A KEEPSAKE.
"He is my own child, and he is not so very ugly after all, if you look
at him properly."--_The Ugly Duckling_.
The holidays passed too quickly, as they always did at Brenlands. Jack
was no longer the ugly duckling. Whatever misunderstanding or lack of
sympathy might have existed hitherto between himself and Valentine had
melted away in the sunny atmosphere of Queen Mab's court; and since the
incident of the magpie's nest, the two boys had become fast friends.
Soldiering was their great mutual hobby. They constructed miniature
earthworks in the garden, mounted brass cannon thereon, fired them off
with real powder, and never could discover where the shots went to.
They read and re-read "A Voice from Waterloo," the only military book
they could discover in their aunt's bookcase; and on wet days the bare
floor of the empty room upstairs was spread with the pomp and
circumstance of war. The soldiers had a wonderful way of concealing
their sufferings; they never groaned or murmured, and, shot down one
day, were perfectly ready to take the field again on the next, and so
when the solid lead captain or die mounted officer who took on and off
his horse was "put out of mess" by a well-directed pea, the knowledge
that they would reappear ready to fight again another day considerably
lessened one's grief at the sight of their fall. Perhaps, after all,
lead is a more natural "food for powder" than flesh and blood, and so
the only time tears were shed over one of these battles was one morning
when Barbara surreptitiously crammed two dozen peas into her mouth,
fired them with one prolonged discharge into the midst of Valentine's
cavalry, and then fled the room, whereupon Jack sat down and laughed
till he cried.
It would be difficult to say what it was that made Queen Mab's nephews
and nieces like to wander out into the kitchen and stand by her side
when she was making pastry or shelling peas; but they seemed to find it
a very pleasant occupation, and in this, after the first week of his
stay, Jack was not a whit behind the others.
He was sitting one morning on a corner of the table, watching with
great interest his aunt's dexterous use of the rolling-pin.
"Well, Jack," she said, looking up for a moment to straighten her back,
"are you sorry I made you come to Brenlands?"
"No, rather not; I never enjoyed myself so much before. I should like
to stay here always."
"What! and never go home again?"
The moment that word was mentioned he was once more Fenleigh J. of the
Upper Fourth.
"Home!" he said; "I hate the place. I've got no friends I care for,
and the guv'nor's always complaining of something, and telling me he
can't afford to waste the money he does on my education, because I
don't learn anything. I do think I'm the most unlucky beggar under the
sun. I've got nothing to look forward to. But I don't care. When I'm
older I'll cut the whole show, and go away and enlist. Any road, I
won't stay longer than I can help at Padbury."
Queen Mab smiled, and went on cutting out the covering for an
apple-tart.
"I know you like soldiers," she said; "well, listen to this. Just
before the battle of Waterloo, the father of Sir Henry Lawrence was in
charge of the garrison at Ostend. He knew that some great action was
going to take place, and wished very much to take part in it; so he
wrote to Wellington, reminding him that they had fought together in the
Peninsular War, and asking leave to pick out the best of the troops
then under his command and come with them to the front. The duke sent
him back this reply,--'That he remembered him well, and believed he was
too good a soldier to wish for any other post than the one which was
given to him.'"
"You're preaching at me," said Jack suspiciously; "it's altogether
different in my case."
"No, I'm not preaching; I'm only telling you a story. Now go and find
my little Bar, and say I've got some bits of dough left, and if she
likes she can come and make a pasty."
Barbara came, and Jack assisted her in the manufacture of two shapeless
little turn-overs, which contained an extraordinary mixture of apples,
currants, sugar, and a sprinkling of cocoa put in "to see what it would
taste like." But the boy's attention was not given wholly to the work,
his mind was partly occupied with something else. He wandered over and
stood at the opposite end of the table, watching Queen Mab as she put
the finishing touch to her pie-crust, twisting up the edge into her own
particular pattern.
"I don't see why people shouldn't wish for something better when they
have nothing but bad luck," he said.
"I don't think people ever do have nothing but bad luck."
"Yes, they do, and I'm one of them. I hate people who're always
preaching about being contented with one's lot."
"You intend that for me, I suppose," said his aunt, slyly. "All right;
if you weren't out of reach I'd shake the flour dredge over you!"
"No, you know I don't mean you," said the boy, laughing. "And I have
had one stroke of good luck, and that was your asking me to Brenlands."
