Gaston that brought the tears down his swollen cheeks. So that Gaston, moved to pity, and forgetting that he was not amongst his own French comrades, instead of shaking hands with Hubert in due form, ran forward, impulsively, like a thorough French boy, and, throwing his arms round the vanquished’s neck, kissed him warmly on each cheek.
This action, so natural to Gaston, was greeted with a general howl of disgust from the on-lookers.
“Oh, I say, shut up, Mamselle Gaston!”
“Oh, you awful French frog!”
“Oh, drop your beastly slobbering, do!”
These, and various other exclamations, couched in more direct, and less poetical terms, were hissed and hurled at poor Gaston for full three minutes, before he realised the nature of his offence.
“Now, I say, you fellows,” sneered Andrew, “I think he’ll be ‘Mamselle Gaston’ for the rest of his natural life; fancy any decent fellow behaving in such a way.”
“Yes, really you French boys must be awful muffs,” said Phil.
“Of course they are,” said Andrew, spitefully, “and Gaston is the king of muffs, eh, mamselle?”
For a moment Gaston stood quite still, looking down without uttering a word. He was abased, but not ashamed, and, strange as it may seem, the feeling that he was abased in Andrew’s sight acted as a stimulus to his self-love.
As some horses, at the touch of the spur, make straight for the winning-post, so Gaston, in that moment of humiliation—a humiliation which was all the more bitter, because it had trodden so quickly on the heels of his short-lived triumph—Gaston vowed within himself, that come what might, he would show Andrew yet that the “king of muffs” was less of a “mamselle” than himself.
“Well, are we all going to stand here till midnight?” asked Phil, presently. “Here, Hubert, shut up bellowing, and thank Gaston for making a man of you, by giving you your first black eye. My goodness, how the girls will stare when they see it.”
“Yes, let’s come on to the Common now,” said Jack; “you can come too, Gaston, if you’ll promise not to slobber me,” and Jack made a very comical grimace.
Without answering, Gaston turned away, disappearing into the orchard, where Phoena ran up against him, some twenty minutes later. Believing that he would be safe there, Gaston had had a hearty cry, but at sight of Phoena, he had fled through the orchard hedge to the copse beyond. Flinging himself down there, amongst the tall, thick bracken, Gaston had sobbed and muttered, muttered and sobbed, in a fashion quite peculiar to himself.
Poor little lonely creature. He was very like a fledgeling, pushed suddenly over the edge of his nest, with no parent bird to teach him that he had wings, much less how to use them.
“Oh, maman, maman, ma mère, ma mère!” he cried, and even as the echo of his bitter cry came back to him, borne on the still summer afternoon breeze, there came with it another sound, a sound of words spoken long, long ago. “Pray, pray, my child, never forget to pray, and your good angel will carry your prayers to Him Who cares for the little children.” And, kneeling upright, amidst the high bracken, Gaston, who never forgot to say the prayers that his mother had taught him, crossed himself reverently, as was his wont, and poured out the sorrows of his heavy heart, praying to be made brave.
But why, oh! why, he wondered, rising from his knees, had the good God seen fit to make him that strange and terrible thing, a French boy?
OF course, Hubert’s black eye created an immense sensation, not only amongst his immediate circle, but throughout the whole establishment, from old Mr. Busson down to the smallest boy-labourer on the farm.
If the whole constitution of France had been represented in Gaston’s small person, and if the quarrel with Hubert had assumed properties of international warfare, racial feeling could not have run higher in the worthy rustic’s breast.
“A pretty joke indeed!” they declared, “to have that young Frenchy knocking one of our little gentlemen about.”
And what a fuss Mrs. Busson made over the injured hero; whilst Ruth was careful to remark within Gaston’s hearing, that it was a great mercy that Master Hubert’s eye had been not hurt, for folks got sent to prison and kept there for less than that very often.
Hubert himself made no fuss at all. He was so delighted to possess anything so entirely un-nurserylike as a black eye, that he obstinately refused all Mrs. Busson’s offers of raw beef applications for the purpose of abating the swelling; and when he discovered that the “pomade divine” with which Fay had promptly anointed his temple, was supposed to reduce the discolouration of the bruises, he scrubbed it off with more energy than he had ever bestowed on his face before.
“But Hubert, didn’t it hurt you dreffully?” asked Marygold.
“Nothing to matter,” he said, “but of course you girls don’t under—”
“Oh! no,” began Andrew, teasingly, “it wasn’t the black eye that he minded, was it, Hubert. It was—”
“You’re not to say it,” shouted Hubert, crimson with rage. Andrew had jeered him so unmercifully all the morning, for having been slobbered like a nice little baby-girl, that he was in absolute terror lest Di should hear of it, for Diana’s teasing was quite as merciless as the boys’.
“If you say one word,” cried Hubert, swelling with rage, “I’ll ki—”
“Yes, shut up, Andrew,” interposed Jack. “It’s a shame to rag the poor chap, any more.”
And so, though at intervals during the day, Andrew dropped mysterious hints anent some still deeper disgrace that had befallen Hubert at Gaston’s hands, just for the sake of “getting a rise” out of Hubert, the girls never discovered the nature of poor Gaston’s further delinquency.
