by Edith Nesbit
But when she took three of the spade guineas in her hand, which was by this time rather dirty owing to her not having put on gloves before going to the gravel-pit, the black-silk young lady in the shop looked very hard at her, and went and whispered something to an older and uglier lady, also in black silk, and then they gave her back the money and said it was not current coin.
“It’s good money,” said Anthea, “and it’s my own.”
“I daresay,” said the lady, “but it’s not the kind of money that’s fashionable now, and we don’t care about taking it.”
“I believe they think we’ve stolen it,” said Anthea, rejoining the others in the street; “if we had gloves they wouldn’t think we were so dishonest. It’s my hands being so dirty fills their minds with doubts.”
So they chose a humble shop, and the girls bought cotton gloves, the kind at sixpence three-farthings, but when they offered a guinea the woman looked at it through her spectacles and said she had no change; so the gloves had to be paid for out of Cyril’s two-and-sevenpence that he meant to buy rabbits with, and so had the green imitation crocodile-skin purse at nine-pence-halfpenny which had been bought at the same time. They tried several more shops, the kinds where you buy toys and scent, and silk handkerchiefs and books, and fancy boxes of stationery, and photographs of objects of interest in the vicinity. But nobody cared to change a guinea that day in Rochester, and as they went from shop to shop they got dirtier and dirtier, and their hair got more and more untidy, and Jane slipped and fell down on a part of the road where a water-cart had just gone by. Also they got very hungry, but they found no one would give them anything to eat for their guineas. After trying two pastrycooks in vain, they became so hungry, perhaps from the smell of the cake in the shops, as Cyril suggested, that they formed a plan of campaign in whispers and carried it out in desperation. They marched into a third pastrycook’s—Beale his name was—and before the people behind the counter could interfere each child had seized three new penny buns, clapped the three together between its dirty hands, and taken a big bite out of the triple sandwich. Then they stood at bay, with the twelve buns in their hands and their mouths very full indeed. The shocked pastrycook bounded round the corner.
Mr. Beale snatched the coin and bit it
“Here,” said Cyril, speaking as distinctly as he could, and holding out the guinea he got ready before entering the shop, “pay yourself out of that.”
Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket.
“Off you go,” he said, brief and stern like the man in the song.
“But the change?” said Anthea, who, had a saving mind.
“Change!” said the man. “I’ll change you! Hout you goes; and you may think yourselves lucky I don’t send for the police to find out where you got it!”
In the Castle Gardens the millionaires finished the buns, and though the curranty softness of these were delicious, and acted like a charm in raising the spirits of the party, yet even the stoutest heart quailed at the thought of venturing to sound Mr. Billy Peasemarsh at the Saracen’s Head on the subject of a horse and carriage. The boys would have given up the idea, but Jane was always a hopeful child, and Anthea generally an obstinate one, and their earnestness prevailed.
The whole party, by this time indescribably dirty, therefore betook itself to the Saracen’s Head. The yard-method of attack having been successful at The Chequers was tried again here. Mr. Peasemarsh was in the yard, and Robert opened the business in these terms—
“They tell me you have a lot of horses and carriages to sell.” It had been agreed that Robert should be spokesman, because in books it is always the gentlemen who buy horses, and not ladies, and Cyril had had his go at the Blue Boar.
“They tell you true, young man,” said Mr. Peasemarsh. He was a long lean man, with very blue eyes and a tight mouth and narrow lips.
“We should like to buy some, please,” said Robert politely.
“I daresay you would.”
“Will you show us a few, please? To choose from.”
“Who are you a-kiddin of?” inquired Mr. Billy Peasemarsh. “Was you sent here of a message?”
“I tell you,” said Robert, “we want to buy some horses and carriages, and a man told us you were straight and civil spoken, but I shouldn’t wonder if he was mistaken.”
“Upon my sacred!” said Mr. Peasemarsh. “Shall I trot the whole stable out for your Honour’s worship to see? Or shall I send round to the Bishop’s to see if he’s a nag or two to dispose of?”
