TRIALS OF PHILANTHROPY
‘Well, Miss Emmeline, dear, you know best what Miss Bolton would like, so
I won’t try to over-persuade you, though I’m real sorry you can’t stay
just till the 5.25.’ Poor Mary could not understand what had come over
her guests. All through that delicious tea of shrimps and strawberry
jam, which she had especially provided for the occasion, they had seemed
curiously restless and excited, and now here was Emmeline actually
insisting on returning by the earlier of the two trains she had mentioned.
‘I’m afraid Aunt Grace—I mean, I think it would make us rather too late
getting home,’ said Emmeline, rather confusedly, as she kicked Micky and
Kitty under the table by way of a hint to them to hold their tongues.
Perhaps on an ordinary occasion the twins might not have taken the hint
so submissively, but at that moment they were too eager to see what was
going to happen next to mind either being kicked or being hurried away
from Mary’s house.
‘Then, if you really think so, I’m afraid it’s about time you were
starting,’ said Mary regretfully; ‘George will be sadly disappointed not
to see you again, but that can’t be helped.’
‘You must give him our best respects,’ said Kitty—(George always sent
his best respects to them, so Kitty supposed it was the correct form of
message)—‘and here’s some toffee for him—at least, it’s called candy,
though it really is toffee. It has got a little crumby and pockety, but
perhaps he’ll excuse that, and it may comfort him. Toffee’s a wonderful
comfort sometimes.’
‘Oh, Miss Kitty, George wouldn’t think of taking your toffee, bless your
heart!’ said Mary, kissing the child, as she helped her on with her hat;
‘but I’ll tell him you wanted to give it him, and that will comfort him.’
‘I should have thought myself it would only have disappointed him more,’
said Kitty; ‘but you know best, of course.’
‘Well, we must really be starting,’ said Emmeline, in a nervous fever.
She was terribly afraid that Diamond Jubilee might have grown tired of
waiting outside, and have run away.
Mary hobbled with them as far as the door. ‘It has been just lovely
having you,’ she remarked, as she opened it to let them out. ‘I only
wish, though, I could have come to the station to see you off’—a wish
which, under the circumstances, they could hardly echo.
For Diamond Jubilee was still faithfully waiting for them a few yards
farther down the street. At the moment they came out he was contentedly
munching a banana. If Emmeline’s acquaintance with him had been more
intimate she might have suspected that it had been stolen from the
fruit-store at the corner; as it was, this did not strike her, and her
pleasure at seeing him still there, and so happily employed, was only
spoilt by the fear lest, by too eager a greeting, he should betray them
to Mary, who stood at the door affectionately watching them down the
street. She need not have been afraid, however. A cool ‘Hello!’ which if
Mary heard, she simply took for the casual salutation of a free-and-easy
little stranger, was the only notice he vouchsafed them.
‘Walk a good way behind us,’ she managed to whisper as she passed him,
and to her great relief he obeyed readily enough.
Another moment, and, with last waves of the hand to Mary, they had turned
the corner. Emmeline breathed freely again, though she still thought it
wise to walk a little in front of their adopted son, just in case they
met any of their acquaintance.
On the way to the station Emmeline explained her plans to Micky and
Kitty. ‘I’ve still got sixpence halfpenny left of my Fair money,’ she
said ‘and I should think that would be enough to buy Diamond Jubilee a
half-ticket to Chudstone.’
‘But Woodsleigh is our station,’ said Micky.
‘Well, we are going to get out at Chudstone this afternoon,’ said
Emmeline; ‘for one thing, the half-ticket to Woodsleigh would cost a
penny more than I’ve got, and for another thing, it wouldn’t be safe to
take Diamond Jubilee through the village, where everybody knows us, and
they would be sure to talk. Besides, our way home from Chudstone will lie
through the wood, so we shall be able to take him to the Feudal Castle
without going out of our way hardly at all. Of course, it will take us
about a quarter of an hour longer than if we had come from Woodsleigh
Station, but I chose the earlier train on purpose to allow for that.’
‘You _are_ clever, Emmeline!’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘I should never have
thought of all that.’
‘I’m four years older than you are, you see,’ said Emmeline modestly,
though she was flattered by the compliment. ‘I think,’ she continued,
‘that it will be better if Diamond Jubilee travels in a separate
compartment.’
