New Treasure Seekers; Or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune
his inside soul, but I have heard Father say he means well. He is a
vegetarian and a Primitive Social Something, and an all-wooler, and
things like that, and he is really as good as he can stick, only most
awfully dull. I believe he eats bread and milk from choice. Well, he has
great magnificent dreams about all the things you can do for other
people, and he wants to distill cultivatedness into the sort of people
who live in Model Workmen's Dwellings, and teach them to live up to
better things. This is what he says. So he gives concerts in Camberwell,
and places like that, and curates come from far and near, to sing about
Bold Bandaleros and the Song of the Bow, and people who have escaped
being curates give comic recitings, and he is sure that it does every
one good, and "gives them glimpses of the Life Beautiful." He said that.
Oswald heard him with his own trustworthy ears. Anyway the people enjoy
the concerts no end, and that's the great thing.
Well, he came one night, with a lot of tickets he wanted to sell, and
Father bought some for the servants, and Dora happened to go in to get
the gum for a kite we were making, and Mr. Sandal said, "Well, my little
maiden, would you not like to come on Thursday evening, and share in the
task of raising our poor brothers and sisters to the higher levels of
culture?" So of course Dora said she would, very much. Then he explained
about the concert, calling her "My little one," and "dear child," which
Alice never would have borne, but Dora is not of a sensitive nature, and
hardly minds what she is called, so long as it is not names, which she
does not deem "dear child" and cetera to be, though Oswald would.
Dora was quite excited about it, and the stranger so worked upon her
feelings that she accepted the deep responsibility of selling tickets,
and for a week there was no bearing her. I believe she did sell nine, to
people in Lewisham and New Cross who knew no better. And Father bought
tickets for all of us, and when the eventful evening dawned we went to
Camberwell by train and tram _via_ Miss Blake (that means we shouldn't
have been allowed to go without her).
The tram ride was rather jolly, but when we got out and walked we felt
like "Alone in London," or "Jessica's First Prayer," because Camberwell
is a devastating region that makes you think of rickety attics with the
wind whistling through them, or miserable cellars where forsaken
children do wonders by pawning their relations' clothes and looking
after the baby. It was a dampish night, and we walked on greasy mud. And
as we walked along Alice kicked against something on the pavement, and
it chinked, and when she picked it up it was five bob rolled up in
newspaper.
"I expect it's somebody's little all," said Alice, "and the cup was
dashed from their lips just when they were going to joyfully spend it.
We ought to give it to the police."
But Miss Blake said no, and that we were late already, so we went on,
and Alice held the packet in her muff throughout the concert which
ensued. I will not tell you anything about the concert except that it
was quite fairly jolly--you must have been to these Self-Raising
Concerts in the course of your young lives.
When it was over we reasoned with Miss Blake, and she let us go through
the light blue paper door beside the stage and find Mr. Sandal. We
thought he might happen to hear who had lost the five bob, and return it
to its sorrowing family. He was in a great hurry, but he took the chink
and said he'd let us know if anything happened. Then we went home very
cheerful, singing bits of the comic songs a bishop's son had done in
the concert, and little thinking what we were taking home with us.
It was only a few days after this, or perhaps a week, that we all began
to be rather cross. Alice, usually as near a brick as a girl can go, was
the worst of the lot, and if you said what you thought of her she
instantly began to snivel. And we all had awful colds, and our
handkerchiefs gave out, and then our heads ached. Oswald's head was
particularly hot, I remember, and he wanted to rest it on the backs of
chairs or on tables--or anything steady.
But why prolong the painful narrative? What we had brought home from
Camberwell was the measles, and as soon as the grown-ups recognised the
Grim Intruder for the fell disease it is we all went to bed, and there
was an end of active adventure for some time.
Of course, when you begin to get better there are grapes and other
luxuries not of everyday occurrences, but while you're sniffling and
fevering in bed, as red as a lobster and blazing hot, you are inclined
to think it is a heavy price to pay for any concert, however raising.
Mr. Sandal came to see Father the very day we all marched Bedward. He
had found the owner of the five shillings. It was a doctor's fee, about
to be paid by the parent of a thoroughly measly family. And if we had
taken it to the police at once Alice would not have held it in her hand
all through the concert--but I will not blame Blakie. She was a jolly
good nurse, and read aloud to us with unfatiguable industry while we
were getting better.
Our having fallen victims to this disgusting complaint ended in our
being sent to the seaside. Father could not take us himself, so we went
to stay with a sister of Mr. Sandal's. She was like him, only more so in
every way.
The journey was very joyous. Father saw us off at Cannon Street, and we
had a carriage to ourselves all the way, and we passed the station where
Oswald would not like to be a porter. Rude boys at this station put
their heads out of the window and shout, "Who's a duffer?" and things
like that, and the porters _have_ to shout "I am!" because Higham is the
name of the station, and porters have seldom any H's with which to
protect themselves from this cruel joke.
