Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Charles raised his head and growled.

  “There,” said she, “you see, even Charles repudiates the idea.”

  If this was so, Charles instantly repudiated the idea with more growls and the added violence of barks. She muffled him in the cloak and listened. A footstep on the towing-path.

  “Hullo!” she called, and Edward added, “Hi, you there!” and Charles, wriggling forcefully among the folds of the cloak, barked again.

  “That ought to fetch them, whoever they are,” said Edward, and stood up.

  Even as he did so a voice said, urgently and quite close above them. “‘Ush, can’t yer!” and a head and shoulders leaning over the edge of the lock came as a dark silhouette against the clear dark blue of the starry sky. For it was now as dark as a July night is — and that, as we know, is never really dark at all. ‘“Ush!” repeated the voice. “Shut up, I tell yer!” and, surprisingly and unmistakably, it was to the two in the boat that he was speaking. “Make that dawg o’ yours choke hisself — stow it, can’t yer! Yer don’t want to be lagged, do yer? Yer aren’t got ‘arf a chants once any one knows you’re ‘ere. Don’t you know you’re wanted? The police’ll be along some time in the night, and then you’re done for.”

  “I think,” said Edward, with extreme politeness, “that you are, perhaps, mistaking us for acquaintances, whereas we are strangers to you. But if you could be so kind as to open the gates and lend us a crowbar to get through the other locks you would not be the loser.”

  “I know yer, right enough,” said the man. “Yer ain’t no strangers to me. It was me as ‘ired yer the boat up at the Anchor. The boss ‘e sent me out to look for yer. Only ‘e doesn’t know I know about your being wanted. Least said soonest mended’s what I allus say. Where’s yer crow got to?”

  “In the water,” said Edward; “dropped off the lock gate.”

  “Clumsy!” said the man, giving the word its full vocative value. “Whereabouts?”

  “Just over there,” said Edward.

  “Then yer tuck up yer shirt-sleeve and run yer ‘and down and pass that there crow up to me. There ain’t not above two foot o’ water in ‘er, if there’s that.”

  To your Medway man the lock is as unalterably feminine as his ship to a sailor.

  It was she who plunged her arm in the water, and, sure enough, there was the crowbar lying quietly and tamely beside them—”like a pet poodle,” as she said.

  “Give me ahold of that there crow,” said the man. He lay face downward and reached down an arm. Edward stood on the thwart and reached up. The crowbar changed hands, and the head and shoulders of the deliverer disappeared.

  “I don’t see what he wants the bar for,” said Edward. “The lock’s empty. Perhaps he means to go on ahead and open the other locks for us. I wonder who he took us for, and what the poor wretches are ‘wanted’ for—”

  “It’s a sinister word in that connection, isn’t it?” said she. “Wanted!”

  They pushed the boat toward the lower lock gate and held on to the lock-side, waiting till the lock gate should open and they should be able to pass out and begin their journey down the river to the Anchor. But the gates did not open, and almost at once a tremor agitated the boat. Edward tightened his grip of the boat-hook as the incoming rush of water took the boat’s nose and held it hard.

  “The idiot!” he said. “The silly idiot! He’s filling the lock.”

  He was, and the rush of the incoming water quite drowned any remonstrances that might have been addressed to him. Boat and water rose swiftly, the upper gates opened, and, as they passed through, their deliverer laid his hand on the gunwale, as though to aid the boat’s passage. But, instead, he stopped it.

  “See ‘ere, gov’ner,” he said, low and hoarse and exactly like a conspirator, “I couldn’t bleat it out for all the country to hear while yer was down in the lock, but I knows as you’re wanted and yer may think it lucky it’s me as come after yer and not the gov’ner nor yet the police.”

  “I do really think,” said she, softly, “that you’re making a mistake. The police don’t really want us.”

  “Oh, I got a bit of candle,” was the unexpected rejoinder. “Get the young lady to hold the cloak up so as it don’t shine from ‘ere to Tunbridge to give yer away like, and yer light the dip and ‘ave a squint at this ‘ere.”

  He held out the candle and matches and a jagged rag of newspaper.

  “‘Ere,” he said, “‘longside where I’m ‘olding of it.”

