[266]CHAPTER XXVTHE TRIALS OF WEENIEWeeniewas fourteen before Romance in any way affected her.True she had occasionally been bitten with a desire to emulate her sisters, and the results had been so unique that Mrs. Wise had carried them off and placed them in her “put-away” drawer, an honour she rarely bestowed on the prolific elder sisters.There was the time for instance that Phyl and Dolly had written a play which they had acted among themselves with much success. The doctor was much amused one day while rehearsals were still going on to come across Weenie sitting in the summer-house, biting her pen very hard.“No, I protest,” he said; “look here,two authoressesare enough in the family. For Heaven’s sake don’t you catch the disease.”“I don’t see why they should be the only ones to write,” Weenie said; “it’s ever so easy; I’m always going to do it.”[267]“Mother!” cried the doctor. Mrs. Wise was sewing just outside on the grass. “Here’s Weenie with the most alarming symptoms setting in.”“Oh, let it alone, if you love me, Weenie,” Mrs. Wise said. “Idowant one daughter who won’t burn the jam, and seam up four sides of a pillow-case.”[Illustration]“Two authoresses are enough in the family.”“You don’t make fun of the others,” Weenie said pettishly; “why don’t you tell them to stop?”“Their complaint has become chronic,” the doctor said, “but we should like to save you while there is time.”[268]From the bottom of the garden came loud excited shouts and hurrahs.“I do believe,” said Weenie, her face lighting up, her pen dropping from her hands—“I do believe Freddie’s got that snake at last,” and her long, black legs went flying down the orchard.“Freddie, the physician, warranted to cure,” said the doctor.Of course he had to read the forgotten result of so much pen-biting.“The Rival Suitors,” by Wilhelmina Conway, said sprawling red letters at the top of a sheet of foolscap. Then justunderneath—“DRAMMATIS PERSONSLord Regginald.—a lord in love with Susan.Adolfus.—Another man, but he’s really the real Lord Regginald.Mrs. Jones.—Adolfusse’s Mother.Susan.—A girl.Act I. Scene I.A drawing room of the CastelEnterSusan(attired in a blue sash and things).“Well, I always thought you were a murderer, Lord Regginald, and now I know you are.”ExitSusan.[269]Act II. Scene I.EnterAdolfus.—But what this character had tosay did not appear, as the young dramatist was just wrestling with his speech when the doctor had interrupted her.Then there was the time that Weenie kept a diary.Dolly and Phyl kept them, it goes without saying, but no one ever saw theirs, they kept them so carefully hidden away. Weenie’s of course flung about the house everywhere, and every one considered it “fair game.” The boys had many a shriek of laughter over it after she had gone to bed. The doctor made her a present of a proper Letts’s Diary with three days on each page, when he found she so ardently desired to do as Phyl and Dolly did. It cost Weenie real hard thinking, however, to find sufficient occurrences in ordinary daily life to fill the spaces for the one fortnight during which she wrote up the entries every night.This was one of the mildest sheets that Clif read aloud one night.“Monday.—Got up. Porridge, hot scones and marmerlade for breakfast. Agnes and Lottie Green always have butter as well as marmerlade, we can only have one. Went to school. Wore my brown dress. Got my sums wrong. Came home. Won[270]three connies off Freddie, only he would only give me two. Played cricket, bowled Dolly out first shot. Had dinner—mutton and things. Did lessons—went to bed.“Tues.—Got up. Had a row with Dolly. She will sit on the chair and try to stop me coming in the room. Went after a snake with Richie going to school but we lost him. Had lunch,—mutton sandwiches, apple pasty and cake—only Phyl had made it and it wasn’t much good. Agnes and Lottie’s mother gives them sixpence each and they get the loveliest things, tarts and buns and things. Wish we were rich. Got a hole in my stocking,—well, I couldent help it so Phyl needent have grumbled so. There aren’tanyplaces to kneel down when you’re playing marbles without stones.“Wed.—Curry and potatoes and cauliflower and sago pudding and rhubarb pudding for dinner. Yesterday at Lottie and Agnes’ house they had roast ducks and peas and asparrowgas and jellies and French pudding with whiped cream. Won Dolly again, tipped her chair right up. Went to school. Didn’t get kept in to-day at least only half-an-hour.”When Weenie at last discovered her precious diary had been in the unhallowed hands of the boys, and that all the family had been laughing at it, her wrath knew no bounds.Dolly and Phyl had been among the laughers—she directed her anger against them.[271]“All right,” she said, “just you wait. I’ll getyourdiaries and let the boys laugh atthem. I’m sure you put far sillier things in yours.”“I haven’t a single doubt of it,” said Clif.“Well, laugh atthem,” said Weenie; “every one laughs at me, ’tisn’t fair.”One evening she came bursting into the dining-room where the boys were with a closely-written diary page in her hand.