Mona was growing more and more impatient. "Grown-ups do take so long over everything," she thought irritably. "If it gets much later mother will say, 'there isn't time to open the parcels to-night, we must wait till morning!' Oh, dear!"
It was long past eight before they had sat down to their meal, and then, her father and mother both being very tired, they took it in such a leisurely fashion that Mona thought they never would have finished. They, of course, were glad to sit still and talk of their day's doings, but Mona, as soon as her hunger was satisfied, was simply longing to be up and examining the contents of the tempting-looking parcels which had waited so long on the side-table.
She fidgeted with her knife and fork, she rattled her cup and shuffled her feet, but still her father went on describing his adventures, and still Lucy sat listening eagerly. To them this was the happiest and most restful time of the day. The day's work was done, duty would not call to them again until morning. The kitchen was warm and comfortable. It was just the right time for a leisurely talk, but Mona did not realise this.
At last, disturbed by her restlessness, her mother and father broke off their talk and got up from the table.
"Now you have a pipe, father, while Mona and I put away the supper things. After that I'll be able to sit down and hear the rest of it. I expect Mona's tired and wants to be off to bed."
"No, I am not," said Mona sharply. In her heart she grumbled, "Work, work, always work—never a bit of fun." She had forgotten the hours she had spent playing on the quay only a little while before. She would not remind her mother of the parcels, but sulked because she had forgotten them. Lucy looked at her anxiously now and again, puzzled to know why her mood had changed so suddenly. She was still puzzling over the matter, when, in putting something back on the side-table, she saw the pile of parcels.
"Why, Mona," she cried, "I'd forgot all about my shopping, and the things I was going to show you. Make haste and dry your hands and come and look. We'll be able to have a nice, quiet little time now before we go to bed!"
Mona's face changed at once, and her whole manner too. It did not take her long after that to finish up and be ready.
"That," said Lucy, putting one big roll aside, "that's the blue wool for father. We needn't open that now. Oh, and this, is for you, dear," pushing a big box towards Mona. "I hope you will like it. I thought it sweetly pretty. Directly I saw it I thought to myself, now that'll just suit our Mona! I seemed to see you wearing it."
Mona's heart beat faster, her cheeks grew rosy with excitement. "Whatever can it be!" she wondered, and her fingers trembled so with eagerness, she was ever so long untying the string.
"If you don't like it," went on Lucy, busy untying the knots of another parcel, "Mr. Phillips promised he'd change it, if it wasn't damaged at all."
How tantalising Lucy was! Whatever could it be! Then at last the knot gave way, and Mona lifted the lid, and pushed the silver paper aside. "Oh, mother!" She clapped her hands in a rapture, her eyes sparkled with joy. "Oh, mother! It's—it's lovely. I didn't know, I didn't think you could get me a hat to-day—oh—h!"
"Then you like it?"
"It's lovely!"
"Try it on, and let us see if it suits you. That's the chief thing, isn't it?" Lucy tried to look grave, but she was nearly as excited and delighted as Mona herself.
Mona put it on and looked at her mother with shy questioning. She hoped so much that it did suit her, for she longed to keep it.
Lucy gazed at her critically from all sides, then she nodded with grave approval. "Yes, I never saw you in one that suited you better, to my mind. Go and see for yourself—but wait a minute," as Mona was hurrying away to the scullery, where hung a little mirror about a foot square. "Don't treat that poor box so badly," as she rescued it from the floor, "there's something else in amongst all that paper. Look again."
Mona opened the box again, but her heart had sunk suddenly. Yes, there it was, the very thing she had dreaded to see—a wreath of blue forget-me-nots and soft green leaves! There was a piece of black ribbon velvet too, to make the whole complete.
It was a charming wreath. Compared with it, her own purchase seemed poor and common.
Mona held it in her hand, gazing at it with lowered lids. Then suddenly her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, mother," she stammered brokenly. There was such real pain in her voice that Lucy looked at her in anxious surprise. "Don't you like it?" she asked, disappointed. She had hoped for a rapturous outburst of pleasure, and, instead, Mona stood silent, embarrassed, evidently on the verge of tears.
"Don't you like it, dear?" she asked again. "I thought you would have been pleased. The blue on that silvery white straw looks so pretty, I think. Don't you?"
Mona nodded, but did not speak. "Mona, dear, what is it? Tell me what's wrong? I am sure there is something. Perhaps I can help you, if I know."
Tears had been near Mona's eyes for some moments, and the kindness in her mother's face and voice broke down all restraints. Tossing the hat one way and the wreath another, Mona ran into Lucy's arms, sobbing bitterly.
