The Village by the River Part 23

"I quite agree with you," interposed Paul.

"And I think that my change of opinion about religious things will help, rather than hinder me in my work," continued Sally, with a slight effort.

"Let us hope it may," said Paul, in a tone that implied a doubt on the subject. "Anyway, I wish you to follow your own plan of life. I think women ought to be as free as men to choose what they will do.

But"--with a glance from the window--"Miss Kitty's carriage stops the way. I must go and see what she wants."

"Why, Kitty," he began, almost before he had reached the gate, "I thought you had forgotten all about me! It is days, almost weeks, I think, since you've paid me a call."

"It's because it has rained nearly every day and I've not been out at all; and there are such a lot of things I want to ask you about."

Paul was Kitty's referee on every subject. "What is the first, I wonder?" he said, smiling down at her.

"Bend down, please, Mr. Paul. It's a secret."

And Paul brought his ear to a level with Kitty's mouth.

"Do boys like Noah's Arks?"

Paul straightened himself with a burst of laughter.

"I thought you would know. Nurse said you'd be sure to know," Kitty said, much injured by his untimely mirth.

"It's just because I don't that I am laughing," said Paul, whose remembrance of childhood was unconnected with any scriptural game.

That he should be solemnly consulted about one seemed extremely ludicrous.

"Then you did not have one?"

"No, I did not."

"I suppose it won't do, after all," said Kitty, dejectedly. "And it's a real beauty; it cost half a crown."

"Really! That's a big price. I should think it might do for any one.

After all, an ark might come in handy soon, if we are going to have a flood. Who's the happy boy?"

"Oh, you are shouting!" cried Kitty, warningly. "And it's a secret."

"I beg your pardon," said Paul, penitently. "Shall I look in and give an opinion?"

"Yes; you and Sally, too. Perhaps you would come to tea with me this afternoon? Daddy is gone to a Congress, or he could have told me everything."

"Yes, we will come--Sally and I."

"And then I can tell you all about it, for Nurse knows but has promised not to tell."

"We will try to be as trustworthy as Nurse," Paul said with a rea.s.suring nod.

So, over tea and toast, after three false guesses on Paul and Sally's part, Kitty divulged her tremendous secret, which turned out to be that daddy had promised that when she was ten years old she should give a Christmas-tree party to every child in Rudham from ten years and under, and the whole responsibility of choosing the presents and a.s.sorting them should devolve upon her. For months past Kitty had been making out her list of the children she would have to invite, rather bewildering the villagers by her feverish anxiety to discover the ages of their offspring; but the choosing of suitable presents for her guests was a far more difficult task. A large box of toys had arrived, by her father's order, from a neighbouring town, from which Kitty could make a selection; she had spent one whole day poring over them. Girls were easy enough to please, but boys' tastes were quite a different matter. So Nurse had finally suggested that Mr. Lessing should be taken into confidence. Happily, by the afternoon he had grasped the gravity of the situation, and he discussed the varying merits of tops, marbles, horses, and carts as earnestly as even Kitty could desire. He still felt a lurking desire to laugh when he saw the Noah's Ark, which cost half a crown, set apart in a place by itself on Kitty's couch.

From time to time she laid a caressing hand upon it. It was still unallotted, and Kitty gave a quivering sigh of excitement as she glanced down her crumpled list.

"I had meant this for Tommy Baird," she said, looking down at it fondly. "It's quite the best thing I have--and he's the oldest boy,--and it's very pretty, daddy thinks; but you say it won't do."

"I!" cried Paul, aghast. "I never said anything of the kind."

"You laughed at it! and you said something about a flood."

"Was not the ark connected with a flood? You know better than I."

Kitty looked from Paul to Sally with distress on her face.

"Of course," she said, a little petulantly. "But you said there might be another--and there can't be, daddy says."

"Of course there can't," said Paul, a little hurriedly, feeling it scarcely fair to make a joke to such a sensitive little girl.

"Look here! I'm writing a ticket for Tommy Baird, and I shall tuck it under the elephant's trunk. Do you think he will hold it fast?"

"Then it will do, after all," said Kitty, greatly relieved.

But when Paul and Sally were gone, and all the excitement and joy of the tea-party, and the allotting of her presents, was over, Kitty's mind reverted to the flood. Mr. Paul had meant something which he would not explain to her. Whilst the perplexing thought was still in her mind, she heard her father's latchkey turn in the lock of the front door, and he popped his head into the room where she lay with a merry laugh.

"I'm home, Kitty. I'll be down in a minute, but I must get my things off first. It is raining cats and dogs."

The words confirmed Kitty's worst fears. That is how it must have rained before that first great flood, when the waters crept up and up, and the people first climbed the hills, until the waters reached them there; and at last there was nothing to be seen anywhere but a waste of water and one little ark that floated on the top. By the time Mr.

Curzon came and seated himself by her side, Kitty's eyes were round with the terror of the picture that her too vivid imagination had painted. Her father, quick to read each pa.s.sing emotion on the face that was dearest to him in the whole world, stooped down and kissed her.

"My little Kitty is in one of her frightened moods. She must tell me all about it."

"It's the flood," Kitty whispered.

"What flood, darling?"

"Mr. Paul said we might have one."

"Did he? He must have meant that the river might overflow its banks; and perhaps it will after such a wet season."

"But it would drown us all."

"Not a bit of it. The cottages near the river might have some water in them; but unless it were something quite unprecedented, the water would not get to the upper floor of any house--and certainly won't come near us or the church and schools, so you may dismiss your fear of a flood.

You ought not to have had it anyway, because G.o.d has promised that the world shall not be flooded totally again. Shall I tell you what a very good man wrote years ago--many hundreds of years ago--about floods?

'The floods are risen, O Lord, the floods have lift up their voice, the floods lift up their waves . . . but yet the Lord who dwelleth on high, is mightier.' If he could learn that, all that long time ago, you ought not to be afraid now, ought you?"

"And you don't think G.o.d will let it come before my Christmas tree, do you daddy? Because, if all the little children were obliged to stay upstairs, to keep out of the way of the water, they could not come,"

said Kitty, giving a strictly practical turn to the conversation.

Mr. Curzon smiled and stroked Kitty's head.

"That is more than I can say, darling. Although your Christmas tree seems such a big thing to you, it is only a little one; and if it were put off it would be a disappointment to you, but not a trouble, you see."

Kitty was silenced but not satisfied, and each night added a postscript to her prayers that the flood, if it was to come, should not occur before her Christmas tree. It was to be held in the school-room on Christmas Eve. The secret had exploded now, for the invitations were out, each one written by Kitty herself, and personally delivered in the course of her morning rambles. Paul and Sally were to come as humble helpers. December 23rd was a particularly wild, wet day; but a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne at the close of it produced a rainbow so brilliant in hue that Kitty regarded it as a written sign in the heavens that the flood would be averted, certainly until after her Christmas tree. But it was such a brief gleam of sun! All night through the rain fell, and the wind, which had been fairly quiet the previous day, rose to a perfect tempest, roaring in the tree-tops round the rectory, groaning in the chimneys, and das.h.i.+ng the rain in sheets against poor little Kitty's window-pane; and when in the morning Nurse drew up the blind, and burst into an exclamation of surprise, Kitty knew that her worst fear was realized, and that her prayer had been unavailing. The "Lord that dwelt on high" did not seem to have listened. She tried to nerve herself to bear the tidings which Nurse conveyed in as cheerful a tone as she could a.s.sume.