A Little Mother to the Others, L. T. Meade [readict .txt] 📗

and ruin. Your rent-roll, how much is it?"

"About fifteen thousand pounds a year—quite enough to keep me out of anxiety," said Mr. Delaney, with a grim smile.

"It ought to be twenty thousand a year—in our father's time it was quite that. No doubt you let your farms too cheap; and so much grass round the house is disgraceful. Now, if I had the management—"

"But you see you have not, Jane," said Mr. Delaney. "The property happens to belong to me."

"That is true, and I have a great deal too much on my mind to worry myself about Delaney Manor; but, of course, it is the old place, and you are my only brother, and I am anxious to help you in your[54] great affliction. When you married you broke off almost all connection with me, but now—now I am willing to overlook the past. Do you, or do you not, intend those children to run wild any longer? Even though they are called after heathen idols they are flesh and blood, and it is to be hoped that some religious influence may be brought to bear on them. At the present moment, I conclude that they have none whatever."

"I never saw better children," said Mr. Delaney; "their mother brought them up as no one else could. In my opinion, they are nearly perfect."

"You talk nonsense of that kind because you are blinded by your fatherly affection. Now, let me assure you, in full confidence, that I never came across more neglected and more utterly absurd little creatures. Good-looking they are—you are a fine-looking man yourself, and your wife was certainly pretty—the children take after you both. I have nothing to say against their appearance; but they talk utter gibberish; and as to that eldest little girl, if she is not given something sensible to occupy her I cannot answer for the consequence. My dear David, I don't want to interfere with your estate."

"You could not, Jane; I would not permit it."

"But with regard to the children, I really have experience. I have five children of my own, and I think, if you were to see them, you would be well assured that Iris and Diana, Apollo and Orion would do well to take example by them. We might change the names of the boys and give them titles not quite so terrible."

"I wish them to be called by the names their mother chose," said Mr. Delaney, with great firmness.[55]

"Well, I suppose the poor children will live it down, but they will have a terrible time at school. However, they are too young for anything of that kind at present. Give me the children, David, and I will act as a mother to them; then pack up your belongings, put your estate into the hands of a good agent, and go abroad for some years."

"It would be an untold relief," said Mr. Delaney.

At that moment the door was opened, and the butler appeared with the evening post on a salver. Mr. Delaney laid the letters languidly by his plate.

"Shall we go into the drawing room, Jane?" he said.

Mrs. Dolman rose briskly.

"I shall retire early to bed," she said. "Read your letters, please, David; you need not stand on ceremony with me."

Mr. Delaney looked over his post; then his eyes lighted up as he saw the handwriting on one of the envelopes. He opened the letter in question, which immediately interested him vastly. It happened to be from an old friend, and certainly seemed to come at an opportune moment. This friend was about to start on an expedition to the Himalayas, and he begged his old fellow-traveler to go with him. His long letter, the enthusiastic way he wrote, the suggestions he threw out of possible and exciting adventures came just at the nick of time to the much-depressed and weary man.

"Why, I declare, Jane," he said, "this does seem to come opportunely." He walked over to where his sister was standing, and read a portion of the letter aloud. "If I might venture to trust my darlings to you," he said, "there is nothing in all the world I[56] should like better than to accompany Seymour to the Himalayas. He starts in a fortnight's time, so there really is not a day to lose."

"Then, David," said Mrs. Dolman, "you will not allow this valuable opportunity to slip—you will trust your children to me. I assure you I will do my duty by them." She spoke with real sincerity, and tears absolutely dimmed her bright eyes. "David," she continued, "that letter seems a Providence; you will act upon it."

"It certainly does," said the man; "but, Jane, you will be good to the children—tender, I mean. Their mother has always been very gentle to them."

"You need not question me as to how I will treat them. I will bring them up as I would my own. I will do my utmost to rear them in the fear of God. David, this clinches the matter. Write to Mr. Seymour by this night's post."

Mr. Delaney promised to do so, and soon afterwards Mrs. Dolman, feeling that she had done a very good and excellent work, retired, in a thoroughly happy frame of mind, to her bedroom.

[57]

CHAPTER VI. THE POOR DEAD 'UNS.

Mr. Delaney's bedroom faced east, and the following morning, at a very early hour, he began to have most unpleasant dreams. He thought a hobgoblin was seated on his chest, and several brownies were pulling him where he did not wish to go, and finally that a gnome of enormous dimensions was dragging him into a dark cavern, where he could never again behold the daylight. At last, in great perturbation, he opened his dazed eyes. The sight he saw seemed at first to be a continuation of his dream, but after a moment or two he discovered that the person who had become possessed of his chest was a small boy of the name of Orion, that a little black-eyed girl called Diana had comfortably ensconced herself on his knees, and that Iris and Apollo were seated one at each side of his pillow. The four children had all climbed up on to the big bedstead, and were gazing attentively at him.

"He is opening his eyes," said Orion, "he'll be all right after a minute or two. Don't hurry up, father; we can wait."

