Chapter Fifteen.Memory the Fifteenth—’Twixt Cup and Lip.Night again; and Achille—poor faithful, charitable, patient Achille—to be there once more watching in the dark that one blank window, that he hoped to see open. I could analyse his feelings as well, perhaps, as he could mine; and how I did pity him for his many disappointments! For nights and nights had passed without the rope ladder having been made available. Still, though, we were hopeful, and thought of others who had been long and patient sufferers for the same cause; while now, in the hope of a meeting, we waited once more. All was still within doors, and everything seemed propitious, for the night was excessively dark. The last door had shut some time before, and within the house the only thing stirring must have been a mouse or else, with our strained ears, as Clara and I lay waiting, dressed in bed, we must have heard it. But though all was so still in the house, it was not so out of doors. First of all there was a horrible cat “tuning its lay,” as Clara called it; and then she said its lay was terribly out of tune to want so much screwing up. Then the dog in the next yard must hear it, and begin to resent the disturbance, and bark at the cat, till I felt sure that pauvre Achille would not come, for the noise was dreadful—rest cat, bark dog; rest dog, howl cat, and so on. There was the chain rattling in and out of the kennel at a most terrible rate, while the creature barked furiously till it was tired, without having the slightest effect upon the cat, or cats, which kept on with the hideous howling, till the dog, evidently worn out, went to sleep.Oh, it was uncomfortable lying there, so hot and tired with the exertion of dressing under the bed-clothes while lying down, so that Patty Smith should have no suspicion of what was going on and because we thought her awake; when, just as we had finished, she must begin to snore in the most vulgar, horrible way imaginable.“That nasty cat is just under our window,” I whispered to Clara. “He’ll never come if there’s this noise.”“I’ll serve it out,” whispered Clara; “only be quiet.”“What are you going to do?” I said, but she would not answer; and I heard her get out of bed and go to the washstand, and pour ever so much water into the basin.“Oh, pray don’t make any noise, dear. What are you going to do with that water?”“Wait a bit, and you’ll see,” she whispered, tittering; and then she went and gently opened the window, when the noise of the nasty cat came up worse than ever.“You had better not throw out that water, dear,” I whispered; but she only giggled, and then I heard the water go down splash on to the gravel walk, and directly after—“Oh!” exclaimed Clara. As she spoke up came the sounds of the falling basin, as it struck upon the gravel walk, and was shivered to atoms. Then came the sound of a hurried step upon the path, the rush of a heavy body through the shrubbery, all as plain as could be in the still night, and I knew that Clara had very nearly thrown the basin on poor Achille’s head, and it might have killed him. When as if that was not enough to frighten him away, there were two windows thrown open on the first floor, and at one was Miss Furness, ringing a bell and Miss Sloman screaming, and at the other my Lady Blunt, springing a watchman’s rattle, and making the most horrible din imaginable.“Well, I really did not mean to do it, dear,” said Clara, as coolly as could be; “you see, the basin was soapy, and slipped.”“What did you do it at all for, when you were asked not?” I gasped angrily; for it was really enough to drive any one out of her senses to be disappointed like this, time after time. All I hoped was, that poor Achille had escaped safely, and did not know from which window the missile came; for, only fancy, he might have thought that I had thrown it, and never forgiven me.You never could have imagined such a disturbance to have proceeded from so small a cause. There were doors opening and shutting, girls screaming, bells ringing; and there we all were, at last, trembling and shaking upon the staircase and landings—all but Patty Smith, who would not get out of bed.“Dere’s de police!” exclaimed the Fraülein, all at once; and directly after we could hear Mrs Blunt and Miss Furness talking to some one out of their windows; while now there was a profound silence fallen upon the shivering group, and I shuddered as I recognised the deep-toned voice out of doors, and knew it to be that of one familiar with the interior of the grounds.“Search the garden thoroughly, policeman,” cried Mrs Blunt, from one window.“Who’s there?” squealed Miss Furness, loudly.“Why, it’s me, mum,” said the policeman.“Oh, yes—I know, my good man,” said Miss Furness; “but I mean who was out there?”“I’m going to look, aint I?” growled the man. “But there aint nobody out here now, even if there was at all. I aint seen anybody in the road.”I did feel so glad to hear what he said, for I was all in a shiver lest my poor boy should be caught.“He’s gone, mum,” said the low fellow, after he had been away about five minutes. “Aint not a soul ’cept me in the garding. What had he been up to, mum?”“Oh, it was a dreadful noise out there,” cried Mrs Blunt, from behind the curtains. “It sounded like some one smashing in the dining-room windows. Pray look, policeman.”All this conversation sounded quite plain to us on the stairs, for Mrs Blunt’s door and window were both open; and then I could hear the policeman’s heavy step on the gravel, crunching and crackling as he trod on and began kicking about the pieces of Clara’s broken basin.“Why, here’s some one been shying the chayney outer window,” said the policeman. “Here’s most half a wash-hand basin and a whole stodge of bits squandered all over the gravel walk. That’s what you heerd, mum. The window is right enough.”“It did sound like that,” squeaked Miss Furness.“And that’s what it was, mum, if there was none of this here out afore.”“Oh, no, my good man,” cries Mrs Blunt, getting less fearful and more dignified every moment—“the paths were quite clear this evening.”“Then it’s some of your young ladies been a havin’ a lark,” said the low fellow.I turned round to whisper to Clara, but she was gone. Directly after, though, she slipped back to my side, and I whispered to her, laying my hand upon her arm—“Had you not better tell? Say that it was an accident.”“Hold your tongue,” she whispered, pinching me.Then we shrank into the background, for I was afraid some one would notice how bulky our dressing-gowns looked; for, of course, we had not had time to undress again.We heard the policeman promise to keep an eye on the place, and to call in the morning. Then we heard his footsteps on the gravel, and the pieces of china cracking, windows shut down, and orders for us to go back to our rooms, as there was nothing to fear; when, as we were ascending the stairs, Mrs Blunt’s nightcapped head was thrust out of the door, and we heard her exclaim—“I’ll investigate this disgraceful trick in the morning, young ladies.”I trembled for poor Clara—almost as much as I did for Achille; for it seemed as though the poor girl was always to act as scapegoat; though, certainly, she really deserved to be in disgrace this time, for I begged her most earnestly not to throw out the water.I would have given Clara half my basin with pleasure, if I could; but then, that would have been of no service. Judge, then, of my surprise when, after looking at Patty, fast asleep as if nothing had been the matter, I turned to Clara’s washstand, there was her basin, safe and sound, and the jug was standing in it!As we upon the second floor all had small washstands and jugs and basins of the same pattern, I thought that, after all, she had taken mine; but she had not, nor yet Patty’s; and as she saw what I was looking at, she burst out laughing, and said—“I slipped up and into the Fraülein’s room, and took hers; and now they may find out if they can. Of course, you won’t tell, darling? Promise me that.”I felt so cross that I was ready to say I would; for I was disappointed, and though the thoughts of the meeting had taken away my appetite, now that it was not to be, I felt as hungry as possible. But it would have been cruel to have said anything, so, of course, I promised.“Another disappointment for the poor French Verb,” whispered Clara, laughing.“For shame,” I said, “to speak in so disrespectful a way.”“But it does not much matter,” she said; “for he would have been afraid to climb up, when he found out really how high it was.”“Don’t talk stuff!” I said; “he would get up if it were twice as high, for my sake. Why, look how Leander swam the Hellespont.”“And I say,” cried Clara—laughing, and seeming in the highest of glee, which was too bad—“how cold and shivering he must have been when he got across. Bo-o-o-h?” she said, shuddering, “what a cold frog of a lover! I shouldn’t have liked that.”“No,” I said, “you have no romance in your composition.”“Haven’t I,” she said, “you don’t know; but I’m not so head over ears in love as you are.”“Perhaps not,” I said, spitefully; “because you have no chance.”“Pooh!” said Clara. “Why, I might have had Achille long before you came, if I had liked.”“Perhaps, miss,” I exclaimed, with nothing more than reasonable anger, “the next time you mention that gentleman’s name you will prefix the Monsieur.”“Certainly, ma’am,” said Clara, aggravating me with her mock courtesy.“And whatever you do,” I said, “if you must tease, tell the truth.”“That was the truth,” she replied.“Don’t be such a wicked story,” I exclaimed. “I don’t believe it.”I could not help thinking, after, that in my childish anger I had made use of childish language.“I don’t care what you believe, and what you don’t believe,” said Clara, coolly; “and I’ve got—”“If you young ladies are not silent this minute,” said Miss Furness, outside the door, “I shall be compelled to summon Mrs de Blount.”As I lay wondering whether she had heard anything of our conversation, and what it was that Clara had got, and whether it was a letter Achille had sent her before I came, which I did not believe, and did not much care if he had, for he had not seen me then—Miss Furness stood listening at the door, while Clara would not answer my whispered questions, pretending to be offended; and I believe I heard Miss Furness sniff out in the cold passage just as I dropped off to sleep.
Night again; and Achille—poor faithful, charitable, patient Achille—to be there once more watching in the dark that one blank window, that he hoped to see open. I could analyse his feelings as well, perhaps, as he could mine; and how I did pity him for his many disappointments! For nights and nights had passed without the rope ladder having been made available. Still, though, we were hopeful, and thought of others who had been long and patient sufferers for the same cause; while now, in the hope of a meeting, we waited once more. All was still within doors, and everything seemed propitious, for the night was excessively dark. The last door had shut some time before, and within the house the only thing stirring must have been a mouse or else, with our strained ears, as Clara and I lay waiting, dressed in bed, we must have heard it. But though all was so still in the house, it was not so out of doors. First of all there was a horrible cat “tuning its lay,” as Clara called it; and then she said its lay was terribly out of tune to want so much screwing up. Then the dog in the next yard must hear it, and begin to resent the disturbance, and bark at the cat, till I felt sure that pauvre Achille would not come, for the noise was dreadful—rest cat, bark dog; rest dog, howl cat, and so on. There was the chain rattling in and out of the kennel at a most terrible rate, while the creature barked furiously till it was tired, without having the slightest effect upon the cat, or cats, which kept on with the hideous howling, till the dog, evidently worn out, went to sleep.
Oh, it was uncomfortable lying there, so hot and tired with the exertion of dressing under the bed-clothes while lying down, so that Patty Smith should have no suspicion of what was going on and because we thought her awake; when, just as we had finished, she must begin to snore in the most vulgar, horrible way imaginable.
“That nasty cat is just under our window,” I whispered to Clara. “He’ll never come if there’s this noise.”
“I’ll serve it out,” whispered Clara; “only be quiet.”
“What are you going to do?” I said, but she would not answer; and I heard her get out of bed and go to the washstand, and pour ever so much water into the basin.
“Oh, pray don’t make any noise, dear. What are you going to do with that water?”
“Wait a bit, and you’ll see,” she whispered, tittering; and then she went and gently opened the window, when the noise of the nasty cat came up worse than ever.
