HAPPY AND SAD.
"'Tis gone--and in a merry fit
They run upstairs in gamesome race.
* * *
A moment's heaviness they feel,
A sadness at the heart."
_The Mother's Return._
It was very dark in the drive and Carrots crept close to Floss. But
Floss felt far less afraid of the dark than of the light! when at last
the house came in view and the brightly lit up windows shone out into
the gloom.
"Oh, what a big house," said Floss. "Oh Carrots, how I do wish that
little cottage had been auntie's house, even though the door did open
right into the kitchen. Don't you Carrots?"
"I don't know," replied Carrots, "auntie will be very kind to us, won't
she, Floss?"
"Oh yes," said Floss, "but supposing she is having a party to-night,
Carrots?"
"Well, we could have tea in the nursery, and go to bed," said Carrots
philosophically. "Oh Floss, _wouldn't_ you like some nice hot tea and
bread and butter?"
"Poor Carrots," said Floss. And her anxiety to see her little brother in
comfort again gave her courage to ring the bell as loudly as she could.
A manservant opened the door. Very tall and formidable he looked to the
two children, whose eyes were dazzled by the sudden light, after their
long walk in the dusk.
"If you please," said Floss, "is auntie at home?"
The man stared. "_What_ did you say?" he inquired. "Is it a message from
some one?"
"Oh no," said Floss, "it's just that we've come, Carrots and I--will
you please tell auntie? We've walked all the way from the station,
because there was no one to meet us."
The man still stared. He had heard something about a young lady and
gentleman, his mistress's nephew and niece, being expected on a visit,
but his ideas were rather slow. He could not all at once take in that
the dilapidated little couple before him could possibly be the looked
for guests.
But just then another person came upon the scene. A little figure with
bright dark eyes and flying hair came dancing into the hall.
"Who's there, Fletcher?" she said. "Is it the post?"
"No miss," said Fletcher, rather glad of some one to consult in his
perplexity. "I don't know who it is--that's to say, it's a little boy
and girl who say as they've come from the station, but I can't justly
make out who it is they want."
"How funny," said Sybil, coming forward and peering out from under
Fletcher's arm, "perhaps they'll tell _me_ what they want. Who are you,
little girl? Is it my mother you want? Will you give me your message?"
She looked more like a little princess than ever. She was dressed to go
down to the drawing-room before dinner--all white embroidery and lace
and rose-coloured ribbons. Floss and Carrots looked at her with a sort
of dazzled admiration, mingled with shy bewilderment. It all seemed more
of a mistake than ever--Sybil was evidently not expecting them--if only
the railway station had not been so dreadfully far away, Floss felt as
if she would have liked to take Carrots by the hand and go away back
again, all the long weary way to Sandyshore!
But _Carrots'_ faith in auntie and Sybil was unshaken--and his childlike
confidence less susceptible of chill. Partly from mortification, partly
to hide that she was crying, Floss stood perfectly silent, but Carrots
pressed forward.
"It is Flossie and me, Sybil--don't you remember us? We've walked _such_
a long way, and there was nobody to meet us at the station, and we are
_so_ cold and so hungry!"
Sybil gave a sort of leap into the air. "Floss and Carrots!" she cried,
"oh mother, mother, come quick, here are Floss and Carrots!"
She seemed to fly across the hall in one second, and darting down a
passage disappeared, crying out all the way, "Flossie and Carrots--oh
mother, mother, come."
And before the children had time to consider what they had best do, and
_long_ before the very deliberate Mr. Fletcher had collected his wits
sufficiently to decide upon inviting them to come in, Sybil was back
again, closely followed by her mother, whom she had dragged out of the
drawing-room without any other explanation than her cry of "Floss and
Carrots, oh mother, Flossie and Carrots."
[Illustration: "It is Flossie and me, Sybil--don't you remember us?"
_To face page_ 184.]
