The Little School-Mothers

“But,” said Harriet, turning to Pattie, “won’t this make me dreadfully late?”

“Late?” cried Mr Frost, overhearing her. “Not a bit of it. I tell you it will be over in no time at all. Here, take a hand each, girls, and we’ll squeeze well to the front. We mustn’t miss the beginning of the fun. The fat lady comes on first of all with the kangaroo; oh, it will be screamingly funny!”

The next minute, they were inside the tent where the great performance was to take place.

They were inside with a crush of people behind them, and Harriet forgot everything else. The entertainment was of the breathless order; before you had time to recover from one astounding surprise, another still more astounding followed on its heels. The fat lady’s performance was nothing at all to that done by the man with two heads – he really managed these double appendages with the greatest cleverness, nodding and winking simultaneously with both, and causing the people to shriek, holding their sides with mirth.

“He hasn’t two heads at all, you know,” said Mr Frost, “but it’s wonderfully cleverly managed for all that.”

Harriet and Pattie were almost sorry. They would much rather have believed that the man was possessed of the double head.

“Oh!” said Pattie, with a gasp. “I was thinking what a lot he could do if they were really two heads.”

Mr Frost roared with laughter.

“It would be convenient, wouldn’t it?” he said. “He could eat with one of his mouths, you know, and talk with the other; and he could keep one of his brains for amusement, and one for lessons. I say, though, let’s look at this! Here’s the elephant with the dancing dogs on his back!”

Oh, was there ever such a time? It flashed by in what seemed less than a minute, but in reality it took over an hour and a half. When Harriet and Pattie, two flushed and intensely happy little girls, left the small theatre Harriet knew at once by the changed light how long she must have been within.

“Oh please,” she said, turning to Mr Frost, “we have enjoyed ourselves tremendously; but what is the hour, please? – oh, I do hope it isn’t late: I wanted to take Ralph back to school before five o’clock.”

“Five o’clock!” said Mr Frost with a roaring laugh. Really he was rather a noisy young man. “Why, it’s long past seven. You don’t suppose we have had all that fun in no time at all?”

“Past seven!” said Harriet, in a tone of horror. “Oh, oh, don’t keep me!”

She rushed away. She never waited even to say good-bye; Pattie and Mr Frost both thought her rather rude. In a minute she was out of the fair and running along the road. When she had gone to the fair that afternoon with Pattie, the distance between the doctor’s house and the bit of common where the fair was held seemed no way at all. But now Harriet thought she had miles to travel.

At last, panting and terrified, she reached the doctor’s house. The door, which had been standing open in the afternoon, was now shut. She rang the bell furiously. Oh, why had they shut the door? Every minute of delay was intolerable. Why did not Anastasia hurry? What a horrid name to give a servant! and what a horrid servant she was. Harriet in her agony gave the bell another and more furious pull.

It was opened this time by a stout, red faced lady. “Now, little girl,” she said, “if you dare to ring the doctor’s bell again in this rude manner I shall complain to your – oh, my dear!” she continued, changing her voice, “I beg your pardon, I thought it was little Susan Wright from across the road. That child requires keeping in her place; she is always playing practical jokes. But what is it, my dear little girl? Come in, pray. Do you want Dr Tyke?”

“No, no!” said Harriet. “Don’t keep me, please. I have come for the little boy in the drawing-room.”

“The little boy in the drawing-room?” said Mrs Pyke, who wondered if Harriet were very ill and a little off her head. “But I know nothing of any little boy in the drawing-room.”

“Oh, please let me go for him,” said Harriet, trying to push past the stout lady. “He is there, I know, for I left him there. He is little Ralph – little Ralph Durrant. I told him to wait for me; I know I am late, but let me go for him at once, please.”

“You can go into the drawing-room, of course,” said Mrs Pyke; “although I must say you puzzle me very much, for I know of no little boy there. The doctor and I are having a cosy little supper in the drawing-room at the present moment; we often do of an evening to get away from the children, and I assure you there is no little boy in the room.”

Nevertheless, Harriet would go for herself. Ralph must be where she had desired him to stay. With her face very white, her whole appearance exceedingly wild, and her poor little heart beating almost to suffocation, she poked about the untidy and ugly drawing-room. She looked under sofas and behind curtains, and finally burst into tears.

