The Girls and I: A Veracious History. Molesworth Mrs.
it out; but then, you see, she had hardly had time to take in that most likely she had caused the mischief, for she knew she hadn't meant to, and she quite thought she had left the pin just as firmly fastened as she had found it.
'Oh, mother,' she cried, 'I didn't think – I never meant – I'm sure I screwed it in again quite the same.'
'When did you touch it? I don't understand anything about it. Jack, what do Anne and Maud mean?' said poor mums, turning to me.
'It was my fault,' I said. 'I shouldn't have left any one in your room, with all your things about, and Rowley even not there.'
'And I did tell Anne not to touch the diamond brooch,' said Maud. For once she really seemed quite angry with Anne.
Then we told mother all there was to tell – at least Anne did, for she knew the most of course. She had been fiddling at the diamond thing all the time she was standing by the table, but no one had noticed her except Maud. For you remember mums was in a great hurry, and I was helping her to fasten her bracelet, and Rowley was fussing at her skirt, and then Hebe and I went half-way downstairs to see mother start. Oh dear, I did feel vexed with myself! Anne said she wanted to see how the ornament could be turned into different things; she had unscrewed the pin and unclicked the little catch, and then she had fixed in the other kind of pin to make it into a brooch, and she wanted to try the screw with a ring to it, to make it a hanging ornament, but Maud wouldn't let her stay. So she screwed in the hairpin again – the one that gran had fastened in himself. She meant to do it quite tight, but she couldn't remember if she clicked the little catch. And she was in a hurry, so no doubt she did it carelessly.
That was really about all Anne had to tell.
But it was plain that it had been her fault that the beautiful ornament was lost. It had dropped off. Mums didn't say very much to her: it wouldn't have done before all the visitors. They were very good-natured, and very sorry for mother. And several people said again what a good thing it was it was only lost, not stolen, for that gave ever so much more chance of finding it.
When all the people had gone, father came in. Mother had still her dress on, but she was looking very white and tired, and in a moment, like Maud, he saw there was something the matter.
He was very vexed, dreadfully vexed, only he was too good to scold Anne very much. And indeed it would have been difficult to do so, she looked such a miserable creature, her eyes nearly swollen out of her head with crying. And we were all pretty bad – even Serry, who never troubles herself much about anything, looked solemn. And as for me, I just couldn't forgive myself for not having stayed in mother's room and seen to putting away her jewel-cases, as I generally do.
Father set to work at once. First he made mother stand up in the middle of the room, and he called Rowley, and he and Rowley and I and Hebe shook out her train and poked into every little fluthery ruffle – there was a lot of fustled-up net inside the edge, just the place for the diamond thing to get caught in, and we made her shake herself and turn out her pocket and everything. But it was no use. Then – the poor little thing was nearly dead, she was so tired! – father made her go to take off her finery, telling Rowley to look over all the dress again when mother had got out of it. Then he and I went out together to the coach-house, first telling all the servants of the loss, and making them hunt over the hall and up and down the stairs; it was really quite exciting, though it was horrid too, knowing that father and mother were so vexed and Anne so miserable.
We found the coachman just washing the carriage. We got into it, and poked into every corner, and shook out the rugs, and just did everything, even to looking on the front-door steps behind the scraper, and in the gutter, and shaking out the roll of carpet that had been laid down. For father is splendid at anything like that; he's so practical, and I think I take after him. (I don't know but what I'd like best of all to be a private detective when I grow up. I'll speak to father about it some day.)
But all was no use, and when we came up to the drawing-room again there was mums in her crimson teagown, looking so anxious. It went to my heart to have to shake my head, especially when poor Anne came out of a corner looking like a dozen ghosts.
Still, we had rather a nice evening after all, though it seems odd. It was all thanks to father. He made us three come down to dinner with mums and him, 'To cheer your mother up a little,' he said, though I shouldn't have thought there was much cheering to be got out of Anne. In reality I think he did it as much for Anne's sake as for mums's. And Hebe was very sweet to Anne, for they don't always get on so very well. Hebe sometimes does elder sister too much, which is bad enough when one is elder sister, but rather too bad when one isn't, even if it is the real elder sister's own fault. But to-night Hebe sat close to Anne, holding her hand under the table-cloth, and trying to make her eat some pudding. (It was chocolate pudding, I remember, and mother gave us each some.)
And when dessert was on the table, and the servants had gone, father called Anne to him, and put his arm round her.
'My dear little girl,' he said, 'you must try to leave off crying. It only makes mother more troubled. I can't deny that this loss is a great vexation: it will annoy grandfather, and – well, there's no use telling you what you know already. But of course it isn't as bad as some troubles, and even though I'm afraid I can't deny that it has come through your fault, it isn't as bad as if your fault had been a worse one – unkindness, or untruthfulness, or some piece of selfishness.'
Anne hid her face on his shoulder, and sobbed and choked, and said something we couldn't hear.
'But still carelessness is a great fault, and causes troubles without end,' father went on. 'And in this case it was meddlesomeness too. I do hope – '
'Oh, father,' said Anne, looking up, 'I know what you're going to say. Yes, it will be a lesson to me: you'll see. I shall be quite different, and ever so much more thoughtful and careful from now.'
And of course she meant what she said.
But father looked grave still.
'My dear child, don't be too confident. You won't find that you can cure yourself all at once. The force of bad habit is almost harder to overcome in small things than in great: it is so unconscious.'
'Yes, father,' said Anne.
She understood what he said better than I did then; for she is really clever – much cleverer than I am about poetry and thinking sort of cleverness, though I have such a good memory. So I remembered what father said, and now I understand it.
After dinner we went up to the littlest drawing-room – the one mother wanted for so long to refurnish prettily. There was a fire, for it was only March, and mums sat in one of the big old armchairs close to it, and Anne and Hebe beside her. And father drew a chair to mums' writing-table, and wrote out several advertisements for the next morning's papers, which he sent off to the offices that very evening. Some were in the next morning, and some weren't; but it didn't much matter, for none of them did any good. Before he sent them he inquired of all the servants if they had looked everywhere he had told them to.
'There is just a chance of daylight showing it in some corner,' he said, when he had done all this, and come to sit down beside mums.
'I don't know that,' she said. 'This house is so dark by day. But, after all, the chance of its being here is very small.'
'Yes,' father said, 'I have more hope in the advertisements.'
'And,' mother went on, her voice sounding almost as if she was going to cry – I believe she kept it back a good deal for Anne's sake – 'if – if they don't bring anything, what about telling your father, Alan?' 'Alan' is fathers name – 'Alan Joachim,' and mine is 'Joachim Gerald.'
Father considered.
'We must wait a little. It will be a good while before I quite give up hopes of it. And there's no use in spoiling gran's time in Ireland; for there's no doubt the news would spoil it – he's the sort of person to fret tremendously over a thing of the kind.'
'I'm afraid he is,' said mother, and she sighed deeply.
But hearing a faint sob from Anne, father gave mother a tiny sign, and then he asked us if we'd like him to read