THE NEWS, AND HOW THEY RECEIVED IT.
When the door opened and Dr. Trenire came in with the heavy tread of a
very weary man, and the face of a very worried one, another and a larger
wave of shame and remorse rushed over them all.
Dan stepped forward at once to put his feelings into words. "I am
fearfully sorry, father," he said impetuously. "I--I was a brute to
throw the things at Jabez; but I--I never meant to hurt him. Is it very
bad?"
"It is not a serious wound by any means," said the doctor slowly;
"but, of course, the wood was old and dirty, and the nail rusty, and
there is always danger of blood-poisoning."
"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," said Dan, looking alarmed.
"No, that is just it," sighed the doctor; "you don't think. No one in
the house thinks, it seems to me. I suppose, though, it isn't your
fault; you have no one to teach you," and he sighed a heavy, harassed
sigh.
The children's mother had died nearly five years earlier, when Kitty was
nine, and Anthony but a year old. For a time a housekeeper had been
employed to manage both children and servants; but so uncomfortable had
been her rule, so un-homelike the house, so curbed and dreary the
children's lives, that when Kitty reached the mature age of thirteen her
father, only too glad to banish the stranger from their midst, had given
in to her pleading, and with high hopes of a home which would be happy
and homelike once more, allowed her to become housekeeper and mistress
of the house.
Unfortunately, though, Kitty had had no training. Her mother had been
an excellent manager; but Kitty was only a little thing when she lost
her, and her life had mostly been spent, happily enough, in nursery and
schoolroom. Mrs. Trenire's wish had been that her children should have
a happy childhood, so all family troubles, all anxieties, domestic
worries and details, were kept from them, and the result was that,
beyond the nursery and schoolroom life, they knew nothing. Kitty had
not the least idea how rooms were cleaned, or meals provided, or
anything. Then had come the housekeeper, who for other reasons had kept
the children to their own quarters. She resented any interference or
questioning, and objected to any trouble they might give her, but as
long as they amused themselves and kept out of her way, they were free
to do pretty much as they wished.
Under the circumstances it was not greatly to be wondered at that when
Kitty took up the reins of management, life at Dr. Trenire's was not
well-ordered and free from muddle, and that the doctor himself looked
worried, and sad, and careworn.
The pity of it was that Kitty did not try to learn even the very
simplest things in housekeeping, and in that lay the root of the trouble
and the cause of all that followed. Though when four wild young
spirits, that have been bottled up and corked down for years, suddenly
find themselves free and able to do what they like when they like,
without having to render an account to any one, it would be rather
wonderful if they did settle down and become quite staid and steady all
at once.
Kitty it was, though, who was most at fault. She had begged to be
allowed to manage the house, and, having got her wish, she just seized
the advantages and revelled in the freedom, but ignored the
responsibilities; and no one was more acutely aware of this fact than
was Kitty herself during the next half-hour, when their father talked so
gravely to them all in the schoolroom.
"I have been thinking a great deal," he said, as he dropped wearily into
the roomy old chair by the fireplace--the chair where their mother used
to sit and tell them stories, and hear them say their prayers before
they went to bed. "I have thought over the whole situation, as well as
my tired brain will let me, and I have come to the conclusion that for
all our sakes I must get some one to come and look after us."
"O father!" gasped Kitty in utter dismay. She had never thought that
anything as dreadful as this could happen.
"Evidently the management of the house and all of us is beyond Kitty,"
went on Dr. Trenire; "and that is not to be wondered at. We are a large
family on the whole, and a doctor's house is not an ordinary one, and it
is not surprising that everything should have got into a state of muddle
and confusion."
Kitty felt, but could not say, that she had never really tried to manage
it; that as long as things had gone on without any open fiasco, and they
had been able to enjoy themselves, and the servants had not been
bad-tempered, she had been quite content. She could not make that
confession now, and if she had it would not have done any good.
"The house _must_ be orderly and well managed, the meals properly
arranged and served, and the servants kept in order, and I should be
very culpable if I did not see that it was so," went on her father
slowly. "So, after much thought and hesitation, for I am very reluctant
to admit even a comparative stranger into our midst again, I feel that
the only thing to be done is to write to your dear mother's cousin, Mrs.
Pike, and ask her to come and make her home with us. She once offered
to, and I think now, if she is still willing, it will be well to accept
her kind offer."
A stifled cry of dismay broke from the four shocked listeners--a cry
they could not repress. "Aunt Pike!" Aunt Pike, of all people, to come
to live with them! Oh, it was too dreadful! It could not be--they
could never bear it! She had stayed with them once for a fortnight, and
it might have been a year from the impression it had left on their
memories. When she had left they had had a thanksgiving service in the
nursery, and Betty--solemn Betty--had prayed aloud, "From Aunt Pike,
pestilence, and famine, please deliver us."
