BAD NEWS
Emmeline awoke next morning with the cares of the mother of a family
weighing on her mind. Yesterday, amid the excitement of adopting Diamond
Jubilee and of the various adventures which had followed, she had hardly
had leisure to realise all the difficulties and anxieties the carrying
out of her plan would involve; but now that the first flush of romance
was beginning to fade into the light of common day, they stood out with
unpleasant clearness. What if Diamond Jubilee should go on refusing to
live alone in the Feudal Castle? For one evening he might be fairly
safe from discovery in the summer-house; for one night Micky might go
out and sleep in the wood without anyone becoming aware of his absence;
but Emmeline had sense enough to see that such arrangements could not
possibly be lasting. Even for once they were very risky. Suppose Micky
should fail to come back before Jane went to call him?
She felt under her pillow for her little gold watch. It was a quarter to
seven; in another half-hour it would be time to get up, and Jane would
come to call them. What a hue and cry would be raised if Micky were
missing!
A restless feeling seized her that she must get up then and there and
go to see whether he was safe in his bed; so she scrambled into her
dressing-gown and slippers, and hurried out of the room and down the
passage and steps which led to the old part of the house. Her knees shook
as she opened Micky’s door and crept in. Suppose the bed should be empty?
Joy! Micky was lying there, so sound asleep that she could almost have
believed the adventures of the night before only a dream, had it not been
for the mud on his house-shoes, which were lying in the middle of the
floor mixed up with a heap of his other clothes, all evidently left just
as he had got out of them on his return.
‘It must have been raining in the night, for there was no mud yesterday
evening,’ thought Emmeline, as she folded the clothes and put them neatly
on a chair, under which she placed the shoes. She was a tidy child by
nature, and besides, as she reflected, Jane was much less likely to
notice that the shoes were muddy, if they were in the right place.
She went back to her own room feeling much easier in her mind. For that
time, at all events, the danger was over, and surely the very fact that
Micky was lying there so peacefully gave good hope that it would not
again be necessary to run such a risk. Micky could never have gone to
sleep so calmly if Diamond Jubilee had been in a great state of distress
at being left alone in the Feudal Castle. So, at least, Emmeline told
herself and tried to believe.
Several times, while the little girls were dressing, and while Kitty,
who had all the delight of being in a plot without the anxieties of
responsibility, was pouring out a constant stream of excited chatter,
Emmeline looked nervously out of the window, half expecting to see
Diamond Jubilee lurking somewhere about the garden. There was never any
sign of him, however, and her spirits rose higher each moment. If only he
were settling down to live happily in the Feudal Castle, everything would
be more simple!
‘I can’t think what can have happened to Micky,’ remarked Aunt Grace,
as they were beginning breakfast that morning without his having made
an appearance; ‘it’s not often he oversleeps himself. I’m afraid the
Fair has been too much for you young people,’ she added, in a playfully
teasing voice, as Kitty gave a great yawn.
‘Oh, it’s not that,’ began Kitty, eager to defend the Fair; ‘I think
it’s——’ Here she became suddenly aware of Emmeline’s frowns, and broke
off with reddening cheeks. What a scolding she would have from Emmeline
presently!
Fortunately for Kitty, Aunt Grace was not attending. She was reading a
letter which seemed to contain bad news, for her expression grew more and
more distressed. She read it over twice, as though hoping against hope
that she might have made some mistake, and when she laid it down Emmeline
saw that her hands were shaking.
‘I’ve just had a piece of very bad news,’ she said quietly. ‘Mary
King—the very dear friend I used to live with in London—is dangerously
ill—dying, I’m afraid. I shall have to go to her to-day or—— Kitty, would
you mind fetching Bradshaw? It’s on the drawing-room writing-table.’
Kitty bustled off, awestruck and yet pleased with the importance of being
able to help at such a crisis, if only by fetching Bradshaw.
‘Oh dear, it’s last month’s—I was forgetting,’ said Aunt Grace wearily,
as Kitty came running back with it. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t be safe to
trust to it—so many trains change in September.’
‘Suppose I go out and buy another?’ suggested Kitty, eagerly. To be sent
out shopping in the middle of breakfast would be a delightful break in
the ordinary routine of life.
‘You wouldn’t get one at any of the village shops,’ said Aunt Grace,
putting her hand to her forehead. ‘Stay! the Robinsons might possibly
have one.’
‘I’ll run round to the Vicarage and ask them,’ broke in Kitty, rushing
off almost before Aunt Grace had time for the absent ‘Very well,’ which
was all she answered.
‘I’ll just go and see that she puts on a hat,’ murmured Emmeline, more to
herself than to Aunt Grace who had no ears for such things just then. The
precaution proved a necessary one. Emmeline was only just in time to stop
Kitty from running out at the front door hatless, gloveless, and still in
her morning pinafore, a garment which had seen much active service in the
course of its career.
Micky was coming downstairs by way of the banisters when Emmeline made
her way back to the dining-room. ‘I say, is Aunt Grace in a wax?’ he
inquired.
‘What about?’ asked Emmeline. ‘Oh, because of your being late for
breakfast? No, I expect she has forgotten all about you. She’s just heard
that her dearest friend is dying.’
Micky’s round, impudent face suddenly fell, and he was so much awestruck
that he had got to the dining-room door before it occurred to him to make
any remark.
When the two children came into the room Aunt Grace was sitting very
still, gazing straight in front of her, with eyes that did not seem to be
seeing anything. Without saying a word Micky went straight up to her and
gave her a rough hug.
‘My own boy!’ she murmured, a little absently, but very tenderly, as she
stroked his ruffled head—Micky’s toilet that morning had left much to
be desired—and seemed to find a certain comfort in the touch. Emmeline
suddenly felt a queer lump rising in her throat. Kitty could run messages
for Aunt Grace, and Micky could comfort her; she alone could do nothing.
‘Won’t you try and eat something, Aunt Grace?’ she suggested, shyly,
after a moment. ‘Let me butter some toast for you.’
‘Thank you, Emmeline,’ said Aunt Grace, gratefully; and though she had
no appetite for food just then, she made a brave effort to eat the toast
so as not to disappoint the child, and the little kindness given and
received brought them nearer together than ever before.
‘I didn’t know Miss King was ill, even,’ Emmeline ventured, timidly.
‘It’s very sudden, isn’t it?’
‘In a sense, yes,’ said Aunt Grace sadly; ‘but she has known, and I have
known for a long time past, that she had this disease, and that the end
might come at any time. That was why I went on living with her in London
till her sister could return from India, instead of coming at once to
look after you, as I should naturally have done. She would have let me
go, poor darling, for she never thought of herself. But I just couldn’t
leave her alone, knowing that all this suffering and danger might come on
at any time.’
It was the first time that Aunt Grace had talked to Emmeline so much
as she would have done to a grown-up person, and the little girl
listened with a strange mixture of feelings, among which gratification,
perplexity, and self-reproach came uppermost. She had hitherto always
taken for granted that Aunt Grace had stayed in London because she was
absorbed in a round of gaiety, and now that the real reason appeared to
have been such a very different one, she found her whole point of view
shifting in a disconcerting fashion. Could it be that Aunt Grace was
really a quite different kind of person from what Emmeline had always
imagined her?
There was little time for considering the question, for just at that
moment Alice came in with a telegram. ‘It’s just as I feared from the
letter,’ said Aunt Grace, after she had torn it open with trembling
fingers. ‘All the worst symptoms are confirmed. I shall have to start by
the next train,’ and with that she hurried away to pack and to give a few
hasty directions to the servants.
‘Can’t I help you, Aunt Grace?’ asked Emmeline, running after her.
‘Well, will you look after Micky’s breakfast, and Kitty’s too, when she
comes back?’ said Aunt Grace, with a faint smile. ‘That will help me more
than anything.’
Sympathy had by no means dulled the edge of Micky’s appetite, and he
was still in the middle of a leisurely breakfast when Kitty burst in,
followed rather more quietly by Mr. Faulkner. ‘Aunt Grace—where’s Aunt
Grace?’ she demanded, breathlessly.
‘I’m going to London to-day myself, so I want your aunt to let me travel
with her and help her all I can,’ explained Mr. Faulkner to Emmeline, as
Kitty ran away to look for Aunt Grace.
‘Thank you; I’m sure she’ll be very glad,’ said Emmeline, in her best
grown-up manner. ‘Won’t you sit down and let me pour you out a cup of
tea?’
‘Thanks very much, but I’ve had breakfast already,’ said Mr. Faulkner;
and just at that moment Aunt Grace herself came in, with Kitty.
Mr. Faulkner did not wait to say ‘How do you do?’ Instead, he began at
once: ‘You’ll let me travel with you, won’t you?’ not at all as if he was
proposing a kindness, but in the way people ask for something they want
very much.
‘Thank you! I shall be very glad,’ said Aunt Grace, and for one moment
she smiled—smiled more with her eyes than with her lips, even though her
eyes were full of tears. Emmeline felt in a vague, wondering way that
Mr. Faulkner’s suggestion had comforted Aunt Grace more than her toast,
or Kitty’s eagerness in running messages, or even Micky’s hug. It was
odd, she thought, for Aunt Grace did not seem a person who would mind
travelling alone.