“You had better not throw out that water, dear,” I whispered; but she only giggled, and then I heard the water go down splash on to the gravel walk, and directly after—
“Oh!” exclaimed Clara. As she spoke up came the sounds of the falling basin, as it struck upon the gravel walk, and was shivered to atoms. Then came the sound of a hurried step upon the path, the rush of a heavy body through the shrubbery, all as plain as could be in the still night, and I knew that Clara had very nearly thrown the basin on poor Achille’s head, and it might have killed him. When as if that was not enough to frighten him away, there were two windows thrown open on the first floor, and at one was Miss Furness, ringing a bell and Miss Sloman screaming, and at the other my Lady Blunt, springing a watchman’s rattle, and making the most horrible din imaginable.
“Well, I really did not mean to do it, dear,” said Clara, as coolly as could be; “you see, the basin was soapy, and slipped.”
“What did you do it at all for, when you were asked not?” I gasped angrily; for it was really enough to drive any one out of her senses to be disappointed like this, time after time. All I hoped was, that poor Achille had escaped safely, and did not know from which window the missile came; for, only fancy, he might have thought that I had thrown it, and never forgiven me.
You never could have imagined such a disturbance to have proceeded from so small a cause. There were doors opening and shutting, girls screaming, bells ringing; and there we all were, at last, trembling and shaking upon the staircase and landings—all but Patty Smith, who would not get out of bed.
“Dere’s de police!” exclaimed the Fraülein, all at once; and directly after we could hear Mrs Blunt and Miss Furness talking to some one out of their windows; while now there was a profound silence fallen upon the shivering group, and I shuddered as I recognised the deep-toned voice out of doors, and knew it to be that of one familiar with the interior of the grounds.
“Search the garden thoroughly, policeman,” cried Mrs Blunt, from one window.
“Who’s there?” squealed Miss Furness, loudly.
“Why, it’s me, mum,” said the policeman.
“Oh, yes—I know, my good man,” said Miss Furness; “but I mean who was out there?”
“I’m going to look, aint I?” growled the man. “But there aint nobody out here now, even if there was at all. I aint seen anybody in the road.”
I did feel so glad to hear what he said, for I was all in a shiver lest my poor boy should be caught.
“He’s gone, mum,” said the low fellow, after he had been away about five minutes. “Aint not a soul ’cept me in the garding. What had he been up to, mum?”
“Oh, it was a dreadful noise out there,” cried Mrs Blunt, from behind the curtains. “It sounded like some one smashing in the dining-room windows. Pray look, policeman.”
All this conversation sounded quite plain to us on the stairs, for Mrs Blunt’s door and window were both open; and then I could hear the policeman’s heavy step on the gravel, crunching and crackling as he trod on and began kicking about the pieces of Clara’s broken basin.
“Why, here’s some one been shying the chayney outer window,” said the policeman. “Here’s most half a wash-hand basin and a whole stodge of bits squandered all over the gravel walk. That’s what you heerd, mum. The window is right enough.”
“It did sound like that,” squeaked Miss Furness.
“And that’s what it was, mum, if there was none of this here out afore.”
“Oh, no, my good man,” cries Mrs Blunt, getting less fearful and more dignified every moment—“the paths were quite clear this evening.”
“Then it’s some of your young ladies been a havin’ a lark,” said the low fellow.
I turned round to whisper to Clara, but she was gone. Directly after, though, she slipped back to my side, and I whispered to her, laying my hand upon her arm—
“Had you not better tell? Say that it was an accident.”
“Hold your tongue,” she whispered, pinching me.
Then we shrank into the background, for I was afraid some one would notice how bulky our dressing-gowns looked; for, of course, we had not had time to undress again.
We heard the policeman promise to keep an eye on the place, and to call in the morning. Then we heard his footsteps on the gravel, and the pieces of china cracking, windows shut down, and orders for us to go back to our rooms, as there was nothing to fear; when, as we were ascending the stairs, Mrs Blunt’s nightcapped head was thrust out of the door, and we heard her exclaim—
“I’ll investigate this disgraceful trick in the morning, young ladies.”
I trembled for poor Clara—almost as much as I did for Achille; for it seemed as though the poor girl was always to act as scapegoat; though, certainly, she really deserved to be in disgrace this time, for I begged her most earnestly not to throw out the water.
I would have given Clara half my basin with pleasure, if I could; but then, that would have been of no service. Judge, then, of my surprise when, after looking at Patty, fast asleep as if nothing had been the matter, I turned to Clara’s washstand, there was her basin, safe and sound, and the jug was standing in it!
As we upon the second floor all had small washstands and jugs and basins of the same pattern, I thought that, after all, she had taken mine; but she had not, nor yet Patty’s; and as she saw what I was looking at, she burst out laughing, and said—
“I slipped up and into the Fraülein’s room, and took hers; and now they may find out if they can. Of course, you won’t tell, darling? Promise me that.”
I felt so cross that I was ready to say I would; for I was disappointed, and though the thoughts of the meeting had taken away my appetite, now that it was not to be, I felt as hungry as possible. But it would have been cruel to have said anything, so, of course, I promised.
“Another disappointment for the poor French Verb,” whispered Clara, laughing.
“For shame,” I said, “to speak in so disrespectful a way.”
“But it does not much matter,” she said; “for he would have been afraid to climb up, when he found out really how high it was.”
“Don’t talk stuff!” I said; “he would get up if it were twice as high, for my sake. Why, look how Leander swam the Hellespont.”
“And I say,” cried Clara—laughing, and seeming in the highest of glee, which was too bad—“how cold and shivering he must have been when he got across. Bo-o-o-h?” she said, shuddering, “what a cold frog of a lover! I shouldn’t have liked that.”
“No,” I said, “you have no romance in your composition.”
“Haven’t I,” she said, “you don’t know; but I’m not so head over ears in love as you are.”
“Perhaps not,” I said, spitefully; “because you have no chance.”
“Pooh!” said Clara. “Why, I might have had Achille long before you came, if I had liked.”
“Perhaps, miss,” I exclaimed, with nothing more than reasonable anger, “the next time you mention that gentleman’s name you will prefix the Monsieur.”
“Certainly, ma’am,” said Clara, aggravating me with her mock courtesy.
“And whatever you do,” I said, “if you must tease, tell the truth.”
“That was the truth,” she replied.
“Don’t be such a wicked story,” I exclaimed. “I don’t believe it.”
I could not help thinking, after, that in my childish anger I had made use of childish language.
“I don’t care what you believe, and what you don’t believe,” said Clara, coolly; “and I’ve got—”
“If you young ladies are not silent this minute,” said Miss Furness, outside the door, “I shall be compelled to summon Mrs de Blount.”
As I lay wondering whether she had heard anything of our conversation, and what it was that Clara had got, and whether it was a letter Achille had sent her before I came, which I did not believe, and did not much care if he had, for he had not seen me then—Miss Furness stood listening at the door, while Clara would not answer my whispered questions, pretending to be offended; and I believe I heard Miss Furness sniff out in the cold passage just as I dropped off to sleep.
Chapter Sixteen.Memory the Sixteenth—Pangs.I meant in the last chapter to have told a great deal more; but so many of my troubles and misadventures kept creeping in, that I did not get in one-half of what I intended. What pains I took to gain an interview—or, rather, to grant the poor fellow an interview, though it would have been to me the reaching of a green oasis in my journey across life’s desert, when, for a short time, the gentle palm branches would have waved, as it were, in gentle motion above our heads, while our cheeks would have been fanned by the gentle breath of love.Of course there was a terrible to do about the basin in the morning, but it so happened, luckily, that the cat was not beneath our window, but beyond the Fraülein’s; so that in trying to reach it, Clara had thrown the basin for some distance, and right past our neighbour’s window. The Fraülein declared that she had never opened hers; and, poor woman, she opened her mouth into quite a round O when told that she must have thrown it out. There was nothing to cast suspicion upon us, for it was more likely to have been Celia Blang, on the other side of the Fraülein; and so, at last, the matter dropped, and we heard no more of it then.But I had such a delightful treat two days after; for while we were going down the High Street, Miss Furness must turn faint, and have to be helped into the first house at hand, to sit down and rest, and that was Mrs Jackney’s, the milliner’s; and there we were, four or five of us at once, in the little parlour—dear Achille’s “apartment meublée,” as he called it. He was from home, giving lessons somewhere, no doubt; but while they were bathing Miss Furness’s face, and giving her sniffs of salts, and glasses of water to drink, I had such a look round the place, and saw his dear old boots in one corner—the pair, I was sure, he must put on for ease and comfort of a night; and I was so glad to see them, for, if, instead, I had caught sight of a nice, handsomely worked pair of slippers, they would have given me quite a pang. Now I felt that the task—no, the pleasure—was left for me.Then there was a dear, duck of an old coat hanging behind the door; and such nice, funny little holes in the elbows, where he had rested his arms upon the table while he studied; and there was his pipe, and two bits of cigars, and a few yellow paper-covered books, and one thing which did, I must own, make me feel a little uncomfortable, a scarlet and black smoking cap—at least, it had been scarlet once, and had evidently been made by a lady, and, of course, one would have liked to have known who was the maker.At first, in remembrance of her bitter, teasing words, I thought that it might have been Clara; but it did not look new enough; for the scarlet was fast verging upon the black, and, no doubt, in a short time it would have been impossible to make out the pattern. But I was glad to see it; for it was a hint that Achille would soon require a new one, and I knew who would make it. However, I did not much care; and taking advantage of there being no one looking, I contrived to drop my handkerchief inside it; but directly after I trembled, and wanted to have it back again, for there was my name marked upon it in full, in ink, and I was afraid that his landlady, Mrs Jackney, might see it.I had a good look at her, to see whether I need feel jealous, and found, to my great delight, that I need not; for she was worse in appearance than Miss Furness, but evidently a very pleasant body; though, all the same I should not have liked her to find my handkerchief. However, there was no getting it back; for Miss Furness was now able to sit up, and I was one of the first to be obliged to leave the room, and stand agonised in the passage, lest any one should find out what I had done. But nothing was seen, and I heard afterwards from Achille, in one of his notes—the best, I think, that he ever wrote to me—how fondly he prized the treasure; and I mentally declared that it was not a bad way of laying out the value of a pocket-handkerchief, and that he should soon have another.It was all so horribly unfortunate. If we made an engagement to meet, something was sure to happen; while, in spite of the time that had now passed since the poor Signor left, not one short five minutes had poor Achille and I had together. It was enough to make me ever so fond and devoted; and though I might be trembling a little in my allegiance at one time, I was ready to become a martyr now for his sake. But, as I said before, the very fact of an assignation being made was the signal for, or precursor of, something to happen; so that, I’m sure, I was quite in a tremble, a few days after Miss Furness’s faint, when Achille gave me a few lines inside De Porquet, telling me, in a few simple words, that he was again that night about to try his fortune, when he hoped I should be able to assist him to benefit the poor exiles, who were now in a great state of distress. No one, to have found that scrap of paper, would have imagined that it was anything more than a piece torn off to act as book-mark, and he gave me the book with it standing right out, so that Miss Furness could see it quite plainly as he passed it right under her nose, saying—“I have put a piece of paper where you shall go on, Miss Bozerne.”When I looked at it there was only hastily scrawled—“Mercredi, une heure,” and “the poor suffer want—les pauvres ont besoin.”That was all, and it really seemed to be a bit of exercise, and nothing else. But then, I had the key in my heart, and could read it as he meant; though truly it was an exercise for me to find means to overtop all difficulties and meet him. I knew what he meant well enough—just as well as if he had written four pages, crossed, in his own niggling, little, scrimply, unintelligible, Frenchy hand. So I sat thinking of the six box cords tied together and hidden away in the bottom drawer, underneath my green silk, and tightly locked up to keep them from prying eyes.Well, of course, I told Clara—though I may as well own that I really should not if I could have helped it. For she was anything but what I should have liked; and, of course, I did not care to be so teased. And there was my appetite so spoiled again that I could not eat, and poor me in such a fidget for the rest of the day, that I did not know what to do. I slipped upstairs three times to see if the cord was all right, and the knots tightly tied; and then, the last time, if I did not hear Miss Furness calling me, and come down in a flurry and leave the key in the drawer. I turned quite hot all over when I felt for it in my pocket, and was sure I had lost it somewhere; when if I could not get some more cord I should be stopped again. All at once I remembered that the thing must be stuck in the keyhole. So, as soon as the lesson with Miss Furness was over, I slipped to the back staircase, and was about halfway up, when I must meet that tiresome, fat, old Fraülein.