“Don’t be silly,” said Leila. “Hasn’t Mummy just said that Fareham’s expensive to keep up, and if we’ve no money!”
“Hush, dears,” said their mother, “don’t speak sharply to each other. Yes, there is Fareham, but that is what we have to depend on. It can’t he sold, but it will probably—almost certainly—let well, furnished, just as it is, and that will give us a small income in addition to the very little we have of our own. Your father is already seeing about it. And this house is almost certain to let very quickly. It is only ours for another year legally. We will just keep enough furniture for a small home, where Aunt Margaret will live with us, and sell all the rest. And your father may get some work; he has friends who know what he can do.”
“Will he have to leave off being an M.P.?” asked Leila very dolefully.
Mrs Fortescue only bent her head.
“And—” began Roland again, hesitatingly, “I don’t want to be selfish, Mums, but I suppose I can’t possibly go to Winton,”—the public school for which he was preparing.
“Of course not,” said Chrissie pertly: “most likely you’ll have to be a boy in an office, or even an errand boy.”
“I could be a errand boy,” cried Jasper, his face lighting up. “Or p’raps a messenger boy. There was one comed here the other day that was almost littler than me. And they have such nice coats and caps.”
The others could not help laughing, and again it did them good, though Jasper got rather red.
Mrs Fortescue took no notice of Christabel’s uncalled-for speech.
“Dear Roland,” she said, “your school is one of the things we are the most anxious about. If by any possibility it can be managed, it shall be done. There are still fully six months before the date of your going, and somehow—I can’t help hoping for it.”