by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER VII
"CAN you recommend me to a good hotel?" The speaker had no inside to hishead. Gerald had the best of reasons for knowing it. The speaker's coathad no shoulders inside it--only the cross-bar that a jacket is slung onby careful ladies. The hand raised in interrogation was not a hand atall; it was a glove lumpily stuffed with pocket-handkerchiefs; and thearm attached to it was only Kathleen's school umbrella. Yet the wholething was alive, and was asking a definite, and for anybody else,anybody who really _was_ a body, a reasonable question.
With a sensation of inward sinking, Gerald realised that now or neverwas the time for him to rise to the occasion. And at the thought heinwardly sank more deeply than before. It seemed impossible to rise inthe very smallest degree.
"I beg your pardon" was absolutely the best he could do; and thepainted, pointed paper face turned to him once more, and once moresaid:--
"Aa oo re o me me oo a oo ho el?"
"You want a hotel?" Gerald repeated stupidly, "a _good_ hotel?"
"A oo ho el," reiterated the painted lips.
"I'm awfully sorry," Gerald went on--one can always be polite, ofcourse, whatever happens, and politeness came natural to him--"but allour hotels shut so early--about eight, I think."
"Och em er," said the Ugly-Wugly. Gerald even now does not understandhow that practical joke--hastily wrought of hat, overcoat, paper faceand limp hands--could have managed, by just being alive, to becomeperfectly respectable, apparently about fifty years old, and obviouslywell off, known and respected in his own suburb--the kind of man whotravels first class and smokes expensive cigars. Gerald knew this time,without need of repetition, that the Ugly-Wugly had said:--
"Knock 'em up."
"You can't," Gerald explained; "they're all stone deaf--every singleperson who keeps a hotel in this town. It's--" he wildly plunged--"it'sa County Council law. Only deaf people allowed to keep hotels. It'sbecause of the hops in the beer," he found himself adding; "you know,hops are so good for earache."
"I o wy ollo oo," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly; and Gerald was notsurprised to find that the thing did "not quite follow him."
"It _is_ a little difficult at first," he said. The other Ugly-Wuglieswere crowding round. The lady in the poke bonnet said--Gerald found hewas getting quite clever at understanding the conversation of those whohad no roofs to their mouths:--
"If not a hotel, a lodging."
"My lodging is on the cold ground," sang itself unhidden and unavailingin Gerald's ear. Yet stay--was it unavailing?
"I do know a lodging," he said slowly, "but----" The tallest of theUgly-Wuglies pushed forward. He was dressed in the old brown overcoatand top-hat which always hung on the school hat-stand to discouragepossible burglars by deluding them into the idea that there was agentleman-of-the-house, and that he was at home. He had an air at oncemore sporting and less reserved than that of the first speaker, and anyone could see that he was not quite a gentleman.
"Wa I wo oo oh," he began, but the lady Ugly-Wugly in theflower-wreathed hat interrupted him. She spoke more distinctly than theothers, owing, as Gerald found afterwards, to the fact that her mouthhad been drawn _open_, and the flap cut from the aperture had beenfolded back--so that she really had something like a roof to her mouth,though it was only a paper one.
"What _I_ want to know," Gerald understood her to say, "is where are thecarriages we ordered?"
"I don't know," said Gerald, "but I'll find out. But we ought to bemoving," he added; "you see, the performance is over, and they want toshut up the house and put the lights out. Let's be moving."
"Eh--ech e oo-ig," repeated the respectable Ugly-Wugly, and steppedtowards the front door.
"Oo um oo," said the flower-wreathed one; and Gerald assures me that hervermilion lips stretched in a smile.
"I shall be delighted," said Gerald with earnest courtesy, "to doanything, of course. Things do happen so awkwardly when you least expectit. I could go with you, and get you a lodging, if you'd only wait a fewmoments in the--in the yard. It's quite a superior sort of yard," hewent on, as a wave of surprised disdain passed over their white paperfaces--"not a common yard, you know; the pump," he added madly, "hasjust been painted green all over, and the dustbin is enamelled iron."
The Ugly-Wuglies turned to each other in consultation, and Geraldgathered that the greenness of the pump and the enamelled character ofthe dust-bin made, in their opinion, all the difference.
