Complete Novels of E Nesbit, page 473
“She will be home quite soon now,” she said, and rose. The abhorred knitting fell to the ground, and at least half the party stooped, or partly stooped, to restore it. Lucilla folded it resolutely and secured it with a bright knitting-needle.
“I have to keep early hours,” she said gently. “ But you mustn’t let me break up the evening. And don’t be afraid of disturbing me by music. I love music, and it will soothe me to sleep. Good-night — good-night.”
She passed, stooping and slow, through the door, which five men sprang forward to open. And she felt that at least three sighs of relief were breathed when the door closed behind her. Like to like. Now they were all young together. Well, she was young too — really.
Assured that Forbes and Stanley were safely in the kitchen, she sprang up the stairs two at a time, locked her door, tore off wig and eyebrows, and dressed with feverish speed. Excitement, annoyance, and the hasty and earnest removal of paint from her face gave her a colour she usually lacked. Her hair, dressed with extreme celerity, was suddenly kind, as your hair is now and then when you have not time to do it properly and bundle it up anyhow. It went exactly as it should have gone. The mignonette silk gown took cm a new charm from the carnation of her cheeks, and when, twenty minutes after the retirement of Miss Lucas, a rather breathless Lucilla entered the drawing-room, she was handsomer than he had ever been in her life. She knew this when she came face to face with herself in the cupid-and-ribbon mirror, and at once became handsomer still.
“Oh, here you are! “ said Jane. “I’m so glad. I was just saying that I can’t sing much, but you sing like a bird.”
“Don’t believe her,” said Lucilla gaily; “she sings all right. But I’ve no breath left for singing, I had to hurry. To catch a train,” she added, looking straight at Jane. And her look said, “That lie is chalked up to you, not to me. It is your fault, not mine, that I am forced to be so untruthful.”
But presently she was not too breathless to sing, and she sang folk-songs, because Mrs. Thornton had sung drawingroom ballads about rosebuds and stars. And now there was no lack of interest — even before she sang. After her first song she was the centre of all things. Then she sang “La dove prenda” with Mr. Thornton, and it went very well; then there were more duets and more solos; and then songs with choruses, old favourites of Jane’s and Lucilla’s, which the Thorntons also delightfully knew and liked, and altogether it was half-past eleven before they knew where they were.
Only Miss Antrobus, who had not much voice, asked — after “Outward Bound” it was — whether they were quite sure Miss Lucas would not be disturbed by such very robust vocalisation.
“Oh no, she loves it,” said Lucilla shamelessly. “Auntie is wonderfully fond of old songs. I often sing them to her just to please her when we are alone. But I hope you’re not bored?”
“Oh no,” Miss Antrobus assured her. “I’m most interested, I assure you.”
This time Lucilla did not desire to hug Miss Antrobus. There was a hint of something. Patronage? Criticism? Suspicion? Antagonism? No, none of these exactly. Yet Lucilla was conscious of something inimical.
“But if she’s really fond of John Rochester that accounts,” Lucilla told herself, and turned to accede to a request from Mr. Tombs for “My Lady Greensleeves.”
“Lucilla is like Sophy Traddles,” said Jane. “She knows all the old songs that ever were invented.”
“My aunt, Miss Lucas, has a mine of them,” said Lucilla, “and my taste is hers,” and she began the charming old melody.
It was a most successful evening, and when it was over Jane and Lucilla fell into each other’s arms in a passion of mutual congratulation.
“Aren’t they dears? Even Miss Antrobus isn’t so bad. And don’t you think Mr. Tombs really has a nice face?”
“Nice face, nice voice, nice manners, nice straight back, nice hands.”
“But did you notice Mr. Thornton’s hands? Those long, delicate fingers? He’s an artist every inch.”
“He’s the one who plays the violin. The others are ‘cello and double bass. How frightfully lucky we are! What times we shall have!”
“Yes,” said Jane pensively.
“And they’re all fond of dancing.”
“Yes.” Jane had become still more pensive and was rolling and unrolling the ribbon of her girdle with a preoccupied little frown.
