Chapter Ten.
One White Paw.
The jackdaws’ house got on slowly, and this was not surprising, as Dennis had a way of pulling his work to pieces and doing it all over again. Maisie grew impatient sometimes, for at this rate she thought the jackdaws would not be settled in their home until summer was over.
“Hadn’t you better let Tuvvy finish it off?” she said one day, when Dennis had spent a full hour in trying to fix a perch to his satisfaction; “it wouldn’t take a real carpenter more than half an hour.”
Dennis made no answer at first to this taunt. Maisie was only a girl, who did not understand, so it did not matter what she said. Whistling softly, he tried all manner of different positions for the perch, but none pleased him. After all, it would certainly be necessary to have Tuvvy’s advice, but that was quite another matter to letting him do the work.
“I shall have to go and see Tuvvy,” he said, carelessly throwing down the piece of wood he held; “perhaps Aunt Katharine will let you go too. You could stop at old Sally’s, if you didn’t want to go into the barn.”
As it happened, Aunt Katharine wanted to send a pudding to old Sally, who had been ill, and she gladly gave Maisie leave to go with Dennis, so Peter in attendance, and the pudding in a basket, the children set out the next morning directly after their lessons.
Maisie was pleased to make this visit, and it was such a very bright fresh June morning, that everything out of doors seemed to be as happy as herself as she danced along, with Peter jumping and barking at her side. The sky was as bright blue as the speedwell in the hedges; the leaves on the trees, not old enough yet to be dark and heavy, fluttered gaily in the wind, and made a light green shimmer everywhere. The fields were still dressed in yellow and white, for none of the farmers had cut their grass, and in the woods the deep purple hyacinths still lingered, though these were nearly over. It looked a very happy, bright, flowery world, with everything in it fresh and new, and nothing old or sad to think about.
Maisie had not much to trouble her either that morning, but there was one little sad thought which would come creeping out of a corner in her mind sometimes, and that was the fate of the grey kitten. She wondered now, as she checked her pace to a walk, and rebuked Peter for snuffing at the pudding, whether old Sally might have heard something about it from Eliza. There was always a faint hope of this, but it grew fainter with each visit, and Dennis thought it quite silly to put the question at all. Nevertheless Maisie made up her mind, with a quiet little nod to herself, that she would not forget to ask to-day.
Sally and Anne were talking so very loud inside the cottage, that it was a long while before the children could make themselves heard, and it was not until Dennis had battered on the door with his stick that it was slowly opened.
“Lawk, mother!” cried Anne, “it’s the young lady and gentleman from Fieldside.—Come in, dearies, and sit ye down.”
Old Sally was sitting in the chimney corner wrapped in a shawl, her brown old face looking a shade paler than usual. Anne set chairs for the visitors next to her, and drew closely up herself on the other side of them, prepared to join in the conversation as much as allowed by her mother, who was a great talker, and always took the lead. The two old lilac sun-bonnets nodded one on each side of the children, as old Sally began plaintively:
“Yes, I’ve lost my appetite. I don’t seem as if I could fancy nothing just lately. I’m tired of the food—it’s taters, taters, taters, till I’m fair sick on ’em. Seems as if I could have a bit of summat green, it’d go down better. There was a gal brought me a mite of turnip tops t’other day. ’Twarn’t on’y a morsel, so as I could hardly find it in the pot when it was biled, but it give a relish, like.”
“Aunt Katharine’s sent you a pudding,” shouted Maisie, taking it out of the basket.
“And sech a cough as I’ve had,” put in Anne, seizing the opportunity to speak, while her mother warmed the end of her trumpet at the fire; “I expect it’s a sharp touch of influenzy.”
“I seem to get weaker every day,” resumed old Sally, presenting her trumpet for Maisie’s use. “I crawled down to the gate, and couldn’t hardly get back this morning.”
“Why don’t you have the doctor?” asked Maisie.
Sally shook her head.
“I’ve never taken no doctor’s stuff in all my days,” she said. “Anne there, she’s had a deal, poor child; but ’twouldn’t do me no good.”
