The Lark (Nesbit)/Chapter 29

by E. Nesbit

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CHAPTER XXIX

Lucilla had not thought of that. "I will give you the address this evening," she said. And in the evening it was, "Oh, I'm so sorry—I'll give you the address in the morning."

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble I should be so glad if I could have it now," said Miss Antrobus. "I usually write my letters at night."

"Certainly," said Lucilla, and went straight to the mahogany bureau and began to fumble in the pigeon-holes. Miss Antrobus followed her.

"It's very kind of you to look for it now," she said; "but surely it's not among those paper patterns?"

"I don't know where it is," said Lucilla, shutting the secretaire lid with what was almost a bang. "Perhaps it's upstairs—I'll go and look," and she fled.

She returned very soon with an envelope on which she had written:

"Miss Lucas,

at Mrs. Scott's,

247, Hill Street, Bath.

"Thank you so much," said Miss Antrobus. "Hill Street? Whereabouts is it?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," said the badgered Lucilla. "I've never been to Bath"; but she felt quite safe because she had taken the precaution to consult Miss Austin's "Persuasion" before deciding on an address for her aunt at Bath.

"May I have the address too?" asked Mr. Tombs. "I should like to follow Miss Antrobus's excellent example and write to our dear Miss Lucas. But Mr. Thornton is just going to play the Lancers. Miss Antrobus, may I have the pleasure? Thank you. And Miss Craye, may I ask you for the next dance?"

"If there is a next one, I shall be very pleased."

"Oh, there is to be a next one," he assured her. "Miss Quested has decided that it is to be a dancing evening."

"'On with the dance, let joy be unrefined,'" said Lucilla.

"Thank you," said Mr. Tombs. "That's one of my favourite quotations. Let us be tops, Miss Antrobus. But I must lend a hand with the furniture."

"I shouldn't have thought Mr. Tombs would have cared for dancing," said Miss Antrobus, "but he waltzes extraordinarily well, doesn't he? So unexpected."

"Do you think that blue glasses don't go well with dancing then? Appearances are deceitful sometimes."

"I know they are," said Miss Antrobus. And there is something about blue glasses that looks a little—well—furtive, don't you think?"

"I hadn't thought it," said Lucilla, laughing. "It's rather hard, isn't it, if people can't wear blue glasses without being suspected of—what would the noun be?—furtivity?"

"I didn't really mean that I thought our friend deceitful," said Miss Antrobus. "I shouldn't like to think it. I loathe deceit."

"Yes, it is horrid, isn't it?" And as Mr. Thornton—the one called Bill—now came to claim her for the dance, she went on: "I'm sure you hate deceit too, don't you, Mr. Thornton?"

"The soul should be an open book,
 In which all passers-by may look;
 And nought that any would not care
 To read should ere be written there,"

replied the young man promptly.

"Whose is that?" asked Miss Antrobus. "I seem to know it."

"It's by 'Anon,' I think—that popular author," said he, but as he led Lucilla away he whispered: "I made it up, of course; didn't she see I was making it up?"

"One never knows what she does or doesn't see," Lucilla permitted herself to say.

"No, but anyhow, what a lot there is that she doesn't see—that nobody sees. What a little window it is, anyhow, that you look in at anyone else by, isn't it?"

"'Yes. In this sea of life en-isled . . . '" quoted Lucilla.

"Exactly," said he. "And there's no Lancers like the old original, Jim always plays them. Tum-tiddy-tumpty-tumpty-tum! What a glorious game dancing is!"

"Score each point as you come to it, even if it's the last," he said, as he led flushed and panting Lucilla to cool on the front-door steps. "That's my philosophy of life. Even if the world ends to-morrow—well, we've had to-night! If it ends to-night—well—I've had this dance with you. And I may have the next and the next and the next and the one after that?"

"Mr. Tombs," murmured Lucilla, much agitated by this sudden advance. "I'm dancing the next one with Mr. Tombs."

He brought her a chair from the hall. "And you?" she said.

"I can sit at your feet," said he—"my proper place," and he sat down on the doorstep. "Now give me a flower—one of those apricot-scented roses—and be kind to me. Who knows but the world may end to-night?"

"Do you always talk nonsense when you've been dancing?" said Lucilla, defending herself as best she could against this sudden swirl of an unknown sea of flattery.

