Great Uncle Hoot-Toot. Molesworth Mrs.
no," said her mother, smiling; "he's quite used to it. Your father told me he had had the trick nearly all his life of saying 'Hoot-toot, hoot-toot!' if ever he was perplexed or disapproving."
"What a very funny little boy he must have been!" exclaimed both the girls together.
CHAPTER III.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR ARRIVAL
The next few days were trying ones for all the Tudor family. The mother was waiting anxiously for further news of the money losses, with which, as her lawyers told her, she was threatened; the sisters were anxious too, though, with the bright hopefulness of their age, the troubles which distressed their mother fell much more lightly on them: they were anxious because they saw her suffering.
Vicky had some misty idea that something was wrong, but she knew very little, and had been forbidden to say anything to Geoff about the little she did know. So that of the whole household Geoff was the only one who knew nothing, and went on living in his Fool's Paradise of having all his wants supplied, yet grumbling that he had nothing! He was in a particularly tiresome mood – perhaps, in spite of themselves, it was impossible for his sisters to bear with him as patiently as usual; perhaps the sight of his mother's pale face made him dissatisfied with himself and cross because he would not honestly own that he was doing nothing to help and please her. And the weather was very disagreeable, and among Geoff's many "hates" was a very exaggerated dislike to bad weather. About this sort of thing he had grumbled much more since his return from a long visit to some friends in the country the summer before, when the weather had been splendid, and everything done to make him enjoy himself, in consequence of which he had come home with a fixed idea that the country was always bright and charming; that it was only in town that one had to face rain and cold and mud. As to fog, he had perhaps more ground for his belief.
"Did you ever see such beastly weather?" were his first words to Vicky one evening when the good little sister had rushed to the door on hearing Geoff's ring, so that his majesty should not be kept waiting an unnecessary moment. "I am perfectly drenched, and as cold as ice. Is tea ready, Vic?"
"Quite ready – at least it will be by the time you've changed your things. Do run up quick, Geoff. It's a bad thing to keep on wet clothes."
"Mamma should have thought of that before she sent me to a day-school," said Geoff. "I've a good mind just not to change my clothes, and take my chance of getting cold. It's perfect slavery – up in the morning before it's light, and not home till pitch dark, and soaked into the bargain."
"Hadn't you your mackintosh on?" asked Vicky.
"My mackintosh! It's in rags. I should have had a new one ages ago."
"Geoff! I'm sure it can't be so bad. You've not had it a year."
"A year. No one wears a mackintosh for a year. The buttons are all off, and the button-holes are burst."
"I'm sure they can be mended. Martha would have done it if you'd asked her," said Vic, resolving to see to the unhappy mackintosh herself. "I know poor mamma doesn't want to spend any extra money just now."
"There's a great deal too much spent on Elsa and Frances, and all their furbelows," said Geoff, in what he thought a very manly tone. "Here, Vicky, help me to pull off my boots, and then I must climb up to the top of the house to change my things."
Vicky knelt down obediently and tugged at the muddy boots, though it was a task she disliked as much as she could dislike anything. She was rewarded by a gruff "Thank you," and when Geoff came down again in dry clothes, to find the table neatly prepared, and his little sister ready to pour out his tea, he did condescend to say that she was a good child! But even though his toast was hot and crisp, and his egg boiled to perfection, Geoff's pleasanter mood did not last long. He had a good many lessons to do that evening, and they were lessons he disliked. Vicky sat patiently, doing her best to help him till her bedtime came, and he had barely finished when Frances brought a message that he was to come upstairs – mamma said he was not to work any longer.
"You have finished, surely, Geoff?" she said, when he entered the drawing-room.
"If I had finished, I would have come up sooner. You don't suppose I stay down there grinding away to please myself, do you?" replied the boy, rudely.
"Geoff!" exclaimed his sisters, unwisely, perhaps.
He turned upon them.
"I've not come to have you preaching at me. Mamma, will you speak to them?" he burst out. "I hate this life – nothing but fault-finding as soon as I show my face. I wish I were out of it, I do! I'd rather be the poorest ploughboy in the country than lead this miserable life in this hateful London."
He said the last words loudly, almost shouting them, indeed. To do him justice, it was not often his temper got so completely the better of him. The noise he was making had prevented him and the others from hearing the bell ring – prevented them, too, from hearing, a moment or two later, a short colloquy on the stairs between Harvey and a new-comer.
"Thank you," said the latter; "I don't want you to announce me. I'll do it myself."
Geoff had left the door open.
"Yes," he was just repeating, even more loudly than before, "I hate this life, I do. I am grinding at lessons from morning to night, and when I come home this is the way you treat me. I – "
But a voice behind him made him start.
"Hoot-toot, young man," it said. "Hoot-toot, hoot-toot! Come, I say, this sort of thing will never do. And ladies present! Hoot – "
But the "toot" was drowned in a scream from Mrs. Tudor.
"Uncle, dear uncle, is it you? Can it be you yourself? Oh, Geoff, Geoff! he is not often such a foolish boy, uncle, believe me. Oh, how – how thankful I am you have come!"
She had risen from her seat and rushed forward to greet the stranger, but suddenly she grew strangely pale, and seemed on the point of falling. Elsa flew towards her on the one side, and the old gentleman on the other.
"Poor dear!" he exclaimed. "I have startled her, I'm afraid. Hoot-toot, hoot-toot, silly old man that I am. Where's that ill-tempered fellow off to?" he went on, glancing round. "Can't he fetch a glass of water, or make himself useful in some way?"
"I will," said Frances, darting forward. Geoffrey had disappeared, and small wonder.
"I am quite right now, thank you," said Mrs. Tudor, trying to smile, when Elsa had got her on to the sofa. "Don't be frightened, Elsa dear. Nor you, uncle; it was just the – the start. I've had a good deal to make me anxious lately, you know."
"I should think I did – those idiots of lawyers!" muttered the old man.
"And poor Geoff," she went on; "I am afraid I have not paid much attention to him lately, and he's felt it – foolishly, perhaps."
"Rubbish!" said Uncle Hoot-Toot under his breath. "Strikes me he's used to a good deal too much attention," he added as an aside to Elsa, with a quick look of inquiry in his bright keen eyes.
Elsa could hardly help smiling, but for her mother's sake she restrained herself.
"It will be all right now you have come home, dear uncle," Mrs. Tudor went on gently. "How was it? Had you started before you got my letters? Why did you not let us know?"
"I was on the point of writing to announce my departure," said the old gentleman, "when your letter came. It struck me then that I could get home nearly as quickly as a letter, and so I thought it was no use writing."
"Then you know – you know all about this bad news?" said Mrs. Tudor falteringly.
"Yes; those fellows wrote to me. That was right enough; but what they meant by worrying you about it, my dear, I can't conceive. It was quite against all my orders. What did poor Frank make me your trustee for, if it wasn't to manage these things for you?"
"Then you think, you hope, there may be something left to manage, do you?" asked Mrs. Tudor, eagerly. "I have been anticipating the very worst. I did not quite like to put it in words to these poor children" – and she looked up affectionately at the two girls;