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قراءة كتاب The Laurel Walk
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class="narrative">“Do? I should die!” replied Betty.
“I shouldn’t,” said Eira. “I’d get to know some people, and that, after all, is more interesting than still life. But the present question is what shall I do with myself all this long morning?”
“You must stay in a warm room, whatever you do, if you want to cure those poor hands and feet. The only thing you can do is to read, and oh! by-the-by, I was forgetting—I got one or two books at the lending library yesterday that I want to look through before I read them aloud. I think they seem rather interesting. So if you can glance at one of them for me this morning it would really be a help.”
Eira brightened up a little at this, and before her sisters left her, they had the satisfaction of seeing her comfortably established on the old sofa.
“Yes,” she said, as they nodded good-bye from the doorway, “I repeat, things never are so bad but that they might be worse. We might have a dining-room without a sofa.”
Frances and Betty, despite their curiosity to spy the state of the land—that is to say, of the big house—at close quarters, had to make their way to the village this morning by the road, as one of their mother’s messages took them to the laundress’ cottage which stood at some little distance from the Craig-Morion grounds. Further on, however, they passed the lodge, and there for a moment they halted, on the chance of a word with the old gate-keeper. But she was evidently not there and the gates were still locked.
“What a good thing we didn’t come through the grounds,” said Betty. “But what can have become of old Webb and his wife? There must be something agog, Francie.”
“We shall see on our way back,” her sister replied; “they’re sure to come home for their dinner.”
“If they don’t,” said Betty, “I shall try to climb the gates, and invent some excuse for going up to the house to see what they are about.”
But fate was not so cruel; for assuredly, with all the good-will in the world and disregard of appearances, Miss Elizabeth Morion could never have succeeded in scaling the entrance.
An hour or two later, when Frances had dutifully accomplished her self-imposed task of reading to Gillybrand, a pitifully uncomplaining, almost entirely blind old man, and had picked up Betty at the village reading-room, which the sisters often found a convenient rendezvous, the two made their way back to the lodge, where their misgivings were agreeably dispersed.
For not only were the gates unlocked—they stood hospitably open, while traces of the wheels of some tradesman’s cart were clearly to be seen on the still damp gravel; and standing at the door of her little abode was old Mrs Webb, her wrinkled face aglow with excitement, and lighting up with increased satisfaction as she caught sight of the young ladies—newcomers on whom she might bestow some of the news which was evidently too important to be suppressed.
But it was Betty who began the colloquy.
“What have you been about, Mrs Webb,” she said, teasingly, “locking the gates so early last night, and opening them so late this morning? You must have been asleep half the day as well as the night!”
“Bless you, no, miss,” said the old woman, eagerly. “Quite the contrary, I do assure you. We was working hard up at the big house last night, and this morning too, was me and Webb, for never a girl, let alone a woman, could he get to help us. And no wonder neither, with such short notice to get two or three rooms ready by to-night, and the rest of the house dusted up for the gentlemen as is coming down to stay for a day or two.”
“Gentleman?” exclaimed the sisters. “Who? Not Mr Morion?”
“No, miss, not the master himself, but friends of his. First there was a telegraph, and this morning a letter. I’d show them to you, but Webb’s got them in his pocket,” and she jerked her head in the direction of the house. “I’ve just run down to open the gates for the butcher and the other carts from the village, for I’ve got to have dinner for eight o’clock to-night, so you may fancy we’ve had to bustle about.”
“Do you know the gentlemen’s names?” asked Betty, eagerly.
“Mr Milner for one,” said Mrs Webb, at which the sisters’ faces fell. “But the other’s a Mr—no, to be sure, I’ve forgotten it; but it’s some gentleman as is thinking of taking the place for a while!”
Chapter Three.
Mr Milne and Another.
Luncheon at Fir Cottage was not an attractive meal. Perhaps the least so of the three principal repasts of the day. There was a certain flavour of early dinner about it, recalling the days of the sisters’ childhood, when roast mutton and rice pudding formed, with but little variety, the pièce de résistance of the daily menu, though for Mr Morion himself there was usually some special and more attractive little dish.
But to-day the walk in the fresh invigorating air had given the two elder sisters a satisfactory appetite, in which, chilblains notwithstanding, Eira was seldom deficient.
Frances and Betty had returned only just in time enough to make their appearance punctually in the dining-room, and in the first interest of hearing how her commissions had been executed, Lady Emma forgot to question them as to the result of their intended inquiries at the Craig-Morion Lodge. Not so Eira. She was fuming with impatience all the time that Frances was repeating the laundress’ excuses for the faulty condition in which Mr Morion’s shirt-fronts had been sent home, or Betty explaining, for her part, the reason why she had brought a packet of oblong instead of square postcards. Eira’s opportunity came at last.
“And what about the big house?” she exclaimed.
“Oh, yes,” said her mother, eagerly enough; for which her youngest daughter mentally blessed her, saying to herself that, after all, “mamma was not without some points of sympathy.”
“I have been wondering all the morning if there was going to be anything to hear. Did you see the Webbs?”
“We saw Mrs Webb,” said Frances, “on our way home. She really is in a flutter of excitement,” and here Frances became conscious of a half-suppressed movement on her father’s part, showing that he, too, was listening with interest. “It appears,” she went on, “that Mr Milne is expected here this evening—”
“About time,” interrupted Mr Morion. “There are several things waiting for him to decide. Tomlinson shelters himself behind Milne in an absurd way, whenever he’s asked to do anything. There’s that gate—coming this evening, do you say?” he broke off. “Why should any one be excited about that?”
“You didn’t let me finish, papa,” said Frances, for in her quiet way she could sometimes hold her own very effectually with her father. “Mr Milne is coming for a special reason; he is accompanied by, or accompanying, a Mr—somebody else—Mrs Webb couldn’t remember his name—who is thinking of taking Craig-Morion for a time.”
Her father started.
“They are going to let it?” he exclaimed, for he had