The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (117 page)

But it was not the baker, When they opened the door they saw in the paved court where the pump is, and the dust-bin, and the water-butt, a young man, with his hat very much on one side, his mouth open under his fair bristly mustache, and his eyes as nearly round as human eyes can be. He wore a suit of a bright mustard colour, a blue necktie, and a goldish watch-chain across his waistcoat. His body was thrown back and his right arm stretched out towards the door, and his expression was that of a person who is being dragged somewhere against his will. He looked so strange that Kathleen tried to shut the door in his face, murmuring, “Escaped insane.” But the door would not close. There was something in the way.

“Leave go of me!” said the young man.

“Ho yus! I’ll leave go of you!” It was the voice of Eliza but no Eliza could be seen.

“Who’s got hold of you?” asked Kathleen.

“
She
has, miss,” replied the unhappy stranger.

“Who’s she?” asked Kathleen, to gain time, as she afterwards explained, for she now knew well enough that what was keeping the door open was Eliza’s unseen foot.

“My fyongsay, miss. At least it sounds like her voice, and it feels like her bones, but something’s come over me, miss, an I can’t see her.”

“That’s what he keeps on saying,” said Eliza’s voice. “’E’s my gentleman friend; is ’e gone dotty, or is it me?”

“Both, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Jimmy.

“Now,” said Eliza, “you call yourself a man; you look me in the face and say you can’t see me.”

“Well I can’t,” said the wretched gentleman friend.

“If
I’d
stolen a ring,” said Gerald, looking at the sky, “I should go indoors and be quiet, not stand at the back door and make an exhibition of myself.”

“Not much exhibition about her,” whispered Jimmy; “good old ring!”

“I haven’t stolen
any
thing,” said the gentleman friend. “Here, you leave me be. It’s my eyes has gone wrong. Leave go of me, d’ye hear?”

Suddenly his hand dropped and he staggered back against the water-butt. Eliza had “left go” of him. She pushed past the children, shoving them aside with her invisible elbows. Gerald caught her by the arm with one hand, felt for her ear with the other, and whispered, “You stand still and don’t say a word. If you do well, what’s to stop me from sending for the police?”

Eliza did not know what there was to stop him. So she did as she was told, and stood invisible and silent, save for a sort of blowing, snorting noise peculiar to her when she was out of breath.

The mustard-coloured young man had recovered his balance, and stood looking at the children with eyes, if possible, rounder than before.

“What
is
it?” he gasped feebly. “What’s up? What’s it all about?”

“If you don’t know, I’m afraid we can’t tell you,” said Gerald politely.

“Have I been talking very strange-like?” he asked, taking off his hat and passing his hand over his forehead.

“Very,” said Mabel.

“I hope I haven’t said anything that wasn’t good manners,” he said anxiously.

“Not at all,” said Kathleen. “You only said your
fiancée
had hold of your hand, and that you couldn’t see her.”

“No more I can.”

“No more can we,” said Mabel.

“But I couldn’t have dreamed it, and then come along here making a penny show of myself like this, could I?”

“You know best,” said Gerald courteously.

“But,” the mustard-coloured victim almost screamed, “do you mean to tell me…”

“I don’t mean to tell you anything,” said Gerald quite truly, “but I’ll give you a bit of advice. You go home and lie down a bit and put a wet rag on your head. You’ll be all right tomorrow.”

“But I haven’t—”

“
I
should,” said Mabel; “the sun’s very hot, you know.”

“I feel all right now,” he said, “but—well, I can only say I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. I’ve never been taken like this before, miss. I’m not subject to it don’t you think that. But I could have sworn Eliza— Ain’t she gone out to meet me?”

“Eliza’s indoors,” said Mabel. “She can’t come out to meet anybody today.”

“You won’t tell her about me carrying on this way, will you, miss? It might set her against me if she thought I was liable to fits, which I never was from a child.”

“We won’t tell Eliza anything about you.”

“And you’ll overlook the liberty?”

“Of course. We know you couldn’t help it,” said Kathleen. “You go home and lie down. I’m sure you must need it. Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, I’m sure, miss,” he said dreamily. “All the same I can feel the print of her finger-bones on my hand while I’m saying it. And you won’t let it get round to my boss my employer I mean? Fits of all sorts are against a man in any trade.”

“No, no, no, it’s all right—
good-bye
,” said everyone. And a silence fell as he went slowly round the water-butt and the green yard-gate shut behind him. The silence was broken by Eliza.

“Give me up!” she said. “Give me up to break my heart in a prison cell!”

There was a sudden splash, and a round wet drop lay on the doorstep.

“Thunder shower,” said Jimmy; but it was a tear from Eliza.

