In the joy and relief of her heart Kitty forgot all about any suspicions others might entertain, until Dr. Trenire mentioned Mrs. Pike. At the mention of that name her heart sank down and down. "O father," she cried, "Aunt Pike need not know anything about it, need she?"
"Of course she need, dear. Why should she not? You have nothing to fear from her knowing it. When you deny the guilt there will be an inquiry into the matter, of course, so that it must come to the knowledge of, at any rate, the elder girls and the parents, and Anna will be amongst the elder ones, I suppose. At any rate she is as tall as you are, and in your class."
"As tall as you are." The words struck Kitty with a new suggestiveness. She remembered suddenly that Anna had not been with them all the evening; that she had left the schoolroom soon after they had begun their work, and had not returned.
"Oh, where was she? What had she been doing? Where had she been?"
Kitty was in a fever of alarm, and could barely conceal her dismay.
"Well," said Dr. Trenire, "that will do, dear. I shall write to Miss Richards at once, and tell her that you absolutely deny any knowledge of or part in the matter, and that you have given me your word that you have not left the house since you returned from school at four-thirty. That should settle the matter as far as you are concerned."
"Yes," said poor trusting Kitty, "that must set it all right for me, of course." It did not occur to her then that any one could refuse to accept her word; and with no further fears for herself, she hurried away in search of Anna.
First she went to her bedroom, but a glance showed her that no one was there; and as it never occurred to Kitty to look under the bed, she did not see a pair of shoes covered with wet mud, and a splashed skirt and cloak. All, to her, looked neat and orderly, and with puzzled sigh she went thoughtfully down to the schoolroom again. If Anna had not been in her bedroom all the evening, where had she been? she thought anxiously. And when, a second later, she opened the schoolroom door and saw Anna sitting at the table facing her, her books spread out before her, her head bent low over them, she really wondered for the moment whether she was mad or dreaming. Betty was in her big chair, just as she had left her, her book in her hand, but she was glancing beyond it at Anna more than at the pages, and her face was full of grave perplexity.
"Anna has such a cough," she said, when Kitty appeared, "and she can't breathe, and her face is so red. I'm sure she has got a bad cold."
Anna was certainly very flushed, and she held her handkerchief up to her face a good deal.
"Have you a cold?" asked Kitty. She could not control her feelings sufficiently to speak quite naturally, and her voice sounded unsympathetic. She was vexed, and puzzled, and full of fears as to what might be to come. She could not help feeling in her heart a strong distrust of Anna, yet she felt sorry for her, and dreaded what might be in store for her.
"No—at least I don't think so. Perhaps I have, though. I don't feel well," she stammered. She spoke confusedly, and did not look at Kitty.
"I should think you had better go to bed and have some hot milk," said
Betty in her serious, old-fashioned way.
"Oh no. I am all right, thank you," said Anna, shrinking from the thought of her mother's visits to her room, and her searching inquiries as to how she could possibly have got a cold. "Do be quiet, Betty, and let me do my work. You know it is nearly bedtime."
"Well, you haven't seemed in a hurry till now," said Betty sharply. "You haven't been learning your lessons in your room, because I saw your bag and your books on your bed just now, and you hadn't touched them then."
"I do wish people wouldn't always be prying after me," said Anna angrily, and this time it was Kitty who looked guilty.
Supper was a very silent meal that night, and soon after it the three went to bed, scarcely another word having been spoken.
Kitty and Betty had been in bed an hour perhaps, and Betty was fast asleep, when Kitty, restless and sleepless with the new trouble she had on her mind, was surprised by the gentle opening of the door of the room. Half alarmed, she rose up in bed, peering anxiously through the gloom. Then—"O Anna!" she cried, "what is the matter? Are you ill?"
"No—o, I don't think I am, but I—I am sure I shall be. O Kitty, I am in such trouble. I must tell some one."
"I think I know what it is," said Kitty gently.
"Oh no, you don't," groaned Anna. "You can't. It is worse than copying my sums, or—or cribbing, or anything."
"I know," said Kitty again.
But Anna did not hear her. She was looking at Betty. "Come to my room, do!" she said. "Betty may wake up, and I don't want her to hear."
"Very well," said Kitty, slipping out of bed and into her dressing-gown. "I expect, though, she will have to know. It is bound to reach all the girls. I only wish it wasn't."
Anna, creeping back to her room, did not answer till she got there. Then she turned round sharply. "What do you mean? Know what?" she demanded.
Kitty looked surprised. "Why, about Lettice and—and you, and those letters, of course."
Anna dropped on to a chair, her face chalk-white, her eyes starting. "Lettice and—and—and me—and—who told—what do you mean? I don't understand."
"Anna, don't!" cried Kitty, ashamed and distressed. "Don't try to pretend. There is no mistake, and every one must know soon about Lettice. Whoever it was who nearly caught you made a mistake, for she thought it was me, and Miss Richards wrote to father accusing me, but, of course—"
"Accusing you!" cried Anna in astonishment. But her voice had changed. It was less full of terror than it had been. For a moment after Kitty ceased speaking she sat lost in thought.
"Of course father does not believe it, and he has written to tell Miss Richards so, and that I was at home all the evening, so there would have to be an inquiry of course, to try and find out which of the other girls it was, and everybody would have to know all about it; but now, when you tell Miss Richards that it was you, it needn't go any farther. Of course there will be a row, and probably you and Lettice will be punished, but no one else need ever hear anything more about it."
"Oh, but I couldn't!" cried Anna. She was so intensely relieved to find that, as yet, she was not suspected, that much of her courage and boldness came back. "And, of course, I shouldn't, unless they asked me, and—and for mother's sake it would be very foolish to—to get myself into a scrape when I needn't."
"But—but, Anna"—Anna's speech left Kitty almost voiceless—"it is—it is so dishonourable, so dishonest, so—"
"No, it isn't," snapped Anna crossly. She bitterly regretted now that she had taken Kitty into her confidence. She had done it in a moment of panic when she felt that detection was certain, and she must get help from somewhere. As soon as she knew that she was not suspected her courage and hopes had rallied. "You need not mind; you will be cleared; and they can't find and punish any one else, for there is no one else to find, so it can't do any one any harm."
"There is Lettice," said Kitty coldly. "You know you can't trust her, and if she tells, things will look ever so much worse for you than—"
"I don't think Lettice will tell," interrupted Anna meaningly.
"She knows that if she tells tales I can tell some too."
"You count on other people having some honour, though you have none yourself," said Kitty scathingly, and she turned away, choking with disgust. Anna made her feel positively ill. When she got to the door she stood and looked back. Her face was very white and stern, her eyes full of a burning contempt. "I do think, Anna," she said slowly and scornfully, "that you are the meanest, most dishonourable girl I ever heard of in all my life. You are going to leave all the girls in the school under suspicion because you haven't the honesty or courage to own up."
"It isn't anything to do with honesty," muttered Anna, very white and angry and sullen. "You have no right to say such things, Kitty. If you didn't do it, it can't do you any harm; and if no one suspects me, it isn't likely that I shall make them. I shan't be telling a story. I simply shan't say anything."
