FIRST DAYS

HAREBELL arrived downstairs the next morning in the best of spirits. Andy and she had managed to have a good deal of talk together before Mrs. Keith came into the dining-room. They had discussed the weather, the neighbourhood, the difference between black and white skins, the cure for snake bites, and the possibility of a puppy taking up its abode at Gable Lodge. Prayers were had; then Andy brought in the breakfast, and when he had left the room, Mrs. Keith addressed her niece.

"Till I find a governess for you, you can amuse yourself as you like. I am always busy in the morning, and I do not wish to be disturbed. In the afternoon you will walk out with me. There is a small sitting-room at the end of this passage which has been got ready for your use. I expect you to be tidy and always punctual at meals."

Harebell listened attentively. She nodded when her aunt had finished speaking.

"It sounds very nice," she said, "but there's only one thing in the world I want here, and I really don't know how I'm going to live without it—I could do with a very little tiny one! And Andy thinks it could be got if you let him look for it."

She paused, but Mrs. Keith was not in a mood to guess at a child's requirements; so there was absolute silence for a moment or two.

"Quite a baby would do," Harebell went on insinuatingly, with her head on one side; "before its eyes were open, and that would make it cheaper."

"I don't know what you are talking about," said her aunt sharply; "but I must insist upon your talking straightforwardly, and not beating about the bush. It is a most objectionable practice."

"It's a puppy."

Harebell's tone was desperate; then she added hastily:

"I had to leave all my pets behind. I had a white kid, and a kitten, and three dogs and a puppy, and my pony, and you see they all knew me, and we always talked together. I feel like—you read at prayers this morning—'Rachael weeping for her children, and not being comforted.' I'm simply thirsting for a puppy."

"I never have any animals about the house," was the stern response.

"But—"

"Do not argue. Be silent. Finish your breakfast."

For a moment, Harebell looked as if she meditated a rush from the room. Her cheeks got scarlet, and she stamped with her foot under the table.

Her aunt wisely took no notice of it. In a few minutes the cloud of passion passed away from Harebell's face.

She crept away from the table very silently when breakfast was over. She passed Andy in the hall.

"It's no use," she said tragically; "I shan't be able to live here. I shall die of a broken heart!"

"Oh!" said Andy with his merry twinkle. "You won't die of it with me at hand. I know how to mend hearts when they're broken. I can mend most things, and people's hearts are stronger than they think. Mostly cracks, not breakages."

Harebell looked at him with eager interest.

"How do you know the difference?" she said. "My fairy book tells me of broken hearts—it says nothing of cracks."

"Ah!" said Andy with a nod. "You let me feel yours later in the day, when my work is done, I'll soon tell you; but I'm clearing away the breakfast now."

He went on into the dining-room. Harebell gave a little skip along the passage; her heart felt lighter already. She put her small hands upon it, or upon the place in her chest in which she thought it was.

"I suppose it isn't exactly broken yet," she said to herself, "but I never know how soon it will be, if I don't get a puppy!"

She went on into the little room that was to be her schoolroom. Andy had let her see it before breakfast.

It was plainly furnished; a square table, an armchair, and two others, a cupboard in the wall, and a bookshelf, but the window opened out upon a green lawn, and there were bright crocuses and hyacinths in the flower-beds.

Harebell went straight to the bookcase. A very dingy row of books were there, and though she took them down one by one, there was not one story-book amongst them. The only book she thought might prove interesting was an illustrated encyclopædia. That she decided she would look at and read some other day. She opened the low window, but shivered at the cold blast of air which swept into the room. Then she ran out into the passage again and up the stairs.

In a very few minutes, she got into her warm coat and cap, and a little later was dancing and skipping round the old garden. Presently she came to a green door in the old wall. She tried to open it, then found it was bolted, but after a few valiant efforts she unbolted it, and discovered that it led out into the road.

"Now," she said to herself, "I am going to see what England is like!"

England seemed extremely dull, as she walked along, for it was a country road, and the two tall hedges on either side quite prevented her from seeing over the tops of them.

"I haven't anybody to talk to," she said, with a pang of self-pity; "all my darlings left in India, and I'm sick, quite sick of grown-up people! They don't understand, and they never will!"

