CHAPTER XXII.“OUR FATHER” IS BEST.
Pauline and Verena found Miss Tredgold waiting for them. They went into the shop, which was quite one of the best shops in the High Street. There Miss Tredgold asked to see hats, and presently the two girls and their aunt were absorbed in the fascinating occupation of trying on new headgear. Miss Tredgold was buying a very pretty hat for herself also. It was to be trimmed with lace and feathers, and Verena had a momentary sense of disappointment that she was to have nothing so gay to wear on her own head. The attendant who was serving them made a sudden remark.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, “this little brown hat trimmed with velvet will exactly suit the dark young lady.” Hereshe looked at Pauline. “And I should venture to suggest a very little cream-colored lace introduced in front. The autumn is coming on, and the young lady will find this hat very suitable when the weather changes.”
“Well, the weather seems inclined to remain fine,” said Miss Tredgold, glancing out of the window, where a very blue sky met her gaze. There were heavy white clouds, however, drifting quickly across the sky, and the young shop attendant said:
“I hear that there’s a storm expected. And anyhow it is high-tide to-night. The tide will come up and quite cover the White Bay this evening. It is always more or less dangerous there, but it is specially dangerous to-day. I never like these high-tides; children and nursemaids are so apt to forget all about them.”
Miss Tredgold muttered something conventional. Pauline suddenly sat down on a chair.
“How white you are, dear!” said Miss Tredgold. “Would you oblige me,” she added, turning to the attendant, “by bringing this young lady a glass of water?”
But Pauline had already recovered herself.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I want to go out. I want to get the air. Don’t—don’t keep me.”
Her movement was so sudden and so unexpected that neither Miss Tredgold nor Verena had time to say a word. The people in the shop saw a somewhat untidy-looking little girl rush wildly down the stairs and out of doors, and long before Miss Tredgold had time to recover her scattered senses that same little girl was tearing as though on the wings of the wind up the High Street. Panting, breathless, overpowered with emotion, she presently reached the long flat stretch of beach at the farther end of which was the dangerous White Bay. Never in all her life had Pauline run as she did now. Faster and faster flew her feet. There was a noise in her ears as though something was hammering on her brain. She was almost faint with terror. Should she be in time? Should she be too late? Oh! she must be in time.
Presently she saw the far end of the promontory. Her heart gave a bound and almost stood still. What was that white thing curling round it? Water? Oh, yes; but she did not mind. She had waded before now. This was a case of wading again. She reached the spot, and a moment later she had torn off her shoes and stockings, had gathered her skirts round her waist, and was walking through the waves. The water was already over a foot deep. There was also a strong tide, and she had some difficulty in keeping her feet. She managed to hold her own, however, and found herself a minute or two later, drenched all over, panting and trembling, but still safe in the White Bay. To her relief, she saw three terrified children crouching up asnear as they dared to the water. Even now a great wave, deeper and stronger than its predecessors, rolled in. It took Pauline off her feet just as she was clambering to dry ground. She recovered herself, ran up to Pen, took her hand, and said:
“We have played pickaback before now. Get on my back this moment; don’t stop to think.”
“I daren’t,” said Pen.
“Little boy—I don’t know your name,” said Pauline—“put Pen onto my back whatever happens.”
Harry Carver sprang towards Pen.
“You must,” he said. “She is brave; she is a true heroine. The lions and tigers would love her. Get on her back and she will return for us. Oh! be quick—do be quick—for we don’t any of us want to be drowned.”
“Can you swim?” asked Pauline. “No; I know you can’t. I haven’t a moment to stay; I’ll come back somehow.”
She struggled towards the water, but Pen scrambled off her back and stood firm on the ground.
“I am bad,” she said—“there never was anybody much badder—but I’m not going first. Take that little girl; I will go afterwards.”
“Come, little girl,” said Pauline.
Harry rushed towards his sister.
“Do go, Nellie. Let mother keep one of us. I don’t mind being drowned—not a bit. You tell mother I don’t mind. Go, Nellie; do go with the big brave girl.”
So Pauline carried Nellie through the rising tide, and, marvellous to relate, did land her safely on the other side.
“Now look here,” she said, “you must rush home as fast as you can, and when you get there you are to say that there are two girls and a boy in the White Bay, and that your people are to bring a boat immediately. Don’t waste a second. Find somebody. If all your people are out, go to ours. Our house is No. 11. You understand? There isn’t a minute to lose.”
