CHAPTER VI

OUR VISIT TO THE HALL

LYNETTE and I were very excited about going out to tea. We wanted to dress ourselves long before Aunt Caroline would let us do so. Emma was going to walk with us, and she talked a good deal about the squire's big house. I wish they all came to our church, but they don't; they attend another church nearer to them. I think the boys were rather jealous of us, but I reminded them that there were no boys, and Denys said a girls' tea-party was poor fun. Lynette was in wild spirits; I told her if she did anything to disgrace us, I would run off home and leave her. Of course she called me a prig, but I didn't care, for when Lynette gets excited, she doesn't mind what she does.

She sobered down when we got up to the big front door. I think she was rather frightened. I was, I know, when the footman took us up a very broad staircase lined with pictures and books, and along huge passages that seemed as if they would never end. At last he threw open a door, and announced:

"The young ladies from the Rectory."

And then we found ourselves in a lovely big nursery, and Clarice came up and shook hands with us. She took us over to the window where Beatrice was lying on a sofa. She was just like Clarice, only her cheeks were paler and her face thinner. There was rather a nice governess in the room—Miss Tudor was her name, and Lynette actually asked her if she was any relation to the Tudor kings! She didn't mean it for cheek, she really thought she might be. She didn't seem offended, for she laughed and said she was afraid she wasn't.

And then Clarice began showing us her big dolls' house and all her toys. Lynette sat down on the floor at once by the dolls' house, and I sat by the sofa and talked to Beatrice.

"Clarice told me about your washing," she said; "I wish I'd been there. Tell me more."

So I told her about our donkey, and how we were trying to get money, and she was frightfully interested.

And then Clarice came running up to us.

"Oh, Bee, we're having such fun with our dolls' house; Lynette has been telling me such lovely things to do. We're making burglars climb down the chimney and hide under the beds, and—" here she lowered her voice to a whisper—"when Miss Tudor goes out of the room, we're going to make a fire happen, and then we're going to be firemen, and get the garden syringe, and syringe it with water."

Beatrice's eyes shone, but I had to spoil that game. I told them how we had done that to our old dolls' house once. The boys did it. They put a lighted match under one of the dolls' beds. Of course it was awfully exciting, but the whole place caught on fire, and all our dolls were burnt. And though it was great fun putting it out with water, mother came in and made us promise we would never, never attempt such a thing again. And I said, "If we make a mess with water again, we shall never be allowed to come here."

Lynette looked at me very crossly.

"You're so stupid, Grizzy, you never like any fun!"

I think it's very hard to be thought stupid when you're trying to be good, but I didn't say anything more, and then Lynette thought of something else, and the next thing they were doing was turning the dolls' house into a castle besieged with soldiers, and she and Clarice were soon shrieking at the top of their voices as the lady dolls were racing about trying to hide from the soldiers, and some of them were being caught and killed.

Beatrice told me how tired she was of lying on a sofa, and how she longed to get up and run round the room. And then she showed me some of her books, and we played a funny game together—something like parlour croquet—and then came tea. We were all the greatest of friends by tea-time, and Clarice told us there were no other little girls like us for miles and miles. Then we asked them to tell us all the clergymen's names who lived near, and their families, and then all the squires, and theirs, and they appeared to know everybody. The families seemed to be mostly grown-ups, except where the boys are going to school, and there are no girls there. It is funny, because where we've come from, we knew quantities of girls and boys, and here in Lincolnshire there seems hardly any. The country is empty, I suppose. I know every house seems to be either the squire's or the clergyman's. Nobody else seems to live in this part.

Beatrice said to me after tea, when Miss Tudor was out of the room:

"I'm so glad you aren't good. I thought clergymen's children were always very goody; I shouldn't have liked you a bit if you had been like that."

"Wouldn't you?" I said slowly, and feeling a little uncomfortable. "I don't want to be goody, but I try to be good."

She stared at me.

"But it's much more fun to be naughty."

"I don't know," I said. "It seems so at the time, but it isn't afterwards!"

"I wish there was no 'afterwards' in the world!" said Beatrice impatiently. "This is an 'afterwards'—my lying on this horrid old sofa, I mean. You see, I sprained my foot trying to climb a tree like a boy. Miss Tudor told me to come down, but I laughed at her and went up higher, and then I tumbled!"

