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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77065 ***





THE BARBAROUS BABES




  THE BARBAROUS BABES

  BEING THE MEMOIRS OF MOLLY

  BY
  EDITH AYRTON
  (MRS. ISRAEL ZANGWILL)

  [Illustration]

  LONDON AND EDINBURGH
  R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON
  MCMIV




  To
  THE MEMORY
  OF
  MY MOTHER




CONTENTS

[Illustration]


                                   PAGE

    I. THE MARTYRDOM OF HUMPHREY      9

   II. SAMSON AND DELILAH            24

  III. VIOLET’S VISIT                34

   IV. THE WHIPPING OF TEDDY         55

    V. THE RAGE OF THE HEATHEN       76

   VI. A FIRST NIGHT                 96

  VII. MOTHER                       110




I

THE MARTYRDOM OF HUMPHREY

(Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission)


It all started because Humphrey and me generally play together, and we
generally play at torturing games. Sometimes we let the little ones,
Violet and Ted, come in too, but they spoil things rather, because
Teddy is so tiny and Violet doesn’t properly enjoy even the loveliest
tortures. We have promised Mother, though, that we will try not to be
selfish, so we pretend we don’t mind their playing with us--much.

I generally make up the tortures because I’m the eldest. My name is
Molly, and I’m the only one that has to use two figures for their age;
I’m ten. Even Humphrey is a good lot younger than me; he’s only nine,
and people don’t think he’s as old as that, because he’s very backward.
It isn’t so much that he can’t think of clever things, but he had an
illness when he was a baby and that makes lessons harder for him than
for other people, ’specially long division. He simply can’t do that; if
they try and make him, he sits and cries, and he has the most peculiar
way of crying of any one I ever saw. He doesn’t make any noise nor
wrinkle up his face, but the tears come dripping down slowly with a
plop. Sometimes he catches them in his mouth, but if he doesn’t, he
always licks them up afterwards, because he says they are good for the
digestion. He is going to be a doctor, so that makes him have ideas
like that. Once he invented a most beautiful red ink, only it made
holes right through his copy-book, and you couldn’t use the same pen
twice, so he had to turn it into a medicine instead.

Though Humphrey can write, he can’t read yet, and that’s another
peculiar thing, because with most people it’s the other way. That’s
partly why it’s always me that invents the games. I read a nice tortury
book, and then tell him about it, and we pretend it through. We did
enjoy _The Tower of London_, but the _Pirates of Algiers_ was almost
better.

One day we were having a lovely time over this; Humphrey had worked
rusty screws into my chest, and had clamped an iron band with spikes
round my head, and then he was lashing me with a waxed thong, when all
of a sudden he stopped.

“It isn’t any fun,” he said, “because by now you must be dead.”

I told him I wasn’t, and that in the book they lashed the slaves for
hours, and he must go on.

He said, “Well, if I’m the torturer, I ought to be allowed to choose
the tortures, and I’m a very enervating torturer.” I don’t know exactly
what he meant, because he’s fond of using long words that make grown-up
people laugh, and then getting sulky. But I _was_ surprised when he
went on solemnly, “Slave, go and put your head in the meal-barrel.”

Of course he meant that I was really to do it, because if one is able
to do a thing there’s no use in just pretending it; but a nice rage
Fräulein would have been in. She’s our governess and I expect she’d
have given me extra practising for a week. If there’s one thing I
loathe it’s the piano, especially now that Fräulein comes and sits
beside me. She used to be in the other room, which is warmer, and just
shout out every now and then, “Zu schnell, ein, zwei, drei, vier,” so I
could read the book on my lap quite comfortably. The music sounded just
the same, and you could shut up your knees quickly if you heard any one
coming, but somehow Fräulein discovered it. Well, thinking of the extra
practising I should have to do, I said to Humphrey rather crossly,
“You’re really too stupid to play with.” Then I walked to the other end
of the room.

I forget if I said that all this happened one Sunday when Mother and
Father had gone up to town for a lunch party. (Mother hates being
away from us like that, especially on a Sunday, but they had to go.)
Fräulein had been getting the little ones ready for church, but now
they came down and we started almost directly. It was such a lovely day
that we took the short cut through the woods; I found some wild roses,
quite pink ones, and the paths were all mossy and quiet. I stopped
wanting to be cross; woods always do make one feel gooder somehow. It
is all so silent and lovely.

In church it was very nice too. We had a most splendid sounding psalm,
and “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which is my favourite hymn, and we
didn’t stay for the sermon. By the time we got out I was perfectly
aching with goodness; I wanted to go away at once and bind up wounded
soldiers and things like that.

I was going along planning it all, and how nobly I’d catch fever from
a poor drummer-boy and lie beautiful in death with wreaths all around
me, when suddenly I remembered what Mother once said about people
thinking they’d do great deeds and passing by the duties that are on
their path. So, as Humphrey was dawdling behind, because he was cross,
I waited for him and asked him if I should tell him some story. This
doesn’t sound much but really it was awfully hard, because you don’t
know how horrid Humphrey looks when he is sulky. Besides, the little
ones are always bothering me to tell them stories, so I get rather sick
of it, and Mother said that they must give me a holiday and not even
ask me to on Sundays.

Well, Humphrey was certainly very nice; he caught hold of my hand.
“Molly,” he said very slowly, and wagging his head like he always
does; “Molly, it would be a gweat welief onto my mind to know if Lady
Flowence Gwendoline escaped fwom the wobber’s cave, but I’m going to
wait till to-mowow.” It’s horrid for him not being able to say his
“r’s” properly, when he’s nearly nine and a quarter, and Ted who is
only five can talk as if he were grown up. Humph minds so much though,
that we pretend not to notice it. Any way I don’t believe it’s a bit of
good his putting rubber bands round his tongue, to curl it to the right
shape, like we found him in bed one night. He’s been happier, though,
since Mother told him we all had our bundles of affliction to carry,
and that not being able to say his “r’s” was in his bundle. And if it
were heavy, Mother said, he mustn’t grumble, but just step out more
bravely. I’m sure, though, it isn’t a bit heavier than having hair that
will get untidy, and to stand still and not get impatient while it’s
being brushed, is a very difficult sort of stepping out.

All this time Humphrey had been squeezing my hand harder and harder,
and now he said, “I’ve thought of a lovely new torture that I know
you’ll like. I thought of it all myself in church. It’s cutting off
your head and tying it onto a wampant horse and then dancing.”

I didn’t know what to say, because of course he was thinking of Salome,
whom we’d had the second lesson about, and Mother doesn’t like us
acting things out of the Bible, but just then we saw a bush of burs.
We always like to have burs, because they’re so convenient to put in
one another’s hair and down people’s backs and nice tortury things of
that sort; these, though, grew right in the middle of a bed of nettles.
“Disagweable things,” said Humphrey.

But when I saw the nettles I remembered more than ever about the duties
on one’s path, and how I’d promised Mother to try and be unselfish,
and I thought perhaps this would make up for some of the times I
hadn’t been. Besides, I thought how astonished Humphrey would be at
my bravery. So I just pretended that I was the Black Prince scaling
the walls of Calais, and I dashed into the stinging-nettles. I forgot,
though, that the Prince had got his armour on, and we’d gone into
summer stockings that day, at least the other three wear socks, but,
of course, I’m too old. But by thinking I was Joan of Arc as well,
I got the burs, and when I came out Humphrey was so astonished, he
couldn’t say anything at all, particularly when I gave them all to him.
I didn’t keep a single one.

My legs were hurting dreadfully, so I pulled down my stockings to
look, and there were a lot of great white lumps; that was rather nice,
because sometimes things are horrid, like earache, with nothing to show
for it and all waste. So I sent Humphrey for some dock leaves, but he
couldn’t find any, though when you aren’t wanting them, you are always
seeing them. He said that if you rubbed on the milk of dandelions with
a dead mole’s paw, it would do just as well, but then we hadn’t got a
mole, except the one we are trying to tame on the tennis lawn, and he
isn’t dead.

Poor Humphrey looked quite unhappy when I told him this. He was quiet
for a long time, and then he said, “I’ll go on lashing you with waxed
thongs if you like.” I did think that nice of him. Generally if we
quarrel, you might cut him up into little bits before he’d say he was
wrong.

So I thanked him but I said it didn’t matter, because we must hurry
home. On Sundays we have tart for dinner, and if Mother’s at home there
is generally cream, and even if Fräulein is stingy about that, I didn’t
want to miss the tart, particularly as I knew that it was raspberry.
I forgot to explain that if we are late for meals, we don’t have any
pudding, at least at breakfast or tea it’s jam, unless there is a very
good reason why we couldn’t help it. I dare say if I’d shown Fräulein
my lumps on my legs she’d have excused me, but, of course, I wasn’t
going to do that; I should have liked the little ones to have seen them
though before they went down. They were very large lumps.

It was when we were going along that I had the Great Idea. I was
thinking about the tortures, because I knew Humphrey would want to do
Salome, unless I could tell him of something else. “We’ll be Christian
martyrs,” I said suddenly. “You shall be burnt.”

Humphrey stood still in the middle of the road with his mouth open,
like he does when he’s pleased. “When?” he asked at last.

“After dinner,” I said. “Being Sunday makes it all the better. You
shall be Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper and tied to a stake and burnt.”

It really is a convenient thing that Fräulein likes a nap on Sunday;
we got rid of the little ones too because it was such a very great
secret that we thought Mother wouldn’t mind. Then Humphrey and I
crept silently up to the orchard; we are allowed there always, but it
seemed to make it nicer to creep. Humphrey brought his dark lantern,
but you can’t light it because it drops to pieces, and I believe
he was thinking of Guy Fawkes, but he said I couldn’t be sure that
Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper didn’t have a lantern too.

Our orchard is a very nice place; generally the washing is hung there,
but, of course, there isn’t any out on Sundays. So we collected a lot
of twigs and things and piled them round a clothes-prop, and I stuck in
all the burs to prick the martyr’s feet. Then I poured paraffin over it
all. I forgot to say that I had brought the can up out of the scullery.
When it was all ready I tied Humphrey to the post with some of the
clothes-line.

He looked lovely, he really did, just like Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper.
I took off the sailor hat and told him to shut his eyes and say his
prayers, while I hit him with things--not hard, of course, that would
be horribly mean when he was all tied up, but just pretence. And I kept
asking him if he would abjure his faith, because I was Bloody Mary, but
he wouldn’t, and then I hit him again. Only in the middle he sneezed
and I had to get out his pocket-handkerchief, which spoilt it rather. I
don’t know what Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper did if he wanted to blow his
nose.

Well, after some time Humphrey said that he was uncomfortable and must
be burnt quick. So I asked him once more if he’d abjure, and then I
said in awful tones, “Minion, fire the faggots.”

Of course, I had to be the minion myself, because Humphrey’s hands were
tied. We’d brought up a box of matches and I struck one; and now comes
the dreadful part. I don’t know how it happened, for I threw the match
down quite a long way off; it must have been the paraffin or something,
for suddenly the flame ran along the grass and it all began really to
blaze.

For the first second we were both so frightened, we didn’t do anything;
then Humphrey screamed. I rushed forward and tried to pull him out, but
I couldn’t, and I tried to push away the twigs and things, but they
only seemed to burn more than ever. All this time I was screaming too
in the most curious way and shaking all over though it was so hot. I
was just going to run and fetch Mother, because I’d forgotten she was
out to lunch, when suddenly the clothes-prop came out of the ground,
and Humphrey stumbled forward. When he’d got out of the fire he fell
down on his face and wouldn’t speak, so I was more frightened than ever.

They carried Humphrey down to the house, for, of course, I went and
fetched Fräulein. He wasn’t crying, he was quite still, which seemed
worse. I wanted to go for the doctor, but Fräulein told me I’d done
quite enough harm and I’d better keep out of the way. So I went up to
the box-room and cried. My only comfort was that my hands were hurting
a lot, because they were burnt too, though I hadn’t felt it before.
Still I couldn’t pretend to be Casabianca like Humphrey might have, I
could only think I was a murderer and going to be hanged, and there
wasn’t much comfort even in that.

I don’t know how long I stopped there, but I didn’t have any tea nor
supper either, and I cried so that my face felt quite stiff. At last,
as it was getting dark, Mother came in. She didn’t see me, but she said
my name softly; that made me feel dreadful. So I just sobbed out, “Is
he dead like Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper?”

But suddenly Mother took me up in her arms. “Oh, no, no, my poor little
girl,” she said. “He isn’t very badly burnt, he only fainted.” Then she
carried me downstairs, just as if I were one of the little ones, and
when she saw my hands she quite cried out. She put oil and cotton-wool
on to them, and it was lovely, and she brought me some soup and helped
me to undress. I felt much happier.

First of all, though, I went in to see Humphrey. He was in bed, and
he didn’t look very different. Directly he saw me, he called out, “Do
you know that you’ve got seven skins? The doctor told me so; and I’m
playing that I’m a wounded fireman in the hospital, but it’s no fun
without you.”

I don’t think Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper could have said anything nicer.




II

SAMSON AND DELILAH

(Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission)


Boys with long hair are always silly, and Lionel was one of the
silliest. I don’t know whether it was having the curls that had done
it, or if he had been born stupid, but any way he used to make a most
awful fuss if he knocked himself or cut his finger, and he liked to
have his hands clean, and cried if you didn’t always play just what he
wanted. Another peculiar thing about him was that he seemed to enjoy
it, if visitors noticed him or admired his hair, instead of escaping as
any of us would have done. Fortunately they don’t pay much attention to
us, because our hair is short. At least mine and Humphrey’s is, and
though Violet’s has been allowed to grow, it is quite straight, and an
ugly sort of lighty brown in colour. As for Teddy, he is only four, so
his hair doesn’t count.

Though I’ve spoken of Lionel here by his proper name, we didn’t call
him that. It was much too long, and so we christened him “Macassar
Oil,” because I discovered that the first part of Lionel written
backwards spells oil, and Cousin Florence does put stuff on his hair.
She didn’t seem a bit pleased though, when I explained it to her,
though I don’t believe she’d have ever thought of it for herself.
Cousin Florence is Lionel’s mother, and they’ve always lived in India,
so we children had never seen them until they came to stay with us.

