Things, externally at least, had brightened up by the next morning. The
rain had ceased during the night, and some rays of sunshine, doubly
welcome after its late absence, though not without the touch of pathos
often associated with it in late autumn, came peeping in at the
dining-room window of Fir Cottage, when the family assembled there for
breakfast. For Mr Morion, valetudinarian though he was, had not even
the "qualites de ses defauts" in some respects. That is to say, he was
exasperatingly punctual, and at all seasons and under almost all
circumstances an exemplary early riser.
Naughty Eira groaned over this sometimes. "If he would but stay in bed,
and enjoy his ill-health comfortably, and let us breakfast in peace, I
could face the rest of the day ever so much more philosophically," she
used to say. "Or at least if he wouldn't expect us to praise him for
coming down in time when he hasn't closed an eye all night!"
"I always think that rather an absurd expression," said Frances,
"begging poor papa's pardon; for when one can't sleep, one both opens
and shuts one's eyes a great deal oftener than when you go straight off
the moment your head touches the pillow." At which her sisters laughed.
The spirit of mischief latent in both the younger ones enjoyed decoying
their sister into the tiniest approach to criticism of their elders.
But this morning the rise in the barometer seemed to have affected Mr
Morion's nerves favourably; he even went the unusual length of
congratulating himself openly on the promptitude with which the
impending attack had been warded off, thanks to Frances.
"Yes, indeed," Lady Emma agreed, "it was a very good thing that the
girls went themselves. If we had sent the boy he would have come back
with some ridiculous nonsense about its being too late to make up the
prescriptions last night. What are you fidgeting about so, Eira?" she
went on; "you make me quite nervous."
"It's only my chilblains, mamma," the girl replied, holding up a pair of
small and naturally pretty, but for the moment sadly disfigured hands,
while a gleam, half of amusement, half of reproach, came into her bright
blue eyes.
"Really," said her mother, "it is very provoking! I don't know how you
manage to get them, and you so strong. If it were Betty now, I
shouldn't be so surprised."
And certainly her youngest daughter, little hands excepted, looked the
picture of health. She had the thoroughly satisfactory and charming
complexion, a tinge of brown underlying its clearness, which is found
with that beautiful shade of hair which some people would describe as
red, though in reality it is but a rich nut-brown. Betty, on the
contrary, was pale, and looked paler than she actually was from the
contrast with darker eyes and dusky hair. The family legend had it that
she "took after" her mother, whose still remaining good looks told of
Irish ancestry. And for this reason, possibly, it was taken for granted
that the second girl was her mother's favourite, though, even if so, the
favouritism was not of a nature or an amount to rouse violent jealousy
on the part of her sisters, had they been capable of it, for Lady Emma
Morion had certainly never erred on the side of over-indulgence of her
children. She was a good woman, and meant to be and believed herself to
be an excellent mother, but under no circumstances in life could she
have fulfilled more than one _role_, and the _role_ which she had
adopted since early womanhood had been that of wife. It simply never
occurred to her that her daughters could have any possible cause of
complaint, beyond that of the very restricted condition in which the
family were placed by the prosaic fact of limited means.
That she or her husband could have done aught to soften or improve these
for their children would have been a suggestion utterly impossible for
her to digest. The privations, such as they were, she looked upon as
falling far more hardly on herself and their father than on the
daughters, who, when all was said and done, had youth and health and
absence of cares.
That their youth was passing; that absence of cares may on the other
side mean absence of interest; that the due supply of mere physical
necessities can or does ensure health in the fullest sense of the word
to eager, capable natures longing for work and "object" as well as
enjoyment, never struck her. Nor, had such considerations been put
before her in the plainest language, could she have understood them, for
she was not a woman of much intellect or, what matters more in a mother,
of any width of sympathy.
Greater blame, had he realised the position, would have lain at her
husband's door. He was a cultivated, almost a scholarly man, but the
disappointments of life had narrowed as well as soured him. His was a
sad instance of the dwarfing and stunting effects of self-pity, yielded
to and indulged in till it comes to pervade the whole atmosphere of a
life.
The brighter morning had cheered the sisters half-unconsciously, and
Frances felt sorry at any friction beginning again between her mother
and Eira. For though Lady Emma was not sympathising by temperament, she
was not indifferent to annoyances, and that chilblains should be
described by any stronger term she would have thought an exaggeration.
Yet the fact of them worried her, and Frances felt about in her usual
way for something to smooth the lines of irritation on her mother's
face.
"I have often heard, mamma," she said, "that strong people suffer quite
as much from chilblains as delicate ones, and they sometimes are worse
the first cold weather than afterwards."
"I believe they come from want of exercise," said Lady Emma, in a
somewhat softened tone. "If this bright dry weather lasts, you must go
some good long walks, Eira."
Eira made a wry face.