“Well, I don’t care,” said Di, standing in the doorway between her own room and Faith’s, “I always did think Gaston was a horrid little wretch, and now I’m sure of it. He must have done something horribly bad, for Jack said he’d never have forgiven him, if he’d been Hubert.”
“I’m afraid he did,” said Phoena, reluctantly, “but I’m quite sure, it could not have been all Gaston’s fault.”
“Well, it’s quite clear,” said Fay, with the uncompromising finality of early youth, “Gaston isn’t fit to play with our boys, we’ve tried to make the best of him, because he was an orphan and all that, but he has behaved like a little savage, and the less we have to do with him the better.”
But Marygold, who had been put to bed full an hour ago, and was supposed by her elders to be sound asleep, hid her face against the pillow and cried softly. “Oh! dear Father in Heaven,” she prayed, “be kind to poor Gaston, he is such a werry sad little boy.”
The same thought came to soften Mrs. Busson’s heart,—very little was needed to do that,—as according to custom, she took a last look at Gaston, lying in his bed in the little room next her own.
“Poor little dear,” she said, looking down at the small thin face as it lay with closed eyes on the pillow, and carefully shading her light with her hand, that its reflection might not disturb him, “It’s a good little face, that it is, and it isn’t his fault that he was not born a nice English boy like the rest. It is a pity, to be sure, that he’s got to grow up into one of those Frenchmen. Well, I’m glad at any rate, that he’s sleeping so quiet.”
And Mrs. Busson crept away noiselessly to her own room.
Good soul! She little guessed that her softly spoken words had added the last drop of bitterness to Gaston’s already over-full cup. The lids that she had fancied were fast shut over Gaston’s eyes were quivering with wakefulness, and on the ears which she believed to be securely closed in sleep, every word of her mutterings fell clear and distinct.
From that day forward, there was a marked change in the relations between Gaston and the other boys. Whenever they invited him to join in their games and expeditions, he went with them, but more often than not they forgot all about him, and the girls never reminded them.
“I’m quite sure for all concerned that it’s much better for Gaston to be left to himself,” Fay ruled; “he adds neither to his own nor to others’ happiness by playing with them.”
“No, Hubert’s face testifies to that,” said Di.
And so even before the injured eye had gone through the various stages of discolouration, Gaston had drifted so far away from his fellow knights that, as Andrew said loftily, “there was no need to degrade him formally as he had had the good sense to retire practically.”
“Nonsense,” cried Phoena, who was in no such hurry to consign Gaston to the rank of a hopeless miscreant, “so long as none of you can show cause why he should be turned out, and I suppose none of you can?”
“Oh! rather not!” cried Jack, “poor beggar, why should he be turned out?”
“Very well, then, so long as we don’t turn him out, he remains a knight of course, and perhaps some day he will do something grand, that will surprise us all.”
“It’s very certain to be a surprise, whenever it does come,” said Di. Marygold however stole away to the orchard, making for the deep, dry ditch, whence Gaston had emerged on the first occasion of their meeting. It had become once more his favourite refuge, only Marygold always found him now, with his old lesson books open on his knee, trying hard to learn those tasks which, at the eleventh hour, he remembered that “Maman” had told him must be learnt, if he meant to grow up a wise man.
“Gaston,” said Marygold, creeping down to sit beside him in the ditch, “they’ve all been talking about you in the wood, and they say that you are a knight still, just the same as ever you were. And Phoena says, she believes that you will do something ever so grand and brave some day, that will astonish us all.”
But Gaston shook his head.
“Ah! no, that will never be,” he said, “because, because, there is, I know not what—but no one here can understand,” he added, helplessly.
“Oh! but they will understand, we shall all understand,” rejoined Marygold, eagerly, “and you mustn’t look so sad, poor dear Gaston, because it makes me feel so sad for you too.”
“Ah! you are good for me, Marygold,” he said, and a gleam set all his face alight, “you are very good.”
“But I pity you so, poor Gaston, because it’s not your fault that you are a little French boy,” said Marygold. “Oh! Gaston, where are you going so fast? Don’t run away.”
Gaston had started up as if he had been suddenly stung, and scrambled over the hedge. Nor did he return for all Marygold’s beseeching.
“No, it is done; I have finished with them,” he muttered. His eyes were dry, but his spirit had never been so sore, “even she says it now, even Marygold!”
“LIBBIE, what is that funny noise that we hear up here? It always seems to go on and on, as if a big crowd of people were talking, only such a long way off that it is more like a muffled, rumbling roar.”
Diana was up in the big cheese room, helping or hindering Libbie in the making of a splendid “double duttons” for which, Mrs. Busson had quite a reputation in the country side.
“What does that noise come from, Libbie?” Di repeated.
“Take care, Miss Di, do, you’ll be upsetting that crock there, by your elbow,” was Libbie’s answer. “There! I do believe by the look of that cloud that we’re going to have a thunderstorm, and if we do, all the pans in the dairy will be spoilt before I can scald them. I wonder—”
“But Libbie, do listen,” broke in Diana. “What is that funny noise? Sometimes it sounds like a lot of voices and then again like a barrel organ a long way off.”
“I expect that will be about it,” said Libbie. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one, playing over at Mr. Tossle’s Farm, on the other side of Primrose Hollow.”
