“OH, WHATSHALLWE DO?” SHE SOBBED.
“OH, WHATSHALLWE DO?” SHE SOBBED.
‘I’ve thought of a splendid game for this afternoon,’ announced Micky, as the children were finishing dinner. ‘We’ll find Diamond Jubilee, and go to the Feudal Castle to play it, for it’s a Feudal Castle game. Diamond Jubilee is to be an awfully ragged, dirty pilgrim come back from the Crusades, and Kitty and I will be quite rude to him at first; but when the Lady of the Castle—that’s Emmeline—sees him (youwillcome, won’t you, Emmeline?), you’ll fling your arms round his neck and cry, “Here is my long lost son!” for your mother’s heart will tell you directly who he is.’
‘Oh, Micky! I think that’s a silly game,’ said Emmeline. ‘Diamond Jubilee really isn’t clean enough for anyone to fling their arms around his neck. I hope you didn’t get very close to him in the summer-house last night?’ she added anxiously.
‘Oh no! He rolled up in one blanket and I rolled up in the other,’ Micky assured her. ‘But how fussy you are getting! I think it’s horrid ofyou first to adopt him and then not want us to play with him, just because he’s rather dirty.’
‘Don’t be so silly and exaggerating, Micky. I only didn’t want you to play at that sort of game. I think it will be a very good plan if you take Diamond Jubilee to the Feudal Castle and play at something sensible there, for it may get him used to the place before to-night.’
‘But I don’t want to play at something sensible,’ persisted Micky. ‘I want to play at what I said.’
‘I know what!’ broke in Kitty, who was always a peacemaker. ‘Emmeline can be a stepmother; then she won’t have to fling her arms round his neck.’
‘My game was better,’ grumbled Micky, ‘but I suppose if Emmeline won’t be the mother, she’ll have to be the stepmother.’
‘I don’t know whether I shall be able to be anything,’ said Emmeline. ‘You see, I want to get the blankets to the Feudal Castle this afternoon, because I think Diamond Jubilee might settle down there if once his blankets were there, and of course I shall have to wait and watch for a chance of getting them out when nobody’s looking.’
‘Shall Kitty and I stop and help you?’ asked Micky eagerly.
Real actual plotting, if only about blankets, wasmore fun than the most splendid story-game ever invented.
‘Oh, I can manage quite well by myself,’ said Emmeline; ‘and you would find it very dull waiting, perhaps ever so long, for a chance of getting the blankets out of the kennel. Besides, what I really want you to do is to keep Diamond Jubilee safe amused and out of the garden, and if you can get him to like the Feudal Castle it’ll be the greatest help of all. You see, he simplymustsleep there alone to-night. It would be too much of a risk for you to sleep out with him in the summer-house again.’
‘Don’t mean to,’ said Micky cheerfully; ‘the summer-house is very nice for an adventure, but not for always.’ As a matter of fact, it had been so extremely hard and cold that it had only been by dint of pretending that he was in prison that Micky had enjoyed it even as an adventure.
To be able to play at a story-game, and to feel at the same time that they were being ‘the greatest help of all’ in the Diamond Jubilee secret, was delightful to the twins; so they and Punch trotted out of the garden to look for him as soon as ever dinner was over; whilst Emmeline reached down ‘The Wide Wide World’ from its place in the bookshelf, and took it out with her to the wooden seat on the back lawn, where she meant to wait and watch for the coast to be clear.
It was anything but clear for the moment, for Mr. Brown was doing something to one of the flower-beds at one end of the lawn, and Cook’s face kept appearing at the scullery window, but Emmeline settled herself down to wait very contentedly. ‘The Wide Wide World’ was a book of which she never grew tired, and a quiet, peaceful time for reading it was far more to her taste than an afternoon with Diamond Jubilee. Try as she would, she could not feel much craving for the company of her adopted son.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour passed. Emmeline looked up from her story. Cook had disappeared from the scullery window—probably she had gone upstairs to dress for the afternoon—but that tiresome Mr. Brown was still attending to his flower-bed. Clearly it was not yet the moment for making her raid, and with a sigh, half of disappointment, half of relief, Emmeline relapsed into her tale.
She had been reading for longer than she realised, when she was startled by the crunching of footsteps on the gravel, and turning her head, saw Kitty and Punch coming up the path.
‘Haven’t you got them out yet?’ asked Kitty in a disappointed voice as she came close up to Emmeline.
‘How can I, with Mr. Brown always about? There—I do believe he has finished at last! Ohno, he’s only going to that other bed!’ exclaimed Emmeline, as Mr. Brown stopped at the flower-bed just beneath the schoolroom window. ‘What have you come back for?’ she added. ‘It’s not nearly tea-time yet.’
‘Diamond Jubilee said the monkey-nuts had made him so thirsty he must have a drink of water,’ explained Kitty, ‘so I thought I’d see if I couldn’t take him some in the tooth-glass. I shall have to wait till Mr. Brown’s gone, though,’ and she flung herself down on the lawn by Emmeline’s side. ‘We met Diamond Jubilee just outside the garden,’ she continued, ‘and we’ve been having a lovely time—at least, the last part of it was lovely. The first part he wasn’t well (do you know, Emmeline, I’m afraid monkey-nuts don’t agree with him; he calls them “blooming,” and he’d have thrown what’s left of them away, only Micky wouldn’t let him); but after he got well again we took him to the Feudal Castle, which he doesn’t seem to mind when we’re there, and he told us all sorts of exciting things about Green Ginger Land. It sounds lovely, and like a fairy-story, doesn’t it? But it’s really the place where Diamond Jubilee lived with Mother Grimes and lots of other interesting people.’
‘How very naughty of him to grumble at his food!’ broke in Emmeline, who had not been paying much attention to the last part of Kitty’sremarks. ‘I expect it was all those unripe apples he stole that really disagreed with him, not the monkey-nuts. He certainly is an extremely trying boy.’
‘Come you here, Punch!’ Mr. Brown suddenly shouted in a very angry voice, causing Emmeline to jump violently, and Punch, who had been happily employed in smelling about for imaginary rats, to spring on to her knee, and begin wagging his tail in a frightened, deprecating way.
‘What’s the matter, Mr. Brown?’ called out Kitty, bristling up directly. ‘Punch has been as good as gold—haven’t you, darling?’ and she kissed one of his tan cheeks.
Mr. Brown was striding towards them with a wrathful face. ‘Good as gold, have he?’ he echoed, indignantly. ‘I’ll teach him to be as good as gold! Trolloping over the flower-beds, and breaking my best chrysanth’ums! A good-as-gold beating’s what he deserves.’
‘No, he doesn’t! You shan’t touch him, Mr. Brown, you cruel, wicked man!’ screamed Kitty, while Punch raised his shrill, exasperating alarm-bark, and Emmeline bent over him protectingly.
‘I shan’t have a flower left in the garden soon,’ continued the angry Mr. Brown, ‘and I reckoned to have taken this one to the Show!’
