She stood on the other side of the garden fence, and regarded me gravely
as I came down the road. Then she said, “Hi--o!” and I responded,
“Hullo!” and pulled up somewhat nervously.
To tell the truth, the encounter was not entirely unexpected on my part.
The previous Sunday I had seen her in church, and after service it had
transpired who she was, this new-comer, and what aunt she was staying
with. That morning a volunteer had been called for, to take a note to
the Parsonage, and rather to my own surprise I had found myself stepping
forward with alacrity, while the others had become suddenly absorbed in
various pursuits, or had sneaked unobtrusively out of view. Certainly
I had not yet formed any deliberate plan of action; yet I suppose I
recollected that the road to the Parsonage led past her aunt's garden.
She began the conversation, while I hopped backwards and forwards over
the ditch, feigning a careless ease.
“Saw you in church on Sunday,” she said; “only you looked different
then. All dressed up, and your hair quite smooth, and brushed up at the
sides, and oh, so shiny! What do they put on it to make it shine like
that? Don't you hate having your hair brushed?” she ran on, without
waiting for an answer. “How your boots squeaked when you came down the
aisle! When mine squeak, I walk in all the puddles till they stop. Think
I'll get over the fence.”
This she proceeded to do in a businesslike way, while, with my hands
deep In my pockets, I regarded her movements with silent interest, as
those of some strange new animal.
“I've been gardening,” she explained, when she had joined me, “but I
didn't like it. There's so many worms about to-day. I hate worms. Wish
they'd keep out of the way when I'm digging.”
“Oh, I like worms when I'm digging,” I replied heartily, “seem to make
things more lively, don't they?”
She reflected. “Shouldn't mind 'em so much if they were warm and dry,”
she said, “but--” here she shivered, and somehow I liked her for it,
though if it had been my own flesh and blood hoots of derision would
have instantly assailed her.
From worms we passed, naturally enough, to frogs, and thence to pigs,
aunts, gardeners, rocking-horses, and other fellow-citizens of our
common kingdom. In five minutes we had each other's confidences, and
I seemed to have known her for a lifetime. Somehow, on the subject of
one's self it was easier to be frank and communicative with her than
with one's female kin. It must be, I supposed, because she was less
familiar with one's faulty, tattered past.
“I was watching you as you came along the road,” she said presently,
“and you had your head down and your hands in your pockets, and you
weren't throwing stones at anything, or whistling, or jumping over
things; and I thought perhaps you'd bin scolded, or got a stomachache.”
“No,” I answered shyly, “it wasn't that. Fact is, I was--I often--but
it's a secret.”
There I made an error in tactics. That enkindling word set her dancing
round me, half beseeching, half imperious. “Oh, do tell it me!” she
cried. “You must! I'll never tell anyone else at all, I vow and declare
I won't!”
Her small frame wriggled with emotion, and with imploring eyes
she jigged impatiently just in front of me. Her hair was tumbled
bewitchingly on her shoulders, and even the loss of a front tooth--a
loss incidental to her age--seemed but to add a piquancy to her face.
“You won't care to hear about it,” I said, wavering. “Besides, I can't
explain exactly. I think I won't tell you.” But all the time I knew I
should have to.
“But I do care,” she wailed plaintively. “I didn't think you'd be so
unkind!”
This would never do. That little downward tug at either corner of the
mouth--I knew the symptom only too well!
“It 's like this,” I began stammeringly. “This bit of road here--up as
far as that corner--you know it 's a horrid dull bit of road. I'm always
having to go up and down it, and I know it so well, and I'm so sick of
it. So whenever I get to that corner, I just--well, I go right off to
another place!”
“What sort of a place?” she asked, looking round her gravely.
“Of course it's just a place I imagine,” I went on hurriedly and rather
shamefacedly: “but it's an awfully nice place--the nicest place you ever
saw. And I always go off there in church, or during joggraphy lessons.”
“I'm sure it's not nicer than my home,” she cried patriotically. “Oh,
you ought to see my home--it 's lovely! We've got--”
“Yes it is, ever so much nicer,” I interrupted. “I mean”--I went on
apologetically--“of course I know your home's beautiful and all that.
But this must be nicer, 'cos if you want anything at all, you've only
got to want it, and you can have it!”
“That sounds jolly,” she murmured. “Tell me more about it, please. Tell
me how you get there, first.”
“I--don't--quite--know--exactly,” replied. “I just go. But generally
it begins by--well, you're going up a broad, clear river in a sort of
a boat. You're not rowing or anything--you're just moving along. And
there's beautiful grass meadows on both sides, and the river's very
full, quite up to the level of the grass. And you glide along by the
edge. And the people are haymaking there, and playing games, and walking
about; and they shout to you, and you shout back to them, and they bring
you things to eat out of their baskets, and let you drink out of their
bottles; and some of 'em are the nice people you read about in books.