“But you said yesterday, that barrel organs never came into these parts,” persisted Di; and then noting poor Libbie’s confusion, she went on mercilessly, “Why you said yourself, that you hadn’t seen one for twenty years, so it can’t be an organ; you know very well that it is not.”
By this time, Di’s curiosity as to the origin of the mysterious noise, which up to this point had not been so very great, was thoroughly roused. “Libbie,” she said, coming round to where Libbie was at work, and planting her elbows on the table, “Libbie, I’m quite sure now, that you do know what that noise means, and that for some reason, you won’t tell me.
“Whatever next!” exclaimed Libbie, with an air of such ill-used innocence, that it only served to strengthen Di’s suspicions. “Why, what could I know about it?”
“Oh” said Di, coolly, “you do know all about it quite well, you are only pretending not to. Oh! yes, Libbie, you wouldn’t get so fearfully red, if you weren’t.”
“I expect you’d get just as red, Miss Di, if you had all these heavy cheeses to handle on such a piping hot day,” said poor hard-pressed Libbie. “Good me! I declare that was a clap of thunder. Run downstairs quick, do, Miss Di, and ask Mrs. Busson if she didn’t hear it.”
Di burst out laughing. “Oh! I can tell you she didn’t, for as you know there was none to hear. No, Libbie, it’s no good, I’m determined—”
“Coming, coming Ma’am,” shouted Libbie, in answer to a call, which was as imaginary as the thunder, and without giving Di time to say another word, the faithful Libbie fled downstairs.
For a few minutes Di awaited her return; then deciding that she was not coming back, Di thought she would go and help Nellie, in the boiling down of some giant rhubarb stalks, which were to make wine.
“I’ll go and see what Nellie looks like, when I ask her about that noise,” thought inquisitive Di.
Before, however, she was half way down the steep staircase, the sounds of Libbie’s voice conversing in agitated tones with her mistress, reached Diana. Though she had never been guilty in her life of eaves-dropping, she paused involuntarily now, to listen to what was being said. Mrs. Busson was evidently engaged inside the long, low wine-cellar, that ran under the staircase on which Di was standing, for her voice could only be heard now and again, speaking in answer to Libbie, who was talking to her in the doorway of the cellar.
“But good me! Ma’am,” Libbie was saying, “I tried my Sunday best to put her off, I promise you that.”
Mrs. Busson’s reply was inaudible.
“Turn a deaf ear! goodness me, if I’d turned half a hundred, it wouldn’t have been no good.”
Another inaudible reply from the cellar, then Libbie said, “Begging pardon, Ma’am, I can’t see how very great harm could be done by telling the truth; I can’t see if as how they were told exactly—”
This suggestion brought Mrs. Busson from the depths of the cellar.
“Tell them, did you say?” she cried very distinctly, “why bless the woman, she must be clean daft! Why, Libbie Kibblethwaite, don’t you understand boys and girls better than that? Why just the temptation to lay hands on the tons and tons of sweet stuff that must be in that room would be enough to tempt even Master Andrew to do something daring, and he isn’t so specially brave either.
“No, no, that room has been closed for over fifty years to my knowledge, and it shall never be opened whilst I’ve a voice in the matter. Tell them indeed! Go back to your cheese-making, Libbie and just remember to-day isn’t April Fool’s day.”
What Libbie may have replied was lost upon Di. For awakening to the risk that she was running of being discovered eaves-dropping, she flew back to the cheese-room and appeared to be wholly intent on counting the rows of “double duttons” on the well filled shelves, when the unsuspecting Libbie returned.
“It would be a mistake to ask her any more question,” Di decided; but after a few minutes, she invented an excuse for slipping off and leaving Libbie alone.
But it was not to the rhubarb-stewing that Di next turned her attention. Bursting with her newly-acquired knowledge, she dashed in amongst her companions, who happened to be all assembled in their favourite Cuckoo-copse.
Jack and Phil had come in from a long ride on some delightfully rough ponies which the farmer had put at their disposal. Andrew was amusing himself,—if not Hubert—by teaching his valet to shoot with a bow and arrow, but they were all awaiting the bell which always rang then to give them notice to get ready for dinner.
“Oh! I say,” began Di, “I’ve something to tell you. Infants,”—this to Hubert and Marygold,—”run away.”
“Please mayn’t we stop?” they implored.
“Why shouldn’t they, poor little beggars?” said Jack.
“Oh! then I shan’t tell you, that’s all,” said Di.
Jack felt in his pockets. “Here’s a halfpenny for each infant that runs as far as that fir tree,” he said, tossing the coins in the air.
“Now, Di,” cried Phil, as the “infants” ran off.
“I’ve found out this morning,” cried Di, excitedly, “that there’s a mysterious room in the house, which has been shut up for hundreds of years, and Mrs. Busson doesn’t want us to find it out.”
“Then,” said Jack, promptly, “it would be beastly mean of us to try to find it out.”
“Of course it would be,” echoed Phil.
“Oh! but you haven’t half heard,” said Di, greatly crestfallen; “it’s most exciting, I’m not supposed to know anything about it, but just by accident, I happened to hear—”
“Oh! isn’t that like a girl?” broke in Phil, “just to listen by acci—”
“Not like all girls,” put in Phoena, indignantly, “I’ve never listened by accident, and I’m sure Fay never has, have you, Fay?”
