FullReads

Christmas passed very happily on the whole. I found my temper much oftener tried since Philip’s return, but this was not only because he was very wilful and very fond of teasing, but because with the younger ones I was always deferred to.

One morning we were very busy in the nursery, which was our workshop. Philip’s glue-pots and size-pots were steaming, there were coloured powders on every chair, Alice and I were laying a coat of invisible green over the cave-cask, and Philip, in radiant good-humour, was giving distance to his woodland glades in the most artful manner with powder-blue, and calling on us for approbation–when the housemaid came in.

“It’s not lunch-time?” cried Alice. “It can’t be!”

“Get away, Mary,” said Philip, “and tell cook if she puts on any more meals I’ll paint her best cap pea-green. She’s sending up luncheons and dinners all day long now: just because she knows we’re busy.”

Mary only laughed, and said, “It’s a gentleman wants to see you, Master Philip,” and she gave him a card. Philip read it, and we waited with some curiosity.

“It’s a man I met in the train,” said he, “a capital fellow. He lives in the town. His father’s a doctor there. Granny must invite him to the theatricals. Ask him to come here, Mary, and show him the way.”

“Oughtn’t you to go and fetch him yourself?” said I.

“I can’t leave this,” said Philip. “He’ll be all right. He’s as friendly as possible.”

I must say here that “Granny” was our maternal grandmother, with whom we lived. My mother and father were cousins, and Granny’s husband was of that impetuous race to which we belonged. If he had been alive he would have kept us all in good order, no doubt. But he was dead, and Granny was the gentlest of old ladies: I fear she led a terrible life with us all!

Philip’s friend came up-stairs. He was very friendly; in fact Alice and I thought him forward, but he was several years older than Philip, who seemed proud of the acquaintance. Perhaps Alice and I were biased by the fact that he spoilt our pleasant morning. He was one of those people who look at everything one has been working at with such unintelligent eyes that their indifference ought not to dishearten one; and yet it does.

“It’s for our private theatricals,” said Philip, as Mr. Clinton’s amazed stare passed from our paint-covered selves to the new scene.

“My cousins in Dublin have private theatricals,” said Mr. Clinton. “My uncle has built on a room for the theatre. All the fittings and scenes come from London, and the first costumiers in Dublin send in all the dresses and everything that is required on the afternoon before the performance.”

“Oh, we’re in a much smaller way,” said Philip; “but I’ve some properties here that don’t look bad by candlelight.” But Mr. Clinton had come up to the cask, and was staring at it and us. I knew by the way Alice got quietly up, and shook some chips with a decided air out of her apron, that she did not like being stared at. But her movement only drew Mr. Clinton’s especial attention.

“You’ll catch it from your grandmamma for making such a mess of your clothes, won’t you?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?” said Alice, with so perfect an air of not having heard him that he was about to repeat the question, when she left the nursery with the exact exit which she had made as a Discreet Princess repelling unwelcome advances in last year’s play.

I was afraid of an outburst from Philip, and said in hasty civility, “This is a cave we are making.”

“They’d a splendid cave at Covent Garden last Christmas,” said Mr. Clinton. “It covered half the stage. An enormously tall man dressed in cloth of silver stood in the entrance, and waved a spear ten or twelve feet long over his head. A fairy was let down above that, so you may be sure the cave was pretty big.”