SUNDAY
There was a letter waiting on Emmeline’s plate when she came down to
breakfast next morning. Letters were rare and joyful events to the Bolton
children, and Emmeline thought it very annoying of the servants to troop
in for prayers before she had had time to glance at the contents of this
one.
Sunday prayers, however, never took long, and Emmeline was soon free to
fly back to her letter. To her great delight it proved to be from Mary.
Mary began by saying how very much she was missing them all, and how
often she thought of them and wondered how they were getting on. Then
followed the really exciting part of the letter:
‘Do you think your Auntie would let you three come over and spend the day
with me next Saturday? Eastwich Fair will be going on, and it would be
nice for you to go and see it, especially as you were disappointed last
year on account of the scarlet fever being in the town. Tell Master Micky
he shall have shrimps for tea if he can come, and give him and Miss
Kitty each a kiss from me.’
Emmeline looked up from her letter with sparkling eyes. ‘Oh, Aunt Grace,’
she cried, ‘this is a letter from Mary, asking us three to go and spend
the day with her next Saturday! The Fair will be going on—that’s why she
is asking us just now. We may go, mayn’t we?’
‘Three cheers for Mary!’ cried Kitty, jumping up and down, as her custom
was when excited.
‘For she’s a jolly good fellow!’ chimed in Micky, in what Aunt Grace
called his sea-captain’s voice.
‘Have you been used to going to this Fair other years?’ asked Aunt Grace,
who was looking rather troubled as she poured out the tea.
‘No, because till Grandmamma Moorby died we always used to go and stay
with her for August and September, and last year there was the scarlet
fever; but we may go this year, mayn’t we, Aunt Grace?’ repeated Emmeline
a little impatiently.
‘I must think about it, Emmeline,’ said Aunt Grace quietly. ‘Kitty, will
you pass Emmeline her tea—for one thing, Saturday isn’t a whole holiday,
you know.’
‘Oh, but we can work on Wednesday afternoon,’ said Emmeline; ‘one whole
holiday comes to the same thing as two half ones.’
‘Not quite,’ said Aunt Grace; ‘your afternoon work is never so much as
what you do in the morning. But we’ll see whether it can be arranged.’
‘“We’ll see” always means “yes” in the end,’ said Kitty.
‘No, Kitty,’ said Aunt Grace, rather distressed, ‘I don’t at all promise.
I should like you to have the pleasure, but I don’t yet know whether it
will be possible.’
‘Oh, Aunt Grace!’ cried Kitty, pouting a little, ‘you _can’t_ not let us
go to the Fair. There are such _darling_ baby elephants!’
‘Yes,’ added Micky, ‘and there are boats which go up and down, and up and
down, and round and round, till you get as lovely and seasick as if you
were on the real sea!’ Micky spoke without any thought of sarcasm.
‘Dear me! I should be very sorry to stand in the way of Micky’s having
the pleasure of being seasick!’ said Aunt Grace, with one of her funny
little smiles. ‘I’ll see what can be done, children. But don’t say any
more about it just now.’
The twins were a good-humoured little couple, and quite aware that Aunt
Grace was always glad to give them pleasure when she could, so they left
off teasing to go to the Fair and devoted their attention to their boiled
eggs. Eggs were a special Sunday treat. Emmeline, however, ate even
her egg in glum silence. Perhaps it was scarcely consistent for a young
lady who judged her aunt so severely for worldliness to set her heart on
attending a fair, but the best of us are inconsistent sometimes. Besides,
it was not only the possible loss of the pleasure itself which she
resented; there was Mary’s disappointment to be thought of—dear Mary, who
had been like a mother to them all while Aunt Grace was enjoying herself
in London. Altogether Emmeline felt that she did well to be angry, and
went on nursing her grievance all the morning.
The day was a wet one. In the morning it drizzled, though not enough to
keep the party from church, but at lunch-time the rain began to descend
in such torrents that the usual Sunday walk was clearly out of the
question.
‘I’ve got some letters I must write,’ said Aunt Grace as they rose from
the table, ‘but I shall have finished them before very long, and then I
shall be very pleased to go on with “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”’
She went to the drawing-room, where Emmeline followed her, with the
intention of writing an aggrieved letter to Mary, while Micky and Kitty
repaired to the schoolroom on some business of their own.
Somehow Emmeline’s grievance did not seem quite so impressive when she
came to write it down, or perhaps it was that her pen still travelled
too slowly for her thoughts. In any case she grew bored presently, and
wandered upstairs to the schoolroom to see what the twins were doing.
Judging from the eager sound of their voices as she drew near the
schoolroom door, it seemed to be something interesting.
She found them sitting on the floor, playing with their bricks.
‘Well, I never!’ she exclaimed with a very good imitation of Jane’s
voice of righteous wrath. ‘To think of playing with bricks on Sunday!
