome cab outside, and was driven away through
the dusk. She could not see much through the blurred and steaming
windows, and the little she could make out appeared to be all hedges and
trees. Presently she could feel that the cab was going downhill, then
the pace slackened and it seemed to climb a little, then for a long time
(or so it seemed to Pamela) the cab jogged along on level ground. The
slow pace at which the cab moved along, the impossibility of seeing
anything through the windows, and her impatience to reach her journey’s
end, made it seem a very long mile and a half from the station.
All at once the cab stopped with a violent jerk. And here was
Chequertrees, at last. Tom Bagg clambered down from his seat and held
the cab door open while Pamela got quickly out. He smiled genially down
at her, and then pulled the iron bell-chain outside the gate of the
house.
While Tom Bagg got her boxes down from the cab Pamela gazed at the house
which was to be her home for the next six months. She could not see
very much of the house from the gate—a tall iron-barred gate set into a
high wall topped with ivy. There was a long and wide gravel path up to
the front door, and Pamela could see that the house was covered with ivy
and had many windows. The garden struck her as being a lovely place for
hide-and-seek, on account of its thick bushes and number of big trees.
As she passed through the gate and made her way along the path, the
cabman following with her luggage, she saw that there was a light in one
of the windows behind a red blind.
She had no time to notice anything else before the front door was opened
by a middle-aged servant in white cap and apron.
"Oh, I’m Miss Heath—Pamela Heath," said Pamela, as the maid waited
silently.
"Oh, please come in, miss," said the maid. "Miss Crabingway told us to
expect you."
Pamela stepped in, then turned to the cabman, remembering his fare; but
she was told that he had already been paid by Miss Crabingway, and was
going back to meet the next down train and fetch another young lady to
the house—"What I was told you was expecting here," he said to the maid.
"That’s right," she replied. "Two more young ladies we are expecting
to-night."
"Oh, aye. Two it might be—one for certain. _I_ remember. Good evenin’,
miss." And depositing Pamela’s boxes in the hall the cabman took his
departure.
Pamela then became aware that another white-aproned servant was standing
at the back of the hall, waiting to receive her; she was quite an
elderly woman with white hair. Directly Pamela caught sight of her
kind, motherly old face, the feeling of depression that had been with
her ever since she had got out at Barrowfield station fell away from
her, and she felt at home. This was Martha, she learnt, and Ellen it
was who had opened the front door. In the few minutes’ talk Pamela had
with them before being shown upstairs to her bedroom to take off her
outdoor things and have a wash, she gathered that Miss Crabingway had
departed yesterday morning, and had left word that all orders were to be
taken from Miss Pamela, "just as if it was Miss Crabingway herself that
was telling us what to do," volunteered Ellen. It made Pamela feel
awfully young and inefficient and responsible to hear these two elderly,
experienced housekeepers asking _her_ for orders.
"Oh, you’ll please go on just as usual, won’t you? ... It’s all so
strange and new to me—I do hope you’ll help me to do things right. I’ll
have to come and talk things over with you presently," she said.
And though Ellen declared in tones of great solemnity that anything that
she could do to be of use to Miss Pamela would be done with pleasure,
yet it was the kindly smile in Martha’s eyes that comforted Pamela.
Things would be all right, she felt, so long as Martha was there.
Pamela felt a great liking for Martha from the first—she seemed such a
sensible, cheerful soul; and the more Pamela got to know about her
afterward the more she respected and trusted her. Ellen she was not so
sure about, though she grew to like her later on, in spite of her
melancholy expression and tone of voice. Pamela was not long in
discovering that Ellen had grown to enjoy her melancholy as other people
enjoy their happiness. It was an art in which Ellen certainly excelled.
She could relate at great length, when in the mood, all the various
strokes of bad fortune that had fallen on her numerous relatives and
acquaintances, and all the illnesses they had suffered from, and died
of, and her favourite recreation was wandering round old churchyards and
exclaiming over the early age at which numbers of people died.
But though Martha and Ellen might be opposite temperamentally, yet they
certainly united in making Pamela very welcome on her arrival at
Chequertrees, and she found them most kind and willing and anxious to
make her comfortable. Ellen carried her boxes up to the bedroom, while
Martha bustled about, getting hot water for her to wash, and pulling
down blinds and lighting the gas.
As soon as Pamela was left alone in her bedroom she threw off her hat
and sat down on a chair and looked about her, taking stock of her new
surroundings. Of course she had not had time to notice much so far, but
as she had passed through the square hall and up the soft-carpeted
stairs to her bedroom, which was on the first floor landing, she had got
an impression of a house well furnished, but sombre. There were a great
many thick plush curtains hanging over doors and at windows, and the
walls were crowded with pictures, most of them having heavy dark frames.
And now, this room, which Miss Crabingway had said was to be Pamela’s
bedroom—well, it was handsomely furnished and clean, but to Pamela’s
eyes, used to her airy, sparsely furnished little room at home with its
fresh white paint, oak furniture, and plain green linoleum, this room
seemed dark and overcrowded. The bedroom suite was dark mahogany, and
had as one of its pieces a huge wardrobe with two glass doors which
filled almost the entire length of one wall; it was evidently intended,
originally, for a much larger room than the one it was in at present;
here it towered over the other furniture like a bullying giant. The
bedstead, dressing-table, and washstand, although they were of dark
mahogany, were evidently not of the same set as the wardrobe. Pamela
observed that the wallpaper was an all-over floral design in various
shades of green and raised gold roses; the gloomy, old-fashioned
fireplace, with its marble mantelpiece, on which were arranged a score
of old china ornaments and photo frames, and a massive marble clock, was
the chief feature of the wall opposite the wardrobe. The
window-curtains, the duchess set on the dressing-table, and the coverlet
on the bed were the only touches of white to relieve the general
sombreness that prevailed. Pamela was sorry to see that there was a
thick soft carpet on the floor—she hated carpets in bedrooms. As she
wandered round the room she was to occupy for many a day to come,
becoming acquainted with it from various angles, she sighed; everything
looked solid, expensive, and subdued, but it did not please her eye at
all (though she had to admit to herself that everything seemed very
comfortable nevertheless).
The clothes you choose, and the furniture you choose to surround
yourself with, are an index of your character to a stranger. To Pamela,
who could not remember ever seeing Miss Crabingway, this room was an
introduction. Of Miss Crabingway’s character she knew nothing, but in
her mind’s eye she pictured Miss Crabingway fond of solid, expensive
things, as large and dark, with rich, black, rustling dresses, and gold
brooches, and a lot of thick gold rings set with large stones on her
fingers. Her face she could not imagine—except that it would be massive
and well preserved. Pamela never could imagine people’s faces, in her
mind’s eye; she could conjure up people’s figures and movements
clearly—but the faces were always dim and misty. It sometimes worried
her that even her mother’s face or Michael’s refused to be clearly
recalled when she was away from them. Of course she knew their features
by heart, and every twist and turn of their heads—but she could not see
their features in her mind’s eye.
Having imagined Miss Crabingway, therefore, as well as she was able, she
hastily flung off her outdoor things, washed her hands and face and
brushed her hair, and prepared to go downstairs. She was wearing her
artistic, dark green frock, and as she stood a moment with her hand on
the door knob taking a final glance round the room, she looked as fresh
and clear-eyed a specimen of girlhood as one could wish to see.
She made her way downstairs, and seeing an open door and a lighted room
on the left of the hall, she entered. It was, as she had expected, the
dining-room. Dark, sombre furniture again, and rich hangings; there was
a cheerful fire burning in the grate, and a white cloth, and cups and
saucers on the table hinted at tea in the near future.
Pamela had come in silently, her footsteps making no sound on the thick
carpet, and it was not until she had been standing for a few seconds
inside the doorway that she noticed that there was some one already in
the room—some one who had evidently not seen, nor heard, Pamela enter.
Crouching by the fire, and almost hidden by a big arm-chair that stood
on the rug, was a girl; she had her back to the door and did not move as
Pamela stood watching for a moment. The girl’s thin hands were
stretched out to the blaze as if she were cold, and her head leant
against the side of the chair; she made no sound, but there was
something in her attitude that suggested great dejection and loneliness.
Pamela was just about to go forward when a slight sound between a sob
and a sigh escaped the figure, and Pamela paused. She felt that it
would make the girl embarrassed to think that she had been watched and
overheard. So Pamela backed stealthily out of the room (hoping she
wouldn’t run into Ellen or Martha), and crept up the stairs again; she
waited a moment on the landing, shut her bedroom door with a snap, then
came running downstairs, humming and patting the banisters with her hand
as she came—so as to give warning of her approach.
She entered the dining-room. The girl was sitting in the arm-chair now,
and stood up nervously as Pamela came in. She was a pale, thin girl,
with large dark eyes and black hair, and her movements were nervous and
jerky. She wore a dark-coloured skirt and a white silk blouse with
short sleeves to the elbow, which made her look very cold, and
emphasized the thinness of her arms.
The two girls gazed at each other for a second, then Pamela gave a
friendly smile.
"As there’s no one here to introduce us, we’ll introduce ourselves,
shall we? I’m Pamela Heath," she said.
"I’m Beryl Cranswick," said the girl, smiling shyly.
Pamela held out her hand, and they shook hands.
"I’m so glad to meet you," said Pamela. "I suppose we are the first two
to arrive."
"I suppose so," said Beryl, which did not help matters forward at all.
"What time did you arrive?" asked Pamela. "I came by the four o’clock
train from Marylebone."
"I arrived here this afternoon about three," Beryl informed her.
"Oh, you’ve been here a long time then—it’s just gone six now. I didn’t
know you were here when I came—they didn’t mention it to me.... But have
you had any tea yet?"
Beryl shook her head.
"Why—why ever not?" said Pamela, in surprise, ringing the bell by the
fireplace. "We’ll have some at once, shall we?"
"They did ask me if I’d have some—but I said I’d wait. I—I didn’t like
to—to bother them—till you came," stammered Beryl.
"Why, you must have been awfully cold and hungry after that long railway
journey; you _should_ have had a cup of tea and something—I’m sure it
wouldn’t have been a bit of trouble to them," said Pamela, seizing the
poker and stirring up the fire. "Sit down and have a good warm—you look
quite cold still. We’ll soon have this fire ... there! that’s better."
Ellen appeared at this moment, in answer to the bell.
"Oh, could we have some tea, please?" said Pamela. "What time are the
other arrivals expected, can you tell me?"
"I don’t know, miss," replied Ellen. "At least, not for
certain—sometime to-day, that’s all Miss Crabingway told us. The last
down train gets in at Barrowfield at midnight."
"Oh, I see. Well, it’s no good waiting for them, I suppose—we’d better
have tea now in case they don’t arrive till midnight," said Pamela.
"Very well, miss. I’ll bring it in at once," and Ellen departed.
It was rather a queer experience for Pamela, playing hostess in this
strange house to strange people, but her frank, easy manners helped her
considerably.
Beryl, in Pamela’s position, would have suffered agonies of indecision
and nervousness, and she felt thankful she was not in Pamela’s shoes,
though she certainly envied the unself-conscious ease with which Pamela
managed things. They were really quite small, insignificant things, but
to Beryl, very self-conscious and timid, they would have caused much
dismay. Beryl was passing through a stage of acute self-consciousness,
not due to vanity in the slightest, but to nerves. Even to eat in
public was a misery to her; although she was aware that she was
scrupulously particular in the way she drank or ate her food, yet she
hated having to have meals with other people; she always felt that they
were watching her—criticizing her.
And so, when she and Pamela had tea together for the first time, she
hardly ate or drank anything. Unfortunately, by accident, she got a plum
jam stone in her mouth and did not like to remove it, suffering much
discomfort in consequence until Pamela’s attention being distracted to
the window blind behind her for a moment, Beryl quickly conveyed the
stone to her plate again, and finished her tea in peace. Pamela, who
was as fastidious as anyone in her table manners, was yet quite easy,
and appeared to enjoy a huge tea with comfort and daintiness combined.
Beryl certainly did envy her that evening. She wondered what Pamela
would have done if she had got a plum stone in her mouth—and rather
wished this could happen so that she might see how easily Pamela would
act. But Beryl’s luck was out; no such opportunity occurred.
Over tea Pamela gave Beryl a long account of her home and people, and
then began making inquiries about Beryl’s home. But Beryl was strangely
reticent, and only stated a few bald facts. She was an orphan, she said;
no brothers—no sisters—and her father and mother had been dead many
years; her aunt, with whom she lived, had her home just outside
London—at Enfield. Beryl said she had never been to boarding-school;
no, she didn’t go out much—didn’t know many people—they lived very
quietly—and so on. From Beryl’s manner Pamela gathered that she did not
wish to discuss her home or aunt, so the matter was dropped, and Pamela
suggested that when tea was over they should ask Martha or Ellen to show
them over the house, so that they would know their way about.
Both Martha and Ellen professed themselves delighted to show them over
the house, and so both of them accompanied the two girls on a tour of
inspection. Martha, who liked to do things thoroughly while she was
about it, insisted on them seeing every room and cupboard from top to
bottom of the house, with the exception, of course, of the locked-up
room at the end of the first floor landing.
On this landing there were five rooms: the locked-up room ran right
across the front of the house, the locked door being opposite the
stair-head; on either side of the landing were two rooms—all four to be
used as bedrooms for the girls, each having a separate room to herself.
The rooms allotted to Pamela and Isobel Prior were on the left, Isobel’s
adjoining the locked room; Beryl’s room was opposite to Pamela’s, and
her next-door neighbour was to be Caroline Weston.
Another flight of stairs, starting near by Beryl’s door, led up to
Martha’s and Ellen’s rooms, the bath-room and airing cupboards, and
another spare bedroom.
The ground floor included the dining-room (which we have already seen)
and, on the opposite side of the hall, a large drawing-room with French
windows that led into the garden. Next door to the dining-room, and at
the back of the house, was a queer little room with books all round the
walls, a huge writing-desk (much too large for the rest of the
furniture), half a dozen odd chairs, an old spinning-wheel, and a glass
cabinet full of curiosities. This was called the ’study,’ Martha said,
where Miss Crabingway read or attended to her correspondence; but, in
spite of the books, it looked more like an interesting museum of odds
and ends. A spacious kitchen and scullery with a big larder, and a cosy
little sitting-room, leading out of the kitchen, and set apart for the
use of Martha and Ellen, completed the ground floor.
There seemed to be a good many windows in each room, so it ought to be a
light house in the daytime, Pamela thought; otherwise her first
impression of sombre richness was strengthened after seeing over the
rest of the house. The furniture and fittings were all good and
heavy-looking; the walls were everywhere crowded with pictures—some
originals, some copies of well-known pictures, and some photographic
picture studies of people and places. There were carpets and dark
furniture in every room. And what struck Pamela as being very strange
was that each room in the house had at least one odd-sized piece of
furniture in it—either much too large or much too small to be in keeping
with the rest of the room; and this particular piece, in each case,
seemed to occupy a very prominent position, so that one couldn’t help
noticing it. It reminded Pamela of the doll’s house belonging to Olive
at home, where the doll’s kettle and saucepan were the same size as the
chairs, and too big to stand on the doll’s kitchen stove. She wondered
how Miss Crabingway had come to possess these odd bits of furniture, and
was just looking at the extraordinarily small piano-stool set before the
huge grand piano in the drawing-room, when a sudden ring at the bell
announced a fresh arrival, and Martha hurried out of the room to open
the front door.
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE ROOM WITH THE LOCKED DOOR*
Isobel Prior and Caroline Weston had arrived together, having travelled
in the same railway carriage, each ignorant of the fact that the other
was bound for Chequertrees, until the waiting cab at the station had
made this known to them.
"I’m simply _dead_," were the first words Pamela heard as she came out
of the drawing-room to greet the new-comer. The speaker was a
well-dressed, fluffy-haired girl with an aristocratic voice and bearing,
who was standing in the hall amid a pile of luggage.
"Why, that sounds a cheerful beginning! Who is it that’s dead?" asked
Pamela laughingly, as she came forward.
The girl stared rather haughtily at Pamela for a second, then smiled and
shook hands.
"Oh, I suppose you are Miss Heath," she said. "I am Miss Prior. I’ve
had a perfectly impossible journey here to-day, and I’m simply fagged
out and perishingly cold."
"We must get you something hot to drink," said Pamela, "and you must
have a good rest. Would you like to come straight into the dining-room
and have a warm—there’s a lovely fire there—or would you rather go up to
your bedroom first?"
"Oh, _please_—a wash and tidy up first," said Isobel. "I must look such
a fright——"
And then Pamela noticed that another girl was standing beside Martha,
just inside the front door. A big plush curtain in the hall almost hid
her from view.
"I’m awfully sorry—I didn’t see anyone else had arrived," said Pamela.
"Are you—are you Miss Caroline Weston?"
The girl gazed stolidly at Pamela—a heavily-made girl, plumpish, and
wearing spectacles; she carried a very neat handbag in one hand and a
very neatly rolled umbrella in the other hand.
"Y-e-s," she said, in a slow, drawling voice.
Pamela shook her warmly by the hand, and then offered to take the two
girls upstairs and show them their rooms. As they passed the
drawing-room door Pamela caught sight of Beryl, who was waiting shyly in
the background, and she immediately introduced her to the others.
"Beryl and I have just been shown over the house," Pamela explained.
"We only arrived to-day, of course—a few hours ago—I expect you’re too
tired to want to bother to see all round to-night, and if you are you
must go over it in the morning. Then we shall all know our way about,
shan’t we? Come along, Beryl, let’s take these poor weary travellers up
to their rooms. And, Martha, can we have some hot supper—in about
twenty minutes, please?"
Once again the house was astir with the bustle of welcoming the latest
arrivals. Martha vanished into the kitchen to prepare something hot and
tasty for supper, while Ellen hurried to and fro with warm water for
washing, and carried boxes and parcels upstairs, and lit gases, and
pulled down blinds, and generally made herself useful, while Pamela,
followed by Beryl, showed Isobel and Caroline to their rooms, doing her
best as hostess to make them feel comfortable and at home.
Over supper the four girls became better acquainted. Naturally they
were all very curious to know why Miss Crabingway had invited the four
of them to Chequertrees, and they studied each other with interest,
trying to find an answer to the riddle. Following Pamela’s friendly
lead they talked of themselves, and their homes, and the journey to
Barrowfield. That is, all of them talked a good deal with the exception
of Beryl, who still seemed very shy and only spoke when she was
addressed directly.
Pamela was in one of her ’beamy’ moods that night. She beamed and
laughed and talked and thoroughly enjoyed herself during supper, not a
little excited by all the strange surroundings and the strange new
acquaintances she was making; perhaps it was her genuine interest in
everything and everybody that made her so jolly a companion—and so
unself-conscious a one. Anyway, she liked girls—nearly all girls—and
they liked her as a rule. Of course she had her dislikes, but on the
whole she got on very well with girls of her own age. How was she going
to like and get on with these girls, all about her own age, who were
sitting at supper with her this evening, she asked herself.
She felt vaguely sorry for Beryl, as if she wanted to protect her,
because Beryl seemed so painfully shy and ill at ease; her clothes were
cheap-looking and unsuitable for the time of year.
Isobel seemed to Pamela to be slightly disdainful of everything and
everybody; she had a habit of over-emphasizing unimportant words when
she talked, and appeared at times to exaggerate too much. Her clothes
were well chosen and evidently of very good material, and well tailored.
Her features, framed by her pretty, fluffy hair, were clear-cut and
refined; she would have been a pretty girl had it not been for her eyes,
which were deep-set and a trifle too close together. She talked a good
deal about her ’mater’ and ’pater,’ and her brother Gerald and his
motor-car.
Caroline, beside Isobel, looked very plain, and almost dowdy, in spite
of the fact that her clothes were good—the reason being that her clothes
did not suit her at all. She had no idea how to make the best of
herself; her one great idea was to be neat at all costs. Her
drab-coloured hair was brushed back smoothly, in a most trying fashion;
and never by any chance would she have a button or hook missing from any
of her clothing, nor a hole in her stocking—and this was a credit to
her, because she worked as slowly with her needle as she did with
everything else, though it must be owned that she was very fond of
sewing. Very slow, very methodical, very neat—such was Caroline. "I
believe she even dusts and wraps up in tissue paper each needle and pin
and reel of cotton after she has finished with it," was Isobel’s opinion
after she had known her a week; and although this may sound like one of
Isobel’s exaggerated remarks, yet it was nearer the truth than she
herself dreamt when she said it.
What acquaintance had Miss Crabingway had with these three girls, Pamela
wondered. And what had made her choose them—and herself. They made an
oddly assorted quartette.
As they were rising from the supper-table she asked them whether any of
them knew Miss Crabingway well, and learnt to her surprise that none of
them had more than the slightest acquaintance with her. Neither Isobel
not Caroline could remember ever seeing Miss Crabingway, and Beryl said
vaguely that she had seen her once—a long time ago. Beryl said she
believed that her mother had been a friend of Miss Crabingway’s, many
years back. Isobel said her mater had met Miss Crabingway abroad—had
happened to stay in the same hotel—about six years ago. An uncle of
Caroline’s, so she informed them, had once done some business
transactions with Miss Crabingway, and had corresponded with her since,
at intervals.
"Well, I can’t make it out at all," thought Pamela to herself. "Why
Miss Crabingway should have invited us—four girls—practically strangers
to her—to come and stay at her house while she is away.... I can’t see
any reason for it.... Anyway, I suppose we shall know when she returns."
The supper having considerably revived Isobel, she said she would like
to see over the house before she went to bed; and Caroline, having no
objection ready against this suggestion (except that she was half asleep
in her chair), found herself joining in this tour of inspection and
stolidly taking stock of the house that was to be her home for the next
six months.
In a whispered aside to Pamela Isobel pronounced the dining-room
wall-paper ’hideous’ and the drawing-room decorations ’perfectly
awful’—both remarks being overhead by Ellen, who glared at the back of
Isobel’s head in silent indignation at this reflection on her mistress’s
taste. It was certainly not good manners on Isobel’s part, but she was
not over-sensitive about other people’s feelings, and was rarely aware
of the fact when her words or tone of voice had hurt or given offence.
On the first floor landing Pamela pointed out the locked door. The
girls knew that they were forbidden to try to open it, or look through
the keyhole, their instructions being the same as Pamela’s.
[Illustration: ON THE FIRST FLOOR LANDING PAMELA POINTED OUT THE LOCKED
DOOR]
"And to think that one little action—just kneeling down and putting your
eye to the keyhole—would make you lose fifty pounds!" exclaimed Isobel.
"It’s not worth losing all that money just for curiosity, is it?"
"Rather not," said Pamela. "I vote that we all keep away from that door
as if the paint on it were poisonous to touch."
"I’m sorry my room’s next to it," Isobel went on, "but it doesn’t really
matter—though I like to keep as far away from temptation as I can ...
not that I _want_ to look inside, but—you know the feeling—just because
I know I mustn’t——"
"I know the feeling," agreed Pamela. "But don’t you think it would be
wisest not to talk about it any more, or we shall all be dreaming about
it to-night."
Ellen, who was leading the way up to the top floor where her own room
and Martha’s room were situated, pricked up her ears at this.
"Dreams go by contrary," she said to herself mechanically, and,
apparently, without meaning. Besides being a mine of information on
melancholy events, Ellen was a great believer in dreams, possessing as
many as ten ’dream books,’ which she consulted frequently on the meaning
of her dreams. Ellen believed also in fortune-telling by tea-leaves, and
lucky stars, and the like. And many a time she had made even Martha—who
knew her little ways and generally laughed tolerantly at her—turn
’goose-flesh’ at the terrible fate she would read out for Martha and
herself from the tea-leaves left in their cups.
"Do you believe it’s possible to _dream_ what is inside that room—I mean
dream truly—if you set your mind on it just before going to sleep?"
Isobel asked of Pamela, as she glanced round the bath-room.
Caroline, who was examining everything in the bath-room closely and
minutely, as was her habit, raised her head as if to speak, but Pamela,
who had her back turned to her and did not see her mouth open, replied:
"I don’t know. I’m afraid I’m not an expert on dreams—I hardly ever
dream myself."
"Wouldn’t it be fun," suggested Isobel, as they all made their way
downstairs again, "if each of us tried hard to dream what was inside the
room—and then tell each other what dreams we had had, in the morning—and
when Miss Crabingway comes back we will see if any of us are right."
"Oh, I don’t know," said Pamela. "Somehow I don’t think we’d better
even try to dream what is inside the room. Perhaps it isn’t quite fair
to—to—I don’t know how to put it— Anyway, I think it would be better if
we left the subject entirely alone, don’t you?"
Again Caroline opened her mouth and was about to say something, when
Isobel burst in with,
"Oh, but Miss Crabingway didn’t say we were not to _dream_ about it, did
she? ... That would be impossible to forbid.... But still, perhaps it’s
best not to meddle with the subject. It’s not worth losing fifty pounds
over, anyway."
Beryl, although she had accompanied the others over the house, had not
spoken a word since they left the dining-room, but she had listened to
all that was going on with much interest. Here was another girl,
Isobel, who seemed quite at home among strangers in a strange house,
thought Beryl; but she did not envy Isobel; she was vaguely afraid of
her. Caroline appeared more at her ease than Beryl had expected her to
be; though Caroline seemed to others slow and awkward, she was not aware
of this herself, and so was not made uneasy on that score. Caroline did
not know her own failings, while Beryl was keenly alive to _her_ own—and
suffered accordingly.
As the four girls bid each other good-night a few minutes later,
Caroline found the opportunity she had been waiting for, and mentioned
something that had been fidgeting her since her arrival.
"Oh—er—do you know if my room has been well aired?" she asked slowly,
reminding Pamela irresistibly of an owl as she gazed solemnly through
her spectacles. "I’m rather subject to chills—and mother told me to be
sure and see that my bedroom had been well aired."
Fortunately Martha was able to assure her on this point, and Caroline
went upstairs apparently content. But before she went to sleep she
thoroughly fingered the sheets and pillow-cases to satisfy herself that
Martha was a strictly truthful person.
When, at length, every one had retired and all was quiet, a little
breeze arose in the garden and scurried round the house, whispering
excitedly among the ivy leaves. But though the breeze ruffled and
agitated the cloak of ivy, it had no power to stir the old house
beneath, which stood, grim and unmoved, brooding in silence over the
strangers within its walls.
*CHAPTER V*
*MAKING PLANS*
In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Pamela held an informal
’council meeting’ in the drawing-room.
"I thought we’d better just talk over some sort of plan for organizing
things, so that we shall all be as comfortable as possible," she said,
leaning her elbow on the small round table before her and resting her
chin in the palm of her hand. "You see, it isn’t as if there was a real
hostess here—you know what I mean—it isn’t as if we could drop into the
ordinary life of the household. Here we are—four strangers yesterday,
four acquaintances to-day—and we’ve got to live and work and play
together for the next six months. Now what are the best arrangements to
make, so that we’ll all have a good time? It’s left entirely in our
hands. Anybody got any suggestions?" She looked smilingly round at the
other three girls.
Isobel was the only one who answered.
"Of course we didn’t know _what_ we should be expected to do when we
came here," she said. "It was all such an _awful_ hurry and
scramble—there was no time to think of anything."
"I know," agreed Pamela. "But now we are here, we’d better have some
sort of plan, don’t you think—so as to leave each other as free as
possible—I do hate tying people down to time and—and things—but we’ll
have to have some sort of arrangements about meals, for instance, or
else we’ll keep Martha and Ellen busy all day long. Luckily, we’ve got
hardly any housekeeping difficulties. I had a talk with Martha and
Ellen this morning, before breakfast, and they’re going on with their
work just as usual. Martha does all the cooking and washing, and Ellen
does the general work. But I expect four girls in the house will make a
good bit of difference! So I propose that we each make our own bed and
tidy our own room every morning—and Ellen will clean the rooms out once
a week. It won’t take each of us long of a morning. What do you say?"
Beryl agreed at once; and Isobel, though she said she wasn’t _used_ to
doing housework, promised to do her best; Caroline was understood to say
she preferred making her own bed because other people never made a bed
to her satisfaction.
Having settled this little point, Pamela went on:
"As regards shopping—Martha says she always sees about getting in
provisions, but she would like us to say what we’d like for breakfasts,
and dinners, and so on. She says Miss Emily Crabingway left a sum of
money with her for purchasing enough food for the next three months;
after that time has elapsed, Mr Joseph Sigglesthorne is to send on a
further sum—enough for the final three months. You see that’s all
arranged for us; but we’ve got to choose the meals, and I thought it
would be a good plan if we took it in turns, each week—first one, then
the other—to draw up a list of meals for the week. Write it all out,
and take it in to Martha. What do you think? Martha likes the idea."
"I’m quite willing, but I don’t believe I could think of enough variety
for a week straight off," said Beryl.
"Oh, yes, you could," said Pamela, "with the help of Mrs Beeton’s
Cookery Book—there are no end of hints in there. Martha has a copy of
the book on a shelf in the kitchen; she’ll lend it to us. She says it’s
very useful, but rather too extravagant for her liking, with its ’break
eight eggs and beat them well,’ and ’take ten eggs’ and ’take six eggs’
and so on. Martha says she always looks up a recipe in Mrs Beeton’s,
and then makes it her own way (which is always quite different)."
"As long as you don’t choose boiled haddock every morning," said Isobel,
"and don’t give us lamb chops and mashed potatoes every dinner-time—with
rice pudding to follow—I’m sure we’ll none of us try to assassinate you
on the quiet."
"I don’t mind taking my turn at choosing the meals," said Caroline,
thinking tenderly of suet roly-poly.
"And I’ll do what I can," remarked Isobel, more in her element when
choosing work for others to perform than in doing work herself. She had
momentary visions of how she would astonish the others by the
magnificence of her menus; none of the ’homely’ dishes for Isobel; with
the aid of Mrs Beeton, who knows what might not be accomplished in the
way of exclusive and awe-inspiring dishes. "But _you_ choose the first
week’s meals, _do_," she begged Pamela.
As this suggestion was proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously by
the others, Pamela agreed, and so the matter was settled.
"Having now disposed of our housekeeping duties," Pamela laughed, "now
what are we going to do with the rest of our time? Had any of you any
idea of keeping up studies, or attending classes, or anything of that
sort? You see we are left idle—to act entirely on our own
initiative—without any suggestions or arrangements whatever on Miss
Crabingway’s part. And I know that, speaking for myself, I don’t want
to idle away the next six months."
"_I_ shouldn’t mind being idle," observed Isobel. "In fact mater said
the six months’ rest would do me no harm. I was just going back to
college, you know, when we heard from Miss Crabingway—and of course all
my plans were upset—but I didn’t mind so much with the prospect of a
lovely, lazy holiday at Barrowfield. But still, if you are all going to
take up some sort of work, I suppose I must, as well.... I should be
bored to death with my own company—if you are all going to work."
"I only suggest a few hours’ work each day," reminded Pamela. "It makes
the day seem so much more satisfactory when one has _done_ something."
The question of what to study, and how to study, gave much food for
discussion; but the subject was prevented from taking too serious a turn
by Isobel’s constant stream of facetious remarks on the kind of work she
would take up. She seemed to think it a huge joke; though Caroline, who
was apt to take things literally, was much perturbed at the numerous
studies Isobel proposed, until she realized that Isobel was only making
fun all the time.
"I should prefer to keep up my music," said Beryl, presently. "And
study hard at theory, harmony, and counterpoint—and if it wouldn’t annoy
anyone—perhaps I could practise on the piano here. I—I should love
that."
"Of course it wouldn’t annoy anyone, would it?" Pamela appealed to the
other two, who said that it certainly wouldn’t annoy them.
"It isn’t as if it were the five-finger exercise—thump—thump—thump,"
added Caroline cautiously.
"Well, we should _hope_ you’d got beyond that," said Isobel to Beryl,
who flushed nervously.
"Oh, yes," she hastened to assure them.
"There are worse things than the five-finger exercise," broke in Pamela.
"I have a sister at home who knows _one_ piece, and whenever she gets
near the piano she sits down and plays it—thumps it, I should
say—because she ’knows we love it,’ she says. We always howl at her, on
principle, and the nearest of us swoops down on her, and bears her,
protesting, out of the room."
