They and I Part 12

"My daughter Robina," I said, "is just the same age-according to years; and d.i.c.k is twenty-one. I hope you will be friends with them. They have got sense, both of them. It comes out every now and again and surprises you. Veronica, I think, is nine. I am not sure how Veronica is going to turn out. Sometimes things happen that make us think she has a beautiful character, and then for quite long periods she seems to lose it altogether. The Little Mother-I don't know why we always call her Little Mother-will not join us till things are more ship-shape. She does not like to be thought an invalid, and if we have her about anywhere near work that has to be done, and are not always watching her, she gets at it and tires herself."

"I am glad we are going to be neighbours," said Miss Janie. "There are ten of us altogether. Father, I am sure, you will like; clever men always like father. Mother's day is Friday. As a rule it is the only day no one ever calls." She laughed. The cloud had vanished. "They come on other days and find us all in our old clothes. On Friday afternoon we sit in state and n.o.body comes near us, and we have to eat the cakes ourselves. It makes her so cross. You will try and remember Fridays, won't you?"

I made a note of it then and there.

"I am the eldest," she continued, "as I think father told you. Harry and Jack came next; but Jack is in Canada and Harry died, so there is somewhat of a gap between me and the rest. Bertie is twelve and Ted eleven; they are home just now for the holidays. Sally is eight, and then there come the twins. People don't half believe the tales that are told about twins, but I am sure there is no need to exaggerate. They are only six, but they have a sense of humour you would hardly credit. One is a boy, and the other a girl. They are always changing clothes, and we are never quite sure which is which. Wilfrid gets sent to bed because Winnie has not practised her scales, and Winnie is given syrup of squills because Wilfried has been eating green gooseberries. Last spring Winnie had the measles. When the doctor came on the fifth day he was as pleased as punch; he said it was the quickest cure he had ever known, and that really there was no reason why she might not get up. We had our suspicions, and they were right. Winnie was hiding in the cupboard, wrapped up in a blanket. They don't seem to mind what trouble they get into, provided it isn't their own. The only safe plan, unless you happen to catch them red-handed, is to divide the punishment between them, and leave them to settle accounts between themselves afterwards. Algy is four; till last year he was always called the baby. Now, of course, there is no excuse; but the name still clings to him in spite of his indignant protestations. Father called upstairs to him the other day: 'Baby, bring me down my gaiters.' He walked straight up to the cradle and woke up the baby. 'Get up,' I heard him say-I was just outside the door-'and take your father down his gaiters. Don't you hear him calling you?' He is a droll little fellow. Father took him to Oxford last Sat.u.r.day. He is small for his age. The ticket-collector, quite contented, threw him a glance, and merely as a matter of form asked if he was under three. 'No,' he shouted before father could reply; 'I 'sists on being honest. I'se four.' It is father's pet phrase."

"What view do you take of the exchange," I asked her, "from stockbroking with its larger income to farming with its smaller?"

"Perhaps it was selfish," she answered, "but I am afraid I rather encouraged father. It seems to me mean, making your living out of work that does no good to anyone. I hate the bargaining, but the farming itself I love. Of course, it means having only one evening dress a year and making that myself. But even when I had a lot I always preferred wearing the one that I thought suited me the best. As for the children, they are as healthy as young savages, and everything they want to make them happy is just outside the door. The boys won't go to college; but seeing they will have to earn their own living, that, perhaps, is just as well. It is mother, poor dear, that worries so." She laughed again.

"Her favourite walk is to the workhouse. She came back quite excited the other day because she had heard the Guardians intend to try the experiment of building separate houses for old married couples. She is convinced she and father are going to end their days there."

"You, as the business partner," I asked her, "are hopeful that the farm will pay?"

"Oh, yes," she answered, "it will pay all right-it does pay, for the matter of that. We live on it and live comfortably. But, of course, I can see mother's point of view, with seven young children to bring up.

And it is not only that." She stopped herself abruptly. "Oh, well," she continued with a laugh, "you have got to know us. Father is trying. He loves experiments, and a woman hates experiments. Last year it was bare feet. I daresay it is healthier. But children who have been about in bare feet all the morning-well, it isn't pleasant when they sit down to lunch; I don't care what you say. You can't be always washing. He is so unpractical. He was quite angry with mother and myself because we wouldn't. And a man in bare feet looks so ridiculous. This summer it is short hair and no hats; and Sally had such pretty hair. Next year it will be sabots or turbans-something or other suggesting the idea that we've lately escaped from a fair. On Mondays and Thursdays we talk French. We have got a French nurse; and those are the only days in the week on which she doesn't understand a word that's said to her. We can none of us understand father, and that makes him furious. He won't say it in English; he makes a note of it, meaning to tell us on Tuesday or Friday, and then, of course, he forgets, and wonders why we haven't done it. He's the dearest fellow alive. When I think of him as a big boy, then he is charming, and if he really were only a big boy there are times when I would shake him and feel better for it."

She laughed again. I wanted her to go on talking, because her laugh was so delightful. But we had reached the road, and she said she must go back: there were so many things she had to do.

