Grandmother Dear: A Book for Boys and Girls Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE SIX PINLESS BROOCHES.

  "They have no school, no governess, and do just what they please, No little worries vex the birds that live up in the trees."

  THE DISCONTENTED STARLINGS.

  Not many days after this thrilling adventure of Sylvia's, the littleparty of travellers reached their destination, grandmother's pretty houseat Chalet. They were of course delighted to be there, everything was sobright, and fresh, and comfortable, and grandmother herself was glad tobe again settled down at what to her now represented home. But yet, atthe bottom of their hearts, the children were a little sorry that thetravelling was over. True, Molly declared that, though their passageacross the Channel had really been a very good one as these dreadfulexperiences go, nothing would _ever_ induce her to repeat the experiment;whatever came of it, there was no help for it, live and die in France, atleast on this side of the water, she _must_.

  "I am never going to marry, you know," she observed to Sylvia, "so forthat it doesn't matter, as of course I _couldn't_ marry a Frenchman. Butyou will come over to see me sometimes and bring your children, and whenI get very old, as I shall have no one to be kind to me you see, Idaresay I shall get some one to let me be their concierge like the oldwoman in our lodge. I shall be very poor of course, but _anything_ isbetter than crossing the sea again."

  It sounded very melancholy. Sylvia's mind misgave her that perhaps sheshould offer to stay with Molly "for always" on this side of the channel,but she did not feel quite sure about it. And the odd thing was that ofthem all Molly had most relished the travelling, and was most eager toset off again. She liked the fuss and bustle of it, she said; she likedthe feeling of not being obliged to do any special thing at any specialhour, for regularity and method were sore crosses to Molly.

  "It is so nice," she said, "to feel when we get up in the morning that weshall be out of one bustle into another all day, and nobody to say 'Youwill be late for your music,' or, 'Have you finished your geography,Molly?'"

  "Well," said Sylvia, "I am sure you haven't much of that kind of thingjust now, Molly. We have _far_ less lessons than we had at home. It isalmost like holidays."

  This was quite true. It had been settled between grandmother and theirfather that for the first two or three months the children should nothave many lessons. They had been working pretty hard for a year or twowith a very good, but rather strict, governess, and Sylvia, at no timeexceedingly strong, had begun to look a little fagged.

  "They will have plenty to use their brains upon at first," said theirfather. "The novelty of everything, the different manners and customs,and the complete change of life, all that will be enough to occupy andinterest them, and I don't want to overwork them. Let them run wild fora little."

  It sounded very reasonable, but grandmother had her doubts about it allthe same. "Running wild" in her experience had never tended to makinglittle people happier or more contented.

  "They are always better and more able to enjoy play-time when they feelthat they have done some work well and thoroughly," she said to aunty."However, we must wait a little. If I am not much mistaken, the childrenthemselves will be the first to tire of being too much at their owndisposal."

  For a few weeks it seemed as if Mr. Heriott had been right. The childrenwere so interested and amused by all they saw that it really seemed as ifthere would not be room in their minds for anything else. Every time theywent out a walk they returned, Molly especially, in raptures with somenew marvel. The bullocks who drew the carts, soft-eyed, clumsy creatures,looking, she declared, so "sweet and patient;" the endless varieties of"sisters," with the wonderful diversity of caps; the chatter, and bustle,and clatter on the market-days; the queer, quaint figures that passedtheir gates on horse and pony back, jogging along with their butter andcheese and eggs from the mountain farms--all and everything wasinteresting and marvellous and entertaining to the last degree.

  "I don't know how other children find time to do lessons here," she saidto Sylvia one day. "It is quite difficult to remember just practising andFrench, and think what lots of other lessons we did at home, and weseemed to have much more time."

  "Yes," said Sylvia, "and do you know, Molly, I think I liked it better.Just now at the end of the day I never feel as if I had done anythingnicely and settledly, and I think Ralph feels so too. _He_ is going toschool regularly next month, every day. I wish we were too."

  "_I_ don't," said Molly, "and it will be very horrid of you, Sylvia, ifyou go putting anything like that into grandmother's head. There now, sheis calling us, and I am not _nearly_ ready. Where _are_ my gloves? Oh, Icannot find them."

  "What did you do with them yesterday when you came in?" said Sylvia. "Youran down to the lodge to see the soldiers passing; don't you remember,just when you had half taken off your things?"

  "Oh yes, and I believe I left them in my other jacket pocket. Yes, herethey are. There is grandmother calling again. Do run, Sylvia, and tellher I'm just coming."

  Molly was going out alone with grandmother to-day, and having known allthe morning at what time she was to be ready, there was no excuse forher tardiness.

