Chapter Chapter 12 · The Sorry-Present And The Expelled Little Boy
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THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY
“Look here, said Cyril, sitting on the dining-table and swinging his
legs; “I really have got it.”
“Got what?” was the not unnatural rejoinder of the others.
Cyril was making a boat with a penknife and a piece of wood, and the
girls were making warm frocks for their dolls, for the weather was
growing chilly.
“Why, don’t you see? It’s really not any good our going into the Past
looking for that Amulet. The Past’s as full of different times as—as
the sea is of sand. We’re simply bound to hit upon the wrong time. We
might spend our lives looking for the Amulet and never see a sight of
it. Why, it’s the end of September already. It’s like looking for a
needle in—”
“A bottle of hay—I know,” interrupted Robert; “but if we don’t go on
doing that, what ARE we to do?”
“That’s just it,” said Cyril in mysterious accents. “Oh, _bother!_”
Old Nurse had come in with the tray of knives, forks, and glasses, and
was getting the tablecloth and table-napkins out of the chiffonier
drawer.
“It’s always meal-times just when you come to anything interesting.”
“And a nice interesting handful _you’d_ be, Master Cyril,” said old
Nurse, “if I wasn’t to bring your meals up to time. Don’t you begin
grumbling now, fear you get something to grumble _at_.”
“I wasn’t grumbling,” said Cyril quite untruly; “but it does always
happen like that.”
“You deserve to _have_ something happen,” said old Nurse. “Slave,
slave, slave for you day and night, and never a word of thanks. ...”
“Why, you do everything beautifully,” said Anthea.
“It’s the first time any of you’s troubled to say so, anyhow,” said
Nurse shortly.
“What’s the use of _saying?_” inquired Robert. “We _eat_ our meals fast
enough, and almost always two helps. _That_ ought to show you!”
“Ah!” said old Nurse, going round the table and putting the knives and
forks in their places; “you’re a man all over, Master Robert. There was
my poor Green, all the years he lived with me I never could get more
out of him than ‘It’s all right!’ when I asked him if he’d fancied his
dinner. And yet, when he lay a-dying, his last words to me was, ‘Maria,
you was always a good cook!’” She ended with a trembling voice.
“And so you are,” cried Anthea, and she and Jane instantly hugged her.
When she had gone out of the room Anthea said—
“I know exactly how she feels. Now, look here! Let’s do a penance to
show we’re sorry we didn’t think about telling her before what nice
cooking she does, and what a dear she is.”
“Penances are silly,” said Robert.
“Not if the penance is something to please someone else. I didn’t mean
old peas and hair shirts and sleeping on the stones. I mean we’ll make
her a sorry-present,” explained Anthea. “Look here! I vote Cyril
doesn’t tell us his idea until we’ve done something for old Nurse. It’s
worse for us than him,” she added hastily, “because he knows what it is
and we don’t. Do you all agree?”
The others would have been ashamed not to agree, so they did. It was
not till quite near the end of dinner—mutton fritters and blackberry
and apple pie—that out of the earnest talk of the four came an idea
that pleased everybody and would, they hoped, please Nurse.
Cyril and Robert went out with the taste of apple still in their mouths
and the purple of blackberries on their lips—and, in the case of
Robert, on the wristband as well—and bought a big sheet of cardboard at
the stationers. Then at the plumber’s shop, that has tubes and pipes
and taps and gas-fittings in the window, they bought a pane of glass
the same size as the cardboard. The man cut it with a very interesting
tool that had a bit of diamond at the end, and he gave them, out of his
own free generousness, a large piece of putty and a small piece of
glue.
While they were out the girls had floated four photographs of the four
children off their cards in hot water. These were now stuck in a row
along the top of the cardboard. Cyril put the glue to melt in a jampot,
and put the jampot in a saucepan and saucepan on the fire, while Robert
painted a wreath of poppies round the photographs. He painted rather
well and very quickly, and poppies are easy to do if you’ve once been
shown how. Then Anthea drew some printed letters and Jane coloured
them. The words were:
“With all our loves to shew
We like the thigs to eat.”
