"Not in years perhaps," replied Robina, "but―well, you know what I mean. One wants one's father to be always great and dignified."
"We cannot change our ego," I explained to her. "Some daughters would appreciate a father youthful enough in temperament to sympathise with and to indulge them. The solemn old fogey you have in your mind would have brought you up very differently. Let me tell you that, my girl. You would not have liked him, if you had had him."
"Perhaps not," Robina agreed. "You are awfully good in some ways."
"What we have got to do in this world, Robina," I said, "is to take people as they are, and make the best of them. We cannot expect everybody to be just as we would have them, and maybe we should not like them any better if they were. Don't bother yourself about how much nicer they might be; think how nice they are."
Robina said she would try. I have hopes of making Robina a sensible woman.
CHAPTER VII
Dick and Veronica returned laden with parcels. They explained that "Daddy Slee," as it appeared he was generally called, a local builder of renown, was following in his pony-cart, and was kindly bringing the bulkier things with him.
"I tried to hustle him," said Dick, "but coming up after he had washed himself and had his tea seemed to be his idea of hustling. He has got the reputation of being an honest old Johnny, slow but sure; the others, they tell me, are slower. I thought you might care, later on, to talk to him about the house."
Veronica took off her things and put them away, each one in its proper place. She said, if no one wanted her, she would read a chapter of "The Vicar of Wakefield," and retired upstairs. Robina and I had an egg with our tea; Mr. Slee arrived as we had finished, and I took him straight into the kitchen. He was a large man, with a dreamy expression and a habit of sighing. He sighed when he saw our kitchen.
"There's four days' work for three men here," he said, "and you'll want a new stove. Lord! what trouble children can be!"
Robina agreed with him.
"Meanwhile," she demanded, "how am I to cook?"
"Myself, missie," sighed Mr. Slee, "I don't see how you are going to cook."
"We'll all have to tramp home again," thought Dick.
"And tell Little Mother the reason, and frighten her out of her life!" retorted Robina indignantly.
Robina had other ideas. Mr. Slee departed, promising that work should be commenced at seven o'clock on Monday morning. Robina, the door closed, began to talk.
"Let Pa have a sandwich," said Robina, "and catch the six-fifteen."
"We might all have a sandwich," suggested Dick; "I could do with one myself."
"Pa can explain," said Robina, "that he has been called back to town on business. That will account for everything, and Little Mother will not be alarmed."
"She won't believe that business has brought him back at nine o'clock on a Saturday night," argued Dick; "you think that Little Mother hasn't any sense. She'll see there's something up, and ask a hundred questions. You know what she is."
"Pa," said Robina, "will have time while in the train to think out something plausible; that's where Pa is clever. With Pa off my hands I sha'n't mind. We three can live on cold ham and things like that. By Thursday we will be all right, and then he can come down again."
I pointed out to Robina, kindly but firmly, the utter absurdity of her idea. How could I leave them, three helpless children, with no one to look after them? What would the Little Mother say? What might not Veronica be up to in my absence? There were other things to be considered. The donkey might arrive at any moment―no responsible person there to receive him―to see to it that his simple wants would be provided for. I should have to interview Mr. St. Leonard again to fix up final details as regarded Dick. Who was going to look after the cow, about to be separated from us? Young Bute would be down again with plans. Who was going to take him over the house, explain things to him intelligibly? The new boy might turn up―this simple son of the soil Miss Janie had promised to dig out and send along. He would talk Berkshire. Who would there be to understand him―to reply to him in dialect? What was the use of her being impetuous and talking nonsense?
She went on cutting sandwiches. She said they were not helpless children. She said if she and Dick at forty-two hadn't grit enough to run a six-roomed cottage it was time they learned.
"Who's forty-two?" I demanded.
"We are," explained Robina, "Dick and I―between us. We shall be forty-two next birthday. Nearly your own age."
"Veronica," she continued, "for the next few days won't be a child at all. She knows nothing of the happy medium. She is either herself or she goes to the opposite extreme, and tries to be an angel. Till about the end of the week it will be like living with a vision. As for the donkey, we'll try and make him feel as much at home as if you were here."
"I don't mean to be rude, Pa," Robina explained, "but from the way you put it you evidently regard yourself as the only one among us capable of interesting him. I take it he won't mind for a night or two sharing the shed with the cow. If he looks shocked at the suggestion, Dick can knock up a partition. I'd rather for the present, till you come down again, the cow stopped where she was. She helps to wake me in the morning. You may reckon you have settled everything as far as Dick is concerned. If you talk to St. Leonard again for an hour it will be about the future of the Yellow Races or the possibility of life in Jupiter. If you mention terms he will be insulted, and if he won't let you then you will be insulted, and the whole thing will be off. Let me talk to Janie. We've both of us got sense. As for Mr. Bute, I know all your ideas about the house, and I sha'n't listen to any of his silly arguments. What that young man wants is someone to tell him what he's got to do, and then let there be an end of it. And the sooner that handy boy turns up the better. I don't mind what he talks. All I want him to do is to clean knives and fetch water and chop wood. At the worst I'll get that home to him by pantomime. For conversation he can wait till you come down."
That is the gist of what she said. It didn't run exactly as I have put it down. There were points at which I interrupted, but Robina never listens; she just talks on, and at the end she assumes that, as a matter of course, you have come round to her point of view, and persuading her that you haven't means beginning the whole thing over again.
She said I hadn't time to talk, and that she would write and tell me everything. Dick also said he would write and tell me everything; and that if I felt moved to send them down a hamper―the sort of thing that, left to themselves, Fortnum & Mason would put together for a good-class picnic, say, for six persons―I might rely upon it that nothing would be wasted.
Veronica, by my desire, walked with me to the end of the lane. I talked to her very seriously. Her difficulty was that she had not been blown up. Had she been blown up, then she would have known herself she had done wrong. In the book it is the disobedient child that is tossed by the bull. The child that has been sent with the little basket to visit the sick aunt may be right in the bull's way. That is a bit of bad luck for the bull. The poor bull is compelled to waste valuable time working round carefully, so as not to upset the basket. If the wicked child had sense (which in the book does not happen), it would, while the bull was dodging to get past the good child, seize the opportunity to move itself quickly. The wicked child never looks round, but pegs along steadily; and when the bull arrives it is sure to be in the most convenient position for receiving moral lessons. The good child, whatever its weight, crosses the ice in safety. The bad child may turn the scale at two stone lighter; the ice will have none of him. "Don't you talk to me about relative pressure to the square inch," says the indignant ice. "You were unkind to your little baby brother the week before last: in you go." Veronica's argument, temperately and courteously expressed, I admit, came practically to this: