Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “Yes, I know,” said Daphne, eager to show that she deserved these confidences. ‘Life would be dreadful if one didn’t play at things.”

  “Then, to show me you forgive me, do tell me what you were playing at with your terrace effigies.”

  She told — and “Oh,” she said, ending her tale, “it is so nice to talk to someone who understands. The others, you know, I just order them about. I wish you’d been one of the girls. We’d have been tremendous’ chums.”

  “Indeed,” he said, “I think we should. And so the banquet’s to be held in the old grenier?”

  “No — the room at the back of it, where the broken skylight is. I meant to sit in the bishop’s chair and wear a crown and be queen of the revels. I’m afraid you think it’s very silly, but one must do something besides lessons.”

  “I know,” he said, “one must have the little bit of purple somehow.”

  “Only the bishop’s throne is wedged under an old armoire, and we can’t move it.”

  “I wonder if I could move it.”

  “I could never get you there — unless I disguised you as one of the girls, and—”

  “And I’m a little large for that? Yes. But if you give me leave I’ll go across the roofs and see what I can do. It’s quite easy. I wonder no one’s ever done it.”

  “French boys can’t climb,” said Daphne. “Oh — if you would. But don’t bother. It doesn’t really matter, and if anyone caught you there’d be a frightful row.”

  “I’m not afraid of that. I only wish I was coming to the party.”

  ‘Oh, so do I,” cried Daphne; “but that’s just the sort of thing—”

  “Just the sort of thing you don’t count as a fair adventure. Do you think I don’t know that? But if I had a sister at your school I’m sure I should make assignations with her at that skylight.”

  “Have you a sister?”

  “Born of poor but respectable parents,” he replied, “I have a father, a mother, and two sisters. I was educated in the usual way, and am by trade an overseer of woodmen and the like. Take my life’s simple story.”

  “Then what on earth are you doing here? I beg your pardon.”

  “Not at all, your friendly interest flatters me. My bosom friend was English master here. He was summoned to the bedside of an ailing relative. I took on his job for a few weeks, to keep the place warm for him. And here we are.”

  “My stocks!” said Daphne, now quite at her ease, “that was jolly good of you.”

  “Not a bit of it. I wanted to learn French — you heard for yourself this morning how much I’d learned. But why ‘your stocks’?”

  “Oh” — her face took on a laughing crimson—”did I say that? I’m very sorry. It s the way I swear. You have to swear somehow, you know. “Of course” — sympathetic.

  “And I hate sapristi and mon Dieu, and the silly little French swears, and I don’t quite know my way among the English ones. So I get them out of an English gardening catalogue I’ve got.”

  And what do you say at your very angriest?”

  “It’s awfully silly, isn’t it? — I say Helianthemum.”

  “Very expressive, as you say it — but the e’s long, really.

  Is it? I wish you hadn’t told me. But Plumbago’s a relieving word too. And you can’t pronounce that wrong if you try! And Dictamnus is good. Will you hand me down the bundles when I’m landed below? I ought to go now.”

  “By the great Chrysanthemum, I protest — this is unfair,” he said. “You’ve got my whole biography, and I’ve nothing of yours.”

  “There isn’t any of it! My mother died when I was small — and I came to school here — an uncle brought me — and my little sister Doris was brought over as soon as she was big enough. And here we’ve been ever since.”

  “Then you don’t know your father at all?”

  “No, I suppose he hates us — or else he’s for gotten ail about us. He’s always up to his ears in books. However, he’s just happened to remember that he had two daughters and he’s sent for us. We’re going home to-morrow.”

  “What beastly hard luck,” he said, after a pause full of more than silence.

  “I’m jolly glad we are going. At least I think I am,” she added with a truthfulness that put solidity into his repetition of his words, a truth that was before only in them as a shadow ‘What beastly hard luck. But I meant for me — not for you. Just when we’ve got to know each other. Are you really going?”

  “By the 9.15 to-morrow. Our boxes are packed. But if you’re going to England I expect I snail see you there, some time.”

  “England’s a big place,” he said, rather ruefully. “What part of it are you going to?”

  “London.”

  “And I live in Falconhurst. So you see.”

  “Well,” said Daphne, definitely, “good-bye. Thank you very much for everything. It was decent of you not to behave like a schoolmaster.”

  Don’t go,” he said feebly; “there are lots of things I want to tell you. How old are you?”

  “I’m eighteen, but you oughtn’t to ask people their age.”

  “I never do, except in trees,” he protested. “And I’m twenty-five — nearly twenty-six. By Jove — I mean forget-me-not — I wish you weren’t going!”

  “If you think,” said Daphne, loftily, “that I should go on climbing up trees to tell you how young I am, you’re mistaken. It’s only because I knew I was going to-morrow that I’ve talked to you at all.”

  “If that’s so,” he said, eagerly, “couldn’t we — may’nt I Look here, Miss Carmichael, it’s really most frightfully hard not to begin playing at fairy princesses again. There’s something about your eyes, or perhaps it’s the way your hair blows about. You’ll never see me again, as you say. Give me your hand. I won’t — I swear I won’t — I’ll only just hold it a minute and ask you to promise me something.”

  Daphne gave her hand, at long arm’s length.

  “Promise me,” he said, “that since I’m not to play at fairy princesses with you, no one else shall. For a year. Promise me that. I’ve no earthly right to ask it of you. And that’s why you’ll give me what I ask. You will, won’t you, my little-girl-princess?”

  “No one else will ever want to,” said Daphne, because she could think of nothing else to say.

  “Not want to? Don’t they allow looking-glasses in your convent?”

  She said nothing. There really was nothing to say at all, now.

  “Promise,” he said. His voice was very low, and almost rough.

  “Oh, very well,” she said, and her voice, too, was low, and her laugh did not sound at all like a laugh, somehow.

  “And I’m not to kiss your hand again, little princess?”

  “No,” said Daphne firmly.

  “It was unpardonable of me the last time,” he said, “but now — if you said I might — it would be different. Say I may — to seal the promise.”

  “No,” said Daphne, automatically.

  “Say yes — it’s such an easy word. Say yes, little blue-eyed princess. Say yes—” He suddenly, violently, flung away her hand. “Now go,” he said, “go now at once, do you hear? And remember — you’ve promised.”

  When Daphne had reached the end of the allée défendue she found that she was trembling. And also — No, she was not crying. How could she be? There was nothing to cry about.

  The bishop’s throne was in its right place at the end of the table — three long benches wedged tightly together, on which the feast was spread. There were little cakes of all kinds, gaufrettes and mille-feuilles and cream éclairs; there were petits suisses, cool and white, on green leaf-platters. There were French plums, and dragées, and sucre de pommes. There were also candied fruits, Mandarine oranges, pitchers of water and the sirop de aroseille. And flowers, wall-flowers, daffodils, and double daisies from the girls’ gardens. Candles stuck up by the simple method of melting the ends and applying them to the table, stood all along its length. The f
inal feast was for the little dormitory alone. The big dormitories had had this explained to them with chocolate arguments. The scouts were posted. The guests were dressed. Daphne was to go first, to light the candles and put the final touches. Doris, for the first time, was to be one of the revellers.

  “Cover her face up as you carry her through the grenier,” Daphne whispered to Columbine; “say you don’t want her to catch cold. I don’t want her to be frightened of that great, dark, ugly place.”

  She took her candle and went.

  Miss Henney had gone to bed. The other mistresses were safe in their salon. The sixty-six girls who were not invited were softening their exclusion with chocolate. Old Claudine had been confided in, had contributed hard-boiled eggs and apples, and had promised to watch. A devoted and very stupid girl, bribed by a silver chain of Columbine’s, crouched on the stairs, ready to hand on the alarm if old Claudine gave it. The lucky six, dressed in costumes as gorgeous as the rifled trunks of the school afforded, stood in an expectant group in the door of the little dormitory.

  “It’s my first real feast,” said Doris, yawning. “Oh, I am so happy. Does being happy make you sleepy, Colombe?’

  “Yes, Miss Dormouse. But being happier wakes you up again. You wait a bit.”

  “You never gave her your present,” said the child.

  “No — you’re to do that. To-morrow. In the train. Then she can’t give it back. And I shall give her something quite different from what I meant, it’s a great secret. I wouldn’t tell anyone but you. But you’re safe, aren’t you?”

  “I am to be trusted to the death,” said Doris, sleepily. “What is it?”

  “Only a pretty, pretty. I’d tell you in a minute only I think you’ll enjoy being surprised to-morrow when your eyes are wider open.”

  “I am desolate that she departs, the dear Daphne,” Marie was saying; “she is so spiritual — so full of vivacity. Alas, what will school be, lacking its guardian angel?”

  “She is indeed a strong spirit,” said Guilberte. “And pretty — pretty enough to bite,” sighed Madeleine. “Ah, what would I give to see her apparelled for her first ball of ceremony.”

  She makes you understand your lessons so well,” mourned Inez.

  “She dressed my hand when I burned it,” said Madeleine.

  “She taught me the new crochet stitch,” grieved Inez.

  “She read to me when I hurt my foot,” snuffled Guilberte. Columbine sniffed. The waiting group was fast degenerating into a snivelling party.

  Above, Daphne, in her white confirmation dress, with a blue blanket trailing behind her, and on her head a coronal twined of all Columbine’s chains, necklaces, and bracelets, squeezed between the wall and the ragged lath-ends and entered the banqueting hall, shading her candle with her hand from any possible draught.

  She began to light the candles at the table’s lower end. Everything was as she had left it No, it wasn’t. As the candles sprang into flame something leaped to her eyes from the shadowy darkness at the table’s head — the bishop’s throne, with its ornate canopy, its gilding still bright in patches. He had climbed the roofs then, after all. Indeed he had; and here, set in front of the throne, in a green pottery jug, the most wonderful, branching, luxuriant bunch of white roses.

  “Oh,” said Daphne, and stood. A sudden thought made her flutter the roses with quick eager fingers. Would there be a letter? — no, nothing. Of course not,” she told herself. “I should have been very disappointed if there had been. How could he know that I should be the first person to find them?”

  Daphne had her wish. The story of that feast did indeed go down from generation to generation. How splendid Daphne had looked — like Joan of Arc, in the big gilded chair; how Columbine had worn the dress out of the last summer’s breaking up pageant — a glorious glittering affair of stars and stripes; how Guilberte had been a cardinal — a costume hastily devised with somebody’s red flannel petticoat and somebody else’s chemise and the white lace off yet another somebody’s confirmation dress. The perfect travesty of a nun achieved by Marie Thibault. The complete success of little Inez as a page in a borrowed suit of Emil Thibault’s; Madeleine’s ingenious impersonation of a bear — in the winter furs of half her friends. The lean wonderful charm of Doris as Cupidon, with tissue paper wings and a yellow scarf for tunic. There were speeches, there were recitations — songs were impossible — there were more cakes than ever before or since, and better. Daphne had indeed achieved a festival that should keep her memory, with its own, forever green.

  “Oh, the roses!” cried everyone. “Who got them?”

  “They came from above,” said Daphne, without any blasphemous under-meaning.

  St. George brought them, I expect; St. George for England.”

  When all the healths had been drunk in the sticky pink syrup and water, Daphne stood up in front of er throne and made her farewell speech.

  “My friends, my dear brigands,” she said, “behold the end of your captain. In the future Colombe will be your leader. I go beyond the seas, forever. Remember me always. I also shall ever remember you. I leave all the plants in my garden to Marie, and my canary to Colombe. Guilberte can have my embroidery; it’s nearly done, and there are all the silks and tinsels to finish both watch pockets. Madeleine can have my balls, and les graces — you can divide my school books and cahiers among you. Madeleine can have the silks and things in my desk, and Colombe is to have all my pencils and my paint box. Here’s the key of the grenier, Colombe. Be brave but discreet as a brigand captain should. Don’t get found out. If you do, tell them I put you up to it. I go to far lands, but my faithful followers will remember their dauntless Captain Carmichael. Oh, Penstemons and Sedum! how you will amuse yourselves! And I shall be no more here.”

