Jasper

“What did you say?” asked Leila, as if awaking from a dream. “Oh yes – you wouldn’t think I was only a year and a half older than she is, would you?”

“No indeed, Miss,” was the reply in an awe-struck tone, and again Leila sighed and retreated to her self-chosen character of unappreciated heroine.

It was rather provoking, though entirely her own fault, that, in spite of her prompt getting up and irreproachable behaviour, she was not down early. For only when her little brother tapped at the door did she again glance at the clock, and started to see that it was already twenty-five minutes to nine.

“Lelly, Lelly, Mumsey’s sent me for you. We’re all down ’cept you.”

Leila opened the door.

“Oh dear, it’s too bad!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been ready ever so long. I got up ages before Chrissie.”

“Never mind, poor Lelly,” said Jasper consolingly. “You’se not really late. Nobody’s vexed wif you. And you do look so neat,” he went on admiringly, as hand-in-hand they hastened downstairs. “Chrissie seems all – all in a muddle,” he added anxiously. “I saw Daddy lookin’ at her rather funnily, though he didn’t say nothin’.”

“It’s her own fault. I shan’t be sorry for her if she gets scolded,” said Leila. “She only hurried down to be before me.”

And when she caught sight of her sister at table, she really felt surprised that her father’s annoyance had been only shown by “funny” looks. Christabel – except that, thanks to Harriet, her hair was fairly tidy – might have passed for a well-to-do scarecrow. Her collar was all on one side, her blouse buttoned crookedly, her face far from clean – her hands and nails – but perhaps it is better not to enter into particulars as to these! She seemed quite pleased with herself, however, and mixed in the conversation even more than was called for.

“It is going to be a very wet day, I fear. It is such a pity. I had so hoped it would be bright and clear,” said Mrs Fortescue.

“Why do you mind, Mumsey?” asked Christabel. “It’s hotter than if it had been yesterday and we’d had to paddle to church in the rain. I think it’s much the worst for us now when it’s wet – with nowhere proper to play in.”

“Your mother was not asking your opinion,” said Mr Fortescue drily, and Chrissie’s face darkened. She hated being “snubbed” more, I think, than anything else in the world, but no one took any notice of her annoyance, and her father went on speaking to her mother as if there had been no interruption.

“You must not think of coming to the station,” he said. “You would probably catch cold, for – ” and for once, poor man, he sighed a little, “you would come in an omnibus, I am sure, and on a day like this you might have to wait some time to get a seat. Much better stay quietly at home, and have everything ready and comfortable for her when she arrives.” He hesitated a little. He was on the point of adding a word or two, almost of appeal, to the two girls, but Christabel’s cross expression and Leila’s air of dreamy self absorption were not encouraging.

“Very well, then,” Mrs Fortescue replied, though with evident regret. “Perhaps you are wiser about it. Then we may expect you about – when – four o’clock?”

“Yes, or a little later,” was the reply, as Mr Fortescue rose to go, Roland having already hurried off.

“And mayn’t I help you, Mumsey?” whispered Jasper, edging up to his mother. “If only there was some flowers in the garden to put in her room!”

“Perhaps she will bring – ” Mrs Fortescue was beginning, when Chrissie interrupted.

“What are you talking about, Japs?” she said pertly. “Flowers – in the middle of winter, even if there was a garden, which there isn’t. What does he want them for, Mums?”

Her mother looked at her in silence for a moment. She had stood up and was holding Jasper’s hand tightly in her own, almost as if the touch of it strengthened and cheered her. Then she said quietly —

“You cannot have forgotten surely, or if you have you should not have done so, that Aunt Margaret is expected to-day, and naturally we want to make her coming to us – the only home she has now – as bright and happy as possible.” Christabel tossed her head. “I was going to say, Japs dear,” she added to the child, “that very likely there will be some flowers from the Fareham conservatories. The last we can have! But it will be nice if there are.”

“Mayn’t we have some in our room?” asked Leila suddenly. The word “flowers coming” had caught her ears, though she had heard nothing else.

“I cannot say till I see what there are,” replied Mrs Fortescue, and Leila relapsed into silence, and turning to the window, stood gazing out at the rainswept street.

“Even a few flowers grudged me,” she thought. “I wish I hadn’t asked for them,” and indeed the doing so had been an impulse not at all of a piece with her attitude of “suffering saint.”

“Chrissie,” Mrs Fortescue began again, “did you look at yourself in the glass before you came down? you had better do so now. You are inexcusably untidy.”

“Am I?” said Christabel airily. “Well, yes, my collar’s crooked, I feel.” She gave a tug to it, but in the wrong direction, which did not improve matters. “It was all.”

“You’re not to say I had anything to do with it, or you, this morning,” snapped out Leila.

“Hush,” said their mother. “Go upstairs, Christabel, and dress yourself properly, and above all, wash your face and hands carefully.”

“I did wash them – at least I think I did, after I got out of my bath,” Chrissie replied. “They can’t have been very bad or Dads would have noticed them.”

“I am quite sure he did, but we did not want another breakfast upset by you children, like yesterday,” said Mrs Fortescue. “Go now and do as I have told you,” and Chrissie went off, pretending to whistle. “Leila,” she continued, “what are you intending to do this morning?”