"I see no difference between telling a lie and acting one," flashed
Kitty, and she walked back to her own room without another word.
She had not been there long, though, before Anna came creeping in again.
"Kitty," she said anxiously, "you won't tell any one, will you, even if you are mad with me? You know I never said I—I—you accused me, but I didn't say—"
"I am not a sneak," said Kitty coldly. "Now go away. Go out of my room. I don't like to see you near Betty. Go away, do you hear!" and Anna vanished again into the darkness.
Though strong and secure in her own innocence, Kitty awoke in the morning with the feeling weighing heavily on her that though the matter would soon be ended, yet something very painful had to be faced first. Kitty, though, was counting too much on her own guiltlessness, and the certainty of others believing in it; and she had more cause than she imagined for waking with a weight on her mind.
When the dreaded inquiry took place, and all the senior girls were called into the "study" to undergo a rigorous cross-examination, she soon found that Miss Richards was very far from accepting her unsupported denial as conclusive.
"Yes, but who can bear out your statement that you did not leave the room or the house throughout the evening?" she asked sternly.
"Betty can," said Kitty. "Betty was in the room with me all the time."
"Ah! Betty! But she is very young, and very attached to you, and would of course be prejudiced."
Kitty's cheeks flamed with indignation, and she had to set her teeth to keep herself from answering.
"Have you no older—more responsible witnesses?"
"No one could be more honest and truthful than Betty," said Kitty proudly. "She wouldn't dream of saying I was there if I wasn't."
"But your father, or your aunt—"
"They were both out," said Kitty. "Anna saw me go to the schoolroom, and saw me begin my lessons, and I never moved until father came to me."
So Anna was called.
"Can you support your cousin's statement that she was in the schoolroom all the evening, and never once left it?"
Anna was about to say "yes," when she hesitated, and grew very red and confused. "I—I couldn't say," she stammered, and those listening thought she was embarrassed by her desire to shield Kitty, and at the same time tell the truth. Kitty looked at her with wide, horrified eyes. Surely Anna would say why she could not give the required assurance. But only too soon the conviction was borne in on her that Anna did not mean to tell, and Anna was an adept at saying nothing, yet conveying a stronger impression than if she had said much. Those looking on read in Kitty's horrified eyes only a fear of what Anna might admit, and opinion was strengthened against her.
"Speak out frankly, Anna," said Miss Richards encouragingly. "Did you notice her absence?"
"She—a—Kitty wasn't there once when I went back to the room," murmured
Anna, apparently with great reluctance.
Kitty's head reeled. She could not believe that she had heard aright. Anna was not only concealing her own guilt, but was actually fastening it on to her. "I think I must be going mad, or going to faint," she thought to herself. "I can't take in what they are saying." "But, Anna," she cried, in her extremity forgetting judge and jury, "you know father had come to me with Miss Richards's letter. I was with him when you came in."
"No," said Anna, with a look of injured innocence, "I didn't know. You didn't tell me. Of course I—I knew you were somewhere," she stammered lamely. "I don't say you were out of the house, only—well I couldn't say you were in the room if you weren't, could I?" with a glance at Miss Richards for approbation, and a half-glance at Kitty, whose gray eyes were full of a scorn that was not pleasant to meet.
Kitty could not speak for a moment, her indignation and disgust were too intense. She felt herself degraded by stooping to ask for evidence as to her own innocence.
Miss Melinda whispered to Miss Richards. Miss Richards looked at Kitty and bade her turn round. Kitty, wondering, obeyed.
"How do you account for the fact that your dress is splashed to the waist with mud?" Miss Richards asked frigidly. "Yesterday was quite fine until after you had all gone home from school, then heavy rain fell."
Poor Kitty. Here was Nemesis indeed! Two days ago that skirt had been put aside to be brushed, and now, to-day, without giving a thought to the mud on it, she had put it on and worn it. With crimsoning cheeks she wheeled around. "That mud has been there for days, Miss Richards," she said shamefacedly. "I ought to have brushed it yesterday, but I didn't, and to-day I forgot it." But she saw and felt that no one believed her, and Betty, the only one who could have borne out her words, was not there.
"You can all go back to your classes—all but Katherine Trenire," said Miss Richards, ignoring her speech; and the girls, with looks of sympathy or alarm, filed out, leaving Kitty alone.
"Now, Katherine," said Miss Richards firmly, "be a sensible, honest girl and tell the truth, and my sister and I will consult together as to the punishment we feel we must inflict. We do not wish to be too severe, but such conduct must be punished. Now, tell us the truth."
"I have told the truth," said Kitty proudly, "and I have no more to tell. Lettice can clear me if she likes, so can—the girl who was with her, but I can't do any more. If you won't believe me, what can I do?" and suddenly poor Kitty's proud eyes filled with tears.
Miss Melinda took this as a sign of relenting. She thought confession was coming, and unbent encouragingly. "There, there, that is better, Katherine. Now be advised by us, and get this dreadful load off your mind. You will be so much happier when you have."
Kitty drove back her tears and her weakness, and her gray eyes grew clear enough to show plainly the hurt and the anger which burnt in her brain as she listened to this insulting cajoling, as she termed it in her own mind.
"How dare you!" she cried indignantly. "How dare you fasten it on to me! I know who the girl was, and she knows that I know, but you want to believe that I did it, and—and you can if you want to. You are both very wicked and unjust, and—and I will never set foot in your house again!" And Kitty, beside herself with indignation, her head very erect, her face white, her eyes blazing, marched out of the room and out of the house, and not even her mud splashes could take from the dignity of her exit.
CHAPTER XII.
THOSE DREADFUL STOCKINGS.
Dr. Trenire was extremely annoyed and very indignant when he heard of the inquiry and the result—so indignant that Kitty's words came true, and she never did set foot within the doors of Hillside again, for her father removed her, and Betty too, from the school at once. Of course Betty could not continue there after all that had happened.
He did not tell the girls what he thought about the matter, but he told Miss Richards plainly that he considered the inquiry was a prejudiced one, and that an injustice had been done. They had made up their minds that Kitty was guilty, and had not made sufficient inquiries as regarded the other pupils.
Miss Richards was, of course, indignant and greatly upset, and Aunt Pike was in a great dilemma. She scarcely liked to keep Anna at the school after her cousins were withdrawn from it, yet she was very loth to deprive her of the companionship of such desirable friends as she considered she was thrown amongst there. Also, in her heart of hearts, Aunt Pike did not feel at all sure that Kitty was innocent.
"They are such extraordinary children," she said to herself, "I would not be surprised at anything they did—not from bad motives, perhaps, but from sheer ignorance of the difference between right and wrong."
So Anna was to stay on at Hillside, at any rate until the term and the term's notice should be up; and Miss Pooley came again to teach Kitty and Betty and Tony, greatly to Tony's delight, for he had been having a dull time, poor little man, and had not found much joy in doing lessons with Aunt Pike.
So the rest of the term wore away, and time healed the wound to some extent; and by-and-by the Christmas holidays drew near and the date of Dan's return, and that was sufficient to drive unwelcome thoughts from their minds and lighten every trouble.