And when Floss saw auntie running to them, with her kind face all
eagerness and anxiety, the shyness and the disappointment and the
mortification all seemed suddenly to melt away. She rushed into the hall
and threw herself sobbing into auntie's arms. "Oh auntie," she cried,
"we are so tired--poor Carrots is I mean, and so hungry, and I thought
you had forgotten us, and we're so far away from mamma."
Auntie understood all about it in a moment. She hugged Floss tight, and
only let go of her for an instant to get hold of Carrots and hug him
tight too. And then, when she saw the two tired little white faces, and
felt how wet they were, and saw the tears on Floss's cheeks, she sat
down on the hall floor, still clasping them tight, and actually cried
too.
"My two poor dear little babes in the wood," she exclaimed. "What a
dreadful mistake! What a cruel auntie you must have thought me!"
"I didn't know if you wanted us--I thought perhaps you had forgotten
about us coming," whispered Floss.
"No wonder," said auntie; "but Flossie, darling, I haven't got any
letter to say what day you were coming? That was why we were not at the
station. Sybil and I had been making such delightful plans about how we
should meet you at the station--do you think your father and mother
could have forgotten to write to tell me the day?"
"Oh no," said Floss, "I know papa wrote to tell you--he wrote the day
before yesterday, for I heard him tell mamma so. And this morning when
the post came, just as we were leaving, he wondered a little that there
was no letter from you, but he said perhaps you hadn't thought it worth
while to write, as you had said any day this week would do for us to
come."
"Of course I would have written," said auntie; "but what can have become
of the letter?"
It had evidently gone astray somehow, and that very evening the mystery
was explained, for the postman brought it--a very travel-worn letter
indeed, with two or three scrawls across it in red ink--"Missent to
Whitehurst," "Try Whitefield," etc., etc.
"Whenever a letter does go wrong, which certainly is not very often, it
is sure to be one of consequence," said auntie. But long before the
letter came Floss and Carrots had forgotten their troubles--at least if
they hadn't it was not auntie's fault, for I can't tell you how kind she
was and what a fuss she made about them. She took them up to Sybil's
nice beautiful warm nursery and all their wet things were taken off, and
Floss was wrapped up in a dressing-gown of auntie's and Carrots in one
of Sybil's, and then they had the most _lovely_ tea you can imagine.
Sybil's father was away that night and was not coming back till the next
day, and auntie was to have dinner alone, with Sybil beside her, you may
be sure, to "keep her company," and help her to get through dinner by
opening her little mouth for "tastes" every now and then. But auntie had
to manage alone, after all, for of course Sybil would not leave Floss
and Carrots, and auntie sent up the very nicest things from the
dining-table for the children to eat with their tea, and Sybil did get
some "tastes," I can assure you.
And they laughed at each other in the dressing-gowns, and Floss quite
forgot that she had expected to feel shy and strange. Only when auntie
came up to the nursery again after dinner and made Floss tell her all
about the long walk in the cold and the dark, and about the "kind
porter," and the oldish-looking lady, and, further back still, about
the leaving home in the morning and how poor mamma kissed them "so many,
many times"--Floss could not help crying again a little, nor could
auntie either. And though Carrots and Sybil did not cry, their little
faces looked very solemn and as if they almost thought they _should_
cry, as they sat side by side on the rug in front of the high nursery
guard, Carrots in the funny red-flannel dressing-gown which made him
look _so_ "old fashioned," and Sybil in her white embroidery and rose
ribbons, crumpling them all up "anyhow" in a way which really went to
Floss's heart, though auntie did not seem to mind.
Then came bed-time. Such a nice bed-time, for auntie had prepared for
them two dear little rooms, with a door between, that they should not
feel far away from each other. And though it was the very first time in
Carrots' life that he had gone to bed without kind old nurse to tuck
him up, he did not feel unhappy, for Floss reminded him what a good
thing it was that their mother had nurse with her now she was ill, and
besides, Sybil's French maid Denise was _very_ kind and merry, and not
at all "stuck up" or grand.
