Wednesdays, because, she used to say, if there was any luck flying about
in a week, that was the day on which it fell to earth. She certainly
had illustrations for her theory that Poppet at least used to think were
wonderful. For instance, one Wednesday she had picked up a sixpence
with a horseshoe on the side the Queen's head is generally seen--the
omen had struck her as almost good enough to be married on. Another time
the young man she "went walking with" had been within an ace of buying a
pee-wit hat that was cheap certainly, but was moth-eaten in a place or
two. If, now, she had gone on Thursday, it would have been too late to
prevent it, and Tuesday it would have been too soon. It was a clear
case of luck, there was no doubt.
One time, indeed, she had been tempted to take a Thursday instead, as
the weather looked threatening on the Wednesday; but after a little
deliberation, she thought it would be better to keep to her rule. And on
the Thursday she had almost gone there was a collision between the river
boat and one going to Balmain,--no one hurt certainly, but then, as she
very truly remarked, there might have been. There had never been a
collision in the memory of any of the family, for she questioned each
and all, on a Wednesday.
The man in corduroy trousers still came to see her, and they still only
talked of their marriage as the "far-off divine event" of their lives;
in all probability they would be talking of it just the same ten years
hence. They were not like the usual happy-go-lucky, improvident
Australians of their class, who married first, and wondered where the
bread and meat were coming from second.
Malcolm was a Scotchman, and was saving up to buy a house of his own--he
did not believe in lining landlords' pockets with his earnings. It
would, with the strip of land he wanted, be four hundred odd pounds, and
he had already saved L75. Martha had L15 in the bank, but then hers
would have to go in furniture and clothing. Pip calculated that Malcolm
would be seventy-two, and Martha a gay young thing of sixty-nine, by the
time the house was built and furnished; but Martha was more hopeful, and
did not leave such a margin for the "strikes" Malcolm seemed to revel
in.
Now this particular Wednesday, Martha had asked, as a great favour, that
Poppet might go with her to town. The little girl was her favourite
among all the children, and her warm heart quite ached to see the child
moping as she had done since Bunty's disappearance. Every day, while
the nursery tea-things were being washed up, Poppet used to stand beside
her, with big mournful eyes, wondering "if just this minute Bunty was
climbing a mast; if he was very tired of salt meat and weevily biscuits;
if his feet got very cold swilling the decks down; if--if--if----"
Martha's brother had been a sailor, so Martha knew more about life on
board ship than any one else in the house; hence her great attraction.
Esther, after a consultation with Meg, gave permission; the child was
fretting herself thin and pale, and any change did her good.
Of course when Poppet was dressed and standing on the verandah, engaged
in the vexatious task of pulling her gloves over her little brown hands,
Peter wanted to come too.
"You're a thneak, Poppet, going and having pleathure, and me thtuck here
doing nothing," he said. "I'm coming too."
"In that dirty old suit, and mud on the end of your nose?" said Poppet,
with the virtuous tone a spotless white frock, whole stockings, and
clean boots made justifiable.
"Of courth I can wath my noth, and the thuit ithn't dirty if you bruth
it." He took out a crumpled ball of handkerchief, dipped one corner in
the goldfish bowl inside the hall door, and polished his small nose with
great energy. "There, ith it off?"
Martha came out, resplendent in a green cashmere made in the very latest
style, a green hat with pink ostrich feathers, and a green parasol.
Peter looked impressed, and said nothing more about accompanying them;
Poppet was nobody, of course, even though her new boots had twelve
buttons against his own six; but even his young soul felt the
impossibility of a sailor suit no longer new being seen within a yard of
that magnificent new costume of Martha's.
He contented himself with looking after them enviously as they went down
the drive, and kicking the verandah post with his small strong boots.
"Tthuck up thingth!" he muttered, turning away to look for means of
amusement. "I'll thutht pay that Poppet out."
Martha had ideas of her own as to the proper way a holiday should be
spent, and had determined Poppet should have a day she would long
remember. One thing only Poppet asked for, and that was that they should
walk about Circular Quay for a little time and look at the great ships,
and especially any that were bound for America.
In her pocket the little girl had a blotted note she had written some
days ago. On the envelope, in very bad, unsteady writing, there was
this strange address:--
"TO BUNTY IN AMERICA.
"On the ship _Isabela_ plese will the capten give this to Bunty."
There was a pencil mark through Bunty, and John Woolcot was written in
brackets.
