A Pair of Clogs - Amy Walton (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📗

was next visible coming back with the letters in her hand. Walking slowly now, she was reading an open one, and stopped now and then to study it more attentively. Iris ran up to her with the eager question, "Is there one for me?" on her lips; but when she saw Miss Munnion's face she checked herself. For the frozen little countenance had thawed, the features worked and twisted about strangely, and the dull eyes were full of tears.

"What's the matter?" said Iris bluntly. Miss Munnion looked up; she was completely altered in voice and manner; her hands trembled, her little lace head-dress was crooked; she was evidently deeply troubled.

"It's my sister Diana," she said--"my only sister. She is dangerously ill. She's been asking for me."

"Where is she?" asked Iris.

"Oh, that's the worst of it!" cried Miss Munnion. "It's all the way to Sunderland, right up in the north. Oh, what shall I do?"

"Of course you must go to her," said Iris, with the confidence of youth.

"But," said poor Miss Munnion, looking at the child without a spark of hope in her eyes, but a great longing for help and advice, "there's Mrs Fotheringham. She'll disapprove, she so dislikes being worried. When I came she told me she hoped I had no relations to unsettle me. And I haven't. I haven't a soul in the world that cares for me except Diana. And she was always so strong. How could I tell she would fall ill?"

"Perhaps you wouldn't be gone long," suggested Iris, "and I could read to godmother."

"I'm so afraid," said Miss Munnion, wiping her eyes meekly, "that Mrs Fotheringham will dismiss me if I go, and I can't afford to lose the situation--I really can't. And it's such an expensive journey to Sunderland. And yet, there's Diana; she comes before everything, and it cuts me to the heart to think of her asking for me."

Iris stood looking at her gravely. She felt very sorry, but also a little contemptuous. Of course Diana ought to come before everything, and yet Miss Munnion did not seem able to make up her mind to go to her.

"Well," she said, "you can't go to Sunderland and stay here too."

"Very true," murmured Miss Munnion. She did not mean anything by these words, but they were so habitual that she could not help using them.

"Then you'd better come straight to my godmother and tell her," said Iris, "if you _mean_ to go."

"Oh, of course I mean to go," said Miss Munnion reproachfully. "How could I forsake Diana when she wants me?"

"Well, then, there's no use in thinking of anything else," said Iris.

It was an evident relief to Miss Munnion to be taken in hand firmly even by a child. Years of dependence on the whims and fancies of others had deprived her of what little decision and power of judgment she had possessed. She could hardly call her mind her own, so how could she make it up on any point?

Yet all through her troubled and dreary life one feeling had remained alive and warm--affection for her sister Diana. "Many waters cannot quench love," and its flame still burned bright and clear in Miss Munnion's heart.

"Although she really is very silly," thought Iris, as they turned back together towards the house, "there's something I like about her after all. She's much nicer than my godmother."

She hurried Miss Munnion along as fast as she could, almost as though it were Susie or Dottie she had in charge; and indeed the poor lady was so nervous at the prospect of Mrs Fotheringham that she was as helpless as a child. She stumbled along, falling over her gown at every step, dropping her letters, or her spectacles, or her pocket handkerchief, and uttering broken sentences about her sister Diana. Iris picked up these things again and again, and at last carried them herself, and so brought Miss Munnion triumphantly, but in a breathless condition, to the door of the house.

"Now," she said, "you'd better take the letters in to my godmother and tell her all about it at once. I'll wait here till you come back."

She had not to wait long, for Miss Munnion reappeared in less than five minutes shaking her head mournfully.

"It's just as I thought it would be," she said. "Mrs Fotheringham thinks it's very unreasonable of me to want to go to Diana."

"Did you tell her she was ill?" asked Iris.

"Yes, and she said she supposed there were doctors in Sunderland who would do her more good than I should. She doesn't seem to be able to understand why I should want to go. She says it's fussy."

"Did you tell her that I would read to her while you are gone?" asked Iris.

"No, my dear, I couldn't get that in; she's so very impetuous. And besides, the first thing she said was:--

"`Of course you'll understand, Miss Munnion, that if you feel obliged to go to Sunderland our connection is at an end.' So I shall lose the situation after all," ended Miss Munnion with a sigh.

Iris stood in silent thought for a moment.

"Did she look _very_ angry?" she said at length.

"Well, yes," said Miss Munnion. "I must say she seemed completely upset. I think she was vexed to start with, because, you know, she didn't get her nap."

