Miss Unity was surprised to find, as time went on, that Pennie's weekly
visits were neither irksome nor disturbing; there was something about
them, on the contrary, that she really liked. She could not account for
it, but it was certainly true that instead of dreading Thursday she was
glad when it came, and quite sorry when it was over. And then it was
such a comfort to find that Betty, far from making any objection or
difficulty, was pleased to approve of the arrangement, and even when
Pennie, who was very untidy, rumpled the anti-macassars and upset the
precise position of the drawing-room chairs, she neither murmured nor
frowned.
Miss Unity was happier just now than she had been for a long while, for
although her life flowed on from year to year in placid content it had
not much active interest in it. If it had few anxieties it also had few
pleasures, and each day as it came was exactly like the one which had
gone before. But now there was one day, Pennie's day, as Miss Unity
called it in her thoughts, which was quite different from any other in
the week. The moment she arrived, full of her eager little schemes and
fancies, with all sorts of important news from Easney, Dickie's last
funny saying, how far baby could crawl, and what the boys had been
doing, the quiet old house seemed to brighten up and grow young again.
Echoes of all the little voices which had sounded there long ago woke
from their sleep, and filled the staircase and the sombre rooms with
chatter and laughter.
It made Miss Unity herself feel younger to hear the news, and she soon
found it easy to be really interested in all that Pennie had to tell
her. She proved such an attentive listener, and Pennie, after the
restraint of the dancing-class, was so inclined to be confidential and
talkative, that tea became a most agreeable and sociable meal. Betty,
on her part, honoured the occasion by sending up hot-buttered cakes of
peculiar excellence, which ever afterwards were closely connected with
dancing in Pennie's mind.
As for the class itself, the misery of it was certainly softened as time
went on, but it always remained somewhat of a trial to Pennie, and she
never distinguished herself as a pupil. It was disappointing to find,
too, that the acquaintance with the Merridews from which Miss Unity had
hoped so much, did not advance quickly; she inquired anxiously, after a
few lessons, how Pennie got on with her companions.
"Pretty well," answered Pennie; "I like the look of Sabine best, I
think."
"But she's quite a little thing," said Miss Unity. "Ethel is your age,
is she not?"
Pennie assented with some reserve.
"If you like," said Miss Unity with a great effort, "we might ask Ethel
to come to tea with you and spend the evening on Thursday."
Pennie raised a face of unfeigned alarm from her plate.
"Oh, please not!" she exclaimed pleadingly, "what should we talk about
all the evening? I'm sure we don't like the same things at all--and I'm
sure she wouldn't care about coming either."
So, greatly to Miss Unity's own relief, it was decided once for all that
Ethel should not be asked to tea, and she continued to find increasing
satisfaction in her god-daughter's society.
There was another matter which Pennie had not advanced since her visits
to Nearminster, and that was her acquaintance with Kettles. She neither
saw nor heard anything of her, which was not surprising, since neither
Miss Unity nor the Merridews were likely to know of her existence. To
Nancy, however, it seemed absurd that Pennie should go every week to
Nearminster and bring back no news at all. She began to feel sure that
Pennie had not made good use of her opportunities.
"Do you mean to say you know nothing more about her at all?" she asked
with contempt. "Well, if I were you, I should have found out something
by this time, I know."
Pennie bore these reproofs meekly, for she felt their justice. Nancy
always did manage to find out things better than she did, but at the
same time she could not think of any way of getting information. At
last accident came to her aid.
One evening as they sat together after tea, Miss Unity winding wool and
Pennie holding the skein, the former rose to get something out of the
cupboard near the fireplace. As she reached to the back of it something
round and smooth rolled forward and fell on the floor.
It was the head of the poor mandarin.
"Ah!" said Miss Unity with a long-drawn sigh, as though she were in
sudden pain.
Pennie picked it up, and her godmother, replacing it gently, shut the
cupboard door and took up her wool again. Her face was very grave, and
the frown on her forehead had deepened, but Pennie knew by this time
that Miss Unity was not cross when she looked like that, but sad. So,
although there was something she wanted to say very much, she kept
silence for a little while. Her thoughts went back to the day when
Ethelwyn had broken the mandarin, and then to her plan for getting
another, and how it had failed. When she reached this point she
ventured to inquire gently:
"Where did the mandarin come from?"
"A long, long way off, my dear," replied Miss Unity, with a far-away
look in her eyes as though she saw the distant country herself.
"Could another be got?" continued Pennie.
Her godmother looked inquiringly at her eager face.
"Another!" she repeated. "I suppose so. But I could never care about
another."
