by Edith Nesbit
“Well,” said Jimmy, breaking it, “he doesn’t stick it on neither, does he?”
“I feel,” said Kathleen, “as if it was our fault—as if it was us had told all these whoppers; because if it hadn’t been for you they couldn’t have, Jerry. How could he say all that?”
“Well,” said Gerald, trying to be fair, “you know, after all, the chap had to say something. I’m glad I—” He stopped abruptly.
“You’re glad you what?”
“No matter,” said he, with an air of putting away affairs of state. “Now, what are we going to do today? The faithful Mabel approaches; she will want her ring. And you and Jimmy want it too. Oh, I know. Mademoiselle hasn’t had any attention paid to her for more days than our hero likes to confess.”
“I wish you wouldn’t always call yourself ‘our hero, said Jimmy; ”you aren’t mine, anyhow.”
“You’re both of you mine,” said Kathleen hastily.
“Good little girl.” Gerald smiled annoyingly. “Keep baby brother in a good temper till Nursie comes back.”
“You’re not going out without us?” Kathleen asked in haste.“ ‘I haste away,
’Tis market day,’ ”
sang Gerald,“ ‘And in the market there
Buy roses for my fair.”
If you want to come too, get your boots on, and look slippy about it.”
“I don’t want to come,” said Jimmy, and sniffed.
Kathleen turned a despairing look on Gerald.
“Oh, James, James,” said Gerald sadly, “how difficult you make it for me to forget that you’re my little brother! If ever I treat you like one of the other chaps, and rot you like I should Turner or Moberley or any of my pals—well, this is what comes of it.”
“You don’t call them your baby brothers,” said Jimmy, and truly.
“No; and I’ll take precious good care I don’t call you it again. Come on, my hero and heroine. The devoted Mesrour is your salaaming slave.dx
The three met Mabel opportunely at the corner of the square where every Friday the stalls and the awnings and the green umbrellas were pitched, and poultry, pork, pottery, vegetables, drapery, sweets, toys, tools, mirrors, and all sorts of other interesting merchandise were spread out on trestle tables, piled on carts whose horses were stabled and whose shafts were held in place by piled wooden cases, or laid out, as in the case of crockery and hardware, on the bare flagstones of the market-place.
The sun was shining with great goodwill, and, as Mabel remarked, “all Nature looked smiling and gay.” There were a few bunches of flowers among the vegetables, and the children hesitated, balanced in choice.
“Mignonette is sweet,” said Mabel.
“Roses are roses,” said Kathleen.
“Carnations are tuppence,” said Jimmy; and Gerald, sniffing among the bunches of tightly-tied tea-roses, agreed that this settled it.
So the carnations were bought, a bunch of yellow ones, like sulphur, a bunch of white ones like clotted cream, and a bunch of red ones like the cheeks of the doll that Kathleen never played with. They took the carnations home, and Kathleen’s green hair-ribbon came in beautifully for tying them up, which was hastily done on the doorstep.
Then discreetly Gerald knocked at the door of the drawing-room, where Mademoiselle seemed to sit all day.
“Entrez!” came her voice; and Gerald entered. She was not reading, as usual, but bent over a sketch-book; on the table was an open colour-box of un-English appearance, and a box of that slate-coloured liquid so familiar alike to the greatest artist in watercolours and to the humblest child with a sixpenny paint-box.
“With all of our loves,” said Gerald, laying the flowers down suddenly before her.
“But it is that you are a dear child. For this it must that I embrace you—no?” And before Gerald could explain that he was too old, she kissed him with little quick French pecks on the two cheeks.
“Are you painting?” he asked hurriedly, to hide his annoyance at being treated like a baby.
“I achieve a sketch of yesterday,” she answered; and before he had time to wonder what yesterday would look like in a picture she showed him a beautiful and exact sketch of Yalding Towers.
“Oh, I say—ripping!” was the critic’s comment. “I say, mayn’t the others come and see?” The others came, including Mabel, who stood awkwardly behind the rest, and looked over Jimmy’s shoulder.
“I say, you are clever,” said Gerald respectfully.
“To what good to have the talent, when one must pass one’s life at teaching the infants?” said Mademoiselle.
