Complete Novels of E Nesbit, page 454
“Not when Ulysses is eating out of paper-bags.”
“I wish we’d asked the charlady’s name.”
“Perhaps our charlady would know?”
Their charlady knew a little. She knew why the house was so definitely not to be let, and told them as she compounded a plum cake.
“The gentleman as owns it,” she told the girls, “he don’t live in it ‘cause it’s too big, him being a single man. And he’s rolling in money; he just only let it to keep it from the damp, so to speak. The last tenant, he didn’t mean no harm. He thought the old gentleman would be only too pleased — he did it all at his own expense and looked for thanks, instead of which explosions and Catherine wheels and no renewing the lease. ‘Out you go, my lord,’ and double quick it was. The tenant, he was here to-day and gone tomorrow as the saying is. The old gentleman must have been a holy terror — it takes something to get anybody out of a house, doesn’t it? But he went like a lamb, explaining to the last, with the very cab at the door, that he had only done it to oblige and meant it all for the best. Don’t take the stoned ones, if it’s all the same to you, miss. I shall have to weigh up again.”
“Sorry,” said Lucilla, and left off eating raisins. “But what did he do? What was it he meant all for the best?”
“The paint, miss,” said Mrs. Doveton, beating eggs. “He’d painted the woodwork first rate, three coats.”
“Three coats, and everything handsome about him,” murmured Jane.
“Yes, miss, two flat and one round — and the house needed it, I tell you. Never a bit of paint since it was built, and most of the rooms lined with wood right up — same as doors; black as your hat they was, and he painted them nice bright colours — pink and blue, and a good gas green and a canary yellow; and how was he to know the old gentleman liked ’em all black and crocked? He hated paint, he did — same as you and me might hate dirt. Well, it was no use talking. There it was, and there it is. And that’s why he won’t let the house no more.”
When they were back in the little sitting-room with the lustres and the beaded fire-screen, Lucilla said:
“I don’t want to be mingy, but do you think we ought to have cake — with all those raisins and so many eggs? I hate to say it, but oughtn’t we to economise?”
“No,” said Jane firmly, “that’s the one thing we won’t do. You can’t have a lark of any sort if you’re always counting the halfpence. We won’t spend more than we’re obliged — that’s not economy — it’s just common sense. And we’ll make as much money as we can. That’s the way to get on in life. Not by saving, but by making. Let’s get some oranges and make some marmalade, and when people come for flowers and we haven’t got any we’ll sell them marmalade instead. There are heaps of jampots on the top shelf in the china cupboard.”
They made fifty-six pounds. It was hot work, but printing the labels with pretty letters was fun. And, sure enough, they sold every pot. And could have sold them twice over.
“Do you think we sold it too cheap?” they asked Mrs. Doveton.
“Lord love you, no! “ she said. “It’s good marmalade, and besides, there’s the novelty; the boys enjoy buying it off you two sweet young ladies with no hats and their hair blowing in their eyes. Why wouldn’t they buy it? Lucky to get it, I say.”
“But we can’t live on what we make out of the marmalade, and there aren’t half enough flowers,” Lucilla would say. And Jane would say:
“Oh, if we only could have the House! I say — let’s go and look at it.
And then they would go and look and look and long and love it through its iron railings, and desire passionately the right to gather and sell the flowers that budded and bloomed and withered before their eyes out of reach — out of reach.
“If we were born fortunate,” said Lucilla, “ we should catch the charlady here on one of her cleaning days, and bribe her, and then...”
“We are born fortunate,” Jane insisted. “That’s what you don’t seem to see. We are. Our star would make Napoleon’s look small. When did two girls of our age have such a chance as we’ve got — to have a lark entirely on our own? No chaperon, no rules, no...”
“No present income or future prospects,” said Lucilla.
“No slavery!” cried Jane.
Every day they went down to the House. And (“We were born fortunate, I told you so!” whispered Jane) at last came the day when a change in lines and angles smote their eyes. One of the big gates was ajar. Going down the road was a retreating figure, stout, charlady like, bearing a basket and a jug.
