part I

had). Then when the others were naughty I got out the right placard, for they were all put like the alphabet, most beautifully, and I waved it in front of them. They used to get dreadfully cross, and Humph tore a good many trying to snatch them away, but I always wrote them again. It _was_ a good idea!

It was out of the placards, though, that all the trouble came; at least, it was partly that and partly our not hearing that Father had come home unexpectedly. You see, it was after we’d gone to bed, so we couldn’t possibly guess it of ourselves. So the next morning, when I heard the water running in the bathroom, which is next door to the room where Violet and I sleep, I thought of course it must be Humphrey. Ted doesn’t have baths in the morning because of being croupy, and, as I said, I didn’t know that Father was at home; besides, he always gets up much later. I’d been wanting to be awake when Humph had his bath for a long while, so I jumped up quickly, though it was very cold, and put on my dressing-gown and tore round to the bathroom door. Then I pushed a new placard under the crack, a very big one all done in red ink. It said, “Dirty Pig, scrub your toe-nails.”

Well, I thought Humphrey might be cross, but I didn’t expect what really happened. There was a roar like a lion, and the door was pulled back, and there stood a perfectly strange gentleman. He was in his shirt and trousers; he was rather fat, and his face was scarlet; he could hardly speak, he was in such a rage.

I was so astonished I couldn’t say anything either. At last he did. He shouted out, “_Unverschämtes Fraunzimmer_.” He said a lot more too that I didn’t quite understand, though it was only in German. Then he suddenly slammed the door in my face.

Well, of course after that I didn’t feel very comfortable. I went back to my room and dressed myself, but my legs were all going wiggle-waggle most horridly, and I had a pain inside. I did want Mother. I wanted her so that I felt I must burst or something. I tried the plan of thinking that when I was an old, old woman I should have stopped being unhappy about this horrid time, but there wasn’t any comfort in that like there generally is.

We children had breakfast in the schoolroom, because we always do when there are visitors, but I felt so sick that I could hardly eat any. And in the middle it happened. Father dashed in, just as I expected. He was dreadfully angry. I don’t think I have ever seen him so angry. He said that the German gentleman was a most celebrated musician, and even if I had heard any idiotic chatter of the maids about his not attending to his personal appearance, how dared I take it on myself to give him moral maxims worded in the most insulting language? I didn’t exactly know what Father meant by that, but it sounded horrid. Also, he said that I stuck myself up as being better than any one, and that my conceit was perfectly insufferable. After a lot more besides, he ended up by telling me that I should be sent to boarding school at once. Then he rushed out of the room again.

I hadn’t said anything all the time Father was speaking, and I hadn’t cried at all, because I wouldn’t let myself. As soon as he’d gone I ran away to our bedroom. I couldn’t hide in my secret trouble place, because I didn’t feel that I could ever bear to go into the bathroom again. The worst of it was our door doesn’t lock, for Humphrey lost the key once when we were wicked gaolers of the Tower, but I barricaded it with chairs. Then, of course, I did cry. I cried awfully until everything got quite dizzy. I was still crying when Humphrey climbed in at the window, but I seemed too miserable to mind. He was most nice though. He didn’t talk, but he stroked my hand and shoved his big peppermint into it, just as if there hadn’t been any horrid missionarying. Then, when I didn’t move, he said, “Father won’t go on being cwoss;” and I said, “I wish I were dead.” So I did. It’s a horrid feeling to have.

All of a sudden Humph said, “Why don’t you ’splain it was _my_ dirty toe-nails?” I just sobbed out, “I don’t know.” It was very sensible, really, what Humph said, but I was too unhappy to see that; besides, I was thinking more about the other things Father had scolded me about. I said, “I don’t think I’m better than other people, I don’t, I don’t! I think I’m a beast, and horrible.” Humph said, “No, you’re not.” Then he wagged his head, and went away.

The part that comes next I didn’t know at the time, of course, but Humph told me about it afterwards. He _was_ nice; he can be most ’straordinarily sensible sometimes, though you’d never think it. He went straight to the study where the German gentleman was sitting, and said, “It was _my_ toe-nails.”

The German gentleman jumped up very quickly, but Humph went on telling him. He said, “You see, I don’t scrub mine very much because it tickles. My sister didn’t even know about yours.” He talked in German, because that’s one of the funny things about Humph, he likes it. It was lucky though, because we found out afterwards it always pleased the German gentleman to hear his own language. Then Humph pulled off his shoes and stockings to show his feet. It sounds a naughty thing to do in the drawing-room, but I don’t think it really was.