"Oh—I must tell. I can't keep it in any longer! Oh, mother, I've got a wreath already, I bought it myself, and I hate it—oh, I hate it! I—I can't tell you how bad I've felt about it ever since I got it!" And then the whole of the miserable story came pouring out. She kept nothing back. She told of her keeping the eighteenpence, of her dream, of her mortification in the shop. "And—and it seemed as if my dream came true," she said, when presently the worst was told. "I was so crazy for the forget-me-nots that I couldn't get, that I never thought anything of the wallflowers close beside me, and then, when I had got forget-me-nots, I was disappointed; and when I lost the wallflowers, I began to think all the world of them!"
Lucy, with her head resting against Mona's, as she held her in her arms, smiled sadly. "It's the same with all of us, dear. We're so busy looking into our neighbour's garden patch, envying them what they've got, that we don't see what we've got in our own, and, as like as not, trample it down with reaching up to look over the wall, and lose it altogether. Now, pick up your hat and your flowers and try to get all the pleasure you can out of them. I hoped they'd have brought you such a lot. Or would you rather change the wreath for another?"
But Mona would not hear of that. "Oh, no, I wanted blue forget-me-nots, and these are lovely. I'd rather have them than anything, thank you, mother."
"You couldn't have anything prettier," said Peter Carne, rousing suddenly from his nap.
Lucy laughed. "Now, father, whatever do you know about it! You go to sleep again. Mona and I are talking about finery." She was busy undoing a large parcel of drapery. "I've got the print here for your frocks," she turned to Mona again. "I'd have liked to have had both dark blue, but I thought you might fancy a pink one, so I got stuff for one of each. There, do you like them?"
"Like them! Oh, mother, are they really both for me! And what pretty buttons! Are those for me, too?"
"Yes, it's all for you, dear." Lucy's voice had begun to sound tired and faint. She had had a long, wearying day, and the parcels had been heavy. Mona, though, did not notice anything. She was busy arranging the wreath round the crown of her hat. "If I only had a white dress, wouldn't it look nice with this! Oh, I'd love to have a white dress. If I'd stayed with granny, she was going to get me one this summer."
Her father turned and looked across at them. "What've you bought for yourself, Lucy, my girl?" he asked suddenly. Lucy looked up in surprise. "I—oh, I didn't want anything, father," she said, somewhat embarrassed. "I don't need anything new this summer. My dove-colour merino is as good as it was the day I bought it. It seems foolish to—to buy new when one doesn't need it," she added hastily. "It is only a trouble to keep."
"Do you mean the one you were married in?" asked Peter shrewdly.
Lucy nodded. "Yes—the one you liked. I'll get myself a new pair of gloves. I can get those at Tamlin's."
"Um!" There was a deal of meaning in Peter Carne's 'Um.' "Well, you'll never get one that's prettier, but you ought to have something new and nice, too. And what about your medicine?"
"Oh!" Lucy coloured. "Oh, I—I'm trying to do without it. It isn't good for anyone to be taking it too often."
"That's what granny always says," chimed in Mona. "She says if people get into the way of taking medicine they get to think they can't do without it."
Lucy's pale cheeks flushed pink, and a hurt look crept into her eyes. Her husband was deeply annoyed, and showed it. "I think, my girl," he said, in a sterner voice than Mona had ever heard before, "you'd better wait to offer your opinion until you are old enough to know what you are talking about. You are more than old enough, though, to know that it's wrong to repeat what's said before you. After all your mother's bought for you, too, I'd have thought," he broke off, for Mona's eyes were once more full of tears. Never in her life before had her father spoken to her so severely.
"I—I didn't mean any harm," she stammered, apologetically.
"Then you should learn to think, and not say things that may do harm. If what's on your tongue to say is likely to hurt anybody's feelings, or to make mischief, then don't let it slip past your tongue. You'll get on if you keep that rule in your mind."
Lucy put her arm round her little stepdaughter, and drew her close. "I know that our Mona wouldn't hurt me wilfully," she said kindly. "She's got too warm a heart."
Peter Carne patted Mona's shoulder tenderly. "I know—I know she has. We've all got to learn and you can't know things unless they are pointed out to you. I'm always thankful to them that helped me in that way when I was young. Mona'll be glad, too, some day."
"Grown-ups always say things like that," thought Mona, wistfully. She did not feel at all glad then. In fact, she felt so ashamed and so mortified, she thought gladness could never enter into her life again.
It did come, though, for the hurt was not as deep as she thought. It came the next day when her mother trimmed the new hat. Lucy had good taste, and when living at the Grange she had often helped the young ladies with their millinery.
"If I put the velvet bow just where the wreath joins, and let the ends hang just ever so little over the edge of the brim, I think it'll look nice and a little bit out of the common. Don't you, dear?" She held up the hat to show off the effect. Mona thought it was lovely.
"Then, as soon as ever I can I'll cut out your dresses, and, if you'll help me with the housework, I'll make them myself. It won't take me so very long, with my machine."