"When the day comes, the real right day," said Kitty, "I shall be quite perfectly happy—"
"Touch wood," said Betty anxiously; "you know it is unlucky to talk like that. Fanny says so."
"Pooh! nonsense!" cried Kitty, growing daring in her excitement. "What could be lovelier than for Dan to be coming home, and Christmas coming, and the holidays; and oh, Betty, it does seem too good to be true, but it is true, and I am sure nothing could spoil it all."
But Kitty had not touched wood, and had reckoned without Aunt Pike; and even when that lady came into their room with a paper parcel in her hand they suspected no harm—in fact, they looked at the parcel with pleasure and excitement for a moment, even after she had said, "Children, I have got you some winter stockings, and you must put them on at once, the weather has become so cold." They even agreed heartily, and Betty plumped right down on the floor there and then, and bared one foot in readiness by the time the parcel was opened.
And then the parcel was opened, and dismay and horror fell on them, for the stockings were not only of an ugly pale gray, with white stripes going round and round the legs, but they were woollen ones!—rough, harsh, scratchy woollen ones! The colour was bad enough, but that was as nothing compared with the awful fact of their being woolly; for two children with more painfully sensitive skins than Katherine and Elizabeth Trenire could not be found in the whole wide world, and for them to wear anything in the shape of wool was a torture more dreaded than any other.
Betty instinctively drew her pretty bare feet under her for protection, and looked from Aunt Pike to Kitty with eyes full of horror. Kitty was desperate.
"I am very sorry, Aunt Pike," she said, quite gently and nicely, but very emphatically, "but we cannot wear woollen stockings. They drive us nearly mad—"
"Nonsense," interrupted Aunt Pike, with the complete indifference of a person not afflicted with a sensitive skin. "You will get over that in an hour or two. If you don't think about it you won't notice anything. Try them on at once. I want to see if they fit."
"It—it would really be better not to put them on," urged Kitty, "for we really couldn't wear them if you bought them, aunt, and the people won't take them back if they are creased."
"They will not be required to take them back," said Mrs. Pike firmly. "I have bought you six pairs each"—Betty groaned—"Don't make that noise, Elizabeth—and if they fit they will be kept. They are very fine and quite soft; any one could wear them quite comfortably, and so can you, unless, of course," severely, "you make up your minds not to."
Persons who are not afflicted with sensitive skins cannot, or will not, be made to understand how great and real the torment is, and young though Kitty was, she had, already learned this, and her heart sank.
"I hate light stockings too," said Betty; "they look so ugly with black shoes."
It was an unfortunate remark to make just then.
"Ah," said Aunt Pike triumphantly, "I suspected that vanity was at the bottom of it all! Now try on this one at once, Katherine; make haste." She went to the door.—"Anthony," she called, "come here to Kitty's room, I want you," and she stood over the three victims until their poor shrinking legs were encased in the hideous, irritating gray horrors.
Oh, the anger of Kitty and the dismay of Betty! Oh, the horrible, damp, sticky feeling that new stockings seem never to be without! Betty's blue eyes filled with tears of helpless misery, Kitty's gray ones with rebellion. Why should they be tormented in this way? It was so cruel, so unjust! They had not suffered from the cold more than had other people, certainly they had not complained of it—not half as much as had Mrs. Pike and Anna, who were clad in wool from their throats to their toes.
Tony sat looking at his poor little legs disgustedly, but it was the ugliness of his new footgear that struck him most; he did not feel the torment as his sisters did. Then quite suddenly Betty stripped off the detestable things.
"Thank you," she said, "I'll wear my old ones. I prefer the cold."
Mrs. Pike coloured with annoyance and set her lips firmly. "How dare you defy me in that way, Elizabeth!" she cried. "I have told you to wear those stockings, and you are to wear them. Remember, I mean what I say. I wonder your father has not insisted long before this on your wearing flannel next your skin. Don't you know that by going about in flimsy cotton things in all weathers you are laying up for yourself a rheumatic old age, and all kinds of serious illness?"
Kitty shuddered, but not at the prospect drawn for her by her aunt. "Father knows that we can't," she said seriously, "so he never tried to make us."
Betty, who had been absorbed in thought, looked up eagerly. "I would much rather have rheumatism than itchy stockings," she protested quite gravely. "I don't mind a bit, Aunt Pike. And—well, you see we can't be sure that we shall have an old age, or rheumatics."
Mrs. Pike grew really angry. "Put on those stockings at once, miss, and fasten them to your suspenders.—Kitty, fasten yours too."
"Oh, please let me wait," cried Kitty, "before I pull them tight; it is so awful."
"Nonsense! It is more than half of it fancy. Remember you are to wear them until the warm weather comes," and with that Aunt Pike walked away triumphant.
"Oh, how hideous they are!" groaned Kitty, as she looked disgustedly at her striped legs; "how perfectly hideous! I shall be ashamed to go out in them. What will Dan say when he sees them?"
"It is worse for me," wailed Betty, "my dress is so short. O Kitty, how can we ever walk in these dreadful things?"
"I don't know," said Kitty bitterly, "but we've got to. It is a good thing we have something nice to do to-day, for it may help us to forget." But nothing made them do that; the discomfort went with them everywhere, and destroyed their pleasure in everything.
Earlier in the day Dr. Trenire had said that they might all go to the station to meet Dan; and they went on top of the 'bus, and alone too, for Anna did not break up until the next day, and the weather was lovely, and everything might have been perfect, if only they could have forgotten their tortured legs. But to do that was more than they were capable of, for, in addition to the torture of them, there was the consciousness of their extraordinary ugliness, an ugliness which caught every eye.
"What on earth have you all got yourselves up in?" was almost Dan's first greeting. "I say, you aren't going to do it often, are you?"
And Betty straightway explained with much vehemence and feeling the torment of mind and body to which they had been condemned.
"They look like Aunt Pike," said Dan. "No one else could have unearthed such things. There is one comfort—we shall always be able to see you coming when you have them on. Now then, mount, or we shan't get outside seats."
But when Kitty, more than ever conscious after Dan's comments, looked at the steps and the little crowd of people who would witness her ascent, and thought of her dreadful stockings, her heart failed her. "I—I think I will go inside," she said hastily.
"So will I," said Betty, shamefaced too.
"Nonsense," cried Dan, guessing at once what was the matter. "You two skip up first, and I'll follow close to hide your le—retreat, I mean. I am not going to be done out of our drive home together. Now then, courage—up you get!"
And up they did get, but it did require courage: and the getting down was even worse—their cheeks blazed and their hearts grew hot with anger, and oh! the irritation of their poor unhappy legs.
"Kitty," whispered Betty eagerly, as they hurried into the house, "come upstairs, quick; I've thought of something. It's a splendid idea!"
With the excuse that they were going to take off their hats and coats, they rushed up to their bedroom and shut themselves in. Aunt Pike was a little surprised at their neatness; Dan was a little hurt at being left so soon, but Betty could not think of that then.
"Kitty," she breathed, as she closed the door and leaned against it, "I know what we will do. We will wear our cotton stockings underneath these horrors! They won't scratch us then, will they? And our holidays won't be spoilt, and Aunt Pike won't know, and—don't you think it's a perfectly splendid idea?"
