Us, An Old Fashioned Story Read online

  "US"

  An Old Fashioned Story

  by

  MRS MOLESWORTH

  Author of "carrots", "cuckoo Clock", etc.

  With Illustrations by Walter Crane

  IN ANOTHER MOMENT TOBY'S NOSE WAS IN THE BOWL TOO, TOTOBY'S SUPREME CONTENT!--p. 26. _Front_]

  London:MacMillan & Co. Ltd

  1899

  CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER I. PAGEHOW THEY CAME TO BE "US" 1

  CHAPTER II.BREAD AND MILK 20

  CHAPTER III.QUEER VISITORS 40

  CHAPTER IV.BABES IN A WOOD 59

  CHAPTER V.TIM 79

  CHAPTER VI.TOBY AND BARBARA 100

  CHAPTER VII.DIANA'S PROMISE 119

  CHAPTER VIII.NEW HOPES 139

  CHAPTER IX.CROOKFORD FAIR 156

  CHAPTER X.A BOAT AND A BABY 177

  CHAPTER XI.A SAD DILEMMA 197

  CHAPTER XII.GOOD-BYE TO "US" 218

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

  IN ANOTHER MOMENT TOBY'S NOSE WAS IN THE BOWL TOO, TO TOBY'S SUPREME CONTENT Front.

  FROM BEHIND SOME STUBBLE A FEW YARDS OFF ROSE THE FIGURE OF THE YOUNG BOY WHOM THE CHILDREN HAD SEEN WALKING BEHIND THE GIPSIES--WHISTLING WHILE HE CUT AT A BRANCH HE HELD IN HIS HAND Page 74

  "HERE'S SOME SUPPER FOR YOU. WAKE UP, AND TRY AND EAT A BIT. IT'LL DO YOU GOOD" 89

  "THEY WANT OUT A BIT," SHE SAID. "THEY'RE TIRED LIKE WITH BEING MEWED UP IN THERE ALL DAY AND NEVER A BREATH OF AIR--NO WONDER" 132

  "UPON MY WORD THEY ARE SOMETHING QUITE OUT OF THE COMMON," HE SAID; "I WOULDN'T HAVE MISSED THEM FOR A GOOD DEAL. WHAT A KING AND QUEEN OF THE PIGMIES, OR 'BABES IN THE WOOD,' THEY'D MAKE" 173

  "I DO FINK WHEN US IS QUITE BIG AND CAN DO AS US LIKES, US MUST HAVE A BOAT LIKE THIS, AND ALWAYS GO SAILING ALONG" 195

  "She is telling them stories of the wood, And the Wolf and Little Red Riding-Hood." _The Golden Legend._

  CHAPTER I.

  HOW THEY CAME TO BE "US."

  "Blue were their eyes as the fairy-flax, Their cheeks like the dawn of day." LONGFELLOW.

  A soft rather shaky sort of tap at the door. It does not all at oncereach the rather deaf ears of the little old lady and tall, still oldergentleman who are seated in their usual arm-chairs, one with hisnewspaper by the window, the other with her netting by the fire, in theexceedingly neat--neat, indeed, is no word for it--"parlour" of ArbittLodge. In what part of the country this queerly-named house was--isstill, perhaps--to be found there is no particular reason for telling;whence came this same queer name will be told in good time. The parloursuited _its_ name anyway better far than it would that of"drawing-room," which would be given it nowadays. There was a roundtable in the middle; there were high-backed mahogany chairs against thewall, polished by age and careful rubbing to that stage of darkshininess which makes even mahogany pleasant to the eye, and with seatsof flowering silk damask whose texture must have been _very_ good to beso faded without being worn; there were spindle-legged side-tablesholding inlaid "papier-mache" desks and rose-wood work-boxes, and two orthree carved cedar or sandal-wood cases of various shapes. And, mosttempting of all to my mind, there were glass-doored cupboards in thewall, with great treasures of handleless teacups and very fat teapots,not to speak of bowls and jugs of every form and size; and everything,from the Indian box with the ivory chessmen to the china Turk with hislong pipe of green spun-glass, sitting cross-legged on the highmantelpiece between a very sentimental lady and gentleman, also ofchina, who occupied its two ends,--_everything_ was exactly andprecisely in its own place, in what had been its own place ever sincethe day, now more than thirty years ago, when Grandpapa, the tall oldgentleman, had retired from the army on half-pay and come to settle downat Arbitt Lodge for the rest of his life with Grandmamma and their sonMarmaduke. A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left of apretty flock who, one after the other, had but hovered down into theworld for a year or two to spread their tiny wings and take flightagain, leaving two desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlourat Arbitt Lodge had _that_ little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then torun, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards,to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in _his_ timefaded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl ofpot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactlyas--ah! but I am forgetting--never mind, I may as well finish thesentence--just exactly as it made "us" sneeze now!

