Читать книгу: «Hoodie», страница 4

CHAPTER IV.
MAUDIE'S GODMOTHER

 
"If you'd have children safe abroad,
Just keep them safe at home."
 

They were all standing at the door – Maudie, Hec and Duke, that is to say, and mother in the background, and farther back still, half the servants of the household. But Hoodie marched in demurely by Martin's side – nay, more, she had taken hold of Martin's hand. And when Mrs. Caryll came forward hurriedly to meet them, of the two, Martin looked much the more upset and uncomfortable.

"You have brought her back safe and sound, Martin!" exclaimed Hoodie's mother. "Oh, Hoodie, what a fright you have given us! What was she doing? How was it, Martin?"

Martin hesitated.

"If you please, ma'am," she said, "I think I'd rather tell you all about it afterwards. It's not late, but Miss Hoodie must be tired. Won't it be as well, ma'am, for her to go to bed at once?"

Mrs. Caryll understood Martin's manner.

"Yes," she said. "I think it will. Say good night to me, Hoodie, and to Maudie and your brothers. And to-morrow morning you must come early to my room. I want to talk to you."

Hoodie looked up curiously in her mother's face. Was she vexed, or sorry, or what? Hoodie could not decide.

"Good night, mother," she said, quietly. "Good night, Hec and Duke and Maudie," and she coolly turned away, and followed Martin up-stairs.

The three other children crept round their mother. She looked pale and troubled.

"Mamma," said one of the little boys, "has Hoodie been naughty? Aren't you glad she's come home?"

Mrs. Caryll stroked his head.

"Yes, dear," she said. "Of course I'm glad, very glad. But it wasn't good of her to frighten us all so, and I must make her understand that."

"Of course," said Maudie, virtuously. "You don't understand, Hec."

"But if we had all kissened Hoodie, she'd have known we were glad she had comed back," said Hec, still with a tone of being only half satisfied.

A shadow crossed Mrs. Caryll's face. Was her little son's instinct right?

"Shall us all go and kissen her now?" suggested Duke in a whisper to Maudie.

"No, of course not," replied Magdalen. "You're too little to understand, and you're teasing poor mamma. Come with me and we'll play at something in the study till Martin comes for you. Don't be unhappy, dear mamma," she added, turning to kiss her mother. "I am sure Hoodie didn't mean to vex you, only she is so strange."

That was just it – Hoodie was so strange, so self-willed, and yet babyish, so heartless, and yet so impressionable. A sharp word or tone even would make her cry, and she was sensitive to even less than that, yet seemingly quite careless of the trouble and distress she caused to others.

"My good little Maudie," said Mrs. Caryll, "why should not Hoodie too be a good and understandable little girl?" she added to herself.

And what were the thoughts in Hoodie's queer little brain; what were the feelings in her queer little heart, when Martin had safely tucked her into her own nice little cot, and, rather shortly, bidden her lie quite still and not disturb her brothers when they came up to bed?

"I wish I had stayed with little baby's mother," she said to herself. "Nobody was glad for me to come home. They is all ugly 'sings. Nobody kissened me. If it wasn't for zat ugly man I'd go back there, I would, whatever Martin said."

"I really think sometimes that there's something wanting in her nature," said Hoodie's mother, sadly, that same evening. She had been listening to Martin's account of the meeting at the cottage, and was now telling over the whole affair in the drawing-room, for Mr. Caryll had only returned home late that evening, as he had been some way by train to meet a visitor who was coming to stay for a time at his house. This was a cousin of his wife's, a young lady named Magdalen King, who occupied the important position of Maudie's godmother. It was some years since Cousin Magdalen had seen the children, but she had so often received descriptions of them from their mother that she seemed to know them quite well. She listened with great interest to the account of Hoodie's escapade.

"She must be a strange little girl," she remarked, quietly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Caryll, "so strange that, as I said, I really think sometimes there is something wanting in her nature."

"Or unawakened," said Magdalen. "I don't pretend to understand children well – you know I was an only child – but still a little child's nature cannot be very easy to understand at the best of times. It must be so folded up, as it were, like a little half-opened bud. And then children's power of expressing themselves is so small – they must often feel themselves misunderstood and yet not know how to say even that. And oh, dear, what a puzzle life and the world and everything must seem to them!"

"Not to them only, my dear Magdalen," said Mr. Caryll, drily.