"Not if it were just exactly the same?" persisted Pennie.
"It could not be the same to me," said Miss Unity; "but why do you ask,
my dear?"
"Because," said Pennie, "we wanted to get you another one for a
surprise--only--things happened--and we couldn't save enough money."
Miss Unity leant forward suddenly and kissed her little guest.
"I thank you quite as much for the thought, dear Pennie, as if you had
done it," she said. "But I am glad you did not. There were reasons
which made me fond of the old mandarin years and years ago. I do not
think I should like to see a new one in his place."
Pennie and she were both silent. Miss Unity's thoughts had perhaps
travelled to that far-off country where the mandarin had lived, but
Pennie's were nearer home.
"Then," she said half aloud, "I suppose it really would be better to
collect for Kettles."
The voice at her side woke Miss Unity from her day-dream. The last word
fell on her ear.
"Kettles, my dear!" she said. "What do you want with kettles?"
"It's a person," explained Pennie, "a little girl. We saw her at old
Nurse's. And Nancy wants to give her a new pair of boots and
stockings."
"Does she live with old Nurse?" asked Miss Unity.
"Oh, no!" answered Pennie. "She only came in for the tea-leaves. She
lives in Anchoranopally."
"_Where_?" said Miss Unity in a surprised voice.
"Oh!" cried Pennie with a giggle of amusement, "I forgot you wouldn't
understand. Nancy and I always call it that when we talk together. It
really is the `Anchor and Hope Alley,' you know, turning out of the High
Street close to the College."
Poor Miss Unity became more and more confused every moment. It all
sounded puzzling and improper to her. "Kettles" coming in for
tea-leaves, and living in "Anchoranopally." How could Pennie have
become familiar with such a child?
"But--my dear--" she said faintly. "That's the very worst part of
Nearminster. Full of dirty, wicked people. You ought to know nothing
of such places. And I don't like to hear you mispronounce words, it
might grow into a habit. It's not at all nice."
"We only call it so because Kettles did, you see," said Pennie. "She
didn't look at all wicked, and old Nurse says her mother is a decent
woman. Her face was rather dirty, perhaps. She's got a bad father. He
drinks--like lots of the people at Easney--"
"I am sorry to hear," interrupted Miss Unity, drawing himself up, "that
Mrs Margetts allowed you to see such a person at all, or to hear
anything of her relations. I am afraid she forgot herself."
"She couldn't help it," said Pennie eagerly. "Nancy and I were at tea
with her, and Kettles came in for the tea-leaves, and had some bread and
honey. And we asked Nurse to let her come and see us again, and she
said `No, she knew her duty better.' So we've never seen her since, but
we've always wanted to. Her real name is Keturah. Nurse says it's a
Scripture name, but we think Kettles suits her best." Pennie stopped to
take breath.
"The dean was saying only the other day," remarked Miss Unity stiffly,
"that Anchor and Hope Alley is a scandal to Nearminster. A disgraceful
place to be so near the precincts."
"Does he go to see the people in it?" asked Pennie.
"The _dean_, my dear! He has other and far more important matters to
attend to. It would be most unsuitable to the dignity of his position."
"I knew Nancy was wrong," said Pennie with some triumph. "She thought
he might know Kettles' father and mother, but I was quite sure he
didn't. Does anyone go to see them?" she added.
"I have no doubt they are visited by people properly appointed for the
purpose," said Miss Unity coldly; "and you see, Pennie, if they are good
people they can come to church and enjoy all the church privileges as
well as any one else."
Pennie was silent. She could not fancy Kettles coming to church in that
battered bonnet and those big boots. What a noise she would make, and
how everyone would look at her!
"Father goes to see the bad people in Easney as well as the good ones,"
she said, more to herself than her godmother. "Lots of them never come
to church."
"Easney is quite different from a cathedral town," said Miss Unity with
dignity.
And here the conversation ended, partly because Pennie had no answer to
make to this statement, and partly because it was time to go to the
evening service. It was a special service to-night, for a sermon was to
be preached in aid of foreign missions by the Bishop of Karawayo. This
was particularly interesting to Miss Unity, and though Pennie did not
care about the bishop it was always a great pleasure to her to go to the
Cathedral.
"May we go in through the cloisters?" she asked as they crossed the
Close.
Miss Unity much preferred entering at the west door and thought the
cloisters damp, but she willingly assented, for it was difficult for her
to refuse Pennie anything.
There was something about the murky dimness of the cloisters which
filled Pennie with a sort of pleasant awe. She shivered a little as she
walked through them, not with cold, but because she fancied them
thronged with unseen presences. How many, many feet must have trod
those ancient flag-stones to have worn them into such waves and hollows.
