Part 3

Ross was out, so he only got to the school half an hour before father. Meantime Aunt Amelia had been sent for, and I was in the head mistress's room being rowed when Ross was announced. He looked quite old as he came in and said, 'Is my sister still alive?'

He was so relieved when he saw me that he was just going to kiss me, but Aunt Amelia stopped him and said he'd better not.

'Have you got _another_ cold?' he asked, 'but I'm not afraid of germs.'

Ross wouldn't sit down because I wasn't allowed to. I felt like a prisoner at the bar while he was told all my crimes from the beginning of time to 'this last disgraceful episode which could not be passed over.'

Ross could not see their point of view at all. When she told him about the scones he exclaimed,

'But if my sister was hungry surely----?' and she said, 'But is that any reason why your sister should leave the house in the middle of the night?' and Aunt Amelia remarked she did not know what my dear dead mother would say if she could know it.

My quick hurt then! I know it's awfully weak-minded to cry when you're in a row, but I couldn't stand that bit about mother. Ross seemed to get suddenly about seven feet high and his face went like a granite sphinx, and he put his arm round me and said, 'There darling,' several times.

'Oh, Ross,' I sobbed, 'I never left the house at all, I only ran out into the garden.'

'Of course, darling.'

'And it wasn't the middle of the night either, Ross, it was four o'clock in the morning.'

And he agreed that it was _quite_ different.

When daddy came the Mistress regretted that I would have to be expelled, but she trusted that a father's care and watchful eye were all I needed. She hoped and believed I had no vice.

I cried some more against father's sleeve then, because Ross had said once that people were only expelled for really rotten things,--

'It was the bluebells, daddy.'

'Of course it was, darling,' he said, 'but they're heaps bigger in Devonshire.'

'That child is on the road to ruin,' groaned my aunt.

Father said to Ross in the cab that crabbed age and youth never could live together, and that woman was enough to make an Evangelical parson turn Papist.

But something happened while I was at school that I can't forget. We were allowed occasionally to go to Evensong, and once in the dimness of the church I saw a man gazing at me. He looked like a soldier in the Indian army--not a bit handsome, but he had a certain rugged strength that made his face seem rather splendid. The keen, clear eyes were gray and stern, but softened as they looked at me. I felt as if I knew him. I have often thought since of that 'absent face that fixed me,' and I find myself comparing other men with him, and somehow, I can't explain it very well, I think I feel a little older since I saw him.

*CHAPTER VII*

Oh, it was topping to get home. Nannie said I was most frightfully thin. She seemed quite worried about it, but the cook said consolingly,--

'Oh, we all ebbs and flows, especially gals. She only wants the crip o' the crame and an egg beat up in a drop of good milk.'

The next day I woke up with a spot on my chest, and Nannie said I was feverish, and daddy got in a panic and sent for Doctor Merriwater. His name is Tobias, but we always call him Toby. When he came he looked at my spot most earnestly and said,--

'Why, good gracious, the child has got the measles, the one and only measle, she's in a frightfully dangerous state. Don't let her get up for at least two days and I'll send you round a collar and a chain at once or I'm afraid her measle will be gone before the morning.'

When I was better I asked father if I could be presented, as I had left school, and Monica was going to be.

'No,' he said, 'I've had quite enough of London for you for the moment.'

'Oh, daddy, why not?'

Father turned autocratic then and said, 'Because I don't choose, darling.' So, of course, I couldn't say any more.

But after a minute he twinkled at me,--

'Sorry, little 'un, but a parson has to "rule his children!" It's one of Timothy's conditions.'

'Oh, that was deacons, daddy! and you're a vicar.'

'Or if "a man desires the office of a bishop," Meg.'

'But _do_ you, father?' I asked gravely, 'for if you don't you haven't got a leg to stand on, and I----'

'No, I don't desire the office of a bishop, Meg; I don't want to do anything different from what I am doing now. I don't, I don't.'

'Why, father,' I exclaimed, 'does anybody want you to?'

'I loathe natives,' he replied, and went out of the room hurriedly.

Sometimes I don't understand my father; he says things that don't seem to have the slightest bearing on the subject under discussion.

