"I can only say that the matter is most mysterious and annoying.

Perhaps, however, you will be willing to promise that in other respects you will be more considerate for the future, so that I may be able to work with less disturbance from the noise overhead?"

"I am afraid I cannot see my way to giving any such promise, for I fail to see how we _can_ be quieter without interfering with our own duties.

I have three sisters, and music is the profession by which one of them hopes to make a living. If she gave up practising it would seriously injure her prospects. The others are busy all day long, and naturally wish for a little relaxation at night. Although you give us no credit for consideration, I may tell you that we are constantly calling our young brother to order in case he should disturb you, but I should not feel it right to make home dull and cheerless by forbidding any noise whatever."

"It does not occur to you that under those circ.u.mstances you are hardly the right tenants for a flat, but ought to be in a house of your own?"

"It occurs to me that we are the best judges of our own actions,"

returned Philippa icily, fighting down the wild longing that arose, even as she spoke, for a place of their own--a nest, however small, where they might dwell in peace and freedom. "You are not the only tenant, Mr Neil, who has to endure disagreeables from his neighbours; we also might find ground for complaint, if we wished to be disagreeable. My sisters sleep above your study, and they say you keep poking the fire until two in the morning and waking them up with a start. Then, too, you have a hanging lamp or chandelier which you push up, and which makes a most unpleasant noise; and in the autumn evenings you smoked strong cigars on your balcony until we were poisoned with the smell. Oh, there are a thousand things which I could mention," cried Philippa--though in truth she would have been puzzled to add one more complaint to her list--"but I would not stoop to it! It is too miserably petty and degrading to be everlastingly picking quarrels. I am sick of it."

"Not more heartily than I am. I have lived in these buildings for nearly ten years and have only once before made a complaint--which, I may remark, was met in a very different spirit." The Hermit was evidently growing ruffled in his turn, and could not resist a parting shot before he left the room. "As I said before, I should be sorry to have to complain at headquarters, but I do not intend to have my comfort ruined by new-comers who have no claim on the establishment. If it becomes impossible for us both to live under one roof, I have little doubt who would be asked to remain."

He was gone. The door closed behind him, and Philippa sank into a chair with a sudden feeling of collapse. "Oh! oh!" she cried, and her hands went up to her head, and her breath grew short and strangled. All her pride and independence were swept aside by the remembrance of those last pregnant words: "Impossible for us both--little doubt in whose favour!"

Suppose--oh, suppose, the Hermit complained to the committee, and she were served with a notice to quit! Suppose, with one set of bills barely settled, she were called upon to incur a second! With characteristic Charrington impetuosity she beheld ruin stalk towards her, and the faces of brothers and sisters filled with a pale reproach.

Her head dropped forward on to the table; the tears rolled down her cheeks. She was just about to indulge in the luxury of a good cry, when suddenly there was a sound in the room, an exclamation of distress, and there stood the Hermit, picking up the hat which still lay on the table, and murmuring disconnected sentences of explanation.

"I forgot my hat. The door was still open; I forgot to shut it. I turned back--_Crying_! I hope that I--that nothing that I have said--I should be most distressed--"

Philippa stared at him helplessly. Her impulse was to deny the suggestion with scorn, but how was that possible with the tears rolling down her cheeks? She tried to control herself, to steady her voice sufficiently to reply, but the floodgates were open and could not be restrained. An agony of dread seized her lest she should humiliate herself still further, and, pointing to the door with childlike helplessness, she sobbed out a pitiful "Please, go--please, go!" and buried her face in her hands.

The Hermit crept back to his room, but he could not work. Between himself and his books rose the vision of a girl's face, tremulous and tearful. The dark eyes looked into his with pathetic reproach. He called himself a brute and a coward for having dared to distress her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE CULPRIT DISCOVERED.

