Part 17 (1/2)
but could not make out much except the fighting parts.
”Never understood why they had sleeves so often,” said Bertha, abstractedly bunching the green and white draperies. ”Never could see how they got the sleeve on the helmet in any kind of shape. What sort of sleeves did they have then, anyhow? Why, they were those tight ones, weren't they, with a slashed cap at the top? Well, now, Snowy, that would look perfectly absurd on a helmet, you know it would.”
The Snowy deigned no reply; or perhaps the tacks were in a perilous position at that moment. Bertha went on, thoughtfully:
”A balloon sleeve, now, would be more sensible; you could slip it over the helmet, and it would look like--like the shade of a piano lamp. But somehow, whenever I read about it, I see a small, tight, red sleeve, spread out like a red flannel bandage, as if the helmet had a sore throat--”
”Fluffy, you are talking absolute nonsense!” said Gertrude, regaining utterance. ”And after all, they had gloves oftener than sleeves; not that that makes it much better. For my part, I always think of a glove with all the five fingers sticking up out of the middle of the crown, as if they had tried to be feathers and been nipped in the bud.”
”Feathers don't bud!” said Bertha, handing up more slack.
”But the real thing,” Gertrude went on, ”the beautiful, graceful thing for the knight to wear, was the scarf. He could do anything he liked with that; tie it around his helmet, or across his breast,--that was the proper way of course,--or around his waist.
”A green scarf, that is what I would have! Very soft, so that it would go through a finger-ring, and yet wide enough to shake out into wonderful folds, you know, so that he could wrap himself up in it, and think of me, and--what's the matter, Peggy, why do you sigh?”
”Did I sigh?” said Peggy, looking confused. ”It was nothing, Snowy. I was only thinking--thinking how stupid I was, and how Margaret would like all the things you talk about.”
”Meaning sleeves?”
”No, oh, no! but about knights, and chivalry, and all that kind of thing. Margaret loves it so! She used to try to read Froissart to me, but it always put me to sleep. I suppose you like Froissart, Gertrude?”
She spoke so wistfully that Gertrude took the tacks out of her mouth (she should never have put them in; a junior should have known better!) that she might reply the better.
”Why, Peggy, yes, I do like Froissart, but it never troubles me when people don't care for my kind of books. You see, there are so many kinds, such an endless variety, and good in so many different ways. Now you, for example, would like the Jungle Books, and the 'Cruise of the _Cachalot_,' and all kinds of books of adventure.”
”I don't know what is adventure if Froissart isn't,” Bertha put in.
”Yes, but it's all too far away, too remote. I know how Peggy feels, because I have a cousin who is just that way. She used to think she should never read anything at all; then one day she got hold of Kipling, and the worlds opened, and the doors thereof. Just you come to me for the Jungle Books some day, Innocent, and you'll see. Look here, I want lots and lots, and again lots more leaves. Where are they all? I don't see any more, but there must be any quant.i.ty. I brought in a whole copse, myself.”
”We put them all into the old swimming-tank, don't you remember? Oh, no; you went in before we had finished this morning. Well, they are there.
Stay where you are, Snowy, and Peggy and I will get a couple of loads.”
The two girls ran down-stairs to the lower floor. Part of this was taken up, as we have already seen, by dressing-rooms, but it was only a small part. The larger s.p.a.ce was occupied by the great swimming-tank, five feet deep, and twenty by thirty feet in area. The tank was not used now, but the water was still connected, and could be turned on by special permission. Now, accordingly, the water in the bottom was about two feet deep, and the whole surface was a blaze of autumn colours, great branches of maple, oak, and ash covering it completely.
”Pretty, isn't it?” said Bertha. ”Like a little sunset sea all alone by itself, without any sun to set. The next question is, how are we to get at them?”
”Oh, that's easy enough!” said Peggy. ”I can reach them easily from the edge, and I'll hand them over to you.”
Suiting the action to the word, she climbed up on the broad marble slab which formed the edge of the great tank.
Then, bending down, she brought up a great branch of golden maple, fresh and dripping. She shook it, and a diamond shower fell back on the dark s.p.a.ce left vacant; then another branch floated quietly over and filled the s.p.a.ce again.
”You'll be wet through!” said Bertha. ”I don't suppose you care?”
”No, indeed! I'd rather be wet than not, when I'm doing things.”
”I'll remember that,” said Bertha, slyly, ”and come round with a watering-can next time you are reciting your rhetoric. Give me some red now; oh, that is a beauty! There! that's enough for one load; unless you see just one more little one that is superlatively beautiful.”
”That is just what I do see! Hold on a minute! this is such a beauty, you must have it, if I--oh!”
Peggy had been leaning as far as she could over the broad tank, fis.h.i.+ng for the gay branch, which floated provokingly just out of reach. At last she touched it--grasped it--drew it toward her; when all in a moment she slipped on the marble, now wet and glossy with the falling drops, clutched the air--slipped again--and fell headlong into the tank, with a mighty splash.