‘Do you never praise anyone?’
‘I am rather grudging in that way. It is a sort of shyness.’
Venice gave a giggle.
‘Are you not going to say a word to me, Venice?’ said Eleanor.
‘Yes,’ said Venice, in a bright, conscious tone, turning wide eyes on her mother. ‘I was thinking about the sea. I should like to go next year.’
‘And so you shall, my dear. I wish I had arranged it. I ought to have thought of a change for you. And I could have sent James with Hatton. It would have done him good. Don’t you think it would, Miss Mitford?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you did not suggest it.’
‘No.’
‘Miss Mitford knows that suggestions cost money,’ said Isabel.
‘They cost nothing, my child. I am always pleased to have them. It is carrying them out that costs.’
‘My suggestions are not any good, when they are not carried out,’ said Miss Mitford, in a faintly plaintive tone.
‘Well, I hope you will make them another time. Good-bye, my dears; I will come up again and see you. James, do you forget again to open the door?’
James could not deny it.
‘Does he generally, Miss Mitford?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does he not open the door for you?’
‘No.’
‘You must remember you are not a baby, mustn’t you, James?’
‘Yes,’ said James, who had little chance of thinking he was, as the family steadily combated the supposed conviction.
‘Could you remember to tell him, Miss Mitford?’
‘Well, my memory is no better than his.’
‘Then the girls must remember. Will you think of it, my dears? Now, my boy, if you are to be at home today, you must have tea in the nursery and go early to bed. When we are not well, we must not behave quite like well people, must we?’
‘No,’ said James, who had no great leaning towards the routine of the healthy, which he found a strain.
‘Why is he to have tea in the nursery?’ said Miss Mitford, as the door closed.
‘The tea there is earlier than ours,’ said Venice.
‘Mother hasn’t a favourite in this room,’ said Isabel.
‘I somehow feel it is not me,’ said Miss Mitford. ‘And my instinct is generally right in those ways.’
‘I don’t want to be one of her favoured ones,’ said Venice, who had a familiar sense of meeting too little esteem.
‘She only likes two people in the house, Daniel and Gavin,’ said Isabel.
‘And I like so many,’ said Miss Mitford. ‘I must have a more affectionate nature.’
‘She likes Father and Luce,’ said James, just looking up from his book.
‘That is true,’ said Miss Mitford, ‘I hope it is the history book that you are reading, James.’
‘Yes,’ said James, who was perusing a more human portion of this volume, indeed an intensely human one, as it dealt with the elaborate execution of a familiar character. When any trouble or constraint was over, he allowed it to drift from his mind.
‘What is the time?’ said Venice.
‘Two minutes to your break for luncheon,’ said Miss Mitford, in an encouraging tone.
‘You like your luncheon too, Mitta.’
‘You must not call me Mitta except in a spirit of affection. And it is not often affectionate to tell people they like their food.’
‘Here it comes!’ said James, throwing his book on the table and himself into a chair.
‘I am punctual today,’ said Mullet, entering in understanding of the life she interrupted, and viewed with sympathy as inferior to that of the nursery. ‘And Hatton says, if Master James has a headache, he may ask Miss Mitford to excuse his lessons this morning.’
James at once rose, selected some biscuits and a book and arranged a table and the sofa for the reception of them and himself. He did not look at Miss Mitford nor she at him. Hatton’s word was law in the schoolroom, as Miss Mitford chose to accept it as such, pursuing with it the opposite course to that she took with other people’s.
‘Miss Isabel, look at your hair,’ said Mullet, as if the vigour of the enjoinder rendered it possible.
‘Hatton said I was not to touch it myself, because I tear at it.’
‘Then you should come upstairs to have it done. I wonder the mistress did not notice it.’
‘How do you know she did not?’ said Miss Mitford.
‘She would have sent her up to have it done,’ said Venice, who managed her own with care and competence.
‘Perhaps that is why it is shorter than Venice’s, because you pull it,’ said James, turning a serious eye from the sofa.
‘You pull it often enough yourself,’ said Isabel.
‘I never pull any out,’ said James, in defence of his own course, returning to his book.
‘Why should we go down to dessert twice a day?’ said Venice.
‘Just to make the household as odd as possible,’ said Isabel.
‘You get twice as much dessert,’ said Miss Mitford.
‘Will you have tea or coffee after your dinner, ma’am?’ said Mullet.
‘I think coffee is more sustaining, as I don’t have dessert.’
Mullet laughed, and the children did so with more abandonment, taking the chance of venting their mirth over Miss Mit-ford’s practice of broaching private stores while they were downstairs. It merely made her meal correspond with theirs, but they thought it a habit of a certain grossness and never alluded to it to her face.
‘Shall I tell Cook to send up the things you like?’ said Mullet.
‘It might be suspected that we had asked,’ said Isabel.
James raised his eyes in survey of the situation.
‘The little ones are going down before their dinner, so you won’t have them,’ said Mullet, in encouraging sympathy with intolerance of the creatures to whom her own life was given. ‘The nursery dinner is late. And now I must take my tray.’
‘I will go up to Hatton about my hair,’ said Isabel.
‘Don’t put off your lessons longer than you must,’ said Miss Mitford, in a tone of rejoinder.
‘There is only one book,’ said Isabel, implying a sacrifice of opportunity to her sister.
‘Why don’t they do different lessons at the same time?’ said James, without moving his eyes.
‘We might find it a strain,’ said Miss Mitford.
Mullet went to fetch the children from the garden, and Eleanor met her coming up the stairs, with the three of them clinging to her.
‘Dear, dear, can’t any of you walk alone? Mullet will need to have several pairs of arms and legs.’
‘Mullet help him,’ said Nevill, with a note of defiance.
‘She seems to be helping the others too. I think you must all have a rest this morning,’
‘Hatton sit on his little bed,’ said Nevill, as he entered the nursery.
‘I have not time this morning. Mullet will stay with you for a while.’
‘Mother likes us to be alone while we go to sleep,’ said Gavin.
‘Her standard is too high for Nevill,’ said Hatton. ‘And I notice it sometimes is for you.’
Honor broke into mirth.
‘Don’t you mind what she says?’ said Gavin, with a note of respect.
‘Hatton doesn’t mind,’ said Nevill, with tenderness and pride.
‘The mistress said they were all to rest,’ said Mullet.
‘Well, that is not beyond us,’ said Hatton. ‘And there need be no delay.’
Presently Gavin awoke with a cry, and Eleanor came to his bedside. She found him sitting up, in the act of receiving a glass of water from Hatton, his demeanour accepting his situation as serious, and this view of it in others.
‘What is it, my boy?’
‘I want Honor to wake.’
‘Did you have a dream?’
‘No.’
‘Tell Mother what it is.’
‘It is nothing.’
‘Is it burglars?’ said Honor, suddenly sitting up straight.