CHAPTER IV

THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. CURTIS

This evening Evelyn began asking the Incubus about the very tall, dark young man we had seen him walking with the time that I had failed to escape them both down by the Hard.

The Incubus said, "Oh, yes, that's Curtis. Awfully good chap, Curtis."

And then he began to laugh all over his silly baby face.

"What are you laughing at, Mr. Lascelles?" said Nancy at once. "Why should you laugh because Mr. Curtis is a good chap?"

"I am not laughing at that," said the Incubus. "In fact, I am laughing----" and then he laughed some more.

All this was in the drawing-room after supper. We were sitting by the big fire made of wreck wood.

You know, the salt water that the timber is soaked in makes the flames go emerald-green, and purple and scarlet, and all sorts of jolly colours.

The thick plum-coloured curtains were drawn across the bay windows, which were carefully shuttered as well, so that not the teeniest ray of light could find its way out into the black night of Mud Flats.

They are most fearfully particular about lights now in our part of the world. I wonder they haven't made Mr. Lascelles wear a cap in the house over his flaming red hair! Talk about "Keep the Home-fires Burning." Well! _He_ does his best. One gleam of a candle through the keyhole, and some special constable or other is knocking at the door and calling out, "Put out that light."

But inside Aunt Victoria's drawing-room it was light and warm and cosy enough. Aunt Victoria herself was in the big armchair, drawn up beside the lamp with the rose-coloured shade. She had a book of "Reminiscences" of some Court or other in her hand, and she was pretending that she wasn't nodding her head and going to sleep over it.

I may as well say that this pretence was quite as transparent as the Incubus's attempt to persuade us that there was not some private joke to do with the tall, eye-glassed young officer he called Curtis. Making a mystery of it! Poodle-doodle!

Nancy said coaxingly: "You might tell us what it is."

She was sitting knitting a khaki sock on the big black bearskin rug in front of the fire, which made her hair (and all of our hairs, I suppose) look perfectly ripping.

The little Incubus was holding khaki wool for Evelyn to wind off his hands. I daresay a stranger would have said that "the three young people made a charming group."

_I_ was right out of it, of course. I had drawn my chair right aside.

I just wanted to let the girls see that I didn't mind staying bang in "Coventry" as long as they liked. I went on embroidering a large "E" for Elizabeth on one of my own handkerchiefs. I wasn't going to knit khaki socks, thank you, or do anything that suggested the least interest in khaki while that young man was about.

However, I couldn't help hearing his conversation with the other two girls, even though I wasn't listening.

"At least you might tell us what sort of a chap this Mr. Curtis is."

"Oh, a thundering good chap," said the Incubus, and laughed again. "Capital fellow--really good sort."

"But that conveys nothing to us girls," said Nancy. "It's the sort of thing men do say about each other, and leaves you just as wise as you were before."

"Well, I don't know what else to say about the fellow," said the Incubus. "I have said all the nice things I can. You saw what he was like to look at; and then I tell you that he is a good chap. What more can I say? He's clever, too."

"What sort of clever?" persisted Evelyn, winding away at the wool.

"Oh, a regular bookworm cleverness," said the Incubus; "always reading. He has read no end of Johnnies that I have never heard of, and, by Jove! he writes himself, too! That's a thing I can't understand any one doing. I couldn't write a line to save my life, but this beggar actually keeps himself in 'baccy' by it. Sits down and writes an article every week, if you please; or did, before the War."

"An article?" Evelyn said, looking really interested. She's always thought it would be rather thrilling to meet a real person who wrote. "What's his article about, Mr. Lascelles?"

"Ah, that's the funny part of it," said the Incubus, laughing again so that he dropped the khaki wool and had to pick it up. "He writes for some ladies' paper. _Diana's Weekly_, or something. All about girls--what they ought to wear."

"What girls ought to wear?" echoed Nancy, staring with all her blue eyes. "How can he possibly know?"

"Oh, only what they're to wear when they are playing games," explained the Incubus. "You know, he's very hot stuff on the theory of games, old Curtis. That's what he writes about. 'Hockey for Girls,' and all about the right sort of blouse for it," he added vaguely (so like a man), "and how it ought to be all in one piece with the skirt, or something. Then he sits down and reels off yards about 'Swimming for Girls,' and 'Cross-Country Running for Girls,' and 'Motor-Cycling for Girls,' and all the lot. That's what Curtis does."

I felt that here was a chance for snubbing the Incubus in quite a dignified way. So I said, "Well, why shouldn't he?" in a haughty voice. "If Mr. Curtis knows such a lot about athletics, why should you gig--I mean laugh--about it? Where's the tremendous joke?"

"Oh! It's not tremendous. It's only this. He may know a lot about athletics," said the Incubus, turning to me, "but--it's the girls he knows so little about. I never met a fellow who was so absolutely blank on the subject. Why, if you'll believe me, he's twenty-three, and--no. Perhaps I'd better not say."

