Mona did try to be good, she tried hard, but she was very, very unhappy. She missed her home, she missed Lucy, and her father, and her freedom. She longed, too, with an intolerable longing, for the sight and the sound of the sea. She had never, till now that she had lost them, realised how dearly she loved the quaint little steep and rambling village, with the sea at its foot, and the hills behind it. She was always homesick.
Perhaps if she had been sent to Hillside, and it had been her plain duty to live there, and nowhere else, she might have felt more happy and settled. Or, if granny had been the same indulgent, sympathetic granny as of old, but she had placed herself where she was by her own foolish, unkind act, which she now bitterly repented; and she was there with a cloud resting on her character and motives. She had shown herself ungrateful and unkind; she had played a coward's part, and had bitterly pained her father and Lucy.
They did not reproach her—she would have felt better had they done so— but she knew. And, after all, granny did not want her, or so it seemed!
Mona did not realise that her grandmother was really seriously unwell, and that her irritability she could not help. Mrs. Barnes did not know it herself. Mona only realised that she was almost always cross, that nothing pleased her, that she never ran and fetched and carried, as she used to do, while Mona sat by the fire and read. It was granny who sat by the fire now. She did not read, though. She said her eyes pained her, and her head ached too much. She did not sew, either. She just sat idly by the fire and moped and dozed, or roused herself to grumble at something or other.
The day after she came to Hillside, Mona had written to her mother. She told her where she was, and why, and tried to say that she was sorry, but no reply had come, and this troubled her greatly.
"Were they too angry with her to have anything more to say to her? Was Lucy ill?"
Every day she went to meet the postman, her heart throbbing with eager anxiety, and day after day she went back disappointed. If it had not been for very shame, she would have run away again and gone home, and have asked to be forgiven, but she could not make up her mind to do that. Probably they would not want her at home again, after all the trouble and expense she had been to them. Perhaps her father might even send her back to Hillside again. The shame of that would be unbearable!
She was uncomfortable, too, as well as unhappy. She wanted her clothes, her brush and comb, her books, and all her other belongings. She had, after a fashion, settled into her old room again, but it seemed bare and unhomelike after her pretty one at Cliff Cottage.
Then one day, after long waiting and longing, and hope and disappointment, her father came. For a moment her heart had leaped with the glad wild hope that he had come to take her back with him. Then the sight of the box and parcel he carried had dashed it down again. He had brought her all her possessions.
"Well, Mona," he said quietly, as she stood facing him, shy and embarrassed. "So you prefer Hillside to Seacombe! Well, it's always best to be where you're happiest, if you feel free to make your choice. For my own part, I couldn't live away from the sea, but tastes differ."
"But—mine—don't differ," stammered Mona. "I am not happier." She was so overcome she could hardly speak above a whisper, and her father had already turned to Mrs. Barnes.
"Well, mother," he cried, and poor Mona could not help noticing how much more kindly his voice sounded when he spoke to granny. "How are you? You don't look first rate. Don't 'ee feel up to the mark?" He spoke lightly, but his eyes, as they studied the old woman's face, were full of surprise and concern. Granny shook her head. "No, I ain't well," she said, dully. "I'm very, very far from well. I don't know what's the matter. P'raps 'tis the weather."
"The weather's grand. It's bootiful enough to set everybody dancing," said her son-in-law cheerfully, but still eyeing her with that same look of concern.
"P'raps 'tis old age, then. I'm getting on, of course. It's only what I ought to expect; but I seem to feel old all of a sudden; everything's a burden to me. I can't do my work as I used, and I can't walk, and I can't get used to doing nothing I'm ashamed for you to see the place as it is, Peter if I'd known you was coming I'd have made an effort——"
"That's just why I didn't tell 'ee, mother. I came unexpected on purpose, 'cause I didn't want 'ee to be scrubbing the place from the chimney pots down to the rain-water barrel. I know what you are, you see."
Poor old Granny Barnes smiled, but Mona felt hurt. She did her best to keep the house clean and tidy, and she thought it was looking as nice as nice could be. "What I was, you mean," said granny. "I don't seem to have the strength to scrub anything now-a-days."
"Oh, well, there's no need for 'ee to. You've got Mona to do that kind of thing for 'ee."
Mona's heart sank even lower. "Then he really had no thought of having her home again!"
"I've brought your clothes, Mona," he said, turning again to her. "Lucy was troubled that they hadn't been sent before. She thought you must be wanting them."
"Thank you," said Mona, dully, and could think of nothing more to say, though she knew her father waited for an answer.
