The Oriel Window by Mrs. Molesworth
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Book Cover]
THE ORIEL WINDOW
Title Page
THE ORIELWINDOW
BY MRS.MOLESWORTH
ILLVSTRATED BYL. LESLIE BROOKE
MACMILLAN CO.NEW YORK 1896]
COPYRIGHT, 1896,BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
ToAMY AND ARTHURMY MUCH-ESTEEMED OPPOSITE NEIGHBOURS
19 SUMNER PLACE, S.W., June, 1896.
CONTENTS
PAGE CHAPTER I A HAPPY WAKING 1 CHAPTER II THE PEACOCK'S CRY 17 CHAPTER III A STRANGE BIRTHDAY 35 CHAPTER IV WHAT THE SWALLOWS THOUGHT OF IT 53 CHAPTER V JESSE PIGGOT 69 CHAPTER VI A FAIRY TALE--AND THOUGHTS 79 CHAPTER VII AN UNEXPECTED PIG'S HEAD 100 CHAPTER VIII WELCOME VISITORS 119 CHAPTER IX "MY PUPILS" 137 CHAPTER X TAKING REFUGE 159 CHAPTER XI UNDER THE SOFA 175 CHAPTER XII ANOTHER BIRTHDAY 189
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE OFF FERDY WENT AGAIN, A LITTLE BIT FASTER THIS TIME 26 "WHAT IS IT, DEAR? DID YOU CALL ME?" 46 TOOK HER BACK TO COURT IN HER OWN CHARIOT 84 "I'VE DONE 'EM BEFORE FROM ONE OF THE OLD SQUEAKERS UP AT THE FARM" 103 WATCHING THE SWEET SUMMER SUNSET 116 "WE WORKS IN A SHED THERE, IN A FIELD BY THE SMITHY ... AND WE'RE AS JOLLY AS SAND-BOYS" 155 "STEP DOWNSTAIRS, IF YOU PLEASE, AND THEN I'LL HEAR WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO SAY" 178
CHAPTER I
A HAPPY WAKING
I do not think you could anywhere have found a happier little boy thanFerdy Ross when he woke on the morning of his ninth birthday.
He was always--at least almost always--happy, and he had good reason forbeing so. He had everything that children need to make life bright andjoyous: kind parents, a dear sister, a pretty home, and, best of all, aloving, trusting, sunshiny nature, which made it easy for him to be veryhappy and loving, and made it easy too for others to love him in returnand to feel pleasure in being with him. But to-day, his birthday, thefourteenth of May, he was very particularly, delightfully happy.
What a very long time it seemed that he and Chrissie had been lookingforward to it! Ever since Christmas, or New Year at least. That was howhe and Chrissie had settled to do about their lookings-forwards.Chrissie's birthday was in September. She was a year and four monthsolder than Ferdy, so it fitted in very well. As soon as her birthday wasover they began the Christmas counting, and this in one way was thebiggest of all the year, for their father's and mother's birthdays bothcame in Christmas week, and it had been found very convenient to "keep"them and Christmas Day together. So Christmas Day at Evercombe WatchHouse, which was Ferdy's home, was a very important day for more reasonsthan the great Christmas reasons which we all join in.
And then when Christmas time was over and Ferdy and Christine began tofeel a little dull and unsettled, as children are pretty sure to doafter a great deal of pleasure and fun, there was Ferdy's birthday tothink of and prepare for; for it was not only just looking forward andcounting the days, or rather the months first, and then the weeks andthen the days to their "treat" times, that they divided the seasonsinto; there were separate and different things to do, according towhich of the three parts of the year it was. For Christmas, of course,there was the most to do--all the little things to get ready for theChristmas tree as well as the presents for papa and mamma and lots ofother people. And for Ferdy's birthday Chrissie had always to makesomething which had to be done in secret, so that he should not knowwhat it was; and for Chrissie's birthday it was Ferdy's turn to preparesome delightful surprise for her. He was very clever at making things,even though he was a boy! He was what is called "neat-handed," and asthis little story goes on, you will see what a good thing it was that hehad got into the way of amusing himself and using part of his playtimein carrying out some of his inventions and ideas.
