Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl, L. T. Meade [unputdownable books txt] 📗
- Author: L. T. Meade
Book online «Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl, L. T. Meade [unputdownable books txt] 📗». Author L. T. Meade
“Look, father, dear, please look. Each little division is marked with a name. This one is Groceries, this one is Butcher, this is Milk, butter, and eggs, this is Baker, this is Cheesemonger, and this is Sundries—oh yes, and laundress, I must screw in a division for laundress somehow. Now, father, this is my delightful plan. When you give me my four pounds—my eighty shillings—I’ll get it all changed into silver, and I’ll divide it into equal portions, and drop so much into the grocery department, so much into the butcher’s, so much into the baker’s. Don’t you see how simple it will be?”
“Very, my dear—the game of chess is nothing to it. Goodnight, Polly. I sincerely hope no serious results will accrue from these efforts on my part to teach you experience.”
The Doctor walked quickly down the avenue.
“I’m quite resolved,” he said to himself, “to bring them all up as much as possible on their mother’s plan, but if Polly requires many such lessons as I am forced to give her to-night, there is nothing for it but to send her to school. For really such an experience as we are about to go through at her hands is enough to endanger health, to say nothing of peace and domestic quiet. The fact is, I really am a much worried man. It’s no joke bringing up seven motherless girls, each of them with characters; the boys are a simple matter—they have school before them, and a career of some sort, but the girls—it really is an awful responsibility. Even the baby has a strong individuality of her own—I see it already in her brown eyes—bless her, she has got her mother’s eyes. But my queer, wild, clever Polly—what a week we[Pg 23] shall have with you presently! Now, who is that crying and sobbing in the dark?”
The Doctor swooped suddenly down on a shadowy object, which lay prone under an arbutus shrub. “My dear little Firefly, what is the matter? You ought to be in bed ages ago—out here in the damp and cold, and such deep-drawn sobs! What has nurse been about? This is really extremely careless.”
“It wasn’t nurse’s fault,” sobbed Firefly, nestling her head into her father’s cheek. “I ran away from her. I hided from her on purpose.”
“Then you were the naughty one. What is the matter, dear? Why do you make things worse for me and for us all just now?”
Firefly’s head sank still lower. Her hot little cheek pressed her father’s with an acute longing for sympathy. Instinct told him of the child’s need. He walked down the avenue, holding her closely.
“Wasn’t you going the other way, father?” asked Firefly, squeezing her arms tight around his neck.
“No matter, I must see you home first. Now what were those sobs about? And why did you hide yourself from nurse?”
“’Cause I wanted to be down-stairs, to listen to the grown-ups.”
“The grown-ups? My dear, who are they?”
“Oh, Nell, and Poll Parrot, and Katie; I don’t mind about Nell and Polly, but it isn’t fair that Katie should be made a grown-up—and she is—she is, really, father. She is down in the school-room so important, and just like a regular grown-up, so I couldn’t stand it.”
“I see. You wanted to be a grown-up too—you are seven years old, are you not?”
“I’m more. I’m seven and a half—Katie is only eleven.”
“Quite so! Katie is young compared to you, isn’t she, Firefly. Still, I don’t see my way. You wished to join the grown-ups, but I found you sobbing on the damp grass under one of the shrubs near the avenue. Is it really under a damp arbutus shrub that the grown-ups intend to take counsel?”
“Oh no, father, no—” here the sobs began again. “They were horrid, oh they were horrid. They locked me out—I banged against the door, but they wouldn’t open. It was then I came up here. I wouldn’t have minded if it hadn’t been for Katie.”
“I see, my child. Well, run to bed now, and leave the matter in father’s hands. Ask nurse to give you a hot drink, and not to scold, for father knows about it.”
“Darling father—oh, how good you are! Don’t I love you! Just another kiss—what a good father you are!”
Firefly hugged the tall doctor ecstatically. He saw her disappear into the house, and once more pursued his way down the avenue.
“Good!” he echoed to himself. “Never did a more harassed man walk. How am I to manage those girls?”
Helen and Polly were seated together in the pleasant morning-room. Helen occupied her mother’s chair, her feet were on a high footstool, and by her side, on a small round table, stood a large basket filled with a heterogeneous collection of odd socks and stockings, odd gloves, pieces of lace and embroidery, some wool, a number of knitting needles, in short, a confused medley of useful but run-to-seed-looking articles which the young housekeeper was endeavoring to reduce out of chaos into order.
“Oh, Polly, how you have tangled up all this wool; and where’s the fellow of this gray glove? And—Polly, Polly—here’s the handkerchief you had such a search for last week. Now, how often do you intend me to put this basket in order for you?”
“Once a week, dear, if not oftener,” answered Polly, in suave tones. “Please don’t speak for a moment or two, Nell. I’m so much interested in this new recipe for pie-crust. You melt equal portions of lard and butter in so much boiling water—that’s according to the size of the pie; then you mix it into the flour, kneading it very well—and—and—and—” Polly’s voice dropped to a kind of buzz, her head sank lower over the large cookery-book which she was studying; her elbows were on the table, her short curling hair fell over her eyes, and a dimpled hand firmly pressed each cheek.
Helen sighed slightly, and returned with a little gesture of resignation to the disentangling of Polly’s work-basket. As she did so she seated herself more firmly in her mother’s arm-chair. Her little figure looked slight in its deep and ample dimensions, and her smooth fair face was slightly puckered with anxiety.
