Linnets and Valerians Page 9

  “Of course she isn’t here,” said Timothy. “She’s upstairs with Lady Alicia. I climbed up into the wisteria and heard them talking.”

  “With milady?” ejaculated Moses. “But milady does not see visitors.”

  “If Betsy just walked in how could she help seeing her?” said Robert. “What do we do now? Wait till Betsy comes out?”

  “No,” said Timothy. “We must go and fetch her because the cat is in the house. I saw him through that little window by the porch and if Betsy runs through the house by herself he might catch her.”

  Moses growled and he suddenly looked so alarming that Robert and Timothy gazed at him in astonishment. “That cat!” he muttered. “Let Moses leave one door open and that cat creeps in. That cat’s a bad cat. What he come here for? Let Moses get his hands on that cat and he’ll strangle him!” This was a new Moses,

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  big and angry, with his sad eyes burning in his face, his teeth showing and his hands clasping and unclasping themselves against his sides as though they itched for the feel of Frederick’s throat between them.

  "Please, Moses, take us upstairs to fetch Betsy,” said Robert.

  Moses changed back to his usual self. “What will milady say?” he asked anxiously.

  “It doesn’t matter what she says,” retorted Robert. “Whatever she says we storm the citadel for Betsy. Which way in?”

  He flung the toga of a Roman emperor about his splendid torso and flourished a short but deadly sword. He could change from one person to another as rapidly as Moses but whereas Moses was only one man or another man, and both of them Moses, Robert could be any number of men, all of them quite unconnected with him until he had buckled them on. Whether they were still unconnected with him when he had taken them off, who can say? “Lead on,” he said to his trusted Nubian standard bearer.

  Moses smiled amiably and led the way toward the house. Hurt feelings were no part of the two men Moses was. One was gentle and humble and the other could be wild as a thunderstorm but neither was resentful.

  A small door led from the house to the garden of the fountain and Moses took a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked it. “Milady uses this door when

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  she walks in the garden in the moonlight,” he said. They went in and Moses closed the door carefully behind them.

  He led them down a long dark passage and then up a staircase. The stairs were not the stately ones that Betsy had climbed but narrow stone steps that went round and round. Then they went down more dark passages until they reached a door where a sunbeam was climbing through a keyhole and here Moses stopped and tapped.

  “Come in,” said the voice of an imperious old lady.

  Moses, Lady Alicia’s butler, threw open the door and announced, “Master Robert Linnet and Master Timothy Linnet.” They went in, and he shut the door behind them and withdrew.

  Lady Alicia, Betsy and Abednego were playing jackstraws. Each had a pile of delicate little ivory sticks and Abednego was winning. The entry of the boys caused him to drop the jackstraws and he chattered with annoyance.

  “Where are your manners, Abednego?” asked Lady Alicia. “Remember it is now your duty to set a good example to the doll Gertrude.” Then she turned to Robert and Timothy. “And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she asked. Her voice was very icy and her beautiful penciled eyebrows lifted themselves quite a long way up her forehead. It was obvious that she did not like being visited and Robert bowed very humbly indeed, sweeping his feathered hat from his head. Sir Walter Raleigh could not lay his cloak at the feet of

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  Gloriana, since she showed no signs of wishing to leave her chair, but his burning glance told her of his deep devotion.

  “Is this histrionic gentleman your elder brother?” she asked Betsy.

  “That’s Robert,” said Betsy. “And that’s Timothy.”

  Lady Alicia lifted her right hand and held it out to the boys. “Since you are here, boys, we had better become acquainted,” she said.

  They advanced and Robert, since he was Raleigh until circumstances required of him that he should be somebody else, kissed her hand. Timothy, who was not anyone except a fair-haired small boy, merely looked up at Lady Alicia out of his intensely blue eyes and smiled. He did not know it yet but he had a devastating smile. Lady Alicia stared at him and suddenly appeared ten years older, and as she looked old already that was very old indeed. It would not have surprised Robert if she had suddenly fallen to dust before his eyes. Her voice, when she spoke to Timothy, was hoarse. “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Eight,” said Timothy.

