The Red House. Эдит Несбит
the Red House for a dear little birthday present, I must insist on being allowed to put my shaving-brush down anywhere in it; just anywhere I choose.”
“You shall. There's room enough,” she said, but even at that moment she sighed.
“When do you wish to move in?”
“On your birthday, of course.”
And so it was decided. The blow I had dreaded had fallen. My own hands had guided it. On the 6th of June we were to take possession of an immense mansion, standing in its own grounds, replete with every possible inconvenience. Chloe dropped her work and sewed curtains all day. I had never known her so happy. And indeed, now that the die was cast, I myself felt that our new experiment had in it at least all the elements of interest. I owned as much.
“Ah,” said Chloe, “I knew you hid a kindly heart under that mask of indifference. Interesting? Oh, my dear boy, you haven't the faintest idea of the interesting things that are going to happen to us at the Red House.”
Nor had she. Had either of us even faintly imagined a tenth part of what was to befall us in that house—And yet I don't know. Chloe says now that she would have left the safe shelter of the Bandbox just the same. And I—well, as you see, if Chloe only “keeps all on,” I am foolish enough for anything.
II IN THE RED HOUSE
“YOU look like a historical picture,” Chloe said. “What's-his-name weeping over the ruins of Somewhere or other.”
“I am weeping, over the ruins of my happy home,” I replied, as I sat on a packing-case and stirred with my boot-toe a tangle of brown paper, string, dust, and empty bottles on the dining-room floor.
“Nonsense!” she said. “Your happy home's where I am, isn't it?”
“That's just what I say. This adorable Bandbox of ours contained my heart's one treasure, and therefore—”
“If you mean me,” she said, briskly, “your treasure is not going to be kept in a Bandbox any longer. It is going to live in a palace—”
“Unfurnished—replete with—”
“Historic associations and other delights,” she interrupted. “And not quite unfurnished, either. Poor, dear boy—was it unhappy at the nasty flitting, then? And was it like a cat, and did it hate to leave its own house? It shall have its paws buttered—its boots, I mean—the minute we get into the new house!”
She came and sat beside me on the packing-case, and I absently put my arm round her.
“Allow me a moment for natural regrets,” I said. “It is not fair to distract my mind with undue influence when I'm watching the dark waters of time close over the wreck of that good ship, the Bandbox.”
“That's fine writing,” she said, contemptuously. “Talk sensibly, there's a good boy.”
Acquiescing, I pinched her ears softly. What my wife terms sensible conversation is unworthy to be reported.
The Bandbox lay before us, so to speak, in little bits. All the curtains were down, and all the pictures. The crockery was packed up, so were the wedding-presents. The saucepans and kettles sat in a forlorn group on the sitting-room floor. Our comfortable beds were now nothing but rolls of striped ticking and long, iron bands—lying about where one could best trip over them. The wall-papers, which had looked so bright and pleasant with our books and pictures on them, now showed, in patches of aggressively unfaded color, the outlines of the shelves and frames that had hung against them. The fire that had boiled our breakfast-kettle had gone out, and the cold ashes looked inexpressibly desolate.
As we sat awaiting the arrival of our green-grocer, who had undertaken to “move” us, I pointed out the ashes to Chloe.
“I believe you would like to put some on your head,” said she.
The green-grocer had promised to come at nine o'clock. That was why we had got up in the middle of the night, and finished our packing before eight o'clock. It was now past ten.
“He has thought better of it,” said I. “He is a far-seeing man, and a kindly. He knows it cannot be for our real good to leave our Bandbox. Let's set to work and put all the things back in their places!”
“Here he is,” said Chloe, jumping off the packing-case at the squeaking sound which ever preludes any weak effort on the part of the Bandbox door-knocker. “Oh, Len,” she whispered, in awestruck tones, “it isn't the men! I can see through the door-glass, and it's a lady, and look at me!”
“Life hardly offers a dearer pleasure!” said I, and indeed, in her white gown and blue pinafore, with her brown hair loose and ruffled, she made so pretty a picture that I could not help thinking how a really high-toned green-grocer might well have refused base coin as the price of “moving” us, counting himself well paid by the sight of her.
“I'll go, if you like,” I said, and went. Chloe hid herself behind the kitchen door, where the jack-towel used to hang. Even its roller had been unscrewed and packed now.
“Chloe!” I called, “it's all right. It's only Yolande.”
“Only, indeed!” Miss Riseborough echoed. “Oh, here you are! What on earth's all this? A spring cleaning?”
“Yolande?” Chloe cried. “But I thought you were in Italy!”
“So I am. At least I was last week, and shall be again next. I've just run over for a few days on business, and I slipped away to the Bandbox to rest my eyes with a look at the turtle-doves. But they don't look restful at all.”
She was taking the long, pearl-headed pins out of her hat as she spoke.
“Oh!” said my wife, again. “Sit down—no—not on that—it's crocks and newspapers—and the chairs are all packed. Try the packing-case.”
But murmuring, “The divan for me!” Yolande sank down on a roll of bedding.
“I've yards to tell you, only I thought you were in that horrid Italy, and I've been too busy to write. We're moving into a house with twenty-nine rooms in it.”
Then the whole story came out—of Chloe's folly and of my madness. Yolande listened intently, her bright, gray eyes taking in Chloe's transports, and my all too moderate enthusiasm, as well as the devastated state of the Bandbox.
“You poor, dear things,” she said. “I wish I wasn't going back to Italy to-morrow. I should like to lend a hand.”
“I know you would,” said I, with intent.
“Oh yes, but you can't wound me with your sneers. I own I love to have a finger in my neighbors' pies, and the more I love my neighbor, the more I long to infest her house on baking-days. But look here, I wish you'd do me a good turn. If your house is that awful size, you will certainly have a couple of spare rooms in it.”
“More like five-and-twenty,” I said.
“Well, I've let my flat, unfurnished. Could you, would you, can you, will you be angels enough to take in my poor, homeless furniture, and give it board and lodging and the comforts of a home for a month or two?”
Of course we would, gladly, and we said so. And then we talked—always of the Red House.
“You'll have a good deal of fun for your money in your new house,” Yolande said, at last, “but, oh, you make me feel as if you were the Babes in the Wood and I were the wicked uncle. I do wish I could stay and help you, but I've three pupils waiting in Florence with their mouths wide open, and a mere temporary chaperon guarding them, and I must scurry back to fill those gaping beaks with fat plums of learning. It's a dreadful trade, a crammer's—almost as bad as the samphire-gatherers'.”
“Wish