Part 6

“They’ll find the door locked, and they’ll jolly well have to go back the way they came,” she remarked to herself. “Serves them right for not coming in by the proper entrance. What a pity Tarquin Superbus isn’t loose in the paddock. After all, as every one else is enjoying themselves, I don’t see why Tarquin shouldn’t have an afternoon out.”

Matilda was of an age when thought is action; she slid down from the branches of the medlar tree, and when she clambered back again Tarquin, the huge white Yorkshire boar-pig, had exchanged the narrow limits of his stye for the wider range of the grass paddock. The discomfited Stossen expedition, returning in recriminatory but otherwise orderly retreat from the unyielding obstacle of the locked door, came to a sudden halt at the gate dividing the paddock from the gooseberry garden.

“What a villainous-looking animal,” exclaimed Mrs. Stossen; “it wasn’t there when we came in.”

“It’s there now, anyhow,” said her daughter. “What on earth are we to do? I wish we had never come.”

The boar-pig had drawn nearer to the gate for a closer inspection of the human intruders, and stood champing his jaws and blinking his small red eyes in a manner that was doubtless intended to be disconcerting, and, as far as the Stossens were concerned, thoroughly achieved that result.

“Shoo! Hish! Hish! Shoo!” cried the ladies in chorus.

“If they think they’re going to drive him away by reciting lists of the kings of Israel and Judah they’re laying themselves out for disappointment,” observed Matilda from her seat in the medlar tree. As she made the observation aloud Mrs. Stossen became for the first time aware of her presence. A moment or two earlier she would have been anything but pleased at the discovery that the garden was not as deserted as it looked, but now she hailed the fact of the child’s presence on the scene with absolute relief.

“Little girl, can you find some one to drive away—” she began hopefully.

“Comment? Comprends pas,” was the response.

“Oh, are you French? Êtes vous française?”

“Pas de tous. ’Suis anglaise.”

“Then why not talk English? I want to know if—”

“Permettez-moi expliquer. You see, I’m rather under a cloud,” said Matilda. “I’m staying with my aunt, and I was told I must behave particularly well to-day, as lots of people were coming for a garden party, and I was told to imitate Claude, that’s my young cousin, who never does anything wrong except by accident, and then is always apologetic about it. It seems they thought I ate too much raspberry trifle at lunch, and they said Claude never eats too much raspberry trifle. Well, Claude always goes to sleep for half an hour after lunch, because he’s told to, and I waited till he was asleep, and tied his hands and started forcible feeding with a whole bucketful of raspberry trifle that they were keeping for the garden-party. Lots of it went on to his sailor-suit and some of it on to the bed, but a good deal went down Claude’s throat, and they can’t say again that he has never been known to eat too much raspberry trifle. That is why I am not allowed to go to the party, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all the afternoon. I’ve had to tell you all this in English, as there were words like ‘forcible feeding’ that I didn’t know the French for; of course I could have invented them, but if I had said nourriture obligatoire you wouldn’t have had the least idea what I was talking about. Mais maintenant, nous parlons français.”

“Oh, very well, trés bien,” said Mrs. Stossen reluctantly; in moments of flurry such French as she knew was not under very good control. “Là, à l’autre côté de la porte, est un cochon—”

“Un cochon? Ah, le petit charmant!” exclaimed Matilda with enthusiasm.

“Mais non, pas du tout petit, et pas du tout charmant; un bête féroce—”

“Une bête,” corrected Matilda; “a pig is masculine as long as you call it a pig, but if you lose your temper with it and call it a ferocious beast it becomes one of us at once. French is a dreadfully unsexing language.”

“For goodness’ sake let us talk English then,” said Mrs. Stossen. “Is there any way out of this garden except through the paddock where the pig is?”

“I always go over the wall, by way of the plum tree,” said Matilda.

“Dressed as we are we could hardly do that,” said Mrs. Stossen; it was difficult to imagine her doing it in any costume.

“Do you think you could go and get some one who would drive the pig away?” asked Miss Stossen.

“I promised my aunt I would stay here till five o’clock; it’s not four yet.”

“I am sure, under the circumstances, your aunt would permit—”

“My conscience would not permit,” said Matilda with cold dignity.

“We can’t stay here till five o’clock,” exclaimed Mrs. Stossen with growing exasperation.

“Shall I recite to you to make the time pass quicker?” asked Matilda obligingly. “‘Belinda, the little Breadwinner,’ is considered my best piece, or, perhaps, it ought to be something in French. Henri Quatre’s address to his soldiers is the only thing I really know in that language.”

“If you will go and fetch some one to drive that animal away I will give you something to buy yourself a nice present,” said Mrs. Stossen.

Matilda came several inches lower down the medlar tree.