The House That Grew

Rolf and Geordie could scarcely speak.

'Who can have done it?' they exclaimed. 'Could Esmé have been so – '

'Cruel and naughty,' I interrupted, – 'yes, I am afraid so, though I couldn't have believed it of her. Geordie, pick up the kettle please, without jingling if you can help it, and please throw away the horrid things that are in it.'

'No, no, don't throw them away!' exclaimed a newcomer on the scene. 'They're my nails and screws.'

It was Denzil.

'And my kettle,' said poor Rolf, rather dolefully, for he was proud of his cooking stove and all its neat arrangements, and the kettle looked nearly as miserable for a kettle as Roughie did for a little dog!

I turned upon Denzil very sharply, I am afraid.

'Did you know of it, then?' I said.

Poor Denzil looked very frightened.

'In course not, Ida,' he said. 'I came out to ask Esmé for my nails. She had a lot of them in her blouse pockets, and she got tired of helping me and forgot to give me them back.'

'I'm very sorry,' I said. 'No, I am sure you would never do such a thing, Den.'

Then I got up, very carefully, not to disturb my poor doggie, who was really asleep by this time, and we all – Mr. Trevor and the three boys and I – went to the group in the porch, whose anxiety was already relieved by seeing us more tranquil again. Taisy had been dying to rush out to us, but Esmé, sobbing in her arms, was not easily disposed of.

She – Esmé – had begun an incoherent confession of her misdoings, but now mamma stopped it.

'Is it all right?' she asked eagerly, speaking to Mr. Trevor. 'The dog is not mad then? What was it?'

Mr. Trevor glanced, still a little doubtfully, at Roughie in my arms.

'I – yes, I think he is all right again,' he replied. 'He certainly recognised his mistress's voice, which is the best sign. I do not think it was any kind of fit; it was just terror. He must be a nervous little creature.'

'Yes,' said Rolf; 'he is awfully nervous, though he is not cowardly.'

'A fine distinction, as applied to a dog,' said Mr. Trevor smiling. 'But if – you all knew it, how – '

A howl – really it was a howl – from Esmé interrupted him.

'Oh, I know, I know!' she wailed. 'It was all my fault. But I only meant to tease him and make him run. I didn't mean – oh, Ida, I didn't mean – to make him go mad. Will you ever forgive me? Rough will never look at me again, I know.'

She was mistaken. The prettiest thing happened just then: Roughie, placidly asleep, though giving little quivers and sobs still, was awakened by the noise she made. He opened his eyes, and his mouth – what Denzil called 'smiling' – a little; I think he meant to give a friendly lick, but finding nothing handy for this, he contented himself with a very cheerful tail-wagging, first glancing up at Esmé, who was bending over him, as much as to say, 'I do forgive you heartily.'

I have always said that dogs – nice dogs – are sorry for people when they see them crying. Since that day I have been sure of it.

But the first effect of Rough's magnanimity was to bring forth another burst of sobs and tears from poor Esmé.

Yes, I too forgave her from that moment.

'Oh, Ida! oh, mamma! oh, everybody!' she cried, 'do forgive me! You see he does.'

So now we fell to petting and soothing her; it never took very long to get up Esmé's spirits again, happily. Before bedtime, except for reddened eyes, you would not have known there had been anything the matter, but from that day to this Roughie has had no kinder or truer friend than her.

We were all feeling rather overstrained. Mr. Trevor, I fancy, a little ashamed of the great fuss he had made, though perhaps I should scarcely speak of it like that, and I think we all felt glad when mamma said brightly —

'Well – all is well that ends well! Will you join us at our schoolroom tea and forgive its being rather a scramble after all this upset?' She turned to the Trevors, but before they had time to reply there came a half-laughing but rather distressed appeal from Mrs. Trevor.

'My dears,' she said, addressing everybody as far as I could make out, 'will some of you disentangle me? The dogs and I have all got mixed up together – naughty, naughty!' and she switched powerlessly with a knitting needle at the poodles, who this time were really enjoying themselves in a good ball-of-wool chase, as the excitement of Rough's strange behaviour had actually made the old lady leave off knitting for fully five minutes!

