Part 11

'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. . . . . . . I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life! and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.'

I nearly forgot to say that the workpeople are out of all the rooms, except the servants' bedrooms, so we are able to make a start arranging furniture. Really, there isn't time to breathe, but when it is finished Michael will perhaps come home. Oh, the happiness of seeing him walk up to the front door, of taking him round the rooms, of introducing him to all the dear old things, of showing him the garden. I can't think about it, I cannot bear the separation bravely if I do--and for five days I have had no letter.

The weather is delightful for going to and fro from Fernfold. It is warmer, and there is a shade of green over the garden. Snowdrops and a few early primroses make a show of bloom and great fat buds are coming on the lilac trees. Soon there will be violets under the hedges. My lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Each morning Ross and I walk over to the cottage with sandwiches and Cornish pasties, eggs and things, and coffee hot as hot in thermos flasks. The two chars meet us there and Nannie and the Gidger come sometimes for tea. We all go home tired but happy in the bus at five o'clock. The General Public will be relieved to know that up to now the horse has not succumbed to any other fits on my account!

To-day we arranged the hall. Three sides of it are panelled with black oak. There are large red flagstones for a floor and a wide window looking out across a bit of lawn into a little wood already pierced with bluebell spikes. Amongst the family things there is an old deal settle painted black, and this and a spinning wheel now stand beside the open fire, and where there is no panelling on the walls, I've stood an ancient dresser and filled its shelves with plates and dishes, made of stoneware, blue and gold. There are cups to match as well upon the hooks, and on the board below a naval copper rum jug Ross dug up from somewhere, and some copper bowls and pans. The carved oak chest now stands beneath the window, and there are other things besides which you shall see if you like to come and call on me! And then, although it looked so nice it lacked the feel of Michael, and because I am a very foolish woman I hung some caps and a coat of his upon the hooks just by the door, and flung a pipe and matches and a riding whip upon the table, and pretended that he had just come in and said, 'Lunch ready, old lady, what's the pudden?' and was gone upstairs for a moment followed by a trail of dogs. Then because he hadn't, and his things only increased the desolation, and because I have not had a letter for five days, I wept copiously into the aforesaid coat, and made a wet patch on the sleeve. Ross, passing unexpectedly, caught me with wet eyes, so I told him that the smell of Harris tweed always had, did, and would make my eyes water, which was the best excuse I could make at such short notice. This statement my brother received with the tact of an archangel, merely remarking as he went out that he knew exactly what I meant. Some things made his eyes run, for example, pepper and onions, and measles in the early stages. He returned soon after and said,--

'Meg, I want my lunch.'

'But you can't possibly eat your lunch at half-past twelve, Ross.'

'Can't I? You try me. Nature abhors a vacuum, come on, I'm starving. Now,' said he, as he stood, a great tall thing with his back to the fire, 'you're going to have a long rest this afternoon.'

'Indeed, I'm not, I've simply stacks to do.'

'This afternoon and every afternoon,' continued Ross, ignoring my remark. 'Michael says I'm letting you do too much, you're tired out and it's got to be stopped, I've got to read the Riot Act and then the list of crimes.'

'I should have thought the crimes came first,' I said.

'They have,' replied my brother grimly. 'Been reading in bed?' he asked abruptly.

'Yes, I haven't been able to sleep the last three nights, and it's no good, I simply must work, I can't do nothing with the news so bad and Michael in the thick of all that hell. Work all day and reading at night stop me thinking, and keeps me sane, so don't ask me to do less, Ross.'

'I don't "ask" you,' he said, and there was a horrid little silence.

One of the masters at Harrow once said to daddy, 'Don't mistake your boy, in spite of his wild spirits, his fun and charm and fascination, there's iron underneath.' The iron has a way of slipping up at times; it was uppermost just then, floating merrily, like the borrowed axe, and where was the prophet to whom I could go for rescue and say, 'Alas, Master.'

'You're too thin,' he began again, and then he pulled a letter out of his pocket and said, 'I don't really know any one who can express himself more clearly than Michael, once he really starts. I've had a regular jawing to-day from him for letting you get overtired--he----'

'Oh, Ross,' I interrupted, getting up hurriedly and clutching at his sleeve, 'have you had a letter from Michael to-day?'

