Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “Oh,” cried a voice from under a petticoat that hung in the air, “I’ve got such an idea!”

  “Tell it us after breakfast,” said Kathleen, as the water in the basin began to splash about and to drip from nowhere back into itself. “And oh! I do wish you hadn’t written such whoppers to your aunt. I’m sure we oughtn’t to tell lies for anything.”

  “What’s the use of telling the truth if nobody believes you?” came from among the splashes.

  “I don’t know,” said Kathleen, “but I’m sure we ought to tell the truth.”

  “You can, if you like,” said a voice from the folds of a towel that waved lonely in front of the wash-hand stand.

  “All right. We will, then, first thing after brek — your brek, I mean. You’ll have to wait up here till we can collar something and bring it up to you. Mind you dodge Eliza when she comes to make the bed.”

  The invisible Mabel found this a fairly amusing game; she further enlivened it by twitching out the corners of tucked-up sheets and blankets when Eliza wasn’t looking.

  “Drat the clothes!” said Eliza; “anyone ud think the things was bewitched.”

  She looked about for the wonderful Princess clothes she had glimpsed earlier in the morning. But Kathleen had hidden them in a perfectly safe place under the mattress, which she knew Eliza never turned.

  Eliza hastily brushed up from the floor those bits of fluff which come from goodness knows where in the best regulated houses. Mabel, very hungry and exasperated at the long absence of the others at their breakfast, could not forbear to whisper suddenly in Eliza’s ear: —

  “Always sweep under the mats.”

  The maid started and turned pale. “I must be going silly,” she murmured; “though it’s just what mother always used to say. Hope I ain’t going dotty, like Aunt Emily. Wonderful what you can fancy, ain’t it?”

  She took up the hearth-rug all the same, swept under it, and under the fender. So thorough was she, and so pale, that Kathleen, entering with a chunk of bread raided by Gerald from the pantry window, exclaimed: —

  “Not done yet. I say, Eliza, you do look ill! What’s the matter?”

  “I thought I’d give the room a good turn-out,” said Eliza, still very pale.

  “Nothing’s happened to upset you?” Kathleen asked. She had her own private fears.

  “Nothing only my fancy, miss,” said Eliza. “I always was fanciful from a child — dreaming of the pearly gates and them little angels with nothing on only their heads and wings — so cheap to dress, I always think, compared with children.”

  When she was got rid of, Mabel ate the bread and drank water from the tooth-mug.

  “I’m afraid it tastes of cherry tooth-paste rather,” said Kathleen apologetically.

  “It doesn’t matter,” a voice replied from the tilted mug; “it’s more interesting than water. I should think red wine in ballads was rather like this.”

  “We’ve got leave for the day again,” said Kathleen, when the last bit of bread had vanished, “and Gerald feels like I do about lies. So we’re going to tell your aunt where you really are.”

  “She won’t believe you.”

  “That doesn’t matter, if we speak the truth,” said Kathleen primly.

  “I expect you’ll be sorry for it,” said Mabel; “but come on — and, I say, do be careful not to shut me in the door as you go out. You nearly did just now.”

  In the blazing sunlight that flooded the High Street four shadows to three children seemed dangerously noticeable. A butcher’s boy looked far too earnestly at the extra shadow, and his big, liver-coloured lurcher snuffed at the legs of that shadow’s mistress and whined uncomfortably.

  “Get behind me,” said Kathleen; “then our two shadows will look like one.”

  But Mabel’s shadow, very visible, fell on Kathleen’s back, and the ostler of the Davenant Arms looked up to see what big bird had cast that big shadow.

  A woman driving a cart with chickens and ducks in it called out: —

  “Halloa, missy, ain’t you blacked yer back neither! What you been leaning up against?”

  Every one was glad when they got out of the town.

  Speaking the truth to Mabel’s aunt did not turn out at all as any one — even Mabel — expected. The aunt was discovered reading a pink novelette at the window of the housekeeper’s room, which, framed in clematis and green creepers, looked out on a nice little courtyard to which Mabel led the party.

