[194]CHAPTER XVIIITEN AT TABLEThehalf-past five train whistled shrilly at the station, and Phyl dropped hastily down from the low branch of the quince-tree where the afternoon sun had found and left herburied inComin’ thro’ the Rye. She ran hastily up the orchard; already small black specks were on the brow of the hill, and those same specks would enlarge and enlarge until in ten minutes they trooped up the garden-path and demanded dinner.She set the table with hasty yet careful hand. There was only one servant in the house for all the work, unless one counted an imp of a boy of twelve, who answered the door to the patients, and cleaned the doctor’s hard-worked bicycle, and occasionally took a weed out of the garden, and occasionally cleaned a window.Knife and fork and spoon and fork, knife and fork and spoon and fork, up and down the long table Phyl went with her silver basket until ten places were set. Yellow chrysanthemums, grasses and autumn leaves[195]made a feast for the eyes in the centre; the cloth was snowy; the room, though plainly furnished, had a sunshiny, fresh, and dainty look that did the doctor’s wife credit, considering the size of the double family.[Illustration]Buried inComin’ thro’ the Rye.Phyl’s dress came down to her shoes, and she was still conscious of it. Her fair, wavy hair had not been twisted into that knot long enough for her to feel sure it would not come tumbling over her shoulders if she ran. Her complexion was still somewhat pale, but at eighteen her early delicacy was almost outgrown. Blue eyes looked thoughtfully out upon the world, but fun found plenty of[196]room to dance there too. There was a look of happiness about her mouth.A little boy came into the room—Freddie, who had been a mere baby when Mrs. Wise died, but was now eight.“Go and wash your face, Freddie,” Phyl said, at the sound of his footstep, “and be sure to scrub your hands well—dinner will be ready in ten minutes.”But Freddie obtruded a face ashine with cleanliness, and a pair of passable hands, upon her notice, which had not been given to him before.“I have washed myself, Phyl,” he said mildly.Phyl glanced at him and laughed.“You must be dreadfully hungry,” she said; “one can generally take it for granted that your hands are crying out for the scrubbing-brush. I believe, Freddie, before they let you into heaven the archangel who keeps the keys will say in a hollow voice, ‘FerederickJames Allison Wise, go back and wash your hands.’”Freddie smiled rather nervously at the pleasantry and watched his sister uncertainly. Surely it was too much good fortune for him to expect that she had forgotten his afternoon’s behaviour! He was her pupil, being considered as yet too young to go daily the long distance the others went to school, and this morning had she not fairly cried with rage and vexation over the daily struggle of his music lesson? And this afternoon when geography, and arithmetic,[197]and copy-books were all in neat readiness on the dining-room table, had he not slipped away entirely and gone to play marbles behind the stables with Davey, the impish house-boy?Perhaps, he told himself relievedly at the sight of her calm face, she was appeased by the excellent washing he had given himself. What a very good thing he had thought of it!Her eyes were straying about half abstractedly.“Are you looking for anything,—shall I find it?” he said solicitously.“Yes, the knife-sharpener, Freddie, have you seen it anywhere? Your father will call out if it isn’t on the table.”Freddie looked about busily.“Don’t you bother, Phyl,” he said kindly, “you just go on with your work, I’ll find it for you.”“There’s a good old laddie,” Phyl said, and fell to smoothing the salt in the corner cruets.Freddie had to steal out on to the verandah, where in the morning he had been engaged in a railway game, for which, for some occult reason of his own, he had used all the tools in the machine-drawer, the corkscrew, tin-opener, and egg-whisk from the kitchen, and from the dining-room the knife-sharpener.He was always in hot water for mislaying these things, but if people had only known how admirably they had answered for his purpose, and how impossible it was to make anything else do, they would[198]hardly have grumbled so much; and they would certainly never have presented him with mere shilling tin trains, with red and green and blue cars, and a stupid little motor that could do nothing, in the hope that with a “proper toy” he would let household articles alone.He slipped into the dining-room with a beaming face.“Here it is, Phyl,” he said.Phyl was stealing one more hasty page from Helen Mathers, seeing the gate had not yet banged.“Um,” she said, her eyes tearing along.