Chapter Three.
Cheddington Fair.
Meanwhile Pennie’s plan did not make much progress. The china-house on the school-room mantel-piece stood ready for contributions, with the slit in its roof and the label on its front door; it looked very well outside, but she feared that it was poorly furnished within, though she dropped all her own money into it with great regularity. This fear became certainty soon, for Dickie came to her one day with a penny clasped in her fat hand, and said:
“Dickie will put it into the house.”
Pennie hesitated, for she knew it was the price of real hard work.
“Does Dickie really want to give it?” she asked.
Dickie nodded, gazing up at the money-box with large solemn eyes.
“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather buy hard-bake?” persisted Pennie.
Dickie was quite sure. Her mind was bent on dropping the penny into the slit. When, however, the china-house was lifted down, and she saw her money disappear through the roof for ever, she burst into sobs and tears, and refused comfort till the box was opened and the money returned. In this way Pennie became aware of the very low state of the funds; there was indeed hardly anything beside her own contributions, and at this rate Miss Unity would never get her new mandarin. So far her plan had failed.
“If only I could earn some money!” she said to Nancy.
“P’r’aps father will want some sermons copied when he comes back,” suggested Nancy, “or mother may want some dusters hemmed.”
“I should love to do the sermons,” said Pennie; “but, oh,” with a face of disgust, “how I do hate needlework!”
“Well,” said Nancy composedly, “if people want to be paid they’ve got to work, whether they like it or not.”
“But there’s nice work and nasty work,” said Pennie; “now, to write books—that must be splendid!”
“I should hate it,” said Nancy. “I’d much rather dig potatoes, or make chairs and tables.”
“Girls can’t do that sort of work,” remarked Ambrose, who was sitting in the window-seat with a book. “Girls can’t do many things. They’re not brave enough, or strong enough, or clever enough. Boys and men earn money, not girls.”
Nancy never wasted words on Ambrose when he talked in this way. She at once looked round for the nearest thing to throw at him. Quite aware of her intention, he quickly added holding up one arm to shield himself:
“Boys can do everything better than girls.”
The school-room ruler whizzed through the air, and, without touching Ambrose, crashed through the window behind him.
“Girls can’t even throw straight!” he exclaimed exultingly, jumping down from the window-seat.
With a very sober face Nancy advanced to examine the mischief. The ruler had broken one pane of glass, and cracked two others right across.
“There, you see!” said Ambrose tauntingly, “you’ve done it again. You’re always smashing things.”
It was quite true. Nancy had a most unfortunate faculty for breaking glass, china, and any other fragile thing she came near. She looked sadly at the window.
“It’ll be at least two weeks’ pocket-money, Nancy,” said Pennie, drawing near.
“I don’t so much mind about that,” said poor Nancy dejectedly; “but I do so hate telling mother I’ve broken something else. I did mean not to break anything while she was away this time.”
“Mother’s never really angry when we tell her,” said Pennie, trying to give comfort.
“I wish someone else had broken something, or done something wrong,” continued Nancy. “It’s so horrid to be the only one.”
Ambrose became suddenly grave. What was a broken window compared with his and David’s disobedience in the matter of Rumborough Common? Each day the possession of that little crock with its gold pieces weighed upon his mind more heavily. They had not even dared to place it openly in the museum, but after hiding it for a while in the tool-house, had agreed to bury it in the garden as the only secure place. It might just as well, therefore, have remained in the Roman Camp; and with all his heart Ambrose wished it could be transported there again, for he had not known one happy minute since its discovery. It haunted him in lesson and play-hours, and visited him in feverish dreams at night; but, most of all, it spoilt his enjoyment of the garden. He got into a way of hovering round the spot where it was buried, and keeping a watchful eye on all Andrew’s movements, for he felt that he might some day be seized by a whim to dig just there, and bring the dreadful thing to light. The only person he could talk to on the subject was David, but there was little comfort in that, for the conversation was sure to end in a quarrel. David had been excited and pleased at first; but now that the treasure was buried away, quite out of his sight, his interest in it became fainter and fainter.
