The Little School-Mothers
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Before Harriet could even reply, he had provided tickets for all three – tickets which cost sixpence each. He really was a most generous young man.
“But,” said Harriet, turning to Pattie, “won’t this make me dreadfully late?”
“Late?” cried Mr Frost, overhearing her. “Not a bit of it. I tell you it will be over in no time at all. Here, take a hand each, girls, and we’ll squeeze well to the front. We mustn’t miss the beginning of the fun. The fat lady comes on first of all with the kangaroo; oh, it will be screamingly funny!”
The next minute, they were inside the tent where the great performance was to take place.
They were inside with a crush of people behind them, and Harriet forgot everything else. The entertainment was of the breathless order; before you had time to recover from one astounding surprise, another still more astounding followed on its heels. The fat lady’s performance was nothing at all to that done by the man with two heads – he really managed these double appendages with the greatest cleverness, nodding and winking simultaneously with both, and causing the people to shriek, holding their sides with mirth.
“He hasn’t two heads at all, you know,” said Mr Frost, “but it’s wonderfully cleverly managed for all that.”
Harriet and Pattie were almost sorry. They would much rather have believed that the man was possessed of the double head.
“Oh!” said Pattie, with a gasp. “I was thinking what a lot he could do if they were really two heads.”
Mr Frost roared with laughter.
“It would be convenient, wouldn’t it?” he said. “He could eat with one of his mouths, you know, and talk with the other; and he could keep one of his brains for amusement, and one for lessons. I say, though, let’s look at this! Here’s the elephant with the dancing dogs on his back!”
Oh, was there ever such a time? It flashed by in what seemed less than a minute, but in reality it took over an hour and a half. When Harriet and Pattie, two flushed and intensely happy little girls, left the small theatre Harriet knew at once by the changed light how long she must have been within.
“Oh please,” she said, turning to Mr Frost, “we have enjoyed ourselves tremendously; but what is the hour, please? – oh, I do hope it isn’t late: I wanted to take Ralph back to school before five o’clock.”
“Five o’clock!” said Mr Frost with a roaring laugh. Really he was rather a noisy young man. “Why, it’s long past seven. You don’t suppose we have had all that fun in no time at all?”
“Past seven!” said Harriet, in a tone of horror. “Oh, oh, don’t keep me!”
She rushed away. She never waited even to say good-bye; Pattie and Mr Frost both thought her rather rude. In a minute she was out of the fair and running along the road. When she had gone to the fair that afternoon with Pattie, the distance between the doctor’s house and the bit of common where the fair was held seemed no way at all. But now Harriet thought she had miles to travel.
At last, panting and terrified, she reached the doctor’s house. The door, which had been standing open in the afternoon, was now shut. She rang the bell furiously. Oh, why had they shut the door? Every minute of delay was intolerable. Why did not Anastasia hurry? What a horrid name to give a servant! and what a horrid servant she was. Harriet in her agony gave the bell another and more furious pull.
It was opened this time by a stout, red faced lady. “Now, little girl,” she said, “if you dare to ring the doctor’s bell again in this rude manner I shall complain to your – oh, my dear!” she continued, changing her voice, “I beg your pardon, I thought it was little Susan Wright from across the road. That child requires keeping in her place; she is always playing practical jokes. But what is it, my dear little girl? Come in, pray. Do you want Dr Tyke?”
“No, no!” said Harriet. “Don’t keep me, please. I have come for the little boy in the drawing-room.”
“The little boy in the drawing-room?” said Mrs Pyke, who wondered if Harriet were very ill and a little off her head. “But I know nothing of any little boy in the drawing-room.”
“Oh, please let me go for him,” said Harriet, trying to push past the stout lady. “He is there, I know, for I left him there. He is little Ralph – little Ralph Durrant. I told him to wait for me; I know I am late, but let me go for him at once, please.”
“You can go into the drawing-room, of course,” said Mrs Pyke; “although I must say you puzzle me very much, for I know of no little boy there. The doctor and I are having a cosy little supper in the drawing-room at the present moment; we often do of an evening to get away from the children, and I assure you there is no little boy in the room.”
