by Edith Nesbit
“He’s too old to be stolen by gipsies,” Alice said.
“And too ugly,” said Dicky.
“Oh don’t!” said both the girls; “and now when he’s lost, too!”
We had looked for a long time before Mrs. Pettigrew came in with a parcel she said the butcher had left. It was not addressed, but we knew it was H.O.’s, because of the label on the paper from the shop where Father gets his shirts. Father opened it at once.
Inside the parcel we found H.O.’s boots and braces, his best hat and his chest-protector. And Oswald felt as if we had found his skeleton.
“Any row with any of you?” Father asked. But there hadn’t been any.
“Was he worried about anything? Done anything wrong, and afraid to own up?”
We turned cold, for we knew what he meant. That parcel was so horribly like the lady’s hat and gloves that she takes off on the seashore and leaves with a letter saying it has come to this.
“No, no, no, NO!” we all said. “He was perfectly jolly all the morning.”
Then suddenly Dicky leaned on the table and one of H.O.’s boots toppled over, and there was something white inside. It was a letter. H.O. must have written it before we left home. It said —
“Dear Father and Every One, — I am going to be a Clown. When I am rich and reveared I will come back rolling.
“Your affectionate son,
“Horace Octavius Bastable.”
“Rolling?” Father said.
“He means rolling in money,” Alice said. Oswald noticed that every one round the table where H.O.’s boots were dignifiedly respected as they lay, was a horrid pale colour, like when the salt is thrown into snapdragons.
“Oh dear!” Dora cried, “that was it. He asked me to make him a clown’s dress and keep it deeply secret. He said he wanted to surprise Aunt Margaret and Albert’s uncle. And I didn’t think it was wrong,” said Dora, screwing up her face; she then added, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh, oh!” and with these concluding remarks she began to howl.
Father thumped her on the back in an absent yet kind way.
“But where’s he gone?” he said, not to any one in particular. “I saw the butcher; he said H.O. asked him to take a parcel home and went back round the Cedars.”
Here Dicky coughed and said —
“I didn’t think he meant anything, but the day after Noël was talking about singing ballads in Rome, and getting poet’s lyres given him, H.O. did say if Noël had been really keen on the Roman lyres and things he could easily have been a stowaway, and gone unknown.”
“A stowaway!” said my Father, sitting down suddenly and hard.
“In Aunt Margaret’s big dress basket — the one she let him hide in when we had hide-and-seek there. He talked a lot about it after Noël had said that about the lyres — and the Italians being so poetical, you know. You remember that day we had toffee.”
My Father is prompt and decisive in action, so is his eldest son.
“I’m off to the Cedars,” he said.
“Do let me come, Father,” said the decisive son. “You may want to send a message.”
So in a moment Father was on his bike and Oswald on the step — a dangerous but delightful spot — and off to the Cedars.
“Have your teas; and don’t any more of you get lost, and don’t sit up if we’re late,” Father howled to them as we rushed away. How glad then the thoughtful Oswald was that he was the eldest. It was very cold in the dusk on the bicycle, but Oswald did not complain.
At the Cedars my father explained in a few manly but well-chosen words, and the apartment of the dear departed bride was searched.
“Because,” said my father, “if H.O. really was little ass enough to get into that basket, he must have turned out something to make room for himself.”
Sure enough, when they came to look, there was a great bundle rolled in a sheet under the bed — all lace things and petticoats and ribbons and dressing-gowns and ladies’ flummery.
“If you will put the things in something else, I’ll catch the express to Dover and take it with me,” Father said to Mrs. Ashleigh; and while she packed the things he explained to some of the crying old ladies who had been unable to leave off, how sorry he was that a son of his — but you know the sort of thing.
Oswald said: “Father, I wish you’d let me come too. I won’t be a bit of trouble.”
Perhaps it was partly because my Father didn’t want to let me walk home in the dark, and he didn’t want to worry the Ashleighs any more by asking them to send me home. He said this was why, but I hope it was his loving wish to have his prompt son, so like himself in his decisiveness, with him.