“I soon found it for you, didn’t I?” he said.“Good old laddie,” Phyl murmured, feeling approval was required of her.Freddie sat down in the rocking-chair, his heart full of affection for his eldest sister.Up the path trooped all the home-comers. Weenie was in advance—such a long-legged girl with a bright little face, burnt brown as a berry, alert brown eyes, and her brown hair drawn back anyway to be out of the road, and plaited in a short, pert little plait. Her frock was too short for her—it always was, for there was no keeping up with her growth. On the knees of her black stockings there were networks of little holes. When Phyl saw them she would be sure to sigh and say, “I can’t think how you get such holes. Those stockings were perfect this morning. You might consider me a little, Weenie.”[199]And Weenie would be sure to reply, “I’m quite willing to go without stockings. I only wear them because you all seem to think it wouldn’t be respectable not to. But if they get torn when I’m wearing them for your good,Ican’t help it.”Clif, twenty-one now and a man, came along slowly, his arm over Alf’s shoulder, his hand gripping the younger boy’s arm affectionately. Chatterbox Richie was close at Alf’s other side; now and again he looked up at him with a curiously affectionate look, then promptly held his lips together as if fearful some secret should burst forth.Alf was fourteen, short, rather thick-set, cheerfully ugly. But his hair, light-coloured, crisp, went back from his forehead in a lovable sort of wave, and his eyes were blue, soft, merry, mischievous, loving. Even when he was a baby he would give half his biscuit to a dog, and proffer his mug of milk-and-sugar to every one who came near him, with a hearty little “tate some.” And now every one knew they could have whatever was Alf’s, every one knew if Alf had sixpence they could get at least fourpence of it. Phyl went near to worshipping him; her love of him was more motherly than sisterly. The holes in his socks were never mentioned; the biggest tarts always went into his lunch-bag; he had a penwiper, a brush-and-comb-bag, and a very elaborate cricket cap, articles that no one had thought of making for the other boys. And he was a thoughtful little lad, and[200]really tried to remember to use the penwiper instead of his coat-sleeve, seeing the labour Phyl had put in it; and a courageous little lad, for he wore the elaborate cap dauntlessly at the school match, and only laughed good-temperedly when his fellows chaffed. Dolly and Ted brought up the rear. Ted, lanky and book-learned; Dolly, very like Phyl, but smaller and rosier. And her blue serge frock was still several inches away from the top of her shoes, seeing she was not yet sixteen, and her light, wavy hair was caught back into a loose curly plait and tied with dark-blue ribbon. She was carrying a strap full of school-books in one hand, and a tennis-racquet and a roll of papers in the other.Phyl came on to the verandah.“Wasn’t mother in the train?” she said.Ted nodded.“She saw the governor’s bike outside the Rileys’, and waited to walk home with him,” he said.“Was—was the German mail in?” Phyl’s eyes widened apprehensively as she put the question.“Yes,” said Ted briefly.Alf was almost up the steps and on a level with her by this, and she put a sudden arm around his neck and clung to him one moment.“Don’t be a little donkey,” Ted said gruffly, a warning look in his eyes.Phyl obediently let go her hold of the boy, who had been so engrossed with something Richie was[201]telling about the football that he had hardly heeded the caress.Twenty minutes later Dr. Wise was running his carving-knife up and down the sharpener Freddie had so kindly found, and looking round on his assembled family with the keen, kind eyes that saw everything so quickly. Perhaps his glance rested more tenderly on Alf to-night than on any one else.Mrs. Wise, at the other end of the table, had some sprays of jonquils in her dress. They were not out yet in the garden, but Clif had seen the early ones in town and brought a few for “the little mother.”There was a book on the table beside her—Transcendentalism. Ted had been at the greatest pains to borrow it for her and bring it home, because he had been so engrossed in it himself. And busy as she was, and not a bit interested in the subject, she would find time to read it just because of that.“Any one call, Phyl?” she said.“Yes, I’m dreadfully sorry, mother,” Phyl said, “but Mrs. Marriott and Mrs. and Miss Anderson came.”“Why sorry?” said the doctor,—“too much waste of your valuable time? I thought you had a great admiration for Mrs. Marriott?”“I was down the orchard,” Phyl said; “Mary couldn’t find me, and said every one was out. I—was reading.”