Читать книгу The Raft - Coningsby Dawson - Страница 19

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The bettering of Mr. Waffles marked the beginning of that intimate and freakish association which was to shape the careers of the children of both families. Though their relationship was distant and in the case of Glory non-existent, they had been taught to regard one another as cousins. As yet they had met so occasionally and so briefly that they had not worn off the distrust, half-shy, half-hostile, which is the common attitude of children toward strangers. From now on they were to enter increasingly into one another’s lives.

Though Barrington had said that it would be fun for Kay and Peter to have Jehane’s children to play with in the garden and Nan had assented, neither of them had undertaken to tell Kay and Peter. They had promised them a surprise—that was all. Truth to tell, they had their doubts about Peter and how he would receive their information; his jealous air of proprietorship regarding his little sister gave them moments of puzzled uneasiness.

Years ago, before Kay was born, the doctor had told them, “He’s an imaginative child. Oh dear no, he’s quite well. He’ll grow out of it.” But he hadn’t. He stood by her always, as if he were a wall between her and some threatened danger. He was not happy away from her; his life seemed locked up in her life. His tenderness for her was beyond his years—beautiful and mysterious. In the midst of his play he would still raise his head suddenly, listening and expectant.

He was odd and gentle in many ways; to his mother his oddness was both frightening and endearing. Cookie shook her head over him and sighed, “ ‘E’s far away from this old world h’already. I doubt ‘e’ll never grow up to man-’ood.”

And Grace would reply sharply, “Wot rot!” But she would wipe her eye.

He had a habit of asking questions before guests with startling directness—asking them with big innocent eyes; they were questions for which his mother felt bound to apologize: “He’s so imaginative; for many years he was our only child.”

Peter, wondering wherein he had done wrong, would sidle up to her when the guests were gone, inquiring, “Mummy, what is a ‘maginative child?”

His father, when he heard him, would laugh: “Now, Peter, don’t be Peterish or you’ll make us all cry.”

So they did not tell him when his cousins were expected.

He was in the garden, on the grass beneath the cedar, with Kay curled against him. He was telling her stories—his own inventions. On the wall, partly hidden in creepers, basking in the sunshine, blinking down on them through slits of eyes, was a great gray tabby. The tabby was the subject of the story. One day, returning along the Terrace he had found her. Her bones were poking through her fur: she was evidently a stray. He had stopped to stroke her and she had followed. After being fed on the doorstep, she refused to set off on her wanderings again. Whenever the door opened, she entered like a streak of lightning. She was determined to be adopted; though cook had broomed her on to the pavement many times, she was not to be dissuaded by any harshness of refusal. It was almost as though she knew that Kay and Peter were her eager advocates.

With a cat so determined there was only one thing to do; take her out and lose her. So she was captured by feigned kindness and tied in a fish-basket; Grace was given a shilling and the fish-basket with instructions to go on a trip to Hampstead and to leave the fish-basket behind. Now, whether it was that Grace was more kind-hearted than her statements, or whether it was that she preferred the company of her policeman to the fulfilling of her errand, the fact remains that the cat got back before her. An incredible performance if the basket had really been left at Hampstead! Grace was circumstantial in the account she gave; there was nothing for it but to accept her word that a cat had traveled more swiftly than a train.

Stern methods were employed. Doors were closed against the cat; things were thrown at it. It was encouraged to go hungry. The children were forbidden to call it.

One morning Peter jumped out of bed and ran to the window attracted by a strange noise. Looking down into the garden, he saw a flurry of fur careering across flowerbeds till it was brought up sharply against the wall with a bang. The bang was caused by a salmon-tin, in which the cat had got its head fastened while foraging in a garbage-pail. Before he could go to its rescue, cook came out with her hostile broom and commenced the chase. The cat, blinded and maddened, by a miracle of agility climbed a tree, leapt into a neighboring garden and vanished.

A week later it returned, with a ring about its neck where the jagged edges of the tin had torn it. Such persistence and loyalty of affection were not to be thwarted. At first the animal was tolerated; then, as its manners and appearance improved, it was taken into the family. Because of its adventures, when a name had to be chosen, Peter’s father suggested Romance. When Romance gave birth to kittens, they were named after various of the novelists.

The history of Romance, where she went and what she did, was a story which Kay was never tired of hearing, nor Peter of telling. Blinking down from the wall on this sunshiny morning, Romance listened with contented pride to the children, much as an old soldier might whose campaigning days were ended.

“And what did putty say when Gwacie twied to lost her?”

The ‘maginative child was about to answer, when his mother came out under the mulberry: “Peter. Kay. Oh, there you are! Here’s your surprise.”