And the waking the next morning!
Who does not know those first wakings in a strange place! Sometimes so
pleasant, sometimes _so_ sad, but never, I think, without a strange
interestingness of their own. This waking was pleasant, though so
strange. The sun was shining for one thing--a great thing, I think I
should call it, and the children felt it to be so.
They woke about the same time and called out to each other, and then
Floss got out of bed and went to see how Carrots was looking, after all
his adventures.
"You haven't caught cold I hope, Carrots," she said in a motherly tone.
"Oh no. I'm _quite_ well," replied Carrots, "I haven't even a cold in my
nose. And isn't it a nice morning, Floss, and isn't this a _lovely_
room?"
"Yes," said Floss, "and so is mine, Carrots."
"And auntie _is_ kind, isn't she, Floss?"
"Oh, _very_," said Floss.
"Isn't it nice to see the sun?" said Carrots. "Floss, I can't understand
how it can always be the same sun, however far we go."
"But don't you remember what I showed you," said Floss, "about the world
being like a little ball, always going round and round a great light, so
_of course_ the great light must always be the same?"
"Yes," said Carrots dreamily, "but still it seems funny. Will mamma see
the sun at that nice warm place over the sea?"
"Why of course," said Floss, "it's the sun that makes that place nice
and warm."
"_Is_ it?" said Carrots. "Is that place nearer the sun than Sandyshore
is, Floss?"
"No, not exactly. At least it is in a sort of a way--the sunshine falls
straighter on it, but I couldn't explain without a globe and a lot of
fuss," said Floss. "Never mind just now, Carrots--perhaps auntie can
show you."
"But Floss," persisted Carrots, "I do want to know one thing. Shall we
see the sun in heaven?"
"No," said Floss decidedly, "_certainly_ not. It says in the Bible there
will be no sun or moon in heaven."
"Then I don't think I shall like it at all," said Carrots, "for there
won't be any sea there either. I can't think _how_ it can be a nice
place."
"But Carrots, dear," said Floss in some distress, "you mustn't think of
heaven that way. It isn't like that. Heaven isn't like a place exactly,
mamma says. It is just being _quite_ good."
"Being _quite_ good," repeated Carrots thoughtfully. "I wish I could be
quite good, Floss, I wish everybody could, don't you?"
"Yes," said Floss. "But really you must get up, Carrots dear; that will
be good for just now. Being good always comes in little bits like that."
"But in heaven, the being good will be all in one great big piece,
that's how it will be, isn't it?" said Carrots, as he got out of bed and
began hunting for his slippers.
I cannot tell you half the history of that first day at Greenmays, or of
many others that followed. They were very happy days, and they were full
of so many new pleasures and interests for Carrots and Floss that I
should really have to write another book to tell you all about them.
Everybody was kind to the children, and everything that could be thought
of to make them feel "at home" was done. And Greenmays was such a pretty
place--Carrots could hardly miss his dear old sea, once he had learnt to
make friends with the hills. At first he could do nothing but gaze at
them in astonishment.
"I didn't think hills were so big, or that they would have so many
faces," he said to Floss and Sybil the first morning when they were out
in the garden together.
Sybil burst out laughing. "Oh you funny Carrots!" she said; "you're just
like a boy in a fairy story--you've got such queer fancies."
"But they're _not_ fancies, Sybil," said Carrots, gravely, turning his
great brown eyes on his cousin. "The hills _have_ got lots of different
faces: that one up there, the one with the round knobby top, has looked
_quite_ different several times this morning. First it looked smiley and
smooth, and then it got all cross and wrinkly, and _now_ it looks as if
it was going to sleep."
Sybil stared up at the hill he was pointing to. "I see what you mean,"
she said; "but it's only the shadows of the clouds."
