Whereupon Aunt Amelia observed that she seemed as badly brought up as
most modern children, and that my blouse was very low, and my neck
looked most unsuitable for a Bishop's daughter.
I wonder if my neck is unsuitable, and, if so, isn't the Bishop the one
to blame?
'Can you sing a hymn, child?' said my aunt.
'No, but I can say a little piece that Captain Everard taught me.'
'Can you, darling?' I said, rather frightened. I knew some of Captain
Everard's 'little pieces.' 'I don't suppose your great-aunt would care
for that.'
'But I should like to say it for her,' said the child obligingly. 'It's
what a poor man said when he was tired on Sunday.'
At the word 'Sunday' Aunt Amelia thawed a little, so the Poppet
recited,--
'To-morrow's Monday, Mrs Stout
Says she must put the washing out.
Why can't she save my scanty tin
And try and keep the washing in?
The next day's Tuesday, what a pest.
Why can't the devil let me rest?'
'That will do,' said Aunt Amelia, and rang the bell for her maid. 'Take
the child away, and perhaps you could teach her a hymn, Keziah.'
'Yes, my lady,' said Keziah.
Then I tried to tell my aunt a little about my journey. 'I was so ill,'
I said, 'the sea was simply awful.'
'Don't say "awful," Margaret, there's nothing awful but being in hell.'
I felt the conversation languishing. I asked if there was any news. It
seemed safer to let my Aunt do all the talking, besides 'my prickles'
were _all_ out.
'I suppose,' she said, 'you've heard about your cousin, Eustace?'
'No,' I replied. 'Aunt Constance said she was in trouble, but she
couldn't tell me why just then. What is it?'
'I expect she's ashamed,' said Aunt Amelia acidly. It's all her fault.
Your Uncle Jasper knows the truth, at least he ought to,' but as I could
not hear a word against those two beloveds, I said again,--
'Tell me about Eustace.'
'Monastery,' she said. 'Monks got hold of him and he has finally
decided. I'm sorry for your uncle; there'll be no heir now, but it
serves him right. He knows the truth and hasn't followed it. I look
upon it as a judgment on him. Your aunt's persuaded him to let the new
vicar--"priest," she calls him--put flowers in your father's old church.
Candles will come next, of course; it's only the thin end of the wedge.
And then your Aunt Constance talks about "union," but does she think
that I would ever unite with people who have flowers and candles?'
'But,' I put in, 'father always said you needn't unite about the flowers
and candles, but just in your mutual love of God.'
'Your father was always too charitable, but he's "one of the right
sort," and I don't know what he'll say when he gets my last letter.'
I thought to myself he'll say, 'What a pearl you are, Amelia,' or else
he'll lose his temper. Darling daddy! He'd die for the faith that is
in him, but he regards his Lord's 'Judge not' as a command, consequently
it is really rather pleasant to live with him.
'I think,' I remarked, getting up, 'I must go now,' so she rang for the
Gidger.
'Well, and have you learned a hymn, child?'
'She's learnt four lines, m'lady,' said Keziah. 'She isn't very quick.
Say them, miss.'
So the Gidger folded two small hands, shut her eyes in accordance with
instructions in a way that set my teeth on edge, and chanted,--
'Go bury thy sorrow,
The world hath its share.
Go bury it deeply,
Go hide it with care.'
But anything less like a person with a sorrow that needed burial was the
radiant Gidger when she opened her eyes.
'Very nice,' said Aunt Amelia, 'very suitable to these solemn times.'
'Yes, m'lady,' said Keziah.
'Look at my little cross Aunt Constance sent me,' said the Gidger,
showing the small pearl thing with great pride. Aunt Amelia threw up
her hands, while Keziah looked as if she'd like to.
'No one,' exclaimed my aunt 'can possibly be a Christian who wears a
cross or a crucifix. If this poor ignorant child came to stay in this
godly house we might begin to see some signs of grace. But of course,'
she added hastily, 'I couldn't possibly have her; a child in the house
would be too much for me.'
