Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

‘Oh, they won’t hurt me,’ cried Noël, ‘because I have to play to-night at Exeter Hall. Fly — fly for the police! They may come up behind you any moment and cleave you to the chine.’

  And they actually flew. The present author would have known instantly that it was rot that about cleaving chines, but the man who wanted to let the Disenchanteried House and the man who wanted to have it let to him were of other mettle.

  We had remained perfectly still and silent. Of course, if the outsiders had attacked Noël, his brothers would have rushed to his rescue.

  As soon as the retreating boots of the outsiders grew fainter on the stairs, Noël turned green, and had to be revived by splashings from the brotherly coal-scuttle full of water. He got better directly, and we all scooted home to old nurse’s, leaving our coining plant without a pang. All great generals say that a retreat is best conducted without impediments.

  Noël was so ill he had to go to bed and stay there. This was as well, because of the neighbourhood being scoured for the ill-used infant prodigy that had been imprisoned in the Enchanceried House. He got all right again in time to go home when father came up for us. While he was in bed he wrote a long poem in six different coloured chalks, called ‘The Enchanceried Coiners, or the Liar’s Remorse.’ So I know he was sorry for what he had done. He told me he could not think what made him, and of course it was very wrong, but it did save our bacon, and preserve us from the noisome cells and bread and water that I am sure are the real meaning of the ‘utmost rigour of the law.’

  Really the worst of it all was that while we were trembling in the coiners’ den, with the two outside gentlemen snorting and whispering on the other side of the gate-door, H. O. had got up out of his bed at home and answered the door. (Old nurse had gone out to get a lettuce and an aerated loaf for tea.) He answered it to a butcher’s bill for fifteen and sevenpence that the butcher’s little girl had brought, and he paid it with six of the pennies that we had disguised as half-crowns, and told the little girl to call for the sevenpence in the morning. I believe many people have been hanged for less. It was lucky for H. O. that old nurse was a friend of the butcher’s, and able to persuade him that it was only a joke. In sterner times, like the French Revolution ... but Alice does not like to think what would have happened then. As this is the twentieth century, and not the eighteenth, our all going down to the butcher and saying we were sorry made it all right. But suppose it had been in other dates!

  The butcher’s wife gave us cake and ginger wine, and was very jolly. She asked us where we had got the false half-crowns. Oswald said they had been given us. This was true, but when they were given us they were pennies.

  Did Oswald tell a lie to the butcher? He has often wondered. He hopes not. It is easy to know whether a thing is a lie or not when nothing depends on it. But when events are happening, and the utmost rigour of the law may be the result of your making a mistake, you have to tell the truth as carefully as you can.

  No English gentleman tells a lie — Oswald knows that, of course. But an Englishman is not obliged to criminalate himself. The rules of honour and the laws of your country are very puzzling and contradictory.

  But the butcher got paid afterwards in real money — a half-sovereign and two half-crowns, and seven unsilvered pennies. So nobody was injured, and the author thinks that is the great thing after all.

  All the same, if ever he goes to stay with old nurse again, he thinks he will tell the butcher All in confidence. He does not like to have any doubts about such a serious thing as the honour of a Bastable.

  THE END OF OSWALD’S PART OF THE BOOK.

  MOLLY, THE MEASLES, AND THE MISSING WILL

  We all think a great deal too much of ourselves. We all believe — every man, woman, and child of us — in our very insidest inside heart, that no one else in the world is at all like us, and that things happen to us that happen to no one else. Now, this is a great mistake, because however different we may be in the colour of our hair and eyes, the inside part, the part that we feel and suffer with, is pretty much alike in all of us. But no one seems to know this except me. That is why people won’t tell you the really wonderful things that happen to them: they think you are so different that you could never believe the wonderful things. But of course you are not different really, and you can believe wonderful things as easily as anybody else. For instance, you will be able to believe this story quite easily, for though it didn’t happen to you, that was merely an accident. It might have happened, quite easily, to you or any else. As it happened, it happened to Maria Toodlethwaite Carruthers.

