"'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,
Fraeulein?" 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!"
*CHAPTER VI*
Molly was huddled up on the hearth-rug, chin on knees, staring with her
great soft eyes into the fire.
"Nell, do you think I'll be like the ugly duckling and grow pretty?"
"You're not ugly enough."
Molly sighed.
"I _wish_ my hair curled!"
"Molly," said Nell, flinging down her pencil in despair of seeing any
longer without the lamp, "your soul is full of the vanities of life.
'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be--pretty.'"
"It's so easy for pretty people to talk like that!"
"I'm bowing, Mol, I really am--only it's so dark it's lost on you."
"I've a good mind to start saying 'prunes and prisms' all day long, my
mouth's so huge!"
"But it's so Irish, asthore!"
"I hate you," said Molly.
Nell stuck her elbows on the table, and her chin into her hands, and
studied in her mind the painting of the old cab horse. It was such a
glorious painting--there was such depth--his muscles--the veins in that
leg were wonderful--in her mind. She sighed.
"Nell," in the firelight Molly blushed, "I'm going to soften Aunt
Kezia's heart!"
"What? Soften her heart, is it? You'll have to soften her head first,
my dear."
She began to laugh softly.
"How are you going to set about it, Mol?"
"Like they do in books. Oh, Nell," Molly's romantic soul lent
enthusiasm to her tone, "you know they always do! However hard and grim
and horrid she is, the niece, or whoever comes and stays with her,
gradually twines herself round her heart--"
"She must be an acrobat, then," put in Nell, sotto voce.
"And alters her whole nature. You see, I'll be awfully sweet and
nice--I'll do things for her. They always pick up her handkerchief and
fetch her spectacles and put down her shoes to warm when she's coming in
with wet feet, and things like that. You needn't laugh, Nell! It's
something to do--I'll try awfully hard. I think," Molly's pretty voice
trembled, "I think mother would like it."
Nell jumped up.
"All right, only don't go and put your great, noodlish heart into it,
Mol! For she's not the right material, old girl!"
"I like her awfully grim and hard at first," enthusiastically. "It's a
pity I'm quite so frightened of her, though. I just can't help it--she
makes me shiver in my shoes!"
"Nell," from a dim corner came Sheila Pat's voice, and a squeak as she
moved.
"Where are you, Atom? Yes?"
"Nell," in very judicial tones, "is it very rude to ask a person not to
talk goody?"
"Rather riling, I should say."
Silence.
"Shall we light up?" said Nell, lazily.
"Nell, is it very rude to ask a person if he's afraid?"
"More than rude, Sheila Pat, downright insulting!"
"Oh!"
Pause.
"But he wasn't an _Irish_ person," ingenuously.
"Was he English?" gravely.
"Yes."
"No one can say Englishmen are cowards, Sheila Pat. They don't
understand us, but they're not cowards."
"Is it rude to ask a person if he likes his Catchykism better than
cricket?"
"It's unkind, Sheila Pat."
Pause.
"Is it more unkind if he--if he is lame, Nell?"
"Miles worse. Downright mean."
After a long pause:
"May we have the lamp now? I wish to write a letter."
"Who to?" inquired Molly.
"To a 'quaintance."
Nell rose from the hearth-rug.
"Nell," the Atom pressed close and spoke in a loud whisper, "a person
can't be _very_ goody-goo if he calls you a beast and throws a piece of
cake at your nose, can he?"
"Good gracious!"
"Hush!" the Atom seized her arm, almost trembling with terror of her
dignity being in danger. "I didn't say _my_ nose, Nell! Or _my_
beast!" incoherently.
"Of course not. Where are the matches?"
Sheila Pat took a long while over that letter. Her delicate little face
downbent over the sheet of paper flushed and paled several times before
it was done. Her heart and her dignity fought it out again and again.
