Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “And young men?” Jane asked.

  “Let ’em keep single as long as they can,” said Mrs. Doveton, “for a young man married is a young man marred.”

  “It would be a queer world if Mrs. Doveton had the arranging of it,” said Lucilla as the door closed behind the anxious mother. “Come on, let’s go and tell Gladys not to.” Gladys was in the shop; she was in the shop almost all the time now. Jane and Lucilla felt their hands to be full with the much more pleasant duty of entertaining their agreeable and punctually-paying guests.

  “Look here, Gladys,” said Jane, sitting down between a sieve of apples and a pile of giant marrows, for it was now August, and the shop looked like a Harvest Thanksgiving, “what have you been doing to Herbert Doveton?”

  “I ain’t done nothing to him.”

  “Haven’t you kissed him?” Jane asked severely.

  “Oh, that!” said Gladys. “Oh yes, I kissed him,” and she giggled reminiscently. “ I thought it would do him good. He was so set up. He’s better now — gives you a kiss quite natural. You’ve no idea reely what he was like to begin with. You’ll hardly believe it, miss, I know, but I’m his first. I am reely.”

  “And are you fond of him?”

  “Me, miss? Fond of him? Why, he’s more like a dried haddock than a young man. I only tried to show him a bit of life and put him in the way of enjoying himself. For what’s life to a young man without a girl to go out with? Why, nothing!”

  “Now look here, Gladys,” said Jane, very firmly and seriously. “ This has got to stop, see? You mustn’t show that young man any more life, as you call it. You don’t want him, and it worries Mrs. Doveton.”

  “Mothers can’t have it all their own way,” said Gladys mutinously.

  “Do you keep a list of your sweethearts?” Lucilla asked suddenly.

  Gladys actually blushed.

  “Not to say sweethearts. I don’t like the word anyhow,” she said. “But I do make a note of the names of them as I’ve walked out with — only initials, you know — in the end of me hymn-book. Nobody would know to look at it. Why, I forget myself what the letters stand for sometimes, I do assure you, miss.”

  “Well,” said Lucilla, “you put down H.D., and then you give him up. Will you? To please me?”

  “Oh, to please you, miss,” said Gladys gracefully. “ I’d do more than give up a little thing like that. If you’ll lend me a stamp and a ongvelope I’ll drop him a line this very minute to tell him cruel fate has come betwixt and it can never, never be.”

  “And what about Mr. Simmons?”

  A curious change came over the face of Gladys: she looked like a child who in the midst of make-believe is reminded of some real and treasured possession.

  “Oh, him!” she said slowly.

  “Well, if you care anything about him you’d better be careful. Suppose he found out about the others?”

  “Oh, you don’t understand, miss. I tell him about all the others, every one of them, and what they say and all.”

  “And doesn’t he mind?”

  A look of elfish cunning puckered the face of Gladys.

  “He don’t believe me, miss! He thinks I make it all up to amuse him like. So that’s all right. Only if he did find anything out he couldn’t never say I hadn’t told him, see? So I’m all right whatever happens.”

  “Well, spare Herbert, anyhow,” said Jane, and she and Lucilla escaped to the garden, the final words of Gladys pursuing them: “I’ll spare him by the very next post, miss, you may depend.”

  Looking back afterwards, it always seemed to Lucilla and Jane that that autumn was the merriest time of their lives. Money was coming in plentifully, both from the house and from the garden, whose resources Mr. Dix was exploiting in a way that seemed to them simply masterly. The balance at the bank was rising like a tide, and the relations between the right and the left hand of the bank-book grew more and more such as we all wish to see. Life was simple and satisfying. Nor was it by pleasure only that it was so entirely filled. There was work. The shop a little; accounts a little; and a good deal of cutting-out and making of clothes — their own and not their own. Miss Antrobus had interests outside Cedar Court. She never spoke of them to Jane or Lucilla, but she poured them into the ear of Miss Lucas in that after-dinner hour which was Lucilla’s torture and Jane’s remorse. She told of children whose fathers had fallen in France and who now, in the land that was to be a land fit for heroes, lacked food and clothes and everything that makes life comfortable. Did Miss Lucas think her nieces would help? The stuff could be found — it wouldn’t cost them anything but time. Miss Lucas was sure they would, and they did.

