Chapter III: At the Rookery

"Is that you, Edgar, darling? Come to the fire and warm yourself. It's snowing, isn't it?"

"Yes, mother. I hope we shall have a good downfall. If it snows like this all through the night we shall be able to make a snow man in the playground to-morrow. Won't that be jolly?"

It was an afternoon several days subsequent to the one on which Mrs. Marsh had called on her relatives in Princess Street; and the scene was the spacious drawing-room at the Rookery, which, with a big coal fire burning in the grate, and its handsome, well-chosen furniture, was a picture of comfort, not to say luxury. Mrs. Marsh sat near the fireplace, a small table bearing tea-things, a plate of thin bread and butter, and part of a rich cake in a silver cake-basket at her side. She had been entertaining callers, but they had left early on account of the snowstorm which had been threatening. Edgar, who had just returned from school, flung his satchel of lesson-books into a corner of the room, and, advancing to the tea-table, helped himself to a hunk of cake. His mother watched him with an indulgent smile; she was naturally very proud and fond of her son, who was indeed a very nice-looking little lad, with his bright blue eyes, fresh complexion, and curly, brown hair.

"Are your feet wet, dearie?" she inquired anxiously, as she poured him out a cup of tea.

"No," he answered untruthfully, for he knew they were. He sat down and tucked his feet out of sight under the chair. "Give me plenty of cream and sugar, please, mother," he said. "This is a very good cake."

"Yes; but had you not better eat some bread and butter with it? It is very rich."

He paid no heed to her suggestion, however, and there was silence for a few minutes till he cut himself a second slice of cake as large as the first.

"My dear child—" began Mrs. Marsh expostulatingly; but Edgar interrupted her:

"Oh, mother, don't fuss!"

"I merely speak for your good, my darling, I—"

"I do wish you wouldn't keep on calling me 'dearie' and 'darling' and names of that sort; it's so silly, just as though I was a baby, and it makes people laugh, and I hate being laughed at!" The boy spoke petulantly with deepening colour, but his eyes drooped beneath his mother's reproachful glance. "I don't believe Roger's mother would be so foolish," he added, "and Roger says you treat me as though I was a girl."

Mrs. Marsh looked both hurt and angry, but she made no response. Her affection for her son showed itself in words of exaggerated endearment, and he was now of an age to greatly dislike being made to appear ridiculous. It had been at his father's wish that he had been entered as a pupil at the Grammar School; Mrs. Marsh had wanted to have him educated by a tutor at home, but her husband had been too wise to listen to her views on the point of their son's education. Edgar should go to a public school, he had firmly declared, the boy would soon find his level there; and that he was certainly doing, the process proving rather a humbling one. Master Edgar Marsh was not quite such an important person in his own estimation to-day as he had been at the commencement of the school only a few weeks previously.

"I walked as far as the corner of Princess Street with Roger this afternoon," Edgar informed his mother by-and-by. "I should not like to live where he does, I told him so."

"What did he say?" asked Mrs. Marsh curiously.

"He didn't say anything, but he got very red and looked angry. He very soon gets angry, you know, and I don't think he liked what I said."

"I thought you told me the other day that you didn't care for Roger, and that you never meant to speak to him again," Mrs. Marsh observed with a slight smile.

"Oh," the little boy exclaimed, appearing somewhat confused, "that was because he hit me; but—but it was partly my fault for—never mind about that! Afterwards he said he was sorry, and we've been better friends since. Roger's all right when you come to know him."

"I'm glad to hear that, because he's your cousin, and though, unfortunately for him, his position in life will be very different from yours, I shouldn't like you to quarrel with him. Your Uncle Martin and I were devoted to each other when we were children; indeed, I've always been much attached to my brother, and I've always made it my first duty to be kind to his family."

"It must be very cold travelling to-day," Edgar remarked, glancing out of the window at the falling snow. "Is it a long journey from London to Beaworthy, mother?"

"Yes; do you know anyone who is making it?"

"I was thinking of Cousin Becky." "Cousin Becky? What do you mean? She's not coming here. I never invited her."

"No. But she's coming to stay with Uncle Martin and Aunt Mary. Didn't you know it, mother? Why, I could have told you that days ago!"

"Then, pray, why didn't you?"

"I never thought of it. Roger told me, and of course I thought you knew. She's coming to-night. Roger's going to the station with Uncle Martin to meet her at seven o'clock and she's to have Polly's room."

"And what's to become of Polly?"

"She's going to sleep in the attic."

"The idea! Mary must be crazy to upset her arrangements for an old woman she has never seen in her life, one in whom she can have no possible interest."

"Roger says Cousin Becky is very poor," Edgar observed thoughtfully. "It must be dreadful to be poor, mother, mustn't it?"

"Yes," she acknowledged, surprised at the unusual gravity of her son's face.

