CHAPTER II
'MUFFINS, FOR ONE THING, I HOPE'

The first thing we had to do was really to 'fire away.' That is to say, to light a fire, for of course nothing in the way of washing up or cleaning can be done without hot water, and you cannot get hot water without fire of some kind. But that part of our work we did not dislike at all. We had grown quite clever at making fires and getting them to burn up quickly in the little stove, and we had always, or nearly always, a nice store of beautifully dry wood that we picked up ourselves. And though the hut was so near the sea, it was wonderfully dry. We could leave things there for weeks, without their becoming musty or mouldy.

And as the fire crackled up brightly, and after a bit we got the kettle on and it began to sing, our spirits began to rise again a little, to keep it company.

'After all,' I said, 'there really is a good strong likelihood that things won't turn out so badly. Papa is very clever, and once he is out there himself, he will find out everything, and perhaps get them put straight once for all. It wouldn't so much matter our having less money than we have had till now, if all the muddle and cheating was cleared up.'

'No, it wouldn't,' Geordie agreed, 'and of course it's best to be hopeful. So long as there's no talk of our selling Eastercove, Ida, I don't feel as if I minded anything.'

'And the great thing is to cheer up poor mamma while papa's away,' I said, 'and not to seem dull or miserable at having to live differently and go without things we've always been used to have. I don't think I shall mind that part of it so very much, Dods – shall you?'

Dods sighed.

'I don't know; I hope not for myself – of course what matters to me is the perhaps not going to a big school. But you have cheered me up about that, Ida. I shall hate you and mamma not having a carriage and nice servants and all that, though we must go on hoping it will only be for a bit.'

'And I do hope we can stay on near here,' I said, 'so that at least we can feel that home is close-to. I would rather have ever so little a house at Kirke than a much better one farther off – except that, well, I must say I shouldn't like it to be one of those dreadfully stuffy-looking little ones in rows in a street!'

'I'm afraid that's just what it is likely to be,' said Dods. 'It will be pretty horrid; there's no use trying to pretend it won't be. But, Ida, we're not working at all. We must get on, for papa and mamma will like to find us at home when they come in.'

'Especially as to-morrow's Sunday,' I added; 'and very likely, if it's as fine as to-day, we may all come down here to tea in the afternoon,' for that was a favourite habit of ours. We children used to consider that we were the hosts on these occasions, and papa and mamma our visitors.

So we set to work with a will, without grumbling at the rather big collection of things there were to wash up, and the amount of sweeping and brushing to do. To begin with, we knew we had ourselves to thank for it, as we had left things in a very untidy way the last day we had spent at the hut. Then too, even though only an hour or so had passed since we had heard the bad news, I think we had suddenly grown older. I have never felt thoroughly a child again since that morning. For the first time it seemed to come really home to me that life has a serious side to it, and I think – indeed I know – that George felt the same. I don't mean that we were made sad or unhappy, for I don't count that we had ever been very thoughtless children, but we both began to feel that there were certain things we could do, and should do, that no one else could do as well.

I think it must be what people call the sense of 'responsibility,' and in some ways it is rather a nice feeling. It makes one feel stronger and braver, and yet more humble too, though that sounds contradictory, for there comes with it a great anxiety to prove worthy of the trust placed in one to do one's best.

And just now it was very specially a case of being trusted. Papa said he would go away happier, or at least less unhappy, for knowing that he left two 'big' children to take care of mamma, and though I cannot quite explain how, the feeling left by his words had begun to influence us already. We even were extra anxious to do our tidying very well and quickly, as we knew it would please mamma to see we were keeping the promises we had made when she first persuaded papa to let us have the hut for our own, and got it all made nice for us.

And by four o'clock or so it did look very nice – I never saw it neater, and we felt we might rest for a few minutes.

