When I arrived at Hames, Diana, tall, fair, and beautiful as a Diana
should be, was on the doorstep to meet me. Diana, by the way, had been
christened "Diana Elizabeth," in case she should have turned out short
and dumpy and, by some miraculous chance, dark. I looked for Sara in the
tail of Diana's gown,--I am afraid this is a literary license, as Diana
does not wear tails to her gowns in the country as a rule,--but Sara was
not there.
"She is not there," said Diana. "The children are in the wildest state
of excitement, and will you faithfully promise to go up and see them
directly you have had tea?"
I would willingly have gone then and there, and murmured something about
my box, and Diana said she hoped I had not brought them anything.
"Oh! nothing," I said; "only the smallest things possible"; knowing all
the time that the woolly rabbit was, of its kind, unrivaled. But these
are professional expenses, and what I spend does not afterwards give
me a moment's worry. I have seen David, on the other hand, speechlessly
miserable after buying a mezzotint, for the time being only, of course;
the joy cometh in the morning, when Diana proves to him that it was the
only thing to do, and that it was really quite wonderful, the way in
which he was led to buy it. He had had no idea of doing so. Not the
slightest! And yet something within him urged him to buy it. Absolutely
urged him!
Then, Diana said, it was clearly meant. If a man deliberately set out
on a fine morning, bent on spending more than he could afford, then--!
Diana's "then" is always so comforting.
I am so afraid you will spoil the children, she said; "they expect
presents, which is so dreadful. Hugh bet sixpence at lunch that you
would bring him something, and he said to poor Mr. Hardy, You didn't."
"But he will next time, Diana," I said.
"Of course he will; that is the dreadful part of it."
It is right that Diana should feel like that. A mother's point of view
and another's, an aunt's, for instance, are totally different things,
and I told Diana that, while fully appreciating her anxieties regarding
the characters of her children, considered that to destroy a child's
faith in an aunt was little short of criminal. But I promised that the
next time I came I would, perhaps, not bring them anything. "But I shall
give them fair warning."
Diana admitted the justice of this, and she said, with a sigh of relief,
"I can't bear the children to be disappointed; a disappointed Sara is--"
"Diana," I interrupted, "is it wise to begin Saraing at this time of
day?"
In reality the woolly rabbit was tugging at my heartstrings and
clamoring to be unpacked. After a hurried tea, which I was obliged to
have for the sake of Bindon's feelings, I went upstairs, resolved to
disinter at all costs, without delay, the rabbit. I felt great anxiety
lest in transit the machinery which made the rabbit squeak in a way that
surely no rabbit, mechanical or otherwise,--particularly the otherwise,
I hoped,--had ever squeaked before, might be impaired; happily it was
not.
Having carefully shut the door and silenced the attendant housemaid, I
took the precaution of burying the rabbit partially under the eider-down
quilt before testing the squeak, so that no noise should reach the
children. I am afraid I "mothered" the squeak of that rabbit if I
imagined it could reach anywhere so far; it was in reality such a very
small one. But such as it was, it was perfect, in spite of the deadening
effect of the quilt, and I pictured Sara's dimples dimpling. How she
would love it! The treasure was carefully wrapped up again, and I tried
hard to make it look like anything rather than a rabbit, in case Sara
should try, by feeling it, to discover its nature.
Jane, the housemaid, said that no one could tell, no matter how much
they tried; if they tried all day, they wouldn't, that she knew for
sure; which was very consoling.
I then examined Hugh's train and Betty's cooking-stove, and found them
intact, with, the exception of a saucepan lid. This, after a search,
we found under the wardrobe. Why do things always go under things? Jane
didn't know--she only knew they did. Then I opened the door and called.
Suddenly I heard a noise unearthly in its shrillness: it was Hugh
calling his Aunt Woggles. He threw himself into my arms, keeping one
eye, I could not help noticing, on the parcels. During the hug, which
gave him plenty of time to make up his mind, he evidently decided
which was for him; for he relaxed his hold and went to the table by the
window, on which the parcels lay, whistling in as careless a manner as a
boy bursting with excitement could do. First of all he stood on one leg,
then on the other, and looked knowingly at me out of the corner of his
eye. He was too honest to pretend that he thought the parcel was for
some other boy, since there was no other. When the excitement became
more than he could bear, he sang in a sing-song voice, "I see it, I see
it!"
"Open it, then," I said, which he proceeded to do with great energy, if
with little success.
"I b'lieve it's a knife with things in it," he said.
