Girls of the Forest Part 5

There was a wide old hall leading to the front stairs, and in this hall now stood the good child Penelope. She had brought in a quant.i.ty of fresh gra.s.ses, and had a piteous and beseeching expression on her face. Miss Tredgold took no notice of her. She stood by the open hall door and looked out.

"Might be made a pretty place," she said aloud.

Then she turned to go upstairs, sighing as she did so. Penelope echoed the sigh in a most audible manner. Miss Tredgold was arrested by the sound, and looked down.

"Ah, little girl!" she said. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought perhaps you'd like me to help you," said Penelope. "I wor waiting for you to come out of Pad's room."

"Don't use that hideous word 'wor.' W-a-s, was. Can you spell?"

"No; and I don't want to," said Penelope.

"We'll see about that. In the meantime, child, can you take me to my room?"

"May I hold of your hand?" said Penelope.

"May you hold my hand, not _of_ my hand. Certainly not. You may go on in front of me. You have got clearly to understand---- But what did you say your name was?"

"Penelope."

"You must clearly understand, Penelope, that I do not pet children. I expect them to be good without sugar-plums."

Now, Penelope knew that sugar-plums were delicious. She had heard of them, and at Christmas-time she used to dream of them, but very few had hitherto come into her life. She now looked eagerly at Miss Tredgold.

"If I are good for a long time without them, will you give me two or three?" she asked.

Miss Tredgold gave a short, grim laugh.

"We'll see," she said. "I never make rash promises. Oh! so this is my room."

She looked around her.

"No carpet," she said aloud; "no curtains; no pictures on the walls. A deal table for a dressing-table, the muslin covering much the worse for dirt and wear. Hum! You do live plain at The Dales."

"Oh, yes; don't us?" said Penelope. "And your room is much the handsomest of all the rooms. We call it very handsome. If you wor to see our rooms----"

"Were to see----"

"Yes, were to see," repeated Penelope, who found this constant correction very tiresome.

"And may I ask," exclaimed Miss Tredgold suddenly, not paying any heed to the little girl's words, "what on earth is that in the blue mug?"

She marched up to the dressing-table. In the center was a large blue mug of very common delft filled with poor Penelope's gra.s.ses.

"What horror is this?" she said. "Take it away at once, and throw those weeds out."

At that moment poor Penelope very nearly forsook her allegiance to Aunt Sophia. She ran downstairs trembling. In the hall she was received by a bevy of sisters.

"Well, Pen, and so you have bearded the lion! You took her to her room, did you? And what did she say? Did she tell you when she was going away?"

"Yes, did she?" came from Verena's lips; and Pauline's eager eyes, and the eyes of all the other children, asked the same question.

Penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.

"I thought I'd be the goodest of you all," she said. "I maded up my mind that I just would; but I doesn't like Aunt Sophia, and I think I'll be the naughtiest."

"No, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can. She can't possibly stay long, for we can't afford it," said Verena.

"She'll stay," answered Penelope. "She have made up her mind. She throwed away my lovely gra.s.ses; she called them weeds, my darlings that I did stoop so much to pick, and made my back all aches up to my neck. And she said she hated little girls that pawed her. Oh, I could cry! I did so want to be the goodest of you all, and I thought that I'd get sugar-plums and perhaps pennies. And I thought she'd let me tell her when you was all bad. Oh, I hate her now! I don't think I care to be took out of the nursery if she's about."

"You certainly are a caution, Penny," said Verena. "It is well that you have told us what your motives are. Believe me, there are worse places than that despised nursery of yours. Now, I suppose we must get some sort of dinner or tea for her. I wonder what Betty is doing to-day, if her head aches, and if----"

"Oh, come along; let's go and find out," said Pauline. "I feel so desperate that I have the courage for anything."

It is to be owned that the Dales did not keep an extensive establishment.

Old John pottered about the gardens and did what little gardening he thought necessary. He also did odd jobs about the house. Besides John, there was Betty. Betty ruled supreme as cook and factotum in the kitchen.

Betty never asked any one for orders; she got what she considered necessary from the local tradesmen, or she did without. As a rule she did without. She said that cooking was bad for her--that it made her head and back ache. On the days when Betty's head or back ached there was never any dinner. The family did not greatly mind. They dined on these occasions on bread, either with b.u.t.ter or without. Betty managed to keep them without dinner certainly at the rate of once or twice a week. She always had an excellent excuse. Either the boiler was out of gear, or the range would not draught properly, or the coals were out, or the butcher had failed to come. Sometimes the children managed to have jam with their bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and then they considered that they had a very fine meal indeed. It mattered little to them what sort of food they had if they only had enough; but sometimes they had not even enough. This more constantly happened in the winter than in the summer, for in the summer there was always plenty of milk and always plenty of fruit and vegetables.

When Betty heard that Miss Tredgold was coming to stay she immediately gave Verena notice. This was nothing at all extraordinary, for Betty gave notice whenever anything annoyed her. She never dreamed of acting up to her own words, so that n.o.body minded Betty's repeated notices. But on the morning of the day when Miss Tredgold was expected, Betty told nurse that she was about to give a real, earnest notice at last.

"I am going," she said. "I go this day month. I march out of this house, and never come back--no, not even if a dook was to conduct me to the hymeneal altar."

Betty was always great on the subject of dukes and marquises. She was seldom so low in health as to condescend to a "hearl," and there had even been a moment when she got herself to believe that royalty might aspire to her hand.

"She must be really going," said Verena when nurse repeated Betty's speech. "She would not say that about the duke if she was not."

"You leave her alone," said nurse. "But she's dreadful put out, Miss Renny; there's no doubt of that. I doubt if she'll cook any dinner for Miss Tredgold."

Verena, Pauline, and Penelope now rushed round to the kitchen premises.

They were nervous, but at the same time they were brave. They must see what Betty intended to do. They burst open the door. The kitchen was not too clean. It was a s.p.a.cious apartment, which in the days when the old house belonged to rich people was well taken care of, and must have sent forth glorious fires--fires meant to cook n.o.ble joints. On the present occasion the fire was dead out; the range looked a dull gray, piles of ashes lying in a forlorn manner at its feet. Betty was sitting at the opposite side of the kitchen, her feet on one chair and her capacious person on another. She was busily engaged devouring the last number of the _Family Paper_. She had come to a most rousing portion in her story--that part in which the duke marries the governess. Betty was, as she said, all in a twitter to see how matters would end; but just at this crucial moment the girls burst in.

"Betty, do stop reading," said Verena. "She's come, Betty."

"I know," cried Betty. "I'm not deaf, I suppose. John told me. He brought her, drat him! He says she's the sort to turn the house topsy-turvy. I'll have none of her. I won't alter my ways--no, not a hand's-turn--for the like of her, and I go this day month."

"Oh, Betty!" said Verena.

"I do, my dear; I do. I can't put up with the ways of them sort--never could. I like you well enough, young ladies, and your pa; and I'd stop with you willing--so I would, honey--but I can't abide the likes of her."

"All the same, she's come, Betty, and we must have something for dinner.

Have you anything in the house?"

"Not a blessed handful."

"Oh, Betty!" said Verena; "and I told you this morning, and so did nurse.

We said we must have dinner to-night at seven o'clock. You should have got something for her."

"But I ain't done it. The stove's out of order; we want the sweep. I have a splitting headache, and I'm just reading to keep my mind off the pain."