“I don’t see any good at all in it,” he said; “the museum’s just as empty as it was before. I think we’d better break it all up into tiny bits and throw it away.”
“But the coins—” said Ambrose.
“Well, then,” was David’s next suggestion, “we’d better tell.”
“If ever you dare to be so mean as that, I’ll never speak to you or play with you again,” returned Ambrose. “So there!”
David looked very sulky.
“I hate having it in my garden,” he said. “I’m always wanting to plant things just where it is.”
Disputes became so frequent between the boys that at length, by a silent agreement, they avoided the subject altogether, and by degrees the crock ceased to be so constantly in Ambrose’s thoughts. But even when he had managed to forget it entirely for a little while, something always happened to bring it back to his memory, and this was the case after Nancy had made her confession of the broken window.
“My dear Nancy,” said Mrs Hawthorne when she was told of it, “you knew it was wrong to throw things at your brother, didn’t you?”
“Why, yes, mother,” said Nancy; “but I didn’t think of it till after the window was broken.”
“But it would have been just as wrong if the ruler had not hit anyone or broken anything. The wrong thing was the feeling which made you throw it.”
“I shouldn’t have minded so much, though,” said Nancy, “if it hadn’t hit anything.”
“I suppose not; and the next time you were vexed you would have been still readier to throw something. Each wrong thing makes it easier to do the next, and sometimes people go on until it comes to be more natural to do wrong than right. But when they find that the wrong-doing gets them into trouble, and gives them pain, they remember to stop in time when they are most tempted. So it is not altogether a pity that the window is broken.”
“There are two panes,” said Nancy, “it’ll take three weeks’ pocket-money. You couldn’t ask Mr Putney to put in very cheap glass, could you, mother?”
Ambrose had listened attentively to all this, though he was apparently deeply engaged in scooping out a boat with his penknife. It brought all his old trouble about the crock back again with redoubled force. He envied Nancy. Her fault was confessed and paid for. What was the loss of three weeks’ money compared with the possession of unlawfully got and hidden treasure? And yet he felt it impossible to tell his mother that he had not only disobeyed her, but persuaded David to do so also. No. The crock must take its chance of discovery. Perhaps in a little while he should be able to forget its existence altogether and be quite happy again.
But it was not easy, and, as if on purpose to prevent it, Pennie’s stories had just now taken the direction of dire and dreadful subjects. They varied a good deal at different times, and depended on the sort of books she could get to read. After a visit to Nearminster, where Miss Unity’s library consisted of rows and rows of solemn old brown volumes, Pennie’s stories were chiefly religious and biographical, taken, with additional touches of her own, from the lives of bygone worthies. When she was at home, where she had read all the books in the school-room over and over again, she had to fall back on her own invention; and then the stories were full of fairies, goblins, dwarfs, and such like fancies. But lately, peering over the shelves in her father’s study, where she was never allowed to touch a book without asking, she had discovered a thick old volume called Hone’s Miscellany. To her great joy she was allowed to look at it, “although,” her father added, “I don’t think even you, Pennie, will find much that is interesting in it.”
Pennie had soon dived into the inmost recesses of the Miscellany, where she found much that was interesting and much that she did not understand. There were all sorts of queer things in it. Anecdotes of celebrated misers, maxims and proverbs, legends and pieces of poetry, receipts for making pickles and jams, all mixed up together, so that you could never tell what you might find on the next page. She thought it a most wonderful and attractive book, and picked out a store of facts and fancies on which to build future stories.
Unfortunately for Ambrose, those which most attracted her were of a dark and grim character. One poem, called “The Dream of Eugene Aram,” So thrilled and excited her that she learned it at once by heart and repeated it to her brothers and sisters. It would have had a great effect upon Ambrose at any time, but just now he saw a dreadful fitness in it to his own secret. Pennie added a moral when she had finished, which really seemed pointed directly at him.
