Part 9

Now, naturally, of course, Miss Rawlings’s illness increased her anxiety to find Barbara Allan as quickly as ever she could. After all, you see, we all of us have only a certain number of years to live, and a year lasts only twelve calendar months, and the shortest month is only twenty-eight days (excluding Leap Year). So if you want to do anything badly it is better to begin at once, and go straight on.

The very first day she was out in Mr. Dubbins’s invalid chair she met her dear friend Mr. Moffat in Combermere Grove, and he stood conversing with her for a while under the boughs of almost as wide a spreading chestnut-tree as the village blacksmith’s in the poem. Mr. Moffat always looked as if he ought to have the comfort of a sleek, bushy beard. If he had, it is quite certain it would have wagged a good deal as he listened to Miss Rawlings. “What I am about to do, my dear Mr. Moffat, is advertise,” she cried, and in such a powerful voice that the lowest fronds of the leafing chestnut-tree over her head slightly trembled as they hung a little listlessly on their stalks in the spring sunshine.

“Advertise, my dear Felicia?” cried Mr. Moffat. “And what for?”

“Why, my dear old friend,” replied Miss Rawlings, “for Barbara Allan to be sure.”

Mr. Moffat blinked very rapidly, and the invisible beard wagged more than ever. And he looked hard at Miss Rawlings’s immense bonnet as if he actually expected to see that busy bee; as if he even feared it might be a Queen Bee and would produce a complete hive.

But after bidding him good-bye with yet another wag of the bonnet and a “Yes, thank you, Dubbins,” Miss Rawlings was as good as her word. She always was. Three days afterwards there appeared in the _Times_, and in the _Morning Post_, and in the _Daily Telegraph_, and five days later, in the _Spectator_, the following:

WANTED as soon as possible, by a lady who has lost her as long as she can remember, a little girl of the name (probably) of Barbara Allan, or of a name that _sounds_ like Barbara Allan. The little girl is about ten years old. She has a rather three-cornered shaped face, with narrow cheek-bones, and bright brown eyes. She is slim, with long fingers, and wears a pigtail and probably a round beaver hat. She shall have an _exceedingly_ happy home and Every Comfort, and her friends (or relatives) will be amply rewarded for all the care and kindness they have bestowed upon her, for the first nine years or more of her life.

You should have seen Miss Rawlings reading that advertisement over and over. Her _Times_ that morning had a perfume as of the spices of Ambrosia. But even Miss Rawlings could not have hoped that her advertisement would be so rapidly and spontaneously and abundantly answered. The whole day of every day of the following week her beautiful wrought-iron gates were opening and shutting and admitting all kinds and sorts and shapes and sizes of little girls with brown eyes, long fingers, pigtails and beaver hats, _about_ ten years of age. And usually an Aunt or a Step-mother or the Matron of an Orphanage or a Female Friend accompanied each candidate.

There were three genuine Barbara Allans. But one had reddish hair and freckles; the second, curly flaxen hair that refused to keep to the pigtail-ribbon into which it had been tied; and the third, though her hair was brown, had grey speckled eyes, and looked to be at least eleven. Apart from these three, there were numbers and numbers of little girls whose Christian name was Barbara, but whose surname was Allison or Angus or Anson or Mallings or Bulling or Dalling or Spalding or Bellingham or Allingham, and so on and so forth. Then there were Marjories and Marcias and Margarets, Norahs and Doras, and Rhodas and Marthas, all of the name of Allen, or Allan or Alleyne or Alyn, and so on. And there was one little saffron-haired creature who came with a very large Matron, and whose name was Dulcibella Dobbs.

Miss Rawlings, with her broad bright face and bright little eyes, smiled at them all from her chair, questioned their Aunts and their Stepmothers, and their Female Friends, and coveted every single one of them, including Dulcibella Dobbs. But you _must_ draw the line somewhere, as Euclid said to his little Greek pupils when he sat by the sparkling waves of the Ægean Sea and drew triangles in the sand. And Miss Rawlings felt in her heart that it was kinder and wiser and more prudent and proper to keep strictly to those little girls with the three-cornered faces, high cheek-bones, “really” bright brown eyes and with truly appropriate pigtails. With these she fell in love again and again and again.

