‘Oh, Emmeline, you don’t really think there’s any danger of Aunt Grace not letting darling Punch come?’ said Kitty, almost in tears.
‘Well, I hope not,’ said Emmeline; ‘anyhow I’ve written to her about it, so till we’ve had time to get her answer there’s no use worrying any more.’ There was not, but the very suggestion that Punch might have to be left behind had cast a gloom upon the party—a gloom which did not altogether lift even when the brilliant idea struck Micky that the brooms in the housemaid’s cupboard, if placed upside down and balanced against the wall, would make excellent palm-trees for the Robinsons’ desert island.
On the whole, Emmeline was the happiest of the three just then, for, grieved as she was at leaving Mary and possibly Punch, the prospect of going to live with her aunt was not altogether without its secret charm for her. The good little girl who had such a beautiful influence on her worldly relations played a prominent part in several of her favourite books, and it was that part which Emmeline pictured herself playing with regard to Aunt Grace. She would have been ashamed to express this idea in so many words even to herself, far more to the twins, but it none the less reconciled her a good deal to the new life which lay before them.
Emmeline Bolton had always been a child of the type whose virtue specially appeals to nurses. All the grown-up people, indeed, who had ever been brought much into contact with her agreed in considering her a very good girl. In some respects she deserved their favourable opinion, for she was truthful, obedient, and conscientious by nature, but perhaps the fact that she had never been very strong had more to do with her reputation for goodness than she herself or anyone else quite realised.
The child lived in an atmosphere of warm and constant approval which was not altogether wholesome. Such had been the state of affairs two years ago, when all three children had fallen ill of measles. Micky and Kitty had had the disease lightly, but with Emmeline it took a serious form. For two days and nights she had lain delirious, and there came a moment when Mary, believing her to be unconscious, had sobbed out to the trained nurse: ‘I always had a feeling that the dear child was too sweet and good to be long for this world!’
This presentiment proved a groundless one. As Emmeline grew better the words which she had heard in her half-delirious state came back to her, and she dwelt on them constantly. Just at first they frightened her a little, but when she had become quite strong and well again she ceased to be alarmed, and only felt pleasantly elated at being too good to be long for this world. It almost—though not quite—made up for having straight brown hair and a pale peaked face instead of golden curls and glowing cheeks like the twins, who were so pretty that people in the street sometimes turned round to look after them.
If Emmeline’s mother had lived she would probably have perceived that the child was in grave danger of growing into a little Pharisee, and she might have done something to check it, but she had become very ill almost as soon as the children had recovered from the measles, and had died less than a year later. After her death the children had gone on living at the old home at Eastwich, a great East Anglian town, under the joint charge of Mary and Miss Rogers, their daily governess. The arrangement was never intended to be more than a temporary one, for their aunt, Miss Bolton, who was also their guardian, wished them to go and live with her at Woodsleigh, a place some twelve miles distant from Eastwich, as soon as she regained possession of a cottage there, which had been left her by her father, but let for several years past. Mary was to go to her own home to keep house for a brother, so that to-morrow, when her children, as she always called them, went to begin their new life with Aunt Grace, she would have to be left behind at Eastwich.
‘Come, my darlings,’ said Mary, landing so abruptly on the Swiss Family Robinson’s desert island that most of the palm-trees were knocked over, ‘tea’s quite ready, and there’s buttered toast and coffee.’
Buttered toast and coffee were always regarded as special treats, but somehow to-day nobody seemed to have quite as much appetite for them as usual. Mary and Micky kept making jokes, and they all tried to be very merry, but not even the presence of Punch, who was allowed to sit on a chair between the twins in special honour of the occasion, made the festivity much of a success. They could none of them forget it was the last tea with Mary in the old home.
Emmeline stayed up that evening until some time after the twins had gone to bed, and sat on the floor leaning her head against Mary’s knee.