Acting on the rule of all good housewives, Philippa breathed no word of the unpleasant incident of the afternoon until dinner was over, and the workers had been fed and rested after their day's labours. Stephen, it is true, noted the pucker on her brow, and questioned her dumbly across the table; but she frowned a warning, and eagerly questioned the girls as to the success of their expedition. The circulars, it appeared, were promised in a week's time; and pending their arrival Hope had called on the vicar on the way home, and arranged to give her first performance to the members of his infant cla.s.s on the following Monday. She had confided to him her anxiety to rehea.r.s.e her entertainment, and he had laughingly promised to find her occupation for as many nights as she liked to give, either in his own parish or in those neighbouring ones which were even more in need of help.

"So you will gain experience and do good at the same time--a most agreeable arrangement," said Philippa, smiling. "The next thing is to buy yourself a really smart frock with the remainder of Uncle Loftus's cheque, so that you may be ready for the social engagements when they come. You have nothing suitable, and in this case it is a duty to be provided with the prettiest and most becoming gown you can find."

"That's the sort of duty I should like. I could be a martyr to it if I had the chance," cried Madge, with a sigh. "No mortal being knows how it harrows my artistic soul to wear ugly clothes. I sometimes feel inclined to kneel down and, do obeisance before the dresses in the Bond Street shops. And they look so lovely just now! I've had a horrible temptation sometimes to ask for things to be sent on approval, just for the pleasure of trying them on and seeing how I look in them."

"Do you think it is an honourable thing to send for things that you have no earthly intention of buying?" asked Philippa the literal, with a solemn air, which delighted her mischievous sister.

"No, I don't; I think it's a mean trick. But I'm so dull! I want to do something reckless for a change. You needn't alarm yourself, Philippa; if I wrote asking for a selection of Court dresses to be sent on approval to an address off the Tottenham Court Road, they wouldn't pay much attention to the order, I'm afraid."

Theo thought not, indeed; while Hope looked pained and penitent, and said, "I seem to have all the changes--all the good things. I suppose I ought to dress for the part. But remember the 'Amalgamated Sisters'!

Whatever I gain must be divided in equal shares."

"If you want excitement, it is a pity you weren't at home this afternoon, Madge," said Philippa. Dinner was over by this time, and she felt free to unburden her mind and receive the longed-for sympathy. "I had an adventure all to myself, and found it more exciting than I liked.

The Hermit called, and Mary announced him in her own original fashion-- that is to say, left him standing on the mat. He came to lodge some more complaints, and we had a row royal. I think he is mad, for he made the most extraordinary statements. But he is worse than mad; he is dangerous, and means to complain and get us turned out if he can. There is not the slightest ground for his complaints, but he is an old tenant and we are new, and it is only natural that his word should be taken before ours."

"Don't worry yourself about that old girl," said Stephen kindly. "I have not the slightest fear of being turned out Neighbours in flats are constantly having these little frictions, and the authorities must turn a deaf ear to complaints if they wish to succeed or to have any peace in life. I'll go down some night and talk to the old fellow, and see if I can bring him to reason. We have been so quiet, too, since Hope went away. What on earth did he find to grumble about?"

"Oh, my dear, the wildest fancies! He didn't like Hope practising the children's songs this morning, and was blightingly superior about her taste; but the worst grievance is that there is a tapping at his study window which gets on his nerves, and that something wakes him up every morning before it is light. It sounds too ridiculous to be true, but he actually supposed that we were responsible."

"What utter folly!" began Stephen angrily; but the next moment he stopped short, and with one accord four pairs of eyes followed his towards the corner of the room where Barney sat--shaking, red-faced, apoplectic. "_Barney_!" cried the head of the house in a terrible voice. "What is the meaning of this? Do you mean to say that this is _your_ doing? Have you had any hand in this business? Speak up this moment."

"I should think I had!" cried Barney. "Both hands in it! Didn't I vow when Hope went away that I would find some plan of keeping the old fellow occupied? I flatter myself that I hit on something original this time, and secured a fine effect with next to no trouble. The tapping was made by a little lead weight hung on the end of a string fastened outside the girls' window. It swung about in the air, just at the top of his panes, and when there was a breeze, tapped away like a machine.