  After the tap came a kind of little pattering and scratching, like babytaps, not quite sure of their own existence; then, had Grandpapa's andGrandmamma's ears been a very little sharper, they could not but haveheard a small duel in words.

  "_You_, bruvver, my fingers' bones is tired."

  "I _told_ you, sister," reproachfully, "us should always bring oldNeddy's nose downstairs with us. They never hear _us_ tapping."

  Then a faint sigh or two and a redoubled assault, crowned with success.Grandmamma, whom after all I am not sure but that I have maligned incalling her deaf--the taps were so very faint really!--Grandmamma looksup from her netting, and in a thin but clear voice calls out, "Come in!"

  The door opens--then, after admitting the entrance of two small figures,is carefully closed again, and the two small figures, with a militarysalute from the boy, a bob, conscientiously intended for a curtsey, fromthe girl, advance a step or two into the room.

  "Grandmamma," say the two high-pitched baby voices, speaking so exactlytogether that they sound but as one. "Grandmamma, it's '_us_.'"

  Still no response. Grandmamma is not indifferent--far from it--but justat this moment her netting is at a critical stage impossible todisregard; she _thinks_ to herself "wait a moment, my dears," and isquite under the impression that she has said it aloud; this is amistake, but all the same "my dears" do wait a moment--several momentsindeed, hand-in-hand, uncomplainingly, without indeed the very faintestnotion in their faithful little hearts that there is anything tocomplain of--there are _some_ lessons to be learnt from children longago, I think,--while Grandmamma tries to secure her knots.

  Look at them while they stand there; it is always a good plan to savetime, and we have a minute or two to spare. They are so alike in sizeand colour and feature that if it had not been that one was a boy andthe other a girl, there would have been no telling them apart. BeforeDuke was put into the first stage of boy-attire--what that exactly wasin those days I confess I am not sure--they never _had_ been told apartwas the fact of the matter, till one day the brilliant idea struckGrandmamma of decorating little Pamela with a coral necklace. She littleknew what she was about; both babies burst into howling distress, andwere not to be quieted even when the unlucky beads were taken away; no,indeed, they only cried the more. Grandmamma and Nurse were at theirwits' end, and Grandpapa's superior intelligence had at last to beappealed to. And not in vain.

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p; "They must _each_ have one," said Grandpapa solemnly. And so it had tobe. In consequence of which fine sense of justice and firm determinationon the part of the babies, they went on "not being told apart" till, asI said, the day came when Marmaduke's attire began to be cut after adifferent fashion, and by degrees he arrived at his present dignity ofnankin suits complete. Such funny suits you would think themnow--funnier even than Pamela's white frock, with its skirt to theankles and blue-sashed waist up close under the arm-pits, for even ifshe walked in just as I describe her you would only call her "aKate-Greenway-dressed little girl." But Marmaduke's light yellowtrousers, buttoning up _over_ his waistcoat, with bright brass buttons,and open yellow jacket to match, would look odd. Especially on such avery little boy--for he and Pamela, as they stand there with theirflaxen hair falling over their shoulders and their very blue eyes gazingsolemnly before them, wondering when either of the old people will thinkfit to speak to "us"--Pamela and he are only "six last birfday."

  All this time Grandpapa is in happy--no, I won't say "happy," for theold gentleman is always, to give him his due, pleased to welcome thechildren to his presence, "at the right time and in the right manner,"be it understood--in _complete_ unconsciousness of their nearneighbourhood. There was nothing to reveal it; they had not left thedoor open so as to cause a draught, for Grandpapa abhorred draughts;they were as still and quiet as two little mice, when mice _are_ quietthat is to say. For often in the middle of the night, when my sleep hasbeen disturbed by these same little animals who have been held up as amodel for never disturbing any one, I have wondered how they gained thisdistinction! "When mouses is quiet, perhaps it's cos they isn't there,"said a little boy I know, and the remark seems to me worthy of deepconsideration.

