CHAPTER I THREE CHILDREN AND A DOG

‘Emmeline, it’s your turn to choose a game to-day. What story shall we do?’

‘No, Micky; it’s your turn,’ put in his twin sister Kitty. ‘Emmeline chose the day before yesterday.’

‘I know it’s my turn really, Kitty, but gentlemen always let ladies choose,’ said eight-year-old Micky with dignity. ‘I’d very much advise “Swiss Family Robinson,” because it seems such a splendid opportunity, now the curtain-rods are down, to use the short ones as sugar-canes; and Mary’s so sorry we’re going away to-morrow that she won’t be cross even if the paint does get a little kicked off the bath when it’s being wrecked.’

‘Micky, I think it’s horrid of you to talk of Mary’s being sorry like that,’ said Emmeline—‘just[2] as if you didn’t care a bit about our having to leave the home of a lifetime, and the only real friend who has been with us since we were babies, to go and live with an aunt who doesn’t care for us!’

‘How do you know Aunt Grace doesn’t care for us? She’s always very jolly when she comes here, and she never forgets birthdays,’ said Micky, who had a sense of justice. ‘She sends such sensible things, too—postal orders, or steam-engines that really work, or real good books of adventure. She never gives you poetry-books.’ This last was a sore point with Micky just then, for his godmother had recently presented him with a gilt-edged volume of ‘The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth,’ for which he had been expected to write a laborious round-hand letter of thanks.

‘Presents are all very well, but they don’t prove that a person loves you,’ said Emmeline; ‘and as to her being jolly when she comes here, she never stays more than a day or two at a time, and always seems in a great hurry to get back to London again. Do you think, if she had really cared anything about us, she would have left us a whole year after darling mother died before offering to come and look after us?’

This was rather out of Micky’s depth, so he prudently changed the subject. ‘Well, let’s get[3] started with the game,’ he said, ‘else we shall have to get tidy for tea before we’ve even been properly wrecked.’

But Emmeline was not to be put off so easily. ‘Micky,’ she demanded solemnly, ‘how can you be so taken up with story-games when we’re as good as living a story ourselves?’

The twins’ eyes sparkled. Anything savouring of romance was as the breath of life to them, and Emmeline was really rather impressive when she talked in that grave way.

‘How do you mean?’ asked Kitty, eagerly.

‘Why, what I have just been saying,’ replied Emmeline. ‘Here are we, three orphans, left to the care of a worldly aunt——’

‘But are you quite sure she’s worldly?’ asked Kitty, looking alarmed. Kitty was not altogether clear what ‘worldly’ meant, but from the way Emmeline pronounced the word it sounded like something very bad.

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Emmeline. ‘I remember once, when mother and I spent a night with her in London, and she and her friend kept talking about a ball they had just been to.’

‘But balls aren’t wrong, are they?’ asked Kitty. Emmeline was twelve, and Kitty regarded as a great authority on all questions of morals.

‘I don’t know that they’re exactly wrong,’[4] acknowledged Emmeline, ‘but they are a great waste of time. When I’m grown up I never mean to go to them, but shall spend all my time working for the poor. Besides, it isn’t only her going to balls that makes me think Aunt Grace worldly, but the way she dresses and—everything. I quite expect that when we know more of her we shall find her just like one of the fine ladies one reads of in books.’

‘Will she be cruel to us, do you suppose?’ asked Kitty with zest. She did not really believe that merry, good-natured Aunt Grace could be cruel, any more than she really, at the bottom of her heart, believed in a romance of Micky’s about a certain blood-thirsty burglar who lived in the spare-room wardrobe, but it made life more exciting to pretend to herself that she did.

‘Of course not. What a silly question, Kitty!’ exclaimed Emmeline impatiently. ‘I dare say she will be too busy with parties and so on to bother herself much about us, but she’ll be quite kind—at least, to us. Punch is the only one I feel at all doubtful about.’ She flung herself down on to the hearthrug, and rested her head against that of a fox-terrier who was lying there half asleep, and who gave a little growl of remonstrance at being disturbed. ‘We hadn’t got him when she was here last, you[5] see, so we can’t tell what she’ll think of him. I shouldn’t a bit wonder if she didn’t let us bring him to Woodsleigh, or even if she does, she’ll keep him chained up all day, poor darling! People who think much about clothes never do like dogs, except just silly little toy things.’