The German gentleman looked very astonished, but he didn’t look cross, Humphrey told me. At last he said, “_So_; but why was it written out and pushed under the door like that?”

“Because I stop up my ears and won’t listen when she speaks to me,” Humph explained. He went on and told the German gentleman all about the missionarying, and the gentleman seemed very interested. Then at the end Humph said, “But my sister is starving; she didn’t eat hardly nothing for bweakfast, and no biscuits at eleven, and she won’t even suck my peppermint. I think she’ll soon be dead and it’ll be you that’s done it.”

When the German gentleman heard that he was very nice, Humph said. Of course he must have known that people can live longer than that without food on desert islands and places, though Humph was really frightened about it. He took hold of Humph’s hand and said, “_Ach!_ then we must go quickly and ask that the little sister may be forgiven.” I believe he liked boys better than girls anyway, which does seem funny.

The first thing I knew of all this, though, was Father coming up to my room. He said in quite a different way, “Cheer up, Molly, I hear it was only a mistake. You must be more discreet in your sisterly admonitions though.” It made me feel much better. I went down and told the German gentleman that I was sorry I’d seemed rude. He was all right, but things weren’t really comfortable until he and Father went away again the next day.

I didn’t do any more missionarying after that though; it seemed to be too dangerous. It was a comfort to stop. Besides, the next week I got a letter from Mother, explaining that the clergyman couldn’t have meant it like that at all, because the chief thing if you want to have a good influence over people is that they should be fond of you, so a plan that prevents that must be a mistake. She said, too, that people didn’t generally have a good influence unless it was unconscious, so my best way was just to leave the others alone and try and be good myself. But she said I needn’t worry too much even over that (she seemed to guess all about my finings and hittings though I’d never told her). She said if I just loved people and tried to make them happy, I’d find in the end that I had been good. At the bottom of the letter, just before the kisses, there was a bit that surprised me very much. It was lovely; I don’t much like to say it. Mother said that I’d always been a good influence and a help to her, even though I hadn’t tried to be a missionary. She said that once when she was speaking to Teddy about telling stories (he does sometimes, you see, because he’s so little), she said to him that heroes never told untruths, and he answered at once and very proudly, “Nor does Molly, either.”

It did make me feel funny inside.

VI

A FIRST NIGHT

(Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission)

I’ll never do any more plays, never. It would be all very well if one could act all the parts oneself, but making the others learn theirs was awful. Besides, you wouldn’t believe that the Corpse could give so much trouble.

We got it up while Mother was still away in Algiers, and that was the first mistake. But we’d often had acting games before, and I never thought that this would be so much harder. The idea of doing it came into my head one day at lesson time, and it seemed perfectly splendid, so I pinched Humphrey directly, and whispered, “We are going to act a real play with refreshments and a curtain. I shall write it.”

I was rather disappointed that Humphrey didn’t answer, but after a long time he suddenly said quite loud, “Like Shakespeare.” Fortunately, Fräulein didn’t understand. It was rather silly of him too, because of course I didn’t mean to make it long like that. Why, Humph has taken six months to learn “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and he still says, “Half a leg, half a leg, half a leg onwards”; besides, I knew that Violet and Ted would like to come in too.

That afternoon I began to write the play. I tried at first to make it all up out of my own head, only when I sat down nothing seemed to come. So I thought I’d adapt it out of a book, like Father says all the best plays are done nowadays. I took Aytoun’s “_Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_.” I’m very fond of them, you see, and I know them nearly all by heart, but I don’t believe it was me that loosened the frontispiece as Fräulein says, just because I took the book to bed one evening. Not that we read in bed, because Mother’s very particular about that, but I like to feel that Dundee and the Young Pretender are near me all the night. It was the “_Burial March of Dundee_” that I thought would be the best for the play, but it didn’t seem to need much adapting, because we could just have a bier with Ted as Dundee (he’s the lightest, and his hair is curly). We three would march on bearing it, and I’d recite the lay; then we’d march off again of course.

