CHAPTER XIIThe BurglarThat Miss Meredith should turn in a moment from being freezingly uninterested in the Professor's wife, to being more friendly than any one else, seemed from one point of view very noble and distinguished, from another puzzling and peculiar."It's a little dis-disconcerting," said Elma at Miss Grace's. "We were so pleased at first when Miss Meredith pointed out our talents to us. Now she is pointing out Mrs. Clutterbuck's. And you know, last week, we didn't think Mrs. Clutterbuck had any talents at all.""Ah--that is one of our little tragedies," said Miss Grace simply. "That we are obliged to outlive the extravagance of new friends.""Do you think Miss Meredith won't keep it up where we are concerned?" asked Elma anxiously. "It would be a little sad if she didn't, wouldn't it? Like deceiving us to begin with; and now she may be deceiving Mrs. Clutterbuck.""Oh, I don't know. She may work wonders with the Professor. It must be pure goodness that prompts her, dear.""She must be used to being taken coldly," said Elma. "The Professor glares at her, and Elsie charges straight out to the back garden every time she calls.""Is Mr. Symington there now?" asked Miss Grace."No, he left in two days. Papa was charmed with him. He and the Professor and papa had an evening together when we were all at the Gardiners, and Mrs. Clutterbuck came too. Papa says Mr. Symington will make a name for himself one day. He is coming back to Ridgetown for a summer, some time soon, he liked it so much."If only for the sudden interest taken by the Merediths in the Clutterbucks, it seemed necessary that they should become very much a part of the Leightons' life just then. But nothing could thaw the demeanour of Elsie. Dr. Merryweather found her improved slightly, but there were signs that she fretted inordinately. Nothing she did was what other girls did, and she was quite beyond the abstracted influences of her parents.Adelaide Maud met the Professor."I hear you have a perfect little duck of a daughter," said she airily."Ha, hm," exclaimed the Professor, quite irresponsible in the matter of English for the moment. He had no real words for such a situation."Aren't you awfully proud of her?" asked Adelaide Maud.The Professor recovered. That word "awfully!" It made him forget this new version of his daughter."So you are also in this conspiracy," whispered Lance afterwards to Adelaide Maud. "It's no good. A bomb under that fanatic is all that will move him."But in the meantime Elsie made some moves for herself.The Leightons were interested in their own affairs. Cuthbert was away, and Mr. Leighton had to make a run to London. He took Mabel with him and that occurrence was exciting enough in itself. As though to show up the helplessness of a family left without a man in the house, however, one night the maids roused every one in alarm. A burglar, it seems, was trying to get in at the pantry window. The girls, who were getting ready for bed, went quaking to their mother's room. Very frightened and most carefully they made their way to the vicinity of the pantry. There was certainly to be heard a faint shuffling."See'd him as plain as day, Miss, leaning up against the window. He moved some flower pots, and stood on 'em.""Lock the kitchen door, telephone for the police, and light the gas," said Jean in a strained whisper.She immediately obeyed her own orders by telephoning herself in a quick deep undertone, "Man at the pantry window trying to get in."Then she took the taper from the shaking hands of Betty."I've read inHome Notesor somewhere that when burglars appear, if you light up they get frightened and go away."They had roused Aunt Katharine who had come as company for a night or two and had gone to bed at half-past nine."What's the good of frightening them if you've sent for the police?" asked Aunt Katharine. "Better let them get caught red-handed." She invariably objected to being roused from her first sleep."Oh goodness," wailed Betty. "It sounds like murder." She felt quite thrilled.The maids cowered shivering in the passage."I heard them flower pots again, Miss. 'E's either got in or--'e's----"They distinctly heard the pantry window move."Well, the door between is locked," said the quiet voice of Mrs. Leighton, "and the police ought to be here very soon now."Jean took the curlers out of her hair."I wish they would hurry up," said she.Elma got under Aunt Katharine's eiderdown."I may as well die warm," she remarked with her teeth chattering.There was not much inclination to jokes however, and Elma's speech was touched with a certain abandonment of fear. The situation was very trying. When the police did arrive and ran at a quick, stealthy run to the pantry window, they waited in terror for the expected shuffle and outcry."It's really awful," whispered Betty, clinging in despair to her mother."I can't think why they are so quiet," said Mrs. Leighton. "I think I must open the kitchen door.""Oh, ma'am, please, ma'am." Cook at last became hysterical. "Don't move that door, ma'am; we've had scare enough. Let 'em catch 'em themselves."Betty sat down on the stairs and leant her head on her hands."They must be arresting them," she said, "with handcuffs. And papa said they always have to read over the charge. They must be reading over the charge now, I think.""In the dark!" said Aunt Katharine with a certain eloquent sniff."They have lanterns, dark lanterns. Isn't it beautiful?" said Betty.She rose in her white dressing-gown."Listen," said she.The door-bell suddenly clanged. Every one screamed except Mrs. Leighton."I do wish you would keep quiet," said she. "The police will think we are being murdered." She moved to the door. But again she was arrested by piercing directions."Talk to them at the window, mummy. They might be the burglars themselves. How are we to know? Do talk at the window.""I'm extremely cold," said Mrs. Leighton, "and I'd rather ask them in whoever they are, than talk to them at an open window."By the time she had finished, however, Jean, the valiant, had the window open and had discovered a policeman. They had "scoured the premises," he said, and no thief was to be found. Mrs. Leighton wrapped herself in an eiderdown quilt."Will you come in, please, and open my kitchen door? Cook thinks they may be there," she said.With deep thankfulness they let in the policeman. A sergeant appeared. He was very sympathetic and reassuring. "Best not to proceed too quickly," he said in a fat, slow way. "I have a man still outside watching. So if 'e's 'ere, Miss, we'll catch 'im either way. A grand thing the telephone."He unlocked the door, and thoroughly investigated the kitchen."No signs," said he, "no signs."The Leightons recovered some of their lost dignity and crowded in. Only Jean however had the satisfaction of hair in order and curlers discarded. How brave of Jean to remember at that dreadful moment of burglars in the house!The sergeant had gas lighted and looked extremely puzzled."'E 's been 'ere right enough," said he. "Window open right enough. Was it fastened?"He turned about, but the chief evidence had departed. With the advent of the policeman, cook and retinue had suddenly remembered their costumes. Like rabbits they had scuttled, first into the larder for cover, then into their own rooms, where they donned costumes more suitable for such impressive visitors. Mrs. Leighton's eye twinkled when she found cook appear in hastily found dress."Did you leave the window unfastened, cook?" she asked.Cook was sure. "It was a thing as 'ow I never forgot, ma'am, but this one night----"Well, there seemed to be some uncertainty.Elma's eyes during this were straying continually to a piece of notepaper lying on a table. First she thought, "It is some letter belonging to the maids." Then an impelling idea that the white paper had some other meaning forced her to pick it up. Every other person was engaged in watching the search of the sergeant and listening to his words."Some one has been right in this 'ere kitchen. It's the doors and windows unlatched that do it. Many a time since I've been here as sergeant, I've said to myself, 'We'll 'ave trouble yet over these unlatched windows.'""We have been so safe," complained Mrs. Leighton. "The poor people here too--so respectable and hard-working!""Drink, ma'am, drink," said the sergeant dismally, "you never know what it will do to a man."He turned his lantern in his fat fingers."Oh," said Aunt Katharine with a sudden gasp, "I could stand a plain thief, hungry, may be, but master of himself. But a drunk man--it's dreadful."She shivered and looked into corners as though one of the thieves might be asleep there. The sergeant and his companion made a thorough search of the house.None of them noticed Elma who sat as though cast in an eternal shiver and who surreptitiously read the scrap of notepaper."The Trail." That was all that was written in words but nimbly drawn on a turned back corner was a snaky, sinuous serpent. It had the eyes and the accusing glare of the expression of Elsie.Elma wondered how far she might be right in keeping that document while the fat sergeant followed up his cues, and described the burglar. He was six feet at least it seemed, to have got in at the window where he did. "Flower pots or no flower pots, no smaller man could have done it." "Fool," thought Elma. "Elsie, who can climb a drain pipe, drop from a balcony, skim walls. Elsie had a way of which he doesn't know."One thought that ran through her mind was the wickedness of any one's having called Elsie by such a name as the Serpent, and the tragedy of her having found it out. There was some excuse for this latest wickedest prank of all. The daring of Elsie confused her. What girl would be so devoid of fear as to move out at eleven at night and act the burglar? None of their set had the pluck for it, to put it in the baldest way. The idea that she might have been caught by the fat sergeant appalled Elma. She saw the scornful, wilful eyes of the Serpent dancing. Would she care? Yet she was the girl who had moped for the death of her dog till "her hair came out in patches."She was still staring at the trail of the Serpent when the sergeant had finished his "tour of safety." After all, it might not have been a prank of Elsie's. It might have been a six-foot burglar. This accusing serpent--well, one couldn't go on a thing of that sort. It would be so amusing too that they were had practically out of bed in such a panic. Aunt Katharine looked very worn and disturbed. She would never forgive a practical joke. Elma held the paper tight, and down in her sympathetic, plaintive little soul felt she could never accuse a fly, far less a sensitive wicked little mischief like Elsie Clutterbuck.She could not help laughing at themselves. But after all, who was looking after that wild child now? She nearly asked the sergeant to make his way home by the side lane by which she now knew Elsie had come. Then the certainty that this