The Hawthorns, Amy Walton [essential books to read TXT] 📗

The little girls were feeling even more dignified and grown-up than usual, for it was a great event to drive over to Nearminster quite alone; therefore it was all the more trying to be greeted by a derisive song:

"Hurray, hurray, hurray!
Ethelwyn is gone away!"

screamed the shrill voices, even Dickie doing her best to swell the chorus. It was so loud that it sounded a long way up the road; and Ethelwyn's favourite remark, "How very vulgar!" did not disguise it in the least.

The first day at Nearminster was fine and bright, and the children found plenty to entertain them. It was all new to Ethelwyn; and to Pennie, although she knew them so well, every object had an ever fresh interest. They went into the market with Miss Unity in the morning, and watched her buy a chicken, fresh eggs, and a cauliflower, which she carried home herself in a brown basket. Then in the afternoon Bridget was allowed to take the children into the town that they might see the shops, and that Pennie might spend her money. For she had brought with her the contents of her money-box, which amounted to fivepence-halfpenny, and intended to lay out this large sum in presents for everyone at home. It was an anxious as well as a difficult matter to do this to the best advantage, and she spent much time in gazing into shop-windows, her brow puckered with care and her purse clutched tightly in her hand. Ethelwyn's advice, which might have been useful under these circumstances, was quite the reverse; for the suggestions she made were absurdly above Pennie's means, and only confusing to the mind.

"I should buy that," she would say, pointing to something which was worth at least a shilling.

Pennie soon left off listening to her, and bent her undivided attention to the matter--how to buy seven presents with five pence halfpenny? It might have puzzled a wiser head than Pennie's; but at last, by dint of much calculation on the fingers, she arrived with a mind at rest at the following results:-- An india-rubber ball for the baby, a lead pencil for father, a packet of pins for mother, a ball of twine for Ambrose, a paint-brush for Nancy, a pen-holder for David, and a tiny china dog for Dickie.

Ethelwyn was very impatient long before the shopping was done.

"Oh, spend the rest in sweets," she said over and over again in the midst of Pennie's difficulties.

But Pennie only shook her head, and would not even look at chocolate creams or sugar-candy until she had done her business satisfactorily.

In the evening she amused herself by packing and unpacking the presents, and printing the name of each person on the parcels, while Miss Unity read aloud. It was not a very amusing book, and Ethelwyn, who had spent all her money on sweets and eaten more of them than was good for her, felt cross and rather sick and discontented. She yawned and fidgeted, and frowned as openly as she dared, for she was afraid of Miss Unity; and when at last bed-time came, and the little girls were alone, she expressed her displeasure freely.

"I can't bear stopping here," she said. "It's a dull, ugly old place, I think I wish I was back in London."

"Well, so you will be the day after to-morrow," replied Pennie shortly. She did not like even Ethelwyn to abuse Nearminster, and she was beginning to be just a little tired of hearing so much about London.

Unfortunately for Ethelwyn's temper the next day was decidedly wet--so wet that even Miss Unity could not get out into the market, and settled herself with a basket of wools for a morning's work. Through the streaming window-panes the grass in the Close looked very green and the Cathedral very grey; the starlings were industriously pecking at the slugs, and the jackdaws chattered and darted about the tower as usual, but there was not one other living thing to be seen. "Dull, horribly dull!" Ethelwyn thought as she knelt up in the window-seat and pressed her nose against the glass. It was just as bad inside the room; there was Miss Unity's stiff upright figure, there was her needle going in and out of her canvas, there was the red rose gradually unfolding with every stitch. There was Pennie, bent nearly double over a fairy book, with her elbows on her knees and a frown of interest on her brow. There was nothing to see, nothing to do, no one to talk to. Ethelwyn gaped wearily.

Then her idle glance fell on the clock. Would it _always_ be twelve o'clock that morning? And from that it passed to the Chinese mandarin, which stood close to it. He was a little fellow, with a shining bald head and a small patch of hair on each side of it; his face, which was broad, had no features to speak of, and yet bore an expression of feeble good-nature. Ethelwyn knew that the merest touch would set his head nodding in a helpless manner, and she suddenly felt a great longing to do it. But that was strictly forbidden; no one must touch the mandarin except Miss Unity; and, though she was generally quite willing to make him perform, Ethelwyn did not feel inclined to ask her. She wanted to do it herself. "If she would only go out of the room," thought the child, "I'd make him wag his head in a minute, whatever Pennie said."

Curiously enough Bridget appeared at the door just then with a message.

"If you please, ma'am," she said, "could Cook speak to you in the kitchen about the preserving?"

Now was Ethelwyn's opportunity, and she lost no time. She went quickly up to the mantel-piece directly Miss Unity closed the door, and touched the mandarin gently on the head.

