That very morning—no, for they did not go till after the early dinner—saw the two girls and Miss Fortescue established in Mrs Greenall’s scrupulously neat and clean, but very tiny, rooms. Spenser Terrace had seemed small in comparison with their old home, but here it looked as if the whole house could have been fitted into their former nursery!
“There is one advantage in very close quarters,” said Aunt Margaret, as she busied herself in unpacking and arranging their belongings. “You have to be neat. It is rather like being on board ship.”
Leila sighed and Chrissie wriggled, but neither grumbled. How indeed could they have done so? For besides the miserable consciousness which they were doing their best to stifle, was there not the “object lesson” of their aunt’s utter self-forgetfulness and devotion—old woman as she almost was—cheerfully accommodating herself to what, with the habits of her life, could not but be very trying, to say the least?
“What would she think of us—worst, of course, of me—if she knew,” thought Christabel, little suspecting that Aunt Margaret’s still keen eyes were at that very moment noting the expression on her face.
“She is very unhappy,” said Miss Fortescue to herself, “and so is Leila. Poor children! They have more feeling than sometimes has seemed the case. And if—if their consciences are not at rest, this trouble, whatever it is that they are remorseful about—this trouble may be a turning-point for them.”
A day or two passed, quietly enough. Miss Greenall attended to the little girls’ lessons as usual, in the afternoon their aunt went out with them, and in the evening they read French with her. They were obedient and subdued; never had their governess found them so easy to manage, and she, naturally, put this state of matters altogether down to their anxiety about little Jasper, and liked them the better for it.
But when they were alone together, things were less smooth. Leila was peevish and inclined to “cast up” to Christabel the greater amount of blame due to her, and Christabel was not of a character to bear this patiently. With their careless habits, the small rooms and close quarters—fresh and bright as Mrs Greenall and her one small maidservant kept everything—were a great trial. Tidyings-up seemed to be needed every hour of the day, and by degrees, as the first shock of their little brother’s illness wore off, they grew more selfishly alive to their own really very trifling discomfort.
“I’m sure we’re punished enough,” said Chrissie one morning when they were arguing about first turn at the tiny toilet-table. “There’s Japs having quite a good time of it, after all—everybody fussing and petting him. And Roland treated like a grown-up man at Dr Wilkins’s! I daresay he goes in to late dinner.”
“But they’ve done nothing to be punished for,” said Leila, “and I,”—she changed her mind, and went on, “there’s Mummy, and Aunt Margaret, as well as us.”
“Mummy adores Japs so—she loves nursing him, I’m sure,” replied Chrissie; “and as for Auntie—well, I suppose she’s a saint and angel, and I don’t pretend to be.”