“About my job, darling. Sir George Peterson wants me to go and look after his little girl.”
“I suppose you’d like me to think you’re serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. And so is he—fearfully, frightfully, furiously serious. Why, my good Roger, he’s going to give me a hundred and fifty lovely paper pounds for doing it.”
“Look here, Mally, that’s about enough. I won’t hear of your doing any such thing.”
Mally’s little face became suddenly grave and set.
“Won’t you, Roger?”
“No, of course I won’t! The whole thing’s ridiculous. Who on earth is this Peterson?”
“My employer,” said Mally. “He wasn’t going to be, but now he is.”
She stood up, ran down the steps that led from the stage to the ballroom, and turned to say over her shoulder:
“Thank you for making up my mind for me. I’m going to tell him that I’ll start work as soon as he likes.”
CHAPTER IV
Mally arrived at Sir George Peterson’s London house in the dusk of a January evening. The house was very large and imposing. The square in which it stood was very dim, discreet, and austere. Beyond lay a busy thoroughfare where the common, roaring tide of commercial activity ebbed and flowed; but the square itself was silent.
Mally came into a marble hall that looked chilly and felt warm. A number of uncomfortably posed statues, in the extraordinarily small amount of clothing affected by mythological persons, stood around the walls. She followed a footman up a marble stair with shallow steps and a massive balustrade.
At the turn of the stair a black column supported a bust of Sir George Peterson. Mally met it rather suddenly, and in vivid vernacular admitted to herself that it gave her the pip. Sir George in the flesh was really quite handsome, with his eyebrows, black and rather tufty, his bright dark eyes, red color, and silver hair. But Sir George in white Carrara marble! Mally took two steps at a time to get away from him, and would have taken three if it hadn’t been for the footman, who was used to the bust and not disposed to hurry.
Mally never quite recovered the impression which made her want to run away. She never got nearer to it than the bald statement that the thing gave her the pip. It wasn’t the whiteness, or the coldness, or the immobility, or anything she could put into words; but she wanted to run a hundred miles and never come back. Instead, she followed the footman along a corridor, and was ushered in upon a strictly domestic scene.
In a room of reassuringly moderate size blue curtains were drawn, a fire burned pleasantly, and a middle-aged lady sat knitting, whilst close to her, hunched up in a large armchair, a slim little girl pored over a book, with a hand on either cheek and untidy hair tumbled all about her face. In the very middle of the hearth an orange Persian cat and a pale, malevolent pug sat side by side.
“Miss Lee,” said the footman, and departed.
The pug, the little girl, and the cat remained unmoved by the announcement; but the middle-aged lady said, “Oh, dear!” dropped a stitch, said, “Oh, dear!” again, got up, and becoming mysteriously entangled in her wool, let her knitting fall to the ground, and stood still, looking at it helplessly.
By the time Mally had picked it up, unwound the tangle, and been thanked, she began to feel herself again.
Mrs. Craddock would not have daunted the most timid person on earth, being herself in a perpetual state of apologizing for something she had done or explaining why she had done it. She wore a lugubrious gray dress braided with black, and was further adorned with a necklet and ear-rings of bog oak. Her fuzzy, faded hair was curled in a formal fringe and held tightly to her head by a hair-net and a great many hairpins.
“I’m so grateful, Miss Lee. And you’ve picked up the stitch, too! Now I call that really kind. And did you have a pleasant journey?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Barbara—Barbara my dear, this is Miss Lee, your new governess. Won’t you come and shake hands with her?” She used the tone which people employ when they make a request which they are pretty sure will be refused.
Barbara continued to pore over her book.
“She’s so spoiled,” said Mrs. Craddock in a whisper calculated to arrest any child’s attention. “So dreadfully spoiled! Sir George refuses her nothing.”
“Then why doesn’t he let me draw?” said Barbara without looking up.
“My dear—Barbara my dear—I think—I really do think you should come and say how d’you to Miss Lee.”
“Don’t bother her,” said Mally sweetly. “I expect she’s frightened, poor little thing.”