Micky and Kitty broke out together in a chorus of indignation and horror.

‘If they are so horrid as to chain Punch up in the kennel all day I shall jolly well stay out with him and keep him company!’ shouted Micky.

‘Oh, Emmeline, you don’t really think there’s any danger of Aunt Grace not letting darling Punch come?’ said Kitty, almost in tears.

‘Well, I hope not,’ said Emmeline; ‘anyhow I’ve written to her about it, so till we’ve had time to get her answer there’s no use worrying any more.’ There was not, but the very suggestion that Punch might have to be left behind had cast a gloom upon the party—a gloom which did not altogether lift even when the brilliant idea struck Micky that the brooms in the housemaid’s cupboard, if placed upside down and balanced against the wall, would make excellent palm-trees for the Robinsons’ desert island.

On the whole, Emmeline was the happiest of the three just then, for, grieved as she was at leaving Mary and possibly Punch, the prospect[6] of going to live with her aunt was not altogether without its secret charm for her. The good little girl who had such a beautiful influence on her worldly relations played a prominent part in several of her favourite books, and it was that part which Emmeline pictured herself playing with regard to Aunt Grace. She would have been ashamed to express this idea in so many words even to herself, far more to the twins, but it none the less reconciled her a good deal to the new life which lay before them.

Emmeline Bolton had always been a child of the type whose virtue specially appeals to nurses. All the grown-up people, indeed, who had ever been brought much into contact with her agreed in considering her a very good girl. In some respects she deserved their favourable opinion, for she was truthful, obedient, and conscientious by nature, but perhaps the fact that she had never been very strong had more to do with her reputation for goodness than she herself or anyone else quite realised.

The child lived in an atmosphere of warm and constant approval which was not altogether wholesome. Such had been the state of affairs two years ago, when all three children had fallen ill of measles. Micky and Kitty had had the disease lightly, but with Emmeline it took a serious form. For two days and nights she had[7] lain delirious, and there came a moment when Mary, believing her to be unconscious, had sobbed out to the trained nurse: ‘I always had a feeling that the dear child was too sweet and good to be long for this world!’

This presentiment proved a groundless one. As Emmeline grew better the words which she had heard in her half-delirious state came back to her, and she dwelt on them constantly. Just at first they frightened her a little, but when she had become quite strong and well again she ceased to be alarmed, and only felt pleasantly elated at being too good to be long for this world. It almost—though not quite—made up for having straight brown hair and a pale peaked face instead of golden curls and glowing cheeks like the twins, who were so pretty that people in the street sometimes turned round to look after them.

If Emmeline’s mother had lived she would probably have perceived that the child was in grave danger of growing into a little Pharisee, and she might have done something to check it, but she had become very ill almost as soon as the children had recovered from the measles, and had died less than a year later. After her death the children had gone on living at the old home at Eastwich, a great East Anglian town, under the joint charge of Mary and Miss Rogers, their daily governess. The arrangement was never intended[8] to be more than a temporary one, for their aunt, Miss Bolton, who was also their guardian, wished them to go and live with her at Woodsleigh, a place some twelve miles distant from Eastwich, as soon as she regained possession of a cottage there, which had been left her by her father, but let for several years past. Mary was to go to her own home to keep house for a brother, so that to-morrow, when her children, as she always called them, went to begin their new life with Aunt Grace, she would have to be left behind at Eastwich.

‘Come, my darlings,’ said Mary, landing so abruptly on the Swiss Family Robinson’s desert island that most of the palm-trees were knocked over, ‘tea’s quite ready, and there’s buttered toast and coffee.’

Buttered toast and coffee were always regarded as special treats, but somehow to-day nobody seemed to have quite as much appetite for them as usual. Mary and Micky kept making jokes, and they all tried to be very merry, but not even the presence of Punch, who was allowed to sit on a chair between the twins in special honour of the occasion, made the festivity much of a success. They could none of them forget it was the last tea with Mary in the old home.

Emmeline stayed up that evening until some time after the twins had gone to bed, and sat[9] on the floor leaning her head against Mary’s knee.

