The sun shone in at the open windows so brightly on Easter Day that it
wakened up Miss Margaret some time before Mrs. Tregennis came with the
hot water and the early morning tea. She leaned on her elbow and
looked out down the alley to the sea.
Under the corner of the next roof two starlings were busily engaged in
nest-building. The father starling was very active, but cautious. He
took quite unnecessary precautions to avoid detection on his foraging
expeditions, precautions that only brought him the more definitely
under notice.
Miss Margaret watched him with interest. Flying down to the cobbles he
picked up, one by one, three pieces of straw. Returning to the
rain-spout he perched on the prominent corner, holding the three
straws cross-wise in his beak. He turned his head first to the left,
then to the right; then to the left and right again, eagerly alert for
possible dangers.
His grotesque movements attracted the attention of a milk-boy who was
walking up the alley, a can of milk in either hand. Balancing one can
on the cobbles the boy picked up a piece of sea-weed that was lying
there, and aimed it at the corner of the rain-spout where it caught
and hung. The starling opened his beak, dropped the straws and
hurriedly sought the shelter of the eaves, an indignant, ruffled
bird. After all, the boy had done him a good turn, for, when he had
made quite sure that the enemy had withdrawn, he reappeared, seized
the hanging seaweed and carried it to his waiting wife.
After this the church door opened; the world was waking up. In
unofficial dress the verger swept out the dust of the week. It annoyed
Miss Margaret to see that he did not take the responsibility of his
own pile of dust. When it was all collected in the porch he swept it
to the lower step, and from there to the cobbles of the alley. A few
vigorous movements of his broom removed it from the immediate
neighbourhood of the church door and scattered it artlessly among the
uneven stones.
In the bedroom below Tommy also was awake. This Easter morning was an
eventful one for him. He was going to wear a "noo sailor soot." It was
a suit with long trousers, the first long trousers Tommy had ever
had. Uncle Sam, who was in the navy, had given him a real lanyard
with a shrill whistle attached. Mammy had bought a new black silk
handkerchief, too, to go under the white sailor-collar of the blouse.
Naturally Tommy was eager to be dressed, and it was irksome to have to
lie quietly in bed for so long.
At last Mammy had done all that was required for the ladies and it was
Tommy's turn next. It seemed a great waste of time to be washed and
have your hair done, although, when the preliminaries were at an end
and the new clothes were on, long trousers and all, it proved worth
it.
"There, ma handsome," said Mammy, admiringly, "you _do_ be in
dandy-go-risset. Dressed to death and put to stand you be, my man!"
"Would my ladies like to see my noo soot, Mammy?" he asked, and
followed the bacon and eggs into their sitting-room.
The ladies could not find words to express their admiration, but Mrs.
Tregennis's vocabulary was such that she could cope bravely with the
situation.
"Ain't he flish, Miss?" she asked, with pride. "Proper titched 'e be."
The ladies felt that this exactly expressed what they wished to say.
"Dressed to death, 'e be, and thinks 'tis Sunday," Mrs. Tregennis
continued, and was leading Tommy from the room when he was hastily
summoned by Miss Margaret, while Miss Dorothea handed him a large
plate on which were two Easter eggs full of sweets; a chocolate donkey
harnessed with wire and pink ribbon to a chocolate cart; a chocolate
ship in full sail and three chocolate hares. One hare stood on its
hind legs, one was in the act of running, while the brown body of the
other lay stretched out flat upon the white china plate.
"Which'll I eat first, and which'll I give to Ruthie?" Tommy asked
excitedly while the plate was being passed to him and before he yet
held it in his hands.
Discussing these two important points with his mother he walked from
the room.
Accompanied by Auntie Jessie and Ruthie, Tommy went to church. At
first he was very devout; his new clothes helped to keep him in a
state of spiritual exaltation. When the singing was over he wanted to
go outside into the alley and blow his whistle. In the open window of
Mrs. Ham's cottage her parrot was calling. "Tommy, Tommy, Tommy," it
cried; and again, "Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!" Tommy very much wished he
could obey the summons, although he knew by experience that if he were
there to reply to the persistent bird Polly would merely put her head
on one side, turn slowly round on her perch, and refuse to speak
another word.
At last the long service ended and he was free. "Where'll I go till
dinner time?" he asked as he ran into the kitchen.
Daddy suggested his Granny might like to see the long trousers and
hear the whistle blown. Away Tommy sped and did not return until
dinner was on the table.