"I don't know how I should bear it, Ferdy," Christine used to saysometimes, "if you were one of those tiresome boys that do nothing butfidget and tease their sisters when they want to sit still and workquietly for their dolls. Just think of Marcia Payne now. These two_horrible_ boys, Ted and Eustace, think there is nothing so nice as tosnatch away her work and throw it into the fire or out of the window, orto nearly _kill_ her poor dolls with their cruel tricks. I really don'tknow how poor Marcia ever gets their clothes made, for it takes _all_ mytime to keep my children tidy, even though you never worry me," andChrissie sighed, for she was a very anxious-minded doll-mother.
Ferdy's presents to his sister were very often for her dolls, ratherthan for herself, though, like most mothers, it pleased her much more,she used to say, for her dear pets to be kindly treated than anyattention to their little mamma could do.
She was very amusing about her dolls. She used to talk about them insuch an "old-fashioned" way that if any grown-up person had overheardher, I think they would have laughed heartily. But Chrissie took care tokeep all private conversation about her four girls and two sons forherself and Ferdy only.
Besides these _big_ dolls, she had a large party of tiny ones who livedin the doll house, and I think Ferdy's prettiest presents were for thisminiature family. These small people really were almost as much his asChrissie's, for he took the greatest interest in them, especially intheir house and their carriages and horses and in all kinds of wonderfulthings he had made for them. Several of the doll-house rooms wereentirely furnished by him, and he was builder and paper-hanger andcabinet-maker and upholsterer for Doll Hall, all in one. But now I thinkI must return to the history of his ninth birthday.
The fourteenth of May--just about the middle of the month which is thebest loved, I almost think, of all the twelve. And oh it was such alovely day! Ferdy woke early--though not quite as early as he had meantto do, for when he bade his sister good-night he told her he would be_sure_ to knock at her door not later than five. But the sun was a goodway up in the sky when he did wake--so far up indeed that Ferdy gotquite a fright that he had overslept himself altogether, and it was arelief to see by the old clock which stood on the landing just outsidehis door that it was only half-past six.
"And after all," he said to himself, "now I come to think of it, I don'tbelieve mamma would have liked me to wake Chris so very early. Iremember last year, on _her_ birthday, she had a headache and was quitetired by the afternoon with having got up so soon."
He rubbed his eyes,--to tell the truth he was still rather sleepyhimself, though it _was_ his birthday,--and downstairs he heard theservants moving about and brushing the carpets. The schoolroom wouldcertainly not be in order just yet; it never took him very long to havehis bath and dress, and he knew by experience that housemaids are notthe most amiable of human beings when little boys get in their way inthe middle of their cleanings and dustings.
So on the whole Ferdy decided that the best thing to do was to go backto bed again and not get up till Flowers--Flowers w
It was very comfortable in bed, for May mornings, however lovely, areoften chilly. And as Ferdy lay there he could see out of the window,and enjoy the sight of the clear bright sunshine and the trees movingsoftly in the wind, their leaves glittering green and gold, and evensilver, as the gentle breeze fluttered them about. The birds too, theywere up and about of course; now and then there came quite a flight ofthem, and then one solitary soarer would cross the blue sky up at thevery top of the window--he would see it for half a moment, and then itdisappeared again. On the whole, he had more view of sky than ofanything else from his bed, though when standing by the window he couldsee a good long way down the road, and, by craning his neck a little,some way across the fields past the church.
For the Watch House stood at the very end of the village, near thechurch, so that strangers often thought it must be the Vicarage, andenvied the vicar for having such a charming home, whereas the realVicarage was a pretty but small cottage-like house, quite at the otherside of the church, and not nearly as old as it was, or as the WatchHouse was.