My heart sank. "Oh, it's much too big for a knife, Hugh," I replied.
"I 'spect it is, all the same," he said with a nod; "you've made it big
on purpose; I positively know you have."
At last it was opened, and I said, aunt-like, "Do you like it, Hugh?"
"Awfully, thanks." Then he added a little wistfully, "Tommy's got a
knife with things in it, a button'ook."
Perhaps he saw I looked disappointed, for he added magnanimously, "I
like trains next best, Aunt Woggles; only you see I didn't exactly pray
for a train, that's why. What's Betty's?"
"Betty must open it herself."
"Don't you suppose," he said, "that she would like me to open it for
her, because it is a hard thing opening parcels--and Betty says I may
always open all her parcels when she is out."
"Hugh!" I exclaimed.
He rushed to the door. "Come on, Betty," he shouted. "Aunt Woggles wants
you."
If Betty's entrance was less tempestuous than Hugh's, her embrace was
not less ecstatic. She put her arms round my neck and took her legs off
the ground,--a quite simple process, and known to most aunts, I expect.
The ultimate result would, no doubt, be strangulation. No one knows, of
course, but among aunts it is a very general belief. Unlike Hugh, Betty
kept her eyes religiously away from parcels, and she got very pink when
I drew her attention to the very nobly one which was hers. Hugh stood
by, urging her to open it, and offering to help her; but this Betty
would not allow, and she opened it, her lips trembling with excitement.
"Is it for my very own?" she whispered.
"Absolutely for your very own, Betty," I answered.
"Oh!" said Betty. "Hugh, it's all for my very, very own; Aunt Woggles
says so; but you may play with it when you are very good."
This in Hugh's eyes seemed so remote a contingency as to be scarcely
worth consideration.
When the cooking-stove stood revealed in all its glory, Betty was silent
for a moment; then she said in a voice choked with emotion, "I shall
cook dinners for you, all for your very own self--nobody else."
My heart sank. "You will eat the things, won't you?" she asked, "if I
make proper things, just like real things?"
"Of course," I said. "Where's Sara?"
"She wouldn't have her face washed," said Betty, "so she's waiting till
she's good."
Poor Sara! A strict disciplinarian is Betty!
The regeneration of Sara was evidently a matter of moments only, for
the words were hardly out of Betty's mouth when Sara, in all her clean,
delicious dumpiness, appeared in the doorway. If there is one thing more
delicious than a grubby Sara, it is a clean Sara. Sara after gardening
is delicious, but Sara clean is assuredly the cleanest thing on God's
earth. I have never seen a child look so new, and so straight out of
tissue-paper, as Sara can look. She stared solemnly at her Aunt Woggles,
and then proceeded to walk away in the opposite direction, which was an
invitation on her part to me to follow and snatch her up in my arms. She
bore the hug stoically for a reasonable time, and then said, "Oo 'urt."
I realized, with the agony of remorse, that a very large aunt can by
means of a brooch inflict exquisite torture on a very small niece.
She wriggled herself free and began to rearrange her ruffled garments.
"Yaya's got noo soos," she announced; "ved vuns."
"No, blue, darling," I said.
"Ved," said Sara.
"No, sweetest, blue," I repeated in a somewhat professional but wholly
affectionate manner.
"Ved," said Sara with great decision; so I gave it up.
"Sara always thinks blue is red," said Betty; "don't you, darling?"
"No, boo," replied Sara; so the matter dropped.
"Oo's tummin' to see Yaya's toys," said Sara.
"Am I, darling? When?"
"Now."
"But Aunt Woggles has got something for you," I said in a triumphant
voice.
Sara showed no interest and pulled me by the hand toward the door.
"Hand me that, Betty," I said, pointing to the parcel on the table.
Betty handed it to me.
"Here, Sara," I said, "I have got a darling white rabbit for you! Sara! A
bunny!"
"Yaya's got a blush upstairs, a lubbly blush," she said, disdaining even
to look at the parcel. I held it toward her, undid it, I squeaked the
squeak, I called the rabbit endearing names; but to no purpose. Sara
looked the other way. A look I at last persuaded her to bestow upon the
rabbit; but she gazed at its charms, unmoved.
"Yaya doesn't yike nasty bunnies, only nice blushes," she said.
"It's a hearth-brush dressed up," whispered Betty, "and it's dressed up
in my dolly's cape, at least in one of my dolly's capes; she loves it.
Aunt Woggles, do you think it is a good thing to make hearth-brushes say
their prayers? Sara does."
