LIFE AT THE BRAMBLES.
It was a lovely evening when we arrived at Roseberry.
"We lead regular hermit lives at the Brambles, away from the haunts of
men," observed Miss Ruth; but I was too much occupied to answer her.
Dot and I were peeping through the windows of the little omnibus that
was conveying us and our luggage to the cottage. Miss Ruth had a pretty
little pony carriage for country use; but she would not have it sent to
the station to meet us--the omnibus would hold us all, she said. Nurse
could go outside; the other two servants who made up the modest
establishment at the Brambles had arrived the previous day.
Roseberry was a straggling little place, without much pretension to
gentility. A row of white lodging-houses, with green verandas, looked
over the little parade; there was a railed-in green enclosure before
the houses, where a few children played.
Half a dozen bathing-machines were drawn up on the beach; beyond was
the Preventive station, and the little white cottages where the
Preventive men lived, with neat little gardens in front.
The town was rather like Milnthorpe, for it boasted only one long
street. A few modest shops, the Blue Boar Inn, and a bow-windowed
house, with "Library" painted on it in large characters, were mixed up
with pleasant-looking dwelling houses. The little gray church was down
a country road, and did not look as though it belonged to the town, but
the schools were in High street. Beyond Roseberry were the great
rolling downs.
We had left the tiny parade and the lodging houses behind us, and our
little omnibus seemed jolting over the beach--I believe they called it
a road but it was rough and stony, and seemed to lead to the shore. It
was quite a surprise when we drove sharply round a low rocky point, and
came upon a low gray cottage, with a little garden running down to the
beach.
Truly a hermit's abode, the Brambles; not another house in sight; low,
white chalky cliffs, with the green downs above them, and, far as we
could see, a steep beach, with long fringes of yellow sands, with the
grey sea breaking softly in the distance, for it was low tide, and the
sun had set.
"Is this too lonely for you, Esther?" asked Miss Ruth, as we walked up
the pebbly path to the porch. It was a deep stone porch, with seats on
either side, and its depth gave darkness to the little square hall,
with its stone fireplace and oak settles.
"What a delicious place!" was my answer, as I followed her from one
room into another. The cottage was a perfect nest of cozy little rooms,
all very tiny, and leading into each other.
There was a snug dining-room that led into Mr. Lucas' study, and beyond
that two little drawing-rooms, very small, and simply though prettily
furnished. They were perfect summer rooms, with their Indian matting
and muslin curtains, with wicker chairs and lounges, and brackets with
Miss Ruth's favorite china.
Upstairs the arrangements were just as simple; not a carpet was to be
seen, only dark polishes floors and strips of Indian matting, cool
chintz coverings, and furniture of the simplest maple and pine wood--a
charming summer retreat, fitted up with unostentatious taste. There was
a tiny garden at the back, shut in by a low chalk cliff, a rough zigzag
path that goats might have climbed led to the downs, and there was a
breach where we could enjoy the sweet air and wide prospect.
It was quite a cottage garden. All the old-fashioned flowers bloomed
there; little pink cabbage roses, Turks-caps, lilies, lupins, and
monkshood and columbines. Everlasting peas and scarlet-runners ran
along the wall, and wide-lipped convolvuli, scarlet weeds of poppies
flaunted beside the delicate white harebells, sweet-william and
gillyflowers, and humble southernwood, and homely pinks and fragrant
clove carnations, and pansies of every shade in purple and golden
patches.
"Oh, Essie, it reminds me of our cottage; why, there are the lilies and
the beehives, and there is the porch where you said you should sit on
summer evenings and mend Allan's socks." And Dot leaned on his crutches
and looked round with bright wide-open eyes.
Our little dream cottage; well, it was not unlike it, only the sea and
the downs and the low chalk cliffs were added. How Dot and I grew to
love that garden! There was an old medlar tree, very gnarled and
crooked, under which Miss Ruth used to place her little tea-table; the
wicker chairs were brought out and there we often used to spend our
afternoons, with little blue butterflies hovering round us, and the
bees humming among the sweet thyme and marjoram, and sometimes an
adventurous sheep looking down on us from the cliff.
We led a perfect gypsy life at the Brambles; no one called on us, the
vicar of Roseberry was away, and a stranger had taken his duty; no
interloper from the outer world broke the peaceful monotony of our
days, and the sea kept up its plaintive music night and day, and the
larks sang to us, and the busy humming of insect life made an undertone
of melody, and in early mornings the little garden seemed steeped in
dew and fragrance. We used to rise early, and after breakfast Flurry
and I bathed. There was a little bathing-room beyond the cottage with a
sort of wooden bridge running over the beach, and there Flurry and I
would disport ourselves like mermaids.
After a brisk run on the sands or over the downs, we joined Miss Ruth
on the beach, where we worked and talked, or helped the children build
sand-castles, and deck them with stone and sea-weeds. What treasures we
collected for Carrie's Sunday scholars; what stores of bright-colored
seaweed--or sea flowers, as Dot persisted in calling them--and heaps of
faintly-tinged shells!
