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[Illustration: Book Cover]
THE OLD PINCUSHION
OR
AUNT CLOTILDA'S GUESTS
[Illustration: 'I DON'T BELIEVE YOU CARE ONE BIT.'--(_PAGE_ 9.)]
THE
OLD PINCUSHION
OR
_AUNT CLOTILDA'S GUESTS_
BY
MRS. MOLESWORTH
AUTHOR OF 'CARROTS,' 'THE PALACE IN THE GARDEN,' ETC.
_Illustrated By Mrs. Adrian Hope_
[Illustration]
LONDON
GRIFFITH FARRAN OKEDEN & WELSH
SUCCESSORS TO NEWBERY AND HARRIS
AND SYDNEY
TO
THREE DEAR
THOUGH UNKNOWN
LITTLE FRIENDS
BERTHA
HILDA
LESLEY
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE LETTER WITH BAD NEWS, 9
II. PHILIPPA'S IDEA, 22
III. AUNT CLOTILDA'S REPLY, 39
IV. AT TY-GWYN, 54
V. A GRAVE PREDICAMENT, 69
VI. THE WHITE HOUSE AT LAST, 84
VII. BREAKFAST IN BED, 102
VIII. NEWS FROM PHILIPPA, 117
IX. THE COTTAGE NEAR THE CREEK, 130
X. A PLAGUE OF FEATHERS, 146
XI. THE PINCUSHION MANUFACTORY, 160
XII. FOUND, 176
LIST OF FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
'I DON'T BELIEVE YOU CARE ONE BIT,' _Frontispiece_
'LET'S SIT QUIETLY IN THE OLD ARBOUR,' 29
THE AFTER-DINNER PLAY-TIME IN THE GARDEN, 47
'THERE'S YOUR WORK FOR YOU, SO TO SPEAK, MISS,' 61
HE SAT DOWN ON THE FLOOR OF THE CART, AND TOOK KATHIE HALF
INTO HIS ARMS, 89
A FIGURE WAS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY, 97
'IT IS DELICIOUS,' SAID KATHLEEN, 105
'LOOK, IT'S NEVER BEEN POSTED AT ALL!' 123
'WHERE ARE THE CAVES, NEVILLE?' 135
WHAT _WAS_ THE MATTER? 147
THEY FOUND A NOOK ... TO EAT THEIR DINNER IN, 161
'THAT IS ALL,' SAID NEVILLE, 185
CHAPTER I.
THE LETTER WITH BAD NEWS.
[Illustration: Decorative N]
o, Kathie, I don't believe you care one bit; I really don't,' said
Neville reproachfully.
Kathie was seated as she loved to be--on the edge of a rather high
table. Her skirts were short and her legs were long; from her present
elevation she could swing the latter about delightfully. She gave them
an extra energetic fling before she replied to her brother, and then,
trying her best to look concerned and distressed, and only succeeding in
giving to her funny little face an expression of comical demureness, she
turned to Neville,--
'I do care. You haven't any right to say I don't. If I didn't care for
myself, I'd care because you do, and because _they_ do. I'm not
a--a--unnatural monster. I'd cry if it was my way, but you know it
isn't; and a good thing too. A nice life I'd have had _here_,' with
great contempt, 'if I'd been a crying child like little Philippa Harley.
She's tired everybody out. But what's more, I do care for myself too.
I've been looking forward to them coming home, and nice proper holidays,
like other children. Yes, indeed, I should just think I had.'
'Holidays only!' Neville repeated. 'It would have been much better than
holidays--for you, any way. They wouldn't have left you here. I'd have
stayed at school, I suppose--boys must; but I don't mind school. I'd
like it very well if I had a home besides.'
Kathie did not seem to have noticed his last words. A new expression had
come into her face, as she repeated softly to herself, 'They wouldn't
have left me here. I never thought of that.'
'You'll begin to care really now, I suppose,' said her brother, rather
bitterly. 'I didn't think you were so selfish.'
The little girl faced about at that.
