There was a chemist's shop at Craig Bay, quite a smart chemist's shop,
with plate-glass windows and the orthodox "purple" and other coloured
jars of Rosamund fame. It was one of the inconsistencies of the place,
of which there were several. For Craig Bay was far from being a town;
it was not even a big village, and the two or three shops of its early
days were of the simplest and quaintest description, emporiums of a
little of everything, into which you made your way by descending two or
three steps below the level of the rough pavement outside. The
chemist's shop was the first established, I think, of the new order of
things, when the place and neighbourhood suddenly rose into repute as
peculiarly bracing and healthy from the mingling of sea and hill air
with which they were favoured. It was kept in countenance now by
several others, a draper's, a stationer's, a photographer's, of course,
besides the imperative butcher's, fishmonger's, and so on, some of which
subsided into closed shutters and vacancy after the "season" was over
and the visitors had departed. For endeavours which had been made to
introduce a _winter_ season had not been crowned with success. The
place was too out-of-the-way, the boasted mildness of climate not
altogether to be depended upon. But the chemist's shop stood faithfully
open all the year round, doing a little business in wares not, strictly
speaking, belonging to it, such as note-paper and even books, when the
library-and-stationer's in one had gone to sleep for the time.
On a cold raw evening in late November, Betty Morion stood waiting for
her sister Frances on the door-step of the shop. It would have been
warmer inside, but Betty had her fancies, like many other people, and
one of them was a dislike to the smell of drugs, with which "inside,"
naturally, was impregnated. And she was thickly clad and fairly well
used to cold and to damp--even to rain--for to-night it was drizzling
depressingly.
"I wish Francie would be quick," thought the girl more than once during
the first few moments of her waiting, though she knew it was certainly
not poor Frances' fault. Their father's prescriptions had always some
very special and peculiar directions accompanying them, and Betty knew
of old that the waiting for them was apt to be a long affair.
And she was not of an impatient nature. After a while she forgot about
the tiresomeness, and fell to watching the reflections of the brilliant
colours of the jars in the puddles and on the surface of the wet
pavement just below her, as she had often watched them before. They
were pretty--in a sense--and yet somehow they made the surrounding
dreariness drearier.
"I wonder if it does rain more here than anywhere else," she said to
herself dreamily. "What a splashing walk home we shall have! I wish we
did not live up a hill--at least I think I wish we didn't, though
perhaps if our house was down here I should wish it was higher up!
Perhaps it doesn't really rain more at Craig Bay than at other places,
but we notice it more. For nearly everything pleasant that ever comes
to us depends on the weather." And Betty sighed. "I could fancy," she
went on, "living in a way that would make one scarcely care what it was
like out of doors. A beautiful big house with ferneries and
conservatories, and lovely rooms to wander about in, and a library full
of delightful books, and lots of people to stay with us and--well, yes,
of course, it would be nice to go drives and rides and walks too, and to
have exquisite gardens. But still life might be very pleasant even when
it did rain," and again Betty sighed. "It needn't be anything so _very_
tremendous, after all," she added to herself. "Craig-Morion might be--"
but a gentle touch on her shoulder made her turn. It was her sister,
packages in hand, and rather embarrassed by her umbrella.
"Can you open it for me, dear?" she said, and Betty hastened to do so.
"I am so afraid," Frances went on, when Betty's own umbrella was ready
for business too, and they were both under way, "I am so afraid of
dropping any of these things. Papa is so anxious to have them at once.
Do you remember the day that Eira dropped the bottle of red ink--wasn't
it dreadful?" and Frances laughed a little at the recollection.
Her laugh was very sweet, but scarcely merry. There are laughs which
tell of sadness more quickly almost than tears. But it was not that
kind either; it was the laugh of one who is resolutely cheerful, who has
learnt by experience the wisdom of making the best of things--a lesson
not often learnt by the young while young, though by some it is acquired
so gradually and unconsciously that on looking back from the table-land
of later years they do not realise it had ever been a lesson to be
learnt at all.
