Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Dot vas a verpena, sir,” explained the old gardener. “Now you shall vatch him grow.”

  The boy remained squatting for several minutes, staring hard at the seedling.

  “I can’t see it grow,” he said to his sister, “and I’m not going to sit here all day waiting. Come on!” And he gave her a fraternal slap.

  Geraldine wiped her hands on her knickerbockers and started after him; and away they raced around the house, past the fountains, under trees by the coach-house, across paths and lawns and flower-beds, tearing about like a pair of demented kittens. They frisked, climbed trees, chased each other, wrestled, clutched, tumbled, got mad, made up, and finally, removing shoes and stockings, began a game of leapfrog.

  Horror-stricken nurses arrived bearing dry towels and footgear, and were received with fury and a volley of last year’s horse-chestnuts. And when the enemy had been handsomely repulsed, the children started on a tour of exploration, picking their way with tender, naked feet to the northern hedge.

  Here Geraldine mounted on Scott’s shoulders and drew herself up to the iron railing which ran along the top of the granite-capped wall between hedge and street; and Scott followed her, both pockets stuffed with chestnuts which he had prudently gathered in the shrubbery.

  In the street below there were few passers-by. Each individual wayfarer, however, received careful attention, Scott having divided the chestnuts, and the aim of both children being excellent.

  They had been awaiting a new victim for some time, when suddenly Geraldine pinched her brother with eager satisfaction:

  “Oh, Scott! there comes that boy I told you about!”

  “What boy?”

  “The one who asked me if I was too rich and proud to play with him. And that must be his sister; they look alike.”

  “All right,” said Scott; “we’ll give them a volley. You take the nurse and I’ll fix the boy.... Ready.... Fire!”

  The ambuscade was perfectly successful; the nurse halted and looked up, expressing herself definitely upon the manners and customs of the twins; the boy, who appeared to be amazingly agile, seized a swinging wistaria vine, clambered up the wall, and, clinging to the outside of the iron railing, informed Scott that he would punch his head when a pleasing opportunity presented itself.

  “All right,” retorted Scott; “come in and do it now.”

  “That’s all very well for you to say when you know I can’t climb over this railing!”

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Scott, thrilled at the chance of another boy on the grounds even if he had to fight him; “I’ll tell you what!” sinking his voice to an eager whisper; “You run away from your nurse as soon as you get into the Park and I’ll be at the front door and I’ll let you in. Will you?”

  “Oh, please!” whispered Geraldine; “and bring your sister, too!”

  The boy stared at her knickerbockers. “Do you want to fight my sister?” he asked.

  “I? Oh, no, no, no. You can fight Scott if you like, and your sister and I will have such fun watching you. Will you?”

  His nurse was calling him to descend, in tones agitated and peremptory; the boy hesitated, scowled at Scott, looked uncertainly at Geraldine, then shot a hasty and hostile glance at the interior of the mysterious Seagrave estate. Curiosity overcame him; also, perhaps, a natural desire for battle.

  “Yes,” he said to Scott, “I’ll come back and punch your head for you.”

  And very deftly, clinging like a squirrel to the pendant wistaria, he let himself down into the street again.

  The Seagrave twins, intensely excited, watched them as far as Fifth Avenue, then rapidly drawing on their shoes and stockings, scrambled down to the shrubbery and raced for the house. Through it they passed like a double whirlwind; feeble and perfunctory resistance was offered by their nurses.

  “Get out of my way!” said Geraldine fiercely; “do you think I’m going to miss the first chance for some fun that I’ve ever had in all my life?”

  At the same moment, through the glass-sheeted grill Scott discovered two small figures dashing up the drive to the porte-cochère. And he turned on Lang like a wild cat.

  Lang, the man at the door, was disposed to defend his post; Scott prepared to fly at him, but his sister intervened:

  “Oh, Lang,” she pleaded, jumping up and down in an agony of apprehension, “please, please, let them in! We’ve never had any friends.” She caught his arm piteously; he looked fearfully embarrassed, for the Seagrave livery was still new to him; nor, during his brief service, had he fully digested the significance of the policy which so rigidly guarded these little children lest rumour from without apprise them of their financial future and the contaminating realisation undermine their simplicity.

