Linnets and Valerians Page 4

  They sat down under a flame-colored rhododendron and gazed, with the sun on their faces, and then they shut their eyes and listened. They could hear the voice of the little river as it tumbled over the stones in its shallow bed, the sheep bleating, the humming of the bees, but at first nothing else, and then suddenly there was the sound of a pony’s trotting feet and their eyes flew open. The little cart was coming down the hill at a brisk pace, Rob-Roy in fine fettle and the elderly gentleman apparently in fine fettle too for he was sitting very upright with a tall hat set

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  jauntily on his head, his whip held upright like a king’s scepter. As he rattled over the bridge they saw that he was swaying a little as though in time to music. Could he be singing? It didn’t seem possible that so terrible and statuesque a person could be doing such an unsuitable thing, yet as the cart disappeared from sight and slowed up on the hill they distinctly heard the strains of “The British Grenadiers” floating up to them. They jumped up and raced down to the arched door in the wall, pulled it open and ran down the steps to the stableyard as he drove in, Absolom at their heels. The moment the elderly gentleman had pulled Rob-Roy to a standstill they had surrounded him.

  “Ah,” he said, grimly surveying their eager anxious faces. “You slept well, I see. Breakfasted well also, I trust. I see no signs of fatigue or starvation on your grubby faces. Robert, look after your pony. You three, carry up the groceries. The luggage follows in the delivery cart.”

  He stalked up the steps to the garden door with his hands folded in the small of his back and the three followed. His back looked very grim, yet he had returned with a great many groceries, far more than he and Ezra would need, and peeping into one bag Nan saw that it was full of dog biscuits. And what did he mean by the luggage following in the delivery cart? As they went up through the garden the church clock struck one, a gong boomed inside the house and he said, “Ah! Luncheon! I breakfasted early. What’s for luncheon?”

  “Fried steak and onions and rhubarb pie,” said Nan.

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  “Ah/’ said the elderly gentleman. “There is in my pocket a package of peppermint lozenges for indigestion if the need for them should subsequently arise.”

  Ten minutes later they were all sitting around the table in the cool paneled dining room with steaming plates of steak and onions before them. Ezra, with a large apron tied over his shepherd’s smock, was serving spring greens and baked potatoes. Absolom was under the table with a dog biscuit. Hector was on top of the marble clock on the mantelpiece with a dead mouse. The dining room window looked out on the village street and the scent of the flowers that were growing in the garden of the cottage opposite came in warm gusts through the window. At first there was no conversation because everyone was too hungry, but presently Ezra asked, “Will the young ladies an’ gentlemen be stayin’ for tea?”

  “Use your intelligence, Ezra,” said the elderly gentleman severely. “Did you not take note of the muffins and strawberry jam I brought back from town? You know my personal abhorrence of muffins and strawberry jam.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Ezra and left the room with a broad grin on his face.

  “Ezra’s mental processes are always somewhat slow on the morning after an evening’s visit to the Wheatsheaf,” explained the elderly gentleman. “I trust you were not disturbed in the night? He has, I fear, this one regrettable failing. In all else he is the soul of rectitude.”

  The children laid down their knives and forks and gazed at the elderly gentleman in astonishment. A failing? Did he consider it a failing to sing and dance in

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  the moonlight? “It was grand in the night/’ said Timothy. “We sang and danced too. It was grand.”

  It was the elderly gentleman’s turn to be astonished. “You danced in the night?” he ejaculated. “What am I clasping to my bosom? Four young bacchanalians? It will be but a short period now before my gray hairs are brought with sorrow to the grave. It surprises me that your grandmother and the excellent Miss Bolt have survived so long. It does not surprise me that my suggestion of shouldering the burden in their place should have been received with such profound and touching gratitude. Never in my sixty-five years of mortal life have I seen my poor old mother so favorably impressed by a humble suggestion of my own. Ah, here comes Ezra with the rhubarb tart. Place it in front of Miss Nan, Ezra. If we are to have a mistress of this house, an infliction which by the mercy of God we have hitherto escaped, at least let her relieve us of some labor. What are you gaping at, Ezra? I should have thought the strong family likeness between Miss Betsy and myself would have informed you that these young people are my relatives. They are my nephews and nieces, the children of my youngest brother. They are to live with us for the present. I feel for you, Ezra. I feel for myself. This has come upon us for our sins. Nan, my dear, why are you crying? If there is one thing I dislike more than a child it’s a crying child, and let me tell you, my dear . . .”

  He got no further for, sobbing with joy, Nan had flung herself into his arms. Betsy followed, scrambling up onto his left knee, Nan being now settled on his right, held

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  within the curve of his right arm. For a few moments there was pandemonium, the boys cheering, Ezra laughing and stamping his wooden leg on the floor, Absolom barking and Hector hooting and flapping his wings.

  "That will do,” said the elderly gentleman sternly. “The rhubarb tart grows cold. I am partial to rhubarb tart. Nan, return to your duties. Betsy, get down. Boys, hold your tongues. Hector, hold your beak. Ezra, you may go. Down, Absolom.”