Here there was a loud chorus from the other two girls. "Oh, you must, now; you must, now. What is it? You must tell us! You must tell us what it is."

"Must I? Seems rather mean----"

"Not half as mean as letting us think there must be something perfectly unspeakable about your friend!" said Nancy.

So then the Incubus turned rather pink under his freckles and said: "Oh, well, it's nothing really. it's only this. Curtis reels off all that information for girls, about girls, and yet he--he--he's never kissed a girl in the whole course of his life!"

And he ended this absurd anecdote with his loudest "Ha, ha," Evelyn and Nancy joining in. Needless to say _I_ didn't laugh. I bit my lips hard not to. But the others made such a noise that Aunt Victoria gave a jerk all over herself and nearly dropped her Reminiscence-book.

Nancy was just beginning: "Oh, I say, I would like to meet this Mr. Curt----"

When Aunt Victoria woke up in good earnest, and said quickly: "What was that? What was that, Mr. Lascelles? I didn't quite catch that last remark. What are you all laughing at?"

Whereupon we had another example of the utter cheek of the popular (except with me) Mr. Lascelles.

He looked up at her, smiling, and said: "I think your nieces are laughing, Mrs. Verdeley, at the idea of my having the nerve to ask you. They say you will never allow it."

"Oh?" purred Aunt Victoria, beaming at him over the top of her spectacles. "Allow what?"

Mr. Lascelles smiled back at Aunt Victoria as if she were his most favourite godmother.

And he said: "Allow me to suggest that two of our fellows should come round here to see you one evening. Two awfully nice quiet chaps--at least, one of them's quiet. But no, no. It's too much to ask. I won't."

So he knows the way to get round the contrariness of Aunt Victoria.

She beamed at him again, and said in her most amiable tone: "Oh? Why not? We don't pretend to entertain, you know, Mr. Lascelles. But supposing your young friends came in here to supper on Saturday; I'm sure I should be very glad to see them, if they don't mind our simple fare----"

"Simple fare" was good, considering how Auntie allows Cook to simply spread herself on butter and things since the Incubus has been here.

"And if your friends like music," Aunt Victoria purred on, "the little girls might play to them."

"The little girls," if you please, mean Nancy and me. Life is full of quiet humour, isn't it? Especially in the way of names. Auntie often calls us this, never remembering that any years have gone by since we were twelve and thirteen. It's a mercy in one way, because it means she never thinks of any flirting or love-making possibilities in any of us. She never remembers the silly old will of father's, in which he's so dead against any of his children rushing into an early marriage. She thinks that needn't be considered for about fifteen years, of course. Such a blessing. Otherwise she might add to the nuisance of having Mr. Lascelles here by trying to bring in a "chaperoney" atmosphere! That would be the last straw!

As it was, I felt myself turning pillar-box red with pure indignation at her bringing out the absurd expression "the little girls" just now, before the young man who is this little girl's pet abomination.

However, the young man didn't seem to have heard it. He was letting loose a shower of "thanks awfullys" and "so awfully good of yous" to Aunt Victoria. He ended up by saying, "One of these chaps is Masters, Captain Masters. He was in my Bank in the old days, but he was always champing his bit to be a soldier. Awful good sort; some lad! The other was a schoolmaster: I shared digs with him in town once, ages ago, and I'm sure you'd like _him_, Mrs. Verdeley. _All_ his people were in the Church. Curtis is his name."

And, turning to my sisters, he added in a rapid aside, "Now, you will see the great Scribe for yourselves!"

If I weren't in Coventry I should be quite looking forward to this.

Everybody else is.

THE great excitement in this house is the supper-party next Saturday, and what this weird young man Curtis will be like, and what we're going to give them all to eat.

Nancy is going to make her special trifle. Evelyn looks after "the drinks": the drinks, of course, being barley-water and lemonade. You couldn't imagine any other in this house. Then both the girls surprised me, rather, by coming round to ask me quite nicely if I'd make the lemon-cheese cakes that I'm always such a success with.

"I don't think I will," said I, remembering how the Incubus said he loved lemon-cheese, and so afraid he might think I'd done it to please him.

"Rattle, don't be absurd. Of course, you must make it," said Evelyn. She took me by the shoulder, shook me, looked into my face and said, in her old, affectionate voice, "Don't sulk, old girl."

I said, "I'm not sulking," but I heard my own voice melt. "I thought I was in Coventry for being rude to the Favourite."

And then I hugged her and Nancy.... The squabble was over, and I'm going to make the blessed lemon-cheese for the party after all.

But I'm not going to leave off disliking the Incubus for all that!

I'm not going to allow that one little red-haired Temporary Lieutenant to become the chief interest in the lives of _all_ the three girls at his billet. I'm thinking----

This is a sudden, lovely idea! I'm thinking of setting up quite a new interest, on my own!