‘Well, my darling,’ said Mary after a while, ‘I hope you’ll all be very happy and good with your Aunt Grace. Of course some of her ways may be a bit different from what you’re used to, but there, I’m sure she’s as well-meaning a young lady as ever breathed, and we know that everything must work out for the best, or it wouldn’t be let happen. Well, I know you’ll always be a good child, dear Miss Emmeline, and help Master Micky and Miss Kitty, bless their dear little hearts!’

Poor Mary! She would have been horrified if she could have guessed that any words or tone of hers could have led Emmeline to set Aunt Grace down as worldly, for Mary was a thoroughly good woman, but all unconsciously a little accent of doubtfulness showed itself in her voice and confirmed Emmeline’s impression.

For several years past the little girl had undressed herself, but for this last time Mary put her to bed just as she had done in the far-off days of Emmeline’s dimmest memories.

Long after Mary had kissed her good-night the child lay awake, thinking how dreary it would be at Woodsleigh to have no old nurse to tuck her up, and passionately resolving that, come what might, she at least would always keep true to the[10] old ways Mary had taught her. She made the resolution purely and simply out of loyalty to Mary, and not with any view to her mission towards Aunt Grace, which for the moment she had quite forgotten.

[11]

CHAPTER II FIR-TREE COTTAGE

To-morrow morning came all too soon. A pleasant letter from Aunt Grace arrived at breakfast-time, containing a warm invitation for Punch to take up his abode at Woodsleigh, which was a great relief and pleasure to the rest of the party, but otherwise the day was a trying one. Mary went about with a duster swathed round her head, as she always did during the spring-cleaning, and there was a general feeling of bustle and discomfort. The children wandered restlessly from room to room, trying to help, but usually only succeeded in being in the way, and secretly they rather longed for the cab which was to take them to the station in time for the 11.35 train.

The cab came at last, and less than a quarter of an hour later they found themselves installed with Punch and endless baggage in a second-class railway carriage, while Mary stood on the platform smiling bravely. Another few minutes, and the train was starting with a shriek and a pant. All three children leaned out of the window, waving[12] frantically, till the line curved round a corner and Mary and her fluttering handkerchief were lost to sight. After that it was Punch who saved the situation. All his journeys to the seaside had failed to accustom him to railway travelling, and he now took refuge under the seat, looking so cowed and miserable that nobody could think of anything but how to comfort and reassure him. They were so much occupied with this as to be quite taken by surprise at reaching their destination in what seemed an astonishingly short time.

The only people waiting on Woodsleigh platform were a lad who served both as porter and ticket-collector and Aunt Grace herself—an Aunt Grace who looked wonderfully young and pretty to be aunt and guardian to such a big girl as Emmeline. She was, in fact, very much what her niece Kitty might become a few years hence when transformed from a tomboy into a fashionable, grown-up young lady. She hurried forward to open the carriage door for the children, and greeted the whole party, including Punch, with such frank delight at seeing them that not even Emmeline could help being charmed, and a limpet-like twin was soon clinging to either side of her in a devoted, if rather inconvenient, fashion.

‘We shall have to leave the boxes to be brought up by the milk-cart in the course of the afternoon,’[13] explained Aunt Grace when the luggage had all been taken out of the train. ‘We’re very primitive at Woodsleigh, and the milk-cart’s the only thing we can boast of in the way of a public conveyance. It won’t come till later on in the afternoon, but I can lend brushes and sponges, so I hope you’ll be able to manage all right till then.’

‘We did wash our hands just before coming, and Mary brushed all our hairs,’ Micky was careful to assure her, ‘so you needn’t trouble to lend us things. But thank you all the same,’ he added hastily, for fear of hurting her feelings.

‘Micky, you know Mary always makes us wash our hands and faces after railway journeys!’ said Emmeline—a remark which Micky, who was just then stooping down to undo Punch’s lead, found it convenient not to hear.

‘I hope before long to get a donkey and donkey-cart of our own,’ observed Aunt Grace as they left the station and came out into a village street; ‘then we shan’t have to depend on the milk-cart, and it will be much more convenient altogether.’

‘Oh, Aunt Grace, how lovely!’ exclaimed Kitty, giving a joyous little skip. ‘Donkeys are such dears!’

‘I shall ride ours bare-back,’ announced Micky, ‘and teach him all sorts of tricks.’

