"Children are like jam: all very well in the proper place, but you can't
stand them all over the shop--eh, what?"
These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us feel
very young and angry; and yet we could not be comforted by calling him
names to ourselves, as you do when nasty grown-ups say nasty things,
because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite when not
irritated. And we could not think it ungentlemanly of him to say we were
like jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice indeed--only not on
furniture and improper places like that. My father said, "Perhaps they
had better go to boarding-school." And that was awful, because we know
father disapproves of boarding-schools. And he looked at us and said, "I
am ashamed of them, sir!"
Your lot is indeed a dark and terrible one when your father is ashamed
of you. And we all knew this, so that we felt in our chests just as if
we had swallowed a hard-boiled egg whole. At least, this is what Oswald
felt, and father said once that Oswald, as the eldest, was the
representative of the family, so, of course, the others felt the same.
And then everybody said nothing for a short time. At last father said:
"You may go--but remember--" The words that followed I am not going to
tell you. It is no use telling you what you know before--as they do in
schools. And you must all have had such words said to you many times. We
went away when it was over. The girls cried, and we boys got out books
and began to read, so that nobody should think we cared. But we felt it
deeply in our interior hearts, especially Oswald, who is the eldest and
the representative of the family.
We felt it all the more because we had not really meant to do anything
wrong. We only thought perhaps the grown-ups would not be quite pleased
if they knew, and that is quite different. Besides, we meant to put all
the things back in their proper places when we had done with them before
any one found out about it. But I must not anticipate (that means
telling the end of a story before the beginning. I tell you this because
it is so sickening to have words you don't know in a story, and to be
told to look it up in the dicker).
We are the Bastables--Oswald, Dora, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and H. O. If you
want to know why we call our youngest brother H. O. you can jolly well
read _The Treasure Seekers_ and find out. We were the Treasure Seekers,
and we sought it high and low, and quite regularly, because we
particularly wanted to find it. And at last we did not find it, but we
were found by a good, kind Indian uncle, who helped father with his
business, so that father was able to take us all to live in a jolly big
red house on Blackheath, instead of in the Lewisham Road, where we lived
when we were only poor but honest Treasure Seekers. When we were poor
but honest we always used to think that if only father had plenty of
business, and we did not have to go short of pocket-money and wear
shabby clothes (I don't mind this myself, but the girls do), we should
be quite happy and very, very good.
And when we were taken to the beautiful big Blackheath house we thought
now all would be well, because it was a house with vineries and
pineries, and gas and water, and shrubberies and stabling, and replete
with every modern convenience, like it says in Dyer & Hilton's list of
Eligible House Property. I read all about it, and I have copied the
words quite right.
It is a beautiful house, all the furniture solid and strong, no casters
off the chairs, and the tables not scratched, and the silver not dented;
and lots of servants, and the most decent meals every day--and lots of
pocket-money.
But it is wonderful how soon you get used to things, even the things you
want most. Our watches, for instance. We wanted them frightfully; but
when I had had mine a week or two, after the mainspring got broken and
was repaired at Bennett's in the village, I hardly cared to look at the
works at all, and it did not make me feel happy in my heart any more,
though, of course, I should have been very unhappy if it had been taken
away from me. And the same with new clothes and nice dinners and having
enough of everything. You soon get used to it all, and it does not make
you extra happy, although, if you had it all taken away, you would be
very dejected. (That is a good word, and one I have never used before.)
You get used to everything, as I said, and then you want something more.
Father says this is what people mean by the deceitfulness of riches; but
Albert's uncle says it is the spirit of progress, and Mrs. Leslie said
some people called it "divine discontent." Oswald asked them all what
they thought, one Sunday at dinner. Uncle said it was rot, and what we
wanted was bread and water and a licking; but he meant it for a joke.
This was in the Easter holidays.
We went to live at Morden House at Christmas. After the holidays the
girls went to the Blackheath High School, and we boys went to the Prop.
(that means the Proprietary School). And we had to swot rather during
term; but about Easter we knew the deceitfulness of riches in the vac.,
when there was nothing much on, like pantomimes and things. Then there
was the summer term, and we swotted more than ever; and it was boiling
hot, and masters' tempers got short and sharp, and the girls used to
wish the exams, came in cold weather. I can't think why they don't. But
I suppose schools don't think of sensible things like that. They teach
botany at girls' schools.
Then the midsummer holidays came, and we breathed again--but only for a
few days. We began to feel as if we had forgotten something, and did not
know what it was. We wanted something to happen--only we didn't exactly
know what. So we were very pleased when father said:
"I've asked Mr. Foulkes to send his children here for a week or two. You
know--the kids who came at Christmas. You must be jolly to them, and see
that they have a good time, don't you know."
We remembered them right enough--they were little pinky, frightened
things, like white mice, with very bright eyes. They had not been to our
house since Christmas, because Denis, the boy, had been ill, and they
had been with an aunt at Ramsgate.
Alice and Dora would have liked to get the bedrooms ready for the
honored guests, but a really good housemaid is sometimes more ready to
say "don't" than even a general. So the girls had to chuck it. Jane only
let them put flowers in the pots on the visitors' mantel-pieces, and
then they had to ask the gardener which kind they might pick, because
nothing worth gathering happened to be growing in our own gardens just
then.
Their train got in at 12.27. We all went to meet them. Afterwards I
thought that was a mistake, because their aunt was with them, and she
wore black with beady things and a tight bonnet, and she said, when we
took our hats off, "Who are you?" quite crossly.