And when the painting was dry they all signed their names at the bottom
and put the glass on, and glued brown paper round the edge and over the
back, and put two loops of tape to hang it up by.
Of course everyone saw when too late that there were not enough letters
in “things”, so the missing “n”was put in. It was impossible, of
course, to do the whole thing over again for just one letter.
“There!” said Anthea, placing it carefully, face up, under the sofa.
“It’ll be hours before the glue’s dry. Now, Squirrel, fire ahead!”
“Well, then,” said Cyril in a great hurry, rubbing at his gluey hands
with his pocket handkerchief. “What I mean to say is this.”
There was a long pause.
“Well,” said Robert at last, “_what_ is it that you mean to say?”
“It’s like this,” said Cyril, and again stopped short.
“Like _what?_” asked Jane.
“How can I tell you if you will all keep on interrupting?” said Cyril
sharply.
So no one said any more, and with wrinkled frowns he arranged his
ideas.
“Look here,” he said, “what I really mean is—we can remember now what
we did when we went to look for the Amulet. And if we’d found it we
should remember that too.”
“Rather!” said Robert. “Only, you see we haven’t.”
“But in the future we shall have.”
“Shall we, though?” said Jane.
“Yes—unless we’ve been made fools of by the Psammead. So then, where we
want to go to is where we shall remember about where we did find it.”
“I see,” said Robert, but he didn’t.
“_I_ don’t,” said Anthea, who did, very nearly. “Say it again,
Squirrel, and very slowly.”
“If,” said Cyril, very slowly indeed, “we go into the future—after
we’ve found the Amulet—”
“But we’ve got to find it first,” said Jane.
“Hush!” said Anthea.
“There will be a future,” said Cyril, driven to greater clearness by
the blank faces of the other three, “there will be a time _after_ we’ve
found it. Let’s go into _that_ time—and then we shall remember _how_ we
found it. And then we can go back and do the finding really.”
“I see,” said Robert, and this time he did, and I hope _you_ do.
“Yes,” said Anthea. “Oh, Squirrel, how clever of you!”
“But will the Amulet work both ways?” inquired Robert.
“It ought to,” said Cyril, “if time’s only a thingummy of whatsitsname.
Anyway we might try.”
“Let’s put on our best things, then,” urged Jane. “You know what people
say about progress and the world growing better and brighter. I expect
people will be awfully smart in the future.”
“All right,” said Anthea, “we should have to wash anyway, I’m all thick
with glue.”
When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up.
“We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we’ve found
it,” said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They walked through
the big arch of the charm straight into the British Museum. They knew
it at once, and there, right in front of them, under a glass case, was
the Amulet—their own half of it, as well as the other half they had
never been able to find—and the two were joined by a pin of red stone
that formed a hinge.
“Oh, glorious!” cried Robert. “Here it is!”
“Yes,” said Cyril, very gloomily, “here it is. But we can’t get it
out.”
“No,” said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of Babylon had
found it to get anything out of the glass cases in the Museum—except by
Psammead magic, and then she hadn’t been able to take anything away
with her; “no—but we remember where we got it, and we can—”
“Oh, _do_ we?” interrupted Cyril bitterly, “do _you_ remember where we
got it?”
“No,” said Robert, “I don’t exactly, now I come to think of it.”
Nor did any of the others!
“But _why_ can’t we?” said Jane.
“Oh, _I_ don’t know,” Cyril’s tone was impatient, “some silly old
enchanted rule I suppose. I wish people would teach you magic at school
like they do sums—or instead of. It would be some use having an Amulet
then.”
“I wonder how far we are in the future,” said Anthea; the Museum looks
just the same, only lighter and brighter, somehow.”
“Let’s go back and try the Past again,” said Robert.
“Perhaps the Museum people could tell us how we got it,” said Anthea
with sudden hope. There was no one in the room, but in the next
gallery, where the Assyrian things are and still were, they found a
kind, stout man in a loose, blue gown, and stockinged legs.
“Oh, they’ve got a new uniform, how pretty!” said Jane.
When they asked him their question he showed them a label on the case.