The tumbled hair was thrown back with a toss, two very bright dark eyes looked out of a round pale face, and an indignant voice said:
“I’m not.”
Mally gave her a little nod.
“Aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not.”
Barbara scrambled down from her chair. There was a challenging gleam in Mally’s eye.
“I’m not frightened of any one. I just don’t like governesses. Bimbo doesn’t either—he’ll probably bite you in a minute. He bit three people last week—they all screamed.”
The pale pug produced a slight rumbling growl at the sound of his name; his eyes slid round swivel-wise and looked coldly at Mally’s ankles; his black lip lifted and showed a line of milk-white teeth.
“I have a frightfully loud scream,” said Mally. Her eyes danced at Barbara.
Barbara bit her lip, screwed up her face, stamped quite viciously, and then broke into sudden, uncontrollable laughter.
“She’s so dreadfully spoiled,” wailed Mrs. Craddock in the background. “Barbara my dear! Bimbo! No—no—not biting! Good little dog!”
Bimbo snuffled.
Mally went and sat down beside Barbara in the big chair.
“Show me your book,” she said in a laughing voice. “And do let’s be friends. It’ll be more amusing really, because I know about three hundred stories; and if we’re all biting and screaming, I can’t possibly tell you any of them—can I?”
Sir George came in half an hour later, to find Barbara on Mally’s lap, and a story just arrived at the happy ever after stage. He greeted Mally gravely and kindly, refused tea, and seemed to be hurried and preoccupied. After ten minutes or so he got up to go.
“I’m dining out, Lena. What have you arranged with Miss Lee?”
Mrs. Craddock dropped a stitch.
“Well, George, really I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve arranged anything. I really didn’t know—I’d no idea—I’m sure I’m very sorry if you meant me to.”
Sir George turned to Mally with a slight frown.
“My sister was going to ask you what you would like to do about your evening meal. We should be delighted if you would dine with us—or with my sister when I am out. But if you would prefer to have supper with Barbara and feel that the evening is your own to do just as you like with, well——” He completed the sentence with a smile.
Mally felt her arm pinched; it was clear enough what Barbara wished her to say. She said it obediently, and saw at once that she had pleased Sir George. She had an impression that the pleasure went deep.
Barbara fairly bounced on her lap.
“She’ll tell me stories all the time,” she announced.
When Sir George had gone out, Mrs. Craddock gazed mournfully at Mally and heaved a sort of sniffing sigh.
“I’m afraid my brother thinks I was remiss. But really there was so little time, and—now, what do you think? Would you have said that he was vexed?”
“No. Why should he be?”
“Well, my dear Miss Lee, I don’t know. Gentlemen are very often vexed without much reason—don’t you think so? Now, my brother—he is of course very busy, very occupied; but he never forgets anything, and it puts him out quite terribly if other people don’t remember things.”
Here her knitting slipped to the ground and Mally picked it up with a dexterous swoop. Barbara clutched he
r, shrieking with delight. Bimbo growled, and Mrs. Craddock continued without an appreciable pause:
“Thank you—oh, thank you. I mean my memory has always been very bad; and if you’ve got a bad memory, why, you’ve got a bad memory. But there, it always vexes him just the same, though I’m sure if I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a hundred times that I haven’t got his head.”
Barbara took Mally upstairs presently and showed her their domain—a pink bedroom which was Barbara’s; a blue bedroom which was Mally’s; and a sitting-room with white walls and chintzes covered with parrots and birds of paradise. There was a connecting door between the pink bedroom and the blue bedroom. “So as I can come in in the morning and get into your bed, and you can tell me a new story every day.”
Mally laughed.
“Suppose there isn’t a story in my story box?”
“Do you keep them in a box?”
“In a secret box. Sometimes when I open it there’s nothing there—I never know. You’ll have to take your chance.”
Barbara flung herself upon her in a sudden hug.
“I do like you!”
They hugged each other. After a moment Barbara let go, stepped back, and said in a tone of ferocious intensity:
“But I shan’t if you’re going to like Pinko.”
