Jan and Her Job Part 51

Tony looked dubious. Still, he remembered that Auntie Jan had said he must try and be kind to poor Daddie, who had been so ill and was so sad.

"All right," he said with a little sigh, and took the hand Hugo held out.

"He'll be quite safe with me, Earley," Hugo said with a pleasant smile.

"Miss Ross knows I'm going to take him."

Nevertheless Earley went to the back door and asked Hannah to inform her mistress that "Mr. Tancred had taken Mazter Tony along of 'im."

Hannah was busy, and serene in her conception of Hugo as the sorrowing widower, did not think the fact that Tony had gone for a walk with his own father was worth a journey to the day-nursery.

"How would you like a ride down to the junction?" Hugo said. "I believe we could just catch a train if we take the omnibus at 'The Green Hart.'

I want to make inquiries about something for Auntie Jan."

Tony loved trains; he had only been twice to the junction since he came to Wren's End; it was a fascinating place. Daddie seemed in an agreeable mood this morning. Auntie Jan would be pleased that he should be nice to him.

It all fell out as if the fates had arranged things for Hugo. They saw very few people in the village; only one old woman accompanied them in the bus; he heard his father ask for a ticket to the junction, and they arrived without incident of any kind.

The junction, however, was busy. There were quite a lot of people, and when Hugo went to the ticket-office he had to stand in a queue of others while Tony waited outside the long row.

Suddenly Tony began to wonder why his father should go to the ticket-office at all to inquire for a parcel. Tony was observant, and just because everything was so different from things in India small incidents were impressed upon his mind. If his father was going on anywhere else, he wasn't going; for Peter had promised to take them out in his car again that afternoon. When Hugo reached the window of the ticket-office Tony heard something about Paddington.

That decided him. Nothing would induce him to go to Paddington.

He pushed his way among the crowd and ran for dear life up the stairs, and over the bridge to the other platform where the train for Amber Guiting was still waiting, lonely and deserted. He knew that train. It went up and down all day, for Amber Guiting was the terminus. No one was on the platform as he ran along. With the sure instinct of the hunted he pa.s.sed the carriages with their shut doors. Right at the end was a van with empty milk-cans. He had seen a porter putting them in the moment the train stopped. Tony darted into the van and crouched down between the milk-cans and the wall. He thought of getting into one of them. The story of Morgiana and the Forty Thieves was clear in his mind, for Meg had told it to them the night before. But the cans were so high and narrow he decided that it was impossible. Someone slammed the door of the van. There came a b.u.mp and a jar, and the train moved out onto a siding till it should go back to Amber Guiting when the 1.30 from London came in. Tony sat quite still in the dark, stuffy van. His little heart was beating with hammer strokes against his ribs, but his face expressed nothing but scorn.

Again his father had lied to him. Again he had said he was going to do one thing when he fully intended to do another. The pleasantness, the kindliness, the apparent desire for Tony's society were a cheat. Tony spoke rapidly to himself in Hindustani, and by the time he had finished expressing his views Hugo Tancred hadn't a shred of character left.

He didn't know when the train would go back to Amber Guiting. It might not be till evening. Tony could wait. Some time it would go back, and once in that dear, safe place all would be well.

He disliked the sound of Paddington; it had to do with London, he knew.

He didn't mind London, but he wasn't going there with his father, and no Meg and no Jan and no little Fay and no kind sahibs who were _real_ sahibs.

He was very hungry, and his eyes grew a bit misty as he thought of little Fay consuming scones and milk at the "elevens" Meg was always so careful they should have.

A new and troubling thought perturbed him. Did Auntie Jan know he had gone at all? Would she be frightened? Would she get that look on her dear face that he couldn't bear to see? That Auntie Jan loved them both with her whole heart was now one of the fixed stars in Tony's firmament of beliefs. He began to think that perhaps it would be better for Auntie Jan to give his father some of her twinkly things and let him go away and leave them in peace; but he dismissed that thought as cowardly and unworthy of a sahib.

