The Boys and I: A Child's Story for Children. Molesworth Mrs.

Racey with a skirt of mine and a white apron of Pierson's, Tom with a towel tied round him to look like Banks in the pantry, and I with an old shawl and a bonnet very much on one side, with a long feather, which we had got out of our "dressing-up" things. We were so interested in listening to mother and in looking at the ladies, particularly the golden-haired one, that we quite forgot what queer figures we were, till the young lady turned towards us.

      "These are your little children," she said, with a smile – a rather sad smile – to mother. "They are playing at dressing-up, I see."

      "We're playing at ladies coming to see the house," I said, coming forward – I never was a shy child – "There have been such a lot of ladies."

      Mother turned to the young lady.

      "It is perhaps well that they should be able to make a play of it," she said.

      "Yes," said the young lady very gently, "I remember being just the same as a child, when once my mother had to go away – to India it was – I was so pleased to see her new trunks and to watch all the packing. And now – how strange it seems that I could have endured the idea of her going – now that I shall never have her again!"

      Her lip quivered, and she turned away. Mother spoke to her very, very kindly – the other lady, the nothing particular one was examining the cupboards in the room and did not notice.

      "Have you lost your dear mother?" she – our mother, I mean – asked the young lady.

      She could not speak for a moment. She just bowed her head. Then touching her dress she said in a sort of whisper, "Yes; quite lately. She died in London a fortnight ago. I have neither father nor mother now. I am staying for a while with my cousin."

      Then, partly I think to hide the tears which would not be kept back, partly to help herself to grow calm again, she drew me to her and stroked my long hair which hung down my back below my queer bonnet.

      "What is your name, dear?" she said.

      "Audrey," I replied. "Audrey Mildred Gower is my long name," I added.

      "'Audrey' is a very pretty name," said the young lady, still stroking my hair, "and Gower – that is not a very common name. Are you perhaps relations of Dr. Gower, of – Street?"

      "That's Uncle Geoff," cried the boys and I.

      "He is my husband's brother," said mother.

      The young lady quite brightened up.

      "Oh, how curious!" she said. "Dr. Gower was so kind to my mother," and again her pretty eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered.

      Racey, staring at her, saw that something was the matter, though he had not the least idea what. He came close up to her, stumbling over his skirt and long apron on the way, and tugged her sleeve to catch her attention.

      "Don't cry," he said abruptly. "We're going to live with Uncle Geoff. Perhaps he'd let you come too."

      The young lady could not help smiling.

      "Are they really going to live in London?" she said to mother. "Perhaps I shall see you again then some day. I know 'Uncle Geoff's' house very well."

      But before there was time to say any more the other lady came back from her inspection, and began asking so many things about the house that the young lady's attention was quite taken up. And soon after they went away. Afterwards I remember mother said she was sorry she had not asked the young lady's name. But we among ourselves fixed to call her "Miss Goldy-hair."

      CHAPTER III.

      THREE LITTLE TRAVELLERS

      "What will she do for their laughter and plays,

      Chattering nonsense, and sweet saucy ways?"

      I will now try to go straight on with my story. But I cannot help saying I do not find it quite so easy as I thought. It is so very difficult to keep things in order and not to put in bits that have no business to come for ever so much longer. I think after this I shall always be even more obliged than I have been to people that write stories, for really when you come to do it, it isn't nearly so easy as you'd think, though to read the stories, it seems as if everything in them came just of itself without the least trouble.

      I told you that after it was really settled and known, and all arranged about the goings away, things seemed to go on very fast. In one way they did and in one way they didn't – for now when I look back to it, it seems to me that that bit of time – the time when it was all quite settled to be and yet hadn't come – was very long. I hear big people say that children get quickly accustomed to anything. I think big people do too. We all – papa and mother, and the boys and I, and even Pierson and the other servants – got used to feeling something was going to come. We got used to living with people coming to see the house, and every now and then great vans coming from the railway to take away packing-cases, and an always feeling that the day – the dreadful day – was going to come. Of course I cannot remember all the little particular things exactly, but I have a very clear remembrance of the sort of way it all happened, so though I may not be able to put down just the very words we said and all that, still it is telling it truly, I think, to put down as nearly as I can the little bits that make the whole. And even some of the littlest bits I can remember the most clearly – is not that queer? I can remember the dress mother had on the last morning, I can remember just how the scarf round her neck was tied, and how one end got rumpled up with the way Tom clung to her, and hugged and hugged her with his arms round her, so tight, that papa had almost to force him away.

      But in my usual way I am going on too fast – at least putting things out of their places. I do not think I in the least understood then, what I do so well understand now, how terribly hard it must have been for mother to leave us; how much more dreadful her part of it was than any one else's. I must have seemed very heartless. I remember one day when she was packing books and music and odd things that she would not of course have taken with her just for a journey, I said to her, "Why, mother, what a lot of books you are taking! And all those table-covers and mats and things – you never take those when we go to the sea-side." Papa was standing by and mother looked up at him. "Need I take them?" she said. "It is as if I were going to make a home out there, and oh, how can it ever be like a home? How could I wish it to be? The barer and less home-like the better I should like it."

      Papa looked troubled.

      "We have to think of appearances, you know," he said. "So many people will come to see you, and it would not do to look as if we took no interest in the place."

      Mother said no more. She went on with her packing, and I think a good many big tears were packed among the things in that box.

      I asked her one day how long she and papa would stay away. "Longer than we stay at the sea-side in summer?" I said. "Three months? – as long as that, mother? Any way you'll be home before our birthdays."

      For, rather funnily, all our three birthdays came close together – all in one week. We thought it the most important time of the whole year, and we counted everything by the birthday week, and when mother didn't answer at once "Oh yes, we shall certainly be home by the birthday week," I felt quite astonished. But just then something or other put it out of my head, and I forgot to speak of it again. I can't think now how I could be so silly in some ways as I was then – it is so queer to remember.

      Well – the day did come. We – the boys and I – were the first to leave our dear old home, even though our journey was to be such a short one – only three hours to London. Papa and mother were to start on their journey the next day, so we were not to see them again. They had been at Uncle Geoff's the week before, seeing the rooms we were to have, and settling everything; and I think they thought it was better not to see us again, after we were in his house, but to get the parting over in our old home. I suppose they thought we would get over it more quickly if the journey and the newness of it all was to come after, and I daresay they were right.

      I can't tell you about the saying good-bye. It was so bad for us, though we could not understand it at all properly of course, that for mother it must have been awful. And then fancy the long day after we had all