"Splendid," cried Kitty enthusiastically, dropping on to the floor and beginning to unlace her boots that very moment. "Oh, quickly let us make haste and change them; I cannot, cannot endure this torment a minute longer. O Betty, why didn't you think of it sooner?" Then, holding up one of the offending gray stockings between the tips of her fingers, "Did you—did any one ever see anything in all this world so hideous?"
"We can do away with their itchiness, but we shall never, never be able to hide their ugliness," said Betty ruefully. "Nothing could do that."
But the ugliness did not seem to matter so much when the irritation was stopped; and they had such a grand time that evening, there was so much to tell, and hear, and do, and show, that all other things were forgotten, at least for the time.
And how lovely it was to wake in the morning and remember at once that the holidays had come, and Dan was home; and then to wander about the house and garden with him, looking up old haunts, and visiting Prue and Billy and Jabez in the stables; for Aunt Pike had allowed them that much licence on this the first day of the holidays. Then after dinner they all went up to Dan's room to help him to unpack, and there was no end of running backwards and forwards, looking at new treasures and old ones, and talking incessantly until the afternoon had nearly worn away without their realizing it.
"Um!" said Dan at last, pausing on the landing to hang over the banisters and sniff audibly. "A—ha! methinks I smell the soul-inspiring smell of saffron! For thirteen long, weary weeks I have not smelt that glorious smell. Oh yes, I have though, once. There was a saffron cake in the hamper. Fanny's own, too. Why," with sudden recollection, "I haven't had a good talk with Fanny yet. Aunt Pike was about all the time, and dried up the words in my throat. I'm going down to see her this very moment as ever is." And that moment he went.
The other three followed swiftly but silently, for Anna was at home and in her bedroom, resting, preparatory to going to a party that evening— the break-up party at Hillside—at least she was supposed to be resting. Her sharp ears, though, were ever on the alert, and if she guessed what was going on, she would come out and spoil everything. Mrs. Pike was shopping—buying gloves, and elastic for Anna's shoes, and a few trifles for herself, for she too was going to the party.
The kitchen was very snug and warm and full of business, as well as savoury odours, when they reached it. Fanny had a large Christmas cake out cooling on the table, and mince pies and tartlets all ready to go into the oven, while on a clean white cloth at one end of the table were laid half a dozen large saffron cakes and a lot of saffron nubbies to cool.
"O Fanny, how I adore you!" cried Dan, hugging her warmly. "No one in the world reads my thoughts as you do. The one thing I wanted at this moment was a nubby, and here it is." And seizing a couple he began to eat them with a rapidity that was positively alarming. "I know, though you don't say much, that you are overjoyed to see me home again; I can see it in your eyes. The house is a different place when I am home, isn't it?"
"It is different certainly," said Fanny with emphasis and a sniff, but not quite the emphasis Dan had asked for. Her coolness did not put him out, though. Fanny had a soft spot in her heart for him, and he knew it, the scamp; but though Dan was perhaps her favourite, at any rate for the moment, the others benefited by the favour shown to him.
"I knew you would feel it," he said sympathetically; "I was afraid it would tell on you. How thin you have gone, Fanny," with an anxious glance at Fanny's plump cheeks.
"Get along with your iteming. Master Dan," she said severely. "I should have thought they'd have learnt you better at school; and if anybody'd asked me, I should have said that the kitchen wasn't the place for young gentlemen."
"But nobody has asked you," said Dan. "And how," melodramatically, "could you expect me to keep away when you are here, and I smelt new saffron cake?"
"And how do you expect me to do all I've a-got to do with the lot of you thronging up every inch of my kitchen?" she went on, ignoring his flattery.
"Ask me another," said Dan, handing nubbies the while to all the others. "I give that one up. But I knew you would be frightfully cut up if I didn't come."
Fanny snorted in a most contemptuous manner, and tossed her head with great scorn. "Oh! I'd have managed to survive it, I dare say, and I don't suppose I should break down if you was to go."
"Do you know, Fanny dear," said Dan, suddenly growing very serious, "when I went away I never expected to see you still in this dear old kitchen when I came home, and the thought nearly broke my heart; it did really. I didn't think you could have stood—you know who, so long."
"Well, I reckon you won't see me here next time you comes home," said Fanny, trying hard not to look pleasant; "and as for this 'dear old kitchen,' as you call it—dear old barn, I call it, with its draughts and its old rough floor—it isn't never no credit to me, do what I will to it, and Mrs. Pike is always going on at me about the place. I says sometimes I'll give up and let it go, and then some folks'll see the difference."
Kitty remembered the time when Fanny, not so many months back, had let it go, and she had seen the difference. But she said nothing, and munched contentedly at her nubby; and Fanny, who really loved her big, homelike old kitchen almost as well as she did the children, continued to talk.
"I wish Jabez would come in," said Dan. "He used to love hot cake, and
I have hardly had a chance to say anything to him since I came."
"Nobody gets a chance to nowadays," said Fanny sharply. "He gets his head took off—not by me—if he so much as sets foot inside these doors; and Jabez isn't partial to having his head took off."
"I should think his foot should be taken off, not his head," giggled
Betty; but no one but herself laughed at her joke.
Kitty, who had been sitting on the corner of the table which stood in the window, munching her nubby and thinking very busily, suddenly looked up, her face alight with eagerness.
"Fanny," she cried, "don't you want to do something very, very nice and kind and—and lovely, something that would make us all love you more than ever?"
Fanny glanced up quickly; but as she was always suspicious that some joke was being played on her, she, as usual, made a cautious answer. She was not going to be drawn into anything until she knew more. "Well, I dunno as I wants to do more than I'm doing—letting 'ee eat my cake so fast as I bakes it."
"But, Fanny, listen!" Kitty was so eager she scarcely knew how to explain. "You know that Aunt Pike and Anna are going out this evening?"
"Yes, miss," with a sigh of relief; "from four to ten."
"Well," springing off the table in her excitement, "let us have a party too; a jolly little one at home here by ourselves. Shall we?"
Betty slipped down from her perch on the clothes-press, Tony got off the fender, and all clustered round Kitty in a state of eager excitement to hear the rest of her plan. They felt certain there was more. Fanny could not conceal her interest either.
"And what will be best of all," went on Kitty, "will be for you to ask us to tea in the kitchen, and we will ask Jabez too, and Grace, of course" —Grace was Emily's successor—"and we will have a really lovely time, just as we used to have sometimes. Shall we? O Fanny, do say yes!"
"Seems to me," said Fanny, "there isn't no need. 'Tis all settled, to my thinking." But there was a twinkle in her eye, and a flush of excitement on her cheek, and any one who knew Fanny could see that she was almost as pleased as the children.
"You are a Briton!" cried Dan, clapping her on the back resoundingly.
"I ain't no such thing," said Fanny, who usually thought it safest to contradict everything they said to her. "I'm a Demshur girl, born and bred, and my father and mother was the same before me. I ain't none of your Britons nor Cornish pasties neither, nor nothing like 'em."