  In a moment order was restored and they were all eating rhubarb tart in a wonderful golden silence, one of those musical silences rich with the chiming of unheard bells and the ring of silent laughter. When the tart was finished the elderly gentleman, now so marvelously transformed into Uncle Ambrose, got up and said, "Your joy, children, had been premature. I intend to impose conditions upon your sojourn with me. You will keep them or go to your Uncle Edgar, who lives in Birmingham and will dislike you even more than I do myself. Come into my study.”

  He left the room with Hector on his shoulder and they followed him gravely but with their joy no whit diminished. They were prepared to fulfill any conditions and they knew very well that Uncle Ambrose did not dislike them. Does a man buy muffins and strawberry jam for those whom he dislikes? In the study Uncle Ambrose stood with his back to the fire and motioned the children to sit down. He looked very awe-inspiring, he was so tall, and Hector on his shoulder made him look taller than

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  ever for Hector had a way of elongating himself when he wanted to look alarming. By stretching he could add five inches to his height and when he did this on Uncle Ambrose’s shoulder the feathers on the top of his head nearly touched the ceiling.

  “It appears,” said Uncle Ambrose, “that you children wish to live with me. Why, I cannot imagine. It also appears that I am willing that you should do so, and that not only to relieve my poor old mother of the exhaustion of your society. I must tell you that I have a devouring passion, not for children themselves, for I abominate children, but for educating them. For thirty years I educated boys. When I retired from my labors I had caned more boys into bishoprics and the Cabinet, and into the law, than any headmaster living. My boys lived to bless me for their sore backsides and I’ve lived to miss them. Yes, I’ve missed my boys these last five years. You live with your Uncle Ambrose only on condition that he educates you. Is that understood?”

  Nan replied steadily, “You can do what you like with us so long as you let us stay with you and each other and Absolom. Grandmama was going to send me and Robert to boarding school, and give Absolom away because of fleas, and that’s partly why we ran away. We have to stay with each other.”

  “Nan to boarding school?” ejaculated
Uncle Ambrose. “By Hector, no! I don’t hold with boarding schools for girls. Home’s the place for girls, though they should have a classical education there. I have always maintained that women would not be the feather-headed fools they are

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  were they given a classical education from earliest infancy.” He shot out a finger at Betsy. “Can she read?”

  “No,” said Nan.

  “What’s her age?”

  “Six,” said Nan.

  “Six and not read? I could read Homer at four. She’ll read him by eight. As for you, Robert, the excellent Miss Bolt tells me that you can read and write but no more. Do you suppose I will send you to boarding school to bring shame upon the name of Linnet until I have given you a thorough grounding in at least the rudiments of a gentlemanly education? I shall not. Now, children, which is it to be? Education or your Uncle Edgar at Birmingham?”

  They replied in unison, “Education,” but they all looked a little pale and Timothy inquired in a brave but slightly wavering voice, “For how long every day are we to be educated?”

  “Nine till one,” said Uncle Ambrose promptly.

  “Not nine till one for Betsy?” asked Nan.

  “Certainly. Why not? She shall have milk and a ginger cookie at eleven.”

  “Will there be homework?” asked Robert, and he looked a bit miserable for he hated learning anything.

  “For yourself and Nan, yes. It will be of an hour’s duration, six P.M. until seven P.M., and will take place under my personal supervision, and if you do not come home in time for it you will go supperless to bed. For the rest of each day you will be free to go where you like and

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  do what you like. Only don’t disturb me for in the intervals between my parish duties I am writing a book, a study of the Dialogues of Plato, and if you don’t know who he is you soon will. Your education will start tomorrow at nine sharp. Now we will each have a peppermint lozenge.”

  Inserting finger and thumb into a waistcoat pocket he produced a white package and handed it around. The peppermints were good but a bit on the strong side and Absolom’s eyes watered before he could get his down. Hector did not try to swallow his. He said “Hick,” and sent it to the top of the grandfather clock.

  “I shall now take a short nap,” said Uncle Ambrose. “Tea is at five with muffins and strawberry jam. You may come to meals or not, just as you please, but if you do not come to meals you will go without them. Be off with you.”

  They made off immediately. Nan, the last out, looked back as she closed the door. Uncle Ambrose had already made himself comfortable in the biggest armchair and spread his large white silk handkerchief over his head. Hector had perched on the back of the chair and as Nan watched he slowly sank down and down into himself, his head sinking into his shoulders until he was nothing but a large round ball of feathers with two great eyes glaring out of it. Then one eye closed but the other stayed open and winked at her. Then that closed too and Nan went out and shut the door softly behind her.

  3

  Emma Cobleys Stop

  “Today we will be back for tea,” said Robert as he opened the front door. “Do you suppose there’ll be muffins every day?”

  No one answered him for the front door had opened on a new marvel, the porch with four stone steps leading down from it to the village street. It was a stone porch, deep and cool with seats on either side. They sat down instantly, two a side with Absolom between them, looked at each other happily and swung their legs. “Free to go where you like and do what you like.” Such a thing had never been said to them before. If a slight chill had touched their hearts as the thought of being classically educated it had been dispersed by that superb sentence. Wonderful adventures shone ahead.