The others laughed with Pamela at this recollection of hers, and
attention was distracted from Beryl, much to her relief.
"Well," said Pamela, "for myself—I am going to do a heap of
reading—especially historical books; and I want most of all to continue
my sketching. I’m very fond of dabbling in black and white sketching—and
I want lots of practice. I’ve brought with me some books about it—to
study."
"Oh, you _energetic_ people," yawned Isobel. "It makes me tired to
think of the work you’re going to do."
"What are you going to do?" Pamela asked, turning to Caroline.
"Well," drawled Caroline, "I like doing needlework better than
anything."
Isobel put her handkerchief to her mouth to hide a smile. Fortunately
Caroline was not looking at her, but Beryl was. Caroline went on
undisturbed.
"I’m not fond of reading or books, but I’ve been thinking—if there were
any classes near by, on dressmaking—cutting out and all that, you
know—that I could attend, I wouldn’t mind that; but anyway I’ve got
plenty of plain needlework to go on with. I brought a dozen
handkerchiefs in my box to hem and embroider—and I’ve got a tray-cloth
to hem-stitch."
"Mind you don’t overtax your brain, my dear," muttered Isobel, giggling
into her handkerchief.
"Eh?" asked Caroline, not catching her remark.
"Nothing," said Isobel. "I was only wondering what work I could do."
"I daresay you’ll be able to find some dress-making classes, Caroline,"
said Pamela. "We’ll go out and buy a local paper and see what’s going
on. But, Isobel, what are _you_ going to do?" Pamela asked, looking
across at Isobel.
"Ah me!" sighed Isobel. "Well, if I must decide, I’ll decide on
dancing. I’m frightfully keen on dancing, you know. I’ll attend
classes for that if you like—that is, if there are such things as
dancing classes in this sleepy little place.... I might do a bit of
photography too. I didn’t bring my camera—but perhaps I can buy a new
one—it’s great fun taking snapshots."
"If there are no classes in Barrowfield there is almost sure to be a
town within a few miles, where we can get what we want," Pamela said.
Matters now being settled as far as was possible at the present moment,
Pamela said she was going out to look round the village, and Isobel
immediately said she would go with her as she wanted to buy some buttons
for her gloves. Beryl would have liked to go with Pamela, but felt
sensitive about visiting the village for the first time in Isobel’s
company—for more than one reason; so she said she would go and unpack
her box and get her music books out, and look round the village later
on. Caroline also elected to stay and unpack and put her room in order.
So Pamela and Isobel started off together.
They had been gone but five minutes when the post arrived with a
registered letter addressed to Pamela.
"Ah," said Martha knowingly, as she laid the letter in the tray on the
hall-stand.
*CHAPTER VI*
*MILLICENT JACKSON GIVES SOME INFORMATION*
"What a one-eyed sort of place this is," said Isobel inelegantly, as she
came out of the village drapery establishment and joined Pamela, who was
waiting on the green outside.
"I was just thinking how charming the little village looks," said
Pamela, "clustering round this wide stretch of green with the pond and
the ducks. And look at the lanes and hills and woods rising in the
background! It _is_ picturesque."
"Oh, it may be frightfully picturesque and all that," Isobel replied,
"but picturesqueness won’t provide one with black pearl buttons to sew
on one’s gloves. Would you believe it—not one of these _impossible_
shops keeps such things. ’Black pearl buttons, miss. I’m sorry we
haven’t any in stock. Black _bone_—would black bone do—or a fancy
button, miss?’" Isobel mimicked the voice of the ’creature’ (as she
called her) who served in the tiny draper’s shop.
"Well, I suppose they’re not often asked for black pearl," said Pamela,
as they moved on. "And wouldn’t black bone do?"
"Black _bone_!" said Isobel disdainfully.
"Well, you can’t expect to find Oxford Street shops down here in
Barrowfield," smiled Pamela. "And it’s jolly lucky there aren’t such
shops, or Barrowfield would be a _town_ to-morrow. Still, is there
anywhere else you’d like to try?"
"No, I shan’t bother any more to-day," Isobel sighed. "I did want
them—but I’ll wear my other gloves till I can get the buttons to match
the two I’ve lost.... How people do _stare_ at one here. Look at that
old woman over there—And, oh, do look at the butcher standing on his
step _glaring_ at us! He looks as if his eyes might go off ’pop’ at any
moment, doesn’t he?"
Although Isobel pretended to be annoyed, she really rather enjoyed the
attention she and Pamela were attracting. Naturally the village was
curious about these strange young ladies who had come to stay at Miss
Crabingway’s house. Thomas Bagg had given his version of the arrivals
last night as he chatted with the landlord of the ’Blue Boar,’ and had
professed to know more about the matter than he actually did. In acting
thus he was not alone, for most of the village pretended to know
something of the reason why Miss Emily Crabingway had suddenly gone
away, and why her house was occupied by four strange young ladies. In
reality nobody knew much about it at all. It speaks well for Martha and
Ellen that they were not persuaded to tell more than they did; maybe
they didn’t know more; maybe they _did_, but wouldn’t say. The village
gossips shook their heads at the closeness of these two trusted servants
concerning their mistress’s affairs.... And so Pamela and Isobel
attracted more than the usual attention bestowed on strangers in
Barrowfield—the bolder folk (like the butcher) staring unabashed from
their front doors, while the more retiring peeped through their
curtains.
Barrowfield itself was certainly very picturesque; no wonder it appealed
to Pamela’s artistic eye. Surrounded by tree-clad hills, the village lay
jumbled about the wide green—in the centre of which was a pond with
ducks on it; white-washed cottages, old houses, quaint little shops, and
inns with thatched roofs, stood side by side in an irregular circle.
Seen from one of the neighbouring hills you might have fancied that
Barrowfield was having a game of Ring-o’-Roses around the green, while
the little odd cottages dotted here and there on the hill-sides looked
longingly on, like children who have not been invited to play but who
might at any moment run down the slopes and join in. The square-towered
church and the Manor House, both on a hill outside the magic ring, stood
watching like dignified grown-up people.
Chequertrees was one of the biggest houses in the circle around the
green, and a few dozen yards beyond its gate a steep tree-lined avenue
led up to the big house of the neighbourhood—the Manor House, where
lived the owners of most of the land and property in Barrowfield. The
Manor House was about a quarter of a mile beyond the village, and stood
half-way up the avenue, at the top of which was the square-towered
church. Close beside the church, but so hidden among trees as to be
invisible until you were near at hand, was the snug vicarage.
The railway station at which the girls had arrived on the previous
evening was a mile and a half away on a road that led out from the
opposite end of the green to where Chequertrees stood. Several lanes
climbed up from the green and wound over the hills to towns and villages
beyond—the nearest market town being four miles distant if you went by
the lane, six miles if you followed the main road that ran past the
station.
Of course Pamela and Isobel would not have known all this on their first
short walk round Barrowfield had they not fallen into conversation with
the girl who served in the newsagent’s, and who was only too ready to
impart information to them when they went in to buy a local newspaper.
She was a large-boned girl with a lot of big teeth, that showed
conspicuously when she talked; she eyed curiously, and not without envy,
the well-cut clothes and ’stylish’ hats that the two girls were wearing.
Pamela noticed that the girl wore a brooch made of gold-wire twisted
into the name ’Millicent,’ and as ’Jackson’ was the name painted over
the shop outside, she tacked it on, in her own mind, as Millicent’s
surname.
It being still early in the day Millicent Jackson’s toilet was not
properly finished—that is to say, she did not appear as she would later
on about tea-time, with her hair frizzed up and wearing her brown serge
skirt and afternoon blouse. Her morning attire was a very
unsatisfactory affair. Millicent wore all her half-soiled blouses in
the mornings, and her hair was straight and untidily pinned up; she had
a black apron over her skirt, and her hands, which were not pretty at
the best of times, looked big and red, and they were streaked with
blacking as if she had recently been cleaning a stove. Poor Millicent,
she found it impossible to do the housework and appear trim and tidy in
the shop at the same time. She discovered herself suddenly wishing that
the young ladies had postponed their visit till the afternoon, when she
would have been dressed. But there were compensations even for being
’caught untidy’; for could she not see that young Agnes Jones across the
way peering out of her shop door, overcome with curiosity, and would she
not dash across to Millicent as soon as the young ladies had departed,
to know all about the interview! So it was with mixed feelings that
Millicent kept the young ladies talking as long as she could.
"Yes, it’s a vurry ole church, and vurry interestin’," said Millicent
for the third time. "But uv course you ain’t been in these parts long
enough, miss, for you to ’ave seen everything yet, ’ave you, miss?"
"No, we only arrived last night," said Pamela in a friendly way.
"You don’t say!" exclaimed Millicent in great astonishment; although
Thomas Bagg had been in the shop a few hours back and told her all about
their arrival. "Oh, well, uv course, miss—!" she broke off and waited
expectantly.
But Pamela’s next remark was disappointing.
"I think it’s an awfully interesting-looking village altogether," she
said. "Whereabouts is the ruined mill you mentioned just now? Very far
from the village? I wonder if we have time to go and see it this
morning."
"It’s a goodish way," said Millicent reluctantly. "Well, about two mile
over that way," she pointed toward the back of the shop. "Along the
lane that goes through the fields.... I expect you’d find it vurry
muddy in the lane after all the rain we’ve been ’aving."
"Oh, I don’t mind that," said Pamela, but Isobel wrinkled up her nose
and looked down at her dainty shoes. "But have we time before
lunch—um—no, it’s half-past twelve now—what a shame! ... Never mind! I
must go along to-morrow if I can. I feel I don’t want to use up all the
country too quickly—it’s so nice exploring." She smiled at Millicent,
and gathered up the papers she had bought.
"Oh, by the way, who lives at the Manor House?" asked Isobel, addressing
Millicent, directly, for the first time; her voice was slightly
condescending—it was the voice she always adopted unconsciously when
addressing those she considered her ’inferiors’; she did not mean to be
unkind—she had been taught, by those who should have known better, to
talk like that to servants and tradespeople. But Pamela, whose
upbringing had been very different, frowned as she heard the tones; they
jarred on her.
However, Millicent did not seem to notice anything amiss.
"Sir Henry and Lady Prior, miss," answered Millicent.
Isobel raised her eyebrows and gave a short laugh. "Prior! That’s
strange! I wonder if they’re any relation to me," she said to Pamela.
"I must try to find out." She turned to Millicent again. "Sir _Henry_
Prior, you said?"
"Yes, miss," said Millicent, looking at Isobel with fresh interest.
(Here was a choice tit-bit to tell Aggie Jones.)
"H’m," said Isobel. "Yes—I know pater had a cousin Henry—I shouldn’t be
at _all_ surprised—Wouldn’t it be delightful, Pamela, if it turns out to
be this cousin——"
She broke off, feeling that until she was sure it would be wiser not to
talk too much before Millicent, who was listening, with wide eyes and
open mouth. To say just so much, and no more, was agreeably pleasant to
Isobel, and made her feel as though, to the rest of the world, she was
now enveloped in an air of romantic mystery. As far as Millicent
represented the world, this was true. Millicent at once scented romance
and mystery—for surely to be related to a titled person, and not to know
it, is mysteriously romantic! She looked at Isobel with greater
respect.... Pamela’s voice brought her suddenly back to the everyday
world again—the shop, the papers, and the fact that she was untidy and
not dressed; she noticed with sudden distaste the blacking on her hands
and hid them under her apron.
"Who lives in that pretty little white cottage opposite to
Chequertrees?" Pamela was asking. "I’m sure it must be some one
artistic—it’s all so pleasing to the eye—it took my fancy this morning
as I came out."
"The little white cottage—" began Millicent.
"With the brown shutters," finished Pamela.
"Oh, yes, I know the one you mean, miss," said Millicent. "Mrs Gresham
lives there, miss. I don’t know that she’s an artist—she lets
apartments in the summer—and has teas in the garden, miss. Does vurry
nicely in the season with visitors, but she’s terrible took up with
rheumatics in the winter—has it something chronic, she does. But she’s
a nice, respectable person—always has her daily paper reg’lar from us."
"Her garden must look lovely in the summer," remarked Pamela. "There
are some fine old Scotch fir trees in it, I noticed." She had already
taken note of these particular trees by the cottage, for sketching later
on; they were the only Scotch firs that she had seen in Barrowfield so
far.
As she and Isobel walked across the green on their way back to
Chequertrees the picturesque blacksmith’s forge claimed her attention,
and she stopped to admire it. As she did so a woman came down the lane
beside the forge, and passing in front of the two girls walked quickly
over the green. Pamela’s attention was immediately attracted to her,
firstly because she was carrying an easel (also a basket, and a bag,
evidently containing a flat box); secondly, because she was dressed very
quaintly in a grey cloak and a small grey hat of original design;
thirdly, because she went into the garden gate of the little white
cottage opposite Chequertrees; and lastly, because, as the woman turned
to latch the gate after her, Pamela caught sight of her face.
"Who _does_ she remind me of?" said Pamela. "I’m sure I’ve seen some one
like her——"
But Isobel was not listening to Pamela.
"If Sir Henry Prior is related to us, mater will be frightfully
interested to hear what——"
But Pamela was not listening to Isobel.
"Oh, p’r’aps she doesn’t live there then—I wonder," said Pamela, as the
woman in grey, after handing the basket in at the front door of the
cottage and speaking a few words to somebody inside, who was invisible
to Pamela, came quickly out of the gate again and hurried away down the
village, the easel under one arm and the bag under the other.
"Who _does_ she remind me of?" puzzled Pamela, as she and Isobel turned
in at the gate of Chequertrees.
*CHAPTER VII*
*BERYL GOES THROUGH AN ORDEAL*
When Pamela opened the registered envelope that was waiting for her she
found inside twelve pounds in postal orders, and a short note from Mr
Joseph Sigglesthorne informing her that Miss Crabingway had desired him
to send this pocket-money for her to share between ’the three other
young ladies’ and herself. That was three pounds each—the pocket-money
for the next three months. To those girls who already had some
pocket-money in their purses this little addition came as a pleasant,
though not unduly exciting, surprise; to those who had little or no
money of their own the three pounds was very welcome indeed.
Pamela shared out the money, wrote a note of acknowledgment to Mr
Sigglesthorne, and then retired into the ’study,’ after dinner was over,
with a copy of Mrs Beeton, a paper and pencil, and a business-like frown
on her face.
"Nobody must disturb me for half an hour," she said, in mock solemnity,
"for I am going to do most important work—make out a week’s list of
_meals_."
Caroline was not likely to disturb anyone, as she had betaken herself
upstairs to her bedroom again to continue arranging her belongings. The
morning had not been long enough for her to finish unpacking properly,
she said.
Beryl, who besides being quicker than Caroline had also less to unpack,
had finished her room long ago; so this afternoon she wandered into the
drawing-room, and closing the door after her carefully, crossed over to
the piano.
The drawing-room with its long French windows leading into the garden
was about the pleasantest room in the house. It was lighter than most
of the other rooms, and there were fewer hangings about, which was a
good thing for the piano, Beryl thought. "I wonder if it would disturb
anyone if I played," she said to herself, opening the piano and stroking
the keys with her fingers. The house seemed suddenly so quiet—she
hardly liked to break the silence; she feared somebody coming in to see
who was playing, for Beryl was nervous at playing before others,
although she loved music and could play very well. She would have to
make a beginning _some time_, she told herself, if she really meant to
practise—so why not now? But still she hesitated, her fingers
outstretched on the keys.
She could hear faintly, the sound being muffled behind closed doors, the
clatter of dishes in the kitchen—Martha and Ellen washing up. Pamela
was in the study, she knew, and Caroline was upstairs; but where was
Isobel? Beryl wished she knew where Isobel was. She had a dread of
Isobel coming in to disturb her, and she would be sure to come, out of
curiosity, if she heard the piano.... Beryl felt suddenly annoyed with
herself. Why should she care who came in—if she really _meant_ to
practise——
Beryl began to play—softly at first; but as she became gradually
absorbed in the music, her touch grew firmer and the notes rang out
clearly, and she forgot all about anyone hearing—forgot everything but
the music. The only time Beryl quite lost her self-consciousness was
when she was playing or listening to music.
She played on, happily absorbed, when suddenly her former fears were
realized; the door handle clicked and some one put her head round the
door.
"Oh, it’s you, is it?" said Isobel’s voice; and Isobel pushed the door
open and came in.
Beryl stopped playing, and swung round on the stool.
"This room’s not so bad when one gets used to it," said Isobel, walking
across to the French window and pushing the curtains back; she stood
looking out into the garden. "Anyway, it’s better than that perfectly
hideous dining-room. What awful taste Miss Crabingway must have! I
really don’t know whether I shall be able to endure it for six whole
months." She threw herself on the couch beside the window and yawned.
Isobel felt rather bored this afternoon. Caroline was still
unpacking—besides, who wanted to talk to Caroline?—Pamela was still
busy, and waved threateningly to anyone who looked into the study,
keeping her eyes fixed on Mrs Beeton. There was no one but Beryl to
talk to. Isobel was rather curious about Beryl, because she seemed so
unwilling to talk about herself and her home.
"I suppose you learnt music at college?" Isobel observed, studying
Beryl’s slight, stooping figure, as she sat with her back to the piano,
her pale face gazing rather anxiously at her questioner.
"No—oh, no," said Beryl.
"Did you have a music master—or mistress—at home, then?"
"No," said Beryl. "Mother taught me a little—and I—and I picked up the
rest for myself."
Isobel raised her eyebrows.
"We had a frightfully handsome music-master at our college at Rugford,"
said Isobel. "Most of the girls raved over him—but I’m not so keen on
Roman noses myself.... What college are you at?"
"Oh ... Just a school—near where we live—at Enfield," replied Beryl; and
Isobel saw to her surprise that Beryl was blushing.
"You’ve never been away from home then—to boarding-school?" Isobel
suggested.
Beryl shook her head.
"Oh, it’s great sport," said Isobel. "But you want plenty of spare cash
to stand midnight feasts to the other girls, and have a bit of fun.
Pater and Gerald used to come down in the car and fetch me home for
week-ends sometimes, by special permission; and sometimes one or two of
the girls would be invited to come with me. The girls were awfully keen
on getting invitations to our place; they used to ’chum-up’ to me, and
really almost beg for invitations. And you should have heard them
simply rave about Gerald.... There was one girl, I remember, who
practically implored me to ask her home for the holidays—but she wasn’t
a lady—I don’t know how she managed to get into the college—the Head was
awfully particular as a rule. This girl was only there one term,
though, and then the Head wrote and told her people that she could not
continue at the college— Well, what do you think they found out about
her? ... She was a _Council_ school girl! And her parents said she had
been educated ’privately’ at home! I suppose her father had scraped up
a little money and wanted her to finish off at our college—to get a sort
of polish. But we weren’t having any— Good gracious! What a colour
you’ve got!" she broke off, and gazed at Beryl, whose cheeks were
scarlet.
"It’s—I’m rather hot," said Beryl. "What are ’midnight feasts’?" she
asked hurriedly.
"Oh, they’re picnics we have in the dormitories after all the lights are
out and we’re supposed to be in bed," Isobel explained, still eyeing
Beryl curiously. "We choose a moonlight night, or else smuggle in a
couple of night-lights with the cake, and fruit, and chocolates. It’s
frightfully exciting—because at any moment we may get caught."
"What happens if you are?" inquired Beryl.
"Well—we never were—not while I was there.... I wonder if I shall go
back for a term or two when my visit here is ended?" Isobel mused.
"Will you be going back again to your school after you leave here?"
"No, I don’t think so," said Beryl, who was now quite pale again.
"Did you get up to any larks? Were there any boarders at your school?"
Isobel persisted.
"No," Beryl answered. "It was only a day school. We didn’t have any
special larks."
"Didn’t you like the school?"
"Not very much. It was all right."
"Why? Weren’t the girls nice?"
"Oh, they were nice enough," said Beryl. "It was a nice school. But
nothing specially exciting ever happened. Just work."
"Um ... I shouldn’t have liked that," said Isobel. "By the way, your
father and mother are dead, aren’t they?"
Beryl nodded.
"Many years ago?" asked Isobel.
"Ever so many years, it seems to me," Beryl replied very quietly.
"Was your father a musician?" Isobel went on.
"No," answered Beryl. "Why?"
"Oh, no reason. I only wondered. What was his profession, then?"
Beryl gazed at her in silence, and Isobel thought perhaps she did not
understand.
"His work, I mean. What did he do for a living? Or had he independent
means?"
"He—I don’t know what he did—he went to the City every day," Beryl ended
lamely; her face was ghastly white. "It’s so long ago—I can’t
remember—I was only very young when he died."
This seemed to satisfy Isobel for a time, and she began talking of her
brother Gerald and his taste in hosiery, until presently she began to
inquire about the aunt with whom Beryl said she lived at Enfield. But
on this subject Beryl was decidedly reticent, and answered vaguely, and
as often as possible in monosyllables, so that Isobel could gain little
or nothing from her questionings. All she gleaned was that Beryl’s
’Aunt Laura’ lived at Enfield, and that she was a widow, with one
daughter about eighteen years old, whose name was also ’Laura.’
Presently the conversation veered round to schools again, and Isobel
asked,
"By the way, what was the name of your school at Enfield?"
Beryl hesitated but a moment, then said, "Rotherington House School."
"Why, I believe that’s the very school a friend of mine went to at
Enfield—that’s why I asked you the name. How quaint! I must write and
tell her—that is, when we are allowed by these silly old rules to write
to anyone. She’ll be frightfully interested to know I know some one who
went to the same school with her. But I expect you know her; her name
is Brent—Kathleen Brent."
Beryl shook her head. "I don’t recall the name," she said. "But what
were you saying at dinner about some one living at the Manor House named
Lady Prior—who is a relation of yours?" asked Beryl all at once,
desperately anxious to change the subject. Her ruse was immediately
successful. Isobel plunged into the trap headlong, leaving behind her,
for the moment, her curiosity concerning Beryl.
"Of course, I don’t know for certain that they are relations, but I know
Pater has a cousin or second cousin named Henry who was knighted some
years ago—but it is a branch of the family that we’ve somehow lost touch
with—they’ve lived abroad a lot. But I _must_ find out if these _are_
the same Priors! It’s strange! I’ve never heard Pater mention that
they had a country seat down here—but, as I said, we lost sight of them,
and besides, they may have only returned to England recently. I must
make inquiries and find out all I can—then, of course, if I find they
_are_ my relations—" Isobel chattered on, but Beryl was scarcely
conscious of what she was saying.
Beryl’s mind was obsessed by the awkward questions she had just
evaded—the questions about her father, her aunt, and her school. Only
about the last subject had she been forced into telling a direct
untruth, she told herself, trying to remember what she _had_ said to
Isobel about all three subjects; and it was only the name of the school
that had been—incorrect. But it was in vain that Beryl tried to ease
her mind. She knew she had never been inside Rotherington House School
in her life; it was the best school in Enfield for the ’Daughters of
Gentlemen,’ and Beryl knew it well by sight and had made use of its name
in a weak moment. Beryl sat on the piano-stool, apparently listening to
Isobel, but raging inwardly—hating herself for telling a lie, and hating
Isobel for driving her into a corner and making her say what she had.
She felt perfectly miserable.
Isobel’s flow of conversation was suddenly checked by the entrance of
Caroline.
"I thought I heard some one in here," said Caroline slowly.
"Hullo! Have you finished unpacking yet?" asked Isobel, in a laughing,
sarcastic way.
"Yes, I’ve practically finished," replied Caroline composedly, seating
herself in a chair by the fire, and bringing some needlework out of a
bag she carried on her arm.
"Oh, you industrious creature! What _are_ you going to do now?"
exclaimed Isobel despairingly.
"I’m just working my initials on some new handkerchiefs," said Caroline
solemnly.
There was no mystery about Caroline, and consequently no incentive to
Isobel’s curiosity. She had already found out, while they were waiting
for dinner, where Caroline had been to school, what her father’s
occupation was, where she lived, and who made her clothes; and
everything was plain and satisfactory and stolid, and if not exactly
aristocratic, at any rate eminently respectable—like Caroline herself.
Isobel’s glance wandered from Caroline, with her smooth plait of hair,
and her long-sleeved, tidy, unbecoming blouse, to Beryl, with her pale,
sensitive face, and white silk blouse with the elbow sleeves that made
her arms look thin and cold this chilly January day. Why didn’t she
wear a more suitable blouse, Isobel wondered—and looked down at her own
sensible dark blue _crêpe de Chine_ shirt blouse with a sigh of
satisfaction.
"What became of those papers Pamela and I bought this morning?" Isobel
yawned. "I quite forgot—I was going to look in the local rag to see
what was going on in this place—and to see if there is any information
about dancing classes——"
"I think the papers were left in the dining-room," said Beryl. "I’ll
get them for you." And she was out of the room before Isobel could say
another word. She felt that if she had sat still on the piano-stool a
minute longer she would have had to do something desperate; pounce on
Isobel and shake her, or snatch the serenely complacent Caroline’s
needlework out of her hands and tear it in half. People had no right to
be so complacent; people had no right to be so horribly inquisitive.
Then she shivered at the thought of the scene she might have created—and
dashed out of the room for the newspapers.
She was quickly back with the papers, for which Isobel yawned her thanks
and then proposed to read out some ’tit-bits’ for Caroline’s benefit.
"For I really do think your mind must want a little recreation, my dear
Caroline," she remarked, "after the fatiguing work it has had in
deciding whether you shall embroider C.W. upon your handkerchiefs or
just plain C."
"I am embroidering C.A.W. upon all of them," said Caroline seriously,
and not in the least offended, stopping to look over the top of her
round spectacles for a moment at the crown of Isobel’s fluffy head
bending over the newspaper.
At the first opportunity to slip away unobserved Beryl made her way up
to her bedroom. As soon as she was inside she locked the door, and
throwing herself on the bed she began to cry, her face buried in the
pillow to stifle the sound of her sobs.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*WHICH CONCERNS A VISIT TO INCHMOOR
AND A WOMAN WITH A LIMP*
The following day was dry, with a hint of sunshine in the air, which
tempted the four girls to plan a four-mile walk over the hills to
Inchmoor, the nearest market town. They each wanted to do some shopping,
and Isobel wanted to make inquiries about a ’Dancing Academy’ advertised
in the local paper.
So, with great enthusiasm, the girls set about their morning tasks
before they started out—each making her own bed and tidying her room.
Old Martha shook her head and smiled as she crossed the landing, duster
in hand.
"Too good to last," she thought to herself.
True, the enthusiasm did not last longer than a week, but the girls
stuck to their plan nevertheless, and whether they felt enthusiastic or
not they made their beds and tidied their rooms each day without fail;
it became, after a time, a matter of habit.
As Martha crossed the landing and was passing Pamela’s bedroom door the
door sprang open and Pamela ran out, almost colliding with Martha, whom
she grasped by the arm.
"Oh, Martha, I’m so sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I?" she cried. "But
you’re the very person I wanted. Do come and look out of my window for
a second, and tell me who this is!"
She hurried old Martha across to the window, and pointed out to her a
woman dressed in grey, who was walking briskly away along the green.
"I can’t see very well without my glasses," said Martha, peering
intently through the window, while Pamela added a few words of
description of the woman in grey to help Martha to recognize her.
"Oh—_that_ young person," Martha exclaimed suddenly; "well, she isn’t
exactly what you might call young—but still— That’s Elizabeth Bagg,
Miss Pamela. Old Tom Bagg’s sister."
"Tom Bagg?" queried Pamela, who had not heard the name yet.
"The old cabman what brought your luggage up here the other night, Miss
Pamela."
"Oh! That is whom she reminds me of then," Pamela said. "I knew I’d
seen some one like her recently, but do you know, I couldn’t think for
the life of me who it was. But tell me—is she an artist? I saw her
carrying an easel—and she dresses very artistically."
"Yes, she do go in for painting a bit, Miss Pamela," said Martha. "But,
poor creature, she don’t get much time to herself. She keeps house for
her brother—and him a widderer with six little children—so you may
depend she’s got her hands full. How she manages to keep the children
and everything so nice, and yet get her painting done and all, is more’n
I can understand. She gives lessons over at a young ladies’ school at
Inchmoor too—twice a week."
"I’d like to get to know her, and see some of her pictures," said
Pamela, watching the figure in grey as it disappeared in the distance.
"She’s rather difficult to get to know—keeps herself _to_ herself, if
you know what I mean, Miss Pamela," said Martha.
"I know," Pamela replied. "But people who paint always interest me so
much——"
"I daresay she’d be glad of some one to take an interest in her work—it
isn’t much encouragement she gets from her brother, _I_ know—not that
she ever says anything about it; he seems to expect her to be always
cooking and baking and sewing and cleaning for him and the children—and
he don’t set any value on her pictures at all. Yet what _is_ nicer, I
always say, than a nice picture to hang on the walls! It makes a place
look furnished at once, don’t it?"
Pamela nodded. "Where does she live?" she inquired.
"You know the blacksmith’s place, Miss Pamela?—well, half-way up that
lane that runs beside the blacksmith’s—a little house on the right-hand
side as you go up is Tom Bagg’s, called ’Alice Maud Villa’—out of
compliment to old Tom’s aunt what they thought was going to leave them
some money—but she didn’t."
"’Alice Maud Villa,’" mused Pamela. "I thought perhaps she lived at
that little white cottage opposite, as I saw her go in there."
"Oh, no, she don’t live there," said Martha. "She was probably only
leaving some new-laid eggs or a plaster for Mrs Gresham’s rheumatics—she
do have rheumatics something chronic, poor dear. That’s what it was,
most likely, Miss Pamela. Elizabeth Bagg is a very kind-hearted
creature."
"I shall do my best to get to know her," said Pamela.
Half an hour later—after a slight delay caused by Caroline being unable
to make up her mind whether she should take her mackintosh as well as
her goloshes and umbrella, and finally deciding to take it in spite of
Isobel’s unconcealed mirth—the four girls started off on their walk to
Inchmoor. Beryl and Caroline were introduced to the village by the other
two girls, before they all turned up the lane that led through the
fields, and over the hill, to the market town.
This was the lane that led past the picturesque old windmill that
Millicent Jackson had told Pamela about in the paper-shop; and knowing
this, Pamela had brought a notebook and pencil with her in case she felt
tempted to stop and make a sketch of it while the others went on to
Inchmoor. There was nothing she wanted to get particularly at the shops
in the little town, and a fine day in January was a thing to seize for
sketching—there were so few fine days; and one could always do shopping
in the rain.
The lane that ran between the fields was very pretty even in January,
and Pamela found herself wishing that her brother Michael was with her;
he always appreciated the same scenery as she did, and her thoughts were
with him and those at home while she joined in, more or less at random,
the animated conversation that was going on around her. She dared not
let herself think too much about her home, or such a wave of
homesickness would have engulfed her that she would have wanted to go
straight off to the station and take a through ticket to Oldminster at
once. She felt she could not possibly endure six whole months without a
sight of her mother or any of them.
"But I’ve got to see this thing through now," she told herself. "I
mustn’t be silly. And six months will pass quickly if I’ve got plenty
to do."
Pamela had thought over her duties as hostess carefully, and was
convinced that it was necessary to have some kind of work for each of
them to do, day by day, if they were not to become bored or irritable
with each other, and if their six months’ stay in Barrowfield was to be
a success. Of course, it was too early to be bored with anything
yet—everything was so fresh; but presently, when they had got used to
each other and Barrowfield, she feared things might not run so
easily—unless there was plenty of interesting work to be done. Cut off
from their home interests, they were left with many blank spaces in
their lives which needed filling—and Pamela meant to see that these
spaces were filled; she was a great believer in keeping busy.
Enthusiasm is generally catching. And Pamela’s enthusiasm had been
communicated to the other three—which explains Isobel’s desire to
interview the principal of the Dancing Academy; and Caroline’s
determination to inquire about dress-making lessons in Inchmoor, though
unfortunately she had not been able to find anything about the matter in
the local paper. Beryl was in quest of some musical studies which she
meant to buy out of her three pounds. But enthusiasm can keep at white
heat with but few people; and those who are naturally enthusiastic must
keep the others going—as Pamela was to find out.