You _know_ Mary never let us.’ Emmeline spoke in a quite sincere belief
that it was her duty as an elder sister to keep the twins in the way that
they should go, but perhaps her elder-sisterly mission was all the easier
to-day because she was in a bad humour with the world in general.
The twins only giggled in an exasperating way. ‘Mary isn’t here now,’
sang out Micky.
‘And I’m sure Aunt Grace wouldn’t mind,’ added Kitty defiantly.
The hard lump which Emmeline knew so well at such times rose suddenly in
her throat. So even the twins were going over to the enemy! ‘Well, of all
the horrid, forgetting children!’ she exclaimed hotly, while the tears
rushed to her eyes, and again the twins laughed in a provoking way.
‘Why, what’s happening here?’ asked Aunt Grace’s voice as she opened the
schoolroom door.
‘It _is_ a Sunday game—really and truly it is,’ declared Kitty.
‘It isn’t,’ said Emmeline. ‘They would never have thought of playing with
bricks on Sunday at home.’
‘It is quite a Sunday game,’ repeated Kitty. ‘We are starting a Home for
brick widows and orphans. The long bricks are the widows and the little
ones the orphans. It was last night that made us think of it.’
‘Yes,’ said Micky, ‘to-morrow we shall play that the brick-box is a
thieves’ den, and the little bricks will be clever little boy-thieves,
and the big ones grown-up burglars. That will be much more exciting, only
Kitty thought the Home was best for Sunday.’
‘I agree with Kitty,’ said Mr. Faulkner, who had come into the schoolroom
behind Aunt Grace without the children noticing him in the heat of the
argument. Emmeline looked rather abashed now that she was aware of his
presence, but the twins were dauntless as ever.
‘Well, suppose you put the widows and orphans back into the Home now,’
Aunt Grace suggested, ‘and then, if you come down into the drawing-room,
Mr. Faulkner will tell some interesting stories about the real orphans.
Won’t you, Mr. Faulkner?’
‘I’ll tell stories certainly,’ he replied; ‘whether they’ll be
interesting is another matter.’
‘Oh yes, they will,’ said Kitty. ‘We were ever so interested last night,
weren’t we, Micky?’
‘That was partly because of the lantern,’ said Micky frankly, as he flung
unfortunate brick orphans violently back into the brick-box Home; ‘but
the stories were decent, too,’ he added kindly.
A few minutes later the whole party were seated in the drawing-room. The
children listened with rapt attention as Mr. Faulkner told stories, some
so funny that his audience went into fits of uproarious laughter, and
some so pathetic that Aunt Grace’s eyes filled with tears. Even Emmeline
was charmed out of her crossness, and became like a different being.
‘Do tell us some more about that wonderful little Kathleen who was so
very good to the poor—the child you spoke about last night,’ she pleaded,
as Mr. Faulkner paused for a moment.
‘No,’ said Aunt Grace, almost sharply for her; ‘that was the only part of
last night’s lecture I didn’t enjoy. I think that little girl was in a
false position altogether.’
Mr. Faulkner looked decidedly taken aback. ‘But surely you approve of
children trying to help their less happy brothers and sisters?’ he said.
‘Certainly,’ said Aunt Grace, ‘but the help should be of a suitable kind.
That child was encouraged to patronise people who were in many ways
better and wiser than herself, and certainly far more experienced. I am
sure such patronage does harm, not only to those on whom it is bestowed,
but to the child who gives it. I expect your little girl soon became
self-conscious and self-conceited, however pure her motives may have been
to start with.’
‘I can’t say as to that, for I never knew the child,’ said Mr. Faulkner,
‘but as to the effect of her influence, I am sure from many things I have
heard that it was nothing but good.’
‘Mr. Faulkner, can you turn coach-wheels?’ broke in Micky anxiously.
He felt much inclined to develop a hero-worship for Mr. Faulkner, but
could not quite make up his mind to do so till he was satisfied on this
important point.
‘Rather!’ said Mr. Faulkner. ‘I’d show you now if it wasn’t Sunday, but
I’ll tell you what—if Miss Bolton will let me, I’ll come again to-morrow
afternoon, and you and I will have a coach-wheel exhibition. By the way,
I suppose you can turn them yourself?’
‘Oh yes, Micky could go in for a coach-wheel championship,’ said Aunt
Grace proudly.
‘And can you ride bare-back?’ pursued Micky.
‘I have done so on occasion,’ said Mr. Faulkner, laughing. ‘Can you?’
‘Well, I haven’t yet,’ Micky owned, ‘but I mean to when our donkey comes.
We’re going to buy a donkey, you know, as soon as Aunt Grace gets her
next quarter’s money.’
So the merry talk went on, while all the time Emmeline sat by in silent
indignation. To think of Aunt Grace daring to disapprove of the wonderful
child who was Emmeline’s ideal! But Aunt Grace wanted everybody to be as
frivolous and worldly as herself!