Mona sat reading, curled upon the window seat in her bedroom. She spent a
great deal of her time there. Sometimes sewing, but more often either
reading, or looking out at the view. For a few days she had been busy
making curtains for her window, and a frill to go across the top, and,
as granny had firmly refused to buy wide pink ribbon to fasten back the
curtains, Mona had hemmed long strips of some of the print left over from
her own pink dress.
But all this was done now, and Mona was very proud of her handiwork.
The frill was a little deeper on one side than the other, but that was a
trifle. Mona thought that the whole effect was very smart; so smart,
indeed, that she sometimes wished that her window was in the front of the
house, so that people going up and down the hill might see it.
"But I s'pose one can't have everything," she concluded, with a sigh.
Granny's window, which did look out on the hill, was anything but smart,
for she had had neither time nor strength to make her curtains, and Mona
had not offered to make them for her.
Granny had gone up to Lucy's that very afternoon, and taken them with her,
hoping to work at them a little while she talked. She often went up to
sit with Lucy. Perhaps she found it dull at home, with Mona always shut
up in her own room. Lucy's garden delighted her too. She had none
herself that could compare with it. In the front there was a tiny patch
close under her window, and there was a long strip at the back, but only a
very few things had the courage to grow there, for the wind caught it, and
the salt sea-spray came up over it, and blighted every speck of green that
had the courage to put its head out. Lucy's garden and Lucy's kitchen
both delighted her. She said the kitchen was more cheerful than hers,
but it was really Lucy's presence that made it so. Lucy was always so
pleased to see her, so ready to listen to her stories, or to tell her own,
if granny was too tired to talk. She always listened to her advice, too,
which was quite a new experience to Mrs. Barnes.
This afternoon, while granny was talking, and taking a stitch
occasionally, Lucy picked up the other curtain and made it. It was not a
very big matter; all the windows in Seacombe houses were small. Then she
put on the kettle, and while it was boiling she took the other curtain
from granny's frail hand and worked away at that too. The weather was
hot, and the door stood wide open, letting in the mingled scents of the
many sweet flowers which filled every foot of the garden. A sweet-brier
bush stood near the window, great clumps of stocks, mignonette and
verbenas lined the path to the gate.
"I didn't mean to stay to tea," said granny, realizing at last that Lucy
was preparing some for her. "I was going to get home in time."
"Mona won't have got it, will she?"
"Oh, no, she won't think about it, I expect. She has got a book, and when
she's reading she's lost to everything. I never knew a child so fond of
reading."
"You spoil her, granny! You let her have her own way too much."
Then they both laughed, for each accused the other of 'spoiling' Mona.
"I don't like her to work too hard," said granny. "She'd got to look very
thin and delicate. I think she's looking better, though, don't you?"
"Yes, ever so much," Lucy reassured her, and granny's face brightened.
Mona, meanwhile, went on reading, lost, as granny said, to everything but
her book. She did not even look out to sea. She heard no sound either in
the house or out. Heart and mind she was with the people of the story.
She was living their life.
The baker came and knocked two or three times; then, opening the door,
put a loaf on the table, and went away. Then presently came more
knocking, and more, but none of it reached Mona's brain. She was flying
with the heroine, and enjoying hairbreadth escapes, while running away
from her wicked guardian, when her bedroom door was flung open, and Millie
Higgins--not the wicked guardian--appeared on the threshold.
Mona gave a little cry of alarm, then immediately grew angry with herself
for having let Millie see that she had startled her.
"What are you doing up here?" she demanded, bluntly. "Who told you to
come up? Granny isn't in, is she?"
Millie laughed. "If your grandmother had been in I should have been at
the other end of the street by this time. I've no fancy for facing
dragons in their caves."
"Don't be rude," retorted Mona, colouring with anger. Millie always
laughed at Mrs. Barnes, because she was old-fashioned in her dress and
ways. "How did you get in, and why did you come? If granny didn't send
you up, you'd no right to come. It's like your cheek, Millie Higgins, to
go forcing your way into other people's houses!"
"It's like your carelessness to shut yourself up with a story-book and
leave your front door open. I ain't the first that has been in!
Wouldn't your grandmother be pleased if she knew how trustworthy her dear,
good little Mona was."
Mona looked frightened, and Millie noticed it. "What do you mean,
Millie?"
