Chapter Two.
Mr and Mrs Saxon welcomed their children on the threshold of their country home, but a chill seemed to settle on the young people’s spirits as they entered the great square hall, which looked so colourless and dreary. As a rule, The Meads was inhabited during the summer months alone, and the children were accustomed to see it alight with sunshine, with doors and windows thrown wide open to show vistas of flower gardens and soft green lawns. In such weather, a house was apt to be regarded merely as a place to sleep in, but now that it would be necessary to spend a great part of the day indoors, it was regarded more critically, and found far from attractive.
The Meads was one of those square, uncompromisingly ugly white houses which are so often to be found in rural England, and which were built at that architecturally unhappy period when old traditions had been cast aside and the modern craze for art was as yet undeveloped. There were plenty of rooms in the house, lofty and spacious enough, but as to outline just so many boxes, with four straight walls, and never a niche or an alcove to break the severity of line. The hall was another square, and the staircase ascended straightly to the first landing, where a monstrosity of a stained-glass window lighted the long corridors beyond.
The furniture was of the same calibre as the house, for, The Meads having been regarded more as a convenient dumping-ground for the children in the summer holidays than as a formal residence, everything that was shabby, injured, or out of date had been weeded from the beautiful town mansion and drafted down to fill up the big square rooms. Mr Saxon had a shooting-box in Scotland in which he was wont to spend the autumn months, Mrs Saxon had a passion for travelling, and could not understand the joy of spending every summer in the same house. The Meads was large, healthy, and convenient, so that while the children were young it had filled a real need, but there was no denying that, regarded as a winter residence, it bore a somewhat chilling aspect. Gurth looked round the hall with eyes very wide open and nose screwed up in eloquent disapproval.
“I say! don’t it look different, just, without the sun? Regular old grim hole of a place, ain’t it? Like an institution, or a hospital, or something of the kind—not a bit like home—”
“Oh, Gurth, don’t,” cried his mother quickly, while her forehead corrugated with lines as of actual physical pain. “Dear, you are cold and tired after your journey. Things always look dull when one is tired. Come into the library, all of you! There’s a glorious fire, and you shall have tea at once.” She slid her hand into her eldest daughter’s arm, looking with fond admiration at the fair, delicately cut profile. “You have had a happy time in town this last week—since we left?”
Rowena turned her tall head, and looked down upon her mother with the air of a young goddess, offended, yet resolutely self-restrained. Mrs Saxon was a medium-sized woman, but she looked small beside the tall slenderness of the young daughter who held herself so loftily erect. “Mother!” cried Rowena, in a deep tone of remonstrance, “it’s the Vincents’ dance to-morrow! I was looking forward to it more than anything else. Lots of grown-up people are going—it would have been almost like coming out. I never thought you would have brought me away from town the very day before that. You knew how I should feel—”
“Darling, I’m sorry, more sorry than I can say, but it was necessary. As things are, it is better that you should not go. I’ll explain—we will explain. You shall hear all about it later, but first we must have tea. I think we shall all feel better after tea.”
Mrs Saxon looked from one to another of her children with the same strained, unnatural smile which had greeted them a few minutes before, and Gurth and Dreda, falling behind the rest, rolled expressive eyes and whispered low forebodings.
“Something up! I thought as much. What can it be?”
“Don’t know. Something horrid, evidently. In the holidays, too. What a sell!”
Miss Bruce had considerately disappeared, and the parents and children were left alone in the big bare library, with its rows of fusty, out-of-date books in early Victorian mahogany bookcases, its three long windows draped in crimson red curtains, its Indian carpet worn by the tramp of many feet. A cheerful fire blazed in the grate, however, and the tea equipage set out on the long table was sufficiently tempting to raise the spirits of the travellers. It was a real old-fashioned sit-down tea, where one was not expected to balance a cup and plate on one’s knee and yet refrain from spilling tea or scattering crumbs on the carpet. Girls and boys arranged themselves in their usual places with sighs of relief and satisfaction, and, disdaining bread-and-butter, helped themselves energetically to the richest cake on the table. It was a family custom with the Saxons to begin on cake and work steadily back to bread and butter. There had been some opposition to encounter from conservative elders before this reversal of the ordinary programme had been sanctioned, but the arguments advanced had been too strong to resist.
