Kitobni o'qish: «The Girls and I: A Veracious History»

CHAPTER I
OURSELVES

I'm Jack. I've always been Jack, ever since I can remember at least, though I suppose I must have been called 'Baby' for a bit before Serena came. But she's only a year and a half younger than me, and Maud's only a year and a quarter behind her, so I can scarcely remember even Serena being 'Baby'; and Maud's always been so very grown up for her age that you couldn't fancy her anything but 'Maud.'

My real name isn't John though, as you might fancy. It's a much queerer name, but there's always been one of it in our family ever since some grandfather or other married a German girl, who called her eldest son after her own father. So we're accustomed to it, and it doesn't seem so queer to us as to other people. It's 'Joachim.' 'Jock' seems a better short for it than 'Jack,' doesn't it? and I believe mother once meant to call me 'Jock.' But when Serry and Maud came I had to be Jack, for with Anne and Hebe in front of me, and the two others behind, of course I was 'Jack-in-the-middle.' There's never been any more of us, and even if there had I'd have stayed Jack, once I'd got settled into it, you see.

I'm eleven. I'm writing this in the holidays; and if I don't get it finished before they're done I'll keep adding on to it till I've told all there is to tell.

It's a sort of comfort to me to write about everything, for one way and another I've had a good deal to put up with, all because of —girls. And I have to be good-tempered and nice just because they are girls. And besides that, I'm really very fond of them; and they're not bad. But no one who hasn't tried it knows in the least what it is to be one boy among a lot of girls, 'specially when some of them are rather boy-ey girls, and when you yourself are just a little perhaps – just a very little – the other way.

I don't think I'm a baby. Honestly I don't, and I'm not going to write down anything I don't quite think. But I do like to be quiet, and I like to have things tidy and regular. I like rules, and keeping to them; and I hate racket and mess. Anne, now, drives me nearly wild with her rushy, helter-skelter ways. You wouldn't think it, would you, considering that she's fourteen, and the eldest, and that she's been the eldest all her life? – eldests should be steady and good examples. And her name sounds steady and neat, doesn't it? and yet of all the untidy, unpunctual – no, I mustn't let myself go like that. Besides, it's quite true, as Hebe says, Anne has got a very good heart, and she's very particular in some mind ways; she never says a word that isn't quite true – she doesn't even exaggerate. I have noticed that rather tiresome, careless people often have very good hearts. I wish they could see how much nicer it would be for other people if they'd put some of their good hearts into their tiresome ways.

On the whole, it's Hebe that suits the best with me. She particular —much more particular than Anne, though not quite as particular as I'd like her to be, and then she is really awfully sweet. That makes her a little worrying sometimes, for she will take sides. If I am in a great state at finding our postage stamps all muddled, for instance – Anne and Hebe and I have a collection together, I am sorry to say – and I know who's been at them and say something – who could help saying something if they found a lot of carefully-sorted ones ready to gum in, all pitched into the unsorted box with Uncle Brian's last envelopeful that I haven't looked over? – up flies Hebe in Anne's defence.

'Poor Anne, she was in such a hurry, she never meant it'; or 'she only wanted to help you, Jack; she didn't know you had sorted these.'

Now, isn't that rather trying? For it makes me feel as if I was horrid; and if Hebe would just say, 'Yes, it is awfully tiresome,' I'd feel I had a sort of right to be vexed, and when you feel that, the vexedness often goes away.

Still, there's no doubt Hebe is sweet, and I daresay she flies up for me just as she does for the others when I am the one not there.

We're all very fond of Hebe. She and Serena are rather like each other; they have fair fluffy hair and rosy cheeks, but they're not a bit like each other in themselves. Serena is a terrible tomboy – worse than Anne, for she really never thinks at all. Anne does mean to think, but she does it the wrong way; she gets her head so full of some one thing that she forgets everything else, and then she's awfully sorry. But Serry just doesn't think at all, though she's very good-natured, and, of course, when it comes to really vexing or hurting any one, she's sorry too – for about a minute and a half!

And then there's Maud. It is very funny about Maud, the oddest thing about us, though we are rather a topsy-turvy family. Maud is only eight and a half, but she's the oldest of us all.

