Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/241

242 else I have, I won't have fits. And, whatever we do, the servants will give us away."

"Perhaps they won't.

Don't look at me in that wild way, Luce. Wash your face for goodness' sake, and comb your hair out—it looks as if you hadn't any. Make yourself look pretty again whatever happens."

"Oh, flattery's no good," said Lucilla bitterly. "I feel as if I were caught in a trap."

"Look here," said Jane, "shall we say our Aunt Harriet is subject to fits—not kicking and screaming ones, mild aberrations—and generally keeps in her room? And lock one of the rooms and chance the servants?"

"And have people think I was a howling animal like the woman in 'Jane Eyre'—yes, her name was Rochester, too—not much!"

"They wouldn't all think so. Mr. Rochester knows. Don't kill me—I had to tell him."

But Lucilla seemed somehow calmer. Jane pursued her advantage.

"I could tell Mr. Dix too, if you liked."

"Bother Mr, Dix."

"He likes you very much. He's always asking where's Miss Craye."

"I'm interested in gardening, and he knows it. Don't try to hint things, Jane. You are only trying to make me angry on another side to distract my attention from that." She pointed to the wig. "But it won't do. There will Miss Quested be, all smiles and charms in her pretty frock. And Miss Craye? Oh, she's not at home this evening. And all the time she'll be here under these hot wigs and eyebrows, having no fun at all."

This was indeed what happened. Think as they would,