Nevertheless, Harriet would go for herself. Ralph must be where she had desired him to stay. With her face very white, her whole appearance exceedingly wild, and her poor little heart beating almost to suffocation, she poked about the untidy and ugly drawing-room. She looked under sofas and behind curtains, and finally burst into tears.
“He is not here – he is gone! What will become of me?” she sobbed.
“Why,” said Dr Pyke, who had not recognised her at first, “why, surely I cannot be mistaken – you are one of the little girls from Abbeyfield! My dear child, sit down and tell my wife and me at once what is the matter.”
“Oh, I must not stay,” said Harriet, struggling to suppress her tears; “but I – oh, it is too dreadful!” And then she told, as best she could, the story of her day’s adventure. “I should not have done it,” she said in conclusion, “but it was so tempting, and I thought of course he would wait for me.”
“This, my dear,” said Dr Pyke, turning to his wife, when Harriet had finished speaking, “is one of my little patients at Abbeyfield. Her name is Harriet Lane, and I am thankful to say that, as a rule, she does not put many pennies into the doctor’s pocket; but, my dear child, if you give way like this you will be ill, and then I shall be the richer, and you the poorer. Come now, stop crying; of course you have done wrong, but doubtless you have no cause for alarm. The little boy, my dear wife, is little Ralph Durrant. His father – you must know his father’s name, of course —the Durrant, you know, the great African explorer. I have seen the little fellow, a most sweet little man. I am sure, my dear child, that we shall find your little friend safe at school. And now, if you will take my hand, I will bring you back to Abbeyfield, and try to explain what has occurred.”
“Oh, oh!” sobbed Harriet. “Oh, oh – I am too miserable. I am certain that Ralph – little Ralph, is lost!”
Book One – Chapter Twelve
In the High Woods
Alas! Harriet was right. When they reached the house, and when she wildly enquired of Miss Ford if Ralph were anywhere about, she was met by that astonished woman’s instant denial.
“Where have you been yourself?” said Miss Ford, speaking in great agitation. “We wondered what you and Ralph could be doing, and now you come here without him, and – and – Dr Pyke, you have brought her! Is anything wrong?”
“I greatly fear there is, Miss Ford,” said the doctor. “Please don’t scold this poor child at present. There is no doubt she has behaved very badly, but our immediate duty is to find the poor little fellow.”
“What poor little fellow? Oh, how you terrify me,” said Miss Ford.
“Little Ralph Durrant,” said the doctor. “The fact is, Harriet brought him to my house this afternoon – ”
“You dared!” began Miss Ford.
“Oh yes,” said the doctor; “she dared a good deal. She was very naughty, we know that, but there’s no use in thinking of her at present. She left Ralph in my drawing-room, and when she came back for him, he was gone.”
“Oh!” said Miss Ford, “what is to be done?”
“You are certain he has not returned here?”
“Certain?” said the poor teacher; “of course I am certain. But I will go and enquire: I will look everywhere.”
Miss Ford did look. She searched the house; she questioned the maids, she went to Ralph’s own little bedroom, she even penetrated to that snug nest where Curly Pate lay like a ball of down. Nowhere was Ralph to be found. She came back at last, with a pale face, to the doctor.
“The child has not returned,” she said. “What is to be done?”
“We must lose no time,” said Dr Pyke. “Harriet – ”
Harriet had seated herself on the first chair. She sat there huddled up. There is no other word to describe her appearance. Her hat was pushed forward over her eyes, and those eyes were red with crying. Now, however, her great terror prevented any further flow of tears.
“Harriet,” repeated the doctor, sternly.
“Yes, sir.”
“You know more about Ralph than I do. Have you the least – the slightest idea where he may have gone?”
Harriet thought of the gipsies. She remembered how she had promised Ralph to take him to see them; how she had failed in her promise.
“Perhaps,” – she said – “oh, I don’t know – but he was very much excited about the gipsies; he may have gone to them.”
“We will send at once to enquire,” said Miss Ford. “We must on no account wait until Mrs Burton returns; there is not an instant to lose.”
“I will go myself,” said the doctor. “I know where their encampment is. It is really scarcely likely that they have the child. Gipsies don’t often steal children now-a-days. We may find the little fellow anywhere. I will also call at the police station, and get the police to begin to search for him.”