"We have not settled about d.i.c.k," I reminded her.

"Mother took rather a liking to him," she murmured.

"If d.i.c.k could make a living," I said, "by getting people to like him, I should not be so anxious about his future-lazy young devil!"

"He has promised to work hard if you let him take up farming," said Miss Janie.

"He has been talking to you?" I said.

She admitted it.

"He will begin well," I said. "I know him. In a month he will have tired of it, and be clamouring to do something else."

"I shall be very disappointed in him if he does," she said.

"I will tell him that," I said, "it may help. People don't like other people to be disappointed in them."

"I would rather you didn't," she said. "You could say that father will be disappointed in him. Father formed rather a good opinion of him, I know."

"I will tell him," I suggested, "that we shall all be disappointed in him."

She agreed to that, and we parted. I remembered, when she was gone, that after all we had not settled terms.

d.i.c.k overtook me a little way from home.

"I have settled your business," I told him.

"It's awfully good of you," said d.i.c.k.

"Mind," I continued, "it's on the understanding that you throw yourself into the thing and work hard. If you don't, I shall be disappointed in you, I tell you so frankly."

"That's all right, governor," he answered cheerfully. "Don't you worry."

"Mr. St. Leonard will also be disappointed in you, d.i.c.k," I informed him.

"He has formed a very high opinion of you. Don't give him cause to change it."

"I'll get on all right with him," answered d.i.c.k. "Jolly old duffer, ain't he?"

"Miss Janie will also be disappointed in you," I added.

"Did she say that?" he asked.

"She mentioned it casually," I explained: "though now I come to think of it she asked me not to say so. What she wanted me to impress upon you was that her father would be disappointed in you."

d.i.c.k walked beside me in silence for awhile.

"Sorry I've been a worry to you, dad," he said at last

"Glad to hear you say so," I replied.

"I'm going to turn over a new leaf, dad," he said. "I'm going to work hard."

"About time," I said.

CHAPTER VI

WE had cold bacon for lunch that day. There was not much of it. I took it to be the bacon we had not eaten for breakfast. But on a clean dish with parsley it looked rather neat. It did not suggest, however, a lunch for four people, two of whom had been out all the morning in the open air. There was some excuse for d.i.c.k.

"I never heard before," said d.i.c.k, "of cold fried bacon as a _hors d'uvre_."

"It is not a _hors d'uvre_," explained Robina. "It is all there is for lunch." She spoke in the quiet, pa.s.sionless voice of one who has done with all human emotion. She added that she should not be requiring any herself, she having lunched already.

Veronica, conveying by her tone and bearing the impression of something midway between a perfect lady and a Christian martyr, observed that she also had lunched.

"Wish I had," growled d.i.c.k.

I gave him a warning kick. I could see he was on the way to getting himself into trouble. As I explained to him afterwards, a woman is most dangerous when at her meekest. A man, when he feels his temper rising, takes every opportunity of letting it escape. Trouble at such times he welcomes. A broken boot-lace, or a shirt without a b.u.t.ton, is to him then as water in the desert. An only collar-stud that will disappear as if by magic from between his thumb and finger and vanish apparently into thin air is a piece of good fortune sent on these occasions only to those whom the G.o.ds love. By the time he has waddled on his hands and knees twice round the room, broken the boot-jack raking with it underneath the wardrobe, been b.u.mped and slapped and kicked by every piece of furniture that the room contains, and ended up by stepping on that stud and treading it flat, he has not a bitter or an angry thought left in him.

All that remains of him is sweet and peaceful. He fastens his collar with a safety-pin, humming an old song the while.

Failing the gifts of Providence, the children-if in health-can generally be depended upon to afford him an opening. Sooner or later one or another of them will do something that no child, when he was a boy, would have dared-or dreamed of daring-to even so much as think of doing. The child, conveying by expression that the world, it is glad to say, is slowly but steadily growing in sense, and pity it is that old-fashioned folks can't bustle up and keep abreast of it, points out that firstly it has not done this thing, that for various reasons-a few only of which need be dwelt upon-it is impossible it could have done this thing; that secondly it has been expressly requested to do this thing, that wishful always to give satisfaction, it has-at sacrifice of all its own ideas-gone out of its way to do this thing; that thirdly it can't help doing this thing, strive against fate as it will.

He says he does not want to hear what the child has got to say on the subject-nor on any other subject, neither then nor at any other time. He says there's going to be a new departure in this house, and that things all round are going to be very different. He suddenly remembers every rule and regulation he has made during the past ten years for the guidance of everybody, and that everybody, himself included, has forgotten. He tries to talk about them all at once, in haste lest he should forget them again. By the time he has succeeded in getting himself, if n.o.body else, to understand himself, the children are swarming round his knees extracting from him promises that in his sober moments he will be sorry that he made.

I knew a woman-a wise and good woman she was-who when she noticed that her husband's temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings I have known her search the house for a last month's morning paper and, ironing it smooth, lay it warm and neatly folded on his breakfast plate.