“Mayn’t I have my book back?” asked Leila, “I did get up early.”

“It is in the drawing-room,” her mother replied. “Yes, you may have it, but in the first place I want you and Chrissie to help a little in the house. I am thinking of leaving the dusting of the drawing-room every morning to you, if you will be very careful with the ornaments. Harriet sweeps and brushes and does the fire of course, early, but the dusting takes time, and she is very busy in the mornings.” Leila stared.

“Us dust – like housemaids,” she said, and a sharp pang of disappointment went through her mother, for she had really expected that the little girls would have felt interest, and even pride, in taking upon them the charge she proposed – a far from difficult or disagreeable one.

Leila, not observing her mother’s change of expression, went on coolly.

“What’s the hurry with the drawing-room?” she said. “The fire’s not to be lighted first thing, I suppose. Harriet can surely dust it before the middle of the day.”

“No,” replied Mrs Fortescue, “I do not think she can. Certainly she could not do it properly. At your age I should have been very proud of being trusted with a little work of the kind; besides – ”

“I daresay, Mummy, you were an angelic child, and certainly neither Chrissie nor I pretend to be anything of the sort; it seems to me that fathers and mothers always were pieces of perfection by what one hears them say of themselves.”

Her words were almost impertinent, but her tone sounded as if she were half in fun, so her mother took no notice of the interruption: “besides,” she went on, “the drawing-room from now must be ready early for Aunt Margaret. She must have all the comfort we can give her.”

“Aunt Margaret,” repeated Leila, opening her eyes very wide. “But it’s not fixed about her coming, is it?”

Then Mrs Fortescue’s patience began to give way.

“Leila, you are too bad,” she exclaimed. “What have you been thinking of all this time? You heard your father talking of going to the station? You yourself asked if you could have some of the flowers? You must have understood that Aunt Margaret is coming to-day – this afternoon.”

Leila looked rather foolish.

“To-day,” she repeated lamely. “I – well, yes, I remember about the flowers, but I thought they were being sent up from Fareham as usual.”

Perhaps for peace’ sake it was as well that just then Harriet came in to clear the breakfast-table, and Mrs Fortescue hurried off to her morning interview with Susan in the kitchen, leaving Leila still staring out of the window. But the clatter and bustle of Harriet’s rather clumsy movements fidgeted her. She turned to the door and made her way slowly into the drawing-room.

“I may as well get my book,” she said to herself, though I hope that in her heart there was some faint intention of fulfilling the task her mother had spoken of. Arrived in the drawing-room, she stood still and looked round her.

“So this, the only decent room in the house, is to be given up to Aunt Margaret,” she thought, “and we’re to be her servants! Well – it’s all of a piece: but Chrissie won’t stand it, and it will all fall upon me, no doubt, like everything else disagreeable. Yes I would far, far rather be a governess, or even what they call a pupil-teacher, in a school, than be treated like a servant in my own home. If only I were a little older.”

Then her eyes fell on her book. She took it up and sat down, fingering the pages.

“I can’t dust without a towel or a cloth or whatever they call it, and I don’t know where to get one. I may as well read till Chrissie comes down,” and in two moments she was lost to everything outside her story.

Luckily, however, as she probably would have caught cold from sitting still in a fireless room where the window was still slightly open at the top, and the door, of course, ajar – luckily, she was not long left in peace. A clatter and dash down the staircase, and Christabel’s voice —

“Where are you, Lell? Answer, can’t you?” as she dived in and out of the dining-room, without finding her sister. “Oh, there you are! You can’t be hidden for long in this cupboard of a house.”

Her good-humour seemed restored, and as Leila, unwillingly enough, glanced up in response to this summons, she saw that Christabel, if not very tidy as yet, still looked better than at the breakfast-table.

“What are you doing? Oh, reading of course. I say, it’s freezing in here. Don’t you see the window’s half open and there’s no fire. Why don’t you stay in the dining-room? There’s no one there,” Chrissie went on.

“Mother will be coming there directly, and I don’t want her to see me just now,” said Leila. “Chrissie,” she went on, feeling too much in need of sympathy to keep up her rôle of solitary martyrdom. “Chrissie, what do you think Mummy’s just been telling me? Shut the window, can’t you, if you don’t like it open. I’m sure I don’t care whether it’s open or shut – I’m far too miserable;” and Chrissie, her curiosity aroused, for once obeyed without a murmur, and then turned eagerly to Leila.

“What?” she asked, “are we to be sent to school?”

Leila shrugged her shoulders.

“I only wish it was that,” she said. “No – of course they’d say a good school would cost too much, and they couldn’t send us to a common one. No, it’s nothing about lessons. I daresay we shan’t be taught any more – it doesn’t seem as if we’d need to be! No – it’s this – you and I are to be housemaids!”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Christabel, “you are talking nonsense.”

Leila explained, but to her chagrin she did not meet with the sympathy she expected. On the contrary, Christabel’s eyes sparkled.