Oh, dear! it was very long sitting in the dark, scrunched up behind those cans. He must tell himself stories to pa.s.s the time; and he started to relate the interminable legend of c.o.c.ky-locky and Henny-Penny who by their superior subtlety evaded the snares set for them by Toddy-Loddy the fox. He felt a sort of kins.h.i.+p with those harried fowls.

Gradually the constant repet.i.tion of the various other birds involved, "Juckie-Puckie, Goosie-Loosie, Turkey-lurkey and Swannie-Lonnie," had a soothing effect, and Tony fell asleep.

Meanwhile Hugo had hunted through every corner of the four platforms; he had even gone to look for the Amber Guiting train, but was told it always was moved on to a siding directly it had discharged its pa.s.sengers.

It was mysterious, it was profoundly annoying, but it was not, to Hugo, alarming. He suspected that Peter Ledgard was in some way mixed up in it; that he, himself, had been shadowed and that Peter had stolen Tony in the crowd. In his mistrustful wrath he endowed Peter with such abnormal foresight and ac.u.men as he certainly did not possess.

It really was an impossible situation. Hugo could not go about asking porters and people for a lost child, or the neighbourhood would be roused. He couldn't go back to Wren's End without Tony, or there would be the devil to pay. He even got a porter to look in every carriage of the side-tracked train for a mythical despatch-case, and accompanied him in his search. Naturally they didn't seek a despatch-case in the van.

He had lost his train, but there was another, very slow, about three-quarters of an hour later, and this he decided to take. He would telegraph to Jan from London. Somehow he was not in the least concerned about the fate of Tony. Peter and Peter's car had something to do with this mysterious disappearance. He was sure of that.

Well, if this particular deal had failed, he must shuffle the cards and deal again. In any case Jan should see that where his children were concerned he was not to be trifled with.

He was sorry, though, he had bought the half-ticket for Tony, and to ask them to take it back might cause comment.

As the slow train steamed out from the junction Hugo felt a very ill-used man.

At eleven o'clock Anne Chitt brought in the tray with two cups of milk and a plate of Hannah's excellent scones.

"Please go into the kitchen garden and ask Master Tony to come for his lunch," Jan said.

Presently Anne returned. "Master Tony ain't in the garden, miss; and 'Annah says as 'e most likely ain't back yet, miss."

"Back! Back from where?"

"Please, miss, 'Annah says as 'is pa've took him with him down the village."

Jan laid her sewing on the table and got up.

"Is Earley in the garden?"

"Yes, miss. I ast Earley an' 'e says the same as 'Annah. Mr. Tancred 'ave took Master Tony with 'im."

Anne went away, and Jan and Meg, who had stopped her machining to listen, stared at each other across the table.

"I suppose they'll be back directly," Jan said uneasily. "I'll go and ask Earley when Hugo took Tony."

"He got up to breakfast to-day for the first time," Meg remarked irrelevantly.

Jan went out into the Wrens' garden and through Anthony's gate. She fumbled at the catch, for her hands trembled.

Earley was picking peas.

"What time did Mr. Tancred take Master Tony?" she asked.

"Just as we got back from fetchin' the cream, miss. I should say as it was about 'alf-past nine. He did meet us at the lodge, and took the young gentleman with 'im for company--'e said so."

"Thank you, Earley," Jan said quietly.

Earley looked at her and over his broad, good-natured face there pa.s.sed a shade of misgiving. "I did tell Hannah to let you know the minute I c.u.m in, miss."

"Thank you," Jan said again; "that's quite right."

"Be you feelin' the 'eat, miss?" Earley asked anxiously. "I don't think as you ought to be out without an 'at."

"No, I expect not. I'll go and get one."

By lunch time there was still no sign of Hugo and Tony; and Jan was certainly as much scared as even Hugo could have wished.