I never wanted things to happen to make Mother unhappy, said Roberta. Everythings perfectly horrid.
Everything continued to be perfectly horrid for some weeks.
Mother was nearly always out. Meals were dull and dirty. The between-maid was sent away, and Aunt Emma came on a visit. Aunt Emma was much older than Mother. She was going abroad to be a governess. She was very busy getting her clothes ready, and they were very ugly, dingy clothes, and she had them always littering about, and the sewing-machine seemed to whiron and on all day and most of the night. Aunt Emma believed in keeping children in their proper places. And they more than returned the compliment. Their idea of Aunt Emmas proper place was anywhere where they were not. So they saw very little of her. They preferred the company of the servants, who were more amusing. Cook, if in a good temper, could sing comic songs, and the housemaid, if she happened not to be offended with you, could imitate a hen that has laid an egg, a bottle of champagne being opened, and could mew like two cats fighting. The servants never told the children what the bad news was that the gentlemen had brought to Father. But they kept hinting that they could tell a great deal if they choseand this was not comfortable.
One day when Peter had made a booby trap over the bath-room door, and it had acted beautifully as Ruth passed through, that red-haired parlour-maid caught him and boxed his ears.
Youll come to a bad end, she said furiously, you nasty little limb, you! If you dont mend your ways, youll go where your precious Fathers gone, so I tell you straight!
Roberta repeated this to her Mother, and next day Ruth was sent away.
Then came the time when Mother came home and went to bed and stayed there two days and the Doctor came, and the children crept wretchedly about the house and wondered if the world was coming to an end.
Mother came down one morning to breakfast, very pale and with lines on her face that used not to be there. And she smiled, as well as she could, and said:
Now, my pets, everything is settled. Were going to leave this house, and go and live in the country. Such a ducky dear little white house. I know youll love it.
A whirling week of packing followednot just packing clothes, like when you go to the seaside, but packing chairs and tables, covering their tops with sacking and their legs with straw.
All sorts of things were packed that you dont pack when you go to the seaside. Crockery, blankets, candlesticks, carpets, bedsteads, saucepans, and even fenders and fire-irons.
The house was like a furniture warehouse. I think the children enjoyed it very much. Mother was very busy, but not too busy now to talk to them, and read to them, and even to make a bit of poetry for Phyllis to cheer her up when she fell down with a screwdriver and ran it into her hand.
Arent you going to pack this, Mother? Roberta asked, pointing to the beautiful cabinet inlaid with red turtleshell and brass.
We cant take everything, said Mother.
But we seem to be taking all the ugly things, said Roberta.
Were taking the useful ones, said Mother; weve got to play at being Poor for a bit, my chickabiddy.
When all the ugly useful things had been packed up and taken away in a van by men in green-baize aprons, the two girls and Mother and Aunt Emma slept in the two spare rooms where the furniture was all pretty. All their beds had gone. A bed was made up for Peter on the drawing-room sofa.
I say, this is larks, he said, wriggling joyously, as Mother tucked him up. I do like moving! I wish we moved once a month.
Mother laughed.
I dont! she said. Good night, Peterkin.
As she turned away Roberta saw her face. She never forgot it.
Oh, Mother, she whispered all to herself as she got into bed, how brave you are! How I love you! Fancy being brave enough to laugh when youre feeling like THAT!
Next day boxes were filled, and boxes and more boxes; and then late in the afternoon a cab came to take them to the station.
Aunt Emma saw them off. They felt that THEY were seeing HER off, and they were glad of it.
But, oh, those poor little foreign children that shes going to governess! whispered Phyllis. I wouldnt be them for anything!
At first they enjoyed looking out of the window, but when it grew dusk they grew sleepier and sleepier, and no one knew how long they had been in the train when they were roused by Mothers shaking them gently and saying:
Wake up, dears. Were there.
They woke up, cold and melancholy, and stood shivering on the draughty platform while the baggage was taken out of the train. Then the engine, puffing and blowing, set to work again, and dragged the train away. The children watched the tail-lights of the guards van disappear into the darkness.
