Then she pulled down her blind.
*CHAPTER II*
*PAMELA RECEIVES A STRANGE INVITATION*
A few days before the incident occurred which is recorded in the
previous chapter, Pamela Heath was standing at the dining-room window of
her home in Oldminster (a town about forty miles from Barrowfield).
Pamela, like the woman who sat watching the ivy-covered house, was also
gazing through a window--but on to a very different scene: morning, a
bright January morning, and a busy stream of people passing up and down
the sunny street.
Pamela was a tall, slim girl, about sixteen years old; she was very
pleasant to look at with her curly, chestnut-coloured hair, tied at her
neck with a brown ribbon bow, and her brown eyes and clear complexion,
which were emphasized by the dark green dress she was wearing. Strictly
speaking Pamela would not have been called pretty--in the sense that
regular features stand for prettiness; her nose was a tiny bit square at
the tip, and the distance from her nose to her upper lip was a trifle
more than beauty experts would allow, and her mouth was a little too
wide for prettiness. But those who met Pamela for the first time found
her expression of frank good-humour far more attractive than mere
prettiness. And when she was in one of her 'beamy' moods (as her
brother Michael used to call them)--that is, when she was vivaciously
talking, and laughing, and keenly interested in making other people
enjoy themselves--then she was irresistible. However grudgingly you
admitted it, you found you _had_ to confess to yourself that you were
enjoying yourself--when Pamela was 'beamy.'
This sunny Saturday morning when we first see Pamela she stands drumming
on the window-pane with her fingers, watching for Michael to come round
the corner of the street from the post-office, where he has been to post
their father's Saturday morning letters. Michael is her elder
brother--a year older than Pamela--and the two are great chums. There
are two sisters and another brother younger than Pamela, but they will
be introduced by and by, as Pamela is not thinking of them at the
moment; she is thinking of Michael, and wishing he would hurry up so
that they might start off on their sketching expedition.
They were both fond of sketching, and used to tramp out on Saturday
mornings with their sketch-blocks and pencils (and some sandwiches and
fruit in a satchel) and try to picture some of the beautiful scenery
outside Oldminster.
But there was to be no sketching for either of them this morning. For
on his way to the house where Pamela lived was a little old man, with a
very high bald forehead, and a top hat, and a shiny black coat--and the
news he was bringing was to drive all thoughts of sketching from their
minds for some time to come.
Long afterward Pamela remembered every detail of this Saturday morning,
all the little familiar sounds going on in the house--the clatter of
dishes downstairs; the murmur of Mother's and Doris's voices in the
hall, and John's high, childish tones asking them some question--and
then their laughing at him. Father's typewriter could be heard faintly
clicking away in the study, and in the drawing-room Olive was playing
the only tune she knew on the piano. The butcher's cart came clattering
down the street and pulled up next door.
Pamela stopped drumming on the window and, pushing it open, leant out to
see if Michael was coming. Then it was she caught sight of a rather
round-shouldered old man in a top hat hurrying down the street, stopping
every other second to peer closely at the numbers on the gates. When he
reached Pamela's gate he not only stopped and looked at the number but,
straightening himself up, he pushed the gate open and came in.
Pamela withdrew her head hastily and stepped back into the room.
"Whoever can this be?" she thought. "He looks rather shabby, poor
soul--I wonder if he's come begging or trying to sell machine needles."
But the little old man's business had nothing to do with either of these
things, as Pamela was soon to find out. A few minutes later she found
herself in her father's study being introduced to Mr Joseph
Sigglesthorne, whose mild blue eyes and nervous manner ill accorded with
the businesslike news which he was endeavouring to convey. Mr and Mrs
Heath and Pamela sat facing the nervous little man, who had removed his
top hat of course, and now exposed the high bald forehead which gave
him, so he fancied, a slight resemblance to Shakespeare. Slight though
it was, this resemblance gave Mr Joseph Sigglesthorne a considerable
amount of happiness; it always made him feel more important directly he
took his hat off.
