The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit [books to read fiction .txt] 📗

from a confederate, for the admirable preparations to arrest them as they returned for their ill-gotten plunder were unavailing. But the police have a clue.’ ”

“What a pity!” said Mabel.

“You needn’t worry⁠—they haven’t got any old clue,” said Gerald, still attentive to the piano leg.

“I didn’t mean the clue; I meant the confederate.”

“It’s a pity you think he’s a pity, because he was me,” said Gerald, standing up and leaving the piano leg alone. He looked straight before him, as the boy on the burning deck may have looked.

“I couldn’t help it,” he said. “I know you’ll think I’m a criminal, but I couldn’t do it. I don’t know how detectives can. I went over a prison once, with father; and after I’d given the tip to Johnson I remembered that, and I just couldn’t. I know I’m a beast, and not worthy to be a British citizen.”

“I think it was rather nice of you,” said Mabel kindly. “How did you warn them?”

“I just shoved a paper under the man’s door⁠—the one that I knew where he lived⁠—to tell him to lie low.”

“Oh! do tell me what did you put on it exactly?” Mabel warmed to this new interest. “It said: ‘The police know all except your names. Be virtuous and you are safe. But if there’s any more burgling I shall split and you may rely on that from a friend.’ I know it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. Don’t tell the others. They wouldn’t understand why I did it. I don’t understand it myself.”

“I do, said Mabel: it’s because you’ve got a kind and noble heart.”

“Kind fiddlestick, my good child!” said Gerald, suddenly losing the burning boy expression and becoming in a flash entirely himself. “Cut along and wash your hands; you’re as black as ink.”

“So are you,” said Mabel, “and I’m not. It’s dye with me. Auntie was dyeing a blouse this morning. It told you how in Home Drivel and she’s as black as ink too, and the blouse is all streaky. Pity the ring won’t make just parts of you invisible⁠—the dirt, for instance.”

“Perhaps,” Gerald said unexpectedly, “it won’t make even all of you invisible again.”

“Why not? You haven’t been doing anything to it⁠—have you?” Mabel sharply asked.

“No; but didn’t you notice you were invisible twenty-one hours; I was fourteen hours invisible, and Eliza only seven⁠—that’s seven less each time. And now we’ve come to⁠—”

“How frightfully good you are at sums!” said Mabel, awestruck.

“You see, it’s got seven hours less each time, and seven from seven is nought; it’s got to be something different this time. And then afterwards it can’t be minus seven, because I don’t see how⁠—unless it made you more visible⁠—thicker, you know.”

“Don’t!” said Mabel; “you make my head go round.”

“And there’s another odd thing,” Gerald went on; “when you’re invisible your relations don’t love you. Look at your aunt, and Cathy never turning a hair at me going burgling. We haven’t got to the bottom of that ring yet. Crikey! here’s Mademoiselle with the cakes. Run, bold bandits⁠—wash for your lives!”

They ran.

It was not cakes only; it was plums and grapes and jam tarts and soda-water and raspberry vinegar, and chocolates in pretty boxes and pure, thick, rich cream in brown jugs, also a big bunch of roses. Mademoiselle was strangely merry for a governess. She served out the cakes and tarts with a liberal hand, made wreaths of the flowers for all their heads⁠—she was not eating much herself⁠—drank the health of Mabel, as the guest of the day, in the beautiful pink drink that comes from mixing raspberry vinegar and soda-water, and actually persuaded Jimmy to wear his wreath, on the ground that the Greek gods as well as the goddesses always wore wreaths at a feast.

There never was such a feast provided by any French governess since French governesses began. There were jokes and stories and laughter. Jimmy showed all those tricks with forks and corks and matches and apples which are so deservedly popular. Mademoiselle told them stories of her own schooldays when she was “a quite little girl with two tight tresses⁠—so,” and when they could not understand the tresses, called for paper and pencil and drew the loveliest little picture of herself when she was a child with two short fat pigtails sticking out from her head like knitting-needles from a ball of dark worsted. Then she drew pictures of everything they asked for, till Mabel pulled Gerald’s jacket and whispered: “The acting!”

“Draw us the front of a theatre,” said Gerald tactfully, “a French theatre.”

“They are the same thing as the English theatres,” Mademoiselle told him.

“Do you like acting⁠—the theatre, I mean?”

“But yes I love it.”

“All right,” said Gerald briefly. “We’ll act a play for you⁠—now⁠—this afternoon if you like.”

“Eliza will be washing up,” Cathy whispered, “and she was promised to see it.”

“Or this evening,” said Gerald, “and please, Mademoiselle, may Eliza come in and look on?”

“But certainly,” said Mademoiselle; “amuse yourselves well, my children.”

“But it’s you,” said Mabel suddenly, “that we want to amuse. Because we love you very much don’t we, all of you?”

“Yes,” the chorus came unhesitatingly. Though the others would never have thought of saying such a thing on their own account. Yet, as Mabel said it, they found to their surprise that it was true.

“Tiens!” said Mademoiselle, “you love the old French governess? Impossible,” and she spoke rather indistinctly.

“You’re not old,” said Mabel; “at least not so very, she added brightly, and you’re as lovely as a Princess.”

“Go then, flatteress!” said Mademoiselle, laughing; and Mabel went. The others were already halfway up the stairs.

Mademoiselle sat in the drawing-room as usual, and it was a good thing that she was not engaged in serious study, for it seemed that the door opened and shut almost ceaselessly all throughout the afternoon. Might they have the embroidered antimacassars and the sofa cushions? Might they have the clothesline out of the washhouse? Eliza said they mightn’t, but might they? Might