For a day or two, while the cousins were a novelty, there was nothing but laughter and delight; but when Peter understood that their visit was of undetermined length, he began to regard their coming as an intrusion. Kay and Eustace were of the same age and naturally chose one another as playmates. Eustace was a fat, dull boy, prone to tears, with his mother’s black eyes and handsome hair, and his father’s coaxing ways. He was only four, but he had it in his power to make Peter, aged ten, wretched; for Kay developed a will of her own, and cared no more for Peterish stories now that she could have Eustace for her slave.

So Peter was left to Riska and Glory. His old games for two were useless; he had to think up fresh inventions in which three might partake. He had no heart for it; Grace came to the rescue with pious hints from the Bible.

In the stable by a disused tank, they would enact Jacob’s wooing of Rachel; the tank was the well at which Jacob met her and Romance was the sheep brought down to be watered—she was, when they could catch her. But the game nearly always ended in flushed cheeks and protesting voices. Riska would insist on being Rachel, leaving Glory the undesired part of Leah, who was sore of eye. Of his two girl-cousins Peter preferred Glory; Riska was too high-tempered and stormy. So, when he had served for Rachel seven years and instead had won Leah, he not infrequently was content to stop, setting Bible history at defiance.

One evening his father, walking beneath the pear-trees, heard voices in the empty stable. “I won’t. I won’t,” in stubborn tones. “But you shall, you shall,” in a passionate wail.

He opened the door in the wall quietly. Glory was sitting on the ground, placid eyed, watching a hot-faced little boy who held off a small girl-cousin, fiercely determined to embrace him. When matters had been sullenly explained, Barrington drew his son to him: “If a lady asks you to kiss her, you should do it. It’s Peterish not to. But polygamy always ends in a cry. It’s better not to play at it.”

Then came the inevitable question: “What is polgigamy, father?”

Grace was asked for a fresh suggestion; the result was Samson and Delilah. To Peter’s way of thinking Riska was quite suited to the rôle of Delilah. Too well suited! In revenge, before he could stop her, she cut off Peter’s hair at the game’s first playing.

During her stay at Topbury she committed many such offences. She was a lawless little creature, strong of character, a wilful wisp of a child, and extraordinarily like Jehane. Her fragile eager face, with its coral mouth and soft dark eyes, could change from demure prettiness to a flame of anger the moment she was thwarted. Yet, smiling or stormy, her small-boned body and long black curls made her always beautiful—a wild and destructive kind of beauty. From the first she claimed Peter as her sole possession, and Peter—— Well, Peter did his best politely to avoid her.

Glory was his favorite, though he often seemed to ignore her. She was the opposite to her half-sister in both appearance and temper. She had nothing of Jehane in her; nor did she resemble her soldier father. She was oddly like to Kay and to a man whom her mother had desired with all her heart. It was strange.

She was gray-eyed and her hair was of a primrose shade. She was tall for her age—taller than Peter—and carried herself with sweet and subdued quietness. She said very little and had submissive ways. Her actions spoke loudly for anyone she loved. They spoke loudly for Peter; but he scarcely observed them. His eyes were all for Kay. Glory was like his shadow stealing after him across the sunlight through that month of June. Her hand was always slipping shyly into his from behind. And she understood his love for his sister, accepting it without question.

She would go to her small half-brother, “Come along Eustace; Glory wants to show you something.”

“But Eustace wanth to play wiv Kay.”

“Eustace can play with Kay directly. Just come with Glory, there’s a dear little boy.”

She would nod to Peter knowingly, and smile to him, leading Eustace away and leaving him alone with Kay.

He could fill her eyes with tears at the least show of irritation; her persistent following did irritate him sometimes. Once, cross because she followed, he told her to sit on the stable wall and not to move till he said she might. Tea-time came and there was no Glory. They searched the house for her and went out into the garden, calling. Not till Peter called did she answer; then he remembered why. He remembered years after the forlornness of that tear-stained face. It was Peterish of him to forget Glory, and to remember her almost too late.

Nan, sitting sewing in the quiet sunlight, would often drop her work to watch the children. She noticed how they kept together, yet always a little separate, acting out the clash of temperaments which they had inherited from their parents. And she noticed increasingly something else—something which she never mentioned and which explained Jehane to her: that astonishing likeness of Glory to Kay, as though they had been sisters.

She would call Glory to her and, as the child sat at her feet, would say, “Do you like Peter, darling?”

The honest eyes would be lifted to her own in affirmation.

“Very much?”

“Very much, Auntie.”

The girlish hand would slip into her own and presently a faltering voice would whisper, “But he doesn’t like me always. I worry him sometimes.”

Nan would call to Peter, “Glory’s tired of sitting with mother. She wants her little tyrant.”

As they wandered away across the lawn, she would follow them with her eyes.

“I hope Jehane’s good to her,” she said to Barrington. “Seems to be, in her jealous way.”

“She’s a nice child.”

“Nicer than Riska or Eustace. That’s thanks to Captain Spashett.”

“Ah, yes,” Nan would say.