At last she evolved the following:--
"DEAR MISTER STUART
"this leter coms hopin you are wel i do not bare maliss and perhaps i
was not very perlit which i regret bein a lady i hop. I therefore beg
to apologise and will never menson the cak or the beest but i shud dye
of rag if you tel anyone of that grate indignity with kind regards your
very truly Miss Sheila Patricia Kathleen O'Brien i must be honourable
and ad that this spelling is not qite all my one bein helped by Miss
Eileen O'Brien."
She addressed it to "mister Stuart barclay essire," and going downstairs
desired Sarah to take it next door.
Sarah was forbidden to leave the house without permission, but, in face
of the Atom's tremendous weightiness, she fled.
Sheila Pat returned slowly to the Stronghold, her face weary with
overmuch thought. Nell was surreptitiously studying a photograph of
Acushla jumping a stone wall, with herself on her back. Denis had taken
it with his Goetz camera. It had been a glorious morning in early
spring. She remembered the vivid blue of the sky, the wonderful golden
mist that had hung over the Ballymara hills, the feeling of utter fresh
joy of life that had filled her and Acushla--
"Hulloa! How quiet we are!" Denis invaded the room with cheery
breeziness. "Nell, rub noses! Mine's frozen. I say, the atmosphere's
too exalted altogether for me."
"Perhaps we're doing penance," she laughed. "Denis," she broke off,
"whatever have you got?"
He was swinging a large square hat box to and fro.
"Catch hold!"
He swung it across to her.
"It's for you, old girl."
"For me? Give me the scissors, Molly!"
Presently she pulled from a nest of tissue paper a great soft brown felt
hat, with one long brown feather drooping on the brim.
"_Denis_! Oh, isn't it lovely!"
"Put it on."
She put it on, and turned to him, irresistibly pink and pretty.
"But 'tis _wicked_, Denis! And _why_ did you get it? And where--"
"It's lovely," exclaimed Molly, with a big sigh.
"Oh, I heard you talking to Molly about having to wear up a hat you
hated with your brown suit--"
"I thought you were fathoms deep in your Latin!"
"Ah, but I wasn't. So I asked Lancaster if he could tell me of a decent
hat shop, and he told me of one in Bond Street where his cousins go.
You should have seen his face when I asked him whether he wasn't coming
in with me! He never dreamt I was really going to get it. Don't see
why, myself. 'It's full of Frenchified women!' he gasped. So it was.
They were awfully sweet to me--tried on the hats, but, by Jove, what
hats they were, Nell! I found this one myself. Now isn't it just the
colour of your suit? Let me look at you."
He turned her round by her slim shoulders, and eyed her critically. She
was adorable in it.
"I--I shall take it back, Denis. I suppose they'd give me back the
money? How much was it?"
"Don't ask rude questions. And don't be a goose! They wouldn't think of
taking it back."
"Oh!" her voice rose with an irrepressibly joyful lilt. "Are you sure?"
"Quite puffeckly sure. Don't I shop well, now?"
"But I _could_ have made the old one do!" Her dimples refused to be
repressed. "Denis, what a dream that feather is! And the sweep of the
brim--"
"Oh, stow it, Nell! Great Scott, spare me more! I've had enough of
hat-jargon to last me a lifetime. 'So chaste, isn't it? So pure--so
simple--but of an elegance so chic! A poem, Monsieur, an idyll--a
three-volume novel! It expresses so much! Worn so--cocked over the
right ear--it is gay, insouciante, of an impudence, Monsieur! So--down
in front--demure, sweet, to suit the freshness of a young demoiselle--'"
"Denis, you're making it up!"
"Oh, well, that's the sort of stuff they talked--more or less. Wish old
Lancaster had come in! He's gone off to meet his governor at
Paddington."
"What does he _do_, Denis?"
"Who, the old man? Used to sell pigs or tallow candles or something."
His eyes twinkled.
"He made his money in something like that. I forget what it was.
Believe it was lamp oil!"
"That accounts for it."
"Eh? Accounts for what?"
"Oh, everything," vaguely.
"What d'you mean, Nell?"
His tone was peremptory.