  Grandpapa was absorbed in his newspaper, for it was newspaper day for_him_, and newspaper day only came once a week, and when it--the paper,not the day--did come, it was already the best part of a week old. Forit came all the way from London, and that not by the post, as weunderstand the word, but by the post of those days, which meant "hisMajesty's mail," literally speaking, and his Majesty's mail took a verylong time indeed to reach outlying parts of the country, for all thebrave appearance, horses foaming, whips cracking, and flourishing ofhorns, not to say trumpets, with which it clattered over the stones ofthe "High Streets" of those days. And the paper--poor two-leaved,miserable little pretence that _we_ should think it--cost both foritself and for its journey from London, oh so dear! I am afraid to sayhow much, for I should be sorry to exaggerate. But "those days" arereceding ever farther and farther from us, and as I write it comes overme sadly that it is no use _now_ to leave a blank on my page and say tomyself, "I will ask dear such a one, or such an other. He or she willremember, and I will fill it in afterwards." For those dear ones of thelast generation are passing from us--have already passed from us in suchnumbers that we who were young not so very long ago shall ere long findourselves in their places. So I would rather not say what Grandpapa'snewspaper cost, but certainly it was dear enough and rare enough for himto think of little else the day it came; and I don't suppose he wouldhave noticed the two children at all, till Grandmamma had made him doso, had it not been that just as they were beginning to be a _little_tired, to whisper to each other, "Suppose us stands on other legs for achange," something--I don't know what--for his snuff-box had been lyingpeacefully in his waistcoat pocket ever since Dymock, his oldsoldier-servant, had brought in the newspaper--made him sneeze. And withthe sneeze he left off looking at the paper and raised his eyes, and hiseyes being very good ones for his age--much better in comparison thanhis ears--he quickly caught sight of his grandchildren.

  "So ho!" he exclaimed, "and _you_ are there, master and missy! I did notknow it was already so late. Grave news, my love," he added, turning toGrandmamma; "looks like war again. The world is trying to go too fast,"he went on, turning to his paper. "They are actually speaking of runninga new mail-coach from London which should reach Sandlingham in threedays. It is appalling,--why, I remember when I was young it took----"

  "It is flying in the face of Providence, _I_ should say, my dear,"interrupted Grandmamma.

  The two little faces near the door grew still more solemn. What strangewords big people used!--what could Grandpapa and Grandmamma mean? ButGrandpapa laid down his paper and looked at them again; Grandmamma tooby this time was less embarrassed by her work. The children felt thatthey had at last attracted the old people's attention.

  "We came, Grandpapa and Grandmamma, to wish you good-night," began Duke.

  "And to hope you will bo'f sleep very well," added Pamela.

  This little formula was repeated every evening with the same ceremony.

  "Thank you, my good children," said Grandpapa encouragingly; on whichthe little couple approached and stood one on each side of him, while hepatted the flaxen heads.

  "I may call you 'my good children' to-night, I hope?" he saidinquiringly.

  The two looked at each other.

  "Bruvver has been good, sir," said the little girl.

  "Sister has been good, sir," said the little boy.

  The two heads were patted again approvingly.

  "But us haven't _bo'f_ been good," added the two voices together.

  Grandpapa looked very serious.

  "Indeed, how can that be?" he said.

  There was a pause of consideration. Then a bright idea struck littleMarmaduke.

  "I think perhaps it was _most_ Toby," he said. "Us was running, and Tobytoo, and us felled down, and Toby barked, and when us got up again itwas all tored."

  "What?" said Grandpapa, still very grave.

  "Sister's gown, sir."

  "My clean white gown," added Pamela impressively; "but bruvver didn't doit. _He_ said so."

  "And sister didn't do it. _She_ said so," stated Duke. "But Nurse said_one_ of us had done it. Only I don't think she had thought of Toby."

  "Perhaps not," said Grandpapa. "Let us hope it was Toby."

  "Nevertheless," said Grandmamma, who had quite disengaged herself fromher netting by this time, "Pamela must remember that she is growing abig missy, and it does not become big misses to run about so as to teartheir gowns."