"How dreadful!" I said. And then added, while I felt my cheeks get hot and red, "That's just the kind of thing I should have done. It's the only thing I want to be grown-up for—it's so awfully easy to be good then."

"I like to be naughty best," said Beatrice firmly—"it's more fun."

"I wish you knew father," I said; "he likes us to have plenty of fun. He keeps saying to Aunt Caroline, 'A loose rein, Caroline, with my wild young colts, and as few orders and commands as you can help, for it only incites to disobedience.'"

"What a nice father!" said Beatrice.

"He says," I went on, warming with my theme, "that if we obey God's commands, we shall obey his. When I was a little girl, I used to read over the Commandments in church, and I thought I never broke one of them. I know better now. Father told us of three commands last Sunday; they're lovely and short. 'Come,' 'Go,' 'Do.'"

Beatrice seemed rather interested.

"Tell me more. You are a funny girl; one moment you roar with laughter, and the next you preach a sermon!"

So I told her as much as I could of father's sermon. "It's what a faithful servant does," I said. "There's a knight buried in our church who was 'always faithful' and 'always ready.' Father says he tries to be that, and of course he is, but, when I don't forget, I'm going to try to be it too!"

"And do you often forget?"

"Nearly always," I said, sighing.

Then Lynette and Clarice interrupted us; they wanted to dress up, so I went with them into Clarice's bedroom, and we all put on different things and came back and visited Beatrice. Clarice was an old beggar woman in a shawl and apron, and a long black skirt, and a red handkerchief tied round her head. And Lynette was an Indian in bath towels and striped silk rug. And I was a fashionable American lady, with a long train I made out of a counterpane, and some feathers and flowers in my hair. And we all told her our stories and said we had come over to England to see her because we heard she was so rich and good. And then Lynette said she would give an Indian dance, and she got up on the table, and spun round and round till she made us giddy, and Beatrice laughed till she cried.

And then we were told that Emma had come to take us home. So we said good-bye, and they begged us to come again soon.

We enjoyed ourselves awfully, and Lynette said to me coming home:

"You see, it was rather a good thing I drove off in the pony-carriage, for that has made us know Clarice and Beatrice."

"No," I said, "it was a good thing you told father about it, as he made you write the note. And I believe that made Lady Laura come to see us."

When we got home, we found the boys very busy counting out their money. Denys had made one shilling and tenpence by some fish which he had caught and sold at two or three different farm-houses, and Aylwin had three shillings from Mr. Cummins. He had given him sixpence a day for his work in the hayfield.

"It has been earned by the sweat of the brow," Aylwin said proudly, "but it's all I shall get, for there are no more hayfields to be worked. And it's school next week."

We counted our money up anxiously; it was not nearly enough to buy a donkey, but we were hopeful about getting more. Lynette could go on making toffee, and I could go on picking flowers, and sending vegetables to market. Denys could go on fishing, for the farmers' wives all liked to get fish, but Aylwin would have to get some other plan quickly.

"Shan't!" he said. "I have worked harder than the whole lot of you put together. I've done my share nobly!"

"Three shillings isn't very much," I said.

"It's the quality, not the quantity, you have to consider," said Aylwin, beginning to argue. "These three shillings repre—sent—" he brought out the long word with a slow drawl—"a huge lot of heavy toil. Which would you value most for a birthday present—a book that some one threw away and which was picked up and given to you, or a book that had taken the earnings of a year to buy, and had quite exhausted the strength of the one who bought it?"

I was much impressed, but Denys wasn't a bit.

"You're a lazy sluggard," he said; "I know you rested half the time in the hayfields, and drank lots of cider."

Then after a lot more talking, Aylwin said he would take one whole week's rest, and then start another plan.

"My body is so tired that my brain won't think, and I must rest it thoroughly. And I tell you, I'll take care my next plan is as jolly easy as yours is!"

When Saturday choir practice came round again, and I was singing away just opposite the knight, I thought of father's sermon and of "Semper fidelis, semper paratus." I thought of what father wanted me to do. But I still felt I hadn't the courage to do it. Denys would laugh at me, I thought, and I should never hear the last of it. We hate children who are always trying to teach others how to behave, and if I had a class, he would be always teasing me about it.