‘Won’t he think it rather horrid of us?’ said Micky.
‘I don’t see why he should mind it any more than he does walking behind
us now,’ said Emmeline, ‘and I’m sure it will be safer not to seem to
belong to him. You never know whom you may meet in the train.’
We know that the best laid schemes both of mice and men are apt to go
wrong, but on this occasion Emmeline’s really seemed as though they
were going to be the exception to prove the rule. The party arrived
at the station without any adventures; Diamond Jubilee’s ticket cost
only five-pence halfpenny; without any difficulty she found an empty
compartment for him, and an almost empty one next door to it for herself
and the twins; last, but not least, they met no acquaintances at the
station, so that although one or two porters stared at seeing Emmeline’s
interest in such a dirty, ragged, and altogether disreputable little
street-arab as Diamond Jubilee, nobody ventured to ask any awkward
questions.
It was with a piece of stupidity on Diamond Jubilee’s part that the
tide of luck seemed to turn. Emmeline had done her best to impress on
him that he must get out of the train as soon as he heard the porters
shouting ‘Chudstone,’ but, in spite of her instructions, he as nearly as
possible let himself be carried on. She had not meant to appear to have
anything to do with him at Chudstone, where they were quite likely to be
recognised, but in desperation she was obliged to tell the porter that
there was a little boy in the next carriage who wanted to get out. On
the whole, she thought that course better than to open the door herself
and bid him get out.
The man’s look of suspicion, when he opened the door and saw Diamond
Jubilee calmly staring out of the opposite window, was only too obvious.
‘Where’s your ticket?’ he demanded sharply.
The fact that Diamond Jubilee happened to have mislaid it did not mend
matters. The porter became abusive, and Emmeline was at her wits’ end
what to do, between her fear lest, if she stayed to see the end of the
fray, her connection with Diamond Jubilee might be suspected, and her
conviction that if she left the station without him the chances were that
she should lose sight of him altogether.
Luckily, the ticket was discovered underneath the cushion before Emmeline
was obliged to come to the rescue, and with an angry injunction from the
porter to ‘get out, and not give no more trouble,’ Diamond Jubilee was
allowed to go free.
‘Really, I do think you might have managed better,’ Emmeline could not
help telling him impatiently when they were safe outside the station.
‘Now, whatever you do, keep well behind us till we are out of the
village.’
‘I’m afraid he’s going to turn out a duffer,’ remarked Micky, as Diamond
Jubilee obediently fell back.
‘Micky, you mustn’t talk like that,’ said Emmeline, the more severely
because at the bottom of her heart she could not help fearing that there
might be some truth in what he said.
It was fortunate that they had not much of the village to go through
before they branched off into the blackberry-grown byway which led to the
wood, for, as it was, Diamond Jubilee’s appearance attracted a rather
disagreeable amount of staring. No one molested him, however, or seemed
to connect him with the well-dressed children who were walking some ten
yards in front of him, and the party were soon safe in the wood, out of
reach of curious eyes and whispering tongues.
‘You’ll soon be home now,’ said Emmeline, turning round to give him an
encouraging smile.
Diamond Jubilee grinned, well pleased. He had the vaguest idea of what
these little gentle-folks’ home would be like, but he hoped there might
be another square meal awaiting him there, perhaps even more delicious
than the one he had had at the fried-fish shop.
Great was his astonishment when the children, after walking through the
wood for miles, as it seemed to him, came to a triumphant pause before a
deserted and tumble-down hut.
‘There, Diamond Jubilee,’ said Emmeline in a voice of congratulation,
‘this is to be your own dear little home.’
Diamond Jubilee gazed at the dear little home in speechless surprise for
a moment, after which he managed to say feebly:
‘Garn! You’re kidding me. That ain’t never where you live!’
‘It isn’t where _we_ live,’ explained Kitty eagerly; ‘we live in a stupid
house just like everybody else; but it’s where _you_ are going to live.
Oh, you will be jolly!’
‘You don’t want to think I’m going to live in that there dirty hole all
by meself,’ said Diamond Jubilee with kindling wrath, ‘’cos I aren’t—not
if it’s ever so.’