“I can ’preciate things more when I’m hungry. Cake’s the best thing; why need I stodge on bread and butter till I can’t properly ’preciate the cake? Why can’t I stodge on cake, and eat the bread when I don’t ’preciate? It doesn’t matter about bread!”
So ran the thread of Harold’s arguments, and it must be confessed that there was reason therein. To-day, as the young people satisfied their first pangs of hunger on iced cake, the parents watching them exchanged a piteous glance, for the proceeding seemed so sadly typical of the secret that was about to be divulged! Until this day, all that was richest and best in life had been the everyday possession of these loved and fortunate children—after to-day, the love would continue unchanged, but the luxuries must come to an end.
The meal was unusually silent, both Mr and Mrs Saxon and the elder boys and girls being too much oppressed by their own feelings to be able to indulge in ordinary light conversation; only Harold and Maud remained unconscious of the cloud in the atmosphere, and everyone was thankful for their artless prattle, which filled up what would otherwise have been a painful silence. As for the twins, they were quite elated to find so attentive an audience, for as a rule their attempts to enter the conversation were severely nipped in the bud. “That’s enough, thank you!” Rowena would say in her most lofty manner. “Shut up, you kids. A fellow can’t hear himself speak for your row!” Gurth would call out fiercely. Even when Mrs Saxon was present she would shake her head gently across the table, to enforce the oft-repeated axiom that in so large a family the younger members must perforce learn to be quiet at table. Maud beamed with pleasure at being allowed to continue her never-ending descriptions without a word of remonstrance. She was a fair, pretty, somewhat stupid child, gifted with an overflow of words, which were, however, singularly incapable of conveying any definite impression. Observation she possessed in abundance, but her discursive narratives were by no means improved by being weighted by a plethora of useless detail. One could listen to Maud’s efforts to describe her own doings for half an hour on end, and remain almost as much in the dark as at the beginning! On the present occasion she was full of excitement about a wonderful conjurer whose tricks she had witnessed at a children’s party in town three nights before, and which she was anxious to enumerate for the benefit of the family.
”...He was the most egg-strawdinary creature you ever saw. He did the most egg-strawdinary things. I’ll tell you what he did... You know the Westons’ drawing-room? You go upstairs—crimson carpets, and such wide brass rods. Then there’s a statue holding up a lamp, and the first door’s the drawing-room. All the doors were taken down to make more room, and there were rows and rows of forms... He was like a Frenchman with a pointed moustache, but his clothes weren’t very clean... He rolled up his sleeves, and there was a ring on his finger, and yards and yards of ribbon came out of his thumb. He had a little table in front of him with bulgy legs. It stands in the corner with silver on it. Then he asked a boy in the front row for a watch... Mr Weston said he wouldn’t have lent his, but he got it back all right. It was egg-strawdinary! Meta Rawlins sat by me. She had a pink sash. She says her father can do it a little bit, only of course not as well as this one. Then there was an egg. If he had broken it, it would have made a mess on the carpet! Meta said perhaps it was stone. He talked all the time, so funny and quick, and one of his front teeth was out. He asked if any boy or girl would go up to help him, and Brian Hackett went. He looked so silly. He had to hold things in his hand, and when he asked for them, they weren’t there. It was egg-strawdinary! We had supper in the dining-room, jellies and cream, and presents in the trifle. I saw the conjurer having his in the library. I never saw anything so egg-strawdinary in all my life!”
Gurth and Hereward exchanged expressive glances, Rowena frowned impatience, Mrs Saxon smiled a faint amusement, and Maud continued to prattle on, blissfully unconscious of the fact that no one troubled to listen.
It was after everyone had been fed and refreshed that the explanation of the mysterious summons from town was given, in response to an outspoken question from Dreda, whose impetuous nature was ever impatient of suspense.
“Mother, what has happened? There must be something, or you would never have left town and sent for us in such a hurry. Can’t you tell us now? It’s something horrid, of course! And it’s horrid waiting for horrid things.”