It said, “From the collection of—.” A name followed, and it was the
name of the learned gentleman who, among themselves, and to his face
when he had been with them at the other side of the Amulet, they had
called Jimmy.
“_That’s_ not much good,” said Cyril, “thank you.”
“How is it you’re not at school?” asked the kind man in blue. “Not
expelled for long I hope?”
“We’re not expelled at all,” said Cyril rather warmly.
“Well, I shouldn’t do it again, if I were you,” said the man, and they
could see he did not believe them. There is no company so little
pleasing as that of people who do not believe you.
“Thank you for showing us the label,” said Cyril. And they came away.
As they came through the doors of the Museum they blinked at the sudden
glory of sunlight and blue sky. The houses opposite the Museum were
gone. Instead there was a big garden, with trees and flowers and smooth
green lawns, and not a single notice to tell you not to walk on the
grass and not to destroy the trees and shrubs and not to pick the
flowers. There were comfortable seats all about, and arbours covered
with roses, and long, trellised walks, also rose-covered. Whispering,
splashing fountains fell into full white marble basins, white statues
gleamed among the leaves, and the pigeons that swept about among the
branches or pecked on the smooth, soft gravel were not black and
tumbled like the Museum pigeons are now, but bright and clean and sleek
as birds of new silver. A good many people were sitting on the seats,
and on the grass babies were rolling and kicking and playing—with very
little on indeed. Men, as well as women, seemed to be in charge of the
babies and were playing with them.
“It’s like a lovely picture,” said Anthea, and it was. For the people’s
clothes were of bright, soft colours and all beautifully and very
simply made. No one seemed to have any hats or bonnets, but there were
a great many Japanese-looking sunshades. And among the trees were hung
lamps of coloured glass.
“I expect they light those in the evening,” said Jane. “I _do_ wish we
lived in the future!”
They walked down the path, and as they went the people on the benches
looked at the four children very curiously, but not rudely or unkindly.
The children, in their turn, looked—I hope they did not stare—at the
faces of these people in the beautiful soft clothes. Those faces were
worth looking at. Not that they were all handsome, though even in the
matter of handsomeness they had the advantage of any set of people the
children had ever seen. But it was the expression of their faces that
made them worth looking at. The children could not tell at first what
it was.
“I know,” said Anthea suddenly. “They’re not worried; that’s what it
is.”
And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no
one seemed to be anxious, or fretted, and though some did seem to be
sad, not a single one looked worried.
But though the people looked kind everyone looked so interested in the
children that they began to feel a little shy and turned out of the big
main path into a narrow little one that wound among trees and shrubs
and mossy, dripping springs.
It was here, in a deep, shadowed cleft between tall cypresses, that
they found the expelled little boy. He was lying face downward on the
mossy turf, and the peculiar shaking of his shoulders was a thing they
had seen, more than once, in each other. So Anthea kneeled down by him
and said—
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m expelled from school,” said the boy between his sobs.
This was serious. People are not expelled for light offences.
“Do you mind telling us what you’d done?”
“I—I tore up a sheet of paper and threw it about in the playground,”
said the child, in the tone of one confessing an unutterable baseness.
“You won’t talk to me any more now you know that,” he added without
looking up.
“Was that all?” asked Anthea.
“It’s about enough,” said the child; “and I’m expelled for the whole
day!”
“I don’t quite understand,” said Anthea, gently. The boy lifted his
face, rolled over, and sat up.
“Why, whoever on earth are you?” he said.
“We’re strangers from a far country,” said Anthea. “In our country it’s
not a crime to leave a bit of paper about.”
“It is here,” said the child. “If grown-ups do it they’re fined. When
we do it we’re expelled for the whole day.”
“Well, but,” said Robert, “that just means a day’s holiday.”
“You _must_ come from a long way off,” said the little boy. “A
holiday’s when you all have play and treats and jolliness, all of you
together. On your expelled days no one’ll speak to you. Everyone sees
you’re an Expelleder or you’d be in school.”
“Suppose you were ill?”
“Nobody is—hardly. If they are, of course they wear the badge, and
everyone is kind to you. I know a boy that stole his sister’s illness
badge and wore it when he was expelled for a day. _He_ got expelled for
a week for that. It must be awful not to go to school for a week.”
