Carrots: Just a Little Boy Part 21

'"So do I," I replied. "Still, on the whole, I think I am just as well pleased not to know."

'Our uncertainty for the next winter ended in what was to me a delightful decision. We determined to go to the South of France. I could amuse you children by a description of our journey--journeys in those days really were much more amusing than now; but I must hasten on to the end of my story. We had fixed upon Pau as our head-quarters, and we arrived there early in November. What a different thing from our November at home! I could hardly believe it _was_ November; it would have seemed to me far less wonderful to have been told I had been asleep for six months, and that _really_ it was May, and not November at all, than to have awakened as I did, that first morning after our arrival, and to have seen out of the window the lovely sunshine and bright blue sky, and summer-look of warmth, and comfort, and radiance!

'We had gone to an hotel for a few days, intending to look out for a little house, or "apartement" (which, children, does not mean the same thing as our English lodgings by any means), at our leisure. Your grandmother was not rich, and the coming so far cost a great deal. The hotel we had been recommended to, was a very comfortable one, though not one of the most fashionable, and the landlord was very civil, as some friend who had stayed with him the year before had written about our coming. He showed us our rooms himself, and hoped we should like them, and then he turned back to say he trusted we should not be disturbed by the voices of some children in the next "salon." He would not have risked it, he said, had he been able to help it, but there were no other rooms vacant, and the family with the children were leaving the next day. Not that they were noisy children by any means; they were very _chers pet.i.ts_, but there _were_ ladies, to whom the very name of children in their vicinity was----here the landlord held up his hands and made a grimace!

'"Then they must be old maids!" I said, laughing, "which mamma and I are not. We love children," at which Mr. Landlord bowed and smiled, and said something complimentary about mademoiselle being so "aimable."

'I listened for the children's voices that evening, and once or twice I heard their clear merry tones. But as for any "disturbance," one might as well have complained of a cuckoo in the distance, as of anything we heard of our little neighbours. We did not see them; only once, as I was running along the pa.s.sage, I caught a glimpse at the other end of a little pinafored figure led by a nurse, disappearing through a doorway.

I did not see its face; in fact the glimpse was of the hastiest. Yet _something_ about the wee figure, a certain round-about bunchiness, and a sort of pulling back from the maid, as she went into the room, recalled vaguely to my heart, rather than to my mind, two little toddling creatures, that far away across the sea I had learnt to love and look for. When I went into our room, there were tears in my eyes, and when mamma asked me the reason, I told her that I had seen a child that somehow had reminded me of my two little trots.

'"Poor little trots," said mamma. "I wonder if the one that was left still misses the other?"

'But that was all we said about them.

'The next morning I was in a fever to go out and see all that was to be seen. I dragged poor mamma into all the churches, and half the shops, and would have had her all through the castle too, but that she declared she could do no more. So we came to a halt at the great "Place," and sat down on a nice shady seat to watch the people. I, consoling myself with the reflection, that as we were to be four months at Pau, there was still a _little_ time left for sight-seeing.

'It was very amusing. There were people of all nations--_children_ of all nations, little French boys and girls, prettily but simply dressed, some chatting merrily, some walking primly beside their white capped bonnes; little Russians, looking rather grand, but not so grand as their nurses in their rich costumes of bright scarlet and blue, embroidered in gold; some very pert, shrill-voiced Americans, and a few unmistakable English. We amused ourselves by guessing the nationality of all these little people.

'"_Those_ are Italians or Spaniards, mamma, look what dark eyes they have, and _those_ are----" I suddenly stopped. "Oh, mamma!" I exclaimed, and when she looked at me, she saw I had grown quite pale, and in another moment, seeing to what I was pointing, she understood the reason. There, right before us, coming slowly up the middle of the Place, Bessie in the middle, each child with a hand of hers tugging back manfully in the old way, each, yes, _really_, each under the other arm hugging a woolly lamb, came the two funny little trots!

'I felt at first as if I were dreaming. _Could_ it be the trots? I sat still in a half stupid way, staring, but Gip--I was forgetting to tell you that _of course_ Gip had come with us to Pau--Gip had far more presence of mind than I. He did not stop to wonder _how_ it could be the trots, he was simply satisfied that it _was_ the trots, and forwards he darted, leaping, barking furiously, wagging his tail, giving every sort of welcome in dog language, that he could think of.

'"Dip, Dip; see Bessie, here is a doggie like Dip," said one trot.

'"Dip, Dip, pretty Dip," said the other.

'The sound of their voices seemed to bring back my common sense. They _were_ my own dear trots. "Dip, Dip" would have satisfied me, even if I had not seen them. The trots never _could_ manage the letter "G!" I flew forwards, and kneeling down on the ground, little caring how I soiled my nice new dress, or what the people on the Place thought of me, I regularly hugged my two pets.