“Dusting the drawing-room,” she repeated. “Oh, I don’t mind that. It will be fun. I shall like it, at least,” she added candidly, “till I yet tired of it. I’d much rather do it than tidy up our own room.”

“You may be quite sure you’ll have to do both,” said Leila gloomily, “and you’d better not talk about getting tired of it.”

“Well, any way, I’m quite ready to begin at once,” said Chrissie. “Where are the things – dusters – and soft brushes – feather brushes; I’ve seen them using them for china ornaments, haven’t I?”

“I don’t know,” groaned Leila, without moving; and with a contemptuous “you are a lazy idiot,” Chrissie darted off. But she was brought to a sudden standstill in the doorway by running against Jasper, who was making his way in, carrying some cloths, and one or two brushes, among them a feather one, which he evidently much admired, as he held it aloft. It was of several colours.

“Isn’t it pretty?” he said. “It’s to stay in the droind-room, Mumsey says, just to be used a werry little – for the bestest orniments, I s’pose. But here’s another one, and lots of dustiners for us all.”

“Dusters, you silly,” corrected Chrissie, “but, they’re for Lell and me, Japs. You can’t dust.”

“Mumsey says I might ’elp,” he exclaimed, for his “h’s,” like those of all young children, still sometimes deserted him, when he was very eager. “I’ll be werry careful – Mums said I might do the tiny iv’ry figures – what Dads brought from Inja, you know,” and he pointed to some curious and valuable little carvings, which Mr Fortescue had not found it in his heart to part with.

Chrissie glanced at them.

“Well, you couldn’t very easily break those, I suppose,” she said. “Give me a duster: and Lell, wake up, can’t you?”

Leila slowly rose and looked about her. There was really not very much fear of the amateur housemaids doing any damage, for Mrs Fortescue had taken care to place the few ornaments of value in a glazed cabinet, and only left out several pretty but not very rare or irreplaceable things, just to give the room a bright and homelike look. And one side-table was left quite bare.

“We must put some things – books any way,” – said Leila, “on that table – it looks so silly with nothing at all;” and she was on the point of doing so, for, in spite of herself, she was beginning to enter into the spirit of their new occupation a little, when Jasper stopped her.

“That table’s to be for Aunt Margaret,” he said. “She’ll keep her books and things there. And there’s a nice deep drawer – that goes down quite low, you see,” he opened it as he spoke, “for her work, Mums says.”

“How do you know about it?” asked his sisters, rather sharply. “You are such a prig,” added Chrissie.

“Mumsey showed it me when we was settlin’ about the dustin’ this mornin’,” he replied calmly.

Leila and Chrissie looked at each other.

“Really,” said the former, though in a low voice, “I do think mother should talk to us about what she is going to make us do before she discusses it all with a baby like Jasper.”

Christabel did not at once answer. She was less of a self-deceiver than Leila, and she knew that neither she nor her sister had behaved in such a way as to let it be easy or pleasant for their mother to consult them about the new state of things.

“I don’t suppose she said much to him,” she replied, “and he’s not a bit a tell-tale – he never makes mischief. He’s really a good little fellow – much better than we were at his age, or than – ”

“Speak for yourself, if you please,” interrupted Leila crossly. She had a very shrewd suspicion what the end of the sentence was going to be and she did not want to hear it.

Christabel set to work in her usual energetic way. Jasper had already been at his corner steadily for some minutes. He rubbed at the chairs as if they were ponies that he was grooming, calling out to his sisters to look how he had made the wood shine, and seeing him, and Chrissie too, so active, Leila caught the infection, and being the tallest of the three, took the mantelpiece ornaments as her special department, and found to her surprise that she really enjoyed “housemaiding.”

So that the dusting proved quite a success, and when Mrs Fortescue, having given her orders downstairs and seen to the last arrangements for their expected guest upstairs, glanced in, to see what they were all about, she was pleased and surprised to hear cheerful voices and to be met by bright faces.

“We’ve done it, Mummy – all, splendidly. I don’t believe you could find a speck of dust if you looked for it with a microscope,” cried Chrissie.

“That’s very nice – very nice indeed,” replied her mother. “I hope you haven’t felt cold. From now, the fire will always be lighted early, and you can come straight in here immediately after breakfast.”

“Or before,” said Chrissie, with overflowing zeal. “I’m not afraid of cold – when you’re bustling about you never feel it.”

“Well,” said her mother, smiling, “if Harriet gets her part done early, you may certainly follow her as soon as you like.”

“You may safely say so to Chrissie,” said Leila. “I think it’s better to promise less and keep to what you undertake. I don’t see that I can do my part any earlier, and you know, Mummy, Chrissie tires of everything much quicker than I do.”

“Then you must keep her up to the mark,” said Mrs Fortescue. “With enthusiasm in one and steadiness in the other, things should go on very well, I think,” and this pleasant little speech was fortunately in time to stop a burst of indignation from Chrissie.

“And I’ll always make the chairs shine, Mummy. I’ll never forget,” said Jasper.

“I’m sure you won’t, my boy,” replied his mother.

But as she was just leaving the room as she spoke, it is to be hoped she did not hear Leila’s muttered —

“Spoilt little prig that he is – ”