Esther Part 10

I think there is no interest in life compared to knowing people --finding them out, their tastes, character, and so forth. I had an inquisitive delight, I called it thirst, for human knowledge, in drawing out a stranger; no traveler exploring unknown tracts of country ever pursued his researches with greater zeal and interest.

Reserve only attracts me.

Impulsive people, who let out their feelings the first moment, do not interest me half so much as silent folk. I like to sit down before an enclosed citadel and besiege it; with such ramparts of defense there must be precious store in the heart of the city, some hidden jewels, perhaps; at least, so I argue with myself.

But, happy as I was with Miss Lucas and Flurry, five o'clock no sooner struck than I was flying down the oak staircase, with Flurry peeping at me between the bal.u.s.trades, and waving a mite of a hand in token of adieu; for was I not going home to mother and Dot? Oh, the dear, bright home scene that always awaited me! I wonder if Carrie loved it as I did! The homely, sunny little parlors; the cozy tea table, over which old Martha would be hovering with careful face and hands; mother in her low chair by the garden window; Uncle Geoffrey with his books and papers at the little round table; Dot and Jack hidden in some corner, out of which Dot would come stumping on his poor little crutches to kiss me, and ask after his little friend Flurry.

"Here comes our Dame Bustle," Uncle Geoffrey would say. It was his favorite name for me, and mother would look up and greet me with the same loving smile that was never wanting on her dear face.

On the stairs I generally came upon Carrie, coming down from her little room.

"How are the little Thornes?" I would ask her, cheerfully; but by-and-by I left off asking her about them. At first she used to shrug her shoulders and shake her head in a sort of disconsolate fashion, or answered indifferently: "Oh, much as usual, thank you." But once she returned, quite pettishly:

"Why do you ask after those odious children, Esther? Why cannot you let me forget them for a few hours? If we are brickmakers, we need not always be telling the tales of our bricks." She finished with a sort of weary tone in her tired voice, and after that I let the little Thornes alone.

What happy evenings those were! Not that we were idle, though--"the saints forbid," as old Biddy used to say. When tea was over, mother and I betook ourselves to the huge mending basket; sometimes Carrie joined us, when she was not engaged in district work, and then her clever fingers made the work light for us.

Then there were Jack's lessons to superintend, and sometimes I had to help Dot with his drawing, or copy out papers for Uncle Geoffrey: then by-and-by Dot had to be taken upstairs, and there were little things to do for mother when Carrie was too tired or busy to do them.

Mother was Carrie's charge. As Dot and Jack were mine, it was a fair division of labor, only somehow Carrie had always so much to do.

Mother used to fret sometimes about it, and complain that Carrie sat up too late burning the midnight oil in her little room; but I never could find out what kept her up. I was much happier about Carrie now --she seemed brighter and in better spirits. If she loathed her daily drudgery, she said little about it, and complained less. All her interests were reserved for Nightingale lane and Rowley street. The hours spent in those unsavory neighborhoods were literally her times of refreshment. Her poor people were very close to her heart, and often she told us about them as we sat working together in the evening, until mother grew quite interested, and used to ask after them by name, which pleased Carrie, and made a bond of sympathy between them. At such times I somehow felt a little sad, though I would not have owned it for worlds, for it seemed to me as though my work were so trivial compared to Carrie's--as though I were a poor little Martha, "careful and troubled about many things" about, Deborah's crossness and Jack's reckless ways, occupied with small minor duties--dressing Dot, and tidying Jack's and Uncle Geoffrey's drawers; while Carrie was doing angel's work; reclaiming drunken women, and teaching miserable degraded children, and then coming home and playing sweet sacred fragments of Handel to soothe mother's worn spirits, or singing her the hymns she loved. Alas! I could not sing except in church, and my playing was a poor affair compared to Carrie's.

I felt it most on Sundays, when Carrie used to go off to the Sunday school morning and afternoon, and left me to the somewhat monotonous task of hearing Jack her catechism and giving Dot his Scripture lesson. Sunday was always a trial to Dot. He was not strong enough to go to church--the service would have wearied him too much--his few lessons were soon done, and then time used to hang heavily on his hands.

At last the grand idea came to me to set him to copy Scripture maps, and draw small ill.u.s.trations of any Biblical scene that occurred in the lesson of the day. I have a book full of his childish fancies now, all elaborately colored on week-days--"Joseph and his Brethren"

in gaudy turbans, and wonderfully inexpressive countenances, reminding me of Flurry's dolls; the queen of Sheba, coming before Solomon, in a marvelous green tiara and yellow garments; a headless Goliath, expressed with a painful degree of detail, more fit for the Wirtz Gallery than a child's sc.r.a.p-book.