  “I told you he was eight,” Betsy said. “Don’t you remember? The same age as your little boy when—”

  Lady Alicia silenced her with a gesture. “Children,” she said sharply, “should not speak until they are spoken to. Abednego, stop chattering and serve these gentlemen the cupcakes.”

  On entering the room, Robert had seen out of the

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  corner of his eye the silver tray on a side table with its delicate cups and saucers of flowered china and a plate of little cakes. The jackstraw players had evidently finished their tea some while ago but there were a few cakes left, iced in pink, white and green with half a cherry on top of each. Robert and Timothy sat on the two footstools indicated by Lady Alicia, and Abednego handed the cakes to them. They ate in silent appreciation of Moses’ skill as a chef and Lady Alicia turned to Betsy.

  “Is there not another child?” she asked.

  “Nan,” said Betsy. “Robert, where’s Nan?”

  “She and Ezra and Absolom are looking for you in the wood,” said Robert. “We’ve all been looking for you everywhere.”

  Lady Alicia now made the most surprising remark. “I should like to meet Nan,” she said. “You must bring her to see me another day.” Then seeing the children’s astonishment she went on, “You have doubtless been told that I am an eccentric recluse. It’s true that I don’t like being visited but I believe in bowing to the inevitable and the Linnet family is, I think, inevitable as the sun and the rain. You have risen upon my darkness, fallen upon my drought, and it is just possible that you may do me good.”

  Quietness fell upon the room when she stopped speaking and for a minute or two the children did not like to break it. Then, just as Robert opened his mouth to make a chivalrous reply, a most appalling noise broke

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  out somewhere below them in the house, yowling and caterwauling, shouts and bangs and bumps. Abednego, casting Gertrude to a place of safety on top of the bookcase, shot from the room, Robert and Timothy hard at his heels, and presently loud monkey screams and small-boy Red Indian yells were added to the din. Betsy would have gone too but for Lady Alicia’s hand grasping the gathers of her frock at the back. It was a strange thing, Lady Alicia looked like such a very frail old lady but pull as she might Betsy could not free herself.

  “Bow to the inevitable, Betsy,” said Lady Alicia. “You do not leave this room except in my company. Find me my stick.”

  Betsy found it and they left the room together, Lady Alicia holding Betsy’s hand extremely firmly. She was a little lame but with swishing silken skirts and tapping high heels she walked quite quickly along the passage. They were just turning to go down a short flight of steps toward the hubbub when suddenly they had to flatten themselves against the wall because a black shape leapt up at them from the passage below. They saw his blazing eyes as large as saucers as he sped by them, yet when they looked after him all they could see was a little black cat running away for dear life down the passage.

  The pursuit was hard on the poor little creature’s heels—Moses, Robert, Timothy and Abednego. “Come back!” Lady Alicia called after them. “You’ll only make fools of yourselves. No one ever
catches a cat.” She

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  might not have spoken for all the notice they took and the noise of the pursuit died away in the distance. She and Betsy went sedately back to the boudoir and ate the last two cupcakes to steady their nerves.

  And presently the four males came back and they did look rather foolish. “Explain yourself, Moses,” said Lady Alicia.

  “That’s a bad cat, milady,” said Moses. “Comes into the house but don’t catch the mice. What he come for? Timothy, he thinks he sees him in the little empty room halfway up the stairs. Moses goes to look. Cat there. Moses goes to make an end of that cat. Moses gets his hand on the cat’s throat, milady, but the cat swells and Moses’ fingers go down and down through fur like deep moss, and no throat. But the cat yowled and caterwauled, and then he grow small as a mouse and run away through Moses’ legs. But the smaller that cat got, milady, the louder he yowled.”

  “What ridiculous nonsense, Moses,” said Lady Alicia. “And how very wrong of you to try and kill a cat. Poor little creature. I’m glad he got away.”