So then she pecked my cheek and gave me two incoherent tracts, one for
myself, called 'The Scarlet Woman,' and one for Ross, entitled 'Do you
drink, smoke, swear, or gamble?' To the poor Poppet she presented a
book called _Heaven or Hell?_ with lurid and appalling pictures of both
states as they appeared to the mind of the writer. Then we drove to the
hospital.
Ross was delighted with his tract, though he thought the questions
'rather intimate.' He said he should write one for Aunt Amelia,
entitled 'Do you paint, powder, or wear bust-bodices?'
The Gidger had a second tea and so much flattering attention that I was
afraid her head would be turned; the piece about the poor man who was
tired on Sunday being received with cheers.
'What a row,' said a voice at the door, 'oh, what an awful, wicked,
fiendish noise to make, you must be mad! I cannot spend my entire day
coming in to ask the joke so as to tell the others. You, as usual,
Captain Fotheringham, why, you're worse in bed.'
'Come in, sister,' four men shouted.
'No,' said the voice. 'I'm going out to fetch four cabs and keepers,
and you're all off to Bedlam this night. Why, you're not having more
tea?' she said, catching sight of a cup, and then she came right in and
saw me sitting by the fire.
'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'I beg your pardon. Brown wants to know if he can
do anything for you to-night,' turning to Ross.
'He can hang himself,' replied my grateful brother, 'after he's put my
sister in a cab.'
'I don't want a cab,' I said. 'I'd rather wait and go in one of
sister's four.'
Going home, the Gidger remarked, 'I don't think I like going to see my
gweat-aunt much. Need I go any more? and I hate hymns. What is a sign
of grace, muvver?'
A telegram awaited me at the hotel to say that the rooms at Fernfold are
vacant, so I have wired to say we will take them from the 28th of
January. Oh, when shall I get a letter from my Belovedest?
*CHAPTER V*
We left the Savoyard after lunch yesterday and arrived at this pretty
little village in time for tea.
I suppose Uncle Jasper would say that I must get in a bit of
'background' now, but I'd so much rather be 'dim and confused.'
And is Surrey 'clear cut'? Is any county in the south of England,
except perhaps Cornwall, with its spray-worn rocks and fringe of foaming
sea?
This little village--you can look it up on a map if you want to. It's
near a powder factory and a Pilgrim Way, and yet not so _very_ near
them! In summer it is cupped in a circle of gorse and broom, and all
the country round is a soft blur of silver birches and heather. There
are bits of common land and little woods with nightingales, there are
cowslip fields as well, but at the moment everything is deep in snow.
Our lodgings are in a house with a nice new thatch and my sitting-room
is exactly opposite one of the village pubs.
The landlady is a Mrs Tremayne--Cornish, of course--and a regular
character. She has a loud voice and she shouts all her remarks at the
top of it. She calls every one 'my dear,' in Cornish fashion. Her
first remark was, 'Well, now, my dear, I 'ope you'll be comfortable
like. You've had a 'ansome but cold day for travelling, and no
mistake.' She is a dear old thing, and Nannie seems to like her.
The Gidger made a conquest of her at once. She was a nurse for many
years before she married, so 'likes to hear a child about the house.'
The rooms were very clean, but bare, and in spite of a nice fire looked
rather appalling and comfortless as a prospective winter residence.
However, after a very sleepy Gidger had been put to bed, Nannie and I
unpacked. Ross had given me a big box of flowers, and I filled all the
vases and jars, and set out lots of photographs and books and cushions,
and by the time dinner was ready I had transformed my sitting-room into
quite a habitable place with the homey feel that books and flowers and
firelight always give, while Nannie worked miracles upstairs in
bedrooms.
The dinner was distinctly quaint: something funny in a pie-dish, with
potatoes on the top. The top was brown. I liked that part. Nannie
says I'm not to be dainty; food is very difficult just now.
At present we can only have two bedrooms and two sitting-rooms, as there
are artist ladies across the passage. Their rooms are my Naboth's
vineyard, as they would make such nice nurseries for the Poppet. We
shall want to spread out if Ross comes.