'I'm not selfish--at least, if selfish means only caring about oneself
and not about other people. I don't pretend not to care about myself
_too_. I'm one of the people in the world as well as being myself. I
should care for myself. But I care for others too. I'm sorry for you,
and for _them_, though not as sorry as for you, because I know you and I
don't know them. That's natural. I can't pretend to care for them the
same as if I knew them. People who want their children to care a lot for
them shouldn't leave them when they're too little to remember, and never
see them again for years and years.'
'It isn't much "shouldn't" about it,' the boy replied. 'It's nothing but
"can't." Papa and mamma would be only too glad to come home if they
could. I'm sure you might know that, Kathie.'
'Well, I've been looking forward to their coming as well as you,' said
Kathie, rather grumpily. 'I'm sure I've thought about it ever since last
year, when mamma wrote they'd be _sure_ to come before this next summer.
I don't see but what if that hor--' she stopped; 'if that old aunt
wouldn't leave papa anything else, she might at least have left him
money enough to come home on a visit, as she had promised to pay it.'
'Kathie,' said Neville, in a rather awe-struck tone, 'you shouldn't
speak that way when she is dead.'
'I don't see any harm in it,' the little girl replied, undauntedly. 'She
should have settled things properly, and then we could have felt nicely
sorry about her. I don't understand you, Neville--I don't think you're
fair to me. First you scold me for not being sorry and not caring, and
then when you've regularly worked me up, you turn upon me for saying
what I feel.'
Neville looked rather at a loss.
'I don't mean to do that,' he said. 'I suppose the truth is, I'm so
dreadfully disappointed that I don't know what to say. But I must be
going, Kathie. I suppose you don't want me to leave you the letter?' and
as he spoke he half held out to her an envelope he held in his hand.
Kathie shook her head.
'No, you'd better keep it. You'll answer it at once, I suppose. I
shouldn't know what to say. You tell them from me that I'm awfully
sorry, and I'll write next week.'
'And,' Neville went on, 'about writing to Aunt Clotilda? Can't you write
to her, Kathie? Mamma says one of us should.'
'Well, you'd do it far better than I. I shouldn't like to send it
without you seeing it first, any way. I don't feel inclined to write to
her--I think she's been very stupid--she might have managed better if
she really cares for them as she makes out.'
'Kathie!' said Neville--this time with real displeasure in his tone, 'I
do think that's too bad of you. Poor Aunt Clotilda! You see, papa says
she is almost the most to be pitied of anybody. And there's another
thing, Kathie: I don't think it's right of you always to speak of papa
and mamma as "they" or "them." It's not--not respectful; not as if you
cared for them.'
'Oh, bother!' said Kathie; 'if you're going to begin again about my not
caring, Neville, I just wish you'd go. I'm tired of explaining to you,
and--there; _I_ must go. Miss Eccles is sending for me;' and as the
footsteps her quick ears had heard coming along the passage stopped at
the door, Kathleen slid down from the table, and stood erect and demure,
as a girl of seventeen or so, with a sharp, dark face looked in.
'Miss Powys,' she said, 'it is time to get ready for dinner. You must be
up-stairs in five minutes;' and so saying, disappeared.
'Good-bye, Kathie,' said Neville, as he kissed her. 'It was kind of Mr.
Fanshaw to let me come, wasn't it? And--oh! I forgot--Mrs. Fanshaw's
going to write to Miss Eccles to ask if you may spend next Wednesday
with us--all day: that's to say, to come to dinner and stay till the
evening. I'm to fetch you walking, and bring you back in a hansom.'
'That will be _splucious_!' said Kathie, her eyes sparkling. 'Oh! I say,
I do hope old Eccles will let me go.'
A slight look of annoyance crossed the boy's face. He disliked to hear
his little sister talking slang, or any approach to it.
'Old Eccles!' he repeated. 'I wish you wouldn't say that, Kathie.
"Splucious" I don't mind--it was our own nursery word.'
'Neville, you _are_ a prig!' said Kathie. 'However, I'll forgive you in
return for the good news. Good-bye till Wednesday, and do thank them
awfully. I do wish old Eccles was like them.'
[Illustration]
And already, in the prospect of the immediate pleasure, more than half
forgetting the important bad news which her brother had come to tell
her, Kathleen flew along the passage, and up-stairs two steps at a time,
by way of working off some of her excitement.