  Abednego began to chatter in a manner which though incomprehensible was obviously in support of Moses’ ideas, and Robert said, “Please, it is true. We saw what Moses saw.” And Timothy said, “It happened like that before in the shop.”

  “Lack of balance in the male mind,” said Lady Alicia. Betsy opened her mouth to remind Lady Alicia of how she herself had leaned back against the wall as

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  Frederick went by. Then she shut her mouth again for she had become very fond of Lady Alicia and women must hold together.

  The little clock on the mantelpiece suddenly chimed six and Robert looked at it in dismay. “I think we ought to go,” he said. “Nan and I have to do lessons with Uncle Ambrose from six to seven and if we don’t turn up we get no supper.”

  Lady Alicia thoroughly understood the seriousness of the situation. “Go at once,” she said. “Present my compliments to your uncle and tell him from me that you were unavoidably delayed.”

  “Could you put that in writing?” asked Robert. His own diplomacy delighted him. What were diplomats worth a year?

  “A very good idea,” said Lady Alicia. “Abednego, my inkpot, pen and paper.” He brought them to her from her writing table and she wrote the note and folded it into an elegant cocked hat. “Here you are,” she said. “Come again and bring Nan. Abednego, show them the quickest way out. Moses, clear away the tea things. Good-bye, my dears.”

  She held out her hand and Robert and Timothy kissed it and Betsy kissed her cheek, and then they followed Abednego. He ran at tremendous speed and they tore at his heels down several passages, flew down the great carved staircase, across the hall, through an archway and down a long echoing passage. They came to the kitchen and through it to the yard where Ezra, Nan and

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  Absolom were putting Rob-Roy back into the cart and fastening the straps.

  “Betsy!” cried Nan, opening her arms wide, and instantly there was such a touching scene of family reunion that if Abednego had not had Gertrude waiting for him upstairs he would have been affected to the point of tears. As it was, jumping onto the parapet of the well, he did sniff a bit, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. Moses, arriving in the kitchen with the tea things at this point, came out to the back doorstep, beamed at them and most surprisingly began to sing. He had a wonderful voice, deep and strong like thunder rolling in the hills. The rollicking tune was the same to which Ezra had sung in the middle of the night, but the words were different.

  "Glory, children, glory alleluja,

  Praise to the Lord.

  Great glory for sun and moon and starshine,

  And for his Word.

  “Glory that wells, streams and flowing fountains Sing to his praise,

  That the snows laud him, frost, fire and rainbows,

  The nights and days.

  “Glory, children, glory alleluja For birds and bees,

  For shepherd and sheep upon the mountains,

  Valleys and trees.”

  To the sound of his singing they piled themselves up on top of the beds and things in the cart and drove

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  away. As the distance grew between them they could no longer hear the words of his song, but Ezra lifted up his voice and caroled forth a last verse.

  “Is it glory for the gift 0’ children To guard an’ keep?

  Varmints an’ scoundrels, I love ’em only When they’re asleep.”

  Driving home, Betsy and the boys chattered to Nan and Ezra of their adventures, but Nan said nothing about Daft Davie. In a very short time she had become very attached to him and she did not want to talk about him to hilarious children in a bumping cart. Later, perhaps, when they had quieted down. Going through the shrubbery did not seem to take so long as it had before and it did not seem quite so dark. All the same they were glad to get out of it and be back again on the green, though a little alarmed to see a huge ugly bulldog, like the one on the sign, sitting in the inn doorway, and Frederick sitting outside the shop washing behind his ears. Frederick, looking small and innocent, did not even look up when they drove past him but the bulldog growled.

  “That’s the second time today we’ve seen Frederick washing behind his ears,” said Robert.

  “Andromache was washing behind her ears this morning,” said Timothy.

  “It’s going to rain,” said Ezra.