Dreda put both elbows on the table, in flagrant disregard of schoolroom rules, and leant her charming, eager face in the cup of her hands. She might describe her state of mind as “horrid,” but an appearance more opposed to such a description it would be impossible to imagine. Dreda had been hungry, and her hunger was satisfied; she had been cold and tired, now she was warmed and refreshed; she talked vaguely of horrible things, but nothing approaching real fear had as yet entered her heart. Grown-ups made such a fuss about trifles. Probably it was something quite silly and unimportant after all.
Mrs Saxon did not answer. She looked down at her hands and twisted the rings on her fingers, the while her husband took upon himself the burden of explanation.
“Yes, Dreda, we wish to speak out plainly. As far as possible we have always taken our children into our confidence, and now we must all try to strengthen each other, for a great change is before us. It must affect us all... I have lost money—a great deal of money. I am no longer a rich man. Your mother and I came down here to face the situation quietly, and to think out our plans. We wished to be by ourselves for a few days before saying anything to you.”
“Oh–h. Is that it? Poor father! What a shame!”
“What a beastly fag! How did it happen, Pater?”
“Poor old father! Yes! I quite understand.”
They spoke together with impetuous warmth, Gurth, Hereward, and Etheldreda, but, in spite of their words, none of them understood in the least. Maud and Harold stared open-mouthed. Only Rowena turned white, and pressed her lips nervously together.
“Thank you, dears. I knew you would sympathise, but our grief is on your account more than on our own. If you can bear the change bravely, our worst fears will be allayed. It will be a big change. To begin with, I have let the town house. An offer came to take it furnished on a lease, and I dared not refuse. The Meads will now be our settled home.”
Silence... One definite statement has more effect than a dozen vague forebodings, and the young people sat stunned with dismay, while the thoughts of each wandered away on a voyage of personal reflections.
“No town house! No season! Shut up here all the year round, just as I was coming out, and expecting to have such a lovely time.”
“Let the house! Whew! Things must be precious bad ... Suppose, after all, the Governor can’t afford to send me to the army!”
“Here’s a pretty go! The house doesn’t matter. The country knocks town into fits any day, but it will be a beastly fag if we have to cut things down fine. What about the horses?”
“Poor father. Oh, dear, how awful mother looks! Rowena is a brute to look so cross. P’raps the Spider will have to go, and I shall be finished, and done with lessons. Topping!”
“Bateson’s father lost his money and he went to sea. I wonder if they’d let me!”
“I’ve got five pounds six in the bank. I’ll draw it out, and give it to them to help. That would last for mumfs and mumfs.”
Mrs Saxon lifted her sad eyes and glanced wistfully round the table. When she herself had first heard the news she had been stunned into silence; she hardly expected words, but her mother’s heart yearned for a glance of sympathy and love. The boys, as is the habit of boys, were rendered awkward and uncomfortable by the atmosphere of emotion, and stared stolidly at their plates. Rowena sat like a frozen statue of misery, Maud gaped blankly from one face to another; only Dreda was ready and waiting with her sunny smile and her easy flow of sympathy.
“Darling! Of course we’ll be brave! Don’t worry about us. Everyone says money doesn’t matter a bit. You can be perfectly happy without it... Perfectly sickening for you and father, down here by yourselves with all that worry. You must have been bored!”
Bored! The utter inadequacy of the word brought a smile to the parents’ eyes, but the kindly warmth of voice and manner was as balm to their sore hearts. What though Dreda’s conduct belied her words time and again, her impetuous kindliness of heart was for the moment infinitely soothing, and a blessed contrast to Rowena’s gloom. Both parents smiled lovingly upon her, and Dreda glowed with satisfaction. Really, being ruined was quite exciting and dramatic!
“Thank you, Dreda,” said her father, gratefully. “These have been very sad days for us, as you say, and even yet we are feeling rather stunned by the suddenness of this trouble, and have not been able to think out definite plans for your future. It was necessary to tell you the bare fact, but you must be patient and forbear from questioning for a few days. We shall not keep you in suspense longer than is necessary.”
Suspense! Six pairs of ears pricked uneasily at the sound of that word; six hearers seemed to hear in it the knell of a cherished hope. Even Dreda was awed into silence. The “horrid things” were evidently not yet finished. What was going to happen next?