“Dear Tom Smith!” sighed Moppet. “What a nice man he must be! You don’t object, do you?” she asked Sir John, squeezing her chair, with a high cushion upon it to bring her up to table level, a little closer to his own. “You’d like the cottage children to have some fun? They all looked so nice at church yesterday, in their pretty red cloaks.”
“Sir John gave them those red cloaks,” observed Miss Hawberk.
“How good of you! But you don’t object, do you? They are such tidy children. I’m sure they’ll be careful of their toys.”
Moppet had her doll on her lap, wedged in between her pinafore and the table, and supposed to be consuming occasional spoonfuls of bread and milk.
Sir John did not object, They could have a tea-party for all the children in Cornwall if they liked, if they could get the pixies to bring them.
“What are the pixies?”
Moppet had to be told about the pixies before she would peacefully finish her bread and milk. She rattled her spoon against the basin in her excitement, and the dark grey eyes seemed to grow larger as she listened.
There were occasional snow showers in the day, just enough to maintain the freshness of that vast white carpet which had been unrolled over the park. The north-east wind blew with a biting sharpness which it rarely knows on that western coast, and swept every cloudlet out of the bright blue sky. The children wore their warmest wraps when they ran out on the terrace, which the gardeners had swept from end to end, piling up a bank of snow on the outer side, all the length of the broad walk, a store of material for the building of a snow man which Mr. Danby assisted them to pile up at the further end of the walk, out of sight of the windows, lest he should be an eyesore.
This rugged and shapeless monster was not completed till the children’s early dinner, though they toiled vigorously, digging out lumps of snow from the bank, running backwards and forwards, flushed and eager, fetching and carrying for that accomplished sculptor, Uncle Tom, who desisted not from his labours till the monster towered like Milton’s Lucifer, but with no more shape or likeness of humanity than a pillar post-box. The likeness was achieved presently by an old cloth cap of Uncle Tom’s, a short pipe, two bits of coal for eyes, and two bits of stick for nose and mouth.
“I think he’ll do now,” said the sculptor, complacently.
“He’s rather crooked,” criticized Laddie, while the little girls stood, flushed and panting, with no feeling but admiration for this great work of art.
“Don’t say that, Laddie,” cried the sculptor. “Crookedness means destruction. A snow man must hold himself straight or he is doomed. You’d better bring me some more snow.”
They rushed off with their spades and wooden baskets — spades and baskets that had been used on the beach by a former generation, and which had been produced from an old toy closet by Sarah, the housemaid. They brought more snow, and Uncle Tom thickened the base
of the monster till he looked like a Druidic monument, and then they left him to his fate.
“He’ll last now till the thaw,” said Uncle Tom.
“Will the thaw spoil him?”
“Yes, when the thaw comes he will silently vanish away, like the Snark. There will be nothing left of him but a great puddle at that end of the terrace.”
Uncle Tom sent the children off to get their shoes and stockings changed before dinner. He was like a nurse in his care of them.
Sir John was out shooting, tramping through snowy plantations, and the luncheon-dinner was a very noisy meal. Mr. Danby and Miss Hawberk let the children do as they liked. It was Bank Holiday, and that meant liberty for great and small, Mr. Danby said. There never was a merrier meal eaten at Place — certainly not within Adela’s recollection.
“Christmas used to be so dreadfully dull in this house,” said the young lady. “One felt one ought to be a little livelier because it was Christmas, and that only made one feel duller, don’t you know. It was all very well for you, Mr. Danby, out shooting all day with Sir John and playing billiards in the evening, but I could only read a novel, or brood over all the Cinderellas I was missing.”
Poor Adela had been sent to Penlyon Place, as into captivity, for more Christmas seasons than she could count, her mother and father declaring that it was her duty to go and amuse her uncle at that festive time, since he had always been particularly fond of her.
This idea of fondness on Sir John’s part had no definite basis, but Mrs. Hawberk was in the habit of talking as if Adela were her uncle’s acknowledged heiress.