We had put everything ready for Sunday afternoon's tea-party – everything that could be ready, I mean. The cups and saucers and fat brown tea-pot were arranged on the round table of the room we counted our parlour; it was in front of the kitchen, looking towards the sea, and here we did the unmessy part of the photographing, and kept any little ornaments or pictures we had. Of the other two rooms one was the 'chemical room,' as we called it, and in a cupboard out of it we hung up our bathing-clothes, and the fourth room, which had originally been the front bathing-house, so to say, or dressing-room, was now a bedroom, all except the bed. That does sound very 'Irish,' does it not? But what I mean is that it was furnished simply as a bedroom usually is – only that there was no bed.

We had often begged to be allowed to spend a night in the hut, for there was an old sofa that Geordie could have slept on quite comfortably in the parlour, or even in the kitchen, and we had saved pocket-money enough to buy a camp bedstead, for which mamma had two or three mattresses and pillows and things like that among the spare ones up in the long garret. But so far we had never got leave to carry our picnicking quite so far. Papa would not have minded, for of all things he wanted us to be 'plucky,' and did not even object to my being something of a tomboy; but mamma said she would certainly not sleep all night if she knew we were alone in the hut, and perhaps frightened, or ill, or something wrong with us.

So that plan had been put a stop to.

'I wonder what Hoskins will give us in the shape of cakes for to-morrow,' I said. 'There is enough tea and sugar for two or three more afternoons' – 'more than we shall want,' I added to myself with an inside sigh.

Hoskins was a sort of half-nurse, half-housekeeper person. She had not been with us very long, only since Esmé was born – but she really was very good and dear, and I know she cared for us in a particular way, for her father had been gardener for ages, though ages ago now, as she herself was pretty old, at Eastercove. And she wasn't cross, like so many old servants both in books and real life – rather the other way – too "spoiling" of us. She had only one fault. She was a little deaf.

'Muffins, for one thing, I hope,' said Dods. 'They don't leave off making them till May, and it isn't May yet.'

There was a baker in the village – I think I have forgotten to say that there was a very tiny village called Eastercove, close to our gates – who was famed for his muffins.

'Humph,' I said. 'I don't very much care about them. They are such a bother with toasting and buttering. I think bread and butter – thin and rolled – is quite as good, and some nice cakes and a big one of that kind of gingerbread that you hardly taste the ginger in, and that's like toffee at the top.'

I was beginning to feel hungry, for we had not eaten much luncheon, which was our early dinner, and I think that made me talk rather greedily.

'You are a regular epicure about cakes,' said Dods.

I did not like his calling me that, and I felt my face get red, and I was just going to answer him crossly when I remembered about our great trouble, and thought immediately to myself how silly it would be to squabble about tiny things in a babyish way now. So I answered quietly —

'Well, you see, it is only polite to think of what other people like, if you invite them to tea, and I know papa likes that kind of gingerbread. He ate such a big piece one day that mamma called him a greedy boy.'

Geordie did not say anything, but I always know when he is sorry for teasing me, and I could see that he was just now.

Then we locked up and set off home again. As we came out of the pine woods and in sight of the drive we saw the pony carriage, and we ran on, so as to be at the front door when papa and mamma got there.

They smiled at us very kindly, and papa said in what he meant to be a cheery voice —

'Well, young people, what have you been about? Run in, Ida, and hurry up tea. Mamma is tired.'

Yes, poor mamma did look dreadfully tired, and through the outside cheeriness of papa's words and manner I could see that he was feeling very sad and dull.

I hurried in, and we were soon all at tea in the pretty drawing-room. George and I did not always have tea downstairs, but to-day somehow there seemed no question of our not doing so. I waited till mamma had had some tea and was looking a little less white and done up, and then I said half-frightenedly —

'Did you see any nice little house at Kirke?' though in my heart I felt sure they hadn't, or they would not have come back, looking so disappointed.

Mamma shook her head.

