A Girl in Ten Thousand by L. T. Meade (old books to read .TXT) 📖

"He would like me to look nice—I am sure he'd like us all to look nice to-night. Go upstairs, Effie, dear, and put on your pretty blue muslin. And you, Agnes, I wish you to wear your Sunday frock."

Agnes, who had bounded into the room at this moment, stopped short in astonishment.

"Are we all going to a party?" she asked, excitement in her tone.

"No, no; but your father has come home."

"Only father! what does that matter?" Agnes lolled on to the sofa and crossed her legs. "I want to read over my lecture for the High School. I can't be bothered to change my dress!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, Aggie, go at once when mother wishes you," said Effie. "Go and put on your Sunday frock, and tell Katie to do the same, and ask Susan to put the younger children into their white dresses. Go at once; mother wishes it."

Agnes flung herself out of the room, muttering.

Effie looked again at her mother.

She did not notice her, she was smiling softly to herself, and looking out at the garden. Effie felt her heart sink lower and lower.

She went gravely upstairs, put on her blue dress, brushed out her bright dark hair, and, looking her sweetest and freshest, came downstairs again. Mrs. Staunton was still sitting by the window. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were unusually bright. She looked twenty years younger than she had done56 two hours ago—she looked beautiful. The soul seemed to shine out of her face. When Effie came in, she stood up restlessly and looked at the supper table.

"Yes," she said, "it is just as he likes it—the fragrant coffee, the raspberry tart and the jug of cream, the new-laid eggs, the brown loaf and the fresh butter. A simple sort of meal—yes, quite simple and very wholesome. Very homelike, that's the word. Effie, there never was such a homelike sort of man as your father. Give him home and you fill his heart. This supper table is just what he will like best. He does not care for new-fangled things. He is old-fashioned—he is the best of men, Effie, the best of men."

"He will be glad to see you in your nice dress, mother—he is so proud of you—he thinks you are so lovely."

"So I am in his eyes," said Mrs. Staunton in a wistful voice. "I am old-fashioned like himself, and this dress is old-fashioned too. It was a pretty dress when it was made up. Let me see, that was twelve years ago—we went to Margate for a week, and he bought me the dress. He took great pains in choosing the exact shade of gray; he wanted it to be silver gray—he said his mother used to wear silver gray when she sat in the porch on summer evenings. Yes, this dress is like a piece of old lavender—it reminds me of the past, of the sunny, happy past. I have had such a happy life, Effie—never a cross word said, never a dour look given me. Love has surrounded me from the moment of my marriage until now. I feel young to-night, and I am going to be happy, very happy. The children must look their best too. Run up, darling, to the nursery and see that Susan is doing them justice—they are pretty57 children every one of them, worthy of your father. Now, let me see, would not a few roses improve this table? That great jug of sweet peas in the middle is just what he likes, but we might have roses and mignonette as well. I'll go and gather a bunch of those Banksia roses which grow in front of the house."

"You'll tire yourself, mother. Let me go."

"No; I never felt stronger than I do to-night. I'd like to pick them myself."

Mrs. Staunton went out of doors. She cut great sprays from the Banksia rose and brought them back with her. She placed them in a brown jug, and stood the jug on the table. Then she opened both windows wide, and left the door ajar. There was the sweetest smell wafted through the room—the sweet peas, roses, mignonette, seemed to be floating in the air.

The children all came down dressed in their Sunday frocks. They looked puzzled, uncomfortable, awed. One and all asked the same question:

"Is it a party, mother? Are any visitors coming to tea?"

"No. No!" replied the mother to each in his or her turn. "It is only your father who has come home, and it is right that we should give him a welcome."

When she had answered the last of the children, Dr. Staunton entered the room.

He started at the pretty sight which met his eyes. The room and the temptingly laid out supper table—the children in their best dresses—the old wife in her gray silk—looked to him the most beautiful sight his eyes had ever rested on.

What was all this festival about?—he drew himself58 up hastily—a sort of shudder went through him. In spite of his efforts his voice was terribly husky.

"Are we going to have company?" he asked, with a twinkle in his eyes. All the other eyes looked back at him—he knew perfectly well even before the children burst out with the news, that he himself was the company.

"You have come back, father, and mother says we are to look our very best," exclaimed little Phil.

"All right, Phil, I am more than agreeable," replied the doctor. "Now you must excuse me, good folk. I am bound in duty to do honor to all this company splendor, by washing my hands and putting on my Sunday-go-to-meeting coat."

"Effie, you may fetch the coffee," said her mother.

The supper that followed was a merry meal—Dr. Staunton told his best stories—they were capped by his wife's. Effie laughed as if she had never heard them before, and the children made themselves riotously agreeable.

When the meal was at an end, Dr. Staunton and his wife went out into the garden at the back of the house. He drew his arm round her waist, and they walked up and down together on the little rose path at the top of the garden.

