Odd.

by Amy Le Feuvre.

CHAPTER I

Caged Birds

It was just four o'clock on a dull grey winter afternoon. The little Stuarts' nursery looked the picture of cosiness and comfort with the blazing fire that threw flickering lights over the bright-coloured pictures on the walls, the warm carpet under foot, and the fair fresh faces of the children gathered there.

Five of them there were, and they were alone, for the old nurse who had brought them all up from their infancy was at present absent from the room.

By one of the large square windows stood one of the little girls; she was gazing steadily out into the fast darkening street below, her chin resting on one of the bars that were fastened across the lower part of the window. How the children disliked those bars! Marks of little teeth were plainly discernible along them, and no prisoners could have tried more perseveringly to shake them from their sockets than they did. Betty, who stood there now, had received great applause one afternoon when, after sundry twists and turns, she had successfully thrust her little dark curly head through, and was able to have a delightfully clear view of all the pa.s.sers-by.

But the sequel was not so pleasant, for somehow or other Betty's head would not come in so easily as it went out, and when nurse came to the rescue with an angry hand, the poor little head was very much bruised in consequence, and Betty's reward for such dexterity was an aching head and dry bread for tea. She was a slight, slim little figure, with big blue eyes, and long, black curved lashes and eyebrows, which made her eyes the most beautiful feature in her face. Very soft, fine curly hair surrounded a rather pathetic-looking little face; but her movements were like quicksilver, and though all the little Stuarts were noted for their mischievous ways and daring escapades, Betty eclipsed them all.

She turned from the window soon with a sigh of relief.

'He's coming,' she said, 'old Bags is coming, and it's my turn to-day.'

There was no response. Bobby and Billy, the twins, little lads only just promoted from petticoats to knickerbockers, were deeply engrossed in one corner of the room over their bricks. Perched on the top of a low chest of drawers were Douglas and Molly, and their heads were in that close proximity that told that secret business was going on.

Betty's heart sank a little.

'Old Bags is coming,' she repeated; 'don't you hear his bell?'

'We're busy,' said Douglas, looking up; 'we won't have Bags' story to-day.'

'You promised yesterday when you put it off that you would hear it to-day. It isn't fair. I always listen to you.'

'Tell it to the babies; they'll like to hear.'

This was adding insult to injury, and when the twins trotted up to the window Betty turned a defiant back upon them, tears of disappointment dimming the blue eyes.

'She's cwying,' announced Bobby, twisting his head round to look up into her face.

Betty turned round furiously; a sharp push sent Bobby to the ground, and in falling he struck his head against one of the feet of the nursery table. There was a howl, general confusion, and nurse appeared, to discover and chastise the offender. Betty was led off in disgrace to a little room on the nursery landing, known by the children as 'Cells.' Their uncle, a young captain in the Guards, had given it that name, but in reality it was nurse's storeroom, and was heated with hot pipes, to air the linen kept there. It was a small, square room, containing a table and one chair; the window was high above the children's reach, and locked cupboards were on every side. Nurse invariably used it for punishing small offences, and being a woman of stern principles, she generally set the little culprit a text to learn whilst there. A Bible was on the table, and Betty was led up to it.

'You will stay here till tea-time, and will not come out until you have learnt a text, and said you are sorry for knocking down your little brother in a fit of wicked temper. This is the fourth time I have had to bring you here this week, and it is now only Tuesday. I have more trouble with you than all the others put together, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

Betty was sobbing bitterly, and when nurse left the room and turned the key behind her, the child flung herself down on the floor.

'It's a shame! It's all Douglas and Molly: they make promises and don't keep them; and it was ever so much nicer a story than Molly's. I know they'd have liked it if they'd heard it; they never think I can do anything!'