“Yes, see you go,” shouted Harry Carver. “And if you are too late, be sure you tell mother that I wasn’t afraid to drown.”
Nellie Carver began to run as fast as she could across the sands. Pauline hesitated for a moment; then she deliberately waded back to the other two. The water was up to her waist now, and she had the greatest difficulty in keeping her feet.
“I couldn’t face anybody again if Pen were drowned,” she said to herself. “If she drowns, so will I. It is the only thing fit for me. Perhaps when God sees that I am sorry, and that I did try to save Pen, He will forgive me; but I am not sure. Anyhow, I deserve to be drowned. I could never, never face the others if Pen were to die because of me.”
She was just able to scramble again out of the water on the White Bay side. The tide was coming in with great rapidity. It was hopeless to think of carrying Pen across.
“Let us go to the top part of the bay, as close to the rocks as possible,” said Pauline; “and don’t let’s be really frightened, for I am sure the boat will be in time.”
“Oh, I am certain of it!” said Harry. “Nellie never does lose her head. She won’t want us to drown, so she’ll hurry up.”
“Give me your hand, Pen,” said Pauline. “You are a very brave little girl to let the other little girl go first. I am glad you did it.”
“Will God remember that about me by-and-by?” asked Pen.
“I hope so,” replied Pauline, with a shiver.
She took Pen’s icy hand and began to rub it.
“It isn’t at all good for you to shiver like this,” she said. “Here is a bright piece of sunshine. Let us run up and down in the sunshine. It doesn’t seem, somehow, as though anybody could drown when the sun shines.”
“Maybe the boat will be in time,” said Harry.
They ran up and down for some time, and then stood quiet. Pauline was very silent. Beside the other two children she felt quite old and grown-up. She had got Pen into this terrible scrape; it was her mission to help them both. If they must all die, she at least would have to show courage. She was not ready to die. She knew that fact quite well. But she had naturally plenty of pluck, and fearful as her present surroundings were, she would not have been afraid but for that ugly black thing which rested on her conscience. Penelope looked full into her face. There was something also pricking Penelope’s conscience. The three children stood close together on the little white patch of sand which had not yet been covered by the waves. The wind was getting up, and the waves were mounting higher; they rushed farther and farther up the bay, and curled and swept and enjoyed themselves, and looked as though they were having a race up the white sands. Pauline made a rapid calculation, and came to the conclusion that they had about half-an-hour to live; for the bay was a very shallow one, and when the wind was in its present quarter the tide rose rapidly. She looked back at the rocks behind her, and saw that high-water mark, even on ordinary occasions, was just above their heads. This was what is called a spring-tide. There was not the least hope.
“If only we could climb up,” she thought.
Then Penelope gave her hand a great tug. She looked down. Pen went on tugging and tugging.
“Look,” she said; “stoop and look.”
In the palm of Pen’s hand lay the thimble.
“Take it,” said Pen. “I comed with it to make mischief, but I won’t never tell now—never. Take it. Put it in your pocket. I am sorry I was so bad. Take it.”
Pauline did take the little gold thimble. She slipped it into her pocket; then she stooped and kissed Pen.
“What are you two doing?” said Harry. “Why don’t you talk to me? Can’t I do something to help? I’m ten. How old are you?”
“I was fourteen a few weeks ago,” said Pauline.
“Granny!” said the boy. “Why, you are quite old; you are withering up. I wouldn’t like to be fourteen. You must know a monstrous lot. You are a very plucky one to come through the water as you did. I wish I could swim, and I wouldn’t let the waves get the better of me; but I’m glad I let Nellie see that I wasn’t afraid of drowning. Do you mind drowning, big, big, old girl?”
“Yes, I do,” said Pauline.
“You have a queer sort of look in your eyes, like the little one has in hers. Are you wicked, too?”
“You have guessed it,” said Pauline.
“I expect we’re all wicked for that matter; but we can say our prayers, can’t we?”
“Yes,” said Pauline, and now her lips trembled and the color faded from her cheeks. “Let us say them together.”
“By-and-by,” said Pen. “We needn’t say our prayers yet. It will be some time afore the water will touch us; won’t it, Paulie?”
Pauline knew that the water would come in very quickly. Harry looked full at Pen, and then he nodded his head. He came to Pauline and whispered something in her ear.