  “Excuse me,” said Gerald, “but I believe you’ve lost your niece?”

  “Not lost, my boy,” said the aunt, who was spare and tall, with a drab fringe and a very genteel voice.

  “We could tell you something about her,” said Gerald.

  “HALLOA, MISSY, AIN’T YOU BLACKED YER BACK, NEITHER!”

  “Now,” replied the aunt, in a warning voice, “no complaints, please. My niece has gone, and I am sure no one thinks less than I do of her little pranks. If she’s played any tricks on you it’s only her light-hearted way. Go away, children, I’m busy.”

  “Did you get her note?” asked Kathleen.

  The aunt showed rather more interest than before, but she still kept her finger in the novelette.

  “Oh,” she said, “so you witnessed her departure? Did she seem glad to go?”

  “Quite,” said Gerald truthfully.

  “Then I can only be glad that she is provided for,” said the aunt. “I dare say you were surprised. These romantic adventures do occur in our family. Lord Yalding selected me out of eleven applicants for the post of housekeeper here. I’ve not the slightest doubt the child was changed at birth and her rich relatives have claimed her.”

  “But aren’t you going to do anything — tell the police, or — —”

  “Shish!” said Mabel.

  “I won’t shish,” said Jimmy. “Your Mabel’s invisible — that’s all it is. She’s just beside me now.”

  “I detest untruthfulness,” said the aunt severely, “in all its forms. Will you kindly take that little boy away? I am quite satisfied about Mabel.”

  “Well,” said Gerald, “you are an aunt and no mistake! But what will Mabel’s father and mother say?”

  “Mabel’s father and mother are dead,” said the aunt calmly, and a little sob sounded close to Gerald’s ear.

  “All right,” he said, “we’ll be off. But don’t you go saying we didn’t tell you the truth, that’s all.”

  “You have told me nothing,” said the aunt, “none of you, except that little boy, who has told me a silly falsehood.”

  “We meant well,” said Gerald gently. “You don’t mind our having come through the grounds, do you? We’re very careful not to touch anything.”

  “No visitors are allowed,” said the aunt, glancing down at her novel rather impatiently.

  “Ah! but you wouldn’t count us visitors,” said Gerald in his best manner. “We’re friends of Mabel’s. Our father’s Colonel of the — th.”

  “Indeed!” said the aunt.

  “And our aunt’s Lady Sandling, so you can be sure we wouldn’t hurt anything on the estate.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said the aunt absently. “Goodbye. Be good children.”

  And on this they got away quickly.

  “Why,” said Gerald, when they were outside the little court, “your aunt’s as mad as a hatter. Fancy not caring what becomes of you, and fancy believing that rot about the motor lady!”

  “I knew she’d believe it when I wrote it,” said Mabel modestly. “She’s not mad, only she’s always reading novelettes. I read the books in the big library. Oh, it’s such a jolly room — such a queer smell, like boots, and old leather books sort of powdery at the edges. I’ll take you there some day. Now your consciences are all right about my aunt, I’ll tell you my great idea. Let’s get down to the Temple of Flora. I’m glad you got aunt’s permission for the grounds. It would be so awkward for you to have to be always dodging behind bushes when one of the gard
eners came along.”

  “Yes,” said Gerald modestly, “I thought of that.”

  The day was as bright as yesterday had been, and from the white marble temple the Italian-looking landscape looked more than ever like a steel engraving coloured by hand, or an oleographic imitation of one of Turner’s pictures.

  When the three children were comfortably settled on the steps that led up to the white statue, the voice of the fourth child said sadly: “I’m not ungrateful, but I’m rather hungry. And you can’t be always taking things for me through your larder window. If you like, I’ll go back and live in the castle. It’s supposed to be haunted. I suppose I could haunt it as well as any one else. I am a sort of ghost now, you know. I will if you like.”

  “Oh no,” said Kathleen kindly; “you must stay with us.”

  “But about food. I’m not ungrateful, really I’m not, but breakfast is breakfast, and bread’s only bread.”

  “If you could get the ring off, you could go back.”