She walked along discontentedly; then suddenly looked up in delight. Round a corner, came a little girl and boy followed by a lady. In an instant Harebell had darted forward, and had held out her hand.

"How do you do?" she said to the little girl. "What is your name? Mine is Harebell, and I only came to England yesterday."

The little girl stared at her, and then smiled in a hesitating sort of way. She was shorter than Harebell, and much fatter; she had pretty flaxen hair which fell down to her waist.

The boy was very much the same height and had the same colouring. He laughed out loud at Harebell's speech.

"Where do you come from? Timbuctoo? Isn't she a funny-looking girl, Miss Forster?"

But the lady, who was the children's governess, passed on.

"Hush!" she said. "Don't be so rude, Peter; and how often am I to tell you that you are to take no notice of strange children."

"But she isn't a common child. Who is she?"

This much Harebell heard, but no more. They passed her by as if she had been a stone upon the road. She looked wistfully after them.

"In India, I would have asked them to spend the day with me, and they would have been glad. They're very rude and horrid!"

Tears came to her eyes.

"I shan't be able to live, unless I find somebody to play with. Oh, I wish I had a puppy! I wish I had something to cuddle in my arms, something that would be able to look at me with living eyes!"

She retraced her steps. It seemed no good to go farther on. Evidently people would not make friends with her in England!

"I shall have to make up a friend," she said to herself, and before she had reached her aunt's house she was in the world of dreams.

At lunch she asked her aunt about the children whom she had met.

"They are the Rectory children," said her aunt. "Of course they would not speak to you. They did not know who you were."

"But I could have told them in a minute," said Harebell promptly; "I was ready to tell them everything."

"You ought not to have spoken to them at all. We don't do those kind of things in England."

Harebell said no more. In the afternoon she walked out with her aunt, and for the greater part of the time they walked in silence.

At last Harebell gave a little chuckling laugh.

"I can't help it," she said, looking up, and seeing her aunt's glance of surprise; "we never do this kind of thing in India, except the natives, when they're doing a pilgrimage. I was pretending to myself that you and me was doing one; and I wondered when we should stop, and then I began to count your slow, solemn steps, and it made me think of a walking doll I had; and then I thought p'r'aps you walked out for your sins; my ayah told me of some fakirs who did it, and I wondered what your sins were like, and then I laughed, for I was making up some for you!"

She paused for breath.

"I don't think you are called upon to tell me all your thoughts," her aunt said gravely.

"But I shall really burst if I don't. I feel just like that, unless you would tell me yours. That would be most interesting!"

"If you want to talk," her aunt said, "you can repeat me the dates of the Kings of England, or the multiplication tables."

"Oh," cried Harebell, "I don't know any of them. I won't talk another word! I'll think hard instead."

The walk was over at last. They only met a few countrymen with waggons, and when Harebell returned home, she flew out to the garden, where Andy was weeding. Then her tongue rattled away at an alarming pace; but Andy talked quite as hard, and worked too.

"You'd best help me with my work if I help you with yours," he said.

"What is my work?" said Harebell.

"I should say 'twas tongue-wagging," said Andy promptly.

Harebell felt snubbed; but she set to weeding under his direction, and enjoyed herself thoroughly until tea-time.

Her aunt talked a little more to her then, and asked her many questions about her life in India.

She was astonished to hear that Harebell had never held a needle in her hand, and after tea was over, gave her her first lesson in sewing. At half-past seven she sent her to bed.

Upstairs Harebell told Goody what she thought of her first day in England.

"It's very amusing to see all the new ways and things," she confided to her; "but this is a very dull house—at least it's a frozen one—that's what I call it. Andy is the only one who can laugh. You must be frozen if you can't laugh. And Aunt Diana is the snow queen; she'll slowly freeze me as she froze poor little Kay. Do you know Hans Andersen, Goody? Gerda found Kay at last, and melted him. I think she did it by crying over him. Kay had got a heart of ice. I couldn't cry over Aunt Diana if I tried ever so! I simply couldn't do it, so she must just go on as she is. But I won't get frozen myself if I can help it. Oh dear, it just seems like a year to-day. Will every day be the same, Goody?"

