“What's the good of him all that way off,” had pouted my mother; “I want him here where I can get at him.”
I had often heard of this father of mine, who lived far away in London, and to whom we owed all the blessings of life; but my childish endeavours to square information with reflection had resulted in my assigning to him an entirely spiritual existence. I agreed with my mother that such an one, however to be revered, was no substitute for the flesh and blood father possessed by luckier folk—the big, strong, masculine thing that would carry a fellow pig-a-back round the garden, or take a chap to sail in boats.
“You don't understand me, nurse,” I explained; “what I mean is a husband you can get at.”
“Well, and you'll 'get at him,' poor gentleman, one of these days,” answered Mrs. Fursey. “When he's ready for you he'll send for you, and then you'll go to him in London.”
I felt that still Mrs. Fursey didn't understand. But I foresaw that further explanation would only shock her, so contented myself with a simple, matter-of-fact question.
“How do you get to London; do you have to die first?”
“I do think,” said Mrs. Fursey, in the voice of resigned despair rather than of surprise, “that, without exception, you are the silliest little boy I ever came across. I've no patience with you.”
“I am very sorry, nurse,” I answered; “I thought—”
“Then,” interrupted Mrs. Fursey, in the voice of many generations, “you shouldn't think. London,” continued the good dame, her experience no doubt suggesting that the shortest road to peace would be through my understanding of this matter, “is a big town, and you go there in a train. Some time—soon now—your father will write to your mother that everything is ready. Then you and your mother and your aunt will leave this place and go to London, and I shall be rid of you.”
“And shan't we come back here ever any more?”