The shadow of the termination now descended in sable thunder-clouds upon
our devoted nobs. As Albert's uncle said, "School now gaped for its
prey." In a very short space of time we should be wending our way back
to Blackheath, and all the variegated delightfulness of the country
would soon be only preserved in memory's faded flowers. (I don't care
for that way of writing very much. It would be an awful swat to keep it
up--looking out the words and all that.)
To speak in the language of every-day life, our holiday was jolly nearly
up. We had had a ripping time, but it was all but over. We really did
feel sorry--though, of course, it was rather decent to think of getting
back to father and being able to tell the other chaps about our raft,
and the dam, and the Tower of Mystery, and things like that.
When but a brief time was left to us, Oswald and Dicky met by chance in
an apple-tree. (That sounds like "consequences," but it is mere
truthfulness.) Dicky said:
"Only four more days." Oswald said, "Yes."
[Illustration: THE COUNCIL IN THE APPLE-TREE]
"There's one thing," Dicky said, "that beastly society. We don't want
that swarming all over everything when we get home. We ought to dissolve
it before we leave here."
The following dialogue now took place:
_Oswald_--"Right you are. I always said it was piffling rot."
_Dicky_--"So did I."
_Oswald_--"Let's call a council. But don't forget we've jolly well got
to put our foot down."
Dicky assented, and the dialogue concluded with apples.
The council, when called, was in but low spirits. This made Oswald's and
Dicky's task easier. When people are sunk in gloomy despair about one
thing, they will agree to almost anything about something else. (Remarks
like this are called philosophic generalizations, Albert's uncle says.)
Oswald began by saying:
"We've tried the society for being good in, and perhaps it's done us
good. But now the time has come for each of us to be good or bad on his
own, without hanging on to the others."
"The race is run by one and one,
But never by two and two,"
the Dentist said. The others said nothing. Oswald went on: "I move that
we chuck--I mean dissolve--the Wouldbegoods Society; its appointed task
is done. If it's not well done, that's _its_ fault and not ours." Dicky
said, "Hear! hear! I second this prop."
The unexpected Dentist said, "I third it. At first I thought it would
help, but afterwards I saw it only made you want to be naughty, just
because you were a Wouldbegood."
Oswald owns he was surprised. We put it to the vote at once, so as not
to let Denny cool. H. O. and Noel and Alice voted with us, so Daisy and
Dora were what is called a hopeless minority. We tried to cheer their
hopelessness by letting them read the things out of the Golden Deed book
aloud. Noel hid his face in the straw so that we should not see the
faces he made while he made poetry instead of listening, and when the
Wouldbegoods was by vote dissolved forever he sat up, with straws in his
hair, and said:
"THE EPITAPH
"The Wouldbegoods are dead and gone,
But not the golden deeds they have done.
These will remain upon Glory's page
To be an example to every age,
And by this we have got to know
How to be good upon our ow--N.
N is for Noel, that makes the rhyme and the sense both right. O.W.N.,
own; do you see?"
We saw it, and said so, and the gentle poet was satisfied. And the
council broke up. Oswald felt that a weight had been lifted from his
expanding chest, and it is curious that he never felt so inclined to be
good and a model youth as he did then.
As we went down the ladder out of the loft he said:
"There's one thing we ought to do, though, before we go home. We ought
to find Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother for him."
Alice's heart beat true and steadfast. She said: "That's just exactly
what Noel and I were saying this morning. Look out, Oswald, you wretch,
you're kicking chaff into my eyes." She was going down the ladder just
under me.
Oswald's young sister's thoughtful remark ended in another council. But
not in the straw loft. We decided to have a quite new place, and
disregarded H. O.'s idea of the dairy and Noel's of the cellars. We had
the new council on the secret staircase, and there we settled exactly
what we ought to do. This is the same thing, if you really wish to be
good, as what you are going to do. It was a very interesting council,
and when it was over Oswald was so pleased to think that the
Wouldbegoods was unrecoverishly dead that he gave Denny and Noel, who
were sitting on the step below him, a good-humored, playful, gentle,
loving, brotherly shove, and said, "Get along down, it's tea-time!"
