CHAPTER X

The Governess

TEN days Mrs. Broughton stayed with her brother, and in that time she had seen Mrs. Harrington, and actually found a daily governess, who was coming in on her bicycle from the nearest town, three miles off. She was to come to the Dower House every morning, except Saturday, from nine o'clock till twelve, and Freda and Daffy were coming over to learn lessons with Dreamikins.

At first it had been proposed that the lessons should take place at the Hall, but Mrs. Harrington seemed rather afraid of friction between the governess and Nurse, and Freda and Daffy were only too delighted to go to the Dower House. They assured their mother that it was much the best plan, and she willingly agreed with them. For the present, at all events, Dreamikins could not be moved, though the doctor said she was making a marvellously quick recovery, and Mrs. Broughton was anxious that lessons should start as soon as possible.

One other thing Mrs. Broughton did before she left her brother, and this was a great surprise and pleasure.

One sunny afternoon a low four-wheeled pony-chaise drew up at the door of the Dower House, drawn by a stout white Shetland pony with flowing mane and tail. Fibo was taken out in his wheeled chair to inspect it, and Dreamikins was carried out by Daw, her eyes almost starting out of her head with astonishment and delight.

"This is my present to you both," said Mrs. Broughton. "Let me show you how the cushions can be moved, so as to support your poor legs. It has been made expressly for you, Gus, by a Brighton coachbuilder, a friend of mine; and I've spoken to your doctor about it, and he says it's the best thing for you, so you can raise no objections. The summer is going fast. You won't be able to sit out in the garden much longer, and Daw knows of a lad in the village who will come in and look after the pony. You will be able to drive yourself about the lanes, and Dreamikins can learn to drive too if she's a good girl."

Dreamikins gave a yell of delight; she almost threw herself out of Daw's arms; and when she was lifted into the carriage, and a little sliding shelf covered with a cushion shot out from under the seat and received her bandaged leg, she clapped her hands in ecstasy. Then Fibo was lifted in, and they took a trial trip up and down the drive. Mrs. Broughton watched them with a happy smile. Everything worked smoothly. The pony was quiet and manageable, and Fibo had not a single objection to make, except that money ought not to be spent on such things in war-time. Mrs. Broughton said that money was being showered down on invalids, and she was going to shower a little on her two invalids. And after she had given them this present, she said good-bye to them with smiles, and a few tears, and went away.

She was very much missed; but Dreamikins was so full of the pony and of the new governess that she could not be sad, and Fibo was only too glad that his little niece was going to stay on with him. He had been afraid when he first saw her mother that she had come to take her away.

Two days after Mrs. Broughton's departure Dreamikins knocked at her uncle's door before breakfast. She found him nearly dressed in his dressing-gown, lying on his couch by the window enjoying his breakfast. She came in on two crutches, which the doctor now let her use, with a mysterious air.

"I thoughted you'd like to know, Fibo dear, that he's just come down. About half an hour ago he did."

"Who is he?" asked Fibo.

"He's one of God's best angels, and he's very strong, and has been all over the world, and done the most wunnerful things. He can tell stories—lovely ones—of where he has been and what he has done, and his name is Er."

She paused, adding thoughtfully:

"I found that name in my Bible, and God told me it was the right one."

Fibo looked at her.

"Well, it seemed as if God did," said Dreamikins. "I aren't making it up altogether, Fibo."

Then she went on smilingly:

"He won't let nothing hurt me, because he'll be stronger than Cherubine, and he'll make me like to be good, Fibo. Cherubine tried to make me good, but I never liked it, never!"

"Dreamikins," said Fibo gravely, "there's only One Person Who can make you really good. No angel can."

"Yes, of course," said Dreamikins, shrugging her shoulders. "I quite unnerstand, Fibo; but Er and me unnerstand each other, and he'll be a great 'normous help to me. I'm going to show him the garding now, and tell him a few things. Do say you're pleased he has come! He likes being with me very much, he says, and he's promised to always take care of us when we go driving, so that you may be quite comfortable about me driving you. We couldn't have a naxident with Er."

Fibo laughed out at the artfulness of this, and then Dreamikins hobbled away, and he heard her out of his window talking volubly to her new guardian angel.

That same afternoon Freda and Daffy came to tea, and were delighted to see their little friend off her couch, even though she had to use crutches. Her nimbleness with these made her uncle rather nervous.

"Not so fast, little woman. If you had another tumble and another break it might be bed again for six months."

"Oh, I have Er now," said Dreamikins cheerfully; "he'll look after me."

And then, seeing her little friends' surprise, she introduced her new guardian to them promptly, and for a quarter of an hour had a good deal to say about him. After that, they began discussing the new governess, who was to appear in a very few days' time.

