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

inmates.

Pennie on her side, though a trifle discouraged by the coldness with which any mention of Kettles was received, felt that at least she had taken a step towards her further acquaintance. Very likely her godmother might come in time to approve of the idea and to wish to hear more about it. "I shall have something to tell Nancy at last," she said to herself when she woke up the next morning and remembered the conversation.

But she was not to see Nancy as soon as she thought. After breakfast Andrew arrived, not with the waggonette as usual to fetch Pennie home, but mounted on Ruby with a letter from Mrs Hawthorne to Miss Unity. Dickie was ill. It might be only a severe cold, her mother said, but there were cases of measles in the village, and she felt anxious. Would Miss Unity keep Pennie with her for the next few days? Further news should be sent to-morrow.

As she read this all sorts of plans and arrangements passed through Miss Unity's mind and stirred it pleasantly. She was sorry for Dickie and the others, but it was quite an excitement to her to think of keeping Pennie with her longer.

"Miss Penelope will remain here to-night," she said to Betty, "and probably for two or three days. Miss Delicia is ill, and they think it may be measles."

"Oh, indeed, Miss!" said Betty with a sagacious nod. "Then it'll go through all the children."

"Do you think so?" said Miss Unity, who had great faith in Betty's judgment. "Then it may be a matter of weeks?"

"Or months, Miss," replied Betty. "It depends on how they sicken."

"In that case I've been thinking," said Miss Unity timidly, "whether it would be better to put Miss Penelope into the little pink-chintz room."

"Well, it is more cheerful than the best room, Miss," said Betty condescendingly, "though it's small."

The pink-chintz room was a tiny apartment opening out of Miss Unity's. She had slept in it herself as a child, and though there was not much pink left in the chintz now, there were still some pictures and small ornaments remaining from that time. It had a pleasant look-out, too, on to the quiet green Close, and was altogether a contrast to the dark sombrely furnished room Pennie had been occupying. So after Betty had scoured and cleaned and aired as much as she thought fit, Pennie and all her small belongings were settled into the pink-chintz roomy and it turned out that her stay there was to be a long one. The news from Easney did not improve. Dickie certainly had the measles, the baby soon followed her example, and shortly afterwards Ambrose took it, so that Nancy and David were the only two down-stairs.

"What a good thing, my dear, that you were here!" said Miss Unity kindly to her guest. Pennie was obliged to answer "Yes" for the sake of politeness, but in truth she thought she would rather risk the measles and be at home.

Nearminster was nice in many ways and Miss Unity was kind, but it was so dreadfully dull as time went on to have no one of her own age to talk to about things. There were the Merridews, but in spite of Miss Unity's praises Pennie did not like them any better, and had not become more familiar with them. She had certainly plenty of conversation with her godmother, who did her best to sympathise except on the subject of Kettles; but nothing made up for the loss of Nancy and her brothers--not even the long letters which the former sent now and then from Easney, written in a bold sprawling hand, covering three sheets of paper, and a good deal blotted. Here is one of these epistles:--

"_My dear Pennie,--Dickie got up and had chicken for dinner to-day, and was very frackshus. Ambrose is in bed still. He has Guy Manring read aloud to him, and he will toss his arms out of bed at the egsiting parts; so mother says she must leave off. David and I have lessons. David said yesterday he would rather have meesles than do his sums, so Miss Grey said he was ungrateful. I never play with the dolls now_. _If you were here we could play their having meesles, but it is no good alone. Baby had the meesles worst of all. Doctor Banks comes every day. He has a new grey horse. Have you been to see old Nurse lately? and have you seen Kettles? Dickie sends you these sugar kisses she made herself. She burnt her fingers and screamed for nearly an hour.--Your loving sister, Nancy Hawthorne_."

Pennie answered these letters fully, and moreover, in case she might forget anything, she kept a diary, and wrote something in it at the end of each day. Sometimes there was so little to put down that she had to make some reflections, or copy a piece of poetry to fill it up; but it was a comfort to her to think that some day she should read it over with Nancy and Ambrose.

Meanwhile, this visit of Pennie's, which was to her a kind of exile, was a very different matter to Miss Unity. Day by day Pennie's comfort, Pennie's improvement, Pennie's pleasure filled her thoughts more and more, and it became strange to think of the time when the little pink-chintz room had been empty.


CHAPTER EIGHT.

KETTLES AGAIN.

