‘Cake!’ my Lady muttered to herself with great decision, crossing the room and opening a cupboard, from which she presently returned with two slices of plum-cake. ‘Eat, and don’t cry!’ were her short and simple orders: and the poor children sat down side by side, but seemed in no mood for eating.
For the second time the door opened—or rather was burst open, this time, as Uggug rushed violently into the room, shouting ‘that old Beggar’s come again!’
‘He’s not to have any food—’ the Vice-Warden was beginning, but the Chancellor interrupted him. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, in a low voice: ‘the servants have their orders.’
‘He’s just under here,’ said Uggug, who had gone to the window, and was looking down into the court-yard.
‘Where, my darling?’ said his fond mother, flinging her arms round the neck of the little monster. All of us (except Sylvie and Bruno, who took no notice of what was going on) followed her to the window. The old Beggar looked up at us with hungry eyes. ‘Only a crust of bread, your Highness!’ he pleaded. He was a fine old man, but looked sadly ill and worn. ‘A crust of bread is what I crave!’ he repeated. ‘A single crust, and a little water!’
‘Here’s some water, drink this!’ Uggug bellowed, emptying a jug of water over his head.
‘Well done, my boy!’ cried the Vice-Warden. ‘That’s the way to settle such folk!’
‘Clever boy!’ the Wardeness chimed in. ‘Hasn’t he good spirits?’
‘Take a stick to him!’ shouted the Vice-Warden, as the old Beggar shook the water from his ragged cloak, and again gazed meekly upwards.
‘Take a red-hot poker to him!’ my Lady again chimed in.
Possibly there was no red-hot poker handy: but some sticks were forthcoming in a moment, and threatening faces surrounded the poor old wanderer, who waved them back with quiet dignity. ‘No need to break my old bones,’ he said. ‘I am going. Not even a crust!’
‘Poor, poor old man!’ exclaimed a little voice at my side, half choked with sobs. Bruno was at the window, trying to throw out his slice of plum-cake, but Sylvie held him back.
‘He shall have my cake!’ Bruno cried, passionately struggling out of Sylvie’s arms.
‘Yes, yes, darling!’ Sylvie gently pleaded. ‘But don’t throw it out! He’s gone away, don’t you see? Let’s go after him.’ And she led him out of the room, unnoticed by the rest of the party, who were wholly absorbed in watching the old Beggar.
The Conspirators returned to their seats, and continued their conversation in an undertone, so as not to be heard by Uggug, who was still standing at the window.
‘By the way, there was something about Bruno succeeding to the Wardenship,’ said my Lady. ‘How does that stand in the new Agreement?’
The Chancellor chuckled. ‘Just the same, word for word,’ he said, ‘with one exception, my Lady. Instead of “Bruno,” I’ve taken the liberty to put in—’ he dropped his voice to a whisper, ‘—to put in “Uggug,” you know!’
‘Uggug, indeed!’ I exclaimed, in a burst of indignation I could no longer control. To bring out even that one word seemed a gigantic effort: but, the cry once uttered, all effort ceased at once: a sudden gust swept away the whole scene, and I found myself sitting up, staring at the young lady in the opposite corner of the carriage, who had now thrown back her veil, and was looking at me with an expression of amused surprise.
Chapter 5
A Beggar’s Palace
That I had said something, in the act of waking, I felt sure: the hoarse stifled cry was still ringing in my ears, even if the startled look of my fellow-traveler had not been evidence enough: but what could I possibly say by way of apology?
‘I hope I didn’t frighten you?’ I stammered out at last. ‘I have no idea what I said. I was dreaming.’
‘You said “Uggug indeed!”’ the young lady replied, with quivering lips that would curve themselves into a smile, in spite of all her efforts to look grave. ‘At least—you didn’t say it—you shouted it!’
‘I’m very sorry,’ was all I could say, feeling very penitent and helpless. ‘She has Sylvie’s eyes!’ I thought to myself, half-doubting whether, even now, I were fairly awake. ‘And that sweet look of innocent wonder is all Sylvie’s too. But Sylvie hasn’t got that calm resolute mouth nor that far-away look of dreamy sadness, like one that has had some deep sorrow, very long ago—’ And the thick-coming fancies almost prevented my hearing the lady’s next words.
‘If you had had a “Shilling Dreadful” in your hand,’ she proceeded, ‘something about Ghosts—or Dynamite—or Midnight Murder—one could understand it: those things aren’t worth the shilling, unless they give one a Nightmare. But really—with only a medical treatise, you know—’ and she glanced, with a pretty shrug of contempt, at the book over which I had fallen asleep.
Her friendliness, and utter unreserve, took me aback for a moment; yet there was no touch of forwardness, or boldness, about the child—for child, almost, she seemed to be: I guessed her at scarcely over twenty—all was the innocent frankness of some angelic visitant, new to the ways of earth and the conventionalisms—or, if you will, the barbarisms—of Society. ‘Even so,’ I mused, ‘will Sylvie look and speak, in another ten years.’
‘You don’t care for Ghosts, then,’ I ventured to suggest, ‘unless they are really terrifying?’
‘Quite so,’ the lady assented. ‘The regular Railway-Ghosts—I mean the Ghosts of ordinary Railway-literature—are very poor affairs. I feel inclined to say, with Alexander Selkirk, “Their tameness is shocking to me”! And they never do any Midnight Murders. They couldn’t “welter in gore,” to save their lives!’
‘“Weltering in gore” is a very expressive phrase, certainly. Can it be done in any fluid, I wonder?’
‘I think not,’ the lady readily replied—quite as if she had thought it out, long ago. ‘It has to be something thick. For instance, you might welter in bread-sauce. That, being white, would be more suitable for a Ghost, supposing it wished to welter!’
‘You have a real good terrifying Ghost in that book?’ I hinted.
‘How could you guess?’ she exclaimed with the most engaging frankness, and placed the volume in my hands. I opened it eagerly, with a not unpleasant thrill (like what a good ghost-story gives one) at the “uncanny” coincidence of my having so unexpectedly divined the subject of her studies.
It was a book of Domestic Cookery, open at the article Bread Sauce.
I returned the book, looking, I suppose, a little blank, as the lady laughed merrily at my discomfiture. ‘It’s far more exciting than some of the modern ghosts, I assure you! Now there was a Ghost last month—I don’t mean a real Ghost in—in Supernature—but in a Magazine. It was a perfectly flavourless Ghost. It wouldn’t have frightened a mouse! It wasn’t a Ghost that one would even offer a chair to!’
‘Three score years and ten, baldness, and spectacles, have their advantages after