'MUFFINS, FOR ONE THING, I HOPE'
The first thing we had to do was really to 'fire away.' That is to say,
to light a fire, for of course nothing in the way of washing up or
cleaning can be done without hot water, and you cannot get hot water
without fire of some kind. But that part of our work we did not dislike
at all. We had grown quite clever at making fires and getting them to
burn up quickly in the little stove, and we had always, or nearly
always, a nice store of beautifully dry wood that we picked up
ourselves. And though the hut was so near the sea, it was wonderfully
dry. We could leave things there for weeks, without their becoming musty
or mouldy.
And as the fire crackled up brightly, and after a bit we got the kettle
on and it began to sing, our spirits began to rise again a little, to
keep it company.
'After all,' I said, 'there really is a good strong _likelihood_ that
things won't turn out so badly. Papa is very clever, and once he is out
there himself, he will find out everything, and perhaps get them put
straight once for all. It wouldn't so much matter our having less money
than we have had till now, if all the muddle and cheating was cleared
up.'
'No, it wouldn't,' Geordie agreed, 'and of course it's best to be
hopeful. So long as there's no talk of our selling Eastercove, Ida, I
don't feel as if I minded anything.'
'And the great thing is to cheer up poor mamma while papa's away,' I
said, 'and not to seem dull or miserable at having to live differently
and go without things we've always been used to have. I don't think I
shall mind that part of it so _very_ much, Dods--shall you?'
Dods sighed.
'I don't know; I hope not for myself--of course what matters to _me_ is
the perhaps not going to a big school. But you have cheered me up about
that, Ida. I shall hate you and mamma not having a carriage and nice
servants and all that, though we must go on hoping it will only be for a
bit.'
'And I _do_ hope we can stay on near here,' I said, 'so that at least we
can feel that home is close-to. I would rather have ever so little a
house at Kirke than a much better one farther off--except that, well, I
must say I shouldn't like it to be one of those dreadfully
stuffy-looking little ones in rows in a street!'
'I'm afraid that's just what it is likely to be,' said Dods. 'It will be
pretty horrid; there's no use trying to pretend it won't be. But, Ida,
we're not working at all. We must get on, for papa and mamma will like
to find us at home when they come in.'
'Especially as to-morrow's Sunday,' I added; 'and very likely, if it's
as fine as to-day, we may all come down here to tea in the afternoon,'
for that was a favourite habit of ours. We children used to consider
that we were the hosts on these occasions, and papa and mamma our
visitors.
So we set to work with a will, without grumbling at the rather big
collection of things there were to wash up, and the amount of sweeping
and brushing to do. To begin with, we knew we had ourselves to thank for
it, as we had left things in a very untidy way the last day we had spent
at the hut. Then too, even though only an hour or so had passed since we
had heard the bad news, I think we had suddenly grown older. I have
never felt thoroughly a child again since that morning. For the first
time it seemed to come really home to me that life has a serious side to
it, and I think--indeed I know--that George felt the same. I don't mean
that we were made sad or unhappy, for I don't count that we had ever
been very thoughtless children, but we both began to feel that there
were certain things we could do, and should do, that no one else could
do as well.
I think it must be what people call the sense of 'responsibility,' and
in some ways it is rather a nice feeling. It makes one feel stronger and
braver, and yet more humble too, though that sounds contradictory, for
there comes with it a great anxiety to prove worthy of the trust placed
in one to do one's best.
And just now it was very specially a case of being trusted. Papa said he
would go away happier, or at least less unhappy, for knowing that he
left two 'big' children to take care of mamma, and though I cannot quite
explain how, the feeling left by his words had begun to influence us
already. We even were extra anxious to do our tidying very well and
quickly, as we knew it would please mamma to see we were keeping the
promises we had made when she first persuaded papa to let us have the
hut for our own, and got it all made nice for us.
And by four o'clock or so it did look very nice--I never saw it neater,
and we felt we might rest for a few minutes.
