Barbara was more accustomed by now to the strange way in which the Marvell children discussed her with each other as if she were not there, but it still gave her an uncomfortable sensation.
“Well,” she said, rather loudly, as if to make her presence felt. “Well, is that all you have to show me?”
“What else shall we show her, Amby?” inquired Trivvie, as she wrapped the effigy of Mrs. Dance in an old duster and put it carefully into its box.
“The buttons,” suggested Ambrose.
Barbara knew about the buttons, of course—the buttons were no secret—everybody in Wandlebury was aware of the young Marvells’ passion for collecting buttons, and practically everybody in Wandlebury had been mulcted to provide them with specimens. Barbara, herself, had contributed several odd buttons from the bottom of her workbasket to add to the valuable collection, and she knew that Dorcas had been inveigled into doing the same.
“Oh, yes!” cried Trivvie eagerly. “Yes, Mrs. Abbott hasn’t seen them—we must show her the buttons.”
The largest drawer of the schoolroom bureau was, accordingly, opened, and the buttons displayed. It was, indeed, a marvelous collection; there were big buttons and small buttons, buttons with “necks,” and buttons with holes; there were colored buttons—of every hue—there were white buttons, and black buttons, and buttons of mother-of-pearl. Some of the “special ones” were in boxes, and these were forced upon Barbara’s notice with requests for admiration; others, less valuable, were in a large green bag, or loose in the drawer.
Barbara admired them all, and was told the history of each one in an excited duet; while Ambrose leaned heavily upon her shoulder, and breathed heavily down her neck, and Trivvie—who hated any close contact with her fellow creatures—squatted beside the drawer and bent her untidy brown head over it in an ecstasy of worship.
“Look at that one,” said Trivvie, pointing to a brown bone button with an unwieldy neck. “I found that at the church door, just as we were going in. Froggy was so cross when I stopped to pick it up, but I couldn’t leave it, could I?”
“Father was just behind and nearly fell over her,” added Ambrose.
“He trod on my hand—but I didn’t care,” said Trivvie bravely.
“Look at this one—isn’t he a giant?” demanded Ambrose, pointing out an enormous green button with yellow streaks. “I bought that one. I bought it in a shop,” he added in an awed voice.
“And look at this teeny tiny one, isn’t it a darling?” Trivvie crooned. “Look at it, Mrs. Abbott!”
Barbara looked obediently.
“This is the most beautiful of all,” continued Trivvie, opening a pill box, and disclosing an opalescent button, reposing in a bed of cotton wool. “Isn’t it lovely? Miss Cobbe gave it to me. It came off a blouse that belonged to her mother.”
“Mrs. Anderson gave me this yellow one,” continued Ambrose. “She’s Lady Chevis Cobbe’s housekeeper, you know—it’s pretty, isn’t it, Mrs. Abbott?”
“This gray one came off Mrs. Dance,” added Trivvie. “It fell off one day when she was here—”
“And they’re all different—every one,” Ambrose told her. “It’s a job, now, to get others, you know.”
“Sometimes we get a button, and then we find we’ve got one exactly like it already—and isn’t it a sell!” cried Trivvie.
“But that doesn’t happen often,” said Ambrose.
“Because, you see, we know them so well,” explained Trivvie.
“We know them all,” Ambrose said seriously, “and we know where they all came from—or very nearly—”
“Oh, Amby!” cried Trivvie suddenly. “That reminds me, I’ve got a new one—”
“You haven’t!”
“I have, really,” she declared, fishing up the leg of her knickers, which she always used as a pocket, “here it is, Amby. I thought for a minute I’d lost it. Isn’t it a beauty?”
They put their heads together over the new button, and looked at it with excitement and delight. It was a large red wooden button—very smooth and shiny—and it possessed a “neck” which—as Barbara was now aware—added tremendously to its value.
“We haven’t got it, have we?” Trivvie inquired anxiously.
“No,” said Ambrose. “No, we haven’t got it. I thought at first it was the same as the one I found in the station, but it isn’t.”