‘Which one was it?’ asked Emmeline, uneasily. ‘Oh, do be quiet, Punch!’
‘That real fine one just underneath the scullery window,’ was the answer. ‘There’s his footmarks all over the bed, so I know it must have been him done it. Just you give him up to me, and I’ll teach him a lesson. It ain’t the first time he’ve done it, not by a long way.’
‘No, no—you shan’t!’ cried Emmeline, terrified for the dog, and grasping him more tightly, while Kitty burst into tears, and Punch himself barked more shrilly than ever.
‘Why, whatever’s the matter?’ called out Cook, suddenly appearing at the back-yard door.
Never had the sight of her round, good-natured face been so welcome. Emmeline gasped an ‘Oh!’ of relief, and Kitty almost flew up the path to meet her. ‘Cook,’ she implored, ‘You won’t let Mr. Brown beat Punch, will you?’
‘What do you want to beat the poor creature for?’ demanded Cook, who could always be depended on to take the part of any animal in trouble, more especially against Mr. Brown, with whom she was never very good friends. ‘He haven’t done no harm to nobody that I can see.’
‘Oh, in course not! Breaking my show chrysanth’um is no harm at all, is it?’ asked Mr. Brown, which he meant for crushing sarcasm.
‘Well, and how do you know it was him done it? That might have been the wind,’ retortedCook, who privately suspected Master Micky, but would not have said so for the world.
‘There was his footmarks all over the bed,’ said Mr. Brown. ‘Oh, he done it sure enough, and he deserve a good beating sure enough.’
‘Well, you shan’t give him one,’ said Cook, defiantly, as she bent down and lifted Punch from Emmeline’s knee, ‘not without you want me to write and complain to Miss Bolton, who’d never let you beat him for a thing like that, which you know as well as I do. He’s going to the back-yard now, so he won’t do no more harm to your chrysanth’ums, and don’t you do no harm to him.’ And with that she marched off, carrying Punch, who was barking vehemently from his safe place of vantage in her arms.
‘Well, you’ll have to keep him chained up there then,’ called Mr. Brown after them as a parting shot, ‘for if I catch him about my garden you’ll know what he can expect.’
‘Oh, Mr. Brown!’ cried Kitty, dismayed at the vista of endless captivity which seemed to be opening before poor Punch, ‘youdon’tmean to say you’ll never let him run about the garden again?’
Of course Mr. Brown did not seriously mean any such thing, but it pleased him to walk away grimly, muttering terrible threats about what he would do to Punch if he caught him in the gardenagain, and poor Kitty, who fully believed all he said, burst into fresh tears. ‘Oh, whatshallwe do?’ she sobbed. ‘Punch’ll die of grief, if he has to be chained up for always!’
‘Oh, but Aunt Grace would never stand that,’ said Emmeline, trying to comfort Kitty, though she herself felt very unhappy, ‘and, of course, it’s she who will really have to settle. It’s rubbish for Mr. Brown to talk as if this was his garden.’
‘I can’t help being afraid,’ she went on uneasily, ‘that it may have been Micky who broke that chrysanthemum last night, when he jumped down from the schoolroom window. You see it was exactly underneath the schoolroom window—just where he would jump. I wonder Mr. Brown didn’t notice his footsteps, but I suppose the rain in the night must have washed them out, and, of course, the ones he made this morning when he was swarming up the water-pipe would be a little further along.’
‘If it was Micky it makes it all the harder on poor darling Punch,’ said Kitty sorrowfully.
‘Well, we can’t be sure, you know, said Emmeline. ‘Anyhow, it’s no good crying over it now—it isn’t as if Punch had been whipped. There’s Mr. Brown going round to the front of the house! You’d better run and get Diamond Jubilee’s water, and take it out to him while you can, and I’ll see if I can get out the blankets.’
This diverted Kitty’s attention from Punch’s wrongs, and she ran into the house wiping her eyes on her overall sleeve. Emmeline made her way to the yard, but found Cook standing there trying to comfort poor Punch, who had just been chained up, and who looked as though he did not at all understand or like having to go to bed so early.
‘So you’ve come to talk to the poor animal,’ remarked Cook. ‘I reckon it’s best to chain him up for a bit, or he’d be running out into the garden and getting into Mr. Brown’s way, but it do seem hard.’
‘Do you think he would really beat him?’ asked Emmeline, trying to conceal the fact that she was rather dismayed at finding anybody there.
‘Well, I can’t say,’ was the answer; ‘he haven’t no love for dumb creatures, that’s certain, though he isn’t what you could call a cruel man. Anyway, it won’t do no harm to keep Punch out of his way for a little.’
Emmeline talked to Cook and Punch for a minute or two longer, and then went back into the garden. Unfortunately Mr. Brown, too, had returned by this time, so it was plainly hopeless to think of taking out the blankets yet, even when Cook left the yard. Meanwhile Punch, left alone in the dull back-yard, was feeling himself a verymuch injured dog. He proclaimed the fact to the world by a series of yelping barks, but he was an animal of a philosophic turn of mind, so it presently struck him that, since he was chained up at this untimely hour, he might as well retire into his kennel and go to sleep comfortably in the snug dark corner at the very back.
Ah! That special corner was already occupied by something woolly and unfamiliar—something which crowded Punch uncomfortably, something which was, in fact, nothing more nor less than one of the spare room blankets! It had fallen a little from the tumbled heap in which Micky had pushed it, so that it now took up a good deal more room than it had done in the morning.
If Punch had been in a sleepier or lazier mood he might have managed to make it into a cosy nest for himself. As it was, he chose to pretend that it was a giant white rat, and to treat it accordingly. It was really an ideal game for a bored fox-terrier—from the bored fox-terrier’s own point of view, that is.
Unfortunately, Jane’s point of view was a different one, and when she presently came into the back-yard to hang up some odds and ends that she had been washing, and found Punch worrying a great heap of defenceless blanket which was protruding from his kennel, her horror and indignationknew no bounds. She could hardly believe her own eyes indeed, till she had come close up to the kennel and bent down to examine Punch’s plaything. Yes, it reallywasa blanket!
‘It’s them children again!’ she cried wrathfully. ‘Why, bless me’—with a voice growing shriller and shriller—‘bless me, if it isn’t one of themnewblankets we got special for the spare room!’
Cook and Alice came running out into the yard to see what was the matter, and Punch, who had left off worrying the blanket, began wagging his tail nervously. He was not used to holding such a levée, and felt more embarrassed than gratified at all the attention which was being paid him.
‘Well, I never!’ exclaimed Cook, as Jane gave such a violent tug to that part of the blanket which was lying outside the kennel that the rest of it also emerged. ‘However on earth did it get there?’
‘It’s them wicked children, of course,’ said Jane, angrily. ‘And if I don’t make them sorry for it, my name isn’t Jane Martin!’
