Chapter 19 Girls of the Forest by L. T. Meade
GLENGARRY CAPS
Penelope drank her vinegar three times a day. She applied herself to this supposed remedy with a perseverance and good faith worthy of a better cause. This state of things continued until on a certain night she was seized with acute pain, and awoke shrieking out the startling words, “Vinegar! vinegar!” Nurse, who was not in the plot, thought the child was raving. She scolded Penelope more than pitied her, administered a strong dose, and, in short, treated her as rather a naughty invalid.
“It’s green apples that has done it,” said nurse, shaking her head solemnly, and looking as if she thought Penelope ought certainly to return to her nursery thraldom.
“I mustn’t take so much vinegar,” thought the little girl; “but I do hope that being so ill, and taking the horrid medicine, and being scolded by the nurse will have made me a bit pale.”
She doubtless hoped also that her illness would be reported to Miss Tredgold, who would send for her in double-quick time; but as Miss Tredgold was not told, and no one took any notice of Pen’s fit of indigestion, she was forced to try other means to accomplish her darling desire for go to the seaside she was determined she would. Of late she had been reading all the books she could find relating to the sea. She devoted herself to the subject of shells and seaweeds, and always talked with admiration of those naughty children who got into mischief on the sands.
“Lots of them get drownded,” she was heard to say to Adelaide. “It is quite, quite common to be washed up a drownded person by the big waves.”
Adelaide did not believe it, but Penelope stuck to her own opinion, and whenever she found one of her sisters alone and ready to listen to her, her one invariable remark was:
“Tell me about the sea.”
Once it darted into her erratic little head that she would run away, walk miles and miles, sleep close to the hedges at night, receive drinks of milk from good-natured cottagers, and finally appear a dusty, travel-stained, very sick little girl at Aunt Sophia’s lodgings at Easterhaze. But the difficulties in the way of such an undertaking were beyond even Pen’s heroic spirit. Notwithstanding her vinegar and her suffering, she was still rosy indeed, her cheeks seemed to get plumper and rounder than ever. She hated to think of the vinegar she had taken in vain; she hated to remember Betty and the tidy and pin-cushion she had given her.
Meanwhile the days passed quickly and the invitation she pined for did not come. What was to be done? Suddenly it occurred to her that, if she could only become possessed of certain facts which she now suspected, she might be able to fulfil her own darling desire. For Pen knew more than the other girls supposed. She was very angry with Pauline for not confiding in her on Pauline’s birthday, and at night she had managed to keep awake, and had risen softly from her cot and stood in her white night-dress by the window; and from there she had seen three little figures creeping side by side across the lawn three well-known little figures. She had very nearly shouted after them; she had very nearly pursued them. But all she really did was to creep back into bed and say to herself in a tone of satisfaction:
“Now I knows. Now I will get lots of pennies out of Paulie.”
She dropped into the sleep of a happy child almost as she muttered the last words, but in the morning she had not forgotten what she had seen.
On a certain day shortly after Penelope had recovered from her very severe fit of indigestion, she was playing on the lawn, making herself, as was her wont, very troublesome, when Briar, looking up from her new story-book, said in a discontented voice:
“I do wish you would go away, Penelope. You worry me awfully.”
Penelope, instead of going away, went and stood in front of her sister.
“Does I?” she said. “Then I am glad.”
“You really are a horrid child, Pen. Patty and Adelaide, can you understand why Pen is such a disagreeable child?”
“She is quite the most extraordinary child I ever heard of in the whole course of my life,” said Adelaide. “The other night, when she woke up with a pain in her little tum-tum, she shouted, ‘Vinegar! vinegar!’ She must really have been going off her poor little head.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Penelope, who turned scarlet and then white. “It was vinegar real vinegar. It was to pale me.”
“Oh, don’t talk to her!” said Patty. “She is too silly for anything. Go away, baby, and play with sister Marjorie, and don’t talk any more rubbish.”