“It’s bigger, much bigger,” Trivvie pointed out.
“Where did you get it?” asked Ambrose with interest.
“It came off Miss Thane,” replied Trivvie solemnly. “You know that red coat she wears in church? I’ve been watching the buttons for ages—”
“Did it fall off, Trivvie?” inquired Ambrose, taking it in his hand and examining it reverently.
“Well—almost,” said Trivvie unashamedly.
Barbara knew that she ought to be shocked at this disgraceful revelation; she knew that she should remonstrate with the collectors, that she ought to confiscate the button, then and there, and return it to its owner; but, somehow or other, she could do none of these things. The collection of buttons was so magnificent that she was completely won over; her sympathies were entirely with the collectors. They really are fascinating, Barbara thought, as she picked them up, one by one, and noted how each one differed from its fellows—who could have believed (she thought) that there are so many different kinds of buttons in the world? I don’t wonder, thought Barbara—and then she stopped, because, of course, if she didn’t wonder that the young Marvells actually stole buttons off the garments of their friends to add to their collection, she certainly ought to have wondered at such reprehensible behavior. I wonder if that button off my blue coat, she thought, it didn’t seem loose—and then she stopped again, because if the button that she had lost off her blue coat had been acquired by the young Marvells for their collection by fair means or foul, she most certainly had not the heart to ask for it to be returned.
“Aren’t they lovely?” said Trivvie, dreamily, taking up a handful of the smaller fry and letting them trickle through her fingers.
“They’re simply lovely,” said Barbara with conviction. “I had no idea buttons could be so fascinating—no idea.” And I shan’t say a word, she thought, I shan’t say a single word to anyone, because it really is a stupendous collection, and they have been most awfully sweet and nice to me today, and I do believe—in spite of all the frightfully naughty and annoying things they do—they are really beginning to like me a little.
It was high time by now for Barbara to go home to her neglected husband. She returned to the drawing-room to say good-bye to her host and hostess and to find her furs. Mr. Marvell was somewhat annoyed to hear that she was going already—he had not had the nice quiet little chat with Mrs. Abbott that he had anticipated.
“You must come again, then,” he said, when he saw that he could by no means persuade her to stay. “You must come some morning. I should like to make a little sketch of your head.”
Barbara thought that this would be rather amusing—another adventure—and she promised to come. If the sketch were good she might buy it and give it to Arthur for his birthday. She had no idea how you bought an artist’s picture, but presumably you could buy it. I wonder how I could suggest it, she thought.
The entire Marvell family came to the front door to speed her on her way. Trivvie and Ambrose announced their intention of accompanying her home. There was still an hour before bedtime, and they could spend the hour profitably in The Archway House garden.
Trivvie rushed on ahead down the drive. Her passage from the front door to the gate was peculiarly erratic, for it was one of her “taboos” that she must touch every tree in a certain fixed order as she went: the two elms on the right, then across to the oak on the left, and back again to the third elm. She was like a kingfisher, in her bright-blue overall
, flashing backward and forward in the golden afternoon sunlight.
“I sometimes think that child is deranged,” declared Mr. Marvell, watching her from the door.
“It’s just a game,” Barbara assured him.
Neither of them had the slightest idea of the extent to which Trivvie’s life was governed and restricted by “taboos” and strange pagan rites of her own fashioning. She made them herself, of course, but, once they were made, she could not unmake them; they were fixed forever to be a burden to her back, and a menace to her comfort and convenience. The “taboos” were multiple, and of all kinds. Sometimes they were “lasting,” like the touching of the trees; sometimes they were merely passing superstitions. She would say to Ambrose, “If that blackbird flies away before I count twenty, I shall die in the night.” And, if the blackbird flew away, she would creep to bed in fear and trembling, and find herself alive in the morning with surprise and delight. Ambrose, who was of more stolid make, would pretend to be scornful of these signs and portents, but sometimes—he had to own—they came true. He was always glad when the time passed, and some dire catastrophe, predicted by his sister, had failed to eventuate.
