Evelyn Sharp

“ Kit was not in the least grown-up; besides, he hated the Doctor–that was certain, because he so constantly said he did. But it was a pity, the others agreed, that he did not show more enthusiasm over persecuting him.
‘It’s a lot of good,’ retorted Peter. ‘You don’t want her to marry the chap, do you?’
Kit smiled in a superior manner. ‘I’m not interested in marrying,’ he observed. ‘You can’t have marrying, or any of that rot, without girls. And I hate girls.’
‘Do you hate Jill?’ cried Wilfred, staring. ”

“ I was afraid, you see, that you might think the world was not a nice place to be in.’
‘I’m glad you spoiled me, and I think the world is a nice place to be in,’ answered Jill, laughing. ‘But what has that to do with Barbara’s not liking me?’
‘Well, you can’t expect every one to like you,’ said the old lady, in her brusque way. ‘Babs will like you well enough when she finds that she is still the Babe of the family, in spite of your being there.’
‘But–but I don’t like to feel that there is anybody anywhere who doesn’t like me,’ complained Jill, with a little pout. ”

“ The problem that had just been put into words by Charlotte Bigley was one that had exercised the ingenuity of everybody since yesterday morning. To do good works was the present ardent desire of all their hearts; but where were the good works to be found?
‘I suppose there’s always something to be done for somebody, only we’ve got to discover what it is,’ said Mary Wells, after profound reflection.
‘He did say life was full of little things that were waiting to be done, but it’s so easy to talk like that,’ complained Jean Murray. ”

“ But Barbara did not wait to say anything. Back along the hall she scampered with all her might, and flung herself panting into the schoolroom. She burst out at once with a rapturous medley of news.
‘Boys, boys!’ she shouted at the top of her voice; ‘the dragon isn’t a dragon, she’s like a fairy godmother out of a story-book! And she’s going to send me to the adopted kid’s school, and everybody is going to live at Crofts till father comes back, and there’s going to be bicycles all round–no waiting ’cause you’re the youngest, Bobbin! ”

“ Clearly, the only reparation she could make to the doctor was to transform him from a beast into a fairy prince, and to offer him a place in her fairy kingdom; but he would be rather lonely there without a princess, she feared, and she herself already belonged to Kit. It was always easier to find princes than princesses, and she did wish that Finny would not wear a cap and scrape her hair back so tidily–two things which disqualified her, in spite of her niceness, from being a princess in anybody’s kingdom. ”

“ Mothers only sit and look on, and send the ones to bed that can’t agree,’ said Angela, with an air of experience.
‘I don’t advise you to be a mother, Babe,’ added Jean, earnestly. ‘You’ll have to mend such a lot of socks, and p’r’aps make babies’ clothes too; and you’ve been a whole term getting round the hem of one flannel petticoat, as it is.’
‘You can get things ready-made,’ answered Barbara, but her tone did not sound hopeful. She had to own sadly to herself that she was not cut out for a mother, and she fell back on the more practical futures of other people. ”

“ She slid down the rope again, and Jean saw how her eyes were glowing and shining, and she felt a little more puzzled than before.
‘Then, Angela wants to get it because she’s always bottom in everything else,’ continued Barbara. ‘That’s not much of a reason, I think, especially when she hasn’t got any brothers–only millions of sisters, who don’t count; but still, she’ll be awfully disappointed if she doesn’t get it, won’t she?’
‘Yes,’ said Jean.
Babs curled the rope round her waist, and swung herself gently to and fro. The movement seemed to aid her reflections. ”

“ So, just after tea, on her last evening at Crofts, the child swallowed her natural distrust of her cousin, which, after all, had arisen chiefly from their mutual shyness of each other, and started in search of her.
Jill was in the conservatory, arranging the flowers for the dinner-table; and Barbara’s shyness returned, as the trim, neat figure came walking towards her, along the rows of chrysanthemums. She glanced down at her crumpled pinafore and sighed desperately. ”

“ Barbara flashed round upon her suddenly. ‘What’s the matter with my bringing-up?’ she demanded in a breathless voice. ‘My father brought me up, and no one in the whole world could have brought me up better than he has.’
‘That accounts for it,’ scoffed Jean. ‘Fathers can’t bring anybody up, especially girls. I’ve heard mother say so, lots of times.’
Barbara’s eyes were glittering brightly. ‘My father can,’ she answered swiftly. ‘My father isn’t like other people’s fathers. You shouldn’t judge my father by your father. ”

