A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK.
THE grounds round Eversley were unusually large for a suburban house,
and there was plenty of room for a good romping game.
First came the garden with the greenhouses and vineries, with a large
tennis-green at the side, then two small paddocks almost large enough
to be honoured by the name of fields, with a walk all round bordered
by a row of fruit-trees. These were separated from the Heath by a
double fence, enclosing a tangled hedge which in summer was a mass of
wild-roses and honeysuckle, but which now lay bare and dead under its
covering of snow.
At the far corner of one of the paddocks, quite hidden from the house,
was a little summer-house, where in summer the children kept their
gardening tools and played on rainy days, and behind it stood a fine
old oak-tree, with low spreading branches, along which any one might
creep, and drop down on the other side of the hedge on to the Heath.
Altogether it was a delightful place for a game of hide-and-seek, and
the children found it so, as they chased each other round and round the
paddock, or dodged out and in among the narrow paths which separated
the vineries and potting-houses from the stables.
The game was at its height when Isobel and Vivian, hot and breathless,
found a convenient hiding-place between the summer-house and the trunk
of the old oak, and were resting, safe from pursuit, while Ronald and
Claude were searching for them in all directions round by the stables
and the kitchen-garden—Ralph, who had been taken, watching them from
the shelter of the ‘home.’
‘This is a lovely place to hide in, and no one knows of it but myself,’
said Isobel, brushing the snow from her skirts, ‘and it is even
better in summer, when the leaves are on the trees. When I crawl in
here no one can see a trace of me, no matter how close they come. If
Ralph had been on our track he might have thought of coming round the
summer-house, and he might have seen our footprints, but I don’t think
Claude ever will.’
‘Yes, it is a jolly place for hiding, and that looks a jolly tree to
climb,’ answered Vivian, looking with longing eyes at the low spreading
branches. ‘Suppose we crawl along one of those branches and drop over
on to the Heath, and then get “home” by the gate, wouldn’t Claude look
astonished? He would think we had fallen from the clouds.’
‘Yes, do let us,’ said Isobel, always ready for any deed of daring,
and, quick as thought she was up the tree and crawling carefully along
one of the wide branches.
Vivian watched her with admiring eyes.
‘You are a brick, Isobel,’ he said; ‘you can climb as well as any
boy, and yet you are so nice and dainty. I wish the Lister girls down
at home saw you, they are such stiff, starched, stuck-up prigs; they
think that no girl can climb and do that sort of thing and yet be what
they call ladylike. If they have got to get over a wall, no matter how
low it is, they cry out and make such a fuss. We fellows hate them.
They spoil all the parties and picnics with their silly ways, and yet
they have to be asked, for their mother lets them have awfully jolly
parties, and they always ask us.’
‘Silly things!’ said Isobel, turning round now that she had reached the
end of the branch, and trying to bob up and down so as to get a swing.
‘But I am rather sorry for them all the same, for I expect they have no
brothers. I always pity girls who have no brothers. I can tell them as
soon as I see them, they walk so straight and proper, one on each side
of their governess.’
‘But supposing there are three of them,’ said Vivian, laughing.
‘Oh, then two walk in front, and one with the governess,’ said Isobel;
‘but they all have the same proper look. If you like, I’ll point some
of them out to you when we go down the Finchley Road.’
‘You would point out girls you knew, who have no brothers,’ said
Vivian, trying to tease her.
‘I’m not so mean,’ answered Isobel, the delicate colour rising to her
face at the imputation; ‘but if you intend to come along this branch
you had better come quickly. I see Claude’s cap past the end of the
hen-house.’
Vivian began crawling along the branch, but presently he stopped short.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to something that looked like a bit
of dirty rag, which stuck out of the side of a thick branch just over
his head. Isobel frowned and hesitated.
‘You make me tell you all my secrets,’ she said at last, laughing; ‘but
if I tell you, you must promise, honour bright, not to tell any one
else.’
‘I promise,’ said Vivian solemnly, looking curiously at the odd-looking
bundle, which was partly covered with snow.
‘Well, then, that’s my very own private hiding-place. I found it out by
myself, and no one else knows of it. I was up here one day last summer,
and was walking along this branch and holding on to that one—you can do
that in summer, when the branches are not slippery—and all at once my
fingers went into a hole. The wood felt quite rotten, and I broke it
away, and made it bigger, and I found that the whole branch was hollow,
so I began to use it to put things in—story-books and things. Then, on
half-holidays when I wanted to be alone, I used to climb up here,
and sit and read, and nobody knew where I was.’
[Illustration: ‘But what is that bundle of rags for?’ went on Vivian,
putting up his hand to pull them down.
V. L. PAGE 59.]
‘But what is that bundle of rags for?’ went on Vivian, putting up his
hand to pull them down.
‘Oh, don’t touch them!’ cried Isobel, almost overbalancing herself in
her anxiety; ‘that is an old duster that I borrowed from Mary. I stuck
it in to prevent the rain and snow getting inside the branch and making
the hole all wet. It would spoil my books, you see, if it got damp.’