These signs and portents were bad enough in all conscience; they cast a shadow upon the children’s lives—a shadow of which their relations and friends had no conception—but there was a far worse burden than these which Trivvie had to bear. The signs and portents, she could, to a certain extent, control, but the Nightmare Curse was a menace over which she had absolutely no jurisdiction. Every night before going to sleep Trivvie had to observe a mysterious and secret rite; she had to walk round the room three times, treading with her bare feet upon every pink flower in the threadbare carpet. It sounds an easy rite to accomplish, but the burden of it was in its monotonous repetition: every night, every single night, even when you were dead tired, even when you were ill; and, if you forgot, and crept into bed, you had to drag yourself out of your nice warm bed and do it. And then there was always the awful fear that you might forget; that you might go off to sleep before you remembered, and, if that happened, the frightful dream came.
The origin of this peculiar rite was lost in oblivion; Trivvie had forgotten the origin of it herself. She knew, however, that if she failed to carry out the rite with faithful exactitude—either because she was too tired and sleepy, or because somebody was there—she invariably dreamed a very terrifying dream. The dream was horrible, and it was always the same in every detail. Trivvie found herself in the hall at Chevis Place; she was in her cotton nightdress, with bare feet, and it was very cold. But it was not the cold that made Trivvie’s teeth chatter in her head, it was the frightful anticipation of what she knew was coming. In the hall, over the enormous fireplace, hung the head and neck of a huge stag with branching antlers and glassy eyes. Trivvie could not look away, she knew—she knew what was coming. The stag began to move, it turned its neck this way and that, it began to struggle wildly against the wooden collar which held it in check—the wooden collar which bore a little silver plate telling the date upon which it had been killed and the forest in which Sir Archibald Chevis Cobbe had killed it. Trivvie watched with horror, she knew what was coming and this frightful anticipation was by far the worst part of the dream—the stag struggled, reared wildly, and broke loose from its bonds; its forefeet came crashing through the wall, tearing the paper, and scattering the plaster in clouds of dust. It leaped from behind the mantelpiece into the middle of the hall, leaving an immense hole in the wall from whence it had come. At this moment Trivvie always woke, screaming at the top of her voice, and Miss Foddy had to get up and pacify her with drinks of water and bicarbonate of soda.
Such was the Nightmare Curse, and a very peculiar and terrifying curse it was. Trivvie did not understand it; she did not even try to understand it. She merely accepted it and bore it philosophically, as a curse under which she, alone of all mankind, had to labor.
But this afternoon Trivvie was gay, no signs or portents troubled her, and bedtime, with its Nightmare Curse, was still an hour away. She waited at the gate for Ambrose and Mrs. Abbott—who had negotiated the drive in a more conventional manner—and danced along the road with them to the gate of The Archway House. On the other side of Barbara, Ambrose walked with sedate steps, hanging on her arm.
“We like you,” Trivvie said. “Don’t we, Amby? We thought it was going to be horrid when you came and began spoiling the garden. Lanky still hates you, of course, but we don’t, do we, Amby?”
“But I’ve only seen Lancreste once, in church,” said Barbara, who was grieved to hear that her Golden Boy was inimical to her.
“He’s seen you, often,” giggled Trivvie.
“Why haven’t I seen him?”
“Because he didn’t want you to. Lanky’s clever, he can track like a redskin brave, and he knows lots of things. It was Lanky who showed us how to make the elephant trap.”
“We dug it,” Ambrose put in.
“And Lanky covered it with sticks and leaves, and strewed the gravel over it so that it wouldn’t show.”
“I think it was horrid of you,” Barbara told them. “I might easily have broken my leg.”
“But it was such fun,” said Trivvie callously.
“Lanky wanted to drive you away,” added Ambrose.
Barbara was annoyed. “It was very silly,” she said. “Very silly indeed, and Lancreste can’t be clever if he thought that would drive us away—as if grown-up people could be driven away from their home by a silly little boy’s booby trap!”
