The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories

by E. Nesbit

  Every one stared at us, but they did not seem so astonished as we had every right to expect, and though interested they were not rude, and this is very rare among English people—and not only poor people either—when they see anything at all out of the way.

  We asked one man, who was very Sunday-best indeed in black clothes and a blue tie, where every one was going, for every one was going the same way, and every one looked as if it was going to church, which was unlikely, it being but Thursday. He said—

  “Same place wot you’re going to I expect.”

  And when we said where was that we were requested by him to get along with us. Which we did.

  An old woman in the heaviest bonnet I have ever seen and the highest—it was like a black church—revealed the secret to us, and we learned that there was a Primrose fête going on in Sir Willoughby Blockson’s grounds.

  We instantly decided to go to the fête.

  “I’ve been to a Primrose fête, and so have you, Dora,” Oswald remarked, “and people are so dull at them, they’d gladly give gold to see the dark future. And, besides, the villages will be unpopulated, and no one at home but idiots and babies and their keepers.”

  So we went to the fête.

  The people got thicker and thicker, and when we got to Sir Willoughby’s lodge gates, which have sprawling lions on the gate-posts, we were told to take the donkey cart round to the stable-yard.

  This we did, and proud was the moment when a stiff groom had to bend his proud stomach to go to the head of Bates’s donkey.

  “This is something like,” said Alice, and Noël added:

  “The foreign princes are well received at this palace.”

  “We aren’t princes, we’re gipsies,” said Dora, tucking his scarf in. It would keep on getting loose.

  “There are gipsy princes, though,” said Noël, “because there are gipsy kings.”

  “You aren’t always a prince first,” said Dora; “don’t wriggle so or I can’t fix you. Sometimes being made a king just happens to some one who isn’t any one in particular.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Noël; “you have to be a prince before you’re a king, just as you have to be a kitten before you’re a cat, or a puppy before you’re a dog, or a worm before you’re a serpent, or——”

  “What about the King of Sweden?” Dora was beginning, when a very nice tall, thin man, with white flowers in his buttonhole like for a wedding, came strolling up and said—

  “And whose show is this? Eh, what?”

  We said it was ours.

  “Are you expected?” he asked.

  We said we thought not, but we hoped he didn’t mind.

  “What are you? Acrobats? Tight-rope? That’s a ripping Burmese coat you’ve got there.”

  “Yes, it is. No we aren’t,” said Alice, with dignity. “I am Zaïda, the mysterious prophetess of the golden Orient, and the others are mysterious too, but we haven’t fixed on their names yet.”

  “By jove!” said the gentleman; “but who are you really?”

  “Our names are our secret,” said Oswald, with dignity, but Alice said, “Oh, but we don’t mind telling you, because I’m sure you’re nice. We’re really the Bastables, and we want to get some money for some one we know that’s rather poor—of course I can’t tell you her name. And we’ve learnt how to tell fortunes—really we have. Do you think they’ll let us tell them at the fête. People are often dull at fêtes, aren’t they?”

  “By Jove!” said the gentleman again—“by Jove, they are!”

  He plunged for a moment in deep reflection.

  “We’ve got co—musical instruments,” said Noël; “shall we play to you a little?”

  “Not here,” said the gentleman; “follow me.”

  He led the way by the backs of shrubberies to an old summer-house, and we asked him to wait outside.

  Then we put on our veils and tuned up. “See, see the conquering——”

  But he did not let us finish the tune; he burst in upon us, crying—

  “Ripping—oh, ripping! And now tell me my fortune.”

  Alice took off her veil and looked at his hand.

  “You will travel in distant lands,” she said; “you will have great wealth and honour; you will marry a beautiful lady—a very fine woman, it says in the book, but I think a beautiful lady sounds nicer, don’t you?”

  “Much; but I shouldn’t mention the book when you’re telling the fortune.”

