BARBARA'S DREAM
Once more, Kit stood with his back to the fireplace, and prepared to
address the family. It was just half an hour after Mr. Berkeley had left,
and they were all assembled rather sorrowfully in the old schoolroom. In
another ten minutes their own cabs would be at the door, and they too
would be on their way to a new life. Altogether, it was a solemn moment,
and the genius of the family could not resist the temptation to make a
speech.
'Boys,' he began, nodding his head with mock importance, 'it is my opinion
that Auntie Anna is a jolly wise old lady!'
'What's that to do with father going away?' asked Barbara, rubbing her
eyes furiously. She had had her cry on the back staircase, and she felt
safe for the moment against a further display of weakness.
'It's got a lot to do with it,' rejoined Kit. 'Didn't she take us all
to the pantomime, last night--father, too? I suppose you think that was
just to amuse herself, don't you? Well, it wasn't. It was because she
was afraid of our sitting together at home, and saying it was father's
last evening, and--_blubbing_.'
This he said severely, looking at the weaker members, Babs and Robin, as
he spoke. They bore the test heroically, and the orator went on.
'And why,' he inquired, 'did she give us only a week to pack up, and buy
clothes and things, when there's ten days more before you other chaps go
back? Of course there's the Babe's school, but that could have waited.
Girls' schools never matter.'
'Well, _why_, most precocious of kids?' asked Egbert, with lazy tolerance.
Certainly, no one but Christopher would have been allowed to say so much
uninterrupted. But then, even Egbert had a kind of secret admiration for
his clever young brother, though he did not pretend to understand him.
'Well,' continued Christopher, 'if we'd had more time to think about it,
we might not have been so keen on going to live in another person's house.
And, naturally, Auntie Anna didn't want any ructions over it.'
'Oh, stop it, Kit! What a lot of rot you are making up!' objected Peter,
impatiently. Of the three elder boys, he was nearest in age to Kit, and
was consequently less inclined to tolerate him.
'Everything points to it, if you're not too thick-headed to see,' retorted
Kit, crushingly. 'Look at the way we're being rushed out of the house,
directly father has turned his back. Isn't that to give us something to
think about, so that we shouldn't mope about the shop, and _fancy_
ourselves? Of course,' he added blandly, fixing his spectacles on his
nose and staring at Peter, '_some_ people don't need anything to set them
grinning again.'
'Christopher, my son, you are a clever child, but your impudence simply
isn't to be borne,' said Peter; and he stooped down and lifted the fragile
figure of the orator high in the air, and set him down lightly outside the
door. Kit rearranged his tie, put his spectacles straight, and peered
up at the unappreciative listener who towered above him.
'As I was saying,' he resumed gently, 'Auntie Anna can give us all points
when it comes to being 'cute.'
The next day or two proved the truth of what, in his shrewd way, he
had already guessed for himself. Yet the Berkeleys were hardly to be
called unfeeling, because they appeared to take their father's departure
so coolly; for it would have been difficult to remain unhappy long, when
there were so many delightful things to distract them. Besides their
excitement, town-bred as they were, at finding themselves in a real
country-house, with an oak staircase, a secret room, and a ghost story,
there were separate joys waiting for each one of them as well. There
was a horse for Egbert to ride to hounds, and a well-stocked library
for Christopher to bury himself in, and a lumber-room for Wilfred to turn
into a laboratory; while Peter was allowed, the very first day, to go out
shooting with the keepers, and Robin promptly became the pet of all the
men on the estate, and spent long, happy hours with them down at the
stables and the farm. If there was any one in the family who was not
perfectly content, it was Barbara.
