THE FORBIDDEN ROOM.
OR
“MINE ANSWER WAS MY DEED.”
[Illustration: “‘Don’t you call that a pretty picture?’ said the
farmer.”
_See page 184_]
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM:
OR
“MINE ANSWER WAS MY DEED.”
BY
PHŒBE ALLEN.
AUTHOR OF “PLAYING AT BOTANY,” ETC., ETC.
“YOU SAID YOUR SAY.
“MINE ANSWER WAS MY DEED.”
“_Idylls of the King._”
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. JELLICOE._
LONDON: WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO. 3 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS.
[Illustration: 1901.]
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. “BOYS AND GIRLS, AND ALL SORTS” 1
II. “WHO’S WHO” 7
III. NOTES AND QUERIES 12
IV. “IN THE ROSY SUMMER WEATHER” 16
V. BOAR HUNTING 21
VI. “IN THE CUCKOO COPSE” 28
VII. COMING TO BLOWS 33
VIII. OGRES 37
IX. “QUITE ’STRORDINARY FUN” 42
X. “YOU’VE NEVER BEEN QUARRELLING” 51
XI. “TARRY THE BAKING” 55
XII. “LIVE PURE, SPEAK TRUTH, RIGHT WRONG” 63
XIII. “NO, NO, IT IS NOT JUST” 71
XIV. “A PUNITIVE EXPEDITION” 78
XV. “FIRST CATCH YOUR BIRD” 82
XVI. “A COWARD’S TRICK” 89
XVII. EXECUTING A SENTENCE 96
XVIII. “WE’RE AWFULLY SORRY NOW” 105
XIX. “THEY HAVE NOT GONE YET” 115
XX. THE KING OF MUFFS 119
XXI. “A VERY SAD LITTLE BOY” 129
XXII. “NOW THESE BE SECRET THINGS” 134
XXIII. “TOUCH YOU!” 142
XXIV. “HURRAH! HURRAH!” 149
XXV. A TRAGICAL AFTERNOON 155
XXVI. “WHATEVER WILL THE MASTER SAY?” 162
XXVII. WHAT THE MASTER DID SAY 171
XXVIII. “A PRETTY PICTURE” 179
XXIX. “WHERE’S GASTON” 187
XXX. “THE BESTEST BEST” 193
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
“DON’T YOU CALL THAT A PRETTY PICTURE?” _Frontispiece._
THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST FLY 6
SHE FOUND THEM IN HOT PURSUIT OF THE PIGS 26
“SHE SHALL BE FED UP ON SNAIL SOUP,” SAID THE OGRE 44
ANDREW FLUNG MRS. BUSSON’S BEST PATCHWORK
CUSHION AT JACK’S HEAD 58
THEY WERE BIDDEN TO BRING HIM BACK TO THE FEAST 69
“OH! YOU WICKED MAN. THE POOR DARLING’S DEAD” 91
THE WHOLE PARTY ROLLING INTO THE RIVER TOGETHER 103
SHAKING HIM WITH FURY 125
“OH, I SAY, I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!” 138
IN A MOMENT NANNY HAD DRAGGED OFF HIS JACKET 159
JOHN MADE A CLUMSY ATTEMPT TO REIN IN HIS FLYING
STEED 168
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM,
OR
“MINE ANSWER WAS MY DEED.”
CHAPTER I.
“BOYS AND GIRLS, AND ALL SORTS.”
Never within the memory of middle-aged Libbie, the dairymaid, had there
been such a bustle of preparation within the walls of Gaybrook Farm, as
on a certain June day, not many summers back.
From early dawn--which means somewhere between three and four
o’clock--old Mrs. Busson, the farmer’s wife, had been awake and astir.
From the lumber-room in the attics, to the parlour, with its high-arched
fire-place, filled in to-day with boughs of green and big bowls of June
roses, and from the cheese-room, under the roof, to the brew-house in
the yard below, every nook and corner in the roomy old farm had been
visited, on some pretence or another, by the time that noon and the
dinner-hour arrived simultaneously.
“And yet,” declared Polly, the rosy-cheeked “odd-girl,” “though the
Missus hasn’t been off her feet for all these hours, she’s as fresh as a
sky-lark.”
