"And how can we cut without a knife?" said Tom.
"'How can he marry without a wife?'" I quoted out of the nursery rhyme, which set us all off laughing, so that we didn't hear a terrible sound steadily approaching the door. Stump, stump, it came, but we heard nothing till the door actually opened, and even then we didn't stop laughing all at once. We were excited by our toast-making; it was the first time since we were in London that our spirits had begun to recover themselves, and it wasn't easy to put them down again in a hurry. Even the sight of Mrs. Partridge's very cross face at the door didn't do so all at once.
I dare say we looked very wild, we were very buttery and jammy, and our faces were still broiling, our hair in confusion and our pinafores crumpled and smeared. Then the fender was pulled away from the fire, and the poker, tongs, and shovel strewed the ground, and somehow or other we had managed to burn a little hole in the rug. There was a decidedly burny smell in the room, which we ourselves had not noticed, but which, it appeared, had reached Mrs. Partridge's nose in Uncle Geoff's bedroom on the drawing-room floor, where, unfortunately, she had come to lay away some linen. And she had really been seriously frightened, poor old woman.
Being frightened makes some people cross, and finding out they have been frightened for no reason makes some people very cross. Mrs. Partridge had arrived at being cross on her way up-stairs; when she opened the nursery door and saw the confusion we had made, and heard our shouts of laughter, she naturally became very cross.
She came into the room and stood for a minute or two looking at us without speaking. And in our wonder—for myself I can't say "fear," I was too ready to be angry to be afraid, but poor Tom and Racey must have been afraid, for they got down from their chairs and stood close beside me, each holding me tightly—in our wonder as to what was going to happen next, our merriment quickly died away. We waited without speaking, looking up at the angry old woman with open-mouthed astonishment. And at last she broke out.
"Oh, you naughty children, you naughty, naughty children," she said. "To think of your daring to behave so after my kindness in sending you jam for your tea, and the whole house upset to take you in. How dare you behave so? Your poor uncle's nice furniture ruined, the carpet burnt to pieces as any one can smell, and the house all but set on fire. Oh, you naughty, naughty children! Come away with me, sir," she said, making a dive at Tom, who happened to be the nearest to her, "come away with me that I may take you to your uncle and tell him what that naughty sister of yours has put into your head—for that it's all her, I'm certain sure."
Tom dodged behind me and avoided Mrs. Partridge's hand. When he found himself at what he considered a safe distance he faced round upon her.
"Audrey isn't naughty, and you sha'n't say she is. None of us is naughty—not just now any way. But if it was naughty to make toast, it was me, and not Audrey, that thought of it first."
"You impertinent boy," was all Mrs. Partridge could find breath to say. But she did not try to catch Tom again, and indeed it would have been little use, for he began a sort of dancing jig from side to side, which would have made it very difficult for any one but a very quick, active person to get hold of him. "You rude, impertinent boy," she repeated, and then, without saying anything more, she turned and stumped out of the room.
Tom immediately stopped his jig.