The Related Muff by E Nesbit

Books at bedtime by Calming Anxiety, the related muff by E nesbit.

We had never seen our cousin Sydney till Christmas Eve, and we didn't want to see him then, and we didn't like him when we did see him. He was just dumped down into the middle of us by mother at the time when it would have been unkind to her to say how little we wanted him. We knew already that there wasn't to be any proper Christmas for us, because Aunt Ellie, the one who always used to send the necklaces and carved things from India, and remembered everybody's birthday, had come home ill. She was, at a hotel in London, and mother had to go to her, and of course, father was away with his ship.

And then, after we had said goodbye to mother, and told her how sorry we were, we were left to ourselves, and told each other what a shame it was, and no presence or anything. And then, mother came suddenly back in a cab, and we all shouted "Hooray!" when we saw the cab stop, and her get out of it. And then, we saw she was getting something out of the cab, and our hearts leapt up like the man's in a piece of school poetry when he beheld a rainbow in the sky. Because, we thought she had remembered about the presents, and the thing she was getting out of the cab was them.

Of course, it was not, it was Sydney, very thin and yellow, and looking as sullen as a pig.

We opened the front door, mother didn't even come in, she just said "Here's your cousin Sydney, be nice to him, and give him a good time, dear's dilelings, and don't forget he's your visitor, so be extra nice to him." I have sometimes thought it was the fault of what mother said about the visitor that made what did happen happen. But I'm almost really sure that it was the fault of us, though I did not see it at the time, and even now I'm sure we didn't mean to be unkind. Quite the opposite, but the events of life are very confusing, especially when you try to think what made you do them, and whether you really meant to be north or not.

It often, it is not, but it just turns out just the same. When the cab had carried mother away, he'll just set it like a dragon carrying away a queen. We said "How do you do?" to our cousin Sydney, who replied "Quite well, thank you." Then curiously enough, no one could think of anything more to say.

Then Rupert, which is me, remembered that about being a visitor, and he said "Would you come into the drawing room?" He did, when he had taken off his clubs and overcoat. There was a fire in the drawing room because we'd been going to have games there with mother, and the telegram came about Aunt Ellie. So we all sat on chairs in the drawing room and thought nothing to say harder than ever.

Hilda did say "How old are you?" But of course we knew the answer to that. It was ten. And he said "Do you like England or India best?"

And our cousin replied "India, ever so much, thank you." I never felt such a duffer. It was awful. With all the millions of interesting things that there were to say it other times, I couldn't think of one.

At last I said "Do you like games?" And our cousin replied "Some games I do." In a tone that made me sure that the games he liked wouldn't be our kind, but some wild Indian sort that we didn't know. I could see that the others were feeling just like me.

And I knew we could not go on like this till tea time, and yet I didn't see any other way to go on in. It was Hilda who cut the gorgeous knot at last. She said "You." Let you and I go and make a lovely surprise for Rupert and Sydney.

And before I could think of any way of stopping them without being downright rude to our new cousin, they had fled the scene, just like old conspirators. Rupert me, I mean, was left alone with the stranger. I said "Is there anything you'd like to do?" And he said "No, no, thank you."

Then neither of us said anything for a bit, and I could hear the others shrieking with laughter in the hall. I said "I wonder what the surprise will be like." He said "Yes, I wonder, but I could tell from his tone that he did not wonder a bit." The others were yelling and laughter.

Have you ever noticed how very amused people always are when you're not there? If you're in bed, ill, or in disgrace or anything, it always sounds like a far finer joke than they ever occur when you are not out of things. "Do you like reading?" said I, who I'm Rupert, in the tones of despair. "Yes," said the cousin.

"Then take a book," I said hastily. For I really could not stand it another second, and you must read till the surprise is ready. I think I ought to go and help the others. I'm the eldest, you know.

I did not wait, I suppose, if you're ten you can choose a book for yourself, and I went. Well, this idea was just Indians, but I thought a wigwam would be nice, so we made one with the whole table and the fur-rucks off the floor. If everything could be different, and aren't Ellie, hadn't been ill, we were to have had Turkey for dinner. The Turkey's feathers were splendid for Indians, and the striped blankets of Hughes and my bed and all mother's beads.

The hall is big, like a room, and there was a fire. The afternoon passed, like a beautiful dream. When Rupert had done his own feathering and blanketing, as well as a brown paper moccasins, he helped the others. The tea-bell rang before we were quite dressed.

We got Louisa to go up and tell our cousin that the surprise was ready, and we all got inside the wigwam. It was a very tight fit with the feathers and the blankets. He came down the stairs very slowly, reading all the time. And when he got to the mat, the bottom of the stairs, we burst forth in all our war paint from the wigwam.

He stepped up set, because Hugh and Hilda struck between the table's legs, and it fell on the stone floor with quite a loud noise. The wild Indians picked themselves up out of the ruins and did the finest ward-arts I've ever seen in front of my cousin, Sydney. He gave one little scream, and then sat down suddenly on the bottom steps. He leaned his head against the banisters, and we thought he was admiring the ward-arts till Louisa, who had been laughing and making as much noise as anyone, suddenly went up to him and shook him.

Stop that noise, she said to us. He's gone off in a dead faint, and he had. Of course, we were very sorry on all that, but we never thought he'd be such a muff as to be frightened of three red Indians, and a wigwam that happened to upset. He was put to bed, and we had our teas.

"I wish we hadn't," Hilda said. "So do I," said Hugh. But Rupert said, "No one could have expected a cousin of ours to be a chicken hearted duffer. He's a muff.

It's bad enough. It's bad enough to have a muff in the house at all, and at Christmas time too." But a related muff. Still, the affair had cast a gloom, and we were glad when it was bedtime.