Dennis was beginning to make impatient signs, and Maisie knew he would not stay much longer, so in spite of Anne, who was preparing to speak, she shouted hastily down the trumpet, “Has your daughter Eliza found the kitten?”
It was answered as she expected, by solemn shakes of the head, both from Sally and Anne, in the midst of which the children took their leave.
“Please the Lord to send the rain and make the greens grow,” were old Sally’s last words. But there did not seem much chance of rain yet, for the sun was still shining splendidly, and as the children entered the shadowy barn, Tuvvy’s dark figure was lighted up by a ray which came straight through the little window. Maisie seated herself modestly in the background on a chopping-block, while Dennis asked his questions, for she was rather in awe of Tuvvy, though she liked the barn very much, and found plenty to interest her. High up among the rough rafters over her head there were so many cobwebs hanging about, that it puzzled her to think where all the spiders were who had spun them. There were no spiders now, but there were masses of cobwebs in every nook and corner, some of them waving in the dimness like flimsy grey veils, others spread about in such strange shapes that they almost seemed alive. No doubt bats lived up there, Maisie thought, and she even fancied she could see them clinging to the wall, dusky and shadowy as the cobwebs themselves. She turned her eyes with a little shudder, for she did not like bats, to the floor of the barn, and this was much more cheerful to look at, for it was covered with pretty light yellow shavings all in curls and twists. More continually floated down to join them from Tuvvy’s bench, where he was planing a piece of wood for Dennis; they were exactly like the flaxen hair of Maisie’s favourite doll. Her serious gaze wandered on to the end of the barn, which was almost filled up by a great machine something like a gigantic grasshopper. It looked terribly strong with its iron limbs, although it was at rest, and she felt half afraid of it, though she had often seen it before. What was it, and why was it there?
She could easily have put this question to Tuvvy, but Maisie seldom asked questions. She had a habit of turning things over in her own little mind, and wrapping fancies round them, until she had quite a collection of strange objects in her small world. She would have missed these very much, if they had been exposed to daylight and turned into facts, and in this she was quite different from Dennis; he always wanted to know the reason why, and to have the meaning of things made quite clear to him.
She was not left long, however, to wonder about the big machine, for Tuvvy, giving a sudden wag of his head towards it, said: “The elevator’s my next job, soon as hay harvest’s over. Wants a lick o’ paint.”
“How jolly!” exclaimed Dennis, turning towards it with admiration and envy. “I say, won’t it just take a lot of paint! What a jolly job!”
“I wish you had it then, master,” said Tuvvy grimly. “’Tain’t the sort as pleases me. It don’t give you no credit when it’s done, and the paint splashes you awful. It’s what I call a reg’lar comical sort of a job.”
“I should like it,” said Dennis with deep conviction, still staring at the elevator. “What colour shall you paint it?”
“Gaffer said ’twas to be a sort of a yaller,” said Tuvvy; “but it don’t make much odds. There, master,” he continued, as he finished his planing, “that’s what you want, and I’ll stop to-morrow as I pass, and give a look at the perches.”
Dennis would gladly have stayed much longer to go fully into the painting of the elevator, and other like subjects; but he had been warned not to take up much of Tuvvy’s time, so he unwillingly started home with Maisie, clutching his piece of wood under his arm. Until they reached the village, he was so lost in thought that he did not utter a word, but then, coming to a sudden standstill, he exclaimed: “Why shouldn’t we paint the jackdaws’ house!”
Maisie was struck by the brilliancy of the idea. She stopped too, and gazed at Dennis with admiration.
“It would be splendid,” she said. “Do you think Aunt Katharine would let me help?”
“Why, of course,” said Dennis; “it’s quite a different thing from using tools. Any one can paint!”
“Only the splashes,” said Maisie a little doubtfully. “Tuvvy said you got splashed all over. Aunt Katharine mightn’t like me to spoil my frocks.”
“As to that,” said Dennis, “you could wear a big apron. Painters always do. Hulloa! it’s raining!”
