Читать книгу The Young O'Briens: Being an Account of Their Sojourn in London - Margaret Westrup - Страница 8

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"Is my pig-tail quite tidy, Nell?"

"There isn't a hair out of place, Sheila Pat. Atom, do let me do your hair nicely just for once."

"I prefer a pig-tail, thank you."

Nell disappeared into the wardrobe in search of a skirt. When she emerged she stared incredulously at the Atom.

Sheila Pat was wriggling her head into a pink cotton frock.

"What on earth are you putting that on for?"

"I prefer it to that," with a nod at a loose white cashmere frock lying on the bed.

"Are you mad, Sheila Pat? Why, it's November. Where did you dig it up from?"

"One of the trunks. Will you hook it, please, Nell?"

"Indeed, I won't. Take it off at once. Don't be so silly."

"I'm never cold. Do let me wear it, Nell." Sheila Pat laid her delicate little face wheedlingly against Nell's arm. "Do let me."

"I can't, asthore. You'd catch cold."

When the Atom indulged in her rare coaxing she was hard to resist.

"I'll put my coat on, too, Nell!"

But Nell was firm.

"No, Sheila Pat. And why do you want to wear it, anyway?"

"It's just a little longer than that one. Why, I show my knees in that, Nell!"

"What's it matter if you do, you goose?"

"I do not like showin' my knees. And I want pertickly to look grown-up to-day."

"Why?"

"Persons," quoth Sheila Pat, austerely, "can't take liberties with grown-ups. They can't talk to them if you don't wish them to," her pronouns getting somewhat mixed.

"Whom don't you want to talk to you?"

"That little boy—Stewart."

"But why not?" Nell peered at her laughingly through her hair.

"I know him. I've got him at home in that book Mrs. Norton gave me," laboriously wriggling out of the much-desired cotton frock. "He saves up all his pocket money in a money box and buys himself a new coat with it. And he'd sooner learn his Catchykism than play cricket. I know him!"

"Well," said Nell, tying on her hair ribbon, "of all the nasty little hard-hearted wretches you're the worst!"

"Oh, I'm very sorry he's lame," with belated consideration, "but I won't have him talk to me!"

"I don't believe he's a bit goody, poor little chap, and, anyway, why should he want to talk to you?"

This aspect of the case had not struck Sheila Pat. She considered it as she pulled on the cashmere frock.

"Amn't I Irish, then?" she decided gloomily. "Of course he'll want to talk to me."

"I'm going to see how Molly's getting on," Nell said.

In Molly's room chaos greeted her. On the floor stood a drawer, its contents scattered everywhere. The bed was strewn with blouses, hats, a pair of shoes, collars, while Molly herself, red-faced, dishevelled, attired in skirt and petticoat-bodice, was wildly turning out another drawer.

"Ready, Mol?" inquired Nell, blandly.

"Oh, don't, Nell! I can't help it! I can't find my grey blouse—the one with the white piping—I've hunted everywhere!"

"In the box?"

"N-no! I forgot!" making a dash at the dress basket. "Oh, don't laugh, Nell. I looked everywhere else!"

"Of course you did, when we decided to keep all our nicer blouses in there! Do hurry up. Here, I'd better do you up now. Fancy all this fuss just to go next door! I was going in my blue flannel that I had on this morning, but Aunt Kezia gave such stringent orders. Isn't it absurd?"

"Ridiculous. Oh, you're pinching a bit of neck in!"

Nell, at the door, looked back.

"Sure you've got everything? Your hair ribbon?"

"Yes, everything."

When Nell and the Atom were ready they went back to Molly's room. Worse chaos than before greeted them. Molly was crawling under the bed.

"I've lost one of my shoes! Oh, I'm so hot! And now I suppose my nose will get red!"

The Atom, wise beyond her years, found the shoe in a hat box, and they sallied forth.

"Thank goodness, we're not needing hats and things," sighed Nell, "or we'd never start at all!"

"Nell," on the next-door doorstep came an agonised whisper from Molly, "I've forgotten my waist belt!"

In the drawing-room Sheila Pat ensconced herself behind a table, and kept a wary eye on Stewart. Presently his mother sent him across to her. He came and stood in front of her; the Atom gazed over his head.

Nell caught her eye and frowned meaningly.

"Sure, thin, haven't you a tongue at all?" Sheila Pat obediently opened the conversation.