"And," said Mrs. Caryll, "it really isn't always the case that children are difficult to understand. None of ours are but Hoodie. There's Maudie now – she has always been a delicious child, and the little boys are very nice, except when Hoodie upsets them. But for her, as she is constantly told, there never would be the least ruffle in the nursery."

"But does it do any good to tell her so?" said Miss King.

Hoodie's mother smiled, "My dear Magdalen," she said, "wait till you see her. What would do her any good no one as yet has found out. She is just the most contradictory, queer-tempered, troublesome child that ever was known."

"Poor little girl," said Maudie's godmother, thinking to herself that a little dog with such a very bad name as Hoodie was really not to be envied. She loved her own god-daughter Maudie dearly, and she knew it to be true that she was a very nice child, but her heart was sore for poor cantankerous Hoodie. You see her patience had not yet been tried by her as had been the patience of all those about the little girl, so after all she could not consider herself a fair judge.

And her first introduction to the small black sheep of the nursery did not, it must be confessed, tend to prove that Hoodie's doings and misdoings were exaggerated.

This was how it happened.

Maudie's godmother was generally an early riser, but this first morning she somehow – tired perhaps with her journey – slept later than usual. She was not quite dressed, at least her pretty curly brown hair was still hanging about her shoulders, when a knock – a lot of little knocks, and then one rather firmer and more decided – came to the door, and in answer to her "Come in," appeared Martin, an old acquaintance of hers, beaming with pleasure, and ushering in her little people, all spick and span from their morning toilet, looking not unlike four rather shy little sheep under the charge of a faithful "colly."

But when Martin caught sight of the young lady in her white dressing-gown and unarranged hair, she drew back.

"Oh, ma'am, I beg your pardon," she said. "My mistress said I might bring them in to see you first thing, as you were always dressed so early, but I can take them back to the nursery till you are ready. They've been worrying to come to you for ever so long."

"And you were quite right to bring them," said Cousin Magdalen, heartily. "Come now, darlings, and let us make friends. I can tell Maudie and Hoodie in a moment of course, but I'm quite in a puzzle as to which is Hec and which Duke."

"I'm Hec," and "I'm Duke," said the two little boys shyly, nestling up to their new friend as they spoke. She kissed them fondly.

"Dear little fellows!" she said.

"Yes, Cousin Magdalen, aren't they dear little boys? And will you please kiss me too?" said Maudie, in her pretty soft voice.

Magdalen put her arm round her as she did so.

"And Hoodie?" she said. "I must have a kiss from Hoodie too, mustn't I?"

Hoodie stood stock still.

"Come now, Miss Hoodie," whispered poor Martin. All the time she had been dressing the child she had been telling her how good she was to be to Cousin Magdalen, and hinting that perhaps if she behaved very nicely it would help to make them all forget the trouble she had caused the day before. But, alas! with what result?

Hoodie stood stock still!

Magdalen put out her hand and tried to draw the child to her.

"You have plenty of kisses on that rosy mouth of yours, Hoodie," she said. "Won't you spare me one?"

Hoodie screwed up her lips tighter than before; that was the only sign she gave of hearing what was said to her.

"Oh, Hoodie," said Maudie, reproachfully.

Hoodie turned upon her with a glance of supreme contempt.

"You can kissen her," she said; "she's yours, she's not mine. I don't want to kissen her."

Cousin Magdalen looked at Maudie for explanation.

"What does she mean?" she said.

Maudie and Martin looked greatly distressed.

"Oh," said Maudie, "it's only about your being my godmother and not hers. We were speaking about it in the nursery, and she said nobody ever gave her anything – like me having you, you know, Cousin Magdalen – and she was vexed, you know," she added in a lower voice, "because she couldn't find our grandmother's cottage yesterday."

"Yes," said Cousin Magdalen, "I know. But, Hoodie dear, you have a godmother and a very nice one, as well as a grandmother."

"They're none use having," muttered Hoodie. "I never see them."

"But some day you will. And besides, even though I'm Maudie's godmother, can't I love you too?"

"No," said Hoodie bluntly.

"And won't you kiss me?"

"No," said Hoodie again. "I don't like you. I don't like your hairs. They is ugly, hanging down like that. I don't want to kiss you."

And she turned her back on Cousin Magdalen, and marched quietly to the door.

Martin began some apologies, but Miss King stopped her.