“You call me baby?” said Penelope, coming close to the last speaker, and standing with her arms akimbo. “You call me baby? Then I will ask you a question. Who were the people that walked across the lawn on the night of Paulie’s birthday? Who was the three peoples who walked holding each other’s hands? little peoples with short skirts little peoples about the size of you, maybe; and about the size of Briar, maybe; and about the size of Paulie, maybe. Who was they? You answer me that. They wasn’t ghostses, was they?”
Briar turned pale; Patty glanced at her. Adelaide, who had watchful blue eyes, turned and looked from one sister to the other.
“You are talking rubbish,” said Briar. “Go and play.”
“Who was they?” repeated Pen.
“I don’t know.”
“Am I baby or big wise girl?”
“Oh, you are an infant Solomon! I don’t know who the people were.”
“Don’t you?”
Penelope looked at Briar with a sigh of disappointment. Then she whispered to herself:
“It’s ’cos of Adelaide. Course they don’t want to say anything when Addy’s there.”
She strolled away.
“What was the child talking about?” asked Adelaide.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Briar. “She’s the rummiest little thing that ever walked. But there’s no good in taking any notice of what she says.”
“Of course no one does,” answered Adelaide. “But I do wonder if ghosts ever walk across the lawn. Do you believe in ghosts, Briar?”
“Certainly not,” said Briar. “No girl in her senses does.”
“I don’t know at all as to that,” replied Adelaide. “There was a girl that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her name was Freda Noell. She believed in ghosts. She said she had once been in a haunted house. What is it, Briar? Why do you shrug your shoulders?”
“I don’t know,” said Briar. “I don’t want to talk about ghosts. I don’t believe in them.”
She got up and crossed the lawn. The next moment Pen had tucked her hand inside her arm.
“You needn’t keep it from me,” she said in a whisper. “It was you and Patty and Paulie. I knew who you were, ’cos the moon shone on Patty’s Glengarry cap. You needn’t deny it.”
“I do deny it. I didn’t go,” said Briar.
She felt her heart smite her as she told this lie. She walked quickly.
“Do leave me,” she said. “You are a little girl that doesn’t at all know her own place.”
“But I do know it,” said Penelope. “My place is at the seaside. I want to go there. I’m ’termined to go there. If I don’t go one way I’ll go another. Why should Paulie, what is the naughtiest of girls, have all the fun? I don’t mind Renny being there so much. And why should I, what is the very best of girls, be kept stuck here with only nursey and you childrens to bother me? I am going. I’m ’termined.”
She marched away. Patty came up.
“Patty,” said Briar, “I’ve done it.”
“What?” asked Patty.
“I’ve told a lie about it. I said we weren’t on the lawn at all. I told her she was talking nonsense.”
“Couldn’t you have got out of it by any other way?” asked Patty. “It doesn’t seem right to tell lies.”
“I could with any one but Pen; but Pen can see through a brick wall. I had to tell it, and very plump, too, where Pen was in the question.”
“Well, it makes me feel horrid,” said Patty. “I am sorry we went. I think we did awfully wrong.”
“We did it for Paulie. We’d do more than that for her,” replied Briar.
“I suppose so. I certainly love Paulie very much,” answered Patty.
“And, Patty,” continued Briar, “having told such a great black lie to help her, we must go through with it. Pen means mischief. She’s the sort of child who would do anything to gain anything. She wants to go to the seaside, and she wouldn’t mind whom she got into trouble if it suited her own ends. We must remember she means mischief, and if she talks again about three figures on the lawn, you and I have got to stick to it that we didn’t go. Do you understand?”
“I do, and I consider it awful,” said Patty.
She did not add any more, but went slowly into the house. Presently, feeling much depressed, she sought nurse’s society. Nurse was turning some of the girls’ skirts. She was a good needlewoman, and had clung to the house of Dale through many adverse circumstances. She was enjoying herself at present, and used often to say that it resembled the time of the fat kine in Egypt.
“Ah, Miss Patty!” she cried. “It’s glad I am to see you, darling.”
“Can I do anything for you, nursey?” asked Patty.
“Of course you can, dear. You can help me to unpick this frock. I am cutting it down to fit Miss Pen. It will make a very neat frock for her, and it seems unfair that dear Miss Tredgold should be at more expense than is necessary.”