For its roots lie deeper than philosophy. They are to be found in
unselfishness, in self-forgetting, and earnest longing to carry the
burdens of others, or at least to share them.
And Frances Morion was still young, though twenty-seven. She by no
means looked her age. Her life in many ways had been a healthy one in
its material surroundings, and she herself had made it so in other ways.
Betty scarcely laughed in return. It is doubtful if she heard what her
sister said.
"Isn't it _horribly_ wet?" she said. "I was really wondering just now
if it rains more here than anywhere else, or if--" and after a moment's
hesitation--"if we notice it more, Francie, because, you see, there is
so little else to notice."
Miss Morion turned quickly and glanced at her sister, forgetting that it
was far too dark to discern the girl's features. She always felt
troubled when Betty spoke in that way, when her voice took that
particular tone. She could be philosophical for herself far more easily
than for her younger sisters.
"Well, on the other hand," she said cheerfully, "doesn't it show that we
have no very great troubles to bear if we have leisure to think so much
about small ones?"
"I don't say we _have_ any very big troubles to bear," said Betty. "I--
I almost sometimes find myself wishing we had--"
"Oh, Betty, _don't_," said her sister quickly, "don't wish anything like
that!"
"No," said Betty, "I wasn't going to say quite what you thought. I mean
I wish anything big would come into our lives! Anything really
interesting, and--well, yes! I may as well own it--anything exciting!
It is all on such a dull, dead level, and has always been the same, and
always will be, it seems to me. And when one is no longer very young
the spring and buoyancy seem to go. When I was seventeen or eighteen
I'd all sorts of happy fancies and expectations, but now--why, Francie,
I'm twenty-four, and _nothing_ has come."
For a moment or two Frances walked on in silence.
"I dare say," she said at last, "if we knew more of other lives, we
should find a good many something like ours. And after all, Betty,
one's real life is what one is oneself."
Betty laughed slightly. Her laugh was not bitter, but without any ring
of joyousness.
"I know that," she said. "But it doesn't do me any good. It's just
_myself_ that depresses me. I'm not big enough, nor brave enough, nor
anything enough, to rise above circumstances, as people talk about. I
want circumstances to help me a little! And I don't ask anything very
extravagant, I know.
"No, Frances," she added, "you're not--not quite right. I think I could
bear things better and feel more spirit if you would allow that our
lives _are_ exceptional in some ways."
"Perhaps so," the elder sister agreed.
"You know," continued Betty, "it isn't fallings in love or marriage that
I'm talking about. I really and truly very seldom think of anything of
that kind, though of course, in the abstract, I can see that a home of
one's own, and the feeling oneself a centre, is the ideal life; but
heaps of girls don't marry, and there are plenty, lots of other
interests and objects to live for, which we _are_ unusually without!"
Frances opened her mouth with an intention of remonstrating, but the
words died away before she gave them utterance. There was so much truth
in what Betty said, and Frances was too thorough-going to believe in the
efficacy of any consolation without a genuine root, so she said nothing.
"And I'm afraid," pursued Betty, who certainly could not be accused this
evening of having donned rose-coloured spectacles, "I'm afraid," she
repeated, "that it's coming over Eira too, though she has kept her
youngness marvellously, so far."
In her turn Frances gave a little laugh which could scarcely be called
mirthful.
"Betty dear," she said, "you are rather unmerciful to-night, piling on
the agony! You think me very philosophical, but I must confess I am not
proof against our present depressing circumstances. I don't think I've
ever come up the hill in such rain and darkness, and so horribly cold
too." And in spite of herself she shivered a little.
In a moment Betty's mood had changed to penitence.
"Oh, Frances, I'm a brute," she exclaimed, "for I know you were tired
before we came out; reading aloud to papa for so long together is really
exhausting. I know what I'll do," she went on, with a tone of defiance;
"if I have to carry the coals and wood myself upstairs, you shall have a
fire in your room as soon as we go in, you shall!"
Frances laughed again, this time with real amusement. She was always
happier about Betty when the younger girl's latent energy asserted
itself.
