_October 4th_.
Here I am! It is not a bit as I imagined, but ever so much nicer.
Lorna looks sweet in grown-up things, and she thinks I look sweet in
mine. She comes into my bed at nights, and we talk for hours. The
house is right in the middle of the town, in a dingy old square, where
the trees look more black than green. It is ugly and shabby, but there
is plenty of room, which is a good thing, for I am sure it is needed.
The doctor sits in his consulting-room all the morning seeing patients,
who wait their turn in the dining-room, and if there are a great many
you have to be late for lunch, but, as Lorna says, "That means another
guinea, so we mustn't grumble!" They are not at all rich, because the
six boys cost so much to educate. They are all away at school and
college, except the oldest and the youngest, of whom more anon.
Dr Forbes is an old love. He has shaggy grey hair, and merry eyes, and
the funniest way of talking aloud to himself without knowing what he is
saying. At lunch he will keep up a running conversation like this:
"Nasty case--yes, nasty case! Poor woman, poor woman! Very little
chance--little chance--Very good steak, my dear--an admirable dinner you
have given me! Am-pu-ta-tion at eleven--mustn't forget the medicine.
Three times a day. A little custard, if you please," and so on, and so
on, and the others never take any notice, but eat away as if no one were
speaking.
Mrs Forbes is large and kind, and shakes when she laughs. I don't
think she is clever, exactly, but she's an admirable mother, and lets
them do exactly as they like.
Wallace isn't bad. He is twenty-four, and fairly good-looking, and not
as conceited as men generally are at that age. Personally, I prefer
them older, but he evidently approves of me, and that is soothing to the
feelings. Julias, surnamed "Midas," is only twelve, and a most amusing
character. I asked Lorna and Wallace how he got his nickname, as we sat
together over a fire in the old schoolroom the first night. They
laughed, and Wallace said--(of course, I call him Dr Wallace, really,
but I can't be bothered to write it here)--
"Because everything he touches turns to gold, or, to speak more
correctly, copper! He has a genius for accumulating money, and has what
we consider quite a vast sum deposited in the savings bank. My father
expects him to develop into a great financier, and we hope he may
pension off all his brothers and sister, to keep them from the
workhouse. To do Midas justice, he is not mean in a good cause, and I
believe he will do the straight thing."
"But how can he make money? He is only twelve. I don't see how it is
to be done," I cried. And they laughed and said--
"It began years ago--when he shed his front teeth. Mother used to offer
us sixpence a tooth when they grew waggly, and we pulled them out
without any fuss. We each earned sixpences in our turn, and all went
well; but when Midas once began he was not content to stop, and worked
away at sound, new double teeth, until he actually got out two in one
afternoon. Then mother took alarm, and the pay was stopped. There was
an interregnum after that, and what came next? Let me see--it must have
been the sleeping sickness. Midas grew very rapidly, Miss Sackville,
and it was very difficult to get him to bed at nights, so as the mater
thought he was suffering from the want of sleep, she promised him
threepence an hour for every hour he spent in bed before nine o'clock.
After that he retired regularly every night at seven, and on half-
holidays it's a solemn fact that he was in bed at four o'clock, issuing
instructions as to the viands which were to be brought up for his
refreshment! The mater stood it for a time, but the family finances
wouldn't bear the strain, so she limited the hours and reduced the fee,
and Midas returned to his old ways. What came after that, Lorna?"
"I don't know--I forget! Of course there was Biggs--"
"Ah, yes, Miss Biggs! Miss Biggs, you must know, Miss Sackville, is an
ancient friend of the family, whom we consider it a duty to invite for a
yearly visit. She is an admirable old soul, but very deaf, very slow,
and incredibly boring. Her favourite occupation is to bring down
sheaves of letters from other maiden ladies, and insist upon reading
them aloud to the assembled family. `I have just had a letter from
Louisa Gibbings; I am sure you will like to hear it,' she will say
calmly, when the poor old parents are enjoying a quiet read after
dinner, and we youngsters are in the middle of a game. None of us have
the remotest idea who Louisa Gibbings may be, and don't want to know,
but we are bound to listen to three sheets of uninteresting information
as to how `My brother in China contemplates a visit home next year.'
`My garden is looking charming, but the peas are very poor this season.'
