Chapter VI: A Busy Day

HOPE was very tired when she reached Kayminster. She arrived at the station about four o'clock in the afternoon, and was a little disappointed to find no one there to meet her. She had not heard from her father since she had written saying she was coming to him, and she began to wonder if he would welcome her gladly or not.

She drove to the house in a fly, and the door was opened by a rough, good-natured looking girl.

"Yes, miss," she said, in reply to Hope's inquiry for her father, "we're all expectin' of you, and Mr. St. Clair keeps askin' if you've come. You'll find him in the droring-room, miss. He uses that mostly. Mister Brian, he bade me look after you and tell you he couldn't be back afore seven."

Hope made no reply to this volubility, but pushed open the drawing-room door, and found her father smoking in an easy chair.

He rose and held out his hand.

"Here you are, then? Have you had a good journey? I'm afraid it's a great mistake your leaving your aunt, but time will show. I'm sure we want some help in running this house, for any one more incompetent than this stupid creature we have at present I never beheld. Her cooking is enough to put any one off his food. Why don't they bring up English working-girls to cook? A colonist's daughter would be ashamed if she couldn't bake bread and pickle pork and meat. This girl makes a hash of everything she tries!"

Hope sat down and took off her gloves.

"Where are the boys?" she asked.

"At school. Would you like a cup of tea? I don't drink it. We don't have our evening meal till seven. Well, how is your aunt?"

"Very well. She sent her love. You are not looking very grand, father."

"It's this town. I never could stand town from the time I was a boy. And I shall never get my sleep again till I'm in the open country."

"We found this house very quiet when we were in it. I remember I thought Kayminster such a peaceful little place after London."

Hope's eyes strayed round the room as she talked. Dust lay thick on ledges and corners, a pair of boy's boots was under one chair, a boy's cap on the piano, books and papers were strewn about untidily; the room had a dingy uncared-for look, as different from the quaint little dainty place that she remembered as black from white. Her father caught her glance.

"Yes," he said humorously, "we shall shock your fine artistic feelings; but for your own sake, my girl, put your shoulder to the wheel, and don't criticise, but reform."

Then Hope laughed out.

"I will, father; I shall make mistakes, but you must try not to be hard upon me. I have come with the intention of making you comfortable, and however hard I have to work, I am determined to succeed."

The door opened and Anne appeared with a beaming face. On a tray with a soiled table-napkin she brought a cup of tea and some bread and butter.

"I knewed you would like a cup o' tea," she remarked; "my missus at my last place always had it."

Hope thanked her with a smile. The tea helped to fortify her for her tour through the house. It all looked very untidy and dirty, and when she got to her own room, the very same she had had when she was there before, she locked her door, and sitting down, gave way to tears.

To her, the contrast from her aunt's luxuriously and well-appointed house struck her forcibly. And a deep depression for the time seemed to overcloud her spirits. Her father treated her so very indifferently that she wondered if she would ever learn to know and understand him. She doubted her own capabilities for housekeeping on such a small scale; and then she took herself to task for being so faint-hearted. A little later, a loud whoop and shout and a scamper of feet up the stairs told her of the advent of her small brothers. Then came a thump on her door.

"Hope, let us in! What are you doing—unpacking?"

She opened the door and kissed the boys affectionately.

"I have turned up, you see!"

"Time enough too!" cried Jerry, dancing round her. "And Toby and me don't mean to let you go again. We like you, we do, and we don't think you a bit stuck up!"

"Thank you," said Hope, laughing; then she glanced at her closed trunks in dismay. She only now realised what the absence of a maid meant.

"Can you boys undo those straps for me?"

They were down on their knees directly, cuffing each other in their anxiety to prove their respective dexterity and smartness.

"Shall we unpack for you?" asked Toby gravely.

Hope shuddered as she looked at their hands, and thought of all her pretty muslins and delicate silks.

"No, thank you. I will unpack, myself. Find a chair and talk to me."

"Oh, it's awful in England!" ejaculated Toby. "There's no riding, nothing but lessons in stuffy rotten rooms, and fellows who are muffs, and like spending their money in sweet-shops. I say, can you make cakes? Anne can't; she makes sticky dough as tough as boots, and burns it always!"

"And will you get dad to give us pocket-money?"

Hope forgot her woes listening to the grievances and wants of these two youngsters.

When she met her father again, there was brightness in her glance.

The evening meal was not appetising. "'Igh tea," Anne called it.

A dish of greasy burnt chops, rancid butter, stewed tea, and a large rice-pudding adorned the table, but the arrival of Brian, armed with a basket of strawberries, improved the aspect. The grip of Brian's hand and the pleased look in his eyes were like a ray of sunshine to Hope. She exerted herself to talk, and Mr. St. Clair seemed to lose a little of his irritability and gloom.

