“I’m sure I don’t mind in the least whether he’s old or young,” said Eira, “if only they bring a little life about the place. I only hope they’re not going to turn out invalids coming down here for perfect quiet and rest, and all that kind of thing.”
“It’s sure to be something of that sort,” said Betty, speaking for the first time, rather drearily. “What else, in the name of everything that’s sensible, would any one come to Craig Bay for?”
“Craig-Morion isn’t quite the same as Craig Bay,” said Eira. “A country house makes its own entourage. There are lots of places – delightful to stay at – which must look more isolated and out of the world than this place does, when they are shut up. But do tell us, does he actually say that Mr Littlewood’s going to take it?”
Frances considered.
“If you want his very words,” she replied, “I think they are that Mr Littlewood is coming to see the house with ‘a view to a possible tenancy.’ Dear me! what a long day this has seemed! Isn’t it tea-time yet?”
“It’s,” said Betty, peering up at the timepiece, for the room was already growing dusky, “it’s a quarter or twenty minutes past four. There’s one thing I do thank papa for,” she added, speaking more briskly at the prospect of afternoon-tea in ten minutes, “that he keeps the clocks going correctly. It would be too horrible if they were all standing still and out of repair. Frances,” she went on, “it’s a worn-out subject, I’m afraid, but can you think of any way in which we three, or any one of us, could make a little money? It has come into my head so this afternoon how delightful it would be to brighten up this room a little. Even the thought of old Milne looking in makes me long for it to be rather more like other people’s.”
Before this, Frances, who rarely allowed her hands to be idle, had ensconced herself in a corner as near a window as she could manage, anxious to benefit by the last remains of daylight for a beautiful bit of embroidery, which represented her special fancy work, and this for practical reasons. Her materials were of the simplest, being merely white lawn and embroidery cotton, with which, nevertheless, thanks to her quickness at transferring designs, she was often able to add beauty to her younger sisters’ otherwise undecorated attire.
Before replying, she glanced at her handiwork.
“Personally, I can think of nothing but my work,” she said. “But there are such beautiful imitations of hand embroidery nowadays that I don’t believe I should get much for it, so that really it’s better to use it ourselves; and I must say that the first thing I want money for is to help us to be better dressed, rather than our drawing-room.”
She looked at her sisters regretfully. Nature had not done badly by either of them, and each had a distinct style of her own, which, however, even their sister’s partial eyes could not but own was shown to the very smallest advantage by the chefs d’oeuvre of Miss Tobias, the village seamstress, who spent a few days at Fir Cottage two or three times a year for the purpose of manipulating new material, or transmogrifying old, into clothes for the sisters’ wear.
“Yes,” said Betty, agreeing with the expression she saw in her sister’s eyes, “we are atrociously dressed: there’s no other word for it I know; and what makes it doubly hard to bear is the old story. If mamma would allow us even fifteen pounds a year each, in our own hands, there would be some hope of better things. I am sure we could manage better, but as things are it is quite hopeless. That was what made me speak of this room instead of ourselves.”
Frances sighed and folded up her work for the time, for there came the welcome sound of the tea-tray and its contents.
“They both might look so pretty,” she thought to herself. She watched Betty’s slight figure as she helped to arrange the cups and saucers with her little white hands, and Eira’s lovely hair as it glimmered and glowed in the firelight. “How is it that people will see things with such different eyes? If mamma could but see them as I do! and how, comparatively speaking, small effort might make them and their lives so different.”
For Frances thought a great deal more than she expressed. She had an almost morbid terror of adding or exaggerating any new grounds of discontent to the two, who often seemed to her more her children than her sisters, slight as was in reality the difference of age which separated her from them.
An approaching rustle – somehow or other their father always announced his advent by a rustle; this time it was that of the afternoon paper he had just opened – made her look up in expectation of some request or complaint. This time, by good luck, it was the former.
“Sorry to disturb you, young ladies,” he said in an unwontedly amiable tone, “but if you’ll allow me a little bit of the fire, I should be grateful. Where is your mother?” and as at that moment Lady Emma made her appearance, “I have a letter from Milne at last, you will be glad to hear,” he said, addressing her, “so I hope these wretched repairs will now be seen to.”
Lady Emma replied with unusual animation. “You mean that he is really coming down?” she said; “and what about the second arrival expected? Is it true that we are to have neighbours at Craig-Morion, as the girls heard?”
“Dear, dear!” said her husband; “what incorrigible gossips women are!” But his tone was still agreeable. “It is true that a Mr Littlewood is thinking of the place. And, by-the-by, Emma, your memory may be better than mine. Is there not some connection between the Littlewoods and – the Morions?”
“To be sure,” said Lady Emma, a spot of colour appearing on her cheeks with gratification at his flattering appeal. “To be sure: the present man’s eldest sister married one of the Littlewoods of Daleshire. No doubt it’s one of them – perhaps the very one.” But on Eira’s following up this promising beginning by further inquiries, her mother declared herself unable to give any more particulars, and the conversation lapsed into its usual monotonous and scarcely more than monosyllabic character.
Still, throughout the rest of the evening the sisters were conscious of a slight stir in the moral atmosphere; very little, it must be confessed, was enough to give them this sensation; and when the next morning at breakfast their father announced his intention of shortening his usual – when the weather was fine enough – afternoon constitutional, by reason of the probability “of Milne looking in about tea-time,” they felt justified in harbouring a definite expectation of some break in the regular routine.
The weather was somewhat milder, thanks to which and to Frances’ nursing, Eira’s chilblains were decidedly on the mend, in itself enough to raise her spirits to an extent which would appear disproportionate to the happy beings who know not the woe and misery occasioned by these unwelcome visitors.
Lady Emma was heard to give certain injunctions as to afternoon-tea, which encouraged Frances to follow suit.
“You would like us to be in by four o’clock or thereabouts, I suppose?” she said, “in case of Mr Milne’s coming,” for the old lawyer was sufficiently man of the world for a little gossip with him to be a by no means disagreeable variety.
Lady Emma looked up vaguely.
“He may only have time for a talk with your father,” she replied. “But – well, yes, you may as well be at hand. For one thing, your father may want you, and there’s no reason why you all shouldn’t be here at tea-time as usual.”
“Or not as usual,” said Betty, as they ran upstairs to put on their outdoor things. “I warn you both that whatever you do, I am going to try to make myself fit to be seen, for once, and I advise you to do the same. It stands to reason that if these Littlewoods are coming down here, they’ll be asking Mr Milne about possible and impossible neighbours, and as they are connections of the other Morions, our