“We can get into the garden,” breathed Lucilla, and on the tip-toes of conspirators, with the haste of hunted rabbits, they stole through the iron gates and up the weedy drive.
“We can get into the house.” said Jane, catching Lucilla’s hand. And indeed, beyond the wide, moss-green semi-circle of the front door steps the front door showed two dark inches beyond itself.
Jane ran up the steps and pushed the heavy, sombre Georgian door, which swung back, revealing a dark hall — marble-floored. Tall portraits loomed from the walls The dusky distance gave hints of shallow stairs and broad, wooden balustrade. Close by the door stood pail and scrubbing-brush. And most of the floor was clean and damp.
“Oh, Jane — don’t, she’ll be back directly!”
“She won’t be back for half an hour. And if she does come back she can’t kill us. Come in — come in, I tell you! You outside and the door open are enough to give us away to the whole neighbourhood. Come in and don’t upset the pail. Now close the door. I say, it’s jolly dark! Where are you?”
“Of course it’s dark, all the shutters are shut!” said Lucilla impatiently.
“Hold on, there’s a crack of light there!”
There was. Jane pushed a door and the crack broadened to a parallelogram of soft yellow light. It came, they saw, from a candle burning on the long table of a noble kitchen, oak raftered, wide hearthed. —
“What a dream of a place!” said Jane. “Come on, let’s explore.”
“Better not,” said Lucilla. “This will land us in trouble.
I feel it in my bones.”
“It’s the adventure of our lives,” said Jane. “Come on,” and she caught at the candle.
“I should only like to know,” Lucilla protested, “whether it’s burglary or just housebreaking.”
“It’s neither,” Jane told her, throwing open a door at the other end of the hall. “ It’s what they call a youthful indiscretion. This is the drawing-room — it’s at the back; let’s open the shutters and have a peep.”
The shutters creaked back and the spring sunshine flooded the room. The furniture was mellowed and faded in a perfect harmony, but its walls were a vivid, heartless pink.
“Like cheap sweets,” Lucilla gasped. “Shut it up again, do.”
They found the dining-room, and perceived it to be furnished, but one could not see the furniture for the walls. Their colour was a fierce full blue.
“Poor old gentleman, I really don’t blame him. But he might have got the walls scraped. Now let’s get out before she comes back. You see it’s miles too big for us — we couldn’t afford it even if he’d let it. Oh, Jane, don’t be an ass — do let’s get out of it!”
“Not till I’ve seen all over it”; and Jane led the way up the dark, shallow stairs. “There must be any number of rooms up here.”
There were — and all were furnished and all were dark, not a window but was close shuttered or boarded up. The two girls saw as much of the house as a candle carried hastily through room after darkened room can show.
“I love it, I love it!” Jane said at each new hint of curtain or panel. “I love it all.”
“Hopelessly,” said Lucilla. “I never thought you’d be one to love in vain. But we haven’t seen the yellow-painted room yet.”
They found it — a round room, opening out of the drawingroom — and its yellow was even as the yellow of mustard.
“But look at the shape of it,” said Jane; “the lovely little book-cases rounded to the shape of the room — no books though, Luce. I’m going to put on my very nicest hat and go and call on that old gentleman.”
“Vous en serez pour vos frais,” said Lucilla.
“What? Oh, I know, French idiotisms. How it brings it all back! Like yesterday. Whereas it is really to-day. All right, we’ll go now.”
They carried the candle down and replaced it on the kitchen table and moved to the front door. Jane opened it cautiously, and instantly, with desperate caution, closed it again.
“There’s a man coming up the drive!” she said, and at once the instinct of flight caught at them both. Noiseless flying feet skimmed the stairs; they clung together on the landing. Then Lucilla pulled her friend into a dark cupboard.
“Hush!” she whispered, quite unnecessarily. “It’s a man — he’ll think we’re burglars. Be quiet.”
“Be quiet yourself,” said Jane intensely. And they held their breath, listening.