“It must be fairly beastly,” Gerald owned.
She kissed him with little quick French pecks
“You, too, see the design?” Mademoiselle asked Mabel, adding: “A friend from the town, yes?”
“How do you do?” said Mabel politely. “No, I’m not from the town. I live at Yalding Towers.”
The name seemed to impress Mademoiselle very much. Gerald anxiously hoped in his own mind that she was not a snob.
“Yalding Towers,” she repeated, “but this is very extraordinary. Is it possible that you are then of the family of Lord Yalding?”
“He hasn’t any family,” said Mabel; “he’s not married.”
“I would say are you—how you say?—cousin—sister—niece?”
“No,” said Mabel, flushing hotly, “I’m nothing grand at all. I’m Lord Yalding’s housekeeper’s niece.”
“But you know Lord Yalding, is it not?”
“No,” said Mabel, “I’ve never seen him.”
“He comes then never to his château?”
“Not since I’ve lived there. But he’s coming next week.”
“Why lives he not there?” Mademoiselle asked.
“Auntie says he’s too poor,” said Mabel, and proceeded to tell the tale as she had heard it in the housekeeper’s room: how Lord Yalding’s uncle had left all the money he could leave away from Lord Yalding to Lord Yalding’s second cousin, and poor Lord Yalding had only just enough to keep the old place in repair, and to live very quietly indeed somewhere else, but not enough to keep the house open or to live there; and how he couldn’t sell the house because it was “in tale.”dy
“What is it then—in tail?” asked Mademoiselle.
“In a tale that the lawyers write out,” said Mabel, proud of her knowledge and flattered by the deep interest of the French governess; “and when once they’ve put your house in one of their tales you can’t sell it or give it away, but you have to leave it to your son, even if you don’t want to.”
“But how his uncle could he be so cruel—to leave him the château and no money?” Mademoiselle asked; and Kathleen and Jimmy stood amazed at the sudden keenness of her interest in what seemed to them the dullest story.
“Oh, I can tell you that too,” said Mabel. “Lord Yalding wanted to marry a lady his uncle didn’t want him to, a barmaid or a ballet lady or something, and he wouldn’t give her up, and his uncle said, ‘Well then,’ and left everything to the cousin.”
“And you say he is not married.”
“No—the lady went into a convent; I expect she’s bricked-up alive by now.”
“Bricked—?”
“In a wall, you know,” said Mabel, pointing explainingly at the pink and gilt roses of the wall-paper, “shut up to kill them. That’s what they do to you in convents.”
“Not at all,” said Mademoiselle; “in convents are very kind good women; there is but one thing in convents that is detestable—the locks on the doors. Sometimes people cannot get out, especially when they are very young and their relations have placed them there for their welfare and happiness. But brick—how you say it?—enwalling ladies to kill them. No—it does itself never. And this Lord—he did not then seek his lady?”
“Oh, yes—he sought her right enough,” Mabel assured her; “but there are millions of convents, you know, and he had no idea where to look, and they sent back his letters from the post-offi
ce, and—”
“Ciel!”dz cried Mademoiselle, “but it seems that one knows all in the housekeeper’s saloon.”
“Pretty well all,” said Mabel simply.
“And you think he will find her? No?”
“Oh, he’ll find her all right,” said Mabel, “when he’s old and broken down, you know—and dying; and then a gentle sister of charity will soothe his pillow, and just when he’s dying she’ll reveal herself and say: ‘My own lost love!’ and his face will light up with a wonderful joy and he’ll expire with her beloved name on his parched lips.”
Mademoiselle’s was the silence of sheer astonishment. “You do the prophecy, it appears?” she said at last.
“Oh no,” said Mabel, “I got that out of a book. I can tell you lots more fatal love stories any time you like.”
The French governess gave a little jump, as though she had suddenly remembered something.
“It is nearly dinner-time,” she said. “Your friend—Mabelle, yes—will be your convivial, and in her honour we will make a little feast. My beautiful flowers—put them to the water, Kathleen. I run to buy the cakes. Wash the hands, all, and be ready when I return.”
Smiling and nodding to the children, she left them, and ran up the stairs.
