Miss Buncle Married (25 page)

The two young Marvells were delighted to have secured Mrs. Abbott so easily. They dragged her upstairs to the small shabby room which did duty as a schoolroom and playroom combined, and prepared to show her their secret.

“You won't tell, will you?” Trivvie cried, dancing up and down in front of her like a jack-in-the-box. “Shall we make her
swear
on
the
book,
Amby?”

“She won't,” said Ambrose, phlegmatically. “Grown-ups never will.”

Trivvie was aware of this strange aversion on the part of grown-ups; she had merely forgotten about it, temporarily, in the excitement of the moment.

“Oh, no, neither they will,” she said, and then she added more hopefully, “but p'raps her word's as good as her bond—is it, Mrs. Abbott?”

Barbara said it was, and thereby bound herself to guard the secret with her life. She was interested, by this time, and a little flattered at the honor of being chosen as the recipient of the young Marvells' confidences.

“Show her, Amby!” cried Trivvie, who could scarcely contain her impatience. “Show her, Amby—get out the box.”

A box was placed carefully upon the table, and, from it was taken a clay figure, molded with considerable skill into a human form.

Barbara examined it with interest. “It's very good,” she said honestly. “Very good indeed. Where did you get the clay?”

“Out of the stream,” said Ambrose, and he added proudly, “I made it.”

“You should show it to your father,” said Barbara.

“No,” said Ambrose. “He'd only pick it to bits.”

“No, no,” cried Trivvie, “it's a secret and you promised—d'you know who it is? It's Mrs. Dance.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, of course it is—look at the teeth! And look, I've stuck a pin in it right through the middle—look, Mrs. Abbott—it's a charm—it's a spell—a witch's spell—look at the pin—”

Barbara was horrified. “Oh, Trivvie!” she exclaimed. “It isn't kind. Oh, Trivvie! I mean, of course, it's just a game, and couldn't do her any harm, but you shouldn't play that kind of game—
really,
Trivvie.”

“It's just a game,” said Trivvie, looking rather crestfallen. “And, anyhow, she's horrid. We hate her, don't we, Amby?”

“Why do you hate her?” inquired Barbara with interest, adding hastily (for the sake of form), “You shouldn't hate people, you know.”

“We hate her because she's ugly—her teeth stick out,” said Trivvie.

“And she calls us kiddies,” added Ambrose with a shudder.

Barbara understood the repugnance, she had felt something the same herself. She was aware that the blemishes, discovered in Mrs. Dance by the young Marvells, were really only outward signs of much more serious faults, and it was the inward woman from whom Trivvie and Ambrose recoiled. It was not really because her teeth stuck out and because she called them “kiddies” that Trivvie and Ambrose hated Mrs. Dance, but it was because she was the
kind
of
woman
who thought and spoke in a manner they detested. Barbara understood and sympathized with Trivvie and Ambrose, but she did not admit it.

“I think Mrs. Dance means to be kind,” she pointed out, somewhat feebly.

Trivvie and Ambrose were not deceived; they looked at each other and grinned.

“
She
doesn't like her either,” said Trivvie.

“I told you she didn't,” replied Ambrose.

Barbara was more accustomed by now to the strange way in which the Marvell children discussed her with each other as if she were not there, but it still gave her an uncomfortable sensation.

“Well,” she said, rather loudly, as if to make her presence felt. “Well, is that all you have to show me?”

“What else shall we show her, Amby?” inquired Trivvie, as she wrapped the effigy of Mrs. Dance in an old duster and put it carefully into its box.

“The buttons,” suggested Ambrose.

Barbara knew about the buttons, of course—the buttons were no secret—everybody in Wandlebury was aware of the young Marvells' passion for collecting buttons, and practically everybody in Wandlebury had been mulcted to provide them with specimens. Barbara, herself, had contributed several odd buttons from the bottom of her workbasket to add to the valuable collection, and she knew that Dorcas had been inveigled into doing the same.

