The House That Grew

CHAPTER X

'IT'S ANOTHER SNAIL'

It was the next morning at breakfast that another strange thing happened. It was when the letters came.

We did not get them quite so early as at home, for it would have brought the postman a good deal out of his way to come down to the Hut, so it had been arranged for him to leave them at the lodge, and for them to be sent on from there.

This morning there were only two: one for mamma – a long one, it seemed, but not a foreign one, as I saw by a glance at the thick paper while she was reading it. But I had not noticed anything about Taisy's, and when a queer kind of little gasp made me look round at her, my first thought was that there was bad news of papa, which some one had somehow sent first to her – Taisy – for her to 'break it,' as they say, to mamma.

And my heart began to beat furiously, and no wonder, I think, for Taisy was as white as the tablecloth, and was evidently on the point of bursting into tears.

'Taisy, Taisy,' I whispered. Luckily she was sitting next me, so that I could speak to her in a low voice without being overheard. 'Is it – oh, is it, anything wrong with papa?' and I felt myself clasping my hands together under the table in an agony of terror.

My face brought back Taisy's presence of mind.

'No, no,' she said. 'Nothing of that kind – nothing wrong really. I know I am very silly,' and already the colour was coming back to her cheeks, for she was not a nervous or delicate girl at all. 'It is only – oh, I must tell auntie first, and then you will understand the sort of fright I got.'

She stopped abruptly, for just then mamma looked up from her letter and spoke to Taisy. She was smiling a little, which made me feel all the more puzzled as to what was the matter with Taisy when I heard her reply to mamma's question, 'Have you too a letter from your grandmother?' 'Yes, auntie,' as if the two words were all she could force herself to say.

Still, mamma did not notice her peculiar manner. She herself turned again to her letter.

'I must say my respect for our gypsy has risen,' she remarked, 'though I suppose it is really only a rather odd coincidence.'

At this Taisy's colour changed again and her lips began to quiver. And, happening to glance across the table, I saw that Esmé's mouth was wide open, and that she was staring gravely at Taisy, in a way quite unusual with her. I could not make it out at all.

Breakfast was over by this time. Mamma turned to the children.

'Run off, dears, but don't be very long. You have just time for a little blow before Taisy and Ida are ready for lessons.'

'But, mamma,' began Esmé, 'I want to speak to Taisy first.'

'No "buts," Esmé,' said mamma decidedly. We were well used to them. 'Taisy won't be ready to speak to you just yet. Run off at – ' she had not time to finish the sentence before she at last noticed Taisy; the tears were really starting by now, and her breath came in little chokes. 'Go, children,' mamma repeated, looking startled, 'and Geordie, dear, you had better be getting ready for Kirke.'

Geordie, big boy as he was, was very obedient. He got up, first catching hold of Denzil by his sailor collar, to make him hurry up. He – George – must have been as puzzled as any one, for he had no idea of course what the letters contained. But he contented himself with a kind of reassuring nod to Taisy as he left the room, and a sign to me as he gave a little gesture of the hand in her direction, as much as to say, 'Be good to her, Ida.'

Then Taisy broke down and fairly sobbed. Mamma got up and came round to her.

'My dearest child,' she said, 'what is the matter? It has something to do with your grandmother's letter, I can see. Do you dislike this boy – what is his name – oh yes, Rolf – Rolf Dacre – that she writes about?'

'Oh no, no, indeed. He is a very nice boy, as nice as he can be,' Taisy replied, amidst her tears. 'It isn't that at all. It's – it's about the gypsy – the saying it like a prophecy – it wasn't right. I – I shouldn't have done it, but I thought it was no harm, only fun;' and she began sobbing again.

For a moment or two mamma and I stared at each other, as if we thought Taisy was losing her wits. Then gradually light began to break in upon us.

"You shouldn't have done it," you say, dear,' mamma repeated. 'Do you mean – can you mean – '

Taisy nodded.

'Yes,' she said; 'you have guessed it, I see. But please do not be angry with me. I meant no harm.'

'Then you were the gypsy,' mamma exclaimed, as if she could scarcely believe it.

'And,' I added, 'the little boy was – oh, he was Esmé, I suppose. That was why she was looking so queer at breakfast.'

'Was she?' said Taisy, 'I didn't notice. Yes, she was the little boy. I did not mean to mix her up in it, but she came poking about when the boys were helping me to dress up, and we thought the best way to keep her quiet was for her to join in it. But, auntie – I was going to tell you all about it to-day – you believe me, don't you?' and she lifted such an appealing, tear-stained face to mamma, that mamma could not help patting it reassuringly and kissing her.

'It was very cleverly done – very,' she said. 'And I see no harm in a little trick of the kind if not carried too far. The only thing is – Why did you not unmask yourself at once? Perhaps – for Esmé's sake – it would have been better not to keep up the mystification so long.'