She was only twelve years old, though, to judge by her height, she might
have been older. But she had the thin, lanky look of a fast-growing
child; there was nothing the least precocious about her.
'She is such a baby still,' thought Neville, as he made his way soberly
along the street. 'I suppose she can't help it,' he went on, with a
vague idea of excusing her to himself for he scarcely knew what. 'But I
do wish, oh! how I do wish they were coming home! Five years more, papa
says; five years more it will be. It won't matter for me so much. I've
been so fortunate in being with the Fanshaws; and any way, I'd have had
to be going to a big school by now. But for Kathie, she'll be seventeen,
and she won't have been with mamma for eleven years. It doesn't seem
_right_, somehow. And just now, when everything might have been easy. Oh
dear! I wonder why things go wrong when they might just as well go
right!'
Neville Powys was only thirteen and a half, barely eighteen months older
than Kathleen. But in mind and temperament he was twice her age. And he
seemed to himself to have grown years older since that very same morning
when the Indian mail had brought the letter which had been the reason of
his visit to his sister.
It had been a terrible disappointment to him, and he had hoped for
thorough sympathy from Kathie. Yet again, perhaps it was well that she
had not taken it to heart so acutely as he. She was less happily placed
under Miss Eccles' trustworthy, but cold and unloving care, than he in
the Fanshaw family. And had she been of a more sensitive or less buoyant
nature, she might have been in some ways dwarfed and crushed painfully.
But she was strong and elastic; so far, her six years of stiff and prim
school life had done her no harm beyond leaving her, in several ways,
as much of a 'baby' as when they had first begun. Still, Neville's
instinct that it was more than time that Kathie should be in other
hands, that the 'womanliness' in her would suffer unless there were some
change, was a correct one.
'If only Mrs. Fanshaw could have had her too,' he said to himself, as he
had often said before.
But that he knew was impossible. The Fanshaws had four boys of their
own, and no daughter, which had naturally led to their taking only boy
boarders.
'I don't like to make things worse by writing to mamma that I don't
think Kathie is improving,' he went on, thinking. 'I know it must be
very difficult for them to pay what they do for us. And Mrs. Fanshaw
always says that Miss Eccles' school is far better, though it is
old-fashioned and prim, than many of those great, big, fashionable,
girls' schools, which cost twice as much.'
Suddenly a thought struck him.
'I don't see why I shouldn't write about Kathie to Aunt Clotilda,' he
said to himself. 'She is free now, even though she's poor. She might
surely have Kathie with her if papa gave what he does to Miss Eccles.
And she's often said she would have had us every holiday if Mrs. Wynne
hadn't been so old and queer. I think Aunt Clotilda must be nice--she is
so fond of papa. She might at least have Kathie there on a visit.'
And with a rather more hopeful feeling about things in general since
this idea had struck him, poor Neville rang at Mr. Fanshaw's door, which
he had now reached.
He had met with plenty of sympathy from his kind friends in his
disappointment. It was Mrs. Fanshaw who had suggested to her husband to
give the boy an hour or two's holiday to go off to see his sister,
though not an orthodox day for the two meeting, and who had furthermore
promised the invitation which had so delighted Kathleen. But a feeling
of loyalty prevented Neville's telling how slightly the bad news seemed
to have affected the little girl, and besides this, a sort of instinct
that the less family matters are talked of out of the family the better,
made him resolve not to say very much more about the matter in the
Fanshaw household.
What the bad news was it is quite time to explain.
Neville and Kathleen Powys were the children of an officer in the army.
Captain Powys was poor, but not without reasonable hopes of becoming
much richer before his boy and girl should have reached the age at which
education and the other many advantages which good parents desire for
their children, grow expensive and difficult to obtain for those who
have very small means. One disadvantage--a disadvantage at all
ages--that of separation from their parents, had to be submitted to,
however, when Neville and Kathleen were only five and six years old. For
at that time Captain Powys's regiment was ordered to India, and he had,
of course, to accompany it.
'Never mind--or, at least, mind it as little as you can,' he said to his
wife. 'Let us be thankful they are still so young. By the time they are
at an age when it really would matter greatly, we may quite hope to be
settled at home again.'
