"And drink. People give up drink." Paul looked still more puzzled. Miss Price smiled at him very kindly. "Haven't you ever given up sugar in your tea for Lent?" AND LOST AGAIN III Paul blinked his eyes. "Yes, but-" "You see, Paul," interrupted Carey sharply, "Miss Price has given up alligators. Come on, now." She began to pull him toward the door.
"For ever?" persisted Paul." Miss Price nodded her head. "For ever and ever," she said.
"Or just for Lent?" put in Paul.
Miss Price glanced at him swiftly. It was a strange look, almost startled; she seemed struck by a sudden idea.
"Lent is over," she said, but seemed to hesitate. Then once more she became firm. "No," she went on. "For ever and ever. If we do things, it shouldn't be by halves." "But anything's all right," said Charles, "in moderation." "Not magic," said Miss Price.
"You once said even magic." "Did I?" asked Miss Price. "Did I really say that?" "Yes, you did. I remember quite well." "Did I really?" said Miss Price pensively. "Well. Anyway," she added quickly, "come along now. It's nearly Paul's bedtime. Careful of the step." Charles wandered out into the garden while Carey bathed Paul. He leaned over the back fence and stared at Tinker's Hill. So she had given up magic! That was what came of looking forward to something too much-a feeling of flatness and disappointment. Finding the bed-knob, which at the time had almost seemed a "sign," now only added to the sense of loss. He thought of Cornwall, and of mackerel-fishing; of rocks and coves and beaches at low tide. Oh, well, he told himself, we're in the country anyway. There would be walks and explorations, and there was always the river. There might even be a boat. And then he felt some-thing move under his shoe. It was a mole, diving upwards through the soft earth and hitting the exact spot where he had placed his foot. In a minute he was on his knees, pulling up the coarse sods of grass that grew down there beside the fence. He dug with his hands into the soft earth, throwing it aside as a dog does, and did not notice Carey until she stood beside him.
"What are you doing?" "Digging for a mole." He sat back on his heels. "I say, Carey-" He looked up at her face and paused. "What's the matter?" Carey's expression was odd. She looked half afraid. "I want you to come and look at something," she said.
"Let me just finish this!" "You'll never catch it now." She paused. "This is important." "What is it?" asked Charles, half getting up.
"Come and see." "Can't you tell me what it is?" Carey turned away and began walking toward the house. Charles followed her. As they reached the front door, he said: "You might tell me-" Carey turned right round, putting her finger to her lips.
"Ssh-" she said.
"Where's Miss Price?" asked Charles in a loud whisper.
"Ssh-" said Carey again. "She's in the kitchen. Making macaroni cheese. Come on." He followed her up the stairs.
"It's in here," said Carey, "where Paul sleeps." She threw open a door.
It was Miss Price's bedroom. Very clean, very neat, very fragrant. A large photograph of a military gentleman hung over the mantel. There were silver brushes on the dressing table and a porcelain "tree" for rings. Paul was tucked up in a bed on the sofa, a small Victorian couch with a curved back that just fitted him.
"Well, it's all right," said Charles, staring at Paul, who looked unusually clean and round-eyed.
"What's all right?" asked Carey.
"Paul's bed." "I wasn't looking at Paul's bed," said Carey.
Charles followed the direction of her eyes. Miss Price's bed had a white embroidered spread, and a black silk nightdress case lay on the pillow. It was an exciting nightdress case, closely related to a tea cozy, trimmed with satin blobs like colored fruit.
"You are dense," said Carey. "The bed itself!" Charles stared.
It was a very ordinary brass bed-a bed like a hundred others. But where at its head there should have been a second bed-knob, the right-hand post ended in a piece of rusty screw.
"Yes," said Charles. He sat down rather suddenly on the foot of Paul's sofa.
"Is it, do you think?" asked Carey anxiously.
Charles cleared his throat. "Yes," he said soberly, "yes, it must be!" "There are hundreds of beds like that. She may have had it for years. She may have bought it at the same time as Aunt Beatrice bought hers." "Yes," said Charles. He seemed dazed. "But the screw. I think it is. It must be it. She must have bought it at the sale." He turned to Carey. "We can easily tell. Go and get the bed-knob." "That's just it," said Carey. "The bed-knob's gone!" "Gone?" "Yes. When I'd finished bathing Paul, Miss Price had done the unpacking. I've been through everything. You can look yourself. It's gone." "She's taken it," said Charles.
"Yes, she's taken it." "Oh, gosh!" said Charles. There was a world of disillusion and sadness in his voice.
Paul lay staring at them glumly over his neatly turned-down sheet.
3 IN FOR A PENNY Yes, now they were there "the cupboard was bare!" Oh, it wasn't that she wasn't glad to see them; it wasn't that she wasn't very kind and had made up that lovely bed for Paul on the sofa in her room. It wasn't that she didn't plan delightful picnics to Pepperinge Eye and Lowbody Farm, and the Roman Remains; and read to them at night, and teach them croquet. It was just that she had given up magic. She seemed to have given up for good and all. She seemed to have forgotten that she ever knew it. Right behind the bottled fruits in the larder Paul did once see some pink and blue, which he thought might be the chart of the Zodiac, but he didn't get a chance to look properly as the door was nearly always kept locked.
All their excitement, all their planning, seemed to have gone for nothing until one day- It was Carey's job to put the cleaned shoes by each person's bed at night all ready for morning. About a week after they had arrived, when she had forgotten them the night before, she had to creep down before breakfast to fetch Paul's shoes from the scullery. As Paul slept on the sofa in Miss Price's room, it meant that Carey had to open that door very, very quietly so she could slip in without awaking Miss Price. Well, that was the morning when she found Miss Price's bed had gone.
A faint (the very faintest) film of dust and a pair of quilted slippers marked the place where it had stood. The coverlet was neatly folded on the chest of drawers, and not another thing was out of place. Paul's clothes lay tidily upon his chair, his sofa stood in its usual corner, but Paul himself was nowhere to be seen.
Carey ran down to the passage to call Charles, and he came with her, slowly and sleepily, to see the empty room. They talked it over. They could hardly believe it.
"I told you it was the bed," Charles reminded Carey. "I knew it by that piece of rusty screw." "But behind our backs!" exclaimed Carey. "To have pretended to have given up magic, and then to go and do a thing like this-behind our backs." As Carey dressed, she grew angrier and angrier. She cleaned her teeth so viciously that she made the gums bleed. She nearly exploded when she heard the bump in Miss Price's room, and Paul's cheerful voice asking if there were raspberries for breakfast.
But barely had she and Charles sat down at table when Miss Price appeared, followed by Paul. Miss Price, looking brisk and neat, and not at all out of the ordinary, went straight to the sideboard to serve the porridge. Paul, who looked as if he had dressed hurriedly, sidled into his place. Except for his unbrushed hair and pullover back to front, he, too, looked quite normal. When Miss Price came to the table with the porridge, there was a look of exhilaration about her as if she had had a cold bath. "A lovely day," she said cheerfully as she poured out the coffee. She smiled round the table at the children. "What are we going to do with it?" Carey's face became wooden. "We haven't thought," she said coldly.