"I'm all right, dear," she said, "and we're getting near home now. We
must be near the lodge gates. I thought I saw a light a moment ago."
In spite of the drenching rain, Betty stood still an instant to
reconnoitre.
"Yes," she said, "I see a light, more than one, two or three, but
they're not from the lodge. Francie!" with a sudden excitement in her
voice, "they're up at the house. We'll see them more clearly as we go
on. Who can be there? It's not likely Mrs Webb would have chosen an
evening like this to be making the rounds, or lighting fires in the big
house."
"Oh, I don't know," said Frances, half indifferently. "They may have
been doing some extra cleaning or something of that kind earlier in the
day, and not have finished yet. There's nobody at the lodge itself,
anyway," as at this moment they approached the gates. "There's no light
in the windows except from the kitchen fire and--oh dear! I'm sorely
afraid that the gates are locked, and neither of the Webbs there to let
us through;" and she sighed ruefully, for this meant a quarter of a
mile's further walk--there being an understanding that the Morion family
should have a right of way through the grounds of the deserted home of
their far-away relatives, to their own little house which stood just
beyond the enclosure. "It is unlucky," she added, "to-night of all
nights, when every step of the way is an aggravation of our miseries!"
Strangely enough, Betty's depression seemed, for the time being, to have
vanished. For some passing moments, the sisters might almost have
changed characters. Frances was honestly, physically tired. She had
had a trying, fatiguing day at home, and the walk to the village, which
had in a sense invigorated Betty (who, to confess the truth, had spent
the day in doing little or nothing), had really been too much for the
elder sister.
"Never mind," said Betty briskly; "we'll soon be there now. I shall
keep a sharp lookout when we turn the corner to see if there are lights
at the back of the big house too."
Frances, for once, was feeling too tired to rise to her sister's little
fit of excitement, though she smiled to herself in the darkness with
pleasure, as she realised that if Betty's spirits were apt to sink very
much below par, they were ready enough to rise again on very small
provocation.
"She is still so young," thought the elder sister; "so much younger than
most girls of her age. If only I had a little more in my power for her
and Eira!" And the smile gave way, all too quickly, to a sigh, which in
its turn was intercepted by an eager exclamation from Betty, for they
had turned the corner of the road by this time.
"Look, Francie!" she said, in an involuntary whisper, as if by some
extraordinary possibility her remarks could have been overheard at the
still distant big house; "look, Francie, it _is_ something out of the
common! The offices are lighted up--some of them, anyway; and don't you
see lights moving about too, as if there were several people there?
What can be going to happen?"
"Your curiosity will soon be satisfied," returned Frances; "that's one
good thing of living in a little world like this. By to-morrow at
latest, any news there is will be all over the place." And then she
relapsed into silence; and Betty, always quick of perception, seeing
that her sister was really tired, said no more, though her little head
kept turning round from under the shelter of her umbrella as long as the
back precincts of Craig-Morion remained visible.
This was not for long, however. A few moments more, and their path
skirted a thickly-planted belt of Scotch firs, which here bordered the
park. They had almost to feel their way now, so dark had it become.
"Oh dear," said Betty, when there was no longer anything to distract her
attention from the woes of the present moment. "Oh dear, Francie, did
the way home ever seem quite so long before? I do hope the next time
papa wants his medicine in a hurry that he'll choose a fine evening."
"Dear," said Frances regretfully, "I shouldn't have let you come with
me."
"Rubbish! nonsense!" cried Betty, "as if Eira and I would have let you
go alone. I do believe in my heart that we're both quite as strong as
you, though you won't allow it. Poor little Eira, she would have come
too, except for her chilblains. It is unlucky that she has got them so
early this year. And they spoil her pretty hands so."
"It's only from the unusual cold," said Frances, "and--" she hesitated.
"I am sure I could cure them," she resumed, "if I had my own way, or if
I had _had_ it when you were both growing up. What makes me really
stronger is, I am sure, that I had so much better a time as a child than
either of you, before papa gave up his appointment and we were better
off."