  “But how terrible that they should need charity,” said Miss Lucas, clicking the eternal knitting-needles.

  “Yes,” said Miss Antrobus. “ But it’s no use our arguing about that. What we’ve got to do is to see that a few of the little Toms and Sallies are just the least bit more comfortable than they would be without us. That’s all we can do just now.

  And this they did.

  Miss Lucas only lasted three weeks. Lucilla could not endure her any longer. Miss Antrobus’s kind attentions and her amiable enquiries became more and more intolerable, and at last Lucilla flatly refused to go on with the business.

  “If Miss Antrobus can’t do without a chaperone,” she said, “ she must go and look for one somewhere else. Surely Mrs. Thornton is chaperone enough for anything? Besides, what does a girl want with chaperones when she’s been a Waac or a V.A.D., or whatever it was that Miss Antrobus was? I could stand it if she wasn’t so hatefully civil to the old lady.”

  “Mr. Tombs is civil too.”

  “So’s everybody if it comes to that. But Mr. Tombs is civil like Sir Walter Raleigh laying down his cloak for an aged queen to walk on. Miss Antrobus... well, I think there’s such a thing as being too civil by half. Where is she now?”

  “Gardening. Mr. Dix says she’s a very promising gardener.”

  “It seems to me that she’s a very competent person. She can cook — she told me so. I mean she told Aunt Harriet so. And she understands sick-nursing, and making clothes, “and now gardening. She says the more things you can do the more interesting life is.”

  “I’ve often said that myself,” said Jane, yawnirg. “Ah,” said Lucilla, “but she does them. And you’ve got to do what I say. Let Aunt Harriet vanish decently or I shall give the whole show away. I know I shall.”

  The prize problem party never took place after all, for the problems were solved as soon as propounded. Gladys was “influenced” to take back her gift, on the ground that Othello — who, Mr. Dix said, ought to have been called Desdemona — must be lonely. Why not give him, or her, to Mr. Simmons, who already had other rabbits? Jane and Lucilla explained how much they had enjoyed owning Othello and how they could not bear to stand in his (or her) light if a more agreeable social life seemed to open before him (or her). So Othello went away, and Mr. Dix and his under-gardeners rejoiced.

  The problem of the buried silver provided a pleasant dinner-topic. The story of the burglar was told by Lucilla — Aunt Harriet kept her room that evening — and though the story assumed a good deal that hadn’t been so, it made quite a good story with Mr. Dix introduced as an anonymous stranger sheltering in the summer-house from the rain.

  “And that’s months ago,” said Mr. Thornton, “and you’ve left your poor silver there ever since? Why, Dix could have got it out for you in no time.”

  “He didn’t know. Nobody knew. We’ve only just made up our minds to tell. Because really we must get the silver up again.”

  “How much is there?” asked the other Mr. Thornton — the one called Bill.

  “Oh, just the teapot and milk-jug and sugar-basin. We put the spoons in our pockets.”

  “We’ll get it out for you. Not to-night, because we’re playing at that concert. But to-morrow.”

  And sure enough they did — with fish-hooks and weights coated with birdlime or something sticky. T
hey fished behind the stove, and up came the silver — rather yellow, but not much dented — and not a chip of the panelled mantelpiece disturbed.

  “Not at all,” they said to the thanks of Lucilla and Jane. “It’s a pleasure. I wish you’d let us do more things for you. Shall we clean the silver? We’re rather a dab at that.” And they did it too, amid laughter and jokes — in the summer-house, for fear of Forbes catching them at it. Certainly the Thorntons were very kind as well as very jolly. They really were ideal paying guests.

