“Nonsense! What can you mean?”
She put her arms round his neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “You are the best of kind, provoking brothers, and I won’t tease you—not a bit! But I think you are very sly!”
Chapter XIV
The visitors having all departed, Elinor was thankful to find that Francis Cheviot was ready to retire for the night, provided he might be assured that every door and window was secured against intruders. To Nicky’s mingled skepticism and scorn, the story of a thief’s having broken into the house seemed to have taken strong possession of his mind. He believed himself to be incapable of closing his eyes all night if the least possibility existed of anyone’s being able to enter the house, and debated the advisability of commanding his valet to sit up with a loaded gun. “If only I might trust him not to discharge his piece upon a mere false alarm!” he said. “But he is the stupidest fellow! If he did not know to such a nicety how to polish my boots I must have turned him off years ago! How difficult it is to decide what to do for the best! Would it be a comfort to us to know him to be standing guard over our slumbers? But then, if he were to take fright at a shadow and wake us all with firing at it, how shocking that would be! My nerves, I know, could scarcely support it, and I must suppose, my dear Cousin, that yours would not readily recover from it.”
“There is no need for the poor man to be kept up all night,” she responded calmly. “Bouncer is an excellent watchdog, and we have formed the habit of allowing him to roam over the house at will. At the least sound of stirring in the house he would give the alarm.”
“I should think he would!” corroborated Nicky, with an impish smile. “Why, when Miss Beccles only opened her door last night he set up such a barking as roused even old Barrow!”
“Did he, indeed?” said Francis politely. “I do trust I shall not be thought unreasonable if I solicit Miss Beccles not to open her door tonight. If I am awakened out of my first sleep I find it very hard to drop off again, and to be lying awake all night, you know, cannot but harm the most robust constitution.”
Miss Beccles assured him that she would not do so, and the party went out into the hall, where the bedroom candles were set out on the table. Bouncer was lying on the mat by the door, and Francis put up his quizzing glass to scrutinize him. He sighed. “A singularly ill-favored hound!” he said.
“Much you know about it!” snapped Nicky, who could not brook criticism of his favorite.
Either his tone or the dog’s natural antipathy to Francis provoked Bouncer into uttering a subdued growl. He was in doubt how this would be received, but when no rebuke greeted it, he got up and barked aggressively at Francis.
Francis shuddered. “Pray hold him, dear Nicholas!” he begged. “What a shocking character mine must be! They say dogs can always tell, do they not? I do trust that is yet another of the fallacies one is forever discovering!”
“Oh, he will not bite you while I am here!” said Nicky cheerfully.
“Then do, I beg of you, accompany me up the stairs!” said Francis.
This was done, arid Francis delivered into the tender care of his valet. Nicky confided to Elinor that he should sleep with one ear open and only hoped that Francis would come out of his room, for he was willing to bet a monkey Bouncer would indeed savage him. Upon this pious aspiration, he took himself off to his own room, there to drop into the deep and sound sleep of youth, from which, Elinor shrewdly judged, nothing less than a cataclysm would rouse him.
But Miss Beccles, for whom Bouncer had no terrors, could not be satisfied, and horrified Elinor by stealing into her room hardly half an hour after the valet’s footsteps had been heard retreating to the wing which housed the servants, with the information that she had made it impossible for Francis to leave his bedchamber that night.
“What can you possibly mean, Becky?” Elinor demanded, sitting up, and pushing back the bed curtains.
“My love, I bethought me of the clothesline!” whispered the little governess impressively. “I have securely attached it to the handle of his door and to the handle of dear Mrs. Nicky’s door too!”
“Becky!” Elinor exclaimed. “No, no, you must not! I am sure Bouncer is guard enough! Only think if Mr. Cheviot should discover it! I should never be able to look him in the face again!”
“Dear old fellow!” said Miss Beccles, fondly regarding the faithful hound who had followed her into the room and now sat on his haunches with his ears laid flat and an expression on his face of vacuous amiability. “I am sure he is not a nasty fierce dog, are you, Bouncer?”
Bouncer at once assumed the mien of a foolishly sentimental spaniel and began to pant.
“Becky, when the servants discover it in the morning, only conceive how it must look!”
“Yes, my love, but I am always awake before the servants are stirring, and I shall undo the line, of course. Do not be in a pucker, my dear Mrs. Cheviot! I only thought you would wish to know that I have made all safe. Come, Bouncer, good doggie!”
She glided away again, leaving Elinor to toss and turn on her pillows, rehearsing the lame explanations she might be called upon to make in the morning to a justly offended guest. But the only disturbance consequent upon Miss Beccles’ brilliant stroke was caused by Nicky who, waking betimes and ascribing this unusual circumstance to some noise which must have penetrated to his consciousness, jumped out of bed and tried stealthily to open his door. The clothesline held fast, and Nicky, concluding very naturally that his imprisonment was due to Francis Cheviot’s wicked wiles, instantly set up a shout for help. The first to answer the call was Bouncer, who tore up the stairs, and after flinging himself unavailingly at his master’s door, set to work to release him by a process of furious excavation.
Miss Beccles, only pausing to cast a shawl over her nightdress, ran out, and seizing Bouncer by his collar, agitatedly begged Nicky to hush! Neither he nor Bouncer paid any heed to this admonition, and it was not until she had with trembling fingers untied her knots and the commotion had brought not only Elinor but Barrow also to the spot, that the imprecations of the prisoner and the excited barking of the dog abated. The matter being hurriedly explained to Nicky he instantly went off into a shout of laughter, quite sufficient to have roused anyone who had contrived to remain asleep through the previous hubbub.
Elinor was in an agony of apprehension, but no sound of stirring came from the guest’s chamber.
“Well, it queers me why anyone should take and do such a tedious silly thing!” said Barrow, staring in surprise at the clothesline. “A hem setout it’ll be if Mr. Francis comes to hear tell of it!”
“Barrow, you will please not to mention the matter to any!” Elinor said distractedly. “Miss Beccles took a notion—that is, it was all nonsense, of course! For heaven’s sake, do not let us be standing here!”
Barrow looked from one to the other with such an expression of astonishment on his face that Nicky marched him back to his own wing, favoring him on the way with an explanation which caused him to say with withering scorn, “Mistress hasn’t got no call to suspicion the likes of Mr. Francis! As like as ninepence to nothing, he is!”
“What did you say to Barrow?” demanded Elinor, upon Nicky’s return.
He grinned at her. “I’ll not tell you. You would be ready to eat me!”
“Hateful boy! What was it?”
“No, it would make you blush.”
“Oh!” she gasped indignantly. “Odious!”
“Well, I don’t know what else I could have told him!”
“Well, never mind!” She sank her voice to an even lower note and pointed toward Francis Cheviot’s door. “He cannot have slept through such a noise! Why has he not come out or called to us to know what is the matter?”