Inside the envelope was much paper and many smudges made by the tears
that fell all the time the pen went slowly along the lines.
"Oh Bunty do come home, Bunty dere there is nothing to be fritened of.
Mr. Barnham doesn't beleeve you took it and the boys chered you like
anything and Meg is going to be nice always the tortus is very well and
I give it beefstake every day I can get any you would be serprised to
see what it can eat. Oh Bunty do be quick home oh you mite have told me
you were going Bunty I'd have come with you or anything do you have to
go up the masts. I'm so fritened you'll fall overbord I've put 10 pense
in here so you can buy things when you're on shore I wish I had more
Martha says the biskits are full of weevuls. Dere Bunty oh do come home
quick quick oh Bunty if only you'll come I'll always do things for you
and never grumbil whatever it is I know I used to be horid and grumbling
before but just you see do you have to swil the deks with no boots.
Martha says so. Oh dere Bunty DO come home. I've beleeved you all the
time Bunty dere of corse.
"Your loving sister,
"POPPET.
"P.S.--Be sure to come quick."
For a long time the little girl could think of no possible way of
getting this letter to her brother. Meg had said the post-office would
be no use, for in all probability the boat bearing it would pass in mid
ocean the one bringing Bunty back.
But it had struck Poppet lately that if only she could give it to the
captain of some other boat going to America, he would know just where
the boat was and be able to send it on.
That was the hope that was making her eyes grow full of light as the
river boat got nearer and nearer to Sydney, and hundreds of tall masts
and interlacing yards stood against the blue of the sky or the
brown-grey of the great warehouses.
How beautiful the harbour looked to-day! There was a cool breeze
blowing, and it ruffled the waters into a million little broken waves
that leaped and danced in the clear morning sunshine.
Up near the Quay there was all the picturesque untidiness and bustle of
busy shipping; but out farther the sun and the waves and the drifting
clouds had it their own way, and made a hundred shifting pictures.
Sometimes a white sail glittered in the sun, then a brown one would make
a spot of warm colour. The great boats to Manly left long majestic
trails of white foam behind them, and little skiffs got into the wash
and rocked joyously.
On the North Shore the many buildings showed white and clean in the
sunlight; farther to the left the houses were fewer, and beautiful
gardens stretched down to the water's edge. Still farther away, across
the white-tipped waves, were shores with backgrounds of thickly-growing
gums; and higher, the soft blue line of hills.
Poppet's very heart was in her eyes as the boat stopped at the Erskine
Street Wharf and the gangway was put down. She pinched Martha's arm
gently and whispered to her not to forget.
Martha spoke to a sailor who was sitting smoking on an inverted cask.
She "supposed the boats to America went from the Quay, didn't they
now?--or was it from Wooloomooloo?"
But he "supposed there were boats and boats to America. There was sich
as the _Mariposa_, which carried swells and was a fine boat; and sich as
the _Jenny Lind_, which took oil and was not a fine boat!"
"Do you know the _Isabella_?" said Poppet's little eager voice.
"Captain Brown?--well, I reckon I do, little miss," he said, and chewed
a bit of tobacco thoughtfully. "Bloomin' old tub! I was on her five
year."
Poppet nearly fell upon him,--she could not wait while he said all he
knew about it in his slow roundabout way.
"Is he a cruel man? don't they have vegetables to eat? do the little
boys have to go up the masts? are there weevils in the biscuits? oh! and
won't he let them have their boots on when they swill the decks?"
But it turned out that the _Isabella_ he was on was a schooner plying
between Melbourne and the South Sea Islands. He rather fancied there
was a brig of the same name that went to San Francisco or Boston, or
"one of those places."
Poppet's face had fallen again.
"Do you know of _any_ boats that go to America?" she said in a forlorn
tone. "Oh, do please try and think if you know of _any_."
Martha explained rapidly, _sotto voce_: "The young lady's brother had
run away, and was on that boat; she was fretting her little heart out to
get a letter to him; couldn't he pacify her some way? she herself knew
it was impossible."
The sailor looked kindly at the little sweet face under its
broad-brimmed hat.
"I have a mate on the _Jenny Lind_, little miss,--how'd it be if I gave
him the letter? He's a good-hearted chap, and would try his best; he'd
be sure to know where the _Isabella is_, and could easy send it."
