A Great Emergency and Other Tales Part 16

Philip was a little apt to be red-hot over projects, and to cool before they were accomplished; but on this occasion we had no forebodings of such evil. Besides, he was to play the dragon! When he did fairly devote himself to anything, he grudged no trouble and hesitated at no undertakings. He was so much pleased with my plot and with the cave, that he announced that he should paint a new forest scene for the occasion. I tried to dissuade him. There were so many other things to be done, and the old scene was very good. But he had learnt several new tricks of the scene-painter's trade, and was bent upon putting them into practice. So he began his new scene, and I resolved to work all the harder at the odds and ends of our preparations. To be driven into a corner and pressed for time always stimulated instead of confusing me. I think the excitement of it is pleasant. Alice had the same dogged way of working at a crisis, and we felt quite confident of being able to finish up "at a push," whatever Philip might leave undone. The theatricals were to be on Twelfth Night.

Christmas pa.s.sed very happily on the whole. I found my temper much oftener tried since Philip's return, but this was not only because he was very wilful and very fond of teasing, but because with the younger ones I was always deferred to.

One morning we were very busy in the nursery, which was our workshop.

Philip's glue-pots and size-pots were steaming, there were coloured powders on every chair, Alice and I were laying a coat of invisible green over the cave-cask, and Philip, in radiant good-humour, was giving distance to his woodland glades in the most artful manner with powder-blue, and calling on us for approbation--when the housemaid came in.

"It's _not_ lunch-time?" cried Alice. "It can't be!"

"Get away, Mary," said Philip, "and tell cook if she puts on any more meals I'll paint her best cap pea-green. She's sending up luncheons and dinners all day long now: just because she knows we're busy."

Mary only laughed, and said, "It's a gentleman wants to see you, Master Philip," and she gave him a card. Philip read it, and we waited with some curiosity.

"It's a man I met in the train," said he, "a capital fellow. He lives in the town. His father's a doctor there. Granny must invite him to the theatricals. Ask him to come here, Mary, and show him the way."

"Oughtn't you to go and fetch him yourself?" said I.

"I can't leave this," said Philip. "He'll be all right. He's as friendly as possible."

I must say here that "Granny" was our maternal grandmother, with whom we lived. My mother and father were cousins, and Granny's husband was of that impetuous race to which we belonged. If he had been alive he would have kept us all in good order, no doubt. But he was dead, and Granny was the gentlest of old ladies: I fear she led a terrible life with us all!

Philip's friend came up-stairs. He _was_ very friendly; in fact Alice and I thought him forward, but he was several years older than Philip, who seemed proud of the acquaintance. Perhaps Alice and I were biased by the fact that he spoilt our pleasant morning. He was one of those people who look at everything one has been working at with such unintelligent eyes that their indifference ought not to dishearten one; and yet it does.

"It's for our private theatricals," said Philip, as Mr. Clinton's amazed stare pa.s.sed from our paint-covered selves to the new scene.

"My cousins in Dublin have private theatricals," said Mr. Clinton. "My uncle has built on a room for the theatre. All the fittings and scenes come from London, and the first costumiers in Dublin send in all the dresses and everything that is required on the afternoon before the performance."

"Oh, we're in a much smaller way," said Philip; "but I've some properties here that don't look bad by candlelight." But Mr. Clinton had come up to the cask, and was staring at it and us. I knew by the way Alice got quietly up, and shook some chips with a decided air out of her ap.r.o.n, that she did not like being stared at. But her movement only drew Mr. Clinton's especial attention.

"You'll catch it from your grandmamma for making such a mess of your clothes, won't you?" he asked.

"I _beg_ your pardon?" said Alice, with so perfect an air of not having heard him that he was about to repeat the question, when she left the nursery with the exact exit which she had made as a Discreet Princess repelling unwelcome advances in last year's play.

I was afraid of an outburst from Philip, and said in hasty civility, "This is a cave we are making."

"They'd a splendid cave at Covent Garden last Christmas," said Mr.

Clinton. "It covered half the stage. An enormously tall man dressed in cloth of silver stood in the entrance, and waved a spear ten or twelve feet long over his head. A fairy was let down above that, so you may be sure the cave was pretty big."

"Oh, here's the dragon," said Philip, who had been rummaging in the property box. "He's got a fiery tail."

"They were quite the go in pantomimes a few years ago," said Mr.

Clinton, yawning. "My uncle had two or three--bigger than that, of course."