No reader who understands justice and the real rightness of things, and
who is to blame for what, will ever think it could have been Oswald's
fault that the two other boys got along down by rolling over and over
each other, and bursting the door at the bottom of the stairs open by
their revolving bodies. And I should like to know whose fault it was
that Mrs. Pettigrew was just on the other side of that door at that very
minute? The door burst open, and the impetuous bodies of Noel and Denny
rolled out of it into Mrs. Pettigrew, and upset her and the tea-tray.
Both revolving boys were soaked with tea and milk, and there were one or
two cups and things smashed. Mrs. Pettigrew was knocked over, but none
of her bones were broken. Noel and Denny were going to be sent to bed,
but Oswald said it was all his fault. He really did this to give the
others a chance of doing a refined, golden deed by speaking the truth
and saying it was _not_ his fault. But you cannot really count on any
one. They did not say anything, but only rubbed the lumps on their
late-revolving heads. So it was bed for Oswald, and he felt the
injustice hard.
But he sat up in bed and read the _Last of the Mohicans_, and then he
began to think. When Oswald really thinks he almost always thinks of
something. He thought of something now, and it was miles better than the
idea we had decided on in the secret staircase, of advertising in the
_Kentish Mercury_ and saying if Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother
would call at the Moat House she might hear of something much to her
advantage.
What Oswald thought of was that if we went to Hazelbridge and asked Mr.
B. Munn, grocer, that drove us home in the cart with the horse that
liked the wrong end of the whip best, he would know who the lady was in
the red hat and red wheels that paid him to drive us home that
Canterbury night. He must have been paid, of course, for even grocers
are not generous enough to drive perfect strangers, and five of them
too, about the country for nothing.
Thus we may learn that even unjustness and sending the wrong people to
bed may bear useful fruit, which ought to be a great comfort to every
one when they are unfairly treated. Only it most likely won't be. For if
Oswald's brothers and sisters had nobly stood by him, as he expected, he
would not have had the solitudy reflections that led to the great scheme
for finding the grandmother.
Of course when the others came up to roost they all came and squatted on
Oswald's bed and said how sorry they were. He waived their apologies
with noble dignity, because there wasn't much time, and said he had an
idea that would knock the council's plan into a cocked hat. But he would
not tell them what it was. He made them wait till next morning. This was
not sulks, but kind feeling. He wanted them to have something else to
think of besides the way they hadn't stood by him in the bursting of the
secret staircase door and the tea-tray and the milk.
Next morning Oswald kindly explained, and asked who would volunteer for
a forced march to Hazelbridge. The word volunteer cost the young Oswald
a pang as soon as he had said it, but I hope he can bear pangs with any
man living. "And mind," he added, hiding the pang under a general-like
severeness, "I won't have any one in the expedition who has anything in
his shoes except his feet."
This could not have been put more delicately and decently. But Oswald is
often misunderstood. Even Alice said it was unkind to throw the pease up
at Denny. When this little unpleasantness had passed away (it took some
time, because Daisy cried, and Dora said, "There now, Oswald!") there
were seven volunteers, which, with Oswald, made eight, and was, indeed,
all of us. There were no cockle-shells, or tape-sandals, or staves, or
scrips, or anything romantic and pious about the eight persons who set
out for Hazelbridge that morning, more earnestly wishful to be good and
deedful--at least Oswald, I know was--than ever they had been in the
days of the beastly Wouldbegood Society. It was a fine day. Either it
was fine nearly all last summer, which is how Oswald remembers it, or
else nearly all the interesting things we did came on fine days.
With hearts light and gay, and no pease in any one's shoes, the walk to
Hazelbridge was perseveringly conducted. We took our lunch with us, and
the dear dogs. Afterwards we wished for a time that we had left one of
them at home. But they did so want to come, all of them, and Hazelbridge
is not nearly as far as Canterbury, really, so even Martha was allowed
to put on her things--I mean her collar--and come with us. She walks
slowly, but we had the day before us, so there was no extra hurry.
At Hazelbridge we went into B. Munn's grocer's shop and asked for
ginger-beer to drink. They gave it us, but they seemed surprised at us
wanting to drink it there, and the glass was warm--it had just been
washed. We only did it, really, so as to get into conversation with B.
Munn, grocer, and extract information without rousing suspicion. You
cannot be too careful.
