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.