but though she began her packing at once, and went on with it most industriously for the two following days, yet, when thursday morning came, she was not, according to her own accounts, nearly ready.
there really was a great deal to be done. first of all she had to find a basket in which to pack her cat, “mrs. peters,” and her three kittens, for until that was done she could not make any other plans or attend to anything else.
fortunately, however, she found at once a nice shiny hat-box, with a leather handle and a lock and key, which would just hold the peters family, for the kittens were quite tiny. “i will pack all my white flannel petticoats in the bottom of it,” she said to herself, “for they will be nice for mrs. peters and the kittens to lie on, and it will be a good thing to get the petticoats in out of the way.”
so in went the petticoats, and then the kittens, but mrs. peters was out, and had to be waited for. she came in, though, in such good time that she and her family and the petticoats were packed and locked and strapped up long before loveday’s dinner-time came; and what would have been the end of the poor kittens and their mother if their own dinner-time had not come very soon, and nurse had not come in search of them to feed them, no one can imagine, for the box had no ventilation holes, and the lid shut down quite close.
if mrs. peters and the kittens suffered, though, loveday suffered too; for nurse was so angry when she saw the petticoats in the box with the cats, that she ordered loveday to sit down and pick off from them every single hair that the cats had left behind, and they had left so many that to loveday it seemed a marvel that they were not all quite bald. she did not get rid of quite all the hairs, though, for by tea-time her eyes were so swelled and smarting with crying, she was excused the rest, after promising never, never to do such a thing again.
“don’t you think, dear, that you had better leave mrs. peters and her family behind?” suggested her mother, when loveday, after ransacking the whole house, had found a basket to take the place of the hat-box.
“oh no!” cried loveday; “mrs. peters would fret dreadfully for me.”
“do you think she would, dear, now she has her little ones to interest her?”
“oh yes, i am sure she would. you see she would have no one to talk to her.”
“i would talk to her,” said mother, “and make much of her,” and looking rather grave, “you see there is a great deal of water at porthcallis, and the kittens are so very young. if they escaped from you or their mother, and got down on the sands and a wave came in, and——”
“can kittens swim?” asked loveday, looking very anxious.
“no, dear; such baby things, too, would be too frightened to do anything. i really think it would be kinder to leave them at home with nurse and me, and priscilla would be glad, too, to have them to watch and play with when she gets better. she will be rather lonely and dull without you, you know.”
“so she will,” sighed loveday, “but of course i shall come home at once if prissy wants me.”
“you must breathe in all the sea air you can, and grow strong and rosy, and you must collect all the pretty shells you can find, for priscilla, and then, perhaps—but remember it is only perhaps—when priscilla and geoffrey are well enough we may all come down to porthcallis for a holiday with you.”
“oh, how lovely!” cried loveday, dancing and clapping her hands with joy. “i shall like going ever so much better now than i did.” she went over and leaned on her mother, and looked up into her face. “i—i didn’t want to go before you said that,” she confided to her in a half whisper, “at least not very much; but i do now, and i will get all the shells i can for prissy, and i will get to know my way everywhere so as to be able to lead you all about when you come. and now,” bustling away, “i am going to take out all my toys to see which of them i shall pack;” and off she ran. in a moment or two, though, she was back again.
“mother, don’t you think i ought to take one of my toys, or one of prissy’s, to aaron lobb? i don’t expect he has very many, and little boys and girls always like to have something brought to them when people come on a visit.”
