"Supposing he doesn't let us?"
"Who doesn't let us what?"
"The Red House man--read papers at his Red House."
This was, indeed, what nobody had thought of--and even now we did not
think any one could be so lost to proper hospitableness as to say no.
Yet none of us liked to write and ask. So we tossed up for it, only Dora
had feelings about tossing up on Sunday, so we did it with a hymn-book
instead of a penny.
We all won except Noel, who lost, so he said he would do it on Albert's
uncle's typewriter, which was on a visit to us at the time, waiting for
Mr. Remington to fetch it away to mend the "M." We think it was broken
through Albert's uncle writing "Margaret" so often, because it is the
name of the lady he was doomed to be married by.
The girls had got the letter the Maidstone Antiquarian Society and Field
Clubs Secretary had sent to Albert's uncle--H.O. said they kept it for a
momentum of the day--and we altered the dates and names in blue chalk
and put in a piece about might we skate on the moat, and gave it to
Noel, who had already begun to make up his poetry about Agincourt, and
so had to be shaken before he would attend. And that evening, when
Father and our Indian uncle and Albert's uncle were seeing the others on
the way to Forest Hill, Noel's poetry and pencil were taken away from
him and he was shut up in Father's room with the Remington typewriter,
which we had never been forbidden to touch. And I don't think he hurt
it much, except quite at the beginning, when he jammed the "S" and the
"J" and the thing that means per cent. so that they stuck--and Dicky
soon put that right with a screwdriver.
He did not get on very well, but kept on writing MOR7E HOAS5 or MORD6M
HOVCE on new pieces of paper and then beginning again, till the floor
was strewn with his remains; so we left him at it, and went and played
Celebrated Painters--a game even Dora cannot say anything about on
Sunday, considering the Bible kind of pictures most of them painted. And
much later, the library door having banged once and the front door
twice, Noel came in and said he had posted it, and already he was deep
in poetry again, and had to be roused when requisite for bed.
It was not till next day that he owned that the typewriter had been a
fiend in disguise, and that the letter had come out so odd that he could
hardly read it himself.
"The hateful engine of destruction wouldn't answer to the bit in the
least," he said, "and I'd used nearly a wastepaper basket of Father's
best paper, and I thought he might come in and say something, so I just
finished it as well as I could, and I corrected it with the blue
chalk--because you'd bagged that B.B. of mine--and I didn't notice what
name I'd signed till after I'd licked the stamp."
The hearts of his kind brothers and sisters sank low. But they kept
them up as well as they could, and said--
[Illustration: IT WAS NOT TILL NEXT DAY THAT HE OWNED THAT THE
TYPEWRITER HAD BEEN A FIEND IN DISGUISE.]
"What name _did_ you sign?"
And Noel said, "Why, Edward Turnbull, of course--like at the end of the
real letter. You never crossed it out like you did his address."
"No," said Oswald witheringly. "You see, I did think, whatever else you
didn't know, I did think you knew your own silly name."
Then Alice said Oswald was unkind, though you see he was not, and she
kissed Noel and said she and he would take turns to watch for the
postman, so as to get the answer (which of course would be subscribed on
the envelope with the name of Turnbull instead of Bastable) before the
servant could tell the postman that the name was a stranger to her.
And next evening it came, and it was very polite and grown-up--and said
we should be welcome, and that we might read our papers and skate on the
moat. The Red House has a moat, like the Moat House in the country, but
not so wild and dangerous. Only we never skated on it because the frost
gave out the minute we had got leave to. Such is life, as the sparks fly
upwards. (The last above is called a moral reflection.)
So now, having got leave from Mr. Red House (I won't give his name
because he is a writer of worldly fame and he might not like it), we set
about writing our papers. It was not bad fun, only rather difficult
because Dora said she never knew which Encyclo. volume she might be
wanting, as she was using Edinburgh, Mary, Scotland, Bothwell, Holywell,
and France, and many others, and Oswald never knew which he might want,
owing to his not being able exactly to remember the distinguished and
deathless other appellation of Sir Thomas Thingummy, who had lived in
the Red House.