  “I wouldn’t, except to you,” said Alice, “and she’ll have lots of money and a very sweet disposition. Trials and troubles beset your path, but do but be brave and fearless and you will overcome all your enemies. Beware of a dark woman—most likely a widow.”

  “I will,” said he, for Alice had stopped for breath. “Is that all?”

  “No. Beware of a dark woman and shun the society of drunkards and gamblers. Be very cautious in your choice of acquaintances, or you will make a false friend who will be your ruin. That’s all, except that you will be married very soon and live to a green old age with the beloved wife of your bosom, and have twelve sons and——”

  “Stop, stop!” said the gentleman; “twelve sons are as many as I can bring up handsomely on my present income. Now, look here. You did that jolly well, only go slower, and pretend to look for things in the hand before you say them. Everything’s free at the fête, so you’ll get no money for your fortune-telling.”

  Gloom was on each young brow.

  “It’s like this,” he went on, “there is a lady fortune-teller in a tent in the park.”

  “Then we may as well get along home,” said Dicky.

  “Not at all,” said our new friend, for such he was now about to prove himself to be; “that lady does not want to tell fortunes to-day. She has a headache. Now, if you’ll really stick to it, and tell the people’s fortunes as well as you told mine, I’ll stand you—let’s see—two quid for the afternoon. Will that do? What?”

  We said we should just jolly well think it would.

  “I’ve got some Eau de Cologne in a medicine-bottle,” Dora said; “my brother Noël has headaches sometimes, but I think he’s going to be all right to-day. Do take it, it will do the lady’s head good.”

  “I’ll take care of her head,” he said, laughing, but he took the bottle and said, “Thank you.”

  Then he told us to stay where we were while he made final arrangements, and we were left with palpitating breasts to look wildly through the Book of Fate, so as to have the things ready. But it turned out to be time thrown away, for when he came back he said to Alice—

  “It’ll have to be only you and your sister, please, for I see they’ve stuck up a card with ‘Esmeralda, the gipsy Princess, reads the hand and foretells the future’ on it. So you boys will have to be mum. You can be attendants—mutes, by jove!—yes that’s it. And, I say, kiddies, you will jolly well play up, won’t you? Don’t stand any cheek. Stick it on, you know. I can’t tell you how important it is about——about the lady’s headache.”

  “I should think this would be a cool place for a headache to be quiet in,” said Dora; and it was, for it was quite hidden in the shrubbery and no path to it.

  “By Jove!” he remarked yet once again, “so it would. You’re right!”

  He led us out of the shrubbery and across the park. There were people dotted all about and they stared, but they touched their hats to the gentleman, and he returned their salute with stern politeness.

  Inside the tent with “Esmeralda, &c.,” outside there was a lady in a hat and dust-cloak. But we could see her spangles under the cloak.

  “Now,” said the gentleman to Dicky, “you stand at the door and let people in, one at a time. You others can just play a few bars on your instruments for each new person—only a very
little, because you do get out of tune, though that’s barbaric certainly. Now, here’s the two quid. And you stick to the show till five; you’ll hear the stable clock chime.”

  The lady was very pale with black marks under her eyes, and her eyes looked red, Oswald thought. She seemed about to speak, but the gentleman said—

  “Do trust me, Ella. I’ll explain everything directly. Just go to the old summer-house—you know—and I’ll be there directly. I’ll take a couple of pegs out of the back and you can slip away among the trees. Hold your cloak close over your gown. Goodbye, kiddies. Stay, give me your address, and I’ll write and tell you if my fortune comes true.”

  So he shook hands with us and went. And we did stick to it, though it is far less fun than you would think telling fortunes all the afternoon in a stuffy tent, while outside you know there are things to eat and people enjoying themselves. But there were the two gold quid, and we were determined to earn them. It is very hard to tell a different fortune for each person, and there were a great many. The girls took it in turns, and Oswald wonders why their hairs did not go gray. Though of course it was much better fun for them than for us, because we had just to be mutes when we weren’t playing on the combs.

