The Head of the House of CoombeBurnett, Frances Hodgson
General
The Head of the House of Coombe
Burnett, Frances Hodgson
England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
The boy Donal was not so unconscious. He had been happy all his life.
What he felt was that he had liked this little girl the minute he saw
her. She was pretty, though he thought her immensely younger than
himself, and, when she had looked up at him with her round, asking
eyes, he had wanted to talk to her and make friends. He had not played
much with boys and he had no haughty objection to girls who liked him.
This one did, he saw at once.
Through what means children so quickly convey to each other—while
seeming scarcely to do more than play—the entire history of their lives
and surroundings, is a sort of occult secret. It is not a matter of
prolonged conversation. Perhaps images created by the briefest of
unadorned statements produce on the unwritten tablets of the child mind
immediate and complete impressions. Safe as the locked garden was,
Andrews cannot have forgotten her charge for any very great length of
time and yet before Donal, hearing his attendant’s voice from her
corner, left Robin to join her and be taken home, the two children knew
each other intimately. Robin knew that Donal’s home was in
Scotland—where there are hills and moors with stags on them. He lived
there with “Mother” and he had been brought to London for a visit. The
person he called “Mother” was a woman who took care of him and he spoke
of her quite often. Robin did not think she was like Andrews, though
she did not in the least know why. On his part Donal knew about the
nurseries and the sparrows who hopped about on the slates of the houses
opposite. Robin did not describe the nurseries to him, but Donal knew
that they were ugly and that there were no toys in them and nothing to
do. Also, in some mystic fashion, he realized that Andrews would not
let Robin play with him if she saw them together, and that, therefore,
they must make the most of their time. Full of their joy in each other,
they actually embarked upon an ingenious infant intrigue, which
involved their trying to meet behind the shrubs if they were brought to
the Gardens the next day. Donal was sure he could come because his
nurse always did what he asked of her. He was so big now that she was
not a real nurse, but she had been his nurse when he was quite little
and “Mother” liked her to travel with them. He had a tutor but he had
stayed behind in Scotland at Braemarnie, which was their house. Donal
would come tomorrow and he would look for Robin and when she saw him
she must get away from Andrews and they would play together again.
“I will bring one of my picture books,” he said grandly. “Can you read
at all?”
“No,” answered Robin adoring him. “What are picture books?”
“Haven’t you any?” he blurted out.
“No,” said Robin. She looked at the gravel walk, reflecting a moment
thoughtfully on the Day Nursery and the Night Nursery. Then she lifted
her eyes to the glowing blueness of his and said quite simply, “I
haven’t anything.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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