"I've brought 'ee some fish, mother," picking up the basket. "It come in last night. I thought you might fancy a bit, and Lucy sent a bit of bacon, her own curing, and a jelly, or something of that sort." Granny's face brightened. Though she had not approved of Mona's being given a stepmother, she appreciated Lucy's kindness, and when they presently sat down to dinner and she had some of the jelly, she appreciated it still more. Her appetite had needed coaxing, but there had been nothing to coax it with. "It tempts anyone to eat," she remarked, graciously. "When one is out of sorts, one fancies something out of the common."
"Lucy'll be rare and pleased to think you could take a bit," said Peter, delighted for Lucy's sake.
"Yes, thank you. She's made it very nice. A trifle sour, perhaps, but I like things rather sharpish."
"Mother," said Peter suddenly, "I wish you'd come to Seacombe to live. It'd be nice to have you near." His eyes had been constantly wandering to his mother-in-law's face, and always with the same anxious look. The change in her since last he had seen her troubled him greatly. Her round cheeks had fallen in, her old rosiness had given place to a grey pallor. She stooped very much and looked shrunken too.
"Oh, granny, do!" cried Mona, eagerly. It was almost the first time she had spoken, but the mere suggestion filled her with overwhelming joy and relief.
"Then I could look in pretty often to see how you was, and bring you in a bit of fresh fish as often as you would care to have it. Lucy would take a delight, too, in making 'ee that sort of thing," nodding towards the jelly, "or anything else you fancied. We'd be at hand, too, to help 'ee if you wasn't very well."
Granny Barnes was touched, and when she looked up there were tears in her eyes. The prospect was tempting. She had felt very forlorn and old, and helpless lately. She had often felt too that she would like:
"A little pettingAt life's setting."
"A little pettingAt life's setting."
"A little pettingAt life's setting."
"It's good of you to think of it, Peter," she said, hesitatingly. Then, fearing that he might have spoken on the impulse of the moment, and that she was showing herself too anxious for his help and Lucy's, she drew herself up. "But—well, this ishome, and I don't fancy I could settle down in a strange place, and amongst strangers, at my time of life."
"You'd be with those that are all you've got belonging to you in this world," said Peter. But granny's mood had changed. She would not listen to any more coaxing, and her son-in-law, seeming to understand her, changed the subject.
Poor Mona, who did not understand so well, felt only vexed and impatient with the poor perverse old woman, for not falling in at once with a plan so delightful to herself. Mona learned to understand as time went on, but she was too young yet.
"But, granny, it would be ever so much nicer than this dull old place, and—and you'd have mother as well as me to look after you. I like Seacombe ever so much better than Hillside. Why won't you go, granny?"
Peter Carne groaned. Mona, by her tactlessness, was setting her grandmother dead against such a plan, and undoing all the good he had done. Granny Barnes would never be driven into taking a step, but she would see things in her own time and in her own way, if she felt that no one was trying to force her. He held up his hand for silence.
"Your grandmother knows best what'll suit her. It isn't what you like, it's what's best for her that we've all got to think about."
But granny's anger had been roused. "It may be a dull old place, but it's home," she said sharply. "You can't understand what that means. You don't seem to have any particular feeling or you wouldn't be so ready to leave first one and then the other, without even a heartache. I wonder sometimes, Mona, if you've got any heart. Perhaps it's best that you shouldn't have; you're saved a lot of pain." Granny began to whimper a little, to her son-in-law's great distress. "Anyway, you were ready enough to run to the 'dull old place' when you were in trouble," she added, reproachfully, and Mona had no answer.
She got up from the table, and, collecting the dishes together, carried them to the scullery. "Oh, dear!" she sighed, irritably, "I seem to be always hurting somebody—and somebody's always hurting me. I'd better go about with my mouth fastened up—even then I s'pose I'd be always doing something wrong. People are easily offended, it's something dreadful."
She felt very much aggrieved. So much aggrieved that she gave only sullen words and looks, and never once enquired for Lucy, or sent her a message, or even hinted at being sorry for what she had done.
"She didn't send any message to me," she muttered to herself, excusingly. "She never sent her love, or—or anything, so why should I send a message to her?" She worked herself up into such a fine state of righteous anger that she almost persuaded herself that her behaviour had been all that it should be, and that she was the most misunderstood and ill-treated person in the whole wide world.
In spite, though, of her being so perfect, she felt miserably unhappy, as she lay awake in the darkness, and thought over the day's happenings. She saw again her father's look of distress as she snapped at her grandmother, and answered him so sulkily. She pictured him, too, walking away down the road towards home, without even a smile from her, and only a curt, sullen, good-bye! Oh, how she wished now that she had run after him and kissed him, and begged him to forgive her.
A big sob broke from her as she pictured him tramping those long lonely miles, his kind face so grave and pained, his heart so full of disappointment in her.
