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The Wouldbegoods

E >> E. Nesbit >> The Wouldbegoods




A mile is a good way when you have to take your turn at carrying
Martha.

At last we came to a hedge with a ditch in front of it, and chains
swinging from posts to keep people off the grass and out of the
ditch, and a gate with 'The Cedars' on it in gold letters. All
very neat and tidy, and showing plainly that more than one gardener
was kept. There we stopped. Alice put Martha down, grunting with
exhaustedness, and said--

'Look here, Dora and Daisy, I don't believe a bit that it's his
grandmother. I'm sure Dora was right, and it's only his horrid
sweetheart. I feel it in my bones. Now, don't you really think
we'd better chuck it; we're sure to catch it for interfering. We
always do.'

'The cross of true love never did come smooth,' said the Dentist.
'We ought to help him to bear his cross.'

'But if we find her for him, and she's not his grandmother, he'll
MARRY her,' Dicky said in tones of gloominess and despair.

Oswald felt the same, but he said, 'Never mind. We should all hate
it, but perhaps Albert's uncle MIGHT like it. You can never tell.
If you want to do a really unselfish action and no kid, now's your
time, my late Wouldbegoods.'

No one had the face to say right out that they didn't want to be
unselfish.

But it was with sad hearts that the unselfish seekers opened the
long gate and went up the gravel drive between the rhododendrons
and other shrubberies towards the house.

I think I have explained to you before that the eldest son of
anybody is called the representative of the family if his father
isn't there. This was why Oswald now took the lead. When we got
to the last turn of the drive it was settled that the others were
to noiselessly ambush in the rhododendrons, and Oswald was to go on
alone and ask at the house for the grandmother from India--I mean
Miss Ashleigh.

So he did, but when he got to the front of the house and saw how
neat the flower-beds were with red geraniums, and the windows all
bright and speckless with muslin blinds and brass rods, and a green
parrot in a cage in the porch, and the doorstep newly whited, lying
clean and untrodden in the sunshine, he stood still and thought of
his boots and how dusty the roads were, and wished he had not gone
into the farmyard after eggs before starting that morning. As he
stood there in anxious uncertainness he heard a low voice among the
bushes. It said, 'Hist! Oswald here!' and it was the voice of
Alice.

So he went back to the others among the shrubs and they all crowded
round their leader full of importable news.

'She's not in the house; she's HERE,' Alice said in a low whisper
that seemed nearly all S's. 'Close by--she went by just this
minute with a gentleman.'

'And they're sitting on a seat under a tree on a little lawn, and
she's got her head on his shoulder, and he's holding her hand. I
never saw anyone look so silly in all my born,' Dicky said.

'It's sickening,' Denny said, trying to look very manly with his
legs wide apart.

'I don't know,' Oswald whispered. 'I suppose it wasn't Albert's
uncle?'

'Not much,' Dicky briefly replied.

'Then don't you see it's all right. If she's going on like that
with this fellow she'll want to marry him, and Albert's uncle is
safe. And we've really done an unselfish action without having to
suffer for it afterwards.'

With a stealthy movement Oswald rubbed his hands as he spoke in
real joyfulness. We decided that we had better bunk unnoticed.
But we had reckoned without Martha. She had strolled off limping
to look about her a bit in the shrubbery. 'Where's Martha?' Dora
suddenly said.

'She went that way,' pointingly remarked H. O.

'Then fetch her back, you young duffer! What did you let her go
for?' Oswald said. 'And look sharp. Don't make a row.'

He went. A minute later we heard a hoarse squeak from Martha--the
one she always gives when suddenly collared from behind--and a
little squeal in a lady-like voice, and a man say 'Hallo!' and then
we knew that H. O. had once more rushed in where angels might have
thought twice about it. We hurried to the fatal spot, but it was
too late. We were just in time to hear H. O. say--

'I'm sorry if she frightened you. But we've been looking for you.
Are you Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother?'

'NO,' said our lady unhesitatingly.

It seemed vain to add seven more agitated actors to the scene now
going on. We stood still. The man was standing up. He was a
clergyman, and I found out afterwards he was the nicest we ever
knew except our own Mr Briston at Lewisham, who is now a canon or
a dean, or something grand that no one ever sees. At present I did
not like him. He said, 'No, this lady is nobody's grandmother.
May I ask in return how long it is since you escaped from the
lunatic asylum, my poor child, and whence your keeper is?'

H. O. took no notice of this at all, except to say, 'I think you
are very rude, and not at all funny, if you think you are.'

The lady said, 'My dear, I remember you now perfectly. How are all
the others, and are you pilgrims again to-day?'

