Читать книгу: «Hoodie», страница 7

CHAPTER VII.
TWO TRUES

 
"The little stars are the lambs, I guess,
The fair moon is the shepherdess."
 

Nursery Song.

A few mornings after the story telling in the garden, as Miss King was passing along the passage on her way down to breakfast, she overheard tumultuous sounds from the direction of the nursery. She stopped to listen. Various little voices were to be distinguished raised much higher than their wont, and among them, now and then, Martin's rather anxious tones as if entreating the children to listen to her advice.

"I don't care," were among the first words Cousin Magdalen made out clearly, "there isn't two trues, and what I'm telling is real true true, as true as true."

The speaker was Hoodie. Then came the answer from Maudie.

"Hoodie, how can you?" she said in a voice of real distress. "I think it's dreadful to tell stories, and to keep on saying they're true when you know they're not. It wouldn't have mattered if you had explained it was a sort of fairy story like what Cousin Magdalen told us the other day, for of course that wasn't true either, only in a way it was."

"And Hoodie didn't usplain a bit, not one bit," said Duke virtuously. "Her keeped on saying it were as true as true."

"And we is too little to under'tand, isn't we?" put in Hec. "If Hoodie had toldened us she was in fun – "

"But I wasn't in fun, you ugly, naughty, ugly boy," retorted Hoodie, by this time most evidently losing her temper. "And if peoples 'zinks so much about trues, they shouldn't vant me to say what isn't true about being in fun when I wasn't in fun. The moon does– "

A choky sound was now heard, caused by Maudie's putting her hand over her sister's mouth.

"Hoodie, you're not to say that again," she exclaimed, no doubt with the best intention, but with an unfortunate result. Hoodie turned upon her like a little wild cat, and was in the act of slapping her vigorously when Miss King hurried into the room.

"Hoodie!" she said reproachfully.

Hoodie looked up with a mixture of shame and defiance.

"Oh, Hoodie, I am so sorry. I thought you had quite left off everything like that," said her cousin.

One or two big tears crept slowly out of the corners of Hoodie's eyes.

"They shouldn't say I was telling untrue things," she muttered. "'Tisn't my fault."

"Oh! Miss Hoodie," said Martin, injudiciously, "how can you say so? I'm sure, Miss," she went on, turning to Magdalen, "no one said a word to put her out. She was telling fairy stories like, to Master Duke and Master Hec, and they began asking her to explain and she would say it was quite true, not fairy stories at all. And Miss Maudie just tried to show her she shouldn't say that, and then you see, Miss, she flew into a temper."

"What were the stories about, Hoodie?" inquired Miss King, kindly.

Hoodie vouchsafed not a word in reply.

Magdalen glanced at the others.

"I'll tell," said Duke. "They was about things up in the sky, you know."

"Angels, do you mean?" said Miss King.

"Oh no, not angels," said Maudie. "It was about the stars and the moon. Hoodie has a fancy – "

"It isn't a fancy," put in Hoodie fiercely.

"Hoodie says," continued Maudie calmly, "that the moon and the stars and all of the things up in the sky, know each other, and talk to each other, and that she has heard them. The moon takes care of the stars, she says, and early in the morning when it is time for them all to go away the moon calls to them. I mean Hoodie says she does."

"'Cos she does," replied Hoodie, before any one else had time to speak. "She calls to them and they all come round her together, and then they all go away like a flash —so quick, and it is so bright."

Her funny eyes gleamed up into Magdalen's face. In the interest of what she was telling she forgot her temper.

"Was it that that you saw?" asked Magdalen, gravely. "The flash of their going, I mean?"

"Yes," said Hoodie, "I've seen it lots of times, and I try to keep awake on purpose. It passes – the flash, I mean – it passes by the little window near my head. The little window for seeing up into the sky, you know."

Magdalen nodded her head.

"I know," she said, "I had a window like that in my room when I was a little girl, and I was very fond of it. But I don't think I ever saw the moon and the stars saying good night, or good morning – which is it? And are none of the little stars ever left behind?"

The whole of Hoodie's face lighted up with a smile, but the rest of the faces round Miss King looked grave and rather puzzled. Was she really going to encourage Hoodie in her fancies – thought Maudie and Martin?

"I don't 'zink so," said Hoodie, "but I'll look the next time."

"Cousin Magdalen," whispered Maudie, gently pulling her godmother's dress, "it isn't true. You don't want Duke and Hec to think it is."