“We learn by this,” she said, “that it is of no use to hide anything, because it is always found out; and that if we do wrong we are sure to be punished.”
Pennie was fond of morals, and they were always listened to with respect, except when they came into Dickie’s stories, who could not bear them, and always knew when they were coming. At the least hint of their approach, however artfully contrived, she would abruptly leave her seat and run away, saying, “No more, no more.” Ambrose, however, was deeply impressed both by the poem and the moral, and felt quite as guilty as Eugene Aram.
True, it was only a crock he had buried, and as far as he knew he had not robbed anyone of the gold, except the ancient Romans, who were all dead long ago. But he began to be troubled with doubts as to whether the coins were really so old. David had said they looked bright and new; perhaps they belonged to someone alive now, who had buried them in Rumborough Camp for safety. If this were so, he and David were robbers! There was no other name for them.
This was such a new and terrible idea that he felt unable to keep it entirely to himself. He must have someone’s opinion on the matter; and after some thought he resolved to try if Pennie could be of any service. “If I say, ‘Suppose So-and-so did so-and-so,’” he said to himself, “she won’t know it really happened, and I shall hear what she thinks. I’ll do it to-morrow on the way to Cheddington Fair.”
For the time for Cheddington Fair had come round again, and as it was the only entertainment of any kind that happened near Easney, it was looked forward to for weeks beforehand, and remembered for weeks afterwards. It was indeed an occasion of importance to all the country-side, and was considered the best fair held for many miles round. The first day was given up to the buying and selling of cattle, and after that came two days of what was called the “pleasure fair,” when all the booths and shows were open, and many wonderful sights were to be seen.
There was a wild-beast show of unusual size, a splendid circus, numbers of conjurers, places where you might fire off a rifle for a penny, merry-go-rounds where you might choose the colour of your horse, Aunt Sallys where you could win a cocoa-nut if you were skilful—no end to the attractions, no limit to the brilliancy and bustle of the scene. The gingerbread to be bought at Cheddington Fair had a peculiar excellence of its own, whether in the form of gilded kings and queens, brandy-snap, or cakes; everything else tasted tame and flat after it, as indeed did most of the events of daily life for some days following these exciting events.
The children were glad when it was settled this year that they were to go on the first day of the pleasure fair, for they had an uneasy fear that if they waited till the second all the best things would be bought from the stalls and booths. They set out therefore in very good spirits, under the care of Nurse, and Jane the nursery-maid, to walk from Easney to Cheddington, which was about a mile.
Pennie did not join in the chatter and laughter at first: she walked along with unusual soberness, for though she liked going to the fair quite as much as the others, she had just now something to think about which made her grave. The children, she reflected, would certainly spend every penny of their money to-day, besides that which mother had given them for the wild-beast show. There would be nothing at all for the mandarin. Should she make up her mind to save all hers, and buy nothing at all for herself? As she gradually resolved upon this, she began to feel that it would certainly be a very unselfish thing to do, and she held her head a little higher, and listened with superiority to her brothers and sisters as they chattered on about their money.
“I haven’t got much,” said Nancy, “hardly anything really, because I’ve got to pay for that horrid window.”
“I expect David’s got most,” said Ambrose, “he’s as rich as a Jew.”
“Jews aren’t always rich,” remarked David slowly. “Look at Mr Levi, who stands in the door of the rag-and-bone shop at Nearminster.”
Pennie could not help striking in at this point. “He doesn’t look rich,” she said, “but I dare say he’s got hoards buried in his garden.”
“He hasn’t got a garden,” objected Nancy.
“Well, then, in his chimney, or perhaps sewn up in his mattress,” she answered.
“If that’s all he does with it he might just as well be poor,” said David.
“But he isn’t a poor man for all that,” said Nancy, “if he’s got a mattress full of gold.”
Ambrose became silent as the dispute about the poverty or wealth of Mr Levi proceeded, and presently, edging close up to Pennie, who was a little behind the others, he said wistfully:
“I say, Pennie, I want to ask you something.”