self-satisfied person with his six-foot burglar would never make anything of this slippery fearless little elf burglar kept her silent.The sergeant finished his tour with great impressiveness. They were informed they might safely go to bed. A man or two would be about to see that no one was hanging round at all. It was very ridiculous to Elma. "After all," remarked the sergeant, "you are very early people. It is only eleven o'clock now. Hardly the dead of night, ma'am!""We are generally less early of course," said Mrs. Leighton, "but we were alone to-night. Mr. Leighton and my son are away.""Ah, bad," remarked the sergeant. "It looks as though our friend had an inkling to that effect."Elma thought the interview would never be over.It was best to say nothing, or Mrs. Leighton would have had the town searched for Elsie. It was best in every way to crumple tight that incriminating paper and wonder why in the wide world Elsie had done it.She met the Serpent the following day. There was an impish, happy look of mischief on that usually savage little face. Miss Meredith had been retailing to her mamma the terrific alarm which the Leightons had experienced on the previous evening. She met Elma full face and the smile on her lips died."Why did you do it?" asked Elma bluntly as though she had known the Serpent all her life. The Serpent glared blandly at Elma, then fiercely resumed her ordinary pose."You came to my house, or your mother did, to take me out of myself--charity-child sort of visit, you know. I heard of that, never mind how. I came to you to take you out of yourselves. I rather fancy I did it--didn't I?"The ice of reserve had been broken at last and the Serpent was stinging in earnest.Elma could only gaze at her."You think I'm a kind of 'case,' I suppose. Some one to feel good and generous over. Just because my hair is coming out in patches. Well, it's stopped coming out in patches but I still have a few calls to pay.""Weren't you afraid last night?" asked Elma in complete wonder.They had moved into a shadow against the wall."Afraid," blazed the Serpent, and then she trembled as though she would fall."Don't," cried Elma sharply, "don't faint.""I nearly did--last night. I nearly did. It was dreadful going home. Who knows that it was I who was there?""I do," said Elma, "that's all.""Don't tell a soul," wailed the burglar. "You won't, will you? I know it was awful of me, but such fun up to the moment, when--when I heard them moving inside. Then my legs grew so weak and it was like a dream where you can't get away. You shouldn't have called me the Serpent.""We didn't," said Elma. "Not in the way you mean. But because you seemed to know about animals in a queer way--like Elsie Venner. Lance said she was half a snake, but just because she knew about snakes. It's difficult to explain.""Lance?" asked the Serpent."Yes, why don't you speak to Lance now and then?""I pay him a higher compliment," said the queer little Serpent. "I wore his clothes last night.""Oh," said Elma. "Oh! yet you could faint to-day--or nearly so.""Isn't it wicked," said the Serpent. "A boy wouldn't have given in. They do much worse, and don't give way at the knees, you know. I only opened the window and threw in the note. It was nothing. I meant you just to be puzzled. I was there early and couldn't find a suitable window or a door, so I waited till the maids went to bed. They left a little window half open.""Mamma ought to dismiss cook," said Elma primly.It was a streak of the sunlight of confidence which did not illuminate the Serpent again for many days to come. Elma, however, at the time, and until she once more met the scornful glare of reserve habitual to that person, felt as though she had found a friend. They said good-bye in fairly jocular spirits, and Elma rushed home to give at least her "all-to-be-depended-upon" mother the news.When she entered the drawing-room, however, Jean was describing the burglary to a company of people. Little shrieks and "Ohs" and "Oh, however did you do it?" "I should have died, really I should," were to be heard.Jean's burglar was six feet two by this time and he had an "accomplice."Elma thought she would choose another occasion on which to give her news to Mrs. Leighton.CHAPTER XIIIA ReconciliationMr. Leighton was very sympathetic over the burglar. He heard of the occurrence in two ways, first in the fiery excited recital of Jean, and then in confidence from Elma. Mrs. Leighton was there also."Well, I never!" she said. "That poor little lonely soul stealing about at night! it's dreadful." She never thought for a moment of how foolish it made the rest of them seem."She isn't at all afraid of the dark, or the woods, or storms, or anything of that kind," said Elma. "She loves being out with her black cat when it's pitch dark. But she's terrified now of policemen, and I don't think she will ever call properly on us all her life. She's perfectly savage with us."Mr. Leighton stroked his hair in a preoccupied manner."One has to beware of what I should call professional goodness," he said mildly. "It's pleasant, of course, to feel that one does a nice action in being kind to the like of that stormy little person. But when she detects the effort at kindliness! Well, one ought sometimes to think that it must be humiliating to the needy to be palpably helped by the prosperous. There are various kinds of wealth, not all of them meaning money. This child has had no affection. Naturally she scorns a charitable gift of it. It's almost a slight on her own parents, you know.""There," said Mrs. Leighton in a dismal way, "I told Dr. Merryweather I disliked intruding. It was an intrusion.""Oh, it will be all right," replied Mr. Leighton. "Don't plague the child over this romp of being a burglar, that's all. And don't patronize her," he said to Elma. "Give her a chance of conferring something herself. It's sometimes a more dignified way of finding a friend."Elma felt some of her high ideas of reclaiming the serpent topple. Miss Grace had advised differently. "Be kind and helpful," she had declared. Now her father seemed to think that it was the serpent's task to be the generous supporting figure. It made Elma just a little wild with that blazing little serpent Elsie.For a year and a half their friendship with the serpent existed over crossed swords. She recovered in health, but the routine of her life never wavered. The force of habit in connection with her mother, that the Professor's tempestuous irritable habits should rule the house and that she should be kept quaking in a silence which must not be broken, could not be dispelled even by the diligent visits of Miss Meredith. Adelaide Maud drew off after the first encounter with the Professor. "I'm afraid that there will just have to be a tragic outburst every time Mrs. Clutterbuck says 'a new pair of shoes' instead of 'a pair of new shoes,'" said she, "nothing can save her now."Soon the efforts of Dr. Merryweather were forgotten in the impenetrable attitude of the whole family.At the end of eighteen months, most of Ridgetown was collected one day for a river regatta at a reach a few miles up from the town. Every one of any consequence except Lance, as Betty put it, was present. They rowed in boats and watched the races, picnicked and walked on the banks. One wonderful occurrence was the presence of Mrs. Clutterbuck and the Serpent. Mr. Symington had appeared once more and done something this time to penetrate the aloofness of their existence. He had come once or twice to the Leightons' with the Professor.The girls put this friend of their father's on a new plane.He could be engrossed in talk with their father and the Professor, and yet not gaze past the rest of the family as though they were "guinea pigs."They now knew Mr. Sturgis well enough to tell him that he thought nothing more of them than that they were a land of decorative guinea pig. Mr. Symington, however, who had not seen them grow out of the childish stage, but had come on them one memorable evening when the picture of them, for a new person, was really something rather delightful to remember--Mr. Symington was immediately put on a pedestal of a new order. The difference was explained to Robin, who growled darkly. "It's perfectly charming to be received with deference by the man who is splendid enough to be received with deference by our own father," explained Jean. "Don't you see?"Robin saw in a savage manner. He had never been on this particular pedestal. With all his sister's enthusiasm for Mr. Symington, he could see little to like in that person.Mr. Symington studied in lonely parts of the world the wild life an ordinary sportsman would bring down with his gun. He was manly, yet learned. Delightfully young, yet stamped with the dignity of experience. Robin in his presence felt a middle-aged oppression in himself, which could not be explained by years.He was particularly galled by his sister's persistence in keeping near the Clutterbuck party on the Saturday of the river regatta.There were exciting moments of boat races, duck races, swimming competitions, and so forth. Then came the afternoon when everybody picnicked.The Leightons had a crowd of friends with them, and took tea near the pool by the weir.May undertook to teach Betty how to scull in an outrigger, which one of the racers had left in their care for the moment. Betty was daring and rather skilful to begin with. It seemed lamentable that with so many looking on, she should suddenly catch a real crab. May, standing on the bank, screamed to her, as Betty's frail little boat went swinging rather wildly under the trees of an island."Look here," cried Jean to May sharply. "What made you two begin playing in such a dangerous part? Sit still," she shouted wildly to Betty.It seemed as if no one had understood that there was any danger in these little pranks of Betty's, till her boat was swept into mid-stream, and ran hard into certain collision on the island. Jean called for some one to take a boat out to Betty. Then the full danger of the situation flashed on them. Just a few minutes before, a detachment had gone up to the starting point, and no boat was left in which one might reach Betty."Sit still," shouted Jean again, "hold on to the trees or something."It had occurred in a flash. Betty in the quiet water was all very well, but Betty, the timid, out alone on a swirling river with a weir in the very near distance, this Betty lost her head.Jean's scream, "Sit still," had the effect of frightening her more than anything. "It was what one was advised to do when horses were running off, or something particularly dreadful was about to happen," thought Betty.She first lost an oar, then splashed herself wildly in the attempt to recover it. The sudden rocking of her "shining little cockle shell," as she had called it only a minute before, alarmed her more than anything. She was being swept on the island, deep water everywhere around it. With a gasp of fear she rose