"I don't think it would matter much if they did," replied Magdalen in the same tone. "Thinking little fancies like that true would do them far less harm than thinking their sister was telling falsehoods. But I will try to explain to Hoodie that perhaps it is better not to say any more about it to the little boys. Only, Maudie dear, I think you are old enough to understand better that Hoodie was not meaning to tell untruths."

"She said she heard the moon and the stars talking," remonstrated Maudie.

"Well – what if she did? Many a time when I was a little girl I have thought I heard the wind say real words when I was lying awake in my little bed. Of course I know better now, but so will Hoodie, and if these fancies please her and keep her content and happy, why not leave her them?"

"Martin doesn't think so," said Maudie, rather mortified that her efforts to bring Hoodie to a sense of her wrong-doings were so little appreciated.

"Miss Maudie, dear!" exclaimed Martin, "I never said so, I'm sure. I don't think I rightly understood what it was all about. I'm sure I don't want to be sharp on any of you for fancies that do no one any harm. I had plenty of them myself when I was little."

"You see, Maudie, Martin does understand," said Miss King. "I'll try and explain about it better to you afterwards, but just now I really must hurry down to breakfast."

She was turning away when a clamour of little voices stopped her.

"Won't you come back after breakfast, Cousin Magdalen?"

"Oh, do tum back."

"It's such a wet day and we've nothing to do, 'cause it's Saturday, and Saturday's a holiday."

"Do you want me to come and give you lessons then?" said Magdalen, mischievously.

Dead silence – broken at last by Duke.

"Couldn't you tum and tell us more stories?"

Magdalen shook her head.

"I haven't got any ready. Truly I haven't," she said. "It takes me a long time to think of them, always. But I'll tell you what we might do. I'll come up after breakfast with my work and you might all tell me stories. That would amuse everybody. Each of you try to think of one, but you mustn't tell each other what it is."

Hoodie's face lighted up, but Maudie looked rather lugubrious.

"I can't think of one," she said.

"Oh yes you can, if you try," said Magdalen, cheerfully.

"Must it be all out of my own head?"

Miss King hesitated.

"No, if you can remember one that you've read that the others don't know, that would do."

Maudie looked relieved.

"I don't need to remember one," said Hoodie. "I know such heaps. My head's all spinning full of them."

"So's mine," said Duke, jumping about and clapping his hands.

"And mine too," said Hec. "Kite 'pinning full."

"What nonsense," said Hoodie. "You don't know stories. It's only me that does."

"Hush, hush," said Miss King. "My plan won't be nice at all if it makes you quarrel. Now I must run down."

The children were very quiet through breakfast time. Every now and then the little boys leant over across their bowls of bread and milk to whisper to each other.

"Wouldn't that be lovely?" or "That'd be a vezy pitty story," till called to order by Martin, who told them that spilling their breakfast over the table would not be at all a good beginning to the stories.

"'Twouldn't matter," remarked Hoodie, philosophically. "The cloth isn't clean; it's Saturday, you know, Martin."

"Saturday or no Saturday," replied Martin, "it isn't pretty for little ladies and gentlemen to spill their food on the table. And it gets them in the habit of it for when they get big and have their breakfasts and dinners down-stairs."

"Doesn't big people never spill things on the cloth?" inquired Hec, solemnly.

"Mr. Fielding does," said Hoodie. "One day when he was here at luncheon, he was helping Mamma to wine, and he poured all down the outside of her glass. I think he's dedfully ugly. I wouldn't like ever to be a big people if I was to be like him."

"Miss Hoodie," remonstrated Martin, hardly approving of the turn the conversation was taking, "do get on with your breakfast, and you'd better be thinking about your stories than talking about things you don't understand."

Hoodie glanced at Martin with considerable contempt.

"I'd like to make a story about Beauty and the Beast," she said. "I know who'd be the beast, but you shouldn't be Beauty, Martin."

"Shouldn't I, Miss Hoodie?" said Martin, good-naturedly. "Miss King would make a nice Beauty, to my mind."

Almost as she spoke the door opened, and Cousin Magdalen re-appeared.

"Children," she said, "your mother says we may have the fire lighted in the billiard-room because it is such a chilly day, so I am going to take my work there and you may all come. Martin will be glad to get rid of you, because I know Saturday's a busy morning for her always."

The news was received with great satisfaction, and before the end of another half-hour the four children were all under their cousin's charge in the billiard-room, for an hour or two, greatly to Martin's relief.

