“Oh!” Michael gasped. “With us—with Stella and me?”
Miss Carthew nodded.
“I say!” Michael whispered. “And will Stella have lessons when I’m going to school?”
“Every morning,” said Miss Carthew.
“I expect you’ll find her rather bad at lessons,” said Michael doubtfully.
He was almost afraid that Miss Carthew might leave in despair at Stella’s ineptitude.
“Lots of people are stupid at first,” said Miss Carthew.
Michael blushed: he remembered a certain morning when capes and promontories got inextricably mixed in his mind and when Miss Carthew seemed to grow quite tired of trying to explain the difference.
“Will you teach her the piano now?” he enquired.
“Oh dear, no. I’m not clever enough to do that.”
“But you teach me.”
“That’s different. Stella will be a great pianist one day,” said Miss Carthew earnestly.
“Will she?” asked Michael incredulously. “But I don’t like her to play a bit—not a bit.”
“You will one day. Great musicians think she is wonderful.”
Michael gave up this problem. It was another instance of the chasm between youth and age. He supposed that one day he would like Stella’s playing. One day, so he had been led to suppose, he would also like fat and cabbage and going to bed. At present such a condition of mind was incomprehensible. However, Stella and the piano mattered very little in comparison with the solid fact that Miss Carthew was going to live in Carlington Road.
On the next morning before they left, Michael and Mrs. Carthew walked round the garden together, while Mrs. Carthew talked to him of the new life on which he was shortly going to enter.
“Well, Michael,” she said, “in a week, so my daughter tells me, you will be going to school.”
“Yes,” corroborated Michael.
“Dear me,” Mrs. Carthew went on. “I’m glad I’m not going to school for the first time; you won’t like it at all at first, and then you’ll like it very much indeed, and then you’ll either go on liking it very much or you’ll hate it. If you go on liking it—I mean when you’re quite old—sixteen or seventeen—you’ll never do anything, but if you hate it then, you’ll have a chance of doing something. I’m glad my daughter Maud is going to look after you. She’s a good girl.”
Michael thought how extraordinary it was to hear Miss Carthew spoken of in this manner and felt shy at the prospect of having to agree verbally with Mrs. Carthew.
“Take my advice—never ask questions. Be content to make a fool of yourself once or twice, but don’t ask questions. Don’t answer questions either. That’s worse than asking. But after all, now I’m giving advice, and worst of anything is listening to other people’s advice. So pick yourself some plums and get ready, for the chaise will soon be at the door.”
Nurse was very grumpy when he and Miss Carthew arrived. She did not seem at all pleased by the idea of Miss Carthew living in the house, and muttered to herself all the time. Michael did no more lessons in the week that remained before the autumn term began; but he had to go with Miss Carthew to various outfitters and try on coats and suits and generally be equipped for school. The afternoons he spent in Carlington Road, trying to pick up information about St. James’ Preparatory School from the boys already there. One of these boys was Rodber, the son of a doctor, and probably by his manner and age and appearance the most important boy in the school. At any rate Michael found it difficult to believe that there could exist a boy with more right to rule than this Rodber with his haughty eye and Eton suit and prominent ears and quick authoritative voice.
“Look here,” said Rodber one evening, “can you borrow your mail-cart? I saw your sister being wheeled in one this morning. We’ve got three mail-carts and we want a fourth for trains.”
Michael ran as fast as he could back to Sixty-four, rushed down the area steps, rang the bell half a dozen times and tapped continuously on the ground glass of the back door until Cook opened it.
“Whatever’s the matter?” said Cook.
Michael did not stop to answer, but ran upstairs, until breathless he reached the schoolroom.
“Please, Miss Carthew, may we have Stella’s mail-cart? Rodber wants it—for trains. Do let me. Rodber’s the boy I told you about who’s at school. Oh, do let us have the cart. Rodber’s got three, but he wants ours. May I, Miss Carthew?”
She nodded.
Michael rushed downstairs in a helter-skelter of joy and presently, with Cook’s assistance in getting it up the steps, Michael stood proudly by the mail-cart which was of the dogcart pattern, very light and swift when harnessed to a good runner. Rodber examined it critically.
“Yes, that’s a fairly decent one,” he decided.
Michael was greatly relieved by his approval.
“Look here,” said Rodber, “I don’t mind telling you, as you’ll be a new kid, one or two tips about school. Look here, don’t tell anybody your Christian name and don’t be cocky.”
“Oh, no, I won’t,” Michael earnestly promised.
“And don’t, for goodness’ sake, look like that when chaps speak to you, or you’ll get your head smacked.”
This was the sum of Rodber’s advice, and presently Michael was stationed as signalman by the junction which was a pillar-box, while Rodber went off at express speed, bound for the next station which was a lamppost. A signalman’s life on the Carlington Road line was a lonely one, and it was also a very tiring one, when any obstruction caused the signals to be up. Michael’s arm ached excruciatingly when Rodber’s train got entangled with Garrod’s train and Macalister’s train had to be kept from running into them. Moreover, the signalman’s life had none of the glories of controlling other people; a signalman on the Carlington Road line was