to catch the tree branches, missed, upset the cockle shell at last, and fell into the river.Those on the bank, for a swift moment, "or was it for centuries," stood paralysed."Oh!" cried Jean, "oh!"There was a swift sudden rush behind them, "like a swallow diving through a cornfield," said May later. A tense, victorious little figure, flinging off hat and a garment of sorts; a splash; a dark head driving in an incredibly swift way through water impatiently almost trodden upon by two little wildly skimming hands, then a voice when Betty rose: "Lie on your back, I'll be with you in a minute," and the valiant little Serpent was off to the saving of Betty. It was sufficiently terrifying on account of the weir. If Elsie reached Betty, would she have the strength to bring her back. If Elsie did not reach Betty, Betty could not swim. It was dreadful. Jean, second-rate swimmer as she was, would have been in herself by this time, but that Elma held her."She's got her," she whispered with a grey face. They shouted when the Serpent turned slightly with Betty. She was like a fierce little schoolmistress. "Don't interfere with me, he on your back. Keep lying on your back," and Betty obeyed. At the supreme moment the Serpent had come into her own, and displayed at last the talent which till then had only been expended on her cats and dogs. "Lie still," she growled, and obediently, almost trustingly, Betty lay like a little white-faced drowned Ophelia. Then "Come along with that boat," sang out the Serpent cheerily.Round the bend of the river above, at sound of their cries had come "Hereward the Wake, oh how magnificent," sobbed Jean. It was Mr. Symington.The Serpent, with hard serviceable little strokes, piloted Betty lightly out of the strength of the current. Mr. Symington was past and gently back to them before a minute had elapsed."Grip the gunwale," he said cheerily to Elsie. It was the tone of a man addressing his compatriot.(Oh! how magnificent of the Serpent.)"Now," he said. "Keep a tight hold on her still. I must get you into quiet water." He pulled hard. Immediately he had them into the backwater. It was rather splendid to see him get hold of a tree, tie the boat, and be at the side of the Serpent before one could breathe. He had rowed in with the full strength of a strong man, and in a minute he was as tenderly raising Betty. He had never properly removed his eyes from her face. "She was just faulting. You held on well," he said approvingly. "Don't let her sisters see her at present." He lifted Betty to the bank."Quick, open your eyes," he said commandingly."Look here," called the Serpent. She had scrambled neatly out by herself, "Betty, Betty Leighton, oh! Betty, open your eyes." There was an answering quiver. "Quick, Betty, before your sisters come. Don't frighten them. Open your eyes, Betty."Mr. Symington rubbed Betty's hands smoothly in a quick experienced manner.Betty opened her eyes and looked at the Serpent."Oh, Elsie," she said, "Elsie, you sweet little Serpent!" It was an end to the crossed swords feud. Elsie took her in her arms and cried.When the girls arrived panic-stricken they found Mr. Symington trying to get a coherent answer to his orders from two bedraggled girls, who could do nothing but weep over each other. The brave little Serpent had lost her nerve once more."Oh!" she said, "it's very wicked to be a girl. Boys wouldn't give way like this."Jean looked at her narrowly, "Do you always go about in gymnasium dress, ready to save people?" she asked, with the remains of fear in her voice.The brave little Serpent looked down on her costume, and the red which glowed in her cheeks only from mortification ran slowly up and dyed her pale face crimson. "Oh!" she said, "oh!" and sat speechless.Betty sat up shivering. "I do call that presence of mind, don't you? She flung off her skirt, didn't you, dear?"The Serpent would have answered except that the "dear" unnerved her. She faded to tears once more."Come, come," said Mr. Symington.And at that, as they afterwards remembered, Mabel "came."She came through the trees in a white dress, and the sunshine threw patches of beautiful colour on her hair."Oh, little Betty!" she cried.Then she saw the Serpent.She took Elsie right up against the beautiful white dress and kissed her. Mabel could not speak at all. But her eyes glowed. She turned them full on Mr. Symington. "We must take these children home at once," she said.Mr. Symington looked as though he had been rescuing an army. "Yes," said he gravely.Robin had trailed in looking somewhat dissatisfied."Jean would go, wouldn't she?" he asked."Oh no, I don't want mummy to know," said Mabel. "She is up there with Mrs. Clutterbuck. These two must go home, and get hot baths, and be put to bed and sat upon, or they won't stay there. Where can we get a cab, I wonder?""Here," said a voice.Adelaide Maud now came through that beautiful pathway of sun-patched trees with Elma. "I've heard all about it," said she, "and we have the carriage. Borrow wraps from every one and tuck them in. We shall keep Mrs. Clutterbuck employed till Mr. Symington comes back."It seemed that they all took it for granted that Mr. Symington would go.Robin showed signs of losing his temper. Mabel as a rule, when these imperious fits descended on him began to investigate her conduct and wonder where she might alter it in order that he might be appeased. This time, however, she was too anxious and concerned over Betty, and while Jean might be quite whole-hearted in her manner of looking after people, one could not depend on her for knowing the best ways in which to set about it. In any case, the two could not be kept there shivering.Adelaide Maud was a trifle indignant at the interruption. "Quick," she said to Mr. Symington, "get them in and off.""Oh you are the fairy princess, always, somehow, aren't you," sighed Betty, happily, as on their being tucked in rugs and waterproofs, Adelaide Maud gave quick decided orders to the coachman."Isn't she just like a story book," she sighed rapturously. They drove swirling homewards, in a damp quick exciting way until they pulled up at the door of the White House."Oh, mine was nearer," said the Serpent nervously. She had never entered the portals of the White House in this intimate manner, and suddenly longed for loneliness once more."Well," said Mabel sweetly and nicely, "you will just have to imagine that this is as near for to-day at least. Because I am going to put you to bed."They laughed very happily because they were being put to bed like babies."If only Cuthbert were here," said Mabel anxiously and in a motherly little way to Mr. Symington, afterwards, "he would tell me whether they oughtn't to have a hot drink, and a number of other things they say they won't have.""I should give them a hot drink," said Mr. Symington with his grave eyes dancing a trifle. "And keep them in blankets for an hour or two."It was he who found Mr. Leighton and told him a little of what had happened. ("Oh the conspiracies which shield a parent!") For days Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, the Professor and Mrs. Clutterbuck, had an idea that the two girls had merely fallen in and got very wet. In any case, Elsie often came home in considerable disrepair. When one found, however, that neither was the worse for the fright, Elsie was made a real heroine. It changed her attitude completely. The Leightons liked her now whether they felt charitable or not. It was a great relief. And one day her own father focussed his far-away gaze on her, as though he had only then considered that there was anything on which to look at her particular place at table."They tell me--ahem--that you can swim," he exclaimed. "Very excellent exercise, very."To an outsider it did not sound like praise, but his sentence set Elsie's heart jumping in a joyous manner."Oh, papa," she said. "I was very frightened afterwards.""Hem," said he, "an excellent time in which to be frightened."Mrs. Clutterbuck congratulated herself on his having said it (she would have made it "time to be frightened in," and the Professor in such good humour, too!)Happier days had really dawned in that grim household however.The growing up of the courage of Elsie became a wonderful thing.Meanwhile other events had occurred than the saving of Betty. Robin had had to go home alone, and Lance had the benefit of some of his ill-humour on meeting him on the way."Who shot cock Robin to-day?" reflected Lance with speculative eyes on that retreating person. He nearly ran into a very athletic figure coming swinging round on him from the Leightons'.Hereward the Wake was in his most magnificent mood and his eyes shone with the light of achievement. He was speaking when he turned, and the words dropped automatically even before the impish gaze of Lance."Knew you and named a star," quoted Mr. Symington."Now what on earth has that to do with the boat race?" asked Lance.CHAPTER XIVThe First PealMabel was twenty-one when her cousin Isobel Leighton came to make her home at the White House. Isobel's mother had died ten years before, and since the more recent death of her father, she had stayed for a year or two with her mother's relations. Now, suddenly, it seemed imperative that Mr. Leighton should offer her a place in his own family, since various changes elsewhere left her without a home. It was the most natural thing in the world that everybody should be pleased. The girls got a room ready for her, and took pains towards having it specially attractive. They even made plans amongst their friends for Isobel to be suitably entertained. "Though how we are to manage about dance invitations and that sort of thing, I can't think," said Jean. "It's bad enough with two girls, and sometimes no man at all. It will be awful with three."Elma herself was on the verge of being eligible for invitations. Mabel looked as though she did not mind much. Worrying thoughts of her own were perplexing her, thoughts which she could not share with any one just then. The spring of her life had been one to delight in. Tendrils of friendship had kept her safely planted where Jean, the revolutionist, tore everything by the roots. What was not good enough for Jean immediately was had up and cast away. What had not been good enough for Jean had been their own silly enthusiasm for the Story Books. Jean in her own mind had disposed of the whole romance of this by beating Theodora at golf. She now patronized Theodora, and ignored the others. Adelaide Maud she already considered entirelypassé.The confidences of long ago were shaken into an unromantic present. The Dudgeons called ceremoniously twice a year, and invited the girls to their dances. Mabel and Jean went, occasionally with Cuthbert "cut in marble," and were inexpressibly bored in that large establishment."It doesn't seem to make up for other things that one sits on velvet pile and has a different footman for each sauce," Mabel declared. "We have to face the