It was funny, but though we’d never wanted people to do anything before
but leave us alone, we found that we didn’t a bit like it always being
Lionel and his curls that every one made such a fuss over. I don’t
mean, of course, that Mother was any different, but she was so busy
that she couldn’t attend to us much, for there was a dinner party
and lots of other things to amuse Cousin Florence, and cook’s temper
is always awful. Why, some evenings she couldn’t even come to say
good-night to us and tuck us up, (I mean Mother, not cook), and that
makes everything seem horrid.

It wasn’t only Lionel that was such a trial, but Cousin Florence was
always there too. She said she liked to watch us play, as if we could
do anything with a grown-up person looking on, and just at that time
we were in the middle of a most exciting game, where Humphrey was my
grandfather and very strict and nearly starved and beat me to death.
One day we couldn’t stand it any longer, so Humph and I ran off and
left Cousin Florence and Lionel. We hid all the afternoon in the cave
we’ve discovered, where you have to sit quite doubled up because it’s
so small and secret, and it was lovely. But Mother made us promise
not to do it again. She said Bayard wouldn’t have done it nor any
one like that, because they considered the laws of hospitality to be
most sacred, and that they showed politeness to a visitor even if
he’d insulted them. So after that we always played with Lionel, but
underneath Humph and I had another game all the time, and that helped
us. We pretended that we were Knights of the Round Table, and that
Lionel was the Unwelcome Guest, who had to be courteously entreated; we
said “please” and “thank you” to him in almost every sentence. Really
that was the only game at which Lionel was much good, for he didn’t
seem to understand pretending at all, so he always had to act a passing
gentleman or some silly thing of that sort. He couldn’t even be a
regiment of soldiers properly.

Any one would think that things were bad enough like this, but it was
much worse when Macassar Oil’s grandmother came to stay too. She wasn’t
any relation of ours really, but she told us to call her Aunt Arabella,
and so we did, although we didn’t want to. I didn’t like her from the
first, though I never guessed that she’d take to watching us as well
as Cousin Florence. But the most insulting part was that we found out
they did it because they didn’t like to leave Lionel alone with us.
They said that we were so rough and would hurt him or something, just
because Humphrey once knocked him down, and as Lionel is eleven months
older, I’m sure he ought to have been ashamed not to be able to take
care of himself. Besides that was before Mother told us about Bayard.
Another horrid thing that Cousin Florence and Aunt Arabella did, was
always to make out that Lionel had won in races, and if Fräulein, our
governess, was there, she was just as bad, and they didn’t seem to
think it dreadful when Lionel cheated or anything, but only said to one
another, in French, how sweet he looked with his golden hair and things
like that.

Well, we tried to bear it and be good--we really did. It was most
unlucky that just the day when I was feeling particularly cross with
Lionel, because he’d gone in to lunch with the grown-ups, and Humph
and I were too untidy, that I happened to see the picture of Samson in
the old scrap-book. I won’t tell you more about it now, because you’ll
understand better further on, but it was that picture that put the
whole thing into my head.

I’d better say at once that of course we knew that what we meant to
do was naughty, though we pretended to ourselves that it wasn’t;
but we really didn’t know _how_ naughty it was until Mother told us
afterwards. Besides, we didn’t wait to let ourselves think, which
Mother says is always a mistake, for it was directly after lunch that
it all happened.

I don’t think I’ve said that in the afternoon Lionel always went to
sleep; he really does just as if he were a baby, only on hot days
Cousin Florence sometimes puts a rug and cushions and things for him in
the garden. Then every one used to leave him, for we children were only
too glad to get away, and so they didn’t think they need watch over him
any more.

That afternoon it was very warm, and it all went most conveniently.
Instead of going up to the orchard though, as we generally did when
Lionel rested, we hid in the laurel bushes. Then as soon as Cousin
Florence had gone into the house I crept out. Lionel was still awake,
and I made him put his head on my knees. I felt rather mean at that
part, but it couldn’t be helped, for that’s what Delilah really did,
and Lionel didn’t mind, because he likes any one to cuddle him, instead
of only his mother like most people. Then I sat quite still though I
got the most awful pins and needles in my left foot.

At last he went to sleep and I called “Man, Man,” softly, and Humphrey
came wriggling along the grass, like we’d planned.

“Shave off the seven locks of Samson’s head,” I whispered, but then I
saw that Humph had brought father’s razor because it said “shave,” so I
told him not to be so silly, but to run and fetch a pair of scissors.

Humphrey was very quick, I will say that, and Lionel didn’t stir, so
the exciting part could begin. Humph was the lords of the Philistines
now, of course, and I took the scissors. And then--it was dreadful I
know--I really cut off Lionel’s curls!

Lionel never woke, and the scissors went snip, snip, most beautifully.
I did enjoy it, because I thought so hard about its being Samson and
Delilah that I couldn’t remember it was naughty. At last the curls were
all off, and though the hair wasn’t very even, not like the barber does
it, because it was most difficult, still it was beautifully short in
places. Humph had been looking on almost too astonished to speak, but
when I jumped up and cried, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson,” he
rushed at Lionel like I’d told him to.

Lionel, though, spoilt it all. He always does. He wouldn’t do anything
that was proper, nor have his eyes put out, but just began to howl.
He howled and howled, and Cousin Florence and Mother and Father and
everybody came tearing out of the house. They all spoke at once, and
cried out that Lionel’s appearance was spoilt, and all sorts of things,
and certainly, now that I saw him properly, he did look rather bad, and
quite ugly. The astonishing part was that they seemed almost as cross
with Lionel as with us, though I kept explaining that he’d been asleep
all the time, for that was only fair. Finally Father sent Humph and me
to our rooms very angrily.

But I didn’t mind that, like I did Mother’s coming up that evening and
talking to me. It was dreadful. She said that she was disappointed in
me and not only had I been rude to guests myself, but I’d made her
and Father seem rude; and she told me that Cousin Florence and Lionel
were going away early in the morning, so what I’d done had practically
driven them out of the house. But the worst was when she said that she
had trusted me to look after the others, because I was the eldest, and
to be a help to her, but now she found that she couldn’t, and that she
must ask Fräulein to always stop with us. I began to wish that I could
be dead.

At last, though, Mother forgave me. And she said that if I was very
good for a long time, then her confidence in me would come back again,
and so I’m going to be. And I’m never going to be Delilah again, never,
because I see now how wicked she was to cut off any one’s hair without
first asking her mother.




III

VIOLET’S VISIT


The most astonishing part was its being Violet who was naughty and not
me. I forget if I’ve said anything about Violet, but the little ones
don’t count very much, for Ted is almost a baby, and Violet sits all
day making doll’s clothes. Violet is seven, her birthday was in July,
and she has straight, lighty-brown hair; I think her eyes are brown
too, but she isn’t particularly dark like me, nor fair like Ted. She
isn’t particularly anything, except good-tempered, and that she is
tremendously. I expect it’s because she’s rather fat, because all the
rest of us are “lean kine,” and we certainly aren’t very good-tempered,
although we don’t all have it in the same way. Humphrey gets sulky and
doesn’t speak at all, and Ted runs round and round the room slapping
the chairs and saying, “Beast, beast, beast, beast,” as quickly as ever
he can. As for me, when I get cross, I want to go away alone, and if I
can’t, I’d like to slap the others, which is worse than chairs, only
I don’t do it because it makes Mother unhappy; I believe it hurts her
more than them.

The curiousest part of Violet is that the things she is told to do
are always the things she likes, so she must be an “_Engel Kind_,” as
Fräulein says. And when once she is told a thing, she remembers it for
ever; she’d make a simply splendid Casabianca. Humphrey and I always
think that, however much we’d been told to sit still and not wriggle,
when we saw the fire coming, we’d have forgotten all about it, and we’d
have jumped up and tried to put it out. It doesn’t seem as if it ought
to have been very difficult with all that water around, and I dare say
the Father would have been just as pleased really as if we’d all been
burnt.

So you can understand now how astonished we were at Violet’s being
naughty, though perhaps what she did wasn’t naughtiness exactly, but
too much goodness, which seems to be nearly as bad. I’ve been wondering
since if goodness isn’t Violet’s besetting sin, but I suppose it can’t
be really. It’s something like being too punctual, I think. Father
used to tell us that the Duke of Wellington owed his success in life
to always being half an hour too early, but all I can say is, it’s
lucky he didn’t have our Fräulein. One day we tried it, because there’d
been such a lot of fuss about my being late for breakfast, so I got up
exactly half an hour before we were called, and of course I made the
others get up too. Well, when Fräulein came in, she simply stormed and
said I was a “_Dummkopf_,” and did I want to give Teddy croup playing
in a room without a fire? She set me half an hour’s extra practising
too; so that just shows.

This all hasn’t anything to do with Violet’s scrape; that wasn’t my
fault in the least, no one said it was, not even Fräulein. If it was
anybody’s fault, it was Mother’s, because she hates paying calls.
I should feel just the same if I were her, because it’s perfectly
horrid having on your best clothes; you can’t climb trees, nor hang by
your legs nor do anything interesting, but Humphrey says he shall go
calling all day when he’s grown up, so as to get scones and things for
tea. Humphrey has got an awfully sweet tooth, and he is rather greedy
besides. Another thing he says is that he doesn’t mind whom he marries,
but he has settled to have a most enormous wedding-cake, and to cut it
himself. I like wedding-cake too, but I don’t care about it as much as
all that, and I’d sooner be a widow, of course.

Well, to go on about Violet. How it all started was that one evening
Father said to Mother, “You’ve never called on those Crespignys who’ve
come to live at Boscombe Park. You really must, you know, dear.”

“I don’t feel very attracted by them,” Mother said, and she laughed.

But Father said it was no good being rude to people, and that the
Crespignys were new comers, so Mother ought to leave cards this week.

“Very well,” Mother said, “only I shall be glad when Molly and Violet
are able to pay my calls for me.”

“Well, it’s to be hoped Molly will discontinue her practice of smashing
people’s best crockery and spilling tea over their plush sofas,” but,
of course, I rushed at Father for saying that. It is a shame. I only
once dropped a plate when I was out calling, and once I upset my cup,
but the people happened to be awfully fussy, and Mother said I mustn’t
pay visits any more. I’m sure it wasn’t my fault that they had velvet
chairs, and no one seems to remember that it isn’t pleasant sitting
there with scalding tea trickling down your legs, and never say a word,
like the Spartan boy.

In the middle of the commotion, because Father started tickling me
when I punched him, Violet said suddenly, “Can’t I go and call on the
Crespignys now?” We were most astonished because Violet is so shy she
generally cries if she has to see strangers, so I thought it was just
to show she’d be allowed to, because she doesn’t upset things like me,
and I said very crossly--

“Oh, we all know you are a saint without your telling us.”

I felt sorry directly afterwards, because Violet got quite red and I
ought to have remembered that she’s very little and doesn’t understand
much besides dolls, so I got out Aytoun’s Lays and stuffed my fingers
into my ears to show I didn’t care at all. All the same I could hear
them talking, and Mother said to Violet--

“Never mind, dear, I know it wasn’t that. You shall go to call on the
Crespignys if your new dress comes home this week, my good little girl.”

Mother was pleased, because she is always telling Violet she must
conquer her shyness, and she thought she was trying to. As for me, I
felt horrid.

It was the very next day that Mother got ill, and that made us forget
about the Crespignys and everything. Mother isn’t very strong, and
she often has to stay in bed, but this was much worse than usual and
we weren’t allowed to see her for days. The one nice thing was that
Fräulein was in with Mother nearly all the time, so there was nobody to
bother us and we could do lots of nice things. We children used even to
have tea alone; we did like it. I used to pour out, and there were no
fines or anything if we spilt things on the cloth. Certainly it did get
into rather a mess, but that was mostly because Humphrey would drink
his milk up a bit of macaroni like the gentlemen do at Father’s club,
only they use a straw. Cook was so nice too, she used to send us up hot
buttered toast, and it was all most lovely, except, of course, Mother’s
being ill, which spoilt everything. That was almost too horrid to bear,
especially when one went to bed.

It was the night that cook was kindest of all and gave us real tea,
that Violet wasn’t there. I remember it quite well, because we were
so astonished to see cook bringing up the teapot instead of our just
having a jug of milk, but she said a drop would liven us up in a house
of trouble. It is a pity cook can’t always live in houses of trouble,
it makes her so much nicer. Humphrey was particularly pleased, because
he said he’d always been wanting to try an experiment of putting the
milk and sugar into the pot and drinking out of the spout in turns. I
couldn’t let him do it though until after we’d had first cups, else
there wouldn’t have been any honour in my being Pourer Out at all.

We’d been wondering where Violet was ever since tea came, for generally
she’s the only one of us who is punctual except Teddy, and Fräulein
washes his hands so he can’t help it. I thought she couldn’t know, so
at last I sent Humph to tell her, though he was rather cross and would
only go after we’d said three times “Certain true, black and blue,
lay me down and cut me in two,” that we wouldn’t touch his toast. We
didn’t like to shout for Violet, you see, because of Mother.

Well, Humph was gone a long time, because he always takes longer over
everything than you’d think a person possibly could, and when he came
back he said he couldn’t find Violet. I wasn’t surprised at that and I
went myself expecting that I’d see her directly, but I didn’t. I hunted
everywhere, but I couldn’t find any sign of her, until at last when I
went into our bedroom again, I noticed that the string had been taken
off the box in which her new dress had come from the dressmaker’s. I
opened it, and her new dress had gone, so had her best hat and coat! We
remembered then that we hadn’t seen her all the afternoon. It was most
astonishing.

I didn’t know what to do; I really didn’t. It was quite dark outside by
now so I thought Violet must have gone out and got lost, and I began
to plan about their bringing her home dead, but I didn’t want to tell
people and get her into a scrape, besides, Fräulein was in Mother’s
room. It didn’t seem either as if Violet could have done anything so
dreadfully naughty as to go out alone and get killed, besides wearing
her best clothes on a week-day.

We’d finished tea by now, and we put crumbs and things in Violet’s
place to pretend she’d been there, but I wouldn’t let Humph upset her
cup, because Violet is so tidy it wouldn’t have looked more real at
all, and he only wanted to because he thought it would be so lovely to
spill things on purpose. About six o’clock Father came in and I was
just going to tell him, but the first thing he said was, “Why, where’s
little Mrs. Roundabout?” He calls Violet that because she is so fat.