“Well,” said his sister rather unwillingly. “Suppose—you found something,” began Ambrose with an effort.
“What sort of thing?”
“Oh, something valuable,” said Ambrose, thinking of the glittering gold coins.
“What then?” asked Pennie, looking at him with a little more interest.
“What would you do with it?” continued Ambrose earnestly.
“Do with it!” repeated his sister. “Why, I should give it back to the person who lost it, of course.”
“But suppose you couldn’t find out who it belonged to, or suppose the people were dead.”
Pennie was tired of supposing.
“Oh! I should ask mother what to do,” she said, dismissing the question. “I can hear the band,” she suddenly added.
Ambrose gave a little sigh, as all the children quickened their footsteps at this welcome sound.
There was no advice to be got from Pennie. He must shake off the thought of his tiresome secret and enjoy himself as much as he could to-day. Afterwards there would be time to trouble about it. And now they were getting quite near to the tents and flags and gaily-painted caravans and confused noises of men and beasts. Nurse seized Dickie’s unwilling hand as they reached the turnstile which admitted them into the field.
“Keep close together, my dears,” she said anxiously. “You stay along with me, Miss Pennie, and Miss Nancy and Jane, you come after me with the other two.”
She looked distractedly at the little faces smiling with delight and eager to plunge into the pleasures of the fair. Since Dickie had once run away quite alone to go to the circus she had always been more nervous about the children.
“Jane,” she said sharply to the small nursery-maid, “what are you gaping at? Keep your wits about you, do.”
Jane, who had never been inside a fair before, was gazing open-mouthed at an enormous portrait of the “Living Skeleton.” She turned to Nurse with a face from which all expression had gone but one of intense surprise.
“You’re not a bit of use,” said Nurse. “See here, Master David, I can depend on you. Keep with Master Ambrose and Jane as close to me as you can. And if you lose sight of me in the crowd be at the gate by four o’clock and wait there for the carriage.”
David nodded, and Nurse, with one more severe look at Jane, plunged into the crowd with Dickie toddling beside her.
How gay, how enchanting it all was! Boom, boom went the drums. “Walk in, ladies and gentlemen. Here you will see the performing seal, the Circassian beauty, the Chinese giant, and the smallest dwarf in the world.” Next to those attractions came the circus, outside of which, on a raised platform, stood harlequin, clown, and columbine, all in a row, and in full dress.
“Here we are again,” cried the clown. “How are you to-morrow?”
How kind and inviting all the showmen were! Bang! Bang! “Two shots with a rifle for a penny. Who’ll win a cocoa-nut?” “This way for Signor Antonio, the famous lion-tamer!” And so on, till the brain reeled, and choice amongst all these excitements became almost impossible.
Mother had given money for one entertainment, and the children had agreed beforehand that the wild-beast show would be far the best to see, but now that they were in the midst of the fair they began to waver. It was painful to think that whichever entertainment they fixed on the others might be better. On one point Nurse was firm. Wherever they went they must all go together, and at last, after a harassing consultation and some difference of opinion, it was decided that on the whole the menagerie would be best.
“Though I did want,” said David, rather regretfully, as they entered, “to see that performing pig who knows his letters and dances a hornpipe.”
The wild-beast show over, there remained a great deal to be seen outside; and now in the bustle and struggle of the narrow ways the party became separated, the three little girls remaining with Nurse and the boys with Jane.
“And I hope to goodness,” said Nurse anxiously, “that Jane won’t lose her head. Master David’s there—that’s one comfort. No, Miss Dickie, you don’t let go of my hand for one minute, so it’s no good pulling at me.”
Up till now Pennie had had no difficulty in keeping her money in her pocket, for she had seen nothing she specially wanted to buy. Nancy had spent hers before she had been five minutes in the fair, had won a cocoa-nut, and was now hugging it triumphantly under her arm. No doubt Ambrose and David would also part with theirs before long.
