CHAPTER I
'IT'S DREADFUL, ISN'T IT?'

Mamma sat quite quietly in her favourite corner, on the sofa in the drawing-room, all the time papa was speaking. I think, or I thought afterwards, that she was crying a little, though that isn't her way at all. Dods didn't think so, for I asked him, when we were by ourselves. She did not speak any way, except just to whisper to me when I ran up to kiss her before we went out, 'We will have a good talk about it all afterwards, darling. Run out now with Geordie.'

I was very glad to get out of the room, I was so dreadfully afraid of beginning to cry myself. I didn't know which I was the sorriest for – papa or mamma – mamma, I think, though I don't know, either! Papa tried to be so cheerful about it; it was almost worse than if he had spoken very sadly. It reminded me of Dods when he was a very little boy and broke his arm, and when they let me peep into the room just after the doctor had set it, he smiled and whistled to make out it didn't hurt much, though he was as white as white. Poor old Doddie! And poor papa!

'It'll be worse for us and for mamma than for papa, won't it, Dods?' I said, as soon as we were outside and quite out of hearing. 'They always say that it's the worst for those that are left behind – the going-away ones have the change and bustle, you see.'

'How can I tell?' said Dods; 'you ask such stupid things, Ida. It's about as bad as it can be for everybody, and I don't see that it makes it any better to go on counting which it's the worst for.'

He gave himself a sort of wriggle, and began switching the hedge with the little cane he was carrying; by that and the gruff tone of his voice, I could tell he was feeling very bad, so I didn't mind his being rather cross, and we walked on for a minute or two without speaking.

Then suddenly Dods – I call him Dods, but his real name is George, and mamma calls him Geordie – stopped short.

'Where are you going, Ida?' he said. 'I hear those children hallooing over there in the little planting. They'll be down upon us in another moment, tiresome things, if we don't get out of the way, and I certainly don't want them just now.'

I didn't either, though I'm very fond of them. But they're so much younger, only seven and eight then, and Dods and I were thirteen and fourteen. And we have always gone in pairs. Dods and I, and Denzil and Esmé. Besides, of course, the poor little things were not to be told just yet of the strange troubles and sorrows that had come, or were coming, to us.

So I agreed with Dods that we had better get out of the way.

'Esmé is so quick,' I said; 'she'd very likely see there was something the matter, and papa did so warn us not to let them know.'

'Humph,' said Dods. 'I don't think we need worry about them. Denzil is as dense as a hedgehog, and as comfortable as a fat dormouse. He'd never worry as long as he has plenty to eat and a jolly warm bed to sleep in. And Esmé's just a – '

'A what?' I said, rather vexed, for Esmé is a sweet. She's not fat or lazy, and I don't think Denzil is – not extra, for such a little boy.

'She's just a sort of a butterfly,' said Geordie. 'She'd never mind anything for long. She'd just settle down for half a moment and then fly up again as merry as a sandboy.'

I could not help bursting out laughing. It was partly, I daresay, that I felt as if I must either laugh or cry. But Dods did mix up his – 'similes,' I think, is the right word – so funnily! Hedgehogs and dormice and butterflies and sandboys, all in a breath.

'I don't see what there is to laugh at,' said Geordie, very grumpily again, though he had been getting a little brighter.

'No more do I, I'm sure,' I replied, sadly enough, and then, I think, Dods felt sorry.

'Where shall we go?' he said gently.

'Wherever you like – to the hut, I think. It is always nice there, and we can lock ourselves in if we hear the children coming,' I answered.

The hut, as we called it, was our very most favourite place. It was much more than you would fancy from the name, as you will hear before long. But we did not wait to go on talking, till we got there. The children's voices did not come any nearer, but died away in the distance, so we walked on quietly, without hurrying.

'Ida,' said Geordie after a bit, 'it's dreadful, isn't it?'

'Yes,' I agreed; 'I think it is.'