"Look, Pennie! look!" she cried.

Pennie raised her face from her book with an absent expression, which soon changed to horror as she saw the mandarin wagging his head with foolish solemnity. Ethelwyn stood by delighted.

"I'll make him go faster," she said, and raised herself on tiptoe, for the mantel-piece was high.

"Don't! don't!" called out Pennie in an agony of alarm; but it was too late. Growing bolder, Ethelwyn gave the mandarin such a sharp tap at the back of his head that he lost his balance and toppled down on the hearth with a horrible crash.

There he lay, his poor foolish head rolling about on the carpet, and his body some distance off. Hopelessly broken, a ruined mandarin, he would never nod any more!

For a minute the little girls gazed speechlessly at the wreck; there was silence in the room, except for the steady tick-tack of the clock. Then Ethelwyn turned a terrified face towards her friend.

"Oh, Pennie!" she cried, "what _shall_ I do?" for she was really afraid of Miss Unity.

Pennie rose, picked up the mandarin's head, and looked at it sorrowfully.

"Mother _told_ us not to touch the china," she said.

"But can't we do anything?" exclaimed Ethelwyn wildly; "couldn't we stick it on? He's not broken anywhere else. See, Pennie!"

She put the mandarin on the mantel-piece and carefully balanced the broken head on his shoulders.

"He looks as well as ever," she said; "no one would guess he was broken."

"But he _is_," replied Pennie; "and even if he _can_ be mended I don't suppose he'll ever nod like he used to."

"Are you going to _tell_ her we broke him?" asked Ethelwyn after a short pause.

Pennie stared.

"_We_ didn't break him," she said; "it was you, and _of course_ you'll tell her."

"That I sha'n't," said Ethelwyn sulkily; "and if you do, you'll be a sneak."

"But you'll _have_ to say," continued Pennie, "because directly he's touched his head will come off, and then Miss Unity will ask us."

"Well, I shall wait till she finds out," said Ethelwyn, "and if you tell her before I'll never never speak to you again, and I won't have you for my friend any longer."

"I'm not going to tell," said Pennie, drawing herself up proudly, "unless she asks me straight out. But I _know_ you ought to."

As she spoke a step sounded in the passage, and with one bound Ethelwyn regained her old place in the window-seat and turned her head away.

Pennie remained standing by the fire, with a startled guilty look and a little perplexed frown on her brow.

Miss Unity's glance fell on her directly she entered; but her mind was occupied with the cares of preserving, and though she saw that the child looked troubled she said nothing at first.

"If Ethelwyn would _only_ tell," thought Pennie, and there was such yearning anxiety in her face as she watched Miss Unity's movements that presently the old lady observed it, and looked curiously at her through her spectacles.

"Do you want anything, Penelope?" she asked, and as she spoke she stretched out her hand to the mantel-piece, for the mandarin was a trifle out of his usual place. She moved him gently a little nearer the clock; Pennie's expression changed to one of positive agony, and the mandarin's head fell immediately with a sharp "click" on to the marble! Clasping her hands, Pennie turned involuntarily towards Ethelwyn. Now she _must_ speak. But Ethelwyn was quite silent, and did not even turn her head. It was Miss Unity's voice which broke the stillness.

"Child," she said, "you have acted deceitfully."

She fixed her eyes on Pennie, who flushed hotly, and certainly looked the very picture of guilt.

_Of course_ Ethelwyn would speak now. But there was no sound from the window-seat.

Pennie twisted her fingers nervously together, her chest heaved, and something within her said over and over again: "I didn't do it--I didn't do it." She had quite a struggle to prevent the little voice from making itself heard, and her throat ached with the effort; but she kept it down and stood before Miss Unity in perfect silence.

The latter had taken the broken head in her hand, and was looking at it sorrowfully.

"I valued this image, Penelope," she went on, "and I grieve to have it destroyed. But I grieve far more to think you should have tried to deceive me. Perhaps I can mend the mandarin, but I can't ever forget that you have been dishonest--nothing can mend that. I shall think of it whenever I see the image, and it will make me sad."

The little voice struggled and fought in Pennie's breast to make itself heard: "I didn't do it, I didn't do it," it cried out wildly. With a resolute gulp she kept it down, but the effort was almost too great, and Miss Unity's grave face was too much to bear. She burst into tears and ran out of the room. Then hurrying upstairs she plunged her head into the side of the big bed where she and Ethelwyn slept together, and cried bitterly. Unjustly accused, disappointed, betrayed by her best friend-- the world was a miserable place, Pennie thought, and happiness impossible ever again. There was no one to take her part--Ethelwyn was deceitful and unkind; and as she remembered how she had loved and worshipped her, the