Flurry's doll family had accompanied us to the Brambles. "The poor dear
things wanted change of air!" Flurry had decided; and in spite of my
dissuasion, all the fair waxen creatures and their heterogeneous
wardrobe had been consigned to a vast trunk.
Flurry's large family had given her infinite trouble when we settled
for our mornings on the beach. She traveled up and down the long stony
hillocks to the cottage until her little legs ached, to fetch the
twelve dolls. When they were all deposited in their white sun-bonnets
under a big umbrella, to save their complexions, which,
notwithstanding, suffered severely, then, and then only, would Flurry
join Dot on the narrow sands.
Sometimes the tide rose, or a sudden shower came on, and then great was
the confusion. Once a receding wave carried out Corporal Trim, the most
unlucky of dolls, to sea. Flurry wrung her hands and wept so bitterly
over this disaster that Miss Ruth was quite frightened, and Flossy
jumped up and licked his little mistress' face and the faces of the
dolls by turns.
"Oh, the dear thing is drownded," sobbed Flurry, as Corporal Trim
floundered hopelessly in the surge. Dot's soft heart was so moved by
her distress that he hobbled into the water, crutches and all, to my
infinite terror.
"Don't cry. Flurry; I've got him by the hair of his head," shouted Dot,
valiantly shouldering the dripping doll. Flurry ran down the beach with
the tears still on her cheeks, and took the wretched corporal and
hugged him to her bosom.
"Oh, my poor drownded Trim," cried Flurry tenderly, and a strange
procession formed to the cottage. Flurry with the poor victim in her
arms and Flossy jumping and barking delightedly round her, and
snatching at the wet rags; Dot, also, wet and miserable, toiling up the
beach on his crutches; Miss Ruth and I following with the eleven dolls.
The poor corporal spent the rest of the day watching his own clothes
drying by the kitchen fire, where Dot kept him company; Flurry trotted
in and out, and petted them both. I am afraid Dot, being a boy, often
found the dolls a nuisance, and could have dispensed with their
company. There was a grand quarrel once when he flatly refused to carry
one. "I can't make believe to be a girl," said Dot, curling his lip
with infinite contempt.
"We used to spend our afternoons in the garden. It was cooler than the
beach, and the shade of the old medlar was refreshing. We sometimes
read aloud to the children, but oftener they were working in their
little gardens, or playing with some tame rabbits that belonged to
Flurry. Dot always hobbled after Flurry wherever she went; he was her
devoted slave. Flurry sometimes treated him like one of her dolls, or
put on little motherly airs, in imitation of Miss Ruth.
"You are tired, my dear boy; pray lean on me," we heard her once say,
propping him with her childish arm. "Sit down in the shade, you must
not heat yourself;" but Dot rather resented her care of him, after the
fashion of boys, but on the whole they suited each other perfectly.
In the evenings we always walked over the downs or drove with Miss Ruth
in her pony carriage through the leafy lanes, or beside the yellow
cornfields. The children used to gather large nosegays of poppies and
cornflowers, and little pinky convolvuli. Sometimes we visited a
farmhouse where some people lived whom Miss Ruth knew.
Once we stopped and had supper there, a homely meal of milk, and brown
bread, and cream cheese, with a golden honeycomb to follow, which we
ate in the farmyard kitchen. What an exquisite time we had there,
sitting in the low window seat, looking over a bright clover field. A
brood of little yellow chickens ran over the red-brick floor, a black
retriever and her puppies lay before the fire--fat black puppies with
blunt noses and foolish faces, turning over on their backs, and
blundering under every one's feet.
Dot and Flurry went out to see the cows milked, and came back with long
stories of the dear little white, curly-tailed pigs. Flurry wrote to
her father the next day, and begged that he would buy her one for a
pet. Both she and Dot were indignant when he told them the little pig
they admired so much would become a great ugly sow like its mother.
Mrs. Blake, the farmer's wife, took a great fancy to Dot, and begged
him to come again, which both the children promised her most earnestly
to do. They both carried off spoils of bright red apples to eat on the
way.
It was almost dark when we drove home through the narrow lanes; the
hedgerows glimmered strangely in the dusk; a fresh sea-ladened wind
blew in our faces across the downs, the lights shone from the
Preventive station, and across the vague mist glimmered a star or two.
How fragrant and still it was, only the soft washing of the waves on
the beach to break the silence!
Miss Ruth shivered a little as we rattled down the road leading to the
Brambles. Dorcas, mindful of her mistress' delicacy, had lighted a
little fire in the inner drawing-room, and had hot coffee waiting for
us.
It looked so snug and inviting that the children left it reluctantly to
go to bed; but Miss Ruth was inexorable. This was our cozy hour; all
through the day we had to devote ourselves to the children--we used to
enjoy this quiet time to ourselves. Sometimes I wrote to mother or
Carrie, or we mutually took up our books; but oftener we sat and talked
as we did on this evening, until Nurse came to remind us of the
lateness of the hour.