"Do you know what she is like, Fibo?" asked Daffy anxiously. "Will she be another kind of nurse? We had a governess in London, she was young, but she didn't like lessons, and used to read story-books to herself while we were doing our sums."

"And where are we going to do our lessons?" asked Freda. "Daffy and me hope perhaps in the garden."

"Oh no," Dreamikins told them; "Mummy got one of Fibo's rooms ready for us. It's upstairs, and the table is so big it takes up all the room. And Mummy says our governess is called Miss Fletcher, but Fibo and I call her the R.P.—that's the Ruling Power. But I hope she won't rule me up and down too much."

"She'll save me from doing it," said Fibo. "Now, I prophesy that she'll be the most charming lady, and we shall all fall in love with her violently, and long for her to live with us altogether!"

"It's very exciting," said Freda. "And do you know, Fibo, Mums is soon going back to London to do war work, and we shall be left here all the winter. She's coming back to us for Christmas, and we mean to have all kinds of nice things then."

"By Christmas I shall be able to dance on both my legs again," said Dreamikins.

They chattered on, for they had a good deal to tell each other, then Freda and Daffy went off to visit Shylock, the pony, in his stable. They loved him as much as Dreamikins did, and longed to possess a pony of their own. Dreamikins told them grandly that she and Fibo were going to drive into the town the next day and do some shopping.

"P'raps you'll see the governess," said Daffy.

"I expect I shall. I hope I shan't drive over her when I see her. I shall be so ercited I may pull the reins crooked."

"Fibo will be driving, not you."

"I shall be driving, always," said Dreamikins, with extreme dignity.

"You don't know how," said Freda. "You think too much of yourself, Dreamikins. Daffy and me say so."

"I don't care what Daffy and you say!"

Dreamikins' cheeks got hot. She was not accustomed to be contradicted.

"You'd better go home," she added, turning her back on them, and beginning to play with Drab's tail.

They were all sitting on the grass together. Freda and Daffy jumped up at once.

"We'll go. It isn't much fun to play with you when you can only hobble and crawl!" said Freda angrily.

Dreamikins' blue eyes sparkled dangerously.

"You're two big babies with a nurse. No wonder she whips you and puts you in the corner. You want smacking now. Go home and tell her to do it. I hate you! I'll never play with you again as long as I live!"

She burst into a storm of sobs, and ran back to Fibo for comfort.

Freda and Daffy ran away down the garden as fast as they could, and crept out of the little door. They felt guilty, and were ashamed of themselves. It was their first quarrel.

"She's too ordering," said Freda; "she always thinks herself better and cleverer than us!"

"Yes," said Daffy quietly; "but I s'pose she is more clever. We don't make up stories half so well as she does. And we oughtn't to have found fault with her broken leg!"

"She's so aggerrating!" said Freda. "Now she'll make Fibo angry with us, and I love Fibo!"

"We'll tell him we're sorry when we go to lessons," said Daffy.

Nothing put Daffy out. But Freda's ruffled feathers took some time smoothing down, and it was not till she had slept over it that she was able to acknowledge herself in the wrong.

The eventful day came at last, and Freda and Daffy were dispatched by Nurse at a quarter to nine. Jane was to take them as far as the gate, and they were to be trusted to come home by themselves.

When they arrived at the Dower House, Carrie showed them into a little cloak-room in the hall where they could hang up their coats and hats.

"Has she come?" Daffy asked eagerly.

"Yes, miss."

"What's she like?"

"A nice-spoken lady," was all that Carrie could tell them.

Then they went upstairs to the room that had been turned into a schoolroom, and found Dreamikins sitting at the table by the side of Miss Fletcher, who was looking through some old lesson-books. Dreamikins, of course, was talking hard. She stopped when Freda and Daffy came into the room; but she evidently had forgotten their quarrel, for she put up her face to be kissed as usual when they came up to her.

"This is Freda and Daffy, Miss Fletcher," she said; "they live next to us, and are very nice."

Miss Fletcher shook hands with them. She had a bright face, fair hair coiled round her head, and was dressed in a dark blue gown. Freda and Daffy liked her at once, for she did not wear spectacles, and they never liked people who did.

"Come along and sit down," she said brightly. "We will not do much this morning, for I am going to pick your brains, and find out how much you know."

She began to question them. The little girls were shy, and answered to the best of their ability. But suddenly Dreamikins rested her elbows upon the table and looked at Miss Fletcher in her intense kind of way.

Miss Fletcher did not notice her look, but asked her:

"And now, Emmeline, we are coming to arithmetic. How many of us are in the room at present?"

Dreamikins slowly answered, "Five."

