‘I have been asking the Robinsons about the Fair,’ said Aunt Grace, on Monday morning, ‘and I think it will be all right for you to go under Mary’s charge. But I don’t want it to be on a Saturday. I wonder if she would be able to have you to-day week instead.’
‘It might put out her plans to change the day,’ objected Emmeline, more from a perverse desire to find fault than because she seriously thought so. ‘Why shouldn’t we go on a Saturday?’
‘Because I don’t choose for you to go on a school-holiday, when the place will be crowded with children,’ said Aunt Grace. ‘There’s no saying what you mightn’t catch. If Mary can’t have you on the Monday I’m afraid you must give up the idea of going to the Fair, but I think it would be worth while to write and ask her.’
‘Very well,’ said Emmeline, in a voice which sounded more sulky than pleased.
‘Oh dear, shall I ever understand Emmeline? sighed Aunt Grace to herself, when her niece had gone off to the schoolroom. ‘Micky and Kitty are dear little things, but I always seem somehow to rub Emmeline the wrong way. I thought she would have been so pleased about this Fair.’
So at the bottom of her heart Emmeline was, but a kind of cross-grained loyalty made her resent Aunt Grace’s having thought it needful to consult the Robinsons as to whether a treat proposed by Mary was suitable. It was that feeling which had been at the bottom of her ungracious manner.
Emmeline’s objection that Mary might be inconvenienced by the change of dates proved a groundless one. A warm letter arrived in the course of a day or two to say that she would be only too much delighted to see the children on Monday, if that suited best; and so without further ado it was arranged.
Three eager heads were craned out of the carriage window, when on the following Monday morning the Woodsleigh train slowly steamed into Eastwich Station. Everyone wanted to be the first to catch sight of Mary. ‘There she is!’ screamed Micky, and ‘I see her!’ shrieked Kitty, as they fixed on two different ladies, neither of whom proved on closer view to resemble Mary in the least.
‘But wherever can Mary be?’ cried Kitty, when she was convinced of her mistake.
‘I thought she would have been sure to come and meet us,’ said Mick, in an injured voice.
‘We’ll wait here a few minutes, just in case something has hindered her,’ said Emmeline, ‘and then if she doesn’t come we’ll make our own way to the house.’
The few minutes passed, and still there was no sign of Mary, so they presently left the station and set out by themselves for her house. Emmeline was in the best of good humours, and made herself quite charming to her little brother and sister. She liked nothing so well as to find herself in a position of authority.
The walk was not long. In a very few minutes they were bursting open Mary’s front door, and rushing down the little passage to the kitchen, with joyous cries of ‘Mary, we’re here!’ ‘Mary, we’ve come!’
Mary was seated in an arm-chair by the fire. ‘Take care, dearie,’ she explained, as Micky was charging at her recklessly. ‘I’ve sprained my ankle rather badly, and though it doesn’t hurt so much now, it wouldn’t do to knock it. I do feel that vexed with myself for having done such a stupid thing to-day of all days. Well, my darlings, thisisnice to see you again! Why,Master Micky, I do believe you’ve grown even in these few weeks since I saw you.’
‘I must have grown too, then,’ chimed in Kitty: ‘our two heads come to just exactly the same place on the schoolroom door.’ Kitty was quite willing that Micky should be acknowledged her superior in every other way, but that he should have the palm for tallness was rather too much even for her twin-sisterly devotion.
‘So you have, my darling,’ said Mary, while Emmeline anxiously asked after the sprain.
‘Oh, it won’t be anything much,’ said Mary, ‘but I’m afraid I shan’t be able to use my foot for the next few days, and what bothers me is how you’re to go to the Fair without me. Of course, it’s as quiet as it can be just now—it’s only on Saturday afternoons and in the evenings it gets a bit rough—so I don’t see myself how you could possibly come to harm under Miss Emmeline’s charge, but maybe Miss Bolton wouldn’t think it quite the thing. If only I knew anyone whom I could ask to go with you, but I don’t—not at such short notice,’ and Mary’s pleasant face looked thoroughly worried.
‘I’m sure Aunt Grace wouldn’t mind our going with Emmeline,’ said Kitty.
‘No, she’s much too jolly,’ agreed Micky.
Emmeline could not feel so sure. An uncomfortable remembrance came to her that AuntGrace had specially said they might go under Mary’s charge. Did that mean that they might go by themselves now that Mary was unable to escort them?
‘Well, what do you think, Miss Emmeline dear?’ asked Mary, anxiously.
‘Oh, Emmeline,’ pleaded Kitty, as Emmeline still hesitated, ‘of course she wouldn’t mind! Why you’re twelve years old—almost grown up.’
That decided Emmeline. She could not bear to lose prestige in the eyes of the little sister who thought her almost grown up. ‘I’m sure Aunt Grace couldn’t mind,’ she said boldly; ‘she knows I’m quite to be trusted to look after the others.’
‘That you are, my darling,’ agreed Mary, rather too easily reassured—as a nurse it had been her one weakness that she never could endure to disappoint the children—‘and Micky and Kitty will be as good as gold, I’m sure’; whereupon the twins assumed the expressions of a pair of youthful saints.