"Never mind, Martin," she said. "It really doesn't matter. She will get to know me better in a little."

But all the same, Cousin Magdalen, being, though very amiable and sensible, only human, did feel hurt by the little girl's rude repulse. It is never pleasant to be repulsed by any one; it is, I think, to even right-feeling people, particularly hurting to be repulsed by a child. And then Magdalen had been thinking a great deal about this poor little Hoodie that nobody seemed able to manage, and planning to herself various little ways by which she hoped to win her confidence, and thus perhaps be of real service to the child, and through her to her mother.

"And now," she said to herself, "she has evidently taken a prejudice to me at first sight. What a pity! Yet," she added, as she brushed out and arranged the long thick brown hair which Hoodie had objected to, "she is only a baby. Perhaps she will like me better when my hair is fastened up. I must try her again."

The other three children had stayed in their cousin's room – Martin having flown after Hoodie, whom she was now afraid to trust for a moment out of her sight – and while she finished dressing they chattered away in their own fashion.

"Poor mamma's dot one headache zis morning," said Hec.

"Yes," said Duke, "papa comed to the nursley to say Hoodie wasn't to go to be talkened to, 'cos it would make poor mamma's headache worser."

"Won't nobody talken to Hoodie zen?" said Hec.

"Don't be silly, Hec dear," said Maudie, "of course mamma mustn't talk to her when her head's bad. Papa said to Martin that she must not let Hoodie out of her sight, but that he couldn't have mamma bothered about it any more, and that it would be better to drop the subject. What does it mean to 'drop the subject,' Cousin Magdalen? I thought perhaps it meant to put down the lowest bar on the gate at the end of the garden, where Hoodie sometimes creeps through to the cocky field. Could it be that?"

"No," said Magdalen, turning away so as to hide her face, "it just means not to say any more about Hoodie's running away yesterday, because it has troubled your mother so much."

"Of course," said Maudie. "It is all that that has given her a headache. It is nearly always Hoodie that gives her headaches. I wonder how she can."

"But, Maudie dear," said her godmother very gently, "do you think it is quite kind of you to speak so? It is right to be sorry when Hoodie is naughty, but remember how much younger she is than you. And she does not want to make your mother ill – when she is naughty she just forgets all but the feelings she has herself, but that is different from wishing to hurt her mother."

Maudie grew very red.

"Yes," she said in a low voice, "I see how you mean, Cousin Magdalen. I don't want to say unkind things of Hoodie."

"No, dear. I don't think you do," said her godmother. "Tell me why do you call that field 'the cocky field'?"

Maudie laughed.

"Oh, it's because in one corner of it there's the little house papa's made for the bantam cocks. Oh, Cousin Magdalen, they are such ducks."

"Such ducks," echoed Hec and Duke. "And they lay such lovely eggs."

"What remarkable creatures they must be," said Miss King. "But I must own I don't quite see how they can be ducks if they're cocks and hens."

All the children laughed.

"They isn't zeally ducks," explained matter-of-fact Duke, condescendingly. "But, you see, we calls zem ducks 'cos zey is so nice and pretty."

"Ah yes, I see," said Cousin Magdalen, gravely. "So perhaps when you know me better, if you think me very nice, you'll call me a duck. Will you, Duke? Even though really, you know, I'm an old woman."

"Yes," said Duke, "p'raps I will. But I didn't know zou was a old woman."

"Didn't you, you dear old man?" said his cousin, laughing. "Never mind, you may call me 'a old duck,' if you like. And after breakfast will you take me to see these wonderful bantams – that's to say if you're allowed to go there."

"Oh yes," said Maudie. "We may go whenever we like. They're so tame – indeed, they're too tame, papa says, and that was why he made them a place further away from the house than they used to be. They used to come and hop about all the rooms, and once they laid an egg on one of the library arm-chairs, and another time in papa's paper basket. They thought that was a lovely nest."

"And are they better behaved now?" said Miss King.

"Oh yes, only sometimes they lay astray. So papa gives us a penny if we find any of their eggs about the field or in the hedges anywhere," said Maudie. "That's what makes Hoodie so fond of going in the cocky field. She's far the cleverest at finding eggs. You should see her – and she's got such a way with the cocks. She can cluck, cluck them close up to her, and often she catches them. They're not a bit afraid of her."