[202]“You weren’t reading too much, I hope, to darn that table-cloth, Phyl?” Mrs. Wise said.“Sixpence she was,” said Ted. “Bet you she was in the apple-tree all day.”“Wrong for once, my beautiful youth,” Phyl answered; “the table-cloth is a miracle of fine workmanship, mother. Further, I did the elbows of Weenie’s blue frock, likewise Alf’s hat, ditto two pairs of Richie’s socks, not to mention doing the vases and thirty-nine other articles of domestic necessity. Don’t you think the quince-tree was entitled to receive me, doctor?”“I do,” said the doctor; “indeed I think there are about twenty-nine articles too many in that day’s work. Weenie, can’t you keep your elbows in? Richie, we must put you in copper-toed socks. We mustn’t take all the little girl’s time, mother.”“Oh,” said Mrs. Wise, “when I am at home there is more leisure. Besides, it is good for cobwebs, isn’t it, Phyl?”“I should think driving multiplication into that little beggar Fred would be a safe preservative against all cobweb forming,” said Clif.Then Phyl looked at Freddie, and Freddie looked at Phyl.Phyl’s last recollection of Freddie was at about two o’clock, when he was, with many protests, getting out his lesson-books for the afternoon. He had the capes and rivers of New South Wales to learn, so in[203]the meantime she thought she would occupy the quince-tree. And this was her next thought of him!The pink ran into her cheeks; she opened her mouth to confess her forgetfulness.But at that alarming crisis Freddie spilt his tea; all over the clean cloth it went, and all over his own hands. It was some time before order was restored, for Mary had to bring a tea-cloth and mop up the wet place, and Mrs. Wise had to scold a little, for a soiled cloth was a real trial to her, and then put flour on the hands that Freddie persisted were scalded.In the confusion Phyl forgot to confess, but Freddie was apprehensive, and kept a watchful eye upon her.“Well, my editress,” said the doctor, “and how does your learned and valuable magazine progress?”“Oh,” said Dolly with a sigh, “there are five more columns empty, and we have to send it to the printer to-morrow. We’ll both have to do something more to-night, Phyl.”“But your lessons, dear!” said Mrs. Wise, “the examination is only a month away. Couldn’t you make the paper later this quarter?”“If it isn’t out on the first of the month,” Dolly said sadly, “all the girls spend their pocket-money, and can’t buy it.”“Tell you,” said Richie, “we had an A1 football match against the Grammar—write all about that, Phyl.”[204]“Oh, Richie,” said Dolly, impatiently.“It ’ud be a great deal interestinger than things about your silly tennis, and tea-parties, and cookery-notes,” said Richie hotly.“And about green hats being the dominant note this spring in Paris,” quoth Clif.“I didn’t write that,” said Dolly, “some one else does Fashion.”“If you like,” said Ted, “I’ll give you enough for a column on Psychic Research.”“I’m afraid no one would read it,” Dolly said dubiously. “Couldn’t you write a story, Ted? I’m sure you could if you tried; it’s very easy.”But the learned one would not commit himself to such frivolity; if they wouldn’t have his article on Psychic Research they must go without.Dolly sighed.“Well, if we can’t fill up all the columns to-night, I’ll catch it,” she said.Suddenly Alf pushed back his chair with a loud noise, and jumped as if he had been bitten by Davey, who was helping Mary to remove the meat-plates.“Good old Jingo, good old Jingo,” he cried, making for the door.“Alf, Alf,” remonstrated Mrs. Wise.But Davey’s whisper of “Jingo’s caught five rats, Master Alf,” had been too exciting for the boy to remember manners.[205]He gave his step-mother a sudden, breathless hug as he passed her.“Be quick down and have a look, darling,” he said, and shot himself out of the room.“Did the letter come?” Phyl asked, with very anxious eyes on her mother.“They want him to go next month,” said Mrs. Wise.Silence fell on the table; every one’s heart and nearly every one’s eyes were filled. Alf, bright-eyed, jolly little thick-set Alf to be going away from them, thousands of miles away—why, it was as if Death had stalked suddenly into the room and selected the merriest of them all for its victim!“Next month!” gasped Phyl.