This was the first train the children saw on that railway which was in time to become so very dear to them. They did not guess then how they would grow to love the railway, and how soon it would become the centre of their new life, nor what wonders and changes it would bring to them. They only shivered and sneezed and hoped the walk to the new house would not be long. Peters nose was colder than he ever remembered it to have been before. Robertas hat was crooked, and the elastic seemed tighter than usual. Phylliss shoe-laces had come undone.
Come, said Mother, weve got to walk. There arent any cabs here.
The walk was dark and muddy. The children stumbled a little on the rough road, and once Phyllis absently fell into a puddle, and was picked up damp and unhappy. There were no gas-lamps on the road, and the road was uphill. The cart went at a foots pace, and they followed the gritty crunch of its wheels. As their eyes got used to the darkness, they could see the mound of boxes swaying dimly in front of them.
A long gate had to be opened for the cart to pass through, and after that the road seemed to go across fieldsand now it went down hill. Presently a great dark lumpish thing showed over to the right.
Theres the house, said Mother. I wonder why shes shut the shutters.
Whos SHE? asked Roberta.
The woman I engaged to clean the place, and put the furniture straight and get supper.
There was a low wall, and trees inside.
Thats the garden, said Mother.
It looks more like a dripping-pan full of black cabbages, said Peter.
The cart went on along by the garden wall, and round to the back of the house, and here it clattered into a cobble-stoned yard and stopped at the back door.
There was no light in any of the windows.
Everyone hammered at the door, but no one came.
The man who drove the cart said he expected Mrs. Viney had gone home.
You see your train was that late, said he.
But shes got the key, said Mother. What are we to do?
Oh, shell have left that under the doorstep, said the cart man; folks do hereabouts. He took the lantern off his cart and stooped.
Ay, here it is, right enough, he said.
He unlocked the door and went in and set his lantern on the table.
Got eer a candle? said he.
I dont know where anything is. Mother spoke rather less cheerfully than usual.
He struck a match. There was a candle on the table, and he lighted it. By its thin little glimmer the children saw a large bare kitchen with a stone floor. There were no curtains, no hearth-rug. The kitchen table from home stood in the middle of the room. The chairs were in one corner, and the pots, pans, brooms, and crockery in another. There was no fire, and the black grate showed cold, dead ashes.
As the cart man turned to go out after he had brought in the boxes, there was a rustling, scampering sound that seemed to come from inside the walls of the house.
Oh, whats that? cried the girls.
Its only the rats, said the cart man. And he went away and shut the door, and the sudden draught of it blew out the candle.
Oh, dear, said Phyllis, I wish we hadnt come! and she knocked a chair over.
ONLY the rats! said Peter, in the dark.
Chapter II. Peters coal-mine
What fun! said Mother, in the dark, feeling for the matches on the table. How frightened the poor mice wereI dont believe they were rats at all.
She struck a match and relighted the candle and everyone looked at each other by its winky, blinky light.
Well, she said, youve often wanted something to happen and now it has. This is quite an adventure, isnt it? I told Mrs. Viney to get us some bread and butter, and meat and things, and to have supper ready. I suppose shes laid it in the dining-room. So lets go and see.
The dining-room opened out of the kitchen. It looked much darker than the kitchen when they went in with the one candle. Because the kitchen was whitewashed, but the dining-room was dark wood from floor to ceiling, and across the ceiling there were heavy black beams. There was a muddled maze of dusty furniturethe breakfast-room furniture from the old home where they had lived all their lives. It seemed a very long time ago, and a very long way off.
There was the table certainly, and there were chairs, but there was no supper.
Lets look in the other rooms, said Mother; and they looked. And in each room was the same kind of blundering half-arrangement of furniture, and fire-irons and crockery, and all sorts of odd things on the floor, but there was nothing to eat; even in the pantry there were only a rusty cake-tin and a broken plate with whitening mixed in it.
What a horrid old woman! said Mother; shes just walked off with the money and not got us anything to eat at all.
Then shant we have any supper at all? asked Phyllis, dismayed, stepping back on to a soap-dish that cracked responsively.
Oh, yes, said Mother, only itll mean unpacking one of those big cases that we put in the cellar. Phil, do mind where youre walking to, theres a dear. Peter, hold the light.
The cellar door opened out of the kitchen. There were five wooden steps leading down. It wasnt a proper cellar at all, the children thought, because its ceiling went up as high as the kitchens. A bacon-rack hung under its ceiling. There was wood in it, and coal. Also the big cases.