There was no doubt in the world that she had an exceedingly motherly heart, but very few mothers could so nicely afford to _give it rein_. Indeed, Miss Rawlings would have drawn the line nowhere, I am afraid, if it had not been for the fact that she had only ten thousand pounds or so a year.

There were tears in her eyes when she bade the others good-bye. And to everyone she gave not one bun, not one orange, but a _bag_ of oranges and a _bag_ of buns. And not merely a bag of ordinary denia oranges and ordinary currant buns, but a bag of Jaffas and a bag of Bath. And she thanked their Guardianesses for having come such a long way, and would they be offended if she paid the fare? Only one was offended, but then her fare had cost only 3_d._—2_d._ for herself, and 1_d._ (half price) for the little Peggoty Spalding she brought with her. And Miss Rawlings paid _her_ sixpence.

She kept thirty little ten-year-olds altogether, and you never saw so many young fortunate smiling pigtailed creatures so much alike. And Miss Rawlings, having been so successful, withdrew her advertisements from the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_ and the _Daily Telegraph_ and the _Spectator_, and she bought a most beautiful Tudor house called Trafford House, with one or two wings to it that had been added in the days of Good Queen Anne, and William and Mary, which stood in entirely its own grounds not ten miles from the Parish boundary. The forest trees in its park were so fine—cedars, sweet chestnuts, and ash and beech and oak—that you could only get a glimpse of its chimneys from the entrance to the drive.

Things _are_ often curious in this world, and coincidences are almost as common as centipedes. So Miss Rawlings was more happy than surprised when, on looking over this mansion, she counted (and to make sure counted again) exactly thirty little bedrooms, with some larger ones over for a matron, a nurse, some parlour-maids, some housemaids, some tweeny-maids and a boy to clean the button-boots and shoes. When her legal adviser explained to her that this establishment, what with the little chests-of-drawers, basins and ewers, brass candlesticks, oval looking-glasses, mahogany beds, three-legged stools, dimity curtains, woolly rugs, not to speak of chiffoniers, what-nots, hot-water bottles, soup ladles, and so on and so forth; not to mention a uniform with brass buttons for the man with whiskers at the park gate, would cost her at least six thousand a year, that bee in Miss Rawlings’s bonnet buzzed as if indeed it _was_ a whole hive gone a-swarming.

“Well, now, my dear Mr. Wilkinson,” she said, “I made a little estimate myself, being a _business_ woman, and it came to £6,004 10_s._ 0_d._ How reasonable! I shall be over four pounds in pocket.”

So, in a few weeks everything was ready; new paint, new gravel on the paths, geraniums in the flower-beds, quilts as neat as daisies on a lawn on the mahogany beds, and the thirty Barbara Allans sitting fifteen a side at the immensely long oak table (where once in Henry VIII’s time monks had eaten their fish on Fridays), the matron with the corkscrew curls at the top and the chief nurse in her starched cap at the bottom. And Miss Rawlings, seated in the South bow-window in an old oak chair with her ebony and ivory stick and her purple bonnet, smiling at her Barbara Allans as if she had mistaken Trafford House for the Garden of Eden.

And I must say every single pigtail of the complete thirty bobbed as merrily as roses in June over that first Grand Tea—blackberry jelly, strawberry jam, home-made bread, plum cake, the best beef-dripping for those who had not a sweet or a milk tooth, Sally Lunns, heather honey, maids-of-honour, and an enormous confection of marchpane, with cupids and comfits and silver bells and thirty little candles standing up in the midst of the table like St. Paul’s Cathedral on the top of Ludgate Hill in the great city of London. It was a lucky thing for the Thirty’s insides that Grand Teas are not every-day teas.