So, as this was easy, I thought we’d have another play as well, and I settled on “_Young Lochinvar_.” Humphrey would be Lochinvar; I should have liked to be the bride, who is the heroine, of course, but then I settled it would be better if Violet was, partly because I thought Mother would have been pleased at my not being selfish, and partly because it looks so silly to see the lady taller than the gentleman, like when Cousin Sophy was married. Then I and Ted would be the wicked mother and father. Of course, he’s heaps smaller than me, but that didn’t matter because we’d both be old, and he might have shrunk quicker. Our old nurse told us once that she’d got to the time of life when she was growing downwards like a cow’s tail; and certainly, when she came to see us the other day, she did seem a lot shorter than she used to be when we were little and she lived with us.

The others were all very pleased with their parts, and it was settled that the acting should be on April the 10th, which is Ted’s birthday, and Fräulein asked some children to come to tea. It didn’t leave us very much time, but I thought it would do, because I never guessed how slow Humphrey would be. At each rehearsal he seemed to get worse, and the dress one was awful.

To begin with, we left it to the very afternoon of the birthday because the others said that when the children came, we could go straight on and needn’t dress up twice. Only it made me feel nervous, and then, just as we were starting, cook sent up word that she was bothered enough with extra to tea and couldn’t let us have anything for the banquet in “_Young Lochinvar_.” It was really because there’d been a fuss about the butcher’s bill; as if we could help that!

The others were very good, I must say, and Humphrey said that he’d give us a Brazil nut that he’d got, and lend us his peppermint. It’s a most enormous one, that goes different colours as you suck, and he keeps it for when he’s put in the corner. And Violet said she’d put some of her doll’s sham dishes on the table; still, that wasn’t very much for a wedding feast. So I said perhaps we’d better pretend that they had had the feast before the curtain drew up, and there could be just a goblet of water for Young Lochinvar to quaff.

“He couldn’t have been very thirsty when he had just ‘swum the Esk river,’ and he would enjoy the peppermint because----” Humphrey began, but I told him quickly that we wouldn’t have any eating or drinking at all, for when he once begins explaining anything he never stops. Besides, it was only because he remembered that he was to be Young Lochinvar himself.

So we began to dress up, and when they were all ready, they looked so nice and real that I began to feel happier. Humphrey had on my white flannel pyjamas with a red sash, like we always have for the hero; they’re rather big for him, but he wears nightshirts himself, for though he isn’t very strong, he never catches cold, and of course you couldn’t be a hero in a nightshirt. The worst of it was that it looked rather bare at the back, because the hero always has Mother’s fur-lined cape, inside out, across his shoulders and we hadn’t got that, nor Mother either, so we began to feel rather miserable. Even Father was not there. He had gone out to Mother for the Easter Holidays.

Violet had on the lace window-curtains and Mother’s old blue silk dress that she has given us for dressing-up, and Teddy wore his pyjamas with a green sash, of course, because he was the villain; at least, he wasn’t exactly a villain, but he was a very disagreeable and horrid sort of father for any one to have. He had on a tow beard, too, that I made out of some that was over when Fräulein did the grates, and I’m sure Mother won’t like them, though Fräulein does think them so beautiful, but the beard wasn’t a great success because it would come off in the middle.

As for me, we didn’t know what to do, because I’d tied on so many pillows to be fat, that I knew I couldn’t get on any one’s dress but cook’s. So we sent Teddy down to ask her if she would be so very kind as to lend us one. We always make Teddy ask for things, because he’s pretty, and we’ve found out that helps. I think cook thought he wanted the dress for himself, for he said she laughed a lot, but anyway she fetched him her best one--green stuff, it was, with red plush trimming.

Then we began. It was awful. Ted gabbled so that no one could hear him, and Humphrey had never known his part properly, though I used to run into his room every night after Fräulein had put out the lights and make him go through it. He couldn’t escape me then, but often he was asleep, which was just as bad, because even if you woke him up it was no use--he’d be so stupid. Well, Humphrey seemed to have forgotten everything he’d ever known, and the more I went on the more he forgot until he began to say the “Charge of the Light Brigade” by mistake; at last he turned sulky and wouldn’t speak at all.

Violet knew her part beautifully--I will say that--and she spoke it very clearly and slowly, but without the least bit of expression. When she came to--

“With thee I will wander the wide world far, For I love thee, dear Mr. Young Lochinvar,”

which was a piece that I’d made up myself, you might have thought she was saying the multiplication table.

“Can’t you speak it like you really would to any one?” I said.

