The Family at Misrule/Chapter 4

HE next day was exceedingly hot, one of those moist, breathless days that make February the most unpleasant month in the year to Sydney folks.

Every one in the house felt utterly limp and cross and miserable, and daily duties were performed in as slipshod and languid a manner as possible. The cook had made a great pan of quince jam, and brought it into the breakfast-room on a tray for Esther to tie down. And Esther was sitting in the rocking-chair trying to make up her mind to do it, and wondering whether it would be easier to use string or paste. Small Esther was making a terrible noise. She owned dolls and bricks, little tea-services, and baby furniture—all the toys that well-regulated little girls are supposed to love; she generally tired of them, however, after a few minutes' play.

At present she had made a tram of six heavy leather chairs, with the armchair for "motor," and her little sweet face was scarlet and wet with the exertion of dragging them into place.

In addition to this she had taken the fire-irons out of the fender, and was rowing, or in some way propelling the train forward—to her own satisfaction, at any rate—by brandishing the tongs wildly about while she stood in the motor and shouted and cried, "Gee up!"

"Essie," big Esther said at last, "you must be quiet. Poor mamma's head aches. Where's your doll? That's not a pretty game."

"All bwoked," said Essie; "gee up, old twain." Bang, bang, clatter, clatter.

"Essie, put those things away at once." Esther noticed the poker for the first time. "You naughty girl, you are scratching the chairs dreadfully."

"But I can't make ze twain puff-puff wifout," objected the engine-driver, "an' we has to go to Bwisbane; det up wif you." She leaned over the tall back of her locomotive, and made vigorous hits at the legs of it.

So vigorous indeed that the chair went over with a crash, precipitating Essie and the poker and tongs and shovel in four different directions.

"Oh dear," said Esther, and sighed before she attempted to go to the rescue. Essie was always tumbling from somewhere or other and never got much hurt, and really it was terribly hot.

"Oo-oo-oh!" said a very small voice. It quavered for a minute. If the anxiously examined little fat knees had been scratched, it would have broken into a despairing yell, but they were whole, and the motor had misbehaved itself.

"Beast!" she said, picking herself up in a great hurry,—"howid old pig!" Then she seized the poker and beat the prostrate chair with all her small, angered strength.

"Essie," big Esther said languidly—she had found with thankfulness she need not move from the chair,—"Essie, I shall whip you, if you use naughty words like that."

"But I was zust dettin' to Bwisbane—so it is a pig," Essie maintained. Then she climbed up again, and the journey proceeded.

In the nursery Meg was supposed to be giving lessons to Peter and Poppet, and superintending the more advanced studies of Nellie; for the last nursery governess had left suddenly, and the Captain had professed himself unable to afford another until the next quarter.

Meg used to provide herself with a book during these daily struggles, to be indulged in at times when her supervision was not required. It had been an "improving" book for the last month, for she had lately been finding out how wofully ignorant she was when she talked to the young man who had listened to her playing last night. To-day it was Browning, because he had looked horrified to find she never read any of his poems, on the plea that he was acknowledged to be difficult to understand.

It was a pity she chose "Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial" for her first essay, especially as it was such a hot day; but she had determined to read, dauntlessly, the first poem the book opened at.

"Do this sum, Poppet," she said, setting a multiplication with eight figures in each line—"dear, what a greasy slate; and Peter, if you drop any blots on your copy, you will have to write it again this afternoon."

Peter was sucking a little lump of ice he had stolen out of the ice-chest. Poppet asked him for a bit to clean her slate with, but he considered this such waste of precious material that he swallowed it in a hurry and choked. Poppet asked if she might go and wet her sponge; but Meg said no, it always took a quarter of an hour to do that simple act, if she escaped from the room. So Peter offered to breathe on it for her.

"Both of us will," said Poppet,—"you on the top half, and me on the bottom."

Meg was taking a cursory glance at "Filippo," and groaning mentally; she did not hear the arrangement for the slate-cleaning until the heads bumped violently and the two began to quarrel.

"You licked it with your tongue," Poppet said.

"I never—I wath only breathing with my lipth on it," declared Peter.

