When the others understood what was the matter I think they told Robert what they thought of him.
‘We must take the train to Croydon,’ said Anthea, ‘and find Aunt Emma.’
‘Yes,’ said Cyril, ‘and precious pleased those Jevonses would be to see us and our traps.’
Aunt Emma, indeed, was staying with some Jevonses—very prim people. They were middle-aged and wore very smart blouses, and they were fond of matinees and shopping, and they did not care about children.
‘I know MOTHER would be pleased to see us if we went back,’ said Jane.
‘Yes, she would, but she’d think it was not right to show she was pleased, because it’s Bob’s fault we’re not met. Don’t I know the sort of thing?’ said Cyril. ‘Besides, we’ve no tin. No; we’ve got enough for a growler among us, but not enough for tickets to the New Forest. We must just go home. They won’t be so savage when they find we’ve really got home all right. You know auntie was only going to take us home in a cab.’
‘I believe we ought to go to Croydon,’ Anthea insisted.
‘Aunt Emma would be out to a dead cert,’ said Robert. ‘Those Jevonses go to the theatre every afternoon, I believe. Besides, there’s the Phoenix at home, AND the carpet. I votes we call a four-wheeled cabman.’
A four-wheeled cabman was called—his cab was one of the old-fashioned kind with straw in the bottom—and he was asked by Anthea to drive them very carefully to their address. This he did, and the price he asked for doing so was exactly the value of the gold coin grandpapa had given Cyril for Christmas. This cast a gloom; but Cyril would never have stooped to argue about a cab-fare, for fear the cabman should think he was not accustomed to take cabs whenever he wanted them. For a reason that was something like this he told the cabman to put the luggage on the steps, and waited till the wheels of the growler had grittily retired before he rang the bell.
‘You see,’ he said, with his hand on the handle, ‘we don’t want cook and Eliza asking us before HIM how it is we’ve come home alone, as if we were babies.’