CHAPTER IX

Such a Temptation

"AUNTIE ANNE, may we go to the bridge-part this afternoon? Please mayn't we? I want to go most dreadfully."

"Perhaps we may; but I should like you to get that sum done first."

"Oh, please say 'yes!' Please don't say only 'perhaps.' Chris is going to be there, and he's got a most lovely little boat for me, all for myself. He told me so."

"Is that what you have been thinking about all the morning?"

Hecla looked rather abashed. Lessons had not gone well before dinner; and her easy little sum had been three times returned, to be done over again. When she was about to go for her walk with Elisabeth and Ivy, it was again given back, with a line drawn through the "answer," and the words, "You must get this right later in the day."

Miss Storey had an engagement to luncheon with some friends, and Miss Anne told Hecla that she had better do the sum directly after her early afternoon rest. "And then we will go out," added Miss Anne.

"I don't like sums, auntie," Hecla said, as she sat at the table, with one leg twisted round each front leg of her chair.

"I dare say not, dear. People seldom like things that they do badly. But we all have to do things we don't like."

"Not grown-up people!"

"Yes; certainly; very often."

"But there isn't anybody that could tell you to stop indoors when you want to go out—like there is with me."

"If not, I have to say so to myself."

This was a new idea. Hecla considered it, and drew a long squeaking line on her slate with the pencil. "I shouldn't ever tell myself to stop in," she remarked.

"I hope you would, if you knew it to be right. The man or woman who cannot say 'must' to himself or herself is a very poor sort of creature, and of very little use in the world. And if you don't learn to say 'must' to yourself now, while you are a child, you will find it doubly hard when you are grown-up."

Hecla crinkled her forehead seriously, and stared out of the window, where the sun shone and the birds sang in a most inviting way. And again the thought sprang up of Chris and the lovely boat he had promised.

"I shall like that boat," she exclaimed.

"Wouldn't it be wiser not to think about the boat at all, till you have finished your sum?"

"But, auntie, I can't help thinking. I do want that boat—oh, most dreadfully. I want it all through me—every bit of me. I want to go out this very minute."

Aunt Anne said nothing; and Hecla looked down at her slate.

"Four times five—" she murmured. "Auntie, why does a policeman wear a blue jacket?"

"You may ask me by-and-by, if you like. Not now."

Another pause. Hecla's pencil squeaked again.

"I wonder why slate-pencils make that noise, and other pencils don't."

Miss Anne was silent.

"Auntie, I really will!"

"I think you will be wise not to lose any more time."

Hecla sighed, and huddled herself in a bunch over the slate.

"Four times seven is—Four times seven—"

She saw in her mind the lovely running water, as it flowed under the bridge and came pouring out again into daylight; and the multiplication-table seemed to slide away out of her head. And then she looked up at the clock; and suddenly she knew that if she went on much longer like this, she would have no chance of being in time for Chris and the boat.

"I know we shall be late," she cried in desperation.

"I am afraid we shall, if you waste more time."

"Auntie—oh, I will, I will do it."

Miss Anne came round to her side.

"You can quite well, if you choose, Hecla. It only means one little brave try to do your very best. Now I am going upstairs to get ready, and to dress Ivy; and then we shall start. I hope I shall be able to take you too—not have to leave you behind to do the sum, and to have a walk with Elisabeth later."

Hecla flung herself flat on the table, in a dire fright at the idea, grappling with her task. She could not endure the thought of not meeting Chris, of not having the boat; and now she realised that Miss Anne was in earnest.

And all that was needed was just to try, as Miss Anne had said. Ten minutes later, when she and Ivy came downstairs, Hecla flew to meet them, slate in hand. "It's done! It's done!" she cried.

Miss Anne glanced through the sum. "Yes, it is quite right," she said. "I am glad. Now run and dress, dear. Ivy shall put away your slate for you, and we will wait here."

"I sha'n't be one minute," shouted Hecla gleefully, as she rushed away.

But everything seemed to conspire to hinder her. First she broke her shoe-string, and though she managed to tie it somehow, that took time, as she was not handy with her fingers. Then she could not find her everyday hat, and she remembered leaving it in the greenhouse.

A furious rush downstairs, and a wild stampede through the passage into the greenhouse, resulted in finding the hat was not there; so she flew after Elisabeth, only to be told in Mrs. Prue's tartest tones that Elisabeth was gone out to take a note, and she didn't know nothing about hats. Upstairs again tore Hecla, and dragged open drawer after drawer, to discover the hat at last in the most unlikely one of all, where no doubt she had thrust it herself in one of her scuffles.

Though she was not yet nine years old, her aunts were doing their best to teach her to look after her things, to put them neatly away, and to be careful; but thus far, the teaching had not been always successful.

Hecla rammed the hat on her head, and then her gloves and tie had vanished. Though she would gladly have raced off without either, she knew she would only be sent back again to find them; and these too had to be hunted for high and low. When, after fifteen minutes' delay, she ran downstairs, she found a girl talking to Miss Anne, who stood listening with a troubled face.

