Chapter Seven.
Pennie at Nearminster.
Miss Unity was surprised to find, as time went on, that Pennie’s weekly visits were neither irksome nor disturbing; there was something about them, on the contrary, that she really liked. She could not account for it, but it was certainly true that instead of dreading Thursday she was glad when it came, and quite sorry when it was over. And then it was such a comfort to find that Betty, far from making any objection or difficulty, was pleased to approve of the arrangement, and even when Pennie, who was very untidy, rumpled the anti-macassars and upset the precise position of the drawing-room chairs, she neither murmured nor frowned.
Miss Unity was happier just now than she had been for a long while, for although her life flowed on from year to year in placid content it had not much active interest in it. If it had few anxieties it also had few pleasures, and each day as it came was exactly like the one which had gone before. But now there was one day, Pennie’s day, as Miss Unity called it in her thoughts, which was quite different from any other in the week. The moment she arrived, full of her eager little schemes and fancies, with all sorts of important news from Easney, Dickie’s last funny saying, how far baby could crawl, and what the boys had been doing, the quiet old house seemed to brighten up and grow young again. Echoes of all the little voices which had sounded there long ago woke from their sleep, and filled the staircase and the sombre rooms with chatter and laughter.
It made Miss Unity herself feel younger to hear the news, and she soon found it easy to be really interested in all that Pennie had to tell her. She proved such an attentive listener, and Pennie, after the restraint of the dancing-class, was so inclined to be confidential and talkative, that tea became a most agreeable and sociable meal. Betty, on her part, honoured the occasion by sending up hot-buttered cakes of peculiar excellence, which ever afterwards were closely connected with dancing in Pennie’s mind.
As for the class itself, the misery of it was certainly softened as time went on, but it always remained somewhat of a trial to Pennie, and she never distinguished herself as a pupil. It was disappointing to find, too, that the acquaintance with the Merridews from which Miss Unity had hoped so much, did not advance quickly; she inquired anxiously, after a few lessons, how Pennie got on with her companions.
“Pretty well,” answered Pennie; “I like the look of Sabine best, I think.”
“But she’s quite a little thing,” said Miss Unity. “Ethel is your age, is she not?”
Pennie assented with some reserve.
“If you like,” said Miss Unity with a great effort, “we might ask Ethel to come to tea with you and spend the evening on Thursday.”
Pennie raised a face of unfeigned alarm from her plate.
“Oh, please not!” she exclaimed pleadingly, “what should we talk about all the evening? I’m sure we don’t like the same things at all—and I’m sure she wouldn’t care about coming either.”
So, greatly to Miss Unity’s own relief, it was decided once for all that Ethel should not be asked to tea, and she continued to find increasing satisfaction in her god-daughter’s society.
There was another matter which Pennie had not advanced since her visits to Nearminster, and that was her acquaintance with Kettles. She neither saw nor heard anything of her, which was not surprising, since neither Miss Unity nor the Merridews were likely to know of her existence. To Nancy, however, it seemed absurd that Pennie should go every week to Nearminster and bring back no news at all. She began to feel sure that Pennie had not made good use of her opportunities.
“Do you mean to say you know nothing more about her at all?” she asked with contempt. “Well, if I were you, I should have found out something by this time, I know.”
Pennie bore these reproofs meekly, for she felt their justice. Nancy always did manage to find out things better than she did, but at the same time she could not think of any way of getting information. At last accident came to her aid.
One evening as they sat together after tea, Miss Unity winding wool and Pennie holding the skein, the former rose to get something out of the cupboard near the fireplace. As she reached to the back of it something round and smooth rolled forward and fell on the floor.
It was the head of the poor mandarin.
“Ah!” said Miss Unity with a long-drawn sigh, as though she were in sudden pain.
Pennie picked it up, and her godmother, replacing it gently, shut the cupboard door and took up her wool again. Her face was very grave, and the frown on her forehead had deepened, but Pennie knew by this time that Miss Unity was not cross when she looked like that, but sad. So, although there was something she wanted to say very much, she kept silence for a little while. Her thoughts went back to the day when Ethelwyn had broken the mandarin, and then to her plan for getting another, and how it had failed. When she reached this point she ventured to inquire gently:
“Where did the mandarin come from?”
“A long, long way off, my dear,” replied Miss Unity, with a far-away look in her eyes as though she saw the distant country herself.
“Could another be got?” continued Pennie.
Her godmother looked inquiringly at her eager face.
“Another!” she repeated. “I suppose so. But I could never care about another.”