Firm footsteps sounded below — of feet that said at every step, “Why should I go quietly? I have every right to be here.”
“How different!” thought Jane, comparing his footsteps with their own light, terror-stricken escalade.
Then there were voices. A woman’s voice. A man’s voice. One excusing, the other reproaching. The clink of a pail’s handle against a pail. More words, but undistinguishable. “Let me go — I want to listen; he’s scolding her for leaving the door open,” said Jane, struggling in Lucilla’s grasp.
“No, no, no, no!” said Lucilla fervently. “He’ll come up here to see that no burglars have got in.”
“Better be found on the landing than hiding in a cupboard. I won’t be made a fool of — let go!”
But Lucilla did not let go.
“Oh, don’t!” she said. “It would be hateful if we were sent to prison — if he thought we were thieves.”
“It would be trying, certainly,” Jane answered. “ Listen!”
They listened. All was silent. And then, suddenly, echoing through the great empty house came the heavy bang of a door. The front door. Footsteps on gravel. Silence.
“There,” said Jane, “now you’ve done it! What absolute asses we are!...”
“Well, thank goodness you haven’t,” said Lucilla. “ We’re not branded as burglars, anyhow.”
“A was an absolute ass, B was a branded burglar,” said Jane, pushing open the cupboard door. “And now we’ve to get out somehow.”
“Does it occur to you,” said Lucilla sweetly, “that their going away may be a ruse? They may be watching the house.”
“My hat!” said Jane briefly. And stood stock still.
“I think we ought to wait a little, don’t you?”
“We ought to get out of it,” Jane insisted. “If we’re caught in the garden it’s nothing to being caught in the house.
There must be a window somewhere that we can get out by,” Holding each other, still in nervous tenseness, they stole out into the gallery — dark, dark, very dark. But at the long gallery’s end green light showed, a small square window, almost covered with ivy, but not shuttered.
“Lets,” said Jane. “Oh, what was that?”
“That” was a sound in the house below, very faint but very distinct. The creaking of a board that is trodden on.
“It’s the stairs,” whispered Jane. “Fly — under that window. It’s always darkest under the lamp.”
“I can’t fly,” said Lucilla. “I put my bag down on the shelf of that cupboard. You fly. I’ll get it.”
Jane fled — and Lucilla, returning as in a flash with the bag, was just in time to hear a scrambling clatter-crash, and to see Jane’s head, a moment ago clear between her and the window, disappear suddenly. She was also just in time to save herself from the black treachery of the stairs down which Jane had fallen.
She felt her way down the stairs to meet a small whisper. “Don’t walk on me — I can’t move.”
She reached down and touched a shoulder. Jane was lying in a crumpled bunch at the foot of the stairs. Lucilla got past her and crouched by her side.
“Are you much hurt? Have you broken anything?”
“You said it would land us! You felt it in your bones. Well — I’ve landed! And I feel it in mine! I didn’t scream, did I?”
“You might just as well have done. You made a noise like a factory chimney coming down.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Jane, “it shows that creaking board was only rats or mice or owls or something. Anything human would have been on to us like a shot. Look here, old angel. I don’t want to make a fuss — but I think I’ve broken my leg. And I don’t quite see how we’re going to get out of this.”
“If we only had a light!” moaned Lucilla.
“Just so,” said Jane. “You’ll have to go and get the candle. There are matches in the candlestick. Feel your way carefully. It’s perfectly straight from the top of these hateful stairs to the top of the other ones. Then the kitchen’s the first door on the left. And the table’s right before you.”
“All right,” said Lucilla. “Can’t I do anything before I go? To make you more comfortable, I mean — lift you, or anything?”
“For pity’s sake don’t try to lift me,” said Jane; “ that really would be the last straw. At least, I mean I feel safer where I am. There may be another flight of stairs, or a well, or an oubliette.”
“Oh, Jane — this is awful!”
“Nonsense!” said Jane bravely. “It’s an adventure; but I can’t really enjoy it till we get a light. Does my leg hurt? Yes — it hurts damnably.”