"Oh how hateful he will think me—and I am, I am, and I can't tell him I don't really mean to be," and then her tears burst forth, and she cried, and cried until all the bitterness and selfishness were washed from her heart, and only gentler feelings were left.
As she lay tired out, thinking over the past, and the future, a curious, long cry broke the stillness of the night.
"The owl," she said to herself. "I do wish he'd go away from here. He always frightens me with his miserable noise." She snuggled more closely into her pillow, and drew the bedclothes up over her ear. "I'll try to go to sleep, then I shan't hear him."
But, in spite of her efforts, the cry reached her again and again. "It can't be the owl," she said at last, sitting up in bed, the better to listen. "It sounds more like a person! Who can it be?"
Again the cry came, "Mo—na! Mo—o—na!"
"Why, it's somebody calling me. It must be granny! Oh, dear! Whatever can be the matter, to make her call like that."
Shaking all over with fear, she scrambled out of bed, and groped her way to the door. As she opened it the cry reached her again.
"Mo—na!" This time there could be no doubt about it. It came from her grandmother's room.
"I'm coming!" she called loudly. "All right, granny, I'm coming." She ran across the landing, guided by the lights shining through the chinks in her grandmother's door.
"What's the matter?—are you feeling bad, granny? Do you want something?"
"Yes, I'm feeling very bad. I'm ill, I'm very ill—oh, dear, oh dear, what shall I do? Oh, I've no one to come and do anything for me. Oh, dear, oh what can I do?" Granny's groans were dreadful. Mona felt frightened and helpless. She had not the least idea what to do or say. What did grown-ups do at times like this? she wondered. She did not know where, or how, her grandmother suffered, and if she had she would not have known how to act.
"Do you want me to fetch the doctor? I'll go and put on my clothes. I won't be more than a minute or two, then I'll come back again——"
"No—no, I can't be left alone all the time, I might die—here, alone; oh dear, oh dear, what a plight to be left in! Not a living creature to come to me—but a child! Oh, how bad I do feel!"
"But I must do something, or call somebody," cried Mona desperately. She had never seen serious illness before, and she was frightened. Poor old Mrs. Barnes had always been a bad patient, and difficult to manage, even when her ailments were only trifling; now that she really felt ill, she had lost all control.
"Granny," said Mona, growing desperate. "I must get someone to come and help us, you must have the doctor, and I can't leave you alone, I am going to ask Mrs. Lane to come, I can't help it—I can't do anything else. I'll slip on my shoes and stockings, I won't be more than a minute."
Granny Barnes stopped moaning, and raised herself on her elbow. "You'll do no such thing," she gasped.
"But granny, I must—you must have help, and you must have somebody to go for the doctor, and—and, oh, granny, I'm afraid to be here alone, I don't know what to do, and you're looking so bad."
"Am I?" nervously. "Well—if I've got to die alone and helpless, I will, but I won't ask Mrs. Lane to come to me. Do you think I'd—ask a favour of her, after all her unneighbourliness—not speaking to me for weeks and weeks——"
Mona burst into tears, confession had to come. "Granny," she said, dropping on her knees beside the bed. "I—I've got to tell you something—Mrs. Lane was right——"
"What!" Granny's face grew whiter, but she said no more. If she had done so, if she had but spoken kindly and helped her ever so little, it would have made things much easier for poor Mona.
"I—I—it was me that pulled the faggots down that night, and not Mrs. Lane's cats, and she won't look, or speak to me because I didn't tell, and I let her cats bear the blame. I—I didn't mean to do any harm, I was in such a hurry to light up the fire, and the old things all rolled down, and I forgot to go out and pick them up again. I didn't think you'd be going out there that night, but you went out, and—and fell over them. If you hadn't gone out it would have been all right, I'd have seen them in the morning and have picked them up."
But Granny Barnes was not prepared to listen to excuses, she was very, very angry. "And fine and foolish you've made me look all this time, Mona Carne, and risked my life too. For bad as I was a little while back, I wouldn't bring myself to ask Mrs. Lane to come to me, nor Cap'en Lane to go and fetch the doctor, and—and if I'd died, well, you know who would have been to blame!"
Granny's cheeks were crimson now, and she was panting with exhaustion. "Now what you've got to do is—to go in—and tell her the truth yourself."
"I'm going," said Mona, the tears streaming down her face. But as she hurried to the door, the sight of her, looking so childlike and forlorn in her nightgown, with her tumbled hair and tear-stained face, touched her grandmother's heart, and softened her anger.
