AN EPISODE.
By E. S. Curry, Author of "The Twins," Etc.
Nora was putting on her hat in her own room; Christopher, her little son, was being dressed in the nursery to accompany her; Christabel, his twin sister, was in her own pertinacious way arguing with her mother. The Twins, known as Punch and Judy, had reached the age of two. Each had a will, and a method of making it known—though in this respect Judy caused most perplexity to her young parents. She was now asserting it.
"Me go too, mummie," in a decided tone, for the sixth time.
"No, Judy—not this time. Your turn next," Nora said cheerfully.
She did not like separating the twins, but one was as much as she could reasonably take to an afternoon tea party. They must learn some time to be divided, she thought sadly, after reflecting on the woes of the world.
"Me s'all go, mummie," in beautifully clear accents, with a charming smile.
"Shall you, dear? Yes, next time," Nora said, bending over the vivid little face, just the height of her dressing-table.
"If we're not back when father comes in," she went on, suggesting solace, "will you take care of him, Judy, and love him?"
"Yuv father," murmurously assented the baby, busy with a knot in her pink pinafore.
"And don't take off your pinafore, Judy," said her mother.
"Goin' out to tea," responded Judy. "Off!" releasing one little white serge shoulder from the enclosing cotton.
Nora moved about her room for a few more minutes before she went to the nursery to pick up her little son. Judy, trotting after, was kissed at the top of the staircase, and, with a sombre fire in her brilliant eyes, watched the descent of Christopher. His air of triumph as he stamped his booted feet on every stair was no doubt aggravating.
It was a cold March day, and, as she noted his gaitered legs, Judy glanced down at her own bare toes. At the sight of his hat, firmly set upon the soft fair curls, Judy lifted her chubby hands to her own bare head—bare but for its clustering brown waves with their tips of gold. A deep sense of unfair treatment, of unjust neglect, flitted across the baby's mind. A great determination filled it.
Nurse went through the open nursery door in a busy manner. It was Jane's afternoon out, and there was a good deal to tidy up. In two minutes Judy, after a fashion of her own, was at the bottom of the wide staircase, a lonely little figure, standing for a moment on the rug before the log fire. Finding the hall door shut and the drawing-room door open, the baby stepped into the conservatory, and was soon trotting down the drive. Her shoulders were set sturdily to a great effort. No one seeing her could possibly mistake their expression. She was going out to tea.
Outside the gates, left open for the exit of a carriage, Judy paused. Just before her, four roads crossed. Three she knew well—one led to the village, the other two were the routes of daily outings. The fourth was forbidden to the nurses because of a big public-house a quarter of a mile away—a rendezvous of trippers from London. Along this road the little figure turned.
A bicyclist rang his bell and startled her, whizzing close by her, as she did not move from the middle of the road. A man in a cart evaded her, pausing to look down with interest at the bare-headed little traveller.
"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone," he thought, turning in his seat to look after the purposeful little figure. He scratched his head and thought of his own baby, about the same size, and for a moment was tempted to turn his cart and go after her.
"She hadn't ought to have been let go out by herself," he thought, indignant with some neglectful guardian. "A little gipsy child, p'raps—never taught not to run in the middle of the road."
Unwitting of the kindly thought that followed her, Judy ran on—now and then pausing for a second to glance about her, her bare feet and uncovered head seeming to reck nothing of the cold spring wind. A timber waggon, drawn by three huge horses, and guided by a carter cracking his whip, made her flit in momentary tremor, with hunched shoulders, to the side of the road, from which security she, however, surveyed their passage with sparkling eyes. Holding out her arms in ecstatic approval, she urged shrilly. "Gee-gee—go, go"; and the carter glanced at her bright face, under its touzled waves of hair, admiringly.
"She's a spirit of her own," he thought, bestowing a momentary wonder on her lone condition as he passed.
The dust from the grinding wheels settled, and Judy pursued her way. Who can tell what thoughts were directing her progress, or whether she ever wondered where the tea she was in search of was to come from? She went on.
Presently a wayside inn, withdrawn a little from the road, with its sign-post shaking and creaking in the wind before it, came into view. Judy stopped and put her finger in her mouth, considering. This was a house. Here was tea.
In a doorway stood a man, round and red-faced. He had no coat, and his waistcoat had seen better days, whilst a battered felt hat was on his head. He was gazing into space, with little sharp eyes set under overhanging, beetling brows.