It is so quiet here after the noise and bustle of London, but the air is
lovely. It was rather an effort to be cheerful last night as I had so
hoped for a letter, and I missed Ross, but the Gidger woke me this
morning with 'Muvver, four letters from daddy. _Oh_, aren't you sleepy,
darling?'
When I could get my eyes sufficiently open I found Nannie and breakfast
(rather a queer one), and four precious letters from Michael arranged
round the tea-pot. Of course they had missed me at the Savoyard and
been re-directed. I was so pleased to get them.
I was in the middle of dressing when Mrs Tremayne brought up a wire.
Telegrams give one the creeps these days, but this was from Ross to say
that he was arriving by the 7.10 to-night. Nannie and I hurriedly held
a council of war on the subject of bedrooms. There is a small
dressing-room vacant, but it really will not do for Ross. He gets bad
nights, and he must be as comfortable as possible, so Nannie and I towed
all my things into the little room and made the other ready for him and
coaxed the landlady for a fire. Fires seem to be difficult to obtain in
this house, 'coal being such a price.'
Some of the things in my new room are very droll. There is a case of
stuffed birds, and a glass ship in a bottle, lots of ribbon bows, and a
hair-tidy like a balloon, made out of an electric light bulb encased in
yellow crochet, with an ingenious 'basket' constructed out of a small
jelly-pot covered in with yellow silk. The Gidger thought it was the
most fascinating thing she'd ever seen, and asked for it, but Nannie
said, 'Landladies don't like things moved.'
There is also a unique collection of pictures and a lot of texts, but
the thing which I most love is an engraving called 'The Believer's
Vision.' It is a priceless work. On a low couch, with folded hands and
a smug smile of satisfaction on her depressing countenance, lies 'the
Believer' fast asleep. She has a plate of grapes and oranges beside her
on a table, and there seems to be a good deal of Greek drapery about as
well. Up in one corner is 'The Vision'--two fat angels lying long-ways
on a hole they've scooped out of the ceiling. Oh, they are fat: two to a
ton, as Michael would say, and they are blowing trumpets and have heaps
of feathers. It is a most entrancing work of art.
After lunch, which I think was weirder than the dinner (I hope I am not
dainty) I took the Gidger for a walk and bought a lot of fruit and
biscuits. Fernfold is very sweet. All Surrey is, I think, with its
little woods and commons.
After tea I went down to the station, and Ross arrived, apparently in
the worst of tempers; Brown was with him.
'Why, Brown,' I exclaimed, 'I didn't know you were coming.'
'Nor I, but he's not staying,' growled Ross.
'It's quite convenient,' I said, 'only there isn't a bed. I expect we
could fix up something.'
'Oh, that don't matter, ma'am,' said Brown, 'don't bother about me.'
'Brown can sleep on the edge of a knife, Meg. And I hope it'll cut him,'
Ross said vindictively.
'Yes, sir, thank you, sir,' said Brown, with the greatest possible
deference, 'won't you get into the cab, sir? You oughtn't to stand
after the journey.'
'Oh, don't fuss. If you are going to fuss,' said Ross, 'you can go to
the----'
'Ross!'
'Can I never say it?'
'No,' I said severely, '_never_.'
'But if I go and stay at Hindhead, surely there I----'
'Yes, but there you must say "punchbowl" after it.'
'Seems a bit complicated, Meg; how pious you've grown! What are you
standing still for, Brown? Get the luggage and get a lick on you,' said
my amiable relative, 'and then go back to London, don't----'
Brown had however vanished on to the platform and I followed.
'Sam,' I remarked, and somehow all the years slipped back, and he was
just the jolly boy at Uncle Jasper's lodge, and I the Rector's little
daughter. 'You can't go back to-night; there's no train; the last one
goes at seven o'clock.'
'So the matron said, miss'--(what a wily bird, she said she'd 'work
it')--'but, don't you worry, miss, I'll come up presently, it'll be all
right, there ain't no call for you to worry, miss'--(there never was in
Sam's view)--'we've got through worse than this,' said Sam as we got
back to the cab.
