Etheldreda the Ready | Page 5

the long corridors
beyond.
The furniture was of the same calibre as the house, for, The Meads
having been regarded more as a convenient dumping-ground for the
children in the summer holidays than as a formal residence, everything
that was shabby, injured, or out of date had been weeded from the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