Esther Part 17

"Broken china, indeed!" muttered Uncle Geoff when I had finished reading this clause. "Broken fiddlesticks! Why, the lad must be weak in his head to spend his money on such rubbish." Uncle Geoffrey was never very civil to Fred.

Dot did not say any more, and I began a long story, to keep his tongue quiet. As it was purposely uninteresting, and told in a monotonous voice, it soon had the effect of making him drowsy. When I reached this point, I stole softly from the room. It was bright moonlight when I lay down in bed, and all night long I dreamed of a rippling sea and broad sands, over which Dot and I were walking, hand in hand.

CHAPTER XV.

LIFE AT THE BRAMBLES.

It was a lovely evening when we arrived at Roseberry.

"We lead regular hermit lives at the Brambles, away from the haunts of men," observed Miss Ruth; but I was too much occupied to answer her. Dot and I were peeping through the windows of the little omnibus that was conveying us and our luggage to the cottage. Miss Ruth had a pretty little pony carriage for country use; but she would not have it sent to the station to meet us--the omnibus would hold us all, she said. Nurse could go outside; the other two servants who made up the modest establishment at the Brambles had arrived the previous day.

Roseberry was a straggling little place, without much pretension to gentility. A row of white lodging-houses, with green verandas, looked over the little parade; there was a railed-in green enclosure before the houses, where a few children played.

Half a dozen bathing-machines were drawn up on the beach; beyond was the Preventive station, and the little white cottages where the Preventive men lived, with neat little gardens in front.

The town was rather like Milnthorpe, for it boasted only one long street. A few modest shops, the Blue Boar Inn, and a bow-windowed house, with "Library" painted on it in large characters, were mixed up with pleasant-looking dwelling houses. The little gray church was down a country road, and did not look as though it belonged to the town, but the schools were in High street. Beyond Roseberry were the great rolling downs.

We had left the tiny parade and the lodging houses behind us, and our little omnibus seemed jolting over the beach--I believe they called it a road but it was rough and stony, and seemed to lead to the sh.o.r.e. It was quite a surprise when we drove sharply round a low rocky point, and came upon a low gray cottage, with a little garden running down to the beach.

Truly a hermit's abode, the Brambles; not another house in sight; low, white chalky cliffs, with the green downs above them, and, far as we could see, a steep beach, with long fringes of yellow sands, with the grey sea breaking softly in the distance, for it was low tide, and the sun had set.

"Is this too lonely for you, Esther?" asked Miss Ruth, as we walked up the pebbly path to the porch. It was a deep stone porch, with seats on either side, and its depth gave darkness to the little square hall, with its stone fireplace and oak settles.

"What a delicious place!" was my answer, as I followed her from one room into another. The cottage was a perfect nest of cozy little rooms, all very tiny, and leading into each other.

There was a snug dining-room that led into Mr. Lucas' study, and beyond that two little drawing-rooms, very small, and simply though prettily furnished. They were perfect summer rooms, with their Indian matting and muslin curtains, with wicker chairs and lounges, and brackets with Miss Ruth's favorite china.

Upstairs the arrangements were just as simple; not a carpet was to be seen, only dark polishes floors and strips of Indian matting, cool chintz coverings, and furniture of the simplest maple and pine wood --a charming summer retreat, fitted up with unostentatious taste. There was a tiny garden at the back, shut in by a low chalk cliff, a rough zigzag path that goats might have climbed led to the downs, and there was a breach where we could enjoy the sweet air and wide prospect.

It was quite a cottage garden. All the old-fashioned flowers bloomed there; little pink cabbage roses, Turks-caps, lilies, lupins, and monkshood and columbines. Everlasting peas and scarlet-runners ran along the wall, and wide-lipped convolvuli, scarlet weeds of poppies flaunted beside the delicate white harebells, sweet-william and gillyflowers, and humble southernwood, and homely pinks and fragrant clove carnations, and pansies of every shade in purple and golden patches.

"Oh, Essie, it reminds me of our cottage; why, there are the lilies and the beehives, and there is the porch where you said you should sit on summer evenings and mend Allan's socks." And Dot leaned on his crutches and looked round with bright wide-open eyes.

Our little dream cottage; well, it was not unlike it, only the sea and the downs and the low chalk cliffs were added. How Dot and I grew to love that garden! There was an old medlar tree, very gnarled and crooked, under which Miss Ruth used to place her little tea-table; the wicker chairs were brought out and there we often used to spend our afternoons, with little blue b.u.t.terflies hovering round us, and the bees humming among the sweet thyme and marjoram, and sometimes an adventurous sheep looking down on us from the cliff.