  "My dear child," said grandmother, who, tired of waiting, just then madeher appearance in their room, "what have you been doing? And you don'tlook half dressed now. See, your collar is tumbling off. I must reallytell Marcelline never to let you go out without looking you all over."

  "It wasn't Marcelline's fault, grandmother dear," said Molly. "I'm sosorry. I dressed in such a hurry."

  "And why in such a hurry?" asked grandmother. "This is not a day on whichyou have any lessons."

  "No-o," began Molly; but a new thought struck grandmother. "Oh, by theby, children, where are your letters for your father? I told you I shouldtake them to the post myself, you remember, as I wasn't sure how manystamps to put on for Cairo."

  Sylvia looked at Molly, Molly looked at Sylvia. Neither dared look atgrandmother. Both grew very red. At last,

  "I am _so_ sorry, grandmother dear."

  "I am _so_ sorry, dear grandmother."

  "We are both _so_ sorry; we _quite_ forgot we were to write them thismorning."

  Grandmother looked at them both with a somewhat curious expression.

  "You both forgot?" she said. "Have you so much to do, my dear littlegirls, that you haven't room in your minds to remember even this onething?"

  "No, grandmother, it isn't that. I should have remembered," said Sylviain a low voice.

  "I don't know, grandmother dear," replied Molly, briskly. "My mind doesseem very full. I don't know how it is, I'm sure."

  Grandmother quietly opened a drawer in a chest of drawers near towhich she was standing. It was very neat. The different articles itcontained were arranged in little heaps; there were a good many thingsin it--gloves, scarfs, handkerchiefs, ribbons, collars, but there seemedplenty of room for all.

  "Whose drawer is this?" she asked.

  'WHOSE DRAWER IS THIS?']

  "Mine," said Sylvia.

  "Sylvia's," answered Molly in the same breath, but growing very red asshe saw grandmother's hand and eyes turning in the direction of theneighbour drawer to the one she had opened.

  "I am so sorry, grandmother dear," she exclaimed; "I wish you wouldn'tlook at mine to-day. I was going to put it tidy, but I hadn't time."

  It was too late. Grandmother had already opened the drawer. Ah, dear!what a revelation! Gloves, handkerchiefs, scarfs, ribbons, collars;collars ribbons, scarfs, handkerchiefs, gloves, in a sort of _pot-pourri_all together, or as if waiting to be beaten up into some wonderful newkind of pudding! Molly grew redder and redder.

  "Dear me!" said grandmother. "This is your drawer, I suppose, Molly. Howis it it is so much smaller than Sylvia's?"

  "It isn't, grandmother dear," said Molly, rather surprised at the turn ofthe conversation. "It is just the same size exactly."

  "Then how is it you have so many more things to keep in it than Sylvia?"

  "I haven't, grandmoth
er dear," said Molly. "We have just exactly the sameof everything."

  "And yet yours looks crowded to the last degree--far too full--and inhers there seems plenty of room for everything."

  "Because, grandmother dear," said Molly, opening wide her eyes, "hers isneat and mine isn't."

  "Ah," said grandmother. "See what comes of order. Suppose you try alittle of it with that mind of yours, Molly, which you say seems alwaystoo full. Do you know I strongly suspect that if everything in it werevery neatly arranged, you would find a very great deal of room in it; youwould be surprised to find how little, not how much, it contains."

  "_Would_ I, grandmother dear?" said Molly, looking rather mystified. "Idon't quite understand."

  "Think about it a little, and then I fancy you will understand," saidgrandmother. "But we really must go now, or I shall be too late for whatI wanted to do. There is that collar of yours loose again, Molly. Alittle brooch would be the proper thing to fasten it with. You haveseveral."

  Poor Molly--her unlucky star was in the ascendant this afternoon surely!She grew very red again, as she answered confusedly,

  "Yes, grandmother dear."

  "Well then, quick, my dear. Put on the brooch with the bit of coral inthe middle, like the one that Sylvia has on now."

  "Please, grandmother dear, that one's pin's broken."

  "The pin's broken! Ah, well, we'll take it to have it mended then. Whereis it, my dear? Give it to me."

  Molly opened the unlucky drawer, and after a minute or two's fumblingextracted from its depths a little brooch which she handed tograndmother. Grandmother looked at it.

  "This is not the one, Molly. This is the one Aunty sent you on your lastbirthday, with the little turquoises round it."

  Molly turned quickly.

  "Oh yes. It isn't the coral one. It must be in the drawer."

  Another rummage brought forth the coral one.

  "But the turquoise one has no pin either!"

  "No, grandmother dear. It broke last week."

  "Then it too must go to be mended," said grandmother with decision. "See,here is another one that will do for to-day."

