The Terrible Twins Part 21

"I don't see what good it is being a princess, if you do just what baronesses tell you all the time," said Erebus coldly.

The princess looked at her rather helplessly; she had never thought of rebelling.

"I don't think I should tell her that you've been with us. She mightn't think we were good for you. Some people round here don't seem to understand us," said the Terror suavely.

The princess looked from one to the other, hesitating with puckered brow; and then, with a touch of appeal in her tone, she said, "Are you coming to-morrow?"

The Twins looked at each other doubtfully. They had no plans for the morrow; but they had hopes that Fortune would find them some more exciting occupation than discussing Germany with one of its inhabitants.

At their hesitation the princess' face fell woefully; and the appeal in it touched the Terror's heart.

"We should like to come very much," he said.

The face of the princess brightened; and her grateful eyes shone on him.

"I don't think I shall be able to come," said Erebus with the important air of one burdened with many affairs.

The face of the princess did not fall again; she said: "But if your brother comes?"

"Oh, I'll come, anyhow," said the Terror.

The voice called again from the wood below, louder.

"Oh, it isn't the baroness. It's Miss Lambart," said the princess in a tone of relief.

"You take too much notice of that baroness," said Erebus again firmly.

"Who is Miss Lambart?"

"She's my English lady-in-waiting. I always have one when I'm in England, of course. I like her. She tries to amuse me. But the baroness doesn't like her," said the princess, and she sighed.

"Come along, I'll help you down the bank and take you pretty close to Miss Lambart. It wouldn't do for her to know of this place. It's our secret lair," said the Terror.

"I see," said the princess.

They walked briskly to the edge of the steep bank; and he half carried her down it; and he led her through the wood toward the drive from which Miss Lambart had called. As they went he adjured her to confine herself to the simple if incomplete statement that she had been walking in the wood. His last words to her, as they stood on the edge of the drive, were:

"Don't you stand so much nonsense from that baroness."

Miss Lambart called again; the princess stepped into the drive and found her thirty yards away. The Terror slipped noiselessly away through the undergrowth.

Miss Lambart turned at the sound of the princess' footsteps, and said: "Oh, here you are, Highness. We've all been hunting for you. The baroness thought you were lost."

"I thought I would walk in the wood," said the princess demurely.

"It certainly seems to have done you good. You're looking brighter and fresher than you've looked since you've been down here."

"The wood is real open air," said the princess.

CHAPTER IX

AND THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM

The Terror returned to Erebus and found her stretched at her ease, eating a peach.

"I should have liked one a good deal sooner," he said, as he took one from the basket. "But I didn't like to say anything about them. She mightn't have understood."

"It wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't," said Erebus somewhat truculently.

She was feeling some slight resentment that their new acquaintance had so plainly preferred the Terror to her.

"She's not a bad kid," said the Terror thoughtfully.

"She's awfully feeble. Why, you had to carry her up this bit of a bank. She's not any use to us," said Erebus in a tone of contempt.

"In fact, if we were to have much to do with her, I expect we should find her a perfect nuisance."

"Perhaps. Still we may as well amuse her a bit. She seems to be having a rotten time with that old red baroness and all that etiquette," said the Terror in a kindly tone.

"She needn't stand it, if she doesn't like it. I shouldn't," said Erebus coldly; then her face brightened, and she added: "I tell you what though: it would be rather fun to teach her to jump on that old red baroness."

"Yes," said the Terror doubtfully. "But I expect she'd take a lot of teaching. I don't think she's the kind of kid to do much jumping on people."

"Oh, you never know. We can always try," said Erebus cheerfully.

"Yes," said the Terror.

Warmed by this n.o.ble resolve, they moved quietly out of the wood. It was not so difficult a matter as it may sound to move, even enc.u.mbered by bicycles, about the home wood, for it was not so carefully preserved as the woods farther away from the Grange; indeed, the keepers paid but little attention to it. The Twins moved out of it safely and returned home with easy minds: it did not occur to either of them that they had been treating a princess with singular firmness. Nor were they at all troubled about the acquisition of the peaches since some curious mental kink prevented them from perceiving that the law of meum and tuum applied to fruit.

Mrs. Dangerfield was presented with only two peaches at tea that afternoon; and she took it that the Twins had ridden into Rowington and bought them for her there. When two more were forthcoming for her dessert after dinner, she reproached them gently for spending so much of their salary for "overseering" on her. The Twins said nothing. It was only when two more peaches came up on her breakfast tray that she began to suspect that they had come by the ways of warfare and not of trade. Then, having already eaten four of them, it was a little late to inquire and protest. Moreover, if there had been a crime, the Twins had admitted her to a full share in it by letting her eat the fruit of it. Plainly it was once more an occasion for saying nothing.

On the next afternoon Erebus set out with the Terror to Muttle Deeping home wood early enough; but owing to the matter of a young rabbit who met them on their way, they kept the princess waiting twenty minutes.

This was, indeed, a new experience to her; but she did not complain to them of this unheard-of breach of etiquette. She was doubtful how the complaint would be received at any rate by Erebus.

They betook themselves at once to the cool and shady pool; and since the sensation was no longer new and startling, the princess found it rather pleasant to be hauled up the bank by the Terror. There was something very satisfactory in his strength. Again they settled themselves comfortably on the bank of the pool.

They were in the strongest contrast to one another. Beside the clear golden tan of the Terror and the deeper gipsy-like brown of Erebus the pale face of the princess looked waxen. The blue linen blouse, short serge skirt and bare head and legs of Erebus and the blue linen s.h.i.+rt, serge knickerbockers and bare head and legs of the Terror gave them an air not only of coolness but also of a workmanlike freedom of limb. In her woolen blouse, brown serge jacket and skirt, woolen stockings and heavily-trimmed drooping hat the poor little princess looked a swaddled sweltering doll melting in the heat.

She needed no pressing to take off her jacket and hat; and was pleased by the Terror's observing that it was just silly to wear a hat at all when one had such thick hair as she. But she was some time acting on Erebus' suggestion that she should also pull off her stockings and be more comfortable still.

At last she pulled them off, and for once comfortable, she began to tell of the fuss the excited baroness had made the day before about her having gone alone into such a fearful and dangerous place as the home wood.

"I tell you what: you've spoilt that baroness," said the Terror when she came to the end of her tale; and he spoke with firm conviction.

"But she's my _gouvernante_. I have to do as she bids," protested the princess.

"That's all rubbish. You're the princess; and other people ought to do what you tell them; and no old baroness should make you do any silly thing you don't want to. She wouldn't me," said Erebus with even greater conviction than the Terror had shown.