Jasper

“You must run after us. We can wait no longer, children,” he called. Leila was already half-way downstairs.

Chrissie gave a frantic rush round the room again, scrambling under the beds, pushing aside chairs and tables in search of her book, but all in vain. And even if she had dared to take her sister’s “best one,” she was not sure where to look for it. It would have needed time to find.

“I must go,” she thought, “whatever happens.” So she dashed off – narrowly escaping falling downstairs in her hurry.

The others had all started, but the hall-door was left slightly ajar, and that of the drawing-room stood wide open, and as she ran past it, a sudden idea struck the child.

“I’ll take Aunt Margaret’s prayer-book,” she thought. “It’s just about the same size as mine, and if I keep it open nobody will see any difference, unless Lell perhaps, and she surely wouldn’t be so mean as to tell, after being so ill-natured to me.”

No sooner said than done, and in another minute Chrissie was racing down the street, book in hand, to overtake the family party, just turning the corner.

Leila glanced at her.

“You’ve found it, then?” she whispered, for Chrissie took care to hold the book so that its cover did not show. She made no reply, and Leila’s face darkened.

“If you’ve taken mine after all,” she said threateningly, though still in a low voice, “I’ll – ”

“I haven’t, then,” said Chrissie, “I wouldn’t touch a thing of yours, you mean creature.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Leila, catching her arm, so as to see the book.

“Children,” said their mother’s voice, warningly.

They started.

“I’ve got Aunt Margaret’s out of the drawing-room,” whispered Christabel. “There now – if it’s found out, it’s all your fault,” and Leila, startled, made no reply.

Church-time passed, and more than once Mrs Fortescue, glancing at the children, was pleased to see that Chrissie appeared to be following the service with unusual attention. She would have been less content had she known that for this there were two reasons. Firstly, Chrissie was afraid of closing the prayer-book; secondly, she was interested and amused by the old-world names she found in it – “His Majesty King George,” “Our gracious Queen Charlotte,” etc, etc, the Service for “Gunpowder’s Day,” and other now discarded memorials. It was really quite “entertaining,” but I doubt if her idle, careless thoughts took part in one single prayer all through the morning, if even one “Our Father,” in which surely the very youngest child, as well as the humblest and simplest worshipper, can fully join, came from her heart.

Poor Chrissie – poor Leila – sterner teaching was preparing for them.

There was some delay in the church porch, as the congregation was passing out.

“I do believe it’s raining,” said Mrs Fortescue, and so it was. “I hope you have your umbrellas, children?” she went on.

Yes – Leila had brought hers; but Chrissie, no! “Really Chrissie,” said her father, “you are too forgetful. Don’t you remember my saying at breakfast that it looked very like rain?”

Chrissie made no reply; for once she had no excuse to offer.

“Give me your umbrella, Leila,” said their mother, “and you take mine – or, yes, Daddy’s,” as he hold it out, “that is larger still, and run home together as fast as you can.”

The sisters set off, as they were told, Leila, as the taller, holding the umbrella. But oh, how cross she was! “Too bad’s” and “All your fault’s” were hurled at Chrissie, till the rain and the running and the weight of the rather heavy umbrella, reduced Leila to silence, in spite of Chrissie’s provoking rejoinders.

“My fault indeed! If you had been good-natured for once and lent me your other prayer-book I wouldn’t have been in such a fuss, and then I wouldn’t have forgotten my own umbrella.”

They were both out of breath, and certainly out of temper, when at last – for distances do seem doubled and trebled in such uncomfortable circumstances – they reached Spenser Terrace, and flinging the wet umbrella at Harriet to look after, slowly made their way upstairs to their own room.

Chrissie tore off her hat and coat with her usual haste. They were not very wet after all, but as she was tossing the jacket aside, something hard bumped against her knee.

“There’s something in one of the pockets,” she said, feeling in it as she spoke. Then out she drew her own prayer-book. “Look here, Lell,” she exclaimed, restored to good-humour by her triumph. “It was in here all the time – ever since last Sunday, I daresay.”

“I daresay,” repeated Leila scornfully. “There never was any one so careless as you. You’d better run down and put Aunt Margaret’s treasure back in its place before she misses it.”