No doubt, she would have been quite as absorbed as the others were in
their new home, if she had not been going to another one herself the very
next day. As it was, she found it a little difficult to share their
enthusiasm since she had a private enthusiasm of her own. But the boys
did not understand this at all. They were very affectionate to her in
their rough, undemonstrative way, and they were always telling her that
she would be sure to 'pull through all right'; for they naturally supposed
that she wanted the kind of pity they wanted so much themselves at the
stated, horrible periods when they went back to school. But as to grasping
her notion that she was going to enjoy life at Wootton Beeches, that
was not to be expected of them. So Barbara felt that her interests, for
the first time in her life, were not the same as theirs; and a queer
sort of feeling crept over her, that changes--even nice, interesting
changes--occasionally had something strange and uncomfortable about them.
She grew so perplexed over it, at last, that she even went to Jill for
sympathy. Jill was at least a girl, and Jill had been to school, in the
same delightful place to which she was going on the morrow; and Jill
at least ought to know whether the boys' idea of school was right or
wrong. So, just after tea, on her last evening at Crofts, the child
swallowed her natural distrust of her cousin, which, after all, had
arisen chiefly from their mutual shyness of each other, and started in
search of her.
Jill was in the conservatory, arranging the flowers for the dinner-table;
and Barbara's shyness returned, as the trim, neat figure came walking
towards her, along the rows of chrysanthemums. She glanced down at her
crumpled pinafore and sighed desperately. Being dragged up a dusty
ladder into a cobwebby lumber-room by Wilfred had not proved the best of
treatments for a pinafore that really had been clean a couple of hours
ago. But Jill suddenly came out in a new light. With no teasing schoolboys
to overhear her, she felt that here, at last, was a chance of making
friends with her odd little tomboy of a cousin.
'Have you come to help me with the flowers?' she asked, with such a
friendly smile, that Babs cheered up at once. She forgot all about her
crumpled pinafore, and went straight to the point.
'No, I didn't come for that,' she answered simply. 'I came to ask you
about--about school.'
'Ah!' said Jill, suddenly picking chrysanthemums at a great rate.
'Supposing you tell me what you think about it yourself?'
Her mother's words were running in her head: 'Do your best to understand
the poor little soul!' and Jill wondered what she could tell her that
would not upset her notions of school too cruelly.
'Oh, well,' replied Babs, 'of course, _I_ think it's going to be
beautiful; but the boys--the boys are so funny about it, and it's
made me all in a muddle inside. Do you think the boys _know_?'
'Perhaps not,' said Jill, and she strolled away along the rows of
chrysanthemums. It seemed a shame to spoil the child's illusion; and yet,
when she thought of this quaint little untrained object being dropped in
the middle of the girls at Wootton Beeches----
Barbara had followed her up closely, and she suddenly interrupted her
reflections. 'You know what a girls' school is like, don't you, Jill?' she
continued appealingly. 'I wish--I _do_ wish you would tell the boys they
are all wrong about it. They _are_ wrong, aren't they?'
There was a suspicion of a doubt in the last words that struck Jill as
being rather pathetic. She put her bunch of chrysanthemums down, and drew
Barbara towards her. 'You see, Babs, it is like this,' she said slowly;
'school is very nice, if you do not mind things being strange at first,
and if you can bear being laughed at, and----'
'Why, that is quite easy!' interrupted Babs, with a smile. 'The boys have
teased me always.'
'Yes,' said Jill, doubtfully; 'the boys have teased you; but that is not
quite the same thing. Girls--girls are not boys, you see.'
'Oh no, I know they're not!' replied Barbara, happily. 'Girls are quiet
and kind and gentle; and they always understand you, and they are ready
to make friends directly they see you. I think I know what _girls_ are
like.'
She was thinking of the princesses in her fairy kingdom; and another
little smile flickered across her face. Jill glanced at her for a moment,
and then suddenly made up her mind how to act.
'Look here, Babs,' she began, smoothing the mop of tangled hair with her
hands; 'you go on thinking that girls are like that, and you'll get along
all right!' Barbara wriggled away from her before she had time to say
any more, gave her a swift look and a smile of gratitude, and darted off
in search of the boys. 'They'll be very stupid if they don't see what a
babe it is,' added Jill to herself.