Philip saw that his friend was not interested in amateur property-making, and changed the subject.

"What have you been doing this morning?" said he.

"I drove here with my father, who had got to pa.s.s your gates. I say, there's splendid shooting on the marsh now. I want you to come out with me, and we'll pot a wild duck or two."

"I've no gun," said Philip, and to soften the statement added, "there's no one here to go out with."

"I'll go out with you. And I say, we could just catch the train back to the town, and if you'll come and lunch with us, we'll go out a bit this afternoon and look round. But you must get a gun."

"I should like some fresh air," said Philip, "and as you've come over for me--"

I knew the appealing tone in his voice was for my ears, for my face had fallen.

"Could I be going on with it?" I asked, nodding towards the forest scene.

"Oh dear no! I'll go at it again to-night. It ought all to be painted by candlelight by rights. I'm not going to desert my post," he added.

"I hope not," said I as good-humouredly as I could; but dismay was in my heart.

CHAPTER VII.

A QUARREL--BOBBY IS WILLING--EXIT PHILIP.

Philip came back by an evening train, and when he had had something to eat he came up to the nursery to go on with the scene. We had got everything ready for him, and he worked for about half-an-hour. But he was so sleepy, with cold air and exercise, that he did not paint well, and then he got impatient, and threw it up--"till the morning."

In the morning he set to work, talking all the time about wild duck and teal, and the price of guns; but by the time he had put last night's blunders straight, the front door bell rang, and Mary announced "Mr. Clinton."

Philip was closeted in his room with his new friend till twelve o'clock. Then they went out into the yard, and finally Mr. Clinton stayed to luncheon. But I held my peace, and made Alice hold hers. Mr.

Clinton went away in the afternoon, but Philip got the plate-powder and wash-leather, and occupied himself in polishing the silver fittings of his dressing-case.

"I think you might do that another time, Philip," said I; "you've not been half-an-hour at the properties to-day, and you could clean your bottles and things quite as well after the theatricals."

"As it happens I just couldn't," said Philip; "I've made a bargain, and bargains won't wait."

Alice and I screamed in one breath, "You're _not_ going to give away the dressing-case!"--for it had been my father's.

"I said a _bargain_" replied Philip, rubbing harder than ever; "you can't get hold of a gun every day Without paying down hard cash."

"I hate Mr. Clinton!" said Alice.

It was a very unfortunate speech, for it declared open war; and when this is done it cannot be undone. There is no taking back those sharp sayings which the family curse hangs on the tips of our tongues.

Philip and Alice exchanged them pretty freely. Philip called us selfish, inhospitable, and jealous. He said we grudged his enjoying himself in the holidays, when he had been working like a slave for us during the half. That we disliked his friend because he _was_ his friend, and (not to omit the taunt of s.e.x) that Clinton was too manly a fellow to please girls, etc., etc. In self-defence Alice was much more out-spoken about both Philip and Mr. Clinton than she had probably intended to be. That Philip began things hotly, and that his zeal cooled before they were accomplished--that his imperiousness laid him open to flattery, and the necessity of playing first-fiddle betrayed him into second-rate friendships, which were thrown after the discarded hobbies--that Mr. Clinton was ill-bred, and with that vulgarity of mind which would make him rather proud than ashamed of getting the best of a bargain with his friend--these things were not the less taunts because they were true.

If the violent scenes which occur in ill-tempered families _felt_ half as undignified and miserable as they _look_, surely they would be less common! I believe Philip and Alice would have come to blows if I had not joined with him to expel her from the room. I was not happy about it, for my sympathy was on her side of the quarrel, but she had been the one to declare war, and I could not control Philip. In short, it is often not easy to keep the peace and be just too, as I should like to have said to Aunt Isobel, if she had been at home. But she was to be away until the 6th.

Alice defeated, I took Philip seriously to task. Not about his friend--the subject was too sore, and Alice had told him all that we thought, and rather more than we thought on that score--but about the theatricals. I said if he really was tired of the business we would throw it up, and let our friends know that the proposed entertainment had fallen through, but that if he wanted it to go forward he must decide what help he would give, and then abide by his promise.

We came to terms. If I would let him have a day or two's fun with his gun, Philip promised to "spurt," as he called it, at the end. I told him we would be content if he would join in a "thorough rehearsal,"

the afternoon before, and devote himself to the business on the day of the performance.

"Real business, you know," I added, "with n.o.body but ourselves. n.o.body coming in to interrupt."