'She's that terrible old-fashioned,' mother's old nurse said when she came to pay us a visit once, 'she's scarce canny.'

They call me old-fashioned sometimes, but I'm nothing to Maud. Why, bless you (I learnt that from old nurse, and I like it, and nobody can say it's naughty to bless anybody), compared to Maud I'm careless, and untidy, and unpunctual, and heedless, and everything of these kinds that I shouldn't be. And yet she and I don't get on as well as Hebe and I do, and in some ways even not as well as Anne and I do. But Maud and Anne get on very well – I never saw anything like it. She tidies for Anne; she reminds her of things she's going to forget; she seems to think she was sent into the world to take care of her big sister. Anne is big – at least she's tall – tall and thin, and with rather smooth dark hair. My goodness! if she'd had fluffy hair like us three middle ones – for even mine is rather a bother, it grows so fast and is so curly – what would she have looked like? She seems meant to be neat, and till you know her, and go her all over pretty closely, you'd never guess how untidy she is – pins all over, even though Sophy is always mending her frocks and things. And Maud is dark too, though her hair is curly like ours; she's like a gipsy, people say, but she's not a bit gipsy in her ways– oh dear, no!

We live in London – mostly, that's to say. We've got a big dark old house that really belongs to grandfather, but he's so little there that he lets us use it, for father has to be in London a lot. We're always there in winter; that's the time grandfather's generally in France or Egypt, or somewhere warm. Now and then, if he's later of going away than usual, or sooner of coming back, he's with us a while in London. We don't like it much.

That sounds unkind. I don't mean to be unkind. I'm just writing everything down because I want to practise myself at it. Father writes books – very clever ones, though they're stories. I've read bits, but I didn't understand them much, only I know they're very clever by the fuss that's made about them. And people wonder how ever he gets time to write them with all the Government things he does too. He must be very clever; that's what put it in my head that perhaps some day I might be clever that way too. For I don't want to be either a soldier or a sailor, or a lawyer like father was before he got into Government things, and I'm sure I'm not good enough to be a parson, though I think I'd rather like it; and so sometimes I really get frightened that I'll be no good at anything at all, and a boy must be something.

I think father and mother would be pleased if I were a great writer.

And then we really have had some adventures: that makes it more interesting to make out a story about ourselves, for I think a book just about getting up and going to bed, and breakfast, and dinner, and tea, would be very stupid – though, all the same, in story-books I do like rather to know what the children have to eat, and something about the place they live in too.

To go back about grandfather. The reason we don't much like his being with us isn't exactly that we don't care for him. He's not bad. But father's his only child, and our grandmother died a good while ago, and I think she must have been a very giving-in sort of person, and that's bad training for any one. When I'm grown up, if ever I marry, I shall settle with my wife before we start that she mustn't give in to me too much, and I'll stick to it once it's settled. For I've got rather a nasty temper, and I feel in me that if I was to get too much of my own way it would get horrid. It's perhaps because of that that it's been a good thing for me to have four sisters, for they're nearly as bad as four wives sometimes. I don't get too much of my own way at present, I can tell you.

I often think I'm rather like grandfather. P'raps if he'd had four sisters or a not-too-giving-in wife he'd have been better. Now, I hope that's not rude? I don't mean it to be; I'm rather excusing him. And I can't put down what isn't true, even though nobody should ever see this 'veracious history' – that's what I'm going to put on the title-page – except myself. And the truth is that grandfather expects everybody and everything to give in to him. Not always father, for he does see how grand and clever father is, and that he can't be expected to come and go, and do things, and give up things, just like a baby. But oh, as for poor little mums! – that's mother – her life's not her own when gran's with us. And it isn't that she's silly a bit. She's awfully sensible; something like Hebe and Maud mixed together, though to look at her she's more like Anne. It's real goodness makes her give in.

'He's getting old, dears, you know,' she says, 'and practically he's so very good to us.'

I'm not quite sure that I understand quite what 'practically' means. I think it's to do with the house – or the houses, for we've got two – and money. For father, though he's so clever, wouldn't be rich without grandfather, I don't think. Perhaps it means presents too. He – grandfather – isn't bad about presents. He never forgets birthdays or Christmases – oh dear, no, he's got an awfully good memory. Sometimes some of us would almost rather be worse off for presents if only he'd forget some other things.