‘But we’ll be here so much that you won’t have time to be lonely—truly
you won’t,’ pleaded Emmeline, no less surprised than dismayed at the turn
things were taking. ‘Do come inside like a dear, good boy, and you’ll see
how nice it is.’
‘Yes, do come in, Diamond Jubilee,’ coaxed Kitty; ‘it’s just _lovely_
inside—you can’t think.’
‘And what would you do if you were wrecked on a desert island if you make
such a fuss now?’ said Micky, in his most reasonable voice.
As Diamond Jubilee had not the slightest intention of being wrecked on a
desert island, this consideration had little weight with him, and it took
a good many more persuasions to induce him to cross the threshold of the
Feudal Castle. When at last he was inside he was so far from mollified
at the look of it, and of the three-legged chair without a seat, and the
table-top, that he burst into a dismal wail.
‘I won’t stay here—I won’t!’ he sobbed. ‘You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves, that you do, for taking me in so shameful.’
Emmeline had to wink her eyes hard to keep back the tears; it was all
turning out so utterly unlike what she had expected. ‘You’re a very
foolish, ungrateful boy!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m sure this must be at least
as comfortable as Mother Grimes’s house, and you ought to be only too
thankful to be where nobody will beat you, and you’ll have plenty to eat.’
‘There was two beds at Sally Grimes’s,’ said Diamond Jubilee,
resentfully, ‘and there was three or four on us slept in each, which was
company-like, and kept us warm.’
Poor Emmeline! She had heard of those crowded beds before, always with
a shudder of horror, and now here was her thankless protégé actually
regretting them! ‘Look here, Diamond Jubilee,’ she said, ‘if you’ll only
be patient we’ll buy you bedclothes, and so on, as soon as ever we get
any extra money for birthdays or anything; as it is, you have only to get
a little bracken from the wood, and you can make yourself quite a nice
Feudal Castle bed. We would gather it for you, only we simply must go
home now.’
‘Or Aunt Grace will guess there’s something up, and we shall get into
a horrid row,’ put in Micky, a remark which Emmeline thought neither
elegant nor suitable. There was no need for an adopted child to know that
its adopters were in danger of getting into anything so undignified as a
‘row.’
‘I aren’t going to stop here alone, not if it’s ever so,’ said Diamond
Jubilee, stubbornly.
His three adopters looked at one another in dismay. What was to be done?
Suddenly a bright idea struck Micky.
‘Suppose I come back here to-night and sleep with him?’ he suggested.
‘That’s absurd, Micky!’ answered Emmeline. She felt terribly worried.
‘You would be found out. Both the doors make such a horrible noise when
they are unbolted, and you can’t possibly go before the house is shut up
for the night, because you know Aunt Grace always looks in the last thing
before she goes to bed.’
‘I could jump out of the schoolroom window, as I did last time I had a
naughty morning,’ rejoined Micky. ‘Naughty mornings’ were recognised
institutions with him, sad to say.
‘But how would you get in again to-morrow morning?’ said Emmeline. ‘It
wouldn’t do to wait till the doors were unbolted, because you must be
back in bed before anyone is about.’
‘Oh, I shall swarm up the water-pipe, as I did the other day. I shall
manage all right’; and his eyes sparkled with the delight of arranging a
real adventure.
‘Well, I suppose that’s how it will have to be settled, as Diamond
Jubilee is such a great baby,’ said Emmeline reluctantly. ‘Anyhow, we
really must go home now, so you will just have to wait here patiently,
Diamond Jubilee, till Micky can come back.’
‘Not if I know it,’ said Diamond Jubilee, who as a town-bred boy felt
terrors of the gathering dusk in the lonely wood which stirred him to
unwonted resolution. ‘You’ll be giving me the slip if I let you out of my
sight.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen always keep their word,’ said Emmeline, with much
dignity; ‘you needn’t be afraid of Micky’s not coming back.’
‘I’m coming home along of you,’ said Diamond Jubilee firmly; ‘then you
can give me something to eat. I’m about ready for it, I can tell you.’
‘You’re _the_ most unreasonable boy I ever met,’ said Emmeline, at the
end of her patience. ‘You can’t possibly come home with us. Aunt Grace
would be most awfully angry. And I think it’s extremely greedy of you to
want anything more to eat after what you had at the shop.’
