CHAPTER IV

The Return Visit

"IT'S too bad, she won't come!"

Freda stood at the nursery window with Daffy. Their noses were flattened against the panes, and they were gazing disconsolately down the beech avenue.

It was raining fast, softly, persistently, and it did not mean to stop, even though Dreamikins had been asked to tea, and it was now four o'clock. Tea was laid on the round table in the nursery. Freda and Daffy had inspected it very critically when Nurse was out of the room washing Bertie's face and hands and putting him into a clean holland suit in honour of the occasion.

There was a big currant cake in the centre of the table, some strawberry jam, and a large plate of cut bread-and-butter.

"I should like one of Mum's teas," said Daffy, with a sigh, "with sangwiches, and hot tea-cakes, and sugar-iced cakes, and chocolates. I would like Dreamikins to think we had very nice teas."

"And tea in the garden is so much nicer than in a room," sighed Freda.

"But she wouldn't have tea in the garden to-day," said Daffy.

Then they went to the window to watch for her coming. It was Nurse who told them she was sure she would not come, and now they had begun to believe it.

Bertie came up to them, and stretched up on tiptoes to see too.

"There's a b'llella!" he suddenly announced.

And, sure enough, his quick eyes had discovered the big umbrella first. It was waving about rather uncertainly, and two tiny legs and feet were underneath it.

"She's coming, Nurse! And all by herself Dreamikins is allowed to come out to tea alone."

They rushed out of the room and down the stairs to meet her. They found her in the front hail, and Purling, the old butler, was taking her wet umbrella from her.

"She's come in at the front door!" said Daffy, in awed tones.

Dreamikins looked up at them with her radiant smile.

"Did you come all by yourself?" asked Freda.

Dreamikins opened her lips quickly, then shut them tight, and waited quite a moment before she spoke.

"I was just going to say 'Yes,'" she said. "I wanted to say it, but Cherubine pinched me, so I knew I mustn't. Annette brought me to the gate and then I got her to leave me."

"Where did Cherubine pinch you?" asked Daffy curiously.

"Oh, just inside my heart," Dreamikins answered airily. "She gets in there and does what she likes."

Then she kissed her friends rather solemnly, and followed them upstairs to the nursery without saying another word.

Nurse welcomed her quite kindly. Dreamikins in a clean white frock, and her best manners, brought a smile to Nurse's lips.

Bertie hastened up to shake hands. He was very excited over this new visitor, and was ready to be friends with her at once.

Very soon they were sitting round the tea-table. Shyness had suddenly descended upon Freda and Daffy. It was Dreamikins who did most of the talking—Dreamikins and Nurse.

"I think," Dreamikins said, looking at Nurse with one of her sweetest smiles, "that I shall call you H.D. Do you mind if I do?"

"Why H.D.?" demanded Nurse.

"It means something to me," Dreamikins replied. "I always like calling people by letters. I call Mummie D.Q. Not when she scolds me, though—never then!"

She shook her curls with vigour as she spoke. Then she condescended to explain.

"D.Q. means Darling Queen," she said.

Freda and Daffy began to guess under their breath what H.D. meant, but Dreamikins would not tell them. She went on calmly:

"You see, I can't call you Nurse, because you aren't my nurse. I gave up nurses when I was quite little; they changed so often, and Mummie and me got quite tarred of them."

"I hope you weren't a very troublesome little girl," said Nurse sternly. "Children who have no nursery are always spoilt and unruly. I am sorry for their mothers, but all the best families keep their children in the nursery till they go to school."

"Did you have a nurse?" asked Dreamikins.

But Nurse changed the conversation.

When tea was over, Jane cleared away the tea, and Nurse and she left the nursery for a short time. Then the children's tongues ran fast.

"Show me your house; it's such a big one. Let us play hide-and-seek in the passages."

"Nurse won't let us. We can never do anything nice. What is H.D.?"

"Haughty Dragon," said Dreamikins, laughing gaily. "Fibo and I always call people H.D.'s who look like your nurse does. Oh, we must play hide-and-seek. I'll go and ask her."

Away darted Dreamikins, peeping into every room and dancing up and down the passages as if it were all a game. She found Nurse, and actually coaxed the permission she wanted out of her.

"It's a wet afternoon, and if you promise not to spoil or disarrange anything, you can do it," said Nurse.

Then followed a lovely hour. Freda and Daffy and even Bertie were as excited and happy as their little guest. At last the time came when Dreamikins could not be found. Every corner and cupboard in the few rooms in which they were allowed to hide were ransacked. The passages with their queer corners were searched again and again, and the children came to Nurse in the nursery with troubled faces.

"We're quite tired out," said Freda gloomily, "and we think she's climbed up one of the chimneys and got on to the roof."

Nurse bestirred herself.