The 'it' was the news poor papa had been telling us. We were not quite like most other children, I think, in some ways. I think we – that is, Dods and I – were rather more thoughtful, though that sounds like praising ourselves, which I am sure I don't mean. But papa and mamma had always had us a good deal with them and treated us almost like companions, and up to now, though he was getting on for thirteen, Dods had never been away at school, only going to Kirke, the little town near us, for some lessons with the vicar, and doing some with me and our governess, who came over from Kirke every day. So papa had told us what had to be told, almost as if we were grown-up people.

We did not understand it quite exactly, for it had to do with business things, which generally mean 'money' things, it seems to me, and which, even now, though I am sixteen past, I don't perfectly understand. And I daresay I shall not explain it all as well as a quite grown-up person would. But I don't think that will matter. This story is just a real account of something rather out of the common, and I am writing it partly as a kind of practice, for I do hope I shall be able to write stories in books some day, and partly because I think it is interesting even if it never gets into a book, and I should like Denzil and Esmé to read it all over, for fear of their forgetting about it.

I must first tell what the news was that we had just heard. Poor papa had lost a lot of money!

We were not very rich, but we had had quite enough, and our home was – and is, I am thankful to say – the sweetest, nicest home in the world. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers back to papa's great-great ones have always lived here and seen to everything themselves, which makes a home nicer than anything else. But a good deal of papa's money came from property a long, long way off – somewhere in the West Indies. It had been left to his father by his godmother, and ever since I was quite little I remember hearing papa say what a good thing it was to have some money besides what came from our own property at home. For, as everybody knows, land in England – especially, I think, in our part of it – does not give half as much as it used to, from rents and those sorts of things.

And we got into the way – I mean by 'we,' papa and mamma, and grandpapa, no doubt, in his time – of thinking of the West Indian money as something quite safe and certain, that could not ever 'go down' like other things.

But there came a day, not very long before the one I am writing about, which brought sudden and very bad news. Things had gone wrong, dreadfully wrong out at that place – Saint Silvio's – and it was quite possible that all our money from there would stop for good. The horrid part of it was, that it all came from somebody's wrongdoing – not from earthquakes or hurricanes or outside troubles of that kind – but from real dishonesty on the part of the agents papa had trusted. There was nothing for it but for poor papa himself to go out there, for a year at least, perhaps for two years, to find out everything and see what could be done.

There was a possibility, papa said, of things coming right, or partly right again, once he was there and able to go into it all himself. But to do this it was necessary that he should start as soon as could be managed; and with the great doubt of our ever being at all well off again, it was also necessary that mamma and we four should be very, very careful about expenses at home, and just spend as little as we could.

A piece of good fortune had happened in the middle of all this; at least papa called it good fortune, though I am afraid George and I did not feel as if it was good at all! Papa had had an offer from some people to take our house – our own dear Eastercove – for a year, or perhaps more. We had often been asked to let it, for it is so beautifully placed – close to the sea, and yet with lovely woods and grounds all round it, which is very uncommon at the sea-side. Our pine woods are almost famous, and there are nooks and dells and glens and cliffs that I could not describe if I tried ever so hard, so deliciously pretty and picturesque are they.

But till now we had never dreamt of letting it. Indeed, we used to feel quite angry, which was rather silly, I daresay, if ever we heard of any offer being made for it. And now the offer that had come was a very good one; it was not only more money than had ever been proposed before, but it came from very nice sort of people, whom the agent knew were quite to be trusted in every way.

'They will take good care of the house and of all our things,' said papa, 'and keep on any of the servants who like to stay.'

'Shall we not have any servants then?' Dods had asked. 'Do you mean that mamma – mamma and Ida and the little ones – I don't mind for myself, I'm a boy; I'll go to sea as a common sailor if it would be any good – but do you mean, that we shall be like really poor people?' And here there came a choke in his voice that made me feel as if I could scarcely keep from crying. For I knew what he was thinking of – the idea of mamma, our pretty mamma, with her merry laugh and nice dresses, and soft, white hands, having to work and even scrub perhaps, and to give up all the things and ways she was used to – it was too dreadful!

