Up and down, to and fro, backwards and for wards over the sunny garden
the butterflies, white, sulphur, and brown, flitted and fluttered,
lightly poising on currant-bush or flower, loving life as they basked
in the sunshine; and Penelope lay and watched them. What did it matter
to them that the garden was neglected, the grass rank and uncut,
the currant-bushes barren from neglect, the lilacs old and blossomless?
It mattered no more to them than it did to Penelope, lying so lazy and
happy in the coarse grass.
Penelope had never known the garden other than it was now, except,
perhaps, at very far-distant intervals when a visitor was expected--
usually Aunt Julia, when a shilling or so had to be found to pay a
gardener to come and 'tidy up.' She herself was always better pleased
when he did not come, for almost invariably he charged too much,
or Lydia said he did, and would tell him of it, not too politely, and tell
her mistress that she was encouraging robbery; and Mrs. Carroll--who would
far rather pay too much and hear no more about it than be bothered--would
be worried, and Lydia would be cross; and to Penelope it seemed a pity to
be made so uncomfortable for the sake of sixpence or a shilling.
She could not bear jars and discords. These, though, were troubles that
occurred but seldom to ruffle the surface of her usually happy life.
As a rule, like the butterflies, she saw only the sunshine, and the green
things growing, and nothing of the sordidness and neglect of everything
about her. If she did, if things jarred or fretted her, she just walked
away, far out into the country and the woods where everything was
peaceful, and nothing seemed to matter; and out there she would very soon
recover again and become her old happy self.
There were three other Carroll children--Esther, the eldest, Angela, and
Poppy, the baby of them all. Penelope was the second, aged nearly twelve.
"Four girls! isn't it dreadful?" Esther sometimes sighed. "But there, I
suppose it is better than some of us being boys, for now we _can_ hand our
clothes down from one to the other, and if we couldn't I am afraid the
younger ones would often have to go without."
In the thirteen short years of her life poor Esther had grown to know all
the shifts and economies and discomforts of poverty only too well.
She had seen, so to speak, the rise and fall of her family, and at last
had become almost the only prop which kept it from falling altogether.
She could remember when the house was always full of company and life and
laughter, when her mother always wore pretty frocks and beautiful jewels,
and drove everywhere in their own carriage. She could remember gay
dinner-parties, when she used to creep out of bed and sit on the stairs to
listen to the singing in the drawing-room.
The scent of certain flowers still brought back the memory of those days,
when she and Penelope used to go down in their prettiest frocks to
dessert, and were given dainty sweets and fruits, and were made much of.
Then there came a dark time when, although she was so young, she felt
vaguely that there was trouble overshadowing them, and saw it, too,
reflected in her father's face; and the darkest day of all was when
Grandpa Carroll came, and with scarcely a word or a glance for the
children, went at once to the library with her father, and departed again
that same night, leaving gloom and misery behind him. All the rest of the
day, she remembered, her father remained shut up in the library, and her
mother locked herself, weeping, in her bedroom; and Esther and Penelope
went to bed that night without any good-night kiss from either; and worse
than that, Esther heard nurse and Jane, the housemaid, talking in low,
mysterious tones, and knew that they were talking of her parents' and
their affairs; and, as any child would, bitterly resented it.
"Why don't you go downstairs, Jane?" she said at last, when she could
endure it no longer; "you know mother doesn't allow gossiping in the
nursery."
But she had only a shaking from nurse, and a rude answer from Jane, which
made her anger burn hotter than ever. She lay awake a long time that
night, trying to make sense of what they had been saying, but it was not
until years later that she really understood.
The next day Jane had had a month's notice given her, not because she
gossiped in the nursery, or was rude to Esther--Esther never told tales
about the servants--but because Mr. Carroll said briefly that they must
manage with fewer servants and cut down all expenses. For that same
reason the children's pony was taken away and sold a few days later,
and from that time it seemed to Esther it had been nothing but cutting
down and giving up and doing with less and less. It was only a few
months after the pony was sold that Poppy was born, and soon after that
they left their old home and went to live in a little house where they had
no library and no nursery, and no stables or horses, and the children had
to play in the dining-room; and Esther's chief recollection of this time
was her constant struggle to prevent Penelope and Angela and the new baby
from crying or making too much noise, for she knew by the frown on her
father's face that he was worried and bothered by it, and she could not
bear to see him looking gloomy, or to hear the children scolded.