"Perhaps I ought to say, first of all," began Mr Sigglesthorne,
producing a pair of spectacles from his coat pocket and commencing to
polish them nervously with his handkerchief, "that I--that I am--you
will excuse me, sir, _and_ madam," he turned to Mr and Mrs Heath and
inclined his head, "that--I was going to say, I have the honour to be a
kind of distant relation of a distant relation of yours." He rubbed the
glasses a little quicker. "You remember Miss Emily Crabingway,
doubtless. The lady is, if I am not mistaken, a fourth cousin to--to
madam here?" He inclined his head again toward Mrs Heath.
"Emily Crabingway! Why, yes," said Mrs Heath. "But I haven't seen her
for years--quite twelve years I should think."
"So she says, madam, so she says," continued Mr Sigglesthorne. "Well--I
am her second cousin once removed, if I may say so--and she has
entrusted me with a little--er--a little transaction--I mean proposal,
or rather suggestion--er--with regard to your daughter Pamela." Mr
Sigglesthorne was still polishing his glasses energetically. "Miss Emily
Crabingway is obliged to go up to Scotland--on business. That was all I
had to tell you about that part, I believe--yes, that's correct--on
_business_, she said. She will be away for six months..." He
hesitated, his eyes on the top of the window curtains behind Mr Heath's
head. "Yes--six months--and during that time she wants to know if Miss
Pamela will go and live at her house in Barrowfield, and look after it
for her--and--" he went on, emphasizing each word as if repeating a
lesson, "certain conditions being undertaken by Miss Pamela, and
fulfilled properly--Miss Crabingway will--er--bestow upon the young lady
a sum of--if I may say so--a not inconsiderable sum--er--in short, fifty
pounds." Mr Sigglesthorne removed his gaze from the top of the curtains
to Mr Heath's boots, which he appeared to study intently for a space.
Mr and Mrs Heath exchanged surprised glances, but Pamela was looking
wonderingly at Mr Sigglesthorne's magnificent forehead, and did not
move. Before any of them could speak Mr Sigglesthorne resumed:
"If Miss Pamela agrees to accept the offer she would be required to sign
this paper, promising to obey certain instructions of Miss Crabingway's;
but doubtless you would like to read it--I have it here in my pocket."
Mr Sigglesthorne stopped polishing his glasses, and resting them on the
top of his hat, which lay on a chair beside him, he felt in his coat
pocket. But his memory had played him false; it was the wrong pocket.
He turned the contents out, but not finding what he sought he tried
another pocket, fumbling with nervous, clumsy fingers, and producing
various papers and envelopes and odd bits of string. The longer he
searched the more nervous he got. "Tut! tut!" he kept saying to
himself. "But how careless of me! Tut! tut! Exceedingly annoying!"
Mrs Heath tried to ease the situation by murmuring something polite, but
Pamela was suddenly seized with an intense desire to start laughing. Mr
Sigglesthorne looked so funny and perplexed, and he kept dropping his
papers on the floor in his nervousness, and once he knocked his hat
down, and the glasses too. Pamela, almost choking with the effort of
keeping her face straight, was glad of the opportunity of rescuing the
hat and placing it back on the chair; she was thankful to be able to do
anything at all instead of sitting still and trying to keep serious. Mr
Sigglesthorne's apologies and thanks for his hat were profuse.
At length, after going through five pockets, Mr Sigglesthorne found what
he wanted, to everybody's relief.
"Perhaps I should mention," he said, as he handed an envelope across to
Pamela, "that Miss Crabingway is inviting three other young
girls--somewhere about Miss Pamela's age--to stay at her house also--but
you will see about that, though, in the letter."
Pamela opened the envelope and spread out the sheet of paper it
contained so that her mother and father could read it at the same time.
It was a sheet of foolscap paper covered with black, spiky handwriting,
writing which Mrs Heath recognized as Miss Emily Crabingway's from the
Christmas card she received from her every year, the interchange of
Christmas cards being the only communication she had held with this
distant cousin of hers for the last twelve years.
"Read it aloud, Pamela," said her father. So Pamela read the following
letter:
CHEQUERTREES,
BARROWFIELD,
_January 3rd_