Afterwards, Brian shut his small brothers into the study with their evening preparation, coaxed his father out into the garden, into a hammock-chair, and then, armed with a watering-pot, proceeded to refresh the dry and thirsty flowers. Hope insisted upon helping him, and as they worked together, they talked.

"What are you doing now?" Hope asked him.

Brian gave a short little laugh.

"Well, I'm earning an honest livelihood; not a very grand billet, but better than nothing, and I can't stand loafing round. I've never been accustomed to it. Don't ask too many questions about it. I wanted to get on a farm. As it is, I'm helping with some horses, which I like better, and I can sleep at home. What do you think of the garden? Looks rather forlorn, doesn't it? I try and do a bit of weeding when I come home, but it wants one always at it this time of year. We haven't the money for a gardener."

"Is—is father very badly off, Brian?" asked Hope hesitatingly.

"Well, you see, he hasn't saved. His private income would be just enough to keep himself in comfort, but the two boys want schooling. I'm thankful now I'm off his hands. I'm able to pay for my keep. It's a pretty tight fit, I can tell you. I think this house is a mistake. We want a cottage in the country where living is cheap, but then again it's a question of the boys' schooling. We can't afford to send them anywhere as boarders."

"You don't pay rent for this!"

"I wish we did. I hate favours!"

Brian's tone was sharp and short.

Hope was silent, then she said:

"What does father do all day?"

"He worries round. Now you're here, you can amuse him. If you could get him out fishing, it would do him a world of good. He sits in the house and mopes. It is so utterly unlike him, for he has always gone in for such an active life. He won't do anything alone. If I was home and took him about, he'd be a lot brighter. I'm hoping great things from you. You see, there's been no one to run the house. And our maid, as you see, is a rough-and-ready sort, and not over-clean. Perhaps you can lick her into shape. She isn't a bad sort, and puts up with father's scoldings, but she is not as good a cook as Toby is. I was cook for the first week, and our meals were a sight more appetising, I can tell you!"

Hope laughed, and he laughed with her.

"I'm a good colonist," he said; "I can turn my hand to most things."

"I wish you would teach me to be useful," said Hope; "I'm afraid I shall be terribly awkward."

He glanced at her white dress, a garment of delicate "crêpe de chine" and costly lace, and shook his head with a little smile.

"You'll have to change your style of dress the first thing," he said.

"Oh, I mean to. I have plain linen gowns for morning wear, and I shall buy some aprons. I mean to work, so you must encourage and not laugh at me!"

After a pause, she asked:

"Do you know any of the people round here? There are some very nice families living outside Kayminster."

"Thank goodness we don't! And I devoutly hope you won't be bringing any of your fashionable acquaintances about the place."

"Why not? I'm sure you would like the Chesneys. You are not going to live like hermits, Brian?"

"With father in his present state, it's essential to keep him quiet," said Brian sternly. "He hates company, and he shan't be inflicted with it."

"But may I not know my friends?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Keep them away from father, and don't bring them to the house."

Hope looked perplexed and dismayed. But she judged it wise to say no more. She wondered to herself if Brian intended to rule her life and take every bit of pleasant intercourse away from her. And then, looking at his stern young face, she smiled.

"He is only a boy," she said to herself, "made old before his time. I shall go my own way in spite of him."

She went over to her father's chair, and sitting down by him, chatted brightly on various topics. Mr. St. Clair at first was inclined to be satirical, but Hope's persistent brightness soon interested him. She was delighted to find that, in spite of his rough colonial life, her father was a man of culture, who loved books; and he in his turn was surprised to find that his daughter's head was not exclusively filled with clothes and gaiety.

When Hope laid her head on her pillow that night, she was bravely resolved not only to make the best of her altered circumstances, but to improve them by any means that lay in her power, and she fell asleep with the cathedral chimes sounding in her ear.

The next day proved to be a very long and perplexing one to her.

She was called early by Anne, who informed her that the breakfast-hour was at eight o'clock, and when Hope, after a hasty toilette, descended the stairs, she met with calamity number one. Jerry, in pushing roughly against Anne, had made her drop a kettle of boiling water over him. Happily it was only his right arm that was badly scalded, but he was frantic with the pain, and refused to let any one see the extent of his hurt. Hope was at her wits' end. She managed to pull off his coat, but it was Anne who was equal to the occasion. She quickly went out to the kitchen, and in a minute had made a poultice of dough, which she clapped on the boy's arm in a peremptory fashion.

Toby looked on with great concern, then his eyes began to twinkle.

"I'm afraid we shall both have to take a holiday," he said; "you'll want me to look after you, Jerry, won't you?"

Jerry paused in his wry contortions of face to consider this aspect of affairs.

"I'm burnt to the bone," he cried, "and I hate you all fussing round me."

"There's master's bell," said Anne, "and I've got no hot water, and he'll be wanting of his breakfast, and I knows as how everything will all go wrong the 'ole livelong day now."