  “Yes,” said Mabel’s voice, “but you see, I can’t. I tried again last night in bed, and again this morning. And it’s like stealing, taking things out of your larder — even if it’s only bread.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Gerald, who had carried out this bold enterprise.

  “Well, now, what we must do is to earn some money.”

  Jimmy remarked that this was all very well. But Gerald and Kathleen listened attentively.

  “What I mean to say,” the voice went on, “I’m really sure is all for the best, me being invisible. We shall have adventures — you see if we don’t.”

  “‘Adventures,’ said the bold buccaneer, ‘are not always profitable.’” It was Gerald who murmured this.

  “This one will be, anyhow, you see. Only you mustn’t all go. Look here, if Jerry could make himself look common — —”

  “That ought to be easy,” said Jimmy. And Kathleen told him not to be so jolly disagreeable.

  “I’m not,” said Jimmy, “only — —”

  “Only he has an inside feeling that this Mabel of yours is going to get us into trouble,” put in Gerald. “Like La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and he does not want to be found in future ages alone and palely loitering in the middle of sedge and things.”

  “I won’t get you into trouble, indeed I won’t,” said the voice. “Why, we’re a band of brothers for life, after the way you stood by me yesterday. What I mean is — Gerald can go to the fair and do conjuring.”

  “He doesn’t know any,” said Kathleen.

  “I should do it really,” said Mabel, “but Jerry could look like doing it. Move things without touching them and all that. But it wouldn’t do for all three of you to go. The more there are of children the younger they look, I think, and the more people wonder what they’re doing all alone by themselves.”

  “The accomplished conjurer deemed these the words of wisdom,” said Gerald; and answered the dismal “Well, but what about us?” of his brother and sister by suggesting that they should mingle unsuspected with the crowd. “But don’t let on that you know me,” he said; “and try to look as if you belonged to some of the grown-ups at the fair. If you don’t, as likely as not you’ll have the kind policemen taking the little lost children by the hand and leading them home to their stricken relations — French governess, I mean.”

  “Let’s go now,” said the voice that they never could get quite used to hearing, coming out of different parts of the air as Mabel moved from one place to another. So they went.

  The fair was held on a waste bit of land, about half a mile from the castle gates. When they got near enough to hear the steam-organ of the merry-go-round, Gerald suggested that as he had ninepence he should go ahead and get something to eat, the amount spent to be paid back out of any money they might make by conjuring. The others waited in the shadows of a deep-banked lane, and he came back, quite soon, though long after they had begun to say what a long time he had been gone. He brought some Barcelona nuts, red-streaked apples, small sweet yellow pears, pale pasty gingerbread, a whole quarter of a pound of peppermint bull’s-eyes, and two bottles of gingerbeer.

  “It’s what they call an investment,” he said, when Kathleen said something about extravagance. “We shall all need special nourishing to keep our strength up, especially the bold conjurer.”

  They ate and drank. It was a very beautiful meal, and the far-off music of the steam-organ added the last touch of festivity to the scene. The boys were never tired of seeing Mabel eat, or rather of seeing the strange, magic-looking vanishment of food which was all that showed of Mabel’s eating. They were entranced by the spectacle, and pressed on her more than her just share of the feast, just for the pleasure of seeing it disappear.

  “My aunt!” said Gerald, again and again; “that ought to knock ‘em!”

  It did.

  Jimmy and Kathleen had the start of the others, and when they got to the fair they mingled with the crowd, and were as unsuspected as possible.

  They stood near a large lady who was watching the cocoanut shies, and presently saw a strange figure with its hands in its pockets strolling across the trampled yellowy grass among the bits of drifting paper and the sticks and straws that always litter the ground of an English fair. It was Gerald, but at first they hardly knew him. He had taken off his tie, and round his head, arranged like a turban, was the crimson school-scarf that had supported his white flannels. The tie, one supposed, had taken on the duties of the handkerchief. And his face and hands were a bright black, like very nicely polished stoves!

  Every one turned to look at him.

  “He’s just like a nigger!” whispered Jimmy. “I don’t suppose it’ll ever come off, do you?”