'Got all the things?' asked Ross.
'Yes, sir.'
'Good-night, Brown.'
'Good-night, sir.'
'What happened about Brown?' I asked going home.
'Oh,' said Ross, as if the subject frankly bored him, 'matron sent me in
a cab to Waterloo, with an orderly to get my ticket. I was sitting in
my carriage, trying to turn the evening paper, when Brown said, "Allow
me, sir," and then before I could swear at him, he got out into the
corridor and the train went off. It was such a swot to try to find him,
so there it is.'
'Oh,' I began.
'I am tired, Meg, can't think why she made me come so late; never seems
much sense in women's orders.'
The first thing we did on arriving at the lodgings was to fight fiercely
about bedrooms. His room looked so pleasant with flowers, a cheerful
fire, a box of his favourite cigarettes, and a whole box of matches!
'Very nice,' said the invalid, 'and may I ask where you sleep?'
'Oh, I have a dear little room near by.'
'I should like to see this "dear little room near by," Meg.'
'You can't,' I said. 'It's all in a muddle and my things aren't put
away.'
'I should like,' reiterated Ross, in his most maddening manner, 'to see
this "dear little room near by."'
So of course he saw it. He wandered slowly round it, gazing at the
works of art, until he came to 'The Believer's Vision,' which seemed to
fascinate him. After a long pause in front of it he said, 'Well, it 'ud
wreck my faith completely,' and then he collected an armful of my
clothing and proceeded to hang it up in the other room that had been so
carefully prepared for him.
'Oh, Ross, don't,' I begged. 'I much prefer the little room.'
'Why didn't you choose it at first?' he said with unanswerable logic,
'and why isn't there a fire in it?'
'I made the other room so nice for you,' I wailed, and we can't all have
fires; coal is so expensive.'
'Parsons say the war has taught us many things,' said Ross, 'but I never
expected it would teach you to go without a fire because it happened to
be expensive. Why, it's a modern miracle, and ought to be reported to
the Pope.'
'But it's difficult to get, as well.'
'Then we'll buy millions of logs and cartloads of peat,' he said.
'You're not going to sleep in this room without a fire, or any other
room for the matter of that. Why, it's like an ice-house after India.
Come on, Nannie, help me to get this female gear out of my dug-out.
Don't be cross, old girl!'
But I was cross. I hate being called a 'female' and my clothes 'gear.'
Why do I always live with cavemen who will have their own way and
trample on my deepest feelings? I determined, however, that I would try
again and said, 'But the mattress has such lumps and----'
'I adore lumps; how can you be so selfish, Meg?'
'But I don't want to be turned out of my room like this.'
'Well, that's what I keep on saying,' said Ross. 'How inconsistent women
are. What time is dinner? Can I have a bath?'
'Just turned it on, sir,' said Brown, coming into the room and beginning
to unpack!
So I left them. When Ross went downstairs I heard him call back, 'Sam,
there are several things in my room that I don't want. I've left them
in the middle of the floor, get rid of them.' And I wondered how Sam
would carry out my brother's impossible orders, as landladies 'don't
like things moved.' I peeped in as I went down. Brown was gazing at a
weird assortment: all the antimacassars, some of the texts, the case of
birds, and the ship in the glass bottle, the hair tidy like a balloon
(which I rescued for the Gidger) and last but not least the 'Believer's
Vision,' which Ross had taken off the wall and stood upside down upon
the pile, in a frantic effort to save his faith from shipwreck.
I went down to dinner, and Brown waited. Liver and bacon! with that
variety of mashed potato which my refined relative has from his earliest
youth called 'worms.' I refused the liver and took some bacon; so did
Ross, remarking that he 'Never could eat "works."'
Brown handed Ross the next course, which was rice pudding.
'Why do you bother to offer me this filth?' said Ross indignantly to
Brown, 'you know I never touch it. What's the other stuff, jelly? I'll
have some of that.'
