Bosom Friends Part 5

"Oh no!" cried Isobel hastily. "It isn't a steamer; it's a piece of poetry. I've just been reading it with mother, and it's most delightful.

I could lend it to you if you like. We brought the book with us."

Mrs. Jackson's acquaintance with the muse, however, seemed to be limited to the hymns in church, and a hazy remembrance of certain pieces in her spelling book when a child, and being apparently unwilling to further cultivate her mind in that direction, she declined the offer on the score of lack of time.

"Not but what Jackson's fond of a bit of poetry now and again," she admitted. "He sings a good song or two when he's in the mood, and he do like readin' over the verses on the funeral cards. He pins them all up on the kitchen wall where he can get at them handy. What suits me more is something in the way of a romance--'Lady Gwendolen's Lovers,' or 'The Black Duke's Secret'--when I've time to take up a book, which isn't often, with three sets of lodgers in the house, and a girl as can't even remember how to make a bed properly, to say nothing of laying a table, and 'ull take the dining-room dinner up to the drawing-room."

The much-enduring Polly, though certainly not an accomplished waitress, was the most good-tempered of girls, and an invaluable ally in saving the treasured specimens of flowers or sea-weeds which Mrs. Jackson, in her praiseworthy efforts at tidiness, was continually clearing out, under the plea that she "hadn't imagined they could be wanted."

"She even threw away my mermaids' purses and the whelks' eggs that we found on the sand-bank," said Isobel to her mother. "But Polly climbed into the ashpit and grubbed them up again. She washed them in a bucket of water, and they're quite nice now; so I shall put them in a box, to make sure they'll be safe. Polly's father is part owner of a schooner, and sometimes they fish up the most enormous fan sh.e.l.ls. She says she'll ask him to give me a few when she's time to go home, but she hasn't had a night out for nearly three weeks, the season's been so busy."

"Perhaps old Biddy could get you some large fan sh.e.l.ls," suggested Mrs.

Stewart. "I believe they find them sometimes very far out on the beach when they're shrimping."

Biddy was a well-known character in Silversands. She was a lively old Irishwoman, with the strongest of brogues and the most beguiling of tongues. In a blue check ap.r.o.n, and with a red shawl tied over her head, she might be seen every morning wheeling her barrow down the parade, where her amusing powers of blarney, added to the freshness of her fish, secured her a large circle of customers among what she called "the quality." She had a wonderful memory for faces, and always recognized families who paid a second visit to the town.

"Why, it's niver Masther Charlie, sure?" she exclaimed with delight, on meeting the Chesters one day. "It's meself that knew the bright face of yez the moment I saw ut, though ye're growed such a foine young gintleman an' all. Ye was staying at No. 7 two years back with yer mamma--an illigant lady she was, too--and your sister, Miss Hilda, the swate little colleen. Holy saints! this must be herself and none other, for it's not twice ye'd see such a pair of eyes and forgit them."

What became of Biddy during the winter, when there were no visitors to buy her fish, was an unsolved mystery. "Sure, I makes what I can by the koindness of sthrangers during the summer toime!" she had replied when Isobel once sounded her on the subject. "There's many a one as gives me an extra penny or two, or says, 'Kape the change, Biddy Mulligan!' The Blessed Virgin reward them! Thank you kindly, marm," as Mrs. Stewart took the hint. "May your bed in heaven be aisy, and may ye niver lack a copper to give to them as needs it."

Besides Biddy, Isobel had a number of other acquaintances in Silversands. There was the coastguard at the cottage on the top of the cliffs, who sometimes allowed her to look through his telescope, and who had an interesting barometer in the shape of a sh.e.l.l-covered cottage with two doors, from one of which a little soldier appeared when it was going to be fine, while a nautical-looking gentleman in a blue jacket came out to give warning of wet weather. Then there was the owner of the pleasure boats, who had promised to take her for a row entirely free of charge on the day before she was going home; and the bathing woman, who always tried to keep for her the van with the blue stripes and the bra.s.s hooks inside because she knew she liked it. The donkey boy had christened the special favourite with the new harness "_her_ donkey,"

and made it go with unwonted speed even on the outward journey (as a rule it galloped of its own accord when its nose was turned towards home); and the blind harpist by the railway station had waxed quite confidential on the subject of Scottish ballads, and had allowed her to try his instrument.