  The people we told fortunes to at first laughed rather, and said we were too young to know anything. But Oswald said in a hollow voice that we were as old as the Pyramids, and after that Alice took the tucks out of Dicky’s red coat and put it on and turbaned herself, and looked much older.

  The stable clock had chimed the quarter to five some little time, when an elderly gentleman with whiskers, who afterwards proved to be Sir Willoughby, burst into the tent.

  “Where’s Miss Blockson?” he said, and we answered truthfully that we did not know.

  “How long have you been here?” he furiously asked.

  “Ever since two,” said Alice wearily.

  He said a word that I should have thought a baronet would have been above using.

  “Who brought you here?”

  We described the gentleman who had done this, and again the baronet said things we should never be allowed to say. “That confounded Carew!” he added, with more words.

  “Is anything wrong?” asked Dora—“can we do anything? We’ll stay on longer if you like—if you can’t find the lady who was doing Esmeralda before we came.”

  “I’m not very likely to find her,” he said ferociously. “Stay longer indeed! Get away out of my sight before I have you locked up for vagrants and vagabonds.”

  He left the scene in bounding and mad fury. We thought it best to do as he said, and went round the back way to the stables so as to avoid exciting his ungoverned rage by meeting him again. We found our cart and went home. We had got two quid and something to talk about.

  But none of us—not even Oswald the discerning—understood exactly what we had been mixed up in, till the pink satin box with three large bottles of A1 scent in it, and postmarks of foreign lands, came to Dora. And there was a letter. It said—

  “My dear Gipsies,—I beg to return the Eau de Cologne you so kindly lent me. The lady did use a little of it, but I found that foreign travel was what she really wanted to make her quite happy. So we caught the 4.15 to town, and now we are married, and intend to live to a green old age, &c., as you foretold. But for your help my fortune couldn’t have come true, because my wife’s father, Sir Willoughby, thought I was not rich enough to marry. But you see I was. And my wife and I both thank you heartily for your kind help. I hope it was not an awful swat. I had to say five because of the train. Good luck to you, and thanks awfully.

  “Yours faithfully,

  “Carisbrook Carew.”

  If Oswald had known beforehand we should never have made that two quid for Miss Sandal.

  For Oswald does not approve of marriages and would never, if he knew it, be the means of assisting one to occur.

  THE LADY AND THE LICENSE; OR, FRIENDSHIP’S GARLAND

  “My dear Kiddies,—

  “Miss Sandal’s married sister has just come home from Australia, and she feels very tired. No wonder, you will say, after such a long journey. So she is going to Lymchurch to rest. Now I want you all to be very quiet, because when you are in your usual form you aren’t exactly restful, are you? If this weather lasts you will be able to be out most of the time, and when you are indoors for goodness’ sake control your lungs and your boots, especially H.O.’s. Mrs. Bax has travelled about a good deal, and once was nearly eaten by cannibals. But I hope you won’t bother her to tell you stories. She is coming on Friday. I am glad to hear from Alice’s letter that you enjoyed the Primrose Fête. Tell Noël that ‘poetticle’ is not the usual way of spelling the word he wants. I send you ten shillings for pocket-money, and again implore you to let Mrs. Bax have a little rest and peace.

  “Your loving

  “Father.”

  “PS.—If you want anything sent down, tell me, and I will get Mrs. Bax to bring it. I met your friend Mr. Red House the other day at lunch.”

  When the letter had been read aloud, and we had each read it to ourselves, a sad silence took place.

  Dicky was the first to speak.

  “It is rather beastly, I grant you,” he said, “but it might be worse.”

  “I don’t see how,” said H.O. “I do wish Father would jolly well learn to leave my boots alone.”

  “It might be worse, I tell you,” said Dicky. “Suppose instead of telling us to keep out of doors it had been the other way?”

  “Yes,” said Alice, “suppose it had been, ‘Poor Mrs. Bax requires to be cheered up. Do not leave her side day or night. Take it in turns to make jokes for her. Let not a moment pass without some merry jest’? Oh yes, it might be much, much worse.”