"I saw the end of your tongue hanging out," Poppet maintained.

"You're a thtory-teller, Poppet." Peter's face began to get red. "I wath only breathing, tho there."

"Peter, go and sit at the other end of the table. Poppet, if you put out your tongue at Peter again, I shall make you stand in the corner." Meg put a pen in the Browning to keep it open, and went over to Nell at the window to see how "Le Chien du Capitaine" was progressing.

"Oh, Nell!" she said.

The French dictionary lay face downwards on the broad window-sill; "Le Chien" was face upward on Nell's knee, but on the top of it was "Not Wisely, but too Well."

"Oh!" said Nell, with a gasp, her eyes misty, her cheeks flushed,—"oh, it's no use scolding, Meg,—I absolutely must finish this; I'm just where Kate is—Oh, Meg, you are horrid!"

For Meg had taken forcible possession of the dark green book, and had picked up the dictionary.

"You know you are not to read in the morning," she said; "and I don't think you ought to read a love story like this till you're eighteen at least. Really, Nellie, it's no use me pretending to overlook you; you've done one page of 'The Dog' in three mornings. I'll have to tell father I must give up the pretence of teaching."

"Here, give it to me," Nellie said, sighing wistfully; "it ought to be called 'The Pig,' I think, it's so detestable. Put 'Not Wisely' on the table, Miggie, so I can see the title and get occasional refreshment."

Then Meg returned to the "Privilege of Burial." Her first thought, when she had read the piece through, was that Browning was not a true poet, however great a man he might be; and her second that Allan Courtney must be exceedingly clever to be able to enjoy such reading; her third was sorrow at the poor brains she felt she must possess not to be able to enjoy it too.

She tried another at random—"Popularity." It was rather better she decided, though she had no very clear idea of the meaning; and oh! that terrible last verse,—was it an enigma, or could clever people see the sense instantly?—

The deep sigh that accompanied the third vain reading of it, disturbed Peter in his occupation of putting flies in the ink, fishing them out, and letting them crawl over to Poppet.

Poppet at her side of the table was similarly occupied, only she had captured a March-fly, and it made beautifully clear tracks right across to Peter.

"Is your sum finished, Poppet?" Meg said abstractedly, pondering even as she spoke, what Keats, who was a god to her, had to do with porridge.

Poppet put her hand over the March-fly and confessed it was not quite.

"How many rows have you done?"

The answer came in a whisper, "Not quite one."

"I shall keep you in to do it then after four," Meg said in her sternest voice; "and, Peter, look at your copy."

In the excitement of getting the half-drowned flies safely across Peter had made a landing-place of his copy-book, and great was the inkiness of it.

"Oh, bleth it!" he said ruefully.

Poppet's head was within an inch of her slate. She was working now at a startling pace, and counting on her fingers in a loud whisper. What would Bunty say if he came home, and she was not there to ask how he had got on, and sympathise with the red marks that were sure to be on his hands?

Nellie had translated five lines, and was occupied in a vain search for the dictionary meaning of pourra.

"I believe it's 'pour,' and 'ra' is a misprint that's got tacked on," she said, "or else this beautiful dictionary has left it out, there are ever so many words I can't find, Meg."

"Oh," said Meg, her patience flying away on sudden wings, "what is the use of anything? I won't teach you any more, any of you. Peter wrote far better a month ago than he does now; Poppet's taken an hour to do a row of multiplication by six, and you are looking in the dictionary for pourra. It's simply wasting all my time to sit here."

The problem, "who fished the murex up?" had not improved my eldest heroine's temper. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes sparkled, she threw out her hands in a little dramatic way. "You can go, Peter, you can go and make mud pies of the universe, if you like; Poppet, you can go too, tear your dress, and climb as many trees as you please; Nellie, you can sit in front of the looking-glass the rest of the day and read every novel in the house,—why should I care? I won't teach any more."

She flung herself down on the old horse-hair sofa, opened her Browning, and turned her face to the wall.

And they all went, not at first, but presently and by degrees.

"The thaid we could," whispered Peter.

"Did she mean it?" Poppet said doubtfully.