“Vots for you heere, Mees Bozerne?” croaked the tiresome old English killer. “Young ladies ’ave no beesness upstaer in de afternoon. Go you down.”Of course I had to go down again, for I was breaking rules, and ought to have been at work at private study in the schoolroom till half an hour before tea-time.“It’s too bad,” I muttered, as I began to descend—“too bad to send me to a place like this, where one may not even go up to one’s bedroom. I’m sure, I don’t feel in the least bit like a school-girl.”Just then I heard Miss Sloman calling the Fraülein to “Come here, dear!” They always called one another, “my love,” and “dear,” in private, though I’m sure no one could have been more unamiable, or looked more ready to scratch and call names. So the Fraülein again ordered me to go down, and then turned back, evidently to go to Miss Sloman: so, seizing the opportunity, I slipped down into the hall, and began bounding up the front stairs like lightning, when if I did not literally run up against Mrs Blunt, and strike her right in the chest with my head, just as she had come out of her room—for I was not looking, but, with head down, bounding up two stairs at a time.It was a crash! Poor woman, she could not get breath to speak for some time. But, there, she was not the only one hurt; for that horrible twisted vulcanite coronet was driven right into my poor head, and pained me terribly.“Ach ten!” cried the Fraülein, who had heard the crash and exclamation on both sides, and now came waddling up; “I told you go down, ten, Miss Bozerne, and you come up to knock de lady principal.”So I was, without a word to say in defence, sent down in the most dreadful disgrace. But there was some fun in it, after all; for Clara vowed that the poor woman received such a shock that two of her bones—stay bones—were broken, and she nearly swallowed her teeth. But that Clara always would exaggerate so dreadfully; and, of course, that was not true.I was not going to be threatened with medicine this time because my appetite was bad, so I kept one slice of bread and butter upon my plate to bite at, though it was almost enough to choke me; and then I managed to draw two more slices over the edge of my plate into my lap, where my pocket-handkerchief was spread all ready; and then I wrapped them up, when I thought that no one was looking, and put them in my pocket; and so tea was got over, and I thought what a long time it would be till midnight.We were all standing in the middle of the classroom before getting our books out for the evening studies, when if Patty Smith did not come up to me, and, without waiting to see whether I would or not, exclaimed—“Lend me your handkerchief, Laura, dear—I won’t keep it a moment!”Seizing one end, which stuck out of my pocket, she gave it a snatch, when away it flew, and one piece of bread and butter was slung across the room, and struck Miss Furness in the face; while the other went flop up against the window behind her, stuck upon the pane for a moment, and then fell—leaving a buttery mark where it had been, as a matter of course. I declare I never felt so much ashamed in my life; while there were all the girls tittering and giggling, and Miss Furness wiping her face and scolding terribly about my dreadfully unladylike behaviour, though nothing could have been more humiliating than what followed, for I’m sure I wished there was not such a thing as a piece of bread and butter upon the face of the earth; for said Miss Furness—“And now, Miss Bozerne, come and pick up those pieces.”I would have given anything to have been able to refuse; but what could I do? I do not see how I could have helped it, for I really felt obliged; and there I was kneeling down, humbled and penitent, to pick it up; and there were the tiresome, buttery pieces, all broken up into crumbs here and crumbs there, all over the place.“For your sake, Achille?” I murmured to myself; and that made me bear it until I had picked up all I could, and held the scraps upon a piece of exercise paper, wondering what I had better do with them.“You had better wipe the butter off that window with your handkerchief, Miss Bozerne,” said Miss Furness, stiffly. “Oh! and it’s of no use for you to make up those indignant grimaces, and look like that, Miss Bozerne,” she continued, in her nasty, vinegary way. “If young ladies are so forgetful of decorum, and cannot be content with a fair share of food at the tea table, but must gluttonously stoop to steal pieces off the plate to devour at abnormal times, they must expect to be spoken to.”Just as if I had taken the horrid stuff to eat, when so great was my agitation that I could partake of nothing. So there I was, with my face and neck burning in a most “abnormal” way, as Miss Furness would have called it, wiping and smearing the butter about over the pane of glass, and hardly seeing what I was doing for the tears; when there was that Patty Smith staring at me with her great saucer eyes, and her mouth made round and open, as if it had been another eye, and Clara the whole time enjoying it all, and laughing at my discomfort. It was really much too bad, for it was all her fault: the wicked, mischievous, impish creature had seen me put the pieces of bread and butter into my pocket, and had actually set Patty to snatch the handkerchief out.“The plan succeeded beyond my expectations, darling,” she exclaimed afterwards, when we were alone; and I did not slap her—which, without boasting, must, I think, show how forgiving a spirit I possess.But, to return to the scene in the room. When I had finished smearing the window with my pretty little cambric handkerchief, I threw open the sash, and was going to fling out the little pieces of bread-crumbs for the poor little birds—“Miss Bozerne!” exclaimed Miss Furness, “what are you about?”“Going to give the crumbs to the birds, ma’am,” I said, humbly.“Oh, dear me, no,” exclaimed the old puss, seizing upon what she considered a good opportunity for making an example of me, and giving a lesson to the other girls—for that seemed one of the aims of her life: to make lessons out of everything she said or did, till she was a perfect nuisance. “Oh, dear me, no—such waste cannot be allowed. Go and put the fragments upon one of the plates, which James or the cook will give you, and ask her to save them for your breakfast.”I could have cried with vexation; but I did not, though it was very, very, very hard work to keep the tears back.“Oh, Achille! Achille!” I murmured again, “c’est pour toi!”I walked out, like a martyr, bearing the pieces, with bent-down eyes, and gave them to the cook, telling her she was to throw them to the chickens. For I would not have given Miss Furness’s message if she had stood behind me.Oh, yes, it was nice fun for the other girls, and dearly they used to enjoy seeing me humbled, because I always was rather distant, and would not make confidantes of ever so many; and when I went back, there they were upon the giggle, and Miss Furness not trying to check them one bit, as she would have done upon another occasion—which shows how partial and unjust she could be when she liked. But I soon forgot it all, engrossed as I was with the idea of what was coming that night. As to my next day’s lessons, after sitting before them for an hour, I believe that I knew less about them than when I took out my books; for right up at the top of one of the panes in the buttery window there was a spider spinning its net, and that set me thinking about poor Achille hanging in a web, and the four old lesson grinders being spiders to devour him. For there was the nasty creepy thing hanging by one of its strings ever so far down, and that made me think about the coming night and the rope ladder, till I could, in my overwrought fancy, imagine I saw poor Achille bobbing and swinging about, and ready to go through one of the window-panes every moment. Sometimes the very thought of it made my face burn, and my hands turn hot and damp as could be inside, just as they felt when one had shaken hands with Miss Furness, whose palm, in feel, was for all the world like the tail of a cod-fish.Sometimes during that evening I felt in misery, and, I believe, all owing to that spider, and thinking of the danger of the feat to perform which I had lured poor Achille. I would have given anything to have been able to beg of him not to attempt it.“Poor fly,” I thought—“poor, beautiful, fluttering, brightly painted fly; and have I been the means of weaving a net to lure thee to destruction? Oh, wretch that I am!”And so I went on for some time, just as people do in books when they are very bad in their emotions; and that is one advantage in reading, only emotions are so much more eloquent than they would be, say, in an ignorant, unlettered person; and really, be it pleasure or pain, it is as well to be refined and make a grand display; for it is so much more satisfactory, even if the audience consists of self alone. At times, though, I was so elated that I could feel my eyes flash and sparkle with the thoughts that rushed through my brain; when, as if reading my heart, Clara would creep close, and nip my arm, and keep on whispering—“I’ll tell—I’ll tell.”
I meant in the last chapter to have told a great deal more; but so many of my troubles and misadventures kept creeping in, that I did not get in one-half of what I intended. What pains I took to gain an interview—or, rather, to grant the poor fellow an interview, though it would have been to me the reaching of a green oasis in my journey across life’s desert, when, for a short time, the gentle palm branches would have waved, as it were, in gentle motion above our heads, while our cheeks would have been fanned by the gentle breath of love.
Of course there was a terrible to do about the basin in the morning, but it so happened, luckily, that the cat was not beneath our window, but beyond the Fraülein’s; so that in trying to reach it, Clara had thrown the basin for some distance, and right past our neighbour’s window. The Fraülein declared that she had never opened hers; and, poor woman, she opened her mouth into quite a round O when told that she must have thrown it out. There was nothing to cast suspicion upon us, for it was more likely to have been Celia Blang, on the other side of the Fraülein; and so, at last, the matter dropped, and we heard no more of it then.
But I had such a delightful treat two days after; for while we were going down the High Street, Miss Furness must turn faint, and have to be helped into the first house at hand, to sit down and rest, and that was Mrs Jackney’s, the milliner’s; and there we were, four or five of us at once, in the little parlour—dear Achille’s “apartment meublée,” as he called it. He was from home, giving lessons somewhere, no doubt; but while they were bathing Miss Furness’s face, and giving her sniffs of salts, and glasses of water to drink, I had such a look round the place, and saw his dear old boots in one corner—the pair, I was sure, he must put on for ease and comfort of a night; and I was so glad to see them, for, if, instead, I had caught sight of a nice, handsomely worked pair of slippers, they would have given me quite a pang. Now I felt that the task—no, the pleasure—was left for me.
Then there was a dear, duck of an old coat hanging behind the door; and such nice, funny little holes in the elbows, where he had rested his arms upon the table while he studied; and there was his pipe, and two bits of cigars, and a few yellow paper-covered books, and one thing which did, I must own, make me feel a little uncomfortable, a scarlet and black smoking cap—at least, it had been scarlet once, and had evidently been made by a lady, and, of course, one would have liked to have known who was the maker.