Having no nursery they had no nurse--no real nurse; they had a
'cook-general' and a 'nurse-housemaid' as the advertisements put it, and,
in common with most persons who profess to be able to 'turn their hands to
anything,' they could do few things, and nothing well. So it fell to
Esther and her mother to take care of the babies, and as Mrs. Carroll had
not yet learnt to take care of herself even, a very heavy burden rested on
little serious-faced Esther.
It was better when the summer came, though, for then the family made
another move. True it was to a yet smaller house, and more things had to
be given up; but the smaller house was in a little village called Framley,
and the little village had woods lying behind it, and here was nursery
large enough for any number of children to laugh in or cry to their
hearts' content, without disturbing any one; and Esther's heart was
relieved of one big worry, and the children soon learnt to laugh a again,
and play, and make as much noise as their hearts desired.
Summer, though, cannot last for ever, and woods do not make an ideal
nursery in winter. The perplexed frown was beginning to pucker Esther's
brow again when once more they were called on to relinquish something.
The nurse-housemaid had to be sent away, and they had to learn how to
manage with one servant; and it was just about that time that she heard
her father say one day, "It will really be easier for you, dear, when I am
gone," at which her mother burst into tears and wailed something Esther
could not quite understand, about being left to bear all the worries
alone. "It is much worse for those who are left than for those who go,"
she cried.
"But you will have the children," Mr. Carroll said sadly.
"Yes, four of them to feed and bring up on two hundred a year, and only
one servant to help me. I don't know how any one can expect me to do it.
I've not had a new gown myself for nearly a year."
"It shall not be for long, dear, if I can help it," her husband had said,
very patiently. "As soon as possible I will send for you and the
children. But it is no use to take you all out until I have a home of
some sort ready for you; it would be greater misery than this."
But Mrs. Carroll had only wept more and more, until the children began to
weep too, though they did not know for what.
Soon after that there had been a great deal of upset and excitement in the
house: big boxes stood about on the landing, and the children were told
that daddy was packing--he was going away to Canada, where they were all
to join him soon. For a few days this news filled them with a pleasant
excitement, and for months after their father had gone Esther and Penelope
talked and talked of what they would do when they got to Canada, and
Penelope dragged out an old trunk and began to pack a curious assortment
of things that she thought peculiarly suitable for that country.
But as time went on she found she needed the things, and by degrees the
thought of Canada became dim, and of no immediate interest to them.
They were excited at first when their father's letters came because they
thought each one would bring the longed-for summons; then they grew almost
to dread them, for their mother always broke out into tears and wailings
on reading them, finally locking herself in her room for the rest of the
day, and the children were left to themselves to try to throw off the load
of oppression and wretchedness which weighed on them even while they
played. The memory of the wretchedness of those days remained with them
to the end of their lives.
Two, three, four years passed by, and gradually they forgot Canada, and
Mrs. Carroll ceased to weep on receipt of a letter from her husband; but
whether it was that she grew more used to her trouble, or that the news
was better, the children did not know, though Esther often longed to.
So things were on that sunny May day when Penelope lay dreaming and
watching the butterflies in the neglected garden, and Esther made a milk
pudding in the kitchen, and the two younger children played about the
house, while nearer and nearer came the postman bearing the letter that
was to alter all their lives for them.
Esther had just finished making her pudding, and Poppy had that moment
succeeded in inveigling Angela into the cupboard under the stairs and
turning the key on her, when footsteps came up the path, a letter dropped
in through the letter-box, and a postman's rat-tat sounded to the
furthermost corner of the little house.
The post was the principal excitement of the day to the little Carrolls,
and there was usually a race to the door to try to be first to seize the
letters. This time Poppy had a clear start, for Esther was in the
kitchen, and Angela was safely under lock and key.
"A letter from daddy," she shouted, recognising the stamp; and in she flew
with it to her mother.