fact that the Dudgeon establishment is appallingly ugly."So much for Mrs. Dudgeon's beaded work cushion effect."It's only a woman who would make you leave an early Victorian drawing-room for a Georgian hall, and get you on an ottoman of the third Empire, and expect you to admire the mixture," growled Cuthbert. It was this sort of talk that was to be had out of him after he had been to the Dudgeons' balls.Elma still prized her meetings with Adelaide Maud at Miss Grace's, but recognized where her friendship ceased there. There seemed no getting further into the affections of Adelaide Maud than through that warm comradeship at Miss Grace's, or through her outspoken admiration for Mr. Leighton. And "Adelaide Maud had grownpassé" Jean had declared.The world seemed very cold and unreal at this juncture.Mabel came into Elma's room one day looking very disturbed. There was a fleeting questioning look of "Are you to be trusted?" in her eye."You know I'm to be trusted, Mabs," said Elma, as though they had been discussing the iniquity of anything else. "You aren't vexed at Isobel's coming are you?""Oh, no," said Mabel quickly, "it isn't that, it's other things." She threw herself languidly on a couch."Haven't you noticed that the Merediths haven't been here for a fortnight?"Elma brushed diligently at fair, very wavy hair. It fell in layers of soft brown, and shone a little with gold where the light touched the ripples, diligently created with over-night plaiting. She had grown, but in a slender manner, and was admittedly thepetitemember of the family. There was a wealth of comprehension in the glance she let fall on Mabel."Mabel, you don't mean to quarrel with them do you?"It seemed that the worst would happen if that happened."I don't suppose I shall have the chance," said Mabel. She took a rose out of a vase of flowers, and began to pluck absently at the petals."I think I should love to have the chance.""Oh, Mabel," said Elma distractedly, "how dreadful of you! And how fatal it might be! I shouldn't mind quarrelling a little. I think indeed it would be lovely, if one were quite sure, perfectly convinced, that one could make it up again. That's why I enjoy a play so much. Every one may be simply disgusting, but they are bound to make it up. If only one could be absolutely safe in real life! But you can't. I don't believe Mr. Meredith would make it up.""I am sure he wouldn't." Mabel plucked at a pink leaf stormily. "That's why I should like to quarrel with him.""Mabs, don't you care for him now?" Elma's eyes grew wide with trouble. It was not so much that Mabel had given any definite idea of having cared for Mr. Meredith. It had been a situation accepted long ago as the proper situation for Mabel, that there should be an "understanding" in connexion with Mr. Meredith. It established limitless seas of uncertainty if anything happened to this "understanding" except the most desirable happening. Mabel leaned her head on her hand."You see, dear," she exclaimed, "this is how it is. Long ago, papa so much disliked our talking about getting married, any of us, even in fun you know, that it was much easier, when Mr. Meredith came, just to be friends--very great friends, you know, but still--friends. Papa always said he wouldn't let one of us marry till we were twenty-three. That was definite enough. And he has been quite pleased that we haven't badgered him into getting engaged. Still, I always think that Robin ought to have said to him, once at least, that sometime he wanted to marry me. He didn't, I just went on playing his accompaniments, and being complimented by his sister. Now--now, what do you think? He has grown annoyed with papa for being so kind to Mr. Symington. Fancy his dictating about papa!" Mabel's eyes grew round and innocent."But that's because Mr. Symington is nice to you, perhaps," said Elma, as though this burst of comprehension was a great discovery on her part."Exactly," said Mabel calmly. "But if you leave unprotected a cake from which any one may take a slice, you can't blame people when they try to help themselves. Robin should be able to say to Mr. Symington, 'Hands off--this is my property,' and then there would be no trouble. As it is, he wants me to do the ordering off, papa's friend too!""What did you say to him, Mabel?" Elma asked the question in despair."I said that when Mr. Symington had really got on--then would be the time to order him off."Mabel fanned herself gently. Then her lip quivered."I don't think papa ever meant to let me in for an ignominious position of this sort--but here I am. If Robin won't champion me, who will?""Oh, but surely," said Elma, "surely Robin Meredith would never----""That's the trouble. He would," said Mabel. "And once you've found that out about a man--you simply can't--you can't believe in him, that's all."Elma sat in a wretched heap on her bed."I think it's horrid of him to let you feel like that," she said. "Other men wouldn't. Cuthbert wouldn't to any one he cared for.""Lots wouldn't," said Mabel. "That's why it's so ignominious, to have thought so much of this one all these years!""Mr. Maclean wouldn't," said Elma. She had always wondered why Mabel had ignored him in her matrimonial plans."No, I don't believe he would," said Mabel. "But that's no good to me, is it?""Mr. Symington wouldn't," said Elma."Oh, Elma!"Mabel's eyes grew frightened. "That's what scares me. I sit and sit and say, Mr. Symington never would. It makes Robin seems so thin and insignificant. He simply crumples up. And Mr. Symington grows large and honourable, and such a man! And I'm supposed in some way to be dedicated to Robin. It's like having your tombstone cut before you are dead. Oh, Elma, whatever shall I do!"Elma was quite pale. The lines of thought had long ago disappeared with the puckerings of wonder on her face. Here indeed was thunder booming with a vengeance, and near, not far off like that golden picture of years ago. Mabs was in deep trouble."You see what would happen if I told papa? He would order off Mr. Symington in a great fright, because he has never thought somehow that any of us were thinking of him except that he is an awfully clever man! I think also that papa would turn Robin out of the house.""I believe he would," said Elma in a whisper."And then--how awful! All our friends, their friends! Everywhere we go, we should meet Sarah Meredith! What a life for us! I should like to quarrel--just because I'm being so badly treated, but the consequences would be perfectly awful," said Mabel. She took it as though none of it could be helped.Elma was quite crumpled with the agitation of her feelings."You must tell papa, Mabel," she said gently."Oh, Elma, I can't--about Mr. Symington. Imagine Mr. Symington's ever knowing and thinking--'What do I care for any of these chits of girls!' Robin has always got wild--if I smiled to my drawing master even. What I hate, is being dictated to now. And his sulking--instead of standing by me if there is any trouble. He isn't a man."A sharp ring at the bell, and rat-tat of the postman might be heard. Somebody called up that a letter had come for Mabel.Elma went for it and produced it with quaking heart. The writing seemed something very different to any of the letters which came to Mabel.It was from Mr. Symington.It explained in the gentlest possible way that he had learned from Miss Meredith that his presence in Ridgetown caused some difficulty of which he had never even dreamed. He wrote as a great friend of her dear father's, and a most loyal admirer of her family, to say the easiest matter in the world was being effected, and that his visit to Ridgetown had come to an end.The paper shook gently in Mabel's fingers, and fell quivering and uncertain to the floor. She looked up piteously and quite helplessly at Elma, like a child seeking shelter, and then buried her head on the couch. She cried in long, strangled sobs, while Elma stood staring at her.Elma pulled herself together at last."Mabel dear, I'm going to read it."Mabel nodded into her bent arms."Oh but," said Elma after shakingly perusing that document, "but he can't--he can't do this. It's dreadful. It's like blaming you! What can Miss Meredith have said? Oh! Mabel! Mabel, I shall cut that woman dead wherever and however I meet her. Oh, Mabel--what a creature! Don't you cry. Papa will explain to Mr. Symington. He will believe papa. Papa will explain that you had nothing to do with it, that you don't mind whether he goes or stays--that----""But I do mind," said Mabel in cold, awe-struck tones. "That's the awful part. And it's nothing but the smallness of Robin that has taught me, Mr. Symington is the only man worth knowing in the whole earth."She clasped her hands in a hopeless way."And he has been sent away, banished, by the very man who should have made it impossible for me to see any good quality in any one else except himself.""Who will play Mr. Meredith's accompaniments now?" Elma asked. "Why they can't get on without you, dear." She still believed that just as plays were arranged, so should the affairs of Mabel come back to their original placidity."I shall never play another note for Robin Meredith," said Mabel.Elma could not yet doubt but that Robin would come directly he knew how satisfactorily he had disposed of his rival. One hoped that Mr. Symington had only explained so far to Mabel. That afternoon they were to meet Isobel, so that every one was more or less occupied, and always on this same evening of the week, Friday, the Merediths were at an open "at home" which the friends of the Leightons attended at the White House. The question was, would the Merediths come?Mabel did not seem to care whether they came or not. She sat, crushing the letter and not looking at Elma."Elma dear," she said at last, "I can't stand this. I shall tell papa. Mamma will only say 'I told you so' for our having been such friends with the Merediths. But I can't bear that she shouldn't know I'm not ashamed of anything," she caught her breath with a slight sob. "But I'm done with Robin."It seemed magnificent to Elma that for her own honour she should jeopardize so much. Men like Mr. Meredith were so rare in Ridgetown. Yet when she asked her, couldn't she still admire Robin, Mabel said very truthfully then "No."Elma would have liked to say that it didn't matter about Mr. Symington."Robin will never enter this house again," Mabel said with quivering lip.But he came--several times.
CHAPTER XII
The Burglar
That Miss Meredith should turn in a moment from being freezingly uninterested in the Professor's wife, to being more friendly than any one else, seemed from one point of view very noble and distinguished, from another puzzling and peculiar.
"It's a little dis-disconcerting," said Elma at Miss Grace's. "We were so pleased at first when Miss Meredith pointed out our talents to us. Now she is pointing out Mrs. Clutterbuck's. And you know, last week, we didn't think Mrs. Clutterbuck had any talents at all."