After dinner Tommy went upstairs with Mammy to dress, but stayed
behind in the bedroom when she returned to Daddy in the kitchen.
One Easter egg full of sweets he had given to Ruthie. Half the sweets
in the other he had eaten himself, but all the chocolate animals were
still intact. These he marshalled in a row on the big bed and wondered
what game he should play.
First of all he loaded the chocolate cart with seaweed that had been
thrown up by the tide on to the shore at the foot of the bed. The
vehicle was not overloaded, for the stranded sea-weed was odd bits of
coloured wool that did not weigh very heavy. These Tommy carefully
carted away to manure his potato-patch on the cliff at the extreme
edge of the pillow.
In time this game palled and Tommy pondered. Chocolate hares were
stupid, useless animals for a pretending game at sea; so he bit off
first the head and then the tail of the one at full gallop.
After this he set aside the donkey and cart in favour of the ship in
full sail. It was a fishing-boat; it was, in fact, his Daddy's boat,
"The Light of Home."
One by one Tommy carried all his possessions but this from the big bed
to the chest of drawers, where he arranged them according to a
definite system of his own.
This work took some little time, but when it was accomplished he was
able to give his undivided attention to the chocolate lugger. With
care and precision he moulded the blankets and sheets into furrows
across the bed, so that the "Light of Home" might sail with pride on
the crest of the wave. His Daddy was aboard the lugger catchin' 'eaps
an' 'eaps of fish. So he, Tommy, would have a noo mackintosh, real
tarpaulin, too. His Daddy had promised him this the next big catch he
had.
But Daddy always caught his fish at night-time, and here was the sun
just streaming in at the window.
This must be remedied at once. By standing on a chair Tommy was able
to reach the blind-cord; when he had pulled down the dark green blind
there was a satisfactory gloom within the room.
Now a new difficulty arose. If it was real dark the "Light of Home"
might lose her way, or, even worse, she might be wrecked. Then Daddy
an' the 'eaps an' eaps of fish, an' the noo mackintosh would perish
with her too.
Tommy knew all about the Eddystone. He knew that there were three men
there, and that they had two months out and one month in. He knew,
too, that the lighthouse was built on quite a small platform of rock.
The inverted soap-dish made an excellent pretending rock, and on it
Tommy placed a little paraffin lamp that always stood on the table by
the bed.
At first when he lighted the lamp he turned the wick up far too high,
and there was so much smoke and so big a flame that he could not
possibly put the chimney in place. He turned it out slowly and was
more successful in his second attempt, although even then he did not
find the glass chimney at all easy to adjust. Proudly the "Light of
Home" sailed round the inverted soap-dish and the smoking lamp. Still
Daddy caught 'eaps an' 'eaps of fish. But, alas! a storm arose, and
the poor "Light of Home" listed in a truly terrifying manner.
The storm gave rise to a new idea. Daddy was no longer aboard the
lugger. It was Granfäather Tregennis instead. Daddy was just a little
new boy lying in a big fourposter bed. But there must be a light in
Granny's window to help Granfäather to sail safely home.
Tommy was in luck. As a rule there was no candle in Mammy's bedroom,
only the paraffin lamp. To-day there stood on the chest of drawers the
ladies' china candlestick, fitted with a quite new candle. Tommy
pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed, lighted the candle and put
the candlestick on the chair. Then he tilted it a little so that the
light might shine through the rails at the foot of the bed, for the
foot of the bed was the window of Granny's room.
While these preparations were afoot the "Light of Home" had been lying
neglected in the trough of a wave. Now she again began to sail over
the furrowed bed clothes. But the storm was telling on her. Slowly but
surely her outer coat was melting away, leaving sticky brown streaks
on Tommy's fingers and on the snowy whiteness of the clean bed-quilt.
"You hobjeck you! you article you! I'll tell your fäather the minute
he comes in."
The "Light of Home" slipped through Tommy's fingers. The Eddystone
lurched over, fell from its soap-dish rock and was engulfed in the
quilty billows below. Mrs. Tregennis rushed from the position she had
taken up in the doorway, seized the lamp and extinguished the flame.
Tommy's eyes dilated with fear. "Now I shall get it somethin' awful!"
he thought, and shrank against the erstwhile raging sea.