Next day was Christmas day, and no presents, and nobody but the servants to wish a merry Christmas too. Our cousin Sydney came down to breakfast, and as it was Christmas day, Rupert bent his proud spirit to own that he was sorry about the Indians. Sydney said, "It doesn't matter. I'm sorry too.

Only I didn't expect it." We suggested two or three games, such as Parler Cricket, National Gallery, and Grab, but Sydney said he would rather read. So we said, "Would he mind if we played out the Indian game which we had dropped, and out of politeness when he fainted?" He said.

"I don't mind at all. Now I know what it is that you're up to. No. Thank you.

I'd rather read," he added, in reply to Rupert's unselfish offer to dress him for the part of sitting bull. So he read Treasure Island, and we fought on the stairs with no casualties except the gasclaves, and then we scouted all the dolls, putting on paper scouts first because he'll be wished it. We scouted Eliza as she passed through the hall. Heres was a white scout with lacy staff on it and long streamers.

And when it was beginning to get dark, we thought of flying machines. Of course, Sydney wouldn't play it that either, and Hilda and Hugh were contented with paper wings. There were some rolls of rather decent yellow and pink crinkle paper that Mother had brought to make lampshades of. They made wings of this, and then they played at fairies up and down the stairs, while Sydney sat at the bottom of the stairs and went on reading Treasure Island.

Rupert was determined to have a flying machine, with real flippery flippery wings like a hindron. So he got two brass fire guards out of the spare room and Mother's bedroom and covered them with newspapers, fastened on with string. Then he got a tea tray and fastened it on to himself with rug straps, and then he slipped his arms in between the strings and the fire guards and went to the top of the stairs and shouting, "Look out below there, beware flying machines." He sat down suddenly on the tray and toboggan gloriously down the stairs, flapping his fire guard wings.

It was a great success and felt more like flying than anything he'd ever played at. The hilder had not had time to look out thoroughly because he did not wait any time between his warning and his descent. So that she was still fluttering in the character of the queen at the butterfly fairies about halfway down the stairs when the flying machine, composed of the two guards, the tea tray and ruptured, started from the top of them and she could only get out of the way by standing back close against the wall. Unluckily, the place where she was was also the place where the gas was burning in a little recess.

You remember, we had broken the globe when we were playing Indians. Now, of course, you know what happened because you have read Harriet and the matches and all the rest of the stories that have been written to persuade children not to play with fire. No one was playing with fire that day. It is true, we're doing anything really naughty at all.

But however naughty we had been, the thing that happened couldn't have been much worse. The flying machine, as it came rushing round the curve of the staircase, banged against the legs of Hilda. She screamed and stumbled back. Her pink paper wings went into the gas that hadn't a globe.

They flamed up, her hair frizzled and her lace collar caught fire. Rupert could not do anything because he had been held fast in his flying machine and he and it were rolling painfully on the mat at the bottom of the stairs. Hilda screamed. I have since heard that a great yellow light fell on the pages of Treasure Island.

Next moment, Treasure Island went spinning across the room. Sydney caught up the fur rug that was part of the wigwam and as Hilda screaming horribly and with the wings not a paper but flames rushed down the staircase and stumbled over the flying machine. Sydney threw the rug over her and rolled her over and over on the floor. Lie down, he cried.

Lie down, it's the only way. But somehow people never will lie down when they're clothed through on fire any more than they will lie still in the water if they think they are drowning and someone is trying to save them. It came to something very much like a fight. Hilda fought and struggled.

Rupert got out of his fire guards and added himself and his tea tray to the scrimmage. Hilda slid down to the knob on the banisters and sat there yelling. The servants came rushing in. But by the time the fire was out and Sydney gasped out it's alright you aren't burned Hilda, are you?

Hilda was much too frightened to know whether she was burned or not. But Eliza looked her over and it turned out that only her neck was a little scorched and a good deal of her hair frizzled off short. Rupert once stood, rather breathless and pale and everyone's face was much dirtier than customary, except use which he had as usual dirtied throughout quite an early part of the afternoon. Rupert felt perfectly awful, ashamed and proud and rather sick.

"You're a regular hero" Sydney he said and it was not an easy thing to say. "And yesterday I said you were related as a muff and I'm jolly sorry I did, shake hands won't you?" Sydney hesitated. "Too proud?"

Rupert's feelings were hurt and I should not wonder if he spoke rather fiercely. "It's, it's a little burns I think," said Sydney. "Don't be angry," and he held out the left hand. Rupert grasped it.

"I do beg your pardon," he said. "You are a hero." Sydney's hand was bad for ever so long but we were tremendous chums after that. It was when they had done the hand up with great potato and salad oil, a great big fat wet plaster of it that I said to him.

"I don't care if you don't like games, let's be pals." And he said, "I do like games but I couldn't care about anything with mothers so well. I know you all think I'm a muff but I'm not really, only I do love her so." And with that he began to cry and I thumped him on the back and told him exactly what a beast I knew I was to comfort him.

In Aunt Ellie was well again, we kept Christmas on the 6th of January which used to be Christmas day in the middle age times. Father came home for New Year and he had a silver medal made with a flame on one side and on the other side, Sydney's name, for bravery. If I had not been tied up in fire guards and tea trays perhaps I should have thought of the rug and got the medal. But I do not grudge it to Sydney, he deserved it.

He is not a muff. I see now that a person might very well be frightened of finding engines in the hall of a strange house, especially if the person had just come from the kind of India where Indians are quite a different sort and much milder, with no feathers and wigwams and ward answers. But only dusky features and university degrees.