At first, in remembrance of her bitter, teasing words, I thought that it might have been Clara; but it did not look new enough; for the scarlet was fast verging upon the black, and, no doubt, in a short time it would have been impossible to make out the pattern. But I was glad to see it; for it was a hint that Achille would soon require a new one, and I knew who would make it. However, I did not much care; and taking advantage of there being no one looking, I contrived to drop my handkerchief inside it; but directly after I trembled, and wanted to have it back again, for there was my name marked upon it in full, in ink, and I was afraid that his landlady, Mrs Jackney, might see it.
I had a good look at her, to see whether I need feel jealous, and found, to my great delight, that I need not; for she was worse in appearance than Miss Furness, but evidently a very pleasant body; though, all the same I should not have liked her to find my handkerchief. However, there was no getting it back; for Miss Furness was now able to sit up, and I was one of the first to be obliged to leave the room, and stand agonised in the passage, lest any one should find out what I had done. But nothing was seen, and I heard afterwards from Achille, in one of his notes—the best, I think, that he ever wrote to me—how fondly he prized the treasure; and I mentally declared that it was not a bad way of laying out the value of a pocket-handkerchief, and that he should soon have another.
It was all so horribly unfortunate. If we made an engagement to meet, something was sure to happen; while, in spite of the time that had now passed since the poor Signor left, not one short five minutes had poor Achille and I had together. It was enough to make me ever so fond and devoted; and though I might be trembling a little in my allegiance at one time, I was ready to become a martyr now for his sake. But, as I said before, the very fact of an assignation being made was the signal for, or precursor of, something to happen; so that, I’m sure, I was quite in a tremble, a few days after Miss Furness’s faint, when Achille gave me a few lines inside De Porquet, telling me, in a few simple words, that he was again that night about to try his fortune, when he hoped I should be able to assist him to benefit the poor exiles, who were now in a great state of distress. No one, to have found that scrap of paper, would have imagined that it was anything more than a piece torn off to act as book-mark, and he gave me the book with it standing right out, so that Miss Furness could see it quite plainly as he passed it right under her nose, saying—
“I have put a piece of paper where you shall go on, Miss Bozerne.”
When I looked at it there was only hastily scrawled—
“Mercredi, une heure,” and “the poor suffer want—les pauvres ont besoin.”
That was all, and it really seemed to be a bit of exercise, and nothing else. But then, I had the key in my heart, and could read it as he meant; though truly it was an exercise for me to find means to overtop all difficulties and meet him. I knew what he meant well enough—just as well as if he had written four pages, crossed, in his own niggling, little, scrimply, unintelligible, Frenchy hand. So I sat thinking of the six box cords tied together and hidden away in the bottom drawer, underneath my green silk, and tightly locked up to keep them from prying eyes.
Well, of course, I told Clara—though I may as well own that I really should not if I could have helped it. For she was anything but what I should have liked; and, of course, I did not care to be so teased. And there was my appetite so spoiled again that I could not eat, and poor me in such a fidget for the rest of the day, that I did not know what to do. I slipped upstairs three times to see if the cord was all right, and the knots tightly tied; and then, the last time, if I did not hear Miss Furness calling me, and come down in a flurry and leave the key in the drawer. I turned quite hot all over when I felt for it in my pocket, and was sure I had lost it somewhere; when if I could not get some more cord I should be stopped again. All at once I remembered that the thing must be stuck in the keyhole. So, as soon as the lesson with Miss Furness was over, I slipped to the back staircase, and was about halfway up, when I must meet that tiresome, fat, old Fraülein.
“Vots for you heere, Mees Bozerne?” croaked the tiresome old English killer. “Young ladies ’ave no beesness upstaer in de afternoon. Go you down.”
Of course I had to go down again, for I was breaking rules, and ought to have been at work at private study in the schoolroom till half an hour before tea-time.
“It’s too bad,” I muttered, as I began to descend—“too bad to send me to a place like this, where one may not even go up to one’s bedroom. I’m sure, I don’t feel in the least bit like a school-girl.”
Just then I heard Miss Sloman calling the Fraülein to “Come here, dear!” They always called one another, “my love,” and “dear,” in private, though I’m sure no one could have been more unamiable, or looked more ready to scratch and call names. So the Fraülein again ordered me to go down, and then turned back, evidently to go to Miss Sloman: so, seizing the opportunity, I slipped down into the hall, and began bounding up the front stairs like lightning, when if I did not literally run up against Mrs Blunt, and strike her right in the chest with my head, just as she had come out of her room—for I was not looking, but, with head down, bounding up two stairs at a time.
It was a crash! Poor woman, she could not get breath to speak for some time. But, there, she was not the only one hurt; for that horrible twisted vulcanite coronet was driven right into my poor head, and pained me terribly.
“Ach ten!” cried the Fraülein, who had heard the crash and exclamation on both sides, and now came waddling up; “I told you go down, ten, Miss Bozerne, and you come up to knock de lady principal.”
So I was, without a word to say in defence, sent down in the most dreadful disgrace. But there was some fun in it, after all; for Clara vowed that the poor woman received such a shock that two of her bones—stay bones—were broken, and she nearly swallowed her teeth. But that Clara always would exaggerate so dreadfully; and, of course, that was not true.
I was not going to be threatened with medicine this time because my appetite was bad, so I kept one slice of bread and butter upon my plate to bite at, though it was almost enough to choke me; and then I managed to draw two more slices over the edge of my plate into my lap, where my pocket-handkerchief was spread all ready; and then I wrapped them up, when I thought that no one was looking, and put them in my pocket; and so tea was got over, and I thought what a long time it would be till midnight.
We were all standing in the middle of the classroom before getting our books out for the evening studies, when if Patty Smith did not come up to me, and, without waiting to see whether I would or not, exclaimed—
“Lend me your handkerchief, Laura, dear—I won’t keep it a moment!”
Seizing one end, which stuck out of my pocket, she gave it a snatch, when away it flew, and one piece of bread and butter was slung across the room, and struck Miss Furness in the face; while the other went flop up against the window behind her, stuck upon the pane for a moment, and then fell—leaving a buttery mark where it had been, as a matter of course. I declare I never felt so much ashamed in my life; while there were all the girls tittering and giggling, and Miss Furness wiping her face and scolding terribly about my dreadfully unladylike behaviour, though nothing could have been more humiliating than what followed, for I’m sure I wished there was not such a thing as a piece of bread and butter upon the face of the earth; for said Miss Furness—
“And now, Miss Bozerne, come and pick up those pieces.”
I would have given anything to have been able to refuse; but what could I do? I do not see how I could have helped it, for I really felt obliged; and there I was kneeling down, humbled and penitent, to pick it up; and there were the tiresome, buttery pieces, all broken up into crumbs here and crumbs there, all over the place.
“For your sake, Achille?” I murmured to myself; and that made me bear it until I had picked up all I could, and held the scraps upon a piece of exercise paper, wondering what I had better do with them.
“You had better wipe the butter off that window with your handkerchief, Miss Bozerne,” said Miss Furness, stiffly. “Oh! and it’s of no use for you to make up those indignant grimaces, and look like that, Miss Bozerne,” she continued, in her nasty, vinegary way. “If young ladies are so forgetful of decorum, and cannot be content with a fair share of food at the tea table, but must gluttonously stoop to steal pieces off the plate to devour at abnormal times, they must expect to be spoken to.”
Just as if I had taken the horrid stuff to eat, when so great was my agitation that I could partake of nothing. So there I was, with my face and neck burning in a most “abnormal” way, as Miss Furness would have called it, wiping and smearing the butter about over the pane of glass, and hardly seeing what I was doing for the tears; when there was that Patty Smith staring at me with her great saucer eyes, and her mouth made round and open, as if it had been another eye, and Clara the whole time enjoying it all, and laughing at my discomfort. It was really much too bad, for it was all her fault: the wicked, mischievous, impish creature had seen me put the pieces of bread and butter into my pocket, and had actually set Patty to snatch the handkerchief out.
“The plan succeeded beyond my expectations, darling,” she exclaimed afterwards, when we were alone; and I did not slap her—which, without boasting, must, I think, show how forgiving a spirit I possess.
But, to return to the scene in the room. When I had finished smearing the window with my pretty little cambric handkerchief, I threw open the sash, and was going to fling out the little pieces of bread-crumbs for the poor little birds—
“Miss Bozerne!” exclaimed Miss Furness, “what are you about?”
“Going to give the crumbs to the birds, ma’am,” I said, humbly.
“Oh, dear me, no,” exclaimed the old puss, seizing upon what she considered a good opportunity for making an example of me, and giving a lesson to the other girls—for that seemed one of the aims of her life: to make lessons out of everything she said or did, till she was a perfect nuisance. “Oh, dear me, no—such waste cannot be allowed. Go and put the fragments upon one of the plates, which James or the cook will give you, and ask her to save them for your breakfast.”
I could have cried with vexation; but I did not, though it was very, very, very hard work to keep the tears back.
“Oh, Achille! Achille!” I murmured again, “c’est pour toi!”
I walked out, like a martyr, bearing the pieces, with bent-down eyes, and gave them to the cook, telling her she was to throw them to the chickens. For I would not have given Miss Furness’s message if she had stood behind me.
Oh, yes, it was nice fun for the other girls, and dearly they used to enjoy seeing me humbled, because I always was rather distant, and would not make confidantes of ever so many; and when I went back, there they were upon the giggle, and Miss Furness not trying to check them one bit, as she would have done upon another occasion—which shows how partial and unjust she could be when she liked. But I soon forgot it all, engrossed as I was with the idea of what was coming that night. As to my next day’s lessons, after sitting before them for an hour, I believe that I knew less about them than when I took out my books; for right up at the top of one of the panes in the buttery window there was a spider spinning its net, and that set me thinking about poor Achille hanging in a web, and the four old lesson grinders being spiders to devour him. For there was the nasty creepy thing hanging by one of its strings ever so far down, and that made me think about the coming night and the rope ladder, till I could, in my overwrought fancy, imagine I saw poor Achille bobbing and swinging about, and ready to go through one of the window-panes every moment. Sometimes the very thought of it made my face burn, and my hands turn hot and damp as could be inside, just as they felt when one had shaken hands with Miss Furness, whose palm, in feel, was for all the world like the tail of a cod-fish.
Sometimes during that evening I felt in misery, and, I believe, all owing to that spider, and thinking of the danger of the feat to perform which I had lured poor Achille. I would have given anything to have been able to beg of him not to attempt it.
“Poor fly,” I thought—“poor, beautiful, fluttering, brightly painted fly; and have I been the means of weaving a net to lure thee to destruction? Oh, wretch that I am!”