'Yes, and another yesterday; why, what's the matter, kid?'

'Oh, why didn't you tell me?'

'It never occurred to me,' he said, 'Michael only wrote yesterday about money matters, and about you to-day; you hear from him every day yourself, don't you?'

'But I haven't had a letter for nearly a week, Ross.'

'Why on earth didn't you tell me, then,' he said, sitting down beside me on the settle.

'It's such a small worry compared with other people's, but I've been so dreadfully anxious.'

'You poor little scrap,' he said, and the cry which he had interrupted earlier in the morning I finished on his shoulder comfortably.

'What ridiculous handkerchiefs women use,' he remarked presently, exchanging my wet crumpled ball for his nice big, cool, dry one. 'Some chap said that men must work and women must weep, and you'd think that the sex that did the weeping would go in for the larger handkerchiefs, but I suppose you can't expect a female thing to be consistent. I shall have to ask our Lady of Ventre to bring a mop if you don't stop soon, and it'll be so bad for her inside, Meg.'

'How can you be so absurd,' I said, cheering up a bit, 'and I'm not a female thing.'

'You're a very provoking one,' he replied, 'and if there's another interval in Michael's letters, I'm to be told.'

'What does Michael say?' I asked.

'I'm to be told,' he repeated, tilting up my chin.

'So you said before,' I answered, trying to take his hand away, 'but I don't want to worry you with all my woes, you've got enough of your own.'

'My dear child, I could have told you two days ago that as I had heard from Michael his letters to you were only hung up in the post, and you would have been spared all this needless worry. Are you going to tell me in future, or must I order Nannie to bring me all your letters first?' and he tilted my chin still higher.

'I will tell you,' I said weakly, leaning up against him, it seemed the only way to stop him looking at me, 'What does Michael say?'

'That the Power of Attorney he gave me to manage his affairs is now extended to his wife, that there's to be no more reading in bed, no more rackety days in London. Blows me up sky high for letting you work all day and sew miles of little frills at night. Here, I'll read you out the last bit: "Yes, it's all right about the shares. You take quite decent care of my goods, why can't you of my chattel? I'll scrag you if you let her get knocked up; don't take the slightest notice of anything she says, make her obey orders."'

'The audacity of the man, the cheek,' I exclaimed, 'to call me a "chattel," to talk of "orders"--to a person who by Act of Parliament has been put on an equality with himself--to a woman with the vote--to a householder--the autocracy of it!'

'Good word that,' said my aggravating brother, 'but then, you see, Michael isn't exactly Mr Jellaby, and I'm going to see that you do obey orders, and chuck in a few extras of my own--milk and things,' said Ross vaguely. 'Here, get outside this sandwich and have some more coffee for a start, and then up you go to get a rest.'

'It's so nice by the fire,' I remarked rebelliously, and then he remembered the old joke and said whimsically, 'You know what you promised in the harness-room that day, darling,' and he gave me one of his rare kisses.

So I hope Michael the caveman is satisfied--that black beast--out there. All my plans upset, all the crockery still in straw, no curtains up, and not a picture hung. Oh, I had planned to have the cave so nice for his return, to sprinkle all the floor with fine sea sand, to hang up the skin of that big tiger that he killed, to keep away the draught, and over the driftwood fire to set a pot of rabbit stew (he always is so hungry), and then perhaps with a new necklace for myself I should have been ready.

Just as we were getting in the bus to-night our Lady of Ventre came running out to ask me if she might come two hours late to-morrow. She said that an old woman in the village was dying, and was sure to be dead by the morning, and she had been asked to lay her out, there being no nieces or daughters who could do it. 'Can't say I like the job, mum, but one can't 'ardly refuse to perform the last horfice for the dead seeing as 'ow we've all got to come to it; it's different if you know a person; if it was you now, mum, or the capting, I'd do it with pleasure.' Ross's guffaw nearly took the roof off.

When we got back to Fernfold there were three letters from Michael, but I only liked two of them. If he gives another man a Power of Attorney to row his wife, he oughtn't to do it himself as well. It's not cricket. Oh, well, I read the third one through again and liked it better, because I left out all the written part and only read between the lines--my darling!