“Well, if it were an accident, Di couldn’t help it,” said Faith; “but it is horridly mean to repeat what you weren’t meant to hear. And I think considering how good and kind dear old Mrs. Busson is to all of us, it would be very ungrateful and horrid of us to go and pry into anything that she doesn’t want us to know.”
“Rather!” cried Phoena and her brothers in one breath. Andrew said nothing.
“I see you don’t understand,” faltered Di, on the verge of tears, “if you’d chosen to hear me out you would have seen that I hadn’t done anything mean or underhand either. However, I shan’t tell you any more,” she added, “though I could tell you the most extraordinary things, things that would sound more like fairy tales than—”
“Well, chain up now, for here are the infants coming back,” said Jack, “and the next time you do any eaves-dropping, don’t come and tell us about it, Madam Di, do you see?” and Jack tickled the end of his cousin’s nose with a long bracken frond, but very gently, for Jack was never rude to girls.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Faith,” said Di, ignoring Jack’s last remark. “Libbie tells me that horrid old Nannie is going to pay us a visit. I am sure I don’t want to see her, do you, Andrew?”
“Oh! of course she’s only coming to see you girls,” said Andrew.
“Who’s Nanny?” asked Jack.
“Oh! she’s our old nurse; the first, we ever had,” explained Faith.
“She’s Libbie’s sister, and lived with us till she married. I thought she would come to see us as she lives near here. Of course, we must be nice to her, if she comes.”
“She was never nice to me,” said Andrew.
“Nor to me either,” said Di, “but Fay never got punished by anyone, she was born a saint.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Fay, “Nanny was very strict with us all, but I daresay, we were troublesome enough; any way, we must behave properly to her, when we see her.”
“OH, I say, I say, I’ve got such a piece of news!” shouted Hubert, running indoors to join the others at breakfast, a few mornings later. “There’s a real big fair, with real gipsies, and merry-go-rounds, and caravans, and lots of things of that sort at Bramblehurst, and Mr. Busson says that he’ll put Ploughboy and Gleaner in the van and drive us all over there this afternoon, and he says too, that—”
Mrs. Busson, appearing at that moment, took up the thread of Hubert’s tale. “Yes, it really is quite a pretty sight,” she said, “for there’s a lovely open green at Bramblehurst, and the different coloured vans, and the horses, and everything dotted about make a regular picture. Most of the gentry round about drive in just the first day of the Fair to take a kind of bird’s-eye view of it, for the old village street is a sight in itself as well as the green. Indeed, they do say that artists hold that Bramblehurst Fair is as picturesque a sight as can be found anywhere, now-a-days.”
“Oh, let’s go, let’s go,” was the unanimous chorus.
“Well, I said to Busson, last night, I said, ‘it would be a real pity if the little gentry didn’t go to the Fair.’ ”
“That it would,” said many voices; whilst Fay, with her usual tact, added, “but, of course, you’ll come with us, Mrs. Busson.”
Did she not guess how the dear old lady was dying to join the party.
“Well, if it wouldn’t be crowding you too much,” she said, modestly, “I would be ever so pleased to come with you. But what do the young gentlemen think about it? They could have the ponies, and ride alongside of us, for I expect they’d weary of being inside the van for so long.”
“Oh, that would be stunning,” cried Phil and Jack. “We’ll be your outriders.”
“May I sit in front, with Mr. Busson, and drive?” asked Hubert.
“To be sure you shall, my dear.”
“You promise that he won’t let Andrew have the reins,” began Hubert.
“Don’t alarm, yourself,” said Andrew, “I shan’t come with you.”
“Not come with us, Andrew,” exclaimed Phoena.
“No, I’ve got a headache, and don’t fancy a ten miles jolt in a van,” was his singularly ungracious remark on the treat Mrs. Busson had planned for their benefit.
“Poor Andrew,” said Fay. “I shall stay at home with you.”
“No,” said Phil, “that’s not fair. Fay’s always giving up for Andrew.”
“I don’t want anyone,” said Andrew, “I want to stay at home alone. I shall look over my butterflies, and find plenty to do.”
“I’ll stay at home with you, Andrew,” volunteered Di, to the surprise of all.
“You, Di,” cried the boys, “why, only as we came along in the train, you were saying that you’d give anything to see a real fair.”
“Was I?” said Di, “then I’ve grown wiser since then. Besides, though I haven’t actually got a headache, I feel as if one is coming.”
“What does that feel like,” asked Marygold, genuinely curious.
“Like wanting to be left to oneself and not worried by silly little girls,” was the very tart rejoinder.
“She’s werry cross, so perhaps the headache is getting ready,” said Marygold.
Faith, meanwhile, was asking if Ruth would not like to come. Without Di and Andrew, there would be lots of room in the van.
“If you don’t object, it might be as well,” said Mrs. Busson, “for she might give an eye to the little ones, in case they got a bit excited and flustered over the Show and all the set out, you know.”
“Will Gaston come?” enquired Phoena.
Mrs. Busson was doubtful. “He was an odd little gentleman,” she remarked, and no one seemed anxious to press the point.
“I hope, my dears, that you won’t mind having your dinner at twelve o’clock,” said their hostess, “for if we’re to have a good time at the Fair, we shall have to get away from here at one, and then we shan’t be home before sunset.”