  They were energetic photographers and photographed the girls and the house, reluctant Mrs. Doveton and enthusiastic Gladys. They played at concerts with sufficient frequency to give their presence at home an added value. In all weather they sallied out, their evening dress closely hidden under mackintoshes, their great instruments duly encased, returning often long after everyone had gone to bed. And they were always punctual in the breakfast-room — the two men cheery and attentive and Mrs. Thornton as pretty and as fresh as a pink. They never played their instruments at Cedar Court, though they sang and acted readily enough. “We like a holiday from them when we can get it,” Mrs. Thornton explained. “They’re our shop. You should never mix the shop and the home.”

  “I hope your aunt is not seriously ill, you know,” said Mr. Thornton that evening, when for the second time Miss Lucas failed to appear in the drawing-room.

  “Oh no,” said Lucilla, and then suddenly, after a queer little pause: “ She’s much better. In fact she’s gone to Bath to-day with my cousin.”

  “I should have liked to say good-bye to her,” said Mr. Tombs. “We shall miss her, shan’t we?” It may have been her guilty conscience that made Lucilla feel almost sure that there had been a twinkle in Mr. Tombs’ eye.

  But Miss Antrobus said outright: “When did she go? ““This morning, while you were at your Help for Heroes Committee meeting,” Lucilla told her, triumphing in the fact that there had been a space of time in which a dozen Aunt Harriets could have got away without Miss Antrobus’s notice.

  “I am so sorry I missed seeing her,” said Miss Antrobus calmly. “I must write and tell her so. What is her address?”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  LUCILLA had not thought of that. “I will give you the address this evening,” she said. And in the evening it was, “Oh, I’m so sorry — I’ll give you the address in the morning.”

  “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble I should be so glad if I could have it now,” said Miss Antrobus. “I usually write my letters at night.”

  “Certainly,” said Lucilla, and went straight to the mahogany bureau and began to fumble in the pigeon-holes. Miss Antrobus followed her.

  “It’s very kind of you to look for it now,” she said; “but surely it’s not among those paper patterns?”

  “I don’t know where it is,” said Lucilla, shutting the secretaire lid with what was almost a bang. “Perhaps it’s upstairs — I’ll go and look,” and she fled.

  She returned very soon with an envelope on which she had written:

  “Miss Lucas, at Mrs. Scott’s,

  247, Hill Street, Bath.

  “Thank you so much,” said Miss Antrobus. “ Hill Street? Whereabouts is it?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” said the badgered Lucilla. “ I’ve never been to Bath”; but she felt quite safe because she had taken the precaution to consult Miss Austin’s “Persuasion” before deciding on an address for her aunt at Bath.

  “May I have the address too?” asked Mr. Tombs. “I should like to follow Miss Antrobus’s excellent example and write to our dear Miss Lucas. But Mr. Thornton is just going to play the Lancers. Miss Antrobus, may I have the pleasure? Thank you. And Miss Craye, may I ask you for the next dance?”

  “If there is a next one, I shall be very pleased.”

  “Oh, there is to be a next one,” he assured her. “Miss Quested has decided that it is to be a dancing evening.”

  “‘On with the dance, let joy be unrefined,’” said Lucilla. “Thank you,” said Mr. Tombs. “That’s one of my favourite quotations. Let us be tops, Miss Antrobus. But I must lend a hand with the furniture.”

  “I shouldn’t have thought Mr. Tombs would have cared for dancing,” said Miss Antrobus, “but he waltzes extraordinarily well, doesn’t he? So unexpected.”

  “Do you think that blue glasses don’t go well with dancing then? Appearances are deceitful sometimes.”

  “I know they are,” said Miss Antrobus. And there is something about blue glasses that looks a little — well — furtive, don’t you think?”

  “I hadn’t thought it,” said Lucilla, laughing. “It’s rather hard, isn’t it, if people can’t wear blue glasses without being suspected of — what would the noun be? — furtivity?”

  “I didn’t really mean that I thought our friend deceitful,” said Miss Antrobus. “I shouldn’t like to think it. I loathe deceit.”

  “Yes, it is horrid, isn’t it?” And as Mr. Thornton — the one called Bill — now came to claim her for the dance, she went on: “I’m sure you hate deceit too, don’t you, Mr. Thornton?”

  “The soul should be an open book, In which all passers-by may look; And nought that any would not care To read should ere be written there,” replied the young man promptly.