“He must leave his money to somebody,” she told her husband, “and why not to Adela? After all these years of estrangement he will never take Sibyl into favour again.”
“There is nothing so sure to happen as the unexpected,” said Mr. Hawberk, sententiously. “You had better not reckon Adela’s chickens before they are hatched. Your brother is not obliged to leave his money to anybody. He may leave it to a hospital, as many such old curmudgeons do.”
“You have no occasion to call my brother a curmudgeon.”
“He has never given me any reason to call him anything else.”
“You and he never understood each other. As for Adela, he likes having her at Place, and there can be no doubt he is very much attached to her.”
The village party was quite as successful as the genteel party, and Moppet was a much more prominent personage in the schoolrooms than she had been the night before at Penlyon. Her whole heart was in this rustic entertainment. Her eyes shone like stars, her cheeks were flushed with delight. The pretty little schoolhouse, with rooms for schoolmaster attached, had been built thirty years before by Sir John, soon after he came to his own, and everything about the building was sound and neat and trim. The Christmas-tree was in the boys’ schoolroom, the tea-party was in the girls’ room. The children were to know nothing about that glorious tree, or that noble collection of toys for distribution, till after tea, when the lights were to be suddenly extinguished, and the door between the two schoolrooms was to be opened, and the tree was to be seen with all its fairy-like tapers burning.
It would be a thrilling moment, and Moppet’s heart beat fast as she thought of the children’s rapture.
“Have they never seen a tree?” she asked Adela—” never, never, never?”
“No, they have never seen one. There are so few great houses about; and there have been no children at Place for the last twenty years. These poor little things have never had any gaiety, except the rector’s summer treat.”
“And they couldn’t have a Christmas-tree in the summer, could they?” mused Moppet. “That would be simply silly.”
Moppet held office on this occasion. She was to distribute the presents, assisted by the schoolmaster, who would tell her the names of the children and advise her choice. There was to be no long-bearded necromancer this evening. Mr. Danby did not think it worth while to disguise himself, remembering how little notice the genteel children had taken of his robe or his beard, and how all their thoughts had been centred on the tree and the toy-box. These children would no doubt be even more stolid and unimpressionable.
There they were at tea, solemnly munching, solemnly handing in their mugs for more of the steaming brew — tea ready milked and sugared in a huge urn; no nice distinctions as to sweetness or non-sweetness, no study of individual tastes: hot, sweet, milky tea for everybody. The buns were the feature of the feast. The piled-up dishes of bright yellow cake were not neglected; but the buns were first favourite. Moppet could not have believed so many buns could disappear in so short a time. It was almost as good as seeing a conjurer dispose of live rabbits. The cake dishes were half full when the meal was finished; but not a bun remained.
Suddenly there came a darkness, and one simultaneous “Oh! oh!” arose from the children, while such vulgar words as “Lawks!” and “Crikey!” floated in the steamy atmosphere. And then the door was opened, and the tree was seen, and instantly saluted by a tremendous clapping of hands and a thunder of hob-nailed bo
ots as the children all trooped into the next room.
Oh, it was a noble tree! It looked ever so much larger here than in the great hall at Penlyon Place. The head of the fairy on the topmost branch brushed against the schoolroom ceiling as she swayed to and fro, waving a beneficent wand.
The crackers were a source of rapture, and Tom Smith was the hero of the evening. Laddie was in his element, letting off crackers all over the schoolroom with cottage boys who had never seen a cracker before, and who cried “Crikey!” or “My!” whenever one went off. Laddie did not expect another toy; but he was determined to have a good go in at the crackers. Lassie, the prim little lady, stood close against Adela Hawberk’s skirt while these ruder festivities were going on, not relishing that odour of corduroy and boot leather, which is inevitable in such company. But Moppet was moving from child to child in the friendliest way, handing the toys allotted to each, explaining, patronizing, altogether mistress of the situation, a Lady Bountiful of two feet high, flushed and feverish with pleasure.