“We’ll eat our dinner at ten, Mrs. Busson,” was the obliging rejoinder, in which even the invalid of the present, and the sufferer from the headache of the future, joined quite fervently.
Neither Hubert nor Marygold could eat any breakfast, so great was their excitement at the prospect of the Fair. To both, there was a fearful joy in coming within close range of the mysterious and deeply interesting gypsies. Although they would have been terrified to encounter one alone, under the strong escort they would have this afternoon, they would feel brave enough to face an army of thickly-populated caravans.
“Will they have their faces stained with walnut juice?” Marygold asked.
“And, Phoena, do you think that we shall see the queen of the gypsies?” enquired Hubert.
“I’ll tell you what would be really, awfully fine, infants,” said Phil. “If we could find some stolen children in the vans, and carry them off.” The infants screamed for joy at the bare suggestion.
“Oh, yes, sorts of baby earls and earlesses, or dukes, or p’raps a live prince,” cried Marygold, whose thirst for the sensational was abnormally large that morning.
“I expect,” said Hubert, gravely, “that I’d get made a knight straight off, if I found a princess, and carried her home.”
“I’ll tell you what, my good friends,” remarked Phoena, solemnly, “the days of trial are passing very fast, and I’ve not yet made a single entry in my ledger of ‘golden deeds.’ ”
“Well, you see, Phoena, our exploits turned out rather badly, and then there was Andrew’s illness, and—”
“On the whole, Andrew’s illness was a good thing for you,” broke in Phoena, “for you know that as he was invalided for ten days, we didn’t count them at all, so that time was given in, and you ought to have used it to make all sorts of plans in. Now, think, we’ve only got three whole days left to us. If someone doesn’t do something grand in that time we shall have to write to Aunt Agatha, and tell her that she needn’t send us any prize, because no one has earned it.”
“We’ll be disgraced and degraded for ever,” laughed Jack.
“Oh, but you are idle, false knights,” cried Phoena, really distressed by their luke-warmness. “First you are untrue to your vows, and then, what is worse still, you try to make light of them.”
“Wait a bit, Phoena,” remarked Di, “the three days of grace are not up yet, and a good deal can happen in one single day,” and Di gave a very queer little laugh.
And, oddly enough, that laugh was echoed by Andrew, although, as he lay on the grass, with his hands clasped under his head, he seemed utterly absorbed in watching the light, fleecy clouds which were sailing through the summer blue overhead.
Phoena noted the laugh, and its echo, and darted a keen glance at Fay. As the eyes of the two cousins met, they said as plainly as eyes can speak: “Didn’t I tell you yesterday that those two are in league about something?”
Strange to say, during the last two days, Di and Andrew had seemed to have a deal of private business to transact together. As a rule, the brother and sister were by no means allies; yet, only yesterday, when, for the first time during their stay at Gaybrook, Andrew had come near to defying Mrs. Busson’s authority, Di had been ready to champion him.
“Oh, Mrs. Busson,” Andrew had begun, “I’m very much interested in spider’s webs, so I want to examine those which are over that sort of door, near the linen-press.”
“Oh, you can’t go fussing there,” had been the unusually sharp reply; “besides, it’s too dark.”
“Oh, of course, I shall take a candle,” said Andrew, coolly.
“Then, of course, you won’t,” said Mrs. Busson, very decidedly.
“But I mean to,” persisted Andrew.
“And I mean you shan’t,” was the retort. “I’m not going to have the place set on fire, I can tell you.”
“But I shall go with Andrew, and hold the candle,” Di had volunteered. Only she and Andrew were present, for they had taken care to wait for this interview till the others were out of hearing.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Busson, firmly. “If you want spiders’ webs, you can find plenty of them down in the cider cellar.”
“I don’t choose to go down there,” said Andrew; whilst Di added, with a thoughtfulness that was very foreign to her general behaviour: “It is much too damp for Andrew to go underground.”
“Then stay above ground, and don’t worry,” said Mrs. Busson.
There was something so uncompromising, both in her tone, and the gesture which she made, as though to sweep them from her presence, that both the children felt that further remonstrance would be vain. So, with a very ill grace, they retreated.
“Hullo, Gaston!” shouted Jack, catching sight of Gaston, running across the top of the field, “come here, old chap.”
Gaston came immediately; the schoolboys always commanded his attention.
“Look here, are you coming with us to see the Fair to-day?”
“I—I don’t know,” said Gaston, falteringly.
“Oh, yes, come along,” said Phoena, encouragingly, “it’ll be great fun.”
“Is Andrew going?” asked Gaston, very gravely.
“No, Andrew’s not going,” said the latter, mimicking Gaston’s tone.
“Then I come, then I come,” cried Gaston, capering into the air, and beating both heels together, a gymnastic peculiar to himself.
“Flattering for you, Andrew,” remarked Di.
“What do I care,” retorted Andrew. “As long as he speaks to me with proper respect, I’m glad enough to leave him to himself. Of course, if he ever attempted”—this with an aggravating look at Gaston—“if he ever attempted to touch me—”
“Touch you,” echoed Gaston, with a whole world of loathing in his tone, “ugh! I would as soon touch a creeping, crawling serpent. Ah, no, I do mean rather a maggot; you are not grand enough to be a serpent, make no doubt about that.”