“He is not here – he is gone! What will become of me?” she sobbed.

“Why,” said Dr Pyke, who had not recognised her at first, “why, surely I cannot be mistaken – you are one of the little girls from Abbeyfield! My dear child, sit down and tell my wife and me at once what is the matter.”

“Oh, I must not stay,” said Harriet, struggling to suppress her tears; “but I – oh, it is too dreadful!” And then she told, as best she could, the story of her day’s adventure. “I should not have done it,” she said in conclusion, “but it was so tempting, and I thought of course he would wait for me.”

“This, my dear,” said Dr Pyke, turning to his wife, when Harriet had finished speaking, “is one of my little patients at Abbeyfield. Her name is Harriet Lane, and I am thankful to say that, as a rule, she does not put many pennies into the doctor’s pocket; but, my dear child, if you give way like this you will be ill, and then I shall be the richer, and you the poorer. Come now, stop crying; of course you have done wrong, but doubtless you have no cause for alarm. The little boy, my dear wife, is little Ralph Durrant. His father – you must know his father’s name, of course —the Durrant, you know, the great African explorer. I have seen the little fellow, a most sweet little man. I am sure, my dear child, that we shall find your little friend safe at school. And now, if you will take my hand, I will bring you back to Abbeyfield, and try to explain what has occurred.”

“Oh, oh!” sobbed Harriet. “Oh, oh – I am too miserable. I am certain that Ralph – little Ralph, is lost!”

Book One – Chapter Twelve

In the High Woods

Alas! Harriet was right. When they reached the house, and when she wildly enquired of Miss Ford if Ralph were anywhere about, she was met by that astonished woman’s instant denial.

“Where have you been yourself?” said Miss Ford, speaking in great agitation. “We wondered what you and Ralph could be doing, and now you come here without him, and – and – Dr Pyke, you have brought her! Is anything wrong?”

“I greatly fear there is, Miss Ford,” said the doctor. “Please don’t scold this poor child at present. There is no doubt she has behaved very badly, but our immediate duty is to find the poor little fellow.”

“What poor little fellow? Oh, how you terrify me,” said Miss Ford.

“Little Ralph Durrant,” said the doctor. “The fact is, Harriet brought him to my house this afternoon – ”

“You dared!” began Miss Ford.

“Oh yes,” said the doctor; “she dared a good deal. She was very naughty, we know that, but there’s no use in thinking of her at present. She left Ralph in my drawing-room, and when she came back for him, he was gone.”

“Oh!” said Miss Ford, “what is to be done?”

“You are certain he has not returned here?”

“Certain?” said the poor teacher; “of course I am certain. But I will go and enquire: I will look everywhere.”

Miss Ford did look. She searched the house; she questioned the maids, she went to Ralph’s own little bedroom, she even penetrated to that snug nest where Curly Pate lay like a ball of down. Nowhere was Ralph to be found. She came back at last, with a pale face, to the doctor.

“The child has not returned,” she said. “What is to be done?”

“We must lose no time,” said Dr Pyke. “Harriet – ”

Harriet had seated herself on the first chair. She sat there huddled up. There is no other word to describe her appearance. Her hat was pushed forward over her eyes, and those eyes were red with crying. Now, however, her great terror prevented any further flow of tears.

“Harriet,” repeated the doctor, sternly.

“Yes, sir.”

“You know more about Ralph than I do. Have you the least – the slightest idea where he may have gone?”

Harriet thought of the gipsies. She remembered how she had promised Ralph to take him to see them; how she had failed in her promise.

“Perhaps,” – she said – “oh, I don’t know – but he was very much excited about the gipsies; he may have gone to them.”

“We will send at once to enquire,” said Miss Ford. “We must on no account wait until Mrs Burton returns; there is not an instant to lose.”

“I will go myself,” said the doctor. “I know where their encampment is. It is really scarcely likely that they have the child. Gipsies don’t often steal children now-a-days. We may find the little fellow anywhere. I will also call at the police station, and get the police to begin to search for him.”

When Dr Pyke left the house, Miss Ford turned to Harriet.