Mr. Waffles, having moved his belongings to Sandport, came to fetch the intruders. Peter watched them depart with a sense of relief; now things would settle back into their old groove.

In July the house at Topbury was closed and the Barringtons went for their holiday to North Wales. The servants were sent to their homes, with the exception of Grace. Summer holidays were ecstatic times of fishing-rods and old clothes, when parents put aside their busy manners, broke rules and played truant. This particular holiday was made additionally adventurous by a tandem tricycle, on which Peter was allowed to accompany his father when his mother was too tired, trying to catch the pedals with his short legs or riding on the pedals away from the saddle, when his father was not looking.

He was his father’s companion many hours of each day, for Nan was often tired. His father had plentiful opportunities for judging just how ‘maginative was his child.

One morning, on going down to bathe, the sea was rough and Peter, reluctant to enter and still more reluctant to own it, made the excuse that he was frightened of treading on a dead sailor.

Peter, after hearing a sermon at the village chapel, grew profoundly sorry for the Devil. It seemed so dreadful to have to burn for ever and ever. He made a secret promise to God that he would take the Devil’s place. Then he thought it over for some days in horror; he had been too generous—he wanted to go back on his bargain. His mother found him crying one night; she suspected that he had been sleeping little by the dark blue rings under his eyes. She coaxed him, and he told her.

Another sign of his ‘maginativeness was his anxiety to know whether cows had souls.

“That boy thinks too much,” said his father; “he needs to rough and tumble with other boys of his own age. At ten his worst trouble should be tummy-ache.”

Nan smiled. “But Peter’s different, you know.”

“I know. But, if he’s to grow up strong, he must change. Little woman, I don’t like it.”

“Billy boy, I sometimes think it’s our doing, yours and mine. When we put toys in the empty nursery before he was born, before he was thought of, we were making him a ‘maginative child.”

“The sins of the parents, eh?”

“Not that. The love of the parents shall be visited upon the children unto the third and——”

“Pepperminta, you know more about God and Peter and love than I do. You’re right, and you’re always right. How is it that you learn so much by sitting so quiet?”

Matters came to a head through Kay. In the cottage where they stayed, Peter slept with her in the same bed, in a narrow room beneath a sloping roof. She was nervous to be left alone there—it was so dark, so far away, so strange; Peter, a willing martyr, went to bed with her at the same time. Lying awake in the dark or twilight, he would tell her stories.

“Listening, Kay?”

“Yeth,” in a little drowsy voice.

As she grew more sleepy she would snuggle closer with her lips against his face, till at last he knew by her regular breathing that his audience was indifferent to his wildest fancies.

One evening his parents returned from a ride and, entering the house, heard a stifled sobbing.

“What’s that?”

“Must be the children.”

“You wait here, Nan. I’ll go up and quiet them.”

“No, I’ll come, up too.”

As they climbed the stairs and reached the landing, they made out words which were in the wailing: “I don’t want to be a dead ‘un. I don’t want to be a dead ‘un.”

It was Kay’s voice. Peter, leaning over her, was whispering frightened comfort.

When Nan and Billy had taken them in their arms and lit the candle, the tragedy was explained. Peter had been enlarging on the magnificence of heaven and the beauties of the future life. Things went well until Kay realized that there was no direct communication by trains or buses between heaven and her parents. She didn’t want to go there. Its magnificence, unshared by anyone she loved, was terrifying. She didn’t want to be a dead ‘un. She kept repeating it in spite of Peter’s best efforts at consolation.

It was some time before it was safe to blow the candle out and leave them. Death was very imminent in their minds.

Downstairs, when it was all over, Billy looked across at Nan, his brow puckered with annoyance and his lips twitching with laughter. “That decides it.”

“Decides! How? What does it decide?”

“Something that I’ve thought of for a long time. Peter’s too imaginative. He’s not a good companion for Kay.”

“How can you say that? We all know how gentle he is with her.”

“That’s just it. It’s good for neither of them. Now that Jehane and Ocky are at Sandport it makes things easier; they can keep an eye on him.”

“An eye on Peter!”

Billy leant across the table, turning down the lamp and turning it up again. He was gaining time. “It’s for his own good. You don’t suppose I like it. It’ll be hard for all of us.” He spoke huskily.

Nan plucked at the table-cloth. She was almost angry. “You mean that you want to send him to school at Sand-port—send my little Peterkins away?”

“Sandport’s famous for its schools.”

“But Billy, you couldn’t be so cruel. He’s so young and sensitive. His heart would break.”

“Rubbish. I was sent to boarding-school when I was eight. I’ve survived.”

“You! You were different—but Peter!”

She voiced the common fallacy of mothers, that their husbands as boys were of coarser fibre than their children. She bowed her head on her arms beneath the lamp and cried. Her little Peter to be thrust out and made lonely, simply because he had too much imagination! It was cruel!