  It was half-past six when they reached home and in

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  spite of Lady Alicia’s note they felt apprehensive. They washed their hands and faces in the kitchen and presented themselves before Uncle Ambrose in the library. Timothy and Betsy came too, for though they were not involved in this the Linnets always presented a solid front in time of trouble. Trouble was certainly present in the person of Uncle Ambrose sitting at the table with a back like a ramrod and a face like a stone gargoyle on a cathedral, Hector on his shoulder growing taller and taller as the children crossed the miles of carpet which separated them from the door and Uncle Ambrose. Just as Hector’s head appeared to touch the ceiling the journey ended at last and they stood before their uncle.

  “Half an hour late,” he said in a voice of thunder. “Explain yourselves.”

  Without going into the rather peculiar details Nan explained that Betsy had got lost and they had spent a long time looking for her in the wood and in the garden before they finally found her with Lady Alicia. Then Robert presented Lady Alicia’s note and Uncle Ambrose put on his spectacles, read it, said “Umph” and put it in his waistcoat pocket. Hector said “Hick” and a pellet flew out of his beak and landed on top of the dictionary in the center of the table. It flew open, disclosing beaks and claws and a boot button. Uncle Ambrose tipped them into the wastepaper basket.

  “Hector, having expressed your displeasure, you may now return to the Parthenon,” he said, and Hector flew

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  to the top of the picture of ruins and a thunderstorm. “Timothy and Betsy, go to Ezra, get your supper and go to bed. Nan and Robert, sit down. I am tonight instructing you in the rudiments of English grammar in preparation for tomorrow.”

  Everyone did as they were told but it was difficult for Nan and Robert to concentrate upon grammar with the delicious smell of Timothy’s and Betsy’s cocoa and baked apples creeping under the study door. Robert scarcely tried. His eyes kept slipping around to the clock. Six-forty now. In another twenty minutes it would be his and Nan’s turn for supper.

  “Attention, Robert!” thundered Uncle Ambrose.

  The grammar lesson was difficult and dry as dust. When the library clock struck seven, Robert sighed with relief but Uncle Ambrose went on talking. The church clock struck seven but still Uncle Ambrose went on talking. Robert and Nan exchanged anxious glances bu
t still Uncle Ambrose went on talking and Robert was so dreadfully hungry that he was obliged to interrupt.

  “Uncle Ambrose!” His relative paused and glanced at him over the top of his spectacles. “Nan had no tea. The rest of us had tea with Lady Alicia, though there wasn’t much of it, just some tiny cupcakes, but Nan was looking for Betsy in the wood and she didn’t have anything.”

  “Robert,” said Uncle Ambrose in a terrible voice, “do you remember what I said would happen to you if you interrupted the process of education with conversa

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  tion upon irrelevant matters?” Robert remembered the little switch and he blinked. “Ah! I see that you do. This time, since your concern is for your sister, I will pass it over but next time I shall not do so. You thought, I fancy, that this lesson would cease at seven o’clock. You must remember that the time of preparation each evening was agreed upon as one hour. This hour commenced at half-past six.” He glanced at the clock. “Resign yourself, Robert, to a further twenty-five minutes of education.”

  Robert resigned himself. There was nothing else to do. Seven-thirty came at last and he closed his exercise book with a sigh of relief.

  “Nine o’clock tomorrow,” said Uncle Ambrose. “Sharp. Collected any snails today, Robert? No time? I humbly suggest early rising as the perennial answer to that perennial difficulty. Well, get to bed both of you. No supper of course.” Robert choked but said nothing, for fury choked him. A slight twinkle appeared in Uncle Ambrose’s eyes. “The agreement between us, by which if you remember you were to go supperless to bed if not home by six o’clock, is in no way affected by Lady Alicia’s note. An agreement is an agreement. Good night.”

  “Good night, Uncle Ambrose,” said Nan gently. Even she thought he was being a bit hard but she trusted him. Robert bowed with great irony, turned on his heel and followed her from the room with measured tread. Falsely

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  condemned to death he would not falter on the scaffold.

  When the door had closed behind them Uncle Ambrose’s eyes continued to twinkle and a smile softened his grim face to tenderness. The children would have been astonished if they could have seen him at this moment. He said to himself that they must be home by six. He did not consider it safe for them to be out later.