"Ah--that is one of our little tragedies," said Miss Grace simply. "That we are obliged to outlive the extravagance of new friends."
"Do you think Miss Meredith won't keep it up where we are concerned?" asked Elma anxiously. "It would be a little sad if she didn't, wouldn't it? Like deceiving us to begin with; and now she may be deceiving Mrs. Clutterbuck."
"Oh, I don't know. She may work wonders with the Professor. It must be pure goodness that prompts her, dear."
"She must be used to being taken coldly," said Elma. "The Professor glares at her, and Elsie charges straight out to the back garden every time she calls."
"Is Mr. Symington there now?" asked Miss Grace.
"No, he left in two days. Papa was charmed with him. He and the Professor and papa had an evening together when we were all at the Gardiners, and Mrs. Clutterbuck came too. Papa says Mr. Symington will make a name for himself one day. He is coming back to Ridgetown for a summer, some time soon, he liked it so much."
If only for the sudden interest taken by the Merediths in the Clutterbucks, it seemed necessary that they should become very much a part of the Leightons' life just then. But nothing could thaw the demeanour of Elsie. Dr. Merryweather found her improved slightly, but there were signs that she fretted inordinately. Nothing she did was what other girls did, and she was quite beyond the abstracted influences of her parents.
Adelaide Maud met the Professor.
"I hear you have a perfect little duck of a daughter," said she airily.
"Ha, hm," exclaimed the Professor, quite irresponsible in the matter of English for the moment. He had no real words for such a situation.
"Aren't you awfully proud of her?" asked Adelaide Maud.
The Professor recovered. That word "awfully!" It made him forget this new version of his daughter.
"So you are also in this conspiracy," whispered Lance afterwards to Adelaide Maud. "It's no good. A bomb under that fanatic is all that will move him."
But in the meantime Elsie made some moves for herself.
The Leightons were interested in their own affairs. Cuthbert was away, and Mr. Leighton had to make a run to London. He took Mabel with him and that occurrence was exciting enough in itself. As though to show up the helplessness of a family left without a man in the house, however, one night the maids roused every one in alarm. A burglar, it seems, was trying to get in at the pantry window. The girls, who were getting ready for bed, went quaking to their mother's room. Very frightened and most carefully they made their way to the vicinity of the pantry. There was certainly to be heard a faint shuffling.
"See'd him as plain as day, Miss, leaning up against the window. He moved some flower pots, and stood on 'em."
"Lock the kitchen door, telephone for the police, and light the gas," said Jean in a strained whisper.
She immediately obeyed her own orders by telephoning herself in a quick deep undertone, "Man at the pantry window trying to get in."
Then she took the taper from the shaking hands of Betty.
"I've read inHome Notesor somewhere that when burglars appear, if you light up they get frightened and go away."
They had roused Aunt Katharine who had come as company for a night or two and had gone to bed at half-past nine.
"What's the good of frightening them if you've sent for the police?" asked Aunt Katharine. "Better let them get caught red-handed." She invariably objected to being roused from her first sleep.
"Oh goodness," wailed Betty. "It sounds like murder." She felt quite thrilled.
The maids cowered shivering in the passage.
"I heard them flower pots again, Miss. 'E's either got in or--'e's----"
They distinctly heard the pantry window move.
"Well, the door between is locked," said the quiet voice of Mrs. Leighton, "and the police ought to be here very soon now."
Jean took the curlers out of her hair.
"I wish they would hurry up," said she.
Elma got under Aunt Katharine's eiderdown.
"I may as well die warm," she remarked with her teeth chattering.
There was not much inclination to jokes however, and Elma's speech was touched with a certain abandonment of fear. The situation was very trying. When the police did arrive and ran at a quick, stealthy run to the pantry window, they waited in terror for the expected shuffle and outcry.
"It's really awful," whispered Betty, clinging in despair to her mother.
"I can't think why they are so quiet," said Mrs. Leighton. "I think I must open the kitchen door."
"Oh, ma'am, please, ma'am." Cook at last became hysterical. "Don't move that door, ma'am; we've had scare enough. Let 'em catch 'em themselves."
Betty sat down on the stairs and leant her head on her hands.
"They must be arresting them," she said, "with handcuffs. And papa said they always have to read over the charge. They must be reading over the charge now, I think."
"In the dark!" said Aunt Katharine with a certain eloquent sniff.
"They have lanterns, dark lanterns. Isn't it beautiful?" said Betty.
She rose in her white dressing-gown.
"Listen," said she.
The door-bell suddenly clanged. Every one screamed except Mrs. Leighton.
"I do wish you would keep quiet," said she. "The police will think we are being murdered." She moved to the door. But again she was arrested by piercing directions.
"Talk to them at the window, mummy. They might be the burglars themselves. How are we to know? Do talk at the window."
"I'm extremely cold," said Mrs. Leighton, "and I'd rather ask them in whoever they are, than talk to them at an open window."
By the time she had finished, however, Jean, the valiant, had the window open and had discovered a policeman. They had "scoured the premises," he said, and no thief was to be found. Mrs. Leighton wrapped herself in an eiderdown quilt.
"Will you come in, please, and open my kitchen door? Cook thinks they may be there," she said.
With deep thankfulness they let in the policeman. A sergeant appeared. He was very sympathetic and reassuring. "Best not to proceed too quickly," he said in a fat, slow way. "I have a man still outside watching. So if 'e's 'ere, Miss, we'll catch 'im either way. A grand thing the telephone."
He unlocked the door, and thoroughly investigated the kitchen.
"No signs," said he, "no signs."
The Leightons recovered some of their lost dignity and crowded in. Only Jean however had the satisfaction of hair in order and curlers discarded. How brave of Jean to remember at that dreadful moment of burglars in the house!
The sergeant had gas lighted and looked extremely puzzled.
"'E 's been 'ere right enough," said he. "Window open right enough. Was it fastened?"
He turned about, but the chief evidence had departed. With the advent of the policeman, cook and retinue had suddenly remembered their costumes. Like rabbits they had scuttled, first into the larder for cover, then into their own rooms, where they donned costumes more suitable for such impressive visitors. Mrs. Leighton's eye twinkled when she found cook appear in hastily found dress.
"Did you leave the window unfastened, cook?" she asked.
Cook was sure. "It was a thing as 'ow I never forgot, ma'am, but this one night----"
Well, there seemed to be some uncertainty.
Elma's eyes during this were straying continually to a piece of notepaper lying on a table. First she thought, "It is some letter belonging to the maids." Then an impelling idea that the white paper had some other meaning forced her to pick it up. Every other person was engaged in watching the search of the sergeant and listening to his words.
"Some one has been right in this 'ere kitchen. It's the doors and windows unlatched that do it. Many a time since I've been here as sergeant, I've said to myself, 'We'll 'ave trouble yet over these unlatched windows.'"
"We have been so safe," complained Mrs. Leighton. "The poor people here too--so respectable and hard-working!"
"Drink, ma'am, drink," said the sergeant dismally, "you never know what it will do to a man."
He turned his lantern in his fat fingers.
"Oh," said Aunt Katharine with a sudden gasp, "I could stand a plain thief, hungry, may be, but master of himself. But a drunk man--it's dreadful."
She shivered and looked into corners as though one of the thieves might be asleep there. The sergeant and his companion made a thorough search of the house.
None of them noticed Elma who sat as though cast in an eternal shiver and who surreptitiously read the scrap of notepaper.
"The Trail." That was all that was written in words but nimbly drawn on a turned back corner was a snaky, sinuous serpent. It had the eyes and the accusing glare of the expression of Elsie.
Elma wondered how far she might be right in keeping that document while the fat sergeant followed up his cues, and described the burglar. He was six feet at least it seemed, to have got in at the window where he did. "Flower pots or no flower pots, no smaller man could have done it." "Fool," thought Elma. "Elsie, who can climb a drain pipe, drop from a balcony, skim walls. Elsie had a way of which he doesn't know."
One thought that ran through her mind was the wickedness of any one's having called Elsie by such a name as the Serpent, and the tragedy of her having found it out. There was some excuse for this latest wickedest prank of all. The daring of Elsie confused her. What girl would be so devoid of fear as to move out at eleven at night and act the burglar? None of their set had the pluck for it, to put it in the baldest way. The idea that she might have been caught by the fat sergeant appalled Elma. She saw the scornful, wilful eyes of the Serpent dancing. Would she care? Yet she was the girl who had moped for the death of her dog till "her hair came out in patches."
She was still staring at the trail of the Serpent when the sergeant had finished his "tour of safety." After all, it might not have been a prank of Elsie's. It might have been a six-foot burglar. This accusing serpent--well, one couldn't go on a thing of that sort. It would be so amusing too that they were had practically out of bed in such a panic. Aunt Katharine looked very worn and disturbed. She would never forgive a practical joke. Elma held the paper tight, and down in her sympathetic, plaintive little soul felt she could never accuse a fly, far less a sensitive wicked little mischief like Elsie Clutterbuck.
She could not help laughing at themselves. But after all, who was looking after that wild child now? She nearly asked the sergeant to make his way home by the side lane by which she now knew Elsie had come. Then the certainty that this self-satisfied person with his six-foot burglar would never make anything of this slippery fearless little elf burglar kept her silent.
