The Laurel Walk

"Bless you, no, miss," said the old woman, eagerly. "Quite the contrary, I do assure you. We was working hard up at the big house last night, and this morning too, was me and Webb, for never a girl, let alone a woman, could he get to help us. And no wonder neither, with such short notice to get two or three rooms ready by to-night, and the rest of the house dusted up for the gentlemen as is coming down to stay for a day or two."

"Gentleman?" exclaimed the sisters. "Who? Not Mr Morion?"

"No, miss, not the master himself, but friends of his. First there was a telegraph, and this morning a letter. I'd show them to you, but Webb's got them in his pocket," and she jerked her head in the direction of the house. "I've just run down to open the gates for the butcher and the other carts from the village, for I've got to have dinner for eight o'clock to-night, so you may fancy we've had to bustle about."

"Do you know the gentlemen's names?" asked Betty, eagerly.

"Mr Milner for one," said Mrs Webb, at which the sisters' faces fell. "But the other's a Mr--no, to be sure, I've forgotten it; but it's some gentleman as is thinking of taking the place for a while!"

CHAPTER THREE.

MR MILNE AND ANOTHER.

Luncheon at Fir Cottage was not an attractive meal. Perhaps the least so of the three principal repasts of the day. There was a certain flavour of early dinner about it, recalling the days of the sisters' childhood, when roast mutton and rice pudding formed, with but little variety, the _piece de resistance_ of the daily menu, though for Mr Morion himself there was usually some special and more attractive little dish.

But to-day the walk in the fresh invigorating air had given the two elder sisters a satisfactory appetite, in which, chilblains notwithstanding, Eira was seldom deficient.

Frances and Betty had returned only just in time enough to make their appearance punctually in the dining-room, and in the first interest of hearing how her commissions had been executed, Lady Emma forgot to question them as to the result of their intended inquiries at the Craig-Morion Lodge. Not so Eira. She was fuming with impatience all the time that Frances was repeating the laundress' excuses for the faulty condition in which Mr Morion's shirt-fronts had been sent home, or Betty explaining, for her part, the reason why she had brought a packet of oblong instead of square postcards. Eira's opportunity came at last.

"And what about the big house?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, yes," said her mother, eagerly enough; for which her youngest daughter mentally blessed her, saying to herself that, after all, "mamma was not without some points of sympathy."

"I have been wondering all the morning if there was going to be anything to hear. Did you see the Webbs?"

"We saw Mrs Webb," said Frances, "on our way home. She really is in a flutter of excitement," and here Frances became conscious of a half-suppressed movement on her father's part, showing that he, too, was listening with interest. "It appears," she went on, "that Mr Milne is expected here this evening--"

"About time," interrupted Mr Morion. "There are several things waiting for him to decide. Tomlinson shelters himself behind Milne in an absurd way, whenever he's asked to do anything. There's that gate--coming this evening, do you say?" he broke off. "Why should any one be excited about that?"

"You didn't let me finish, papa," said Frances, for in her quiet way she could sometimes hold her own very effectually with her father. "Mr Milne is coming for a special reason; he is accompanied by, or accompanying, a Mr--somebody else--Mrs Webb couldn't remember his name--who is thinking of taking Craig-Morion for a time."

Her father started.

"They are going to let it?" he exclaimed, for he had all the old-world prejudice against the modern fashion of everybody living in somebody else's house. "They're actually going to let it? More shame to them-- the real birthplace of the family as it is--and just because it's small they care nothing about it in comparison with their other houses."

"But it isn't like selling it," said Betty. "For my part, I shall be only too delighted if they do let it. Anything for a change, and at worst a _chance_ of nice neighbours."

"Yes," said Lady Emma, agreeing for once, not uncordially, with her daughter's point of view. "I don't see why you need feel sore about it, Charles. Far better for the house to be lived in and aired, than to be shut up in that damp dreariness."

"We do very well without neighbours," said Mr Morion hastily. "Far better have none than objectionable ones."

"Why should they be objectionable?" said Eira. "There must be plenty of nice people in the world as well as disagreeable ones."

"Yes," said Betty, "why should we take for granted that, if new people come to Craig-Morion, they shouldn't be nice and pleasant?"

"Nice and pleasant they might be," replied her father, "in their own world of wealth and luxury and among themselves. But in such a case your common-sense might tell you that it is most unlikely that they would give a thought to your existence, or even know of it, living in poverty as we do. And one thing I shall never allow," he went on, working himself up into assuredly very premature irritation, "I give you fair warning, and that is I will allow no sort of patronising."

Not only his three daughters but even poor Lady Emma looked aghast at this unexpected fulmination.

"It is too bad," thought the younger girls to themselves, "that we should be scolded beforehand for a state of things which will probably never come to pass."

"And it is no good," said Betty afterwards, when she found herself alone with Eira, "no good trying to get up the tiniest little bit of excitement or variety in our lives. Papa is too bad! I'm going to give up trying for anything, except a sort of stupid lethargic contentment. Perhaps that's what people mean by the discipline of life."

