Penelope and the Others Part 17

"Does he go to see the people in it?" asked Pennie.

"The _dean_, my dear! He has other and far more important matters to attend to. It would be most unsuitable to the dignity of his position."

"I knew Nancy was wrong," said Pennie with some triumph. "She thought he might know Kettles' father and mother, but I was quite sure he didn't. Does anyone go to see them?" she added.

"I have no doubt they are visited by people properly appointed for the purpose," said Miss Unity coldly; "and you see, Pennie, if they are good people they can come to church and enjoy all the church privileges as well as any one else."

Pennie was silent. She could not fancy Kettles coming to church in that battered bonnet and those big boots. What a noise she would make, and how everyone would look at her!

"Father goes to see the bad people in Easney as well as the good ones,"

she said, more to herself than her G.o.dmother. "Lots of them never come to church."

"Easney is quite different from a cathedral town," said Miss Unity with dignity.

And here the conversation ended, partly because Pennie had no answer to make to this statement, and partly because it was time to go to the evening service. It was a special service to-night, for a sermon was to be preached in aid of foreign missions by the Bishop of Karawayo. This was particularly interesting to Miss Unity, and though Pennie did not care about the bishop it was always a great pleasure to her to go to the Cathedral.

"May we go in through the cloisters?" she asked as they crossed the Close.

Miss Unity much preferred entering at the west door and thought the cloisters damp, but she willingly a.s.sented, for it was difficult for her to refuse Pennie anything.

There was something about the murky dimness of the cloisters which filled Pennie with a sort of pleasant awe. She s.h.i.+vered a little as she walked through them, not with cold, but because she fancied them thronged with unseen presences. How many, many feet must have trod those ancient flag-stones to have worn them into such waves and hollows.

Perhaps they still went hurrying through the cloisters, and that was what made the air feel so thick with mystery, and why she was never inclined to talk while she was there.

Miss Unity always went as swiftly through the cloisters as possible; and Pennie, keeping close to her side, tried as she went along to make out the half-effaced inscriptions at her feet. There was one she liked specially, and always took care not to tread upon:

Jane Lister Deare Childe.

Aged 6 Years. 1629.

By degrees she had built up a history about this little girl, and felt that she knew her quite well, so that she was always glad to pa.s.s her resting-place and say something to her in her thoughts.

Through a very low-arched doorway--so low that Miss Unity had to bend her head to go under it--they entered the dimly-lighted Cathedral. Only the choir was used for the service, and the great nave, with its solemn marble tombs here and there, was half-dark and deserted. Pillars, shafts, and arches loomed indistinct yet gigantic, and seemed to rise up, up, up, till they were lost in a misty invisible region together with the sounds of the organ and the echoes of the choristers' voices.

The greatness and majesty of it all gave Pennie feelings which she did not understand and could not put into words; they were half pleasure and half pain, and quite prevented the service from being wearisome to her, as it sometimes was at Easney. She had so much to think of here. The Cathedral was so full of great people, from the crusader in his mailed armour and s.h.i.+eld, to the mitred bishop with his crozier, lying so quietly on their tombs with such stern peaceful faces.

Pennie knew them all well, and in her own mind she decided that Bishop Jocelyne, who had built the great central tower hundreds of years ago, was a far nicer bishop to look at than the one who was preaching this evening. She tried to pay attention to the sermon, but finding that it was full of curious hard names and a great number of figures, she gave it up and settled comfortably into her corner to think her own thoughts.

These proved so interesting that she was startled when she found the service over and Miss Unity groping for her umbrella.

Just outside the Cathedral they were overtaken by Mrs Merridew and her eldest daughter.

"Most interesting, was it not?" she observed to Miss Unity, "and casts quite a new light on the condition of those poor benighted creatures.

The bishop is a charming man, full of information. The dean is delighted. He has always been so interested in foreign missions. The children think of having a collecting-box."

"Did you like the sermon, Pennie?" asked Miss Unity as they pa.s.sed on; "I hope you tried to listen."

"I did--at first," said Pennie, "till all those names came. I liked the hymn," she added.

"Wouldn't it be nice for you to have a collecting-box at home,"

continued Miss Unity, "like the Merridews, so that you might help these poor people?"

Pennie hung her head. She felt sure she ought to wish to help them, but at the same time she did not want to at all. They lived so far-away, in places with names she could not even p.r.o.nounce, and they were such utter strangers to her.

"Wouldn't you like it?" repeated her G.o.dmother anxiously.

Pennie took courage.

"You see," she said, "I haven't got much money--none of us have. And I know Kettles--at least I've seen her. And I know where Anchor and Hope Alley is, and that makes it so much nicer. And so I'd rather give it to her than to those other people, if you don't mind."

"Of course not, my dear," said Miss Unity. "It is your own money, and you must spend it as you like."

Pennie fancied there was a sound of disapproval in her voice, and in fact Miss Unity was a little disappointed. She had always felt it to be a duty to support missions and to subscribe to missionary societies, to attend meetings, and to make clothes for the native children in India.