And so I went on for some time, just as people do in books when they are very bad in their emotions; and that is one advantage in reading, only emotions are so much more eloquent than they would be, say, in an ignorant, unlettered person; and really, be it pleasure or pain, it is as well to be refined and make a grand display; for it is so much more satisfactory, even if the audience consists of self alone. At times, though, I was so elated that I could feel my eyes flash and sparkle with the thoughts that rushed through my brain; when, as if reading my heart, Clara would creep close, and nip my arm, and keep on whispering—
“I’ll tell—I’ll tell.”
Chapter Seventeen.Memory the Seventeenth—In Dreadful Daring.Bed-time at last, and me there, close shut up in our own room; but not before I had run to the end of the passage and tried the end door to see if it was open; and it was—it was! Clara was, after all said and done, nearly as much excited as poor I; and once she sighed, and said that she could almost have wished for the poor Signor to have been there, but I did not tell her I was very glad that he would not be. Then Miss Patty must want to know what we were whispering about, and declare that she would tell Miss Furness, for we were making fun of her; and turn huffy and cross, till she got into bed, and then lie staring with wide-open eyes at the window, just because we wanted her to go to sleep.“Ma’s going to send me a cake on Toosday,” she said at last, after I had kissed and told her we were not laughing at her; and I must do her the credit of saying that she always was a most good-tempered creature, and never out of humour for long together. “And when my cake comes,” she continued, after five minutes’ thought, “I’ll spend fourpence in ginger beer, if you will each spend the same, and we’ll have a supper.”“I do wish you would go to sleep, instead of keeping on bothering,” cried Clara.“I dare say you do, Miss Consequence,” said Patty; “but I shall go to sleep when I like.”And then, if she did not lie awake until nearly twelve, though we pretended to be both fast asleep, and would not answer any of her foolish, chattering questions, when, as usual, she began to snore; and after waiting until I felt quite sure that she was asleep, I jumped out of bed, and began to dress myself as quickly and quietly as possible. As soon as I had finished and then lain down once more, Clara got up too, and followed my example, even to the lying down again when she had finished; for it was too soon to go yet, and we both felt that it would be safer the nearer we were to the middle of the night; and of course one felt determined to do nothing this time to frustrate one’s designs.We had tried more than once dressing in bed under the clothes, and, of course, lying down; but that really is such terribly hard work, as any one will find upon testing it, that we both soon gave it up, and waited till we felt sure of Patty being sound asleep; and she really was the heaviest sleeper I ever knew. So we both dressed in the dark; and that is bad enough, I can assure you—dreadfully awkward, for one gets one’s strings so crossed, and tied wrong, and in knots, and muddled about, till one is horribly uncomfortable, besides being twice as long as at any other time.At last, I whispered to Clara that it was time to go, but there was no answer; and on getting off the bed and touching her, she quite started. For she had been asleep, and when I reproached her—“Well, of course,” she said, peevishly; “it’s sleeping time, is it not?”But she roused up directly after, and stood by my side, as I went down upon my knees by the bottom drawer, and tried to pull it out very gently, without making any noise, so as to get at the cord. For the key was in it all right when I came up, and I thought that I would leave it there, though I was all in a fidget for fear any one had been in and looked and seen the cord, while Patty was so curious that I dare not look to see; though if any one had taken it away, what should I have done?“Cree-ea-ea-ea-eak,” went the drawer as soon as I pulled it, after the lock had shot back with a loud noise like a small pistol; and at this dreadful sound I stopped and turned cold all down my back; for I felt sure that the Fraülein would hear it. So there I knelt upon the floor, trembling like a leaf, and not daring to move; for Clara cried “Hush!” very loudly, and I’m sure I did not know what would come next. In fact, I almost expected to see the bedroom door open, and the Fraülein standing there.“You should have put some soap upon it,” whispered Clara.“Yes, same as you did upon the basin,” I said, viciously, and that silenced her; though I believe the mischievous thing was chuckling to herself all the while.At last, after five minutes had passed, which seemed like as many hours, everything was quite still, so I gave the drawer another pull.“Craw-aw-aw-aw-awk,” it went, louder than before, and as if on purpose to annoy me; but I was so desperate that I gave the thing a horrible snatch, and pulled it out far enough, when I pushed in my hand and drew out the cord, hardly expecting to find it; but there it was, all right, and holding it tightly, I still knelt there trembling.“Er-tchisher—er-tchisher,” came now, as loudly as possible, from Patty Smith’s bed; and then we heard the tiresome thing turn on one side.We waited a little, and then I rose, and stood close to the door, waiting for Clara to join me; when if the stupid thing did not forget all about my open drawer, which I dare not attempt to close, and went blundering over it, making such a dreadful noise, that I rushed into bed and covered myself up; and, from the scuffling noise, I knew that she had done the same, for it was too dark to see.“Oh, my shins!” said Clara, in a whisper.Then I could hear her rubbing and laughing, not that I could see anything to laugh at; while if the Fraülein did not tap at the wall because we were so noisy, and with disappointment gnawing me, I knew that we must not stir for at least another half-hour, when it was quite late enough as it was.“Oh, what a comfort it is that Patty is such a sleeper!” I thought to myself. And there I lay—wait, wait, wait, until I felt that we dared move, when I again cautiously slipped to the door, and, as I had taken the precaution of rubbing it well with pomatum, the lock went easy. Clara joined me, and then, drawing the door after us, we glided along the passage, hand in hand, listening at every step until we reached the end, where the empty room door was ajar, just as I had left it when we came up to bed. Then we slipped in so quietly that we hardly heard ourselves, and, pushing-to the door, I tried to secure it, but it would not fasten without making a noise; so, as we were right away from the other rooms, I left it, and went across and tried the window.The hasp went rather hard, but I soon had it gliding up; and then I stood looking out into the dark night, and listening, till I heard a little soft cough from below, which I answered; when my heart began to beat very fast, for I knew that, after all, we were not too late, and he was there.But there was no time to lose, and, as fast as I could, I undid the nasty tangley cord, which would keep getting itself in knots, and rustling about upon the floor, like a great, long, coiling snake. But I managed at last to have it hanging down, and began fishing about, like I used at Teddington, with papa, till I got a bite; for, after a bit, I felt it softly tugged at—just like the eels under the fishing punt—then it went jig, jig, two or three times, as it was shaken about, and then there was a long jerk, and a soft cough, as if for a signal; and I began to pull up something which grew heavier every moment.It seemed very long, and I could have fancied that I had pulled all the cord in twice over; but more still kept coming, and I must have had it all close to the window, when Clara suddenly cried “Oh!” when, of course, I started and let go, and down it all went with a rush in amongst the carnations at the bottom.“Oh, his poor head?” I thought, as I turned sharply round; when, what a task I did have to keep from shrieking!—for there, dimly seen in the open doorway, stood a figure in white, staring at us in the most dreadful way imaginable. There was something so still, and tall, and ghastly about the figure, seen there in the gloom, that I could not stir, neither could poor Clara, as we held tightly by one another while the thing glided softly into the room, closed the door, and stood there staring.If I could only have sunk through the floor, I would not have cared. One moment I thought of rushing into one of the empty beds in the room; but I restrained myself, because there were no clothes upon them in which to bury oneself. The next moment I was for jumping out of the window to Achille; but it was too far; and we neither of us dared to go into hysterics and scream for help. So that we stood, frightened to death, till Clara sank down at my feet and buried her face in my lap, while I stood staring at the figure, which now came closer and closer as I walked away, Clara shuffling upon her knees to keep up to me.For a moment I thought that it might have been a teacheren déshabille; but the horrible silence soon showed that it was not. And at last, when I felt that I could bear no more, but must scream, having been walked right up to the wall by the hideous thing, it spoke, and the words seemed to act upon us both like magic, sending the blood coursing through our veins, making our hearts throb, and a warm glow to return where a moment before all was frozen and chilling; for just as I was sinking—feeling myself gliding slowly down upon kneeling Clara—I started up, for it said, in a loud, thrilling whisper—“What are you two a-doing of?”Then it sneezed.Of course it was Patty Smith, who had pretended to be asleep, and watched all the time, following us along the passage, and thoroughly upsetting all one’s plans again. She could see plainly enough that we had the window open, and knew pretty well what was taking place; so we had to make a virtue of necessity, and tell her, in as few words as possible, all about it. Not that I think she would have told tales, even if we had not enlightened her; but we knew she would watch us, and find out for herself; so upon the principle of its being better to make a friend than an enemy, she was told all.“Won’t you make your cold worse, dear?” said Clara. “You are not dressed.”“I don’t care,” said the stupid thing; and then she stopped, while I went to the window again; and though I had lost my string, and knew that it was of no use to try any more that night, I gave a gentle cough and then waited a moment. I was about to cough again, but Patty, who was close behind me, sneezed once more loudly; and at last, after waiting a few minutes and coughing again and again, Clara and Patty both grumbled so about the cold that I was obliged reluctantly to close the window. After waiting for awhile, we one by one stole back to the bedroom, where Patty declared that it was such good fun, and that she would go with us next time—just as if we wanted her; while poor I laid my cheek upon my pillow, disappointed, disconsolate, and upset to such a degree that I could do nothing else but have a good quiet cry for I don’t know how long; but I know how wet my pillow grew, so that at last I was obliged to turn it before I could get to sleep.And what was the use of going to sleep, to be in such trouble that I did not know what to do—dreams, dreams, dreams, and all of such a horrible kind! Now it was Achille in danger, now it was the white figure coming in at the door, and one moment Patty Smith, and then changing into Mrs Blunt and Miss Furness, Miss Sloman and the Fraülein; while, last of all, if it was not mamma, looking dreadfully cross, and then scolding me for my bad behaviour. Oh, it was terrible! And I don’t think that I ever before passed such a night.
Bed-time at last, and me there, close shut up in our own room; but not before I had run to the end of the passage and tried the end door to see if it was open; and it was—it was! Clara was, after all said and done, nearly as much excited as poor I; and once she sighed, and said that she could almost have wished for the poor Signor to have been there, but I did not tell her I was very glad that he would not be. Then Miss Patty must want to know what we were whispering about, and declare that she would tell Miss Furness, for we were making fun of her; and turn huffy and cross, till she got into bed, and then lie staring with wide-open eyes at the window, just because we wanted her to go to sleep.
“Ma’s going to send me a cake on Toosday,” she said at last, after I had kissed and told her we were not laughing at her; and I must do her the credit of saying that she always was a most good-tempered creature, and never out of humour for long together. “And when my cake comes,” she continued, after five minutes’ thought, “I’ll spend fourpence in ginger beer, if you will each spend the same, and we’ll have a supper.”
“I do wish you would go to sleep, instead of keeping on bothering,” cried Clara.
“I dare say you do, Miss Consequence,” said Patty; “but I shall go to sleep when I like.”
And then, if she did not lie awake until nearly twelve, though we pretended to be both fast asleep, and would not answer any of her foolish, chattering questions, when, as usual, she began to snore; and after waiting until I felt quite sure that she was asleep, I jumped out of bed, and began to dress myself as quickly and quietly as possible. As soon as I had finished and then lain down once more, Clara got up too, and followed my example, even to the lying down again when she had finished; for it was too soon to go yet, and we both felt that it would be safer the nearer we were to the middle of the night; and of course one felt determined to do nothing this time to frustrate one’s designs.
