Chapter II: Part 2

“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.