CHAPTER XIII
A Reconciliation
Mr. Leighton was very sympathetic over the burglar. He heard of theoccurrence in two ways, first in the fiery excited recital of Jean, andthen in confidence from Elma. Mrs. Leighton was there also.
"Well, I never!" she said. "That poor little lonely soul stealing aboutat night! it's dreadful." She never thought for a moment of how foolishit made the rest of them seem.
"She isn't at all afraid of the dark, or the woods, or storms, oranything of that kind," said Elma. "She loves being out with her blackcat when it's pitch dark. But she's terrified now of policemen, and Idon't think she will ever call properly on us all her life. She'sperfectly savage with us."
Mr. Leighton stroked his hair in a preoccupied manner.
"One has to beware of what I should call professional goodness," he saidmildly. "It's pleasant, of course, to feel that one does a nice actionin being kind to the like of that stormy little person. But when shedetects the effort at kindliness! Well, one ought sometimes to thinkthat it must be humiliating to the needy to be palpably helped by theprosperous. There are various kinds of wealth, not all of them meaningmoney. This child has had no affection. Naturally she scorns acharitable gift of it. It's almost a slight on her own parents, youknow."
"There," said Mrs. Leighton in a dismal way, "I told Dr. Merryweather Idisliked intruding. It was an intrusion."
"Oh, it will be all right," replied Mr. Leighton. "Don't plague thechild over this romp of being a burglar, that's all. And don'tpatronize her," he said to Elma. "Give her a chance of conferringsomething herself. It's sometimes a more dignified way of finding afriend."
Elma felt some of her high ideas of reclaiming the serpent topple. MissGrace had advised differently. "Be kind and helpful," she had declared.Now her father seemed to think that it was the serpent's task to be thegenerous supporting figure. It made Elma just a little wild with thatblazing little serpent Elsie.
For a year and a half their friendship with the serpent existed overcrossed swords. She recovered in health, but the routine of her lifenever wavered. The force of habit in connection with her mother, thatthe Professor's tempestuous irritable habits should rule the house andthat she should be kept quaking in a silence which must not be broken,could not be dispelled even by the diligent visits of Miss Meredith.Adelaide Maud drew off after the first encounter with the Professor."I'm afraid that there will just have to be a tragic outburst every timeMrs. Clutterbuck says 'a new pair of shoes' instead of 'a pair of newshoes,'" said she, "nothing can save her now."
Soon the efforts of Dr. Merryweather were forgotten in the impenetrableattitude of the whole family.
At the end of eighteen months, most of Ridgetown was collected one dayfor a river regatta at a reach a few miles up from the town. Every oneof any consequence except Lance, as Betty put it, was present. Theyrowed in boats and watched the races, picnicked and walked on the banks.One wonderful occurrence was the presence of Mrs. Clutterbuck and theSerpent. Mr. Symington had appeared once more and done something thistime to penetrate the aloofness of their existence. He had come once ortwice to the Leightons' with the Professor.
The girls put this friend of their father's on a new plane.
He could be engrossed in talk with their father and the Professor, andyet not gaze past the rest of the family as though they were "guineapigs."
They now knew Mr. Sturgis well enough to tell him that he thoughtnothing more of them than that they were a land of decorative guineapig. Mr. Symington, however, who had not seen them grow out of thechildish stage, but had come on them one memorable evening when thepicture of them, for a new person, was really something ratherdelightful to remember--Mr. Symington was immediately put on a pedestalof a new order. The difference was explained to Robin, who growleddarkly. "It's perfectly charming to be received with deference by theman who is splendid enough to be received with deference by our ownfather," explained Jean. "Don't you see?"
Robin saw in a savage manner. He had never been on this particularpedestal. With all his sister's enthusiasm for Mr. Symington, he couldsee little to like in that person.
Mr. Symington studied in lonely parts of the world the wild life anordinary sportsman would bring down with his gun. He was manly, yetlearned. Delightfully young, yet stamped with the dignity ofexperience. Robin in his presence felt a middle-aged oppression inhimself, which could not be explained by years.
He was particularly galled by his sister's persistence in keeping nearthe Clutterbuck party on the Saturday of the river regatta.
There were exciting moments of boat races, duck races, swimmingcompetitions, and so forth. Then came the afternoon when everybodypicnicked.
The Leightons had a crowd of friends with them, and took tea near thepool by the weir.
May undertook to teach Betty how to scull in an outrigger, which one ofthe racers had left in their care for the moment. Betty was daring andrather skilful to begin with. It seemed lamentable that with so manylooking on, she should suddenly catch a real crab. May, standing on thebank, screamed to her, as Betty's frail little boat went swinging ratherwildly under the trees of an island.