_It_, Ferdy's home, was very, very old. And the story went that longago some part of it had really been a kind of watch tower, though therewas nothing remaining to show this except the name and the fact that youcould, from the upper windows especially, see a very long way. Thenicest window of all was one in Mrs. Ross's own sitting-room, or"boudoir," as it was sometimes called. This was a corner room on thefloor just below the children's, and the beauty of it was thiswindow,--an oriel window,--projecting beyond the wall, as such windowsdo, and so exactly at the corner that you could see, so to say, threeways at once when you were standing in it: right down the village streetto begin with, and down the short cross-road which led to the church,and then over the fields between the two, to where Farmer Meare'sduckpond jutted out into the lane--"the primrose lane"--as not onlyFerdy and Christine but all the children of the neighbourhood had longago named it. For here the first primroses were _always_ to be found,year after year; they never forgot to smile up punctually with theirlittle bright pale faces before you could see them anywhere else.Chrissie sometimes suspected that the fairies had a hand in it.Everybody knows that the good people "favour" certain spots more thanothers, and perhaps Chrissie's idea was right.
Any way this oriel window was a charming watch tower. Ferdy always saidthat when he grew to be a man he would build a house with an orielwindow at each corner.
But again I am wandering from the morning of Ferdy's birthday, when helay in bed wide awake and gazed at as much as he could see of theoutside world, that lovely May morning.
It _was_ lovely, and everything alive seemed to be thinking so, as wellas the little hero of the day--birds, trees, blossoms--even the insectsthat were beginning to find out that the warm days were coming, for agreat fat blue-bottle was humming away with the loud summery hum whichis the only nice thing about blue-bottles, I think. And not always niceeither perhaps, to tell the truth. If one is busy learning somedifficult lesson, or adding up long columns of figures, a blue-bottle'sbuzz is rather distracting. But this morning it was all right, seemingto give just the touch of summer _sound_ which was wanting to theperfection of Ferdy's happiness as he lay there, rather lazily, I amafraid we must confess--a little sleepy still perhaps.
What a nice beautiful place the world is, he thought to himself! How canpeople grumble at anything when the sun shines and everything seems sohappy! In winter perhaps--well, yes, in winter, when it is very cold andgrey, there _might_ be something to be said on the other side, eventhough winter to such as Ferdy brings its own delights too. But insummer even the poor people should be happy; their cottages do look sopretty, almost prettier than big houses, with the nice little gardens infront, and roses and honeysuckle and traveller's joy climbing all overthe walls and peeping in at the windows. Ferdy did not think he would atall mind living in a cottage, for Evercombe was a remarkably prettyvillage, and to all outside appearance the cottages were very neat andoften picturesque, and the children had never been _inside_ any, excepta few of the clean and nicely kept ones where their mother knew that thepeople were good and respectable. So they had little idea as yet of thediscomfort and misery that may be found in some cottage homes even inthe prettiest villages, though their father and mother knew this well,and meant that Ferdy and Christine should take their part before long intrying to help those in need of comfort or advice.
"I suppose," Ferdy went on thinking to himself--for once he got an ideain his head he had rather a trick of working it out--"I _suppose_ thereare some people who are really unhappy--poor people, who live in uglydirty towns perhaps," and then his memory strayed to a day last yearwhen he had driven with his father through the grim-looking streets of amining village some distance from Evercombe. "That must be horrid. Iwonder any one lives there! Or very old people who can't run about orscarcely walk, and who are quite deaf and nearly blind. Yes, they can'tfeel very happy. And yet they do sometimes. There's papa's old, oldaunt; she seems as happy as anything, and yet I should _think_ she'snearly a hundred, for she's grandpapa's aunt. She's not blind though;her eyes are quite bright and smily, and she's not so very deaf. Andthen she's not poor. Perhaps if she was very poor--" but no, anotheraged friend came into his mind--old Barley, who lived with his alreadyold daughter in the smallest and poorest cottage Ferdy had ever been in.
"And he's quite happy too," thought the little boy, "and so's poorBetsey, though she can't scarcely walk, 'cos of her rheumatism. It israther funny that they are happy. The worst of all would be to be lame,_I_ think--'cept p'r'aps being blind. Oh dear! I _am_ glad I'm not old,or lame, or blind, or things like that. But I say, I do believe theclock's striking seven, and--oh, there's Flowers! I might have run in tosee Chrissie just for a minute or two first if I hadn't got thinking.I--" but then came an interruption.