"I really can't keep pace with you, child! Never did I hear such a chatterer; and you mustn't talk of your aunt so. It isn't nice. She's very kind to have you in her house at all. She was never one for children, and she's lived too long alone now to get any different."

Goody sighed as she spoke. Harebell looked at her very gravely.

"I don't think you're frozen," she said slowly; "but I can't say anything but that this is a very dull, frozen house!"

The next few days passed in much the same way. A little dressmaker, from the village near, came to measure Harebell for new frocks. She was slightly deformed, but had a good patient face, and Harebell suddenly informed her that she loved her.

"There's a look in your eyes which I haven't seen since a nice missionary lady in India took me on her lap and talked to me about heaven," she said.

Miss Triggs smiled at the little girl.

"I'm glad you've had talks about heaven," she said, taking some pins out of her mouth and pausing in her fitting. "Is it your home, dearie? It's mine."

"It belongs to all of us," said Harebell, "doesn't it?"

Miss Triggs shook her head.

"Well, it ought to by rights, but there's some who would feel mighty strange there, and 'tis only for the children of the Kingdom—them that have stepped through the Door?"

"What door?" asked Harebell interested at once.

"The Lord Jesus Christ is the Door," said the little dressmaker gravely. "Don't you know He says: 'I am the Door, by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved'?"

"I don't see how Jesus Christ can be a door," said Harebell slowly and reflectively.

Then she looked up at Miss Triggs, smiling.

"I think I know how it's done. He holds out his arms and we run underneath them."

"You run into them, dearie, that's it. 'He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom.'"

Harebell was silent for a moment.

"I like that idea about the door," she said. "I always love strange doors, and I always try to get through them to the other side. I wonder if I'm through the Door, Miss Triggs?"

"You can go through to-night," said Miss Triggs.

Goody interrupted the conversation at this point, and Harebell's frock was discussed.

When Miss Triggs went away, Harebell said:

"It's a funny thing, Goody, but there's something in the eyes of people that tells you when they're good. Do you think God is inside them, and looks out now and then?"

Goody was, as usual, shocked by Harebell's speeches. The little girl was so much in earnest that she could not see why she was wrong in speaking so, and then Goody went on to talk about Miss Triggs.

"She is a good little woman if ever there was one. She keeps an old mother and a worthless scamp of a drunken brother on what she earns, and the house is like a new pin, never a speck of dust to be seen. She do suffer cruelly, sometimes from her back—and that was done as a child by her drunken father. She's always suffered for the sins of others, I say, and always smiling and happy. If everybody lived as she lives, the world would be a different place."

"I should like to go and see her," said Harebell thoughtfully; "and I'd like to see her brother too. I'm so interested in wicked people. All drunkards are wicked, aren't they?"

But Goody went away. She told Andy downstairs that Harebell gave her such continual shocks when she talked to her, that she was quite "dumbfounded to hear her."

The day after this, Mrs. Keith said to Harebell at breakfast:

"I have made arrangements for you to do lessons with the Rectory children. You are to be at the Rectory every morning at nine o'clock, and leave again at half-past twelve. I hope you will be very good and give no trouble to their governess. It is very kind of her to be willing to take another pupil. Mrs. Garland will be here this afternoon; she wants to see you."

"Is Mrs. Garland the governess?"

"No, the Rector's wife."

Harebell's eyes shone with joy.

"It will be perfect!" she exclaimed. "And now those children will have to speak to me, and I shall have somebody to talk to. Shan't I do lessons with them in the afternoon?"

"You may have to go for music lessons in the afternoon, but that has still to be settled. I have another matter to speak to you about. Mr. Graham has written to me, and wants to come down to see you, as he is passing through this part of the country this week. I have asked him to lunch to-morrow."

"Oh, it's too much!" cried Harebell. "Why does it all come at once? And this morning when I got up, I thought you and me were going to live alone together for ever. Isn't it strange how sudden things alter! What a happy time I'm going to have!"

She could hardly finish her breakfast for excitement. She ran out into the garden afterwards and worked off her superfluous spirits by racing round and round the paths.

Then she went to find Andy, who was busy in his pantry.

"Of course," he said; "I knowed good times would come. They always does to all of us. The most dismal day in the year isn't more'n twelve hours long; you go to sleep and, like a Jack-in-the-box, a fresh day is on you, bringing you all sorts of surprises!"