“What is it?” she said.
“She’s little,” he said. “She’s quite a baby—not eight yet. I am ten. When the water begins to come in we’ll lift her in our arms and raise her above it; shan’t we?”
“Yes; that is a very good thought,” said Pauline. She looked back again at the rocks. They were smooth as marble; there did not seem to be a possible foothold. She felt a sense of regret that they had not gone to the farther end of the bay, where the rocks were lower and more indented, and where it might be possible for a brave boy and girl to get temporary foothold; but the sea had already reached those rocks and was dashing round them.
“I wish I had thought of it,” said Pauline.
“What about?”
“The rocks—those rocks out there.”
The words had scarcely passed her lips before Harry darted back. A wave from the incoming tide had rolled over his feet.
Pen uttered a sudden cry:
“I am frightened. I won’t drown. I am awful frightened.”
She began to shriek.
“Try and keep up your courage, darling,” said Pauline. “It won’t be long. It will be quickly over, and I will stay close to you. Paulie will be close to you.”
“Let us get her to stand on our two shoulders, and we’ll lean up against the rocks,” said Harry. “She can steady herself against the rock, and I will support you both. Here, I will hoist her up. Now, missy, you look slippy. That’s it.”
Harry was a very active boy, and he did manage to lift Pen, who was stiff with cold and fright, and miserable with a sense of her own naughtiness, on to Pauline’s and his shoulders. When she was established in that position she was propped up against the rocks.
“Now you are safe,” said Harry, looking back at her and trying to laugh. “We’ll both drown before you. See how safe you are.”
Just for a moment Pen was somewhat consoled by this reflection. But presently a fresh terror seized her. It would be so awful when she was left alone and there was only a dead Pauline and a dead Harry to keep her company. She had never seen anybody die, and had not the least idea what death meant. Her terrors grew worse each moment. She began to cry and whimper miserably, “I wish that boat would come.”
Another wave came in and washed right over both Pauline’s and Harry’s ankles. They were jammed up against the rocks now. This big wave was followed by a second and a third, and soon the children were standing in water very nearly up to their knees.
“Seems to me,” said Harry in a choky voice, “that it is about time we began our prayers. It is like going to sleep at night. Just when you are preparing to sleep you say your prayers, and then you dump your head down on your pillow and off you go to by-bye land. Then mother comes and kisses you, and she says—— Oh, bother! I don’t want to think of that. Let’s try and fancy that it is night. Let’s begin our prayers. Oh, what a wave that is! Why, it has dashed right into my eyes.”
“How far up is the water now, Pauline?” asked Penelope from her position.
“It is not very far up yet,” replied Pauline in as cheerful a tone as she could. “We had better do what Harry says, and say our prayers.”
“Shall us?” said Pen.
“I think so,” replied Pauline.
There was a strange sensation in her throat, and a mist before her eyes. Her feet were so icy cold that it was with difficulty she could keep herself from slipping.
“Which prayer shall we say?” asked Harry. “There’s a lot of them. There’s our special private prayers in whichwe say, ‘God bless father and mother;’ and then there’s ‘Our Father.’”
“‘Our Father’ is best,” said Pauline.
The children began repeating it in a sing-song fashion. Suddenly Pen violently clutched hold of Pauline.
“Will God forgive our badnesses?” she asked.
“He will—I know He will,” answered Pauline; and just at that instant there came a cry from Harry.
“A boat! a boat!” he shrieked. “And it’s coming our way. I knew Nellie was a brick. I knew she’d do it.”
A boat rowed by four men came faster and faster over the waves. By-and-by it was within a stone’s-throw of the children. A big man sat in the stern. Harry glanced at him.
“Why, it’s father!” he cried. “Oh, father, why did you come home? I thought you had gone away for the day. Father, I wasn’t a bit afraid to drown—not really, I mean. I hope Nellie told you.”
“Yes, my brave boy. Now, see, when I hold out my hand, spring up carefully or the boat will capsize.”
The next instant a stalwart hand and arm were stretched across the rapidly rising waves, and Harry, with a bound, was in the boat.
“Lie down in the boat, and stay as quiet as a mouse,” said his father.
Pauline, already up to her waist in water, struggled a step or two and was dragged into the boat; while two of the men bent over, and, catching Penelope round the waist, lifted her into their ark of shelter.
“It was touch-and-go, sir,” said one of the sailors who had accompanied Harry’s father. “Five minutes later and we could have done no good.”
