The Wouldbegoods: Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers Read online

  Produced by Jo Churcher

  THE WOULDBEGOODS

  BEING THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE TREASURE SEEKERS

  By E. Nesbit

  TO My Dear Son Fabian Bland

  CONTENTS

  1. The Jungle 2. The Wouldbegoods 3. Bill's Tombstone 4. The Tower of Mystery 5. The Waterworks 6. The Circus 7. Being Beavers; or, The Young Explorers (Arctic or Otherwise) 8. The High-Born Babe 9. Hunting the Fox 10. The Sale of Antiquities 11. The Benevolent Bar 12. The Canterbury Pilgrims 13. The Dragon's Teeth; or, Army Seed 14. Albert's Uncle's Grandmother; or, The Long-Lost

  CHAPTER 1. THE JUNGLE

  Children are like jam: all very well in the proper place, but you can'tstand them all over the shop--eh, what?'

  These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us feelvery young and angry; and yet we could not be comforted by calling himnames to ourselves, as you do when nasty grown-ups say nasty things,because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite when notirritated. And we could not think it ungentlemanly of him to say we werelike jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice indeed--only not onfurniture and improper places like that. My father said, 'Perhaps theyhad better go to boarding-school.' And that was awful, because we knowFather disapproves of boarding-schools. And he looked at us and said, 'Iam ashamed of them, sir!'

  Your lot is indeed a dark and terrible one when your father is ashamedof you. And we all knew this, so that we felt in our chests just as ifwe had swallowed a hard-boiled egg whole. At least, this is whatOswald felt, and Father said once that Oswald, as the eldest, was therepresentative of the family, so, of course, the others felt the same.

  And then everybody said nothing for a short time. At last Father said--

  'You may go--but remember--'

  The words that followed I am not going to tell you. It is no use tellingyou what you know before--as they do in schools. And you must all havehad such words said to you many times. We went away when it was over.The girls cried, and we boys got out books and began to read, so thatnobody should think we cared. But we felt it deeply in our interiorhearts, especially Oswald, who is the eldest and the representative ofthe family.

  We felt it all the more because we had not really meant to do anythingwrong. We only thought perhaps the grown-ups would not be quite pleasedif they knew, and that is quite different. Besides, we meant to put allthe things back in their proper places when we had done with them beforeanyone found out about it. But I must not anticipate (that means tellingthe end of the story before the beginning. I tell you this because it isso sickening to have words you don't know in a story, and to be told tolook it up in the dicker).

  We are the Bastables--Oswald, Dora, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and H. O. If youwant to know why we call our youngest brother H. O. you can jolly wellread The Treasure Seekers and find out. We were the Treasure Seekers,and we sought it high and low, and quite regularly, because weparticularly wanted to find it. And at last we did not find it, butwe were found by a good, kind Indian uncle, who helped Father with hisbusiness, so that Father was able to take us all to live in a jolly bigred house on Blackheath, instead of in the Lewisham Road, where we livedwhen we were only poor but honest Treasure Seekers. When we were poorbut honest we always used to think that if only Father had plenty ofbusiness, and we did not have to go short of pocket money and wearshabby clothes (I don't mind this myself, but the girls do), we shouldbe happy and very, very good.

  And when we were taken to the beautiful big Blackheath house wethought now all would be well, because it was a house with vineries andpineries, and gas and water, and shrubberies and stabling, and repletewith every modern convenience, like it says in Dyer & Hilton's listof Eligible House Property. I read all about it, and I have copied thewords quite right.

  It is a beautiful house, all the furniture solid and strong, no castersoff the chairs, and the tables not scratched, and the silver not dented;and lots of servants, and the most decent meals every day--and lots ofpocket-money.

  But it is wonderful how soon you get used to things, even the things youwant most. Our watches, for instance. We wanted them frightfully; butwhen I had mine a week or two, after the mainspring got broken and wasrepaired at Bennett's in the village, I hardly cared to look at theworks at all, and it did not make me feel happy in my heart any more,though, of course, I should have been very unhappy if it had been takenaway from me. And the same with new clothes and nice dinners and havingenough of everything. You soon get used to it all, and it does not makeyou extra happy, although, if you had it all taken away, you would bevery dejected. (That is a good word, and one I have never used before.)You get used to everything, as I said, and then you want something more.Father says this is what people mean by the deceitfulness of riches; butAlbert's uncle says it is the spirit of progress, and Mrs Leslie saidsome people called it 'divine discontent'. Oswald asked them all whatthey thought one Sunday at dinner. Uncle said it was rot, and what wewanted was bread and water and a licking; but he meant it for a joke.This was in the Easter holidays.