And so, when all the thirty Pigtails had sung a Latin grace put out of English by Mr. Moffat and set to a tune composed by a beloved uncle of Miss Rawlings, who also was now no more, the Grand Tea came to an end. Whereupon the Thirty (looking themselves like yet another Crocodile with very fat joints) came and said good night to Miss Rawlings, though some of them could scarcely speak. And as Miss Rawlings knew that not _all_ little girls like being kissed by comparative strangers, she just shook hands with each, and smiled at them as if her motherly heart would almost break. And Dr. Sheppard was Medical Adviser to the thirty little Pigtailers, and Mr. Moffat came every other Sunday to hear their catechisms.

And this was the order of the day with the Pigtails in their home. At half-past seven in Summer, and at nine in Winter, the boy in buttons rang an immense bell, its clapper tied round with a swab of cotton-wool, to prevent it from clanging too sonorously. This great quiet bell was not only to waken from their last sweet dreams the slumbering Pigtails in their little beds, but to tell them they had yet another half-hour between the blankets before they had to get up. Then, hair-brushes, tooth-brushes, nailbrushes, as usual. Then, “When morning gilds the sky,” and breakfast in the wide white room with the primrose curtains looking out into the garden. And if any Pigtail happened to have been not quite so good as usual on the previous day, she was allowed—if she asked for it—to have a large plateful of porridge, with or without salt, for a punishment. No less than ninety-nine such platefuls were served out in the first year—the Pigtails were so high-spirited. Still, it can be imagined what a thirty-fold sigh of relief went up when breakfast on December 31st was over and there hadn’t been a hundredth.

From nine _a.m._ to twelve _p.m._ the Pigtails were one and all exceedingly busy. Having made their beds they ran out into the garden and woods: some to bathe in the stream, some to listen to the birds, some to talk and some to sing; some to paint and some to play, and some to read and some to dance, and some just to sit; and some, high up in a beech-tree, to learn poems, to make up poems and even to read each other’s. It all depended on the weather. The sun shone, the rooks cawed, the green silken leaves whispered; and Miss Rawlings would stand looking up at them in their venturous perch as fondly as a cat at its kittens. There was not at last a flower or a tree or an insect or a star in those parts—or a bird or a little beast or a fish or a toadstool or a moss or a pebble that the little Pigtails did not know by heart. And the more they knew them the more closely they looked at them, and the more closely they looked at them the more they loved them and the more they knew them—round and round and round and round.

From twelve to one there were “Lessons”; then dinner, and tongues like jackdaws raiding a pantry for silver spoons. In the afternoon those who went for a walk towards the stranger parts, went for a walk. Some stayed at home in a little parlour and sang in chorus together like a charm of wild birds. Some did their mending and darning, their hemming and feather-stitching, and some did sums. Some played on the fiddle, and some looked after their bullfinches and bunnies and bees and guinea-pigs and ducks. Then there were the hens and the doves and the calves and the pigs to feed, and the tiny motherless lambs, too (when lambs there were) with bottles of milk. And sometimes of an afternoon Miss Rawlings would come in and sit at a window just watching her Pigtails, or would read them a story. And Dr. Sheppard asseverated not once, but three times over, that if she went on bringing them sweetmeats and candies and lollipops and suckets to such an _extent_, not a single sound white ivory tooth of their nine hundred or so would be left in the Pigtails’ heads. So Miss Rawlings kept to Sundays.

At five was tea-time: jam on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; jelly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; and both on Sundays. From six to seven there were “Lessons,” and when the little Pigtails were really tired, which was always before nine, they just slipped off to bed. Some of them had munched their supper biscuits and were snug in bed indeed even before the rest had sung the evening hymn. And the evening hymn was always “Eternal Father”—for being all of them so extremely happy they could not but be “in peril on the deep.” For happiness in this world may fly away like birds in corn, or butterflies before rain. And on Sundays they sang “Lead, kindly light” too, because Miss Rawlings’s mother had once been blessed by the great and blessed Cardinal Newman. And one Pigtail played the accompaniment on her fiddle, and one on the sweet-tongued viola, and one on the harpsichord; for since Miss Rawlings had read “Barbara Allan” she had given up pianofortes. And then, sleepy and merry and chattering, they all trooped up to bed.