“Oh, yes!” cried Trivvie eagerly. “Yes, Mrs. Abbott hasn't seen them—we
must
show her the buttons.”

The largest drawer of the schoolroom bureau was, accordingly, opened, and the buttons displayed. It was, indeed, a marvelous collection; there were big buttons and small buttons, buttons with “necks,” and buttons with holes; there were colored buttons—of every hue—there were white buttons, and black buttons, and buttons of mother-of-pearl. Some of the “special ones” were in boxes, and these were forced upon Barbara's notice with requests for admiration; others, less valuable, were in a large green bag, or loose in the drawer.

Barbara admired them all, and was told the history of each one in an excited duet; while Ambrose leaned heavily upon her shoulder, and breathed heavily down her neck, and Trivvie—who hated any close contact with her fellow creatures—squatted beside the drawer and bent her untidy brown head over it in an ecstasy of worship.

“Look at that one,” said Trivvie, pointing to a brown bone button with an unwieldy neck. “I found that at the church door, just as we were going in. Froggy was
so
cross when I stopped to pick it up, but I couldn't leave it, could I?”

“Father was just behind and nearly fell over her,” added Ambrose.

“He trod on my hand—but I didn't care,” said Trivvie bravely.

“Look at this one—isn't he a giant?” demanded Ambrose, pointing out an enormous green button with yellow streaks. “I
bought
that one. I
bought
it in a shop,” he added in an awed voice.

“And look at this teeny tiny one, isn't it a
darling
?” Trivvie crooned. “Look at it, Mrs. Abbott!”

Barbara looked obediently.

“This is the most beautiful of all,” continued Trivvie, opening a pill box, and disclosing an opalescent button, reposing in a bed of cotton wool. “Isn't it
lovely?
Miss Cobbe gave it to me. It came off a blouse that belonged to her mother.”

“Mrs. Anderson gave me this yellow one,” continued Ambrose. “She's Lady Chevis Cobbe's housekeeper, you know—it's pretty, isn't it, Mrs. Abbott?”

“This gray one came off Mrs. Dance,” added Trivvie. “It fell off one day when she was here—”

“And they're all different—every one,” Ambrose told her. “It's a job, now, to get others, you know.”

“Sometimes we get a button, and then we find we've got one exactly like it already—and
isn't
it a sell!” cried Trivvie.

“But that doesn't happen often,” said Ambrose.

“Because, you see, we know them so well,” explained Trivvie.

“We know them
all
,” Ambrose said seriously, “and we know where they all came from—or very nearly—”

“Oh, Amby!” cried Trivvie suddenly. “That reminds me, I've got a new one—”

“You haven't!”

“I have, really,” she declared, fishing up the leg of her knickers, which she always used as a pocket, “here it is, Amby. I thought for a minute I'd lost it. Isn't it a beauty?”

They put their heads together over the new button, and looked at it with excitement and delight. It was a large red wooden button—very smooth and shiny—and it possessed a “neck” which—as Barbara was now aware—added tremendously to its value.

“We haven't got it, have we?” Trivvie inquired anxiously.

“No,” said Ambrose. “No, we haven't got it. I thought at first it was the same as the one I found in the station, but it isn't.”

“It's bigger, much bigger,” Trivvie pointed out.

“Where did you get it?” asked Ambrose with interest.

“It came off Miss Thane,” replied Trivvie solemnly. “You know that red coat she wears in church? I've been watching the buttons for ages—”

“Did it fall off, Trivvie?” inquired Ambrose, taking it in his hand and examining it reverently.

“Well—almost,” said Trivvie unashamedly.