Noel was up to the ears in Agincourt, yet that made but little
difference to our destiny. He is always plunged in poetry of one sort or
another, and if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else.
This, at least, we insisted on having kept a secret, so he could not
read it to us.
H.O. got very inky the first half-holiday, and then he got some
sealing-wax and a big envelope from Father, and put something in and
fastened it up, and said he had done his.
Dicky would not tell us what his paper was going to be about, but he
said it would not be like ours, and he let H.O. help him by looking on
while he invented more patent screws for ships.
The spectacles were difficult. We got three pairs of the uncle's, and
one that had belonged to the housekeeper's grandfather, but nine pairs
were needed, because Albert-next-door mouched in one half-holiday and
wanted to join, and said if we'd let him he'd write a paper on the
Constitutions of Clarendon, and we thought he couldn't do it, so we let
him. And then, after all, he did.
So at last Alice went down to Bennett's in the village, that we are such
good customers of, because when our watches stop we take them there, and
he lent us a lot of empty frames on the instinctive understanding that
we would pay for them if we broke them or let them get rusty.
And so all was ready. And the fatal day approached; and it was the
holidays. For us, that is, but not for Father, for his business never
seems to rest by day and night, except at Christmas and times like that.
So we did not need to ask him if we might go. Oswald thought it would be
more amusing for Father if we told it all to him in the form of an
entertaining anecdote, afterwards.
Denny and Daisy and Albert came to spend the day.
We told Mrs. Blake Mr. Red House had asked us, and she let the girls put
on their second-best things, which are coats with capes and red
Tam-o'shanters. These capacious coats are very good for playing
highwaymen in.
We made ourselves quite clean and tidy. At the very last we found that
H.O. had been making marks on his face with burnt matches, to imitate
wrinkles, but really it only imitated dirt, so we made him wash it off.
Then he wanted to paint himself red like a clown, but we had decided
that the spectacles were to be our only disguise, and even those were
not to be assumed till Oswald gave the word.
[Illustration: THE STATIONMASTER AND PORTER LOOKED RESPECTFULLY AT US.]
No casuist observer could have thought that the nine apparently
light-headed and careless party who now wended their way to Blackheath
Station, looking as if they were not up to anything in particular, were
really an Antiquarian Society of the deepest dye. We got an empty
carriage to ourselves, and halfway between Blackheath and the other
station Oswald gave the word, and we all put on the spectacles. We had
our antiquarian papers of lore and researched history in exercise-books,
rolled up and tied with string.
The stationmaster and porter, of each of which the station boasted but
one specimen, looked respectfully at us as we got out of the train, and
we went straight out of the station, under the railway arch, and down to
the green gate of the Red House. It has a lodge, but there is no one in
it. We peeped in at the window, and there was nothing in the room but an
old beehive and a broken leather strap.
We waited in the front for a bit, so that Mr. Red House could come out
and welcome us like Albert's uncle did the other antiquaries, but no one
came, so we went round the garden. It was very brown and wet, but full
of things you didn't see every day. Furze summer-houses, for instance,
and a red wall all round it, with holes in it that you might have
walled heretics up in in the olden times. Some of the holes were quite
big enough to have taken a very small heretic. There was a broken swing,
and a fish-pond--but we were on business, and Oswald insisted on reading
the papers.
He said, "Let's go to the sundial. It looks dryer there, my feet are
like ice-houses."
It was dryer because there was a soaking wet green lawn round it, and
round that a sloping path made of little squares of red and white
marble. This was quite waterless, and the sun shone on it, so that it
was warm to the hands, though not to the feet, because of boots. Oswald
called on Albert to read first. Albert is not a clever boy. He is not
one of us, and Oswald wanted to get over the Constitutions. For Albert
is hardly ever amusing, even in fun, and when he tries to show off it is
sometimes hard to bear. He read--
"THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.
"Clarendon (sometimes called Clarence) had only
one constitution. It must have been a very bad
one, because he was killed by a butt of Malmsey.