'I know,' said Taisy, calmer now, but speaking very humbly, 'that is what I did wrong. It might have led to her telling what was untrue. Last night when you were pitying the child – who was not my son or grandson' – and here Taisy's sunny nature broke out again in one of her own merry laughs – 'I could scarcely keep it in.'

'But why did you, then?' I asked.

'Oh, that is what I wanted to explain! I had a sort of wager with Geordie. He said I might take you both in once, but certainly not twice, and he dared me to try it. So I made a second plan. I was coming again to-day – quite differently – dressed like a rather old-maidish lady, who wanted to know if you would let her have rooms here, as the sea-air and pine-wood air would be so good for her. I meant to have made her very pertinacious, and very funny, and I wanted you to get quite cross with her, auntie dear,' and Taisy could not help a little sigh of regret. 'That was why the gypsy foretold that you were going to have another unexpected visitor. I wasn't quite happy about it. When I woke in the night, I felt as if I was carrying the trick too far, as you say. And then when I got Granny's letter about another real visitor, all of a sudden I felt so frightened – as if my joke had been turned into earnest as a punishment for my – my daring to predict anything.'

'Yes, I understand,' said mamma; 'but do not get exaggerated about it.'

Then she was silent for a moment or two and seemed to be thinking it over.

'Was Esmé to have come again?' I asked.

Taisy shook her head.

'Oh no – it was on condition of her keeping quite out of the way the second time – for of course she would have begun giggling if she had seen me, and spoilt it all – that I let her act the gypsy boy.'

'I think,' said mamma, 'that I must unconsciously have recognised something about her – that it was some feeling of that kind that made me so sorry for the boy. But about the whole affair – well, yes, Taisy dear. Perhaps it was scarcely right – not quite respectful to one so much older than you as I am to let it go on so long. And not quite a good thing for Esmé.'

'I know – I see,' said Taisy very penitently.

'But,' mamma continued, 'don't exaggerate it now. I will – and you will help me to do so – put it all right by a little explanation to Esmé. And don't get it into your head that the coincidence of a real visitor being proposed to us is in any way a "punishment" to you for your piece of fun, though I can understand your feeling startled.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Taisy, 'I shall never forget what I felt when I opened Granny's letter and saw what it was about.'

'Then,' said mamma, 'you had no sort of idea that the thing was the least possible?'

'Not the very slightest,' Taisy replied. 'You see it has happened unexpectedly to every one.'

'Yes,' said mamma, glancing again at her letter; 'but you know Rolf?'

'I have not seen him for more than a year,' said Taisy. 'He spent one or two short holidays with us when his aunt, Miss Merry, was with Granny. He is a very nice boy. I am sure George would like him, though he is two years or so older than Dods.'

I was growing rather impatient by this time to hear all about the contents of the letters which had caused such a sensation.

'Do tell me about it, mamma,' I said. 'Is it some one else coming to stay with us? Where could we put any one?'

Taisy began to laugh.

'That's the fun of it,' she said. 'It's another snail – some one who will bring his house with him!'

Mamma laughed too, but I could see that she was thinking over the new proposal, whatever it was, rather seriously. Then between them they told me all about it.

It appeared that Aunt Emmeline's friend, Miss Merry, had a nephew, the son of a sister, much, much younger than herself, who had died some years ago. The boy's father was in India, so he sometimes, though not always, spent his holidays with his aunt. And this spring something had happened – I forget what exactly – illness at his school, or his leaving school for some reason, sooner than had been expected – which left him with nowhere to go to for some time.

'As ill-luck would have it,' Lady Emmeline wrote to mother, 'just as Taisy had gone to you, and Bertha Merry and I were settled cosily together, down comes this thunderbolt in the shape of a great hobbledehoy of a boy, who would be utterly out of his element with two elderly ladies and sure to get into mischief. Not that he is not a nice fellow and a good boy – I know him to be both, otherwise I would certainly not propose what I am going to do.'

And this was the proposal which she had written about – she or Miss Merry, or both perhaps – to Taisy too – that Rolf should come to us at the Hut, and join Geordie, if possible, in his lessons with Mr. Lloyd, and be just one of the family for the time. He would be as happy as a boy could be; of that his aunt was sure, and would do anything in his power, like a big brother, to help mamma with the younger ones. But the fun of the thing was, that he would bring his room with him! There would be no difficulty about the expense of it. His father was rich and Rolf an only child, and his aunt was free to spend whatever she thought right upon him, and being a very energetic little woman, as I think many old maids are, she had already written to some place where such things were to be got, to get sizes and prices and everything required for a neat little iron room, fitted up as a bedroom; and if mamma was so very, very kind as to agree to take him in, Rolf would be ready to come the very next week.