“Polly,” she said, suddenly; “Polly, leave that book alone. There’s more in the world than housekeeping and pie-crust. Do you know that I have discovered something, and I think, I really do think, that we ought to go on with it. It was mother’s plan, and father will always agree to anything she wished.”
Polly shut up Mrs. Beaton’s cookery-book with a bang, rose from her seat at the table, and opening the window sat down where the wind could ruffle her hair and cool her hot cheeks.
“This is Friday,” she said, “and my duties begin on Monday. Helen, pie-crust is not unimportant when success or failure hangs upon it; puddings may become vital, Helen, and, as to cheesecakes, I would stake everything I possess[Pg 25] in the world on the manner in which father munches my first cheesecake. Well, dear, never mind; I’ll try and turn my distracted thoughts in your direction for a bit. What’s the discovery?”
“Only,” said Helen, “that I think I know what makes father look so gray, and why he has a stoop, and why his eyes seem so sunken. Of course there is the loss of our mother, but that is not the only trouble. I think he has another, and I think also, Polly, that he had this other trouble before mother died, and that she helped him to bear it, and made plans to lighten it for him. You remember what one of her plans was, and how we weren’t any of us too well pleased. But I have been thinking lately, since I began to guess father’s trouble, that we ought to carry it out just the same as if our mother was with us.”
“Yes,” said Polly. “You have a very exciting way of putting things, Nell, winding one up and up, and not letting in the least little morsel of light. What is father’s trouble, and what was the plan? I can’t remember any plan, and I only know about father that he’s the noblest of all noble men, and that he bears mother’s loss—well, as nobody else would have borne it. What other trouble has our dear father, Nell? God wouldn’t be so cruel as to give him another trouble.”
“God is never cruel,” said Helen, a beautiful, steadfast light shining in her eyes. “I couldn’t let go the faith that God is always good. But father—oh, Polly, Polly, I am dreadfully afraid that father is going to lose his sight.”
“What?” said Polly. “What? father lose his sight? No, I’m not going to listen to you, Nell. You needn’t talk like that. It’s perfectly horrid of you. I’ll go away at once and ask him. Father! Why, his eyes are as bright as possible. I’ll go this minute and ask him.”
“No, don’t do that, Polly. I would never have spoken if I wasn’t really sure, and I don’t think it would be right to ask him, or to speak about it, until he tells us about it himself. But I began to guess it a little bit lately, when I saw how anxious mother seemed. For she was anxious, although she was the brightest of all bright people. And after her death father said I was to look through some of her letters; and I found one or two which told me that what I suspected was the case, and father may—indeed, he probably will—become quite blind, by-and-by. That was—that was—What’s the matter, Polly?”
“Nothing,” said Polly. “You needn’t go on—you needn’t say any more. It’s a horrid world, nothing is worth living for; pie-crust, nor housekeeping, nor nothing. I hate the world, and every one in it, and I hate you most of all, Nell, for your horrid news. Father blind! No, I won’t believe it; it’s all a lie.”
“Poor Polly,” said Helen. “Don’t believe it, dear, I wish I didn’t. I think I know a little bit how you feel. I’m not[Pg 26] so hot and hasty and passionate as you, and oh, I’m not half, nor a quarter, so clever, but still, I do know how you feel; I—Polly, you startle me.”
“Only you don’t hate me at this moment,” said Polly. “And I—don’t I hate you, just! There, you can say anything after that. I know I’m a wretch—I know I’m hopeless. Even mother would say I was hopeless if she saw me now, hating you, the kindest and best of sisters. But I do, yes, I do, most heartily. So you see you aren’t like me, Helen.”
“I certainly never hated any one,” said Helen. “But you are excited, Polly, and this news is a shock to you. We won’t talk about it one way or other, now, and we’ll try as far as possible not to think of it, except in so far as it ought to make us anxious to carry out mother’s plan.”
Polly had crouched back away from the window, her little figure all huddled up, her cheeks with carnation spots on them, and her eyes, brimful of the tears which she struggled not to shed, were partly hidden by the folds of the heavy curtain which half-enveloped her.
“You were going to say something else dreadfully unpleasant,” she remarked. “Well, have it out. Nothing can hurt me very much just now.”
“It’s about the strangers,” said Helen. “The strangers who were to come in October. You surely can’t have forgotten them, Polly.”
Like magic the thunder-cloud departed from Polly’s face. The tears dried in her bright eyes, and the curtain no longer enveloped her slight, young figure.
“Why, of course,” she said. “The strangers, how could I have forgotten! How curious we were about them. We didn’t know their names. Nothing, nothing at all—except that there were two, and that they were coming from Australia. I always thought of them as Paul and Virginia. Dear, dear, dear, I shall have more housekeeping than ever on my shoulders with them about the place.”
“They were coming in October,” said Helen, quietly. “Everything was arranged, although so little was known. They were coming in a sailing vessel, and the voyage was to be a long one, and mother, herself, was going to meet them. Mother often said that they would arrive about the second week in October.”
“In three weeks from now?” said Polly, “We are well on in September, now. I can’t imagine how we came to forget Paul and Virginia. Why, of course, poor children, they must be quite anxious to get to us. I wonder if I’d be a good person to go and meet them. You are so shy
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