“All right, Joan, go on with him,” said Oswald, and came forward to meet Aunt Phyllis. Aunt Phœbe was on the staircase a little aloof from these things, as became a woman of intellect, and behind Aunt Phyllis came Mary, and behind Mary came the Limpsfield cabman with Aunt Phyllis’s trunk upon his shoulder, and demolished the triumphal arch. But Peter did not learn of that disaster until later, and then he did not mind; it had served its purpose.
The playroom (it was the old nursery rechristened) was indeed better. It was all glorious with paper chains of green and white festooned from corner to corner. On the floor to the right under the window was every toy soldier that Peter possessed drawn up in review array—a gorgeous new Scots Grey band in the front that Oswald had given him. But that was nothing. The big armchair had been drawn out into the middle of the room, and on it was Peter’s own lion-skin. And a piece of red stair-carpet had been put for Joan to go up to the throne upon. And beside the throne was a little table, and on the table was a tinsel robe from Clarkson’s and a wonderful gilt crown and a sceptre. Oswald had brought them along that morning.
“The crown is for you, Joan!” said Peter. “The sceptre was bought for you.”
Little white-faced Joan stood stockishly with the crown in one hand and the sceptre in the other. “Put the crown on, Joan,” said Peter. “It’s yours. It’s a rest’ration ceremony.”
But she didn’t put it on.
“It’s lovely—and it’s lovely,” whispered Joan in a sort of rapture, and stared about her incredulously with her big dark eyes. It was home again—home, and Mrs. Pybus had passed like an evil dream in the night. She had never really believed it possible before that Mrs. Pybus could pass away. Even while Aunt Phyllis and Mary had been nursing her, Mrs. Pybus had hovered in the background like something more enduring, waiting for them to pass away as inexplicably as they had come. Joan had heard the whining voice upon the stairs every day and always while she was ill, and once Mrs. Pybus had come and stood by her bedside and remarked like one who maintains an argument, “She’ll be ’appy enough ’ere when she’s better again.”
No more Mrs. Pybus! No more whining scoldings. No more unexpected slaps and having to go to bed supperless. No more measles and uneasy misery in a bed with grey sheets. No more dark dreadful sayings that lurked in the mind like jungle beasts. She was home, home with Peter, out of that darkness....
And yet—outside was the darkness still....
“Joan,” said Peter, trying to rouse her. “There’s a cake like a birthday for tea....”
When Oswald came in she was still holding the gilt crown in her hand.