The Aunt And Amabel by E Nesbit

Books at bed time by calming anxiety. The Aunt and Amabel by E. Nesbit. It is not pleasant to be a fish out of water, to be a cat in water is not what anyone would desire, to be in a temper is uncomfortable. And no one can fully taste the joys of life if he is in a little Lord for the Roy suit.

But by far the most uncomfortable thing to be in is disgrace sometimes a musically called "coventry" by the people who are not in it. We have all been there. It is a place where the heart sinks and aches, where familiar faces are clouded and changed. Where in e. remark that one may tremblingly make is received with a stony silence, with the assurance that nobody wants to talk to such a naughty boy.

If you are only in disgrace and not in solitary confinement, you will creep about a hazy house that is like the one that you have had such jolly times in. And yet, as unlike it is as a bad dream is to a June morning, you will long to speak to people and be afraid to speak. You will wonder whether there is anything that you can do that will change things at all. You have said you are sorry and that has changed nothing.

You will wonder whether you are to stay forever in this desolate place, outside all hope and love and fun and happiness. And though it has happened before and has always in the end come to an end, you can never be quite sure but this time it is not into last forever. It is going to last forever, said Amabel, who is eight, watch I do or whatever shall I do. What she had done ought to have formed the subject of her meditations and she had done what had seemed to her all the time and in fact still seemed a self-sacrificing and noble act.

She was staying with an aunt, measles or a new baby or the painters in the house. I forget which was the cause of her banishment and the aunt who was really a great aunt and quite old enough to know better. Had been grumbling about her head gardener to a lady who called in blue spectacles and a beady bonnet with violet flowers in it. He hardly lets me have a plant for the table, said the aunt and that border in front of the breakfast room window.

It is just bare earth and I expressly ordered Chris Sampmon to be planted there. He thinks of nothing but his greenhouse. The beady violet blue glass lady snorted and said she didn't know what we were coming to and she would have just half a cup, please, with not quite so much milk, thank you very much. Now, what would you have done?

Minded your own business most likely and not gotten to trouble at all? Not so am I, Bell. Enthusiastically anxious to do something which would make the great aunt see what her thoughtful and selfish little girl she really was. The aunt's opinion of her being a present quite otherwise.

She got up very early in the morning and took the cutting out scissors from the workroom table drawer and stole, like an errand of mercy, she told herself, "To the greenhouse where she busily snipped off every single flower she could find." Look, Farlin was at his breakfast. Then, with the points of the cutting out scissors, she made nice deep little holes in the flower bed where the Corathansmons ought to have been and stuck the flowers in. Chris Sampmon's, Geraniums, Premillars, Orchids and Carnations, it would be a lovely surprise for auntie.

In, the aunt came down to breakfast and saw the lovely surprise. Amabel's world turned upside down and inside out suddenly and surprisingly, and there she was, in Coventry and not even the house made would speak to her. Her great uncle whom she passed in the hall on her way to her own room did indeed as he smothered his hat murmur, sent Coventry out, never mind, it all seemed beover, and went off to the city banging the front door behind him. He meant well, but he did not understand.

Amabel understood, and she thought she did, and knew in her miserable heart that she was sent to Coventry for the last time, and that this time she would stay there. I don't care, she said quite untruly. I'll never try to be kind to anyone again, and that wasn't true either. She was to spend the whole day alone in the best bedroom, the one with the four poster bed, and the red curtains, and the large wardrobe with a looking glass in it that you could see yourself into the very ends of your strapped toes.

The first thing Amabel did was to look at herself in the glass. She was still sniffing and sobbing, and her eyes were swimming in tears. Another one rolled down her nose as she looked. That was very interesting, another rolled down, and that was the last, because as soon as you get interested in watching, or tears, they stop.

Next, she looked out of the window, and saw the decorated flower bed, just as she has left it, very bright and beautiful. "Well, it does look nice," she said. "I don't care what they say." Then she looked around the room for something to read.

There was nothing. The old-fashioned best bedrooms never did have anything. Only on the large dressing table, on the left hand side of the oval swing glass, was one book covered in red velvet, and on it, very twistingly embroidered. In yellow silk, a mixed up with misleading leaves and squiggles, with the letters A, B, C.

"Perhaps it's a picture alphabet," said Maiden, and was quite pleased though of course, she was too much too old to care for alphabets. Only when one is very unhappy and very dull, anything is better than nothing. She opened the book. "Why?"

"It's only a time table," she said. "I suppose it's for people when they want to go away, and Auntie puts it here in case they suddenly make up their minds to go, and feel that they can't wait another minute." "I feel like that only. It's no good, and I expect other people to do too."