As for the members of the Sea Urchins' Club, she felt as if she had known them all her life, and the sayings and doings of the Chesters, the Rokebys, the Wrights, and the Barringtons occupied a large part of her conversation. Jolly as they were, none of them in Isobel's estimation could compare with Belle Stuart, who from the first had claimed her as her particular chum. The two managed to spend nearly the whole of every day together, sometimes in company with the other children, or sometimes alone on the beach, hunting for sh.e.l.ls and sea anemones, picking flowers, or just sitting talking in delicious idleness under the shade of a rock, listening to the dash of the waves and the screams of the sea gulls which were following the tide.

"I'm not generally allowed to make friends with any one whom we don't know at home," Belle had confided frankly. "But mother said you looked such a very nice lady-like little girl, she thought it wouldn't matter just for this once. I told her your father had been an officer, and she said of course that made a difference, but I really was to be careful, and not pick up odd acquaintances upon the beach, for she doesn't want me to talk to all sorts of people who aren't in our set of society, and might be very awkward to get rid of afterwards."

Isobel did not reply. She would never have dreamt of explaining that it was only due to her most urgent entreaties that she, on her part, had been allowed to pursue the friends.h.i.+p. Mrs. Stewart, from somewhat different motives, was quite as particular as Belle's mother about chance acquaintances, and had been a little doubtful as to whether she was acting wisely in allowing Isobel to spend so much of her time with companions of whom she knew nothing, and whether this new influence was such as she would altogether wish for her.

"But I can't keep her wrapped up in cotton wool," she thought. "She has been such a lonely child that it's only right and natural she should like to make friends of her own age, especially when I'm not able to go about with her. She'll have to face life some time, and the sooner she begins to be able to distinguish the wheat from the chaff so much the better. Thus far I've perhaps guarded her too carefully, and this is an excellent opportunity of throwing her on her own resources. I think I can trust her to stick to what she knows is right, and not be led astray by any silly notions. She'll soon discover that money and fine clothes don't represent the highest in life, and I believe it's best to let her find it out gradually for herself. She's like a little bird learning to fly; I've kept her long enough in the nest, and now I must stand aside and leave her to try her wings."

For the present, at any rate, Isobel could see no fault in her new friend. Belle had completely won her heart. Her charming looks; her fair, fluffy curls; her little, spoilt, coaxing ways; the clinging manner in which she seemed to depend upon others; her very helplessness and heedlessness; even the artless openness with which she sought for admiration--all appealed with an irresistible force to Isobel's stronger nature. If it ever struck her that her companion was lacking in some of those qualities which she had been taught to consider necessary, she thrust the thought away as a kind of disloyalty; and if it were she who generally carried the heavy basket, searched for the lost ball, fetched forgotten articles, or did any of the countless small services which Belle exacted almost as a matter of course from those around her, it certainly was without any idea of complaint. There are in this world always those who love and those who are loved, and Isobel was ready with spendthrift generosity to offer her utmost in the way of friends.h.i.+p, finding Belle's pretty thanks and kisses a sufficient reward for any trouble she might take on her account, and perhaps unconsciously realizing that even in our affections it is the givers more than the receivers who are the truly blessed. Belle, who usually found a brief and fleeting attraction in any new friend, was pleased with Isobel's devotion, and ready to be admired, petted, and waited on to any extent.

I think, too, that, to do her justice, she was really an affectionate child, and at the time she was as fond of her friend as it was possible for her light little character to be. She would not have troubled to put herself out of the way for Isobel, and it would not have broken her heart to part with her, but she enjoyed her company, and easily gave her the first place among the dozen bosom friends each of whom she had taken up in turn and thrown aside.