He went away, and told Valentine the story of Colonel Lawrence.
"I didn't think she knew anything about soldiers."
"She's a wonderful woman!" said Valentine, solemnly. "She knows
everything!"
The following morning, as the two cousins were constructing an advanced
trench in a supposed siege of the cucumber-frame, Helen came out and
handed her brother a letter. Valentine read it, and passed id on to
Jack.
"What d'you think of that?" he asked.
The epistle was a short one, and ran as follows:--
"GRENFORD MANOR,
"_Tuesday_.
"DEAR VALENTINE,--I want five shillings to square the man whose hayrick
we set fire to the other day. If you fellows will give one half-crown,
I'll give the other. Send it me by return certain, or there'll be a
row.--Yours truly,
"RAYMOND FOSBERTON."
"Pooh! I like his cheek!" cried Jack. "At the time he said it was the
sun; and now he says, 'the hayrick _we_ set on fire,' when he knows
perfectly well it was entirely his own doing. I should think he's rich
enough to find the five shillings himself."
"Oh, he's always short of money, and trying to borrow from somebody,"
answered Valentine. "The thing I don't understand is, what good five
shillings can be; the man would want more than that for his hay."
"I don't understand Master Raymond," said Jack. "What shall you do?"
"Well, as we were all there together, I suppose we ought to try to help
him out. The damage ought to be made good; I thought he would have got
Uncle Fosberton to do that. I'll send him the money; though I should
like to know how he's going to square the man with five shillings."
A description of half the pleasures and merry-making that went to make
up a holiday at Brenlands would need a book to itself, and it would
therefore be impossible for me to attempt to give an account of all
that happened. The jollification was somehow very different from much
of the fun which Fenleigh J. had been accustomed to indulge in, in
company with his associates in the Upper Fourth; and though it was not
a whit less enjoyable, yet after it was over no one was heard to remark
that they'd "had their cake, and now they must pay for it."
On the last morning but one, when the boys came down to breakfast, they
found Queen Mab making a great fuss over something that had come by
post.
"Isn't it kind of your father?" she said. "Look what he's sent me!"
The present was handed round. It was a gold brooch, containing three
locks of hair arranged like a Prince of Wales's plume, two light curls,
and a dark one in the middle--Valentine's, Helen's, and Barbara's.
"He says it's to remind me of my three chicks when they are not with me
at Brenlands."
"Mine's in the middle!" cried Barbara.
"You ought to have some of Jack's put in as well," said Helen.
The boy glanced across at her with a pleased expression.
"Oh, no," he answered, "not alongside of yours."
During the remainder of the morning he seemed unusually silent, and
directly after dinner he disappeared.
"D'you know where Jack is?" asked Valentine.
"No," answered Helen; "he went out into the road just now, but I have
not seen him since."
It was a broiling day, and the children spent the greater part of the
afternoon reading under the shade of some trees in the garden. They
were just sitting down to tea when their cousin reappeared, covered
with dust, and looking very hot and tired. He refused to say what he
had been doing, and in answer to a fire of questions as to where he had
been he replied evasively, "Oh, only along the road for a walk."
"Look sharp!" said Valentine, bolting his last mouthful of cake, "we're
going to have one more game of croquet. Come on, you girls, and help
me to put up the hoops."
Jack, who in the course of his travels had acquired a prodigious
thirst, lingered behind to drink a fourth cup of tea.
"You silly boy," said his aunt, "where have you been?"
"To Melchester."
"To Melchester! You don't mean to say you've walked there and back in
this blazing sun?"
"Yes, I have. I wanted to get something."
"What?"
The boy rose from his chair, and came round to the head of the table.
"That's it," he said, producing a little screw of tissue paper from his
pocket. "It's for you. It's only a cheap, common thing, but I hadn't
any more money."
The paper was unrolled, and out came a little silver locket.
"I didn't want the others to see--you mustn't ever let any one know.
There's a bit of my hair inside."
"Now, then, don't stay there guzzling tea all night!" came Valentine's
voice through the open window.
"But, my dear boy, whatever made you spend your money in giving me such
a pretty present?"
"I want," answered the boy, speaking as though half ashamed of the
request he was making--"I want you to wear it when you wear the brooch;
stick it somewhere on your chain. I should like, don't you know, to
feel I'm one of your family."
"So you are," answered Queen Mab, kissing him. "So you are, and always
will be--my own boy Jack!"