“Give me up,” she went on, “give me up—” splash “—but don’t let me be took here in the town where I’m known and respected—” splash. “—I’ll walk ten miles to be took by a strange police—not Johnson as keeps company with my own cousin—” splash. “But I do thank you for one thing. You didn’t tell Elf as I’d stolen the ring. And I didn’t—” splash “—I only sort of borrowed it, it being my day out, and my gentleman friend such a toff, like you can see for yourselves.”

The children had watched, spellbound, the interesting tears that became visible as they rolled off the invisible nose of the miserable Eliza. Now Gerald roused himself, and spoke.

“It’s no use your talking,” he said. “We can’t see you!”

“That’s what
he
said,” said Eliza’s voice, “but—”

“You can’t see yourself,” Gerald went on. “Where’s your hand?”

Eliza, no doubt, tried to see it, and of course failed; for instantly, with a shriek that might have brought the police if there had been any about, she went into a violent fit of hysterics. The children did what they could, everything that they had read of in books as suitable to such occasions, but it is extremely difficult to do the right thing with an invisible housemaid in strong hysterics and her best clothes. That was why the best hat was found, later on, to be completely ruined, and why the best blue dress was never quite itself again. And as they were burning bits of the feather dusting-brush as nearly under Eliza’s nose as they could guess, a sudden spurt of flame and a horrible smell, as the flame died between the quick hands of Gerald, showed but too plainly that Eliza’s feather boa had tried to help.

It did help. Eliza “came to” with a deep sob and said, “Don’t burn me real ostrich stole; I’m better now.”

They helped her up and she sat down on the bottom step, and the children explained to her very carefully and quite kindly that she really was invisible, and that if you steal—or even borrow—rings you can never be sure what will happen to you.

“But ’ave I got to go on stopping like this,” she moaned, when they had fetched the little mahogany looking-glass from its nail over the kitchen sink and convinced her that she was really invisible, “for ever and ever? An we was to ’a’ bin married come Easter. No one won’t marry a gell as ’e can’t see. It ain’t likely.”

“No, not for ever and ever,” said Mabel kindly, “but you’ve got to go through with it—like measles. I expect you’ll be all right tomorrow.”

“Tonight,
I
think,” said Gerald.

“We’ll help you all we can, and not tell anyone,” said Kathleen.

“Not even the police,” said Jimmy.

“Now let’s get Mademoiselle’s tea ready,” said Gerald.

“And ours,” said Jimmy.

“No,” said Gerald, “we’ll have our tea
out
. We’ll have a picnic and we’ll take Eliza. I’ll go out and get the cakes.”

“
I
sha’n’t eat no cake, Master Jerry,” said Eliza’s voice, “so don’t you think it. You’d see it going down inside my chest. It wouldn’t he what I should call nice of me to have cake showing through me in the open air. Oh, it’s a dreadful judgment—just for a borrow!”

They reassured her, set the tea, deputed Kathleen to let in Mademoiselle—who came home tired and a little sad, it seemed—waited for her and Gerald and the cakes, and started off for Yalding Towers.

“Picnic parties aren’t allowed,” said Mabel.

“Ours will be,” said Gerald briefly. “Now, Eliza, you catch on to Kathleen’s arm and I’ll walk behind to conceal your shadow. My aunt! take your hat off; it makes your shadow look like I don’t know what. People will think we’re the county lunatic asylum turned loose.”

It was then that the hat, becoming visible in Kathleen’s hand, showed how little of the sprinkled water had gone where it was meant to go—on Eliza’s face.

“Me best ’at,” said Eliza, and there was a silence with sniffs in it.

“Look here,” said Mabel, “you cheer up. Just you think this is all a dream. It’s just the kind of thing you might dream if your conscience had got pains in it about the ring.”

“But will I wake up again?”

“Oh yes, you’ll wake up again. Now we’re going to bandage your eyes and take you through a very small door, and don’t you resist, or we’ll bring a policeman into the dream like a shot.”

* * * *

I have not time to describe Eliza’s entrance into the cave. She went head first: the girls propelled and the boys received her. If Gerald had not thought of tying her hands, someone would certainly have been scratched. As it was, Mabel’s hand was scraped between the cold rock and a passionate boot-heel. Nor will I tell you all that she said as they led her along the fern-bordered gully and through the arch into the wonderland of Italian scenery. She had but little language left when they removed her bandage under a weeping willow where a statue of Diana, bow in hand, stood poised on one toe—a most unsuitable attitude for archery, I have always thought.

“Now,” said Gerald, “it’s all over—nothing but niceness now and cake and things.”

“It’s time we did have our tea,” said Jimmy. And it was.