Dot used frequently to write letters to Allan, to which I often added copious postscripts. I never could coax Dot to write to Fred, though Fred sent him plenty of kind messages, and many a choice little parcel of sc.r.a.ps and odds and ends, such as Dot liked.

Fred was getting on tolerably, he always told us. He had rooms in St. John's Wood, which he shared with two other artists; he was working hard, and had some copying orders. Allan saw little of him; they had no friends in common, and no community of taste. Never were brothers less alike or with less sympathy.

CHAPTER X.

"I WISH I HAD A DOT OF MY OWN."

Months pa.s.sed over, and found us the same busy, tranquil little household. I used to wonder how my letters could interest Allan so much as he said they did; I could find so little to narrate. And, talking of that, it strikes me that we are not sufficiently thankful for the monotony of life. I speak advisedly; I mean for the quiet uniformity and routine of our daily existence. In our youth we quarrel a little with its sameness and regularity; it is only when the storms of sudden crises and unlooked-for troubles break over our thankful heads that we look back with regret to those still days of old.

Nothing seemed to happen, nothing looked different. Mother grew a little stronger as the summer pa.s.sed, and took a few more household duties on herself. Dot pined and pinched as the cold weather came on, as he always did, and looked a shivering, shabby Dot sometimes.

Jack's legs grew longer, and her frocks shorter, and we had to tie her hair to keep it out of her eyes, and she stooped more, and grew round-shouldered, which added to her list of beauties; but no one expected grace from Jack.

At the Cedars things went on as usual, that Flurry left off calling me Miss Cameron, and took to Esther instead, somewhat scandalizing Miss Lucas, until she began taking to it herself. "For you are so young, and you are more Flurry's playfellow than her governess," she said apologetically; "it is no good being stiff when we are such old friends." And after that I always called her Miss Ruth.

"Don't you want see to Roseberry, Esther?" asked Flurry, one day --that was the name of the little seaside place where Mr. Lucas had a cottage. "Aunt Ruth says you must come down with us next summer; she declares she has quite set her heart on it."

"Oh, Flurry, that would be delightful!--but how could I leave mother and Dot?" I added in a regretful parenthesis. That was always the burden of my song--Mother and Dot.

"Dot must come, too," p.r.o.nounced Flurry, decidedly; and she actually proposed to Miss Ruth at luncheon that "Esther's little brother should be invited to Roseberry." Miss Ruth looked at me with kindly amused eyes, as I grew crimson and tried to hush Flurry.

"We shall see," she returned, in her gentle voice; "if Esther will not go without Dot, Dot must come too." But though the bare idea was too delightful, I begged Miss Ruth not to entertain such an idea for a moment.

I think Flurry's little speech put a kind thought into Miss Ruth's head, for when she next invited us to drive with her, the gray horses stopped for an instant at Uncle Geoffrey's door, and the footman lifted Dot in his little fur-lined coat, and placed him at Miss Ruth's side. And seeing the little lad's rapture, and Flurry's childish delight, she often called for him, sometimes when she was alone, for she said Dot never troubled her; he could be as quiet as a little mouse when her head ached and she was disinclined to talk.

I said nothing happened; but one day I had a pleasant surprise, just when I did not deserve it; for it was one of my fractious days--days of moods and tenses I used to called them--when nothing seemed quite right, when I was beset by that sort of grown-up fractiousness that wants to be petted and put to bed, and bidden to lie still like a tired child.

Winter had set in in downright earnest, and in those cold dark mornings early rising seemed an affront to the understanding, and a snare to be avoided by all right-minded persons; yet notwithstanding all that, a perverse, fidgety notion of duty drove me with a scourge of mental thorns from my warm bed. For I was young and healthy, and why should I lie there while Deborah and Martha broke the ice in their pitchers, and came downstairs with rasped red faces and acidulated tempers? I was thankful not to do likewise, to know I should hear in a few minutes a surly tap at the door, with the little hot-water can put down with protesting evidence. Even then it was hard work to flesh and blood, with no dewy lawn, no bird music now to swell my morning's devotion with tiny chorus of praise; only a hard frozen up world, with a trickle of meager sunshine running through it.

