The Wonderful Garden/Chapter 17

by E. Nesbit

CHAPTER XVII
The Le-o-pard

'We simply must write to Aunt Emmeline,' said Caroline, earnestly. 'I've got three new pens and some scented violet ink. I got it at the shop yesterday; it's lovely. And I've been counting up the picture post-cards she and Uncle Percival have sent us. There are forty-two, and twenty-eight of those have come since we wrote last.'

'I'd almost rather not have the post-cards; they make you feel so horrid when you don't write, said Charles. 'Suppose we send picture post-cards. You don't have to write nearly so much.'

'I' think that would be shirking,' said Charlotte, who did not want to go out, and more than half believed what she said. 'Come on. If we must, we must. Necessity doesn't know the law.'

'You write, too, Rupert,' said Charles, kindly. 'Put some Latin in; they'll love that. They'll love that. Or perhaps you'd tell me some to say. I can put it in if you say how I ought to spell it.'

But Rupert said he couldn't be bothered, and took down a book—Jesse's Anecdotes of dogs it was, with alluring pictures and delightful stories; but he did not really read it.

Caroline, looking up in an agony of ignorance as to the way you spelt asafœtida, which the medicine book said was good for 'pains in the head brought about by much ſtudy of the printed book,' saw that Rupert's eyes were fixed in a dismal stare on the portrait above the mantelpiece—the portrait of Dame Eleanour.

He was looking at it as though he did not see it, and yet Charlotte could not help saying, 'Isn't she splendid? She knew all about spells and things. It's her books we do it out of—at least, most of it.'

'If she knew all about them, she knew what rotten rot they were,' said Rupert. 'You never try to do anything with your spells except the things that would happen just the same without your spelling.'

'What's that about my spelling?' asked Caroline, who had made a bold dash for what she remembered the way the word looked in the medicine book, and written in a violent violet smudge, 'Afferphrodite.'

'I say your magic isn't real.'

'We saw you when you were invisible,' Caroline began, laying down her pen, whose nib at once tried to turn dry, turning from purple to golden green bronze. And then:

'Yes, I know,' said Rupert; 'but if it's really real, why don't you do something with it that can't really happen in paris naturalitalibus?—that means just naturally. Why don't you bring back Mrs. Wilmington's cat that's lost? Or find my Kohinore pencil. Then there's a thing in that book Mr. Penfold's got. He told me about it. You make a wax image of your enemy and stick pins into it, and every time you stick in a pin your enemy feels a pain in the part you stick the pins into.'

'How awfully wicked!' said Caroline, in an awe-struck voice.

'Or you can roast the wax man in front of a fire, and as the wax melts, the man wastes away,' said Rupert hardly.

'Oh, ''don't!' said Charlotte.

'Yes, do,' said Charles; 'what else?'

'Oh nothing else. It's better if you get a bit of the enemy's hair, and put that on your wax man's head. Mr. Penfold read me bits out of a piece of poetry about it.'

'Didn't he say it was wicked?' Caroline asked.

'Yes,' said Rupert reluctantly; 'but I know what's wicked without Mr. Penfold telling me, or you either. Just fancy how your enemy would squirm when he felt the pin-pricks; they'd be like sword-thrusts, you know, to him.'

'Don't!' said Caroline; 'don't, Rupert, it's horrid. Please don't. I don't want to know about those sort of spells.'

'Rupert wouldn't do it, of course,' said Charles. 'He's only talking.'

'How do you know I wouldn't?' said Rupert, savagely. 'Next time you have a pain in your leg, Caroline, you'll think it's growing-pains, but really it'll be me, sticking a long hat-pin into the wax image I've secretly made of you.'

Caroline got up.

'Come, Char,' she said; 'we'll go and sit in the drawing-room if Rupert's going on like this.'

'He doesn't mean it,' said Charles again.