  “Being able to get out all day makes it all right about trying to make that two pounds increase and multiply,” remarked Oswald. “Now who’s going to meet her at the station? Because after all it’s her sister’s house, and we’ve got to be polite to visitors even if we’re in a house we aren’t related to.”

  This was seen to be so, but no one was keen on going to the station. At last Oswald, ever ready for forlorn hopes, consented to go.

  We told Mrs. Beale, and she got the best room ready, scrubbing everything till it smelt deliciously of wet wood and mottled soap. And then we decorated the room as well as we could.

  “She’ll want some pretty things,” said Alice, “coming from the land of parrots and opossums and gum-trees and things.”

  We did think of borrowing the stuffed wild-cat that is in the bar at the “Ship,” but we decided that our decorations must be very quiet—and the wild-cat, even in its stuffed state, was anything but; so we borrowed a stuffed roach in a glass box and stood it on the chest of drawers. It looked very calm. Sea-shells are quiet things when they are vacant, and Mrs. Beale let us have the four big ones off her chiffonnier.

  The girls got flowers—bluebells and white wood-anemones. We might have had poppies or buttercups, but we thought the colours might be too loud. We took some books up for Mrs. Bax to read in the night. And we took the quietest ones we could find.

  “Sonnets on Sleep,” “Confessions of an Opium Eater,” “Twilight of the Gods,” “Diary of a Dreamer,” and “By Still Waters,” were some of them. The girls covered them with grey paper, because some of the bindings were rather gay.

  The girls hemmed grey calico covers for the drawers and the dressing-table, and we drew the blinds half-down, and when all was done the room looked as quiet as a roosting wood-pigeon.

  We put in a clock, but we did not wind it up.

  “She can do that herself,” said Dora, “if she feels she can bear to hear it ticking.”

  Oswald went to the station to meet her. He rode on the box beside the driver. When the others saw him mount there I think they were sorry t
hey had not been polite and gone to meet her themselves. Oswald had a jolly ride. We got to the station just as the train came in. Only one lady got out of it, so Oswald knew it must be Mrs. Bax. If he had not been told how quiet she wanted to be he would have thought she looked rather jolly. She had short hair and gold spectacles. Her skirts were short, and she carried a parrot-cage in her hand. It contained our parrot, and when we wrote to tell Father that it and Pincher were the only things we wanted sent we never thought she would have brought either.

  “Mrs. Bax, I believe,” was the only break Oswald made in the polite silence that he took the parrot-cage and her bag from her in.

  “How do you do?” she said very briskly for a tired lady; and Oswald thought it was noble of her to make the effort to smile. “Are you Oswald or Dicky?”

  Oswald told her in one calm word which he was, and then Pincher rolled madly out of a dog-box almost into his arms. Pincher would not be quiet. Of course he did not understand the need for it. Oswald conversed with Pincher in low, restraining whispers as he led the way to the “Ship’s” fly. He put the parrot-cage on the inside seat of the carriage, held the door open for Mrs. Bax with silent politeness, closed it as quietly as possible, and prepared to mount on the box.

  “Oh, won’t you come inside?” asked Mrs. Bax. “Do!”

  “No, thank you,” said Oswald in calm and mouse-like tones; and to avoid any more jaw he got at once on to the box with Pincher.

  So that Mrs. Bax was perfectly quiet for the whole six miles—unless you count the rattle and shake-up-and-down of the fly. On the box Oswald and Pincher “tasted the sweets of a blissful re-union,” like it says in novels. And the man from the “Ship” looked on and said how well bred Pincher was. It was a happy drive.

  There was something almost awful about the sleek, quiet tidiness of the others, who were all standing in a row outside the cottage to welcome Mrs. Bax. They all said, “How do you do?” in hushed voices, and all looked as if butter would not melt in any of their young mouths. I never saw a more soothing-looking lot of kids.