“Said I’d get it,” she screamed triumphantly; “such fun; just listen, boys.”“Don’t be a little sneak,” Clif said, “you know Dolly wouldn’t like it.”“Pooh,” said Weenie, “she laughed at mine.Ididn’t like it.”“You’re only a kid,” Clif said.“Go on, let’s hear,” said Richie, “it’s quite fair—they laughed like anything over Weenie’s.”“Jan. 24th:” read Weenie. “Fifteen to-day, fifteen long years gone over my head. Sometimes I ask myself what use I am in the world, and I cannot help answering, not one bit. But from to-day I really will try to do better. I will earnestly try to conquer my temper, to be more patient with Weenie and the boys, and to help mother better.“Jan. 25th.—Weenie is really the most aggravating little wretch in the world; no one could be patient and live long with her. But I willnotgive up my chair at the wash-stand.”[272]But here Dolly burst into the room, snatched the page away, called Weenie dishonourable, mean, and other epithets.“Now, I won’t help you with your essay,” she said as she went out of the door again.Weenie, the essay on her mind, wished she had let well alone.“You help, will you, Clif?” she said.“Not I,” said Clif, “I told you, you were a little sneak.”Weenie’s young, brown face flamed with sudden passion.“It’s always the way,” she said, “you’re always againstme, all of you—if it had been Dolly or Phyl—mother’s the same, and doctor—t-t-think I don’t n-n-notice, don’t you?”She flung away out of the room and went rushing blindly down the orchard before the boys, startled at the suddenness of her outbreak, could speak.“What a little spit-fire!” Clif said; then settled comfortably down to his pipe again.He was very fond of these three little step-sisters of his, but he never even attempted to understand the vagaries of such queer little beings. To “girls’ ways” he and the other boys always used to put everything down that they could not understand, and this sudden flaring of Weenie’s was, he supposed, one of the “ways.”But Weenie, unknown to every one, with her[273]fourteenth birthday, and the lengthened frocks her long legs demanded, had gotten to herself a brand-new trouble that she hugged daily to keep warm. She had taken it into her head that she was unappreciated by her family, misunderstood, uncared for.When she went to bed at night she used to lie and conjure up a pathetic scene of her death-bed, when too late her family had learned her worth. She would lie and blink at the patch of light made on the ceiling by Dolly’s wash-stand candle, her throat swelling with self-pity. She saw a picture of herself growing daily thinner and thinner, her cheeks white, the eyes unnaturally large and bright. Yet all the family went on with its own occupations, too engrossed to notice her failing strength. And one by one her duties would be given up, meal after meal and only her vacant chair would be at the table. And at last it would be forced upon them all that the patient figure upon the sofa, with the transparent hands and ethereal smile, was slipping from their midst. She went further still one night, and actually buried herself in an oak and silver coffin, piled up with wreaths and crosses of fragrant flowers. Her family and all her school-fellows were standing around looking their last on her as she lay, her face marble white and peaceful, her still white hands filled with lilies, and crossed on her breast. A sob rose from the bed at this heartrending picture.[274]“Whatever’s the matter?” Dolly said from the wash-stand.There came another quivering breath.Dolly dropped her pen and ran round to the bedside.“Have you got a pain?—does your head ache?—whatisthe matter, Weenie?” she said, quite startled; “would you like me to fetch mother?”Weenie shook her head languidly and turned her head tearfully aside.“Go a-w-way,” she said.But Dolly was not to be put off like that. She stroked the brown curls on the pillow, she put loving arms round her, and kissed her healthy brown cheek soothingly.“Do tell me,” she said; “are you in a row at school? Tell me, little old Weenie; isn’t it anything I can help?—poor old Wee, there, never mind, nothing can be very bad—there, tell me, girlie dear.”But Weenie turned away irritably. It was too bad to have one’s burial interrupted in this fashion. Besides, it was vexatious to have Dolly kind; to be in keeping with her mood the elder sister should have bidden her harshly “be quiet,” or at least have scorned and reviled her for her tears. She buried her nose in the pillow.“I wish you’d let me alone,” she said peevishly, and Dolly was forced to retire.[275]The keynote of all the trouble was, the child was missing Alf, and without his invigorating companionship was forced to enter into the curious and quieter paths of girlhood that her feet had avoided so long.
Weeniewas fourteen before Romance in any way affected her.
True she had occasionally been bitten with a desire to emulate her sisters, and the results had been so unique that Mrs. Wise had carried them off and placed them in her “put-away” drawer, an honour she rarely bestowed on the prolific elder sisters.