So this was their Day. And all night, unseen, the stars shone in their splendour above the roof of Trafford House, or the white-faced moon looked down upon the sleeping garden and the doves and the pigs and the lambs and the flowers. And at times there was a wind in the sky among the clouds; and at times frost in the dark hours settled like meal wheresoever its cold brightness might find a lodging. And when the little Pigtails awoke, there would be marvellous cold fronds and flowerets on their windowpanes, and even sometimes a thin crankling slat of ice in their water-jugs. On which keen winter mornings you could hear their teeth chattering like monkeys cracking nuts. And so time went on.

On the very next June 1, there was a prodigious Garden Party at Trafford House, with punts on the lake and refreshments and lemonade in a tent in the park, and all the Guardianesses and Aunts and Stepmothers and Matrons and Female Friends were invited to come and see Miss Rawlings’s little Pigtails. And some brought their sisters, and some their nieces and nephews. There were Merry-go-Rounds, Aunt Sallies, Frisk-and-Come-Easies, a Punch and Judy Show, a Fat Man, a Fortune-Teller, and three marvellous acrobats from Hong Kong. And there were quantities of things to eat and lots to see, and Kiss-in-the-Ring, and all broke up after fireworks and “God Save the Queen” at half-past nine.

The house, as I keep on saying, was called Trafford House, but the _Home_ was called “The Home of all the little Barbara Allans and such like, with Brown Eyes, Narrow Cheekbones, Beaver Hats, and Pigtails, Ltd.” And it was “limited” because there could be only thirty of them, and time is not Eternity.

And now there were only three things that prevented Miss Rawlings from being too intensely happy to go on being alive; and these three were as follows: (_a_) She wanted to live always at the House—but how could the Parish get on without her? (_b_) What was she going to do when the Pigtailers became 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, etc., and grown-up? And (_c_) How could she ever possibly part with any of them or get any more?

For, you see, Miss Rawlings’s first-of-all Barbara Allan was aged 10, and had somehow managed to stay there. But because, I suppose, things often go right in this world when we are not particularly noticing them, and don’t know how, all these difficulties simply melted away at last like butter in the sun.

In the first place, Miss Rawlings did at last (in 1888, to be exact, one year after Queen Victoria’s first Jubilee), did, I say, at last go to live at the Home of all the little Barbara Allans and such like with Brown Eyes, Beaver Hats, and Pigtails, Ltd. She was called The Matron’s Friend, so as not to undermine the discipline. When her Parish wanted her, which was pretty often, the Parish (thirty or forty strong) came to see her in her little parlour overlooking the pond with the punts and the water-lilies.

Next, though how, who can say, the little Pigtails somehow did not grow up, even though they must have grown older. Something queer happened to their Time. It cannot have been what just the clocks said. If there wasn’t more of it, there was infinitely more _in_ it. It was like air and dew and sunbeams and the South Wind to them all. You simply could not tell what next. And, apart from all that wonderful learning, apart even from the jam and jelly and the Roast Beef of Old England, they went on being just the right height and the right heart for ten. Their brown eyes never lost their light and sparkle. No wrinkles ever came in their three-cornered faces with the high cheek-bones; and not a single grey or silver hair into their neat little pigtails that could at any rate be seen.

Next, therefore, Miss Rawlings never had to part with any of them or to search or advertise for any more.

Yet another peculiar thing was that Miss Rawlings grew more and more like a Pigtail herself. She grew younger. She laughed like a school-girl. Her face became a little narrower, even the cheek-bones seemed not to be so wide. As for her bonnets, as time “went on,” they grew up instead of broadwise. And when she sat in Church with the Thirty, in the third pew down from Mrs. Tomlington’s, you might almost have supposed she herself was a widish pigtail, just a little bit dressed up.

It is true that in the very secretest corner of her heart of hearts she was still looking for the one and only absolute little Barbara Allan of her life-long day-dream; but that is how things go. And the thought of it brought only a scarcely perceptible grave glance of hope and enquiry into her round brown eyes. But underneath—oh dear me, yes—she was almost too happy and ordinary and good-natured and homely a Miss Rawlings to be telling this story about at all.

