What surprised the Professor himself, when he came to think of it, was that, left alone with Malvina, and in spite of all the circumstances, he felt neither embarrassment nor perplexity. It was as if, so far as they two were concerned, the whole thing was quite simple--almost humorous. It would be the other people who would have to worry.
The little serving maid was hovering about the garden. She was evidently curious and trying to get a peep. Mrs. Muldoon's voice could be heard calling to her from the kitchen. There was this question of clothes.
"You haven't brought anything with you?" asked the Professor." I mean, in the way of a frock of any sort."
Malvina, with a smile, gave a little gesture. It implied that all there was of her and hers stood before him.
"We shall have to find you something," said the Professor.
"Something in which you can go about--"
The Professor had intended to say "our world," but hesitated, not feeling positive at the moment to which he himself belonged;
Malvina's or Mrs. Muldoon's. So he made it "the" world instead.
Another gesture conveyed to him that Malvina was entirely in his hands.
"What really have you got on?" asked the Professor. "I mean underneath. Is it anything possible--for a day or two?"
Now Commander Raffleton, for some reason of his own not at all clear to Malvina, had forbidden the taking off of the coat. But had said nothing about undoing it. So by way of response Malvina undid it.
Upon which the Professor, to Malvina's surprise, acted precisely as Commander Raffleton had done. That is to say, he hastily re-closed the coat, returning the buttons to their buttonholes.
The fear may have come to Malvina that she was doomed never to be rid of Commander Raffleton's coat.
"I wonder," mused the Professor, "if anyone in the village--" The little serving maid flittering among the gooseberry bushes--she was pretending to be gathering goose-berries--caught the Professor's eye.
"We will consult my chatelaine, Mrs. Muldoon," suggested the Professor. "I think we shall be able to manage."
The Professor tendered Malvina his arm. With her other hand she gathered up the skirts of the Commander's coat.
"I think," said the Professor with a sudden inspiration as they passed through the garden, "I think I shall explain to Mrs. Muldoon that you have just come straight from a fancy-dress ball."
They found Mrs. Muldoon in the kitchen. A less convincing story than that by which the Professor sought to account to Mrs. Muldoon for the how and the why of Malvina it would be impossible to imagine. Mrs. Muldoon out of sheer kindness appears to have cut him short.
"I'll not be asking ye any questions," said Mrs. Muldoon, "so there'll be no need for ye to imperil your immortal soul. If ye'll just give a thought to your own appearance and leave the colleen to me and Drusilla, we'll make her maybe a bit dacent.
The reference to his own appearance disconcerted the Professor. He had not anticipated, when hastening into his dressing gown and slippers and not bothering about his socks, that he was on his way to meet the chief lady-in-waiting of Queen Harbundia. Demanding that shaving water should be immediately sent up to him, he appears to have retired into the bathroom.
It was while he was shaving that Mrs. Muldoon, knocking at the door, demanded to speak to him. From her tone the Professor came to the conclusion that the house was on fire. He opened the door, and Mrs.
Muldoon, seeing he was respectable, slipped in and closed it behind her.
"Where did ye find her? How did she get here?" demanded Mrs.
Muldoon. Never before had the Professor seen Mrs. Muldoon other than a placid, good-humoured body. She was trembling from head to foot.
"I told you," explained the Professor. "Young Arthur--"
"I'm not asking ye what ye told me," interrupted Mrs. Muldoon. "I'm asking ye for the truth, if ye know it."
The Professor put a chair for Mrs. Muldoon, and Mrs. Muldoon dropped down upon it.
"What's the matter?" questioned the Professor. "What's happened?"
Mrs. Muldoon glanced round her, and her voice was an hysterical whisper.
"It's no mortal woman ye've brought into the house," said Mrs.
Muldoon. "It's a fairy."
Whether up to that moment the Professor had really believed Malvina's story, or whether lurking at the back of his mind there had all along been an innate conviction that the thing was absurd, the Professor himself is now unable to say. To the front of the Professor lay Oxford--political economy, the higher criticism, the rise and progress of rationalism. Behind him, fading away into the dim horizon of humanity, lay an unmapped land where for forty years he had loved to wander; a spirit-haunted land of buried mysteries, lost pathways, leading unto hidden gates of knowledge.
And now upon the trembling balance descended Mrs. Muldoon plump.
"How do you know?" demanded the Professor.
"Shure, don't I know the mark?" replied Mrs. Muldoon almost contemptuously. "Wasn't my own sister's child stolen away the very day of its birth and in its place--"
The little serving maid tapped at the door.
Mademoiselle was "finished." What was to be done with her?
"Don't ask me," protested Mrs. Muldoon, still in a terrified whisper. "I couldn't do it. Not if all the saints were to go down upon their knees and pray to me."
Common-sense argument would not have prevailed with Mrs. Muldoon.
The Professor felt that; added to which he had not any handy. He directed, through the door, that "Mademoiselle" should be shown into the dining-room, and listened till Drusilla's footsteps had died away.
"Have you ever heard of the White Ladies?" whispered the Professor to Mrs. Muldoon.
There was not much in the fairy line, one takes it, that Mrs.
Muldoon had not heard of and believed. Was the Professor sure?
The Professor gave Mrs. Muldoon his word of honour as a gentleman.
The "White Ladies," as Mrs. Muldoon was of course aware, belonged to the "good people." Provided nobody offended her there was nothing to fear.