Peter held the candle, all on one side, while Mother tried to open the great packing-case. It was very securely nailed down.
Wheres the hammer? asked Peter.
Thats just it, said Mother. Im afraid its inside the box. But theres a coal-shoveland theres the kitchen poker.
And with these she tried to get the case open.
Let me do it, said Peter, thinking he could do it better himself. Everyone thinks this when he sees another person stirring a fire, or opening a box, or untying a knot in a bit of string.
Youll hurt your hands, Mammy, said Roberta; let me.
I wish Father was here, said Phyllis; hed get it open in two shakes. What are you kicking me for, Bobbie?
I wasnt, said Roberta.
Just then the first of the long nails in the packing-case began to come out with a scrunch. Then a lath was raised and then another, till all four stood up with the long nails in them shining fiercely like iron teeth in the candle-light.
Hooray! said Mother; here are some candlesthe very first thing! You girls go and light them. Youll find some saucers and things. Just drop a little candle-grease in the saucer and stick the candle upright in it.
How many shall we light?
As many as ever you like, said Mother, gaily. The great thing is to be cheerful. Nobody can be cheerful in the dark except owls and dormice.
So the girls lighted candles. The head of the first match flew off and stuck to Phylliss finger; but, as Roberta said, it was only a little burn, and she might have had to be a Roman martyr and be burned whole if she had happened to live in the days when those things were fashionable.
Then, when the dining-room was lighted by fourteen candles, Roberta fetched coal and wood and lighted a fire.
Its very cold for May, she said, feeling what a grown-up thing it was to say.
The fire-light and the candle-light made the dining-room look very different, for now you could see that the dark walls were of wood, carved here and there into little wreaths and loops.
The girls hastily tidied the room, which meant putting the chairs against the wall, and piling all the odds and ends into a corner and partly hiding them with the big leather arm-chair that Father used to sit in after dinner.
Bravo! cried Mother, coming in with a tray full of things. This is something like! Ill just get a tablecloth and then
The tablecloth was in a box with a proper lock that was opened with a key and not with a shovel, and when the cloth was spread on the table, a real feast was laid out on it.
Everyone was very, very tired, but everyone cheered up at the sight of the funny and delightful supper. There were biscuits, the Marie and the plain kind, sardines, preserved ginger, cooking raisins, and candied peel and marmalade.
What a good thing Aunt Emma packed up all the odds and ends out of the Store cupboard, said Mother. Now, Phil, DONT put the marmalade spoon in among the sardines.
No, I wont, Mother, said Phyllis, and put it down among the Marie biscuits.
Lets drink Aunt Emmas health, said Roberta, suddenly; what should we have done if she hadnt packed up these things? Heres to Aunt Emma!
And the toast was drunk in ginger wine and water, out of willow-patterned tea-cups, because the glasses couldnt be found.
They all felt that they had been a little hard on Aunt Emma. She wasnt a nice cuddly person like Mother, but after all it was she who had thought of packing up the odds and ends of things to eat.
It was Aunt Emma, too, who had aired all the sheets ready; and the men who had moved the furniture had put the bedsteads together, so the beds were soon made.
Good night, chickies, said Mother. Im sure there arent any rats. But Ill leave my door open, and then if a mouse comes, you need only scream, and Ill come and tell it exactly what I think of it.
Then she went to her own room. Roberta woke to hear the little travelling clock chime two. It sounded like a church clock ever so far away, she always thought. And she heard, too, Mother still moving about in her room.
Next morning Roberta woke Phyllis by pulling her hair gently, but quite enough for her purpose.
Wassermarrer? asked Phyllis, still almost wholly asleep.
Wake up! wake up! said Roberta. Were in the new housedont you remember? No servants or anything. Lets get up and begin to be useful. Well just creep down mouse-quietly, and have everything beautiful before Mother gets up. Ive woke Peter. Hell be dressed as soon as we are.
So they dressed quietly and quickly. Of course, there was no water in their room, so when they got down they washed as much as they thought was necessary under the spout of the pump in the yard. One pumped and the other washed. It was splashy but interesting.
Its much more fun than basin washing, said Roberta. How sparkly the weeds are between the stones, and the moss on the roofoh, and the flowers!