  She made a sort of screen of the cloak. Edward lit the candle, and when the flame had darkened and brightened again he read as follows:

  Missing — Young lady, height five feet six, slight build, dark hair and eyes, pale complexion. Last seen at Jevington, Sussex. Wearing black chiffon and satin dress, black satin slippers, and a very large French circular cloak with stitched collar. Has no money and no hat. Twenty pounds will be paid to any one giving information as to her whereabouts.

  “Well,” said Edward, blowing out the candle, “this lady has a hat, as you see, and she hasn’t a black dress and satin slippers. Thank you for letting us through; here’s something to get a drink with. Hand over the crowbar, please, and good night to you.”

  “Not so fast, sir,” said the man, still holding on, “and don’t make to jab me over the fingers with the boat-’ook, like what you was thinking of. I’m your friend, I am. I see that piece in the paper ‘fore ever a one of them, but I never let on. That’s why the gov’ner sent me, ‘cause why—’e didn’t think I knowed, and ‘e means to ‘ave that twenty pounds hisself.”

  “But,” said she, “you see, I have got a hat and—”

  “Yes, miss,” said the man, “an’ you’ve got the cloak, large and black and stitched collar, and all; it’s that what’s give yer away.”

  “But supposing I was the young lady,” she said, grasping Edward’s arm in the darkness, and signaling to him not to interfere with feminine diplomacy, “you wouldn’t give me up to the police, would you? I wouldn’t give you up if the police wanted you.”

  “‘Course I wouldn’t,” he answered, earnestly. “Ain’t that what I’m a-saying? I’m ‘ere to ‘elp yer do a bolt. The minute I saw that there bit in the paper I says to myself, ‘It’s them,’ and why shouldn’t I ‘ave the twenty pounds as well as any one else?”

  “There,” said Edward, in a low voice, “you see! Let me deal with him.”

  But again her hand implored. “You’re going to give us up to the police for twenty pounds?” she said, reproachfully.

  He groaned. “‘Ow yer do talk!” he said. “Women is all alike when it comes to talking. Stop talking and listen to me. Can’t yer understand plain words? What yer got to do is to leave the boat at Mutton Worry Lock — that’s three locks up — bunk across the fields to Tunbridge. If yer got money enough — and I’m sartain yer ‘as, by the looks of yer — yer ‘ire one of them motors and get away as fast as yer can. Get one at the Castle. Say yer going to Brighton, and when yer get away from the town tell the chap to drive t’other way.”

  “That’s a good plan,” said she.

  “I mapped it all out as I come along,” he said, with simple pride. “And, mind yer, I’m trusting yer like I shouldn’t have thought I’d ‘a’ trusted nobody. ‘Ave yer got the twenty pounds about yer?” he asked, anxiously.

  “No,” said she.

  “Can’t be helped, then.” He breathed a sigh of resignation. “I’ll just give yer my direction and yer send the ready to me. ‘Oo says I don’t trust yer?”

  “You mean,” said Edward, slowly, and would not be checked any longer by that hand on his arm—”you mean that you expect us to give you twenty pounds not to give us up to the police? The police have nothing to do with us. The whole thing’s moonshine. Take your hand off the boat and get along home.”

  “Any man,” said he who had been called Neptune—”any man as had the feelings of a man would think of this — young lady. Even if yer was to prove to Poad as yer
wasn’t wanted for nothin’ criminal — it’s none so easy to make Poad see anything, neither” — he ended, abruptly, and began anew. “Look ‘ere, gov’ner, on account of your lady I say do a bolt. An’ why should I be the loser? I only got to stick to the boat, whichever way yer go — up and down — and soon as yer land where there’s a copper, lagged yer’ll be to a dead cart, and only yourself to thank for it. Whereas I’m only trying to be your friend, if you’d only see it.”

  “I don’t see why you should be so friendly,” said Edward, now entirely losing control of the situation.

  “Nor I shouldn’t see it, neither, if it was only you,” was the rejoinder.

  “He’s quite right,” she whispered. “Promise what he wants and let’s get away. I know exactly what Poad is like. We should never make him understand anything. I couldn’t bear it. Let’s go. If you’ve got twenty pounds, give it to him and let’s go.”