"Mona," she cried, "come back—never mind about it now, child——" But Mona was already in her own room tugging on her shoes and stockings. Granny heard her come out and make her way stumbling down the stairs; she tried to call again, but reaction had set in, and she lay panting, exhausted, unable to do anything but listen. She heard Mona pulling back the heavy wooden bolt of the front door, then she heard her footsteps hurrying through the garden, growing more distant, then nearer as she went up Mrs. Lane's path. Then came the noise of her knocking at Mrs. Lane's door, first gently, then louder, and louder still—and then the exhausted, over-excited old woman fainted, and knew no more.
Mona, standing in the dark at Mrs. Lane's door, was trembling all over. Even her voice trembled. When Mrs. Lane at last opened her window and called out "Who's there?" it shook so, she could not make herself heard until she had spoken three times.
"It's me—Mona Carne. Oh, Mrs. Lane, I'm so frightened! Granny's very ill, please will you—come in?—I—I don't know what to do for her."
"Mona Carne! Oh!" Mona heard the surprise in Mrs. Lane's voice, and feared she was going to refuse her. Then "Wait a minute," she said, "I'll come down."
Mona's tears stopped, but she still trembled. Help was coming to granny— but she still had her confession to make, and it seemed such an awful ordeal to face. All the time she stood waiting there under the stars, with the scent of the flowers about her, she was wondering desperately how she could begin, what she could say, and how excuse herself.
She was still absorbed, and still had not come to any decision, when the door behind her opened, and a voice said kindly, "Come inside, Mona, and tell me what is the matter," and Mona stepped from the starlit night into the warm, dimly lighted kitchen, and found herself face to face with her old kind friend.
"Now, tell me all about it," said Mrs. Lane again catching sight of Mona's frightened, disfigured face. "Why, how you are trembling, child, have you had a shock? Were you in bed?"
Mona nodded. "Yes, I'd been in bed a good while when I heard a cry, such a funny kind of cry! At first I thought it must be the owl, but when I heard it again and again I thought it must be granny, and I got up and went to her. And, oh, I was frightened, she was lying all crumpled up in the bed, and she was groaning something dreadful. She was very ill, she said, and she must have the doctor—but she wouldn't let me go to fetch him, 'cause she was afraid to be left alone. I was frightened to be there by myself, and I didn't know what to do for her and I said I'd run in and ask you to come—but she said she'd rather die—she said I mustn't because—because—oh you know," gasped Mona, breathless after her outpouring of words, "and—and then—I—told her—about—about that—that 'twas me pulled down the faggots, and you were right, and she looked—oh she looked dreadful, she was so angry! And then I came in to tell you; and, oh Mrs. Lane, I am so sorry I behaved so, I—I never meant to, I never meant Tom and Daisy to have the blame. And, please Mrs. Lane, will you forgive me, and speak to me again? I've been so—so mis'rubble, and I didn't know how to set things right again." But here Mona's voice failed her altogether, and, worn out with the day's events, and the night's alarm, and all the agitation and trouble both had brought, she broke down completely. Mrs. Lane was quite distressed by the violence of her sobs.
"There, there, don't cry so, child, and don't worry any more," she said gently, putting her arm affectionately round Mona's shaking shoulders, "It's all over now! and we are all going to be as happy and friendly again as ever we used to be. Mona, dear, I am so glad, so thankful that you have spoken. It hurt me to think that I had been deceived in you, but I know now that you were my own little Mona all the time. There, dear, don't cry any more; we must think about poor granny. Come along, we will see what we can do to help her."
They stepped out into the starlit night, hand in hand, and though her grandmother's illness filled Mona with anxiety, she felt as though a heavy care had been lifted from her heart, a meanness from her soul; and, as she hurried through the scented gardens, she lifted up her face to the starry sky, and her heart to the God who looked down on her through Heaven's eyes.
In the house, when they reached it, all was as she had left it, except that now a deep, deep silence reigned; a silence that, somehow, struck a chill to both hearts.
"How quiet it is! She was making such a noise before," Mona whispered, hesitating nervously at the foot of the stairs.
"I expect she has fallen asleep, I'll go up first and see; you light the lamp in the kitchen, and bring me up a glass of cold water. Or would you rather come with me?"
"I—I will come with you." She could not rid herself of the feeling that her granny was dead—had died angry with her, at the last. She felt sure of it, too, when she saw her lying so still and white on her pillow.
Mrs. Lane placed her hand over the tired, faintly-beating heart. "She is only faint," she said assuringly, a note of intense relief in her voice. "She is coming round. Run and fetch me some water, dear, and open that window as you pass."
So granny, when she presently opened her eyes and looked about her, found Mona on one side of her and her old friend on the other; and both were looking at her with tender anxious eyes, and faces full of gladness at her recovery.
The old feud was as dead as though it had never existed.