We had put everything ready for Sunday afternoon's tea-party--everything
that could be ready, I mean. The cups and saucers and fat brown tea-pot
were arranged on the round table of the room we counted our parlour; it
was in front of the kitchen, looking towards the sea, and here we did
the unmessy part of the photographing, and kept any little ornaments or
pictures we had. Of the other two rooms one was the 'chemical room,' as
we called it, and in a cupboard out of it we hung up our
bathing-clothes, and the _fourth_ room, which had originally been the
front bathing-house, so to say, or dressing-room, was now a bedroom, all
except the bed. That does sound very 'Irish,' does it not? But what I
mean is that it was furnished simply as a bedroom usually is--only that
there was no bed.
We had often begged to be allowed to spend a night in the hut, for there
was an old sofa that Geordie could have slept on quite comfortably in
the parlour, or even in the kitchen, and we had saved pocket-money
enough to buy a camp bedstead, for which mamma had two or three
mattresses and pillows and things like that among the spare ones up in
the long garret. But so far we had never got leave to carry our
picnicking quite so far. Papa would not have minded, for of all things
he wanted us to be 'plucky,' and did not even object to my being
something of a tomboy; but mamma said she would certainly not sleep all
night if she knew we were alone in the hut, and perhaps frightened, or
ill, or something wrong with us.
So _that_ plan had been put a stop to.
'I wonder what Hoskins will give us in the shape of cakes for
to-morrow,' I said. 'There is enough tea and sugar for two or three more
afternoons'--'more than we shall want,' I added to myself with an inside
sigh.
Hoskins was a sort of half-nurse, half-housekeeper person. She had not
been with us _very_ long, only since Esme was born--but she really was
very good and dear, and I know she cared for us in a particular way, for
her father had been gardener for ages, though ages ago now, as she
herself was pretty old, at Eastercove. And she wasn't cross, like so
many old servants both in books and real life--rather the other
way--too "spoiling" of us. She had only one fault. She was a little
deaf.
'Muffins, for one thing, I hope,' said Dods. 'They don't leave off
making them till May, and it isn't May yet.'
There was a baker in the village--I think I have forgotten to say that
there was a very tiny village called Eastercove, close to our gates--who
was famed for his muffins.
'Humph,' I said. 'I don't very much care about them. They are such a
bother with toasting and buttering. I think bread and butter--thin and
rolled--is quite as good, and some nice cakes and a big one of that kind
of gingerbread that you hardly taste the ginger in, and that's like
toffee at the top.'
I was beginning to feel hungry, for we had not eaten much luncheon,
which was our early dinner, and I think that made me talk rather
greedily.
'You are a regular epicure about cakes,' said Dods.
I did not like his calling me that, and I felt my face get red, and I
was just going to answer him crossly when I remembered about our great
trouble, and thought immediately to myself how silly it would be to
squabble about tiny things in a babyish way now. So I answered quietly--
'Well, you see, it is only polite to think of what other people like, if
you invite them to tea, and I know papa likes that kind of gingerbread.
He ate such a big piece one day that mamma called him a greedy boy.'
Geordie did not say anything, but I always know when he is sorry for
teasing me, and I could see that he was just now.
Then we locked up and set off home again. As we came out of the pine
woods and in sight of the drive we saw the pony carriage, and we ran on,
so as to be at the front door when papa and mamma got there.
They smiled at us very kindly, and papa said in what he meant to be a
cheery voice--
'Well, young people, what have you been about? Run in, Ida, and hurry up
tea. Mamma is tired.'
Yes, poor mamma did look dreadfully tired, and through the outside
cheeriness of papa's words and manner I could see that he was feeling
very sad and dull.
I hurried in, and we were soon all at tea in the pretty drawing-room.
George and I did not always have tea downstairs, but to-day somehow
there seemed no question of our not doing so. I waited till mamma had
had some tea and was looking a little less white and done up, and then I
said half-frightenedly--
'Did you see any nice little house at Kirke?' though in my heart I felt
sure they hadn't, or they would not have come back, looking so
disappointed.
Mamma shook her head.