However, when we had said it was first-class ginger-beer, and paid for
it, we found it not so easy to extract anything more from B. Munn,
grocer; and there was an anxious silence while he fiddled about behind
the counter among the tinned meats and sauce bottles, with a fringe of
hob-nailed boots hanging over his head.
H. O. spoke suddenly. He is like the sort of person who rushes in where
angels fear to tread, as Denny says (say what sort of person that is).
He said:
"I say, you remember driving us home that day. Who paid for the cart?"
Of course B. Munn, grocer, was not such a nincompoop (I like that word,
it means so many people I know) as to say right off. He said:
"I was paid all right, young gentleman. Don't you terrify yourself."
People in Kent say terrify when they mean worry.
So Dora shoved in a gentle oar. She said:
"We want to know the kind lady's name and address, so that we can write
and thank her for being so jolly that day."
B. Munn, grocer, muttered something about the lady's address being goods
he was often asked for. Alice said, "But do tell us. We forgot to ask
her. She's a relation of a second-hand uncle of ours, and I do so want
to thank her properly. And if you've got any extra strong peppermints at
a penny an ounce, we should like a quarter of a pound."
This was a master-stroke. While he was weighing out the peppermints his
heart got soft, and just as he was twisting up the corner of the paper
bag, Dora said, "What lovely fat peppermints! Do tell us."
And B. Munn's heart was now quite melted, and he said:
"It's Miss Ashleigh, and she lives at The Cedars--about a mile down the
Maidstone Road."
We thanked him, and Alice paid for the peppermints. Oswald was a little
anxious when she ordered such a lot, but she and Noel had got the money
all right, and when we were outside on Hazelbridge Green (a good deal of
it is gravel, really), we stood and looked at each other.
Then Dora said:
"Let's go home and write a beautiful letter and all sign it."
Oswald looked at the others. Writing is all very well, but it's such a
beastly long time to wait for anything to happen afterwards.
The intelligent Alice divined his thoughts, and the Dentist divined
hers--he is not clever enough yet to divine Oswald's--and the two said
together:
"Why not go and see her?"
"She _did_ say she would like to see us again some day," Dora replied.
So after we had argued a little about it we went.
And before we had gone a hundred yards down the dusty road Martha began
to make us wish with all our hearts we had not let her come. She began
to limp, just as a pilgrim, who I will not name, did when he had the
split pease in his silly, palmering shoes.
So we called a halt and looked at her feet. One of them was quite
swollen and red. Bulldogs almost always have something the matter with
their feet, and it always comes on when least required. They are not the
right breed for emergencies.
There was nothing for it but to take it in turns to carry her. She is
very stout, and you have no idea how heavy she is. A half-hearted,
unadventurous person (I name no names, but Oswald, Alice, Noel, H. O.,
Dicky, Daisy, and Denny will understand me) said, why not go straight
home and come another day without Martha? But the rest agreed with
Oswald when he said it was only a mile, and perhaps we might get a lift
home with the poor invalid. Martha was very grateful to us for our
kindness. She put her fat white arms round the person's neck who
happened to be carrying her. She is very affectionate, but by holding
her very close to you you can keep her from kissing your face all the
time. As Alice said, "Bulldogs do give you such large, wet, pink
kisses."
A mile is a good way when you have to take your turn at carrying Martha.
At last we came to a hedge with a ditch in front of it, and chains
swinging from posts to keep people off the grass and out of the ditch,
and a gate with "The Cedars" on it in gold letters. All very neat and
tidy, and showing plainly that more than one gardener was kept. There we
stopped. Alice put Martha down, grunting with exhaustedness, and said:
"Look here, Dora and Daisy, I don't believe a bit that it's his
grandmother. I'm sure Dora was right, and it's only his horrid
sweetheart. I feel it in my bones. Now, don't you really think we'd
better chuck it; we're sure to catch it for interfering. We always do."
"The cross of true love never did come smooth," said the Dentist. "We
ought to help him to bear his cross."
"But if we find her for him, and she's not his grandmother, he'll
_marry_ her," Dicky said, in tones of gloominess and despair.
Oswald felt the same, but he said, "Never mind. We should all hate it,
but perhaps Albert's uncle _might_ like it. You can never tell. If you
want to do a really unselfish action and no kid, now's your time, my
late Wouldbegoods."