When Dr Pyke left the house, Miss Ford turned to Harriet.
“A nice sort of school-mother you have made,” she said. “You don’t suppose that you will win your pony after this, you bad girl. Come with me at once into the third form parlour, and wait there until Mrs Burton returns. She will then decide what is to be done with you.”
“I don’t want any pony,” suddenly sobbed Harriet. “I only want Ralph. I know I am desperately naughty, but I don’t want anything in all the world now but Ralph.”
“It is easy for you to talk like that now that you have neglected the poor little fellow so shamefully, and disobeyed Mrs Burton’s strictest orders. Come with me at once, you bad child.”
Harriet went. So subdued was she, that she did not even hate Miss Ford for speaking to her in this way. A minute later, she found herself in the third form special parlour. One electric light was on. It threw a dim reflection over the scene. Harriet looked round at the familiar objects – the table in the middle, the story-books, the globes in their corner, the birds in their cages, and the parrot in his cage.
The small birds were all asleep. The books and toys, and tables and chairs could not move; but the parrot was wide awake, and very much alive. He hopped from side to side and looked hard at Harriet. At last, he screamed in a noisy, shrill tone:
“Mind what you’re about! Ha, ha! Mind what you’re about! Ha, ha!”
Poor Harriet. She flung herself down on the floor and cried as though her heart would break. She was only a little girl still, and not all bad. That pony with his side-saddle, that perfectly made habit, all the delights which she had sinned so deeply to obtain, would have been as ashes now in her mouth. She only wanted Ralph now, and Ralph was far away. Why had she behaved so badly? Oh what, what was happening?
Her agony became almost unendurable. Suddenly, she perceived that the door of the parlour had not been shut, that it was a little ajar. Why need she sit there? It was so awful to remain still; so frightful to do nothing at all.
She stole softly to the door, opened it, and peeped out. There was no one in the hall, and the hall door itself stood wide open.
“Mind what you’re about. Ha, ha!” shrieked the parrot.
But Harriet was in no mood to mind. She crossed the hall on tip-toe, rushed to the open door, drew a deep breath, and the next moment was skimming herself, light as a bird, over the ground in the direction of the gipsy encampment. Harriet could, indeed, run like the wind, and never had she ran faster than on this occasion.
“It was I,” she thought, “who caused him to be lost, so I will find him again; yes, I will find him if it kills me.”
Suddenly she drew up on the edge of a piece of common. Here only yesterday, surely, were many brown tents and many brown people. Here was this fascinating house on wheels of which she had spoken so much to little Ralph. But now – she could not believe her eyes!
The place was empty. She could see, even by the moonlight, patches of yellow grass which had been covered by the tents, and here and there she could also perceive a bone or two, or a scrap of broken bread. But not a gipsy was in sight, not a tent within view, not a dog, not a brown baby. The gipsies had gone! Why had they gone? They were there, she knew, that very afternoon, for she had seen the smoke curling up from the house on wheels, as she and Ralph had gone with Pattie to the village.
The gipsies had gone away quickly: of course they had taken Ralph with them. Now what was she to do? She stood still in a shadowy part of the field, and, as she did so, she distinctly heard the sound of wheels, and listening, there floated also to her ears the sound of many voices singing.
Her school-companions were returning from their picnic. They were coming back, as arranged, by moonlight. They were happy: they were enjoying themselves. Harriet distinctly heard Robina’s voice above the others. Robina had a clear voice like a bird. Her notes were very high. They seemed to rise up as though, like the larks, they would pierce the sky. Now they rose above the other voices in a sort of torrent of rejoicing. Harriet dug her fingers into her ears.
“Oh, how soon they will be back!” she thought; “and they will miss him, and they will know all about me, and oh – I can’t, can’t stand it! I will follow the gipsies. I wonder where they have gone.”
Harriet thought for a few minutes. The police had already been to visit that very field. They had gone there in Dr Pyke’s company, and they were taking steps to follow the gipsies on horseback. But Harriet knew something that the police did not know. One of the servants in the house had long ago been a gipsy girl herself; and Harriet, who was much fascinated by stories of the wild brown people, used to talk to this girl when she got a chance. The girl, from time to time, imparted some of the secrets of her people to Harriet. Amongst other things, she had told her of the favourite resting-places of her tribe. This special common was one. But there was another five miles away, in the very heart of a deep wood, where they used to go when they wanted to hide something. The police did not know of this place of refuge in the middle of the High Woods, as they were called; but Harriet remembered it now.