CHAPTER XXIII.THE DULL WEIGHT.
The rest of that day passed for Pauline in a sort of dream. She felt no fear nor pain nor remorse. She lay in bed with a languid and sleepy sensation. Aunt Sophia went in and out of the room; she was all kindness and sympathy. Several times she bent down and kissed the child’s hot forehead. It gave Pauline neither pain nor pleasure when her aunt did that; she was, in short, incapable of any emotion. When the doctor came at night his face looked grave.
“The little girl is all right,” he said. “She has had aterrible fright, but a good night’s rest will quite restore her to her usual health; but I don’t quite like the look of the elder girl.”
Verena, who was in the room, now came forward.
“Pauline is always pale,” she said. “If it is only that she looks a little more pale than usual——”
“It isn’t that,” interrupted the doctor. “Her nervous system has got a most severe shock.”
“The fact is this,” said Miss Tredgold. “The child has not been herself for some time. It was on that account that I brought her to the seaside. She was getting very much better. This accident is most unfortunate, and I cannot understand how she knew about Penelope.”
“It was a precious good thing she did find it out,” said the doctor, “or Mr. Carver’s two little children and your young niece would all have been drowned. Miss Pauline did a remarkably plucky thing. Well, I will send round a quieting draught. Some one had better sleep in the child’s room to-night; she may possibly get restless and excited.”
When Miss Tredgold and Verena found themselves alone, Miss Tredgold looked at her niece.
“Can you understand it?” she asked.
“No, Aunt Sophy.”
“Has Pen told you anything?”
“No.”
“We must not question her further just now,” said Miss Tredgold. “She will explain things in the morning, perhaps. Why did the children go to the White Bay—a forbidden place to every child in the neighborhood? And how did Pauline know that they were there? The mystery thickens. It annoys me very much.”
Verena said nothing, but her eyes slowly filled with tears.
“My dear,” said Miss Tredgold suddenly, “I thought it right this afternoon to send your father a telegram. He may arrive in the morning, or some time to-morrow; there is no saying.”
“Oh, I’m sure he will come if he remembers,” said Verena.
“That’s just it, Renny. How long will he remember? Sometimes I think he has a fossil inside of him instead of a heart. But there! I must not abuse him to you, my dear.”
“He is really a most loving father,” said Verena; “that is, when he remembers. Why he should forget everything puzzles me a good deal; still, I cannot forget that he is my father.”
“And you are right to remember it, dear child. Now go and sleep in the same room with Pen, and watch her. I will take care of Pauline.”
Pauline was given her sleeping draught, and Miss Tredgold,placing herself in an easy-chair, tried to think over the events of the day. Soon her thoughts wandered from the day itself to the days that had gone before, and she puzzled much over Pauline’s character and her curious, half-repellent, half-affectionate attitude towards herself.
“What can be the matter with the child?” she thought. “She doesn’t really care for me as the others do, and yet sometimes she gives me a look that none of the others have ever yet given me, just as if she loved me with such a passionate love that it would make up for everything I have ever missed in my life. Now, Verena is affectionate and sweet, and open as the day. As to Pen, she is an oddity—no more and no less. I wish I could think her quite straightforward and honorable; but it must be my mission to train her in those important attributes. Pauline is the one who really puzzles me.”
By-and-by Pauline opened her eyes. She thought herself alone. She stretched out her arms and said in a voice of excitement:
“Nancy, you had no right to do it. You had no right to send it away to London. It was like stealing it. I want it back. Nancy, I must have it back.”
Miss Tredgold went and bent over her. Pauline was evidently speaking in her sleep. Miss Tredgold returned again to her place by the window. The dawn was breaking. There was a streak of light across the distant horizon. The tide was coming in fast. Miss Tredgold, as she watched the waves, found herself shuddering. But for the merest chance Pauline and Pen might have been now lying within their cold embrace. Miss Tredgold shuddered again. She stood up, and was just about to draw the curtain to prevent the little sleeper from being disturbed by the light, when Pauline opened her eyes wide, looked gravely at her aunt, and said:
“Is that you, Nancy? How strange and thin and old you have got! And have you brought it back at last? She wants it; she misses it, and Pen keeps on looking and looking for it. It is so lovely and uncommon, you see. It is gold and dark-blue and light-blue. It is most beautiful. Have you got it for me, Nancy?”