Mrs. Carroll, roused from her reading, laid aside her novel and bottle of
smelling-salts to take the letter. Having secured and handed over the
prize, Poppy danced off again. She was far more interested, at that
moment, in her prisoner, whose kicks on the door and screams of rage had
brought Esther to her rescue.
Esther, having released one sister, strolled wearily out into the garden
to seek another and a little rest. She was very tired and very depressed;
but the garden did not look inviting when she got there.
"How can you like this untidy old place?" she cried, as she made her way
through the long rank grass.
"Oh, Esther, come gently, do! Look, oh do look at that lovely dragon-fly!
Did you ever see such a beauty? Don't disturb him. Oh, do be careful!"
But Esther looked with only half-interest at the gorgeous insect; then,
turning away a little impatiently, "I don't know how you can be out here
so much and not try to make it a little tidier," she said vexedly.
"I only wish I had a machine, or shears or something, and more time, and I
would do something to it."
Esther was by nature a very neat and dainty little person, with none of
Penelope's dreamy indifference to her surroundings. The untidy garden
with its air of neglect would have been irritating to her if it had
belonged to some one else, but being their own, and feeling responsible
for it, it vexed her so she could hardly endure to stay in it.
If the others could have had their way, they would have had all their
meals out there, but not so Esther; the sight of the poor neglected spot
would have quite destroyed her appetite, though no one loved having meals
out-of-doors better than she did. She often took the children to tea in
the woods, but _that_ was different; the woods were always lovely, and
just what they should be.
Esther's earlier years had given her a brief experience of how things
should be done, and how they should look, and she had never forgotten;
Penelope, on the other hand, had forgotten, or never noticed Angela and
Poppy, fired by Esther's example, had spasmodic passions for improving the
house or garden, during which every one suffered more or less, and they
themselves were exhausted long before the huge tasks they had undertaken
were half completed.
So here and there the garden showed cleared and scarred patches where the
children had 'worked,' which meant that they had begun to 'tidy' by
pulling up everything that grew, after which they would scrape the bed
over with a rake and replace in a prim row as many of the plants as they
could get in, and a day or two later the eye would be caught by a square
of brown earth, broken by a row of sorry-looking dead or dying plants
standing conspicuous and solitary against the wild, untrained vegetation
round about, while a later search would perhaps reveal, under the tangled
litter in the path, one of the best dinner-knives, covered with rust, and
other lost treasures, such as a trowel, scissors, and occasionally a
silver fork.
To Esther these attempts were merely depressing and irritating; they
seemed only to emphasise their helplessness, and the uselessness of trying
to make things better.
"Nothing is right here, somehow," she complained to Penelope now,
"neither the house, nor the garden, nor ourselves. Look at us!" throwing
out her hands dramatically. "We aren't educated, or dressed properly,
or--or anything. Look at that," stretching out her foot, and eyeing
disdainfully the clumsy shoe which disfigured it. "We aren't fit to go
anywhere, and we can't ask any one here because the house is never fit to
be seen, or the meals, or--"
"Never mind," said Penelope placidly. She was used to Esther's outbursts,
but, though quite unable to sympathise, she was ready with attempts at
comfort. "You don't want to know any one but ourselves, do you?
I don't."
"No-o," admitted Esther. "But we ought to. It--well, it is always
supposed to be right. We shall grow up like savages, Aunt Julia says, and
not be fit to talk to any one or go anywhere, and we shan't have any
friends; and every one _ought_ to make nice friends; it looks so bad if
one has none--"
"Miss Esther! Miss Esther!" called a sharp voice from the kitchen door.
"You must all come in at once. Your ma wants you immejutly--all of you."
Esther rose, a little anxious pucker gathering on her brow as she
remembered the Canadian letter.
"Come along, Pen," she said impatiently. "I wonder what it is. Bad news
from father, I expect."
"P'r'aps it's good news," said Penelope hopefully, rising with a sigh of
regret at having to leave her nest and the sunshine and the butterflies.
Somehow, though, she did not really expect any such thing. "P'r'aps we
are to go, at last. Oh," with sudden excitement, "wouldn't it be
perfectly lovely! Oh, Essie, wouldn't it be splendid! Do let's run in
and see if that is what it is mother wants us for."