The Carved Lions, Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  COMING EVENTS.

  The shadow of coming changes began to fall over us very soon after that.

  Indeed, the very next morning at breakfast I noticed that mamma lookedpale and almost as if she had been crying, and father was, so to say,"extra" kind to her and to me. He talked and laughed more than usual,partly perhaps to prevent our noticing how silent dear mamma was, butmostly I think because that is the way men do when they are reallyanxious or troubled.

  I don't fancy Haddie thought there was anything wrong--he was in a hurryto get off to school.

  After breakfast mamma told me to go and practise for half an hour, andif she did not come to me then, I had better go on doing some of mylessons alone. She would look them over afterwards. And as I was goingout of the room she called me back and kissed me again--almost as shehad done the night before.

  That gave me courage to say something. For children were not, in mychildish days, on such free and easy terms with their elders as they arenow. And kind and gentle as mamma was, we knew very distinctly the sortof things she would think forward or presuming on our part.

  "Mamma," I said, still hesitating a little.

  "Well, dear," she replied. She was buttoning, or pretending to button,the band of the little brown holland apron I wore, so that I could notsee her face, but something in the tone of her voice told me that myinstinct was not mistaken.

  "Mamma," I repeated, "may I say something? I have a feeling that--thatyou are--that there is something the matter."

  Mamma did not answer at once. Then she said very gently, but quitekindly,

  "Geraldine, my dear, you know that I tell you as much as I think itright to tell any one as young as you--I tell you more, of our plans andprivate matters and such things, than most mothers tell their littledaughters. This has come about partly through your being so much alonewith me. But when I _don't_ tell you anything, even though you maysuspect there is something to tell, you should trust me that there isgood reason for my not doing so."

  "Yes," I said, but I could not stifle a little sigh. "Would you justtell me one thing, mamma," I went on; "it isn't anything that you'rereally unhappy about, is it?"

  Again mamma hesitated.

  "Dear child," she said, "try to put it out of your mind. I can only saythis much to you, I am _anxious_ more than troubled. There is nothingthe matter that should really be called a trouble. But your father and Ihave a question of great importance to decide just now, and we arevery--I may say really _terribly_--anxious to decide for the best. Thatis all I can tell you. Kiss me, my darling, and try to be your ownbright little self. That will be a comfort and help to me."

  I kissed her and I promised I would try to do as she wished. But it waswith rather a heavy heart that I went to my practising. What _could_ itbe? I did try not to think of it, but it would keep coming back into mymind. And I was only a child. I had no experience of trouble or anxiety.After a time my spirits began to rise again--there was a sort ofexcitement in the wondering what this great matter could be. I am afraidI did not succeed in putting it out of my mind as mamma wished me to do.

  But the days went on without anything particular happening. I did notspeak of what mamma had said to me to my brother. I knew she did notwish me to do so. And by degrees other things began to make me forgetabout it a little. It was just at that time, I remember, that somefriend--an aunt on father's side, I think--sent me a present of _TheWide, Wide World_, and while I was reading it I seemed actually to livein the story. It was curious that I should have got it just then. Ifmamma had read it herself I am not sure that she would have given it tome. But after all, perhaps it served the purpose of preparing me a_little_--a very little--for what was before me in my own life.

  It was nearly three weeks after the time I have described ratherminutely that the blow fell, that Haddie and I were told the whole. Ithink, however, I will not go on telling _how_ we were told, for I amafraid of making my story too long.

  And of course, however good my memory is, I cannot pretend that theconversations I relate took place _exactly_ as I give them. I think Igive the _spirit_ of them correctly, but now that I have come to thetelling of distinct facts, perhaps it will be better simply to narratethem.

  You will remember my saying that my father had lost money veryunexpectedly, and that this was what had obliged him to come to live atMexington and work so hard. He had got the post he held there--it was ina bank--greatly through the influence of Mrs. Selwood, mamma'sgodmother, who lived in the country at some hours' distance from thetown, and whose name was well known there, as she owned a great manyhouses and other property in the immediate neighbourhood.

  Father was very glad to get this post, and very grateful to Mrs.Selwood. She took great interest in us all--that is to say, she wasinterested in Haddie and me because we were mamma's children, though shedid not care for or understand children as a rule. But she was afaithful friend, and anxious to help father still more.

