'Going out?' he asked.
'Yes, will you come?'
'No, arm's bothering,' and he took up his book again.
I went for a long tramp, down the quiet lanes and through the little
spinneys, but there was no harmony--the old 'washed' feeling wouldn't
come. I slipped into the Intercession Service at the little church and
tried to pray for Ross and Michael and all the others. War seems very
near in England, only a few miles off--those guns--that one hears
sometimes in the night. I thought as I sat in church of all the death
and desolation, the suffering and the broken hearts and tears. A great
horror of the war came over me and a great rebellion. Why does God allow
such things? How can I think of Him as a beneficent Being when the
world is swamped with cruelty, blood, and separation? I feel like Tommy
Vellacott. I don't love God now. I only believe in Him.
When I got home my feet were soaked and my throat sore, so I went
upstairs early. I felt better in bed, and decided that I _would_ try to
find a house if it would give Michael the least scrap of happiness. If
he would feel 'less anxious' about me in a house of our own instead of
rooms, why a house it shall be. I grew quite excited and interested (as
my feet got warmer), planning the details of our dream--an old, old
house, standing in a big garden with long, low rooms full of oak
furniture, seventeenth century, for choice, with lots of flowers and
sunshine in the summer, and books and candlelight and glowing fires for
the winter evenings. But how awful it would be if, when Michael saw it
for the first time he should say,--
'This the dream house?--what a nightmare!'
Then Ross came in to say good-night. 'Better?' he queried.
'No, but I'm going to get up to-morrow,' I said defiantly.
'Are you,' he drawled, as though he hadn't the faintest interest in the
subject, but there was a look in his eyes somehow I didn't like. 'Why
is that wretched kitten up here again?' he said. 'I can hear it
wheezing,' and he looked under the bed.
'It's me,' I said.
'It's I,' said Ross.
'Oh, have you got it, too?' (I will not be reproved for grammar by a
twin).
'Are you making that noise for fun, Meg?'
'No, I can't help it,' I said crossly.
'Hadn't you better have one of those things on made out of a muslin
curtain, with hot muck inside,' he added vaguely, racking his brains for
medical knowledge. 'Can't think what the stuff's called.'
'No,' I said violently, 'I hadn't better!'
Presently the house grew quiet and I began to worry over Ross, his bad
nights, the constant pain and the absolute refusal to let any one do
anything for him; he won't have a fire and snaps Brown's head off if he
suggests a doctor. He was really angry with me on Saturday because
I--oh, well, it's no use worrying, I reflected, as I mopped my eyes.
Just as I was about to try to compose myself for slumber, with a little
folding of the hands to sleep, wishing I could drown the kitten, Nannie
came in. You will hardly believe it when I tell you that she carried in
between two hot plates the thing that Ross had mentioned, in a muslin
curtain.
'Master Ross says,' began Nannie.
'Nannie,' I retorted, and I was furious, 'I simply will not have that
beastly thing on just because Ross says so.'
'Well,' said Nannie soothingly, 'have it because I say so, if you'd
rather,' and she clapped it on.
And I decided, as she closed the door, that I should run away at dawn.
But the kitten wouldn't stop, and then I started choking. There was
dead silence in the house, so I hoped that Ross was sleeping well for
once, and I buried my head under the bedclothes and coughed comfortably.
I started up presently with a little shriek to find a giant in pyjamas
making up my fire.
'Sorry I frightened you,' said Ross. 'What have you got your head
buried for, can't you sleep?'
'No,' I replied.
'But I told you to knock if you wanted me, Meg.'
'I didn't want you,' I said crossly, 'that's why I didn't knock.'
'You're very difficult to take care of,' said Ross, surveying me from
the foot of the bed.
'Not nearly so difficult as you are,' I retorted, all the worry of his
continued sleepless nights coming to a head suddenly in my mind, 'you
won't let me do a thing for you. I cry about you sometimes.'
'You cry about _me_?' said the giant, suddenly sitting on the edge of
the bed.
'Yes,' and I leaned against him; he seemed a friendly sort of giant at
the moment.
'When did you cry last?' he demanded.
'To-night,' and I fumbled for a handkerchief I didn't really need.
