Part II Chapter 14 Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl by L. T. Meade
A NOVEL HIDING-PLACE
Whether it was the children’s faith or the children’s prayer, certain it is that from that moment the alarming symptoms in connection with Dr. Maybright’s illness abated. It was some days before he was pronounced out of danger, but even that happy hour arrived in due course, and one by one his children were allowed to come to see him.
Mrs. Cameron meanwhile arranged matters pretty much as she pleased downstairs. Helen, who from the first had insisted on nursing her father herself, had no time to housekeep. Polly’s sprained ankle would not get well in a minute, and, besides, other circumstances had combined to reduce that young lady’s accustomed fire and ardor. Consequently, Mrs. Cameron had matters all her own way, and there is not the least doubt that she and Scorpion between them managed to create a good deal of moral and physical disquietude.
“Well,” she said to herself, “when all is said and done, that poor man who is on the flat of his back upstairs is my sainted Helen’s husband; and if at such a time as this Maria Cameron should harbor ill-will in her heart it would but ill become the leader of some of the largest philanthropic societies in Bath. No, for the present my place is here, and no black looks, nor surly answers, nor impertinent remarks, will keep Maria Cameron from doing her duty.”
Accordingly Mrs. Power gave a month’s notice, and Alice wept so profusely that her eyes for the time being were seriously injured. Scorpion bit the new kitchen-maid Jane twice, who went into hysterics and expected hydrophobia daily. But notwithstanding these and sundry other fracases, Mrs. Cameron steadily pursued her way. She looked into account-books, she interviewed the butcher, she dismissed the baker, she overhauled the store-room, and after her own fashion—and a disagreeable fashion it was—did a good deal of indirect service to the family.
Flower in particular she followed round so constantly and persistently that the young girl began to wonder if Mrs. Cameron seriously and really intended to punish her, by now bereaving her of her senses.
“I don’t think I can stand it much longer,” said Flower to Polly. “Last night I was in bed and asleep when she came in. I was awfully tired, and had just fallen into my first sleep, when that detestable dog snapped at my nose. There was Mrs. Cameron standing in the middle of the room with a lighted candle in her hand. ‘Get up,’ she said. ‘What for?’ I asked. ‘Get up this minute!’ she said, and she stamped her foot. I thought perhaps she would disturb your father, for my room is not far away from his, so I tumbled out of bed. ‘Now, what is the matter?’ I asked. ‘The matter?’ said Mrs. Cameron. ‘That’s the matter! and that’s the matter! and that’s the matter!’ And what do you think? She was pointing to my stockings and shoes, and my other clothes. I always do leave them in a little heap in the middle of the floor; they’re perfectly comfortable there, and it doesn’t injure them in the least. Well! that awful woman woke me out of my sleep to put them by. She stood over me, and made me fold the clothes up, and shake out the stockings, and put the shoes under a chair, and all the time that fiendish dog was snapping at my heels. Oh, it’s intolerable! I’ll be in a lunatic asylum if this goes on much longer!”
Polly laughed; she could not help it; and Firefly and David, who were both listening attentively, glanced significantly at one another.
The next morning, very, very early, Firefly was awakened by a bump. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and murmured, “All right!” under her breath.
“Put something on, Fly, and be quick,” whispered David’s voice from the door.
Firefly soon tumbled into a warm frock, a thick outdoor jacket, and a little fur cap; her shoes and stockings were tumbled on anyhow. Holding her jacket together—for she was in too great a hurry to fasten it—she joined David.
“I did it last night,” he said; “it’s a large hole; he’ll never be discovered there. And now the thing is to get him.”
“Oh, Dave, how will you manage that?”
“Trust me, Fly. Even if I do run a risk, I don’t care. Anything is better than the chance of Flower getting into another of her passions.”
“Oh, anything, of course,” said Fly. “Are you going to kill him, Dave?”
“No. The hole is big; he can move about in it. What I thought of was this—we’d sell him.”
“Sell him? But he isn’t ours.”
“No matter! He’s a public nuisance, and he must be got rid of. There are often men wandering on the moor who would be glad to buy a small dog like Scorpion. They’d very likely give us a shilling for him. Then we’d drop the shilling into Mrs. Cameron’s purse. Don’t you see? She’d never know how it got there. Then, you understand, it would really have been Mrs. Cameron who sold Scorpion.”
“Oh, delicious!” exclaimed Fly. “She’d very likely spend the money on postage stamps to send round begging charity letters.”
“So Scorpion would have done good in the end,” propounded David. “But come along now, Fly. The difficult thing is to catch the little brute.”
It was still very early in the morning, and the corridors and passages were quite dark. David and Fly, however, could feel their way about like little mice, and they soon found themselves outside the door of the green room, which was devoted to Mrs. Cameron.
“Do you feel this?” said David, putting out his hand and touching Fly. “This is a long towel; I’m winding part of it round my hand and arm. I don’t want to get hydrophobia, like poor Jane. Now, I’m going to creep into Mrs. Cameron’s room so quietly, that even Scorpion won’t wake. I learned how to do that from the black people in Australia. You may stand there, Fly, but you won’t hear even a pin fall till I come back with Scorpion.”
“If I don’t hear, I feel,” replied Fly. “My heart does thump so. I’m just awfully excited. Don’t be very long away, Dave.”
By this time David had managed to unhasp the door. He pushed it open a few inches, and then lay flat down on his face and hands. The next moment he had disappeared into the room, and all was profoundly still. Fly could hear through the partly open door the gentle and regularly kept-up sound of a duet of snoring. After three or four minutes the duet became a solo. Still there was no other sound, not a gasp, not even the pretense of a bark. More minutes passed by. Had David gone to sleep on the floor? Was Scorpion dead that he had ceased to snore?