We all die at last—just journey on—and so did Miss Rawlings. And so did the whole of the Thirty, and the matron, and the chief nurse, and Mr. Moffat, and Dr. Sheppard, and the Man with whiskers at the park gates, _and_ the Boy who cleaned the button-boots; parlour-maids, tweeny-maids, Mrs. Tomlington and all.

And if you would like to see the Old House and the little graves, you take the first turning on the right as you leave the Parish Church on your left, and walk on until you come to a gate-post beyond the mile-stone. A path crossing the fields—sometimes of wheat, sometimes of turnips, sometimes of barley or oats or swedes—brings you to a farm in the hollow with a duck-pond, guinea-fowl roosting in the pines at evening, and a lovely old thatched barn where the fantailed doves croon in the sunshine. You then cross the yard and come to a lane beside a wood of thorn and hazel. This bears a little East, and presently after ascending the hill beyond the haystack you will see—if it is still there—The Home of all the little Barbara Allans and such like with Brown Eyes, Beaver Hats and Pigtails, Ltd.

And not very far away is a little smooth-mown patch of turf with a beautiful thatched wall round it, which Mr. Moffat consecrated himself. And there, side by side, sleep the Little Thirty, with their pigtails beside their narrow bones. And there lie the tweeny-maids, the parlour-maids, the Man with whiskers at the park gate, and the Boy who cleaned the button-boots. And there Miss Rawlings, too. And when the last trump sounds, up they will get as happy as wood-larks, and as sweet and fresh as morning mushrooms. But if you want to hear any more about _that_, please turn to the Poems of Mr. William Blake.

THE PERFECT HOST

(_From Lady Trenchard’s Visitor’s Book_)

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

What is it makes the Perfect Host? Not wine and coffee, eggs and toast, For these you can get just as well In any dreary good hotel; Not resolute attempts to please, For money will procure you these. The Perfect Host thinks vastly less Of comfort than of happiness. He’s happy; and the overflow Belongs to those who come and go. Within his house you’ll hear no quarrels And very little talk of morals, He does not lead a perfect life, He sometimes has a perfect wife. But this of all his points is best— He does not want a perfect guest; And even when you go too far He’s friendly with you as you are.

The Spark

A. PEMBURY

The daylight was fading, and shadowy gloom Was creeping and crawling all over the room, When out of the fire, like a star in the dark, There leapt to the fender a bright little spark.

“Ha, ha, little children!” it chuckled with glee, “I’ve something to tell you, so listen to me! This morning, Tom Dull, whom I never admire, Was sitting in front of this very same fire; And, as it burned dimly, was heard to remark: ‘Oh, Mary! There’s nothing in here but a spark!’

“The spark was myself, and I thought, Well-a-day! It’s hard to be judged in that impudent way. But stuck to my labours, and shortly, you know, Had warmed up the coals to a beautiful glow.

“I called from their slumbers, the fairies of flame, And out on the carpet they merrily came, And up all the curtains, a marvel to view, They climbed as no others are able to do.

“They peeped in the corners where shadows lay hid, And chuckled: ‘We’ve found you! Come out!’ and they did. Thus, darting about in the liveliest play, They caught all the shadows and drove them away.

“I’m certain they laughed, though you think it absurd; For never a sound of that laughter was heard. Yet where is the wonder, for who will dispute That hearts often laugh when the lips are quite mute?

“That’s all. But in parting, oh, take it from me That sparks of endeavour, though tiny to see, May quickly grow stronger and end, as you guess, In lighting the beautiful fire of success. My task is accomplished. Good-bye!” said the spark— And, giving one flash, he went out in the dark.

Theophania

ADELAIDE PHILLPOTTS

Peter-Wise was a clever young peasant who lived in a little village that looked like a dimple in the hillside. He owned fifty mooing cows, one hundred baaing sheep, forty grunting pigs, two hundred clacking fowls—and a bellowing bull. And he prophesied that in ten years’ time he would have doubled these numbers. But with all this wealth, Peter-Wise lacked the most important creature of all—a wife. Without a wife, what is the use of fifty cows, one hundred sheep, forty pigs, two hundred fowls—and a bull?