bright sunshine greeted sydney when she awoke on the first morning in her new home.
it fell softly through the shading blinds upon the dainty fittings of her luxurious room, and on ward, as she stood beside her with a tray, containing a fairy-like tea-set for one.
“oh, what is the time?” cried poor sydney in dismay. surely she had overslept herself, and ward was bringing her a rather unsubstantial breakfast in bed!
“eight o’clock, ma’am,” the maid answered softly, placing the tray on a little table by her bedside. “would you wish me to draw the blinds up, or shall i leave them down till you get up?”
“what time is breakfast?” sydney asked.
“lady frederica breakfasts in her bedroom, miss lisle,” said ward; “and so of course does his lordship since his accident. mr. fenton commonly likes his about ten o’clock
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when staying here, i have heard. he breakfasts downstairs. lady frederica thought you would wish to take yours in bed.”
“i would much rather get up,” said poor sydney. “i am not at all tired now, and i get up at seven at home.”
ward never seemed to be surprised at anything.
“yes, ma’am; what time would you wish to get up?” she inquired.
“when i have drunk my tea, please,” the girl said; “that is—unless you think lady frederica would mind?”
a very faint smile did part ward’s lips for a moment, but only for a moment. “i am sure her ladyship would wish you to do exactly as you please, ma’am,” she said, and withdrew to desire a housemaid to bring up miss lisle’s hot water.
“exactly as i please; this is an odd place!” thought sydney, as she sipped her tea out of a dresden china cup and ate the wafer bread and butter provided.
she took heart of grace and rejected ward’s services over her morning toilet: the sunshine had given her fresh courage, and she felt quite a different being from the tired-out, homesick sydney of last night.
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she was dressed by a quarter to nine, and stood looking from her window at the green park, with its great bare spreading trees below her. only a quarter to nine! what should she do with herself till breakfast time? at this hour at home, breakfast would be a thing of the past, and father and hugh have gone off to the hospital. and mother would have done a hundred and one things before settling down to teaching the girls; and the boys would have been off—the younger ones to school, and hal to king’s college. and sydney herself would have been practising, or hearing prissie practise, on that old shabby school-room piano. how odd it felt!
five minutes passed by very slowly; sydney went and knelt down by the fire that the housemaid had lit when she brought the water. one hour and ten minutes before breakfast-time—perhaps more, if mr. fenton were late!
“i know!” she cried, rising quickly to her feet, and hurrying into thick boots, coat and scarlet tam-o’-shanter. she would go out and explore the park till ten o’clock.
she ran downstairs to the great hall, meeting nobody until she came out on the splendid flight of marble steps, which a man was cleaning.
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he got up from his knees and stared, when he saw a young lady march out of the double doors, with the evident intention of going for a walk.
“good-morning!” sydney cried brightly, as she ran down the steps, leaving the man still staring after the slight figure and red cap.
“well, i’m blowed!” he said at last, returning to his work.
the park was rather wet, but sydney’s boots were thick, and she scorned the plain, uninteresting road along which she had driven last night. she cut across the grass at right angles, running at intervals to keep herself warm, and startling the deer not a little. never having seen these animals outside the zoological gardens, she was much excited by their discovery, and made many unsuccessful attempts to coax them to her.
by-and-by she came to the boundary of the park. there was no gate, but a convenient gap in the hedge; through which she climbed without difficulty.
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“sydney’s dash forward was not a bit too soon.”
(page 59)
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as she dropped from the gap into the road beneath, she became aware that somebody a good deal smaller than herself was going to do the same thing on the other side of the road. through a thin hedge topping a high grassy
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bank appeared, first, two small kicking legs, and then something fat and roundabout in blue, surmounted by a crop of red curls. sydney’s dash forward was not a bit too soon, for the creature rolled down the bank at a prodigious pace, alighting fortunately in her arms. it wriggled from her in a moment, and regained its feet. then sydney saw that it was a round-faced, red-haired little boy, dressed in a navy blue serge smock, just now extremely muddy.
he stopped to pull on the wet strapped shoe which the mud in the ditch had nearly sucked from his foot, pulled down his belt about his bunchy little petticoats, and observed affably, “hullo, big girl!”
“you have scratched your face, dear, getting through that hedge,” sydney said, looking him over; “doesn’t it hurt you?”
the small boy beamed all over in a condescending smile.
“scwatches don’t hurt boys!” he assured her, with a strong emphasis upon the last word.
“what is your name, dear?” she asked him.
“i’m pauly seaton,” he explained confidentially, “and i’m going to be five quite soon. big girl, shall we go home now, ’cause i’m daddy’s boy, and he doesn’t like me to be lostened?”
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he put his hand into sydney’s quite confidingly. “but where do you live, pauly dear?” she asked.
“vicarwidge, of course,” he said; “come on, big girl!”
they went a few steps together; then pauly stopped, with an expression of dismay on his round baby face. “oh, bover, big girl, my shoe is stuck like my teef in toffee!”
sydney knelt down to investigate, and extract the little shoe which had stuck so tightly in the mud. but, alas! in the tug pauly had given it the frail bottom had come off.
sydney picked up the sodden shoe and put it in his hand.
“get on my back, pauly, and i’ll carry you.”
pauly liked this idea, and shouted gleefully, as, with much effort upon sydney’s part, his sturdy little form was hoisted to her shoulders, and his muddy toes, one shoeless, put into her hands.
“oh, pauly, you are wet!” she cried. “i expect your mother will put you into dry socks the minute you get home.”
“me and daddy haven’t got no muvvers,” pauly said. “there’s ‘in memorwy of wose’ in the churchyard. god wented and wanted muvver, that was why. gee-up, horse!”