'I am afraid, dearie,' she began, but papa interrupted her —

'No,' he said decidedly, 'we saw nothing the least possible to call "nice," except one or two places far and away too dear. And of course we knew already that there are plenty of nice houses to be got, if expense had not to be considered so closely. There is no good beating about the bush with George and Ida,' he went on, turning to mamma. 'Now that we have so thoroughly taken them into our confidence it is best to tell them everything. And the truth is,' he continued, leaning back in his chair with a rather rueful smile, 'I am really feeling almost in despair. I am afraid we shall have to give up the idea of staying at Kirke.'

'Yet there are so many advantages about it,' said mamma quickly. 'And there is, after all, that tiny house in the Western Road.'

'Horrid poky little hole,' said papa. 'I cannot bear to think of you in it. I would almost rather you went about in a caravan like the gypsies we passed on the road.'

'Yes,' I agreed, 'I wouldn't mind that at all – not in summer, at least.'

'Ah, but unluckily, my dear child, "it is not always May,"' he replied, though I was pleased to see he held out his cup for some more tea (I have found out that things do seem much worse when one is tired or hungry!) and that his voice sounded more like itself.

'And it isn't always winter either,' said mamma cheerfully. 'Let us be as happy as we can while we are together, and enjoy this nice spring weather. I am glad, if sad things had to happen, that they did not come to us in November or December. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd will find some nicer house for us.'

'Does he know about – about our having to leave Eastercove?' I asked.

Mamma nodded.

'Yes,' she replied. 'We stopped there on our way back, and papa went in and told him.'

I felt glad of that. It would prepare him for Dods's anxiety about a scholarship.

'By the bye,' mamma continued, 'how fast they are getting on with the new parish room! I was looking at it while I was waiting for you, Jack' (that's papa), 'and it seems really finished. Are they not beginning to take away the iron room already?'

'Lloyd says it is to be sold here, or returned to the makers for what they will give, next week,' papa replied. 'It has served its purpose very well indeed these two or three years. If – '

'If what?' said mamma.

Poor papa shrugged his shoulders.

'Oh, it's no good thinking of it now,' he answered. 'I was only going to say – forgetting – that if Geordie and Ida liked I might buy it and add it on to the hut. It would make into two capital little bedrooms for very little cost, and Lloyd happened to say to-day that the makers would rather sell it for less where it stands than have the expense of taking it back to London. They keep improving these things; it is probably considered old-fashioned already.'

Geordie and I looked at each other. How lovely it would have been! Just what we had always longed for – to be allowed really to live at the hut now and then. And with two more rooms we could have had Hoskins with us, and then mamma wouldn't have been nervous about it. But as papa said, there was no use in thinking about it now.

'Will the people who are coming to live here have the hut too?' I asked.

Papa did not seem to pay much attention to what I said. He was thinking deeply, and almost started as I turned to him with the question.

'I do not know,' he replied. 'It has not been alluded to.'

'I hope not,' said mamma. 'If we stay at Kirke, as I still trust we may, it would be nice to come up there to spend an afternoon now and then. It is so far from the house that we would not seem like intruders. Though, of course, once they see how nice it is, they may want to have it as a bathing-box.'

'That's not very likely,' said papa. 'They seem elderly people, and the son is a great sufferer from rheumatism. That is why they have taken such a fancy to this place – the scent of pine woods and the air about them are considered so good for illnesses of that kind. And sea-air suits him too, and they think it a wonderful chance to have all this as well as a dry climate and fairly mild winters. Yes – we who live here are uncommonly lucky.'

He strolled to the window as he spoke and stood looking out without speaking. Then he turned again.

'I'll remember about the hut,' he said. 'I don't fancy these good people would be likely to be fussy or ill-natured or to think you intruding. Their letters are so well-bred and considerate.'

We felt glad to hear that.

'Mamma,' I said, 'we have made the hut so nice and tidy for to-morrow – Sunday, you know. You and papa will come and have tea there, won't you? It will be the first time this year' (and 'the last perhaps' seemed whispered into my mind, though I did not utter the words), for the spring-coming had been uncertain and we had all had colds.

Mamma looked at papa.

'Yes,' he said; 'certainly we will. And the little ones too, Ida?'

