Part 11 (1/2)

”No angel would,” Mrs Ffolliot said decidedly.

”Do you think,” the Kitten asked anxiously, ”that there's enough room at the top for it to squeege froo? I can't _bear_ those wings rustling.”

Mrs Ffolliot switched on the light. ”You can see for yourself.”

”Thank you, mummy dear, I'll be much happier by myself, really,” and the Kitten lay down quite contentedly.

CHAPTER VIII

GENTLEMAN GER

It was the 22nd of December, the younger Ffolliots were gathered in the schoolroom, and Ger was in disgrace.

The twins were back from school, and that afternoon they had unbent sufficiently to take part in a representation of ”Sherlock Holmes” in the hall. The whole family, with the exception of the Kitten, had seen the play in the Artillery Theatre at Woolwich during their last visit to grandfather.

It is a play that not only admits of, but necessitates, varied and loud noises.

Everything ought to have gone without a hitch, for earlier in the afternoon Mr Ffolliot had departed in the carriage to take the chair at a lecture in Marlehouse; and a little later Grantly had driven his mother to the station in the dogcart to meet a guest.

Unfortunately the lecture on Carpaccio at the Literary Inst.i.tute was of unusually short duration, and Mr Ffolliot returned tired and rather cross, just as Ger was enacting the hansom cab accident at the foot of the staircase, by beating a deafening tattoo on the Kitten's bath with a hair-brush.

The twins and the Kitten (who had proved a wrapt and appreciative audience) melted away with Boojum-like stealth the moment the hall door was opened; but Ger, absorbed in the entrancing din he was making, noticed nothing, and his father had to shake him by the shoulders before he would stop.

”I suppose,” Ger remarked thoughtfully, ”that we must look upon father as a cross.”

”He certainly _is_ jolly cross,” Uz murmured. ”He should hear the row we kick up at school when we've won a match, and n.o.body says a syllable.”

”But I mean,” Ger persisted, wriggling about on his seat as though the problem tormented him, ”that if father were as nice as mother we'd be too happy, and it wouldn't be good for us; like the people in Fairy stories, you know, when they're too well off, misfortunes come.”

”I don't think,” Buz said dryly, ”that we have any cause to dread misfortunes on that score. But cheer up, Ger, it'll soon be time for the pater to go abroad, and then n.o.body will get jawed for six long weeks.”

”I shouldn't mind the jawings so much or the punishments,” said Ger, after a minute's pause, ”if it wasn't for mother. She minds so, she never seems to get used to it. I'm glad she was out this afternoon--though we did want her to see the play--but whatever will she say when I can't go down to meet Reggie with the rest of you? And what'll _he_ think?”

Ger's voice broke. Punishment had followed hard on the heels of the crime, and banishment to the schoolroom for the rest of the evening was Ger's lot. Had Mr Ffolliot belonged to a previous generation he would probably, when angry, have whacked his sons and whacked them hard.

They would infinitely have preferred it. But his fastidious taste revolted from the idea of corporal punishment, and his ingenuity in devising peculiarly disagreeable penalties in expiation of their various offences, was the cause of much tribulation to his indignant offspring.

”Here _is_ mother!” cried Buz, ”and she's got Reggie. Come down and see him you others, but for heaven's sake, come quietly.”

The Reggie in question was a young Sapper just then stationed at Chatham, and a ”very favourite cousin.”

The Ffolliot children were in the somewhat unusual position of having no uncles and aunts, and no cousins of their own, for the sad reason that both their parents were ”onlies.” Therefore did they right this omission on the part of providence in their own fas.h.i.+on, by adopting as uncles, aunts, and cousins all pleasant guests.

Reggie wasn't even a second cousin; but his people being mostly in India, he had for many years spent nearly all his holidays, and later on his leave, at Redmarley, and he was very popular with the whole family. Even Mr Ffolliot unbent to a dignified urbanity in his presence. He approved of Reggie, who had pa.s.sed seventh into Woolwich and first into the Sappers, and Grantly always thanked his lucky stars that he was destined for Field Artillery, and was not expected to follow in Reggie's footsteps in the matter of marks.

Ger wors.h.i.+pped Reggie, and it was with a heart full of bitterness, and eyes charged with hot tears that blurred the firelight into long bands of crimson, that he leant against the schoolroom table, alone, while the others all trooped off on tiptoe into the hall to give rapturous though whispered greeting to their guest.

Reggie did not whisper though; the warning cards had no sort of effect upon him, and the forlorn little figure drooping against the table sprang erect and shook the big drops from his cheeks as he heard his cousin's jolly voice ”Where's my friend Ger?”--a murmured explanation--then, ”O _bad_ luck! I'll go to him--No don't come with me--not for two minutes.”

How Ger blessed him for that forethought! To be found in disgrace was bad enough; but to be seen in tears, and by his whole family! . . .