When Ross came home in the summer for the holidays he was bigger than ever. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him in his place. He seemed to think he could go straight on from that moment when he went seven feet high and said, 'There, darling.' He actually had the cheek to say, 'Because I don't choose' to me once, and we had words about it!

Aunt Amelia invited herself to stay for six weeks while he was home. Relations were slightly strained all the time and when she said to father in front of Ross, 'I hope Meg has been quite steady since.' I really thought they were both going to blow up, but we escaped with a slammed door and father's threat to go into lodgings.

Ross calmed down later in the day and observed that 'It was a quaint family, all cracked on something: Aunt Amelia on Calvinism, Uncle Jasper on Archaeology, Cousin Emily on animals, and you,' he added rudely, 'on--er bluebells.'

'And daddy?' I asked, ignoring the insult.

'Oh, daddy's passion is souls,' and he changed the conversation quickly. But I was never so horrified in all my life. To think that my brother should compare father with Aunt Amelia.

'Souls,' I gasped, 'whatever do you mean? Are you _ab-so-lu-tely_ dotty, Ross?'

'You never _can_ see anything farther than your nose, Meg. What do you suppose he said he was going to change the kids' service for that Sunday?'

For 'that Sunday' was the one that comes once a month, when the village children have to go to church, to say the catechism to father, instead of having Sunday school. He said at lunch if we had no other engagements he'd be most awfully obliged if Aunt Amelia and I would go and help keep the kids quiet as several of the teachers were away.

Aunt Amelia observed that she never had engagements on Sunday (she is tiring), and of course I said I would go, though privately I thought it was a sin and a shame to spend that gorgeous afternoon in learning what your godfathers and godmothers did for you. Ours never did anything for us, except to send us ten bob at Christmas, though Ross's godmother says she is going to leave him all her money and me her diamonds.

It was so hot in church, and the children were so naughty. The small boy next to me was a little devil. His name was Tommy Vellacott. He had a picture in his Prayer Book and he would keep sticking pins in it. Father stopped once and asked what he was doing.

'Pwicking holes in the Virgin Mawry,' he said, and all the children tittered. Daddy started the Catechism again and said to Tommy,--

'What is thy duty towards God?'

Tommy looked bored but replied that his duty was to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love Him.'

Father seemed to think it was a heaven-sent opportunity to point a practical moral, so remarked that if children really loved God, they ought not to bring a dead mouse in church to frighten the others with, and that if Tommy were sorry he had better put it in the porch. (That's the worst of father, he isn't satisfied with repentance; you have to burn the vanities as well).

'Don't love God,' said Tommy.

Father stared down at the little heathen with a startled look on his face.

'You don't love God, Tommy?'

'No,' said Tommy, who is nothing if not truthful, 'course I don't, only believe in Him.'

I thought it was the most humorous thing I had ever heard, but Aunt Amelia was horrified, and at tea said that the present generation was hopeless and that Tommy's remark was a specimen of the apostasy of the age.

'Well, I belong to the church militant, Amelia, so I'm not willing to leave it at that,' said daddy, rather as if he were trying to keep his temper. So I, by way of pouring oil on the troubled waters, said,--

'But, daddy, don't most people feel like Tommy? They "believe," but I think it's most frightfully difficult to love the Man of Sorrows.'

Father looked at me with much the same expression as he had when he looked at Tommy, but he only said gently,--

'Darling, I don't think you will love the Man of Sorrows until you've become acquainted with grief yourself.'

I felt a pig for the rest of the day; it seemed such a rotten thing to have said to father.

The next time the kids had to go to church father said he was going to chuck the catechism and tell them stories instead, and let them choose their own hymns.

Aunt Amelia (who was still staying with us for our sins) observed that nothing was gained by leaving the old paths; and then father made another of those extraordinary remarks that don't seem to have the slightest connection with the rest of the conversation.

'"A Hindoo, though dying of thirst, will refuse water if offered in a foreign cup, but he will drink the _same_ water if offered in his own."'

When daddy got into church he said to the kids,--

'It's much too hot to stay indoors this lovely day, we'll all go out and sit in the shade in the meadow.'