"Oh, I don't know," she hedged. "But I didn't mean his father, anyway.
I meant _him_. What does he do, Denis?"
"Nothing, apparently."
"But why isn't he at school or college or somewhere?" her voice was
scornful. "Do you mean to say he just hangs around all day, and does
nothing?"
"Suppose so."
"Well!" said Nell.
"Suppose he knows his own business," suggested Denis, slamming his books
down on to the table. "Hadn't you better put that hat away?"
Nell walked off with the hat.
"Of all the great, lazy _boobies_! And he dare--he _dare_ make Denis in
a rage with _me_!"
"Nell!"
"Sheila Pat, I didn't see you. What are you doing?"
"Sarah told me that she always lengthened her skirts by _letting down_
the hem. What does it mean, Nell?"
Nell explained absently.
Sheila Pat looked thoughtful.
Nell went back to the Stronghold and bent over Denis's shoulder.
"Shall I dictate for you? Are you going to practise shorthand?"
"No," grumpily.
"Denis, asthore, the hat's _so_ lovely!"
He burst out laughing.
"You rank little duffer. Well, tell me why you were doing penance when
I came in."
"We weren't. I merely suggested that _perhaps_ we were. I meant because
we've done nothing all day but get into Aunt Kezia's black books.
First," she ticked off the items on her fingers, "we heard a band
playing--"
"Oh, Denis," interposed Molly, "it was playing 'The Girl I left behind
Me.'"
"So we rushed out, as surely anyone with feet _would_ rush out to hear a
band. It was at the corner and we rushed along and stood and
listened--"
"And
"'By came a Flappyjack turning out her toes,
Forth she spurted anger like a garden hose.'
"Eh?"
"But the rest doesn't apply--
"'But the boys of Bally more had kissed the blarney stone,
Soon her anger melted--she sighed, Asthore! Ochone!'"
"Well, she sighed neither the one nor the other. Oh, she _was_ angry!
No melting of her! Next," she ticked off another finger, "we conceived,
or I believe _I_ conceived, the brilliant idea of an obstacle race on
the garden walls. Oh, Denis, 'tis such fun! You see, the boughs of the
trees next door and the summer house are the obstacles, and then when
you try to pass each other, one is always bound to topple off. I'm
bruised horribly, and Sheila Pat fell into the garden next door, and
then of course Molly must needs roll off--"
"Into the dust-bin for a wager!"
"Of course; and the tin lid smashed in, and she went in after it, and
_yelled_! And I laughed so I slipped all down the wall into the garden
and scraped skin off everywhere. And Aunt Kezia came out!" She stopped
with a vulgar but expressive little whistle.
"You see, Sheila Pat was in the garden next door; and halfway through
Aunt Kezia's lecture her head came bobbing up! That made matters hotter
than before. O dear, she has got a lot of breath to waste!"
"Why," inquired Denis, judicially, "weren't you doing your lessons?"
"We were. Those were the interludes. And oh, Denis, we've been locked
into separate rooms all the afternoon till a little while ago! It was
because we tried tobogganing down the stairs. We took a leaf out of the
dining-room table. Aunt Kezia was out, so 'twas quite safe. It's not
at all bad, only the leaf had silly little ridges, one at each end, that
caught on the stairs in jerks, so we had to put it shiny side down.
Molly kept getting stuck--wedged in between the balusters and the wall,
and of course she did it just when we heard Aunt Kezia's key in the
front door. It was such hard luck, because I'd tobogganed down once
straight into Herr Schmidt (we hadn't dreamt he was at home), and he
didn't mind a bit--"
"He gave such a hop that all the house shook," put in Sheila Pat, with
deep enjoyment.
"Well, I banged right into his poor shins," said Nell, reflectively.
"I've come to the conclusion that he's a dear old man, though he _is_
the lodger! And he sat down rather suddenly on the hall chair. We had
to flee and leave the leaf wedged," she added sorrowfully. "We hoped in
vain that Aunt Kezia would turn into the dining room or kitchen or
somewhere, but she didn't. Not she! She smelt that leaf! And she
stumbled over it, which made it worse. And when she came to lecture us
her bonnet was all crooked. _Oh_, she was in a temper! Here's Sarah,
and tea!"