H. O. does not always answer questions. He turned to the man and
said--

'Are you going to marry the lady?'

'Margaret,' said the clergyman, 'I never thought it would come to
this: he asks me my intentions.'

'If you ARE,' said H. O., 'it's all right, because if you do
Albert's uncle can't--at least, not till you're dead. And we don't
want him to.'

'Flattering, upon my word,' said the clergyman, putting on a deep
frown. 'Shall I call him out, Margaret, for his poor opinion of
you, or shall I send for the police?'

Alice now saw that H. O., though firm, was getting muddled and
rather scared. She broke cover and sprang into the middle of the
scene.

'Don't let him rag H. O. any more,' she said, 'it's all our faults.
You see, Albert's uncle was so anxious to find you, we thought
perhaps you were his long-lost heiress sister or his old nurse who
alone knew the secret of his birth, or something, and we asked him,
and he said you were his long-lost grandmother he had known in
India. And we thought that must be a mistake and that really you
were his long-lost sweetheart. And we tried to do a really
unselfish act and find you for him. Because we don't want him to
be married at all.'

'It isn't because we don't like YOU,' Oswald cut in, now emerging
from the bushes, 'and if he must marry, we'd sooner it was you than
anyone. Really we would.'

'A generous concession, Margaret,' the strange clergyman uttered,
'most generous, but the plot thickens. It's almost pea-soup-like
now. One or two points clamour for explanation. Who are these
visitors of yours? Why this Red Indian method of paying morning
calls? Why the lurking attitude of the rest of the tribe which I
now discern among the undergrowth? Won't you ask the rest of the
tribe to come out and join the glad throng?'

Then I liked him better. I always like people who know the same
songs we do, and books and tunes and things.

The others came out. The lady looked very uncomfy, and partly as
if she was going to cry. But she couldn't help laughing too, as
more and more of us came out.

'And who,' the clergyman went on, 'who in fortune's name is Albert?
And who is his uncle? And what have they or you to do in this
galere--I mean garden?'

We all felt rather silly, and I don't think I ever felt more than
then what an awful lot there were of us.

'Three years' absence in Calcutta or elsewhere may explain my
ignorance of these details, but still--'

'I think we'd better go,' said Dora. 'I'm sorry if we've done
anything rude or wrong. We didn't mean to. Good-bye. I hope
you'll be happy with the gentleman, I'm sure.'

'I HOPE so too,' said Noel, and I know he was thinking how much
nicer Albert's uncle was. We turned to go. The lady had been very
silent compared with what she was when she pretended to show us
Canterbury. But now she seemed to shake off some dreamy silliness,
and caught hold of Dora by the shoulder.

'No, dear, no,' she said, 'it's all right, and you must have some
tea--we'll have it on the lawn. John, don't tease them any more.
Albert's uncle is the gentleman I told you about. And, my dear
children, this is my brother that I haven't seen for three years.'

'Then he's a long-lost too,' said H. O.

The lady said 'Not now' and smiled at him.

And the rest of us were dumb with confounding emotions. Oswald was
particularly dumb. He might have known it was her brother, because
in rotten grown-up books if a girl kisses a man in a shrubbery that
is not the man you think she's in love with; it always turns out to
be a brother, though generally the disgrace of the family and not
a respectable chaplain from Calcutta.

The lady now turned to her reverend and surprising brother and
said, 'John, go and tell them we'll have tea on the lawn.'

When he was gone she stood quite still a minute. Then she said,
'I'm going to tell you something, but I want to put you on your
honour not to talk about it to other people. You see it isn't
everyone I would tell about it. He, Albert's uncle, I mean, has
told me a lot about you, and I know I can trust you.'

We said 'Yes', Oswald with a brooding sentiment of knowing all too
well what was coming next.

The lady then said, 'Though I am not Albert's uncle's grandmother
I did know him in India once, and we were going to be married, but
we had a--a--misunderstanding.'

'Quarrel?' Row?' said Noel and H. O. at once.

'Well, yes, a quarrel, and he went away. He was in the Navy then.
And then ... well, we were both sorry, but well, anyway, when his
ship came back we'd gone to Constantinople, then to England, and he
couldn't find us. And he says he's been looking for me ever
since.'

'Not you for him?' said Noel.

'Well, perhaps,' said the lady.

And the girls said 'Ah!' with deep interest. The lady went on more
quickly, 'And then I found you, and then he found me, and now I
must break it to you. Try to bear up.'

She stopped. The branches cracked, and Albert's uncle was in our
midst. He took off his hat. 'Excuse my tearing my hair,' he said
to the lady, 'but has the pack really hunted you down?'

