"What if I give you a blow on the other cheek?"
"Here it is for your majesty," said Rosamund, turning her other cheek to the foe.
Irene burst into a laugh.
"What a creature you are! But you know we are in danger. I have such a lot to say to you, and any one may nab us. Won"t you lock the door just to please me? I won"t slap you any more. I am sorry I hurt your dear cheek. I came because I could not help myself, and because I could not live without you any longer. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and no sign of you, and I just hungered for you. I am pining for you through all the days and all the nights, through every hour, in the midst of every meal; not speaking about you, for that is not my way, but just hungering and hungering, and yet you say you will not lock the door."
"No, Irene; and you ought not to be here. What is to be done?"
Poor Rosamund had never felt more bewildered in her life. She had given her word of honor; and her word of honor was, to her, worthy of respect.
She had never yet broken it. Should she break it now? Irene looked at her for a few minutes in wonder. The two girls were standing in the centre of the room, for, of course, Irene was fully dressed. Compared to Rosamund, she was a small girl, for Rosamund was tall and exceedingly well developed for her age. Irene was a couple of years younger, but she was as lithe as steel. Her little fingers could crush and destroy if they pleased. Her thin arms were muscular to a remarkable degree for so young a girl. She had not a sc.r.a.p of superfluous flesh on her body. At this moment she looked more spirit than girl; and if Rosamund could have got herself to believe that there were such creatures as changelings, she might almost have given credence to Irene"s own story of herself.
As it was, however, she knew quite well that there must be a fight between them, and that if ever she was to influence Irene for good she must conquer her now.
"Look here," she said, going straight up to the younger girl; "you did wrong to come in here."
"I did wrong?" said Irene, with a little impish laugh. "But then I always do wrong. That doesn"t matter."
"It may not matter to you. I am not concerning myself about your morals at this moment, but I am thinking about my own. When you did wrong now you injured me, and I am not going to put up with it."
"You are not going to put up with it? And how are you going to prevent it, darling?"
Before Rosamund could utter a word, Irene had sprung upon her, seized her round the waist, and compelled Rosamund to seat herself upon the side of the bed, which she herself had been occupying a few minutes ago.
"Now, darling," she said, "you are not going to get away from me, and I believe in your heart you don"t want to."
Poor Rosamund! a great wave of longing to help this queer child swept over her heart; but there was her word of honor. She was a pa.s.sionate, head-strong, naughty girl; but she could not give that up. Besides, she could not do anything with Irene in the future if she did not conquer her now.
"You are not going to--to say you don"t like me?" said Irene, an expression of absolute terror filling her eyes and making them look wilder than ever. "n.o.body ever dared to say that to me, and you are not going to be the first."
"As a matter of fact," said Rosamund, "I like you very much."
"There, then, I am satisfied," exclaimed Irene, and she flung her thin arms round Rosamund"s neck, squeezed herself up close to her, and kissed her again and again.
"Ah!" she said, "I knew that all my life I was waiting for somebody; and that somebody was you, just you, so big, so brave, so--so different from all the others. I should not be the horrid thing I am if the others had not been afraid of me. I got worse and worse, and at last I could not control myself any longer. I did things that perhaps I ought not to have done; but if you give me up I don"t know what will happen--I don"t know where things will end. Are you going to give me up?"
"I will tell you now exactly what has happened, Irene, and will leave it to you to judge how you ought to act for my sake at the present moment.
You say you love me----"
"I suppose that is what I feel," said Irene. "It is a queer sort of sensation, and I have never had it before. It seems to make my heart lighter, and when I think of you I seem to get a sense of rest and pleasure. When you are away from me I feel savage with every one else; but when you are near I think the best of others. And I think it is just possible that if I saw much of you I"d be a sort of a good girl--not a very good one, but a sort of a good girl, particularly if you"d manage mother and manage the servants, and tell them not to be such geese as to be afraid of me. For, of course, you know, I can"t help being a changeling."
"Now, Irene, you must listen to me. I ought to be in bed and asleep.
People will hear us talking, and I won"t allow the door to be locked, whether you like it or not, because it is against the rules."
"Gracious!" said Irene, "couldn"t we both get out of the window, and climb down by the wistaria and the ivy, and reach the ground, and go and hide in the plantation? We could spend the night there, locked in each other"s arms, so happy--oh, so happy! By the way, I saw a little summer-house--we could spend the night in the summer-house, couldn"t we?
Couldn"t we?"
It was a temptation. Rosamund was fond of adventures. The night was a very hot one; the room was close. Outside, there were stars innumerable.
Mrs. Merriman, the only person who ever invaded the girls" bedrooms after the hours of repose, would certainly not intrude upon Rosamund. It would be nice to spend one night with her friend. Could she call Irene her friend? Anyhow, it would be nice to spend one night in the open air, and she could influence Irene and help her, and----But then there was the word of honor.