And now this dreaded aunt was to be asked to come again--not for a
fortnight only, but for many fortnights; and not as a guest, but as head
and mistress of them all, to manage them, to order them about, to make
them do as she chose. Oh, it was overwhelming, appalling, too appalling
to be true!
"But there is Anna!" gasped Kitty.
"I know," said Dr. Trenire, who really felt nearly as bad about it as
did his children. "Anna will live here too, probably. Of course we
could not expect her mother to leave her."
This was the hardest blow, the final drop of bitterness their cup could
hold, the last straw on four overburthened camels.
"But we all hate Anna," said Betty with slow, deliberate emphasis;
"and we shall hate her more if she is here always, wanting to play with
us, and go about with us, and--and--"
"Betty, those remarks are unworthy of you," said her father gravely.
"But they are quite true, daddy," said Tony solemnly, "and we've _got_
to speak the truth and shame the devil. Jabez told us so."
Dr. Trenire did not feel able or inclined to argue the point then.
Betty drew nearer to him and leaned against his shoulder. "Daddy," she
said in her grave, confiding way, "you won't like it either, a bit.
When Anna was here before you often used to say, 'Oh, that child!' and
you looked quite glad, as glad as we did, when she went away. I am sure
you will be sorry if she comes, nearly as sorry as we shall be, only you
will be able to go your rounds and get away from them every day; but
we," pathetically, "can't do that."
Again Dr. Trenire was silent. He sometimes wished his younger
daughter's memory was less acute, and her love of reasoning less strong.
No one spoke, and until some one did, remarks would go on dropping from
Betty's lips. It was a way she had. She had never been known to cease
talking without being forcibly made to do so. "It does seem dreadful,"
she went on thoughtfully, "that just because Jabez got his head hit we
must have Aunt Pike and Anna here for ever and ever, and be made very
unhappy. I am sure Jabez would rather have us punished in some other
way. Shall I ask him what he would like done to us instead?" she
finished up eagerly.
"I don't want to punish you," said Dr. Trenire. "Don't run away with
the idea, children, that I am doing it for that purpose. It is that I
think it will be the best plan for all of us--for our comfort and
happiness, and your future good. I can't have you all growing up like
savages, untrained, uneducated, uncared for. What would you all say to
me when you grew up?" looking round at them with a smile.
"I would say, 'Thank you,'" said Betty gravely.
"I'd rather be a savage than anything," said Tony eagerly.
Kitty and Dan were silent. Dan was old enough to realize something of
what his father meant; Kitty was altogether too upset to answer.
She was thinking that it was she who had brought all this on them; that
she might have saved them from it. The others blamed Jabez and his
tale-bearing; but Kitty in her heart of hearts felt that Jabez with his
cut forehead and his tale of woe was but a last link in the long chain
which she had forged--a chain which was to grapple to them Aunt Pike and
the unwelcome Anna. At the same time the injury to Jabez was a last
link, without which the chain might never have been completed.
It was completed though, for that their father's mind was made up, his
decision final, they recognized only too clearly, and the glorious
summer day turned suddenly to blackest, dreariest night for all of them.
By-and-by, though, after their father had left them, and they had talked
things over amongst themselves, some of Kitty's remorse gave way to a
rebellion against fate. "How could they have known," she demanded
tragically, "that by just sitting on the garden wall that afternoon they
were changing and spoiling their lives for ever, and giving Aunt Pike
the chance she had been longing for, the chance of coming there to
'boss' them? How was one to know what one might do and what one
mightn't? What was the use of trying? There was no going against
'fate'! If it was their fate to have everything spoilt by her, she
would have come even if Jabez had never been hurt at all, and everything
had been quite right and perfect."
"I shall never sit on that old wall again without expecting something to
happen," said Betty in solemn tones.
"And you will never be disappointed after _she_ comes," Dan foreboded
gloomily, "so it is just as well to be prepared." At which they all
groaned in miserable chorus.
By-and-by they straggled downstairs again and out into the yard.
The house was really unbearably hot, and seemed too small to allow their
minds to grasp all they had to grasp. They had a sort of gloomy
longing, too, to revisit the spot where so much had happened, to go over
the familiar ground and see if the bright outer world looked different
at all; there surely must be some sign of the tragedy that had befallen
them.
In the outer world things had changed very much. The sun had
disappeared, and the sky was heavy and overcast with threatenings of the
storm that had been brewing all the day; the old wall looked gray, and
sad, and uninviting.
