Black, White and Gray Part 6

"I'm going to see Tuvvy now," he said. "I'll come back for you presently, Maisie;" and he was almost out of the door before he was stopped by a call from Anne.

"You'll not find him to-day, Master Dennis," she said. "He's not at work."

"Not at work!" repeated Dennis, turning round with a downcast face.

"Why isn't he at work? Is he ill?"

Old Sally had been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her lips and shaking her head solemnly ever since Tuvvy's name had been mentioned. At Dennis's question her face looked full of dark meaning.

"Worse nor that," she said. "He's had a bout. He'll do it once too often, and get sacked. He can't expect Master Andrew to put up with it."

"But he couldn't ever get such a good wheelwright as Tuvvy again, could he?" said Dennis eagerly. "Tuvvy can do so many things, and he's so clever and quick."

"Oh, he's _clever_ enough, and he's _quick_ enough, is Tuvvy," agreed old Sally: "'tain't that; but he can't keep steady--that's where it is.

He'll go on right enough for a bit, and then he'll have a reg'lar break-out. It's cruel hard on his wife and children, so it is."

"Why _does_ he do it?" said Dennis mournfully.

Old Sally gave a sort of low chuckle.

"Lor, Master Dennis, the men are made like that. They can't help it."

Dennis usually took all old Sally said for granted, considering that her knowledge of men and things must be very great, but he hesitated a little at this sweeping remark.

"They're not _all_ like that," he said; "there's Mr Hurst, and Mr Solace, and a whole lot more. Do you think Mr Solace will turn Tuvvy away this time?"

But as to this, neither old Sally nor Anne could give any idea at all.

Mr Solace was a kind man for certain, but then again he was a just man too, and a man of his word. Anne had heard him say with her own ears that the next time Tuvvy broke out, he would get the sack. But there was no telling.

Dennis left the cottage with a weight on his mind which nothing could lift. One of his greatest pleasures would be gone if there were no Tuvvy in the barn for the future. A new wheelwright would most likely be a complete stranger, and not the same thing at all. Why would he be so silly as to break out? Could nothing be done to stop him?

Maisie, too, was rather sober and silent on the way back, for though a home for the grey kitten had now been found, she felt that she should miss it very much, and could not bear the idea of parting with it. It had such coaxing ways, and was so weak and helpless, that it seemed to need her more than the others, and to want her help and affection.

She went to pay a last visit to the kittens before she went to bed that night, and found them all curled up in a soft little heap in their basket. As usual, the grey kitten was lying underneath the others, who were sprawling over it, quite regardless of its comfort.

Maisie lifted it out, held it up to her face, and kissed it gently.

"Dear little kitty," she whispered, "you've got a home at last. You're to go and catch mice for old Sally's Eliza, and I do hope you'll be happy."

CHAPTER FOUR.

PHILIPPA'S BIRTHDAY.

The three kittens were just a month old on the last day of March, and this was also Philippa Trevor's birthday. She would have liked her birthday to be in the summer, because an out-of-doors party was so much nicer than an indoors one, but even Philippa could not arrange everything in the world as she wished. So she was obliged to put up with a birthday which came in the spring, when there were very few leaves on the trees, and the gra.s.s was generally too wet to walk on, and the sky often cold and grey. Philippa had found that she could get most things by crying for them, but still there remained some quite beyond her reach, and unmoved by her tears, and it was just these that she most wanted and wailed for when she was in a perverse mood. These were times of discomfort throughout the house, and of great distress to her mother and Miss Mervyn, for with the best will in the world they could not make the rain stop nor the sun shine, nor time go quicker. Yet, if Philippa cried herself ill, as she often did for some such unreasonable whim, it was so very bad for her.

"We must keep the child cheerful, my dear madam," Dr Smith had said to Mrs Trevor. "The nerves are delicate. She must be amused without excitement, and never allowed to work herself into a pa.s.sion, or to be violently distressed about anything. It will be well to yield to her, if possible, rather than to thwart her."

But though he said "we," the doctor went away, and it was those who lived with Philippa who had to carry out this difficult task. The last part of it was easy, only it did not seem to produce the desired result.

Philippa was yielded to in everything, but instead of being cheerful and contented, she became more fretful and dissatisfied, had less self-control than ever, and flew into pa.s.sions about the very smallest trifles. This was the case on the morning of her birthday, when there were two things which seriously displeased her. One was the weather, for, instead of being fine and sunshiny, it rained so hard that it seemed doubtful whether her little friends would come to the party. The other was, that the musical box which her mother had promised her, and which was to play twelve tunes, did not arrive as early as she expected.

"It's all as horrid as it can be," she said sulkily when Miss Mervyn tried to comfort her. "I don't care a bit for the other presents if the musical box doesn't come.--And it's raining harder than ever.

Everything's horrid."

"It will clear up very likely by the afternoon," said Miss Mervyn.

"But if it does," whined Philippa, "and if they all come, I shan't have my musical box to show them."

"Perhaps it will come before then," said Miss Mervyn patiently, and at that minute a small covered hamper was brought into the room.

"A parcel from Fieldside for Miss Philippa," said the servant.

"Then it's _not_ the musical box," said Philippa, who had looked up with renewed hope.

"I wonder what it can be," said Miss Mervyn. "Something alive, I think.

Come, Philippa, let us open it."

She cut the cord as she spoke, and Philippa advanced languidly to the table to see what the hamper contained. When the lid was lifted, however, her expression changed to one of interest and surprise, for there, on a bed of straw, its fur beautifully clean, and a blue ribbon round its neck, lay the white kitten. It yawned as the light fell on it, and looking up at the strange faces, uttered a tiny mew.

"What is that card on its neck?" said Miss Mervyn.

"'From Maisie and Dennis, with love and good wishes,'" read Philippa, in a pleased and excited voice. For the moment the musical box had quite gone out of her head.

"I like it best of all the presents I've had yet," she said, and just then Mrs Trevor came into the room.

"Look, mother!" she exclaimed.

Seizing the kitten, she rushed forward and held it up to Mrs Trevor, whose gown was trimmed with an elegant ruffle of lace down the front; in this the kitten's sharp little claws at once entangled themselves.

"Ah, my lace!" she cried. "Take care, my love; it will scratch you.-- Miss Mervyn, pray remove the creature.--Yes, very pretty, my darling.

Who sent it to you?"

"Dennis and Maisie," said Philippa, squeezing the kitten under her arm.

"May I have it to sleep on my bed?"

"Ah no, dear," said Mrs Trevor absently, examining her torn lace with a slight frown; "that's not the proper place for kittens. Dear me, what sharp claws the little thing has, to be sure! I must let Briggs mend this at once."

She went out of the room, leaving the question to be further argued between Miss Mervyn and Philippa.

"I'm sure Dennis and Maisie don't have kittens to sleep with them," said the former.

"Then you're just wrong," said Philippa triumphantly, "because Dennis's dog Peter always sleeps in his room, and that's just the same."

The white kitten had now struggled out of her clutches, and was wandering sadly round the room in search of its old friends and relations. It seemed likely to make one more subject for dispute at Haughton Park, where from the time Philippa got up till she went to bed, there was already no end to the wrangling. Confused by finding itself in a strange land where nothing familiar met its eye, it at last took refuge under a book-case, and when Philippa looked round, it was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, my darling little kitten is lost!" she exclaimed.

Miss Mervyn, who did not like cats or any other animals, would not have been sorry if this had been the case, but Philippa was preparing to shed a torrent of tears, and this must be avoided at any cost.