For once words failed Mrs. Tregennis. She looked at the big bed, whose
counterpane was brown with chocolate streaks and black with paraffin
smuts. She looked at her son, sticky, smutty and subdued. On the new
white collar of the sailor blouse were the chocolate imprints of his
restless fingers. Down the right leg of the new long trousers were
splashes of grease. The room was thick with the smoke from the lamp
and the smell was vile.
It was not often that Tommy was really whipped, and when Mammy opened
the top long drawer of the chest of drawers with a sharp little jerk
the tears welled up slowly in his big blue eyes. When she took from
the drawer the supple cane that was so seldom used, and advanced
towards him with grim determination, he broke into piteous sobs.
A quarter of an hour later a tearful Tommy sat limply on a chair in
the kitchen; he wore his old blue trousers and his old red jersey top.
Sunday though it was Mammy stood at the table and with brown paper and
a hot iron removed the splashes of grease from the right leg of the
new sailor suit. The dandy-go-risset suit of the early morning!
A painful silence lasted for several moments, then:
"Do ee love I any more, Mammy?"
Mrs. Tregennis rested the hot iron on the stand and looked fixedly at
Tommy. "How _can_ I love ee, Tommy Tregennis, when you'm such a
naughty boy."
"No," Tommy's voice broke. "I don't s'pose ee do love I any more;
but"--and now the voice was very pleading--"I do love ee brave an'
much, Mammy, quite so much as that," and the two restless hands, from
which all chocolate stains had been removed, were held more than half
a yard apart.
Mrs. Tregennis showed no signs of relenting but gave all her attention
to moving the iron lightly up and down over the stiff, brown paper.
The kitchen door opened and Miss Margaret walked in. In amazement she
paused; first, because Tommy was in his very everyday clothes;
secondly, because Mrs. Tregennis was ironing on Sunday afternoon. The
ladies had been sitting down by the sea, surrounded by Easter calm,
and were ignorant of the grim tragedy enacted in the Tregennis
household.
Miss Margaret was horrified when she was put in possession of the
facts. "Oh, Tommy!" her voice was very expressive and her face was
very sad. "How more than dreadful it would have been if you'd been all
burned up to nothing. Burned right up to nothing at all, only the
soles of your new brown boots left lying upon the bedroom floor."
Tommy shuddered and looked down at his feet.
"What would your Daddy and Mammy have done then?" Miss Margaret
continued. "They'd have been left all alone just with the soles of
your boots."
This amused Tommy. He laughed.
Already the tragedy was being relegated to the background of his mind.
He slipped off the chair, and, advancing to Mammy who was folding up
the trousers, offered her the piece of pink ribbon that had harnessed
the chocolate donkey to the chocolate cart.
"For keeps!" he explained.
The fact that Mammy accepted the gift was a sign that the feud was
ended.
Along the kitchen floor, over the linoleum, was a strip of old carpet,
put there partly to take the tread and partly to give a little extra
comfort and keep the feet warm at meal-times. In jumping across the
floor Tommy pushed this out of place.
"Mind my best Brussels!" warned Mammy, playfully, and Tommy felt that
he was indeed forgiven.
His joy thereupon became so exuberant that the strip of carpet was
kicked entirely out of place.
Then Mrs. Tregennis became firm again. "Put that carpet straight to
wanst," she ordered, and reluctantly Tommy obeyed at one end of the
strip.
"Now here," said Mammy, pointing to the disarranged part at her feet.
"That be your end," demurred Tommy, but the stern looks of both Mammy
and Miss Margaret compelled him to adjust that end also.
Miss Margaret knew instinctively that in putting it to rights Tommy
meant to flick up the whole strip and so plunge headlong into disgrace
once more. With diplomacy and tact, therefore, and apparently
unintentionally, she stood right on the middle of the strip and began
to talk to Mrs. Tregennis.
Before Miss Margaret left the kitchen Tregennis came in from the
front. Once more the story of Tommy's mishap was repeated.
Tregennis turned to Miss Margaret. "I shall have to take 'e in hand
myself, Miss," he said slowly, "if so be as he isn't a better boy."
Miss Margaret left the kitchen and, smiling, told the Brown Lady of
the awesome threat. Tregennis was a loving and entirely lovable man,
but much too gentle, too simple and too kindly to cope with Tommy's
boisterous daring.
Downstairs in the kitchen gloom had again descended. Tommy stuck his
hands in his pockets and looked up into his mother's face. "Tell-tit,"
he said, "oh, tell-tit," and with the full vigour of his sturdy legs
he kicked the carpet strip awry.