CHAPTER II
LIONEL THE TERRIBLE
Five minutes later, Denny, emerging from Middlefield shrubberies, found himself close to the house. The late September sun was beginning to slant through the beech-trees on the lawn, dappling the ground beneath, and all was drowsy peace.
Denny, who was always a little shy of the Middlefield butler, avoided the front door and cut across the lawn towards the schoolroom. His course took him past the library. The French windows stood wide open, and within Denny was conscious of the form of a rather dapper little gentleman in tweeds, crouching in a constrained attitude over something in the middle of the room. It was Mr. Bagby. Hearing Denny’s step on the gravel, Mr. Bagby cried out, without moving:
‘Is that you, Leo? Come in here, sir, at once.’
‘It’s me, Mr. Bagby,’ replied Denny, pausing outside and politely removing his cap.
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Come and give me a hand, will you, like a good chap? That young whelp has been at it again.’
Realising without difficulty that Mr. Bagby was referring to his only son, Denny entered the library by the open window. Mr. Bagby, holding a large piece of pink blotting paper in his hand, was executing a species of stealthy toe-dance round an inlaid lacquer table. In the centre of the table, serene and glistening, lay a large pool of ink; beside it a common penny ink-bottle, overturned.
‘Dirty little devil!’ observed Mr. Bagby earnestly, still referring, it seemed, to his absent offspring. ‘I told his mother not to let him come and make his messes in this room. But you know what women are!’
To this rather large assumption Denny made no reply. His attention was focused upon Mr. Bagby’s dispositions for the removal of the ink blot. He was a tidy and methodical man, was Mr. Bagby, and he prided himself on keeping his house in order. There was always an immaculate array of clean towels hanging in the bathroom at Middlefield, and Mr. Bagby’s knowledge of the current allowances on returned empties was almost indecent.
Very slowly and stealthily the pink blotting-paper slid over the polished table, until one corner touched the outer edge of the pool of ink.
‘This is the awkward bit,’ said Mr. Bagby breathlessly. ‘If the ink breaks away now—surface tension, and so on—it will run all over the place; on the carpet, probably. Stand by with some more blotting-paper, Denny, just in case— Why, damn the thing!’
For the pink pool did not break away, not even when the blotting-paper, after a moment’s hesitation, slid right over its glossy surface; not even when Mr. Bagby pressed the blotting-paper down with the tip of his finger. The paper still remained a virgin pink.
‘Surely the infernal stuff hasn’t solidified!’ Mr. Bagby placed the full weight of his palm upon the protuberance; then, with another regrettable exclamation, snatched the blotting-paper away and began to fumble for his monocle.
The ink pool lay as composed and as unruffled as ever. This was not altogether surprising, for it was composed of black sealing-wax, artistically moulded and varnished.
What Mr. Bagby said when he adjusted his monocle is irrelevant to this narrative, and was fortunately cut short at the very outset by a series of war-whoops of a raucous and penetrating character which burst from behind a sofa in the corner of the room.
‘Ee-ee-ee! A-a-ah! Oo-oo-ooh! Sold again! Sold again! Silly old Bingo! Sold again!’
And Master Lionel Bagby, vacating his ambush, shot from the open doorway into the hall and disappeared through a curtained arch on the other side, yodelling triumphantly.
Denny, tactfully leaving the overwrought Mr. Bagby to himself, slipped out of the room after his 'chum' and, travelling familiar ground, proceeded down a linoleum-covered passage in the direction of the schoolroom, where he knew that the feast to which he had been invited would be spread. Even as he entered the passage a maid debouched from another doorway, carrying a loaded tray which exuded an agreeable aroma of poached eggs and hot muffins.
Gathered in the schoolroom Denny found Mrs. Bagby herself, present in his honour; Miss Groves, Gwen’s governess; Lionel the Terrible, still chanting his song of victory; and the present disturber of his peace, Miss Gwendoline Bagby. Denny shook hands rather shyly all round, that susceptible and elastic organ, his heart, missing a beat or two when he greeted the daughter of the house. Mrs. Bagby took the head, Miss Groves the foot of the table. Master Lionel, who was a dirty feeder and required considerable elbow-room, was accommodated with a side to himself. Denny and Gwen sat together.
Mrs. Bagby, having helped the others, addressed her son with an indulgent smile.
‘Little Leo,’ she said, ‘will you have a poached egg?’
‘Yes,’ replied Little Leo.
‘Yes—what, dear?’
‘What? An egg, of course. Don’t be silly!’
Mrs. Bagby smiled feebly.
‘I am waiting for a certain little word, darling,’ she said.
‘And I,’ riposted Lionel the Terrible, ‘am waiting for a certain little poached egg!’
Mrs. Bagby made another effort.
‘If you—?’ she prompted.
‘If you don’t give me one,’ roared Little Leo, in a most threatening voice. ‘I shall come and take one. So hurry up!’
Mrs. Bagby, finding the situation, as usual, beyond her, smiled resignedly and passed the egg.
Gwen began to question Denny about his scholarship. When he told her that it was worth sixty pounds a year she was visibly impressed, and Denny turned pink with gratification.
‘It doesn’t mean much, really,’ he said modestly.
‘What are you going to do with the money?’ asked Gwen.
‘I don’t think you get any money; they just knock sixty pounds off your school bill.’
Lionel the Terrible here interposed, to remark that when he won a scholarship he would spend the money on himself and not go to school at all. Having disposed of this topic to his entire satisfaction, he helped himself to jam with an eggy knife.
‘What house are you going to, Denis?’ asked Miss Groves.
‘Keeley’s.’
Miss Groves’s thin face flushed with pleasure.
‘My brother was there,’ she said, ‘long ago.’
‘What a rotten house it must have been,’ observed Little Leo.
