perhaps just because she had been looking forward to the treat so eagerly for days past, emmeline’s feeling, when she actually found herself at the fair, was one of disappointment. there, to be sure, were the gaily decorated booths, there were the merry-go-rounds of all kinds and degrees, varying from the ring of wooden horses worked by hand, to the alarming-looking motors which raced round and round at break-neck speed; there were the side-shows, with their air of entrancing mystery to be revealed on payment of one penny; there, in fact, was everything she had been led to expect, but somehow the whole did not make the glittering, fairy-like effect she had been picturing to herself. besides, even at this hour of the afternoon, there were a good many rough-looking people about, and emmeline did not like rough people.
but if emmeline was disappointed, micky and kitty were not. all the merry-go-rounds were playing different tunes; all the people who had[59] anything to sell or to show were proclaiming its merits at the tops of their voices; the public was enjoying itself in a very loud fashion; in fact, everybody was doing everything in the noisiest manner possible, and the discord of sounds produced was deafening and delightful to the twins.
‘isn’t it lovely?’ said kitty to micky, as she skipped about; but micky did not hear, for he was engaged in a scornful colloquy with the owner of the hand-worked wooden horses.
‘think i’m going to ride on one of those things?’ he was demanding indignantly. ‘do you take me for a kid?’
‘emmeline,’ clamoured kitty, ‘when may we go and see the darling elephants?’
‘you girls can do what you like,’ said micky grandly, ‘but i’m off for a motor-drive.’
aunt grace had provided each twin with a shilling, and emmeline with a florin to spend at the fair, so that there was plenty of money for such luxuries as motor-drives.
the motor-drive, or rather several motor-drives, and the call on the darling elephants were gone through in due course, and then micky fell under the spell of the cocoanut-shy.
‘do come on, micky!’ entreated emmeline, after he had made many unsuccessful shots; ‘i believe they’re fixed[60]——’
the rest of her sentence was lost in indignant astonishment; someone had flicked one of the little feather brooms known as ‘fair-ticklers’ full in her face!
‘come along, micky,’ she exclaimed, with angry impatience; ‘i’m sick of this horrid place. why, what are you doing?’
for micky had suddenly flung down the ball which he was about to shy at the cocoanuts, and was rushing after a wretched little street arab of about his own size.
‘give it up! you little cad!’ he shouted, as he caught hold of the boy’s ragged jacket. ‘give it up this minute!’
‘i ain’t got nothing,’ whined the boy, trying vainly to wriggle out of micky’s grasp.
‘yes, you have. i saw you take it,’ and to emmeline’s intense surprise, micky suddenly wrenched her own purse out of the street arab’s dirty hand. her thoughts had been so much taken up by the fair-tickler that she had not even felt it go.
‘i’d give you a jolly good thrashing if you weren’t such a muff!’ exclaimed micky.
emmeline collected her astonished wits with an effort.
‘well, you are a naughty little boy,’ she remarked severely; ‘it would just serve you right if we gave you up to the police.’
[61]
the ragged little urchin began to howl. if he had really been much afraid he would probably have run away, but this did not strike emmeline, and her heart softened towards him, especially when he sobbed: ‘i ain’t had nothing to eat since yesterday morning.’
kitty, who was looking on with wide-open pitying eyes, gave emmeline’s hand a sudden squeeze.
‘may i give him the money i’ve got left?’ she whispered.
‘not till we know more about him,’ said emmeline. ‘is your father out of work?’ she added to the boy, with some vague idea that it was the correct thing to ask questions of that kind before giving alms.
‘i ain’t got no father nor mother neither,’ he replied, still in his professional whine.
‘who looks after you, then?’ asked emmeline, more gently.
‘old sally grimes,’ was the answer, ‘but she ain’t give me nothing to eat since yesterday morning, and she beat me something awful!’
‘come along with me,’ said emmeline. a sudden idea had taken possession of her.
‘what for?’ asked the boy half suspiciously.
‘i’m going to give you something to eat,’ said emmeline.
the boy’s eyes glistened. it had been a[62] picturesque exaggeration to say that he had had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, but he was really very hungry.
‘thank you kindly, lady,’ he said, and emmeline flushed with gratification. ‘lady’ sounded so much grander than ‘missy.’
‘what are you going to give him to eat?’ asked micky, with interest. ‘there’s a man selling ice-cream over there.’
almsgiving was impossible to micky just then, for he had spent all his money (his last two cocoanut shies had been paid for by kitty), but he was quite willing to help with advice.
‘and there’s a girl selling delicious toffee, only she calls it candy,’ said kitty. ‘why does she call it candy, emmeline?’