'I am afraid, dearie,' she began, but papa interrupted her--
'No,' he said decidedly, 'we saw nothing the least possible to call
"nice," except one or two places far and away too dear. And of course we
knew already that there are plenty of nice houses to be got, if expense
had not to be considered so closely. There is no good beating about the
bush with George and Ida,' he went on, turning to mamma. 'Now that we
have so thoroughly taken them into our confidence it is best to tell
them everything. And the truth is,' he continued, leaning back in his
chair with a rather rueful smile, 'I am really feeling almost in
despair. I am afraid we shall have to give up the idea of staying at
Kirke.'
'Yet there are so many advantages about it,' said mamma quickly. 'And
there is, after all, that tiny house in the Western Road.'
'Horrid poky little hole,' said papa. 'I cannot bear to think of you in
it. I would almost rather you went about in a caravan like the gypsies
we passed on the road.'
'Yes,' I agreed, '_I_ wouldn't mind that at all--not in summer, at
least.'
'Ah, but unluckily, my dear child, "it is not always May,"' he replied,
though I was pleased to see he held out his cup for some more tea (I
have found out that things do seem much worse when one is tired or
hungry!) and that his voice sounded more like itself.
'And it isn't always winter either,' said mamma cheerfully. 'Let us be
as happy as we can while we are together, and enjoy this nice spring
weather. I _am_ glad, if sad things had to happen, that they did not
come to us in November or December. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd will find some
nicer house for us.'
'Does he know about--about our having to leave Eastercove?' I asked.
Mamma nodded.
'Yes,' she replied. 'We stopped there on our way back, and papa went in
and told him.'
I felt glad of that. It would prepare him for Dods's anxiety about a
scholarship.
'By the bye,' mamma continued, 'how fast they are getting on with the
new parish room! I was looking at it while I was waiting for you, Jack'
(that's papa), 'and it seems really finished. Are they not beginning to
take away the iron room already?'
'Lloyd says it is to be sold here, or returned to the makers for what
they will give, next week,' papa replied. 'It has served its purpose
very well indeed these two or three years. If----'
'If what?' said mamma.
Poor papa shrugged his shoulders.
'Oh, it's no good thinking of it now,' he answered. 'I was only going to
say--forgetting--that if Geordie and Ida liked I might buy it and add it
on to the hut. It would make into two capital little bedrooms for very
little cost, and Lloyd happened to say to-day that the makers would
rather sell it for less where it stands than have the expense of taking
it back to London. They keep improving these things; it is probably
considered old-fashioned already.'
Geordie and I looked at each other. How lovely it would have been! Just
what we had always longed for--to be allowed really to _live_ at the
hut now and then. And with two more rooms we could have had Hoskins
with us, and then mamma wouldn't have been nervous about it. But as papa
said, there was no use in thinking about it _now_.
'Will the people who are coming to live here have the hut too?' I asked.
Papa did not seem to pay much attention to what I said. He was thinking
deeply, and almost started as I turned to him with the question.
'I do not know,' he replied. 'It has not been alluded to.'
'I hope not,' said mamma. 'If we stay at Kirke, as I still trust we may,
it would be nice to come up there to spend an afternoon now and then. It
is so far from the house that we would not seem like intruders. Though,
of course, once they see how nice it is, they may want to have it as a
bathing-box.'
'That's not very likely,' said papa. 'They seem elderly people, and the
son is a great sufferer from rheumatism. That is why they have taken
such a fancy to this place--the scent of pine woods and the air about
them are considered so good for illnesses of that kind. And sea-air
suits him too, and they think it a wonderful chance to have all this as
well as a dry climate and fairly mild winters. Yes--we who live here
_are_ uncommonly lucky.'
He strolled to the window as he spoke and stood looking out without
speaking. Then he turned again.
'I'll remember about the hut,' he said. 'I don't fancy these good people
would be likely to be fussy or ill-natured or to think you intruding.
Their letters are so well-bred and considerate.'
We felt glad to hear that.
'Mamma,' I said, 'we have made the hut so nice and tidy for
to-morrow--Sunday, you know. You and papa will come and have tea there,
won't you? It will be the first time this year' (and 'the last perhaps'
seemed whispered into my mind, though I did not utter the words), for
the spring-coming had been uncertain and we had all had colds.
Mamma looked at papa.
'Yes,' he said; 'certainly we will. And the little ones too, Ida?'
