There was no sleep for the culprit; the evening light coming in at the window mocked his misery. The sea was going down now, and in the distance he could hear the laughter of the children who still played on the widening sands; the very children who, to-morrow, would laugh at him, Tommy Tregennis, because his trousers was tore.
He decided that he would leave for school before breakfast as Mammy had advised, and run very fast all the way. But even so, Tommy was five now, and when you are five years old you no longer sit on the window-seat in Miss Lavinia’s school-room. When you are five your legs are supposed to be so long that you can be given an ordinary chair at the long, narrow table.
Of course it was very grand to be promoted from the window-seat; it meant one was definitely growing up. In spite of the promotion Tommy often had regrets, for the outside world, as viewed from the window, was most attractive. The window opened on to Miss Lavinia’s back-garden, and there were always sparrows, and often cats; bees in the summer, too, and the gay colours of the flowers. The window-seat was very low (that was why it was your place when you were only four) and it would have been so easy to sit down there backwards. But a chair was quite another matter. That meant standing on a spindle first, then stretching upwards before you turned round and sat; and detection would seem inevitable.
There was the new game, too; the game in which you all lay flat on the ground in a ring and blew at the bonfire in the middle, having first of all piled it up with leaves and sticks (pretending leaves and sticks, of course). And you sang all the time. Then you crawled nearer and nearer to the centre until Miss Lavinia said: “Take care, Tommy; suppose you should burn!” and you wriggled hurriedly back to your place in the ring.
But for such games trousers must be entire. Tommy broke down utterly and sobbed beneath the bed clothes.
Mammy must still be standing in the doorway for now and again he heard a heavy tread up the alley. “Evenin’,” a hearty voice would say, and “G’d evenin’,” Mammy would reply.
Then there came a much lighter step, and through the open window Tommy heard another voice which caused him to still his sobs and sit up in bed, his hands tightly clasped and his little chest heaving under the flannelette nightshirt.
“Good-evenin’, Miss Lavinia.” This was exactly what Tommy had feared.
“I’ve just had to put my Tommy to bed. He’s tore his trousers on the rocks, and I cannot mend they to-night. He must come early to school to-morrow and bide still all day, so that the children won’t laugh at him. Yes, thank you, Miss; if he may go back to the window-seat that’ll be fine, and Billy Triggs can have his chair, then they children won’t see.”
When these arrangements had been made Miss Lavinia said “Good-night” and her footsteps died away round the corner.