The House That Grew Part 10

I did feel so pleased to know it was to be our very own, and so, I think, did mamma. For when things are lent, there is always a rather fidgety feeling, for fear they should get spoilt in any way. And Miss Trevor had said it so nicely--as if our taking it would really be doing them a favour. For, of course, from almost complete strangers it is a little difficult to accept presents, though mamma has often told us that to receive a kindness graciously is quite as much a duty as to offer one.

And then too she had spoken as if our return to our proper home was quite a certainty, and our absence from it only a question of a little time, though afterwards we heard that there had been a good deal of gossip in the neighbourhood about our being completely 'ruined,' and that Eastercove was sure to have to be sold. I suppose a great deal of gossip is not meant to be unkind, but still it does seem sometimes as if people were more ready to exaggerate and talk about other people's _troubles_ than about their good fortune.

We said good-bye to Miss Trevor soon after that--she, turning to go back to the house, and we, after mamma had asked her very heartily to come soon to see us in our 'gypsy encampment,' as mamma called it (I wished it had been a good deal more gypsy than it was!), which she seemed very eager to do, walking slowly towards the Hut. More slowly than I felt inclined for--I was in a fever to tell Geordie about the wonderful chair--but mamma was still feeling a little tired after all the bustle and busy-ness and sad feelings of the last few weeks, and so I tried to keep down my impatience.

When we came quite out of the wood into the clear, open view of the sea, mamma stood still again and gazed down at it without speaking for a moment or two.

'Are you thinking of papa?' I said softly, giving her arm, through which I had slipped my hand, a little squeeze.

'Yes, dear,' she said, turning her face towards me, and I was pleased to see that she was smiling. 'He must be nearing the end of his long journey by now. But it was not only because of his voyage that I was thinking of him. The sea is always a.s.sociated with him in my mind; it was the occasion of our first getting to know each other.'

I felt greatly interested.

'Did you meet on board s.h.i.+p, do you mean?' I asked. 'Did you make a voyage together?'

'No, no,' said mamma, smiling again; 'I have never been a long voyage in my life. And the time I was thinking of--ever so long ago--had nothing to do with a voyage. I will tell you the story of it if you like. Shall we sit down here a little? It is perfectly dry.'

My hurry to get home to tell Geordie about Miss Trevor's present had softened down in the interest of what mamma was speaking of; besides, when I came to think of it, I remembered that he could not yet be back from Mr. Lloyd's. So I was very pleased to do as mamma proposed.

'There is a little bathing-place far up in the North,' she began, when we had settled ourselves on a little bank made by some old roots which had spread out beyond the actual pine wood, 'which was rather a favourite in that part of the world a good many years ago, though now, I fancy, it is quite out of fas.h.i.+on. It was considered a very safe place for children, as there are great stretches of sands, and the bathing is very good, except that the tide at one part goes out with great swiftness and force, owing to a current of some kind just there. There is a garrison town--a small one--two miles or so from the bathing village--a station for cavalry--and the sands used to be, and I daresay still are, a favourite exercising ground for the horses. Well, one morning, ever so long ago, as I said----'

'Do you mean fifty years ago, or a hundred perhaps?' I interrupted thoughtlessly, forgetting that the story had some connection with mamma herself.

'No, no,' she said laughing, 'not quite as "ever so long ago" as that.

Let me see--I need not be quite exact--about twenty-four or twenty-five years ago, we will say. Well, one fine summer morning an officer, a very young one, of only eighteen or nineteen, was galloping with his men--a small party--up and down these sands, when he heard and saw something which made him suddenly pull up and gaze down towards the sea, which had turned and was rapidly going out. It was just above the bathing-place--a perfectly safe place if the vans were drawn out when the tide turned, and not allowed to get into the sort of current I told you of. But by some mischance one of the vans had been allowed to stay in the water too long--the old bathing man was getting rather stupid, I fancy, and was busy drying things higher up, with his back to the sea, and did not hear the cry from the van, or see the white handkerchief that was frantically waved from its landward side.

The young man had keen eyes and ears; he saw that there was not a moment to be lost--and he quickly took in what had happened and what must be done. The van was _almost_ off its wheels, swaying about with every little wave that ran in, as the water rose and rose. And just outside the door, on the ledge at the top of the steps, stood a forlorn little figure waving a handkerchief, or perhaps it was a towel, and crying at the top of her small voice--

"Help, help; oh, _please_, help!"

'I don't know what the officer did about his men, who were already some little way off--I suppose he signed to them to wait for him,--but I know what he did himself, and that was to gallop as fast as his horse would go, down to the sea, shouting as he went to the bathing-man, who was quick enough to see what was wrong, as soon as his attention was called to it.

'He rushed for his old horse, and was wonderfully soon at the water's edge and in it, looking horribly frightened, but quick as he was, the young man was there at least a minute or two before him. And after one glance at the state of things, the first comer did not hesitate. For he saw that the van was growing less and less steady; it was _almost_ lifted off the ground by this time, though it kept recovering itself a little. And the small figure on the steps was calling more and more wildly and shaking her white signal more desperately, while she clung on with the other hand to the side of the lurching and swaying van.