“Oh, Jane!” said Lucilla.
“Damn damnably,” said Jane with firmness. “Oh, go and get that candle, do. I wish you’d fallen down instead of me. I should have gone straight for the candle. At least, of course, I don’t wish it was you — but go, go, go!”
Lucilla went. And Jane, alone in the darkness, set her teeth and cautiously felt her ankle; she could not find any pointed bits sticking through her stocking, which was, she supposed, the attitude a broken bone would take up. But she could find pain, pain, and more pain, at every touch of her finger-tips.
What a very long time it did take some people to go up one flight of stairs and down another and come back with a candle! She leaned her head back against the wall at the stair-foot and strained her eyes at the dark cavity of the staircase above her. No light — only the faint, false, green gleam of the ivy-masked window that had betrayed her. No light — no sound of returning footsteps. Only darkness and silence.
Then suddenly, cutting the darkness like a knife, a wild shriek echoed through the hollow emptiness of that closed house. Then silence again. Silence and darkness.
CHAPTER V
IT is pleasant to be able to record that Jane, alone in the dark with a wildly painful ankle at the foot of the stairs down which she had just pitched head first, on hearing that scream and knowing all too well the accents of Lucilla in terror, did, in spite of the pain and the ankle and the darkness, hoist herself on hands and one knee, the other foot dragging red-hot behind her, to the top of the stairs. Just so, and not otherwise, had Lucilla screamed one night at school when Daisy Simmons, the school’s incomparable ninny, had put a sheet over her head and pretended to be a ghost, gliding up to a sponge-and-towel-laden Lucilla coming all glowing and fearless from the bathroom. After that Lucilla had fainted. Suppose she fainted now — alone in that dark house? The thought was enough to nerve our Jane to effort. But at the top of the stairs the most extraordinary sensation caught her. A curious feeling like flying — a creeping sensation at the back of the neck — a fancy that the ivy-green window was going round slowly but indubitably — these warned her. She sat down on the top step and shut her eyes.
“If you think,” she spoke silently to the universe, “if you think that I’m going to faint, I’m not. I must find out what has happened to Lucy. I shall shut my eyes and go on in a minute.” So she shut her eyes. But she did not go on.
What had happened to Lucilla is soon told. With her heart, as they say, in her mouth, she climbed the steep stairs, went along the corridor, and, feeling her way, went more slowly, though she did not mean to go more slowly, down the wide, shallow steps of the front staircase.
“The first door to the left,” she kept saying to herself. “The first door to the left.”
And so reached the lowest step, turned to the left, felt for the door and pushed it open. And, even as she did so, something leaped at her. Before she knew whether she was assailed by the claws of a wild beast, or merely by the iron arm of the law, she found her two wrists clasped. By hands, not by fangs, she noted, after she had sent that one wild scream echoing through the house.
She felt her left wrist transferred to the same strong fingers that held her right, and a low voice said: “Don’t scream — it’s no use. Come along,” and she was being urged, quite gently, towards the front door.
With his free right hand her captor opened the door, and the bright spring sunshine struck at her eyes, blindingly. She closed them — and before she could open them again she felt that her wrists were released. She opened her eyes and found herself on the moss-greened door-step, leaning against the heavy doorpost, trembling, shivering, decontrolled, and facing her, very deeply and obviously discountenanced, a young man — a handsome young man — the very exactly and beyond any doubt same young man who had thrust himself among the remnants of their arbour breakfast to ask the way to Leabridge.
“Well,” he said slowly, “ I’m...”
“I know you are,” said Lucilla breathlessly. “Of course you would be, but we’re not burglars. We’re just... well, you remember we had breakfast at the Rose and Crown?”
“Yes,” said he, and as she seemed to advance, so he seemed to accept, this certificate of respectability.
“But why?;..” he asked. “How?... Are you,” he added, breathing more freely in the clear air of a sudden enlightenment, “a party with an order to view?”