“That small boy hates you, and no mistake, Andrew,” said Jack, as Gaston was turning away.
“Yes,” said Gaston, looking back, “that is true, I hate him.”
“He’s very welcome to hate me, if he likes,” said Andrew. “I don’t worship him, so there’s no love lost between us.”
“Still, I shouldn’t like to be spoken of in that way,” said Phoena, “ ’specially by someone to whom I’d not been particularly kind.”
“Perhaps not,” said Andrew. “For myself, I can’t imagine that the affection of a French frog could be of any great value.”
“It isn’t exactly that,” said Phoena, “but I should hate to be despised as Gaston despises you.”
“Well, I call that a good notion,” cried Andrew, flushing scarlet with indignation. “The idea of a miserable little under-done ‘parley-vous’ despising me, me! You are a green goose, Phoena.”
“All the same, there’s a deal in what Phoena says,” said Jack; “anyway, I’m glad Gaston doesn’t speak like that of me.”
“OH! hurrah! Andrew, hurrah! They’re off at last! Did you think that they would ever start? Well, if this isn’t the rarest bit of good luck that ever was!”
And, standing out in the broad noon-day sunshine on the grass plait in front of the farm-house, Diana pirouetted like an accomplished dervish. The headache that was on the road to her at breakfast must surely have lost its way.
“What a blessing that Gaston has gone too,” said Andrew. “I was in a blue fright that he wouldn’t, after all, just because we wanted him to go so much.”
“Yes, but I’ll tell you what’s even better,” rejoined Di. “Nellie’s going over to Spelmonden.”
“What for?”
“There’s an obliging old woman there who’s broken her arm or her neck, I forget which,” said Di, “and I heard Mrs. Busson tell Libbie that Nellie was not to hurry home. If she was back by supper-time it would do quite well.”
“Splendid! She’ll be out of the way at any rate.”
“Yes,” went on Di, “and so you see there will only be Libbie indoors, and Polly, who——”
“Who doesn’t count,” put in Andrew, “for she’s always running after the pigs or the poultry, or gathering things in the garden.”
“Exactly; and Libbie is going to be busy all the afternoon in the brew-house tapping the last barrel of cowslip wine.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Yes. I heard her arranging with Mrs. Busson how she would bottle it to-day. When she is once in there she’ll be safely out of hearing of anything that we may do.”
“Hadn’t we better soon begin?” suggested Andrew. “You see we don’t know how long it may take.”
“We must watch Nellie off the premises first,” said Di. “We’ll go and sit under the walnut-tree near the stack-yard. We shall be able to see the back-door splendidly from there without seeming to be watching.”
“All right,” assented Andrew.
“You’re quite sure that you have got all your tools ready, Andrew?” enquired Di, presently, as the two young conspirators stretched themselves on the short grass in the shade of the venerable walnut.
“No fear,” laughed Andrew; “I think these instruments ought to suffice, even for our undertaking,” and he put his hand into his jacket pocket and rattled the chisel, hammer and gimlet which lay concealed there. “That sounds like business, eh?”
“And I’ve got two big knives,” announced Di, triumphantly.
“Knives? But what for?” cried Andrew.
“They may be very useful, very useful indeed,” repeated Di, with great emphasis.
“What do you mean?” asked Andrew, nervously.
“Well, you see,” said Di, slowly, “we’re not quite sure what or who we may find inside this mysterious chamber; anyway I think that we may as well be armed, both of us.”
“But Di,” said Andrew, very distinctly alarmed now, “you don’t really suppose that there’s anyone really alive in there?”
“I’m not so sure. I heard Libbie telling that man—a man who came about some cheeses, I think—that there were very odd customers inside there. Yes, really that was what she said.”
“What did she say, tell me exactly,” insisted Andrew.
“Oh, well, it was when Libbie and the man were coming downstairs from the cheese-room,” said Di. “The man asked—he was joking, you know—if she dealt in cobwebs as well as cheese, for he had never seen such a sight as over that door.”
“Yes, and what did Libbie say?” asked Andrew, breathlessly.
“Oh, she said the spiders had had a good time there, for the door hadn’t been opened for fifty years or more.”
“And didn’t the man ask why?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t hear Libbie’s answer; only when the man said, ‘Well, if that’s so I’d have a try and see what I could make out of it.’ Then I heard Libbie say: ‘Ah! that’s all very pretty, but I expect we’d find some rare awkward customers to deal with on the other side of the door.’ ”
“What could she mean?” speculated Andrew. “It is odd that no one will open that door.”
“Libbie told the man that the missus wouldn’t have it tried, not for any sake,” said Di.
“What can it be?” repeated Andrew, with a very long face.
“I did ask the little farm boy,” proceeded Di, “what all that odd rumbling noise in the cheese-room meant, and he looked dreadfully scared. He said that was what he’d never been able to find out, but people did say it was haunted by the ghosts of some wicked smugglers who lived long ago at the farm; in fact,” went on Di, drawing largely on her own imagination now, “from what Henry said I believe that the room is crammed full of all sorts of beautiful stolen goods, so that no one has ever been able to get the door open. Oh! Andrew, won’t it be grand if we’re the very first people who have ever been brave enough to force our way in?”
“Yes,” said Andrew, but his assent was pitched in a less jubilant key.
