“IN THE ROSY SUMMER WEATHER.”
There was something in its irregular rambling style of architecture that
gave to Gaybrook Farm, as Di expressed it, a particularly
“holiday-house” look.
Nobody quite knew how old it was, but the various additions to the
original building, which had been evidently made at different intervals,
suggested the handiwork of several generations, and seeing that, as Mrs.
Busson was fond of saying, “Busson’s great grandfather had been born
there, and that Busson himself was no chicken, the farm must have been
standing, well over a hundred years at any rate.”
But though so strangely irregular, it was a very substantial pile of
buildings.
The red, pan-tiled roof of the main portion seemed, as it were, to run
up-hill, and from under this the first floor projected, supported by
heavy black beams.
It was in this part of the house, in low ceilinged rooms, with little
old casement windows, and long window panes, that Mrs. Busson had
arranged to bestow her visitors.
For this end of the house, “the up-hill part,” as Hubert called it,
comprised all the living rooms of the family. There was the large house
place below, with the roomy parlours on either side, the best bedrooms
above, and the attics another storey higher.
Beneath the lower roof of the building, which was thatched and much
weather-worn, were all the various farmhouse offices.
Foremost amongst these was the kitchen. Oh! such a kitchen it was.
Flanked by the store-room and larders, and a dairy a little further on,
which opened out into a spacious back yard, and with the baking and
brewing-houses, and the wood and the wash sheds, it formed a regular
little quadrangle.
Over the kitchen was a long, low room, filled with linen-presses, and
fragrant with lavender and dried rose-leaves, for Mrs. Busson held fast
to old traditions in these matters of household economy; whilst almost
adjoining was a huge apple-room, and overhead the vast cheese-loft.
Between the linen room and the apple store was another chamber door (if
that door had never been there, this story would never have been
written). To judge, however, from the cobwebs which hung like a thick
grey mist about its cracks and hinges, that door must have been long,
very long unopened.
“Now mind, you girls,” Mrs. Busson had cautioned her hand-maidens,
before the children’s arrival, “whatever happens, you never let the
little gentlemen and ladies go trying to get in there.”
Unanimously, the girls promised obedience.
But that same evening, directly after tea, their mistress reiterated her
commands.
“Whatever you do, don’t drop a hint to Master Andrew of what’s in that
room,” she said, “for I’ll be bound he’d be up to some mischief, and so,
I suspect, would Miss Phoena too, if they only guessed.”
“Very good, ma’am,” said the trusty Nell (she was cheese-room maid),
“chances are, if we manage well, they’ll never so much as notice the
door. Young things are mostly for getting out of doors.”
And at starting, it seemed as if Nell was likely to prove a true
prophet.
All through the next morning, in spite of the oppressive midsummer heat,
the children were flitting about in all directions.
“Like so many sunbeams at play,” Mrs. Busson declared.
Early dawn had found Jack and Phil out in the hay-field, tossing the new
hay with more energy than skill, and it had needed all Fay’s gentle
persuasions to induce Hubert to attend to the most necessary details of
his hurried toilette, before rushing out to join his brothers. As for
Di, whose swiftness of foot, combined with her ruddy locks, had long ago
earned her the title of “Scarlet Runner,” she too was up with the sun,
or very nearly, and had found her way to the little stream which ran
through the Crow-bell meadow, and was wading in its shallow waters in
search of water-cress.
Little Marygold, her whole person, saving her head, concealed in a
holland overall, was standing knee-deep in a tangle of sweet-briar,
honeysuckles, climbing roses, and a score of sweet, old-fashioned
blossoms which grew together to the left of the flower-garden, in a
patch of rank disorder, under cover of which the “posy-border” melted
into the orchard beyond, without making a too rude transition.
Marygold was supremely happy, searching the foxglove bells and the
dew-brimmed cups of the lilies, in the fond hope of discovering some of
those belated fairies, who, she firmly believed, took their night’s rest
in these flowery shelters.
“There must be some somewhere,” she cried, in her clear, piping voice.
“Oh, Phoena, do come and help me to look for them.”
But though Phoena was not forthcoming, she was not far off.
For though she had left the house, intent on reaching a certain sainfoin
field, whose brilliant blossoms gleamed bewitchingly in the early
sunlight, her wanderings had been arrested after the first few yards.
The sight of a wounded snail, crawling slowly, slowly even for a snail,
along the ash-strewn path, which led from the back yard to the kitchen
garden, had checked Phoena’s progress, who, wherever anything was sick
or sorry, was a veritable sister of pity. Moreover, having lately heard
about the snail’s marvellous faculty for mending its damaged shell,
Phoena thought this was a favourable opportunity for seeing how this
feat was performed. So, with the help of sticks and stones, she
forthwith made it a hospital beneath the shade of a laurel bush.
Converting her handkerchief into an awning above the sticks, Phoena
conveyed her interesting patient into these specially prepared quarters,
exhorting him to set to work at once on the repairing of his shell. She
would gladly have foregone her breakfast for the pleasure of watching
him, but she feared by so doing to draw public attention to her “anxious
case.”
Accordingly, she reluctantly obeyed the summons of the loud breakfast
bell, with the result, alas! that on her return, she discovered that the
thankless snail, after the way of some vagrants, had decamped!
Out of the whole party, Andrew was the only “slug-a-bed,” and even he
managed to be ready to go out by nine o’clock, having secured Faith’s
attendance on himself as bearer of his butterfly net and sundry other
things necessary to the success of his expedition.
“I say,” cried Phil, catching sight of the net, “can’t you leave those
poor beggars in peace for to-day at least?”
“Yes,” chimed in Jack, “and I call it awful hard lines on Fay; I bet she
doesn’t want to go swinking after you all this hot morning. As it is,
she’s had to feed your old gold-fish already, and clean your precious
canary. Why don’t you strike, Fay, and tell Miss Annie to look after his
own toys?”
“Because Fay always wants peace at any price,” put in the Scarlet
Runner, more promptly than pacifically. “But I wouldn’t do--”
“Never mind, Di,” broke in Faith, knowing well how swiftly such
gathering clouds might develop into storms, “we’re only going out for a
little time, because I must come home and write to mother.”
“Oh! you good Faith,” came in a chorus of heartfelt applause.
The heroism involved in writing a letter to-day roused general
admiration. But steady-going Faith generally put duty before pleasure;
sometimes, it must be owned, to her companions’ regret, notably to Di’s.
For the latter had been known to declare that she wished the man who had
invented such worrying words as “duty and obedience” had been stung to
death by hornets. But then, as Di’s long-suffering nurse had remarked
more than once during that young person’s earlier career, “Miss Diana
was a handful.”