'Of course,' I said, and then I went off to talk about cakes – and muffins if possible, to please Dods – to Hoskins, the result of the interview proving very satisfactory.

When I came back to the drawing-room the little ones were there – Denzil, solemn as usual; Esmé hopping and skipping about and chattering thirteen to the dozen, as usual, too! She is three or four years older now, and beginning to 'sober down,' as they say, so I hope if she ever reads this, which certainly will not be for three or four or more years from now, she will have gone on sobering down, enough to understand what a 'flibbertigibbet' (that is a word of Hoskins's which I think very expressive) she was, and not to be hurt at my description of her. For I do love her dearly, and I always have loved her dearly, and I should be sorry for her ever to lose her good spirits, though it is already a comfort that she sometimes sits still now, and listens to what is said to her.

All the same, that part of our lives which I am writing this story about, would have been much duller and harder but for our butterfly's funny, merry ways.

This afternoon she was especially laughing and mischievous, and it made me feel a little cross. I was tired, I daresay, with all the work we had been doing, and the sadness that had come upon us so suddenly, and I did want to be quiet and talk sensibly. It was a little papa's fault too, I must say. He is sometimes rather like a boy still, though he has four big children. He hates being unhappy! I don't think he would mind my saying so of him, and he got mischievous and teased Esmé, to make her say funny things, as she often does.

And I suppose I looked rather too grave, for, after a little, mamma whispered to me —

'Ida, dear, don't look so dreadfully unhappy; you almost make me wish we had not told you anything till we were obliged to do so.'

'I don't look worse than Geordie,' I replied, in a whisper too, 'or – or,' as I happened just then to catch sight of my younger brother's face, 'than Denzil.'

At this mamma did burst out laughing – a real merry laugh, which, in spite of my crossness, I was pleased to hear.

'My dear!' she exclaimed, 'who has ever seen Denzil anything but solemn! And as he knows nothing, it has certainly not to do with what we are all thinking about. He was the solemnest baby even that ever was seen, though many babies are solemn. I used to feel quite ashamed of my frivolity when Denny was only a couple of months old. And – no, poor old Geordie is trying to cheer up, so you must too.'

Yes, it was true. Geordie was laughing and playing with Esmé and papa, though I know his heart was quite as heavy as mine. Geordie is very particularly good in some ways. So I resolved to choke down, or at least to hide, my sadness – and still more the sort of crossness I had been feeling. It was not exactly real ill-tempered crossness, but the kind of hating being unhappy and thinking that other people are unhappy too, which comes with troubles when one isn't used to them especially, and isn't patient and unselfish, though one wants to be.

However, I managed to look more amiable after mamma's little warning – still more, I think, after her hearty laugh. Her laughing always seems to drive away crossness and gloominess; it is so pretty and bright, and so real.

And I was helped too by another thing, though as yet it had scarcely taken shape in my mind, or even in my fancy. But it was there all the same, fluttering about somewhere, as if waiting for me to catch hold of it and make something of it. Just yet I did not give myself time to think it out. All I felt was a sort of presentiment that somewhere or somehow there was a way out of our troubles, or rather out of one part of them, and that I was going to find it before long. And I am quite sure that sometimes the thinking a thing out is more than half done by our brains before we know it – much in the same way that we – Dods and I – are quite sure that putting a lesson-book under your pillow at night helps you to know what you have to learn out of it by the next morning. Lots of children believe this, though none of us can explain it, and we don't like to speak of it for fear of being laughed at. But I don't mind writing about it, as I shall not hear if people do laugh at it or not.

Anyway it did happen to me this time, that something worked the cobweb ideas that were beginning to float about in my brain into a real touchable or speakable plan, before the 'awake' side of it – of my brain, I mean – knew that anything of the kind was there.

I will try to tell quite exactly how this came about. But first I must say that I don't think George was feeling so very bad after all, for the last thing he said to me that evening as we went up to bed was, 'I do hope Hoskins has managed to get some muffins for to-morrow.'