Judy drew nearer. Something in his appearance fascinated her. Possibly its untidy dishevelment touched a fellow-feeling and appealed to her reckless mood. At that moment nothing was doing, and the potman was smoking a dirty pipe when Judy drew near and surveyed him. For a moment or so the two looked at each other in silence. Judy spoke first.
"Tea!" she demanded imperiously.
"Tea!" he repeated, amazed. And then he stooped and touched the velvet of her cheek softly with his hand, and lifted the waves of her overshadowing hair. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Tea," answered Judy, and a little appeal had crept into her tone and into the beautiful dark eyes. The potman's resemblance to her friend the gardener was not so great, on nearer acquaintance, as she had at first thought.
"You want your tea, missy? Is that it?"
And, receiving a little nod and a charming smile, he lifted himself and scratched his head.
"There ain't no tea—but there's some milk" (his face suddenly brightening), "and one of them big buns. It's a bit stale—but if she's hungry."
He disappeared, and Judy, after a second's pause of indecision, elected not to follow him. The interior into which he had vanished was not inviting. There was a little porch to the closed front door, with wooden seats on either side, and these now caught Judy's vision. Trotting thither, she essayed to climb.
"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone."
"Up," she demanded, when the potman returned, carrying a mug of milk and a very large scone.
Safely seated, with the mug beside her, and the scone held carefully in both hands, she remarked in cheerful accents—"Out to tea," looking at him for corroboration.
"Out to tea? Yes, missy—where do you come from?" he answered. "What's yer mother thinking of to let yer out alone?" he asked.
Judy opened her mouth and fastened her little white teeth into the big stale bun, condescending no answer to inconvenient questions. The potman sat down opposite her and proceeded in his attempts.
"What's yer name, missy?" he asked again. "Ain't yer got one?" as Judy, disregarding him, seemed bent on demolishing the bun. She nibbled all round it, holding it with both hands, serenely callous to her companion's beguilements.
"Doody," at last she vouchsafed, in a pause for rest, looking interestedly at the pattern she had vandyked.
"That's a funny name. Ain't you got another?" he inquired.
A reminiscent smile broke over the vivid face.
"Daddy's Kistabel," she murmured softly, removing her eyes from his face and considering another bite.
"An' yer daddy might do worse nor kiss you, I reckon," admiringly; "but it's a rummy one, too."
The flash of the dark eyes opposite was irresistible. It awoke good thoughts in the potman's mind.
"You've runned away, I reckon?" he observed, bending forward.
Judy looked all over the ugly face thus presented to her immediate vision. Its corrugated surface fascinated her. Stretching one hand out, she softly touched the knobbly nose and laughed aloud, hunching her shoulders in glee.
Her own flower-like face was an equal attraction to the potman.
"Lilies an' roses ain't in it with her," he murmured admiringly. "An' eyes as big as plums and as dark as—stout."
"Where do yer live?" he next essayed.
"D'ink," said Judy, occupied with the problem of what was to be done with the bun whilst she drank from the mug beside her. "'Old!" she commanded, holding out the bun, as she realised that her own dangling legs made a very unstable, insufficient knee.
"Bless yer, missy, look at my 'ands!" the potman answered.
Judy looked, bending her dainty face with keen interest above the members, encrusted with dirt and neglect, held out before her.
"Dirty!" she exclaimed delightedly, lifting sympathetic eyes to the equally dirty face, and she laughed again in keen enjoyment. Dirt always commanded Judy's suffrages.
"'Old!" she commanded again, undaunted by the sight presented to her; and with sweet and dainty curvings of her soft fingers she pressed the nibbled scone upon the greasy palms. Then the potman handed her the mug and Judy drank.
"Out to tea?" she said again, a little doubtfully, as, her draught finished, she recovered her scone.
But the rosy mouth paused half-open, and Judy's eyes fixed themselves observantly on an advancing figure.
"Man," she said, directing the potman's gaze to the road. It was a policeman passing by, and the potman stood up alertly.
"Here," he called, "here's a little gel." And the two men stood solemnly regarding Judy. "I 'xpect she's lost," he suggested slowly.