No one had the face to say right out that they didn't want to be
unselfish.
But it was with sad hearts that the unselfish seekers opened the long
gate and went up the gravel drive between the rhododendrons and other
shrubberies towards the house.
I think I have explained to you before that the eldest son of anybody is
called the representative of the family if his father isn't there. This
was why Oswald now took the lead. When we got to the last turn of the
drive it was settled that the others were to noiselessly ambush in the
rhododendrons, and Oswald was to go on alone and ask at the house for
the grandmother from India--I mean Miss Ashleigh.
So he did, but when he got to the front of the house and saw how neat
the flower-beds were with red geraniums, and the windows all bright and
speckless with muslin blinds and brass rods, and a green parrot in a
cage in the porch, and the doorstep newly whited, lying clean and
untrodden in the sunshine, he stood still and thought of his boots and
how dusty the roads were, and wished he had not gone into the farmyard
after eggs before starting that morning. As he stood there in anxious
uncertainness he heard a low voice among the bushes. It said, "Hist!
Oswald, here!" and it was the voice of Alice.
So he went back to the others among the shrubs, and they all crowded
round their leader, full of impartable news.
"She's not in the house; she's _here_," Alice said, in a low whisper
that seemed nearly all S's. "Close by--she went by just this minute with
a gentleman."
"And they're sitting on a seat under a tree on a little lawn, and she's
got her head on his shoulder, and he's holding her hand. I never saw any
one look so silly in all my born," Dicky said.
"It's sickening," Denny said, trying to look very manly with his legs
wide apart.
"I don't know," Oswald whispered. "I suppose it wasn't Albert's uncle?"
"Not much," Dicky briefly replied.
"Then don't you see it's all right. If she's going on like that with
this other fellow, she'll want to marry him, and Albert's uncle is safe.
And we've really done an unselfish action without having to suffer for
it afterwards." With a stealthy movement Oswald rubbed his hands as he
spoke in real joyfulness. We decided that we had better bunk unnoticed.
But we had reckoned without Martha. She had strolled off limping to look
about her a bit in the shrubbery. "Where's Martha?" Dora suddenly said.
"She went that way," pointingly remarked H. O.
"Then fetch her back, you young duffer! What did you let her go for?"
Oswald said; "and look sharp. Don't make a row."
He went. A minute later we heard a hoarse squeak from Martha--the one
she always gives when suddenly collared from behind--and a little squeal
in a lady-like voice, and a man say "Hallo!" and then we knew that H. O.
had once more rushed in where angels might have thought twice about it.
We hurried to the fatal spot, but it was too late. We were just in time
to hear H. O. say:
[Illustration: "ARE YOU GOING TO MARRY THE LADY?"]
"I'm sorry if she frightened you. But we've been looking for you. Are
you Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother?"
"_No_," said our lady, unhesitatingly.
It seemed vain to add seven more agitated actors to the scene now going
on. We stood still. The man was standing up. He was a clergyman, and I
found out afterwards he was the nicest we ever knew, except our own Mr.
Bristow at Lewisham, who is now a canon, or a dean, or something grand
that no one ever sees. At present I did not like him. He said: "No, this
lady is nobody's grandmother. May I ask in return how long it is since
you escaped from the lunatic asylum, my poor child, and where your
keeper is?"
H. O. took no notice of this at all, except to say: "I think you are
very rude, and not at all funny, if you think you are."
The lady said: "My dear, I remember you now perfectly. How are all the
others, and are you pilgrims again to-day?"
H. O. does not always answer questions. He turned to the man and said:
"Are you going to marry the lady?"
"Margaret," said the clergyman, "I never thought it would come to this:
he asks me my intentions!"
"If you _are_," said H. O., "it's all right; because if you do, Albert's
uncle can't--at least, not till you're dead. And we don't want him to."
"Flattering, upon my word," said the clergyman, putting on a deep frown.
"Shall I call him out, Margaret, for his poor opinion of you, or shall I
send for the police?"
Alice now saw that H. O., though firm, was getting muddled and rather
scared. She broke cover and sprang into the middle of the scene.
