Читать книгу The Unlit Lamp - Radclyffe Hall - Страница 16

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Over the immaculate lawn that stretched to the right of the house, came the white-clad manservant carrying a tray; the tea-table was laid under a big walnut tree. This was the sheltered side of the house, where, as the admiral would say, you could grow something besides seaweed. The old clipped yews were trim and cared for; peacocks and roosters and stately spirals. Between them the borders were bright with homely flowers. The admiral had found this garden when he bought the place; he had pulled down the old house to build his ship, but the garden he had taken upon himself as a sacred trust. In it he worked to kill the green fly and the caterpillar, and dreamed to keep memory alive. They sat down to tea; from the other side of a battlemented hedge came the whirring, sleepy sound of a mowing machine, someone was mowing the bowling green. They grew silent. A wasp tumbled into the milk jug; with great care the admiral pulled it out and let it crawl up his hand.

'Silly', he said reprovingly, 'silly creature!'

It paused in its painful milk-logged walk to stroke its bedraggled wings with its back legs, then it washed its face, ducking its jointed head. The old man watched it placidly, presently it flew away.

'It never said "Thank you", did it?' he laughed.

'No, but it didn't sting', said Joan.

'They never sting when you do them a good turn, and that's more than you can say of some people, Miss Joan.'

Tea over, they strolled through the garden; at the far end was a small low building designed to correspond with the house. 'What's that?' they asked him.

'We're coming to that', he answered. 'That's where the mice live.'

'Oh, may we see them, please let us see them all!' Joan implored. 'Of course you shall see them, that's what I brought you here for; there are dozens and dozens', he said proudly.

Inside the Mousery the smell was overpowering, but it is doubtful if any of the three noticed it. Down the centre of the single long room ran a brick path on either side of which were shelves three deep, divided into roomy sections.

The admiral stopped before one of them, 'Golden Agouti', he remarked.

He took hold of a rectangular box, the front of which was wired; very slyly he lifted a lid set into the top panel, and lowered the cage so that the children might look in. Inside, midway between floor and lid was a smaller box five inches long; a little hole at one end of this inner box gave access to the interior of the cage, and from it a miniature ladder slanted down to the sawdust strewn floor. In this box were a number of little heaving pink lumps, by the side of which crouched a brownish mouse. Her beady eyes peered up anxiously, while the whiskers on her muzzle trembled.

The admiral touched her gently with the tip of his little finger. 'She's a splendid doe', he said affectionately; 'a remarkably careful mother and not at all fussy!' He shut the door and replaced the cage. 'There's a fine pair here', he remarked, passing to a new section; 'what about that for colour!'

He put his hand into another cage and caught one of the occupants deftly by the tail. Holding the tail between his finger and thumb he let the mouse sprawl across the back of his other hand, slightly jerking the feet into position.

The children gazed. 'What colour is that?' they inquired.

'Chocolate', replied the admiral. 'I rather fancy the Self varieties, there's something so well-bred looking about them; for my part I don't think a mouse can show his figure if he's got a pied pelt on him, it detracts. Now this buck for instance, look at his great size, graceful too, very gracefully built, legs a little coarse perhaps, but an excellent tail, a perfect whipcord, no knots, no kinks, a lovely taper to the point!'

The mouse began to scramble. 'Gently, gently!' murmured the admiral, shaking it back into position.

He eyed it with approbation, then dropped it back into its cage, where it scurried up the ladder and vanished into its bedroom. They passed from cage to cage; into some he would only let them peep lest the does with young should get irritable; from others he withdrew the inmates, displaying them on his hand.

'Now this', he told them, catching a grey-blue mouse. 'This is worth your looking at carefully. Here we have a champion, Champion Blue Pippin. I won the Colour Cup with this fellow last year. Of course I grant you he's a good colour; very pure and rich, good deep tone too, and even, perfectly even, you notice.' He turned the mouse over deftly for a moment so that they might see for themselves that its stomach matched its back. 'But so clumsy', he continued. 'Did you ever see such a clumsy fellow? Then his ears are too small, though their texture is all right; and I always said he lacked boldness of eye; I never really cared for his eyes, there's something timid about them, not to be compared with Cocoa Nibs, that first buck you saw. But there it is, this fellow won his championship; of course I always say that Cary can't judge a mouse!'

Champion Blue Pippin was replaced in his cage; the admiral shook his finger at him where he sat grooming his whiskers against the bars.

'A good mouse', he told Joan confidentially. 'Very tame and affectionate as you see, but a champion, no never! As I told them at the National Mouse Club.'

They turned to the shelves on the other side. Here were the Pied and Dutch varieties.

'I don't care for them, as you know', said Admiral Bourne. 'Still I keep a few for luck, and they are rather pretty.'

He showed them the queer Dutch mice, half white, half coloured. Then the Variegated mice, their pelts white with minute streaks or dots of colour evenly distributed over body and head. There were black and tan mice and a bewildering assortment of the Pied variety which the admiral declared he disliked. Last of all, in a little cubicle by itself, was a larger cage-than any of the others, a kind of Mouse Palace. This cage contained a number of neat boxes, each with its ladder, and in addition to the ordinary outer compartment was a big bright wheel. Up and down the ladders ran the common little red-eyed white mice; while they watched them a couple sprang into the wheel and began turning it.

'Oh! The white mice that you buy at the Army and Navy!' said Milly in a disappointed voice.

'That's all', the admiral admitted. 'I just have this cage of them, you know, nice little chaps.' And then, as the children remained silent, 'You see, Olivia liked them; she used to say they were such friendly people.'

He spoke as though they had known Olivia intimately, as though he expected the children to say: 'Yes, of course, Olivia was so fond of animals!'

Reluctantly they left the Mousery and strolled towards the gates; three tired children, one of eleven, one of thirteen and one of sixty-eight. The sun was setting over the sea, it was very cool in the garden after the mousery.

The admiral turned to Joan. 'Come again', he said simply. 'Come very often, there may be some more young ones to show you soon.'

And so they parted on the road outside the gates. The children turned once to look back as they walked down the hill; Admiral Bourne was still standing in the road, looking after them.