THE LITTLE MUMMY.
It was a week afterwards when Kitty stood at the gate of Cherry Court
School to wish Florence Aylmer good-bye, for Florence had obtained the
darling wish of her heart, and was on her way to Dawlish to spend a
week with her mother. She was to travel third-class, and the journey
was a long one, and the day happened to be specially hot, but nothing
could damp Florence's delight, and Kitty, as she watched her, could not
help for a moment a slight pang of envy coming over her.
"Have a good time, Florry, and tell me all about it when you return,"
said Kitty.
And Florence promised, thinking Kitty a very good-natured, agreeable
girl as she did so, and then Kitty turned slowly back to the house and
Florence found herself alone. She was driving in a hired chaise to
Hilchester railway-station. She had said good-bye to Kitty and to Mrs.
Clavering, and her earnest wish was that the week might spread itself
into two or three, and that she could banish all thought of Kitty and
Mrs. Clavering and Cherry Court School from her mind.
"For, although I mean to win the Scholarship--yes, I shall win it; I
have made up my mind on that point--I cannot help more or less hating
Kitty Sharston, and Mrs. Clavering, and the school itself," thought the
girl. "But there, I will forget every unpleasant thing now. I have
not seen the little Mummy for a whole year; it will be heavenly to kiss
her again. If there is anyone in the world whom I truly, truly love it
is the dear little Mummy."
All during her hot journey across England to the cool and delightful
watering-place of Dawlish, Florence thought more and more of her
mother. She was an only child, her father having died when she was
five years old, and Mrs. Aylmer had always been terribly poor, and
Florence had always known what it was to stint and screw and do without
those things which were as the breath of life to most girls. And
Florence was naturally not at all a contented girl, and she had fought
against her position, and disliked having to stint and screw, and she
had hated her shabby dress and unwieldy boots and ugly hats and coarse
fare.
But one portion of her lot abundantly contented her--she had no fault
to find with her mother. The little Mummy was all that was perfection.
For her mother she would have done almost as much in her own way as
Kitty would do for her father in hers.
And now her heart beat high and her spirits rose as she approached
nearer hour by hour the shabby little home where her mother lived.
It was in the cool of a hot summer's evening that the train at last
drew up at Dawlish, and Mrs. Aylmer stood on the platform waiting to
receive her daughter.
Mrs. Aylmer was a plain dumpling sort of little body, with a perfectly
round face, and small beady black eyes. She had a high color in each
of her cheeks and fluffy black hair pushed away from her high forehead.
She was dressed in widow's weeds, which were somewhat rusty, and she
now came forward with a beaming face to welcome Florence.
"Oh, Mummy, it is good to see you," said Florence. She had a brusque
voice and a brusque manner, but nothing could keep the thrill out of
her words as she addressed her mother.
"I am not going to kiss you till we get into the cottage," she said.
"Here's my luggage--only one box, of course. Oh, it is good to see
you, it is good!"
"Then come right off home, Florry," said Mrs. Aylmer; "I have got
shrimps for tea and some brown bread and butter, and Sukey made the
bread specially for you this morning; you always liked home-made bread.
Come along; the porter will bring your trunk in presently. You'll see
to it, Peter, won't you?" said Mrs. Aylmer.
Peter, the rough-headed outside porter, nodded in reply, and Mrs.
Aylmer, leaning upon Florence, who was head and shoulders taller than
her parent, walked down the little shingly beach, and a moment
afterwards entered the cottage door.
"Dear Mummy," she said, "it is good to see you. Now, turn round,
Mummy, and let us have a right good hearty stare. Oh, you look just as
well as ever, sunburnt--so much the better. Now then, for a hug."
Florence opened her arms, and the next moment little Mrs. Aylmer was
clasped to her daughter's breast.
"There, that's nice," said Florence, "that's a right hearty hug. I am
so glad you are well, Mummy. I am so thankful you were able to send me
the money; I hope I didn't screw you up very tight."
"Well, it did, Florence," replied Mrs. Aylmer; "I shall not be able to
have any meat for a whole month after you leave, dear. That was the
way I managed, just docking the butcher's bill and the greengrocer's
bill. I must have butter to my bread and milk in my tea, but the
greengrocer and the butcher will pay your third-class return fare to
the school. There now, Flo, don't worry. Come upstairs to our room;
you will share my bed, dear; I could not afford to have an extra room;
you will share my bed."
Florence followed her mother upstairs without a word. The cottage was
a very, very tiny one, and, tiny as it was, Mrs. Aylmer only owned one
half of it. She had a little sitting room downstairs, and a wee, wee
bedroom upstairs, and the use of the kitchen, and the use of Sukey's
time for so many hours every day, and that was about all. But a
delicious sea breeze blew into the tiny sitting-room and filled the
little bed-room; and clematis and honey-suckle and climbing plants of
every description clustered around the windows, and Florence thought it
the dearest, sweetest, most fascinating place in the world.
"It is rather a small bed for two," she reflected, as she entered the
room, stooping to get beneath the lintel of the door; "but never mind,
it's Mummy's little room and Mummy's bed, and I am happy, happy as the
day is long."
So she tossed off her hat and washed her face and hands, and tidied her
hair, and went down to enjoy the honey and bread and fruit and shrimps
and tea with cream in it which Mrs. Aylmer had provided in honor of her
daughter's arrival.