So it was. The bright sunshine had vanished, and the sky was downcast and grey. First it rained gently, then faster, then it made up its mind in good earnest, and a regular downpour of drops pattered on the hedges, and fell softly on the dusty roads.
“How pleased old Sally will be,” said Maisie, “because of the greens!”
“P’r’aps we’d better go in somewhere,” said Dennis, looking at his sister’s frock; “you’re getting awfully wet, and we haven’t got an umbrella.”
They were just passing Dr Price’s lodgings. Snip and Snap, who stood at the gate snuffing up the moist fresh air with their black noses, wagged their stumpy tails in a friendly manner to the children, and growled at Peter at the same time.
“You go in,” continued Dennis, hurrying his sister up to the door, “and I’ll run home and fetch umbrellas and cloaks for you. Aunt Katharine always says you’re not to get wet.”
Maisie would much rather have gone on with Dennis, and did not mind the rain a bit; but it was quite true that Aunt Katharine did not like her to get wet. So she yielded, and stood waiting in the little porch for the door to be opened, while Dennis sped up the road, and was soon out of sight.
“Come in, dearie, and welcome,” said Mrs Budget, the doctor’s landlady, when Maisie had asked for shelter, “and I’ll just get a clean cloth and take off the worst of the damp.”
She led the way to a very clean kitchen, talking all the while, and flapped vigorously at Maisie’s skirt with a towel.
“The doctor’s just in, and I says to him, ‘Now I do hope, sir, you’ll get your meal in comfort to-day, for it’s as tidy a little bit of griskin as any one need wish to see, and done to a turn.’ Owin’ to his profession, he don’t give his vittles no chance, the doctor don’t. Most times he eats ’em standing, and then up in saddle and off again. It’s a hard life, that it is, and he don’t even get his nights reg’lar. Snug and warm in bed, and ring goes that bothering night-bell. If it was me, I should turn a deaf ear sometimes, pertickler in the winter.—Is your boots wet, my dear? No; then come in and see the doctor. He’ll be pleased.”
Maisie would have liked to stay in the kitchen with Mrs Budget, but she was too polite to refuse this invitation, and soon found herself at the door of the doctor’s sitting-room.
“Little Miss Chester, sir,” said Mrs Budget, “come to shelter from the rain;” and thereupon vanished to dish up the dinner.
Maisie looked curiously round the room. It was small, and smelt strongly of tobacco smoke; chairs, mantelpiece, and floor were untidily littered with old newspapers, books, pipes, and bills scattered about in confusion; a pair of boxing-gloves, which looked to her like the enormous hands of some dead giant, hung on the wall, and on each side of them a bright silver tankard on a bracket.
The doctor himself looming unnaturally large, sat sideways at the table on which a cloth was laid, reading a newspaper. He had his hat on, slightly tilted over one eye, and his booted legs were stretched out before him with an air of relief after fatigue. He jumped up when he saw the shy little figure on the threshold, and took off his hat.
“Come in, come in, Miss Maisie,” he said. “Why, this is an honour. Where’s your brother?”
“Dennis ran home for umbrellas,” said Maisie, placing herself with some difficulty on the high horsehair-chair which he cleared with a sweep of his large hand; “it’s raining fast.”
“Why, so it is,” said her host, glancing out of the window, “and ten minutes ago there was no sign of it. That’s a good sight for the farmers. And where have you been? Far?”
“We’ve been to see Tuvvy,” replied Maisie gravely; “he’s helping Dennis, you know, with the jackdaws’ house.”
“Ah, to be sure,” said Dr Price readily, though this was the first time he had heard of such a thing. “Tuvvy’s a clever fellow, isn’t he? And so he’s going to stay on at the farm, after all?”
“Dennis did that, you know,” said Maisie, forgetting her shyness a little. “Dennis made a Round Robin, and all the men put their names, and so Mr Solace let Tuvvy stop.”
The doctor nodded, with a little smile. He seemed to know all about it, and this did not surprise Maisie, who thought it quite natural that such a great event should be widely spread.
