Well – we were in the train. Our eyes were so red that any one might have seen something sad had happened to us, but we didn't care. Tom's eyes were the worst of all, and generally he would do anything rather than let his red eyes be seen; but to-day he didn't care, we were too full of being sorry to care whether people noticed our eyes or not. And at last when papa had kissed us all three once more for the very last time, reaching up to the railway-carriage window, and the boys and I holding him so tight that he was nearly choked; at last it was all over, all the last tiny endings of good-byes over, and we three were – it seemed to us as far as we could understand it in our childish way – alone in the world.
There was no one else in the railway-carriage – Pierson of course was with us – she had put off being married for two months, so that she could see us settled and get the new nurse into our ways, as she called it; she too had been crying, so that she was quite a fright, for her nose was all bumpy-looking with the way she had been scrubbing at it and her eyes. She was very kind to us; she took Racey on her knee, and let Tom and me sit close up to her; and if she had had three arms she would have put one round each of us I am sure.
"Poor dears!" she said, and then she looked so very sad herself that Tom and Racey took to comforting her, instead of expecting her to comfort them. I was sad really – three poor little things like us going away like that; away from everything we had ever known, away from our nice bright nursery, where everything a mother could do to make children happy our mother had done; away from our dear little cots, where mother used to kiss us every night; and our little gardens where we had worked so happily in the summer; away to great big London, where among the thousand faces in the street there was not one we had ever seen before, where other little boys and girls had their fathers and mothers, while ours were going far, far away, to strange countries where they would find no little boys and girls like their own, no Audrey and Tom and Racey.
I thought of all this in a half-stupid way, while I sat in the railway-carriage with my arm round Tom's neck and my head leaning on Pierson's shoulder. We had never cared very much about Pierson, but now that she was the only thing left to us, we began to cling to her very much.
"I am so glad you've not gone away, Pierson," I said, and Pierson seemed very pleased, for I didn't very often say things like that.
"Poor dear Miss Audrey," she said in return. "Poor dear," seemed the only words she could think of to comfort us with. And then we all grew silent, and after a while it began to get dark, for the days were short now, and Tom and Racey fell asleep, just sobbing quietly now and then in their breathing – the way little children do, you know, after they have been crying a good deal; and I sat quite still, staring out at the gloomy-looking country that we were whizzing through, the bare trees and dull fields, so different from the brightness and prettiness of even a flat unpicturesque landscape on a summer day, when the sun lights up everything, and makes the fresh green look still fresher and more tempting. And it seemed to me that the sky and the sun and all the outside things were looking dull because of our trouble, and that they were all sorry for us, and there seemed a queer nice feeling in thinking so.
And after a while I began making pictures to myself of what I would do to please mother while she was away; how I would be so good to Tom and Racey, and teach them to be so good too; how I would learn to be always neat, and how I would try to get on with music, which I didn't much like, but which mother was so fond of that she thought I would get to like it when I was bigger and had got over the worst part. And then I began thinking of the letters I would write to mother, and all I would say in them; and I wondered too to myself very much what Uncle Geoff would be like, for I had not seen him for some time, and I couldn't remember him properly at all; and I wondered what his house would be like, and what sort of a nursery we should have, and what our new governess would be like, and how everything in our new home would be. I went on wondering till I suppose my brain got tired of asking questions it couldn't answer, and without knowing that I was the least sleepy, I too fell fast asleep!
I was busy dreaming – dreaming that I was on board the ship with papa and mother, and that Uncle Geoff was a lady come to see the house; in my dream the ship seemed a house, only it went whizzing along like a railway, and that he had a face like Pierson's, and he would say "poor dear Miss Audrey," when another voice seemed to mix in with my dreaming. A voice that said —
"Poor little souls – asleep are they – all three? Which of them shall I look after? Here nurse, you take the boys, and I'll lift out Miss Audrey."
And "Wake up, Miss Audrey, my dear. Wake up. Here's your uncle come himself to meet you at the station. I had no idea, sir, we were so near London, or I'd have had them all awake and ready," said Pierson, who never had all her ideas in order at once.
There was nothing for it but to wake up, though I was most unwilling to do so. I was not at all shy, but yet in the humour I was in then I felt disinclined to make friends with Uncle Geoff, and I wished he hadn't come to the station himself. He lifted me out, however, very kindly; and when I found myself standing on the platform, in the light of the lamps, I could not help looking up at him to see what he was like. I felt better inclined to like him when he put me down on my feet, for I had been afraid he was intending to carry me in his arms till he put me into the cab, and that would have offended me very much.
"Well, Audrey, and are you very tired?" he said kindly.
I looked up at him. He was not very tall, but very strong-looking, and had rather a stern expression, except when he smiled; but just now he was smiling. I remembered what mother had said to me about being very good with Uncle Geoff, and doing all he told me. So I tried to speak very nicely when I answered him.
"No, thank you, Uncle Geoff, I am not very tired, but I am rather sleepy; and I think the boys are very sleepy too."
"All right," said Uncle Geoff, "that is a trouble that can soon be cured. Here nurse," he went on, turning to Pierson, "I'll take Miss Audrey on with me in my carriage, which is waiting; but there is only room for two in it. So my man will get a cab for you and the boys and put the luggage on it."
Pierson was agreeing meekly, but I interfered.
"If you please, Uncle Geoff," I said, "mayn't I stay, and come in the cab too? I don't like to leave the boys, because mother says I'm always to take care of them now."
"Miss Audrey, my dear – " began Pierson, in reproof, but Uncle Geoff interrupted her. He did not seem at all vexed, but rather amused. I did not like that, I would almost rather he had been vexed.
"Never mind, nurse," he said. "I like children – and grown people too for that matter – to speak out. Of course you may stay and come in the cab if you would rather, Audrey. But in that case I fear I shall not see any more of you to-night. I have one or two serious cases," he went on, turning to Pierson, "and may be very late of coming home. But no doubt Mrs. Partridge will make you comfortable, and Audrey here seems a host in herself. Good-night, little people."
He stooped and kissed us – kindly but rather hurriedly – and then he put us all into a cab, and left the servant who was with him to come after with the luggage.
"It is better not to keep them waiting," he said to Pierson as we were driving away.
"Your uncle is very kind and considering," said Pierson; she always said "considering" for "considerate." "I wonder you spoke that way to him, Miss Audrey."
"I didn't speak any way to him," I said crossly. "I don't see that it was very kind to want to send me away from the boys. Mother told me I