Chapter IX: I Become a Member of the Band

‟MISS EARLE—do you know where the children are?”

My employer’s voice made me jump. I had slipped away from the drawing-room, where I had been playing accompaniments since dinner. It was a still hot night, following upon a day of breathless heat, and I was tired—in no mood for the dance for which Harry and his friends were now energetically preparing the room. Like Cinderella, whom I often felt that I resembled, I was hoping to make good my escape before my absence was discovered.

Mrs. McNab stood on the landing above me, looking annoyed.

“Are they not in bed?” I asked. “They said good night an hour ago.”

“No; their beds are empty. And I cannot find them anywhere in the house. I—I have just come in from a—from a little stroll”—she stammered slightly, with a trace of confusion—“and I thought I heard voices in the shrubbery. I wonder can they have gone out on some prank.”

“It’s quite likely,” I answered, feeling dismally certain that anything might be expected of my charges. “I’ll go out and look for them, Mrs. McNab.”

“You must not go alone,” she said unexpectedly. “Change your frock as quickly as you can: I will come with you.”

“Oh, please don’t!” I protested. “I can easily find them alone, I’m certain. You mustn’t disturb your work.”

“I—I am not working well to-night.” Her tone was awkward. “So it really does not matter—and I could not let you go alone. I would call my son, but that one does not like to disturb one’s guests—and Beryl does so resent it if the children are troublesome. I have no doubt that we shall find them easily.”

I had no doubt at all, as I hastily got out of my dinner-frock in my room. For, as I glanced from the open window, a swift flame flickered up into the sky, seemed to hang for a moment, and then curved and came back to earth, leaving a trail of sparks across the blackness. In a flash as vivid was revealed to me why Judy and Jack had been at such elaborate pains that afternoon to find an errand for me at the railway-station while they visited the one stationer’s shop in Wootong; I had a mental vision of the queer-shaped packages they had stowed away in the governess-cart when we drove back from the township. Had not Colin and I burned our fingers over forbidden fireworks in the days of our wild youth?

“I think I have tracked them,” I said, laughing, as I rejoined Mrs. McNab. “There are bangings and poppings coming from the shrubbery, and I saw a rocket above the trees. I think they must be holding a private Fifth of November celebration.”

“Fireworks!” exclaimed Mrs. McNab, aghast. “But they are _never_ permitted!”

I kept my face grave, but it was an effort. If Judy and Jack had restricted their energies to the list of permitted things, their lives would have been on very different—and much duller—lines. Compared with some of their highly-original occupations, a little indulgence in fireworks seemed mild. But Mrs. McNab was extraordinarily concerned.

“We must hurry,” she said, darting out of a side-door with a swift energy that recalled the night on the shore when she had swooped upon Jack and spanked him with such unsuspected vigour. “I have an especial dread of fireworks in the hands of children. The figures, my dear Miss Earle, of accidents to American children who celebrate their Fourth of July with firework displays, are harrowing in the extreme. Death and disfigurement are common—terribly common.”

“They do things on such a grand scale in America,” I ventured, trotting beside her. “I don’t think Judy would let Jack run any risk.”

“One never knows,” returned Judy’s mother, gloomily. “Not with Judith. Even if she protected Jack, she would not hesitate to run any risk herself. And fireworks are so very unexpected. One cannot possibly——”

Bang!

Something exploded close to us, in the very heart of a dense pittosporum tree. For a moment sparks glittered among its myriad leaves: and then hundreds of sparrows, which made their nightly home in its heart, flew wildly out, chirping, twittering, terrified. We were the centre of a cloud of fluttering little bodies; they struck against our faces, so that we had to shelter our eyes with our hands. Above the clamour of the bird-panic rose smothered shrieks and gurgles of delight from Judy and Jack, unseen among the bushes.

“Crikey, that was a beauty, Ju!” came Jack’s voice.

“Jack!” uttered his mother in awful accents.

“Judy! It’s Mother! Grab ’em and run!”

A dim light guided us round the pittosporum, and Mrs. McNab darted towards it. I followed, choking with laughter. A smoky lantern, hanging on a bough, showed the culprits racing towards a heap of fireworks that lay on the ground within the murky circle of light. Near them Jack caught his foot in a creeper and pitched headlong on his face. Judy halted in her stride and darted to pick him up.

And then something happened.

