Chapter I: Geoff's Charge

It was the end of November, and the cold winds were sweeping over the country, swaying the rooks backwards and forwards, as they perched on the topmost branches of the trees, opposite the nursery window.

But Geoffrey was not looking at, nor thinking of the rooks.

He sat doubled up before the fire, with his feet on the fender, staring at the red coals.

Forbes and Jack were surveying with tear-stained faces a dish of oranges, which nurse had just placed before them with the words:

"There, my laddies, you eat away at them oranges, and don't you cry no more. Come, come," she added, as Jack hid his face in her large white apron sobbing, "don't you take on my beauty like that, you'll make yourself sick. Be a good boy now, and try one of them oranges, they'll make you feel better—see if they don't," and wiping Jack's tears away with her apron, and giving him a hearty kiss, nurse's comfortable figure disappeared hurriedly from the room, for she was busy and was afraid of being delayed by the sound of her boy's sobbing, which sound made her kind old heart ache, for blue-eyed Jack was her darling.

Left to themselves Forbes and Jack surveyed the oranges gravely, then the latter, still quivering with sobs, put out his hand to take one; Forbes followed his example. They both glanced at Geoffrey at this juncture, but the look of their elder brother as he sat crouching over the fire, was too miserable to allow of the thought of offering him one. So with heavy hearts, they made holes at the top of their oranges, into which they stuck lumps of sugar, and began to suck them, their tears mingling with the juice.

But the oranges were very good, and deliciously juicy, and just for the moment the cause of their tears was so forgotten, that Jack's orange suddenly bursting and the juice flying up into Forbes' face, a faint chuckle escaped the boys.

Geoffrey turned his sad face towards them, looking both shocked and surprised. Could they really be laughing? He had thought they would none of them ever be able to laugh again, he was quite sure he never could.

Only the other side of the nursery wall their dear dead mother lay, with that wonderful awful calm on her sweet face. How could they laugh after having seen her for the last time—or—had they forgotten—could they have forgotten?

Forbes coloured to the roots of his hair, as he caught sight of that look on Geoffrey's face, and pushing his plate away from him, felt ashamed of having been able to enjoy his orange. He knew Geoffrey could not have eaten a morsel of it. Indeed he had scarcely eaten anything since she had died.

Forbes hated and despised himself for eating that orange, and for actually wanting another.

Jack, notwithstanding that look on Geoffrey's face, was about to take a second. Forbes could have kicked him, particularly as there was something quite sly in the way he smuggled it into his plate, in the hope that Geoffrey would not see, winking at his brother as he did it.

But after all, thought Forbes, Jack was the youngest of the three, and could not perhaps be expected to feel his mother's death so deeply as he and Geoffrey did; neither could Dodie (Muriel was her real name) who lay fast asleep, happily unconscious that the little black frock that hung at the end of her crib, about which she had been so excited as she had watched Nurse making it up, was the sign of something most precious having gone out of her life. Ashamed of himself and full of remorse Forbes rose from the table and took a seat opposite his brother.

A silence followed, during which he surveyed drearily the old familiar room. It looked the same as ever, yet it felt empty. Even the sky out of the window looked further off—the world seemed wider—the home too large.

"Geoff!" he said, with a choke in his voice, "I can't believe it!" Geoffrey did not answer.

"I can't believe that that is Mother," he added in an awestruck whisper, signing with his head towards the next room.

"It isn't Mother," said Geoffrey, still staring at the red coals, with knit brows, as he passed his hand through his shaggy red hair. "Do you think if it was Mother," he added in a low earnest voice, "that Dodie would have been frightened at her, and would have cried? She knew quite well that that isn't Mother. I couldn't bear it, if it was. If," continued Geoffrey looking up now at his brother with sad eyes, "If she had looked—as she always looks—when she says good-bye, I couldn't have borne it."

Geoffrey did not cry, it was not his way, but he spoke slowly and with a desperate effort to control himself.

"I'm glad she's changed," he added after a moment's pause, "for now I know that she is with God in heaven."

Nurse's familiar step was heard now on the staircase, and at the same moment Dodie began to wake. She sat up in her crib, rubbing her knuckles into her eyes, her pretty curls disordered, and her little face flushed with sleep.

"Mammie," she cried.

Geoffrey's chest heaved, at the old familiar word.

Nurse was at Dodie's side in a moment, and took her into her arms.

"Poor dearie," she said, seating the child on her knee, "she doesn't know that her poor dear Mamma can't hear. Come Jackie, you try and amuse her, while I try on her new frock, bring her the ball, or something to play with, there's a good boy."

But when Dodie caught sight of her new frock all inclination to cry gave way to the pleasure of, for the first time, wearing anything but white, and at the novelty of long sleeves and a high neck.

Geoffrey did not watch the ceremony, it seemed to him too sad.

When he had seen Nurse cutting away at the black material he had been amazed to find that Dodie was not only to be put into black, but was to have her pretty little arms and neck covered up for the first time.

"Mother said she didn't mean to put her into long sleeves till next winter," he had said, as he stood and watched Nurse's scissors cutting the material into shape. "And do you think—are you quite sure Mother would like Dodie to wear a black frock?"