“Please do,” said Robert, “if it’s not too much trouble. It would be very kind of you.”
Mr. Peasemarsh put his hands in his pockets and laughed, and they did not like the way he did it. Then he shouted “Willum!”
A stooping ostler appeared in a stable door.
“Here, Willum, come and look at this ‘ere young dook! Wants to buy the whole stud, lock, stock, and bar’l. And ain’t got tuppencew in his pocket to bless hisself with, I’ll go bail!”x
Willum’s eyes followed his master’s pointing thumb with contemptuous interest.
“Do ’e, for sure?” he said.
But Robert spoke, though both the girls were now pulling at his jacket and begging him to “come along.” He spoke, and he was very angry; he said:
“I’m not a young duke, and I never pretended to be. And as for tuppence—what do you call this?” And before the others could stop him he had pulled out two fat handfuls of shining guineas, and held them out for Mr. Peasemarsh to look at. He did look. He snatched one up in his finger and thumb. He bit it, and Jane expected him to say, “The best horse in my stables is at your service.” But the others knew better. Still it was a blow, even to the most desponding, when he said shortly:
“Willum, shut the yard doors,” and Willum grinned and went to shut them.
“Good-afternoon,” said Robert hastily; “we shan’t buy any of your horses now, whatever you say, and I hope it’ll be a lesson to you.” He had seen a little side gate open, and was moving towards it as he spoke. But Billy Peasemarsh put himself in the way.
“Not so fast, you young off-scouring!”y he said. “Willum, fetch the pleece.”
Willum went. The children stood huddled together like frightened sheep, and Mr. Peasemarsh spoke to them till the pleece arrived. He said many things. Among other things he said:
“Nice lot you are, aren’t you, coming tempting honest men with your guineas!”
“They are our guineas,” said Cyril boldly.
“Oh, of course we don’t know all about that, no more we don‘t—oh no—course not! And dragging little gells into it, too. ’Ere—I’ll let the gells go if you’ll come along to the pleece quiet.”
“We won’t be let go,” said Jane heroically; “not without the boys. It’s our money just as much as theirs, you wicked old man.”
“Where’d you get it, then?” said the man, softening slightly, which was not at all what the boys expected when Jane began to call names.
Jane cast a silent glance of agony at the others.
“Lost your tongue, eh? Got it fast enough when it’s for calling names with. Come, speak up! Where’d you get it?”
“Out of the gravel-pit,” said truthful Jane.
“Next article,” said the man.
“I tell you we did,” Jane said. “There’s a fairy there—all over brown fur—with ears like a bat’s and eyes like a snail’s, and he gives you a wish a day, and they all come true.”
“Touched in the head, eh?” said the man in a low voice, “all the more shame to you boys dragging the poor afflicted child into your sinful burglaries.”
“She’s not mad; it’s true,” said Anthea; “there is a fairy. If I ever see him again I’ll wish for something for you; at least I would if vengeance wasn’t wicked—so there!”
“Lor’ lumme,”z said Billy Peasemarsh, “if there ain’t another on ’em!”
And now Willum came back with a spiteful grin on his fa
ce, and at his back a policeman, with whom Mr. Peasemarsh spoke long in a hoarse earnest whisper.
“I daresay you’re right,” said the policeman at last. “Anyway, I’ll take ’em up on a charge of unlawful possession, pending inquiries. And the magistrate will deal with the case. Send the afflicted ones to a home, as likely as not, and the boys to a reformatory. Now then, come along, youngsters! No use making a fuss. You bring the gells along, Mr. Peasemarsh, sir, and I’ll shepherd the boys.”
Speechless with rage and horror, the four children were driven along the streets of Rochester. Tears of anger and shame blinded them, so that when Robert ran right into a passer-by he did not recognize her till a well-known voice said, “Well, if ever I did! Oh, Master Robert, whatever have you been a doing of now?” And another voice, quite as well known, said, “Panty; want go own Panty!”
