Chapter 22 Girls of the True Blue by L. T. Meade
THE BROKEN LOCK
It was quite dusk when Augusta and Nancy found themselves once more back at Fairleigh. From the moment they left the cross-roads to the time they reached the house neither of the girls spoke.
Augusta was full of the delights of the past day, and was turning over in her mind what possible stratagems she might employ to enable her to see more of the Asprays.
Nancy was equally busy wondering if Uncle Peter had yet arrived; and when they turned the corner and saw Kitty and Nora each hanging on the arm of the Captain, she uttered a glad cry and ran forward.
“Ah! here you are. Good-evening, little niece Nancy.—And how are you, Augusta?”
“I am so sorry we were not here when you arrived, Uncle Peter!” said Augusta. “We were away at a picnic.”
“I told Uncle Peter you were having a gay time and I did not know when you would be back,” remarked Nora, “but we waited supper for you all the same. Shall we go in now?—for I am sure Uncle Peter must be very hungry.”
“Hungry is no word for it,” cried Captain Richmond. “I am starving. Don’t stay long tittivating, girls, but come down as soon as ever you can, for the patience of a hungry man has its limits.”
The four girls ran upstairs laughing merrily.
“Isn’t he nice?” thought Nancy to herself. “Doesn’t he make the whole house seem breezy and happy? I am glad that he has come. Gussie won’t dare to tell any more lies now. And I hope—oh! I do hope she won’t often expect me to go with her to see the Asprays. Oh, to think that I might have had to live with them! I should indeed have been a most miserable girl. I would not exchange such darlings as Nora and Kitty for Flora and Constance Aspray.”
“Are you ready?” cried Kitty at that moment, tapping at the door of the little girl’s room.
“Yes. Just come in, please, Kitty,” cried Nancy.
Kitty entered. She wore a white dress with a pale-blue sash, and she looked most sweet and charming.
“Oh, you darling!” said Nancy, running up to her. “I must kiss you—I must. Oh, how different you are! Oh, it is such a relief to get home again!”
“What queer, broken sentences, Nancy!” exclaimed Kitty. “Why is it such a relief to get home; and who am I different from?”
“The Asprays,” said Nancy.
“Then you had not a happy day?”
“Oh, never mind! I suppose I ought to have had.”
“You need not see any more of them; you may be sure of that, Nancy. Uncle Peter was rather surprised at your both going. I think Uncle Peter is what you call punctilious—yes, that is the word. I am sure he won’t let us have anything to say to them until mother returns. But now let us hurry down to supper. Do you know, Nancy, that he is nicer than ever, and he has got no end of lovely schemes. I can see that we are going to have a most heavenly time.”
“Did he—did he say anything,” said Nancy slowly “did he say anything about our battalion?”
“No; not a single word. I expected him to, and so did Nora; but I could see that it was in the back of his head all the time. I expect the grand prize-day, when the best girl receives the Royal Cross, will take place before we return to town. And, oh, Nancy darling! I have a shrewd suspicion that you will win.”
“I!” said Nancy. “Certainly not. I am not better than you or Nora.”
“In some ways you are better. You are more patient; and then, you have more to put up with. Uncle Peter is the sort of man to take all that into consideration. He is very just—very just indeed—and he is quite safe to give the cross to the person who has really earned it.”
“What are you two chattering about?” now came from Augusta. “We are all waiting downstairs. Do hurry up.”
The girls flew down, their arms encircling each other.
“Oh,” thought Nancy to herself, “how sweet, how delightful is Kitty! How happy she makes me!”
The dining-room table was prettily laid; the supper was good and abundant; Uncle Peter had a joke for every one. Never was there a more delightful meal. When the Captain assured the girls he felt quite like a paterfamilias with four grown-up daughters, they considered it the hugest fun in the world, and laughed with uncontrolled delight. But the gayest of meals come to an end, and once again the little party went out and paced up and down on the moonlit lawn.
It was now Nancy’s turn to clasp her hand inside Captain Richmond’s arm, and with Nora on the other side, to walk backwards and forwards in front of the old house. Meanwhile Kitty and Augusta fell behind the others.
