The Rectory Children Part 7

'You can play much nicer with little dolls alone--a good many little dolls--than with one or two big ones,' it said.

Biddy turned round and stared at the small maiden. She did not mean to be rude; she was only surprised and curious; but her rosy cheeks and round eyes looked much less sweet and gentle than Alie's pretty face and soft long-lashed blue eyes, which had always a rather appealing expression. Biddy opened her mouth but did not speak. The little stranger grew very red. Rosalys spoke to her gently.

'Yes,' she said, 'I should think little dolls would be much more amusing to play with alone. You could make them act things, and you could make houses for them. Biddy, wouldn't you like to furnish our old doll-house fresh?'

'I don't know,' said Biddy rather surlily. 'You'd call me a baby.'

'Indeed I wouldn't,' said Alie eagerly. 'It would be such a nice play for you. You might buy two or three of those sweet little chairs as a beginning.'

'They are particular nice,' put in the shopwoman. 'It isn't often they're made so small, not so cheap. And what were you wanting this morning, my dear?' she went on to the little newcomer.

'If you please, I want two of them--of the chairs,' the child replied, holding out two pennies. Her face was still rather red, but she glanced with admiration mingled with grat.i.tude at Rosalys.

The shopwoman handed her the two little chairs, but she did not seem quite satisfied.

'Would you like to choose for yourself?' said the woman with a smile.

She seemed used to the ways and manners of small customers--of this small customer especially, perhaps--and she made way for her as the little girl, well pleased, came close to the counter. Then for a minute or two the child stood absorbed, weighing the comparative merits of blue and pink cotton chair seats, and of dark and light coloured wood. At last, with a little sigh of mingled anxiety and satisfaction, she held out two to the woman.

'These, please,' she said; and, without waiting for her purchases to be wrapped up, she turned, and with a glance at the other children, a shadowy smile for half an instant wavering over her face, she quietly made her way out of the shop.

'Poor little girl,' said Rosalys. 'You quite frightened her when she spoke, Bridget. Why did you glare at her so?'

'I didn't glare at her; you're very unkind, Alie, to say so,' said Biddy, in her complaining tone.

'Oh, I say, Biddy, don't be so grumpy,' Randolph put in, 'and do fix what you're going to buy. There's something over here that papa would like, I know. A whistle, such a jolly strong one, and only two-pence. It would do for him to call me in by, and much less trouble than ringing that clumsy bell.'

Biddy went off to look at the whistle. It was a very neat one, in the shape of a dog's head, and she at once decided upon it, for she had great faith in Rough's opinion as to what papa would like. Then ensued another weighty consultation at the penny stall, where Alie had meantime bought a pair of tiny dolls, which she meant to dress in secret as a 'surprise' for her little sister--'it would be so nice if she took to dressing dolls for herself,' she thought--and a yard measure for herself. Bridget's perplexities ended in the purchase of one of the neat little chairs and a small table and a tiny china dog.

'They'd be pretty as ornaments on my mantelpiece even if I never have a doll-house,' she said. 'And if I did have the doll-house done up, it _must_ have a dog, to keep watch, you know, Alie.'

At the entrance of the bazaar they ran against Mr. Redding. He looked hot and hurried and was walking very fast, but at sight of them he stopped suddenly, and then, came up to Randolph.

'_Would_ you excuse me, sir,' he began, 'if I were to ask you a great favour? I have just been at the Rectory to see Mr. Vane and I am hurrying off to Brewton by the next train, for unfortunately there is something wrong with one of the organ stops and I must get a man to come over at once. It would never do not to be able to use the organ properly the first Sunday Mr. Vane is here. I find it later than I thought, and I had undertaken to leave this note at Mr. Fairchild's in Pier Street for the rector. You will pa.s.s there on your way home, unless you particularly want to go by Sandy Common?'

'Oh no,' said Rough, 'we don't mind. Of course I'll leave it for you, Mr. Redding. Is there an answer?'

But Mr. Redding, having thrust the note into the boy's hands, was already some paces off. He called out some rather incoherent reply, of which 'thank you, thank you,' were the only intelligible words.

'What a fussy little man,' said Alie. 'But papa said he was proud of his organ, and it would be horrid at church without it. Which is Pier Street, Rough, do you know?'

'Not a bit of it--nor which is Mr. Fairchild's shop, or if it is a shop.

He only said at Mr. Fairchild's,' replied Randolph. 'I suppose any one can tell us however; it's not like London.'