They had run into Martha and the baby!
Martha behaved admirably. She refused to believe a word of the policeman’s story, or of Mr. Peasemarsh’s either, even when they made Robert turn out his pockets in an archway and show the guineas.
They had run into Martha and the baby!
“I don’t see nothing,” she said. “You’ve gone out of your senses, you two! There ain’t any gold there—only the poor child’s hands, all over crockaa and dirt, and like the very chimbley.ab Oh, that I should ever see the day!”
And the children thought this very noble of Martha, even if rather wicked, till they remembered how the Fairy had promised that the servants should never notice any of the fairy gifts. So of course Martha couldn’t see the gold, and so was only speaking the truth, and that was quite right, of course, but not extra noble.
It was getting dusk when they reached the police-station. The policeman told his tale to an inspector, who sat in a large bare room with a thing like a clumsy nursery-fenderac at one end to put prisoners in. Robert wondered whether it was a cell or a dock.
“Produce the coins, officer,” said the inspector.
“Turn out your pockets,” said the constable.
Cyril desperately plunged his hands in his pockets, stood still a moment, and then began to laugh—an odd sort of laugh that hurt, and that felt much more like crying. His pockets were empty. So were the pockets of the others. For of course at sunset all the fairy gold had vanished away.
“Turn out your pockets, and stop that noise,” said the inspector. Cyril turned out his pockets, every one of the nine which enriched his Norfolk suit. And every pocket was empty.
“Well!” said the inspector.
“I don’t know how they done it—artful little beggars! They walked in front of me the ’ole way, so as for me to keep my eye on them and not to attract a crowd and obstruct the traffic.”
“It’s very remarkable,” said the inspector, frowning.
“If you’ve quite done a-browbeating of the innocent children,” said Martha, “I’ll hire a private carriage and we’ll drive home to their papa’s mansion. You’ll hear about this again, young man! -I told you they hadn’t got any gold, when you were pretending to see it in their poor helpless hands. It’s early in the day for a constable on duty not to be able to trust his own eyes. As to the other one, the less said the better; he keeps the Saracen’s Head, and he knows best what his liquor’s like.”
He said, “Now then!” to the policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh
“Take them away, for goodness’ sake,” said the inspector crossly. But as they left the police-station he said, “Now then!” to the policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh, and he said it twenty times as crossly as he had spoken to Martha.
Martha was as good as her word. She took them home in a very grand carriage, because the carrier’s cart was gone, and, though she had stood by them so nobly with the police, she was so angry with them as soon as they were alone for “trapseing into Rochester by themselves,” that none of them dared to mention the old man with the pony-cart from the village who was waiting for them in Rochester. And so, after one day of boundless wealth, the children found themselves sent to bed in deep disgrace, and only enriched by two pairs of cotton gloves, dirty inside because of the state of the hands they had been put on to cover, an imitation crocodile-skin purse, and twelve penny buns, long since digested.
The thing that troubled them most was the fear that the old gentleman’s guinea might have disappeared at sunset with all the rest, so they went down to the village next day to apologize for not meeting him in Rochester, and to see. They found him very friendly. The guinea had not disappeared, and he had bored a hole in it and hung it on his watch-chain. As for the guinea the baker took, the children felt they could not care whether it had vanished or not, which was not perhaps very honest, but on the other hand was not wholly unnatural. But afterwards this preyed on Anthea’s mind, and at last she secretly sent twelve stamps by post to “Mr. Beale, Baker, Rochester.” Inside she wrote, “To pay for the buns.” I hope the guinea did disappear, for that pastrycook was really not at all a nice man, and, besides, penny buns are seven for sixpence in all really respectable shops.