"Of courth," said Peter; "I'm going, at any rate. The thaid I wath to; I'm not going to dithobey her," and he slipped out on tip-toe. Poppet worked to the end of the line by seven, then she remembered she had forgotten to "carry" all the way, and she grew afraid that Peter would get to the birds' eggs she was putting in compartments for Bunty.

So she also, after a glance or two at her sister's back hair, slipped off her chair and stole softly away.

And Nellie drew "Not Wisely" to her own end of the table with the aid of a long ruler; then she followed the example of her iniquitous juniors and departed noiselessly.

It was nearly an hour before Meg turned round again. She had lost herself in some wonderful poems now,—"The Flight of the Duchess," "By the Fireside," and some of the shorter love pieces; she began to see possibilities of beauty and enjoyment, and felt glad with a great gladness that she was able to appreciate them even in a slight degree.

Then the silence struck her. Surely if Poppet were doing her sum, her pencil would be squeaking; and surely if Peter were engaged as he should be on his copy, he would be breathing laboriously and giving occasional little impatient grunts to testify to each fresh blot.

She looked round, and saw the deserted room.

"Took me at my word!" she said aloud. "They might have known I didn't mean it, young scamps,—Nellie too."

Then she smiled indulgently. The exquisite tenderness and the strength of the love pieces had softened and braced her at the same time.

"They're very young," she said, as she went out after them, "and—really it's very hot."

This was all in the morning. At night there was another breeze.

Bunty did not eat his pudding. That of itself was phenomenal, for it was brown with sultanas and had citron peel at wide intervals; generally he managed three servings, and, even then, said they might have made it in a bigger basin. But to-night he said "No pudding" in a sullen voice, and kicked the legs of his chair monotonously with his boot heels.

"You might have the common politeness to say thank you, I think," said Nellie, who was officiating at nursery tea in Meg's absence. "What a boor you are getting, John."

"Oh, go and hang yourself," he returned. He pushed his chair back from the table, and went out of the room with lowering brows.

Poppet slipped down from her chair.

"Sit down instantly, Poppet; do you think I'm going to allow you to behave like this?" Nellie cried. "If John has no more manners than a larrikin, you are not to follow his example. Sit down, I tell you, Poppet; do you hear me?"

"Can't you see how white he is?" said the little girl, her lips trembling. "Nellie, I can't stay—no, I don't want pudding." She darted across the room and down the passage after him.

The boys' bedrooms opened on to a long landing with a high staircase window at the end that looked straight out to the river and the great stretch of gum trees on the Crown lands.

Bunty was standing staring out, his hands thrust in his pockets; the setting sun was on the stained window-panes, and his face looked ghastly in the red light.

"Was it very bad?" said the little, tender voice at his elbow.

He turned round, and looked at his young sister for a minute in silence.

"Look here, Poppet," he said, and his voice sounded strange and strangled; "I know I tell lies and do mean things—I can't help it sometimes, I think I was made so; but I haven't done this new thing they say I have—Poppet, I swear I haven't."

"I know you haven't," the loving voice said; "what is it, Bunty?"

He gave her a fleeting, grateful glance. "I can't tell you, old girl—you'll know soon enough,—every one thinks I have; it's no good me saying anything nothing's any good in the world." He leaned his forehead on the cold window-pane and choked something down in his throat. "To-morrow, Poppet, they'll say all sorts of things about me; but don't you believe them, old girl—will you?—whatever they say, Poppet—promise me."

"I pwomise you, Bunty, faithf'lly," the little girl said, an almost solemn light in her eyes. She could never remember Bunty quite like this before. There was a despairing note in his voice, and really the red sunset light made his face look dreadful.

"Give us a kiss, Poppet," he whispered, and put his face down on her little, rough, curly head.

The child burst into tears of excitement and fright—everything seemed so strange and unreal. Bunty had never asked her for a kiss before in his life. She clung to him sobbing, with her small, thin arms around his neck and her cheek against his. Both his arms were round her, he had lifted her up to him right off the ground, and his cheeks were almost as wet as hers.

There was a step, and he set her down again and turned away.

"Where are you going?" she asked half fearfully.

"To bed," he said gruffly. "My head aches. Good-night."