CHAPTER VII.PRUDENCE RECEIVES A SHOCK.
Miss Prudence Semaphore slept placidly. It was her nature to do everything as placidly as possible. Nightmares rarely visited her. When Miss Augusta was crosser than usual, or the latest man at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, on whom she tried to fix her easy affections, showed that he had no thought of her, she sometimes wept herself to sleep. Seldom, however, did she experience the discomfort of anuit blanche.
On this particular occasion she dreamt that she was flying through space to Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth. Suddenly her wings failed her. She fell like another Icarus down, down, down, awaking with a start and a stifled gasp. She sat bolt upright in bed, and tried to think where she was. The familiar room dimly seen, the light of the street lamps, filtering throughthe Venetian blinds, the sound of passing cabs, a neighbouring clock chiming three, all reassured her.
With a sigh of relief she turned over to sleep again, when a weird wailing attracted her attention. Miss Prudence listened. Her heart beat fast. The wailing seemed close at hand. Did it come from above or below? Noises are proverbially difficult to locate. Miss Prudence subscribed to “Borderland,” and a thousand unpleasant conjectures assailed her. There was something unearthly, she fancied, in the cry, and though she muttered “ridiculous,” the exclamation did not entirely restore her presence of mind. So far, indeed, was the idea from being really ridiculous to her, that, as the sound continued to rise and fall feebly, Miss Prudence lay back in bed, and pulled the clothes over her head. She could not be happy thus, however. Half suffocated, she emerged from time to time to hear if it still continued. When at last it ceased, somewhat tranquillised by the silence, she pulled down the blankets and began to consider what the cause of disturbance could possibly be.
A solution flashed through her mind—the kitten! She remembered suddenly that Mrs.Dumaresq had lately complained of a pet kitten that played about the house having strayed into her room, and been locked up accidentally in the wardrobe.
“The very thing! It must be the kitten,” thought Miss Prudence.
The wail, after a short interval, was renewed, and this time Miss Prudence distinctly recognised the cry of a young cat.
Full of courage she jumped out of bed, struck a light, put on her dressing-gown and slippers, and began to search for pussy.
She tried the wardrobe, the chest of drawers, looked under the bed and up the chimney, but in vain. The creature was not to be found. As she passed the door communicating with her sister’s room, it seemed to her that the sound came from there.
She opened the door softly, and shading the light with one hand, gently called “puss, puss, puss.” Nothing came. The cry, however, sounded distinctly nearer, louder, and more human.
“Augusta! what is that noise? Augusta! are you awake?” said Miss Prudence with renewed alarm.
There was no answer but a prolongedwail. Really frightened, Prudence advanced into the room, holding the candle above her head. All was as she had left it, except, except—Where was Augusta? The bed was empty. The room was empty. Filled with an indefinable terror, Prudence advanced to her sister’s bedside. Oh! horror! Augusta was gone, and in her place lay—what? A little, shrivelled, red-faced baby, wailing feebly, a huge night-cap fallen back off its bald head, a woman’s night-dress lying round it in folds a world too wide.
“My God!” exclaimed poor Prudence, “what on earth is this? Am I going mad? Where is Augusta?” Her distracted glance lighted on the broken bottle, and a sudden gleam of intelligence lit up her brain. “Are you Augusta?” she cried to the baby. The tearful baby seemed to make a desperate but ineffectual effort to speak. It appeared to be on the brink of convulsions. There was intelligence in its eye, however, and her worst fears confirmed, poor Prudence dropped the candlestick on her toes, and went into violent hysterics.
Fortunately for her, the room was at the end of a passage, removed from the other sleeping apartments by an intervening bathroom. Underneath it was the now empty drawing-room, while overhead reposed the deaf Mrs. Belcher. Thus and thus alone did her shrieks fail to rouse the household. Every now and then she made an effort at self-control, but again and again the grotesque horror of the situation overcame her.
It was dawn before she pulled herself together and faced her position. With reflection came a burst of anger most unusual to the placid woman.
“Augusta,” she said sternly to the baby, which had ceased weeping, as if frightened at its sister’s distress. “Augusta, do you understand me?”
The baby apparently tried to nod.
“Can’t you speak?”
The baby shook its head.
“It is no use, I suppose, in that case, asking how this terrible misfortune has come about?”
The baby blinked speechlessly. It was not an engaging child. To Prudence, much as she loved her sister, it seemed strange and absolutely hateful.
“You little wretch!” she cried, over-mastered by her rising anger. “Don’t you seethe horrible position you have placed us both in? You took too much. You must have been a nasty, greedy, selfish, foolish thing to have swallowed up all that water, or this would never have happened. Are you really my sister? How can I prove it? Who will believe me? Perhaps the next thing will be that I shall be hanged for having murdered her.” At this thought Prudence was for a moment on the verge of fresh hysterics.