  We went to live at the Red House at Christmas. After the holidays thegirls went to the Blackheath High School, and we boys went to the Prop.(that means the Proprietary School). And we had to swot rather duringterm; but about Easter we knew the deceitfulness of riches in the vac.,when there was nothing much on, like pantomimes and things. Then therewas the summer term, and we swotted more than ever; and it was boilinghot, and masters' tempers got short and sharp, and the girls used towish the exams came in cold weather. I can't think why they don't. ButI suppose schools don't think of sensible thinks like that. They teachbotany at girls' schools.

  Then the Midsummer holidays came, and we breathed again--but only for afew days. We began to feel as if we had forgotten something, and did notknow what it was. We wanted something to happen--only we didn't exactlyknow what. So we were very pleased when Father said--

  'I've asked Mr Foulkes to send his children here for a week or two. Youknow--the kids who came at Christmas. You must be jolly to them, and seethat they have a good time, don't you know.'

  We remembered them right enough--they were little pinky, frightenedthings, like white mice, with very bright eyes. They had not been to ourhouse since Christmas, because Denis, the boy, had been ill, and theyhad been with an aunt at Ramsgate.

  Alice and Dora would have liked to get the bedrooms ready for thehonoured guests, but a really good housemaid is sometimes more ready tosay 'Don't' than even a general. So the girls had to chuck it. Jane onlylet them put flowers in the pots on the visitors' mantelpieces, and thenthey had to ask the gardener which kind they might pick, because nothingworth gathering happened to be growing in our own gardens just then.

  Their train got in at 12.27. We all went to meet them. Afterwards Ithought that was a mistake, because their aunt was with them, and shewore black with beady things and a tight bonnet, and she said, when wetook our hats off--'Who are you?' quite crossly.

  We said, 'We are the Bastables; we've come to meet Daisy and Denny.'

  The aunt is a very rude lady, and it made us sorry for Daisy and Dennywhen she said to them--

  'Are these the children? Do you remember them?' We weren't very tidy,perhaps, because we'd been playing brigands in the shrubbery; and weknew we should have to wash for dinner as soon as we got back, anyhow.But still--

  Denny said he thought he remembered us. But Daisy said, 'Of course theyare,' and then
looked as if she was going to cry.

  So then the aunt called a cab, and told the man where to drive, and putDaisy and Denny in, and then she said--

  'You two little girls may go too, if you like, but you little boys mustwalk.'

  So the cab went off, and we were left. The aunt turned to us to say afew last words. We knew it would have been about brushing your hair andwearing gloves, so Oswald said, 'Good-bye', and turned haughtily away,before she could begin, and so did the others. No one but that kindof black beady tight lady would say 'little boys'. She is like MissMurdstone in David Copperfield. I should like to tell her so; but shewould not understand. I don't suppose she has ever read anything butMarkham's History and Mangnall's Questions--improving books like that.

  When we got home we found all four of those who had ridden in the cabsitting in our sitting-room--we don't call it nursery now--looking verythoroughly washed, and our girls were asking polite questions and theothers were saying 'Yes' and 'No', and 'I don't know'. We boys did notsay anything. We stood at the window and looked out till the gongwent for our dinner. We felt it was going to be awful--and it was. Thenewcomers would never have done for knight-errants, or to carry theCardinal's sealed message through the heart of France on a horse; theywould never have thought of anything to say to throw the enemy off thescent when they got into a tight place.

  They said 'Yes, please', and 'No, thank you'; and they ate very neatly,and always wiped their mouths before they drank, as well as after, andnever spoke with them full.

  And after dinner it got worse and worse.

  We got out all our books and they said 'Thank you', and didn't look atthem properly. And we got out all our toys, and they said 'Thank you,it's very nice' to everything. And it got less and less pleasant, andtowards teatime it came to nobody saying anything except Noel and H.O.--and they talked to each other about cricket.

  After tea Father came in, and he played 'Letters' with them and thegirls, and it was a little better; but while late dinner was going on--Ishall never forget it. Oswald felt like the hero of a book--'almostat the end of his resources'. I don't think I was ever glad of bedtimebefore, but that time I was.

  When they had gone to bed (Daisy had to have all her strings and buttonsundone for her, Dora told me, though she is nearly ten, and Denny saidhe couldn't sleep without the gas being left a little bit on) we helda council in the girls' room. We all sat on the bed--it is a mahoganyfourposter with green curtains very good for tents, only the housekeeperdoesn't allow it, and Oswald said--

  'This is jolly nice, isn't it?'

  'They'll be better to-morrow,' Alice said, 'they're only shy.'