“Why,” asked Patty, with a surprised look, “doesn’t father pay for the things?”
“Mr. Dale!” cried nurse in a tone of wrath, “I’d like to see him. It’s not that he wouldn’t, and for all I can tell he may have the money; but, bless you, darling! he’d forget it. He’d forget that there was such a thing as dress wanted in all the world; and servants and food, and the different things that all well-managed houses must have, couldn’t lie on his memory while you were counting twenty. Do you suppose if that dear, blessed lady didn’t put her hand into her pocket in the way she does that you’d be having the right good time you are now having, and the nice clothes, and the good education, and the pretty ponies coming next week? And Miss Pauline, just because she’s a bit pale, taken to the seaside? Not a bit of it, my dear Miss Patty. It’s thankful you ought to be to the Providence that put it into your aunt’s head to act as she has done. Ah! if my dear mistress was living she would bless her dear sister.”
“Did you know mother before she was married?” asked Patty, taking up a skirt and the pair of sharp scissors which nurse provided her with, and sitting down happily to her task.
“Didn’t I live with her when she was Miss Tredgold?” asked nurse. “And didn’t I over and over again help Miss Sophia out of scrapes? Oh, she was a wild young lady!”
“You don’t mean to tell me that Aunt Sophy ever did anything wrong?”
“Nothing mean or shameful; but for temper and for spirit and for dash and for go there wasn’t her like. Not a horse in the land was wild enough to please her. She’d ride bareback on any creature you gave her to mount, and never come to grief, neither. She broke horses that trainers couldn’t touch. She had a way with her that they couldn’t resist. Just a pat of her hand on their necks and they’d be quiet and shiver all over as though they were too delighted for anything. Oh, she did follow the hounds! My word! and she was admired, too. She was a young lady in a thousand. And as for wanting to have her own way, she was for all the world like our Miss Pauline. It strikes me those two have very much in common, and that is why Miss Tredgold has taken such a fancy to your sister.”
“Do you think she has?” asked Patty.
“Do I think it?” cried nurse. “For goodness’ sake, Miss Patty, don’t cut the material. Do look where you are putting the scissors. Do I think it, miss? I know it. Miss Marjorie, sweet pet, you shall thread these daisies. You shall make a pretty chain of them to put around your neck. There’s my little precious.”
Fat, lovely, little Marjorie shrieked with delight when nurse put a coarse needle, to which was attached an equally coarse piece of cotton, and a basket of daisies before her. Marjorie tried to thread daisies, and uttered little cries of happiness, while Patty and nurse talked together.
“Miss Tredgold was a wonderful young lady, so handsome and high-spirited. But if she didn’t always obey, she never did anything mean or underhand. Everybody loved her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that when my master proposed that they should marry, it was a good while before she’d consent and all because she didn’t want to part with Miss Sophy. She said that if Miss Sophy would consent to live with them she’d marry Mr. Dale at once, for she was very much attached to him. But Miss Sophy put down her foot. ‘Live with a married couple!’ she cried. ’Why, I’d rather die.’ Well, my dear, there were words and tears and groans; but at last Miss Sophy took the bit between her teeth, and went off to an old relative, a certain Miss Barberry, in Scotland, and arranged to live with her and look after her. And your mother married; and when Miss Barberry died she left Miss Sophy every penny she possessed, and Miss Sophy is very rich now; and well she deserves it. Dear, dear! I seem to see Miss Sophia over again in our Miss Pauline. She was very comical, and so high-spirited and wild, although she’d never do an underhand thing.”
“Never?” asked Patty, with a sigh.
“Of course not. What do you take her for? Noble ladies what is ladies don’t do mean sort of things.”
Patty sighed again.
“What are you sighing for, Miss Patty? I hate to hear young ladies giving way to their feelings in that sort of fashion.”
“I was only thinking that you compared Aunt Sophy to Pauline.”
“And why shouldn’t I? Is it you who want to belittle your sister? Miss Pauline is as high-spirited as ever young lady was, but neither would she do a mean or underhand thing.”
