“Would you?” I remarked pleasantly, polishing Colin’s photograph diligently with my handkerchief. “Perhaps you and he wouldn’t agree very well if you did meet; there are some things my brother would call ‘beastly bad form.’ He is rather particular.”
There was dead silence, and my visitors turned very red. Then Jack mumbled something about helping me to tidy up, and the pair fell upon my property. Jack disentangled my shoes while Judy unclothed the bedposts: together they crawled upon the floor picking up stockings and handkerchiefs, and laying them in seemly piles; and I sat in the one chair the room boasted and polished Colin’s photograph. It was excessively bright when my pupils said good night shamefacedly, and departed, leaving order where there had been chaos. So I kissed it, and went to bed. We met next morning as though nothing had occurred.
I scored again the following evening, through sheer luck, which sent me before bed-time to my room, in search of a handkerchief. It was only chance that showed me the pillow looking suspiciously dark as I turned off the electric light. I switched it back, and held an inspection. Pepper.
I knew a little more of my pupils now, and realized that ordinary methods did not prevail with them. Jack’s room was across the passage: I carried the peppered pillow there, and carefully shook its load upon the one destined to receive his innocent head. Then I went downstairs and played accompaniments for Harry McNab, who had less voice than anyone I ever met.
The subsequent developments were all that I could have wished. The children hurried to bed, so that they might listen happily to what might follow; and the extinguishing of Jack’s light was succeeded by protracted and agonized sneezing, interspersed by anxious questioning from Judy, who dashed, pyjama-clad, to investigate her ally’s distress. Some of the pepper appeared to come her way as well, for presently she joined uncontrollably in the sneezing exercise. It was pleasant hearing. When it abated, smothered sounds of laughter followed.
The pair were good sportsmen. They greeted me at breakfast next day with a distinct twinkle, and—especially on Jack’s part—with an access of respect that was highly gratifying. We went for a walk that day, and I improved their young minds with an eloquent discourse on the early trade from the Spice Islands. They received it meekly.
As for The Towers, in any other circumstances, to be in such a place would have been a sheer delight. The house itself was square and massive, with two jutting wings. It was built of grey stone, and crowned by a square tower, round the upper part of which ran a small balcony. Originally, I learned, the name had been The Tower House, but local usage had shortened it to The Towers, in defiance of facts. All the rooms were large and lofty, and there were wide corridors, while a very broad veranda ran round three sides of the building. It stood in a glorious garden, with two tennis-courts, beyond which stretched a deep belt of shrubbery. Then came a tree-dotted paddock, half a mile wide between the Wootong road and the house; while at the back there was but three minutes’ walk to the sea.
Such a coast! Porpoise Bay, which appeared to be the special property of the McNabs, was a smooth stretch of blue water, shut in by curving headlands: wide enough for boating and sailing, but scarcely ever rough. The shore sloped gently down from low hummocks near the house, making bathing both safe and perfect. A stoutly-built jetty ran out into the water, ending in a diving-board; and there were a dressing-shed, subdivided into half a dozen cubicles, and a boat-house with room for a powerful motor-launch and a twenty-foot yacht, besides several rowing-boats.
The McNabs were as nearly amphibious as a family could be. All, even Mrs. McNab, swam and dived like the porpoises that gave their bay its name. I was thankful that Father and Colin had seen to it that I was fairly useful in the water, but I wasn’t in the same class with the McNabs. It seemed to be a family tradition that each child was cast into the sea as soon as it could walk, and after that, took care of itself. Weather made no difference to them; be the morning never so rough and cold they all might be seen careering over the paddock towards the sea, clad in bathing-suits. Mrs. McNab was the only one who troubled to add to this attire, and on hot mornings she usually carried her Turkish towelling dressing-gown, a confection of striped purple-and-white, over her arm. My employer was, in the main, a severe lady; to see her long, thin legs twinkling across the back paddock filled me with mingled emotions.
Not alone in the early mornings did the McNabs bathe: at all times of the day, and even late at night, they seemed to feel the sea calling them, and forthwith fled to the shore. Visitors accompanied them or not, as they chose. I realized, early in my stay, that to shirk bathing would be a sure passport to the contempt of Judy and Jack, and accordingly I swam with a fervour little short of theirs, though I realized that I could never attain to their finished perfection in the water. They were indeed sea-urchins.