  Dicky said shy was all very well, but you needn't behave like a perfectidiot.

  'They're frightened. You see we're all strange to them,' Dora said.

  'We're not wild beasts or Indians; we shan't eat them. What have theygot to be frightened of?' Dicky said this.

  Noel told us he thought they were an enchanted prince and princess who'dbeen turned into white rabbits, and their bodies had got changed backbut not their insides.

  But Oswald told him to dry up.

  'It's no use making things up about them,' he said. 'The thing is:what are we going to DO? We can't have our holidays spoiled by thesesnivelling kids.'

  'No,' Alice said, 'but they can't possibly go on snivelling for ever.Perhaps they've got into the habit of it with that Murdstone aunt. She'senough to make anyone snivel.'

  'All the same,' said Oswald, 'we jolly well aren't going to have anotherday like today. We must do something to rouse them from their snivellingleth--what's its name?--something sudden and--what is it?--decisive.'

  'A booby trap,' said H. O., 'the first thing when they get up, and anapple-pie bed at night.'

  But Dora would not hear of it, and I own she was right.

  'Suppose,' she said, 'we could get up a good play--like we did when wewere Treasure Seekers.'

  We said, well what? But she did not say.

  'It ought to be a good long thing--to last all day,' Dicky said, 'and ifthey like they can play, and if they don't--'

  'If they don't, I'll read to them,' Alice said.

  But we all said 'No, you don't--if you begin that way you'll have to goon.'

  And Dicky added, 'I wasn't going to say that at all. I was going to sayif they didn't like it they could jolly well do the other thing.'

  We all agreed that we must think of something, but we none of us could,and at last the council broke up in confusion because Mrs Blake--she isthe housekeeper--came up and turned off the gas.

  But next morning when we were having breakfast, and the two strangerswere sitting there so pink and clean, Oswald suddenly said--

  'I know; we'll have a jungle in the garden.'

  And the others agreed, and we talked about it till brek was over. Thelittle strangers only said 'I don't know' whenever we said anything tothem.

  After brekker Oswald beckoned his brothers and sisters mysteriouslyapart and said--

  'Do you agree to let me be captain today, because I thought of it?'

  And they said they would.

  Then he said, 'We'll play Jungle Book, and I shall be Mowgli. The restof you can be what you like--Mowgli's father and mother, or any of thebeasts.'

  'I don't suppose they know the book,' said Noel. 'They don't look as ifthey read anything, except at lesson times.'

  'Then they can go on being beasts all the time,' Oswald said. 'Anyonecan be a beast.'

  So it was settled.

  And now Oswald--Albert's uncle has sometimes said he is clever atarranging things--began to lay his plans for the jungle. The day wasindeed well chosen. Our Indian uncle was away; Father was away; MrsBlake was going away, and the housemaid had an afternoon off. Oswald'sfirst conscious act was to get rid of the white mice--I mean the littlegood visitors. He explained to them that there would be a play in theafternoon, and they could be what they liked, and gave them the JungleBook to read the stories he told them to--all the ones about Mowgli.He led the strangers to a secluded spot among the sea-kale pots in thekitchen garden and left them. Then he went back to the others, and wehad a jolly morning under the cedar talking about what we would do whenBlakie was gone. She went just after our dinner.

  When we asked Denny what he would like to be in the play, it turned outhe had not read the stories Oswald told him at all, but only the 'WhiteSeal' and 'Rikki Tikki'.

  We then agreed to make the jungle first and dress up for our partsafterwards. Oswald was a little uncomfortable about leaving thestrangers alone all the morning, so he said Denny should be hisaide-de-camp, and he was really quite useful. He is rather handy withhis fingers, and things that he does up do not come untied. Daisy mighthave come too, but she wanted to go on reading, so we let her, which isthe truest manners to a visitor. Of course the shrubbery was to be thejungle, and the lawn under the cedar a forest glade, and then we beganto collect the things. The cedar lawn is just nicely out of the way ofthe windows. It was a jolly hot day--the kind of day when the sunshineis white and the shadows are dark grey, not black like they are in theevening.

  We all thought of different things. Of course first we dressed uppillows in the skins of beasts and set them about on the grass to lookas natural as we could. And then we got Pincher, and rubbed him allover with powdered slate-pencil, to make him the right colour for GreyBrother. But he shook it all off, and it had taken an awful time to do.Then Alice said--

  'Oh, I know!' and she ran off to Father's dressing-room, and came backwith the tube of creme d'amande pour la barbe et les mains, and wesqueezed it on Pincher and rubbed it in, and then the slate-pencil stuffstuck all right, and he rolled in the dust-bin of his own accord, whichmade him just the right colour. He is a very clever dog, but soon afterhe went off and we did not find him till quite late in the afternoon.Denny helped with Pincher, and with the wild-beast skins, and whenPincher was finished he said--

  'Please, may I make some paper birds to put in the trees? I know how.'
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br />   And of course we said 'Yes', and he only had red ink and newspapers, andquickly he made quite a lot of large paper birds with red tails. Theydidn't look half bad on the edge of the shrubbery.