‘Oh, we can trust you for that!’ remarked Cook. ‘But I must say this do beat everything. Cheer up, Punch, old boy! Nobody’s going to hurt you.’ She was just bending down to pat him reassuringly, when she uttered a sudden exclamation: ‘Why, I do believe there’s anotherof them! There! Come you out, Punch. Yes, there really is.’
Jane paused in the vicious shaking she was giving the first blanket, and stared at Cook in a startled way. ‘Another what?’ she demanded. ‘You don’t mean to say anotherdog?’ Jane hated dogs.
Cook laughed with unnecessary heartiness. ‘No, another blanket,’ she exclaimed between her peals of mirth. ‘Here, get away, Punch, and let me look.’ She undid the animal’s chain, and then, as he bounded about in great delight, she poked first a head and then a long arm into the kennel, whence she presently came out red, panting, and triumphantly holding up a second blanket!
‘Well!’ gasped Jane, and stopped short, unable for the moment to find words strong enough to express her feelings.
Then Alice gave a nervous giggle, and Jane turned round on her sharply.
‘What business have you here, miss, laughing at your betters?’ she demanded angrily. ‘I’ll teach you——’
What she meant to teach Alice never appeared, for just at that moment the yard-door was flung violently open, and in rushed Micky, hot, breathless, and dirty, with Kitty following close on his heels.
‘It was I who broke the chrysanthemum, notPunch,’ panted Micky. ‘Unchain him—oh, I see he is unchained! That’s all right.’
‘All right, is it, Master Micky?’ cried Jane, shrilly. ‘This’—and she held up her blanket—‘thisisn’t what I call all right, northateither!’ and she pointed to the other blanket.
Kitty looked thoroughly scared, and for a fraction of a second even Micky seemed rather taken aback, but he recovered himself instantly.
‘I’m so sorry you don’t like the blankets,’ he remarked politely. ‘Aunt Grace will be disappointed, too, for I’m sure she meant to get nice ones for the spare room.’
‘Well, of all the impudent children!’ ejaculated the outraged Jane.
‘Why,’ cried Emmeline, who came hurrying in to see what was going on, ‘what’s the mat——’ She broke off suddenly, and turned quite pale as she caught sight of the blankets. Everything would be found out now!
‘The matter is, Miss Emmeline,’ said Jane, ‘that the new spare room blankets have just been found in a disgusting, dirty dog-kennel.’ (‘Well, I gave it a wash-out last week, so it can’t be so bad as all that,’ murmured Cook in a low voice.) ‘Put there, I’m very much afraid, by Master Micky,’ went on Jane, disregarding the interruption, and fixing Micky with an awful glare.
‘Yes, I put them there myself this morning,’ said Micky.
‘You did, did you?’ cried Jane, dropping her tragic tone and relapsing into shrillness. ‘And may I make so bold as to ask what you put them there for?’
Emmeline was trembling so much that she had to steady herself against the door-post. WhatwouldMicky say?
‘Oh, I thought it would be a nice safe place to keep them in,’ answered Micky, with great serenity.
This was altogether too much for Jane.
‘You’re the naughtiest, most mis-chiev-ous child that ever I saw!’ she exclaimed, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him till his teeth chattered. ‘It’s downright pure mischiefulness—that’s what it is, and I’ll make you sorry for it, that I will! You’ll come off to bed this very moment.’
Kitty burst into a howl of sympathy. To be sent to bed was the most terrible punishment known to the little Boltons.
‘Oh, Jane, give him justonemore trial,’ she wailed. ‘He’ll never do it again—w-will you, Micky?’
‘Never mind, Kitty,’ said Micky, assuming an air of saintly resignation which maddened Jane. ‘I’ll try to bear it, and she’ll be sorry one day.’
‘Bear it or not, you’ll come to bedthis instant!’ said Jane, seizing hold of his sailor-collar and marching him off.
Just as they reached the door into the kitchen, she paused to say to Alice: ‘You’d better hang them blankets upon the line. I’ll not have them in the house again till they have been well washed, after being stuffed up with that dirty dog.’
‘There’s many a Christian been a longer time without a bath than Punch,’ remarked Cook; whereupon Micky turned his head and gave Emmeline as deliberate a wink as Jane allowed him time for. Luckily neither Jane nor Cook seemed to notice the wink, or if they did, they merely took it for one more sign of the outrageous ‘mischiefulness,’ which was supposed to account for the blankets being found in the kennel at all.
Emmeline began to breathe freely again when once Jane and Micky had disappeared into the house. It had been a dreadful five minutes, but they seemed to have come out of the scrape better than could have been expected.
In spite of Emmeline’s relief that the blanket affair had passed off without their secret being discovered, the rest of the afternoon was thoroughly spoilt for both her and Kitty.
Kitty left off crying presently and stole upstairs to take the now empty tooth-glass out of its hiding-place in her dress-pocket underneath her overall; after which she went on to Micky’s room in the hope of being able to bear him company. Jane had locked the door however, and carried off the key, so that Kitty had to creep downstairs again, feeling very much grieved and disappointed.
‘It does seem hard poor Micky should have all the punishment when we were just as much in it really,’ Kitty remarked sadly to Emmeline.
‘Well, but we weren’t quite,’ said Emmeline, ‘putting the blankets in the kennel was quite his own idea, you know.’ But, in spite of this, she was too fair-minded a child not to feel uncomfortable at the injustice as well as very sorry for poorMicky. But what troubled her most was the fact that the blankets would no longer be available. Diamond Jubilee would be so cold without them, and, besides, how should she persuade him to sleep at the Feudal Castle now that they could not be held out as an inducement? She had been worrying over the problem for a good while when it suddenly struck her that she had read somewhere that newspapers made almost as warm a bed-covering as blankets. How would it be to take some out to the Feudal Castle? She knew just where the oldStandardswere kept.
Unhappily it was nearly tea-time when Emmeline had this brilliant inspiration, and just as she was getting up to carry it into effect, Jane came across the lawn to where the two girls were sitting with the glum announcement that it was time to come in and get tidy.
‘Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage!’
‘Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage!’
‘Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage!’
sang Micky’s voice, very loud and very much out of tune.
They all looked up, startled, and saw him leaning out of his window, clad in his flannel pyjamas, and grinning defiantly.
‘Master Micky, if you don’t get back to bedthis instant, you shan’t have any tea at all, not even dry bread,’ said Jane, and Micky beat ahasty retreat. Troubles never took away his appetite, and he knew from past experience that Jane’s threats were not empty ones.
It was soon Kitty’s turn to get into trouble. Never was there such a day of scrapes.
They were in the middle of tea when Jane stalked grimly in, carrying an article, the sight of which nearly made Emmeline drop her cup with fright. It was the hot-water can with Kitty’s sash attached to its spout and handle. All the agitations of the day had driven the thought of it out of their heads, and it had lain forgotten under its laurel-bush until five minutes ago, when Mr. Brown had unfortunately caught a glimpse of the blue sash and dragged it to light.
‘What’s the meaning of this, Miss Kitty?’ demanded Jane, in a voice of awful calm.