"I wish you'd leave off repeating that old story," said Betty. "After
all, I'm not four years younger than you, and whatever Eira and I have
_not_ had, we've had you, darling--a second mother as people say, a
great, great deal better than a second mother _I_ say, and oh joy! here
we are at last; I see the white gate-posts." And in another moment they
were plodding the short, badly kept gravel path, not to be dignified by
the name of a drive, which led to their own door.
"Take care of the big puddle just in front of the steps; it must be a
perfect lake to-night," Betty was saying, when, before they had quite
reached it, the door was cautiously opened, and a girl's face peered
out, illumined by the light, faint though it was, of the small hall
behind her. It was Eira, the third and youngest of the Morion sisters.
"It's you at last," she said in a low voice; "come in quickly, and I'll
take the medicine to papa, he's been fussing like a--I don't know what,
and if he gets hold of you he'll keep you waiting in your soaking things
for half-an-hour while he goes on about your having been so long! Now
go straight upstairs," she continued, when she had got her sisters
inside, and extricated them from their dripping umbrellas and
waterproofs. "I'll see to these things as soon as I've been to papa.
Go straight up to your room, Frances; there's a surprise for you there.
Go up quickly and keep the door closed till I come."
She took the parcel from her elder sister's hands as she spoke, and,
without wasting time in more words, gave her a gentle little push toward
the staircase. Frances and Betty went up softly, but as quickly as
their feet, tired and stiffened with cold and wet, would allow. The
staircase, like everything in the house, was meagre and dingy, the steps
steep and the balusters rickety. At the top a little landing gave
access to the best rooms, and a long narrow passage at one side led to
the sisters' own quarters.
Betty ran on in front and threw open the door of her elder sister's room
eagerly. She had hard work to repress an exclamation of delight at what
met her eyes. It was a fair-sized, bare-looking room, though
scrupulously neat and not without some simple and tasteful attempts at
ornamentation, and to-night it really looked more attractive than was
often the case, for a bright glowing fire sent out its pleasant rays of
welcome, and on a little table beside it stood, neatly arranged,
everything requisite for a good, hot cup of tea.
"How angelic of Eira!" exclaimed Betty. "How has she managed it? Just
when I was planning how I could possibly get you a fire, Francie."
The eldest sister sat down with a smile of satisfaction in front of the
warm blaze.
"Run into your own room, Betty, and take off your wet things as quickly
as possible, and then come back here for tea. We have still over an
hour till dinner-time."
Betty hurried across the room and threw open the door, almost running
into Eira as she did so.
"Oh! this is lovely," she exclaimed, "especially as you've got away too,
Eira. Do tell us how you managed it."
"No, no," remonstrated Frances, "tell her nothing. Don't answer her
till she has taken off her wet things. She will be all the quicker if
you don't begin speaking."
So Betty ran off and Eira joined her elder sister at the fireside.
"Wasn't it a good idea?" she said, smiling at the cheering glow.
"Yes, indeed," said Frances. "Betty was meditating something of the
kind as we were coming home, but I doubt if she could have managed it.
Anyway it wouldn't have been ready to welcome us in this comfortable
way. Oh dear! it was wet and dreary coming home, and we were kept
waiting such a long time for papa's medicine! By-the-by, is it all
right?"
Before Eira could answer, the door reopened to admit Betty.
"Haven't I been quick?" she exclaimed brightly. "Do pour out the tea,
Frances. And tell me, Eira, I am dying to hear what good fairy aided
and abetted you in this unheard-of extravagance."
"Nobody," said Eira. "I simply did it. After all, I think it's the
best way sometimes to go straight at a thing. And if papa had met me
carrying up the tea-tray I should have reminded him that it was better
to have some hot tea ready for you, than to risk you both getting
rheumatic fever. I didn't meet him, as it happened, but just now when I
gave him the medicines I took care, by way of precaution, to dilate on
the drenched state you had arrived in and the long time you had been
kept waiting at the chemist's. The latter fact I made a shot at."