“Not if it were just exactly the same?” persisted Pennie.
“It could not be the same to me,” said Miss Unity; “but why do you ask, my dear?”
“Because,” said Pennie, “we wanted to get you another one for a surprise—only—things happened—and we couldn’t save enough money.”
Miss Unity leant forward suddenly and kissed her little guest.
“I thank you quite as much for the thought, dear Pennie, as if you had done it,” she said. “But I am glad you did not. There were reasons which made me fond of the old mandarin years and years ago. I do not think I should like to see a new one in his place.”
Pennie and she were both silent. Miss Unity’s thoughts had perhaps travelled to that far-off country where the mandarin had lived, but Pennie’s were nearer home.
“Then,” she said half aloud, “I suppose it really would be better to collect for Kettles.”
The voice at her side woke Miss Unity from her day-dream. The last word fell on her ear.
“Kettles, my dear!” she said. “What do you want with kettles?”
“It’s a person,” explained Pennie, “a little girl. We saw her at old Nurse’s. And Nancy wants to give her a new pair of boots and stockings.”
“Does she live with old Nurse?” asked Miss Unity.
“Oh, no!” answered Pennie. “She only came in for the tea-leaves. She lives in Anchoranopally.”
“Where?” said Miss Unity in a surprised voice.
“Oh!” cried Pennie with a giggle of amusement, “I forgot you wouldn’t understand. Nancy and I always call it that when we talk together. It really is the ‘Anchor and Hope Alley,’ you know, turning out of the High Street close to the College.”
Poor Miss Unity became more and more confused every moment. It all sounded puzzling and improper to her. “Kettles” coming in for tea-leaves, and living in “Anchoranopally.” How could Pennie have become familiar with such a child?
“But—my dear—” she said faintly. “That’s the very worst part of Nearminster. Full of dirty, wicked people. You ought to know nothing of such places. And I don’t like to hear you mispronounce words, it might grow into a habit. It’s not at all nice.”
“We only call it so because Kettles did, you see,” said Pennie. “She didn’t look at all wicked, and old Nurse says her mother is a decent woman. Her face was rather dirty, perhaps. She’s got a bad father. He drinks—like lots of the people at Easney—”
“I am sorry to hear,” interrupted Miss Unity, drawing himself up, “that Mrs Margetts allowed you to see such a person at all, or to hear anything of her relations. I am afraid she forgot herself.”
“She couldn’t help it,” said Pennie eagerly. “Nancy and I were at tea with her, and Kettles came in for the tea-leaves, and had some bread and honey. And we asked Nurse to let her come and see us again, and she said ‘No, she knew her duty better.’ So we’ve never seen her since, but we’ve always wanted to. Her real name is Keturah. Nurse says it’s a Scripture name, but we think Kettles suits her best.” Pennie stopped to take breath.
“The dean was saying only the other day,” remarked Miss Unity stiffly, “that Anchor and Hope Alley is a scandal to Nearminster. A disgraceful place to be so near the precincts.”
“Does he go to see the people in it?” asked Pennie.
“The dean, my dear! He has other and far more important matters to attend to. It would be most unsuitable to the dignity of his position.”
“I knew Nancy was wrong,” said Pennie with some triumph. “She thought he might know Kettles’ father and mother, but I was quite sure he didn’t. Does anyone go to see them?” she added.
“I have no doubt they are visited by people properly appointed for the purpose,” said Miss Unity coldly; “and you see, Pennie, if they are good people they can come to church and enjoy all the church privileges as well as any one else.”
Pennie was silent. She could not fancy Kettles coming to church in that battered bonnet and those big boots. What a noise she would make, and how everyone would look at her!
“Father goes to see the bad people in Easney as well as the good ones,” she said, more to herself than her godmother. “Lots of them never come to church.”
“Easney is quite different from a cathedral town,” said Miss Unity with dignity.
And here the conversation ended, partly because Pennie had no answer to make to this statement, and partly because it was time to go to the evening service. It was a special service to-night, for a sermon was to be preached in aid of foreign missions by the Bishop of Karawayo. This was particularly interesting to Miss Unity, and though Pennie did not care about the bishop it was always a great pleasure to her to go to the Cathedral.
“May we go in through the cloisters?” she asked as they crossed the Close.
Miss Unity much preferred entering at the west door and thought the cloisters damp, but she willingly assented, for it was difficult for her to refuse Pennie anything.
