The Rectory Children Part 16

'You must eat your breakfast properly, Celestina, my dear,' said Mrs.

Fairchild to her little daughter one morning in the following week. 'You will be quite faint and tired before dinner-time if you don't, and that would be a bad beginning.'

Celestina on this set to work once more on her bread and milk. She was too excited to feel hungry; her pale cheeks had each a bright spot of colour and her eyes were shining. It was the day on which she was to begin her lessons at the Rectory. Miss Neale was to call for her on her way there, and though she had three-quarters of an hour to wait till Miss Neale came, the little girl was sure she would not be ready in time.

'I never saw her so taken up with anything before,' said her mother; and Mr. Fairchild, who was sometimes disposed to take rather a gloomy view of things, said he hoped they should not regret having agreed to the arrangement, and that it would not lead to disappointment, on which Mrs.

Fairchild set to work, as she always did, to cheer him up.

'It will give Celestina a little experience,' she said; 'and even if there should be a little disappointment mixed up with it in any way, it will do her no harm, and Celestina is a reasonable child.'

She was very quiet but very happy as she set off with Miss Neale. It was a bright pleasant morning, 'quite spring-like,' said the young governess, and a walk at that early hour was of itself a pleasure to Celestina. She had not been inside the Rectory since the Vane family had replaced old Dr. Bunton and his wife, and scarcely was the door open when the little girl noticed a difference. The old, heavy, stuffy furniture was gone, and though it was still plain, the house looked lighter and brighter. The schoolroom was a nice little room looking towards the sea; there was a good strong table with a black oil-cloth cover and four hair-seated chairs, such as were much used at that time.

But there were two or three pretty pictures on the walls, and a cottage piano, and in the bookcase were a few bright-coloured tempting volumes as well as the graver-looking school-books. Everything was very neat, and there was a bright fire burning, and in a pot on the window-sill a geranium was growing and evidently flourishing. To Celestina it was a perfect picture of a schoolroom, and she looked round with the greatest interest as she took off her hat and jacket, according to Miss Neale's directions, and hung them on a peg on the door.

'You must be very neat here, you know, my dear,' she said; to which Celestina meekly replied, 'Oh yes,' quite agreeing with Miss Neale.

In a moment or two the door burst open and in came Biddy. A very pleasant-looking Biddy, with a spotlessly clean ap.r.o.n, tidy hair, and smiling face, and just behind her appeared her mother.

'Good-morning, Miss Neale,' said Mrs. Vane. 'Here is Bridget, whom, you have not seen before. Good-morning, Celestina. I hope you will be two very happy and good little girls, and that Miss Neale will have no trouble with you.'

Then she went on to explain a little about the books Biddy used, saying that Rosalys would look out any that might possibly be missing, and after telling Miss Neale to keep up a good fire and one or two other small directions of the kind, she left the schoolroom.

Everything went on most smoothly. Miss Neale could hardly believe that Bridget was the child she had been warned that she would find 'tiresome and trying and requiring great patience.' For, for once Biddy really did her best. She was interested in finding out how much Celestina knew 'compared with me,' and anxious that neither her little friend nor her new teacher should think her stupid or backward. And though Celestina's habits of steady attention had made her memory better and her knowledge more thorough than Biddy's, still Miss Neale could hardly feel that either of her pupils was more satisfactory than the other; both were so obedient and attentive and intelligent.

So the morning pa.s.sed delightfully.

'And won't it be nice?' said Biddy, as she stood at the gate, whither she had accompanied Miss Neale and Celestina on their way home; 'the day after to-morrow Miss Neale will come back to take us a walk in the afternoon, and you may come too, mamma says, and stay to tea if your mamma will let you.'

How Celestina's eyes sparkled! To be invited to tea at the Rectory seemed to her far more enchanting than if she had received an invitation from the Queen of the Fairies to be present at one of her grandest festivals. She was _so_ delighted that she forgot to speak, and Miss Neale had to answer for her, and say that she would not forget to ask Mrs. Fairchild's consent.

'And some day, Celestina,' Biddy went on, 'I want you to ask your mamma to ask _me_ to tea, for I want to see your dolls.'

Celestina looked rather grave.

'I'll ask mother,' she said, but there was a little hesitation in her manner. This did not come from any false shame--Celestina did not know what false shame was--but from very serious doubts as to what her father and mother would think of it. She had never had any friend to tea in her life; father was always tired in the evening, and she was far from sure that a chattering child like Biddy would not annoy him and make his head ache. So poor Celestina was rather silent and grave on the way home; Biddy's thoughtless proposal had taken the edge off her happiness.

On her way back to the house Bridget met Rosalys.

'Well,' said Alie, 'and how did you get on, Biddy? How do you like your new governess?'

'_Ever_ so much better than Miss Millet,' Biddy replied. Her superhuman exertions had somewhat tired her; she felt rather cross now, and half inclined to quarrel. She knew that Alie was particularly fond of Miss Millet, and she glanced at her curiously as she made her speech. But Alie was a wise little woman.

'I'm so glad,' she said. 'So glad you like Miss Neale, I mean. Of course I knew you'd like Celestina.'

'I don't like her so very much as all that,' said Biddy contradictorily.