'Of course I don't,' said Rupert, and suddenly smiled. 'I don't know why I said it. Don't be silly. There's lots of things you could try, though, and not hurt any one. Why don't you——' He looked vaguely round the room, and his eyes lighted once more on the portrait. 'Why don't you make that come to life? If she was a witch her picture ought to be good for that, anyhow.'

'I wish we could,' said all the children together, with deep earnestness.

'Well, do it, then,' said Rupert. 'That's the sort of thing to make me believe, not the duffing things you've kept on doing ever since I've been here.'

There was a silence. Then, 'How do you spell "impossible"?' asked Charles, and then nothing more was heard but the scratching of violet pens.

But from that time, and in between all other thoughts and happenings, Charlotte kept on thinking about that idea. If only the picture could be made to come alive!

And Charles's fancy played timidly with the idea of the wax man. Not to hurt the person it was like, of course, but just to see if anything happened. Not pins. But just pinching its foot a very, very little, secretly, with the image in your pocket, when the person it was the image of was there just to see if the person jumped or called out, as you do if you're suddenly pinched, no matter how gently.

Charlotte's mind busied itself then and later, in and between other thoughts, with the question of what was the matter with Rupert and whether something couldn't be done to help him.

For there was no doubt of it. Rupert wasn't at all what they had first thought him. Sometimes, it is true, he would be as jolly as you need wish a boy to be. He would start new games and play them in the most amusing and satisfactory way. But always, sooner or later, and generally sooner, the light of life seemed to go out of him, and he would seem suddenly to be not only tired of the game, but angry with everybody.

'I'm sure he's bewitched,' said Charlotte more than once in those intimate moments when Caroline and she 'talked things over' as they brushed their hair. 'I shouldn't wonder if somebody's made a wax image of him, and it's when they stick the pins in it that he goes all savage all in a minute.

'I do think that's nonsense,' Caroline always said. 'I'm sure it wouldn't be allowed.'

'How would you make an image of a person's mind?' Charlotte woke Caroline up to ask, one night; and when Caroline with sleepy sharpness said, 'You can't; go to sleep, do,' Charlotte answered, 'I believe you can; there was something written under somebody's portrait in history, about painting his mind; and if you can paint a mind, you can make a wax image of it. I believe that's what somebody's done to Rupert, don't you? And stuck knives into it? Oh, well, if you will go to sleep!' said Charlotte.

Rupert grew grumpier and grumpier as the days went on, and seemed to care less and less for being with the three C.'s. He would go for long walks by himself, and seemed to prefer to be with William, who 'put up' with him, or even with Mrs. Wilmington, who adored him, to being with the children.

And we thought it would be so jolly,' sighed Charlotte; 'and the worst of it is Charles tries to imitate him. He speaks quite rudely sometimes, even to you, Caro, and you know he always used to like you best.'

The only thing Rupert seemed truly and constantly to care for was swimming. He went down to the river with Mr. Penfold almost every day, or met him at the bathing-place, and they swam together. With Mr. Penfold, Rupert was nearly always at his best, perhaps because Mr. Penfold never seemed to notice it when he wasn't.

The village was growing more and more busy and excited as the day drew near when Lord Andore's coming of age was to he celebrated by what the people called a Grangaileranfeat. This was to be held in Lord Andore's park and in certain meadows adjoining; there were to be roundabouts and cocoanut-shies, and shooting-galleries, and a real circus with a menagerie and performing elephants and educated seals—all free. The children looked forward longingly to the day. Lord Andore had sent them cards with his mother's name and his on them in print, and the name of each child in writing, requesting the pleasure of their company on the occasion of Lord Andore's twenty-first birthday. And they had joyously, and with much violet ink, accepted. And the day came nearer and nearer. It did not seem worth while to engage in any new magic while there was this real pleasure to look forward to.

And then, the very day before the day, when the roundabouts had arrived and been set up, and the menagerie was howling invitingly in its appointed field, the cup of joy was dashed, as Charlotte said, into little bits. Lady Andore slipped on an orange-pip and broke her ankle, and the festivities were postponed until September. So said a card brought by the very footman who had not known their names.