There was something about the murky dimness of the cloisters which filled Pennie with a sort of pleasant awe. She shivered a little as she walked through them, not with cold, but because she fancied them thronged with unseen presences. How many, many feet must have trod those ancient flag-stones to have worn them into such waves and hollows. Perhaps they still went hurrying through the cloisters, and that was what made the air feel so thick with mystery, and why she was never inclined to talk while she was there.
Miss Unity always went as swiftly through the cloisters as possible; and Pennie, keeping close to her side, tried as she went along to make out the half-effaced inscriptions at her feet. There was one she liked specially, and always took care not to tread upon:
Jane Lister Deare Childe.
Aged 6 Years. 1629.
By degrees she had built up a history about this little girl, and felt that she knew her quite well, so that she was always glad to pass her resting-place and say something to her in her thoughts.
Through a very low-arched doorway—so low that Miss Unity had to bend her head to go under it—they entered the dimly-lighted Cathedral. Only the choir was used for the service, and the great nave, with its solemn marble tombs here and there, was half-dark and deserted. Pillars, shafts, and arches loomed indistinct yet gigantic, and seemed to rise up, up, up, till they were lost in a misty invisible region together with the sounds of the organ and the echoes of the choristers’ voices.
The greatness and majesty of it all gave Pennie feelings which she did not understand and could not put into words; they were half pleasure and half pain, and quite prevented the service from being wearisome to her, as it sometimes was at Easney. She had so much to think of here. The Cathedral was so full of great people, from the crusader in his mailed armour and shield, to the mitred bishop with his crozier, lying so quietly on their tombs with such stern peaceful faces.
Pennie knew them all well, and in her own mind she decided that Bishop Jocelyne, who had built the great central tower hundreds of years ago, was a far nicer bishop to look at than the one who was preaching this evening. She tried to pay attention to the sermon, but finding that it was full of curious hard names and a great number of figures, she gave it up and settled comfortably into her corner to think her own thoughts. These proved so interesting that she was startled when she found the service over and Miss Unity groping for her umbrella.
Just outside the Cathedral they were overtaken by Mrs Merridew and her eldest daughter.
“Most interesting, was it not?” she observed to Miss Unity, “and casts quite a new light on the condition of those poor benighted creatures. The bishop is a charming man, full of information. The dean is delighted. He has always been so interested in foreign missions. The children think of having a collecting-box.”
“Did you like the sermon, Pennie?” asked Miss Unity as they passed on; “I hope you tried to listen.”
“I did—at first,” said Pennie, “till all those names came. I liked the hymn,” she added.
“Wouldn’t it be nice for you to have a collecting-box at home,” continued Miss Unity, “like the Merridews, so that you might help these poor people?”
Pennie hung her head. She felt sure she ought to wish to help them, but at the same time she did not want to at all. They lived so far-away, in places with names she could not even pronounce, and they were such utter strangers to her.
“Wouldn’t you like it?” repeated her godmother anxiously.
Pennie took courage.
“You see,” she said, “I haven’t got much money—none of us have. And I know Kettles—at least I’ve seen her. And I know where Anchor and Hope Alley is, and that makes it so much nicer. And so I’d rather give it to her than to those other people, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not, my dear,” said Miss Unity. “It is your own money, and you must spend it as you like.”
Pennie fancied there was a sound of disapproval in her voice, and in fact Miss Unity was a little disappointed. She had always felt it to be a duty to support missions and to subscribe to missionary societies, to attend meetings, and to make clothes for the native children in India. At that very time she was reading a large thick book about missions, which she had bought at the auction of the Nearminster book club. She read a portion every evening and kept a marker carefully in the place. She was sure that she, as well as the dean, was deeply interested in foreign missions. If she could have made them attractive to Pennie also, it might take the place of Kettles and Anchor and Hope Alley.
For Miss Unity thought this a much more suitable object, and one moreover which could be carried out without any contact with dirt and wickedness! Squalor and the miseries of poverty had always been as closely shut out of her life as they were from the trim prosperity of the precincts, and Miss Unity considered it fitting that they should be so. She knew that these squalid folk were there, close outside; she was quite ready to give other people money to help them, or to subscribe to any fund for their improvement or relief, but it had always seemed to her unbecoming and needless for a lady to know anything about the details of their lives.
The children’s idea, therefore, of providing Kettles with new boots and stockings did not commend itself to her in the least. There were proper ways of giving clothes to the poor. If the child’s mother was a decent woman, as old Nurse had said, she belonged to a clothing club and could get them for herself. If she was not a respectable person, the less Pennie knew of her the better. At any rate Miss Unity resolved to do her best to discourage the project, and certainly Pennie was not likely to hear much, either at her house or the deanery, to remind her of Anchor and Hope Alley and its unfortunate inmates.
