'My lamb, you should not answer your sister as you do'
'My lamb, you should not answer your sister as you do,' said Mrs. Morrison, when Stella had left the kitchen, her head very much in the air.
'She aggravates me with her airs and unfriendliness,' said Vava in an apologetic tone.
'And who are you to criticise your elders in that unbecoming way? What do you know of the world? Miss Stella is quite right not to be too friendly with strangers and to keep her bonny smiles for friends; and even if she were not right, it is not for you to question her doings or sayings, and she your guardian,' protested her old nurse with decision.
'She is not so very old after all—only seven years older than I am; last year she was an infant in the eye of the law,' announced the girl, who had read this piece of information somewhere.
'She is of age this year, at any rate, Miss Vava, and you had better do as she bids you; she knows what she is about, and you will understand it better in seven years' time—seven years make a great difference in a young girl; so write that letter like a good child, and don't worry Miss Stella, who has plenty to do without fashing herself about letter-writing,' admonished Mrs. Morrison.
'But you know, nursie, this is a business letter, and he is the man she gets her living by; she really might be civil to him. Suppose he gets offended and tells her to go? That would be a nice thing, just after we have got into a new house!' exclaimed Vava.
'If he is a business man he'll not be so silly as to be offended because a young lady isn't too friendly; and if he is so foolish, the sooner she leaves his office and gets with sensible people the better. That will do for those currants, Miss Vava, they are quite clean now, and I'll make the pudding while you write that letter. You'll find paper and stamps and all in the bureau in the sitting-room,' said nurse.
Vava went off as she was told, and found that nurse had 'found up' a quantity of writing-paper and envelopes at Lomore, as well as stamps, all of which she had packed into the bureau and brought south with her, besides other treasures, the looking over which took Vava some time. But at last she set to work to write the letter; and, being very much excited by all the events of the day, she took a large sheet of paper, and wrote a long letter to the junior partner, which was likely to amuse him very much. It ran as follows:
'Dear Mr. Jones,—Thank you very much for offering to give my sister a holiday. She says to tell you she is very busy putting down the stair-carpet, so can't answer herself; but she will be quite able to come to the office on Monday morning at the usual time. She did not say she was putting down the stair-carpet, but she is; it's a horrid work, as you have to pad it. When I 'm rich I'll have workmen to do all that when I move house, and never go near it till it's quite tidy. I can't find a single thing.
'The other Joneses who have bought Lomore (I hope they are no relation of yours) have been very kind; they have sent down all the furniture of Stella's sitting-room, and lots and lots of things that they must want themselves, and I'm sorry I called them "horrid;" they have been very friendly to us, and even brought us to town in their motor. I only said that because I felt horrid at that moment to think of an English Jones being Laird of Lomore. Oh dear! I forgot your name was Jones; but I would not mind your being laird so much, you look a great deal more like one than old Mr. Montague Jones. But our old nurse, whom we found here this morning, says he has been very good to all the old servants, and is not turning out one, or changing anything; so things might have been worse. I must stop and help to put the house in order.—I remain, your sincere friend, Vava Wharton.
'P.S.—Please be sensible, and don't mind Stella being so stiff and stuck-up; it's being poor that makes her like that, and I'm sure she's grateful to you, really. V. W.'
Now, Vava was a very open child; but it never entered her head that she ought not to have written a letter like that to Mr. James Jones, nor that her sister would expect to see it. 'Nursie' had said that there were stamps there, and evidently meant her to write, close, and post the letter, so as to save Stella trouble, and this she accordingly did, as there happened to be a pillar-box just outside the front-gate.
Stella, who was still putting down the stair-carpet, heard the gate click, and observed, 'Oh dear, I hope that nobody is coming; they can't come through the hall.'
'No, it is only Vava; she is posting a letter,' replied Eva, who from the top stair, where she was folding newspapers to form pads, could see the front-gate and road.
Stella stopped abruptly in her work. 'I wouldn't'——she began; and then, dropping the hammer, she continued, 'I will be back in a minute, Miss Overall; I just want to speak to Vava,' and went into the sitting-room to await her sister.