  Pamela listened respectfully, but Grandmamma's tone was not alarming.The little girl slowly edged her way along from Grandpapa's chair toGrandmamma's.

  "Did you never tear your gowns when you were a little missy,Grandmamma?" she inquired, looking up solemnly into the old lady's face.Grandmamma smiled, and looked across at her husband rather slily. Heshook his head.

  "Who would think it indeed?" he said, smiling in turn. "Listen, mylittle girl, but be sure you tell it again to no one, for it was alittle bird told it to me, and little birds are not fond of having theirsecrets repeated. Once upon a time there was not a greater hoyden in allthe countryside than your Grandmamma there. She swam the brooks, sheclimbed the trees, she tore her gowns----"

  "Till at last my poor mother told the pedlar the next time he came roundhe must bring her a web of some stuff that _wouldn't_ tear to dress mein," said Grandmamma; "and to this day I mind me as if it had been butlast week of the cloth he brought. Sure enough it would neither tear norwear, and oh how ugly it was! 'Birstle peas' colour they called it, andhow ashamed I was of the time I had to wear it. 'Little miss in herbirstle-peas gown' was a byword in the countryside. No, my Pamela, Ishould be sorry to have to dress you in such a gown."

  "I'll try not to tear my nice white gowns," said the little girl; "Nursesaid she would mend it, but it would take her a long time. Grandmamma,"she went on, suddenly changing the subject, "what does a 'charge' mean,'a great charge?'"

  "Yes," said Marmaduke, who heard what she said, "'a _very_ greatcharge.'"

  Grandpapa's eyes grew brighter.

  "Can they be speaking of a field of battle?" he said quickly. But Duketurned his large wistful blue eyes on him before Grandmamma had time toanswer.

  "No, sir," he said, in his slow earnest way, "it wasn't about battles;it was about _us_."r />
  "She said _us_ was that thing," added Pamela.

  "Who said so?" inquired Grandmamma, and her voice was perhaps a little,a very little, sharp.

  "Nurse said it," said Pamela. "It was when us had felled down, and theold woman was at the door of her house, and she asked if us was hurt,and Nurse was vexed, and then she said that."

  "What old woman?" asked Grandmamma again.

  "Her that makes the cakes," said Duke.

  "Oh, Barbara Twiss!" said the old lady in a tone of relief. "Now, mydear children, kiss Grandpapa and kiss me, and say good-night. I willexplain to you when you are bigger what Nurse meant. God bless you andgive you a nice sleep till to-morrow morning!"

  The two little creatures obeyed at once. No "oh, _mayn't_ we stay tenminutes"'s, "just _five_ minutes then, oh please"'s--so coaxingly urged,so hard to refuse--of the little ones of our day! No, Marmaduke andPamela said their "good-nights" in dutiful fashion, stopping a moment atthe door before leaving the room, there to execute the military saluteand the miniature curtsey, and went off to bed, their curiosity stillunsatisfied, as children's curiosity often had to remain in those timeswhen "wait till you are big and then you will be told" was the regularreply to questions it was not easy or desirable to answer otherwise.

  There was a moment's silence when they had left the room. Grandpapa'sface was once more hidden in his newspaper; Grandmamma had taken up hernetting again, but it did not go on very vigorously.

  "I must warn Nurse," she said at last. "She means no harm, but she mustbe careful what she says before the children. She forgets how big theyare growing, and how they notice all they hear."

  "It was no great harm, after all," said Grandpapa, more than half, totell the truth, immersed in his paper.

  "Not as said to a discreet person like Barbara," replied Grandmamma."But still--they have the right to all we can give them, the littledears, as long as we are here to give it. I could not bear them ever tohave the idea that we felt them a burden."

  "Certainly not," agreed Grandpapa, looking up for a moment. "A _burden_they can never be; still it is a great responsibility--a great charge,in one sense, as Nurse said--to have in our old age. For, do the best wecan, my love, we cannot be to them what their parents would have been.Nor can we hope to be with them till we can see them able to take careof themselves."

  "There is no knowing," said Grandmamma. "God is good. He may spare usyet some years for the little ones' sakes. And it is a mercy to thinkthey have each other. It is always 'us' with them--never 'me.'"