Millie had seen the baker come, knock, open the door, and leave again
after depositing a loaf on the table. She had also seen Mrs. Barnes
comfortably settled in Lucy Carne's kitchen, and she determined to have
some fun. She loved teasing and annoying everyone she could.
"Come down and see what they've done. At any rate, you might be civil to
anyone who comes in to warn you before any more harm is done."
Mona, still looking alarmed, slipped from the window-seat and followed
Millie down the stairs.
While she stood at the foot of them, glancing about her anxiously, Millie
stepped over and shut the house door.
"Where?--What?--I don't see anything wrong," said Mona. Millie burst into
mocking laughter. "I don't suppose you do! Silly-billy, cock-a-dilly,
how's your mother, little Mona! Why, how stupid you are! Anyone can get a
rise out of you! I only wanted to frighten you and get you downstairs.
You're going to ask me to tea now, and give me a nice one, too, aren't
you?"
Mona was trembling with mortification and anger. "No, I am not," she
said, "and if you don't go out of here in a minute I'll--I'll----"
"Oh, no--you won't, dear. You couldn't if you wanted to--but you don't
really want to, I know. Now poke up the fire and get me some tea.
I hope you have something nice to eat."
Mona stood by the dressers, her thoughts flying wildly through her brain.
What could she do? Millie was taller, older, and stronger than herself,
so she could not seize her, and put her out by force. Mona knew, too,
that she would not listen to pleading or to coaxing.
"Oh, if only someone would come!" She made a move towards the door, but
Millie was too quick for her, and got between her and it.
"Millie, you've got to go away. You'll get me into an awful row if you
are found here, and--and I can't think how you can push yourself in where
you ain't wanted."
"Oh, fie! Little girls shouldn't be rude--it shows they haven't been
properly brought up."
Mona did not answer. She was trying to think what she could do. If she
went out of the house would Millie follow?
Millie picked up a newspaper, and pretended to read it, but over the top
of it she was watching Mona all the time. She loved teasing, and she
thought she had power to make younger girls do just as she wished.
But Mona stood leaning against the dressers, showing no sign of giving in.
Millie grew impatient. "Wake up, can't you!" she cried, and, picking up a
cushion from an armchair beside her, she threw it across the room at Mona.
"I want my tea!"
The cushion flew past Mona without touching her, but it fell full crash
against the china on the dressers behind her. Mona screamed, and tried to
catch what she could of the falling things. Cups, plate, jugs came
rolling down on the top of those below. What could one pair of small
hands do to save them!
The set, a tea-set, and her grandmother's most treasured possession, had
been kept for a hundred years without a chip or a crack. It had been her
grandmother's and her great-grandmother's before that.
Mona, white to the lips, and trembling, stood like an image of despair.
Her hands were cut, but she did not notice that. Millie was pale, too,
and really frightened, though she tried to brazen it out. "Now there'll
be a fine old row, and you will be in it, Mona Carne. It was all your
fault, you know."
But Mona felt no fear for herself yet. She could think of nothing but her
grandmother's grief when she learned of the calamity which had befallen
her. Somebody had to break the news to her, too, and that somebody would
have to be herself. Mona leaned her elbows on the dressers amongst the
broken china and, burying her face in her hands, burst into a torrent of
tears.
Millie spoke to her once or twice, but Mona could not reply. "Well, if
she won't open her lips, I might as well go," thought Millie, and,
creeping out of the front door, she hurried away down the hill, only too
delighted to have got away so easily.
Mona heard her go, but made no effort to stop her. She felt too utterly
miserable even to reproach her.
Presently other footsteps came to the door, followed by a gentle knocking.
Mona, in consternation, straightened herself and wiped her eyes.
"Who can it be? I can't go to the door like this!" Her face was crimson,
and her eyes were nearly closed, they were so swelled.
The knock was repeated. "Mona, may I come in?" It was Patty Row's voice.
Mona was fond of Patty, and she had begun to long for sympathy and advice.
"Cub id," she called out as well as she could. "Cub id, Paddy."
Patty opened the door. "What a dreadful cold you've got," she said,
sympathetically. "I've just seen your grandmother, and she asked me to
tell you she's having tea with Lucy." Mona turned and faced her.
"Why!--Why! Mona! Oh, my! Whatever is the matter?"
Mona's tears began again, nearly preventing her explanation.