*CHAPTER XVI*

Another week has passed. The workpeople have gone and taken all their pots and pails. Gidger's cottage is almost finished. It will be quite completed by to-night and we are going to sleep in it.

At the moment the two chars are working in the kitchen: Brown with his leg up is unpacking china, Ross ordering every one about, Nannie and the Gidger very busy in the nursery (the Poppet giving much advice about her own department), while the only person who really matters is doing 'nothing much' for a day or two, except cussing her male relatives in her heart.

The day-nursery is rather pretty--soft green walls, so that there may be no glare to strain the precious eyes: white furniture, just big enough for tiny folk: cupboards with shelves, low enough for little hands to reach the toys and that lovely 'Masque of Flowers' for pictures.

There is a window seat with cushions, where big people can tell small ones fairy stories in the dusk. There's a comfy chair for Nannie and a rocking-horse and doll's house, all presents from Aunt Constance, sent 'with love.'

Then in the Gidger's other room the same soft green, and all the pictures the small owner loves: that perfect Madonna of Andrea del Sarto, and a copy of Watts' 'Whence--Whither?' Do you remember that perfect baby, who runs out of the sea toward you, whichever way you stand and look at it. By special request, hung where she can always see them, are the two great favourites, 'The Good Shepherd' with a lamb, and the other--five Persian fluffy kittens sitting in a row.

'Because I like,' explained the Gidger to Uncle Woss, 'to see Jesus and the tittens when I get into my byes.'

'Would you call King George by his Christian name, Gidger?' Ross asked.

'Course not, Uncle Woss.'

'Why?'

'Because it would be most fwightful cheek.'

'Then don't you see it's much more cheek to call Him by His, darling?'

'But I didn't mean to be wude to Him,' said the Poppet tearfully, 'I'm fond of Him.'

'Of course, darling, so if you just say "Sorry, Sir," it'll be all right.'

So the Gidger said, 'Sorry, Sir,' and the conversation changed to kittens.

'I wish I had a titten, Uncle Woss, just like the one in the miggle.'

Ross said he would see what could be done, with which my daughter seemed contented.

But, ah, why is there only one little bed in the nursery, why is there no little son? Yes, of course, Michael is 'better to me than ten sons,' only he's so 'normous, the other would be so cuddley.

The Gidger does so want a long clothes baby doll. She's got a mother hunger for it, and I won't give her one. Shall I tell you why? If I should ever have the joy to hope about a little son, I shall hunt the garden for a nest, and let the Gidger peep at it with all the soft, downy things inside. Then I shall say, 'I made a little nest for you once, darling, just underneath my heart,' and I shall take her up in the nursery and open a drawer and show her all the small robes and garments that I made for her, and then she'll say, 'Oh, muvver, why won't you let me have a long clothes baby dolly?' And I shall tell her about the second nest that I've begun to make, and then I shall give her a most perfect baby doll that I've got waiting in a box just now. I shall ask her sometimes if she'd like to come and learn to sew some clothes for her baby while I sew some for mine: and if she pricks her little fingers, and makes a tiny spot of blood upon the narrow hem, and looks at me with eyes like drowned forget-me-nots (as she does if she is going to cry), I shall say, 'But, darling, don't you think it's worth it for your baby?' She'll learn to know then, when she's married and she's got the mother hunger, that her baby will be worth the mother pain.

And now the evening time has come. The house is finished, the last picture is up, the last curtain hung, and all the dear domestic gods arranged. Alas! the fly in the ointment has turned up also. The staff has arrived, and I am terrified of it. I feel all awash inside to think that I have to order the dinner in the morning and tell the S.P. what her work is. However, 'sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'

Tired, but happy, I wandered into the scented garden in the dusk to gather great branches of white and purple lilac, armfuls of forget-me-not and fragrant pheasant eye and the very early honeysuckle that grows over the porch. Then I filled every vase and pot that could be induced to hold water, and some that couldn't, Ross says, because I stood a leaky jar on his dressing-table and the water trickled into the drawer beneath and reduced the contents to pulp.

