The Terrible Twins Part 23

"Well, you must send for some," said the princess, who, having taken the first step, was finding it pleasant to be firm.

"Moost? Moost? I do nod know whad ees 'appen to you, your Royal Highness. I say eed ees eembossible!" shouted the baroness; and she banged on the table with her fist.

"But surely her highness' request is a very natural one, Baroness; and there must be some nice children in the neighborhood if we were to look for them. Besides, Doctor Arbuthnot said that she ought to have children of her own age to play with," said Miss Lambart who had been pitying the lonely child and seized eagerly on this chance of helping her to the companionship she needed.

"Do nod indervere, Englanderin!" bellowed the baroness; and her crimson was enriched with streaks of purple. "I am in ze charge of 'er royal highness; and I zay zat she does not wiz zese children blay."

The fine gray eyes of the princess were burning with a somber glow.

She was angry, and her mind was teeming with the instructions of her young mentors, especially with the more violent instructions of Erebus.

She gazed straight into the sparkling but blood-shot eyes of the raging baroness, and said in a somewhat uncertain voice but clearly enough:

"Old--red--peeg."

Miss Lambart started in her chair; the baroness uttered a gasping grunt; she blinked; she could not believe her ears.

"But whad--but whad--" she said faintly.

"Old--red--peeg," said the princess, somewhat pleased with the effect of the words, and desirous of deepening it.

"Bud whad ees eed zat 'appen?" muttered the bewildered baroness.

"If you do not find me children quickly, I shall write to my father that you do not as the English doctor bids; and you were ordered to do everything what the English doctor bids," said the princess in a sinister tone. "Then you will go back to Ca.s.sel-Na.s.sau and the Baroness Hochfelden will be my _gouvernante_."

The baroness ground her teeth, but she trembled; it might easily happen, if the letter of the princess found the grand duke of Ca.s.sel-Na.s.sau in the wrong mood, that she would lose this comfortable well-paid post, and the hated Baroness Hochfelden take it.

"Bud zere are no 'igh an' well-born children, your Royal Highness," she said in a far gentler, apologetic voice.

The princess frowned at her and said: "Mees Lambart will find them. Is it not, Mees Lambart?"

"I shall be charmed to try, Highness," said Miss Lambart readily.

"Do nod indervere! I veel zose childen vind myzelf!" snapped the baroness.

The princess rose, still quivering a little from the conflict, but glowing with the joy of victory. At the door she paused to say:

"And I want them soon--at once."

Then, though the baroness had many times forbidden her to tempt the night air, she went firmly out into the garden. The next morning at breakfast she again demanded children to play with.

Accordingly when Doctor Arbuthnot paid his visit that morning, the baroness asked him what children in the neighborhood could be invited to come to play with the princess. She only stipulated that they should be high and well-born.

"Well, of course the proper children to play with her would be the Twins--Mrs. Dangerfield's boy and girl. They're high and well-born enough. But I doubt that they could be induced to play with a little girl. They're independent young people. Besides, I'm not at all sure that they would be quite the playmates for a quiet princess. It would hardly do to expose an impressionable child like the princess to such--er--er ardent spirits. You might have her developing a spirit of freedom; and you wouldn't like that."

"_Mein Gott_, no!" said the baroness with warm conviction.

"Then there's Wiggins--Rupert Carrington. He's younger and quieter but active enough. He'd soon teach her to run about."

"But is he well-born?" said the careful baroness.

"Well-born? He's a _Carrington_," said Doctor Arbuthnot with an impressive air that concealed well his utter ignorance of the ancestry of the higher mathematician.

The baroness accepted Wiggins gloomily. When the princess, who had hoped for the Twins, heard that he had been chosen, she accepted him with resignation. Doctor Arbuthnot undertook to arrange the matter.

The disappointed princess informed the Twins of the election of Wiggins; and they cheered her by reporting favorably on the qualifications of their friend, though Erebus said somewhat sadly:

"Of course, he'll insist on being an Indian chief and scalping you; he always does. But you mustn't mind that."

The princess thought that she would not mind it; it would at any rate be a change from listening monotonously to the snores of the baroness.

The Twins found it much more difficult to comfort and cheer their fair-haired, freckled, but infuriated friend. Not only was his reluctance to don the immaculate morning dress of an English young gentleman for the delectation of foreign princesses every whit as sincere as their own, but he felt the invitation to play with a little girl far more insulting than they would have done. They did their best to soothe him and make things pleasant for the princess, pointing out to him the richness of the teas he would a.s.suredly enjoy, and impressing on him the fact that he would be performing a n.o.ble charitable action.

"Yes; that's all very well," said Wiggins gloomily. "But I've been seeing ever such a little of you lately in the afternoons; and now I shall see less than ever."

Naturally, he was at first somewhat stiff with the princess; but the stiffness did not last; they became very good active friends; and he scalped her with gratifying frequency. In this way it came about that, in the matter of play, the princess led a double life. She spent the early part of the afternoon in the wood with the Twins; and from tea till the dressing-bell for dinner rang she enjoyed the society of Wiggins. She told no one of her friendship with the Twins; and Wiggins was surprised by her eagerness to hear everything about them he could tell. Between them she was beginning to acquire cheerfulness and muscle; and she was losing her air of delicacy, but not at a rate that satisfied the exigent Terror.

CHAPTER X

AND THE ENTERTAINMENT OF ROYALTY

The time had come for the Twins to take their annual change of air.

They took that change at but a short distance from their home, since the cost of a visit to the sea was more than their mother could afford.

They were allowed to encamp for ten days, if the weather were fine, in the dry sandstone caves of Deeping Knoll, which rises in the middle of Little Deeping wood, the property of Mr. Anstruther.

Kind-hearted as the Twins were, they felt that to make the journey from the knoll to Muttle Deeping home wood was beyond the bounds of philanthropy; and they broke the news to the princess as gently as they could. She was so deeply grieved to learn that she was no longer going to enjoy their society that, in spite of the fact that she had been made well aware that they despised and abhorred tears, she was presently weeping. She was ashamed; but she could not help it. The compa.s.sionate Twins compromised; they promised her that they would try to come every third afternoon; and with that she had to be content.

None the less on the eve of their departure she was deploring bitterly the fact that she would not see them on the morrow, when the Terror was magnificently inspired.

"Look here: why shouldn't you come with us into camp?" he said eagerly.

"A week of it would buck you up more than a month at the Grange. You really do get open air camping out at the knoll."

The face of the princess flushed and brightened at the splendid thought. Then it fell; and she said: "They'd never let me--never."

"But you'd never ask them," said the Terror. "You'd just slip away and come with us. We've kept our knowing you so dark that they'd never dream you were with us in the knoll caves."

The princess was charmed, even dazzled, by the glorious prospect. She had come to feel strongly that by far the best part of her life was the afternoons she spent with the Twins in the wood; whole days with them would be beyond the delight of dreams. But to her unadventured soul the difficulties seemed beyond all surmounting. The Twins, however, were used to surmounting difficulties, and at once they began surmounting these.

"The difficult thing is not to get you there, but to keep you there,"

said the Terror thoughtfully. "You see, I've got to go down every day for milk and things, and they're sure to ask me if I've seen anything of you. Of course, I can't lie about it; and then they'll not only take you away, but they'll probably turn us out of the caves."

"That's the drawback," said Erebus.

The Twins gazed round the wood seeking enlightenment. A deep frown furrowed the Terror's brow; and he said: "If only you weren't a princess they wouldn't make half such a fuss hunting for you, and I might never be asked anything about you."

"I should have to come to the camp incognita, of course," said the princess.