At that very time she was reading a large thick book about missions, which she had bought at the auction of the Nearminster book club. She read a portion every evening and kept a marker carefully in the place.

She was sure that she, as well as the dean, was deeply interested in foreign missions. If she could have made them attractive to Pennie also, it might take the place of Kettles and Anchor and Hope Alley.

For Miss Unity thought this a much more suitable object, and one moreover which could be carried out without any contact with dirt and wickedness! Squalor and the miseries of poverty had always been as closely shut out of her life as they were from the trim prosperity of the precincts, and Miss Unity considered it fitting that they should be so. She knew that these squalid folk were there, close outside; she was quite ready to give other people money to help them, or to subscribe to any fund for their improvement or relief, but it had always seemed to her unbecoming and needless for a lady to know anything about the details of their lives.

The children's idea, therefore, of providing Kettles with new boots and stockings did not commend itself to her in the least. There were proper ways of giving clothes to the poor. If the child's mother was a decent woman, as old Nurse had said, she belonged to a clothing club and could get them for herself. If she was not a respectable person, the less Pennie knew of her the better. At any rate Miss Unity resolved to do her best to discourage the project, and certainly Pennie was not likely to hear much, either at her house or the deanery, to remind her of Anchor and Hope Alley and its unfortunate inmates.

Pennie on her side, though a trifle discouraged by the coldness with which any mention of Kettles was received, felt that at least she had taken a step towards her further acquaintance. Very likely her G.o.dmother might come in time to approve of the idea and to wish to hear more about it. "I shall have something to tell Nancy at last," she said to herself when she woke up the next morning and remembered the conversation.

But she was not to see Nancy as soon as she thought. After breakfast Andrew arrived, not with the waggonette as usual to fetch Pennie home, but mounted on Ruby with a letter from Mrs Hawthorne to Miss Unity.

d.i.c.kie was ill. It might be only a severe cold, her mother said, but there were cases of measles in the village, and she felt anxious. Would Miss Unity keep Pennie with her for the next few days? Further news should be sent to-morrow.

As she read this all sorts of plans and arrangements pa.s.sed through Miss Unity's mind and stirred it pleasantly. She was sorry for d.i.c.kie and the others, but it was quite an excitement to her to think of keeping Pennie with her longer.

"Miss Penelope will remain here to-night," she said to Betty, "and probably for two or three days. Miss Delicia is ill, and they think it may be measles."

"Oh, indeed, Miss!" said Betty with a sagacious nod. "Then it'll go through all the children."

"Do you think so?" said Miss Unity, who had great faith in Betty's judgment. "Then it may be a matter of weeks?"

"Or months, Miss," replied Betty. "It depends on how they sicken."

"In that case I've been thinking," said Miss Unity timidly, "whether it would be better to put Miss Penelope into the little pink-chintz room."

"Well, it is more cheerful than the best room, Miss," said Betty condescendingly, "though it's small."

The pink-chintz room was a tiny apartment opening out of Miss Unity's.

She had slept in it herself as a child, and though there was not much pink left in the chintz now, there were still some pictures and small ornaments remaining from that time. It had a pleasant look-out, too, on to the quiet green Close, and was altogether a contrast to the dark sombrely furnished room Pennie had been occupying. So after Betty had scoured and cleaned and aired as much as she thought fit, Pennie and all her small belongings were settled into the pink-chintz roomy and it turned out that her stay there was to be a long one. The news from Easney did not improve. d.i.c.kie certainly had the measles, the baby soon followed her example, and shortly afterwards Ambrose took it, so that Nancy and David were the only two down-stairs.

"What a good thing, my dear, that you were here!" said Miss Unity kindly to her guest. Pennie was obliged to answer "Yes" for the sake of politeness, but in truth she thought she would rather risk the measles and be at home.

Nearminster was nice in many ways and Miss Unity was kind, but it was so dreadfully dull as time went on to have no one of her own age to talk to about things. There were the Merridews, but in spite of Miss Unity's praises Pennie did not like them any better, and had not become more familiar with them. She had certainly plenty of conversation with her G.o.dmother, who did her best to sympathise except on the subject of Kettles; but nothing made up for the loss of Nancy and her brothers--not even the long letters which the former sent now and then from Easney, written in a bold sprawling hand, covering three sheets of paper, and a good deal blotted. Here is one of these epistles:--

"_My dear Pennie,--d.i.c.kie got up and had chicken for dinner to-day, and was very frackshus. Ambrose is in bed still. He has Guy Manring read aloud to him, and he will toss his arms out of bed at the egsiting parts; so mother says she must leave off. David and I have lessons.

David said yesterday he would rather have meesles than do his sums, so Miss Grey said he was ungrateful. I never play with the dolls now_.

_If you were here we could play their having meesles, but it is no good alone. Baby had the meesles worst of all. Doctor Banks comes every day. He has a new grey horse. Have you been to see old Nurse lately?

and have you seen Kettles? d.i.c.kie sends you these sugar kisses she made herself. She burnt her fingers and screamed for nearly an hour.--Your loving sister, Nancy Hawthorne_."