The Carroll Girls Part 4

Angela in her corner kept her back turned to them, looking out of window very persistently, and winking very hard. But when the story was fairly begun she too crept up and nestled close to Esther, with her face well hidden behind Poppy's back and Esther's encircling arm.

The request roused Penelope from her own depression. She loved to tell stories. Usually she made up her own, for she had read but few to repeat; and the children always preferred hers, for, somehow, she seemed to know exactly what they liked. Now it seemed as though she understood perfectly just what would cheer them, and what to avoid, and they listened in perfect silence, drinking in comfort.

"Don't stop, don't stop!" pleaded Poppy, when the obvious end had been reached. But at that moment the train drew up, and Esther's eyes, wandering idly over the little station to see what place they had reached, read 'Dorsham' on the signboard, and sprang to her feet with such energy as to send Angela and Poppy tottering across the carriage.

"We are come," she gasped. "Oh girls, we are come! What shall we do?"

"Dorsham, Do-orsham," shouted a porter outside, in confirmation of her words, and the carriage immediately became a scene of wild confusion and excitement.

"I wonder if there is any one here to meet us," said Esther, as she tidied Poppy's dark hair and put on her hat. "Perhaps some of us had better get out and see, or they'll think we have not come."

They were all almost breathless with nervous excitement, and Esther was just popping her head out of the window to try to open the carriage door when a little lady came hurrying along the platform, her cheeks very pink, her eyes bright with anxiety. When she saw Esther she stopped, her face brightening with an expectant smile. When her eye fell on the three other little faces gazing out through the side windows with eager curiosity, her face brightened still more.

"Oh," she gasped, "are you--I think you must be the little Carrolls from Framley, my young cousins. I am Miss Charlotte Ashe, Cousin Charlotte-- and I've come to meet you--are you Esther? I think you must be."

Esther's face had brightened too, with relief. This gentle little lady was so unlike the formidable stranger she had been dreading so, she felt quite at ease at once.

In another moment they were all on the platform being introduced.

"This is Penelope, and this is Poppy, the youngest of us, and this is Angela, the third," she said with the air of a proprietor, "and I am the eldest."

"I am delighted to see you all, my dears," said Miss Ashe warmly, kissing each in turn. She felt a little nervous under the fire of four pairs of enquiring eyes; there was nothing rude, though, in their stare; it was simply full of a wistful, half-incredulous pleasure. They could scarcely believe their eyes and ears that things were turning out so much less dreadful than they expected.

Then followed a moment of bustle, while the station-master and the one porter went in search of the luggage, and the children were led up to identify the various things as they should be lifted out. When they were told that the two shabby trunks were all there were to identify, disappointment was only too plainly written on the men's faces.

Seeing how little it was, the porter readily promised "to wheel it along by and by," and Miss Ashe turned away with a sigh of relief.

"Now then, chicks," she said cheerily, "we will start for home.

You won't mind a walk, I hope, dears. My house is only fifteen minutes from the station. Are you _very_ tired?" looking anxiously from one to the other, but most anxiously at Poppy.

"Oh no," they a.s.sured her politely. "We would like to walk, Cousin Charlotte," added Esther; "after sitting still so long it will be very nice," and her sisters supported her eagerly.

The engine, with a good deal of puffing and snorting, glided on its way again. The children stood to watch it, but they saw it depart without any of the regret they had expected to feel, and then the little party turned out of the station, on the last stage of their pilgrimage to their new home.

They were accustomed to the country, of course, so that their first view of Dorsham did not affect them as it would have affected a town child, but even they exclaimed with delight at the weird, wild beauty which opened out before them. The station appeared to have sprung up in the heart of a little forest of firs, as being the most sheltered spot it could alight upon in that open country, and it was not until they had walked a little way along the white road which skirted the woods, and came to the other road which led at right angles to Dorsham, that the real beauty of the place they had come to burst upon them.

Then, "Oh!" they gasped. "Oh! oh! Cousin Charlotte, how perfectly lovely!

We did not think it would be a bit like this."

Angela alone did not speak; she gazed, and s.h.i.+vered as she gazed.

She was too awed by the rugged wildness to be able to find any words--awed and rather frightened. In the beautiful evening light of the summer's day there lay before them an immense stretch of wild and rugged moorland, sloping down on either side till it met a winding silver streak at the bottom of the valley, and rolling upwards, away and away, rising and dipping, with every here and there rough boulders and tors, single or in groups, standing upon its brown bosom like rocks out of a brown sea, until in the distance high rock-crowned hills bounded and closed it in.

Then would the eye travel from the wilder beauty back to rest on the gleaming, gliding river in its rocky bed, and the group of little houses which stood about so irregularly as to give the impression that they had been dropped down promiscuously and allowed to remain as they fell; while close about each house were large gardens s.n.a.t.c.hed from the wealth of wildness outside and enclosed within st.u.r.dy walls, as though to protect them from the encroaching brown sea outside.

"Oh, Cousin Charlotte," gasped Angela, "aren't you afraid to live here?

It looks so--so wild and--and sad?"

Cousin Charlotte smiled. "Oh no," she cried, "it is not as lonely as it looks. There is quite a village just on beyond, but you cannot see it from here." Then noticing the look on Angela's face, "You will not be afraid, will you, children?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh no," said Esther, replying for them all. "I am sure we shall like it, Cousin Charlotte. I don't think it is as lonely as a wood really, because here you can look all about you, and can see if any one is coming.

