Penelope and the Others - Amy Walton (best book club books .txt) 📗

tiny square of carpet on the floor. A common deal table stood in the middle of this, and two deal boxes or packing-cases seemed to serve for seats; on the wide hearth, a fire of sticks was crackling under a kettle which hung over it by a chain, and two dogs which had been asleep, got up and growled at the strangers. There was nothing the least strange in the room, unless it was Miss Barnicroft herself, who, with her head tied up in a white cotton handkerchief, sat on one of the boxes, writing busily in a book. She gazed at her two visitors without knowing them at first, but soon a light came into her eyes.

"Ah, the vicar's little boys, I think?" she said graciously. "Pray sit down."

She waved her hand with the majesty of a queen towards the other box, and the boys, not daring to dispute her least sign, bestowed themselves upon it, as close together as possible, with the fatal little crock squeezed between them. There they sat for a minute in silence staring at Miss Barnicroft, who, with her head bent gently forward and a look of polite inquiry, waited to hear their errand.

It was so dreadful to see her sitting there, and to know how her face would change presently, that Ambrose had a wild impulse to run out of the room and leave the crock to tell its own tale. He gave a glance at David, and saw by the way he had placed his hands on his knees, and fixed his eyes immovably on Miss Barnicroft, that he had no intention of either moving or speaking. Ambrose was the elder; it was for him to take the lead. There were times when Ambrose would cheerfully have given up all the rights and privileges belonging to that position, and this was one of them, but he knew that he must make an effort. Father was waiting outside. They could not sit there in silence any longer. He must speak.

Seizing the crock, he suddenly rushed up to Miss Barnicroft, held it out, and said huskily:

"We've come to bring back this!"

David now slid off the box and placed himself gravely at his brother's side. Miss Barnicroft looked from the boys to the crock with a satirical light in her eyes.

"And may I ask where you found it?" she said with icy distinctness which seemed to cut the air like a knife.

"In Rumborough Camp," murmured Ambrose.

"I knew the thief was in your father's parish," said Miss Barnicroft, "and I'm not surprised to find that it's a boy; but I certainly didn't suspect the vicar's own son."

"We didn't know the money was yours," broke in David, "and father says we are not thieves."

"At any rate," returned Miss Barnicroft, fixing him sharply with her cold light eyes, "you knew it wasn't yours. _I_ was always taught that to take what was not mine was stealing."

"We thought it was Roman," said David, still undaunted, "and they're all dead." Then, seeing no reason for staying longer, he added quickly, "Good-bye! father's waiting for us."

"Oh, really!" said Miss Barnicroft, rising with a short laugh. "Well, you can give him my compliments, and say that I haven't altered my opinion of boys, and that I advise him to teach you your catechism, particularly your duty towards your neighbour."

As the boys made hurriedly for the doorway, she suddenly called to them in quite a different voice,--"Stay a minute. Won't you have some ambrosia before you go?"

Ambrose had no idea what ambrosia could be, but he at once concluded that it was something poisonous.

"No, thank you," he said, pulling David's sleeve to make him refuse too.

"It's honey and goat's milk," said Miss Barnicroft persuasively; "very delicious. You'd better taste it."

"We'd much rather not, thank you," said Ambrose with a slight shudder, and in another second he and David had unlatched the door, scudded down the garden like two frightened rabbits, and joined their father.

At the Vicarage, all this while, their return had been eagerly looked for by Pennie and Nancy. They had heard the whole adventure of Rumborough Common and the crock of gold with much interest, and although the boys had been wrong to disobey orders, and were now in disgrace, it was impossible not to regard them with sympathy. They had been through so much that was unusual and daring that they were in some sort heroes of romance, and now this was increased by their having penetrated into that abode of mystery, Miss Barnicroft's cottage.

It was somewhat consoling to the boys, after their real alarm and discomfort, to be received in this way at home, and questioned with so much eagerness as to their experiences. Ambrose, indeed, warming to the subject, was inclined to give a very highly-coloured description of what had passed, and would soon have filled Miss Barnicroft's dwelling with wonderful objects, if he had not been kept in check by David, who always saw things exactly as they were, and had a very good memory.

"When we went in," began Ambrose, "some immense dogs got up and barked furiously."

"Weren't you frightened?" asked Pennie.

"I wasn't," replied David, "because there were only two--quite small ones, not bigger than Snuff, and they only growled."

"Miss Barnicroft had got her head all bound up in linen," pursued Ambrose, "like the picture of Lazarus in the big Bible."

"It was a pocket-handkerchief," said David. "I saw the mark in one corner."