Christabel started. She got red, then white. She glanced at the bed, where her hat and gloves were lying; she felt in her frock pocket, she stared at the floor, then in terror and despair she burst out – “Lell, Lell, what shall I do? I’ve lost it.”

Chapter Ten

Peter’s Place

Leila gasped. For once, her better feelings came to the surface. The enormity of the misfortune aroused her sympathy so fully as to drown every less amiable feeling. Then she pulled herself together.

“It can’t be lost – you were thinking of it all church-time; you couldn’t have carried it carelessly. Feel in your other coat packet.”

Chrissie shook her head.

“No, no,” she said, “I know I didn’t put it in my pocket; and now I remember that the last time I had the feeling of it was in the church porch, when there was all that fuss about the rain and the umbrellas. I dropped it then, or in the street just after, and oh, if it was in the street, it’ll have got soaked in the rain and ruined! And I do believe Auntie cares for it more than anything in the world. It was her grandmother’s. Oh, Leila,” and she clasped her hands in misery.

“Don’t begin crying about it,” said Leila, though not unkindly. “Let’s hunt about a little,” and her eyes wandered round the room. “Mightn’t you have dropped it on the staircase?” She turned towards the door, but Christabel stopped her. “No, no,” she said, “it’s no good. I know now that I didn’t bring it home. And I hear them all coming in, Leila. Don’t seem to be looking for anything.”

“Perhaps we may get it back,” said Leila, who could use her wits to advantage when she aroused herself to give her full attention. “The thing to be done is to ask for it at the church. If we could but get there by ourselves.” Then her eyes turned to the window. “I wonder if it’s going to rain all day.”

A sudden thought struck Christabel.

“What Sunday is it? The first of the month! Oh, I do believe it’s the Sunday when there’s a Children’s Service in the afternoon, and Mummy said once that she thought it would be nice for us to go. Suppose we ask her to let us?”

“If it leaves off raining,” said Leila. “I don’t think we’d be allowed to go again if it pours. But it’s looking brighter.”

“Oh, do let’s try to manage it,” said Chrissie, clasping her hands. “I’d rather – well, rather do anything, or have the horridest pain, rather than tell Aunt Margaret that I’ve lost her book.”

“Yes,” said Leila, piling on the agony, “for, of course, you couldn’t call it an accident, as you’d no business to take it.”

“And if you’d been,” – began Chrissie, but she did not finish the sentence, for at that moment the gong sounded for the early dinner – on Sundays now everybody’s dinner – and the children had to hurry downstairs. On reflection, too, Chrissie said to herself that it would be “awfully silly” to quarrel with Leila.

“She’s been kind about it, and I could never manage without her,” she thought; and as they were entering the dining-room she whispered to her sister, “You ask; I really daren’t.”

It was new for Christabel to own to “not daring” about anything in the world, and Leila felt rather gratified at being trusted in the matter. Nothing was said till dinner was nearly over; the children were very quiet and behaved to perfection. Mrs Fortescue felt pleased. This state of things, following on Chrissie’s attentive looks in church, made her begin to hope that her anxieties about her little daughters were likely to grow less, and inclined her to consent to Leila’s unexpected request.

“Mummy,” she said, “Chrissie and I would like to go to the Children’s Service at church this afternoon. It’s the Sunday for it, and we know the way there quite well, of course. Mayn’t we go?”

Mrs Fortescue smiled.

“I should very much like you to go,” she said, “and I think I can quite trust you by yourselves. But how about the weather?”

“It is clearing,” said Mr Fortescue, “and the glass is going up. Yes – I think they may safely go.”

Chrissie’s face, which had been looking unusually solemn, brightened up. But it clouded again as her father went on, patting Jasper, who was seated next him, on the head —

“And this little man? Wouldn’t you like to escort your sisters to church, Jap?”

“In course I would. I’ll cally your numbrellas and your church-books – all of them, if you like.”

“Then that’s settled. Roley and I are going a good walk,” continued Mr Fortescue. “We need a breath of fresh air, after working so hard all the week, don’t we, my boy? And it will give Aunt Margaret and your mother a nice peaceful afternoon, which I am sure they will be glad of.”

“Let’s be ready early, Lell,” said Chrissie, when they were by themselves, “and then perhaps we could ask about it as we go in.”

“If only Japs wasn’t coming,” said Leila. “But if we had seemed not to want him, they’d have been vexed.”

