Matters were in this cryptical state when the door opened and Father
came in.
"Hullo, kiddies!" he remarked kindly. "Beastly wet day, isn't it? And
dark too. I can't think why the rain can't always come in term time. It
seems a poor arrangement to have it in 'vac.,' doesn't it?"
I think every one instantly felt better. I know one of us did, and it
was me.
Father lit the gas, and sat down in the armchair and took Alice on his
knee.
"First," he said, "here is a box of chocs." It was an extra big and
beautiful one and Fuller's best. "And besides the chocs., a piece of
good news! You're all asked to a party at Mrs. Leslie's. She's going to
have all sorts of games and things, with prizes for every one, and a
conjurer and a magic lantern."
The shadow of doom seemed to be lifted from each young brow, and we felt
how much fonder we were of each other than any one would have thought.
At least Oswald felt this, and Dicky told me afterwards he felt Dora
wasn't such a bad sort after all.
"It's on Tuesday week," said Father. "I see the prospect pleases. Number
three is that your cousin Archibald has come here to stay a week or two.
His little sister has taken it into her head to have whooping-cough. And
he's downstairs now, talking to your uncle."
We asked what the young stranger was like, but Father did not know,
because he and cousin Archibald's father had not seen much of each other
for some years. Father said this, but we knew it was because Archibald's
father hadn't bothered to see ours when he was poor and honest, but now
he was the wealthy sharer of the red-brick, beautiful Blackheath house
it was different. This made us not like Uncle Archibald very much, but
we were too just to blame it on to young Archibald. All the same we
should have liked him better if his father's previous career had not
been of such a worldly and stuck-up sort. Besides, I do think Archibald
is quite the most rotten sort of name. We should have called him
Archie, of course, if he had been at all decent.
"You'll be as jolly to him as you can, I know," Father said; "he's a bit
older than you, Oswald. He's not a bad-looking chap."
Then Father went down and Oswald had to go with him, and there was
Archibald sitting upright in a chair and talking to our Indian uncle as
if he was some beastly grown-up. Our cousin proved to be dark and rather
tall, and though he was only fourteen he was always stroking his lip to
see if his moustache had begun to come.
Father introduced us to each other, and we said, "How do you do?" and
looked at each other, and neither of us could think of anything else to
say. At least Oswald couldn't. So then we went upstairs. Archibald shook
hands with the others, and every one was silent except Dora, and she
only whispered to H.O. to keep his feet still.
You cannot keep for ever in melancholy silence however few things you
have to say, and presently some one said it was a wet day, and this
well-chosen remark made us able to begin to talk.
I do not wish to be injurious to anybody, especially one who was a
Bastable, by birth at least if not according to the nobler attributes,
but I must say that Oswald never did dislike a boy so much as he did
that young Archibald. He was as cocky as though he'd done something to
speak of--been captain of his eleven, or passed a beastly exam., or
something--but we never could find that he had done anything. He was
always bragging about the things he had at home, and the things he was
allowed to do, and all the things he knew all about, but he was a most
untruthful chap. He laughed at Noel's being a poet--a thing we never do,
because it makes him cry and crying makes him ill--and of course Oswald
and Dicky could not punch his head in their own house because of the
laws of hospitableness, and Alice stopped it at last by saying she
didn't care if it was being a sneak, she would tell Father the very next
time. I don't think she would have, because we made a rule, when we were
poor and honest, not to bother Father if we could possibly help it. And
we keep it up still. But Archibald didn't know that. Then this cousin,
who is, I fear, the black sheep of the Bastables, and hardly worthy to
be called one, used to pull the girls' hair, and pinch them at prayers
when they could not call out or do anything to him back.
And he was awfully rude to the servants, ordering them about, and
playing tricks on them, not amusing tricks like other Bastables might
have done--such as booby-traps and mice under dish-covers, which seldom
leaves any lasting ill-feeling--but things no decent boy would do--like
hiding their letters and not giving them to them for days, and then it
was too late to meet the young man the letter was from, and squirting
ink on their aprons when they were just going to open the door, and once
he put a fish-hook in the cook's pocket when she wasn't looking. He did
not do anything to Oswald at that time. I suppose he was afraid. I just
tell you this to show you that Oswald didn't cotton to him for no
selfish reason, but because Oswald has been taught to feel for others.
[Illustration: AND HE WAS AWFULLY RUDE TO THE SERVANTS.]
He called us all kids--and he was that kind of boy we knew at once it
was no good trying to start anything new and jolly--so Oswald, ever
discreet and wary, shut up entirely about the council. We played games
with him sometimes, not really good ones, but Snap and Beggar my
Neighbour, and even then he used to cheat. I hate to say it of one of
our blood, but I can hardly believe he was. I think he must have been
changed at nurse like the heirs to monarchies and dukeries.
Well, the days passed slowly. There was Mrs. Leslie's party shining
starrishly in the mysteries of the future. Also we had another thing to
look forward to, and that was when Archibald would have to go back to
school. But we could not enjoy that foreshadowing so much because of us
having to go back at nearly the same time.
