Betty at St. Benedick's — Reading Notes

was there, although Betty felt that really and truly he oughtn’t to spare the time.

The twins were there, because nothing on earth would have kept them at home.

Even baby was there; though he wasn’t to be called “baby” any longer, Aunt Frances had decided. Aunt Frances was holding his hand now, and telling him to wave good-bye to Betty.

“Oh, _don’t_ trouble him, Auntie!” said Betty in a motherly tone. “He so very rarely gets the chance to see an engine really _start_!”

“Dear old Bet,” said Auntie.

Auntie was a darling. There was no doubt of that. If it hadn’t been that she was such a darling, Betty couldn’t possibly have brought herself to come away. But it had all been arranged so suddenly and unexpectedly, and almost without asking her at all.

“You see, old lady,” Dad had said only a fortnight ago, speaking one evening a few days after Auntie’s arrival, in a voice which tried--though it couldn’t quite succeed--to be in an ordinary, everyday tone; “you see, you have looked after all of us so long, Auntie says, that I’ve quite forgotten that it’s I who ought to be looking after _you_!”

“Oh, Dad!” Betty had said, staring.

Auntie hadn’t said it in Dad’s way. She had come along that evening after Betty was in bed. She had sat on the edge too, and had hugged Betty just the same way that Betty hugged Jan, the twin. “Bet, pet,” said Auntie, “you see, you’ve got to go for Daddy’s sake!”

“Oh, Auntie!” Betty had said again, but in a different tone of voice.

“It worries him to see you growing up like this,” said Auntie. “We don’t want to have a Betty with white hair and worrying wrinkles before she’s twenty. And besides, I’m home now from India; and Dad and I used to get on well enough when we were children, you know. So----”

So it was all arranged. That was only a fortnight ago, and now they were all down seeing her off.

“St. Benedick’s, _Woodhurst_,” was written on her red labels. Betty was really going to school.

“If the train’s late in starting I really and truly think that, Dad, you oughtn’t to stay,” said Betty, leaning out.

But Dad stayed. They all of them stayed. They all of them waved and waved and waved when the train started off as though they would never, never stop waving.

“I’m goin’ on wavin’,” shouted Jack, the twin, running along beside the moving train, “till you come back!”

“Go straight back to Auntie,” said Betty in a very severe tone. She was dreadfully sorry that her last words had to be so strict-sounding; but--suppose he got under the wheels! And there was Auntie, already fully occupied with holding on to Jan and baby. And Dad was just turning to race up the station stairs--oh yes, Betty was glad to see that. She left the window as the train entered the tunnel and sat down.

It was then that desolation seized her.

Never, never, never--so far back as she remembered--had she felt so alone before! Even at night-time Jan’s small bed was tucked close to her own, and at night-time Betty was always so tired that she fell fast asleep and so couldn’t possibly feel solitary.

“Oh, why ever did I come?” suddenly said Betty. “Oh, why ever did I think I’d like it? Oh dear, oh, isn’t it dreadful of me! Oh, I wish I could turn round and go back. I don’t believe that I told Auntie about those early summer woollies of Jan’s. And suppose she catches cold. And Dad simply hates every kind of cocoa except Rowntree’s, and I’ve never told her _that_; and we’re just at the end of the tin. _Oh!_”

Quite suddenly Betty began to cry.

“Oh dear,” she sobbed. “Oh, I do, _do_ hope they’re not crying too!”

It was the thought of their possible tears that made her forget to shed any more of her own. Her fingers groping for a handkerchief came across a stubby pencil with which she had been drawing pictures for baby. In her case there was sure to be paper; she would write them all a letter. Betty was smiling as she began “Dear Everybody” at the top of the page, for she could almost see the twins racing to the postman’s ring, and could almost hear their shouts. She felt at that moment almost as much back at home as though she was really there.

“Dear Everybody...” began Betty.