‘May Micky and I look at the picture Bible?’ suggested Kitty meekly. Whenever the twins visited that house—they had often done so in the days when Mary was still their nurse—one of two amusements was the recognised order of the day. Either they played—not the real game, but one of their own invention—with a set ofelaborate Indian chessmen brought home by a sailor brother of Mary’s; or else they looked at the pictures of a fascinating old French Bible which had somehow come into the possession of Mary’s grandfather.
‘And now, dearie, tell me all about how you’ve been getting on,’ said Mary, as soon as there was quiet in the room, owing to the twins having become blissfully absorbed in the picture of the plague of frogs in the old French Bible. It always sent delicious thrills through them to discover frogs hopping lightheartedly out of Pharaoh’s very modern looking soup tureen, or creeping out from between his bedclothes.
‘Aunt Grace is kind in her own way,’ acknowledged Emmeline—she was always candid about people’s merits even when she disapproved of them—‘but living with her isn’t like living with you, Mary.’
‘Well, dear, it’s not to be expected it should be, seeing that she’s a young lady, and me only an old nurse,’ said Mary simply; ‘but I’m sure whatever changes there are will work out right in the end, for I know she is fond of you.’
‘Yes, she’s fond of us—that is, she is fond of the twins,’ said Emmeline, ‘but she doesn’t care about the sort of things mother cared about, and you care about. What she really cares for is dressing prettily and going to parties, and so on.’
‘I don’t think, dear, we can judge what’s in other people’s hearts,’ said Mary, slowly. She felt somewhat at a loss how to answer Emmeline, for she was too good and loyal to encourage the child in criticising her aunt, but she herself had been brought up to regard most amusements as dangerous, if not actually sinful, and there was no doubt that Aunt Grace was very gay and merry.
‘But I’m not judging what’s in her heart, but what she says,’ persisted Emmeline. ‘I’ll just tell you what she said the other day’; and she related the conversation with Mr. Faulkner about the little Kathleen who had been like an angel to the poor. ‘Youdon’t think it’s true that children only do harm when they try to do work of that sort?’ she ended.
‘No, indeed,’ said Mary; ‘I think a guileless child can often do more than anyone else to touch a sinner’s heart.’ Mary spoke with earnest conviction. It was true that she had never actually come across such a young person as the guileless child of whom she spoke, but she none the less firmly believed in the type.
‘Mary, isn’t it nearly time for dinner?’ broke in Micky at this point. The twins had just reached the last meal of the Israelites before they left Egypt, and the picture had put it into Micky’s head to be hungry.
‘And, Mary, may we set the table?’ chimed in Kitty.
They were in the midst of setting the table when Mary’s brother George came in from work. He was a burly, good-natured, red-faced person, chiefly remarkable for pockets which bulged out with apples and sweets, and for certain time-honoured jokes which the children always greeted with the cordiality due to such old friends.
‘George always pretends he’s going to put us in his pockets,’ Micky had remarked to Kitty on one occasion; ‘it’s getting a bit stale.’
‘Yes, but wemustlaugh,’ said Kitty: ‘he’d be so disappointed if we didn’t,’ and accordingly the twins always laughed uproariously as soon as George so much as mentioned his pockets.
They sat down to table after full justice had been done to these pleasantries, and the meal that followed might have been one grand joke from beginning to end to judge from the continual laughter that went on. Mary had remembered everybody’s favourite dishes; there was liver and bacon to please the twins, pancakes for Emmeline, though Shrove Tuesday was about half a year distant, and baked potatoes for them all. When at last everybody had eaten as much of these good things as they could manage, and George had gone back to work, it was high time to start for the Fair.
‘I wonder what time I had better have tea ready for you,’ said Mary, as they were putting on their hats. ‘Did Miss Bolton say you were to go back by any particular train?’
‘She said either the 5.5 or the 5.25,’ replied Emmeline; ‘it doesn’t really matter which, for she isn’t going to meet us at the station. She’s going to a croquet-party at the Vicarage this afternoon, so it would not be convenient, and you see she always trusts me to look after the others.’ Perhaps Emmeline would not have dragged this in if her conscience had been quite at ease about the afternoon’s expedition.
‘Well, then, I’ll expect you back to tea about a quarter past four,’ said Mary. ‘Miss Emmeline will be able to keep count of time with that dear little watch of hers. And now, my darlings, it’s high time you were off, or you’ll have to come back almost as soon as you get there.’
‘It’s a horrid shame you can’t come too, Mary,’ said Micky; and his sisters declared that it wouldn’t be half so much fun without her.
‘Yes, I don’t know when I’ve been so disappointed about anything,’ said Mary, with unfeigned regret; ‘but you’ll have to tell me all about it when you come back to tea. I shall be looking forward to that all the afternoon.’
Perhaps just because she had been looking forward to the treat so eagerly for days past, Emmeline’s feeling, when she actually found herself at the Fair, was one of disappointment. There, to be sure, were the gaily decorated booths, there were the merry-go-rounds of all kinds and degrees, varying from the ring of wooden horses worked by hand, to the alarming-looking motors which raced round and round at break-neck speed; there were the side-shows, with their air of entrancing mystery to be revealed on payment of one penny; there, in fact, was everything she had been led to expect, but somehow the whole did not make the glittering, fairy-like effect she had been picturing to herself. Besides, even at this hour of the afternoon, there were a good many rough-looking people about, and Emmeline did not like rough people.