One particular afternoon found the namesakes strolling arm in arm along the narrow sandy lane which led inland from the beach towards the woods and the hills behind. It was the most delightful lane, with high gra.s.sy banks covered with pink bindweed and tiny blue sheep's scabious, and bright ma.s.ses of yellow bedstraw, and great clumps of mallows, with seed-vessels on them just like little cheeses, which you could gather and thread on pieces of cotton to make necklaces. There was a hedge at the top of the bank, too, where grew the beautiful twining briony, with its dark leaves and glossy berries; and long trails of bramble, where a few early blackberries could be discovered if you cared to reach for them; and down among the sand at the bottom of the ditch you might find an occasional horned poppy, or the curious flowers and glaucous p.r.i.c.kly leaves of the sea holly. Isobel, on the strength of a new bright-green tin vasculum, purchased only that very morning at the toy-shop near the station, and slung over her shoulder in the style of a student in a German picture-book, felt herself to be a full-fledged botanist, and rushed about in a very enthusiastic manner, scrambling up the banks after pink centaury, diving into the hedge bottom for campions, or getting her hair caught, like Absalom, in a p.r.i.c.kly rose-bush in a valiant endeavour to secure a particularly fine clump of harebells which were nodding in the breeze on the stones of the old wall.

"They're perfectly lovely, aren't they?" she cried. "I've got fourteen different sorts of flowers already, and I'm sure some of them must be rare--anyway, I've never seen them before. I'm going to press them directly I get home. Do you think this stump will bear me if I climb up for that piece of briony?"

"I'm afraid it won't," said Belle, fastening some of the harebells in her dress (they matched her blue sash and hat ribbons). "It looks fearfully rotten. There! I told you it wouldn't hold," as Isobel descended with a crash. "And you're covered with sand and p.r.i.c.kly burrs--such a mess!"

"Never mind," said Isobel, the state of whose clothing rarely distressed her. "They'll brush off. But I must have the briony. I'll climb up by the wall if you'll hold these hips for a moment."

"Oh, do come along--that's a darling!" entreated Belle. "I don't want to wait. They're only wild things, after all. I wish you could see our garden at home, full of lovely geraniums and fuchsias and lobelias, and the orchids and gloxinias in the conservatory. They're really worth looking at. Carter, our gardener, takes tremendous pains with them, and he gets heaps of prizes at shows."

"But I like wild flowers best," said Isobel. "You can find them yourself in the hedges, and there are so many kinds. It's most exciting to hunt out their names in the botany book."

"Do you care for botany?" said Belle. "I have it with Miss Fairfax, and I think it's hateful--all about corollas, and stigmas, and panicles, and umbels, and stupid long words I can't either remember or understand."

"I haven't learnt any proper botany yet," said Isobel, "only just some of the easy part; but when we come into the country mother and I always hunt for wild flowers, and then we press them and paste them into a book, and write the names underneath. We have eighty-seven different sorts at home, and I've found sixteen new ones since I came here, so I think that's rather good, considering we've only been at Silversands a week. How hot it is in this lane! Suppose we go round by the station and up the cliffs."

The little lane with its high banks was certainly the most baking spot they could have chosen for a walk on a blazing August afternoon. The sun poured down with a steady glare, till the air seemed to quiver with the heat, and the only things which really enjoyed themselves were the gra.s.shoppers, whose cheery chirpings kept up a perpetual concert. In the fields on either side the reapers had been busy, and tired-looking harvesters were hard at work binding the yellow corn and the scarlet poppies into sheaves. Little groups of mothers and children and babies had come to help or look on, as the case might be, and brought with them cans of tea and checked handkerchiefs full of bread and b.u.t.ter.

"Don't they look jolly?" said Isobel, peeping over the hedge to watch a family who were picnicking among the stooks, the father in a broad-brimmed rush hat, his corduroy trousers tied up with wisps of straw, wiping his hot forehead on his s.h.i.+rt sleeves; the mother putting the baby to roll on the corn, while she poured the tea into blue mugs; and the children, as brown as gypsies, sitting round in a circle eating slices of bread, and evidently enjoying the fun of the thing.