It was a glorious moment when the train swooped out of a tunnel and we
looked over the downs and saw the grey-blue line that was the sea. We
had not seen the sea since before Mother died. I believe we older ones
all thought of that, and it made us quieter than the younger ones were.
I do not want to forget anything, but it makes you feel empty and stupid
when you remember some things.
There was a good drive in a waggonette after we got to our station.
There were primroses under some of the hedges, and lots of dog-violets.
And at last we got to Miss Sandal's house. It is before you come to the
village, and it is a little square white house. There is a big old
windmill at the back of it. It is not used any more for grinding corn,
but fishermen keep their nets in it.
Miss Sandal came out of the green gate to meet us. She had a soft, drab
dress and a long thin neck, and her hair was drab too, and it was
screwed up tight.
She said, "Welcome, one and all!" in a kind voice, but it was too much
like Mr. Sandal's for me. And we went in. She showed us the
sitting-rooms, and the rooms where we were to sleep, and then she left
us to wash our hands and faces. When we were alone we burst open the
doors of our rooms with one consent, and met on the landing with a rush
like the great rivers of America.
"_Well!_" said Oswald, and the others said the same.
"Of all the rummy cribs!" remarked Dicky.
"It's like a workhouse or a hospital," said Dora. "I think I like it."
"It makes me think of bald-headed gentlemen," said H.O., "it is so
bare."
It was. All the walls were white plaster, the furniture was white
deal--what there was of it, which was precious little. There were no
carpets--only white matting. And there was not a single ornament in a
single room! There was a clock on the dining-room mantel-piece, but that
could not be counted as an ornament because of the useful side of its
character. There were only about six pictures--all of a brownish colour.
One was the blind girl sitting on an orange with a broken fiddle. It is
called Hope.
When we were clean Miss Sandal gave us tea. As we sat down she said,
"The motto of our little household is 'Plain living and high thinking.'"
And some of us feared for an instant that this might mean not enough to
eat. But fortunately this was not the case. There was plenty, but all of
a milky, bunny, fruity, vegetable sort. We soon got used to it, and
liked it all right.
Miss Sandal was very kind. She offered to read aloud to us after tea,
and, exchanging glances of despair, some of us said that we should like
it very much.
It was Oswald who found the manly courage to say very politely--
"Would it be all the same to you if we went and looked at the sea first?
Because----"
And she said, "Not at all," adding something about "Nature, the dear old
nurse, taking somebody on her knee," and let us go.
We asked her which way, and we tore up the road and through the village
and on to the sea-wall, and then with six joyous bounds we leaped down
on to the sand.
The author will not bother you with a description of the mighty billows
of ocean, which you must have read about, if not seen, but he will just
say what perhaps you are not aware of--that seagulls eat clams and
mussels and cockles, and crack the shells with their beaks. The author
has seen this done.
You also know, I suppose, that you can dig in the sand (if you have a
spade) and make sand castles, and stay in them till the tide washes you
out.
I will say no more, except that when we gazed upon the sea and the sand
we felt we did not care tuppence how highly Miss Sandal might think of
us or how plainly she might make us live, so long as we had got the
briny deep to go down to.
It was too early in the year and too late in the day to bathe, but we
paddled, which comes to much the same thing, and you almost always have
to change everything afterwards.
When it got dark we had to go back to the White House, and there was
supper, and then we found that Miss Sandal did not keep a servant, so of
course we offered to help wash up. H.O. only broke two plates.
Nothing worth telling about happened till we had been there over a week,
and had got to know the coastguards and a lot of the village people
quite well. I do like coastguards. They seem to know everything you want
to hear about. Miss Sandal used to read to us out of poetry books, and
about a chap called Thoreau, who could tickle fish, and they liked it,
and let him. She was kind, but rather like her house--there was
something bare and bald about her inside mind, I believe. She was very,
very calm, and said that people who lost their tempers were not living
the higher life. But one day a telegram came, and then she was not calm
at all. She got quite like other people, and quite shoved H.O. for
getting in her way when she was looking for her purse to pay for the
answer to the telegram.
Then she said to Dora--and she was pale and her eyes red, just like
people who live the lower or ordinary life--"My dears, it's dreadful! My
poor brother! He's had a fall. I must go to him at _once_." And she sent
Oswald to order the fly from the Old Ship Hotel, and the girls to see if
Mrs. Beale would come and take care of us while she was away. Then she
kissed us all and went off very unhappy. We heard afterwards that poor,
worthy Mr. Sandal had climbed a scaffolding to give a workman a tract
about drink, and he didn't know the proper part of the scaffolding to
stand on (the workman did, of course) so he fetched down half a dozen
planks and the workman, and if a dust-cart hadn't happened to be passing
just under so that they fell into it their lives would not have been
spared. As it was Mr. Sandal broke his arm and his head. The workman
escaped unscathed but furious. The workman was a teetotaler.
Mrs. Beale came, and the first thing she did was to buy a leg of mutton
and cook it. It was the first meat we had had since arriving at