The four girls soon began to ascend a steep incline in the lane, with
tall hedges bordering each side now, and separating them from the
fields. Whenever they came to a gate set in a gap between the hedges,
and leading into one or other of the fields, they would stop for a
moment and look over the bars of the gate at the fine view of hills and
woods that unfolded itself before them. They were certainly in the
midst of charming country; even Isobel admitted this involuntarily, and
she rarely if ever expressed any appreciation of scenery.
At length, as they turned a bend in the lane, the old windmill came in
sight.
"What a fine picture it makes!" thought Pamela; then she exclaimed
aloud, "Oh, and there’s a pond beside it—Millicent Jackson never
mentioned the pond. It’s just exactly what it wants to complete the
picture."
So attracted was Pamela by the windmill, which proved on nearer
inspection to be even more picturesque than it had appeared from a
distance, that she arranged at once to stay behind and make a sketch of
it while the other three went on to Inchmoor.
"And if I’ve finished before you return I’ll come on to the town and
meet you. But if you don’t see me wandering round Inchmoor, look for me
here as you come back. You don’t mind me staying behind, do you? But I
feel just in the mood to try sketching this old place to-day," Pamela
said.
The others said that of course they did not mind, and after refreshing
each other’s memory with the reminder, that five o’clock was the hour
they had told Martha they would be home for ’high tea,’ they left Pamela
beside the old mill on the hill-top and started to wend their way down
the lane on the other side, toward the distant spires of Inchmoor, two
miles away.
"Do you know, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about that locked-up room
next to mine," said Isobel to the other two, as they went along. "Oh,
yes, I know Pamela thinks it wiser not to talk too much about it for
fear of adding ’fuel to the flames’ of curiosity! But one can’t help
thinking about it! It’s so frightfully strange. Now what do you
think—in your own mind, Caroline—what do you think _is_ inside that
room?"
"Well," replied Caroline slowly, "I shouldn’t be surprised if Miss
Crabingway kept all her private papers and possessions that she
treasures, and does not want us to use or spoil, locked up inside the
room. I know that’s what I’d have done if I’d been Miss Crabingway."
"You think it’s only _things_ then?" Beryl broke in. "Not—not a
person?"
"What do you mean?" cried Isobel instantly, turning to Beryl with great
interest.
Seeing that the other two were waiting eagerly for her reply, Beryl felt
a momentary thrill of importance, and let her imagination run away with
her.
"I mean," she said nervously, "supposing there was a secret entrance
leading into that room—so that a person could get in and out without us
knowing anything about it. And supposing some one occasionally crept
into the room and—and spied on us through the keyhole—just to see what
we were doing."
"Oh, Beryl, what an idea!" gasped Isobel in delight. "Whatever made you
think of that?"
"I don’t know—it—it just came into my head," stammered Beryl.
"I don’t think it’s at all a likely idea," Caroline deliberated.
"Surely one of us would have heard some little sound coming from the
room if there had been anyone inside there! I haven’t heard anything
myself. Besides, who would want to spy on us?"
"There’s only one person, of course—and that’s Miss Crabingway," said
Beryl.
Caroline’s eyes grew wide and round with surprise; but Isobel narrowed
hers, and looked at Beryl through the fringe of her eyelashes.
"You don’t mean to say," Isobel said incredulously, "that Miss
Crabingway would spend her time ... well, I never! What an idea!"
"But Miss Crabingway’s in Scotland, isn’t she?" asked Caroline in mild
astonishment. She had been told that Miss Crabingway had gone to
Scotland and had never questioned the matter—of course having no reason
to do so.
"Well—so we’re told," said Isobel; then she gave an exaggerated shiver.
"Ugh! I don’t like the idea of an eye watching me through the keyhole!"
"We might ask Martha to hang a curtain in front of the door—say we feel
a draught coming through on to the landing," suggested Beryl. "But
really, please don’t take this seriously—I only made it all up—in fun,
you know—it isn’t a bit possible. I—p’r’aps we ought not to have talked
about it. Pamela said ’fuel for the flames.’ ... And it does make you
more curious when you discuss it, doesn’t it?"
"I don’t know," said Isobel. "_I_ certainly shan’t be tempted to look
through the keyhole myself—in _case_ there’s anything in your idea, and
Miss Crabingway sees me, and I lose my fifty pounds. But I shall
_listen_, and if I hear any sounds coming from the room——"
Isobel was evidently rather taken with Beryl’s suggestion, for she
referred to it more than once before they reached Inchmoor.
When they at last arrived in the busy little market town they decided
that it would probably be quicker for each of them to go about her own
affairs, and then all to meet in an hour’s time at a certain tea-shop in
the High Street, where they would have some hot chocolate and sandwiches
to keep them going until they got home again.
"P’r’aps Pamela will have joined us by then," said Beryl hopefully.
Inchmoor was a bustling, cheerful little place, with very broad streets,
plenty of shops, a town hall, and a picture palace.
Beryl quickly discovered a music shop, and here she spent an enjoyable
half-hour turning over a pile of new and second-hand music, and picking
out several pieces that she had long wanted to buy. When she at length
tore herself reluctantly away from the music-seller’s, it occurred to
her that perhaps she might buy a new and warmer blouse if she could see
one in a draper’s window; but she was not used to buying clothes for
herself and rather dreaded the ordeal of entering a big drapery
establishment when she was not sure what kind of material she preferred,
nor how much she ought to pay for it. She passed and re-passed one
draper’s shop, but catching sight of the Wellington-nosed shop-walker,
and a fashionably dressed lady assistant, eyeing her through the glass
door, her courage failed her and she passed on down the street to
another draper’s. Here the exasperated tones of a girl serving at the
blouse counter came to Beryl’s ears, and she hesitated, lingered for a
few moments looking in the window, and then decided not to bother about
a blouse to-day—there was not much time left before she would have to
meet the others at the tea-shop. She looked about for a clock, and
spying one, found that there was no time left at all, and, inwardly
relieved, she walked briskly away down the street.
In the meantime Isobel had found Madame Clarence’s Dancing Academy, and
was now occupied in interviewing no less a personage than Madame
Clarence herself.
The Academy was in a side-street, and was a tall, flat-fronted old house
with a basement and an area; it did not look as if it belonged to
Inchmoor at all, being quite unlike the other houses in its
neighbourhood, which were frankly cottages, or really old-fashioned
country residences. The Academy was an alien; it looked so obviously
the sort of house that is seen in dozens on the outskirts of London. It
gave one the feeling that at some time or other it really must have been
a town house, and that one night it must have stolen away from the
London streets and come down here for a breath of the fresh country air.
And once having reached Inchmoor it had stayed on, lengthening its
holiday indefinitely, until every one had forgotten that it was only to
have been a holiday, and had accepted the Academy as a permanent
resident.
Madame Clarence, who received Isobel in a drawing-room which seemed to
be mostly blue plush, long lace curtains, and ferns, was a small,
bright-eyed woman, dressed in a black and white striped dress. Madame
walked in a springy, dancing manner, and when she was not talking she
was humming softly to herself. She wore a number of rings on her short
white fingers—fingers which were never for a moment still, but were
either playing an imaginary piano on Madame’s knee, drumming on the
table, toying with the large yellow beads round Madame’s neck, or doing
appropriate actions to illustrate the words Madame said. Madame had grey
hair, though her skin was soft and unwrinkled, except for a certain
bagginess under the eyes.
To all appearances Madame must have been inside the house when it came
down from London, for she gave an impression of being town-bred, and,
judging by her conversation, of having conferred a favour on Inchmoor by
consenting to reside in so unimportant a spot. She said she would be
charmed to have Miss Prior as a pupil, and ran over, for Isobel’s
benefit, a long list of names of Society people to whom she claimed to
have given dancing lessons. Isobel was duly impressed and inquired her
fees. After ascertaining what kind of dancing Isobel wished to be
instructed in, Madame said the fee would be three guineas a term; and as
Miss Prior had come when the term was already well advanced, Madame said
she would give her extra private lessons until she caught up with the
rest of the class. This seemed so generous of Madame that Isobel closed
with the offer at once, although the appearance of the Academy was not
quite what she had expected; but still, Isobel reminded herself,
Inchmoor was only a little country town, and it was a marvellous and
fortunate thing to find anyone so exclusive as Madame in such a
backwater. And Isobel wondered how the little dancing-mistress had
drifted here.
Isobel’s thoughts were interrupted by Madame rising and offering
personally to conduct her over the dancing-hall, which she proceeded to
do, humming as she led the way into a large room with polished floor,
seats round the walls, and a baby-grand piano; around the piano were
clustered bamboo fern-stands and pedestals, which supported large ferns
growing in pots.
"This floor is a perfect dweam to dance on," Madame informed Isobel.
"I’m sure you will enjoy it."
After exchanging one or two polite and complimentary remarks with
Madame, and having arranged to come over to the Academy every Tuesday
morning and every Friday afternoon, Isobel was about to depart when
Madame said:
"It is a long way for you to come fwom Bawwowfield alone—have you not a
fwiend who would care to come with you and take lessons also?"
Isobel had not thought of this before, but told Madame Clarence she
would see if she could arrange for a friend to come with her, admitting
that she would certainly prefer it to coming alone.
On her way to the tea-shop she turned the idea over in her mind, and
speculated on the likelihood of one of the other girls joining her. She
had not much hope of Pamela (whom she would have preferred), because she
did not seem to be interested in dancing and wanted all her spare time
for her sketching and reading. Beryl was a doubtful person—no, Isobel
thought it unlikely that Beryl would join. Caroline—Isobel smiled to
herself at the idea of slow, clumsy Caroline dancing. "It would do her
a world of good though," she thought to herself. "And, anyway, though
I’m not frightfully keen on her company, she’d be better than no one."
She would put the matter to all three, Isobel decided, and see if any of
them seemed inclined to join her.
She found Caroline and Beryl waiting at the tea-shop for her, and the
three of them went in and ordered hot chocolate and sandwiches. They
chose a table near the window so that they were able to watch all that
went on in the street outside.
Caroline was rather sulky over the meal because she had failed to find
out anything at all about dressmaking classes in Inchmoor, and was
consequently disappointed. Such classes did not seem to exist, and she
had spent her hour in fruitless inquiries, and in trying to get a
certain kind of embroidery silk to match some that she already had. The
silk had been unobtainable also, and Caroline’s time had been wasted on
disappointing quests. This was not the time to talk about dancing;
Isobel had the wisdom to know this, but nevertheless she was dying to
talk about it. She forbore, however, in her own future interests.
"I suppose nobody’s seen Pamela yet?" Isobel observed. "We shall find
her still sketching those few old bricks, I expect—unless she’s found it
too cold to sit still! And my goodness! won’t she be hungry by this
time!"
"Could we take a couple of sandwiches along with us, do you think?"
suggested Beryl. "In case she would like to have them."
"Not a bad idea," said Isobel.
So that is what they did. The short January day was already well
advanced, and a chilly little breeze had sprung up by the time they
emerged from the tea-shop. Isobel and Caroline fastened their furs
snugly round their throats, and Beryl buttoned up her coat collar. Then
the three girls started briskly off toward Barrowfield.
Meanwhile, Pamela, when the other three left her, had first of all
explored the mill and then settled down to her work. That the mill was
partly ruined and wholly deserted made matters perfect, according to
Pamela’s ideas. She wandered up to the open doorway and looked inside.
Bricks and dust and broken timber within—nothing else. It was quite
light inside, owing to the many holes in the walls. Pamela stepped
cautiously in, picking her way through the dust and dried leaves that
had drifted in, and over the loose bricks and wooden laths, and
clambering on to a small mound of accumulated dust and rubbish she
looked through one of the holes in the wall at the magnificent sweep of
country stretching away downhill to the little cup in the hill-side
where Barrowfield lay. She could see the smoke rising up from the
houses in the village; and beyond this, on the farthest side of the cup,
a range of tree-clad hills closed the view. Barrowfield was not in a
valley, but in a little hollow among the hills.
On the other hand, Inchmoor, which could be located from a hole in the
other side of the windmill, was certainly down in a valley; the road
leading to the market town was only visible for a short distance beyond
the mill; it twisted and curved and then dived out of sight—to become
visible again far in the distance when about to enter Inchmoor. Pamela,
gazing from the hill-top, could not see anything of the three girls on
their way to Inchmoor, as they were already hidden from her sight by a
bend in the road.
But when she went back to her former position and took a final look over
Barrowfield way before starting work, her eye caught sight of a figure
coming rapidly up the hill, along the lane which the girls had just
traversed. Being the only living thing in sight at the moment, Pamela
watched the figure until it was hidden from her sight for a few minutes
by the tall hedges that grew at the sides of the lane. She was not
particularly interested in the figure, but had noticed casually that it
was a woman, and that the woman appeared to have a slight limp. When
she lost sight of her Pamela came out of the old windmill, and taking up
the position she had chosen for making her sketch, she got everything
ready and set to, and was soon absorbed in her work.
How long she had been sketching before she became aware that some one
was standing watching her Pamela did not know. It was probably a
considerable time, but she was so engrossed in what she was doing that
she had not heard footsteps passing in the lane behind her—footsteps
that ceased suddenly, while a woman dressed all in black and wearing a
black hat with a heavy veil over her face, and a thick silk muffler
wound round her neck and shoulders, stopped and stood gazing with a
strange and curiously vindictive look at the unconscious Pamela.
Suddenly, without any other reason except that queer, sub-conscious
feeling that one is being watched, Pamela shivered and looked quickly
round over her shoulder—and saw the woman in the lane.
As soon as Pamela stirred the woman turned her head away and moved on,
hastily limping forward up the hill.
Pamela, in accordance with the usual country custom, called out in a
friendly tone, "Good-day."
The woman made no reply, but continued her limping walk, and was quickly
out of sight.
"I suppose she didn’t hear. P’r’aps she’s deaf," said Pamela to
herself, and thought no more about it.
Could she have seen the expression on the woman’s face as she stood in
the lane a few minutes earlier, watching, Pamela would not have resumed
her work with a mind as free from curiosity as she did.
*CHAPTER IX*
*ISOBEL MAKES TROUBLE*
Pamela had just finished her sketch, and had begun to be aware that a
chilly breeze was blowing down her neck, and that her hands were cold,
when the sound of voices came floating toward her; she suddenly realized
that it must have been a long time ago when the other girls had left
her. And then she heard Isobel’s voice exclaiming:
"Why, she’s still here! Good gracious, Pamela, you don’t mean to say
you’re still drawing those old bits of wood and bricks! ... Well!" The
voice ended on a note of despair that was meant to signify Isobel’s
conviction that Pamela was qualifying for an asylum. "You must be
frightfully hungry," Isobel continued, as the three girls came up to
Pamela.
Then it was that Pamela woke up to the fact that she was hungry—very
hungry, and very glad of the sandwiches which Beryl now produced and
handed over to her.
"I say, that was thoughtful of you. Thanks so much," she smiled at
Beryl.
"Did you finish your sketch? May I see it?" asked Beryl shyly.
Pamela brought the drawing out. "But I’m not a bit satisfied with it,"
she said.
"Oh, I think it’s splendid," said Beryl, gazing admiringly at Pamela’s
picture of the old windmill and the pond.
It was certainly well done; Pamela’s style was uncommon, and her
treatment of the subject bold and decided. She had talent, undoubtedly,
but how far this talent would take her, time alone would show. Pamela
was very ambitious, but very critical of her own work, and though full
of enthusiasm over a picture while at work upon it, was rarely satisfied
with it when finished, which was a very good thing, as it always spurred
her on to try to do better. However, Beryl, who was no judge of
pictures, thought Pamela’s sketch was perfect.
Not until they reached home and were sitting round the fire after ’high
tea’ did Isobel remember that she had meant to buy a camera in Inchmoor.
"I must get it when I go over to Madame Clarence’s for my first lesson,"
she said. "It will be amusing to keep a photographic record of my visit
here."
She had told them all about Madame during the walk home, and now tried
to persuade one of them to join her in having dancing-lessons. Nothing
definite was settled that night, and Isobel left them to think the
matter over.
The following day the girls made an attempt to start on their programme
of work. Caroline put in a couple of hours sewing. Beryl practised and
copied out some music. And Pamela got out her sketch-book. But what
was poor Isobel to do without a Madame Clarence, or a camera at hand?
She wandered round the garden for a time, and then she went indoors and
talked to Caroline; but finding this too dull, she roamed round the
house—keeping a safe distance from the locked door—and went in and out
of various rooms, and stood looking out of windows and yawning, until
she was almost bored to tears. It was curious, she thought to herself,
that the very sight of other people working made her restless and
disinclined to settle down to read or write or sew or do anything at
all.
Unfortunately this seemed to be the case throughout her stay at
Chequertrees; she never wanted to work when other people were working,
and consequently there were frequent interruptions from her. Pamela
found that the only time she could work indoors undisturbed was when
Isobel was over in Inchmoor at her dancing-lessons. Isobel was one of
those unhappy people who cannot entertain themselves, but who always
want somebody else to be entertaining them.
On this first occasion, when the other three were working and Isobel
yawning, Pamela bore it as long as she could, then, packing her
sketching materials away with a sigh of regret, she invited Isobel to
come out and do a bit of gardening with her. Isobel hated gardening,
but it meant some one to talk to, and so she jumped at the idea eagerly.
Pamela was not over-fond of gardening, she knew very little about it,
but anything was better than hearing Isobel’s restless feet wandering
about and listening to her audible sighs and yawns.
Out of doors it was rather cold, so they wrapped up warmly, and set to
work to ’tidy up a bit’ in the garden at the back of the house.
For a while all went well and Isobel chatted away to her heart’s
content, while Pamela tied up some withered-looking plants (whose name
she did not know) with a length of twine she had found in the kitchen.
Martha was upstairs getting dressed for the afternoon when the two girls
started on their new occupation, and Ellen was out shopping in the
village, otherwise Pamela and Isobel might have been warned about old
Silas Sluff. As it was, they continued their gardening, blissfully
unconscious that old Silas was just round the corner of the gravel path,
behind the privet hedge that separated the vegetable garden from the
lawn and flowers.
"I think," said Pamela, "this old bush ought to be trimmed a bit—I
wonder if there’s a pair of shears handy.... Is this the right time of
year to cut it though? ... What do you think?"
"Oh, I expect so," said Isobel at random, knowing nothing about it.
"Any time would be all right with those sturdy old bushes—I don’t know
where the shears are, but here’s a pair of old scissors I brought out
from the kitchen—they’d do, wouldn’t they? Here, let me do a bit of
trimming. And, do you know, mater had promised me and Gerald that in
any case we should..." She continued a lengthy story that she had
started to recount for Pamela’s benefit.
And then old Silas came round the privet hedge to fetch his wheelbarrow.
He came to an abrupt standstill when he caught sight of the two girls,
and stared, open-mouthed, his hat pushed back on his head and his watery
blue eyes wide with astonishment. He had had no idea that there was
anyone in the garden; he had not heard any talking, as he was afflicted
with deafness.
"’Ere!" was all he said, when he recovered from his surprise.
Pamela and Isobel started, and turned round at once.
They beheld a very wrinkled little old man, with a ruddy complexion and
a tuft of white beard under his chin; he wore a green baize apron, to
protect his clothes from the soil, and had a vivid pink shirt with
sleeves rolled up to the elbow. As the girls returned his gaze
steadily, they saw his face begin to work and twitch with indignation.
"’Ere!" he said again.
"I beg your pardon," said Pamela.
"What do you want, my good man?" inquired Isobel, haughtily.
"’Ere! Wot yer doin’ to that there bush? You leave it be, my gels!"
called Silas.
Isobel’s eyebrows were raised in indignant surprise.
"Why—we’re only doing a little gardening! What is it? Who are you?"
asked Pamela, unaware that old Silas was deaf.
"’Ere’s me—done this gardin—man and boy—for forty year—and I don’t ’ave
no interference," cried Silas.
"Oh, I suppose you are Miss Crabingway’s gardener?" said Pamela.
"Leave it be, my gels," was all Silas replied. "If you’d _arxed_ me I’d
a-given you summat to do—but not that bush—you oughter arxed me first."
"How dare you speak to us like that—" began Isobel, angrily.
But Pamela interrupted with, "It’s no good, Isobel, I think he’s deaf.
He doesn’t seem to hear anything we say."
"I don’t care whether he’s deaf or not deaf—I won’t be spoken to like
that by a servant. Such impertinence!" cried Isobel.
Silas meanwhile had continued talking without a pause, while he advanced
slowly down the path toward them.
Pamela moved forward to meet him, and raising her voice tried to make
him understand what they were doing and who they were.
"I’m sorry if you think we’ve done any harm to the garden—but I don’t
think we have, you know," she cried. "And we didn’t know Miss
Crabingway had a gardener."
Silas caught the last sentence. This indeed was adding insult to
injury, though Pamela had not meant to be in the least insulting.
"Didn’t—know—Miss—Crabingway—had a gardener," repeated Silas, amazed.
"Why—I done this gardin——man and boy—forty year, I ’ave. Don’t it _look_
like it?" he demanded.
"Yes, it does—of course it does," answered Pamela, trying to appease
him.
"Well then—" he began, then caught sight of Isobel treading on the side
of the garden bed. "’Ere! Get orf that, my gel," he cried. "You’re
crushin’ them li’l plants."
This was too much for Isobel. The gruff, disrespectful tones, the
ordering manner, and the ’my gel,’ made her suddenly enraged, and her
temper got beyond her control.
"How—how dare you!" she flared up. "This is no more your garden than it
is—than it is mine, and _I won’t_ be spoken to like this!"
As her words seemed to be making no impression on Silas, she
deliberately stamped on the little plants; then, her temper being
properly roused, she turned and snatching at a branch of the bush behind
her she twisted and bent it and snapped it off, and flung it on to the
pathway.
"There!" she panted. "_Now_ perhaps you will understand that _I will
not_ tolerate your insolent manner."
With her head high in the air, and her cheeks burning, she walked
haughtily away into the house.
Old Silas was dumbfounded.
"Oh, how silly!" cried Pamela, ashamed for Isobel. "I’m so sorry she
did that."
Old Silas’s watery blue eyes were still more watery as he stooped down
and tried with gentle hands to remedy the mischief that Isobel had done
to the little plants. Pamela knelt down on the path to help him, and
was bending over the garden bed when all at once she heard the old
gardener give a chuckle. She glanced round in surprise. Silas was
wagging his head from side to side and chuckling to himself. The plants
were not very much damaged, and the bush—well, it would grow again. But
it was not these discoveries that filled old Silas’s soul with glee.
"Who’d a thought it!" he chuckled. "There’s a high sperrit for yer!
’Oighty-toighty is it, my gel? Ho! Hall right! We shall see. Ole
Silas Sluff’ll learn yer to darnse on ’is gardin. You wait!"
He took no more notice of Pamela, but seemed absorbed in his own
thoughts, and when Pamela left him and went indoors he was still giving
occasional chuckles and muttering to himself.
"What made you do it?" Pamela said to Isobel afterward. "It didn’t do
any good——"
"But the man was preposterous!" said Isobel.
"I know he spoke gruffly, but I don’t think he meant to be rude," said
Pamela. "It’s just his manner."
"Then it’s time he learnt better," Isobel replied. "I don’t know what
the world’s coming to, I’m sure, with all these inferior creatures
setting up to teach——"
"If you count Silas Sluff your inferior, you should be sorry for him and
set to work to show him how to behave, instead of——"
"If he were my gardener I’d dismiss him on the spot," Isobel said.
Pamela realized the uselessness of continuing the discussion any further
at present, and so the subject was dropped for the time being.
"I ought to have warned you, Miss Isobel," said Martha, when she heard
the story. "Old Silas is that touchy-like—but no one takes no notice of
what he says. He’s worked about these parts for years as a jobbing
gardener. But no one takes no notice of him. At present he comes and
works two days a week for Miss Crabingway, and the other four days he
gives a extra hand up at the Manor House. He lodges down in the
village—next door but three to the blacksmith—nice little
house—overlooks the stables of the ’Blue Boar’ from the back windows."
But when Martha recounted the incident to Ellen, over supper that night,
Ellen remembered previous occasions when Silas had been put out with
people, and, thinking of his subsequent revenges, her only comment on
the story was, "Oo-er!"
The first dinner of Pamela’s choosing was voted a great success by
Isobel and Beryl. Caroline, who always liked to be as accurate as
possible in her remarks, said she would have liked the pudding to have
been a little more ’substantial’; chocolate _soufflé_ was very tasty,
but there was no inside to it. Caroline had a strong preference for
solid puddings—as the other three were to learn when Caroline’s turn for
arranging meals came round. Meal-times had been fixed so as to give
everybody at Chequertrees as much freedom as possible. Breakfast was at
8 a.m. and dinner was at 6.30 p.m., and between those hours there was
sometimes lunch at 12.30—and sometimes there was not. If the girls were
going out for the day they would get lunch out, or take some sandwiches
with them. A tea-tray, daintily set for four, with milk, sugar,
tea-pot, spirit kettle, and a plate of cakes, was always to be found in
the drawing-room in the afternoons, so that the girls could make a cup
of tea when they fancied it; and Martha and Ellen were thus left free in
the afternoons. This had been one of Pamela’s ideas, and had astonished
Martha, who had protested that it was no trouble for her to get them a
cup of tea; but Pamela had insisted, and when Martha got used to the
arrangement she appreciated it very much. It was good to know that the
whole afternoon was her own, and that she would not be disturbed. A
glass of hot milk just before bedtime was the last meal of the day.
By the end of January the four girls had settled down fairly comfortably
in their new surroundings. Isobel had had her first dancing-lessons at
the Academy, which she enjoyed immensely, although she had not been able
to persuade one of the other girls to join her yet. Pamela had started
an ambitious piece of work—a picture of Chequertrees, as seen from the
front garden—which she meant to work on from time to time whenever the
weather did not tempt her to go farther afield than the garden; she
wanted to take a picture of Chequertrees home with her, so that Mother
and Michael could see what the house was like—the house where she had
spent six months away from them. Beryl had kept up her practice each
day, and spent a good deal of time studying books on theory,
composition, and the biographies of great musicians. And Caroline had
finished her handkerchiefs and had started on a linen brush and comb
bag.
One evening after dinner the four girls were in the drawing-room, Pamela
deeply engrossed in a historical story, Beryl copying some music into a
manuscript music-book, Caroline sewing as usual, and Isobel reclining on
the couch by the crackling fire and dividing her time between yawning
and glancing at the _Barrowfield Observer_; presently she gave an
exclamation of surprise, and sat up, rustling the paper.
"Listen to this, girls!" she cried. "The local newsrag informs its
readers that Sir Henry and Lady Prior and family return to the Manor
House next week, and that Lady Prior wishes it stated that the annual
bazaar and garden fête (in aid of the Barrowfield Cottage Hospital) will
be held as usual at the end of May, and that those who intend making
gifts for the stalls at the bazaar should send in their names to her
ladyship’s secretary, Miss Daleham, as soon as possible. That’s where
_I_ come in!" Isobel continued. "That will be the best way to introduce
myself to their notice.... So they’ll be coming back to the Manor House
next week, will they? Isn’t it ripping?"
"I love bazaars," said Caroline, slowly and with relish; she saw in her
mind’s eye a vista of neatly hemmed handkerchiefs, with initials worked
in the corners; plump pin-cushions, dorothy bags, hair-tidies, cushion
covers with frills, tea-cosies, all worked by hand. Already she could
see these things spread alluringly out on a stall for sale, with neat
little tickets stuck on them. "I’ll send in my name to make something,"
she added.
She did not see Isobel frown as she picked up her newspaper again.
"Bazaars," said Pamela over the top of her book, "I don’t like bazaars.
They are places where you get the least value for the greatest amount of
money spent. I’d always rather give my money willingly to any good
cause or fund—rather than buy something I didn’t want at a price it
wasn’t worth—just so that I could _see_ something for the money I was
giving in this roundabout way to a deserving object."
Caroline gazed at her in astonishment.
"I think bazaars are splendid things for helping charities," she said
slowly. "I don’t think of them as you do——"
"Oh, what does it matter about the bazaar," broke in Isobel. "What
really matters to me is that it’s a chance to make the acquaintance of
my probable relatives. I wonder if there are any daughters in the
family about my age?"
But Caroline, who was not attending to Isobel for the moment, threaded
another needle, and went steadily on with her line of argument.
"People buy much more at a bazaar than they would in the usual way," she
informed Pamela.
"And they pay much more than they would in the usual way," laughed
Pamela.
"And so more money is collected for the charity," urged Caroline.
"I doubt it," said Pamela. "You think of all the time and money spent
in the making of the articles for the stalls—and the arrangements and
correspondence in connection with the bazaar. Now if the cost of all
that were put into one side of the scales, and the amount of money taken
at the bazaar put into the other side of the scales, I think I know
which side would weigh heavier."
"No," Caroline shook her head; "I don’t think you do. Each person who
helps gives a little time and money to the making of the things, which
are afterward sold all together for a substantial sum. It seems to me a
very good way to raise money."
"But it’s such a wasteful system," objected Pamela. "If people gave
what money they could spare straight to the good cause they wished to
benefit, and then spent their time on doing more useful work than
stuffing pin-cushions and writing out tickets for bazaars, I’m sure it
would be more practical."
"But people won’t do things that way," said Beryl, joining in for the
first time. "Though I quite agree with you, Pamela, in disliking
bazaars."
"Anyway," said Isobel, impatiently, because she had again lost the reins
of the conversation, "although I don’t care ’tuppence’ about bazaars,
one way or the other, I’m going to this one for reasons I’ve already
stated. You see I’m quite honest about it—I only want an excuse for
meeting my long-lost, or perhaps I should say new-found, relations."
Pamela, looking across at Isobel, suddenly realized something, and
marvelled that it had not occurred to her before; maybe it was because
she had not paid much attention to Isobel’s chatter about Lady Prior—had
not taken it seriously; but now that she heard the Priors were
returning, and that Isobel was going to take the first opportunity of
meeting them, she cried impulsively,
"Why, Isobel, you _can’t_! Don’t you remember that we all had to
promise Miss Crabingway not to visit or invite to this house ’any
relations whatsoever’!"
A look of dismay flashed across Isobel’s face.
"Oh," her voice dropped in quick disappointment; but the next moment she
recovered. "But perhaps they’re not my relatives after all," she said,
hardly knowing whether she wished they were or were not. "Oh, bother
those silly old restrictions!" she cried irritably. "But what can I do?
How can I find out if they are my relatives or not unless I meet them?"
Pamela thought awhile. "Well—appoint a deputy—some one to go and find
out for you," she suggested, half sorry for Isobel on account of her
obvious disappointment, and half amused at her keenness to claim
relationship with these titled folk of the neighbourhood. Pamela felt
sure that Isobel would not dream of trying to claim kinship with the
village bootmaker, or grocer, if his name happened to be Prior.
But Pamela’s suggestion did not suit Isobel at all; half the excitement
would be lost if some one else had all the introductory moves to do.
"Oh, I don’t think Miss Crabingway’s silly old rule could possibly apply
to Lady Prior," said Isobel.
"Why not?" asked Pamela.
"Well—you see—it’s different somehow—you see they are strangers to me at
present, even if they _are_ my relatives. And I can’t see how it would
matter if I get to know them. Miss Crabingway must mean relatives one
already knows."
"Not necessarily, I’m afraid," said Pamela.
"Well, what shall I do?" asked Isobel, blankly.
"If you are really anxious to settle the matter, I’m afraid a deputy is
the only course open to you. Of course, if they are your relations you
must simply ignore them; if they’re not, you can cultivate their
acquaintance or not, just as you like," Pamela said, trying her best to
be helpful to Isobel, as she could see the problem appeared to be of
great moment to her.
"Oh, but I couldn’t ignore Lady Prior in any case, could I?" said
Isobel.
"You must settle that matter yourself," replied Pamela, quietly. "But I
think it would be breaking your word to Miss Crabingway if you visit
’any relations whatsoever.’"
Isobel was quiet for a while, thinking the matter over.
"Um! Well, I’ll have to see," she said presently, and fell silent
again, making plans for the future.