The children were frightfully bucked, and when they were all seated daddy said,--

'Now, somebody choose a hymn.'

Tommy Vellacott said he would like the one about the little boy who stole the old gentleman's watch. Father, with great difficulty, discovered that he meant

'The old man, meek and mild. The Priest of Israel slept. _His watch_ the Temple child The little Levite _kept_.'

I could feel Aunt Amelia's expression down my backbone.

Then daddy said,--

'Now, children, I will tell you a story.'

'A Sunday one?' asked Tommy, and when father said, 'Oh, yes, certainly,' he appeared to be about to take no further interest in the proceedings.

Father has a beautiful voice for story telling. He seems to fill it at will with fun and laughter, magic, mystery, tenderness, and tears. I wish I could put down on paper its beautiful tone and quality and show you the gentle softening of his strong face as he watched the little children sitting so contentedly in the meadow, listening to his tale.

Always after that daddy told them the old stories in a new way and the children were so interested and liked to choose the hymns. (They loved the ones for the burial of the dead). One day Tommy Vellacott sent daddy this note,--

'Please Mother says i can't go to church this afternoon and nor can emily she give me a green apple and i have got the dire rear and so has she so will you come to our house and tell us a story please your respectful tommy.'

And after the children's service, when daddy went down the village to see his two sick parishioners he had on his 'contented look,' as if what Ross calls his 'passion for souls' was somehow being satisfied by Tommy's desire to hear a Bible story. He is so dear and funny.

*CHAPTER VIII*

When Ross went to Sandhurst I got influenza, and then when I was better I got it again. Toby was very angry and said if I were going to turn into a trap for that bug he'd chuck up his profession and take in the village washing. By the time I had recovered the second time it was nearly Christmas, and Aunt Constance went to London, and I invited myself to lunch with Uncle Jasper on my seventeenth birthday, and oh! why I've got up to Chapter I again.... So the General Public can behold me now quite grown up, staid, and in my right mind, having been baptized, confirmed, and had the measles. But whatever else can I put in my novel? A little while after this I asked Uncle Jasper.

'Why, darling,' he said, 'I thought you just made it up as you went along.'

'But could you seriously advise me?' I ventured.

So he remarked that all the chapters must be about the same length and must be linked together by a strong plot, 'The General Public likes strong meat,' he said, and he looked at me and then across at father, and they laughed and telegraphed things to one another.

Nannie is the only person who really helps me. She said,--

'Why, you haven't got anything in yet about the old church, dearie, and after that I should write a chapter every day about what you do.'

'But the chapters won't be all the same length then.'

'I shouldn't worry about a thing like that,' said Nannie with her usual homely common sense, 'because even the General Public knows that some days are much longer than others. Why the calendar marks the longest and the shortest, doesn't it.'

'Yes,' I said doubtfully.

'Well, then!' said Nannie.

So I _will_ tell about the old church and "marey Falkner's" chemise.

Archaeologists say that our church is 'a perfect gem.' The walls are very thick, nearly three feet in some places, and the axe marks are still visible. The nave and chancel are about 1100. There is a Norman priest's door on the south side of the church and a perfect Norman arch, dividing the nave from the chancel. There are _two_ of the consecration crosses still remaining, and some bits of Saxon work.

There is no tower, but a little shingled wood turret with two bells, one of which is cracked. The pulpit and the canopy over it are 1628, and there are some splendid ancient candlesticks of brass. The church has small Norman lights mixed up with early English ones, and the pews are all old oak.

Uncle Jasper is simply absorbed in the history of the little place, and one day he showed me the deeds and some of the old Churchwarden accounts. I will copy out the one I like best, although he says it is not sufficiently 'early' to be really interesting.

'ACCOMPT FOR YE YEAR 1685.