"No, you are a thoroughbred Devonshire dumpling, we know," said Dan soothingly, "and not so bad considering, and you can make a pasty like a native, though you aren't one, and never will be. It is a pity too, for Jabez only likes—"
"I don't care nothing about Jabez, nor what he likes, nor what he doesn't," cried Fanny, bending down over her oven to hide a conscious blush which would spread over her round cheeks. "There's good and bad of every sort, and I don't despise none. I only pities 'em if they ain't Demshur."
"That is awfully good of you," said Dan solemnly. "We can cheer up again after that. Fanny," more eagerly, "do tell us what you are going to give us to eat."
But Fanny could not be coaxed into that. "I haven't said yet as I'm going to give 'ee anything," she said sharply; but there was a twinkle in her eye, and matters were soon settled satisfactorily. There was to be a substantial "plate tea" in the kitchen at half-past five, which would allow plenty of time for the laying of the cloth and other preparations after Mrs. Pike and Anna had departed. Then they were to have games and forfeits, and tell ghost stories, and anything else that came into their minds to do, and a nice supper was to wind up the evening, and by ten o'clock all signs of their feast were to be tidied away, and the children were to go as quietly to bed as though Aunt Pike stood at their doors.
CHAPTER XIII.
AN EXCITING NIGHT.
Had Aunt Pike had even the faintest suspicion of what was to happen during her absence he would have given up her party then and there and have remained at home, even though Anna was to receive a prize and to recite.
But, fortunately for her peace of mind, she suspected nothing, and they both went off quite cheerful and excited through the cold and mist of the December evening to the scene of the triumph of Anna's genius— Anna with her head enveloped in shawls, her feet in goloshes, her muslin skirts covered with a mackintosh and a fur-lined cloak.
When it came to the moment of departure she felt so sorry for those left behind that she could not help expressing it. "I wish you could have come too, and had some of the fun," she said excitedly.
"Do you?" said Betty bluntly. "Well, I don't. So you needn't feel unhappy about it. We would rather have 'bread and scrape,' or nothing at all, at home. We shall enjoy ourselves, you may be quite sure. Don't worry about us," which was wickedness on Betty's part, for she knew that Anna always suspected that they enjoyed themselves more without her, and resented it.
And there was no denying that Anna's suspicions were correct. Before she and her proud mamma had reached the gates of Hillside, Kitty and Betty had stripped off the detested stockings, and were arraying themselves in their last summer's muslin frocks, intending to be quite as partified as Anna; and Kitty tied her hair with a red ribbon, and Betty's with a blue one to match her turquoise locket, and down they went to the feast.
Jabez had not yet arrived, but he was momentarily expected. Dan was already there in his new "Eton's," with a sprig of mistletoe in his button-hole. Tony was in his best white sailor suit, and Fanny and Grace had holly in their caps, and wore their Jubilee medals. The table was loaded with cakes and pasties, and "splits" with cream and jam on them; and then, just as they were getting tired of waiting, Jabez arrived. He was in his best suit, and was very shy, very embarrassed, yet very pleased at having been invited.
"Simmeth like old times, don't it!" he gasped, seating himself on the extreme edge of the hard chair nearest the door, a chair and a position no one ever dreamed of occupying at any ordinary time.
To Kitty, who always felt shy if others were, it was as little like old times as could be, for every one seemed borne down with an unnatural politeness and quiet, and of them all Jabez suffered most. He had never been asked to a party before, not a full-dress party, and he found it embarrassing. But Dan came to the rescue, and with his jokes and his laughs and his funny stories soon made them all feel more at ease, so that by the time the first cups of tea were drunk, and the dish of "splits" emptied, the ice had been melted and all was going well.
"Jabez," said Dan, turning to him with a very solemn face, "it is you we have to thank for this feast."
Jabez stared, bewildered. "I don't take your meaning, sir," he answered in a puzzled voice. "Tedn't nothing to do with me. I am the invited guest, I am, and proud so to be. I only wishes I'd a-got a bit of a place fitty for to ask 'ee and the young leddies to come to, sir."
"Never mind, Jabez; we can wait. Perhaps you'll have one soon," said Dan consolingly, and he glanced knowingly round the table, letting his eye rest for a moment longer on Fanny than any one else. "By another Christmas we may—dear me, I think this room must be very hot," he remarked, breaking off abruptly to look at Fanny's rosy cheeks. But Fanny rather tartly told him to "go on with his tea and never mind nothing 'bout hot rooms, nor anything else that didn't concern him," and quite unabashed he turned to Jabez again.
"You see," he explained, "if you hadn't gone to father that day I shied the wood at you, we shouldn't have had Aunt Pike here, and Fanny wouldn't have asked us out here to tea because Aunt Pike was out, because, you see, she wouldn't be here to go out, and we couldn't be glad about her going, for we shouldn't know anything about it to be glad about, and so there wouldn't be anything special to ask us here for, and so—"
"Master Dan," cried Jabez piteously, "if you don't stop to once, the little bit of brain I've got'll be addled! Iss, my word, addled beyond recovery, and me a poor man with my living to get."
"It do put me in mind of my old granny," said Grace, laughing, "when poor grandfather died, and she was getting her bit of mourning. 'Well,' she saith, 'if my poor dear Samuel had died a week sooner or later, and Miss Peek had put her clearance sale back or fore a week, I should have missed that there remlet of merino and lost a good bargain, whereas now it'll always be a pleasure to me to look at and feel I saved two shillings on it.'"
"Now, Fanny," cried Dan, "a story from you, please."
Fanny demurred a little, of course. People never like to be told to tell stories. They prefer to drift naturally into them, without a lot of people waiting expectantly for what they are going to say.
But Fanny had such stores of tales of ghosts, fairies, witches, and other thrilling subjects, that she never failed to fascinate her listeners. She did so now, when once she had begun, until they were all almost afraid to look round the dim kitchen, and Jabez wished, though he would not have owned it, that he had not got that walk home in the dark.
Then they burnt nuts, and melted lead in an iron spoon and poured it into tumblers of cold water, and Fanny's took the shape of the masts and rigging of a ship, though Jabez declared it wasn't nothing of the sort, but was more like clothes-postens with the lines stretched to them, yes, and the very clothes themselves hanging to them. All but Jabez, though, preferred to think it a ship; it was more exciting. Grace's lead formed tents of all sizes, and Grace seemed quite pleased.
Of Kitty's they could make nothing at all.
"That looks to me like a rolling-pin lying at the bottom," cried Dan excitedly, "and a beautiful palace, almost like a fairy palace, and—but I don't know what all those little pieces can be meant for. I think it must mean that you are going to be a cook in a large house—a palace, perhaps."
"I fink those are fairies," chimed in Tony thoughtfully, "and that's a fairy palace, and—and—"
"And the rolling-pin is me in the midst of it all," cried Kitty, throwing her arm round her little brother. "Tony, you are a dear; you always say something nice."
"I shouldn't think it very nice to be called a rolling-pin," said Betty.
"But do tell me what mine is, Kitty!"
"I really can't," said Kitty, after they had each gazed at it solemnly.
"I can't tell whether it is meant for a ship, or an iceberg, or a tent.