Emmeline herself had had one tea, and was just going home to another,
but that, she felt, was different.
‘I aren’t never going to stop alone in this here wood,’ repeated Diamond
Jubilee doggedly.
‘I know what!’ cried Kitty. ‘Let’s hide him in the summer-house just for
this evening. He’ll be quite safe from being found, for no one goes there
except us, and he won’t be frightened if he can see the lights from the
windows. You’ll like the summer-house, won’t you, Diamond Jubilee?’
‘Well, I don’t mind trying,’ said Diamond Jubilee not ungraciously.
And so it had to be settled, though Emmeline would have felt much easier
in her mind if only he would have stayed in the Feudal Castle, half a
mile away from Aunt Grace. However, there was clearly no time for further
argument; as it was, they would have to put their best feet forward if
they were to reach home before it was suspiciously late even for the 5.25
train. Diamond Jubilee was certainly very trying.
Her heart softened to him again when they reached their own garden, and
he quite meekly consented to go into hiding in the summer-house. She had
been half afraid that he might insist on coming into the house with them
in search of something to eat, so it was a great relief that he suddenly
became so obedient.
‘Well, how have you enjoyed yourselves?’ was Aunt Grace’s cheerful
greeting, as the three children came in on their return from Eastwich
Fair.
‘Scrumptiously!’ said Micky; and then he and Kitty went into raptures
over the elephants and the motor-cars, and cocoanuts Micky would have hit
if only something or other hadn’t always just happened to prevent him.
‘Aunt Grace,’ broke in Emmeline presently, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but
Mary had sprained her ankle rather badly, so she couldn’t go to the Fair,
and—and I didn’t want to disappoint the others, so as Mary felt sure we
should really be all right, we three went alone.’
Aunt Grace looked rather taken aback.
‘Well, it isn’t quite what I should have chosen for you,’ she said, ‘but
I’m sure you and Mary settled what you thought was best. You’re a good
child to tell me about it so frankly,’ she added kindly.
Emmeline felt a little uncomfortable. She did not doubt that they
were quite right in secretly adopting Diamond Jubilee—people were
obliged sometimes to keep their good deeds secret from unsympathetic
relations—but perhaps she would rather Aunt Grace had not chosen just
that moment to praise her for her frankness.
At tea that evening a most unusual thing happened: Emmeline choked!
If it had been Micky or Kitty there would have been nothing at
all strange in such a lapse, but that Emmeline should do such a
thing—Emmeline, whose perfect table manners had been held up as a model
to the twins ever since they could remember—was indeed a matter for
surprise.
‘Was it a crumb?’ asked Aunt Grace, with sympathy, when after vigorous
pattings from the delighted twins Emmeline had reached the stage of being
able to speak once more.
‘I—I don’t think so,’ mumbled Emmeline, with what would have been a blush
if her choking fit had not left her too crimson already to turn even a
shade more so.
No, it had not been a crumb which had made her choke in her tea, but
the shock of seeing a pale, grimy little face pressed close against the
window-pane outside. It had only been there for an instant, but the
sudden glimpse had almost brought Emmeline’s heart into her mouth. She
felt as though she hardly knew how to sit still at table when at any
moment Diamond Jubilee might look in again and be seen by Aunt Grace.
Oh dear, there was Micky asking for another piece of bread and jam!
However many more was he going to have before she would be free to get up
and slip away to warn Diamond Jubilee?
‘Really, Micky, I think as this is your second tea, and you’ll have
supper before so very long, you’ve had quite enough already,’ said Aunt
Grace to Emmeline’s great relief; ‘be quick and finish what’s on your
plate, Kitty, and then we’ll say grace.’
As soon as they had risen from table Emmeline hurried from the room, and
rushed out into the garden. She found Diamond Jubilee sitting in the
summer-house, looking as virtuous as though he had never stirred out of
it since they had left him.
‘You really _must_ be more careful,’ she panted. ‘It gave me a most awful
turn just now to see you looking in at the window.’
‘I ain’t never left this here shed,’ he assured her in a voice of injured
virtue.
‘Oh, Diamond Jubilee, that’s a story, for I saw you!’ said Emmeline,
shocked; ‘but I haven’t time to stay and talk about it now, or they will
be missing me. Only promise me you won’t come out again—you’re fairly
safe in here, but anyone might see you wandering about the garden. Do you
understand?’