  “Think of your young lady,” repeated the voice out of the darkness. “If yer promise to let me ‘ear by the post, I’ll take your word for it. I’m your true friend, and I knows a gentleman when I sees one.”

  “If you were a true friend,” said Edward, “you wouldn’t want paying for minding your own business.”

  “Aw, naw,” he said, “‘old ‘ard, gov’ner. Ain’t it a man’s own business when there’s twenty pounds to be made? Says I to myself, if it’s worth some one’s while to pay the money to catch ‘er, it’s well worth the gentleman’s while to shell out and keep ‘er, and. . . .”

  “Oh, hold your tongue!” said Edward. “Go on ahead and get the next lock ready. I’ll give you the money. The lady wishes it.”

  “She’s got her ‘ead the right way on,” said the friend in need. “Pull ahead, sir.”

  “But you can’t, with your finger like that,” she said. “I’ll pull.”

  “Why not let me?” Neptune suggested. “We’d get there in ‘alf the time,” he added, with blighting candor.

  So Neptune pulled the boat up to Mutton Worry Lock and the two crouched under the cloak. Charles, who might have been expected to be hostile to so strange a friend, received him with almost overwhelming condescension. At Mutton Worry Lock the deliverer said:

  “Now ‘ere yer deserts the ship, and ‘ere I finds ‘er and takes her back. And look ‘ere, sir, I’m nobody’s enemy but my own, so I am. And of course if I was to ‘ave the twenty pounds it’s my belief I’d drink myself under the daisies inside of a week. Let me ‘ear by the post — William Beale, care of the Anchor Hotel — and send me ten bob a week till the money’s gone. It’ll come easier to yer, paying it a little at a time like — and better for me in the long run. Yer ought to be a duke, yer ought. I never thought you’d ‘a’ ris’ to the twenty. I’d ‘a’ been satisfied with five — and that’ll show yer whether I’m a true friend or not.”

  “I really think you are,” she said, and laughed gently. “Good-by.”

  “Good evening, miss, and thank yer, I’m sure. Never say good-by; it’s unlucky between friends.”

  “Here’s a sovereign,” said Edward, shortly. “Good night. You’re jolly fond of the sound of your own voice, aren’t you?”

  “Sort of treat for me, sir,” said Beale, always eagerly explanatory. “Don’t often ‘ear it. D’you know what they calls me at the Anchor, owing to me ‘aving learnt to keep my tongue atween my teeth, except among friends? ‘William the Silent’s’ my pet name. A gent as comes for the angling made that up, and it stuck, it did. Bear to the left till you come to the boat-’ouse, cater across the big meadow, and you’ll hit Tunbridge all right, by the Printing Works. So long, sir; so long, miss.”

  Thus they parted.

  “What an adventure!” she said; “and I believe William the Silent believes himself to be a model of chivalrous moderation. He would have been satisfied with five pounds.”

  “I believe he would, too,” said Edward, with a grudging laugh. “It’s your beaux yeux. The man has gone home feeling that he has as good as sacrificed fifteen pounds to a quixotic and romantic impulse. Wretched blackmailer though he is, he could not resist a princess.”

  “I like William,” she said, decisively. “After all, as he says, one must live. Let’s leave the cloak under this hedge. Shall we? It’s like getting rid of the body. And I’ll buy a flaxen wig to-morrow. And do you think it would be a help if I rouged a little and wore blue spectacles? It will be the saving of us, of course.”

  “I hope to heavens we get a motor in Tunbridge,” said he. “You must be tired out.”

  “I’m not in the least tired,” she said. “I’m stepping out like a man, don’t you think? I’ve enjoyed everything beyond words. What a world it is for adventures once you step outside the charmed circle of your relations. Look at all the things that have happened to us already!”

  “I didn’t mean anything to happen except pleasant things,” said he.

  “Ah!” she said, with a fleeting seriousness, “life isn’t like that. But there’s been nothing but pleasant things so far — at least, almost nothing.”

  “Won’t you take my arm?” he said.

  “What for?”

  “To help you along, I suppose,” he said, lamely.