"How," she asked pathetically, later on, "can I feel good and sorry when
she's scolding us with _such_ a long nose? Her upper lip comes down and
it drags her nose down with it. It's like a barometer--I can always
tell how her temper is by the length of her nose!"
"You've tired the Atom out, anyway," teased Denis.
Sheila Pat was on his knee: her head had lain motionless against his
shoulder for the last half hour. She sat up as if worked by a wire.
"I'm not tired, Denis O'Brien! A person has things to think about
sometimes!"
"Hulloa, thought you were asleep!"
The Atom struggled to get off his knee, but he held her fast.
"Please let me go, Denis!"
"You're not angry with your one and only brother, Sheila Pat?"
"You shouldn't be sayin' rude things," she wavered. She adored Denis so
deeply that she could never hold out long against him.
"It was all her fault to-day, anyway," declared Molly. "She just
_wouldn't_ settle down to anything!"
"Couldn't," murmured Nell, with a glance at Sheila Pat's great eyes.
Denis suddenly began to laugh.
"It was awful sport this afternoon! Lancaster came to the bank. Old
Tellbridge and Jackson were out, and we got fooling around. I was
standing on a chair spouting that thing I made up--you know--
"'Now Micky Magee wi' his piggy so wee
Went courtin' the fair Molly Moore--'
"Remember? Well, I put a lot of expression and action into it--chaps
were roaring, and as I finished, out from the manager's room burst that
little chap--Mark Yovil! Wasn't it killing? He had heard it all! Owned
he'd been listening. And he's quite struck!" He gave a shout of
laughter. "He is, 'pon my word! He says my voice is made for reading
aloud and reciting! I feel like a little saintly chorister or
something. Lancaster and I have promised to go to his place next
Tuesday. They're going to start on Henry V,' and I'm to be Hal himself!
_Now_ what do you think of your twin, Nell?"
"That he's getting so puffed up that soon all that remains of him will
be a farewell pop--oh--"
Along the passages her fleeing voice echoed, "I haven't any run--left in
me--_oh_, Denis!"
*CHAPTER VII*
It was a damp close day. Nell felt stifled and cross, and was ashamed
of the feeling. The deep depression that sometimes seized upon her held
her now. The longing for her home gripped her in a sudden fresh access
of misery. She sat on her bed and tortured herself by imagining
strangers in all the rooms--about the grounds. As she always did, in
these depressions, she lost sight of the fact that her home was let and
not sold. She told herself they had not a home now. She said that they
were outcasts, and would never set foot in Ireland again. She wondered
keenly why they did not all die. Turned out of home and country; father
and mother hundreds of miles away; poor and desolate, why did they
continue to live? And laugh! She was quite sure just then that she
would never laugh again.
She rose to make her bed. The depth of her depression had a physical
effect, making the mere folding of her nightgown an act that required a
strong effort. At Kilbrannan no weather had affected her beautiful
young health and strength. She did not realise that the sudden and
tremendous change in her way of living was bound to tell on her, more or
less, at first.
She made her bed languidly. When Molly burst into the room she actually
jumped.
"I'm growing nervey in my old age! If I believed in presentiments, I
should think something horrid was going to happen. I feel
presentimenty." Of course she did not believe in presentiments; she
reminded herself so several times that morning. Just as, of course, she
wasn't the least bit superstitious. She knew a great many of her
country-people were, but not she! When she found herself inadvertently
walking beneath a ladder, she laughed. "If I were superstitious, I
should feel horrid that I had done that!" At luncheon Denis helped her
to salt, with a mischievous grin as he did it.
"I shall bring you sorrow now, old girl!" he murmured, "unless," his
eyes twinkling, "you throw some over your left shoulder, you know."
"It's likely I would!" said Nell.