And so at last you come to the Palace steps--great broad marble steps,
reaching right down to the water. And there at the steps you find every
sort of boat you can imagine--schooners, and punts, and row-boats, and
little men-of-war. And you have any sort of boating you want to--rowing,
or sailing, or shoving about in a punt!”
“I'd go sailing,” she said decidedly: “and I 'd steer. No, you'd have to
steer, and I'd sit about on the deck. No, I wouldn't though; I'd row--at
least I'd make you row, and I'd steer. And then we'd--Oh, no! I'll tell
you what we do! We'd just sit in a punt and dabble!”
“Of course we'll do just what you like,” I said hospitably; but already
I was beginning to feel my liberty of action somewhat curtailed by this
exigent visitor I had so rashly admitted into my sanctum.
“I don't think we'd boat at all,” she finally decided. “It's always so
wobbly. Where do you come to next?”
“You go up the steps,” I continued, “and in at the door, and the very
first place you come to is the Chocolate-room!”
She brightened up at this, and I heard her murmur with gusto,
“Chocolate-room!”
“It's got every sort of chocolate you can think of,” I went on: “soft
chocolate, with sticky stuff inside, white and pink, what girls like;
and hard shiny chocolate, that cracks when you bite it, and takes such a
nice long time to suck!”
“I like the soft stuff best,” she said: “'cos you can eat such a lot
more of it!” This was to me a new aspect of the chocolate question, and
I regarded her with interest and some respect. With us, chocolate was
none too common a thing, and, whenever we happened to come by any, we
resorted to the quaintest devices in order to make it last out. Still,
legends had reached us of children who actually had, from time to time,
as much chocolate as they could possibly eat; and here, apparently, was
one of them.
“You can have all the creams,” I said magnanimously, “and I'll eat the
hard sticks, 'cos I like 'em best.”
“Oh, but you mustn't!” she cried impetuously. “You must eat the same as
I do! It isn't nice to want to eat different. I'll tell you what--you
must give me all the chocolate, and then I'll give you--I'll give you
what you ought to have!”
“Oh, all right,” I said, in a subdued sort of way. It seemed a little
hard to be put under a sentimental restriction like this in one s own
Chocolate-room.
“In the next room you come to,” I proceeded, “there's fizzy drinks!
There's a marble-slab business all round the room, and little silver
taps; and you just turn the right tap, and have any kind of fizzy drink
you want.”
“What fizzy drinks are there?” she inquired.
“Oh, all sorts,” I answered hastily, hurrying on. (She might restrict
my eatables, but I'd be hanged if I was going to have her meddle with my
drinks.) “Then you go down the corridor, and at the back of the palace
there's a great big park--the finest park you ever saw. And there's
ponies to ride on, and carriages and carts; and a little railway, all
complete, engine and guard's van and all; and you work it yourself, and
you can go first-class, or in the van, or on the engine, just whichever
you choose.”
“I'd go on the engine,” she murmured dreamily. “No, I wouldn't, I'd--”
“Then there 's all the soldiers,” I struck in. Really the line had to be
drawn somewhere, and I could not have my railway system disorganized and
turned upside down by a mere girl. “There's any quantity of 'em, fine
big soldiers, and they all belong to me. And a row of brass cannons all
along the terrace! And every now and then I give the order, and they
fire off all the guns!”
“No, they don't,” she interrupted hastily. “I won't have 'em fire off
any guns You must tell 'em not to. I hate guns, and as soon as they
begin firing I shall run right away!”
“But--but that 's what they're there for,” I protested, aghast
“I don't care,” she insisted. “They mustn't do it. They can walk about
behind me if they like, and talk to me, and carry things. But they
mustn't fire off any guns.”
I was sadly conscious by this time that in this brave palace of mine,
wherein I was wont to swagger daily, irresponsible and unquestioned, I
was rapidly becoming--so to speak--a mere lodger. The idea of my fine
big soldiers being told off to “carry things”! I was not inclined to
tell her any more, though there still remained plenty more to tell.
“Any other boys there?” she asked presently, in a casual sort of way.
“Oh yes,” I unguardedly replied. “Nice chaps, too. We'll have great--”
Then I recollected myself. “We'll play with them, of course,” I went on.
“But you are going to be my friend, aren't you? And you'll come in my
boat, and we'll travel in the guard's van together, and I'll stop the
soldiers firing off their guns!” But she looked mischievously away,
and--do what I would--I could not get her to promise.
Just then the striking of the village clock awoke within me another
clamorous timepiece, reminding me of mid-day mutton a good half-mile
away, and of penalties and curtailments attaching to a late appearance.
We took a hurried farewell of each other, and before we parted I got
from her an admission that she might be gardening again that afternoon,
if only the worms would be less aggressive and give her a chance.
“Remember,” I said as I turned to go, “you mustn't tell anybody about
what I've been telling you!”
She appeared to hesitate, swinging one leg to and fro while she regarded
me sideways with half-shut eyes.
“It's a dead secret,” I said artfully. “A secret between us two, and
nobody knows it except ourselves!”