“And they all like acting.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t keep saying ‘Yes,’” said Lucilla, beginning to pull out hairpins. “What do you think of Miss Antrobus?”
“I don’t know. She is the one I don’t feel sure about. She’s the fly in the amber, or the toad in the ointment, or whatever it is. She didn’t seem to fit in somehow.”
“Mr. Rochester seemed to like her.”
“Yes,” said Jane, “but not desperately, do you think?”
“No, it’s not a passionate affair. Friend of childhood’s hour, and so on, so Mamma Rochester said.”
“What do you mean by ‘affair’?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Lucilla asked, brushing vigorously. “Mamma Rochester hinted all sorts of things...” Lucilla stopped. Through the double curtain of her hair she had seen, in the mirror, Jane’s face.
Ought she to have gone on? To have told Jane all that Mrs. Rochester had said? Anyhow, she didn’t. And anyhow, it did not matter, because Jane had heard every word through the library door. Why did not Jane tell Lucilla that she had listened to Mrs. Rochester’s poisonous confidences? It was not that she was ashamed of listening. When she began to listen she pictured herself telling Lucilla afterwards and laughing over it with her. But she had not told her. And she did not tell her now. Instead she said: “What sort of things?”
“Oh, the usual stuff that sort of woman would hint: that we needn’t hope that my Lord Rochester would throw the handkerchief to either of us, because his mamma had other views for him.”
“What did she say exactly?”
“Oh, nothing exactly. But I gathered that Mamma would be quite pleased if Mr. Rochester didn’t admire Jane or Lucy.’
“So Miss Antrobus is sent here to spy? I thought there was something of that sort. That must be what makes one feel uncomfortable with her.”
“Oh, but I don’t think that,” said Lucilla, forgetting that she had felt something very like it, and only remembering that Miss Antrobus had been nice to the unreal aunt. “I think she’s a kind girl really, and straight.”
“She’s come to spy out the land,” said Jane with conviction. “Well, she’s welcome to all she can find out. Goodnight, Luce.”
But she re-opened the door expressly to put her head round it and whisper: “I say, Luce, eight people! Enough for the Lancers. And four of them Pigs — beautiful, fat, profitable Pigs! Seventeen-guineas-a-week Pigs, Luce, my dear! Goodnight!”
There is no doubt that fortune smiles on the brave; at any rate, it smiled broadly from the first on Jane and Lucilla. Even their misfortunes were mitigated. Their trustee defaulted: but he left them a house and garden and a nest-egg. The house and garden was too small to make money out of: but at once, almost, Cedar Court loomed on a not distant horizon. Jane tumbled downstairs: but she, so to speak, tumbled into possession of the garden room.
They could not afford an expert gardener and bailiff: and Destiny took them to Madame Tussauds, and behold, embodied in Mr. Dix, the perfect bailiff and gardener. Old Mr. Rochester threatened to become an embarrassment: and at once he retired to Thibet.
They had no servant really attached to their interests: but before they had time to feel this deeply, behold Gladys. They desired competent servants: and Forbes and Stanley were added to their staff. Mrs. Adela Dadd happened: but then so, directly afterwards, did Mrs. Doveton. The three greedy sisters went away without paying: but they were succeeded by the Thorntons and by Mr. Tombs, who did pay.
This sort of luck does, beyond doubt, attend on some people, and it transcends all other blessings. That is why we say, “It is better to be lucky than rich.” Caesar had this sort of luck; Napoleon had it; Jane and Lucy had it. But this sort of luck is a bridge that sooner or later gives way. Napoleon met Blucher at Waterloo; Caesar, even at the base of Pompey’s statue, met a greater than Blucher; and Jane and Lucy felt, almost from the first, that in Miss Antrobus they had met a personality that, as gipsies would say, “crossed their luck.”
A vague but undeniable sense of uneasiness persisted in and through and under and over the pleasant days that now followed each other at Cedar Court. It was not a strong feeling, not an overpowering discomfort; it did not destroy pleasure, but it leavened it. Quietly, persistently, unceasingly it bored its way into everything. It was like a slight toothache which the will may decide to ignore but which goes on all the same in that hinterland of the subconscious where the will has no sovereignty.