Perhaps it is all three, and means that you are going to travel,
Bettikins."
"Oh yes," said Betty, "I shouldn't be surprised. I mean to travel when
I am grown up, and I always feel that I shall do something some day."
"I feel I shall do something to-night if I don't get something to eat soon," interrupted Dan, in a tone intended to touch Fanny's heart. "It is half-past eight, and tea has been over for more than two hours."
"Well," said Jabez, as the tumblers and the mysterious lead figures were whisked away, "'tis just as well nobody couldn't attempt to tell what mine was, for I wouldn't 'ave 'urt anybody's ingenooity with trying to. If 'twasn't a blacksmith's shop, 'twas a vegetable stall; and if 'twasn't that, 'twasn't nothing; and things when they'm like that is best left alone, it's my belief."
"P'r'aps it was the table with supper laid on it," suggested Kitty.
"P'r'aps 'twas, Miss Kitty; but I'm sorry for us all if 'twas, for the dishes, if dishes they was, was empty, and that wouldn't suit us at the present minute."
But it exactly depicted the state of the dishes half an hour later, for, as Fanny said when they wanted the kitchen cleared for games, "there wasn't nothing to clear but empty things."
By that time all stiffness had worn away, every one was in the highest spirits, and the games went on furiously, so furiously that the striking of the hall clock and the town clock were overlooked, and the first thing that recalled them to themselves was a loud ringing of the front-door bell.
For one second they stood looking at each other in utter dismay, then—" The back stairs," whispered Dan. "Fly, children, scoot, and hop into bed as you are.—Jabez—"
But Jabez had already vanished through the back door and had shut himself in Prue's stable. Up the back stairs the children scuttled, shoes in hand, and melted away into their various rooms without a sound. Kitty stayed a moment with Tony to help him into bed, and as she crept out of his room the sound of voices in the hall reached her.
"Grace needn't have hurried so to let them in," she thought. "She could at least have pretended she was asleep and didn't hear the knock, and so have given us a few minutes more." But Grace's promptness was such that Kitty had barely time to draw her nightgown on over her frock and creep into her bed before she heard her aunt's footsteps on the stairs.
Mrs. Pike went first to Tony's room, and Kitty, leaning up, listened in a perfect tremor of nervousness for what might follow. Tony was no good at pretending, but, as good luck would have it, there was no need of make-believe on his part, for he had been so tired he had fallen fast asleep as soon as he had cuddled down under the bedclothes, and Mrs. Pike, after just a glance, came away quite satisfied. Then Kitty heard her approaching their room.
"Oh!" she thought with dismay, "she is bringing Anna with her;" for Mrs. Pike was talking to some one in a low voice. "What bad luck; Anna sees through everything. I wonder if Betty hears too. If she doesn't she is sure to jump. Betty! Betty!" she called, as loud as she dared, but the next moment the door opened and Aunt Pike entered with a candle in her hand, and followed by Anna.
"Dear, dear," she said, as she tripped over something, "how untidy!
What is it, Anna?"
Anna stooped and picked up one of Betty's discarded gray stockings. For once Betty's untidiness served them a good turn. Seeing the stockings on the floor, it never occurred to Aunt Pike but that they had both undressed and got into bed in the usual fashion. The first thing, though, that caught Anna's eye was the red bow in Kitty's hair.
"I—I didn't know—" she began, then glanced quickly at Betty's head, where the blue bow showed up against the pillow, but instead of remarking on it she suddenly grew silent. Kitty marvelled, for she had remembered their hair ribbons almost at the same moment as Anna had caught sight of them, and it was all she could do not to put up her hand and grab hers off. With the remembrance she almost gave up hope of escaping detection, and wished devoutly that they had stayed downstairs and faced the consequences; for to be found out now, hiding in bed in this fashion, made a discreditable matter of what was really not a very bad one. But, to her increasing amazement, Anna said nothing, not even when Aunt Pike said, "I must speak to Katherine in the morning. She has either neglected to brush her hair at all, or she is very extravagant in tying it up for the night with a good piece of ribbon. Now come away, darling; it is quite time you were in bed. I am sure you must be quite exhausted. You know I did tell you I thought you would not be able to show them your prize to-night."
"Prize!" gasped Betty, sitting up in bed as soon as ever their visitors' backs were turned. "Has she really got a prize? I didn't think it could be true when Aunt Pike said she would get one. Anyhow, I wonder she isn't ashamed to show it, for she knows it would have been yours if she hadn't behaved so disgustingly. But Anna is never ashamed of what she does, no matter how bad it is."
"Oh yes, she is," said Kitty thoughtfully. "I think she is dreadfully ashamed sometimes of some things, and very sorry."
"Then why doesn't she say so?" snapped Betty crossly.
"I believe she doesn't know how to. She is shy, or—or something; but I do believe she would like to be able to." And she thought of the abject way in which Anna had followed her about for days after that affair at Hillside, and had tried to do things for her; and in her heart she knew that it was Anna's curious way of expressing her gratitude to her for not exposing her meanness. "I believe," she went on musingly, "that if she could undo all that—that fuss in any other way than by owning up, that she would; but there isn't any other way, and she hasn't got pluck enough to do it in the right one. I believe she would rather die than have Aunt Pike know how she behaved. Oh dear, I do wish I hadn't to get up again and undress."
"So do I," agreed Betty. "I really can't brush my hair to-night, I am so sleepy."
"I wouldn't," said Kitty, who had a little habit of saying the most comfortable thing. "Give it an extra brushing to-morrow; that will do."
"Very well," agreed Betty, "I will remember," and in another moment was fast asleep.
Kitty lay down and drew the bedclothes cosily about her until a few dark curls and a scarlet bow were all that were visible, but go to sleep she could not. Thoughts went racing through her brain in the most distracting manner—thoughts of the school and all the unpleasant ending of her short connection with it; thoughts of Anna and her mother, and Anna's want of courage.
"I believe she isn't really a bad sort," mused Kitty, "and yet—and yet she does do such mean things, and doesn't seem to see that they are mean; and she thinks that the only way to please people is to say nasty things of some one else to them; and then, of course, one feels that to other people she says the same of oneself. One can't help it. I do wish she was different. I believe I could like her if she was."
Presently her thoughts merged into dreams, but such unpleasant ones that she was quite glad to awaken from them; and so, constantly dozing and half-waking, and dozing again, the hours wore on until at last she awoke really wide awake, with a very strong and alarming feeling that something was amiss, or that something unusual was happening. She had not the faintest idea what it could be, and though she sat up in bed and listened, she could not see or hear anything. The house seemed quiet and still, and yet there were sounds—curious, mysterious sounds that ceased while she listened for them, and left her wondering if she were still dreaming, or if her ears were playing her tricks. Her first fear was that there might be something the matter with Tony; then she thought of Dan.
