Hoodie Part 13

"My dear Hoodie," said Magdalen, as soon as she could speak for laughing. "I didn't mean it that way. Not _really_. I just meant that her fingers had got clumsy, you know, with her being weak and ill. It is just a way of speaking."

"Oh!" said Hoodie, rather mystified still, "I'm glad them wasn't _zeally_ all zumbs."

"Only, Hoodie, I _do_ wish"--began Maudie, but Magdalen went on before she had time to finish her sentence.

"And as the days went on and she didn't seem to be getting back to be like herself, her mother grew rather anxious about her.

"'We must do something about Lena,' she said to her father, 'she is not getting strong again. The doctor says she should have a change of air, but I don't see how to manage it. I cannot leave home while my mother is so ill,'--for Lena's grandmother lived with them and was rather an old and delicate lady--'and you, of course, cannot.'

"Lena's father was always very busy. It was seldom he could leave home, not very often, indeed, that he had time to see much of his little girl, even at home. But he was very fond of her, and anxious to do everything for her good. So he and her mother talked it well over together, and at last they thought of a good plan, and when it was all settled her mother told Lena about it.

"She called her to her one day when the little girl was sitting rather sadly trying to amuse herself with her dolls. But her head ached, and all her ideas seemed to have gone out of her mind. She could not think of any new plays for them, and she began to fancy their faces looked stupid.

"'I almost think I'm getting too big for dolls,' she was saying to herself, when she heard her mother's voice calling her. And she slowly got down from her chair and went up-stairs to the drawing-room, where her mother was sitting writing.

"'Are you very tired, dear?' she said kindly.

"'Yes, mamma, I think so,' said Lena, as if she didn't much care whether she was tired or not.

"'You seem often tired now, my poor little girl,' said her mother. 'I think it is that you have not got properly strong since you were ill.

The doctor says a change of air would be the best thing for you, but just now neither your father nor I can leave home. Would you mind very much going away for a little without us?'

"'Would it be very far, mamma?' said Lena. She liked the idea of going away, she had not often left home, and she had a great fancy for travelling, but still you can understand to go quite away without either her father or mother seemed rather lonely."

"Hadn't she a nice nurse?" asked Maudie.

"No, she hadn't a nurse quite all for herself. She was the only child, you know, and her father and mother were not very rich people, so the maid who waited on her had other work to do too. Her mother went on to explain to her that it was not to any very far-away place they thought of her going. It was to a pretty little sheltered village near the sea, where in an old-fas.h.i.+oned farmhouse there lived a very kind old woman who had been her mother's nurse long before Lena was born. Lena had seen her two or three times and liked her very much, and Mrs. Denny, that was the old nurse's name, had often told her about her pretty home where she lived with her son, who had never married, and for many years had taken care of this farm for the gentleman it belonged to. Mrs. Denny had promised Lena that if she came to see her she should have as much new milk as she could drink, and plenty of quite fresh eggs, and all sorts of nice country things. She had also promised her a particular bedroom all to herself--and Lena had forgotten none of these things, so that when her mother told her that it was to Rockrose Farm they were thinking of sending her, Lena, in her quiet way, felt quite pleased. She was not a little girl that made a fuss about things--she had lived too much alone to be anything but quiet--and just now she felt too tired to seem very eager. But her mother was pleased to see the bright look that came into her eyes, and to hear the cheerful sound in her voice when she replied, 'Oh, if it is to Mrs. Denny's, mamma, I should like to go _very_ much. And I wonder if she will let me sleep in the room where the bed has such beautiful chintz curtains, all covered with pictures, mamma?'

"Her mother smiled.

"'I daresay she will, dear,' she said. 'I'm just writing to nurse now, and if you like I'll ask her to be sure to let you have the bedroom--with----'"

CHAPTER VI.

"THE CHINTZ CURTAINS."

"O lovely land of fairies, You are so bright and fair."

"The chintz curtains."

Cousin Magdalen stopped for a minute.

"Are you getting tired, dears, any of you?" she said.

All the four heads were shaken at once.

"Oh dear no," said Maudie.

"In course not," said Hoodie.

And "It's a vezy pretty story," said Hec; while Duke faintly echoed, "Vezy pretty."

So Magdalen, thus encouraged, went on.

"You begin to understand now why I said you might call the story 'the chintz curtains,'" she said. "We're now got like to the real beginning.