Angela is tired, I expect, and I think every place looks rather sad when night is coming on. I think she will like it soon, when she is more used to it."

"The village looks more lonely than it is really," said Cousin Charlotte.

"From here it seems as though we are quite unprotected, but when we are at home that feeling will be gone. It seems then as though the moor is protecting us. There are other villages just beyond us in each direction, too, so we are not quite deserted."

"Oh, I love it, I love it!" gasped Penelope, who had been silent from the intensity of her emotion all this time. It was almost as though the sight was too much for her. She felt bewildered, overcome, full of awe and love, and a feeling she could not describe. She stood still in the wide white road, and gazed and gazed with her heart in her eyes. The others walked briskly on, Angela keeping close to Esther, her hand thrust through Esther's arm, Poppy holding Miss Ashe by one hand and Esther by the other.

The road wound down in almost a straight line, until they could hear the murmuring of the river, like a welcoming voice, as it hurried along over the stones. The nearer they drew to the house and the river, the less did the moor and the hills seem to dominate them, and the feeling of home grew on them.

Just before they reached the house Penelope overtook them.

"Oh," she cried enthusiastically, "it is so lovely. I--I am sorry I have lived all my life away from it. I might have had nearly twelve more years here."

Miss Ashe laughed, well pleased. "I am so glad, children, that you think you will like it. Anna and I thought it might be dull for you.

Well, here we are at last, and very glad you must be, I am sure, after your long, tiring day. This is Moor Cottage, dears, and I hope you will all be very, very happy here as long as I am allowed to keep you.

It shall not," she added gravely, pausing as she stood in the porch with her hand on the latch, "be my fault if you are not."

"I am _sure_ we shall be happy, Cousin Charlotte," said Esther earnestly, longing to throw her arms about the dear little lady, and kiss her, but feeling too shy. "I know we shall."

Angela did not only long, but she acted. "And I hope we shall make you happy, too," she cried, and throwing her arms about Miss Ashe's neck kissed her lovingly.

Cousin Charlotte's eyes were dim as she opened the door wide.

"Welcome home," she cried. Then in a louder, brisker voice, "Anna, Anna,"

she called, "where are you? Here are our young ladies come, and neither of you out to meet and welcome them! I am ashamed."

A wild scratching was heard at the back of the little stone-paved hall, then a door was flung wide, revealing for a moment a pretty, cosy kitchen with firelight gleaming on a dresser laden with dainty china; but only for a moment, for the doorway was almost immediately blocked by a figure which blotted out every other view--the big, broad figure of Anna, white-capped, white-ap.r.o.ned, red-faced and smiling.

"Well I never!" she kept exclaiming, "and to think of me never hearing you coming. Well I never!" but all further talk was put a stop to by a yelp of joy, and the wild rush from somewhere of a creature that, for the moment, Poppy was quite sure was a bear. The creature flung himself on Miss Ashe so impetuously as to very nearly topple her over.

"Guard, Guard," she protested, recovering her footing with a laugh, "behave yourself, sir." But the great dog would not be quiet until she had given him her hand to kiss and her purse to hold; with that in his mouth he contented himself with wriggling joyfully at her feet, making little m.u.f.fled sounds of welcome.

"Now come and speak to your visitors," she said, "and shake hands like a gentleman." But he had to return her purse to her own safe keeping before he could be induced to do anything more, after which he went round and solemnly shook hands with each of the girls, smiling very wide with pleasure at the pats and caresses he got, until, on coming to Poppy, she flung her baby arms about his great rough neck, crying, "Oh, you darling, you darling," and kissed his soft brown cheek, upon which he looked up at her adoringly, and seated himself beside her. Then Anna came forward and seemed quite pleased when they all shook hands with her; and Guard, seeing every one else so hearty, began to dash round and round again as he looked ecstatically from one to the other, making little low cries of pleasure.

CHAPTER IV.

"Now then, Anna," said Miss Ashe at last, "we really must show these poor children their rooms, and let them wash and refresh themselves before tea; they must be longing to, and I am sure they are famished--aren't you, children?"

They remembered their 'tea' at three o'clock, and blushed; but that really did seem hours ago now, and they honestly were very hungry again.

Perhaps the moor air had something to answer for already.

"Well, come along," said Miss Ashe, while, murmuring something about hot water, she bustled off to the kitchen. "No, Guard, you must wait down here," said his mistress, as he rose to follow them; and with his feet on the bottom stair he stood still, gazing after them longingly, but without attempting to follow.

At the right of the hall was an archway, and going up a step and through this, the children found themselves in another little hall, with doors on two sides of it, and a staircase at the back, all completely cut off from the view from the front door. The stairs were so wide and shallow they tripped as they followed Miss Ashe up them. At the top they found themselves in a little gallery which ran all round with several doors opening into it.

"Now, my chicks," said Miss Charlotte, throwing open the first door they came to, "you must settle amongst yourselves which two shall share a room, and which room you will have."

The children, greatly excited, poured after her into what they all thought the sweetest, loveliest bedroom they had ever seen in their lives--which it certainly was. The walls were covered with a pretty creamy paper festooned all over with bunches of pink-tipped daisies tied together with blue ribbons; two little white beds, with snowy curtains and quilts, stood with a table between them. But most fascinating of all was the long, low, lattice-window with its white dimity curtains, and frill across the top.