"Not always. But to-night's such a night—and you're all such darlings, and it's such a long time since I've danced or talked with people who are real people, that my head's in a whirl and I see everything double. I daresay I really see you twice as charming as you are, but my fixed illusion is that you are far more than twice as charming than you appear."

Lucilla did not know what to say, so she said nothing.

"You don't mind my talking nonsense?" he said. "Let's pretend you're an Italian lady and this isn't the gravel path but a canal in Venice, and that isn't the garden roller, but the end of my gondola, and I'm here at the peril of my life just to tread one measure with you and tell you once more that you are the radiant star of my dreams; and though you're a noble Venetian lady and I'm only a poor outlaw, with a price on my head, yet you stoop from the throne of your maiden magnificence and lend me, in one instant of cold condescension, your hand that is like a lily."

He glanced behind her. The hall was deserted. The others had gone out through the French windows on to the cedar lawn. He took her hand and kissed it, very lightly and softly, then laid it down on her lap as gently as though it had indeed been a flower.

"Don't say we'd better find the others. Forgive me instead. It's only a sort of play-acting, to fit the night—and in that rose-coloured dress you do so look the part. You do forgive me? Yes, I see you think I'm either very mad or very insolent, but really I'm not. Don't keep it in your mind against me, will you? Look upon it as a sort of charade, A charade that doesn't count or matter a bit. And don't look at me like that. For God's sake don't be afraid of me, I'm sorry I played the fool. Say it's all right."

"I suppose so," said Lucilla feebly, "but I don't think I like that sort of charade, I don't know my part, you see," she added, trying to speak as though it had been really a play. He turned his head away, and she thought she heard him say: "I wish to God I could teach you," but the next moment he laughed and said:

"Let my faults be writ in water! How I wish we could have more dance evenings! I'm sick of dragging that double bass about. Anyway, I'm going to enjoy this. No Venetian ladies for me, no gondolas—just Miss Craye and the next waltz but two—may I?"

Lucilla did not know how to say 'No'—and besides, she was not sure that 'No' was what she wanted to say. The acting of the Mr. Thornton who was called Bill had been wonderfully lifelike. And that touch of warm, live velvet on her hand: she had known nothing like it. She felt as though those five minutes had upset all her ideas on all important subjects. She wanted to be alone, to think, to remember every word he had said, to make up her mind whether she ought to have been angry, to have walked away as soon as he began with: "Now give me a flower . . ." No, it began before that. How was it it began? He, meanwhile, was talking of Schubert's songs.

The strains of a waltz sounded. "I ought to play that," he said, "it's my brother's turn to dance." And Lucilla, entering the drawing-room on his arm, met herself in the mirror of the cupids, and almost felt as though the kiss on her hand were branded on her cheek.

"How different I look!" she thought. And then, as if one adventure in one evening were not enough, Mr. Tombs murmured as they waltzed: "Let us go round the garden the minute the music stops; the paths are quite dry. I have something really important to say to you."

"All right," said Lucilla. She could not say 'No.' To do so would be to admit to herself that she feared that Mr. Tombs also might desire to act Venetian charades and imprint velvet salutes upon hands like lilies. Also, at the very bottom of her mind something lurked that was not unlike a sort of curiosity to know how, if at all, Mr. Tombs would act his charade. L'appetit vient en mangeant, so they say, and if Mr. Tombs did act Venetian charades she would not be taken by surprise this time. Gently but firmly, with true dignity and self-possession, she would put Mr. Tombs in his place, would show him that she was not to be flattered and fooled like a silly, inexperienced girl, because she was, of course, something quite different.

So as the dance ended she allowed herself to be led through the French window and round by the shrubbery and by winding walks to the sundial.

"Do sit down," said Mr. Tombs; "there are cushions. I brought them out after the last dance."

"What did you do with Miss Antrobus?"

"Oh, I brought her out too. That's right. I'll sit here." He lowered himself to the brick step at her feet. Lucilla felt a little shiver of anxiety. Surely he wouldn't begin exactly as Mr. Thornton had. (She remembered now how he had begun.) Did all men say precisely the same things at dances? Perhaps it was a formula, like, "May I have the pleasure?" Was he going to say . . .? He was.

"I'll sit at your feet. It's my proper place," he said, and instantly opened a new gambit; "because I want to be as humble as possible, and I want you not to resent what I'm going to say and snub me. Promise."

"But how do I know that I oughtn't to snub you?" Lucilla asked.

"Don't tempt me to say things that you might want to snub me for. Though I should never—I mean in affairs of my own I am not accustomed to being snubbed. I never advance except on sure ground."

