'Muffins, for one thing, I hope,' said Dods. 'They don't leave off making them till May, and it isn't May yet.'
There was a baker in the village – I think I have forgotten to say that there was a very tiny village called Eastercove, close to our gates – who was famed for his muffins.
'Humph,' I said. 'I don't very much care about them. They are such a bother with toasting and buttering. I think bread and butter – thin and rolled – is quite as good, and some nice cakes and a big one of that kind of gingerbread that you hardly taste the ginger in, and that's like toffee at the top.'
I was beginning to feel hungry, for we had not eaten much luncheon, which was our early dinner, and I think that made me talk rather greedily.
'You are a regular epicure about cakes,' said Dods.
I did not like his calling me that, and I felt my face get red, and I was just going to answer him crossly when I remembered about our great trouble, and thought immediately to myself how silly it would be to squabble about tiny things in a babyish way now. So I answered quietly —
'Well, you see, it is only polite to think of what other people like, if you invite them to tea, and I know papa likes that kind of gingerbread. He ate such a big piece one day that mamma called him a greedy boy.'
Geordie did not say anything, but I always know when he is sorry for teasing me, and I could see that he was just now.
Then we locked up and set off home again. As we came out of the pine woods and in sight of the drive we saw the pony carriage, and we ran on, so as to be at the front door when papa and mamma got there.
They smiled at us very kindly, and papa said in what he meant to be a cheery voice —
'Well, young people, what have you been about? Run in, Ida, and hurry up tea. Mamma is tired.'
Yes, poor mamma did look dreadfully tired, and through the outside cheeriness of papa's words and manner I could see that he was feeling very sad and dull.
I hurried in, and we were soon all at tea in the pretty drawing-room. George and I did not always have tea downstairs, but to-day somehow there seemed no question of our not doing so. I waited till mamma had had some tea and was looking a little less white and done up, and then I said half-frightenedly —
'Did you see any nice little house at Kirke?' though in my heart I felt sure they hadn't, or they would not have come back, looking so disappointed.
Mamma shook her head.
'I am afraid, dearie,' she began, but papa interrupted her —
'No,' he said decidedly, 'we saw nothing the least possible to call "nice," except one or two places far and away too dear. And of course we knew already that there are plenty of nice houses to be got, if expense had not to be considered so closely. There is no good beating about the bush with George and Ida,' he went on, turning to mamma. 'Now that we have so thoroughly taken them into our confidence it is best to tell them everything. And the truth is,' he continued, leaning back in his chair with a rather rueful smile, 'I am really feeling almost in despair. I am afraid we shall have to give up the idea of staying at Kirke.'
'Yet there are so many advantages about it,' said mamma quickly. 'And there is, after all, that tiny house in the Western Road.'
'Horrid poky little hole,' said papa. 'I cannot bear to think of you in it. I would almost rather you went about in a caravan like the gypsies we passed on the road.'
'Yes,' I agreed, 'I wouldn't mind that at all – not in summer, at least.'
'Ah, but unluckily, my dear child, "it is not always May,"' he replied, though I was pleased to see he held out his cup for some more tea (I have found out that things do seem much worse when one is tired or hungry!) and that his voice sounded more like itself.
'And it isn't always winter either,' said mamma cheerfully. 'Let us be as happy as we can while we are together, and enjoy this nice spring weather. I am glad, if sad things had to happen, that they did not come to us in November or December. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd will find some nicer house for us.'
'Does he know about – about our having to leave Eastercove?' I asked.
Mamma nodded.
'Yes,' she replied. 'We stopped there on our way back, and papa went in and told him.'
I felt glad of that. It would prepare him for Dods's anxiety about a scholarship.
'By the bye,' mamma continued, 'how fast they are getting on with the new parish room! I was looking at it while I was waiting for you, Jack' (that's papa), 'and it seems really finished. Are they not beginning to take away the iron room already?'
'Lloyd says it is to be sold here, or returned to the makers for what they will give, next week,' papa replied. 'It has served its purpose very well indeed these two or three years. If – '
'If what?' said mamma.
Poor papa shrugged his shoulders.
'Oh, it's no good thinking of it now,' he answered. 'I was only going to say – forgetting – that if Geordie and Ida liked I might buy it and add it on to the hut. It would make into two capital little bedrooms for very little cost, and Lloyd happened to say to-day that the makers would rather sell it for less where it stands than have the expense of taking it back to London. They keep improving these things; it is probably considered old-fashioned already.'
Geordie and I looked at each other. How lovely it would have been! Just what we had always longed for – to be allowed really to live at the hut now and then. And with two more rooms we could have had Hoskins with us, and then mamma wouldn't have been nervous about it. But as papa said, there was no use in thinking about it now.
'Will the people who are coming to live here have the hut too?' I asked.
Papa did not seem to pay much attention to what I said. He was thinking deeply, and almost started as I turned to him with the question.
'I do not know,' he replied. 'It has not been alluded to.'
'I hope not,' said mamma. 'If we stay at Kirke, as I still trust we may, it would be nice to come up there to spend an afternoon now and then. It is so far from the house that we would not seem like intruders. Though, of course, once they see how nice it is, they may want to have it as a bathing-box.'
'That's not very likely,' said papa. 'They seem elderly people, and the son is a great sufferer from rheumatism. That is why they have taken such a fancy to this place – the scent of pine woods and the air about them are considered so good for illnesses of that kind. And sea-air suits him too, and they think it a wonderful chance to have all this as well as a dry climate and fairly mild winters. Yes – we who live here are uncommonly lucky.'
He strolled to the window as he spoke and stood looking out without speaking. Then he turned again.
'I'll remember about the hut,' he said. 'I don't fancy these good people would be likely to be fussy or ill-natured or to think you intruding. Their letters are so well-bred and considerate.'
We felt glad to hear that.
'Mamma,' I said, 'we have made the hut so nice and tidy for to-morrow – Sunday, you know. You and papa will come and have tea there, won't you? It will be the first time this year' (and 'the last perhaps' seemed whispered into my mind, though I did not utter the words), for the spring-coming had been uncertain and we had all had colds.
Mamma looked at papa.
'Yes,' he said; 'certainly we will. And the little ones too, Ida?'
'Of course,' I said, and then I went off to talk about cakes – and muffins if possible, to please Dods – to Hoskins, the result of the interview proving very satisfactory.
When