CHAPTER II

The Tea-Party

"A VERY nice gentleman gave us these to give you, Nurse," said Freda.

"He's so ill, poor man!" sighed Daffy. "Just like your relation, Nurse. He made me think of him."

"Have you been worrying Mr. Trimmer?" asked Nurse, taking the rose from Freda's hand and sniffing it thoughtfully.

Mr. Trimmer was the head gardener. The children shook their heads.

"Oh dear no! Mr. Trimmer isn't without legs, and he chases us away from the greenhouses whenever he sees us," said Daffy. "Smell my lily, Nurse. He told us to choose any flower we liked for you."

"Now just speak up straight, and tell me what you've been doing."

Nurse eyed them sternly.

They told their story breathlessly, each interrupting the other in their anxiety to appease Nurse's gathering wrath.

"You mean to tell me you pushed yourselves into a strange garden, and spoke to a strange gentleman without any one's permission? Where do you get your forwardness, I wonder! In my day children would have died rather than behaved so."

Freda and Daffy were silent. Nurse scolded on, and then Daffy looked at her very sweetly:

"A poor, sick soldier, all alone, Nurse! And he has a little niece he loves, and she isn't there to comfort him, and he loves good Christians, and tries to be one himself. We told him you tried to make us into them, and he sent you these flowers, and hopes you'll let us go to see him again. I think you'd like him very much if you saw him, and I know he'd like you. And this is his little niece!"

Daffy held out her precious sketch.

Nurse took it, put on her spectacles, and read the words underneath:

"I don't like earth, I want heaven!"

"You see how good she is," put in Daffy persuasively.

Nurse gave a kind of grunt. Bertie, who had been silently listening to the conversation, now spoke.

"Me see, Nurse; me see the 'lickle girl."

"There, my lambkin, look!"

Nurse held it out to him with softened voice.

"I'll say this much, he's a clever painter. He'll be Captain Arnold, that took the Dower House some years back."

"What's the Dower House? And why has it a gate into our garden?"

"Why, it belongs to your father, of course. His mother lived and died there—your grandmother that was; but as it won't be wanted for a long time yet 'twas let. There was a Miss Arnold; your mother visited her."

"She's married. Oh, Nurse, if Mums knows them, I'm sure we may go and see him."

"Him! Is that the way to speak of a gentleman?"

"Then does the house really belong to father?" questioned Freda. "What does he want two houses for?"

"When Master Bertie grows up, bless his soul! and brings his wife here,—your father being no longer here,—then the Dower House would be ready for your mother to live in!"

"But, Nurse, how interessing!" exclaimed Freda eagerly. "Where would we live—with Bertie or with Mums?"

"You'd go with your mother, of course. This is your brother's house, not yours, if anything happened to your father. But there! Dear knows why I'm talking in such fashion. We'll hope that your father will live to a ripe old age. There's no call to be talking of his death!"

Nurse relapsed into silence. Freda's busy brain worked away.

"Why should Bertie live here and not us?" she demanded presently. "He's much littler than us!"

"He's a boy, and the heir," said Nurse importantly; "you're only girls."

Freda pouted, then she made a grimace at Bertie across the table, and he returned it promptly.

But Daffy's eyes were shining.

"Oh, think of it, Freda! One day we shall live in that lovely garden, and Bertie will be outside! We must let him come in and see us sometimes through the little door. And we shall keep dozens of white rabbits, and pick flowers whenever we like. I'd much rather live there than here, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, much; only, then, what will Fibo do?"

"We mustn't send him away. Oh, I'm sure we shall all squeeze in together beautifully. We must tell him about it and see what he says."

"But it won't happen for ever so long," said Freda regretfully; "and how awful of us wanting it to, for Nurse says Dad will have to die to let us live there."

Daffy looked horrified. Then with a bound she came back to the subject in hand.

"So, Nurse, if we're very good, can we go into that garden again? He wants us to come; he said whenever we like we could come to him."

"You'll go nowhere and see nobody unless you're asked properly and I'm with you," said Nurse sharply.

Freda and Daffy looked at each other with agonised eyes, but said no more. When tea was over, Nurse said she was going to take them for a walk. And in half an hour's time the three children were walking sedately along the country road which led to the village.

Freda and Daffy, walking a little in advance of Nurse, were able to talk together without being overheard.