Eliza, once convinced that her chest, though invisible, was not transparent, and that her companions could not by looking through it count how many buns she had eaten, made an excellent meal. So did the others. If you want really to enjoy your tea, have minced veal and potatoes and rice-pudding for dinner, with several hours of excitement to follow, and take your tea late.

The soft, cool green and grey of the garden were changing—the green grew golden, the shadows black, and the lake where the swans were mirrored upside down, under the Temple of Phoebus, was bathed in rosy light from the little fluffy clouds that lay opposite the sunset.

“It is pretty,” said Eliza, “just like a picture-postcard, ain’t it? The tuppenny kind.”

“I ought to be getting home,” said Mabel.

“I can’t go home like this. I’d stay and be a savage and live in that white hut if it had any walls and doors,” said Eliza.

“She means the Temple of Dionysus,” said Mabel, pointing to it.

The sun set suddenly behind the line of black fir-trees on the top of the slope, and the white temple, that had been pink, turned grey.

“It would be a very nice place to live in even as it is,” said Kathleen.

“Draughty,” said Eliza, “and law, what a lot of steps to clean! What they make houses for without no walls to ’em? Who’d live in—” She broke off, stared, and added: “What’s that?”

“What?”

“That white thing coming down the steps. Why, it’s a young man in statooary.”

“The statues do come alive here, after sunset,” said Gerald in very matter-of-fact tones.

“I see they do.” Eliza did not seem at all surprised or alarmed. “There’s another of ’em. Look at them little wings to his feet—like pigeons.”

“I expect that’s Mercury,” said Gerald.

“It’s ‘Hermes’ under the statue that’s got wings on its feet,” said Mabel, “but—”

“
I
don’t see any statues,” said Jimmy. “What are you punching me for?”

“Don’t you see?” Gerald whispered; but he need not have been so troubled, for all Eliza’s attention was with her wandering eyes that followed hither and thither the quick movements of unseen statues. “Don’t you see? The statues come alive when the sun goes down—and you can’t see them unless you’re invisible—and
I
—and if you do see them you’re not frightened—unless you
touch
them.”

“Let’s get her to touch one and see,” said Jimmy.

“’E’s lep’ into the water,” said Eliza in a rapt voice. “My, can’t he swim neither! And the one with the pigeons wings is flying all over the lake having larks with ’im. I do call that pretty. It’s like cupids as you see on wedding-cakes. And here’s another of ’em, a little chap with long ears and a baby deer galloping alongside! An look at the lady with the biby, throwing it up and catching it like as if it was a ball. I wonder she ain’t afraid. But it’s pretty to see ’em.”

The broad park lay stretched before the children in growing greyness and a stillness that deepened. Amid the thickening shadows they could see the statues gleam white and motionless. But Eliza saw other things. She watched in silence presently, and they watched silently, and the evening fell like a veil that grew heavier and blacker. And it was night. And the moon came up above the trees.

“Oh,” cried Eliza suddenly, “here’s the dear little boy with the deer—he’s coming right for me, bless his heart!”

Next moment she was screaming, and her screams grew fainter and there was the sound of swift boots on gravel.

“Come on!” cried Gerald; “she touched it, and then she was frightened, Just like I was. Run! she’ll send everyone in the town mad if she gets there like that. Just a voice and boots! Run! Run!

They ran. But Eliza had the start of them. Also when she ran on the grass they could not hear her footsteps and had to wait for the sound of leather on far-away gravel. Also she was driven by fear, and fear drives fast.

She went, it seemed, the nearest way, invisibly through the waxing moonlight, seeing she only knew what amid the glades and groves.

“I’ll stop here; see you tomorrow,” gasped Mabel, as the loud pursuers followed Eliza’s clatter across the terrace. “She’s gone through the stable yard.”

“The back way,” Gerald panted as they turned the corner of their own street, and he and Jimmy swung in past the water-butt.

An unseen but agitated presence seemed to be fumbling with the locked back-door. The church clock struck the half-hour.

“Half-past nine,” Gerald had just breath to say. “Pull at the ring. Perhaps it’ll come off now.”

He spoke to the bare doorstep. But it was Eliza, dishevelled, breathless, her hair coming down, her collar crooked, her dress twisted and disordered, who suddenly held out a hand a hand that they could see; and in the hand, plainly visible in the moonlight, the dark circle of the magic ring.

* * * *

“’Alf a mo!” said Eliza’s gentleman friend next morning. He was waiting for her when she opened the door with pail and hearthstone in her hand. “Sorry you couldn’t come out yesterday.”

“So’m I.” Eliza swept the wet flannel along the top step. “What did you do?”

“I ’ad a bit of a headache,” said the gentleman friend. “I laid down most of the afternoon. What were you up to?”

“Oh, nothing pertickler,” said Eliza.