"Not at all," said Kathleen. "You only said your fiancee 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 courteously1.
"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 in-doors," 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 miserable2 Eliza. Now Gerald roused himself, and spoke3.
"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 shriek4 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 spurt5 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 sob6 and said, "Don't burn me real ostrich7 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 kindly8 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 bin9 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 measles10. 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 judgment11 just for a borrow!"
They reassured12 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 briefly13. "Now, Eliza, you catch on to Kathleen's arm and I'll walk behind to conceal14 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 asylum15 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 sniffs16 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 bad 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 passionate17 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 willow18 where a statue of Diana, bow in hand, stood poised19 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 transparent20, 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 minced21 veal22 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 rosy23 light from the little fluffy24 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 savage25 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 "
"1 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 thither26 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 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 larks27 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 galloping28 alongside! An look at the lady with the biby, throwing it up and catching29 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 gravel30.
"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 glades31 and groves32.
"I'll stop here; see you tomorrow," gasped33 Mabel, as the loud pursuers followed Eliza's clatter34 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 agitated35 presence seemed to be fumbling36 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 crooked37, 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 flannel38 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.
"Then it was all a dream, she said, when he was gone; "but it'll be a lesson to me not to meddle39 with anybody's old ring again in a hurry."
"So they didn't tell 'er about me behaving like I did," said he as he went "sun, I suppose like our Army in India. I hope I ain't going to be liable to it, that's all!"
Johnson was the hero of the hour. It was he who had tracked the burglars, laid his plans, and recovered the lost silver. He had not thrown the stone public opinion decided40 that Mabel and her aunt must have been mistaken in supposing that there was a stone at all. But he did not deny the warning letter. It was Gerald who went out after breakfast to buy the newspaper, and who read aloud to the others the two columns of fiction which were the Liddlesby Observer's report of the facts. As he read every mouth opened wider and wider, and when he ceased with "this gifted fellow-townsman with detective instincts which out-rival those of Messrs. Lecoq and Holmes, and whose promotion41 is now assured," there was quite a blank silence.
"Well," said Jimmy, breaking it, "he doesn't stick it on neither, does he?"
"I feel," said Kathleen, "as if it was our fault as if it was us had told all these whoppers; because if it hadn't been for you they couldn't have, Jerry. How could he say all that?"
"Well," said Gerald, trying to be fair, "you know, after all, the chap had to say something. I'm glad I " He stopped abruptly42.
"You're glad you what?"
"No matter," said he, with an air of putting away affairs of state. "Now, what are we going to do today? The faithful Mabel approaches; she will want her ring. And you and Jimmy want it too. Oh, I know. Mademoiselle hasn't had any attention paid to her for more days than our hero likes to confess."
"I wish you wouldn't always call yourself 'our hero', said Jimmy; "you aren't mine, anyhow."
"You're both of you mine," said Kathleen hastily.
"Good little girl." Gerald smiled annoyingly. "Keep baby brother in a good temper till Nursie comes back."
"You're not going out without us?" Kathleen asked in haste.
"I haste away,
'Tis market day,"
sang Gerald,
"And in the market there
Buy roses for my fair.
If you want to come too, get your boots on, and look slippy about it."
"I don't want to come," said Jimmy, and sniffed43.
Kathleen turned a despairing look on Gerald.
"Oh, James, James," said Gerald sadly, "how difficult you make it for me to forget that you're my little brother! If ever I treat you like one of the other chaps, and rot you like I should Turner or Moberley or any of my pals44 well, this is what comes of it."
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1
courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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2
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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3
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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5
spurt
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| v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆 | |
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6
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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7
ostrich
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| n.鸵鸟 | |
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8
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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9
bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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10
measles
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| n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子 | |
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11
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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12
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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13
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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14
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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15
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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16
sniffs
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的第三人称单数 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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17
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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18
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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19
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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20
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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21
minced
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| v.切碎( mince的过去式和过去分词 )；剁碎；绞碎；用绞肉机绞（食物，尤指肉） | |
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veal
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| n.小牛肉 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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24
fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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25
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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26
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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27
larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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28
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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29
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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30
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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31
glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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32
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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33
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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34
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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35
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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36
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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37
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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38
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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39
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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40
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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41
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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42
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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43
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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44
pals
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| n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙 | |
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