She spoke of it so lightly that Mona did not realise in the least what the fatigue of it would be to her.
"Oh, I'll do everything," she said, cheerfully. "You leave everything to me, mother, and only do your sewing, I can manage."
And she did manage, and well, too, in the intervals of trying on, and admiring, and watching the frocks growing into shape and beauty under Lucy's hands. They were quite plain little frocks, but in Mona's eyes they were lovely. She could not decide which of them she liked best.
Lucy finished off the pink one first, and as soon as it was completed Mona took it upstairs and put it on. New dresses very seldom came her way, and she was in a great state of excitement. She had never in her life before had one that she might put on on a week day and wear all day long. As a rule, one had to wait for Sunday, and then the frock might only be worn for a few hours, if the weather was fine, and as soon as ever church and Sunday school were over it had to be changed.
"Doesn't it look nice!" she cried, delightedly, running downstairs to show her mother. "And it fits me like a glove!" Her cheeks were almost as pink as her gown. Her blue eyes glowed with pleasure. She looked like a pretty pink blossom as she stood with the sunshine pouring in on her.
Lucy smiled at the compliment to her skill. "You do look nice, dear."
Holding out her crisp, pink skirt, Mona danced gaily round the kitchen, the breeze blowing in at the open door ruffled her hair a little. She drew herself up, breathless, and glanced out. Everything certainly looked very tempting out of doors. She longed to go and have a run, the breeze and the sunshine seemed to be calling her. She scarcely liked, though, to leave her mother, tired as she was, and still busy at the blue frock.
While she was standing looking out, her father appeared at the gate, a letter in his hand. He came up the path reading it. When he came to the porch he looked up and saw Mona.
"Oh, my! How smart we are!"
"Do you like it, father? Isn't it pretty?"
"Fine! And now I s'pose you're longing to go out and show it off!" He laughed, and pinched her cheeks. Mona felt quite guilty at his quick reading of her thoughts, but before she could reply he went on, more gravely, "I've got a letter from your grandmother. She sends her love to you." He went inside and put the letter down on the table before Lucy.
"She doesn't seem very well," he said, with a pucker on his brow, "and she complains of being lonely. I'm very glad she's got nice neighbours handy. They'd be sure to run in and see her, and look after her a bit if she's bad. I shouldn't like to feel she was ailing, and all alone."
Mona's face dropped, and her heart too. She felt horribly guilty. "Would Mrs. Lane go in and sit with her for company? Would she look after her if she was bad? Had they made up their quarrel?" she wondered, "or were they still not on speaking terms?" She did not know whether to tell her father of the quarrel or not, so she said nothing.
Lucy had been busy trying to frame an excuse for sending Mona out. She knew she was longing to go.
"Mona," she said, when at last they had finished discussing the letter and its contents, "would you like to go down to Mr. Henders' for some tea and sugar, and go on to Dr. Edwards for my medicine? He said it would be ready whenever anyone could come for it."
Mona beamed with pleasure. "I'll go and put on my hat and boots now this minute," and within ten she was ready, and walking, basket in hand, and very self-conscious, down the hill to the shops.
The church clock struck twelve as she reached the doctor's. In a few minutes the children would all be pouring out of school, and wouldn't they stare when they saw her! She felt almost shy at the thought of facing them, and gladly turned into Mr. Henders' out of their way. She would dawdle about in there, she told herself, until most of them had gone by.
She did dawdle about until Mrs. Henders asked her twice if there was anything more that she wanted, and, as she could not pretend that there was, she had to step out and face the world again. Fortunately, though, only the older and sedater girls were to be seen. Philippa Luxmore and Patty Row, each carrying her dinner bag, Winnie Maunders, and Kitty Johnson, and one or two Mona did not know to speak to.
Philippa and Patty always brought their dinner with them, as the school was rather far from their homes. Sometimes they had their meal in the schoolroom, but, if the weather was warm and dry, they liked best to eat it out of doors, down on the rocks, or in a field by the school.
When they caught sight of Mona they rushed up to her eagerly. "Oh, my! How nice you look, Mona. What a pretty frock! It's new, isn't it? Are you going to wear it every day or only on Sundays?"
"Oh, every day." Mona spoke in a lofty tone. "It's only one of my working frocks. I've got two. The other's a blue one. Mother's made them for me."
"Um! Your mother is good to you, Mona Carne! I wish I'd got frocks like that for working in. I'd be glad to have them for Sundays. Where are you going?"
"Home." "Oh, don't go home yet. Patty and me are going down to eat our dinner on the rocks. Come on down too. You won't hurt your frock."