"It's like going to sleep in a world of worries and waking up in a new one." The poor old soul sighed contentedly, as she lay with the stars looking in on her, and the scent of the flowers wafting up to her through the open window. "It was too bad, though, to be calling you up in the night—out of your bed. I'm very much obliged to you, Mrs. Lane, I—I'm very glad to see you."
"Not as glad as I am to come, I reckon," her neighbour smiled back at her, "we are all going to start afresh again from to-day, ain't we? So it's as well to begin the day early, and make it as long as we can!"
Granny was much better, and was downstairs again, but she was weak and very helpless still. She was sad too, and depressed. The last few weeks had shaken her confidence in herself, her spirit was strong enough still, but more than once lately her body had failed her. When, in her old way, she had said that she would do this, or that, or the other thing, she had found out after all, that she could not. Her body had absolutely refused to obey her.
"I ain't dependent on other folks yet!" she had said sharply, and had afterwards found out that she was, and the discovery alarmed her. It saddened her, and broke her spirit.
"I ought to be in a home. I'd rather be in one, or—or be dead, than be a burden on other folks," she moaned.
Granny was very hard to live with in those days. Even a grown-up would have found it difficult to know what to say in answer to her complainings.
"Granny, don't talk like that!" Mona would plead, and she would work harder than ever that there might be nothing for granny to do, or to find fault with. But however hard she worked, and however nice she kept things, she always found that there were still some things left undone, and that those were the very things that, in granny's opinion, mattered most.
As for reading, or play-time, Mona never found any for either now, and oh, how often and how longingly her thoughts turned to the Quay, and to the rocks, and the games that were going on there evening after evening! Sometimes it almost seemed that she could hear the laughter and the calls, the voice of the sea, the rattle of the oars in the rowlocks, the cries of the gulls, and then she would feel as though she could not bear to be away from them all another moment. That she must race back to them then and there; never, never to leave them any more!
The loneliness, and the hard work, and the confinement to the house told on her. She became thin, the colour died out of her cheeks, and the gladness from her eyes, and all the life and joyousness seemed to go out of her. She grew, and grew rapidly, but she stooped so much she did not look as tall as she really was.
Granny Barnes, looking at her sweeping out the path one day, had her eyes suddenly opened, and the revelation startled her. She did not say anything to Mona, she just watched her carefully, but she did not again blame her for laziness; and while she watched her, her thoughts travelled backwards. A year ago Mona had been noisy, lively, careless, but cheerful, always full of some new idea. She had been round and rosy too, and full of mischief. Now she was listless, quiet, and apparently interested in nothing.
"Have you got a headache, Mona?"
"No," said Mona indifferently, "I don't think so."
"Is your back aching?"
"It always is."
"Then why didn't you say so, child?"
"What's the good? The work has to be done."
"If you're bad you must leave it undone. You can't go making yourself ill."
"I ain't ill, and I'd sooner do the work. There's nothing else to do."
"Can't you read sometimes? You used to be so fond of reading."
"If I read I forget to do things, and then——" She was going to say "there's a row," but she stopped herself just in time. "I've read all my books till I know them by heart nearly." Even while she spoke she was getting out the ironing cloth, and spreading it on the table. The irons were already hot on the stove.
Granny Barnes did not say any more, but sat for a long time gazing into the fire, apparently deep in thought. Mona looking up presently, attracted by the silence, was struck by her weary, drooping look, by the sadness of the tired old eyes. But she did not say anything. Presently granny roused herself and looked up. "Put away your ironing, child," she said kindly, "and go out and have a game of play. The air will do you good."
"I don't want to go out, granny. There's no one to play with—and I'm afraid to leave you; what could you do if you were to faint again?"
Granny sighed. The child was right. "I—I could knock in to Mrs. Lane, perhaps," she said, but there was doubt in her voice, and she did not press Mona any further.
Mona went on with her ironing, and granny went on staring into the fire, and neither spoke again for some time. Not until Mona, going over to take up a fresh hot iron, saw something bright shining on her grandmother's cheek, then fall on to her hand.
"Are you feeling bad again, granny?" she asked anxiously. The sight of the tear touched her, and brought a note of sympathy into her voice, and the sympathy in her voice in turn touched her granny, and drew both together.
"No—I don't know that I'm feeling worse than usual, but—but, well I feel that it'd be a good thing if my time was ended. I'm only a trouble and a burden now—no more help for anybody."
"Granny! Granny! You mustn't say such things!" Mona dropped her iron back on the stove again, and threw herself on the floor beside her grandmother. "You mustn't talk like that! You're weak, that's all. You want to rest for a bit and have some tonics. Mrs. Lane says so."
