"Where is your luggage, my dear?"
"I have it," I said; "it is in a brown-paper parcel on the
luggage-rack."
I thought I heard Miss Donnithorne murmur some thing; but all she said
was, "Give it to me, dear. Be quick, or the train will move on."
So I lugged it out as best I could, and there I stood in my shabby grey
tweed dress, with my little worn-out jacket and my small hat, clutching
at the brown-paper parcel. It was fairly heavy, for I had had to put
other things into it besides the now dress and the new jacket; but it
was tied very securely with cord, and addressed in my father's
handwriting with my name to the care of Miss Grace Donnithorne, Hedgerow
House.
"Now then, child," said Miss Grace, "we'll get into my pony-trap and
drive home. Why, you poor thing, you're as cold as charity; and no
wonder--no wonder."
She insisted on carrying the brown-paper parcel herself. Waiting
outside the station was a very neat little cart drawn by a shaggy pony.
There was a boy standing by the pony's head. He was dressed in quite a
smart sort of dress, which I afterwards discovered was called livery.
He sprang forward when he saw Miss Donnithorne and took the parcel,
which she told him to put carefully in the back of the carriage, and on
no account to trample on it with his feet.
Then we both got in, and a great fur rug was wrapped round us, and a
cloak of Miss Donnithorne's fastened round my neck.
"Now you can't possibly catch cold," she said.--"Jump up behind, Jim."
Jim obeyed. Miss Donnithorne took the reins, and off we flew.
Oh, how wonderful, how delightful was the sensation!
We got to the cottage in about a quarter of an hour. Miss Grace told me
that although it was called Hedgerow House, it was really only a
cottage; but I could not tell what the difference was. It was a long,
low, rambling sort of house, all built in one floor. The walls were so
completely covered with creepers that, even though it was winter, you
could not see much of the original stone-work; and where there were no
creepers in full leaf there was trellis-work, which was covered with the
bare branches of what in summer, Miss Donnithorne told me, would be
roses.
"Do roses really grow like that?" I asked.
"Oh yes," she replied; "and jasmine and wistaria and clematis, and all
sorts of other things."
The dog that Miss Donnithorne had warned me about came out to meet us.
He was a fox-terrier, with a very sharp nose black as coal, and all the
rest of his body was snow-white, except his sparkling, melting,
wonderful brown eyes. I must say his eyes flashed very angrily when he
first saw me, but Miss Donnithorne said, "Down, Snap--down!" and then
she laid her hand on Snap's collar and said, "You're to be good to this
young lady, Snap."
Snap, after glancing at me in a crooked sort of way, as though he were
not at all sure that he would not prove the significance of his name,
condescended to wag his tail very slightly.
Miss Donnithorne took me into a very pretty little sitting-room at one
side of the pretty little square hall. This room was filled with all
sorts of unaccountable things. There were glass cases filled with
stuffed birds of gay plumage. Miss Donnithorne glanced at them.
"I'll tell you their names presently," she said. "My brother who died
brought them to me from South America."
There were three of these cases. There were also stuffed animals, a
hare, a fox, and a dog, perched above doors and at the top of the
bookcase. Where there were not these cases of stuffed creatures there
were books, so that you really could not see one scrap of the original
paper of the room.
"Is this the drawing-room?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't call it by that name," said Miss Donnithorne. "I sit here
because I have all my books and papers handy about the room. But come
to the fire and warm yourself."
Certainly the fire in that dear little grate looked very different from
the dismal fire which Miss Donnithorne had seen in our big, fog-begrimed
parlour. I came close to it, and I even so far forgot proprieties as to
drop on my knees and to hold out my hands to the blaze.
"Chilblains, I declare!" said Miss Donnithorne, taking one of my hands
between both her own. "The best cure for those is to bathe your hands
once or twice a day in a very strong solution of salt and hot water.
The water must be as hot as you can bear it. But the best cure of all
is a good circulation."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Bless you, child! Don't you know, and you go to school every day?"
I stood up; my hands were warm, and my feet were tingling with renewed
life. I had a curious sensation that my nose, which was by no means my
best feature, was very red, for it certainly felt hot. I turned round
and said, "I am quite warm now."
"Then you would like to go up to your room. Nancy will go with you.
She'll unpack your parcel for you."
"Oh no, thank you," I replied. Then I added, "Is Nancy one of your
servants?"
"I have only one servant in this tiny house, my dear, and Nancy is the
one. She is a very good-natured sort of girl, and quite pleased at the
idea of your coming to stay with me. I treat her as a sort of friend,
you see, as she and I are all alone in the house together."
I began to like Miss Donnithorne better and better each moment. She was
so jolly. Whenever she spoke her eyes sparkled as though they were
laughing, while the rest of her face was grave. All the same, I did not
want Nancy, and I said so.
"I can help myself," I argued. "We have only got Hannah in our big
house."
"Well, well, dear! if you can manage for yourself, I am the last one to
wish you to do otherwise," said Miss Donnithorne. "Here is your parcel;
you can take it upstairs."
"But how am I to find my way to my room?"
"You cannot lose it, my dear. Go up that little staircase, and when you
reach the landing you will see an open door. Go through that doorway
and you will be in your own bedroom. There's no other bedroom on that
landing, so you cannot miss it, can you?"
"No," I replied, laughing.