We went.
It was an anxious journey. We knew how far from pleased the bride would be to find no dressing-gowns and ribbons, but only H.O. crying and cross and dirty, as likely as not, when she opened the basket at the hotel at Dover.
Father smoked to pass the time, but Oswald had not so much as a peppermint or a bit of Spanish liquorice to help him through the journey. Yet he bore up.
When we got out at Dover there were Mr. and Mrs. Albert’s uncle on the platform.
“Hullo,” said Albert’s uncle. “What’s up? Nothing wrong at home, I hope.”
“We’ve only lost H.O.,” said my father. “You don’t happen to have him with you?”
“No; but you’re joking,” said the bride. “We’ve lost a dress-basket.”
Lost a dress-basket! The words struck us dumb, but my father recovered speech and explained. The bride was very glad when we said we had brought her ribbons and things, but we stood in anxious gloom, for now H.O. was indeed lost. The dress-basket might be on its way to Liverpool, or rocking on the Channel, and H.O. might never be found again. Oswald did not say these things. It is best to hold your jaw when you want to see a thing out, and are liable to be sent to bed at a strange hotel if any one happens to remember you.
Then suddenly the station master came with a telegram.
It said: “A dress-basket without label at Cannon Street detained for identification suspicious sounds from inside detain inquirers dynamite machine suspected.”
He did not show us this till my Father had told him about H.O., which it took some time for him to believe, and then he did and laughed, and said he would wire them to get the dynamite machine to speak, and if so, to take it out and keep it till its Father called for it.
So back we went to London, with hearts a little lighter, but not gay, for we were a very long time from the last things we had had to eat. And Oswald was almost sorry he had not taken those crystallised fruits.
It was quite late when we got to Cannon Street, and we went straight into the cloakroom, and there was the man in charge, a very jolly chap, sitting on a stool. And there was H.O., the guilty stowaway, dressed in a red-and-white clown’s dress, very dusty, and his face as dirty as I have ever seen it, sitting on some one else’s tin box, with his feet on some body else’s portmanteau, eating bread and cheese, and drinking ale out of a can.
My Father claimed him at once, and Oswald identified the basket. It was very large. There was a tray on the top with hats in it, and H.O. had this on top of him. We all went to bed in Cannon Street Hotel. My Father said nothing to H.O. that night. When we were in bed I tried to get H.O. to tell me all about it, but he was too sleepy and cross. It was the beer and the knocking about in the basket, I suppose. Next day we went back to the Moat House, where the raving anxiousness of the others had been cooled the night before by a telegram from Dover.
My Father said he would speak to H.O. in the evening. It is very horrid not to be spoken to at once and get it over. But H.O. certainly deserved something.
It is hard to tell this tale, because so much of it happened all at once but at different places. But this is what H.O. said to us about it. He said —
“Don’t bother — let me alone.”
But we were all kind and gentle, and at last we got it out of him what had happened. He doesn’t tell a story ri
ght from the beginning like Oswald and some of the others do, but from his disjunctured words the author has made the following narration. This is called editing, I believe.
“It was all Noël’s fault,” H.O. said; “what did he want to go jawing about Rome for? — and a clown’s as good as a beastly poet, anyhow! You remember that day we made toffee? Well, I thought of it then.”
“You didn’t tell us.”
“Yes, I did. I half told Dicky. He never said don’t, or you’d better not, or gave me any good advice or anything. It’s his fault as much as mine. Father ought to speak to him to-night the same as me — and Noël, too.”
We bore with him just then because we wanted to hear the story. And we made him go on.
“Well — so I thought if Noël’s a cowardy custard I’m not — and I wasn’t afraid of being in the basket, though it was quite dark till I cut the air-holes with my knife in the railway van. I think I cut the string off the label. It fell off afterwards, and I saw it through the hole, but of course I couldn’t say anything. I thought they’d look after their silly luggage better than that. It was all their fault I was lost.”