"That would be best, Miss Poppet dear," said Martha; "give it to this
nice kind man and he'll send it."
"Is he going to America soon? Do you think he would see the
_Isabella_?" the little sad voice said.
And the sailor's answer was certainly very reassuring: the _Jenny Lind_
sailed in two days, and was sure to meet the _Isabella_, in which case
the letter would be delivered into Bunty's hands.
Poppet handed over her letter with a sigh of relief; she had hardly
dared to hope a boat would leave so soon.
Martha thanked the man, opened her green parasol, and walked on. Poppet
lingered half a minute.
"If you should happen to meet him anywhere," she said hurriedly,--"you
might, you know, as you're a sailor too: he's a tallish little boy, with
brown eyes, and his hair's rather rough,--you won't forget, will you?"
"Not I," he said warmly, shaking the small hand she held out,--"a
tallish little boy with brown eyes,--oh! I'd easy know him."
Then she caught up Martha, who was beckoning impatiently, and felt a
load was off her mind.
Such a morning they had! They went to the waxworks in George Street
first, and saw bush-rangers, an aboriginal murderer, and other pleasing
characters, with life-like eyelashes and surprisingly beautiful
complexions. Then they climbed all the way to the top of the Town
Hall--Martha knew the caretaker--and had the pleasure of seeing the city
in miniature far below. The Cathedral being next door came in for a
turn, but seemed rather flat after the waxworks. After that they went
through the five arcades systematically, flattening their noses at each
interesting window, and telling each other what they would buy if they
had the money.
[Illustration: "THEY WENT TO THE WAXWORKS IN GEORGE STREET FIRST."]
It was twelve o'clock when they had finished with the Strand, and they
were to meet Malcolm, who was going to take them somewhere to lunch, at
half-past one.
"There's just time for the Botanicking Gardens," said Martha, wiping her
heated face and setting her splendid hat straight at one of the narrow
slits of mirror in the arcade.
So away they posted, up King Street, down Macquarie Street, and away
down the broad, beautiful, shady walk in the Domain.
There was not time to "do" the Gardens thoroughly, so they only walked
rapidly up some of the paths, paused for a moment to look at the blue
harbour beyond the low sea wall, and then walked three times solemnly
and backwards around the wishing-tree near the entrance gates.
"What did you wish, Martha?" Poppet said, as they walked up again
towards the statue of Captain Cook, where they were to meet Malcolm. "I
hope you wished about Bunty."
But Martha had been selfish enough to desire fervently that Malcolm
should never go on strike again.
"Oh, you never get your wish if you tell what it is," she said
evasively.
"Don't you?" said Poppet anxiously. "Oh dear, and I was nearly telling
mine. You can't guess in the slightest, Martha, can you? You have no
idea, have you, Martha?"
"Not the slightest," said Martha of the warm heart,--"not the least
little bit, Miss Poppet."
"And you always get your wish, Martha?"
"Oh, of course."
Years after, Poppet's faith in that wonderful wishing-tree was unshaken.
*CHAPTER XII.*
*THREE COURSES, ONE SHILLING.*
"Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday's wounds which smarted and bled
Are healed with the healing which night has shed."
Poppet had been for lunch with Esther or Meg to the Fresh Food and Ice
Company, Quong Tart's, and such places on various occasions. But the
restaurant to which Malcolm and Martha took her was quite a new
experience. She did not know the name of the street it was in, but it
was not very far from the Quay, and there was a rather mixed, if
interesting, assembly of diners. Not that it was a particularly
low-class place; it had a very good name for the excellency of its food
and its moderate prices, and its patrons comprised poor clerks who
minded fashion less than a good dinner,--tradesmen, sailors, and
occasional wharf labourers. Martha had asked Malcolm whether, as she
had Poppet with her, they had better go to some place higher up town.
Malcolm, who dined there regularly, seemed to see no reason why he
should change his custom for a little slip of a girl under ten.
As for Poppet, it was all one with her where she went, and while Martha
and Malcolm were studying the bill of fare, she fell to watching some
sailors at an adjoining table with the deepest interest.
"Now, Miss Poppet," said Martha, "what will you have? Me and Malcolm
have fixed on sucking pig, sweet potatoes and baked pumpkin, but I think
you'd better have something plainer; there's roast mutton, or corned
beef, or beefsteak pie."
"Why," said Poppet, "we have _those_ things at home. No, I'll have
sucking pig too, please, Martha; I like tasting new things."
