The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

But his words were drowned in the chorus of alarm that rose when he knocked at the door. And the leopard? In the midst of the babel of voices a bolt was drawn, the door opened. Rupert sprang out and turned to shut the door. But his feet and arms and head were entangled in strings, and he fell to the ground.

‘It’s me; it’s Rupert,’ he shouted; ‘shut the door! The real leopard’s inside!’

‘Why!’ said the leopard’s owner – he who had thrown the net over Rupert – ‘it’s a beastly boy, dressed up.’ He spoke in tones of deep disgust.

There was a crowd of people. The three C.’s had managed to scale the wall by means of a pear-tree. They had brought back William – a prey to secret laughter, and the leopard’s owner, and a dozen other people. A score of hands helped to loose Rupert from the net.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I did it for a lark. To take a rise out of some one. But I’ve been paid out. The leopard’s in there. I touched it, in the dark.’

Sensation!

‘There,’ said William to the policeman, ‘I told you half an hour ago there was a good chance the beast ’ad taken cover in the passage, and you would have it you see his tail up a tree somewhere, and wouldn’t go down.’

‘I certainly thought I see ’is tail,’ said Poad, scratching his ear; ‘and this gentleman’s pal and half a dozen others is after ’im now, down by the other lodge. But perhaps it wasn’t really ’is tail. In fact, it couldn’t be, if the animal’s in here like what the young gentleman says it is.’

‘I tell you the leopard’s in here, now,’ said Rupert. ‘Oh, get me out of this beastly skin somebody.’

William unlaced him, and he stepped out, a pale boy in shirt and knickerbockers.

‘In there now, is he?’ said the leopard’s keeper, rudely taking no notice of Poad; ‘then if some one’ll get a lantern or two we’ll go in and get him.’

Some one got a lantern or two – it was William in point of fact; the lanterns happened to be ready in the summer-house.

The keeper went down the steps.

‘On the right-hand side?’ he said, quite unconcernedly.

And Rupert said, ‘Yes, to the right.’

William and three other men followed warily, but to most of the party it seemed best to remain by the door. Five people and a net were surely enough to catch one leopard. But every one crowded round the door, and some even went down a few steps, bending over to catch the first sounds of anything that might be happening.

All of a sudden a sound came from the dark passage below, and the listeners started back – a strange sound, the sound of long, loud laughter. It echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted passage, coming nearer and nearer. The crowd drew back.

Out came the leopard keeper, laughing, with his net; out came William, laughing, with his pitchfork; out came Poad, half laughing and half angry.

‘What is it? what is it?’ said every one outside. And for a moment none of those inside could get breath to answer.

‘What is it?’ they asked again, and at last William answered:

‘Mrs. Wilmington’s old cat! Gone in there to have her kittens in peace away from the children. They’ve caught your little bit all right,’ he said to the leopard keeper. ‘Look!’ He pointed to something white among the trees beyond the wall. ‘I told Bill to run up a signal if they found the rest of him where Poad said he’d seen his spotted tail.’

‘Did you know that before we went in?’ Poad asked sternly.

‘’Course I did,’ said William, his hands on his knees and his ruddy face deeply creased with the joke. ‘You wouldn’t have catched me going in there without I’d known where my Lord was, him and his spotted tail. I thought it was Master Rupert up to some more of his larks, I did. I wasn’t a-going to spoil sport.’

‘You ’aven’t ’eard the last of this,’ said Poad huffily.

‘No more ain’t you,’ said William, ‘so don’t you think it, James Poad. You that believed one tale when you’d seen the other. You that wouldn’t believe the sworn evidence of your own eyes and a spotted tail.’

CHAPTER XIX

F. OF H.D

You will hardly be able to believe that, owing to the firmness of Uncle Charles’s instructions that he was not to be disturbed on any pretence, the whole noisy affair of the two leopards passed entirely unnoticed by him. The three C.’s did not tell, because they feared that Rupert’s impersonation of the leopard might not be pleasing to the Uncle. Mrs. Wilmington did not tell, because Rupert was her great favourite. She mended the places where the harp-strings had torn the leopard skin, and put it back in its place and said nothing to any one. William did not tell; he was a man who could keep a joke to himself, was William. Poad did not tell, because he never could be quite sure whether the laugh was on his side or on William’s. And Rupert did not tell, for reasons that will be clearer later on. So the Uncle went on writing his book about Sympathetic Magic, in complete ignorance of anything leopardish having happened.