"Does she? I seem to want something," leaning her weary head against Mona's, "but it's more than tonics—it's a new body that I'm needing, I reckon. I daresay it's only foolishness, but sometimes I feel like a little child, I want to be took care of, and someone to make much of me, and say like mother used to, 'Now leave everything to me. I'll see to it all!' It seems to me one wants a bit of petting when one comes to the end of one's life, as much as one does at the beginning—I don't know but what a little is good for one at any age."
Mona slipped down till she sat on the floor at her granny's feet, her head resting against granny's knee. "I think so too," she said wistfully. Silence fell between them, broken only by the crackling of the fire within and the buzz of insects, and the calling of the birds, outside in the garden.
"Mona, how would you like it if we went into Seacombe to live?"
Mona was up in a moment, her face alight with eagerness, but some instinct stopped her from expressing too much delight. In the softened feeling which had crept into her heart, she realised that to her grandmother the move would mean a great wrench.
"She must love Hillside as much, ornearlyas much as I love Seacombe," she told herself. Aloud she said, "I'd like it, but you wouldn't, would you, granny?"
"I think I would. I'd like to be nearer your father, and—and you would be happy there, and perhaps you'd feel stronger. I'm getting to feel," she added after a little pause, "that one can be happy anywhere, if those about one are happy. Or, to put it another way, one can't be happy anywhere if those about one ain't happy."
Mona felt very guilty. "Granny," she said, but in rather a choky voice, "I'll be happy here, if you'd rather stay here—I will really. I do love Hillside—it's only the sea I miss, and the fun, and—and the excitement when the boats come in—but I shall forget all about it soon, and I'll be happy here too, if you'd like to stay."
She did try to put aside her own feelings, and speak cheerfully, and she succeeded—but, to her surprise, her grandmother did not jump at her offer.
"No, child, I wouldn't rather stay. I'd like to go. I feel I want to be near my own, and your father and you are all I've got. I think I'll ask him if he can find a little house that'll suit us."
"Won't you live with us, granny? You can have my room."
But granny would not hear of that. "I've always had a home of my own, and I couldn't live in anybody else's," she said decisively. "Your stepmother's too much of an invalid herself too, to be able to look after another."
"Then you'd want me to live with you?" asked Mona, with a little break in her voice. She was disappointed, but she tried not to show it.
"Yes, dearie," her eyes scanning Mona's face wistfully, "wouldn't you like that?"
Mona hesitated for only a second, then "Yes, granny, I should," she said, and then as the idea became more familiar, she said more heartily, "Yes, I'd love to, and oh, granny, if we could only get one of the little houses down by the Quay it would be lovely! I'm sure you'd like it——"
"I couldn't live down by the Quay," granny interrupted sharply, "I wouldn't live there if a house was given me rent free. It is too noisy, for one thing, and you feel every breath of wind that blows."
"But you're close, when the boats come in——"
"Aye, and when they don't come in," said granny. "I ain't so fond of the sea as you are, and I should never know any rest of mind down close by it. Every time the wind blew I'd be terrified."
Mona looked vexed. "It isn't often that there's any place at all to let," she said crossly. "If we don't take what we can get, we shall never go at all."
But Granny Barnes was not alarmed. "Don't you trouble yourself about that. Your father'll find us something for certain. He'd got his eye on a little place when he was here, he wanted me to take it then. I almost wish I had, now. Never mind, I'll write to him to-night or to-morrow. If I was well I would go in by John Darbie's van and have a look about for myself."
All this sounded so much like business, that Mona sat up, all her glumness falling from her. When Granny Barnes once made up her mind to do a thing, she did not let the grass grow under her feet. There was, after all, much of Mona's nature in her, and when once she had made up her mind to leave her old home, it almost seemed as though she could not get away quickly enough.
Perhaps it was that she felt her courage might fail her if she gave herself much time to think about things. Perhaps she felt she could not face the pain and the worry if she gave herself time to worry much. Or, it may have been that she really did feel anxious about Mona's health and her own, and wanted to be settled in Seacombe as soon as possible.
At any rate she so managed that within a fortnight all her belongings were mounted on to two of Mr. Dodd's waggons and were carried off to the new home, while she and Mona followed in John Darbie's van, seen off by Mrs. Lane. Mrs. Lane was very tearful and sad at parting with them.
"I know it's for the best for both of you—but I feel as if I can't bear the sight nor the thought of the empty home." Then she kissed them both, and stood in the road in the sunshine, waving her hand to them till they were out of sight.
"Wave your handkerchief to her, Mona; blow another kiss to her, child." But granny kept her own head turned away, and her eyes fixed on the bit of white dusty road which lay ahead of them. Neither could she bear the sight of the empty house, nor of the neighbour she was leaving.