“Do you _like_ school, then?” asked Robert incredulously.
“Of course I do. It’s the loveliest place there is. I chose railways
for my special subject this year, there are such splendid models and
things, and now I shall be all behind because of that torn-up paper.”
“You choose your own subject?” asked Cyril.
“Yes, of course. Where _did_ you come from? Don’t you know _anything?_”
“No,” said Jane definitely; “so you’d better tell us.”
“Well, on Midsummer Day school breaks up and everything’s decorated
with flowers, and you choose your special subject for next year. Of
course you have to stick to it for a year at least. Then there are all
your other subjects, of course, reading, and painting, and the rules of
Citizenship.”
“Good gracious!” said Anthea.
“Look here,” said the child, jumping up, “it’s nearly four. The
expelledness only lasts till then. Come home with me. Mother will tell
you all about everything.”
“Will your mother like you taking home strange children?” asked Anthea.
“I don’t understand,” said the child, settling his leather belt over
his honey-coloured smock and stepping out with hard little bare feet.
“Come on.”
So they went.
The streets were wide and hard and very clean. There were no horses,
but a sort of motor carriage that made no noise. The Thames flowed
between green banks, and there were trees at the edge, and people sat
under them, fishing, for the stream was clear as crystal. Everywhere
there were green trees and there was no smoke. The houses were set in
what seemed like one green garden.
The little boy brought them to a house, and at the window was a good,
bright mother-face. The little boy rushed in, and through the window
they could see him hugging his mother, then his eager lips moving and
his quick hands pointing.
A lady in soft green clothes came out, spoke kindly to them, and took
them into the oddest house they had ever seen. It was very bare, there
were no ornaments, and yet every single thing was beautiful, from the
dresser with its rows of bright china, to the thick squares of
Eastern-looking carpet on the floors. I can’t describe that house; I
haven’t the time. And I haven’t heart either, when I think how
different it was from our houses. The lady took them all over it. The
oddest thing of all was the big room in the middle. It had padded walls
and a soft, thick carpet, and all the chairs and tables were padded.
There wasn’t a single thing in it that anyone could hurt itself with.
“What ever’s this for?—lunatics?” asked Cyril.
The lady looked very shocked.
“No! It’s for the children, of course,” she said. “Don’t tell me that
in your country there are no children’s rooms.”
“There are nurseries,” said Anthea doubtfully, “but the furniture’s all
cornery and hard, like other rooms.”
“How shocking!” said the lady; “you must be _very_ much behind the
times in your country! Why, the children are more than half of the
people; it’s not much to have one room where they can have a good time
and not hurt themselves.”
“But there’s no fireplace,” said Anthea.
“Hot-air pipes, of course,” said the lady. “Why, how could you have a
fire in a nursery? A child might get burned.”
“In our country,” said Robert suddenly, “more than 3,000 children are
burned to death every year. Father told me,” he added, as if
apologizing for this piece of information, “once when I’d been playing
with fire.”
The lady turned quite pale.
“What a frightful place you must live in!” she said.
“What’s all the furniture padded for?” Anthea asked, hastily turning
the subject.
“Why, you couldn’t have little tots of two or three running about in
rooms where the things were hard and sharp! They might hurt
themselves.”
Robert fingered the scar on his forehead where he had hit it against
the nursery fender when he was little.
“But does everyone have rooms like this, poor people and all?” asked
Anthea.
“There’s a room like this wherever there’s a child, of course,” said
the lady. “How refreshingly ignorant you are!—no, I don’t mean
ignorant, my dear. Of course, you’re awfully well up in ancient
History. But I see you haven’t done your Duties of Citizenship Course
yet.”
“But beggars, and people like that?” persisted Anthea “and tramps and
people who haven’t any homes?”
“People who haven’t any homes?” repeated the lady. “I really _don’t_
understand what you’re talking about.”
“It’s all different in our country,” said Cyril carefully; and I have
read it used to be different in London. Usedn’t people to have no homes
and beg because they were hungry? And wasn’t London very black and
dirty once upon a time? And the Thames all muddy and filthy? And narrow
streets, and—”
“You must have been reading very old-fashioned books,” said the lady.
