The Girls and I: A Veracious History

'Oh, please,' she said, 'we're not school-children, and we've come about something very particular indeed. Don't you think Lady Nearn will be in soon?'

That was Anne all over. She'd no intention of giving up now she had got so far.

I suppose the footman heard by her voice that she wasn't a common child.

'Can't you leave a message?' he said rather more civilly.

'No,' said Anne. 'It's something I must see Lady Nearn herself about.'

She had the sense not to speak of the found ornament to him. Of course it would have been no use, as Lady Nearn wouldn't have left it with a servant.

'We're friends of – at least we know Mrs. Barry's children,' Anne went on. 'Can't you let us come in and wait, if Lady Nearn will be in soon?'

For it was very chilly on the doorstep, and indeed both Anne and Serry were very tired by this time – coming straight from the dancing, and losing their way to Rodney Square, and it being past tea-time and all.

The footman seemed to consider.

'Step inside,' he said at last; 'I'll see what – somebody – says,' They didn't catch the name.

It wasn't nearly such a grand house as the one next door. The hall was quite small, and there was no fireplace in it.

'You can take a seat,' said the man, and he went off. 'Somebody' must have taken a good while to find, for he didn't come back for ever so long. I suppose once he saw them in the light, he was satisfied they weren't beggars or anything like that.

They were glad to sit down, and it felt warm in the hall compared to outside. There was a door close to where they were. It was one of those houses that have the dining-room at the back and the library to the front, you know, and the door was the library door.

After a moment it opened, very slowly and softly, and some one peeped out; then Anne and Serena heard some whispering, and the door opened a little wider, and two faces appeared. It was two children – a boy and a girl, though their heads looked much the same, as they had both short, dark, curly hair, and they both wore sailor tops. They gradually opened the door still more till they could be seen quite well. They were about six or seven, and they stood smiling at the girls, half shy and half pleased.

'Won't you come in here?' said one of them. 'It must be so cold out there. We're having tea in here all by ourselves. It's such fun.'

'We're to stay here till mamma comes home,' said the other. 'We've been by ourselves all day, because Lilly and Tom are ill – we mustn't be in the nursery to disturb them.'

Anne and Serry walked in. 'They didn't see why they shouldn't,' said Serry, and these dear little children were so kind and polite. They handed them the cake and bread-and-butter, and they would have given them tea, only they hadn't cups enough, and they didn't seem quite sure about ringing for more.

George, the footman, was rather cross sometimes, they said. But it wasn't often he was so rude as to leave any one in the cold hall. They'd tell mamma when she came in.

She did come in very soon. The bell rang, and the children ran to the door to peep out, and when Lady Nearn hurried in, there she found the four as happy as could be – Anne and Serry so amused by the children that they had quite forgotten all about how frightened nurse and all of us would be getting; indeed, they'd almost forgotten what they had come to this strange house about at all.

Lady Nearn did look astonished. For half a minute she took Serena for Flossy Barry.

'Flossy,' she said, 'I wrote to your – ' but then she stopped, and just stared in surprise.

Anne had got back her wits by then, and she explained it all – how it was partly, anyway, her fault about the brooch being lost, and how pleased she'd be to find it, and all about what Flossy had told them, and how she and Serry had come off by themselves, not even knowing the name, or the number of the house.

Lady Nearn was very kind, but I don't think she quite took in that it was really naughty of them to have come out without leave. You see, Anne hadn't got to think it naughty herself, yet. She fetched the brooch just to show Anne – though, indeed, from the way Anne spoke of it, she was sure it wasn't it, and of course it wasn't!

Anne could nearly have cried with disappointment.

Then it did strike Lady Nearn to ask how they were going home again. It was quite dark by now. She couldn't send a servant with them, for the house was rather upset – three of the children were ill.

'Indeed,' she said, 'I must write to Mrs. Warwick to explain. I hope no harm will come of it, as you have only seen the twins, who are quite well, so far, and separated from the others.'