But if Emmeline was disappointed, Micky and Kitty were not. All the merry-go-rounds were playing different tunes; all the people who hadanything to sell or to show were proclaiming its merits at the tops of their voices; the public was enjoying itself in a very loud fashion; in fact, everybody was doing everything in the noisiest manner possible, and the discord of sounds produced was deafening and delightful to the twins.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ said Kitty to Micky, as she skipped about; but Micky did not hear, for he was engaged in a scornful colloquy with the owner of the hand-worked wooden horses.
‘Think I’m going to ride on one of those things?’ he was demanding indignantly. ‘Do you take me for a kid?’
‘Emmeline,’ clamoured Kitty, ‘when may we go and see the darling elephants?’
‘You girls can do what you like,’ said Micky grandly, ‘but I’m off for a motor-drive.’
Aunt Grace had provided each twin with a shilling, and Emmeline with a florin to spend at the Fair, so that there was plenty of money for such luxuries as motor-drives.
The motor-drive, or rather several motor-drives, and the call on the darling elephants were gone through in due course, and then Micky fell under the spell of the cocoanut-shy.
‘Do come on, Micky!’ entreated Emmeline, after he had made many unsuccessful shots; ‘I believe they’re fixed——’
The rest of her sentence was lost in indignant astonishment; someone had flicked one of the little feather brooms known as ‘fair-ticklers’ full in her face!
‘Come along, Micky,’ she exclaimed, with angry impatience; ‘I’m sick of this horrid place. Why, what are you doing?’
For Micky had suddenly flung down the ball which he was about to shy at the cocoanuts, and was rushing after a wretched little street arab of about his own size.
‘Give it up! You little cad!’ he shouted, as he caught hold of the boy’s ragged jacket. ‘Give it up this minute!’
‘I ain’t got nothing,’ whined the boy, trying vainly to wriggle out of Micky’s grasp.
‘Yes, you have. I saw you take it,’ and to Emmeline’s intense surprise, Micky suddenly wrenched her own purse out of the street arab’s dirty hand. Her thoughts had been so much taken up by the fair-tickler that she had not even felt it go.
‘I’d give you a jolly good thrashing if you weren’t such a muff!’ exclaimed Micky.
Emmeline collected her astonished wits with an effort.
‘Well, youarea naughty little boy,’ she remarked severely; ‘it would just serve you right if we gave you up to the police.’
The ragged little urchin began to howl. If he had really been much afraid he would probably have run away, but this did not strike Emmeline, and her heart softened towards him, especially when he sobbed: ‘I ain’t had nothing to eat since yesterday morning.’
Kitty, who was looking on with wide-open pitying eyes, gave Emmeline’s hand a sudden squeeze.
‘May I give him the money I’ve got left?’ she whispered.
‘Not till we know more about him,’ said Emmeline. ‘Is your father out of work?’ she added to the boy, with some vague idea that it was the correct thing to ask questions of that kind before giving alms.
‘I ain’t got no father nor mother neither,’ he replied, still in his professional whine.
‘Who looks after you, then?’ asked Emmeline, more gently.
‘Old Sally Grimes,’ was the answer, ‘but she ain’t give me nothing to eat since yesterday morning, and she beat me something awful!’
‘Come along with me,’ said Emmeline. A sudden idea had taken possession of her.
‘What for?’ asked the boy half suspiciously.
‘I’m going to give you something to eat,’ said Emmeline.
The boy’s eyes glistened. It had been apicturesque exaggeration to say that he had had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, but he was really very hungry.
‘Thank you kindly, lady,’ he said, and Emmeline flushed with gratification. ‘Lady’ sounded so much grander than ‘Missy.’
‘What are you going to give him to eat?’ asked Micky, with interest. ‘There’s a man selling ice-cream over there.’
Almsgiving was impossible to Micky just then, for he had spent all his money (his last two cocoanut shies had been paid for by Kitty), but he was quite willing to help with advice.
‘And there’s a girl selling delicious toffee, only she calls it candy,’ said Kitty. ‘Why does she call it candy, Emmeline?’
‘I shouldn’t think of giving a starving boy ice-cream, or toffee either,’ said Emmeline. ‘We’ll go where there’s something more sensible to eat than what you can buy at this Fair. Come along, children.’
On the whole, the twins were not unwilling to leave the Fair. It was rather sad to go so soon, but less so now that twopence of Kitty’s represented all their remaining fortune than it would have been half an hour before, and when even that solitary twopence had been spent on the mysterious toffee that called itself ‘candy,’ their willingness to forsake the Fair became eagernessto see what new thing was about to happen. It was as good as a story-game come true to wander through the streets of Eastwich with this delightfully ragged dirty boy.
‘Where are we going, Emmeline? What are we going to do?’ they cried.
‘You’ll see,’ said Emmeline.
As a matter of fact, she did not quite know herself.
They came out of the Fair into a region of squalid little shops; squalid, at least, they appeared to Emmeline, but her protégé saw them from a different point of view.
‘Please, lady, the fried fish and ’taters in there is all right,’ he hinted wistfully, as they passed an overwhelming smell.