Father was as surprised as any of us when he heard she was lost, but
he didn’t think she could have gone out. “Nonsense,” he said, “she
must have gone to sleep in some corner,” as if anybody except babies
and grown-ups would go to sleep in the daytime. However, we searched
the house all over again. It was rather nice at first, only then I
thought of the Princes in the Tower and I was afraid I’d find her
body mouldering in the boot cupboard or somewhere, but we didn’t see
anything at all. Then Father and Stubbins (he is the gardener) searched
all over the garden with lanterns like in a book, but they didn’t find
anything there either. After that, they came in again and Father told
Stubbins to go to the village and make inquiries at every cottage, and
he was just getting ready himself to bicycle round to all the people we
know, when suddenly the front door opened--and there was Violet.

She didn’t look a bit naughty, that was what surprised me most. She was
just smiling to herself like she does sometimes in church, and she’d
got on her best things, like I thought, and Mother’s black _moiré_
parasol in one hand and her ivory card case in the other and the plush
case with the opera glasses over her arm. I think Father was all the
crosser because she looked so pleased. Anyway he almost shouted out,
“Where on earth have you been, turning the whole house upside down?
Upon my word it’s perfectly intolerable!”

Well, after that it wasn’t any good talking any more, for Violet began
to cry, and when she once starts she goes on and on for hours and can’t
understand anything. Father asked her where she’d been about a hundred
times but she wouldn’t answer, so at last he marched off, telling her
to go upstairs and that she wasn’t to come down until she’d apologised.

I did wish Mother was there; she’d have made it all nice at once. I
remembered though about being the eldest, and I tried to think of the
kind of things Mother would have done, so I took Violet’s hand and we
went upstairs together. When we got to the schoolroom I sat down in
the big armchair and I managed to drag Violet on to my lap, and I took
off her boots and hugged her and told Humph to try and get some bread
and jam out of cook because that makes you feel a lot less miserable.
Violet was still crying, but I sat there, though my arms began to
feel as if they’d drop off, when at last she sobbed out, “I thought
everybody would be so pleased, and Mother said I was to.” She wouldn’t
say anything else but just that over and over again, crying all the
time, so, of course, I couldn’t understand, but I just went on kissing
her and didn’t talk, like Mother does. It had never been so easy to be
nice to Violet before.

It seemed a long time before Humph brought the bread and jam, but when
he did it was strawberry jam, which was particularly lucky because it’s
Violet’s favourite. I told Humph he’d better go away again, and then
at last Violet stopped crying, and so I said to her, “But what was it
Mother said you were to do?”

Violet looked quite surprised, “Why go and call on the Crespignys, of
course. She partic’ly said I was to, if my new dress came home.”

I nearly let her roll off my lap. She’d almost been doing it the whole
time because she’s so fat, but now she nearly went quite because I was
so astonished. I’d have thought she was making it up, if it had been
one of the others, but Violet never pretends. “How ever did you get
there?” I said.

I could hardly believe it when she said she’d walked; it’s more than
three miles each way, and I don’t think even I have ever walked as far
as that. “Weren’t you very frightened?” I asked.

I don’t know if I ought to put the next bit, but it truthfully isn’t
bragging because it is what Violet answered: “I thought I’d try and be
brave like you,” she said.

Of course, after that I hugged her again and she went on telling me
more.

“I _was_ dreadfully frightened when I got to the house and went up the
big steps. So I shut my eyes and said, ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,’
and at the Amen I jumped and pulled the bell. It made a dreadfully loud
ring and almost at once the door opened and there were two gentlemen
with white hair but quite young-looking faces and such pretty clothes.
Oh Molly, I shall dress Rhoderigo William Wallace like that with
beautiful red plush knickerbockers and----”

“Go on,” I said, because I was most interested; it seemed just like in
a story.

“Well, I said to one of the gentlemen, ‘Please is Mrs. Crespigny
indoors because I’ve come to pay a call on her?’ So he said, ‘Yes, her
ladyship is at home, but who might you be, Miss?’ I told him my name
was Violet, and that my Mother didn’t want to come, besides being ill,
and then I handed him Mother’s card case that I’d filled with visiting
cards of my own, like those you wrote for the guinea-pig. He took one
out and gave it to the other gentleman, saying, ‘John, go and ask her
ladyship.’ That is what they called Mrs. Crespigny, so I knew she must
be really a princess and that that was why she had such beautiful
servants.

“There was a lot of laughing somewhere, but presently Mr. John came
back and said, ‘Walk this way, Miss,’ so I followed him into a big
room, where there were lots of people, but, oh Molly, they didn’t
have crowns on or satin dresses, or anything, they had partic’ly ugly
clothes, and all the ladies wore things just like gentlemen, only not
trousers; Mr. John was the only beautiful one there.

“I was just looking round because there seemed to be such lots and lots
of people, when a lady came up, I think it was Mrs. Crespigny, and she
said in rather a cross way, ‘So you’ve come to call on me because your
Mother doesn’t care to,’ and so I said ‘Yes,’ and every one laughed,
I don’t know why. I stood there and I didn’t know what to do until I
remembered Mother telling some one that at calls the ladies talked
about the weather and babies from the time she went into the room to
the time she came out, so I said ‘Good morning, your ladyship. It is a
lovely day. Have you got any babies?’

“Well, I don’t see how I could help it, because I couldn’t talk about
her babies without knowing if she’d got any, but everybody looked as
if I’d said something naughty, and Mrs. Crespigny went right away very
angrily, and just at that minute Mother’s parasol dropped with a great
clatter, so I thought Mrs. Crespigny would be really cross, and when
I picked it up, the opera glasses dropped too. It was dreadful. One
gentleman said, ‘Allow me,’ and he put them over my arm again just as
if I’d been grown up, and I began to feel a little better, only then he
said, ‘Won’t you give me a kiss?’ I said, ‘No, thank you,’ and they all
laughed again.

“There’d been a lady standing near, a very funny lady with a whip in
her hand, and quite a short skirt, and short hair too, and gaiters like
Father’s; and she said all at once, ‘Dash it all! leave the kid alone
and give it some grub.’ She truthfully did, and she was quite grown up;
but perhaps her mother had never told her she oughtn’t to use bad words
like that.

“This lady was kind, though she was so funny. She got me some milk,
because Mother never said I might have tea when I went calling, though
I did want it, ’specially as lots of people were having it so funnily
in teeny-weeny little glasses without any milk or sugar; and the lady
got me a nice little pink cake too. Then she sat down beside me and
asked me why I’d come, and she hardly seemed to believe it when I told
her Mother had said I could go and pay calls instead of her now. She
asked me about the opera glasses too, so I said I knew people took them
when they went out, but I hadn’t been sure about calls, only I thought
it was a good thing always to be on the safe side, like Jane says. The
funny lady asked me who Jane was, and I said, ‘Our housemaid,’ and the
funny lady said it was a wise rule, although perhaps opera glasses were
not very customary when calling.

“Just at this minute I looked up, and I saw a most ’stonishing thing.
A lady was holding a cigarette, and a gentleman was striking a match
to light it. The gentleman saw me looking and he began to laugh, and
he called out, ‘Take care, or that little girl’s eyes will drop out of
her head with fright.’ Then he said, ‘Haven’t you ever seen a lady
smoke before?’ and I said, ‘No ladies ever do smoke,’ and they all
laughed again, I don’t know why. They seemed to be always laughing.

“The clock struck then, and that made me think of the time, so I asked
them if I’d been there twenty minutes yet, because I’d forgotten to
look when I came in. I’d asked Father yesterday how long people ought
to stay at calls, and he told me he believed twenty minutes was the
correct time. One gentleman said I’d been in the room twenty-one
minutes, fifteen seconds and three-quarters, so I went out quickly.
I didn’t know if I ought to shake hands with Mr. John and the other
beautiful one at the door, but I had such a lot of things to carry I
thought they’d excuse me, so I just said goodbye. That’s all. It was
such a long way home I thought it would never come. It was such a very
long way.”

Wasn’t that astonishing? I hadn’t interrupted Violet, because I wanted
to hear it all, though of course I knew that she’d made a mistake,
and that Mother had never meant that she should go and call on the
Crespignys alone. It was no good saying anything when she’d finished
because she was nearly asleep, so I just went and helped her to go to
bed.

Then I went down and told Father. I tried to tell him exactly what
Violet had said, and he simply roared with laughter. I didn’t think it
was funny myself, but just like a story; and I do think Violet was very
brave. Father went up at once to forgive her and say good-night, but
she was too sleepy to understand anything except that it was all right.

Violet didn’t go calling any more, but the very next Christmas a most
lovely mother-of-pearl card case came for her, with her initials on,
which just shows that if you really try to be good it is nice in the
end. When Mother saw it, she said she thought the funny lady must have
sent it, the one who talked bad words, but Violet always believes it
was a present from Mr. John. She has made Rhoderigo William Wallace
a pair of red velvet knickerbockers out of a bit from Fräulein’s old
bonnet, and they are most beautiful, except that he can’t sit down.
Perhaps that is why Mr. John never did either.




IV

THE WHIPPING OF TEDDY


We were all sitting so happily one evening when Mother told us. She had
been reading aloud to us, as she always does on Sundays after tea, and
it was the _Water-Babies_. It is a most lovely story, and makes you
want to drown dreadfully, but we had just got to the end. “That’s all,”
Mother said, and shut the book. Then she stopped a minute. “Chicks,
Mother has got to go a long journey too, to the Other-end-of-Nowhere,
like little Tom.”

Well, we all thought Mother was joking, and we laughed. Teddy was
sitting on her lap, because he is the littlest, and we all snuggle down
on the rug around. The Dustman had come to him rather, because it was
past his bedtime, only he stays up later on Sundays. “Teddy going to
the Other-end-of-Nowhere,” he said, in a very sleepy way.

We all laughed again at that. “Yes, and Mother is Mrs.
Doasyouwouldbedoneby,” Humphrey said. Mother didn’t answer.

“Are we really going away, Mother?” I asked.

I looked up then, and I was most astonished. Mother’s eyes were full of
tears. “Little Tom had to go alone,” she said, “and poor Mother must go
alone too, without her Water-babies.”

All at once I got frightened. I clutched Mother’s hand hard and sat
still. I didn’t seem able to speak at all. “But how long for, Mother?”
Humph asked. “Fwee days?” Because Mother does sometimes go away from
Friday to Monday with Father, although we all grumble very much.

We couldn’t see Mother’s face at all, for she was kissing Teddy’s head.
He was quite asleep by now. “No, for a much longer time than that,”
she said; “for more than three months--for the whole winter.”

“Oh no, no, no!” Humph and Violet called out; but I still couldn’t
speak. I seemed to have expected it somehow. “But why, Mother, why?”
Humphrey said. “We haven’t been very naughty.”

Then Mother told us. She said that when she was so ill last month (the
time that Violet went calling all alone) our doctor had said that he
thought she mustn’t be in England for the cold weather. And yesterday,
when she went up to London with Father, she had been to see a very
great doctor, and he had said just the same, and that she must start
off almost directly.

“But take us, take us too, Mother,” Humph begged. Still I couldn’t say
anything.

“I can’t, my little son, I can’t. We aren’t rich enough. It is
difficult for Father even to find the money for Mother to go alone.”

“Think how nice it will be when I come back again,” Mother said
presently. “It will be getting summer, and we’ll go for lovely picnics
in the woods. And there will be surprises in my box, such surprises for
each one of you!”

“Mother going away for two, five, six, a million years!” Teddy shouted
suddenly. He clapped his hands and laughed as if it were something nice.

Well, I couldn’t help it; it seemed more than one could bear. “Be
quiet, you hateful, horrid idiot!” I said. “If you are glad Mother is
going, every one isn’t.”

“Hush, hush, Molly!” Mother said. “Teddy is so little, he doesn’t
understand.” She laid her hand on my head. Then no one said anything
for a long time. Violet had started off to cry, and Humph was crying
too, though he pretended he wasn’t, so he wouldn’t blow his nose, but
kept on kind of snorting. It couldn’t have been that his handkerchief
was dirty, because it was Sunday. As for me, I was behind Mother’s
chair, and no one could see me. Teddy was the only happy one; he’d
gone to sleep again.

“Oh, children, children!” all at once Mother said. “Don’t make it
harder for me. Mother hates to go.”

Well, I hadn’t thought about it that way before. There was Mother going
all alone, and at least I’d got the Count of Aulon, (he’s my rat),
besides the others.

“You’ll--you’ll get quite strong there, Mother, won’t you? and be able
to run races and--and all sorts of things, when you come back?” My
voice was hardly funny at all.

But suddenly Mother began to cry; she really did. “My little ones! oh,
my ‘preshun cats!’” she whispered. That’s what we like her to call us
when we are very cuddly. And for a minute we all sort of cried together.

“Why, this will never do; Mother is the biggest baby of you all,”
Mother said, and she smiled. “Soon there will be a big pond on the
carpet, and you will be really water-babies. Wouldn’t Teddy be
surprised to wake up and find himself swimming about the drawing-room.
Come, we must put the wee man to bed.” As Mother laughed, of course we
all laughed too.

Well, in the next few days we got more used to the idea of Mother’s
going away, and it didn’t seem quite so dreadful. She told us that she
was going to a place called Algiers, where there were black people,
real live ones walking about the streets in funny clothes, and that
she’d draw pictures of them for us, and of course that was very
interesting. But still we were pretty miserable--all except Teddy. It
seemed as if I couldn’t forgive him. He didn’t mind a bit more than he
had done the first evening, even when he was quite awake. I began to
think he hadn’t got any heart, like Nero. Now Humph, though at times
you’d think he cared about nothing but what sort of pudding there was
going to be for dinner, yet when big sort of things come, you just
find out he does. And he is most awfully brave too, Humph is. Once he
chopped a piece off his finger and the blood was simply pouring out,
and all he said was, “Tie on the bit, quick; it must kneel by first
attention.” I don’t know what he meant, but there’d been a gentleman
staying who talked a lot of doctoring stuff with Father, so I expect it
was some of that. Anyway, it was very brave.