"There," said Florence, "that was a hearty meal. Now let us go out on
the beach, Mummy. You will have a great deal to say to me, and I shall
have a great deal to say to you."
"It is exciting having you back, Flo," said Mrs. Aylmer, "and we must
make the week go as far as possible."
"We will sit up very late at night," said Florence, "and we will get up
very early in the morning, for we must talk, talk, talk every moment of
our precious time, except just the few hours necessary for sleep. You
don't want much sleep, do you, Mummy?"
"Yes, but I do, my dear; I want my seven to eight hours' sleep within
the twenty-four hours, or I am just good for nothing. I get muzzy in
the head unless I sleep enough. Do you ever suffer from muzziness in
the head, dear?"
"That's just like one of your dear old-fashioned words," said Florence;
"if I did feel it I shouldn't be allowed to express it in that way at
school. By the way, mother, what do you think of me? Haven't I grown
a good lot?"
"Yes, you're a fine hearty girl, but you are not exactly beautiful,
Florry."
Florence's eyes fell and a discontented look crossed her face. "How
can I look decent in these clothes?" she said; "but there, never mind,
you can't give me better, can you?"
"I, darling! How could I? I have not fifty pounds a year when all is
told, and I cannot do more with my money. It's your Aunt Susan who is
to blame, Florence, and she is worse than ever. I'll tell you all
about her to-morrow; we won't worry to-night, will we?"
"No; let us think of only pleasant things to-night," said Florence.
"Well, come down on the beach, Flo. I am all agog to hear your news.
What is this about the Scholarship?"
"Oh, Mummy, need we talk of this either to-night?" said Florence,
frowning.
"Well, yes, I should like it," said Mrs. Aylmer; "you see, you know all
about it, and I don't. You told me so little in your letter. You
don't write half as long letters as you used to, Flo. I wish you
would, for I have nothing else to divert me. I have turned and
re-turned my best dress--I turned it upside down last year, and
downside up this year, and back to front and front to back, and I am
trimming it now with frills which I have cut another old skirt up to
make, and I really cannot do anything more with it. It won't by
stylish, try as I will, and your Aunt Susan hasn't sent me a cast-off
of hers for the last two years. It's very stingy of her, very stingy
indeed. She sells her clothes now to a dealer in London who buys up
all sorts of wardrobes. Before she found out this wardrobe-dealer I
used to get her cast-offs and managed quite nicely. It's horrid of
her. She is a very unamiable character. Don't you ever take after
her, Florry, be sure you don't."
"I hate her quite as cordially as you do, mother; but now come along by
the shore and I'll tell you about the Scholarship, if you really wish
to know."
Which Florence did, with one arm clasped tightly round her mother's
waist, and Mrs. Aylmer almost danced by her daughter's side as she
listened, and tried to fancy herself nearly as young as Florence, and
was certainly quite as eager with regard to the winning of the great
Scholarship.
"You must get it," she said at last, after a pause; "it would make the
most tremendous, tremendous difference."
"Well, I mean to try," said Florence.
"And if you try, dear, you will succeed. You're a very clever girl,
ain't you?"
"Don't say 'ain't,' mother; it is not quite----"
"Oh, don't you go to correct me, my love. I can't help having the
rather rough ways of people with small means; but you are clever,
aren't you?"
"I believe I am in some things. There are some things again which I
never can get into my head, try as I will. I am a queer mixture."
"You are a darling old thing," said the mother, giving her arm an
affectionate squeeze.
"And you are the sweetest pet in the world," said Florence, glancing
down at her parent. "Oh, it is good to be with you, Mummy, again."
"Well, darling, you'll get the prize, there's nothing to prevent it."
"There are several things to prevent it," said Florence, in a gloomy
voice.
"What, my dear, darling pet--what?"
"Well, for instance, there are two other girls."
"Oh, girls," said Mrs. Aylmer, in a contemptuous voice. "I am not
going to be frightened by girls. My Florence is equal to the best girl
that ever breathed."
"Yes, but mother, you cannot quite understand. There's Kitty Sharston,
for instance."
"Kitty Sharston," said Mrs. Aylmer; "what about her?"
"Well, she is really clever, and everyone seems to wish her to win."
"I call that shocking unfair," said Mrs. Aylmer.
"It is, mother, but we cannot get over the fact. She is a favorite
with the school, and I must own she is a jolly girl. Now, what do you
think she did for me?"
"What, my darling?"
"You know the Cherry Feast?"
"Of course I do--have not you described it to me so often? You would
make a wonderful writer, I believe, you would make a lot of money
writing stories, Florence."
"No, I wouldn't, Mummy, not really. It takes a good deal to be a good
story-writer."
"Well, go on, pet, I am all agog to hear."
So Florence related also the story of the cherry ribbons.
"Wasn't it like Aunt Susan?" she said.
"Just," exclaimed the mother; "the stingiest old cat in existence."
"And wasn't it nice of Kitty, and didn't she do it well?" said
Florence. "Oh, she is a splendid girl, and I ought not to hate her."
"But you do hate her?"
"I am afraid I do sometimes."
"And I'm not a bit surprised, dear, coming between you and this great
chance. But, oh, Florry, you must win, it is all-important; I'll tell
you why to-morrow. There is a letter from your Aunt Susan which will
take some of the pleasure out of this little visit, but it makes the
Scholarship absolutely essential. I'll tell you all about it
to-morrow."