There was the time for instance that Phyl and Dolly had written a play which they had acted among themselves with much success. The doctor was much amused one day while rehearsals were still going on to come across Weenie sitting in the summer-house, biting her pen very hard.
“No, I protest,” he said; “look here,two authoressesare enough in the family. For Heaven’s sake don’t you catch the disease.”
“I don’t see why they should be the only ones to write,” Weenie said; “it’s ever so easy; I’m always going to do it.”
[267]“Mother!” cried the doctor. Mrs. Wise was sewing just outside on the grass. “Here’s Weenie with the most alarming symptoms setting in.”
“Oh, let it alone, if you love me, Weenie,” Mrs. Wise said. “Idowant one daughter who won’t burn the jam, and seam up four sides of a pillow-case.”
[Illustration]“Two authoresses are enough in the family.”
“Two authoresses are enough in the family.”
“You don’t make fun of the others,” Weenie said pettishly; “why don’t you tell them to stop?”
“Their complaint has become chronic,” the doctor said, “but we should like to save you while there is time.”
[268]From the bottom of the garden came loud excited shouts and hurrahs.
“I do believe,” said Weenie, her face lighting up, her pen dropping from her hands—“I do believe Freddie’s got that snake at last,” and her long, black legs went flying down the orchard.
“Freddie, the physician, warranted to cure,” said the doctor.
Of course he had to read the forgotten result of so much pen-biting.
“The Rival Suitors,” by Wilhelmina Conway, said sprawling red letters at the top of a sheet of foolscap. Then justunderneath—
“DRAMMATIS PERSONSLord Regginald.—a lord in love with Susan.Adolfus.—Another man, but he’s really the real Lord Regginald.Mrs. Jones.—Adolfusse’s Mother.Susan.—A girl.Act I. Scene I.A drawing room of the CastelEnterSusan(attired in a blue sash and things).“Well, I always thought you were a murderer, Lord Regginald, and now I know you are.”ExitSusan.[269]Act II. Scene I.EnterAdolfus.—But what this character had tosay did not appear, as the young dramatist was just wrestling with his speech when the doctor had interrupted her.
Act I. Scene I.A drawing room of the CastelEnterSusan(attired in a blue sash and things).“Well, I always thought you were a murderer, Lord Regginald, and now I know you are.”ExitSusan.
A drawing room of the Castel
EnterSusan(attired in a blue sash and things).
“Well, I always thought you were a murderer, Lord Regginald, and now I know you are.”
ExitSusan.
EnterAdolfus.—But what this character had tosay did not appear, as the young dramatist was just wrestling with his speech when the doctor had interrupted her.
Then there was the time that Weenie kept a diary.
Dolly and Phyl kept them, it goes without saying, but no one ever saw theirs, they kept them so carefully hidden away. Weenie’s of course flung about the house everywhere, and every one considered it “fair game.” The boys had many a shriek of laughter over it after she had gone to bed. The doctor made her a present of a proper Letts’s Diary with three days on each page, when he found she so ardently desired to do as Phyl and Dolly did. It cost Weenie real hard thinking, however, to find sufficient occurrences in ordinary daily life to fill the spaces for the one fortnight during which she wrote up the entries every night.
This was one of the mildest sheets that Clif read aloud one night.
“Monday.—Got up. Porridge, hot scones and marmerlade for breakfast. Agnes and Lottie Green always have butter as well as marmerlade, we can only have one. Went to school. Wore my brown dress. Got my sums wrong. Came home. Won[270]three connies off Freddie, only he would only give me two. Played cricket, bowled Dolly out first shot. Had dinner—mutton and things. Did lessons—went to bed.
“Tues.—Got up. Had a row with Dolly. She will sit on the chair and try to stop me coming in the room. Went after a snake with Richie going to school but we lost him. Had lunch,—mutton sandwiches, apple pasty and cake—only Phyl had made it and it wasn’t much good. Agnes and Lottie’s mother gives them sixpence each and they get the loveliest things, tarts and buns and things. Wish we were rich. Got a hole in my stocking,—well, I couldent help it so Phyl needent have grumbled so. There aren’tanyplaces to kneel down when you’re playing marbles without stones.
“Wed.—Curry and potatoes and cauliflower and sago pudding and rhubarb pudding for dinner. Yesterday at Lottie and Agnes’ house they had roast ducks and peas and asparrowgas and jellies and French pudding with whiped cream. Won Dolly again, tipped her chair right up. Went to school. Didn’t get kept in to-day at least only half-an-hour.”
When Weenie at last discovered her precious diary had been in the unhallowed hands of the boys, and that all the family had been laughing at it, her wrath knew no bounds.
Dolly and Phyl had been among the laughers—she directed her anger against them.
