Chapter XIII: A Reconciliation

Mr. Leighton was very sympathetic over the burglar. He heard of the occurrence in two ways, first in the fiery excited recital of Jean, and then in confidence from Elma. Mrs. Leighton was there also.

"Well, I never!" she said. "That poor little lonely soul stealing about at night! it's dreadful." She never thought for a moment of how foolish it made the rest of them seem.

"She isn't at all afraid of the dark, or the woods, or storms, or anything of that kind," said Elma. "She loves being out with her black cat when it's pitch dark. But she's terrified now of policemen, and I don't think she will ever call properly on us all her life. She's perfectly savage with us."

Mr. Leighton stroked his hair in a preoccupied manner.

"One has to beware of what I should call professional goodness," he said mildly. "It's pleasant, of course, to feel that one does a nice action in being kind to the like of that stormy little person. But when she detects the effort at kindliness! Well, one ought sometimes to think that it must be humiliating to the needy to be palpably helped by the prosperous. There are various kinds of wealth, not all of them meaning money. This child has had no affection. Naturally she scorns a charitable gift of it. It's almost a slight on her own parents, you know."

"There," said Mrs. Leighton in a dismal way, "I told Dr. Merryweather I disliked intruding. It was an intrusion."

"Oh, it will be all right," replied Mr. Leighton. "Don't plague the child over this romp of being a burglar, that's all. And don't patronize her," he said to Elma. "Give her a chance of conferring something herself. It's sometimes a more dignified way of finding a friend."

Elma felt some of her high ideas of reclaiming the serpent topple. Miss Grace had advised differently. "Be kind and helpful," she had declared. Now her father seemed to think that it was the serpent's task to be the generous supporting figure. It made Elma just a little wild with that blazing little serpent Elsie.

For a year and a half their friendship with the serpent existed over crossed swords. She recovered in health, but the routine of her life never wavered. The force of habit in connection with her mother, that the Professor's tempestuous irritable habits should rule the house and that she should be kept quaking in a silence which must not be broken, could not be dispelled even by the diligent visits of Miss Meredith. Adelaide Maud drew off after the first encounter with the Professor. "I'm afraid that there will just have to be a tragic outburst every time Mrs. Clutterbuck says 'a new pair of shoes' instead of 'a pair of new shoes,'" said she, "nothing can save her now."

Soon the efforts of Dr. Merryweather were forgotten in the impenetrable attitude of the whole family.

At the end of eighteen months, most of Ridgetown was collected one day for a river regatta at a reach a few miles up from the town. Every one of any consequence except Lance, as Betty put it, was present. They rowed in boats and watched the races, picnicked and walked on the banks. One wonderful occurrence was the presence of Mrs. Clutterbuck and the Serpent. Mr. Symington had appeared once more and done something this time to penetrate the aloofness of their existence. He had come once or twice to the Leightons' with the Professor.

The girls put this friend of their father's on a new plane.

He could be engrossed in talk with their father and the Professor, and yet not gaze past the rest of the family as though they were "guinea pigs."

They now knew Mr. Sturgis well enough to tell him that he thought nothing more of them than that they were a land of decorative guinea pig. Mr. Symington, however, who had not seen them grow out of the childish stage, but had come on them one memorable evening when the picture of them, for a new person, was really something rather delightful to remember--Mr. Symington was immediately put on a pedestal of a new order. The difference was explained to Robin, who growled darkly. "It's perfectly charming to be received with deference by the man who is splendid enough to be received with deference by our own father," explained Jean. "Don't you see?"

Robin saw in a savage manner. He had never been on this particular pedestal. With all his sister's enthusiasm for Mr. Symington, he could see little to like in that person.

Mr. Symington studied in lonely parts of the world the wild life an ordinary sportsman would bring down with his gun. He was manly, yet learned. Delightfully young, yet stamped with the dignity of experience. Robin in his presence felt a middle-aged oppression in himself, which could not be explained by years.

He was particularly galled by his sister's persistence in keeping near the Clutterbuck party on the Saturday of the river regatta.

There were exciting moments of boat races, duck races, swimming competitions, and so forth. Then came the afternoon when everybody picnicked.

The Leightons had a crowd of friends with them, and took tea near the pool by the weir.

May undertook to teach Betty how to scull in an outrigger, which one of the racers had left in their care for the moment. Betty was daring and rather skilful to begin with. It seemed lamentable that with so many looking on, she should suddenly catch a real crab. May, standing on the bank, screamed to her, as Betty's frail little boat went swinging rather wildly under the trees of an island.