"That's pretty," said Carrots: "who told you that, Sybil? I never
thought of clouds having shadows."
"Nobody told me," said Sybil; "I finded it out my own self. I find out
lots of things," she continued, importantly. "I dare say it's because of
my name--papa says my name means I _should_ find out things, like a sort
of a fairy, you know."
"Does it?" said Carrots, in a rather awe-struck tone. "I should like
that. When you were little, Sybil," he continued, "were you ever
frightened of shadows? _I_ was."
"No," said Sybil, "I only thought they were funny. And once papa told me
a story of a shadow that ran away from its master. It went across the
street, at night, you know, when the lamps were lighted: there were
houses opposite, you see, and the shadow went into such a beautiful
house, and wouldn't come back again!"
"And what after that?" said both Floss and Carrots in a breath.
"Oh, I can't tell it you all," said Sybil; "you must ask papa."
"Does he often tell you stories?" asked Floss.
"Bits," said Sybil; "he doesn't tell them all through, like mother. But
he's very nice about answering things I ask him. He doesn't say 'you
couldn't understand,' or 'you'll know when you're older,' that _horrid_
way."
"He must be nice," said Floss, who had secretly been trembling a little
at the thought of the strange uncle.
And he did turn out _very_ nice. He was older than Floss had expected; a
good deal older than auntie, whom he sometimes spoke to as if she were
quite a little girl, in a way which amused the children very much. At
first he seemed very quiet and grave, but after a while Floss found out
that in his own way he was very fond of fun, and she confided to auntie
that she thought he was the funniest person she had ever seen. I don't
know if auntie told him this, or if he took it as a compliment, but
certainly he could not have been offended, for every day, as they
learnt to know him better, the children found him kinder and kinder.
So they were very happy at Greenmays, and no doubt would have gone on
being so but for one thing. There came bad news of their mother.
This was how they heard it. Every week at least, for several weeks,
Floss or Carrots, and sometimes both, got a letter from their mother or
from Cecil and Louise; and at first these letters were so cheerful, that
even the little bit of anxiety which the children had hardly known was
in their hearts melted away.
"What a _good_ thing mamma went to that nice warm place, isn't it,
auntie?" Carrots used to say after the arrival of each letter, and
auntie most heartily agreed with the happy little fellow. But at last,
just about Christmas-time, when the thin foreign-looking letter, that
the children had learnt to know so well, made its appearance one morning
on the breakfast-table, it proved to be for auntie--_that_, of course,
they did not object, to, had there been one for them too, but there was
not!
"Auntie dear, there is no letter for us," said Floss, when auntie came
into the room. "Will you please open yours quick, and see if there is
one inside it?"
"I don't think there is," said auntie; "it doesn't feel like it."
However, she opened the letter at once. No, there was no enclosure; and
Floss, who was watching her face, saw that it grew troubled as she ran
her eyes down the page.
"My letter is from your father. I cannot read it properly till after
breakfast, for uncle is waiting for me to pour out his coffee. Run off
now, dears, and I'll come to the nursery and tell you all about it after
breakfast," she said, trying to look and speak just the same as usual.
But Floss saw that she was _trying_; she did not persist, however, but
took Carrots by the hand, and went off obediently without speaking,
only giving auntie one wistful look as she turned away.
"What's wrong, Florence?" said Sybil's father, as the door closed after
the children.
"It is about Lucy," said auntie; "she is much worse; _very_ ill indeed.
She has caught cold somehow, and Frank seems almost to have lost hope
already."
Two or three tears rolled down auntie's face as she spoke. For a minute
or two Sybil's father said nothing.
"How about telling the children?" he asked at last.
"That's just it," replied auntie. "Frank leaves it to me to tell them or
not, as I think best. He would not let Cecil or Louise write, as he
thought if it had to be told I had better do so as gently as I could, by
word of mouth. But they _must_ be told--they are such quick children, I
believe Floss suspects it already. And if--and if the next news should
be _worse_," continued auntie with a little sob, "I would never forgive
myself for not having prepared them, and they would be full of
self-reproach for having been happy and merry as usual. Floss would say
she should have known it by instinct."