Papa looked sorry and went on again quietly —

'No, no, my boy,' he said; 'don't exaggerate it. Of course mamma and you all must have every comfort possible. One servant, anyway – Hoskins is sure to stay, and a younger one as well, I hope. And there must be no thought of your going to sea, George, or going anywhere, till I come back again. I look to you to take care of them all – that is why I am explaining more to you and Ida than many people would to such young ones. But I know you are both very sensible for your age. You see, we are sure of the new rent, thanks to this Mr. Trevor's offer – and even that would prevent us from being in a desperate position. And, of course, the usual money will go on coming in from the property, though the most of it must go in keeping things in order, in case – ' but here papa broke off.

'I know what you were going to say, papa,' said poor Dods, growing scarlet; he was certainly very quick-witted, – "in case we have to sell Eastercove!" Oh, papa! anything but that! I'll work – I'll do anything to make money, so long as we don't have to do that. Our old, old home!'

He could not say any more, and turned away his head.

'It has not come to that yet, my boy,' said papa, after a moment or two's silence. 'Let us keep up heart in the meantime, and hope for the best.'

Then he went on to tell us some of the plans he and mamma had already begun to make – about our going to live in some little house at Kirke, where we should not feel so strange as farther away, though there were objections to this too, – anything at all nice in the shape of even a tiny house there would be dear, as the neighbourhood was much sought after by visitors in winter as well as in summer. For it was considered so very healthy for delicate people; the air was always clear and dry, and the scent of the pine woods so strengthening. Papa, however, was doing his best; he and mamma were going there that very afternoon, 'To spy the land,' papa said, trying to speak cheerily.

So now I come back to where I began my explanation as to what the 'it' was, that Geordie and I agreed was so dreadful.

We were walking on slowly to the hut, and just as I had replied, 'I think it is,' we came in sight of it, and something – I don't know what – made us both stop and look at this favourite spot of ours. It was so pretty to-day – perhaps that was it. A sudden clearing brought us out of the wood, through which we had been following a well-worn, narrow path, and the bright, soft light of the early afternoon – of an April afternoon – was falling on the quaint little place. It was more like two or three huts than one, and indeed it really did consist of three or four rooms, which we children had been allowed to consider our own quarters, and to decorate and improve according to our fancy and taste. To begin with, it had been a bathing-house, of two rooms, partly of stone, partly of wood, standing on a little plateau, just at the edge of the pine trees, and well above the sea, so that even in stormy weather the water could not possibly reach it; besides which, I must say that stormy weather in the shape of high tides or great waves never did show itself in this cove. Often and often we had sat there, listening to the boom and crash at the foot of the cliffs, round at the other side, as snug and peaceful as if we had been miles inland.

And the sands that sloped down from our hut were just perfection, both as to prettiness and niceness for bathing. They shone to-day like gold and silver mixed in the sunshine; and the hut itself, though queerly shaped, looked pretty too. We had managed, in spite of the sandy soil, to get some hardy creepers to grow over it on the inland side, and we had sunk some old tubs filled with good soil in front of the porch – for there was a porch – in which flourished some nice, bushy evergreens, and there was even a tiny terrace with long flower-boxes, where, for six months of the year at least, geraniums and fuchsias, and for part of the time, nice, big, white and yellow and straw-coloured daisies seemed quite at home. It was a lovely place for children to have of their own; and the year before, papa had added two other rooms to it, for our photographing —iron rooms, these were, and not at all ugly, though that would not have mattered much, as they were at the back, beside the little kitchen, where we were allowed to cook our luncheons and teas when we were spending a whole day on the shore.

'Dods!' I exclaimed, as we stood there in silence, admiring our mansion, 'we must see about the flowers for the long boxes. It's getting quite time, for Bush has settled all about the bedding-out plants – he told me so yesterday – so he'll be able to tell us what he has to spare.'

I spoke in utter forgetfulness – but it only lasted a moment – only, that is to say, till I caught the expression of Geordie's mournful blue eyes – he can make them look so mournful when he likes – fixed upon me in silent reproach.

'Ida,' he said at last, 'what are you thinking of? What's the use?'

