Part 5 (2/2)

”Harry like sugar,” said the small spokesman, looking up at her. Charley said nothing. He had his thumb, and half the little hand belonging to it, in his mouth, and sucked it with much philosophy. ”Or perhaps I might make you a peasant woman,” said Mab, ”with one of them on your back. They are nature, Ciss. You know how Mr. Lake used to go on, saying nature was what I wanted. Well, here it is.”

”I think you are as mad as papa,” said Cicely, impatient; ”but I must order the dinner and look after the things. That's nature for me. Oh, dear--oh, dear! We shall not long be able to have any dinner, if we go on with such a lot of servants. Two girls, two boys, two maids, and two hundred a year! You might as well try to fly,” said Cicely, shaking her pretty head.

CHAPTER VII.

NEWS.

Perhaps it had been premature of the girls to speak to their father of their future, and what they were to do, on the very first morning after their return; but youth is naturally impatient, and the excitement of one crisis seems to stimulate the activity of all kinds of plans and speculations in the youthful brain; and then perhaps the chill of the house, the rural calm of the place, had frightened them. Cicely, indeed, knew it was her duty and her business to stay here, whatever happened; but how could Mab bear it, she said to herself--Mab, who required change and novelty, whose mind was full of such hopes of seeing and of doing?

When their father had gone out, however, they threw aside their grave thoughts for the moment, and dawdled the morning away, roaming about the garden, out and in a hundred times, as it is so pleasant to do on a summer day in the country, especially to those who find in the country the charm of novelty. They got the children's hats, and took them out to play on the sunny gra.s.s, and run small races along the paths.

”Please, miss, not to let them run too much,” said little Annie, Betsy's sister, who was the nurse, though she was but fifteen. ”Please, miss, not to let 'em roll on the gra.s.s.”

”Why, the gra.s.s is as dry as the carpet; and what are their little legs good for but to run with?” said Cicely.

Whereupon little Annie made up a solemn countenance, and said, ”Please, miss, I promised missis----”

Mab rushed off with the children before the sentence was completed.

”That's why they are so pale,” cried the impetuous girl; ”poor little white-faced things! But we never promised missis. Let us take them into our own hands.”

”You are a good girl to remember what your mistress said,” said Cicely with dignity, walking out after her sister in very stately fas.h.i.+on. And she reproved Mab for her rashness, and led the little boys about, promenading the walks. ”We must get rid of these two maids,” she said, ”or we shall never be allowed to have anything our own way.”

”But you said they were good girls for remembering,” said Mab, surprised.

”So they were; but that is not to say I am going to put up with it,”

said Cicely, drawing herself to her full height, and looking Miss St.

John, as Mab a.s.serted she was very capable of doing when she pleased.

”You are very funny, Cicely,” said the younger sister; ”you praise the maids, and yet you want to get rid of them; and you think what 'missis'

made them promise is nonsense, yet there you go walking about with these two mites as if you had promised missis yourself.”

”Hus.h.!.+” said Cicely, and then the tears came into her eyes. ”She is dead!” said this inconsistent young woman, with a low voice full of remorse. ”It would be hard if one did not give in to her at first about her own little boys.”

After this dawdling in the morning, they made up their minds to work in the afternoon. Much as they loved the suns.h.i.+ne, they were obliged to draw down the blinds with their own hands, to the delight of Betty, to whom Cicely was obliged to explain that this was not to save the carpet.

It is difficult to know what to do in such circ.u.mstances, especially when there is nothing particular to be done. It was too hot to go out; and as for beginning needlework in cold blood the first day you are in a new place, or have come back to an old one, few girls of eighteen and nineteen are so virtuous as that. One thing afforded them a little amus.e.m.e.nt, and that was to pull things about, and alter their arrangement, and shape the room to their own mind. Cicely took down a worked banner-screen which hung from the mantelpiece, and which offended her fastidious taste; or rather, she began to unscrew it, removing first the crackling semi-transparent veil that covered it. ”Why did she cover them up so?” cried Cicely, impatiently.

”To keep them clean, of course,” said Mab.

”But why should they be kept clean? We are obliged to fade and lose our beauty. It is unnatural to be spick and span, always clean and young, and new. Come down, you gaudy thing!” she cried. Then with her hand still grasping it, a compunction seized her. ”After all, why shouldn't she leave something behind her--something to remember her by? She had as much right here as we have, after all. She ought to leave some trace of her existence here.”

”She has left her children--trace enough of her existence!” cried Mab.

Cicely was struck by this argument. She hesitated a minute, with her hand on the screen, then hastily detached it, and threw it down. Then two offensive cus.h.i.+ons met her eye, which she put in the same heap. ”The little boys might like to have them when they grow up,” she added, half apologetically, to herself.

And with these changes something of the old familiar look began to come into the faded room. Mab had brought out her drawing things, but the blinds were fluttering over the open windows, shutting out even the garden; and there was nothing to draw. And it was afternoon, which is not a time to begin work. She fixed her eyes upon a large chiffonier, with gla.s.s doors, which held the place of honour in the room. It was mahogany, like everything else in the house.

”I wonder what sort of a man Mr. Chester is?” she said; ”or what he meant by buying all that hideous furniture--a man who lives in Italy, and is an antiquary, and knows about pictures. If it was not for the gla.s.s doors, how like a hea.r.s.e that chiffonier would be. I mean a catafalque. What is a catafalque, Cicely? A thing that is put up in churches when people are dead? I hope Mr. Chester when he dies will have just such a tomb.”

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