"Oh, just--I know!" he answered shortly. And in another than Hugh John I
should have suspected something. Because, you know, Elizabeth Fortinbras
is a very pretty girl--not beautiful, but with a freshness and charm
that does far better, a laugh that is hung on a hair-trigger; not much
education, of course, because her stupid old frump of a mother--yes, I
can say it, though Lizzie would not--has never permitted her to be long
away from her, but must be served like a duchess in her room on pretext
of headaches and megrims.
Being without a servant, she leaves Elizabeth to do all the housework,
and all that she knows she has learned from the books I have lent
her--and, as I now begin to suspect, Hugh John also.
"And where _is_ Elizabeth?" I said, for I saw the three-draw glass
hovering in the neighborhood of the Fortinbras Cottage.
"Why, where should she be?" cried Hugh John. "At this hour of Monday
morning she will certainly be hanging out the week's wash! There, put
your eye down, don't stir the telescope, and you will see her. Also her
sister Matilda sitting under a tree doing nothing but reading the latest
story her mother has got out of the library!"
Hugh John's grasp of detail was something marvelous.
And, indeed, as I looked, through the tremble of the heat-mist the
slender figure of Elizabeth Fortinbras jigged into view. She was
standing on tiptoe, like the girl in the old illustrated nursery
Caldecott, when
"By came a blackbird and snapped off her nose."
Which would certainly have been a pity in Elizabeth's case, for the nose
was a very pretty saucy one, and worthy of a better fate. She had on a
short skirt. Her feet were thrust into sandals, and her white working
blouse, open at the neck, had red peas on it. Concerning all which
points Hugh John had nothing to learn.
Now I had always liked Elizabeth. There was something wild-wood and gay
as a bird about her. She wore the simplest dresses, made by herself, and
when she played in our woods there was a good deal of tomboy about her.
She was older than any of us, and had often been our leader in high-spy
or at running through the wood.
I could run faster, but (as Hugh John said) I ran like a boy, with my
hands clasped and my elbows in. As for the way that Elizabeth ran, that
was quite different. She ran--just like Elizabeth.
But the way she tossed about the youngsters was a sight. She romped with
them among the hay. She thought nothing of bringing back Maid Margaret
on her back for miles and miles, with a hop and a skip at every second
pace, as if only to show how lightly her burden sat astride her
shoulders, and how entirely impossible it was for Elizabeth herself to
walk along in a sedate and ladylike way. Like a questing collie, she
constantly left the highway. You could see her mount a bank as if she
had wings. She was wayward, uncertain as a bird, fitful as a butterfly,
changing her purpose with the whim of the children. Indeed, there was no
one, in the opinion of all of us when we were little, like Elizabeth
Fortinbras.
It was like spying out some shy fleeing wood-nymph to see her, with a
few long, easy movements, springing and bounding across the
stepping-stones of the upper river--or, the petticoat held daintily
high, all in a faint flurry of white spray and whiter feet, negotiating
the shallow ford at the first Torres Vedras when we were paddling there
in the hot days.
Yet, when once across, she never seemed to have "shipped a drop," as
Sir Toady Lion asserted in his best naval manner.
Rather, be it said, she gave herself a shake like a scudding swallow
that has dipped its wing a little too deep in the pond, and lo! our
Elizabeth was dry again. She never had so much as to preen a feather.
They always tell me that I am a little in love with Elizabeth myself,
and I am not ashamed of it. Once, from his hiding-place, Hugh John
showed me a young dainty fawn come stepping lightly through the wood. I
saw it skip airily across the Esk below the second Torres Vedras, ascend
the bank in three bounds, walk demurely across the road like a maiden
coming out of church, look about her as if gathering her skirts for
something daring, and then, with one sidelong bound, swift and light,
lo, she was over the high paling and lost in the wood!
Elizabeth Fortinbras would have done it just like that, as gracefully
and as unconsciously. But to think of her taking a place in the Donnan's
Confectionery shop--surely his good angel had for once forsaken Hugh
John--plan-maker to the world in general, and private domestic Solomon!
"Go and _ask_ Elizabeth Fortinbras!" said Hugh John--and he said it as
if he had good reason to know that Elizabeth would accept. Though that
might only be his usual accent of quiet certainty. You see, Hugh John
compels belief. Confidence accrues to his lightest guess, which is not
accorded to Sir Toady on his oath. It is a shame that any one should be
so favored by nature in the matter of his word. I, being a girl, am
suspected of inaccuracy, Sir Toady of "monkeying," and Maid Margaret of
knowing nothing about the matter.
But Hugh John may be inaccurate. He may be "monkeying" in secret, and he
may know less than any one else about any matter. Nevertheless he is
accredited like a plenipotentiary. He moves like Diogenes, his tub
unseen about him. A calm certainty accompanies him. He inspires
confidence, blind as that of a bank cashier in the multiplication table.
All, too, without break, without insistence. To look at, he is just a
tall lad, with singularly quiet manners, who looks at you fixedly out of
gray eyes very wide apart. Only--you believe him.
But that is the reason why, in my secretest heart, as soon as Hugh John
said, "Ask Elizabeth Fortinbras!" I knew that Elizabeth Fortinbras
would accept.
I had to ask her myself. Or rather I took Mrs. Donnan with me, who did
as she was told, smiling and stammering apologies in the proper places.
As for me, I said what Hugh John had advised me to say, in our last long
talk together up in the Cave.
Of course it was no use in the world consulting Elizabeth's parents. Her
father was lost in dreams of making another fortune by a new and
original butter-cooler which would put all others out of the market. Her
mother, fretful and fine-ladyish, would declare that she could not do
without her. But I knew that it would be an exceedingly good thing for
her younger sister to get her nose taken out of the _Penny Novelette_.
If Elizabeth went, she would have to do the housework, and so might yet
save her soul--though as yet she had shown no signs of possessing any.
We talked to Elizabeth, however, or at least I did, without any mention
of this. There were many knick-knacks about, on the mantelpiece, on the
tables, on brackets set in corners--all the work of that ingenious,
useless man, Mr. Robert Fortinbras. As we talked, Elizabeth moved
gracefully about among these, her duster never hurried, never idle.
I never saw any one who could "play at work" as Elizabeth could. Any one
else would have sat down and received her guests. Not so Elizabeth. If
we chose to come at eleven o'clock in the morning--well, we must take
her as we found her. In another quarter of an hour, if we stayed, we
would be asked to come into her kitchen, and watch her peeling potatoes.
And that would have seemed quite natural--not only to Elizabeth, but to
us.
Elizabeth did not reply hastily. She heard me out without sign either of
consent or of refusal. Mrs. Donnan, stout and motherly, purred
acquiescence. Yes, they would give her the warmest welcome--if she cared
to stay, the happiest home. But no doubt she would prefer to return to
her own home at nights.
The next words which reached our ears were Elizabeth all over. "If I
come, I shall stay," she said, "because if I went home, the work of the
house would simply be left till I got back!"
The reason was clear, and almost the consent.
"Had you not better consult your father and mother?" I said, a little
breathlessly, having been brought up in the faith of obedience to
parents.
But in this matter Elizabeth, taught by long experience, had evolved
other methods.
"I will _tell_ them," she said simply. "When do you want me to begin?
Monday? Very well!"
And it was on Tuesday that Nipper Donnan began to neglect his business.