The days before Mother went seemed each about as long as five ordinary
days, and yet very short too. It was a funny thing. At last the
morning came for her to start. We had to get up very early, because
she and Father were going by the 7.45 train, and so the lamp was lit
at breakfast, and that always makes you feel queer and choky. Mother
couldn’t eat anything, and Father was sort of scolding her all the time
to get her to; and we were sitting as close to her as we could squeeze,
all dressed anyhow, and not having had time to brush our teeth--at
least, Humph and I hadn’t. As for Ted, Fräulein hadn’t dressed him at
all, but had just brought him down to say goodbye in his little scarlet
dressing-gown, which is made out of my old winter jacket; he sat on
Mother’s lap and tried to hold a fork with his toes, and he still
seemed quite happy. I’d have liked to shake him if I hadn’t been so
miserable myself.

At last there was a ring at the bell, and it was the fly. “Now do try
to drink up your coffee, my dear,” Father said; but Mother said, “I
can’t, I can’t.” “Well, we must start at once,” Father said. It was all
very well for him, for he was going to London with Mother and down to
the ship to see her off.

Mother got up though, and put Teddy into the big chair by the fire,
kissing him all the while. He had still got the fork in his toes.
“Look, look, Teddy eat breakfast with his feet!” he called out,
pointing to them. He didn’t seem able to think of anything else.

Mother went out into the hall with the rest of us clinging to her, and
down the garden path to the fly. Just as she was getting in, Father or
some one asked if she’d got her keys, and Jane the housemaid had to go
tearing indoors for them. While we were waiting, Fräulein looked round
and gave a little cry. There was Teddy creeping down the garden, his
little toes all curling up as they touched the ground, and no fork at
all.

“_Ach_, you naughty, naughty _Kindchen_! Go in out of the cold. You
will have your death,” cried Fräulein, and she rushed back and carried
him into the house and then came out again shutting the front door.

It took two or three minutes for Mother to get settled in the fly and
the luggage to be arranged, and then we all hugged her in a sort of a
heap and they began to drive off, Mother kissing her hand out of the
window. I didn’t see that though, Humph told me afterwards, because I
was running indoors as hard as I could tear and as it was I could only
just hold in the crying until I got to the bathroom. I’ve discovered
that you can pull out a bit of the wood that’s round the bath and creep
in sort of behind, so it’s a lovely place for times of trouble. At
least, I didn’t exactly discover the place, but I saw it when the man
came to mend the taps; he was a very nice man and gave me some putty.

Well, when I got into the bathroom, I was very surprised to see that
the bit of wood had been pulled out already and was lying on the floor,
and then when I began to crawl in I was still more surprised because
there was a funny noise coming from inside, like the guinea-pig makes
when he is excited. I was so astonished that I stopped crying.

I crawled quickly, though it’s very squeezy, but, of course, that’s
really a great ’vantage because no grown-up could possibly come after.
And when I got to the end, there was a large curled-up heap; I couldn’t
see much because it’s almost dark, but I thought it must be a dear dog,
so I put out my hand to feel. It was something soft, but not like a
dog, more like a person; then I felt some curly hair. “Teddy!” I called
out, most amazed, because I didn’t know any of them knew of this place
but me. (I hadn’t meant to be mean in not telling, but one must keep
somewhere for times of great trouble.)

The funny noise was still going on, and then I remembered it’s what
Teddy does, when he cries very hard; he hardly ever cries at all
though, that’s how I’d forgotten. “What is the matter, Ted?” I said.
I couldn’t cuddle him because there wasn’t room, but I stroked him as
well as I could lying on my stomach.

“Go in out of the cold,” he said. “Go in out of the cold. Mother gone
away for a million years. Go in out of the cold.”

I felt I loved him ever so much more to find he really did mind about
Mother going away. “But, Teddy, you’d have only seen Mother for a
minute more, if Fräulein hadn’t sent you in out of the cold,” I told
him.

Then he began to squeak with crying more than ever. “I was g--going
to c--creep under the c--carriage-seat and be a st--stowboy on the
ship. And c--come out at the place with b--black people. I’d g--got a
c--crust of bread in my d--dressing-gown pocket all r--ready. Mother
g--gone away for a m--million years.”

Wasn’t that a good plan? I should never have thought Teddy could
have invented anything so sensible. I said, “Did you make it all up
yourself?” and he said, “Yes,” very pleased, because he saw that I
admired it. What made me feel dreadful though, was that all these days
I’d thought he didn’t care and was going to grow up like Nero.

Just then we heard Fräulein calling, “Teddy, Teddy, where are you?” as
if she were in a great state of mind. So I said we must come else she’d
discover the secret place. We crawled out and I shut up the little door
carefully. Then I shouted, “Teddy’s in here, Fräulein.”

I thought that Fräulein would be cross, but she wasn’t; I suppose it
was to sort of make up for Mother’s going, besides she’s nearly always
nice to Teddy. She just laughed and said, “_Du böser Bube_; you have me
so frightened.”

She took hold of Ted’s hand and was taking him away to dress him, but
he caught hold of me. “Molly get me up to-day,” he said.

I _was_ pleased. You see it had often made me feel rather horrid
Teddy’s being so much fonder of Fräulein than he is of me. Another
thing I didn’t like was that when Teddy was a baby, a real baby I mean,
I used to cuddle and nurse him heaps, but lately he’d said it was silly
and that I didn’t do it to Humph. He wouldn’t even let me kiss him.

It was when I was dressing Ted that I found out something. He was
telling me more about his plan for going with Mother and how he had
meant to wait hidden in the carriage until she got into the train, and
then scramble under the seat of the train when she wasn’t looking. “You
see I thinked I could do it, because everybody says I’m so small. You
don’t call it a silly plan?”

“No, it was a lovely plan,” I said.

“I was ’fraid you call it silly. And if I think of lots and lots of
lovely plans, will you soon, in three, eight, a million days let me
play in the games with you and Humph?”

“But you do sometimes.”

“Yes, but you think I’m a bother.”

I did feel horrid, because he is rather a bother, but we hadn’t meant
him to find it out. “There’s nobody for me to play with,” he said,
beginning to squeak again, “Violet’s always doing her dolls and
Mother’s gone away for a million----”

“We’ll have a new game, and there will be a real part for you, like
Humph’s,” I said quickly.

Teddy clapped his hands and jumped for joy. “And will you knock me
about and tortoise me just like you do Humph?” He meant torture only he
didn’t quite know the right word.

I said “Yes,” and I began to think of a game that minute. “I’ve got
a lovely one out of the book Mother has been reading to us,” I said.
“I’ll be the Sweep Grimes, and you’ll be little Tom. I shall always
shout at you with horrid words and beat you dreadfully and send you up
the most difficult wiggly chimneys.”

“And light straw under if I don’t go up quick enough.” Ted jigged up
and down, so that I could hardly brush his hair; he hugged me all of
himself.

Humph and I get excited over our games sometimes, but I don’t think
we ever were so excited as Ted got. I believe he never thought about
anything else. He used to ask me to come up and say good-night to him,
because of course he goes to bed earlier than us, and then he’d hug me
and whisper, “Fräulein doesn’t know, but I haven’t really had my broth
but just a mouldy crust, and I’m not really wearing my new pyjamas but
just old rags, and this isn’t really a bed at all but just a heap of
dirty straw;” and I’d say in an awful Grimesy voice, “Be quiet, else
I’ll kick you out to sleep in the street.”

All the same, it was through this game that Teddy got into such
trouble. One afternoon it was very cold and there was a horrid wind,
so Fräulein said that Teddy had better not come for a walk with the
rest of us, because of getting croupy. “I will lend you my German
picture-book, with the pictures that move, as a treat,” she said, “and
you must be very good.” Then she asked Jane to give an eye to him every
now and then.

We hate going out for walks, it’s so dull, and this one was
particularly horrid. We were very glad to get back, and we rushed to
the schoolroom fire.

“Why, where’s Teddy?” Fräulein said. “He must have gone to the
dining-room.”

He wasn’t in the dining-room either, nor in the kitchen. Jane’s sister
had come to tea (the one who has got a beautiful tooth that unscrews),
and they were all talking and laughing very loud.

“Where’s Master Teddy?” Fräulein said.

“Oh, he was looking at a book not a minute ago as good as gold, Miss,”
Jane said, and went on talking. The servants do get rather different
when Mother and Father are away, though Jane is most kind. Last Sunday
she let me warm the sort of scissors thing for her that she curls her
hair with, and she has promised to lend it to me one day. It will be
lovely for tortures.

Fräulein began calling, “Teddy, Teddy,” but he didn’t answer. She went
and looked in all the bedrooms and seemed to get quite frightened.
“_Ach Herzliebchen!_” she kept muttering, “if harm should have befallen
thee and _die Mutter_ away.” I wondered if he could have started paying
calls like Violet!

At last I opened the drawing-room door. We hadn’t thought of looking
there directly because we never use the room when Mother is away. And
what I saw surprised me so that I stood quite still.

There was a dust-sheet laid out on the floor very neatly, and it was
all covered with soot. A lot of soot had got on the carpet, too,
around. All the vases on the mantelpiece were covered with soot and
standing quite deep in it, and the pictures near had a layer of soot on
the tops. Even the chairs had a good lot of soot on them. And there in
the middle, hanging down in the fireplace were a pair of bare and very
sooty legs.

“Teddy,” Fräulein called loud and angrily. She had come in behind me
without my noticing her. There was a sort of scuffle, and Teddy came
tumbling down the chimney into the fender, bringing a whole cloud of
soot with him. He had only got his shirt on, and he had the hearthbrush
in one hand and the poker in the other. He was dirtier than any one I
ever saw; he did look beautifully real though.

“It wanted sweeping awfully, couldn’t have been done for a million
years,” he spluttered, very pleased.

Well, Fräulein was furious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so angry,
certainly not with Teddy. And now the awful part comes. She caught hold
of Teddy and whipped him, really whipped him, not fun!

Teddy was so astonished that for the first two slaps he never made a
sound; then he simply howled. He sobbed with squeaks all the way into
the bathroom, and all the time Fräulein bathed him and all the time she
dried him, and when she carried him into the schoolroom and put him in
front of the fire, he was still sobbing. Fräulein went to get him out
some clean clothes and things but he stood there, wrapped in a big bath
towel, sobbing and sobbing and squeaking until I couldn’t bear it.

I went and put my arm round him. I’d thought it rather a shame all the
time, because I don’t see that he’d been so very naughty. No one had
ever told him he mustn’t climb up chimneys and sweep them. Of course
it was very silly of him, and I knew Mother wouldn’t like the soot all
over the drawing-room carpet, especially when it’s Persian and the best
one in the house, not to mention the chairs and pictures and it’s being
a trouble for the servants. Still I’m sure Mother wouldn’t have whipped
Teddy. So I put my arms round him and whispered, “Never mind, Ted, it’s
all right now. It’s all right.” Fräulein came into the room, but she
didn’t say anything. She gave me his shirt and knickerbockers to put
on, and went off to get his stockings. I believe she was rather sorry
she’d done it herself.

At last Teddy began to speak, though he was still sobbing. “Th--there’s
one th--thing, though, she th--thinks she h--hurt me, but she
d--didn’t; no, not a bit.”

“Well, if I didn’t, why are you crying, then?” Fräulein said, who had
come in suddenly.

Teddy didn’t answer. He went on sobbing, but much less. Suddenly he
whispered in my ear, “She didn’t h--hurt me h--half as much as you
often do when we’re Grimesing,” and then he smiled a little bit.

So I said, “Shall I be Grimes now?” and he nodded. Fräulein had gone
away again by now.

“And we’ll pretend you swept a chimney at a very grand house and made
rather a mess.” Then I went on in the awful voice, “You scamp, I’ll
thrash you within two inches of your life.”

“With a rope end?” Teddy said. He began to look quite happy. “I saw
a piece in the stable-yard yesterday, Molly,” he went on, sort of
coaxingly.

“Shall I go out and get it to knock you with?” I asked him.

“Oh, Molly!”--he put both his arms round my neck and gave a little
shriek for happiness--“Oh, Molly, I do love you!”




V

THE RAGE OF THE HEATHEN


I advise you not ever to be a missionary. I don’t mean the proper sort
that get eaten up by savages and cassowaries, because you can’t do
that until you’re grown up; but don’t try and be a missionarying child
at home. If you do, the most disagreeable things will happen, though
perhaps that part wouldn’t have been so bad if Mother had been there.

It was in November, very soon after Mother had gone away, that Humphrey
and I went to the children’s service. I know it was then because the
day before had been Guy Fawkes day, and so everything seemed dull and
horrid, like it does when there’s just been something very nice, and
that was why we went. Jane took us--she’s the housemaid and very fond
of things like that, not only reading the Bible, which any one would
enjoy, but she loves the most difficult books of sermons and prayers,
and she doesn’t even think the litany a little bit too long.

I don’t mean that it was Jane that made us think about being
missionaries; it was the clergyman himself. He was a stranger, and his
sermon wasn’t a bit like other sermons; it was most interesting, and
it was all about setting a good example and being an influence unto
righteousness in the lives of little brothers and sisters and lots of
things like that. I began to think he must know I was the eldest.

Well, I listened to every word he said, I truthfully did, and all the
way coming home I talked to Humphrey about it, and planned how to be
a home missionary. We settled that we must be very kind to the Poor
Heathens--those were Violet and Ted--because they didn’t know any
better, but that we’d have to be very firm. Of course, it was rather
silly for Humph to be talking like that, because he was really a Poor
Heathen too, but he didn’t seem to understand that part properly. I
didn’t like to explain it to him then either, and that was the first
great mistake, because afterwards he used to get awfully sulky and
cross about it, which just showed that he really was a heathen like I
said. Besides, how could he possibly be anything else?

The clergyman had said one mustn’t put off doing good, so I started
directly we got home. Fräulein had gone out to see a friend, and we
were to have tea alone, which was a good thing, because it made it
easier. I went and tidied myself very nicely, and then I came into the
schoolroom. I said, “Violet and Ted, have you washed your hands for
tea?”

They both looked most astonished. Violet said, “Of course I have, I
always do,” which is quite true, but I thought she might just have
forgotten that once. That was the worst of Violet though, she was so
good she made a perfectly horrid heathen. Teddy only laughed and said,
“Fräulein forgot to wash mine and now she’s gone out. Hooray!”