'His--the young officer's, I mean--first idea was to harness his horse _somehow_ to the van, and draw it out bodily--riding like a postilion.

But he gave this up at once when he found how deep the water was already and how unsteady the thing was. He was too angry with the careless owner of it to care whether the van itself swam out to sea or not, and too anxious, to risk wasting a moment. And the sight of the little white face and tear-swollen eyes lifted up to him doubled both these feelings.

'"Don't be frightened, you will be all right now," he called out to the child, who by this time scarcely knew what she was saying. He thinks she changed her piteous "Help, help, do come!" to "Oh, save me, please, save me!" And when he and his horse got quite close he had no need to encourage her to come to him--she almost sprang into his arms, so quickly that he was afraid she would fall into the water. But it was managed somehow, so that in another moment he found himself riding back to the sh.o.r.e again, with the little girl perched on the front of his saddle, clinging to him and tucked up so as to keep even her feet from getting wet.

'She was actually quite dry when they got back to the sands and he lifted her down--getting off himself to get a good shake, for _he_ was by no means quite dry, nor was the horse, who had behaved so well and pluckily, as if understanding there was something the matter, and now stood snorting with pleasure and satisfaction.

'And the little girl was sensible too. She had quite left off crying and held out her hand to her preserver.

'"Oh, thank you, thank you so velly much," she said, "for saving me. I was velly neely drowned, wasn't I? Please go home and get dry quick, or else you'll catch cold."

'But before he had time to reply, a figure came rus.h.i.+ng up to them in great excitement. It was the little girl's nurse, dreadfully frightened and ashamed, especially when the boy officer turned upon her very sharply and asked her what on earth she had been thinking of to leave her charge in such danger.

'She had a long story to tell, which he had not patience to listen to--how she had almost finished dressing the young lady when she found she had left her parasol on the sands, and had climbed over into the next van where a friend was, just as it was being drawn out, as she was so afraid of the parasol being stolen, thinking no harm could come to the child in that minute or two till the bathing-man came back again, and how her friend had seen the parasol higher up on the stones, and how--and then came the bathing-man lumbering up with _his_ story--or how he had thought there was no one in the van, and he was just a-goin'

to fetch it out--not that it would have gone far----

'"But it _would_," said the soldier; "and even if it had stuck, the young lady would have been half killed with fright and soaked through, and perhaps fallen into the water bodily. The bathing-man deserved to be reported, and----"

'There came a shout for the young officer just then. Some one, thinking _he_ had got drowned or something of the kind, had hurried back to see.

So he rode off though just as he was going, the little girl stopped him for a moment.

'"Oh, please, Mr. Soldier," she said, "will you tell me your name, so that mamma can write to thank you?"

'He laughed, but he was already in the saddle, and all she heard was the one word, "Jack."'

Mamma stopped when she got to this. I waited an instant to see if she was going on again. I felt a little puzzled, though I thought the story so interesting.

'That isn't all, is it, mamma?' I said. 'I do so like it, but--didn't you say--something about papa--and you and the sea, being mixed up?'

Mamma smiled; her pretty blue eyes were fixed on the water below us; they and it seemed almost the same colour this afternoon.

'No,' she said, 'that isn't all. It was many, at least several--nine or ten or so years later, that the story goes on again. The boy officer had been out in India and seen fighting and many other things that come into soldiers' lives. But now that was over for him. Other duties had come into his life and changed it. Well--he was staying near the sea, with his mother and sisters, and one day, after a boating expedition,--it was a picnic to a picturesque island not far off,--he was introduced to a girl who had come with some other acquaintances. And they walked up and down the sands for a little. He kept looking at her in rather a curious way, and she wondered why, till at last he said--

'"I have the strangest feeling that I have seen you before, but I cannot tell where or when. And your name does not help me to remember."

'Then the girl looked at him in her turn very carefully. And a sudden rush of remembrance came over her.

'"Is your name," she said quite eagerly,--"is your name--your first name 'Jack'?"

'"Yes," he said, more and more puzzled.

'She smiled, and then she laughed, and then she told him.

'"I believe I can solve the riddle," she said. "I once rode through the sea on your horse--in front of you.'"

'And then Jack remembered.'

And _I_ understood!

'Oh, mamma!' I exclaimed, 'what a dear story. And _you_ are the little girl, and dear papa is "Jack," and--and--it ended in your being married!

How clever it was of him to remember your face again!'

'Don't you think it was still cleverer of me to remember his name?' said mamma. '_He_ always says so. But Ida, dearest, look how low the sun is getting. We must hurry home, or Geordie and the others will be getting tired of waiting for tea,' and she got up from her root-seat as she spoke, and we walked on quickly.

I kept on thinking of the story all the way. It was so pretty and yet so queer to think of my own papa and mamma as if they were people in a book, and to picture to myself that once upon a time, or _ever_, they were strangers to each other.

'Mamma must have been a dear little girl,' I thought to myself, as I glanced up at her; 'she is still so pretty and sweet;' and I felt that to me she _always_ would seem so, even when her golden hair had grown silver, and her bright eyes dimmer, and her rounded cheeks thin and worn.

'She will always be my dear pretty mamma,' I thought.

CHAPTER VIII