"How funny," said Magdalen, not sorry to see Maudie's childish attempt at saying something in praise of her little sister. "I must certainly go with you to see the bantams after breakfast."

"Timmediate after breakfast!" said Hec. "Will you come timmediate? For after zen Maudie has lessons."

"Yes," said Maudie, "I have lessons. Miss Meade comes from Springley to give me lessons."

"And doesn't Hoodie have any?"

"Sometimes," replied Maudie. "When she's in a good humour. When she's not, it's no use trying. I heard Miss Meade say so one day, and so now Hoodie very often says she's in a bad humour whether she is or not, 'cos she doesn't like lessons."

"She says she's in a bad humour," repeated Magdalen, astonished.

"Oh yes, she just calls out to Miss Meade, 'oh, one's come, one's come,' that means a bad humour's come, and once she says that, nothing's any good. She sometimes puts her fingers in her ears if Miss Meade tries to speak to her. So mamma settled it was no good doing anything; it did so interrumpt my lessons, and I'm getting big, you know. But please, Cousin Magdalen, will you come with us just the very minute after breakfast, and then there'll be time?"

"Very well," said Magdalen. "I'll be ready 'timmediate,' I promise you."

Whether or no Miss King knew much about children, she knew enough to understand that to them a promise, even about a small matter, is a very sacred thing. And she took care not to forfeit their confidence. No sooner did the four little figures appear on the lawn just outside the dining-room window, than she started up from the table where, though breakfast was finished, she was loitering a little in pleasant talk with her friends.

"Why, where are you off to, in such a hurry?" said Mrs. Caryll.

"I beg your pardon," said Magdalen, laughing. "I promised the children to go with them before their governess comes, to – "

"Excuse my interrupting you," said Mr. Caryll, "but I would just like to see if I can't finish the sentence for you. I am certain they are going to take you to see the bantams, now aren't they? They have all four, Hoodie especially, got bantams on the brain."

He opened the glass-door as he spoke, and Miss King passed through. Three of the children ran forward joyously to meet her, the fourth followed more slowly, and from her way of moving, Cousin Magdalen strongly suspected that either "one" had just come, or that "one" had not yet gone. There was a decidedly black-doggy look about her fat little shoulders.

But Miss King took no notice, and slowly, very slowly, the fourth little figure drew nearer to the others. Still she did not speak – the boys chattered merrily, and Maudie joined in, being sensible enough to understand that just now, at any rate, the taking no notice plan was the most likely to bring Hoodie round again.

And by the time they reached "the cocky field," it was crowned with success. Hoodie forgot all her troubles in the pleasure of showing off her pets, and greatly distinguished herself by the cleverness with which she caught them and brought them up, one after the other, to be admired.

"Isn't they sweet?" she said, ecstatically; "when I'm big, I'll have a house with lots and lots of cocks and hens."

"I thought you were going to live in a cottage, like Red Riding Hood's grandmother, when you're big?" said Maudie, thoughtlessly.

Hoodie turned upon her with a frown, and Cousin Magdalen felt really grieved to see how in one instant her pretty, round, rosy face lost its childlike expression, and grew hard and fierce.

"You's not to laugh at me," she said. "I won't have nobody laugh at me."

Maudie looked up penitently in Cousin Magdalen's face.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to set her off. Truly I didn't," she whispered.

Cousin Magdalen felt that she knew and understood too little to attempt the interference she would have liked to use. More than interference indeed. For the moment she felt so provoked with Hoodie's naughty, silly bad temper, that she really felt ready to give her a severe scolding. She was too wise to do so, however, and certainly it would have done no good. More for Maudie's sake than for Hoodie's, she tried to turn the conversation in a pleasant way.

"It is very queer," she said, "that people almost never do when they are grown up what they plan as children. When I was little I always planned that I should do nothing but travel, and after all, very few people have travelled less than I. I have been very stay-at-home."

"I like travelling a little way," said Maudie; "but when it is a long way, it is so tiring."

"Wouldn't you like the magic carpet that flew with you wherever you wished to be?" said Cousin Magdalen.

"Was it in a fairy story?" said Maudie; and though Hoodie said nothing, she came slowly nearer and stood staring up in Miss King's face with her queer baby blue eyes that could look so sweet, and could, alas! look so cross and angry.

"Yes," said Cousin Magdalen, in reply to Maudie's question, "in a very old fairy story. Are you fond of fairy stories?"