“Just as if she was young,” said Kathleen.
“She is young,” said Mabel. “Heaps of ladies have offers of marriage when they’re no younger than her. I’ve seen lots of weddings too, with much older brides. And why didn’t you tell me she was so beautiful?”
“Is she?” asked Kathleen.
“Of course she is; and what a darling to think of cakes for me, and calling me a convivial!”
“Look here,” said Gerald, “I call this jolly decent of her. You know, governesses never have more than the meanest pittance, just enough to sustain life, and here she is spending her little all on us. Supposing we just don’t go out today, but play with her instead. I expect she’s most awfully bored really.”
“Would she really like it?” Kathleen wondered. “Aunt Emily says grown-ups never really like playing. They do it to please us.”
“They little know,” Gerald answered, “how often we do it to please them.”
“We’ve got to do that dressing-up with the Princess clothes anyhow—we said we would,” said Kathleen. “Let’s treat her to that.”
“Rather near tea-time,” urged Jimmy, “so that there’ll be a fortunate interruption and the play won’t go on for ever.”
“I suppose all the things are safe?” Mabel asked.
“Quite. I told you where I put them. Come on, Jimmy; let’s help lay the table. We’ll get Eliza to put out the best china.”
They went.
“It was lucky,” said Gerald, struck by a sudden thought, “that the burglars didn’t go for the diamonds in the treasure-chamber.”
“They couldn’t,” said Mabel almost in a whisper; “they didn’t know about them. I don’t believe anybody knows about them, except me—and you, and you’re sworn to secrecy.” This, you will remember, had been done almost at the beginning. “I know aunt doesn’t know. I just found out the spring by accident. Lord Yalding’s kept the secret well.”
“I wish I’d got a secret like that to keep,” said Gerald.
“If the burglars do know,” said Mabel, “it’ll all come out at the trial. Lawyers make you tell everything you know at trials, and a lot of lies besides.”
“There won’t be any trial,” said Gerald, kicking the leg of the piano thoughtfully.
“No trial?”
“It said in the paper,” Gerald went on slowly, “ ‘The miscreants must have received warning from a confederate, for the admirable preparations to arrest them as they returned for their ill-gotten plunder were unavailing. But the police have a clue.’ ”
“What a pity!” said Mabel.
“You needn’t worry—they haven’t got any old clue,” said Gerald, still attentive to the piano leg.
“I didn’t mean the clue; I meant the confederate.”
“It’s a pity you think he’s a pity, because he was me,” said Gerald, standing up and leaving the piano leg alone. He looked straight before him, as the boy on the burning deck may have looked.
“I couldn’t help it,” he said. “I know you’ll think I’m a criminal, but I couldn’t do it. I don’t know how detectives can. I went over a prison once, with father; and after I’d given the tip to Johnson I remembered that, and I just couldn’t. I know I’m a beast, and not worthy to be a British citizen.”
“I think it was rather nice of you,” said Mabel kindly. “How did you warn them?”
“I just shoved a paper under the man’s door—the one that I knew where he lived—to tell him to lie low.”
“Oh! do tell me—what did you put on it exactly?” Mabel warmed to this new interest.
“It said: ‘The police know all except your names. Be virtuous and you are safe. But if there’s any more burgling I shall split and you may rely on that from a friend.’ I know it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. Don’t tell the others. They wouldn’t understand why I did it. I don’t understand it myself.”
“I do,” said Mabel: “it’s because you’ve got a kind and noble heart.”
“Kind fiddlestick, my good child!” said Gerald, suddenly losing the burning boy expression and becoming in a flash entirely himself. “Cut along and wash your hands; you’re as black as ink.”
“So are you,” said Mabel, “and I’m not. It’s dye with me. Auntie was dyeing a blouse this morning. It told you how in Home Drivel—and she’s as black as ink too, and the blouse is all streaky. Pity the ring won’t make just parts of you invisible—the dirt, for instance.”
“Perhaps,” Gerald said unexpectedly, “it won’t make even all of you invisible again.”
“Why not? You haven’t been doing anything to it—have you?” Mabel sharply asked.