“Who on earth’s Pinko?”
“He’s my father’s secretary, and I hate him worse than I hate snails, and worms, and slugs, and spiders with hairs down their legs.”
“Why do you hate him? It’s frightfully silly to hate people.”
“Pinko isn’t people; he’s Aunt Lena’s nephew and his outside name is Paul Inglesby Craddock. And I call him Pinko because he hates it, and because his face is pink, and because he told my father about my pictures and they took them away. Yes, they did.”
Barbara turned very white over the last words; her voice dropped to a low unchildlike tone. Then suddenly she flung herself on Mally again.
“Promise me, promise me, promise me that you’ll hate him, too!”
CHAPTER V
Sir George’s dinner engagement was one which quite a number of people would have envied him. He was a member of the small dinner club which called itself The Wolves.
No one talked politics at The Wolves’ dinners, and no one talked business; yet it was said that the complexion of more than one political problem had been changed, and the financial status of more than one undertaking determined as the result of these informal gatherings.
The chief guest this evening was neither politician nor man of business, but Sir Julian Le Mesurier, head of the Criminal Investigation Department. The romantic name sat oddly enough upon a man who was universally known as Piggy. The aptness of the nickname stared one in the face; Sir Julian bore the strongest possible resemblance to a very large, clean, healthy and intelligent pig. The fact that he was married to one of the most charming women in the world, and that she adored him, is a proof that women are not always swayed by outward appearance.
A good many years ago he and Sir George had been at school together. There had survived one of those odd intimacies which is not a friendship, though it uses the outward forms of friendship.
When dinner was over, Sir George found himself beside his guest. He clapped him on the arm with a ribald “Well, Piggy, and how’s crime?”
Piggy crinkled up the corners of his eyes.
“We shan’t get into mischief from having idle hands.”
“Busy—eh?”
“Fair to middling.”
“That was a pretty good coup you made over the forged French notes last year. Mopped up the whole gang, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that?” Piggy waved a large white hand. “My dear man, you might just as well talk about the Cardinal’s Necklace or the Gunpowder plot. Mr. Bronson and the late Guy Fawkes are both upon the shelf. In fact, it’s a case of ‘Each day brings its petty crimes, our busy hands to fill,’—and I owe Matthew Arnold an apology for that.” Sir Julian was very comfortable in a large armchair. He spoke in a lazy, drawling voice.
Sir George laughed. He had an extremely pleasant laugh.
“If you’ve nothing but petty crimes, you’re in clover, I suppose. You don’t burn the midnight oil over erring haberdasher’s assistants or defaulting clerks, I imagine.”
“No,” said Sir Julian. “No. By the way——” He paused, his small eyes almost closed, his voice vague and dreamy. “Er—what was I saying?”
“Well, first you said ‘No,’ and then you said ‘By the way.’”
“Er—yes—uncommon good dinner you gave us——” He paused again. “Now what the deuce was I going to say? Must have been going to say something. Yes, dates—it was something to do with dessert. Pineapple—no, not pineapple, though I congratulate you on it. You know, as a rule, Peterson, I hold to the heretical opinion that the pineapple out of a one-and-fourpenny tin is immensely superior to the inordinately expensive variety which one encounters at banquets. Now your pineapple, Peterson, was fully the equal of the chap in the tin. But it wasn’t pineapple—I’m digressing—not pineapple, nor peaches, nor pomegranates, nor peppermints. Ginger—yes, that’s better—ginger and cumquats—in fact China. All the world to a China orange—yes, that was undoubtedly it. I mean I was going to ask you whether you’d ever been to China.”
Sir George gazed at him indulgently.
“Once,” he said.
Piggy’s voice sank to a dreamy whisper. “Interesting country, China. You know, I always think that line of Kipling’s about the dawn—lemme see, how does it go?” He began to beat on the arm of his chair and to hum in a perfectly toneless, tuneless voice. “That’s it—I’ve got it! Funny how the tune’ll bring the words back, isn’t it? Ever noticed it yourself?” He beat out the rhythm strongly and declaimed with enthusiasm: “‘The dawn comes up like thunder out of China crost the Bay.’ That’s it! Finest line he ever wrote by a long chalk. Talking of China always brings it back. Varney, now—did you know Varney in China?”