I fastened it up one day, and left it to do its work. It's there still, if you choose to look. The waking-up business was more difficult. I found out, by watching the lights at night, that he slept beneath my room, and I borrowed an alarum from a fellow in the office. I told him why I wanted it, and he nearly died with laughing. I set it for different hours, and lowered it down by a cord so that it lay against the pane. I left my window open, and when it went off it woke me too, and I hopped out of bed and pulled it up before he opened his window.

It was too dark for him to see anything, but I could hear him muttering to himself in a tearing rage. It came off splendidly, but I'm not sorry to give up that part of the business, for it was jolly cold getting out of bed and standing by that open window. It isn't good enough in this weather;" and Barney doubled himself up in another burst of laughter at the success of his plot.

For once n.o.body joined in the chorus; the girls were dumb and horrified, while Stephen was filled with righteous indignation.

"Stop laughing this moment, sir," he cried sternly. "You have done mischief enough; don't make it worse by triumphing over it. If you have not enough consideration for your sisters to teach you how to behave, I must find some other way of keeping you in order. I won't have the peace of the house ruined and Philippa worried to death."

"Leave him to me, please, Steve," said Philippa quietly. She walked forward until she stood immediately before Barney, and the smile faded from the boy's lips as he saw her face. She was not flushed as he had often seen her under the stress of pa.s.sing irritation, but white--deadly white--with a look in her eyes before which his own fell to the ground.

"You have made me tell a lie," she said slowly. "Do you hear? I gave Mr Neil my word that we had had no part in these annoyances. He did not want to believe me, but I made him; I gave him my word. I will not wait a minute before going to him and apologising for saying what was not true. Get up! Come downstairs with me. You shall tell him the whole story as you have told it to us, and ask his pardon like a gentleman.

Are you coming?"

Barney scowled and looked at her darkly; he opened his lips to say that he would do nothing of the kind, but Philippa looked at him again, and the words died away. She walked to the door, and he marched after her; she held it open, and he pa.s.sed through. They stood together before the Hermit's door, and Philippa pressed her fingers on the bell.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

REHEARSALS.

Half-an-hour pa.s.sed by, fraught with the deepest suspense and anxiety to the waiting party in Number 10; then Philippa's step was heard running up the stairs, and in she came, white no longer, but smiling, rosy, abeam with complacency.

"Where is Barney?" cried four voices eagerly; and she seated herself before the fire, crossed her hands on her lap, and regarded her audience with the prospective satisfaction of one who knows that she is about to make a sensation.

"Barney," she said slowly, "is enjoying himself so much that he refused to come away! He is invited to stay for the evening. He is at present employed in helping Mr Neil to catalogue specimens for his microscope."

"Wh-at!" gasped Stephen incredulously, while Theo caught hold of her sister by the shoulders and gave her an impatient shake. "Phil, be sensible! Tell it properly. Begin at the moment when you knocked at the door, and go right through to the end. Now then, begin!"

"We-ll," drawled Philippa comfortably, "I rang, and a boy came to the door--I don't think there is a woman on the premises. Mr Neil heard our voices, and came out to see what was wanted. He took us into his room, which is all books and litter, and a great big microscope on a stand by the window. Don't ask me what I said, for I don't know. I only remember his face looking so startled and sorry. He is really very nice-looking, you know; and he wears a velvet coat Barney behaved well.

He said, 'I'm sorry, sir, if I have annoyed you. It was only a joke.'

And Mr Neil said, 'All right, my boy, that is settled. We won't say anything more about it. Are you interested in microscopes!' After that we went over to the stand, and he explained what he was doing, and showed us the workings. It was very exciting. Barney was in raptures, and I was quite horrified to find how long we had stayed. He was as nice and kind as he could be, and I believe it is the beginning of peace. Oh, my dears, such dust! I longed for a brush and shovel. No wonder he looks ill, living alone in that dreary place, with only a boy to attend to him. I believe he is starved."