“Why, all that was in the dark ages! My husband can tell you more about
it than I can. He took Ancient History as one of his special subjects.”
“I haven’t seen any working people,” said Anthea.
“Why, we’re all working people,” said the lady; “at least my husband’s
a carpenter.”
“Good gracious!” said Anthea; “but you’re a lady!”
“Ah,” said the lady, “that quaint old word! Well, my husband _will_
enjoy a talk with you. In the dark ages everyone was allowed to have a
smoky chimney, and those nasty horses all over the streets, and all
sorts of rubbish thrown into the Thames. And, of course, the sufferings
of the people will hardly bear thinking of. It’s very learned of you to
know it all. Did _you_ make Ancient History your special subject?”
“Not exactly,” said Cyril, rather uneasily. “What is the Duties of
Citizenship Course about?”
“Don’t you _really_ know? Aren’t you pretending—just for fun? Really
not? Well, that course teaches you how to be a good citizen, what you
must do and what you mayn’t do, so as to do your full share of the work
of making your town a beautiful and happy place for people to live in.
There’s a quite simple little thing they teach the tiny children. How
does it go...?
“I must not steal and I must learn,
Nothing is mine that I do not earn.
I must try in work and play
To make things beautiful every day.
I must be kind to everyone,
And never let cruel things be done.
I must be brave, and I must try
When I am hurt never to cry,
And always laugh as much as I can,
And be glad that I’m going to be a man
To work for my living and help the rest
And never do less than my very best.”
“That’s very easy,” said Jane. “_I_ could remember that.”
“That’s only the very beginning, of course,” said the lady; “there are
heaps more rhymes. There’s the one beginning—
“I must not litter the beautiful street
With bits of paper or things to eat;
I must not pick the public flowers,
They are not _mine_, but they are _ours_.”
“And ‘things to eat’ reminds me—are you hungry? Wells, run and get a
tray of nice things.”
“Why do you call him ‘Wells’?” asked Robert, as the boy ran off.
“It’s after the great reformer—surely you’ve heard of _him?_ He lived
in the dark ages, and he saw that what you ought to do is to find out
what you want and then try to get it. Up to then people had always
tried to tinker up what they’d got. We’ve got a great many of the
things he thought of. Then ‘Wells’ means springs of clear water. It’s a
nice name, don’t you think?”
Here Wells returned with strawberries and cakes and lemonade on a tray,
and everybody ate and enjoyed.
“Now, Wells,” said the lady, “run off or you’ll be late and not meet
your Daddy.”
Wells kissed her, waved to the others, and went.
“Look here,” said Anthea suddenly, “would you like to come to _our_
country, and see what it’s like? It wouldn’t take you a minute.”
The lady laughed. But Jane held up the charm and said the word.
“What a splendid conjuring trick!” cried the lady, enchanted with the
beautiful, growing arch.
“Go through,” said Anthea.
The lady went, laughing. But she did not laugh when she found herself,
suddenly, in the dining-room at Fitzroy Street.
“Oh, what a _horrible_ trick!” she cried. “What a hateful, dark, ugly
place!”
She ran to the window and looked out. The sky was grey, the street was
foggy, a dismal organ-grinder was standing opposite the door, a beggar
and a man who sold matches were quarrelling at the edge of the pavement
on whose greasy black surface people hurried along, hastening to get to
the shelter of their houses.
“Oh, look at their faces, their horrible faces!” she cried. “What’s the
matter with them all?”
“They’re poor people, that’s all,” said Robert.
“But it’s _not_ all! They’re ill, they’re unhappy, they’re wicked! Oh,
do stop it, there’s dear children. It’s very, very clever. Some sort of
magic-lantern trick, I suppose, like I’ve read of. But _do_ stop it.
Oh! their poor, tired, miserable, wicked faces!”
The tears were in her eyes. Anthea signed to Jane. The arch grew, they
spoke the words, and pushed the lady through it into her own time and
place, where London is clean and beautiful, and the Thames runs clear
and bright, and the green trees grow, and no one is afraid, or anxious,
or in a hurry.
