Part 11 (1/2)

I a.s.sured her that it was no trouble.

We duly reached the orchard, where Miss Damer ate three green apples and presented me with a fourth, which, fearing a fifth, I consumed as slowly as possible, hoping for the sake of our first parents that Eve's historic indiscretion took place in late September and not early August.

Presently we came to a red-brick wall with a south aspect, upon which the noonday sun beat warmly. High up upon its face grew plums, fat, ripe, and yellow.

Miss Damer threw away the core of an apple and turned to me.

”I should like a plum,” she said, with a seraphic smile.

The wall was fifteen feet high, and the plums grew near the top.

”I will find a ladder,” I replied obediently.

”That would be bothering you too much,” said the considerate Miss Damer.

”Can't you put your foot in that root and pull yourself up by the branches?”

The branches, be it said, were gnarled and fragile, and lay flat against the wall.

”I think the ladder would be better,” I repeated. ”My weight might pull the whole thing away from the wall, and then we should have a few observations from Lady Adela.”

”You are right; that would never do,” replied my right-minded companion gravely. ”But I don't know where they keep the ladder, and in any case it would probably be locked up. What a pity I have this white skirt on!”

She turned away. A low tremulous sigh escaped her.

Next moment, feeling utterly and despicably weak-minded, I found myself ascending the wall, much as a blue-bottle ascends a window-pane. Miss Damer stood below with clasped hands.

”Do be careful, Mr. Carmyle,” she besought me. ”You might hurt yourself very seriously if you fell. I will have that big one, please, just above your head.”

I secured the object indicated and threw it down to her. She caught it deftly.

”There is another one on your left,” continued Eve. ”Can you reach it?”

I could, and did.

”I will keep this one for you, Mr. Carmyle,” said my thoughtful companion as she caught it. ”I think I will have one more. There is a perfectly lovely one there, out to your right. You can just get it if you stretch. Throw it down.”

The plum in question was a monster, and looked ripe to the moment. I straddled myself athwart the plum tree, much in the att.i.tude of a man who is about to receive five hundred lashes, and reached far out to the right.

”Another two inches will do it,” called out Miss Damer encouragingly.

She was right. I strained two inches further, and my fingers closed upon the fruit. Simultaneously the greater part of the plum tree abandoned its adherence to the wall, and in due course,--about four-fifths of a second, I should say,--I found myself lying on my back in a gooseberry-bush, clasping to my bosom the greater part of a valuable fruit tree, dimly conscious, from glimpses through the interstices of my leafy bower, of the presence of a towering and majestic figure upon the gravel walk beside Miss Damer.

It was Lady Adela Mainwaring, my hostess, armed _cap-a-pie_ in gauntlets, green baize ap.r.o.n, and garden hat, for a murderous morning among the slugs.

I struggled to a sitting position, slightly dazed, and not a little apprehensive lest I should be mistaken for a slug.

Neither Miss Damer nor my hostess uttered a word, Lady Adela because her high breeding and immense self-control restrained her; Miss Damer, I shrewdly suspect, because she was engaged in bolting the last evidence of her complicity. But both ladies were regarding me with an expression of pained reproach.