Emmeline hesitated. She had vaguely intended taking him to some superior Tea-Rooms in the High Street, where she herself had sometimes gone for a treat, but now she came to think of it, perhaps the fried-fish shop would be more fitting in this case.
‘I think we’ll go in here, then,’ she decided, to her guest’s obvious satisfaction.
A shopman with a much stained apron gazed at the party in some astonishment as they entered, but he seemed to think Emmeline a trustworthy person, for he made no demur when she ordered a plate of fried fish and potatoes.
‘What’s your name, little boy?’ asked Emmeline, when the shopman had disappeared into the back regions, and they were seated waiting at a grimy table covered with American leather in imitation of marble.
‘Diamond Jub’lee Jones,’ replied the boy glibly.
‘What an extraordinary name!’ exclaimed Emmeline, and the twins began to giggle.
‘I were born on Diamond Jub’lee day,’ he explained, with evident pride.
‘Well, Diamond Jubilee, I’m sure with such a splendid birthday you ought to be a very good, honest boy,’ said Emmeline, by way of improving the occasion. ‘What would Queen Victoria have said if anyone had told her that a boy born on her Diamond Jubilee would ever take to picking people’s pockets? Why, she would have been awfully upset.’
Diamond Jubilee looked round the shop furtively, as though to assure himself that there was nobody within hearing. ‘That ain’t to please meself I picks pockets,’ he mumbled; ‘that’s Mother Grimes. She beats us something awful if we don’t bring nothing home.’
‘You don’t mean to say she is bringing you up as a thief!’ exclaimed Emmeline, in a horrified voice.
What Diamond Jubilee might have answered will never be known, for just at that moment theshopman came back with the fried fish and potatoes, and private conversation was stopped for the time being. Diamond Jubilee threw himself on the food like a ravenous animal, while Micky and Kitty looked on with a fascinated stare. From their point of view, his table manners were quite as well worth watching as those of the elephants they had just been visiting.
Emmeline’s point of view was a more fastidious one, and at any other time she might have been disgusted, but to-day it was with a certain tolerance that she saw Diamond Jubilee put his knife into his mouth. His last words had shed a halo of romance round his unkempt head. It was to children like him that Kathleen had been a good angel.
With that last thought, a plan flashed into Emmeline’s brain—a plan so strange and startling that it almost took her breath away for the moment, and so glorious that it made her want to jump and dance about the shop, only that would have been out of keeping with the dignity of the wonderful plan.
‘Diamond Jubilee, if you have quite done, will you come outside? I’ve something important to tell you.’ Emmeline’s heart was thumping so that she could hardly get the words out.
‘Well, there ain’t nothing more on this here plate,’ said Diamond Jubilee, giving it a finalscrape. Perhaps he hoped that she would offer a second helping, but she scarcely even heard what he said.
‘Stop a bit, miss!’ called the shopman, as she seized hold of Diamond Jubilee’s arm, and began hurrying him out of the shop. ‘You haven’t paid, miss.’
‘Oh, bother!’ cried Emmeline, impatiently. ‘I was quite forgetting. How much is it?’
‘Three halfpence, please, miss.’
Her fingers were trembling with excitement as she fumbled for the money in her little brown leather purse.
‘That’ll be right, thank you, miss,’ he said, as she threw it down on the counter.
At last they were out in the street again, and she was free to tell the marvellous plan with which for the last two minutes she had been almost bursting. ‘Diamond Jubilee,’ she demanded, again laying her hand in a motherly way on his very dirty and rather smelly jacket sleeve, ‘don’t you feel a longing sometimes for a better life?’
Diamond Jubilee stared at her as though he did not understand the question.
‘Wouldn’t you like to get away from Mother Grimes, and go to live with people who would teach you to be a good boy and always be kind to you?’ she asked, the words almost tumbling over one another in her eagerness.
‘Well,’ said Diamond Jubilee, ‘maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t.’
Emmeline was conscious of a sudden chill of disappointment. This was not the way she had pictured him hailing the prospect of deliverance from Mother Grimes and his present life. But perhaps his indifferent manner simply meant that he did not even yet quite understand.
‘Because if you would like it,’ she went on very slowly and distinctly, ‘I’ll take you home with me.’
‘Emmeline!’ gasped Kitty, ‘whateverwillAunt Grace say?’ Even to her simple mind, it seemed a somewhat unusual proceeding to adopt a strange boy out of the streets on the strength of his having tried to pick one’s pocket.
Micky, however, saw things from a less conventional standpoint. ‘I say, Emmeline, what a stunning lark!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, it will be almost like keeping another dog!’
Meantime, Diamond Jubilee was regarding Emmeline with a critical stare, very unlike the deferential gratitude she felt he ought to have shown. ‘Garn!’ he said, suspiciously. ‘You’re kidding me, ain’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by kidding you,’ said Emmeline, with dignity. ‘If you come home with me you shall have plenty to eat and a nicehouse to live in. I promise you that, and I always keep my promises.’
Even after Emmeline’s assurance that he should have plenty to eat and a nice home, Diamond Jubilee did not look as if he altogether trusted her. Still, she had just given him the best meal he had had for a long time past, and life with Mother Grimes had been particularly unpleasant lately.… ‘Well,’ he said doubtfully, ‘maybe—I’ll come.’
