Sweethearts at Home Part 6

It was Miss Crow's voice, however. No mistake about that.

"Yes, and he said to me, 'I adore you with all the fervor of a free and untrammeled genius, with the n.o.ble indignation of a spirit on fire against wrong and oppression. It is true that in the meantime, though of an exalted race, I am poor, receiving only twelve s.h.i.+llings a week in one of the inst.i.tutions of trust vulgarly called a p.a.w.n-broker's. But next year and every succeeding year I shall have my salary raised by the sum of two s.h.i.+llings--per fortnight. Oh, Principia, my Principia----'"

At this moment, overcome by her own pardonable curiosity, Mrs. Pretend entered hurriedly to see what they were doing.

She found them busily employed, with head bent over an exercise in dictation.... "From Milton's Essay on Macaulay!" Miss Polly Pretend explained in answer to her mother's question.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Pretend, as she went out, "and I always thought that Milton wrote poetry. It's true I never could make out how they could say that blank verse was really poetry--not, I mean, like 'How doth the little busy' and 'Twinkle, twinkle'! But he wrote a long time ago, and perhaps then they had not learned to make the words at the end rhyme!"

But now I must tell how Polly Pretend corrupted the whole house. At first we had only called Polly's father and mother "the Pretends"

because they belonged to Polly, and so that we might know who was meant.

But to begin with, Mrs. Pretend had to make up a lot of things to explain why, after all these prizes, Polly had not gone back to Olympia School. She had to think up something that people would believe. You see, Polly's inventions were really too daring--as that after a year abroad she and Miss Crow were going to set up a college of their own, a far better one than Olympia. And then she would show Miss Gray!

Now you will hardly believe me, but old Pretend, who was on the County Council and fussed about roads and drainage--"an innocent enough old duck," Sir Toady calls him--took to magnifying Miss Polly Pretend and her governess. I think he actually began to count up his dollars to see if he had really enough money to start Polly Pretend in a school of her own. But one fine day he met old Lovell, of Castle Lovell, at some joint business meeting about a Combination Poorhouse, or something like that.

Now old Lovell is a fearful big-wig, and looked up to by everybody because he is too stupid ever to pretend the least little bit. He would get found out in a moment if he did. But solid as the Bank of England, and as conceited as Mir-row with a rosette tied to her tail last King's birthday!

And old Lovell said, "I hear you have a Miss Crow to be governess to your little child! I think I ought to know her!"

"Ye-es!" said Father Pretend slowly. He did not like to hear a young lady who was going to set up a school next year to rival Olympia itself called "your little child."

But he could not afford to fall out with old Lovell, who always seemed as wise as a bench of judges and as rich-looking as a jeweler's shop which can afford to keep its blinds down. So he only said, "My daughter is not _quite_ a child!"

"Oh," said old Lovell, "then it can't be Lizzie you have for governess!"

"Certainly not!" said Mr. Pretend, much relieved; "her name is Principia!"

"I thought that was a Latin Grammar or something like that!" said old Lovell, scratching his head like a bald old parrot.

"Well, perhaps," said Papa Pretend, "it is very likely. Miss Crow has been educated in all the languages that are--from her youth up!"

Now all would have gone well if only it had not happened that at that moment Polly and her governess came out of Parkins the pastry-cook's, where they had been stuffing fruit-cakes.

"Why, Lizzie!" cried old Lovell, shaking Miss Principia heartily by the hand, "now I am pleased to see you have got on so well. This is my butler's daughter," he explained, turning to Mr. Pretend, whose mouth was the shape of a capital O; "it does Lizzie much credit. Because, you see, she never got any regular schooling, being kept at home to help her mother in the still-room and with the jams. Good-by, Lizzie! I shall not forget to inform your father and mother that I have seen you--also John the gardener, with whom, I understand, you are keeping company, as they call it. Ah, ha! young people will be young people! Good-by, Pretend!

Good-by! Congratulate you on having the daughter of a respectable man in your house. She will teach your little girl to make jams, and her gooseberry-fool will be a marvel, if she is a bit like her mother.

Sensible man, Pretend! Far better to teach your daughter to brew and bake than all the modern 'ologies' and fiddle-faddle in the world! Keeps their husbands in better temper. Ah, clever fellow, Pretend! But you couldn't take an old fellow in, eh, Pretend? I knew all that about learning Latin grammar was stuff and nonsense. Good-by, good-by! So long, Lizzie! Don't forget about that gooseberry-fool!"

So off he went, like the rough timber-sided old bargee he was, and left Mr. Pretend muttering angrily, "Gooseberry-fool! Gooseberry-fool!" As if he knew very well who the "Gooseberry Fool" was--knew, that is, but had promised not to tell.

But poor Principia went as white as a sheet and shook like a fly caught in a spider's web. I'm afraid in her heart she called old Lovell names.

How did it turn out? Oh, the best way in the world. You would hardly believe. At first, of course, old Pretend was all for packing off Principia for teaching his child deceit! But he calmed down when he thought of the lot of money he owed to old Lovell of Castle Lovell, and of the use that his influence would be to him. Besides, he had boasted so much about her. So had his wife.

So he not only let Principia stay on, but actually set her to teach Polly Pretend all she really knew. And she did know about cookery. That was the real college she had been at, and her mother was a better professor than all the ladies who gave lessons there. And Polly was obliged to learn, too, because her father ate all the things she cooked, and if he had indigestion, why, Polly heard about it, that's all. So she stopped pretending and really did learn.