‘I’m awful hungry,’ he grumbled.
‘Well, we’ll bring you some supper presently if you will promise not to
come out again,’ said Emmeline. ‘Will you give me your word and honour
you won’t?’
He promised meekly enough, and she flew off again. She had been so quick
that she caught up with the other children as they were going upstairs
to the schoolroom for their evening’s preparation.
As soon as the door was safely closed she told them what had happened.
‘I think he won’t do it again after what I said,’ she concluded, ‘but it
gave me a good fright, I can tell you.’
‘Suppose,’ said Micky, who did not see why Emmeline should be the only
one to make exciting, secret expeditions to the summer-house, ‘suppose I
was to creep down on tiptoe to the dining-room and get some of that cake
for Diamond Jubilee? Jane won’t have begun to clear away yet.’
‘No, certainly not,’ said Emmeline; ‘it would be stealing to take Aunt
Grace’s cake without her leave and give it to Diamond Jubilee.’
Micky’s face fell. ‘I suppose it would,’ he acknowledged; ‘I never
thought of that.’
‘But poor Diamond Jubilee will get so hungry if he doesn’t have anything
more to eat till you can buy him some food with the extra money-box
money,’ said Kitty, sadly.
‘But he won’t have to wait till then; I’ve promised to take him some
supper presently,’ said Emmeline. ‘Our supper biscuits and milk are our
own to do what we like with, and I mean to give him the milk to-night,
and save the biscuits for to-morrow morning’s breakfast. It’s a pity we
can’t save some of the milk too, but Jane would notice if there weren’t
three empty glasses.’
[Illustration: IT WAS LOCKED AND BOLTED, TOP AND BOTTOM.]
‘I do wish Aunt Grace had let me have that extra piece of bread and jam!’
said Micky. ‘I’m sure I could have made room for it all right. Do you
think Diamond Jubilee will need quite all our supper, Emmeline?’
‘I’m sure he will,’ said Emmeline, indignantly. ‘You’re a very selfish
boy, Micky, to grudge poor Diamond Jubilee anything you can give him. How
would you like to have only three biscuits and three cups of milk for tea
and supper and breakfast put together? I count what he had in the shop as
dinner.’
Micky hung his head for a moment, then his face suddenly grew bright with
a pleasant idea. ‘I know!’ he cried. ‘We’ll pour some of the milk into
my tooth-glass, and it can be saved for Diamond Jubilee’s breakfast. We
can hide the tooth-glass somewhere for the night. I wouldn’t mind not
brushing my teeth, not just for once,’ he added hastily, as Emmeline’s
face began to assume its most elder-sisterly expression.
‘It would be for twice, to-night and to-morrow morning,’ said Emmeline,
severely. ‘I’m sometimes afraid you’ll grow up into a disgusting person,
Micky, for you’re always trying to get out of brushing your teeth!’
Micky muttered something about not caring if he did grow up into a
disgusting person, which Emmeline thought it more dignified not to hear.
‘Well, get on with your copies,’ she ordered, ‘else we shan’t have done
in time for Aunt Grace to read to us.’
Silence settled down on the schoolroom—silence which was broken suddenly
by Kitty’s voice, raised in its shrill, questioning key.
‘Are _we_ guileless children?’ she asked, abruptly.
‘Sh—sh!’ said Emmeline, frowning. Her sum was just at its most critical
stage. It cancelled out to one-third, and with a sigh of relief Emmeline
gave her mind to Kitty’s question. ‘What made you think of it, Kitty?’
she asked.
‘Because of what Mary said this morning about the wonderful things
guileless children can do. Is that why we are adopting Diamond Jubilee?’
‘We are adopting Diamond Jubilee so as to save him from becoming a thief
and burglar,’ said Emmeline. ‘We are going to train him into a good,
noble man. I wonder if you two understand what a great, beautiful work it
is we have begun to-day!’ Emmeline’s eyes shone with enthusiasm.
Micky and Kitty looked greatly impressed and elated. ‘Poor Diamond
Jubilee!’ said Kitty, softly. ‘I’m so glad we can give him our supper.’
‘And I don’t mind much,’ said Micky, ‘and I’ll train him first-rate—just
you see if I don’t!’