After the trees, Michael examined the trellis that extended along the top of a stuccoed wall without interruption on either side. This trellis was a curiosity, for if he looked at it very hard, the lozenges of space came out from their frame and moved about in a blur—an odd business presumably inexplicable for evermore like everything else. Beyond the trellis was the railway; and while Michael was looking a signal shot down, a distant roar drew near, and a real train rumbled past which, beheld from Michael's window, looked like a toy train loaded with dolls, one of whom wore a red tam-o'-shanter. Michael longed to be sitting once again in that moving wonderland and to be looking out of the window, himself wearing just such another red tam-o'-shanter. Beyond the railway was surely a very extraordinary place indeed, with mountains of coal everywhere and black figures roaming about; and beyond this, far far away, was a very low line of houses with a church steeple against an enormous sky.
"Dinner-time! Tut-tut," said Nurse, suddenly bustling into the room to interrupt Stella's saga and Michael's growing dread of being left alone in that wilderness beyond the railway lines.
"Could I be left there?" he asked.
"Left where?"
"There." He pointed to the coal-yard.
"Don't point!" said Nurse.
"What is that place?"
"The place where coal comes from."
"Could I be left there?" he persisted.
"Not unless one of the coalmen came over the wall and carried you off and left you there, which he will do unless you're a good boy."
Michael caught his breath.
"Can coalmen climb?" he asked, choking at the thought.
"Climb like kittens," said Nurse.
A new bogey had been created, black and hairy with yellow cat's eyes and horrid prehensile arms.
Michael and Stella were now lifted out of the cots and dumped on to the cold oilcloth and marched into the adjacent bathroom, where their faces and hands were sponged with a new sponge that was not only rough in itself, but also had something that scratched buried in one of the pores. During this operation, Nurse blew violent breaths through her tightly closed lips. When it was over, Stella was lifted up into Nurse's arms; Michael was commanded to walk downstairs in front and not to let go of the banisters; then down they went, down and down and down—past three doors opening into furniture-heaped rooms, past a door with upper panels of coloured glass in a design of red and amber sparrows upon a crude blue vegetation—a beautiful door, Michael thought, as he went by. Down and down and down into the hall which was strewn with bits of straw and shavings and had another glass-panelled door very gaudy. Here the floor was patterned with terra-cotta, yellow, black and slate-blue tiles. Two more doors were passed, and a third door was reached, opening apparently on a box into which light was let through windows of such glass as is seen round the bottom of bird-cages. This final staircase was even in the fullest daylight very dim and eerie, and was permeated always with a smell of burnt grease and damp cloths. Half-way down Michael shrunk back against Nurse's petticoats, for in front of him yawned a terrible cavern exuding chill.
"What's that?" he gasped.
"Bless the boy, he'll have me over!" cried Nurse.
"Oh, Nanny, what is it—that hole? Michael doesn't like that hole."
"There's a milksop. Tut-tut! Frightened by a coal-cellar! Get on with you, do."
Michael, holding tightly to the banisters, achieved the ground and was hustled into the twilight of the morning-room. Stella was fitted into her high chair; the circular tray was brought over from behind and thumped into its place with a click: Michael was lifted up and thumped down into another high chair and pushed close up to the table so that his knees were chafed by the sharp edge and his thighs pinched by a loose strand of cane. Nurse, blowing as usual through closed lips, cut up his meat, and dinner was carried through in an atmosphere of greens and fat and warm, milk-and-water and threats of Gregory-powder, if every bit were not eaten.
Presently the tramping of furniture-men was renewed and the morning-room, was made darker still by the arrival of a second van which pulled up at right angles to the first. In the course of dinner, Cook entered. She was a fat masculine creature who always kept her arms folded beneath a coarse and spotted apron; and after Cook came Annie the housemaid, tall and thin and anæmic. These two watched the children eating, while they gossiped with Nurse.
"Isn't Mrs. Fane coming at all, then?" enquired Cook.
"For a few minutes—for a few minutes," said Nurse quickly, and Michael would not have been so very suspicious had he not observed the nodding of her head long after there was any need to nod it.
"Is mother going to stay with us?" he asked.
"Stay? Stay? Of course she'll stay. Stay for ever," asserted Nurse in her bustling voice.
"Funny not to be here when the furniture came," said Cook.
"Yes, wasn't it?" echoed Annie. "It was funny. That's what I thought. How funny, I thought."
"Not that I suppose things will be what you might call properly arranged just yet?" Cook speculated.
"Everything arranged. Everything arranged," Nurse snapped. "Nothing to arrange. Nothing to arrange."
And as if to stifle for ever any ability in Michael to ask questions, she proceeded to cram his mouth with a dessert-spoonful of rice pudding from her own plate, jarring his teeth with the spoon when she withdrew it.
Then Michael's lovely mother in vivid rose silk came into the room, and Cook squeezed herself backwards through the door very humbly and so quietly that Annie found herself alone before she realized the fact; so that in order to cover her confusion and assist her retreat she was compelled to snatch away Michael's plate of rice pudding before he had finished the last few clotted grains. Michael was grateful to Annie for this, and he regarded her from that moment as an ally. Thenceforth he would often seek her out in what she called 'her' pantry, there to nibble biscuits, while Annie dried cups and swung them from brass hooks.
"How cosy you all look," said mother. "Darling Stella, are you enjoying your rice pudding? And, darling Michael," she added, "I hope you're being very good."
"Oh, yes," said Nurse, "Good! Yes. He's very good. Oh, yes. Tut-tut! Tut-tut!"
After this exhalation of approval Nurse blew several breaths, leaned over him, pulled down his blue and white sailor-top, and elevated his chin with the back of her hand.
"There's no need to bother about the drawing-room or the dining-room or my bedroom or, in fact, any of the rooms except the night-nursery and the day-nursery. You're quite straight in here. I shall be back by the end of June."
Nurse shook her head very violently at this, and Michael felt tears of apprehension welling up into his eyes. Mrs. Fane paused a moment doubtfully; then she waved beautiful slim gloves and glided from the room. Michael listened to delicate footsteps on the stairs, and the tinkle of small ornaments. A bleak silence followed the banging of the front door.
"She's gone away. I know she's gone away," he moaned.
"Who's She?" demanded Nurse. "She's the cat's mother."
"Mother! Mother!" he wailed. "She always goes away from Michael."
"And no wonder," said Nurse. "Dear, dear! Yes—tut-tut!—but goodness gracious, she won't be gone long. She'll be back in June."
"What's June?" Michael asked.
"If you ask any more silly questions you'll go to bed, young man; but if you're a good boy, I'll tell you a story."
"A real story? A nice long story?" asked Michael.
"I'll tell you a story about Jack o' my Nory And now my story's begun. I'll tell