"What pretty work you are doing, Cousin Magdalen," said Maudie, stroking admiringly the large canvas stretched on a frame at which Miss King was working.

"I am glad you think it's pretty," said her godmother. "I think it is very pretty; but the colours are not very bright, and children generally like very bright colours. The pattern is copied from a very old piece of tapestry."

"What's tapestry?" said Hoodie.

"Old-fashioned work that used to be made long ago," said Miss King. "It was more like great pictures than anything else, and such quantities of it were made that whole walls were covered with it. Once when I was a very little girl I slept in a room all covered with tapestry, and in the middle of the night – "

She stopped suddenly.

"What?" said Hoodie eagerly, peering up into her face. "What came in the middle of night?"

"I didn't say anything came," said Cousin Magdalen, laughing. "I stopped because I thought I could make it into a little story and tell it to you afterwards. But we are forgetting all about your stories. Who is going to begin? Eldest first – you, Maudie, I suppose."

Maudie looked rather melancholy.

"I can't tell nice stories," she said. "I've been thinking such a time, and I can't think of anything except something very stupid."

"Well, let us hear it, any way," said her cousin, "and then we can say if it is stupid or not."

"It was a story I read," said Maudie, "or else some one told it me. I can't remember which it was. It was about a very poor little girl – she was dreadfully poor, just as poor as you could fancy."

"No clothes – hadn't she no clothes?" asked Duke.

"And nucken to eat?" added Hec.

"Very little," said Maudie. "Of course she had some, or else she would have died. She hadn't any father or mother, only an old grandmother, who wasn't very kind to her. At least she was very old and deaf and all that, and perhaps that made her cross. And the little girl used to go messages for a shop – that was how she got a little money. It was a baker's shop near where they lived, and it was rather a grand shop – only they kept this little girl to go messages, not to the grand people that came there, you know, but to the people that bought the bread when it wasn't so new – and currant cakes that were rather stale – like that, you know. And on Sunday mornings she had the most to do, because they used to send a great lot of bread very early to a room where a kind lady had breakfast for a great many poor people – for a treat because it was Sunday. They used to have lots of bread and butter and hot coffee – very nice. And Lizzie, that was the little girl's name, liked Sunday mornings and going with the bread to that place, because it all looked so cheerful and comfortable, and the smell of the hot coffee was so good."

"Didn't they never give her none?" asked Duke.

"No, I don't think so. At least not before what I'm going to tell you. You should wait till I tell you. Well, one Sunday in winter, it was a dreadfully cold day; snowing and raining, and all mixed together, and wind too, I think – dreadful cold wind. And Lizzie nearly cried as she was going along to that place. She had such dreadfully sore chilblains on her feet and on her hands too. She got to the place and emptied the basket, and she was just coming away at the door, when a carriage came up and she stopped a minute to see the people get out. The first was the lady who gave the breakfast, Lizzie had seen her before, for she came sometimes – not every Sunday, but just sometimes – to see that the breakfast was all nice for her poor people. But this day, after she got out, she turned back to lift a little boy out of the carriage. And Lizzie had never seen this little boy before, because this was the first time he had ever come. His mother had brought him with her for a great treat. He was a very pretty little boy and his name was Arthur, and he was about six, I think it said in the story. The lady went into the room quick without noticing Lizzie, as she was in a hurry not to be late for the poor people, but Arthur stayed behind a minute and stared at Lizzie. She was so very cold, you know, she did look miserable, and then she had cried a little on the way, so her eyes were red.

"Arthur went close up to her, staring all the time. Lizzie didn't mind. She stared at him too. He was so pretty and he had such pretty clothes on. When he got close to her, he looked sharp up into her face and said – "'What is you crying for?'

"Lizzie had forgotten she had been crying, so she said, 'I'm not crying. I'm only very cold.'

"'Poor little girl,' said Arthur, 'I'll ask Mamma to give you a penny.'

"He ran after his mother, who was wondering what he was staying for, and in a minute he came back again and put a little paper packet into Lizzie's hand.

"'That's all mother's got in her penny purse,' he said, and he ran off again before Lizzie had time to thank him.

"She was going to open the packet and see how much there was, but just then one of the men who helped to put out the breakfast came past and told her not to loiter about. So she took up her basket and ran away, for people often spoke crossly to her, and she was easily frightened. All the way home she kept thinking about her pennies and what she would buy with them, but she didn't open the packet, because the way she had to go there were so many rude boys about that she was afraid they might snatch it from her. And when she got to the shop where she had to take the basket to, the baker sent her another message, so it wasn't till much later than usual that she got home. And all this time she had never opened the packet, at least it said so in the story, though I think I would have peeped at it before – wouldn't you, Cousin Magdalen?"