"I'm awfully sorry," he urged eagerly, "to have to ask you to wait, butyou see I've got an uncle who's quite mad, and I have to give him hisgruel at half-past nine. He won't feed out of any hand but mine." Geralddid not mind what he said. The only people one is allowed to tell liesto are the Ugly-Wuglies; they are all clothes and have no insides,because they are not human beings, but only a sort of very realvisions, and therefore cannot be really deceived, though they may seemto be.
Through the back door that has the blue, yellow, red and green glass init, down the iron steps into the yard, Gerald led the way, and theUgly-Wuglies trooped after him. Some of them had boots, but the oneswhose feet were only broomsticks or umbrellas found the open-work ironstairs very awkward.
"If you wouldn't _mind_," said Gerald, "just waiting _under_ thebalcony? My uncle is so _very_ mad. If he were to see--see anystrangers--I mean, even aristocratic ones--I couldn't answer for theconsequences."
"Perhaps," said the flower-hatted lady nervously, "it would be betterfor us to try and find a lodging ourselves?"
"I wouldn't advise you to," said Gerald as grimly as he knew how; "thepolice here arrest _all_ strangers. It's the new law the Liberals havejust made," he added convincingly, "and you'd get the sort of lodgingyou wouldn't care for--I couldn't bear to think of you in a prisondungeon," he added tenderly.
"I ah wi oo er papers," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly, and addedsomething that sounded like "disgraceful state of things."
However, they ranged themselves under the iron balcony. Gerald gave onelast look at them and wondered, in his secret heart, why he was notfrightened, though in his outside mind he was congratulating himself onhis bravery. For the things did look rather horrid. In that light itwas hard to believe that they were really only clothes and pillows andsticks--with no insides. As he went up the steps he heard them talkingamong themselves--in that strange language of theirs, all oo's and ah's;and he thought he distinguished the voice of the respectable Ugly-Wuglysaying, "Most gentlemanly lad," and the wreathed-hatted lady answeringwarmly: "Yes, indeed."
The coloured-glass door closed behind him. Behind him was the yard,peopled by seven impossible creatures. Before him lay the silent house,peopled, as he knew very well, by five human beings as frightened ashuman beings could be. You think, perhaps, that Ugly-Wuglies are nothingto be frightened of. That's only because you have never seen one comealive. You just make one--any old suit of your father's, and a hat thathe isn't wearing, a bolster or two, a painted paper face, a few sticksand a pair of boots will do the trick; get your father to lend you awishing ring, give it back to him when it has done its work, and see howyou feel then.
Of course the reason why Gerald was not afraid was that he had the ring;and, as you have seen, the wearer of that is not frightened by_anything_ unless he touches that thing. But Gerald knew well enough howthe others must be feeling. That was why he stopped for a moment in thehall to try and imagine what would have been most soothing to him if hehad been as terrified as he knew they were.
"Cathy! I say! What ho, Jimmy! Mabel ahoy!" he cried in a loud, cheerfulvoice that sounded very unreal to himself.
The dining-room door opened a cautious inch.
"I say--such larks!" Gerald went on, shoving gently at the door with hisshoulder. "Look out! what are you keeping the door shut for?"
"Are you--alone?" asked Kathleen in hushed, breathless tones.
"Yes, of course. Don't be a duffer!"
The door opened, revealing three scared faces and the disarranged chairswhere that odd audience had sat
.
"Where are they? Have you unwished them? We heard them talking.Horrible!"
"They're in the yard," said Gerald with the best imitation of joyousexcitement that he could manage. "It _is_ such fun! They're just likereal people, quite kind and jolly. It's the most ripping lark. Don't leton to Mademoiselle and Eliza. I'll square _them_. Then Kathleen andJimmy must go to bed, and I'll see Mabel home, and as soon as we getoutside I must find some sort of lodging for the Ugly-Wuglies--they_are_ such fun though. I _do_ wish you could all go with me."
"Fun?" echoed Kathleen dismally and doubting.
"Perfectly killing," Gerald asserted resolutely. "Now, you just listento what I say to Mademoiselle and Eliza, and back me up for all you'reworth."