  Just about the time I have got to in my story, the manager of a bank inSouth America, in some way connected with the one at Great Mexington,became ill, and was told by the doctors that he must return to Englandand have a complete rest for two years. Mrs. Selwood had moneyconnection with this bank too, and got to hear of what had happened.Knowing that father could speak both French and Spanish well, for he hadbeen in the diplomatic service as a younger man, she at once applied forthe appointment for him, and after some little delay she was told thathe should have the offer of it for the two years.

  Two years are not a very long time, even though the pay was high, butthe great advantage of the offer was that the heads of the bank atMexington promised, if all went well for that time, that some permanentpost should be given to father in England on his return. This was whatmade him more anxious to accept the proposal than even the high pay. ForMrs. Selwood found out that he would not be able to save much of hissalary, as he would have a large house to keep up, and would be expectedto receive many visitors. On this account the post was never given to anunmarried man.

  "If he accepts it," Mrs. Selwood wrote to mamma, "you, my dear Blanche,must go with him, and some arrangement would have to be made about thechildren for the time. I would advise your sending them to school."

  _Now_ I think my readers will not be at a loss to understand why ourdear mother had looked so troubled, even though on one side this eventpromised to be for our good in the end.

  Father was allowed two or three weeks in which to make up his mind. Theheads of the Mexington bank liked and respected him very much, and theyquite saw that there were two sides to the question of his accepting theoffer. The climate of the place was not very good--at least it wasinjurious to English people if they stayed there for long--and it wasperfectly certain that it would be madness to take growing children likeHaddie and me there.

  _This_ was the dark spot in it all to mamma, and indeed to father too.They were not afraid for themselves. They were both strong and stillyoung, but they could not for a moment entertain the idea of taking_us_. And the thought of separation was terrible.

  You see, being a small family, and living in a place like GreatMexington, where my parents had not many congenial friends, and beingpoor were obliged to live carefully, _home_ was everything to us all.We four were the whole world to each other, and knew no happiness apart.

  I do not mean to say that I felt or saw all this at once, but lookingback upon it from the outside, as it were, I see all that made it apeculiarly hard case, especially--at the beginning, that is to say--formamma.

  It seems strange that I did _not_ take it all in--all the misery of it,I mean--at first, nor indeed for some time, not till I had actualexperience of it. Even Haddie realised it more in anticipation than Idid. He was two years older, and though he had never been at aboarding-school, still he knew something of school life. There wereboarders at his school, and he had often seen and heard how, till theygot accustomed to it at any rate, they suffered from home-sickness, andcounted the days
to the holidays.

  And for us there were not to be any holidays! No certain prospect ofthem at best, though Mrs. Selwood said something vaguely about perhapshaving us at Fernley for a visit in the summer. But it was very vague.And we had no near relations on mamma's side except Aunty Etta, who wasin India, and on father's no one who could possibly have us regularlyfor our holidays.

  All this mamma grasped at once, and her grief was sometimes so extremethat, but for Mrs. Selwood, I doubt if father would have had theresolution to accept. But Mrs. Selwood was what is called "verysensible," perhaps just a little hard, and certainly not _sensitive_.And she put things before our parents in such a way that mamma felt ither duty to urge father to accept the offer, and father felt it _his_duty to put feelings aside and do so.

  They went to stay at Fernley from a Saturday to a Monday to talk it wellover, and it was when they came back on the Monday that we were told.

  Before then I think we had both come to have a strong feeling thatsomething was going to happen. I, of course, had some reason for this inwhat mamma had said to me, though I had forgotten about it a good deal,till this visit to Fernley brought back the idea of something unusual.For it was _very_ seldom that we were left by ourselves.

  We did not mind it much. After all, it was only two nights and one_whole_ day, and that a Sunday, when my brother was at home, so westood at the door cheerfully enough, looking at our father and motherdriving off in the clumsy, dingy old four-wheeler--though that is amodern word--which was the best kind of cab known at Mexington.

  But when they were fairly off Haddie turned to me, and I saw that he wasvery grave. I was rather surprised.

  "Why, Haddie," I said, "do you mind so much? They'll be back on Monday."

  "No, of course I don't mind _that_," he said. "But I wonder why mammalooks so--so awfully trying-not-to-cry, you know."

  "Oh," I said, "I don't think she's quite well. And she hates leavingus."

  "No," said my brother, "there's something more."

  And when he said that, I remembered the feeling I had had myself. I feltrather cross with Haddie; I wanted to forget it quite.

  "You needn't try to frighten me like that," I said. "I meant to be quitehappy while they were away--to please mamma, you know, by telling her sowhen she comes back."