“No; but didn’t you notice you were invisible twenty-one hours, I was fourteen hours invisible, and Eliza only seven—that’s seven less each time. And now we’ve come to—”
“How frightfully good you are at sums!” said Mabel, awe-struck.
“You see, it’s got seven hours less each time, and seven from seven is nought; it’s got to be something different this time. And then afterwards—it can’t be minus seven, because I don’t see how—unless it made you more visible—thicker, you know.”
“Don’t!” said Mabel; “you make my head go round.”
“And there’s another odd thing,” Gerald went on; “when you’re invisible your relations don’t love you. Look at your aunt, and Cathy never turning a hair at me going burgling. We haven’t got to the bottom of that ring yet. Crikey! here’s Mademoiselle with the cakes. Run, bold bandits—wash for your lives!”
They ran.
It was not cakes only; it was plums and grapes and jam tarts and soda-water and raspberry vinegar, and chocolates in pretty boxes and “pure, thick, rich” cream in brown jugs, also a big bunch of roses. Mademoiselle was strangely merry, for a governess. She served out the cakes and tarts with a liberal hand, made wreaths of the flowers for all their heads—she was not eating much herself—drank the health of Mabel, as the guest of the day, in the beautiful pink drink that comes from mixing raspberry vinegar and soda-water, and actually persuaded Jimmy to wear his wreath, on the ground that the Greek gods as well as the goddesses always wore wreaths at a feast.
There never was such a feast provided by any French governess since French governesses began. There were jokes and stories and laughter. Jimmy showed all those tricks with forks and corks and matches and apples which are so deservedly popular. Mademoiselle told them stories of her own schooldays when she was “a quite little girl with two tight tresses—so,” and when they could not understand the tresses, called for paper and pencil and drew the loveliest little picture of herself when she was a child with two short fat pig-tails sticking out from her head like knitting-needles from a ball of dark worsted. T
hen she drew pictures of everything they asked for, till Mabel pulled Gerald’s jacket and whispered: “The acting!”
“Draw us the front of a theatre,” said Gerald tactfully, “a French theatre.”
“They are the same thing as the English theatres,” Mademoiselle told him.
“Do you like acting—the theatre, I mean?”
“But yes—I love it.”
“All right,” said Gerald briefly. “We’ll act a play for you—now—this afternoon if you like.”
“Eliza will be washing up,” Cathy whispered, “and she was promised to see it.”
“Or this evening,” said Gerald “and please, Mademoiselle, may Eliza come in and look on?”
“But certainly,” said Mademoiselle; “amuse yourselves well, my children.”
“But it’s you,” said Mabel suddenly, “that we want to amuse. Because we love you very much—don’t we, all of you?”
“Yes,” the chorus came unhesitatingly. Though the others would never have thought of saying such a thing on their own account. Yet, as Mabel said it, they found to their surprise that it was true.
“Tiens!”ea said Mademoiselle, “you love the old French governess? Impossible,” and she spoke rather indistinctly.
“You’re not old,” said Mabel; “at least not so very,” she added brightly, “and you’re as lovely as a Princess.”
“Go then, flatteress!” said Mademoiselle, laughing; and Mabel went. The others were already half-way up the stairs.
Mademoiselle sat in the drawing-room as usual, and it was a good thing that she was not engaged in serious study, for it seemed that the door opened and shut almost ceaselessly all throughout the afternoon. Might they have the embroidered antimacassars and the sofa cushions? Might they have the clothes-line out of the wash-house? Eliza said they mightn’t, but might they? Might they have the sheepskin hearthrugs? Might they have tea in the garden, because they had almost got the stage ready in the dining-room, and Eliza wanted to set tea? Could Mademoiselle lend them any coloured clothes—scarves or dressing-gowns, or anything bright? Yes, Mademoiselle could, and did—silk things, surprisingly lovely for a governess to have. Had Mademoiselle any rouge? They had always heard that French ladies—No. Mademoiselle hadn’t—and to judge by the colour of her face, Mademoiselle didn’t need it. Did Mademoiselle think the chemist sold rouge—or had she any false hair to spare? At this challenge Mademoiselle’s pale fingers pulled out a dozen hairpins, and down came the loveliest blue-black hair, hanging to her knees in straight, heavy lines.