‘Does that mean you will come, or you won’t?’ said Emmeline.
He gave her another critical stare before answering, ‘I don’t mind if I do.’
She knew that this was a way of accepting her offer, and though she could not help feeling nettled, it was too late now to draw back. Besides, it might only be an unfortunate manner which made Diamond Jubilee seem so indifferent. ‘Well, then, listen what you’ve got to do,’ she commanded in her briskest and most capable voice. ‘We must hurry back now to have tea with a friend who is expecting us, and though of course you can’t come in, as you haven’t been invited, you must come with us and wait outside, or you won’t know where to find us again. We shan’t stay more than half an hour, and after that we’ll take you to your new home. And now you had better walk a little way behind us.It’s not that we don’t like walking with you, but it might lead to awkward questions if people met you with us,’ she added hastily, for fear of hurting his feelings.
She need not have been afraid. He had no special desire to walk with these strange children, who had so unexpectedly adopted him, so he fell back in stolid indifference.
‘Emmeline,’ said Kitty uneasily, as they hurried along towards Mary’s house, ‘it will be a tremendous surprise for Aunt Grace when Diamond Jubilee turns up.’
‘It’s the jolliest lark that ever was!’ Micky was exclaiming, on her other side, ‘I never thought you were so sporting, Emmeline.’
‘It isn’t sporting at all,’ said Emmeline, with dignity. ‘You don’t seem to understand, Micky, that this is a good work, and not a game.’
‘But are youquite surethat Aunt Grace won’t be cross?’ asked Kitty.
‘Aunt Grace won’t have anything to do with him,’ said Emmeline, rather defiantly. ‘It’s we who are adopting him, not her. Nobody else will know anything about him, not even Mary. I’d like to tell her, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be safe. She might think it her duty to tell Aunt Grace—one never quite knows with grown-up people, even the nicest of them.’
‘But how are you going to manage about hisfood and the nice house to live in, if nobody’s to know about him?’ was Kitty’s very natural question.
‘He’ll live in the Feudal Castle, and we’ll buy his food with the money in my extra money-box,’ said Emmeline. ‘It’ll be quite all right to use it in that way, for it was for poor little children such as Diamond Jubilee that we collected it.’
For about five seconds the twins gazed at her open-mouthed. Such a scheme was beyond their most brilliant imaginings. Then Micky startled the passers-by with a wild war-whoop, and Kitty gasped: ‘How perfectly bea-u-tiful! Why, it’ll be just like the Young Pretender—taking him food, I mean, and keeping his hiding-place secret from everybody.’
‘We’ll have to bind ourselves by a solemn oath of secrecy,’ cried Micky. ‘Here goes—if I let out about Diamond Jubilee, may I and my descendants——’
‘Micky, you know Aunt Grace said we weren’t to say that,’ said Kitty, in a voice of distress.
‘No, Micky; it’s not nice,’ said Emmeline.
‘I was only going to say, “May we lose our shirt-studs even to the hundredth generation!” said Micky, calmly. ‘Aunt Grace invented that herself, so there!’
‘Well, Miss Emmeline, dear, you know best what Miss Bolton would like, so I won’t try to over-persuade you, though I’m real sorry you can’t stay just till the 5.25.’ Poor Mary could not understand what had come over her guests. All through that delicious tea of shrimps and strawberry jam, which she had especially provided for the occasion, they had seemed curiously restless and excited, and now here was Emmeline actually insisting on returning by the earlier of the two trains she had mentioned.
‘I’m afraid Aunt Grace—I mean, I think it would make us rather too late getting home,’ said Emmeline, rather confusedly, as she kicked Micky and Kitty under the table by way of a hint to them to hold their tongues. Perhaps on an ordinary occasion the twins might not have taken the hint so submissively, but at that moment they were too eager to see what was going to happen next to mind either being kicked or being hurried away from Mary’s house.
‘Then, if you really think so, I’m afraid it’s about time you were starting,’ said Mary regretfully; ‘George will be sadly disappointed not to see you again, but that can’t be helped.’
‘You must give him our best respects,’ said Kitty—(George always sent his best respects to them, so Kitty supposed it was the correct form of message)—‘and here’s some toffee for him—at least, it’s called candy, though it really is toffee. It has got a little crumby and pockety, but perhaps he’ll excuse that, and it may comfort him. Toffee’s a wonderful comfort sometimes.’
‘Oh, Miss Kitty, George wouldn’t think of taking your toffee, bless your heart!’ said Mary, kissing the child, as she helped her on with her hat; ‘but I’ll tell him you wanted to give it him, and that will comfort him.’
‘I should have thought myself it would only have disappointed him more,’ said Kitty; ‘but you know best, of course.’
‘Well, we must really be starting,’ said Emmeline, in a nervous fever. She was terribly afraid that Diamond Jubilee might have grown tired of waiting outside, and have run away.
Mary hobbled with them as far as the door. ‘It has been just lovely having you,’ she remarked, as she opened it to let them out. ‘I only wish, though, I could have come to thestation to see you off’—a wish which, under the circumstances, they could hardly echo.