"I'm not sure," said Magdalen. "I think if one has something nice it is sometimes rather tempting to keep it for a while without looking it all over. It is something to look forward to."

"Yes," said Hoodie. "I'd have keepened it for alvays wrapped up, and then I could have alvays thought perhaps it was a fairy thing like."

"You silly girl," said Maudie, "you're always fancying about fairies."

"Maudie, dear" said Magdalen, "do try not to say things like that. You are telling the story so nicely and we're all so happy. Please don't spoil it by saying unkind little things."

"I didn't mean to be unkind," said Maudie penitently.

"P'ease do on with the story," said the little boys.

"Well, when at last she got home, she opened the little packet," continued Maudie, "and what do you think she saw? Instead of two pennies and a halfpenny perhaps, or something like that, there were – let me see – yes, that was it – there were a gold pound, a half-a-crown, and a shilling. Just fancy! Lizzie was so surprised that she didn't know what she felt – she looked at them and looked at them, and turned them in her hand, and then all at once it came into her mind that of course the lady had given her them by mistake, and that she should take them back to her. And she jumped up very quick and said to her grandmother there was another message she had to go, and without thinking anything about whether the lady would still be there or not, off she ran back again to the place where the poor people had their breakfast. She ran as hard as she could, but of course when she got there it was too late – the breakfast was done long ago, and all the people away and the doors locked, and there was no one about at all to tell her where she could find the lady. And Lizzie was so unhappy that she sat down on a step and cried. You see it was such a disappointment, for she couldn't tell how much the lady had meant to give her, and so she didn't like to take any. Besides, she felt that it would be better to give the packet back just as it was, only she had so wanted the pennies, for she never had any. The baker's wife always paid her grandmother, not Lizzie herself, for Lizzie's going messages.

"And after she had cried a good while she got up and went home. But just as she got near the baker's shop she thought she might ask there if they knew the lady's name, so she went in to ask. There was no one in the shop but the young woman who helped – the others had gone to church."

"How was it the shop was open, then, as it was Sunday?" asked Magdalen.

"It wasn't open, only there was a sort of door in the shutters that Lizzie always went in and out by on Sunday mornings. I know that, because there was a picture of it – I remember now where I read the story – it was in a big picture magazine when I was quite a little girl," said Maudie. "And this young woman was tidying the shop a little, and just going to shut it altogether when Lizzie went in. She was a good-natured young woman and she looked in the money books for the lady's name, but it wasn't in – only the name of the man the room belonged to where the breakfast was – and then she asked Lizzie what she wanted to know for, and Lizzie told her. The young woman told her she was very silly to think of giving it back. She said to her that certainly the lady had given it her, it wasn't even as if she had found it. And Lizzie could not say that was not true, and she felt so puzzled at first that she didn't know what to say. The young woman offered to change it for her so that nobody could wonder how she had got a gold piece, but Lizzie said she would think about it first. And then she went home, and thought, and thought, till at last it came quite plain into her mind that though it was true that the lady had given it her, still it was more true that she hadn't meant to give it her. And then she didn't feel so unhappy."

Maudie stopped for a moment. It had turned out quite a long story, and she was a little tired.

"And what did she do then? Quick, Maudie," said Hoodie.

"What did her do? Kick, kick, Maudie," said the little boys.

"Hush, children, don't hurry Maudie so. Let her rest a minute," said Cousin Magdalen; "she must be a little tired with speaking so long."

"No, I'm not tired now," said Maudie, "only I want to remember to tell it quite right, and I couldn't quite remember what came next. Any way, she couldn't do anything more that day. But she wrapped up the money again quite safe, and put it in another paper, outside the one it had, and – oh, yes, that was it, she settled that she would wait till the next Sunday, and then stand at the door of the breakfast place to see the lady again. She didn't like telling any more people for fear they might take the money away from her, or something like that, and she couldn't think of anything better to do. Well, the next Sunday morning she took the bread as usual, and then she waited at the door for the lady to come, but she never came. Lizzie waited and waited, but she never came, and all the people had gone in and the breakfast was nearly done, but the lady never came. And at last she went and asked somebody if the lady wasn't coming – the woman who poured out the coffee, I think it was – and she told her no, the lady wasn't coming that day, and wouldn't come again for a great long while, because she was going away somewhere a good way off. Lizzie was so sorry, she began to cry, so the woman asked her what was the matter, and she told her, and the woman was so pleased with her for being so honest, that she gave her the lady's address and told her to go at once to the house, for perhaps she wouldn't have gone yet. But it was only another disappointment, for when poor Lizzie got there she found it was all shut up; they had gone away the day before."

