THE boat, with Maude and Barny in it, struggled out of a solid sheet of rain towards the island. To Kerran and the children, who were watching from a tower, it seemed as though a free fight of some sort was going on. A black object was being thrown, violently thrown, from one end of the boat to the other. The struggle was so fierce that a capsize seemed almost inevitable.
Kerran was the first to guess what was happening.
“Their umbrella!” he exclaimed. “They’re fighting which shall have it. I mean which shan’t have it. He’s in the bows and she’s in the stern. They’re each determined to be the one who gets wet. It’s his umbrella. It’s a man’s umbrella; she’s forgotten hers, and she doesn’t want to borrow his. There! Oh, Lord! I thought they were over then.”
The children were enchanted. They had had a dull day, cooped up in the keep, and now they blessed the rain which had brought them such a spectacle. It was not every day that uncles and aunts fought one another in boats.
Only Rosamund had the decency to say at once:
“It’s very unselfish of Aunt Maude, isn’t it, Uncle Kerran?”
“Very,” said Kerran; “especially if she upsets the boat.”
Rosamund laughed, uncertainly. She was anxious to imitate, if she could, the correct grown-up attitude towards Aunt Maude. But it was not easy and, as often as not, she got snubbed for her pains. A faintly mocking praise appeared to be the safest prescription. They were always saying that Maude was wonderful. They praised her more warmly than they ever praised each other. She was so practical, and so economical: such a wonderful housekeeper, so devoted to Barny, so clever when he was ill, and, above all, so unselfish. The mere mention of her unselfishness could bring a quiver of laughter into their voices. Rosamund had only just found out why.
There was a shrill squeal of joy from Harry and Jennie. Something had actually fallen into the water, a rug, and it was floating away like a little raft. The battle of the umbrella was suspended while Maude clutched at it.
Now the boat had reached safety. It was bumping against the landing stage. Louise, in a sou’-wester and oilskins, was running down the slope, and the loyal Kerran nerved himself for a dash across the courtyard, so that he might join Gordon in the gateway. For Louise’s sake they must all keep up an appearance of hilarious welcome.
As soon as he was gone Rosamund drew her brother Charles to another window where they would be out of earshot of the little ones.
“Promise not to tell,” she whispered.
Charles wriggled impatiently. He wanted to watch the disembarkation, for there was still a chance that somebody or something might fall into the water.
“You’re tickling my ear,” he complained.
“Oh, very well then. I shan’t tell you. You’re too little to know, anyway.”
Whereat Charles was obliged to twist her wrists. After a few histrionic shrieks, and cries of pax, she began to whisper again.
“Aunt Maude isn’t quite a lady.”
“Oh, rot!”
“Mother says so.”
“When did she say so?”
“Yesterday. She said we don’t call a coat and skirt a costume. She said it was bad form. So I said, well, Aunt Maude does. And then she said that. She said I was old enough to know. But you mustn’t say anything to the little ones.”
Charles looked uncomfortable. He felt that this was a personal affront because Aunt Maude was his godmother and had given him some very nice birthday presents. Honour demanded that he should defend her. But, if his mother had really said such an embarrassing thing, there was very little that he could say. So he carried the war into the other camp. He averred that Professor Grier, who was Rosamund’s godfather, smelt.
“You’re disgusting,” said Rosamund, “disgusting and childish.”
She turned away from him with a very good imitation of her mother’s sweep.
Drenched and draggled, the new arrivals were being urged up the slope by the welcoming Louise. Aunt Maude’s apple cheeks glowed crimson under her dripping veil, and snatches of her laughter floated up, high above the shrieking wind.
“Such fun!” she shouted, as she held the umbrella over Barny.
Even Louise was cowed, became less aggressively cheerful.
“You poor things! You’re wet!”
“No, no. We like it. We don’t mind getting wet, do we, Barny? So killingly funny … in the boat … the umbrella … such fun, isn’t it, Barny?”
Barny dodged the umbrella which she was still trying to hold over him, caught sight of the group in the window and sent them a rueful grin. He did not particularly mind getting wet, but he did not think it killingly funny either. The three of them disappeared under the gateway. The boatman with the luggage came up after them and disappeared too. It was over and there was nothing more to see. The children turned away from the window. They straggled downstairs to the day nursery. Only Rosamund remained, curled up on the window seat, and staring disconsolately out into the rain. She was bored with the little ones and bored with Charles. She wanted another little girl to play with. For the moment she even wanted her cousin Hope. She thought of Hope with a sudden access of sentimental affection. When Hope came she would have an ally. They would talk secrets. She would swear Hope to secrecy and then reveal the tremendous news about Aunt Maude. Hope might be stolid, plain and fat, a year younger, and imbued with all the depressing familiarity of cousinhood, but she was at least a girl, not a scuffling, insensitive boy.
“Like sisters,” explained Rosamund, to some undefined but interested audience. “We’re more like sisters than cousins. The two families have seen so much of one another …”
Rosamund is lonely without Hope. She sits all day long in the window-seat, wishing that Hope would come. How touching that is! The two little girls run hand in hand away into the woods. Now the grown-ups can see that they are neither boys nor babies. They tell secrets. And the audience comprehends their charm: the interesting appeal of cousins who are really more like sisters.