The 'Parade' at its farther end turned into the docks. The children walked on, tempted by the sight of the tall masts in front of them.

'Wouldn't I like to see over some of those s.h.i.+ps,' said Rough. Just then a little group of sailors, looking little more than boys for the most part, in spite of their bronzed and sunburnt skin, pa.s.sed them, chattering and whistling cheerily. They belonged to a vessel but newly arrived from some southern port. One could see how happy they were to be on English ground again--some of them maybe belonged to Seacove itself.

'Would you like to be a sailor, Rough?' said Alie.

Randolph hesitated.

'No, I don't think so, but I like seeing s.h.i.+ps and hearing about voyages.'

'_I'd_ like to be a sailor,' said Bridget suddenly. Rosalys and her brother could not help laughing.

'What a funny sailor you'd make,' they said. And indeed it was not easy to imagine her short, compact, roundabout figure climbing up masts and darting about with the monkey-like swiftness of a smart little middy.

'I don't think you'd like it for long, Miss Biddy,' said Jane, the young maid. 'I came once, in my last place, from Scotland by sea, and though I wasn't at all ill, it was dreadful rough work. I was glad to feel my feet on firm land again.'

'Was it very stormy?' asked all the children together. 'And how long were you in the s.h.i.+p? Oh, do tell us about it, Jane.'

Jane's value rose immensely on the spot. She was not a particularly lively girl generally, but this was quite a discovery.

'Was it a very big s.h.i.+p?' asked Bridget, 'or quite a teeny-weeny one, just big enough to hold all of us like?'

'You stupid little goose,' said Rough. 'You mean a boat--a _s.h.i.+p_ is never as little as that.'

'Boats and s.h.i.+ps is all the same,' Biddy persisted; 'and I heard papa say there was a Scotch boat to Seacove twice a week--there now, Rough.'

'Oh well--but that's only a way of speaking. Papa didn't mean a real boat--a little boat. Now, if we could go down those steps right among all the s.h.i.+ps I'd soon show you the difference.'

'But we mustn't, Rough,' said Alie anxiously. 'Not without papa or somebody big--any way we must ask leave first.'

'Well, I suppose it would hardly do for you girls,' Rough replied. 'But of course papa would let _me_ go. He and I walked all round the docks last night, and we should have gone to the end of the pier if----'

'Oh, that reminds me,' said Rosalys. 'Haven't we pa.s.sed Pier Street?

I believe that must be it opposite. Yes, I see it put up. Now we must find out Mr. Fairchild's. Can't you ask somebody, Rough?'

Randolph, though he would not have confessed it, was a little shy of accosting any of the few pa.s.sers-by. Just because there were so few and the place was so quiet, the children felt themselves rather uncomfortably conspicuous, and they could not help noticing that here and there the inhabitants came rather unnecessarily to their doors to look at them as they pa.s.sed. It was not done rudely, and indeed it was only natural that the arrival of a new rector and his family at Seacove should attract a good deal of attention, considering that old Dr. Bunton and his wife had been fixtures there for more years than Mr. Vane himself had been in the world.

'Oh yes,' said Rough in an off-hand way, 'I can ask any one. But we may as well walk on a little and look about us. If it is a shop we'll see the name.'

Just then there came out of a shop in front of them--a baker's, I think it was--a small figure which walked on slowly some paces before them.

'That's the little girl of the dolls' chairs,' exclaimed Bridget. 'Shall I run on and ask her? I don't mind.'

'You never do,' said Alie, and indeed Biddy was most comfortably untroubled with shyness.

'Yes, run on and see if she knows where it is.'

Off trotted Biddy, her precious purchases tightly clasped in her hands.

'Little girl,' she called, when she got close to the other child.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Little girl,' she called, when she got close to the other child. P. 75.]

The little girl turned, and looked at Biddy full in the face with her grave earnest eyes without speaking. And for half a moment Bridget did feel something approaching to shyness, but it gave her a comfortable fellow-feeling to see that the small stranger was also still carrying the little chairs she had bought. They were not done up in paper like Biddy's--she had not waited for that,--but she had covered them loosely with a very clean, very diminutive pocket-handkerchief, and Bridget saw quite well what they were.

'Please,' Biddy went on, slightly breathless--it did not take much to put Biddy out of breath--'please can you tell us where Mr. Fairchild's is in this street? Rough's got a letter for him, but we don't know if it's a shop or only a house.'