There was a letter waiting on Emmeline’s plate when she came down to breakfast next morning. Letters were rare and joyful events to the Bolton children, and Emmeline thought it very annoying of the servants to troop in for prayers before she had had time to glance at the contents of this one.
Sunday prayers, however, never took long, and Emmeline was soon free to fly back to her letter. To her great delight it proved to be from Mary.
Mary began by saying how very much she was missing them all, and how often she thought of them and wondered how they were getting on. Then followed the really exciting part of the letter:
‘Do you think your Auntie would let you three come over and spend the day with me next Saturday? Eastwich Fair will be going on, and it would be nice for you to go and see it, especially as you were disappointed last year on account of the scarlet fever being in the town. Tell Master Micky he shall have shrimps for tea if he can[41] come, and give him and Miss Kitty each a kiss from me.’
Emmeline looked up from her letter with sparkling eyes. ‘Oh, Aunt Grace,’ she cried, ‘this is a letter from Mary, asking us three to go and spend the day with her next Saturday! The Fair will be going on—that’s why she is asking us just now. We may go, mayn’t we?’
‘Three cheers for Mary!’ cried Kitty, jumping up and down, as her custom was when excited.
‘For she’s a jolly good fellow!’ chimed in Micky, in what Aunt Grace called his sea-captain’s voice.
‘Have you been used to going to this Fair other years?’ asked Aunt Grace, who was looking rather troubled as she poured out the tea.
‘No, because till Grandmamma Moorby died we always used to go and stay with her for August and September, and last year there was the scarlet fever; but we may go this year, mayn’t we, Aunt Grace?’ repeated Emmeline a little impatiently.
‘I must think about it, Emmeline,’ said Aunt Grace quietly. ‘Kitty, will you pass Emmeline her tea—for one thing, Saturday isn’t a whole holiday, you know.’
‘Oh, but we can work on Wednesday afternoon,’ said Emmeline; ‘one whole holiday comes to the same thing as two half ones.’
[42]
‘Not quite,’ said Aunt Grace; ‘your afternoon work is never so much as what you do in the morning. But we’ll see whether it can be arranged.’
‘“We’ll see” always means “yes” in the end,’ said Kitty.
‘No, Kitty,’ said Aunt Grace, rather distressed, ‘I don’t at all promise. I should like you to have the pleasure, but I don’t yet know whether it will be possible.’
‘Oh, Aunt Grace!’ cried Kitty, pouting a little, ‘you can’t not let us go to the Fair. There are such darling baby elephants!’
‘Yes,’ added Micky, ‘and there are boats which go up and down, and up and down, and round and round, till you get as lovely and seasick as if you were on the real sea!’ Micky spoke without any thought of sarcasm.
‘Dear me! I should be very sorry to stand in the way of Micky’s having the pleasure of being seasick!’ said Aunt Grace, with one of her funny little smiles. ‘I’ll see what can be done, children. But don’t say any more about it just now.’
The twins were a good-humoured little couple, and quite aware that Aunt Grace was always glad to give them pleasure when she could, so they left off teasing to go to the Fair and devoted their attention to their boiled eggs. Eggs were a special Sunday treat. Emmeline, however, ate[43] even her egg in glum silence. Perhaps it was scarcely consistent for a young lady who judged her aunt so severely for worldliness to set her heart on attending a fair, but the best of us are inconsistent sometimes. Besides, it was not only the possible loss of the pleasure itself which she resented; there was Mary’s disappointment to be thought of—dear Mary, who had been like a mother to them all while Aunt Grace was enjoying herself in London. Altogether Emmeline felt that she did well to be angry, and went on nursing her grievance all the morning.
The day was a wet one. In the morning it drizzled, though not enough to keep the party from church, but at lunch-time the rain began to descend in such torrents that the usual Sunday walk was clearly out of the question.
‘I’ve got some letters I must write,’ said Aunt Grace as they rose from the table, ‘but I shall have finished them before very long, and then I shall be very pleased to go on with “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”’
She went to the drawing-room, where Emmeline followed her, with the intention of writing an aggrieved letter to Mary, while Micky and Kitty repaired to the schoolroom on some business of their own.
Somehow Emmeline’s grievance did not seem quite so impressive when she came to write it[44] down, or perhaps it was that her pen still travelled too slowly for her thoughts. In any case she grew bored presently, and wandered upstairs to the schoolroom to see what the twins were doing. Judging from the eager sound of their voices as she drew near the schoolroom door, it seemed to be something interesting.
She found them sitting on the floor, playing with their bricks.
‘Well, I never!’ she exclaimed with a very good imitation of Jane’s voice of righteous wrath. ‘To think of playing with bricks on Sunday! You know Mary never let us.’ Emmeline spoke in a quite sincere belief that it was her duty as an elder sister to keep the twins in the way that they should go, but perhaps her elder-sisterly mission was all the easier to-day because she was in a bad humour with the world in general.
