The Heavenly Twins Part 26

"But how do you _know_ it's true yourself?" Angelica demanded.

"Did you ever _see_ the devil, With his little spade and shovel, Digging praties in the garden With his tail c.o.c.ked up?"--

Diavolo chanted, accompanying the words with a little dance, in which Angelica, holding up her habit, joined incontinently.

Lady Fulda remained grave, but the old duke and Father Ricardo himself were moved to mirth, and there was no more talk of Revealed Religion, the Power of the Popedom, and the glory of the Church on earth, at Morne that day.

Lady Fulda had been firm about sending the children home under escort, and they found a steady old groom waiting ready to mount a spirited horse when they went down to the courtyard to get on their ponies. They had discovered a box of croquet mallets on their way downstairs, and borrowed one each.

As they descended the steep hill leading from the castle, at a walk, they began to discuss recent events, as their habit was.

"What did you do when the chime went, and you hung your head?" said Angelica.

"I hoped there'd be hot cakes for tea; bat I didn't mean it for a prayer,"

Diavolo answered, as if the matter admitted of a doubt.

"I'm glad we decided to go secondly to the palace; I didn't think much of grandpapa's tea," Angelica observed. "It was all china, and no cakes--to speak of; no crisp ones, you know."

"Well, you see his teeth are bad," said Diavolo indulgently.

"He has enough of them, then!" Angelica answered.

"Yes, but they aren't much good, they're so loose, you know; every now and again you can see them waggle," said Diavolo.

"I'd like to see him bite a fig!" said Angelica, chuckling.

"They'd stick, I suppose," said Diavolo meditatively. "I expect there will be great improvements in those matters by the time we want to be patched."

The groom, who had been riding at a respectful distance behind, suddenly perceived that he had lost sight of the children altogether. The descent was steep just there, and winding; and, knowing with whom he had to deal, the man urged his horse on, straining his eyes at every turn to catch a glimpse of the twins, but vainly, till he reached the bottom of the hill, when they bounced out on him suddenly from among the trees on either side of the road, whooping and flouris.h.i.+ng their mallets wildly. The horse, which was very fresh, gave one great bound and bolted, and the Heavenly Twins, shrieking with delight, hunted him hard into Morningquest.

When they arrived at the palace, Angelica asked with the utmost confidence if the bishop were at home; and, being informed by an obsequious footman that he was, the twins marched into the hall, and were ushered into the presence of Mrs. Beale and her daughter Edith.

"Tell his lords.h.i.+p we are here," Angelica said to the servant authoritatively, before she performed her salutations. When these were over, the twins sat down opposite to Edith and inspected her.

"We've just been seeing Aunt Fulda," Diavolo remarked.

Angelica caught the connection: "Your hair is about the same colour as hers, but your face is smoother," she observed. "It looks like porcelain.

Hers has little stipples, you know, about the nose, when you go close.

They seem to come as you get older."

"Uncle Dawne calls you Saxon Edith," said Diavolo. "Don't you wonder he doesn't want to marry you? _I_ do. When I'm old enough I'm going to propose to you; do you think you will have me?"

"Have you! I should think not, indeed!" Angelica exclaimed with a jealous flash. At that time the notion of sharing her brother's affection with anybody always enraged her.

Diavolo was irritated by her scornful manner.

"I am a little afraid," he began, addressing Mrs. Beale in his deliberate way: "I am a little afraid Angelica will stand in the way of my making a good match. No respectable wife would have her about."

Quick as thought, Angelica had him by the hair, and the two were tumbling over each other on the floor.

Mrs. Beale and Edith sprang forward to separate them, but that was impossible until the twins had banged each other to their heart's content, when they got up, with their feelings thoroughly relieved, and resumed their seats and the conversation as if nothing had happened. The skirmish, however, had been severe although short. Diavolo had a deep scratch over his right eyebrow which began to bleed profusely. Angelica was the first to notice it, and tearing out a handkerchief which was up her sleeve, she rolled it into a bandage roughly, whirled over to Diavolo, and tied it round his head, covering his right eye, and leaving a great knot and two long ends sticking up like rabbit's ears amongst his fair hair, and a pointed flap hanging down on the opposite side.

"I must cut my nails," she remarked, giving a finis.h.i.+ng touch to this labour of love, which made Diavolo rock on his chair, but he accepted her attentions as a matter-of-course, merely drawling: "Angelica is _so_ energetical!" as he recovered his balance.

Just at this moment the bishop bustled in. He had been engaged upon some important diocesan duties when the twins were announced; but, thinking they must have come with an urgent message, he suspended the work of the diocese, and hurried up to see what was the matter.

The twins rose to receive him with their usual unaffected affability. He was a short stout man with a pleasant face, and a cordial well-bred manner; a little apt to be fussy on occasion, and dest.i.tute of any sense of humour in other people, although given to making his own little jokes. He was a bishop of the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind, owing his position to family influence rather than to any special attainment or qualification; but he was a good man, and popular, and the See of Morningquest would have had much to regret if the back door by which he got into the Church had been shut before he pa.s.sed through it.

"I am afraid there has been an accident," he said with concern when he saw Diavolo's head tied up in a handkerchief.

"Oh, no, thank you, sir," that young gentleman a.s.sured him. "It is only a scratch."

"_I_ did it," said the candid Angelica; "and it looked unpleasant, so I tied it up."

"Oh," the bishop e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, glancing inquiringly at his wife and daughter. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," said Diavolo, preparing to suit his conversation to the bishop's taste. "There are a great many things we want to discuss with you; what were they, Angelica? I am sure I have forgotten them all."

"Let me see," said Angelica--Sainte Chantal and the rotten potato had quite gone out of her mind. "It was just to have a little interesting conversation, you know."

"We're getting on very well with our lessons," Diavolo gravely a.s.sured him, antic.i.p.ating the inevitable question.

"We've just come from Morne," said Angelica.

"Indeed," the bishop answered. "How is your grandfather?"

"Rather flat to-day," said Angelica. "He didn't say anything of interest; didn't even lecture us."

"No; but he looked pleasant," said Diavolo.

"I like him to lecture," Angelica insisted. "I like him to talk about the Church, how it is going to encompa.s.s the earth, the sea, and all that in them is; and that kind of thing, you know--boom, boom! He makes you feel as if every word he uttered ought to be printed in capital letters; and it seems as if your eyes opened wider and wider, and your skin got tight."

Diavolo nodded his head to one side in intelligent acquiescence.

Not being troubled with self-consciousness, he wore the handkerchief with which his head was decorated with the grave dignity of his best behaviour.

"I sometimes think, sir," he began, addressing the bishop exactly in his father's precise way, "that there is something remarkable about my grandfather. He is a kind of a prophet, I imagine, to whom the Lord doesn't speak."

Edith walked to the window, Mrs. Beale got out her handkerchief hastily; the bishop's countenance relaxed.

"I suppose you wouldn't like us to be converted?" Angelica asked.

"We call it _perverted_, dear child," said Mrs. Beale.

"Well, they call it _converted_ just as positively up at the castle,"

Angelica rejoined, not argumentatively, merely stating the fact.

"I wonder what the angels call it," said Diavolo, looking up in their direction out of a window opposite, and then glancing at the bishop as if he thought he ought to know.