"I don't think I can stay—I ought to go back. I've got mother's medicine here. It's getting on for dinner-time, too, and father's home to-day." Glancing up the road, she caught sight of Millie Higgins and another girl in the distance. She particularly did not want to meet Millie just then. She made such rude remarks, and she always fingered things so. Mona had not forgiven her either for leading her astray the day her mother went into Baymouth.
She hesitated a moment and was lost. She turned and walked away from her home. Philippa slipped her arm through hers on one side, and Patty on the other, and almost before she knew where she was she was racing with them to the shore.
The wind had risen somewhat, so it took them some minutes to find a nice sheltered spot in the sunshine and out of the wind, and they had to sit on the land side of the rocks, with their backs to the sea. It was very pleasant, though, and, once settled, Mona told them all about her new hat, and they gave her a share of their dinner.
After that they told her of the new summer frocks they were to have, and the conversation grew so interesting and absorbing, they forgot everything else until the church clock struck two!
With a howl of dismay, they all sprang to their feet, and then they howled again, and even more loudly.
"Oh, Mona, look! The tide's right in! We'll have to get back through the fields, and, oh, shan't we be late!" Patty and Philippa began to scramble back as fast as ever they could. "Good-bye," they called over their shoulders. "Oh, Mona, look out for your basket, it's floating."
They could not have stayed to help her, but it did seem heartless of them to run away and leave her alone to manage as best she could. Mona looked about her helplessly, her heart sinking right down, down. The tide at that point had a way of creeping up gently, stealthily, and then, with one big swirl would rush right in and around the group of rocks on which she stood. If the wind was high and the sea at all rough, as likely as not it would sweep right over the rocks and back again with such force that anyone or anything on them was swept away with it. There was not wind enough to-day for that. At least, Mona herself was safe, but her basket!—already that was swamped with water. At the thought of the ruined tea and sugar her eyes filled. Her mother's medicine was in the basket too. She would save that! At any rate, she would feel less guilty and ashamed if she could take that back to her. She made a dash to seize the basket before the next wave caught it, slipped on the slimy rock, and fell face forward—and at the same moment she heard the crash of breaking glass. The medicine was mingling with the waves, the basket was riding out on the crest of them!
Poor Mona! At that minute the hardest heart would have felt sorry for her. Her dress was ruined, her hands were scraped and cut, her mother's tonic was gone! The misery which filled her heart was more than she could bear. "I can't go home!" she sobbed. "I can't, I never can any more." Big sobs shook her, tears poured down her cheeks. "I can't go home, I can't face them. Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!" She looked down over her wet, green-slimed frock, so pretty and fresh but an hour ago, and her sobs broke out again. "I'll—I'll run away—they won't want me after this, but p'raps they'll be sorry for me when they miss me. Oh, I wish I'd never come, I wish I'd never met Phil and Patty—they'd no business to ask me to come with them—it was too bad of them. I wish I'd gone straight home. If it hadn't been for Millie Higgins I should have, and all this would have been saved. Oh, what shall I do?"
As there was no one but a few gulls to advise her, she received no comfort, and had, after all, to settle the question for herself.
For a few moments all she did was to cry. Then, "I'll go to granny," she decided. "She'll be glad to have me, and she won't scold. Yes, I'll go to granny. Father and mother will be glad to be rid of me—I—I'm nothing but a trouble to them!" But, all the same, she felt so sorry for herself she could scarcely see where she was going for the tears which blinded her.
Mona's first thought was to avoid being seen by anyone who would recognise her; her second—that she must keep out of sight as much as possible until her dress was dry, and her face less disfigured, for anyone meeting her now would stop her to enquire if she had met with an accident.
By keeping along the shore for some little distance it was possible to get out on to the high road to Milbrook, but it was not an easy path to travel. It meant continued climbing over rocks, ploughing through loose, soft sand, or heavy wet sand, clinging to the face of a cliff and scrambling along it, or wading through deep water.
What her new pink frock would be like by the time she reached the road Mona did not care to contemplate. "It will be ruined for ever— the first time of wearing, too," and a sob caught in her throat as she remembered how her mother had toiled to get the material, and then to make the dress. Now that she was losing her she realised how much she had grown to love her mother in the short time she had lived with her, and how good and kind Lucy had been. It never occurred to her that she was doubling her mother's trouble by running away in this cowardly fashion. Indeed, she would have been immensely surprised if anyone had hinted at such a thing. She was convinced that she was doing something very heroic and self-denying; and the more she hurt herself clambering over the rough roads, the more heroic and brave she thought herself. And when, at last, she stepped out on the high road, and realised that she had seven miles to walk to her grandmother's house, she thought herself bravest of all, a perfect heroine, in fact.
Already she was feeling hungry, for breakfast had been early, and Patty and Philippa had only been able to spare her a slice of bread and butter and a biscuit.