“P’raps he won’t notice,” said Christabel.

For once they were ready in exceedingly good time – too early, in fact – so afraid were they of a sudden shower of rain, or any other unlucky event, stopping their going. As they ran downstairs their father, who had not yet started on his walk, called them into the drawing-room – the door was standing open, and thus he heard them passing.

“Children,” he said, “don’t try any short-cuts to church. Go as we went this morning. I particularly want you not to go by Peter’s Place – you know where I mean? – a street of small houses round the first corner from the church.”

“Oh yes,” replied Chrissie glibly. “I know. We did pass that way once, but it’s much nicer to keep to the wide streets.”

“Then you quite understand? You promise to go the way we went this morning,” he repeated.

“Yes, certainly,” said the two together. “Where’s Japs?” Chrissie went on. “I wish he’d come.”

“I’m here,” the little boy called out, running downstairs. “I’m pairfitly ready. I didn’t know you’d come down,” and off the three set.

“Why did you say that about Peter’s Place to the children?” Mrs Fortescue inquired.

“Because,” Mr Fortescue replied – “because I saw something in the papers yesterday about an outbreak of scarlet fever there. It was quickly stopped, and there are no fresh cases, but anything like that lingers about, especially in cottage houses of that sort. And there is not the slightest need to pass anywhere near the place.”

“Of course not,” Mrs Fortescue agreed. “But I am glad you remembered to warn them.”

“It was nothing locally wrong,” he added. “It was brought from a distance, I saw. Yes,” he added, “on the whole, I suppose we are really safer in London from epidemics than in most country places.”

The children reached the church in good time, but though they glanced about as they entered, the little girls saw no one of whom to inquire for the missing prayer-book.

“We must ask as we come out,” whispered Leila, for as yet the misfortune had not been told to Jasper; “and do let us sit in the same place, or as near as we can to where we were this morning, just in case you dropped it there.”

But Chrissie shook her head.

“No,” she replied, “I’m certain I didn’t leave it in the church. It was out here, I’m almost sure,” and her eyes searched all round the porch, but in vain.

The service was not long, and not dull. There was a good deal of singing, which the children enjoyed, and the little address was interesting and impressive. It was almost impossible not to listen.

“Oh,” thought Chrissie at the close, “if only we can find the prayer-book, I do think from now I’ll try to be less careless, and ‘gooder’ altogether;” and in her way Leila, too, felt the influence of the wise and kindly words.

Outside they waited a few minutes till the little crowd of children and mothers and governesses had dispersed, in hopes of seeing some one from whom they could get information or advice. But they saw no one looking at all like a verger, and almost in despair Chrissie caught hold of a belated choir-boy, who was passing out.

“Please,” she said, “I’ve lost my prayer-book. Who is there I can ask about it?”

The boy stopped.

“Best ask the verger,” he replied. “But you can’t see him just now. He’s busy, I know. If you left it inside, it’ll be in the vestry, pr’aps. But if you dropped it outside – well, I’m sure I can’t say,” and he gave a low whistle; but as he saw the distress on the child’s face he took pity, and went on. “It might be took to his house, if a honest person picked it up. I’ve known of such. He’s well known about here, you see – and they might have been passing that way.”

“Where is it?” gasped Chrissie.

“Peter’s Place,” replied the boy, “number twenty-two,” and off he ran.

Leila and Chrissie looked at each other.

“Peter’s Place,” they both exclaimed.

It meant nothing to Jasper, of course, for he had not heard Mr Fortescue’s warning.

“I know,” he said. “It’s a funny little street near here. We could go home that way, or I could run down from the corner. I’se so solly, Chrissie, about your prayer-book. Is it your best one?”

“No,” said Chrissie, “I haven’t got a best one. It’s only Lell that has. No, it’s far, far worse. Japs,” she went on, “you won’t tell, for p’raps we’ll get it back and then it’ll be all right and I’ll never do such a thing again,” and seeing that there was now nothing else for it, she told Jasper the whole unhappy story.

He grew pale with sympathy: he was too sorry for her, much to blame though she had been, to say anything to hurt her. No one certainly could have called the little fellow a “prig” who had seen him then. His one idea was to “help.”

“Come along, quick,” he said. “I’ll show you the way to his house,” and he sprang forward.

