‘To be sure,’ said Merton. ‘Luncheon shall be brought at once.’ He rang the bell, and, going out, interpellated the office boy.
‘Why did you laugh when my friends came to luncheon? You must learn manners.’
‘Please, sir, the kid, the young gentleman I mean, said he came on business,’ answered the boy, showing apoplectic symptoms.
‘So he did; luncheon is his business. Go and bring luncheon for—five, and see that there are chicken, cutlets, tartlets, apricots, and ginger-beer.’
The boy departed and Merton reflected. ‘A hoax, somebody’s practical joke,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder who Miss None-so-pretty is.’ Then he returned, assured Batsy that luncheon was even at the doors, and leaving her to look at Punch, led Mr. Apsley aside. ‘Tommy,’ he said (having seen his signature), ‘where do you live?’
The boy named a street on the frontiers of St. John’s Wood.
‘And who is your father?’
‘Major Apsley, D.S.O.’
‘And how did you come here?’
‘In a hansom. I told the man to wait.’
‘How did you get away?’
‘Father took us to Lord’s, with Miss Limmer, and there was a crowd, and Bats and I slipped out; for None-so-pretty said we ought to call on you.’
‘Who is Miss Limmer?’
‘Our governess.’
‘Have you a mother?’
The child’s brown eyes filled with tears, and his cheeks flushed. ‘It was in India that she—’
‘Yes, be a man, Tommy. I am looking the other way,’ which Merton did for some seconds. ‘Now, Tommy, is Miss Limmer kind to you?’
The child’s face became strangely set and blank; his eyes looking vacant. ‘Miss Limmer is very kind to us. She loves us and we love her dearly. Ask Batsy,’ he said in a monotonous voice, as if he were repeating a lesson. ‘Batsy, come here,’ he said in the same voice. ‘Is Miss Limmer kind to us?’
Batsy threw up her eyes—it was like a stage effect, ‘We love Miss Limmer dearly, and she loves us. She is very, very kind to us, like our dear mamma.’ Her voice was monotonous too. ‘I never can say the last part,’ said Tommy. ‘Batsy knows it; about dear mamma.’
‘Indeed!’ said Merton. ‘Tommy, why did you come here?’
‘I don’t know. I told you that None-so-pretty told us to. She did it after she saw that when we were bathing.’ Tommy raised one of his little loose breeks that did not cover the knee.
That was not pleasant to look on: it was on the inside of the right thigh.
‘How did you get hurt there?’ asked Merton.
The boy’s monotonous chant began again: his eyes were fixed and blank as before. ‘I fell off a tree, and my leg hit a branch on the way down.’
‘Curious accident,’ said Merton; ‘and None-so-pretty saw the mark?’
‘Yes.’
‘And asked you how you got it?’
‘Yes, and she saw blue marks on Batsy, all over her arms.’
‘And you told None-so-pretty that you fell off a tree?’
‘Yes.’
‘And she told you to come here?’
‘Yes, she had read your printed article.’
‘Well, here is luncheon,’ said Merton, and bade the office boy call Miss Blossom from the inner chamber to share the meal. Batsy had as low a chair as possible, and was disposing her napkin to do the duty of a pinafore.
Miss Blossom entered from within with downcast eyes.
‘None-so-pretty!’
‘None-so-pretty!’ shouted the children, while Tommy rushed to throw his arms round her neck, to meet which she stooped down, concealing a face of blushes. Batsy descended from her chair, waddled up, climbed another chair, and attacked the girl from the rear. The office boy was arranging luncheon. Merton called him to the writing-table, scribbled a note, and said, ‘Take that to Dr. Maitland, with my compliments.’
Maitland had been one of the guests at the inaugural dinner. He was entirely devoid of patients, and was living on the anticipated gains of a great work on Clinical Psychology.
‘Tell Dr. Maitland he will find me at luncheon if he comes instantly,’ said Merton as the boy fled on his errand. ‘I see that I need not introduce you to my young friends, Miss Blossom,’ said Merton. ‘May I beg you to help Miss Apsley to arrange her tucker?’
Miss Blossom, almost unbecomingly brilliant in her complexion, did as she was asked. Batsy had cold chicken, new potatoes, green peas, and two helpings of apricot tart. Tommy devoted himself to cutlets. A very mild shandygaff was compounded for him in an old Oriel pewter. Both children made love to Miss Blossom with their eyes. It was not at all what Merton felt inclined to do; the lady had entangled him in a labyrinth of puzzledom.
‘None-so-pretty,’ exclaimed Tommy, ‘I am glad you told us to come here. Your friends are nice.’
Merton bowed to Tommy, ‘I am glad too,’ he said. ‘Miss Blossom knew that we were kindred souls, same kind of chaps, I mean, you and me, you know, Tommy!’
Miss Blossom became more and more like the fabled peony, the crimson variety. Luckily the office boy ushered in Dr. Maitland, who, exchanging glances of surprise with Merton, over the children’s heads, began to make himself agreeable. He had nearly as many tricks as Miss Maskelyne. He was doing the short-sighted man eating celery, and unable to find the salt because he is unable to find his eyeglass.
Merton, seeing his clients absorbed in mirth, murmured something vague about ‘business,’ and spirited Miss Blossom away to the inner chamber.
‘Sit down, pray, Miss Blossom. There is no time to waste. What do you know about these children? Why did you send them here?’
The girl, who was pale enough now, said, ‘I never thought they would come.’
‘They are here, however. What do you know about them?’
‘I went to stay, lately, at the Home Farm on their grandmother’s place. We became great friends. I found out that they were motherless, and that they were being cruelly ill-treated by their governess.’
‘Miss Limmer?’
‘Yes. But they both said they loved her dearly. They always said that when asked. I gathered from their grandmother, old Mrs. Apsley, that their father would listen to nothing against the governess. The old lady cried in a helpless way, and said he was capable of marrying the woman, out of obstinacy, if anybody interfered. I had your advertisement, and I thought you might disentangle him. It was a kind of joke. I only told them that you were a kind gentleman. I never dreamed of their really coming.’
‘Well, you must take them back again presently, there is the address. You must see their father; you must wait till you see him. And how are you to explain this escapade? I can’t have the children taught to lie.’
‘They have been taught that lesson already.’
‘I don’t think they are aware of it,’ said Merton.
Miss Blossom stared.
‘I can’t explain, but you must find a way of keeping them out of a scrape.’
‘I think I can manage it,’ said Miss Blossom demurely.