He went away again almost directly afterwards, and there followed a time
of general bustle and confusion. ‘It’s a pity we can’t take Diamond
Jubilee his breakfast now,’ remarked Emmeline, chancing to find herself
alone with the twins. ‘It would be quite easy to get it out of the house
without anyone noticing while they’re all so busy; but it’s such a long
way to the Feudal Castle that I’m afraid it would be lesson-time before
we could get back.’
‘Oh, but he isn’t at the Feudal Castle,’ said Micky calmly. ‘I believe
he’d be in the summer-house still if I hadn’t told him he must jolly well
get out if he didn’t want me to lick him. I expect he’s hanging about
somewhere near the garden.’
‘Micky, you surely didn’t sleep in the summer-house?’ asked Emmeline, in
a frightened voice.
Micky nodded.
‘You couldn’t expect us to lug those beastly blankets all the way to the
Feudal Castle,’ he said.
‘But, Micky, it was really risky,’ said Emmeline. ‘Just supposing Mr.
Brown had found you!’
‘Well, he didn’t, anyhow,’ said Micky, ‘and it wasn’t likely he would;
nobody hardly ever goes there except us. It was really much safer than if
we had gone to the Feudal Castle. How would I ever have known when it was
time to come back, in the middle of the wood?’
There was something in this, but still Emmeline could not help feeling
that it had been a risk, and a risk that Diamond Jubilee must not again
be allowed to run. Then, as a fresh idea suddenly struck her, ‘What about
the blankets?’ she gasped—‘you haven’t surely left them——’
‘Oh, they’re as safe as safe,’ Micky reassured her. ‘I thought of a
simply lovely place to keep them—Punch’s kennel!’
‘But they’ll be seen as soon as ever Punch is unchained!’ said Emmeline,
in a panic. ‘Oh, how could you be so silly?’
‘It wasn’t silly,’ said Micky. ‘I pushed them right to the back of the
kennel, where it’s all dark. Nobody would ever see them unless they
stooped down and looked right in, and they’d never think of doing that.’
‘Well, perhaps not,’ said Emmeline doubtfully, ‘but I’m afraid they’ll
be very dirty and smelly when they come out again.’
‘Oh, they’ll only smell rather doggy,’ said Micky cheerfully.
It struck Emmeline that Jane might not take it quite so calmly as Micky,
if next time she went to prepare the spare-room for a visitor she found
the best blankets smelling doggy. Still, it was to be hoped that next
time was still a long way off, and meantime the kennel had one advantage
as a storing-place—namely, that it would be possible to take the blankets
out of it without being observed. Perhaps, after all, Micky had done the
best that could be done under the circumstances. Emmeline felt quite
bewildered with the new and unthought of difficulties and problems which
were continually cropping up. She had never realised that the secret
adoption of a child would prove so complicated a business.
‘Well, I think I’ll go out with the milk and see if I can find him,’ she
said aloud, after a moment’s anxious reflection. ‘Even if I don’t I can
always leave it in some safe outdoor place. Don’t either of you come with
me. Aunt Grace may want us to go messages, and it would be awkward if you
were out as well.’
Emmeline ran up to the schoolroom, took the glass of milk out of the
cupboard, and hurried downstairs with it. When she had got it safely
into the garden without anyone having noticed her, she began to breathe
freely again.
Alas! An unforeseen danger was following her down the garden path. She
had been thinking so much of escaping with her milk, unseen by Jane,
Cook, or Aunt Grace, that she had forgotten all about Mr. Brown till now,
when she heard his wheel-barrow grating on the gravel behind her. It was
a dismaying sound, for Mr. Brown had inconveniently keen eyes, and if he
saw the milk he would certainly wonder what she was doing with it out
there. What was worse, he would wonder about it to Jane and Cook, for Mr.
Brown’s standard of honour in not telling tales was not as high as it
might have been. So Emmeline almost ran along the path, without daring so
much as to look round, and, pushing open the garden door, fled through it
and into the lane so hastily that a good deal of her milk splashed out on
to her dress.
‘Hello!’ called a voice, as she was trying, without much success, to rub
out the stain with her pocket-handkerchief. Looking up, startled, she saw
Diamond Jubilee’s disreputable little figure leaning over the railings
which fenced off the wood.
‘You should say “Good-morning,” not “Hulloa,”’ said Emmeline with
dignity, as soon as she had recovered from her start. ‘See, I have
brought you your breakfast. Drink it quickly, for I have to get back
to—to my work.’ She had been on the point of saying ‘to lessons,’ but
‘work’ sounded more dignified.
‘Why, I reckoned you was a lady,’ said Diamond Jubilee, pausing between
two gulps to give her one of his critical stares.