I'm like him about remembering too. I think my mind is rather tidy, as well as my outside ways. I've got things very neat inside; I often feel as if it was a cupboard, and I like to know exactly which shelf to go to for anything I want. Mums says, 'That's all very well so far as it goes, Jack, but don't stop short at that, or you will be in danger of growing narrow-minded and self-satisfied.'

And I think I know what she means. There are some things now about Anne, for all her tiresome ways, that I know are grander than about me, or even perhaps than about Hebe, only Hebe's sweetness makes up for everything. But Anne would give anything in a moment to do any one a good turn. And I – well, I'd think about it. I didn't at all like having to tear up my nice pocket-handkerchief even the day we found the poor little boy with his leg bleeding so dreadfully in the Park, and Anne had hers in strips in a moment. And she'll lend her very best things to any one of us. And she's got feelings I don't understand. Beautiful church music makes her want so dreadfully to be good, she says. I like it very much, but I don't think I feel it that way. I just feel nice and quiet, and almost a little sleepy if it goes on a good while.

I was telling about our house in London. It's big, and rather grand in a dull sort of way, but dark and gloomy. Long ago, when they built big houses, I think they fancied it was the proper thing to make them dark. It's nice in winter when it's shut up for the night, and the gas lighted in the hall and on the staircases, and with the lamps in the dining-room and drawing-rooms and library – it is very warm and comfortable then, and though the furniture's old-fashioned, and not a pretty kind of old-fashioned, it looks grand in a way. But when the spring comes, and the bright days show up all the dinginess, poor mother, how she does sigh!

'I would so like to have a pretty house,' she says. 'The curtains are all so dark, you can scarcely see they're any colour at all, and those dreadful heavy gilt frames to the mirrors in the drawing-rooms! Oh, Alan' – Alan is father – 'don't you think gran would let us refurnish even the third drawing-room? I could make it a sort of boudoir, you know, and I could have my own friends in there in the daytime. The rooms don't look so bad at night.'

But father shakes his head.

'I'm afraid he wouldn't like it,' he says.

So I suppose even father gives in a good deal to gran.

Mums isn't a bit selfish. The brightest rooms in the house have always been ours. They're two floors over the drawing-rooms, which are really very big rooms. We have a nursery, and on one side of it a dressing-room – that's mine – and two other rooms, with two beds each for the girls. We do our lessons in the study – a little room in front of the dining-room, very jolly, for it looks to the front, and the street is wide, and we can see all the barrel-organs and monkeys, and Punch and Judys, and bands, when we're doing our lessons. I don't mean when we're having our lessons; that's different. My goodness! I'd like to see even Serry try to look out of the window when Miss Stirling is there! Miss Stirling's our governess. She comes, you know; she's not a living-in-the-house one, and she's pretty strict, so we like her best the way she is. But doing our lessons is when we're learning them. Most days, in winter anyway, we go a walk till four, or a quarter to, and then we learn for an hour, and then we have tea; and if we're not finished, we come down again till half-past six or so, and then we dress to go into the drawing-room to mums.

She nearly always dresses for dinner early, so we have an hour with her. The little ones, Serena and Maud, never have much to learn. It's Anne and Hebe and me. We all do Latin – I mean we three do. And twice a week Miss Stirling takes Anne and Hebe to French and German classes for 'advanced pupils.' I'm not an advanced pupil, so those mornings I work alone for two hours, and then I've not much to do in the evening those days. And Miss Stirling gives me French and German the days that the girls are at their music with Mrs. Meux, their music-teacher.

That's how we've done for a long time – ages. But next year I'm going to school.

I'm to go when I'm twelve. My birthday comes in November. It's just been; that's how I said 'I'm eleven,' not eleven and a quarter, or eleven and a half – just eleven. And I'm to go at the end of the Christmas holidays after that. I don't much mind; at least I don't think I do. I'll have more lessons and more games in a regular way, and I'll have less worries, anyway at first. For I shall be counted a small boy, of course, and I shan't have to look after others and be blamed for them, the way I have to look after the girls at home. It'll really be a sort of rest. I've had such a lot of looking after other people. I really have.