But my hardest work was with Dot; he used to argue drowsily with me while I stood shivering and awaiting his pleasure. Why did I not go down to the fire if I were cold? He was not going to get up in the middle of the night to please any one; never mind the robins--of which I reminded him gently--he wished he were a robin too, and could get up and go to bed with a neat little feather bed tacked to his skin--nice, cosy little fellows; and then he would draw the bedclothes round his thin little shoulders, and try to maintain his position.

He quite whimpered on the morning in question, when I lifted him out bodily--such a miserable Dot, looking like a starved dove in his white plumage; but he cheered up at the sight of the fire and hot coffee in the snug parlor, and whispered a little entreaty for forgiveness as I stooped over him to make him comfortable.

"You are tired, Esther," said my mother tenderly, when she saw my face that morning; "you must not get up so early this cold weather, my dear." But I held my peace, for who would dress Dot, and what would become of Jack? And then came a little lump in my throat, for I was tired and fractious.

When I got to the Cedars a solemn stillness reigned in the nursery, and instead of an orderly room a perfect chaos of doll revelry prevailed. All the chairs were turned into extempore beds, and the twelve dolls, with bandaged heads and arms, were tucked up with the greatest care.

Flurry met me with an air of great importance and her finger on her lip.

"Hush, Esther, you must not make a noise. I am Florence Nightingale, and these are all the poor sick and wounded soldiers; look at this one, this is Corporal Trim, and he has had his two legs shot off."

I recognized Corporal Trim under his bandages; he was the very doll Flossy had so grievously maltreated and had robbed of an eye; the waxen tip of his nose was gone, and a great deal of his flaxen wig besides--quite a caricature of a mutilated veteran.

I called Flurry to account a little sternly, and insisted on her restoring order to the room. Flurry pouted and sulked; her heart was at Scutari, and her wits went wool-gathering, and refused dates and the multiplication table. To make matters worse, it commenced snowing, and there was no prospect of a walk before luncheon. Miss Ruth did not come down to that meal, and afterward I sat and knitted in grim silence. Discipline must be maintained, and as Flurry would not work, neither would I play with her; but I do not know which of us was punished the most.

"Oh, how cross you are, Esther, and it is Christmas eve!" cried Flurry at last, on the verge of crying. It was growing dusk, and already shadows lurked in the corner of the room, Flurry looked at me so wistfully that I am afraid I should have relented and gone on a little with Juliet, only at that moment she sprang up joyfully at the sound of her aunt's voice calling her, and ran out to the top of the dark staircase.

"We are to go down, you and I; Aunt Ruth wants us," she exclaimed, laying violent hands on my work. I felt rather surprised at the summons, for Miss Ruth never called us at this hour, and it would soon be time for me to go home.

The drawing-room looked the picture of warm comfort as we entered it; some glorious pine logs were crackling and spluttering in the grate, sending out showers of colored sparks.

Miss Ruth was half-buried in her easy-chair, with her feet on the white fleecy rug, and the little square tea-table stood near her, with its silver kettle and the tiny blue teacups.

"You have sent for us, Miss Ruth," I said, as I crossed the room to her; but at that instant another figure I had not seen started up from a dark corner, and caught hold of me in rough, boyish fashion.

"Allan! oh Allan! Allan!" my voice rising into a perfect crescendo of ecstasy at the sight of his dear dark face. Could anything be more deliciously unexpected? And there was Miss Ruth laughing very softly to herself at my pleasure.

"Oh, Allan, what does this mean," I demanded, "when you told us there was no chance of your spending Christmas with us? Have you been home? Have you seen mother and Dot? Have you come here to fetch me home?"

Allan held up his hands as he took a seat near me.

"One question at a time, Esther. I had unexpected leave of absence for a week, and that is why you see me; and as I wanted to surprise you all, I said nothing about it. I arrived about three hours ago, and as mother thought I might come and fetch you, why I thought I would, and that you would be pleased to see me; that is all my story," finished Allan, exchanging an amused glance with Miss Ruth.

They had never met before, and yet they seemed already on excellent terms. All an made no sort of demur when Miss Ruth insisted that we should both have some tea to warm us before we went. I think he felt at home with her at once.

Flurry seemed astonished at our proceeding. She regarded Allan for a long time very solemnly, until he won her heart by admiring Flossy; then she condescended to converse with him.

"Are you Esther's brother, really?"

"Yes, Miss Florence--I believe that is your name."