She dashed off to the kitchen with the empty kettle, leaving pools of water on the dining-room carpet. Hope went out to the kitchen to get a cloth, and for the first time in her life went down on her knees to wipe up the water. Then she established Jerry in an armchair and made him as comfortable as she could, after which she insisted upon Toby's coming to the table and having his breakfast.

"Of course you must go to school," she said, "and explain to your master what has happened, and why Jerry is at home. Does father always have his breakfast in his room?"

"Yes, since he has been ill; and it is fun to hear his bell keep ringing."

"And Brian goes off without having any breakfast?"

"Oh, he gets his where he goes," said Toby; "you needn't never bother about Brian. We have our breakfast in the kitchen with Anne, but now you've come, she's brought it in here, and is as flustered as an old turkey-cock."

Hope got some fresh hot water from the kitchen, made the tea, and gave the boys their breakfast, eating very little herself; the thick half-raw rashers of bacon did not induce hunger.

When Toby had departed, very reluctantly, for school, Hope went upstairs to see her father, who promptly handed her several business letters to answer. He did not seem disturbed at his small son's mishap.

"They're always doing something to themselves," he said.

"But had we not better have a doctor?" Hope asked. "It may want dressing; he seems in great pain."

Her father smiled.

"Well, you can dress it, I suppose. How would you like to live a hundred miles from any doctor, as we do out in the colonies? You soon learn to do things for yourself there. If you look in my bookcase over there, you will find a handbook of medicine and surgery, &c. That will tell you how to treat scalds. But don't you forget to answer those letters by return of post. They are important. My head is so bad this morning, I can't write a stroke. I've made the attempt and failed."

So Hope departed with her medical book and batch of correspondence, to find Anne waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

"If you please, miss, Mr. Brian 'e says to me that you would order the dinner, and the butcher 'e's waiting for orders."

Hope went out to the kitchen to inspect the larder and talk over housekeeping generally. In the middle of it, her father's bell rang violently, and there was a simultaneous outcry from Jerry in the dining-room.

She reached Jerry to find that he had left his armchair, and in endeavouring to reach, in a left-handed fashion, a fishing-rod of his father's that was over the mantelpiece, he had brought down two valuable China vases, and smashed them to atoms in the grate.

Mr. St. Clair wanted an alteration made in one of the letters he had told his daughter to write. Hope went from one to the other feeling half-dazed. The rest of her morning passed in struggling to unpack her belongings, keeping Jerry quiet and amused, dusting and tidying the rooms, and arranging some flowers which she picked from the garden.

Mr. St. Clair and Toby both appeared for the one o'clock dinner, and the former asked her if she could not superintend the cooking a little.

"Any woman ought to be able to cook," he asserted. "This girl is a disgrace to her sex."

"I will try to-morrow and see what I can do," said Hope bravely, but her heart sank within her.

The afternoon seemed to bring her endless small duties. She took her father out by the back gate into the buttercup meadows and along the river, and both enjoyed the quiet of it. Then she came home, to hear Toby rampaging through the house, shrieking out for some one to mend a huge hole which he had torn in his coat, and Jerry crying from pain and sheer dulness. She called the boys to her, sat down and mended Toby's jacket, while she told them a story from a humorous book she had in her travelling-trunk.

When Brian came back, he found the boys with clean hands and faces, the table full of bright flowers, and Hope with a very tired but smiling face.

She welcomed him with intense relief. He looked at Jerry's arm and knew exactly what to do with it, and when they sat down to tea, they were a cheerful little party. But Brian had keen eyes, and he was thoughtful beyond his years. He realised that his sister needed rest, and he made her take it out in the garden.

"Sit still with father and I will garden," he said, and Hope obeyed him.

Later on, she took counsel with him.

"I shall get into it, but to-day it seems to have been one long struggle to get things done, and Anne seems to me to have no method, and is a shocking cook; don't you think we might change for the better?"

"I should have thought she could be trained."

"Well, I will do my best. I suppose with a cookery-book, I ought to be able to give her some hints."

That evening when she went to bed, she opened her window and leant out of it, wondering with vague dismay whether she could possibly continue such a life. Her back ached, her feet ached, and her head ached, and she with difficulty suppressed her inclination to tears.

"I am just like an upper servant," she told herself. "A few more days like this will make me ill. And father thinks this is the kind of life for every woman! I think Brian is the only one who shows sympathy."

Then she took herself to task for her selfishness.

"I have been spoiled by luxury. It will do me all the good in the world. I have been wanting to be useful. Now, when I am given the chance, I grumble!"

She took out her Bible, and in her evening reading came to the words:

"'If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also
ought to wash one another's feet.

"'For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to
you.

"'Verily, verily, I say unto you: The servant is not greater than his
Lord, neither he that is sent greater than He that sent him.

"'If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.'"

And in thinking of her Master who stooped to such lowly service Himself, Hope's eyes glowed, and she began to catch a glimpse of the glorification of daily drudgery.