I followed Sara disconsolately to the nursery and was shown the beauties
of the "lubbly blush."
Nannie bemoaned her darling's taste, and the nursery-maid blushed for
very shame.
"Not but what it's quite clean, miss," Nannie said; "it's been
thoroughly washed in carbolic."
Meanwhile Sara was rocking herself backward and forward in a manner
truly maternal and singing her version of "Jesus Tender" to her "lubbly
blush."
"I thought she would love the rabbit," I said, and Nannie, by way of
consolation, assured me that there was really nothing Sara loved so
much as a rabbit. I suppose Nannie knew, and that it was only another
instance of the folly of judging from appearances.
"You will love your bunny, won't you, darling?" said Nannie; "nice
bunny!"
"Nasty bunny," said Sara with great decision.
"That's naughty, baby," said Nannie; "nice bunny!"
"Naughty bunny," said Sara, "vake Yaya's yubbly vitty blush." And she
resumed her singing with religious fervor.
Nannie was really quite upset, and apologized for her charge. I accepted
the apology and resolved then and there to send the despised rabbit
to the Children's Hospital by the next post. Have you ever given a
toy-balloon to a child, and had the child say, "Balloons don't amuse?" I
have.
Nannie then, by way of consolation, suggested that Sara should say her
prayers at my knee. It was the greatest compliment she could pay
any one. Sara consented after much pressure, and she knelt down and
proceeded to pack up her face. No other word to my mind describes the
process. First of all she shut her eyes tight. To keep them tight seemed
to require a great physical effort; this was done by tightly screwing
up her nose. Next she proceeded to gather her eyebrows into the smallest
possible compass, and then she drew a deep breath, folded her small
hands, and started off at a terrific pace, "Gaw bess parver yan muvver
yan nannie yan hughyan betty yan dicky an aunt woggles yan ellen yan
emma yan croft--yan blusby yan all ve vitty children yan make dem velly
good boys yan make my nastyole bunnyagoodgirl. May Yaya get up?"
"Not yet, baby, think," said Nannie.
Sara thought, and then with a fresh access of solemnity repeated
an entirely new version of the Lord's Prayer. Nannie understood it
evidently, for at a point quite unintelligible to me, Nannie said, "Good
girl!" and Sara jumped up.
Nannie told me that nothing would induce Sara to pray that she might
be made good. She was always very ready to make such petitions on the
behalf of Betty and Hugh, but for herself, no. She is not like Betty,
who at her age prayed, "Dear God, please make me a good little girl, but
if you can't manage it, don't bother about it; Nannie will soon do it."
Difficult and tedious as the task may have appeared to Betty, I think
it was assuredly within the power of God to make her good without the
intervention of Nannie. Dear Betty!
Sara was then put to bed, and while Nannie brushed her hair, Sara
brushed the hearth-brush's hair. Sara was very anxious to have it in her
bath with her, but here Nannie was firm.
Later the hearth-brush was dressed in a nightgown and laid beside Sara
in her little bed. The last thing she did before going to sleep
was to gaze at her darling "blush" with rapture and say,
"Nasty--'ollid--bunny!"
Her eyelashes fluttered and then gently fell on her cheek, as a
butterfly hovers and then settles on the petal of a rose.
"Leave it here, miss," said Nannie; "she'll see it when she wakes."
I left the despised bunny and went to dress for dinner. Betty was
waiting for me outside. "Is the cooking-stove for my very own self, Aunt
Woggles?"
"Absolutely, Betty. Why?"
"Only because Hugh wondered if it wasn't or him, too. He only wondered,
and I said I didn't suppose one present could be for two people, because
then it wouldn't be such a very real present, would it?"
I said, "Of course not"; and I told her the story of the two men who
owned one elephant, and one man said to the other: "I don't know what
you are going to do with your half; I am going to shoot mine!"
"And did he, Aunt Woggles?" asked Betty, her eyes wide with horror.
"I wonder," I said. "I'll race you to the end of the passage."
"I won," cried Betty. "No, we both of us did," she added, slipping her
hand into mine.
That evening Diana told me that a few days before, she had heard the
following conversation between Hugh and Betty:
"I am going to shoot my cock."
"Hugh!" said Betty, "don't, it's a darlin' cock."
"But it doesn't lay eggs," said Hugh.
"I don't think cocks are supposed to lay eggs," said Betty thoughtfully.
"Well, I don't see why they shouldn't," said Hugh; "widowers have
children."