'He jolly well knows them now,' said Charles. It was has only comfort.

'There's many a pip twixt the cup and the lip,' said Charlotte; and Caroline said, 'Oh, bother!'

Rupert said nothing. He had been invited too, of course, and had, at moments, seemed pleased. Now he just took his cap and went out and came home late for tea. The three C.'s learned with feelings of distress, mingled with anger, that Rupert had been to the menagerie by himself, and had seen all the beasts, and that he had also witnessed a performance of the circus people which they had thought it worth while to give to such of the villagers as cared to pay for their amusements. He had seen everything, from the accomplished elephants to the educated seals.

'You might have told us you were going,' said Charles.

'You could have gone if you'd wanted to,' said Rupert.

'Never mind, Charles,' said Caroline; 'we'll ask the Uncle to take us to-morrow.'

'They're off to-morrow,' said Rupert; 'that's why I went today.' He added something bitter and almost unbearable about a parcel of kids.

But the circus, as it turned out, was not off next day. An accident had happened. Something was missing, and the circus could not go on its travels till that something was found.

'I don't know what it is,' said Harriet, when she told them about it at breakfast; 'but they've lost something they set store by. Some says it's an improving seal, and others says it's a boar-conjector-snake, and Poad told my gentleman friend it was the white-eyed Kaffir made a bolt for freedom and India's coral strand, where he was stole from when a babe; but I don't know the rights of it. They sent for Poad. My gentleman friend'll know all about it next time I see him.'

'When shall you see him again?' Charles asked.

'I can see him whenever I've a mind,' said Harriet, proudly. 'I'm not one of those as has to run after their gentleman friends.'

'I do wonder what it is,' Charlotte said. 'Do see your friend as soon as you can and ask him, won't you, Harriet? I do hope it's not snakes or bears. You'll be sure to tell us directly you know, won't you?'

'Sure,' said Harriet.

It was from William, however, that they heard what it was that the circus had really lost.

'It's a tame Le-o-pard,' said William; 'him with the spots that you can't change and the long tail.'

'I know,' said Charlotte; 'there's a leopard's skin in the drawing-room. Very spotty they are. And fierce, too, I believe. Oh, William! I do hope it won't come this way.'

'There's something about it in the book,' said Caroline, who, as usual, had her magic books under her arm. She found the place and read: 'Leopard's-bane, its government and virtues'—quite a long piece. When she had done William said:

'Thank you very much; quite pretty, ain't it?' And Rupert said it was all nonsense.

'But it won't come this way, will it?' Charlotte repeated.

'It's a tame one,' said William, grinning. 'At least, that's the character it's got from its last place. But it won't be any too tame for Poad, I expect. I hear he's got the job of catching of it. And serve him right, too.'

'Oh, why?' asked Charlotte.

'Because,' said William, shortly, and was told not to be cross about nothing.

''Tain't nothing, then,' he said; ''twas the way he acted about my dog licence, and the dog only two months over puppy-age, when no licence is taken nor yet asked.'

'I don't fancy Poad much myself,' said Rupert; 'he needn't have been so keen about catching me.'

'Now, that's where you're wrong,' said William. 'Hunting of you, that was no more than Poad's duty; and if he set about it like a jackape, well, some is born silly and can't help it, and why blame the man? But the dog, 'e worn't Poad's duty. He exceeded about the dog, Poad did, and I don't bear malice; but I'll be even with him yet about that dog.'

'How?' asked Rupert.

'Oh, I'll find a way,' said William, carelessly. 'No hurry. Acts like that what Poad did about my Pincher, they always come home to roost—them acts do. Now, then, Miss Charlotte, leave that saddle-soap alone, and get along into the garden. The gates 'as been locked since eight this morning, and you're to go through the secret way to-day, and not to go outside the garden, because of that old speckled Le-o-pard.'