The other three resumed their occupations, and for a while there were no
sounds in the room but the rustle of paper, the scratching of a pen, and
the little plucking noise of Caroline’s needle as it moved in and out of
the stiff linen she was sewing.
By and by Beryl got up and went out of the room to fetch another sheet
of music from her box upstairs. This interruption caused Isobel to
break silence again by making several remarks to Caroline concerning
Beryl’s attire.
"And why ever she wears such short-sleeved blouses this cold weather,
I’m sure I don’t know," she ended.
"They don’t look like new ones. Perhaps she’s had them some time,"
suggested Caroline.
"Yes. Certainly the style looks a bit out of date," said Isobel,
laughing. "I wonder her people didn’t get her some new ones when they
knew she was coming here, instead of sending her in old-fashioned things
like that."
Pamela, deep in her book, became suddenly aware of the turn the
conversation had taken, and fearing Beryl might return and overhear
(because Isobel was thoughtlessly talking in her usual clear,
penetrating voice), she clapped her book to, and jumped up, saying:
"What do you say to a tune—and, oh, I know—a little dance—to tire us out
before we go to bed. May I have the pleasure, mam’selle? Get up,
Isobel, I want to push the couch out of the way to make more room. Come
and show us what you learnt at Madame Clarence’s on Friday?"
Isobel, welcoming any diversion for a change, willingly helped to push
the furniture out of the way, and very soon she was waltzing round the
room to the strains of a haunting melody that Pamela was playing on the
piano. Caroline, although she protested that she could not dance, was
made to join in by Isobel.
"I’ll show you, come on!" Isobel insisted; and to the accompaniment of
Pamela’s tune and much laughter and joking from Isobel (all of which
Caroline took very good-temperedly), Caroline was piloted round the
room, moving ponderously and ungracefully in the mazes of a waltz.
"Of course you’re not _obliged_ to dance on my feet, dear child,"
groaned Isobel, laughingly. "It would make a little variety for you if
you danced on the carpet just _occasionally_, you know. Take care,
you’ll knock that chair over! Look out, Pamela, we’re coming past you!"
It was to this laughing, animated scene that Beryl returned. Pamela,
looking over her shoulder, took a hurried glance at Beryl’s face, and
was satisfied. "I’m so glad. She didn’t overhear Isobel then," she
thought. But Pamela was wrong.
However, Beryl, having had time to cool her tell-tale cheeks before she
came in, joined in now as if quite unconscious; and when, presently,
Ellen appeared with four glasses of hot milk on a tray (followed by
Martha, who was curious to see what was going on), Beryl was playing a
lively Irish jig on the piano, and Pamela and Isobel were dancing
furiously in the middle of the room; while Caroline sat gasping on the
couch, fanning herself with the _Barrowfield Observer_, and recovering
from the polka Isobel had just been trying to teach her.
"I like to see young things dance and enjoy theirselves," observed
Martha, as she and Ellen stood in the doorway for a few minutes,
watching.
"It’s a long time since there was any dancing in this house," said
Ellen.
"Yet what’s nicer!" replied Martha, beaming into the room.
*CHAPTER X*
*PAMELA BEFRIENDS BERYL AND MEETS ELIZABETH BAGG*
On looking back at the first months’ happenings at Barrowfield, there
were two incidents that always stood out clearly from all the rest in
Pamela’s mind; they made a deep impression on her at the time, and
afterward influenced her actions considerably. The first of these
incidents was the confession Beryl made to her; and the second, the
beginning of her friendship with Elizabeth Bagg.
Passing Beryl’s door on her way to bed one night Pamela caught the sound
of sobbing. She stood still, listening; the sounds were faint, but
unmistakable. What should she do? She hesitated for a moment, then
tapped on the door; then, as no one answered, and the sobbing continued
without a break, Pamela turned the handle and went in.
A candle on the dressing-table lighted up the figure of Beryl, still
fully dressed, stretched on the bed, her face buried in the pillows.
"Why, Beryl! Beryl! What’s the matter? Can I help you, dear?" Pamela
closed the door, and, crossing the room, laid her hand on Beryl’s
shaking shoulders.
Beryl sprang up as if she had been shot.
"Oh! I didn’t hear anybody—Oh! Pamela!" and she burst out crying
again—not noisily, but in an intense, quiet way, that frightened Pamela.
"Are you ill, Beryl? Shall I go and fetch Martha?" she asked anxiously.
Beryl shook her head. "No, no," she sobbed. "I—I’ll be all right—in
a—in a minute. Wait a minute."
Pamela waited patiently, sitting on the edge of the bed, her arm round
Beryl’s shoulders. "Poor old girl," she said once.
Presently Beryl became calmer, and began to murmur apologetically,
"It’s so silly of me. I’m so sorry if I gave you a start—I didn’t hear
you come in—I thought I’d locked the door—and I couldn’t help crying
again when I saw you—I was all worked up so. Please forgive me—being so
silly—only—only I was so miserable." And here the tears began afresh.
"Don’t, Beryl, you’ll make yourself ill if you cry like that. I wish I
could help you— What is it? Won’t you tell me? _Do_ trust me, if it’s
anything I can help you in—I would be so glad to help you. Do tell me
what it is," urged Pamela.
For a moment Beryl felt inclined to prevaricate, and say that she was
merely overtired, or depressed, and so account for the fit of crying;
but the longing to share her troubles with some one—and that some one
the most sympathetic person she knew at present—conquered her usual
reticence. She feared losing Pamela’s respect, and yet she felt as if
Pamela would somehow understand her.
"Is it that you’re longing to go home?" asked Pamela kindly, quite
unprepared for the emphasis with which Beryl replied:
"Oh, _no_."
"I believe I know," said Pamela, remembering one or two occasions
recently in which Isobel figured as the cause of discomfiture to Beryl.
"Some one has been bothering you about things that don’t concern them in
the least.... I shouldn’t mind about that if I were you."
"You must think it silly of me—I wish I didn’t care—and I don’t really,"
Beryl explained in a confused way. "I care much more what you think
about me than I do what Isobel thinks about me. It’s what _I_ do, when
she keeps questioning me, that upsets me." Beryl paused, and rubbed her
eyes with her handkerchief, then said suddenly, "When she bothers me
with questions I—it makes me tell _lies_! ... And, oh, Pamela," she
sobbed, "I do _hate_ myself for doing it." She went on to explain more
fully, pausing every now and again to dab her eyes, or blow her nose, or
cry a little bit more; and Pamela, piecing the broken sentences
together, began to understand what had been taking place.
"She’s always asking me about my school—and I haven’t told her the truth
about that," said Beryl. "When father and mother died, and left me in
the charge of my aunt, aunt was not able to afford much for me, so she
sent me to a _council_ school. That’s where I was educated! And I
haven’t the courage to tell Isobel this, because she might despise me,
as she seems to despise all people who have been to such schools. I
know it’s stupid of me, and I despise myself for being afraid to tell
her. But having once said I’d been to another sort of school I have to
keep on inventing things about it—about a place I’ve never been to—and I
feel so horrid all the time.... And then, she ridicules my clothes—I
know she does—and I can’t help it—I haven’t any others at present; some
that I wear are my cousin’s left-off ones—I’d never have chosen them
myself.... Then she’s always asking about my—my father and mother—and
the aunt I lived with, after they died.... Aunt Laura keeps a little
shop in Enfield, where her daughter—Cousin Laura—helps her to serve
behind the counter. And I haven’t told Isobel this because she always
speaks of ’shop-people’ with such contempt.... We lived very roughly at
Enfield, and Aunt Laura was always shouting, and I couldn’t bear the
slovenly way we had meals. Oh, I’ve hated it all, and hated having it
always thrust before my mind by Isobel’s questions, and hated myself for
deceiving everybody. I’ve felt all the time as if I’ve been out of
place—pretending to be used to a nicely-kept household, when I’m not....
I’ve sometimes almost wished that Miss Crabingway had never invited me
here—and yet, I love being here.... Oh, I’m sure you’ll think I’m
ridiculous for making such a fuss about these things, but you can’t
think what a lot I’ve _felt_ them—and how I’ve dreaded Isobel finding
out."
Beryl paused. "But most of all I’ve dreaded—" she began, and then
stopped, "I’ve dreaded—" she was having great difficulty in getting her
words out now, "I’ve—dreaded—her knowing—about my father. He—he died—in
_prison_." She was not crying now, but gazing with wide, frightened
eyes into Pamela’s face. "I _must_ tell you—I _must_ tell you the
rest—it wouldn’t be fair not to. Wait a minute."
Beryl put her hand inside her blouse and drew out a little key attached
to a long black cord; scrambling hurriedly to her feet she went across
to a drawer in the dressing-table and brought out a small black box; she
unlocked this, and quickly found what she wanted. It was a letter,
written in faint, thin writing, which she brought over and placed in
Pamela’s hands.
"Read it," said Beryl, and stood holding the lighted candle just behind
Pamela’s shoulder so that she could see to read the following letter:
MY DEAR LITTLE DAUGHTER,
Some day, in the distant future, you may hear cruel things said about
your father—things that may not only be cruel, but false as well, and
which will cause you much suffering. The truth is cruel, but I am going
to tell you the truth now, so that you will know all there is to know,
and will not suffer unnecessarily. I wish for your sake that my life
could be spared until you had grown to years of understanding, but this
I know cannot be.
As I write this you are playing happily on the rug at my feet—such a
little thing you are—my poor little daughter. And you are laughing....
It makes my heart ache to think that when you are old enough to read
this letter, and understand, you may be crying—and I shall not be near
to comfort you.
But we must face things bravely, my dear.... Your father is dead. He
died two months ago in prison. They told me it was pneumonia, but I
know that it was because his heart was broken. (People can die of broken
hearts, you know, Beryl.) When he died he was serving a term of
imprisonment for embezzlement; he stole a large sum of money from his
employers—hoping to be able to pay it back before it was missed, he
said; but he was not able to do this. Never believe that he was a
wicked man, your father; he was tempted—and he could not resist. He had
been with the same firm for many years, and large sums of money passed
through his hands each month. At home there were debts to pay—I was
ill, and you had been ill—and illness uses up so much money; and your
father’s salary was not over-high, although his position was a
responsible one. You can see how it happened—how, when an opportunity
occurred when he could easily borrow the money, the temptation was too
much for him....
His employers were very hard on him, in spite of his long and honourable
years of service with them—and he died in prison.
That is all. And if, in the future, you hear additions to this story,
do not believe them, little daughter—they are not true.
Your father was a good man, in my eyes, in spite of everything.
Remember, he did it for us—so that you and I might live and get well and
strong. For me, it was useless.... I know I am dying now. For you—I
am praying for you....
Pamela read the signature of Beryl’s mother through a blur of tears.
She was not a girl who cried easily, and she bit her underlip in an
effort to stop it quivering; but the tears forced their way into her
eyes so that she dared not look up at Beryl for a moment. She stared
instead at the old letter in her hands—the letter written over fourteen
years ago, seeing nothing but the white sheet of paper glimmering
through her tears. She did not realize that Beryl was waiting in an
agony of suspense for her to speak, until she looked up at length and
saw Beryl’s face.
"Oh, Beryl," was all she could say. And the next moment she had flung
her arms round Beryl, and both girls were crying together.
"You see," said Beryl, after a while, "it isn’t that I’m ashamed of my
father—oh, it _isn’t_ that, but I couldn’t ever explain to Isobel—I
couldn’t talk to her about him at all—she’d be all out of sympathy, and
she wouldn’t understand a bit.... you understand how I mean, Pamela,
don’t you? ... I’ve never shown this letter to anyone but you. It was
left to me—locked up in an old box with some other things from my
mother, with instructions that I was to open it on my fourteenth
birthday.... I can’t tell you how I felt when I first read it—it came
just at a time when I was needing it badly.... But I wouldn’t show it
to Isobel for anything—you do understand, Pamela?"
"I think I understand," said Pamela gently. "But, Beryl, dear, about
your school, and the other things, you’ve let the thought of Isobel’s
opinion gain an unreasonable power over you—and you said just now you
didn’t really mind what she thought of you?"
"Yes, I know," said Beryl, tearfully. "It’s all been so silly, and it
seems sillier when it’s talked of even than when I only thought about
it.... Pamela, do you—do you despise me?"
"Of course I don’t," replied Pamela promptly.
"Not for anything?"
"Not for anything, you old silly," said Pamela. "And now, look here, I
want us to make a plan together. I was just wondering—what would be the
best thing for you to do about Isobel!"
"How do you mean?"
"Why, we’ve all got to go on living under this roof together for five
more months, and you can’t go on being worried and miserable and
dreading things all that time! Besides, there’s no need. We might just
as well all be comfortable together."
"What do you think I’d better do?" asked Beryl. "You see, I can’t let
Isobel know that I’ve been telling her stories all the time—I can’t tell
her the truth now. Besides," Beryl’s voice was indignant, "what
business is it of hers? She shouldn’t question me like she does."
"Of course she shouldn’t," agreed Pamela. "But I’m sure it’s done
thoughtlessly. She doesn’t understand a bit; if she did, she’d be a
deal more kindly. She’s not a bad sort really, you know, Beryl. I’ve
met several girls like her—I think it’s the fault of her upbringing."
"She can make people feel so _small_ sometimes, just by the tone of her
voice," said Beryl. "Oh, it’s hateful! I—I couldn’t bear it."
"Look here," said Pamela, "I’ll speak to her, if you like—just give her
a hint not to bother you with questions. I won’t tell her anything you
don’t want me to. Will you leave it to me—and trust me not to say too
much?"
"Oh, Pamela, it is kind of you. If only you would— Of course I trust
you— Just tell her what you think best.... Only I can’t help feeling a
coward for not facing things myself...."
"That’s all right. It’s easier to do it for another person than it is
for oneself," said Pamela. "And now you must go to sleep—you’ll look
all washed out in the morning if you don’t. And, remember, we’ve got to
_enjoy_ our stay in this house—let’s get all the fun out of it we can,
shall we? ... Don’t worry any more about Isobel—it’ll be all right, you
just see! ... Good-night, Beryl. And—Beryl—thank you for showing me your
mother’s letter."
When Pamela had gone Beryl cried a little more, but they were a
different kind of tears this time, because she had found a friend, and
her heart was full of gratitude.
After this Pamela took the first opportunity that occurred to speak with
Isobel alone. She was not quite sure of the best way to deal with
Isobel, but decided on the whole it would be best to tell her quite
straightforwardly as much as she meant to tell her—arouse her sympathy
and interest, but not her suspicions.
"I say, Isobel," she began, "I know something that I think you will be
interested to hear—about Beryl."
Isobel pricked up her ears immediately.
"What is it?" she asked.
"You know you were wondering why she wore that short-sleeved silk
blouse?"
"Yes," replied Isobel, smiling.
"You remember it amused you because it was unsuitable?"
"Yes," Isobel assented, and laughed.
"Well, Beryl only possesses two blouses in the world, at present—that
silk one and another one; she wears them in turn, poor kiddy—and hates
them both.... Her aunt, with whom she lived, chose them for her. She
hasn’t got any others, though she’s going to buy some with her
pocket-money now. She’s very sensitive about her clothes."
"Oh," said Isobel, looking puzzled; she wondered how Pamela meant her to
take the information.
"Well," said Pamela, looking straight into Isobel’s eyes, so that Isobel
presently began to feel vaguely uncomfortable, "I believe she has an
idea that you laugh at them—and it hurts her. So I thought I’d tell you,
because I know you wouldn’t want to purposely hurt her."
"No, of course not. I didn’t know—" began Isobel.
"She’s had rather a rough time on the whole—losing her mother and
father, and being brought up by an aunt with whom she is obviously not
in sympathy——"
"Why, from what she’s told me, I don’t think she’s had a particularly
rough time," Isobel interrupted.
"She makes light of it, no doubt," Pamela replied. "But all the same
she’s not had a particularly happy time, and I would like her to be
happy while she is here with us, wouldn’t you?"
"Why, of course," agreed Isobel. "Why shouldn’t she?"
"She tries to put her unhappy life behind her, but—well, you know,
Isobel, you keep reminding her of it!"
"_I_ keep reminding her! What do you mean?"
"I found her crying last night because you kept worrying her with
questions," said Pamela bluntly.
Isobel flushed.
"Good gracious! How ridiculous! But I only ask her ordinary questions.
Why should she mind that?"
"They’re questions about the past unhappy life with her aunt—a time she
wants to forget. You keep reviving it. And if she wants to forget—we
have no right to force her to remember, have we?"
"Of course not," said Isobel, haughtily.
"I didn’t mean to tell you about her crying, at first—but I guessed if
you knew you wouldn’t let it happen again. It was only because you
didn’t know. Where she went to school, what she did at her aunt’s,
where she bought her clothes—things like that don’t really concern any
of us——"
"Not if there’s nothing to hide," said Isobel suddenly. "But it seems
as if there is something in Beryl’s case—and so she won’t talk about
it."
"Why on earth should there be anything to hide! If she’s been
unhappy—why should she wish to talk about it? Let her forget it. Come,
Isobel, I know you’ll be a good sport, and not bother her with any more
questions. Let’s give her a happy time while she’s here, shan’t we?
Shake hands on it."
Isobel took Pamela’s outstretched hand, but her dignity was still a
little ruffled.
"Beryl seems to have made a lot of fuss—if there’s nothing to hide," she
said in a slightly offended tone.
"Oh, she’s only extra sensitive.... Why ever should there be anything
to hide!" repeated Pamela, feeling as if she had not been quite
successful in convincing Isobel. "It’s only that she’s been unhappy—and
she’s been poor. Lack of money makes such a difference in one’s
confidence in one’s self. It oughtn’t to—but it does," she ruminated.
"Anyway, you won’t ask her any more questions, will you?"
"I shouldn’t think of doing so—after what you’ve told me," Isobel
replied coldly.
"Thanks so much," said Pamela, with genuine warmth. "We’ll give her a
real happy time while she’s here."
And if Beryl’s happiness had lain in the hands of these two girls, it
would have been assured during the next few months. But, unfortunately,
there was a third person in Barrowfield whose hands were to play an
unexpected part in the future happiness of Beryl.
A black kitten was responsible for introducing Pamela to Elizabeth Bagg.
Pamela found the kitten crying in a field—a soft, purry, rather
frightened little kitten, that had lost its way. Pamela picked it up,
and made inquiries about it in the village. No one seemed to own it,
nor recognize it, at first; and then Aggie Jones, who was leaning out of
her door as usual, said she believed it belonged to the Baggs.
So Pamela went up the little lane by the blacksmith’s to inquire. She
soon became aware of the vicinity of ’Alice Maud Villa.’ As she walked
along the lane her ears caught the sound of laughter and the shouting of
children’s voices, which proceeded from a small house on the right-hand
side; also Pamela’s nose informed her that a delicious smell of boiling
toffee came from the same quarter. Then she came to the house, and saw
the name painted over the doorway. It was a very clean-looking little
house, with brightly polished door-knocker and letter-box, and the
curtains were fresh and dainty.
Pamela knocked several times before anyone heard her, the noise inside
the house being so great. Then the door was flung open and a swarm of
little Baggs and a strong smell of cooked toffee came out to greet her.
The return of the kitten was hailed with joy, and Pamela, though glad to
find its home, watched anxiously to see that the children did not pull
the kitten about nor tease it. Pamela was very fond of animals, and had
found the absence of a cat or a dog at Chequertrees very strange. She
watched the little black kitten, and saw that it did not seem at all
afraid of the children, and that, on the other hand, the children
handled it very carefully, in the way that only children who have a real
love for animals can handle a kitten. Pamela was relieved to notice
this; she knew too many cases where a kitten had been thoughtlessly kept
"for the children to play with," a practice she thought most bad for the
children, who were not taught to treat animals kindly, and most cruel
for the little teased kittens. However, there was nothing to worry over
in this case, and when, a moment later, Elizabeth Bagg, in a holland
overall, appeared in the doorway, Pamela, glancing at her pale, strong
face, felt she understood why the children behaved gently to the kitten.
There would be no thoughtless cruelty in the house Elizabeth Bagg ruled
over.
She had a kindly face, with clear grey eyes and a frank expression. It
was strange that with such different features, and with so pale a
complexion, she yet had a strong resemblance to her ruddy-faced brother,
the cabman. Her voice and manners, though, were entirely unlike his.
Her hair, which was jet black, was parted in the centre and brushed
smoothly down each side of her face, and coiled in one thick plait round
her head; it was a quaint style, rather severe, but it suited Elizabeth
Bagg.
Pamela explained about the kitten, and then introduced herself,
mentioning that she was staying at Chequertrees, and then, as was her
usual way, plunged straight to the point that interested her most.
"I have been wanting very much to meet you," Pamela said, "because I
hear that you are an artist. I do a little sketching myself, and I’m
awfully interested in anyone who paints. Would you—would you think it
very impertinent on my part if I asked to see some of your pictures. I
should _love_ to, if you don’t mind—but only when it suits you, of
course—not now, if you’re busy."
A faint pink had crept into Elizabeth Bagg’s cheeks.
"I should be pleased to show you some of my work," she said courteously.
She spoke in a queer, stiff little way, so that until one knew her it
was hard to understand exactly how she felt about anything.
Pamela, for instance, was not at all sure whether Elizabeth Bagg was
pleased by her request or resented it. Whereas Elizabeth Bagg was
really more astonished than anything else, though certainly pleased.
"Would you please come in," Elizabeth continued. "I’m not busy at
present. The children and I have just finished making some toffee. I
promised them last week that we should make some to-day."
"If they were very good, I suppose?" Pamela smiled down at the six
little Baggs, who were standing round, gazing with open-mouthed interest
at her.
"No," replied Elizabeth, to Pamela’s surprise; "I had promised it them
in any case."
"It smells delicious, anyway," said Pamela, not knowing quite what to
reply.
"Would you like some when it’s cool?" asked the little Bagg girl, who
was least shy and most generous.
"If you can spare a little bit—yes, I would," laughed Pamela.
"The nutty kind—or the un-nutty kind?" anxiously inquired the elder Bagg
boy, in a thick voice. He was rather greedy, and hoped Pamela would say
the un-nutty, as he liked the nutty sort best himself. Fortunately she
did choose the kind he liked least, and he eyed her with more favour
than he had hitherto done.
The eldest of the children, a girl, was about eleven years old, and the
youngest was about five. There were four girls and two boys, and Pamela
noticed that they were all dressed in sensible linen overalls—things
that were strongly made and easily washed. The children seemed to be a
healthy, noisy, happy-go-lucky little crowd; but although Pamela was
fond of children, she did not pay so much attention to the six little
Baggs on this first visit as she did on subsequent occasions. Her
attention was centred on their aunt, and her pictures.
While Elizabeth Bagg took Pamela upstairs to her ’studio’ the little
Baggs disappeared into the kitchen to watch the toffee cooling, and with
permission to break some of the toffee that had already set into small
pieces; during which operation long and excited arguments seemed to
occur with great frequency—arguments that more often than not ended in a
scream or a howl. Hearing which, Elizabeth Bagg would put down the
picture she was showing Pamela, and with a muttered apology would vanish
downstairs, and restore peace.
Elizabeth Bagg’s ’studio’ was really her bedroom, but in the daytime,
when the camp-bedstead was covered with a piece of flowered chintz, and
the rest of the bedroom furniture made as inconspicuous as possible, the
room served very well as a workroom. The walls were whitewashed, making
a good background for Elizabeth’s pictures, which were hung thickly all
around. A few had frames—but only a few. Most of them were without.
She seemed to do all kinds of subjects, from landscapes to quaint
studies of children, painted in a bold, unusual style. On an easel by
the window stood Elizabeth’s latest study, half finished; Pamela was
surprised to see that it was a painting of the old windmill that she
herself had tried to sketch. As Pamela stood looking at it, she
realized that there was something in Elizabeth Bagg’s work that she
herself would never be able to get. "I’m only a dabbler," thought
Pamela to herself. "This is the real thing."
"It’s splendid," said Pamela aloud, gazing at the picture with
admiration. "Do you know"—she turned impulsively to Elizabeth, who was
standing behind her—"it makes me feel as if I want to go home, and tear
up all my drawings and start afresh. Your pictures are so—so alive. If
only I could get that _living_ touch into my work. But I feel I’ll
never be able to do it—when I think of my own things—and then look at
this."
"I am more than double your age," said Elizabeth Bagg steadily, though
her heart was beating rapidly at these, the first words of genuine
praise and encouragement that she had had for a long time. "I have been
working for many years past."
"That’s not it," said Pamela, shaking her head. "There’s something in
your pictures, that if you had not got it _in_ you, no amount of
practice would produce. I can’t explain any better than that—but you
know what I mean, don’t you? I think your work’s fine.... Have you
ever exhibited any of your pictures anywhere?"
Elizabeth Bagg shook her head.
"No," she replied, and a tinge of colour crept into her cheeks again.
"Oh, but you _should_," said Pamela, enthusiastically, looking at a
charming study of a little girl in a red tam-o’-shanter.
Pamela’s enthusiasm affected Elizabeth Bagg strangely. She felt
suddenly much younger than she had felt for years past. It was so long
since anyone had noticed her pictures. Her days were spent in household
duties for her brother and the children (just as Martha had told
Pamela), with every spare half hour snatched for her painting. Some
days, when she knew there would be no half hour to spare, Elizabeth
would get up very early in the morning to continue a picture, and would
feel all the fresher to face the work afterward, knowing that her
picture was progressing, surely if slowly. Twice a week she gave
painting lessons at a ’School for the Daughters of Gentlemen’ in
Inchmoor, a practice at which her brother had ceased to grumble when he
found it brought her in a few shillings a week. He considered her
’daubing’ a fearful waste of time; she had far better be employed in
making a tasty apple-pie or mending the children’s stockings, he
thought—work for which Elizabeth received her ’board and lodging.’ Old
Tom Bagg flattered himself that he was good-naturedly indulgent to
Elizabeth’s little hobby, nevertheless Pamela noticed that there were no
pictures of Elizabeth’s anywhere about the house—they were all packed
away in her own room.
Pamela did not know of the gratitude Elizabeth felt toward her; she only
knew that she admired Elizabeth’s pictures immensely, and felt a keen
interest in the painter of them.
As Elizabeth said she would like very much to see some of Pamela’s work,
Pamela arranged to bring some round the following day.
And so the friendship began.
When Pamela reached Chequertrees that evening she wrote a long post-card
home—for the first month was just ended. Surely there was never a card
with so much written on it before—unless it was the card she received
from home the following day, telling her that all was well at
Oldminster.
*CHAPTER XI*
*THE WISHING WELL*
For a while things settled down into smoothly running order. Now that
the first month had passed the days seemed to slip by in an amazing
fashion—as they generally do after the newness of strange surroundings
has worn off. The four girls got on very well together on the whole; of
course, there were occasional little breezes—which was only natural
considering that four such different temperaments were thrown constantly
into each other’s society; but the breezes never gathered into a
tempest, and always, before long, the sun was out again.
One of the breezes sprang up during the sixth week on account of a
protest Isobel made regarding Caroline’s choice of puddings. It was
Caroline’s turn again to arrange the week’s meals, and it must certainly
be admitted that to choose suet roly-poly on Monday and Thursday, apple
dumplings on Tuesday, and boiled treacle roll on Wednesday and Friday,
was, to say the least of it, asking for trouble. But when on the
Saturday a solidly substantial Christmas pudding appeared, it was too
much for Isobel, and she protested vigorously at the stodginess of
Caroline’s puddings.
Caroline, looking up from the solid slice of pudding on her plate, took
the remarks badly, and after a few sullen replies got decidedly annoyed.
She was making the most of her week, she said, because she knew she
would not get another pudding worth calling a pudding until her turn
came round again. Even the glories of Isobel’s elaborate puddings—with
cream and crystallized cherries on top—had failed to rouse any
enthusiasm in Caroline. Those kinds of pudding were all right to look
at, but they had ’no insides’ to them, commented Caroline, as she passed
her plate for a third helping of Christmas pudding.
Martha’s patience and willingness in making the various kinds of pudding
chosen were things to be marvelled at; but she seemed to take great
pride and pleasure in showing her skill at cooking whatever the girls
required. To be sure, there was no lack of praise for her from the four
girls, who thoroughly appreciated her efforts to do her best for them.
"It always does me good to go and have a talk with Martha," Pamela would
say. "She’s so cheerful—and so willing and unselfish. Nothing is any
trouble to her."
Martha never demurred at nor criticized any of the puddings chosen—not
even Caroline’s recurring choice of roly-polies, though she looked a
trifle anxious and made them as light as possible.
"And on Friday we’ll have boiled treacle roll," Caroline had informed
her.
"And what’s nicer!" Martha had replied, unaware of the chorus of muffled
groans on the other side of the kitchen door, as three girls, rolling
their eyes in an exaggerated manner, crept stealthily away along the
passage.
Then on the Saturday had come Isobel’s protest. Caroline maintained that
she had a right to choose any puddings she liked during her week, and
while quite agreeing with her as to this point, Pamela mentioned that
she thought it would be more considerate of Caroline if she would make
her choice a little less ’suety.’ They discussed the matter thoroughly,
and finally came to an agreement, Caroline undertaking to vary her
choice if the others promised to have the kind of pudding that was
_really_ a pudding on one day in each week. And so matters were
arranged and the breeze blew over.
In spite of lack of encouragement or interest from the others, Caroline
had sent in her name to Lady Prior’s secretary as one who was willing to
make things for the bazaar. And there had followed a day when two
ladies of the organizing committee had called to see Caroline to talk
about the articles that were most needed for the various stalls. It was
a blissfully important day for Caroline, and she had dreams that night
of crocheted cosy-covers, and little pink silk pin-cushions, and
afterward, until the bazaar took place, was scarcely ever seen without
knitting-needles or sewing of some kind or other in her hands.
The two committee ladies were both very large ladies, and were so well
wrapped up in cloaks and scarves for motoring that they looked even
larger than they really were. They drove up to the front gate in a very
large motor car, and being ushered into the drawing-room by the
respectful Ellen, both sat down on the small couch, which they succeeded
in completely obscuring. They were both exceedingly amiable, and
discussed matters in rather loud and assured voices with the bashful
Caroline, who not only promised to make a number of things for the
bazaar, but was eventually persuaded to preside at one of the stalls.
"All the stall-holders are to wear Japanese costumes. A charming idea,
don’t you think so?" smiled one of the ladies.
"A very, very sweet idea," said the other. "Of course, there will be no
bother of getting the costumes ready; we are arranging to hire a number
for the day. You’ll have to come up and choose which one you like when
the time draws near."
Caroline smiled, and said she thought it a nice idea. Fortunately, the
fact that the Japanese style, with chrysanthemums in her hair, would not
suit her in the least did not occur to Caroline. She was not a vain girl
with regard to her appearance, though she was rather proud of her
accomplishments in the sewing line.
But when Isobel heard about the Japanese costume for Caroline she nearly
suffocated herself with laughter at the picture her mind’s eye presented
her with of solemn Caroline in a butterfly kimono and chrysanthemums
pinned coquettishly above each ear. However, Caroline was not within
hearing when Isobel learnt the news from Beryl, so no harm was done.
Isobel would have liked to join in the bazaar herself, but until she
knew for certain about her relationship with the family at the Manor
House, she decided that it was better not to lay herself open to the
chance of meeting Lady Prior. Of course she had questioned Martha about
the Priors, but nothing Martha could tell her shed any light on the
Priors’ connexions, as Sir Henry was practically a new-comer to
Barrowfield, having bought the Manor House on the death of the late
owner a few years ago.
As a rule Martha was a useful mine of information on people and places
in Barrowfield, and many an interesting morsel of gossip had come to the
girls through Martha.
It was through her, for instance, that they first heard of the Wishing
Well.
One evening when Pamela was showing Martha a sketch she had made of an
old barn and some pine trees, Martha said:
"Why, that’s near the top of Long Lane, isn’t it?—near where the Wishing
Well is! And a very handsome picture it makes, to be sure."
"The Wishing Well!" said Pamela. "Where’s that? It sounds exciting."