“What on earth am I to do? There you are, a baby to all intents and purposes. My good gracious! what on earth shall I do with you? I cannot keep you in this house. How can I explain? They won’t believe me—why, I wouldn’t believe it myself if anyone told me. How shall I account for your disappearance? and you can’t even speak to back me up if I tell the truth. Not you! You’d see me hanged and never say a word”—which was unjust, considering poor Augusta was not able to speak. Lashing herself to fury, Prudence paced up and down the room, wringing her hands.
“Augusta! I always was a good sister to you, and bore with your tempers, and divided everything with you; but now, you horrid,selfish, ugly little thing, I declare I hate you. I’ll just wrap you up in a shawl, and drop you somewhere. Oh, you lit—tle wr—r—retch, I should like to shake you.”
Suiting the action to the word, Prudence pounced on the baby, and shook it till its big cap fell quite off, and its head wobbled.
Augusta was terrified, and began to howl lustily. She was so small, so helpless, that a certain revulsion of pity came over Prudence. She ceased shaking, and tried to soothe her.
“There now! there now!” she exclaimed, exactly as if speaking to a real baby, “don’t cry. I’ll see what can be done. I suppose you took an overdose. Will you try and put up your hand if you did?”
The baby put up its hand.
“Does it hurt? do you feel bad?”
The baby shook its bald head, and made an ineffectual attempt to demonstrate that its sufferings were chiefly mental.
“Now will you just be quiet and cease crying, and let me think it all over. Try to go to sleep if you can. Perhaps some of it may wear off, and you’ll be bigger by and bye.”
Tucking the baby up in bed, Prudence began restlessly to pace the room, pausingnow and again to look at the queer little creature that had plunged her into such unexpected difficulties. In despair she thrust her hands into her hair, and gnawed at her fingers. Finally she flung herself into a chair by the window, and, staring blankly into the street, tried to devise some means out of her dilemma. The more she thought of it, the more serious and unpleasant did it appear. How Augusta could have been so foolish as to finish the contents of the bottle, how the bottle itself came to be broken, she could only imagine. The result at any rate was sufficiently deplorable. Her sister had not stopped at eight-and-thirty, nor eight-and-twenty, nor even eighteen, as would have been natural and delightful, but had gone at a bound to about eight days old.
“What a mercy,” thought Prudence, kind-hearted in the midst of her anger and perplexity, “what a mercy that there were not a few drops more, or what would have become of her!”
After long cogitation the lady who had hitherto been the younger Miss Semaphore rose, went into her own room, dressed, bathed her swollen eyelids, and smoothed her hair. Then she returned to her sister’s bedside.
Augusta was wide awake, but she had ceased crying. It was only by her eyes, big with intelligence, and looking weird and uncanny in her ugly little red face, that Prudence saw reason still reigned within her diminished body, A “queer child,” a “fairy changeling,” an “elfish infant,” would be the terms applied to Miss Semaphore by anyone not in the secret of her rejuvenescence.
“Augusta,” said Prudence solemnly, “I have thought it all out. Immediately after breakfast I will go in search of this Mrs. Geldheraus, and see if she cannot provide you with some—some antidote for this horrible state of things. If she cannot, I don’t know what will become of you. It is no use telling the truth to the people in this house. In the first place it would be a very disagreeable matter to go into, and make us seem very ridiculous. In the second they would not believe me. My only chance, if I don’t succeed in getting something to cure you, is to tell them to-day that you have had a letter summoning you to the country on important business. I shall make excuses later for your having had to hurry off to catch a train without saying good-bye to anyone. Meantime I must hide you here somewhere in this roomor in mine until to-night, and knowing how much depends on it, I do implore you to be quiet and not cry. If Mrs. Geldheraus fails me, I shall enquire everywhere for some good, kind woman who will take care of you till you grow a little older, for of course you must see how impossible it would be for me to go about with a baby of your age. This evening, after dinner, when it is dark, I will try to smuggle you out unobserved to the woman, if I can find one suitable, then give warning, and go to some quiet place where nobody knows us, and where I can perhaps have you back to live with me. Now what do you think of my plan? Do you like it?”
Augusta evidently did not, for she shook her head as vehemently as she could.
“Well,” said Prudence crossly, “if you don’t you needn’t. I can think of nothing better, and you are not able to give me much help or advice. You have only yourself to thank for having brought all this trouble on us. I’m sure I never was so worried in my life.”
Augusta was perforce silent, but her eyes followed every movement of her sister.
“Now,” continued Prudence, as the breakfast gong sounded, “I must go downstairs.I shall say you have had a bad night, and desire no breakfast. I shall lock the door of your room so that the housemaid may not come in, and shall bring you up a cup of milk. I suppose that is the proper thing for you. Can you eat anything solid?”
Augusta showed two rows of toothless gums. Milk evidently should be her diet.
“Well, for goodness’ sake keep quiet. I will come back as soon as I possibly can,” and with this farewell, Miss Prudence descended. Alas! poor woman, dark as were her forebodings, she little knew what was to be faced, nor how difficult she would find the execution of her simple and excellent plan for the temporary concealment of Augusta.