The Girls and I: A Veracious History

It was a fine day, though not so bright as the other time. When we got to Fewforest there was a big fly waiting for us, and a spring cart from the farm for the luggage. And no sooner did Serry catch sight of it than she tugged my arm, and said quite loud —

'Is that the red-eared boy, Jack?'

She is so silly, I wonder he didn't hear her.

It was he, sure enough, as red as ever, and grinning now as well, like an old acquaintance. The driver of the fly, on the contrary, was a rather grumpy man. I had been thinking of asking nurse to let me go outside, but when I saw his face I didn't. No chance of him letting me drive part of the way, even though the horse was about a hundred years old, and went jog-jogging along as if it meant to take a month to get to Mossmoor. I can generally tell something about people by the look of their faces.

So we all squashed inside – nurse and us four. It wasn't a very great squash, for the fly was a regular old-fashioned roomy one. Once upon a time I daresay it had been some lady's grand 'coach' in which she drove about paying all her visits. I happened to say this to Anne, and she liked the idea. She said she thought she would write a story, and call it The History of a Chariot. I don't know if she ever has.

When we got to Mossmoor the stupid coachman was going to drive us into the stable-yard, which would quite have stopped the niceness of our first arriving, especially as I caught sight of dear old Mrs. Parsley standing at the front door with her best cap on, all in a flutter to welcome us. (I didn't call her 'dear old Mrs. Parsley' to myself then: it's since I've got to know her. And I couldn't have told it was her best cap; it wasn't for some time that we got to understand her caps. They were like degrees of comparison, both upwards and downwards, for she had always about six going at a time.) So I holloaed out to the driver to stop at the little gate, and he did, though he growled and grumbled. He is so surly; his name's Griffin, and he and the fly belong to the 'Yule Log' at Fewforest, North end. There's no inn at South end. I was only just in time, for you can't turn, farther up the lane, unless you drive on a bit, or turn in the stable-yard. You see it was a good thing for the girls that I'd been there before, and knew all the ins and outs of the place, wasn't it?

It was fun showing them the rooms and everything. And even though I had described them as particularly as I could, they all declared – nurse too – that I hadn't made them out half nice enough. I was glad of that.

We had plenty of time to poke about, because the luggage hadn't yet come. And Mrs. Parsley had tea set out all ready; she wasn't one of those horrid landladies who won't give anything at the first start for fear they should possibly not be paid back for it. I'm sure she never charged anything for the cake she'd made us, and the jam and honey, that first night, though there was precious little over of any of them when we'd finished.

CHAPTER X

A LONG AGO ADVENTURE

We were very busy and happy the next morning getting all our things settled, and making the summer kitchen look as pretty as we could. We had brought one or two folding chairs and some rugs and table-covers to brighten it up, and it did look very nice indeed.

It was a good thing we were taken up that way, for – wasn't it provoking? – that first day it took it into its head to rain! All the morning at least, though it cleared up about our dinner-time. But it was very tiresome, for though it was quite mild, it was of course damp under foot, and nurse wouldn't hear of us going a nice scrambly walk as we had planned. And she would come with us. I daresay she was right, but it was a bore.

'Which way shall we go, Jack?' said Anne, when we were all ready to start and nurse had satisfied herself that the girls had all got their thickest boots on, and waterproofs and umbrellas in case it came on to rain again.

Nurse had been consulting Mrs. Parsley, I'm sure.

'We must keep to the high-road,' she said. 'It dries up very quickly as it's a sandy soil.'

'Anne wasn't asking you, nurse,' said Serry rather pertly. 'She was asking Jack.'

'All the same, Miss Serena, I must do my duty,' said nurse. 'I am in charge of you, and your mamma wouldn't be pleased if I let you all go stravaging over the wet fields to get bad colds and pleurisys and newmens, and what not.'

'Newmens,' said Anne, 'what do you mean?'

But nurse was put out, and wouldn't explain. It wasn't till some time after that we found out she meant that bad kind of cold on your chest that cows have so often, as well as people.

I tried to smooth nurse down, and I frowned at Serry, who was just in a humour to go on setting her up.

It was a pity to start so grumpily on our first walk, but things never do go quite right for long in this world, do they?

'I'll tell you what we can do,' I said; 'we can see the church. It's just a nice little walk by the road from here – you'd like that, wouldn't you, Anne?'

'Yes,' said Anne, 'I like old churches.'

'So do I,' said Maud.

'Are there places you could hide in, in this church,' said Serry, 'like in the old church at Furzely? Whenever I go there I can't help thinking what lovely hide-and-seek we might have there.'