"I is," said a voice that was certainly not Maudie's.

Magdalen turned to her quietly.

"Are you, dear?" she said, as if not the least surprised at her joining in the conversation. "And you too, Maudie? And Hec and Duke?"

"Oh yes, very," said Maudie. "Of course Hec and Duke don't like difficult ones – there's some kinds that keeps meaning something else all the time, and they are rather difficult, aren't they?"

"Yes," said Magdalen, smiling. "I like the old-fashioned ones that don't mean anything else. I must try to think of some for you."

Maudie clapped her hands, and Hoodie's face grew very bright. Suddenly she gave a little spring, as if a new idea had struck her.

"I've zought of some'sing," she cried, and turning to Miss King,

"Does you like eggs?" she inquired.

"Very much," said her cousin.

"Zen, if you'll tell us stories, I'll get you eggs. Kite, kite fresh. Doesn't you like them kite fresh?"

"Yes, quite fresh; they can't be too fresh," said Magdalen.

"Can't be too fresh," repeated Hoodie. "Zat means just the moment minute they'se laid. Oh, that'll be lovely. And when'll you tell us some stories, please?"

"Let's see," said Cousin Magdalen. "I'll have to think, and thinking takes a good long while."

"Nebber mind," said Hoodie. "You'll zink as soon as you can, won't you, dear?"

And for the rest of the morning's walk she was perfectly angelic, in consequence of which Cousin Magdalen felt more completely puzzled by her than ever.

The day passed over pretty smoothly. Late in the afternoon, just as the children were preparing for a run in the garden before tea, an excitement got up in the nursery by the absence of Hoodie's basket, which she insisted on taking out with her.

"My bastwick; oh my bastwick," she cried. "I must have my bastwick."

"What do you want it for, Miss Hoodie?" said Martin. "There'll be no time for picking flowers, and we're not going up the lanes."

"Oh, but I must have my bastwick," repeated Hoodie.

Martin, fearful of an outbreak, stood still to consider.

"When did you have it last?" she said. "Now I do believe it was yesterday at that cottage, and I brought it home for you. Yes, and I put it down in the back hall where your hoops are. Now, Miss Hoodie, if you'll promise to be very good all the time you're out, you may run and fetch it. I'll be after you with the little boys in five minutes."

Hoodie was off like a shot, but the five minutes grew into ten before Martin and the boys followed her; an ill-behaved button dropping off Hec's boot while the careful nurse was fastening it.

"And if there's one thing I can't abide to see, it's children's boots wanting buttons," she said, "so run down, Miss Maudie, there's a dear, and take care of your sister till I come."

Maudie ran down, but as she did not return Martin felt no misgivings, and she was greatly surprised and disappointed when, on going down-stairs, she was met by the child with an anxious face.

"I couldn't find Hoodie in the back hall or anywhere about there," she said, "and I ran out a little way into the garden, because I knew you'd be so frightened, but I can't see her."

"Oh dear, dear," said poor Martin, "wherever will she have gone to now? Take the boys into the study, Miss Maudie dear, for a few minutes, and I'll run round by the lodge, and ask if they have seen her pass. If she's gone up the wood to that cottage again they must have seen her. Dear me, dear me, I might have thought of it when she teased so about her basket."

Off rushed Martin, and Maudie, faithful to her charge, kept watch over the little boys. They were not kept waiting very long, however. In two minutes Martin put in her head again.

"Is she with you, Miss Maudie?" she said, quite breathless with running so fast, "No? Oh dear, where can she be? The woman at the lodge says she saw her running back to the house a few minutes ago. She is sure she did."

"Perhaps she's gone up to the nursery again," said Maudie.

"Oh no," said Martin, "she'd never go there, once she thinks she's escaped again. She's got something new in her head, I'm sure. I'll just ask in the servants' hall if any of them have seen her."

She left the room to do so, but as she passed by the foot of the stairs she heard a step. There, calmly coming down, was Hoodie, without her basket, however. But that, in her delight at recovering her truant, Martin did not notice.

"Miss Hoodie, Miss Hoodie," she cried, "where have you been? You've given me such a fright again. Where have you been?"

"Up in the nursley," said Hoodie, coolly. "I wented out a little, and then up-stairs to the nursley."

And with this account of her doings Martin was obliged to be content.