An eager tap at the door,--not Flowers's tap he knew at once,--and inreply to his as eager "Come in" a rush of little bare feet across thefloor, and Chrissie's arms round his neck in a real birthday hug.
"Flowers is just coming. I meant to wake _so_ early. I've brought yourpresent--mine's always the first, isn't it, darling?"
And Chrissie settled herself at the foot of the bed, curling up her coldtoes, and drawing her pink flannel dressing-gown more closely round herthat she might sit there in comfort and regale her eyes on her brother'sdelight as he carefully undid the many papers in which her present tohim was enfolded.
It was a very pretty present, and Ferdy's natural good taste knew how toadmire it, as his affectionate heart knew how to feel grateful toChrissie for the real labour she had bestowed upon it. "It" was awriting-case, embroidered in silks of many lovely shades, and with atwisted monogram of Ferdy's initials--"F. W. R."--"Ferdinand WalterRoss"--worked in gold threads in the centre of the cover. It was a verygood piece of work indeed for a little girl of Chrissie's age, andpromised well for her skill and perseverance in days to come. Ferdy'seyes sparkled with pleasure. "Oh, Chrissie," he said, "you've never mademe anything quite as pretty as this! How clever you are getting, and howdid you manage to work it all without my seeing?"
"It _was_ rather difficult," said Chrissie, with satisfaction in hertone. "Ever so many times I had to bundle it away just as I heard youcoming. And do you know, Ferdy, it's a very ancient pattern--no, patternisn't the word I mean."
"Design?" said Ferdy. He knew some words of this kind better thanChrissie, as he was so often planning and copying carved wood andbrasswork and such things.
"Yes, that's what I mean--it's a very ancient design. Miss Lilly drew itfor me from an old book-cover somebody lent her, and she helped me toarrange the colours. I _am_ so pleased you like it, Ferdy, darling. Iliked doing it because it was such pretty work, but if it hadn't been apresent for you, I think I would have got tired of it--it _was_
"I know," said Ferdy thoughtfully. "I think that's always the way withany really nice work. You can't scurry it up. And it wouldn't be worthanything if you could."
But just then there came a tap at the door, and Flowers's voice soundingrather reproachful.
"Miss Chrissie," she said, "I couldn't think where you'd gone to. I dohope you've got your dressing-gown and slippers on, or you will be sureto catch cold."
"All right, Flowers," said Chrissie, "I'm _quite_ warm;" and as the maidcaught sight of the little pink-flannelled figure her face cleared, for,fortunately for her peace of mind, the pink _toes_ were discreetlycurled up out of sight.
Who could expect a little girl to remember to put on her slippers on herbrother's birthday morning, when she had been dreaming all night of thelovely present she had got for him?
"Many happy returns of the day, Master Ferdy, my dear," Flowers went on,growing rather red, "and will you please accept a very trifling presentfrom me?"
She held out a little parcel as she spoke. It contained a _boy's_"housewife," if you ever saw such a thing. It was neatly made ofleather, and held needles of different sizes, strong sewing cotton andthread, various kinds of useful buttons, a sturdy little pair ofscissors, pins, black and white, small and large, and several otherthings such as a school-boy might be glad to find handy now and then.
"Mother always gives one to my brothers when they leave home," said themaid, "and I thought as no doubt Master Ferdy will be going to schoolsome day--"
"It's capital, Flowers," Ferdy interrupted; "thank you ever so much;it's first-rate. I needn't wait till I go to school to use it. It's justthe very thing I'm sure to want when I go yachting with papa nextsummer--this summer--in uncle's yacht. It's _capital_!"
And Flowers, who had not been very long at the Watch House, and had feltrather uncertain as to how her gift would suit the young gentleman'staste, smiled all over with pleasure.
Master Ferdy had certainly a very nice way with him, she thought toherself.
"Miss Christine," she said aloud, "you really must come and get dressed,or instead of being ready earlier than usual, you'll be ever so muchlater."
And Chrissie jumped down from the bed and went off to her own quarters.