“And since then,” she went on, encouraged the attentive expression on her listener’s face, “he’s been as steady as steady! He doesn’t have to pass the Cross Keys now, you know, because he goes home over our field, and he thinks it’s partly that. It was the red blind drew him in, you see, and then he couldn’t come out again.”
Dr Price nodded again, and his smile widened in spite of evident efforts to conceal it, as Maisie turned her serious gaze full upon him.
“Just so,” he said.
At that very minute it struck Maisie that she had made a dreadful mistake. She ought not to have mentioned red blinds to Dr Price. Dennis had told her he was sometimes “like Tuvvy.” She hung her head, and her round cheeks flushed scarlet.
“I heard all about it the other day, Miss Maisie,” said the doctor in a very kind voice, “and who do you think told me? Tuvvy’s little girl. She’s got a brother about the age of yours, and they both think a lot of what you did for their father.”
Maisie began to forget her confusion in the interest of Tuvvy’s little girl. She stole a glance at the doctor, who did not look a bit vexed at her unlucky speech, but went on as good-naturedly as ever.
“She’s a nice little maid, and it’s hard lines for her just now. She has to lie quite still all day because she’s hurt her back. But she’s very good and patient.”
“Can’t you make her well?” asked Maisie, remembering the firm faith of the village people in Dr Price.
“Oh, I hope so,” he replied cheerfully. “But it takes time, and it’s dull and lonely for her, you see, while her people are out at work all day.”
“Is she all alone?” asked Maisie. “Hasn’t she got any one to be with her?”
“Well, she’s got a kitten,” answered Dr Price, “and that seems a comfort to her, but that’s about all. By the way, Miss Maisie,” he added, “how are all your cats? What became of the kitten you offered me some time back?”
“Oh,” said Maisie sorrowfully, “didn’t you hear about it? We gave it to old Sally’s Eliza at Upwell, and it ran out through the front shop and got lost in the streets. Aunt Katharine doesn’t think we shall hear of it again now. It was such a dear little kitten; not pretty like Darkie, but very good and sweet, and purred more than any of them.”
“That was a bad job,” said the doctor sympathetically.
“Is Tuvvy’s little girl’s kitten a pretty one?” asked Maisie.
“Well, as to that,” he replied slowly, “it looked to me about like other cats, but then I didn’t notice it much, you see, because I’m not so fond of ’em as you are. If it had been a dog now, I could have told you all its points at once. The little girl—Becky her name is—was very fond of it, that’s quite certain.”
Deeply interested, Maisie secretly wondered what the “points” of a dog were, and concluded that they must mean its paws and the tip of its tail. After a minute’s silence she put another question, rather sternly.
“What colour was it? You must have seen that.”
Dr Price looked quite cast down by this severe examination.
“I’m afraid I didn’t,” he said humbly; “you see they always look alike to me.”
“There’s quite as much difference in them as there is in dogs,” said Maisie in an instructive voice; “Madam’s three last kittens were not a bit alike. One was black—we kept that; one was quite white—we gave that to Philippa; and one was stripey grey, and that was the one that went to Upwell and got lost.”
“It would be odd, wouldn’t it?” suggested the doctor, “if it was the one I saw at Tuvvy’s.”
Maisie sat very upright, with a sparkle of excitement in her eyes.
“Could it be?” she exclaimed. “How did the little girl get it?”
Dr Price shook his head with a guilty air. “Didn’t ask,” he said.
His conduct with regard to the kitten had been thoroughly unsatisfactory, but he looked so sorry, that Maisie could not be hard upon him.
“Never mind,” she said graciously; “I daresay, if you don’t like cats—It had one white paw,” she added quickly, with renewed hope, “but I daresay you didn’t even notice that.”
Dr Price was so anxious to please, that it is possible he might have gone the length of remembering the one white paw, but he was saved from this rashness by the entrance of Mrs Budget, bearing a covered dish from which came a very savoury smell.
“There’s Miss Pringle stepping down with cloak and umbrella for Miss Chester,” she said, “so I thought I’d just bring the dinner straight in. It’s done to a turn, and smells like a nosegay,” she added, lifting the cover with a triumphant flourish.
