บทที่ บทที่ 16 · THE BLUE ROOM

. THE BLUE ROOM

That nature has her moments of sympathy with man has been noted often

enough,--and generally as a new discovery; to us, who had never known

any other condition of things, it seemed entirely right and fitting that

the wind sang and sobbed in the poplar tops, and in the lulls of

it, sudden spirts of rain spattered the already dusty roads, on that

blusterous March day when Edward and I awaited, on the station platform,

the arrival of the new tutor. Needless to say, this arrangement had been

planned by an aunt, from some fond idea that our shy, innocent young

natures would unfold themselves during the walk from the station, and

that on the revelation of each other's more solid qualities that must

then inevitably ensue, an enduring friendship springing from mutual

respect might be firmly based. A pretty dream,--nothing more. For

Edward, who foresaw that the brunt of tutorial oppression would have

to be borne by him, was sulky, monosyllabic, and determined to be as

negatively disagreeable as good manners would permit. It was therefore

evident that I would have to be spokesman and purveyor of hollow

civilities, and I was none the more amiable on that account; all

courtesies, welcomes, explanations, and other court-chamberlain kind of

business, being my special aversion. There was much of the tempestuous

March weather in the hearts of both of us, as we sullenly glowered along

the carriage-windows of the slackening train.

One is apt, however, to misjudge the special difficulties of a

situation; and the reception proved, after all, an easy and informal

matter. In a trainful so uniformly bucolic, a tutor was readily

recognisable; and his portmanteau had been consigned to the

luggage-cart, and his person conveyed into the lane, before I had

discharged one of my carefully considered sentences. I breathed more

easily, and, looking up at our new friend as we stepped out together,

remembered that we had been counting on something altogether more

arid, scholastic, and severe. A boyish eager face and a petulant

pince-nez,--untidy hair,--a head of constant quick turns like a robin's,

and a voice that kept breaking into alto,--these were all very strange

and new, but not in the least terrible.

He proceeded jerkily through the village, with glances on this side and

that; and “Charming,” he broke out presently; “quite too charming and

delightful!”

I had not counted on this sort of thing, and glanced for help to Edward,

who, hands in pockets, looked grimly down his nose. He had taken his

line, and meant to stick to it.

Meantime our friend had made an imaginary spy-glass out of his fist,

and was squinting through it at something I could not perceive. “What an

exquisite bit!” he burst out; “fifteenth century,--no,--yes, it is!”

I began to feel puzzled, not to say alarmed. It reminded me of the

butcher in the Arabian Nights, whose common joints, displayed on the

shop-front, took to a startled public the appearance of dismembered

humanity. This man seemed to see the strangest things in our dull,

familiar surroundings.

“Ah!” he broke out again, as we jogged on between hedgerows: “and

that field now--backed by the downs--with the rain-cloud brooding over

it,--that's all David Cox--every bit of it!”

“That field belongs to Farmer Larkin,” I explained politely, for of

course he could not be expected to know. “I'll take you over to Farmer

Cox's to-morrow, if he's a friend of yours; but there's nothing to see

there.”

Edward, who was hanging sullenly behind, made a face at me, as if to

say, “What sort of lunatic have we got here?”

“It has the true pastoral character, this country of yours,” went on our

enthusiast: “with just that added touch in cottage and farmstead,

relics of a bygone art, which makes our English landscape so divine, so

unique!”

Really this grasshopper was becoming a burden. These familiar fields and

farms, of which we knew every blade and stick, had done nothing that

I knew of to be bespattered with adjectives in this way. I had never

thought of them as divine, unique, or anything else. They were--well,

they were just themselves, and there was an end of it. Despairingly I

jogged Edward in the ribs, as a sign to start rational conversation, but

he only grinned and continued obdurate.

“You can see the house now,” I remarked, presently; “and that's Selina,

chasing the donkey in the paddock,--or is it the donkey chasing Selina?

I can't quite make out; but it's THEM, anyhow.”

Needless to say, he exploded with a full charge of adjectives.

“Exquisite!” he rapped out; “so mellow and harmonious! and so entirely

in keeping!” (I could see from Edward's face that he was thinking who

ought to be in keeping.) “Such possibilities of romance, now, in those

old gables!”

“If you mean the garrets,” I said, “there's a lot of old furniture

in them; and one is generally full of apples; and the bats get

in sometimes, under the eaves, and flop about till we go up with

hair-brushes and things and drive 'em out; but there's nothing else in

them that I know of.”