"Count again."

"Five," she repeated, "but you can see only four; there's you and me and Freda and Daffy and Er."

Miss Fletcher looked at her in a puzzled sort of way.

"Er is sitting close to me," Dreamikins went on; "he never takes a chair, but I feel him squeezing me. He won't want to do lessons, but he must be counted, for he's at the table with us."

Miss Fletcher looked under the table.

"Is it a dog?" she asked.

Freda and Daffy giggled. Dreamikins' face kept quite grave. Then Freda thought she had better explain.

"It's Dreamikins' guardian angel—at least she says it is."

"Oh, I understand now," said Miss Fletcher quietly. "Well, Emmeline, we'll say there are five of us at the table; if three of us went out of the room, how many would remain?"

But Dreamikins did not answer. She was thinking of other things. Then she smiled sweetly at her governess.

"Fibo says—Fibo is my uncle who lives here—Fibo says you're a most charming lady, and he'll fall in love with you violently—yes, violently—and long for you to live here altogether!"

The colour came into Miss Fletcher's cheeks.

"Emmeline," she said quietly, "this is the first day, so I shall make no rules, but to-morrow there must be no talking in lesson-time except about the lessons themselves."

Something in Miss Fletcher's tones reduced Dreamikins to silence. Miss Fletcher turned to Freda and Daffy, and went on questioning them.

Presently a meek little voice said:

"Please, I are waiting to answer."

And there was no more inattention from Dreamikins that morning.

In a few days lessons were firmly established. Miss Fletcher was fond of teaching, and did it in a happy way. The little girls all enjoyed the lessons, but the time they liked best was the half-hour in the middle of the morning, when they had a break and could do what they liked. It was this half-hour which helped Miss Fletcher to understand and know her little pupils. She heard all about Cherubine and her dismissal, and the coming of Er. She was told about the plans of befriending the hungry and thirsty and sick, and the stranger in want of a bed. And then she started a little working party for some poor ragged children. She said if they liked to have it on Saturday afternoon she would bicycle over and help them; and they were all delighted at the idea.

Fibo was very pleased when he heard of this, and promised to provide tea after it. And on Saturday, Miss Fletcher arrived with some pretty warm material already cut out to be made into frocks. The three little girls set to work bravely and cheerfully, but Dreamikins was the first to get tired.

"My fingers is hurting. My thimble has made a mark—it's too tight. My back aches, and now my leg is hurting. I believe sewing is very bad for it."

Then Miss Fletcher produced a storybook, and began to read to them. That made the time pass quicker. They worked for one hour and a half, and Dreamikins was proud of what she had done in the time.

"I'm glad you didn't let me stop," she said to Miss Fletcher. "And Er is very glad too; he wanted me to go on. We've really been working clothes for Jesus Christ, haven't we? He says He'll count it as if it was His!"

Then they had tea in the dining-room, because the weather had turned cold; and Fibo joined them and sat in his big chair at the head of the table, and cracked jokes, and made every one feel happy and comfortable.

Miss Fletcher had to hurry home; she said she had an invalid sister waiting for her. But the little girls stayed on. Freda and Daffy never wanted to go; and then Fibo let them come into his study, and he made funny sketches of an old man called Tumbledown who was never steady on his feet, and at last one day he climbed into an aeroplane because he wanted to go across the world without using his feet, and was never heard of any more.

"I hope you won't go away like that one day," said Dreamikins.

Her uncle looked at her with his funny twinkle.

"One day I shall climb right out of my poor old body, and go up away from you all without any need of an aeroplane," he said.

"And I'll hang on behind you!" said Dreamikins.

"Fibo means that he'll die and go to heaven," said Daffy gravely. "You won't be able to go with him."

"I'll go after him then. Er will take me. That's what he does—takes people to heaven when God calls them. He likes doing it better than anything else. He says he'll tuck me very comfy between his two wings and fly up and up, and he'll show me the moon and all the stars on the way. He tells me just at first I may feel cold, but when you come near heaven it's ever so nice and warm, and you never feel nothing when you get inside."

"But I should like to feel something," objected Freda.

"I mean nothing nasty. What a stoopid you are!"

Then Fibo changed the conversation. When Dreamikins once began to talk about heaven, she could never stop, and invented so fast, and was so angry when she was contradicted, that he thought it better to bring her to safer ground.

When Freda and Daffy went home that afternoon, they told Nurse that even she would have been pleased to see their work.

Nurse sniffed and said:

"I dare say you're proud of it, but in my time children used to be made to sew in school as a regular thing every afternoon; and if you were properly behaved young ladies you would like to do it too."

After that, Freda and Daffy judged it best to keep silent about their good works.