It was quite impossible not to laugh, but Mrs. Trevor herself laughed as heartily as any one, and at last, by turning her round and round as if we were playing at blind man's buff, and catching up first one poodle and then another, we got her free.

And of course the wool looked none the worse!

That laughing set us all still more at our ease, and by the time we had sobered down, Hoskins appeared to announce tea. And after the kind Trevors had said good-bye and gone, Denzil set us off laughing again by announcing in his solemn way that he didn't believe Mr. Trevor was at all ill; he ate such a lot of buttered toast!

This affair of poor little Roughie was, I think, the most exciting thing that happened to us all that spring and summer at the Hut. And though everybody, starting with the good-natured wee man himself, forgave Esmé thoroughly, we were none of us allowed to forget it. For my dog behaved in the funniest way. Nothing for at least a fortnight would persuade him to leave my room, where he installed himself in what he evidently thought a fortress of security, under the bed. And he would only come out if I called him, and then expected me to hold him in my arms as if he were a baby, which, as you can understand, was not very convenient.

But by degrees he got over it, and became his own happy little self again.

I think it was the very day after this thrilling experience that we got another really cheering and hopeful letter from papa. And once this happier turn of things began, it kept on pretty steadily; the only drawback to our thankfulness being that he could name no date – no probable one even – for his return. So the lengthening days followed each other till we got to midsummer, and then came July and August, specially lovely months that year, during which the sun looked down on a busy and happy party in the queer encampment that was our home for the time.

In September Rolf left us for the big school he was bound for. We missed him sadly, though we had the cheering hope that his aunt would let him come to us again for the winter holidays.

And so she did!

A few days before Christmas he and Taisy – Taisy had spent the autumn with her grandmother – arrived again, together this time, though less like snails, as they had left their houses behind them when they went away. And some changes in the arrangements were made. Taisy had Geordie's room, and Geordie, to his great delight, took up his quarters in her waggon, as mamma did not like the idea of a girl's being outside – even though so near – through the long, dark nights. It was not a cold winter; it is never very cold at Eastercove, and where the Hut stands it seems even milder than higher up. So Rolf stuck to his tent, and was very pleased to have an excuse for keeping his patent stove going all the time. Those holidays came to an end only too soon.

In March, just about a year after he had left, came the news of papa's return being fixed for June. It all fitted in. The Trevors had taken the house for twelve months, and with the fine weather meant to go back to their own home in the north. And now there was no talk of letting our dear home again, or, as far as we could see, of ever leaving it except for pleasant reasons. But we kept the Hut just as it was, for papa to see. Rolf would not even have his tent moved till after that summer, and Taisy's waggon is to this day somewhere about the premises, and mamma still has her movable 'boudoir' wheeled about to different parts of the grounds, as it suits her.

It is nearly three years since I made the last entry in my 'Hut' diary, from which I have written out this history of 'The House that Grew.' How I came to do so I will explain.

We have been through some very anxious times lately about Rolf. He is a soldier, and very soon after he got his commission his regiment went to India, and he with it. I will not tell the particulars, as he might not like it, but he 'came in' almost at once for some very active service, up in some of those dreadfully out-of-the-way places, where there are so often disturbances with the natives, which in England do not attract much attention, unless you happen to have close personal interest in what is happening, as we had, for Rolf had become almost like another brother to us, spending half his holidays at Eastercove. And Geordie – oh, I forgot to say he did get the scholarship! – and he, by a happy coincidence, had been at school together.

Well – one sad day there came news that Rolf was badly wounded. We have been waiting and waiting – and I think the anxiety 'got on my nerves,' as people say. For one day mamma spoke seriously to me, when she found me sitting idle, just longing for letters.

'Ida, dear,' she said, 'you must get something to do – something extra, I mean, to interest you.'

And after talking a little, the idea of writing out my 'Hut' diary came into my head, and, as you see, I have done it!

And I have been, if I deserved to be so, rewarded for following mamma's advice.

Rolf is coming home – on leave – 'invalided,' it is true, but his wound is not so bad as reported; indeed, according to him, not bad at all!

Papa and Dods are just off to Southampton to meet him and bring him straight here.