All through the midday meal nobody said a word about Nobby....
Nobody ever did say anything about Nobby again. When on a few occasions Peter himself talked appreciatively of Nobby nobody, unless it was Joan now and then, seemed the least bit interested....
One side consequence of Oswald’s visit had been the dethronement of the original Nobby. The real Nobby had somehow thrust the toy Nobby into the background. Perhaps he drifted into the recesses of some box or cupboard. At any rate when Peter thought of him one day he was nowhere to be found. That did not matter so much as it would have done a couple of months before. Now if the bears and “burdlars” got busy in the night-nursery Peter used to pretend that the pillow was the real Nobby, the Nobby who wasn’t even afraid of lions and had driven off one with a stick. A prowling bear hadn’t much chance against a little boy who snuggled up to that Nobby.
§ 5
Mummy was rather dull in those days, and Daddy seemed always to be looking at her. Daddy had a sort of inelasticity in his manner too. Suddenly Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Phœbe appeared, and it was announced that Daddy and Mummy were going off to Italy. It was too far for them to take little boys and girls, they said, and besides there were, oh! horrid spiders. And Peter must stay to mind the house and Joan and his aunts; it wasn’t right not to have some man about. He was to have a sailor suit with trousers also, great responsibilities altogether for a boy not much over four. So there was a great kissing and going off, and Joan and Peter settled down to the rule of the aunts and only missed Mummy and Daddy now and then.
Then one day something happened over the children’s heads. Mary had red eyes and wouldn’t say why; the aunts had told her not to do so.
Phyllis and Phœbe decided not to darken the children’s lives by wearing mourning, but Mary said that anyhow she would go into black. But neither Joan nor Peter took much notice of the black dress.
“Why don’t Mummy and Daddy come back?” asked Peter one day of Aunt Phœbe.
“They’ve travelled to such wonderful places,” said Aunt Phœbe with a catch in her voice. “They may not be back for ever so long. No. Not till Peter is ever so big.”
“Then why don’t they send us cull’d poce-cards like they did’t first?” said Peter.