“Tell us how you did it, H.O. dear,” Dora said; “never mind about it being everybody else’s fault.”
“It’s yours as much as any one’s, if you come to that,” H.O. said. “You made me the clown dress when I asked you. You never said a word about not. So there!”
“Oh, H.O., you are unkind!” Dora said. “You know you said it was for a surprise for the bridal pair.”
“So it would have been, if they’d found me at Rome, and I’d popped up like what I meant to — like a jack-in-the-box — and said, ‘Here we are again!’ in my clown’s clothes, at them. But it’s all spoiled, and father’s going to speak to me this evening.” H.O. sniffed every time he stopped speaking. But we did not correct him then. We wanted to hear about everything.
“Why didn’t you tell me straight out what you were going to do?” Dicky asked.
“Because you’d jolly well have shut me up. You always do if I want to do anything you haven’t thought of yourself.”
“What did you take with you, H.O.?” asked Alice in a hurry, for H.O. was now sniffing far beyond a whisper.
“Oh, I’d saved a lot of grub, only I forgot it at the last. It’s under the chest of drawers in our room. And I had my knife — and I changed into the clown’s dress in the cupboard at the Ashleighs — over my own things because I thought it would be cold. And then I emptied the rotten girl’s clothes out and hid them — and the top-hatted tray I just put it on a chair near, and I got into the basket, and I lifted the tray up over my head and sat down and fitted it down over me — it’s got webbing bars, you know, across it. And none of you would ever have thought of it, let alone doing it.”
“I should hope not,” Dora said, but H.O. went on unhearing.
“I began to think perhaps I wished I hadn’t directly they strapped up the basket. It was beastly hot and stuffy — I had to cut an air-hole in the cart, and I cut my thumb; it was so bumpety. And they threw me about as if I was coals — and wrong way up as often as not. And the train was awful wobbly, and I felt so sick, and if I’d had the grub I couldn’t have eaten it. I had a bottle of water. And that was all right till I dropped the cork, and I couldn’t find it in the dark till the water got upset, and then I found the cork that minute.
“And when they dumped the basket on to the platform I was so glad to sit still a minute without being jogged I nearly went to sleep. And then I looked out, and the label was off, and lying close by. And then some one gave the basket a kick — big brute, I’d like to kick him! — and said, ‘What’s this here?’ And I daresay I did squeak — like a rabbit-noise, you know — and then some one said, ‘Sounds like live-stock, don’t it? No label.’ And he was standing on the label all the time. I saw the string sticking out under his nasty boot. And then they trundled me off somewhere, on a wheelbarrow it felt like, and dumped me down again in a dark place — and I couldn’t see anything more.”
“I wonder,” said the thoughtful Oswald, “what made them think you were a dynamite machine?”
“Oh, that was awful!” H.O. said. “It was my watch. I wound it up, just for something to do. You know the row it makes since it was broken, and I heard some one say, ‘Shish! what’s that?’ and then, ‘Sounds like an infernal machine’ — don’t go shoving me, Dora, it was him said it, not me — and then, ‘If I was the inspector I’d dump it down in the river, so I would. Any way, let’s shift it.’ But the other said, ‘Let well alone,’ so I wasn’t dumped any more. And they fetched another man, and there was a heap of jaw, and I heard them say ‘Police,’ so I let them have it.”
THEY LAUGHED EVER SO.
“What did you do?”
“Oh, I just kicked about in the basket, and I heard them all start off, and I shouted, ‘Hi, here! let me out, can’t you!’”
“And did they?”
“Yes, but not for ever so long, I had to jaw at them through the cracks of the basket. And when they opened it there was quite a crowd, and they laughed ever so, and gave me bread and cheese, and said I was a plucky youngster — and I am, and I do wish Father wouldn’t put things off so. He might just as well have spoken to me this morning. And I can’t see I’ve done anything so awful — and it’s all your faults for not looking after me. Aren’t I your little brother? and it’s your duty to see I do what’s right. You’ve told me so often enough.”