Oswald always tries to be just, no matter how far from easy, and so I
will say that I am not quite sure that it was Archibald that set the
pipes leaking, but we were all up in the loft the day before, snatching
a golden opportunity to play a brief game of robbers in a cave, while
Archibald had gone down to the village to get his silly hair cut.
Another thing about him that was not natural was his being always
looking in the glass and wanting to talk about whether people were
handsome or not; and he made as much fuss about his ties as though he
had been a girl. So when he was gone Alice said--
"Hist! The golden moment. Let's be robbers in the loft, and when he
comes back he won't know where we are."
"He'll hear us," said Noel, biting his pencil.
"No, he won't. We'll be the Whispering Band of Weird Bandits. Come on,
Noel; you can finish the poetry up here."
"It's about _him_," said Noel gloomily, "when he's gone back to----"
(Oswald will not give the name of Archibald's school for the sake of the
other boys there, as they might not like everybody who reads this to
know about there being a chap like him in their midst.) "I shall do it
up in an envelope and put a stamp on it and post it to him, and----"
"Haste!" cried Alice. "Bard of the Bandits, haste while yet there's
time."
So we tore upstairs and put on our slippers and socks over them, and we
got the high-backed chair out of the girls' bedroom, and the others held
it steady while Oswald agilitively mounted upon its high back and opened
the trap-door and got up into the place between the roof and the
ceiling (the boys in "Stalky & Co." found this out by accident, and they
were surprised and pleased, but we have known all about it ever since we
can remember).
Then the others put the chair back, and Oswald let down the rope ladder
that we made out of bamboo and clothes-line after uncle told us the
story of the missionary lady who was shut up in a rajah's palace, and
some one shot an arrow to her with a string tied to it, and it might
have killed her I should have thought, but it didn't, and she hauled in
the string and there was a rope and a bamboo ladder, and so she escaped,
and we made one like it on purpose for the loft. No one had ever told us
not to make ladders.
The others came up by the rope-ladder (it was partly bamboo, but
rope-ladder does for short) and we shut the trap-door down. It is jolly
up there. There are two big cisterns, and one little window in a gable
that gives you just enough light. The floor is plaster with wooden
things going across, beams and joists they are called. There are some
planks laid on top of these here and there. Of course if you walk on the
plaster you will go through with your foot into the room below.
We had a very jolly game, in whispers, and Noel sat by the little
window, and was quite happy, being the bandit bard. The cisterns are
rocks you hide behind. But the jolliest part was when we heard Archibald
shouting out, "Hullo! kids, where are you?" and we all stayed as still
as mice, and heard Jane say she thought we must have gone out. Jane was
the one that hadn't got her letter, as well as having her apron inked
all over.
[Illustration: THE OTHERS CAME UP BY THE ROPE-LADDER.]
Then we heard Archibald going all over the house looking for us. Father
was at business and uncle was at his club. And we were _there_. And so
Archibald was all alone. And we might have gone on for hours enjoying
the spectacle of his confusion and perplexedness, but Noel happened to
sneeze--the least thing gives him cold and he sneezes louder for his age
than any one I know--just when Archibald was on the landing underneath.
Then he stood there and said--
"I know where you are. Let me come up."
We cautiously did not reply. Then he said:
"All right. I'll go and get the step-ladder."
We did not wish this. We had not been told not to make rope-ladders, nor
yet about not playing in the loft; but if he fetched the step-ladder
Jane would know, and there are some secrets you like to keep to
yourself.
So Oswald opened the trap-door and squinted down, and there was that
Archibald with his beastly hair cut. Oswald said--
"We'll let you up if you promise not to tell you've been up here."
So he promised, and we let down the rope-ladder. And it will show you
the kind of boy he was that the instant he had got up by it he began
to find fault with the way it was made.
[Illustration: SO OSWALD OPENED THE TRAP-DOOR AND SQUINTED DOWN, AND
THERE WAS THAT ARCHIBALD.]
Then he wanted to play with the ball-cock. But Oswald knows it is better
not to do this.
"I daresay _you're_ forbidden," Archibald said, "little kids like you.
But _I_ know all about plumbing."
And Oswald could not prevent his fiddling with the pipes and the
ball-cock a little. Then we went down. All chance of further banditry
was at an end. Next day was Sunday. The leak was noticed then. It was
slow, but steady, and the plumber was sent for on Monday morning.
Oswald does not know whether it was Archibald who made the leak, but he
does know about what came after.
I think our displeasing cousin found that piece of poetry that Noel was
beginning about him, and read it, because he is a sneak. Instead of
having it out with Noel he sucked up to him and gave him a six-penny
fountain-pen which Noel liked, although it is really no good for him to
try to write poetry with anything but a pencil, because he always sucks
whatever he writes with, and ink is poisonous, I believe.
Then in the afternoon he and Noel got quite thick, and went off
together. And afterwards Noel seemed very peacocky about something, but
he would not say what, and Archibald was grinning in a way Oswald would
have liked to pound his head for.
Then, quite suddenly, the peaceable quietness of that happy Blackheath
home was brought to a close by screams. Servants ran about with brooms
and pails, and the water was coming through the ceiling of uncle's room
like mad, and Noel turned white and looked at our unattractive cousin
and said: "Send him away."