"Y-yes."

"Why aren't ye usin' it, thin?"

"I—I—don't know."

"Well!" said Sheila Pat.

The boy's fair little face flushed scarlet.

"I—I've got a rabbit!" he burst out desperately.

"Um! what colour is it?"

"Fawn and white. Come and look at him."

Sheila Pat hesitated. Longing to see the rabbit fought with disinclination to be alone with Stewart.

"If you'll promise not to talk goody, I'll come," she said cautiously. Suddenly he changed; he turned on her a small, passionate face.

"I don't want you—you little beast!"

Sheila Pat gasped, and grew slowly red.

"You are very rude," she said with tremulous dignity.

"I don't care if I am! D'you think you're the queen or what? I don't want to speak to you. I can't bear you!"

He limped away to the other end of the room.

Sheila Pat sat very still and quiet for a while, then she rose and went after him.

"I think, perhaps, I wasn't very perlite," she said stiffly.

"Come and see my rabbit," he rejoined.

Sheila Pat went with alacrity; she was reflecting satisfiedly that the goody-goo little boy of her imaginings would never have called her "a little beast." Still she was not completely reassured. Together they examined the rabbit, and the Atom told him all about her Pearl, and nothing "goody-gooish" appeared about him. But as they went back to the house for tea, she sounded him cautiously.

"Are you fond of cricket?" keeping a stern eye on his face while she awaited his answer.

He hesitated.

"No," he said.

"I knew it!"

"Awful clever of you!" he muttered sarcastically.

"I s'pose," she went on as they reached the door, "you'd sooner be at your Catchykism now than cricket?"

"Yes," he said.

"I knew it!" gasped the Atom, and fled into the house before him.

From a far corner she presently accosted her hostess.

"Is that a silk blouse you're wearin', Mrs. Barclay?"

"Yes, my dear."

"Did you give more than threepence for it?"

"Sheila Pat!" stammered Molly.

"A little!" Mrs. Barclay's fair little faded face was vividly amused.

"I'm glad you did," with grave approval. "But Sarah's mother only gets threepence for the ones she makes, and she's always ailin', with a large fam'ly of babies and her husband dead and three more dead between Sarah and the next one."

"Who is Sarah?"

"She's just the little maid at Aunt Kezia's. She's a real good worker—for a Londoner, of course, I'm meanin'!"

"And her mother makes blouses?"

"Yes, and only threepence for them, but perhaps they wouldn't be silk."

"No, they wouldn't be silk, but it is shocking to hear how badly they pay for such work."

"Is it at sales?" Nell queried, looking very wise.

Mrs. Barclay smiled.

"Oh, no, my dear. The big shops and wholesale places buy hundreds of blouses that they sell off cheap, and that is what they pay for the making of them. What is that noise?" she broke off.

"It's rats!" opined Stewart, shyly.

But it was Kate Kearney scratching at the door. When she was let in she came, wriggling and wagging, lifting great pathetic eyes to the faces of her own people.

"You bad little K.K.," laughed Nell. "What door did you get in at, I wonder?"

Kate Kearney trotted sedately over to the Atom's corner, and Stewart followed her with a piece of cake.

"Mind she doesn't bite!" jeered the Atom, rudely.

He flushed, but did not answer. He gave K.K. two pieces of cake, then turned politely to Sheila Pat:—

"Would you like to give her some?"

He held out the cake.

His politeness—to her a sure and distasteful sign of goodyness—riled the stormy Atom past bearing.

"Is it afraid you are?" she cried scornfully.

He raised his arm with a sudden fierce gesture and flung the cake straight into her face. It bounced off her small nose and lit with a thud on a chair. In silence they glared at each other for a minute; then he turned to Kate Kearney, thrust his hand right into her protesting mouth, and walked off.

Sheila Pat sat trembling on her chair. Twice that afternoon she had been insulted, and by the goody-goo!

During the leave-takings Sheila Pat and Stewart coldly ignored each other's existence.

In the hall at No. 35 wrath awaited them in the shape of Miss Kezia, who had just returned home from some shopping. She faced them dramatically, her tall, thin figure drawn to its full height.

"You mean to tell me that you left my house, and made an afternoon call on a friend of mine—like that?" she cried, pointing a long and disapproving forefinger at her nieces.

Molly clapped terrified hands to her waist.