"I can"t," she said. "I would have liked it, of course. But I will tell you what happened. When I got back home the other night I saw Professor Merriman, and he was very angry with me, and he said that I ought not to have disobeyed him. I told him all about you, and"----
"Of course he hates me, horrid old frump!" said Irene. "But you are not going to mind him. Why, mother has been writing to him, and writing to your mother, too; and the one thing about you that I don"t quite like is that mother had evidently been thinking that you have been sent as a sort of Providence here to reform me. You must see by my making that remark that I tolerate you very much indeed, or I should not endure it.
There, it"s a fact that I do care for you. I don"t mind mother, and I don"t mind your mother; but I am willing to be a little bit good if you are with me. But I am not going away from you now. You can choose whether you have me in your room all night or whether you and I spend a happy time in that dear little bower in the plantation."
"I cannot choose either," said Rosamund stoutly, "for I will tell you what did happen. I promised Professor Merriman that I would have nothing to do with you for a whole week. At the end of that time I was to give him my decision. Now, this is Wednesday, so the week won"t be up until Sunday. So you must go, Irene. You must go at once. I will meet you at the end of the week, or, if you prefer it, I will go down to Professor Merriman now and tell him that you came in, and that I asked you to go."
"Oh, what a mean spitfire of a thing you"d be if you did that!" said Irene, her eyes flashing with anger. "You can"t mean it--you simply can"t."
Just then there was the noise of approaching footsteps on the landing outside, and the handle of the door was turned. In a flash, so quickly that even Rosamund could not believe her own eyes, Irene was hiding under the bed, and Lucy Merriman entered.
Lucy looked prim and neat, as usual, in her white dressing-gown and her hair in a long plait down her back.
"I have come for--but surely you were talking to some one?" she said, addressing Rosamund.
"I sometimes repeat poems to myself," said Rosamund, who was standing with her back to Lucy, quivering all over with indignation.
"But I heard two voices; and it is against the rules for any noise to be made in the bedrooms after ten o"clock. I have come for----"
"Do you mind telling me what you have come for, so that you may get it and go?" was Rosamund"s response.
"You are exceedingly impertinent," said Lucy. "Why do you always address me as you do? You try your utmost to make me unhappy in my own home."
"And you, instead of treating me as an honored guest, try your utmost to make me miserable," was Rosamund"s quick reply. "Never mind," she continued, hot pa.s.sion getting the better of her; "I shall not be with you much longer."
"That is quite nice--that is what I hoped," said Lucy almost gleefully.
"Well, Jane Denton is very bad, and they are thinking of sending for the doctor. Of course, you don"t care whether your friend lives or dies.
Anyhow, I have been sent to fetch a bottle of aromatic vinegar which Jane, poor girl! said she had left on her washhand-stand. Ah! here it is."
Lucy took it up. She looked round the room. Poor Rosamund"s terror can be better imagined than described, for the wicked Irene had lifted the valance of the bed, and her bright eyes and a tiny portion of her face could be distinctly seen by any one who happened to glance in that direction. Had Lucy seen her she must have screamed, for nothing more elfish than that face could be imagined. As it was, all might have been well had not Irene, just as Lucy was reaching the door, given a low, wild whoop, and then disappeared again under the valance of the bed.
"Now, I know you have some one there."
"If you are not afraid of rats you had better look," was Rosamund"s quick response. But she turned very pale, and Lucy, who was something of a coward herself, said after a minute"s pause:
"Rats! You know there are no rats in the house. What fresh insult will you bestow upon us?"
A moment later she had vanished from the room. Rosamund put both her hands to her hot ears. Irene sprang from her hiding-place.
"Didn"t I do it well? Oh, what a hateful, hateful girl she is! Now, Rosamund--Rose--whatever you call yourself--you had better just get right out of this window with me as fast as ever you can, or you"ll have Lucy bringing her precious governesses, and her mother, and that sick girl, Jane Denton--how dare she call herself Jane, my dear mother"s name?--as well as the Professor himself, on the scene to hunt for the rats. Come, Rose, out with you! We will lock the door first, and then all will be safe."
It seemed to Rosamund at the moment that even her word of honor had vanished out of sight, for her hatred of Lucy had really reached boiling-point. She did turn the key in the lock, knowing well that no one would break open the door until the morning; and a minute later she and Irene had escaped by the window, and gone down hand over hand by the wistaria and ivy until they reached the ground. Three minutes later they were ensconced in the old summer-house, where they sat very close to each other, Irene not talking much, and Rosamund wondering what was to become of her.
"It seems to me," said Rosamund to herself, as she looked down on the little creature who nestled up almost like a wild bird in her arms, "that I have burnt my boats, and that I cannot go back. But there is one thing certain: I will tell the Professor the truth in the morning."
All that Irene did, however, during the long hours of that summer"s night was to lie fast asleep with Rosamund"s arm round her. But just before she fell into slumber, Rosamund said:
"Aren"t you cold, Irene? Surely you are not accustomed, even in the middle of summer, to wear so little clothing at night."