"Us"

by Mary Louisa S. Molesworth.

CHAPTER I.

HOW THEY CAME TO BE "US."

"Blue were their eyes as the fairy-flax, Their cheeks like the dawn of day."

LONGFELLOW.

A soft rather shaky sort of tap at the door. It does not all at once reach the rather deaf ears of the little old lady and tall, still older gentleman who are seated in their usual arm-chairs, one with his newspaper by the window, the other with her netting by the fire, in the exceedingly neat--neat, indeed, is no word for it--"parlour" of Arbitt Lodge. In what part of the country this queerly-named house was--is still, perhaps--to be found there is no particular reason for telling; whence came this same queer name will be told in good time. The parlour suited _its_ name anyway better far than it would that of "drawing-room," which would be given it nowadays. There was a round table in the middle; there were high-backed mahogany chairs against the wall, polished by age and careful rubbing to that stage of dark shininess which makes even mahogany pleasant to the eye, and with seats of flowering silk damask whose texture must have been _very_ good to be so faded without being worn; there were spindle-legged side-tables holding inlaid "papier-mache" desks and rose-wood work-boxes, and two or three carved cedar or sandal-wood cases of various shapes. And, most tempting of all to my mind, there were gla.s.s-doored cupboards in the wall, with great treasures of handleless teacups and very fat teapots, not to speak of bowls and jugs of every form and size; and everything, from the Indian box with the ivory chessmen to the china Turk with his long pipe of green spun-gla.s.s, sitting cross-legged on the high mantelpiece between a very sentimental lady and gentleman, also of china, who occupied its two ends,--_everything_ was exactly and precisely in its own place, in what had been its own place ever since the day, now more than thirty years ago, when Grandpapa, the tall old gentleman, had retired from the army on half-pay and come to settle down at Arbitt Lodge for the rest of his life with Grandmamma and their son Marmaduke. A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left of a pretty flock who, one after the other, had but hovered down into the world for a year or two to spread their tiny wings and take flight again, leaving two desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had _that_ little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the gla.s.s cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in _his_ time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as--ah! but I am forgetting--never mind, I may as well finish the sentence--just exactly as it made "us" sneeze now!

After the tap came a kind of little pattering and scratching, like baby taps, not quite sure of their own existence; then, had Grandpapa's and Grandmamma's ears been a very little sharper, they could not but have heard a small duel in words.

"_You_, bruvver, my fingers' bones is tired."

"I _told_ you, sister," reproachfully, "us should always bring old Neddy's nose downstairs with us. They never hear _us_ tapping."

Then a faint sigh or two and a redoubled a.s.sault, crowned with success.

Grandmamma, whom after all I am not sure but that I have maligned in calling her deaf--the taps were so very faint really!--Grandmamma looks up from her netting, and in a thin but clear voice calls out, "Come in!"

The door opens--then, after admitting the entrance of two small figures, is carefully closed again, and the two small figures, with a military salute from the boy, a bob, conscientiously intended for a curtsey, from the girl, advance a step or two into the room.

"Grandmamma," say the two high-pitched baby voices, speaking so exactly together that they sound but as one. "Grandmamma, it's '_us_.'"

Still no response. Grandmamma is not indifferent--far from it--but just at this moment her netting is at a critical stage impossible to disregard; she _thinks_ to herself "wait a moment, my dears," and is quite under the impression that she has said it aloud; this is a mistake, but all the same "my dears" do wait a moment--several moments indeed, hand-in-hand, uncomplainingly, without indeed the very faintest notion in their faithful little hearts that there is anything to complain of--there are _some_ lessons to be learnt from children long ago, I think,--while Grandmamma tries to secure her knots.

Look at them while they stand there; it is always a good plan to save time, and we have a minute or two to spare. They are so alike in size and colour and feature that if it had not been that one was a boy and the other a girl, there would have been no telling them apart. Before Duke was put into the first stage of boy-attire--what that exactly was in those days I confess I am not sure--they never _had_ been told apart was the fact of the matter, till one day the brilliant idea struck Grandmamma of decorating little Pamela with a coral necklace. She little knew what she was about; both babies burst into howling distress, and were not to be quieted even when the unlucky beads were taken away; no, indeed, they only cried the more. Grandmamma and Nurse were at their wits' end, and Grandpapa's superior intelligence had at last to be appealed to. And not in vain.

"They must _each_ have one," said Grandpapa solemnly. And so it had to be. In consequence of which fine sense of justice and firm determination on the part of the babies, they went on "not being told apart" till, as I said, the day came when Marmaduke's attire began to be cut after a different fashion, and by degrees he arrived at his present dignity of nankin suits complete. Such funny suits you would think them now--funnier even than Pamela's white frock, with its skirt to the ankles and blue-sashed waist up close under the arm-pits, for even if she walked in just as I describe her you would only call her "a Kate-Greenway-dressed little girl." But Marmaduke's light yellow trousers, b.u.t.toning up _over_ his waistcoat, with bright bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and open yellow jacket to match, would look odd. Especially on such a very little boy--for he and Pamela, as they stand there with their flaxen hair falling over their shoulders and their very blue eyes gazing solemnly before them, wondering when either of the old people will think fit to speak to "us"--Pamela and he are only "six last birfday."

