Part 4 (1/2)

”I suppose so,” said Norah meekly. ”But I can be useful, Daddy.”

He patted her shoulder.

”Of course you can, mate. I'm only afraid you'll have too much to do.

I must say I wish Brownie were here instead of in Australia.”

”Dear old Brownie, wouldn't she love it all!” said Norah, her eyes tender at the thought of the old woman who had been nurse and mother, and mainspring of the Billabong house, since Norah's own mother had laid her baby in her kind arms and closed tired eyes so many years ago. ”Wouldn't she love fixing the house! And how she'd hate cooking with coal instead of wood! Only nothing would make Brownie bad-tempered.”

”Not even Wal and I,” said Jim. ”And I'll bet we were trying enough to damage a saint's patience. However, as we can't have Brownie, I suppose you'll advertise for some one else, Dad?”

”Oh, I suppose so--but sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,”

returned Mr. Linton. ”I've thought of nothing but this inheritance of Norah's all day, and I'm arriving at the conclusion that it's going to be an inheritance of something very like hard work!”

”Well, that's all right, 'cause there shouldn't be any loafers in war-time,” Norah said. She looked out of the window. ”The rain is stopping; come along, everybody, and we'll go down Regent Street on a 'bus.” To do which Norah always maintained was the finest thing in London.

They went down to see Norah's inheritance two days later. A quick train from London dropped them at a tiny station, where the stationmaster, a grizzled man apparently given over to the care of nasturtiums, directed them to Homewood. A walk of a mile along a wide white road brought them to big iron gates, standing open, beside a tiny lodge with diamond-paned windows set in lattice-work, under overhanging eaves; and all smothered with ivy out of which sparrows fluttered busily. The lodgekeeper, a neat woman, looked at the party curiously: no doubt the news of their coming had spread.

From the lodge the drive to the house wound through the park--a wide stretch of green, with n.o.ble trees, oak, beech and elm; not towering like Norah's native gum-trees, but flinging wide arms as though to embrace as much as possible of the beauty of the landscape. Bracken, beginning to turn gold, fringed the edge of the gravelled track. A few sheep and cows were to be seen, across the gra.s.s.

”Nice-looking sheep,” said Mr. Linton.

”Yes, but you wouldn't call it over-stocked,” was Jim's comment. Jim was not used to English parks. He was apt to think of any gra.s.s as ”feed,” in terms of so many head per acre.

The drive, well-gravelled and smoothly rolled, took them on, sauntering slowly, until it turned in a great sweep round a lawn, ending under a stone porch flung out from the front of the house. A wide porch, almost a verandah; to the delighted eyes of the Australians, who considered verandah-less houses a curious English custom, verging on lunacy. Near the house it was shut in with gla.s.s, and furnished with a few lounge chairs and a table or two.

”That's a jolly place!” Jim said quickly.

The house itself was long and rambling, and covered with ivy. There were big windows--it seemed planned to catch all the sunlight that could possibly be tempted into it. The lawn ended in a terrace with a stone bal.u.s.trade, where one could sit and look across the park and to woods beyond it--now turning a little yellow in the sunlight, and soon to glow with orange and flame-colour and bronze, when the early frosts should have painted the dying leaves. From the lawn, to right and left, ran shrubberies and flower-beds, with winding gra.s.s walks.

”Why, it's lovely!” Norah breathed. She slipped a hand into her father's arm.

Jim rang the bell. A severe butler appeared, and explained that General and Mrs. Somers had gone out for the day, and had begged that Mr. Linton and his party would make themselves at home and explore the house and grounds thoroughly: an arrangement which considerably relieved the minds of the Australians, who had rather dreaded the prospect of ”poking about” the house under the eyes of its tenants.

The butler stiffened respectfully at the sight of the boys' uniforms.

It appeared presently that he had been a mess-sergeant in days gone by, and now regarded himself as the personal property of the General.

”Very sorry they are to leave the 'ouse, too, sir,” said the butler.

”A nice place, but too big for them.”

”Haven't they any children?” Norah asked.

”Only the Captain, miss, and he's in Mesopotamia, which is an 'orrible 'ole for any gentleman to be stuck in,” said the butler with a fine contempt for Mesopotamia and all its works. ”And the mistress is tired of 'ousekeeping, so they're going to live in one of them there family 'otels, as they call them.” The butler sighed, and then, as if conscious of having lapsed from correct behaviour, stiffened to rigidity and became merely butler once more. ”Will you see the 'ouse now, sir?”

They entered a wide hall in which was a fireplace that drew an exclamation from Norah, since she had not seen so large a one since she left Billabong. This was built to take logs four feet long, to hold which ma.s.sive iron dogs stood in readiness. Big leather armchairs and couches and tables strewn with magazines and papers, together with a faint fragrance of tobacco in the air, gave to the hall a comforting sense of use. The drawing-room, on the other hand, was chillingly splendid and formal, and looked as though no one had ever sat in the brocaded chairs: and the great dining room was almost as forbidding. The butler intimated that the General and his wife preferred the morning-room, which proved to be a cheery place, facing south and west, with a great window-recess filled with flowering plants.

”This is jolly,” Jim said. ”But so would the other rooms be, if they weren't so awfully empty. They only want people in them.”

”Tired people,” Norah said.

”Yes,” Wally put in. ”I'm blessed if I think they would stay tired for long, here.”