‘I won’t touch it; I just want to see,’ said Vivian, stretching his
neck and regarding the place with keen interest. ‘Do you ever keep
things in it just now?’
‘No, never,’ said Isobel; ‘it’s far too wet; besides, it would be no
fun sitting up a tree at Christmas time.’
At that moment Claude caught sight of Isobel’s bright scarlet tam o’
shanter over the top of the summer-house, and, with a shout to Ronald,
he bore down on them as fast as his fat little legs would let him.
‘Caught!’ cried Ronald as he raced up; ‘fairly caught, for you cannot
get off that branch without our getting hold of you.’
‘Can’t we?’ cried Isobel mischievously, as she rocked her end of the
branch gently up and down. ‘Just wait and see.’
‘Let me go first, Isobel,’ said Vivian, crawling along to where she
stood, and trying to pass her; ‘the ground may be harder than we think,
and my boots are thicker than yours, so I won’t feel the jump so much,
and you can see how I get on.’
‘Fudge!’ replied Isobel, refusing to give up her point of vantage.
‘It looks high from here; but if I let myself down, and hold on by my
arms, I can drop quite easily. Robin Earlison and I did it one day last
summer, and got round to the “home” before the others knew where we had
gone.’
She was stooping down preparing to lower herself, when all at once
there was a sudden crack, and, before either of the children could
move, the branch gave way, and fell with its burden on the hard path,
which at this point bordered the Heath.
Ronald in great alarm ran forward and tried to find an opening in the
thick, snow-covered hedge through which he could squeeze himself.
‘Are you hurt?’ he cried anxiously, finding that his efforts only
resulted in scratched hands and ruffled hair. ‘I can’t get through, but
I will run into the house and call somebody if you are.’
‘No, we’re not,’ answered Vivian, scrambling to his feet, anxious only
that the news of this new escapade should not reach his aunt’s ears;
for, although no one had said so, he felt that she would not like the
idea of any of the children getting out of bounds in this way.
‘Then we shall come and catch you,’ shouted Ronald, and Vivian
could hear the sound of his retreating footsteps going round by the
apple-tree. He had answered for Isobel and himself when he had said
that neither of them were hurt; but Isobel, who had sat up at first,
was now lying back on the path again, with a funny, dazed look in her
eyes.
‘You’re not hurt, Isobel, are you?’ he asked, kneeling down beside her,
and feeling frightened all at once; ‘for if you are, I had better run
for Aunt Dora.’
‘No, I don’t think I am,’ said Isobel bravely, although she did not
attempt to move, ‘not really hurt, but I think I have knocked the back
of my head against something.’
‘Can’t you sit up?’ said Vivian. ‘If you could just sit up, and get
into the house, we would bathe it with tepid water. That’s good for a
bump I know. Mother always bathes Dorothy’s head with tepid water if
she knocks it.’
‘I’ll try,’ said the little girl, and with his help she struggled to
her feet, but when she tried to walk she turned so sick and giddy she
was glad to sit down on the broken branch again. She was still sitting
there when Ronald ran up triumphantly, out of breath with his long run
round by the lodge. His look of triumph faded away, however, when he
saw her.
‘Hallo, Isobel!’ he exclaimed, ‘I thought you were not hurt. You
haven’t broken your arm or anything?’
‘Of course she hasn’t,’ answered his brother impatiently. ‘She is only
feeling queer because she fell on the hard path and bumped her head.
She’ll be all right in a minute.’
But Ronald did not like the look on his cousin’s face.
‘I think I’ll just run in for Aunt Dora,’ he said; and, without heeding
Isobel’s protest, he turned and ran off.
Aunt Dora had gone out, however, and when he told his tale to Ralph,
who had grown tired of waiting for the others to be taken, and had gone
indoors, he only laughed at his cousin’s grave face and anxious voice.
‘Don’t be a muff,’ he said in his languid, patronising way. ‘If you
were at school you would learn not to be so squeamish over every little
knock that every one gets. I expect Isobel will be all right by now,
and it will teach both Vivian and her not to get out of the garden like
that. Father would be in a wax if he knew, I can tell you.’
Ronald felt inclined to remind Ralph that, if he were not in the habit
of feeling squeamish over other people’s knocks, he made quite enough
fuss over his own, for Isobel or Claude would laugh over a bruise or a
cut which would send their elder brother into the house in tears; but
he remembered that he was Ralph’s guest, so like a gentleman he kept
back the hasty words, and set off in silence to see how it was faring
with the party outside.
[Illustration: Isobel lay down with a story-book on the schoolroom
sofa, and soon fell into a heavy sleep.
V. L. PAGE 64.]
He met them just beyond the lodge; and, although Isobel was walking
slowly, the colour had come back to her face, and she replied cheerily
to his anxious question that she was all right, and that her head did
not ache so badly now.