`You will be grieved to hear that our good Mary still suffers acutely
from the old complaint,' etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Last time she
paid her visit when Midas had his Easter holidays, and one day, seeing
mother quite exhausted by her efforts at entertainment, he made the
brilliant proposal that he should take Miss Biggs off her hands for the
sum of fourpence an hour. Mother agreed with enthusiasm, and Midas made
quite a fortune in the next fortnight, with equal satisfaction to all
concerned. In the morning he took Miss Biggs out walking to see the
sights, and gave her his advice in the purchase of new caps. In the
afternoon the wily young wretch cajoled her into giving him an hour's
coaching in French, and in the evening he challenged her to draughts and
dominoes, and made a point of allowing her to win. Mother had a chance
of attending to her work; father could read in peace; Midas was in a
condition of such complacent good nature that he declared Miss Biggs was
a `ripping old girl,' and she on her part gave him the credit for being
`the most gentlemanly youth she had ever encountered.' I believe she is
really attached to him, and should not wonder if she remembers him
substantially in her will. Then Midas will have scored a double
triumph!"
Wallace and Lorna laughed as heartily as I did over these histories.
They really are a most good-natured family, and Wallace treats Lorna as
politely as if she were someone else, and not his own sister, which is
very different from some young men I could mention. I had put on my
blue dress, and I knew quite well that he admired it and me, and that
put me in such good spirits that I was quite sparkling and witty. He
stayed talking to us until after nine, when he had to go downstairs to
write some letters.
"Thank goodness! I thought he would never go. What a bore he is!"
Lorna said, when the door closed behind him.
I didn't feel like that at all, but I disguised my feelings, and told
her the details and the adventures of the last three months, and about
Vere, and the house, and my own private tribulations, and she
sympathised and looked at everything from my point of view, in the nice,
unprejudiced way friends have. It was very soothing, and I could have
gone on for a long time, but it was only polite to return the
compliment, so I said--
"Now we must talk about you! You said in your last letter that you had
many troubles of which you could not write. Poor, sweet thing, tell me
about them! Begin at the beginning. What do you consider your very
greatest trial?"
Lorna pondered. She is dark and slight, and wears her hair parted in
the middle, and puffed out at the sides in a quaint fashion that just
suits her style. She wrinkled her brows, and stared into space in a
rapt, melancholy fashion.
"I think," she said, slowly, at last, "I think it is the drawing-room!"
I was surprised, but still not surprised, for the drawing-room is awful!
Big and square, and filled with heavy furniture, and a perfect shopful
of ugly ornaments and bead mats, and little tables, and milking-stools,
and tambourines, and bannerettes, and all the kind of things that were
considered lovely ages ago, but which no self-respecting girl of our age
could possibly endure. Lorna told me thrilling tales of her experience
with that room.
"When I first came home, mother saw that I didn't like it, so she said
she knew quite well that she was old-fashioned and behind the times, and
now that she had a grown-up daughter she would leave the arrangement of
such things to her, and I could alter the room as much as ever I liked.
So, my dear, I made Mary bring the biggest tray in the house, and I
filled it three times over with gimcracks of all descriptions, and sent
them up to the box-room cupboard. I kept about three tables instead of
seven, with really nice things on them, and left a good sweep of floor
on which you could walk about without knocking things down. I pulled
out the piano from the wall, and lowered the pictures, and gathered all
the old china together, and put it on the chimney-piece, and--and--oh, I
can't tell you all the alterations, but you would hardly have known it
for the same room! It looked quite decent. When all was finished, I
sent for mother, and she came in and sat down, and, my dear, she turned
quite white! She kept looking round and round, searching for things
where she had been accustomed to find them, and she looked as if
something hurt her. I asked her if she didn't like it, and she said--
"`Oh, yes, it looks much more--more modern. Yes, dear, you have been
very clever. It is quite--smart! A little bare, isn't it--just a
little bare, don't you think?'
"`No, mother,' I said sternly, `not the least little bit in the world!
It seems so to you because you have had it so crowded that there was no
room to move, but you will soon get accustomed to the room as it is, and
like it far better.'