The sergeant finished his tour with great impressiveness. They were informed they might safely go to bed. A man or two would be about to see that no one was hanging round at all. It was very ridiculous to Elma. "After all," remarked the sergeant, "you are very early people. It is only eleven o'clock now. Hardly the dead of night, ma'am!"
"We are generally less early of course," said Mrs. Leighton, "but we were alone to-night. Mr. Leighton and my son are away."
"Ah, bad," remarked the sergeant. "It looks as though our friend had an inkling to that effect."
Elma thought the interview would never be over.
It was best to say nothing, or Mrs. Leighton would have had the town searched for Elsie. It was best in every way to crumple tight that incriminating paper and wonder why in the wide world Elsie had done it.
She met the Serpent the following day. There was an impish, happy look of mischief on that usually savage little face. Miss Meredith had been retailing to her mamma the terrific alarm which the Leightons had experienced on the previous evening. She met Elma full face and the smile on her lips died.
"Why did you do it?" asked Elma bluntly as though she had known the Serpent all her life. The Serpent glared blandly at Elma, then fiercely resumed her ordinary pose.
"You came to my house, or your mother did, to take me out of myself--charity-child sort of visit, you know. I heard of that, never mind how. I came to you to take you out of yourselves. I rather fancy I did it--didn't I?"
The ice of reserve had been broken at last and the Serpent was stinging in earnest.
Elma could only gaze at her.
"You think I'm a kind of 'case,' I suppose. Some one to feel good and generous over. Just because my hair is coming out in patches. Well, it's stopped coming out in patches but I still have a few calls to pay."
"Weren't you afraid last night?" asked Elma in complete wonder.
They had moved into a shadow against the wall.
"Afraid," blazed the Serpent, and then she trembled as though she would fall.
"Don't," cried Elma sharply, "don't faint."
"I nearly did--last night. I nearly did. It was dreadful going home. Who knows that it was I who was there?"
"I do," said Elma, "that's all."
"Don't tell a soul," wailed the burglar. "You won't, will you? I know it was awful of me, but such fun up to the moment, when--when I heard them moving inside. Then my legs grew so weak and it was like a dream where you can't get away. You shouldn't have called me the Serpent."
"We didn't," said Elma. "Not in the way you mean. But because you seemed to know about animals in a queer way--like Elsie Venner. Lance said she was half a snake, but just because she knew about snakes. It's difficult to explain."
"Lance?" asked the Serpent.
"Yes, why don't you speak to Lance now and then?"
"I pay him a higher compliment," said the queer little Serpent. "I wore his clothes last night."
"Oh," said Elma. "Oh! yet you could faint to-day--or nearly so."
"Isn't it wicked," said the Serpent. "A boy wouldn't have given in. They do much worse, and don't give way at the knees, you know. I only opened the window and threw in the note. It was nothing. I meant you just to be puzzled. I was there early and couldn't find a suitable window or a door, so I waited till the maids went to bed. They left a little window half open."
"Mamma ought to dismiss cook," said Elma primly.
It was a streak of the sunlight of confidence which did not illuminate the Serpent again for many days to come. Elma, however, at the time, and until she once more met the scornful glare of reserve habitual to that person, felt as though she had found a friend. They said good-bye in fairly jocular spirits, and Elma rushed home to give at least her "all-to-be-depended-upon" mother the news.
When she entered the drawing-room, however, Jean was describing the burglary to a company of people. Little shrieks and "Ohs" and "Oh, however did you do it?" "I should have died, really I should," were to be heard.
Jean's burglar was six feet two by this time and he had an "accomplice."
Elma thought she would choose another occasion on which to give her news to Mrs. Leighton.
CHAPTER XIII
A Reconciliation
Mr. Leighton was very sympathetic over the burglar. He heard of the occurrence in two ways, first in the fiery excited recital of Jean, and then in confidence from Elma. Mrs. Leighton was there also.
"Well, I never!" she said. "That poor little lonely soul stealing about at night! it's dreadful." She never thought for a moment of how foolish it made the rest of them seem.
"She isn't at all afraid of the dark, or the woods, or storms, or anything of that kind," said Elma. "She loves being out with her black cat when it's pitch dark. But she's terrified now of policemen, and I don't think she will ever call properly on us all her life. She's perfectly savage with us."
Mr. Leighton stroked his hair in a preoccupied manner.
"One has to beware of what I should call professional goodness," he said mildly. "It's pleasant, of course, to feel that one does a nice action in being kind to the like of that stormy little person. But when she detects the effort at kindliness! Well, one ought sometimes to think that it must be humiliating to the needy to be palpably helped by the prosperous. There are various kinds of wealth, not all of them meaning money. This child has had no affection. Naturally she scorns a charitable gift of it. It's almost a slight on her own parents, you know."
"There," said Mrs. Leighton in a dismal way, "I told Dr. Merryweather I disliked intruding. It was an intrusion."
"Oh, it will be all right," replied Mr. Leighton. "Don't plague the child over this romp of being a burglar, that's all. And don't patronize her," he said to Elma. "Give her a chance of conferring something herself. It's sometimes a more dignified way of finding a friend."
Elma felt some of her high ideas of reclaiming the serpent topple. Miss Grace had advised differently. "Be kind and helpful," she had declared. Now her father seemed to think that it was the serpent's task to be the generous supporting figure. It made Elma just a little wild with that blazing little serpent Elsie.
For a year and a half their friendship with the serpent existed over crossed swords. She recovered in health, but the routine of her life never wavered. The force of habit in connection with her mother, that the Professor's tempestuous irritable habits should rule the house and that she should be kept quaking in a silence which must not be broken, could not be dispelled even by the diligent visits of Miss Meredith. Adelaide Maud drew off after the first encounter with the Professor. "I'm afraid that there will just have to be a tragic outburst every time Mrs. Clutterbuck says 'a new pair of shoes' instead of 'a pair of new shoes,'" said she, "nothing can save her now."
Soon the efforts of Dr. Merryweather were forgotten in the impenetrable attitude of the whole family.
At the end of eighteen months, most of Ridgetown was collected one day for a river regatta at a reach a few miles up from the town. Every one of any consequence except Lance, as Betty put it, was present. They rowed in boats and watched the races, picnicked and walked on the banks. One wonderful occurrence was the presence of Mrs. Clutterbuck and the Serpent. Mr. Symington had appeared once more and done something this time to penetrate the aloofness of their existence. He had come once or twice to the Leightons' with the Professor.
The girls put this friend of their father's on a new plane.
He could be engrossed in talk with their father and the Professor, and yet not gaze past the rest of the family as though they were "guinea pigs."
They now knew Mr. Sturgis well enough to tell him that he thought nothing more of them than that they were a land of decorative guinea pig. Mr. Symington, however, who had not seen them grow out of the childish stage, but had come on them one memorable evening when the picture of them, for a new person, was really something rather delightful to remember--Mr. Symington was immediately put on a pedestal of a new order. The difference was explained to Robin, who growled darkly. "It's perfectly charming to be received with deference by the man who is splendid enough to be received with deference by our own father," explained Jean. "Don't you see?"
Robin saw in a savage manner. He had never been on this particular pedestal. With all his sister's enthusiasm for Mr. Symington, he could see little to like in that person.
Mr. Symington studied in lonely parts of the world the wild life an ordinary sportsman would bring down with his gun. He was manly, yet learned. Delightfully young, yet stamped with the dignity of experience. Robin in his presence felt a middle-aged oppression in himself, which could not be explained by years.
He was particularly galled by his sister's persistence in keeping near the Clutterbuck party on the Saturday of the river regatta.
There were exciting moments of boat races, duck races, swimming competitions, and so forth. Then came the afternoon when everybody picnicked.
The Leightons had a crowd of friends with them, and took tea near the pool by the weir.
May undertook to teach Betty how to scull in an outrigger, which one of the racers had left in their care for the moment. Betty was daring and rather skilful to begin with. It seemed lamentable that with so many looking on, she should suddenly catch a real crab. May, standing on the bank, screamed to her, as Betty's frail little boat went swinging rather wildly under the trees of an island.
"Look here," cried Jean to May sharply. "What made you two begin playing in such a dangerous part? Sit still," she shouted wildly to Betty.
It seemed as if no one had understood that there was any danger in these little pranks of Betty's, till her boat was swept into mid-stream, and ran hard into certain collision on the island. Jean called for some one to take a boat out to Betty. Then the full danger of the situation flashed on them. Just a few minutes before, a detachment had gone up to the starting point, and no boat was left in which one might reach Betty.
"Sit still," shouted Jean again, "hold on to the trees or something."
It had occurred in a flash. Betty in the quiet water was all very well, but Betty, the timid, out alone on a swirling river with a weir in the very near distance, this Betty lost her head.
Jean's scream, "Sit still," had the effect of frightening her more than anything. "It was what one was advised to do when horses were running off, or something particularly dreadful was about to happen," thought Betty.
She first lost an oar, then splashed herself wildly in the attempt to recover it. The sudden rocking of her "shining little cockle shell," as she had called it only a minute before, alarmed her more than anything. She was being swept on the island, deep water everywhere around it. With a gasp of fear she rose to catch the tree branches, missed, upset the cockle shell at last, and fell into the river.
Those on the bank, for a swift moment, "or was it for centuries," stood paralysed.