  “Whose is that? “ asked Miss Antrobus. “I seem to know it.”

  “It’s by ‘Anon,’ I think — that popular author,” said he, but as he led Lucilla away he whispered: “I made it up, of course; didn’t she see I was making it up?”

  “One never knows what she does or doesn’t see,” Lucilla permitted herself to say.

  “No, but anyhow, what a lot there is that she doesn’t see — that nobody sees. What a little window it is, anyhow, that you look in at anyone else by, isn’t it?”

  “‘Yes. In this sea of life en-isled...’” quoted Lucilla. “Exactly,” said he. “And there’s no Lancers like the old original. Jim always plays them. Tum-tiddy-tumpty-tumpty-tum! What a glorious game dancing is!”

  “Score each point as you come to it, even if it’s the last,” he said, as he led flushed and panting Lucilla to cool on the front-door steps. “That’s my philosophy of life. Even if the world ends to-morrow — well, we’ve had to-night! If it ends to-night — well — I’ve had this dance with you. And I may have the next and the next and the next and the one after that?”

  “Mr. Tombs,” murmured Lucilla, much agitated by this sudden advance. “I’m dancing the next one with Mr. Tombs.” He brought her a chair from the hall. “And you? “she said. “I can sit at your feet,” said he—”my proper place,” and he sat down on the doorstep. “Now give me a flower — one of those apricot-scented roses — and be kind to me. Who knows but the world may end to-night?”

  “Do you always talk nonsense when you’ve been dancing?” said Lucilla, defending herself as best she could against this sudden swirl of an unknown sea of flattery.

  “Not always. But to-night’s such a night — and you’re all such darlings, and it’s such a long time since I’ve danced or talked with people who are real people, that my head’s in a whirl and I see everything double. I daresay I really see you twice as charming as you are, but my fixed illusion is that you are far more than twice as charming than you appear.”

  Lucilla did not know what to say, so she said nothing.

  “You don’t mind my talking nonsense?” he said. “Let’s pretend you’re an Italian lady and this isn’t the gravel path but a canal in Venice, and that isn’t the garden roller, but the end of my gondola, and I’m here at the peril of my life just to tread one measure with you and tell you once more that you are the radiant star of my dreams; and though you’re a noble Venetian lady and I’m only a poor outlaw, with a price on my head, yet you stoop from the throne of your maiden magnificence and lend me, in one instant of cold condescension, your hand that is like a lily.”

  He glanced behind her. The hall was deserted. The others had gone out through the French windows on to the
cedar lawn. He took her hand and kissed it, very lightly and softly, then laid it down on her lap as gently as though it had indeed been a flower.

  “Don’t say we’d better find the others. Forgive me instead. It’s only a sort of play-acting, to fit the night — and in that rose-coloured dress you do so look the part. You do forgive me? Yes, I see you think I’m either very mad or very insolent, but really I’m not. Don’t keep it in your mind against me, will you? Look upon it as a sort of charade. A charade that doesn’t count or matter a bit. And don’t look at me like that. For God’s sake don’t be afraid of me. I’m sorry I played the fool. Say it’s all right.”

  “I suppose so,” said Lucilla feebly, “but I don’t think like that sort of charade. I don’t know my part, you see,” she added, trying to speak as though it had been really a play. He turned his head away, and she thought she heard him say: “I wish to God I could teach you,” but the next moment he laughed and said:

  “Let my faults be writ in water! How I wish we could have more dance evenings! I’m sick of dragging that double bass about. Anyway, I’m going to enjoy this. No Venetian ladies for me, no gondolas — just Miss Craye and the next waltz but two — may I?”

  Lucilla did not know how to say ‘No’ — and besides, she was not sure that ‘ No’ was what she wanted to say. The acting of the Mr. Thornton who was called Bill had been wonderfully lifelike. And that touch of warm, live velvet on her hand: she had known nothing like it. She felt as though those five minutes had upset all her ideas on all important subjects. She wanted to be alone, to think, to remember every word he had said, to make up her mind whether she ought to have been angry, to have walked away as soon as he began with: “Now give me a flower...”