Mums says so herself sometimes. She even says I have to look after her. And it's true. She's awfully good – she's almost an angel – but she's a tiny bit like Anne. She's rather untidy. Not to look at, ever. She's as neat as a pin, and then she's very pretty; but she's careless – she says so herself. She so often loses things, because she's got a trick of putting them down anywhere she happens to be. Often and often I go to her room when she's dressing, and tap at the door and say —

'Have you lost something, mums?'

And ten to one she'll call back —

'Yes, my dear town-crier, I have.' ('My gloves,' or 'my card-case,' or 'my keys,' or, oh! almost anything.) 'But I wasn't worrying about it; I knew you'd find it, Jack.'

And Maud does finder for Anne, just the same way, only her finding sometimes gets me into trouble. Just fancy that. If Anne loses something, and Maud is hunting away and doesn't find it all at once, they'll turn upon me – they truly will – and say —

'You might help her, Jack, you really might, poor little thing! It's no trouble to you to run up and down stairs, and she's so little.'

When that sort of thing happens, I do feel that I've got a rather nasty temper.

I've begun about losing things, because our adventures had to do with a very big losing. The first adventure came straight from it, and the rest had to do with it.

It's funny how things hang together like that. You think of something that's come, and you remember what made it happen, and then you go back to the beginning of that, and you see it came from something else; and you go on feeling it out like, till you're quite astonished to find what a perfectly different thing had started it all from what you would have thought.

I think this will be a good place for ending the first chapter, which isn't really like a story – only an explanation of us.

And in the next I'll begin about our adventures.

CHAPTER II
THE DIAMOND ORNAMENT

It was two years ago nearly; it was the end of February – no, I think it was a little way on in March. So I was only nine and a quarter, and Anne was about twelve, and all the others in proportion younger than they are now, of course. You can count their ages, if you like, though I don't know who 'you' are, or if there's ever going to be any 'you' at all. But it's the sort of thing I like to do myself when I read a story. I count all the people's ages, and the times they did things, and that things are said to have happened, and I can tell you that very often I find that authors make very stupid mistakes. I told father of this once, and I said I'd like to write and tell them. He laughed, but he called me a prig, which I didn't like, so I never have written to any of them.

That winter began early, and was very cold, but it went early too. So grandfather took it into his head to come back to England the end of February, for a bit, meaning to go on somewhere else – to Ireland, I think, where we have some relations – after he'd been in London a fortnight or so.

It all came – all that I've got to tell – of gran's returning from the hot place he'd been at, whichever it was, so much sooner than usual.

There was going to be a Drawing-room just about the end of the fortnight he was to be with us, and mums was going to it. She had fixed it a good while ago, because she was going to take some friends – a girl who'd got married to a cousin of father's, and another girl – to be presented. They were both rather pretty. We saw them in the morning, when they came for mums to take them. I thought the married one prettiest; she had nice laughing eyes. If ever I marry, I'd like a girl with laughing eyes; they look so jolly. The other one was rather cross, I thought, and so did Maud. But Anne said she was interesting-looking, as if she had a hidden sorrow, like in poetry. And after that, none of us quite dared to say she was only cross-looking. And she wasn't really cross; we found that out afterwards. It was only the way her face was made.

Her name was Judith, and the married one was Dorothea. We always call her that, as she's our cousin.

They were prettily dressed, both of them. All white. But Dorothea's dress went rather in creases. It looked too loose. I went all round her, ever so many times, peeping at it, though she didn't know, of course. I can tell when a dress fits, as well as anybody, because of helping to dress mums so often. Sometimes, for a change from the town-crier, mums calls me a man-milliner. I don't mind.

Judith's dress was all right. It was of silk, a soft kind, not near so liney as satin. I like it better. They were both very neat. No pins or hair-pins sticking out.

But mums looked prettiest. I can tell you how she was dressed, because she's not been at a Drawing-room since, for last spring and summer she got a cold or something both times she meant to go. By rights she should go every year, because of what father is. I hope she'll go next spring, for after that I shall be at school, and never able to see her, and I do love to look at her all grand like that. She says she doesn't know how she'll do without me for seeing she's all right.

Well, her dress was blue and pale pink, the train blue – a flowery pattern – and she had blue and pink bunches of feathers all sticking about it; no flowers except her nosegay, which was blushing roses tied with blue streamers.