"Oh!" cried Jean, "oh!"
There was a swift sudden rush behind them, "like a swallow diving through a cornfield," said May later. A tense, victorious little figure, flinging off hat and a garment of sorts; a splash; a dark head driving in an incredibly swift way through water impatiently almost trodden upon by two little wildly skimming hands, then a voice when Betty rose: "Lie on your back, I'll be with you in a minute," and the valiant little Serpent was off to the saving of Betty. It was sufficiently terrifying on account of the weir. If Elsie reached Betty, would she have the strength to bring her back. If Elsie did not reach Betty, Betty could not swim. It was dreadful. Jean, second-rate swimmer as she was, would have been in herself by this time, but that Elma held her.
"She's got her," she whispered with a grey face. They shouted when the Serpent turned slightly with Betty. She was like a fierce little schoolmistress. "Don't interfere with me, he on your back. Keep lying on your back," and Betty obeyed. At the supreme moment the Serpent had come into her own, and displayed at last the talent which till then had only been expended on her cats and dogs. "Lie still," she growled, and obediently, almost trustingly, Betty lay like a little white-faced drowned Ophelia. Then "Come along with that boat," sang out the Serpent cheerily.
Round the bend of the river above, at sound of their cries had come "Hereward the Wake, oh how magnificent," sobbed Jean. It was Mr. Symington.
The Serpent, with hard serviceable little strokes, piloted Betty lightly out of the strength of the current. Mr. Symington was past and gently back to them before a minute had elapsed.
"Grip the gunwale," he said cheerily to Elsie. It was the tone of a man addressing his compatriot.
(Oh! how magnificent of the Serpent.)
"Now," he said. "Keep a tight hold on her still. I must get you into quiet water." He pulled hard. Immediately he had them into the backwater. It was rather splendid to see him get hold of a tree, tie the boat, and be at the side of the Serpent before one could breathe. He had rowed in with the full strength of a strong man, and in a minute he was as tenderly raising Betty. He had never properly removed his eyes from her face. "She was just faulting. You held on well," he said approvingly. "Don't let her sisters see her at present." He lifted Betty to the bank.
"Quick, open your eyes," he said commandingly.
"Look here," called the Serpent. She had scrambled neatly out by herself, "Betty, Betty Leighton, oh! Betty, open your eyes." There was an answering quiver. "Quick, Betty, before your sisters come. Don't frighten them. Open your eyes, Betty."
Mr. Symington rubbed Betty's hands smoothly in a quick experienced manner.
Betty opened her eyes and looked at the Serpent.
"Oh, Elsie," she said, "Elsie, you sweet little Serpent!" It was an end to the crossed swords feud. Elsie took her in her arms and cried.
When the girls arrived panic-stricken they found Mr. Symington trying to get a coherent answer to his orders from two bedraggled girls, who could do nothing but weep over each other. The brave little Serpent had lost her nerve once more.
"Oh!" she said, "it's very wicked to be a girl. Boys wouldn't give way like this."
Jean looked at her narrowly, "Do you always go about in gymnasium dress, ready to save people?" she asked, with the remains of fear in her voice.
The brave little Serpent looked down on her costume, and the red which glowed in her cheeks only from mortification ran slowly up and dyed her pale face crimson. "Oh!" she said, "oh!" and sat speechless.
Betty sat up shivering. "I do call that presence of mind, don't you? She flung off her skirt, didn't you, dear?"
The Serpent would have answered except that the "dear" unnerved her. She faded to tears once more.
"Come, come," said Mr. Symington.
And at that, as they afterwards remembered, Mabel "came."
She came through the trees in a white dress, and the sunshine threw patches of beautiful colour on her hair.
"Oh, little Betty!" she cried.
Then she saw the Serpent.
She took Elsie right up against the beautiful white dress and kissed her. Mabel could not speak at all. But her eyes glowed. She turned them full on Mr. Symington. "We must take these children home at once," she said.
Mr. Symington looked as though he had been rescuing an army. "Yes," said he gravely.
Robin had trailed in looking somewhat dissatisfied.
"Jean would go, wouldn't she?" he asked.
"Oh no, I don't want mummy to know," said Mabel. "She is up there with Mrs. Clutterbuck. These two must go home, and get hot baths, and be put to bed and sat upon, or they won't stay there. Where can we get a cab, I wonder?"
"Here," said a voice.
Adelaide Maud now came through that beautiful pathway of sun-patched trees with Elma. "I've heard all about it," said she, "and we have the carriage. Borrow wraps from every one and tuck them in. We shall keep Mrs. Clutterbuck employed till Mr. Symington comes back."
It seemed that they all took it for granted that Mr. Symington would go.
Robin showed signs of losing his temper. Mabel as a rule, when these imperious fits descended on him began to investigate her conduct and wonder where she might alter it in order that he might be appeased. This time, however, she was too anxious and concerned over Betty, and while Jean might be quite whole-hearted in her manner of looking after people, one could not depend on her for knowing the best ways in which to set about it. In any case, the two could not be kept there shivering.
Adelaide Maud was a trifle indignant at the interruption. "Quick," she said to Mr. Symington, "get them in and off."
"Oh you are the fairy princess, always, somehow, aren't you," sighed Betty, happily, as on their being tucked in rugs and waterproofs, Adelaide Maud gave quick decided orders to the coachman.
"Isn't she just like a story book," she sighed rapturously. They drove swirling homewards, in a damp quick exciting way until they pulled up at the door of the White House.
"Oh, mine was nearer," said the Serpent nervously. She had never entered the portals of the White House in this intimate manner, and suddenly longed for loneliness once more.
"Well," said Mabel sweetly and nicely, "you will just have to imagine that this is as near for to-day at least. Because I am going to put you to bed."
They laughed very happily because they were being put to bed like babies.
"If only Cuthbert were here," said Mabel anxiously and in a motherly little way to Mr. Symington, afterwards, "he would tell me whether they oughtn't to have a hot drink, and a number of other things they say they won't have."
"I should give them a hot drink," said Mr. Symington with his grave eyes dancing a trifle. "And keep them in blankets for an hour or two."
It was he who found Mr. Leighton and told him a little of what had happened. ("Oh the conspiracies which shield a parent!") For days Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, the Professor and Mrs. Clutterbuck, had an idea that the two girls had merely fallen in and got very wet. In any case, Elsie often came home in considerable disrepair. When one found, however, that neither was the worse for the fright, Elsie was made a real heroine. It changed her attitude completely. The Leightons liked her now whether they felt charitable or not. It was a great relief. And one day her own father focussed his far-away gaze on her, as though he had only then considered that there was anything on which to look at her particular place at table.
"They tell me--ahem--that you can swim," he exclaimed. "Very excellent exercise, very."
To an outsider it did not sound like praise, but his sentence set Elsie's heart jumping in a joyous manner.
"Oh, papa," she said. "I was very frightened afterwards."
"Hem," said he, "an excellent time in which to be frightened."
Mrs. Clutterbuck congratulated herself on his having said it (she would have made it "time to be frightened in," and the Professor in such good humour, too!)
Happier days had really dawned in that grim household however.
The growing up of the courage of Elsie became a wonderful thing.
Meanwhile other events had occurred than the saving of Betty. Robin had had to go home alone, and Lance had the benefit of some of his ill-humour on meeting him on the way.
"Who shot cock Robin to-day?" reflected Lance with speculative eyes on that retreating person. He nearly ran into a very athletic figure coming swinging round on him from the Leightons'.
Hereward the Wake was in his most magnificent mood and his eyes shone with the light of achievement. He was speaking when he turned, and the words dropped automatically even before the impish gaze of Lance.
"Knew you and named a star," quoted Mr. Symington.
"Now what on earth has that to do with the boat race?" asked Lance.
CHAPTER XIV
The First Peal
Mabel was twenty-one when her cousin Isobel Leighton came to make her home at the White House. Isobel's mother had died ten years before, and since the more recent death of her father, she had stayed for a year or two with her mother's relations. Now, suddenly, it seemed imperative that Mr. Leighton should offer her a place in his own family, since various changes elsewhere left her without a home. It was the most natural thing in the world that everybody should be pleased. The girls got a room ready for her, and took pains towards having it specially attractive. They even made plans amongst their friends for Isobel to be suitably entertained. "Though how we are to manage about dance invitations and that sort of thing, I can't think," said Jean. "It's bad enough with two girls, and sometimes no man at all. It will be awful with three."
Elma herself was on the verge of being eligible for invitations. Mabel looked as though she did not mind much. Worrying thoughts of her own were perplexing her, thoughts which she could not share with any one just then. The spring of her life had been one to delight in. Tendrils of friendship had kept her safely planted where Jean, the revolutionist, tore everything by the roots. What was not good enough for Jean immediately was had up and cast away. What had not been good enough for Jean had been their own silly enthusiasm for the Story Books. Jean in her own mind had disposed of the whole romance of this by beating Theodora at golf. She now patronized Theodora, and ignored the others. Adelaide Maud she already considered entirelypassé.
The confidences of long ago were shaken into an unromantic present. The Dudgeons called ceremoniously twice a year, and invited the girls to their dances. Mabel and Jean went, occasionally with Cuthbert "cut in marble," and were inexpressibly bored in that large establishment.