'Of course,' I said, and then I went off to talk about cakes--and
muffins if possible, to please Dods--to Hoskins, the result of the
interview proving very satisfactory.
When I came back to the drawing-room the little ones were
there--Denzil, solemn as usual; Esme hopping and skipping about and
chattering thirteen to the dozen, as usual, too! She is three or four
years older now, and beginning to 'sober down,' as they say, so I hope
if she ever reads this, which certainly will not be for three or four or
more years from now, she will have gone on sobering down, enough to
understand what a 'flibbertigibbet' (that is a word of Hoskins's which I
think very expressive) she was, and not to be hurt at my description of
her. For I do love her dearly, and I always have loved her dearly, and I
should be sorry for her ever to lose her good spirits, though it is
already a comfort that she _sometimes_ sits still now, and listens to
what is said to her.
All the same, that part of our lives which I am writing this story
about, would have been much duller and harder but for our butterfly's
funny, merry ways.
This afternoon she was especially laughing and mischievous, and it made
me feel a little cross. I was tired, I daresay, with all the work we had
been doing, _and_ the sadness that had come upon us so suddenly, and I
did want to be quiet and talk sensibly. It was a little papa's fault
too, I must say. He is sometimes rather like a boy still, though he has
four big children. He hates being unhappy! I don't think he would mind
my saying so of him, and he got mischievous and teased Esme, to make her
say funny things, as she often does.
And I suppose I looked rather too grave, for, after a little, mamma
whispered to me--
'Ida, dear, don't look so dreadfully unhappy; you almost make me wish we
had not told you anything till we were obliged to do so.'
'I don't look worse than Geordie,' I replied, in a whisper too,
'or--or,' as I happened just then to catch sight of my younger brother's
face, 'than Denzil.'
At this mamma did burst out laughing--a real merry laugh, which, in
spite of my crossness, I was pleased to hear.
'My dear!' she exclaimed, 'who has ever seen Denzil anything but solemn!
And as he knows nothing, it has certainly not to do with what _we_ are
all thinking about. He was the solemnest _baby_ even that ever was seen,
though many babies are solemn. I used to feel quite ashamed of my
frivolity when Denny was only a couple of months old. And--no, poor old
Geordie is trying to cheer up, so you must too.'
Yes, it was true. Geordie was laughing and playing with Esme and papa,
though I know his heart was quite as heavy as mine. Geordie is very
particularly good in some ways. So I resolved to choke down, or at least
to hide, my sadness--and still more the sort of crossness I had been
feeling. It was not exactly real ill-tempered crossness, but the kind of
hating being unhappy and thinking that other people are unhappy too,
which comes with troubles when one isn't used to them especially, and
isn't patient and unselfish, though one wants to be.
However, I managed to look more amiable after mamma's little
warning--still more, I think, after her hearty laugh. Her laughing
always seems to drive away crossness and gloominess; it is so pretty and
bright, and so real.
And I was helped too by another thing, though as yet it had scarcely
taken shape in my mind, or even in my fancy. But it was there all the
same, fluttering about somewhere, as if waiting for me to catch hold of
it and make something of it. Just yet I did not give myself time to
think it out. All I felt was a sort of presentiment that somewhere or
somehow there was a way out of our troubles, or rather out of one part
of them, and that I was going to find it before long. And I am quite
sure that sometimes the thinking a thing out is more than half done by
our brains before we know it--much in the same way that we--Dods and
I--are quite sure that putting a lesson-book under your pillow at night
helps you to know what you have to learn out of it by the next morning.
Lots of children believe this, though none of us can explain it, and we
don't like to speak of it for fear of being laughed at. But I don't mind
writing about it, as I shall not hear if people do laugh at it or not.
Anyway it _did_ happen to me this time, that _something_ worked the
cobweb ideas that were beginning to float about in my brain into a real
touchable or speakable plan, before the 'awake' side of it--of my brain,
I mean--knew that anything of the kind was there.
I will try to tell quite exactly how this came about. But first I must
say that I don't think George was feeling so _very_ bad after all, for
the last thing he said to me that evening as we went up to bed was, 'I
do hope Hoskins has managed to get some muffins for to-morrow.'