CHAPTER III
BEING WANTED
The morning after the children had been the possessors of boundless wealth, and had been unable to buy anything really useful or enjoyable with it, except two pairs of cotton gloves, twelve penny buns, an imitation crocodile-skin purse, and a ride in a pony-cart, they awoke without any of the enthusiastic happiness which they had felt on the previous day when they remembered how they had had the luck to find a Psammead, or Sand-fairy; and to receive its promise to grant them a new wish every day. For now they had had two wishes, Beauty and Wealth, and neither had exactly made them happy. But the happening of strange things, even if they are not completely pleasant things, is more amusing than those times when nothing happens but meals, and they are not always completely pleasant, especially on the days when it is cold mutton or hash.
There was no chance of talking things over before breakfast, because everyone overslept itself, as it happened, and it needed a vigorous and determined struggle to get dressed so as to be only ten minutes late for breakfast. During this meal some efforts were made to deal with the question of the Psammead in an impartial spirit, but it is very difficult to discuss anything thoroughly and at the same time to attend faithfully to your baby brother’s breakfast needs. The Baby was particularly lively that morning. He not only wriggled his body through the bar of his high chair, and hung by his head, choking and purple, but he collared a tablespoon with desperate suddenness, hit Cyril heavily on the head with it, and then cried because it was taken away from him. He put his fat fist in his bread-and-milk, and demanded “nam,” which was only allowed for tea. He sang, he put his feet on the table—he clamoured to “go walky.” The conversation was something like this:
“Look here—about that Sand-fairy-Look out!—he’ll have the milk over.”
Milk removed to a safe distance.
“Yes—about that Fairy—No, Lamb dear, give Panther the narky poon.”
Then Cyril tried. “Nothing we’ve had yet has turned out—He nearly had the mustard that time!”
“I wonder whether we’d better wish—Hullo!—you’ve done it now, my boy!” And, in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of golden carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side, and poured a flood of mixed water and goldfish into the Baby’s lap and into the laps of the others.
Everyone was almost as much upset as the goldfish: the Lamb only remaining calm. When the pool on the floor had been mopped up, and the leaping, gasping goldfish had been collected and put back in the water, the Baby was taken away to be entirely redressed by Martha, and most of the others had to change completely. The pinafores and jackets that had been bathed in goldfish-and-water were hung out to dry, and then it turned out that Jane must either mend the dress she had torn the day before or appear all day in her best petticoat. It was white and soft and frilly, and trimmed with lace, and very, very pretty, quite as pretty as a frock, if not more so. Only it was not a f
rock, and Martha’s word was law. She wouldn’t let Jane wear her best frock, and she refused to listen for a moment to Robert’s suggestion that Jane should wear her best petticoat and call it a dress.
“It’s not respectable,” she said. And when people say that, it’s no use anyone’s saying anything. You will find this out for yourselves some day.
So there was nothing for it but for Jane to mend her frock. The hole had been torn the day before when she happened to tumble down in the High Street of Rochester, just where a water-cart had passed on its silvery way. She had grazed her knee, and her stocking was much more than grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone which had attended to the knee and the stocking. Of course the others were not such sneaks as to abandon a comrade in misfortune, so they all sat on the grass-plot round the sundial, and Jane darned away for dear life. The Lamb was still in the hands of Martha having its clothes changed, so conversation was possible.
Anthea and Robert timidly tried to conceal their inmost thought, which was that the Psammead was not to be trusted; but Cyril said:
“Speak out—say what you’ve got to say—I hate hinting, and ‘don’t know,’ and sneakish ways like that.”
So then Robert said, as in honour bound: “Sneak yourself—Anthea and me weren’t so goldfishy as you two were, so we got changed quicker, and we’ve had time to think it over, and if you ask me—”
“I didn’t ask you,” said Jane, biting off a needleful of thread as she had always been strictly forbidden to do.
“I don’t care who asks or who doesn’t,” said Robert, “but Anthea and I think the Sammyadd is a spiteful brute. If it can give us our wishes I suppose it can give itself its own, and I feel almost sure it wishes every time that our wishes shan’t do us any good. Let’s let the tiresome beast alone, and just go and have a jolly good game of forts, on our own, in the chalk-pit.”