“They have a representative here at present,” said the doctor. “His passage is taken by theOrmuz. We must tell the lad soon.”But what a thing to tell a home-loving laddie! The dead mother’s people had made overtures at last. There were only a father and a spinster sister left, for death had broken up their proudly serried ranks of late, and the spirits of those remaining were broken too—in a certain degree.When Mrs. Wise died they went to Sunnymeade for the funeral, and there saw Alf. The other four boys they took no notice of, for they were all their father’s boys entirely; Alf alone had the eyes and hair and manner the grandfather remembered in his[206]daughter when she was a child, and dear to his heart. More than this, Alf was “Alfred Wyndham Mergell Wise,” every name his grandfather’s. They were asking now to have him given to them entirely. The old man had been a merchant, and had made a big fortune; the daughter had a large income of her own,—all would be Alf’s, for they had no other relatives they cared to think of leaving it to. The boy would have the best of educations—English public school life followed by Oxford—and could choose for himself among all the professions. He would have the advantage of travel, for the grandfather had left Australia for ever, and wintered on the Continent, and spent the summer in England. The doctor felt he must accept the offer. He himself could give the boy no advantages; his very schooling at a second-rate grammar-school was a serious item, and the future he could not even think of, crippled as he was with such a family and so narrow a purse. Clif and Ted were fighting their way into the world without help from him; Alf would certainly be forced to do the same, had he only his father to depend upon. And the boy had not much strength of will or perseverance; left to himself he would probably twenty years hence be occupying almost the same place in whatever office he was placed in now. It was plain it would be madness to refuse the offer; in after years the boy would be sure to upbraid them did they follow their own inclination.[207]They had not told him yet, not wishing to unsettle him before all was decided, but the rest of the family knew, and their eyes used to follow his comings-in and goings-out, and their hearts would swell at his merry chatter.“A month!” Phyl echoed again.Mrs. Wise forced the tremble from her voice.“Here he is coming from the garden,” she said. “Your father is obliged to go out till nine, but when he comes back we are going to tell him. Please every one be quiet and just as usual until we call him into the drawing-room to us; I don’t want it broken to him in any careless fashion.”
Thehalf-past five train whistled shrilly at the station, and Phyl dropped hastily down from the low branch of the quince-tree where the afternoon sun had found and left herburied inComin’ thro’ the Rye. She ran hastily up the orchard; already small black specks were on the brow of the hill, and those same specks would enlarge and enlarge until in ten minutes they trooped up the garden-path and demanded dinner.
She set the table with hasty yet careful hand. There was only one servant in the house for all the work, unless one counted an imp of a boy of twelve, who answered the door to the patients, and cleaned the doctor’s hard-worked bicycle, and occasionally took a weed out of the garden, and occasionally cleaned a window.
Knife and fork and spoon and fork, knife and fork and spoon and fork, up and down the long table Phyl went with her silver basket until ten places were set. Yellow chrysanthemums, grasses and autumn leaves[195]made a feast for the eyes in the centre; the cloth was snowy; the room, though plainly furnished, had a sunshiny, fresh, and dainty look that did the doctor’s wife credit, considering the size of the double family.
[Illustration]Buried inComin’ thro’ the Rye.
Buried inComin’ thro’ the Rye.
Phyl’s dress came down to her shoes, and she was still conscious of it. Her fair, wavy hair had not been twisted into that knot long enough for her to feel sure it would not come tumbling over her shoulders if she ran. Her complexion was still somewhat pale, but at eighteen her early delicacy was almost outgrown. Blue eyes looked thoughtfully out upon the world, but fun found plenty of[196]room to dance there too. There was a look of happiness about her mouth.
A little boy came into the room—Freddie, who had been a mere baby when Mrs. Wise died, but was now eight.
“Go and wash your face, Freddie,” Phyl said, at the sound of his footstep, “and be sure to scrub your hands well—dinner will be ready in ten minutes.”
But Freddie obtruded a face ashine with cleanliness, and a pair of passable hands, upon her notice, which had not been given to him before.
“I have washed myself, Phyl,” he said mildly.
Phyl glanced at him and laughed.
“You must be dreadfully hungry,” she said; “one can generally take it for granted that your hands are crying out for the scrubbing-brush. I believe, Freddie, before they let you into heaven the archangel who keeps the keys will say in a hollow voice, ‘FerederickJames Allison Wise, go back and wash your hands.’”