"I shall write him a letter, Daffy, and ask him to write to Nurse and ask us."

"Or a wire," suggested Daffy joyfully. "Mums always asks people to tea by wires or the telephone."

"We haven't a telephone here, but there's a post office in the village. Oh, Daffy, could one of us creep in and send a wire?"

"It's a lot of money, Freda. Wouldn't a letter do?"

"Better still," said Freda excitedly; "we'll send a message—we'll get somebody to take a message. We'll find some one when we get to the village. Nurse said she was going to buy some stamps."

So, full of hope, the little girls walked on, and the village was soon reached. The post office was next to the general shop, and when Nurse went into the post office, Freda asked if she and Daffy could buy some sweets next door. Nurse gave the required permission, and they dashed in. Daffy produced her purse and began choosing her sweets; Freda eagerly turned to the stout smiling woman behind the counter.

"Do you send any of your loaves or tea or veg'tables to the Dower House?"

"Yes, dearie, very often. Mrs. Daw has all her soap and soda and such-like from us. My Willie is going up this evening with a tin of paraffin."

"Oh, please, will you get him to take a message from us to—to—is he Captain Arnold?"

"Yes, that's his name, poor gentleman. Such a pleasant-spoken gent he be, too!"

"Oh, please," went on Freda, with feverish haste, "could you give me a little piece of paper and pencil, just to write the message on?"

"Surely I will, and my Willie will take it with the greatest pleasure."

Paper and pencil were produced. Freda wrote laboriously:

"Plese ask Nurse perlitely to let us come and see you, but not her, she wants to come with us. And we wood like to come to morowe.—FREDA and DAFFY."

They had plenty of time to do what they wanted, for Nurse liked a little gossip sometimes, and Mrs. Vidler at the post office was an old friend of hers.

They came out of the shop delighted with their success. Daffy had two pennyworth of mixed sweets, and Freda, who was always just, gave her a penny from her own purse as her share of the purchase.

"Now he'll write a proper invitation, and Nurse will have to say 'Yes.'"

They were very happy for the rest of that evening, and when the postman came to the house the next morning, and Jane brought up a letter for Nurse, they looked at each other with shining eyes. How quick and prompt he had been! Nurse read her letter through in silence. They anxiously waited for her to speak, but when she did, it was to scold Bertie for spilling his milk, and the little girls were afraid to ask her any questions.

"If she gets cross she won't let us go," said Freda; "we'll be as good as gold till dinner-time."

"If we can," said Daffy doubtfully.

In London they had had two hours' lessons every morning with a daily governess; but to have nothing to do here, and knowing that their mother expected them to "run wild," was the way, they felt, to lead them into scrapes.

Nurse turned them all three into the garden after breakfast, but told them not to go out of sight of the house.

"What shall we play at?" asked Daffy.

Freda was never at a loss for games. Red Indians, pirates, gipsies, bandits had all served their turn. Now, when war was on, German spies, escaped prisoners, submarines, and air machines were what interested them most. The result was that, an hour later, Nurse came out to find Daffy up an oak-tree near the shrubbery, the oak being her flying machine. Freda was dragging a big sack down to the pond, but Bertie, inside the sack, was howling and kicking, and so gave the show away. When Nurse freed him, she found him covered with red earth, and her wrath was great.

"He's a spy. I didn't know the sack was dirty. I got it from the potting shed. He went out of sight of the house when he was hiding. Daffy went up in her flying machine and told me where to find him."

"I won't be dwowned!" shouted Bertie. "And you was smothercating me!"

Nurse called Daffy down from the tree. She had torn her frock, and had a large hole in the knee of her stocking.

"You would try the patience of Job," said Nurse, marching them up into the nursery. "It seems quite impossible for you to play as little ladies should. You make Master Bertie as naughty as yourselves. I shall have to give him a bath, and you will both sit for half an hour on your chairs for punishment."

The punishment chairs were placed in opposite corners of the nursery, and Freda and Daffy took possession of them with their faces towards the wall.

Freda was hot and angry, and kicked her legs to and fro. Daffy was absolutely unruffled.

"Never mind, Freda," she said comfortingly, when Nurse had left the room, "we had a glorious game. And I've left my handkercher up in my air machine, so I shall have to go up and get it as soon as ever I get off this chair. Oh, don't you wish we could live up in trees like the birds? I do."