"Millie Higgins came in, and--and got teasing me, and--and----"
"I've just seen her hurrying home," cried Patty. "I thought she came out
from here. What has she done, Mona? She's always bullying somebody."
"She--she threw the cushion at me, 'cause--'cause I didn't get her some
tea, and--oh, Patty, what shall I do?--just look at what she has done.
That tea-set was more than a hundred years old, and--and granny thinks the
world of it--and I've got to tell her." Mona's voice rose to a pitiful
wail. "Oh, my. I wish--I wish I was dead. I wish----"
"That'd only be another great trouble for her to bear," said wise little
Patty, soberly. "Millie ought to tell her, of course. It's her doing.
P'raps that is where she has gone."
Mona shook her head. She had no hope of Millie's doing that.
"Well," said Patty, in her determined little way, "if she doesn't it
shan't be for want of being told that she ought to."
"She'll never do it," said Mona, hopelessly. "I'll have to bear the
blame. I can't sneak on Millie, and--and so granny'll always think I did
it."
Patty pursed up her pretty lips. "Will she?" she thought to herself.
"She won't if I can help it," but she did not say so aloud. "Let's sort
it out, and see how much really is broken," she said, lifting off the
fatal cushion. "P'raps it isn't as bad as it looks."
Mona shook her head despondently. "It sounded as if every bit was
smashed. There's one cup in half, and a plate with a piece out--no, those
jugs were common ones, they don't matter so much," as Patty picked up a
couple, one with its handle off, the other all in pieces. "Here's a cup
without any handle--oh, poor granny, it'll break her heart, and--and
she'll never forgive me. I don't see how she can. Oh, Patty!
Did anybody in all the world ever have such a trouble before?"
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Patty. "There, that's the lot, Mona.
It's bad enough, but not so bad as it seemed at first. There's two cups,
a plate, and a saucer of the set broken. Two jugs, a basin, and a plate
of the common things."
She put the broken bits of the tea-set on the table, and began to arrange
what was left on the dressers, so as to conceal the painful gaps.
"There, it doesn't look so dreadful now. What had we better do next,
Mona?"
Mona turned away and dropped into granny's big chair. "I--I've got to
tell her, that's what I'd better do next!" she cried. She flung her arms
out on the table, and buried her face in them, sobbing aloud in her
misery.
Patty, alarmed at her grief, went over and put her arms around her shaking
shoulders. "Mona!--Mona, dear, don't cry so. You'll be ill. I'll go and
tell Mrs. Barnes about it, and--and I'll tell her it wasn't your fault."
A slight sound made them both look towards the door--and they saw that
there was no longer any need for anyone to break the news. Granny Barnes
knew it already.
For what seemed to the two girls minutes and minutes, no one uttered a
word. Granny with wide eyes and stricken face, stood staring at her
broken treasures, and the two girls stared at granny. All three faces
were tragic. At last she came slowly forward, and took up one of the
broken pieces. Her poor old hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Mona sprang to her, and flung her arms about her. "Oh, granny, granny,
what can I do? It--was an accident--I mean, I couldn't help it.
Oh, I'd sooner anything had happened to me than to your tea-set."
Patty Row slipped out of the house, and gently closed the door behind her.
She had meant to stay and speak up for Mona, but something told her that
there would be no need for that.
Poor Mrs. Barnes dropped heavily into her seat. "I wouldn't then, dear.
There's worse disasters than--than broken china."
Mona's sobs ceased abruptly. She was so astonished at her grandmother's
manner of taking her trouble, she could scarcely believe her senses.
"But I--I thought you prized it so, granny--above everything?"
"So I did," said granny, pathetically. "I think I prized it too much,
but when you get old, child, and--and the end of life's journey is in
sight, you--you--well, somehow, these things don't seem to matter so much.
'Tis you will be the loser, dearie. When I'm gone the things will be
yours. I've had a good many years with my old treasures for company,
so I can't complain."
Mona stood looking at her grandmother with a dawning fear on her face.
"Granny, you ain't ill, are you? You don't feel bad, do you?"
Mrs. Barnes shook her head. "No, I ain't ill, only a bit tired.
It's just that the things that used to matter don't seem to, now,
and those that--that, well, those that did seem to me to come second,
they matter most--they seem to be the only ones that matter at all."