The twins only giggled in an exasperating way. ‘Mary isn’t here now,’ sang out Micky.
‘And I’m sure Aunt Grace wouldn’t mind,’ added Kitty defiantly.
The hard lump which Emmeline knew so well at such times rose suddenly in her throat. So even the twins were going over to the enemy! ‘Well, of all the horrid, forgetting children!’ she exclaimed hotly, while the tears rushed to her eyes, and again the twins laughed in a provoking way.
[45]
‘Why, what’s happening here?’ asked Aunt Grace’s voice as she opened the schoolroom door.
‘It is a Sunday game—really and truly it is,’ declared Kitty.
‘It isn’t,’ said Emmeline. ‘They would never have thought of playing with bricks on Sunday at home.’
‘It is quite a Sunday game,’ repeated Kitty. ‘We are starting a Home for brick widows and orphans. The long bricks are the widows and the little ones the orphans. It was last night that made us think of it.’
‘Yes,’ said Micky, ‘to-morrow we shall play that the brick-box is a thieves’ den, and the little bricks will be clever little boy-thieves, and the big ones grown-up burglars. That will be much more exciting, only Kitty thought the Home was best for Sunday.’
‘I agree with Kitty,’ said Mr. Faulkner, who had come into the schoolroom behind Aunt Grace without the children noticing him in the heat of the argument. Emmeline looked rather abashed now that she was aware of his presence, but the twins were dauntless as ever.
‘Well, suppose you put the widows and orphans back into the Home now,’ Aunt Grace suggested, ‘and then, if you come down into the drawing-room, Mr. Faulkner will tell some interesting[46] stories about the real orphans. Won’t you, Mr. Faulkner?’
‘I’ll tell stories certainly,’ he replied; ‘whether they’ll be interesting is another matter.’
‘Oh yes, they will,’ said Kitty. ‘We were ever so interested last night, weren’t we, Micky?’
‘That was partly because of the lantern,’ said Micky frankly, as he flung unfortunate brick orphans violently back into the brick-box Home; ‘but the stories were decent, too,’ he added kindly.
A few minutes later the whole party were seated in the drawing-room. The children listened with rapt attention as Mr. Faulkner told stories, some so funny that his audience went into fits of uproarious laughter, and some so pathetic that Aunt Grace’s eyes filled with tears. Even Emmeline was charmed out of her crossness, and became like a different being.
‘Do tell us some more about that wonderful little Kathleen who was so very good to the poor—the child you spoke about last night,’ she pleaded, as Mr. Faulkner paused for a moment.
‘No,’ said Aunt Grace, almost sharply for her; ‘that was the only part of last night’s lecture I didn’t enjoy. I think that little girl was in a false position altogether.’
Mr. Faulkner looked decidedly taken aback. ‘But surely you approve of children trying to help their less happy brothers and sisters?’ he said.
[47]
‘Certainly,’ said Aunt Grace, ‘but the help should be of a suitable kind. That child was encouraged to patronise people who were in many ways better and wiser than herself, and certainly far more experienced. I am sure such patronage does harm, not only to those on whom it is bestowed, but to the child who gives it. I expect your little girl soon became self-conscious and self-conceited, however pure her motives may have been to start with.’
‘I can’t say as to that, for I never knew the child,’ said Mr. Faulkner, ‘but as to the effect of her influence, I am sure from many things I have heard that it was nothing but good.’
‘Mr. Faulkner, can you turn coach-wheels?’ broke in Micky anxiously. He felt much inclined to develop a hero-worship for Mr. Faulkner, but could not quite make up his mind to do so till he was satisfied on this important point.
‘Rather!’ said Mr. Faulkner. ‘I’d show you now if it wasn’t Sunday, but I’ll tell you what—if Miss Bolton will let me, I’ll come again to-morrow afternoon, and you and I will have a coach-wheel exhibition. By the way, I suppose you can turn them yourself?’
‘Oh yes, Micky could go in for a coach-wheel championship,’ said Aunt Grace proudly.
‘And can you ride bare-back?’ pursued Micky.
‘I have done so on occasion,’ said Mr. Faulkner, laughing. ‘Can you?’
‘Well, I haven’t yet,’ Micky owned, ‘but I mean to when our donkey comes. We’re going to buy a donkey, you know, as soon as Aunt Grace gets her next quarter’s money.’
So the merry talk went on, while all the time Emmeline sat by in silent indignation. To think of Aunt Grace daring to disapprove of the wonderful child who was Emmeline’s ideal! But Aunt Grace wanted everybody to be as frivolous and worldly as herself!