On she trudged, and on, and on. A distant clock struck three, and just at the same moment she passed a sign-post with 'Milbrook, 6 miles,' painted on one arm of it, and 'Seacombe, 1 mile,' on another.
"Then she had six long tiresome miles to walk before she could get a meal!" she thought. "If she did not get on faster than she was doing, it would be dark night before she reached Hillside Cottage, and granny would be gone to bed. She always went to bed as soon as daylight began to go. How frightened she would be at being called up to let Mona in!"
The thought quickened her steps a little, and she covered the next mile in good time. She ran down the hills, and trotted briskly along the level. She got on faster in that way, but she very soon felt too tired to continue. Her legs ached so badly she had no heart left for running. Now and again she leaned back against the hedge for a little rest, and oh, how she did wish that it was the blackberry season! She was starving, or felt as though she was.
By and by, when she had quite despaired of ever reaching granny's that night, she caught sight of a cart lumbering along in the distance, and a man sitting up in it driving. It was the first sight of a human being that she had seen since she started, and she welcomed it gladly. "Perhaps it's going my way, and will give me a lift." The thought so cheered her that she went back a little way to meet the cart. When she drew nearer she saw that it was a market cart, and that the driver was a kindly-looking elderly man. Every now and again he talked encouragingly to his horse to quicken its pace. Between whiles he sang snatches of a hymn in a loud, rolling bass.
As soon as he saw that Mona was waiting to speak to him, he stopped his singing and drew up the horse.
"Good evening, missie," he said civilly. "Are you wanting a lift?"
"Oh, please—I wondered if you would—I am so tired I can hardly walk."
"Um! Where were you thinking of going?"
"To Hillside——"
"Um! You've got a brave step to go yet. We're a good three miles from Hillside. Have 'ee come far?"
"From Seacombe," Mona admitted reluctantly.
"My word! It's a brave long walk for a young thing like you to take alone. Why, you wouldn't reach Hillside till after dark—not at the rate you could go. You look tired out already."
"I am," sighed Mona, pathetically.
"Here, jump up quick, or my old nag'll fall asleep, and I'll have the works of the world to wake un up again."
Mona laughed. "Thank you," she said, eyes and voice full of gratitude as she clambered up the wheel, and perched herself on the high, hard seat beside her new friend. "I'm very much obliged to you, sir. I don't believe I'd ever have got there, walking all the way. I didn't know seven miles was so far."
"I don't believe you would. A mile seems like two when you ain't in good trim for it, and the more miles you walk, the longer they seem. Gee up, you old rogue you!" This to the horse, who, after much coaxing, had consented to move on again.
"I never felt so tired in all my life before," sighed Mona, in a voice so faint and weary that her companion looked at her sharply.
"Had any dinner?" he asked.
Mona shook her head. "No, I—I missed my dinner. I—I came away in a hurry."
"That's always a bad plan." He stooped down and pulled a straw bag towards him. "I couldn't eat all mine. My wife was too generous to me. P'raps you could help me out with it. I don't like to take any home—it kind of hurts my wife's feelings if I do. She thinks I'm ill, too. Can you finish up what's left?"
He unrolled a clean white cloth and laid it and its contents on Mona's lap.
"Could she!" Mona's eyes answered for her.
"Do you like bread and ham? It may be a trifle thick——"
"Oh!" gasped Mona, "I think bread and ham,thickbread and ham is nicer than anything else in the world!"
"Um! Peg away, then. And there's an orange, in case you're thirsty."
"Oh, you are kind!" cried Mona, gratefully. "And oh, I am so glad I met you, I don't believe I'd have got much further, I was feeling so faint."
"That was from want of food. Here, before you begin, hadn't you better put something about your shoulders. It's getting fresh now the sun's gone down, and when we get to the top of that hill we shall feel it. Have you got a coat, or a shawl, or something?"
"No, I haven't. I—I came away in a hurry—but I shall be all right. I don't mind the cold."
"I should think you were in too much of a hurry—to have forget your shawl, and your dinner, too. Wasn't there anybody to look after you, and see you started out properly?"
"No."
"You ain't an orphan, are you?"
"Oh, no, I've got a father and a stepmother——"
"Oh-h!" meaningly. "Is that the trouble?"
Mona fired up at once in defence of Lucy. "No, it isn't. She's just the same as my own mother. She's so kind to me—if she hadn't been so kind I—I wouldn't have minded so much. She sat up last night to—to finish making my frock for me." Her words caught in her throat, and she could say no more.
Her companion eyed first her disfigured face, and then her bedraggled frock. "It seems to have seen trouble since last night, don't it?" he remarked drily, and then the words and the sobs in Mona's throat poured out together.
"That's why—I—I'm here. I can't go home and show her what I've done. It was so pretty only this morning—and now——" Then bit by bit Mona poured forth her tale of woe into the ears of the kindly stranger, and Mr. Dodds sat and listened patiently, thoughtfully.
