Elizabeth W. Grierson

“ BURGLARS. NEXT morning Vivian awoke to find Ronald standing on a chair peering through a crevice of the blind. The remembrance of yesterday’s disaster flashed into his mind, and he was wide awake at once.
‘Whatever are you doing?’ he asked querulously. ‘It’s gray-dark, so you can’t see anything.’
‘I can’t think what in the world is the matter,’ answered Ronald in an excited whisper. ‘I’ve been awake since five—I heard it strike on the hall clock; and I think every one else in the house has been awake too. ”

“ Oh Jack,’ she cried piteously, turning to her husband, ‘I think I would almost rather he had died when he had that fever so badly three years ago than that you should have to tell me all this terrible story.’
‘Come, come, Margaret,’ said Uncle Walter kindly, for he saw that his sister-in-law scarcely knew what she was saying, ‘this is unlike you. All the strain and anxiety has been too much for you, and now this news on the top of all! It is a bad business, and I don’t wonder that you are surprised and grieved. I know what we would have felt if it had been Ralph. ”

“ Ronald’s mind was full of problems which he could not solve, the problems of life and death, which are so mysterious that in the face of them the oldest and wisest among us are but children, and can only trust where we cannot see; while Vivian was slowly fighting his way to a decision, which was very real and tangible, but which seemed so far above what his courage could attain to that as yet it was only a dream. ”

“ The summer-house stood right away from the stables and greenhouses, so that none of the men needed to go near it; and as the frost gave way again, as it had done on so many other days during the week, and an afternoon of heavy rain succeeded the brilliant sunshine of the morning, Aunt Dora did not insist on the children going out for their usual run, but sent them up into the schoolroom, where they spent the afternoon quietly with Sunday puzzles and story-books, so as not to disturb Isobel, who was still much more inclined to sleep than to talk. ”

“ This was Ralph, the eldest of Mrs Osbourne’s children. He was just a little older than Vivian, though he might have been Ronald’s age from his very grown-up manner. As a little boy he had been very delicate, and had been abroad a great deal with an old French governess who had taught his mother when she was a child. He was at a boarding-school at Eastbourne now; and, having the idea in his own mind that he had seen a great deal of the world, he was rather inclined to patronise his cousins, who had always lived in the country, and to whom even a visit to London was an event. ”

“ He kept his face bent so steadily over his plate that no one noticed until breakfast was over that he had a big blue bruise on one of his temples, which looked as though he had struck his face against something sharp. It was little Claude who saw it first, and he cried out at once, in spite of Vivian’s hurried whisper to keep quiet.
‘Come here, mother, and see how Vivian has hurt himself; he has got a great bump over one of his eyes. ”

“ Vivian watched her with admiring eyes.
‘You are a brick, Isobel,’ he said; ‘you can climb as well as any boy, and yet you are so nice and dainty. I wish the Lister girls down at home saw you, they are such stiff, starched, stuck-up prigs; they think that no girl can climb and do that sort of thing and yet be what they call ladylike. If they have got to get over a wall, no matter how low it is, they cry out and make such a fuss. We fellows hate them. ”

“ I feel sure that there is something worse than even Isobel’s illness. You haven’t said good-night to me, and you haven’t said your prayers.’
The only answer was a restless movement, and another sharp, strangled sob, and then, just as Ronald was making up his mind to go back to bed, feeling it was no use to ask any more questions, Vivian burst out, ‘I can’t say my prayers, Ronald; I daren’t. I have been so wicked. Oh, if you only knew!’
‘But God knows,’ said Ronald. ‘He knows how wicked we all are, and yet that doesn’t hinder Him listening to us. ”

“ So the wise man waited patiently, determined to win the little boy’s confidence by kindness and not by force, trying in the meantime to make the tedious time of convalescence as easy as possible, by reading to him, and playing simple games with him, and talking as if Pierre’s life had only begun with his illness, and all his past life had been one long blank. ”

“ That was not exactly telling a lie, Vivian; but do you not think that it was acting one? I think that is your besetting sin, my boy. You know that we all have a sin that we must specially fight against, and I want you to try and fight against yours. You have not the moral courage to confess when you have done something wrong, but you try to shuffle and explain things away, so as to hide what you have done. You have plenty of courage in other ways, quite as much, if not more, than Ronald. You have the kind of courage that would make you fight, or face danger ”

“ The words were strictly true, and yet they explained everything so naturally that Vivian wondered how he had ever thought Ronald stupid.
‘Dear, dear,’ said Lucy, looking admiringly at Vivian, ‘so you really saw him, Master Vivian! No wonder you look white and shaken. He might have murdered you, he might, when there was no one about. London must be a dreadful place. I am glad I don’t live there. Have another cup of tea? No? Even if I put two lumps of sugar in it? Well, to be sure, it has taken away your appetite, and little wonder. And you must be ready for the twelve o’clock train too! ”

“ THE OPINION OF DR JULES. ‘TIENS!’ said old Monsieur Croite, the family doctor and trusted friend of the Choisigny family, who had been hastily summoned from Dinard, and who stood looking down at his little patient, with Mr Maxwell and the Vicomte at his elbow. ‘At the first there has been a chill, a most severe one, and that has brought on a slight attack of rheumatic fever. Not bad, that is to say, but still it is there. And on the top of that, as it were, there are signs of irritability of the brain. That may arise from one thing, or it may arise from another. ”

“ The kind words brought the tears to Vivian’s eyes. ‘It is mother,’ he said huskily. ‘I don’t feel as if I could meet her.’
‘Nonsense,’ said his father cheerily, for he saw that the little fellow had had enough to bear, and needed some encouragement if he were not to break down altogether, ‘mother is never hard on any one who has owned up and said that they are sorry; and I am sure that Aunt Dora and Uncle Walter will not be too hard on you either, although, of course, you must expect to find them both angry and disappointed with you at first. ”