Of course we talked it over a lot. It had to be considered if Hoskins and Margery could manage another guest, and we were almost surprised to find how pleased Hoskins was about it. 'Miss Theresa,' she said, 'was such a help; there had not seemed half so much to do since she came. And the weather was getting so nice and mild, we would scarcely need fires at all soon, except perhaps 'a little bit, of an evening in the drawing-room.' And it would be such a good thing for Master George to have a companion a little older than himself before going to school, which mamma in her own mind had already thought the same about.

I never knew Hoskins quite so cheery about anything. I think the truth was, that she had thoroughly enjoyed the gypsy mystification which had been confided to her. And I believe, at the bottom of her heart, she thought that somehow or other Taisy had had a sudden gift of prediction, and that it would be very unlucky to refuse to receive the unlooked-for visitor.

Anyhow it ended in mamma's writing to Aunt Emmeline and Miss Merry, consenting pleasantly to Rolf's joining us, provided he promised, or they for him, to be content with our present very simple quarters and way of living.

'That I am sure he will be,' said Taisy, who had quite recovered her spirits by the time, or rather long before, the letters were written. 'Any boy would be a goose who wasn't delighted with the Hut, and Rolf is certainly not a goose.'

The only person who did not seem quite pleased about it was George. At first I thought this very strange, as naturally you would have expected him to be very delighted at the idea of a companion of his own standing, so to say, which he had never had. But Dods was a queer boy in some respects. He is less so now on the whole, though he is just as dear and 'old-fashioned,' in nice ways, as ever, and I do think the right ways in which he has changed are a good deal thanks to Rolf.

Perhaps Geordie was a little jealous of him before he came, without knowing it. It was not unnatural, considering everything. Poor old Dods, you see, had been left by papa in his own place, as the 'man' of the party, and we had all got into the habit of looking to him and even asking his opinion as if he were much older than he really was. And then he was so devoted to Taisy; he looked upon himself as a sort of knight to her, I do believe, for down below his matter-of-factness and practicalness, I know now that there is a good deal of romance, and what I can only call poeticalness in dear Geordie, so that the idea of a big, handsome, rather dashing fellow coming to take place above him must have been rather trying.

I shall never forget the day Rolf arrived. I had been feeling sorry for Geordie, as I had begun to understand his rather disagreeable manner about Rolf, and yet provoked with him too. I did not see after all, I thought to myself, why he should mind Rolf's coming, any more than I minded Taisy. For though Taisy was our own cousin and we loved her dearly, she could not but take a little the place of eldest daughter with mamma, and if she had not been so sweet, it might have been uncomfortable.

And after all, Rolf was a stranger – and only to be with us a short time. There was far less chance of his really interfering with Geordie's own place.

These things however are not often set straight by reasoning about them.

It is the people themselves – their characters and ways and feelings – that put it all right if it is to be put right.

And just as Taisy's brightness and unselfishness and simpleness – I can't find a better word – kept away any possibility of jealousy of her on my own part, so it was with Rolf. He and she were no sort of relation to each other, and yet in some ways they were very alike. I never did know, and I am sure I never shall know, any one with such a thoroughly straightforward, unfanciful, and yet very loving and sympathising heart as Rolf. When I think – but no, I must not allude to that yet – I could scarcely bear to write of these past happy days if I did.

But I am wandering away from the day of Rolf's arrival. It was not of course a 'balloon surprise,' as Dods called Taisy's shooting down upon us as she had done, for we knew exactly what train he was coming by, and everything. And it was not so like a 'snail's visit,' which was Taisy's own name for hers, as in this case the house came before the snail – the day before.

It was a different kind of thing from the parish room – that very substantial affair. This was more like a strong, stout kind of tent – only it did not go up to a quite small point at the top, as I had imagined all tents do. But it was partly made of stretched canvas, with iron rods and bars, and the men who put it up told us it was fireproof as well as waterproof, which mamma was very glad to hear, especially when she saw that a small stove was among the furnishings that came with it.

George was very pleased to find that the men from Kirke who had received full directions about it all, from the makers, had instructions to set it up wherever we thought best. It almost reconciled him, I could see, to the idea of the stranger boy's visit – even to being pleased at it.

And we three – Taisy and Geordie and I – were not long in finding the best place for the new addition to our encampment. We made it a sort of match, on the other side, to Taisy's waggon, though, as it was much prettier to look at, it was placed so that a bit of it showed from the front of the house in a rather picturesque way.

Inside it really was awfully nice when we got the things unpacked. There was everything that could be wanted for camping out, for I don't think the people had understood that only an additional bedroom was required. They had even sent pots and pans and things like that for cooking, if required, on the stove.