  While he was doing this he suddenly said, or rather screamed, 'Oh?'

  And we looked, and it was a creature with great horns and a furrug--something like a bull and something like a minotaur--and I don'twonder Denny was frightened. It was Alice, and it was first-class.

  Up to now all was not yet lost beyond recall. It was the stuffed foxthat did the mischief--and I am sorry to own it was Oswald who thoughtof it. He is not ashamed of having THOUGHT of it. That was rather cleverof him. But he knows now that it is better not to take other people'sfoxes and things without asking, even if you live in the same house withthem.

  It was Oswald who undid the back of the glass case in the hall and gotout the fox with the green and grey duck in its mouth, and when theothers saw how awfully like life they looked on the lawn, they allrushed off to fetch the other stuffed things. Uncle has a tremendouslot of stuffed things. He shot most of them himself--but not the fox, ofcourse. There was another fox's mask, too, and we hung that in a bush tolook as if the fox was peeping out. And the stuffed birds we fastened onto the trees with string. The duck-bill--what's its name?--looked verywell sitting on his tail with the otter snarling at him. Then Dicky hadan idea; and though not nearly so much was said about it afterwards asthere was about the stuffed things, I think myself it was just as bad,though it was a good idea, too. He just got the hose and put the endover a branch of the cedar-tree. Then we got the steps they cleanwindows with, and let the hose rest on the top of the steps and run. Itwas to be a waterfall, but it ran between the steps and was only wet andmessy; so we got Father's mackintosh and uncle's and covered the stepswith them, so that the water ran down all right and was glorious, and itran away in a stream across the grass where we had dug a little channelfor it--and the otter and the duck-bill-thing were as if in their nativehaunts. I hope all this is not very dull to read about. I know it wasjolly good fun to do. Taking one thing with another, I don't know thatwe ever had a better time while it lasted.

  We got all the rabbits out of the hutches and put pink paper tails onto them, and hunted them with horns made out of The Times. They got awaysomehow, and before they were caught next day they had eaten a goodmany lettuces and other things. Oswald is very sorry for this. He ratherlikes the gardener.

  Denny wanted to put paper tails on the guinea-pigs, and it was no useour telling him there was nothing to tie the paper on to. He thought wewere kidding until we showed him, and then he said, 'Well, never mind',and got the girls to give him bits of the blue stuff left over fromtheir dressing-gowns.

  'I'll make them sashes to tie round their little middles,' he said. Andhe did, and the bows stuck up on the tops of their backs. One of theguinea-pigs was never seen again, and the same with the tortoise when wehad done his shell with vermilion paint. He crawled away and returned nomore. Perhaps someone collected him and thought he was an expensive kindunknown in these cold latitudes.

  The lawn under the cedar was transformed into a dream of beauty,what with the stuffed creatures and the paper-tailed things and thewaterfall. And Alice said--

  'I wish the tigers did not look so flat.' For of course with pillows youcan only pretend it is a sleeping tiger getting ready to make a springout at you. It is difficult to prop up tiger-skins in a life-like mannerwhen there are no bones inside them, only pillows and sofa cushions.

  'What about the beer-stands?' I said. And we got two out of the cellar.With bolsters and string we fastened insides to the tigers--and theywere really fine. The legs of the beer-stands did for tigers' legs. Itwas indeed the finishing touch.

  Then we boys put on just our bathing drawers and vests--so as to be ableto play with the waterfall without hurting our clothes. I think this wasthoughtful. The girls only tucked up their frocks and took their shoesand stockings off. H. O. painted his legs and his hands with Condy'sfluid--to make him brown, so that he might be Mowgli, although Oswaldwas captain and had plainly said he was going to be Mowgli himself. Ofcourse the others weren't going to stand that. So Oswald said--

  'Very well. Nobody asked you to brown yourself like that. But now you'vedone it, you've simply got to go and be a beaver, and live in the damunder the waterfall till it washes off.'

  He said he didn't want to be beavers. And Noel said--

  'Don't make him. Let him be the bronze statue in the palace gardens thatthe fountain plays out of.'

  So we let him have the hose and hold it up over his head. It made alovely fountain, only he remained brown. So then Dicky and Oswald andI did ourselves brown too, and dried H. O. as well as we could with ourhandkerchiefs, because he was just beginning to snivel. The brown didnot come off any of us for days.