She fell to thinking how funny it was that all on that one day she had a
presentiment, first of all, that something bad was going to happen; then
she walked beneath a ladder, and then Denis helped her to salt. If she
were superstitious, how uneasy she would be! But she wasn't, so it
didn't matter.
Miss Kezia picked up a letter that had come just then. Molly went a
fiery red, glanced at Nell, then blurted out, jumping up and knocking
her chair over, "Do let me fetch your spectacles, Aunt Kezia!"
Miss Kezia turned her head slowly and looked at her, with a good deal of
offence.
"I never wear spectacles, Molly; I do not require them. Pray sit down."
"Oh!" gasped Molly, and sat down, covered with confusion.
"I do not know," pursued Miss Kezia, "if you intended to be impertinent.
If so, it was very feeble."
The whole table except Molly and her aunt were too convulsed to offer
the former any aid.
Molly sat and stared into her plate, the fiery red of face and neck
refusing to die down. In books, she reflected miserably, the aunts
always wore spectacles.
After luncheon, when Denis had gone back to the bank, Nell tried to go
on with a painting she was doing of Mrs. Barclay's tabby cat.
"To think that I should have come to cats! To be so hard up for models
that I have to seek refuge in a _cat_! Oh, what a great, stupid, moon
face you've got, Tim! K.K., come here. You needn't be jealous, my dear.
You're worth all the cats in the world."
Kate Kearney refused to budge. She sat in a corner, her back to the
room. It was her way of showing dignified disapproval. Denis called it
sulks. Poor K.K.--she had been called sternly to order when she teased
the cat. No one seemed to object to the cat's swearing at her. Very
well. It was an unjust world. She sat and presented the room with a
beautiful black shiny back and long drooping ears.
For no obvious reason, except that it was a horrid day, somehow, and
horrid things seemed to come naturally into one's mind, Nell fell to
worrying over Denis and his ideas on the lottery question. He often
teased her on the subject, declaring that though he had not gone in for
any more just yet, he was working it all out in his mind, and would be a
millionnaire some day, in spite of her.
"Oh, K.K., let's go out! Cats are too much for me! So are studies
to-day."
A quiver tingled all along that sedate little black back.
Nell laughed. "Very well, we'll go without her, won't we, Sheila Pat?
We'll go for a walk--a _walk_! Good-bye, Kate Kearney!"
It was too much for her dignity or her sulks. With a frenzied howl she
hurled herself on them.
"Nell," Sheila Pat looked thoughtful, "don't you think it would be
perlite to ask that little boy next door to come with us? But I won't
walk beside him," she added hastily.
The breach had been healed between them, to a certain extent. Stewart
had responded suitably to her letter that she was "sorry," but the Atom
was still cautious; the Catechism and cricket question loomed always
before her.
She planted herself between Nell and Molly, and walked along with a
certain aloofness that kept him in his place. He laughed and talked
with Nell, and the Atom listened. In her rigidly honest soul she
confessed that he did not sound like a goody-goo, but there was always
that question of the cricket and the Catechism.
He came in with them and had tea. Denis did not appear. Nell found
herself making an effort to laugh and talk. It took her back, with a
little shiver, to those bad last days at Kilbrannan. Stewart avoided
the Atom's serious eyes shyly; he seemed much more at his ease with Nell
and Molly.
When he was going, Sheila Pat went down with him into the hall. Nell
went, too, and Molly. But Sheila Pat slipped out on to the doorstep,
and accosted him in an earnest whisper. "Are you _sure_ you'd sooner
learn your Catchykism than play cricket?"
"Yes," he said with an obstinate jerk to his small chin.
Sheila Pat followed the others back to the Stronghold in silence. Sarah
came up presently with a slip of paper in her hand.
"For you, miss," she said to Nell. Nell opened it wonderingly.
"Don't know what time I'll be in, old girl. Haven't a moment to write.
On the way to be a millionnaire. Tell you when I see you. Awful spree.
Don't let on to anyone.
"Denis."
