"They wouldn"t have green apples in the storeroom," Angelica thought.
"Oh, yes, they might," Diavolo considered. "Those big cooking fellows, you know--they"re green enough."
"But they"re not nice," said Angelica.
"No, but you don"t think of that till you"ve got them," was the outcome of Diavolo"s experience. "Is your storeroom on the ground floor?" he asked Evadne.
"No," she answered.
"Is there a creeper outside the window?" he pursued.
"No, creepers won"t grow because a big lime tree hangs it."
The children exchanged glances.
"I shouldn"t have made that room a storeroom," said Angelica. "Lime trees bring flies. There"s something flies like on the leaves."
"But any tree will bring flies if you smear the leaves with sweet stuff,"
said Diavolo. "You remember that copper-beech outside papa"s dressing room window, Angelica?"
"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "He had to turn out of his dressing room this summer; he couldn"t stand them."
"But was Binny often caught, Evadne?" Diavolo asked.
"Often," she said.
"And punished?"
"_Always_."
"But I suppose he had generally eaten the apples?" Angelica suggested anxiously.
"It"s better to eat them at once," sighed Diavolo. "Did you say he did everything he was told not to do?"
"Yes."
"I expect when he was told not to do a thing he could not think of anything else until he _had_ done it," said Angelica.
"And now he"s in heaven," Diavolo speculated, looking up through the window with big bright eyes pathetically.
The twins thought a good deal about heaven in their own way. Lady Adeline did not like them to be talked to on the subject. They were indefatigable explorers, and it was popularly supposed that only the difficulty of being present at an inquest on their own bodies, which they would have thoroughly enjoyed, had kept them so far from trying to obtain a glimpse of the next world. They discovered the storeroom at Fraylingay half an hour after they had discussed the improving details of Binny"s exciting career, and had found it quite easy of access by means of the available lime tree. They both suffered a good deal that night, and they thought of Binny. "But there"s nothing in _our_ pockets, that"s one comfort,"
Diavolo exclaimed suddenly, to the astonishment of his mother, who was sitting up with him. Angelica heaved a sigh of satisfaction.
Evadne"s patience with the twins was wonderful. She always took charge of them cheerfully on wet days and in other times of trouble, and managed them with infinite tact.
"How do you do it, my dear?" Lady Adeline asked. "Do you talk to them and tell them stories?"
"No," said Evadne, "I don"t talk much; I--just don"t lose sight of them--or interfere--if I can possibly help it."
The twins had no reverence for anything or anybody. One day they were in Evadne"s little sitting room which overlooked the courtyard. It was an antechamber to her bedroom, and peculiarly her own by right of primogeniture. n.o.body ever thought of going there without her special permission--except, of course, the twins; but even they a.s.sumed hypocritical airs of innocent apology for accidental intrusion when they wanted to make things pleasant for themselves.
On this particular occasion Evadne was sitting beside her little work-table busy with her needle, and the twins were standing together looking out of the window.
"There"s papa," said Diavolo.
"He"s going for a ride," said Angelica.
"Doesn"t he mount queerly?" Diavolo observed. "He"d be safer in a bath chair."
"Not if we were wheeling him," Angelica suggested, with a chuckle.
"What shall we do?" yawned Diavolo. "Shall we fight?"
"Yes; let"s," said Angelica.
"You must do no such thing," Evadne interfered.
"Not fight! Why?" Angelica demanded.
"We _must_ fight, you know," Diavolo a.s.serted.
"I don"t see that," said Evadne. "Why should you fight?"
"It"s good for the circulation of the blood," said Angelica. "Warms a body, you know."
"And there"s the property, too!" said Diavolo. "We"ve got to fight for that."
Evadne did not understand, so Angelica kindly explained: "You see, I"m the eldest, but Diavolo"s a boy, so he gets the property because of the entail, and we neither of us think it fair; so we fight for it, and whichever wins is to have it. I won the last battle, so it"s mine just now; but Diavolo may win it back if we fight again before papa dies. That"s why he wants to fight now, I expect."
"Yes," Diavolo candidly confessed. "But we generally fight when we see papa go out for a ride."
"Because you are afraid he will catch you and punish you as you deserve, if he"s at home, I suppose, you bad children."
"Not at all," said Angelica. "It"s because he looks so unsafe on a horse; you never know what"ll happen."
"It"s a kind of a last chance," said Diavolo, "and that makes it exciting."
"But wouldn"t you be very sorry if your father died?" Evadne asked.
The twins looked at each other doubtfully.
"Should we?" Diavolo said to Angelica.
"I wonder?" said Angelica.
One wet day they chose to paint in Evadne"s room because they could not go out. She found pictures, and got everything ready for them good-naturedly, and then they sat themselves down at a little table opposite each other; but the weather affected their spirits, and made them both fractious. They wanted the same picture to begin with, and only settled the question by demolishing it in their attempts to s.n.a.t.c.h it from each other. Then there was only one left between them, but happily they remembered that artists sometimes work at the same picture, and it further occurred to them that it would be an original method--or "funny," as they phrased it--for one of them to work at it wrong side up. So Angelica daubed the sky blue on her side of the table, and Diavolo flung green on the fields from his. They had large genial mouths at that time, indefinite noses, threatening to turn up a little, and bright dark eyes, quick glancing, but with no particular expression in them--no symptom either of love or hate, nothing but living interest. It was pretty to see Diavolo"s fair head touching Angelica"s dark one across the little table; but when it came too close Angelica would dunt it sharply out of the way with her own, which was apparently the harder of the two, and Diavolo would put up his hand and rub the spot absently. He was too thoroughly accustomed to such sisterly attentions to be altogether conscious of them.
The weather darkened down.