“Your Uncle William is waiting in to see you,”
she said. “Go and say good-bye to Miss
Watkin, and we’ll go home.”
“I don’t want to say good-bye,”
he answered, instinctively anxious to hide his tears.
“Very well, run upstairs and get your hat.”
He fetched it, and when he came down Emma was waiting
for him in the hall. He heard the sound of voices
in the study behind the dining-room. He paused.
He knew that Miss Watkin and her sister were talking
to friends, and it seemed to him—he was
nine years old—that if he went in they would
be sorry for him.
“I think I’ll go and say good-bye to Miss
Watkin.”
“I think you’d better,” said Emma.
“Go in and tell them I’m coming,”
he said.
He wished to make the most of his opportunity.
Emma knocked at the door and walked in. He heard
her speak.
“Master Philip wants to say good-bye to you,
miss.”
There was a sudden hush of the conversation, and Philip
limped in. Henrietta Watkin was a stout woman,
with a red face and dyed hair. In those days
to dye the hair excited comment, and Philip had heard
much gossip at home when his godmother’s changed
colour. She lived with an elder sister, who had
resigned herself contentedly to old age. Two ladies,
whom Philip did not know, were calling, and they looked
at him curiously.
“My poor child,” said Miss Watkin, opening
her arms.
She began to cry. Philip understood now why she
had not been in to luncheon and why she wore a black
dress. She could not speak.
“I’ve got to go home,” said Philip,
at last.
He disengaged himself from Miss Watkin’s arms,
and she kissed him again. Then he went to her
sister and bade her good-bye too. One of the strange
ladies asked if she might kiss him, and he gravely
gave her permission. Though crying, he keenly
enjoyed the sensation he was causing; he would have
been glad to stay a little longer to be made much of,
but felt they expected him to go, so he said that
Emma was waiting for him. He went out of the
room. Emma had gone downstairs to speak with a
friend in the basement, and he waited for her on the
landing. He heard Henrietta Watkin’s voice.
“His mother was my greatest friend. I can’t
bear to think that she’s dead.”
“You oughtn’t to have gone to the funeral,
Henrietta,” said her sister. “I knew
it would upset you.”
Then one of the strangers spoke.
“Poor little boy, it’s dreadful to think
of him quite alone in the world. I see he limps.”
“Yes, he’s got a club-foot. It was
such a grief to his mother.”
Then Emma came back. They called a hansom, and
she told the driver where to go.
When they reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in—it
was in a dreary, respectable street between Notting
Hill Gate and High Street, Kensington—Emma
led Philip into the drawing-room. His uncle was
writing letters of thanks for the wreaths which had
been sent. One of them, which had arrived too
late for the funeral, lay in its cardboard box on the
hall-table.