“I believe you’re getting into a fright already,” sneered Di.
“No I’m not; only I can’t help wishing that there was a real window, so that we might get a peep at what is inside, before actually going in,” said Andrew.
For though this mysterious room was furnished with a door and a chimney, it had no window. There was only a sham painted semblance of one set in the house wall, to match, as best it might, the other real ones.
“You see,” continued Andrew, “one hasn’t the least idea what one may see when the door bursts open.”
“Or what may see us,” laughed Diana.
“Oh, don’t,” cried Andrew; “that’s too horrid.”
“Nonsense,” said Di. “There wouldn’t be much real courage wanted in the world, if people could always see exactly what sort of danger they were going to face. Why, you silly Andrew, anyone could win a page in the book of golden deeds at that rate.”
“But you don’t think, Di, that Mrs. Busson will be very angry?”
“Angry! why, she’ll go on her knees with gratitude,” cried Di.
“Will she really, do you think?”
“Go on her knees, I say, and so will Mr. Busson, and Libbie, and everyone in the whole place, I expect,” asserted Di, trying hard to make herself believe in the probability of this crowd of grateful genuflectors, who were to flock round Andrew and herself, with the opened room as their background. “They’ll be awfully grateful.”
“It’ll be a great score over the others,” said Andrew.
“Yes, won’t it,” said Di.
“It will be such a sell for Jack and Phil,” remarked Andrew further.
“But time’s precious,” said Di, “I think we ought to be stirring.”
“But suppose Libbie hears us going upstairs,” began Andrew.
“Oh, you Master Much-afraid,” cried Di, impatiently, “suppose you run and hide yourself with Mr. Despondency, in the pages of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’; won’t you give me your tools, and you go and play with Marygold’s doll in the Cuckoo-copse?”
“It isn’t that I’m the least afraid for myself,” began Andrew, “but—”
But Di cut him short. “Now, look here, don’t be such a coward, and listen to me. I can get upstairs quietly enough, but you’re such an idiot that I can’t depend on you for doing anything decently.”
“That’s cheek,” pouted Andrew.
“So listen,” continued Di, “Libbie has just gone into the brew-house, to bottle the cowslip wine, so I’ll go in there and tease and worry her so much that she won’t have any ears to spare for what you may be doing. Meanwhile, take off your boots, and creep upstairs till you reach the door. When you’re once there you can’t do much harm, because you see the room isn’t over the brew-house, and the walls are so fearfully thick, I don’t believe that even a dancing elephant could make itself heard downstairs.”
“But you will promise to come up soon,” said Andrew, terribly afraid of being left too long within reach of this dread, undiscovered territory, “I can’t stop up there too long, all by myself.”
“I’ll come as soon as I’ve worried Libbie into wanting to be rid of me,” said wicked Di. “I’ll make her feel thankful to leave me to my own devices. But don’t you begin to do anything till I come.”
“Oh, no, that I won’t,” said Andrew so fervently that Di felt sure that on this occasion, at any rate, Andrew might be trusted to keep his word.
“Very well, then, I’m off to begin operations,” said Di, springing to her feet. Tilting her hat over her eyes, and walking with a very leisurely step, Di took her way to the back regions of the farmhouse.
Poor Libbie, with her head and hands engaged in her bottling process, fell an easy prey to her wiles. If the truth were known, Libbie had been bitterly disappointed, and so had Mrs. Busson, by Andrew’s and Diana’s refusal to join the fair-going party. They had reckoned so confidently on securing a quiet, undisturbed afternoon for the “flasking and cellaring” of the cowslip wine, as Libbie termed it.
“Headaches, indeed! Stuff and nonsense,” she had said, “it’s just their contrariness, and that’s all. I’d like to give them a good dose of senna tea each, and lock them up in a dark room.”
So, when Di appeared in the doorway of the brew-house, she found exactly the kind of reception she would have chosen.
“Now I can’t have you worrying in here, Miss Di,” said Libbie, “for as you can see for yourself, there isn’t standing room for a well grown rat,” and she pointed to the regiment of dusty bottles with which the door was crowded. “Why dear me! I thought you had a bad headache. What ever has become of it so soon?”
“It never was a very bad one, besides I don’t make a fuss about things when I’m ill. I never do,” said Di, forgetting that never is a long word.
“Well, I can’t have either you or Master Andrew bothering in here, this afternoon,” said Libbie, “it’ll be your own faults, if you find it dull, but you must amuse yourselves as best you can. Only don’t go getting into mischief. I’ve got my work cut out for me, here.”
“And so have I,” thought naughty Di, only she took care not to say so.
“Very well,” she answered aloud, “then if you won’t let me help you Libbie, I’ll go now.”
And very slowly, Diana turned away and recrossed the threshold.
ONCE out of sight of Libbie, Di bounded upstairs, three steps at a time, flinging herself down outside the door, breathless with speed and suppressed laughter.
“Oh! I’m glad you’ve come,” said Andrew, “it’s been quite horrid waiting up here alone, with all that horrible noise going on all round.”
“It sounds rather eerie, doesn’t it?” said Di.
“Yes, really I do think it is rather dangerous,” began Andrew, “I—”
“Then run away,” said Di, “only leave me your tools.”