Patty Row had done well to go away and leave the two alone just then.
Granny, with a new sense of peace resting on her, which even the loss of
her cherished treasures could not disturb, and Mona, with a strange
seriousness, a foreboding of coming trouble on her, which awakened her
heart to a new sympathy.
"Why, child, how you must have cried to swell your eyes up like that."
Granny, rousing herself at last out of a day-dream, for the first time
noticed poor Mona's face. "Isn't your head aching?"
"Oh, dreadfully," sighed Mona, realizing for the first time how acute the
pain was.
"Didn't I see Patty here when I came in? Where has she gone?"
"I don't know."
"Patty didn't break the things, did she?"
"Oh, no."
"Did she tell you what she came about?"
"To tell me you were having tea with mother."
"But there was more than that. She came to ask if you'd go to Sunday
School with her on Sunday. Her teacher told her to ask you. You used to
go, didn't you? Why have you given it up?"
Mona nodded, but she coloured a little. "I thought the girls--all knew
about--about my running away."
"I don't think they do--but I don't see that that matters. You'd like to
go again, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, I'd like to go with Patty. Miss Lester's her teacher, and they've
got a library belonging to their class. You can have a book every week to
bring home." Mona's face grew quite bright, but a faint shadow had crept
over granny's.
"You read a lot, Mona. So many stories and things ain't good for you.
Do you ever read your Bible?"
Mona looked surprised. "N--no. I haven't got it here. It's up at
Lucy's."
Mrs. Barnes groaned. "Oh, child, to think of our not having a Bible in
the house between us!"
"There's the Fam'ly Bible back there," said Mona, quickly, feeling
suddenly that a house without a Bible in it was not safe.
"Yes--but it's never opened, not even to look at the pictures. If you had
one in every room in the house you wouldn't be any the better for it if
you never read them, and--and acted 'pon what you're taught there."
"But if you can't see to read," said Mona, trying to find excuses,
"what's the good of your having a Bible?"
"But you can see, and can read too, and I could till lately, and, anyway,
you can read to me, and that's what I ought to have got you to do.
I feel I haven't done my duty by you, child."
Mona threw up her head. "I don't s'pose we're any worse than some that
read their Bibles every day," she said, complacently. She had often heard
others say that, and thought it rather fine.
"That's not for you or me to say," retorted granny sternly. "That's the
excuse folks always bring out when they ain't ashamed of themselves, but
ought to be. If we ain't any worse, we ain't any better, and until we are
we've no right to speak of others; and if we are--why, we shouldn't think
of doing so. Most folks, though, who say that, do think themselves a deal
better than others, though they don't say so in as many words."
Mona stood staring into the fire, thinking matters over. She was very apt
to take things to herself, and she was trying to assure herself that she
never did think herself better than others--not better even than Millie
Higgins. But she was not very well satisfied with the result.
Granny's voice died away, the sun went down, and the room began to grow
dim. Two lumps of coal fell together, and, bursting into a blaze, roused
Mona from her reverie. She turned quickly, and found her grandmother
gazing at the two halves of the broken tea-cup which she held in her
hands. In the light of the fire tears glistened on her cheeks.
Mona felt a sudden great longing to comfort her, to make life happier for
her. "Granny, would you have liked me to have read some of my books to
you sometimes?"
"Very much, dearie. I always loved a nice story."
"Oh--why ever didn't you say so before." The words broke from Mona like a
cry of reproach. "I didn't know, I never thought--I thought you'd think
them silly or--or--something."
"I know--it wasn't your fault. Sometimes I think it'd be better if we
asked more of each other, and didn't try to be so independent. It's those
that you do most for that you care most for--and miss most when they're
gone!" added granny, half under her breath.
Once again Mona was struck by the curious change in granny's tone and
manner, and felt a depressing sense of foreboding.
"Would you like me to read to you now, granny? Out of--of the Bible?"
She hesitated, as though shy of even speaking the name.
"Yes, dearie, I'd dearly love to hear the 86th Psalm."
Mona hurriedly lifted the big book out from under the mats and odds and
ends that were arranged on its side. She had never read aloud from the
Bible before, and at any other time her shyness would have almost overcome
her. To-day, though, she was possessed with a feeling that in the Bible
she would perhaps find something that would rouse and cheer granny, and
charm her own fears away, and she was in a hurry to get it and begin.