'Packet,' said Brown, 'by the look of it, sir; shouldn't recommend it.'
But I, determining not to be dainty, said it looked jolly good and I
would have some.
'Take it away, Brown, she's not going to eat hoofs and get a pain in her
gizzard to start off with. Give her some pudding.'
Ross helped himself liberally to bread and butter and cheese.
'What funny butter,' he observed.
'Margarine, sir.'
'Oh, how tiring,' said Ross, pushing it away, 'give me a clean plate.
Why _can't_ they colour it blue?'
Coffee consisted of a jug of hot milk and some black stuff in a bottle.
We adjourned to the fire and I had quite a nice supper of hot milk and
biscuits, apples, and chocolates; and we talked and talked, and got a
bit levelled up with life after five years of separation.
Then I went to bed. But, oh, not to sleep. The family's appalling
habit of leaving doors half open prevented that, and I heard Ross say to
Brown when he came up to bed (his voice does carry so), 'What's to be
done, Sam, they can't stop here?'
'Certainly not, Master Ross. Never saw such a dinner in my life, though
the cooking was all right.'
'Yes, it's the stuff they cooked that's wrong. Can't you do something?'
said Ross vaguely. Sam has always seemed to be able to do the things
that put our muddles right.
'Well, you see, sir,' said Brown, 'it's a bit awkward; Mrs Ellsley seems
to be paying very little, and food is expensive.'
'Have you ever known my sister pay very little for anything if it was
possible to pay a lot?'
'No, sir, and that's what I can't understand about it.'
'But how much _is_ she paying, then?' inquired my brother.
'Six guineas, sir.'
'But aren't there always extras in a place like this?' said Ross
vaguely, searching his mind for recollections of lodgings at the sea.
'Don't they always make the profits out of--cruets, I think they call
it?'
'Miss Margaret don't seem to have gone into any details,' said Brown.
'No,' agreed Ross, 'she wouldn't. But I should have thought you could
feed two women and a child better than that for eighteen pounds a week.
Well, they'll have to pay more, that's all.'
'But it isn't eighteen pounds,' said Brown.
'You said it was just now,' said Ross, 'six guineas each.
'But it was two guineas that was meant, sir. Six guineas for the lot of
them.'
I heard my brother sink into a seat and scrape his feet along the floor,
as he does when the burden of life becomes too heavy to be borne
standing up.
'Do you mean to say, Sam, that the landlady proposes to provide rooms,
beds, food, baths, boots, fires, cruets, and----' here Ross searched
violently in his mind for more things which Mrs Tremayne was willing to
provide, 'and "Believer's Visions" for two pounds a week each? Why,
she's a public benefactor.'
'That's the price, sir. She said she asked six guineas and the lady
agreed without arguing, as her lodgers usually do.'
'Well, of course, that's the explanation, Sam. She thought she meant
"each."'
'The "she's" me,' I said to myself, to make it clearer in my mind.
'Not a doubt about it, sir,' said Sam.
'Funny things, women,' said my brother reflectively, 'never seem able to
make a proper arrangement with a hotel, or book a cabin. The only mess
I ever got into on a ship was when I let one of my aunts book my berth
going out to--I forget where----'
'Indeed, sir,' said Brown, with interest.
'Yes, wrote and said she'd booked my berth but the ship was full and I'd
have to share a cabin with a Captain Booth. Hoped I didn't mind. I
loathed it, of course.'
'Of course,' said Brown.
'However, there was nothing to be done but put up with it, so I prayed
it might be the Captain Booth in the 4th Lancers that I knew a bit.
Where were you, Sam, that time?'
'Typhoid.'
'Oh, yes, of course. Well, I got down to the ship and turned in early,
as I was dead done after--forget what I'd been doing; kept half an eye
on the door to see what my stable companion was going to be like, and
then Captain Booth came in.'
'Was it Captain Booth of the 4th Lancers?' asked Brown.
'Salvation Army lass,' said Ross laconically, and Brown laughed, as he
used to do in Uncle Jasper's woods.