There was a silence. Then—
“I’m glad we went,” said Anthea, with a deep breath.
“I’ll never throw paper about again as long as I live,” said Robert.
“Mother always told us not to,” said Jane.
“I would like to take up the Duties of Citizenship for a special
subject,” said Cyril. “I wonder if Father could put me through it. I
shall ask him when he comes home.”
“If we’d found the Amulet, Father could be home _now_,” said Anthea,
“and Mother and The Lamb.”
“Let’s go into the future _again_,” suggested Jane brightly. “Perhaps
we could remember if it wasn’t such an awful way off.”
So they did. This time they said, “The future, where the Amulet is, not
so far away.”
And they went through the familiar arch into a large, light room with
three windows. Facing them was the familiar mummy-case. And at a table
by the window sat the learned gentleman. They knew him at once, though
his hair was white. He was one of the faces that do not change with
age. In his hand was the Amulet—complete and perfect.
He rubbed his other hand across his forehead in the way they were so
used to.
“Dreams, dreams!” he said; “old age is full of them!”
“You’ve been in dreams with us before now,” said Robert, “don’t you
remember?”
“I do, indeed,” said he. The room had many more books than the Fitzroy
Street room, and far more curious and wonderful Assyrian and Egyptian
objects. “The most wonderful dreams I ever had had you in them.”
“Where,” asked Cyril, “did you get that thing in your hand?”
“If you weren’t just a dream,” he answered, smiling, you’d remember
that you gave it to me.”
“But where did we get it?” Cyril asked eagerly.
“Ah, you never would tell me that,” he said, “You always had your
little mysteries. You dear children! What a difference you made to that
old Bloomsbury house! I wish I could dream you oftener. Now you’re
grown up you’re not like you used to be.”
“Grown up?” said Anthea.
The learned gentleman pointed to a frame with four photographs in it.
“There you are,” he said.
The children saw four grown-up people’s portraits—two ladies, two
gentlemen—and looked on them with loathing.
“Shall we grow up like _that?_” whispered Jane. “How perfectly horrid!”
“If we’re ever like that, we sha’nn’t know it’s horrid, I expect,”
Anthea with some insight whispered back. “You see, you get used to
yourself while you’re changing. It’s—it’s being so sudden makes it seem
so frightful now.”
The learned gentleman was looking at them with wistful kindness. “Don’t
let me undream you just yet,” he said. There was a pause.
“Do you remember _when_ we gave you that Amulet?” Cyril asked suddenly.
“You know, or you would if you weren’t a dream, that it was on the 3rd
December, 1905. I shall never forget _that_ day.”
“Thank you,” said Cyril, earnestly; “oh, thank you very much.”
“You’ve got a new room,” said Anthea, looking out of the window, “and
what a lovely garden!”
“Yes,” said he, “I’m too old now to care even about being near the
Museum. This is a beautiful place. Do you know—I can hardly believe
you’re just a dream, you do look so exactly real. Do you know...” his
voice dropped, “I can say it to _you_, though, of course, if I said it
to anyone that wasn’t a dream they’d call me mad; there was something
about that Amulet you gave me—something very mysterious.”
“There was that,” said Robert.
“Ah, I don’t mean your pretty little childish mysteries about where you
got it. But about the thing itself. First, the wonderful dreams I used
to have, after you’d shown me the first half of it! Why, my book on
Atlantis, that I did, was the beginning of my fame and my fortune, too.
And I got it all out of a dream! And then, ‘Britain at the Time of the
Roman Invasion’—that was only a pamphlet, but it explained a lot of
things people hadn’t understood.”
“Yes,” said Anthea, “it would.”
“That was the beginning. But after you’d given me the whole of the
Amulet—ah, it was generous of you!—then, somehow, I didn’t need to
theorize, I seemed to _know_ about the old Egyptian civilization. And
they can’t upset my theories”—he rubbed his thin hands and laughed
triumphantly—“they can’t, though they’ve tried. Theories, they call
them, but they’re more like—I don’t know—more like memories. I _know_
I’m right about the secret rites of the Temple of Amen.”