Kitty had nothing like Micky’s coolness. She turned crimson, hung her head, and muttered something about a lift, which made Emmeline feel terribly alarmed as to what she might be going to let out.
‘A lift!’ sniffed Jane, pouncing on the poor word, ‘and what have you beenliftingwith your best party sash, I’d like to know? Leaving it out in the rain, too, till the colour’s all run, and it’s only fit for the rag-bag!’
‘It was—some things I wanted to let down to Micky in the garden,’ stammered Kitty, lookingas though she very much hoped the floor would open and swallow her up.
‘Umph!’ grunted Jane. ‘Toys, I suppose, that he was too lazy to go up and fetch for himself, so he made you save him the trouble, same as he did the other day.Iknow his ways!’ (As a matter of fact, Micky was anything but lazy; and, though it was quite true that Jane had caught Kitty fagging for him the other day, that was only because he had happened to be a cruel slave-owner for the afternoon.) ‘That was it, wasn’t it?’
Kitty blushed a yet deeper crimson, and hung her head a little lower.
‘I thought so!’ said Jane. ‘Well,youcan come to bed, too, and then perhaps you’ll know better another time. Come along,’ and, seizing Kitty’s hand, she marched off with her, muttering something about never having known such goings on in all her born days.
Emmeline could hear Kitty bursting into a howl as she was led upstairs, and she herself felt so unhappy that she could hardly find it in her heart even to be relieved that Jane had not been more pressing in her questions. It was not only that she was sorry for Kitty, but it seemed so mean to let the twins be punished without coming forward to take her share of the blame; and yet, of course, it would be impossible to do so without betrayingthe secret and ruining everything. ‘And that I mustn’t do, for Diamond Jubilee’s sake,’ she told herself; ‘but, oh dear, I never guessed, when I first started the idea of adopting him, that it would lead to all this worry!’
She was not long in finishing her now solitary meal, for a restless desire had seized her to be up and doing. She was just going to the cupboard where the oldStandardswere kept, when a sudden thought made her pause. Aunt Grace had once told the children that they were on their honour to begin their lessons for the next day as soon as tea was over, and that she trusted them to do so, whether or not she was there to see.
‘I suppose I must wait, then,’ she said to herself, with an impatient sigh, as she turned away and went slowly up to the schoolroom. It was very tiresome, when she did so want to go and settle Diamond Jubilee in for the night at the Feudal Castle.
Her lessons took her longer than usual that evening, for she found it very hard to give her full attention to them; but she had almost finished when she was startled by Jane’s coming in with the supper-tray.
‘Why, it can’t be eight o’clock yet!’ she exclaimed.
‘No, Miss Emmeline, it’s only just past seven; but Cook and I are going to church, and choir-practiceafterwards, and we shan’t be in till past nine, so I thought I’d better bring you your supper now.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Emmeline, in the voice in which people close a subject, but rather to her annoyance, Jane still lingered.
‘Miss Emmeline,’ she began, with evident hesitation, ‘there’s something I think it right to warn you about.’
‘What is it?’ asked Emmeline nervously. She felt a sudden dread that the warning might have something to do with Diamond Jubilee.
‘Well, it’s about Alice,’ said Jane. (Emmeline breathed freely again.) ‘I hardly like to speak of it, but I feel it’s my duty. You know Tuesday’s the day she always turns out your room. Well, when I went in there to put Miss Kitty to bed, I noticed the box which you keep the money in for the Poor Children’s Home had fallen off your chest of drawers and was lying on the floor. Well, I picked it up’—she paused, and went on impressively—‘and I found it was quite empty!’
‘Was it?’ said Emmeline, uneasily. ‘But I don’t see what Alice has to do with it.’
‘And you wouldn’t see,’ said Jane, in the tone habitual to grieved charity, ‘not unless you knew Alice’s history. She was turned away from her first place for taking some money that had beenleft loose in a drawer, and Miss Bolton only took her to give her a chance of making a fresh start. She’s been here six weeks now, and nothing’s been missed, so we did hope she was going to do better, but I’m afraid now she is falling back into her old ways, and that we shall have to part with her. But don’t you say anything about this to anybody, please, Miss Emmeline. I only told you as a warning to be careful what you leave about, and because I knew you’d wonder about the box being empty.’
Never in her life had Emmeline felt so miserably uncomfortable. She was a naturally honourable child, and at the bottom of her heart she knew that she ought to confess to having taken the money herself, and not let Alice rest under unjust suspicion a moment longer. But then Jane would ask horrid prying questions and everything would come out. After all, she told herself, she was really not bound to confide in Jane; it was no business of Jane’s what she did with her money.
‘I don’t think it’s at all charitable of you to make out that poor Alice is a thief, when you can’t possibly know anything about it!’ she exclaimed hotly—she did feel very angry with Jane for having put her into such a horrid position—‘and, anyhow, you can’t send her away, only Aunt Grace can do that, and I’m sure shewon’t without a much better reason for thinking Alice took the money.’
Jane was greatly offended and astonished.
‘I hope I know my place, Miss Emmeline,’ she remarked huffily, ‘I should never think of giving Alice notice myself, but I’ve no doubt that Miss Bolton will when I’ve told her my suspicions, which I shall feel it my bounden duty to do.’
‘But Jane,’ said Emmeline, almost crying, ‘do try to have a little charity. You know how much the Bible says about charity!’
‘Miss Emmeline,’ said Jane, in her most dignified manner, ‘I don’t think I need any little girl to teach me about the Bible, which I’ve been through seven times already, and have got as far through the eighth time as the seventh of Numbers; but I know my duty, and my duty is to see that there are only honest servants in this house; and I think I’m a better judge of who are honest than any little girl!’ And with this parting shot she stalked away, slamming the door behind her.
‘Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?’ said Emmeline, half aloud, as she wandered restlessly about the room. ‘I never was in such a dreadful bother. Oh, whatcanI do?’
‘Tell them you’ve taken the money yourself,’ whispered her conscience: ‘that’s the only honest thing to do.’
‘But that would mean betraying Diamond Jubilee, and Aunt Grace would be sure to send him back to that wicked old Mother Grimes,’ said Emmeline, arguing with her conscience, as people do when they cannot make up their minds to the course of action which they know to be right. ‘Diamond Jubilee would be ruined body and soul. Perhaps some day he would be even hanged! No, Imustthink of some other way.’
But wander about as she might she could think of no other plan. She did indeed picture herself pleading eloquently with Aunt Grace not to send Alice away, but her conscience told her that even if she succeeded, she would still be wronging the girl by allowing her to remain under suspicion. Besides, Aunt Grace might not listen to her any more than Jane had done.
‘Well, anyhow, Jane can’t do anything till Aunt Grace comes home,’ she said to herself at last, ‘and there’ll be plenty of time for settling what to do before then, so I won’t think about it any more just now. It’s quite time to be seeing about Diamond Jubilee’s newspapers.’