The three C.'s went, but Rupert lingered beside William, fingering the bright buckles of the harness, and passing the smooth reins slowly through his fingers.

For some time the three C.'s were very busy in the garden, gathering heart-shaped green leaves and golden, fragile, daisy-like flowers.

'I never thought,' said Caroline, earnestly, opening the brown book, and sitting down on the terrace-steps with a sheaf of green and yellow beside her, 'that we should need it when I read about it in the Language of, and in the medicine book. Look here, it says: "It is under Apollo, and the flowers and leaves thereof all leopards and their kind do fear and abhor. Wherefore, if it be ſtrewn in the paths theſe fearful beaſts do frequent, they may not paſs, but ſhall turn again and go each to his own place in all meekneſs and ſubmiſsion. Indeed, it hath been held by the ancients—aye, and by philoſophers of our own times, that in this herb lieth a charm to turn to water the hearts of theſe furious ſpotted great cats, and to looſe the ſtrings of their tongues, ſo that they ſpeak in the ſpeech of men, uttering ſtrange things and very wondrous. But of this the author cannot ſpeak certainly, ſince the leopard is not native to this land, unleſs it be in Northumberland and Wales, where all wild things might well be hidden.”

'So you see,' said Caroline.

But Charlotte said it was all very well, only how were they to get the bane to the leopard?

'It isn't as if we were allowed free,' she pointed out. 'I wish they hadn't been so careful. The leopard would never have hurt us as long as we carried the bane; and we could have surrounded it, like snakes with ash-leaves, and it would have had to surrender.'

'And perhaps it would have talked to us and followed us like tame fawns,' suggested Charlotte, 'or Una; only hers was a lion.'

'Nonsense,' said Charles; 'you know you'd have been afraid.'

'I shouldn't,' said Charlotte.

'You would,' insisted Charles.

'I shouldn't.'

'You would.'

'And now you're both exactly like Rupert,' said Caroline, 'and the leopard wandering about unbaned while you're wrangling. You're like Nero and Rome.'

Twenty minutes had passed before peace was restored, and the leopard's-bane lay drooping in the sun, the delicate gold and green heaps of it growing flatter and flatter.

'Well, then,' said Charles, suddenly, 'if you're not afraid, let's go. No one's forbidden us to, except William.'

'I will if you will,' said Charlotte, turning red.

'So will I,' said Caroline, turning pale.

'Rupert said it was nonsense about the leopard's-bane when you read it just now.'

'That doesn't make it nonsense,' said Charlotte, sharply.

'But suppose you meet it?'

'You can't, if you keep to the road. Leopards get into trees. They never walk about in roads like elephants do. Not even when the circus-man is moving. It's serious what we're going to do,' said Caroline, 'and what'll people say about it depends how it turns out. If we parrylise the leopard and save the village, we shall be heroines like——'

('And heroes,' said Charles.)

'Like Joan of Arc and Phillipa who sucked the poison out of the burgesses' keys at Calais.'

'And if we don't put the stuff in the right place, or the leopard doesn't take any notice of it, they'll just say we were disobedient.'

'And suppose we meet the leopard face to face?'

'It's a tame leopard,' said Caroline, in a faltering voice.

'Oh, I don't want to go. I really am frightened. I don't mind owning up. I am. I'm so frightened I think we ought to go. I don't want to so dreadfully, that I'm sure it's right for me to go. But I wish you and Charles would stay here. Suppose the leopard came over the wall and there was no one here to cope with it?'

She was very pale and she trembled. And when the others, without hesitation, said, 'Not much we don't!' she certainly breathed more easily.

'Come on, then,' she said. 'We'll strew a little here because of the gardeners. Oh, no; of course, the roots will make it all safe here. The gate's locked; we must go through the secret passage, and then creep through the stable-yard and out along the garden wall, so that the Wilmington doesn't see us. And then out by the deserted lodge.'