Effie watched them from the parlor window. There was a queer lump in her throat. She could not get over the strange sensation of nervousness and coming disaster. The foreboding which filled her could not be fought down. She had laughed almost against her will at supper-time, but now she ceased to smile—she no longer made the faintest attempt to be cheerful. She hated the pretty room, and the sweet-peas, and the roses and mignonette.

The children were idly lolling about. She turned, and spoke almost crossly.59

"Don't you know, Aggie, that it is long past the younger children's hour for staying up? Can't you make yourself useful for once, and go up and put them to bed?"

"Can't you come, Effie—we'd much rather have you," said little Phil and Walter, the brother next in age. "Agnes is so cross, she pulls our hair so when she combs it out."

"I don't, you bad boys!" exclaimed Agnes, coloring high. "Won't I give it to you next time we are alone for saying that!"

"She does, Effie; she does indeed," said little Phil, running up to his elder sister, and clasping his arms round her light blue dress.

"Don't, Phil; you will spoil my pretty frock!" she cried.

"Why, you are cross too," he answered, looking up at her. He was so startled and amazed at this new tone in Effie's voice, that words failed him altogether for a minute. It seemed to him as if a castle of cards had tumbled all over his head, and as if he stood in the middle of the ruins. If Effie were going to turn nasty, according to Phil's idea, there was nothing further to be looked for in life. Walter, however, who was older, had more discernment than his little brother.

"Effie has a headache," he said; "can't you see that she has a headache? We'll be very good indeed, Effie, if Agnes will put us to bed."

"Come along, then," said Agnes, scuttling them out of the room in front of her. "You must be quick about it, for I have not half prepared my to-morrow's lessons. Now then, out you go."

The children disappeared.

The room was once more empty, except for the silent figure who stood in the window. She could60 catch a glimpse of her father and mother walking up and down in the garden. Presently the two approached the house. Mrs. Staunton went straight upstairs to her room, and the doctor returned to the parlor.

"Your mother is very tired to-night, Effie," he said in a grave voice.

He sat down in the armchair just where he could smell the sweet-peas and the Banksia roses.

"Yes," he continued, "I am anxious about her." There was not a trace now of any of the jollity which had marked him at supper. His face was gray and worn—his voice decidedly husky. That huskiness in her father's voice went like a stab to Effie's heart. She shut the door and went and stood by his side.

"Don't you think you had better go upstairs and help your mother to get to bed?"

"No; she likes best to be alone," replied Effie. "I want to sit by you. What is the matter with your throat?"

"My throat!—why?"

"You are so husky."

"I am dead beat, that's the truth of it. I am as weak as a cat, and for no earthly reason. Don't bother about my throat, it will be all right after I have had a good night's rest. I tell you, Effie, I never saw a child so ill as that little Freda Harvey. That woman who nursed her is an angel—an angel."

"I didn't say too much about her, father, did I?" said Effie, with a little note of triumph coming into her voice even in the midst of her anxiety.

"That you didn't, my darling—she is one of God's angels and I say 'God bless her!' Now I want to talk about your mother."

"Yes, father," said Effie, laying her hand on his. She started back the moment she did so. The evening61 was a very hot one, and touching the doctor's hand was like clasping fire.

"How you burn!" she exclaimed.

"That's weakness," he said. "I shall take some bromide to-night; I am completely worn-out, shaken, and all that sort of thing. Now, Effie, don't interrupt me. I wish to talk to you of your mother. Are you prepared to listen?"

"Of course, father."

"She has been talking of you—she says you have got an idea into your head that you ought to make more of your life than you can make of it staying at home, and being the blessing of the house, and the joy of my life and of hers."

"Oh, father, father, I did wish it," said Effie, tears springing into her eyes. "I did long for it, but I'll give it up, I'll give it all up if it makes you and mother unhappy."

"But it doesn't, my dear. The old birds cannot expect to keep the young ones in the nest for ever and ever. Your mother spoke very sensibly to-night. I never saw any woman so altered for the time being. She would not let me imagine there was a thing the matter with her, and she spoke all the time about you, as though she wanted to plead with me, your father, to give you a happy life. Do you think I would deny it to you, my dear little girl?"

"No, father; you have never denied me anything."

"I have never denied what was for your good, sweetheart."

Dr. Staunton clasped Effie to his breast. She flung her arms round him with a sudden tight pressure.

"Easy, easy!" he exclaimed; "you are half-choking62 me. My breathing certainly feels oppressed—I must have taken a chill. I'll get off to bed as fast as I can. No, child, you need not be alarmed. I have often noticed this queer development of hoarseness in people who have long breathed the poisonous air which surrounds diphtheria and scarlet fever, but in my case the hoarseness means nothing. Now, Effie, let me say a word or two to you. I don't know what the future has in it—it is impossible for any of us to know the future, and I say, thank God for the blessed curtain which hides it from our view; but whatever it has in it, my child, I wish you to understand that you are to do your best with your life. Make it full if you can—in any case make it blessed. A month ago, I will admit frankly, I did not approve of lady-nurses. After my wonderful experience, however, with Dorothy Fraser,