It was scrawled in pencil, evidently in a frantic hurry.
"What is it?" Molly inquired.
"Only a note from Denis--to say he'll be late." Nell spoke slowly. She
twisted the paper in her hands with a feverishness, a restlessness oddly
in contrast with her slow speech. She turned and went downstairs to the
kitchen.
"Sarah, who brought that note just now?"
"A boy, miss."
"What sort of boy?"
"A urchin, miss, up to no good, I should say."
Nell wandered aimlessly to the dresser and played with a plate.
"Did he look disreputable, Sarah?"
"Awful, miss," delightedly revelling in her word-painting, "sort of boy
the pleece 'ud be after, I should say."
"The police!" Nell gave a queer little jump. "Oh, Sarah, isn't it hot
to-day?"
"You do look pale, miss; it's a nasty un'ealthy day, an unlucky day, my
mother 'ud say."
"Unlucky! Oh, why, Sarah?"
"Well, you see, miss, it was on just such a warm, unseasoning (Nell
supposed she meant unseasonable) day that father was run over and
killed."
"Oh, don't, Sarah!" Nell hurried away into the hall. She stood a moment,
hesitating. A latch-key fumbled in the lock of the door. She waited,
knowing it was Herr Schmidt. Miss Kezia never fumbled. He came in with
his heavy tread.
"Ach, Fraeulein, it is a bad day, eh?"
"Horrible!" she said.
He glanced at her and smiled.
"Poor Mr. Weather," he said, chuckling. "We are angry when he is colt,
we are angry when he is warm."
"May I--may I come and talk to you a little, Herr Schmidt?"
"Oh, with such bleasure!" he beamed at her over his spectacles.
Nell went into his room and stood looking out into the dark street.
"I will light the lamp, Fraeulein. Zere, now you can see me. Will you
blease to sit down?"
She sat down. "You--I suppose you know all about business and money,
don't you, Herr Schmidt?" She had seized an ink pot that was on the
table, and seemed to be clutching it meaninglessly.
He smiled widely.
"They call me a goot business head, Fraeulein."
"Do you have good weather in Germany, Herr Schmidt?"
He looked rather bewildered. The other question had seemed the opening
of a conversation on business matters. He replied with conscientious
length. Nell seemed to be listening absorbedly; she left hold of the
ink pot. She was wondering if she had artfully put him sufficiently off
the scent. Denis would never forgive her if she were to talk of his
lottery to Herr Schmidt.
"I suppose," she remarked casually in a pause on his part for breath,
"there are lotteries and things like that in Germany as well as here?"
Herr Schmidt had not finished about his climate. He blinked his eyes
several times, then turned his mind to the new question. He started to
give her a good deal of information on the subject. He spoke strongly,
because he felt strongly about all forms of gambling. Nell had clutched
hold of the ink pot again.
"And--and are there gambling places like that in England?" in a pause on
his part.
"Ach, yes, Fraeulein. In the bapers constantly one reads of the bolice
appearing at the scene and taking them all to brison."
"Oh!" Nell jerked the ink pot suddenly and a few drops spattered her
hand. Herr Schmidt produced blotting paper, and wiped the spots off
carefully.
"Thank you very much." She rose and went to the door. "Good-bye, Herr
Schmidt."
"Goot-bye. You, berhaps," with a curious, wistful glance over his
spectacles that made him look like a great baby, "would not care to eat
a biece of cake?"
"Not now, thank you. I--another time if I may."
The evening wore on slowly. Nell twice put her ear to the little clock
on the mantel-shelf, thinking it must have stopped.
Molly, fathoms deep in "Monsieur Beaucaire," was blind and deaf to
everything else, but Sheila Pat eyed Nell shrewdly.
"Can't you be sittin' still at all, Nell O'Brien?" she demanded
impatiently.
Nell started and grew red.
"I like walking up and down."
"Do you like pickin' up that jogglefry book and lookin' at it every time
you pass the table?" The Atom's sarcastic little tongue was sharp.