'Why?' asked the giant.
'Because your arm's so bad, you aren't sleeping, you won't take anything
or do anything, or let any one else do anything for you. You're making
me perfectly miserable, and as for Sam, you've been absolutely rotten to
him all the week.'
'I told Brown to keep every one out of my room when I'd got a "go" on,
and he let you in on Saturday.'
'Yes, but Ross,' I said, 'how could he keep me out?'
'He'd had his orders. I can't be responsible for any difficulties that
may occur in the carrying of them out,' said Ross obstinately.
'You are hard,' I said.
'Scold away,' grinned Ross.
'No, but you are; you've simply looked through Brown and locked your
door, and been cold to me for days.'
'Can't stand disobedience in a soldier,' said Ross, shortly, 'never
could.'
'Nor in a sister, Ross?'
But there was no reply.
'Ross,' I exclaimed suddenly, desiring an armistice, 'I'm sorry. I
won't come in again, only, if you knew how I worry about you, you'd let
me. But,' I added, 'I thought when we embarked on this conversation,
that I was rowing you.'
'I haven't said a word,' protested Ross.
'No, I know you haven't, but conscience makes the head uneasy when it
wears a crown.'
'Are you feverish, darling?' said Ross anxiously.
'No, but I get quotations mixed at times. Will you forgive me?' I said
childishly.
So we smoked the pipe of peace with great contentment, smoked the
calumet, the peace pipe, and I said, 'My brother, listen,--
"See the smoke rise slowly, slowly,
First a single line of darkness,
Then a denser, bluer vapour,
Then a snow-white cloud unfolding,
Like the tree tops of the forest.
Ever rising, rising, rising,
Till it touched the top of heaven,"
Till it broke against the ceiling,
Till I sneezed.'
'Meg, I'm sure you're feverish.'
'I'm not.'
'Well, the only thing I've understood that you've said lately was the
sneeze.'
'And that,' I observed with pride, 'was the original bit. I always felt
I could be a poet if I tried. Now I'm going to finish rowing you.'
'But I thought we'd smoked the pipe of peace, Meg.'
'Oh, that----' I said.
'How like a woman. Fire away, then, and get it off your chest.'
So I fired away and got off all the wrongs of days.
'If you weren't so small,' said Ross, when at last he got a word in, 'I
shouldn't feel so inclined to bully you.'
'But that's an awful thing to say. Why, you never ought to hit a man
who's smaller than yourself.'
'Looks as if my moral nature is decaying and I seem to be a fair and
average all-round beast,' said Ross, with gloom. 'I didn't mean to hurt
you, darling. Sorry, little 'un. I'll try to be different,' he
promised, as he used when he was naughty as a boy.
'Have some coffee, Meg? Brown put some in my thermy.'
'Yes. I will if you will,' and because my brother was 'trying to be
different' he took a cup himself.
'Well, it's time you went to sleep,' remarked the giant, and got up to
go.
Outside the door, as he went out, I heard Brown say, 'Can't you sleep,
sir,' and then something about 'no dressing-gown with that cold on you.'
'Oh, dry up,' said Ross wrathfully, really trying to be different,
'you're as bad as a wet nurse. Go to bed and stop there, or I'll sack
you, Sam.'
So I knew Brown was forgiven, too.
When I woke up next time it was getting light. I fumbled for my watch.
It said the hour was twelve, so I knew it must be seven, or it might be
eight--the hour hand will slip round, though I can always tell the
minutes, which is what one usually wants to know.
Then there was a knock upon my door.
'This,' I thought, 'is my repentant brother. Now, after last night, I
must remember to be firm, but kind, and so help him to be different,'
and I called 'Come in.'
But an icicle in shirt sleeves entered that I'd seen several times
before.
'Meg,' it said, 'you're not to get up.'
'My dear sir,' I said to it (telling myself that I was not afraid of
icicles), 'I hadn't the slightest intention of doing such a thing for at
least an hour.'
'Not all day,' said the icicle, and as I opened my lips, intending to be
firm, but kind, it said in a voice cold as a glacier just before the
dawn, 'Don't argue, it's quite settled, Margaret.'
