It was a stormy evening and the winds were howling, but to Cleo it was a rare pleasure that she should have an evening entirely to herself, a whole attic to rummage in at her leisure. The catch of the attic door was broken, so it stood wide open, and there was a ladder for those who chose to ascend.
She began to climb gingerly, and half-way up she paused. There were strange noises in the attic, and she thought at first her brothers were playing some trick upon her. But they were schoolboys, and schoolboys never stay indoors when they can get out, and to-night was sure to be brighter up street where they lived, than it was in the country.
Another loud crash of thunder brought her to a hasty conclusion, so she put her head half through, and sat there trembling with cold and fright. Clearing her throat, which was rather too full of lumpy things, she said feebly:
“Are you there, Edith? Don’t you be frightened, it’s only me. Lock the door, and tell them that I am going to stay up here by myself. You needn’t mind about my being sorry for them or anything, because I’m not.”
At this moment Helen appeared, but it was in mortal fear of a mouse, she said, that she had ventured up the ladder, and scampered down before anybody could inquire if Edith meant to lock the door or not.
The attic seemed too lonesome for Cleo to even sit down on a cutting-up block that had been left there to moulder away, so she began to ascend the second flight of ladder that led to the roof.
Everything was in wild rebellion; a thousand possible dangers surged through her mind as she stood at the top of the second flight, Ernestine having judiciously informed them that the roof actually had a flat place upon it, where she had once stood erect without the remotest intention of throwing herself down-stairs in the act of putting up a gutter spur.
It was only that day that Cleo had come down to the farm at all, and no one for a moment expected she would root herself there for the summer like something that had to be watered regularly, for she was but seventeen, just out of the schoolroom herself, and naturally appealed to as being the youngest by a flower-and-foliage mother, very much in love with faded patchwork.
However, there she was, and the curtains of the room she inhabited had never been down in her life, and she never could remember a time when she had made so few excursions into the outside world. The packing-cases in which the Morrison children had played when they were all living together down-stairs, had combined to form a sort of palace on the balcony. Cleo had climbed into it, and half-enfolded herself in a huge black-and-white plaid quilt, that was magically kept at bay by a mouse and her seven babies, as soon as it was sure that no one would come up to her rescue. But the thunder rumbled and banged, and the rain rattled angrily against the roof.
Her head ached painfully; so did, in fact, every part of her poor little body. Suddenly—the sound was so very near—she thought that the man, it was always a man, should hammer upon the tiles above her, and broke it to his next-door neighbour in rather troubled accents. Was he ill? could she do anything for him? No, thank you, he had fallen off a roof, but he was quite comfortable now, only if she happened to see anybody, he would be very obliged if she wouldn’t mention it, for they were all very kind, but they would talk so!
Then she drifted off into the world again. She should be sure to rush immediately out of the house if there was nothing very particular to hinder; and it was a good thing she had not been able to persuade Edith to come up to have tea with her, as she had heartily endeavoured to do, or they would both have had to report progress.
The weather cleared up a little, and Ellen came bounding up the stairs straight into her arms. Mrs. Morrison always acted on the advice in one of the few books she ever picked up: to make everything that needs to be done as pleasant as possible. Getting up to join Cleo, for example, one would have imagined was bad enough at the best of times, but to do so for the exceedingly vile purpose of informing her she could never again expect to see seventeen years, seven months, and fourteen days, was dismal beyond everything.
As a mere question of fact, it might be so, but no one could be justified in jumping from that to the conclusion that nothing more agreeable to her fancy could ever possibly occur. It was a silly speech to make, Ellen and her brother Gomez both allowed afterwards, though so clever in other ways, still sometimes she did say very odd things.
“Where do my clothes hang out?” inquired Cleo mournfully.
Ellen opened her eyes to their very widest and strongest so long that they almost dried themselves.
“Your clothes! Why, in a cupboard to be sure, and that huge pressed flower and shoe that you used to have hung up on the wall before we all came down; but why shouldn’t they?”
“Oh, they are perfectly harmless,” Cleo said, brightening up again.
He would help her to arrange things; yes, thank you, she had fine clothes enough, without a dress for every hour in the day. She remembered pleading once with her mother in favour of a new Toby jug, inlaid, and not a gutter spur. Such things were all put a long way off, ever since that frightful jaunt to Germany; it was eleven months ago yesterday.
“Oh, yes, I’m trudging cheerfully about, notwithstanding the thunder and lightning; and you, Ellen, what have you been doing with yourself?”
“Oh, not much, just lying down and recovering myself,” said Ellen, yawning. She was a big girl, going on fourteen, she said, denying with scornful emphasis she was any taller than she had been nearly two years ago when she had last seen Cleo. Boys ought to be taller at least, unfortunately Gomez was not very much.
He might make up his mind, as near as anybody could guess, that the family resemblance on his part was fatal, then and there to all further growth. She now found herself hopelessly at home again; she need not regret the little trip they had to make the next day, or the dance in the evening.
Cleo sat disconsolate like herself at bad weather’s mercy, but she was going to send letters that evening saying she could not come, however empty and uninteresting it all promised to be. But directly Thurnams could pull out the things she had piled upon the ground, so as to make room to read a letter she had taken out, she would send it as soon as possible.
Then let Ellen and her brother sort them over at their leisure; they knew how; no one sewed like her! She would have a few kills and surprise them all!
“Knock me three,” said Ellen decisively.