Perhaps they still went hurrying through the cloisters, and that was
what made the air feel so thick with mystery, and why she was never
inclined to talk while she was there.
Miss Unity always went as swiftly through the cloisters as possible; and
Pennie, keeping close to her side, tried as she went along to make out
the half-effaced inscriptions at her feet. There was one she liked
specially, and always took care not to tread upon:
Jane Lister Deare Childe.
Aged 6 Years. 1629.
By degrees she had built up a history about this little girl, and felt
that she knew her quite well, so that she was always glad to pass her
resting-place and say something to her in her thoughts.
Through a very low-arched doorway--so low that Miss Unity had to bend
her head to go under it--they entered the dimly-lighted Cathedral. Only
the choir was used for the service, and the great nave, with its solemn
marble tombs here and there, was half-dark and deserted. Pillars,
shafts, and arches loomed indistinct yet gigantic, and seemed to rise
up, up, up, till they were lost in a misty invisible region together
with the sounds of the organ and the echoes of the choristers' voices.
The greatness and majesty of it all gave Pennie feelings which she did
not understand and could not put into words; they were half pleasure and
half pain, and quite prevented the service from being wearisome to her,
as it sometimes was at Easney. She had so much to think of here. The
Cathedral was so full of great people, from the crusader in his mailed
armour and shield, to the mitred bishop with his crozier, lying so
quietly on their tombs with such stern peaceful faces.
Pennie knew them all well, and in her own mind she decided that Bishop
Jocelyne, who had built the great central tower hundreds of years ago,
was a far nicer bishop to look at than the one who was preaching this
evening. She tried to pay attention to the sermon, but finding that it
was full of curious hard names and a great number of figures, she gave
it up and settled comfortably into her corner to think her own thoughts.
These proved so interesting that she was startled when she found the
service over and Miss Unity groping for her umbrella.
Just outside the Cathedral they were overtaken by Mrs Merridew and her
eldest daughter.
"Most interesting, was it not?" she observed to Miss Unity, "and casts
quite a new light on the condition of those poor benighted creatures.
The bishop is a charming man, full of information. The dean is
delighted. He has always been so interested in foreign missions. The
children think of having a collecting-box."
"Did you like the sermon, Pennie?" asked Miss Unity as they passed on;
"I hope you tried to listen."
"I did--at first," said Pennie, "till all those names came. I liked the
hymn," she added.
"Wouldn't it be nice for you to have a collecting-box at home,"
continued Miss Unity, "like the Merridews, so that you might help these
poor people?"
Pennie hung her head. She felt sure she ought to wish to help them, but
at the same time she did not want to at all. They lived so far-away, in
places with names she could not even pronounce, and they were such utter
strangers to her.
"Wouldn't you like it?" repeated her godmother anxiously.
Pennie took courage.
"You see," she said, "I haven't got much money--none of us have. And I
know Kettles--at least I've seen her. And I know where Anchor and Hope
Alley is, and that makes it so much nicer. And so I'd rather give it to
her than to those other people, if you don't mind."
"Of course not, my dear," said Miss Unity. "It is your own money, and
you must spend it as you like."
Pennie fancied there was a sound of disapproval in her voice, and in
fact Miss Unity was a little disappointed. She had always felt it to be
a duty to support missions and to subscribe to missionary societies, to
attend meetings, and to make clothes for the native children in India.
At that very time she was reading a large thick book about missions,
which she had bought at the auction of the Nearminster book club. She
read a portion every evening and kept a marker carefully in the place.
She was sure that she, as well as the dean, was deeply interested in
foreign missions. If she could have made them attractive to Pennie
also, it might take the place of Kettles and Anchor and Hope Alley.
For Miss Unity thought this a much more suitable object, and one
moreover which could be carried out without any contact with dirt and
wickedness! Squalor and the miseries of poverty had always been as
closely shut out of her life as they were from the trim prosperity of
the precincts, and Miss Unity considered it fitting that they should be
so. She knew that these squalid folk were there, close outside; she was
quite ready to give other people money to help them, or to subscribe to
any fund for their improvement or relief, but it had always seemed to
her unbecoming and needless for a lady to know anything about the
details of their lives.
The children's idea, therefore, of providing Kettles with new boots and
stockings did not commend itself to her in the least. There were proper
ways of giving clothes to the poor. If the child's mother was a decent
woman, as old Nurse had said, she belonged to a clothing club and could
get them for herself. If she was not a respectable person, the less
Pennie knew of her the better. At any rate Miss Unity resolved to do
her best to discourage the project, and certainly Pennie was not likely
to hear much, either at her house or the deanery, to remind her of
Anchor and Hope Alley and its unfortunate inmates.
Pennie on her side, though a trifle discouraged by the coldness with
which any mention of Kettles was received, felt that at least she had
taken a step towards her further acquaintance. Very likely her
godmother might come in time to approve of the idea and to wish to hear
more about it. "I shall have something to tell Nancy at last," she said
to herself when she woke up the next morning and remembered the
conversation.
But she was not to see Nancy as soon as she thought. After breakfast
Andrew arrived, not with the waggonette as usual to fetch Pennie home,
but mounted on Ruby with a letter from Mrs Hawthorne to Miss Unity.
Dickie was ill. It might be only a severe cold, her mother said, but
there were cases of measles in the village, and she felt anxious. Would
Miss Unity keep Pennie with her for the next few days? Further news
should be sent to-morrow.
As she read this all sorts of plans and arrangements passed through Miss
Unity's mind and stirred it pleasantly. She was sorry for Dickie and
the others, but it was quite an excitement to her to think of keeping
Pennie with her longer.
"Miss Penelope will remain here to-night," she said to Betty, "and
probably for two or three days. Miss Delicia is ill, and they think it
may be measles."
"Oh, indeed, Miss!" said Betty with a sagacious nod. "Then it'll go
through all the children."
"Do you think so?" said Miss Unity, who had great faith in Betty's
judgment. "Then it may be a matter of weeks?"
"Or months, Miss," replied Betty. "It depends on how they sicken."
"In that case I've been thinking," said Miss Unity timidly, "whether it
would be better to put Miss Penelope into the little pink-chintz room."
"Well, it is more cheerful than the best room, Miss," said Betty
condescendingly, "though it's small."
The pink-chintz room was a tiny apartment opening out of Miss Unity's.
She had slept in it herself as a child, and though there was not much
pink left in the chintz now, there were still some pictures and small
ornaments remaining from that time. It had a pleasant look-out, too, on
to the quiet green Close, and was altogether a contrast to the dark
sombrely furnished room Pennie had been occupying. So after Betty had
scoured and cleaned and aired as much as she thought fit, Pennie and all
her small belongings were settled into the pink-chintz roomy and it
turned out that her stay there was to be a long one. The news from
Easney did not improve. Dickie certainly had the measles, the baby soon
followed her example, and shortly afterwards Ambrose took it, so that
Nancy and David were the only two down-stairs.
"What a good thing, my dear, that you were here!" said Miss Unity kindly
to her guest. Pennie was obliged to answer "Yes" for the sake of
politeness, but in truth she thought she would rather risk the measles
and be at home.
Nearminster was nice in many ways and Miss Unity was kind, but it was so
dreadfully dull as time went on to have no one of her own age to talk to
about things. There were the Merridews, but in spite of Miss Unity's
praises Pennie did not like them any better, and had not become more
familiar with them. She had certainly plenty of conversation with her
godmother, who did her best to sympathise except on the subject of
Kettles; but nothing made up for the loss of Nancy and her brothers--not
even the long letters which the former sent now and then from Easney,
written in a bold sprawling hand, covering three sheets of paper, and a
good deal blotted. Here is one of these epistles:--
"_My dear Pennie,--Dickie got up and had chicken for dinner to-day, and
was very frackshus. Ambrose is in bed still. He has Guy Manring read
aloud to him, and he will toss his arms out of bed at the egsiting
parts; so mother says she must leave off. David and I have lessons.
David said yesterday he would rather have meesles than do his sums, so
Miss Grey said he was ungrateful. I never play with the dolls now_.
_If you were here we could play their having meesles, but it is no good
alone. Baby had the meesles worst of all. Doctor Banks comes every
day. He has a new grey horse. Have you been to see old Nurse lately?
and have you seen Kettles? Dickie sends you these sugar kisses she made
herself. She burnt her fingers and screamed for nearly an hour.--Your
loving sister, Nancy Hawthorne_."
Pennie answered these letters fully, and moreover, in case she might
forget anything, she kept a diary, and wrote something in it at the end
of each day. Sometimes there was so little to put down that she had to
make some reflections, or copy a piece of poetry to fill it up; but it
was a comfort to her to think that some day she should read it over with
Nancy and Ambrose.
Meanwhile, this visit of Pennie's, which was to her a kind of exile, was
a very different matter to Miss Unity. Day by day Pennie's comfort,
Pennie's improvement, Pennie's pleasure filled her thoughts more and
more, and it became strange to think of the time when the little
pink-chintz room had been empty.