"My Darling Geoff,
"Why haven't you written to us? I wrote you a letter the minute I got your little note with the address, and I have written to you again since then. Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot says you are sure to get this letter. I think you can't have got the others. But still you might have written. I have been so very unhappy about you. Of course I was glad to hear you were getting on well, but still I have been very unhappy. Mamma got better very slowly. I don't think she would have got better if she hadn't heard that you were getting on well, though. She has been very unhappy, too, and so have Elsa and Frances, but poor Vicky most of all. We do so want you at home again. Geoff, I can't tell you how good old Uncle Hoot-Toot is. There is something about money I can't explain, but if you understood it all, you would see we should not be proud about his helping us, for he has done more for us always than we knew; even mamma didn't. Oh, Geoff, darling, do come home. We do all love you so, and mamma and Elsa were only troubled because you didn't seem happy, and you didn't believe that they loved you. I think it would be all different now if you came home again, and we do so want you. I keep your room so nice. I dust it myself every day. Mamma makes me have tea in the drawing-room now, and then I have a little pudding from their dinner, because, you see, one can't eat so much at ladies' afternoon tea. But I was too miserable at tea alone in the school-room. I have wrapped up our teapot, after Harvey had made it very bright, and I won't ever make tea out of it till you come home. Oh, Geoffy, darling, do come home!"Your loving, unhappy little
"Vicky."
The tears came faster and faster—so fast that it was with difficulty Geoff could see to read the last few lines. He hid his face in his hands and sobbed. He was only fourteen, remember, and there was no one to see. And with these sobs and tears—good honest tears that he need not have been ashamed of—there melted away all the unkind, ungrateful feelings out of his poor sore heart. He saw himself as he had really been—selfish, unreasonable, and spoilt.
"Yes," he said to himself, "that was all I really had to complain of. They considered me too much—they spoilt me. But, oh, I would be so different now! Only—I can't go home and say to Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot, 'I've had enough of working for myself; you may pay for me now.' It would seem too mean. No, I must keep to my plan—it's too late to change. But I think I might go home to see them all, and ask them to forgive me. In three weeks I shall have been here three months, and then I may ask for a holiday. I'll write to Vicky now at once, and tell her so—I can post the letter when I go to the station. They must have thought me so horrid for not having written before. I wonder how it was I never got the other letters? But it doesn't matter now I've got this one. Oh, dear Vicky, I think I shall nearly go out of my mind with joy to see your little face again!"
He had provided himself, luckily, with some letter-paper and envelopes, so there was no delay on that score. And once he had begun, he found no difficulty in writing—indeed, he could have covered pages, for he seemed to have so much to say. This was his letter:—
"Crickwood Farm, February 2.
"My Dearest Vicky,
I have only just got your letter, though you wrote it on the 15th of January. Mrs. Eames—that's the farmer's wife—found it behind a dish on the dresser, where it has been all the time. I never got your other letters; I can't think what became of them. I've asked the postman nearly every day if there was no letter for me. Vicky, I can't tell you all I'd like to say. I thought I'd write to mamma, but I feel as if I couldn't. Will you tell her that I just beg her to forgive me? Not only for leaving home without leave, like I did, but for all the way I went on and all the worry I gave her. I see it all quite plain. I've been getting to see it for a good while, and when I read your dear letter it all came out quite plain like a flash. I don't mind the hard work here, or even the messy sort of ways compared to home—I wouldn't mind anything if I thought I was doing right. But it's the loneliness. Vicky, I have thought sometimes I'd go out of my mind. Will you ask Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot to forgive me, too? I'd like to understand about all he has done for us, and I think I am much sensibler about money than I was, so perhaps he'll tell me. I can ask for a holiday in three weeks, and then I'll come home for one day. I shall have to tell you my plans, and I think mamma will think I'm right. I must work hard, and perhaps in a few years I shall earn enough to come home and have a cottage like we planned. For I've made up my mind to emigrate. I don't think I'd ever get on so well in anything as in a country life; for, though it's very hard work here, I don't mind it, and I love animals, and in the summer it won't be so bad. Please, Vicky, make everybody understand that I hope never to be a trouble and worry any more.—Your very loving"Geoff .
"P.S.—You may write here now. I don't mind you all knowing where I am."
By the time Geoff had finished this, for him, long epistle, it was nearly dark. He had to hurry off to the station to be in time with the milk. He was well known now by the men about the railway, and by one or two of the guards, and he was glad to see one he knew this evening, as he begged him to post his letter in town, for it was too late for the Shalecray mail. The man was very good-natured, and promised to do as he asked.
"By Tuesday," thought Geoff, "I may have a letter if Vicky writes at once. And I might write again next Sunday. So that we'd hear of each other every week."
And this thought made his face look very bright and cheery as he went whistling into the kitchen, where, as usual of a Sunday evening, Eames was sitting smoking beside the fire.
"The missis has told me about your letter, Jim," said the farmer. "I'm right-down sorry about it, but I don't rightly know who to blame. It's just got slipped out o' sight."
"Thank you," Geoff replied. "I'm awfully glad to have it now."