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  EMMA COBLEY’s SHOP 55

  “Not far today/’ said Timothy, “because of the muffins.”

  “A reconnaissance today,” said Robert. “Exploration of the terrain.” He was rather fond of using long words picked up from his soldier father. He always hoped the younger children would ask him what he meant but they never did. They were not interested in self-improvement nor for that matter was Robert. It was just that he liked to feel grand. “Come on.”

  They got up and climbed down the steps to the road. The door of the cottage opposite was open and just within it a very old man sat on a Windsor chair smoking a pipe. They smiled at him and he smiled at them and then they went on up the hill to the village green at the top. It was pocket-handkerchief size and had cottages grouped about it. One was an inn, the Bulldog, with a swinging sign of a fierce brindled creature, another had a mailbox outside it and a window filled with bootlaces, bottles of boiled sweets, cakes of soap, birdseed, picture postcards, hairpins, onions and a black cat asleep. Over the low green door beside the window was a sign on which was painted EMMA COBLEY, POST OFFICE AND GENERAL STORES. Also opening onto the village green was the lych- gate of the church and beyond it the churchyard.

  From the green a lane led away uphill under arching trees and disappeared into a wood that looked vast as a forest in a picture. Rising high into the sky above the wood was the great hill with the outcrop of rock on top,

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  like a castle, and below it the rock like a lion keeping guard, that they had seen last night. The Bulldog was on one side of this lane and the angle of the other was formed by stone walls with tall iron gates facing toward the green. Within the gates a moss-grown drive disappeared into a dark mass of evergreens. There were pillars on each side of the gates with stone lions on top of the pillars and sitting on top of one of the lions was a monkey, who chattered at them angrily. Apart from the monkey there was no one about.

  Robert summed it up. “There’s the shop, the Bulldog, that wood, the hill with the rocks on top and whatever is inside those gates. Where shall we go first?”

  “I want some sweets,” said Betsy.

  “The shop, then,” said Robert. “Has anyone any money? You have, Timothy. You have the penny Hector hicked out.”

  “And you have sixpence,” said Timothy. “The sixpence you were saving up to get a pony. You don’t want it now you’ve got Rob-Roy.”

  “I might want it for something else,” said Robert. “Don’t be horrid, Robert,” said Nan. “You’re the elder. You pay this time and Tim next time. We shall need all you have for we must get a stamp and a postcard as well as sweets. I think it would be nice to send a postcard to Grandmama. I think perhaps we behaved badly when we were with her. We didn’t see it at the time but I think perhaps we did. I’d like to send her a postcard.”

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  Robert capitulated willingly for he didn’t want to be horrid. “All right,” he said. “The shop. But it won’t be much of an adventure.”

  He was wrong. Little did they know as they approached Emma Cobley’s low green door what her acquaintance was eventually to lead to. They got inside the shop with difficulty for when they knocked nothing happened, and when they turned the handle and pushed the door nothing happened either. Then suddenly it gave way and to the furious jangling of a little bell fastened to it inside they fell into a warm stuffy darkness strongly scented with soap and onions, and a great many other smells that could not be identified in the confusion of the moment. Then came a most dreadful sound, a noise of snarling hate that froze their blood in horror, and something leapt at them out of the darkness. It was as big as a calf and Absolom barked madly and Betsy screamed.

  “I’ve got it,” panted Robert, on the floor with his hands gripping a furry throat that seemed to sink in and in under his fingers.

  “So have I,” gasped Timothy, gripping a long ropelike tail. And then he yelled, for the creature had suddenly got free and was on his chest, thrusting sharp talons right through his sailor suit into his skin and gazing down into his face out of
terrible blazing yellow eyes.

  “It’s the cat,” said Nan suddenly. “Don’t yell, Timothy, it’s only the cat.” Bending over Timothy, she picked the cat up in her arms and suddenly he went

  all soft and purry and everyone’s curdled blood began to run freely in their veins again. “He was asleep and we frightened him. Poor cat. Don’t growl, Absolom.”

  “He may be a cat now,” said Timothy morosely, for he had a lump coming up on the back of his head where it had hit the floor when the cat attacked him, “but he wasn’t when he jumped at me. He was as big as a tiger.” “Don’t be a fool, Tim,” said Robert, and he said it all the more crossly because he was inclined to think that Timothy was right. He felt quite sure that his hands had not met around that great throat.

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  “Well, he’s a cat now,” said Nan, as she put him back in the window. “And this is a shop and we’ve come to buy sweets, a stamp and a postcard for Grandmama.”

  “There’s no one to buy them from,” said Robert.

  “Yes there is,” said Timothy suddenly. “Look.”

  They all swung around and their hearts were beating almost as hard as when the cat had jumped at them. When they had first fallen into the shop the darkness, after the sunlight outside, had seemed complete, but now that their eyes were growing accustomed to the dim light they could see that the small low-ceilinged room had a counter piled high with boxes and bags full of every conceivable thing, and shelves all around the walls crowded with rows of bottles, and more boxes. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling and in the far corner behind the counter, perched on a high stool, was a little old woman knitting a red woolen muffler. Ab- solom, who was thoroughly upset, growled at her but she took no notice.