At the door of the conservatory, however, the small figure in the crumpled
pinafore came to a sudden standstill.
'I say, Jill,' the child blurted out, and she clutched a handful of
pinafore to give herself courage; 'I--I want to tell you something.'
'Do you?' said Jill, smiling.
'I want to explain that I hated you at first, because I thought you
were going to make the boys like you better than me,' Babs went on
breathlessly. 'And you frightened me too, because you laughed in such a
funny way, just as if you were sneering at me for being in a muck. I
thought, perhaps, it was because you were so grand, and your clothes
were so grand, and all that; but I couldn't help being in a muck, because
I always am in a muck, you see; and so, you see--you see----'
[Illustration: 'Look here Babs,' she began, smoothing the mop of tangled
hair]
'I see,' said Jill, quietly; and she looked quite thoughtful for a minute
or two. Babs came a step nearer.
'I don't hate you now,' she said frankly. 'For one thing, the boys
don't like you better than me, after all. They don't even like you so
much as they thought they were going to. But _I_ think you're awfully
nice,--almost as nice as Kit and Nurse and father,--and I shall go and
tell them so, now; and then, perhaps, they won't say you are young-ladyish
any more!'
There was a vision of slim black legs and white pinafore disappearing
across the hall, and Jill could not help laughing. 'I must catch the post,
and write to that child Jean,' she decided, after a moment's reflection.
'It won't be so bad for the poor little mite if she has some one to show
her round.'
Late on the following afternoon the 'adopted kid' found another chance
of making her way to Barbara's heart. Barbara had wandered into the
library, with a whole hour to spare before the carriage should come round
to drive her to school; and, rather to her surprise, she discovered Kit
there, sitting huddled up in the arm-chair, with his shoulders up to his
ears. She had thought that all the boys were out ratting, and she had
not expected to see any of them until they came in at tea-time to bid
her farewell. She was feeling rather doleful, now that the important
moment was so near, for she realised that if she was going to everything
that was new and delightful, she was also going away from the boys for
the first time in her life. It did not cheer her to find Christopher
sitting over the fire with an attack of asthma.
'Kit!' she cried in distress. 'I didn't know you were ill!'
Kit crouched closer to the fire and growled. Asthma always had a bad
effect upon his temper, and to-day he had a grievance as well.
'Of course you didn't know,' he muttered. 'You never know anything now.
Can't think what's come over you lately.'
Barbara reddened, and the tears welled up in her eyes. No one could hurt
her so easily as Christopher. 'I'm awfully sorry, Kit. I suppose I've been
thinking about school,' she said; and she dropped the poker with a bang
that made him wince.
'Lucky for you to be able to go to school,' answered Kit, crossly. 'Look
at me! Just because of that journey on Wednesday I've got to coddle like
an old woman.'
Barbara stood gazing at him helplessly. Her heart was full of pity, but
no one had ever taught her how to show it. 'Poor old boy!' she said
awkwardly. 'Would you like me to tell you a story?'
'Not I! How can you think of a story when you're full of that stupid
school?' was the surly answer.
'But I'm not thinking about school now, Kit,' persisted the Babe, becoming
tearful.
'Oh, never mind. Don't cry, whatever you do; I've got such a headache,'
said Christopher, hastily.
'I'm n--not crying; I never cry,' stammered Barbara, in a shaky voice.
'I--I want to do something for you, only you won't tell me what to do.'
Kit answered her with a violent struggle for breath, and the child felt
more helpless than ever. It was just as she was making a feeble attempt
to raise him in his chair that Jill came in.
'You poor fellow!' she exclaimed, taking in the whole scene at once.
'Here, Babs, give me that piece of brown paper, and run and fetch his
medicine, will you? Poor boy! Poor Kit!'
She knelt beside him and supported him with her arm, while she wafted a
smouldering tuft of brown paper in front of him. 'Now, fetch some cushions
out of the drawing-room,' she commanded, when Barbara returned with the
medicine; and, delighted at being given something to do, the child sped
away on her errand. When she came back with her arms full of cushions,
Jill had a delightful plan to unfold.