“Chrissie,” whispered Leila, “we daren’t go – we mustn’t go. We promised.”

“I know,” Chrissie replied, “though I daresay Dads only said it for fear of our losing our way. As if we were so silly! But Japs didn’t promise, Lell?” Leila hesitated – the breaking a promise in the spirit, if not in the letter, does not come easy to honest consciences, such as these two little girls did really possess.

“There’s nothing else to be done,” persisted Christabel, trying to talk down her own misgivings. “We won’t go home that way, Lell, we’ll keep to the big street, and let Japs run round to the house. He knows where it is, and we’ll wait for him.”

And to this the elder sister at last consented. “No, Japs,” she said, as he was hurrying them on by what was actually the nearest way to Peter’s Place, “we don’t want to go that way. It’s rather slummy. We’ll keep to the wide streets, and when we get to the corner – you know where I mean? – you can run back, you see, and Chris and I will wait for you.”

“Werry well,” said Jasper, “but Peter’s Place isn’t at all dirty. It’s kite neat and clean, somefin’ like where Nurse’s cousin, what Mumsey let me go to see, lived.”

But he was pleased at the importance of being trusted, and ran off eagerly when they reached the corner in question.

“Japs has a natural affinity for slums,” Leila remarked in her rather lordly manner, as they stood awaiting his return with what patience they could. “He’ll probably go in for Holy Orders and work himself to death in the East End, when he grows up.”

“He might do worse,” sighed Chrissie. “Any way, I wish I was as good as he is now.”

It seemed a long time – in reality barely ten minutes had passed – before, hurrying round the further corner from where they were waiting, for Peter’s Place did not run directly out of the main street, they at last caught sight of the little figure, and – yes, oh joy! – in his uplifted hand he was waving something, – something too small to be seen distinctly, but which, from Jasper’s manner, there could be no doubt, was the precious prayer-book.

“Got it! got it!” he shouted, almost before he was near enough for them to hear what he said. “It was there. Somebody picked it up what lives near, and brought it to the church-man’s house.”

“Oh Japs, darling Japs, how glad I am,” said Chrissie. “I’ve never been so glad in my life. Now I can put it back on Aunt Margaret’s table, and it’ll be all right.”

Jasper beamed all over; it was not often that he was spoken to as “darling” by either of his sisters. But suddenly a new thought struck him, and an anxious look came over his face.

“But you’ll tell Mumsey all about it, won’t you, Chrissie?” he asked.

Chrissie wriggled and Leila frowned.

“I’ll see about it,” said the former. “I won’t tell her to-day – it’s best not to bother her on Sunday, the only day Daddy’s at home.”

Leila murmured something, but Jasper did not hear what it was. Indeed, he did not listen, and his expression cleared a little.

“Not to-day or any day,” had been the elder sister’s whisper. “There’s no need ever to tell.”

And great temptation never to do so! For now, the indirect disregard of their father’s orders as to not passing by Peter’s Place had involved Leila as well as Christabel in confession, if such ever took place. “And I needn’t have been mixed up in it at all, except out of good-nature to you,” she said afterwards to Chrissie; “so if you tell, it’ll be the meanest thing you ever did.”

“Why were you so long, Japs?” they asked, rather wishing to change the subject. “Did the verger’s people make a fuss about giving it to you?”

“Oh no,” was his reply, “the minute the little boy’s mother sawed me, she gived it me. I told her it was a werry old book, though it was so pretty. It was lyin’ on the table where he was on the sofa, but he said I must wait till his mother came.”

“What do you mean?” said Leila impatiently. “Who was lying on the sofa?”

“The little boy – I said the little boy,” answered Jasper. “He’s been werry ill, though he’s almost kite better now. But his mother didn’t let me shake hands wif him – fear of disturbin’ him, she said. She wasn’t werry polite – not werry. She said, ‘Now, sir, you’d better be quick and go.’”

“I daresay she was busy,” said Chrissie carelessly, “but she didn’t need to say ‘be quick,’ for you didn’t want not to be quick.”

“In course I didn’t. She’d kept me waitin’,” agreed Jasper, whose feelings had been evidently slightly ruffled. “I was only shakin’ hands – goin’ to, I mean. Still,” he added, with his usual kindliness, “it was polite of her to say ‘sir’ to me.”