“No, I didn’t mean to say that,” said Andrew, “only—”
“Now, look here, be sensible,” broke in Di, “just hold this chair steady, whilst I stand up on it. I want to have a good look at this door. Here’s the candle and matches, just light it, and hand it up to me, when I’m safe on the chair.”
From her exalted position and aided by the light of the tallow dip, which Di had abstracted from Polly’s box in the scullery, she proceeded to make a careful inspection of the door and doorway.
The labours of many generations of undisturbed spiders had resulted in layers upon layers of cobwebs, which hung in grey misty folds all about the panels and locks, and cracks, and hinges, of the long dis-used door.
These were easily swept away, but when removed, an unwelcome fact became apparent.
“Oh! I say,” cried Di, in dismay, “they’ve walled up the door!”
Not only the keyhole but every hairbreadth of space all round the door had been filled in with solid cement. Yes, even between the floor and the lowest panel of the door, there was a thick seam of plaster.
“Oh, the old fiends!” cried Di, jumping off her chair and stamping with rage, “Old wretches, whoever they were! I wonder if Mrs. Busson ever saw this.”
As a matter of fact, she had not. Otherwise, she would not have been so anxious to keep the knowledge of that room’s existence from her little guests.
“We are done, hopelessly done,” cried Di, “one might as well try to open a sealed up vault as that door.”
“Are you quite sure of it?” asked Andrew, with a look of relief on his face which was not apparent in that dim light.
His prolonged nearness to that uncomfortable rumbling noise had entirely quenched Andrew’s ardour for forcing an entrance into the forbidden room, and he was quite ready to abandon the undertaking without further ceremony.
Not so Di, however.
“Of course, we won’t be done,” she said.
“But if we can’t help it,” began Andrew.
“But we will help it, we won’t be beaten,” she said, “I’ve thought of something,” she went on, with sudden inspiration. “Hand up your tools, Andrew, I’ve got an idea.”
Snatching the gimlet from Andrew, Di went on her knees. With a will, she set to work to bore a hole in one of the lower panels of the door.
“Do you see what I’m doing?” she asked, without raising her head from her work. “I’m going to drill a hole.”
“Oh! Just big enough to peep through, I suppose,” said Andrew, thinking this was a splendid idea.
“Big enough, you booby, to put our hands through first of all, and then our bodies afterwards,” retorted Di.
“O-oh!” was all Andrew found to say. He was quite determined that it should be Di’s hand that went in first.
For some time, Di worked away laboriously with the gimlet.
Then she paused. “I can’t get on with this,” she said, “I must try something else. Go half-way down the stairs, Andrew, and stand there and listen if you can hear me at work. It won’t do to attract Libbie’s attention. Go quietly.”
“It’s all right,” reported Andrew, returning from executing Di’s orders. “I couldn’t hear a sound, not from you, at least, but there’s no end of a row going on downstairs. Libbie must have some friends to help her, for they are jawing no end in the brew-house.”
“So much the better,” said Di; “now I’m going to do something desperate.”
Therewith, seizing the hammer, Diana wrapt her handkerchief carefully round the head.
“That’ll deaden the sound,” she said. Then taking one of the knives, she stuck the point into the panel, upon which she had already been operating, and then dealt a blow with the hammer on the handle of the knife with all her might.
“Hurrah! Andrew, the wood is beginning to give,” she said, “with another blow or two, we’ll do it.”
“Oh! dear,” gasped Andrew. “I wonder what we shall find.”
“We shall know very soon now,” returned Di, “I hope this will settle the business!”
Therewith she dealt another furious blow with the hammer.
There came a noise of splintering wood,—Di remembered that afterwards, clearly enough, but what followed besides, she could never recall.
Her first impulse on feeling the panel yield to her blows, was to thrust her hand and arm through the gaping slit, with a view to laying hands on the gold or precious stones or stores of sweet-stuff, which must surely be within her reach; her next was to draw her arm back again with all speed and to rend, not the door but the air with piercing, frantic shrieks.
And these shrieks were echoed by Andrew.
Anxious to secure his share in the booty, he had also thrust his hand—and his face, too—through the broken panel, and was now dancing and yelling like a maniac.
“Shut your eyes; shut your eyes, Andrew,” shrieked Di. “Libbie, Libbie, Libbie! Come, come, come!”
Crash went at least a dozen bottles in the brew-house, then helter-skelter up the stairs, came Libbie, followed by her visitor.
By this time, the narrow bit of passage, which turned abruptly away from the head of the staircase was alive with clouds of angry bees, and a stouter heart than Libbie’s would have quailed at the prospect of encountering such a host. It was well for her, that her visitor, who was none other than the severe Nanny of other days, kept her wits about her.
Nanny’s first step was to seize Andrew, who, with his hair full of humming bees and his hands held tightly over his eyes, was running aimlessly to and fro.
In a moment, Nanny had dragged off his jacket, which was all alive with the infuriated creatures, and rolling it up tightly, she flung it back into the enemy’s country.
“And now run as fast as ever you can,” she ordered Andrew, “and jump into the rain-water tank, close by the back door.”
Andrew who was even more frightened than stung, promptly obeyed, howling and yelling so loudly all the way, that in a few minutes all the farm hands were running to know what had happened.
“There, however any of us came out of it alive, is what I never shall understand,” was how Libbie always wound up