The thing could not be put into words. It was as elusive as a bird’s song or a flower-scent. All you could say about it was that it was here, and that it was antagonistic. It was not that Miss Antrobus withdrew herself from the gaieties of Cedar Court: on the contrary, she participated in every single one. She did not sing, but she could play accompaniments; she was a poor actress, but a good prompter and an excellent audience; her time was always at anyone’s disposal, and she had all the time there was. She had too much time — she was always there. She never went to London. She never walked out, except in the garden. She was always amiable and obliging — but she was always there. And she seemed to be always looking on.
“And she looks on through a spy-glass,” said Jane: “a tortoiseshell lorgnette or whatever it is, like Mrs. Rochester had. Or perhaps she looks at us through a microscope, as if we were beetles or those things with legs that come out of pond-water.”
“She doesn’t look at Miss Lucas like that,” said Lucilla. “No,” said Jane, “that’s the worst of it. She’s a great deal too nice to Miss Lucas. It’s not natural. She asks after her every morning. She offers to go and sit with her — to read to her — take her out for drives.”
“That’s easy for you; you’ve only got to say I’m not strong enough. But when she comes and sits beside me in the evenings and offers to hold my wool, and tells me she’s sure I should enjoy a drive, and is so nice and kind — well, if it’s genuine she’s a dear, but if it’s only that she suspects that I’m not really an aunt, then — well...”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Jane. “That dreadful aunt is our weak point. She’s the dead secret, the skeleton in the cupboard. If it wasn’t for her we could defy fifty Miss Antrobuses.”
“But as it is,” Lucilla pointed out, “we can’t.”
“What a name too! Antrobus! It makes me think of a mediaeval engine of war. Halberds and battering-rams and Antrobuses — I’m sure I’ve read that somewhere.”
“I always thought all Antrobuses had big, hooky noses. You know, noses that snort at you, and say, ‘Ha, ha!’ like the war-horse. But really I believe she’s all right. It’s only our guilty consciences. And Mr. Rochester says she’s much jollier than she used to be.”
“And as she was the friend of his childhood he must have thought her pretty nice then. So that by now...!”
“I didn’t take it that way. What he said was that the war had been the making of her, and he’d never thought she had so much stuff in her. That doesn’t sound very — very...”
“No — does it? I don’t think the noble lord will throw the handkerchief to a girl he never thought had so much in her, do you?”
“He’s very nice to her,” said Jane.
“Yes,” said the diplomatic Lucilla, “too nice for it to mean anything.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “It’s as if he was saying all the time, ‘I’ll be a brother to you — I really will.’ If there was anything there’d be more ups and downs.”
“I don’t know how you know,” said Lucilla.
“Perhaps I don’t. But you must remember I was adored once too, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek.”
“Oh, when?” cried Lucilla eagerly.
“In a former state of existence,” said Jane. “All girls must have been. That’s how they know so much about love-affairs before they ever have one. Look here — let’s do something new and different. Let’s have a prize competition.”
“Like anagram teas?”
“Yes, but not anagrams. We’ll have a prize for the best solution of the problem of how to get rid of Othello — he’s always getting out of the hutch and eating Mr. Dix’s choicest fruits and flowers; and a prize for the best poem about Cedar Court; and for the best way of getting the silver out from behind that fireplace without taking the whole thing out, because the mantelpiece is built all round it. And another prize—”
A discreet tap at the door stopped her.
“Please, miss,” said Mrs. Doveton, “might I have a word with you?... No, don’t go, Miss Jane. I want to have—”
“Not words with us?” said Jane.
“No, miss, far from it; but I do want to speak plainly.”
“Oh dear,” said Jane, “whatever has gone wrong now?”
“It’s that Gladys,” said Mrs. Doveton; “so now you know.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
“THAT girl,” said Mrs. Doveton, “she’s an epidemic.”
“?” said Jane and Lucilla.
“An epidemic, miss — she’s catching, like measles and whooping-cough. She catches every man she comes near, and the more the merrier, so she thinks.” Mrs. Doveton breathed heavily.