So then I began to talk quite properly. I said, “That doesn’t make
the least difference; you should do your duty in life, if any one is
there to make you or not.” I said lots more, too, just as nice. I said,
“It’s a horrible habit to sit down to table with dirty hands, and any
gentleman would scorn such a foul deed.” I made him come with me to
wash them at once, though he didn’t like it, ’specially when I cut his
nails, every one, and pushed them all down most beautifully.

The other two had nearly finished tea by the time we came back. It
_was_ naughty of them. Of course, I had to tell them of it, so I
began to talk again, but really, it wasn’t a bit crossly. I spoke
more in sorrow than in anger. I said that such disgraceful behaviour
was excusable in Violet, as she was so little, but that I should have
thought that Humphrey would have known better. I said that in any
respectable society they always waited to begin meals for the Pourer
Out. They both looked very cross, but they didn’t say anything. For one
thing, Humph’s mouth was too full. Suddenly he got down from his chair
without asking any permission, and walked across to the fireplace. Then
he started toasting his bread and butter!

Well, I really didn’t want to make any more fusses, but what was I to
do? Fräulein had particularly said we weren’t to toast our slices,
because the butter will drip about, besides its being too nice to be
good for you. So I just said very firmly, “Come and sit in your place
this minute.” Well, he didn’t. Being a missionary is very difficult.

Of course I started talking again, though I’d hardly had a bit of tea,
and I was most hungry. I said that Humphrey was disobeying Fräulein,
who had been set in authority over us, and that it was just as bad as
breaking laws, and that he might as well commit murder or anything.
I said very likely one day he would. He said he didn’t care, and that
it didn’t say anything in the Bible about not making toast, and that
Mother had never told us not to either. I said any way Mother had
always told us to do what Fräulein said, but it all wasn’t the least
use.

I had to let him do it, for I couldn’t threaten to tell Fräulein--that
seemed too mean. I couldn’t drag him away either, because he’d got
the slice on his knife, and I thought he might get cut. Of course, I
might have got hurt too, but that would have been quite right for a
missionary, and rather nice. Any way, I determined that he shouldn’t do
any more, so I took the plate with all the rest of the bread and butter
on my lap and held it tight. Then I sat in silence and dignity.

I shouldn’t have thought that even Humph could have taken so long
over one bit of toast, but I expect he did it to pay me out; it was
all frizzly and smelt most delicious. I sat there, though, and never
moved except when I gave the little ones more. I couldn’t eat a single
mouthful myself. Even that didn’t make me cross. I said in the nicest
way at the end, “And now, children, we’ll have grace.”

Well, you see, the worst of it was we don’t generally say grace except
at dinner, so Humph answered directly, “Why should we? We never do,”
and Teddy copies every one, so he shouted out, too, “Sha’n’t; we never
do.” As for Violet, she just looked astonished.

“My dear children,” I said most exactly like the clergyman, “we are
certainly going to have grace, and I shall say it,” but before I could
begin Humphrey roared out, “If we have gwace I shall say it, because
I’m a man.” It was dreadfully silly; just as if he could, when besides
being younger, he was only a heathen!

I tried to explain this to him kindly, I really did, but he wouldn’t
understand. So it ended in our both shouting out, “For what we
have received the Lord make us truly thankful,” at the tops of our
voices, with our hands over our ears, which didn’t seem quite right,
and suddenly in the middle the bread-and-butter plate fell off my
lap--crash! It was broken to little bits.

That was the first disagreeable thing that happened, for not even
missionaries like their pocket-money to be stopped for two weeks, but
there were lots more to come. And it wasn’t only big things that were
horrid, being a missionary seemed to make everybody cross the whole
day long. Now there was Father. You see, I was trying hard to be good
myself, besides improving the Poor Heathens, so I’d settled to count
ten every time before I spoke, and then I’d not be led into evil and
profane discourse. I got the idea out of a book I’d been reading. Well,
instead of liking it, Father used to get dreadfully vexed; the trouble
was that he generally asked me the question again before I got to
ten, and then I had to start counting all over again, so it was quite
a long time sometimes before I could answer. I did think it seemed
rather silly myself, when he’d only asked me something like, “Have
you been out to-day?” because it wasn’t likely that I should have
replied anything very dreadful. But in the book it said that one can
never tell, and that habit is everything. I did wish that Father hadn’t
thought me muttering and sulky.

What I minded most, though, was the way the others went on. They used
to stop up their ears whenever they saw me coming and run away. It
was dreadful. Some days I’d forget to talk to them about their sins,
and then we’d be quite happy, but I always fined myself afterwards. I
used to throw a farthing into the pig-sty each time, because I thought
if I gave it to any one I’d get pleasure out of it, so that oughtn’t
to count; I used to have fines for lots of other wrong things too.
Besides this, I’d hit myself with whips and straps to try and make me
gooder, but it’s very difficult to hurt oneself much. It was a better
mortification when I wore Humphrey’s new jersey under all my clothes,
because, though it wasn’t hairy, nor a shirt, it was very rough and
tight, but Fräulein discovered it and was most cross.

It was because I hated the others always running away from me that I
took to writing about their wickedness instead. I pretended that I was
a dumb missionary, and so it wasn’t my fault, and I used to push little
notes into their pockets all in printing, so as to be easy to read, but
after the first they threw them away without looking at them, so it was
no use at all. That’s what made me take to writing things on the walls,
where they couldn’t help seeing them, like in our room I put, “Don’t
have the cat in bed,” for Violet to read, because Fräulein doesn’t
like us to. In the dining-room I put, “It’s horrible to drink with
your mouth full,” opposite to where Humphrey sits. Instead of being
pleased, though, Fräulein got in a rage again, and said I was spoiling
the wall-paper, and made me rub it all out. It did seem difficult to do
good.

It was after this that I thought of writing placards. It was all my own
idea, and didn’t hurt anything, and was just as good as putting it on
the wall. I forgot to say that I hadn’t invented that plan myself. I
took it out of _Belshazzar’s Feast_, and I do think they must have made
much worse marks than I did, because in the piece of poetry we learnt
it says:

  “In that same hour and hall,
     The fingers of a hand
   Came forth against the wall,
     And wrote as if on sand.”

So it must have made great holes. I suppose the plaster was wet. At any
rate, I thought that with the placards no one could possibly grumble.

I couldn’t have done the placards, of course, if I hadn’t known just
the sort of naughty things that the Heathens would do. So I wrote
very big on large sheets of paper, “DON’T,” and then a whole heap of
different wrong things. I kept them all stuffed up the front of my
dress (it was rather loose, because of my growing so fast, and that
was the only helping part I had). Then when the others were naughty I
got out the right placard, for they were all put like the alphabet,
most beautifully, and I waved it in front of them. They used to get
dreadfully cross, and Humph tore a good many trying to snatch them
away, but I always wrote them again. It _was_ a good idea!

It was out of the placards, though, that all the trouble came; at
least, it was partly that and partly our not hearing that Father had
come home unexpectedly. You see, it was after we’d gone to bed, so we
couldn’t possibly guess it of ourselves. So the next morning, when I
heard the water running in the bathroom, which is next door to the room
where Violet and I sleep, I thought of course it must be Humphrey. Ted
doesn’t have baths in the morning because of being croupy, and, as I
said, I didn’t know that Father was at home; besides, he always gets up
much later. I’d been wanting to be awake when Humph had his bath for a
long while, so I jumped up quickly, though it was very cold, and put on
my dressing-gown and tore round to the bathroom door. Then I pushed
a new placard under the crack, a very big one all done in red ink. It
said, “Dirty Pig, scrub your toe-nails.”

Well, I thought Humphrey might be cross, but I didn’t expect what
really happened. There was a roar like a lion, and the door was pulled
back, and there stood a perfectly strange gentleman. He was in his
shirt and trousers; he was rather fat, and his face was scarlet; he
could hardly speak, he was in such a rage.

I was so astonished I couldn’t say anything either. At last he did.
He shouted out, “_Unverschämtes Fraunzimmer_.” He said a lot more too
that I didn’t quite understand, though it was only in German. Then he
suddenly slammed the door in my face.

Well, of course after that I didn’t feel very comfortable. I went back
to my room and dressed myself, but my legs were all going wiggle-waggle
most horridly, and I had a pain inside. I did want Mother. I wanted her
so that I felt I must burst or something. I tried the plan of thinking
that when I was an old, old woman I should have stopped being unhappy
about this horrid time, but there wasn’t any comfort in that like there
generally is.

We children had breakfast in the schoolroom, because we always do when
there are visitors, but I felt so sick that I could hardly eat any.
And in the middle it happened. Father dashed in, just as I expected.
He was dreadfully angry. I don’t think I have ever seen him so angry.
He said that the German gentleman was a most celebrated musician, and
even if I had heard any idiotic chatter of the maids about his not
attending to his personal appearance, how dared I take it on myself to
give him moral maxims worded in the most insulting language? I didn’t
exactly know what Father meant by that, but it sounded horrid. Also, he
said that I stuck myself up as being better than any one, and that my
conceit was perfectly insufferable. After a lot more besides, he ended
up by telling me that I should be sent to boarding school at once.
Then he rushed out of the room again.

I hadn’t said anything all the time Father was speaking, and I hadn’t
cried at all, because I wouldn’t let myself. As soon as he’d gone I
ran away to our bedroom. I couldn’t hide in my secret trouble place,
because I didn’t feel that I could ever bear to go into the bathroom
again. The worst of it was our door doesn’t lock, for Humphrey
lost the key once when we were wicked gaolers of the Tower, but I
barricaded it with chairs. Then, of course, I did cry. I cried awfully
until everything got quite dizzy. I was still crying when Humphrey
climbed in at the window, but I seemed too miserable to mind. He was
most nice though. He didn’t talk, but he stroked my hand and shoved
his big peppermint into it, just as if there hadn’t been any horrid
missionarying. Then, when I didn’t move, he said, “Father won’t go on
being cwoss;” and I said, “I wish I were dead.” So I did. It’s a horrid
feeling to have.

All of a sudden Humph said, “Why don’t you ’splain it was _my_ dirty
toe-nails?” I just sobbed out, “I don’t know.” It was very sensible,
really, what Humph said, but I was too unhappy to see that; besides, I
was thinking more about the other things Father had scolded me about. I
said, “I don’t think I’m better than other people, I don’t, I don’t! I
think I’m a beast, and horrible.” Humph said, “No, you’re not.” Then he
wagged his head, and went away.

The part that comes next I didn’t know at the time, of course, but
Humph told me about it afterwards. He _was_ nice; he can be most
’straordinarily sensible sometimes, though you’d never think it. He
went straight to the study where the German gentleman was sitting, and
said, “It was _my_ toe-nails.”

The German gentleman jumped up very quickly, but Humph went on telling
him. He said, “You see, I don’t scrub mine very much because it
tickles. My sister didn’t even know about yours.” He talked in German,
because that’s one of the funny things about Humph, he likes it. It was
lucky though, because we found out afterwards it always pleased the
German gentleman to hear his own language. Then Humph pulled off his
shoes and stockings to show his feet. It sounds a naughty thing to do
in the drawing-room, but I don’t think it really was.

The German gentleman looked very astonished, but he didn’t look cross,
Humphrey told me. At last he said, “_So_; but why was it written out
and pushed under the door like that?”

“Because I stop up my ears and won’t listen when she speaks to me,”
Humph explained. He went on and told the German gentleman all about
the missionarying, and the gentleman seemed very interested. Then at
the end Humph said, “But my sister is starving; she didn’t eat hardly
nothing for bweakfast, and no biscuits at eleven, and she won’t even
suck my peppermint. I think she’ll soon be dead and it’ll be you that’s
done it.”

When the German gentleman heard that he was very nice, Humph said. Of
course he must have known that people can live longer than that without
food on desert islands and places, though Humph was really frightened
about it. He took hold of Humph’s hand and said, “_Ach!_ then we must
go quickly and ask that the little sister may be forgiven.” I believe
he liked boys better than girls anyway, which does seem funny.

The first thing I knew of all this, though, was Father coming up to my
room. He said in quite a different way, “Cheer up, Molly, I hear it was
only a mistake. You must be more discreet in your sisterly admonitions
though.” It made me feel much better. I went down and told the German
gentleman that I was sorry I’d seemed rude. He was all right, but
things weren’t really comfortable until he and Father went away again
the next day.

I didn’t do any more missionarying after that though; it seemed to be
too dangerous. It was a comfort to stop. Besides, the next week I
got a letter from Mother, explaining that the clergyman couldn’t have
meant it like that at all, because the chief thing if you want to have
a good influence over people is that they should be fond of you, so a
plan that prevents that must be a mistake. She said, too, that people
didn’t generally have a good influence unless it was unconscious, so my
best way was just to leave the others alone and try and be good myself.
But she said I needn’t worry too much even over that (she seemed to
guess all about my finings and hittings though I’d never told her).
She said if I just loved people and tried to make them happy, I’d find
in the end that I had been good. At the bottom of the letter, just
before the kisses, there was a bit that surprised me very much. It was
lovely; I don’t much like to say it. Mother said that I’d always been
a good influence and a help to her, even though I hadn’t tried to be a
missionary. She said that once when she was speaking to Teddy about
telling stories (he does sometimes, you see, because he’s so little),
she said to him that heroes never told untruths, and he answered at
once and very proudly, “Nor does Molly, either.”

It did make me feel funny inside.




VI

A FIRST NIGHT

(Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission)


I’ll never do any more plays, never. It would be all very well if one
could act all the parts oneself, but making the others learn theirs was
awful. Besides, you wouldn’t believe that the Corpse could give so much
trouble.

We got it up while Mother was still away in Algiers, and that was the
first mistake. But we’d often had acting games before, and I never
thought that this would be so much harder. The idea of doing it came
into my head one day at lesson time, and it seemed perfectly splendid,
so I pinched Humphrey directly, and whispered, “We are going to act a
real play with refreshments and a curtain. I shall write it.”

I was rather disappointed that Humphrey didn’t answer, but after a long
time he suddenly said quite loud, “Like Shakespeare.” Fortunately,
Fräulein didn’t understand. It was rather silly of him too, because of
course I didn’t mean to make it long like that. Why, Humph has taken
six months to learn “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and he still
says, “Half a leg, half a leg, half a leg onwards”; besides, I knew
that Violet and Ted would like to come in too.

