Amusement Only Part 48

"Rupert!"

The girls cheeks were crimson. Bessie interposed.

"The thing is that as he is here it's no good worrying about whose fault it is. We shall simply have to make the best of it." Then, to me, "I suppose you really have come to stay?"

"I confess that I had some notion of the kind--to spend an old-fas.h.i.+oned Christmas."

At this there was laughter, chiefly from the boys. Rupert exclaimed:

"A nice sort of old-fas.h.i.+oned Christmas you'll find it will be. You'll be sorry you came before it's through."

"I am not so sure of that."

There appeared to be something in my tone which caused a touch of silence to descend upon the group. They regarded each other doubtfully, as if in my words a reproof was implied. Bessie was again the spokeswoman.

"Of course, now that you have come, we mean to be nice to you, that is as nice as we can. Because the thing is that we are not in a condition to receive visitors. Do we look as if we were?"

To be frank, they did not. Even Madge was a little unkempt, while the boys were in what I believe is the average state of the average boy.

"And," murmured Madge, "where is Mr. Christopher to sleep?"

"What is he to eat?" inquired Bessie. She glanced at my packages. "I suppose you have brought nothing with you?"

"I'm afraid I haven't. I had hoped to have found something ready for me on my arrival."

Again they peeped at each other, as if ashamed. Madge repeated her former suggestion.

"There's to-morrow's dinner."

"Oh, hang it!" exclaimed Rupert. "It's not so bad as that. There's a ham."

"Uncooked."

"You can cut a steak off, or whatever you call it, and have it broiled."

A meal was got ready, in the preparation of which every member of the family took a hand. And a room was found for me, in which was a blazing fire and traces of recent feminine occupation. I suspected that Madge had yielded her own apartment as a shelter for the stranger. By the time I had washed and changed my clothes, the impromptu dinner, or supper, or whatever it was, was ready.

A curious repast it proved to be; composed of oddly contrasted dishes, cooked--and sometimes uncooked--in original fas.h.i.+on. But hunger, that piquant sauce, gave it a relish of its own. At first no one seemed disposed to join me. By degrees, however, one after another found a knife and fork, until all the eight were seated with me round the board, eating, some of them, as if for dear life.

"The fact is," explained Rupert, "we're a rum lot. We hardly ever sit down together. We don't have regular meals, but whenever anyone feels peckish, he goes and gets what there is, and cooks it and eats it on his own."

"It's not quite so bad as that," protested Madge, "though it's pretty bad."

It did seem pretty bad, from the conventional point of view. From their conversation, which was candour itself, I gleaned details which threw light upon the peculiar position of affairs. It seemed that their father had been dead some seven years. Their mother, who had been always delicate, had allowed them to run nearly wild. Since she died, some ten months back, they appeared to have run quite wild. The house, with some six hundred acres of land, was theirs, and an income, as to whose exact amount no one seemed quite clear.

"It's about eight hundred a year," said Rupert.

"I don't think it's quite so much," doubted Madge.

"I'm sure it's more," declared Bessie. "I believe we're being robbed."

I thought it extremely probable. They must have had peculiar parents.

Their father had left everything absolutely to their mother, and the mother, in her turn, everything in trust to Madge, to be shared equally among them all. Madge was an odd trustee. In her hands the household had become a republic, in which every one did exactly as he or she pleased. The result was chaos. No one wanted to go to school, so no one went. The servants, finding themselves provided with eight masters and mistresses, followed their example, and did as they liked.

Consequently, after sundry battles royal--lively episodes some of them had evidently been--one after the other had been got rid of, until, now, not one remained. Plainly the house must be going to rack and ruin.

"But have you no relations?" I inquired.

Rupert answered.

"We've got some cousins, or uncles, or something of the kind in Australia, where, so far as I'm concerned, I hope they'll stop."

When I was in my room, which I feared was Madge's, I told myself that it was a queer establishment on which I had lighted. Yet I could not honestly affirm that I was sorry I had come. I had lived such an uneventful and such a solitary life, and had so often longed for someone in whom to take an interest--who would not talk medicine chest!--that to be plunged, all at once, into the centre of this troop of boys and girls was an accident which, if only because of its novelty, I found amusing. And then it was so odd that I should have come across a Madge at last!

In the morning I was roused by noises, the cause of which, at first, I could not understand. By degrees the explanation dawned on me; the family was putting the house to rights. A somewhat noisy process it seemed. Someone was singing, someone else was shouting, and two or three others were engaged in a heated argument. In such loud tones was it conducted that the gist of the matter travelled up to me.

"How do you think I'm going to get this fire to burn if you beastly kids keep messing it about? It's no good banging at it with the poker till it's alight."

The voice was unmistakably Rupert's. There was the sound of a scuffle, cries of indignation, then a girlish voice pouring oil upon the troubled waters. Presently there was a rattle and clatter, as if someone had fallen from the top of the house to the bottom. I rushed to my bedroom door.

"What on earth has happened?"

A small boy was outside--Peter. He explained,

"Oh, it's only the broom and dustpan gone tobogganing down the stairs.

It's Bessie's fault; she shouldn't leave them on the landing."

Bessie, appearing from a room opposite, disclaimed responsibility.

"I told you to look out where you were going, but you never do. I'd only put them down for a second, while I went in to empty a jug of water on to Jack, who won't get out of bed, and there are all the boots for him to clean."

Injured tones came through the open portal.

"You wait, that's all! I'll soak your bed tonight--I'll drown it. I don't want to clean your dirty boots, I'm not a shoe-black."

The breakfast was a failure. To begin with, it was inordinately late.

It seemed that a bath was not obtainable. I had been promised some hot water, but as I waited and waited and none arrived, I proceeded to break the ice in my jug--it was a bitterly cold morning, nice "old-fas.h.i.+oned" weather--and to wash in the half-frozen contents. As I am not accustomed to perform my ablutions in partially dissolved ice, I fear that the process did not improve my temper.

It was past eleven when I got down, feeling not exactly in a "Christma.s.sy" frame of mind. Everything, and everyone, seemed at sixes and sevens. It was after noon when breakfast appeared. The princ.i.p.al dish consisted of eggs and bacon; but as the bacon was fried to cinders, and the eggs all broken, it was not so popular as it might have been, Madge was moved to melancholy.

"Something will have to be done! We can't go on like this! We must have someone in to help us!"

Bessie was sarcastic.

"You might give Eliza another trial. She told you, if you didn't like the way she burned the bacon, to burn it yourself, and as you've followed her advice, she might be able to give you other useful hints on similar lines."

Rupert indulged himself in the same vein.

"Then there's Eliza's brother. He threatened to knock your blooming head off for saying Eliza was dishonest, just because she collared everything she laid her hands on; he might turn out a useful sort of creature to have about the place."