“yes, certainly, dear. take one of your own—something you think a boy would like.”
loveday thought for a moment. “i fink i’ll take him the big monkey. it is very ugly, but boys like ugly things;” and off she ran again, and this time really reached the nursery, where mrs. peters and her family were frantically clawing at the basket in their longing to get outside it.
loveday untied the lid and let them all out. “you are not to go after all,” she said. “i hope you won’t be dis’pointed, but mother finks prissy may want you, and, after all, the fish at porthcallis isn’t better than any other, and there’s a dreadful lot of water.”
whether mrs. peters understood the change of plan or not, who can say? but it is a fact that she lay down purring with happiness, and, drawing all her children about her, talked to them for a long time.
three days later, about noon, loveday and mrs. carlyon started. it was not a very long journey by train—an engine soon covers fifteen miles; and the afternoon sun was still shining bright and hot when they stepped out on the platform of the little bare country station, which was not very far from mrs. lobb’s cottage. though one could not actually see the sea from the platform, one felt that it was close by, for one could smell it in the air, and on stormy days one could hear it; and, though i don’t know how it came there, there certainly was sea-sand all about the platform, which made it look and feel as though the sea certainly must reach that far sometimes.
it was all very open and breezy, and there seemed to be an endless amount of air and space, and sea and sand, and sky and everything. loveday almost wished there was not quite so much; it made her feel so small, and rather forlorn. but she had not much time to think about it, for things kept on happening. there were no omnibuses or cabs or anything to take them anywhere.
“how are we going to get my box to bessie’s house?” she asked anxiously.
a man with a wheelbarrow had come up, and was standing by them.
“i’ll take the box, little lady,” he said, touching his hat and smiling at her. “for the rest, hereabouts, we mostly goes on shanks’s mare.”
“oh, thank you,” said loveday.
mrs. carlyon explained to the man where she wanted him to take the box, and paid him; and when he had gone, and she had gathered up the little things she wished to carry herself, she and loveday started to follow. outside the station, loveday stopped and looked about her.
“come along, darling,” said mother rather impatiently. “what are you looking for? this is the way. i want to go to one or two shops first.”
“i was looking for shanks and his mare,” she explained, “to take us to bessie’s.”
“i don’t think the station-master need have laughed like that,” she said indignantly, as, a moment later, they walked quickly away. “everybody makesmistakes, and we don’t call legs by such silly names at home, and—and one can’t know everything. even grown-ups don’t know everything, but they do laugh at such silly things. i don’t see anything funny in it.”
“no, i don’t suppose you do, dear. but look! here is a fine shop,” said mrs. carlyon, drawing up before a window full of toys, and china, and a few books, and some boxes of chocolates, and a long string of tin buckets all painted different colours. “we will go in, shall we? i want to get you a spade and bucket.”
“oh, thank you!” gasped loveday. “how lovely!” and she forgot in a moment all her troubles and the trying habit grown-ups have of laughing at nothing.
some of the buckets had names painted on their sides.
“have you one with ‘loveday’ on it?” she asked eagerly of the woman who came out to serve them.
“oh no, miss,” said the woman, shaking her head. “i never heard of no such name as that before. i’ve got one with ‘thomas’ on it, and ‘ada,’ and ‘susan.’”
loveday hesitated a moment; then, “i’ll take ‘thomas,’” she said. “you see,” she explained to her mother when they got outside, “if i had chosen ‘ada’ or ‘susan,’ people would have thought it was my own real name, but they can’t think i am called ‘thomas.’”
“i don’t suppose people have much time for thinking about little girls and the names on their buckets,” said mrs. carlyon quietly.
“no, not people, mummy, but boys and girls have. they have lots of time, and they notice everything.”
armed with her spade and her scarlet bucket, loveday walked on quite cheerfully to bessie’s house. from the station it had looked quite close, only just across a green, and along a strip of level road and a little bit of beach, and there you were. but the country just there was flat and deceptive; the road wound and curved, and they found it quite a longish walk by the time they had passed the green and followed the windings of the road, and crossed the stretch of sands. but there they were at last, and there was bessie out to welcome them, and aaron, too, though he disappeared behind his mother’s skirts as soon as the strangers came really close.
loveday thought him a very funny little boy, and not at all pretty. he had very round red cheeks, and a snub nose, and big dark eyes; his hair was dark, too, and quite straight, and cut very close to his head. loveday looked at him with the greatest interest and curiosity. he was very different from what she had expected; for one thing, he was older and more manly.