But all the same she seemed anxious to get them away, and she suddenly rang the bell and told George – who must have looked rather astonished to see the 'school brats' such friends with his mistress – to run round to the stables and tell the coachman to call at the house on his way to fetch Lord Nearn from somewhere or other. That was how Anne and Serry came home in a carriage.

We didn't hear the whole ins and outs of the story at once, but we made the girls tell it us over afterwards.

Just now Anne could hardly get through with it; for she began crying when she understood how frightened mums had been, and begging her to forgive her.

Mums did, of course – she always does. And then she sent us upstairs to finish our tea. But as we left the library I heard her say to herself —

'I wonder what Lady Nearn can be going to write to me about.'

Serena was quite jolly, and as hungry as anything.

'All's well that ends well,' she said, tossing her hair.

Anne turned upon her pretty sharply. I wasn't sorry.

'Serry,' she said, 'I know you're not to blame like me, for I made you come. But you might see now how wrong it was, as I do. And "ends well" indeed! Why, we've given mums and all of them a dreadful fright, and we haven't found the brooch.'

And – but I must tell that in a new chapter. No, it wasn't 'ends well' yet, by a long way.

'If only you'd asked me, Anne,' said Miss Maud Wisdom.

CHAPTER VI

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

I was alone with mums in her room the next morning when her letters were brought up. The poor little thing had a headache and was very tired, and, for once, she hadn't got up to breakfast. She had not been able to go to sleep the night before – really she had had a lot of worries lately – and then when she did, it was so nearly morning that she slept on ever so much longer than usual. For she's not a bit lazy, like some mothers I know.

When she does have breakfast in bed, she lets me look after her. It's awfully jolly. Father is sure to say as he goes off, 'You'll see to your mother, Jack.'

The girls don't mind. Anne wouldn't be much good at anything like that – at least, she wouldn't have been then, though she's ever so much better now about forgetting things, and spilling things, and seeming as if all her fingers were thumbs, you know. Hebe is very handy, and she always was. But she never put herself before Anne, and so we got in the way of me being the one to do most for mums. I told you at the beginning – didn't I? – that some people might think me rather a girl-y boy, but I don't mind one scrap of an atom if they do. I have my own ideas. I know the splendidest cricketer and footballer you ever saw is a fellow whose sister's a cripple, and she can't bear any one to lift her but him, because he's so gentle. And I've seen a young doctor in our village doing up a baby that was burnt nearly to death, as if his fingers were fairy's, and afterwards I heard that he'd been the bravest of the brave in some awful battles in Burmah, or somewhere like that. Indeed, he got so wounded with cutting in to carry out the men as they dropped – it was what they call a skirmish, I think, not a proper battle where they have ambulances and carrying people and everything ready, I suppose – that he's had to leave off being a soldier-doctor for good.

And now that the girls know it can't be for long, except in holidays, that I can look after mums, they're very good about letting me be with her as much as I can. And I've got them into pretty good ways. I don't think she'll miss me so very much when I go.

Well, I settled the breakfast tray with Rowley, and nothing was forgotten. I let Rowley carry it up, because I knew it was safer for her to do it, and there's no sense in bragging you're bigger than you are, and can carry things that need long arms when you know you can't. But I walked beside her, opening the doors and watching that the things didn't slide about; that's how I always do. And then when the tray was safe on the bed, and I had arranged the 'courses,' first the roll and butter and ham and egg – I cracked the top of the egg and got it ready – and then the muffin and marmalade, my nice time began. I squatted at the foot of the bed, near enough to reach mums anything she wanted, and then we talked.

We talk of lots of things when we're alone like that. Mums tells me of anything that's on her mind, and I comfort her up a bit. Of course we talked about the unlucky brooch, and about Anne, and how easily she and Serry might have been run over, or something like that.

'Yes, indeed,' said mums, 'I often think we're not half thankful enough for the misfortunes that don't happen.'

Just then there came a knock at the door.

'Bother!' thought I. I don't think I said it, for mums thinks it's such an ugly word.

It was Rowley again.

'Your letters, ma'am,' she said. 'They were forgotten when I brought up the tray.'