She had learned how to use the dictionary, and this seemed to go the same way. She looked up the names of all the places she knew. Brighton, where she had once spent a month, rugby, where her brother was at school, and home, which was ambly, and she saw the times when the trains left these places, and wished she could go by those trains. And once more she looked around the best bedroom, which was her prison, and thought of the Bastille, and wished she had a toad to tame, like the poor vi-count, or a flower to watch growing, like Piccola, and she was very sorry for herself, and very angry with her aunt, and very grieved at the conduct of her parents.

She had expected better things from them, and now they had left her in this dreadful place where no one loved her, and no one understood her. There seemed to be no place for toads, or flowers in the best room. It was carpeted all over, even if it's least noticeable corners. It had everything a best room ought to have, and everything was of dark shining mahogany.

The toilet table had a set of red and gold-class things, a tray, candlesticks, a ringstand, many little pots with lids, and two bottles with stoppers. When the stoppers were taken out, they smelt very strange. Something like very old scent, and something like cold cream, also very old, and something like going to the dentist. I do not know whether the scent of those bottles had anything to do with what happened.

It certainly was a very extraordinary scent, quite different from any perfume that I smell nowadays, but I remember that when I was a little girl, I smelt it quite often, but then there were no best rooms now, such as they used to be. The best rooms now, are gay, with chints and mirrors, and there are always flowers and books, and little tables to put your tea cup on, and sofas, and arm chairs, and they smell a varnish and new furniture. In Aberbell had sniffed at both bottles, and looked in all the pots, which were quite clean and empty, except for a pearl button and two pins in one of them. She took up the ABC again to look for Whitby, where her godmother lived, and it was then that she saw the extraordinary name, where you want to go to.

That was on, but the name of the station from which it started was still more extraordinary, for it was not used in Orcannan Street or Marra-Le-Bone. The name of the station was "Big wardrobe, be in-per-spear room", and below this name, really quite unusual for a station, Amabel Red in small letters. All fairs strictly forbidden, return tickets, no-class nuppens, trains leave, big wardrobe, be in-spaer room all the time, and under that, in still smaller letters, you had better go now. Well, what would you have done?

Rubbed your eyes and thought you were dreaming? Well, if you had, nothing more would have happened. Nothing ever does when you behave like that. Amabel was wiser.

She went straight to the big wardrobe and turned its glass handle. I expect it's only shelves and people's best hats, she said, but she only said it. People often say what they don't mean, so that if things turn out as they don't expect, they can say, "I told you so." But this is the most dishonest to oneself, and being is dishonest to oneself is almost worse than being dishonest to other people.

Amabel would never have done it if she had been herself, but she was out of herself with anger and unhappiness. Of course, it wasn't hats, it was most amazingly a crystal cave, very oddly shaped like a railway station. It seemed to be lighted by stars, which is, of course, a usual in a booking office. And over the station clock was a full moon.

A full clock had no figures, only now in shining letters around it, 12 times, and the nows touched, so the clock was bound to be always right. How different from the clock you go to, school by? A porter in white satin hurried forward to take Amabel's luggage. Her luggage was the ABC, which he still held in her hand.

Lots of time, he said, grinning in the most friendly way. "I am glad you're going. You will enjoy yourself. What a nice little girl you are."

This was cheering. Amabel smiled. At the pigeon hole that tickets came out of, another person, also in white satin. Was ready with a mother of pearl ticket round, like a card counter.

"Here you are, miss," he said with a kind smile. Price nothing, and refreshments free all the way. "It's a pleasure," he added, to issue a ticket, to a nice little lady like you. The train was entirely of crystal, too, and the cushions were of white satin.

There were little buttons, such as you have, for the leachric bells, and on them, what you want to eat, what you want to drink, and what you want to read, in silver letters.

Amabel pressed all the buttons at once, and instantly felt obliged to blink. The blink over, she saw on the cushion by her side, a silver tray, with vanilla ice, boiled chicken, and white sauce. Armonds, blanched, peppermint creams, and mashed potatoes, and a long glass of lemonade.

Beside the train was a book. It was Mrs. Ewing's bad-tempered family, and it was bound in white film. There was nothing more luxurious than eating while you read, unless it be reading while you read. Amabel did both.

They are not the same thing, as you will see, if you think the matter over. And just as the last thrill of the last spoonful of ice died away, and the last full stop of the bad-tempered family met Amabel's eye. The train stopped. And hundreds of railway officials in white velvet shouted, "Where you want to go?

Get out." A velvety porter, who was somehow like a silkworm as well as like a wedding hank chief sachet, opened the door. "Now," he said. "I'm on out, Miss Amabel, unless you want to go to where you don't want to go to."