'All the better,' said Hoskins, whose face grew beamier and beamier with every article that appeared. 'I shall not be put about now if anything goes wrong with the kitchen fire, as has been at the back of my mind now and then. Master Dacre, by what Miss Theresa says, isn't one to grumble if we had to do a bit of cooking in his room, once in a way.'

'No, indeed,' said Taisy laughing; 'he'd think it the best of fun and be quite ready to act kitchen-maid.'

She declared she was getting quite jealous, as all the perfectly new and fresh furniture and fittings were set in their places, for of course her waggon had been provided with what she required in rather a makeshift way. There were tables and chairs and hanging presses and bookshelves all made to fold up into next to no compass; a squashy bath, which I did not envy, as I was sure it would topple over and all the water be spilt. And there was a lovely red carpet, or strips of it, so thick and firm, which I did envy, as what we had in our rooms was rather shabby, and two or three rugs, which, by the bye, soon found their way to the inside of the Hut, when Rolf discovered that we liked them, declaring that they were always kicking about in his way.

'Yes,' said mamma, when we summoned her to see and admire, 'it is wonderfully nice. And I am glad it has all come the day before. It makes it seem more like Rolf's being our guest, that his room should be all ready to receive him.'

Then Esmé made us laugh. She had been standing gazing at it all with her mouth wide open, as was her way when very much interested or very admiring. And then she said, solemnly for once —

'He must be very – termenjously rich!'

After all, something of a surprise did come with Rolf, which I must now tell about.

CHAPTER XI

'I MADE SURE OF THAT,' SAID ROLF

We heard it – the surprise I mean – almost before we heard the wheels of the fly from Kirke, bringing the visitor that was expected. For the drive from the lodge is on well-rolled gravel, and as there had been a few showers lately, it was soft, and you scarcely hear a carriage coming in that case.

But what we did hear, as we stood about waiting to welcome Rolf cordially, was a sharp, clear little voice, not talking, but – barking, and then, almost at the same moment, we caught sight of the fly, as it reached the turn at which anything coming up the drive could be seen from the Hut.

'I do believe,' I exclaimed, turning to Taisy, – 'I do believe he has got a dog!'

Taisy shook her head.

'I don't know of it if he has,' she said; 'and I don't think he would have brought one without asking if he might.'

Taisy looked a little frightened. She felt somehow as if she were rather responsible for Rolf, especially on account of the gypsy affair!

'It may be a dog belonging to the flyman,' I went on; 'though in that case it would probably be running alongside, and it doesn't sound as if it were.'

Our doubts were soon set at rest.

When the fly drew up, not at the front – there was no place for carriages there, but on a piece of level ground a little towards the back on one side – out sprang our visitor – a tall, fair boy, a good bit taller than Geordie, with nice blue eyes and a very sunny look about him, altogether. And – in his arms he held – as if very much afraid of losing it – the dearest, duckiest, little rough-haired terrier you ever saw!

Rolf – for of course it was Rolf – looking just a trifle shy, for which we – Geordie and I – liked him all the better – turned at once to Taisy, as if to a sort of protector. But he could not hold out his hand, as it was all he could do with both hands to keep the frightened doggie from escaping there and then from his grasp.

'How funny!' I thought. 'Why doesn't he let him go? He wouldn't want to run away from his own master!'

'I can't shake hands, Taisy – but how are you?' Rolf by this time was saying: 'Will you introduce me to your cousins? This little beggar – I declare he's as slippery as an eel, in spite of his coat.'

We needed no introduction – we all pressed round him to look at the terrier.

'Is he so nervous?' said Taisy. 'Has the railway frightened him?'

'Oh no, I don't think so. He was just as bad before we got into the train. It's just strangeness' was the rather puzzling reply.

'"Strangeness,"' Taisy repeated, while Geordie and I looked up in surprise, – 'strangeness, with his own master holding him?'

Rolf gave a funny little laugh, and grew rather red.

'Oh, but,' he said, 'you see, he doesn't know I'm his master, and I don't want him to. It isn't worth while. I – I only bought him this morning from the keeper at Millings – you know Millings?' – Taisy nodded; it was a place near Lady Emmeline's. 'I asked him to be on the lookout for one as soon as I knew about coming here. I thought he'd suit Miss Lanark, as you once said something about her wanting a really nice little dog,' and he smiled at me in his frank, boyish way.

It was quite true! Rolf must have a good memory, for it was fully six months ago that I had once said in writing to Taisy that papa had given me leave to have a dog of my very own if I could get a good-tempered, well-bred one, and that she must let me know if she came across a personage of the kind. For, though it seems odd that, living in the country, we had never had a pet of the kind, it was the case. I think papa and mamma had rather discouraged it, till we were old enough to treat a dog well and not to risk being ill-treated by him!