Chapter 7

HIS NEW HOME.

Bobby's eyes blinked nervously at his father's words. A 'new mother' had never been in his calculations at all. A mother of any sort meant very little to him; he had never come across one, and vaguely put them in the same category as his grandmother and aunt. He clung hold of his father's hand tightly, and then the door was opened, and Bobby's brain received the first impression of cosy warmth and comfort, which never faded from him in after-life. The room was small compared with his grandmother's rooms, but, oh! so different. There was a tiny fire blazing in the grate, a little black-and-white terrier lay basking on the hearthrug, a lamp in a corner of the room, covered by a rose-coloured shade, shed its light on a pretty pink and white chintz couch underneath it, and upon this couch, leaning back amongst pink cushions, was Bobby's stepmother. True was already sitting upon a footstool, and her head was in her lap, her mother was stroking back her hair gently and tenderly. Mrs. Allonby looked to most people a mere laughing high-spirited girl, with wonderful black hair and mischievous face and eyes, but that was generally the side she showed to outsiders. To her husband and child there was deep, never-dying love in her looks and tones; and Bobby caught a glimpse of this, small boy as he was, when she turned her face towards her husband.

'Come along, wanderer, and confess! Have you been guilty of stealing, and where is your prize? Oh, what a little darling!'

She opened her arms to Bobby, and True made way for him. Bobby found himself smothered with kisses; he was shy no longer, for he felt the atmosphere of love around him.

Standing, with his hand in his stepmother's, he heard his father telling his story, and all the time his eyes were roaming round the room taking everything in with admiration and delight. There was a canary in a cage, a globe of goldfish, bowls of pink and white roses, pictures and books, comfortable easy-chairs, and in the corner a delicious-looking table, spread with a white cloth and shining silver, with a large dish of strawberries in the centre, a junket, and a rich-looking plum-cake. Then his eyes came back to his stepmother. She was clad in a white gown, but a crimson wrapper round her seemed to match in colour the roses pinned to her breast, and her cheeks vied with them in hue.

'And so you have kidnapped your own little son! And he himself helped you to do it! How can you leave your dear old granny, my boy? She has loved you and cared for you all these years. Is it kind to run away from her?'

Bobby looked up wonderingly.

'I couldn't never be kind to grandmother,' he said; 'she wouldn't like it. And it's only fathers who love anybodies; Nurse told me they always did.'

'And not mothers? Ah! you poor little atom, I forgot that you have not known your mother.'

'How's the back?' asked Mr. Allonby, looking at his wife with a smile.

'Oh! very good to-day; I've been following you in thought all the time. You see, Bobby, I have to lie here on my back, and my truant and wanderer go out to seek adventures, and come back and amuse me by telling me all they have seen and heard. Then I mend them up, and send them out again, and that's how we spend our life.'

'Motherums hasn't always lived on her back,' put in True eagerly. 'She used to gallop everywhere on a lov-elly black horse till she got her fall. That was a dre'fful day!'

'So "dre'fful" that we will never talk of it,' said Mrs. Allonby quickly. 'Now, True, darling, take Bobby to Margot, and she will get a comfy bed for him in dad's dressing-room. And when he is quite tucked up in it he shall have a basin of bread and milk and go fast asleep till to-morrow morning, for I'm sure it is long past his proper bedtime.'

Bobby looked longingly towards the table, and Mrs. Allonby noted it.

'That is for father only; he is going to have some hot meat directly; but I think he can spare you six strawberries. True, you can have six too. Bring a plate over here and eat them together.'

So the two children sat down on the rug together, and Bobby felt he would like to stay there all night. But a little later, when he was going upstairs to bed, he felt very sleepy, and his head had not been upon his pillow for five minutes before he was fast asleep.

He was wakened the next morning by True's voice.

'Oh, do wake up! We've had breakfast already. And oh! you funny boy, you've got your walking-stick in bed with you.'

Bobby resented her tone.

'It isn't a stick, it's Nobbles,' he said. 'Me and Nobbles always sleep together.'

He fingered Nobbles' red cap lovingly, then held him out for True's inspection.

'He comed from over the sea. He's really alive, though he never speaks; but he finks a lot, and whispers to me, but nobody but me can hear him.'

True gazed at Nobbles' smiling face with fascination.

'What does he tell you?' she asked.

Bobby's slow smile came.

'He told me last night he liked this house very much; and--he ran away from me in the night--he very often does--he goes up the chimleys, and the wind takes him journeys. He went to the House to see how Nurse was getting on.'

'Did he? To your grandmother's house? What did she say?'

Bobby considered.

'She said to Nurse, "I reely can't be troubled with the child, Nurse; it's your place to look after him."'