"Poor Lizzie," said Magdalen, "what did she do then?"

"Poor Lizzie," said Hec and Duke, "and didn't she never get the real pennies?"

"It wasn't pennies she wanted so much," said Hoodie, "she wanted the lady to know how good she was."

"She wanted to be good, don't you think that would be a nicer way to say it, Hoodie?" said Cousin Magdalen. "You see, being so poor, it must sometimes have been very difficult for her not to use any of the money."

"Yes," said Maudie, "it said that in the story. Well, any way she was good. She sewed the money up in a little bag and put it in a safe place, and tried not to think about it. And all that winter she kept it and never touched it, though they were very poor that winter. It was so very cold, and poor people are always poorer in very cold winters, Martin says. Often they had no fire, and Lizzie's chilblains were dreadful, for her boots didn't keep out the rain and snow a bit, and often she was very hungry too, but still she never touched the money. And at last, after a very long time, the winter began to go away and the spring began to come, and the woman who poured out the coffee told Lizzie she had heard that the lady was coming home in the spring. So Lizzie began to wait a little every Sunday morning when she had given in the bread, to see if perhaps the lady would come. She waited like that for about six Sundays, I think, till at last one Sunday just as she was thinking it was no use waiting any more, the lady wouldn't be coming, a carriage drove up to the door, the very same carriage that Lizzie had seen come there before, and – and – the lady – the real same lady, and the real same little boy, got out! And Lizzie was so pleased she didn't know what to do, for though she had only seen them once before, she had watched for them so long that they seemed like great friends to her. But though she was so pleased, she began all to tremble and at first she couldn't speak, her voice went all away. She just pulled the lady's dress and looked up in her face but she couldn't speak. At first the lady didn't understand, though she was a kind lady she didn't like a dirty-looking little girl pulling her dress, and she looked at her a little sharply. But the little boy understood, and he called out – "'Oh, mamma, mamma, it's the same little girl. Don't you remember? I wonder if she's been waiting here ever since.'

"That was rather silly of him; of course she couldn't have been there ever since, but he was quite a little boy. And then the lady looked kindly at Lizzie and Lizzie's voice came back, and she said – "'Oh, ma'am, this is the money you gave me by mistake. I've kept it all this time,' and she put the little packet into the lady's hand. And then something came over her; the feeling of having waited so long, I suppose, and she burst into tears. And what do you think the lady did? She was so sorry for poor Lizzie, and so pleased with her, that she actually kissed her!"

"Aczhally kissed her," repeated Hoodie, Hec, and Duke. "That dirty girl!"

"No," said Maudie, "she wasn't dirty. She was poor, but she wasn't dirty."

"You said she was once," said Hoodie.

"Well, I didn't mean dirty, really. I meant she looked so, because her clothes were so old. And any way the lady did kiss her, and then she was so kind. She had never thought of having given Lizzie the money. It was some she had put up to pay a bill with, and she had meant to put it in her other purse, and when she couldn't find it, she thought she had lost it somehow. And though she was sorry, of course it didn't matter so very much. And she said if she had known she would have written a letter to the coffee woman to tell her to spend it for warm clothes for poor Lizzie. But after all, it all turned out nice. The lady was very kind to Lizzie after that, and paid for her going to school and being taught all nice things, so that when she got a little bigger she was a very nice servant. I think it said in the story that she learnt to be a nurse, and she was a very kind nurse always."

"Like Martin?" said Duke.

"Yes," said Maudie.

"Perhaps she was even kinder than Martin," suggested Hec. "Perhaps she was awful kind."

"Nobody could be kinder than Martin, except when we're naughty," said Duke, reproachfully.

"Don't you think we should all thank Maudie for telling us such a nice story?" said Magdalen. "I thank her very much."

"So do I," said Duke.

"And me," said Hec.

"And me," said Hoodie, "only I want to tell a story too."

"We're all ready to listen," said Miss King. "But it mustn't be very long. I've to go out with your mother this afternoon, so I must write some letters before luncheon. And Hec and Duke have stories to tell, too, haven't they? So fire away, Hoodie."