“he is like a boy, not a baby,” she said to herself, and felt a little disappointed.
she had thought she was to have had a play-fellow whom she could have “mothered” and managed a little. but she soon found out her mistake. aaron lobb was not at all a baby, nor did he think himself one or allow others to do so. he was a sturdy little fellow, and full of a knowledge of the sea and the tides, and boats, and shells, and fishing, which to loveday seemed simply amazing, and clever beyond words.
when they had all talked a little, bessie led the way into the house, and loveday thought it was the most interesting, funny, and charming house she had ever seen in her life. it stood back from the beach, close under the towering cliff, and was a long low house, only one storey high, with big windows, and a porch over the door, and a verandah on each side of the door, and it was painted white, all but the window-frames and the doors, and they were green.
bessie explained that it had been built by a gentleman who lived in a big house on the top of the cliff. he had had it built years ago for his boatman to live in, “and there is the path he had made for the man to go up and down by to the big house.”
loveday looked, and saw a dear little winding path going up and up, with here and there a flight of little steps where the cliff was particularly steep, and all the way there was a strong hand-rail to prevent one’s falling over.
“does your husband take charge of the boats for the gentleman now?” asked mrs. carlyon.
“oh no, ma’am,” said bessie, shaking her head and looking very grave. “he doesn’t keep one now, poor gentleman! his only son was drowned one day out there, right in front of his windows, and mr. winter—he—he saw it, and—and it pretty nearly drove him out of his mind. the next day he sent down to button—button was his man—and ordered every boat to be broke up, and he got rid of button—not ’cause ’twas his fault, but ’cause he couldn’t abide[68] the sight of anything that had to do with that dreadful day. he was going to have this little place pulled down too, but my husband begged and prayed him not to, houses here being so scarce there’s no getting one. and mr. winter, he gave in. you see, ma’am, he’d had the little place built low like this, and right back under the cliff, so’s it shouldn’t be seen from the house, so he was never worried by the sight of it, and after the accident he wouldn’t be likely to, for he had the blinds on that side of the house that faced the sea drawn down, and he dared anybody ever to raise them again in his lifetime.”
loveday was very much impressed by this sad story. she seemed to see the poor father sitting lonely and sad in his dark house, while his only son lay for ever at the bottom of the cruel sea, which stretched before his very eyes. there were tears in mrs. carlyon’s eyes as she listened, and quite a sadness lay for the moment over the whole scene as they followed bessie into the bungalow. it was quite a large bungalow, and so well built and nicely finished inside. on one side of the little entrance was a cosy, spotlessly clean kitchen-parlour, with scullery behind it, and beyond that was bessie’s bedroom; both had windows looking out to sea, and bessie’s room had a little door at the end, by which she could get in and out without having to go through the kitchen. on the other side of the entrance was a nice little room, which had been built, said bessie, for the young gentleman and his friends to have a meal in, or sit in, and behind it were two little rooms which had been built for dressing-rooms or bedrooms, for him to change in if he came home wet, or to sleep in if he was going to start very early on a fishing expedition, or come home late.
the front room, which looked out to sea, bessie had made her parlour, while the others were two dear little bedrooms, one of which was now aaron’s, while the other was to be loveday’s.
loveday’s eyes sparkled when she saw hers. it had a wooden bed in it—such a curious-looking one, for it had been a four-poster, but, as it wouldn’t go into any room in the bungalow, they had had to cut the top off, so that now it seemed to have two sets of legs, the four it stood on and four that stood up in the air. the window was hung with curtains of blossom-white muslin, and the looking-glass and dressing-table and bed were all hung with the same. so snowy and soft and billowy it looked, the little room might almost have been filled with white clouds or foam. the woodwork was painted white, and the walls were white too, but for a frieze around the top, whereon white-sailed ships scudded along over a glorious blue-green sea, while gulls hovered and swooped, or stood stiffly on the bright green grass on the cliff-top.
loveday was enchanted. “oh, i wish prissy could see it too!” she cried, and that was the only flaw in her great delight.
