A CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE.
"With bolted doors and windows wedged,
The care was all in vain;
For there were noises in the night
Which nothing could explain."
Grandmamma and the Fairies
The children had gone quietly to bed the evening before when grandmother had finished the reading of her story. They just kissed her and said, "Thank you, dear grandmother," and that was all. But it was all she wanted.
"I felt, you know," said Molly to Sylvia when they were dressing the next morning, "I felt a sort of feeling as if I'd been in church when the music was awfully lovely. A beautiful feeling, but strange too, you know, Sylvia? Particularly as Uncle Jack died too. When did he die? Do you know, Sylvia? Was it at that place?"
"What place?" said Sylvia curtly. When her feelings were touched she had a way of growing curt and terse, sometimes even snappish.
"That hot place—without trees, and all so dusty and dirty—Kadi—Kadi—I forget."
"Oh! you stupid girl Kadikoi was only one little wee village. You mean the Crimea—the Crimea is the name of all the country about there—where the war was."
"Yes, of course. I am stupid," said Molly, but not at all as if she had any reason to be ashamed of the fact. "Did he never come home from the Crimea?"
"No," said Sylvia, curtly again, "he never came home."
For an instant Molly was silent. Then she began again.
"Well, I wonder how the old lady, that poor nice man's mother, I mean—I wonder how she got the money and all that, that Uncle Jack was to settle for her. Shall we ask grandmother, Sylvia?"
"No, of course not. What does it matter to us? Of course it was all properly done. If it hadn't been, how would grandmother have known about it?"
"I never thought of that. Still I would like to know. I think," said Molly meditatively, "I think I could get grandmother to tell without exactly asking—for fear, you know, of seeming to remind her about poor Uncle Jack."
"You'd much better not," said Sylvia, as she left the room.
But once let Molly get a thing well into her head, "trust her," as Ralph said, "not to let it out again till it suited her."
That very evening when they were all sitting together again, working and talking, all except aunty, busily writing at her little table in the corner, Molly began.
"Grandmother dear," she said gently, "wasn't the old lady dreadfully sorry when she heard he was dead?"
For a moment grandmother stared at her in bewilderment—her thoughts had been far away. "What are you saying, my dear?" she asked.
Sylvia frowned at Molly across the table. Too well did she know the peculiarly meek and submissive tone of voice assumed by Molly when bent on—had the subject been any less serious than it was, Sylvia would have called it "mischief."
"Molly," she said reprovingly, finding her frowns calmly ignored.
"What is it?" said Molly sweetly. "I mean, grandmother dear," she proceeded, "I mean the mother of the poor nice man that uncle was so good to. Wasn't she dreadfully sorry when she heard he was dead?"
"I think she was, dear," said grandmother unsuspiciously. "Poor woman, whatever her mistakes with her children had been, I felt dreadfully sorry for her. I saw her a good many times, for your uncle sent me home all the papers and directions—'in case,' as poor Sawyer had said of himself—so my Jack said it."
Grandmother sighed; Sylvia looked still more reproachfully at Molly; Molly pretended to be threading her needle.
"And I got it all settled as her son had wished. He had arranged it so that she could not give away the money during her life. Not long after, she went to America to her other son, and I believe she is still living. He got on very well, and is now a rich man. I had letters from them a few years ago—nice letters. I think it brought out the best of them—Philip Sawyer's death I mean. Still—oh no—they did not care for him, alive or dead, as such a man deserved."
"What a shame it seems!" said Molly. "When I have children," she went on serenely, "I shall love them all alike—whether they're ugly or pretty, if anything perhaps the ugliest most, to make up to them, you see."
"I thought you were never going to marry," said Ralph. "For you're never going to England, and you'll never marry a Frenchman."
"Englishmen might come here," replied Molly. "And when you and Sylvia go to England, you might take some of my photographs to show."
This was too much. Ralph laughed so that he rolled on the rug, and Sylvia nearly fell off her chair. Even grandmother joined in the merriment, and aunty came over from her corner to ask what it was all about.
"I have finished my story," she said. "I am so glad."
"And when, oh, when will you read it?" cried the children.
"On the evening of the twenty-second of December. I fixed that while I was writing it, for that was the day it happened on," said aunty. "That will be next Monday, and this is Friday. Not so very long to wait. And after all it's a very short story—not nearly so long as grandmother's."
"Never mind, we'll make it longer by talking about it," said Molly. "That's how I did at home when I had a very small piece of cake for tea. I took one bite of cake to three or four of bread and butter. It made it seem much more."
"I can perfectly believe that you will be ready to provide the necessary amount of 'bread and butter' to eke out my story," said aunty gravely.
