The Carved Cupboard | Page 8

by mist and wet.
Clare's spirits sank at once.
'What a dreadful day, and what miserable country!'
'I hope the house won't be damp,' Agatha said anxiously.
Then Gwen laughed.
'Oh, for pity's sake, don't all begin to croak! We do have wet days in
London. If Jane and Martha have done their work properly, we shall
soon forget the wet when we are inside.'

Slowly the fly lumbered along, and darkness had set in when they at
last reached their new home.
Mrs. Tucker, who was keeping the maids company, came bustling to
the door, and when they saw the cheerful little dining-room with its
blazing fire and well-spread table for their evening meal, the wind and
wet outside were forgotten.
Elfie ran in and out of the rooms, delighted with the quaintness of it all,
and Clare grew quite enthusiastic over the carved wood decorations.
'He must be an artist,' she exclaimed. 'How could he go off and leave it
all to strangers?'
The rooms, though lacking as yet in all the details of comfort, were
quite habitable, and the late dinner was a merry meal.
'We shall be a community of women, with no opportunities of getting
away from one another occasionally; that is what I object to,' said Clare,
leaning back in her chair, and looking at her sisters rather meditatively.
'If we quarrel, it will be dreadful, and I am perfectly certain we shall
never agree on every point.'
'You will not on any point,' said Gwen, a little drily.
'We have the country round us,' put in Elfie, 'and there must be some
people to know; it is only just at first we shall be shut up to ourselves, I
expect.'
'As to the people, there will be the villagers, of course,' said Gwen
briskly; 'but we needn't count upon many friends in our own class of
life. The big houses round here won't be desirous of the acquaintance of
four unknown females with a very small income.'
'I always thought,' said Elfie, 'that country villages contained a
clergyman and family, a doctor, and a squire. Isn't that the case here?'
'No; this is a kind of suburb of Brambleton. There is a vicarage, but I

don't know anything about the clergyman.'
'Well, I hope we shan't all die of the dumps,' said Clare, shivering
slightly, as a fresh blast of wind howled and shrieked in the old
chimney.
'Oh, that dreadful wind, how I hate it! It seems like a bad omen to have
such a welcome when we get here.'
'Rubbish! Go to bed, if you don't like it, and put your head under the
clothes. Of course we notice the wind more in the country because of
the trees.'
Clare did not get much sympathy from her sisters, and she soon left
them and went up to her bedroom. There was a bright fire burning, and
some of her own pretty things were already being unpacked by the busy
Jane, who was perhaps more attached to her than to any of the others.
'Captain Knox thinks her the best of the bunch,' said she in confidence
to Martha, when on the subject of 'our young ladies,' 'and so do I--Miss
Agatha is rather commonplace, to my mind, though she is a good
mistress, and Miss Gwendoline is always catching up one and taking
one's breath away. Miss Elfrida is very pleasant, but she's always the
same. Now Miss Clare's never two days alike; she's that gentle and
appealin' sometimes, that she makes me love her, and then she's miles
away in the clouds, and very cross, and then her spirits get so high that
she's ready for any mischief--and there's no knowin' how to take her.'
'Isn't the wind dreadful, Jane?' said Clare presently. 'We couldn't have
had a more dreary and depressing day for coming here.'
'It's terrible lonely, miss. How you young ladies will put up with it is
more than Martha and me can imagine! My home is in the country, so I
don't mind it. I never could abear London with its fog and dirt. Mrs.
Tucker has been telling me and Martha queer tales about the gentleman
who lived here.'
Clare wrapped herself in her dressing-gown and sat down by the fire.

She rarely checked Jane's flow of talk, and perhaps that was why the
maid liked her.
'What kind of tales?'
'Mrs. Tucker says he ought to have the property here called The Park,
for he is the eldest son, and his younger brother, Major Lester, has
taken it all, for Mr. Tom Lester offended his father by marrying a
foreign lady, and he struck him out of his will. Mrs. Tucker says she
believes the quarrel last autumn was about Major Lester's son, who is
missing somewhere