For Diamond Jubilee was still faithfully waiting for them a few yards farther down the street. At the moment they came out he was contentedly munching a banana. If Emmeline’s acquaintance with him had been more intimate she might have suspected that it had been stolen from the fruit-store at the corner; as it was, this did not strike her, and her pleasure at seeing him still there, and so happily employed, was only spoilt by the fear lest, by too eager a greeting, he should betray them to Mary, who stood at the door affectionately watching them down the street. She need not have been afraid, however. A cool ‘Hello!’ which if Mary heard, she simply took for the casual salutation of a free-and-easy little stranger, was the only notice he vouchsafed them.
‘Walk a good way behind us,’ she managed to whisper as she passed him, and to her great relief he obeyed readily enough.
Another moment, and, with last waves of the hand to Mary, they had turned the corner. Emmeline breathed freely again, though she still thought it wise to walk a little in front of their adopted son, just in case they met any of their acquaintance.
On the way to the station Emmeline explained her plans to Micky and Kitty. ‘I’ve still got sixpencehalfpenny left of my Fair money,’ she said ‘and I should think that would be enough to buy Diamond Jubilee a half-ticket to Chudstone.’
‘But Woodsleigh is our station,’ said Micky.
‘Well, we are going to get out at Chudstone this afternoon,’ said Emmeline; ‘for one thing, the half-ticket to Woodsleigh would cost a penny more than I’ve got, and for another thing, it wouldn’t be safe to take Diamond Jubilee through the village, where everybody knows us, and they would be sure to talk. Besides, our way home from Chudstone will lie through the wood, so we shall be able to take him to the Feudal Castle without going out of our way hardly at all. Of course, it will take us about a quarter of an hour longer than if we had come from Woodsleigh Station, but I chose the earlier train on purpose to allow for that.’
‘Youareclever, Emmeline!’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘I should never have thought of all that.’
‘I’m four years older than you are, you see,’ said Emmeline modestly, though she was flattered by the compliment. ‘I think,’ she continued, ‘that it will be better if Diamond Jubilee travels in a separate compartment.’
‘Won’t he think it rather horrid of us?’ said Micky.
‘I don’t see why he should mind it any more than he does walking behind us now,’ said Emmeline,‘and I’m sure it will be safer not to seem to belong to him. You never know whom you may meet in the train.’
We know that the best laid schemes both of mice and men are apt to go wrong, but on this occasion Emmeline’s really seemed as though they were going to be the exception to prove the rule. The party arrived at the station without any adventures; Diamond Jubilee’s ticket cost only five-pence halfpenny; without any difficulty she found an empty compartment for him, and an almost empty one next door to it for herself and the twins; last, but not least, they met no acquaintances at the station, so that although one or two porters stared at seeing Emmeline’s interest in such a dirty, ragged, and altogether disreputable little street-arab as Diamond Jubilee, nobody ventured to ask any awkward questions.
It was with a piece of stupidity on Diamond Jubilee’s part that the tide of luck seemed to turn. Emmeline had done her best to impress on him that he must get out of the train as soon as he heard the porters shouting ‘Chudstone,’ but, in spite of her instructions, he as nearly as possible let himself be carried on. She had not meant to appear to have anything to do with him at Chudstone, where they were quite likely to be recognised, but in desperation she was obliged to tell the porter that there was a little boy in the nextcarriage who wanted to get out. On the whole, she thought that course better than to open the door herself and bid him get out.
The man’s look of suspicion, when he opened the door and saw Diamond Jubilee calmly staring out of the opposite window, was only too obvious.
‘Where’s your ticket?’ he demanded sharply.
The fact that Diamond Jubilee happened to have mislaid it did not mend matters. The porter became abusive, and Emmeline was at her wits’ end what to do, between her fear lest, if she stayed to see the end of the fray, her connection with Diamond Jubilee might be suspected, and her conviction that if she left the station without him the chances were that she should lose sight of him altogether.
Luckily, the ticket was discovered underneath the cushion before Emmeline was obliged to come to the rescue, and with an angry injunction from the porter to ‘get out, and not give no more trouble,’ Diamond Jubilee was allowed to go free.
‘Really, I do think you might have managed better,’ Emmeline could not help telling him impatiently when they were safe outside the station. ‘Now, whatever you do, keep well behind us till we are out of the village.’
‘I’m afraid he’s going to turn out a duffer,’ remarked Micky, as Diamond Jubilee obediently fell back.
‘Micky, you mustn’t talk like that,’ said Emmeline, the more severely because at the bottom of her heart she could not help fearing that there might be some truth in what he said.
It was fortunate that they had not much of the village to go through before they branched off into the blackberry-grown byway which led to the wood, for, as it was, Diamond Jubilee’s appearance attracted a rather disagreeable amount of staring. No one molested him, however, or seemed to connect him with the well-dressed children who were walking some ten yards in front of him, and the party were soon safe in the wood, out of reach of curious eyes and whispering tongues.
‘You’ll soon be home now,’ said Emmeline, turning round to give him an encouraging smile.
Diamond Jubilee grinned, well pleased. He had the vaguest idea of what these little gentle-folks’ home would be like, but he hoped there might be another square meal awaiting him there, perhaps even more delicious than the one he had had at the fried-fish shop.
Great was his astonishment when the children, after walking through the wood for miles, as it seemed to him, came to a triumphant pause before a deserted and tumble-down hut.