And Molly stared at her in such comical bewilderment as to what she meant, that she set them all off laughing again.
Monday evening came. Aunty took her place at the table in front of the lamp, and having satisfied herself that Molly's wants in the shape of needles and thread, thimble, etc., were supplied for the next half-hour at least, she began as follows:—
"A Christmas Adventure.
"On the twenty-second of December, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty——" "No," said aunty, stopping short, "I can't tell you the year. Molly would make all sorts of dreadful calculations on the spot, as to my exact age, and the date at which the first grey hairs might be looked for—I will only say eighteen hundred and something."
"Fifty something," said Molly promptly. "You did say that, aunty."
"Terrible child!" said aunty. "Well, never mind, I'll begin again. On the twenty-second of December, in a certain year, I, Laura Berkeley, set out with my elder sister Mary, on a long journey. We were then living on the western coast of England, or Wales rather; we had to cross the whole country, for our destination was the neighbourhood, a few miles inland, of a small town on the eastern coast. Our journey was not one of pleasure—we were not going to spend 'a merry Christmas' with near and dear friends and relations. We were going on business, and our one idea was to get it accomplished as quickly as possible, and hurry home to our parents again, for otherwise their Christmas would be quite a solitary one. And as former Christmases—before we children had been scattered, before there were vacant chairs round the fireside—had been among the happiest times of the year in our family, as in many others, we felt doubly reluctant to risk spending it apart from each other, we four—all that were left now!
"'It is dreadfully cold, Mary,' I said, when we were fairly off, dear mother gazing wistfully after us, as the train moved out of the station and her figure on the platform grew smaller and smaller, till at last we lost sight of it altogether. 'It is dreadfully cold, isn't it?'
"We were tremendously well wrapped up—there were hot-water tins in the carriage, and every comfort possible for winter travellers. Yet it was true. It was, as I said, bitterly cold.
"'Don't say that already, Laura,' said Mary anxiously, 'or I shall begin to wish I had stood out against your coming with me.'
"'Oh, dear Mary, you couldn't have come alone,' I said.
"I was only fifteen. My accompanying Mary was purely for the sake of being a companion to her, though in my own mind I thought it very possible that, considering the nature of the 'business' we were bent upon, I might prove to be of practical use too. I must tell you what this same 'business' was. It was to choose a house. Owing to my father's already failing health, we had left our own old home more than a year before, and till now we had been living in a temporary house in South Wales. But my father did not like the neighbourhood, and fancied the climate did not suit him, and besides this we could not have had the house after the following April, had we wished it. So there had been great discussions about what we should do, where we should go rather, and much consultation of advertisement sheets and agents' lists. Already Mary had set off on several fruitless expeditions in quest of delightful 'residences' which turned out very much the reverse. But she had never before had to go such a long way as to East Hornham, which was the name of the post-town near which were two houses to let, each seemingly so desirable that we really doubted whether it would not be difficult to resist taking both. My father had known East Hornham as a boy, and though its neighbourhood was not strikingly picturesque, it was considered to be eminently healthy, and he was full of eagerness about it, and wishing he himself could have gone to see the houses. But that was impossible—impossible too for my mother to leave him even for three days; there was nothing for it but for Mary to go, and at once. Our decision in the case of one of the houses must not be delayed a day, for a gentleman had seen it and wanted to take it, only as the agent in charge of it considered that we had 'the first refusal,' he had written to beg my father to send some one to see it at once.
"And thus it came about that Mary and I set off by ourselves in this dreary fashion only two days before Christmas! Mother had proposed our taking a servant, but as we knew that the only one who would have been any use to us was the one of most use to mother, we declared we should much prefer the 'independence' of going by ourselves.
"By dint of much examination of Bradshaw we had discovered that it was possible, just possible, to get to East Hornham the same night about nine o'clock.
"'That will enable us to get to bed early, after we have had some supper, and the next day we can devote to seeing the two houses, one or other of which must suit us,' said Mary, cheerfully. 'And starting early again the next day we may hope to be back with you on Christmas eve, mother dear.'
"The plan seemed possible enough,—one day would suffice for the houses, as there was no need as yet to go into all the details of the apportionment of rooms, and so on. That would be time enough in the spring, when we proposed to stay at East Hornham for a week or two at the hotel there, and arrange our new quarters at leisure. It was running it rather close, however; the least hitch, such as failing to catch one train out of the many which Mary had cleverly managed to fit in to each other, would throw our scheme out of gear; so mother promised not to be anxious if we failed to appear, and we, on our part, promised to telegraph if we met with any detention.