"Well, you know as you gets near the top of Long Lane," said Martha,
busily stoning raisins into a basin that stood on the kitchen table, "on
your right hand, as you’re going up, you pass a white gate that leads
into a field and an old disused chalk quarry—there’s poppies and long
grass growing all about in the summer—and there’s a few trees at the top
of the field, at the head of the scooped-out chalk-pit.... Well, a few
yards inside the gate, on your left, and almost hidden by an overhanging
hedge, is the well. You probably wouldn’t notice it if you wasn’t
looking for it! But there it is, as sure as I’m sitting here, stoning
these raisins—and Ellen will tell you the same as it’s the truth I’m
speaking."
"And why is it called a Wishing Well?" inquired Pamela.
"Oh, there’s some old story that if you was to write a wish on a piece
of paper and throw it into the well on a moonlight night, whatever you
wished would come true," Martha chuckled. "But I don’t know as I
believes it—though I _did_ have a wish that way once—in my young days,
mind you——"
"And did it come true?" asked Pamela, eagerly.
"Well, no—I can’t say it did," replied Martha, "but then, according to
the story it was my fault. I ought to have kept it secret, and I went
and spoke it out to some one, not thinking like—and so it didn’t come
true."
"Didn’t you wish again ever?"
Martha shook her head. "You can only wish once—according to the story
... but mind you, I don’t say there’s any truth in it, one way or the
other."
"But don’t you know anyone else who has wished and who has had their
wish granted?" asked Pamela, to whom the idea appealed strongly.
"I can’t truthfully say I do—not for certain," said Martha. "Though I
knows several what have _said_ such and such a thing has happened
because they wished it to—down the well—and it’s their wish come
true.... But how do I know they’re speaking the truth? Eh? They
mustn’t tell what they’ve wished till it does come true, or else it
won’t come true at all. And when a thing happens, it’s easy enough to
say you wished it to, isn’t it? ... So you see you can’t rely on no
one—not knowing how honest they are—but can only try for yourself and
see."
"I should love to have a wish," said Pamela, gazing thoughtfully into
the glowing kitchen fire. "I like to _believe_ I believe in Wishing
Wells, and goblins and spells and enchantments and things like that, but
I’m not really sure that I _do_.... Anyway, I think we might all go up
Long Lane on a moonlight night, and have a wish—_just in case_ it really
is a Wishing Well.... I’m sure Beryl will love the idea—they all will,
I think. You’ll tell us just what to do, won’t you, Martha?"
Martha laughed. "Yes, indeed," she said. "But, mind you, I don’t say
there’s anything in it."
The outcome of this conversation was an excursion up Long Lane a few
nights later when the moon was at the full. All four girls entered into
the spirit of the adventure in high spirits, though Caroline rather
spoilt the romantic glamour that Pamela had conjured up by insisting on
wearing her goloshes in case she got her feet wet in the damp grass.
"Oh, Caroline, how _can_ you! We ought not to speak of such things as
goloshes—practical, matter-of-fact, everyday goloshes—in the same breath
as Wishing Wells," said Pamela, in a mock tragic voice. "But still, I
suppose it’s very sensible of you," she added, laughing.
The four girls started off up Long Lane, chatting and laughing, each
with a piece of paper and pencil to write her wish when the well was
reached. It would be so much more romantic, Pamela said, to write it
beside the well in the moonlight, rather than beside the dining-room
table in the gaslight.
"I hope you each know what you’re going to wish," said Isobel. "It’ll
be too chilly to stand about making up our minds when we get there."
Long Lane stretched from the blacksmith’s forge, that stood on the same
side of Barrowfield Green as Chequertrees, past Tom Bagg’s house, and up
the hill to a small inn, and a handful of scattered cottages a mile and
a half away. The lane was set with high hedges on either side, and was
a gradual ascent all the way.
As the girls drew near the top end, and the gate leading to the chalk
quarry came in sight, they fell silent, each trying to put into shape
the wish she was going to write in a few minutes.
The well was much as Martha had described, though even more hidden and
overgrown with trails of creeper from a high bank of shrubs above it
than they had expected to find. Pamela was obliged to draw the trails
aside before they could see the dark, still water.
"Can you see the moon reflected in the water? We must make sure of
that," reminded Beryl.
Long white clouds were drifting slowly across the face of the moon, but
as they passed, and the moon emerged again, her reflection could be seen
in the well.
"Yes," said Pamela. "So—now—quick—let’s write our wishes and wrap a
stone inside the papers so that they’ll sink—and drop them in the water
while the moon’s out." She looked up overhead. "It’ll be clear for a
few minutes now, but there are more clouds coming slowly—a long way
off—and if they reach her we shall have to wait some minutes for them to
pass."
A hurried search for convenient-sized stones was made; and then,
silence, while they wrote down their wishes, using the top bar of the
white gate as a writing-desk.
Pamela was the first to finish. At first Pamela had thought of wishing
something for Michael; then she had thought of wishing that she could
paint as well as Elizabeth Bagg; but "Michael and I are young," she had
told herself, "and we’ve plenty of years to work in—but Elizabeth Bagg
is getting old, and she’s losing heart—I’ll wish something for her....
I’ll wish that somebody with influence, who can appreciate Elizabeth
Bagg’s artistic talent, may see some of her pictures, and that she may
soon obtain the recognition which she well deserves." This was the gist
of Pamela’s wish. Wrapping a stone inside her paper, she threw it into
the well—the moon’s reflection scattering into a hundred shimmers and
ripples as the stone splashed into the dark water and sank.
Isobel was the next ready. "I wish that I may do nothing to forfeit my
fifty pounds," she had written, and her ’wish’ followed quickly in the
track of Pamela’s.
For a wonder Caroline was finished third; but she knew when she started
out exactly what she was going to wish. It concerned a little matter
that had been fidgeting her careful soul for the last two days. "I wish
I may find my silver thimble." Such was Caroline’s wish, and it
journeyed down after the other two just as Beryl finished writing hers.
Beryl had taken longer because she had had some difficulty in framing
her wish, although when finished it seemed quite straightforward enough.
"I wish I may never have to go back and live with Aunt Laura again,"
Beryl had written.
"Hurry up, and throw yours in, Beryl—the clouds are coming over," said
Pamela, as she and Caroline and Isobel wandered a few paces away toward
the chalk quarry. They were talking casually together when a slight
scream from Beryl made them turn hastily round.
Beryl was running swiftly away from the well and toward the gate, which
she pushed open, and ran into the lane.
The three other girls quickly followed and soon overtook her.
"Beryl! Wait a minute! Wait for us! What’s the matter?" they called
as they ran.
Beryl stopped running directly she heard their voices, and came to a
standstill. She was looking very pale and scared as they came up to
her.
"Whatever is the matter, old girl?" asked Pamela, taking hold of Beryl’s
arm.
"Oh, Pamela," she said, "I had just thrown my wish in the well, when the
bush—the big overhanging bush close above—gave a rustle, and I heard
some one laugh—such a horrid laugh—as if some one was hiding there,
watching us. I—it gave me such a turn—I just ran—I didn’t notice where
you were—I just ran for the gate, to get away quickly."
Beryl seemed quite unnerved, and it was in vain that the others tried to
persuade her that it was only her imagination.
"Shall we all go back together and make sure," suggested Pamela, not
very enthusiastically it must be owned; but the others were certain it
would not be wise to do this.
"It might be some horrible old tramp asleep in the hedge," said Isobel.
"No. Let’s get home—it’s getting chilly—and we couldn’t do any good
really by going back, could we?"
So they all linked arms, and made their way home, where Martha was
waiting up for them with a jug of hot milk.
*CHAPTER XII*
*IN WHICH ELIZABETH BAGG PAINTS A PICTURE
AND ISOBEL HEARS SOME PLEASANT NEWS*
Pamela’s friendship with the Bagg family developed rapidly, and she
became a frequent visitor to ’Alice Maud Villa’—much to Isobel’s
amazement; Isobel was more than amazed, she was scandalized.
"I simply can’t understand Pamela," confided Isobel to Caroline. "What
can she find in those Baggs? Even if Elizabeth Bagg can sketch a
bit—it’s no excuse; they’re not the _sort_ of people Pamela should like
to mix with. After all, Tom Bagg is only the village cabman! You can’t
get away from the fact, can you now? You know what I mean—they’re not
Pamela’s sort somehow—I really am surprised at her taste."
But Isobel never said anything like this to Pamela. There was a certain
air about Pamela at times that even Isobel respected, an air which, in
the present case, made Isobel feel instinctively that Pamela would not
brook any interference with her friendship with Elizabeth Bagg. So
Isobel did not criticize openly Pamela’s attitude toward the Baggs; but
she criticized, and wondered, and was amazed in private to Caroline,
whenever she thought fit.
There were two things that Isobel was trying to avoid. One was meeting
old Silas Sluff in the garden, and the other was, asking any more
questions of Beryl. To avoid old Silas was fairly easy, as he seemed to
be trying to keep out of her sight as much as possible. To refrain from
questioning Beryl was hard at first, but, although at times intensely
curious about some incident or other in connection with Beryl, Isobel
remembered that she must be a sport, and managed to keep her tongue
quiet. It needed a great effort sometimes, but she succeeded, which
must certainly be put down to Isobel’s credit.
As far as Pamela was concerned Isobel’s approval or disapproval of her
friendship with the Baggs never worried her in the least. The matter
never even crossed her mind. She spent many happy hours in Elizabeth
Bagg’s ’studio’ watching Elizabeth paint, or finishing a sketch of her
own, helped on by valuable hints and suggestions from Elizabeth, who
greatly encouraged Pamela in her work; just as Pamela helped Elizabeth
by her interest and genuine admiration for Elizabeth’s painting.
Sometimes, when they were both at work in the studio, Pamela would begin
to argue with Elizabeth over her attitude toward her brother Tom and his
views on her painting.
"He’s no right to call it ’wasting time,’" Pamela would protest. "He
ought to be _made_ to understand what splendid work you are
doing—valuable work, too, if I’m not mistaken."
"He doesn’t care for pictures at all," Elizabeth would reply. "And it’s
no good crossing him—he’s been very kind to me, you know, and has given
me a roof over my head, and food to eat; I only have to buy my own
clothes and my painting materials out of the money I earn by teaching;
he provides everything else."
"But look what you do for him in return—cooking, washing, cleaning, and
last, but by no means least, looking after his six children for him. How
you manage to do it all I’m sure I don’t know! And yet he doesn’t even
recognize that the work you love most is done up here—here in your
studio—at all odd moments of the day. And he calls this ’wasting
time.’" Pamela gave a short laugh. "Oh, it makes me so indignant," she
said.
But her arguments were always in vain. Elizabeth would never make the
smallest attempt toward making her brother respect her art, but would
continue to go on as usual after Pamela had left, smiling quietly to
herself at Pamela’s enthusiasm and indignation.
"She is very young," Elizabeth would say to herself, and then give a
sigh at the remembrance of when she herself was young and enthusiastic
and indignant, when she had dreamed of doing great things in the world
of art—long before her sister-in-law had died, and she had come to keep
house for her brother. Then, when she was young, it had been an invalid
mother who had claimed all her attention, so that she had never had time
nor opportunities to make friends with young people of her own age—young
people who had interests in common with herself. She had painted and
drawn in her spare time, and had even had a couple of terms at an art
school, in the days before her mother had become a helpless invalid.
Then, when her mother had died, it had been Elizabeth’s intention to
take a room in London by herself and set resolutely to work to earn a
living by her painting; but before this plan could be put into execution
news came that her aunt (Alice Maud) had met with an accident, and
Elizabeth was asked to go and nurse her. She went. Elizabeth planned
many things during her life, but other people always seemed to step in
and alter the plans—and Elizabeth allowed them to be altered, and
drifted into the new plans with little or no resistance. That was
Elizabeth’s chief failing, her inability to strike out for herself. As
far as art was concerned it was a loss, but her relatives had certainly
gained in having so willing and conscientious a worker to look after
them in their illnesses. For it was always somebody who was ill that
sent for Elizabeth. First, her mother, then her aunt, and finally, just
when her thoughts were once again free to turn toward the room in
London, her sister-in-law had begged her to come and look after her
house and the children as she was taken dangerously ill. So Elizabeth
came. And when her sister-in-law died she could not find it in her
heart to refuse her brother Tom’s request to stay with him and look
after his six little motherless children.
Elizabeth used sometimes to dream about the wonderful room she had meant
to have in London—the room where she liked to imagine that she would
have painted pictures that would have brought her fame and wealth. As
she grew older she began to doubt whether she ever would have painted
pictures good enough or marketable enough even to pay for the rent of
the room. She began to regret her want of initiative—after she had met
Pamela. She regretted that she had all along allowed her own affairs to
drift. Why had she always allowed others to rule her life, she
wondered. She had worked hard at her pictures—and then done nothing with
them when they were finished. There were scores of them packed one on
top of the other on the shelves of a big cupboard in her studio.
Having got permission to look through this pile of pictures one day,
Pamela discovered that Elizabeth was decidedly clever at portrait
painting; the likenesses of one or two of the village folk, whom Pamela
knew by sight, and of Tom Bagg, and of several of the little Baggs, were
very well done indeed; and she asked Elizabeth why she did not do more
of this kind of work.
"I haven’t done any portraits for a long time," was all that Elizabeth
replied. "I don’t know why."
The discovery of this branch of Elizabeth’s skill set Pamela thinking.
Apart from his annoying indifference to his sister’s talent Tom Bagg was
a genial, good-natured, and quite likeable man, Pamela thought. She
liked him more particularly after discovering him one evening sitting by
the fire in his living-room, smoking, and telling a long fairy story to
his children, who were gathered around him listening, enthralled. It
was only occasionally that Daddy could be got to tell them a story; but
when he chose he could tell a very good story indeed. Perhaps that was
one of the reasons why he was so popular at the ’Blue Boar.’ Ensconced
in a chimney-corner seat in the old-fashioned parlour of the ’Blue
Boar,’ he would puff away at his pipe, and yarn to a few bosom friends
and occasional strangers for an hour at a stretch, much to the amusement
of his audience. At home he was just as popular as a story-teller, and
the children would listen enchanted to his tales of adventure, of
fairies, and of pirates—and when he came to the humorous parts, where he
always stopped to chuckle and shake before he told them the joke, the
children could hardly contain their impatience, and while he paused
aggravatingly to take a pull at his pipe and chuckle again, they would
shower eager questions upon him, giving him no peace until he resumed
the tale.
Elizabeth Bagg, when she was not upstairs in her studio, would sit in a
corner by the fire on these occasions, mending stockings by firelight,
and listening to the story, glancing up now and then at the cheerful,
ruddy face of the teller, and at the children sitting on the hearth-rug,
on the arms of his chair, and on his knees, all listening intently. The
story-telling was always done by firelight; directly the gas was lit, it
was supper and bedtime.
Pamela was present at more than one of these story-telling evenings.
Old Tom Bagg was used to talking before strangers and new-comers, and
her presence made no difference to him. He was always polite, and
pleased to see Pamela, and never seemed outwardly surprised at her
friendship with Elizabeth, though sometimes he would scratch the bald
spot on his head and wonder to himself.
The first time Pamela saw the group in the firelit room listening to the
story-telling she was struck with an idea, which she afterward
communicated to Elizabeth.
"It would make a simply ripping picture—and you’re so good at
likenesses—I wonder you don’t do it," she urged.
And, after a while, Elizabeth Bagg did do it. She set to work up in her
studio, and began on a picture of Tom Bagg sitting in a firelit room
telling a story to the children around him.
"Get the expression on his face when he’s chuckling," said Pamela.
So Elizabeth watched him and caught the chuckling expression and
transmitted it to her picture.
"_Absolutely_," was the delighted Pamela’s verdict when she saw it; and
her enthusiasm roused Elizabeth to put her best work into the painting,
although she had no future plans for it when it was finished. Possibly
it would have drifted finally into the cupboard in her studio.
Elizabeth, with her tiresome lack of initiative, would have taken no
further trouble with the picture after it was done.
But Pamela had a plan for the firelight picture which she did not
mention to Elizabeth Bagg, but waited eagerly for the completion of the
painting.
Meanwhile Isobel, unable to get Pamela or Beryl to join in having
dancing-lessons with her, had at length, much to her own surprise,
prevailed on Caroline to come to Madame Clarence’s with her twice a
week. As Caroline sat over her sewing so much, and had very little
exercise, these visits to the Dancing Academy probably did her a great
deal of good. Not that she enjoyed dancing; but being persuaded that it
was good for her health, she took her lessons regularly and solemnly,
just as she would have taken medicine twice daily after meals had she
thought she should do so. Although Isobel (to use her own expression)
was not ’frightfully keen’ on Caroline, yet she found her useful in yet
another way besides being a companion to travel with to and from
Inchmoor.
When Isobel heard that Sir Henry and Lady Prior and family had returned
to the Manor House, she lived for a few days in a state of pleasurable
expectation, from which state she was presently transported into one of
intense joy. For she discovered that the Manor House Priors actually
were connected with her—though very distantly, it must be confessed.
And Caroline was the medium through whom she learnt this eventful piece
of news.
Finding that Caroline was the only one of the girls likely to get into
immediate touch with Lady Prior, through the bazaar work-party meetings
which Caroline had begun to attend, Isobel asked her if she would take
the first opportunity of speaking to Lady Prior, and informing her that
Isobel Prior, who was staying at Chequertrees, would have liked beyond
anything to help at the bazaar only she was afraid she was restricted
from doing so by the instructions of Miss Crabingway, who had said that
none of the girls staying at Chequertrees were to visit or be visited by
any relations whatsoever; and Isobel thought it possible that she might
be a relation of Lady Prior’s. Of course, Isobel impressed upon Caroline
that she was to be sure to say that Miss Crabingway did not know that
this restriction of hers might apply in any way to Lady Prior, or she
would assuredly not have made such a rule. Then Isobel asked Caroline
to explain all about Miss Crabingway’s whim, and to make matters quite
clear to her ladyship. She also wrote down for Caroline all the facts
about the Prior family-tree that she knew, giving her father’s full
name, and age, and profession, and the names of his various brothers,
cousins, uncles, and so on.
All this Caroline faithfully related to Lady Prior in due course, and
came back from her first interview with the news that Lady Prior was
going to consult Sir Henry about it, and would tell Caroline what he
said at the next meeting, as she did not know any of the Christian names
of the gentlemen Caroline had mentioned, but was quite amused at Miss
Crabingway’s queer instructions.
Isobel was somewhat chilled by this news, and wondered to herself
whether the ’dowdy-looking’ Caroline had prejudiced her case in Lady
Prior’s eyes.
"Of course, never having seen me she may think I’m something of the same
class as the friend I choose to act as my deputy," thought Isobel to
herself, and eyed the unconscious Caroline with secret disfavour.
However, Caroline returned from the next bazaar meeting with better
news. Sir Henry had informed Lady Prior that Mr Gerald Prior of
Lancaster Gate and Ibstone House, Lower Marling, was a third cousin of
his, whom he had never seen, though he had heard of him. This put fresh
heart into Isobel, and she went to church the following Sunday to see
what the Priors looked like—though she took care to keep a safe distance
in case any unforeseen accident should happen, and she should meet them.
She wondered what the mater would do under the circumstances. But,
contemplating that when the six months elapsed she would be free to go
and visit these new-found relatives, and be fifty pounds the richer for
the waiting, she decided that it was wiser to wait, especially as Lady
Prior now knew the circumstances and would understand.
So she gazed on the Prior pew from a distance, and noted with pride the
rich and fashionable clothes its occupants wore, and the respect the
family seemed to awaken in the other members of the congregation.
Though Isobel did not want to own it, even to herself, she was somewhat
disappointed in the facial appearance of her father’s third cousin and
his family. Sir Henry himself was small and pompous, with sandy hair
and moustache, and his broad, pinkish face was plentifully besprinkled
with freckles; he wore glasses which were rather troublesome to keep on
the flat bridge of his wide, short nose. His eyebrows were invisible
from a distance, but his gold watch-chain and the diamond in the gold
ring on the little finger of his right hand sparkled and glistened in
the sunshine that streamed through the stained-glass windows.
Lady Prior was well preserved and had evidently been pretty in her
youth, but now she was inclined to be plump, and had developed a
double-chin, and a florid complexion; her mouth was too small for the
rest of her features, making her nose look too prominent; her eyes were
large and good. The two daughters of the house next claimed Isobel’s
attention; they were upright, pleasant-looking girls with their mother’s
features, but their father’s colouring—freckles included. Nevertheless
there was a certain air about them which Isobel could find no more
fitting term for than ’distinguished.’ She had learnt from Caroline
that there was also a son of the house, but he was not present that
morning in church.
Isobel gazed from afar, and then went home to Chequertrees feeling
rather out of humour with everything and everybody because of the ’silly
whim’ of Miss Crabingway’s which had cut her off from these desirable
relations.
When the girls had almost completed the third month of their stay at
Chequertrees Martha reminded them that they would possibly receive a
communication from Mr Joseph Sigglesthorne shortly, with whom Miss
Crabingway had left instructions concerning the replenishing of the
funds of the household. Supplies were running out, Martha said, and she
hoped they would hear promptly.
But several days went by and no word came from Mr Sigglesthorne (for the
very good reason that he had forgotten all about them).
Then one morning a letter posted in Scotland arrived from Miss Emily
Crabingway. It was very brief, and merely instructed Pamela, Beryl,
Isobel, and Caroline to go up to London with Martha on the day following
the receipt of letter, and deliver the envelope which was enclosed to Mr
Joseph Sigglesthorne at his rooms in Fig Tree Court, Temple, E.C.
"What can this mean?" said Pamela, after she had read the letter to
Martha.
Martha smiled and shook her head. "Unless it is that Miss Crabingway
knows what a forgetful gentleman Mr Sigglesthorne is, and wants to give
him a shock by sending you all to remind him," she suggested.
It may as well be stated here that this was not Martha’s own idea, but
one communicated to her in a recent note from Miss Crabingway.
As this would be the first journey to town that the girls had made since
they came to Barrowfield, they were rather excited and pleased, and set
about making plans for the morrow’s journey in high good spirits; they
recalled for each other’s benefit their previous meeting with Mr
Sigglesthorne. It was decided to lock up the house, as Ellen said
rather than stay at home alone all day she would go and visit some
friends in the village, who had been begging her to come and see them
for a long time, and would meet their train at the station on their
return. This matter being satisfactorily arranged, and time-tables
consulted, clothes overlooked and holes in gloves mended, the four girls
ended the day with another dance in the drawing-room to celebrate their
’one day’s release’ from Barrowfield, as Isobel put it.
The next day was fine and warm, though a few mackerel clouds high in the
sky made it difficult to dissuade Caroline from putting on her goloshes
and taking an umbrella. Poor Caroline, her little fads were always
being laughed at by the other three! But she took all their remarks
very good-naturedly as a rule. Her umbrella she did eventually abandon,
reluctantly, but she took a small canvas bag with her, which she said
contained her purse and handkerchief, and some knitting to do in the
train. But there was more in it than these things; the bulge at the
side of the bag was a very tightly-rolled, light-weight mackintosh, and
the bulge at the bottom was the much-ridiculed goloshes. Caroline did
not explain the bulges, and the girls were too busy with their own
affairs by the time she came downstairs with her bag to bother to tease
her any more.
And so the four girls and Martha set out to visit Mr Joseph
Sigglesthorne.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*MR JOSEPH SIGGLESTHORNE FORGETS THE DATE*
The journey to town was accomplished swiftly and comfortably, and was
enlivened every now and then by Martha’s remarks on the changes that had
come over the country they passed through in the train since she was a
girl. She made a quaint little figure in her black bonnet, trimmed with
jet beads, and her best black cape with the silk fringe round it, and
her black serge skirt. Her kindly grey eyes and wrinkled face were
alight with interest as she sat beaming and chatting with Beryl and
Pamela, while Caroline steadily knitted, and Isobel in the farther
corner gazed out of the window. Although she liked Martha well enough,
she rather wished that Miss Crabingway had sent the four of them to town
alone.
When they arrived at Marylebone station the girls learnt to their
surprise that Martha had never been in the tube railway in her life, and
was somewhat chary and suspicious of this mode of travelling; however,
encouraged by Pamela and Beryl, who each linked hold of one of her arms,
she was persuaded to enter the lift, which she mistook at first for the
train, until matters were explained to her.
They changed at Charing Cross on to the District Railway and were soon
at the Temple Station, and after one or two inquiries at length found
themselves walking up Middle Temple Lane _en route_ for Fig Tree Court.
It is not one of the prettiest courts, Fig Tree Court, although it has
such a picturesque name. There is no fig-tree growing there now, though
if there had been one Mr Sigglesthorne would not have been able to see
it, as his windows were so begrimed with dust and dirt that nothing was
clearly visible through them. The window-cleaners, if ever he employed
them, must surely have charged him three times the usual amount to get
his windows clean again. As for Martha, directly she set eyes on them
her hands itched to get hold of a wash-leather.
Mr Sigglesthorne lived on the first floor, and they were soon outside
the door with his name printed on it in large black letters. Pamela
knocked with a double rat-tat. All was silent within for a few moments,
then the creak of an inner door and a shuffling step could be heard.
The latch clicked and the front door was opened just enough for a hand
and arm to be thrust out.
The five visitors stood gazing in silent surprise at the open hand—a
hand obviously waiting for something to be placed in its grasp. They
stood thus, looking first at the hand and then at each other, and Isobel
was just about to laugh outright when a voice behind the door exclaimed
impatiently:
"Hurry up, milkman! Half-pint, as usual."
At this Isobel could control herself no longer, but burst out laughing,
and the others, unable to resist, joined in as well.
This caused the door to be opened wider, and a very shocked and
surprised Mr Joseph Sigglesthorne was revealed, who stared open-mouthed
in pained astonishment at the laughing group outside.
Pamela was the first to recover herself. "Oh, Mr Sigglesthorne," she
said, "I’m so sorry—please excuse us, but Miss Crabingway told us to
come and give you this letter."
"Well, to be sure! But please excuse me—I was so—if I may say so—taken
aback for the moment—" stammered Mr Sigglesthorne. "But please to step
inside—step inside." He held the door open wide.
The five visitors stepped inside as requested, almost filling up the
narrow little passage from which the two rooms of Mr Sigglesthorne’s
flat opened. Mr Sigglesthorne closed the front door, and led the way to
his living-room, begging them all to come in and be seated. He was
still rather bewildered by the suddenness of his visitors’ appearance,
and was thrown into confusion on finding that there was only one chair
in the room that was not too rickety to be used. He handed this with
great politeness to Pamela, who promptly passed it on to Martha, who was
too respectful to think of sitting down till all the others had found
seats.
"It’s quite all right," said Pamela. "May I sit on this box? Thanks.
It’ll do splendidly. You sit down, Martha—you’ll be tired."
Finally, an old oak chest being cleared of numberless papers and books
and brought forward for Isobel and Caroline, and a pile of six big
Encyclopædias placed one on top of the other serving as a seat for
Beryl, Mr Sigglesthorne sat down on the corner of the coal-scuttle,
comforting himself with the thought that things might have been
worse—although he wished he had not left his bunch of collars on the
mantelshelf. Strange that this should have worried him, for on the
whole the mantelshelf was the least untidy part of the room.
Martha’s neat and tidy soul positively ached when she looked round Mr
Sigglesthorne’s living-room. One of the first things she noticed was a
big round table in the centre of the room on which were stacked books
and papers in a litter of untidiness and confusion; there were several
bundles of newspapers, and cardboard boot-boxes without lids, containing
a variety of interesting articles from press-cuttings and collar-studs
to india-rubber and knots of string. On the top of the highest pile of
papers reposed Mr Sigglesthorne’s top-hat. The table was so littered
that it was impossible to think of it ever being used for any other
purpose than that of a home of refuge for old papers. Underneath the
table, partly obscured by the faded green table-cloth that hung all
aslant, was a Tate sugar-box containing—what? Coal, probably—but Martha
could not be quite sure of that. Bookshelves lined the walls, and here
again confusion reigned. Hardly a single book stood upright; a few,
here and there, made a faint appearance of doing so, but for the most
part they had given up the struggle long ago and just sprawled across
the shelves anyhow—some upside down, some back to front—separated every
few yards by some useful kitchen utensil, such as a toasting-fork, a
small hand-brush, a pepper-box, a shovel, a couple of saucepan lids, and
so on. There were no books at all on one of the shelves, but a mass of
letters and envelopes filled the space. A broken rocking-chair beneath
one of the two windows that lighted the room held a box of tools and Mr
Sigglesthorne’s topcoat, and the desk under the other window supported a
tray with the remnants of a chop on a plate, a cup half full of cold
coffee, and a tin of condensed milk with a spoon sticking out of it; two
inkpots and a blotting-pad, and numerous pens, pencils, notebooks, and
stacks of papers occupied the rest of the desk. In the hearth were a
pair of old boots, a teapot, and three bundles of firewood.
It looked as if Mr Sigglesthorne was in the habit of placing things down
just wherever he happened to be at the moment—which was handy at the
time, but caused much confusion and delay in the long run; though it may
have added a little variety to his life to find his belongings where he
least expected them.
Mr Sigglesthorne, with his Shakespearean forehead shining in a
distinguished manner, sat on the coal-scuttle polishing his glasses and
gazing nervously round at his guests. His black velvet jacket, minus a
button, wanted brushing, and his dark grey trousers were creased and
baggy; altogether he looked shabby and unimposing—except for his
forehead, which just, as it were, kept his head above water.
"Now, if I may be permitted to see Miss Crabingway’s note?" he said.
"You must excuse my room being slightly untidy—a bachelor’s misfortune,
you know, Miss Pamela."
"What a lot of books you have," said Pamela.
"Are you a lawyer?" asked Isobel.
"Heaven forbid!" said Mr Sigglesthorne. "No, miss. But I am rather
a—bookworm. Ha! Ha! Yes, that’s what I am—a bookworm."
This idea seemed to afford him much private amusement, until putting on
his glasses and opening Miss Crabingway’s note his eyes fell on the
contents, and he at once became grave. It was just as if Miss
Crabingway were standing before him, speaking.
"Well, Joseph Sigglesthorne," the note ran, "so you have forgotten, as I
knew you would. There is no excuse—I gave you three calendars, which
you have not hung on the wall, by the by, but have stowed away out of
sight—you’ve forgotten where."
(This was quite true, as Mr Sigglesthorne realized, as he stroked the
back of his head and tried to recall what he had done with the
calendars.)
"The money I trusted you with is overdue. Kindly hand the deal box and
key to Miss Pamela there, and ask her to take out the notes."
"Ah, yes," said Mr Sigglesthorne aloud, as if Miss Crabingway were
indeed in the room waiting for him to apologize. "Very thoughtless of
me, I’m sure."
It may be thought remarkable that Mr Sigglesthorne should have
remembered where the deal box was. But Mr Sigglesthorne always
remembered where he had put money—a peculiarity of his that Miss
Crabingway knew well.
And now he was full of remorse at having failed Miss Crabingway in
regard to the date—for she had paid him well to remember. Mr
Sigglesthorne’s clothes and surroundings might have led one to think
that he was none too well off, but this idea would have been wrong—with
regard to the present, at any rate. Besides Miss Crabingway’s money
payments, he had lately got some ’research’ work—this latter fact he
mentioned to his visitors with some pride, and partly to account for the
piles of papers abounding everywhere. He left them to think this piece
of news over while he retired to another room to fetch the deal box.
While he was gone Martha rolled her eyes upward, and raised her hands in
despair.
"How I _should_ like to set to and tidy up a bit for him, poor
gentleman," she sighed.
"It’s more than I’d like to do," said Isobel. "_What_ a muddle!"
"He’d probably be annoyed if anyone upset his research papers," said
Pamela. "But, good gracious! I don’t know how he can ever find
anything again—once he puts it down."
"He probably doesn’t find it again," said Isobel, laughing.
As for Caroline, with whom neatness was almost a passion, she was fairly
numbed by the scene before her, and could only sigh deeply and shake her
head. Beryl was always shy in strange places, and, whatever her
thoughts, she kept silent.
Mr Sigglesthorne shortly returned, and with renewed apologies for
forgetting to bring the box down to Barrowfield presented a small deal
box and key to Pamela, requesting her to open it. Inside were a number
of bank-notes, which she was told to take out and distribute—so much to
Martha for housekeeping expenses and so much to herself and each of the
other girls for ’pocket money.’ Having done this, she signed a receipt
and placed it in the box, which Mr Sigglesthorne locked and took away
again.