Sir George said “No” in his quiet, casual voice, and then, “I don’t know—I met a lot of people I’ve forgotten. I was out there just after the war, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Ah, music! Who are we going to have? You always give us something pretty good.”
“It’s the Hedroff Quartet. Wonderful artists, I think.”
Sir Julian composed himself to listen, with half-shut eyes and big idle hands. The wild Russian air fell strangely on the ears of comfortable men in peaceful after-dinner mood. It was as if the rare and icy air of the steppes had rushed into the warm, well-lighted room—a savage song, exquisitely sung and ending on a sudden tragic note as sharp as a dagger thrust.
Piggy nodded slowly as the sharp note died.
“Yes, wonderful artists. Wonder what it was all about. I should say they were out to get some one, and that they most undoubtedly got him.”
“How professional!” said Sir George. “And talking about getting people, Piggy, why don’t you gather in the cat burglar, or burglars?”
“That,” said Piggy, “is mere plagiarism from the Evening Scream. They ask that question six times a week.”
The Hedroff Quartet began to sing again, a soft and melancholy lullaby.
When Sir George reached home, he turned into his study and found his secretary still working. After standing for a moment or two looking over his shoulder, Sir George moved to the fire and stood there frowning.
Mr. Paul Craddock finished a letter, put it in an envelope, addressed it, and got up.
“You’re late,” said Sir George.
“I’m just through, sir. Do you want me for anything?”
“No.”
There was a pause. Paul Craddock picked up a sheaf of letters and moved towards the door; but before he had gone a yard, Sir George’s voice arrested him:
“Le Mesurier dined with us to-night.”
Paul Craddock’s eyebrows rose. He turned with the letters in his hand.
“I hope y
ou had a pleasant evening.”
Sir George was still frowning. He put his hand to his chin and said, “He asked me if I knew Varney.”
CHAPTER VI
Mally made Mr. Craddock’s acquaintance at breakfast next morning. Having been implored to hate him, she was naturally a good deal predisposed in his favor. He was taller than most men, and broad-shouldered, but he had a long, thin neck, and a small, rather pear-shaped head upon which the hair was already wearing rather thin. He shaved very clean indeed, and had the brilliantly pink and white complexion which had provided Barbara with a nickname for him. To any one who had once heard it, Pinko he was, and Pinko would remain to the end of the chapter.
“He’s such a comfort to my brother,” said Mrs. Craddock when Paul had gone out. “Such a comfort in every way—and so much nicer than having a stranger in the house, which is always a great trial. Oh, my dear Miss Lee, I do beg your pardon—I do indeed. A most unpardonable thing to say. But I always do say the wrong thing without meaning it. It used to vex my poor husband most dreadfully—he was such a tactful man himself. And it vexes George quite terribly, too. I remember my husband saying to him once——No, I’ve forgotten what he said. I’ve a shocking memory, and it doesn’t really matter. But you will forgive me, won’t you?”
Mally felt quite breathless. She said, “Oh yes, yes,” and fled with Barbara to the chintzy schoolroom, where they did highly amusing and unconventional lessons until it was time to go for a walk. The walk was amusing too, and no real governess would have approved of a single minute of it.
Instead of walking in the Park and combining fresh air and exercise with a lesson in deportment, they strayed down Bond Street, looking at the shops and playing the entrancing game of buying in make-believe all the things they liked best. By the time they had furnished a castle in the air with everything from Crown jewels to chocolates, they were both very hungry.
Barbara, rushing joyously upstairs, bumped into Sir George, coming down.
“Hallo!” he said, and then became aware of Mally just behind. He looked from Barbara to Mally, and back again to Barbara—a Barbara with pink cheeks and eager eyes. “You’re in a great hurry.”
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