"For the first half—three-quarters, I might say—of our journey we got on swimmingly. We caught all the trains; the porters and guards were civility itself; and as our only luggage was a small hand-bag that we carried ourselves, we had no trouble of any kind. When we got to Fexel Junction, the last important station we were to pass, our misfortunes began. Here, by rights, we should have had a full quarter of an hour to wait for the express which should drop us at East Hornham on its way north; but when the guard heard our destination he shook his head.
"'The train's gone,' he said. 'We are more than half an hour late.'
"And so it proved. A whole hour and a half had we to sit shivering, in spite of the big fire, in the Fexel waiting-room, and it was eleven at night before, in the slowest of slow trains, we at last found ourselves within a few miles of East Hornham.
"Our spirits had gone down considerably since the morning. We were very tired, and that has very much more to do with people's spirits than almost any one realises.
"'It wouldn't matter if we were going to friends,' said Mary. 'But it does seem very strange and desolate—we two poor things, two days before Christmas, arriving at midnight in a perfectly strange place, and nowhere to go to but an inn.'
"'But think how nice it will be, getting home to mother again—particularly if we've settled it all nicely about the house,' I said.
"And Mary told me I was a good little thing, and she was very glad to have me with her. It was not usual for me to be the braver of the two, but you see I felt my responsibilities on this occasion to be great, and was determined to show myself worthy of them.
"And when we did get to the inn, the welcome we received was worthy of Dr. Johnson's praise of inns in general. The fire was so bright, the little table so temptingly spread that the spirits—seldom long depressed—of one-and-twenty and fifteen rose at the sight. For we were hungry as well as tired, and the cutlets and broiled ham which the good people had managed to keep beautifully hot and fresh for us—possibly they were so accustomed to the railway eccentricities that they had only cooked them in time for our arrival by the later train, for we were told afterwards that no one ever did catch the express at Fexel Junction,—the cutlets and ham, as I was saying, and the buttered toast, and all the other good things, were so good that we made an excellent supper, and slept the sleep of two tired but perfectly healthy young people till seven o'clock the next morning.
"We awoke refreshed and hopeful. But alas! when Mary pulled up the blind what a sight met her eyes! snow—snow everywhere.
"'What shall we do?' she said. 'We can never judge of the houses in this weather. And how are we to get to them? Dear me! how unlucky!'
"'But it has left off, and it can't be very thick in these few hours,' I said, 'If only it keeps off now, we could manage.'
"We dressed quickly, and had eaten our breakfast by half-past eight; for at nine, by arrangement, the agent was to call for us to escort us on our voyage of discovery. The weather gave promise of improving, a faint wintry sunshine came timidly out, and there seemed no question of more snow. When Mr. Turner, the agent, a respectable fatherly sort of man, made his appearance, he altogether pooh-poohed the idea of the roads being impassable; but he went on to say that, to his great regret, it was perfectly impossible for him to accompany us. Mr. H——, Mr. Walter H——, that is to say, the younger son of the owner of the Grange, the larger of the two houses we were to see, had arrived unexpectedly, and Mr. Turner was obliged to meet him about business.
"'I have managed the business about here for them since they left the Grange, and Mr. Walter is only here for a day,' said the communicative Mr. Turner. 'It is most unfortunate. But I have engaged a comfortable carriage for you, Miss Berkeley, and a driver who knows the country thoroughly, and is a very steady man. And, if you will allow me, I will call in this evening to hear what you think of the houses—which you prefer.' He seemed to be quite sure we should fix for one or other.
"'Thank you, that will do very well,' said Mary,—not in her heart, to tell the truth, sorry that we were to do our house-hunting by ourselves. 'We shall get on quite comfortably, I am sure, Mr. Turner. Which house shall we go to see first?'
"'The farthest off, I would advise,' said Mr. Turner. 'That is Hunter's Hall. It is eight miles at least from this, and the days are so short.'
"'Is that the old house with the terraced garden?' I asked.
"Mr. Turner glanced at me benevolently.
"'Oh no, Miss,' he said. 'The terraced garden is at the Grange. Hunter's Hall is a nice little place, but much smaller than the Grange. The gardens at the Grange are really quite a show in summer.'
"'Perhaps they will be too much for us,' said Mary. 'My father does not want a very large place, you understand, Mr. Turner—not being in good health he does not wish to have the trouble of looking after much.'
"'I don't think you would find it too much,' said Mr. Turner. 'The head gardener is to be left at Mr. H——'s expense, and he is very trustworthy. But I can explain all these details this evening if you will allow me, after you have seen the house,' and, so saying, the obliging agent bade us good morning.