The thought struck Emmeline that she might take Diamond Jubilee her own supper at the same time that she carried the newspapers to him. It would be an unusually good opportunity to do so now that Jane and Cook were both out; and, though she had meant him to live on nutsand chocolate from that day forward, it seemed kinder to break him in more gradually. So thought Emmeline, with some vague instinct of trying to make up for any wrong she might be doing Alice, by being specially nice and unselfish to Diamond Jubilee.
A few minutes later she was standing on the outskirts of the wood with her glass of milk in one hand and her biscuit and bundle of newspapers in the other. It had been rather difficult to climb the railings without spilling the milk, and she could not help hoping she should not have to carry it very far before she came across Diamond Jubilee. She had half-expected to meet him already, lurking somewhere about the lane, or even in the garden itself; indeed, she had peeped into the summer-house just to make sure he was not there, but, so far there had been no sign of him. Surely she would find him soon.
Walking slowly and cautiously for fear of spilling her milk, she made her way on towards the Feudal Castle. At every few yards she paused, and looked round and behind her. Just at first she did this in the hope of seeing Diamond Jubilee, but as the trees grew thicker her glances over her shoulder became more and more uneasy and hurried. Now that she was alone there in the eerie moonlight, the familiar wood was a frightening, uncanny place, full of weird shadows and dimhalf-seen shapes—shapes which turned into trees when she stared at them hard, but which seemed to change slyly back into something quite different as soon as she looked away to see what was making that odd creaking noise on her other side. Once, when an owl gave a loud, unearthly hoot, it was as much as Emmeline could do not to fling down what she was carrying and run home in mad panic, but she was a child who never could bear to be beaten, so she set her teeth and walked steadily on.
After walking for a quarter of an hour, which seemed infinitely longer than any other fifteen minutes in the whole course of her life, she reached the Feudal Castle. It looked so horribly dark and lonely and deserted as it loomed up among those ghostly moonlit trees, that it was some moments before Emmeline could summon up courage to open the worm-eaten door and step into the darkness inside, but at last she forced herself to do so.
She started, and trembled all over at the echo of her own footsteps on the bare floor.
‘Are you there, Diamond Jubilee?’ she asked, in a voice which sounded to herself so unnatural that it frightened her more than ever.
There was no answer, but to her excited nerves the whole place seemed full of half-heard whisperings and mutterings. The terror of it was toomuch for her, and, dropping her newspapers and the biscuit on to the floor, she fled out of the cottage and ran wildly home.
Once she tripped over a tree-root and fell, spilling all her milk, which had not already been splashed out—she had not dared to leave it at the Feudal Castle for fear of the glass being missed—but she scrambled up again without even waiting to find out whether she was hurt or the tumbler broken.
She was back at last in the safe hall of Fir-tree Cottage, blinking her eyes in the bright lamplight, and reflecting ruefully that, after all, her expedition had been of very little use, since she had not been able to tell Diamond Jubilee of the biscuit and newspapers which were awaiting him at the Feudal Castle if only he would go and sleep there, or to explain the purpose for which the newspapers were intended.
‘Well, it’s no use troubling about him any more to-night,’ she said to herself wearily as she went upstairs. ‘I’ve done all I can, and, anyhow, he doesn’t seem to be sleeping in the garden, which is one good thing. It’s very odd where he can be, though.’
She put the glass back on its tray—fortunately, it had not been broken—and went to her own room. It was not quite bedtime yet, but she was still feeling too creepy to want to sit up alone.The first thing that met her ear when she opened the door was the sound of Kitty crying, not howling, as she often did, but just crying in a low, unhappy way.
‘Why, Kitty!’ exclaimed Emmeline, impatiently—it was a relief to be impatient with somebody just then—’ I thought you’d have been asleep long ago. Youarea baby to be still crying because you were sent to bed early! You’d have been in bed by now, anyhow.’
‘It’s n-not that,’ sobbed Kitty.
‘What is it, then?’ demanded Emmeline, sharply.
‘Because—I don’t think I wastruethis afternoon,’ said Kitty, tearfully. ‘Jane asked if the lift was for Micky’s toys, and I lowered my head, and I think she thought I was nodding, though I didn’t mean her to, but I think she thought I meant it was. And Aunt Grace says it’s almost as bad as to let people think what’s not true as to tell a story. Oh, Emmeline, what shall I do?’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly, Kitty!’ said Emmeline, crossly. ‘Nobody would get on at all if they were so particular as all that—at least I don’t mean that exactly,’ as Kitty opened her eyes, ‘but you really mustn’t worry about fancies. It wasn’t your fault if Jane chose to take a wrong idea into her head.’
‘Then you’requite sureI wasn’t untruthful?’ asked Kitty, trying hard to be reassured.
‘Oh yes,’ said Emmeline; ‘and now go to sleep, and don’t talk to me any more.’
Kitty obeyed for about five minutes, but when Emmeline rose from her knees again, after saying her prayers far more hurriedly than usual, the effort of silence became too great a strain for the little sister.
‘Do you think adopting somebody always leads to such a lot of horridness?’ she asked abruptly. ‘I mean the wrong one being punished for what someone else did, and people not being sure that they haven’t as good as told stories, and being sent to bed ever so early, and not having any supper when they’re most frightfully hungry?’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ said Emmeline, frightened and angry. ‘Who’s being punished for what someone else did?’
‘Why, Punch was, of course!’ said Kitty, a little taken aback at Emmeline’s manner; ‘though Cook did give him an extra big supper afterwards to make up, she told me just now, but somehow I don’t think even an extra big supper quite makes up for being accused of what you haven’t done. Do you think it does, Emmeline?’
Emmeline made no answer, and Kitty felt snubbed and subsided into silence. Presently afterwards Emmeline jumped into bed and blew out the candle. The room had been dark for some little time, and Kitty was becoming sleepy whenshe was startled wide-awake again by a strange sound in the part of the room where Emmeline was lying. She sat up, leaning on her elbows, and listened. Yes, there it was again! There could be no mistake about it. Emmeline was crying!
A moment later Kitty had scrambled on to Emmeline’s counterpane, and was cuddling her in the most motherly way imaginable.
‘What is it, my poor darling?’ she was asking, in the tender voice that she usually kept for Punch. She and Micky, though very devoted, were not demonstrative to each other.
Just at first Emmeline went on sobbing without making any answer, in a way which was alarmingly strange to Kitty; and even when the answer did come, it puzzled Kitty more than it enlightened her. ‘Oh, I wish I was a dear, good, little thing like you!’ whispered Emmeline, catching hold of her.
‘Why, Emmeline!’ cried Kitty, with unfeigned astonishment. ‘You are always ever so much gooder than me and Micky—quite annoyingly good sometimes.’
‘No, I’m not,’ cried Emmeline. ‘I’m horrid!’
‘I’m sure you’re not horrid,’ said Kitty loyally. ‘You’re very nice and kind. Why, Micky and I would never have even thought of taking Diamond Jubilee as a brand from the burning if it hadn’t been for you!’
