a trick like this? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! I shall write to your Mamma about it. You dreadful little girl! — you might have poisoned me. But your Mamma . . . ’
Then Alice said, ‘I’m very sorry; the butcher liked it, only he said it was sweet. And please don’t write to Mother. It makes Father so unhappy when letters come for her!’— and Alice was very near crying.
‘What do you mean, you silly child?’ said the lady, looking quite bright and interested. ‘Why doesn’t your Father like your Mother to have letters — eh?’
And Alice said, ‘OH, you . . .!’ and began to cry, and bolted out of the room.
Then I said, ‘Our Mother is dead, and will you please go away now?’
The lady looked at me a minute, and then she looked quite different, and she said, ‘I’m very sorry. I didn’t know. Never mind about the wine. I daresay your little sister meant it kindly.’ And she looked round the room just like the butcher had done. Then she said again, ‘I didn’t know — I’m very sorry . . . ’
So I said, ‘Don’t mention it,’ and shook hands with her, and let her out. Of course we couldn’t have asked her to buy the wine after what she’d said. But I think she was not a bad sort of person. I do like a person to say they’re sorry when they ought to be-especially a grown-up. They do it so seldom. I suppose that’s why we think so much of it.
But Alice and I didn’t feel jolly for ever so long afterwards. And when I went back into the dining-room I saw how different it was from when Mother was here, and we are different, and Father is different, and nothing is like it was. I am glad I am not made to think about it every day.
I went and found Alice, and told her what the lady had said, and when she had finished crying we put away the bottle and said we would not try to sell any more to people who came. And we did not tell the others — we only said the lady did not buy any — but we went up on the Heath, and some soldiers went by and there was a Punch-and-judy show, and when we came back we were better.
The bottle got quite dusty where we had put it, and perhaps the dust of ages would have laid thick and heavy on it, only a clergyman called when we were all out. He was not our own clergyman — Mr Bristow is our own clergyman, and we all love him, and we would not try to sell sherry to people we like, and make two pounds a week out of them in our spare time. It was another clergyman, just a stray one; and he asked Eliza if the dear children would not like to come to his little Sunday school. We always spend Sunday afternoons with Father. But as he had left the name of his vicarage with Eliza, and asked her to tell us to come, we thought we would go and call on him, just to explain about Sunday afternoons, and we thought we might as well take the sherry with us.
‘I won’t go unless you all go too,’ Alice said, ‘and I won’t do the talking.’
Dora said she thought we had much better not go; but we said ‘Rot!’ and it ended in her coming with us, and I am glad she did.
Oswald said he would do the talking if the others liked, and he learned up what to say from the printed papers.
We went to the Vicarage early on Saturday afternoon, and rang at the bell. It is a new red house with no trees in the garden, only very yellow mould and gravel. It was all very neat and dry. Just before we rang the bell we heard some one inside call ‘Jane! Jane!’ and we thought we would not be Jane for anything. It was the sound of the voice that called that made us sorry for her.
The door was opened by a very neat servant in black, with a white apron; we saw her tying the strings as she came along the hall, through the different-coloured glass in the door. Her face was red, and I think she was Jane.
We asked if we could see Mr Mallow.
The servant said Mr Mallow was very busy with his sermon just then, but she would see.
But Oswald said, ‘It’s all right. He asked us to come.’
So she let us all in and shut the front door, and showed us into a very tidy room with a bookcase full of a lot of books covered in black cotton with white labels, and some dull pictures, and a harmonium. And Mr Mallow was writing at a desk with drawers, copying something out of a book. He was stout and short, and wore spectacles.
He covered his writing up when we went in-I didn’t know why. He looked rather cross, and we heard Jane or somebody being scolded outside by the voice. I hope it wasn’t for letting us in, but I have had doubts.
‘Well,’ said the clergyman, ‘what is all this about?’
‘You asked us to call,’ Dora said, ‘about your little Sunday school. We are the Bastables of Lewisham Road.’
‘Oh — ah, yes,’ he said; ‘and shall I expect you all tomorrow?’
He took up his pen and fiddled with it, and he did not ask us to sit down. But some of us did.
‘We always spend Sunday afternoon with Father,’ said Dora; ‘but we wished to thank you for being so kind as to ask us.’
‘And we wished to ask you something else!’ said Oswald; and he made a sign to Alice to get the sherry ready in the glass. She did — behind Oswald’s back while he was speaking.
‘My time is limited,’ said Mr Mallow, looking at his watch; ‘but still —’ Then he muttered something about the fold, and went on: ‘Tell me what is troubling you, my little man, and I will try to give you any help in my power. What is it you want?’
Then Oswald quickly took the glass from Alice, and held it out to him, and said, ‘I want your opinion on that.’
‘On that,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘It is a shipment,’ Oswald said; ‘but it’s quite enough for you to taste.’ Alice had filled the glass half-full; I suppose she was too excited to measure properly.
‘A shipment?’ said the clergyman, taking the glass in his hand.
‘Yes,’ Oswald went On; ‘an exceptional opportunity. Full-bodied and nutty.’
‘It really does taste rather like one kind of Brazil-nut.’ Alice put her oar in as usual.
The Vicar looked from Alice to Oswald, and back again, and Oswald went on with what he had learned from the printing. The clergyman held the glass at half-arm’s-length, stiffly, as if he had caught cold.
‘It is of a quality never before offered at the price. Old Delicate Amoro — what’s its name —’
‘Amorolio,’ said H. O.
‘Amoroso,’ said Oswald. ‘H. O., you just shut up — Castilian Amoroso — it’s a true after-dinner wine, stimulating and yet . . . ’
‘Wine?’ said Mr Mallow, holding the glass further off. ‘Do you know,’ he went on, making his voice very thick and strong (I expect he does it like that in church), ‘have you never been taught that it is the drinking of wine and spirits— yes, and beer, which makes half the homes in England full of wretched little children, and degraded, miserable parents?’
‘Not if you put sugar in it,’ said Alice firmly; ‘eight lumps and shake the bottle. We have each had more than a teaspoonful of it, and we were not ill at all. It was something else that upset H. O. Most likely all those acorns he got out of the Park.’
The clergyman seemed to be speechless with conflicting emotions, and just then the door opened and a lady came in. She had a white cap with lace, and an ugly violet flower in it, and she was tall, and looked very strong, though thin. And I do believe she had been listening at the door.
‘But why,’ the Vicar was saying, ‘why did you bring this dreadful fluid, this curse of our country, to me to taste?’
‘Because we thought you might buy some,’ said Dora, who never sees when a game is up. ‘In books the parson loves his bottle of old port; and new sherry is just