"It doesn't seem to make up for other things that one sits on velvet pile and has a different footman for each sauce," Mabel declared. "We have to face the fact that the Dudgeon establishment is appallingly ugly."
So much for Mrs. Dudgeon's beaded work cushion effect.
"It's only a woman who would make you leave an early Victorian drawing-room for a Georgian hall, and get you on an ottoman of the third Empire, and expect you to admire the mixture," growled Cuthbert. It was this sort of talk that was to be had out of him after he had been to the Dudgeons' balls.
Elma still prized her meetings with Adelaide Maud at Miss Grace's, but recognized where her friendship ceased there. There seemed no getting further into the affections of Adelaide Maud than through that warm comradeship at Miss Grace's, or through her outspoken admiration for Mr. Leighton. And "Adelaide Maud had grownpassé" Jean had declared.
The world seemed very cold and unreal at this juncture.
Mabel came into Elma's room one day looking very disturbed. There was a fleeting questioning look of "Are you to be trusted?" in her eye.
"You know I'm to be trusted, Mabs," said Elma, as though they had been discussing the iniquity of anything else. "You aren't vexed at Isobel's coming are you?"
"Oh, no," said Mabel quickly, "it isn't that, it's other things." She threw herself languidly on a couch.
"Haven't you noticed that the Merediths haven't been here for a fortnight?"
Elma brushed diligently at fair, very wavy hair. It fell in layers of soft brown, and shone a little with gold where the light touched the ripples, diligently created with over-night plaiting. She had grown, but in a slender manner, and was admittedly thepetitemember of the family. There was a wealth of comprehension in the glance she let fall on Mabel.
"Mabel, you don't mean to quarrel with them do you?"
It seemed that the worst would happen if that happened.
"I don't suppose I shall have the chance," said Mabel. She took a rose out of a vase of flowers, and began to pluck absently at the petals.
"I think I should love to have the chance."
"Oh, Mabel," said Elma distractedly, "how dreadful of you! And how fatal it might be! I shouldn't mind quarrelling a little. I think indeed it would be lovely, if one were quite sure, perfectly convinced, that one could make it up again. That's why I enjoy a play so much. Every one may be simply disgusting, but they are bound to make it up. If only one could be absolutely safe in real life! But you can't. I don't believe Mr. Meredith would make it up."
"I am sure he wouldn't." Mabel plucked at a pink leaf stormily. "That's why I should like to quarrel with him."
"Mabs, don't you care for him now?" Elma's eyes grew wide with trouble. It was not so much that Mabel had given any definite idea of having cared for Mr. Meredith. It had been a situation accepted long ago as the proper situation for Mabel, that there should be an "understanding" in connexion with Mr. Meredith. It established limitless seas of uncertainty if anything happened to this "understanding" except the most desirable happening. Mabel leaned her head on her hand.
"You see, dear," she exclaimed, "this is how it is. Long ago, papa so much disliked our talking about getting married, any of us, even in fun you know, that it was much easier, when Mr. Meredith came, just to be friends--very great friends, you know, but still--friends. Papa always said he wouldn't let one of us marry till we were twenty-three. That was definite enough. And he has been quite pleased that we haven't badgered him into getting engaged. Still, I always think that Robin ought to have said to him, once at least, that sometime he wanted to marry me. He didn't, I just went on playing his accompaniments, and being complimented by his sister. Now--now, what do you think? He has grown annoyed with papa for being so kind to Mr. Symington. Fancy his dictating about papa!" Mabel's eyes grew round and innocent.
"But that's because Mr. Symington is nice to you, perhaps," said Elma, as though this burst of comprehension was a great discovery on her part.
"Exactly," said Mabel calmly. "But if you leave unprotected a cake from which any one may take a slice, you can't blame people when they try to help themselves. Robin should be able to say to Mr. Symington, 'Hands off--this is my property,' and then there would be no trouble. As it is, he wants me to do the ordering off, papa's friend too!"
"What did you say to him, Mabel?" Elma asked the question in despair.
"I said that when Mr. Symington had really got on--then would be the time to order him off."
Mabel fanned herself gently. Then her lip quivered.
"I don't think papa ever meant to let me in for an ignominious position of this sort--but here I am. If Robin won't champion me, who will?"
"Oh, but surely," said Elma, "surely Robin Meredith would never----"
"That's the trouble. He would," said Mabel. "And once you've found that out about a man--you simply can't--you can't believe in him, that's all."
Elma sat in a wretched heap on her bed.
"I think it's horrid of him to let you feel like that," she said. "Other men wouldn't. Cuthbert wouldn't to any one he cared for."
"Lots wouldn't," said Mabel. "That's why it's so ignominious, to have thought so much of this one all these years!"
"Mr. Maclean wouldn't," said Elma. She had always wondered why Mabel had ignored him in her matrimonial plans.
"No, I don't believe he would," said Mabel. "But that's no good to me, is it?"
"Mr. Symington wouldn't," said Elma.
"Oh, Elma!"
Mabel's eyes grew frightened. "That's what scares me. I sit and sit and say, Mr. Symington never would. It makes Robin seems so thin and insignificant. He simply crumples up. And Mr. Symington grows large and honourable, and such a man! And I'm supposed in some way to be dedicated to Robin. It's like having your tombstone cut before you are dead. Oh, Elma, whatever shall I do!"
Elma was quite pale. The lines of thought had long ago disappeared with the puckerings of wonder on her face. Here indeed was thunder booming with a vengeance, and near, not far off like that golden picture of years ago. Mabs was in deep trouble.
"You see what would happen if I told papa? He would order off Mr. Symington in a great fright, because he has never thought somehow that any of us were thinking of him except that he is an awfully clever man! I think also that papa would turn Robin out of the house."
"I believe he would," said Elma in a whisper.
"And then--how awful! All our friends, their friends! Everywhere we go, we should meet Sarah Meredith! What a life for us! I should like to quarrel--just because I'm being so badly treated, but the consequences would be perfectly awful," said Mabel. She took it as though none of it could be helped.
Elma was quite crumpled with the agitation of her feelings.
"You must tell papa, Mabel," she said gently.
"Oh, Elma, I can't--about Mr. Symington. Imagine Mr. Symington's ever knowing and thinking--'What do I care for any of these chits of girls!' Robin has always got wild--if I smiled to my drawing master even. What I hate, is being dictated to now. And his sulking--instead of standing by me if there is any trouble. He isn't a man."
A sharp ring at the bell, and rat-tat of the postman might be heard. Somebody called up that a letter had come for Mabel.
Elma went for it and produced it with quaking heart. The writing seemed something very different to any of the letters which came to Mabel.
It was from Mr. Symington.
It explained in the gentlest possible way that he had learned from Miss Meredith that his presence in Ridgetown caused some difficulty of which he had never even dreamed. He wrote as a great friend of her dear father's, and a most loyal admirer of her family, to say the easiest matter in the world was being effected, and that his visit to Ridgetown had come to an end.
The paper shook gently in Mabel's fingers, and fell quivering and uncertain to the floor. She looked up piteously and quite helplessly at Elma, like a child seeking shelter, and then buried her head on the couch. She cried in long, strangled sobs, while Elma stood staring at her.
Elma pulled herself together at last.
"Mabel dear, I'm going to read it."
Mabel nodded into her bent arms.
"Oh but," said Elma after shakingly perusing that document, "but he can't--he can't do this. It's dreadful. It's like blaming you! What can Miss Meredith have said? Oh! Mabel! Mabel, I shall cut that woman dead wherever and however I meet her. Oh, Mabel--what a creature! Don't you cry. Papa will explain to Mr. Symington. He will believe papa. Papa will explain that you had nothing to do with it, that you don't mind whether he goes or stays--that----"
"But I do mind," said Mabel in cold, awe-struck tones. "That's the awful part. And it's nothing but the smallness of Robin that has taught me, Mr. Symington is the only man worth knowing in the whole earth."
She clasped her hands in a hopeless way.
"And he has been sent away, banished, by the very man who should have made it impossible for me to see any good quality in any one else except himself."
"Who will play Mr. Meredith's accompaniments now?" Elma asked. "Why they can't get on without you, dear." She still believed that just as plays were arranged, so should the affairs of Mabel come back to their original placidity.
"I shall never play another note for Robin Meredith," said Mabel.
Elma could not yet doubt but that Robin would come directly he knew how satisfactorily he had disposed of his rival. One hoped that Mr. Symington had only explained so far to Mabel. That afternoon they were to meet Isobel, so that every one was more or less occupied, and always on this same evening of the week, Friday, the Merediths were at an open "at home" which the friends of the Leightons attended at the White House. The question was, would the Merediths come?
Mabel did not seem to care whether they came or not. She sat, crushing the letter and not looking at Elma.
"Elma dear," she said at last, "I can't stand this. I shall tell papa. Mamma will only say 'I told you so' for our having been such friends with the Merediths. But I can't bear that she shouldn't know I'm not ashamed of anything," she caught her breath with a slight sob. "But I'm done with Robin."
It seemed magnificent to Elma that for her own honour she should jeopardize so much. Men like Mr. Meredith were so rare in Ridgetown. Yet when she asked her, couldn't she still admire Robin, Mabel said very truthfully then "No."
Elma would have liked to say that it didn't matter about Mr. Symington.
"Robin will never enter this house again," Mabel said with quivering lip.
But he came--several times.