“I’d never say such a silly thing,” she answered, “because trains always make me sick and you know Mother says I’d be a dreadful sailor.”

Well, I told her at any rate she ought to take Young Lochinvar into a corner and throw her arms round his neck and kiss him, so that the people could tell she was pleased to see him; and she did it, because she’s very obedient, but it was just as if she were hugging a signpost.

So I said she was a perfect idiot, which I oughtn’t to have done, however silly she was, and she began to cry.

Well, I thought we’d better get on to “Dundee.” It begins--

“Sound the fife and cry the slogan, Let the pibroch shake the air With its wild, triumphal music, Worthy of the freight we bear.”

We didn’t know exactly what pibrochs and all those things were, but we thought some Burmese gongs and bells of Father’s would do as well, and we’d brought them up out of the case in the drawing-room.

But when I came to look on the mantelpiece, where I’d put them all ready, they were gone.

Then Violet, who was still crying, of course, because she’d been started off, sobbed out that Fräulein had taken the things back and had locked up the case and was very angry. They don’t belong to Fräulein anyway, so I don’t see what business it was of hers. But there we were in a nice fix.

Humphrey said at last that he would blow his penny whistle. He hasn’t got any ear at all, and the noise he makes is more like a railway engine than anything else; however, I had to say Yes. Then Teddy suggested that if we covered up his face he could do “Nearer, my God, to Thee” on the comb. Teddy’s the most musical of us all, but I didn’t think it would do, because even if the audience didn’t notice that he was playing his own funeral march, the comb doesn’t seem to be quite right somehow. I said we’d better tie the dinner-bell round Violet’s waist instead, and she could shake herself now and then. Of course she had to hold up the bier with both her hands, so she couldn’t do anything else.

We made the bier out of stilts with a long cushion tied between them, and then I thought we were ready. So we lifted it up and Teddy climbed on to the window-sill and got on to the bier from there. He lay down and immediately the strings broke and he went on to the floor--crash! He shrieked and roared and he wouldn’t stop, though I tried to put my arms round him, because he had come a horrid bang, and I promised him my old penknife with half a blade. He thought we’d done it on purpose, so he’d only scream out, “Go away! I won’t act--I won’t! You beast, beast, beast!”

At this moment the door opened and we saw--Mother! We all gave one shout and rushed at her. Ted began to squeal with joy instead of screaming, and Violet stopped whimpering, and Humphrey started off talking quite fast. As for me--well, it was dreadfully silly and babyish--but now they’d all stopped I began to cry. I was so happy it seemed as if I couldn’t bear it.

Mother understood, like she always does. She didn’t say anything, but put her arm round me tight and let me hide my face in her cape. The others all started talking at once, and she kissed the lump on Teddy’s head and made it well and said she’d do the bier herself, so it would be quite safe. She sent Humphrey down for her fur cape for Young Lochinvar, and she told us Fräulein was quite right about our not taking the musical instruments without leave, but she was sure Father would let us have them. And she said--but this was when I was all right again--that it wouldn’t matter if Violet couldn’t quite get the expression, because brides were always shy and that when she was married to Father her voice sounded like some one else talking and without any expression at all. And then she admired all our dresses very much and went downstairs to ask cook to let us have things for the feast and a bottle of red currant wine, which was more grandeur than we’d ever thought of.

After that everything was different, like it always is when Mother’s at home. Oh, I forgot to explain that why we didn’t expect Mother was that Fräulein had never got the last letter. Besides, Mother rather wanted to surprise us.

By this time the other children were arriving downstairs, and so we started the acting as soon as we were ready. Well, you wouldn’t have thought it after all this fuss, but the plays went beautifully; every one said so. Certainly once Teddy opened his eyes as dead Dundee, and when he saw that Mother was really sitting there he began to laugh, but he’s got such a nice laugh one couldn’t mind much. Mother shook her head, though she couldn’t help smiling, so Ted shut up his eyes tight and screwed up his face all the rest of the time as though he were going to sneeze. Humphrey, too, in the wedding feast stuffed his mouth so full that he couldn’t speak, but Mother began to clap, so the people didn’t notice that.

At the end everybody clapped lots and we all came forward and bowed--at least Teddy curtseyed by mistake--and then Mother called out, “Author. Author and Stage-manager!” and the others pushed me on alone. I did feel proud.

