The Railway Children by E. Nesbit (classic books for 11 year olds TXT) 📗

away there's no other man in the house but me—that's why I want Jim to stay so frightfully much. Wouldn't you like to be writing that book with us all in it, Mother, and make Daddy come home soon?”

Peter's Mother put her arm round him suddenly, and hugged him in silence for a minute. Then she said:—

“Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right—in the way that's best for us.”

“Do you really believe that, Mother?” Peter asked quietly.

“Yes,” she said, “I do believe it—almost always—except when I'm so sad that I can't believe anything. But even when I can't believe it, I know it's true—and I try to believe. You don't know how I try, Peter. Now take the letters to the post, and don't let's be sad any more. Courage, courage! That's the finest of all the virtues! I dare say Jim will be here for two or three weeks yet.”

For what was left of the evening Peter was so angelic that Bobbie feared he was going to be ill. She was quite relieved in the morning to find him plaiting Phyllis's hair on to the back of her chair in quite his old manner.

It was soon after breakfast that a knock came at the door. The children were hard at work cleaning the brass candlesticks in honour of Jim's visit.

“That'll be the Doctor,” said Mother; “I'll go. Shut the kitchen door—you're not fit to be seen.”

But it wasn't the Doctor. They knew that by the voice and by the sound of the boots that went upstairs. They did not recognise the sound of the boots, but everyone was certain that they had heard the voice before.

There was a longish interval. The boots and the voice did not come down again.

“Who can it possibly be?” they kept on asking themselves and each other.

“Perhaps,” said Peter at last, “Dr. Forrest has been attacked by highwaymen and left for dead, and this is the man he's telegraphed for to take his place. Mrs. Viney said he had a local tenant to do his work when he went for a holiday, didn't you, Mrs. Viney?”

“I did so, my dear,” said Mrs. Viney from the back kitchen.

“He's fallen down in a fit, more likely,” said Phyllis, “all human aid despaired of. And this is his man come to break the news to Mother.”

“Nonsense!” said Peter, briskly; “Mother wouldn't have taken the man up into Jim's bedroom. Why should she? Listen—the door's opening. Now they'll come down. I'll open the door a crack.”

He did.

“It's not listening,” he replied indignantly to Bobbie's scandalised remarks; “nobody in their senses would talk secrets on the stairs. And Mother can't have secrets to talk with Dr. Forrest's stable-man—and you said it was him.”

“Bobbie,” called Mother's voice.

They opened the kitchen door, and Mother leaned over the stair railing.

“Jim's grandfather has come,” she said; “wash your hands and faces and then you can see him. He wants to see you!” The bedroom door shut again.

“There now!” said Peter; “fancy us not even thinking of that! Let's have some hot water, Mrs. Viney. I'm as black as your hat.”

The three were indeed dirty, for the stuff you clean brass candlesticks with is very far from cleaning to the cleaner.

They were still busy with soap and flannel when they heard the boots and the voice come down the stairs and go into the dining-room. And when they were clean, though still damp—because it takes such a long time to dry your hands properly, and they were very impatient to see the grandfather—they filed into the dining-room.

Mother was sitting in the window-seat, and in the leather-covered armchair that Father always used to sit in at the other house sat—

THEIR OWN OLD GENTLEMAN!

“Well, I never did,” said Peter, even before he said, “How do you do?” He was, as he explained afterwards, too surprised even to remember that there was such a thing as politeness—much less to practise it.

“It's our own old gentleman!” said Phyllis.

“Oh, it's you!” said Bobbie. And then they remembered themselves and their manners and said, “How do you do?” very nicely.

“This is Jim's grandfather, Mr. ——” said Mother, naming the old gentleman's name.

“How splendid!” said Peter; “that's just exactly like a book, isn't it, Mother?”

“It is, rather,” said Mother, smiling; “things do happen in real life that are rather like books, sometimes.”

“I am so awfully glad it IS you,” said Phyllis; “when you think of the tons of old gentlemen there are in the world—it might have been almost anyone.”

“I say, though,” said Peter, “you're not going to take Jim away, though, are you?”

“Not at present,” said the old gentleman. “Your Mother has most kindly consented to let him stay here. I thought of sending a nurse, but your Mother is good enough to say that she will nurse him herself.”

“But what about her writing?” said Peter, before anyone could stop him. “There won't be anything for him to eat if Mother doesn't write.”

“That's all right,” said Mother, hastily.

The old gentleman looked very kindly at Mother.

“I see,” he said, “you trust your children, and confide in them.”

“Of course,” said Mother.

“Then I may tell them of our little arrangement,” he said. “Your Mother, my dears, has consented to give up writing for a little while and to become a Matron of my Hospital.”

“Oh!” said Phyllis, blankly; “and shall we have to go away from Three Chimneys and the Railway and everything?”

“No, no, darling,” said Mother, hurriedly.

“The Hospital is called Three Chimneys Hospital,” said the old gentleman, “and my unlucky Jim's the only patient, and I hope he'll continue to be so. Your Mother will be Matron, and there'll be a hospital staff of a housemaid and a cook—till Jim's well.”

“And then will Mother go on writing again?” asked Peter.

“We shall see,” said the old gentleman, with a slight, swift glance at Bobbie; “perhaps something nice may happen and she won't have to.”

“I love my writing,” said Mother, very quickly.

“I know,” said the old gentleman; “don't be afraid that I'm going to try to interfere. But one never knows. Very wonderful and beautiful things do happen, don't they? And we live most of our lives in the