‘Well, so I am,’ said Emmeline, perplexed and a little offended.
‘Ladies don’t do no work,’ said the boy.
‘Oh yes, they do,’ said Emmeline earnestly. ‘Everybody that’s worth
anything does work. Why, even the Prince of Wales has “I serve” for his
motto. That’s one of the things I’ll have to teach you, Diamond Jubilee,
that you can’t be a real gentleman unless you work for other people.’
‘My father were a gentleman more often than not,’ remarked Diamond
Jubilee, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
It struck Emmeline that she must certainly buy him one or two
pocket-handkerchiefs. To be sure, he needed an entire new outfit,
for what he had on was only fit for a bonfire, but her present means
would, alas! only run to absolute necessities, such as food and
pocket-handkerchiefs.
‘Well, then, you must try to follow your father’s example,’ she said
aloud. She did not know that to be ‘a gentleman’ in Diamond Jubilee’s
sense meant to be out of work. ‘Think how it would have grieved him if
he could have seen you yesterday afternoon trying to steal my purse! You
must always be a good boy, for his sake.’
Now, as a matter of fact, the late Mr. Jones had frequently varied his
periods of being a gentleman with times in prison, for he had combined
a strong turn for petty crime with a distinct talent for being found
out, so it was no wonder that his son stared at Emmeline in vacant
surprise. He was never a boy who troubled himself much to understand
puzzling things, however, so he passed on to a subject of more practical
importance.
‘Aren’t you going to give me nothing more to eat?’ he demanded, with a
return to his professional whine. ‘That ain’t much of a breakfast, that
aren’t.’
‘Do you know, Diamond Jubilee, I’m afraid you’re rather greedy?’ said
Emmeline. ‘You oughtn’t to want anything more after that glassful of
good milk. I’m sure it’s more than what you’ve been used to having for
breakfast.’
‘Well, that aren’t, then,’ said Diamond Jubilee sulkily. ‘I’m used to a
meat breakfast, I am.’
‘I’m afraid that’s a story,’ said Emmeline, gravely, ‘and it’s very
wicked to tell stories, besides being silly, for you might know I
shouldn’t believe anything so absurd.’
Emmeline spoke out of the wisdom she had gained from her little
story-books, in which ragged street-urchins were always pictured as
breakfasting on dry bread—if, indeed, they had any breakfast at all.
But, as a matter of fact, Diamond Jubilee’s statement was not altogether
without foundation. There had been times in Mother Grimes’ establishment
when money became mysteriously plentiful, and at such times she and
Diamond Jubilee and the other little boys who lived with her, had fared
with reckless luxury till the last penny had been spent. To be sure,
there had been other times when they had really had almost as little to
eat as Emmeline imagined—indeed, they had been passing through one of
those uncomfortable intervals just lately, which accounted for Diamond
Jubilee’s willingness to let himself be adopted—but the memory of that
and all the other disagreeables of his former life was fast losing its
vividness.
‘I did used to have meat breakfasts,’ he repeated stubbornly.
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Emmeline, severely. ‘But I haven’t time to
talk about that just now. What I wanted to say was to tell you how vexed
I am to hear that you spent last night in the summer-house. Why, just
suppose Mr. Brown had found you there when he came to work this morning!
There would have been a dreadful fuss, and you would have been sent back
to Mother Grimes!’
‘And do you reckon I’d mind that?’ he asked, scornfully. ‘I’d a deal
sooner be with her than with you, I can tell you.’
Emmeline took this for mere bravado, but she turned rather white, none
the less, and it was with an effort that she recovered herself and said
gently: ‘I don’t think you mean that. Anyhow, I hope you’ll try and be a
brave boy to-night, and not make a fuss about sleeping in your own little
house. It’s true it _is_ rather bare just at present, but think how many
poor little boys have no house at all to sleep in.’
‘Lor! how she do jaw!’ exclaimed Diamond Jubilee, with a rude laugh.
If Emmeline had been white a minute before, she turned crimson now.
‘You are a very naughty, ungrateful boy!’ she cried, as the tears rushed
to her eyes, ‘and I’m not going to waste any more time bothering about
you. Give me that glass, please,’ and, having snatched it out of his
hands, she ran across the lane into their own garden, feeling more hurt
and angry than she had ever done in her life before.
She calmed down a little after she had rushed upstairs to her own room
and rinsed out the glass, and by the time she had dabbed her eyes with a
wet sponge and dried them with a towel, she had almost forgiven Diamond
Jubilee.
‘After all, it only shows how badly he needs someone to teach him
better,’ she told herself, bravely, ‘so I must try to be patient with
him, poor boy! But, oh dear, I wonder whether Kathleen ever found those
children whom she was an angel to, so trying?’