Freddie smiled rather nervously at the pleasantry and watched his sister uncertainly. Surely it was too much good fortune for him to expect that she had forgotten his afternoon’s behaviour! He was her pupil, being considered as yet too young to go daily the long distance the others went to school, and this morning had she not fairly cried with rage and vexation over the daily struggle of his music lesson? And this afternoon when geography, and arithmetic,[197]and copy-books were all in neat readiness on the dining-room table, had he not slipped away entirely and gone to play marbles behind the stables with Davey, the impish house-boy?
Perhaps, he told himself relievedly at the sight of her calm face, she was appeased by the excellent washing he had given himself. What a very good thing he had thought of it!
Her eyes were straying about half abstractedly.
“Are you looking for anything,—shall I find it?” he said solicitously.
“Yes, the knife-sharpener, Freddie, have you seen it anywhere? Your father will call out if it isn’t on the table.”
Freddie looked about busily.
“Don’t you bother, Phyl,” he said kindly, “you just go on with your work, I’ll find it for you.”
“There’s a good old laddie,” Phyl said, and fell to smoothing the salt in the corner cruets.
Freddie had to steal out on to the verandah, where in the morning he had been engaged in a railway game, for which, for some occult reason of his own, he had used all the tools in the machine-drawer, the corkscrew, tin-opener, and egg-whisk from the kitchen, and from the dining-room the knife-sharpener.He was always in hot water for mislaying these things, but if people had only known how admirably they had answered for his purpose, and how impossible it was to make anything else do, they would[198]hardly have grumbled so much; and they would certainly never have presented him with mere shilling tin trains, with red and green and blue cars, and a stupid little motor that could do nothing, in the hope that with a “proper toy” he would let household articles alone.
He slipped into the dining-room with a beaming face.
“Here it is, Phyl,” he said.
Phyl was stealing one more hasty page from Helen Mathers, seeing the gate had not yet banged.
“Um,” she said, her eyes tearing along.
“I soon found it for you, didn’t I?” he said.
“Good old laddie,” Phyl murmured, feeling approval was required of her.
Freddie sat down in the rocking-chair, his heart full of affection for his eldest sister.
Up the path trooped all the home-comers. Weenie was in advance—such a long-legged girl with a bright little face, burnt brown as a berry, alert brown eyes, and her brown hair drawn back anyway to be out of the road, and plaited in a short, pert little plait. Her frock was too short for her—it always was, for there was no keeping up with her growth. On the knees of her black stockings there were networks of little holes. When Phyl saw them she would be sure to sigh and say, “I can’t think how you get such holes. Those stockings were perfect this morning. You might consider me a little, Weenie.”
[199]And Weenie would be sure to reply, “I’m quite willing to go without stockings. I only wear them because you all seem to think it wouldn’t be respectable not to. But if they get torn when I’m wearing them for your good,Ican’t help it.”
Clif, twenty-one now and a man, came along slowly, his arm over Alf’s shoulder, his hand gripping the younger boy’s arm affectionately. Chatterbox Richie was close at Alf’s other side; now and again he looked up at him with a curiously affectionate look, then promptly held his lips together as if fearful some secret should burst forth.
Alf was fourteen, short, rather thick-set, cheerfully ugly. But his hair, light-coloured, crisp, went back from his forehead in a lovable sort of wave, and his eyes were blue, soft, merry, mischievous, loving. Even when he was a baby he would give half his biscuit to a dog, and proffer his mug of milk-and-sugar to every one who came near him, with a hearty little “tate some.” And now every one knew they could have whatever was Alf’s, every one knew if Alf had sixpence they could get at least fourpence of it. Phyl went near to worshipping him; her love of him was more motherly than sisterly. The holes in his socks were never mentioned; the biggest tarts always went into his lunch-bag; he had a penwiper, a brush-and-comb-bag, and a very elaborate cricket cap, articles that no one had thought of making for the other boys. And he was a thoughtful little lad, and[200]really tried to remember to use the penwiper instead of his coat-sleeve, seeing the labour Phyl had put in it; and a courageous little lad, for he wore the elaborate cap dauntlessly at the school match, and only laughed good-temperedly when his fellows chaffed. Dolly and Ted brought up the rear. Ted, lanky and book-learned; Dolly, very like Phyl, but smaller and rosier. And her blue serge frock was still several inches away from the top of her shoes, seeing she was not yet sixteen, and her light, wavy hair was caught back into a loose curly plait and tied with dark-blue ribbon. She was carrying a strap full of school-books in one hand, and a tennis-racquet and a roll of papers in the other.