While the excitement was at its highest point Sir John appeared suddenly in the doorway. Moppet flew to him in a moment. It seemed as if he always exercised the most powerful attraction for that young person. She gravitated to him as surely as the apple falls to the ground.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she asked him. “Ain’t they happy? Ain’t their faces red?”
“And ain’t yours red, Moppet! Why, you are in a high fever. I think you had better sit on my shoulder and see the fun, instead of running about in this black hole of Calcutta.”
After the sharp evening air outside, the atmosphere of the schoolroom seemed like the heat of an oven. The toys were all distributed, the box was empty, and all the dolls had been unhooked from their perches on the waving green boughs. Only the impossible golden fruits and gold and silver fish and flags remained, and the tapers were expiring in smoke.
Moppet sat on Sir John’s shoulder surveying the crowd, each child engrossed in its own pleasure, examining its booty.
“Now, boys and girls,” said the schoolmaster, “three cheers for Sir John Penlyon.”
“No, no,” remonstrated Sir John; “I’ve nothing to do with the affair.”
Remonstrance was useless — the loud chorus arose about him deafeningly.
“And now for Miss Hawberk.”
More cheering; loud and shrill, treble and bass.
“And now for Mr. Danby, who is always so kind to you.”
More and more cheering, much louder, much shriller, as from hearts overcharged with warmest feelings.
“And now for the little girl who gave out the toys.”
Another special cheer — final at least for the party from Place, for Sir John turned and fled, with Moppet sitting on his shoulder; but more cheering sounded through the winter darkness from the schoolhouse behind them as they hurried along the frosty road through the park.
“Oh, what a happy evening it has been!” said Moppet from her perch on Sir John’s shoulder.
“And now you are ready for Bedfordshire,” said Mr. Danby.
“No, Uncle Tom. I am not the littlest bit sleepy.”
In spite of this energetic asseveration, Moppet was discovered to be fast asleep when the party arrived at Place, and in that unconscious condition was undressed and put to bed, and knew nothing more till next morning, when she awoke bright and fresh, and greatly astonished that it should be to-morrow.
CHAPTER VII.
THERE could be no doubt about Moppet’s affection for Sir John Penlyon. It was not cupboard love. Self-interest had nothing to do with it. The child’s young fancies centred in the grave elderly man who had so kindly and protecting an air when she nestled by his side in his roomy armchair, or squeezed herself close up against him at the breakfast or the luncheon table. Sir John would have been more or less than human had he not been flattered by this preference. She liked him better than she liked Danby; yet she had known Danby for the whole of her little life, and Danby was her slave, would crawl on all-fours for her, simulating anything zoological she might choose to order, would carry her on his shoulder for a mile on end, and studied her desires in the toy world with a reckless disregard of expense. She was fond of Danby, but not so fond as she was of Sir John.
“You’re so very grand,” she explained always, patting her new friend on his shoulder.
She seemed to have a precocious appreciation of this personal grandeur, for certainly Sir John Penlyon had the grand air which impresses society in general. To Moppet’s fancy he absorbed into himself all the dignity of his surroundings — the portly black-coated butler, the handsome liveries and powdered heads of the footmen, the space and splendour of the house, the wide-reaching park and grounds, and those farms which stretched so far away that Moppet, asking ever so many times in a morning walk, “Are all these fields yours?” had hardly ever been answered in the negative.
“You are like the Marquis of Carabas, only it’s all true instead of fibs,” said Moppet.
And in her small half-conscious way Moppet admired the baronet’s tall, erect figure, his handsome features, the grey hair and beard, and the strongly marked black eyebrows which gave such character to the face.
Once when some discussion as to personal beauty arose, Moppet expressed herself decisively.
“You are very pretty,” she told him, “quite the prettiest of us all!”
“Would you like to be as pretty when you grow up, Moppet?” he asked.
“Of course not, you silly man. I am going to be a young lady, and wear frocks like hers,” pointing to Adela’s low bodice. “How funny I should look with a beard like yours!”