"I must go and see," she thought, and slipped very gently out of bed and into her dressing-gown. When she was outside the door she paused to listen. Yes, there certainly were sounds, and they came from Dan's room, sounds of whispering and movements, and—yes, there was a curious smell. "I believe it is fire!" she gasped, and ran down the corridor. Dan's room was nearly at the end of it, and faced the staircase. Tony's was a tiny room between the girls' and Dan's, while Anna's room was beyond Dan's again. Kitty looked in at Tony, and found him safe, and sleeping comfortably; then she hurried on. Dan's door was slightly ajar, and there was a dim light within; here also was the curious smell which had greeted Kitty's nose, only stronger, and here also was Anna, in her gray dressing-gown, sitting on the floor, and apparently hugging herself in an agony of pain. "What has happened? What is the matter? Dan, tell me!"
At the first sound of her voice Dan wheeled round, and Anna started up with a scream.
"How you did startle me!" cried Dan in a hoarse whisper. "But I'm awfully glad you've come." Dan's face was perfectly white, and he was trembling visibly. "Kitty, what can I do? I have been such a—such a fool; worse than a fool. Look!" holding up a paper partly burnt, and pointing to a scorched mark on the curtain.
"Oh!" gasped Kitty. "O Dan, how did it happen? What were you doing?
Reading in bed? You might have been burnt to death."
"I should have been—we all should have been, and the house burnt down, if it hadn't been for Anna," groaned Dan. "It'll teach me never to read in bed again. I thought I was quite wide awake too. But look at Anna; do try and do something for her. She has burnt her hands horribly, and I didn't know what to put on them. What can I do? Kitty, do do something; she is in frightful pain, and she was so plucky."
Even in her great pain Anna looked up gratified by this praise. Kitty gently lifted her hands and looked at them, then laid them down again with a little shocked cry, for the whole of the palms and the fingers were covered with burns.
"Oh you poor, poor thing!" she cried.—"Dan, do creep down to the surgery, and bring up the bottle of carron oil. You will find it on the floor by the window. Father always keeps it there.—O Anna," putting her arms round her cousin's quivering shoulders, "how you must be suffering! I am so sorry. I wish I could bear it for you."
Anna was almost beyond speaking, but she laid her head back against Kitty's arm with a sigh of relief. "O Kitty, I am so glad to have done something for you—that's all I think of. I don't mind the pain. You have done so much for me, and I—I wanted to make it up to you somehow."
"Don't you ever think of that again," said Kitty solemnly. "You have saved Dan's life, perhaps all our lives, and that wipes out everything. But oh! poor Dan, won't he be in a scrape to-morrow when this is all found out!"
"But it won't be found out," said Anna. "We can easily get rid of the paper, and the mark on the curtain won't show unless one looks for it; and, you see, it won't be taken down till the winter is over, and then—"
"But your hands," cried Kitty. "How can we explain about your burns?"
"Oh—h," said Anna slowly, as she tried to think of some plan, "I will just say it is an accident—I needn't explain."
"But I shall," said Kitty firmly. "I am not going to have any deceitfulness. We will all stand together, but you aren't going to suffer for Dan. Dan wouldn't stand it, and I should be ashamed of him if he did."
Anna did not answer, and Kitty thought she had won. Dan returned with the oil, and from his own drawer produced a generous supply of torn handkerchiefs.
"How did you find out about the fire?" questioned Kitty, as she bound up the poor hands as skilfully as she knew how. Her "skill" would have made a surgeon or a nurse smile, but the result was soothing and comforting.
"I woke up suddenly and thought I smelt burning; then I was sure I did, and I got out and opened my door and saw a bright light shining under Dan's door." Here Anna had the grace to blush, for she remembered another occasion when she had seen a light shining under a door, and had not flown in a frenzy of fear to save those inside. "I crept down the passage, and then I knew that the smell of burning was coming from Dan's room. I knocked, but he didn't answer, and the light grew so bright that I got frightened, and I rushed in and snatched the paper out of his hand, and beat out the flames." Her face, which had been very flushed, was now deadly white. "I think I will go back to bed now," she said faintly, "I am dreadfully tired."
And dreadfully tired she was too, thoroughly exhausted and overcome. Kitty helped her to her room and tucked her in her bed, and as she was bending over her, Anna raised her usually restless eyes to her very pleadingly.
"Kitty, you must let me have my own way, or I shan't feel that I've done anything towards—towards wiping out—you know what I mean."
"I know," said Kitty. "We won't talk any more about it to-night. We will wait until to-morrow. Good-night, Anna," and for the first time in her life she kissed Anna willingly.
CHAPTER XIV.
MOKUS AND CARROTS.
Kitty heard Dan go downstairs the next morning just as she was finishing dressing, and her heart thumped painfully, for she knew he was going to confess. When confessions had to be made Dan always made them as quickly as possible so as to get them off his mind. Kitty hurriedly finished her dressing, and followed him with some vague idea in her mind of helping him.
But when they got down there was no one else about, and before they had seen any one to whom to confess, Mrs. Pike burst into the dining-room where they stood, miserably enough, waiting.
"Kitty, Dan, do either of you know where your father is? I want him to come to Anna. She is so unwell, and in some extraordinary way has burnt her hands dreadfully. Oh dear! oh dear! what troubles do come upon me. I suppose it was foolish of me to leave her last night to put herself to bed when she was so tired. I might have known she would tumble over the lamp, or do something equally careless. It was kind of you, Kitty, to attend to her burns for her, poor child, but you should have come and called me." There were tears in Aunt Pike's eyes as she turned to thank her niece. "You—she—Anna need not have been afraid. I did not know I was so harsh with her that she was afraid to—" and poor Aunt Pike broke off, quite overcome. The shock of finding Anna feverish and ill, and with her hands bandaged, had upset her greatly.
Dan, sincerely touched and conscience-stricken, stepped forward.
"Aunt Pike," he began, "I—"
But Kitty with a look and a sign checked him. "Wait," she whispered.
"I think you had better wait, or you may make things worse for Anna."
Dan looked distressed. "I don't think I shall," he answered testily, as Aunt Pike went out of the room. "I hate mystery. Why can't we speak out and have it over? I am going to, Kitty."
"I want you to, as much as you do," she answered in a troubled voice, "but we have to think of Anna. She did so much for us last night, and— well, I believe if we were to tell Aunt Pike all about it now, it would hurt her more than ever, because she would think Anna had been deceiving her; and Anna did not mean to, she only meant to be kind to us."
So Dan, though most unwillingly, had to agree. It annoyed him, and hurt his dignity, and offended his sense of honour to have to let Anna bear the weight of his misdoing; but he still hoped that when he could see Anna she might consent to his making a full confession. Here, though, he was again doomed to disappointment, for Anna only turned to him pleadingly. "Don't say anything about it," she cried. "O Dan, don't! If mother was to know now she would be more angry than ever, and she would never trust me again, or forgive either of us."
So Dan, out of his gratitude to her, had to give in; and there the matter rested for the time at least. But it had brought about two important changes—it cured Dan, and all of them, for some time, of their love of reading in bed; and it made them more tolerant in their feelings towards Anna.
Christmas, since that last one their mother had spent with them, had never been a festive or a happy season in Dr. Trenire's house. To the doctor it was too full of sad memories for him to be able to make it gay or cheerful for his children, and the children did not know how to set about making it so for themselves, while Aunt Pike had no ideas on the subject beyond sending and receiving a few cards, giving Anna a half-sovereign to put in the savings bank, and ordering a rather more elaborate dinner on Christmas Day.
