Chapter Twenty Nine.
The Wide, Wide World.
Not very long after this abrupt conclusion of so much that had appeared to be but just begun, and in process of continuance, the care-taker at Cleverley Hall uncovered and set to rights three or four of the smaller rooms, and received the four Miss Haredales, who came there to wait till the family plans were somewhat matured, to leave some of their belongings in one locked-up room, while the rest of the house was prepared for letting; and to select and pack all that it was necessary to take with them, for what was likely to be some months, at least, of visiting and wandering.
An inhabited oasis in the midst of brown holland and shutters is not cheerful; but the last few days before the break-up in London had been so wretched that the girls were all thankful for any change, and Amethyst, in particular, packed, contrived, and planned with a vigour and energy that would fain have made the little work into much. Freedom gave her a sense of eager, strenuous life, and there was nothing before her but a long stretch of idle, tiresome days, made lonely by uncongenial companionship.
“How I hate it all!” she thought; but her hatred was living and vigorous, and there was a ring in her voice and a spring in her feet, as she moved about the empty house, which had never been there in the Eaton Square drawing-rooms.
The afternoon was hot, tea was on the school-room table. Kattern, with her pretty face markedly sullen, was slowly sipping her tea. Una lay idly back in a corner of the sofa, and Tory was sitting on the deep ledge of the window, holding the end of her immense plait of hair in her hand, and contemplating Amethyst’s quick, careful packing of small valuables, with a curious elvish expression of critical observation.
“I have been informing the neighbours,” she said, after a silence, “that is, our good Rector’s worthy sister, as my lady used to call her, that we are going abroad for education—for Kat and me. But that first we are going to pay visits to some old friends. Can anything sound more creditable?”
“I don’t care how it sounds,” burst out Kattern; “it’s very dull and disappointing. I wish I was the eldest. I wish I had had even Una’s chances! I wouldn’t have thrown people over at the last minute. I would have got married, and not been called a fiasco in the society papers. I hate going abroad. We may get a little fun out of the visits, but I shall be sent on the dullest, and I haven’t near as many frocks as Amethyst and Una.”
“You have quite as many frocks as you want at present,” said Amethyst; “when you will have any more is another question.”
“Well,” said Tory reflectively, “I mean to keep respectable. The Kirkpatricks’ and Lorrimores’ aren’t very nice places for little girls. I shall have to take care of the rest of you. I’m very tired of our line of life, I should like to go to school. How much better good conduct pays! I dislike being ruined, and having a shady reputation.”