"I can't quite think that," Eira replied. "Look at Francie, now. You can't say she's in a state of lethargic resignation. She looks out for any little pleasure as eagerly as for the first primroses in the spring." For Eira was on the whole less impressionable than Betty, or perhaps constitutionally stronger, and therefore more able to repel the insidious attacks of not-to-be-wondered-at depression, before which Betty felt frequently all but powerless.

But this conversation took place later in the afternoon. At the luncheon table her father's bitter and hurting words incited Frances as usual to exert her calming influence.

"It would be such a terrible pity," she thought to herself, "for papa to begin nursing up prejudices against these possible neighbours."

"I scarcely think," she said aloud, gently, "that any people coming to Craig-Morion _could_ altogether ignore us, or rather," with a bright inspiration, "that it would be possible for us altogether to ignore _them_. Our very name would forbid it; and surely, papa, you, who know far more of the world than any of us, would hesitate to say that even in this material age money is everything."

Mr Morion fell unsuspectingly into the innocent little trap laid for him by his eldest daughter.

"I have never said such a thing, or thought such a thing," he replied, turning upon her sharply. "Money by itself everything? Faugh! Nonsense! All I say is, what every person with any common-sense must say, that without money very few other things are worth having from a worldly point of view. It is certainly the oil without which no machine can be worked, let it be the most perfect of its kind," and having emitted these sentiments, he looked round for his family's approval, having talked himself almost into a good humour.

"There is a great deal in what you say," murmured his wife, while Frances remarked that she scarcely saw how it could be otherwise from a worldly standpoint, and she did not add the second part of her reflection, namely, Was the worldly standpoint the truest or best from which to look out on the problems of life? The younger girls had given but scant attention to their father's dictum, or the comments it had drawn forth.

As the day went on, the look of the outside world grew gloomier again.

"I really agree with you, Betty," said Eira, "that there's not much use or satisfaction in our trying to do anything with this terrible old room. It _is_ so ugly!" and she gazed round her in a sort of despair.

"No," said Betty, "I don't quite think so. It is more dull than offensively ugly. A few things would make a great difference--more than you realise. Pretty fresh muslin curtains to begin with--I think it's the greatest mistake not to have them in winter as well as in summer--_besides_ the thick ones, of course--and two or three big rich-coloured rugs, and a few nice squashy sofa cushions, and--"

"My dearest child, start by providing yourself with Aladdin's lamp in the first place," said Eira; but Betty had worked herself up into a small fit of enthusiasm, as was her "way," and would not be snubbed.

"Yes," she went on, "I could do wonders with the room without any very important changes; you see, its present monotony would do well enough as a background, and--oh, Francie, do come in, and listen to my ideas about this room."

Frances, who had been employing herself since luncheon, if not really usefully, at least with the honest intention of being so, by writing various letters to her father's dictation--for a new source of personal uneasiness had lately suggested itself to Mr Morion in the shape of fears that his eyesight was failing--Frances came forward into the room and looked about her.

"Those trails and bunches of leaves are lovely," she said heartily, "they make all the difference in the world, and it will all look still prettier when the fire has burnt up a little," for one of the changeless rules at Fir Cottage was that the drawing-room fire should only be lighted at four o'clock.

She moved towards it as she spoke, and gave it an audacious touch with the poker.

"Dear me, how chilly it is!" she went on. "Aren't you both half-frozen, or is it the change from papa's study, where I've been sitting? He does keep it so hot. And oh! by-the-by, you will be interested to hear that I've just been writing a note to his dictation making an appointment for to-morrow with Mr Milne, for a letter came by the afternoon post saying he was to be down here this evening for a couple of days, and would see papa about those repairs that the bailiff couldn't order without his authority, and--now wouldn't you like to know the name of the man who's coming down with him?--all that old Webb told us was quite correct."

"_How_ interesting," exclaimed Eira, "how extraordinarily interesting! Yes, of course, do tell us his name at once."

"He is a Mr Littlewood," Frances replied. "I don't know his first name, nor whether he is young or old, or indeed anything about him, except that--"

"What?" said Eira quickly.

"Oh, it is only the tone of Mr Milne's letter which papa showed me. He seems to take for granted that we know something about this man, and when I asked papa he said he had some vague remembrance of one of Mr Morion's sisters having married some one of the name several years ago. One of the elder sisters he thinks it was, so in this case Mr Littlewood must be a middle-aged man," Frances added.

"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 name must catch their attention."

"And we certainly don't want to be described as dowdy--no, I won't say old maids--but getting on in that direction sort of people," said Eira. "Yes, Betty, I back you up. Let's, at any rate, do the best we can. Our best serge skirts aren't _so_ bad, as country clothes go, and we may as well wear our black silk blouses--the ones mamma gave us when Uncle Avone died--they're such a much better cut than poor Tobias can achieve."