“I hope you had a good time, Gussie,” said her cousin.
“You mean to-day,” said Augusta. “There is only one word for to-day—it was ripping. Yes; I can call it nothing else. Oh Kit, you will help me, won’t you?”
“In what way, Gussie?”
“I want to see some more of them—oh, so badly! You won’t put an obstacle in my way, will you?”
“I am not the one to do it,” answered Kitty; “but, of course, you can understand, Gussie, that we have all got to obey the Captain.”
“I wish he hadn’t come,” said Augusta suddenly.
“You wish that Uncle Peter—darling Uncle Peter—hadn’t come?”
“Yes; but you need not cry it out quite so loud. I don’t, of course, want him to hear. I am sorry he has come because he is sure to be very strict and proper, and perhaps he won’t like the Asprays.”
“I don’t believe he will have anything to do with them. Oh dear! there is ten o’clock striking, and we must go to bed.”
“Girls,” said the Captain as they re-entered the house, “this night has been pure pleasure; but, you know, business awaits us to-morrow, and before I retire for the night I should just like to run my eye over the orderly-book. Can you get it for me, Nora? Your mother must have left it where you could find it.”
Nora’s face turned white and then pink.
“I am so dreadfully sorry, Uncle Peter,” she exclaimed, “but we have lost the key of the drawer in mother’s chiffonier in which she keeps the orderly-book. It is altogether my fault and Kitty’s. Mother was going off in a great hurry, and she gave us the key, and we can’t find it high or low.”
“You had better have a good search for it to-morrow,” answered the Captain. “Never mind about it now. Good-night to you all. We will begin brisk and early to-morrow, soldiers of the True Blue.”
He gave the little party a military salute, and going to the drawing-room, he shut the door.
The girls went upstairs, Augusta thanking her stars that the key was lost.
“So much the better for my purposes,” she said to herself. “It will never occur to him to try that special drawer; if he did it would open fast enough. What a bit of luck that Kitty and Nora should have lost the key!”
The girls had now reached the broad landing which led by different corridors to their bedrooms. Here they said good-night, and Augusta quickly entered her own room. She felt excited and not at all disposed to sleep. The Asprays had fascinated her, and the thought of meeting that delightful American, Mr. David Archer, the man whom Flora had assured her would take a great fancy to her, very nearly turned the silly girl’s head.
“I wonder if I am really handsome,” she said to herself. “I wonder if there is something remarkable and fascinating about me. I should like so much to know! Perhaps if I met him he would tell me. I wonder if he would. It would be very nice to be pretty; pretty girls have such a jolly time. Now, Nancy is pretty. It is horribly unfair, but although she is nothing but a charity-child, she has far and away the most charming face of any of us. What would I not give for her complexion, and those beautiful wide dark eyes of hers, and that thick, thick ebony-black hair? But I dare say I am very passable myself. I observed Flora looking at me quite with approbation to-day. I shall light some candles and see how I look before I go to bed.”
Augusta accordingly lit two candles which stood in heavy oak stands on the mantelpiece. These she placed one on each side of her looking-glass, and then, drawing the glass forward, she sat down and stared into her face. But the glass was somewhat dim from age, and the light altogether inefficient.
“Why, I see nothing but a blur,” thought the girl; and then it occurred to her to go into her aunt’s room and fetch some more candles from there.
The thought had no sooner come than she acted on it, bringing in a heavy pair of candlesticks with tall wax candles in them. Just as she reached her own door her foot knocked against something metallic. She stooped and picked up a little key.
“The lost key,” she murmured under her breath; and then she slipped it into her pocket.
With the aid of the four candles Augusta got a good view of her features. Her face was well shaped, and her eyes of a nice colour. She was altogether, as she expressed it, “more than passable.”