"That's why they invited Cousin Becky to Princess Street," Edgar proceeded, "because she's poor and lonely. Roger says now Cousin Becky's brother is dead she hasn't even a home, and no one wants her—you know you didn't, mother."

"But to burden themselves with an old woman," Mrs. Marsh was commencing, when the keen, questioning gaze with which her little boy was regarding her caused her to break off and leave her sentence unfinished.

"It's so odd you didn't want Cousin Becky here," he said. "I can't think why you didn't, because we've lots of spare rooms, and we're always having visitors. Don't you like Cousin Becky, mother?"

"I have not seen her for many years," was the evasive reply. "Will you have another cup of tea, Edgar? No, I will not allow you to have any more cake; you will make yourself ill."

"Give me just a tiny piece, mother. I'm hungry still."

"Then have some bread and butter."

"No," pouted the spoilt child, "I won't have anything more to eat if I can't have cake."

It ended in his being allowed another slice, and whilst he was eating it, his father, a short, bald, middle-aged man, entered the room, and came up to the fire, rubbing his hands and complaining of the cold.

"We're going to have a heavy fall of snow if I'm not much mistaken," he said. "You'll like that, eh, Edgar? I remember when I was your age there was nothing I liked better than a snowballing match with my school-fellows. Rare fun we used to have."

"Fancy, John, Cousin Becky is coming to Beaworthy after all," Mrs. Marsh informed him. "She's going to stay with Martin. Edgar heard from Roger that she is expected to-night."

"Well, I suppose your brother knows what he is about," Mr. Marsh replied, shrugging his shoulders. "You'll have to ask the old lady to spend a day with you, Janie."

"And ask Aunt Mary, too," said Edgar eagerly; "I like Aunt Mary. But don't have Polly, mother."

"Why not?" inquired Mr. Marsh, looking amused.

"She's such a cheeky little girl," the boy replied, recalling how on one of the rare occasions when he had taken tea with his cousins at their home, Polly had nick-named him "tell-tale" because he had threatened to inform his mother of something which had happened to displease him. He knew better than to do that now, but he seldom encountered Polly without she addressed him as "tell-tale."

"Edgar, your boots are wet!" cried Mrs. Marsh as, in an unwary moment, the little boy drew his feet out from under the chair. "I can see the water oozing out of the leather. Go and change them at once, or you'll catch a terrible cold. How could you say they were not wet when you must have known differently? You ought to be ashamed to be so untruthful."

Edgar was in no wise disconcerted by this rebuke; but he left the drawing-room and went upstairs to his own room, where he discarded his snow-sodden boots for his slippers, and then stood at the window looking out into the garden, which was separated from the high road by tall elm trees, where the rooks built their nests every spring. The snow was falling very fast now, covering the world with a spotless mantle of white; and Edgar's mind reverted to the visitor whom his cousins expected to welcome to their home that night.

"I suppose mother thought she'd be in the way if she came here," he reflected shrewdly, "but I should say she'll be much more in the way in Uncle Martin's poky little house. It's really very kind of Aunt Mary to have her. Roger says his mother is always kind, and that we all ought to try to be—for Jesus' sake, because He loves every living thing, even animals. I suppose that's true, it's in the Bible about His noticing if a sparrow falls, so it must be, but I never thought much of it till Roger spoke to me about it the day after I'd hit that dog. I didn't mean to hurt it—I only meant to frighten it; I suppose it was cowardly. Well, I won't be unkind to an animal again; and I'm glad I didn't make a fuss about Roger's having struck me, especially as he was sorry afterwards."

It was cold in his bedroom, so in a short while the little boy went downstairs. In the hall he encountered Titters, his mother's favourite Persian cat; but when—mindful of his resolution to be kind to animals in future—he essayed to stroke her, she tried to escape from him, and arched her back and raised her fur in anything but a friendly fashion. Truth to tell, he had been in the habit of teasing her, and she consequently mistrusted his intentions. However, he caught her, picked her up, and was carrying her into the drawing-room in his arms when she suddenly gave him a vicious scratch on the cheek, whereupon he dropped her with a cry of mingled anger and pain.

"See what Titters has done to me, mother!" he exclaimed as he entered the drawing-room.

"What a nasty scratch!" Mrs. Marsh said. "But you should not have teased the poor creature, Edgar."

"I was not teasing her, mother."

"Now, my dear, I know better than that. How can you tell me such a naughty story? I do wish you would learn to speak the truth. You are always teasing Titters—I suppose that's only natural as you're a boy—so you need not pretend you were not doing so just now."

Edgar did not argue the point, but he regarded his mother with an injured air which only made her laugh. He was annoyed that she did not believe him, forgetful that not long before he had told her an untruth about his boots, and that not without cause had he gained the reputation of a perverter of the truth.