"Coo-ee, mother" said I, coming out against the sky, "Coo-ee!"
My mother looked up, went very white, and put her hand to her bosom.
I suppose there was a fearful fuss about me. And of course I was quite
unable to explain my reappearance. But I held out stoutly, "I won't
go back to Chatham; I'll drown myself first." The next day my mother
carried me off to Wimblehurst, took me fiercely and aggressively to an
uncle I had never heard of before, near though the place was to us. She
gave me no word as to what was to happen, and I was too subdued by
her manifest wrath and humiliation at my last misdemeanour to demand
information. I don't for one moment think Lady Drew was "nice" about me.
The finality of my banishment was endorsed and underlined and stamped
home. I wished very much now that I had run away to sea, in spite of the
coal dust and squalour Rochester had revealed to me. Perhaps over seas
one came to different lands.
IV
I do not remember much of my journey to Wimblehurst with my mother
except the image of her as sitting bolt upright, as rather disdaining
the third-class carriage in which we traveled, and how she looked away
from me out of the window when she spoke of my uncle.
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