Patty suppressed her next sigh. For a long time she did not speak.
“Nurse,” she said when she next broke silence, “did you in the whole course of your life ever tell a lie?”
“My word!” cried nurse “Miss Marjorie, you’ll prick your little fingers if you hold the needle like that. This way, lovey. Did I ever tell a lie, Miss Patty? Goodness gracious me! Well, to be sure, perhaps I told a bit of a tarradiddle when I was a small child; but an out-and-out lie never, thank the Almighty!”
“But what is the difference between a lie and a tarradiddle?”
“Oh, Miss Patty, there’s a deal of difference. A tarradiddle is what you say when you are, so to speak, took by surprise. It isn’t a lie out and out; it’s the truth concealed, I call it. Sometimes it is a mere exaggeration. You say a person is very, very cross when maybe that person is hardly cross at all. I can’t quite explain, miss; I suppose there’s scarcely any one who hasn’t been guilty of a tarradiddle; but a lie a thought-out lie never.”
“Is a lie so very awful?” asked Patty.
“Awful!” repeated nurse.
She rose solemnly from her seat, went up to Patty, and put her hand under her chin.
“Don’t you ever catch me a-seeing you a-doing of it,” she said. “I wouldn’t own one of you Dales if you told falsehoods. A black lie the Bible speaks of as a thing that ain’t lightly forgiven. But, of course, you have never told a lie. Oh, my dear, sweet young lady, you quite frightened me! To think that one of my children could be guilty of a sin like that!”
Patty made no answer.
“I am tired of work,” she said; “I am going out.”
She flung down the skirt that she was helping to unpick and let the scissors fall to the ground.
“You might put your work tidily away, Miss Patty. You aren’t half as useful and helpful as you ought to be.”
Patty laid the skirt on a chair and slipped away. Nurse continued her occupation.
“I wonder what the child meant,” she thought. “She looked queer when she spoke. But there! with all their faults and goodness knows they’ve plenty they’re straight, every one of them. A crooked-minded Dale or a crooked-minded Tredgold would be a person unheard of. Oh, yes, they’re straight enough, that’s a blessing.”
Meanwhile Patty sought her sister.
“It’s worse than I thought,” she remarked. “It’s not even a tarradiddle.”
“What do you mean?” asked Briar.
“The lie you told the lie I am to help you to hide. It’s black as ink, and God is very angry with little girls who tell lies. He scarcely can forgive lies. I was talking to nurse, and she explained.”
“You don’t mean to say that you told her about Pauline?”
“No,” answered Patty in a voice of scorn. “I am not quite as bad as that. But she was speaking about Aunt Sophy and how wild she used to be, and she compared her to Paulie, and said that Aunt Sophy never did anything mean or underhand, and that Paulie never did either. I felt as if I could jump, for we know, Briar, what Paulie has done.”
“Yes, we know,” answered Briar. “And you and I have done very wrong, too. But there is no help for it now, Patty. We can’t go back.”
“It certainly does seem awful to think of growing up wicked,” said Patty. “I don’t like it.”
“Don’t let’s talk about it,” said Briar. “We’ll have to suffer some time, but perhaps not yet. Do you know that the apples are getting ripe, and John wants us to help him to pick them? Oh! and the mulberry-tree, too, is a mass of fruit. What do you say to climbing the apple-trees and shaking down the apples?”
“Say!” cried Patty. “Delicious!”
Without more words the little girls ran off to the orchard, and nurse’s remarks with regard to the difference between lies and tarradiddles were forgotten for the time being.
The days went on, but Pen did not forget. There came a morning when, a letter having arrived from Aunt Sophy saying that Pauline was much better in fact, quite herself again and that she and both the girls would be home in about a week, the little girl was rendered desperate.
“I has no time to lose,” she said to herself. “I am ’termined to go; I am going some fashion or t’other.”