"I should like to see Nurse having to climb a tall fir-tree every night to get to her nest," said Freda, with malice in her tone. "And I should like her nest to be made of holly. It would serve her right!"

Daffy chuckled with laughter.

"And now, of course," Freda went on gloomily, "she won't let us go and see Fibo this afternoon. Nothing could have turned out worse. I don't know why our games always do!"

"It's Satan, I suppose," said Daffy placidly. "Nurse says it's him who makes us get into scrapes."

Then they were silent. The nursery seemed oppressively warm this morning. Presently Nurse returned. Jane was with Bertie.

"I don't really think I shall let you go now," said Nurse. "I've had an invitation for you to go to tea with Captain Arnold this afternoon, and if you had been good—"

A wail from both chairs interrupted her.

"It isn't as if we really had made up our minds to be wicked," pleaded Freda. "Dirt and holes aren't wicked, and we didn't mean them to come on us!"

"And we're being punished now, Nurse. You can't punish us twice the same day for the same thing!"

"Stop argufying at once," said Nurse sternly. "I punish you for your good, not because it pleases me. Why can't I turn you out into the garden without your rampaging about like wild beasts, and tearing and destroying everything you possess!"

"If you let us go to tea with Captain Arnold, we promise to come home cleaner than when we went!" Freda rashly asserted.

Nurse gave a sniff.

"That you couldn't do, if you pass through my hands before you go."

The little girls were silent. They fancied Nurse was relenting, and wisely sat still on their chairs without even kicking their feet till their half-hour was up.

When dinner-time came, Nurse told them she was going to let them go; and at four o'clock two daintily dressed little maidens in soft white silk frocks and shady straw hats walked sedately along by Nurse's side to the Dower House.

There was no hope of being allowed to crawl in at the entrancing little door to-day. They went down the avenue, out by the lodge gates, along the road until they came to some high green wooden gates in the big wall. Then they walked up a short broad drive with shrubberies on each side, and reached the front of the house.

A pleasant-looking maid opened the door.

"I have brought the young ladies," said Nurse, in a very superior tone, "and I hope they will behave nicely as they should. I will send the nurserymaid for them at seven o'clock. That is the time mentioned."

Then she went away, and the children crossed a wide hall with a black beam across it, and to this beam was suspended a child's swing.

"Dreamikins!" whispered Daffy as she passed.

Then they went through a glass door to the garden, and found Fibo expecting them. He was in his chair under the trees, but he was not drawing; he was smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper. He greeted them with a smile.

"Very pleased to see you. The letter worked all right, didn't it?"

"Yes," said Freda. "It was very nearly a miss though, for we got our clothes in a mess this morning. It's so impossibly difficult to keep clean if you're enjoying yourself."

"We must all try hard this afternoon, or you won't be allowed to come and see me again."

The little girls' tongues wagged fast, they seemed to have so much to tell him—all about the Dower House one day becoming their home, and how Bertie was going to turn them out.

"I can't imagine him daring to do it," said Daffy reflectively. "Why, he's so small, we can do anything to him now. He quite looks up to us, and of course we make him do whatever we tell him. I don't see how he'll ever be so beastly as to tell Mums and us to go out of the house."

"I shouldn't worry about that. Perhaps you'll be queens in castles of your own by that time."

"Yes," said Freda eagerly, with shining eyes; "that's just it. Anything—anything might happen. Such crowds of beautiful things are in front of us!"

"My next beautiful thing is to see Dreamikins," said Daffy softly. "When do you think she'll come?"

"Ah!" said Fibo. "I've heard. One day next week; then we'll have a golden time."

"What day?"

"That's her secret. I am never told. We get ready for her, and she just walks in and surprises me. We always do it like that."

"How lovely! And does she come by herself?"

"Annette brings her."

"Who's Annette?"

"Her nurse. She's French. Dreamikins is very fond of her. Her mother thought she would learn French from her, but I am afraid Annette is too fond of English. She speaks it very well."

Freda and Daffy looked a little awed.

"Mums has a French maid, but we don't like her, and Nurse doesn't either. She says she's a heathen. She goes to Mass!"

"You aren't painting pictures to-day," Daffy said, rather reprovingly.

"No; I'm giving my hands a rest. I'm looking at pictures, and not painting them."

Daffy gazed into his eyes reflectively.