  She, in turn, drew forth another brooch. A little silver one this time,in the shape of a bird flying. But as she was handing it to Molly, "Why,this one _also_ has no pin!" she exclaimed.

  "No, grandmother dear. I broke it the day before yesterday."

  Grandmother laid the three brooches down in a row.

  "How many brooches in all have you, Molly?" she said.

  "Six, grandmother dear. They are just the same as Sylvia has. We haveeach six."

  "And where are the three others?"

  Molly opened a little box that stood on the top of the chest of drawers.

  "They're here," she said, and so they were, poor things. A little mosaicbrooch set in silver, a mother-of-pearl with steel border, and atortoise-shell one in the shape of a crescent; these made up herpossessions.

  "I meant," she added naively, "I meant to have put them all in this boxas I broke them, but I left the coral one, and the turquoise one, and thebird in the drawer by mistake."

  "_As you broke them?_" repeated grandmother. "How many are broken then?"

  "All," said Molly. "I mean the pins are."

  It was quite true. There lay the six brooches--brooches indeed nolonger--for not a pin was there to boast of among them!

  "Six pinless brooches!" said grandmother drily, taking them up one afteranother. "Six pinless brooches--the property of one careless little girl.Little girls are changed from the days when I was young! I shall takethese six brooches to be mended at once, Molly, but what I shall do withthem when they are mended I cannot as yet say."

  She put them all in the little box from which three of them had beentaken, and with it in her hand went quietly out of the room. Molly, bythis time almost in tears, remained behind for a moment to whisper toSylvia,

  "Is grandmother dreadfully angry, do you think, Sylvia? I am sofrightened, I wish I wasn't going out with her."

  "Then you should not have been so horribly careless. I never knew any oneso careless," said Sylvia, in rather a Job's comforter tone of voice."Of course you must tell grandmother how sorry you are, and how ashamedof yourself, and ask her to forgive you."

  "Grandmother dear," said Molly, her irrepressible spirits rising againwhen she found herself out in the pleasant fresh air, sitting oppositegrandmother in the carriage, bowling along so smoothly--grandmotherhaving made no further allusion to the unfortunate brooches--"Grandmotherdear, I am so sorry and so ashamed of myself. Will you please forgiveme?"

  "And what then, my dear?" said grandmother.

  "I will try to be careful; indeed I will. I will tell you how it isI break them so, grandmother dear. I am always in such a hurry, andbrooches _are_ so provoking sometimes. They won't go in, and I givethem a push, and then they just squock across in a moment."

  "They just _what_?" said grandmother.

  "Squock across, grandmother dear," said Molly serenely. "It's a word ofmy own. I have a good many words of my own like that. But I won't saythem if you'd rather not. I've got a plan in my head--it's just comethere--of teaching myself to be more careful with brooches, so _please_,grandmother dear, do try me again when the brooches are mended. _Ofcourse_ I'll pay them out of my own money."

  "Well, we'll see," said grandmother, as the carriage stopped at thejeweller's shop where the poor brooches were to be doctored.

  During the next two days there was a decided improvement in Molly. Shespent a great part of them in putting her drawers and other possessionsin order, and was actually discovered in a quiet corner mending a pairof gloves. She was not once late for breakfast or dinner, and,notwithstanding the want of the brooches, her collars retained theirposition with unusual docility. All these symptoms were not lost ongrandmother, and to Molly's great satisfaction, on the evening of thethird day she slipped into her hand a little box which had just been leftat the door.

  "The brooches, Molly," said grandmother. "They have cost just threefrancs. I think I may trust you with them, may I not?"

  "Oh yes, grandmother dear. I'm sure you may," said Molly, radiant. "Anddo you know my drawers are just _beautiful_. I wish you could see them."

  "Never fear, my dear. I shall be sure to take a look at them some daysoon. Shall I pay them an unexpected visit--eh, Molly?"

  "If you like," replied the little girl complacently. "I've quite left offbeing careless and untidy; it's so much nicer to be careful and neat.Good-night, grandmother dear, and thank you so much for teaching me sonicely."

  "Good-night, grand-daughter dear. But remember, my little Molly, thatRome was not built in a day."

  "Of course not--how could a big town be built in a day? Grandmother dear,what funny things you do say," said Molly, opening wide her eyes.

  "_The better to make you think, my dear_," said grandmother, in a gruffvoice that made Molly jump.

  "Oh dear! how you do frighten me when you speak like that, grandmotherdear," she said in such a piteous tone that they all burst out laughingat her.

  "My poor little girl, it is a shame to tease you," said grandmother,drawing her towards her. "To speak plainly, my dear, what I want you toremember is this: Faults are not cured, any more than big towns arebuilt, in a day."