  As he stood, undecided, Geraldine suddenly jerked his hand from the bronze knob and Scott flung open the door.

  “Come on! Quick!” he cried; and the next moment four small pairs of feet were flying through the hall, echoing lightly across the terrace, then skimming the lawn to the sheltering shrubbery beyond.

  “The thing to do,” panted Scott, “is to keep out of sight.” He seized his guests by the arms and drew them behind the rhododendrons. “Now,” he said, “what’s your name? You, I mean!”

  “Duane Mallett,” replied the boy, breathless. “That’s my sister, Naïda. Let’s wait a moment before we begin to fight; Naïda and I had to run like fury to get away from our nurse.”

  Naïda was examining Geraldine with an interest almost respectful.

  “I wish they’d let me dress like a boy,” she said. “It’s fun, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. They don’t let me do it; I just did it,” replied Geraldine. “I’ll get you a suit of Scott’s clothes, if you like. I can get the boxing-gloves at the same time. Shall I, Scott?”

  “Go ahead,” said Scott; “we can pretend there are four boys here.” And, to Duane, as Geraldine sped cautiously away on her errand: “That’s a thing I never did before.”

  “What thing?”

  “Play with three boys all by myself. Kathleen — who is Mrs. Severn, our guardian — is always with us when we are permitted to speak to other boys and girls.”

  “That’s babyish,” remarked Duane in frank disgust. “You are a mollycoddle.”

  The deep red of mortification spread over Scott’s face; he looked shyly at Naïda, doubly distressed that a girl should hear the degrading term applied to him. The small girl returned his gaze without a particle of expression in her face.

  “Mollycoddles,” continued Duane cruelly, “do the sort of things you do. You’re one.”

  “I — don’t want to be one,” stammered Scott. “How can I help it?”

  Duane ignored the appeal. “Playing with three boys isn’t anything,” he said. “I play with forty every day.”

  “W-where?” asked Scott, overwhelmed.

  “In school, of course — at recess — and before nine, and after one. We have fine times. School’s all right. Don’t you even go to school?”

  Scott shook his head, too ashamed to speak. Naïda, with a flirt of her kilted skirts, had abruptly turned her back on him; yet he was miserably certain she was listening to her brother’s merciless catechism.

  “I suppose you don’t even know how to play hockey,” commented Duane contemptuously.

  There was no answer.

  “What do you do? Play with dolls? Oh, what a molly!”

  Scott raised his head; he had grown quite white. Naïda, turning, saw the look on the boy’s face.

  “Duane doesn’t mean that,” she said; “he’s only teasing.”

  Geraldine came hurrying back with the boxing-gloves and a suit of Scott’s very best clothes, halting when she perceived the situation, for Scott had walked up to Duane, and the boys stood glaring at one another, hands doubling up into fists.

  “You think I’m a molly?” asked Scott in a curiously still voice.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Oh, Scott!” cried Geraldine
, pushing in between them, “you’ll have to hammer him well for that — —”

  Naïda turned and shoved her brother aside:

  “I don’t want you to fight him,” she said. “I like him.”

  “Oh, but they must fight, you know,” explained Geraldine earnestly. “If we didn’t fight, we’d really be what you call us. Put on Scott’s clothes, Naïda, and while our brothers are fighting, you and I will wrestle to prove that I’m not a mollycoddle — —”

  “I don’t want to,” said Naïda tremulously. “I like you, too — —”

  “Well, you’re one if you don’t!” retorted Geraldine. “You can like anybody and have fun fighting them, too.”

  “Put on those clothes, Naïda,” said Duane sternly. “Are you going to take a dare?”

  So she retired very unwillingly into the hedge to costume herself while the two boys invested their fists with the soft chamois gloves of combat.

  “We won’t bother to shake hands,” observed Scott. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, you will, too,” insisted Geraldine; “shake hands before you begin to fight!”