It was five miles away, and she was only a little girl, and she was tired. But what of that if it might be her privilege to find Ralph and bring him back? What mattered any amount of fatigue?
Cora had told her how to get to the hiding-place in the wood. She had described how difficult it was for an ordinary person to find it, but had given Harriet a full description of it in one of her moments of confidence.
“We often wanted to make ourselves scarce,” Cora would say, “and no one ever yet found us there. It was a bonny enough place, too, although the trees grew so thick around that we did not get much sunshine.”
Now Harriet started on her way to the gipsies’ hiding-place in the woods. She was glad of the moonlight, and glad to avoid the road. She crossed many fields, and by and by found herself in a lane with very, very high hedges. The hedges were so high that she could not see a scrap of the world on either side of her. She could only gaze at the stars overhead, and wonder, and wonder, what was going to happen. She might be going wrong for all she knew. But all of a sudden she saw something shining on the road. She stooped and picked it up. It was a child’s broken rattle – the sort of thing which a gipsy child might have.
Now she felt certain that she was on the track of the runaways, and this knowledge gave her confidence. It takes, however, a very long time for a small girl not twelve years of age to walk five miles; and it was long past midnight, and the moon in the sky had set, and real darkness had come over the world before Harriet reached the entrance to the woods.
The lane in which she found herself led straight to these very woods: and oh! if it had been dark in the lane, how black was it here. She found her heart beating, and for a short time had not courage to go on. But then she thought of Ralph. She thought of him so hard that he began to fill all her little world. She wanted him so badly that no pony that ever breathed was now of any consequence to her in comparison. Why should she fear the creatures in the wood? She had no room in her heart for fear.
So she moved gently forward, a little girl, all alone in the black wood! The creatures of the wood must have wondered, and no doubt most of them were very much afraid of her, and retired into their snug little wood homes on her approach. But she saw none of them.
At last she came to a clearing, and in the clearing she perceived what made her heart beat wildly. It was no less a creature than a dog. The gipsies must be close at hand.
The dog was lying on the ground dead asleep. But when Harriet approached, he started and growled. Harriet, led by she knew not what instinct, immediately put her hand on his head. He quivered all over. Whether he would have growled again or bitten her, no one can tell, but in despair she flung herself by his side, and whispered in his ear:
“Oh, do be quiet; I am so miserable!”
No one can quite tell what dogs understand, but certainly this dog growled no more. On the contrary, he licked Harriet’s hand with his hot tongue. She had at last found the gipsies, and she might stay where she was until the first light of the morning. Perhaps poor Harriet slept with her head on the dog’s shaggy neck, but even she herself was not quite sure on that point.
Early, very, very early in the morning, led by Jakes, the gipsies’ dog, she found the house on wheels. The gipsies were tired, and most of them asleep. But when Harriet approached the dogs all barked, and of course the gipsy men all started to their feet, and the toothless old crone came out of the house on wheels, and pretty Flavia followed her.
“What did the little lady want?” they asked. They were all quite inclined to be civil to the little girl.
“I want,” said Harriet, “my own little boy. I am his school-mother, and I want him back again.”
“Oh Harriet! Harriet!” cried Ralph’s little voice.
He popped his small head outside the house on wheels. Not even Flavia could keep him from Harriet now. In one minute he was in her arms, and she was kissing him – oh, with such a world of affection. Somehow, Ralph felt a difference in her kisses, and he loved her at last, and knew that he had not loved her at all before.
“Ralph, you must come home at once,” said Harriet.
“Now, my dear,” said the tall gipsy man who had lured Ralph away on the previous night; “this little boy belongs to us, don’t yer, little man?”
“No, I don’t,” said Ralph. “This is my school-mother, and I belong to her.”
“You had best let him come,” said Harriet, “for the police are looking for you, and you’ll get into dreadful hot water if you keep the little boy.”
“We took charge of him,” said the man, sulkily; but a frightened look crossed his face when Harriet spoke of the police. “He were a poor lonely little gent, and we took pity on him.”
