"Well, miss," he said at last, "you've managed to put the Force in the
wrong somehow, which isn't often done, and I'm blest if I know how you
make it out. But there's Sir James a-waiting for me to come before him
with my complaint. What am I a-goin' to say to him?"
"Oh, anything," said Mrs. Red House; "surely some one else has done
something wrong that you can tell him about?"
"There was a matter of a couple of snares and some night lines," he said
slowly, drawing nearer to Mrs. Red House; "but I couldn't take no money,
of course."
"Of course not," she said; "I beg your pardon for offering it. But I'll
give you my name and address, and if ever I can be of any use to
you----"
She turned her back on us while she wrote it down with a stumpy pencil
he lent her; but Oswald could swear that he heard money chink, and that
there was something large and round wrapped up in the paper she gave
him.
"Sorry for any little misunderstanding," the Police now said, feeling
the paper with his fingers; "and my respects to you, miss, and your
young friends. I'd best be going."
And he went--to Sir James, I suppose. He seemed quite tamed. I hope the
people who set the snares got off.
"So _that's_ all right," said Mrs. Red House. "Oh, you dear children,
you must stay to lunch, and we'll have a splendid time."
"What a darling Princess you are!" Noel said slowly. "You are a witch
Princess, too, with magic powers over the Police."
"It's not a very pretty sort of magic," she said, and she sighed.
"Everything about you is pretty," said Noel. And I could see him
beginning to make the faces that always precur his poetry-fits. But
before the fit could break out thoroughly the rest of us awoke from our
stupor of grateful safeness and began to dance round Mrs. Red House in a
ring. And the girls sang--
"The rose is red, the violet's blue,
Carnation's sweet, and so are you,"
over and over again, so we had to join in; though I think "She's a jolly
good fellow would have been more manly and less like a poetry book."
Suddenly a known voice broke in on our singing.
"_Well!_" it said. And we stopped dancing. And there were the other two
ladies who had politely walked off when we first discovered Mrs. Red
House. And one of them was Mrs. Bax--of all people in the world! And she
was smoking a cigarette. So now we knew where the smell of tobacco came
from, in the White House.
We said, "_Oh!_" in one breath, and were silent.
"Is it possible," said Mrs. Bax, "that these are the Sunday-school
children I've been living with these three long days?"
"We're sorry," said Dora, softly; "we wouldn't have made a noise if we'd
know you were here."
"So I suppose," said Mrs. Bax. "Chloe, you seem to be a witch. How have
you galvanised my six rag dolls into life like this?"
"Rag dolls!" said H.O., before we could stop him. "I think you're jolly
mean and ungrateful; and it was sixpence for making the organs fly."
"My brain's reeling," said Mrs. Bax, putting her hands to her head.
"H.O. is very rude, and I am sorry," said Alice, "but it _is_ hard to be
called rag dolls, when you've only tried to do as you were told."
And then, in answer to Mrs. Red House's questions, we told how father
had begged us to be quiet, and how we had earnestly tried to. When it
was told, Mrs. Bax began to laugh, and so did Mrs. Red House, and at
last Mrs. Bax said--
"Oh, my dears! you don't know how glad I am that you're really alive! I
began to think--oh--I don't know what I thought! And you're not rag
dolls. You're heroes and heroines, every man jack of you. And I do thank
you. But I never wanted to be quiet like _that_. I just didn't want to
be bothered with London and tiresome grown-up people. And now let's
enjoy ourselves! Shall it be rounders, or stories about cannibals?"
"Rounders first and stories after," said H.O. And it was so.
Mrs. Bax, now that her true nature was revealed, proved to be A1. The
author does not ask for a jollier person to be in the house with. We had
rare larks the whole time she stayed with us.
And to think that we might never have known her true character if she
hadn't been an old school friend of Mrs. Red House's, and if Mrs. Red
House hadn't been such a friend of ours!
"Friendship," as Mr. William Smith so truly says in his book about
Latin, "is the crown of life."
_THE POOR AND NEEDY_
"WHAT shall we do to-day, kiddies?" said Mrs. Bax. We had discovered her
true nature but three days ago, and already she had taken us out in a
sailing-boat and in a motor car, had given us sweets every day, and
taught us eleven new games that we had not known before; and only four
of the new games were rotters. How seldom can as much be said for the
games of a grown-up, however gifted!
The day was one of cloudless blue perfectness, and we were all basking
on the beach. We had all bathed. Mrs. Bax said we might. There are
points about having a grown-up with you, if it is the right kind. You
can then easily get it to say "Yes" to what you want, and after that, if
anything goes wrong it is their fault, and you are pure from blame. But
nothing had gone wrong with the bathe, and, so far, we were all alive,
and not cold at all, except our fingers and feet.
"What would you _like_ to do?" asked Mrs. Bax. We were far away from
human sight along the beach, and Mrs. Bax was smoking cigarettes as
usual.
