Zerlina discovered, to her immense surprise, that she was near enough
to bring all her party to play with ours, and it was arranged that she
should do so on the first fine day.
It so happened that all the days were fine, so every day Diana and I
watched for the small cloud in the distance that should herald their
approach, and one day it appeared, no bigger than a man's hand. When
it came nearer it was considerably bigger, and it finally assumed
the dimensions of Zerlina, Hyacinth, the twins, Teddy, and a small
nursery-maid. Betty was immensely delighted with the twins, her one
ambition in life being to have twins of her own. Failing that, and every
birthday only brought fresh disappointment in its wake, the care of
somebody else's was the next best thing.
They really were delicious people, so round and so solemn. Hugh, for
the moment, was engrossed in Teddy; Teddy having, among other things,
a knife with "things in it," most of which he was mercifully unable to
open. It was the certainty of being able to do so on the part of Hugh,
which made him so deliriously busy. Sara was out of it, having no one
as yet to play with, and she was proud and disdainful in consequence. I
knew that Betty would shortly have one twin to spare, perhaps two, but
this Sara could not guess, knowing nothing of twins.
"Now, Sara," I said, "we will build a castle all for our very own
selves."
"Our velly, velly own selves," said Sara, hugging her spade with
ecstasy. "A velly, velly big castle."
"Very, very big," I replied.
"A bemormous castle?"
"An enormous castle," I said, starting to dig the foundations.
"Dat's a velly, velly vitty hole," said Sara.
"It's going to be a castle, darling."
"For Yaya to live in?"
"Perhaps."
"And Nannie and Aunt Woggles and Hugh and Betty and muvver?"
Sara danced with joy at the prospect, and Sara dancing in
bathing-drawers was distracting. I dug industriously, however, and it
was very hot. Sara looked on, occasionally watering the castle and me
too.
"Not too much water, darling," I said, "because it makes Aunt Woggles so
wet."
Sara subsided for the moment. "Is it a velly big castle?" she asked
every now and then with evident anxiety.
"It's going to be, darling," I said.
"It's a velly, velly small castle now," she said sadly.
I dug harder and harder, and it seemed to me that the castle was
becoming quite a respectable size, but Sara's interest had flagged.
"Aunt Woggles," she said.
"Yes, darling," I answered.
"Sall we dig a velly, velly deep hole, velly, velly deep, for all ve
cwabs, and all ve vitty fish, and Nannie and Aunt Woggles?"
"A very big hole," I said; "but look at the lovely castle!"
"Yaya doesn't yike 'ollid ole castles," she said.
I began to dig a hole. One does these things, I find, for the Saras of
this world, and Sara was for the moment enchanted, but it didn't last
long.
"Yaya's so sirsty," she said. "Yaya wants a 'ponge cake."
"I think you would rather have some milk, darling," I said.
"Yaya's so sirsty," she said in a very sad voice. "Yaya would yike a
'ponge cake!"
"Very well, darling; but don't you want to dig any more?"
"No," she said. "Yaya doesn't yike digging."
Now was that fair?--digging, indeed, when it was the poor aunt who had
been digging all the time. When I told Diana of this she shook her head
and said,-- "Betty, it frightens me. Do you think Sara will grow up that
sort of woman?"
"What sort of woman?"
"Like Polly in Charles Dudley Warner's 'My Summer in a Garden.' You
remember when the husband says, 'Polly, do you know who planted that
squash, or those squashes?'"
"'James, I suppose.'
"'Well, yes, perhaps James did plant them, to a certain extent. But who
hoed them?'
"'We did.'"
"Well, it seems to me," I said, "that she was rather a delightful
person."
"In a book, absolutely delightful. I am only thinking of Sara's husband,
poor man! You see Polly's husband was an American, and that makes all
the difference. You remember I told you of a man I met who in decorating
his house wanted to have red walls as a background to his beautiful
pictures, and his wife wanted to have green. I asked him what he did,
and he said he made a compromise. I said how clever of him, how did he
do it? and he said, 'We had green!' You see, Betty, what an American
husband means!"
"Well, to return to Sara's, you need not worry. I think he will, in
all probability, be in such raptures over the possession of anything
so delicious as Sara promises to be, that he will overlook these little
pluralities on her part."
"Yes, Betty, of course; but does that sort of thing last?"
"You ought to know, to a certain extent."
"Ah! but then David is such a dear."
"I think it is quite likely that Sara will find a dear too."
"I hope so, oh! how I hope so!" said Diana. "I often wonder what it must
be to find you have given your daughter to some one who is unkind to
her. I can hardly imagine so great a sorrow! I dare not even think of
David the day Betty marries. He says he thinks it must be worse for a
father than a mother."
"I wonder," I said. "I think a mother perhaps has a greater belief in
the goodness of men; a woman, a happy woman certainly, has so little
knowledge of men, other than her own."
"Yes," said Diana, "a good father and a good husband give one a very
deep rooted faith and belief in the goodness of mankind generally. How
we are prosing, Betty!"
Zerlina meanwhile sat on a rock, of the hardness of which she
complained. She found fault with our cove, the sun was too hot and the
wind was too strong. But then she had driven ten miles in a wagonette
under Teddy and the twins, so it was no wonder she grumbled a little.
"I can't think," she said plaintively, "why my hair doesn't look nice
when it blows about in the wind, and I hate myself sun burnt. I can't
bear seeing my nose wherever I look. You and Betty are the stuff martyrs
are made of. It would be comparatively easy to walk to the stake if you
had the right amount of hair hanging down behind; without it, no amount
of religious conviction would avail. Oh dear, I used to have such lots,
before I had measles! I hardly knew what to do with it!"