She did look nice.

Her hair looked grander than usual, because of something she had never had in it before, and that was a beautiful diamond twisty-twirly thing. I have never seen a diamond brooch or pin quite like it, though I often look in the jewellers' windows.

She was very proud of it, though she'd only got the loan of it. I must go back a bit to tell you how she had got it.

A day or two before grandfather left, mums told him about the Drawing-room. If she had known he was going to be with us then, she wouldn't have fixed to go to it; for, as I have said, he takes up nearly all her time, especially when he's only there for a short visit. I suppose I shouldn't call it a visit, as it's his own house, but it seems the best word. And for her to be a whole day out, not in at luncheon, and a train-show at afternoon tea-time, would have been just what he doesn't like. But it couldn't be helped now, as others were counting on her, especially Mrs. Chasserton, our cousin's wife – that's Dorothea.

We were there – Anne, Hebe, and I – when mother told gran about it. We really felt rather frightened, but she said it so sweetly, I felt sure he couldn't be vexed. And he wasn't. He did frudge up his eyebrows – 'frudge' is a word we've made ourselves, it does do so well; we've made several – and they are very thick. Anne opened her mouth in a silly way she has, just enough to make him say, 'What are you gaping at, Miss Anne, may I ask?' but luckily he didn't notice. And Hebe squeezed my hand under the table-cloth. It was breakfast time. But in a minute he unfrudged his eyebrows, and then we knew it was over.

'Quite right, my dear Valeria,' he said. Valeria is mums' name; isn't it pretty? 'I am very glad for you to show attention to Dick's wife – quite right, as you are at the head of the family. As for Judith Merthyr – h-m – h-m – she's a strong-minded young woman, I'm told – don't care about strong-minded young women – wonder she condescends to such frivolity. And thank you, my dear, for your consideration for me. But it won't be needed. I must leave for Holyhead on Tuesday. They are expecting me at Tilly' something or other (I don't mean that gran said that, but I can't remember these long Irish names).

Tuesday was the day before the Drawing-room. I'm sure mums clapped her inside hands – that's another of our makings up – I know we did. For if gran had been there I don't believe we'd have got in to the train-show at all. And of course it's much jollier to be in the drawing-room in the afternoon, waiting for them to come back, and speaking to the people that are there, and getting a good many extra teas and sandwiches and cakes and ices, than just to see mums start in the morning, however pretty she looks.

Grandfather was really rather wonderful that day.

'What are you going to wear, my dear Valeria?' he asked mother.

She told him.

'H-m, h-m,' he said. He has different ways of h-ming. This time it was all right, not like when he spoke of Judy Merthyr. And actually a smile broke over his face.

The night before he was leaving he came into the drawing-room just before dinner-time, looking very smiley. He was holding something in his hand – a dark leather case.

'My dear child,' he said, and though we were all five there we knew he was speaking to mother. I like to hear mother called 'my dear child' – father does it sometimes – it makes her seem so nice and young. 'My dear child,' he said, 'I have got something here that I want you to wear in your hair at the Drawing-room. I cannot give it you out and out, though I mean you to have it some day, but I want to lend it you for as long as you like.'

And then he opened the case, mother standing close by, and all of us trying to peep too. It was the twisty-twirly diamond ornament. A sort of knot – big diamonds in the middle and littler ones in and out. It is awfully pretty. I never saw diamonds sparkle so – you can see every colour in them when you look close, like thousands of prisms, you know. It had a case on purpose for it, and there were pins of different shapes and sizes, so that it could be a brooch, or a hair-pin, or a hanging thing without a pin at all.

Mums was pleased.

'Oh, thank you, dear gran,' she said. 'It is good of you. Yes, indeed, I shall be proud to have such a lovely, splendid ornament in my hair.'

Then grandfather took it out of the case, and showed her all the different ways of fastening in the pins. They had little screws at their ends, and they all fitted in so neatly, it was quite interesting to see.

'You will wear it in your hair on Wednesday, no doubt,' he said. 'So I will fasten in the hair-pin – there, you see it screws quite firmly.'

And then he gave it to mother, and she took it upstairs and put it away.