We led a perfect gypsy life at the Brambles; no one called on us, the vicar of Roseberry was away, and a stranger had taken his duty; no interloper from the outer world broke the peaceful monotony of our days, and the sea kept up its plaintive music night and day, and the larks sang to us, and the busy humming of insect life made an undertone of melody, and in early mornings the little garden seemed steeped in dew and fragrance. We used to rise early, and after breakfast Flurry and I bathed. There was a little bathing-room beyond the cottage with a sort of wooden bridge running over the beach, and there Flurry and I would disport ourselves like mermaids.

After a brisk run on the sands or over the downs, we joined Miss Ruth on the beach, where we worked and talked, or helped the children build sand-castles, and deck them with stone and sea-weeds. What treasures we collected for Carrie's Sunday scholars; what stores of bright-colored seaweed--or sea flowers, as Dot persisted in calling them--and heaps of faintly-tinged sh.e.l.ls!

Flurry's doll family had accompanied us to the Brambles. "The poor dear things wanted change of air!" Flurry had decided; and in spite of my dissuasion, all the fair waxen creatures and their heterogeneous wardrobe had been consigned to a vast trunk.

Flurry's large family had given her infinite trouble when we settled for our mornings on the beach. She traveled up and down the long stony hillocks to the cottage until her little legs ached, to fetch the twelve dolls. When they were all deposited in their white sun-bonnets under a big umbrella, to save their complexions, which, notwithstanding, suffered severely, then, and then only, would Flurry join Dot on the narrow sands.

Sometimes the tide rose, or a sudden shower came on, and then great was the confusion. Once a receding wave carried out Corporal Trim, the most unlucky of dolls, to sea. Flurry wrung her hands and wept so bitterly over this disaster that Miss Ruth was quite frightened, and Flossy jumped up and licked his little mistress' face and the faces of the dolls by turns.

"Oh, the dear thing is drownded," sobbed Flurry, as Corporal Trim floundered hopelessly in the surge. Dot's soft heart was so moved by her distress that he hobbled into the water, crutches and all, to my infinite terror.

"Don't cry. Flurry; I've got him by the hair of his head," shouted Dot, valiantly shouldering the dripping doll. Flurry ran down the beach with the tears still on her cheeks, and took the wretched corporal and hugged him to her bosom.

"Oh, my poor drownded Trim," cried Flurry tenderly, and a strange procession formed to the cottage. Flurry with the poor victim in her arms and Flossy jumping and barking delightedly round her, and s.n.a.t.c.hing at the wet rags; Dot, also, wet and miserable, toiling up the beach on his crutches; Miss Ruth and I following with the eleven dolls.

The poor corporal spent the rest of the day watching his own clothes drying by the kitchen fire, where Dot kept him company; Flurry trotted in and out, and petted them both. I am afraid Dot, being a boy, often found the dolls a nuisance, and could have dispensed with their company. There was a grand quarrel once when he flatly refused to carry one. "I can't make believe to be a girl," said Dot, curling his lip with infinite contempt.

"We used to spend our afternoons in the garden. It was cooler than the beach, and the shade of the old medlar was refreshing. We sometimes read aloud to the children, but oftener they were working in their little gardens, or playing with some tame rabbits that belonged to Flurry. Dot always hobbled after Flurry wherever she went; he was her devoted slave. Flurry sometimes treated him like one of her dolls, or put on little motherly airs, in imitation of Miss Ruth.

"You are tired, my dear boy; pray lean on me," we heard her once say, propping him with her childish arm. "Sit down in the shade, you must not heat yourself;" but Dot rather resented her care of him, after the fashion of boys, but on the whole they suited each other perfectly.

In the evenings we always walked over the downs or drove with Miss Ruth in her pony carriage through the leafy lanes, or beside the yellow cornfields. The children used to gather large nosegays of poppies and cornflowers, and little pinky convolvuli. Sometimes we visited a farmhouse where some people lived whom Miss Ruth knew.

Once we stopped and had supper there, a homely meal of milk, and brown bread, and cream cheese, with a golden honeycomb to follow, which we ate in the farmyard kitchen. What an exquisite time we had there, sitting in the low window seat, looking over a bright clover field. A brood of little yellow chickens ran over the red-brick floor, a black retriever and her puppies lay before the fire--fat black puppies with blunt noses and foolish faces, turning over on their backs, and blundering under every one's feet.

Dot and Flurry went out to see the cows milked, and came back with long stories of the dear little white, curly-tailed pigs. Flurry wrote to her father the next day, and begged that he would buy her one for a pet. Both she and Dot were indignant when he told them the little pig they admired so much would become a great ugly sow like its mother.