The policeman's eyes fixed themselves on the dainty embroidery of Judy's little petticoat, visible under her lifted skirt—a contrast to the bare and dusty ankles it enclosed. The dragged-aside cotton pinafore, from which one arm was freed, revealed the elaborate smocking with which nurse was wont to ornament the simple frock. Lastly, Judy's face came in for careful scrutiny.
"How did you pick her up?" he asked.
"She come."
"Which direction?"
"Along the road, trotting along all by herself."
"Then I'll take her back. Seems to me she is uncommon like one of a pair I sometimes see—beauties, both of them; though how the mischief——Come with me, missy," he wheedled, stooping and holding out his arms.
"Out to tea," said Judy.
"Yes, so you are. You been out to tea, ain't you?" he sympathised. And Judy, satisfied, holding out her arms, allowed herself to be annexed.
But she was not carried off without a little scene.
In the policeman's arms a sudden recollection of her "manners" flashed across her mind.
"Bye, bye," she said, holding out one hand in a dignified fashion to the potman. With the other she still retained the bun.
"Bye, bye, missy," he responded, much gratified.
"Bye, bye," Judy repeated; and then, her vivid face all dimpling into smiles, she flung herself forward and clasped her arms round his neck. What to Judy were dirt and knobbliness? Both were fascinating, both were associated with the delight of having her own way. With a fervid embrace and a wet kiss Judy bestowed her gratitude.
There was weeping and wringing of hands and the rush of petticoats up and down and in and out, and flying figures darting about, when the policeman, with Judy in charge, arrived at the gates of Mount Royal. Judy's father had just come from the train, and was trying to find out from his agitated household what was the matter, when the tall, dark figure with the little pink one in his arms appeared.
"Oh, Judy!" reproached nurse, pallid to her lips, snatching her charge from the policeman's arms and agitatedly examining all her limbs. "Such a disgrace!" she exclaimed, looking angrily at the policeman.
"I thought I knew her, miss," he said politely, grinning. Nurse had haughtily snubbed him once or twice in her walks.
"Bye, bye," she said.
"Out to tea," Judy said triumphantly, as she was caught up into her father's embrace.
* * * * * *
Christopher, breaking away from nurse's attentions, on his return home, stamped loudly round the nursery floor to attract the envious attention of Judy.
Judy's attire had been remodelled throughout, as a prelude to the hour in the drawing-room before bed-time; and she was now sitting on the window seat in a mood of subdued and passive triumph. "Go agen," she had murmured softly two or three times to herself, too much occupied with the sweets of memory to heed, as she otherwise would have done, Punch's aggravations.
Stamping round being deprived of its attraction, Punch paused and approached his sister.
"Poor Doody," he said pityingly.
Judy's eyes flashed in the manner which always made Punch conscious of wonder that he had felt called upon to speak. He hastened to appease her.
"Punch's boots a-comin' off," he said.
"Doody don't want no boots," she said shrilly; "never don't want no boots, Doody don't."
"No," agreed Punch, in the tone of one who humours. "Ain't been out to tea," he suggested.
"Has!" screamed Judy. "Doody has!"
The blue eyes looked searchingly into the dark ones, and, with a qualm of disappointment, Punch felt the force of truth.
"Cake?" he asked presently, after silently observing her.
Judy shook her head violently, the violence intended to hide the mortification of having to confess the absence of the delicacy.
"Punch did," he said. "Cake, an' tea, an'——"
"Bun?" burst in Judy; and then it was Punch's turn to look disappointed. Buns had not been provided at his entertainment.
"Doody did," went on Judy; "an' milk, an'——"
"Punch had tea," interrupted Christopher.
"An' man," went on Judy, with immense emphasis.
Christopher looked at her solemnly, as he dived into the recesses of his memory; not a man had graced his tea-party!
"Man?" persisted Judy, searching his eyes with her blazing orbs.
There was a silence.
"Punch are goin' to muvver," the boy then announced cheerfully, freeing his legs from Judy's petticoats with a vigorous kick.
"Man!" shrieked Judy after his retreating figure, too much taken by surprise to lift herself so suddenly. Then she, too, got up, shook herself, and with a dash was through the nursery door.
"Out to tea agen," she sang out, trotting fast along the corridor.
But alas! for Judy. All the doors and gates were fast, and for a week they were kept carefully closed.
"Man!" shrieked Judy.
(Photo: H. S. Mendelssohn, Pembridge Crescent, W.)