("Oh, what is he going to say?" Lucilla asked herself. "Does he mean that I've encouraged him? Oh, I wish I hadn't come. What an awfully nice voice he has!") "You said you wanted to say something important," she found herself saying aloud. "Why not say it?" ("Come, that's not so bad! Very neat and frosty.")

"I will," said he. "I don't know why I hesitate. I won't. Here goes. It's about Miss Antrobus."

"Oh," said Lucilla flatly, and began to fan herself, though the night air was cool and fresh all about her. "And what about Miss Antrobus?"

"I'm afraid she's going to be a nuisance. She's made up her mind that you have not been at all kind to your aunt, and that the poor old lady has been sent away to some sort of home or institution."

"Good gracious!" said Lucilla feebly.

"She says that Miss Lucas has never been allowed to be alone with any of us; that you have never been at home when Miss Lucas was with us; that Miss Quested has been disgracefully neglectful of your aunt—has never once spoken to her except to say good-night; that neither of you have ever shown the faintest interest in the old lady's ailments; that the old lady has never been outside the house since the day we all came, until you sent her away. Then when Miss Antrobus has offered to read to her or take her out you and Miss Quested have always thrown cold water on her proposals. She says she's determined to sift the matter to the bottom. If there's a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Aunts, she'll set it on to you."

"Oh dear!" said Lucilla. "Oh, my goodness, how perfectly awful!"

"I thought you'd like me to tell you about it," Mr. Tombs went on, "and at once, because I don't know what she'll do or say next."

"Oh, rather!" said Lucilla eagerly, quite forgetting what it was that she had more than half expected him to tell her. "I think it's most awfully decent of you. But what can I do? I feel all to pieces. What can I do?"

"Well, if I were you," said Mr. Tombs slowly, "I should tell her all about your aunt."

"All about my aunt?"

"Yes, tell her the truth, you know."

"But——" said Lucilla.

"Yes, I know," said Mr. Tombs. "She'll be awfully annoyed at having been taken in, I daresay, but anything's better than her going to societies about your affairs."

"Taken in?" repeated Lucilla automatically, and not with any hope of continued concealment.

"Well, you know," said Mr. Tombs gently, "you did it most awfully well, and I didn't tumble to it myself till the third evening. Your acting's been magnificent. I should tell her the first thing to-morrow. Treat it as a joke—tell her it's gone far enough. Of course I'll pretend to have been taken in all the time too; that'll make it easier for her."

"And the others—must I tell them too?"

"No necessity at all," said Mr. Tombs.

"Oh, they're beginning to play again; we must go in," said Lucilla, jumping up. "Mr, Tombs, you really are a lamb to have warned me. I'll tell her to-morrow."

This, you would have thought, was enough to complete the evening's happenings. But no. After a most enjoyable fox-trot, the elder Mr. Thornton asked leave to tell Lucilla that Miss Antrobus "had the knife into her," and advised her to own that she, Lucilla, and she only, had been, in truth, Aunt Harriet.

"You acted splendidly," he said. "No one could have spotted you; only we're professionals, you see—and even we didn't catch on for the first day or two. It was Miss Quested's cold, cynical indifference to her aunt that opened my wife's eyes and gave the show away."

"Do you think anyone else guesses?"

"Oh no," said Mr. Thornton eagerly. "Rochester and Dix and Tombs are absolutely deceived. You ought to go on the stage—such acting, by an amateur; so delicate, so sustained—it was absolutely a triumph. If only Miss Quested had acted the good niece a hundredth part as well as you acted the good aunt . . . But she didn't. If you'll allow me to advise you, you'll let the cat out of the bag to Miss Antrobus at the earliest possible moment."

Mr. Rochester found an opportunity to say, "Hilda Antrobus is on the war-path. I should own up if I were you."

And Mr. Dix crowned the evening by saying, "You'll have to tell Miss Antrobus. She thinks your aunt has been unkindly used—and she's so generous and fine: she hates unkindness. You'll have to undeceive her. She won't be hard on you. She's the soul of goodness and gentleness. And so strong and faithful with it. She loathes deception of any kind, that's all. Have it out and get it over. Clear the sky. She'll forgive you."

"Oh, will she?" said Lucilla. And that night she entered Jane's room expressly to say:

"Serpent, this is your work," and to tell Jane all the events of the evening. Well—perhaps not quite all.