'But,' I objected, assuring myself again that firm kindness was the
_only_ way with icicles, 'you've got exactly the same cold, and you're
up. Sauce for a goose ought to be sauce for a gander.'
Suddenly a rapid thaw set in and the icicle subsided into a mere puddle
on the floor, and my brother answered, 'Sauce _from_ a goose is all I
know about,' and there we left it.
*CHAPTER VIII*
It took two days to drown that kitten, but now I'm up again and out, and
to-day I went to Tarnley, with the permission of my gracious keeper, 'if
I drove both there and back.' As it was sunny, and mercies are strictly
rationed just at present, I accepted the offer and went to all the
places I had meant to go to first, did a lot of shopping, and finally
interviewed one of the house agents.
I was quite clear and definite in my requirements--I wanted to _buy_ an
_old_ house; so of course every one he sent me to was _red brick_,
_modern_, and _to let_.
I went home and groused to Ross, and announced that the only really
satisfactory way to find a suitable dwelling was to walk the length and
breadth of England, and when you saw the house you wanted knock at the
door and beguile the owner into selling it to you, and that I intended
to adopt this plan and to begin my pilgrimage shortly.
Ross, as usual, was rude about it.
'Haven't you discovered all these years, you little ass, that agents are
a race apart?' said he; 'their minds are controlled by the law of
opposites. Now your heart, Meg, is set on a house, ancient and mellowed
with years, with long, low rooms and beams, and an old-world garden full
of wallflowers, phlox and herbs and perennials and----'
'But, Ross----'
'Don't interrupt me, Meg; consequently you must tell the agent that you
desire a new up-to-date dwelling with a small garden overlooked on
either side (since we are cheerful souls and love the company of our
fellows). Then they would give you orders to view old houses with
little latticed windows and winding stairs. Methinks if you said you
_must_ have lincrusta and white enamel you might even get oak
panelling.'
After dinner Ross departed upstairs, said he had things to do and then
he was going to bed.
To bed? To walk his room all night, with Brown, unbeknown to my
brother, pacing up and down the passage.
I sat by my fire and read. At one o'clock, Ross knocked me up. As I
went into the corridor Brown barred his door.
'I daren't, ma'am. Please don't ask me. Not after last time, miss.'
'Let her in, Brown,' cried Ross. 'I knocked her up, you ass!
Worrying?' he asked me laconically as I went in.
'Yes.'
'Like to make tea then? got such a rotten "go" on, Meg.'
And then he fainted, and I called to Brown. He got his master into bed,
while I flew round for brandy.
'Give me some water,' said my reviving brother.
'No, I won't,' said Brown, 'you'll take the brandy, Master Ross, or I'll
thrash you like I did that day in Hickley Woods when you fell and cut
your knee and sprained your ankle, and tried to prevent me going for the
doctor.'
Ross was so dumbfounded that he took the brandy meekly.
'Now these aspirins,' said Brown, 'and I'm going to light the fire. The
room is like an ice-house. I'm about fed up.'
When he arose from the fireplace he was once again the suave, impassive
servant. 'I should wish to give a month's warning, sir. I don't seem
able to give you satisfaction.' And there was a desolating silence.
'Anything more I can do for you to-night, sir?'
'Yes,' said Ross, 'stop playing the goat.'
But Brown's face remained hard and impassive.
'Want me to eat humble pie, I suppose,' said Ross, and surveyed his
servant as if he had just suddenly seen him.
'Yes, sir, I think it would be a good thing.'
'Well, then, I've been a devil all the week.'
But Brown still waited.
'Want more pie?' asked my erring brother.
'That's as you feel, sir,' said Brown.
So Ross, with the air of a man who thought it a pity to spoil the ship
of repentance for a ha'porth of grace, said 'Sorry.'
'Don't name it, sir,' said Brown, and I so rejoiced over the sinner that
repented that I forgot to remind him to say 'punchbowl.'
Just as Brown went through the door, Ross called out, 'Got another
place, Sam?'
Sam suddenly came to life again. 'Will you see the doctor in the
morning?'
'Oh, have it your own way,' growled Ross.
'Then I've got a place,' said Sam.
'Get us some tea, then,' my brother ordered, 'and come and have a cup
yourself.'