L s. d. Received from ye ffor: Churchwarden 00 10 02 Reed ffrom ye psh on Two Rates .. 01 17 03 ---------- Totall Received 02 07 05 ---------- to ye house of Correction .. .. 00 12 04 Ffor Bread and wine & at ye Comm 00 07 06 ffor necessarie Repaire of ye Church 00 15 07 ffor Releiving poor passengers .. 00 02 06 ---------- Payd out 01 17 11 Rests due to ye psh .. .. 00 09 06 These Accompts were examin'd and Allowe'd by us FRED SLOCOMBE ROB COCKRAN WILLIAM COPP ALLIN VELLACOTT

I'm sure they had an awful bother to make the accounts balance, they must have got so muddled with all those noughts, especially Rob Cockran. I suppose Tommy Vellacott is a descendant of Allin's, and I've just remembered that there is an old woman who lives at the last house in the village and her name is Slocombe. She is thrice widowed and exceedingly rotund. She says she has only the Almighty to look after her now, and that all her troubles went innards and turned to fat. She has varicose veins. These things do link one up with the centuries.

(Father has just looked over my shoulder and says that really, 'after all the money that has been spent on my education!' But I don't know what he means. I'm certain varicose is spelled correctly, for I looked it up in the dictionary.)

It seems that some land and some money were given to the church by William the First 'for the health of his soul.' (Perhaps he'd been beastly to Matilda of Flanders and gave it as a kind of penance.) Father says, 'Oh, no. Probably it was a thank-offering when she died.'

'But,' I said, '_did_ she die first?' Father remarked that he thought she shuffled off this mortal coil in 1084, but that he couldn't bother to remember an unimportant little detail like that about a woman!

Apparently it was quite a nice bit of land, sufficiently large and fertile to supply pasture for '80 romping, roaming, and rollicking swine.'

Some of the things the tenants had to do were very quaint. How would the village people like daddy to come down on them now to 'dam the water to overflow the meadows once a year,' and if they didn't do it make them pay a halfpenny? Or supposing they got a message that they had 'to fill two dung carts every two days or pay twopence,' or 'thresh and winnow white wheat,' and for every two bushels that they didn't do have to pay 'somewhere about three farthings.'

But the thing that fascinates me so is the entry in the accounts about marey Falkner's chemise. I'll copy it out:--

1792--to pare shoes for Marey Falkner .. 4 6 To shift 16d Ell for marey Falkner .. 2 8 Two pare stockens 16d Do. .. 1 4 To Handkerchief 14d. Do. .. 1 2 Paid for maken Shift .. .. .. 6 and then 1793 for menden marey Falkners shoes 1 6

Oh, she must have been a proud girl when she got that outfit! But I hope the churchwarden's wife gave her the shift: it seems an embarrassing present to receive from an Evangelical churchwarden. I wonder if there was a ribbon round the top of it, and wasn't she a good girl to make her shoes last out so long? I do hope there was a ribbon. I've always had such heaps of them; the distribution of life's trimmings is very unequal; poor little marey Falkner.

The account goes on to say that Dame Crane received two and six for nursing John Insgridle, but they paid Dame Hollice 8/0 for nursing Snellings' wife, which seemed dear, unless there was a baby. H. Delva had to be examined and 'hors and cart to take her thare' cost six bob, which was a lot, I think. Then the churchwardens seem to have bought a lock for the church wicket and one Hedgehog, and paid four shillings for a hat for Richard Helsey. They procured a Polcat and a Stote and a mat for the 'Cumionion for the minister' and then got another Hedgehog and 'releived a porper' (doesn't it look poverty-struck spelled that way? I always told father that was the right way to spell relieved), and they finished up with seventy-two dozen Sparrows at three pence a dozen. Whatever did they do with such a Zoo?

But the thing I like best of all in the church is the record of a naughty boy who evidently behaved as disgracefully in the seventeenth century as my brother does in the twentieth, for very badly carved in the chancel near our seat is

R. Fotheringham. 1660.

There is a monument, too, to a Margaret Fotheringham on the opposite wall. She died young. I am so glad she did, for I have always loathed her, because Aunt Amelia used to tell me I ought to try to follow her good example. There is a long list of her virtues, and then it says:--

'This monument was erected by her afflicted father who, when he looks upon this place, knows that he gazes on an angel's tomb.'