She hurried out onto an ivory platform. Not on the ivory, if you please, said the porter. The white axments to carpet. It's laid down, expressly, for you."

Amabel walked along it and saw a head of her a crowd, all in white. "What's all that?" she asked the friendly porter. "It's the Mayor," dear Miss Amabel, he said, "with your address." My address is the old cottage Ambelie, she said.

At least it used to be, and found herself face to face with the Mayor. He was very like Uncle George, but he bowed low to her, which was not Uncle George's habit and said, "Welcome, dear little Amabel. Please accept this admiring address from the Mayor and the Burgessess and the apprentices and all the rest of it, of where you want to go to." The address was in silver letters on white silk and it said, "Welcome, dear Amabel.

We know you meant please your aunt. It was very clever of you to think of putting the greenhouse flowers in the bare flower bed. You couldn't be expected to know that you ought to ask leave before you touch other people's things." "O, but," said Amabel quite confused, "I did, but the band struck up and drowned her words.

The instruments of the band were all silver and the band'smen cloths of white leather. The tune they played was cheerio." Then Amabel found that she was taking part in a procession, hand in hand with the Mayor and the band playing like mad all the time. The Mayor was dressed in tiling cloth of silver and they went along he kept saying close to her ear.

You have our sympathy. You have our sympathy. Till she felt quite giddy. There was a flower show.

All the flowers were white. There was a concert. All the tunes were old ones. There was a play called "Put yourself in her place."

And there was a banquet with Amabel in the place on her. They drank her health in white wine way and then through the crystal hall of a thousand gleaming pillars where thousands of guests all in white were met to do honour to Amabel. The shout went up. Speech, speech.

"I cannot explain to you what had been going on in Amabel's mind, perhaps you know." Whatever it was, it began like a very tiny butterfly in a box that could not keep quiet, but flooded and flooded and flooded. And when the Mayor rose and said, "Dear Amabel, you whom we all love and understand." Dear Amabel, you who were so unjustly punished for trying to get pleasure to an unresponsive art, poor, ill-used, ill-treated, innocent Amabel.

Lamentless, suffering Amabel. We await your words. That fluttering, tiresome butterfly thing inside her seems suddenly to swell to the size and strength of a fluttering alpertross. And Amabel got up from her seat of honour on the throne of Ivory and Silver in Pearl and said, choking a little, and extremely red about the years.

Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want to make a speech. I just want to say, thank you, and to say, to say, she stopped, and all the white crowd cheered to say she went on as the cheers died down. That I wasn't blameless and innocent and all those nice things. I ought to have thought, and they were aunties flowers, but I did want to please her.

It's all so mixed, I wish auntie was here. And instantly, auntie was there, very tall and quite nice looking in a white velvet dress and an ermine cloak. Which cried the crowd, speech from auntie. Auntie stood on the step of the throne beside Amabel and said, "I think perhaps I was hasty, and I think Amabel meant to please me, but all the flowers that moment for winter, well, I was annoyed, I'm sorry."

"Oh, auntie, so am I, so am I," cried Amabel. And the two began to hug each other on the ivory step, while the crowd cheered like mad, and the band struck up in the well-known air if you only understood. "Oh, auntie," said Amabel among hugs. This is such a lovely place.

"Come and see everything, we may, mate and we," she asked the mayor. "The place is yours," he said. "And now you can see many things that you couldn't see before. We are the people who understand, and now you are one of us, and your auntie is another."

I must not tell you all that they saw, because these things are secret only known to the people who understand, and perhaps you do not yet belong to that happy nation. And if you do, you will know without my telling you. And when it grew late, and the stars were drawn down, somehow, to hang among the trees, Amabel fell asleep in her aunt's arms beside a white foaming fountain on a marble terrace, where white peacocks came to drink. She awoke on the big bed in the spare room, but her aunt's arms were still around her.

Amabel, she was saying, "Amabel!" "Oh, auntie," said Amabel, sleepily. "I'm so sorry, it was stupid of me, and I did mean to please you." It was stupid of you, said the aunt, "but I am sure you meant to please me."

Come down to supper. And Amabel has a confused recollection of her aunt saying that she was sorry, adding, "Paul little Amabel." If the aunt rarely did say it, it was fine of her, and Amabel is quite sure that she did say it. Amabel and her great aunt are now the best of friends, but neither of them has ever spoken to the other of the beautiful city called, where do you want to go to.

Amabel is too shy to be the first to mention it, and no doubt the aunt has her own reasons for not approaching the subject. But of course, they both know that they have been there together, and it is easy to get on with people when you and they are like belonged to the people who understand. If you look in the ABC, that your people have, you will not find where you want to go to. It is only in the red velvet-bound copy that Amabel found in her aunt's best bedroom.