'It's all right,' she said, and when she looked at him she got
miles prettier quite suddenly. 'I was just breaking to them ...'

'Don't take that proud privilege from me,' he said. 'Kiddies,
allow me to present you to the future Mrs Albert's uncle, or shall
we say Albert's new aunt?'

* * *
There was a good deal of explaining done before tea--about how we
got there, I mean, and why. But after the first bitterness of
disappointment we felt not nearly so sorry as we had expected to.
For Albert's uncle's lady was very jolly to us, and her brother was
awfully decent, and showed us a lot of first-class native
curiosities and things, unpacking them on purpose; skins of beasts,
and beads, and brass things, and shells from different savage lands
besides India. And the lady told the girls that she hoped they
would like her as much as she liked them, and if they wanted a new
aunt she would do her best to give satisfaction in the new
situation. And Alice thought of the Murdstone aunt belonging to
Daisy and Denny, and how awful it would have been if Albert's uncle
had married HER. And she decided, she told me afterwards, that we
might think ourselves jolly lucky it was no worse.

Then the lady led Oswald aside, pretending to show him the parrot
which he had explored thoroughly before, and told him she was not
like some people in books. When she was married she would never
try to separate her husband from his bachelor friends, she only
wanted them to be her friends as well.

Then there was tea, and thus all ended in amicableness, and the
reverend and friendly drove us home in a wagonette. But for Martha
we shouldn't have had tea, or explanations, or lift or anything.
So we honoured her, and did not mind her being so heavy and walking
up and down constantly on our laps as we drove home.


And that is all the story of the long-lost grandmother and Albert's
uncle. I am afraid it is rather dull, but it was very important
(to him), so I felt it ought to be narrated. Stories about lovers
and getting married are generally slow. I like a love-story where
the hero parts with the girl at the garden-gate in the gloaming and
goes off and has adventures, and you don't see her any more till he
comes home to marry her at the end of the book. And I suppose
people have to marry. Albert's uncle is awfully old--more than
thirty, and the lady is advanced in years--twenty-six next
Christmas. They are to be married then. The girls are to be
bridesmaids in white frocks with fur. This quite consoles them.
If Oswald repines sometimes, he hides it. What's the use? We all
have to meet our fell destiny, and Albert's uncle is not extirpated
from this awful law.

Now the finding of the long-lost was the very last thing we did for
the sake of its being a noble act, so that is the end of the
Wouldbegoods, and there are no more chapters after this. But
Oswald hates books that finish up without telling you the things
you might want to know about the people in the book. So here goes.

We went home to the beautiful Blackheath house. It seemed very
stately and mansion-like after the Moat House, and everyone was
most frightfully pleased to see us.

Mrs Pettigrew CRIED when we went away. I never was so astonished
in my life. She made each of the girls a fat red pincushion like
a heart, and each of us boys had a knife bought out of the
housekeeping (I mean housekeeper's own) money.

Bill Simpkins is happy as sub-under-gardener to Albert's uncle's
lady's mother. They do keep three gardeners--I knew they did. And
our tramp still earns enough to sleep well on from our dear old
Pig-man.

Our last three days were entirely filled up with visits of farewell
sympathy to all our many friends who were so sorry to lose us. We
promised to come and see them next year. I hope we shall.

Denny and Daisy went back to live with their father at Forest Hill.
I don't think they'll ever be again the victims of the Murdstone
aunt--who is really a great-aunt and about twice as much in the
autumn of her days as our new Albert's-uncle aunt. I think they
plucked up spirit enough to tell their father they didn't like
her--which they'd never thought of doing before. Our own robber
says their holidays in the country did them both a great deal of
good. And he says us Bastables have certainly taught Daisy and
Denny the rudiments of the art of making home happy. I believe
they have thought of several quite new naughty things entirely on
their own--and done them too--since they came back from the Moat
House.

I wish you didn't grow up so quickly. Oswald can see that ere long
he will be too old for the kind of games we can all play, and he
feels grown-upness creeping inordiously upon him. But enough of
this.

And now, gentle reader, farewell. If anything in these chronicles
of the Wouldbegoods should make you try to be good yourself, the
author will be very glad, of course. But take my advice and don't
make a society for trying in. It is much easier without.

And do try to forget that Oswald has another name besides Bastable.
The one beginning with C., I mean. Perhaps you have not noticed
what it was. If so, don't look back for it. It is a name no manly
boy would like to be called by--if he spoke the truth. Oswald is
said to be a very manly boy, and he despises that name, and will
never give it to his own son when he has one. Not if a rich
relative offered to leave him an immense fortune if he did. Oswald
would still be firm. He would, on the honour of the House of
Bastable.

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