'Oh, Dods! oh, dear, dear Doddie!' I cried – I don't think I quite knew what I was saying, – 'forgive me. Oh, how silly and unfeeling I seem! Oh, Doddie!'

And then – I am not now ashamed to tell it, for I really had been keeping it in at the cost of a good deal of forcing myself – I just left off trying to be brave or self-controlled or anything, and burst out crying – regular loud crying. I am afraid I almost howled.

George looked at me once more, then for a minute or so he turned away. I am not sure if he was crying, anyway he wasn't howling. But in an instant or two, while I was rubbing at my eyes with my handkerchief, and feeling rather, or very ashamed, I felt something come round my neck, crushing it up so tightly that I was almost choked, and then Doddie's voice in my ear, very gruff, very gruff indeed of course, saying —

'Poor Ida, poor old Ida! I know it's quite as bad or worse for you. For a man can always go out into the world and fight his way, and have some fun however hard he works.'

'That wouldn't make it any better for me, Dods,' I said – we both forgot, I think, that he was a good way off being a man just yet, – 'you're my only comfort. I don't mean that mamma isn't one, of course; but it's our business now to cheer her up. Papa said so ever so many times. I don't really know, though, how I could have cheered her up, or even tried to, if you had been away at school already!'

Poor George's face darkened at this. It was rather an unlucky speech. He had thought of things already that had never come into my head. One was that it seemed unlikely enough now that papa would ever be able to send him to school at all – I mean, of course, to the big public school, for which his name had been down for ever so long, and on which, like all English boys, his heart was set. For he knew how expensive all public schools are.

'Don't talk of school, Ida,' he said huskily. 'Luckily it's a good year off still,' for it had never been intended that he should go till he was fourteen; 'and,' with a deep sigh, 'we must keep on hoping, I suppose.'

'Yes, and working,' I added. 'Whatever happens, Dods, you must work well, and I'll do my best to help you. Mightn't you perhaps gain a scholarship, or whatever you call them, that would make school cost less?'

This remark was as lucky as the other had been unfortunate. Dods brightened up at once.

'By Jove,' he said, 'what a good idea! I never thought of it. I'll tell you what, Ida; I'll ask Mr. Lloyd about it the very first time I see him – that'll be the day after to-morrow, as to-morrow's Sunday.'

Mr. Lloyd was the vicar of Kirke.

I felt quite proud of having thought of something to cheer Geordie up, and my tears stopped, and by the time we had got to the hut, we were both in much better spirits.

'It is to be hoped,' I said, 'that papa and mamma will find some kind of a house at Kirke, however poky. For you would be very sorry not to go on with Mr. Lloyd – wouldn't you, Dods?'

'Of course I should,' he replied heartily. 'He's very kind and very strict. And if I mean to work harder than ever before, as I do now, since you put that jolly idea into my head, it's a good thing he is strict.'

When we got to the hut and unlocked the door, we found a good deal to do. For on Saturdays we generally – we meant to do it regularly, but I am afraid we sometimes forgot – had a sort of cleaning and tidying up. Photographing is very nice and interesting of course, and so is cooking, but they are rather messy! And when you've been doing one or the other nearly all day, it's rather disgusting to have to begin washing up greasy dishes, and chemicalised rags and glasses, and pots and pans, and all the rest of it. I don't mean that we ever cleaned up the photographing things with the kitchen things; we weren't so silly, as, of course, we should not only have spoilt our instruments, but run a good risk of poisoning ourselves too. But the whole lot needed cleaning, and I don't know which were the tiresomest.

And the last day we had spent at the hut, we had only half-tidied up, we had got so tired. So there were all the things about, as if they'd been having a dance in the night, like Hans Andersen's toys, and had forgotten to put themselves to bed after it.

Dods and I looked at each other rather grimly.

'It's got to be done,' I said. 'It's a shame to see the place so bright and sunny outside and so dreadfully messy indoors.'

'Yes,' said Dods, 'it is. So fire away, Ida. After all – ' but he didn't finish his sentence and didn't need to. I knew what he meant – that quite possibly it was the very last time we'd need to have a good cleaning up in the dear old hut.