IV
She gave a sort of gurgling cry, as though she were being strangled. Angel and The Seraph faced about to look at her in consternation, their hair wild in the wind, and the rising sun making an aureole about them. The four of us stared at each other in silence for a space, while the attic-room, with its cobwebs reeled—the sun rose, and sank, like a floundering ship, and Mrs. Handsomebody resembling, in my fancy, a hungry spider, in curl papers, considered which victim was ripest for slaughter.
"You—and you—and you—" she gobbled. "Oh, to think of it! No place safe! What you need is a strong man. We shall see! The very windows—burst from their bolts!" She slammed the casement and secured it, Angel and The Seraph darting from her path.
"Even a dead woman's clothes—to make a scarecrow of!" She pounced—I hid my face while she did it, but I heard a sinister rustling and the snap of a trunk lid. It was over. "Bide the time."
Ignominiously she herded us down the stairs; The Seraph making only one step at a time, led the way. Far down the drab vista of the back stairs that ended in the scullery, Mary Ellen's red, round face was seen for a moment, like a second rising sun, but vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, at a shout from Mrs. Handsomebody.
We were in the schoolroom now, placed before her in a row, as was her wont in times of retribution. Seated behind her desk she wore her purple dressing gown with magisterial dignity; the wart upon her chin quivered as she prepared to speak.
"Now, David," she said, rapping Angel smartly on the head, "can you say anything in explanation of this outrage upon my property? Hold your head up and toe out, please."
Angel looked at his hands. "Nuffin' to explain," he said sulkily. "Just went an' did it."
"Oh I thought so," said our governess. "It was just one of these seemingly irresistible impulses that have so often proved disastrous for all concerned. If your father knew—" she bit off the words as though they had a pleasant, if acrid taste—"if your poor father knew of your criminal proclivities, he would be a crushed man. A crushed man."
The Seraph was staring at her chin.