Finding that they did not know the Temple well, Mr Sigglesthorne
insisted on putting on his coat and top-hat and coming out with them.
Pamela protested that they did not wish to take him away from his
research work, but he vowed he would have plenty of time if he returned
within half an hour. So he trotted beside them, talking and waving his
hand, first on one side and then the other, giving them a very confused
idea of the plan of the Temple and its history. But, at any rate, Mr
Sigglesthorne enjoyed himself. And when he finally left them in the
Strand, with more apologies, Pamela saw him disappear toward the Temple
again with a smile on her face that had more of regret in it than
amusement; but her regret was evidently not shared by Isobel, who said:
"Well, thank goodness! Now we can get on, and enjoy ourselves."
They did a round of sight-seeing to make the most of the day in town,
and had dinner at a restaurant, where Martha, though very nervous, was
nevertheless very critical, in her own mind, about the dishes served.
She guessed she could make better white sauce than was served at this
place, though she was curious to know how the cream pudding was made.
The girls wished they had arranged to end up the day at a theatre, but
they had not thought of this in time to let Ellen know, and she would be
at Barrowfield station waiting at nine o’clock. So they were obliged to
relinquish this idea, with much regret.
As they turned away from the restaurant Pamela suddenly gave a
start—stood stock still for a moment, then, bending her head, hurried
on. She had caught a glimpse of her father just getting into a bus.
The sight of him caused a great wave of longing and home-sickness to
rush over her, so that it was all she could do to restrain herself from
running back toward him. To her embarrassment she found that her eyes
were full of tears. He looked just the same dear old father. She had
not realized till now how badly she had wanted to see them all at home
again; she knew she had wanted them, but had stifled the longing as much
as possible. She wondered how her mother looked—and Michael—and the
others. The post-card she received from home each month was crammed
full of news—but even so, post-cards are very unsatisfying things.
As her agitation became obvious to her companions, and they inquired
what was the matter she was obliged to explain a little.
"I didn’t realize how _badly_ I wanted to see my people again—till I saw
him," she concluded.
"Well, half the time is up now," said Isobel. "I think it was a very
silly restriction of Miss Crabingway’s— But there you are! And fifty
pounds is not to be sneezed at, is it?"
Much to every one’s dismay, except Caroline’s, it now began to
rain—suddenly and heavily—and a rush was made for the nearest tube
station. Caroline hastily donned her mackintosh, and stopping in a
doorway slipped on her goloshes, before she ran through the rain to the
tube. Her triumph was short-lived, however, because once inside the
tube they were under cover all the way until they arrived at Barrowfield
station, very sleepy and chilly with sitting still so long in the train.
Ellen was at the station, and she had actually brought umbrellas for
them. Secretly, although not an ill-natured girl, Caroline had
half-hoped they would have had to tramp home through the rain—then
perhaps they wouldn’t have teased her another time, she thought.
However, under the umbrellas they walked—the village fly being engaged
elsewhere that evening, otherwise Thomas Bagg would have been hired to
take them home.
And then Beryl would not have bumped into some one—also under an
umbrella—who was coming from the village toward the station.
As a rather high wind was blowing it was necessary to hold an umbrella
down close over the top of your head, and so Beryl did not notice anyone
coming toward her till her umbrella caught against another umbrella;
both umbrellas were lifted for a moment—and in that moment Beryl saw a
woman looking at her from under the other umbrella, a woman who frowned
and put her forefinger to her lips as if enjoining silence.
[Illustration: A WOMAN WHO FROWNED AND PUT HER FOREFINGER TO HER LIPS]
Beryl stifled a scream and ran quickly forward and joined the others,
keeping as close to Pamela as she could till they reached home.
While the woman, with a quick backward glance at the receding group,
continued on her way, limping hurriedly up the hill.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*CAROLINE MAKES A DISCOVERY*
Pamela was just dropping off to sleep that night when some one tapped on
her bedroom door. She roused herself, and called out:
"Who’s there?"
"May I come in a minute? It’s only I—Caroline," the answer came in a
loud whisper.
"Oh—yes—yes—come in," she said, sitting up, only half awake as yet.
Caroline came in, a lighted candle in her hand. She was fully dressed,
and had not even untied her hair. She looked a bit scared and puzzled.
Closing the door softly behind her she crossed to the side of Pamela’s
bed.
"I’m sorry to disturb you," she said solemnly, "but I didn’t think you’d
be in bed yet—I haven’t even started to get undressed—I—I don’t like the
look of my room!"
"Don’t like the look of your room! Whatever do you mean, Caroline?"
Pamela rubbed her eyes.
"Well, some one’s been moving things. There are several things out of
their usual places. I—I believe somebody has been in the room while
we’ve been out to-day!"
Pamela was wide awake now.
"Oh, Caroline,—you don’t mean burglars? There’s nothing missing, is
there? Has anything been taken?"
"No. Not so far as I can see," replied Caroline. "But things have been
disturbed."
"I’ll come in with you and have a look," said Pamela, springing up and
hastily donning dressing-gown and slippers. "H’sh. We mustn’t wake the
others unless it’s necessary. They’re all so tired."
"I didn’t notice anything just at first," said Caroline, as they entered
her room.
"I don’t notice anything now," remarked Pamela, looking round at the
neat and orderly chamber.
"Wait a minute," said Caroline. "Look here—" and she pulled open one of
the drawers in her dressing-table.
"Well?" said Pamela, who could see nothing amiss with the contents of
the drawer.
"Well!" echoed Caroline rather indignantly, "I never leave my drawers
like this. See—these gloves were folded together in that corner—and
these ribbons here—and I always keep my handkerchiefs on top of each
other at this side—These handkerchiefs are all arranged anyhow. I
_know_ I didn’t leave them like this! ... And look here—on the
mantelpiece—these photo frames have been shifted—and on this chair by
the window my brown scarf which I left folded on the seat was on the
floor!"
"Oh, come," said Pamela. "That might easily have slid off. The main
point is—is there anything missing?"
"Nothing so far," replied Caroline. "But some one _has_ been in here
moving my things—I’m certain of it. I know just the way I always leave
my belongings. I always put them in the same places and in the same
positions."
She seemed so positive that Pamela was silenced. Anyone else but
Caroline would probably not have noticed that anything had been
disturbed in their room.
"Well—what shall we do?" said Pamela, who really thought that Caroline
was under a delusion. She couldn’t see anything wrong with the room.
"If we wake everybody up we shall only scare them—it isn’t as if you’d
missed anything. That would be a different matter. I suppose you’ve
searched all over the room? Of course, you’ve made sure there’s no one
hiding here now?"
"Oh, yes," said Caroline; but to make doubly sure she and Pamela
searched again thoroughly. They looked in the wardrobe, behind the
wardrobe, under the bed, behind the chest of drawers, and in and under
every likely and unlikely place in the room.
"Have you looked in the soap-dish?" said Pamela, jokingly.
But Caroline did not laugh; she continued her search solemnly. Suddenly
an exclamation from her made Pamela wheel round.
"Just fancy that!" said Caroline, still on her knees, after an attempt
to look under the chest of drawers—a space of about six inches from the
ground. "Look here, Pamela! Here’s my silver thimble! The one I
couldn’t find—under the edge of the carpet beneath this chest of
drawers. And I’ve looked everywhere for it—but here. It must have
rolled off the back of the chest, and got wedged under the carpet."
"What luck! The search hasn’t been wasted after all then," remarked
Pamela, stifling a yawn.
"And it is my wish come true," said Caroline slowly.
"What! About the thimble! Is that what you wished?" cried Pamela.
"Yes," said Caroline. "I didn’t know what else to wish—and I couldn’t
find my silver thimble that my grandmother gave me—so I thought I’d wish
about that."
"I see," said Pamela, trying hard not to smile. "Well, your wish has
come true. You lucky girl! I only hope the rest of us are as
fortunate."
After this Caroline reluctantly agreed to go to bed, and not to bother
any further about the things in her room being disturbed until the
morning, when Pamela promised to make full inquiries and sift the matter
thoroughly. Pamela felt fairly certain in her own mind that no one had
been in Caroline’s room or she would not have let the matter drop so
easily. Both girls being now very tired after their long day in town
they soon dropped into their beds and went off to sleep.
Caroline referred to the matter over breakfast in the morning, thereby
incurring a great deal of attention and questioning from the
others—which made her feel quite important for once in a way. Caroline
was one of those people who could not usually attract much attention
from others, as she was unable to talk interestingly about things. But
this morning she found she was actually being interesting; she liked the
sensation, and meant to make the most of it.
While Pamela and Isobel discussed the matter with Caroline, Beryl, who
had turned very white, sat silent, her half-finished breakfast pushed on
one side; she sat stirring her tea mechanically round and round—only
breaking her silence once to ask Caroline if she had missed anything,
and seemed relieved on hearing that Caroline had not.
"I suppose nobody else’s room was disturbed in any way?" said Pamela,
adding, "Mine was all right."
"So was mine," said Isobel.
"And mine," echoed Beryl, quickly.
"Well, we’ll just go and ask Ellen if she can throw any light on the
matter, shall we?" said Pamela. "She was the only inmate of this house
who was not up in London yesterday."
Ellen was very interested, but it did not seem as if she could help to
solve the question. She had certainly not been in the room herself; she
had left the house at the same time as they did yesterday, and when she
and Millicent Jackson—the friend with whom she had spent the day—had
come in to fetch the umbrellas to bring to the station in the evening,
they had not been upstairs at all. They had let themselves in at the
back door, gone straight through to the hall, taken the umbrellas out of
the stand, and gone out of the front door. They weren’t in the house
five minutes, as they were in a hurry to get to the station in time.
"There, Caroline!" said Isobel. "You see nobody could have been in your
room. You must have moved the things yourself."
But Caroline shook her head.
"Could anyone have slipped in the back door after you—without you
noticing?" she asked Ellen.
"Oh, miss! Well—I never thought of that!" said Ellen, then hesitated.
"Of course, they could have, Miss Caroline—but it’s most unlikely. If
anyone had troubled to do that they would have taken something while
they were about it, wouldn’t they?"
Caroline shrugged her shoulders.
"All I know is—the things in my room were disturbed," she insisted
doggedly. "And I don’t like it."
"How could anyone have slipped in without you seeing, Ellen?" inquired
Pamela.
"Well, Miss Pamela, to be exact," explained Ellen, "me an’ Millicent
unlocked the back door and came in, shut the door, and went into the
kitchen, where I struck a match and lit the candle that we keep on the
dresser here. We didn’t bother to light the gas as we was going
straight through, and out the front way. Me an’ Millicent was talking,
interested-like, as we went into the hall, when Millicent says, ’Oh, did
you lock the back door again?’ And I says, ’Oh, no.’ And I went back
and locked it.... Then we got the umbrellas and went straight out the
front way.... Now, _do_ you think anyone would have got in just in that
minute before I locked the back door, Miss Pamela? Now _do_ you, Miss
Caroline?"
"It’s just possible, of course, but not at all likely," said Pamela.
"Thanks very much, Ellen—as nothing has been missed, I really don’t see
any use in pursuing the matter further, Caroline, do you? ... And it’s
such a grand morning, let’s all go for a good tramp over the hills."
So Pamela dismissed the incident from her mind; and Isobel, putting it
down to "one of the bees in old Caroline’s bonnet," soon followed suit.
Ellen and Martha discussed the matter together, and Ellen repeated her
story to Martha several times—each time with more emphasis than the
last; and when she next saw Millicent Jackson she mentioned it to her,
and they talked of it until the subject was exhausted—then as nothing
further happened to make them remember it, they too forgot it. Caroline
remembered it as a grievance for a considerable time, then the
excitement of the coming bazaar caused it to fade into the background.
The only one who did not forget the incident was Beryl, and she had good
reason to remember it—as we shall presently see.
After the visit to London a marked change seemed to come over Beryl;
always pale and nervous, she appeared to grow even paler and more
nervous as the days went by. At times she would emerge from the cloud
of depression which seemed so often to envelop her now and join
light-heartedly in whatever was going on, but these occasions grew more
and more rare.
When Pamela remarked on her paleness one day Beryl put it down to the
weather, saying it made her feel tired. Pamela believed her; had she
not been so absorbed in Elizabeth Bagg and her work she might have
noticed things that would have aroused her suspicions; but she was not
suspicious in any way until one evening Beryl, very awkward and
hesitating, asked Pamela if she would lend her a sovereign. Pamela did
not voice the surprise she showed in her face—surprise because the
pocket-money handed over to each of them by Mr Sigglesthorne had been
quite generous and sufficient for the few expenses the girls would be
likely to incur in Barrowfield during the remainder of their stay.
However, she lent the money at once, and willingly, and asked no
questions—for which Beryl seemed very grateful.
Feeling a little uneasy about the matter, and wishing to help her if
possible, Pamela made several opportunities for Beryl to confide in her
if she had wished to do so. But Beryl did not seem to wish to do so.
*CHAPTER XV*
*ABOUT A BAZAAR AND A MEETING IN THE RUINED WINDMILL*
The bazaar, for which Caroline had been sewing so perseveringly, was
held in the grounds of the Manor House on a beautiful sunny day at the
end of May. Caroline spent a blissful afternoon, dressed in a Japanese
kimono with chrysanthemums in her hair, surrounded by tea-cosies and
cushion-covers and hand-embroidered scarves; and she had quite a brisk
sale at her stall, in spite of exorbitant prices.
The spacious lawn below the terraced flower-garden was a delightful
picture; the soft, velvety grass and the cool shade under the trees that
bordered it making a pleasing background for the dainty kimonoed figures
that tripped to and fro among the bamboo stalls with their white
umbrella-shaped awnings. As the general public began to make its
appearance, the colours in the summer dresses that moved across the lawn
became as variegated as the flower-garden itself.
Lady Prior stood on the terrace and looked down with a pleased smile at
the animated scene beneath her.
"The village looks forward so eagerly to this each year," she remarked
to a friend. "You see, there is absolutely nowhere for them to go as a
rule, poor creatures. This is quite an event for them." And she raised
her eyebrows and gave a little rippling laugh.
Meanwhile the poor creatures were spending their money as they were
able, and the local reporter, who was wandering among the stalls, was
mentally calculating how big a sum of money he would be able to announce
in next week’s _Observer_ as the result of Lady Prior’s Annual Bazaar.
Most of the village seemed out to enjoy itself at all costs; but now and
again one would come across a gloomy individual who looked like an
unwilling victim of this annual institution. In some cases, as one
little old woman grumbled to Caroline, people came because they had been
badgered and worried into promising to attend by one of the industrious
members of the committee.
"And there’s so much questioning, and reproachful looks, an’ cold stares
afterward—if you don’t come," she grumbled, fingering the various
articles on Caroline’s stall, "that you come for peace sake.... Though
I’d much rather be sittin’ at ’ome an’ ’aving a cup of tea in peace and
quietness and restin’ my old bones—it’s all very well for young folk to
come gallivantin’ and spendin’ their savings—but when you’re old—! ...
’Ow much is this? What is it? Eh? An egg-cosy! ... Oh, give me one of
them six-penny ’air-tidies—it’ll do for my daughter in London. I ain’t
got no ’air to speak of myself. But my daughter—her ’air comes out in
’andfulls—you ought to see it! ... You’ve got nothing else for
six-pence, I suppose? No? ... I won’t ’ave anything else then."
And the little old woman took the hair-tidy and made her way straight to
the gates, apparently making a bee-line for home, having fulfilled her
duty.
Caroline was not critical—she took things very much as a matter of
course, and did not feel ashamed for the handsomely dressed lady from a
neighbouring village who inquired in a loud voice for the stall where
the ’pore clothes’ were for sale. Caroline did not quite understand at
first, until another stall-holder explained that Mrs Lester always
purchased a number of garments to distribute among the deserving poor of
her parish. The garments Mrs Lester bought looked a bit clumsy, and
were made all alike, of rather coarse material, but "she’s awfully good
to the poor, you know," Caroline was told; and there the matter ended,
until she recounted the incident to the others when she got home, and
provoked a stormy protest from Pamela against the _way_ in which rich
people were ’good to the poor.’
"Why can’t they be more tactful," asked Pamela. "Of course I know lots
of them are—but I mean people like this Mrs Lester."
"Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Pamela," said Isobel, laughing. "What do poor
people want with tact? Give them a good meal or a bundle of clothes and
they’ll pretend to be grateful and satisfied and all that, and directly
your back is turned they’ll grumble because you haven’t given them
_more_. They always want more—they don’t want tact!"
Pamela stared for a moment at Isobel, who was reclining gracefully on
the sofa, amusement in every line of her face at Pamela’s ideas.
"Good gracious, Isobel! I can see a perfectly horrible future in store
for you," Pamela said quietly. "You are going to be another Mrs
Lester."
"What of it?" laughed Isobel. "As long as I am as rich as she is, there
are no horrors for me."
"Anyway, I’m sorry for you," said Pamela earnestly.
"What on earth for?" asked Isobel, slightly nettled.
"Because you’ll miss some of the best things in life," replied Pamela.
"Not if I’m rich, I shan’t," said Isobel.
Caroline had listened in mild surprise at all this. It had never struck
her that there could be anything to object to in Mrs Lester’s attitude.
"Do you know," she said, changing the conversation, "I had to pay for
the hire of my kimono. I hadn’t expected to have to pay after giving my
services free, and making so many things for the bazaar. But it all
goes to a good cause, I suppose."
Caroline had rather regretted that none of the other three girls had
been present at the bazaar in the afternoon, to see how rapidly her
tea-cosies had sold; but each of the three had had a different excuse
for not coming. Isobel’s absence, of course, was a foregone
conclusion—she would have loved to go, but could not on account of Miss
Crabingway’s instructions.
Pamela, as we know, hated bazaars. "Don’t ask me to come, Caroline,"
she had said kindly. "But will you take this donation for ’the cause’
and put it in one of the boxes or whatever they have to collect the
money in."
Caroline had had hopes that Beryl, at any rate, would not like to refuse
to come. But lack of money to spend made Beryl desperate, and, although
she was quite resolved in her own mind not to go, she half promised
Caroline she would go, if she felt up to it. She even made a feint of
preparing to go. Then a sudden imaginary attack of neuralgia made it
impossible, and she sent word by Pamela to tell Caroline not to wait,
and went and lay down in her bedroom and pulled down the blind. There
in her cool and darkened room she listened to Caroline departing, and
felt very much ashamed of herself for the story she had made up about
neuralgia.
"But I couldn’t explain that I had no money—and why," she made excuses
to herself. "Oh, it isn’t fair!"
About a week after the bazaar Isobel went over to Inchmoor alone one day
to Madame Clarence’s, a bad toothache compelling Caroline to miss a
lesson for the first time. When her dancing-lesson was over Isobel did
a little shopping, and then went and had tea in a smart and popular
confectioner’s, where she could watch all the fashion of the town go by
from her seat near the window. Finding that she had missed her usual
train back to Barrowfield and that there was a long wait before the next
train, she finished her tea leisurely and then started out to walk back
home.
She had got about half-way back when a thunderstorm broke suddenly. And
there was Isobel in a light cotton dress, and a hat that would be
’absolutely ruined’ if it got wet, in the middle of a country lane—a
couple of miles from anywhere. She had not paid much attention to the
warning clouds overhead, and when the first growl of thunder was heard
she looked up startled and hastened her footsteps.
A few minutes later the rain started—great slow thunder-spots at first,
and then it came down in torrents. Isobel, casting her eyes hastily
around for some place of shelter, saw on the hill-top the ruined
windmill. She made for this, and dashed in wet and gasping, and found
that although the wind and rain lashed in through the many holes in the
ruin, yet it afforded a considerable amount of protection if she chose
the right corner to stand in. It was fortunate that she did not
remember how Caroline, in spite of her toothache, had come out to the
front door to advise her to take an umbrella with her, or she would have
felt even more out of temper with the world than she did.
The corner she was crouching in was partly hidden from the doorway by a
couple of thick beams of wood which were leaning, like props, from the
walls to the ground. The beams and a pile of dust and bricks formed a
partial screen, but not sufficient to hide her white frock, if anyone
had been present in that deserted spot.
Isobel had been there about five minutes, and the storm showed no signs
of abating, when she heard voices and hurrying feet, and the next
instant two people dashed in at the doorway.
"Here you are, mother, stand this side—and hold the rug round you this
way—it’ll protect us a bit," said a deep voice.
"It really _is_ most annoying—the car breaking down like that," said a
woman’s voice. "Don’t go outside, Harry.... Oh, mind!" She gave a
little shriek at a flash of lightning.
It was not the lightning nor the crash of thunder that followed that
made Isobel’s heart thump so madly. The two new-comers—who had not
caught sight of her yet, as they were standing with their backs to
her—were no others than Lady Prior and her son!
Whatever should she do, thought poor Isobel. She was caught in a trap.
If they turned and saw her, as they undoubtedly would do sooner or
later, they would probably speak—and then what was she to do? Of course
they wouldn’t know who she was. Surely Miss Crabingway wouldn’t mean her
not to speak, under the circumstances. It was so perfectly silly! ...
But old ladies were queer creatures sometimes. And only a few weeks
more—and then the fifty pounds was hers, and she could do what she
liked. Isobel did not want to lose the money just by making some stupid
little mistake a week or so before it was due. She thought of her
Wishing Well wish.... Of course, she could explain just how this
meeting came about, to Miss Crabingway—but would Miss Crabingway
understand?—or was she hoping that most of the girls would break one or
other of the rules, and so lose the money?
All this flashed through Isobel’s mind during the few minutes she waited
for the two by the doorway to turn round and discover her. How she
wished—wished most fervently—that they would _not_ turn round. For,
besides the chief reason, Isobel felt she did not wish them to see her
because she must look such ’a sight’—dripping wet, and crumpled, and
blown about, and her hat flopping limply.
She gathered from the disjointed conversation that was going on that
Lady Prior and her son had been driving home in the motor when the car
had broken down in one of the by-lanes about a hundred yards from the
mill. The storm had come on while the son was trying to mend matters,
and Lady Prior being rather nervous of lightning had been unwilling to
stay in the car covered with rugs, and had insisted on getting under a
roof of some sort where she felt more protected. She had also insisted
on Harry coming with her, and so, covering the motor over, they had
brought a rug and taken shelter inside the windmill. Although Harry had
thought that they would be just as safe if they had remained in the car,
Lady Prior thought otherwise. And so here they were.
Isobel glanced round about to see if there were any possible way of
escape; but there appeared to be none. "Now what shall I do when they
turn round?" she kept asking herself. Had Beryl been in the same
predicament as Isobel all sorts of wild ideas would have been rushing
through her brain. Beryl would have thought of things like this: Should
she pretend she was a foreigner, and could not understand English? Or,
better still, should she pretend she was deaf and dumb? Should she
pretend to have fainted—and so escape from having to speak; but this
might have had awkward consequences if they insisted on taking her home
or to a doctor. Should she pretend to go mad, and tear past them and
out of the door?
But these sorts of ideas did not occur to Isobel, who was not used to
practising deceptions as Beryl was. What Isobel did do was, after all,
the most natural thing. When Lady Prior and Harry turned and caught
sight of her, and Lady Prior gave a little shriek (because the lightning
had unnerved her), and then broke into exclamations and questions,
Isobel, quite unable to control herself, began to cry, her face buried
in her hands. ("And now, I simply can’t let them see my face," she
thought to herself. "My nose always goes so red when I cry.... I must
look such an awful fright.... I must keep my face hidden somehow.")
She became aware that Lady Prior was speaking to her in a slightly
condescending voice, forbidding her to cry, and telling her not be
alarmed at the lightning.
"These country creatures are sometimes so frightfully hysterical during
thunderstorms," Isobel heard Lady Prior remark in an undertone to her
son. "I suppose she’s a girl from one of the villages around here....
There, there, my good girl, don’t cry like that—the storm’s almost over
now."
Lady Prior asked her a few more questions—Where did she come from? Had
she far to go home? But receiving no reply she turned to her son,
smiled faintly, and shrugged her shoulders.
Isobel sobbed on. Her feelings beggar description. To be talked to in
such a tone by Lady Prior! To be mistaken for a dowdy, hysterical
village girl by Lady Prior! (But, of course, her wet clothes and
flopping hat and streaky hair must look so positively awful that no
wonder Lady Prior could not tell what she was nor what she looked like.)
Nevertheless, it was the last drop in Isobel’s cup of humiliation. Not
for anything on earth would she let them see her face now!
Stealthily she watched for her opportunity. Lady Prior and her son had
moved away from the door because the rain was lashing in too furiously,
and their backs were turned to her again. She edged quietly round the
wall, climbed swiftly over the pile of bricks and dust, and made a
sudden dash for the door.
Lady Prior gave another little shriek and clutched hold of Harry’s arm.
Isobel’s action had been so sudden and unexpected that before anyone
could stop her she had gained the door and was rushing blindly down the
hill in the pouring rain.
Whether Harry was sent after her she did not know. Probably not, as it
was still raining, and Lady Prior would think the girl was hysterical
beyond control and that it was the best thing to let her run home as
quickly as possible.
Isobel reached home just as the storm was over. Do what she would to
avoid seeing the other girls she could not escape them. They all three
came out into the hall to exclaim over her drenched state and offer
their help, but she kept her head down as much as possible so that they
should not see she had been crying, and hurried off to her room to
change her clothes at once.
She would not look in the glass until she was warm and dry again. She
felt she could not stand this last blow to her self-respect. When she
did see her reflection she was almost her old self again, and the
feeling of humiliation was considerably lightened. She began to feel
somewhat virtuous for not breaking Miss Crabingway’s rule, and pleased
with herself for having got out of the predicament without Lady Prior
and Harry suspecting her identity.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*PAMELA’S WISH COMES TRUE*
It would be pleasant to be able to record, now that the visit to
Chequertrees draws to a close, that the four girls had made considerable
progress in the work that they had set themselves to do. But this was
not quite the case.
Caroline had certainly done an immense amount of needlework, but she had
learnt no dressmaking nor ’cutting out’; her needlework was simply a
repetition of work she could already do. And the dancing-lessons she
had attended had scarcely improved her ability, or rather inability, for
dancing; but they were good exercise for her, and had improved her
health. It seemed to Caroline as if she would never be able to learn
some of the dances Madame Clarence taught, not even if she attended the
Academy for twenty years; she did not know why—simply, she could not
grasp them. Sometimes it seemed to Caroline as if her feet were in
league against her; her right foot would come forward and point the toe
when it ought to have remained stationary and let the left foot point
the toe; and her left foot would raise itself up while the right foot
gave a hop, just when they both ought to have been gliding gracefully
along the polished floor.... But in spite of these annoyances Caroline
kept doggedly on with the lessons, and the improvement in her health was
more than compensation for her lack of success as a dancer.
Beryl had advanced a great deal in her musical studies. She had had
time and opportunity to practise and study her theory; time and
opportunity had never been so liberally offered to her before, and now
that they were offered she seized them eagerly—and made the most of
them. She had even tried to compose a few pieces—a waltz, and a march,
and a melody in E flat, a haunting melody which always made her feel
’exaltedly sad’ whenever she played it. Beryl thought privately that it
was a beautiful tune, but Isobel, who heard it through the door one day,
told Caroline that she thought it ought to be called ’Green Apples,’
because the treble "sounded like the face one pulls on tasting something
sharp and sour." Caroline was puzzled, and pondered over this for a
long time, and then went to listen outside the door herself. She heard
the tune, and liked it—liked it so much that she went in and asked Beryl
to play it again, much to Beryl’s confusion and delight. After that it
became a regular institution; Caroline would take her needlework into
the drawing-room and sit and listen whenever Beryl started to play her
melody in E flat. For some reason or other this particular tune
appealed to Caroline; it made her feel pleasantly melancholy, and she
enjoyed the feeling, and would sit sewing and heaving long sighs at
intervals. If Isobel were anywhere within hearing on these occasions
she was rendered nearly helpless with stifled laughter. "There’s poor
old Caroline going in to have some more ’Green Apples,’" she would
giggle, and as the tune proceeded would stuff her handkerchief in her
mouth and fly up to her room and shut herself in. Although this was
only an early attempt at composing, it marked a chapter in Beryl’s
musical career, and as she advanced her compositions became more
numerous and were better finished.
Isobel, who had not taken the question of work seriously, had
nevertheless made good progress in her dancing. Naturally a graceful
dancer, she had rapidly picked up the new dances at Madame Clarence’s,
and was now one of Madame’s ’show pupils’—to the mutual satisfaction of
both of them. It may have been noticed that up to the present time no
mention has been made of Isobel taking any photographs with the camera
she talked of buying; this was because she did not buy a camera until a
fortnight before her stay at Barrowfield came to an end; and then she
went and bought one with a definite purpose in view—the purpose of
giving a gift of some photographs to Miss Crabingway on her return.
Pamela, though she had given most of her spare time to her sketching,
had got through a good deal of reading as well, but not as much as she
had meant to. The best of her sketches she intended to take home with
her in order to show Michael what she had been doing, and what sort of
places she had been seeing, and what she had learnt from Elizabeth Bagg.
There was one thing that all four girls had managed to do, and that was
to keep on good terms with each other with rarely an open disagreement.
"It’ll be so much more comfortable for us all if we can manage to put up
with each other—and, after all, it is only for a short time, not for
life," Pamela had remarked on one occasion. And so this sensible
attitude was adopted by all of them. Whenever the smoothly running
wheels of the household got stuck, as they were bound to occasionally, a
little lubricating oil from Martha or Ellen, or one or other of the
girls, soon set them running easily again. The stay at Chequertrees and
the contact of the various temperaments was bound to leave some
impression on each of the girls afterward; it was not to be expected
that it could radically change them, except in small ways. They had all
more or less enjoyed their visit, and it had done them all good, in more
ways than one. Martha and Ellen owned to each other in the kitchen one
evening that they would certainly miss the young life about the place
when the girls had gone.
About a fortnight before the six months came to an end the girls were
sitting in the garden one afternoon having tea under the mulberry tree
at the end of the lawn, when Beryl made a suggestion.
"I was just wondering," she began hesitatingly, "whether we couldn’t do
something for Miss Crabingway, as a sort of—well, to show we’ve had a
nice time here in her house."
"What sort of thing?" asked Caroline, her mind running at once to gifts
of hand-made tea-cosies and cushions.
"A jolly good idea, Beryl," said Pamela. "It would be nice to show her
we’d appreciated the stay here. I know that I, for one, have had a good
time. What could we do, now, for Miss Crabingway?"
"When you say ’do something,’ do you mean club together and buy her a
present?—or do you suggest we decorate the house with evergreens and
hang WELCOME HOME in white cotton-wool letters on a red flannel
background?" said Isobel, laughing. "Or does ’do something’ mean
getting up an entertainment for her pleasure, in which case you can put
me down for a skirt dance—I’ve learnt a heavenly new step at Madame
Clarence’s—you’ll see it when you come to Madame’s reception next week."
"I suppose you end the lessons the week after next?" said Pamela.
"Yes, last time on Tuesday week," replied Isobel. "Of course it’s very
unusual to hold dancing-classes all through the summer, as Madame does,
but some of the pupils are awfully keen—and she finds that it pays, I
suppose. But it’s the last time I shall be there—Tuesday week."
"Oh, don’t let us talk about _last_ and _end_," said Beryl. "I wish it
needn’t end—our stay here."
"Do you really?" said Isobel. "Oh, it hasn’t been a bad time on the
whole, but I shan’t be sorry to get back to town, and the shops and
theatres, and, of course, mater and all the rest of it."
"I shan’t mind being home again, though I’ve had a pleasant stay here,"
remarked Caroline. "I’m sure Pamela is longing to be among her people
again."
"Oh, I am," said Pamela fervently. "I can’t tell you how much I’m
looking forward to seeing them. I’ve had an awfully jolly time here,
though.... And that brings us back to Beryl’s suggestion—what can we do
for Miss Crabingway? ... I don’t know what you all think about it, but I
should suggest that we each give her something original—give her
something she couldn’t buy in a shop in the ordinary way."