"Did you ever!" remarked Martha, looking troubled; "it might make you
ill, Miss Poppet dear. Have corned beef like a good little girl."
But Poppet could be firm on occasion. She did not dine at a restaurant
every day, and when she did she had no intention of confining herself to
ordinary things.
"Sucking pig for two," said Malcolm to the waiter, and paused for
Poppet's order.
"For three," said Poppet, softly but firmly. While he had gone to
execute the order, she occupied herself with considering what pudding
she would have. There were five or six down on the list: plum duff,
apple pie and custard, treacle rolypoly, stewed pears, and macaroni and
cheese. She was wavering between macaroni and plum duff, when the
waiter returned with the three great steaming plates of sucking pig and
vegetables.
Malcolm and Martha were soon busily occupied, both considering it would
be sheer wilful waste, after paying a shilling each, to leave an atom on
their plates; but Poppet found a very little satisfying, and fell to
watching the sailors again.
She heard them give their orders--five of them, each a different meat
and different vegetables; she wondered how the waiter could keep it all
in his head, and watched quite anxiously when he returned with the tray
to see if he made any mistake.
Just behind the screen where they filled the trays somebody stood
handing plate after plate to the one busy waiter. Presently, as the
place filled more and more she heard him say he must have some one to
help at once, a number of people were waiting.
A boy in a long white apron stepped out from the screen, a tray with
three corned beefs, two sucking pigs, and a roast mutton in his hand.
"Miss Poppet, dear, do eat up your potato," said Martha, pausing with a
knifeload midway between her plate and mouth. But Poppet's face was
deadly pale, and in her eyes was a look of strange wildness.
"She's ill," said Martha; "I knew she oughtn't to have it." She looked
at Malcolm in a helpless way for a second, and then pushed back her
chair to go round to the child.
But Poppet flung up her arms, and with a wild, piercing shriek darted
from her place and flew across the room.
There was a crash of crockery, one of those slow, piece-after-piece
crashes, when you wonder if there can be anything left to be broken,
angry words from the waiter and manager, confusion and laughter on the
part of the diners, blankest amazement on the faces of Martha and
Malcolm, and in the midst a small girl in a white frock and big hat
clinging frantically to "a tallish little boy with brown eyes and dark,
rough hair,"--a shabby, white-faced boy in a waiter's apron.
"Oh-h-h-h!" she sobbed, "oh-h-h! oh-h-h-h! _Bunty!_" She laughed and
sobbed and laughed again.
This extraordinary scene went on for two or three minutes; then the
manager recovered his wits and began to storm, and Martha, still wearing
an expression of stupefaction, made her way to the group.
Malcolm, after an expressive shoulder shrug, returned to his sucking
pig, which he was enjoying immensely.
[Illustration: "POPPET FLUNG UP HER ARMS, AND WITH A WILD, PIERCING
SHRIEK FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM."]
"There's nothing them kids _could_ do as 'ud surprise me," he said, as
he took a fresh supply of mustard and settled down again.
He had known the family for seven years, so the remark was not
unjustifiable. Martha had withdrawn to a back room with the manager.
She explained that his young waiter was the son of a gentleman; she gave
him Captain Woolcot's address that he might be reimbursed for the
breakages.
"But 'owever he got 'ere, so help me, I can't imagine," she said. "Why,
he's in America." She put out her hand to touch the lad and feel if he
were real flesh and blood, the evidence of her senses could not be
accredited. "It's really you, is it?" she said slowly.
But Bunty did not answer; he seemed half stupefied, and was standing
perfectly still, while Poppet sobbed and asked questions and clung to
him.
Such a tall, gaunt boy he had grown. His face was thin and sharp, there
was a look of silent suffering in his eyes and round his lips, his
clothes hung loosely on him, and were threadbare to the last degree.
"Get your hat and come with us, Master John," she said, a touch of her
old sharpness in her manner to him. "Don't take on so, Miss Poppet.
Hush! every one is looking at you; be quiet now, an we'll go to the
Gardens, or somewhere where we can talk, and then we'll go home."
"I can't go home," Bunty said faintly.
He wondered if those five terrible months behind him were a dream; or if
little trembling Poppet, who was holding him so tightly, was a vision
his disordered imagination had called up.