"Ye-e-s," said Belle, somewhat doubtfully, "I suppose they do. Are you fond of poor people?"

"I like going with mother when she's district-visiting, because the women often let me nurse the babies. Some of them are so sweet they'll come to me and not be shy at all."

"Aren't they rather dirty?"

"No, not most of them. A few are beautifully clean. Mother says she expects they know which day we're coming, and wash them on purpose."

"Babies are all very well when they're nicely dressed in white frocks and lace and corals," remarked Belle, "so long as they don't pull your hair and scratch your face."

"One day," continued Isobel, "we went to the _creche_--that's a place where poor people's children are taken care of during the day while their mothers are out working. There were forty little babies in cots round a large room--_such_ pets; and so happy, not one of them was crying. The nurse said they generally howl for a day or two after they're first brought in, and then they get used to it and don't bother any more. You see it wouldn't do to take up every single baby each time it began to cry."

"I wish you'd tell that to the Wrights; they give that 'Popsie' of theirs whatever she shrieks for. She's a nasty, spoilt little thing.

Yesterday she caught hold of my pearl locket, and tugged it so hard she nearly strangled me, and broke the chain; and the locket fell into a pool, and I couldn't find it, though I hunted for half an hour. The nurse only babbled on, 'Poor pet! didn't she get the pretty locket, then?' I felt so cross I wanted to smack both her and the baby."

"And haven't you found the locket yet?"

"No, and I never shall now; it's been high tide since then."

"What a shame! I should have felt dreadfully angry. I don't like the Wrights' nurse either. She borrowed my new white basket, and then let the children have it; and they picked blackberries into it, and stained it horribly. Why, there's Aggie Wright now, with the Rokebys. What _are_ they doing? They're hanging over that gate in the most peculiar manner.

Let us go and see."

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE CLIFFS.

"We saw the great ocean ablaze in the sun, And heard the deep roar of the waves."

The gate in question proved to be the level crossing, which had just been closed by the man from the signal-box to allow a train to pa.s.s through. Charlotte and Aggie Wright and five of the Rokebys were all standing upon the bars, hanging over the top rail and gazing at the metals with such deep and intense interest that you would have thought they expected a railway accident at the very least, and were looking out for the smash.

"What _is_ the matter?" cried Belle and Isobel, racing up to share in whatever excitement might be on hand. "Do you see anything? Is it a cow on the line?"

"No," said Bertie Rokeby, balancing himself rather insecurely upon the gate post; "we're only waiting for the train to pa.s.s. We've put pennies on the rail, and the wheels going over them will flatten them out till they're nearly twice as big. You'd hardly believe what a difference it makes. Would you like to try one? I'd just have time to climb down and put it on before the train comes up. I will in a minute, if you say the word."

"I haven't a penny with me, I'm afraid," answered Isobel, rummaging in her pockets, and turning out several interesting pebbles, a few sh.e.l.ls, a mermaid's purse, and the remains of a spider crab. "Stop a moment! No, it's only a b.u.t.ton after all, and a horn one, too, that would be smashed to smithereens. If it had been a metal one I'd have tried it."

"I've nothing but a halfpenny," said Belle. "It's all I possess in the world till to-morrow, when I get my pocket-money. But do put it on, Bertie; it would be fun to see how large it makes it."

Bertie climbed over the gate and popped the coin with the others on the rail, much to the agitation of the pointsman, who ran in great anger from the signal-box, shouting to him to get off the line, for the train was coming. He was barely in time, for in another moment the express came whirling by with such a roar and a rattle, and making such a blast of wind as it went, that the children had to shut their eyes and cling on tightly.

"You'll get into trouble here if you get over them bars when I've shut 'em," grunted the pointsman surlily, opening the gates to admit a waiting cart from the other side. "I'll take your name next time as you tries it on, and report you to the inspector, and you'll get charged with trespa.s.sing on the company's property."