'"Here is Dip's kind lady too," they both said at once, smiling and happy, but not by any means particularly surprised to see me. I looked up at Bessie at last, and held out my hand. She shook it heartily.

'"I _am_ pleased to see you again, miss, to be sure; who would have thought it?" she said. "And they haven't forgot you, haven't Doll and Dot. They are always speaking of Gip and you, miss."

'"But, Bessie," I began, and then I hesitated. How could I tell her what I had thought? "How was it you left St. Austin's so suddenly?"--the trots were not in mourning now, they were prettily dressed in dark blue sailor serge, as bunchy as ever.

'Bessie thought for a minute.

'"Let me see," she said, "oh yes, I remember! We did leave suddenly. My mistress's father died, and she was sent for off to Edinburgh, and she took Doll and me, and left Dot to keep her papa company. Master said he'd be lost without one of them, and he couldn't get off to Edinburgh for a fortnight after us. But we'll never try _that_ again, miss. Dot did nothing but cry for Doll, and Doll for Dot. Dot, so Martha the housemaid said, was always saying, 'Doll's done to 'Ebben,' till it was pitiful to hear, and Dot was just as bad in Edinburgh about Doll."

'"But Dot _did_ 'do to 'Ebben," said Doll, who as well as Dot was listening to what Bessie was saying. "And then Doll 'tummed to 'Ebben too," said Dot, "and then 'Ebben was nice."

'I kissed the pets again, partly to prevent Bessie seeing the tears in my eyes. I understood it all now, without asking any more, and Bessie never knew what it was I _had_ thought.

'Only you can fancy how sorry I was to find the trots were leaving Pau that very afternoon! They were the children whose dear little voices I had heard through the wall, who the landlord had feared might disturb us! They were going on to Italy for the winter.

'"If only I had known last night who they were," I said to mamma regretfully.

'Mamma, however, was always wise. "Think rather," she said, "how very glad you should be to know it this morning. And who can tell but what some time or other you may see the trots again."

'But I never did!'

CHAPTER XIII.

GOOD ENDINGS.

But I lost my happy childhood.

It slipped from me you shall know, It was in the dewy alleys Of the land of long ago.

Not in sadness, Nor reproach, these words I say, G.o.d is good, and gives new gladness, When the old He takes away.

"You never did? oh what a pity!" exclaimed Sybil. "You really never, never did, mother?"

Auntie looked rather "funny," as the children call it.

"As _trots_ I never saw them again," she said, "and at the time I wrote out that story I had not seen them again at all."

"But you've seen them since," cried all the three children at once, "you've seen them since they've grown big. Oh auntie, oh mother, do tell us."

"I couldn't just now, truly I couldn't," said auntie, "it would lead me into another story which isn't written yet. All that I know about 'the two funny little trots' I have told you. Do you like it?"

"Awfully," said Sybil.

"_Very_ much," said Floss.

"It's lovely," said Carrots.

Auntie smiled at the children. They looked so pleased and interested, it was evident that for the time they had forgotten their sorrow and anxiety. Suddenly, just as she was thinking sadly how soon it must return to their minds, there came a loud ring at the bell. They all started, they had been sitting so quietly.

"It must be the post," said Sybil. Auntie had thought so too, but had not said it, as it was very unlikely this post would bring any letter from Captain Desart.

It did however! Fletcher appeared with one in another minute; the thin large envelope, and the black, rather scrawly writing that Floss and Carrots knew so well. It would have been no use trying to conceal it from them, so auntie opened it quietly, though her fingers trembled as she did so. She read it very quickly, it was not a long letter, and then she looked up with the tears in her eyes. "Children, dear children," she said, "it _is_ good news. Your dear mother is a little better, and they have good hopes of her."

Oh how glad they were! They kissed auntie and Sybil and each other, and it seemed as if a great heavy stone had been lifted off their hearts.

There was still of course reason for _anxiety_, but there was hope, "good hope," wrote Captain Desart, and what does not that mean? Auntie felt so hopeful herself that she could not find it in her heart to check the children for being so.

"It is because you made the story of the trots end nicely that that nice letter came," said Sybil, and nothing that her mother could say would persuade her that _she_ had nothing to do with the ending, that she had just told it as it really happened!

_I_ am telling you the story of Floss and Carrots as it really happened too, and I am so glad that it--the story of this part of their young lives, that is to say--ends happily too. Their mother did get better, wonderfully better, and was able to come back to England in the spring, looking stronger than for many years. To England, but not to Sandysh.o.r.e.

Captain Desart got another appointment much farther south, where the climate was milder and better and the winters not to be dreaded for a delicate person. So they all left the Cove House!