Suddenly somebody knocked violently on the wall.
'Anybody ill, do you think?' asked my brother.
'Oh, no, sir, making too much row--laughed a bit too loud, I expect,
woke up the other lodgers.'
'What a rum place,' observed my brother, and then there was silence till
the water ran in the bath, and the house for a few moments was turned
into a pond with a polar bear in it.
Then I went to sleep.
*CHAPTER VI*
Brown has, apparently, been 'doing things' the last few days.
Particularly nice breakfasts turn up now, a maid lights my fire and the
bath water is hot. Ross informed me that he had taken on the running of
the show, but that, with the best will in the world, Mrs Tremayne could
not supply butter, so he'd wired to Aunt Constance for a supply, and
that if I could put up with marmalade till it arrived it would ease his
mind.
I have recovered my temper, too, and have decided that cavemen have
their advantages. The one with whom my lot is cast at the moment knows
how to stoke a fire, if nothing else. The millions of logs have begun
to arrive, too, so at any rate we shall be warm. Ross says it's a pity
I didn't live in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, for then I could have got
really thawed on the days they lighted the burning fiery furnace.
The other occupants of the house are two maiden ladies--'artists.' Ross
calls them the 'spiders,' because they entice into their parlour all
their friends and acquaintances, and encourage them to buy their
'pictures,' and they borrow; oh, how they borrow! It is 'Could Mrs
Ellsley kindly lend some ink?' or 'We have run out of notepaper and
should be so obliged, etc.' Yesterday their newspaper hadn't come.
'Would Captain Fotheringham spare his for ten minutes?' Captain
Fotheringham spared it with a very ill grace, but as the ten minutes
became fifteen, and then twenty, and then thirty, he announced his
intention of singing Hymn 103 outside their door.
'Why a hymn?' I inquired.
'Because it expresses in concise, lucid, clear, and unbiased language
the perfectly intolerable situation which has arisen,' and he departed
down the passage, singing loudly, 'My Times are in thy hand.'
Alas! this afternoon we are in deep disgrace, for the Spiders have given
notice, and are going in about a week, because of us.
They object, it seems, to meeting Brown on the stairs and landings, and
to the number of baths we have. Since we arrived there is never any hot
water left for washing their blouses. The climax came, apparently, this
morning. Brown goes into the bathroom about 7.30 a.m. and cleans the
bath. I saw him do it once at home, so I know what happens. He
sprinkles it all over with some powder in a tin, and then scrubs and
scours it till you'd think all the enamel would come off. And then he
washes it out with hot water and a brush on a long handle, and then
dries it, and cleans the taps, and wipes the floor, and puts out soap
and heaps of towels, turns the cold tap on and then goes along to Ross
and says 'Bath's ready, sir.'
Then Ross goes and splashes it all up, and scatters soap about and
swamps the floor, and then, after breakfast, Brown cleans it just the
same all over again for me, only this time it's the hot tap, and Nannie
comes and says 'Bath's ready, dearie, hurry up now.' What would Ross
say if Brown suddenly said, 'Hurry up, now, dearie,' and if he wouldn't
stand it, why do I?
Well, for some reason or other this morning Ross went along to his bath
before Brown called him. He had on his new dressing-gown. His taste is
lurid and flamboyant, and Aunt Constance aids and abets him. This was a
really scrummy one, dull purple silk, with pink flamingoes. And Aunt
Constance had had bath shoes made to match with baby flamingoes on the
toes. She does spoil him abominably.
Well, Ross, resplendent in his purple and flamingoes, lounged in a chair
and smoked a cigarette, while Brown put the last polish on the taps and
'chucked the towels about,' as Ross expressed it. Brown was silently
absorbed in taps and Ross in watching him, when, suddenly, the door was
flung wide open and a Spider entered in a red flannel dressing-gown,
rather short, with a collar that had bits chewed out (I quote my
brother, he means pinked) while its feet were thrust in red felt shoes.
