Peterkin

We were all at tea in the nursery. All except him. The door burst open and James put his head in.

'If you please, Mrs. Brough,' he began, – 'Mrs. Brough' is the servants' name for nurse. Mamma calls her 'Brough' sometimes, but we always call her 'nurse,' of course, – 'If you please, Mrs. Brough, is Master Peterkin here?'

Nurse looked up, rather vexed. She doesn't like burstings in.

'Of course not, James,' she said. 'He is out driving with his mamma. You must have seen them start.'

'It's just that,' said James, in his silly way. 'It's his mamma that wants to know.'

And then we noticed that James's face was much redder than usual. It may have been partly that he had run upstairs very fast, for he is really very good-natured, but it looked as if he was rather in a fuss, too.

Nurse sat very bolt up in her chair, and her face began to get queer, and her voice to get vexeder. Lots of people get cross when they are startled or frightened. I have noticed it.

'What do you mean, James? Please to explain,' she said.

'I can't stop,' he said, 'and I don't rightly understand, myself. His mamma sent Master Peterkin home before her, half-an-hour ago or more, but he hasn't come in, not as I've seen, nor nobody else, I'm afraid. So where he's got to, who can say?'

And James turned to go.

Nurse stopped him, getting up from her place as she spoke.

'Was he in the carriage?' she asked.

'Of course not. Beckett would have seen him in, all right, if he had been,' said James, in a very superior tone. 'He was to run home by himself a bit of a way, as I take it,' he added, as he hurried off at last.

'I must go downstairs to your mamma,' said nurse. 'Miss Blanchie, my dear, will you look after Miss Elvira, and see that she doesn't spill her tea?'

'Nursie,' said Elvira, in a very offended tone, 'you know I never spill my tea now.'

'Not since the day before yesterday,' I was beginning to say, but I didn't. For I thought to myself, if there was any real trouble about Peterkin, it wouldn't be at all a good time to tease each other. I don't think Elf – that's Elvira's pet name – had understood about him being lost. Indeed, I don't think I had quite taken it in myself, till I saw how grave the two eldest ones were looking.

'Clem,' I said, 'do you think there can really be anything the matter?'

Clement is the eldest of us all, and he is always the one we go to first if we are in any trouble. But he is sometimes rather slow; he is not as quick and clever as Blanche, and she often puts him down at first, though she generally comes round to his way in the end. She answered for him now, though I hadn't spoken to her.

'How can there not be something the matter?' she said sharply. 'If Peterkin has been half-an-hour or an hour, perhaps, wandering about the streets, it shows he has at least lost his way, and who knows where he's got to. I wish you wouldn't ask such silly questions, Giles.'

Then, all of a sudden, Elf burst out crying. It may have been partly Blanche's sharp tone, which had startled her, and made her take more notice of it all.

'Oh, Clem, Clem,' she wailed, 'could he have been stolened?'

'No, no, darling,' said Clement, dabbing her face with his pocket-handkerchief. 'There are kind policemen in the streets, you know. They wouldn't let a little boy like Peterkin be stolen.'

'But they does take little boys to pison,' said Elf. 'I've see'd them. It's 'cos of that I'm frightened of them for Peterkin.'

That was not quite true. She had never thought of policemen till, unluckily, Clem spoke of them in his wish to comfort her. She did not mean to say what was not true, of course, but there never was such a child as Elf for arguing, even then when she was only four years old. Indeed, she's not half as bad now that she is eight, twice as old, and I often tell her so. Perhaps that evening it wasn't a bad thing, for the talking about policemen stopped her crying, which was even worse than her arguing, once she started a good roar.

'It's just because of that, that I'm so frightened about dear sweet little Peterkin,' she repeated.

'Rubbish, Elf,' I began, but Clem looked at me and I stopped.

'You needn't be frightened that Peterkin will be taken to prison, Elfie,' he said in his kind, rather slow way. 'It's only naughty little boys that the policemen take to prison, and Peterkin isn't naughty,' and then he wiped Elf's eyes again, and she forgot to go on crying, for just then nurse came upstairs. She was not actually crying, of course, but she did look very worried, so Clem and Blanche's faces did not clear up at all. Nor did mine, I suppose. I really did not know what to think, I was waiting to see what the others thought, for we three younger ones looked up to Clement and Blanche a good deal, and we still do. They are twins, and they seem to mix together so well. Blanche is quick and clever, and Clement is awfully sensible, and they are both very kind, though Clem is the gentlest. They are nearly sixteen now, and I am thirteen past, so at the time I am writing about they were twelve and I was going to be ten my next birthday, and Peterkin was eight and Elvira five. I won't say much about what sort of a boy Peterkin was, for as my story is mostly about him and the funny things he did and thought, it will show of itself.