“He didn’t think that would drive you away,” said Ambrose somewhat scornfully. “The elephant trap was just an extra.”
“It was the ghost, really—” began Trivvie.
“Oh, so Lancreste was the ghost, was he?” said Barbara casually; she was furious, by now, but she was not going to let them know that she was furious. Her Golden Boy had fallen from his pedestal—he was a devil, not an angel at all.
“Weren’t you frightened?” inquired Trivvie with interest.
“No, of course not.”
“Well, other people were. It was frightful fun. Lanky did the ghost whenever anyone came and wanted to buy The Archway House—we all wanted the house to stay empty, but Lanky wanted it most.”
“Because of the garden,” Ambrose explained.
“It doesn’t matter telling you, now,” added Trivvie, “because Father caught him, you see. And his sheet was all muddy—”
“Father thrashed him,” added Ambrose, with relish.
Barbara was glad to hear it, and Mr. Marvell went up considerably in her estimation. She was also somewhat relieved to know that the ghost would trouble The Archway House no more. Personally she had never minded the ghost, but others had minded it, and she had sometimes wondered what would happen if the ghost returned and frightened the servants—as it had frightened the charwoman—would they all leave in a body?
“And was Lancreste the ghost at Ganthorne Lodge?” she inquired.
“Oh no,” replied the children in unison, and Trivvie added, in an awed voice, “that’s a real ghost.”
***
Arthur met Barbara at the door.
“What ages you’ve been!” he exclaimed.
“Were you bored, darling?” inquired Barbara. “I came away as soon as I could. Didn’t you get Monkey to come and have tea with you?”
“Oh yes, he came,” said Arthur, a trifle irritably. “But he had an urgent call—had to dash off at a moment’s notice. Thank goodness I’m not a doctor. Monkey can’t call his soul his own; he’s at everybody’s beck and call.”
“I know,” agreed Barbara sympathetically. “Was it Lady Chevis Cobbe, or what?”
“It was Mrs. Dance,” said Arthur. “They think she’s got appendicitis.”
Barbara stood on the step and gazed at him—incredulity, horror, and dismay c
hased each other across her face.
“It can’t be!” she exclaimed.
“Appendicitis,” Arthur told her. “They’re taking her into a nursing home in Gostown to operate—it’s nothing to worry about, darling. Heaps of people have appendicitis—she’ll be all right in a fortnight or so—” (he thought, good heavens! I’d no idea that Barbara was so fond of the woman). “Even Dance himself, isn’t unduly anxious,” Arthur continued earnestly. “It’s quite a simple case. Honestly, Barbara, you needn’t be so upset.”
“I am—upset,” said Barbara, in a faint voice.
It was only too obvious that she was upset—dreadfully upset—Arthur took her by the arm and supported her to a chair; he went for brandy and made her drink it; he stood over her, and fussed round her anxiously, watching, with tender concern, until the color began to return to her pallid face.
“There, you’re better now, darling,” he said, with relief. “I was a fool to blurt it out at you like that, but I’d no idea—”
“Yes, I’m better,” she agreed. “It was most extraordinary the way everything went round and round, and the hall got sort of dark.”
“Don’t think about it,” Arthur advised.
“No, I won’t.”
She sat in silence for a minute or two, holding on to Arthur’s hand and trying to recover herself. It had been a most uncomfortable experience.
“I think you should go to bed,” said Arthur. “I really think you should. You’ve been doing too much—those Marvells have upset you.”
“I must see Trivvie,” said Barbara suddenly. “Yes, that’s the only thing to do. I must see Trivvie at once.”
“Trivvie!”
“Yes, you must go and fetch her.”
“But why—”
“You’ll find them down at the stream—they’re sure to be there.”
“But, Barbara, you’re not fit—”
“If you don’t go and fetch her I shall have to go and look for her myself,” said Barbara firmly.
“But, my dear—”
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