  You will already have felt a little sorry for Maria, and you will have thought that I might have chosen a prettier name for her. And so I might. But I did not do the choosing. Her parents did that. And they called her Maria after an aunt who was disagreeable, and would have been more disagreeable than ever if the baby had been called Enid or Elaine or Vivien, or any of the pretty names that will readily occur to you. She was called Toodlethwaite after the eminent uncle of that name who had an office in London and an office in Liverpool, and was said to be rolling in money.

  ‘I should like to see Uncle Toodlethwaite rolling in his money,’ said Maria, ‘but he never does it when I’m about.’

  The third name, Carruthers, was Maria’s father’s name, and she often felt thankful that it was no worse. It might so easily have been Snooks or Prosser.

  Of course no one called Maria Maria except Aunt Maria herself. Her Aunt Eliza, who was very refined, always wrote in the improving books that she gave Maria on her birthday, ‘To dearest Marie, from her affectionate Aunt Elise,’ and when she spoke to her she called her Mawrie. Her brothers and sisters, whenever they wanted to be aggravating, called her Toodles, but at times of common friendliness they called her Molly, and so did most other people, and so shall I, and so may you.

  Molly and her brothers and sisters were taken care of by a young woman who was called a nursery-governess. I don’t know why, for she did not nurse them, and she certainly did not govern them. In her last situation she had been called a lady-help — I don’t know the why of that, either. Her name was Simpshall, and she was always saying ‘Don’t,’ and ‘You mustn’t do that,’ and ‘Put that down directly,’ and ‘I shall tell your mamma if you don’t leave off.’ She never seemed to know what you ought to do, but only what you oughtn’t.

  One day the children had a grand battle with all the toy soldiers, and the little brass cannons that shoot peas, and the other kind that shoot pink caps with ‘Fortes Amorces’ on the box.

  Bertie, who always liked to have everything as real as possible, did not like the soldiers to be standing on the bare polished mahogany of the dining-table.

  ‘It’s not a bit like the field of glory,’ he said. And indeed it was not.

  So he borrowed the large kitchen knife-box and went out, and brought it in full of nice real clean mould out of the garden. Half a dozen knife-box-fulls were needed to cover the table. Then the children made forts and ditches, and brought in sprigs of geranium and calceolaria and box and yew and made trees and ambushes and hedges. It was a lovely battlefield, and would have melted the heart of anyone but a nursery-governess.

  But she just said, ‘What a disgusting mess! How naughty you are!’ and fetched a brush and swept the field of glory away into the dustpan. There was only just time to save the lives of the soldiers.

  And then Cecily put the knife-box back without saying what it had been used for, and the knives were put into it, so that at dinner everything tasted of earth, and the grit got between people’s teeth, so that they could not eat their mutton or potatoes or cabbage, or even their gravy.

  This, of course, was entirely Miss Simpshall’s fault. If she had not behaved as she did Bertie or Eva would have remembered to clean out the knife-box. As it was, the story of the field of glory came out over the gritty mutton and things, and father sent all the battlefield-makers to bed.

  Molly was out of this. She was staying with Aunt Eliza, who
was kind, if refined. She was to come back the next day. But as mother was on her way to the station to meet Aunt Maria for a day’s shopping, she met a telegraph boy, who gave her a telegram from Aunt Eliza saying:

  ‘Am going to Palace to-day instead of to-morrow. Fetch Marie. — Elise.’

  So mother fetched her from Aunt Eliza’s flat in Kensington and took her shopping with Aunt Maria. There were hours of shopping in hot, stuffy shops full of tired shop-people and angry ladies, and even the new hat and jacket and the strawberry ice at the pastrycook’s in Oxford Street did not make up to Molly for that tiresome day.

  Still, she was out of the battlefield row. Only as she did not know that it could not comfort her.

  When Aunt Maria had been put into her train, mother and Molly went home. As their cab stopped, Miss Simpshall rushed out between the two dusty laburnums by the gate.

  ‘Don’t come in!’ said Miss Simpshall wildly.

  ‘My dear Miss Simpshall — —’ said mother.

  The hair of the nursery-governess waved wildly in the evening breeze. She shut the ornamental iron gate in mother’s face.

