“You must not go alone,” she said unexpectedly. “Change your frock as quickly as you can: I will come with you.”
“Oh, please don’t!” I protested. “I can easily find them alone, I’m certain. You mustn’t disturb your work.”
“I—I am not working well to-night.” Her tone was awkward. “So it really does not matter—and I could not let you go alone. I would call my son, but that one does not like to disturb one’s guests—and Beryl does so resent it if the children are troublesome. I have no doubt that we shall find them easily.”
I had no doubt at all, as I hastily got out of my dinner-frock in my room. For, as I glanced from the open window, a swift flame flickered up into the sky, seemed to hang for a moment, and then curved and came back to earth, leaving a trail of sparks across the blackness. In a flash as vivid was revealed to me why Judy and Jack had been at such elaborate pains that afternoon to find an errand for me at the railway-station while they visited the one stationer’s shop in Wootong; I had a mental vision of the queer-shaped packages they had stowed away in the governess-cart when we drove back from the township. Had not Colin and I burned our fingers over forbidden fireworks in the days of our wild youth?
“I think I have tracked them,” I said, laughing, as I rejoined Mrs. McNab. “There are bangings and poppings coming from the shrubbery, and I saw a rocket above the trees. I think they must be holding a private Fifth of November celebration.”
“Fireworks!” exclaimed Mrs. McNab, aghast. “But they are never permitted!”
I kept my face grave, but it was an effort. If Judy and Jack had restricted their energies to the list of permitted things, their lives would have been on very different—and much duller—lines. Compared with some of their highly-original occupations, a little indulgence in fireworks seemed mild. But Mrs. McNab was extraordinarily concerned.
“We must hurry,” she said, darting out of a side-door with a swift energy that recalled the night on the shore when she had swooped upon Jack and spanked him with such unsuspected vigour. “I have an especial dread of fireworks in the hands of children. The figures, my dear Miss Earle, of accidents to American children who celebrate their Fourth of July with firework displays, are harrowing in the extreme. Death and disfigurement are common—terribly common.”
“They do things on such a grand scale in America,” I ventured, trotting beside her. “I don’t think Judy would let Jack run any risk.”
“One never knows,” returned Judy’s mother, gloomily. “Not with Judith. Even if she protected Jack, she would not hesitate to run any risk herself. And fireworks are so very unexpected. One cannot possibly——”