"I am sure I've no objection, mamma," she said; "there's nothing I like
better than walking, but it's a vicious circle, don't you see? I dare
say my not walking makes my circulation worse, but then again the
chilblains make walking, for the time being, simply impossible."
Perhaps it was lucky that at this juncture Betty's voice made a sudden
interruption. Betty, though the quietest of the three, was rather given
to sudden remarks.
"Papa," she said, "have you possibly heard any sort of news about
Craig-Morion?"
Her father glanced at her sharply over his eyeglasses.
"What do you mean, child?" he said. "News about Craig-Morion! What
sort of news?"
"Oh, that it's going to be sold or let, or something of that kind,"
replied Betty calmly.
"Going to be _sold_, Craig-Morion!" exclaimed her father, his voice
rising to a thin, high pitch. "What on earth has put such a thing in
your head? Of course not." But the very excitement of his tones
testified to a certain unacknowledged uneasiness.
"Oh, well," said Betty, "I didn't really suppose it was going to be
_sold_. But none of its present owners ever care to come there, so I
thought perhaps there was to be a change of some kind."
"And why should you suppose there was to be a change of any kind?"
repeated Mr Morion, with a sort of grim repetition of her words,
decidedly irritating, if his daughters had not been inured to it.
Betty flushed slightly.
"It was only something we noticed last night," she replied, going on to
relate the incidents that had attracted their attention. Her father
would not condescend to comment on her information, but Lady Emma did
not conceal her interest, and cross-questioned both her daughters. And
from behind his newspaper her husband listened, attentively enough.
"It is curious," she said. "If you pass that way to-day, girls, try to
see old Webb and find out if anything has happened. Can any of the
Morions possibly be coming down, Charles, do you suppose?"
Mr Morion grunted.
"Any of the Morions! How many of them do you think there are?" he said
ironically. "You know very well that the present man was an only son,
and his father before him the same."
"Yes," replied Lady Emma meekly, "but there were sisters in both cases.
When I spoke of the Morions I meant any members of the family. Though I
suppose it is very unlikely that any of them would suddenly come down
here, when they care nothing about the place, and have got homes of
their own."
"That to me," said Betty, speaking again abruptly, "is the aggravating
part of the whole affair. If people lived at the big house who enjoyed
it and appreciated it, it would be quite different. One couldn't grudge
it to them, but to see it empty and deserted year in and year out,
when--" she stopped short, a touch on her foot from Frances', under the
table, warning her that it would scarcely be wise to dwell further on
what was a sore subject.
Mr Morion rose, pushing back his chair with a rasping sound on the
thin, hard carpet, and left the room.
"I hope the fire in his study is all right," said Lady Emma anxiously.
"Yes," said Frances; "I glanced in on my way. Is there anything you
want us to do this morning, mamma?" she added.
"I cannot possibly say till I have seen the cook," her mother replied.
"There is pretty sure to be something forgotten--servants are so
stupid--if you are going to the village."
"It's my morning for reading to old Gillybrand," said Frances rather
drearily, "so while I am there Betty can do any messages there are--
that's to say if you care to come with me, Betty."
"Tell me before you start, then," said their mother, as she, in her
turn, left the room for her kitchen interview. Poor woman!
Housekeeping at the Firs was no sinecure, for Mr Morion was, like all
hypochondriacs, difficult to please in the matter of food, firmly
believing that his life depended on a special dietary. And such a state
of things, when there is no financial margin, taxes invention and
ingenuity sorely enough.
"What are you going to do to-day, Eira?" asked Frances. "You can't
possibly go out, I'm afraid."
For all reply Eira extended first one foot and then the other, both
encased in woolly slippers, each of which was large enough to have held
two inmates at once, under ordinary circumstances.
"You poor child," said her elder sister. "But those slippers are a
comfort to you, I hope."
"My dearest Frances," Eira replied, "but for them I really don't think I
should be alive at the present moment. But I _must_ pay you for them
with the first money I can lay hands on. You don't suppose I didn't
notice your shabby gloves last Sunday?"
"Oh, what does it matter in winter?" said Frances indifferently. "One
can always use a muff."
"When you've got one to use," said Eira. "Mine looks more fit to be a
mouse's nest than anything else."
Betty had been standing at the window, gazing out at the oval grass
plot, not imposing enough to be dignified by the name of lawn, and at
the shrubberies enclosing it.
"Do you see those berries?" she said, wheeling round as she spoke. "If
only all the bushes were not so dreadfully wet still, I could make up
some lovely bunches and trails for the drawing-room vases, if mamma
would let me."
"It will be dry enough by the afternoon," said Frances, "or we may find
some treasures on our way through the grounds, without having to paddle
over wet grass to reach them."