The next night – grandfather had left that morning – father and mother were going out to dinner. Mother dresses rather early generally, so that she can be with us a little, but that night she had been busy, and she was rather late. She called us into her room when she was nearly ready, not to disappoint us, and because we always like to see her dressed. She had on a red dress that night, I remember.

Her maid, Rowley, had put out all the things on the toilet-table. When mums isn't in a hurry I often choose for her what she's going to wear – we spread all the cases out and then we settle. But to-night there wasn't time for that. Rowley had got out a lot of things, because she didn't know which mother would choose, and among them the new, grand, diamond thing of grandfather's.

'Oh,' said Anne – she and I were first at the toilet-table, – 'are you going to wear gran's ornament, mother?'

'No, of course not,' said mums. 'It's only for very grand occasions, and to-night is quite a small dinner. I've got on all the jewellery I need. But, Jack, do help me to fasten this bracelet, there's a good boy.' Rowley was fussing away at something that wasn't quite right in mother's skirt. Mother was rather impatient, and the bracelet was fidgety.

But at last I got it done, and Rowley stood up with rather a red face from tacking the sweepy, lacey thing that had come undone. Mums flew off.

'Good-night, dears,' she said. 'I haven't even time to kiss you. Father has gone down, and the carriage has been there ever so long.'

The girls called out 'good-night,' and Hebe and I ran to the top of the staircase to watch her go down. Then we went straight back to the nursery, and in a minute or two the three others came in. Maud was saying something to Anne, and Anne was laughing at her.

'Did you ever hear such a little prig as Maud?' she said. 'She's actually scolding me because I was looking at mums's jewels.'

'Anne made them all untidy,' said Maud.

'Well, Rowley'll tidy them again. She came back on purpose; she'd only gone down to put mother's cloak on,' said Anne carelessly.

'Anne,' said I rather sharply. You see I knew her ways, and mums often leaves me in charge. 'Were you playing with mother's jewels?'

'I was doing no harm,' said Anne; 'I was only looking at the way the pins fasten in to that big diamond thing. It's quite right, Jack, you needn't fuss. Rowley's putting them all away.'

So I didn't say any more.

And to-morrow was the Drawing-room day.

Mother looked beautiful, as I said. We watched her start with the two others, cousin Dorothea and Miss Merthyr. It was rather a cold day; they took lots of warm cloaks in the carriage. I remember hearing Judy – we call her Judy now – say,

'You must take plenty of wraps, Mrs. Warwick,' – that's mother. 'My aunt made me bring a fur cape that I thought I should not wear again this year; it would never do for you to catch cold.'

Mums does look rather delicate, but she isn't delicate really. She's never ill. But Judith looked at her so nicely when she said that about not catching cold, that the cross look went quite out of her face, and I saw it was only something about her eyebrows. And I began to think she must be rather nice.

But we didn't see her again. She did not get out of the carriage when they came back in the afternoon, but went straight home to her own house. Somebody of hers was ill there. Cousin Dorothea came back with mother, and three other ladies in trains came too, so there was rather a good show.

And everybody was laughing and talking, and we'd all had two or three little teas and several ices, and it was all very jolly when a dreadful thing happened.

I was standing by mother. I had brought her a cup of tea from the end drawing-room where Rowley and the others were pouring it out, and she was just drinking it, when I happened to look up at her head.

'Mums,' I said, 'why have you taken out gran's diamond thing? It looked so nice.'

Mums put her hand to her head – to the place where she knew she had put in the pin: of course it wasn't there, I wouldn't have made such a mistake.

Mums grew white – really white. I never saw her like that except once when father was thrown from his horse.

'Oh, Jack,' she said, 'are you sure?' and she kept feeling all over her hair among the feathers and hanging lacey things, as if she thought it must be sticking about somewhere.

'Stoop down, mums,' I said, 'and I'll have a good look.'

There weren't many people there just then – several had gone, and several were having tea. So mums sat down on a low chair, and I poked all over her hair. But of course the pin was gone – no, I shouldn't say the pin, for it was there; its top, with the screwy end, was sticking up, but the beautiful diamond thing was gone!

I drew out the pin, and mother gave a little cry of joy as she felt me.

'Oh, it's there,' she said, 'there after all – '