“They were awfu’ kind to me!” said Ralph. “They’re very nice gipsy people; and see, they give me this.”
He showed his basket with great pride to Harriet.
“See!” he continued, “there’s things inside – a knife, and matches, and all sorts of other things.”
“That don’t matter now,” said Harriet. “You must come back; they’re dreadfully frightened about you at school, and so was I. Gipsy man,” said Harriet, looking up at the tall man, “will you please saddle a horse, and put Ralph on its back, and put me there too, for I am dreadfully tired, and take us to Abbeyfield, and please be quick.”
“When my father comes back,” said Ralph, “I will talk to him about you, gipsy man, and about you, pretty gipsy lady.” Here he took Flavia’s hand. “And he shall give you money – much – and big money; and I will come and see you again, for I love you all.”
“We’d best take him back,” said the man, looking at the toothless old crone, “or we’ll get into trouble with the per-lice.”
“Yes,” said Harriet, gravely, “and you had best be quick.”
So early in the morning the children went back to the school on the gipsy’s tall horse, and the gipsy himself led them. Ralph talked all the way back, and was very gay and very happy; and when he parted from the gipsy man he insisted on kissing him, which surprised that person very much.
“Good-bye, little master,” he said, in rather a shamefaced way.
“Good-bye,” said Ralph. “And Father will give you money: I’ll see he do.”
Thus Ralph returned after his great adventure and Harriet and he went together, side by side, into Mrs Burton’s private sitting-room. There Harriet told all.
“I don’t want the pony,” she said in conclusion; “and I’m not a bit fit to be a school-mother! But I love him all the same.”
“I must punish you, Harriet,” said Mrs Burton. “I should not do my duty else. For the remainder of the term, Robina will be Ralph’s school-mother; but you shall see him every day, and it remains with Ralph himself to decide whether he loves you in future or not.”
“Oh, don’t I love her just this very instant-minute,” said Ralph: and he flung his arms round Harriet’s neck. Thus Harriet found out what real love meant. She found it out in her pain, the pain she had suffered during that lonely night – she found it out also in her joy – the joy that had come to her when she saw Ralph again.
The pony and the habit and the side-saddle did not matter a bit to Harriet now, for she had more – the true heart of Ralph himself. Love can destroy jealousy and all bad things in the heart. So it was with Harriet, even though Robina became the little boy’s school-mother, and even though she won the big prize. Harriet was happy.
Book Two – Chapter One
A Delightful Proposal
When Ralph Durrant’s father came for him on the day of the great break-up at the school, he found a little boy who said with emphasis that he had several school-mothers, and that he did not wish to say good-bye to any of them. This state of things rather puzzled Mr Durrant, whose one desire in life was to make Ralph intensely happy.
“How am I to manage such a lot of mothers, little man?” he said.
“You must, Father,” replied Ralph. “There is my naughty school-mother – her name is Harriet. She is both naughty and good, and I love her like anything. And there is my beautiful, good school-mother – Robina; and I want not to say good-bye to either of them. I s’pose,” continued Ralph, “that Robina must have the pony; only I wish there were two ponies – ”
But here Mrs Burton interfered.
“Ralph,” she said, “I have something to say to your father. Run away for a short time and play with Curly Pate, my dear.”
Ralph, who had been excellently trained by Robina, ran immediately out of the room. Mr Durrant turned and faced Mrs Burton.
“Well,” he said, with a smile, “my little scheme seems to have answered. Ralph was fretting a good deal when I brought him here. He had been badly managed at home: none of his aunts understood him. He missed his dear mother, – who died two years ago, – more than words can say. It was not that he fretted about her, for the dear little man was too young to fret, but he just missed the mothering part of life which all little children need and cannot do without. His aunts are good, but old-fashioned people, and they failed just where they most meant to succeed. Now, I see a dear, healthy, happy little boy, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes. I have to thank you, Mrs Burton, for a great deal.
“You know that I must leave him very soon to return to South Africa. You know, too, that my work while there, leads me into very possible dangers: in fact, I think I may add into certain dangers; and if it were possible to secure a permanent home for my little man in your house, I should love to do so.”
“But this is a school for girls,” said Mrs Burton, with a smile.