by Nina Bawden
“All in good time,” Aunt Mabel said. “Get into your night things.”
When she first came in she had been smiling a faint, pleased smile but now it had faded and she watched them scramble into their pyjamas with a puzzled frown.
She said, after a little, “There’s something I want to ask you. Something I don’t understand.” She cleared her throat as if it had an uncomfortable lump in it. “It’s not the sort of thing I should have expected from you children. I know I’ve sometimes thought, perhaps unfairly, that you were rather spoiled, but I’ve never—not once—thought you were unkind. And yet …” She swallowed hard as if the lump in her throat was still there.
“What have we done wrong?” Mary said unhappily. Aunt Mabel looked so stern and solemn—it seemed dreadful, after this splendid day.
Aunt Mabel looked at her searchingly. “Don’t you know? Or you, John?”
John and Mary shook their heads. Aunt Mabel looked at their worried faces and seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then she sighed and said, “I know it’s fun to play jokes on people sometimes. But now and again jokes aren’t funny—sometimes they can be very unkind. It is rather unkind, don’t you think, when you know someone once had a little baby that they loved very much, to come marching in with a strange girl and pretend that this is the baby, grown up?”
Her hands were folded in front of her and Mary saw that she clasped them together very tightly, as if to stop them shaking.
She said, “But Aunt Mabel, we thought Victoria was your girl. I mean, John did. He told you—it was because of the locket and because of what she said—we thought what she said was true, we didn’t know it was just a game. And it might have been her, mightn’t it? Victoria might have been your baby that was stolen by Enemies….”
“Stolen? Enemies?” Aunt Mabel said in an astonished voice. “What do you mean?”
“Ben told us,” John said. “After I’d found the photograph of the baby. Didn’t you, Ben?”
“Miss Pin told me,” Ben said. “She said it was dreadfully sad because you had lost your little girl and I said, did the Enemies steal her, and she said yes….”
Aunt Mabel started laughing. The children were rather shocked because it didn’t seem anything to laugh about. But Aunt Mabel laughed until the tears came into her eyes. And then she cried for a little while, without laughing.
When she could speak, she said, “Oh Ben—darling little Ben. I’m so sorry—of course none of you would have played such a trick on me! I don’t understand about the Enemies, but I know what Miss Pin meant. My poor baby died, she was never very strong, and one morning after I’d put her in her pram, she just closed her eyes and went to sleep for … for ever.” Her mouth trembled a little but she went on firmly, “So you see, I did lose her, though not quite in the way you thought….”
The children sat in their beds, very silent and solemn. This was very sad, much sadder than they had realised. Aunt Mabel seemed to know what they were thinking because she said softly, “If someone you love dies, you know one thing—you know they’re never going to be unhappy or in pain anymore. It would have been much worse if my baby really had been lost, in the way you meant. Because I would never have known if she was happy or not, would I? She might have been living with people who didn’t love her, perhaps, even, neglected her….” She stopped and drew in her breath sharply.
Mary said, in a hushed voice, “Like Victoria?”
Aunt Mabel nodded. Her upper lip was caught between her teeth and she sat down, rather suddenly, on Mary’s bed as if her legs felt shaky.
Mary came out from under the bedclothes and slid along to her. She said awkwardly, “I’m sorry. It would have been so nice if Victoria had been your girl.”
“You mean it would have been like something in a story? I suppose it would have been exciting—though very unlikely.”
Mary shook her head. “I didn’t mean because of that. I meant it would have been nice for you. Because then you’d have had a family to … to like.”
Aunt Mabel stared at her. Then she coughed, rather violently, until her face was red, pulled Mary onto her lap and said in a funny, choking voice, “You’re all the family I want.”
She said nothing more for a minute, just rocked Mary backwards and forwards and watched John and Ben with eyes that were very bright and shining.
At last she said, “Though I daresay I shall be able to manage Victoria too.” And in a voice that was steadier now, she told them that she had talked to Mrs Clark who was quite willing—indeed, very glad—to give up being Victoria’s foster mother. Though she didn’t really dislike Victoria she had more than enough to do with her own children, especially since she had hurt her back and the only reason she hadn’t sent Victoria back to the orphanage was that she thought the girl was so difficult and cross that no one else would be willing to look after her. “So if they agree, and I expect they will,” Aunt Mabel said, “I’ll be her foster mother and she’ll live here and Mr Reynolds will pay for her to have music lessons and let her practise on the piano next door until she is old enough to go wherever he wants to send her.” She looked at the children uncertainly, “You won’t mind? I mean you’re quite fond of her, aren’t you?”