"'I am sure we shall like the Grange the best,' I said to Mary, when, about ten o'clock, we found ourselves in the carriage Mr. Turner had provided for us, slowly, notwithstanding the efforts of the two fat horses that were drawing us, making our way along the snow-covered roads.
"'I don't know,' said Mary. 'I am afraid of its being too large. But certainly Hunter's Hall is a long way from the town, and that is a disadvantage.'
"A very long way it seemed before we got there.
"'I could fancy we had been driving nearly twenty miles instead of eight,' said Mary, when at last the carriage stopped before a sort of little lodge, and the driver informed us we must get out there, there being no carriage drive up to the house.
"'Objection number one,' said Mary, as we picked our steps along the garden path which led to the front door. 'Father would not like to have to walk along here every time he went out a drive. Dear me!' she added, 'how dreadfully difficult it is to judge of any place in snow! The house looks so dirty, and yet very likely in summer it is a pretty bright white house.'
"It was not a bad little house: there were two or three good rooms downstairs and several fairly good upstairs, besides a number of small inconvenient rooms that might have been utilised by a very large family, but would be no good at all to us. Then the kitchens were poor, low-roofed, and straggling.
"'It might do,' said Mary doubtfully. 'It is more the look of it than anything else that I dislike. It does not look as if gentle-people had lived in it—it seems like a better-class farm-house.'
"And so it proved to be, for on inquiry we learnt from the woman who showed us through, that it never had been anything but a farm-house till the present owner had bought it, improved it a little, and furnished it in a rough-and-ready fashion for a summer residence for his large family of children.
"'We should need a great deal of additional furniture,' said Mary. 'Much of it is very poor and shabby. The rent, however, is certainly very low—to some extent that would make up.'
"Then we thanked the woman in charge, and turned to go. 'Dear me!' said Mary, glancing at her watch, 'it is already half-past twelve. I hope the driver knows the way to the Grange, or it will be dark before we get there. How far is it from here to East Hornham?' she added, turning again to our guide.
"'Ten miles good,' said the woman.
"'I thought so,' said Mary. 'I shall have a crow to pluck with that Mr. Turner for saying it was only eight. And how far to the Grange?'
"'Which Grange, Miss? There are two or three hereabouts.'
"Mary named the family it belonged to.
"'Oh it is quite seven miles from here, though not above two from East Hornham.'
"'Seven and two make nine,' said Mary. 'Why didn't you bring us here past the Grange? It is a shorter way,' she added to the driver, as we got into the carriage again.
"The man touched his hat respectfully, and replied that he had brought us round the other way that we might see more of the country.
"We laughed to ourselves at the idea of seeing the country, shut up in a close carriage and hardly daring to let the tips of our noses peep out to meet the bitter, biting cold. Besides, what was there to see? It was a flat, bare country, telling plainly of the near neighbourhood of the sea, and with its present mantle of snow, features of no kind were to be discerned. Roads, fields, and all were undistinguishable.
"'I wonder he knows his way,' we said to each other more than once, and as we drove on farther we could not resist a slight feeling of alarm as to the weather. The sky grew unnaturally dark and gloomy, with the blue-grey darkness that so often precedes a heavy fall of snow, and we felt immensely relieved when at last the carriage slackened before a pair of heavy old-fashioned gates, which were almost immediately opened by a young woman who ran out from one of the two lodges guarding each a side of the avenue.
"The drive up to the house looked very pretty even then—or rather as if it would be exquisitely so in spring and summer time.
"'I'm sure there must be lots and lots of primroses and violets and periwinkles down there in those woody places,' I cried. 'Oh Mary, Mary, do take this house.'
"Mary smiled, but I could see that she too was pleased. And when we saw the house itself the pleasant impression was not decreased. It was built of nice old red stone, or brick, with grey mullions and gables to the roof. The hall was oak wainscotted all round, and the rooms that opened out of it were home-like and comfortable, as well as spacious. Certainly it was too large, a great deal too large, but then we could lock off some of the rooms.
"'People often do so,' I said. 'I think it is a delicious house, don't you, Mary?'
"One part was much older than the other, and it was curiously planned, the garden, the terraced garden behind which I had heard of, rising so, that after going upstairs in the house you yet found yourself on a level with one part of this garden, and could walk out on to it through a little covered passage. The rooms into which this passage opened were the oldest of all—one in particular, tapestried all round, struck me greatly.
"'I hope it isn't haunted,' I said suddenly. Mary smiled, but the young woman looked grave.
"'You don't mean to say it is?' I exclaimed.