‘There, Diamond Jubilee,’ said Emmeline in a voice of congratulation, ‘this is to be your own dear little home.’
Diamond Jubilee gazed at the dear little home in speechless surprise for a moment, after which he managed to say feebly:
‘Garn! You’re kidding me. That ain’t never where you live!’
‘It isn’t wherewelive,’ explained Kitty eagerly; ‘we live in a stupid house just like everybody else; but it’s whereyouare going to live. Oh, you will be jolly!’
‘You don’t want to think I’m going to live in that there dirty hole all by meself,’ said Diamond Jubilee with kindling wrath, ‘’cos I aren’t—not if it’s ever so.’
‘But we’ll be here so much that you won’t have time to be lonely—truly you won’t,’ pleaded Emmeline, no less surprised than dismayed at the turn things were taking. ‘Do come inside like a dear, good boy, and you’ll see how nice it is.’
‘Yes, do come in, Diamond Jubilee,’ coaxed Kitty; ‘it’s justlovelyinside—you can’t think.’
‘And what would you do if you were wrecked on a desert island if you make such a fuss now?’ said Micky, in his most reasonable voice.
As Diamond Jubilee had not the slightest intention of being wrecked on a desert island, this consideration had little weight with him, and it took a good many more persuasions to induce him to cross the threshold of the Feudal Castle. When at last he was inside he was so far from mollifiedat the look of it, and of the three-legged chair without a seat, and the table-top, that he burst into a dismal wail.
‘I won’t stay here—I won’t!’ he sobbed. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, that you do, for taking me in so shameful.’
Emmeline had to wink her eyes hard to keep back the tears; it was all turning out so utterly unlike what she had expected. ‘You’re a very foolish, ungrateful boy!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m sure this must be at least as comfortable as Mother Grimes’s house, and you ought to be only too thankful to be where nobody will beat you, and you’ll have plenty to eat.’
‘There was two beds at Sally Grimes’s,’ said Diamond Jubilee, resentfully, ‘and there was three or four on us slept in each, which was company-like, and kept us warm.’
Poor Emmeline! She had heard of those crowded beds before, always with a shudder of horror, and now here was her thankless protégé actually regretting them! ‘Look here, Diamond Jubilee,’ she said, ‘if you’ll only be patient we’ll buy you bedclothes, and so on, as soon as ever we get any extra money for birthdays or anything; as it is, you have only to get a little bracken from the wood, and you can make yourself quite a nice Feudal Castle bed. We would gather it for you, only we simply must go home now.’
‘Or Aunt Grace will guess there’s something up, and we shall get into a horrid row,’ put in Micky, a remark which Emmeline thought neither elegant nor suitable. There was no need for an adopted child to know that its adopters were in danger of getting into anything so undignified as a ‘row.’
‘I aren’t going to stop here alone, not if it’s ever so,’ said Diamond Jubilee, stubbornly.
His three adopters looked at one another in dismay. What was to be done?
Suddenly a bright idea struck Micky.
‘Suppose I come back here to-night and sleep with him?’ he suggested.
‘That’s absurd, Micky!’ answered Emmeline. She felt terribly worried. ‘You would be found out. Both the doors make such a horrible noise when they are unbolted, and you can’t possibly go before the house is shut up for the night, because you know Aunt Grace always looks in the last thing before she goes to bed.’
‘I could jump out of the schoolroom window, as I did last time I had a naughty morning,’ rejoined Micky. ‘Naughty mornings’ were recognised institutions with him, sad to say.
‘But how would you get in again to-morrow morning?’ said Emmeline. ‘It wouldn’t do to wait till the doors were unbolted, because you must be back in bed before anyone is about.’
‘Oh, I shall swarm up the water-pipe, as I did the other day. I shall manage all right’; and his eyes sparkled with the delight of arranging a real adventure.
‘Well, I suppose that’s how it will have to be settled, as Diamond Jubilee is such a great baby,’ said Emmeline reluctantly. ‘Anyhow, we really must go home now, so you will just have to wait here patiently, Diamond Jubilee, till Micky can come back.’
‘Not if I know it,’ said Diamond Jubilee, who as a town-bred boy felt terrors of the gathering dusk in the lonely wood which stirred him to unwonted resolution. ‘You’ll be giving me the slip if I let you out of my sight.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen always keep their word,’ said Emmeline, with much dignity; ‘you needn’t be afraid of Micky’s not coming back.’
‘I’m coming home along of you,’ said Diamond Jubilee firmly; ‘then you can give me something to eat. I’m about ready for it, I can tell you.’
‘You’rethemost unreasonable boy I ever met,’ said Emmeline, at the end of her patience. ‘You can’t possibly come home with us. Aunt Grace would be most awfully angry. And I think it’s extremely greedy of you to want anything more to eat after what you had at the shop.’
Emmeline herself had had one tea, and wasjust going home to another, but that, she felt, was different.
‘I aren’t never going to stop alone in this here wood,’ repeated Diamond Jubilee doggedly.
‘I know what!’ cried Kitty. ‘Let’s hide him in the summer-house just for this evening. He’ll be quite safe from being found, for no one goes there except us, and he won’t be frightened if he can see the lights from the windows. You’ll like the summer-house, won’t you, Diamond Jubilee?’