"What was in the room?" asked Nancy.

"Nothing," said David, "except Miss Barnicroft, and two boxes and a table, and the dogs."

"Oh, _David_!" broke in Ambrose in a tone of remonstrance; "there was a great cauldron smoking over the fire, a regular witch's cauldron!"

"I don't know what a cauldron is," said David; "but there was a black kettle, if you mean that."

"And only think, Pennie," continued Ambrose; "she offered us something, she called _ambrosia_. I daresay it was made of toadstools and poisonous herbs picked at night."

"She said it was honey and goat's milk," finished David; "but we didn't taste it."

As long as there remained anything to tell about Miss Barnicroft, Ambrose was quite excited and cheerful; but soon after the adventure had been fully described, he became very quiet, and presently gave a heavy sigh; on being asked by Pennie what was the matter, he confided to her that he never could be happy again, because father had said he was not fit to be trusted.

"It doesn't matter so much about David," he added mournfully; "but you see I'm so much older. Do you think there's anything I could do? anything very dangerous and difficult?"

"Like Casabianca," said Pennie, thinking of a poem she was fond of reciting:

"The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but he had fled."

"Oh, don't go on," cried Nancy, "about that stupid boy. He couldn't have supposed his father wanted him to stop there and be all burnt up. I'm sure he wasn't fit to be trusted."

"We're not to have any pocket-money for a month," continued Ambrose, taking no notice of Nancy; "but I don't mind that a bit. It's the other I mind."

Pennie was sorry for her brother; but this last remark turned her thoughts another way. No pocket-money! She glanced ruefully at her china-house. Fate was certainly against Miss Unity's mandarin. Nancy saw the glance and smiled triumphantly.

"There, you see!" she exclaimed. "There's nobody left to give anything to it, so you'd much better give it up, and begin to collect for Kettles."

In season and out of season she never ceased to impress this on Pennie, and although they did not see Kettles again after meeting her at the College, she soon became quite a familiar acquaintance. The little girls carried on a sort of running chronicle, in which Kettles was the chief character, and was made to do and say various surprising things. Those were mostly suggested by Pennie, for Nancy, though equally interested, would much have preferred a glimpse of the real Kettles herself. She never could secure this, though, whenever she drove into Nearminster, she hung over the waggonette to peer into Anchor and Hope Alley with such earnestness that she nearly toppled over. Once she was somewhat repaid by seeing a ragged man in a long coat and battered hat turn into the alley.

"Pennie," she said, directly she got back, "I do believe I've seen Kettles' father."

All these talks and fancies made Pennie feel weaker and weaker in holding to her own plan.

She was tired of standing quite alone, and though her pride was still a little hurt at her failure, she could not help seeing how much more interesting it was to have Nancy's sympathy and help.

So, one day, she took her money out of the china-house, rubbed the label off the door, and restored the box to David. Nancy knew, when she saw that, that Pennie's support in the matter of shoes and stockings for Kettles was secure.


CHAPTER SIX.

"DANCING."

The even course of Miss Unity's life in her dark old house at Nearminster had been somewhat ruffled lately. A troublesome question, which she could neither dismiss nor answer, presented itself so continually before her that her peace of mind was quite destroyed. It was always there. It sat with her at her wool-work, so that she used the wrong shades of green; it made her absent while she dusted the china, so that she nearly dropped her most valuable pieces; and more than once it got mixed up with her marketing, and made her buy what she did not want, to Betty's great surprise.

Every morning when she woke it was ready for her, and this was the form of it:

"Am I doing my duty to my god-daughter, Penelope Hawthorne?"

Miss Unity's conscience pricked her. There were, in truth, several things she considered important which she did not approve of in Pennie; and yet, being a timid lady as well as a conscientious one, she had always shrunk from interference.

"Mary ought to know best," she argued with herself in reply to the obstinate question; "she is the child's mother. I shall offend her if I say anything. But then, again, as godmother, I have some responsibility too; and if I see plainly that Penelope pokes over her books and writing too much, and is getting high-shouldered, and comes into the room awkwardly, and does not hold herself upright, I ought to speak. I owe it to the child. I ought not to consult my own comfort. How I should have to reproach myself if she were to grow up untidy, rough-haired, inky, the sort of woman who thinks of nothing but scribbling. And I see signs of it. She might even come to write books! What she wants is a refining influence--the companionship of some nice, lady-like girls, like the Merridews, instead of romping about so much with her brothers and Nancy, who is quite as bad as a boy. But how to make Mary see it!"

Miss Unity sighed heavily when she came to this point. She felt that Pennie's future was in some measure in her hands,