Vava saw her through the bay-window, and went in to her, saying cheerfully, 'I've written the letter and posted it and everything.'
'Why did you not show it to me first?' demanded Stella.
'Why should I? I never thought of it. Besides, you never read my letters; you always say you trust me,' said Vava.
'So I do; but you do sometimes say things you had better not have said, and as this is my business I think you should have brought the letter to me. What did you say in it?'
Upon reflection, Vava was not sure that she wanted to tell Stella what she had written, and upon further reflection she began to doubt whether she ought to have written it. 'I told him you thanked him for his offer of holiday, and that you were busy putting down the stair-carpet, so had told me to write, and that you would be there on Monday at the usual time. That's all I said about you—I mean about your business. The rest of the letter was just a friendly one from myself,' she said.
This was just what Stella was afraid of, and she exclaimed, 'I never told you to say what I was doing.'
'I told him that,' interrupted Vava.
Stella was speechless for a moment; then she continued, in a tone of exasperation, 'Will you please tell me what you did say, Vava?'
'It's got nothing to do with you. Mr. Jones has been very kind to me, and I just wrote him a friendly letter; but it sounds silly repeated. Don't bother about it, Stella; if you were so particular about the letter you should have written it yourself,' retorted Vava.
'I wish I had—I wish to goodness I had!' she exclaimed, and went out of the room.
Vava felt rather uncomfortable for a time; and then, saying to herself that Stella made a great fuss about nothing, she went off to the kitchen to help Mrs. Morrison to prepare tea for them.
Stella seemed to have forgotten her annoyance when she came in to tea, for she was laughing heartily; but when Vava asked her if she were tired, she said, 'No,' very coldly, and addressed no more conversation to her.
Vava consequently talked to Eva; but this kind of thing could not go on, and after tea, when she found herself with Mrs. Morrison, she unburdened herself to her old nurse. 'And you see, nursie, I don't know what to do. If I don't tell Stella she will be horrid and cold with me; and if I do tell her she will be frightfully annoyed,' she explained.
But Mrs. Morrison would not sympathise with her. 'You ought not to write letters you do not wish your sister to see; you have done very wrong, and must go and tell Miss Stella so at once, and if she is angry and scolds you you must bear it,' she said decidedly.
'There was no harm in what I said, and—and, nursie, I simply can't tell Stella!' cried Vava, as her postscript came into her mind.
Mrs. Morrison looked at her gravely. 'What did you say, my lamb? Tell me,' she inquired.
Vava told her, as well as she could remember, all that she had said in the letter.
A grim look of amusement came over the good woman's face; but she turned away and poked the fire to prevent Vava seeing it, and when she turned round again she was quite grave as she replied, with a shake of her head, 'You should not have said that about Mr. Montague Jones being "horrid," you let your pen run on too fast, and you should not have written that bit about Miss Stella, and you may well say that she will be annoyed. But for all that, you must tell her what was in the letter, and it will be a lesson to you to mind what you write in future.'
Vava groaned, but went off obediently and told Stella, who listened in silence till she came to the postscript, whereat she gave an exclamation; but all she said when Vava had finished was, 'I am glad you told me, for I think I can prevent Mr. Jones getting that letter. I was so busy this morning that I forgot that to-day was Saturday, and that consequently the letter would not arrive any sooner than myself on Monday morning; so that you need not have written at all.'
'But, Stella, what will you do? You can't take away a letter addressed to Mr. Jones. The clerks may tell him how many there were, and he would miss it,' protested Vava.
'I have no intention of touching Mr. Jones's correspondence without his knowledge; but, as I get there before him, I shall ask him not to open that particular letter, and I shall tell him why,' replied Stella.
'Then he might as well read it!' cried Vava.
'I shall not tell him what you said,' replied Stella; and as she had evidently made up her mind on the subject, Vava said no more, but she wished with all her heart that she had never written the unfortunate letter.
However, Stella was friends with her again, and the first day at Heather Road ended happily enough; for, tired though they were, the four girls were able to go to bed in a tidy house, with carpets, curtains, and furniture in their proper places, which was really a comfortable home again.