Kitty, Dan, and Betty this year felt a real yearning for a Christmas such as they had read of, and discussed all manner of impossible plans, but there it all ended. Dr. Trenire gave them a book each, and they sat around the schoolroom fire reading them and munching the sweets they had clubbed together to buy, and that was all the festivity they had that year.
It was a damp, mild season, unseasonable and depressing, pleasant neither for going out nor for staying indoors; and Dan, who had less than five weeks' holidays, and had already had one of them spoilt by the weather, grumbled loudly, fully convinced that he had every reason to do so.
But with January came a change to high, cold winds, which dried up the mud, and, having done that much service, departed, to be followed by days of glorious sunshine. Just about the middle of the month Mrs. Pike had to go away for a week or two to visit her sister in Yorkshire, and with this circumstance, and the lovely weather combined, the children's spirits rose. Dan had but a fortnight's holiday left, it is true, but they meant to enjoy every possible minute of that fortnight, and to begin with they decided on an expedition to Helbarrow Tors, one of their most beloved of picnic places. Anna had never seen that wonderful spot, and Anna, who did not accompany her mother on her Yorkshire visit, was to be introduced to all its beauties on the very day after her mother's departure.
As though knowing what was expected of it, the day broke most promisingly. Of course it was not really light until about eight o'clock—in fact, they got up and had their breakfast by gaslight, for they really could not stay in bed late with such prospects as they had before them; but already the weather signs were good, and Jabez was most encouraging.
"I'll back a mist like that there," he said, "agin anything for turning out a fine day. You mark my words now, Miss Kitty; and I'll go right along and get that there donkey and cart for fear anybody else should be put in the mind to 'ave a little egscursion too, and get un furst."
Fanny was as amiable as Jabez. When Kitty went out to the kitchen to see about their food for the day she found her with a row of baskets on the table before her, and Dan sitting on the corner of it superintending her doings.
"There, Miss Kitty," she exclaimed, "that's the salt I've just put in, so don't anybody say I forgot it, and don't anybody go unpacking it any'ow or it'll be upset; and we don't want no bad luck, do we?"
Kitty looked at the baskets joyfully.
"I've put in what I calls a good allowance for six. Do 'ee think that'll be enough?" asked Fanny anxiously, "or shall I put in a bit more cake, and a pasty or two extra? P'r'aps I'd better."
"Perhaps you had," said Kitty thoughtfully. "You see, we have the whole day, and one does get hungry out of doors, and there is never a shop anywhere near—and if there is, we never have any money to spend in it."
Even while she was speaking Fanny was stowing the extra pasties and cake into the basket. "Now, Master Dan, remember that's the basket you'm to carry," pointing to a large square one with the cover securely fastened down. "There's nothing to eat in it, but it's the 'eaviest, 'cause it's got the milk in it, and a bottle of methylated spirits and the little stove in case you can't get no sticks nor no fire."
"O Fanny, you are cruel," sighed Dan. "I really don't know," with a very good imitation of a catch in his voice, "how you can say to me the nasty things you do."
"Ah!" said Fanny, with a knowing shake of her head. "I may be cruel, and I have my failings, but I can read you through and through, Master Dan, same as if you was a printed book. You take my word for that."
"X rays aren't in it," cried Dan. "Eyes of a hawk, and a heart of stone. What a combination!"
"That there littlest basket," went on Fanny, turning to Kitty, "is for Master Tony; and you must see that Master Dan don't get hold of it, and let his little brother wear hisself out carrying the 'eavy one."
"Fanny, what do you take me for?"
"I take 'ee for what you are," said Fanny calmly—"an anointed young limb, and as artful as you are high."
"Wait till I have gone back to school," said Dan wistfully, "then every cruel and unjust thing you have said and thought of me will come back to you, and 'Too late, ah, too late,' you will moan as you sob yourself ill; 'and I loved that boy better than any one in the whole wide world!'"
Which had enough of truth in it to make Fanny quite cross, or seem to be.
"Master Tony's basket has got some lunch in it for you all to eat on your way. There's a little pasty each, and some biscuits. I did put in a big one for Master Dan, but I've more'n half a mind to take it out again, seeing as he's be'aving so, sitting on the table and swinging his legs. I s'pose those are the manners they learns him to school!"
Dan chuckled. "I wish they did," he said. "No, it's only you who let me behave myself as I like, Fanny. No one else in the wide world is so kind to me. O Fanny, I wish you were coming with us."
"So do I," cried Kitty. "Wouldn't it be fun!" And Fanny, quite mollified, did not remove Dan's big pasty.
The door opened and Jabez came in. "I've got the moke," he said; "he's in the yard; and I've put a few carrots in the cart for 'ee to 'tice un along with, for if that there creetur haven't made up his mind a'ready not to see Helbarrow Tor this day—well, I'm a Dutchman, and whatever my failings I ain't that yet."
"The only enticing he'll get from me will be with the whip," said Dan with great scorn, "so you can take out the carrots again." But Jabez shook his head wisely.
"They won't take up much room," he said. "I'll put 'em in the nose-bag, and if you don't need 'em on the way, you can give 'em to the creetur when he gets there, by way of encouraging un another time. Now, are you all ready, miss? It's best for 'ee to start before he falls asleep again, for they'm always poor-tempered if they'm woke up, and then they'm obstinater than ever."
The five of them could not all get into the cart at once, at least not with any comfort, so they always, on these excursions, took it in turn to ride and tie; and Dan, who did not crave for the glory of driving Mokus through the street, walked on with Betty, leaving the others to follow.
It was certainly cold when first they started; the air was fresh and biting, with a touch of frost in it, and the sun had not yet come out. Anna shivered beneath her fur-lined cloak, and Tony, thrusting his hands deep down in his pockets, snuggled down between Kitty and Anna, and felt very glad for once that he was not allowed an outside seat.
But by degrees the sun shone through the misty grayness, bathing the road before them, and lighting up the bare hedges on either side until it really seemed that spring had come, that the fresh morning air was certainly full of the scent of primroses and violets, and the sweet earthy smell of moss. The birds evidently thought so too, for they came fluttering and flying from all manner of cosy hiding-places, and, undaunted by the sight of the brown branches and the leafless twigs, boldly perched themselves on telegraph wires and trees to survey the scene while they made their summer plans.
What more could one want than brown branches if the sun was on them! And how could one hurry or worry, or do anything but revel quietly in the beauty that lay all about one, and tell oneself there were no gray days to come!
Mokus, for one, evidently felt that this was no occasion for haste, and Kitty did not contradict him. She herself felt that she wanted to linger over every moment, and get the fullest enjoyment out of it all.
Dan, however, had other views, and when, at the foot of Tremellen Hill, they found him and Betty perched on a low bridge awaiting them, he upbraided them plaintively for their waste of time.
"But no girl ever could drive, even a donkey," he said loftily. "He will find out now that he has met his master. Get up, Betty. Do be quick. I want to reach Helbarrow to-day, and it must be lunch-time already." At which Tony, who was scrambling down from the cart, reached back for his basket.