“Sit down and tell us all about it,” Lucilla said comfortably, and a green velvet armchair creaked to Mrs. Doveton’s acceptance of the invitation.
“There aren’t no bounds to her,” Mrs. Doveton went on. “There’s Mr. Simmons, he’s hooked all right; and there’s the butcher’s young man — she was out with him Tuesday week; and the very boy that brings the daily papers, she stopped him in the shrubbery to ask him riddles.”
“Well, there’s no harm in that,” said Jane. “Some people think riddles amusing. I don’t myself, but some people do.”
“Some riddles is all right, like ‘ Why is Westminster Abbey like the fender? and ‘Why is a hen crossing the road like Guy Fox?’ But when it comes to asking him what animal falls down from the clouds — well!”
“What animal does? I didn’t know any animal did,” said Lucilla.
“That’s what the young boy said, miss. And then that Gladys, she says, ‘Don’t know what animal falls from the clouds? Why, the reindeer.’ See, miss? — the rain-Dear. Just an excuse for calling the very paper boy ‘Dear.’ And chucks him under the chin, she does, and asks him whether he ain’t looking for a sweetheart.”
“It’s very silly of Gladys,” said Lucilla, trying not to smile. “I’ll speak to her.”
But Jane laughed and said: “It’s very funny, don’t you think? But, dear Mrs. Doveton, why should it upset you?”
“It’s not respectable, miss, that’s why. I never see such a gell. Asks the postman what his young lady’s name is, just to find out if he’s got one, because, if not, here’s Gladys all ready and willing.”
“I suppose the postman can take care of himself,” said Lucilla.
“Let’s hope so, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Doveton gloomily, beating the palm of her hand on the arm of her chair; “but there’s them as can’t. The girl’s like a raging lion going to and fro seeking who she may walk out with.”
“I thought it was Simmons,” said Jane.
“So it was, and is, and ought to be,” said Mrs. Doveton earnestly. “He’s a sober, solid man that won’t hurt to have his head turned for a week or two, but, once married, he’ll be master. But meantime here’s the gell going this way and that, and bursting out here, there and everywhere like a November cracker. And there’s no knowing who’ll be hurt before she’s pinned down for good and the sauce knocked out of her.”
“I don’t suppose the postman—” Lucilla began, but Mrs. Doveton went on unregarding.
“Young gells like her ought to be put in homes, or labelled ‘Dangerous.’ She doesn’t stick at anything. She’s been writing to my Herb. Yes, Miss Jane, well may you look! I thought it was his receipt from the Polytechnic and I opened it, little thinking. And it was to thank him ever so for the lovely chocs., and ‘Friday evening, same time and place,’ and ‘So long, old dear,’ and seventeen crosses in blue ink.” Mrs.
Doveton sobbed and dabbed her eyes with a blue-chequered duster.
“And I’ve got no hold over the girl. Herbert I can control, or could. But not Gladys. Nobody can. Show her a young man and she’s off like a spider after a fly — or more like a dog after a rabbit, for there’s no sitting quiet and watching about her.”
“But if she’s fond of Herbert and he’s fond of her?....”
“Bless you,” said Mrs. Doveton, “she ain’t fond of anybody. It amuses her to see ’em jigging on the end of a string. But my Herbert’s a serious young man, and he looks to better himself and rise in life, and then she butts in and spoils everything for him and does herself no good. It’s for all the world like a mouse falling into a pan of cream — no benefit to any of the parties concerned.”
“All right,” said Jane, “you speak to Herbert and I’ll speak to Gladys.”
“I’ve spoke to Herb,” said Herbert’s mother, “and he says not to interfere, and I don’t know what roseate hues of early dawn a true woman can cast over a young man’s life. Lor’,” said Mrs. Doveton in a burst of exasperation, I wish all young gells could be married and put out of the way the minute they leave school. A gell ought to be married young. It’s best for her — keeps her out of mischief — and she soon gets two or three little weights hanging on to her apron-strings to keep her steady. Young gells is best married.’