  She stopped expressly to stamp her foot. “I don’t want helping along,” she said. “I’m not a cripple or a baby — and—”

  He did not answer. And they walked on in silence through the starry, silent night. She spoke first.

  “I don’t want helping along,” she said. “But I’d like to take your arm to show there’s no ill-feeling. You take an arm on the way to dinner,” she assured the stars, “and why not on the way to Tunbridge?”

  The way to Tunbridge was short. They found a car, and the night held no more adventures for them.

  But in a sheltered nook in the weir stream below Jezebel’s Lock a candle set up on a plate illuminated the green of alder and ash and the smooth blackness of the water, shedding on a lonely supper that air as of a festival which can only be conferred by candle-light shining on the green of growing leaves. There, out of sight of the towing-path, Mr. William Beale, charmed to fancy and anticipation by the possession of a golden milled token, made himself a feast of the “broken vittles” in the derelict Midlothian basket, and in what was left of the red wine of France toasted the lady of his adventure.

  “‘Ere’s to ‘er,” he said to the silence and mysteries of wood and water. ‘“Ere’s to ‘er. She was a corker, for sure. Sight too good for a chap like ‘im,” he insisted, adding the natural tribute of chivalry to beauty; drank again and filled his pipe. Edward, from sheer force of habit, had smoothed the parting with tobacco.

  “Not but,” said William the Silent—”not but what I’ve known worse than ‘im, by long chalks. Ten bob a week — and ‘e’ll send it along, too — good as a pension. ‘E’ll send it along.”

  He did. William the Silent had not misjudged his man.

  XI. THE GUILDHALL

  “WHERE is Charles?” she asked next day.

  Edward had called for her early, had paid the Midlothian’s bill and tipped the Midlothian’s servants, and now they were in a taxi on their way to Paddington. She had definitely put her finger on the map that morning, and its tip had covered the K’s of Kenilworth and Warwick. She was still almost breathless with the hurry with which she had been swept away from the safe anchorage of the hotel, “and couldn’t we have the hood down?” she added.

  “Charles,” said Edward, “is at present boarded out at a mews down Portland Road way, and I think we’d better keep the hood up. Look here! I never thought of the newspapers. This is worse than ever.”

  He handed her the Telegraph. Yesterday’s advertisement was repeated in it — with this addition:

  May be in company with tall, fair young man. Blue eyes, military appearance. Possesses large, white bull-terrier.

  “Oh dear! They’ll track us down,” she said, and laughed. “What sleuth-hounds they are! But they can’t do anything to me, can they? They
can’t take me back, I mean. I’m twenty-one, you know. Can’t you do as you like when you’re twenty-one?”

  She looked at the paper again, and now her face suddenly became clouded and her eyes filled with tears. “I never thought of that.” She hesitated a moment and handed him the paper, pointing to the place with the finger that had found Warwick and Kenilworth. Below the advertisement touching the young man and the bull-terrier, he read:

  Silver Locks — Come back. I am ill and very anxious.

  Aunt Alice.

  “That means. . .?”

  “It means me. I’m Silver Locks — it’s her pet name for me. I called my aunts the three bears once, when I was little, in fun, you know. And the others were angry — but she laughed and called me Silver Locks. And she’s called it me ever since. I never thought about her worrying. What am I to do? I must go back. I thought it was too good to last, yesterday,” she added, bitterly.

  He put the admission away in a safe place, whence later he could take it out and caress it, and said, “Of course you must go back if you want to. But don’t do it without thinking. We meant to talk over our plans yesterday, but somehow we didn’t. Let’s do it to-day.”

  “But I can’t go to Warwick. I must go back to her — I must.”

  “If you do,” he said, “you won’t go back to just her — you’ll go back to the whole miserable muddle you’ve got away from. You’ll go back to your other aunts and to your father. Besides, how do you know who put that advertisement in? Think carefully. Is the advertisement like her?”

  “It’s like her to be anxious and kind,” said she.

  “I mean, is she the sort of woman to advertise that she’s ill? To advertise your pet name — and her own name — so that every one who knows you both and sees the advertisement will know that you are being advertised for? Is that like her?” He ended, astonished at his own penetration.

  “No,” she said, slowly, “it isn’t. And it isn’t like her to say she’s ill. She never complains.”