As it appeared to be nobody’s business to controvert this statement, Miss Groves continued, timidly:
‘Of course it was some time ago. My brother has been vicar of Much Moreham for many years now. Will you ask Mr. Keeley if he still remembers him?’
Denny promised to do so, and furthermore undertook to write and tell Miss Groves if Mr. Keeley did remember her brother. The ice thus artfully broken, he asked if Gwen would like him to write to her too.
‘Rather!’ said Gwen. ‘Tell me all your troubles, my child, whenever you feel like it.’
‘Shall I write to you as well, Leo?’ asked Denny, turning away a little dashed.
‘No,’ replied the Terrible One.
‘Leo, darling!’ interposed his mother. ‘No—what?’
‘No blooming fear!’ explained her offspring. ‘I should have to read the thing. Hello, here’s Bingo!’
The schoolroom door was wrenched open, and the master of the house stood lowering upon the threshold.
‘Leo,’ he announced with an air of intense resolution, ‘I shall whip you to-night before dinner.’
‘No you won’t,’ replied his son calmly.
‘But I shall!’ repeated Mr. Bagby with less conviction.
‘No, you won’t!’ bellowed Lionel the Terrible. Finding his utterance somewhat impeded by bread and jam, he took a large gulp of tea, and continued: ‘What’s the good? It only hurts your hand, and makes me laugh. Look out—you’re treading on something!’
There were cries of concern from Mrs. Bagby.
‘Ring for Hannah!’ she exclaimed. ‘She must have dropped it off the dish. How careless of her! Don’t touch it with your fingers, Miss Groves. Take the coal shovel.’
But Miss Groves, who, whatever she might lack in assertiveness, was not deficient in common-sense, merely stooped down, picked up the jettisoned poached egg between her finger and thumb, and laid it on the table close beside its engaging proprietor. It really was a capital imitation. The streaming yolk in particular did credit to the designer.
Little Leo was once more bounding about the room.
‘Sold again! Sold again!’ he yelled. ‘Silly old Bingo! Silly old Bingo! Sold again!’
After tea the infant humorist summoned his reluctant guest from the side of his sister, and conducted him upstairs, where he revealed to him the source of his present playful inspirations. It was a Conjurer’s Catalogue, entitled ‘Amusing Jokes and Novel Surprises.’
‘You get six jokes in a box for half a crown,’ he explained. ‘The poached egg, and the spilt ink thing, and another like spilt jam, and a bandage all bloody that you stick round your finger to make people think you’ve cut it—Gwen fairly blubbed when she saw it on me—and an imitation wasp, and some india-rubber bugs you drop into people’s soup. The catalogue says the bugs are also Suitable for Beds. I haven’t used them yet. Half a jiffy! I’ll slip down to the drawing-room now, and put them on mother’s tea-table.’
The horrid child sped away, and before Denny could summon sufficient courage to go back to the schoolroom in search of Gwen, returned enraptured, announcing that two beetles now floated in the cream-jug, while the wasp occupied a conspicuous position upon the seat which would shortly be occupied by his father.
‘I got a ten bob tip last week,’ he continued, gloating over the catalogue, ‘and I’m going to order some more—real spiffers this time. The first lot were all as stale as anything, but of course they were quite new to Mum and Bingo. Here’s something. The Mysterious Voice. With this little novelty any one can make the exact imitation of a kitten mewing, while all your friends are wondering where it is. Very amusing and quite new. That’s rotten. All you do is to hold a sort of bag in your hand and squeeze it, or else put it down for some one to sit on.... Here’s something better. The Plush Jewel Case. This little box is in the form of a small jewel case. When your friend opens it, it gives a loud bang, causing much laughter among the onlookers. I dare say, but it’s two bob. What’s this? The Crash-Bang. This consists of six metal pieces which are thrown against a wall. They give the exact representation of a window being broken. Sixpence. I’ll get a set of those for Bingo. Hallo! The Red Hot Cinder. One of these cinders placed on the hearth-rug causes great consternation, followed by merriment, and calls forth exclamations of ‘How good!’ when picked up. Fourpence. You ought to take some of these to Eaglescliffe with you, Denny. You could rag the masters fearfully.’
‘I think I’ll have a look at the masters first,’ replied Denny.
Lionel finally settled upon two more purchases—namely, some Nihilist Bombs, one of which, exploded in a theatre or railway carriage, will cause people on the spot to gradually get away as far as possible, and the Electric Bell—which you fasten to a table or wall and ask your friend to ring it. To his great surprise, he pricks his finger. Roars of laughter! Tenpence—and then suggested a visit to the orchard.
Denny, supremely bored, acquiesced. His sole interest in the House of Bagby was centred—and that, as time was to prove, but temporarily—in the female branch. Besides, the morrow, with its unrevealed and half-feared mysteries, was tugging at his thoughts, rendering him even more impervious than usual to the charms of Little Leo’s society. To some of us any company is better than none—which, by the way, accounts for most of the undesirable friendships of this world. Denny was one of the rarer spirits. He desired only the society of the congenial; failing that, he preferred his own. Such society, at the moment, was represented to him solely by Miss Gwendoline Bagby; in a few months time he would have revised his standards completely, and be living only for the occasional patronage of brawny youths who could run faster or manipulate a ball more skilfully than himself. But, in the main, Master Denny was a lady’s man, as the future will unfold. In other words, he was booked for trouble for many years to come. Meanwhile, his sole preoccupation was a single-minded aversion to the continued society of Little Leo.
However, an apple is seldom amiss when you are thirteen. So he accompanied his host to the orchard. On the way Little Leo espied two beetles scuttling across the gravel path. He picked them up and secured them, with an air of professional secrecy, in an old pill-box.