Through Nell's mind there darted two lines of one of Denis's nonsense verses:—

"She stood, a tall, and bony queen,

And eyed her subjects very keen."

"What's wrong with us at all?" demanded the Atom, indignantly.

"No hats! No coats! No gloves! House-shoes—"

"Ought we to have put on our outdoor things just to go next door?" exclaimed Nell, opening her eyes wide.

"Of course you ought! It is most reprehensible! You are not in the wilds now! No one thinks of going into the street in London without being properly clothed—"

Nell almost chanted aloud:—

"'Her tongue it wagged, her tongue it wogged,

Her subjects then she up and flogged!'"

"Eileen," Miss Kezia broke off sharply, "don't look so idiotic! You look as if you think it is funny!"

"Do I, aunt?" said Nell, meekly.

"I cannot think how you, at least, did not know better," pursued her aunt.

"You see at home we are as often without hats and things as with them."

"Well, please to remember you are in London now!"

Miss Kezia turned and marched up the stairs.

"'The Queen turned tail and up she went,

Her subjects then their clothes did rent!'"

chuckled Nell, and sank down laughing on to a hall chair.

The Atom disappeared in the direction of her Pearl. It was a cherished conviction, on her part (and on no one else's), that the Pearl moped in her absence.

"Where's that boy Denis, I wonder?" Nell ran up stairs two at a time.

In the Stronghold she found a torn slip of paper on the table: "Off to Lancaster's to dine. Who sneaked my nail-brush?"

"Molly, was it you?"

"Oh, yes, I meant to put it back. Mine tumbled into the slop-pail full of dirty water."

Nell wandered into Denis's room.

"Just like Molly's, only it's masculine chaos instead of feminine!" She laughed softly, and began to tidy up. When Miss Kezia heard of his absence she drew down her long upper lip.

"Who is this Mr. Lancaster?"

"A friend of Pennington's—"

"Mr. Pennington, if you please. Is that all you know about him, Eileen?"

"Well," said Nell, demurely, "'decent sort of chap, I should think ... awfully quiet ... father's got a pot of money—'"

"Eileen O'Brien, how dare you speak vulgar jargon like that to me!"

"Me, aunt?" with injured innocence. "I was only quoting Denis."

"Then kindly do so no more. I object strongly to the tendency of the modern girl to use slangy, slipshod, vulgar English. I will have none of it in my house.

"I hope Denis will not come home late," she pursued. "I do not like his going out in this way—without my permission."

"He isn't a baby, Aunt Kezia! And, anyway, you were out this afternoon."

"Some boy of whom I know nothing—"

Nell interrupted impatiently, "He's a friend of Mr. Tellbridge's! Denis met him there."

"Why didn't you explain that before? Of course Mr. Tellbridge would have no one—Sheila, are you feeding that dog again?"

"Yes, Aunt Kezia."

"Then leave the room at once! You really are a most tiresome little girl!"

The Atom arose and walked from the room. It was her way of obtaining release when she considered a meal had lasted sufficiently long.

"I will not have late hours kept in my house," said Miss Kezia, with a final snap of her lips.

When ten o'clock came and went without bringing Denis, Nell began to grow anxious. Half-past ten was Miss Kezia's hour for going to bed. At twenty-eight minutes past ten she "locked up." She never varied the time by a minute, unless by special arrangement with Herr Schmidt.

Listening behind the door of the Stronghold, Nell heard her lock up as usual and retire to bed. She slipped out and down into the hall. From beneath Herr Schmidt's door there came a thin line of light.

She softly unbarred the chains and lifted down the burglar bell; then she stood listening for Denis's step. Suddenly Herr Schmidt's door opened. Nell, in the darkness of the hall, gazed expectantly at the big figure outlined against the light of the sitting room. She crept back and hid behind a coat hanging on the stand. The next moment hands fumbled against her throat.

"Ur—ur," she gurgled irrepressibly. "Oh, you tickled me!"

Herr Schmidt stumbled back.

"Himmel!" he gasped. "Ach, what is it?"

Nell emerged from the coat.

"Oh, hush! Aunt Kezia will hear you. She mustn't catch me down here."

A door opened overhead. A voice called over the balusters.

"Is that you, Herr Schmidt?"

"Yes, Miss McAlister, it is I. I stumble and make a noise. I beg pardon."

"It is granted. Good night, Herr Schmidt."