Sir John accepted her flatteries laughingly, and owned to Danby that the little hireling amused and interested him; but he questioned his friend no further as to her belongings. He seemed content to accept her as a waif from afar, who was to vanish out of his home as quietly as she had entered there, leaving no trace behind.
“We are to go home on the seventh day of the new year,” she informed him gravely one morning, in a pause of his letter-writing.
It was her privilege — obtained by sheer persistence — to sit in his room while he wrote his letters. She pledged herself to silence and stillness, and she would sit upon her hassock in a corner by the fire, playing with her dolls for an hour at a time, without a word spoken above a whisper, so low that not a sound reached him at his writing-table; but, looking at her sometimes, he would see the little red lips moving rapidly, and he knew that an elaborate make-believe conversation was going on between Moppet and her dolls.
“Will you be glad to go away?” he asked.
“Sorry to go away, but glad to go back to mother,” she answered, looking up at him with clear, truthful eyes. “Will you be sorry when I am gone?”
“I’m afraid I shall, Moppet; but I shall have to get over it. I have had to get over worse sorrows than that.”
One clay Adela Hawberk came into the drawing-room excitedly, in the quiet quarter of an hour before dinner, when the children had vanished into the deep silence of Bedfordshire.
“Uncle, I have just made a discovery,” she exclaimed. “Indeed? And what may that be?”
“Moppet is the living image of the Shrimp Girl — not so pretty, but extraordinarily like.”
“Have you only just found that out?”
“Only five minutes ago, coming through the gallery.”
“I have seen the likeness for a long time,” replied Sir John, quietly, “and I think” — with a curious emphasis—” Danby must have observed it also.”
Mr. Danby blushed, but held his peace, and the butler’s announcement of dinner closed the conversation.
The Shrimp Girl was a fancy portrait of Sir John Penlyon’s great aunt Priscilla, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and almost as famous as the Strawberry Girl at Summerley.
Well-informed people who were shown over Place House always made a point of asking to see the Shrimp Girl. It was a picture that had been written about by art crit
ics, and it had been exhibited some winters ago among the old masters at Burlington House.
The little girl was painted sitting on the sands, in a reddish-brown frock, with bare head and bare feet, a shrimping net in her hand, a gipsy hat with blue ribbons lying by her side. A pretty rustic picture of a not particularly pretty child, in the painter’s grandest, boldest, most supremely natural manner; and the little girl looked almost as much alive as Moppet herself.
There was a likeness, undoubtedly. The dark grey, deep-set eyes, the overhanging forehead, and sensitive mouth, the dimples and mutinous smile were all suggestive of Moppet; but when the subject was reopened by Adela later in the evening, Sir John would not allow any discussion about it.
“All children of the same age and complexion are alike,” he said curtly; and Mr. Danby plunged into the conversation with an entirely new theme.
There were no more complaints about a green Christmas after that evening in the schoolhouse. The first fall of snow had been the herald of a severer winter than had been known in that western extremity of England for at least ten years.
The young people were glad and the old people were sorry. For the young there were the novel pleasures of skating and hockey on the ice; for the old there was the fear, and in many cases the reality, of bronchitis; and fuel was dearer, and life was harder by as many degrees as the quicksilver sank in the thermometer.
For one little person in this big busy world that wintry season seemed a time of unalloyed delight. Moppet’s little red legs trotted over the hard roads and along the narrow footpaths which the gardeners had swept in park and gardens, almost always trotting beside other and older footsteps, the little red woolly hand almost always held in the warm grip of Sir John’s buckskin glove, age and childhood consorting in a curious companionship.
Together Sir John and his little friend visited all the
striking features of the neighbourhood. They stood together upon Tintagel’s wind-blown height, and watched the white-breasted gulls holding their parliament on the long low lines of smooth dark rock round which the spray danced and the emerald green water tumbled so merrily. Moppet loved those bold and perilous heights.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1042