Mrs. Blake, the farmer's wife, took a great fancy to Dot, and begged him to come again, which both the children promised her most earnestly to do. They both carried off spoils of bright red apples to eat on the way.

It was almost dark when we drove home through the narrow lanes; the hedgerows glimmered strangely in the dusk; a fresh sea-ladened wind blew in our faces across the downs, the lights shone from the Preventive station, and across the vague mist glimmered a star or two. How fragrant and still it was, only the soft washing of the waves on the beach to break the silence!

Miss Ruth shivered a little as we rattled down the road leading to the Brambles. Dorcas, mindful of her mistress' delicacy, had lighted a little fire in the inner drawing-room, and had hot coffee waiting for us.

It looked so snug and inviting that the children left it reluctantly to go to bed; but Miss Ruth was inexorable. This was our cozy hour; all through the day we had to devote ourselves to the children--we used to enjoy this quiet time to ourselves. Sometimes I wrote to mother or Carrie, or we mutually took up our books; but oftener we sat and talked as we did on this evening, until Nurse came to remind us of the lateness of the hour.

Mr. Lucas paid us brief visits; he generally came down on Sat.u.r.day evening and remained until Monday. Miss Ruth could never coax him to stay longer; I think his business distracted him, and kept his trouble at bay. In this quiet place he would have grown restless. He had bought the Brambles to please his wife, and she, and not Miss Ruth, had furnished it. They had spent happy summers there when Flurry was a baby. The little garden had been a wilderness until then; every flower had been planted by his wife, every room bore witness to her charming taste. No wonder he regarded it with such mingled feelings of pain and pleasure.

Mr. Lucas made no difference to our simple routine. Miss Ruth and Flurry used to drive to the little station to meet him, and bring him back in triumph to the seven o'clock nondescript meal, that was neither dinner nor tea, nor supper, but a compound of all. I used to go up with the children after that meal, that he and Miss Ruth might enjoy their chat undisturbed. When I returned to the drawing-room Miss Ruth was invariably alone.

"Giles has gone out for a solitary prowl," she would say; and he rarely returned before we went upstairs. Miss Ruth knew his habits, and seldom waited up to say good-night to him.

"He likes better to be alone when he is in this mood," she would say sometimes. Her tact and cleverness in managing him were wonderful; she never seemed to watch him, she never let him feel that his morbid fits were noticed and humored, but all the same she knew when to leave him alone, and when to talk to him; she could be his bright companion, or sit silently beside him for hours. On Sunday mornings Mr. Lucas always accompanied us to church, and in the afternoon he sat with the children on the beach. Dot soon got very fond of him, and would talk to him in his fearless way, about anything that came into his head; Miss Ruth sometimes joined them, but I always went apart with my book.

Mr. Lucas was so good to me that I could not bear to hamper him in the least by my presence; with grown-up people he was a little stiff and reserved, but with children he was his true self.

Flurry doted on her father, and Dot told me in confidence that "he was the nicest man he had ever known except Uncle Geoffrey."

I could not hear their talk from my nest in the cliff, but I am afraid Dot's chief occupation was to hunt the little scurrying crabs into a certain pool he had already fringed with seaweed. I could see him and Flurry carrying the big jelly-fishes, and floating them carefully. They had left their spades and buckets at home, out of respect for the sacredness of the day; but neither Flurry's clean white frock nor Dot's new suit hindered them from scooping out the sand with their hands, and making rough and ready ramparts to keep in their prey.

Mr. Lucas used to lie on the beach with his straw hat over his eyes, and watch their play, and pet Flossy. When he was tired of inaction he used to call to the children, and walk slowly and thought fully on. Flurry used to run after him.

"Oh, do wait for Dot, father," she would plead; nothing would induce her to leave her infirm and halting little playfellow. One day, when Mr. Lucas was impatient of his slow progress, I saw him shoulder him, crutches and all, and march off with him, Dot clapping his hands and shouting with delight. That was the only time I followed them; but I was so afraid Dot was a hindrance, and wanted to capture him, I walked quite a mile before I met them coming back.

Mr. Lucas was still carrying Dot; Flurry was trotting beside him, and pretending to use Dot's crutches.

"We have been ever so far, Essie," screamed Dot when he caught sight of me. "We have seen lots of seagulls, and a great cave where the smugglers used to hide."

"Oh, Dot, you must not let Mr. Lucas carry you," I said, holding out my arms to relieve him of his burden. "You must stay with me, and I will tell you a story."