If he had had more constitutions or better ones he
would have lived to be very old. This is a warning
to everybody."
To this day none of us know how he could, and whether his uncle helped
him.
We clapped, of course, but not with our hearts, which were hissing
inside us, and then Oswald began to read his paper. He had not had a
chance to ask Albert's uncle what the other name of the world-famous Sir
Thomas was, so he had to put him in as Sir Thomas Blank, and make it up
by being very strong on scenes that could be better imagined than
described, and, as we knew that the garden was five hundred years old,
of course he could bring in any eventful things since the year 1400.
He was just reading the part about the sundial, which he had noticed
from the train when we went to Bexley Heath. It was rather a nice piece,
I think.
"Most likely this sundial told the time when Charles the First was
beheaded, and recorded the death-devouring progress of the Great Plague
and the Fire of London. There is no doubt that the sun often shone even
in these devastating occasions, so that we may picture Sir Thomas Blank
telling the time here and remarking--O crikey!"
These last words are what Oswald himself remarked. Of course a person in
history would never have said them.
The reader of the paper had suddenly heard a fierce, woodeny sound, like
giant singlesticks, terrifyingly close behind him, and looking hastily
round, he saw a most angry lady, in a bright blue dress with fur on it,
like a picture, and very large wooden shoes, which had made the
singlestick noise. Her eyes were very fierce, and her mouth tight
shut. She did not look hideous, but more like an avenging sprite or
angel, though of course we knew she was only mortal, so we took off our
caps. A gentleman also bounded towards us over some vegetables, and
acted as reserve support to the lady.
[Illustration: HER VOICE WHEN SHE TOLD US WE WERE TRESPASSING WAS NOT SO
FURIOUS.]
Her voice when she told us we were trespassing and it was a private
garden was not so furious as Oswald had expected from her face, but it
_was_ angry. H.O. at once said it wasn't her garden, was it? But, of
course, we could see it _was_, because of her not having any hat or
jacket or gloves, and wearing those wooden shoes to keep her feet dry,
which no one would do in the street.
So then Oswald said we had leave, and showed her Mr. Red House's letter.
"But that was written to Mr. Turnbull," said she, "and how did _you_ get
it?"
Then Mr. Red House wearily begged us to explain, so Oswald did, in that
clear, straightforward way some people think he has, and that no one can
suspect for an instant. And he ended by saying how far from comfortable
it would be to have Mr. Turnbull coming with his thin mouth and his
tight legs, and that we were Bastables, and much nicer than the
tight-legged one, whatever she might think.
And she listened, and then she quite suddenly gave a most jolly grin and
asked us to go on reading our papers.
It was plain that all disagreeableness was at an end, and, to show this
even to the stupidest, she instantly asked us to lunch. Before we could
politely accept H.O. shoved his oar in as usual and said _he_ would stop
no matter how little there was for lunch because he liked her very much.
So she laughed, and Mr. Red House laughed, and she said they wouldn't
interfere with the papers, and they went away and left us.
Of course Oswald and Dicky insisted on going on with the papers; though
the girls wanted to talk about Mrs. Red House, and how nice she was, and
the way her dress was made. Oswald finished his paper, but later he was
sorry he had been in such a hurry, because after a bit Mrs. Red House
came out, and said she wanted to play too. She pretended to be a very
ancient antiquary, and was most jolly, so that the others read their
papers to her, and Oswald knows she would have liked his paper best,
because it _was_ the best, though I say it.
Dicky's turned out to be all about that patent screw, and how Nelson
would not have been killed if his ship had been built with one.
Daisy's paper was about Lady Jane Grey, and hers and Dora's were exactly
alike, the dullest by far, because they had got theirs out of books.
Alice had not written hers because she had been helping Noel to copy
his.
Denny's was about King Charles, and he was very grown-up and fervent
about this ill-fated monarch and white roses.
Mrs. Red House took us into the summer-houses, where it was warmer, and
such is the wonderful architecture of the Red House gardens that there
was a fresh summer-house for each paper, except Noel's and H.O.'s, which
were read in the stable. There were no horses there.