"Don't let him rag H. O. any more," she said, "it's all our faults. You
see, Albert's uncle was so anxious to find you, we thought perhaps you
were his long-lost heiress sister or his old nurse who alone knew the
secret of his birth, or something, and we asked him, and he said you
were his long-lost grandmother he had known in India. And we thought
that must be a mistake and that really you were his long-lost
sweetheart. And we tried to do a really unselfish act and find you for
him. Because we don't want him to be married at all."
"It isn't because we don't like _you_," Oswald cut in, now emerging from
the bushes; "and if he must marry, we'd sooner it was you than any one.
Really we would."
"A generous concession, Margaret," the strange clergyman uttered, "most
generous, but the plot thickens. It's almost pea-soup-like now. One or
two points clamor for explanation. Who are these visitors of yours? Why
this Red Indian method of paying morning calls? Why the lurking attitude
of the rest of the tribe which I now discern among the undergrowth?
Won't you ask the rest of the tribe to come out and join the glad
throng?"
Then I liked him better. I always like people who know the same songs we
do, and books and tunes and things.
The others came out. The lady looked very uncomfy, and partly as if she
was going to cry. But she couldn't help laughing, too, as more and more
of us came out.
"And who," the clergyman went on--"who in fortune's name is Albert? And
who is his uncle? And what have they or you to do in this _galere_--I
mean garden?"
We all felt rather silly, and I don't think I ever felt more than then
what an awful lot there were of us.
"Three years' absence in Calcutta or elsewhere may explain my ignorance
of these details, but still--"
"I think we'd better go," said Dora. "I'm sorry if we've done anything
rude or wrong. We didn't mean to. Good-bye. I hope you'll be happy with
the gentleman, I'm sure."
"I _hope_ so too," said Noel, and I know he was thinking how much nicer
Albert's uncle was. We turned to go. The lady had been very silent
compared with what she was when she pretended to show us Canterbury. But
now she seemed to shake off some dreamy silliness, and caught hold of
Dora by the shoulder.
"No, dear, no," she said, "it's all right, and you must have some
tea--we'll have it on the lawn. John, don't tease them any more.
Albert's uncle is the gentleman T told you about. And, my dear
children, this is my brother that I haven't seen for three years."
"Then he's a long-lost too," said H. O.
The lady said, "Not now," and smiled at him. And the rest of us were
dumb with confounding emotions. Oswald was particularly dumb. He might
have known it was her brother, because in rotten grown-up books if a
girl kisses a man in a shrubbery that is not the man you think she's in
love with; it always turns out to be a brother, though generally the
disgrace of the family and not a respectable chaplain from Calcutta.
The lady now turned to her reverend and surprising brother and said:
"John, go and tell them we'll have tea on the lawn."
When he was gone she stood quite still a minute. Then she said: "I'm
going to tell you something, but I want to put you on your honor not to
talk about it to other people. You see it isn't every one I would tell
about it. He, Albert's uncle, I mean, has told me a lot about you, and I
know I can trust you."
We said "Yes," Oswald with a brooding sentiment of knowing all too well
what was coming next.
The lady then said: "Though I am not Albert's uncle's grandmother, I did
know him in India once, and we were going to be married, but we had
a--a--misunderstanding."
"Quarrel?" "Row?" said Noel and H. O. at once.
"Well, yes, a quarrel, and he went away. He was in the Navy then. And
then,... well, we were both sorry; but well, anyway, when his ship came
back we'd gone to Constantinople, then to England, and he couldn't find
us. And he says he's been looking for me ever since."
"Not you for him?" said Noel.
"Well, perhaps," said the lady.
And the girls said "Ah!" with deep interest. The lady went on more
quickly. "And then I found you, and then he found me, and now I must
break it to you. Try to bear up...."
She stopped. The branches crackled, and Albert's uncle was in our midst.
He took off his hat. "Excuse my tearing my hair," he said to the lady,
"but has the pack really hunted you down?"
"It's all right," she said, and when she looked at him she got miles
prettier quite suddenly. "I was just breaking to them...."
"Don't take that proud privilege from me," he said. "Kiddies, allow me
to present you to the future Mrs. Albert's uncle, or shall we say
Albert's new aunt?"