"But," said Mabel, "you can't mean that you're going to leave me alonedirectly we get out, and go off with those horrible creatures. They looklike fiends."
"You wait till you've seen them close," Gerald advised. "Why, they'rejust _ordinary_--the first thing one of them did was to ask me torecommend it to a good hotel! I couldn't understand it at first, becauseit has no roof to its mouth, of course."
It was a mistake to say that, Gerald knew it at once.
Mabel and Kathleen were holding hands in a way that plainly showed how afew moments ago they had been clinging to each other in an agony ofterror. Now they clung again. And Jimmy, who was sitting on the edge ofwhat had been the stage, kicking his boots against the pink counterpane,shuddered visibly.
"It doesn't _matter_," Gerald explained--"about the roofs, I mean; yousoon get to understand. I heard them say I was a gentlemanly lad as Iwas coming away. They wouldn't have cared to notice a little thing likethat if they'd been fiends, you know."
"It doesn't matter how gentlemanly they think you; if you don't see mehome you _aren't_, that's all. Are you going to?" Mabel demanded.
"Of course I am. We shall have no end of a lark. Now for Mademoiselle."
He had put on his coat as he spoke and now ran up the stairs. Theothers, herding in the hall, could hear his light-heartedthere's-nothing-unusual-the-matter-whatever-did-you-bolt-like-that-forknock at Mademoiselle's door, the reassuring "It's only me--Gerald, youknow," the pause, the opening of the door, and the low-voiced parleythat followed; then Mademoiselle and Gerald at Eliza's door, voices ofreassurance; Eliza's terror, bluntly voluble, tactfully soothed.
"Wonder what lies he's telling them," Jimmy grumbled.
"Oh! not _lies_," said Mabel; "he's only telling them as much of thetruth as it's good for them to know."
"If you'd been a man," said Jimmy witheringly, "you'd have been abeastly Jesuit, and hid up chimneys."
"If I were only just a boy," Mabel retorted, "I shouldn't be scared outof my life by a pack of old coats."
"I'm _so_ sorry you were frightened," Gerald's honeyed tones floateddown the staircase; "we didn't think about you being frightened. And it_was_ a good trick, wasn't it?"
"There!" whispered Jimmy, "he's been telling her it was a trick ofours."
"Well, so it was," said Mabel stoutly.
"It was indeed a wonderful trick," said Mademoiselle; "and how did youmove the mannikins?"
"Oh, we've often done it--with strings, you know," Gerald explained.
"That's true, too," Kathleen whispered.
"WONDER WHAT LIES HE'S TELLING THEM," JIMMY GRUMBLED.]
"Let us see you do once again this trick so remarkable," saidMademoiselle, arriving at the bottom-stair mat.
"Oh, I've cleared them all out," said Gerald. ("So he has," fromKathleen aside to Jimmy.) "We were so sorry you were startled; wethought you wouldn't like to see them again."
"Then," said Mademoiselle brightly, as she peeped into the untidydining-room and saw that the figures had indeed vanished, "if we suppedand discoursed of your beautiful piece of theatre?"
Gerald explained fully how much his brother and sister would enjoy this.As for him--Mademoiselle would see that it was his duty to escort Mabelhome, and kind as it was of Mademoiselle to ask her to stay the night,it could not be, on account of the frenzied and anxious affection ofMabel's aunt. And it was useless to suggest that Eliza should see Mabelhome, because Eliza was nervous at night unless accompanied by hergentleman friend.
So Mabel was hatted with her own hat and cloaked with a cloak that wasnot hers; and she and Gerald went out by the front door, amid kind lastwords and appointments for the morrow.
The moment that front door was shut Gerald caught Mabel by the arm andled her briskly to the corner of the side street which led to the yard.Just round the corner he stopped.
"Now," he said, "what I want to know is--are you an idiot or aren'tyou?"
"Idiot yourself!" said Mabel, but mechanically, for she saw that he wasin earnest.
"Because _I'm_ not frightened of the Ugly-Wuglies. They're as harmlessas tame rabbits. But an idiot might be frightened, and give the wholeshow away. If you're an idiot, say so, and I'll go back and tell themyou're afraid to walk home, and that I'll go and let your aunt knowyou're stopping."