Near the little heap of forbidden delight a cracker that had been lit and tossed aside as useless decided to fulfil its destiny and explode. It was a large cracker, and it did so with vehemence. A shower of sparks fell on a long trail of soft tissue-paper which had formed the wrapping of the parcel; dry as tinder, and sprinkled with loose gunpowder, it flared into flame, and a little breath of wind carried it fairly across the heap of fireworks. There was a quick spitting and hissing as the fuses caught. I seized Jack, who uttered a wail and sprang to save what he could.

“No, you don’t, old chap!” I said, tightening my grip against his struggles.

A string of crackers went off in a spitting volley, and a Catherine-wheel suddenly began to revolve madly in the grass. Then everything caught at once. Rockets dug themselves into the ground, exploding harmlessly, while whizz-bangs and Roman candles and basket-bombs leaped and sputtered and banged in a whirl of rainbow sparks. It was a lavish and uplifting spectacle, produced for our benefit regardless of expense. But the producers wailed aloud in their despair.

“They cost every bit of pocket-money we had!” grieved Jack. “I could have got half of them away if you’d given me a chance! Why on earth do you want to come round poking your noses in?”

“We never get a show,” said Judy mournfully. “We’re just hunted down like mad dogs! I should think persons of twelve and thirteen can be trusted to do a few little things alone, occasionally, anyhow!”

She twisted round, and suddenly screamed. A long tongue of flame, a licking, fiery tongue, ran up her thin frock, and in an instant it was blazing fiercely. I dropped Jack and sprang to catch her, flinging her down; Mrs. McNab, quicker than I, was beating at the burning silk. It was over more quickly than one can tell of it. Judy, very white, sat on the ground in the blackened remnants of her frock, while we gasped and hunted for vagrant sparks. Jack burst into a terrified howl, rather pitiful to hear.

“Oh, shut up, Jack!” Judy said. “I’m not killed. But I ’specs I would have been but for Mother and Miss Earle.”

“Are you hurt, Judy?” her mother asked, her voice shaking.

“Not a bit—I’m not even singed, I think. Jolly sight luckier than I deserve to be. I guess I can’t talk much about taking care of myself, can I?”

“Judith,” said Mrs. McNab, solemnly—her solemnity rather handicapped by the fact that she had passed a blackened hand across her face—“have I not warned you from your childhood that in the event of clothes catching fire one must cause the person in danger to assume an horizontal position?”

“You have, Mother,” responded Judy. “And I stayed vertical—and ran. Well, I’m a fool, that’s all!”

To this there seemed no answer. Mrs. McNab, regarding her daughter much as an owl may who has hatched out an imp, rose slowly to her feet. Suddenly Judy’s defiant look changed to one of swift concern. She sprang towards her mother.

“I say, Mother—you’re hurt!”

“My hand is a little burned, I think,” said Mrs. McNab quietly. She held out her left palm, on which big blisters were already forming.

“Oh, I am a beast!” uttered Judy. “Mother, dear, I’m so sorry! It’s all my silly fault. Is it very bad?”

“It is rather painful,” Mrs. McNab admitted. She swayed a little, and I put my arm round her.

“Do sit down,” I begged. “I’ll run in for dressings.”

“No, I am quite able to come with you,” she said. “There is no need to alarm anyone. Just give me your arm, and I will walk slowly.”

We gained the house unseen, a sorry little procession, and Mrs. McNab sent the disconsolate youngsters to bed while I dressed and bandaged her hand. The burns were painful enough, but not serious; my patient made light of them, and refused any stimulant except coffee, which she permitted me to prepare for her, after some argument. We drank it together, in the kitchen.

“Being bandaged is the worst infliction,” she said. “I do not take kindly to being even partly helpless. I shall have to ask your assistance in dressing, I am afraid, Miss Earle. It is fortunate that I conformed to the fashion and had my hair cut—not that I might be in the fashion, needless to say, but because I was thankful to be relieved of the weight of my hair. It sadly hampered my work, and I have never regretted that I sacrificed it, even though I have heard Judith remark that I now resemble a turkey-hen.”

This was one of the remarks to which there seemed no tactful reply. At any rate, I had none handy, so I merely murmured that I should be delighted to assist in her toilet.

“I will not ask you to come up to the Tower rooms,” she said. “Perhaps you will allow me to come to your room when I need a little help. I should be glad, too, if nothing is said about the children’s escapade. They have had a very severe fright, and I do not want them blamed by the household. There is an old proverb about ‘a dog with a bad name’—and I cannot but feel that my poor Judith and Jack have suffered by their mother’s absorption in her work for some years. My daughter Beryl’s remarks about to-night’s occurrence would certainly be very severe. I think we may spare them any further punishment, Miss Earle.”