"Do you know the Rectory children, Andy?"

"You've asked me that dozens o' times, and I tells you 'Yes' and 'No.' They be ordinary children, mischievous at times, and forgettin' their manners, but their mother be a fine woman. She has the ways of the quality, for she's one of 'em. Used to live at Cumberstone Hall, fifteen mile from here—her father were my father's squire—and I well remember our school treats at the Hall when Miss Mary used to come and join us—a pretty little maid in white frocks and golden curls."

"Mrs. Garland is coming to see me this afternoon," said Harebell, importance in her tone. "But that's nothing, when I think of my dear Mr. Graham coming to-morrow!"

Mrs. Garland appeared at tea-time, and Harebell came into the drawing-room in her new blue serge frock. She held herself very straight, and put out one little slim hand in silence.

Mrs. Garland was a youngish woman still, and had a good deal to say for herself. She had a bright kind face, and drew Harebell towards her, giving her a kiss.

"Why, Diana, I can see Frances over again! She's the image of what her mother used to be."

Mrs. Keith did not seem pleased at the resemblance, but she said nothing.

Something in Harebell's eyes made Mrs. Garland add:

"But her eyes are her father's. Well, little one, we shall welcome you for your parents' sakes here. Do you like the idea of coming to learn with my boy and girl?"

Harebell squeezed her hands tightly together.

"I'm simply yearning for it!" she said.

Mrs. Garland looked at her with the greatest amusement.

"And are you yearning for lessons? I must tell my youngsters that."

"Oh no," said Harebell hastily. "I don't know anything about them, but it's the company I want."

Her aunt looked at Mrs. Garland with a slight smile.

"Harebell is a great talker," she said, "and wants more outlet for her tongue than she can get in this house."

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Garland quickly, "children will be children, and ought to be amongst their kind. We're poor company for them, Diana. But this seems a bit of originality. I hope she'll do my little ones good. They're hardly brilliant—I must own it! I suppose I expect too much; and, after all, genius brings much danger in its path. They're dears, both of them!"

Then she took hold of Harebell's hand and patted it.

"You want fattening up," she said; "too thin! She's much too thin, Diana. Have you tried Grape-nuts? And Benger's Food?"

Harebell looked horrified.

"I've come from India," she said; "it's only babies and old people who are fat there!"

"She has a good appetite," said Mrs. Keith indifferently.

"What is your little girl's name?" Harebell asked, looking up at Mrs. Garland with earnest eyes.

"Not such a pretty name as yours. We call her Nan. Her real name is Anne, and my boy is Peter. There are a good many Peters in the world just now."

"Do you think they like me coming to lessons? I saw them out the other day, and they wouldn't speak to me. It was a dreadful disappointment; it almost broke my heart. You see, I was simply longing to talk to them."

"They told me about it; but they did not know who you were."

"But they could see I wasn't a native," said Harebell quickly.

Mrs. Garland laughed.

"You must tell us all about India. I suppose you love it, don't you?"

Harebell's eyes grew misty. She looked across at her aunt, who had moved to the other end of the room on purpose that Mrs. Garland and Harebell should talk together.

"I feel quite sick for India," she said, putting one small hand on her chest. "It's a frozen house here. Do you think Aunt Diana will ever melt? She's the snow queen, and isn't she beautiful?"

A light kindled in her eyes. She went on in an earnest whisper:

"Some day she will melt, when she can get anybody to cry over her."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Garland, catching her breath, "you are a little witch, I believe! How much do you know, I wonder! More of people than of books, I expect. I wish I was going to teach you. Well, Diana, I must be going."

Harebell was dismissed. When she had left the room, Mrs. Garland said:

"She is a most interesting study, Diana. Don't you like having her?"

Mrs. Keith spoke almost fiercely:

"You know how I dislike children. It's a daily penance to me. I mean to do my duty by her, but nothing else. Do you forget that her mother stole my lover? I find myself looking for the same traits in the child. My sister deceived me systematically for two years. She lied and hoodwinked me with a smiling face. Is it any wonder that I cannot bring myself to fondle her daughter?"

"Poor motherless mite!" said Mrs. Garland; but she knew it was useless to say any more.