"I'm not an idiot," said Mabel; "and," she added, glaring round her withthe wild gaze of the truly terror-stricken, "I'm not afraid of_anything_."
"I'm going to let you share my difficulties and dangers," said Gerald;"at least, I'm inclined to let you. I wouldn't do as much for my ownbrother, I can tell you. And if you queer my pitch I'll never speak toyou again or let the others either."
"You're a beast, that's what you are! I don't need to be threatened tomake me brave. I _am_."
"Mabel," said Gerald, in low, thrilling tones, for he saw that the timehad come to sound another note, "I _know_ you're brave. I _believe_ inyou. That's why I've arranged it like this. I'm certain you've got theheart of a lion under that black-and-white exterior. Can I trust you? Tothe death?"
Mabel felt that to say anything but "Yes" was to throw away a pricelessreputation for courage. So "Yes" was what she said.
"Then wait here. You're close to the lamp. And when you see me comingwith _them_ remember they're as harmless as serpents--I mean doves.Talk to them just like you would to any one else. See?"
He turned to leave her, but stopped at her natural question:
"What hotel did you say you were going to take them to?"
"Oh, Jimminy!" the harassed Gerald caught at his hair with both hands."There! you see, Mabel, you're a help already"; he had, even at thatmoment, some tact left. "I clean forgot! I meant to ask you--isn't thereany lodge or anything in the Castle grounds where I could put them forthe night? The charm will break, you know, some time, like beinginvisible did, and they'll just be a pack of coats and things that wecan easily carry home any day. Is there a lodge or anything?"
"There's a secret passage," Mabel began--but at that moment theyard-door opened and an Ugly-Wugly put out its head and looked anxiouslydown the street.
"Righto!"--Gerald ran to meet it. It was all Mabel could do not to runin an opposite direction with an opposite motive. It was all she coulddo, but she did it, and was proud of herself as long as ever sheremembered that night.
And now, with all the silent precaution necessitated by the nearpresence of an extremely insane uncle, the Ugly-Wuglies, a grisly band,trooped out of the yard door.
"Walk on your toes, dear," the bonneted Ugly-Wugly whispered to the onewith a wreath; and even at that thrilling crisis Gerald wondered how shecould, since the toes of one foot were but the end of a golf club and ofthe other the end of a hockey-stick.
Mabel felt that there was no shame in retreating to the lamp-post at thestreet corner, but, once there, she made herself halt--and no one butMabel will ever know how much making that took. Think of it--to standthere, firm and quiet, and wait for those hollow, unbelievable things tocome up to her, clattering on the pavement with their stumpy feet orborne along noiselessly, as in the case of the flower-hatted lady, by askirt that touched the ground, and had, Mabel knew very well, nothing atall inside it.
She stood very still; the insides of her hands grew cold and damp, bu
tstill she stood, saying over and over again: "They're not true--theycan't be true. It's only a dream--they aren't really true. They can'tbe." And then Gerald was there, and all the Ugly-Wuglies crowding round,and Gerald saying:--
"This is one of our friends, Mabel--the Princess in the play, you know.Be a man!" he added in a whisper for her ear alone.
Mabel, all her nerves stretched tight as banjo strings, had an awfulinstant of not knowing whether she would be able to be a man or whethershe would be merely a shrieking and running little mad girl. For therespectable Ugly-Wugly shook her limply by the hand ("He _can't_ betrue," she told herself), and the rose-wreathed one took her arm with asoft-padded glove at the end of an umbrella arm, and said:--
"You dear, clever little thing! _Do_ walk with me!" in a gushing,girlish way, and in speech almost wholly lacking in consonants.
Then they all walked up the High Street as if, as Gerald said, they wereanybody else.
It was a strange procession, but Liddlesby goes early to bed, and theLiddlesby police, in common with those of most other places, wear bootsthat one can hear a mile off. If such boots had been heard, Gerald wouldhave had time to turn back and head them off. He felt now that he couldnot resist a flush of pride in Mabel's courage as he heard her politerejoinders to the still more polite remarks of the amiable Ugly-Wuglies.He did not know how near she was to the scream that would throw away thewhole thing and bring the police and the residents out to the ruin ofeverybody.