To explain the cause of Betty's grievance, I must tell you that it was a custom of the little Stuarts to await the m.u.f.fin man's approach on his rounds, and as his bell would sound, they would take it in turns each day to relate to the others an account of the different houses he had gone to, and who had been the fortunate individuals to receive the m.u.f.fins that had already disappeared from his tray. It was an idle hour in the nursery from four to five, and if the gathering dusk kept the active eyes still, the fertile brains were brought into requisition. Telling stories was a constant delight, and the wonderful adventures that befell the m.u.f.fins on their daily rounds kept the little gathering quiet and happy till tea appeared.

Betty's stories were not inferior to her elders, and it was her childish sense of justice and consideration that was outraged. But tears will come to an end, and soon the little maiden was perched up at the table to learn the task before her. She turned over the pages till she reached Revelation, that mysterious and mystical book that so fascinates and contents a child's soul, though the wisest on earth read it with perplexity and awe. And after a moment or two Betty had found a text to learn, and when nurse appeared later on she repeated unfalteringly with shining eyes and with a note of triumph in her tone 'And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb' (Rev. vii. 14).

'That's a good child; are you sorry?'

'Yes,' was the reply, rather absently given, for Betty's mind was on the white-robed throng; and how could she let nurse know all the workings of her busy brain over the verse she had been taking into her heart and soul?

'And remember,' said nurse gravely, 'that no naughty children who quarrel and fight will ever be in heaven.'

'Not even if they've been through great tribulation?' quickly demanded Betty.

But nurse did not hear, and Betty was received into the well-lighted nursery with acclamation from the others, already seated at the round table for tea.

'We've made a new game, Molly and I,' announced Douglas.

He was a fair, curly-headed boy with an innocent baby face, and a talent for inventing the most mischievous plans that could ever be concocted, with a will that made all the others bow before him. Molly was also fair, with long golden hair that reached to her waist; extreme self-possession and absence of all shyness were perhaps her chief characteristics. 'I am the eldest of the family,' she was fond of a.s.serting, and she certainly claimed the eldest's privileges. Yet her temper was sweet and obliging, and she could easily be swayed and led by those around her.

'Is it one for outdoors or indoors?' asked Betty with interest.

'Indoors, of course; we'll tell you after tea.'

'Your mother wants you in the drawing-room after ten,' put in nurse; 'you and Miss Molly are to go down.'

Molly looked pleased, not so Douglas. At last, putting down his piece of bread and b.u.t.ter, he looked up into nurse's face with one of his sweetest looks.

'Why are grown-up people so very dull, nurse? They all are just the same, except Uncle Harry. They are dreadfully heavy and dull.'

'They have so little to amuse them,' Molly said reflectively: 'no games or toys; they never make believe, or pretend the lovely things we do.'

'And their legs get stiff, and their dresses trip them up if they try to run.'

'But they never get punished, and they're never scolded, and they're never wicked.'

This from Betty.

'It's their talk that is so stupid,' went on Douglas; 'they look nice until they begin to talk; they make me dreadfully sleepy to listen to them.'

'Shall I go down instead of you to-night?' asked Betty eagerly.

'Don't chatter such nonsense; it's strange times when children begin to pick their elders to pieces. You weren't asked for, Miss Betty; and Master Douglas is to go down and behave himself.'

'The three B's aren't big enough yet to leave the nursery.'

Douglas said this with a sparkle of mischief in his eye. It was a sore point with Betty to be ranked with the twins, for she was only a year behind Douglas. Long ago he had seized hold of a laughing joke of his father's, alluding to the names by which the three youngest children were called, and had twitted her with it ever since.

'B for Baby--Baby Betty, Baby Bobby, and Baby Billy; babies must go to bed,' he explained.

Betty gave an angry kick under the table, but did not speak.

She was very silent for the rest of that evening; but when she and Molly were safely in bed, and the room was very quiet, she asked,--

'Molly, do you know what tribulation means?'

'I'm not sure that I do,' was the hesitating reply; 'I think it's something dreadful. Why do you want to know?'