Barbara knew that she ought to be shocked at this disgraceful revelation; she knew that she should remonstrate with the collectors, that she ought to confiscate the button, then and there, and return it to its owner; but, somehow or other, she could do none of these things. The collection of buttons was so magnificent that she was completely won over; her sympathies were entirely with the collectors. They really
are
fascinating, Barbara thought, as she picked them up, one by one, and noted how each one differed from its fellows—who could have believed (she thought) that there are so many different kinds of buttons in the world? I don't wonder, thought Barbara—and then she stopped, because, of course, if she didn't wonder that the young Marvells actually
stole
buttons off the garments of their friends to add to their collection, she certainly ought to have wondered at such reprehensible behavior. I wonder if that button off my blue coat, she thought, it didn't
seem
loose—and then she stopped again, because if the button that she had lost off her blue coat had been acquired by the young Marvells for their collection by fair means or foul, she most certainly had not the heart to ask for it to be returned.

“Aren't they lovely?” said Trivvie, dreamily, taking up a handful of the smaller fry and letting them trickle through her fingers.

“They're simply lovely,” said Barbara with conviction. “I had no idea buttons could be so fascinating—no idea.” And I shan't say a word, she thought, I shan't say a single word to anyone, because it really is a stupendous collection, and they
have
been most awfully sweet and nice to me today, and I do believe—in spite of all the frightfully naughty and annoying things they do—they are really beginning to like me a little.

It was high time by now for Barbara to go home to her neglected husband. She returned to the drawing-room to say good-bye to her host and hostess and to find her furs. Mr. Marvell was somewhat annoyed to hear that she was going already—he had not had the nice quiet little chat with Mrs. Abbott that he had anticipated.

“You must come again, then,” he said, when he saw that he could by no means persuade her to stay. “You must come some morning. I should like to make a little sketch of your head.”

Barbara thought that this would be rather amusing—another adventure—and she promised to come. If the sketch were good she might buy it and give it to Arthur for his birthday. She had no idea how you bought an artist's picture, but presumably you could buy it. I wonder how I could suggest it, she thought.

The entire Marvell family came to the front door to speed her on her way. Trivvie and Ambrose announced their intention of accompanying her home. There was still an hour before bedtime, and they could spend the hour profitably in The Archway House garden.

Trivvie rushed on ahead down the drive. Her passage from the front door to the gate was peculiarly erratic, for it was one of her “taboos” that she must touch every tree in a certain fixed order as she went: the two elms on the right, then across to the oak on the left, and back again to the third elm. She was like a kingfisher, in her bright-blue overall, flashing backward and forward in the golden afternoon sunlight.

“I sometimes think that child is deranged,” declared Mr. Marvell, watching her from the door.

“It's just a game,” Barbara assured him.

Neither of them had the slightest idea of the extent to which Trivvie's life was governed and restricted by “taboos” and strange pagan rites of her own fashioning. She made them herself, of course, but, once they were made, she could not unmake them; they were fixed forever to be a burden to her back, and a menace to her comfort and convenience. The “taboos” were multiple, and of all kinds. Sometimes they were “lasting,” like the touching of the trees; sometimes they were merely passing superstitions. She would say to Ambrose, “If that blackbird flies away before I count twenty, I shall die in the night.” And, if the blackbird flew away, she would creep to bed in fear and trembling, and find herself alive in the morning with surprise and delight. Ambrose, who was of more stolid make, would pretend to be scornful of these signs and portents, but sometimes—he had to own—they came true. He was always glad when the time passed, and some dire catastrophe, predicted by his sister, had failed to eventuate.

These signs and portents were bad enough in all conscience; they cast a shadow upon the children's lives—a shadow of which their relations and friends had no conception—but there was a far worse burden than these which Trivvie had to bear. The signs and portents, she could, to a certain extent, control, but the Nightmare Curse was a menace over which she had absolutely no jurisdiction. Every night before going to sleep Trivvie had to observe a mysterious and secret rite; she had to walk round the room three times, treading with her bare feet upon every pink flower in the threadbare carpet. It sounds an easy rite to accomplish, but the burden of it was in its monotonous repetition: every night,
every
single
night
, even when you were dead tired, even when you were ill; and, if you forgot, and crept into bed, you had to drag yourself out of your nice warm bed and do it. And then there was always the awful fear that you might forget; that you might go off to sleep before you remembered, and, if that happened, the frightful dream came.