“I’m so glad you’re rich,” said Anthea. “You weren’t, you know, at
Fitzroy Street.”
“Indeed I wasn’t,” said he, “but I am now. This beautiful house and
this lovely garden—I dig in it sometimes; you remember, you used to
tell me to take more exercise? Well, I feel I owe it all to you—and the
Amulet.”
“I’m so glad,” said Anthea, and kissed him. He started.
“_That_ didn’t feel like a dream,” he said, and his voice trembled.
“It isn’t exactly a dream,” said Anthea softly, “it’s all part of the
Amulet—it’s a sort of extra special, real dream, dear Jimmy.”
“Ah,” said he, “when you call me that, I know I’m dreaming. My little
sister—I dream of her sometimes. But it’s not real like this. Do you
remember the day I dreamed you brought me the Babylonish ring?”
“We remember it all,” said Robert. “Did you leave Fitzroy Street
because you were too rich for it?”
“Oh, no!” he said reproachfully. “You know I should never have done
such a thing as that. Of course, I left when your old Nurse died
and—what’s the matter!”
“Old Nurse _dead?_” said Anthea. “Oh, _no!_”
“Yes, yes, it’s the common lot. It’s a long time ago now.”
Jane held up the Amulet in a hand that twittered.
“Come!” she cried, “oh, come home! She may be dead before we get there,
and then we can’t give it to her. Oh, come!”
“Ah, don’t let the dream end now!” pleaded the learned gentleman.
“It must,” said Anthea firmly, and kissed him again.
“When it comes to people dying,” said Robert, “good-bye! I’m so glad
you’re rich and famous and happy.”
“_Do_ come!” cried Jane, stamping in her agony of impatience.
And they went. Old Nurse brought in tea almost as soon as they were
back in Fitzroy Street. As she came in with the tray, the girls rushed
at her and nearly upset her and it.
“Don’t die!” cried Jane, “oh, don’t!” and Anthea cried, “Dear, ducky,
darling old Nurse, don’t die!”
“Lord, love you!” said Nurse, “I’m not agoin’ to die yet a while,
please Heaven! Whatever on earth’s the matter with the chicks?”
“Nothing. Only don’t!”
She put the tray down and hugged the girls in turn. The boys thumped
her on the back with heartfelt affection.
“I’m as well as ever I was in my life,” she said. “What nonsense about
dying! You’ve been a sitting too long in the dusk, that’s what it is.
Regular blind man’s holiday. Leave go of me, while I light the gas.”
The yellow light illuminated four pale faces.
“We do love you so,” Anthea went on, “and we’ve made you a picture to
show you how we love you. Get it out, Squirrel.”
The glazed testimonial was dragged out from under the sofa and
displayed.
“The glue’s not dry yet,” said Cyril, “look out!”
“What a beauty!” cried old Nurse. “Well, I never! And your pictures and
the beautiful writing and all. Well, I always did say your hearts was
in the right place, if a bit careless at times. Well! I never did! I
don’t know as I was ever pleased better in my life.”
She hugged them all, one after the other. And the boys did not mind it,
somehow, that day.
“How is it we can remember all about the future, _now?_” Anthea woke
the Psammead with laborious gentleness to put the question. “How is it
we can remember what we saw in the future, and yet, when we _were_ in
the future, we could not remember the bit of the future that was past
then, the time of finding the Amulet?”
“Why, what a silly question!” said the Psammead, “of course you cannot
remember what hasn’t happened yet.”
“But the _future_ hasn’t happened yet,” Anthea persisted, “and we
remember that all right.”
“Oh, that isn’t what’s happened, my good child,” said the Psammead,
rather crossly, “that’s prophetic vision. And you remember dreams,
don’t you? So why not visions? You never do seem to understand the
simplest thing.”
It went to sand again at once.
Anthea crept down in her nightgown to give one last kiss to old Nurse,
and one last look at the beautiful testimonial hanging, by its tapes,
its glue now firmly set, in glazed glory on the wall of the kitchen.
“Good-night, bless your loving heart,” said old Nurse, “if only you
don’t catch your deather-cold!”