"You're a brick, Herr Schmidt," said Nell's pretty voice.

"A brick? A good fellow, is it?"

She nodded.

She stood in the light now, and he looked at her benignly.

"You are playing go-hide-and-find?" he suggested.

She shook her head.

"Hush! I'm waiting for my brother—to let him in. Aunt Kezia never dreams he could be so depraved as to be out after twenty-eight minutes past ten, so she has gone to bed with a serene mind."

He looked rather troubled.

"Your aunt is a worthy lady."

"The horse is a noble animal."

He peered at her through his spectacles in ludicrous bewilderment. Nell was half sitting on, half leaning against, the marble slab of the hall table. Her head was tilted back; the light caught the ends of her roughened hair and turned them into gold, and they made a sort of halo round her mischievous face.

"Well?" she said. "You're not shocked, are you? Why, he's seventeen, Herr Schmidt. And you know if they don't dine till—say—eight o'clock, he can't very well be in by half-past ten, now, can he? Isn't it very rude to rush away as soon as you've eaten all you want? I'm sure I've seen that it is—in a copy-book or somewhere."

"You will, perhaps, do me the great honour of waiting in my room, Fräulein?" he asked, giving up the other question in despair.

"I can't, thanks. I want to hear him come, so that I can stop his knocking, you see."

"I will leaf my door open to gif you a little light, hein?"

"All right, thanks; you might, if you don't mind."

He stood looking down on her in obvious trouble.

"You will be angry if I tell you not to be naughty to your aunt?"

"Oh, no, I won't. It amuses me, Herr Schmidt."

He sighed, and retired to his room. In a few minutes he reappeared, beaming over his spectacles at her.

"See, I haf ze sweets. Young laties like ze sweets, hein?"

He was carrying a little crumpled paper bag with a few fruit drops in one corner. His simplicity touched her. She took two with a hearty "thank you."

"Oh, there he is!" She ran to the door and softly opened it.

"Whence this sepulchral—" Denis began cheerfully.

"Hush!"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Bad little boy to be out at eleven o'clock, eh?" he whispered.

"Be quiet, chatterbox!"

"Goot night," said Herr Schmidt.

"Eh?" Denis looked surprised. "I hadn't seen you."

"Herr Schmidt has been keeping me company while I waited for you, Denis."

"Has he? I say, are you allowed to be out after half-past ten, Herr Schmidt?"

"I haf no one belonging to me to care," he said pathetically.

"We'd give him Aunt Kezia," suggested Denis, sotto voce.

They retired upstairs.

"I say, Nell, I'm beastly hungry," he declared.

"Greedy, didn't they give you a good dinner?"

"Rather! Lancaster did the thing in style. Old man's away. Lancaster seems to pretty well boss the show."

"Why are you hungry, then?"

"Well, I've been out since then." He looked at her with twinkling eyes. "Tearing around in a motor makes you hungry, I can tell you!"

"A—motor!"

He nodded.

"Jolly fine one, too. And at this time of night when all the squares are pretty well deserted it is fine."

"How many dogs did you run over?"

"Dozen or so."

"I'd just have thought he'd have a motor!" She couldn't have sounded more scornful if she had said a wheelbarrow.

"Well, can't you give me something to eat, anyhow?"

"The kitchen's unprotected. Let's try."

Downstairs they crept.

"Oh, more bolts!" groaned Nell.

In the kitchen Denis stumbled over the coal-box and sent the coal flying.

"Oh, Lor'—and I've got no matches! Nell!" flinging out and catching her as she stumbled forward.

She subsided on to the chair she had fallen against.

"Don't make such a row. Nell, there's a rat or something running up my leg!"

"Is—is it a beetle, do you think?"

"Very likely."

"Oh, Denis!" she drew her toes up on to the chair.

"Where do people keep matches, Nell?"

"I expect they're locked up!"

"No! Well, I can't go to bed on an empty—um—chest."

"Sleep on your back, then."

"Unfeeling twin! Dash it all, what a beastly hard chimney this is!"

"And what a soft head it came in contact with."

"You're helping a lot, aren't you? Sitting in the seat of the scoffer. Here, come out of that. You've got to help!"

"Denis! Oh, do be quiet!"

He had seized her round the waist. "If you don't promise to help look for those matches, I'll roll you into the scullery where the black beetles live!"

"I promise, Denis!"