"Not wear black, when she's lost her poor dear Mamma, my dear? Why, we shouldn't be looked upon as respectable; and I wonder at you Master Geoffrey for thinking of such a thing. Haven't you lost the best Mother in the world, and would you show no respect for her? And as for putting the precious pet into a high necked frock with long sleeves, I think I'm a bit more likely to know what your poor dear Mamma would wish than you, considerin' I nursed her through the measles and chicken pox before you was ever born or thought of."

"Mother loved to see her little arms and neck," murmured Geoffrey.

"But she wouldn't love to see her running about in the snow this winter, catching her death of cold poor lamb—and they say we're going to have the coldest Christmas that ever was this year. She shall have a nice warm frock, that she shall, and plenty of room to grow in it."

"Nurse must know best," put in Jack timidly.

Jack had blue eyes and curly hair and was the best looking of the three boys. He was, moreover, Nurse's pet, and if ever there happened to be an extra bun, or an unusually large lump of sugar it was always given to Jack.

He made his remark in a somewhat timid tone of voice, for being only seven years old, three years younger than Geoffrey, he knew Forbes, who came between them in age, would consider he had no right to interfere, and he stood in awe of the latter's fists, which he used freely when he considered that Jack had been cheeky. Forbes had an immense admiration and love for his eldest brother. This feeling had been fostered by the fact, that though Geoffrey was only ten years old, his Mother had always treated him as if he were older, and had taken him into her confidence, and Geoffrey had grown up with the idea that, so long as his Father was away, his Mother was to be his chief care.

Major Fortescue had been away in India two years, having been obliged to leave his wife behind him on account of her health. Little did he think as he said good-bye to her on the troopship at Portsmouth, that he would never see her again in this world.

The love between Mrs. Fortescue and her eldest son had been very great. She had recognized in this red-haired, plain, or as some people thought ugly boy of hers, qualities, which, if fostered and encouraged, would make him a strong and good man, and as she lay dying she gave Dodie into his special care till his father returned, knowing that the boy would look upon it as a sacred trust.

At Jack's remark, Geoffrey had moved away from the table without another word. He could scarcely bear to hear his sweet young Mother called by Nurse "your poor dear Mamma," and much as he cared for Nurse, and submitted quietly as a rule to her authority, having learnt from his mother that if he wished to be a great man, he must begin first by being an obedient boy, he felt as confident as ever that his mother would not have wished Dodie to be put into black. He did not therefore watch Nurse as she fastened the frock, and it was only when he heard the child pattering across the nursery floor that he moved his eyes from the fire.

Dodie was chuckling with delight, as she ran about trying to see her little toes under the unusually long skirt, and nurse was standing with her arms akimbo laughing at her.

Geoffrey could bear it no longer. He rose pale and trembling, and was on the point of leaving the nursery, when nurse hearing herself called, hurried away.

The three boys stood watching their little sister with perplexed faces.

"There's something quite wrong about the frock," said Geoffrey, his brow puckered into a distressed frown, "it looks dreadful."

"Why it's ever so much too long of course," said Forbes, "If I dared to use Nurse's scissors, I'd cut it round the bottom, it would look much better. I'm quite sure Mother wouldn't like it."

"And if Father comes home as Nurse thinks he will, he'll never guess how pretty Dodie really is," added Geoff.

"Anyhow," remonstrated Jack, "she'll be nice and warm as Nurse says, and will have plenty of room to grow in it,—and Nurse is quite sure to know what is best." Jack added this bravely as the last time he had made a similar remark it had been allowed to go unreproved.

"Nurse does not always know best," said Forbes. "Don't you remember how often she used to want to give us gregory powder and rhubarb pills if we were a little ill, and Mother never would let her. Of course she wouldn't know so well as Mother what was best to do, and why just because Mother has gone to Heaven," added Forbes, with a curious expression about his mouth which his brothers understood, "Dodie is made to look so sad and so—so ugly, I can't think."

"She doesn't look ugly, she couldn't," said Geoffrey, as he watched the child frisking about the room, so taken up with her new frock, that she was entirely unconscious that her brothers were looking at her, and talking of her.

Dodie was a lovely little girl. Her hair was curiously light, the very palest shade of gold, her eyes dark brown, and she had the sweetest most kissable little mouth imaginable. She was so small too, that though she was three years old, she looked like a little doll walking about. Any mother's heart would have ached at the sight of these three motherless boys watching with such sad sombre faces their baby sister.

Geoffrey loved this little sister next best to his mother, and nothing she could do, ever vexed him. She might pull his hair, stuff her fingers down his neck, pluck off ruthlessly the finest blossoms from his favourite plants, throw his pet books recklessly on the floor, thereby breaking their backs, scribble over his carefully written Latin exercise, and yet he could not find the heart to be angry with her.

"When could Father be home, if he comes?" asked Forbes, after a few moments pause.

"He might be here by Christmas," answered Geoffrey. "Poor Father! He must know by this time," he added, seating himself again by the fire. "Mr. Hodson telegraphed to him last night."

"Nurse says we needn't go back to school till after Christmas," remarked Jack, "We shall have a jolly long holiday."

"Jolly!" exclaimed Geoffrey, looking up in surprise,—then he remembered that Jack was only seven years old.