"I don't know," we all said politely. But H.O. said--
"What about poor Miss Sandal?"
"Why poor?" asked Mrs. Bax.
"Because she is," said H.O.
"But how? What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Bax.
"Why, isn't she?" said H.O.
"Isn't she what?" said Mrs. Bax.
"What you said why about," said H.O.
She put her hands to her head. Her short hair was still damp and rumpled
from contact with the foaming billows of ocean.
"Let's have a fresh deal and start fair," she said; "why do you think my
sister is poor?"
"I forgot she was your sister," said H.O., "or I wouldn't have said
it--honour bright I wouldn't."
"Don't mention it," said Mrs. Bax, and began throwing stones at a groin
in amiable silence.
We were furious with H.O., first because it is such bad manners to throw
people's poverty in their faces, or even in their sisters' faces, like
H.O. had just done, and second because it seemed to have put out of Mrs.
Bax's head what she was beginning to say about what would we like to do.
So Oswald presently remarked, when he had aimed at the stump she was
aiming at, and hit it before she did, for though a fair shot for a lady,
she takes a long time to get her eye in.
"Mrs. Bax, we should like to do whatever _you_ like to do." This was
real politeness and true too, as it happened, because by this time we
could quite trust her not to want to do anything deeply duffing.
"That's very nice of you," she replied, "but don't let me interfere with
any plans of yours. My own idea was to pluck a waggonette from the
nearest bush. I suppose they grow freely in these parts?"
"There's one at the 'Ship,'" said Alice; "it costs seven-and-six to
pluck it, just for going to the station."
"Well, then! And to stuff our waggonette with lunch and drive over to
Lynwood Castle, and eat it there."
"A picnic!" fell in accents of joy from the lips of one and all.
"We'll also boil the billy in the castle courtyard, and eat buns in the
shadow of the keep."
"Tea as well?" said H.O., "with buns? You can't be poor and needy any
way, whatever your----"
We hastily hushed him, stifling his murmurs with sand.
"I always think," said Mrs. Bax dreamily, "that 'the more the merrier,'
is peculiarly true of picnics. So I have arranged--always subject to
your approval, of course--to meet your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Red House,
there, and----"
We drowned her conclusive remarks with a cheer. And Oswald, always
willing to be of use, offered to go to the 'Ship' and see about the
waggonette. I like horses and stable-yards, and the smell of hay and
straw, and talking to ostlers and people like that.
There turned out to be two horses belonging to the best waggonette, or
you could have a one-horse one, much smaller, with the blue cloth of the
cushions rather frayed, and mended here and there, and green in patches
from age and exposition to the weather.
Oswald told Mrs. Bax this, not concealing about how shabby the little
one was, and she gloriously said--
"The pair by all means! We don't kill a pig every day!"
"No, indeed," said Dora, but if "killing a pig" means having a lark,
Mrs. Bax is as good a pig-killer as any I ever knew.
It was splendid to drive (Oswald, on the box beside the driver, who had
his best coat with the bright buttons) along the same roads that we had
trodden as muddy pedestrinators, or travelled along behind Bates's
donkey.
It was a perfect day, as I said before. We were all clean and had our
second-best things on. I think second-bests are much more comfy than
first-bests. You feel equivalent to meeting any one, and have "a heart
for any fate," as it says in the poetry-book, and yet you are not
starched and booted and stiffened and tightened out of all human
feelings.
Lynwood Castle is in a hollow in the hills. It has a moat all round it
with water-lily leaves on it. I suppose there are lilies when in
season. There is a bridge over the moat--not the draw kind of bridge.
And the castle has eight towers--four round and four square ones, and a
courtyard in the middle, all green grass, and heaps of stones--stray
bits of castle, I suppose they are--and a great white may-tree in the
middle that Mrs. Bax said was hundreds of years old.
Mrs. Red House was sitting under the may-tree when we got there, nursing
her baby, in a blue dress and looking exactly like a picture on the top
of a chocolate-box.
The girls instantly wanted to nurse the baby so we let them. And we
explored the castle. We had never happened to explore one thoroughly
before. We did not find the deepest dungeon below the castle moat,
though we looked everywhere for it, but we found everything else you can
think of belonging to castles--even the holes they used to pour boiling
lead through into the eyes of besiegers when they tried to squint up to
see how strong the garrison was in the keep--and the little slits they
shot arrows through, and the mouldering remains of the portcullis. We
went up the eight towers, every single one of them, and some parts were
jolly dangerous, I can tell you. Dicky and I would not let H.O. and Noel
come up the dangerous parts. There was no lasting ill-feeling about
this. By the time we had had a thorough good explore lunch was ready.
It was a glorious lunch--not too many meaty things, but all sorts of
cakes and sweets, and grapes and figs and nuts.