Pringle was Aunt Katharine’s maid. It was most tiresome of her to come just now, for Maisie felt she might really be on the track of the lost kitten at last. She knew, however, that she must not stay any longer, and keep the doctor from the enjoyment of his dinner, so with a little sigh she slid off her chair, and held out her band to say good-bye.
“And if I were you, Miss Maisie,” were the doctor’s parting words, as he followed her out to the door, and folded the big cloak carefully round her, “I should just go over to Upwell, and have a look at that kitten one day. You’d leave it with Becky, wouldn’t you, if it does turn out to be yours?”
Maisie’s eyes were bright, and her cheeks flushed with excitement.
“Of course we should,” she said; “that is, if old Sally’s Eliza doesn’t mind, and it’s a really good home.”
The doctor lingered so long in the porch looking after his little guest as she hurried up the wet road by Pringle’s side, that Mrs Budget replaced the cover with a hasty crash.
“There’s no credit in cooking for him, none at all,” she muttered.
As for Maisie, she would have liked wings to fly back to Fieldside with this wonderful news, but she had to restrain her impatience and keep pace with Pringle, who held the umbrella and took mincing steps through the mud.
The way seemed endless, and when she did arrive, it was disappointing to find that Aunt Katharine would not be home till late in the evening. There was therefore only Dennis to whom she could pour out the story of Tuvvy’s little daughter, and her hopes and fears about the grey kitten. He was interested and impressed at first, but very soon ready to dismiss the subject and return to the one which really filled his mind—the painting of the jackdaws’ house.
“Only fancy,” said Maisie, breaking out again for the twentieth time, as the children sat at dinner, “if it should be our dear little grey kitten who we thought was dead. Wouldn’t it be lovely?”
“Yes,” said Dennis absently. Then, after a moment’s pause: “What colour had we better paint it?”
“Paint it!” repeated Maisie vaguely; but meeting a look of scorn from Dennis, she hastily added: “Oh, you mean the jackdaws’ house; but you are pleased about the kitten, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am,” answered Dennis rather impatiently, “but that’s only a chance, you see. If it is the kitten, it is; and if it isn’t, it isn’t. But the jackdaws’ house is a real thing, and we must settle about the colour. How do you think,” he went on seriously, “it would do to have it the same colour that Tuvvy’s going to do the elevator? He might let us have some of his paint, you see.”
“I shouldn’t like it at all,” said Maisie promptly; “he said it was to be a sort of a yaller, and I thought it sounded very ugly.”
“Well, then,” said Dennis, “you say a colour.”
Maisie thought it over, her eyes fixed on the meadows and the fast-falling rain outside.
“I should paint it green,” she said suddenly.
“Why?” asked Dennis.
“Because it’s a pretty colour,” she replied, “and the jackdaws would like it. It’s like the leaves and grass, and they might think they were in a tree.”
Dennis received the idea with a short laugh of contempt.
“Jackdaws are not such ninnies as that,” he said. “They’re sharp birds; they’re not likely to mistake a cage for a tree. If we don’t have it yellow, let’s have it bright red, like Mr Solace’s new wagon.”
Maisie had known from the first that her opinion was merely asked as a matter of form, Dennis would have the colour he wished and no other; so she made no further objection, and it was settled, subject to Aunt Katharine’s approval, that the jackdaws’ house should be painted the brightest red possible to get. This done, Maisie retired into a corner of the play-room with Madam, and related to her attentive ear the discovery of that morning.—She was a better listener than Dennis, for at any rate she was not eager to talk on other matters, but Maisie longed to tell some one who really cared as much as she did herself. Aunt Katharine would be home soon, which was a comfort, and perhaps Philippa too would like to know. She had never seen the grey kitten, but she had heard about it so very often. Maisie made up her mind to write to her. She would have been surprised if she had known that Philippa also had made a discovery, and bad news to tell her of Madam’s lost child. To hear what this discovery was, we must go back to the day when Philippa went home after her visit to Fieldside.