"Like—what?" asked Isobel.
"Well, for instance, Caroline could give her a piece of her
hand-embroidered needlework."
"I wish we had thought of this earlier," observed Caroline, "I could
have been working at something, in odd moments, all these weeks."
"You’ve still got a whole fortnight left, dear child," said Isobel.
"But what can _I_ do for Miss Crabingway? Suggest something, somebody,
please! I can’t do embroidery, like Caroline; nor draw pictures, like
Pamela; nor compose music, like Beryl.... By the way, Beryl, you ought
to compose a waltz, and call it ’The Emily Valse,’ and dedicate it to
Miss Emily Crabingway, you know. She would be _charmed_, I’m sure."
Beryl flushed quickly, not because she resented Isobel’s joke, but
because some such idea as Isobel suggested had flitted for a moment
through her mind (barring the title of the composition).
"And I’ll invent a dance which shall be called ’The Crabingway Glide,’
and I’ll dance it to your music. There! What do you think of that for
an idea?" Isobel laughed.
"Very good indeed," said Pamela.
And then the four girls began to laugh at each other, and with each
other, and make all sorts of wild and facetious suggestions, until
Martha came to the kitchen window and looked out, wondering what all the
laughter was about. But, in spite of all the joking about it, the idea
was seriously considered, and arrangements made for each to do her best
to give Miss Crabingway something of her own work in appreciation of the
visit to Chequertrees.
It was on this occasion that Isobel finally decided to buy her camera
without delay and get some really interesting snap-shots of the girls
and the house, and have the best photographs enlarged and framed for
Miss Crabingway.
"While we’re on the subject," said Pamela, "I should like to give
something or other to Martha and Ellen, wouldn’t you? They’ve looked
after us awfully well—what can we do for them, I wonder?"
They discussed presents for Martha and Ellen, and decided each to make
or buy something suitable within the next fortnight.
Pamela went round to see the Baggs after tea. She knew that it was one
of the days Elizabeth went over to Inchmoor and that she would not be
back home again until seven o’clock, because it was the evening she
stayed later to do her housekeeping shopping. But Pamela did not want
to see Elizabeth herself. She wanted to see her firelight picture,
which she knew was just finished.
The eldest little Bagg girl was setting the table for her father’s tea
when Pamela arrived at ’Alice Maud Villa.’
"I’m just going up to Elizabeth’s room for something," said Pamela,
after she had helped to lay the table. Tom Bagg was not in yet, but
expected in every minute.
Upstairs in the studio Pamela found Elizabeth’s picture—finished. She
stood before it for some minutes, regarding it earnestly.
"Yes, it’s the best thing she’s ever done," she said to herself. "I’m
sure it is."
To Pamela’s eyes the likenesses were excellent; Tom Bagg, with his
ruddy, genial face, sitting in his big arm-chair by the fire, chuckling,
and pointing with the stem of his pipe at his absorbed audience of
children, a habit of his when emphasizing any particular point in the
story. The expressions on the children’s faces were delightful. Pamela
laughed softly to herself as she looked at them.
Then she went to the door, opened it, and listened. Tom Bagg had just
come in, and was inquiring when his tea would be ready.
"I’ll wait till he’s had it," thought Pamela. "He’ll be in an extra good
mood then."
She went downstairs and chatted with him while he had his tea, and did
her best to put him in as pleasant a mood as possible. She laughed at
his jokes longer than they deserved, and encouraged him to talk; he was
always happy when talking; and she kept an eye on the children so that
they did nothing to annoy him. Frequently she would glance up at the
clock, anxious to assure herself that Elizabeth was not due home yet.
At length, when Tom Bagg had finished his tea and had got out his pipe
and tobacco pouch, she felt that her opportunity had arrived. She rose,
and with rapidly beating heart went upstairs to the studio and fetched
the firelight picture down. Without a word she placed it on a chair
before the old cabman, who watched her movements with curious surprise.
The little Baggs pressed forward and clustered round the picture, gazing
in astonishment. For a second or two there was dead silence in the room.
"It’s Daddy," said one of the children.
"An’ us!" cried another shrilly.
"Your sister painted it," said Pamela to Tom Bagg.
Then they all began to talk at once—all, that is, except old Tom Bagg.
Throughout the noisy interlude that followed he remained silent, staring
at the picture. Pamela watched his face anxiously.
Presently he scratched the bald spot on the top of his head, and said
quietly:
"Well, I’m blowed!"
He had never seen any of Elizabeth’s portrait studies before, and was
filled with astonishment.
"But it’s like me!" he said in surprise, as if that were the last thing
to be expected.
"Of course it is," replied Pamela. "It’s meant to be." Then she went
on to explain how Elizabeth had sat and watched him and the children and
then gone away and painted the picture up in her own room. She was
longing to talk about Elizabeth’s work with all the enthusiasm she felt
for it, but she purposely kept her voice as quiet as she could, because
she guessed it would be wiser and more effective to let Tom Bagg think
he had discovered for himself how clever his sister really was.
Which is precisely what Tom Bagg came to think he had done. He was much
taken by his own portrait.
"It’s not a bad bit of work, eh?" he asked Pamela.
"It’s a decidedly good bit of work—it’s splendid," she replied.
The more Tom Bagg looked at the picture the more pleased he became with
it.
"No," he said, "it’s not at all a bad bit of work."
He stood with his head a little on one side regarding the picture.
And then the front-door latch clicked and Elizabeth Bagg stepped in.
She caught sight of the picture immediately, and looked round the room
astonished, and annoyed.
"Oh, please forgive me," said Pamela, moving toward her. "I—I simply
couldn’t help bringing it down..."
"Lizzie," said Tom Bagg, who felt wholeheartedly generous once he was
convinced of anything, "this is not at all a bad bit of work. Why
didn’t you tell me you could paint likenesses?"
He was evidently greatly struck with the painting, and seemed to admire
it so genuinely, that any annoyance Elizabeth may have felt faded
immediately, and she laughed a little nervously and said she was glad he
liked it.
When Pamela had decided to bring the picture down to show to Tom Bagg
she had not expected her action to do more than make Tom Bagg realize
the talent of his sister, and so make it easier for her to have more
time for her painting. Tom Bagg certainly did realize his sister’s
talent at last; but the matter did not end there; he became so pleased
with the picture that the following evening he carried it (without
Elizabeth’s permission) down to the ’Blue Boar,’ where he proudly
displayed it to his bosom friends, and any strangers who happened to
drop in while he was there, and was much elated by the unanimous praise
it received.
Whether you believe the Wishing Well had anything to do with the sequel
depends on whether you believe in Wishing Wells or not. Pamela
undoubtedly puts it down to the Wishing Well. She had wished that
Elizabeth Bagg’s work would gain recognition. And it did. It happened
that a Mr Alfred Knowles, an influential art connoisseur from London,
came into the ’Blue Boar’ that evening just when Tom Bagg was showing
the picture to a group of men in the bar-parlour. Mr Knowles listened
with great interest to Tom Bagg’s explanations and remarks, and getting
into conversation with the old cabman, questioned him closely about his
sister’s work. An introduction to Elizabeth Bagg followed, and Mr
Knowles was so delighted with her pictures that he purchased several and
took them back to town with him; he would have liked to buy the
firelight picture, but Tom Bagg seemed so anxious to keep it that
Elizabeth decided not to part with it, but promised Mr Knowles that she
would have a reproduction made for him as quickly as possible. And so
the original picture of Tom Bagg telling stories to his children was
hung up over the mantel-piece in the living-room of the little cottage
in Long Lane.
Pamela was delighted by the turn events had taken. Had she been able to
see into Elizabeth’s future she would have been more delighted still.
For Elizabeth’s pictures were to be seen and admired by Mr Knowles’
artistic friends, and she was to get commissions from them for numerous
paintings, so that as time went on she was obliged to give up her
classes at Inchmoor in order to give all her spare time to her painting
at home. And with the money she earned Elizabeth was eventually able to
pay for some one to come and do the housework for her brother, and
washing and mending, and to help look after the children. For, though
Elizabeth achieved in time a small amount of fame, it never altered her
decision to stay and look after her brother and his children.
"I couldn’t be happy if I left them now," she would say, when tempted
with the thought of that wonderful room in London. Instead, she rented
a room in Barrowfield, which she turned into a studio, and divided her
days between the studio and her brother’s house.
As for Tom Bagg, he was bewildered yet gratified with the state of
affairs; his respect for Elizabeth increased by leaps and bounds as he
saw how highly valued her work became. Gradually he came to wonder if
he and the children were a drag on Elizabeth’s career, and once he
offered her her freedom, and was deeply touched by her decision to stay
with him....
And there was to come a day in the future when Pamela and Michael and
Elizabeth Bagg were to pay a visit to the Royal Academy to see
Elizabeth’s latest picture hung....
But all this was to happen some years after Pamela’s first visit to
Barrowfield was over. Up to the present time Elizabeth’s pictures had
just been bought by Mr Knowles—which was sufficient for Pamela to be
able to announce to three interested girls at Chequertrees that her
Wishing Well wish had come true.
*CHAPTER XVII*
*IN WHICH OLD SILAS LAUGHS AND ISOBEL DANCES*
Madame Clarence’s reception took place a week before the girls’ visit to
Chequertrees came to an end. As one of Madame’s ’show’ pupils Isobel
was to do a special dance by herself on this occasion; she had been
looking forward to this, and had bought a special dress for the dance,
made of white silk. She had practised the steps and movements of the
dance over and over again before a long mirror in her bedroom, until she
could do the dance to her complete satisfaction. Madame was
enthusiastic over it, and told Isobel privately that she thought she
would be the success of the evening—which pleased Isobel greatly, and
made her determine that she would do her best to make Madame’s words
come true.
In her white silk frock, her pretty fluffy hair dressed becomingly and
tied with a soft blue ribbon, she looked very dainty and graceful as she
ran down the stairs to the dining-room for Pamela and Beryl to inspect
her before she put her cloak on.
Caroline, who, of course, was to dance at Madame’s reception also (but
not by herself), was "not quite ready yet," she called out to Isobel as
the latter passed the bedroom door on her way down. Caroline was to wear
a white frock too; but white did not suit Caroline’s complexion, and the
style of her dress rather emphasized her heavy build and plump arms.
However, as Caroline surveyed herself in the mirror she was not so
concerned about her frock or complexion as she was with the intricacies
of one of the dances she was to take part in that evening. She felt
sure she would never remember a certain twist at one point, and a bow,
and a turn at another, and she felt very glad that she was not going to
dance alone, like Isobel, but only with a crowd of other girls.
Pamela, Beryl, Martha, and Ellen had been invited by Isobel and Caroline
to come as their guests to the reception. Each pupil of Madame’s could
bring two friends with them, and Isobel claiming Pamela and Beryl for
her two, Caroline suddenly had the nice idea of inviting Martha and
Ellen.
It was arranged that Isobel and Caroline were to go on ahead of their
guests, as Madame had expressed a wish that all her pupils would arrive
at least half an hour before the visitors were expected, so that
everything and every one would be ready to start promptly to time. It
was just beginning to get dusk when the two girls were actually ready
and waiting for Tom Bagg’s cab to arrive so that they could start off.
Pamela, Beryl, Martha, and Ellen were to follow on to Inchmoor by the
seven o’clock train.
The evening was very warm, and as Tom Bagg drove up to the gate, Isobel,
suddenly declaring that she was too hot to put on her cloak, decided to
carry it over her arm and wrap it round her in the cab if she felt
chilly. Caroline did not care how hot she felt; she put on her cloak
and buttoned it up to the neck, telling Isobel she thought she was
foolish and that she might not only catch a cold but would get her dress
soiled in brushing against the cab door, and so on. But Isobel laughed
and asked Caroline if she was going to take her goloshes and umbrella in
case it rained between the front door and the cab at the gate. And so,
with Pamela and Beryl wishing them both good luck, Isobel and Caroline
passed out of the front door and down the garden.
And then a catastrophe happened.
Isobel, who was some way in front of Caroline, was passing a low thick
bush half-way along the path to the gate, and had turned to make some
laughing remark, and wave her hand to Pamela at the front door, when
suddenly a pailful of garden rubbish—mostly weeds with black, wet soil
clinging to their roots—came shooting over the bush, and descended in a
shower all over Isobel and her pretty white silk frock.
[Illustration: A PAILFUL OF GARDEN RUBBISH DESCENDED IN A SHOWER]
Isobel gave a scream, ran a few steps, and then stood stock-still, and
gazed down at her frock and the coat on her arm.
"Oh, it’s spoilt—it’s absolutely spoilt!" she gasped, whipping out her
handkerchief and trying in vain to rub off the dirty, smeary marks on
her sleeves and skirt. "Oh, Pamela, whatever shall I do? ... But who
_did_ it? Who _did_ it?" she cried, lifting her head angrily, and she
made a dart round the side of the bush.
But there was no one immediately on the other side. About a dozen yards
off, with his back to her, digging methodically away at one of the
flowerbeds was old Silas Sluff.
"Oh!" cried Isobel. "It was you, then, was it? How—how dare— Oh, you
perfectly horrible creature!"
Silas, being deaf, took no notice, and so she ran forward, stepping
recklessly on his flowerbeds, and confronted him, her eyes blazing with
anger.
By this time the others had come on the scene. Pamela, Beryl, followed
by the dumbfounded Caroline, and presently Martha and Ellen, came
running to learn what had happened and what had caused the delay. Poor
Isobel certainly looked a woebegone sight, with great smears down her
dress and on one cheek, and soil and weeds in her hair. Who would have
believed that the soil would have been so sticky and wet—unless old
Silas had recently been watering the garden, which he didn’t appear to
have been doing.
"Look what you’ve done!" cried Isobel excitedly, pointing to her dress;
but as Silas did not look up, but still went on digging, she suddenly
seized his spade, jerked it out of his hands, and flung it down on the
ground. "Look what you’ve done!" she repeated.
Old Silas straightened his bent back and looked at the dress in silence.
"You’ll have to pay for this, my man!" Isobel raised her voice and spoke
loudly and distinctly.
"Eh?" said old Silas, whose deafness appeared to be worse than usual
to-day. Then he added, "Who will?"
"You," cried Isobel. "You’ll have to pay for a new dress in place of
this one you’ve spoilt."
Here Pamela joined in. After a great deal of difficulty, for the old
gardener seemed extraordinarily deaf and stupid, he was made to
understand that he was being accused of throwing a pailful of rubbish
over Isobel.
"And you did it _purposely_," added Isobel.
"Oh, Isobel, wait a minute," said Pamela. "Perhaps he didn’t know you
were passing—perhaps he didn’t hear you."
Old Silas was apparently not so deaf after all, for he caught this
remark, and looking at Isobel’s dress and seeing that his handiwork was
even better than he had expected it to be, he decided in his own mind to
retire now from this awkward scene in the manner most to his advantage;
after all, he thought, there were four, five, six of them as witnesses
against him here, and if they complained to Miss Crabingway he might be
dismissed—which would not suit him at all.
"’Ere," he said at length, "what’s that you sez I done? Eh? Well, I
_did_ throw a pail of rubbidge over the ’edge jus’ now—I’m not a-goin’
to say as ’ow I didn’t—but I thrown it on to the rubbidge ’eap....
Where I alwus throw it—all on to the path in a ’eap and then sweep it up
afterwuds.... I never ’eard no one comin’ along the path—I’m that ’ard
of ’earing, yer know.... I never ’eard no one..."
"But it’s not usual for you to throw the rubbish over like that without
looking, is it?" asked Pamela.
But Silas stoutly maintained that it was, though nobody in the little
group around him had seen him do such a thing before to-day. Ellen, in
the background, squeezed Martha’s arm and winked, whispering in her ear,
"Of _course_ he done it for the purpose. I told you he’d have his
revenge on Miss Isobel for saucing him in the garden when she first came
here, didn’t I now?"
Meanwhile Silas stubbornly held to his point that he thought he was
throwing the weeds on the rubbish heap, and that he had not heard Isobel
coming past.
"Well, Isobel," said Pamela, "it won’t do any good to prolong this
argument—and time’s flying past. Let’s hurry in and see what we can do
to the dress—or you must wear one of mine. And, Beryl, will you explain
to Tom Bagg and ask him in to wait for twenty minutes—we mustn’t be
longer than that." Then she turned to Silas. "I think," she said, "that
at any rate you might apologize——"
"Apologize! What good will that do! I don’t want an apology from
_him_," cried Isobel. "I’m too disgusted with him—besides, I _know_ he
did it purposely. He’s just telling lies, because he is frightened now
at what he’s done.... But if the dress is ruined beyond repair he shall
pay for it—I don’t care what he says.... I’ll make him pay, if—if I
have to go to law about it." And without waiting for anything further
Isobel turned on her heel and marched away into the house, followed by
Pamela, who was secretly longing to laugh at old Silas’s expression and
Isobel’s theatrical outburst. In a few moments the group round Silas
dispersed.
Silas stood for a while scratching the top of his head and looking at
the ground where Isobel had stood, then he picked up his spade and
resumed his digging.
Presently he began to chuckle. "I said I’d learn ’er," he told himself.
"An’ I _did_ learn ’er. Nice and slimy and wet them weeds were—an’,
after all, I _did_ only throw ’em on a rubbidge ’eap. That’s what she
is."
Why old Silas had not taken his revenge on Isobel before this it is
impossible to say. He had not thought out any clear plan for a long
time, but had waited for an idea, and when he had got one he had turned
it over in his mind with relish for some time, and then begun to look
around for an opportunity—and, at length, to-day he had found one.
While Tom Bagg waited in the hall, and Caroline wandered about asking if
she could be of any use, Pamela and Beryl, finding that Isobel’s dress
could not be remedied unless it was thoroughly washed and ironed,
quickly got out a white muslin frock of Pamela’s and set to work to make
it fit Isobel. Pamela was more Isobel’s build than either of the other
two girls, and so her dress was not such a bad fit, and with the aid of
a needle and cotton, and some safety pins and a pair of scissors, it
soon began to look presentable on Isobel. Of course it did not look as
pretty on Isobel as her own white silk had done—but it was fortunate
that Pamela had even a white muslin frock ready to lend Isobel in this
emergency. Martha and Ellen lent a hand, hurrying to and fro, looking
for pins and scissors, and helping Isobel to brush the soil out of her
hair and re-do it. For although they all knew that Isobel’s conduct
toward old Silas had been very rude and trying, to say the least of it,
yet they all felt sorry for her that he had chosen just this occasion to
punish her for her treatment of him so many months ago.
There was no time to talk much—they all worked hard, and within half an
hour Isobel and Caroline were safely packed away inside Tom Bagg’s cab
and were jogging briskly along the road to Inchmoor.
Of course Pamela, Beryl, Martha, and Ellen had missed the seven o’clock
train, and when they arrived at the Dancing Academy, and were shown into
the big dancing-hall, a great number of people were already assembled,
and the first part of the programme had begun. Madame, who had received
all her guests in the doorway and had shaken hands with each one, had
now disappeared behind the door at the back of the raised platform at
the end of the hall. The four late arrivals managed to squeeze through
the crowd that filled the lower half of the hall, and at length found
seats where they could obtain a good view of the evening’s proceedings.
A glance round the hall conveyed the impression that Madame’s receptions
must be very popular affairs; there was scarcely a vacant seat to be
seen. Most of the audience were relatives of the pupils or friends, or
prospective pupils, but there were a number of people who were
outsiders—people who had received a pressing and urgent invitation from
Madame at the last minute; for always before her receptions Madame would
be suddenly seized with an unreasonable fear that the hall would be
empty of onlookers, or only half filled, and so she would send out a
score or so of these pressing and flattering invitations at random, and
in a frantic hurry, a couple of days before the reception took place.
And generally a few of these last-minute visitors would turn up.
The upper half of the hall, including the raised platform at the end,
was reserved for the dancers, the baby-grand piano being well concealed
by bamboo fern-stands and pots of flowering shrubs, so that the music
arose, apparently, from a bank of greenery and flowers. Prettily shaded
lights were suspended at intervals from the ceiling.
Pamela and Beryl gathered from the conversation going on around them
that they had missed Madame’s opening speech and the first dance, and
now the second dance was just about to start. A tall, thin lady in a
black evening dress, with lace frills at her elbows, and wearing
pince-nez and a rather bored expression, appeared from the door at the
back of the platform, and descending behind the ferns and bamboo stands,
began to play a lively barn-dance on the piano. It was a good piano,
all except one note in the bass which was out of tune, and made a
curious burring noise whenever it was played on; and this particular
note seemed to recur again and again in the barn-dance, so that Beryl
always associated the music of that evening with this particular bass
note, and could hear it, in her head, whenever Madame’s name was
mentioned.
Twelve girls all dressed in white, and twelve youths in regulation
evening-dress, took part in the barn-dance, which was enthusiastically
applauded by the audience. This was followed by a graceful,
old-fashioned minuet and several solo dances, each of which Martha said
was nicer than the one before. But of all the dances, there were just
three that the onlookers from Chequertrees remembered best. The first
was Isobel’s dance, the second a flower-dance in which Caroline took
part, and the third a weird dance done by Madame Clarence herself.
Isobel’s dance was a great success, as Madame had prophesied. Almost up
to the moment when she first appeared on the platform Isobel had been
feeling out of humour and disappointed on account of her white silk
dress; but directly she started to dance she forgot all her troubles,
and, smiling happily, she floated lightly across the platform, swaying,
turning, tapping with her small white shoes, and daintily holding the
skirt of Pamela’s white muslin frock. It was sheer pleasure to watch
Isobel’s graceful movements, and she seemed to be enjoying the dance so
thoroughly, that every one else felt they were enjoying it too. Could
old Silas have seen her smiling light-heartedly as she danced across the
hall he would never have recognized her as the same girl who had stood
before him a few hours previously, savagely angry. Pamela and Beryl
were astonished at the change in Isobel; they had not expected her to be
able to throw her annoyance off so completely.
At the end of the dance a storm of applause broke out, and Isobel was
encored again and again. Back she came, blushing and smiling and
bowing—a transformed Isobel, her eyes bright with excitement. The
success of the evening! That’s what she had hoped to be—and that was
what she was. As she bowed her acknowledgments after her encore dance,
her smiling gaze, wandering round the faces of the audience, lighted on
the faces of two girls, whom she recognized as Lady Prior’s daughters;
they were applauding her enthusiastically, Isobel saw to her delight.
On the other side of the platform door Caroline waited, listening to the
applause that was greeting Isobel, and she couldn’t help thinking that
it was rather a shame that no applause like this was ever given to the
most choice piece of needlework imaginable. She tried to conjure up
visions of rapturously applauding audiences encoring an embroidered
tea-cosy, but it was impossible to picture it, and she sighed heavily.
"And yet the tea-cosy is much more useful than a dance," she thought.
Isobel might have argued that a dance, in giving a hundred people a few
minutes’ genuine pleasure and happiness was of more use than a tea-cosy,
but Caroline would never have agreed with her. Thinking of the many
hours she had sat over her needlework, and the delicate stitchery she
had done, for which she had received nothing more than an occasional
word of praise, Caroline felt all at once aggrieved, realizing the
unfairness of things in general. She couldn’t remember feeling like
this before, and marvelled at herself. Why had she got this sudden
desire for praise? Perhaps it was the knowledge that the dance in which
she was to appear came next on the programme, and she knew that she was
no good at dancing. She wondered why Madame had insisted on her taking
part in this dance; Madame liked every one of her pupils to appear on
the occasions when she gave a reception, providing, of course, that they
were passable dancers. She thought Caroline a passable dancer, and so
she was until she forgot her steps. And Caroline felt convinced she was
going to forget them on this occasion; she wished she had, on the
present occasion, that sense of capability she would have felt if she
had been going on the platform with a needle and thread in her hand.
Caroline felt so sure she would forget a certain part of the
flower-dance that, of course, she did forget it. With twenty other
girls, each carrying a trail of artificial roses, she danced on to the
platform and down the upper part of the hall. All went well for a time.
Every time she danced past the place where Martha was sitting she was
conscious that Martha nodded and beamed encouragingly at her, and felt
somewhat cheered by this attention on Martha’s part. And then, when the
critical part of the dance arrived—whether it was that Caroline was
giddy with whirling round and round, or whether it was because she had
thought to herself, "Now, this is where I shall go wrong," will never be
known—but after a brief but vivid impression that she was dancing up the
side of the wall, and that the audience were spinning round and round
her like a gigantic top, Caroline found herself alone in the middle of
the hall, with her feet tangled in a trail of artificial roses and her
hair tumbling about her face.
The audience was clapping and laughing. Caroline was overcome with
confusion and, flushing painfully, tried to disentangle herself from the
roses. The other girls were grouped together in a final tableau at the
other end of the hall, beside the platform. They were all tittering
with laughter too. Caroline made a desperate effort, and, disentangling
herself, dashed across to them and tried to obscure herself among the
twenty. And in another minute the dance was over and they were all
’behind the scenes’ again.
Madame received her with honeyed words, but the tone of her voice was
acid. She had thought that Caroline’s dancing would pass at least
unnoticed, and now it had been noticed in a very unenviable way.
Poor Caroline! She felt both ashamed and sorry for herself. "I knew I
should never remember that part," was all she could say—and thereafter
remained quiet and sulky, brooding over the ’ridiculous sketch’ she must
have looked before all that laughing audience. "I never did like
dancing," she said to herself later, "and now I hate it."
Fortunately Madame Clarence’s own dance followed soon after Caroline’s
blunder, and the impression made by Madame was such as to sweep
everything else into the background for the time being.
It certainly was a remarkable dance, and one that Madame had invented
herself. Madame was dressed in a startling black frock embroidered with
gold, and wore yellow earrings and a long chain of yellow beads, and
bright yellow shoes and stockings. Madame’s expressive hands played a
great part in the dance, which, as previously mentioned, was
remarkable—far more remarkable than beautiful. It seemed to Ellen, who
gazed spellbound, as if Madame must surely end by breaking her neck, or
one of her legs, so full of twists and curves was the dance; indeed, at
times it was all Ellen could do to keep herself from giving little
shrieks or crying ’oo-er’ aloud. However, she enjoyed it immensely, and
so did the rest of the audience, judging by the applause Madame received
and the huge bouquets which suddenly appeared and were handed up to her
as she came to bow her thanks, smiling delightedly and kissing her hand
to the audience.
During the evening there was an interval in which coffee and cakes were
handed round, and everybody became very chatty, and Madame wandered
about among her guests conversing and receiving compliments. Ellen
seemed to be fascinated by Madame, and followed her movements around the
hall admiringly.
Beryl watched the evening’s proceedings with sad, preoccupied eyes. She
smiled and talked brightly enough when anyone spoke to her, but her face
in repose wore an anxious, worried look. During the previous week her
moods of depression had been very frequent, and worse than usual, for
even her music had been neglected and the piano had been closed and
silent. She was enjoying the evening at Madame Clarence’s, but she was
not by any means at ease. Pamela had noticed this and was a little
puzzled. That Beryl was far from anxious for their six months’ stay at
Chequertrees to come to an end Pamela was aware; and she did not doubt
that Beryl dreaded Miss Crabingway’s return, because it meant Enfield
and Aunt Laura for Beryl; but she felt that there was something more
than the coming parting to account for Beryl’s preoccupied manner and
avoidance of any confidential talk with her.
Madame Clarence’s successful evening coming at length to a close, Madame
stood at the door again and shook hands effusively with her guests as
they passed out, receiving more compliments, and herself telling every
one how "vewy, vewy kind it was of them to come."
During the journey home Caroline was wrapped in gloom, but Isobel was in
high good spirits and chatted and laughed excitedly, all thoughts of old
Silas having been driven from her head—until the following morning when
she returned the muslin dress to Pamela.
Finding, on examination, that her own silk dress was not irretrievably
spoiled, but would come up as good as new when washed, Isobel decided to
take no further steps to show her displeasure toward Silas.
"He’s not worth taking any more bother about," Isobel decided, partly
because she really felt that, and partly because she did not know
exactly what to do to punish him—beyond reporting him to Miss
Crabingway, which might lead to awkward questions about her own conduct,
she realized.
And so Silas Sluff heard no more about the rubbish heap.
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*THE DOOR IS UNLOCKED*
A couple of days before Miss Crabingway was due to return Beryl made an
opportunity to speak to Pamela about the money she had borrowed.
"I haven’t got it on me at present, Pamela," said Beryl. "But I’ll be
sure to let you have it back. I’ll send it to you by post, without
fail. It was awfully good of you.... I have got your address, haven’t
I? Oh, yes, I wrote it down in my note book."
"That’s all right. Don’t worry about that—any time will do," said
Pamela. "If I could help you in any way——"
But Beryl thanked her and assured her that everything was all right, and
hurriedly changed the subject.
Miss Crabingway was expected home on the Friday morning, so the girls
made all their final preparations on the Thursday evening, and Pamela
and Beryl and Isobel (Caroline was busy packing) spent an hour after tea
in picking flowers and arranging them in every room in the house.
"Why, it’s like as if the garden ’as come inside the house," cried
Martha, passing through the hall as Pamela was arranging a big bowl of
roses on a small table by the front door.
"Aren’t they lovely?" said Pamela, burying her nose in them. "And we
don’t seem to have robbed the garden a bit—there are heaps more.... I
always think flowers give one such a welcome, don’t you, Martha? ... And
these are going to stand on the mat, as it were, and be the first to
shake hands with Miss Crabingway to-morrow, to welcome her home."
But, after all, it was not the bowl of roses that welcomed Miss
Crabingway home; it was a pot of shaggy yellow chrysanthemums that stood
inside the french windows of the drawing-room that night. Pamela did not
know this, though, until the following morning, after breakfast.
Pamela noticed, when she put her head inside the kitchen door on her way
to breakfast that Martha and Ellen were whispering together in a
subdued, excited way, and that they stopped at once on catching sight of
her and went hastily on with their work.
"I’m just bringing the coffee in, Miss Pamela," said Ellen.
While Martha took the boiled eggs out of the saucepan with a
self-conscious expression on her face, and in her efforts to appear
unconcerned dropped one, and it broke on the kitchen floor. In the
unnecessary energy she put into the work of clearing it up she was able
to hide her embarrassment and regain her composure.
This was not lost on Pamela, who felt that there was a certain
atmosphere of mystery in the kitchen—which was entirely foreign to the
light, sunny room, with its shining brass and purring kettle, and
delicious smell of baking bread.
"Is anything the matter, Martha?" she could not help asking, when calm
was restored and the broken egg replaced. "There’s nothing wrong, is
there?"
Martha and Ellen exchanged quick glances, and then Martha laughed.
"Why, bless my heart, why should there be?" she replied. "Of course
there’s nothing wrong." And she laughed again.
But Pamela felt vaguely uneasy—why, she did not know. She ate her
breakfast thoughtfully, and did not talk half so much as she usually did
at breakfast-time. All the girls were more silent than usual, as if the
coming events of the day were already casting their shadows over them.
As soon as breakfast was finished Martha appeared suddenly in the
dining-room doorway and said,
"I was to ask you all if you would please step up and see Miss
Crabingway now.... She is in her own room...."
The girls looked at each other in astonishment. Miss Crabingway here!
In her own room! The locked-up room? When did she arrive? None of
them had heard her come.
They turned to Martha with a dozen questions, but Martha only smiled
mysteriously and shook her head.
"Miss Crabingway arrived late last night," she said when there was a
pause in the questioning; "so late that she did not knock at the front
door, in case she woke you all up ..."
"Then how—?" Isobel began.
"I heard some one tap on the french windows in the drawing-room, just as
I was going to lock up for the night.... It was Miss Crabingway," said
Martha.
"But why—" said Isobel.
Martha moved out of the doorway. "Miss Crabingway is waiting for you,"
she said.
The girls had all risen, and were standing round the table.
"Yes, we’d better go," said Pamela.