“There’s a funny stall,” said Nancy suddenly, “nothing but rubbishing old books.”
“Let’s go and look at it,” said Pennie.
They were very shabby old books indeed. Some of them with cracked bindings and the letters on the backs rubbed off; others with no binding at all, in soiled paper covers. There were piles and piles of them, not neatly arranged, but tossed about anyhow, and behind the stall stood an old man with a withered face and a pointed chin—a sort of wizard old man, Pennie thought. Nancy seemed struck with his appearance too.
“He’s just like pantaloon, isn’t he?” she said in a loud whisper as they stopped in front of the stall.
The old man peered sharply at the two little girls over the open book he held in his hand.
“What do you want, Missie?” he asked in a cracked voice.
“We don’t want anything, thank you,” said Pennie politely. “What a lot of old books you have!”
“Ah! they’re too old for such as you,” said the old man, glancing at the watchful form of Nurse in the background; “but I’ve got a pretty one somewheres that’d just suit you.”
“Come along, do, Miss Pennie,” said Nurse entreatingly, “there’s nothing like old books for fevers.”
But the old man had dived beneath his stall, and now produced a book on which Pennie’s eyes were immediately fastened with the deepest interest.
“There!” he said, laying it before her, “there’s the book to suit you, my little lady.” It was a square book in a gaily-coloured parchment cover, somewhat faded, but still showing attractive devices of shields, swords, and dragons. On it was emblazoned in old English letters the title, “Siegfried the Dragon Slayer.”
Pennie gazed at it in silent rapture.
“Full of ’lustrations,” continued the old man slowly turning the leaves, and leaving it open to display a picture.
Pennie and Nancy both bent over it. It was a wonderful picture. There was a man with wings on his shoulders flying high up above a great city, and shooting arrows from a bow at the crowd of people beneath. How did he get wings? Who was he?
Pennie cast her eyes hurriedly on the next page to find out, but before she could master one sentence the old man turned over the leaf; “That’s the book for you, Missie,” he repeated, “you’re a scholard, I can see that.”
Much flattered, Pennie asked quickly, “Does it cost much?”
“Dirt cheap,” said the old man. “I’ll let you have it for eighteenpence.”
Pennie had exactly that sum in her purse. “Do come away, Miss Pennie,” said Nurse’s voice behind her.
“Why don’t you buy it?” said Nancy; “you won’t have such a chance again.”
Pennie gulped down a sort of sob. “I should love to,” she said, “but I want to keep my money.”
“Well, if you’re not going to buy, you’d better not look at it any more,” said Nancy; “I haven’t got any money.”
With an immense effort, and a parting glance full of affection at “Siegfried the Dragon Slayer,” Pennie turned away from the stall, much to Nurse’s relief. Soon the old man and his books were lost to sight, but they remained very clearly and distinctly in Pennie’s mind. She saw the picture of that flying man more vividly than all that was going on round her, and would have given worlds to be acquainted with his history. If only she had more money, enough to buy the book and the mandarin too!
Then she began to wonder how the boys had spent theirs. No doubt they had bought just what had taken their fancy, and she would be the only one to go back empty-handed. It was a little hard. The only drop of comfort in it was that she would be able to tell them what a real sacrifice she had made. Yesterday she had seen David writing ten times over in his copy-book, “Virtue is its own reward.” If that meant feeling good, better than other people, Pennie had no doubt she was tasting the reward of virtue now, and it consoled her not a little for the loss of “Siegfried the Dragon Slayer.”
It was now nearly four o’clock, and Nurse was not sorry to turn towards the entrance, where Andrew was to wait with the carriage, and where she hoped to join the boys and Jane.
“They’re there already,” cried Nancy as they approached the turnstile, bobbing her head from side to side to see through the crowd, “and oh! what has David got?”
Nurse groaned.
“Something he oughtn’t to have, I make sure,” she said.
“It’s something alive!” exclaimed Nancy, giving a leap of delight as they got nearer, “I can see it move. Whatever is it?”