"'Well, Miss, I was housemaid here several years, and I certainly never saw nor heard nothing. But the young gentlemen did used to say things like that for to frighten us, and for me I'm one as never likes to say as to those things that isn't for us to understand.'
"'I do believe it is haunted,' I cried, more and more excited, and though Mary checked me I would not leave off talking about it.
"We were turning to go out into the gardens when an exclamation from Mary caught my attention.
"'It is snowing again and so fast,' she said, 'and just see how dark it is.'
"''Twill lighten up again when the snow leaves off, Miss,' said the woman. 'It is not three o'clock yet. I'll make you a bit of fire in a minute if you like, in one of the rooms. In here——' she added, opening the door of a small bedroom next to the tapestry room, 'it'll light in a minute, the chimney can't be cold, for there was one yesterday. I put fires in each in turns.'
"We felt sorry to trouble her, but it seemed really necessary, for just then our driver came to the door to tell us he had had to take out the horses and put them into the stable.
"'They seemed dead beat,' he said, 'with the heavy roads. And besides it would be impossible to drive in the midst of such very thick falling snow. 'Twould be better to wait an hour or two, till it went off. There was a bag in the carriage—should he bring it in?'
"We had forgotten that we had brought with us some sandwiches and buns. In our excitement we had never thought how late it was, and that we must be hungry. Now, with the prospect of an hour or two's enforced waiting with nothing to do, we were only too thankful to be reminded of our provisions. The fire was already burning brightly in the little room—'Mr. Walter's room' the young woman called it—'That must be the gentleman that was to be with Mr. Turner to-day,' I whispered to Mary—and she very good-naturedly ran back to her own little house to fetch the necessary materials for a cup of tea for us.
"'It is a fearful storm,' she informed us when she ran back again, white from head to foot, even with the short exposure, and indeed from the windows we could see it for ourselves. 'The snow is coming that thick and fast, I could hardly find my own door,' she went on, while she busied herself with preparations for our tea. 'It is all very well in summer here, but it is lonesome-like in winter since the family went away. And my husband's been ill for some weeks too—I have to sit up with him most nights. Last night, just before the snow began, I did get such a fright—all of a sudden something seemed to come banging at our door, and then I heard a queer breathing like. I opened the door, but there was nothing to be seen, but perhaps it was that that made me look strange when Miss here,' pointing to me, 'asked me if the house was haunted. Whatever it was that came to our door certainly rushed off this way.'
"'A dog, or even a cat, perhaps,' said Mary.
"The woman shook her head.
"'A cat couldn't have made such a noise, and there's not a dog about the place,' she said.
"I listened with great interest—but Mary's thoughts were otherwise engaged. There was not a doubt that the snow-storm, instead of going off, was increasing in severity. We drank our tea and ate our sandwiches, and put off our time as well as we could till five o'clock. It was now of course perfectly dark but for the light of the fire. We were glad when our friend from the lodge returned with a couple of tallow candles, blaming herself for having forgotten them.
"'I really don't know what we should do,' said Mary to her. 'The storm seems getting worse and worse. I wonder what the driver thinks about it. Is he in the house, do you know?'
"'He's sitting in our kitchen, Miss,' replied the young woman. 'He seems very much put about. Shall I tell him to come up to speak to you?'
"'Thank you, I wish you would,' said Mary. 'But I am really sorry to bring you out so much in this dreadful weather.'
"The young woman laughed cheerfully.
"'I don't mind it a bit, Miss,' she said; 'if you only knew how glad I shall be if you come to live here. Nothing'd be a trouble if so be as we could get a kind family here again. 'Twould be like old times.'
"She hastened away, and in a few minutes returned to say that the driver was downstairs waiting to speak to us——"
"Laura, my dear," said grandmother, "do you know it is a quarter to ten. How much more is there?"
Aunty glanced through the pages—
"About as much again," she said. "No, scarcely so much."
"Well then, dears, it must wait till to-morrow," said grandmother.
"Oh, grandmother!" remonstrated the children.
"Aunty said it was a shorter story than yours, grandmother," said Molly in a half reproachful voice.
"And are you disappointed that it isn't?" said aunty, laughing. "I really didn't think it was so long as it is."
"Oh! aunty, I only wish it was twenty times as long," said Molly. "I shouldn't mind hearing it all over again this minute, only you see I do dreadfully want to hear the end. I am sure they had to stay there all night, and that something frightens them. Oh it's 'squisitely delicious," she added, "jigging" up and down on her chair.
"You're a 'squisitely delicious little humbug," said aunty, laughing. "Now good-night all three of you, and get to bed as fast as you can, as I don't want 'grandmother dear' to scold me for your all being tired and sleepy to-morrow."