"The best plan," said Eira, "is to arrange the vases first, and then let
mamma see the effect. It doesn't do to ask leave beforehand, for if we
do we are sure to be told not to fill the house with rubbish and weeds.
Bring in the prettiest things you can find, Betty, and we'll do them
after luncheon. It will help to pass the afternoon for poor me. Oh
dear! things are never so bad but they might be worse. I'm beginning to
feel now as if life would be worth having if only I could go a good long
walk! And before my chilblains got bad, I didn't think anything could
be duller or drearier than the way we were going on."
"We'll try to bring you in some lovely berries and tinted leaves to
cheer you," said Frances, but Betty's next remark did not follow up her
elder sister's determined effort to make the best of things.
"What's the good?" she said lugubriously, "what's the good of trying to
make the drawing-room look better? It's hopelessly ugly, and even if we
could make it pretty, who would care? There's nobody to see it."
"Come now, Betty," said Frances, "don't be untrue to your own belief.
Beauty of any kind is always worth having. Let us be thankful that,
living in the country, we never can be without the possibility of some,
even in our indoor life. What would you do, Betty, if we lived in a
grey--no, drab-coloured--street in some terrible town?"
"Do? I should die!" replied Betty.
"I shouldn't," said Eira. "I'd get to know some people, and that, after
all, is more interesting than still life. But the present question is
what shall I do with myself all this long morning?"
"You must stay in a warm room, whatever you do, if you want to cure
those poor hands and feet. The only thing you can do is to read, and
oh! by-the-by, I was forgetting--I got one or two books at the lending
library yesterday that I want to look through before I read them aloud.
I think they seem rather interesting. So if you can glance at one of
them for me this morning it would really be a help."
Eira brightened up a little at this, and before her sisters left her,
they had the satisfaction of seeing her comfortably established on the
old sofa.
"Yes," she said, as they nodded good-bye from the doorway, "I repeat,
things never are so bad but that they might be worse. We might have a
dining-room without a sofa."
Frances and Betty, despite their curiosity to spy the state of the
land--that is to say, of the big house--at close quarters, had to make
their way to the village this morning by the road, as one of their
mother's messages took them to the laundress' cottage which stood at
some little distance from the Craig-Morion grounds. Further on,
however, they passed the lodge, and there for a moment they halted, on
the chance of a word with the old gate-keeper. But she was evidently
not there and the gates were still locked.
"What a good thing we didn't come through the grounds," said Betty.
"But what can have become of old Webb and his wife? There must be
something agog, Francie."
"We shall see on our way back," her sister replied; "they're sure to
come home for their dinner."
"If they don't," said Betty, "I shall try to climb the gates, and invent
some excuse for going up to the house to see what they are about."
But fate was not so cruel; for assuredly, with all the good-will in the
world and disregard of appearances, Miss Elizabeth Morion could never
have succeeded in scaling the entrance.
An hour or two later, when Frances had dutifully accomplished her
self-imposed task of reading to Gillybrand, a pitifully uncomplaining,
almost entirely blind old man, and had picked up Betty at the village
reading-room, which the sisters often found a convenient _rendezvous_,
the two made their way back to the lodge, where their misgivings were
agreeably dispersed.
For not only were the gates unlocked--they stood hospitably open, while
traces of the wheels of some tradesman's cart were clearly to be seen on
the still damp gravel; and standing at the door of her little abode was
old Mrs Webb, her wrinkled face aglow with excitement, and lighting up
with increased satisfaction as she caught sight of the young ladies--
newcomers on whom she might bestow some of the news which was evidently
too important to be suppressed.
But it was Betty who began the colloquy.
"What have you been about, Mrs Webb," she said, teasingly, "locking the
gates so early last night, and opening them so late this morning? You
must have been asleep half the day as well as the night!"
"Bless you, no, miss," said the old woman, eagerly. "Quite the
contrary, I do assure you. We was working hard up at the big house last
night, and this morning too, was me and Webb, for never a girl, let
alone a woman, could he get to help us. And no wonder neither, with
such short notice to get two or three rooms ready by to-night, and the
rest of the house dusted up for the gentlemen as is coming down to stay
for a day or two."
"Gentleman?" exclaimed the sisters. "Who? Not Mr Morion?"
"No, miss, not the master himself, but friends of his. First there was
a telegraph, and this morning a letter. I'd show them to you, but
Webb's got them in his pocket," and she jerked her head in the direction
of the house. "I've just run down to open the gates for the butcher and
the other carts from the village, for I've got to have dinner for eight
o'clock to-night, so you may fancy we've had to bustle about."
"Do you know the gentlemen's names?" asked Betty, eagerly.
"Mr Milner for one," said Mrs Webb, at which the sisters' faces fell.
"But the other's a Mr--no, to be sure, I've forgotten it; but it's some
gentleman as is thinking of taking the place for a while!"