But then, as Ross used to say when we were seven and I was extra specially fed up with my angelic ancestress, 'I don't suppose she really was as good and holy as all that, Meg, all men are liars; it says so in the Bible.'

Monica once said I ought to be proud of such ancient lineage, but I don't see why. We all go back to Adam.

'Yes,' said Monica, tilting up her chin, 'but it isn't every one that has written down how they did it.'

Of course I _do_ see that these things _do_ link one up to one's family.

'Just as varicose veins do to the centuries, little 'un,' father laughed, but he didn't condescend to explain what he meant. He is sometimes intentionally ambiguous.

*CHAPTER IX*

I fainted the day before yesterday, and I feel anxious about my health. I have been since I had the 'flu twice last winter. They say the after effects are worse than the disease. I have delusions: I find centipedes in my sponge. There was another yesterday, and I felt my condition was getting serious, so I spoke to Ross about it.

'Lawks, got 'em _again_,' he said, 'would you like a gun to shoot 'em with?'

I mentioned it to father, but, he, too, seemed to think I only thought I saw them. I went downstairs and found him mending a riding-whip.

'Do you ever see centipedes walking out of your sponge, father?'

'Never, I'm thankful to say,' he replied, dropping the whip suddenly and looking at me anxiously. 'But, Meg, what other symptoms have you? Does your head ache? Do you vomit? Does everything revolve? How many fingers am I holding up? Am I ever twins?'

'Do be serious, father.'

'I am,' he replied, trying to feel my pulse; 'I think it's frightfully serious. I shall get Toby to see you to-day and take you up to a specialist to-morrow. I understand it's frightfully on the increase amongst women.'

Well, I have heard of people with an _idee fixe_, and if there is such a thing as an insect fixe I must have it, and pretty badly, too, for another dropped out just before lunch when I was going to wash my face.

Nannie came in then and said, 'Dearie, why don't you keep your sponge on the top of your water jug instead of by the window; that's the fourth centipede I've found in your basin this week.'

She is a comfort.

But to-day I had another kind of delusion, for I went out alone in Uncle Jasper's woods to gather early primroses. It was in the dusk, just when the woods were growing dark and filled with mystery. But I'm not frightened now, for ever since I saw that man in church I love to go out in that gloaming time and let the 'longing that is not akin to pain' steal over me.

And then I saw him coming down the little path, and when he drew quite near he saw me, too, and a startled look came in his eyes and a great wonder. He stopped a moment and it seemed as if he half held out his hands to me.

And I? I don't know what I felt save that it seemed again as if I had met some one I had _known_ before. I dropped my flowers and ran home with my heart beating. But I knew, of course, he did not _really_ stop. I _must_ have dreamed the startled wonder of his face, that look of sudden adoration in his eyes.

Father met me at the entrance of the Park.

'Why, darling! were you frightened in the woods?'

'No,' I said, but I clung to his arm, and he turned autocratic then, and in his funny way forgot that I am grown up now, and forbade me to go out alone so late, because he thought that I had had a sudden fright such as I had when I was little, and the woods grew tulgy, and the trees turned to fantastic shapes, and strange things rustled in the undergrowth.

Then daddy told me a most amazing piece of news. There has been a family row at the Manor House, the first I ever remember.

Eustace told his father that he didn't want to go into the army after all, but that he wished to join the Roman church and be a monk instead. Imagine that bombshell in an Evangelical parish. Mercifully Aunt Amelia is not staying here just now. Ross's comments are not really printable. Uncle Jasper came over to see father about it in a towering temper just before dinner. I don't know what daddy said to him, but I was in the garden when he went away and I heard him say,--

'Yes, Anthony, I promise, at least, that it shan't be you over again. But I will never consent to it, never. A monk! My son!'

I wonder what that bit about father meant.

Daddy went to dine at the Manor House, so Ross and I had dinner alone as we weren't asked. My brother's mind is full of Monkeries, as he persists in railing them.

'What a mug Eustace is,' said he. 'Fancy wanting to give up his dogs and horses.'

'But giving up is very hard.'

'Yes, but it isn't giving up in his case; he was never keen on horses--thought the Derby wicked.'

'Well, but Ross, you know----'