Phyl came on to the verandah.
“Wasn’t mother in the train?” she said.
Ted nodded.
“She saw the governor’s bike outside the Rileys’, and waited to walk home with him,” he said.
“Was—was the German mail in?” Phyl’s eyes widened apprehensively as she put the question.
“Yes,” said Ted briefly.
Alf was almost up the steps and on a level with her by this, and she put a sudden arm around his neck and clung to him one moment.
“Don’t be a little donkey,” Ted said gruffly, a warning look in his eyes.
Phyl obediently let go her hold of the boy, who had been so engrossed with something Richie was[201]telling about the football that he had hardly heeded the caress.
Twenty minutes later Dr. Wise was running his carving-knife up and down the sharpener Freddie had so kindly found, and looking round on his assembled family with the keen, kind eyes that saw everything so quickly. Perhaps his glance rested more tenderly on Alf to-night than on any one else.
Mrs. Wise, at the other end of the table, had some sprays of jonquils in her dress. They were not out yet in the garden, but Clif had seen the early ones in town and brought a few for “the little mother.”
There was a book on the table beside her—Transcendentalism. Ted had been at the greatest pains to borrow it for her and bring it home, because he had been so engrossed in it himself. And busy as she was, and not a bit interested in the subject, she would find time to read it just because of that.
“Any one call, Phyl?” she said.
“Yes, I’m dreadfully sorry, mother,” Phyl said, “but Mrs. Marriott and Mrs. and Miss Anderson came.”
“Why sorry?” said the doctor,—“too much waste of your valuable time? I thought you had a great admiration for Mrs. Marriott?”
“I was down the orchard,” Phyl said; “Mary couldn’t find me, and said every one was out. I—was reading.”
[202]“You weren’t reading too much, I hope, to darn that table-cloth, Phyl?” Mrs. Wise said.
“Sixpence she was,” said Ted. “Bet you she was in the apple-tree all day.”
“Wrong for once, my beautiful youth,” Phyl answered; “the table-cloth is a miracle of fine workmanship, mother. Further, I did the elbows of Weenie’s blue frock, likewise Alf’s hat, ditto two pairs of Richie’s socks, not to mention doing the vases and thirty-nine other articles of domestic necessity. Don’t you think the quince-tree was entitled to receive me, doctor?”
“I do,” said the doctor; “indeed I think there are about twenty-nine articles too many in that day’s work. Weenie, can’t you keep your elbows in? Richie, we must put you in copper-toed socks. We mustn’t take all the little girl’s time, mother.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Wise, “when I am at home there is more leisure. Besides, it is good for cobwebs, isn’t it, Phyl?”
“I should think driving multiplication into that little beggar Fred would be a safe preservative against all cobweb forming,” said Clif.
Then Phyl looked at Freddie, and Freddie looked at Phyl.
Phyl’s last recollection of Freddie was at about two o’clock, when he was, with many protests, getting out his lesson-books for the afternoon. He had the capes and rivers of New South Wales to learn, so in[203]the meantime she thought she would occupy the quince-tree. And this was her next thought of him!
The pink ran into her cheeks; she opened her mouth to confess her forgetfulness.
But at that alarming crisis Freddie spilt his tea; all over the clean cloth it went, and all over his own hands. It was some time before order was restored, for Mary had to bring a tea-cloth and mop up the wet place, and Mrs. Wise had to scold a little, for a soiled cloth was a real trial to her, and then put flour on the hands that Freddie persisted were scalded.
In the confusion Phyl forgot to confess, but Freddie was apprehensive, and kept a watchful eye upon her.
“Well, my editress,” said the doctor, “and how does your learned and valuable magazine progress?”
“Oh,” said Dolly with a sigh, “there are five more columns empty, and we have to send it to the printer to-morrow. We’ll both have to do something more to-night, Phyl.”