“Oh,” Mary said. “Oh—it’ll be lovely. We’ll be such a nice family, two girls and two boys….”
Aunt Mabel hugged and kissed Mary without speaking, then tipped her gently off her lap and went over to John and Ben and hugged and kissed over and over again, rather as if to make up for all the times she hadn’t kissed them. In fact, John and Ben who didn’t like being kissed all that much, thought she was over-doing it. John was beginning to wriggle when the telephone rang downstairs.
“I’ll go,” he said and slid out of Aunt Mabel’s arms and shot out of the door.
Aunt Mabel, her arms empty, looked hungrily at Ben, but he said quickly, “I want a drink, I’m awfully dry.”
Aunt Mabel fetched him a glass of water from the bathroom but he had only had time to just sip at it when John burst into the room shouting, “Oh—this is the best thing, the best thing of all. Do you know who that was? That was Dad.”
Immediately, there was pandemonium; so much noise in the room and so many questions being asked that no one could hear what they were, let alone answer them. Finally, by dint of getting hold of John by the shoulders and shaking him quite hard, Aunt Mabel managed to get out of him that Mr Mallory was waiting on the telephone to speak to her.
“Goodness—and my hair’s coming down,” she said in a flustered voice and ran out of the room, light as a girl.
“He can’t see you on the telephone,” John shouted after her. Then he began to laugh—or perhaps ‘crow’ would be a better word because that is just what he sounded like, a fat, barn rooster, crowing. He jumped up and down, making this extraordinary noise, his face, bright red and glistening.
“He’s at the station,” he shouted, “at the station, at the station. He wanted to telephone from the Airport but there wasn’t time because he wanted to catch the last train. He’ll be here any minute—any second.”
Mary began to cry, out of happiness. The tears rolled out of her eyes, down her cheeks and into her mouth, tasting warm and salt.
Ben got out of bed and stood on his head against the wall because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“What do you think you’re doing, young man?” Aunt Mabel said as she came back into the room. “You’ll be sick again, mark my words. A fine welcome for your father!”
She seized Ben by the seat of his pyjamas and jerked him right side up. “Now,” she said in a commanding voice, “be quiet—all of you.”
She waited while Mary’s sobs quietened and John’s crowing died down to a series of small, strangled hiccoughs.
Then she said, “I want you to listen—we’ve only got a few minutes. Your father has been dreadfully ill. He went off into the bush, in a very wild part of Kenya, and caught a fever. He was lying in his tent, all alone, when a local tri
beman found him and took him to hospital, but for weeks no one knew who he was—he didn’t even seem to know himself. His memory came back a few days ago and he went straight to Nairobi to catch the first plane. He’s better of course, but he’s not strong, still—you mustn’t bounce at him too much or shout too loud….”
Ben had been too busy thinking to listen. As soon as Aunt Mabel paused for breath, he said, “Are we going back to Africa?”
“I don’t know, dear,” Aunt Mabel said. “You mustn’t build on it. Your father may not be able to afford to take you.”
Ben drew a deep breath. “I can afford it,” he said grandly. “I can afford anything I like. And if we don’t go back to Africa, I shall pay to have Thomas flown over here, and Balthazar too, and if Dad wants to retire I shall buy him a television set, so he won’t be bored, living in England.”
Aunt Mabel started to laugh but stopped herself. “That’s quite enough of that sort of talk, Ben,” she said crushingly. “You’re getting above yourself. Miss Pin may have made a fuss of you, she may even want to make you a few small presents but you must understand that you’ll have what’s good for you and no more. You’re not a sort of little prince—you’re just a little boy. And your nose needs wiping.”
She dived at him, handkerchief at the ready, but he danced out of her way.
Then the door bell rang; a piercing sound, bright as a sword.
John and Mary were out of the door in a flash but Ben lingered, just for a second. He had to have the last word.
“I’m not just a little boy,” he said, and drew himself up with dignity. “Mr Green says I’m a Man of Substance.”
About the Author
Nina Bawden is one of the most admired and engaging writers of fiction for children and has written more than fifty books. Born in 1925, she was educated at Oxford and completed her first novel the year after gaining her degree. She is the author of such classics as Carrie’s War and The Peppermint Pig, and has won the Guardian Fiction Award and the Phoenix Award as well as being commended for the Carnegie Medal. Described by the Daily Telegraph as ‘without question one of the very best writers for children’, she divides her time between London and Nauplion in Greece.
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2011
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Nina Bawden, 1963
The right of Nina Bawden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–28709–3