'Certainly not, sir, with Miss Meg--Margaret, I mean,' he said, getting
deeper into the mire.
'Do you usually call my sister by her Christian name?'
'No, sir, but you worry me so, I don't know half the time what I'm
a-saying.'
'Well, I'm a-saying now,' said his autocratic master, 'that it's time
the tea was here, and bring three cups. I want to talk about the
Hickley Woods. You've got a rotten temper, Sam.'
'Yes, sir, you can't touch pitch,' said Sam, firing the last shot.
So victory is not always to the strong.
'Oh, what a chap,' said Ross.
We spent a warm and pleasant hour talking birds, and fish, and rabbits,
and the years slipped away and we were back again in the Hickley
Woods--Ross, Miss Meg, and Sam.
After Brown had departed with the tea-cups, Ross said, 'Meg, do you
think I'm weak?'
'Well, darling,' I replied, 'you are sure to feel so after fainting, but
if you take care, you----'
'But I don't mean my body, Meg.'
'We are all sinners,' I said, 'but if you would like to see a clergyman
in the morning, I'll----'
'How can you be so aggravating; I don't mean my soul, either. I want to
talk about my Will.'
'I thought you had made it ages ago, but I'll wire for the lawyer in the
morning.'
'Oh, Meg, how you do exasperate a chap.'
'Well, what do you mean?' I giggled.
'I mean my will power. Do you think I'm weak?'
'About as weak as Michael,' I replied. 'Why?'
'Because,' said my brother seriously, 'doesn't it seem an awful thing
that a chap my size can't manage a chap his.'
'But there's only three inches between you, and he is six months older.'
'Yes, but three inches is three inches, and what's six months, Meg?'
'You say forty minutes is enough when you boss me.'
'Oh, twins are different, but with Brown I get along all right when I
take my stand on the King's Regulations. But when he brings in the
Hickley Woods I go to water.'
'No, to brandy.'
'Oh, rub it in,' said Ross, and then because he was so quaint and sweet
and I loved him, and he had fainted, and because the lion seemed very
tame, I forebore to tease him further and was really nice, kissed him
once and petted him a little, and then when I got up to go he said,--
'Pity you aren't always as dutiful as that.'
'Dutiful!' I shrieked. 'Oh, what a word,' and so we parted coldly after
all.
*CHAPTER IX*
And the doctor's verdict is 'Two days in bed and bromide. First dose
now.'
'I'll stay in bed,' said Ross, with the air of a man conferring a great
favour, 'I'll not take drugs.'
'I'll get it down,' said Brown to the doctor, as he saw him to the car,
'somehow,' he added grimly.
'Sam,' I inquired, 'how are you going to get it down?'
'Can't imagine, miss. After last night he won't stand much. Well, it
was a bit thick.'
'Sam, do you think if your knee gave out and it hurt you to keep
standing when you argued, that it might have weight?'
'Can but try, miss.'
So Brown's knee, of course, has given out. They are a happy pair, one in
bed and the other with his leg up on a chair, talking woods and
shooting, fishing, and birds' eggs, and they're smoking--how they smoke!
I think the bromide's swallowed. There's a contented look in Sam's eyes
and a 'Oh-well-stretched-a-point-for-once,' in my dear brother's.
So I proceeded to carry out my patent plan of finding houses and had a
delightful and exciting morning. It was a lovely day, the hedges were a
soft promise of green, and the bright sunshine and some saucy robins
made a brave pretence of summer. I rambled down all kinds of little
lanes and by-paths, but never a house did I see to suit me, till at last
I chanced on Lynford, a little place I fell in love with at first sight
and which I am sure is after Michael's own heart.
The village is built on the slope of a hill, with a little church on the
summit and charming old world cottages clustered together in picturesque
confusion just below.
Alas, the cottages were quite small ones, with only four or five rooms
at most, and so not practicable. The last house in the village was a
great surprise. It was larger than the others, with quaint little
diamond windows and a glorious old red roof, and lots of creepers
climbing over, which would make it in the autumn a thing of flaming
beauty.
In the flower borders crocuses and snowdrops were already peeping, and
the porch was aflame with yellow winter jasmine. The view was superb,
for the hill sloped steeply from the house, and at my feet lay beautiful
water meadows all in flood after the snow, with the ruins of an old
abbey in the near distance.