“I’m awfully glad,” I said—forgetting, in my haste, that well-brought-up governesses do not say ‘awfully.’ Luckily Mrs. McNab appeared not to notice my lapse. “They are very sorry, I know. May I tell them, Mrs. McNab?”

“Do—or they will certainly blurt it out themselves. I will go to bed now, and I think you should do the same as soon as possible.” She refused any further help, saying that she was quite able to manage alone. I watched her mount the stairs slowly, and then went off with my message for the culprits, whom I found sitting together on Jack’s bed, steeped in woe. They received my news with relief, though it did not dispel their gloom.

“Jolly decent of Mother,” Judy said: “Beryl and Harry would have been beasts—’specially Beryl. Not that we don’t deserve it; but I can’t stick Beryl’s way of telling us we’re worms. Even if you feel wormy you don’t want it rubbed in. And every one else would have despised us.” She looked at me keenly. “Did you ask Mother not to tell, Miss Earle?”

“Indeed, I didn’t,” I hastened to assure her. “But I was ever so glad that she said she wouldn’t.”

Judy’s lip quivered, and suddenly she broke into hard, choked sobbing. It isn’t a pleasant thing to see the complete surrender of a person who ordinarily shows no feeling whatever: I put my arm round her, not far removed from tears myself, and was not surprised when Jack buried his face in the pillow and howled too.

“Oh, you poor kids!” I uttered, entirely forgetting that I was a governess. They seemed to forget it too, for they clung to me desperately, and I hugged them and lent them my handkerchief in turn, since neither possessed one. When they began to pull themselves together, and to look shame-faced, I slipped away to the kitchen and came back with some cake and hot milk, over which they became comparatively cheerful.

“If you ask me,” said Jack, “it was a pretty hard-luck night. If you and Mother hadn’t smelt us out we’d have had our fireworks without any accident. Why, Ju and I have used fireworks since we were kids!”

“Rather!” agreed Judy. “And when they did go off in a general mix-up, there was no need for me to catch fire. Why did it want to happen, I’d like to know?”

“And when it happened it was bad luck that your Mother got burned,” I supported. “Some bad-tempered gnome was certainly taking the place of your fairy godmother to-night, chickens. Only none of it would have happened at all if you hadn’t gone out when you were supposed to be in bed. You didn’t have much luck the last time, either, did you, Jack?”

They regarded me, wide-eyed.

“How—did—you—know?” uttered Jack.

“I was there—in a bush,” I said, laughing. “But it didn’t seem necessary for me to interfere, for you certainly got all that was coming to you, didn’t you?”

“My Aunt, I did!” Jack said. “And you never said a thing! Why, all our other governesses would have sung hymns of joy!”

“From this out,” said Judy solemnly, “I refuse to look on you as a governess. You are a Member of the Band. Isn’t she, Jack?”

“Rather!” said Jack. “Will you, Miss Earle?”

“I will,” I said. “But if I belong to the Band, the Band has got to play the game. No more night excursions unless I go too. Is it a bargain?”

They said it was, and we shook hands with all formality.

“We’ll back you up no end,” said Judy. “’Means we’ve got to be horribly respectable, but it can’t be helped, Jack.” She heaved a sigh. “I’ve always known we’d have to be respectable some day, but I hoped it wouldn’t be until we were quite old. But you’ve been an awful brick, Miss Earle, and we jolly well won’t let you down.”

“And when we’re at school in Melbourne, don’t you think the Band could meet some Saturday?” Jack asked. The outlaw in him had vanished for the moment; he looked just a wistful small boy, with the traces of tears still on his freckled face.

“It will be arranged,” I told him. “And would you like my brother Colin to come to the meeting?”

They gaped at me.

“The ‘record-breaker’ Earle?” Jack uttered. “My aunt, wouldn’t I!” He flushed suddenly. “Would he come, Miss Earle? You know you told us once he was jolly particular!”

“He is,” I said calmly. “Awfully particular. But he will come, if I ask him. And I should like to ask him.”

The original Members of the Band regarded each other with glowing eyes.

“Well!” said Jack at last, drawing a long breath. “We lost seven bob over those fireworks, Ju, but I reckon it was worth it, don’t you?”

“Rather!” agreed Judy.