On this occasion she took a bolder step than she had yet attempted. She resolved to walk alone the entire distance between The Dales and The Hollies, which was about three miles. Pen was the sort of child who was never troubled by physical fear. She also knew the Forest very well. She had but to slip away; none of her sisters would miss her. Or if nurse wondered where she was, she would conclude that Pen was keeping her elder sisters company. If the girls wondered, they would think she was with nurse. Altogether the feat was easy of accomplishment, and the naughty child determined to go. She started off an hour after breakfast, opened the wicket-gate, let herself out, and began to walk quickly. These were the days of early autumn, when the Forest was looking its best; the trees were beginning to put on their regal dresses of crimson and brown and gold. Already the rich red leaves were dropping to the ground. The bracken was withering to a golden brown, and the heather was a deep purple. Everywhere, too, little bluebells sprang up, looking as if they were making fairy music. There were squirrels, too, darting from bough to bough of the beech-trees; and rabbits innumerable, with white-tipped tails, disappearing into their various holes. A walk in the Forest on this special day was the sort to fascinate some children, but Pen cared for none of these things. Her way lay straight before her; her object was never for a moment forgotten. She meant to reach the sea by some means or other.
She was a somewhat tired and hot little person when at last she appeared outside the broad gravel walk that led to The Hollies; and it so happened that when she entered this walk her courage was put to a severe test, for Lurcher, the farmer’s bulldog, happened to be loose. As a rule he was kept tied up. Now, Lurcher was a very discerning person. He attacked beggars in a most ferocious manner, but as to ladies and gentlemen a fierce bout of barking was sufficient. Pen, however, looked like neither a beggar nor a lady or gentleman. Lurcher did not know what to make of Pen. Some one so small and so untidy could scarcely be a visitor. She was much too short and much too stout, and her little legs were bleeding from the thorny brambles that she had come through during her journey. Accordingly Lurcher, with a low growl and a swift bound, pinned poor little Pen by the skirt of her short frock. He was sufficiently a gentleman not to hurt her, but he had not the least idea of letting her go. He pinned her even more firmly when she moved an inch away from him, and when she raised her voice he growled. He not only growled, but he shook her dress fiercely. Already she felt it snap from its waistband under Lurcher’s terrible teeth. She was a very brave child, but her present predicament was almost more than she could bear. How long it lasted no one quite knew. Then there came a stride across the gravel, a shout from Farmer King, and Pen was transferred from the ground into his sheltering arms.
“You poor little thing!” he said. “You poor little bit of a lass! Now, you don’t tell me you are one of the Dales? You have their eyes black as black most of them are. Are you a Dale?”
“Course I am,” answered Penelope. “I’m Penelope Dale. He’s a shocking bad dog. I never thought I could be frightened. I was ’termined to come, but I never thought you kept such a shocking, awful dog as that.”
“I am more sorry than I can say, my little dear. I wonder now who let the brute out. He’ll catch it from me, whoever he is. Here, Nancy! Hullo, Nancy! Come along here, quick!”
Nancy, looking fresh and smiling, stepped out of the open French window.
“Why,” she said when she saw Pen, “wherever did you drop from?”
Pen began to cry.
“I wor ’termined to come,” she said. “I wanted to see you most tur’ble bad.”
“Poor little thing!” said the farmer. “She’s got a bit of a fright. What do you think, Nancy? Lurcher had little miss by her skirt. He’d pinned her, so to speak, and he wouldn’t let go, not if she fainted; and she was that brave, little dear, that she didn’t do anything but just stood still, with her face as white as death.”
“Wor I paled down?” said Pen. “Do tell me if I wor paled down a bit.”
“You were as white as death, you poor little pretty,” said the farmer; and then he kissed the little girl on her broad forehead, and hurried off to expostulate with regard to Lurcher.
Nancy took Pen into the house, and sat down in a cosy American rocking-chair with the little girl in her lap. She proceeded to gorge her with caramels and chocolates. Pen had never been so much fussed over before; and, truth, to tell, she had seldom enjoyed herself better.
“I wor ’termined ’termined to come,” she repeated several times. At last her sobs ceased altogether, and she cuddled up against Nancy and went to sleep in her arms.
Nancy lifted her up and put her on the horse-hair sofa; she laid a rug over her, and then stooped and kissed her. Afterwards she went out and joined her father.