That afternoon I began to write the play. I tried at first to make
it all up out of my own head, only when I sat down nothing seemed
to come. So I thought I’d adapt it out of a book, like Father says
all the best plays are done nowadays. I took Aytoun’s “_Lays of the
Scottish Cavaliers_.” I’m very fond of them, you see, and I know them
nearly all by heart, but I don’t believe it was me that loosened the
frontispiece as Fräulein says, just because I took the book to bed one
evening. Not that we read in bed, because Mother’s very particular
about that, but I like to feel that Dundee and the Young Pretender are
near me all the night. It was the “_Burial March of Dundee_” that I
thought would be the best for the play, but it didn’t seem to need much
adapting, because we could just have a bier with Ted as Dundee (he’s
the lightest, and his hair is curly). We three would march on bearing
it, and I’d recite the lay; then we’d march off again of course.

So, as this was easy, I thought we’d have another play as well, and I
settled on “_Young Lochinvar_.” Humphrey would be Lochinvar; I should
have liked to be the bride, who is the heroine, of course, but then
I settled it would be better if Violet was, partly because I thought
Mother would have been pleased at my not being selfish, and partly
because it looks so silly to see the lady taller than the gentleman,
like when Cousin Sophy was married. Then I and Ted would be the
wicked mother and father. Of course, he’s heaps smaller than me, but
that didn’t matter because we’d both be old, and he might have shrunk
quicker. Our old nurse told us once that she’d got to the time of life
when she was growing downwards like a cow’s tail; and certainly, when
she came to see us the other day, she did seem a lot shorter than she
used to be when we were little and she lived with us.

The others were all very pleased with their parts, and it was settled
that the acting should be on April the 10th, which is Ted’s birthday,
and Fräulein asked some children to come to tea. It didn’t leave us
very much time, but I thought it would do, because I never guessed how
slow Humphrey would be. At each rehearsal he seemed to get worse, and
the dress one was awful.

To begin with, we left it to the very afternoon of the birthday because
the others said that when the children came, we could go straight on
and needn’t dress up twice. Only it made me feel nervous, and then,
just as we were starting, cook sent up word that she was bothered
enough with extra to tea and couldn’t let us have anything for the
banquet in “_Young Lochinvar_.” It was really because there’d been a
fuss about the butcher’s bill; as if we could help that!

The others were very good, I must say, and Humphrey said that he’d give
us a Brazil nut that he’d got, and lend us his peppermint. It’s a most
enormous one, that goes different colours as you suck, and he keeps it
for when he’s put in the corner. And Violet said she’d put some of her
doll’s sham dishes on the table; still, that wasn’t very much for a
wedding feast. So I said perhaps we’d better pretend that they had had
the feast before the curtain drew up, and there could be just a goblet
of water for Young Lochinvar to quaff.

“He couldn’t have been very thirsty when he had just ‘swum the Esk
river,’ and he would enjoy the peppermint because----” Humphrey began,
but I told him quickly that we wouldn’t have any eating or drinking
at all, for when he once begins explaining anything he never stops.
Besides, it was only because he remembered that he was to be Young
Lochinvar himself.

So we began to dress up, and when they were all ready, they looked so
nice and real that I began to feel happier. Humphrey had on my white
flannel pyjamas with a red sash, like we always have for the hero;
they’re rather big for him, but he wears nightshirts himself, for
though he isn’t very strong, he never catches cold, and of course you
couldn’t be a hero in a nightshirt. The worst of it was that it looked
rather bare at the back, because the hero always has Mother’s fur-lined
cape, inside out, across his shoulders and we hadn’t got that, nor
Mother either, so we began to feel rather miserable. Even Father was
not there. He had gone out to Mother for the Easter Holidays.

Violet had on the lace window-curtains and Mother’s old blue silk dress
that she has given us for dressing-up, and Teddy wore his pyjamas with
a green sash, of course, because he was the villain; at least, he
wasn’t exactly a villain, but he was a very disagreeable and horrid
sort of father for any one to have. He had on a tow beard, too, that
I made out of some that was over when Fräulein did the grates, and
I’m sure Mother won’t like them, though Fräulein does think them so
beautiful, but the beard wasn’t a great success because it would come
off in the middle.

As for me, we didn’t know what to do, because I’d tied on so many
pillows to be fat, that I knew I couldn’t get on any one’s dress but
cook’s. So we sent Teddy down to ask her if she would be so very kind
as to lend us one. We always make Teddy ask for things, because he’s
pretty, and we’ve found out that helps. I think cook thought he wanted
the dress for himself, for he said she laughed a lot, but anyway she
fetched him her best one--green stuff, it was, with red plush trimming.

Then we began. It was awful. Ted gabbled so that no one could hear
him, and Humphrey had never known his part properly, though I used to
run into his room every night after Fräulein had put out the lights
and make him go through it. He couldn’t escape me then, but often he
was asleep, which was just as bad, because even if you woke him up it
was no use--he’d be so stupid. Well, Humphrey seemed to have forgotten
everything he’d ever known, and the more I went on the more he forgot
until he began to say the “Charge of the Light Brigade” by mistake; at
last he turned sulky and wouldn’t speak at all.

Violet knew her part beautifully--I will say that--and she spoke it
very clearly and slowly, but without the least bit of expression. When
she came to--

  “With thee I will wander the wide world far,
   For I love thee, dear Mr. Young Lochinvar,”

which was a piece that I’d made up myself, you might have thought she
was saying the multiplication table.

“Can’t you speak it like you really would to any one?” I said.

“I’d never say such a silly thing,” she answered, “because trains
always make me sick and you know Mother says I’d be a dreadful sailor.”

Well, I told her at any rate she ought to take Young Lochinvar into
a corner and throw her arms round his neck and kiss him, so that the
people could tell she was pleased to see him; and she did it, because
she’s very obedient, but it was just as if she were hugging a signpost.

So I said she was a perfect idiot, which I oughtn’t to have done,
however silly she was, and she began to cry.

Well, I thought we’d better get on to “Dundee.” It begins--

  “Sound the fife and cry the slogan,
     Let the pibroch shake the air
   With its wild, triumphal music,
     Worthy of the freight we bear.”

We didn’t know exactly what pibrochs and all those things were, but we
thought some Burmese gongs and bells of Father’s would do as well, and
we’d brought them up out of the case in the drawing-room.

But when I came to look on the mantelpiece, where I’d put them all
ready, they were gone.

Then Violet, who was still crying, of course, because she’d been
started off, sobbed out that Fräulein had taken the things back and had
locked up the case and was very angry. They don’t belong to Fräulein
anyway, so I don’t see what business it was of hers. But there we were
in a nice fix.

Humphrey said at last that he would blow his penny whistle. He hasn’t
got any ear at all, and the noise he makes is more like a railway
engine than anything else; however, I had to say Yes. Then Teddy
suggested that if we covered up his face he could do “Nearer, my God,
to Thee” on the comb. Teddy’s the most musical of us all, but I didn’t
think it would do, because even if the audience didn’t notice that he
was playing his own funeral march, the comb doesn’t seem to be quite
right somehow. I said we’d better tie the dinner-bell round Violet’s
waist instead, and she could shake herself now and then. Of course
she had to hold up the bier with both her hands, so she couldn’t do
anything else.

We made the bier out of stilts with a long cushion tied between them,
and then I thought we were ready. So we lifted it up and Teddy climbed
on to the window-sill and got on to the bier from there. He lay down
and immediately the strings broke and he went on to the floor--crash!
He shrieked and roared and he wouldn’t stop, though I tried to put my
arms round him, because he had come a horrid bang, and I promised him
my old penknife with half a blade. He thought we’d done it on purpose,
so he’d only scream out, “Go away! I won’t act--I won’t! You beast,
beast, beast!”

At this moment the door opened and we saw--Mother! We all gave one
shout and rushed at her. Ted began to squeal with joy instead of
screaming, and Violet stopped whimpering, and Humphrey started off
talking quite fast. As for me--well, it was dreadfully silly and
babyish--but now they’d all stopped I began to cry. I was so happy it
seemed as if I couldn’t bear it.

Mother understood, like she always does. She didn’t say anything,
but put her arm round me tight and let me hide my face in her cape.
The others all started talking at once, and she kissed the lump on
Teddy’s head and made it well and said she’d do the bier herself, so
it would be quite safe. She sent Humphrey down for her fur cape for
Young Lochinvar, and she told us Fräulein was quite right about our
not taking the musical instruments without leave, but she was sure
Father would let us have them. And she said--but this was when I was
all right again--that it wouldn’t matter if Violet couldn’t quite get
the expression, because brides were always shy and that when she was
married to Father her voice sounded like some one else talking and
without any expression at all. And then she admired all our dresses
very much and went downstairs to ask cook to let us have things for the
feast and a bottle of red currant wine, which was more grandeur than
we’d ever thought of.

After that everything was different, like it always is when Mother’s at
home. Oh, I forgot to explain that why we didn’t expect Mother was that
Fräulein had never got the last letter. Besides, Mother rather wanted
to surprise us.

By this time the other children were arriving downstairs, and so we
started the acting as soon as we were ready. Well, you wouldn’t have
thought it after all this fuss, but the plays went beautifully; every
one said so. Certainly once Teddy opened his eyes as dead Dundee, and
when he saw that Mother was really sitting there he began to laugh, but
he’s got such a nice laugh one couldn’t mind much. Mother shook her
head, though she couldn’t help smiling, so Ted shut up his eyes tight
and screwed up his face all the rest of the time as though he were
going to sneeze. Humphrey, too, in the wedding feast stuffed his mouth
so full that he couldn’t speak, but Mother began to clap, so the people
didn’t notice that.

At the end everybody clapped lots and we all came forward and bowed--at
least Teddy curtseyed by mistake--and then Mother called out, “Author.
Author and Stage-manager!” and the others pushed me on alone. I did
feel proud.

All the same, I don’t think I’ll ever do any more plays--at any rate
not unless Mother is at home all the time, and of that I’m quite
certain.




VII

MOTHER


It really did seem silly of Humphrey not to have measles with the rest
of us and then to go and catch them all to himself directly Mother came
home from Algiers. It’s just the sort of inconvenient thing that Humph
would do--not that he can help it, of course. I’m sure it wasn’t any
fun for him having it alone.

I must say our measly month last year was most lovely; Violet and
Ted liked it just as much as me. Besides having Mother all the time,
there was beef-tea nearly whenever you wanted it and the most exciting
counting every morning to see who had got the most spots. The spottiest
one was king or queen for the day, of course, and the others had to
say “your Majesty” and bow whenever they spoke. It did seem grand.

This must have been the most aggravating thing for Humphrey to think
of afterwards, because when he did go and catch it, he was so very bad
that if he’d only had it at the same time as us he’d have easily been
king every day. He was so ill that Mother sent the little ones away
into lodgings with Jane, for they make too much noise; and as Mrs.
Charlton happened to ask me to stay with her just then, Mother thought
I might as well go away too. I expect I ought to say honestly that
Mother had spoken to _me_ about making a noise as well as to the little
ones. It seemed as if I couldn’t remember about not stumping upstairs.
Once I did think of it, and I took off my stockings as well as my
shoes, so as to be very quiet, and went most ’straordinarily slowly,
but then the horrid shoes went and spoilt it all; they dropped down
right from the very top.

Mrs. Charlton is a sort of aunt of Father’s and she lives up in
Lincolnshire. I didn’t know her at all, though Mother said I had
seen her once when I was a baby, which is never a very nice sort of
friendship. People like that always tell you how they held you in their
arms, which makes you feel silly; or else, if you were too big to
nurse, they say how naughty you used to be. It’s most uncomfortable.
Anyway Mother said that Mrs. Charlton was a very kind old lady, though
not cuddly; she said, too, that as I was going on a visit all alone
like a grown-up young lady I must try and be very good. So I promised,
and even though it mayn’t sound like it afterwards, I really did try.

There was some talk of Father’s taking me all the way, but he was too
busy, and it ended in my going to London with him and then travelling
the rest of the way quite alone! At least Father did put me in the care
of the guard; I do wish he hadn’t, though the guard was a very nice
man. He poked in his head at nearly every station and said, “Getting
on all right, missy?” and I said, “Yes, thank you; I hope you are too.”
Then he waved his flag and we went on again.

It had been directly after lunch when we left London, but it was
getting quite dark before we got to Corby. I was most dreadfully
starved too, because I’d eaten all my sandwiches very early. I thought
I’d waited quite a long time before I began them, but it wasn’t really.
That’s a funny thing about sandwiches, something seems to make you eat
them almost directly you start, even if you’ve only just had dinner,
and aren’t very hungry at all.

It was the guard who came and helped me out with my things at Corby
station, but almost directly a manservant came up and touched his hat
and said, “Miss Lawrence?” I did feel beautifully grown up. There was
a carriage waiting outside with a very fat coachman and two very fat
horses; the man took me to this and held the door open for me to get
in. If only the others had been with me to see me driving all alone in
a grand carriage like that!

Though it was very nice for the first minute or two, I was so
dreadfully hungry that I couldn’t really enjoy it; I could only think
of roast chickens and things like that. I did try not to; I looked
out of the window to see the country and I tied my sash very tight
like the Red Indians, but it wasn’t any use. It isn’t true either,
what they say in books, that starving people suffer most from thirst,
because I hardly wanted to drink at all. At last, though, we did get
to the house, and the servant showed me into the drawing-room, where
Mrs. Charlton was sitting in a very stiff chair. She got up and kissed
me, and asked me how my Mother and Father were, but she didn’t seem to
make me feel at all nice. I sat down in another stiff chair and seemed
to get miserabler and miserabler, I don’t know why, because they had
brought me my supper, though I’d have liked more. I was quite glad when
Mrs. Charlton asked me at what hour I went to bed, which was very
funny, because I’d never wanted people to talk about bedtime before.

Upstairs, though, it was more miserable than ever. I never thought
paying visits would feel like that. If even our cook at home could
have come to tuck me up in her crossest temper, I’d have been glad.
It seemed so dreadful, I really didn’t know what I should do, till
I thought of Mother’s little penwiper, that she’d lent me because
I haven’t got one in my writing-case; so I took that into bed, and
cuddled it, and then I felt better.