"She's a mischievous child, I fear. There's such daring in her eye; but it won't do for her to come to harm here."

So Nurse went from room to room, and then at the end of one of the passages thought of a little door which led into the cistern-room. There were steps up inside, and on these steps was a white hair ribbon.

Nurse got agitated, and called aloud, and a weak little voice answered her:

"I'm nearly drownded, but Cherubine is keeping me up."

Sure enough, in the big cistern, drenched to the skin, Dreamikins was clinging with her hands to the top; her feet were on a tiny ledge that mercifully was inside, or the big cistern would indeed have drowned her. She had clambered in, taken off her shoes and stockings, and imagined that the water was not very deep.

"I was so hot, I wanted to paddle. I thought it was a little pond, and then I splashed down ever so far, but I got up again and held on tight and screamed, and I've screamed away all my voice, but Cherubine helped me."

She was certainly exhausted with her wetting and with fright. Nurse got her out with a stern set face, and carried her off to the night-nursery, where she changed all her clothes, gave her a hot drink, and then took her back to her little friends.

"Now, none of you are to leave this room," she said. "It's a mercy we haven't had a death in this house, and it isn't this child's fault that we haven't!"

Dreamikins sat still for five minutes whilst she explained to the others how she had come to be found in such a situation.

"I thought I was going to be drownded, and I asked God to send me a better angel, for Cherubine was too small to help me. But she just managed it, till the H.D. came. And now what shall we play at?"

They settled down to a game of marbles on the nursery floor. But very soon they tired of their game and began to talk again.

"Why do you live in such a big empty house?" questioned Dreamikins.

"Because Dad and Mums are in London," said Freda, "and there's nobody to fill their part of the house."

"I could get some people to fill it," said Dreamikins thoughtfully.

"What kind?" asked Daffy. "We shouldn't take anybody into our house, you know."

"It doesn't really belong to us at all," said Freda hastily. "Bertie will have it one day, and turn us out."

Bertie stared with his round eyes at his sister.

"I won't turn you out," he said. "I couldn't. You're so strong."

Dreamikins' eyes were gazing away into space. She said slowly:

"Fibo and I read a very interessing story in the Bible last night when I went to bed. It was about the good people who are turned into sheep, and the wicked who turn into goats. Goats don't live in heaven—only sheep. And if you want to be a proper sheep you have to do some differcult things. They're differcult for children; grown-up people could do them easily, but I've been thinking we really ought to begin some of them in case we die quickly. I shouldn't like to find myself a goat all of a sudden."

Freda and Daffy were not so fond of Bible stories as Dreamikins seemed to be. They looked bored, and Dreamikins was quick to notice it.

"Now, you just listen to me," she said, with upraised finger, "and I'll tell you what we've got to do. We've got to do six things, and if we do them to the proper people, Jesus will count it that we've done it to Him. Fibo explained it beautifully; he always does. We must give meat to somebody who's hungry, and drink to somebody who's thirsty, and take into our houses a stranger. That's what made me begin to think of it. Fancy how many strangers you could take in this big house! And we must visit somebody who's sick, and somebody who's in prison, and we must give a poor, naked, ragged beggar some clothes."

"We couldn't do it possibly," said Freda emphatically.

But Daffy's eyes began to shine.

"Oh yes, we could; it would be beautiful!" she said.

Dreamikins put her arms round her and hugged her.

"You and me will begin it, and then Freda will, too," she said. "We must. Cherubine will help. She thinks we ought to."

The little heads got close together. Nurse was sewing by the window, so they talked in whispers.

And then, all too soon, Jane appeared, saying that "Miss Broughton's maid" had arrived to take her home.

Dreamikins was very reluctant to go, but Nurse produced her clothes all beautifully dried, and Annette came upstairs to wait upon her.

"Ah, Miss Emmeline, you be always in trouble. What a peety!" exclaimed Annette, when she was told of Dreamikins' escapade.

Dreamikins smiled up at her.

"I 'sure you it's no trouble to me, none at all!" she said, with the greatest composure.

She hugged Freda and Daffy warmly, kissed Bertie, shook hands very politely with Nurse, and trotted off. They watched from the window her little figure tripping down the drive. Annette was holding a big umbrella over her.

"I'm not at all sure whether she's a fit playmate for you," said Nurse, with a shake of her head. "If she leads you into worse mischief than the two of you are generally up to, the house won't hold you all!"

Freda and Daffy said nothing, but presently they began to discuss Dreamikins together.

"She seems so ridicklously good," said Freda; "I never heard anybody speak about God as she does. Of course, Cherubine is a make up, but she believes it, and now she makes out we must do all this or we shan't please God. I never think about pleasing God at all. Nurse would say we never could. He's so awfully holy and far away."

"Yes; she's good," said Daffy slowly, "but she isn't proper and stupid like some good children are. And I think there'll be a lot of fun about being these Bible sheep. She gets a lot of fun out of being good."

