without him, especially as regarded the future home of the family, the children’s daily lives went on much as usual.
“You could almost fancy it was all a dream,” said Leila to her sister.
“You could, I daresay,” Christabel replied, “for you’re never doing anything but dreaming; but I don’t feel like that at all. It’s enough to see Nurse’s red eyes, and the servants stepping about as if there was straw all over the place, like when people are very ill, and Miss Earle’s never been so kind before. It really almost makes me try to please her.”
“I think it’s rather nice of them all,” Leila remarked. The “romantic” side of the position quite took her fancy, and she felt as if she really was some thing of a heroine. “I shan’t mind being poor, if people are so sorry for us – so-so respectful, you know, Chrissie.”
But Chrissie was made of different stuff.
“I don’t agree with you at all,” she said, tossing her proud little head, so that her thick reddish-brown hair fell over her face like a shaggy mane. “Sorry for us! No indeed, I don’t want people to be sorry for us. Almost the worst part of it is everybody having to know. I can’t understand Mummy thinking that a good thing. I don’t mind Miss Earle,” she went on, softening a little, “she’s different somehow. But I’m not going to pretend, any way not to you, Lell, you sleepy, dreaming thing, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t think it’s all perfectly horrid, for I do.”
“If we could go to live in the country,” said Leila; “a pretty quaint cottage, thatched perhaps, any way covered with roses – ”
“Yes, especially in winter,” interrupted Chrissie. “What a donkey you are, Lell! Better say thistles.”
“We could have roses a good part of the year, and I know there are some creepers that are evergreens. Ivy, for instance. No, a cottage wouldn’t be so bad, however tiny it was,” Leila maintained.
“You’d have to be cook, then, and I’d have to be housemaid, for where would you put servants in your tiny cottage I’d like to know? It would be freezing in winter – no bathroom or hot water – and in summer all insecty. Horrible! However, we needn’t fight about it. We’re going to stay in London. Mums says we must, if Dads is ever to get any work to do – or in the suburbs close to. I think that would be almost worse. The sort of place with rows and rows of little houses all exactly like each other, you know, with horrid scraps of garden in front.”
“No,” said Leila, “I think any sort, of a garden would make it better. We could grow things.”
“I’d like to see you gardening,” said Chrissie. “I know what it would be. If there was any sort of a summer-house, or even a bench, you’d be settled there with a book, calling out, ‘Chrissie, Chrissie, do come and rake that border for me. I’m so tired.’”
“I might call,” retorted Leila coolly, “but most certainly the border wouldn’t get raked if I had no one to call to but you.”
“I’d rake it, Lelly,” said Jasper. They had not noticed that he was in the room, for he was busied in a corner, as quiet as a mouse, as was often the case.
“I believe you would,” said Leila. “We’re not a very good-natured family, but I think you’re about the best, poor old Jap.”
“Nonsense,” said Christabel. “He’s just a baby. Shall we toss up, Lell?” she went on recklessly. “Heads or tails? I’ve got two halfpennies – heads for a house with a garden six feet square, tails for a dirty little pig of a house in – oh, I don’t know where to say.”
“I know,” said Jasper; “that place where Nurse’s cousin lives what makes dresses. I’ve been there with Nurse. Mummy said I might go. It’s quite clean, and there’s a sort of gardeny place in the middle, where the children was playin’. They didn’t look – not very dirty,” for if Jasper was anything, he was exceedingly “accurate.”
“Really, Jasper,” began Leila. Then she turned to Christabel, “You don’t think it could be as bad as that, Chrissie?” and the alarm in her soft dark eyes was piteous. “Living in a slum, that would be.” Just then Nurse came into the room.
“What were you saying, Miss Leila, my dear?” she inquired. “Something about a ‘slum’?”
“It’s what Jasper was saying,” said Leila, and she went on to explain.
Nurse got rather red.
“It can’t be called a slum where my cousin lives,” she said. “She’s a respectable dressmaker in a small way, and suchlike don’t live in slums. Still it won’t be as poor a place as that where,” she hesitated, and then went on, “where the new house will be.”
“Jasper’s so vulgar,” said Chrissie, “the minute you speak of being poor, he thinks it means leaving off being ladies and gentlemen.”
“I doesn’t,” exclaimed the boy indignantly. “Nothin’d made Dads and Mums not be ladies and gentlemen – and us too,” but the last words somewhat less confidently.
Both the girls laughed.
“Thank you, Jap,” said Leila, “though I don’t wonder he doesn’t feel quite sure of you, Chrissie. You really needn’t talk of ‘vulgar,’ with your ‘heads and tails,’ like a street boy.”
A sharp retort was on Christabel’s lips, but Nurse hastened to interrupt it.
“What are you so busy about, my dear little boy?” she said, turning to Jasper, which made the others look at him also.
“I’se packin’,” was the reply, and then they saw that he was surrounded by his special treasures, in various stages of newness and oldness, completeness and brokenness. “Mums said I might divide them, and the old ones are to go to the ill children; and I’m goin’ to pack the others very caref’ly, for you see they’ll have to last me now till I’m big,” and he gave a little sigh, for in his unselfish, yet childish heart, there had been visions of what future Christmases might bring in the shape of a new stable and stud – “still splendider nor the one I got two birfdays ago,” as he thought to himself.
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