“Whatever brought little miss here?” asked the farmer.
“That’s more than I can tell you, father.”
“And why don’t the others come sometimes?” snapped Farmer King. “They none of ’em come, not even that pretty girl we made so much fuss over, giving her a gold locket and chain. Now, I’d like to find out, Nancy, my girl, if she has ever shown that locket and chain to her haristocratic aunt. Do you suppose the haristocratic lady has set eyes on it?”
Nancy laughed.
“I guess not,” she said. “Paulie’s a bit of a coward. She wants to know us and yet she don’t. She wants to know us behind the aunt’s back.”
“Left hand, not right hand,” said the farmer. “I don’t like that sort.”
“At any rate she can’t come to us at present, father, for Miss Tredgold has taken her to the seaside.”
“That’s it, is it?” said the farmer, his face clearing. “Then I suppose little miss has come with a message. What did missie say about your friend, Nancy?”
“Nothing. She’s asleep at present. I mean to let her have her sleep out, then give her some dinner, and drive her home in the dogcart.”
“Do as you like, Nance; only for mercy’s sake don’t make a fool of yourself over that family, for it strikes me forcibly they’re becoming too grand for us.”
Nancy said nothing further. She returned to the house and sat down in the room where Penelope slept. Her work-basket was open. She was making a pretty new necktie for herself. Nancy was a very clever workwoman, and the necktie grew under her nimble fingers. Presently she dived into the bottom of the basket and took out a gold thimble with a sapphire top and turquoises round the rim. She slipped it on to the tip of her slender first finger.
“I must send it back again,” she said to herself. “I’d have done it before, but Pauline is away.”
Just then she was attracted by a sound on the sofa. She turned. Pen’s big black eyes were wide open; she was bending forward and gazing at the thimble.
“So you got it after all!” she said.
“Oh, child, how you startled me! What do you mean?”
“Why, that’s Aunty Sophy’s thimble. I was to get a penny if I found it.”
Nancy was silent.
“How did it get into your work-basket?” asked Pen.
“I borrowed it from Paulie, and I’d have given it to her long ere this, but I heard she was away.”
“Give it to me,” cried Penelope. Her voice quite shook in her eagerness. “Give it to me at once, and I will take it back to her.”
“I wish you would, Pen, I am sure; but you must be very careful not to lose it, for it is a real beauty. See, I will put it into this little box, and cover the box up.”
Penelope pressed close to Nancy. Nancy placed the thimble in the midst of some pink cotton-wool and looked at it affectionately; then she tied up the little box, put brown paper round it, tied string round that again, and then she held it out to Pen.
“You are quite positive you won’t lose it?” she said.
“Positive. I has a big pocket, and no hole in it. See for yourself, there’s no hole. Turn it out, will you?”
Penelope’s pocket proved to be quite safe, and Nancy, with a qualm at her heart which she could not account for, allowed the little girl to put the thimble therein.
“Well, that is settled,” she cried. “And now I want to know what you came for. You are going to have dinner with father and me after a bit.”
“No, I’m not,” answered Pen. “I’m going home at once.”
“But why did you come? Did Pauline send me a message?”
“No, she wouldn’t.”
“Why not? I’ve done a great deal for her.”
“She’s ongrateful,” said Pen. “She didn’t send no message. I ’spect she’ll have forgot you when she comes back.”
Nancy’s face flamed.
“I can make it a little too hot for her if she does.”
“What’s making a thing too hot?” asked Penelope.
“Oh, making it so that you squirm and tingle and your heart goes pit-a-pat,” replied Nancy. “There! I’m not going to talk any more. If you won’t tell me why you came, I suppose you will come into the other room and have some dinner?”
“I won’t. I’m going home. As Paulie didn’t send you a message, are you going to make it hot for her?”
“That I am. Somebody will come here somebody I know to see somebody she knows; and there will be a begging and imploring, and somebody she knows will do nothing for somebody I know. Now, can you take that in?”
“You are very funny,” answered Penelope, “but I think I can. I’m glad, and I’m not glad, that I comed. I won’t stay to dinner; I’m going straight away home this blessed minute.”