They met no one, except one man, who murmured, "Guy Fawkes, swelp me!"and crossed the road hurriedly; and when, next day, he told what he hadseen, his wife disbelieved him, and also said it was a judgment on him,which was unreasonable.
IT WAS A STRANGE PROCESSION.]
Mabel felt as though she were taking part in a very completely arrangednightmare, but Gerald was in it too, Gerald, who had asked if she was anidiot. Well, she wasn't. But she soon would be, she felt. Yet she wenton answering the courteous vowel-talk of these impossible people. Shehad often heard her aunt speak of impossible people. Well, now sheknew what they were like.
Summer twilight had melted into summer moonlight. The shadows of theUgly-Wuglies on the white road were much more horrible than their moresolid selves. Mabel wished it had been a dark night, and then correctedthe wish with a hasty shudder.
Gerald, submitting to a searching interrogatory from the tall-hattedUgly-Wugly as to his schools, his sports, pastimes, and ambitions,wondered how long the spell would last. The ring seemed to work insevens. Would these things have seven hours' life--or fourteen--ortwenty-one? His mind lost itself in the intricacies of the seven-timestable (a teaser at the best of times) and only found itself with a shockwhen the procession found _itself_ at the gates of the Castle grounds.
Locked--of course.
"You see," he explained, as the Ugly-Wuglies vainly shook the iron gateswith incredible hands; "it's so very late. There _is_ another way. Butyou have to climb through a hole."
"The ladies," the respectable Ugly-Wugly began objecting; but the ladieswith one voice affirmed that they loved adventures. "So frightfullythrilling," added the one who wore roses.
So they went round by the road, and coming to the hole--it was a littledifficult to find in the moonlight, which always disguises the mostfamiliar things--Gerald went first with the bicycle lantern which hehad snatched as his pilgrims came out of the yard; the shrinking Mabelfollowed, and then the Ugly-Wuglies, with hollow rattlings of theirwooden limbs against the stone, crept through, and with strangevowel-sounds of general amazement, manly courage, and femininenervousness, followed the light along the passage through the fern-hungcutting and under the arch.
When they emerged on the moonlit enchantment of the Italian garden aquite intelligible "Oh!" of surprised admiration broke from more thanone painted paper lip; and the respectable Ugly-Wugly was understood tosay that it must be quite a show-place--by George, sir! yes.
Those marble terraces and artfully serpentining gravel walks surelynever had echoed to steps so strange. No shadows so wildly unbelievablehad, for all its enchantments, ever fallen on those smooth, gray, dewylawns. Gerald was thinking this, or something like it (what he reallythought was, "I bet there never was such a go as this, even here!"),when he saw the statue of Hermes leap from its pedestal and run towardshim and his company with all the lively curiosity of a street boy eagerto be in at a street fight. He saw, too, that he was the only one whoperceived that white advancing presence. And he knew that it was thering that let him see what by others could not be seen. He slipped itfrom his finger. Yes; Hermes was on his pedestal, still as the snow manyou make in the Christmas holidays. He put the ring on again, and therewas Hermes, circling round the group and gazing deep in each unconsciousUgly-Wugly face.
"This seems a very superior hotel," the tall-hatted Ugly-Wugly wassaying; "the grounds are laid out with what you might call taste."
"We should have to go in by the back door," said Mabel suddenly. "Thefront door's locked at half-past nine."
A short, stout Ugly-Wugly in a yellow and blue cricket cap, who hadhardly spoken, muttered something about an escapade, and about feelingquite young again.
And now they had skirted the marble-edged pool where the gold fish swamand glimmered, and where the great prehistoric beast had come down tobathe and drink. The water flashed white diamonds in the moonlight, andGerald alone of them all saw that the scaly-plated vast lizard was evennow rolling and wallowing there among the lily pads.
They hastened up the steps of the Temple of Flora. The back of it, whereno elegant arch opened to the air, was against one of those sheer hills,almost cliffs, that diversified the landscape of that garden. Mabelpassed behind the statue of the goddess, fumbled a little, and thenGerald's lantern, flashing like a search-light, showed a very high andvery narrow doorway: the stone that was the door, and that had closedit, revolved slowly under the touch of Mabel's fingers.