We had tried more than once dressing in bed under the clothes, and, of course, lying down; but that really is such terribly hard work, as any one will find upon testing it, that we both soon gave it up, and waited till we felt sure of Patty being sound asleep; and she really was the heaviest sleeper I ever knew. So we both dressed in the dark; and that is bad enough, I can assure you—dreadfully awkward, for one gets one’s strings so crossed, and tied wrong, and in knots, and muddled about, till one is horribly uncomfortable, besides being twice as long as at any other time.
At last, I whispered to Clara that it was time to go, but there was no answer; and on getting off the bed and touching her, she quite started. For she had been asleep, and when I reproached her—
“Well, of course,” she said, peevishly; “it’s sleeping time, is it not?”
But she roused up directly after, and stood by my side, as I went down upon my knees by the bottom drawer, and tried to pull it out very gently, without making any noise, so as to get at the cord. For the key was in it all right when I came up, and I thought that I would leave it there, though I was all in a fidget for fear any one had been in and looked and seen the cord, while Patty was so curious that I dare not look to see; though if any one had taken it away, what should I have done?
“Cree-ea-ea-ea-eak,” went the drawer as soon as I pulled it, after the lock had shot back with a loud noise like a small pistol; and at this dreadful sound I stopped and turned cold all down my back; for I felt sure that the Fraülein would hear it. So there I knelt upon the floor, trembling like a leaf, and not daring to move; for Clara cried “Hush!” very loudly, and I’m sure I did not know what would come next. In fact, I almost expected to see the bedroom door open, and the Fraülein standing there.
“You should have put some soap upon it,” whispered Clara.
“Yes, same as you did upon the basin,” I said, viciously, and that silenced her; though I believe the mischievous thing was chuckling to herself all the while.
At last, after five minutes had passed, which seemed like as many hours, everything was quite still, so I gave the drawer another pull.
“Craw-aw-aw-aw-awk,” it went, louder than before, and as if on purpose to annoy me; but I was so desperate that I gave the thing a horrible snatch, and pulled it out far enough, when I pushed in my hand and drew out the cord, hardly expecting to find it; but there it was, all right, and holding it tightly, I still knelt there trembling.
“Er-tchisher—er-tchisher,” came now, as loudly as possible, from Patty Smith’s bed; and then we heard the tiresome thing turn on one side.
We waited a little, and then I rose, and stood close to the door, waiting for Clara to join me; when if the stupid thing did not forget all about my open drawer, which I dare not attempt to close, and went blundering over it, making such a dreadful noise, that I rushed into bed and covered myself up; and, from the scuffling noise, I knew that she had done the same, for it was too dark to see.
“Oh, my shins!” said Clara, in a whisper.
Then I could hear her rubbing and laughing, not that I could see anything to laugh at; while if the Fraülein did not tap at the wall because we were so noisy, and with disappointment gnawing me, I knew that we must not stir for at least another half-hour, when it was quite late enough as it was.
“Oh, what a comfort it is that Patty is such a sleeper!” I thought to myself. And there I lay—wait, wait, wait, until I felt that we dared move, when I again cautiously slipped to the door, and, as I had taken the precaution of rubbing it well with pomatum, the lock went easy. Clara joined me, and then, drawing the door after us, we glided along the passage, hand in hand, listening at every step until we reached the end, where the empty room door was ajar, just as I had left it when we came up to bed. Then we slipped in so quietly that we hardly heard ourselves, and, pushing-to the door, I tried to secure it, but it would not fasten without making a noise; so, as we were right away from the other rooms, I left it, and went across and tried the window.
The hasp went rather hard, but I soon had it gliding up; and then I stood looking out into the dark night, and listening, till I heard a little soft cough from below, which I answered; when my heart began to beat very fast, for I knew that, after all, we were not too late, and he was there.
But there was no time to lose, and, as fast as I could, I undid the nasty tangley cord, which would keep getting itself in knots, and rustling about upon the floor, like a great, long, coiling snake. But I managed at last to have it hanging down, and began fishing about, like I used at Teddington, with papa, till I got a bite; for, after a bit, I felt it softly tugged at—just like the eels under the fishing punt—then it went jig, jig, two or three times, as it was shaken about, and then there was a long jerk, and a soft cough, as if for a signal; and I began to pull up something which grew heavier every moment.
It seemed very long, and I could have fancied that I had pulled all the cord in twice over; but more still kept coming, and I must have had it all close to the window, when Clara suddenly cried “Oh!” when, of course, I started and let go, and down it all went with a rush in amongst the carnations at the bottom.
“Oh, his poor head?” I thought, as I turned sharply round; when, what a task I did have to keep from shrieking!—for there, dimly seen in the open doorway, stood a figure in white, staring at us in the most dreadful way imaginable. There was something so still, and tall, and ghastly about the figure, seen there in the gloom, that I could not stir, neither could poor Clara, as we held tightly by one another while the thing glided softly into the room, closed the door, and stood there staring.
If I could only have sunk through the floor, I would not have cared. One moment I thought of rushing into one of the empty beds in the room; but I restrained myself, because there were no clothes upon them in which to bury oneself. The next moment I was for jumping out of the window to Achille; but it was too far; and we neither of us dared to go into hysterics and scream for help. So that we stood, frightened to death, till Clara sank down at my feet and buried her face in my lap, while I stood staring at the figure, which now came closer and closer as I walked away, Clara shuffling upon her knees to keep up to me.
For a moment I thought that it might have been a teacheren déshabille; but the horrible silence soon showed that it was not. And at last, when I felt that I could bear no more, but must scream, having been walked right up to the wall by the hideous thing, it spoke, and the words seemed to act upon us both like magic, sending the blood coursing through our veins, making our hearts throb, and a warm glow to return where a moment before all was frozen and chilling; for just as I was sinking—feeling myself gliding slowly down upon kneeling Clara—I started up, for it said, in a loud, thrilling whisper—
“What are you two a-doing of?”
Then it sneezed.
Of course it was Patty Smith, who had pretended to be asleep, and watched all the time, following us along the passage, and thoroughly upsetting all one’s plans again. She could see plainly enough that we had the window open, and knew pretty well what was taking place; so we had to make a virtue of necessity, and tell her, in as few words as possible, all about it. Not that I think she would have told tales, even if we had not enlightened her; but we knew she would watch us, and find out for herself; so upon the principle of its being better to make a friend than an enemy, she was told all.
“Won’t you make your cold worse, dear?” said Clara. “You are not dressed.”
“I don’t care,” said the stupid thing; and then she stopped, while I went to the window again; and though I had lost my string, and knew that it was of no use to try any more that night, I gave a gentle cough and then waited a moment. I was about to cough again, but Patty, who was close behind me, sneezed once more loudly; and at last, after waiting a few minutes and coughing again and again, Clara and Patty both grumbled so about the cold that I was obliged reluctantly to close the window. After waiting for awhile, we one by one stole back to the bedroom, where Patty declared that it was such good fun, and that she would go with us next time—just as if we wanted her; while poor I laid my cheek upon my pillow, disappointed, disconsolate, and upset to such a degree that I could do nothing else but have a good quiet cry for I don’t know how long; but I know how wet my pillow grew, so that at last I was obliged to turn it before I could get to sleep.
And what was the use of going to sleep, to be in such trouble that I did not know what to do—dreams, dreams, dreams, and all of such a horrible kind! Now it was Achille in danger, now it was the white figure coming in at the door, and one moment Patty Smith, and then changing into Mrs Blunt and Miss Furness, Miss Sloman and the Fraülein; while, last of all, if it was not mamma, looking dreadfully cross, and then scolding me for my bad behaviour. Oh, it was terrible! And I don’t think that I ever before passed such a night.