At least I needn't explain any more about Lena--you must just fancy her arriving one afternoon at Rockrose Farm. It was a nice bright afternoon, though the winter was scarcely over, and little Lena already began to feel stronger and better when she ran out into the garden at one side of the house for a breath of fresh air after the long drive from the railway. Her father had brought her to the station, and there Mrs. Denny had met her, so that he might go straight back by the next train without losing any time.

"'Oh, how nice it is,' she said to Mrs. Denny, as she stood in the middle of the little gra.s.s-plot beside the old sun-dial, and felt the sweet fresh air blowing softly over her face. 'How pretty the garden must be in summer.'

"'Yes, my dear,' said Mrs. Denny. 'The flowers are very sweet. It seems to me there never were such sweet ones. And do you hear that sort of soft roar, Miss Lena? Do you know what that is?"

"Lena stood quite still to listen, and a pleased look came over her face.

"'Yes,' she said, 'I believe it is the sea. It is like far-away organs, isn't it?'

"'And sometimes in stormy weather it is like great cannons booming,'

said Mrs. Denny.

"But just then it was difficult to think of storms or cannons, or anything so unpeaceful. Nothing could seem more perfectly calm and at rest than that dear old garden the first time Lena ever saw it. I don't think anything (any place perhaps I should say) can be more delicious than a little nest of a place like Rockrose, sheltered from the high winds by beautiful old trees, and yet open enough for the sea breezes to creep and flutter about it, and sometimes even to give what Lena called 'a salty taste' to the air, if you stood with your mouth open and got a good drink of it. But I mustn't go on talking so much about the outside of the house, or I never shall get to the inside, shall I?

"Well, after Lena had admired the garden, and promised herself many nice runs in it, Mrs. Denny took her into the house again. They pa.s.sed through the kitchen, which had a little parlour out of it, where already tea was set out--it was such a delicious old kitchen, the paved floor as white and clean as constant scrubbing could make it, and the old cupboards and settles of dark wood s.h.i.+ning like mirrors--they pa.s.sed through the kitchen and across a little stone hall with whitewashed walls, out of which opened the best parlour, only used on very grand occasions, and up two flights of stone steps ending in a wide short pa.s.sage running right across the house. At one end of this pa.s.sage Mrs.

Denny opened a door, which led into a sort of little ante-room, and here another rather low door being opened, Lena followed Mrs. Denny into the bedroom which was to be hers. It was not a very little room--there were two windows, one at each side--one of them looked out on to the garden, the other had a lovely view far away over the downs, to where one knew the sea _was_, though one could not see it. But fond as Lena was of pretty views, she did not run to the window to look out. She stood still for a moment and then ran forward eagerly to the end of the room, where the bed was placed, crying out with delight,

"'Oh, that's the bed--that's the very bed you told me about, dear Mrs.

Denny--the bed I did so want to sleep in. Thank you so much for remembering about it. Oh, how _beautiful_ it is--I shouldn't mind being ill if I was in that bed.'

"It really was a rather wonderful bed. It was a regular four-poster, if you know what that is--a bed with wooden posts at each corner, and curtains running all round, so that once you were inside it, you could if you liked draw them so close that it was like being in a tent."

"I know," said Maudie, "I've seen beds like that. But I don't think Hoodie and the boys have--let me see; oh yes, I can tell them what it's like. It's like the bed in our _best_ doll-house--the one with pink curtains trimmed with white. You know?"

"Yes," said Hoodie, "the one where Miss Victoria has been so ill in, since she's got too ugly to sit in the drawing-room. I know."

"But it's such a weeny bed," said Hec, "was zour little girl no bigger than zat little dolly, Cousin Magdalen?"

"_Of course_," said Maudie, hastily. "How stupid you are, Hec."

"Maudie," said her G.o.dmother, and Maudie got very red. "Maudie meant it was the same _shape_ as that, but much bigger, Hec dear. Just the same as the piano in the study is the same shape as the one in the doll-house, only much bigger."

"Oh zes," said Hec.

"A great deal bigger than any of the beds people have now," continued Magdalen. "It was really big enough to have held six little Lenas instead of one. But it was the curtains that made it so particularly wonderful. They were very old, but the colours were still quite bright, they had been washed so carefully. And the pattern was something I really could not describe if I tried--it was the most delicious muddle of flowers, and trailing leaves and birds, and here and there a sort of little basket-work pattern that looked like a summer-house or the entrance to a grotto.

"Lena stood feasting her eyes upon these marvellous curtains.