Mr. Lucas paid us brief visits; he generally came down on Saturday
evening and remained until Monday. Miss Ruth could never coax him to
stay longer; I think his business distracted him, and kept his trouble
at bay. In this quiet place he would have grown restless. He had bought
the Brambles to please his wife, and she, and not Miss Ruth, had
furnished it. They had spent happy summers there when Flurry was a
baby. The little garden had been a wilderness until then; every flower
had been planted by his wife, every room bore witness to her charming
taste. No wonder he regarded it with such mingled feelings of pain and
pleasure.
Mr. Lucas made no difference to our simple routine. Miss Ruth and
Flurry used to drive to the little station to meet him, and bring him
back in triumph to the seven o'clock nondescript meal, that was neither
dinner nor tea, nor supper, but a compound of all. I used to go up with
the children after that meal, that he and Miss Ruth might enjoy their
chat undisturbed. When I returned to the drawing-room Miss Ruth was
invariably alone.
"Giles has gone out for a solitary prowl," she would say; and he rarely
returned before we went upstairs. Miss Ruth knew his habits, and seldom
waited up to say good-night to him.
"He likes better to be alone when he is in this mood," she would say
sometimes. Her tact and cleverness in managing him were wonderful; she
never seemed to watch him, she never let him feel that his morbid fits
were noticed and humored, but all the same she knew when to leave him
alone, and when to talk to him; she could be his bright companion, or
sit silently beside him for hours. On Sunday mornings Mr. Lucas always
accompanied us to church, and in the afternoon he sat with the children
on the beach. Dot soon got very fond of him, and would talk to him in
his fearless way, about anything that came into his head; Miss Ruth
sometimes joined them, but I always went apart with my book.
Mr. Lucas was so good to me that I could not bear to hamper him in the
least by my presence; with grown-up people he was a little stiff and
reserved, but with children he was his true self.
Flurry doted on her father, and Dot told me in confidence that "he was
the nicest man he had ever known except Uncle Geoffrey."
I could not hear their talk from my nest in the cliff, but I am afraid
Dot's chief occupation was to hunt the little scurrying crabs into a
certain pool he had already fringed with seaweed. I could see him and
Flurry carrying the big jelly-fishes, and floating them carefully. They
had left their spades and buckets at home, out of respect for the
sacredness of the day; but neither Flurry's clean white frock nor Dot's
new suit hindered them from scooping out the sand with their hands, and
making rough and ready ramparts to keep in their prey.
Mr. Lucas used to lie on the beach with his straw hat over his eyes,
and watch their play, and pet Flossy. When he was tired of inaction he
used to call to the children, and walk slowly and thought fully on.
Flurry used to run after him.
"Oh, do wait for Dot, father," she would plead; nothing would induce
her to leave her infirm and halting little playfellow. One day, when
Mr. Lucas was impatient of his slow progress, I saw him shoulder him,
crutches and all, and march off with him, Dot clapping his hands and
shouting with delight. That was the only time I followed them; but I
was so afraid Dot was a hindrance, and wanted to capture him, I walked
quite a mile before I met them coming back.
Mr. Lucas was still carrying Dot; Flurry was trotting beside him, and
pretending to use Dot's crutches.
"We have been ever so far, Essie," screamed Dot when he caught sight of
me. "We have seen lots of seagulls, and a great cave where the
smugglers used to hide."
"Oh, Dot, you must not let Mr. Lucas carry you," I said, holding out my
arms to relieve him of his burden. "You must stay with me, and I will
tell you a story."
"He is happier up here, aren't you, Frankie boy?" returned Mr. Lucas,
cheerfully.
"Oh, but he will tire you," I faltered.
"Tire me, this little bundle of bones!" peeping at Dot over his
shoulder; "why, I could walk miles with him. Don't trouble yourself
about him, Miss Esther. We understand each other perfectly."
And then he left me, walking with long, easy strides over the uneven
ground, with Flurry running to keep up with him.
They used to go on the downs after tea, and sit on the little green
beach, while Miss Ruth and I went to church.
Miss Ruth never would use her pony carriage on Sunday. A boy used to
draw her in a wheel-chair. She never stayed at home unless she was
compelled to do so. I never knew any one enjoy the service more, or
enter more fully into it.
No matter how out of tune the singing might be, she always joined in it
with a fervor that quite surprised me. "Depend upon it, Esther," she
used to say, "it is not the quality of our singing that matters but how
much our heart joins with the choir. Perfect praise and perfect music
cannot be expected here; but I like to think old Betty's cracked voice,
when she joins in the hymns, is as sweet to angels' ears as our younger
notes."
The children always waited up for us on Sunday evening, and afterward
Miss Ruth would sing with them; sometimes Mr. Lucas would walk up and
down the gravel paths listening to them, but oftener I could catch the
red light of his cigar from the cliff seat.
I wonder what sad thoughts came to him as the voices floated out to
him, mixed up with the low ripple of waves on the sand.
"Where loyal hearts and true"--they were singing that, I remember;
Flurry in her childish treble. And Flurry's mother, lying in her quiet
grave--did the mother in paradise, I wonder, look down from her starry
place on her little daughter singing her baby hymn, and on that lonely
man, listening from the cliff seat in the darkness?