"And what about your poor father and mother and their feelings," he asked when Mona had done.
"Oh—oh—they'll be glad to be rid of me. They'll be better without me," said Mona, with the air and voice of a martyr.
"Um! If you're certain sure of that, all well and good, but wouldn't it have been better to have went back and asked them? It does seem a bit hard that they should be made to suffer more 'cause they've suffered so much already. They won't know but what you've been carried out to sea 'long with your poor mother's tonic."
Mona did not reply. In her inmost heart she knew that he was right, but she hadn't the courage to face the truth. It was easier, too, to go on than to go back, and granny would be glad to see her. She would be sorry for her, and would make much of her. Granny always thought that all she did was right.
In spite of her feelings, though, Mona finished her meal, and felt much better for it, but she presently grew so sleepy she could not talk and could scarcely keep on her seat. Mr. Dodds noticed the curly head sink down lower and lower, then start up again with a jerk, then droop again.
"Look here—what's your name, my dear?"
"Mona—Carne," said Mona, sleepily, quite oblivious of the fact that she had given away her identity.
"Well, Mona, what I was going to say was, you'll be tumbling off your seat and find yourself under the wheel before you know where you are; so I'd advise you to get behind there, and curl down into the straw. Then, if you draw my top-coat over you, you'll be safe and warm both."
Mona needed no second bidding. She almost tumbled into the clean, sweet-smelling straw. "Thank you," she was going to say, as she drew the coat up over her, but she only got as far as 'thank,' and it seemed to her that before she could say 'you,' she was roused again by the cart drawing up, and there she was at her grandmother's gate, with granny standing on the doorstep peering out into the dimness. She thought she had closed her eyes for only a minute, and in that minute they had travelled three miles.
"Is that you, Mr. Dodds?" Granny called out sharply. "Whatever made 'ee come at this time of night? 'Tis time your poor 'orse was 'ome in his stable, and you in your own house!"
"I've come on purpose to bring you something very valuable, Mrs. Barnes. I've got a nice surprise for 'ee here in my cart. Now then, little maid, you've come to the end of your journey—and I've got a brave way to go."
Mona was still so sleepy that she had to be almost lifted out of the cart.
"What! Why! Mona!" Then, as Mona stumbled up the path she almost fell into her grandmother's arms. "What's the meaning of it? What are they thinking about to send 'ee back at this time of night! In another few minutes I'd have been gone to bed. I don't call it considerate at all."
"They don't know," stammered Mona. "I wasn't sent, I came. Oh, granny, don't ask about it now—let me get indoors and sit down. I'm so tired I can't stand. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."
But tired though she was, she turned back and thanked her rescuer. "I'd have been sleeping under a hedge to-night, if it hadn't been for you," she said gratefully.
"Oh, what I did isn't anything," he said amiably. "'Tisn't worth speaking about. I don't doubt but what you'd do as much for me, if I wanted it. Good night, Mrs. Barnes. Take care of yourself, ma'am, it's a bit fresh to-night. Good night, little maid. Gee-up, Nettle, my son."
What he had done was a mere nothing, as he said. But what he did do before the night was over was a very big something. Between two and three hours later he was in Seacombe, and knocking at Peter Carne's door.
"I knew you'd be anxious, so I thought I'd just step along and let 'ee know that your little maid's all right," he said quietly, making no mention of the seven long miles he had tramped after he had fed and stabled his horse for the night.
"Anxious!" Lucy lay half fainting in her chair. Peter's face was white and drawn with the anguish of the last few hours. Neither of them could doubt any longer that Mona had been swept off the rock and out to sea. Nothing else could have kept her, they thought. Patty and Philippa had told where they had last seen her, but it was four o'clock before they had come out of school and heard that she was missing. So the crowds clustering about the shore had never any hope of finding her alive.
Peter Carne almost fainted, too, with the relief the stranger's words brought him. The best he had dared to hope for when the knock came was the news that Mona's body had been washed in. The revulsion of feeling from despair to joy sent him reeling helpless into a chair.
Humphrey Dodds put out his arms and supported him gently. "I didn't know, I ought to have thought, and told 'ee more careful like."
"Where is she?" gasped Lucy.
"Safe with her grandmother—and there I'd let her bide for a bit, if I was you," he added, with a twinkle in his eye. "It'll do her good."
They tried to thank him, but words failed them both. They pressed him to stay the night, he must be so tired, and it was so late, but he refused. A walk was nothing to him, and he had to be at work by five the next morning. "But I wouldn't say 'no' to a bit of supper," he said, knowing quite well that they would all be better for some food.
Then, while Lucy got the meal ready, Peter went down to tell his good news, and send the weary searchers to their homes.