And in this hope the last few years had been passed. It was not an
unreasonable hope by any means, as you shall hear. Captain Powys had an
old cousin, who was also his godmother, by name Mrs. Wynne. And for many
years this lady had openly announced her intention of making him her
heir. Only last year she had written to beg him to try to get leave to
come home for some months, as she felt she had not long to live, and
there were many things she wished to say to him. She undertook to pay
all the expenses of this visit for himself and his wife, and the little
girl Vida, who had been born since their return to India. And as a
reason the more for it, she reminded him that it was high time Neville
and Kathleen should see their parents again. Captain Powys, as may be
imagined, was only too glad to agree to her proposal, and for the last
few months the parents in India and the children at home had been
counting the weeks--in Neville's case, indeed, almost the days--till
they should meet, when, alas! all these plans were dashed to the
ground!
Mrs. Wynne died suddenly, and after her death no will was to be found.
In consequence of this, all her property would go to a nephew of her
husband's, already a rich man, who did not need it, and, to do him
justice, scarcely cared for it. This was the news which Miss Clotilda
Powys, the children's aunt, who had lived with the old lady and helped
to manage her affairs, had to write to her brother in India. And this
too was the news contained in the letter from his father which had so
distressed poor Neville.
It was a curious story altogether. Clotilda was completely puzzled. Mrs.
Wynne was a careful and methodical person, not likely to have delayed
seeing to business matters, and just the sort of woman to have prided
herself on leaving everything in perfect order. And a day or two before
her death she had given her cousin a sealed envelope, on which was
written, 'Directions where to find my will;' saying to her at the same
time, 'You will see--all will be right for David.' So Miss Clotilda's
mind had been quite at rest, till on opening the envelope, a few hours
after the old lady's death, she drew forth a blank sheet of note-paper!
Even then, however, she was not completely discouraged. That the will
was somewhere in the house she felt certain, for she had often heard
Mrs. Wynne say that she would trust no important papers to any one's
keeping but her own. And in the presence of the lawyer, Mr. Jones, and
of Mr. Wynne-Carr, the nephew, a thorough search was made. Every
cupboard, every bookcase, every wardrobe, every chest of drawers was
turned out--nay, more, the walls were tapped, the planks of the floors
examined, for it was a very old and quaintly contrived house, to see if
there was any secret place where the will could have been concealed. But
all in vain. Every other paper or document of importance was found in
its place, neatly labelled in the old lady's own handwriting, in her
private _secretaire_ in the library. But no will! And even though poor
Miss Clotilda went on for days and weeks searching, searching, thinking
of nothing else by day, dreaming of nothing else by night, all was
useless, and it became evident that there would not much longer be any
pretext for preventing Mr. Wynne-Carr's taking possession.
Mr. Wynne-Carr behaved well. He had never expected to succeed, and was
not eager about it. He could not, however, help himself--he had a son
and grandson--he could not give up the property even if Captain Powys
could have been brought to accept it from him. But he told Miss Clotilda
to take her time. He gave her leave to stay on in the house as long as
she liked, and to continue searching. But as weeks went on, her last
hopes faded, and she wrote again to her brother, advising him to make up
his mind that the will would never be found. Then Captain Powys wrote to
Neville--he had put off doing so as long as he could--telling him all,
and saying that even the visit to England must be given up, as he had no
money to spare for it, and no hopes of gaining anything by it. If Miss
Clotilda had not succeeded in finding the will, there was no chance that
any one else would.
Neville was old enough, and thoughtful enough, thoroughly to understand
the whole. No wonder he was troubled and distressed, and disappointed by
Kathie's childishness. He wished his Aunt Clotilda had written to him.
It would have made it much easier for him to have confided to her his
feelings about his sister. It was many years since Miss Clotilda had
seen the children, for she had not left Wales for long, and Mrs. Wynne
had never invited the children to visit her. She was too old for it, she
said, and she had never had children of her own, and did not understand
their ways. So Neville and Kathleen had been entirely left to the care
of strangers, though Neville had once or twice been asked to spend some
holidays at a companion's house, and Kathie was taken every year to the
seaside with two other 'little Indians,' for three weeks by Miss Eccles.
But of real happy home-life neither knew anything, except by hearsay.
And Kathleen was not the sort of child to trouble herself much about
anything which did not actually come in her way.