Читать книгу The Raft - Coningsby Dawson - Страница 13

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“What a fright you give me! I thought your peepers ‘ad been glued tight for hours h’and hours.”

“Has she come? Has she come? Did a lady-angel bring her?”

“Lor’ bless the boy, he’s dreamin’! Now lie down, little Round Tummy. Grice won’t be long; then she’ll hold you in ‘er arms all comfy.”

“But Grace, she’s downstairs, a teeny weeny one—just big enough for Peter to carry.”

“Now, look ‘ere, you just stop it, Master Peter. It’s no time for talkin’; you’ll ‘ear soon enough. You and your teeny weeny ones!”

Peter lay down, his little heart choking. Why wouldn’t Grace tell him?

“But, Grace———”

“Shut up. I’m a-sayin’ of me prayers.”

In the morning the hushed suspense still hung about the house. When he raised his piping voice, Grace shook him roughly. At breakfast his father’s brows were puckered—he wasn’t a bit happy like the funny man. When the table had been cleared, he laid aside his paper and sat Peter on his knee before him. “Something happened last night, sonny. You’ve got a little brother.”

“Not a sister, Daddy?”

Peter cried at that; no wonder they were all so sad. “But we asked God for a sister partickerlarly.”

All day as he played in a whisper by himself, he tried to think things out. God had become confused at the last moment, or the angel had: the wrong baby had been brought to their house. But where was the right one?

That evening the angel remembered his error and took the baby back.

Peter was being undressed for bed and Grace was crying terribly. She had just slipped him into his long, pink nightgown when his father came in hurriedly. He caught him up, wrapping a blanket round him and ran with him downstairs. The door of the room which he had watched all day was opened by a man in black. The room was in darkness, save for a shaded lamp. There were several people present; all of them whispered and walked on tiptoe. He raised himself up in his father’s arms. On the bed his mother lay weak and listless; her eyes were blue and vacant. She seemed to have shrunk and tears stole down her cheeks unheeded. Her hair seemed heavy for her head and lay across the pillow in two broad plaits. In her arms was a little bundle. The man in black commenced to talk huskily. No one answered; everyone listened to what he said. Suddenly he stooped to take the bundle from his mother, but her arms tightened. “I’ll keep him as long as God lets me.”

So the man drew aside the wrappings; Peter saw the face of a tiny stranger already tired of the world. The man in black spoke some words more loudly and touched the stranger’s face with water. Peter shuddered; it was cruel to wet his face like that. They all stood silent in the shadows—all except Peter, who cuddled against his father’s shoulder. Someone said, “He’s gone,” and the sobbing commenced.

That night Peter slept in his mother’s bedroom—she would have it. She seemed frightened that an angel so careless might carry him away as well. So they set up his cot by the side of her bed; as she lay on her pillows she could watch him.

Mummikins got happy slowly; she seemed disappointed in God. Gradually Peter learnt that, although the baby had been left at the wrong house, they had given him a name and had called him Philip. But the old question worried Peter—the one which no one seemed able to answer: where was the sister God had meant to send and which his father had promised? Since everyone treated him with reticence, he took the matter up with God himself. Often, when his mother bent above him and thought him sleeping, he was talking with God inside his head. As a result the strange thing happened.

In his room, to the left of his bed, was a large powder-cupboard, even in the day-time full of shadows. One night he had been praying out loud to himself, but his voice was growing weary and his eyelids kept falling. As he lay there, coming from the cupboard, very softly, very distant, he heard a sound of whistling. It was a little air, happy and haunting, trilled over and over. He sat up and listened, not at all frightened. He thrust himself up with his elbows, his head bent forward, in listening ecstasy. His father could whistle, but not like that. A man’s whistling was shrill and strong. This was gentle and glad, like a violin played high up—ah yes, like his mother’s whistling. Then, somehow, he knew that a girl’s lips formed that sound.

He slipped out of bed in the darkness and tiptoed to the cupboard. He opened the door; it stopped.

When he was safe in bed it again commenced, as though it were saying, “I’m coming. I’m coming, little Peterkins. Don’t be impatient.”

It was trying to say more than that, and he racked his brains to understand. When he lay quiet and was almost asleep, the picture formed. He saw a girl-angel, standing in a garden, watching God at his work. And what was God doing? He was making a little sister for Peter, stitching her together. And every time the angel stopped whistling, God’s needle dropped. And every time she recommenced, God laughed and plucked feathers from her softy wings to make garments for the little sister. Peter named her the Whistling Angel. One day, when she and God were ready, she would bring his little sister to him.

The last thing he heard, as his sleepy eyes closed on the pillow, was that happy haunting little air, like a tune played high up on a violin, faintly, faintly.

“I’m coming. I’m coming, little Peterkins. Don’t be impatient.”

It was like the rustle of wind in an angel’s wings who had already set out on the journey.