"That's rather what we find with Betty's," said Diana; "we plait it up
as tight as we can, don't we, darling?" she said, re-tying the ribbon
which secured Betty's very thick pigtail.
"I had twice as much as Betty, at her age, I'm sure," said Zerlina,
forgetting a photograph which stands on Jim's dressing-table, of a small
fat girl with very little hair and that rather scraggy. But what does it
matter? These are the sort of traditions women cling to.
Someone suggested building a steamship in the sand, grown-ups, children,
and all, and Hugh was told to go and make a second-class berth. He
retired to a short distance, and no sound coming from his direction, we
looked round and saw him in ecstatic raptures, rocking himself backward
and forward.
"What are you doing, Hugh?" we said.
"Well," said Hugh, "I was told to make a second-class berth. I suppose
that means twins, and I 'm nursing them."
Zerlina took it quite well, and was easily persuaded that there was no
insult intended to her twins in particular.
A few minutes later Sara appeared, triumphant, having apparently found a
small child to play with.
"Who is your little friend, Sara?" I asked.
She shook her head. She didn't know, but he was delicious to play with
for all that, and she bore him off in triumph.
He was not long unsought, for a young girl came anxiously towards us and
said, "Have you seen a little boy?"
It reminded me a little of the story, the other way round, of a lost boy
who asked a man, "Please, sir, have you seen a man without a little boy,
because if you have, I'm the little boy."
She looked as anxious and as distraught as that little boy must have
looked, I am sure.
"I think," said Diana, "you will find him behind that rock.--Sara,"
called Diana, "bring the little boy here."
A small portion of Sara's person appeared round the rock:--"We're velly
busy," she said.
So rapidly do women make friendships!
"He's quite safe," said Diana; "your little brother, I suppose?"
The girl blushed. "No, I'm his mother," she said.
She looked so young and so pretty, and her hair must have moved Zerlina
to tears, it was so beautiful, and grew so prettily on her forehead. But
she looked too young to be searching for lost babies all by herself.
"How old is he?" asked Diana.
"He's three," she said; then added, "his father never saw him; he went
to the war soon after we were married, and he was killed. Baby is just
like him," and she unfastened a miniature she wore on a chain round her
neck and handed it to Diana.
I am sure Diana saw nothing but a blur, but she managed to say, "You
must be glad! Come and see my little girl, she is very much the same
age."
"What an extraordinarily communicative person!" said Zerlina as they
walked off. "Just imagine telling strangers the whole of your history
like that. I wonder if her husband left her well off."
"Can't you see he did?" I said.
"No; I don't think she is very well dressed, but you never can tell with
that picturesque style of dressing. It may or may not be expensive; even
that old embroidery only means probably that she had a grandmother.
It is a terrible thing for a girl of that age to be left with a boy to
bring up. I know, Betty, just what you are thinking--cold, heartless,
mercenary Zerlina! But I'm practical."
When Diana came back, I could see in her face that she knew all about
the poor little widow. It is wonderful what a comfort it seems to be
even to strangers to confide in Diana. For one thing I feel sure they
know that she won't tell, and that makes all the difference. It is a
relief sometimes to tell some one, although some things can be better
borne when nobody knows. But I imagine there was little bitterness in
the sorrow of this girl widow. She too had learned something from Diana,
for she turned to me and said, "Are you a relation of Captain Lisle?"
"If his name is Archie," I said, "I am his sister."
"I've met him," and she blushed.
This, then, was the girl Archie longed to save from drowning, and who
inspired him with a desire to sing hymns on Sunday evenings. Dear old
Archie! I could imagine his tender, susceptible heart going out to the
little widow. But I said to myself, "It's no good, Archie dear, not yet
at all events, not while she looks as she does over the sea," for I was
sure it was far away in a grave on the lonely veldt that her heart was
buried.
"He is so devoted to children, isn't he?" she said. "He was so good to
my baby. I find that men are so extraordinarily fond of children. I am
afraid they will spoil him."
Whereupon the baby burst into a long dissertation on a present he had
lately received. It sounded something like this:--
"Mormousman give boy a yockerile an a epelan, anye yockerile yanan yan
all over de jurnmer yunder de hoha an eberelyyare."
He then proceeded to turn bead over heels, or try to, and was sharply
rebuked by Sara, who rearranged his garments with stern severity,
and then was about to show him the right method, when she in turn was
stopped by Nannie.
One of the twins arrived at this moment to say that Hugh had called him
bad names. Betty the peacemaker explained that Hugh had called him
a wicket keeper, and the twin had thought he had called him a wicked
keeper. So that was all right. We suggested that, in any case, the twin
wasn't the best person to be wicket keeper. But he went in twice running
to make up, and Hugh gave him several puddings as well. "Puddings," the
nursery-maid explained, were first balls, and didn't count.
"Betty," I said, "you've got a hole in your stocking!"
"I hope it 's not a Jacob's ladder," said Betty.
"Hush, darling, hush," said Hugh; "you know we mustn't be irreverent!"
It was during an interval when we rested and drank milk and ate cake,
those of us who would or could, that we discovered that the little widow
was staying with a very old friend of my father's and mother's.
"And where does Lady Mary live?" asked Diana.
"Just over there. Do come and see her; she will be so delighted to see
you and to show you the garden, which is quite famous."