"Yes; but she doesn't do it because of that. She really loves Jesus Christ—she told me so. I almost wish I did, but I don't."

Daffy made no answer. She thought a great deal more than Freda did, and some of her thoughts were serious.

"We'll try and take a stranger in as soon as ever we can," said Daffy. "It will be most exciting! We'll smuggle him in by one of the windows downstairs, or else Nurse will make a row."

"It might be a 'her,'" said Freda; "we don't know who it will be yet."

"It must be somebody who wants a night's lodging—some poor beggar. We see some going along the roads when we are out."

"I wonder if Dreamikins will find somebody before we do. She has no horrid nurse keeping her from doing things she wants."

"A H.D.," said Daffy, with twinkling eyes. "We'll call her H.D. to ourselves, Freda; she'll never know."

They began to wonder when they would see Dreamikins again. Their days seemed dull without her, but Nurse determined that they should not meet too often. She was distrustful of Dreamikins; there was something in her joyous face and free easy manner that touched on insubordination. And then something happened that put Dreamikins out of her head. A letter came one morning from Mrs. Harrington, and it brought sad news. The children's father had been killed by a Turkish shell in Mesopotamia.

When Nurse broke the news to the children, her voice shook. Freda and Daffy would not believe it.

"Dad killed, Nurse! Oh, he can't be! It's a mistake. He can't possibly be dead!"

"What does Mums say?"

"She's coming down this week. Dear heart alive! What shall we all do? The master—so young and hearty—but there, this War be takin' all the best! He had no need to volunteer as he did!"

Freda and Daffy crept into a corner of their nursery and cried a little. Nurse was crying easily and almost happily; tears hurt and choked Freda. She was horribly ashamed of them, and struggled to overcome them. Daffy felt she ought to cry harder than she did. She loved her father, but could not yet take in what his loss would mean. They had never seen very much of him; he had always been so busy, but sometimes he would take them to the Zoo or to Madame Tussaud's or to the Pantomime, and then the hours were golden.

"Shall we go on living here?" she asked Freda. "Perhaps Mums will take us back to London."

"Oh, I hope not. Oh, Daffy, do you remember what Nurse said? It has come to pass, and we never thought it would."

"About this being Bertie's house if Dad died? Yes, I remember."

Daffy spoke soberly, but Freda's eagerness carried her on.

"Of course if it's Bertie's house now he can give us leave to do anything we like, and it will be quite easy to put strangers up for the night. Nurse could say nothing at all, nothing. We'll ask Bertie now."

Bertie was pulled into the corner which Freda and Daffy always retired to when they had important business on hand. It was the corner which was farthest from Nurse's chair, and from her quick ears, which often heard more than they were meant to do.

"Bertie, this is your house now. You'll give us leave to have one of the bedrooms to do what we like with, won't you?"

Bertie stared at his sister with round eyes.

"Is it mine own house? Why is it?" he asked.

"Because dear Dad is dead, and he has left it to you."

"But I don't want Dad to be deaded. It makes Nurse cry."

"It makes me cry too," said Freda, gulping down a lump in her throat; "but God has done it, so there's nothing to say. And this is very important. It has to do with God. He wishes us to do it, and we want a bedroom, Daffy and me."

"What must I do?" asked Bertie meekly.

"Make him write it on paper," said Daffy, "like one of our story-books. Don't you remember a man left a little girl—Helen her name was—all his money and a big house, and he wrote it on a bit of paper?"

"I'll write it," said Freda quickly. "We'll do it at once, in case we might be stopped."

So a piece of paper was found, and a black stump of pencil, and Freda wrote in her best round copy-book writing:

"I give to Freda and Daffy one of my bedrooms in this house for somebody that God wants to stay here."

And then they told Bertie he must sign his name. He had great trouble in doing this, but they stood over him till it was done, and then Freda folded up the paper and put it into a small box of hers which locked.

"Now," she said to Bertie, "this paper is a secret, and you mustn't tell Nurse."

"I haven't been a naughty boy?" questioned poor Bertie, who always connected secrecy with misdoings.

"You've been a 'markably good boy," said Freda approvingly; and Bertie ran back to his brick-building with great content. "Now we'll have to get the room ready," said Freda triumphantly, "and then we'll find the stranger."

"But we mustn't do anything just now," said Daffy, who generally checked Freda's rapid plans. "It won't be proper. Look at Nurse. She's still crying! And we're forgetting to cry ourselves."

So they sat quietly in their corner, and began to talk about their father, and then they felt more and more miserable, and more tears fell. When Jane came in they felt pleased to hear her say to Nurse:

"The poor children! How they feel it! 'Twill be comfort for us to have the Mistress down. 'Tis a terrible blow, sure enough!"