  "No, I know they are not. I'm not forgetting that. I've been making a lotof plans for making myself remember about being careful," said Molly,nodding her head sagaciously. "You'll see, grandmother dear."

  And off to bed she went.

  The children went out early the next morning for a long walk in thecountry. It was nearly luncheon time when they returned, and they weremet in the hall by aunty, who told them to run upstairs and take offtheir things quickly, as a friend of their grandmother's had come tospend the day with her.

  "And make yourselves neat, my dears," she said. "Miss Wren is aparticular old lady."

  Sylvia was down in the drawing-room in five minutes, hair brushed, handswashed, collar straight. She wen
t up to Miss Wren to be introduced toher, and then sat down in a corner by the window with a book. Miss Wrenwas very deaf, and her deafness had the effect, as she could not in theleast hear her own voice, of making her shout out her observations in avery loud tone, sometimes rather embarrassing for those to whom they wereaddressed, or, still worse, for those concerning whom they were made.

  "Nice little girl," she remarked to grandmother, "very nice,pretty-behaved little girl. Rather like poor Mary, is she not? Not sopretty! Dear me, what a pretty girl Mary was the first winter you werehere, twelve, no, let me see, fourteen years ago! Never could think whatmade her take a fancy to that solemn-looking husband of hers."

  Grandmother laid her hand warningly on Miss Wren's arm, and glanced inSylvia's direction, and greatly to her relief just then, there came adiversion in the shape of Molly. Grandmother happened to be asked aquestion at this moment by a servant who just came into the room, and hadtherefore turned aside for an instant as Molly came up to speak to MissWren. Her attention was quickly caught again, however, by the old lady'sremarks, delivered as usual in a very loud voice.

  "How do you do, my dear? And what is your name? Dear me, is this a newfashion? Laura," to aunty, who was writing a note at the side-table andhad not noticed Molly's entrance, "Laura, my dear, I wonder your motherallows the child to wear so much jewellery. In _my_ young days such athing was never heard of."

  Aunty got up from her writing at this, and grandmother turned roundquickly. What could Miss Wren be talking about? Was her sight, as wellas her hearing, failing her? Was grandmother's own sight, hitherto quiteto be depended upon, playing her some queer trick? There stood Molly,serene as usual, with--it took grandmother quite a little while to countthem--one, two, three, yes, _six_ brooches fastened on to the front ofher dress! All the six invalid brooches, just restored to health, that isto say _pins_, were there in their glory. The turquoise one in themiddle, the coral and the tortoise-shell ones at each side of it, thethree others, the silver bird, the mosaic and the mother-of-pearlarranged in a half-moon below them, in the front of the child's dress.They were placed with the greatest neatness and precision; it must havecost Molly both time and trouble to put each in the right spot.

  Grandmother stared, aunty stared, Miss Wren looked at Molly curiously.

  "Odd little girl," she remarked, in what she honestly believed to be aperfectly inaudible whisper, to grandmother. "She is not so nice as theother, not so like poor Mary. But I wonder, my dear, I really do wonderat your allowing her to wear so much jewellery. In _our_ young days----"

  For once in her life grandmother was _almost_ rude to Miss Wren. Sheinterrupted her reminiscences of "our young days" by turning sharply toMolly.

  "Molly," she said, "go up to your room at once and take off thatnonsense. What _is_ the meaning of it? Do you intend to make a joke ofwhat you should be so ashamed of, your own carelessness?"

  Molly stared up in blank surprise and distress.

  "Grandmother dear," she said confusedly. "It was my _plan_. It was tomake me careful."

  Grandmother felt much annoyed, and Molly's self-defence vexed her more.

  "Go up to your room," she repeated. "You have vexed me very much. Eitheryou intend to make a joke of what I hoped would have been a lesson to youfor all your life, or else, Molly, it is as if you had not all your wits.Go up to your room at once."

  Molly said no more. Never before had grandmother and aunty looked at her"like that." She turned and ran out of the room and up to her own, andthrowing herself down on the bed burst into tears.

  "I thought it was such a good plan," she sobbed. "I wanted to pleasegrandmother. And I do believe she thinks I meant to mock her. Oh dear! ohdear! oh dear!"

  Downstairs the luncheon bell rang, and they all seated themselves attable, but no Molly appeared.

  "Shall I run up and tell her to come down?" suggested Sylvia, but "no,"said grandmother, "it is better not."

  But grandmother's heart was sore.

  "I shall be so sorry if there is anything of sulkiness or resentfulnessin Molly," she said to herself. "What _could_ the child have had in herhead?"