“ In spite of the extra inch or two on the bottom hem of her frock, and the temporary smoothness that a vigorous application of a wet brush had produced on her hair, Babs saw with a kind of dismay that she was not made in the same pattern as the crowd of neatly dressed girls before her. None of them wore her hair loose and curly like her own, and none of them looked as though she did not know what to do with her hands. If only she could have held on to something, Barbara felt sure she would not have felt so shy or so helpless. ”

“ Everything suddenly grew very dull. The garden looked more deserted than usual, and after the pony carriage had come round and taken Finny and Auntie Anna and Egbert for a drive, there was not another sound to break the stillness. Babs began to feel neglected; she had not once been left alone like this, ever since she was first taken ill, and she found it extremely depressing. If it was really necessary for the future happiness of Jill that she should be kept in the barn all the afternoon, some one else might have been told off to take her place in the sickroom. ”

“ The early part of the afternoon at Wootton Beeches was given up to playing games in the nine-acre field, which was marked out, during the winter, into hockey grounds; and here Babs found herself, soon after dinner, strolling aimlessly along by the hedge and wondering what there was about her that made eighty-seven girls detest her so heartily. When she suddenly remembered how much she had looked forward to playing real games with real schoolgirls, her disappointment was too much for her, and the tears rolled rapidly down her cheeks. ”

“ Poor Jill!’
‘That’s what Wilfred says,’ cried Peter, all ready as usual for mischief. ‘He says Jill has got to be saved from him, or else––’
‘Jill saved?’ echoed Kit, scornfully. ‘As if she needed any saving from that idiot!’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ objected Wilfred, shaking his head. ‘Girls are so rum. Look at Merton major’s aunt––’
‘She isn’t a girl, she’s an aunt!’ interrupted Christopher. ”

“ A prince and princess, who had no giant to bring them together, did not make the right sort of fairy tale at all.
‘Hullo! There is the giant!’ exclaimed Babs, immediately afterwards, as Peter came striding across the lawn to interrupt the conversation on the doorstep. ‘He must be the giant,’ she continued, watching the trio below her with great interest, ‘because the Doctor is looking so angry and Jill has such a funny, frightened look on her face. Besides, Peter looks like a giant; he’s so big and dangerous looking. I wonder if the Doctor will kill the giant now, or–oh, dear! ”

“ Any stupid idiot can put on a white satin dress, miles long, and grin at Queen Victoria. I want to be clever like father, and get a degree at college, and lecture to thousands and thousands of people, and––’
‘Oh, don’t be like that, Jean,’ interrupted Barbara, earnestly. ‘If you’re going to give lectures you’ll have to go away from all your children, for months and months and months, and leave them to break all their legs, all by themselves, and–oh, it is so horrible to break your leg all by yourself!’
‘Poor dear,’ said Angela, ready as usual with a tearful and demonstrative sympathy. ”

“ What do you say to that?’
‘I think it will be beautiful; but it’s a very long time to wait,’ sighed Barbara. ‘When do you think I shall be quite grown up? Jill is grown up, and she is eighteen. Shall I be grown up when I am eighteen?’
‘We will wait and see,’ said Miss Finlayson, but somehow her tone was not encouraging. ‘Meanwhile,’ she went on, patting the hand that was fearlessly lying in hers, ‘supposing we make a bargain that neither of us will read your father’s book until we can read it together? ”

“ Margaret marched into the anteroom, with her eyes staring straight in front of her, and an exaggerated air of confidence in her bearing. There was an obvious lack of enthusiasm among her followers, who were all whispering and looking significantly at their leader; but the noise produced by Scales, who seemed to think that a Beethoven sonata was an appropriate solo to play in the interval, made conversation impossible; and the section that was to do the horizontal bar, led by Ruth Oliver, returned to the gymnasium before the juniors were able to satisfy their curiosity. ”

“ The truth was that her new pose of friendliness was making her feel unpleasantly self-conscious; and she was afraid of being laughed at by the big girls for having so meekly accepted her late enemy for a friend. The big girls, of course, worried themselves so little about the petty quarrels of the junior playroom, that they had no more intention of laughing at her than Barbara had; but it was impossible for so important a person as Jean Murray to realise that. So she gave a guilty start when Barbara, heated, aggrieved, and bubbling over with resentment, suddenly pounced upon her in her corner. ”

