Some days passed. Mr Fortescue was detained in the country longer than
he had expected, and us it was impossible for their mother to decide
things very definitely without him, especially as regarded the future
home of the family, the children's daily lives went on much as usual.
"You could almost fancy it was all a dream," said Leila to her sister.
"_You_ could, I daresay," Christabel replied, "for you're never doing
anything but dreaming; but _I_ don't feel like that at all. It's enough
to see Nurse's red eyes, and the servants stepping about as if there was
straw all over the place, like when people are very ill, and Miss
Earle's never been so kind before. It really almost makes me try to
please her."
"I think it's rather nice of them all," Leila remarked. The "romantic"
side of the position quite took her fancy, and she felt as if she really
was some thing of a heroine. "I shan't mind being poor, if people are
so sorry for us--so-so respectful, you know, Chrissie."
But Chrissie was made of different stuff.
"I don't agree with you at all," she said, tossing her proud little
head, so that her thick reddish-brown hair fell over her face like a
shaggy mane. "Sorry for us! No indeed, I don't want people to be sorry
for us. Almost the worst part of it is everybody having to know. I
can't understand Mummy thinking that a good thing. I don't mind Miss
Earle," she went on, softening a little, "she's different somehow. But
I'm not going to pretend, any way not to you, Lell, you sleepy, dreaming
thing, I'm not going to pretend that I don't think it's all _perfectly_
horrid, for I do."
"If we could go to live in the country," said Leila; "a pretty quaint
cottage, thatched perhaps, any way covered with roses--"
"Yes, especially in winter," interrupted Chrissie. "What a donkey you
are, Lell! Better say thistles."
"We could have roses a good part of the year, and I know there are some
creepers that are evergreens. Ivy, for instance. No, a cottage
wouldn't be so bad, however tiny it was," Leila maintained.
"You'd have to be cook, then, and I'd have to be housemaid, for where
would you put servants in your tiny cottage I'd like to know? It would
be freezing in winter--no bathroom or hot water--and in summer all
insecty. Horrible! However, we needn't fight about it. We're going to
stay in London. Mums says we _must_, if Dads is ever to get any work to
do--or in the suburbs close to. I think that would be almost worse.
The sort of place with rows and rows of little houses all exactly like
each other, you know, with horrid scraps of garden in front."
"No," said Leila, "I think any sort, of a garden would make it better.
We could grow things."
"I'd like to see you gardening," said Chrissie. "I know what it would
be. If there was any sort of a summer-house, or even a bench, you'd be
settled there with a book, calling out, `Chrissie, Chrissie, do _come_
and rake that border for me. I'm so tired.'"
"I might call," retorted Leila coolly, "but most certainly the border
wouldn't get raked if I had no one to call to but you."
"_I'd_ rake it, Lelly," said Jasper. They had not noticed that he was
in the room, for he was busied in a corner, as quiet as a mouse, as was
often the case.
"I believe you would," said Leila. "We're not a very good-natured
family, but I think you're about the best, poor old Jap."
"Nonsense," said Christabel. "He's just a baby. Shall we toss up,
Lell?" she went on recklessly. "Heads or tails? I've got two
halfpennies--heads for a house with a garden six feet square, tails for
a dirty little pig of a house in--oh, I don't know where to say."
"I know," said Jasper; "that place where Nurse's cousin lives what makes
dresses. I've been there with Nurse. Mummy said I might go. It's
quite clean, and there's a sort of gardeny place in the middle, where
the children was playin'. They didn't look--not _very_ dirty," for if
Jasper was anything, he was exceedingly "accurate."
"Really, Jasper," began Leila. Then she turned to Christabel, "You
don't think it _could_ be as bad as that, Chrissie?" and the alarm in
her soft dark eyes was piteous. "Living in a slum, that would be."
Just then Nurse came into the room.
"What were you saying, Miss Leila, my dear?" she inquired. "Something
about a `slum'?"
"It's what Jasper was saying," said Leila, and she went on to explain.
Nurse got rather red.
"It can't be called a slum where my cousin lives," she said. "She's a
respectable dressmaker in a small way, and suchlike don't live in slums.
Still it won't be as poor a place as that where," she hesitated, and
then went on, "where the new house will be."
"Jasper's so vulgar," said Chrissie, "the minute you speak of being
poor, he thinks it means leaving off being ladies and gentlemen."
"I doesn't," exclaimed the boy indignantly. "Nothin'd made Dads and
Mums not be ladies and gentlemen--and us too," but the last words
somewhat less confidently.
Both the girls laughed.
"Thank you, Jap," said Leila, "though I don't wonder he doesn't feel
quite sure of _you_, Chrissie. You really needn't talk of `vulgar,'
with your `heads and tails,' like a street boy."
A sharp retort was on Christabel's lips, but Nurse hastened to interrupt
it.
"What are you so busy about, my dear little boy?" she said, turning to
Jasper, which made the others look at him also.
"I'se packin'," was the reply, and then they saw that he was surrounded
by his special treasures, in various stages of newness and oldness,
completeness and brokenness. "Mums said I might divide them, and the
old ones are to go to the ill children; and I'm goin' to pack the others
very caref'ly, for you see they'll have to last me now till I'm big,"
and he gave a little sigh, for in his unselfish, yet childish heart,
there _had_ been visions of what future Christmases might bring in the
shape of a new stable and stud--"still splendider nor the one I got two
birfdays ago," as he thought to himself.
Leila drew near him.
"Shall I help you?" she said. "I've finished my book," she went on,
"and I've nothing to do," as if half-ashamed of her unusual good-nature.
"I say, Japs, you do keep some of your toys a long time. I don't see
many bad enough for the Children's Hospital."
Jasper's serious blue eyes slowly reviewed his spread-out treasures, but
for a minute or two he did not speak.