In a moment Betty’s mood had changed to penitence.
“Oh, Frances, I’m a brute,” she exclaimed, “for I know you were tired before we came out; reading aloud to papa for so long together is really exhausting. I know what I’ll do,” she went on, with a tone of defiance; “if I have to carry the coals and wood myself upstairs, you shall have a fire in your room as soon as we go in, you shall!”
Frances laughed again, this time with real amusement. She was always happier about Betty when the younger girl’s latent energy asserted itself.
“I’m all right, dear,” she said, “and we’re getting near home now. We must be near the lodge gates. I thought I saw a light a moment ago.”
In spite of the drenching rain, Betty stood still an instant to reconnoitre.
“Yes,” she said, “I see a light, more than one, two or three, but they’re not from the lodge. Francie!” with a sudden excitement in her voice, “they’re up at the house. We’ll see them more clearly as we go on. Who can be there? It’s not likely Mrs Webb would have chosen an evening like this to be making the rounds, or lighting fires in the big house.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Frances, half indifferently. “They may have been doing some extra cleaning or something of that kind earlier in the day, and not have finished yet. There’s nobody at the lodge itself, anyway,” as at this moment they approached the gates. “There’s no light in the windows except from the kitchen fire and – oh dear! I’m sorely afraid that the gates are locked, and neither of the Webbs there to let us through;” and she sighed ruefully, for this meant a quarter of a mile’s further walk – there being an understanding that the Morion family should have a right of way through the grounds of the deserted home of their far-away relatives, to their own little house which stood just beyond the enclosure. “It is unlucky,” she added, “to-night of all nights, when every step of the way is an aggravation of our miseries!”
Strangely enough, Betty’s depression seemed, for the time being, to have vanished. For some passing moments, the sisters might almost have changed characters. Frances was honestly, physically tired. She had had a trying, fatiguing day at home, and the walk to the village, which had in a sense invigorated Betty (who, to confess the truth, had spent the day in doing little or nothing), had really been too much for the elder sister.
“Never mind,” said Betty briskly; “we’ll soon be there now. I shall keep a sharp lookout when we turn the corner to see if there are lights at the back of the big house too.”
Frances, for once, was feeling too tired to rise to her sister’s little fit of excitement, though she smiled to herself in the darkness with pleasure, as she realised that if Betty’s spirits were apt to sink very much below par, they were ready enough to rise again on very small provocation.
“She is still so young,” thought the elder sister; “so much younger than most girls of her age. If only I had a little more in my power for her and Eira!” And the smile gave way, all too quickly, to a sigh, which in its turn was intercepted by an eager exclamation from Betty, for they had turned the corner of the road by this time.
“Look, Francie!” she said, in an involuntary whisper, as if by some extraordinary possibility her remarks could have been overheard at the still distant big house; “look, Francie, it is something out of the common! The offices are lighted up – some of them, anyway; and don’t you see lights moving about too, as if there were several people there? What can be going to happen?”
“Your curiosity will soon be satisfied,” returned Frances; “that’s one good thing of living in a little world like this. By to-morrow at latest, any news there is will be all over the place.” And then she relapsed into silence; and Betty, always quick of perception, seeing that her sister was really tired, said no more, though her little head kept turning round from under the shelter of her umbrella as long as the back precincts of Craig-Morion remained visible.
This was not for long, however. A few moments more, and their path skirted a thickly-planted belt of Scotch firs, which here bordered the park. They had almost to feel their way now, so dark had it become.
“Oh dear,” said Betty, when there was no longer anything to distract her attention from the woes of the present moment. “Oh dear, Francie, did the way home ever seem quite so long before? I do hope the next time papa wants his medicine in a hurry that he’ll choose a fine evening.”
“Dear,” said Frances regretfully, “I shouldn’t have let you come with me.”
“Rubbish! nonsense!” cried Betty, “as if Eira and I would have let you go alone. I do believe in my heart that we’re both quite as strong as you, though you won’t allow it. Poor little Eira, she would have come too, except for her chilblains. It is unlucky that she has got them so early this year. And they spoil her pretty hands so.”
“It’s only from the unusual cold,” said Frances, “and – ” she hesitated. “I am sure I could cure them,” she resumed, “if I had my own way, or if I had had it when you were both growing up. What makes me really stronger is, I am sure, that I had so much better a time as a child than either of you, before papa gave up his appointment and we were better off.”
“I wish you’d leave off repeating that old story,” said Betty. “After all, I’m not four years younger than you, and whatever Eira and I have not had, we’ve had you, darling – a second mother as people say, a great, great deal better than a second mother I say, and oh joy! here we are at last; I see the white gate-posts.” And in another moment they were plodding the short, badly kept gravel path, not to be dignified by the name of a drive, which led to their own door.
“Take care of the big puddle just in front of the steps; it must be a perfect lake to-night,” Betty was saying, when, before they had quite reached it, the door was cautiously opened, and a girl’s face peered out, illumined by the light, faint though it was, of the small hall behind her. It was Eira, the third and youngest of the Morion sisters.
“It’s you at last,” she said in a low voice; “come in quickly, and I’ll take the medicine to papa, he’s been fussing like a – I don’t know what, and if he gets hold of you he’ll keep you waiting in your soaking things for half-an-hour while he goes on about your having been so long! Now go straight upstairs,” she continued, when she had got her sisters inside, and extricated them from their dripping umbrellas and waterproofs. “I’ll see to these things as soon as I’ve been to papa. Go straight up to your room, Frances; there’s a surprise for you there. Go up quickly and keep the door closed till I come.”
She took the parcel from her elder sister’s hands as she spoke, and, without wasting time in more words, gave her a gentle little push toward the staircase. Frances and Betty went up softly, but as quickly as their feet, tired and stiffened with cold and wet, would allow. The staircase, like everything in the house, was meagre and dingy, the steps steep and the balusters rickety. At the top a little landing gave access to the best rooms, and a long narrow passage at one side led to the sisters’ own quarters.
Betty ran on in front and threw open the door of her elder sister’s room eagerly. She had hard work to repress an exclamation of delight at what met her eyes. It was a fair-sized, bare-looking room, though scrupulously neat and not without some simple and tasteful attempts at ornamentation, and to-night it really looked more attractive than was often the case, for a bright glowing fire sent out its pleasant rays of welcome, and on a little table beside it stood, neatly arranged, everything requisite for a good, hot cup of tea.
“How angelic of Eira!” exclaimed Betty. “How has she managed it? Just when I was planning how I could possibly get you a fire, Francie.”
The eldest sister sat down with a smile of satisfaction in front of the warm blaze.
“Run into your own room, Betty, and take off your