Perhaps this reflection was less comforting than Kitty imagined; but Emmeline relapsed into silence after that—silence which lasted so long that Kitty fancied she had fallen asleep, and crept back to her own bed.
But it was a long time before Emmeline really fell asleep that night.
‘Where’s Micky?’ inquired Kitty the next morning when Jane came into the dining-room with the teapot and the grim announcement that breakfast was quite ready, and the young ladies had better come to table.
‘He’s a very naughty, dirty boy,’ said Jane, as though that was a sufficient answer to Kitty’s question.
‘He hasn’t had much time to be naughty yet, poor Micky!’ said Kitty, in an aggrieved voice.
The twins always expected the offences of yesterday to be buried in oblivion.
Jane did not see fit to notice the remark, and, when the door had closed behind her, Kitty returned to her wonder.
‘Do you suppose Micky’s been playing that his soap-dish is a ship in a storm as he did the other day, and that Jane won’t let him come down to breakfast?’
The guess was a fairly likely one, for the game to which Kitty alluded involved such a free dispersalof bath-water all over the floor that Jane was quite likely to consider it both naughty and dirty though, as Micky had pointed out, you could not well play with cleaner things than soap and water.
‘I don’t know, and don’t care,’ said Emmeline, shortly.
She had wakened up that morning in a very bad temper.
‘It’s rather horrid of you, then,’ said Kitty, reproachfully; ‘specially as there are eggs, and Micky didn’t have much tea last night or any supper, I don’t suppose. I think I’ll go up and see what’s happening to him. I don’t care if Jane does catch me.’
Emmeline did not trouble to make any objection, and Kitty departed on her quest. A moment later she returned with the news that it was all right; Micky was not in his room.
‘I expect he’s just out climbing trees somewhere, and will be in to breakfast directly,’ she surmised cheerfully, as she attacked her eggshell with energy.
But the minutes passed on, and no Micky appeared. By the time they had almost got through even the bread-and-jam stage of breakfast Emmeline was becoming rather anxious. It was so unlike Micky to show such indifference to his meals.
‘Isn’t he in yet?’ asked Jane, coming into the dining-room abruptly, and looking more worried than stern this time.
‘No, I suppose he must be in the wood somewhere, too far off to hear the bell,’ said Emmeline, more frightened by Jane’s manner than she had been before.
‘It’s the strangest thing where he can be,’ said Jane. ‘He was sleeping as peaceful as could be when I unlocked the door before starting to church yesterday evening, but when I went to call him this morning the bed was empty, and he was nowhere to be seen. He must have dressed and gone out without washing or anything, for the jug was still standing in the basin as I put it back last night. Not that there’s anything strange in that, for it’s just like his ways, but it is odd he isn’t in yet.’
‘I’ll just go out and see if I can find him,’ said Emmeline, rising from the table as she hastily swallowed a last mouthful of bread and jam.
‘I’ve been and looked all round the garden.’ said Jane; ‘and Alice went some little way into the wood, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. I can’t think what can have come to him.’
‘Oh, I expect he’ll turn up soon,’ said Emmeline, trying hard to feel confident.
‘We’ll hope so, Miss Emmeline,’ said Jane, gloomily.
Kitty’s round honest face was looking rather scared.
‘Do you think anything can have happened to Micky?’ she asked anxiously, as Jane went out of the room.
‘Oh no. I expect he’s in the wood somewhere with Diamond Jubilee, and has just lost count of time,’ said Emmeline, with determined cheerfulness. ‘Very likely we shall find them both in the Feudal Castle.’
Accordingly they put on their hats and, going out into the wood, made their way towards the Feudal Castle. As they walked they kept shouting ‘Micky!’ ‘Cooee!’ at the tops of their voices, but there was never the faintest response.
‘Well, I don’t suppose they can hear us if they’re right inside the Feudal Castle,’ said Emmeline, hoarse, but still reassuring.
But when they reached the Feudal Castle neither Micky nor Diamond Jubilee was there; what was more, the uneaten biscuit, which was still lying among the newspapers just as Emmeline had dropped it, seemed to show that they never had been there since yesterday evening.
Even Emmeline’s courage gave way at that point.
‘Wherevercanhe be?’ she exclaimed, almost tearfully. She might have said ‘they,’ but it wasodd how very little Diamond Jubilee seemed to matter just then.
‘I do believethatDiamond Jubilee’s at the bottom of it somehow,’ remarked Kitty, who was beginning to feel very miserable indeed.
Emmeline had all along had an uneasy suspicion that he might be, but she did not like to hear her own secret fear put into words by Kitty.
‘I don’t suppose it’s a bit more poor Diamond Jubilee’s fault than Micky’s,’ she snapped. ‘Most likely they’re both climbing trees somewhere a little farther on in the wood, and if they are it will have been Micky’s idea, not Diamond Jubilee’s. Come along.’
They left the Feudal Castle and continued their walk towards the Chudstone edge of the wood.
‘We shall be late for Miss Miller,’ remarked Emmeline; ‘but, really, we can’t trouble about lessons at such a crisis.’
That word ‘crisis’ afforded some little comfort to Emmeline for a moment; Aunt Grace had used it yesterday, and it sounded delightfully grown-up.
They went right to the end of the wood, cooeeying all the way, but with no more success than before, after which there was clearly nothing to be done but to turn and go back home again. They did so, feeling too tired and too much out of heart even to cooee this time, or to make anyfresh conjectures as to what could have become of Micky. That silent walk home seemed to drag on a weary while, but it was over at last. No sooner had they opened the garden-door than they caught sight of Miss Miller, Jane, Cook, and Alice, all standing in a row on the gravel path near the back-yard door, and all evidently keeping an anxious look-out for the children’s return. Perhaps the fact that the entire work of the household should be at a standstill while it waited for tidings brought home to Emmeline more than anything else how very serious the state of affairs was.
‘Well, haven’t you found him?’ called out Cook, as the two girls approached.
‘Of course they haven’t! Do you think they’ve got him hidden in their pockets?’ snapped Jane. Worry of mind was making her more short-tempered even than usual.
‘No, we haven’t found him, and we’ve been right to the Chudstone end of the wood to look for him,’ said Emmeline, in a voice of utter discouragement, while big tears rolled down Kitty’s cheeks.
‘Don’t cry, Kitty dear,’ said Miss Miller, soothingly; ‘Micky can’t be very far off’; but, in spite of her cheering words, the governess’s face was very anxious. She herself had just returned from looking for Micky in the village, wherenothing had been heard or seen of him. ‘I wonder if we ought to wire to Miss Bolton,’ she added, in a lower voice.
‘I don’t see that there’s any call for that,’ said Jane, grumpily. ‘She’d only be worried to death between thinking she ought to come back here and not liking to leave Miss King. Besides, as likely as not Master Micky’s only hiding somewhere near about for fun, for a more mischieful boy I never did see.’