Pennie on her side, though a trifle discouraged by the coldness with which any mention of Kettles was received, felt that at least she had taken a step towards her further acquaintance. Very likely her godmother might come in time to approve of the idea and to wish to hear more about it. “I shall have something to tell Nancy at last,” she said to herself when she woke up the next morning and remembered the conversation.
But she was not to see Nancy as soon as she thought. After breakfast Andrew arrived, not with the waggonette as usual to fetch Pennie home, but mounted on Ruby with a letter from Mrs Hawthorne to Miss Unity. Dickie was ill. It might be only a severe cold, her mother said, but there were cases of measles in the village, and she felt anxious. Would Miss Unity keep Pennie with her for the next few days? Further news should be sent to-morrow.
As she read this all sorts of plans and arrangements passed through Miss Unity’s mind and stirred it pleasantly. She was sorry for Dickie and the others, but it was quite an excitement to her to think of keeping Pennie with her longer.
“Miss Penelope will remain here to-night,” she said to Betty, “and probably for two or three days. Miss Delicia is ill, and they think it may be measles.”
“Oh, indeed, Miss!” said Betty with a sagacious nod. “Then it’ll go through all the children.”
“Do you think so?” said Miss Unity, who had great faith in Betty’s judgment. “Then it may be a matter of weeks?”
“Or months, Miss,” replied Betty. “It depends on how they sicken.”
“In that case I’ve been thinking,” said Miss Unity timidly, “whether it would be better to put Miss Penelope into the little pink-chintz room.”
“Well, it is more cheerful than the best room, Miss,” said Betty condescendingly, “though it’s small.”
The pink-chintz room was a tiny apartment opening out of Miss Unity’s. She had slept in it herself as a child, and though there was not much pink left in the chintz now, there were still some pictures and small ornaments remaining from that time. It had a pleasant look-out, too, on to the quiet green Close, and was altogether a contrast to the dark sombrely furnished room Pennie had been occupying. So after Betty had scoured and cleaned and aired as much as she thought fit, Pennie and all her small belongings were settled into the pink-chintz roomy and it turned out that her stay there was to be a long one. The news from Easney did not improve. Dickie certainly had the measles, the baby soon followed her example, and shortly afterwards Ambrose took it, so that Nancy and David were the only two down-stairs.
“What a good thing, my dear, that you were here!” said Miss Unity kindly to her guest. Pennie was obliged to answer “Yes” for the sake of politeness, but in truth she thought she would rather risk the measles and be at home.
Nearminster was nice in many ways and Miss Unity was kind, but it was so dreadfully dull as time went on to have no one of her own age to talk to about things. There were the Merridews, but in spite of Miss Unity’s praises Pennie did not like them any better, and had not become more familiar with them. She had certainly plenty of conversation with her godmother, who did her best to sympathise except on the subject of Kettles; but nothing made up for the loss of Nancy and her brothers—not even the long letters which the former sent now and then from Easney, written in a bold sprawling hand, covering three sheets of paper, and a good deal blotted. Here is one of these epistles:—
“My dear Pennie,—Dickie got up and had chicken for dinner to-day, and was very frackshus. Ambrose is in bed still. He has Guy Manring read aloud to him, and he will toss his arms out of bed at the egsiting parts; so mother says she must leave off. David and I have lessons. David said yesterday he would rather have meesles than do his sums, so Miss Grey said he was ungrateful. I never play with the dolls now. If you were here we could play their having meesles, but it is no good alone. Baby had the meesles worst of all. Doctor Banks comes every day. He has a new grey horse. Have you been to see old Nurse lately? and have you seen Kettles? Dickie sends you these sugar kisses she made herself. She burnt her fingers and screamed for nearly an hour.—Your loving sister, Nancy Hawthorne.”
Pennie answered these letters fully, and moreover, in case she might forget anything, she kept a diary, and wrote something in it at the end of each day. Sometimes there was so little to put down that she had to make some reflections, or copy a piece of poetry to fill it up; but it was a comfort to her to think that some day she should read it over with Nancy and Ambrose.
Meanwhile, this visit of Pennie’s, which was to her a kind of exile, was a very different matter to Miss Unity. Day by day Pennie’s comfort, Pennie’s improvement, Pennie’s pleasure filled her thoughts more and more, and it became strange to think of the time when the little pink-chintz room had been empty.