"I wonder what pictures you're looking at," she said. "You seem looking at the sky. Don't you often wish we could get nearer to heaven?"

"No; it's best to be a good way off. It would be like a hungry child gazing through the window into a baker's shop."

"But I should like to do that," said Freda quickly, "because if you can't get things, the next best thing is to pretend you have them; and sometimes in London, when Nurse let us, Daffy and me would pretend to have a feast outside a cake shop. I would ask her to taste some cakes, and she would offer me some tarts, and we would say how they tasted; and really, sometimes I fancied they were right inside my mouth."

Fibo nodded in a very understanding way. Daffy was gazing up into the sky. Then she gave an angelic smile.

"Freda and I used not to like heaven much; God used to frighten us. But we're much fonder of Him now, aren't we, Freda?"

"Yes, since last Sunday."

Freda's eyes began to twinkle. Then she gave a little chuckle.

"We went to church in the morning, Fibo. May we tell you? It was very hot and long, and nothing interessing until the Psalms came. And then I found out one of Nurse's big mistakes. She always hushes us when we're near a church, or saying our prayers, or anywhere near God. You know what I mean? She makes out that God likes us to be whispering; and on Sunday we have to be so quiet that it quite tires us out. It's the longest day that was ever made. Well, we and the clergyman were saying the Psalms, one against the other, and he began, 'Sing we merrily unto God our strength, make a cheerful noise.' Now the Psalms are quite true, aren't they? They're in the Bible."

Fibo nodded. Freda was speaking with breathless eagerness.

"So I told Daffy about it when we got home, and she wouldn't quite believe it. So she got her Bible and found the Psalms, to see if I was right, and somehow she didn't find the same verse, but she found a better one still. It was, 'Make a joyful noise unto the Lord—make a loud noise.'"

She paused.

"Well?" said Fibo inquiringly.

"Well, we did it! We shut the nursery door and we did it! We did all three—the cheerful noise, and the joyful noise, and the loud noise. And Nurse was downstairs; but, of course, she came up, and she was furious! We told her God had told us to do it, and He liked it, and we've been glad ever since that He does; but Nurse made out it was all wrong. Now she can't go against the Bible."

Daffy's face was twinkling all over.

"We did do it!" she said. "We yelled and stamped and shouted. I'm sure we must have been heard from one end of heaven to the other!"

"I wish I'd been there," said Fibo.

"You aren't shocked at noise, are you? Does Dreamikins like to make a noise?"

"Sometimes."

They went on talking, and then tea was brought out under the trees; and Drab, a soft grey cat, and Grinder, a fox-terrier, and Whiskers, the white rabbit, joined them. The little girls thought it was the most delicious tea they had ever eaten, the cakes were so fresh, and there were strawberries and cream; and after it was over, Grinder and Drab and Whiskers all had a gambol together upon the lawn. Of course Freda and Daffy joined them; and when they were all rolling about on the grass together, Fibo took out his sketch-book, and made a rapid sketch of them. He wrote underneath it, "My Tea-party," and when Freda and Daffy saw it they were delighted.

"But promise you'll never show it to Nurse. She would think it awful of us!"

"I think I shall have to talk to Nurse. Is it her legs, do you think, that make her want yours to be as stiff as they are? Or is it her head? What a pity she couldn't have a bit of her altered! Like this!"

Then he drew Nurse's heavy body, with a little, laughing, curly head on the top of it; and then her head, on a tiny, short-frocked child's body, and the child was dancing.

"Which nurse of these two would you like best?" he asked.

The children were enchanted. But after a minute or two, Daffy said gravely:

"I think p'raps Nurse had better be left as she is. I shouldn't like that laughing, curly head when I had a pain; and if she had those dancing legs, how quick she would run after us when we didn't want her to!"

"Yes," said Fibo, smiling; "I think God knew how to make a nurse when He did it. We can't improve upon her."

When Jane came for them they were very loath to go.

Freda said anxiously:

"You don't think that we asked ourselves to tea, did you? We never thought of that; only we were despairing that we should never see you again."

"And we hope," said Daffy softly, "that Nurse will let us come and see you our own way another day, through that dear little door. It's such an adventure!"

"And then we won't have our best frocks on, and can romp all over the place," added Freda.

Fibo assured them they could come through that door any day and every day they liked; and they walked home with Jane, feeling that a very good time was in front of them.