"Indeed!" said the aunt.
"And our aunt"s Lady Sandling, so you can be sure we wouldn"t hurt anything on the estate."
"I"m sure you wouldn"t hurt a fly," said the aunt absently.
"Good-bye. Be good children."
And on this they got away quickly.
"Why," said Gerald, when they were outside the little court, "your aunt"s as mad as a hatter. Fancy not caring what becomes of you, and fancy believing that rot about the motor lady!"
"I knew she"d believe it when I wrote it," said Mabel modestly.
"She"s not mad, only she"s always reading novelettes, I read the books in the big library. Oh, it"s such a jolly room such a queer smell, like boots, and old leather books sort of powdery at the edges. I"ll take you there some day. Now your consciences are all right about my aunt, I"ll tell you my great idea. Let"s get down to the Temple of Flora. I"m glad you got aunt"s permission for the grounds. It would be so awkward for you to have to be always dodging behind bushes when one of the gardeners came along."
"Yes," said Gerald modestly, "I thought of that."
The day was as bright as yesterday had been, and from the white marble temple the Italian-looking landscape looked more than ever like a steel engraving coloured by hand, or an oleographic imitation of one of Turner"s pictures.
When the three children were comfortably settled on the steps that led up to the white statue, the voice of the fourth child said sadly: "I"m not ungrateful, hut I"m rather hungry. And you can"t be always taking things for me through your larder window. If you like, I"ll go back and live in the castle. It"s supposed to be haunted. I suppose I could haunt it as well as anyone else. I am a sort of ghost now, you know. I will if you like."
"Oh no," said Kathleen kindly; "you must stay with us.
"But about food. I"m not ungrateful, really I"m not, but breakfast is breakfast, and bread"s only bread."
"If you could get the ring off, you could go back."
"Yes," said Mabel"s voice, "but you see, I can"t. I tried again last night in bed, and again this morning. And it"s like stealing, taking things out of your larder even if it"s only bread."
"Yes, it is," said Gerald, who had carried out this bold enterprise.
"Well, now, what we must do is to earn some money."
Jimmy remarked that this was all very well. But Gerald and Kathleen listened attentively.
"What I mean to say," the voice went on, "I"m really sure is all for the best, me being invisible. We shall have adventures you see if we don t."
"Adventures," said the bold buccaneer, "are not always profitable."
It was Gerald who murmured this.
"This one will be, anyhow, you see. Only you mustn"t all go. Look here, if Jerry could make himself look common "
"That ought to be easy," said Jimmy. And Kathleen told him not to be so jolly disagreeable.
"I"m not," said Jimmy, "only "
"Only he has an inside feeling that this Mabel of yours is going to get us into trouble," put in Gerald. "Like La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and he does not want to be found in future ages alone and palely loitering in the middle of sedge and things."
"I won"t get you into trouble, indeed I won t," said the voice. "Why, we"re a band of brothers for life, after the way you stood by me yesterday. What I mean is Gerald can go to the fair and do conjuring."
"He doesn"t know any," said Kathleen.
"I should do it really," said Mabel, "but Jerry could look like doing it move things without touching them and all that. But it wouldn"t do for all three of you to go. The more there are of children the younger they look, I think, and the more people wonder what they re doing all alone by themselves."
"The accomplished conjurer deemed these the words of wisdom,"
said Gerald; and answered the dismal "Well, but what about us? of his brother and sister by suggesting that they should mingle unsuspected with the crowd. "But don"t let on that you know me,"
he said; "and try to look as if you belonged to some of the grown-ups at the fair. If you don"t, as likely as not you"ll have the kind policemen taking the little lost children by the hand and leading them home to their stricken relations French governess, I mean."
"Let"s go now," said the voice that they never could get quite used to hearing, coming out of different parts of the air as Mabel moved from one place to another. So they went.
The fair was held on a waste bit of land, about half a mile from the castle gates. When they got near enough to hear the steam-organ of the merry-go-round, Gerald suggested that as he had ninepence he should go ahead and get something to eat, the amount spent to be paid back out of any money they might make by conjuring. The others waited in the shadows of a deep-banked lane, and he came back, quite soon, though long after they had begun to say what a long time he had been gone. He brought some Barcelona nuts, red-streaked apples, small sweet yellow pears, pale pasty gingerbread, a whole quarter of a pound of peppermint bulls-eyes, and two bottles of ginger-beer.
"It"s what they call an investment," he said, when Kathleen said something about extravagance. "We shall all need special nourishing to keep our strength up, especially the bold conjurer."
They ate and drank. It was a very beautiful meal, and the far-off music of the steam-organ added the last touch of festivity to the scene. The boys were never tired of seeing Mabel eat, or rather of seeing the strange, magic-looking vanishment of food which was all that showed of Mabel"s eating. They were entranced by the spectacle, and pressed on her more than her just share of the feast, just for the pleasure of seeing it disappear.
"My aunt!" said Gerald, again and again; "that ought to knock "em!"
It did.
Jimmy and Kathleen had the start of the others, and when they got to the fair they mingled with the crowd, and were as unsuspected as possible.
They stood near a large lady who was watching the Coconut shies, and presently saw a strange figure with its hands in its pockets strolling across the trampled yellowy gra.s.s among the bits of drifting paper and the sticks and straws that always litter the ground of an English fair. It was Gerald, but at first they hardly knew him. He had taken off his tie, and round his head, arranged like a turban, was the crimson school-scarf that had supported his white flannels. The tie, one supposed, had taken on the duties of the handkerchief. And his face and hands were a bright black, like very nicely polished stoves!
Everyone turned to look at him.
"He"s just like a conjurer!" whispered Jimmy. "I don"t suppose it"ll ever come off, do you?"
They followed him at a distance, and when he went close to the door of a small tent, against whose door-post a long-faced melancholy woman was lounging, they stopped and tried to look as though they belonged to a farmer who strove to send up a number by banging with a big mallet on a wooden block.
Gerald went up to the woman.
"Taken much?" he asked, and was told, but not harshly, to go away with his impudence.
"I"m in business myself," said Gerald, "I"m a conjurer, from India."
"Not you!" said the woman; "you ain"t no conjurer. Why, the backs of yer ears is all white."
"Are they?" said Gerald. "How clever of you to see that!" He rubbed them with his hands. "That better?"
"That"s all right. What"s your little game?"
"Conjuring, really and truly," said Gerald. "There"s smaller boys than me put on to it in India. Look here, I owe you one for telling me about my ears. If you like to run the show for me I"ll go shares.
Let me have your tent to perform in, and you do the patter at the door.
"Lor love you! I can"t do no patter. And you"re getting at me. Let"s see you do a bit of conjuring, since you"re so clever an all."
"Right you are," said Gerald firmly. "You see this apple? Well, I"ll make it move slowly through the air, and then when I say "Go!"
it"ll vanish."