Soldiers of the Queen Part 9

CHAPTER VI.

A KEEPSAKE.

"He is my own child, and he is not so very ugly after all, if you look at him properly."--_The Ugly Duckling_.

The holidays pa.s.sed too quickly, as they always did at Brenlands. Jack was no longer the ugly duckling. Whatever misunderstanding or lack of sympathy might have existed hitherto between himself and Valentine had melted away in the sunny atmosphere of Queen Mab's court; and since the incident of the magpie's nest, the two boys had become fast friends.

Soldiering was their great mutual hobby. They constructed miniature earthworks in the garden, mounted bra.s.s cannon thereon, fired them off with real powder, and never could discover where the shots went to.

They read and re-read "A Voice from Waterloo," the only military book they could discover in their aunt's bookcase; and on wet days the bare floor of the empty room upstairs was spread with the pomp and circ.u.mstance of war. The soldiers had a wonderful way of concealing their sufferings; they never groaned or murmured, and, shot down one day, were perfectly ready to take the field again on the next, and so when the solid lead captain or die mounted officer who took on and off his horse was "put out of mess" by a well-directed pea, the knowledge that they would reappear ready to fight again another day considerably lessened one's grief at the sight of their fall. Perhaps, after all, lead is a more natural "food for powder" than flesh and blood, and so the only time tears were shed over one of these battles was one morning when Barbara surrept.i.tiously crammed two dozen peas into her mouth, fired them with one prolonged discharge into the midst of Valentine's cavalry, and then fled the room, whereupon Jack sat down and laughed till he cried.

It would be difficult to say what it was that made Queen Mab's nephews and nieces like to wander out into the kitchen and stand by her side when she was making pastry or sh.e.l.ling peas; but they seemed to find it a very pleasant occupation, and in this, after the first week of his stay, Jack was not a whit behind the others.

He was sitting one morning on a corner of the table, watching with great interest his aunt's dexterous use of the rolling-pin.

"Well, Jack," she said, looking up for a moment to straighten her back, "are you sorry I made you come to Brenlands?"

"No, rather not; I never enjoyed myself so much before. I should like to stay here always."

"What! and never go home again?"

The moment that word was mentioned he was once more Fenleigh J. of the Upper Fourth.

"Home!" he said; "I hate the place. I've got no friends I care for, and the guv'nor's always complaining of something, and telling me he can't afford to waste the money he does on my education, because I don't learn anything. I do think I'm the most unlucky beggar under the sun. I've got nothing to look forward to. But I don't care. When I'm older I'll cut the whole show, and go away and enlist. Any road, I won't stay longer than I can help at Padbury."

Queen Mab smiled, and went on cutting out the covering for an apple-tart.

"I know you like soldiers," she said; "well, listen to this. Just before the battle of Waterloo, the father of Sir Henry Lawrence was in charge of the garrison at Ostend. He knew that some great action was going to take place, and wished very much to take part in it; so he wrote to Wellington, reminding him that they had fought together in the Peninsular War, and asking leave to pick out the best of the troops then under his command and come with them to the front. The duke sent him back this reply,--'That he remembered him well, and believed he was too good a soldier to wish for any other post than the one which was given to him.'"

"You're preaching at me," said Jack suspiciously; "it's altogether different in my case."

"No, I'm not preaching; I'm only telling you a story. Now go and find my little Bar, and say I've got some bits of dough left, and if she likes she can come and make a pasty."

Barbara came, and Jack a.s.sisted her in the manufacture of two shapeless little turn-overs, which contained an extraordinary mixture of apples, currants, sugar, and a sprinkling of cocoa put in "to see what it would taste like." But the boy's attention was not given wholly to the work, his mind was partly occupied with something else. He wandered over and stood at the opposite end of the table, watching Queen Mab as she put the finis.h.i.+ng touch to her pie-crust, twisting up the edge into her own particular pattern.

"I don't see why people shouldn't wish for something better when they have nothing but bad luck," he said.

"I don't think people ever do have nothing but bad luck."

"Yes, they do, and I'm one of them. I hate people who're always preaching about being contented with one's lot."

"You intend that for me, I suppose," said his aunt, slyly. "All right; if you weren't out of reach I'd shake the flour dredge over you!"

"No, you know I don't mean you," said the boy, laughing. "And I have had one stroke of good luck, and that was your asking me to Brenlands."

He went away, and told Valentine the story of Colonel Lawrence.

"I didn't think she knew anything about soldiers."

"She's a wonderful woman!" said Valentine, solemnly. "She knows everything!"

The following morning, as the two cousins were constructing an advanced trench in a supposed siege of the cuc.u.mber-frame, Helen came out and handed her brother a letter. Valentine read it, and pa.s.sed id on to Jack.

"What d'you think of that?" he asked.

The epistle was a short one, and ran as follows:--

"GRENFORD MANOR, "_Tuesday_.

"DEAR VALENTINE,--I want five s.h.i.+llings to square the man whose hayrick we set fire to the other day. If you fellows will give one half-crown, I'll give the other. Send it me by return certain, or there'll be a row.--Yours truly,

"RAYMOND FOSBERTON."

"Pooh! I like his cheek!" cried Jack. "At the time he said it was the sun; and now he says, 'the hayrick _we_ set on fire,' when he knows perfectly well it was entirely his own doing. I should think he's rich enough to find the five s.h.i.+llings himself."

"Oh, he's always short of money, and trying to borrow from somebody,"

answered Valentine. "The thing I don't understand is, what good five s.h.i.+llings can be; the man would want more than that for his hay."

"I don't understand Master Raymond," said Jack. "What shall you do?"

"Well, as we were all there together, I suppose we ought to try to help him out. The damage ought to be made good; I thought he would have got Uncle Fosberton to do that. I'll send him the money; though I should like to know how he's going to square the man with five s.h.i.+llings."

A description of half the pleasures and merry-making that went to make up a holiday at Brenlands would need a book to itself, and it would therefore be impossible for me to attempt to give an account of all that happened. The jollification was somehow very different from much of the fun which Fenleigh J. had been accustomed to indulge in, in company with his a.s.sociates in the Upper Fourth; and though it was not a whit less enjoyable, yet after it was over no one was heard to remark that they'd "had their cake, and now they must pay for it."

On the last morning but one, when the boys came down to breakfast, they found Queen Mab making a great fuss over something that had come by post.

"Isn't it kind of your father?" she said. "Look what he's sent me!"

The present was handed round. It was a gold brooch, containing three locks of hair arranged like a Prince of Wales's plume, two light curls, and a dark one in the middle--Valentine's, Helen's, and Barbara's.

"He says it's to remind me of my three chicks when they are not with me at Brenlands."

"Mine's in the middle!" cried Barbara.

"You ought to have some of Jack's put in as well," said Helen.

The boy glanced across at her with a pleased expression.

"Oh, no," he answered, "not alongside of yours."

During the remainder of the morning he seemed unusually silent, and directly after dinner he disappeared.

"D'you know where Jack is?" asked Valentine.

"No," answered Helen; "he went out into the road just now, but I have not seen him since."