As a matter of fact, a trivial accident happened, and she knew before the next day was out.
They were having afternoon tea down near the river, and it being Sunday afternoon and pleasantly cool, the Captain had strolled down with Esther, and was seated on the grass leisurely examining some letters that had come by the Saturday afternoon’s post and been laid aside. There was a bill amongst them that he had had no part in making, a tailor’s bill, with what seemed to him superfluous blazers, flannels, and such things, down. On ordinary occasions he would only have grumbled moderately and as a matter of duty, for Pip was not particularly extravagant. But to-day, with his son’s recent failure fresh in his mind, he felt he could be explosive with perfect justice. So he despatched Peter up to the house to request Pip’s immediate presence. Pip was on the point of going out, and came with a half-aggrieved, half-aggressive look on his face.
[104]
]But before there was time for even the preliminaries of warfare, Essie created a diversion by tumbling out of the moored boat in which she and Poppet were sitting into the deep, clear water of the river.
Pip’s coat was off before any one had even time to scream, he flung it into Meg’s lap right over the teacups, and was swimming out to the little dark bobbing head in less time than it takes to write it.
Nellie and Poppet had screamed, a strange, strangled cry had broken from Esther’s lips, and the Captain had put his arm round her and said, “Don’t be foolish, she’s quite safe,” in a sharp voice; but his face was white under its bronze,—this little saucy-faced baby daughter of his had crept closer to his heart than any of his other children.
Of course she was quite safe. Here was Pip scrambling up the bank again, and holding her up in his arms, figure in a white frock and pinafore, one foot quite bare, the other with only the sock on.
Such gurgling little sobs of fright and relief she gave, such leaps and shudders of joy and terror, as they carried her up to the house wrapped in her father’s coat.
But now she was safe and unhurt Meg did not follow the rest of the family into the bedroom with [105] ]her. Instead she went into her own, and sank down on the ottoman at the bed foot, white to the lips and trembling like an old, old woman,—not on Essie’s account, the danger had been so short-lived, but in that breathless moment something terrible had come to her knowledge.