Over their supper Mr. Dodds told them of Mona's pitiful little confession. "It doesn't seem hardly fair to tell again what she told me, but I thought it might help you to understand how she came to be so foolish. It don't seem so bad when you know how it all came about."
When he had had his supper and a pipe, he started on his homeward way, with but the faintest chance of meeting anyone at that hour who could give him a lift over some of the long miles.
Little dreaming of the trouble she was causing, Mona, clad in one of her grandmother's huge, plain night-gowns, and rolled up in blankets, slept on the old sofa in the kitchen, as dreamlessly and placidly as though she hadn't a care on her mind.
Overhead, Grannie Barnes moaned and groaned, and tossed and heaved on her bed, but Mona slept on unconcerned and happy. Even the creaking of the stairs when granny came down in the morning did not rouse her. The first thing that she was conscious of was a hand shaking her by the shoulders, and a voice saying rather sharply, "Come, wake up. Don't you know that it's eight o'clock, and no fire lit, nor nothing! I thought I might have lain on a bit this morning, and you'd have brought me a cup of tea, knowing how bad I've been, and very far from well yet. You said you did it for your stepmother. It's a good thing I didn't wait any longer!"
Mona sat up and stretched, and rubbed her eyes. "Could this be granny talking? Granny, who had never expected anything of her!"
No one feels in the best of tempers when roused out of a beautiful sleep, and to be greeted by a scolding when least of all expecting it, does not make one feel more amiable.
"I was fast asleep," she mumbled, yawning. "I couldn't know the time if I was asleep. You should have called me." She dropped back on her pillow wearily. "Oh, I'm so tired and I am aching all over. I don't believe I'll ever wake up any more, granny. Why—why must I get up?"
"To do some work for once. I thought you might want some breakfast."
This was so unlike the indulgent granny she had known before she went away, that Mona could not help opening her eyes wide in surprise. Then she sat up, and, as granny did not relent, she put her feet over the edge of the sofa and began to think about dressing.
"What frock can I put on, granny?" It suddenly struck her that it would not be very pleasant to be living in one place while all her belongings were in another.
"The one you took off, I s'pose."
"But I can't. It isn't fit to wear till it has been washed and ironed. It wants mending, too. I tore it dreadfully."
"Um! And who do you think is going to do all that?"
Mona stared again at her granny with perplexed and anxious eyes. There used to be no question as to who would do all those things for her. "I don't know," she faltered.
"Well, I can't. I haven't hardly got the strength to stand and wash my own few things, and I'm much too bad to be starching and ironing frocks every few days. Better your stepmother had got you a good stuff one than such a thing as that. If she had, it wouldn't have been spoilt by your falling on the seaweed. Nonsense, I call it!" Granny drew back the curtains sharply, as though to give vent to her feelings. The perplexity in Mona's mind increased. She was troubled, too, by the marked change in her grandmother. In the bright morning light which now poured in, she noticed for the first time a great difference in her appearance as well as in her manner. She was much thinner than she used to be, and very pale. Her face had a drawn look, and her eyes seemed sunken. She seemed, somehow, to have shrunken in every way. Her expression used to be smiling and kindly. It was now peevish and irritable.
For the first time Mona realised that her grandmother had been very ill, and not merely complaining.
"I'll light the fire, granny, in a minute—I mean, I would if I knew what to put on."
"There's one of your very old frocks upstairs, hanging behind the door in your own room. It's shabby, and it's small for you, I expect, but you'll have to make it do, if you haven't got any other."
"It'll do for the time, till my pink one is fit to wear again."
"Yes—but who's going to make it fit? That's what I'd like to know. Can you do it yourself? I s'pose you'd have to if you was with your stepmother."
"No, I can't do it. Do you think Mrs. Lane would? I'd do something for her——"
Her grandmother turned to her with a look so full of anger that Mona's words died on her lips. For the moment she had forgotten all about the quarrel.
"Mrs. Lane! Mrs. Lane! After the things she said about you—you'd ask her to do you a favour? Well, Mona Carne, I'm ashamed of you! Don't you know that I've never spoken to her nor her husband since that day she said you'd pulled down the faggots that threw me down, and then had left her cats to bear the blame of it. I've never got over that fall, and I've never got over her saying that of you, and, ill though I've been, I've never demeaned myself by asking her to come in to see me. I don't know what you can be thinking of. I'm thankful I've got more self-respect."
Mona's face was crimson, and her eyes were full of shame. Oh, how bitterly she repented now that she had not had the courage to speak out that day and say honestly, "Granny, Mrs. Lane was right, I did pull over the faggots and forgot them. It was my fault that you tripped and fell— but I never meant that the blame should fall on anyone else."
She longed to say it now, but her tongue failed her. What had been such a little thing to start with had now grown quite serious.
