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

you were! It wouldn't be half so bad."

"I should hate it," said Nancy decidedly; "but," she added, with an attempt at comfort, "there'll be some things you like after all. There'll be the Cathedral and the College, and old Nurse, and oh! Pennie, have you thought what a chance it'll be to hear more about Kettles?"

But Pennie was too cast-down to take a cheerful view of anything.

"I don't suppose I shall hear anything about her," she said. "How should I?"

"Perhaps you'll see her at the College again," said Nancy, "or perhaps Miss Unity will know about her, or perhaps the dean goes to see her father and mother."

"That I'm sure he doesn't," said Pennie with conviction. "Why, I don't suppose he even knows where Anchoranopally is."

"Father goes to see all the people in Easney," said Nancy, "so why shouldn't Dr Merridew go to see Kettles?"

"I don't know why he shouldn't," said Pennie, "but I'm quite sure he doesn't. At any rate I'm not going to ask him anything. I hope I sha'n't see him at all. Oh, why should people learn dancing? What good can it be?"

Nancy's muttered reply showed that she was very nearly asleep, so for that night there was no further conversation about Pennie's dancing, but it was by no means altogether given up. On the contrary it was a very favourite topic with all the children, for it seemed to have added to their eldest sister's dignity to be singled out as the only one to join the class at Nearminster.

"Why isn't Nancy to go too?" asked Ambrose one afternoon as he carefully put the last touches to a picture he was drawing for Dickie; it was a fancy portrait of Pennie learning to dance, with her dress held out very wide, and an immense toe pointed in the air. The children were all in the school-room engaged in various ways, for it was a wet afternoon; even Dickie, having grown tired of the nursery, had insisted on coming down until tea-time,--and now stood on tiptoe by Ambrose, watching the progress of the picture with breathless interest.

Pennie looked up from her writing at her brother's question.

"Because Miss Unity only asked me," she answered with a sort of groan.

"Is she fondest of you?" asked David from the background. He had not spoken for a long time, for he was deeply engaged in what he called "putting his cupboard to rights."

The four oldest children each possessed a cupboard below the book-shelves, where they were supposed to keep their toys and private property. David was very particular about his cupboard, and could not bear to find any stray articles belonging to the others put away in it. He kept it very neat, and all the curious odds and ends in it were carefully arranged, each in its proper place. Just now he had turned them all out on the floor, and was kneeling in front of them with his hands in his pockets.

"It's nothing to do with that," said Nancy in answer to his question. "It's because she's her godmother.--Why, David," she exclaimed suddenly looking over his shoulder, "there's my emery cushion which I lost ever so long ago!"

She pointed to a small cushion in the shape of a strawberry which lay among David's treasures. He picked it up and put it into his pocket before she could get hold of it.

"It was in my cupboard," he said slowly. "It had no business there. I shall 'fisticate it."

"'Fisticate!" repeated Nancy with a laugh of contempt; "there's no such word; is there, Pennie?"

"There is," said David quite unmoved. "I had it in English history to-day. `All his lands were 'fisticated.' I asked Miss Grey what it meant, and she said it meant `taken away,' so I know it's right."

"You mean `confiscate,'" put in Pennie; "but I do wish, David, you wouldn't try to use such long words when you write for the magazine. There's a lot in the `Habits of the Pig' I can't make out, and it's such a trouble to copy them."

"I'm not going to lose my cushion at any rate," said Nancy, springing suddenly on David, so that he rolled over on the floor. Dickie immediately cast herself on the top of them with shrieks of delight, while Pennie and Ambrose went quietly on with their occupation in the midst of the uproar as though nothing were happening.

"I wonder if the Merridews are nice?" remarked Ambrose; "fancy five girls!"

"Only four are going to learn," said Pennie; "Miss Unity told me their names. There's Joyce, and Ethel, and Katharine, and Sabine."

"What rum names!" said Ambrose; "all except Katharine; almost as queer as Ethelwyn."

"They're not a bit like Ethelwyn to look at, though," said Pennie; "they're very neat and quiet, and I think not pretty."

"I suppose Ethelwyn was pretty, but she wasn't nice," said Ambrose thoughtfully; "and what a sneak she was about the mandarin!"