'Miss Serry,' said nurse, quite shocked, 'I think you should have different ideas from that in your mind when you go to church.'

And of course we all thought so too. But it isn't much use taking up anything Serry says, seriously. She is so scatter-brained.

We had a nice enough walk after all. The road was beginning to dry up, except at the side next the wood where the trees dripped on to it, for the trees were really soaking. And we soon got nurse into a good humour again; she's never cross for long. We made plans about all the nice things we'd do, if only the weather would be really fine – tea in the woods and things like that, you know.

'But it's early in the season still, my dears, you must remember,' said nurse. 'It's not often you can plan for much out-of-doors before June is near its end.'

'And then July is always a rainy month, people say,' said Anne. 'I do think England's horrid for the weather being so uncertain.'

'Well, indeed,' said nurse, 'take it all in all, I think I'd rather have our climate up in the north. It's cold, to be sure, a great part of the year, but the summer is summer while it lasts. And then you know where you are; in winter you can hap yourselves up and make the best of it, while here in the south it seems to me that every day you have to think if it's warm or cold, or what it is, all the year round, summer and winter alike.'

I forget if I told you that nurse is Scotch. She hasn't really been in Scotland since she was quite little, but she's very proud of it, and she's very fond of using funny words, like 'stravaging.'

'They say the air here is like Scotland,' I said, 'so fresh and moor-y. So you should like it, nurse. And you know there's a place here that they send little ill children to from London; I can show you the house, we can see it up above when we get to the church.'

And, funnily enough, just as we got close to the village we came upon a little party of the convalescent children going a walk. They were all dressed alike – the girls in brown frocks and red cloaks and brown hats, and the boys in some sort of corduroy. And there was a sort of servanty looking person with them, and also a lady; just for half a moment I wondered if it was Miss Cross-at-first, but it wasn't. This one was quite different; she was short and round-faced, and extremely good-natured looking. She smiled at us as she passed us. And the children all looked very happy.

'You see they've come a walk along the wood like us,' said Maud, 'because I daresay it's wet in their garden too.'

'I'd like to go to see them very much,' said Anne. 'What a pity it isn't Miss Cross-at-first with them! And mums never remembered to write to Cousin Dorothea to ask if it could have been her you saw in the church that day.'

'I'm certain it was,' I said. 'I don't need Cousin Dorothea or anybody to say so. But I'd like to know if she's gone away or if she's coming back again. They say girls – ladies, I mean – take it in turns to come and look after the children.'

'Perhaps Mrs. Parsley could find out for us,' said Anne. 'You know, nurse, we want to have some of the children at tea at the farm before we go. Mother said she daresayed we might.'

'It's time enough, Miss Anne, to talk about what you'll do before you go, seeing as you're scarcely come,' said nurse, rather grumpily. She's not very fond of things to do with poor children; she's always afraid of our catching illnesses. 'And it would be no kindness to ask any other children to come to see you at present. As likely as not they'd be getting the whooping-cough.'

We hadn't thought of that; it was rather a disappointment.

We had got to the church by now, and we all went in. It didn't look quite so pretty as the day I had seen it first, for there was no sunshine coming in through the coloured windows and lighting up the queer old tablets and figures here and there. Still it looked very nice, and Anne and Maud admired it very much. So did Serry, only she said she'd have liked it better with high pews and curtains to draw round the big square ones. Just fancy that!

'You couldn't think it was nicer like that,' I said.

'Not prettier, but there must have been such jolly corners and hiding-places,' said Serena. Her head was full of hiding. 'There'd be nowhere to hide in this church. You'd be seen in a minute.'

'Nobody wants to hide in church,' I said; 'that's not what people come for.'

'They might though,' said Serena; 'that's to say, supposing any one got locked up in a church all night, they'd like to have some comfortable corner to creep into where nobody could get at them.'

'But there'd be nobody to get at them,' said Anne. 'I don't say I'd like at all to be shut up in a church all night; still, the best of it would be you'd know you were safe from anybody.'

Serry didn't seem convinced.

'I don't know,' she said. 'There might be – well, bats and owls and things like that, and then there'd be feelings. You'd be sure to fancy there were people or things there, and it wouldn't be half so frightening if you could get into a pew with a carpet, and make a bed of the cushions and hassocks.'

'Eh,' said nurse all of a sudden, 'you put me in mind, Miss Serry, of an old story my mother told me when I was a child.'

'Oh, do tell it us,' cried Maud.