“It is I, dear, not Nancy,” said Miss Tredgold, coming forward. “You have had a very good night. I hope you are better.”
Pauline looked up at her.
“How funny!” she said. “I really thought you were Nancy—Nancy King, my old friend. I suppose I was dreaming.”
“You were talking about something that was dark-blue and light-blue and gold,” said Miss Tredgold.
Pauline gave a weak smile.
“Was I?” she answered.
Miss Tredgold took the little girl’s hands and put them inside the bedclothes.
“I am going to get you a cup of tea,” she said.
Miss Tredgold made the tea herself; and when she brought it, and pushed back Pauline’s tangled hair, she observed a narrow gold chain round her neck.
“Where did she get it?” thought the good lady. “Mysteries get worse. I know all about her little ornaments. She has been talking in a most unintelligible way. And where did she get that chain?”
Miss Tredgold’s discoveries of that morning were not yet at an end; for by-and-by, when the servant brought in Pauline’s dress which she had been drying by the kitchen fire, she held something in her hand.
“I found this in the young lady’s pocket,” she said. “I am afraid it is injured a good bit, but if you have it well rubbed up it may get all right again.”
Miss Tredgold saw in the palm of the girl’s hand her own much-valued and long-lost thimble. She gave a quick start, then controlled herself.
“You can put it down,” she said. “I am glad it was not lost.”
“It is a beautiful thimble,” said the girl. “I am sure Johnson, the jeweller in the High Street, could put it right for you, miss.”
“You had better leave the room now,” replied Miss Tredgold. “The young lady will hear you if you talk in a whisper.”
When the maid had gone Miss Tredgold remained for a minute or two holding the thimble in the palm of her hand; then she crossed the room on tiptoe, and replaced it in the pocket of Pauline’s serge skirt.
For the whole of that day Pauline lay in a languid and dangerous condition. The doctor feared mischief to the brain. Miss Tredgold waited on her day and night. At the end of the third day there was a change for the better, and then convalescence quickly followed.
Mr. Dale made his appearance on the scene early on the morning after the accident. He was very much perturbed, and very nearly shed tears when he clasped Penelope in his arms. But in an hour’s time he got restless, and asked Verena in a fretful tone what he had left his employment for. She gave him a fresh account of the whole story as far as she knew it, and he once more remembered and asked to see Pauline, and actually dropped a tear on her forehead. But by the midday train he returned to The Dales, and long before he got there the whole affair in the White Bay was forgotten by him.
In a week’s time Pauline was pronounced convalescent; but although she had recovered her appetite, and to a certain extent her spirits, there was a considerable changeover her. This the doctor did not at first remark; but Miss Tredgold and Verena could not help noticing it. For one thing, Pauline hated looking at the sea. She liked to sit with her back to it. When the subject was mentioned she turned fidgety, and sometimes even left the room. Now and then, too, she complained of a weight pressing on her head. In short, she was herself and yet not herself; the old bright, daring, impulsive, altogether fascinating Pauline seemed to be dead and gone.
On the day when she was considered well enough to go into the drawing-room, there was a festival made in her honor. The place looked bright and pretty. Verena had got a large supply of flowers, which she placed in glasses on the supper-table and also on a little table close to Pauline’s side. Pauline did not remark on the flowers, however. She did not remark on anything. She was gentle and sweet, and at the same time indifferent to her surroundings.
When supper was over she found herself alone with Penelope. Then a wave of color rushed into her face, and she looked full at her little sister.
“Have I done it or have I not, Pen?” she said. “Have I been awfully wicked—the wickedest girl on earth—or is it a dream? Tell me—tell me, Pen. Tell me the truth.”
“It is as true as anything in the wide world,” said Pen, speaking with intense emphasis and coming close to her sister. “There never was anybody more wicked than you—’ceptme. We are both as bad as bad can be. But I tell you what, Paulie, though I meant to tell, I am not going to tell now; for but for you I’d have been drownded, and I am never, never, never going to tell.”
“But for me!” said Pauline, and the expression on her face was somewhat vague.
“Oh, Paulie, how white you look! No, I will never tell. I love you now, and it is your secret and mine for ever and ever.”
Pauline said nothing. She put her hand to her forehead; the dull weight on her head was very manifest.