  ‘Don’t come in!’ said Miss Simpshall again. ‘You shan’t, you mustn’t — —’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said mother, looking very white. ‘Have you gone mad?’

  Miss Simpshall said she hadn’t.

  ‘But what’s the matter?’ said mother.

  ‘Measles,’ said Miss Simpshall; ‘it’s all out on them — thick.’

  ‘Good gracious!’ said mother.

  ‘And I thought you’d perhaps just as soon Molly didn’t have it, Mrs. Carruthers. And this is all the thanks I get, being told I’m insane.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said mother absently. ‘Yes, you were quite right. Keep the children warm. Has the doctor seen them?’

  ‘Not yet; I’ve only just found it out. Oh, it’s terrible! Their hands and faces are all scarlet with purple spots.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear! I hope it’s nothing worse than measles! I’ll call in and send the doctor,’ said mother; ‘I shall be home by the last train. It’s a blessing Molly’s clothes are all here in her box.’

  So Molly was whisked off in the cab.

  ‘I must take you back to your aunt’s,’ said mother.

  ‘But Aunt Eliza’s gone to stay at the Bishop’s Palace,’ said Molly.

  ‘So she has; we must go to your Aunt Maria’s. Oh dear!’

  ‘Never mind, mother,’ said Molly, slipping her hand into mother’s; ‘perhaps they won’t have it very badly. And I’ll be very good, and try not to have it at all.’

  This was very brave of Molly; she would much rather have had measles than have gone to stay at Aunt Maria’s.

  Aunt Maria lived in a lovely old house down in Kent. It had beautiful furniture and beautiful gardens; in fact, as Bertie said, it was a place

  ‘Where every prospect pleases,

  And only aunt is vile.’

  Molly and her mother arrived there just at supper-time. Aunt Maria was very surprised and displeased. Molly went to bed at once, and her supper was brought up on a tray by Clements, aunt’s own maid. It was cold lamb and mint-sauce, and jelly and custard.

  ‘Your aunt said to bring you biscuits and milk,’ said Clements, ‘but I thought you’d like this better.’

  ‘You’re a darling!’ said Molly; ‘I was so afraid you’d be gone for your holiday. It’s not nearly so beastly when you’re here.’

  Clements was flattered, and returned the compliment.

  ‘And you aren’t so bad when you’re good, miss,’ she said. ‘Eat it up. I’ll come back and bring you a night-light by-and-by.’

  One thing Molly liked about Aunt Maria’s was that there were no children’s bedrooms — no bare rooms with painted furniture and Dutch drugget. All the rooms were ‘best rooms’, with soft carpets and splendid old furniture. The beds were all four-posters with carved pillars and silk damask curtains, and there were sure to be the loveliest things to make believe with in whatever room you happened to be put into. In this room there were cases of stuffed birds, and a stuffed pike that was just like life. There was a wonderful old cabinet, black and red and gold, very mysterious, and oak chests, and two fat white Indian idols sitting cross-legged on the mantelpiece. It was very delightful; but Molly liked it best in the daytime. And she was glad of the night-light.

  She thought of Bertie, and Cicely, and Eva, and baby, and Vincent, and wondered whether measles hurt much.

  Next day Aunt Maria was quite bearable. The worst thing she said was about people coming when they weren’t expected, and upsetting everything.

  ‘I’ll try not to upset anything,’ said Molly, and went out and got the gardener to put up a swing for her.

  Then she upset herself out of it, and got a bump on her forehead the size of a hen’s egg, and that, as Aunt Maria very properly said, kept her out of mischief for the rest of the day.

  Next morning Molly had two letters. The first was from Bertie. It said:

  ‘Dear Molly,

  ‘It is rough lines on you, but we did not mean to keep it up, and it is your fault for coming home the day before you ought to have. We did it to kid old Simpshall, because she was so beastly about us making a real battlefield. We only painted all the parts of us that show with vermilion, and put spots — mixed crimson lake and Prussian blue — all over, and we pulled down the blinds and said our heads ached, and so they did with crying — I mean the girls cried. She was afraid to come near us; but she was sorry she had been such a beast. And when she had come to the door and said so through the keyhole we owned up, but you had gone by then. It was a rare lark, but we’ve got three days bedder for it. I shall lower this on the end of a fishingline to the baker’s boy, and he will post it. It is like a dungeon. He is going to bring us tarts, like a faithful page.