‘I’m always so glad to think of a donkey having[14] a good home,’ said Emmeline; ‘people are so cruel to them sometimes. When we stayed at the seaside, it often made us quite sad to see how they were ill-treated.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Aunt Grace; ‘it is very sad. Two or three years ago I was staying at the seaside with some children, who made a special point of hiring the ones with unkind masters for extra long rides, and never letting them be whipped, so as to give them a rest from being ill-treated.’

‘I wish I knew those nice children,’ said Kitty.

‘And I expect they found the donkeys really went quite as well, didn’t they, Aunt Grace?’ asked Emmeline, who had not yet learned that virtue often has to be its own reward.

‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t say they did,’ owned Aunt Grace with a little twinkle in her eye; ‘at the best of times they went at a slow and stately pace somewhat resembling a funeral procession, and at the worst of times they sat down comfortably in the middle of the road and refused to budge. Still, I don’t doubt that if my friends had had the bringing up of those donkeys from the first, they would have gone all right without being beaten. It was simply that the poor creatures had got so used to it that they didn’t understand anything else.’

‘Aren’t we nearly at your house?’ asked Kitty[15] presently; ‘we seem getting quite outside the village now.’

‘No, we have still about ten minute’s walk before we get to Fir-tree Cottage,’ replied Aunt Grace; ‘it stands right away from other houses, just outside a large wood. It’s very nice in most ways being quite out of the village, for it makes one so much freer to do just as one likes, but it’s rather inconvenient sometimes being so far from the station. It’s really not so very much farther to Chudstone Station—the one you passed next before Woodsleigh; indeed, when I have plenty of time, I sometimes start from there instead of from Woodsleigh, for it makes a delightful walk through the wood.’

‘How jolly to live in a cottage and so near a wood!’ cried Kitty, giving another little skip.

‘As to living in a cottage, I’m afraid you won’t find it quite your idea of one,’ said Aunt Grace, ‘though it really was one before grandfather built on the front part of the house. The wood’s real enough though, and begins only just outside our back-garden gate, which is very charming of it.’

‘I thought grandfather was a Professor,’ remarked Micky, looking puzzled.

‘Why, so he was,’ said Aunt Grace.

‘But if he built the front part of the house he must have been a stone-mason, like Mary’s brother,’ objected Micky.

[16]

‘Aunt Grace didn’t mean that he built it with his own hands, you silly child!’ said Emmeline, laughing.

‘But I don’t wonder Micky thought I did,’ said Aunt Grace kindly; ‘it was very natural.’

Aunt Grace was right in saying that Fir-tree Cottage was not the kind of cottage to which the children were used. It was what they considered quite a large house, standing well back from the road among lawns and shrubberies, and when they walked in at the front door they found themselves, not in the poky little passage that Kitty had been picturing to herself from her remembrances of seaside lodgings, but in a hall as large as the one at their old home, and far more charming, for it was bright with ferns and flowering plants and cosy with cushioned seats and lion-skin rugs. In this hall they were met by a rather austere-looking person whom Aunt Grace called Jane.

‘Jane was my nurse when I was a little girl,’ she said, ‘so we are very old friends, and now she is going to help look after you;’ at which Jane smiled grimly, and Emmeline thought how horrid it would be to have her to look after them instead of kind, gentle Mary.

‘Now, we must certainly take Punch to be introduced to Cook,’ said Aunt Grace; ‘she’s a splendid person for animals.’

[17]

This introduction was so successful that Emmeline forgot all disagreeable impressions. Cook was found in her bright airy kitchen with its red-tiled floor and rows of shining dish-covers, and she and Punch seemed quite delighted with one another. ‘That’s a rare nice little dog,’ she kept saying as he smelt round her skirts with marked approval. ‘Have you shown them the kennel, miss?’ she added. ‘I give that a good scrubbing yesterday as soon as ever I heard he was coming, so that will be all nice and fresh for him now. There’s clean straw in too.’

‘We must go and admire it,’ said Aunt Grace, and they went through the scullery and out into the back-yard, in one corner of which was an enormous dog-kennel.

‘The last dog who lived here was a St. Bernard,’ explained Aunt Grace, ‘so Punch will find his quarters very roomy ones.’