"He is a real good sort, anyway, to behave so well to that boy. I'll call on him some night, and perhaps we can return his kindness by asking him here occasionally. I am glad peace is settled, but I am not done with Mr Barney yet. He must promise me to give up these foolish tricks," said Stephen severely. He himself had never played a trick in his life, and could not imagine wherein the fun lay.

When Barney came upstairs an hour later he was taken into the dining-room and lectured in solemn, elder-brotherly fashion; and being in the highest of spirits, obediently promised all that was desired.

"I sha'n't want to rag him any more, because, you see, we shall be pals," he explained. "He wants me to go down whenever I feel inclined, and that will be pretty often; because, though the girls are bricks, a man does like another man to talk to sometimes. He's terrifically clever! You should see all the things he has made himself--little mechanical businesses that you can't buy. He is going to let me watch him when he is at work. I fancy he felt a bit bad when Phil ate humble-pie, and wants to make up by being extra amiable and friendly."

It was just as well that the Hermit had been conciliated, for in the days which followed Hope was constantly practising her songs and reciting her story to an imaginary audience in the drawing-room. Mary, sweeping the tiny hall, would open her eyes in amazement as a voice cried dramatically: "Fairy G.o.dmother! Fairy G.o.dmother! can you not help me now? I'm so lonely up here in this deserted tower. Is the spell not broken yet, dear G.o.dmother?" And the fairy answered: "Patience, Princess Chrystal! Wait but a few hours longer. To-morrow morn, as the sun creeps round the corner of the poplar tree, look out of your cas.e.m.e.nt window, and you will see"--Mary was all agape to know what the Princess Chrystal would see, but Philippa came bustling out of the dining-room and, half-laughing, half-frowning, sent her about her work.

Later on a message-boy who was waiting for an answer to a note grew quite pale with agitation as an unseen giant hissed out, "To your knees, rash youth! Before another hour is past you shall be chained in the lowest dungeon beneath the castle moat!" It was really quite alarming, and the message-boy informed his companions who were waiting for him in the road below that there was a lunatic upstairs, who was raging and carrying on "somethink krool."

The first performance was a nervous occasion, and Hope realised the full difficulty of the task which she had undertaken when she stood upon the platform of the mission-room vainly trying to gain a hearing from a crowd of noisy, excited children. Appeal was useless, but at length the happy idea struck her to begin with a song; so down she sat at the piano, struck up a lively air, and gave the first verse with such spirit and go that at the word "Chorus!" there was quite a creditable attempt at the refrain. After that it was comparatively easy to keep the attention which she had gained, although she had rarely before experienced such tiring work. For a first attempt the performance was a distinct success--ay, more than a success--for it proved the existence of many weak spots, demanded more prominence for dramatic incidents, and proved that, given time and experience, she need not fear the most critical juvenile audience.

Twice more did Hope give a performance of the fairy play before the long-delayed circulars were ready, and she started forth on the difficult work of distribution, with Madge as companion, guide, and administrator of much-needed courage. Any girl who has tried to earn her own living will have discovered how different becomes the demeanour of those in authority when the supposed customer turns out to be herself in need of help. It is a painful revelation, and the moral which it teaches us is, to be gracious to other poor suppliants if it ever comes to our turn to be in authority. Madge had made a list of those entertainment bureaux where tickets can be obtained for theatres and concerts, and arrangements made for drawing-room entertainments; but when the first of these establishments was reached Hope made three successive bolts post the door before she could be induced to enter.

Her embarra.s.sment was greatly increased by the fact that several other people were in the shop, ready to listen and to stare with curious eyes as she mumbled her request. The a.s.sistant ran his eye carelessly over the leaflet--Madge's masterpiece, printed regardless of expense on thick rough paper with torn edges--did not think there was any demand for that sort of thing; was afraid it was not in their line. No, did not object to keeping the advertis.e.m.e.nt; would put it on the stand if there was room; and before the girls had turned aside, had flicked it carelessly into a drawer.

Hope was trembling, crimson of cheek, and inclined to turn tail and make a short cut for home; but Madge's chin was in the air, and her face set in determined lines.