"Oh, I can't go home, of course," he said, and pushed his thick hair
back in a tired kind of way. "Hush, Poppet; go home with Martha like a
good girl, and, on no account, say you've seen me. Promise me----"
He did not wait for an answer, however, but made fresh confusion by
fainting dead away on the floor at Martha's feet.
The manager of the restaurant felt himself a very ill-used man that such
things should happen at his busiest time; but he was not inhuman, and
the boy's deathly face and the little girl's exceeding distress touched
him. Besides, Malcolm was his most regular customer; it would be unwise
to offend him. So he helped to lift the boy into an inner room, gave
Martha brandy and water, and recommended burnt feathers.
"I'll go and send a tellygrum for the Captain," Malcolm said, picking up
his hat. He too felt ill-used, for there were some choice morsels still
on his plate, and there was no knowing when he would get his pudding.
But Poppet caught his coat sleeve.
"Not father, on _any_ account," she said. "Esther, or Meg, or even
Pip--but oh, not father!"
"No, you'd better not fetch the Captain," Martha said. "Oh no, he
wouldn't do at all. Better telegraph for Miss Meg--she's got a head on
her. The missus is ill with a headache, so it's no good fetching
her--yes, send for Miss Meg."
It was between half-past one and two when all this happened; at five
Bunty was half-sitting, half-lying on the old, springless sofa in the
nursery. Poppet had squeezed herself on the half-inch of space he had
left, and was gazing at him, a look of great content and unspeakable
love on her little face; and Meg on the low rocking-chair beside them
was holding a hand of each.
The others had been turned out. Bunty lay with his face to the wall and
his lips shut in a dogged kind of way when they had all crowded round
asking questions; and at last Meg, seeing he was totally unfit for any
excitement or distress, persuaded them to leave him to Poppet and
herself till he was stronger.
And when the room was quiet, and Meg rocking softly to and fro, and
Poppet occasionally rubbing her smooth little cheek against his old
coat, he told them everything of his own accord.
He had not been to America at all, he had never even heard of a boat
called the _Isabella_; it must have been some other boy the police had
heard of, and a chance resemblance that made them connect the two.
He had been in or near Sydney all the time, living he hardly knew how.
The first month he had done odd jobs, fetched and carried for a grocer
in Botany. Then he had managed to get a place on a rough farm in the
Lane Cove district, where he was paid four shillings a week and given
board and lodging--of a kind. But there had been a long spell of rainy
weather and rough westerly winds, and he had been in wet things
sometimes from morning to night.
"And it gave me fever--rheumatic--pretty badly," he said; "so they
shipped me down to the hospital here in Sydney."
Poppet buried her nose in the sofa cushion, and Meg gave an exclamation
of horror.
"And you didn't tell the people who you were, and send for us?" she
said, wondering if this could be the same boy who, when he was small,
required the sympathies of the house if he scratched his knees.
"How could I?" was Bunty's low reply, "when you didn't know about
_that_!"
Meg held his hand closer.
"Didn't the people at the hospital ask who you were?" she said.
"I told them I hadn't any home, and my name was John Thomson," he
answered. "Of course they thought I was nothing but a farm boy. Well,
I was there a long time--about two months, I think; it seemed like
years."
Meg's face was pale, and her eyes full of hot tears.
She pictured the poor lad lying in that hospital bed week after week,
strange faces all around him, strange hands ministering to him,--weak,
racked with pain, and yet with almost incredible strength of mind
persevering in his determination not to let his family know anything.
"How could you _help_ sending for us?" she said, in a low tone.
He moved his head a little restlessly.
"I knew you were all sick of me, and ashamed of me. I know I'm not like
the rest of you, and I kept saying I'd get well and work hard and do
something to make you respect me before I came back."
Respect him! In Poppet's eyes Nelson was less of a hero, Gordon had
infinitely less claim to glory.
"Two or three times I nearly told the nurse," he continued,
half-shamefacedly; "the pain was pretty bad, I couldn't go to sleep for
it, and I thought I'd like Poppet to come,"--he gave her hand a rough
squeeze,--"but then I used to stuff the blanket in my mouth and bite it,
and it kept me from telling her. I used to have to shut my eyes so I
shouldn't see her coming to my end of the ward; I used to get so
frightened I'd say it without meaning to."
"And then," said Meg--the narration was almost too painful--"what did
you do then--when you got better?"
The rest of the story he hurried over; it made him shudder a little to
think of it all, now he was lying in this dear old room with two faces
full of love close to him.