“ No one looking at them would have judged them to be contemporaries in age, for the years that had been spent by Nigel Maxwell in fighting with the sin and misery of an East London parish, and that had broken down his health for a time, and made his hair whiter than it need have been, had passed lightly over the Vicomte, who, nevertheless, had done his duty nobly in his own way, and was known by all the peasants on his large estates as a model landlord and a kind and just master. ”

“ And your mug was so solid it would take a long time to melt.
‘As for you, Master Ralph,’ she went on, ‘if I were a big boy like you I would be ashamed [116] to tease a little one and make him cry, when there is so much trouble and worry in the house. Dear, dear! there, you have set him off, and you know how long it will be before he stops; and what will your father say, with Miss Isobel so ill?’
‘How is Isobel?’ asked Ronald, suddenly remembering what Anne had said when she called him, and noticing almost for the first time that neither she nor Aunt Dora had ever appeared. ”

“ Father knows,’ gasped Pierre between his sobs. ‘But I’ve been thinking all this time, since I could remember, that perhaps it would be better if I were always Pierre. I could go away and work, when I am better. The Vicomte might give me something to do, and you know I learned to work with Madame Genviève. For they must have lost me since Christmas time, and perhaps mother thinks that I am dead, and it would be better for them all, Ronald and Dorothy too, if they thought so always. ”

“ The man drew his ragged sleeve across his eyes.
‘It’s very hard, young master,’ he added in a broken voice, ‘that an honest man can’t go boldly up to the coachman’s door, and ask to see the dog, without being called names, and turned away as a beggar, just because he’s poor, and his coat isn’t as whole as it might be.’
‘I could manage to give the dog your little girl’s cakes,’ said Vivian eagerly. He was very kind-hearted, and, besides, he began to see a way of escape for himself. ”

“ It was a foggy afternoon, and Victoria Station looked very big, and dark, and bustling, as the train steamed into it; and as a porter threw open the door of their carriage, and they stepped on to the platform, the boys felt somewhat bewildered with the crowd of people who were running about in all directions.
‘Supposing Aunt Dora has mistaken the train? I don’t see her anywhere,’ said Ronald, who was always rather anxious-minded.
[22]
‘Oh, we’ll just take a cab,’ said Vivian confidently; ‘that’s the way people do, and give the man the address—“Eversley, Hampstead Heath.” ”

“ He dragged his feet along with a hopeless slouch, and his cap was pulled right over his eyes, as if to hide his face from the passers-by.
With one accord the boys raced after them, and overtook the strangely mated couple just as they turned the corner at the grocer’s shop and turned up the path which led over the Heath to the police station.
‘What’s the matter, Joe?’ asked Ralph, who had been fairly startled out of his indifference [137] by the events of the day, looking pityingly at Joe’s swollen and tear-stained eyes, for the big lad was crying like a baby. ”

“ Poor Vivian wished the same wish a great many times as the express flew quickly along towards London. He had dreaded being alone with his father, and yet to have been alone with him now would have been a relief, for there were two other gentlemen in the carriage, both of whom knew Dr Armitage, and were eager for any fresh news he could give them respecting the robbery. ”

“ Aunt Dora had gone out, however, and when he told his tale to Ralph, who had grown tired of waiting for the others to be taken, and had gone indoors, he only laughed at his cousin’s grave face and anxious voice.
‘Don’t be a muff,’ he said in his languid, patronising way. ‘If you were at school you would learn not to be so squeamish over every little knock that every one gets. I expect Isobel will be all right by now, and it will teach both Vivian and her not to get out of the garden like that. ”

“ I hope Dorothy will grow up as pretty as she is.’
‘Isobel is just perfect,’ said Vivian emphatically. [31] ‘I hope Aunt Dora will let her come down to us again in spring for the Easter holidays; she will make the Strangeways look astonished. They were not at home the last time she came. They always laugh at girls, but they won’t laugh at her when they see how she plays cricket. She is not like the Lister girls, who daren’t catch a ball in case it hurts their fingers. I only wish Ralph were like her,’ he added, going back to the vexed question of clothes. ”

“ Vivian’s thin white hand in hers and held it fast. ‘Well, we shall see what we shall see. I fancy Madame Genviève will need to put up with a variety of people who want to poke about in her thatched roof.—But by your leave, Monsieur the Vicomte, I shall say adieu, or rather au revoir. The train for Paris leaves Dinard at six o’clock sharp, and I think I hear the man bringing round the motor.’ And with a cheery nod and smile the little man departed, eager to be on the track of the men for whom he and his colleagues had searched so diligently for the last six months. ”

“ When it was finished he rose, and, crossing the room, he stooped down to give Pierre his customary good-night kiss; but the little face was buried in the pillow, and he could feel that the boy was shaking from head to foot in his endeavours to keep back the sobs.
‘This will never do,’ he thought to himself; ‘this will throw him back for days. It is better to have it out, even at the risk of a lecture from Dr Jules.’
So, seating himself on the bed, he put his arm very tenderly round the little huddled-up figure, and drew it towards him. ”

“ Aunt Dora was nowhere to be seen. The dining-room door was open, and they could see how the drawers in the sideboard and plate-cupboard had been forced, and their contents rifled, and most of them carried away.
Vivian would have gone into the room, but Mary pulled him back.
‘No one has to go in there, Master Vivian,’ she whispered; ‘it has to be left as it is until some very clever man, a detective from Scotland Yard, comes. They have telegraphed for him, and they expect him every minute. ”