  Then Haddie, who really was a very good-natured, kind boy, lookedsorry.

  "I didn't mean to frighten you," he said; "perhaps it was my fancy. Idon't want to be unhappy while they're away, I'm sure. I'm only too gladthat to-day's Saturday and to-morrow Sunday."

  And he did his very best to amuse me. We went out a walk that afternoonwith the housemaid--quite a long walk, though it was winter. We went asfar out of the town as we could get, to where there were fields, whichin spring and summer still looked green, and through the remains of alittle wood, pleasant even in the dullest season. It was our favouritewalk, and the only pretty one near the town. There was a brook at theedge of the wood, which still did its best to sing merrily, and toforget how dingy and grimy its clear waters became a mile or two fartheron; there were still a few treasures in the shape of ivy sprays andautumn-tinted leaves to gather and take home with us to deck ournursery.

  I remember the look of it all so well. It was the favourite walk of manybesides ourselves, especially on a Saturday, when the hard-workedMexington folk were once free to ramble about--boys and girls not mucholder than ourselves among them, for in those days children were allowedto work in factories much younger than they do now. We did not mindmeeting some of our townsfellows. On the contrary, we felt a good dealof interest in them and liked to hear their queer way of talking, thoughwe could scarcely understand anything they said. And we were very muchinterested indeed in some of the stories Lydia, who belonged to thispart of the country, told us of her own life, in a village a few milesaway, where there were two or three great factories, at which all thepeople about worked--men, women, and children too, so that sometimes,except for babies and very old people, the houses seemed quite deserted.

  "And long ago before that," said Lydia, "when mother was a little lass,it was such a pretty village--cottages all over with creepers andhoneysuckle--not ugly rows of houses as like each other as peas. Thepeople worked at home on their own hand-looms then."

  Lydia had a sense of the beautiful!

  On our way home, of course, we called at Miss Fryer's--this time we hada whole shilling to spend, for there was Sunday's tea to think of aswell as to-day's. We had never had so much at a time, and ourconsultation took a good while. We decided at last on seven crumpetsand seven Bath buns as usual, and in addition to these, three largecurrant tea-cakes, which our friend Susan told us would be all thebetter for toasting if not too fresh. And the remaining threepence weinvested in a slice of sweet sandwich, which she told us would beperfectly good if kept in a tin tightly closed. The old Quakeress foronce, I have always suspected, departed on this occasion from her ruleof exact payment for all purchases, for it certainly seemed a very largeslice of sweet sandwich for threepence.

  We were rather tired with our walk that evening and went to bed early.Nothing more was said by Haddie about his misgivings. I think he hoped Ihad forgotten what had passed, but I had not. It had all come backagain, the strange feeling of change and trouble in the air which hadmade me question mamma that morning two or three weeks ago.

  But I did not as yet really believe it. I had never known what sorrowand trouble actually are. It is not many children who reach even the ageI was then with so sunny and peaceful an experience of life. Thatanything could happen to us--to _me_--like what happened to "Ellen" in_The Wide, Wide World_, I simply could not believe; even though if anyone had talked to me about it and said that troubles must come and _do_come to all, and to some much more than to others, and that they mightbe coming to us, I should have agreed at once and said yes, of course Iknew that was true.

  The next day, Sunday, was very rainy. It made us feel dull, I think,though we did not really mind a wet Sunday as much as another day, forwe never went a walk on Sunday. It was not thought right, and as we hadno garden the day would have been a very dreary one to us, except formamma.

  She managed to make it pleasant. We went to church in the morning, andin the evening too sometimes. I think all children like going to churchin the evening; there is something grown-up about it. And the rest ofthe day mamma managed to find interesting things for us to do. Shegenerally had some book which she kept for reading aloud on Sunday--Dr.Adams's _Allegories_, "The Dark River" and others, were greatfavourites, and so were Bishop Wilberforce's _Agathos_. Some of themfrightened me a little, but it was rather a pleasant sort of fright,there was something grand and solemn about it.

  Then we sang hymns sometimes, and we always had a very nice tea, andmamma, and father too now and then, told us stories about when they werechildren and what they did on Sundays. It was much stricter for themthan for us, though even for us many things were forbidden on Sundayswhich are now thought not only harmless but right.

  Still, I never look back to the quiet Sundays in the dingy Mexingtonstreet with anything but a feeling of peace and gentle pleasure.