  “I won’t,” retorted Scott sullenly; “shake hands with anybody who calls me — what he did.”

  “Very well then; if you don’t, I’ll put on those gloves and fight you myself.”

  Duane’s eyes flew wide open and he gazed upon Geraldine with newly mixed emotions. She walked over to her brother and said:

  “Remember what Howker told us that father used to say — that squabbling is disgraceful but a good fight is all right. Duane called you a silly name. Instead of disputing about it and calling each other names, you ought to settle it with a fight and be friends afterward.... Isn’t that so, Duane?”

  Duane seemed doubtful.

  “Isn’t it so?” she repeated fiercely, stepping so swiftly in front of him that he jumped back.

  “Yes, I guess so,” he admitted; and the sudden smile which Geraldine flashed on him completed his subjection.

  Naïda, in her boy’s clothes, came out, her hands in her pockets, strutting a little and occasionally bending far over to catch a view of herself as best she might.

  “All ready!” cried Geraldine; “begin! Look out, Naïda; I’m going to throw you.”

  Behind her the two boys touched gloves, then Scott rushed his man.

  At the same moment Geraldine seized Naïda.

  “We are not to pull hair,” she said; “remember! Now, dear, look out for yourself!”

  Of that classic tournament between the clans of Mallett and Seagrave the chronicles are lacking. Doubtless their ancestors before them joined joyously in battle, confident that all details of their prowess would be carefully recorded by the family minstrel.

  But the battle of that Saturday noon hour was witnessed only by the sparrows, who were too busy lugging bits of straw and twine to half-completed nests in the cornices of the House of Seagrave, to pay much attention to the combat of the Seagrave children, who had gone quite mad with the happiness of companionship and were expressing it with all their might.

  Naïda’s dark curls mingled with the grass several times before Geraldine comprehended that her new companion was absurdly at her mercy; and then she seized her with all the desperation of first possession and kissed her hard.

  “It’s ended,” breathed Geraldine tremulously, “and nobody gained the victory and — you will love me, won’t you?”

  “I don’t know — I’m all dirt.” She looked at Geraldine, bewildered by the passion of the lonely child’s caresses. “Yes — I do love you, Geraldine. Oh, look at those boys! How perfectly disgraceful! They must stop — make them stop, Geraldine!”

  Hair on end, grass-stained, dishevelled, and unspeakably dirty, the boys were now sparring for breath. Grime and perspiration streaked their countenances. Duane Mallett wore a humorously tinted eye and a prehensile upper lip; Scott’s nose had again yielded to the coy persuasion of a left-handed jab and the proud blood of the Seagraves once more offended high heaven on that April day.

  Geraldine, one arm imprisoning Naïda’s waist, walked coolly in between them:

  “Don’t let’s fight any more. The thing to do is to get Mrs. Bramton to give you enough for four to eat and bring it back here. Scott, please shake hands with Duane.”

  “I wasn’t licked,” muttered Scott.

  “Neither was I,” said Duane.

  “Nobody was licked by anybody,” announced Geraldine. “Do get something to eat, Scott; Naïda and I are starving!”

  After some hesitation the boys touched gloves respectfully, and Scott shook off his mitts, and started for the kitchen.

  And there, to his horror and surprise, he was confronted by Mrs. Severn, black hat, crape veil, and gloves still on, evidently that instant arrived from those occult and, as the children supposed, distant bournes of Staten Island, where the supreme mystery of all had been at work.

  “Oh, Scott!” she exclaimed tremulously, “what on earth has happened? What is all this that Mrs. Farren and Howker have been telling me?”

  The boy stood petrified. Then there surged over him the memory of his brief happiness in these new companions — a happiness now to be snatched away ere scarcely tasted. Into the child’s dirty, disfigured face came a hunted expression; he looked about for an avenue of escape, and Kathleen Severn caught him at the same instant and drew him to her.

  “What is it, Scott? Tell me, darling!”