The next morning I woke up very early and the sun was shining and it
was all much nicer. I began to read a book I’d brought from home that
was called “_Vanity Fair_”; it is an interesting book, but rather
muddly, and the girl in it, Amelia, is a gump. That’s what Humphrey and
I call people who are silly like that. I’d read quite a lot by the time
the breakfast bell rang and I took it down to go on with afterwards.

Mrs. Charlton was sitting in an armchair at the head of the table, and
all the servants were there for prayers. They seemed to be all waiting
for me. Just as if this wasn’t bad enough, the minute I got in Mrs.
Charlton called out, “What is that book that you have got in your hand?”

Well, when I showed it to her she seemed quite cross. She said, “Has
your Mother given you permission to read this?” in the most severe way.
I said “Yes,” because Mother had never told us we mayn’t read anything.
Then I thought that as Mother hadn’t mentioned this particular book,
perhaps that wasn’t true, so I said “No.” Then I remembered Mother had
said once that we might always take magazines, and this was on that
shelf, so I said “Yes,” again. I said, “It’s got paper covers, you see.”

“Don’t prevaricate, child,” Mrs. Charlton said, “I’m sorry to see you
are not more straightforward.” She went and locked up my book, which I
did think a shame, and the prayers began. It was horrid her thinking
I told stories, and very silly, just when I was trying to be so
partic’larly truthful.

After breakfast we went for a walk in the village; and that wasn’t bad,
only another unpleasant thing happened first. I don’t think I said that
when I got up, I tied Mother’s penwiper round my neck with a bootlace,
because that made me feel nice. Well, when we were starting to go out
Mrs. Charlton suddenly said, “What is that untidy piece of black tape
showing above your dress?”

I pretended not to hear. I didn’t know what else to do, because of
course I couldn’t tell her about private things like that. She asked
me again, but I still didn’t say anything. Then she shook her head
and said, “Sullen, sullen,” to herself, though I was just going away
to take the penwiper off so as to please her. At least I didn’t take
it right off, I tied it round my waist instead, where the bootlace
couldn’t show, only it was very prickly. It wasn’t my fault keeping
Mrs. Charlton waiting either, for I had to quite undress to do it.
I forgot to say that it was a very nice penwiper, that I’d made for
Mother as a birthday present, when I was quite little. It had “Mother”
worked on it in beads, and the date and how old she was; at least
I’d made a mistake about the last and put seventy-eight. You see,
Father used to tell us that was Mother’s age for a joke, and we really
believed it. Of course I was only a little girl then.

The village wasn’t far away, and when we came back, I played in the
garden. There wasn’t much to do and so I climbed a tree. Almost
directly Mrs. Charlton came tearing out in a great fuss and said that
it was most dangerous and unladylike and that I was never to do such a
thing again. I felt very cross, because really it was a silly little
tree that a baby could climb, but I remembered what I promised Mother,
so I just walked about in a stupid, grown-up way and wondered if
lunch-time was ever coming.

In the afternoon it was worse, because it began to rain. Mrs. Charlton
and I sat in the drawing-room and did nothing. There was a Persian
cat, who you would think would have been some comfort, but he was the
stupidest cat I ever saw. He just slept the whole time. Mrs. Charlton
asked me then if I hadn’t got any needlework, so I went and fetched
the mat that I’m working for Cousin Sophy’s wedding present. (It will
be rather late, because Cousin Sophy went and got married about a year
ago, before I could get it done; I do think she needn’t have been in
such a hurry.) I sat there and sewed for ages and ages until I thought
my head would drop off; at last I found I’d forgotten to bring the
skein of the silk, and I couldn’t do any more. That was nice.

Tea came just then, real afternoon tea, with thin bread and butter and
two very nice little scone things on a separate plate and a little
jug of cream, that I’m partic’larly fond of. Well, I tried not to be
greedy, but I couldn’t help being rather pleased, when suddenly Mrs.
Charlton said, “Pussy is so fond of cream, I know you won’t mind his
having it,” and she crumbled up both the little scones and poured all
the cream over them, every drop. Then she asked me to put it down on
the floor in the corner.

After tea Mrs. Charlton asked me if I’d like to read a little, because
she said she’d look out a nice suitable book for me. I was very
pleased, even though I found it was a book with a shiny red cover and
green leaves on it, which sort generally aren’t interesting. It was
called “_How Little Susan Saved the Home_,” and it was all about poor
people.

It wasn’t a bad sort of book, though it was written rather as if you
had got no sense at all. It was about a little girl who used to wait
outside the public-house every night to come home with her father. I
don’t see that that was so horrid for her. When we were in London, the
Punch and Judy shows were almost always at public-house corners, and
once we saw a dear fat dog in a patchwork coat and the darlingest white
mice on his back, but Cousin Sophy would never let us stop. Of course
on wet nights it can’t have been such fun for Little Susan, but I dare
say they’d have let her wait inside, only she seemed to be too silly
to ask. In the middle of the book there was a very horrible bit, about
the father getting tipsy and kind of mad, but he got all right at the
end. It was in such big print I soon finished it, because I read very
quickly.

Mrs. Charlton had gone off to sleep, so I didn’t know what to do. I
looked at the bookcase, but it was locked, so I walked round the room,
and there in the back drawing-room, rather high up, was a shelf with
some old-looking books on it. I went up to Mrs. Charlton to ask her if
I might take one, but she was still asleep. Well, I didn’t really think
she’d mind, because they were so shabby, so I climbed up on a chair
and chose one called “_Peregrine Pickle_”; I thought from the name it
might be about a boy who got into scrapes. It was rather disappointing
inside, and the s’s were funny and difficult to read, but bits were
interesting. It was written in a nice way too, not sillily like
“_Little Susan_,” and there weren’t any horrid parts in it either.

Suddenly, as I was reading, the book was snatched out of my hand. Mrs.
Charlton was standing there looking furious. “How dare you take that
book, you wicked girl!” she said; “go to your room and pray for a
better nature.” I told her that I only took it because I’d finished the
one that she gave me, and I didn’t know what to do till she woke, but
she didn’t seem to believe me; it did seem curious and horrid.

I went upstairs as she told me, and it was so dull that I said the
multiplication table three times forwards and once backwards, and
before that I’d repeated nearly all the poetry I knew, besides trying
to reckon out how much the horse’s shoe would cost if you paid a
farthing for the first nail and doubled it for each one. Of course I
pretended I was in the Bastille all the time, but there weren’t any
rats or toads or anything nice, and I was quite glad even to see the
housemaid. It wasn’t the real housemaid either, because she was old,
and disagreeable; this was one I hadn’t seen before. She brought me
some bread and milk for my supper.

“I dare say you’re missing your little brothers and sisters,” she said.

I hadn’t thought of it before, but directly she said it, I knew that
that was why I was so miserable. I seemed suddenly to want Mother and
them all so dreadfully, that I could hardly help crying. Lizzie (the
servant told me that was her name, and that she was the hupandowngirl,
not the housemaid), well, she was most nice; she seemed the nicest
person in the house. She said she used to cry herself to sleep every
night when she first went out to service. She told me about her home
too, and that there were twelve of them, and that they used to sleep
four in one bed, and lovely things like that. She was just telling me
about her pigs, when the bell rang rather angrily.

“Lor, I must be off, the Missus will be in a fine taking,” Lizzie said,
and she ran away.

When Lizzie had gone, I was just going to be miserable, but suddenly
she rushed in again, and threw a lot of newspaper things on to the bed.
“I thought maybe they’d amuse you, but don’t let the Missus see ’em,”
she said, and she tore out, because the bell was ringing more crossly
than ever.

I certainly did know that I oughtn’t to read books when I’d been sent
upstairs in disgrace, and I’d better confess that at once. But then it
didn’t feel to me that I’d done anything to be punished for, and it did
seem so tempting. First I thought I’d just look at the pictures--for
there was one on each cover--of gentlemen shooting each other and
ladies in their dressing-gowns, with their hair down, and things like
that, all most exciting. So I began just to turn over the leaves to see
the names of the people in the pictures, but before I knew what I was
doing I was reading one story straight through. I truthfully forgot
then about it’s being naughty.

It was a very interesting story, all about lords and dukes; I had never
read one like it before. They were most funny people, and always
getting fond of quite strangers and wanting to fly with them. I was
just in the middle, when suddenly I heard the door open. Before I could
think, I’d pushed all the papers under the eiderdown. That was the part
Mother minded most when I told her, because it seemed mean. I’ve tried
to think since that I did it because Lizzie had asked me not to let any
one see the papers, but it wasn’t that really, at least not mostly.
Besides, what Mother said was that if I had put away the novelettes at
the beginning without looking at them, and then have given them back to
Lizzie at the first opportunity, that would have saved her getting into
trouble just the same, and I should not have been mean.

Well, I suppose when Mrs. Charlton came in I looked rather
uncomfortable; also there may have been a bit of one of the papers
sticking out. Anyway, the first thing she did was to lift up the
eiderdown. Then of course she saw them all. I felt awful.

No one said anything for what seemed a long time, and then Mrs.
Charlton made a horrid noise in her throat and began: “You are so
utterly deceitful,” she said, “that it is not of very much use to put
questions to you, but I should be glad if you would kindly inform me
where you procured this degrading form of literature.”

I didn’t answer. That wasn’t naughtiness, but because of Lizzie. Mrs.
Charlton asked me again, and she asked me other questions of the same
sort, but of course I couldn’t answer them either. She got angrier and
angrier. At last she said, “I shall send you home immediately. I cannot
have my household corrupted by your low tastes and deceitfulness.”

That was the first nice thing she had said since I had been there. Of
course I didn’t altogether like it, because it seemed horrid to be sent
home in disgrace; besides, my coming back would be a worry for them,
when Humph was so ill. But I was so happy at the idea of seeing Mother
again that I couldn’t really think of anything else. I could hardly
help jumping, I was so happy. I said, “Please, shall I put on my coat
and hat at once?”

I’m sure I said it most politely, but Mrs. Charlton replied “No” most
angrily. She said, “You may certainly rest assured that I do not wish
to keep you a moment longer than I am compelled, but I am afraid that
it would be impossible for me to arrange for your return to-night.”
Then she went away.

After she had gone I thought a lot. First of all I packed my box, so as
to be ready the first thing in the morning. Then I suddenly thought,
Why couldn’t I arrange my journey home all alone, so as not to bother
Mrs. Charlton? Then I could start off directly? I rushed to the window
to see if it had stopped raining, and it had.

When I began to plan it out it seemed to get easier and easier. It was
only three and a half miles to the station, and along the big road with
milestones and telegraph posts all the way. I knew, because, besides
driving up the day before, we’d gone along a bit of the road to the
village that morning. I’d got my return ticket to King’s Cross in my
purse, and once that I got there I’d just take a cab to Waterloo, and
then I could get home quite well. I know all about the trains from
there, you see, because I’ve been lots of times. I’d got plenty of
money, because there was the half-crown that Mother gave me before
I came away (I had sewed it into my clothes, of course, like people
do for travelling). Then I’d got a shilling and a farthing from my
pocket-money, and a sixpence with a hole in it; I knew that with all
that I could manage quite well. The only bother was about my box: I
couldn’t carry it, of course; it _was_ puzzling. I thought, though, I
might tell them at the station to call for it the next day, and let it
go by itself, like we sometimes do at home. I wrote the address on the
label in printing very neatly.

I thought then that I’d start off, though I did feel a little
uncomfortable as to whether Mother would mind. She certainly doesn’t
like me to go out alone, but sometimes I have been sent on a message.
Of course it was getting rather late, but I thought if I ran I could
get to Corby, where the station is, before it got quite dark. Besides,
I knew Mother wouldn’t wish me to stop when Mrs. Charlton didn’t want
me; I heard her say once herself that visitors should never outstay
their welcome. The chiefest thing, though, was that I felt I just
couldn’t go a whole night more without seeing Mother.

The worst part to think of was the going downstairs. My heart was
thumping dreadfully by the time I had got on my coat and hat. Oh, first
I pinned a little note on to the pincushion to say that I’d gone. It
was most useful that I’d read Lizzie’s book, because that is what Lady
Vera did before she flew with the Duke; I mightn’t ever have thought of
it by myself. I forgot to say that I’d tied up all the magazines in a
piece of brown paper and addressed them to “Miss Lizzie Hupandowngirl,
thankyou.” I had to put just that because I didn’t know her other name.

It was perfectly awful--the going down I mean. The stairs seemed to
creak just as if they were doing it on purpose. Every minute I thought
some one would come. No one did, though. I expect Mrs. Charlton was
having her late dinner; anyway, there was nobody about. I crept across
the hall and opened the front door. The squeak it made was dreadful. I
stood there for a minute feeling quite sick and funny, but still no one
came. So I went out and shut the door behind me as softly as I could.
Then I ran and ran.

Of course I couldn’t run all the way to Corby; I had to go slower
pretty soon. I kept running little bits now and then, but it seemed a
dreadfully long way. I was so afraid that some one Mrs. Charlton knew
would see me and perhaps send me back, but though the people I met
looked at me in rather a surprised way, they didn’t speak. I hid behind
the hedge, too, until they’d passed, when I heard them coming in time.

It was getting quite dark for the last part of the way, and the lamps
were all lit at Corby. I couldn’t remember the turning to the station,
but I asked a little boy. They speak so funnily up there that I didn’t
understand what he said, but he pointed out the way all right.

There was only one porter person at the station, and I was rather glad
of that. He seemed rather stupid, but when I’d asked him two or three
times, he said there was a train to King’s Cross at 8.52. That was very
lucky, because it was already a quarter past eight. The porter asked
me if I had got any luggage, but I said, “No, you are to fetch that
to-morrow.” I didn’t think until afterwards that I hadn’t told him the
address.

When the train came it was very full, because there had been an
excursion or something. I found one compartment that wasn’t quite so
full, and I got in. A gentleman said, “Come on, there’s room for a
little ’un,” and another said, “The more the merrier.” They certainly
were very merry, for they were singing songs the whole time, and
fighting, but all in fun. I didn’t know grown-up people played like
that.

There was a very fat lady sitting opposite me, and she began to talk.
She said suddenly in rather a strict way, “Where’s your Ma, my dear?”
and I said, “At home.”