“ Hurst, do come,’ begged the child, her little black eyes bright with entreaty. In spite of her temporary disloyalty during the period of ‘quorranteen’ to the prince who had once been a beast, she still considered him worthy to stay in her kingdom with the magician and other privileged folk; and it really hurt her to feel that he did not appreciate Jill and Kit, and that Jill and Kit on their side did not know he had been disenchanted quite six weeks ago. Surely, she thought, if they were all properly brought together, they could not fail to like one another. ”

“ The junior playroom was much impressed by this new view of the Canon’s sermon.
‘Isn’t Jean clever?’ demanded Angela, proudly, of her immediate neighbours. One of these happened to be Barbara, who fully agreed with her, but still appeared a little puzzled.
‘It will be very difficult to do all that,’ she observed. ‘How can we do things for the poor, when we never see any poor?’
‘You never know when the chance may come,’ answered Jean, who was rarely at a loss. ‘Besides, there’s the holidays.’
‘What!’ said Mary, in a voice of dismay. ”

“ What’s up, old girl?’ exclaimed Kit, staring at her in consternation. At any time it was an event, to make the Babe cry, but now that she was so ill, he felt nothing short of a brute.
Jill had slipped into the room and was bending over the excited child.
‘Kit doesn’t understand–he doesn’t know he’s not really a beast–he isn’t a beast, is he?’ gasped Barbara, between her sobs. ‘He’s played a horrible trick on him–he’s sent him seven times round the world; and I never meant him really to walk seven times round the world–you know I didn’t, Jill. ”

“ She says being good isn’t worth much, if you’re only good because some one else tells you to be good.’
‘That’s all very well,’ objected Babs, ‘but suppose you don’t know without being told?’
‘Well, if you don’t know that behaving like a wild Indian is wrong, it’s not much good being there to tell you so,’ said Jean, bluntly.
The point of her remark was quite lost on Barbara, who was still puzzling over a question that had never occurred to her before. ‘At home,’ she observed, ‘we never talk about whether a thing is right or wrong. ”

“ To an imaginative little person like Barbara, it was useless to pretend that there was nothing out of the ordinary in this. She had lived for years in a fairy world of her own, where Kit was a fairy prince and her father a nice old magician, and where numbers of charming princesses, the schoolgirls of her imagination, were ready to sympathise with her whenever the boys had been teasing her more than usual. It was surely to this kingdom of her fancy that a fairy godmother, who had once been a dragon, properly belonged ”

“ In the eyes of Miss Burleigh, running about was a cure for most things. ‘Here, Charlotte Bigley!’ she called loudly; ‘you ought to have looked after this child instead of letting her escape. She’ll do to play forward on your side. Just put her where you like, and let’s begin.’
There was not much chance, when Miss Burleigh was about, of letting private feuds spoil the game of hockey; and under the influence of her infectious gaiety, the girls even began to show Babs a certain amount of friendliness. ”

“ Barbara hastened to clear herself of the reproach by picking up Mary Wells’s neatly made and spotless piece of white flannel. She was not sure what it was meant for, as it was not sewed together anywhere; and she had never been shown how to do the elaborate scallops that ornamented the edge of it. But a trifle like want of skill made very little difference to a seeker after self-sacrifice; and Babs recklessly plunged her needle into the beginning of the next scallop, and entangled the silk hopelessly. A cry from Mary Wells disturbed her well-meant efforts. ”

“ Angela put down the apple dumplings, the weight of which had become intolerable, and began to cry softly. Jean pulled herself together with a frantic effort, and clutched the dish she was holding so fiercely that the jelly on the summit of the cranberry pie shivered and shook.
‘It was my fault,’ she blurted out, looking steadfastly over the edge of the dish at the well-blacked boots of the Canon. ‘I made them go out of bounds, and visit the poor, and–and climb into the larder window to fetch 194 things for the woman who looked so hungry. ”

“ He was born grown-up; that sort of chap always is.’
‘He’s been awfully kind to me, Kit,’ 278 persisted the child, her troubled look returning.
‘You always think people are nicer than they are, don’t you?’ observed her brother, with gentle scorn. ‘When we had that beast of a housekeeper who used to smack you and Robin, you always said her Sunday bonnet was beautiful, or something like that.’
‘Oh, Kit!’ was all Barbara felt capable of replying, and the boy rattled on heedlessly.
‘That Doctor is the rottenest of rotters,’ he declared in a cheerful tone. ”