‘i shouldn’t think of giving a starving boy ice-cream, or toffee either,’ said emmeline. ‘we’ll go where there’s something more sensible to eat than what you can buy at this fair. come along, children.’
on the whole, the twins were not unwilling to leave the fair. it was rather sad to go so soon, but less so now that twopence of kitty’s represented all their remaining fortune than it would have been half an hour before, and when even that solitary twopence had been spent on the mysterious toffee that called itself ‘candy,’ their willingness to forsake the fair became eagerness[63] to see what new thing was about to happen. it was as good as a story-game come true to wander through the streets of eastwich with this delightfully ragged dirty boy.
‘where are we going, emmeline? what are we going to do?’ they cried.
‘you’ll see,’ said emmeline.
as a matter of fact, she did not quite know herself.
they came out of the fair into a region of squalid little shops; squalid, at least, they appeared to emmeline, but her protégé saw them from a different point of view.
‘please, lady, the fried fish and ’taters in there is all right,’ he hinted wistfully, as they passed an overwhelming smell.
emmeline hesitated. she had vaguely intended taking him to some superior tea-rooms in the high street, where she herself had sometimes gone for a treat, but now she came to think of it, perhaps the fried-fish shop would be more fitting in this case.
‘i think we’ll go in here, then,’ she decided, to her guest’s obvious satisfaction.
a shopman with a much stained apron gazed at the party in some astonishment as they entered, but he seemed to think emmeline a trustworthy person, for he made no demur when she ordered a plate of fried fish and potatoes.
[64]
‘what’s your name, little boy?’ asked emmeline, when the shopman had disappeared into the back regions, and they were seated waiting at a grimy table covered with american leather in imitation of marble.
‘diamond jub’lee jones,’ replied the boy glibly.
‘what an extraordinary name!’ exclaimed emmeline, and the twins began to giggle.
‘i were born on diamond jub’lee day,’ he explained, with evident pride.
‘well, diamond jubilee, i’m sure with such a splendid birthday you ought to be a very good, honest boy,’ said emmeline, by way of improving the occasion. ‘what would queen victoria have said if anyone had told her that a boy born on her diamond jubilee would ever take to picking people’s pockets? why, she would have been awfully upset.’
diamond jubilee looked round the shop furtively, as though to assure himself that there was nobody within hearing. ‘that ain’t to please meself i picks pockets,’ he mumbled; ‘that’s mother grimes. she beats us something awful if we don’t bring nothing home.’
‘you don’t mean to say she is bringing you up as a thief!’ exclaimed emmeline, in a horrified voice.
what diamond jubilee might have answered will never be known, for just at that moment the[65] shopman came back with the fried fish and potatoes, and private conversation was stopped for the time being. diamond jubilee threw himself on the food like a ravenous animal, while micky and kitty looked on with a fascinated stare. from their point of view, his table manners were quite as well worth watching as those of the elephants they had just been visiting.
emmeline’s point of view was a more fastidious one, and at any other time she might have been disgusted, but to-day it was with a certain tolerance that she saw diamond jubilee put his knife into his mouth. his last words had shed a halo of romance round his unkempt head. it was to children like him that kathleen had been a good angel.
with that last thought, a plan flashed into emmeline’s brain—a plan so strange and startling that it almost took her breath away for the moment, and so glorious that it made her want to jump and dance about the shop, only that would have been out of keeping with the dignity of the wonderful plan.
‘diamond jubilee, if you have quite done, will you come outside? i’ve something important to tell you.’ emmeline’s heart was thumping so that she could hardly get the words out.
‘well, there ain’t nothing more on this here plate,’ said diamond jubilee, giving it a final[66] scrape. perhaps he hoped that she would offer a second helping, but she scarcely even heard what he said.
‘stop a bit, miss!’ called the shopman, as she seized hold of diamond jubilee’s arm, and began hurrying him out of the shop. ‘you haven’t paid, miss.’
‘oh, bother!’ cried emmeline, impatiently. ‘i was quite forgetting. how much is it?’
‘three halfpence, please, miss.’
her fingers were trembling with excitement as she fumbled for the money in her little brown leather purse.
‘that’ll be right, thank you, miss,’ he said, as she threw it down on the counter.
at last they were out in the street again, and she was free to tell the marvellous plan with which for the last two minutes she had been almost bursting. ‘diamond jubilee,’ she demanded, again laying her hand in a motherly way on his very dirty and rather smelly jacket sleeve, ‘don’t you feel a longing sometimes for a better life?’
diamond jubilee stared at her as though he did not understand the question.