All the same, I don’t think I’ll ever do any more plays--at any rate not unless Mother is at home all the time, and of that I’m quite certain.

VII

MOTHER

It really did seem silly of Humphrey not to have measles with the rest of us and then to go and catch them all to himself directly Mother came home from Algiers. It’s just the sort of inconvenient thing that Humph would do--not that he can help it, of course. I’m sure it wasn’t any fun for him having it alone.

I must say our measly month last year was most lovely; Violet and Ted liked it just as much as me. Besides having Mother all the time, there was beef-tea nearly whenever you wanted it and the most exciting counting every morning to see who had got the most spots. The spottiest one was king or queen for the day, of course, and the others had to say “your Majesty” and bow whenever they spoke. It did seem grand.

This must have been the most aggravating thing for Humphrey to think of afterwards, because when he did go and catch it, he was so very bad that if he’d only had it at the same time as us he’d have easily been king every day. He was so ill that Mother sent the little ones away into lodgings with Jane, for they make too much noise; and as Mrs. Charlton happened to ask me to stay with her just then, Mother thought I might as well go away too. I expect I ought to say honestly that Mother had spoken to _me_ about making a noise as well as to the little ones. It seemed as if I couldn’t remember about not stumping upstairs. Once I did think of it, and I took off my stockings as well as my shoes, so as to be very quiet, and went most ’straordinarily slowly, but then the horrid shoes went and spoilt it all; they dropped down right from the very top.

Mrs. Charlton is a sort of aunt of Father’s and she lives up in Lincolnshire. I didn’t know her at all, though Mother said I had seen her once when I was a baby, which is never a very nice sort of friendship. People like that always tell you how they held you in their arms, which makes you feel silly; or else, if you were too big to nurse, they say how naughty you used to be. It’s most uncomfortable. Anyway Mother said that Mrs. Charlton was a very kind old lady, though not cuddly; she said, too, that as I was going on a visit all alone like a grown-up young lady I must try and be very good. So I promised, and even though it mayn’t sound like it afterwards, I really did try.

There was some talk of Father’s taking me all the way, but he was too busy, and it ended in my going to London with him and then travelling the rest of the way quite alone! At least Father did put me in the care of the guard; I do wish he hadn’t, though the guard was a very nice man. He poked in his head at nearly every station and said, “Getting on all right, missy?” and I said, “Yes, thank you; I hope you are too.” Then he waved his flag and we went on again.

It had been directly after lunch when we left London, but it was getting quite dark before we got to Corby. I was most dreadfully starved too, because I’d eaten all my sandwiches very early. I thought I’d waited quite a long time before I began them, but it wasn’t really. That’s a funny thing about sandwiches, something seems to make you eat them almost directly you start, even if you’ve only just had dinner, and aren’t very hungry at all.

It was the guard who came and helped me out with my things at Corby station, but almost directly a manservant came up and touched his hat and said, “Miss Lawrence?” I did feel beautifully grown up. There was a carriage waiting outside with a very fat coachman and two very fat horses; the man took me to this and held the door open for me to get in. If only the others had been with me to see me driving all alone in a grand carriage like that!

Though it was very nice for the first minute or two, I was so dreadfully hungry that I couldn’t really enjoy it; I could only think of roast chickens and things like that. I did try not to; I looked out of the window to see the country and I tied my sash very tight like the Red Indians, but it wasn’t any use. It isn’t true either, what they say in books, that starving people suffer most from thirst, because I hardly wanted to drink at all. At last, though, we did get to the house, and the servant showed me into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Charlton was sitting in a very stiff chair. She got up and kissed me, and asked me how my Mother and Father were, but she didn’t seem to make me feel at all nice. I sat down in another stiff chair and seemed to get miserabler and miserabler, I don’t know why, because they had brought me my supper, though I’d have liked more. I was quite glad when Mrs. Charlton asked me at what hour I went to bed, which was very funny, because I’d never wanted people to talk about bedtime before.

Upstairs, though, it was more miserable than ever. I never thought paying visits would feel like that. If even our cook at home could have come to tuck me up in her crossest temper, I’d have been glad. It seemed so dreadful, I really didn’t know what I should do, till I thought of Mother’s little penwiper, that she’d lent me because I haven’t got one in my writing-case; so I took that into bed, and cuddled it, and then I felt better.

The next morning I woke up very early and the sun was shining and it was all much nicer. I began to read a