The Danger Mark
CHAPTER I
THE SEAGRAVES
All day Sunday they had raised the devil from attic to cellar; Mrs. Farren was in tears, Howker desperate. Not one out of the fifteen servants considered necessary to embellish the Seagrave establishment could do anything with them after Kathleen Severn's sudden departure the week before.
When the telegram announcing her mother's sudden illness summoned young Mrs. Severn to Staten Island, every servant in the household understood that serious trouble was impending for them.
Day by day the children became more unruly; Sunday they were demons; and Mrs. Farren shuddered to think what Monday might bring forth.
The day began ominously at breakfast with general target practice, ammunition consisting of projectiles pinched from the interior of hot muffins. Later, when Mrs. Farren ventured into the schoolroom, she found Scott Seagrave drawing injurious pictures of Howker on the black-board, and Geraldine sorting lumps of sugar from the bowl on the breakfast-tray, which had not yet been removed.
"Dearies," she began, "it is after nine o'clock and–"
"No school to-day, Mrs. Farren," interrupted Scott cheerfully; "we haven't anything to do till Kathleen comes back, and you know it perfectly well!"
"Yes, you have, dearie; Mrs. Severn has just sent you this list of lessons." She held out a black-edged envelope.
Geraldine, who had been leisurely occupied in dropping cologne on a lump of sugar, thrust the lump into her pink mouth and turned sharply on Mrs. Farren.
"What list?" she demanded. "Give that letter to me.... Oh, Scott! Did you ever hear of anything half so mean? Kathleen's written out about a thousand questions in geography for us!"
"I can't stand that sort of interference!" shouted Scott, dropping his chalk and aiming a kick at the big papier-maché globe. "I'm sorry Kathleen's mother is probably going to die, but I've had enough geography, too."
"Mrs. Severn's mother died on Friday," said the housekeeper solemnly.
The children paused, serious for a moment in the presence of the incomprehensible.
"We're sorry," said Geraldine slowly.... "When is Kathleen coming back?"
"Perhaps to-night, dearie–"
Scott impatiently detached the schoolroom globe from its brass axis: "I'm sorry, too," he said; "but I'm tired of lessons. Now, Mrs. Farren, watch me! I'm going to kick a goal from the field. Here, you hold it, Geraldine; Mrs. Farren, you had better try to block it and cheer for Yale!"
Geraldine seized the globe, threw herself flat on the floor, and, head on one side, wriggled, carefully considering the angle. Then, tipping the globe, she adjusted it daintily for her brother to kick.
"A little higher, please; look out there, Mrs. Farren!" said Scott calmly; "Harvard is going to score this time. Now, Geraldine!"
Thump! came the kick, but Mrs. Farren had fled, and the big globe struck the nursery door and bounced back minus half of South America.
For ten minutes the upper floors echoed with the racket. Geraldine fiercely disputed her brother's right to kick every time; then, as usual, when she got what she wanted, gave up to Scott and let him monopolise the kicking until, satiated, he went back to the black-board, having obliterated several continents from the face of the globe.
"You might at least be polite enough to hold it for me to kick," said his sister. "What a pig you are, Scott."
"Don't bother me; I'm drawing Howker. You can't kick straight, anyway–"
"Yes, I can!"
Scott, intent on his drawing, muttered:
"I wish there was another boy in this house; I might have a little fun to-day if there was anybody to play with."
There ensued a silence; then he heard his sister's light little feet flying along the hallway toward their bedrooms, but went on calmly with his drawing, using some effective coloured crayon on Howker's nose. Presently he became conscious that Geraldine had re-entered the room.
"What are you going to do to-day?" he asked, preoccupied.
Geraldine, dressed in her brother's clothes, was kneeling on one knee and hastily strapping on a single roller-skate.
"I'll show you," she said, rising and shaking the dark curls out of her eyes. "Come on, Scott, I'm going to misbehave all day. Look at me! I've brought you the boy you wanted to play with."
Her brother turned, considered her with patronising toleration, then shrugged his shoulders.
"You look like one, but you're no good," he said.
"I can be just as bad as any boy!" she insisted. "I'll do whatever you do; I'll do worse, I tell you. Dare me to do something!"
"You don't dare skate backward into the red drawing-room! There's too much bric-a-brac."
She turned like a flash and was off, hopping and clattering down-stairs on her single skate, and a moment later she whirled into the red drawing-room backward and upset a Sang-de-boeuf jar, reducing the maid to horrified tears and the jar to powder.
Howker strove in vain to defend his dining-room when Scott appeared on one skate; but the breakfast-room and pantry were forcibly turned into rinks; the twins swept through the halls, met and defeated their nurses, Margaret and Betty, tumbled down into the lower regions, from there descended to the basement, and whizzed cheerily through the kitchen, waving two skateless legs.
There Mrs. Bramton attempted to buy them off with tribute in the shape of cup-cakes.
"Sure, darlints, they do be starvin' yez," purred Mrs. Bramton. "Don't I know the likes o' them? Now roon away quietlike an' ladylike–"
"Like a hen," retorted Scott. "I want some preserves."
"That's all very well," said Geraldine with her mouth full, "but we expected to skate about the kitchen and watch you make pastry. Kindly begin, Mrs. Bramton."
"I'd like to see what's inside of that chicken over there," said Scott. "And I want you to give me some raisins, Mrs. Bramton–"
"I'm dying for a glass of milk," added Geraldine. "Get me some dough, somebody; I'm going to bake something."
Scott, who, devoured by curiosity, had been sniffing around the spice cupboard, sneezed violently; a Swedish kitchen-maid threw her apron over her head, weak with laughter.
"If you're laughing at me, I'll fix you, Olga!" shouted Scott in a rage; and the air was suddenly filled with balls of dough. Mrs. Bramton fled before the storm; a well-directed volley drove the maids to cover and stampeded the two cats.
"Take whatever is good to eat, Geraldine. Hurrah! The town surrenders! Loot it! No quarter!" shouted Scott. However, when Howker arrived they retired hastily with pockets full of cinnamon sticks, olives, prunes, and dried currants, climbing triumphantly to the library above, where they curled up on a leather divan, under the portrait of their mother, to divide the spoils.
"Am I bad enough to suit you?" inquired Geraldine with pardonable pride.
"Pooh! That's nothing. If I had another boy here I'd—I'd–"
"Well, what?" demanded Geraldine, flushing. "I tell you I can misbehave as well as any boy. Dare me to do anything and you'll see! I dare you to dare me!"
Scott began: "Oh, it's all very easy for a girl to talk–"
"I don't talk; I do it! And you know perfectly well I do!"
"You're a girl, after all, even if you have got on my clothes–"
"Didn't I throw as much dough at Olga and Mrs. Bramton as you did?"
"You didn't hit anybody."
"I did! I saw a soft, horrid lump stick to Olga!"
"Pooh! You can't throw straight–"
"That's a lie!" said Geraldine excitedly.
Scott bristled:
"If