Before I went to bed, I added a little bit in my prayers. I asked God to make me brave enough to do it. And then I felt almost afraid of being made brave. It was dreadful of me, and my last prayer was made in bed before I went to sleep. I said, "O God, answer my prayer, even if I don't want You to."

On Sunday morning we were all at breakfast. Aunt Caroline very often gets up from the table and leaves us to finish by ourselves, as she has to go to the school.

She was just leaving us, when to our astonishment Denys sprang up from his seat too, after hastily swallowing the last drop of his tea. He was rather red in the face, but he said:

"I'm coming to school with you, Aunt C. I'm going to take the infants' class."

Aunt Caroline took it very quietly, but if a cannon had been roared off in our ears, we couldn't have been more astonished.

"I have so often suggested that one of you should do it," said Aunt Caroline. "The poor babies cannot understand my class at all."

Denys dashed out of the room.

Aylwin cast up his eyes to the ceiling, and raised his hands mockingly. "Sky, fall!" he ejaculated.

Lynette began to giggle.

"Fancy Denys teaching the infants! He won't know what to teach them except 'good form'!"

I felt literally crushed to the earth. If only I had known!—If only I had known! The very one I was afraid of, was doing what I ought to have done; I had lost my opportunity for ever. I went out into the garden and had a good cry in the shrubbery. And oh, how I admired Denys! He is always doing those kind of things. He never talks, and sometimes pretends he doesn't care, and then he suddenly gets up and goes and does it. It makes me wish so to be like him.

"I'll have a good joke over this baby teaching," said Aylwin to me, as we walked to church together.

"No, you mustn't," I said, "because it's very good of Denys to do it, and I know it's father's sermon last Sunday has made him. It nearly made me, only I was afraid you would all laugh at me, and so I didn't, and Denys has done it instead. And do you know, Aylwin, all breakfast I was getting up courage to say what he did, and—I was just too late."

Aylwin looked at me curiously, but he said nothing, and when we saw Denys at dinner-time, none of us said anything to him about it; we just pretended nothing had happened. I'm wondering so if Denys is getting good. He always says he isn't; I think he would be simply furious if I was to say he was. But we never can talk about good things to each other—we think it's priggish.

Now I must come to Monday morning, and to the great surprise that came to us. Puff has been saying every day that he is going to get a letter from God with the money for the donkey. And every morning, he runs out to the postman. I don't know what he thinks of him, but we heard Puff say the other morning:

"Are you tru'fully sure there's no letter for me, for I'm 'specting one from God, and it will be a heavy one, I can tell you!"

On Monday he brought the letters in and gave them to father; and, sorting them out, father said suddenly:

"Is there a Master George Marjoribanks in the room?"

"It's me!" yelled Puff, dancing round him in a perfect frenzy of excitement. "Let me open it my own self! Oh! It hasn't any money at all."

He was holding it in his hand, and there was bitter disappointment in his voice.

"Open it!" said father, in a curious tone.

Puff opened it. Three postal orders were done up in a sheet of paper, and across it was written:

"From Granny. For a donkey."

And the postal orders were for £1 each.

We could hardly believe it. Granny very seldom gave us money—only on birthdays. Of course I knew that Aunt Caroline must have told her how hard Puff was praying for it and expecting it. Puff's face was a study when it was explained to him. His eyes looked as if they were going to start out of his head, and then he puffed out his chest.

"O' course," he said. "I knows very well what's happened. Father says God gives a lot of His money to peoples to take care of, and so He was too busy to send it Hisself, so He tolded granny to do it."

"I think you've hit upon the truth, Puff," said father, kissing his curly head.

Puff looked round at us with great solemn eyes.

"It's me that's gotted it," he said. "My plan is the bestest one of all."

We were too surprised to speak. Father murmured to himself:

"Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

And then we couldn't help sending up a wild cheer. The donkey was as good as bought, and we would have some money over. Denys said at once that it would do for a saddle, but father said that we might get a second-hand cart and a donkey too for three pounds, perhaps. But father always thinks things are cheaper than they are.