"Look here," cried Jean to May sharply. "What made you two beginplaying in such a dangerous part? Sit still," she shouted wildly toBetty.
It seemed as if no one had understood that there was any danger in theselittle pranks of Betty's, till her boat was swept into mid-stream, andran hard into certain collision on the island. Jean called for some oneto take a boat out to Betty. Then the full danger of the situationflashed on them. Just a few minutes before, a detachment had gone up tothe starting point, and no boat was left in which one might reach Betty.
"Sit still," shouted Jean again, "hold on to the trees or something."
It had occurred in a flash. Betty in the quiet water was all very well,but Betty, the timid, out alone on a swirling river with a weir in thevery near distance, this Betty lost her head.
Jean's scream, "Sit still," had the effect of frightening her more thananything. "It was what one was advised to do when horses were runningoff, or something particularly dreadful was about to happen," thoughtBetty.
She first lost an oar, then splashed herself wildly in the attempt torecover it. The sudden rocking of her "shining little cockle shell," asshe had called it only a minute before, alarmed her more than anything.She was being swept on the island, deep water everywhere around it.With a gasp of fear she rose to catch the tree branches, missed, upsetthe cockle shell at last, and fell into the river.
Those on the bank, for a swift moment, "or was it for centuries," stoodparalysed.
"Oh!" cried Jean, "oh!"
There was a swift sudden rush behind them, "like a swallow divingthrough a cornfield," said May later. A tense, victorious little figure,flinging off hat and a garment of sorts; a splash; a dark head drivingin an incredibly swift way through water impatiently almost trodden uponby two little wildly skimming hands, then a voice when Betty rose: "Lieon your back, I'll be with you in a minute," and the valiant littleSerpent was off to the saving of Betty. It was sufficiently terrifyingon account of the weir. If Elsie reached Betty, would she have thestrength to bring her back. If Elsie did not reach Betty, Betty couldnot swim. It was dreadful. Jean, second-rate swimmer as she was, wouldhave been in herself by this time, but that Elma held her.
"She's got her," she whispered with a grey face. They shouted when theSerpent turned slightly with Betty. She was like a fierce littleschoolmistress. "Don't interfere with me, he on your back. Keep lyingon your back," and Betty obeyed. At the supreme moment the Serpent hadcome into her own, and displayed at last the talent which till then hadonly been expended on her cats and dogs. "Lie still," she growled, andobediently, almost trustingly, Betty lay like a little white-faceddrowned Ophelia. Then "Come along with that boat," sang out the Serpentcheerily.
Round the bend of the river above, at so
und of their cries had come"Hereward the Wake, oh how magnificent," sobbed Jean. It was Mr.Symington.
The Serpent, with hard serviceable little strokes, piloted Betty lightlyout of the strength of the current. Mr. Symington was past and gentlyback to them before a minute had elapsed.
"Grip the gunwale," he said cheerily to Elsie. It was the tone of a manaddressing his compatriot.
(Oh! how magnificent of the Serpent.)
"Now," he said. "Keep a tight hold on her still. I must get you intoquiet water." He pulled hard. Immediately he had them into thebackwater. It was rather splendid to see him get hold of a tree, tiethe boat, and be at the side of the Serpent before one could breathe.He had rowed in with the full strength of a strong man, and in a minutehe was as tenderly raising Betty. He had never properly removed hiseyes from her face. "She was just faulting. You held on well," he saidapprovingly. "Don't let her sisters see her at present." He liftedBetty to the bank.
"Quick, open your eyes," he said commandingly.
"Look here," called the Serpent. She had scrambled neatly out byherself, "Betty, Betty Leighton, oh! Betty, open your eyes." There wasan answering quiver. "Quick, Betty, before your sisters come. Don'tfrighten them. Open your eyes, Betty."
Mr. Symington rubbed Betty's hands smoothly in a quick experiencedmanner.
Betty opened her eyes and looked at the Serpent.
"Oh, Elsie," she said, "Elsie, you sweet little Serpent!" It was an endto the crossed swords feud. Elsie took her in her arms and cried.
When the girls arrived panic-stricken they found Mr. Symington trying toget a coherent answer to his orders from two bedraggled girls, who coulddo nothing but weep over each other. The brave little Serpent had losther nerve once more.
"Oh!" she said, "it's very wicked to be a girl. Boys wouldn't give waylike this."
Jean looked at her narrowly, "Do you always go about in gymnasium dress,ready to save people?" she asked, with the remains of fear in her voice.
The brave little Serpent looked down on her costume, and the red whichglowed in her cheeks only from mortification ran slowly up and dyed herpale face crimson. "Oh!" she said, "oh!" and sat speechless.