But none of them moved for a moment. They were gradually readjusting
their plans to meet the present occasion—their plans for welcoming Miss
Crabingway, which were all spoilt now. Instead of being able to catch a
glimpse of her before she saw them—being able to watch her enter the
garden gate, and come up the path to the front door—here she was in
their midst, ready to welcome _them_.... And they had meant to put on
their pretty summer dresses—and here they were with only their morning
blouses and skirts on.... However, there was no time to change now—Miss
Crabingway was waiting to see them. It was useless to try to remember
all the things they had meant to say and do before meeting Miss
Crabingway—there was no time for regrets. Before they realized what was
happening they were mounting the stairs in solemn, single file, Pamela
leading the way and Caroline bringing up the rear—while Martha stood at
the foot of the staircase, an enigmatical smile on her face.
Outside the room door which had been locked to them for so long the
girls stopped. All was silent within. Each of the girls felt as if the
loud beating of her heart must be heard by the other three. They were
all rather nervous. What would they see on the other side of the
door?—the door which they had so religiously avoided going near, until
now. What would Miss Crabingway be like?—Miss Crabingway, who had made
such queer rules for them during their stay in her house.
Pamela knocked gently on the door with her knuckles.
The sound of a chair leg scraping on the floor inside could be heard,
and then a voice said "Come in." So Pamela turned the door handle and
the four girls went in.
Each of the girls, at some time or other during the last six months, had
imagined the meeting with Miss Crabingway at the end of their visit; the
imagined meetings had been dramatic or comfortable, according to the
girls’ moods or temperaments; but none of them had imagined anything
like the meeting that actually occurred. To begin with, no one had
thought of it taking place in the locked-up room, curiously enough.
Miss Crabingway, who had been sitting at the farther end of the room in
a low wicker chair beside a table littered with papers, rose as they
entered and stood gazing toward them intently. For the space of half a
minute she stood quite silent, taking stock of her four visitors—and
they stood gazing at her.
Quite unlike Pamela’s imagined picture of her, Miss Crabingway was small
and thin, about fifty years of age, with exceedingly bright eyes and
bushy white hair. Her nose was large and aquiline, of the variety
generally termed roman. It is supposed that people with large noses
have strength of will and character; it may have been Miss Crabingway’s
nose that indicated her character, but it was certainly her eyes that
appeared to be the most compelling _force_ about her; they were eager,
restless, keenly-alive-looking brown eyes. After the girls had noticed
her eyes and nose and hair, and her thin-lipped wide mouth, they became
aware that Miss Crabingway was dressed in a coat and skirt of some soft
dark brown material. It was odd to see Miss Crabingway dressed, with
the exception of a hat, as if to go out of doors at this time in the
morning; at least, it seemed odd to the girls, who had expected to find
her having breakfast in bed, perhaps, or, at any rate, sitting in a
flannel dressing-gown.
There was no time at present to take in the details of the ’locked-up
room,’ but the first impression was one of sombreness with regard to the
furnishings, and although it was an airy room, with a very high ceiling
and four windows, yet it seemed a dark room on account of the ivy which
grew round the windows, and even across the panes in some parts. Then
it was gradually borne in upon the girls that nearly everything in the
room was duplicated!
There were two four-poster beds with exactly the same coloured hangings
and draperies, two chests of drawers, two ottomans (gay and modern and
chintz-covered), two wicker-chairs, two small round tables, two
fire-places—one at each end of the long room—and two carpets which met
in the centre of the floor, two high wardrobes, and so on—so that
whenever one caught sight of something fresh, one immediately looked
round for its double—and was sure to find it. The ornaments on the two
mantelpieces were exactly the same.... All this fascinated one so
strangely that Pamela even found herself about to look round for two
Miss Crabingways.
But there was only one Miss Crabingway, and her keen eyes travelled from
one to another of the girls, and then quickly returning to look again at
Beryl, remained staring at her critically.
Then all of a sudden she began to talk as if continuing a conversation
with the girls which had already been in progress for some time. The
girls hardly took in what she said—they were so surprised—but afterward,
when they tried to remember, it seemed to have been something about red
serge and water-cress, and the difficulty of living in rooms up six
pairs of stairs, if you were a plumber and suffered from rheumatism....
When they thought this over seriously, it seemed too silly; but,
nevertheless, it was certainly the impression the girls got of Miss
Crabingway’s torrent of conversation. The manner in which Miss
Crabingway appeared to be continuing some discussion with them puzzled
the four girls greatly at first; afterward, they learnt that this was
one of Miss Crabingway’s little peculiarities—she never publicly
recognized the existence of introductions and farewells, but on seeing a
fresh arrival would continue a conversation as if the new-comer had been
there all the time. She would greet some one who had been absent for
years as if he or she had just walked down the garden to see how the
lettuces were growing and had then wandered back into the house again.
It was an odd trick of Miss Crabingway’s, and an inconvenient one
sometimes, besides being bewildering. Yet it gave a curious impression
that Miss Crabingway was with you all the time, and that she had been
watching you throughout the years with those eager eyes of hens. In the
same manner she declined to say good-bye, always giving the impression
that she was coming along with you—in fact, would catch you up in a few
minutes, before you reached the station. It was only when you had been
talking with her for some time that you discovered that she did realize
there were such things as absence, time, and space.
"However," Miss Crabingway continued, "I want to have a short talk with
you all.... But why stand by the door, my dear girls? There are plenty
of chairs, and an ottoman here by the window."
At this invitation the girls crossed the room and seated themselves in
chairs and on the ottoman, which held two—Beryl and Caroline.
"We are very pleased to meet you, Miss Crabingway, and we want to
thank—" Pamela began, when Miss Crabingway broke in suddenly.
"What was the date yesterday?" she asked.
Pamela, taken aback for a moment, replied, "Oh—the 27th, I think."
"Ah," said Miss Crabingway. "Yes, I’m glad I sent Joseph Sigglesthorne
that telegram. He never can remember dates—especially after the 8th of
each month. They always send him in two rashers of bacon every morning
for his breakfast during the first week in each month—after that they
give him boiled eggs every day until the end of the month, and it
becomes so monotonous that he can’t distinguish one day from another.
It’s certainly rather confusing, isn’t it? I’ve told him I’d change the
restaurant or coffee-house, or whatever it is that supplies him with
breakfast; but he’s used to it, and he doesn’t like change—so it’s no
good my talking or giving him calendars—I just send him a telegram."
Miss Crabingway seated herself and began rustling and sorting the papers
on the little table in front of her.
"And now," she continued in her decisive voice, flashing a glance round
her puzzled audience, and once again looking last and longest at Beryl,
"I didn’t ask you to come up here in order to discuss Joseph
Sigglesthorne’s breakfast—as you will doubtless guess. I asked you here
to tell you a true story, and, if you please, don’t speak to me until
I’ve finished."
Without more ado Miss Crabingway gave a dry little cough and began
hurriedly:
"There was an elderly person who was rich, and lonely—" she paused for a
second, then added with emphasis, "and crotchety! Yes, that’s what she
was, though most of her acquaintances called her eccentric, and
quaint—out of politeness.... As she grew older she grew more and more
lonely; and realizing one day (when she was feeling ill and depressed)
that she couldn’t take her money with her when she died, she determined
that she would make use of it now and give some benefit and enjoyment to
herself, and, if possible, to others.... She—she had taken a great fancy
to a young girl she had come across recently—the daughter of a very old
and valued friend who died some years back.... And what made her
particularly—crotchety, was that she had wanted to adopt this girl, and
the girl’s relatives had refused. For what reason, it is impossible to
say! For the relatives were not over-rich, nor over-fond of the
girl.... Probably it was because the relatives were not offered enough
money.... Anyway, the elderly person had a quarrel with the relatives,
and the elderly person went off in a huff, which she afterward
regretted—and would have gone back and said so, only about this time
some urgent business affairs called her away from home. Before she went
she thought of a plan whereby she could give the young girl she liked a
rest from her relatives, and at the same time help her to develop her
character. For the elderly person had long cherished a belief that most
young girls in their early teens would do better in after life if they
had a chance to develop their characters, for a time, away from the
influence of their parents or guardians.... Having heard of three other
young girls whom she thought it would be interesting to try the
experiment on, the elderly person sent out invitations to all four,
adding a little inducement, in the shape of a sum of money, to each."
Miss Crabingway, having now touched on a subject in which she was
evidently greatly interested, went on to express her ideas about
character development at some length, adding that when she was a girl
herself she had suffered from character-suppression, and had been
cramped and moulded by her own parents so that she had not an idea nor
opinion of her own all the years she lived under their influence.
"I was merely an echo," she said, "and all my thoughts and opinions were
second-hand."
Miss Crabingway’s roman nose seemed to be contradicting these words even
as they were uttered, but her keen, earnest eyes assured one that she
was speaking the truth.
"I think there comes a time," she went on, "when it is best for every
girl to think and act for herself—to get used to relying on herself, and
not on others. This does not mean being rebellious, you know—it means
just clear thinking, and acting self-reliantly."
So absorbed did Miss Crabingway become in her theory that she forgot all
about the ’elderly person’ and slipped unconsciously into the first
person, mentioning the little girl she had wanted to adopt by name.
Even before she mentioned the name the other three girls had guessed who
it was, and several quiet and curious glances had been cast in the
direction of Beryl as she sat, silent and pale, her eyes on the ground.
The girls had expected that Miss Crabingway was going to say something
special about Beryl by the way her glance kept wandering to Beryl’s
face, studying it affectionately, yet anxiously.
"You see, I was anxious to try the experiment, but most of all I was
anxious to obtain congenial companions for—for Beryl," Miss Crabingway
continued. "I induced Beryl’s relatives to allow her to come and stop
at the house while I was away—it doesn’t matter how I induced them....
And then I made a few rules; one for the purpose of keeping these
relatives from worrying Beryl—of course it was a little hard on you
other girls, perhaps..."
("I should think it was," thought Isobel to herself.)
"... But it was only for a short while, and it would help to develop
character—and, after all, elderly people _will_ have their little fads
and whims—especially if they’re eccentric," she said the last word a
little bitterly, as if recalling some one’s opinion of her. "Well, the
plan has worked out fairly successfully, I hope.... Whether your visit
here has strengthened your characters—only the future can show. I shall
never know—because I did not know you before—but you will each be able
to judge for yourself.... I hope very much that it has helped you all,
and done you all good.... Of one thing I feel sure—it has done this old
house good to have fresh young people about the rooms and up and down
the stairs. The place had grown old and grave and silent through long
association with old and silent people. It needed some laughter and
young voices..." Miss Crabingway paused. "I have had constant news of
you all, from Martha ... and Martha says everything has gone along all
right?"
There was a questioning note in Miss Crabingway’s voice as she paused
again and scanned the intent young faces before her; so that presently
Pamela, catching the inquiring gaze directed on herself, said:
"I—I think it has—I hope it has—anyway, I have enjoyed being here very
much, and it has done me good—in many ways. Though being cut off from
home was awfully hard to get used to...."
She had scarcely realized yet that her feelings, or in fact the feelings
of any of them excepting Beryl, were a matter of secondary importance to
Miss Crabingway. Beryl was the chief reason for the invitation to stay
at Chequertrees, for the rules drawn up for them to observe during their
stay, for the offer of fifty pounds each. It was all done for Beryl’s
sake, for Beryl’s happiness. It was difficult at first to readjust
one’s outlook and see things from this new point of view.... But why
had Miss Crabingway chosen Pamela to act as hostess? Possibly because
when she saw Beryl and ’took a fancy to her’ she recognized that Beryl
was not the sort of girl to like the position, and so had relieved her
of the responsibility and left her free to devote herself to whatever
work she preferred and to develop her character unfettered. To Pamela,
Isobel, and Caroline it seemed an elaborate yet simple explanation of
their invitation to Chequertrees. In order to achieve her ends Miss
Crabingway seemed to have taken unnecessary trouble, the three girls
thought; but, of course, they were not acquainted with Miss Crabingway’s
’eccentric’ ways, neither did they know the nature of one of the
relatives of the little girl Miss Crabingway had wished to adopt.
There were still some questions that the girls wanted answered. What
had the locked door got to do with the story? And how did Miss
Crabingway know that they would prove ’congenial’ companions for
Beryl?—as a matter of fact all of them had not. It was surely rather
risky to invite them without seeing them?
"I should like to say that I think Pamela has been a splendid hostess,"
remarked Caroline, suddenly and unexpectedly.
This was echoed at once by Isobel and Beryl.
"I’m glad to hear you say that," said Miss Crabingway, smiling. "I knew
Pamela’s mother, and I knew her grandmother—and I felt sure I was safe
in choosing Pamela. Of course there was a risk—a great risk; you might
have turned out a dreadful set of girls! ... But Martha would have told
me if anything had been going wrong—and I should have managed to come
down from Scotland for a week-end to see for myself.... I—I want to hear
now what you think of my plan?"
She looked across at Beryl; but Beryl’s eyes were on the ground and she
was silent.
Isobel and Caroline both said they considered it a great success; they
had enjoyed themselves immensely. And then Isobel went on to tell Miss
Crabingway about Sir Henry and Lady Prior, and how the rule about
relatives had placed her in an awkward predicament—at which Miss
Crabingway seemed much amused, to Isobel’s concealed annoyance.
"Ah, well, never mind," said Miss Crabingway, "you can soon put matters
right. Lady Prior is coming here this afternoon."
"This afternoon!" echoed Isobel.
"Yes. I have sent out invitations to a few friends I thought you might
all like to meet to-day—that’s why I thought we would have this little
’business’ talk this morning.... And so you—you have had a happy time
here—have you, Beryl?" Miss Crabingway put the direct question looking
earnestly across at Beryl, who was still sitting motionless, her face
very pale.
"I—I think you planned everything very well," stammered Beryl. She said
no more, but sat gazing miserably before her at the opposite wall. A
tremendous struggle was going on in Beryl’s mind; she was working
herself up to do a thing she shrank from with all her might. "I must do
it _now—now_. I owe it to her," the thought pricked her conscience.
"Why not tell Pamela, and get her to explain to Miss Crabingway—or ask
to speak to Miss Crabingway alone," urged another thought. "But the
other girls are sure to hear in the end—and get the story a roundabout
way—probably exaggerated," she argued to herself. "Oh, but it is so
hateful—telling it before them all—and it will hurt _her_ to hear that I
am the only one of the four of us who has failed her... Much better
speak out now—it’ll be much the best in the end.... Oh, but I can’t....
I haven’t got the courage...." And so the struggle went on.
"And now we come to the real business of the day," said Miss Crabingway.
"I must just ask you each a question or so about the rules I drew up,
and then we shall know what to do when Mr Sigglesthorne arrives this
afternoon."
She then went on to ask each girl if she had tried to find out what was
in the locked-up room. And one after the other each gave her word of
honour that she had not.
A smile flickered across Miss Crabingway’s face. "Then Joseph
Sigglesthorne has lost," she said. "And I’m very glad. You can see what
the room contains—only my personal belongings and papers. When I locked
them up I had a small wager with Joseph Sigglesthorne regarding the
curiosity of girls. He said one or more of you _would_ look through the
keyhole, in spite of everything—I said you would _not_ ... and I have
won. He now owes me a photograph of himself," Miss Crabingway laughed
to herself. "He has never been taken before, and hates the idea—but the
loser pays, and go to the photographer he must. I’m sure it will be a
dreadful likeness—and I shall frame it and hang it on the wall as his
punishment.... I suppose you wonder why I chose Joseph Sigglesthorne as
my deputy—to bring my invitation to each of you. Eh?"
"Well, we did rather wonder," admitted Pamela.
"I couldn’t come myself, being so rushed for time, and so I chose the
shrewdest person I knew. I knew I could trust him to see what kind of
girls you were—but had I known for certain how wrong he would be about
’girls’ curiosity’ I don’t think I should have trusted him.... I knew
he would appear a bit singular, but I didn’t mind that.... What did it
matter? The whole idea was just an eccentric old woman’s whim—and your
parents allowed you to humour me, as I hoped they would." And here Miss
Crabingway began to chuckle, and she went on chuckling until she was
obliged to get out her handkerchief and dry her eyes. The girls
meanwhile sat looking on, uncomfortable, and not knowing whether it
would be more polite to laugh also or keep serious. Miss Crabingway
puzzled them; one minute she was quite business-like and sensible, and
the next she was talking in an apparently inconsequent way. When she
had dried her eyes and become serious again, Miss Crabingway went on to
question them about the other rule she had made, and said she supposed
that none of them had seen, spoken, or written more than post-cards to
their various relatives.
"I have seen Lady Prior—but not spoken; I’ve told you all about that,
haven’t I?" said Isobel.
"Yes—yes—oh, that’s all right," replied Miss Crabingway.
And Isobel knew that her Wishing Well wish had come true, and that she
had not done anything to forfeit her fifty pounds.
Both Pamela and Caroline said they had strictly observed the rule,
Pamela mentioning, at the same time, how she had caught sight of her
father in London.
"Oh, of course, that’s all right. Quite unavoidable—quite. That’s good
then, so far...." She turned to Beryl, but before she could speak,
Beryl, who looked ghastly white, stood up suddenly.
"There’s something I want to tell you all," she said.
*CHAPTER XIX*
*BERYL CONFESSES*
Beryl looked down at the surprised and inquiring faces gazing up at her,
and her new-found courage flickered for a moment—and she had thought the
struggle for courage was over; but only for a moment did she pause and
twist her fingers nervously together. Now she had burnt her boats she
must go through with it.
"I—I—oh, Miss Crabingway—I didn’t know—I never guessed you wanted me—but
I can see things clearly now. You thought out such a kind plan to help
me a bit and give me happiness—and I have been happy here—in spite of
everything. But—oh, how can I tell you—I have failed you, the only one
of the four of us who has failed you. Instead of growing stronger in
character I have grown weaker—I know I have.... I have been so afraid
to tell the truth. I thought—I thought Isobel would despise me if she
knew I’d been to a Council school..."
Isobel started.
"... if she knew my Aunt Laura kept a small and shabby shop and served
behind the counter; if she knew," her voice dropped, "where my father
died.... I felt out of place in this house at first among these others
who had nice clothes and manners—my clothes were all wrong....
Pamela—Pamela has been a brick—I told her something about all this, and
she helped me not to mind. But I’ve said so many things that were not
true since I’ve been here—I’m telling the truth now, though, I am
indeed. And, oh, I’m so sorry—I couldn’t help it—but I—I have seen and
spoken to my Aunt Laura several times since I’ve been here."
"What!" exclaimed Miss Crabingway. Had, then, the thing that she had
taken such trouble to avoid happened after all?
"Yes," said Beryl. "A few weeks ago I came suddenly face to face with
her one dark night—the night we returned from London, in the rain—you
remember?" She half turned toward Pamela, then went on quickly: "I
didn’t speak to her then. I was frightened, and ran on quickly to join
the others who were a little way ahead. When I got home I discovered
that while we had all been out my Aunt Laura must have got into the
house and made her way to my bedroom, where she had left a note for me."
Caroline leant forward at this point.
"You were quite right in thinking some one had been in your room that
night, Caroline. She mistook it for mine, and in rummaging about to see
if she could find any indication to show that it was my room she
disarranged some of your things. I’m so thankful she didn’t take
anything from your room—she might have done, you know, but luckily you
hadn’t left any money lying about. It was money she wanted. In the note
which she was afraid to send through the post, but left in my room
instead, she told me that I must let her have five pounds immediately,
or she would be summoned—and might have to go to prison. And then what
would people think of me, she said, living in luxury and letting my
aunt, who had brought me up like her own daughter, go to prison! The
money was very urgently needed, she said, and she told me where and when
I could meet her outside the village and hand her the money.... So I met
her," Beryl went on in a dreary voice, "and handed her the money I had
recently received as pocket-money—but it wasn’t enough.... Afterward
she wanted more money—and at last I had to borrow a pound from
Pamela—who was good enough to trust me and ask no questions—and I lent
this to my aunt as well. She made me promise, on my honour, never to
tell a soul about this money-lending, or about her speaking to me, as if
I did I should lose the fifty pounds, and it was very important that I
should not do this, she said; no one would ever know about her coming to
see me—for, of course, no one knew her in the village. When she came
down to Barrowfield she would generally stop the night, sometimes two
nights, at that little cottage opposite—so that she could watch me, and
wait her opportunity to get money. She knew she could frighten me into
doing what she wanted—and she did frighten me—shadowed me—followed me
about.... It was she who was up at the Wishing Well that night,
Pamela—do you remember? Aunt Laura only came down here
occasionally—whenever she wanted more money. For a long time after I
was here I never dreamt she was anywhere near the village.... I—I
think, from what she has said to me, that she thought it very unfair for
me to have anything that Cousin Laura couldn’t share—and was awfully
angry because I couldn’t give her more money; she had got it into her
head that there was a lot of money to be had here, and she hated the
idea of Pamela, Isobel, and Caroline having any money that might have
come to me—and so to her, and Cousin Laura.... Oh, Miss Crabingway, I
never knew the truth about you wanting to adopt me." Beryl had hard
work to keep her voice steady. "She never told me you had wanted to
adopt me.... But it’s a good job you didn’t—now that you know what I
am.... Oh, I hate myself," she burst out passionately, and the tears
which she had kept back for so long sprang to her eyes and began
rolling, unheeded, down her cheeks. "It’s all been such a muddle of
little deceitful things—and all for a few wretched sovereigns.... I’ve
broken my word to you, and I’ve broken my promise to my aunt, and told
you everything now—and may this be the last promise I shall ever break."
Poor Beryl had been so long in fear of her Aunt Laura and what she might
do, and had brooded on the whole matter so much, that she had
exaggerated everything in her own mind until it had assumed giant
proportions; she felt she had forfeited all right to respect from the
others, and had spoilt the great chance of her life—the chance of being
adopted by Miss Crabingway. Beryl had certainly been weak, and had told
stories, and had broken her word to Miss Crabingway and to her
aunt—still, that was the extent of her misdoings.
Miss Crabingway, looking at her, thought that things had been made too
hard for Beryl. If only there had been somebody to stand by her and
help her—Miss Crabingway pulled herself up sharply. Had she made a
mistake in thinking that all girls need to develop their character
without any outside help and control? It might answer in three cases
out of four; but there was always the fourth case—the girl who had not
had the advantages of a happy, fearless childhood. It was fear, fear of
some one or something, that made people deceitful and made them tell
untruths. Miss Crabingway felt a rush of keen disappointment that her
plans had been spoilt, that the one girl for whom she had taken so much
trouble had failed her. And yet Miss Crabingway felt that she herself
was more to blame than Beryl. She might have known that Beryl’s aunt
would try to obtain money from the child, if she thought she had any.
She might have known that Beryl would not have had an upbringing that
would have taught her to be frank and fearless if it came to keeping her
word to Miss Crabingway and facing the consequences of her aunt’s wrath,
had Beryl refused to answer her request for money.... Beryl had been
outspoken enough now that the end had come ... and the consequences...?
Meanwhile the silence which had followed her last words had become
unbearable to Beryl. Burying her face in her hands—she was crying in
earnest now—she passed quickly out of the room, and the door clicked
sharply behind her.
Pamela half rose, as if to follow her.
"Yes, do," said Miss Crabingway huskily, and stood up herself. "Tell
her—everything will be all right. Poor child! She’s not to blame—it’s
I—I might have known her Aunt Laura wouldn’t leave her alone.... Where
did she say the woman stayed? ... I wonder if she’s there now by any
chance? ... I’m going to see."
And while Pamela went in search of Beryl Miss Crabingway strode hatless
across the green in search of the woman with the limp, leaving Caroline
and Isobel to discuss the whole affair in detail.
What Miss Crabingway said to Beryl’s aunt, whom she found on the verge
of departure from the little white cottage with the green shutters, it
is not necessary to record. It is sufficient that she gave Aunt Laura
so stern a dressing-down that at the end of half an hour Aunt Laura was
reduced to a meek acceptance of Miss Crabingway’s terms. The aunt
confessed to Miss Crabingway how, when Beryl had come to Barrowfield,
she had followed her down by the next train, and by good fortune had
discovered the little house opposite Chequertrees where apartments were
to be had. And so she had put up there from time to time while her
daughter Laura looked after the shop at Enfield, so that she could watch
what Beryl was doing ’playing the lady’ while her poor Cousin Laura
served bacon and rice and currants in the stuffy little shop. On Cousin
Laura’s account, "poor, dear, good girl," she seemed to resent greatly
Miss Crabingway’s choice of Beryl, and thought she was justified in
getting all she could from Beryl, considering that she had brought her
up like her own daughter ever since Beryl’s mother had died.
"And now she’s spoilt all her chances—and mine as well," said Aunt
Laura. "Tell her to pack up her things and come home with me in half an
hour. I was just about to start off myself, not knowing——"
"That I would be back sooner than you expected—you didn’t wish to meet
me, I presume?" said Miss Crabingway.
"You bet," said Aunt Laura, inelegantly. "My poor little Laura’s worked
to death in the shop, so you go and tell that haughty miss to pack up
quick and come along home with me."
But nothing was further from Miss Crabingway’s mind. She was determined
to give Beryl another chance. And so she told Aunt Laura, much to the
latter’s surprise. They talked the matter over again, and after much
haggling on Aunt Laura’s part, and threats on Miss Crabingway’s part,
and arguments on both sides, they at length came to a hard and fast
agreement.
The result of which was that Miss Crabingway returned to Chequertrees to
greet Beryl as her newly-adopted niece, while Aunt Laura limped away to
the station with her purse a little heavier than when she came, and took
the train back to Enfield and Cousin Laura. She limped away out of
Beryl’s life and out of this story once and for all.
And so Beryl’s Wishing Well wish came true.
*CHAPTER XX*
*A NEW BEGINNING*
That same day, in the afternoon, a group of happy people were gathered
on the lawn chatting together in Miss Crabingway’s garden—for the guests
she had invited were no others than Pamela’s mother and Michael and
Doris; Isobel’s mater and brother Gerald, and Lady Prior and her two
daughters; and Caroline’s mother—a plump, placid little soul, remarkably
like her daughter in appearance. Miss Crabingway had thought this
little surprise would please the girls—and it would be nicer for them to
travel home with their own people.
Miss Crabingway admitted to herself that she would have liked all the
girls to stay a few days longer, so that she could get to know them
better, but all arrangements had been made and she could not upset them
at the last moment.
The only person, of course, who had no relatives to meet her at the
garden party was Beryl. But to judge from her happy, smiling face as
she helped to hand round the tea she did not regret this fact. Her
gratitude to Miss Crabingway was deep and sincere, and she meant to do
all in her power to live up to the best that was in her. She and Miss
Crabingway had had a long and serious talk together in the early
afternoon, which ended in mutual expectations of a happier future for
both of them. Though Beryl had lost her fifty pounds, she had gained far
more in Miss Crabingway’s friendship; and, although she did not know
this at present, Miss Crabingway had made up her mind to give Beryl a
fairly substantial pocket-money allowance now that she was her properly
adopted niece. Beryl was to continue her musical studies—that had
already been arranged.
Freed from the shadow of Aunt Laura, and the bullying and the secret
threats, Beryl felt a different girl—and looked it too. Her only tinge
of sorrow was the parting with Pamela—but even that was to be only for a
time. Later on Pamela was to come and stop with her for a holiday, and
she and Miss Crabingway were to visit Pamela’s home.
As for Pamela, she was in a real ’beamy’ mood this afternoon at having
mother and Michael and Doris with her again. She showed them all over
the place, pointing out her favourite spots. She even found an
opportunity of introducing them to Elizabeth Bagg.
"I’m so glad you’ve seen everything and everybody," she said. "Now you
will be able to see things in your mind’s eye when I talk about them."
During the afternoon Michael tried to get into conversation with
Isobel’s brother Gerald, who was about his age, but found it difficult
work, as Gerald was far more interested in his own immaculate clothes,
and smooth hair, his cigarette, and the various girls present, than he
was in Michael or anything Michael had to say.
Isobel and her mater hung delightedly on Lady Prior’s words, and as they
sat in the shade of the trees at the end of the lawn, an invitation to
come and stay at the Manor House sometime in the near future was given
to Isobel, and accepted eagerly.
Caroline methodically piloted her mother round the house and garden, and
presently left her talking to Mrs Heath while she went indoors at a
signal from Pamela, who whispered, "Miss Crabingway wants us a minute."
In the drawing-room Pamela, Caroline, and Isobel found awaiting them
Miss Crabingway and Mr Joseph Sigglesthorne (who had just arrived).
With due solemnity the girls were each presented with a cheque for fifty
pounds, and the news was broken to Mr Sigglesthorne that he was to go
and have his photograph taken, at which he looked very crestfallen.
There was just one other little incident that took place before the
afternoon came to a close—it had been crowded out of the morning’s
events.
The girls gave Miss Crabingway the small gifts they had made for her:
Pamela, a sketch of Chequertrees; Caroline, a hand-embroidered
tray-cloth; Beryl, a waltz which she had composed herself, and had
copied out in a manuscript music-book. She offered it to Miss
Crabingway very shyly and with much diffidence. "It’s the only thing I
could do myself," she said apologetically. Isobel presented her
photographs, enlarged and handsomely framed; they were photographs of
the other three girls in the garden. Miss Crabingway was immensely
pleased and touched by the girls’ thought for her. Something of their
own work; she could not have wished for anything better, she said, and
thanked them warmly.
To Martha and Ellen each of the girls gave a little gift, such as a pair
of gloves, and handkerchiefs, and bottles of eau-de-Cologne, and in
addition each gave a photograph of herself (having overheard Martha
express a wish for the photographs).
"Just in case you forget what I look like and don’t recognize me next
time I knock at the front door," said Pamela laughingly to Martha.
"Oh, Miss Pamela, just as if I’d forget you," said Martha. "But you
couldn’t have thought of a better present, or one that would please me
more, and I thank you and I shall value it greatly. What _is_ nicer than
a nice photograph, I always say."
And now dusk has fallen and all is silent in Miss Crabingway’s garden.
The laughter and voices have died away, and far away through the night
rushes a train bearing Pamela, her mother, and Michael and Doris,
homeward. Mr Heath is waiting at Marylebone Station to meet them, and
Olive and John have been allowed to stay up an hour later than usual in
order to welcome home their long-absent sister.
In another train Caroline and her mother journey back to the busy little
provincial town where they live. While Isobel, seated beside her mater,
with a cosy coat wrapped round her, whirls along the country lanes in
the motor which brother Gerald is driving.
An old gentleman climbs into a crowded bus at Charing Cross; he has a
remarkably high, bald forehead, which becomes visible when he removes
his hat; he stands holding on to a strap in the bus, his thoughts far
away. He is thinking of a little country village, and in the midst of
all the bustle and life of London he feels suddenly lonely. The bus
rattles on toward the Temple—and he thinks of his deserted, paper-strewn
room in Fig Tree Court, and he is overcome by a great wave of pity for
himself; he begins to feel exceedingly sorry for himself. Suddenly his
expression changes to one of dismay and exasperation—he has remembered
that he must visit a photographer to-morrow.
At the same moment, far away down at Barrowfield, there is a light in
the drawing-room of Chequertrees, and some one is playing softly on the
piano. Miss Crabingway sits on the couch by the fire, a book in her
hands—but she is not reading. She is looking across at the girl who is
playing the piano and her eyes are full of dreams.
The red blind in the dining-room, where supper is being laid for two,
shines warmly out from among the rustling leaves that are whispering
round the house—just as it did six months ago. But to-night the window
of the little white cottage opposite is dark, and there is no one
watching the red blind.
* * * * * * * *
_Uniform with this Volume_
*ROCK BOTTOM*
By QUEENIE SCOTT-HOPPER. Illustrated in Colour by A. A. NASH.
*ANGEL UNAWARES*
By QUEENIE SCOTT-HOPPER. Illustrated in Colour and Half-tone by PERCY
TARRANT.
*THE MYSTERY OF BARWOOD HALL*
By OLIVIA FOWELL. Illustrated in Colour by SAVILE LUMLEY.
*WINIFRED AVON*
By MABEL MARLOWE. Illustrated in Colour by SAVILE LUMLEY.
*THE TAMING OF TAMZIN*
By ESMÈ STUART. Illustrated in Colour by HELEN JACOBS.
*A COTTAGE ROSE*
By MABEL QUILLER-COUCH. Illustrated in Colour by PERCY TARRANT.
*LITTLE MOTHER*
By RUTH MACARTHUR. Illustrated in Colour and Half-tone.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Girls of Chequertrees" ***
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