When you hear that the four children found themselves at Waterloo
Station quite un-taken-care-of, and with no one to meet them, it may
make you think that their parents were neither kind nor careful. But if
you think this you will be wrong. The fact is, mother arranged with Aunt
Emma that she was to meet the children at Waterloo when they went back
from their Christmas holiday at Lyndhurst. The train was fixed, but not
the day. Then mother wrote to Aunt Emma, giving her careful instructions
about the day and the hour, and about luggage and cabs and things, and
gave the letter to Robert to post. But the hounds happened to meet near
Rufus's Stone that morning, and, what is more, on the way to the meet
they met Robert, and Robert met them, and instantly forgot all about
posting Aunt Emma's letter, and never thought of it again until he and
the others had wandered three times up and down the platform at
Waterloo--which makes twenty-four trips in all--and had bumped up
against old gentlemen, and stared in the faces of ladies, and been
shoved by people in a hurry, and "by-your-leaved" by porters with
trucks, and were quite sure that Aunt Emma was not there.
Then suddenly the true truth of what he had forgotten to do came home to
Robert, and he said "Oh, crikey!" and stood still with his mouth open,
and let a porter with a Gladstone bag in each hand and a bundle of
umbrellas under one arm blunder heavily into him, and never so much as
said "Where are you shoving to now?" or "Look out where you're going,
can't you?" The heavier bag smote him at the knee, and he staggered, but
he said nothing. When the others understood what was the matter I think
they told Robert what they thought of him.
"We must take the train to Croydon," said Anthea, "and find Aunt Emma."
"Yes," said Cyril, "and precious pleased those Jevonses would be to see
us and our traps."
Aunt Emma, indeed, was staying with some Jevonses--very prim ladies.
They were middle-aged and wore very smart blouses, and they were fond of
_matinées_ and shopping, and they did not care about children.
"I know mother would be pleased to see us if we went back," said Jane.
"Yes, she would; but she'd think it was not right to show she was
pleased, because it's Bob's fault we're not met. Don't I know the sort
of thing?" said Cyril. "Besides, we've no tin, except my tip grandfather
gave me, and I'm not going to blue that because Robert's gone and made
an ass of himself. No; we've enough among us for a growler, but not
enough for tickets to the New Forest. We must just go home. They won't
be so savage when they find we've really got home all right. You know
auntie was only going to take us home in a cab."
"I believe we ought to go to Croydon," Anthea insisted.
"Aunt Emma would be out, to a dead cert," said Robert. "Those Jevonses
go to the theatre every afternoon, I believe. Besides, there's the
Phoenix at home, _and_ the carpet. I votes we call a four-wheeled
cabman."
A four-wheeled cabman was called--his cab was one of the old-fashioned
kind, with straw in the bottom--and he was asked by Anthea to drive them
very carefully to their address. This he did, and the price he asked for
doing so was exactly the value of the gold coin grandpapa had given
Cyril for Christmas. This cast a gloom--but Cyril would never have
stooped to argue about a cab-fare, for fear the cabman should think he
was not accustomed to take cabs whenever he wanted them. For a reason
that was something like this he told the cabman to put the luggage on
the steps, and waited till the wheels of the growler had grittily
retired before he rang the bell. "You see," he said, with his hand on
the handle, "we don't want cook and Eliza asking us before _him_ how it
is we've come home alone--as if we were babies."
[Illustration: "HE WAS ASKED BY ANTHEA TO DRIVE THEM VERY CAREFULLY."]
Here he rang the bell; and the moment its answering clang was heard
everyone felt that it would be some time before that bell was answered.
The sound of a bell is quite different, somehow, when there is anyone
inside the house who hears it. I can't tell you why that is--but so it
is.
"I expect they're changing their dresses," said Jane.
"Too late," said Anthea; "it must be past five. I expect Eliza's gone to
post a letter and cook's gone to see the time."
Cyril rang again. And the bell did its best to inform the listening
children that there was really no one human in the house. They rang
again, and listened intently. The hearts of all sank low. It is a
terrible thing to be locked out of your own house on a dark, muggy,
January evening.
"There is no gas on anywhere," said Jane, in a broken voice.
"I expect they've left the gas on once too often, and the draught blew
it out, and they're suffocated in their beds. Father always said they
would some day," said Robert, cheerfully.
"Let's go and fetch a policeman," said Anthea, trembling.
"And be taken up for trying to be burglars--no, thank you," said Cyril.
"I heard father read out of the paper about a young man who got into his
own mother's house, and they got him made a burglar only the other day."
"I only hope the gas hasn't hurt the Phoenix," said Anthea. "It
_said_ it wanted to stay in the bathroom cupboard, and I thought it
would be all right because the servants _never_ clean that out. But if
it's gone and got out and been choked by gas--and, besides, directly we
open the door we shall be choked too. I _knew_ we ought to have gone to
Aunt Emma at Croydon. Oh, Squirrel, I wish we had. Let's go _now_."
"Shut up," said her brother, briefly. "There's someone rattling the
latch inside."
Everyone listened with all its ears, and everyone stood back as far from
the door as the steps would allow.
The latch rattled and clicked. Then the flap of the letter-box lifted
itself--everyone saw it by the flickering light of the gas-lamp that
shone through the leafless lime tree by the gate--a golden eye seemed to
wink at them through the letter-box, and a cautious beak whispered:
"Are you alone?"
"It's the Phoenix," said everyone, in a voice so joyous and so full of
relief as to be a sort of whispered shout.
"Hush!" said the voice from the letter-box slit. "Your slaves have gone
a-merry-making. The latch of this portal is too stiff for my delicate
beak. But at the side--the little window above the shelf whereon your
bread lies--it is not fastened."
"Right O!" said Cyril.