These last words checked the severe reprimand trembling on the hitherto patient Oswald’s lips. And then H.O. began to cry, and Dora nursed him, though generally he is much too big for this and knows it. And he went to sleep on her lap, and said he didn’t want any dinner.
When it came to Father’s speaking to H.O. that evening it never came off, because H.O. was ill in bed, not sham, you know, but real, send-for-the-doctor ill. The doctor said it was fever from chill and excitement, but I think myself it was very likely the things he ate at lunch, and the shaking up, and then the bread and cheese, and the beer out of a can.
He was ill a week. When he was better, not much was said. My Father, who is the justest man in England, said the boy had been punished enough — and so he had, for he missed going to the pantomime, and to “Shock-Headed Peter” at the Garrick Theatre, which is far and away the best play that ever was done, and quite different from any other acting I ever saw. They are exactly like real boys; I think they must have been reading about us. And he had to take a lot of the filthiest medicine I ever tasted. I wonder if Father told the doctor to make it nasty on purpose? A woman would have directly, but gentlemen are not generally so sly. Any way, you live and learn. None of us would now ever consent to be a stowaway, no matter who wanted us to, and I don’t think H.O.’s very likely to do it again.
The only meant punishment he had was seeing the clown’s dress burnt before his eyes by Father. He had bought it all with his own saved-up money, red trimmings and all.
Of course, when he got well we soon taught him not to say again that it was any of our faults. As he owned himself, he is our little brother, and we are not going to stand that kind of cheek from him.
THE CONSCIENCE-PUDDING
It was Christmas, nearly a year after Mother died. I cannot write about Mother — but I will just say one thing. If she had only been away for a little while, and not for always, we shouldn’t have been so keen on having a Christmas. I didn’t understand this then, but I am much older now, and I think it was just because everything was so different and horrid we felt we must do something; and perhaps we were not particular enough what. Things make you much more unhappy when you loaf about than when you are doing events.
Father had to go away just about Christmas. He had heard that his wicked partner, who ran away with his money, was in France, and he thought he could catch him, but really he was in Spain, where catching criminals is never practised. We did not know this till afterwards.
Before Father went away he took Dora and
Oswald into his study, and said —
“I’m awfully sorry I’ve got to go away, but it is very serious business, and I must go. You’ll be good while I’m away, kiddies, won’t you?”
We promised faithfully. Then he said —
“There are reasons — you wouldn’t understand if I tried to tell you — but you can’t have much of a Christmas this year. But I’ve told Matilda to make you a good plain pudding. Perhaps next Christmas will be brighter.”
(It was; for the next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews and nieces of an Indian uncle — but that is quite another story, as good old Kipling says.)
When Father had been seen off at Lewisham Station with his bags, and a plaid rug in a strap, we came home again, and it was horrid. There were papers and things littered all over his room where he had packed. We tidied the room up — it was the only thing we could do for him. It was Dicky who accidentally broke his shaving-glass, and H.O. made a paper boat out of a letter we found out afterwards Father particularly wanted to keep. This took us some time, and when we went into the nursery the fire was black out, and we could not get it alight again, even with the whole Daily Chronicle. Matilda, who was our general then, was out, as well as the fire, so we went and sat in the kitchen. There is always a good fire in kitchens. The kitchen hearthrug was not nice to sit on, so we spread newspapers on it.
It was sitting in the kitchen, I think, that brought to our minds my Father’s parting words — about the pudding, I mean.
Oswald said, “Father said we couldn’t have much of a Christmas for secret reasons, and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain pudding.”
The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of our young minds.
“I wonder how plain she’ll make it?” Dicky said.
“As plain as plain, you may depend,” said Oswald. “A here-am-I-where-are-you pudding — that’s her sort.”