"Look here," cried Jean to May sharply. "What made you two begin playing in such a dangerous part? Sit still," she shouted wildly to Betty.

It seemed as if no one had understood that there was any danger in these little pranks of Betty's, till her boat was swept into mid-stream, and ran hard into certain collision on the island. Jean called for some one to take a boat out to Betty. Then the full danger of the situation flashed on them. Just a few minutes before, a detachment had gone up to the starting point, and no boat was left in which one might reach Betty.

"Sit still," shouted Jean again, "hold on to the trees or something."

It had occurred in a flash. Betty in the quiet water was all very well, but Betty, the timid, out alone on a swirling river with a weir in the very near distance, this Betty lost her head.

Jean's scream, "Sit still," had the effect of frightening her more than anything. "It was what one was advised to do when horses were running off, or something particularly dreadful was about to happen," thought Betty.

She first lost an oar, then splashed herself wildly in the attempt to recover it. The sudden rocking of her "shining little cockle shell," as she had called it only a minute before, alarmed her more than anything. She was being swept on the island, deep water everywhere around it. With a gasp of fear she rose to catch the tree branches, missed, upset the cockle shell at last, and fell into the river.

Those on the bank, for a swift moment, "or was it for centuries," stood paralysed.

"Oh!" cried Jean, "oh!"

There was a swift sudden rush behind them, "like a swallow diving through a cornfield," said May later. A tense, victorious little figure, flinging off hat and a garment of sorts; a splash; a dark head driving in an incredibly swift way through water impatiently almost trodden upon by two little wildly skimming hands, then a voice when Betty rose: "Lie on your back, I'll be with you in a minute," and the valiant little Serpent was off to the saving of Betty. It was sufficiently terrifying on account of the weir. If Elsie reached Betty, would she have the strength to bring her back. If Elsie did not reach Betty, Betty could not swim. It was dreadful. Jean, second-rate swimmer as she was, would have been in herself by this time, but that Elma held her.

"She's got her," she whispered with a grey face. They shouted when the Serpent turned slightly with Betty. She was like a fierce little schoolmistress. "Don't interfere with me, he on your back. Keep lying on your back," and Betty obeyed. At the supreme moment the Serpent had come into her own, and displayed at last the talent which till then had only been expended on her cats and dogs. "Lie still," she growled, and obediently, almost trustingly, Betty lay like a little white-faced drowned Ophelia. Then "Come along with that boat," sang out the Serpent cheerily.

Round the bend of the river above, at sound of their cries had come "Hereward the Wake, oh how magnificent," sobbed Jean. It was Mr. Symington.

The Serpent, with hard serviceable little strokes, piloted Betty lightly out of the strength of the current. Mr. Symington was past and gently back to them before a minute had elapsed.

"Grip the gunwale," he said cheerily to Elsie. It was the tone of a man addressing his compatriot.

(Oh! how magnificent of the Serpent.)

"Now," he said. "Keep a tight hold on her still. I must get you into quiet water." He pulled hard. Immediately he had them into the backwater. It was rather splendid to see him get hold of a tree, tie the boat, and be at the side of the Serpent before one could breathe. He had rowed in with the full strength of a strong man, and in a minute he was as tenderly raising Betty. He had never properly removed his eyes from her face. "She was just faulting. You held on well," he said approvingly. "Don't let her sisters see her at present." He lifted Betty to the bank.

"Quick, open your eyes," he said commandingly.

"Look here," called the Serpent. She had scrambled neatly out by herself, "Betty, Betty Leighton, oh! Betty, open your eyes." There was an answering quiver. "Quick, Betty, before your sisters come. Don't frighten them. Open your eyes, Betty."

Mr. Symington rubbed Betty's hands smoothly in a quick experienced manner.

Betty opened her eyes and looked at the Serpent.

"Oh, Elsie," she said, "Elsie, you sweet little Serpent!" It was an end to the crossed swords feud. Elsie took her in her arms and cried.

When the girls arrived panic-stricken they found Mr. Symington trying to get a coherent answer to his orders from two bedraggled girls, who could do nothing but weep over each other. The brave little Serpent had lost her nerve once more.

"Oh!" she said, "it's very wicked to be a girl. Boys wouldn't give way like this."

Jean looked at her narrowly, "Do you always go about in gymnasium dress, ready to save people?" she asked, with the remains of fear in her voice.

The brave little Serpent looked down on her costume, and the red which glowed in her cheeks only from mortification ran slowly up and dyed her pale face crimson. "Oh!" she said, "oh!" and sat speechless.