She came gingerly forward and gave a scream.

"Denis! I trod on something horrid and soft! Oh, Denis!"

"A rat, I expect. I thought I heard a squeak. Eureka! Got 'em! Now for the larder or pantry or storeroom or whatever it is—"

"I'm going to see what I trod on first. Light a match, Denis!"

He lit one and discovered her standing staring at the floor, her skirts gathered up. "Oh, 'twas an iron-holder!" she cried. "A dear, innocent little iron-holder!"

In the end they found half a loaf of bread and a pot with a little raspberry jam in it. Nell found the jam and was immensely proud of herself.

"By all that's wonderful, a hap'orth of jam in the bottom of a pot! Left out—unlocked—for the first thief to break in and steal!"

"Don't call nasty names. That'll do. I'll be a cripple soon—I've burnt all the tips of my fingers off already. Come along."

Upstairs he sat on his bed and munched bread and jam.

"He's got horses, Nell! One—a ripping chestnut—made me think of Acushla."

He picked a crumb off his knee and ate it thoughtfully.

Her lip curled.

"And he prefers a motor!" she ejaculated.

He did not heed her; he still looked thoughtful.

"But it's a gloomy house, somehow. I think London's a gloomy place. But he's got a room—his own—quite different. You'd go cracked over it. Crammed with carved wood things, Indian, Japanese—ivory, too. And a jolly Grand— Hulloa, what's that?"

A sepulchral whisper came floating up the stairs.

"Are you children not in bed yet?"

He went out on to the landing.

"Just off, Aunt Kezia. Let me carry your candle for you."

"I can carry it myself, thank you. You ought to be in bed and asleep at this time of night."

"Me isn't s'eepy, auntie, weally," he lisped, and Miss Kezia almost relaxed into a smile.

"Nell," he said, returning to his room, "you're to go to bed at once—a baby like you!"

"Oh, oh, have you been talking to her like that?"

"Like what?"

"L-look in the glass!"

He looked and grinned.

"''Twas a grim and gory sight,'" he quoted. "'It hath a manly look which pleases me.'"

"A baby look, you mean. Babies always smear their cheeks with jam."

He was engaged in twisting his tongue out and round in a vain endeavour to catch the smear of jam.

"Nell," advancing his cheek, "lick it off for a chap. Pity to waste it."

She boxed his ear.

"Now I won't buy you a box of Fuller's chocolates!"

She sobered. She was discovering, to her amazement, that money, even when never spent in larger sums than a few shillings or even sixpences, had a mysterious and alarming way of dwindling.

"No more sweets, Denis!"

He went across to the wash-hand stand.

"I was going to buy you a three-shilling box of chocolates, and yet not make our fund a penny the poorer!"

"Is it a riddle?"

He nodded.

"Give it up. It's too late to solve riddles."

He was rubbing at his cheek with a sponge.

"I won it. I, even I, Denis, the twin of Nell, won it in a sweep-stake. Now see how businesslike I've grown, Nell. I pulled off six bob really, but it was a shilling to enter each time—that's two bob—and the time I lost, another, so I reckon I won three altogether. See?"

"What a beautifully easy way to get three shillings!"

"I might have lost two instead. Seems to me there's an idea somewhere there, Nell—work it on a bigger scale, and you'd have me turning those beggars out of Kilbrannan."

"But suppose you lost?"

"Oh, I shouldn't. Anyhow, I'd stand to win so much more than I'd lose. I'm going to think it out. There are places abroad."

"Denis, you'd get taken up! I remember dad reading about a case—"

"Not me," airily.

Nell punched his pillow thoughtfully. "I don't like it, Denis," she decided. "It's too risky, and—and—"

"Well?"

"I'm sure dad and mother would call it gambling! There, I feel like a goody little sister in a book."

He laughed.

"You don't look the character, anyway. And you're to go to bed."

"But—but you won't—"

"Oh, I may break the bank of England yet, who knows?" teasingly; "go to bed and dream of me, asthore."

"Is it nightmare you want me to have?"

"Race you to your room—in the dark!"

Two minutes later Miss Kezia's door opened once more. Dead silence greeted her. She went a few steps up the stairs. All doors were shut. Miss Kezia was sleepy, even more than she was cross. She went back to her bed.

As Nell laid her head on the pillow she muttered, "Of course it was that tiresome Lancaster!"