Pennie sighed; Ethelwyn and the mandarin were both painful subjects to her, and she felt just now as though the world were full of trials. There was this dreadful dancing-class looming in the distance--something awful and unknown, to which she was daily getting nearer and nearer. Ambrose understood much better than Nancy what she felt about it, and was a much more sympathetic listener, for he knew very well what it was to be afraid, and to dread what was strange and new. Nancy was quite sure that she should hate to learn dancing; but as to being afraid of the dean or any other dignitary, or minding the presence of any number of Merridews, that was impossible to imagine. So as the days went on Pennie confided her troubles chiefly to Ambrose; but she was soon seized with another anxiety in which he could be of no help.

"Those shoes are awfully shabby, mother," she said one morning; "don't you think I might have new ones?"

Mrs Hawthorne examined the shoes which Pennie had brought to her.

"Are those your best?" she asked, "it seems quite a short time since you and Nancy had new ones."

"Nancy's are quite nice still," said Pennie sorrowfully; "but just look how brown these toes are, and how they bulge out at the side."

"They were just the same as Nancy's when they were bought," said Mrs Hawthorne; "but if you will stand on one side of your foot, Pennie, of course you wear them out more quickly."

"I never mean to," said poor Pennie, gazing mournfully at the shabby shoe, "but it seems natural somehow."

"Well, you must try harder to remember in future," said her mother. "I should like to give you new shoes very much, but you know I have often told you I can't spend much on your clothes, and I'm afraid we must make the old ones do a little longer."

So this was another drop of bitterness added to Pennie's little cup of troubles. It was not only that the shoes were shabby, but they fastened with a button and a strap. She felt quite sure that the Merridews and all the other children at the class would wear shoes with sandals, and this was a most tormenting thought. She saw a vision of rows of elegantly shod feet, and one shabby misshapen pair amongst them.

"I think I want new shoes quite as much as Kettles does," she said one day to Nancy.

"You might have mine if you like," said Nancy, who was always ready to lend or give her things, "but I suppose they'd be too small."

"I can just squeeze into them," said Pennie, "and while I stand-still I can bear it--but I couldn't walk without screaming."

The dreaded day came, as all days must whether we want them or not, and Pennie found herself walking across the Close to the deanery with Betty, who carried a little parcel with the old shoes and a pair of black mittens in it. The grey Cathedral looked gravely down upon them as they passed, and Pennie looked up to where her own special monster perched grinning on his water-spout. The children had each chosen one of these grotesque figures to be their very own, and had given them names; Pennie called hers the Griffin. He had wings and claws, a long neck, and a half-human face, and seemed to be just poised for flight--as though at any moment he might spring away from his resting-place, and alight on the smooth green turf just outside the dean's door. Pennie often wondered what Dr Merridew would say if he found him there, but just now she had no room for such fancies; she only felt sure of the Griffin's sympathy, and said to herself as she nodded to him:

"When I see you again I shall be glad, because it will be over, and I shall be going home to tea." Another moment and they had arrived at the deanery.

"Miss Unity wishes to know, please, what time Miss Hawthorne is to be fetched," asked Betty.

It seemed odd to Pennie that she could not run across the Close to Miss Unity's house alone, but this by no means suited her godmother's ideas of propriety.

Having taken off her hat, changed her shoes, and put on the black mittens, Pennie was conducted to the dining-room, which was already prepared for the dancing-class, with the large table pushed into the window and the chairs placed solemnly round close to the wall. Some girls, who were chatting and laughing near the fire, all stopped short as she entered, and for one awful moment stared at the new-comer in silence.

Pennie felt that no one knew who she was; she stood pulling nervously at her mittens, a forlorn little being in a strange land. At last one of the girls came forward and shook hands with her.

"Won't you sit down?" she said; and Pennie having edged herself on to one of the high leather-covered chairs against the wall, she left her and returned to the group by the fire.

Pennie examined them.

"That must be Ethel," she thought, "and the tallest is Joyce, and the two with frocks alike must be Katharine and Sabine. It isn't nice of them not to take any notice of a visitor. We shouldn't do it at home."

Presently other children arrived, and then Miss Lacy, the governess, joined them. She went up to Pennie and asked her name.

"Why, of course," she said, "I ought to have remembered you. Ethel, come here and talk to Penelope. You two are just the same age, I think," she added as Ethel turned reluctantly from the group near the fire.

Pennie was very tired of hearing that she and Ethel were just the same age, and it did not seem to her any reason at all that they should want to know each other. Ethel, too, looked unwilling to be forced into a friendship, as she came listlessly forward and sat down by Pennie's side.

"Are you fond of dancing?" she inquired in a cold voice.

"I don't know," said Pennie, "I never tried. I don't think I shall be," she added.

Ethel was silent, employing the interval in a searching examination of her companion, from the tucker in her frock, to the