‘Well, perhaps it would be best not to telegraph just yet, at all events,’ said Miss Miller, rather stiffly—she thought Jane apt to presume on her privileges as an old servant—‘but one step I’m sure we ought to take is to give notice at Chudstone Police-Station that the child’s missing. Then they’ll telephone on to the other police-stations in the neighbourhood. I think that will be far more effective than going out to look for him, for as we don’t know in the least which way to go, we might be wandering about the whole day without getting any nearer finding him. I’ll just bicycle over to Chudstone now. While I’m gone you can be reading to Kitty the next story in the Greek history,’ she added to Emmeline, with an idea of diverting their attention.
‘Oh, Miss Miller,’ broke in Kitty, with a fresh outbreak of tears, ‘people justcan’tdo Greekhistory when their twins are lost! Do let us go and look for him in the wood just once more!’
Miss Miller did not think the search likely to be any more successful than before, but she had not the heart to refuse. ‘Well, you may go then,’ she said, kindly, ‘but don’t go outside the wood, and come back as soon as it’s eleven o’clock by Emmeline’s watch, even if you haven’t found him.’
Five minutes later Miss Miller had set out on her bicycle for Chudstone, and the two girls and Punch had begun another expedition through the woods. It had been a brilliant idea of Kitty’s to include Punch in the party. ‘In all the stories of children getting lost there’s always a gallant Newfoundland who rescues them,’ she had remarked. To be sure Punch was about as much like a gallant Newfoundland as the Feudal Castle was like a castle, but that was a detail.
‘I expect Punch’ll scent Micky out long before the police could find him,’ said Kitty, almost cheering up again as she and Emmeline climbed the railings dividing the wood from the road. ‘What shall we do supposing he tracks him out of the wood?’ she went on as Emmeline kept silence, feeling too miserable to answer. ‘For we promised Miss Miller not to go outside.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Emmeline impatiently. ‘There’ll be time enough to think of that when he does track him out.’
There certainly was time enough. Punch’s behaviour in the wood was most disappointing. It was in vain that they urged him to ‘go find Micky, like a good dog.’ He only stood stock still, wagging his tail apologetically, and staring up at them with a worried expression in his wistful brown eyes. It was so impossible to make him realise that for the first time in his life he was expected to take the lead in a walk, that at last, in despair, they had to give up trying to do. After that Punch trotted along happily a few feet behind them, except once when he raised their hopes cruelly by sniffing the ground violently and then rushing away among the bushes, only to come back a minute or two later with the rather crestfallen look he always had after wild and unsuccessful pursuits. It was only too plain that it had been a hunting expedition, not a rescue one.
‘Oh, Punch, you aren’t nearly so much good as a story dog!’ complained poor Kitty, ‘how can you think about hunting rabbits when Uncle Micky’s lost?’
It was nearer twelve than eleven o’clock when the two girls came home again, after a weary and futile search, but Miss Miller did not say a word of reproach to them. She herself had not been waiting for them long, for, though her ride to Chudstone and back had only taken about half-an-hour,she had since been out again looking for Micky here, there and everywhere. One or other of the servants too, had been constantly going off to some place where it had suddenly struck them that the boy might possibly be, but, so far, everybody’s searching had been equally in vain. Micky might have disappeared from off the face of the earth for all the trace of him that they could find.
‘Come up to the schoolroom and rest,’ said Miss Miller, kindly. ‘I won’t bother you with any real lessons to-day, but I’ll read some “Marmion” aloud to you.’
They were just reading ‘Marmion’ for their literature. As a rule they were thrilled by it, but this morning neither Emmeline nor Kitty took in much of what they read. Sitting still only made them realise their trouble the more vividly, and Kitty was on the verge of breaking into a howl when Jane came in to ask Miss Miller if she might speak to her alone for a moment. She made the request with such an air of mystery that Emmeline’s heart began to thump wildly.
‘Jane, tell me!’ she gasped. ‘Micky—has anything happened?’
‘I know no more of Master Micky than you do,’ said Jane. ‘I only wish I did,’ she added, in a gentler voice than the children had ever yet heard her use.
‘I think I ought to tell you, Miss Miller,’ began Jane, after Miss Miller had followed her from the room, ‘Mrs. Tom Wright was round just now, and told us something which upset me very much. It seems her husband saw Master Micky playing in the wood yesterday afternoon with a little tramp boy.’
‘Dear me! That doesn’t seem suitable,’ remarked Miss Miller, trying hard to be as much shocked and surprised as Jane evidently expected.
‘Well,’ continued Jane solemnly, ‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if that little tramp boy isn’t at the bottom of it all.’
‘Of Micky’s disappearing, do you mean?’ asked Miss Miller, really surprised and alarmed this time. ‘Why, what makes you think that?’
‘Because yesterday afternoon wasn’t the only time this last day or two that boy’s been seen haunting about the place,’ said Jane. ‘I saw him myself on Monday night—at least, a boy who came round to the side-door begging answered very much to the description of the one Tom Wright saw in the wood. I thought at the time that I’d never seen such a filthy little creature as he was, but I gave him a hunch of bread—I always say that’s good enough for them if they’re really hungry—and when he asked for something more I just banged the door in his face, and I took care to bolt it directly afterwards top andbottom. It was a good two hours before the usual time, but ever since my best umbrella was stolen I’ve been downright scared of tramps. But that isn’t all. The very next morning—yesterday morning that is—Mr. Brown saw that same boy or his twin brother lurking about near the garden-door, for all the world as if he was waiting for someone. He sent him to the rightabout pretty quick. The only pity is he didn’t do it for good and all, for I do believe it’s that boy that has led away poor Master Micky.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Miss Miller. ‘Whatever should he want Micky for?’
‘What do gipsies usually want children for?’ rejoined Jane. ‘Maybe it’s for the sake of a reward, or maybe they think they could train him to be useful. Master Micky’d make a grand acrobat, to judge from the way he turns coach-wheels.’
Gipsies and people who travelled with shows were closely connected in Jane’s mind.
‘But are there any gipsies about?’ asked Miss Miller.
‘Not the real Romanies, but plenty of the sort of vagabonds that call themselves gipsies,’ said Jane. ‘There’s a van of them in a field at Baddicomb at this very moment’—Baddicomb was a village about five miles off—‘and one and another of them have been wandering about the country-side up to no end of mischief. Why, Mr. Warne gothis orchard robbed only yesterday by a boy that he says certainly doesn’t belong hereabouts, and that’s most likely one of them—most likely the very same that’s got hold of Master Micky.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Miller, ‘I think the best thing for me to do is to ride into Chudstone again, and suggest to the police that possibly the gipsies have got hold of the boy.’
Miss Miller said nothing about where she was going to either of her pupils. ‘If only I had not to give two music-lessons this afternoon I would have come back again to see how you are getting on,’ she said to Emmeline as she wheeled her bicycle out at the front door, ‘for I can’t bear not to be with you when you’re in such trouble. Anyhow, I shall ride over again after tea just to see what’s happening. I expect Micky will have turned up long before then,’ with which cheering prophecy, spoken with more confidence than she could altogether feel, she mounted her flashing machine and rode off.