"This way," she said, and panted a little. The back of her neck feltcold and goose-fleshy.
"You lead the way, my lad, with the lantern," said the suburbanUgly-Wugly in his bluff, agreeable way.
"I--I must, stay behind to close the door," said Gerald.
"The Princess can do that. _We'll_ help her," said the wreathed one witheffusion; and Gerald thought her horribly officious.
He insisted gently that he would be the one responsible for the safeshutting of that door.
"You wouldn't like me to get into trouble, I'm sure," he urged; and theUgly-Wuglies, for the last time kind and reasonable, agreed that this,of all things, they would most deplore.
"_You_ take it," Gerald urged, pressing the bicycle lamp on the elderlyUgly-Wugly; "you're the natural leader. Go straight ahead. Are there anysteps?" he asked Mabel in a whisper.
"Not for ever so long," she whispered back. "It goes on for ages, andthen twists round."
"Whispering," said the smallest Ugly-Wugly suddenly, "ain't manners."
"_He_ hasn't any, anyhow," whispered the lady Ugly-Wugly; "don't mindhim--quite a self-made man," and squeezed Mabel's arm with horribleconfidential flabbiness.
The respectable Ugly-Wugly leading with the lamp, the others followingtrustfully, one and all disappeared into that narrow doorway; and Geraldand Mabel standing without, hardly daring to breathe lest a breathshould retard the procession, almost sobbed with relief. Prematurely, asit turned out. For suddenly there was a rush and a scuffle inside thepassage, and as they strove to close the door the Ugly-Wuglies fiercelypressed to open it again. Whether they saw something in the dark passagethat alarmed them, whether they took it into their empty heads that thiscould not be the back way to any really respectable hotel, or whether aconvincing sudden instinct warned them that they were being tricked,Mabel and Gerald never knew. But they knew that the Ugly-Wuglies were nolonger friendly and commonplace, that a fierce change had come overthem. Cries of "No, No!" "We won't go on!" "Make _him_ lead!" broke thedreamy stillness of the perfect night. There were screams from ladies'voices,
the hoarse, determined shouts of strong Ugly-Wuglies roused toresistance, and, worse than all, the steady pushing open of that narrowstone door that had almost closed upon the ghastly crew. Through thechink of it they could be seen, a writhing black crowd against the lightof the bicycle lamp; a padded hand reached round the door; stick-bonedarms stretched out angrily towards the world that that door, if itclosed, would shut them off from for ever. And the tone of theirconsonantless speech was no longer conciliatory and ordinary; it wasthreatening, full of the menace of unbearable horrors.
The padded hand fell on Gerald's arm, and instantly all the terrorsthat he had, so far, only known in imagination became real to him, andhe saw, in the sort of flash that shows drowning people their pastlives, what it was that he had asked of Mabel, and that she had given.
"Push, push for your life!" he cried, and setting his heel against thepedestal of Flora, pushed manfully.
"I can't any more--oh. I can't!" moaned Mabel, and tried to use her heellikewise, but her legs were too short.
"They mustn't get out, they mustn't!" Gerald panted.
"You'll know it when we do," came from inside the door in tones whichfury and mouth-rooflessness would have made unintelligible to any earsbut those sharpened by the wild fear of that unspeakable moment.
"What's up, there?" cried suddenly a new voice--a voice with all itsconsonants comforting, clean-cut, and ringing, and abruptly a new shadowfell on the marble floor of Flora's temple.
"Come and help push!" Gerald's voice only just reached the newcomer. "Ifthey get out they'll kill us all."
A strong, velveteen-covered shoulder pushed suddenly between theshoulders of Gerald and Mabel; a stout man's heel sought the aid of thegoddess's pedestal; the heavy, narrow door yielded slowly, it closed,its spring clicked, and the furious, surging, threatening mass ofUgly-Wuglies was shut in, and Gerald and Mabel--oh, incrediblerelief!--were shut out. Mabel threw herself on the marble floor, sobbingslow, heavy sobs of achievement and exhaustion. If I had been there Ishould have looked the other way, so as not to see whether Geraldyielded himself to the same abandonment.