The house is so sweet, filled with the spring, but if only I had decorated all the rooms for Michael! My heart goes out to him to-night with a great longing. The rooms are full of the peace and fragrance only found in old houses, yet, dear as it is, it can never be to me anything more than a house till he comes and transforms it into _Home_.

*CHAPTER XVII*

I think 'The Staff' might be worse, though it could not be more alarming. Dulcie cooks beautifully, only she won't cook enough of anything, and the S.P. is very superior, quite appallingly so. She does her work well, but she despises me. I try to like her, but it is difficult to feel any affection for a person who looks as if you were a bad smell under her nose. She has always lived with such exclusive families that I cannot think she will stay very long with us. Her last place was a failure, she only stayed a month. 'After I got there,' she explained, 'I found the mistress was not a lady.'

'How did you know?' I inquired politely.

'Oh, she never dressed for dinner, put the coals on with her fingers, and had tea in the dining-room. (By a merciful dispensation we have ours in the hall.) 'I was most uncomfortable,' she added, 'but I liked him. He was a real gentleman, his underclothing was all made of silk.'

'My 'Ilda' needs a great deal of polishing. At lunch the S.P. teaches her to wait at table, but it is a daily martyrdom for any one so perfectly genteel, so unutterably refined!

Monica turned up yesterday, unexpectedly, in a motor-car. She stayed ten minutes and then dashed back to her hospital.

'Oh, Meg!' she laughed as she came in, 'why didn't you tell me the truth years ago? What an utter little fool I've always been, but I've found out that I love him after all.'

'Well, you'd better write and tell him so,' I said, and kissed her.

'I have,' she answered, blushing like a wild rose. 'Aren't I a bold, bad girl? Aren't modern women hussies? I'm so longing for his letter, Meg. Oh, you were funny! I'm not a bit patrician, am I? I adore cement!'

Dear old Monica!

And after she had departed like a young whirlwind I had another thrill. The curate and his wife called, and he turned out to be Mr Williams. He is still solemn, and thinner and limper even than he used to be, but he cheered up a bit at the mention of the Bishop of Ligeria. She is a frail little person with a dress like a spasm and the most desolating hat it has been my lot to meet for years. I wonder if she dresses so from choice or poverty.

I was glad my brother was in London when they called. His eyes would have been fascinated by the reserve of food on Mr Williams's coat. Funny old thing I Ross is always so well-groomed himself that, like the robin, he makes all the other birds look dirty.

When he came home he brought a hamper.

'The one in the miggle's in there,' he said with pride.

'You are famed for your lucidity,' I remarked politely.

It was a kitten for the Gidger, such a purring, fluffy atom, just out of the frame and christened Fitzbattleaxe by my daughter the moment she saw it. When Nannie had whisked her away, Ross said,--

'You'll have to put up with me for a bit longer, old thing. I got a big overhauling to-day. They say my arm is better, and I can have it in a sling now instead of these infernal bandages.'

'Well, that's something,' I observed, but Ross is not of a grateful nature.

'Small something, I think,' he snorted. 'Boards are a lot of old women, said I must be content to "Make haste slowly," as if I were a schoolgirl. I want to be back with my men. Oh, what an awful time it seems since I saw anybody decent.'

'Well,' I ejaculated, 'if that's not the pink-edged limit!'

'Oh, twins don't count, Meg, but I am in a vile temper. Let's go and do something. Clean the greenhouse roof, shall we? There's just light enough. Come on!'

Ross decided the plan of campaign. I was to pour the water from my bedroom window on to the glass beneath, while he, armed with a long broom borrowed from the kitchen, would stand on a pair of steps in the garden and clean the glass with the broom aforesaid.

'Now, Meg, plenty of water, no stinting,' he ordered.

So I got a huge canfull, and in order that Ross should have all the water he desired, I poured it out, not from the spout but from the other end, with great pride and force. Alas, 'the ways of mice and men aft gang agley.' The gutter of the beastly thing was too small to catch my Niagara, and the entire volume of water rushed over the glass, down Ross's neck, into his eyes and mouth, flooding his pockets and soaking him to the skin.

He gave one awful yell and overbalanced into the water butt, the lid of which, of course, was off (it would be in my garden). In my agitation I dropped the can, which followed the water in a wild leap on to the path below, smashing two or three panes of glass in its mad career.