  She paused. “Oh, dear,” she added in English, “I do wish we weren’t going.”

  The sleepy Doris, nodding till her paper wings quivered, caught the note of pain and sprang up fully awake.

  “What is it, my own Daffy?” she cried, and leapt to her sister’s arms. “Don’t cry — oh, don’t!”

  “I’m not,” said Daphne, with a wet cheek against the child’s. “Or if I am it’s because you’re a Cupidon and I can’t cuddle you. Let me take the little wings off, my own Dormouse.” The wings rustled to the floor and Doris nestled her head under her sister’s chin. “Colombe,” Daphne whispered, “do recite or something. Don’t let everything be a failure now — at the last minute.”

  The child was already asleep. And it was, literally the last moment.

  Colombe, obedient and prompt, sprang to her feet and put on the worried expression that all recognized as Miss Henney’s. But before the universal smile of recognition could turn to the expected laugh — the smile was, as the old writers say, “frozen on each lip.” A hasty hand tapped the skylight above, and a voice, a man’s voice, Daphne knew what man’s voice, said, softly but very distinctly, “Cave!”

  He had not meant to spy on the girls — he had only stationed himself on the roof from whose parapet he could see the long street, and as the rattle of the waggonette and the stamp of the little piebald horses turned in at the street’s end, he had sprung to the skylight to speak the word of warning. But as he spoke it he looked through the broken skylight and saw a picture that seemed to him better worth seeing than most of the pictures in the world. The long narrow table, spread with scarlet and lighted with many candles, the scattered golden fruits, the disordered pink-filled glasses. The girls in their vivid, fantastic finery, and at the end the sombre tarnished magnificence of the old throne built for some prince of the Church and now holding — Madonna herself.

  The child, wrapped in the blue mantle, showed but the round, tumbled head and one hand against Daphne’s face; and Daphne herself, her brow calm and pure between the long braids of her hair, her lashes drooping, her mouth curved in the adorable smile a woman never wears but when she holds in her arms the child she loves —

  “And I kissed her
hand to-day in a chestnut tree. Beast!” he told himself, and turned away.

  Daphne sprang up.

  “Fly,” she said. “Each take a candle. Blow out the others. Right. Now go. Get into bed if you’ve time. If you’re caught say nothing.”

  They were caught. But thanks to the man who had beheld the vision of Madonna they were not caught in the banqueting chamber. They were caught in the little dormitory. Their sentinel, asleep on the stairs, was roused by kicks and hustled into its own dormitory, thus wholly escaping the wrath to come. But the others —

  “Go to your beds,” said Madame, coldly. “Remove these ridiculous vestments and go to your beds. I shall have of what to speak to you in the morning.”

  They obeyed. All but Daphne. She stood a moment with the child in her arms — then laid it gently on her bed and went out.

  “It can’t be worse,” she said, “it may make it better for you.”

  “Isn’t she brave?” whispered Colombe.

  That a girl dismissed to bed in disgrace should follow Madame to her parlour was a thing unheard of. But then this was an unheard of occasion.

  No one ever knew the details of that interview save Daphne herself, Madame, and Mademoiselle Deluqui — the silent and disapproving witness. But the interview ended in an embrace.

  “You spoil that child,” said Mademoiselle Deluqui, as the door closed behind the guilty one.

  “My faith,” said Madame, “there are some whom one cannot prevail to spoil. How eloquent her pleading for her friends. How she was picturesque in her blue and white. And she goes to-morrow.”

  “But a masquerade-gourmandise at the hour that it is!”

  “Bah — one has been young in the time, my good Deluqui. She goes to-morrow. That gives to the pardon a good pretext! I wish there were more pretexts. Pardoning is the one luxury that a Directrice must of all others deny herself.”