Chapter Four.
The New Home.
Some days passed. Mr Fortescue was detained in the country longer than he had expected, and us it was impossible for their mother to decide things very definitely without him, especially as regarded the future home of the family, the children’s daily lives went on much as usual.
“You could almost fancy it was all a dream,” said Leila to her sister.
“You could, I daresay,” Christabel replied, “for you’re never doing anything but dreaming; but I don’t feel like that at all. It’s enough to see Nurse’s red eyes, and the servants stepping about as if there was straw all over the place, like when people are very ill, and Miss Earle’s never been so kind before. It really almost makes me try to please her.”
“I think it’s rather nice of them all,” Leila remarked. The “romantic” side of the position quite took her fancy, and she felt as if she really was some thing of a heroine. “I shan’t mind being poor, if people are so sorry for us—so-so respectful, you know, Chrissie.”
But Chrissie was made of different stuff.
“I don’t agree with you at all,” she said, tossing her proud little head, so that her thick reddish-brown hair fell over her face like a shaggy mane. “Sorry for us! No indeed, I don’t want people to be sorry for us. Almost the worst part of it is everybody having to know. I can’t understand Mummy thinking that a good thing. I don’t mind Miss Earle,” she went on, softening a little, “she’s different somehow. But I’m not going to pretend, any way not to you, Lell, you sleepy, dreaming thing, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t think it’s all perfectly horrid, for I do.”
“If we could go to live in the country,” said Leila; “a pretty quaint cottage, thatched perhaps, any way covered with roses—”
“Yes, especially in winter,” interrupted Chrissie. “What a donkey you are, Lell! Better say thistles.”
“We could have roses a good part of the year, and I know there are some creepers that are evergreens. Ivy, for instance. No, a cottage wouldn’t be so bad, however tiny it was,” Leila maintained.
“You’d have to be cook, then, and I’d have to be housemaid, for where would you put servants in your tiny cottage I’d like to know? It would be freezing in winter—no bathroom or hot water—and in summer all insecty. Horrible! However, we needn’t fight about it. We’re going to stay in London. Mums says we must, if Dads is ever to get any work to do—or in the suburbs close to. I think that would be almost worse. The sort of place with rows and rows of little houses all exactly like each other, you know, with horrid scraps of garden in front.”
“No,” said Leila, “I think any sort, of a garden would make it better. We could grow things.”
“I’d like to see you gardening,” said Chrissie. “I know what it would be. If there was any sort of a summer-house, or even a bench, you’d be settled there with a book, calling out, ‘Chrissie, Chrissie, do come and rake that border for me. I’m so tired.’”
“I might call,” retorted Leila coolly, “but most certainly the border wouldn’t get raked if I had no one to call to but you.”
“I’d rake it, Lelly,” said Jasper. They had not noticed that he was in the room, for he was busied in a corner, as quiet as a mouse, as was often the case.
“I believe you would,” said Leila. “We’re not a very good-natured family, but I think you’re about the best, poor old Jap.”
“Nonsense,” said Christabel. “He’s just a baby. Shall we toss up, Lell?” she went on recklessly. “Heads or tails? I’ve got two halfpennies—heads for a house with a garden six feet square, tails for a dirty little pig of a house in—oh, I don’t know where to say.”
“I know,” said Jasper; “that place where Nurse’s cousin lives what makes dresses. I’ve been there with Nurse. Mummy said I might go. It’s quite clean, and there’s a sort of gardeny place in the middle, where the children was playin’. They didn’t look—not very dirty,” for if Jasper was anything, he was exceedingly “accurate.”
“Really, Jasper,” began Leila. Then she turned to Christabel, “You don’t think it could be as bad as that, Chrissie?” and the alarm in her soft dark eyes was piteous. “Living in a slum, that would be.” Just then Nurse came into the room.
“What were you saying, Miss Leila, my dear?” she inquired. “Something about a ‘slum’?”
“It’s what Jasper was saying,” said Leila, and she went on to explain.
Nurse got rather red.