“We are going home next week,” continued Pen in her brightest manner. “You will be glad of that. You will see Briar and Patty and all the rest, and perhaps you will get to look as you used to. You are not much to be proud of now. You are seedy-looking, and rather dull, and not a bit amusing. But I loves you, and I’ll never, never tell.”
“Run away, Pen,” said Miss Tredgold, coming into the room at that moment. “You are tiring Pauline. You should not have talked so loud; your sister is not very strong yet.”
CHAPTER XXIV.PLATO AND VIRGIL.
Mr. Dale returned home to find metamorphosis; for Betty and John, egged on by nurse, had taken advantage of his day from home to turn out the study. This study had not been properly cleaned for years. It had never had what servants are fond of calling a spring cleaning. Neither spring nor autumn found any change for the better in that tattered, dusty, and worn-out carpet; in those old moreen curtains which hung in heavy, dull folds round the bay-window; in the leathern arm-chair, with very little leather left about it; in the desk, which was so piled with books and papers that it was difficult even to discover a clear space on which to write. The books on the shelves, too, were dusty as dusty could be. Many of them were precious folios—folios bound in calf which book-lovers would have given a great deal for—but the dust lay thick on them, and Betty said, with a look of disgust, that they soiled her fingers.
“Oh, drat you and your fingers!” said nurse. “You think of nothing but those blessed trashy novels you are always reading. You must turn to now. The master is certain to be back by the late afternoon train, and this room has got to be put into apple-pie order before he returns.”
“Yes,” said John; “we won’t lose the chance. We’ll take each book from its place on the shelf, dust it, and put it back again. We have a long job before us, so don’t you think any more of your novels and your grand ladies and gentlemen, Betty, my woman.”
“I have ceased to think of them,” said Betty.
She stood with her hands hanging straight to her sides; her face was quite pale.
“I trusted, and my trust failed me,” she continued. “I was at a wedding lately, John—you remember, don’t you?—Dick Jones’s wedding, at the other side of the Forest. There was a beautiful wedding cake, frosted over and almond-iced underneath, and ornaments on it, too—cupids and doves and such-like. A pair of little doves sat as perky as you please on the top of the cake, billing and cooing like anything. It made my eyes water even to look at ’em. You may be sure I didn’t think of Mary Dugdale, the bride that was, nor of poor Jones, neither; although he is a good looking man enough—I never said he wasn’t. But my heart was in my mouth thinking of that dear Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton.”
“Who in the name of fortune is he?” asked nurse.
“A hero of mine,” said Betty.
Her face looked a little paler and more mournful even than when she had begun to speak.
“He’s dead,” she said, and she whisked a handkerchief out of her pocket and applied it to her eyes. “It was bandits as carried him off. He loved that innocent virgin he took for his wife like anything. Over and over have I thought of them, and privately made up my mind that if I came across his second I’d give him my heart.”
“Betty, you must be mad,” said nurse.
“Maybe you are mad,” retorted Betty, her face flaming, “but I am not. It was a girl quite as poor as me that he took for his spouse; and why shouldn’t there be another like him? That’s what I thought, and when the wedding came to an end I asked Mary Dugdale to give me a bit of the cake all private for myself. She’s a good-natured sort is Mary, though not equal to Jones—not by no means. She cut a nice square of the cake, a beautiful chunk, black with richness as to the fruit part, yellow as to the almond, and white as the driven snow as to the icing. And, if you’ll believe it, there was just the tip of a wing of one of those angelic little doves cut off with the icing. Well, I brought it home with me, and I slept on it just according to the old saw which my mother taught me. Mother used to say, ‘Betty, if you want to dream of your true love, you will take a piece of wedding-cake that belongs to a fresh-made bride, and you will put it into your right-foot stocking, and tie it with your left-foot garter, and put it under your pillow. And when you get into bed, not a mortal word will you utter, or the spell is broke. And that you will do, Betty,’ said my mother, ‘for three nights running. And then you will put the stocking and the garter and the cake away for three nights, and at the end of those nights you will sleep again on it for three nights; and then you will put it away once more for three nights, and you will sleep on it again for three nights. And at the end of the last night, why, the man you dream of is he.’”
“Well, and did you go in for all that gibberish?” asked nurse, with scorn.
She had a duster in her hand, and she vigorously flicked Mr. Dale’s desk as she spoke.