The newcomer he appeared to be a gamekeeper, Gerald decidedlater--looked down on--well, certainly on Mabel, and said:
"Come on, don't be a little duffer." (He may have said, "a couple oflittle duffers.") "Who is it, and what's it all about?"
"I can't possibly tell you," Gerald panted.
"We shall have to see about that, shan't we," said the newcomer amiably."Come out into the moonlight and let's review the situation."
Gerald, even in that topsy-turvy state of his world, found time to thinkthat a gamekeeper who used such words as that had most likely a romanticpast. But at the same time he saw that such a man would be far less easyto "square" with an unconvincing tale than Eliza, or Johnson, or evenMademoiselle. In fact, he seemed, with the only tale that they had totell, practically unsquarable.
Gerald got up--if he was not up already, or still up--and pulled at thelimp and now hot hand of the sobbing Mabel; and as he did so theunsquarable one took _his_ hand, and thus led both children out fromunder the shadow of Flora's dome into the bright white moonlight thatcarpeted Flora's steps. Here he sat down, a child on each side of him,drew a hand of each through his velveteen arm, pressed them to hisvelveteen sides in a friendly, reassuring way, and said: "Now then! Goahead!"
Mabel merely sobbed. We must excuse her. She had been very brave, and Ihave no doubt that all heroines, from Joan of Arc to Grace Darling, havehad their sobbing moments.
But Gerald said: "It's no use. If I made up a story you'd see throughit."
"That's a compliment to my discernment, anyhow," said the stranger."What price telling me the truth?"
"If we told you the truth," said Gerald, "you wouldn't believe it."
"Try me," said the velveteen one. He was clean-shaven, and had largeeyes that sparkled when the moonlight touched them.
"I _can't_," said Gerald, and it was plain that he spoke the truth."You'd either think we were mad, and get us shut up, or else--oh, it'sno good. Thank you for helping us, and do let us go home."
"I wonder," said the stranger musingly, "whether you have anyimagination."
"Considering that we invented them," Gerald hotly began, and stoppedwith late prudence.
"If by 'them' you mean the people whom I helped you to imprison inyonder tomb," said the stranger, loosing Mabel's hand to put his armround her, "remember that I saw and heard them. And with all respect toyour imagination, I doubt whether any invention of yours would be quiteso convincing."
Gerald put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
"Collect yourself," said the one in velveteen; "and while you arecollecting, let me just put the thing from my point of view. I think youhardly realise my position. I come down from London to take care of abig estate."
"I _thought_ you were a gamekeeper," put in Gerald.
Mabel put her head on the stranger's shoulder. "Hero in disguise, then,_I_ know," she sniffed.
"Not at all," said he; "bailiff would be nearer the mark. On the veryfirst evening I go out to take the moonlit air, and approaching a whitebuilding, hear sounds of an agitated scuffle, accompanied by frenziedappeals for assistance. Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, I_do_ assist and shut up goodness knows who behind a stone door. Now, isit unreasonable that I should ask who it is that I've shut up--helped toshut up, I mean, and who it is that I've assisted?"
"It's reasonable enough," Gerald admitted.
"Well then," said the stranger.
"Well then," said Gerald, "the fact is---- No," he added after a pause,"the fact is, I simply can't tell you."
"Then I must ask the other side," said Velveteens. "Let me go--I'll undothat door and find out for myself."
"Tell him," said Mabel, speaking for the first time. "Never mind if hebelieves or not. We can't have them let out."
"Very well," said Gerald, "I'll tell him. Now look here, Mr. Bailiff,will you promise us on an English gentleman's word of honour--because,of course, I can see you're _that_, bailiff or not--will you promisethat you won't tell any one what we tell you and that you won't have usput in a lunatic asylum, however mad we sound?"
"Yes," said the stranger, "I think I can promise that. But if you'vebeen having a sham fight or anything and shoved the other side into thathole, don't you think you'd better let them out? They'll be most awfullyfrightened, you know. After all, I suppose they are only children."
"Wait till you hear," Gerald answered. "They're not children--not much!Shall I just tell about them or begin at the beginning?"