  "Yes," said Grandpapa, "they love each other dearly;" and as if thatsettled all the difficulties the future might bring, he disappearedfinally into the newspaper.

  Grandmamma, for her part, _meant_ to disappear into her netting. Butsomehow it did not go on as briskly as usual. Her hands seemed to lag,and more than once she was startled by a tear rolling quickly down herthin soft old cheek--one of the slow-coming, touching tears of old age.She would have been sorry for Grandpapa to see that she was crying; shewas always cheerful with him. But of that there was no fear. SoGrandmamma sat and cried a little quietly to herself, for the children'sinnocent words had roused some sad thoughts, and brought before her somepictures of happy pasts and happy "might-have-beens."

  "It is strange," she thought to herself, "very strange to think of--thatwe two, old and tired and ready to rest, should be here left behind bythem all. All my pretty little ones, who might almost, some of them,have been grandparents themselves by this time! Left behind to take careof Duke's babies--ah, my brave boy, that was the hardest blow of all!The others were too delicate and fragile for this world--I learnt not tomurmur at their so quickly taking flight. But he--so strong and full oflife--who had come through all the dangers of babyhood and childhood,who had grown up so good and manly, so fit to do useful work in theworld--was there no other victim for the deadly cholera's clutch, outthere in the burning East?" and Grandmamma shuddered as a vision of theterrible scenes of a plague-stricken land, that she had more than onceseen for herself, passed before her. "We had little cause to rejoice inthe times of peace when they came. It would have seemed less terriblefor him to be killed on the battlefield. Still--it was on thebattlefield of duty. My boy, my own good boy! No wonder she could notlive without him--poor, gentle little Lavinia, almost a child herself.Though if she had been but a little stronger,--if she could but havebreasted the storm of sorrow till her youth came back again to her alittle in the pleasure of watching these dear babies improving as theydid,--she might have been a great comfort to us, and she would havefound work to do which would have kept her from over-grieving. PoorLavinia! How well I remember the evening they arrived--she and the twopoor yellow shrivelled-up looking little creatures. I remember, sad atheart as we were--only two months after the bitter news of my boy'sdeath!--Nurse and I could almost have found it in our hearts to laughwhen the ayah unwrapped them for us to see. They were so like twomiserable little unfledged birds! And poor Lavinia so proud of them,through her tears--what did she know of babies, poor dear?--and lookingso anxiously to see what we thought of them. I _could_ not say they werepretty--Duke's children though they were." And a queer littlesound--half laugh, half sob--escaped from Grandmamma at therecollection. But it did not matter--Grandpapa was too deaf to hear. Soshe dried her eyes again quietly with her fine lavender-scented cambricpocket-handkerchief, and went on with her recollections all to herself.She seemed to see the two tiny creatures gradually--verygradually--growing plump and rosy in the sweet fresh English air, thelook of unnatural old age that one sometimes sees in very delicatebabies by degrees fading away as the thin little faces grew round andeven dimpled; then came the recollection of the first toddling walk,when the two kept tumbling against each other, so that even the sad-eyedyoung widow could not help laughing; the first lisping words, which,alas, might not be the sweet baby names for father or mother--for bythat time poor Lavinia had faded out of life, with words of whisperedlove and thankfulness to the grandparents so willing to do their utmost.But it was a sad little story at best, and even Grandmamma's brave oldheart trembled when she thought that it might come to be sadder still.

  "What would become of them if they were left _quite_ alone in theworld," she could not help saying to herself. "And though I am not soold as my dear husband by ten years, I cannot picture myself findingstrength to live without him, nor would a poor old woman like me be muchgood to the young creatures if I did! But one must not lose courage, norgrieve about troubles before they come. For, after all, who would everhave believed these two poor fledglings would grow up to be two bonniebairnies like Marmaduke and Pamela now!"

  And for the last time that evening Grandmamma again wiped hereyes--though these tears were of thankfulness and motherly pride in thethought of the sweet and pretty children upstairs, who at that momentwere kneeling in their little white nightgowns, one on each side of oldNurse, as they solemnly repeated after her the Lord's Prayer, and afterthat their own evening petitions that "God would bless dear Grandpapaand Grandmamma, and make 'us' very good children, and a comfort to themin their old age."