Chapter Eighteen.Memory the Eighteenth—In Terrible Suspense.My spirits rose a little after breakfast the next morning, though I only smiled sadly as I thought of my many disappointments; but we had had a long talk with Patty, and she had faithfully promised never, upon any consideration, to divulge one of our secrets. Of course I did not like making another confidante; but, under the circumstances, what could one do?“Ah!” said Patty; “but it was a great shame that you did not tell me before.”“Why, we should have told you,” said Clara—a wicked storyteller—“only you do sleep so soundly, dear.”Though, after all, perhaps that was nearly the truth; for, if she had not slept so soundly, we should have been obliged to let her into our secrets sooner.This satisfied her, but it did not satisfy me; for the stupid creature must go about looking so knowing, and cunning, and deep, and laugh and leer at Clara, and nod and wink at me, all day long, till it was dreadfully aggravating, and enough to make anybody suspicious; and I almost wonder that one of the watchful dragons did not have something to say about it.“Why, we shall be obliged to have her in the room all the time,” I said to Clara, as I was thinking of my next interview with Achille; that is, if I ever was to have another.“Never mind, dear,” replied Clara; “it cannot matter much. She is very stupid, and I daresay that I can keep her in order.”I contrived to let Achille know all when he came the next day, and gave him to understand that he might try again upon any night he liked; for the last was only a false alarm, and all would have gone well had I but only held tightly by the cord. I gave him the information, written in French, at the top of my exercise, while Miss Furness was in the room, when if he had not the audacity to call me up to his elbow—for he had seen it all in an instant—and if he did not point out and mark two or three mistakes in the note I had scribbled so hastily at the top about the last meeting. However, I suppose he wished me to speak his own language correctly; and none but the brave deserve the fair.There was one thing, though, in our correspondence which I did not like—poor Achille never could take any interest in our English poets; so that, if one quoted a bit of Byron or Moore to him, it was good for nothing, while he, the tiresome man, was always filling up his notes with scraps of Molière, and I am sure I always praised them, and said that they were very beautiful.And now once more came the night for meeting, with all its heart-throbbing flurry and excitement; but this time, apparently, without any of the terrible contretemps that had previously troubled us. Patty was in high glee, and sat on the edge of her bedstead, munching an Abernethy biscuit, and grinning; while her great eyes, instead of half closing, like anybody else’s would when they were laughing, became more round and wide open than ever. It seemed to be capital fun to her, and over and over again, when I glanced at her, she was giggling and laughing; and I do believe that, if I had not been there, she would have got up and danced about the room.But it was time to start at last, and upon this occasion I had no noisy drawer to open, for I had a ball of new, stout string in my pocket. So, one at a time, we glided along the passage, Clara going first, Patty second, and I followed behind, to close our door as quietly as was possible.“Pat, pat, pat,” and, with a gentle rustle, we passed along the passage, and stood at last in the little end room, while I am sure that no one could have heard our footsteps.Clara made one effort to get rid of Patty before we started, but it was of no avail.“Arn’t you afraid of catching a worse cold?” she said; “hadn’t you better stay in the bedroom, dear?”For really she had a most miserable cold, and her eyes and nose looked as red as red.“I sha’n’t catch any more cold than you will,” she cried, just as she had once before upon a similar occasion—“I want to see all the fun.”Fancy calling it fun!So we were obliged to suffer her presence; but I am afraid that I was uncharitable enough to wish that she might catch a bad sore throat for her pains, or else something that would keep her from coming again.However, there we all were; and as soon as ever we were all in the little room, I secured the door with a fork that I had brought for the purpose, and then, pulling out my string, I unfastened the window, when, fortunately, it glided up beautifully.Clara was the first to look out, and it not being a dark night, she popped in again directly, saying in a whisper—“There he is. I can see him.”“Let me look,” cried Patty Smith, quite out loud; and then, when her head was out of the window, if she did not give quite a loud cough, in not only a most indiscreet way, but, really, one that was most reprehensible.I pulled her back as quickly as I could, and, in a whisper, gave her a good scolding. Then I tied my scissors to the end of the string, to make it go down quickly, and swinging them over the great ledge, I looked down; but I could not see poor Achille, for he had come close up to the house, and was, of course, out of sight beneath the cornice.“But I shall see him soon,” I said to myself; and went on letting down the scissors till the string felt slack, and I knew that they touched the ground, when, just as before, I felt the string seized and jerked about, as if being attached to something; and well I knew what, though a half-fear took hold upon me now lest it should break the string, which was not so strong as I could have wished.But now there was the signal; and I began to pull up the heavy rope ladder, cutting my poor little fingers with the string. At first it came up pretty quickly, but soon slower, for again it began to grow heavier; and at last, when I made sure that it must be nearly up, if it must not turn contrary against us, and catch against the cornice, and remain immovable.What was I to do? It was of no use to pull and jerk; for, if we had pulled any harder, I’m sure that the string must have broken. If it had not been for Clara, I should have climbed out of the window, and stood upon the cornice, to set it at liberty, for she could easily have held my hand, so that I should really have been quite safe.But she would not hear of this, and I don’t know what I should have done if I had not thought of lowering the ladder down a little way, and then trying again, when, to my great delight, up it came, and Clara soon had hold of a pair of great iron hooks, just the sort of hooks I expected to see; and on fixing them upon the sill, my side, we found that they fitted beautifully; so I threw myself upon them to hold them in their places, lest they should slip.Just after that there was a sharp rustle of the rope, and then it was pulled tight; while now, making Clara hold one hook and Patty the other, I strained out as far as I could reach, so that I could see Achille mounting, slowly ascending, the dangerous thing; and, although we all held on as tightly as we could, when he was about a dozen feet from the ground the tiresome rope began to twist and spin round and round, so that the poor fellow was twisting just as if he was being roasted, and I’m sure he must have been as giddy as giddy.Fortunately for him, he did not always go the same way round, but twisted back again, or else he must have dropped off. It was not as if he had been close up to the house, for then he could have touched the wall and stopped himself; but the cornice, which was a good width, kept him away, so that he swung clear. And perhaps, after all, it was quite as well, for he might else have gone right through one of the windows.It was very shuddery and dreadful; but we poor girls could do nothing but grasp the rope and hold our breath, and, as Clara said, hold our tongues; though Patty would keep letting go, and staring out of the window when she was not wanted to.“Won’t I tease him about this,” she said. “Only see, the first time he finds fault with my exercises.”“Hush! you foolish child,” I exclaimed. “Good gracious me! you must never say a word to him about it, under any consideration.”“Mustn’t I?” said Patty, as innocently as could be.“No, of course not,” cried Clara; “that would ruin everything.”For I was now reaching as far as could be out of the window, to see what poor Achille was about; for the rope seemed to be doing nothing, and did not jerk as if he was getting higher and higher. And then, oh, dear! if I could not just see one of his feet where his head was last time I looked; for he was sitting upon the sill of the first floor window—the best bedroom, which was, of course, empty—and, I suppose, resting himself.All at once, though, I heard him whisper—“Is de ting sauf?”“Yes, yes,” I whispered in reply.And then the rope crunched upon the cornice, as if he had again committed to it his weight, when I drew in my head and waited, trembling, for him to reach the window; and it did seem such a long time to come so short a distance; but, as he told me afterwards, the loops would keep slipping away when he wanted to put his feet in them, besides the rope spinning him round until he was giddy. At last I looked out again, and then drew back my head in agony; for if he was not hanging by one leg, head downwards, just like my poor Dick, the canary, did in London, when it caught its claw in the wire of the cage and could not get loose.As I said, I drew in my head, quite in an agony of fear; but the rope jerked about so that I was obliged to gaze once more, and then I ejaculated, quite loudly—“Oh, Achille!”“Eh, yais, oui,” he exclaimed. “I ’ave put in mine’s foot.”“In what—in what, mon cher?” I whispered.“Oh,” he gasped, in a thick voice, “mais je suis giddy. I ’ave puts my foot trou de loops, and cannot get him back.”“Oh, pray come in!” cried Clara, who had heard every word, and seemed quite horrified—“pray come in and shut the window. Let’s go away.”“Oh, nonsense,” I said, “he will be hung: he will die! His head is hanging down, and his leg sticking up in the rope. He has slipped. Whatever shall we do?”“Why don’t you cut the rope?” said Patty; but of course no one took any notice of her.“Let’s unhook the things,” whispered Clara, “and then drop him down into the laurustinus.”“Oh, how can you be so stupid!” I panted. “It would kill him: he’s right above the first floor window-sill.”“Well, but we can’t shut the window with those things there,” said Clara; “and it will not do to be found out.”I looked again, and there he still was twirling round just as if he was being roasted, and the rope shaking so that I thought it must break. I kept whispering to him, but he did not hear me; and just dim and indistinctly as he was seen, I could make out that he was trying to double himself up and get his hands to the rope.I never, I’m sure, felt anything so dreadful before in my life as those few moments when he was struggling there, and me unable to help him; for, in addition to the horror, there was the pricking of my conscience, as it told me that this was all my fault, and that if he was killed I should have murdered him. Which was very dreadful, you know, when that last affair of the cistern, which he escaped from with a fearful drenching, ought to have been a warning to me to have spared him from running any more risks on my behalf.I declare that I should have tried to slide down the rope to help him, or else to share his fate, if Clara had not restrained me once more; but she kept tightly hold of my waist, till there came up a sound like the gnashing together of teeth, the rope gave a terrible shake, and the iron hooks fell jingling upon the floor.There was a crashing and rustling of leaves and branches, as if a heavy body had fallen amongst trees, and then all was still, except for a deep groan—a French groan—which came up, thrilling us all horribly; for the rope had come unfastened, and had slipped through the round rings of the hooks.We all stood aghast for a few minutes; but at last I summoned up courage enough to lean out, and whisper loudly—“Achille! mon ami Achille!” when, as if in answer, came a most doleful “H-ooo, o-o-o, ho-o-o-o!” which made one’s very blood run cold.“That’s only an owl,” said Clara, the next minute.“A howl!” said Patty; “that it wasn’t, it was a groan, just the same as the pigs give when they’re dying in our slaughter-house at home.”I leaned out of the window as far as I could, once more, and was trying to pierce the darkness below, when all at once I heard a window to the right opening very gently, and squeaking as it ran up, and that window, I felt sure, was the lady principal’s; so, recollecting the night of the alarm from Clara’s basin—agonised though I was—I felt obliged to close ours quietly, pick up the two hooks, and then we all three glided back to our room—my heart chiding me the while for forsaking poor Achille in such a time of dire distress. But what could I do? To stay or to raise an alarm was to be found out, and perhaps—ay, perhaps!—poor fellow, he was not hurt, after all.It was just as well that we did slip back, for we had hardly closed the door before the alarm bell on the top of the house began to ring, and we heard the Fraülein spring out of bed with a regular bump upon the floor.We were not many seconds scuffling into bed; and, just as we lay down, we heard the Fraülein’s door open, and then there were voices talking and a good deal of buzzing about, for quite half an hour. But we thought it better not to go out; for, when Clara took a peep, Miss Furness was hunting several of the girls back into their rooms with—“Nothing the matter, young ladies. Back to your dormitories.”So we lay quite still, and listened; while I essayed to allay my horrible fears about poor Achille, and tried to fancy that every sigh of the wind among the branches was him stealing—no, I won’t say stealing, it looks so bad—hurrying away. Then we heard the Fraülein come in, and her bed creak loudly as she lay down; and once more all was quiet, and I felt sure that they could not have seen or heard anything, but I dared not get up once more to see. Clara said she was sure she heard Mrs Blunt talking to the policeman out of the window again. Perhaps she did, but I did not; though it was most likely, after the ringing of the alarm bell.“What are you sobbing for?” said Clara, all at once.“Oh, I know he’s killed,” I said.“Pooh, nonsense,” she replied, in her unfeeling way, “he only went plop among the bushes; and they say exiles always manage to fall on their feet when they come to England, just like cats. He is not hurt, unless he has scratched that beautiful face of his a little bit.”“Then you don’t think he is killed, dear?” I said, seeking for comfort, alas! where I was but little likely to find it, I’m sorry to say.“Not I,” said Clara; “it was not far enough to fall.”“I sha’n’t go no more,” drawled Patty; “it ain’t half such fun as I thought it was. Why didn’t he come right up?”“Don’t be such a goose!” cried Clara to the noodle. “Why, didn’t he get his leg caught, and then didn’t the rope give way?”“I’m sure I dunno,” said Patty, yawning; and then, in spite of all the trouble, we all dropped off fast asleep.
My spirits rose a little after breakfast the next morning, though I only smiled sadly as I thought of my many disappointments; but we had had a long talk with Patty, and she had faithfully promised never, upon any consideration, to divulge one of our secrets. Of course I did not like making another confidante; but, under the circumstances, what could one do?
“Ah!” said Patty; “but it was a great shame that you did not tell me before.”
“Why, we should have told you,” said Clara—a wicked storyteller—“only you do sleep so soundly, dear.”
Though, after all, perhaps that was nearly the truth; for, if she had not slept so soundly, we should have been obliged to let her into our secrets sooner.
This satisfied her, but it did not satisfy me; for the stupid creature must go about looking so knowing, and cunning, and deep, and laugh and leer at Clara, and nod and wink at me, all day long, till it was dreadfully aggravating, and enough to make anybody suspicious; and I almost wonder that one of the watchful dragons did not have something to say about it.
“Why, we shall be obliged to have her in the room all the time,” I said to Clara, as I was thinking of my next interview with Achille; that is, if I ever was to have another.
“Never mind, dear,” replied Clara; “it cannot matter much. She is very stupid, and I daresay that I can keep her in order.”
I contrived to let Achille know all when he came the next day, and gave him to understand that he might try again upon any night he liked; for the last was only a false alarm, and all would have gone well had I but only held tightly by the cord. I gave him the information, written in French, at the top of my exercise, while Miss Furness was in the room, when if he had not the audacity to call me up to his elbow—for he had seen it all in an instant—and if he did not point out and mark two or three mistakes in the note I had scribbled so hastily at the top about the last meeting. However, I suppose he wished me to speak his own language correctly; and none but the brave deserve the fair.