Betty sat up shivering. "I do call that presence of mind, don't you? She flung off her skirt, didn't you, dear?"

The Serpent would have answered except that the "dear" unnerved her. She faded to tears once more.

"Come, come," said Mr. Symington.

And at that, as they afterwards remembered, Mabel "came."

She came through the trees in a white dress, and the sunshine threw patches of beautiful colour on her hair.

"Oh, little Betty!" she cried.

Then she saw the Serpent.

She took Elsie right up against the beautiful white dress and kissed her. Mabel could not speak at all. But her eyes glowed. She turned them full on Mr. Symington. "We must take these children home at once," she said.

Mr. Symington looked as though he had been rescuing an army. "Yes," said he gravely.

Robin had trailed in looking somewhat dissatisfied.

"Jean would go, wouldn't she?" he asked.

"Oh no, I don't want mummy to know," said Mabel. "She is up there with Mrs. Clutterbuck. These two must go home, and get hot baths, and be put to bed and sat upon, or they won't stay there. Where can we get a cab, I wonder?"

"Here," said a voice.

Adelaide Maud now came through that beautiful pathway of sun-patched trees with Elma. "I've heard all about it," said she, "and we have the carriage. Borrow wraps from every one and tuck them in. We shall keep Mrs. Clutterbuck employed till Mr. Symington comes back."

It seemed that they all took it for granted that Mr. Symington would go.

Robin showed signs of losing his temper. Mabel as a rule, when these imperious fits descended on him began to investigate her conduct and wonder where she might alter it in order that he might be appeased. This time, however, she was too anxious and concerned over Betty, and while Jean might be quite whole-hearted in her manner of looking after people, one could not depend on her for knowing the best ways in which to set about it. In any case, the two could not be kept there shivering.

Adelaide Maud was a trifle indignant at the interruption. "Quick," she said to Mr. Symington, "get them in and off."

"Oh you are the fairy princess, always, somehow, aren't you," sighed Betty, happily, as on their being tucked in rugs and waterproofs, Adelaide Maud gave quick decided orders to the coachman.

"Isn't she just like a story book," she sighed rapturously. They drove swirling homewards, in a damp quick exciting way until they pulled up at the door of the White House.

"Oh, mine was nearer," said the Serpent nervously. She had never entered the portals of the White House in this intimate manner, and suddenly longed for loneliness once more.

"Well," said Mabel sweetly and nicely, "you will just have to imagine that this is as near for to-day at least. Because I am going to put you to bed."

They laughed very happily because they were being put to bed like babies.

"If only Cuthbert were here," said Mabel anxiously and in a motherly little way to Mr. Symington, afterwards, "he would tell me whether they oughtn't to have a hot drink, and a number of other things they say they won't have."

"I should give them a hot drink," said Mr. Symington with his grave eyes dancing a trifle. "And keep them in blankets for an hour or two."

It was he who found Mr. Leighton and told him a little of what had happened. ("Oh the conspiracies which shield a parent!") For days Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, the Professor and Mrs. Clutterbuck, had an idea that the two girls had merely fallen in and got very wet. In any case, Elsie often came home in considerable disrepair. When one found, however, that neither was the worse for the fright, Elsie was made a real heroine. It changed her attitude completely. The Leightons liked her now whether they felt charitable or not. It was a great relief. And one day her own father focussed his far-away gaze on her, as though he had only then considered that there was anything on which to look at her particular place at table.

"They tell me--ahem--that you can swim," he exclaimed. "Very excellent exercise, very."

To an outsider it did not sound like praise, but his sentence set Elsie's heart jumping in a joyous manner.

"Oh, papa," she said. "I was very frightened afterwards."

"Hem," said he, "an excellent time in which to be frightened."

Mrs. Clutterbuck congratulated herself on his having said it (she would have made it "time to be frightened in," and the Professor in such good humour, too!)

Happier days had really dawned in that grim household however.

The growing up of the courage of Elsie became a wonderful thing.

Meanwhile other events had occurred than the saving of Betty. Robin had had to go home alone, and Lance had the benefit of some of his ill-humour on meeting him on the way.

"Who shot cock Robin to-day?" reflected Lance with speculative eyes on that retreating person. He nearly ran into a very athletic figure coming swinging round on him from the Leightons'.

Hereward the Wake was in his most magnificent mood and his eyes shone with the light of achievement. He was speaking when he turned, and the words dropped automatically even before the impish gaze of Lance.

"Knew you and named a star," quoted Mr. Symington.

"Now what on earth has that to do with the boat race?" asked Lance.