All this time Grandpapa is in happy--no, I won't say "happy," for the old gentleman is always, to give him his due, pleased to welcome the children to his presence, "at the right time and in the right manner,"

be it understood--in _complete_ unconsciousness of their near neighbourhood. There was nothing to reveal it; they had not left the door open so as to cause a draught, for Grandpapa abhorred draughts; they were as still and quiet as two little mice, when mice _are_ quiet that is to say. For often in the middle of the night, when my sleep has been disturbed by these same little animals who have been held up as a model for never disturbing any one, I have wondered how they gained this distinction! "When mouses is quiet, perhaps it's cos they isn't there,"

said a little boy I know, and the remark seems to me worthy of deep consideration.

Grandpapa was absorbed in his newspaper, for it was newspaper day for _him_, and newspaper day only came once a week, and when it--the paper, not the day--did come, it was already the best part of a week old. For it came all the way from London, and that not by the post, as we understand the word, but by the post of those days, which meant "his Majesty's mail," literally speaking, and his Majesty's mail took a very long time indeed to reach outlying parts of the country, for all the brave appearance, horses foaming, whips cracking, and flourishing of horns, not to say trumpets, with which it clattered over the stones of the "High Streets" of those days. And the paper--poor two-leaved, miserable little pretence that _we_ should think it--cost both for itself and for its journey from London, oh so dear! I am afraid to say how much, for I should be sorry to exaggerate. But "those days" are receding ever farther and farther from us, and as I write it comes over me sadly that it is no use _now_ to leave a blank on my page and say to myself, "I will ask dear such a one, or such an other. He or she will remember, and I will fill it in afterwards." For those dear ones of the last generation are pa.s.sing from us--have already pa.s.sed from us in such numbers that we who were young not so very long ago shall ere long find ourselves in their places. So I would rather not say what Grandpapa's newspaper cost, but certainly it was dear enough and rare enough for him to think of little else the day it came; and I don't suppose he would have noticed the two children at all, till Grandmamma had made him do so, had it not been that just as they were beginning to be a _little_ tired, to whisper to each other, "Suppose us stands on other legs for a change," something--I don't know what--for his snuff-box had been lying peacefully in his waistcoat pocket ever since Dymock, his old soldier-servant, had brought in the newspaper--made him sneeze. And with the sneeze he left off looking at the paper and raised his eyes, and his eyes being very good ones for his age--much better in comparison than his ears--he quickly caught sight of his grandchildren.

"So ho!" he exclaimed, "and _you_ are there, master and missy! I did not know it was already so late. Grave news, my love," he added, turning to Grandmamma; "looks like war again. The world is trying to go too fast,"

he went on, turning to his paper. "They are actually speaking of running a new mail-coach from London which should reach Sandlingham in three days. It is appalling,--why, I remember when I was young it took----"

"It is flying in the face of Providence, _I_ should say, my dear,"

interrupted Grandmamma.

The two little faces near the door grew still more solemn. What strange words big people used!--what could Grandpapa and Grandmamma mean? But Grandpapa laid down his paper and looked at them again; Grandmamma too by this time was less embarra.s.sed by her work. The children felt that they had at last attracted the old people's attention.

"We came, Grandpapa and Grandmamma, to wish you good-night," began Duke.

"And to hope you will bo'f sleep very well," added Pamela.

This little formula was repeated every evening with the same ceremony.

"Thank you, my good children," said Grandpapa encouragingly; on which the little couple approached and stood one on each side of him, while he patted the flaxen heads.

"I may call you 'my good children' to-night, I hope?" he said inquiringly.

The two looked at each other.

"Bruvver has been good, sir," said the little girl.

"Sister has been good, sir," said the little boy.

The two heads were patted again approvingly.

"But us haven't _bo'f_ been good," added the two voices together.

Grandpapa looked very serious.

"Indeed, how can that be?" he said.

There was a pause of consideration. Then a bright idea struck little Marmaduke.

"I think perhaps it was _most_ Toby," he said. "Us was running, and Toby too, and us felled down, and Toby barked, and when us got up again it was all tored."

"What?" said Grandpapa, still very grave.

"Sister's gown, sir."

"My clean white gown," added Pamela impressively; "but bruvver didn't do it. _He_ said so."

"And sister didn't do it. _She_ said so," stated Duke. "But Nurse said _one_ of us had done it. Only I don't think she had thought of Toby."

"Perhaps not," said Grandpapa. "Let us hope it was Toby."

"Nevertheless," said Grandmamma, who had quite disengaged herself from her netting by this time, "Pamela must remember that she is growing a big missy, and it does not become big misses to run about so as to tear their gowns."

Pamela listened respectfully, but Grandmamma's tone was not alarming.

The little girl slowly edged her way along from Grandpapa's chair to Grandmamma's.

"Did you never tear your gowns when you were a little missy, Grandmamma?" she inquired, looking up solemnly into the old lady's face.

Grandmamma smiled, and looked across at her husband rather slily. He shook his head.

"Who would think it indeed?" he said, smiling in turn. "Listen, my little girl, but be sure you tell it again to no one, for it was a little bird told it to me, and little birds are not fond of having their secrets repeated. Once upon a time there was not a greater hoyden in all the countryside than your Grandmamma there. She swam the brooks, she climbed the trees, she tore her gowns----"

"Till at last my poor mother told the pedlar the next time he came round he must bring her a web of some stuff that _wouldn't_ tear to dress me in," said Grandmamma; "and to this day I mind me as if it had been but last week of the cloth he brought. Sure enough it would neither tear nor wear, and oh how ugly it was! 'Birstle peas' colour they called it, and how ashamed I was of the time I had to wear it. 'Little miss in her birstle-peas gown' was a byword in the countryside. No, my Pamela, I should be sorry to have to dress you in such a gown."

"I'll try not to tear my nice white gowns," said the little girl; "Nurse said she would mend it, but it would take her a long time. Grandmamma,"