"You have been rather long getting ready, dear," she said. "But I am glad we have not started, for Mrs. Gilpin's poor little baby has been badly hurt, and I must go to see it. I will be as short a time as possible. You and Ivy will wait here for me. You are not to go out till I return."

"But, auntie—auntie—we sha'n't be in time to catch Chris."

"I think we shall. I will do my best. I must tell Mrs. Gilpin how to manage till the doctor comes."

"I couldn't find my hat and things. I know, I know we shall be late!" Hecla was almost in tears.

"I hope not; but think of the poor baby! Wait here for me, both of you."

Then Miss Anne went off, hardly grasping the fact that she left the children with nobody in charge. She had forgotten for the moment that Elisabeth was out. Mrs. Prue, of course, was in the kitchen; but Miss Anne, full of the accident to their gardener's baby, did not think of pausing to mention to Prue the state of affairs. Since the cottage was only just outside their garden she expected to return in a few minutes.

"I know we shall be late. I know, I'm perfectly sure we shall be late. I know we sha'n't get there in time,"' Hecla kept saying, as she roved about the room, gazed out of the window, and consulted the clock.

Ivy had seated herself contentedly in a corner with her doll. She was not impatient like Hecla. "Why-because sha'n't we be there in time?" she inquired.

"Why, Chris will be gone. He's got to be back at school at four o'clock. And he's promised to give me a lovely new boat. It's a better boat than that boat he gave to you. And he said he would be there. And I want it most dreadfully. And I know Auntie Anne won't get back soon enough."

It was a good deal past three o'clock, for which no doubt Hecla had only herself to thank. But she was not in a mood to be reasonable.

"I don't believe I can wait much longer," she cried, kicking a footstool about the room, as a relief to her feelings.

"Why-because can't you wait much longer?" murmured Ivy, arranging her doll's hat.

"Why, I told you! You know quite well. I want to get there in time to catch Chris before he goes back to school. Oh dear, I do hate waiting. I like everything to come quick—all in a minute. I wish people wouldn't go and get hurt, just when I want to go out. I'm sure I can't wait much longer."

But of course she had to wait. She and Ivy could not go off alone.

Minute after minute crept past, and the hand of the clock travelled on and on, and still Miss Anne remained away. It was too provoking! Hecla roved round the room, and jumped on and off the chairs, and three times ran out to the back door; but no Aunt Anne was in sight.

"I believe she's forgotten all about it. She won't come for ever and ever so long. I know she won't. And I sha'n't have my boat. And Chris 'll perhaps never give it to me, 'cause I told him I'd be there; and he'll think I don't care. And I can't be there, and I do care! Oh dear!" she wailed dolefully.

"What's wrong?" asked a voice, and a big, plump, rosy girl of fourteen, daughter of a widow lady who lived a little way down the road, stepped in. "I found the door open, so I didn't ring," she said. "Mother has sent a note to your Auntie Millicent, and I'm to wait for the answer. What's the matter, Hecla?"

"Auntie Millicent's out and Auntie Anne's out, and we've got to wait, and I know we shall be late at the bridge-part," explained Hecla in a half-crying voice.

Mildred Smith laughed. She was a good-humoured, thoughtless girl, not much of a favourite with the Miss Storeys, though sometimes in and out.

"What makes you want to be there?" she asked.

And Hecla poured forth her tale.

"Well, that's easily put right. My governess has had to go off in a hurry, so it's a holiday for me. Come along. I'll take you to the river."

"Will you? May we?" gasped Hecla. She looked upon their caller as next-door to grown-up; still she knew that she and Ivy had never been sent out alone with Mildred. And more than that, she remembered Miss Anne's parting command—"You and Ivy will wait here for me. You are not to go out till I return."

Hecla was perfectly well aware that to go with Mildred, in the face of that command, would be wrong. It would be direct disobedience.

But Aunt Anne had not meant to stay away so long; and she had not known that Mildred would come. Hecla was wild to start; and the temptation was terribly strong. It did not seem as if she could say No. Her whole mind was set on having that little boat for her own, and seeing it go under the archway and come out again. She felt as if it were utterly impossible to delay. Chris would soon have to start for afternoon school; and then her chance would be gone. Couldn't she—mightn't she—just this once! Oh, she must, she must do it. Perhaps Auntie Anne wouldn't really be angry. There was still time to catch Chris, but in a few minutes, it would become hopeless.

One of those sudden sharp temptations to wrong-doing had come to Hecla which sooner or later come to everybody, even to little boys and girls. And she had not been trying to do her best for some days past; had not been praying hard, and fighting steadily. So when the temptation arrived, it did not find her strong to resist.

"I do want to go so very, very much!" she sighed.

"Come along then," cried thoughtless Mildred, never pausing to consider whether she had any right to take the children without leave. She had a great liking for little Ivy, and had often wanted to get possession of her for an hour or two. "See here," she said, "I'll write on this scrap of paper—'Mildred Smith has gone on with Hecla and Ivy to the river,'—and then your aunt will come after us, and it will be all right. Come along."

"Come, Ivy," shrieked Hecla, dancing wildly about.

Ivy went, of course. She was too young to understand that it was wrong, when the elder girls told her to do it. She trotted off contentedly, with her doll in one arm and her other hand held by Mildred.