‘Well, I don’t mind trying,’ said Diamond Jubilee not ungraciously.
And so it had to be settled, though Emmeline would have felt much easier in her mind if only he would have stayed in the Feudal Castle, half a mile away from Aunt Grace. However, there was clearly no time for further argument; as it was, they would have to put their best feet forward if they were to reach home before it was suspiciously late even for the 5.25 train. Diamond Jubilee was certainly very trying.
Her heart softened to him again when they reached their own garden, and he quite meekly consented to go into hiding in the summer-house. She had been half afraid that he might insist on coming into the house with them in search of something to eat, so it was a great relief that he suddenly became so obedient.
‘Well, how have you enjoyed yourselves?’ was Aunt Grace’s cheerful greeting, as the three children came in on their return from Eastwich Fair.
‘Scrumptiously!’ said Micky; and then he and Kitty went into raptures over the elephants and the motor-cars, and cocoanuts Micky would have hit if only something or other hadn’t always just happened to prevent him.
‘Aunt Grace,’ broke in Emmeline presently, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but Mary had sprained her ankle rather badly, so she couldn’t go to the Fair, and—and I didn’t want to disappoint the others, so as Mary felt sure we should really be all right, we three went alone.’
Aunt Grace looked rather taken aback.
‘Well, it isn’t quite what I should have chosen for you,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure you and Mary settled what you thought was best. You’re a good child to tell me about it so frankly,’ she added kindly.
Emmeline felt a little uncomfortable. She did not doubt that they were quite right in secretly adopting Diamond Jubilee—people were obliged sometimes to keep their good deeds secret from unsympathetic relations—but perhaps she would rather Aunt Grace had not chosen just that moment to praise her for her frankness.
At tea that evening a most unusual thing happened: Emmeline choked!
If it had been Micky or Kitty there would have been nothing at all strange in such a lapse, but that Emmeline should do such a thing—Emmeline, whose perfect table manners had been held up as a model to the twins ever since they could remember—was indeed a matter for surprise.
‘Was it a crumb?’ asked Aunt Grace, with sympathy, when after vigorous pattings from the delighted twins Emmeline had reached the stage of being able to speak once more.
‘I—I don’t think so,’ mumbled Emmeline, with what would have been a blush if her choking fit had not left her too crimson already to turn even a shade more so.
No, it had not been a crumb which had made her choke in her tea, but the shock of seeing a pale, grimy little face pressed close against the window-pane outside. It had only been there for an instant, but the sudden glimpse had almost brought Emmeline’s heart into her mouth. She felt as though she hardly knew how to sit still at table when at any moment Diamond Jubilee might look in again and be seen by Aunt Grace.
Oh dear, there was Micky asking for another piece of bread and jam! However many more was he going to have before she would be free to get up and slip away to warn Diamond Jubilee?
‘Really, Micky, I think as this is your second tea, and you’ll have supper before so very long,you’ve had quite enough already,’ said Aunt Grace to Emmeline’s great relief; ‘be quick and finish what’s on your plate, Kitty, and then we’ll say grace.’
As soon as they had risen from table Emmeline hurried from the room, and rushed out into the garden. She found Diamond Jubilee sitting in the summer-house, looking as virtuous as though he had never stirred out of it since they had left him.
‘You reallymustbe more careful,’ she panted. ‘It gave me a most awful turn just now to see you looking in at the window.’
‘I ain’t never left this here shed,’ he assured her in a voice of injured virtue.
‘Oh, Diamond Jubilee, that’s a story, for I saw you!’ said Emmeline, shocked; ‘but I haven’t time to stay and talk about it now, or they will be missing me. Only promise me you won’t come out again—you’re fairly safe in here, but anyone might see you wandering about the garden. Do you understand?’
‘I’m awful hungry,’ he grumbled.
‘Well, we’ll bring you some supper presently if you will promise not to come out again,’ said Emmeline. ‘Will you give me your word and honour you won’t?’
He promised meekly enough, and she flew off again. She had been so quick that she caughtup with the other children as they were going upstairs to the schoolroom for their evening’s preparation.
As soon as the door was safely closed she told them what had happened. ‘I think he won’t do it again after what I said,’ she concluded, ‘but it gave me a good fright, I can tell you.’
‘Suppose,’ said Micky, who did not see why Emmeline should be the only one to make exciting, secret expeditions to the summer-house, ‘suppose I was to creep down on tiptoe to the dining-room and get some of that cake for Diamond Jubilee? Jane won’t have begun to clear away yet.’
‘No, certainly not,’ said Emmeline; ‘it would be stealing to take Aunt Grace’s cake without her leave and give it to Diamond Jubilee.’
Micky’s face fell. ‘I suppose it would,’ he acknowledged; ‘I never thought of that.’
‘But poor Diamond Jubilee will get so hungry if he doesn’t have anything more to eat till you can buy him some food with the extra money-box money,’ said Kitty, sadly.
‘But he won’t have to wait till then; I’ve promised to take him some supper presently,’ said Emmeline. ‘Our supper biscuits and milk are our own to do what we like with, and I mean to give him the milk to-night, and save the biscuits for to-morrow morning’s breakfast. It’s a pity we can’t save some of the milk too, but Jane would notice if there weren’t three empty glasses.’