"The beginning, of course," said the stranger.
Mabel lifted her head from his velveteen shoulder and said, "Let mebegin, then. I found a ring, and I said it would make me invisible. Isaid it in play. And it _did_. I was invisible twenty-one hours. Nevermind where I got the ring. Now, Gerald, you go on."
Gerald went on; for quite a long time he went on, for the story was asplendid one to tell.
"And so," he ended, "we got them in there; and when seven hours areover, or fourteen, or twenty-one, or something with a seven in it,they'll just be old coats again. They came alive at half-past nine. _I_think they'll stop being it in seven hours--that's half-past four._Now_ will you let us go home?"
"I'll see you home," said the stranger in a quite new tone ofexasperating gentleness. "Come--let's be going."
"You don't believe us," said Gerald. "Of course you don't. Nobody could.But I could make you believe if I chose."
All three stood up, and the stranger stared in Gerald's eyes till Geraldanswered his thought.
"No, I don't look mad, do I?"
"No, you aren't. But, come, you're an extraordinarily sensible boy;don't you think you may be sickening for a fever or something?"
"And Cathy and Jimmy and Mademoiselle and Eliza, and the man who said'Guy Fawkes, swelp me!' and _you_, you saw them move--you heard themcall out. Are you sickening for anything?"
"No--or at le
ast not for anything but information. Come, and I'll seeyou home."
"Mabel lives at the Towers," said Gerald, as the stranger turned intothe broad drive that leads to the big gate.
"No relation to Lord Yalding," said Mabel hastily--"housekeeper'sniece." She was holding on to his hand all the way. At the servants'entrance she put up her face to be kissed, and went in.
"Poor little thing!" said the bailiff, as they went down the drivetowards the gate.
He went with Gerald to the door of the school.
"Look here," said Gerald at parting. "I know what you're going to do.You're going to try to undo that door."
"Discerning!" said the stranger.
"Well--don't. Or, any way, wait till daylight and let us be there. Wecan get there by ten."
"All right--I'll meet you there by ten," answered the stranger. "ByGeorge! you're the rummest kids I ever met."
"We are rum," Gerald owned, "but so would you be if---- Good night."
* * * * *
As the four children went over the smooth lawn towards Flora's Templethey talked, as they had talked all the morning, about the adventures oflast night and of Mabel's bravery. It was not ten, but half-past twelve;for Eliza, backed by Mademoiselle, had insisted on their "clearing up,"and clearing up very thoroughly, the "litter" of last night.
"You're a Victoria Cross heroine, dear," said Cathy warmly. "You oughtto have a statue put up to you."
"It would come alive if you put it here," said Gerald grimly.
"_I_ shouldn't have been afraid," said Jimmy.
"By daylight," Gerald assured him, "everything looks so jollydifferent."
"I do hope he'll be there," Mabel said; "he _was_ such a dear, Cathy--aperfect bailiff, with the soul of a gentleman."
A PAINTED POINTED PAPER FACE PEERED OUT.]
"He isn't there, though," said Jimmy. "I believe you just dreamed him,like you did the statues coming alive."
They went up the marble steps in the sunshine, and it was difficult tobelieve that this was the place where only in last night's moonlightfear had laid such cold hands on the hearts of Mabel and Gerald.
"Shall we open the door," suggested Kathleen, "and begin to carry homethe coats?"
"Let's listen first," said Gerald; "perhaps they aren't only coats yet."
They laid ears to the hinges of the stone door, behind which last nightthe Ugly-Wuglies had shrieked and threatened. All was still as the sweetmorning itself. It was as they turned away that they saw the man theyhad come to meet. He was on the other side of Flora's pedestal. But hewas not standing up. He lay there, quite still, on his back, his armsflung wide.
"Oh, look!" cried Cathy, and pointed. His face was a queer greenishcolour, and on his forehead there was a cut; its edges were blue, and alittle blood had trickled from it on to the white of the marble.
At the same time Mabel pointed too--but she did not cry out as Cathy haddone. And what she pointed at was a big glossy-leaved rhododendron bush,from which a painted pointed paper face peered out--very white, veryred, in the sunlight--and, as the children gazed, shrank back into thecover of the shining leaves.