It had no cap on, but its hair was screwed into a tight, 'round button
on the top,' like the panjandram, and it was in a temper hot and
hissing.
Ross got up hurriedly and surveyed the apparition, feeling a little at a
disadvantage, with his hair rough and with pink flamingoes. Brown stood
at petrified attention by the bath.
'Oh, is it possible,' said the artist, for it was one of the sisters I
told you of, 'is it humanly possible that this room is _still_
occupied?'
'I've only just come,' my brother remarked.
'But that man has been here at least half an hour,' said the red flannel
dressing-gown.
'Have you, Brown?' asked Ross.
'I've had to clean the bath, madam,' said Brown.
'But surely,' said the Spider, 'surely the bath doesn't need cleaning.
I'm sure Mrs Tremayne keeps everything most beautifully. It really is
absurd. It's the same in the mornings, and at night, and sometimes
before dinner. The man's always in here, and I feel the time has come
to put my foot down. We all pay the same, and baths are included in the
price.'
So Ross, with that courtesy which he can't help showing to a woman, even
if he's furious with her, said 'I'm extremely sorry, but if you will
tell my man after breakfast what time it is convenient to you for me to
have my bath, I will fit in with you and will speak to my sister also.
See to it, Brown, will you?' and he turned away to close the
conversation.
But the Spider's conversation was not so easily closed, and she was just
about to begin again. However, she had bargained without Brown. Brown
had his orders, he had been told to 'see to it,' and meant to. Somehow
he hustled the little woman out and, with 'My master is waiting to have
his bath, madam,' he closed the door on the little spitfire, and Ross
exploded comfortably.
After luncheon they gave notice. 'Jolly good job, too,' says Ross. But
I feel sorry we've annoyed them, though I shall go in and possess my
Naboth's vineyard with great pride and pleasure.
Ross is only pretty well; he gets a good deal of pain and is sleeping
badly, but he generally manages to be cheerful, when he can't he goes
upstairs and stays there till the bout is over.
This evening he came into my room to say 'Good-night,' and his mind
seemed full of dressing-gowns. 'Meg,' he demanded, 'is your
dressing-gown red?'
'Yes,' I said, 'the one I'm using at the moment happens to be red.'
'But is it flannel?'
'No, but it's something quite as thick. Estelle thought it would be
warmer for me. It's over there, if you'd like to see it.'
He picked up the soft crimson thing that Estelle had made for me when I
first landed.
'Why, Meg, it looks like an evening dress.'
'Yes, but it buttons down the front, that's where the difference is.'
'Do you always button it, then, when you put it on?'
'Oh, always,' I replied, 'don't people usually?'
'I dunno,' he said, 'only this morning she had got hers sort of draped
across her tummy, kept together with the belt knotted. When you walk
about the passages in hotels, Meg, don't you wear a cap or something?'
'My dear child,' I observed, 'where do you think I was dragged up?'
*CHAPTER VII*
Fairy hands have been at work. Instead of a shining white world all is
green again. There has been a very rapid thaw. The frost has gone and
little brooks of melted snow are running down the lanes and paths. Tiny
green spikes have appeared in all the garden as if by magic. There is
even a half-drowned primrose out, telling that spring is coming very
soon this year.
The morning post brought me a letter from Michael 'written in the mud.'
It contains a most amazing suggestion. He asks me to try to find an old
house 'such as his soul loveth' and make a home.
Oh, how he must have misunderstood my letters and thought because I
frivolled and told him all our stupid jokes that I am happy. How can he
imagine I could even contemplate making a home in England without him
when it has been the dream of our lives to do it together. Surely he
knows by now that 'Home' for me is just that particular bit of mud in
Flanders in which his dear feet are embedded, and that any place without
him is exile, that life, till he returns, is merely marking time. I
don't care if I am talking like a little Bethel.... Ross thinks it's a
topping idea. Even Nannie didn't help me. When I told her, all she said
was, 'But of course you will if Master Michael wants you to.'
I felt, as I sometimes used to as a child, that 'every one's against
me,' and I decided to walk my devils off.