  Oswald was to be Mowgli, and we were just beginning to arrange thedifferent parts. The rest of the hose that was on the ground was Kaa,the Rock Python, and Pincher was Grey Brother, only we couldn't findhim. And while most of us were talking, Dicky and Noel got messing aboutwith the beer-stand tigers.

  And then a really sad event instantly occurred, which was not really ourfault, and we did not mean to.

  That Daisy girl had been mooning indoors all the afternoon with theJungle Books, and now she came suddenly out, just as Dicky and Noel hadgot under the tigers and were shoving them along to fright each other.Of course, this is not in the Mowgli book at all: but they did lookjolly like real tigers, and I am very far from wishing to blame thegirl, though she little knew what would be the awful consequence of herrash act. But for her we might have got out of it all much better thanwe did. What happened was truly horrid.

  As soon as Daisy saw the tigers she stopped short, and uttering a shrieklike a railway whistle she fell flat on the ground.

  'Fear not, gentle Indian maid,' Oswald cried, thinking with surprisethat perhaps after all she did know how to play, 'I myself will protectthee.' And he sprang forward with the native bow and arrows out ofuncle's study.

  The gentle Indian maiden did not move.

  'Come hither,' Dora said, 'let us take refuge in yonder covert whilethis good knight does battle for us.' Dora might have remembered that wewere savages, but she did not. And that is Dora all over. And still theDaisy girl did not move.

  Then we were truly frightened. Dora and Alice lifted her up, and hermouth was a horrid violet-colour and her eyes half shut. She lookedhorrid. Not at all like fair fainting damsels, who are always of aninteresting pallor. She was green, like a cheap oyster on a stall.

  We did what we could, a prey to alarm as we were. We rubbed her handsand let the hose play gently but perseveringly on her unconscious brow.The girls loosened her dress, though it was only the kind that comesdown straight without a waist. And we were all doing what we could ashard as we could, when we heard the click of the front gate. There wasno mistake about it.

  'I hope whoever it is will go straight to the front door,' said Alice.But whoever it was did not. There were feet on the gravel, and there wasthe uncle's voice, saying in his hearty manner--

  'This way. This way. On such a day as this we shall find our youngbarbarians all at play somewhere about the grounds.'

  And then, without further warning, the uncle, three other gentlemen andtwo ladies burst upon the scene.

  We had no clothes on to speak of--I mean us boys. We were all wetthrough. Daisy was in a faint or a fit, or dead, none of us then knewwhich. And all the stuffed animals were there staring the uncle in theface. Most of them had got a sprinkling, and the otter and the duck-billbrute were simply soaked. And three of us were dark brown. Concealment,as so often happens, was impossible.

  The quick brain of Oswald saw, in a flash, exactly how it would strikethe uncle, and his brave young blood ran cold in his veins. His heartstood still.

  'What's all this--eh, what?' said the tones of the wronged uncle.

  Oswald spoke up and said it was jungles we were playing, and he didn'
tknow what was up with Daisy. He explained as well as anyone could, butwords were now in vain.

  The uncle had a Malacca cane in his hand, and we were but ill preparedto meet the sudden attack. Oswald and H. O. caught it worst. The otherboys were under the tigers--and of course my uncle would not strike agirl. Denny was a visitor and so got off.

  But it was bread and water for us for the next three days, and our ownrooms. I will not tell you how we sought to vary the monotonousness ofimprisonment. Oswald thought of taming a mouse, but he could not findone. The reason of the wretched captives might have given way but forthe gutter that you can crawl along from our room to the girls'. ButI will not dwell on this because you might try it yourselves, and itreally is dangerous. When my father came home we got the talking to,and we said we were sorry--and we really were--especially about Daisy,though she had behaved with muffishness, and then it was settled thatwe were to go into the country and stay till we had grown into betterchildren.

  Albert's uncle was writing a book in the country; we were to go to hishouse. We were glad of this--Daisy and Denny too. This we bore nobly. Weknew we had deserved it. We were all very sorry for everything, and weresolved that for the future we WOULD be good.

  I am not sure whether we kept this resolution or not. Oswald thinks nowthat perhaps we made a mistake in trying so very hard to be good all atonce. You should do everything by degrees.

  P.S.--It turned out Daisy was not really dead at all. It was onlyfainting--so like a girl.

  N.B.--Pincher was found on the drawing-room sofa.

  Appendix.--I have not told you half the things we did for thejungle--for instance, about the elephants' tusks and the horse-hairsofa-cushions, and uncle's fishing-boots.