‘wouldn’t you like to get away from mother grimes, and go to live with people who would teach you to be a good boy and always be kind to you?’ she asked, the words almost tumbling over one another in her eagerness.
[67]
‘well,’ said diamond jubilee, ‘maybe i would, maybe i wouldn’t.’
emmeline was conscious of a sudden chill of disappointment. this was not the way she had pictured him hailing the prospect of deliverance from mother grimes and his present life. but perhaps his indifferent manner simply meant that he did not even yet quite understand.
‘because if you would like it,’ she went on very slowly and distinctly, ‘i’ll take you home with me.’
‘emmeline!’ gasped kitty, ‘whatever will aunt grace say?’ even to her simple mind, it seemed a somewhat unusual proceeding to adopt a strange boy out of the streets on the strength of his having tried to pick one’s pocket.
micky, however, saw things from a less conventional standpoint. ‘i say, emmeline, what a stunning lark!’ he exclaimed. ‘why, it will be almost like keeping another dog!’
meantime, diamond jubilee was regarding emmeline with a critical stare, very unlike the deferential gratitude she felt he ought to have shown. ‘garn!’ he said, suspiciously. ‘you’re kidding me, ain’t you?’
‘i don’t know what you mean by kidding you,’ said emmeline, with dignity. ‘if you come home with me you shall have plenty to eat and a nice[68] house to live in. i promise you that, and i always keep my promises.’
even after emmeline’s assurance that he should have plenty to eat and a nice home, diamond jubilee did not look as if he altogether trusted her. still, she had just given him the best meal he had had for a long time past, and life with mother grimes had been particularly unpleasant lately.… ‘well,’ he said doubtfully, ‘maybe—i’ll come.’
‘does that mean you will come, or you won’t?’ said emmeline.
he gave her another critical stare before answering, ‘i don’t mind if i do.’
she knew that this was a way of accepting her offer, and though she could not help feeling nettled, it was too late now to draw back. besides, it might only be an unfortunate manner which made diamond jubilee seem so indifferent. ‘well, then, listen what you’ve got to do,’ she commanded in her briskest and most capable voice. ‘we must hurry back now to have tea with a friend who is expecting us, and though of course you can’t come in, as you haven’t been invited, you must come with us and wait outside, or you won’t know where to find us again. we shan’t stay more than half an hour, and after that we’ll take you to your new home. and now you had better walk a little way behind us.[69] it’s not that we don’t like walking with you, but it might lead to awkward questions if people met you with us,’ she added hastily, for fear of hurting his feelings.
she need not have been afraid. he had no special desire to walk with these strange children, who had so unexpectedly adopted him, so he fell back in stolid indifference.
‘emmeline,’ said kitty uneasily, as they hurried along towards mary’s house, ‘it will be a tremendous surprise for aunt grace when diamond jubilee turns up.’
‘it’s the jolliest lark that ever was!’ micky was exclaiming, on her other side, ‘i never thought you were so sporting, emmeline.’
‘it isn’t sporting at all,’ said emmeline, with dignity. ‘you don’t seem to understand, micky, that this is a good work, and not a game.’
‘but are you quite sure that aunt grace won’t be cross?’ asked kitty.
‘aunt grace won’t have anything to do with him,’ said emmeline, rather defiantly. ‘it’s we who are adopting him, not her. nobody else will know anything about him, not even mary. i’d like to tell her, but i’m afraid it wouldn’t be safe. she might think it her duty to tell aunt grace—one never quite knows with grown-up people, even the nicest of them.’
‘but how are you going to manage about his[70] food and the nice house to live in, if nobody’s to know about him?’ was kitty’s very natural question.
‘he’ll live in the feudal castle, and we’ll buy his food with the money in my extra money-box,’ said emmeline. ‘it’ll be quite all right to use it in that way, for it was for poor little children such as diamond jubilee that we collected it.’
for about five seconds the twins gazed at her open-mouthed. such a scheme was beyond their most brilliant imaginings. then micky startled the passers-by with a wild war-whoop, and kitty gasped: ‘how perfectly bea-u-tiful! why, it’ll be just like the young pretender—taking him food, i mean, and keeping his hiding-place secret from everybody.’
‘we’ll have to bind ourselves by a solemn oath of secrecy,’ cried micky. ‘here goes—if i let out about diamond jubilee, may i and my descendants——’
‘micky, you know aunt grace said we weren’t to say that,’ said kitty, in a voice of distress.
‘no, micky; it’s not nice,’ said emmeline.
‘i was only going to say, “may we lose our shirt-studs even to the hundredth generation!” said micky, calmly. ‘aunt grace invented that herself, so there!’