  ‘Your affectionate bro.,

  ‘Bertrand de Lisle Carruthers.’

  The other letter was from mother.

  ‘My darling Molly,

  It was all a naughty hoax, intended to annoy poor Miss Simpshall. Your brothers and sisters had painted their faces red and purple — they had not measles at all. But since you are at Aunt Maria’s I think you may as well stay ...’

  ‘How awful!’ said Molly. ‘It is too bad!’

  ‘... stay and make it your annual visit. Be a good girl, dear, and do not forget to wear your pinafores in the morning.

  ‘Your loving Mother.’

  Molly wrote a nice little letter to her mother. To her brother she said:

  Dear Bertie,

  I think you are beasts to have let me in for this. You might have thought of me. I shall not forgive you till the sun is just going down, and I would not then, only it is so wrong not to. I wish you had been named Maria, and had to stay here instead of me.

  ‘Your broken-hearted sister,

  ‘Molly Carruthers.’

  When Molly stayed at the White House she was accustomed to read aloud in the mornings from ‘Ministering Children’ or ‘Little Pilgrims,’ while Aunt Maria sewed severely. But that morning Aunt Maria did not send for her.

  ‘Your aunt’s not well,’ Clements told her; ‘she won’t be down before lunch. Run along, do, miss, and walk in the garden like a young lady.’

  Molly chose rather to swagger out into the stableyard like a young gentleman. The groom was saddling the sorrel horse.

  ‘I’ve got to take a telegram to the station,’ said he.

  ‘Take me,’ said Molly.

  ‘Likely! And what ud your aunt say?’

  ‘She won’t know,’ said Molly, ‘and if she does I’ll say I made you.’

  He laughed, and Molly had a splendid ride behind the groom, with her arms so tight round his waistcoat that he could hardly breathe.

  When they got to the station a porter lifted her down, and the groom let her send off the telegram. It was to Uncle Toodlethwaite, and it said:

  ‘Please come down at once urgent business most important
don’t fail bring Bates. — Maria Carruthers.’

  So Molly knew something very out of the way had happened, and she was glad that her aunt should have something to think of besides her, because the White House would have been a very nice place to stay at if Aunt Maria had not so often remembered to do her duty by you.

  In the afternoon Uncle Toodlethwaite came, and he and Aunt Maria and a person in black with a shining black bag — Molly supposed he was Mr. Bates, who was to be brought by Uncle Toodlethwaite — sat in the dining-room with the door shut.

  Molly went to help the kitchenmaid shell peas, in the little grass courtyard in the middle of the house. They sat on the kitchen steps, and Molly could hear the voices of Clements and the housekeeper through the open window of the servants’ hall. She heard, but she did not think it was eavesdropping, or anything dishonourable, like listening at doors. They were talking quite out loud.

  ‘And a dreadful blow it will be to us all, if true,’ the housekeeper was saying.

  ‘She thinks it’s true,’ said Clements; ‘cried her eyes out, she did, and wired for her brother-in-law once removed.’

  ‘Meaning her brother’s brother-in-law — I see. But I don’t know as I really understand the ins and outs of it even yet.’

  ‘Well, it’s like this,’ said Clements: ‘missis an’ her brother they used to live here along of their uncle, and he had a son, a regular bad egg he was, and the old master said he shouldn’t ever have a penny of his money. He said he’d leave it to Mr. Carruthers — that’s missis’s brother, see?’

  ‘That means father,’ thought Molly.

  ‘And he’d leave missis the house and enough money to keep it up in style. He was a warm man, it seems. Well, then the son’s drowned at sea — ship went down and all aboard perished. Just as well, because when the old man died they couldn’t find no will. So it all comes to missis and her brother, there being no other relations near or far, and they divides it the same as the old man had always said he wished. You see what I mean?’

  ‘Near enough,’ said the housekeeper; ‘and then?’