“Oh, but there must be more than bats,” he cried. “Don't tell me there

are no ghosts. I shall be deeply disappointed if there aren't any

ghosts.”

I did not think it worth while to reply, feeling really unequal to this

sort of conversation; besides, we were nearing the house, when my task

would be ended. Aunt Eliza met us at the door, and in the cross-fire of

adjectives that ensued--both of them talking at once, as grown-up folk

have a habit of doing--we two slipped round to the back of the house,

and speedily put several solid acres between us and civilisation, for

fear of being ordered in to tea in the drawing-room. By the time we

returned, our new importation had gone up to dress for dinner, so till

the morrow at least we were free of him.

Meanwhile the March wind, after dropping a while at sundown, had been

steadily increasing in volume; and although I fell asleep at my usual

hour, about midnight I was wakened by the stress and cry of it. In the

bright moonlight, wind-swung branches tossed and swayed eerily across

the blinds; there was rumbling in chimneys, whistling in keyholes, and

everywhere a clamour and a call. Sleep was out of the question, and,

sitting up in bed, I looked round. Edward sat up too. “I was wondering

when you were going to wake,” he said. “It's no good trying to sleep

through this. I vote we get up and do something.”

“I'm game,” I replied. “Let's play at being in a ship at sea” (the

plaint of the old house under the buffeting wind suggested this,

naturally); “and we can be wrecked on an island, or left on a raft,

whichever you choose; but I like an island best myself, because there's

more things on it.”

Edward on reflection negatived the idea. “It would make too much noise,”

he pointed out. “There's no fun playing at ships, unless you can make a

jolly good row.”

The door creaked, and a small figure in white slipped cautiously in.

“Thought I heard you talking,” said Charlotte. “We don't like it; we're

afraid--Selina too. She'll be here in a minute. She's putting on her new

dressing-gown she's so proud of.”

His arms round his knees, Edward cogitated deeply until Selina appeared,

barefooted, and looking slim and tall in the new dressing-gown. Then,

“Look here,” he exclaimed; “now we're all together, I vote we go and

explore!”

“You're always wanting to explore,” I said. “What on earth is there to

explore for in this house?”

“Biscuits!” said the inspired Edward.

“Hooray! Come on!” chimed in Harold, sitting up suddenly. He had been

awake all the time, but had been shamming asleep, lest he should be

fagged to do anything.

It was indeed a fact, as Edward had remembered, that our thoughtless

elders occasionally left the biscuits out, a prize for the night-walking

adventurer with nerves of steel.

Edward tumbled out of bed, and pulled a baggy old pair of knickerbockers

over his bare shanks. Then he girt himself with a belt, into which

he thrust, on the one side a large wooden pistol, on the other an

old single-stick; and finally he donned a big slouch-hat--once

an uncle's--that we used for playing Guy Fawkes and Charles-the-Second

up-a-tree in. Whatever the audience, Edward, if possible, always dressed

for his parts with care and conscientiousness; while Harold and I, true

Elizabethans, cared little about the mounting of the piece, so long as

the real dramatic heart of it beat sound.

Our commander now enjoined on us a silence deep as the grave, reminding

us that Aunt Eliza usually slept with an open door, past which we had to

file.

“But we'll take the short cut through the Blue Room,” said the wary

Selina.

“Of course,” said Edward, approvingly. “I forgot about that. Now then!

You lead the way!”

The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a

superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but

enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber

wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when

a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file,

the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of

moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this

our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the

hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded,

after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet

down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for

Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his

single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the

stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina

was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the

chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a

clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of

the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with

the dumbest of dumb shows.

Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us

that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the

tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope

themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the

staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a

faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to

us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless

seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a

cheerful blaze; and biscuits--a plateful--smiled at us in an encouraging

sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed

but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon

segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire,

its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many

nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.

“It's a funny thing,” said Edward, as we chatted, “how; I hate this room

in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair

brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite

jolly. Looks different, somehow.”

“I never can make out,” I said, “what people come here to tea for.

They can have their own tea at home if they like,--they're not poor

people,--with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck

their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way

off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs,

and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time.”

Selina sniffed disdainfully. “You don't know anything about it,” she

said. “In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing

to do.”

