“He won’t wallow long,” said Mr. Weston. “Not if I know Billy.”
“Well—will Mrs. Forester mind?”
“She will not,” said Mrs. Weston, coming into the discussion with a note of decision in her clear voice. “If Mrs. Forester finds that much-too-pretty little boy grown into a brown, noisy, healthy ruffian like Billy, with horny hands and tough muscles, she won’t worry one little bit as to where his polish has gone. The mother who sent her son up here with scout suits and whipcord breeches doesn’t want him kept in cotton-wool. We can’t be always sure of making no mistakes, twinses dear: but I think if we have to decide between living up to the polish or the breeches, it will certainly be best to let the polish go. Elaine Forester won’t miss it after her boy has been for a year on Emu Plains!”
Later, on her way back from bidding good-night to the twins, in their end of the verandah, Mrs. Weston paused near the boys’ beds. Billy always slept under her window: to-night the second little bed was drawn near his, and the sleek, fair head showed close to the ruddy curls in the moonlight. Billy lay, as always, with one arm flung above his head. He did not stir when his mother stooped to kiss him, tucking the sheet more closely round him. But when she bent above the other bed, Rex tossed round uneasily, and spoke in his sleep.
“Mother!” he muttered. The word was almost a cry.
“Go to sleep, little sonnie,” Mrs. Weston said gently. She put her lips to the smooth cheek, and Rex settled down with a little satisfied sigh.
A vision came across Mrs. Weston of that other mother, whose ship was bearing her relentlessly away from her son.
“I’ll take care of him for you,” she murmured. And when she leaned from her window later on for the look she always gave Billy before blowing out her light, her caressing eyes lingered as long on the fair head as on the ruddy mass of despised curls.
CHAPTER X
MIXED INSTRUCTIONS
WITH the first days of January the twins’ programme may be said to have got fairly into its stride. It worked smoothly enough. An alarum-clock, placed on an empty kerosene-tin between their beds, shrieked a wild summons at five every morning—on the first occasion each twin had dived to seize and silence it, with the result that their heads had banged together with sufficient violence to banish sleep very effectually. After that, they put the kerosene-tin near the foot of the beds, a plan that had the additional advantage of making them leap from their pillows without any chance of yielding to the temptation, familiar to us all, of “just one minute more.” Then came a quick cold shower and a hurried dressing, after which one twin attacked the drawing-room and the other the dining-room; it was a point of honour to have both rooms done before early morning tea, always ready in the kitchen soon after six. They had had visions of taking in their mother’s morning cup; but they soon realized that this was a privilege too dear to Sarah’s heart to be deputed to anyone. Therefore the twins contented themselves with taking their own tea very cheerfully in the kitchen with Sarah, who imagined that she concealed, under a grumpy manner, the fact that she delighted in their presence.