Without stopping to think of anything but the fact that it was the kind
of habitation I was looking for, I boldly walked up to the front door
and rang the bell. Here my courage, which I had thought was screwed to
the sticking point, began, in the most horrible manner, to trickle out
of my boots, but before I could escape an elderly and severe domestic
opened the door and glared at me as if I wanted to sell her something.
I inquired if I might see the owner on a matter of business. She
hesitated and, after looking me well up and down, most reluctantly said,
'I'll see.'
She departed down the old flagged passage, leaving me on the mat with my
last shred of courage in tatters and my knees a jelly. After a minute
or two she returned and said, 'The master will see you,' and if ever a
woman's sour visage said 'More fool he,' that woman's did.
As the last moments of a drowning man are crammed with the recollections
of a lifetime, so all the silly, impulsive things I have done in my life
crowded on me as I followed down that stone passage. Why, oh, why did I
have an Irish grandmother to lead me into this scrape? What on earth
could I say to 'the master' that wouldn't sound the most appalling
impertinence?
I entered his presence rather more quickly than I meant to, as I fell
down a small step.
I looked across the charming room, and by the bright wood fire was an
old gentleman seated at breakfast at eleven o'clock in the morning.
'Good-morning,' I said, 'I'm afraid I'm rather early.'
'Not at all,' said he. 'I'm afraid I'm rather late. Have some
breakfast?'
'No, thank you, I haven't come to call.'
'Oh, he replied, 'I thought you had.'
'No,' and my words began to tumble over one another in my agitation,
'that is to say, not in the ordinary sense of the word, but I came--I
hope you won't mind--I hope you won't think it awful cheek, but now I am
inside your house I feel it is, though outside it seemed the most
ordinary thing to do, but the fact is I am looking--oh----' I broke off
as the appallingness of the situation came upon me afresh. 'Promise you
will not be offended, but that you will take my visit in the spirit in
which it is intended.'
'Is this to be an offer of marriage, my dear young lady?'
'Oh, no,' I gasped, 'much worse, it's an offer for your house.'
'Aha, aha,' said he, 'I thought I heard the tenth commandment crack as
you fell down the step.'
'Crack,' I exclaimed, 'it's broken into a million pieces.'
'Well, I think that we had better see what we can do to patch it up
again, as it's really quite a nice commandment, and breaking it is apt
to cause distressing situations. Sit down and have some breakfast and
tell me why you are coveting your neighbour's house and if you want my
men and maid servants, oxen and she asses, too?'
'Not your maidservant, anyway,' I said, and his eyes twinkled. He was
so friendly and kind that I sat down, and over tea and toast, which he
insisted I should have, I told him about Michael and of our passion for
old houses, and Ross, and the Gidger, and indeed all about everything.
'Ah,' he said, 'so you love old houses. Well, I sympathise, but this
one will not be to let until I am carried out feet first.'
'God forbid that I should ever have it, then,' I said, and got up to go,
'and it's dear of you not to have been offended.'
'Offended!' he laughed, as he said good-bye, 'I was never so entertained
in all my life.'
When I got home I went up to tell Ross about it, and he remarked as I
finished the tale,--
'Well, there's to be no more house-hunting on those lines, Meg; you
might have been most frightfully insulted. It's all right as it's
happened; Michael would be simply furious with me for letting you do it
if he knew.'
'But I told you I was going to,' I expostulated.
'It never occurred to me that you meant it. Of course, I thought you
were fooling, you little idiot.'
And Ross did one of his atrocious lightning changes. Instead of a
ragging brother one was merely 'fighting' with there was a man whose
'Sorry, darling, but I mean you mustn't do it again' closed the
discussion, for all that it was very gently said.
Then he kissed me and said, 'Oh, Meg, you are so sweet and funny when
you're "meek."'
As a rule people who bully me are not allowed to kiss me--but--my
brother was ill in bed!
*CHAPTER X*
Ross seemed fairly well this morning, and, having announced 'Time's up,'
said that _he_ would go to the house agents at Tarnley to-day, and that
if I liked I might come too.