Perhaps if Mrs Osbourne had come home in time for the children’s early
dinner she might not have been deceived so easily by the little girl’s
assurances; but, thinking that the children would be quite safe as
long as Ronald and Ralph were with them, she had stayed to spend the
afternoon with an old aunt of Mr Osbourne’s whom she found in bed
with a bad attack of bronchitis; and although Anne, who waited on the
children at dinner-time, noticed the child’s dull eyes and listless
manner, she only said, ‘Surely you are not hungry, Miss Isobel,’ as she
took away her almost untouched plate; and Isobel, after dawdling about
with Claude for a little, helping him to set out all his soldiers in a
row on the edge of the bath, ready to salute as his new man-of-war was
launched, lay down with a story-book on the schoolroom sofa, and soon
fell into a heavy sleep.
The frost had given way, and the afternoon was dull and wet, so there
was no prospect of getting out, and employment had to be found indoors.
Soon Ralph, tired of his book, and more sociably inclined than usual,
proposed that they should go up to an unused room at the top of the
house, where he had a carpenter’s bench and a set of tools, and begin
to hollow out a log which he intended making into a boat. Both Ronald
and he were good craftsmen, and they were soon busy with hammer and
chisel, while Vivian found employment for his fingers in whittling the
corners off a piece of wood which was destined to form a funnel.
The noise of hammering prevented much talking, and his own thoughts
did not seem to be very pleasant, for the cheery whistling, which Mrs
Armitage was wont to say always told her when Vivian was about, soon
stopped, and a frown gathered on his handsome little face. Presently he
laid down the piece of wood and left the room.
The lie that he had told, or acted rather, in letting his aunt believe
that he knew nothing of the lost pistol was weighing heavily on his
conscience, and the remembrance of the paper parcel lying on the top
of the wardrobe in his room, ready to be found by any prying servant,
haunted him.
The very thought of the pistol was hateful to him now. He wondered
why he had ever wanted it, and he wished that he could get rid of it
anyhow, anywhere. But to do so was not so easy. He was never out alone,
or he might have thrown it into one of the ponds on the Heath; and
although the idea of burying it came into his mind, he remembered what
Isobel had told him about Monarch the great watch-dog hiding bones in
the corners of the flower-beds whenever he had a chance, and scraping
them up again just when the gardener had sown some special kind of seed
there or bedded out some favourite plant. No, it certainly would not be
safe to hide the packet in the ground.
Suddenly a new idea flashed through his brain, and he quickened his
steps. The hole that Isobel had let him see—that would be the very
place to hide it in. If once he could put it there, without any one
seeing him, and replace the old duster, it might lie for months before
it was discovered; and even if it were discovered no one could trace
the theft back to him. He would push it well along inside the hollow
branch, so that even Isobel would not be likely to find it. How stupid
of him not to have thought of it sooner! But there was time to do it
yet, if only Aunt Dora would stay out a little longer. It was getting
dark, and the gardeners would have gone home to tea. It was a splendid
chance, if only he could slip out without being seen.
While these thoughts were passing through his mind he had gone to
his room, and noiselessly locked the door and drawn a chair up to
the wardrobe. He dared not put the chair on the washstand, as he had
done in the morning, in case of another accident, but he dragged his
father’s portmanteau forward and lifted it on to the chair, and when
he was mounted on that he found he could, with an effort, just touch
the parcel with the tips of his fingers. He looked round for something
which would raise him a little higher. The travelling-rug—but that
had been left downstairs; a pillow—that would do. Quick as thought he
jumped to the floor, and pulled one of the pillows from under the
coverlet. Taking off his slippers in case he soiled it, he mounted the
unsteady pile. How soft and uneven the pillow was. His feet slipped and
sank in it. And there were footsteps on the staircase. Was it Anne, or
was it Aunt Dora come back? With a desperate effort he raised himself
on tiptoe, and seized the parcel; and then, overbalancing himself, he
fell with a crash, carrying both the pillow and the portmanteau with
him.
At that moment a knock came to the door.
‘What in all the living world are you doing, Master Vivian?’
It was only Anne after all, and Vivian breathed freely again.
‘One moment, Anne,’ he cried; and, quick as lightning, he pushed the
pillow under the coverlet again and returned the portmanteau to its
place. Then he hid the little packet containing the pistol and caps
under his jacket, and unlocked the door.
Anne, tired of waiting, had gone on to Ralph’s bedroom, and when she
came back Vivian was gone and the room was empty.
‘Whatever has he been up to now?’ she said to herself, as she noted
the tumbled bed-clothes and the overturned chair, which Vivian in his
haste had forgotten to pick up. ‘That boy is up to mischief, or my name
is not Anne Martin. This is the second time that he has fallen in this
room to-day, and it’s clear that it was that chair he fell from.’
So saying, she picked up the chair, and, getting on to it, she
proceeded to take a survey of the top of the wardrobe and the
bed-hangings, but she found no trace of anything to arouse her
suspicions; and with a shake of her head at the sight of the dust which
had accumulated since she looked up there last, she got down again,
muttering to herself as she did so, ‘If that young gentleman lived in
this house I would see that the mistress put an end to the overturning
of ewers and crumpling of pillows, especially when he was sleeping in
the very best bedroom.’