When her father had wanted her to come home, he had consoled himself for taking her from granny by the thought that she had neighbours and friends about her for company, but now it seemed that she would rather die alone than ask their help, or even let them know that she was ill.
Mona turned despondently away, and slowly mounted the stairs. "If you do ever so little a thing wrong, it grows and grows until it's a big thing! Here's granny all alone, 'cause of me, and mother all alone, 'cause of me, and worrying herself finely by now, I expect, and—and I shouldn't wonder if it makes her ill again," Mona's eyes filled at the thought, "and—and I never meant to be a bad girl. I—I seem to be one before I know it—it is hard lines."
She unhung her old frock from behind the door, and in the chest of drawers she found an old apron, "I shall begin to wonder soon if I've ever been away," she thought to herself, as she looked at herself in the tiny mirror.
"Puss, puss, puss," called a voice. "Come along, dears. Your breakfast is ready."
Mona stepped to the window and peeped out. Mrs. Lane was standing with a saucer of bread and milk in each hand. At the sound of her voice her two cats came racing up the garden, chattering as they went, and she gave them their meal out there in the sunshine. As she turned to go back to the house she glanced up at Granny Barnes', and at the window where Mona stood. Perhaps she had been attracted by the feeling that someone was looking at her, or she may have heard something of Mona's arrival the night before.
For a second a look of surprise crossed her face, and a half-smile—then as quickly as it came it vanished, and a look of cold disapproval took its place.
Mona felt snubbed and hurt. It was dreadful to have sunk so low in anyone's opinion. It was worse when it was in Mrs. Lane's, for they used to be such good friends, and Mrs. Lane was always so kind to her, and so patient, and, oh, how Mona had loved to go into her house to play with her kittens, or to listen to her stories, and look at the wonderful things Captain Lane had brought home with him from some of his voyages.
Captain Lane, who had been a sailor in the Merchant Service, had been to all parts of the world, and had brought home something from most.
Mona coloured hotly with the pain of the snub, and the reproof it conveyed.
"I can't bear it," she thought. "I can't bear it—I'll have to tell."
She went down to the kitchen in a very troubled state of mind. Life seemed very sad and difficult just now.
Granny was sitting by the fire, a few sticks in her hand. "It's taken me all this time to get these," she said pathetically, "and now I can't stoop any more. What time we shall get any breakfast I don't know, I'm sure, and I'm sinking for the want of something."
"I'll get you a cup of tea soon. I won't be any time." It cheered her a little to have something to do, and she clutched at anything that helped her not to think. She lighted the fire, swept the hearth up, and laid the cloth. Then she went out to sweep the doorstep. It was lovely outside in the sweet sunshine. Mona felt she could have been so happy if only—— While she was lingering over her task, Mrs. Lane came out to sweep her step and the tiled path, but this time she kept her head steadily turned away.
"I'll go right in and tell granny now this minute," thought Mona, her lip quivering with pain. "Then, perhaps, we'll all be friends again. I can't bear to live here like this."
But when she turned into the kitchen the kettle was boiling, and her grandmother was measuring the tea into the pot. "Get the loaf and the butter, child, I feel I can eat a bit of bread and butter this morning."
Mona got them, and the milk, and some more coal to make up the fire, and all the time she was saying over and over to herself different beginnings of her confession. She was so deeply absorbed in her thoughts that she did not notice the large slice of bread and butter that her grandmother had put on her plate.
"Don't you want it?" Granny asked sharply. "Why, how red you are, child! What have you been doing to make your colour like that. You haven't broken anything, have you?"
Her tone and her sharpness jarred on Mona cruelly, and put all her new resolutions to flight. "No, I haven't," she said, sullenly. "There wasn't anything to break but the broom, and you saw me put that right away."
Granny looked at her for a moment in silence. "Your manners haven't improved since you went home," she said severely. "If I'd spoken to my grandmother like that, I'd have been sent to bed."
A new difficulty opened before Mona's troubled mind. If she was rude, or idle, or disagreeable, the blame for it would fall upon Lucy, and that would be an injustice she could not bear. Now that she had lost her she realised how good Lucy had been to her, and how much she loved her. For her sake, she would do all she could to control her temper and her tongue.
She had coloured again—with indignation this time—hot words had sprung to her lips in defence of Lucy, but she closed them determinedly, and choked the words back again. She felt that she could say nothing; she felt, too, that Lucy would not wish her to say anything. She could not explain so as to make her granny understand that it was not Lucy's fault that she was rude and ill-tempered. It was by acts, not words, that she could serve Lucy best. And for her sake shewouldtry. She would try her very hardest to control her temper and her tongue. The determination brought some comfort to her poor troubled heart. At any rate, she would be doing something that Lucy would be glad about.
Her confession, though, remained unspoken.