Mona's eyes were full of tears, but granny's were dry, though her sorrow was much deeper than Mona's. John Darbie tactfully kept his tongue quiet, and his eyes fixed on the scenery. He understood that his old friend was suffering, and would want to be left alone for a while. So, for the first part of the way, they jogged along in silence, except for the scrunching of the gravel beneath the wheels, and the steady thud, thud of the old horse's hoofs, Granny Barnes looking forward with sad stern eyes, and a heart full of dread; Mona looking back through tears, but with hope in her heart; the old driver staring thoughtfully before him at the familiar way, along which he had driven so many, old and young; happy and sad, some willing, some unwilling, some hopeful, others despondent. The old man felt for each and all of them, and helped them on their way, as far as he might travel it with them, and sent many a kind thought after them, which they never knew of.
"I suppose," he said at last, speaking his thoughts aloud, "in every change we can find some happiness. There's always something we can do for somebody. So far as I can see, there's good to be got out of most things."
Mrs. Barnes' gaze came back from the wide-stretching scene beside her, and rested enquiringly on the old speaker. "Do 'ee think so?" she asked eagerly. "'Tis dreadful to be filled with doubts about what you're doing," she added pathetically.
"Don't 'ee doubt, ma'am. Once you've weighed the matter and looked at it every way, and have at last made up your mind, don't you let yourself harbour any doubts. Act as if you hadn't got any choice, and go straight ahead."
"But how is anyone to know? It may be that one took the way 'cause it was the easiest."
"Very often it's the easiest way 'cause it's the way the Lord has opened for us," said the old man simply, and with perfect faith. "Then I count it we're doubting Him if we go on questioning."
The look of strained anxiety in Granny Barnes' eyes had already given way to one more peaceful and contented.
"I hadn't thought of that," she said softly, and presently she added, "It takes a load off one's mind if one looks at it that way."
Mona, who had been listening too, found John Darbie's words repeating themselves over and over again in her mind. "There's always something we can do—there's good to be got out of most things." They set themselves to the rhythm of the old horse's slow steps—"There is always something— there is always something—we can do—we can do, there is always something we can do."
Throughout that long, slow journey on that sunshiny day they rang in her head, and her heart chanted them. And though in the years that followed she often forgot her good resolutions, and many and many a time did wrong and foolish things, knowing them to be wrong and foolish, though she let herself be swayed by her moods, when she should have fought against them, she never entirely forgot old John Darbie's simple, comforting words, nor the lesson they had taught her that day, and unconsciously they helped her on her life's road, just as he himself helped her along her road to her new home.
There was indeed a great deal that she could do, as she discovered presently, when the van deposited them and their parcels at the door of their new home, for the furniture had arrived but a couple of hours earlier, and though her father and the man had lifted most of the heavier things into their places, and Lucy had done all that she could to make the little house look habitable, there was much that Mona, knowing her grandmother's ways as well as she did, could do better than anyone else.
As soon as the van drew near, Lucy was at the door to greet them, and in the warmth and pleasure of her welcome, Mona entirely forgot the circumstances under which they had last parted: and it never once occurred to her to think how different their meeting might have been had Lucy not been of the sweet-tempered forgiving nature that she was.
Lucy had forgotten too. She only remembered how glad she was to have them there, and what a trying day it must have been for poor old Granny Barnes. And when, instead of the stern, cold, complaining old woman that she had expected, she saw a fragile, pale-faced little figure, standing looking forlorn, weary, and half-frightened on the path outside her new home, Lucy quite forgot her dread of her, and her whole heart went out in sympathy.
Putting her arms round her, she kissed her as warmly as though it had been her own mother, and led her tenderly into the house.
"Don't you trouble about a single thing more, granny, there are plenty of us to see to everything. The fire is burning, and your own armchair is put by it, and all you've got to do is to sit there till you're rested and tell us others what you'd like done."
Granny Barnes did not speak, but Lucy understood. She took up the poker and stirred the coals to a more cheerful blaze. "It's a fine little stove to burn," she said cheerfully, "and it is as easy as possible to light."
Granny was interested at once, "Is it? How beautiful and bright it is. Did you do that, Lucy?"
Lucy nodded. "I love polishing up a stove," she said with a smile, "it repays you so for the trouble you take. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, I used to spend hours over mine, but I don't seem to have the strength now. Mona does very well though. Where's Peter? Out fishing?"
"No, he's upstairs putting up your bed. He has nearly done. Mona's is up already. You've got a sweet little room, Mona. You'll love it, I know."