“It can’t be called a slum where my cousin lives,” she said. “She’s a respectable dressmaker in a small way, and suchlike don’t live in slums. Still it won’t be as poor a place as that where,” she hesitated, and then went on, “where the new house will be.”
“Jasper’s so vulgar,” said Chrissie, “the minute you speak of being poor, he thinks it means leaving off being ladies and gentlemen.”
“I doesn’t,” exclaimed the boy indignantly. “Nothin’d made Dads and Mums not be ladies and gentlemen—and us too,” but the last words somewhat less confidently.
Both the girls laughed.
“Thank you, Jap,” said Leila, “though I don’t wonder he doesn’t feel quite sure of you, Chrissie. You really needn’t talk of ‘vulgar,’ with your ‘heads and tails,’ like a street boy.”
A sharp retort was on Christabel’s lips, but Nurse hastened to interrupt it.
“What are you so busy about, my dear little boy?” she said, turning to Jasper, which made the others look at him also.
“I’se packin’,” was the reply, and then they saw that he was surrounded by his special treasures, in various stages of newness and oldness, completeness and brokenness. “Mums said I might divide them, and the old ones are to go to the ill children; and I’m goin’ to pack the others very caref’ly, for you see they’ll have to last me now till I’m big,” and he gave a little sigh, for in his unselfish, yet childish heart, there had been visions of what future Christmases might bring in the shape of a new stable and stud—“still splendider nor the one I got two birfdays ago,” as he thought to himself.
Leila drew near him.
“Shall I help you?” she said. “I’ve finished my book,” she went on, “and I’ve nothing to do,” as if half-ashamed of her unusual good-nature. “I say, Japs, you do keep some of your toys a long time. I don’t see many bad enough for the Children’s Hospital.”
Jasper’s serious blue eyes slowly reviewed his spread-out treasures, but for a minute or two he did not speak.
Then he said gravely—
“There’s isn’t many broken, but I’d like to give some of the others too. Mumsey won’t mind—and pr’aps, you know, I can’t send many more, for these’ll have to last me, and I’ll get fonder and fonder of them. So I think I’d better send a good lot now—don’t you think so too, Lelly?”
His hands strayed lovingly over his beloved horses and dogs, squirrels and rabbits, each one of which was known to him individually.
“It’s my aminals I care most for,” he said. “I want to divide them quick, Lelly, for fear I get greedy and want to keep them all.”
“You can’t do that, any way,” said Chrissie, who had joined the group. “You won’t have room in the new house. I daresay there’ll be no nursery at all. Look here, Japs, Nurse can give us one of the clothes-baskets, and we’ll put all for the hospital in it for Mums to look over, and then you can pack quite comf’ably for yourself,” and with the quickness and good sense she had plenty of when she chose to use them, she helped the little fellow in his rather painful task. And once the division was made, and the old favourites out of sight, Jasper grew more cheerful again, as he murmured to himself, “I daresay they’ll be quite happy with the ill children. They have such nice little white beds.”
How proud Chrissie felt of herself! It was just to be regretted that Nurse could not help saying—
“Dear me, what a pity you can’t always be so kind and helping, Miss Chrissie,” for immediately came the toss of the haughty little head and the pert reply—
“I shall do as I choose always, Nurse. You might know that, by this time, I should think.”
“Your father writes that he is coming home to-morrow,” said Mrs Fortescue, the next day. “I am so glad to be feeling better and stronger than when I first got back, for now house-hunting will start in good earnest. The agents have several chances of letting this, I hear, and we must not lose any.”
“How horrible it is,” exclaimed Christabel, and though Leila did not speak, her face grew very gloomy. Their mother glanced at them with disappointment.
“Dears,” she said, “I hoped you were going to be so brave and help me to meet Daddy cheerfully.”
“Really, Mummy,” said Chrissie, “I don’t see why you should scold us before we’ve done anything naughty.”
“Scold you,” repeated their mother. “I don’t think you have the least idea of what the word means, my poor little girl,” and she could not help smiling a little.
“Well,” persisted the child, “you can’t expect us to like going to live in some horrible poky place.”