These alarming thoughts had scarcely passed through her mind before David rejoined her.
“He’s wrapped up in this towel,” he said. “He’s kicking with his hind legs, but he can’t get a squeak out; now come along.”
Too careless and happy in the success of their enterprise even to trouble to shut Mrs. Cameron’s door, the two children rushed downstairs and out of the house. They effected their exit easily by opening the study window. In a moment or two they were in the shrubbery.
“The hole isn’t here,” said David. “Somebody might find him here and bring him back, and that would never do. Do you remember Farmer Long’s six-acre field?”
“Where he keeps the bull?” exclaimed Fly. “You haven’t made the hole there, Dave?”
“Yes, I have, in one corner! It’s the best place in all the world, for not a soul will dare to come near the field while the bull is there. You needn’t be frightened, Fly! He’s always taken home at night! He’s not there now. But don’t you see how he’ll guard Scorpion all day? Even Mrs. Cameron won’t dare to go near the field while the bull is there.”
“I see!” responded Fly, in an appreciative voice. “You’re a very clever boy, Dave. Now let’s come quick and pop him into the hole.”
Farmer Long’s six-acre field was nearly a quarter of a mile away, but the children reached it in good time, and Fly looked down with interest on the scene of David’s excavations. The hole, which must have given the little boy considerable labor, was nearly three feet deep, and about a foot wide. In the bottom lay a large beef bone.
“He won’t like it much!” said David. “His teeth aren’t good; he can only eat chicken bones, but hunger will make him nibble it by-and-by. Now, Fly, will you go behind that furze bush and bring me a square, flat board, which you will find there?”
“What a funny board!” said Fly, returning in a moment. “It’s all over little square holes.”
“Those are for him to breathe through,” said David. “Now, then, master, here you go! You won’t annoy any one in particular here, unless, perhaps, you interfere with Mr. Bull’s arrangements. Hold the board over the top of the hole, so, Fly. Now then, I hope you’ll enjoy yourself, my dear amiable little friend.”
The bandage which firmly bound Scorpion’s mouth was removed. He was popped into the hole, and the wooden cover made fast over the top. The children went home, vowing eternal secrecy, which not even tortures should wring from them.
At breakfast that morning Mrs. Cameron appeared late on the scene. Her eyes were red with weeping. She also looked extremely cross.
“Helen, I must request you to have some fresh coffee made for me. I cannot bear half cold coffee. Daisy, have the goodness to ring the bell. Yes, my dear children, I am late. I have a sad reason for being late; the dog is nowhere to be found.”
A gleam of satisfaction filled each young face. Fly crimsoning greatly, lowered her eyes; but David looked tranquilly full at Mrs. Cameron.
“Is it that nice little Scorpion?” he asked. “I’m awfully sorry, but I suppose he went for a walk.”
Mrs. Cameron glanced with interest at David’s sympathetic face.
“No, my dear boy, that isn’t his habit. The dear little dog sleeps, as a rule, until just the last moment. Then I lift him gently, and carry him downstairs for his cream.”
“I wonder how he likes that bare beef bone?” murmured Fly, almost aloud.
“He’s sure to come home for his cream in a moment or two!” said David.
He gave Fly a violent kick under the table.
“Helen,” said Mrs. Cameron, “be sure you keep Scorpion’s cream.”
“There isn’t any,” replied Helen. “I was obliged to send it up to father. There was not nearly so much cream as usual this morning. I had scarcely enough for father.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you have used up the dog’s cream?” exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. “Well, really, that is too much. The little animal will starve, he can’t touch anything else. Oh, where is he? My little, faithful pet! My lap feels quite empty without him. My dear children, I trust you may never love—love a little creature as I love Scorpion, and then lose him. Yes, I am seriously uneasy, the dog would not have left me of his own accord.”
Here, to the astonishment of everybody, and the intense indignation of Mrs. Cameron, Fly burst into a scream of hysterical laughter, and hid her face in Polly’s neck.
“What a naughty child!” exclaimed the good lady. “You have no sympathy with my pet, my darling! Speak this minute. Where is the dog, miss?”
“I expect in his grave,” said Fly.
Whereupon Dave suddenly disappeared under the table, and all the others stared in wonder at Fly.
“Firefly, do you know anything?”
“I expect Scorpion is in his grave. Where is the use of making such a fuss?” responded Fly.
And she made a precipitate retreat out of the window.
All the remainder of that day was occupied in a vain search for the missing animal. Mrs. Cameron strongly suspected Firefly, but the only remark the little girl could be got to make was:
“I am sure Scorpion is in his grave.”
Mrs. Cameron said that was no answer, and further insisted that the child should be severely punished. But as in reply to that, Helen said firmly that as long as father was in the house no one should punish the children but him, she felt, for the present, at least, obliged to hold her sense of revenge in check.
After Fly had gone to bed that night, David crept into her room.
“I’ve done it all now,” he said. “I sold Scorpion to-night for a shilling to a man who was walking across the moor, and I have just popped the shilling into Mrs. Cameron’s purse. The horrid little brute worked quite a big hole in the bottom of the grave, Fly, and he nearly snapped my fingers off when I lifted him out to give him to Jones. But he’s away now, that’s a comfort. What a silly thing you were, Fly, to burst out laughing at breakfast, and then say that Scorpion was in his grave.”
“But it was so true, David. That hole looked exactly like a grave.”
“But you have drawn suspicion upon you. Now, Mrs. Cameron certainly doesn’t suspect me. See what she has given me: this beautiful new two-shilling piece. She said I was a very kind boy, and had done my best to find her treasure for her.”
“Oh, Dave, how could you take it!”
“Couldn’t I, just! I’m not a little muff, like you. I intend to buy a set of wickets with this. Well, good-night, Fly; nobody need fear hydrophobia after this good day’s work.”