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poor sydney! the “geeing-up” was not so easy. pauly was no light weight. her face grew scarlet and her breath a little gasping. she sincerely hoped the vicarage was not far away, and was not sorry when, as they turned into its drive, a tall figure came hurrying to meet them.
“daddy!” shouted pauly gleefully, and, as mr. seaton hastened to remove the burden from the tired horse, he explained: “got frew the hedge of the kitchen garden, daddy, and fell down a gweat big way, and there was this gweat big girl there, and she caught me in her gweat big hands!”
the vicar reached round his small son, to give his hand to sydney, with a smile that she liked.
“you seem to have been very good to my little scamp,” he said, “and i’m afraid you’re quite done up with carrying the great lump—that’s what you are, pauly! come in and have some milk or something; and then, if you’ll tell me where you live, i’ll drive you home.”
“i am sydney lisle,” she answered shyly, “and i have just come to live at st. quentin castle.”
they had reached the pretty gabled vicarage by now. mr. seaton looked at her with a
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kindly, amused scrutiny as he held the door open for her. “so you are miss lisle?” was all he said.
a maid was sweeping the hall. “would you fetch a glass of milk and some cake, elizabeth?” the vicar said. “now, miss lisle, shall i leave you to rest and refresh yourself in the dining-room, or will you like better to come to pauly’s nursery, while i put him into dry clothes?”
“oh, the nursery, please!” said sydney.
pauly led the way up the steep uncarpeted nursery stairs, guarded at the top by a wicket gate, and would have liked to do the honours of “my wocking horse” and “my own bed,” but his father quietly checked him.
“go into the night nursery and take your shoes and socks off, pauly. now, miss lisle, sit down in that chair, please. here comes the milk—that’s right.”
he put the milk and cake on a small table beside her, and retired into the night nursery to find dry clothes for his little son. sydney drank the milk and ate a noble slice of cake, finding herself really very hungry now that she had time to think about it.
mr. seaton redressed his little son with a speed which showed he was not playing nurse
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for the first time, and the two came back into the day nursery, the vicar carrying sundry little muddy garments to hang on the high nursery guard. he talked very pleasantly to sydney all the time, asking where she had lived before, and whether she knew blankshire at all.
“no, we usually go somewhere near london for our holidays,” she explained. “you see, there are a good many of us.”
“you’ll miss them,” said the vicar, noticing the little tremble in her voice, as she spoke of home. “i am afraid it will be rather dull for you here at first. but you will make your own interests before long. life has a knack of growing very interesting, you will find, wherever we are called upon to live it.”
sydney had heard things like this in sermons before, but somehow the fact that this was said to her in the homely surroundings of a nursery made it strike her more. certainly mr. seaton himself did not look like a man who found life uninteresting. she smiled and looked up frankly.
“they are all so kind,” she said, “and say, ‘do what you like.’ but it doesn’t seem that there is anything to do.”
“plenty,” said the vicar briskly, “and you’ll find it if you look for it. i wonder
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whether lord st. quentin would allow you to take a little class in the sunday school, for one thing?”
“oh, i should just love to!” sydney cried. “mother always said i might when i was eighteen, and my birthday is next month. only i don’t know a great deal.”
she noticed that the vicar did not comment upon her acceptance.
“thank you very much for your willingness to help,” he said. “i will write to your cousin.”
“i am certain he won’t mind,” the girl said happily. “he is very kind, you know, and told lady frederica to put the loveliest things into my rooms. but, please, i think i ought to be going now, for mr. fenton has his breakfast at ten.”
the vicar laughed. “i am afraid mr. fenton will have breakfasted alone this morning, owing to my little scamp here. do you know what the time is?”
“no.” sydney was rather frightened.
“ten-thirty.”
she sprang up with a cry of dismay. “oh, how dreadful! i must run!”
“you won’t do any such thing!” said the vicar firmly. “i am going to drive you to
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the castle in my pony-cart, and explain your disappearance.”
“i come, too!” pauly cried, scrambling up from the centre of the hearth-rug in a great hurry.
“no,” said the vicar gravely. “i told you not to go into the kitchen garden alone, pauly. you must be obedient before daddy takes you out with him.”
pauly did not cry, as sydney half expected. he twisted his fingers in and out of his belt in silence for a minute; then observed defiantly, “bad old satan come along and said, ‘pauly, go into the kitchen garden.’”
“yes,” said the vicar gravely, “but what ought pauly to have done?”
pauly slowly stumped across the room, and stood looking wistfully from the barred window.
“wis’ i’d punc’ed his head!” came in a subdued murmur from the bunchy little figure in the sunshine.
mr. seaton smiled and stroked the red hair gently. “next time pauly will say ‘no,’ that will be better.”
then he opened the door for sydney, and they went out together.
the vicar brought round the little cart with its shaggy pony. sydney got in, and they
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drove off. from the nursery window a fat hand was waving to them with an affectation of great cheerfulness. “poor little chap!” said pauly’s father.
mr. fenton was waiting about rather anxiously on the steps of the castle, and came forward with a look of unmistakable relief as he recognised sydney.
he shook hands with the vicar and thanked him warmly for “bringing home miss lisle,” but sydney noticed that he did not ask him to come in. he said that neither lady frederica nor lord st. quentin were yet down, but the servants had been much alarmed by sydney’s disappearance. she and mr. seaton between them explained its cause; mr. fenton reiterated his thanks, and the vicar got into his pony-cart and drove away, with a shy hand-shake from sydney and a request that he would give her love to little pauly.
“was it wrong to go out for a walk?” sydney asked, as she and the old lawyer went into the castle.
“oh no, not wrong, my dear young lady!” he assured her, “only perhaps rather injudicious.”