"Just as though it knew," thought Kitty.
In the yard Prue was standing somewhat dejectedly, evidently waiting to
be harnessed; Jabez was creeping about, getting out the carriage in
preparation for a journey. He looked quite imposing with his bandaged
head, and he was taking himself very seriously. He glanced furtively at
the children, and bore himself with an air of patient but superior
resignation. In his heart he was really vexed with himself for having
complained of them, though he felt it would not do to let them know it.
Betty, Dan, and Tony felt so bitterly the ill turn he had done them that
they walked through the yard and up into the garden without a word or a
glance--a cut on the forehead seemed so trifling compared with what they
had to bear. Jabez, who had expected anger or teasing on their parts,
felt this coldness greatly; he was not used to that kind of treatment,
and it hurt him. Kitty, though, was so struck by the sight of his
preparations that for the moment she forgot him and his injuries.
"Father hasn't to go out again to-night, has he, Jabez?" she asked
anxiously, staying behind while the others strolled on.
"Yes, miss, he hev. He've got to go to Welland to once. They've just
sent in."
"Are you going too?" looking at his bandaged head.
"No, miss," with a resigned air. "Master says I'm to go 'ome and 'ave a
good night's rest--that is if so be as I can get to sleep."
"But who is going to drive father?" interrupted Kitty.
"Master said as 'ow he'd drive hisself."
Kitty remembered the weary look on her father's face, the sleepless
night he had had, the long, busy day. "Jabez," she said with quiet
firmness, "I am going to drive father; then perhaps he will be able to
sleep a little in the carriage. Don't say anything to him, but I'll be
in the carriage when you drive it round for him, and then I expect he
will let me go."
Jabez looked dubiously first at the sky and then at Kitty.
"I can drive; you know I can," she said eagerly. "Now don't be nasty,
Jabez; we have got trouble enough as it is."
"'Tis my belief there's a nasty storm brewing--"
"I love a storm, especially when I am driving through it."
"I was putting in the old mare on purpose, 'cause she stands thunder and
lightning better than what Billy does, but--"
"Jabez, you may say what you like, but I am going, unless father stops
me; so don't bother to say any more about it. I know the way, and
father trusts me to drive."
"I wasn't going against 'ee, Miss Kitty. If you'm set on it you'm set
on it, and 'tisn't no manner of use for me to talk."
Dan and the others came sauntering down from the garden again.
"Jabez, you might give me the nail out of that bit of wood," said Dan;
"every half-ounce counts, and I want to get enough iron to sell."
Jabez shook his head knowingly. He would rather not have had any
further reference made to the affair, for he was really devoted to them
all, and was ashamed of his part in it. He always made a point, though,
of seeming to distrust them; he thought it safer.
"Ah, I ain't so sure," he began, "that it'd be wise of me to let 'ee
'ave it. I dunno what more 'arm you mightn't be doing with it."
"We couldn't do more harm than you have done already," snapped Dan.
"You've nailed Aunt Pike fast to the house with it, and it will take
more than we can do to get her away again."
"What be saying of, sir?" asked Jabez, bewildered, and suddenly
realizing that their sombre faces and manner meant something more than
usual. "Mrs. Pike--"
"Father is going to send and ask Aunt Pike to live here, and it's your
fault," said Betty concisely. "It was your complaining about Dan that
did it."
Jabez gasped. He knew the lady well, and preserved a vivid recollection
of her former visit. "She hain't a-coming visiting here again, is she,
sur?" he groaned.
"Visiting! It's much worse than that, a thousand times worse. She is
coming here for good, to manage all of us--and you too!" they gasped.
Jabez dropped helpless on to an upturned bucket, the picture of hopeless
dejection. "There won't be no peace in life no more," he said, "and I
shan't be allowed to show my nose in the kitchen. I'd have had my old
'ead scat abroad every day of my life and never have told rather than
I'd have helped to do this. Was it really me telling on 'ee, sur, that
made the master settle it so?"
"Yes," nodded Dan, "that finished it."
Jabez groaned again in sheer misery. "I dunno, I'm sure, whatever made
me take and do it. I've stood so much more from all of 'ee and never so
much as opened my lips. I reckon 'twas the weather made me a bit
peppery like--"
"It was fate," interposed Kitty gravely. "It must have been something,
for sure," breathed Jabez, with a dreary shake of his head.
"Make haste and get Prue harnessed," said Kitty, "or the storm will
begin before we start, and then father won't let me go;" and Jabez, with
another gloomy shake of his head, rose from the upturned bucket and
proceeded with his task.