The Wouldbegoods (27 page)

Now the finding of the long-lost was the very last thing we did for the sake of its being a noble act, so that is the end of the Wouldbegoods, and there are no more chapters after this. But Oswald hates books that finish up without telling you the things you might want to know about the people in the book. So here goes.

We went home to the beautiful Blackheath house. It seemed very stately and mansion-like after the Moat House, and everyone was most frightfully pleased to see us.

Mrs Pettigrew
cried
when we went away. I never was so astonished in my life. She made each of the girls a fat red pincushion like a heart, and each of us boys had a knife bought out of the housekeeping (I mean housekeeper's own) money.

Bill Simpkins is happy as sub-under-gardener to Albert's uncle's lady's mother. They do keep three gardeners –
I knew they did. And our tramp still earns enough to sleep well on from our dear old Pig-man.

Our last three days were entirely filled up with visits of farewell sympathy to all our many friends who were so sorry to lose us. We promised to come and see them next year. I hope we shall.

Denny and Daisy went back to live with their father at Forest Hill. I don't think they'll ever be again the victims of the Murdstone aunt – who is really a great-aunt and about twice as much in the autumn of her days as our new Albert's-uncle aunt. I think they plucked up spirit enough to tell their father they didn't like her – which they'd never thought of doing before. Our own robber says their holidays in the country did them both a great deal of good. And he says us Bastables have certainly taught Daisy and Denny the rudiments of the art of making home happy. I believe they have thought of several quite new naughty things entirely on their own – and done them too – since they came back from the Moat House.

I wish you didn't grow up so quickly. Oswald can see that ere long he will be too old for the kind of games we can all play, and he feels grown-upness creeping inordiously upon him. But enough of this.

And now, gentle reader, farewell. If anything in these chronicles of the Wouldbegoods should make you try to be good yourself, the author will be very glad, of course. But take my advice and don't make a society for trying in. It is much easier without.

And do try to forget that Oswald has another name besides Bastable. The one beginning with C., I mean.
Perhaps you have not noticed what it was. If so, don't look back for it. It is a name no manly boy would like to be called by – if he spoke the truth. Oswald is said to be a very manly boy, and he despises that name, and will never give it to his own son when he has one. Not if a rich relative offered to leave him an immense fortune if he did. Oswald would still be firm. He would, on the honour of the House of Bastable.

biographical note

Edith Nesbit was born in August 1858 in Kennington. A complicated childhood affected by her sister Mary’s ill health meant that the family was forced to relocate a number of times, not only around Great Britain but also to France, Spain and Germany. In 1877, Nesbit met her future husband, Hubert Bland, and married him three years later whilst seven months pregnant. Their relationship was tested by his fathering children with other women, one of whom lived with them as housekeeper and secretary. Nesbit had five children, one of whom, Fabian, died at the age of fifteen.

Bland and Nesbit were both founding members of the Fabian society, together they edited the society’s journal. However, Nesbit’s main career was clearly the writing of numerous children’s books – over forty in total. Her writing often featured both realism and magic and she is often thought to be the first modern writer of children stories. Nesbit also wrote a handful of novels for adults.

Bland died in 1914 and Nesbit married Thomas Tucker, an engineer on the Woolwich ferry. Three years later, she would die herself in 1924 after suffering from lung cancer.

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• £7.99 • ISBN 9781843914747
foreword by julia donaldson

From the author of
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‘Even though they wear the stiff formal clothes of the late Victorians, eat cold mutton and sago pudding, write on slates and read forgotten books, their feelings are timeless and are so powerfully described that any modern child could identify with them.’

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Discover the timeless tale of Pollyanna, the freckled orphan girl who teaches a whole town how to be glad, only for them to rally round in turn when times seem darkest for the little girl…

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