“Pooh! YOU'RE not in society,” said Edward, politely; “and, what's more,

you never will be.”

“Yes, I shall, some day,” retorted Selina; “but I shan't ask you to come

and see me, so there!”

“Wouldn't come if you did,” growled Edward.

“Well, you won't get the chance,” rejoined our sister, claiming her

right of the last word. There was no heat about these little amenities,

which made up--as we understood it--the art of polite conversation.

“I don 't like society people,” put in Harold from the sofa, where he

was sprawling at full length,--a sight the daylight hours would have

blushed to witness. “There were some of 'em here this afternoon, when

you two had gone off to the station. Oh, and I found a dead mouse on the

lawn, and I wanted to skin it, but I wasn't sure I knew how, by myself;

and they came out into the garden and patted my head,--I wish people

wouldn't do that,--and one of 'em asked me to pick her a flower. Don't

know why she couldn't pick it herself; but I said, 'All right, I will if

you'll hold my mouse.' But she screamed, and threw it away; and Augustus

(the cat) got it, and ran away with it. I believe it was really his

mouse all the time, 'cos he'd been looking about as if he had lost

something, so I wasn't angry with HIM; but what did SHE want to throw

away my mouse for?”

“You have to be careful with mice,” reflected Edward; “they're such

slippery things. Do you remember we were playing with a dead mouse once

on the piano, and the mouse was Robinson Crusoe, and the piano was the

island, and somehow Crusoe slipped down inside the island, into its

works, and we couldn't get him out, though we tried rakes and all sorts

of things, till the tuner came. And that wasn't till a week after, and

then--”

Here Charlotte, who had been nodding solemnly, fell over into the

fender; and we realised that the wind had dropped at last, and the house

was lapped in a great stillness. Our vacant beds seemed to be calling

to us imperiously; and we were all glad when Edward gave the signal

for retreat. At the top of the staircase Harold unexpectedly turned

mutinous, insisting on his right to slide down the banisters in a

free country. Circumstances did not allow of argument; I suggested

frog's-marching instead, and frog's-marched he accordingly was, the

procession passing solemnly across the moonlit Blue Room, with Harold

horizontal and limply submissive. Snug in bed at last, I was just

slipping off into slumber when I heard Edward explode, with chuckle and

snort.

“By Jove!” he said; “I forgot all about it. The new tutor's sleeping in

the Blue Room!”

“Lucky he didn't wake up and catch us,” I grunted, drowsily; and both of

us, without another thought on the matter, sank into well-earned repose.

Next morning we came down to breakfast braced to grapple with fresh

adversity, but were surprised to find our garrulous friend of the

previous day--he was late in making his appearance--strangely silent and

(apparently) preoccupied. Having polished off our porridge, we ran out

to feed the rabbits, explaining to them that a beast of a tutor would

prevent their enjoying so much of our society as formerly.

On returning to the house at the fated hour appointed for study, we

were thunderstruck to see the station-cart disappearing down the

drive, freighted with our new acquaintance. Aunt Eliza was brutally

uncommunicative; but she was overheard to remark casually that she

thought the man must be a lunatic. In this theory we were only too ready

to concur, dismissing thereafter the whole matter from our minds.

Some weeks later it happened that Uncle Thomas, while paying us a flying

visit, produced from his pocket a copy of the latest weekly, Psyche: a

Journal of the Unseen; and proceeded laborously to rid himself of

much incomprehensible humour, apparently at our expense. We bore it

patiently, with the forced grin demanded by convention, anxious to

get at the source of inspiration, which it presently appeared lay in a

paragraph circumstantially describing our modest and humdrum habitation.

“Case III.,” it began. “The following particulars were communicated by

a young member of the Society, of undoubted probity and earnestness,

and are a chronicle of actual and recent experience.” A fairly accurate

description of the house followed, with details that were unmistakable;

but to this there succeeded a flood of meaningless drivel about

apparitions, nightly visitants, and the like, writ in a manner

betokening a disordered mind, coupled with a feeble imagination. The

fellow was not even original. All the old material was there,--the storm

at night, the haunted chamber, the white lady, the murder re-enacted,

and so on,--already worn threadbare in many a Christmas Number. No one

was able to make head or tail of the stuff, or of its connexion with

our quiet mansion; and yet Edward, who had always suspected the man,

persisted in maintaining that our tutor of a brief span was, somehow or

other, at the bottom of it.