Kitty had rushed away somewhere by herself as soon as she was free to do what she liked, and Emmeline felt lonely and helpless as she stood in the drive looking after her governess. There seemed nothing she could do.
Stay! She would go up to her own room and pray very, very hard that Micky might be found. Perhaps that would succeed. At all events, itwould be better than this dreadful waiting and doing nothing. Emmeline wondered that she had not thought of it before.
She ran upstairs, but was rather taken aback to find her bedroom occupied by Alice, who was dusting the mantelpiece ornaments. To be sure, she hurried out of the room as soon as the young lady appeared, but not before Emmeline had seen that her eyes were red and swollen. Emmeline knelt down by her bedside, but, try as she would, she could not fix her thoughts. They kept wandering off to Alice.
That horrible money! The thought of it kept haunting Emmeline like some tormenting demon. She had almost forgotten it for a time in the trouble of the morning, but now it kept coming between her and her prayers. How could she expect them to be answered so long as she was deceiving everyone and letting Alice suffer under a false accusation?
‘Nonsense,’ she told herself. ‘There’s no deceiving in not telling that meddlesome Jane what I did with my own extra money-box money! I did tell her I was sure Alice hadn’t taken it, and I don’t think really she meant to make any fuss about it till Aunt Grace comes home. Itmustbe about Micky Alice is crying. Anyhow, Aunt Grace is the person who really matters, not Jane, and, if she suspects Alice, I’ll tell her that I tookthe money. It would be very unkind to bother them about it just now when they’re in such trouble. It would worry them dreadfully, for they’d be certain to ask questions, and it would all come out about Diamond Jubilee and his having disappeared, too, and they’d be sure to think Micky had run away with him, and then they’d write and frighten poor Aunt Grace. No, for Aunt Grace’s sake, I really can’t risk their finding out about Diamond Jubilee till Micky’s safe back.’
She was still trying to persuade herself that she was justified in keeping silence about him, when the door was burst open, and in rushed Kitty, very untidy, and with short white hairs sticking all over her dress. In her hand was an extremely dirty, crumpled bit of paper, which looked as if it might have been torn out of an exercise-book.
She closed the door with a care very unlike her usual slap-dash ways, and came close up to Emmeline before she whispered mysteriously:
‘Look what I’ve found in Punch’s kennel! Mr. Brown had chained him up again, and I felt so miserable that I just had to be with the darling. Heissuch a comfort in trouble.’
Emmeline was not listening. She was staring at some pencilled words scribbled on the torn piece of paper.
‘Dear Kitty’ (she read), ‘I am leving this were you’ll be the person most likely to find it. This is to tell you I am going back to grene ginger land with dimund joublee. Hes jolly well had enuf of this he ses, and so have I, speshally after yestidday, wich show how beestly everything will be with Jane to put peeple to bed just for akserdents like the blankets. Besids of corse as Im his adopted father I have to go to, or how could I trane him. It will be a jolly lark. Dont tell enyone were Ive gone except you may Emmeline, as shes in it too, and don’t greave for me too much dear sister. Your loving bother, Micky.’
‘Does Micky mean he won’t ever come back again?’ asked Kitty, with painful anxiety, as Emmeline screwed up the paper into a little ball, and began pacing up and down the room.
Emmeline did not seem to hear, so Kitty repeated the question in a voice which sounded as though she were on the point of bursting out crying out again.
‘No, of course not, you silly child,’ said Emmeline, impatiently. ‘At least, it doesn’t matter what he means—he won’t be allowed to, anyhow. Kitty,’ she added penitently, ‘I didn’t mean to be cross, only I’m so frightfully worried. It’s dreadful to think where Diamond Jubilee may be taking Micky to!’
‘I wish we’d never met Diamond Jubilee!’ moaned Kitty.
‘So do I,’ agreed Emmeline from the bottom of her heart; ‘but the question now is what to do about Micky.’
‘I suppose it would be betraying to tell any of the grown-up people when he says I’m not to?’ said Kitty, doubtfully.
‘I don’t know,’ said Emmeline. Her four years of seniority made her view things rather differently, but she had her own reasons for being even more unwilling than Kitty to show Micky’s letter to any of the elders. ‘No, I think we’d much better not say anything yet,’ she added, after a moment’s thought. ‘It’s not as if Aunt Grace were here, or even Miss Miller. But it’s only the servants, and they can’t care so very much’—she was doing them great injustice—‘and it would only make a horrible fuss and worry them dreadfully. It will be much best for them not to know where Micky has gone till he’s safe back again.’
‘But how are we going to get him safe back again?’ demanded Kitty, in a woeful voice.
‘I’m going into Eastwich myself this afternoon to fetch him home,’ said Emmeline, with studied coolness, though her heart was beating fast at the thought of taking such an unheard-of step on her own responsibility.
‘Oh, Emmeline!’ gasped Kitty, admiring, frightened, and astonished all at once. ‘But will they let you go?’ she added.
‘I shan’t ask them,’ said Emmeline. ‘It’s no business of theirs. They won’t even know I’m gone till tea-time, and by then Micky and I’ll be coming home together, I expect.’
‘Emmeline, you’re the cleverest, darlingest person in the world!’ cried Kitty, beginning an ecstatic dance round the room—a dance which stopped abruptly, however, as a sudden difficulty flashed into her mind. ‘How are you going to get money for a ticket?’ she asked.
Emmeline flushed a little.
‘There’s that eighteenpence Aunt Grace gave you just before she went away for the chickens’ food,’ she said a little awkwardly. ‘You know Cook said what they had would last for another week, so do you mind lending it me? We shall have our pocket-money in less than a week, you know, and we can use it all for paying back what we’ve borrowed from the chickens, for there won’t be Diamond Jubilee to think of now. I’m sure’s there’s no harm in just borrowing it for something so frightfully important as finding Micky.’
Kitty saw no harm at all in what Emmeline thought right.
‘I suppose there wouldn’t be money enough for me to go too?’ she suggested wistfully.
‘No, there wouldn’t,’ said Emmeline; ‘you must remember there’ll be Micky’s ticket back to get as well as mine. Besides, I expect I shall have to go into places that wouldn’t be at all fit for you. I’m sure Green Ginger Land must be a dreadful place.’
‘It sounds lovely!’ said Kitty, with a sigh; but she submitted to Emmeline’s decision with her usual sweet temper.
After all, so long as Micky came back that evening—and Kitty had not the slightest doubt that he would, since Emmeline said so—nothing else mattered.
‘Emmeline,’ said Kitty, anxiously, when the two were left alone together during dinner, ‘you won’t bring Diamond Jubilee back as well as Micky, will you?’
‘Not now he has run away,’ said Emmeline sternly. ‘He’s been such a wicked, ungrateful boy that I’m afraid we must leave him to his fate. After all,’ she added reflectively, ‘perhapswe’re rather too inexperienced to adopt children,’ which was an admission such as Emmeline had never yet made in the whole course of her life.