In the Chimney Corner by Frances E. Crompton
IT'S a welly anxietious thing, yoasting chestnuts is," Rupert said, shaking his head seriously. Rupert is only four years old, but he is very fond of grand words. He speaks quite plainly and nicely, Nurse says (excepting the v's and r's), only, of course, he cannot remember always just the shape of the big words; but he uses much grander ones than I do, though I am nearly six. But he is the nicest little boy in all the world, and we do love each other better than anybody else at all, after Mother and Father.
We made what Rupert calls an "arranglement" about always being friends with each other; that was the night we roasted the chestnuts. It was one of the most interesting things we had ever done—and then to be allowed to do it alone! You see, this was the way.
It was the dreadfullest day we can remember in all our lives.
Because you know, first of all, Mother was so ill. And then there was a birthday party we were to have gone to.
And Sarah, who is the housemaid, said she didn't see why we couldn't go just the same, and Nurse said very sharply: "I'm not going to let them go, I can tell you, with things as they are." And then she said, in another kind of voice:
"Just suppose they had to be sent for to go in to the mistress" And then she went away again into Mother's dressing-room. That was another horrid thing, that nobody seemed to be able to look after us at all; we could have got into all sorts of mischief if we had wanted, but everything was so dreadful that it made us not want.
There were two doctors, who went and came several times, and someone they called Nurse, but she wasn't our Nurse. And our Nurse could not be in the nursery with us, but kept shutting herself up in Mother's dressing-room, and that made us be getting into everybody's way. So at last, when evening came, Nurse sent us down to the drawing-room, because somebody had let the nursery fire go almost out, and she told us to stay there and be good, and Father said he would perhaps come and sit with us by-and-by.
But I don't know what we should have done there so long if Sarah had not brought us a plate of chestnuts, and shown us how to roast them. (We feel sure that Nurse would not have allowed it by ourselves, and would have called it "playing with fire," but Father looked in at us once, and did not stop us at all, but only said we were very good, and Cook and Sarah kept looking in too, and they were very kind, only rather quiet and queer.) So that was how it was that we came to be allowed to be roasting chestnuts in the drawing-room by ourselves, which does seem a little funny, if you did not know about that dreadful day.
"There's only two left now," Rupert said. We hadn't eaten all the plateful, of course, because so many of them, when they popped, had popped quite into the fire, and we were not to try to get them out. We had roasted one each for Sarah, and for Cook, and for Nurse, and for Father, and of course the biggest of all for Mother.
We thought she might enjoy it when she got better. And they were all done, and there were only two left besides what we had eaten and lost.
So we put them together on the bar to roast, and Rupert said:
"One for you, and one for me. Yours is the light one, and mine is the dark one." And I said:
"Yes, and let us do them as Sarah did with two of them, and try if they will keep together till they are properly done, and then it will be as if we kept good friends and loved each other always." So that was what Rupert called the "anxietious" part, because, you know, one of them might have flown into the fire before the other was roasted, and we were so excited about it that I believe we should have cried. But they were the nicest chestnuts of all the plateful, and that was the nicest thing of all that long day that had so many nasty ones in it.
For the dark chestnut and the light one kept together all the time, and split quite quietly and comfortably, and began to have a lovely smell, and then we thought it was fair to rake them off.
"Those chestnuts were welly fond of each other," said Rupert, in his solemnest way, while they were cooling in the fender. "Like you and me, Nella." "Rupert knelt down on the rug." "And so we'll promise on our word-of-honours to be friends like them and love each other for always and always," I said. And we held each other's hands, and when the chestnuts were cooled and peeled, ate them up, and enjoyed them most of all the chestnuts. But after we had made that play last as long as we could, and it grew later and later, it began to seem miserabler than ever.
And nobody came to take us to bed, although it did feel so dreadfully like bedtime, and nobody brought us any bread-and-milk, and chestnuts do not really make a good supper, even if you have roasted them yourself. And I tried to tell Rupert "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," but he grew cross because I couldn't tell it as well as Mother. So I said:
"Well, let us lie down here on the rug, and perhaps if we make believe, it will seem like going to bed." But Rupert said, how could he go to bed without saying his prayers, and he was so tired and cross that I said:
"Well, you say yours, and I'll hear them." And so Rupert knelt down on the rug, and said his prayers, and I heard them; at least, I mean, we tried; but I couldn't always remember what came next, and then he remembered that he wanted Mother, and burst out crying. So I did not know what to do any more, and I could only huggle him, as he calls it, and wipe his eyes on my frock, and we sat there and huggled each other.
And I think we fell asleep in the chimney corner after that.
At least, the next thing we remember is being picked up by Father and Nurse, and Nurse carried Rupert upstairs, and Father carried me.
And I said:
"We've tried to be good, Father, but we were obliged to go to sleep on the floor—just there; we really and truly couldn't keep awake any longer." And Father did not think it naughty, I am sure, for he kissed us both ever so many times at the nursery door, with a great big hug, although he went away without speaking.
And Nurse undressed us as quickly as she could, and as Rupert calls it, "'scused" our baths, for we were so dreadfully sleepy; and I did think once that Nurse seemed to be crying, but I was too tired to notice any more. And that was the end of the dreadfullest day we have ever known.
It began to be happier quite soon next day, for Granny came, and stayed with us, and had time to love us very much.
We told her about the chestnuts, and she thought it ever so nice.
And she told us something too, two things, and one was very beautiful, and one was very dreadful.
And the beautiful thing was that God had sent us a baby sister on that dreadful evening. But then He saw that He could take better care of her than even Mother and Nurse, and He loved her so much that He sent an angel to fetch her away again.
And though we were sorry not to have the little sister (and that was another reason to make Rupert and me love each other all the more, Granny said), yet she told us how beautiful it was to know that Baby Lucy would never do a naughty thing, or say a naughty word, but always be kept quite safe now.
And the dreadful thing was—but I can only say it in a whisper—that God had almost taken Mother away, to be with Baby Lucy too.
But He looked down at us, and at Father, Granny said, and was sorry for us; and I think the time when He was sorry was when Rupert was crying, and I was trying to hear his prayers, because He must have seen that I could not be like Mother to Rupert, not however much I tried.
And so He was sorry for us, and Mother stayed.