There was one thing, though, in our correspondence which I did not like—poor Achille never could take any interest in our English poets; so that, if one quoted a bit of Byron or Moore to him, it was good for nothing, while he, the tiresome man, was always filling up his notes with scraps of Molière, and I am sure I always praised them, and said that they were very beautiful.
And now once more came the night for meeting, with all its heart-throbbing flurry and excitement; but this time, apparently, without any of the terrible contretemps that had previously troubled us. Patty was in high glee, and sat on the edge of her bedstead, munching an Abernethy biscuit, and grinning; while her great eyes, instead of half closing, like anybody else’s would when they were laughing, became more round and wide open than ever. It seemed to be capital fun to her, and over and over again, when I glanced at her, she was giggling and laughing; and I do believe that, if I had not been there, she would have got up and danced about the room.
But it was time to start at last, and upon this occasion I had no noisy drawer to open, for I had a ball of new, stout string in my pocket. So, one at a time, we glided along the passage, Clara going first, Patty second, and I followed behind, to close our door as quietly as was possible.
“Pat, pat, pat,” and, with a gentle rustle, we passed along the passage, and stood at last in the little end room, while I am sure that no one could have heard our footsteps.
Clara made one effort to get rid of Patty before we started, but it was of no avail.
“Arn’t you afraid of catching a worse cold?” she said; “hadn’t you better stay in the bedroom, dear?”
For really she had a most miserable cold, and her eyes and nose looked as red as red.
“I sha’n’t catch any more cold than you will,” she cried, just as she had once before upon a similar occasion—“I want to see all the fun.”
Fancy calling it fun!
So we were obliged to suffer her presence; but I am afraid that I was uncharitable enough to wish that she might catch a bad sore throat for her pains, or else something that would keep her from coming again.
However, there we all were; and as soon as ever we were all in the little room, I secured the door with a fork that I had brought for the purpose, and then, pulling out my string, I unfastened the window, when, fortunately, it glided up beautifully.
Clara was the first to look out, and it not being a dark night, she popped in again directly, saying in a whisper—
“There he is. I can see him.”
“Let me look,” cried Patty Smith, quite out loud; and then, when her head was out of the window, if she did not give quite a loud cough, in not only a most indiscreet way, but, really, one that was most reprehensible.
I pulled her back as quickly as I could, and, in a whisper, gave her a good scolding. Then I tied my scissors to the end of the string, to make it go down quickly, and swinging them over the great ledge, I looked down; but I could not see poor Achille, for he had come close up to the house, and was, of course, out of sight beneath the cornice.
“But I shall see him soon,” I said to myself; and went on letting down the scissors till the string felt slack, and I knew that they touched the ground, when, just as before, I felt the string seized and jerked about, as if being attached to something; and well I knew what, though a half-fear took hold upon me now lest it should break the string, which was not so strong as I could have wished.
But now there was the signal; and I began to pull up the heavy rope ladder, cutting my poor little fingers with the string. At first it came up pretty quickly, but soon slower, for again it began to grow heavier; and at last, when I made sure that it must be nearly up, if it must not turn contrary against us, and catch against the cornice, and remain immovable.
What was I to do? It was of no use to pull and jerk; for, if we had pulled any harder, I’m sure that the string must have broken. If it had not been for Clara, I should have climbed out of the window, and stood upon the cornice, to set it at liberty, for she could easily have held my hand, so that I should really have been quite safe.
But she would not hear of this, and I don’t know what I should have done if I had not thought of lowering the ladder down a little way, and then trying again, when, to my great delight, up it came, and Clara soon had hold of a pair of great iron hooks, just the sort of hooks I expected to see; and on fixing them upon the sill, my side, we found that they fitted beautifully; so I threw myself upon them to hold them in their places, lest they should slip.
Just after that there was a sharp rustle of the rope, and then it was pulled tight; while now, making Clara hold one hook and Patty the other, I strained out as far as I could reach, so that I could see Achille mounting, slowly ascending, the dangerous thing; and, although we all held on as tightly as we could, when he was about a dozen feet from the ground the tiresome rope began to twist and spin round and round, so that the poor fellow was twisting just as if he was being roasted, and I’m sure he must have been as giddy as giddy.
Fortunately for him, he did not always go the same way round, but twisted back again, or else he must have dropped off. It was not as if he had been close up to the house, for then he could have touched the wall and stopped himself; but the cornice, which was a good width, kept him away, so that he swung clear. And perhaps, after all, it was quite as well, for he might else have gone right through one of the windows.
It was very shuddery and dreadful; but we poor girls could do nothing but grasp the rope and hold our breath, and, as Clara said, hold our tongues; though Patty would keep letting go, and staring out of the window when she was not wanted to.
“Won’t I tease him about this,” she said. “Only see, the first time he finds fault with my exercises.”
“Hush! you foolish child,” I exclaimed. “Good gracious me! you must never say a word to him about it, under any consideration.”
“Mustn’t I?” said Patty, as innocently as could be.
“No, of course not,” cried Clara; “that would ruin everything.”
For I was now reaching as far as could be out of the window, to see what poor Achille was about; for the rope seemed to be doing nothing, and did not jerk as if he was getting higher and higher. And then, oh, dear! if I could not just see one of his feet where his head was last time I looked; for he was sitting upon the sill of the first floor window—the best bedroom, which was, of course, empty—and, I suppose, resting himself.
All at once, though, I heard him whisper—
“Is de ting sauf?”
“Yes, yes,” I whispered in reply.
And then the rope crunched upon the cornice, as if he had again committed to it his weight, when I drew in my head and waited, trembling, for him to reach the window; and it did seem such a long time to come so short a distance; but, as he told me afterwards, the loops would keep slipping away when he wanted to put his feet in them, besides the rope spinning him round until he was giddy. At last I looked out again, and then drew back my head in agony; for if he was not hanging by one leg, head downwards, just like my poor Dick, the canary, did in London, when it caught its claw in the wire of the cage and could not get loose.
As I said, I drew in my head, quite in an agony of fear; but the rope jerked about so that I was obliged to gaze once more, and then I ejaculated, quite loudly—
“Oh, Achille!”
“Eh, yais, oui,” he exclaimed. “I ’ave put in mine’s foot.”
“In what—in what, mon cher?” I whispered.
“Oh,” he gasped, in a thick voice, “mais je suis giddy. I ’ave puts my foot trou de loops, and cannot get him back.”
“Oh, pray come in!” cried Clara, who had heard every word, and seemed quite horrified—“pray come in and shut the window. Let’s go away.”
“Oh, nonsense,” I said, “he will be hung: he will die! His head is hanging down, and his leg sticking up in the rope. He has slipped. Whatever shall we do?”
“Why don’t you cut the rope?” said Patty; but of course no one took any notice of her.
“Let’s unhook the things,” whispered Clara, “and then drop him down into the laurustinus.”
“Oh, how can you be so stupid!” I panted. “It would kill him: he’s right above the first floor window-sill.”
“Well, but we can’t shut the window with those things there,” said Clara; “and it will not do to be found out.”
I looked again, and there he still was twirling round just as if he was being roasted, and the rope shaking so that I thought it must break. I kept whispering to him, but he did not hear me; and just dim and indistinctly as he was seen, I could make out that he was trying to double himself up and get his hands to the rope.
I never, I’m sure, felt anything so dreadful before in my life as those few moments when he was struggling there, and me unable to help him; for, in addition to the horror, there was the pricking of my conscience, as it told me that this was all my fault, and that if he was killed I should have murdered him. Which was very dreadful, you know, when that last affair of the cistern, which he escaped from with a fearful drenching, ought to have been a warning to me to have spared him from running any more risks on my behalf.
I declare that I should have tried to slide down the rope to help him, or else to share his fate, if Clara had not restrained me once more; but she kept tightly hold of my waist, till there came up a sound like the gnashing together of teeth, the rope gave a terrible shake, and the iron hooks fell jingling upon the floor.
There was a crashing and rustling of leaves and branches, as if a heavy body had fallen amongst trees, and then all was still, except for a deep groan—a French groan—which came up, thrilling us all horribly; for the rope had come unfastened, and had slipped through the round rings of the hooks.
We all stood aghast for a few minutes; but at last I summoned up courage enough to lean out, and whisper loudly—
“Achille! mon ami Achille!” when, as if in answer, came a most doleful “H-ooo, o-o-o, ho-o-o-o!” which made one’s very blood run cold.
“That’s only an owl,” said Clara, the next minute.
“A howl!” said Patty; “that it wasn’t, it was a groan, just the same as the pigs give when they’re dying in our slaughter-house at home.”
I leaned out of the window as far as I could, once more, and was trying to pierce the darkness below, when all at once I heard a window to the right opening very gently, and squeaking as it ran up, and that window, I felt sure, was the lady principal’s; so, recollecting the night of the alarm from Clara’s basin—agonised though I was—I felt obliged to close ours quietly, pick up the two hooks, and then we all three glided back to our room—my heart chiding me the while for forsaking poor Achille in such a time of dire distress. But what could I do? To stay or to raise an alarm was to be found out, and perhaps—ay, perhaps!—poor fellow, he was not hurt, after all.
It was just as well that we did slip back, for we had hardly closed the door before the alarm bell on the top of the house began to ring, and we heard the Fraülein spring out of bed with a regular bump upon the floor.
We were not many seconds scuffling into bed; and, just as we lay down, we heard the Fraülein’s door open, and then there were voices talking and a good deal of buzzing about, for quite half an hour. But we thought it better not to go out; for, when Clara took a peep, Miss Furness was hunting several of the girls back into their rooms with—
“Nothing the matter, young ladies. Back to your dormitories.”
So we lay quite still, and listened; while I essayed to allay my horrible fears about poor Achille, and tried to fancy that every sigh of the wind among the branches was him stealing—no, I won’t say stealing, it looks so bad—hurrying away. Then we heard the Fraülein come in, and her bed creak loudly as she lay down; and once more all was quiet, and I felt sure that they could not have seen or heard anything, but I dared not get up once more to see. Clara said she was sure she heard Mrs Blunt talking to the policeman out of the window again. Perhaps she did, but I did not; though it was most likely, after the ringing of the alarm bell.
“What are you sobbing for?” said Clara, all at once.
“Oh, I know he’s killed,” I said.
“Pooh, nonsense,” she replied, in her unfeeling way, “he only went plop among the bushes; and they say exiles always manage to fall on their feet when they come to England, just like cats. He is not hurt, unless he has scratched that beautiful face of his a little bit.”
“Then you don’t think he is killed, dear?” I said, seeking for comfort, alas! where I was but little likely to find it, I’m sorry to say.
“Not I,” said Clara; “it was not far enough to fall.”
“I sha’n’t go no more,” drawled Patty; “it ain’t half such fun as I thought it was. Why didn’t he come right up?”
“Don’t be such a goose!” cried Clara to the noodle. “Why, didn’t he get his leg caught, and then didn’t the rope give way?”
“I’m sure I dunno,” said Patty, yawning; and then, in spite of all the trouble, we all dropped off fast asleep.