'Ring the bell for the lamp, Babs,' she said, in her soft voice, which
was already soothing Christopher's nerves; 'and we'll have tea together
before you go. Shall we, Kit, dear?'
'It's awfully good of you,' he answered weakly. The attack was passing
off, and he was visibly cheering up. By the time tea was brought in, he
was sufficiently recovered to take the lead in his usual determined
manner; and Jill humoured him by giving in to him meekly, even consenting,
under his guidance, to toast slices of plum-cake at the end of a penknife.
'It's very extravagant, when it's Auntie Anna's plum-cake instead of the
stale stuff cook used to make; but as it's the Babe's last evening we may
be extravagant, mayn't we, Jill?' argued Christopher. 'Now, Babs, you melt
the butter; and for goodness' sake do remember you're not at home, and
don't smash the plate.'
His reminder did not wholly make the desired effect upon Babs, for when
the boys returned from the farm in a noisy tribe, flushed with the glory
of slaying, they found the 'adopted kid' scrubbing her gown with a clean
handkerchief, while Babs hung over her, covered with confusion.
'Don't worry yourself, child,' Jill was saying consolingly. 'A lump of
butter, more or less, doesn't make any difference to a frock I've worn
all the winter.'
'It just slid off the plate when I wasn't looking,' said Barbara,
penitently. 'I can't think why it didn't slide on to my frock instead
of yours.'
A chorus of merriment rang from behind.
'You ridiculous Babe!' shouted Peter. 'Why, the butter is _tired_ of being
spilled down your frock.'
Jill jumped to her feet, and blushed a little. As Kit had predicted,
she found it much easier to get on with her cousins when she took them
'separately, or in pairs'; and she was not used yet to facing them all at
once. The sound of wheels outside gave her an excuse for escape, and she
put her arm hurriedly round Babs.
'Come upstairs and put on your hat,' she suggested, and the two girls
hastened out of the room.
Auntie Anna saw to it that the farewells were not prolonged, and Barbara
found herself whirled into the covered wagonette with her last words only
half said. Kit was allowed time to whisper a gruff apology for being cross
with her before tea, but the others had to follow her to the front door
to shout their good-byes after her.
'Don't get the blues because _we_ are not there!' cried Wilfred.
'I'll write great lots of times,' declared Robin, who was in tears. 'I
won't even wait for the lines to be ruled, Babs dear. You won't mind the
spelling, will you? 'Cause it saves so much time if you don't.'
'Cheer up!' was all Egbert said; and Barbara wondered if she was very
hard-hearted, because she was not half so wretched as they all expected
her to be. Peter even made her laugh outright, as he sprang on the step
of the carriage, and went a little way down the drive with them.
'Don't funk it, old girl!' he shouted through the window. 'And just send
for us, if anything goes wrong!'
'Be off with you!' said Auntie Anna, shutting up the window; and that was
the last that the Babe of the Berkeley family saw of the boys who had been
her only companions through life.
She had plenty to think about in her long drive in the dark; and Auntie
Anna was wise enough to leave her alone most of the time. A little more
than an hour later, however, when the carriage made a sharp turn and drove
through some gates, the old lady roused her by a touch on the arm.
'We are just there, little woman,' she said in her quick, abrupt way. 'Not
afraid, eh?'
'Oh no!' answered Barbara, smiling. 'I--I'm just excited.'
Mrs. Crofton kissed the eager little face, on which the light shone as
they approached the house.
'That's right,' she said, looking pleased. 'Always be a truthful little
girl, and don't mind if you find you are not like other people.'
Then the horses stopped, and a blaze of light shone down a flight of
steps to the carriage door; and Babs, feeling suddenly very small and
unimportant, in spite of the extra inch or two on her new serge frock,
followed the old lady into the great wide hall of Wootton Beeches.
Her dream was coming true at last.