David was standing as still as a sentinel with his back against the gate-post and a look of triumph on his face, clutching firmly to his breast a small jet-black kitten. It was mewing piteously, with some reason—for in his determination not to let it go, he gripped it hard, so that it was spread out flat and could hardly breathe. The children gathered round him in an ecstasy.
“What a little black love!” exclaimed Nancy; “where did you get it?”
“I saved its life,” was all David answered as Nurse packed them all into the waggonette.
“I helped,” said Ambrose.
It was not until they were fairly on their way and had shaken down into something like composure, that the history of the kitten could be told. It then appeared that David and Ambrose had heard feeble cries proceeding from a retired corner behind a caravan. They had at once left Jane, and gone to see what it was.
Finding two gypsy boys about to hang a black kitten, they had offered them sixpence to let it go, at which they had only laughed. The price had then risen to two shillings besides all the marbles Ambrose had in his pocket, and this being paid David had seized the kitten, and here it was.
“And so,” said Pennie, “you’ve both spent every bit of your money.”
“We couldn’t let them hang the kitten, you see,” remarked Ambrose.
At another time Pennie would have been the first to agree to this, and to feel interested in the rescue of the kitten; but now she was so full of her own good deed, that she only said coldly:
“It wasn’t worth nearly all that. Why, you can get a kitten for nothing—anywhere.”
David, still grasping his treasure, stared at her solemnly, for this speech was strangely unlike Pennie.
“What did you buy?” he asked.
The moment had come. Pennie looked round her with conscious virtue as she replied, “I saw a book I wanted very much, quite as much as you wanted the kitten, but I saved all my money for the mandarin.”
“How stupid!” said Ambrose.
“It’s much better to save someone’s life than to buy a mandarin,” said David.
Pennie felt hurt and disappointed; the reward of virtue was not supporting under these circumstances. She wanted a word of praise or admiration. If someone had only said, “That was good of you,” she would have been satisfied; but no one seemed even surprised at what she had done. And yet how much she would have liked to buy Siegfried! The boys had the kitten; Nancy had her cocoa-nut, even Dickie was clasping a rabbit on a green stand, and a gingerbread man. Pennie alone had brought nothing home from the fair; she was very sorry for herself.
A sudden outburst from Dickie roused her, as she sat sad and silent in the midst of chatter and laughter. No one could make out at first what was the matter, and Dickie could not tell them: she only kicked out her fat little legs and sobbed more convulsively at every fresh attempt to comfort her. But at last she managed to make them understand that her gingerbread man was spoilt; she had eaten his head, and he would never, never be whole again. This was followed by a torrent of tears, for Dickie never did anything by halves, and when she cried she put her whole heart into it.
“Bless the child, she’ll make herself ill,” said Nurse, taking her upon her knee. “Now, Dickie, my dear, don’t give way. You know you can stop if you like. Look at your pretty rabbit!”
Dickie dealt the offered rabbit a blow on the nose with her doubled fist.
She did not want the rabbit, she sobbed out, but she thought she could stop if she had the black kitten to hold. To this David had a decided objection. It was his kitten, and if Dickie had it she would let it go. Fresh screams from Dickie.
“Lor, Master David,” said Nurse in despair, “let her have it, do. I’ll take care it don’t get away.”
Peace was somewhat restored after Dickie had been allowed to stroke the kitten on Nurse’s lap; but it was not a cheerful carriageful that arrived shortly afterwards at the Vicarage, every one seemed to have something to grumble at and be injured about.
“I’m thankful to be home,” said Nurse to Jane as they went upstairs. “I’d rather anyday have a week’s work than an afternoon’s pleasure.”
As for Pennie, she dropped her money into the china-house, and went to bed that night with the feelings of a martyr. She would not give up her plan, but she was now beginning to see that it was a failure. No one showed any real interest in it—no one except herself was willing to sacrifice anything in the cause. It was certainly lonely and uncomfortable to stand so high above other people.