Mrs Fortescue thought it best not to answer. She knew too well what Chrissie could be, once a “contrary” fit was on her.
“Is Aunt Margaret coming too?” asked Leila.
Her mother shook her head.
“Not yet,” she said. “Poor Aunt Margaret has to stay to see the last of things at Fareham. I don’t want her to come till we are at least a little settled. Children,” she went on, rousing herself to a new appeal, “my darlings, I know it is hard for you, and it is still harder for your father and me, because we feel it for all of you; but it is hardest of all for Aunt Margaret to have to leave the place where she has spent all her life, where she loves every tree and bush as if they were living things; never to have the joy of welcoming us all there, and arranging our rooms for us, and making us so happy. ‘The delight of her life,’ she called our visits the other day. It is awfully hard on her. Uncle Percy’s death would have been a sad blow at any time, but the way it came made it ten times sadder. And she is an old woman now, though a good deal younger than he was. Yet I cannot tell you how unselfish she is—how determined to see the bright side of things, how thankful for the blessings we still have.”
The children did not speak. Their mother’s words could not but impress them.
Then said Chrissie, still with a touch of defiance—“I know she’s awfully good, Mumsey, and we do love her, but you see I don’t pretend to be good and unselfish and all that. Pr’aps when I get to be old, it’ll come somehow.”
Mrs Fortescue smiled a little.
“I don’t want you to ‘pretend,’ Chrissie, most certainly not. I want you to be. And the longer you put off trying, the harder you will find it. Goodness does not come all of itself like one’s hair getting grey. And though it may sometimes seem as if God left us to ourselves, it is not really so. Sorrows and trials may have to be our teachers if we allow happiness and prosperity to make us selfish and thoughtless.”
“Well,” said Leila gloomily, “perhaps they’re beginning now—it doesn’t look as if there was much to be cheerful about;” and, as often happened, Christabel turned upon her sister, though Leila was only expressing her own discontent in different words.
“I call that selfish, if you like,” she said. “Mumsey has enough to be worried about without your grumbling.”
“Hush, Chrissie,” said their mother, rather wearily. “I think you will both try to help your father and me, but I cannot say any more. I have a great many letters to write, and Miss Earle has kindly offered to stay later to do some for me. I do want to get them done before to-morrow when Daddy comes. So run off now, dears.”
All the children loved their father, though perhaps in a different way from their sweet mother. But he was a very busy man, much engaged in public matters, and till now he had seen but little of them, comparatively speaking, especially of his daughters. But for this, possibly their faults, so greatly owing to over-indulgence and over-gentleness, would not have been allowed to have taken such root. And just at first, on his return home, Mr Fortescue was pleased with them all, Roland, of course, in particular, for the boy showed great good feeling and consideration for his parents.
“And Leila and Chrissie, too,” said their father, when speaking about them to their mother, “they seem rather subdued, naturally enough, but they will be plucky and sensible and do all they can to help us, I hope.”
“Yes, I hope so,” she agreed, and Mr Fortescue was too busy about other things to notice the want of confidence and cheerfulness in her tone.
Then followed a week or two of extreme “busyness” for the children’s parents. Strange men were constantly coming to the house, with note-books, in which they made long lists of the furniture, and pictures, and ornaments—what were to be sold and what to be kept. House agents, too, and several times, parties of ladies and gentlemen to be shown over all the rooms—some of whom were already friends or acquaintances of the Fortescues, some complete strangers.
It was all very queer, but there was a certain kind of excitement about it, though once or twice Chrissie grew red and angry at hearing some murmured expressions of pity, such as—“Poor people, isn’t it sad for them?” or, “I do feel so for them all.”
“Impertinent things,” muttered the child, though fortunately in a whisper.
Then at last came the day on which their mother with a little touch of relief in her voice, told them that the new house was chosen and decided upon.
“We shall move into it in about a fortnight,” she said, “and it will not be so very difficult to manage. A great deal of the furniture has been bought by the people who have taken this house, and as they are not coming in here for a month or more, we can send off all that we shall require at Spenser Terrace next week, and have it fairly in order before we go ourselves.”