I seized my brown-paper parcel and ran upstairs. It certainly was nice
in the country, and how delicious a small house was! One could be warm
in a small house; it was impossible to be warm in that great, rambling,
old-fashioned house which belonged to the college and where father and
the boys and I lived.
I found my bedroom. Now, girls who are accustomed to nice bedrooms all
their lives take, I suppose, no particular interest in another nice
bedroom when they are suddenly introduced into it. But my room at home
could never, under any pretext, be considered nice. For some
extraordinary reason, big as the house was, I had always slept next to
Hannah in one of the attics. There was no earthly reason for this,
except perhaps that when I was a child I was nearer to Hannah in case I
should turn ill. It had never occurred to me to change my room, and it
had certainly never occurred to anybody else to make it comfortable.
There was a bedstead and a bed of a sort, and there was a looking-glass,
with a crack right down the middle, which stood on a little deal table.
The deal table was, as a rule, covered with a cloth, which seldom looked
white on account of the London fogs. There was a huge wooden press--it
could certainly not be called by the modern name of wardrobe--in which I
kept my clothes; and there was a wooden chair on which I placed my
candle at night, and that was about all. One side of the room had a
sloping roof, and the window was at the best of times of minute
proportions. But the room itself had a vast amount of unoccupied space;
it was a huge room, and terribly ugly.
Never had I realised that fact until I went into the sweet little
apartment which Miss Grace Donnithorne had ordered to be got ready for
me. In the first place, its window looked out on a pure expanse of
snow-covered country, and I jumped softly up and down as I gazed at that
view, for the sun was shining on it, and the sky overhead was blue--blue
as sapphires. Then in the grate there was a fire--a fire just as bright
as the one in the little sitting-room with the stuffed birds downstairs;
and all the hangings of the room were of white dimity, which had
evidently been put up fresh from the wash. It was by no means a grand
room; it was simple of the simple, but it did look sweet. There was a
little nosegay of chrysanthemums on the dressing-table; there were
dainty hangings round my snow-white couch; and on the floor was an
old-fashioned carpet made of different shades of crimson, and very thick
and soft it felt to the feet. The china in the room was very pretty,
being white with scarlet berries on it; it all looked Christmasy and
wintry and yet cheery, like the sort of Christmases one reads of in the
fairy-tales of long ago.
I unfastened my parcel. I had just taken my long brown skirt out of its
wrappings, and was shaking it out preparatory to putting it on, when I
heard Miss Grace say from the bottom of the stairs, "Dumps, how long
will it be before you are downstairs? I am just having the cutlets
dished up."
"Oh dear!" I said to myself.--"I'll be down in a very few minutes," I
answered.
Now, I had promised father that I would certainly go down in the brown
skirt and red blouse, and I would not break that promise to him for the
world; so I quickly divested myself of my shabby little travelling
costume and got into the brown skirt. It was a little tight in the
waist, for I must say mine was very broad, but in every other single
particular it was too big for me; it was so long in front that I could
scarcely walk without stumbling. Still, I had no doubt that I made a
very imposing figure in it. It was thick, it felt warm, and I
remembered my father's remark that there would be room for growth, and
that the thinning process would eventually make it not quite so heavy.
But the brown skirt, although a partial success, was nothing at all to
the red blouse. I have said that it was a brick-red, and it did not
suit my face. It was of common material, made with thick folds, and the
sleeves were much too long. I got into it somehow, and cast a glance at
myself in the glass. How funny I looked!--my head not too tidy; my face
flushed, in by no means a becoming way; with a brick-red blouse and a
brown skirt. Nevertheless, I was dressed, and there was a sort of
satisfaction in feeling grown-up just for once. I wished that I had had
time to plait my hair and pin it round my head; then I might have
impressed Miss Grace Donnithorne with the fact that not a child but a
grown-up young lady had come to visit her. But as there was no time for
that, and as there was a most appetising smell coming up the narrow
stairs, I flew down just as I was, in my new costume. I very nearly
stumbled as I ran downstairs, but I saved myself by picking up my skirt,
and then I entered the little drawing-room.
"Come, come, child!" said Miss Donnithorne. "Not that way; come into
this room now."
I turned and crossed the little hall and entered the dining-room. The
dining-room was twice the size of the little room where the stuffed
birds dwelt. It was furnished in quite a modern fashion, and looked
very nice indeed to me. The cloth on the table was so white that it did
not even look dirty by contrast with the snow outside, and the silver
shone--oh, like a number of looking-glasses; and the knives were so
clean and new-looking.
Miss Grace just opened her eyes for the tenth of a second when I entered
the room, and I wondered what reflection passed through her mind, but
she gave utterance to none. She invited me to seat myself, and I had
the most delicious meal I had ever partaken of in the whole course of my
life. Nancy flew in and out, serving us with more and more dainties:
puddings, jellies--oh dear, what delicious things jellies are when you
have never tasted them before! Then there was fruit--apples which, Miss
Donnithorne told me, had grown and ripened in her own garden; and
finally we cracked nuts and became excellent friends, sitting close to
the fire. Nancy's final entrance had been with coffee on a little tray.
Miss Donnithorne poured out a cup for me and a cup for herself.
"We'll go out presently," she said. "It's a lovely day for a walk. I
shall take you a good way and show you some of the beauties of the
place. But what about your boots? Are they strong?"
"Oh, pretty well," I replied.
"I can lend you some rubbers; but what size are your feet?"