'And what did your nurse say?'

'She wented down to the kitchen and ate some apple tart. And then Nobbles said he came away "'cause nobody wanted me back," and I'm never going to leave my father no more!'

'Dad is going to see your grandmother now. Motherums told him he ought to. Do get up and come and see my rabbits. Oh! Here is Margot!'

Margot appeared with a breakfast tray, and Bobby lay still and ate an egg and some bread and butter with relish.

'The mistress said you was not to be called, for you were tired out,' said Margot, by way of explanation. 'And when you've had your bath, and dressed, you can go to her room and see her. Can you dress yourself?'

'I'm nearly sure I can,' said Bobby bravely.

But he was forced to let Margot assist him more than once; and when ready at last, paused before leaving the room, looking up into her face with a little uncertainty and doubt.

'Do you think they'll all like me here?' he said.

'Bless the child, this be a real home to everyone, though it be small. I've been with the mistress for twenty years. She were a wild slip of a girl when I took service out in 'Merica. She lost her mother when she were eight, and I mothered her after, for her father were a proper ne'er-do-weel, and were always moving from one ranch to another. Miss Helen took after her mother, and got everyone's love. And then her father got her to marry a rich old settler, so that some of his debts might be paid, and he died within a twelvemonth of the marriage, and Miss Helen kept the property together and did for her father till he broke his neck riding an unbroken horse, and Miss True was all the bit of comfort she had left. She could have married over and over scores of times; but not she; till Mr. Allonby found Miss True one day and brought her home, and then I knew how things would end. And when she would gallop off with him on her big horse, with her laugh and jest, I little thought she'd ever live to lie on her back and never move again.'

The old woman paused. Bobby had not been following her. He only repeated the question, which was an all-important one to him:

'Will they be sure to like me?'

'The mistress has the biggest heart in the world, my dear, and the master never says a cross word to nobody!'

Bobby felt cheered by her tone, and his doubts utterly vanished when he was held in the close clasp of his stepmother.

'We are going to keep you, Bobby, and I must be prepared to see two small children go off every day with my Wanderer. We are going to make this summer a holiday, to build up and strengthen your father, who has been very ill, and next winter, if we are spared, we must all set to work in earnest. Lessons and school for the little ones, real hard writing for your father and me. Now, darling, True is calling to you from the garden. Run out to her, and the air and sunshine will bring colour into those pale cheeks of yours.'

'Me and Nobbles likes to be darlings,' Bobby informed True a short time afterwards. 'We aren't darlings with Nurse or grandmother.'

When his father returned, Bobby approached him, almost trembling to hear his fate.

'Well, little chap,' Mr. Allonby said, 'it has been rather a stormy scene, but I've got you for good and all. And if I had known your grandmother considered children such a trouble I never would have left you with her all this time. Your nurse is going to drive over this afternoon and wish you good-bye. She will bring your clothes. Do you think you will get on with us without a nurse? We are very poor folk, you know, until I write this big book of travels that is going to bring us fame and money, and then--well, you ask True what will happen.'

Bobby smiled contentedly. Things had not turned out quite according to his expectations, but he was well pleased to have a little playfellow in True, and though she adopted a slightly superior and motherly air with him, she was a deferential listener to any of Nobbles' exploits. She had no difficulty in believing that he was alive; in fact she was quite ready to explain his existence in a manner quite new to Bobby.

'You see,' she said, 'a wicked fairy must have turned him into a stick. He really was a very brave good prince, but he set free a beautiful princess, who had been a prisoner in the wicked fairy's house, and the way he did it was dressing in her clothes and staying behind while she put on his and rode away. Then the wicked fairy was so angry when she found out the trick that she turned him into a stick and said he must stay like it till someone broke the spell.'

'What's a spell?' asked Bobby.

'Oh, there are lots of spells. The sleeping beauty was in one, you know. The spell was that she would sleep till a prince kissed her. What we've got to do is to find out the spell for Nobbles, and when we do the right thing to him he'll wake up, and come alive, and be a prince again.'

Bobby thought over this with a perplexed brow.

'But then he might ride away from me to find the princess, and I should be 'fraid of a grand prince. I like Nobbles best like he is!'

'Oh, but wouldn't you like him to be able to run about and take off his little red cap and bow? He wouldn't be any bigger you know; he comes from a country where they are all very tiny, and perhaps he will have forgotten all about the princess and will like to stay with you best.'

'I'll ask him to-night when we're in bed all about it. He'll be sure to tell me.'

And Bobby's face brightened at the thought. After all, Nobbles belonged to him, not to True, and if he didn't choose him to be a prince he need not be one.

Bobby's interview with Nurse was rather a trying one. He could hardly understand why he should be blamed.