When all the fuss and bustle had died down, and Rupert and the children were left face to face, words of reproach rose to every lip. But Rupert, knowing what he had faced in that underground passage for the sake of the children, still had enough of the warm and comforting feeling to be able to say:

‘Look here, don’t! I’m awfully sorry if I did really frighten you. I didn’t know. I’d no idea what it would feel like to be frightened by a leopard until I thought I was shut up with one. Don’t rub it in; there’s good chaps.’

A frank appeal such as this could not fail with the three C.’s, and if anything had been needed to melt the anger of the girls, being called ‘good chaps’ would have supplied that need.

‘Oh yes,’ they said, both together. ‘But do let’s tell each other all about it,’ Charlotte added. ‘Let’s not say anything till after dinner, and then have a grand palaver in the garden. I do want to understand just exactly what you felt when you felt the leopard, Rupert, to see if it was anything like what we felt when we saw your spots.’

‘All right!’ said Rupert.

And Charles said, ‘It was the most dreadful thing in the world, but it will give us something to talk about.’

It did. Rupert’s hidden consciousness of having done something ‘rather decent,’ made him quite like the self that he had seemed to be on the first night. The children spent a most enjoyable afternoon, and for the first time for many days, Rupert did not seem anxious to get rid of the others. He even invited them to come down to the river and see him dive.

‘Though I’m not a patch on Mr. Penfold,’ he said.

They went. And Charles had his first swimming lesson.

‘It would be all right,’ he said, sleeking his wet hair as they went home, ‘if only you could remember which are your arms and which are your legs. I never can, in the water, and, anyhow, you seem to have far too many, and they all feel as though they belonged to somebody else.’

As they went over the bridge, Mr. Penfold said:

‘I’ve done that translation, and I’ve had it typed. So you can tell your uncle about it and present it to him. He’ll like it awfully, I know. And I daresay he’ll let you have a copy of the translation. I’ve had one done expressly for you, with the parts that wouldn’t be of any advantage to you left out. By the way, there’s something written in the end about the seventh of July. That’s to-morrow. So you’d better present it then.’

There was a chorus of thanks, and the presentation was arranged for the next day. The children took the old Latin book home with them. Mr. Penfold was to bring the translation; ‘when I’ve corrected the spelling and the stops,’ he said. ‘I’ll come, if I may, and see the presentation. There should be flowers, too, I think, symbolic flowers, suggested by your other book.’

When the children got home they spread the Latin book on the table in the window, to catch the last rosy sunset light, and Charles said with proud affection:

‘Now, Rupert! We don’t want any old translation when you’re here.’

Rupert frowned, and the girls shrank as sensitive plants shrink when a finger touches them. They knew the sort of bitter thing about its not being worth while to do things for kids, which seemed to be trembling on Rupert’s lips. But quite quickly his face changed. He turned red – or was it only the deepened red of the sunset? – and said:

‘You know, I’m afraid I’ve kidded you rather about my Latin. I’m not very good at it as a matter of fact. I’ve only just begun Virgil.’

‘But you do know a lot. You’re always saying bits of it,’ said Charles anxiously.

‘That was swank,’ said Rupert strongly; ‘silly swank. It was all wrong, I expect. There, now it’s out!’

The children treated Rupert with added respect.

‘How splendid of him to own up about the Latin,’ said Caroline over the hair-brushing. And Charlotte reminded her sister that she had always thought Rupert splendid, which was not true, though she thought it was.

But this was later. At the moment, ‘Never mind,’ said Charlotte, ‘we shall have the translation to-morrow, and we’ll try a spell at once. I’m sorry the leopard that spoke was only you, Rupert. We did think you’d have to believe in spells after that.’