Mona ran upstairs at once to inspect. She was bubbling over with excitement and happiness. Her room was, she knew, at the back of the house, so she went to it straight. It was in a great muddle, of course, but the bed was in place, and the chest of drawers. The walls had been newly papered, the paper had little bunches of field daisies all over it, white and red-tipped, each bunch was tied with a blade of green grass. Mona thought it perfectly exquisite, but it was the window which took her fancy captive. It was a lattice window, cut deep in the wall, and before it was a seat wide enough for Mona to sit in—and beyond the window was the sea!
"I'll be able to sit there, and read, and sew, and watch the boats going by," she thought delightedly, "and I'll have little muslin curtains tied back with ribbons, and a flounce of muslin across the top. Oh, I shall love it up here! I shall never want to go out. It's nicer even than my room at father's, and ever so much nicer than the 'Hillside' one!"
A sound of hammering and banging came from the other side of the tiny landing.
"That must be father, putting up granny's bed," she hurried out, and across to him. He had just finished, and was pushing the bed into place. Two great bundles tied up in sheets filled up most of the rest of the floor. One held Granny Barnes' feather-tie, the other her pillow-cases, sheets and blankets.
"I do hope your grandmother'll be well and comfortable here," he said anxiously, "and happy. If it rests with us to make her so, she shall be. Mona, you'd better make up her bed soon. Don't leave it for her to do herself. She'll most likely be glad to go to bed early to-night, she must be tired. There's no moving round the room, either, with those great bundles there. I'll lift the feather-tie on to the bed for you."
"All right—in a minute, father."
Granny's bedroom window looked out on the hill. Further up the hill, on the opposite side, was Cliff Cottage. It could be just seen from granny's new home. How small and strange it all looked, thought Mona, and how narrow the hill was, but how homelike and beautiful.
While she gazed out Millie Higgins and Philippa Luxmore appeared, they were coming down the hill together. Millie had on a pink dress almost exactly like Mona's.
"Why—why, she's copied me!" thought Mona indignantly, a wave of hot anger surging up in her heart. "She's a regular copy-cat! She can't think of a thing for herself, but directly anyone else has it, she must go and copy them. I'd be ashamed if I was her. Now I shan't like my pink frock any more!"
As though attracted by the gaze on her, Millie looked up at the window, and straight into Mona's eyes, but instead of feeling any shame, she only laughed. She may not have remembered her own frock, or Mona's, she was probably not laughing at Mona's annoyance, it is very likely that she was amused at something she and Philippa were talking about, but Mona thought otherwise, and only glared back at her with angry, contemptuous eyes. She saw Millie's face change, and saw her whisper in Philippa's ear, then she heard them both laugh, and her heart was fuller than ever of hatred, and mortification. Mortification with herself partly, for allowing Millie to see that she was vexed.
Oh, how she wished now, that instead of letting Millie see how she had annoyed her, she had acted as though she did not notice, or did not mind.
"Mona, give me a hand here a minute, will you?" Her father's voice broke in on her musings, "that rope is caught round the bedpost."
Mona went over, and released the rope, but returned again to the window.
"If you don't bustle round, little maid, we shall never be done," said her father. "I want to get it all as right as I can before I go, or your grand-mother'll be doing it herself, and making herself ill again. You can look out of window another day, there'll be plenty of time for that."
"I'm tired," grumbled Mona sulkily, "I can't be always working."
Her father straightened his back, and looked at her. His eyes were reproachful and grieved. Mona's own eyes fell before them. Already she was sorry that she had spoken so. She did not feel in the least as she had said she did. She was put out about Millie, and Millie's frock, that was all.
"Mona, my girl," he said gravely, "you put me in mind of a weather-cock in a shifty wind. Nobody can tell for half an hour together what quarter it'll be pointing to. 'Tis the shifty wind that does the most mischief and is hardest to bear with. When you came in just now, I'd have said you were pointing straight south, but a few minutes later you've veered right round to the north-east. What's the meaning of it, child? What's the matter with 'ee. It doesn't give 'ee much pleasure to know you're spoiling everybody else's, does it?"
Mona gulped down her tears. "No—o, I—I—it was Millie Higgins' fault. She's been and got a dress——" And then she suddenly felt ashamed of herself, and ashamed to repeat anything so petty, and she gulped again, and this time she swallowed her bad temper too. "No—I'm—I'm 'set fair' now, father!" she added, and, though there was a choke in her voice, as though her temper was rather hard to swallow, there was a smile in her eyes, and in a very little while granny's feather-bed was shaken up as soft and smooth as ever granny herself could have made it, and the bed was made up. And then by degrees everything in the room was got into place just as its mistress liked it, so that when granny came up later on and saw her new room, she exclaimed aloud in pleased surprise:
"Why, it looks like home already," she cried, "and that's our Mona's doing, I know!"