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“Stop this,” interrupted Margaret.
“It is so silly.” Je
“Carolan,” said Charles, ‘must learn not to be a silly baby.” With a mighty effort Carolan, taking Charles off his guard, wrenched herself free. She ran towards the door.
“Mamma!” she screamed.
“Mammal’ But Charles dashed at her; she fell, Charles sprawled on top of her. Carolan beat at him with her fists; Charles was helpless with laughter, and Carolan’s sobs and Charles’s laughter mingled oddly together. George Haredon, opening the door, stared at the scene in amazement.
“What is this?” he demanded, and there was sudden quiet in the nursery.
Charles and Carolan got to their feet. The squire did not look at Je
“What is this display?” he said, and he put a heavy hand on Carolan’s shoulder and turned her face up to his.
“Tears?”
“She is such a baby, master,” said Je
“I am not a baby!” she faced the squire furiously.
“I do not cry because I am a baby. I cry because I hate him.”
“Nice words! Nice words!” said the squire, and sat down heavily on one of the chairs at the breakfast table. It creaked under his weight. Je
“Now,” said the squire.
“I will hear why there is all this kicking and screaming at this hour of the morning.”
“Miss Carolan is a silly little baby.” began Je
“She wants a good whipping…”
George Haredon said, without looking at her: “I am not addressing you.”
Ugly colour flooded Je
“Charles,” said the squire, ‘tell me why you think it so amusing to make a little girl cry.”
Charles said: “She is such a baby. It was a joke. That was all, and she could not take it.”
“I will hear the joke,” said George.
“Oh, it’s a silly joke really, sir,” said Charles.
“I have no doubt of that. But when I say I will hear it, I mean it. And listen, boy. I will be judge of whether it is silly or not. Carolan, come here. Margaret too.”
They stood before him, all three of them, Carolan in the middle. The squire looked from his own two children to Kitty’s child. Why. he thought angrily, do I have to have those two, and why shouldn’t she be mine! He had tried to dislike her, God knew; he had tried to ignore her. But she would not be disliked, nor ignored; she intruded into his mind at odd moments. Her skin was like the bowls of rich cream that were served at his table cream with the bloom of peaches in her cheeks; now there was angry red there, like roses. And the eyes that glittered with tears were decidedly green. The red in her hair delighted him. What was it that she had, and Kitty had, and Bess had had, and no one else in the world seemed to have? Why was she not his child, instead of these other two? U
“Well?” he questioned.
“It’s her birthday,” said Charles, ‘and I thought she would enjoy a joke, so…”
Margaret cut in: “He gave her a dead shrew mouse wrapped up in paper.”
“Is that all?” said the squire, and glared at Carolan. He was filled with delight to see the colour fade from her cheeks and rapidly flow back again, to see her eyes flash and her head tilt up.
“She is a silly baby!” said Charles.
“Mamma’s pampered baby.”
Carolan stamped her foot angrily.
“I am not. I am nine. I am not a baby.” The squire drew her towards him. He held her small body imprisoned between his great knees.
She said: “That hurts me!” and put her hand on his knees to try to force them apart. He laughed; she delighted him, this fu
“Why, Dammed, Carrie,” he said, “I thought you were my chestnut mare, not a little girl!” And his eyes glistened with laughter. A smile turned up the corners of Carolan’s mouth.
“I am not a bit like the chestnut mare.”
“What!” he said.
“With this carroty hair?” And he pulled her hair, not unkindly though.
“Now then,” he said sternly, ‘what made you lie on the floor and scream like that?”
You should not tell tales, Everard had said; at school it was the worst offence. So now she could not speak of the cruel thing Charles had done to her. She said nothing. But Margaret answered. Margaret hated trouble, and unless something drastic was done, she could see this affair of the shrew mouse drifting on interminably. Margaret was a dainty creature; she loved fine needlework and good ma
So Margaret said: “Father, Charles gave Carolan a shrew mouse for her birthday, and it was dead and wrapped up in a parcel. Carolan hates dead shrew mice, and she thought it was a real present. And then he tried to make her kiss it.”
The squire’s eyes narrowed as they rested on his son. There were times when he disliked the boy. He reminded him irritatingly of what he was himself at Charles’s age. He could imagine Charles, blundering through life, making the same mistakes as he had made.
“Ah!” he said.
“Bullying, eh?” He stood up ponderously and caught the boy by his ear.
“How old are you, eh? Fifteen, is it? And you think it fu
“It was only a joke.” said Charles sullenly.
“Then, sir, it is time you were taught what is a good joke and what is a damned bad one!”
Now Carolan was very sorry for Charles. It was amazing with what speed she could slip from one mood to another. A moment ago she could have killed Charles, she had hated him so; but now to see him there, so red in the face, his eyes so full of shame, she was sorry for him, because humiliating him like this in front of her and Margaret was the worst possible thing that could happen to him.
The squire turned to Je
“Get the girl ready. I am taking her for a ride.”
Je
“Not Margaret!” roared the squire.
“I mean Carolan!”
Je
The squire turned to his son.
“And you,” he said, ‘will go to my bedroom. I have something to teach you. my boy! Go!” he shouted suddenly.