"You stop here a minute," said Iris suddenly, and ran into the house. She pushed open the door of Mrs Fotheringham's sitting-room gently and peeped in. Her godmother was sitting very upright in her high-backed chair, a frown on her brow, and the parrot on her shoulder. She looked so alarming that Iris felt almost inclined to run away again, but the old lady turned her head suddenly and saw her.

"Well," she said, with an air of sarcastic resignation, "what do _you_ want? Any more ducks under bee-hives, or have _you_ got a sick sister too?"

"Please, godmother," said Iris, with a great effort, "I want you to let me read to you while Miss Munnion is away."

"Oh!" said Mrs Fotheringham.

She stared silently at Iris for a moment, then resumed.

"I've no doubt it would be an immense pleasure to listen to you if you read like most children of your age. Anything more?"

Iris became scarlet under her godmother's fixed gaze, for both she and the parrot seemed to be chuckling silently at her confusion. But she thought of Diana, and of poor Miss Munnion waiting outside, and managed to gasp out:

"Please let Miss Munnion come back."

"She hasn't gone yet that I know of," replied Mrs Fotheringham, without removing her eyes from the child.

"But she _must_," continued Iris, "because of Diana."

"Well, I must say, you are a most extraordinary child," said the old lady, after another pause, "with your ducks and your Dianas! What is it to you, I should like to know, whether Miss Munnion goes or stays? It doesn't interfere with _your_ comfort, I suppose."

Iris could not answer this question, but she stuck to her point, and said in a low voice:

"I should like her to see her sister and come back."

Mrs Fotheringham looked more and more puzzled, and her frown grew deeper. Iris felt that there was not a gleam of hope for Miss Munnion and Diana; but when at last the words came she found she was mistaken, for they were as follows:

"You may go and tell Miss Munnion," said the old lady, "that the sooner she starts on this wild-goose chase the better, and that I will spare her for one week, but if she wants to stop away longer she needn't come back at all. And this is on the condition that neither you nor she are to mention her sister Diana to me ever again, whether she is ill, or well, or anything about her. As to your reading to me, I've no doubt you either mumble or squeak, and I couldn't bear it, so pray don't imagine you'll be the least use while she's away, or let her imagine it."

She waved her mittened hand fretfully, and Iris, thankful to be released, flew with her good news to the trembling Miss Munnion.

Early the next morning, almost unnoticed by the household, and carrying her own little black bag, she started on her two-miles walk to the station. Iris went with her as far as the lodge gates.

"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand, "and I hope you'll find your sister Diana better." She felt inclined to add, "Take care of your purse, and don't lose your ticket," as though she were parting from a child; but Miss Munnion suddenly leaned forward, and gave her a hard little nervous kiss. It felt more like a knock from something wooden than a kiss, and Iris was so startled that she received it in perfect silence. Before she had recovered herself the small figure, more lop-sided than ever now, because it was weighed down by the bag, had stumbled through the gates, and was on its way down the road. Iris watched till it was out of sight, and then went slowly back to the house.


STORY THREE, CHAPTER 3.

THE LOST CHANCE.

"For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear,
And the meanest thing most precious and dear,
When the magic of love is present—
Love that lends a sweetness and grace
To the humblest spot and the plainest face,
That turns Wilderness Row to Paradise Place,
And Garlick Hill to Mount Pleasant."--_Hood_.

Iris had no longer any completely idle days, for she soon found that her godmother expected her in some measure to fill Miss Munnion's place; she must be ready at Mrs Fotheringham's beck and call, to read to her, drive with her, and walk with her in the garden. They were none of them difficult duties, and could not in any sense be called hard work. A day at Paradise Court was in this respect still a very different matter from a day in Albert Street; yet sometimes Iris felt a heavy weariness hanging upon her, which was a new way of being tired--quite a different sort of fatigue to anything she had known before, but quite as uncomfortable. Most of all she hated the drives. To sit opposite her godmother in perfect silence in a close stuffy carriage, and be driven along the dusty roads for exactly an hour at exactly the same pace. Not a word spoken, unless Mrs Fotheringham wished the blinds pulled up or down, or a message given to the coachman. Iris longed feverishly sometimes to jump out and run up a hill, or to climb over the gates into the fields they passed on the way. There were such lots of lovely things to gather just now. Dog roses and yellow honeysuckle in the hedges, poppies and tall white daisies in the fields, and waving feathery grasses. But at all these she could only look and long out of the carriage window. She often thought at these times of