'You knewed my father would come one day, Nurse. I had been expecking him every day, and of course I belongs to him, and I had to go after him. I was so 'fraid I might lose him again. And I can go all over father's house and sit in every room, and I've got a new mother and a little girl to play with, and they calls me "darling!"'

Then Nurse astonished him by clasping him in her arms and bursting into tears.

'I never thought you'd have left me. I've been as fond of you as if you'd been my own child. It's put me terrible about, losing you so sudden. Why, I meant to stay with you till you went to school.'

Bobby began to get tearful at once. He had a tender little heart, and to see Nurse cry was a great calamity. He was honestly sorry to part with her; but his father filled his heart, and, childlike, the new scenes and life around him were entirely engrossing him.

When Nurse had gone he was called to his father, who was sitting with his stepmother. True was still playing in the garden.

'I feel I must make acquaintance with my small son,' Mr. Allonby said, perching him on his knee.

'How is it you have thought such a lot about me?'

'I always knewed you would be nice,' said Bobby, with a slow shake of his head. 'I knewed fathers were.'

'How many fathers have you known?'

'Only God,' said Bobby, simply and reverently. 'He is my other Father, isn't He? And He's always good and kind to me.'

Mr. Allonby exchanged glances with his wife.

'You are a little character, I see. Tell me more. Are you a very good little boy?'

'Nurse says no boys are ever good,' said Bobby, not seeing the twinkle in his father's eye. 'I s'pose when I get to be a father I shall be.'

Mr. Allonby began to laugh. His wife shook her head at him.

Bobby knitted his brows, then turned questioner.

'Did you fink I would be like what I am, father?'

His tone was anxious. He added hurriedly:

'I'm not a baby now, I can walk miles and miles, and I'm going to dress myself all alone to-morrow.'

'That's right. I want my son to be plucky and independent and honourable. If you're that sort I shall be quite satisfied. What do you say, Helen?'

Mrs. Allonby looked at Bobby rather tenderly.

'I don't think he needs to be very independent yet,' she said.

'What does it mean?' asked Bobby. 'And what does honourable mean? It's plucky when you hurt yourself and don't cry, isn't it?'

'Independent is doing things for yourself and standing alone. Honourable is everything a gentleman ought to be--truthful, honest, and straight, with right thoughts about everything. I think you're plucky. You're not afraid of anything, I hope.'

Bobby did not answer for a minute. He had heard enough to fill his small brain with fresh thought.

'I'm not afraid of anybody if I have Nobbles with me,' he said.

His father laughed again, then put him off his knee.

'I have letters to write. Run away now and play with True.'

So Bobby went, revolving many things in his mind. And an hour later, when he was getting tired of romping with True, he sat down on the grass underneath an apple-tree.

'I like Nobbles to be good,' he confided to True; 'but I'm 'fraid he can't be ind'pendent. He's plucky, he's afraid of nobody, and loves to give anyone a good beating; and he's quite, quite straight, so he's hon'rable, but he can't stand alone, or do things for himself.'

'Can't he? You give him to me. I'll make him stand up.'

True had seized hold of Nobbles and stuck him triumphantly two inches into the ground, where he stood smiling at them.

Bobby did not approve of this treatment.

'You're not to touch him. He doesn't belong to you.'

'He's only a stick!'

True's tone was scornful. For the first time Bobby began to feel angry with her.

'He's my Nobbles, and I like him much better than you.'

He hugged his stick and walked off. True pursued him.

'He's only a stick,' she repeated. 'I could break him in half if I tried!'

'You're a horrid girl, and I wish my father would send you away. You don't belong to him and me at all!'

'You don't belong to us!' cried True excitedly. 'Dad and me always goes out together, and we'll leave you behind. We don't want you at all. We was ever so happy before you came. You'd better go back to that old House of yours. We don't want you!'

It takes so little to make a quarrel. Fiery little True rushed into her mother in a passion of tears, declaring that she hated Bobby and would never play with him again; and Bobby was found some minutes later by Margot lying face downwards in the garden crying as if his heart would break.

'I'll never be happy again. She says I don't belong here,' he sobbed.

Peace was made at last, for Margot took him straight into Mrs. Allonby, who talked to both children as only she could talk, lovingly, gently, but very firmly. When girl and boy were both safely tucked away in bed that night, she said to her husband:

'Oh, Frank, shall we have a divided house?'

'Never!' he said cheerfully. 'Both these youngsters have had things their own way. Now they will have to give and take, and it will do them each a power of good.'

She smiled, and her anxious look disappeared.

'If we are of one mind it will be easy,' she said.

And her husband replied:

'Your mind and will rule this household, darling. I shall leave my boy's training to you.'