By this time they were close to their own house. Arrived there, the little girls ran upstairs as quickly as possible. As quickly as possible, too, did they take off their hats and jackets, though in spite of Chrissie’s new resolutions I fear I must own that her jacket, if not hat, found its resting-place on the floor, and as to what became of boots and gloves I really could not say!

For on their way past the dining-room, the door of which had been purposely left slightly open, they had heard their mother’s voice begging them to come down at once. “Tea is ready. Your aunt and I are waiting for you,” she said.

To be quickly obedient, I am sorry to say, was not the motive that inspired their haste.

“Now’s our time, Lell,” said Chrissie. “There’s no one in the drawing-room. We can put it back at once on Auntie’s table. I’ll just slip it a little under some of the other things, so if she possibly has missed it, she’ll think afterwards she had made a mistake.”

“Do it yourself,” said Leila, and then it was that she added her warning as to what she would think of Chrissie if she ever “told,” to which no reply was vouchsafed.

And the prayer-book was replaced, and when the little sisters made their appearance, with, as I have said, unusual quickness, in the dining-room, their mother greeted them with her brightest smiles.

“I really think,” she was saying to herself, “that things are beginning to improve wonderfully with them.”

But Aunt Margaret, though always ready to hope and believe the best, felt less sanguine. There was a certain flurry and excitement about Chrissie, a half-veiled uneasiness about Leila, a sort of reluctance in both to look one frankly in the face, which made her anxious, though she could have given no real reason for this.

And Jasper was very silent, and for once the cheerful and ever-ready little fellow seemed absent and self-absorbed.

“What can it be? or am I growing fanciful in my old age?” thought Miss Fortescue.

The evening passed quietly. The sisters answered intelligently to a few questions from their mother about the little “sermon for children” they had heard, and Jasper added a word or two. It was evident that all three had listened with attention, and this somewhat reassured their aunt.

“Good-night, my darlings,” she said, when she kissed them, as they were all going to bed, for on Sunday evenings Jasper too was allowed to sit up till eight o’clock. But —was it fancy? – did not Leila shrink away a little; was there not a slight catch, as of a very far-away sob, in Chrissie’s throat; and why did Jasper’s blue eyes, which always looked dark at night, strike her as sad and mournful?

“What can it be?” she repeated to herself.

Nor would she have felt reassured, but, on the contrary, still more perplexed, had she overheard the little boy’s whisper as the three made their way upstairs.

“You will to-morrow, won’t you, Chrissie?” and Chrissie’s impatient “Nonsense, Japs. You’re not to interfere – it’s no business of yours.”

The child went to sleep with a heavy heart.

“And I were so pleased at findin’ it,” he thought. “It would all have been kite happy, if only Chrissie would tell.”

For he, of course, had no idea that his very readiness to help in the matter had been accepted by the others in direct defiance of their father’s warning.

And though the next day and two or three days after were bright and sunny, and though Leila and Chrissie really seemed more anxious to please their mother and to keep to her rules, a sort of cloud hung over the house, though Aunt Margaret was the only one who said to herself, with increasing misgiving – “The children have something on their minds. What can it be?”

But before a week had passed, already the impression had faded, if not entirely, yet very nearly so. The shame and regret, the wishing, and for a time meaning, to be, as Chrissie had called it half-jokingly to herself, “gooder,” had no root; they had made fair promise for a moment, and then they “had withered away.” For if children – and people – allow themselves just to be governed by their inclinations; to put off till “more convenient seasons” real penitence, real turning in the right direction; to fill their minds and thoughts with pleasanter subjects than their own faults and failings – why, nothing is easier than to do so! And, on the other hand, more and more difficult does it become to take up the good resolutions again. For in this world we never stand still in character, any more than in our bodies; every day we are growing older, and every day, if we are not growing better, we are growing worse.

So the sudden improvement in her two little daughters, which had brought such happy hopefulness about them to their mother’s heart, proved but sadly passing – indeed, they fell back in several ways, as if, instead of being the better for making the start, they were the reverse; the truth being that, after all, their consciences were not at rest, though they tried to silence them and sometimes succeeded. The sight of the prayer-book always gave Chrissie a twinge, and still worse was the look in Jasper’s reproachful eyes, though after a day or two he left of reminding her of what, in his innocence, he had looked upon as a promise.