  “Nothing.... Yes, there is something. I opened the front door and let a strange boy and girl in to play with us, and I’ve just been fighting with him, and we were having such good times — I—” his voice broke— “I can’t bear to have them go — so soon — —”

  Kathleen looked at him for a moment, speechless with consternation. Then:

  “Where are they, Scott?”

  “In the — the hedge.”

  “Out there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Their names are Duane Mallett and Naïda Mallett. We got them to run away from their nurse. Duane’s such a bully fellow.” A sob choked him.

  “Come with me at once,” said Kathleen.

  Behind the rhododendrons smiling peace was extending its pinions; Duane had produced a pocketful of jack-stones, and the three children were now seated on the grass, Naïda manipulating the jacks with soiled but deft fingers.

  Duane was saying to Geraldine:

  “It’s funny that you didn’t know you were rich. Everybody says so, and all the nurses in the Park talk about it every time you and Scott walk past.”

  “If I’m rich,” said Geraldine, “why don’t I have more money?”

  “Don’t they let you have as much as you want?”

  “No — only twenty-five cents every month.... It’s my turn, Naïda! Oh, bother! I missed. Go on, Duane — —”

  And, glancing up, her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth as Kathleen Severn, in her mourning veil and gown, came straight up to where they sat.

  “Geraldine, dear, the grass is too damp to sit on,” said Mrs. Severn quietly. She turned to the youthful guests, who had hastily risen.

  “You are Naïda Mallett, it seems; and you are Duane? Please come in now and wash and dress properly, because I am going to telephone to your mother and ask her if you may remain to luncheon and play in the nursery afterward.”

  Dazed, the children silently followed her; one of her arms lay loosely about the shoulders of her own charges; one encircled Naïda’s neck. Duane walked cautiously beside his sister.

  In the house the nurses took charge; Geraldine, turning on the stairs, looked back at Kathleen Severn.

  “Are you really going to let them stay?”

  “Yes, I am, darling.”

  “And — and may we play together all alone in the nursery?”

  “I think so.... I think so, dear.”

  She ran back down the stairs and impetuously flung herself into Kathleen’s arms; then danced away to join the others in
the blessed regions above.

  Mrs. Severn moved slowly to the telephone, and first called up and reassured Mrs. Mallett, who, however, knew nothing about the affair, as the nurse was still scouring the Park for her charges.

  Then Mrs. Severn called up the Half Moon Trust Company and presently was put into communication with Colonel Mallett, the president. To him she told the entire story, and added:

  “It was inevitable that the gossip of servants should enlighten the children sooner or later. The irony of it all is that this gossip filtered in here through your son, Duane. That is how the case stands, Colonel Mallett; and I have used my judgment and permitted the children this large liberty which they have long needed, believe me, long, long needed. I hope that your trust officer, Mr. Tappan, will approve.”

  “Good Lord!” said Colonel Mallett over the wire. “Tappan won’t stand for it! You know that he won’t, Mrs. Severn. I suppose, if he consults us, we can call a directors’ meeting and consider this new phase of the case.”

  “You ought to; the time is already here when the children should no longer suffer such utter isolation. They must make acquaintances, they must have friends, they should go to parties like other children — they ought to be given outside schooling sooner or later. All of which questions must be taken up by your directors as soon as possible, because my children are fast getting out of hand — fast getting away from me; and before I know it I shall have a young man and a young girl to account for — and to account to, colonel — —”

  “I’ll sift out the whole matter with Mr. Tappan; I’ll speak to Mr. Grandcourt and Mr. Beekman to-night. Until you hear from us, no more visitors for the children. By the way, is that matter — the one we talked over last month — definitely settled?”

  “Yes. I can’t help being worried by the inclination she displays. It frightens me in such a child.”

  “Scott doesn’t show it?”

  “No. He hates anything like that.”

  “Do the servants thoroughly understand your orders?”

  “I’m a little troubled. I have given orders that no more brandied peaches are to be made or kept in the house. The child was perfectly truthful about it. She admitted filling her cologne bottle with the syrup and sipping it after she was supposed to be asleep.”