“If only I grow tall, and have a good figure, and am dressed as I ought to be, I shall be a success,” she said to herself. “Those two years in Paris will do wonders for me. Parisian polish is so effective! Yes, I shall have a good time when I do go into society. But, dear, dear! why should I wait for two or three years to have a good time when I may have it now? What fun to talk to a man like David Archer! Flora will do her best for me if I introduce Uncle Peter to them. I suppose they think they will fascinate Uncle Peter, but they don’t know him. Yes, he is a charming man, only I do wish he were not quite so awfully good.”
Augusta put out her candles and got into bed. As she laid her head on the pillow she remembered that she had just found the missing key.
“I am in luck,” she said to herself—“in rare luck. The first thing to-morrow I shall lock the chiffonier, and then I can throw the key down—the well in the garden. That orderly-book won’t be found then until Aunt Jessie returns.”
But man proposes, God disposes. This trite proverb proved its right to existence just at the time when Augusta thought all things were moulding themselves in her favour. For while the four girls slept peacefully in their different rooms, Captain Richmond thought and pondered in the drawing-room. He paced up and down until he had finished his cigarette. He then went and stood by the window, which was open.
He was thinking of his girls, and wondering how his battalion had behaved. In particular his thoughts were occupied with Nancy. He had taken a great fancy to Nancy when he had met her in London. He was sorry for her, and he thought he understood her character. His own nieces had always been to him as an open book, but Nancy puzzled while she interested him. “As to Augusta—I cannot make her out. Quite down in the bottom of my heart I don’t like Augusta,” said the Captain to himself. “It is very uncharitable of me not to like her, for I know nothing whatever to her discredit. But one is not accountable for these sort of feelings. Why do I like Nancy so much? Why am I certain that she is straight and noble and sweet and generous? I do believe that it was mostly on account of Nancy I thought of my little scheme to enroll the girls in my battalion. Well, I suppose as that key is lost I had better go to bed. We shall have a good time to-morrow. Yes, I must make those children happy. Jessie has entrusted them to my care, and they sha’n’t see more of those objectionable Asprays than I can help.”
The Captain was about to leave the room, having first shut the window and fastened the shutters, when his attention was attracted by the chiffonier. He was fond of Sheraton furniture, and saw at once that this was a particularly fine specimen. During his last visit to Fairleigh this handsome piece of furniture had not been in the drawing-room. He went up to it now, put down his candle, and looked it over with great care.
“I wonder where Jessie picked it up,” he said to himself, “and what she paid for it. It is certainly genuine. And how particularly fine these brass mountings are.” The chiffonier contained many drawers, some shallow and some deep. Each drawer was opened by a small brass handle, the lock being just above the handle. Captain Richmond took hold of one of the handles and pulled the drawer, which immediately slid out, and there, staring him in the face, was the well-known orderly-book.
“What a piece of luck!” he cried. “I am not a bit sleepy. So Jessie never locked the drawer. As I have found the book I may as well run my eye over its contents to-night. I shall make a more careful examination to-morrow, but I am curious to know how my soldiers have got on.”
The Captain lit another pair of candles, and drawing a comfortable chair forward, seated himself and opened the book. His practised eyes ran quickly over the pages. Augusta’s entries were very much what he had expected; they were fairly good without being anything remarkable. His own two nieces were also creditable soldiers—neat, punctilious as to behaviour, early risers, well forward in their athletics, and each girl bore marks of excellent conduct.
“Now for Nancy,” thought the Captain.
Nancy’s pages came last, as she was the youngest girl of the four. As Captain Richmond read the entries, made first by Miss Roy and then by his sister-in-law, he smiled to himself.
“Well done, Nancy!” he said more than once. “Brave little soldier. I rather gather that you had a tussle with yourself on this day, and that you conquered again on this day. Strange that I should read between the lines! I was not mistaken in my estimate of your character, little Nancy. But, oh! what have we here?”
The Captain was now reading the brief entry made in Mrs. Richmond’s writing on 24th August. He read the few remarks, once in puzzled bewilderment, twice in incredulity, and a third time with the colour mounting to his face and apprehension in his eyes.
“It can’t be true,” he said to himself. “Nancy guilty of cruelty! Impossible.”
He shut the book as if he were thoroughly dissatisfied, and returning it to its drawer, he went up to bed.