'I like her well enough to do lessons with, but she's not very nice about my going there to tea.'

'Going there to tea,' Alie repeated. 'What do you mean, Biddy?'

'Mean what I say. She's coming here to tea two times every week if it's fine, so I think they might 'avite me sometimes, and when I said to her just now I'd like to come, she looked quite funny and only said she'd ask her mother. Not a bit as if she'd like it.'

Rosalys felt very vexed.

'Really, Biddy, you might know how to behave,' she said. 'People don't offer themselves to other people like that.'

'They do,' Bride retorted. 'I've heard papa say he was going to "offer himself to luncheon" to Aunt Mary's, and----'

'She's a relation,' Alie interrupted.

'Well, and once mamma offered herself to tea to old Lady Butler--I know she did--just before we went away at Christmas.'

'That's quite different; she knows old Lady Butler so well--and--and--mamma's grown up and knows what's right, and you're a little girl, and you shouldn't do things like that without asking leave,' said Rosalys decidedly.

'You're a cross unkind thing,' said Biddy; 'and if you speak like that I'll not go on being good any more.'

Then she turned away from her sister and ran down a side-path of the garden, leaving Rosalys looking after her in distress, and half inclined to blame herself for having spoken sharply to Biddy. 'It will vex mamma so if this new plan doesn't do,' she thought regretfully. 'But perhaps Biddy will be good again when she comes in.'

The path down which the little girl had run led to a low wall from which you overlooked the sea. The tide was in, and though at some little distance from the Rectory, Biddy could clearly see the water shining in the morning sunshine, which was yellower and richer in colour now, for the season was getting on; the cold thin wintry look was giving place in this sheltered spot to the warmer feeling of spring. The little waves came lapping in softly; by listening intently and fancying a little, Biddy could almost hear the delicate sound they made as they kissed the sh.o.r.e.

'I wish it was warm enough to bathe,' thought Biddy. 'But if it was _they'd_ be sure to say I mustn't, or that I was naughty or something,'

and in her anger at the imaginary cruelty of 'they,' she kicked the little stones of the gravel at her feet as if it was their fault! But the little stones were too meek to complain, and Biddy got tired of kicking them, and seating herself astride on the wall, sat staring out at the sea. Somehow it reminded her of her good resolutions, though it was a quite different-looking sea from the evening tide, with the red sun sinking below the horizon, like that first time on the sh.o.r.e.

What a pity it was that she had spoilt the fresh beginning of being so nice and good at her new lessons by being cross to Alie! And in her heart Biddy knew that her sister had not blamed her without reason--it was her old fault of heedlessness; she _was_ quite old enough to understand that she should not have asked Celestina to invite her, and she knew too that Celestina had been right in answering as she did. But all these 'knowings in her heart' did not make Biddy feel more amiable.

'It's no good trying,' she said to herself as she got slowly down off the wall--Bridget was always deliberate in her movements--'I'll just not bother. I'll do my lessons, 'cos I don't want them to say I'm stupid, but I'm not going to try not to be cross and all that. I'm tired of trying.'

Mrs. Vane noticed at luncheon that Biddy was quiet and silent and not particularly amiable looking, but Alie whispered that it had nothing to do with lessons, which had gone off well.

'Don't notice her, mamma; it was only that she was vexed with me for something,' Alie added; so nothing was said to Biddy, and she was allowed to nurse her grievances in silence.

She cheered up a little by tea-time, and told Randolph triumphantly that she had done all her lessons for Miss Neale 'by myself, without asking that nasty cross Alie or n.o.body to help me.' But she remained very surly to her sister, though Alie tried to prevent her father and mother noticing it.

Next day was rainy and blowy. Miss Neale and Celestina arrived smothered up in waterproofs and goloshes, and there was quite a bustle to get them unpacked from their wrappings and warmed at the schoolroom fire. Biddy made herself very important, and forgot for the time about being vexed with Rosalys.

Lessons went off well, thanks to Bridget's putting a good deal of control on herself, though there _were_ moments that morning which made the young governess say to herself that she could understand its being _sometimes_ true that Biddy was tiresome and trying. When Celestina was putting on her hat and jacket to go she gave Biddy a little touch on the arm.

'I asked mother,' she whispered, 'about what you said, and mother says perhaps some day you would come early in the afternoon, and we could play with the dolls and have tea for ourselves out of mother's toy cups that she had when she was a little girl. They are so pretty. It wouldn't be quite a real tea, for we don't have real tea till past five, but I'm sure mother would get us some little cakes, and we might make it a sort of a feast.'

Biddy's eyes sparkled.

'Oh, that would be nice,' she exclaimed. 'Yes, please, tell your mother I'd like to come very much. And just fancy, Celestina, that horrid Alie said it was very rude of me to have asked you to ask me. I'm sure it wasn't, now, was it?'

Celestina grew red and hesitated.

'I'm sure you didn't mean to be rude, Miss Biddy,' she said. 'Mother said----' but here she stopped.

'What did she say?' demanded Biddy.

'I didn't mean to say that she said anything,' poor Celestina answered, 'only when you asked me----'

'_What_ did she say?' Biddy repeated, stamping her foot.