Frances drew a breath of relief.
"Then we may hope for a fairly comfortable evening," she said.
"Yes," said Betty; "to give the--no, Frances, you needn't look shocked,
I won't finish it. I must allow that papa is more sympathising about
physical ills than about some other things."
"And so he should be," said Eira, "considering that he says he never
knows what it is to feel well himself. Mamma is worse than he about
being hardy and all that sort of thing. I often wonder how children
grew up at all in the old days if they really were so severely treated
as we're told."
"It's the old story," said Frances; "the delicate ones were killed off,
and those who did survive must have been strong enough to be made really
hardy. How are your chilblains, Eira dear?"
"Pretty bad," the girl replied cheerfully; "at least I feel some
premonitory twinges of another fit coming on! I mustn't stay so near
the fire. Talk of something else quick to make me forget them."
"Drink up this tea, in the first place," said Frances. "That kind of
warmth is good for them."
"And, oh, I have something to tell you," said Betty, "something quite
exciting! What do you think? _I_ believe something has happened or is
going to happen at Craig-Morion. It was all lighted up as we passed.
No, I mustn't exaggerate! There were lights moving about in several of
the rooms, and the old Webbs were not at the lodge. It was all dark,
and the gates locked, so they must have been up at the big house. That
helped to make us late, you see."
"You poor things!" exclaimed Eira, though her pity was quickly drowned
by this exciting news. "Can they be expecting some one? After all
these years of nothing ever happening and nobody ever coming!"
"It looks like it," said Betty shortly. Then she gave herself a little
shake, as if some unexpressed thought was irritating her. "Anything
about Craig-Morion makes me cross," she went on in explanation, "even
though there's something fascinating about it, too--tantalising rather.
Just to think how different, how utterly different our lives would have
been, if that stupid old woman had done what she meant to do, or at
least what she promised. It wouldn't have been anything so wildly
wonderful! We should scarcely have been rich even then, as riches go.
But it would have been enough to make a starting-point, a centre, for
all the interests that make life attractive. We could make it _so_
pretty!"
"And have lots of people to stay with us, and whom we could stay with in
return," said Eira. "Just think what it would be to have really nice
friends!"
"Yes," said Frances, in her quiet voice; "and as it is, the people it
belongs to scarcely value it. It is so little in comparison to what
they have besides. Yet," and she hesitated, for she was a scrupulously
loyal daughter, "unless papa and mamma had been able to interest
themselves in things as we three would, _perhaps_ it wouldn't have made
much radical difference, after all?"
"Oh, yes, it would," said Betty quickly. "It would have made all the
difference. Papa wouldn't have got into these nervous ways, if he had
had things to look after and plenty of interests, and money, of course.
And mamma would have been, oh! quite different."
"Perhaps so," Frances agreed, "but it isn't only circumstances that make
lives. There are people, far poorer than we, I know, whose lives are
ever so much _fuller_ and wider. It is that," she went on, speaking
with unusual energy, "it is that that troubles me about you two! I want
to see my way to helping you to make the best you can--in the very
widest sense of the words--of your lives;" and her sweet eyes rested
with almost maternal anxiety, pathetic to see in one still herself so
young, on her two sisters.
"And you, you poor old darling!" said Eira, "what about your own life?"
"Oh!" said Frances, "I don't feel as if I had any, separate from yours.
All my day-dreams and castles in the air and aspirations are for you;"
and in the firelight it seemed as if tears were glistening in her eyes.
She was, as a rule, so self-contained and calm that this little outburst
impressed her sisters almost painfully, and, with youthful shrinking
from any expression of emotion, Eira answered half-jestingly:
"I'm ashamed to own it, but do you know really sometimes that life would
be quite a different thing to me--twice or three times as interesting--
if I could have--"
"What?" said Betty.
"Heaps and heaps of lovely clothes?" said the girl. At which they all
three laughed, though half-ruefully, for no doubt their present wardrobe
left room for improvement.