Pennie sat one afternoon sewing wearily a way at a long seam. Sometimes she looked at the clock, sometimes out of the window, and sometimes dropped her work into her lap, until Miss Unity gave a grave look, and then she took it up and plodded on again.

For Miss Unity had discovered another point in which Pennie needed improvement. Her sewing was disgraceful! Now was the moment to take it in hand, for she had no lessons to learn and a great deal of spare time which could not be better employed; so it was arranged that one hour should be spent in "plain needlework" every afternoon.

"Every gentlewoman, my dear, should be apt at her needle," said Miss Unity with quiet firmness. "It is a branch of education as important in its way as any other, and I should grieve if you were to fail in it."

"But it does make me ache all over so," said poor Pennie.

"My dear Pennie, that must be fancy. Surely it is much more fatiguing to sit stooping over your writing so long, yet I never hear you complain."

"Well, but I like it, you see," answered Pennie, "so I suppose that's why I don't ache."

"It is neither good for you nor profitable to others," said Miss Unity seriously. "You may dislike your needle, but you cannot deny that it is more useful than your pen."

So Pennie submitted, and argued no more. With a view to making the work more attractive, her godmother gave her a new work-box with a shiny picture of the Cathedral on the lid. Every afternoon, with this beside her, Pennie, seated stiffly in a straight chair with her shoulders well pressed up against the back, passed an hour of great torture, which Miss Unity felt sure was of immense benefit to her.

The room in which they sat looked out into the Close. It increased Pennie's misery this afternoon to see how bright and pleasant everything was outside, how the sunlight played about the carved figures on the west front of the Cathedral, how the birds darted hither and thither, and how the fallen leaves danced and whirled in the breeze. Everything was gay and active, while she must sit fastened to that dreadful chair, and push her needle in and out of the unyielding stuff.

First the back of her neck ached, so that she felt she must poke her head out, and Miss Unity looking up, said, "Draw in your chin, my dear." Then she felt that she must at any cost kick out her legs one after the other, and Miss Unity said, "Don't fidget, my dear. A lady always controls her limbs." It was wonderful to see how long her godmother could sit quite still, and to hear her thimble go "click, click," so steadily with never a break. It was as constant as the tick of the clock on the mantel-piece. Would that small hand _never_ reach the hour of three?

Nurse's proverb of a "watched kettle never boils" came into Pennie's mind, and she resolved not to look at the clock again until the hour struck. The word "kettle" made her think of Kettles and of Nancy's last letter, and she wondered whether Miss Unity would go to the College that afternoon, as she had half promised. Those thoughts carried her a good way down the seam, and meanwhile the hands of the clock crept steadily on until the first stroke of three sounded deeply from the Cathedral. Pennie jumped up, threw her work on the table, and stretched out her arms.

"Oh how glad I am!" she cried, spreading out her cramped fingers one by one. "And now, may we go and see old Nurse?"

Miss Unity looked up from her work, hesitating a little. Pennie was always making her do things at odd hours, upsetting the usual course of events, and introducing all sorts of disturbing ideas.

"Well, dear," she said, "the morning is our time for walking, isn't it?"

"But this morning it rained," said Pennie; "and now look, only look, dear Miss Unity, how beautiful it is--do let us go."

She went close to her godmother and put her arm coaxingly round her neck. Miss Unity gave in at once.

"Well, then, we will go," she said, rising to look out of the window. "But it's very damp, Pennie. Put on goloshes, and a waterproof, for I think we shall have more rain."

Nothing could have shown Pennie's influence more strongly than Miss Unity's consenting to leave the house just after it had rained, or just before it was going to rain. Damp was dreadful, and mud was a sort of torture, but it had become worse than either to deny Pennie a pleasure, and they presently set out for the College shrouded in waterproofs, though the sun was now shining brightly.

Old Nurse was at home, and received them with great delight. Miss Unity and she had so much to say to each other about the measles at Easney, and other matters, that Pennie began to fear it might be difficult to get in a word upon any subject more interesting to herself. She was quite determined, however, to do it if possible, and the thought of how bold Nancy would be in like circumstances gave her courage. She would be bold too when the moment came, and she sat watching for it, her eyes fixed on Nurse's face, and a sentence all ready to thrust in at the first crevice in the conversation.

At last it came.

"Does Kettles' mother still come and scrub for you?" she asked, shooting out the sentence so suddenly that Miss Unity started.

"Lor', now, Miss Pennie, what a memory you have got to be sure!" exclaimed old Nurse with sincere admiration. "To think of your remembering that! No, she doesn't,