“Ay, as brisk as a bee amongst clover,” chimed in old Simon, the
shepherd. Leaning against the wall of an outhouse, his dim eyes
followed Mrs. Busson’s quick movements as she flitted from dairy to
larder, finally disappearing into the garden, as nimbly as though she
were seventeen instead of seventy.
“And what’s it all about?” asked Simon, slowly; “I forgets again.”
Polly sighed. Already three times that morning she had given the
explanation to the old man, and the importance of being his informant
was wearing off.
“What’s it all about?” repeated Simon.
“Don’t you mind, Simon; I told you that the Missus’ ladies, them she was
nurse two years ago, are coming down with their children to stay some
while at the farm. There! if they were all live princes and princesses
the mistress couldn’t fuss more about them. My word! Simon; the cakes,
and the pies, and the jams, and the junkets are something to see.”
“Is it boys or gals that is coming?” asked Simon, with a note of alarm
in his voice. “Be they young, or the middlin’ _mischieevious_ age?”
“Oh! that I can’t tell yer; they be all sorts, I think.”
“Mussey me! boys an’ girls an’ all sorts,” cried the old shepherd; and,
as if to make preparation at once against the approaching foe, he
whistled to his equally ancient dog, who was making an exhaustive
examination of a bare veal knucklebone, and tottered towards the
meadows.
But Simon’s heart was not the only one which, amongst all the pleasant
stir of preparation at the farm, was filled with alarm at the thought of
the impending visitors.
One Gaston Delzant, a small, black-haired, black-eyed French boy, aged
seven, was literally trembling within his patent leather shoes at the
prospect of the coming guests.
He had not been long in England, and though the healthy life at
Gaybrook, and Mrs. Busson’s fostering care had worked wonders in
strengthening the feeble little creature, Gaston still looked, as the
burly farmer declared, “just a poor little snip of a frog-fed Frenchy.”
“Don’t talk that sort of unfeeling way, Busson, before the child,” his
wife had admonished him, “for, don’t you make any mistake, though he’s
slow to speak, he understands sharp enough all that he hears.”
Indeed, so far as poor Gaston’s peace of mind was concerned, this was
only too true.
He understood so perfectly all that the maids said, as they interchanged
their fears that the young gentlemen from school would teaze him out of
his senses, that on the day of their arrival, Gaston was wildly planning
some means of escape from the farm.
But perhaps the general fragrance of cakes and pies which filled the
house and imparted a flavour of festivity to the atmosphere exercised a
reassuring influence on Gaston, for after all he abandoned his intention
of taking refuge in a remote barn, the paradise of owls and bats, and
remained instead to face the enemy.
And here it was approaching in very earnest.
The clock was still striking four, and Mrs. Busson was giving her last
look to the tea-table, when the sound of wheels became audible, and
presently, through a cloud of dust from the high road, emerged the two
Noah’s-ark like vehicles, popularly known as the “station conveyances.”
“Boys and gals, and all sorts, I should say it war,” muttered Simon,
looking from behind a quick hedge, whilst with one delighted cry of
“Bless their dear hearts, there they are to be sure,” the mistress of
Gaybrook Farm flung wide her doors and flew to greet her guests.
Every part of her trim little person, from her lavender topknot to the
toes of her neat pattens, was so quivering with rapturous glee that as
she sped down her flower-bordered pathway, she seemed the very
embodiment of smiling welcome.
Yet, although Mrs. Busson’s appearance was hailed by a round of
vociferous cheering from the new arrivals, her bright face clouded
suddenly as she glanced from one carriage-load to the other.
“Why!” she gasped; “wherever is Miss Agatha--Mrs. Durand, I should say?”
“Left behind, left behind,” came in a chorus of voices. “We’ve all got
to take care of ourselves, Mrs. Busson, and we’re all going to be the
most awfully good lot that ever were.”
By this time the two flies had been drawn up behind each other, and such
was the general bustle and tumult of the alighting that when the last of
the “awfully good lot” had actually descended from the carriage, Mrs.
Busson found herself holding her head with both hands, in order to make
sure that it was still in its place.
As for Gaston, he had made a clean bolt of it, and now from behind the
case of a tall Dutch clock, which stood at the foot of the stairs,
peeped furtively at the invading host.
[Illustration: The contents of the first fly.
_p. 7._]