“To be sure I did; and I thought as much over the matter as ought to have got me a decent husband. Well, when the last night come I lay me down to sleep as peaceful as an angel, and I folded my hands and shut my eyes, and wondered what his beautiful name would be, and if he’d be a dook or a marquis. I incline to a dook myself, having, so to speak, fallen in love with the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton of blessed memory. But what do you think happened? It’s enough to cure a body, that it is.”
“Well, what?” asked nurse.
“I dreamt of no man in the creation except John there. If that isn’t enough to make a body sick, and to cure all their romance once and for ever, my name ain’t Betty Snowden.”
John laughed and turned a dull red at this unexpected ending to Betty’s story.
“Now let’s clean up,” she said; “and don’t twit me any more about my dreams. They were shattered, so to speak, in the moment of victory.”
The children were called in, particularly Briar and Patty, and the room was made quite fresh and sweet, the carpet taken up, the floor scrubbed, a new rug (bought long ago for the auspicious moment) put down, white curtains hung at the windows in place of the dreadful old moreen, every book dusted and put in its place, and the papers piled up in orderly fashion on a wagonette which was moved into the room for the purpose. Finally the children and servants gazed around them with an air of appreciation.
“He can’t help liking it,” said Briar.
“I wonder if he will,” said Patty.
“What nonsense, Patty! Father is human, after all, and we have not disturbed one single blessed thing.”
Soon wheels were heard, and the children rushed out to greet their returning parent.
“How is Pauline, father?” asked Briar in an anxious voice.
“Pauline?” replied Mr. Dale, pushing his thin hand abstractedly through his thin locks. “What of her? Isn’t she here?”
“Nonsense, father!” said Patty. “You went to see her. She was very ill; she was nearly drowned. You know all about it. Wake up, dad, and tell us how she is.”
“To be sure,” said Mr. Dale. “I quite recall the circumstance now. Your sister is much better. I left her in bed, a little flushed, but looking very well and pretty. Pauline promises to be quite a pretty girl. She has improved wonderfully of late. Verena was there, too, and Pen, and your good aunt. Yes, I saw them all. Comfortable lodgings enough for those who don’t care for books. From what I saw of your sister she did not seem to be at all seriously ill, and I cannot imagine why I was summoned. Don’t keep me now, my dears; I must get back to my work. The formation of that last sentence from Plato’s celebrated treatise doesn’t please me. It lacks the extreme polish of the original. My dear Briar, how you stare! There is no possible reason, Briar and Patty, why the English translation should not be every bit as pure as the Greek. Our language has extended itself considerably of late, and close application and study may recall to my mind the most fitting words. But there is one thingcertain, my dear girls—— Ah! is that you, nurse? Miss Pauline is better. I was talking about Plato, nurse. The last translation I have been making from his immortal work does not please me; but toil—ceaseless toil—the midnight oil,et cetera, may evoke the spirit of the true Muse, and I may be able to put the matter before the great English thinking public in a way worthy of the immortal master.”
Mr. Dale had now pushed his hat very far back from his forehead. He removed it, still quite abstractedly, and retired with long, shuffling strides to his beloved study.
“No food until I ring for it,” he said when he reached the door, and then he vanished.
“Blessed man!” said Betty, who was standing in the far distance. “He might be a dook himself for all his airs. It was lovely the way he clothed his thoughts that time. What they be themselves I don’t know, but his language was most enthralling. John, get out of my way. What are you standing behind me like that for? Get along and weed the garden—do.”
“You’ll give me a cup of tea, and tell me more about that dream of yours,” was John’s answer.
Whereupon Betty took John by the hand, whisked into her kitchen, slammed the door after her, and planted him down on a wooden seat, and then proceeded to make tea.
But while John and Betty were happily engaged in pleasant converse with each other, Mr. Dale’s condition was by no means so favorable. At first when he entered his study he saw nothing unusual. His mind was far too loftily poised to notice such sublunary matters as white curtains and druggets not in tatters; but when he seated himself at his desk, and stretched out his hand mechanically to find his battered old edition of Plato, it was not in its accustomed place. He looked around him, raised his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room. What did he see? He started, stumbled to his feet, turned deathly white, and rushed to the opposite bookcase. There was his Plato—his idol—actually placed in the bookshelf upside-down. It was a monstrous crime—a crime that he felt he could never forgive—that no one could expect him to forgive. He walked across to the fireplace and rang the bell.
“You must go, Miss Patty,” said nurse. “I was willing to do it, but I can’t face him. You must go; you really must.”
