The Works of Rudyard Kipling Part 109

"Oh, here, no affection can stand this sort of thing. Wake up, d.i.c.k, and go and sleep somewhere else, if you intend to make a noise about it."

"When a cat has been out on the tiles all night," said the Nilghai, in his beard, "I notice that she usually sleeps all day. This is natural history."

d.i.c.k staggered away rubbing his eyes and yawning. In the night-watches he was overtaken with an idea, so simple and so luminous that he wondered he had never conceived it before. It was full of craft. He would seek Maisie on a week-day,--would suggest an excursion, and would take her by train to Fort Keeling, over the very ground that they two had trodden together ten years ago.

"As a general rule," he explained to his chin-lathered reflection in the morning, "it isn't safe to cross an old trail twice. Things remind one of things, and a cold wind gets up, and you feel sad; but this is an exception to every rule that ever was. I'll go to Maisie at once."

Fortunately, the red-haired girl was out shopping when he arrived, and Maisie in a paint-spattered blouse was warring with her canvas. She was not pleased to see him; for week-day visits were a stretch of the bond; and it needed all his courage to explain his errand.

"I know you've been working too hard," he concluded, with an air of authority. "If you do that, you'll break down. You had much better come."

"Where?" said Maisie, wearily. She had been standing before her easel too long, and was very tired.

"Anywhere you please. We'll take a train tomorrow and see where it stops. We'll have lunch somewhere, and I'll bring you back in the evening."

"If there's a good working light tomorrow, I lose a day." Maisie balanced the heavy white chestnut palette irresolutely.

d.i.c.k bit back an oath that was hurrying to his lips. He had not yet learned patience with the maiden to whom her work was all in all.

"You'll lose ever so many more, dear, if you use every hour of working light. Overwork's only murderous idleness. Don't be unreasonable. I'll call for you tomorrow after breakfast early."

"But surely you are going to ask----"

"No, I am not. I want you and n.o.body else. Besides, she hates me as much as I hate her. She won't care to come. Tomorrow, then; and pray that we get sunshine."

d.i.c.k went away delighted, and by consequence did no work whatever.

He strangled a wild desire to order a special train, but bought a great gray kangaroo cloak lined with glossy black marten, and then retired into himself to consider things.

"I'm going out for the day tomorrow with d.i.c.k," said Maisie to the red-haired girl when the latter returned, tired, from marketing in the Edgware road.

"He deserves it. I shall have the studio floor thoroughly scrubbed while you're away. It's very dirty."

Maisie had enjoyed no sort of holiday for months and looked forward to the little excitement, but not without misgivings.

"There's n.o.body nicer than d.i.c.k when he talks sensibly," she thought, "but I'm sure he'll be silly and worry me, and I'm sure I can't tell him anything he'd like to hear. If he'd only be sensible, I should like him so much better."

d.i.c.k's eyes were full of joy when he made his appearance next morning and saw Maisie, gray-ulstered and black-velvet-hatted, standing in the hallway. Palaces of marble, and not sordid imitation of grained wood, were surely the fittest background for such a divinity. The red-haired girl drew her into the studio for a moment and kissed her hurriedly.

Maisie's eyebrows climbed to the top of her forehead; she was altogether unused to these demonstrations. "Mind my hat," she said, hurrying away, and ran down the steps to d.i.c.k waiting by the hansom.

"Are you quite warm enough! Are you sure you wouldn't like some more breakfast? Put the cloak over your knees."

"I'm quite comf'y, thanks. Where are we going, d.i.c.k? Oh, do stop singing like that. People will think we're mad."

"Let 'em think,--if the exertion doesn't kill them. They don't know who we are, and I'm sure I don't care who they are. My faith, Maisie, you're looking lovely!"

Maisie stared directly in front of her and did not reply. The wind of a keen clear winter morning had put colour into her cheeks. Overhead, the creamy-yellow smoke-clouds were thinning away one by one against a pale-blue sky, and the improvident sparrows broke off from water-spout committees and cab-rank cabals to clamour of the coming of spring.

"It will be lovely weather in the country," said d.i.c.k.

"But where are we going?"

"Wait and see."

The stopped at Victoria, and d.i.c.k sought tickets. For less than half the fraction of an instant it occurred to Maisie, comfortably settled by the waiting-room fire, that it was much more pleasant to send a man to the booking-office than to elbow one's own way through the crowd. d.i.c.k put her into a Pullman,--solely on account of the warmth there; and she regarded the extravagance with grave scandalised eyes as the train moved out into the country.

"I wish I knew where we are going," she repeated for the twentieth time.

The name of a well-remembered station flashed by, towards the end of the run, and Maisie was delighted.

"Oh, d.i.c.k, you villain!"

"Well, I thought you might like to see the place again. You haven't been here since the old times, have you?"

"No. I never cared to see Mrs. Jennett again; and she was all that was ever there."

"Not quite. Look out a minute. There's the windmill above the potato-fields; they haven't built villas there yet; d'you remember when I shut you up in it?"

"Yes. How she beat you for it! I never told it was you."

"She guessed. I jammed a stick under the door and told you that I was burying Amomma alive in the potatoes, and you believed me. You had a trusting nature in those days."

They laughed and leaned to look out, identifying ancient landmarks with many reminiscences. d.i.c.k fixed his weather eye on the curve of Maisie's cheek, very near his own, and watched the blood rise under the clear skin. He congratulated himself upon his cunning, and looked that the evening would bring him a great reward.

When the train stopped they went out to look at an old town with new eyes. First, but from a distance, they regarded the house of Mrs.

Jennett.

"Suppose she should come out now, what would you do?" said d.i.c.k, with mock terror.

"I should make a face."

"Show, then," said d.i.c.k, dropping into the speech of childhood.

Maisie made that face in the direction of the mean little villa, and d.i.c.k laughed.

"'This is disgraceful,'" said Maisie, mimicking Mrs. Jennett's tone.

"'Maisie, you run in at once, and learn the collect, gospel, and epistle for the next three Sundays. After all I've taught you, too, and three helps every Sunday at dinner! d.i.c.k's always leading you into mischief.

If you aren't a gentleman, d.i.c.k, you might at least...'"

The sentence ended abruptly. Maisie remembered when it had last been used.

"'Try to behave like one,'" said d.i.c.k, promptly. "Quite right. Now we'll get some lunch and go on to Fort Keeling,--unless you'd rather drive there?"

"We must walk, out of respect to the place. How little changed it all is!"

They turned in the direction of the sea through unaltered streets, and the influence of old things lay upon them. Presently they pa.s.sed a confectioner's shop much considered in the days when their joint pocket-money amounted to a shilling a week.