And after a while they set up their college with old Pretend's money--old Lovell's too, and it was called

THE SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL COOKERY

_Cla.s.ses Afternoon and Evening_

Household Cookery, Preserving, and the Management of Families a Speciality

And that sentence was the last little bit of "Pretend." For neither Polly nor Miss Crow has any family. Nor, between ourselves, are they likely to have.

VI

TORRES VEDRAS

_July the first in the year when I was eleven on August tenth._

Father has seen the real place, and, of course, knows all about it. He says that it is just a lot of rough mountains, with bits of wall built into the open places to connect them and make them strong.

But _we_ know that there are not one, but two Torres Vedrases--all on one bend of a river. The first one is quite near the Low Park, between the Weir and Jackson's Pool. It is a pebbly bar with a kind of green tufty island. From one side of it there is a rippling ford crossing slantwise, by which you can lose yourself barefooted in the woods on the other side.

The water only takes you to about the knee, even if you are pretty little. It is always one of the nicest places in the world. The water makes a soft tinkling over the ford. The gra.s.ses and bluebells wave, and the wind goes _sough_ through the big solid walls of pine on either side.

Yes, it is first-rate to play there with your oldest things on, especially on a warm day about this time of the year. The river is pretty dry, and there is a great deal of pebbly bar, also the little green island with rough gra.s.s on it has grown to about twice the size.

You can fortify this island, and it is fine to dig channels through the bar for the water, with all sorts of lovely harbors and pleasure-lakes.

Once the boys and I made a channel right from one end of the bar to the other, and father helped--and got wet too!

Yes, he did. We always encouraged him to get wet, by saying, "Oh, here is a place we can't reach!" Because if _he_ got wet, we knew very well there would be nothing said to us. Fathers are fearful nice and useful--sometimes. Ours particularly when he helps us to play, and forgets he isn't a boy. Oh, I can see quite well when he says to himself, "I ought to be working--_but_--oh, bother, how much nicer it is to dig in the sand with the other children!"

And then he took pictures of us--photographs, I mean--working at our engineering, and building and paddling--oh, whole alb.u.ms full. They began when we were quite little tots. The best are of Maid Margaret and Sir Toady. For I was too old, I suppose, to look nice stuck among trees, and Hugh John hated so being photographed. When told to, he stood up stiff like a stork on one leg. But Sir Toady was usually as nice as pie, being made that way, and as for the Maid, she always looks natural whatever she is doing.

Father has a whole set called the History of a Biscuit. It is only the Maid eating one. But it is funny to see it getting smaller and smaller till it is all gone. They are flashed on quickly by our magic lantern, and we children go wild when it comes to the funny ones. The grand exhibitions are for winter nights. Then we are well wrapped up in gray Harris cloaks and come up, closely marshaled by Somebody to see that we don't s...o...b..ll too much. They are quite lovely, these nights, with the snow crisping under our feet, and Somebody carrying a swig-swagging lantern before us--everybody's shadow swaying tipsily about, and the sky so near and so thick with stars that it seems as if you had only to put up your hand to catch a whole cl.u.s.ter.

There are usually many pictures of this first Torres, because we were younger, and it is a prettier place. We wore little red coats with big white b.u.t.tons then, and marched regularly like soldiers. Hugh John beat us on the legs if we did not. He had a switch for the purpose, and he said that was the way the father of Frederick the Great did to make his son turn out a good soldier.

But we didn't care about such very practical history, and it made our legs sore--especially us girls, who wore thinner stockings. So there was a regular mutiny, and the whole army was degraded. You see, we were all generals--except Boss, our fox-terrier, who was named Inspector-General of Communications, because he ran from side to side of the road sniffing, and nothing or n.o.body could stop him. So, as Boss did not join the mutiny--not knowing how--he was promoted next in rank after the Commander-in-Chief, who was Hugh John. _He_ was permanent Commander, because, you see, he could lick the whole standing army even if it attacked him on all sides at once.

Sir Toady and Bobby Coates were the ring-leaders of the revolt, and they called out, "Hem him in! Hem him in!" But, you see, that was the very thing Hugh John wanted, and the more they "hemmed," the harder he laid into them till Bobby said he would tell his father, which he did. But Mr. Coates was a sensible man, and only said that he was all the better for a "hiding," and that if he came bothering him any more, he would give him another on his own account! So after that Bobby Coates became a good soldier, and lived long as an ornament to the service.

Yes, the nursery army was good fun while it lasted, before we all split up and went to different schools. We tried it once after in the first vacation. But somehow it wasn't the same, and ended in a fight. You see, the boys especially had learned a good deal between them, and though it made no difference to Hugh John, the others kept squabbling all the time, and saying how much better they did things at their school than at any other--which was not at all the way they talked about their school in private.

_Then_ "school was a beastly hole." The masters were "Old Buster,"

"Plummy," "Sick Cat," and "The Dishlicker"!

But to hear them talking to one another you would have thought that at least half what was said on the prospectus was Gospel Truth. Yes, and ever so much more. And it was "The Doctor," and "Mr. Traynor, the Head of our House, who made a double century in the "Varsity' match, and is the best bowler in the whole world!"

Going down by Torres there is a darkish place, all yew-trees, very ancient, and there sometimes we would see one of the maids walking arm-in-arm with a young man. Of course, though we thought it very silly, we never told the Grown-ups. We knew by instinct that we must not. Then after a month or two the cook or the housemaid or the under-nurse would come and say she was "leaving to get married."