“Well, I’m not frightened,” said Patty. “Come on, Briar.”
The two little girls walked down the passage. Mr. Dale’s bell was heard to ring again.
“Aren’t you the least bit frightened, Patty?” asked Briar.
“No,” answered Patty, with a sigh. “If only I could get the real heaviness off my mind, nothing else would matter. Oh, Briar, Briar!”
“Don’t talk of it now,” said Briar. “To-night when we are alone, when we are by ourselves in our own room, but not now. Come, let us answer father’s bell.”
They opened the door and presented themselves—two pretty little figures with rosy faces and bright eyes—two neatly dressed, lady-like little girls.
“Do you want anything, father?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Dale. “Come in and shut the door.”
The girls did what he told them.
“Who did this?” asked the master of The Dales. He swept his hand with a certain majesty of gesture round the restored room. “Who brushed the walls? Who put those flimsies to the windows? Who touched my beloved books? Who was the person? Name the culprit.”
“There were quite a lot of us, father. We all did it,” said Briar.
“You all did it? You mean to tell me, little girl, that you did it?”
“I dusted a lot of the books, father. I didn’t injure one of them, and I put them back again just in the same place. My arms ached because the books were so heavy.”
“Quite right that they should ache. Do you know what injury you have done me?”
“No,” said Patty suddenly. “We made the room clean, father. It isn’t right to live in such a dirty room. Plato wouldn’t have liked it.”
“Now what do you mean?”
Mr. Dale’s white face quieted down suddenly; for his daughter—his small, young, ignorant daughter—to dare to mention the greatest name, in his opinion, of all the ages, was too much for him.
“You are always talking to us about Plato,” said Patty, who grew braver and braver as she proceeded. “You talk of Plato one day, and Virgil another day, and you always tell us how great they were; but if they were really great they would not be dirty, and this room was horrid and dirty, father. It really was. Nice, great, good, noble people are clean. Aunt Sophy says so, and she knows. Since Aunt Sophy came we have been very happy, and the house has been clean and nice. And I love Aunt Sophy, and so does Briar. I am very sorry, father, but I think when we made your room sweet and pretty as it is now we pleased Plato and Virgil—that is, if they can see us.”
“If Plato and Virgil can see mites like you?” said Mr. Dale.
He took up his spectacles, poised them on his forehead, and gazed at the children.
“There is the door,” he said. “Go.”
They vanished. Mr. Dale sank into a chair.
“Upon my word!” he said several times. “Upon—my—word! So Plato liked things clean, and Virgil liked things orderly. Upon—my—word!”
He sat perfectly motionless for a time. His brain was working, for his glasses were sometimes removed and then put on again, and several times he brushed his hand through his hair. Finally he took up his hat, and, gazing at the frills of the white window-curtains, he opened the French windows, and, with an agile leap, found himself in the open air. He went for a walk—a long one. When he came back he entered his clean study, to find the lamp burning brightly, his Plato restored to its place by his left-hand side, and a fresh pad of blotting-paper on the table. His own old pen was not removed, but the inkpot was clean and filled with fresh ink. He took his pen, dipped it into the ink, and wrote on a sheet of paper, “Plato likes things clean, and Virgil likes things orderly,” and then pinned the paper on the opposite wall.
For the rest of the evening the astonished household were much beguiled and overcome by the most heavenly strains from Mr. Dale’s violin. He played it in the study until quite late at night; but none of the household went to bed, so divine, so restoring, so comforting was that music.
About eleven o’clock Patty and Briar found themselves alone.
“Well,” said Patty suddenly, “I have made up my mind.”
“Yes,” said Briar, “I thought you had.”
“When Aunt Sophy comes back I am going to tell her everything.”
Briar went up to her sister, put her arms round her neck, and kissed her.
“I wonder what she will say,” said Briar.
“Say!” echoed Patty. “She will be hurt. Perhaps she’ll punish us; but that doesn’t matter, for in the end she is quite, quite certain to forgive us. I am going to tell her. I couldn’t go through another night like last night again.”
“Nor could I,” said Briar. “I stayed awake and thought of Paulie, and I seemed to see her face as it might look if she were really dead. I wish they’d all come back, for Paulie is better. And then we’d have just a dreadful ten minutes, and everything would be all right.”
“That’s it,” said Patty. “Everything would be all right.”