Etheldreda the Ready | Page 5

had been weeded from the beautiful town mansion and drafted down to fill up the big square rooms. Mr Saxon had a shooting-box in Scotland in which he was wont to spend the autumn months, Mrs Saxon had a passion for travelling, and could not understand the joy of spending every summer in the same house. The Meads was large, healthy, and convenient, so that while the children were young it had filled a real need, but there was no denying that, regarded as a winter residence, it bore a somewhat chilling aspect. Gurth looked round the hall with eyes very wide open and nose screwed up in eloquent disapproval.
"I say! don't it look different, just, without the sun? Regular old grim hole of a place, ain't it? Like an institution, or a hospital, or something of the kind--not a bit like home--"
"Oh, Gurth, don't," cried his mother quickly, while her forehead corrugated with lines as of actual physical pain. "Dear, you are cold and tired after your journey. Things always look dull when one is tired. Come into the library, all of you! There's a glorious fire, and you shall have tea at once." She slid her hand into her eldest daughter's arm, looking with fond admiration at the fair, delicately cut profile. "You have had a happy time in town this last week--since we left?"
Rowena turned her tall head, and looked down upon her mother with the air of a young goddess, offended, yet resolutely self-restrained. Mrs Saxon was a medium-sized woman, but she looked small beside the tall slenderness of the young daughter who held herself so loftily erect. "Mother!" cried Rowena, in a deep tone of remonstrance, "it's the Vincents' dance to-morrow! I was looking forward to it more than anything else. Lots of grown-up people are going--it would have been almost like coming out. I never thought you would have brought me away from town the very day before that. You knew how I should feel--"
"Darling, I'm sorry, more sorry than I can say, but it was necessary. As things are, it is better that you should not go. I'll explain--we will explain. You shall hear all about it later, but first we must have tea. I think we shall all feel better after tea."
Mrs Saxon looked from one to another of her children with the same strained, unnatural smile which had greeted them a few minutes before, and Gurth and Dreda, falling behind the rest, rolled expressive eyes and whispered low forebodings.
"Something up! I thought as much. What can it be?"
"Don't know. Something horrid, evidently. In the holidays, too. What a sell!"
Miss Bruce had considerately disappeared, and the parents and children were left alone in the big bare library, with its rows of fusty, out-of- date books in early Victorian mahogany bookcases, its three long windows draped in crimson red curtains, its Indian carpet worn by the tramp of many feet. A cheerful fire blazed in the grate, however, and the tea equipage set out on the long table was sufficiently tempting to raise the spirits of the travellers. It was a real old-fashioned sit-down tea, where one was not expected to balance a cup and plate on one's knee and yet refrain from spilling tea or scattering crumbs on the carpet. Girls and boys arranged themselves in their usual places with sighs of relief and satisfaction, and, disdaining bread-and-butter, helped themselves energetically to the richest cake on the table. It was a family custom with the Saxons to begin on cake and work steadily back to bread and butter. There had been some opposition to encounter from conservative elders before this reversal of the ordinary programme had been sanctioned, but the arguments advanced had been too strong to resist.
"I can 'preciate things more when I'm hungry. Cake's the best thing; why need I stodge on bread and butter till I can't properly 'preciate the cake? Why can't I stodge on cake, and eat the bread when I don't 'preciate? It doesn't matter about bread!"
So ran the thread of Harold's arguments, and it must be confessed that there was reason therein. To-day, as the young people satisfied their first pangs of hunger on iced cake, the parents watching them exchanged a piteous glance, for the proceeding seemed so sadly typical of the secret that was about to be divulged! Until this day, all that was richest and best in life had been the everyday possession of these loved and fortunate children--after to-day, the love would continue unchanged, but the luxuries must come to an end.
The meal was unusually silent, both Mr and Mrs Saxon and the elder boys and girls being too much oppressed by their own feelings to be able to indulge in ordinary light conversation; only Harold and Maud remained unconscious of