"We can wait quite well, father," said Diana; "and it's very comf'able on your knees; they is so flat."

"We are awfully sorry to disturb you, father," said Iris.

"But we can't help it, because it's most solemnly important," said Apollo.[58]

"So it seems," remarked Mr. Delaney, when he could at last find a voice. "You have all subjected me to a terrible dream. I am really glad that I have awakened and find that the hobgoblins, and gnomes, and brownies are no less little people than my own four children. But why am I to be disturbed at such a very early hour?"

"If you like, father," said Diana, "we'll pull up all the blinds; then the hot, blazin' sun will come in, and you'll see that it's not early at all; it's late."

Mr. Delaney happened to glance at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece exactly facing the big bed.

"I read on the face of that clock," he said, "that the hour is half-past five. Now, what have you four little children to do, sitting on my bed at half-past five in the morning?"

When Mr. Delaney said this he shook himself slightly and upset Diana's balance, and made Orion choke with silent laughter. Iris and Apollo gazed at him gravely.

"We all made up our minds to do it," said Iris. "We have come to ask you to make a promise, father."

"A promise, my dear children! But you might have waited until the usual hour for getting up. What are you going to wring from me at this inclement moment?"

"I don't exactly know what inclement moment means," said Iris, "but I do know, and so does Apollo—"

"And so do I know all about it," shouted Diana. "You see, father," continued the little girl, who spoke rather more than any of the other children, "we has to think of the poor innocents, and the birds and the[59] mice, and the green frogs, and our puppy, and our pug dog, and our—and our—" Here she fairly stammered in her excitement.

"Has a sudden illness attacked that large family?" said Mr. Delaney. "Please, children, explain yourselves, for if you are not sleepy, I am."

"Yes, father," said Iris, "we can explain ourselves quite easily. The thing is this—we don't want to go away."

"To go away? My dear children, what do you mean?" But as Mr. Delaney spoke he had a very uncomfortable memory of a letter which he had posted with his own hands on the previous evening.

"Yes," said Apollo; "we don't want to go away with her."

"And we don't wish for no aunts about the place," said Diana, clenching her little fist, and letting her big, black eyes flash.

"Now I begin to see daylight," said Mr. Delaney. "So you don't like poor Aunt Jane?"

"Guess we don't," said Orion. "She comed in last night and she made an awful fuss, and she didn't like me 'cos I'm Orion, and 'cos I'm a giant, and 'cos sometimes I has got no eyes. Guess she's afraid of me. I thought her a silly sort of a body."

"She's an aunt, and that's enough," said Diana. "I don't like no aunts; they are silly people. I want her to go."

"Apollo and I brought the two younger children," continued Iris, "because we thought it best for us all to come. It is not Aunt Jane being here that is so dreadful to me, and so very, very terrible to Apollo," she continued. "It's what she said, father, that we—we were to go away, away from the house[60] and the garden—the garden where mother used to be, and the house where the angel came to fetch mother away—and we are to live with her. She spoke, father, as if it was settled; but it is not true, is it? Tell us, father, that it is not true."

"My poor little children!" said the father. His own ruddy and sunburnt face turned absolutely pale; there was a look in his eyes which Diana could not in the least understand, nor could Orion, and which even Apollo only slightly fathomed; but one glance told Iris the truth.

"When I am away you are to be a mother to the others," seemed at that moment to echo her mother's own voice in her ear. She gulped down a great sob in her throat, and stretching herself by her father's side she put one soft arm round his neck.

"Never mind if it is really settled," she said. "I will try hard to bear it."

"You are about the bravest little darling in the world," said Mr. Delaney.

"What are you talking about, Iris?" cried Apollo, clutching his sister by her long hair as she spoke. "You say that you will try and bear it, and that father is not to mind? But father must mind. If I go to Aunt Jane Dolman's, why—why, it will kill me." And the most beautiful of all the heathen gods cast such a glance of scorn at his parent at that moment that Mr. Delaney absolutely quailed.

"For goodness' sake, Apollo, don't eat me up," he said. "The fact is this, children; I may as well have the whole thing out. Aunt Jane came last night and took me by surprise. I have been very lonely lately, and you know, you poor little mites, you cannot be left to the care of Fortune. She is a very good soul,[61] but you want more than her to look after you, and then Miss Stevenson—I never did think her up to much."

"Father," said Apollo, "you have no right to abuse our spiritual pastors and masters."

Notwithstanding his heathenish name, it will be seen by this remark that some of his time was occupied learning the church catechism.

"I stand corrected, my son," said Mr. Delaney, "or, rather, at the present moment, I lie corrected. Well, children, the truth must out—Aunt Jane took me by surprise. She promises she will look after you and be a mother to you."

"We don't want no other mother, now that our own mother is gone, except Iris," said Apollo. "We won't have Aunt Jane for a mother."

"She is a howid old thing, and I hate aunts," said Diana.

"Well, children, I am very sorry for you, but it is too late to do anything now. The whole thing is arranged. I hope you will