After a minute or two she started again. She said, “Ain’t your Ma well?”

I said, “Yes, it’s Humph who is ill.” Then she asked me some more about
him, and I told her.

I thought she’d stopped, and I quite jumped when she said very crossly,
“I suppose your Pa won’t leave ’is smoke. Puff an’ pull the whole day
long, that’s the way with all these men. Pigs, I calls ’em!”

I didn’t exactly understand. I said, “Father doesn’t smoke the whole
day, but he is very fond of it. He likes to have his pipe if he can.”
I found out afterwards that she thought I meant that Father was in
a smoking compartment of the same train; I’m sure I don’t know why.
I’d got so sleepy, though, that I didn’t seem to be able to explain
anything or think properly at all.

There was a funny little thin man sitting next to the fat lady, who
looked as if he’d got there by mistake. He was like a white rabbit
with a cold in its head. Suddenly the fat lady said, “Jeremiah, change
places this minute with the young lady,” and he jumped up in quite a
frightened way. Then she said to me much more nicely, “You come an’
set ’ere, my dear, then you’ll be able to lean up aginst me an’ rest
yourself more comfortable like.”

I was so sleepy that I could hardly stand. It was most peculiar. So the
fat lady pulled me up and put my head on her lap, just as if I were a
baby; I didn’t seem to mind at all. I was rather ashamed when I thought
about it afterwards, but Mother says it didn’t matter, and that the fat
lady was most kind. I think so, too, though her lap was rather steep
to be very comfortable. All the same, I must have gone off to sleep
almost directly.

The next thing I remember was being lifted up. The fat lady and the
little white-rabbit gentleman were bustling about getting down their
things, and the train was stopping. “No, this ain’t King’s Cross, my
dear,” she said, “but we ain’t far off, so you jist pop on your ’at.
We gets out ’ere, but I suppose your Pa will come for you at the next
station. I’d like to give my fine gentleman a piece of my mind,” she
went on to the little rabbit man, “leaving that pore child in ’ere an’
never so much as taking the trouble to clap ’is eyes upon ’er the ’ole
blessed way.”

I was so astonished altogether, I could hardly speak. You see, for the
first minute or two I couldn’t remember where I was. So I just said,
“Thank you very much, thank you,” a good many times over. The fat lady
bent down and kissed me, and said, “There’s a good little girl.” And,
do you know, when her face was close, it looked for a minute like
Mother’s. It was most astonishing, because she was so red and funny.

I got quite awake getting my hat down from the rack, and almost
directly after we arrived at King’s Cross. There was a great rush and
bustle, and only one or two cabs, so it’s lucky the other excursion
people didn’t all want them; every one seemed to be walking. I thought
I’d better make haste, though, so I said to one cabman, “Are you
engaged?” and when he said “No,” I jumped in quickly.

Well, I expected that he’d start at once, but he didn’t. I waited a
minute or two, then I poked open the little hole, which is rather
difficult to do because it’s so high. I said, “Will you tell your horse
to go, please?”

He looked most astonished. He said, “You ain’t all alone?” I said
“Yes.” Then he was very cross. He said “Come, now, get out of this.” I
remembered then that I hadn’t told him where to go to, and I thought
that might be making him so disagreeable. I said, “I beg your pardon
for not telling you that I want to go to Waterloo Station, and I want
to start at once, please.”

The man seemed to get more surprised still. He said (I can’t help it,
it’s sounding dreadful, but it’s what he really did say)--he said,
“Well, I’m blessed!” Then he called out to a porter, but the porter was
too busy to hear him.

I didn’t know what to do because he didn’t seem to be even beginning to
start. Then I remembered that when we were at Cousin Sophy’s the cabman
wouldn’t drive us back from the pantomime because he said Chiswick was
too far. So I poked open the little hole again, and I said, “You are
on the rank plying for hire, and unless you start immediately I shall
summons you.” That was what Cousin Sophy said; Humph and I have often
acted it since, because the cabman was so angry and there was such an
exciting fuss.

This cabman wasn’t angry, though; he just seemed to get more and more
astonished. He began to laugh, and he said again, “Well, I’m blessed!”
Then he said, “You ain’t running away, are you, Missy?”

I said “No.” I think that was true, because it isn’t exactly running
away when you have been told that you are to go the next day in any
case. I said, “I am just travelling home to my Mother.”

That seemed to decide him more. He was going to start, when he thought
of something else to worry over. He called down, “But ’ow about my
fare, Missy?”

I had been rather troubled about that myself. I’d got the half-crown
for him, of course, and the ticket home from Waterloo is only
one-and-five-pence-halfpenny, so he could have another halfpenny out
of the sixpence with the hole in it, as well as my bright farthing.
But I wasn’t sure if even all that was enough. Cabs are so dreadfully
expensive, Mother always says; and Father says one oughtn’t to be
stingy. So I just explained it to the cabman. I said, “I’ve got
half-a-crown for you, and a halfpenny out of the sixpence with a hole
in it, and a bright farthing; and if you’ll drive me as far as you can
for that without me being stingy, I’ll walk the rest.” I knew there
couldn’t be very much further to go, anyway.

The cabman, though, was most nice. He said, “The ’alf-crown will do
nicely for me, Missy. You can keep the rest.” Then we really did drive
off.

I did like it in the cab, and the streets were all bright with the
lights. A clock we passed said it was ten minutes to twelve; wasn’t
that an astonishing time? When we got to Waterloo I jumped out and gave
the cabman his money. He said, “Shall you find the lady all right?” I
said “Yes.” I think he would have said more, only just at that minute
some one waved to him from the opposite side of the road.

There weren’t very many people in the station, but they all stared very
rudely, and some looked as if they were going to speak. So I hurried
on as fast as I could to the place where you get the tickets. I knew
there was a train in the middle of the night, you see, because Father
comes down by it sometimes after parties. The little window for buying
the tickets was open. (I can reach up to it quite easily on tiptoe;
Humphrey can’t, he’d have to take a footstool if he travelled alone.) I
said, “One half-third single to Farncombe.”

Well, the gentleman there looked as surprised as the cabman. He said
“What?” quite crossly. I thought it was because I hadn’t said “please,”
but he wasn’t a bit nicer when I did. Then some other people came
near, and that seemed to make the gentleman in the little hole less
surprised. He punched my ticket and gave it to me, and he said, “I
suppose your Mother has a season ticket?” I said, “No, Father has.” I
didn’t know why he asked, but I think now he thought that I belonged to
the people who were standing there. It was very silly of him, for the
lady wasn’t the least bit like Mother; she looked horrid.

I know the platform from which our trains mostly start, besides a good
many other people were going along as well. I heard one lady say, “Who
does that little girl belong to?” And the gentleman said, “Oh, to that
lot, I think.” It made me very cross that everybody should mistake the
horrid lady for Mother, but I didn’t like to explain. Somebody else,
too, asked me if I were lost, but I said, very hard, “No.”

It was so uncomfortable, people talking to me like this, that I got
into the first empty carriage that I saw. I got under the seat, too, so
that they’d be less likely to bother me with questions. It isn’t nice
when every one is so astonished and cross at you.

I liked it under the seat, but I was so afraid that it was naughty. I
did hope that Mother wouldn’t mind. You see, she always says that I
am so careless about my clothes, and that it is unkind to Violet, who
has to wear them when I have grown out of them. It does seem hard on
Violet, certainly, because she never spoils anything herself. I think
she’d look neat on a desert island. She really ought to have been born
an eldest. It made it worse, too, because I was wearing my titums. I
suppose every one knows that a titums is your middle-best dress; the
others are hitums and scrub.

Of course, I didn’t stop under the seat all the time, or else I might
have passed the station. I thought afterwards that it was lucky no
one got into the carriage, because grown-up people are so easily
astonished, and they might have thought it funny when I came crawling
out. We only stopped twice before we got to Farncombe, which made it
easier, and I had lots of time to plan what I’d do when we got there.
First of all, though, I tried if both doors of the compartment were
unlocked, because that was part of the plan. They were. I began to feel
like the Young Pretender after Culloden.

Well, it all went beautifully. As the train slowed down to go into
Farncombe Station I jumped out of the door on the other side to our
platform. Then I ran across the line and crouched down by the hedge
until the train had gone off again and everything was quiet. I did
this because the station-master and all the people at Farncombe know
us, and I thought there’d be more fuss. Besides, the station-master is
a most disagreeable man.

I knew there was a hole in the hedge just there, because Humph and
I discovered it one day when Fräulein took us to meet Mother; she’d
missed her train, and so we had to wait a long time. It wasn’t true,
though, that Humph and I first made that hole, like the station-master
said; it was there all the time, though it may have got a teeny bit
larger, but then holes are things that grow fast, like in sheets, but
’specially with woollen gloves. Anyway it was a good thing now that it
had got big, because I was able to find it quite easily and to scramble
through into the field. Nobody saw me, so after waiting a few minutes
more I walked across and got over the stile into the road.

I had quite forgotten that it would be dark for this walk, when I
planned to come home at Mrs. Charlton’s. If I had remembered, I might
not have started, because of thinking that Mother would not like it,
but I should never have guessed that it would be so horrid in itself.
It wasn’t pitch black either, like it sometimes is. I’m not sure it
wasn’t worse, because it was light enough to see all sorts of dreadful
black things all round, and once you get quite outside Farncombe there
aren’t any more lights or houses at all. It was so quiet, too, there
wasn’t a sound. All at once I began to think of mad dogs and St. Denis.
I thought, suppose there was some one coming after me, holding his head
in his hands and looking down at it with his bleeding neck, like in the
picture. I wanted to run dreadfully, but I wouldn’t let myself, because
if you once start, something seems to come after you that will clutch
you with long, clawy fingers if you stop. I thought of Mother instead,
as hard as ever I could, and I’d got the penwiper on still, so I held
that through my clothes. That made it rather better.

Suddenly I saw something in the road moving. I could hardly breathe.
It was awful. But then it came nearer, and I saw it was just an
ordinary man. He had on his head quite all right. He said “Hullo!” and
I said “Good-evening.”

I didn’t think he was a very nice man, though; for he came up quite
close in rather a rude way. He caught hold of me and said, “That’s a
nice brooch you’ve got on,” and I said, “Yes; Father gave it to me last
birthday. It’s real gold.”

The man didn’t answer because just then we heard wheels coming. He
listened for a minute and then he dashed away into the bushes. The
carriage was really on the upper road, so he needn’t have minded. I
didn’t tell that to him, because I didn’t like him much. It was kind of
him, though, to admire my brooch. He was only a common sort of man, so
I dare say he’d never been taught manners and things.

I felt much better and more comfortable after meeting the man. I got
almost directly to where our short cut through the copse begins, and
that made it seem more like home. I thought that I could let myself
begin to run there, because it’s such a little way, but all the same I
did feel frightened before I got to the house. I rushed up to the front
door and tugged at the handle. It was locked!

Well, of course, I might have known that it would be, but at the time
it seemed the worst thing of all. I began screaming out “Mother,
Mother!” and I was all shaking and crying, I don’t know why. Almost
before you’d have thought there was time, the door was pulled back and
Mother had hold of me.

After that it was all right, of course, and almost too nice to
tell. Mother had come running down just as she was, though she said
afterwards that she hadn’t really believed that it could be me, and had
thought that she was dreaming it all. She carried me up and undressed
me and put me into her own bed. I was still rather silly, for I didn’t
seem to be able to say anything, only a line I’d read kept going on
inside my head about “Port after stormy seas.”

Presently, though, Mother began to ask me questions. She kept asking me
if I had really come all the way alone, as if she could hardly believe
it. Each time I said “Yes” she cuddled me again. Then she asked me if
Mrs. Charlton knew; so I ’splained about it. Mother didn’t say anything
hardly then, but she wrote a telegram for Mrs. Charlton to say that
I’d arrived safely, and she put it for the gardener to take to the
post-office the first thing in the morning. Mother got me some milk,
and some cake, which I ate while she went in for a minute to see Humph.
I forgot to say that of course I’d asked about him at the beginning,
and Mother said that he had got much better the last day. Fräulein was
with him, so Mother didn’t have to stay. She came back to me, and I was
so happy it seemed to make me sleepy all at once. It was almost too
lovely to feel that Mother was quite close to me.

The next day it wasn’t so nice, though. Mother talked to me a long
time, and she said a thing that made me feel dreadfully bad; she said
I’d been selfish; I’d thought of my own feelings but not of other
people’s. She said that fortunately Mrs. Charlton had not discovered my
absence until the next morning, but if she had done so she would have
been extremely worried, and, at her age, it might have made her quite
ill. Also she’d have telegraphed home, and Mother says had she known
that I was wandering about the country by myself all night, she could
hardly have borne it, especially when Humphrey was so ill and Father
away. I minded that part much more than about Mrs. Charlton. Mother
looked so unhappy, it was dreadful. I promised and promised I’d never
do such a thing again.

That wasn’t all the disagreeables either. The next day a letter came
from Cousin Sophy in London, asking me and the little ones to stay with
her. She’d been abroad before, and so had only just heard of Humph’s
having measles. Well, Mother wrote to Jane, who was away in lodgings
with the little ones, to tell her to take them to Cousin Sophy’s at the
end of the week, because Mother knew that they’d like it better. But
with regard to me, Mother said she hardly liked to trust me away from
home again.

I minded the not being trusted part, but I didn’t mind the not going
so much when Mother told me, because it seemed so nice to stop at home
with her. But it wasn’t really; it was a great deal horrider than I
could have ’magined. I hardly saw Mother at all because she was looking
after Humphrey all the time, and I wasn’t allowed to go in to him.
As for Fräulein, she was most strict and disagreeable. And then when
Violet wrote she said that Cousin Sophy had taken them to the Zoo and
the Chamber of Horrors, and lots of other lovely places. I did feel
cross.

They are back now, though, and Humph is well, and everything is nice.
I’ve quite settled not to go visiting strangers alone again--no, not as
long as I live. The others are so interested in my adventures, though,
that it almost makes one forget how horrid they really were. Perhaps
the lovely things you read in books are really like that, and even
being a cowboy mayn’t be always nice. And I do think a journey like
mine would be too dreadful for any one if Mother weren’t waiting for
them at the end of it.


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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

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  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

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*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77065 ***