[271]“All right,” she said, “just you wait. I’ll getyourdiaries and let the boys laugh atthem. I’m sure you put far sillier things in yours.”
“I haven’t a single doubt of it,” said Clif.
“Well, laugh atthem,” said Weenie; “every one laughs at me, ’tisn’t fair.”
One evening she came bursting into the dining-room where the boys were with a closely-written diary page in her hand.
“Said I’d get it,” she screamed triumphantly; “such fun; just listen, boys.”
“Don’t be a little sneak,” Clif said, “you know Dolly wouldn’t like it.”
“Pooh,” said Weenie, “she laughed at mine.Ididn’t like it.”
“You’re only a kid,” Clif said.
“Go on, let’s hear,” said Richie, “it’s quite fair—they laughed like anything over Weenie’s.”
“Jan. 24th:” read Weenie. “Fifteen to-day, fifteen long years gone over my head. Sometimes I ask myself what use I am in the world, and I cannot help answering, not one bit. But from to-day I really will try to do better. I will earnestly try to conquer my temper, to be more patient with Weenie and the boys, and to help mother better.
“Jan. 25th.—Weenie is really the most aggravating little wretch in the world; no one could be patient and live long with her. But I willnotgive up my chair at the wash-stand.”
[272]But here Dolly burst into the room, snatched the page away, called Weenie dishonourable, mean, and other epithets.
“Now, I won’t help you with your essay,” she said as she went out of the door again.
Weenie, the essay on her mind, wished she had let well alone.
“You help, will you, Clif?” she said.
“Not I,” said Clif, “I told you, you were a little sneak.”
Weenie’s young, brown face flamed with sudden passion.
“It’s always the way,” she said, “you’re always againstme, all of you—if it had been Dolly or Phyl—mother’s the same, and doctor—t-t-think I don’t n-n-notice, don’t you?”
She flung away out of the room and went rushing blindly down the orchard before the boys, startled at the suddenness of her outbreak, could speak.
“What a little spit-fire!” Clif said; then settled comfortably down to his pipe again.
He was very fond of these three little step-sisters of his, but he never even attempted to understand the vagaries of such queer little beings. To “girls’ ways” he and the other boys always used to put everything down that they could not understand, and this sudden flaring of Weenie’s was, he supposed, one of the “ways.”
But Weenie, unknown to every one, with her[273]fourteenth birthday, and the lengthened frocks her long legs demanded, had gotten to herself a brand-new trouble that she hugged daily to keep warm. She had taken it into her head that she was unappreciated by her family, misunderstood, uncared for.
When she went to bed at night she used to lie and conjure up a pathetic scene of her death-bed, when too late her family had learned her worth. She would lie and blink at the patch of light made on the ceiling by Dolly’s wash-stand candle, her throat swelling with self-pity. She saw a picture of herself growing daily thinner and thinner, her cheeks white, the eyes unnaturally large and bright. Yet all the family went on with its own occupations, too engrossed to notice her failing strength. And one by one her duties would be given up, meal after meal and only her vacant chair would be at the table. And at last it would be forced upon them all that the patient figure upon the sofa, with the transparent hands and ethereal smile, was slipping from their midst. She went further still one night, and actually buried herself in an oak and silver coffin, piled up with wreaths and crosses of fragrant flowers. Her family and all her school-fellows were standing around looking their last on her as she lay, her face marble white and peaceful, her still white hands filled with lilies, and crossed on her breast. A sob rose from the bed at this heartrending picture.
[274]“Whatever’s the matter?” Dolly said from the wash-stand.
There came another quivering breath.
Dolly dropped her pen and ran round to the bedside.
“Have you got a pain?—does your head ache?—whatisthe matter, Weenie?” she said, quite startled; “would you like me to fetch mother?”
Weenie shook her head languidly and turned her head tearfully aside.
“Go a-w-way,” she said.
But Dolly was not to be put off like that. She stroked the brown curls on the pillow, she put loving arms round her, and kissed her healthy brown cheek soothingly.
“Do tell me,” she said; “are you in a row at school? Tell me, little old Weenie; isn’t it anything I can help?—poor old Wee, there, never mind, nothing can be very bad—there, tell me, girlie dear.”
But Weenie turned away irritably. It was too bad to have one’s burial interrupted in this fashion. Besides, it was vexatious to have Dolly kind; to be in keeping with her mood the elder sister should have bidden her harshly “be quiet,” or at least have scorned and reviled her for her tears. She buried her nose in the pillow.
“I wish you’d let me alone,” she said peevishly, and Dolly was forced to retire.
[275]The keynote of all the trouble was, the child was missing Alf, and without his invigorating companionship was forced to enter into the curious and quieter paths of girlhood that her feet had avoided so long.