Betty sat up shivering. "I do call that presence of mind, don't you?She flung off her skirt, didn't you, dear?"
The Serpent would have answered except that the "dear" unnerved her.She faded to tears once more.
"Come, come," said Mr. Symington.
And at that, as they afterwards remembered, Mabel "came."
She came through the trees in a white dress, and the sunshine threwpatches of beautiful colour on her hair.
"Oh, little Betty!" she cried.
Then she saw the Serpent.
She took Elsie right up against the beautiful white dress and kissedher. Mabel could not speak at all. But her eyes glowed. She turnedthem full on Mr. Symington. "We must take these children home at once,"she said.
Mr. Symington looked as though he had been rescuing an army. "Yes,"said he gravely.
Robin had trailed in looking somewhat dissatisfied.
"Jean would go, wouldn't she?" he asked.
"Oh no, I don't want mummy to know," said Mabel. "She is up there withMrs. Clutterbuck. These two must go home, and get hot baths, and be putto bed and sat upon, or they won't stay there. Where can we get a cab,I wonder?"
"Here," said a voice.
Adelaide Maud now came through that beautiful pathway of sun-patchedtrees with Elma. "I've heard all about it," said she, "and we have thecarriage. Borrow wraps from every one and tuck them in. We shall keepMrs. Clutterbuck employed till Mr. Symington comes back."
It seemed that they all took it for granted that Mr. Symington would go.
Robin showed signs of losing his temper. Mabel as a rule, when theseimperious fits descended on him began to investigate her conduct andwonder where she might alter it in order that he might be appeased. Thistime, however, she was too anxious and concerned over Betty, and whileJean might be quite whole-hearted in her manner of looking after people,one could not depend on her for knowing the best ways in which to setabout it. In any case, the two could not be kept there shivering.
Adelaide Maud was a trifle indignant at the interruption. "Quick," shesaid to Mr. Symington, "get them in and off."
"Oh you are the fairy princess, always, somehow, aren't you," sighedBetty, happily, as on their being tucked in rugs and waterproofs,Adelaide Maud gave quick decided orders to the coachman.
"Isn't she just like a story book," she sighed rapturously. They droveswirling homewards, in a damp quick exciting way until they pulled up atthe door of the White House.
"Oh, mine was nearer," said the Serpent nervously. She had never enteredthe portals of the White House in this intimate manner, and suddenlylonged for loneliness once more.
"Well," said Mabel sweetly and nicely, "you will just have to imaginethat this is as near for to-day at least. Because I am going to put youto bed."
They laughed very happily because they were being put to bed likebabies.
"If only Cuthbert were here," said Mabel anxiously and in a motherlylittle way to Mr. Symington, afterwards, "he would tell me whether theyoughtn't to have a hot drink, and a number of other things they say theywon't have."
"I should give them a hot drink," said Mr. Symington with his grave eyesdancing a trifle. "And keep them in blankets for an hour or two."
It was he who found Mr. Leighton and told him a little of what hadhappened. ("Oh the conspiracies which shield a parent!") For days Mr.and Mrs. Leighton, the Professor and Mrs. Clutterbuck, had an idea thatthe two girls had merely fallen in and got very wet. In any case, Elsieoften came home in considerable disrepair. When one found, however,that neither was the worse for the fright, Elsie was made a realheroine. It changed her attitude completely. The Leightons liked hernow whether they felt charitable or not. It was a great relief. Andone day her own father focussed his far-away gaze on her, as though hehad only then considered that there was anything on which to look at herparticular place at table.
"They tell me--ahem--that you can swim," he exclaimed. "Very excellentexercise, very."
To an outsider it did not sound like praise, but his sentence setElsie's heart jumping in a joyous manner.
"Oh, papa," she said. "I was very frightened afterwards."
"Hem," said he, "an excellent time in which to be frightened."
Mrs. Clutterbuck congratulated herself on his having said it (she wouldhave made it "time to be frightened in," and the Professor in such goodhumour, too!)
Happier days had really dawned in that grim household however.
The growing up of the courage of Elsie became a wonderful thing.
Meanwhile other events had occurred than the saving of Betty. Robin hadhad to go home alone, and Lance had the benefit of some of hisill-humour on meeting him on the way.
"Who shot cock Robin to-day?" reflected Lance with speculative eyes onthat retreating person. He nearly ran into a very athletic figurecoming swinging round on him from the Leightons'.
Hereward the Wake was in his most magnificent mood and his eyes shonewith the light of achievement. He was speaking when he turned, and thewords dropped automatically even before the impish gaze of Lance.
"Knew you and named a star," quoted Mr. Symington.
"Now what on earth has that to do with the boat race?" asked Lance.
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