had put everything ready for Sunday afternoon's tea-party – everything that could be ready, I mean. The cups and saucers and fat brown tea-pot were arranged on the round table of the room we counted our parlour; it was in front of the kitchen, looking towards the sea, and here we did the unmessy part of the photographing, and kept any little ornaments or pictures we had. Of the other two rooms one was the 'chemical room,' as we called it, and in a cupboard out of it we hung up our bathing-clothes, and the fourth room, which had originally been the front bathing-house, so to say, or dressing-room, was now a bedroom, all except the bed. That does sound very 'Irish,' does it not? But what I mean is that it was furnished simply as a bedroom usually is – only that there was no bed.
We had often begged to be allowed to spend a night in the hut, for there was an old sofa that Geordie could have slept on quite comfortably in the parlour, or even in the kitchen, and we had saved pocket-money enough to buy a camp bedstead, for which mamma had two or three mattresses and pillows and things like that among the spare ones up in the long garret. But so far we had never got leave to carry our picnicking quite so far. Papa would not have minded, for of all things he wanted us to be 'plucky,' and did not even object to my being something of a tomboy; but mamma said she would certainly not sleep all night if she knew we were alone in the hut, and perhaps frightened, or ill, or something wrong with us.
So that plan had been put a stop to.
'I wonder what Hoskins will give us in the shape of cakes for to-morrow,' I said. 'There is enough tea and sugar for two or three more afternoons' – 'more than we shall want,' I added to myself with an inside sigh.
Hoskins was a sort of half-nurse, half-housekeeper person. She had not been with us very long, only since Esmé was born – but she really was very good and dear, and I know she cared for us in a particular way, for her father had been gardener for ages, though ages ago now, as she herself was pretty old, at Eastercove. And she wasn't cross, like so many old servants both in books and real life – rather the other way – too "spoiling" of us. She had only one fault. She was a little deaf.
'Muffins, for one thing, I hope,' said Dods. 'They don't leave off making them till May, and it isn't May yet.'
There was a baker in the village – I think I have forgotten to say that there was a very tiny village called Eastercove, close to our gates – who was famed for his muffins.
'Humph,' I said. 'I don't very much care about them. They are such a bother with toasting and buttering. I think bread and butter – thin and rolled – is quite as good, and some nice cakes and a big one of that kind of gingerbread that you hardly taste the ginger in, and that's like toffee at the top.'
I was beginning to feel hungry, for we had not eaten much luncheon, which was our early dinner, and I think that made me talk rather greedily.
'You are a regular epicure about cakes,' said Dods.
I did not like his calling me that, and I felt my face get red, and I was just going to answer him crossly when I remembered about our great trouble, and thought immediately to myself how silly it would be to squabble about tiny things in a babyish way now. So I answered quietly —
'Well, you see, it is only polite to think of what other people like, if you invite them to tea, and I know papa likes that kind of gingerbread. He ate such a big piece one day that mamma called him a greedy boy.'
Geordie did not say anything, but I always know when he is sorry for teasing me, and I could see that he was just now.
Then we locked up and set off home again. As we came out of the pine woods and in sight of the drive we saw the pony carriage, and we ran on, so as to be at the front door when papa and mamma got there.
They smiled at us very kindly, and papa said in what he meant to be a cheery voice —
'Well, young people, what have you been about? Run in, Ida, and hurry up tea. Mamma is tired.'
Yes, poor mamma did look dreadfully tired, and through the outside cheeriness of papa's words and manner I could see that he was feeling very sad and dull.
I hurried in, and we were soon all at tea in the pretty drawing-room. George and I did not always have tea downstairs, but to-day somehow there seemed no question of our not doing so. I waited till mamma had had some tea and was looking a little less white and done up, and then I said half-frightenedly —
'Did you see any nice little house at Kirke?' though in my heart I felt sure they hadn't, or they would not have come back, looking so disappointed.
Mamma shook her head.
'I am afraid, dearie,' she began, but papa interrupted her —
'No,' he said decidedly, 'we saw nothing the least possible to call "nice," except one or two places far and away too dear. And of course we knew already that there are plenty of nice houses to be got, if expense had not to be considered so closely. There is no good beating about the bush with George and Ida,' he went on, turning to mamma. 'Now that we have so thoroughly taken them into our confidence it is best to tell them everything. And the truth is,' he continued, leaning back in his chair with a rather rueful smile, 'I am really feeling almost in despair. I am afraid we shall have to give up the idea of staying at Kirke.'
'Yet there are so many advantages about it,' said mamma quickly. 'And there is, after all, that tiny house in the Western Road.'
'Horrid poky little hole,' said papa. 'I cannot bear to think of you in it. I would almost rather you went about in a caravan like the gypsies we passed on the road.'
'Yes,' I agreed, 'I wouldn't mind that at all – not in summer, at least.'
'Ah, but unluckily, my dear child, "it is not always May,"' he replied, though I was pleased to see he held out his cup for some more tea (I have found out that things do seem much worse when one is tired or hungry!) and that his voice sounded more like itself.
'And it isn't always winter either,' said mamma cheerfully. 'Let us be as happy as we can while we are together, and enjoy this nice spring weather. I am glad, if sad things had to happen, that they did not come to us in November or December. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd will find some nicer house for us.'
'Does he know about – about our having to leave Eastercove?' I asked.
Mamma nodded.
'Yes,' she replied. 'We stopped there on our way back, and papa went in and told him.'
I felt glad of that. It would prepare him for Dods's anxiety about a scholarship.
'By the bye,' mamma continued, 'how fast they are getting on with the new parish room! I was looking at it while I was waiting for you, Jack' (that's papa), 'and it seems really finished. Are they not beginning to take away the iron room already?'
'Lloyd says it is to be sold here, or returned to the makers for what they will give, next week,' papa replied. 'It has served its purpose very well indeed these two or three years. If – '
'If what?' said mamma.
Poor papa shrugged his shoulders.
'Oh, it's no good thinking of it now,' he answered. 'I was only going to say – forgetting – that if Geordie and Ida liked I might buy it and add it on to the hut. It would make into two capital little bedrooms for very little cost, and Lloyd happened to say to-day that the makers would rather sell it for less where it stands than have the expense of taking it back to London. They keep improving these things; it is probably considered old-fashioned already.'
Geordie