'Well, you have done it,' said Ross, surveying the wreckage from the water tub. 'There's no doubt if you want a thing really well done, it's best to do it oneself.'

Then Sam appeared and looked reproachfully at me, and spoke to Ross, and I heard the words 'arm' and something about 'taking more care.'

Ross looked through Sam in that disgusting way he has when he isn't pleased, and said,--

'I can't go through the house like this, Meg; why do you have your tubs lined with green. Get me a bath, Brown.'

'Cold, sir?'

'How can I get this stuff off in cold? Hot, of course,' snapped his master, 'and ask the Titmouse for the ladder, Brown, and I'll go through the bathroom window.'

As I went upstairs a little later, Ross's door was slightly open; Sam was catching it. King's Regulations and the Hickley Woods wrestling for the mastery.

'You'll excuse me, sir, you don't take care.'

Then my brother's voice floated towards me down the passage.

'No, I'll not excuse you, Brown. I've had too much cheek from you the last ten minutes! Get me a shirt. If you mention my arm again in front of Mrs Ellsley, you'll quit. Now my coat. Do you call this brushed? Now a handkerchief, and get out.'

Then as he remembered that he was now promoted to a sling he added stormily,--

'Understand once for all, I will not be fussed over like a schoolgirl, I'm not a sucking dove.'

'Oh, no, sir,' said Brown, and I caught a flicker of amusement on his impassive countenance as he closed the door behind him with the wet clothes on his arm.

Just then the carrier brought a crate of hens and a box of rabbits from Aunt Constance. We felt rather like Noah when the animals began to file into the ark. The hens were the breed that have the very large combs. 'My 'Ilda' remarked as they were put into their run,--

'My! you won't get many eggs from them, mum, they're all cocks.'

The Gidger loved the rabbits and I told her how the mother bunny would presently have some little ones, and that she would love them very much and make a warm nest for them, and pull off her own soft fur to keep her babies warm. I want my little daughter to know of all the wonderful protective instincts God has implanted in His creatures and the sweet provision that He makes for all the tiny things.

Just before dinner we flew down the village to buy some bran for the new arrivals. On our return my brother did one of his atrocious lightning changes.

When Sam let us in Ross said,--

'Thanks, Sam, any letters?' and then 'Knee bad?'

'Pretty middling, sir.'

'Go and put it up, then. What are you about on it for?'

'It'll be time enough to put it up after dinner, sir. I _must_ wait at table to-night, the parlour-maid is out.'

The atmosphere in the hall became suddenly arctic. I shivered as the cold of it blew into me. I could feel Ross looking through Sam as he asked coldly,--

'Did you intend to say "must" to me, Brown?' And Brown said,--

'No, sir,' and did not appear at dinner. I sent him up a book and two Cox's oranges, so I had to continue 'My 'Ilda's' education in the art of waiting.

As she handed the soup she decorated each plate with a beautiful scallop like a flannel petticoat. I suppose it is difficult to keep liquid level and walk at the same time. She had put no fish forks on the table, so I said reprovingly,--

'What are we to eat the fish with, Hilda?'

'Oh, whatever you like, Mrs Ellsley,' she said brightly. Ross drank some water hurriedly. I endeavoured to make my meaning clearer and to keep my face straight at the same time, whereupon 'My 'Ilda' said,--

'I do like being here; you don't mind how many mistakes I make so long as I do it right.'

She shot a knife and fork into Ross's lap, mercifully they were clean or there would have been ructions, then she upset a glass of water and got the hiccoughs, and later tripped over the footstool and sent the cheese straws flying like leaves before an autumn gale.

When 'My 'Ilda' brought the coffee into the hall she stepped on the kitten's tail, and as that indignant fluffy ball spat at her, she remarked,--

'My! ain't Fitzbattleaxe got a temper, I don't think. Your face _is_ red, Mrs Ellsley; did I do it all right at dinner?'

As I went to my room to fetch a book I heard her fall down the back stairs with a pail. It was the end of an imperfect meal. Ross says I ought to start a nursing home for sergeant-majors suffering from depression--they'd be cured in a week, and then he remarked,--