“But your lessons, dear!” said Mrs. Wise, “the examination is only a month away. Couldn’t you make the paper later this quarter?”
“If it isn’t out on the first of the month,” Dolly said sadly, “all the girls spend their pocket-money, and can’t buy it.”
“Tell you,” said Richie, “we had an A1 football match against the Grammar—write all about that, Phyl.”
[204]“Oh, Richie,” said Dolly, impatiently.
“It ’ud be a great deal interestinger than things about your silly tennis, and tea-parties, and cookery-notes,” said Richie hotly.
“And about green hats being the dominant note this spring in Paris,” quoth Clif.
“I didn’t write that,” said Dolly, “some one else does Fashion.”
“If you like,” said Ted, “I’ll give you enough for a column on Psychic Research.”
“I’m afraid no one would read it,” Dolly said dubiously. “Couldn’t you write a story, Ted? I’m sure you could if you tried; it’s very easy.”
But the learned one would not commit himself to such frivolity; if they wouldn’t have his article on Psychic Research they must go without.
Dolly sighed.
“Well, if we can’t fill up all the columns to-night, I’ll catch it,” she said.
Suddenly Alf pushed back his chair with a loud noise, and jumped as if he had been bitten by Davey, who was helping Mary to remove the meat-plates.
“Good old Jingo, good old Jingo,” he cried, making for the door.
“Alf, Alf,” remonstrated Mrs. Wise.
But Davey’s whisper of “Jingo’s caught five rats, Master Alf,” had been too exciting for the boy to remember manners.
[205]He gave his step-mother a sudden, breathless hug as he passed her.
“Be quick down and have a look, darling,” he said, and shot himself out of the room.
“Did the letter come?” Phyl asked, with very anxious eyes on her mother.
“They want him to go next month,” said Mrs. Wise.
Silence fell on the table; every one’s heart and nearly every one’s eyes were filled. Alf, bright-eyed, jolly little thick-set Alf to be going away from them, thousands of miles away—why, it was as if Death had stalked suddenly into the room and selected the merriest of them all for its victim!
“Next month!” gasped Phyl.
“They have a representative here at present,” said the doctor. “His passage is taken by theOrmuz. We must tell the lad soon.”
But what a thing to tell a home-loving laddie! The dead mother’s people had made overtures at last. There were only a father and a spinster sister left, for death had broken up their proudly serried ranks of late, and the spirits of those remaining were broken too—in a certain degree.
When Mrs. Wise died they went to Sunnymeade for the funeral, and there saw Alf. The other four boys they took no notice of, for they were all their father’s boys entirely; Alf alone had the eyes and hair and manner the grandfather remembered in his[206]daughter when she was a child, and dear to his heart. More than this, Alf was “Alfred Wyndham Mergell Wise,” every name his grandfather’s. They were asking now to have him given to them entirely. The old man had been a merchant, and had made a big fortune; the daughter had a large income of her own,—all would be Alf’s, for they had no other relatives they cared to think of leaving it to. The boy would have the best of educations—English public school life followed by Oxford—and could choose for himself among all the professions. He would have the advantage of travel, for the grandfather had left Australia for ever, and wintered on the Continent, and spent the summer in England. The doctor felt he must accept the offer. He himself could give the boy no advantages; his very schooling at a second-rate grammar-school was a serious item, and the future he could not even think of, crippled as he was with such a family and so narrow a purse. Clif and Ted were fighting their way into the world without help from him; Alf would certainly be forced to do the same, had he only his father to depend upon. And the boy had not much strength of will or perseverance; left to himself he would probably twenty years hence be occupying almost the same place in whatever office he was placed in now. It was plain it would be madness to refuse the offer; in after years the boy would be sure to upbraid them did they follow their own inclination.
[207]They had not told him yet, not wishing to unsettle him before all was decided, but the rest of the family knew, and their eyes used to follow his comings-in and goings-out, and their hearts would swell at his merry chatter.
“A month!” Phyl echoed again.
Mrs. Wise forced the tremble from her voice.
“Here he is coming from the garden,” she said. “Your father is obliged to go out till nine, but when he comes back we are going to tell him. Please every one be quiet and just as usual until we call him into the drawing-room to us; I don’t want it broken to him in any careless fashion.”