* * * * *
There was a good deal of explaining done before tea--about how we got
there, I mean, and why. But after the first bitterness of disappointment
we felt not nearly so sorry as we had expected to. For Albert's uncle's
lady was very jolly to us, and her brother was awfully decent, and
showed us a lot of first-class native curiosities and things, unpacking
them on purpose: skins of beasts, and beads, and brass things, and
shells from different savage lands besides India. And the lady told the
girls that she hoped they would like her as much as she liked them, and
if they wanted a new aunt she would do her best to give satisfaction in
the new situation. And Alice thought of the Murdstone aunt belonging to
Daisy and Denny, and how awful it would have been if Albert's uncle had
married _her_. And she decided, she told me afterwards, that we might
think ourselves jolly lucky it was no worse.
Then the lady led Oswald aside, pretending to show him the parrot, which
he had explored thoroughly before, and told him she was not like some
people in books. When she was married she would never try to separate
her husband from his bachelor friends, she only wanted them to be her
friends as well.
Then there was tea, and thus all ended in amicableness, and the reverend
and friendly drove us home in a wagonette. But for Martha we shouldn't
have had tea, or explanations, or lift, or anything. So we honored her,
and did not mind her being so heavy and walking up and down constantly
on our laps as we drove home.
* * * * *
And that is all the story of the long-lost grandmother and Albert's
uncle. I am afraid it is rather dull, but it was very important (to
him), so I felt it ought to be narrated. Stories about lovers and
getting married are generally slow. I like a love-story where the hero
parts with the girl at the garden-gate in the gloaming and goes off and
has adventures, and you don't see her any more till he comes home to
marry her at the end of the book. And I suppose people have to marry.
Albert's uncle is awfully old--more than thirty, and the lady is
advanced in years--twenty-six next Christmas. They are to be married
then. The girls are to be bridesmaids in white frocks with fur. This
quite consoles them. If Oswald repines sometimes, he hides it. What's
the use? We all have to meet our fell destiny, and Albert's uncle is not
extirpated from this awful law.
Now the finding of the long-lost was the very last thing we did for the
sake of its being a noble act, so that is the end of the Wouldbegoods,
and there are no more chapters after this. But Oswald hates books that
finish up without telling you the things you might want to know about
the people in the book. So here goes. We went home to the beautiful
Blackheath house. It seemed very stately and mansion-like after the Moat
House, and every one was most frightfully pleased to see us.
Mrs. Pettigrew _cried_ when we went away. I never was so astonished in
my life. She made each of the girls a fat red pincushion like a heart,
and each of us boys had a knife bought out of the housekeeping (I mean
housekeeper's own) money.
Bill Simpkins is happy as sub-under-gardener to Albert's uncle's lady's
mother. They do keep three gardeners--I knew they did. And our tramp
still earns enough to sleep well on from our dear old Pig-man.
Our last three days were entirely filled up with visits of farewell
sympathy to all our many friends who were so sorry to lose us. We
promised to come and see them next year. I hope we shall.
Denny and Daisy went back to live with their father at Forest Hill. I
don't think they'll ever be again the victims of the Murdstone aunt--who
is really a great-aunt and about twice as much in the autumn of her days
as our new Albert's uncle aunt. I think they plucked up spirit enough to
tell their father they didn't like her--which they'd never thought of
doing before. Our own robber says their holidays in the country did them
both a great deal of good. And he says us Bastables have certainly
taught Daisy and Denny the rudiments of the art of making home happy. I
believe they have thought of several quite new naughty things entirely
on their own--and done them too--since they came back from the Moat
House.
I wish you didn't grow up so quickly. Oswald can see that ere long he
will be too old for the kind of games we can all play, and he feels
grown-upness creeping inordiously upon him. But enough of this.
And now, gentle reader, farewell. If anything in these chronicles of the
Wouldbegoods should make you try to be good yourself, the author will be
very glad, of course. But take my advice and don't make a society for
trying in. It is much easier without.
And do try to forget that Oswald has another name besides Bastable. The
one beginning with C., I mean. Perhaps you have not noticed what it was.
If so, don't look back for it. It is a name no manly boy would like to
be called by--if he spoke the truth. Oswald is said to be a very manly
boy, and he despises that name, and will never give it to his own son
when he has one. Not if a rich relative offered to leave him an immense
fortune if he did. Oswald would still be firm. He would, on the honor of
the House of Bastable.