"`Yes, dear,' she said meekly, `of--of course. I'm sure you are quite
right,' and will you believe it, Una, she went straight into her own
room, and cried! I know she did, for I saw the marks on her face later
on, and taxed her with it. She was very apologetic, but she said the
little table with the gold legs had been father's first gift to her
after they were married, and she couldn't bear to have it put aside; and
the ivory basket under the glass shade had come from the first French
Exhibition, and she had worked those bead bannerettes herself when I was
teething, and threatened with convulsions, and she did not dare to leave
the house. Of course, I felt a wretch, and hugged her, and said--
"`Why didn't you say so before? We will bring them back at once, and
put them where they were; but you have not tender associations with all
the things. You did not work that hideous patchwork cushion, for
instance, and--'
"`No, but Aunt Mary Ryley did,' she cried eagerly, `and it is made out
of pieces of all the dresses we wore when we were girls together. I
often look at it and remember the happy times I had in the grey poplin
and the puce silk.'
"So, of course, the cushion had to come back too, and by the end of a
week every single thing was taken out of the cupboard, and put in its
former place! They _all_ had memories, and mother loved the memories,
and cared nothing for the appearance. I was sweet about it. I wouldn't
say so to anyone but you, Una, but I really was quite angelic, until one
day when Amy Reeve came to call. She was staying with some friends a
few miles off, and drove in to see me. You know how inquisitive Amy is,
and how she stares, and takes in everything, and quizzes it afterwards?
Well, my dear, she sat there, and her eyes simply roved round and round
the whole time, until she must have known the furniture by heart. I
suffered," sighed Lorna plaintively, "I suffered _anguish_! I wouldn't
have minded anyone else so much--but Amy!"
I said, (properly), that Amy was a snob and an idiot, and that it
mattered less than nothing what she thought, but all the time I knew
that I should have felt humiliated myself, and Lorna knew it, too, but
was not vexed with me for pretending the contrary, for it is only right
to set a good example.
"Of course," she said, "one ought to be above such petty trials. If a
friendship hangs upon chiffoniers and bead mats, it can't be worth
keeping. I have told myself so ever since, but human nature is hard to
kill, and I _should_ have liked the house to look nice when Amy called!
I despise myself for it, but I foresee that that room is going to be a
continual trial. Its ugliness weighs upon me, and I feel self-conscious
and uncomfortable every time my friends come to call, but I am not going
to attempt any more changes. I wouldn't make the dear old mother cry
again for fifty drawing-rooms!"
I thought it was sweet of her to talk like that, and wanted so badly to
find a way out of the difficulty. I always feel there must be a way,
and if one only thinks long enough it can generally be found. I sat
plunged in thought, and at last the inspiration came.
"Didn't you say this room was your own to do with as you liked?"
"Yes; mother said I could have it for my den. Nobody uses it now; but,
Una, it is hideous, too!"
"But it might be made pretty! It is small, and wouldn't take much
furnishing. You could pick up a few odds and ends from other rooms that
would not be missed."
"Oh, yes, mother wouldn't mind that, and the green felting on the floor
is quite nice and new; but the paint, and the paper-saffron roses--and
gold skriggles--and a light oak door! How could you possibly make
anything look artistic against such a background?"
"You couldn't, and it wouldn't be much fun if you could. I've thought
of something far more exciting. Lorna, let us paper and paint it
ourselves! Let us go to town to-morrow, and choose the very, very most
artistic and up-to-date paper that can be bought, and buy some tins of
enamel, and turn workmen every morning. Oh, do! I should love it; and
you were saying only an hour ago that you did not know how to amuse me
in the mornings. If we did the room together you would always associate
me with it, and I should feel as if it were partly mine, and be able to
imagine just where you were sitting. Oh, do, Lorna! It would be such
ripping sport!"
She didn't speak for a good half-minute, but just sat staring up in
ecstasy of joy.
"You angel!" she cried at last. "You simple duck! How can you think of
such lovely plans? Oh, Una, how have I lived without you all these
months? Of course, I'll do it. I'd love to! I am never happier than
when I am wrapped up in an apron with a brush in my hand. I've
enamelled things before now, but never hung a paper. Do you really
think we could?"
"Of course! If the British workman can do it, there can't be much skill
required, and we with our trained intelligence will soon overcome any
difficulty," I said grandiloquently. "All we want is a pot of paste,
and a pair of big scissors, and a table to lay the strips of paper on.
I've seen it done scores of times."
"So have I," said Lorna. "And doesn't the paste smell! I expect, what
with that and the enamel, we shall have no appetites left. It will
spoil our complexions, too, very likely, and make us pale and sallow,
but that doesn't matter."
I thought it mattered a good deal. It was all very well for her, but
she wasn't staying with a friend who had an interesting grown-up
brother. Even the finest natures can be inconsiderate sometimes.