“Spenser Terrace,” repeated Leila, “I never heard of it. Where is it, Mummy?”
“Some way out, of course,” was the reply. “Still, not in the suburbs, which I am glad of. It will be easier in many ways, especially for Daddy and Roland coming and going. Daddy has got a post, my dears—nothing very much, but we are very thankful. We shall just be able to get on with great care, for Aunt Margaret insists on joining the little income left to her, to ours. And I hope and think we can manage Roley’s school,” she added as she hurried off.
“Of course,” said Christabel, when she and Leila were alone, “of course Roland is the one they care about. You and I are to be educated anyhow or nohow, I suppose, so long as he goes to Winton. Why, we shan’t even be able to be governesses!”
“What’s the good of your saying those horrid things to me,” replied Leila, almost in tears. “You’d better say them to Dads.”
To this there was no response. Even Chrissie’s audacity would have failed her at such an idea.
Notwithstanding their mother’s continued cheerfulness, and Nurse’s assurances that they were not going to live in so poor a place as Jasper’s “quite nice and clean” row of houses, the imaginations of both little girls had been running riot, almost without their knowing it, on the subject of their new home, and on the whole they were rather pleasantly surprised when the day came for the move to it.
It was, of course, at a considerable distance from the first-rate part of the West End where they had hitherto lived, and as the rumbling four-wheeler made its slow way along, it seemed to Chrissie, with the boxes outside and packages inside, as if all that had happened in the last few weeks must be a dream, and that they were on their way to King’s Cross Station, to travel down for one of their happy visits to Fareham!
“Doesn’t it seem just like that?” she said to the others. “You know we’ve often gone with Nurse and Jap in a four-wheeler, when Daddy and Mummy were in the carriage.”
Leila gave a little shiver.
“Don’t, Chrissie,” she exclaimed. “It only makes things worse thinking of it all like that.”
Jasper slipped his hand into hers.
“Pr’aps we’ll be very happy in the new house,” he said. “I’d not mind if only Nursie was going to stay.”
For, alas! Nurse was only to be a few days longer with them—“just to see you a little bit settled,” she had pleaded with Mrs Fortescue. Her remaining permanently would have been impossible in the changed circumstances of the family, and as she was looking forward to being married in two or three years, it was of importance for her to save what she could of her wages. But she had done all in her power to help; it was a cousin of hers who was one of the two servants which were all Mrs Fortescue could afford to have, and she had privately begged this girl to be very patient with the young ladies if they were sometimes troublesome and thoughtless.
“It will all be such a change for them, you see,” she explained, and Harriet, who was good-natured and willing, delighted to come to London, and not troubled with nerves, promised to do her very best.
Hers was the face which met them as the cab at last drew up at one of a row of houses in a quiet, rather dull, but by no means “slummy” side-street.
“It isn’t so very bad,” said Chrissie, “and that new servant looks rather nice. I suppose she’ll be instead of Fanny.”
“Of course not,” said Leila, “there’ll be no Fanny and no Nurse and no anybody except a cook and housemaid. You certainly will have to put on your own shoes and stockings now!”
And Chrissie’s face, which had brightened a little, clouded over again. But it was not in human nature, above all not in child, even spoilt-child nature, not to try to smile and look pleased, when at the open door of the little drawing-room the sisters caught sight of their mother, and heard Jasper’s joyful cry, “Oh Mumsey, what a sweet little room.”
“Come in, darlings. I’ve been longing so for you,” she exclaimed, “and tea is all ready in the dining-room. Nurse, you must have it with us. Daddy, darlings, won’t be back till seven, but Roley is here.” It was a pretty little room. Mrs Fortescue had wisely kept only such furniture as was really suitable, especially as to size, so there was no look of crowding or “not-at-home-ness” about it. And as the whole house had been freshly painted and papered, there was nothing dark or dingy.
“If I could fancy it was a little house we had got for a few weeks at the seaside somewhere, I’d think it was quite nice,” thought Christabel. “I wonder how many rooms there are. We really need one each if we’re not to be always knocking against each other!”