"Would they feel it so much?--could they realise it? They are so young,"
said Sybil's father.
Auntie shook her head. "Not too young to feel it terribly," she said.
"It is much better to tell them. I could not hide the sorrow in my face
from those two honest pairs of eyes, for one thing."
"Well, you know best," said her husband.
A sad telling it was, and the way in which the children took it touched
auntie's loving heart to the quick. They were so quiet and "pitiful," as
little Sybil said. Floss's face grew white, for, with a child's hasty
rush at conclusions, she fancied at first that auntie was paving the way
for the worst news of all.
"Is mamma _dead_?" she whispered, and auntie's "Oh no, no, darling. Not
so bad as that," seemed to give her a sort of crumb of hope, even before
she had heard all.
And Carrots stood beside auntie's knee, clasping his little mother
Floss's hand tight, and looking up in auntie's face with those wonderful
eyes of his, which auntie had said truly one _could_ not deceive; and
when he had been told all there was to tell, he just said softly, "Oh
_poor_ mamma! Auntie, she kissened us so _many_ times!"
And then, which auntie was on the whole glad of, the three children sat
down on the rug together and cried; Sybil, in her sympathy, as heartily
as the others, while she kept kissing and petting them, and calling them
by every endearing name she could think of.
"When will there be another letter, auntie?" said Floss.
"The day after to-morrow," said auntie. "Your father will write by every
mail."
In her own heart auntie had not much hope. From what Captain Desart
said, the anxiety was not likely to last long. The illness had taken a
different form from Mrs. Desart's other attacks. "She must be better or
worse in a day or two," he wrote, and auntie's heart sorely misgave her
as to which it would be.
The sorrowful day seemed very long to the children. They did their
lessons as usual, for auntie told them it would be much better to do so.
"Would it please mamma?" said Carrots; and when auntie said "Yes, she
was quite sure it would," he got his books at once, and "tried" even
harder than usual.
But after lessons they had no heart to play, and there was no "must"
about that. By bed-time they all looked worn out with crying and the
sort of strange excitement there is about great sorrows--above all to
children--which is more exhausting than almost anything.
"This will never do," thought auntie. "Hugh" (that was the name of
Sybil's father) "will have reason to think I should have taken his
advice, and not told them, if they go on like this."
"Sybil," she said, "Floss and Carrots will make themselves ill before
the next letter comes. What can we do for them?"
Sybil shook her head despondently.
"I don't know, mother dear," she said; "I've got out all my best things
to please them, but it's no good." She stood still for a minute, then
her face lightened up. "Mother," she said, "'aposing you were to read
aloud some of those stories you're going to get bounded up into a book
some day? They would like _that_."
Floss hardly felt as if she could care to hear _any_ stories, however
pretty. But she did not like to disappoint kind auntie by saying so,
especially when auntie told her she really wanted to know if she and
Carrots liked her stories, as it would help her to judge if other
children would care for them when they were "bounded up into a book."
So the next day auntie read them some, and they talked them over and got
quite interested in them. Fortunately, she did not read them all that
day, for the next day there was still more need of something to distract
the children's sorrowful thoughts, as the looked-for letter did not
come. Auntie would have liked to cheer the children by reminding them of
the old sayings that "No news is good news," and "It is ill news which
flies fast," but she dared not, for her own heart was very heavy with
anxiety. And she was very glad to see them interested in the rest of the
stories for the time.
I cannot tell you these stories, but some day perhaps you may come
across the little book which they were made into. But there is one of
them which I should like to tell you, as it is not very long, and in
the children's mind it was always associated with something that
happened just as auntie had finished reading it. For it was the last of
her little stories, and it was called----