She and mamma had already arranged for Taisy to sleep in my room that night, by Esmé's sleeping with mamma, and by taking out the end of Esmé's cot, to make it longer—long enough after a fashion, for me.
How we laughed, Taisy and I, though any other girl would have been tired after all she had done, and the tiresomely slow drive from Wetherford! Mamma was obliged to knock on the—wall, I was going to say—but of course it was not a wall, only a wooden partition, to tell us to be quiet. I never knew any one with such spirits as Taisy—not only high spirits, but nice ones, for she was never boisterous, and she knew in a moment if you were not inclined for laughing or joking, though her fun was always there, ready to bubble up again at the right moment. She was full of sympathy too, in spite of her cheerfulness; no one could possibly have called her heartless.
Looking back, I can see what a very good thing it was for us all that she came, even for mamma. We were in danger just then of being too much taken up with our own little life—the life of the Hut—which is one kind of selfishness.
And dear mamma in her unselfishness might have got too silent about all she was feeling; she was so afraid of making us young ones melancholy. But I have seen her sitting or standing, when she thought we did not notice, gazing at the sea—gazing, gazing, as if she could scarcely bear it and yet must look at it. The cruel sea, which had taken dear papa so far away! On fine, sunny days I almost think somehow it seemed worse. I know that feeling about the sea myself, as if it were cruel really, below its loveliness and brilliance. And I am sure she said something of this to Taisy, the very day after Taisy came, for I heard her say, though her eyes were full of tears—
'The kind sea, too, auntie dear, which will bring him back again.'
And as for us children, it was just delightful past words to have Theresa. We had been very happy at the Hut already, very busy and interested, but the fun of the life there came with Taisy. She was full of it, though the things we found so amusing are too trifling, even if they would not seem really silly, to write down.
The arranging of her 'house,' as she would call it, was the nicest part of all the arranging we had had to do. We pulled it close up to one side of one of our doors—the 'parish room' doors you understand, where there were no windows, so that the waggon was, so to say, protected by one of the iron walls—I don't know what else to call it, and which also gave the advantage of a tap in the night arousing us at once, in case Taisy felt frightened, which she never did. But the tapping was very convenient all the same, as she could awaken me in the mornings when they got warm enough for very early bathing, without 'disturbing the whole house,' as Hoskins said. And I could tap to her, last thing at night, to wish her good-night.
You never saw a cosier place than we made of it; that first day after it was all arranged, we couldn't leave off admiring it.
There was Taisy's bed along one side, rather a narrow one of course, though not worse than a berth at sea, and looking so bright with the lovely scarlet blankets Lady Emmeline had given her. And in one corner a little frame which held a ewer and basin, and in the other some hooks for hanging things with a red curtain that drew round, and short red curtains to the windows, and a tiny chest of drawers; it was really one end of an old writing-table, or secretaire, to hold gloves and pocket-handkerchiefs and belts and small things like that. Then under the bed there was a long low trunk, what is called a cabin portmanteau, I believe, which held Taisy's best dresses, of which she had certainly not brought many, and hooks higher up than the hanging ones, for her hats. You wouldn't believe, unless you have ever been a long voyage—I have, since those days—all that was got into the old omnibus, by planning and ingenuity.
Taisy was as proud of it as if she had made or built, I suppose one should say, the whole carriage; indeed, I think we all were, once we had got everything perfectly arranged. Mamma carried off some of her most crushable things, as she said she had really some spare room in her own cupboards or wardrobes; and I took her best hat, as it had lovely white feathers, which it would have been a thousand pities to spoil, and which there was plenty of space for in the big box where Esmé's and mine were. And then Taisy declared she felt her house quite spacious.