  They followed him at a distance, and when he went close to the door of a small tent, against whose door-post a long-faced melancholy woman was lounging, they stopped and tried to look as though they belonged to a farmer who strove to send up a number by banging with a big mallet on a wooden block.

  Gerald went up to the woman.

  “Taken much?” he asked, and was told, but not harshly, to go away with his impudence.

  “I’m in business myself,” said Gerald, “I’m a conjurer, from India.”

  “Not you!” said the woman; “you ain’t no nigger. Why, the backs of yer ears is all white.”

  “Are they?” said Gerald. “How clever of you to see that!” He rubbed them with his hands. “That better?”

  “That’s all right. What’s your little game?”

  “Conjuring, really and truly,” said Gerald. “There’s smaller boys than me put on to it in India. Look here, I owe you one for telling me about my ears. If you like to run the show for me I’ll go shares. Let me have your tent to perform in, and you do the patter at the door.”

  “Lor’ love you! I can’t do no patter. And you’re getting at me. Let’s see you do a bit of conjuring, since you’re so clever an’ all.”

  “Right you are,” said Gerald firmly. “You see this apple? Well, I’ll make it move slowly through the air, and then when I say ‘Go!’ it’ll vanish.”

  “Yes — into your mouth! Get away with your nonsense.”

  “You’re too clever to be so unbelieving,” said Gerald. “Look here!”

  He held out one of the little apples, and the woman saw it move slowly and unsupported along the air.

  “Now — go!” cried Gerald, to the apple, and it went. “How’s that?” he asked, in tones of triumph.

  The woman was glowing with excitement, and her eyes shone. “The best I ever see!” she whispered. “I’m on, mate, if you know any more tricks like that.”

  “Heaps,” said Gerald confidently; “hold out your hand.” The woman held it out; and from nowhere, as it seemed, the apple appeared and was laid on her hand. The apple was rather damp.

  “YOU’RE GETTING AT ME. LET’S SEE YOU DO A BIT OF CONJURING, SINCE YOU’RE SO CLEVER AN’ ALL.”

  She looked at it a moment, and then whispered: “Come on! the
re’s to be no one in it but just us two. But not in the tent. You take a pitch here, ‘longside the tent. It’s worth twice the money in the open air.”

  “But people won’t pay if they can see it all for nothing.”

  “Not for the first turn, but they will after — you see. And you’ll have to do the patter.”

  “Will you lend me your shawl?” Gerald asked. She unpinned it — it was a red and black plaid — and he spread it on the ground as he had seen Indian conjurers do, and seated himself cross-legged behind it.

  “I mustn’t have any one behind me, that’s all,” he said; and the woman hastily screened off a little enclosure for him by hanging old sacks to two of the guy-ropes of the tent. “Now I’m ready,” he said. The woman got a drum from the inside of the tent and beat it. Quite soon a little crowd had collected.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Gerald, “I come from India, and I can do a conjuring entertainment the like of which you’ve never seen. When I see two shillings on the shawl I’ll begin.”

  “I dare say you will!” said a bystander; and there were several short, disagreeable laughs.

  “Of course,” said Gerald, “if you can’t afford two shillings between you” — there were about thirty people in the crowd by now—”I say no more.”

  Two or three pennies fell on the shawl, then a few more, then the fall of copper ceased.

  “Ninepence,” said Gerald. “Well, I’ve got a generous nature. You’ll get such a nine-pennyworth as you’ve never had before. I don’t wish to deceive you — I have an accomplice, but my accomplice is invisible.”

  The crowd snorted.

  “By the aid of that accomplice,” Gerald went on, “I will read any letter that any of you may have in your pocket. If one of you will just step over the rope and stand beside me, my invisible accomplice will read that letter over his shoulder.”

  A man stepped forward, a ruddy-faced, horsy-looking person. He pulled a letter from his pocket and stood plain in the sight of all, in a place where every one saw that no one could see over his shoulder.

  “Now!” said Gerald. There was a moment’s pause. Then from quite the other side of the enclosure came a faint, far-away, sing-song voice. It said: —