Then she promised, nodding violently, big-eyed, her mouth pursed up
small. The delight of revelation, and the bliss of possessing a secret,
run each other very close. But the latter generally wins--for a time.
I had passed the mutton stage and was weltering in warm rice pudding,
before I found leisure to pause and take in things generally; and then a
glance in the direction of the window told me, to my dismay, that it was
raining hard. This was annoying in every way, for, even if it cleared
up later, the worms--I knew well from experience--would be offensively
numerous and frisky. Sulkily I said grace and accompanied the others
upstairs to the schoolroom; where I got out my paint-box and resolved
to devote myself seriously to Art, which of late I had much neglected.
Harold got hold of a sheet of paper and a pencil, retired to a table in
the corner, squared his elbows, and protruded his tongue. Literature had
always been his form of artistic expression.
Selina had a fit of the fidgets, bred of the unpromising weather, and,
instead of settling down to something on her own account, must needs
walk round and annoy us artists, intent on embodying our conceptions of
the ideal. She had been looking over my shoulder some minutes before I
knew of it; or I would have had a word or two to say upon the subject.
“I suppose you call that thing a ship,” she remarked contemptuously.
“Who ever heard of a pink ship? Hoo-hoo!”
I stifled my wrath, knowing that in order to score properly it was
necessary to keep a cool head.
“There is a pink ship,” I observed with forced calmness, “lying in
the toyshop window now. You can go and look at it if you like. D' you
suppose you know more about ships than the fellows who make 'em?”
Selina, baffled for the moment, returned to the charge presently.
“Those are funny things, too,” she observed. “S'pose they 're meant to
be trees. But they're blue.”
“They are trees,” I replied with severity; “and they are blue. They've
got to be blue, 'cos you stole my gamboge last week, so I can't mix up
any green.”
“Didn't steal your gamboge,” declared Selina, haughtily, edging away,
however, in the direction of Harold. “And I wouldn't tell lies, either,
if I was you, about a dirty little bit of gainboge.”
I preserved a discreet silence. After all, I knew she knew she stole my
gainboge.
The moment Harold became conscious of Selina's stealthy approach, he
dropped his pencil and flung himself flat upon the table, protecting
thus his literary efforts from chilling criticism by the interposed
thickness of his person. From some-where in his interior proceeded
a heart-rending compound of squeal and whistle, as of escaping
steam,--long-drawn, ear-piercing, unvarying in note.
“I only just wanted to see,” protested Selina, struggling to uproot his
small body from the scrawl it guarded. But Harold clung limpet-like to
the table edge, and his shrill protest continued to deafen humanity and
to threaten even the serenities of Olympus. The time seemed come for a
demonstration in force. Personally I cared little what soul-outpourings
of Harold were priated by Selina--she was pretty sure to get hold of
them sooner or later--and indeed I rather welcomed the diversion as
favourable to the undisturbed pursuit of Art. But the clannishness of
sex has its unwritten laws. Boys, as such, are sufficiently put upon,
maltreated, trodden under, as it is. Should they fail to hang together
in perilous times, what disasters, what ignominies may not be looked
for? Possibly even an extinction of the tribe. I dropped my paint brush
and sailed shouting into the fray.
The result for a short space hung dubious. There is a period of life
when the difference of a year or two in age far outweighs the minor
advantage of sex. Then the gathers of Selina's frock came away with a
sound like the rattle of distant musketry; and this calamity it was,
rather than mere brute compulsion, that quelled her indomitable spirit.
The female tongue is mightier than the sword, as I soon had good reason
to know, when Selina, her riven garment held out at length, avenged her
discomfiture with the Greek-fire of personalities and abuse. Every black
incident in my short, but not stainless, career--every error, every
folly, every penalty ignobly suffered--were paraded before me as in a
magic-lantern show. The information, however, was not particularly new
to me, and the effect was staled by previous rehearsals. Besides,
a victory remains a victory, whatever the moral character of the
triumphant general.
Harold chuckled and crowed as he dropped from the table, revealing the
document over which so many gathers had sighed their short lives out.
“You can read it if you like,” he said to me gratefully. “It's only a
Death-letter.”
It had never been possible to say what Harold's particular amusement of
the hour might turn out to be. One thing only was certain, that it
would be something improbable, unguessable, not to be foretold. Who,
for instance, in search of relaxation, would ever dream of choosing the
drawing-up of a testamentary disposition of property? Yet this was the
form taken by Harold's latest craze; and in justice this much had to be
said for him, that in the christening of his amusement he had gone
right to the heart of the matter. The words “will” and “testament” have
various meanings and uses; but about the signification of “death-letter”
there can be no manner of doubt. I smoothed out the crumpled paper and
read. In actual form it deviated considerably from that usually adopted
by family solicitors of standing, the only resemblance, indeed, lying in
the absence of punctuation.
“my dear edward (it ran) when I die I leave all my muny to you my walkin
sticks wips my crop my sord and gun bricks forts and all things i have
goodbye my dear charlotte when die I leave you my wach and cumpus and
pencel case my salors and camperdown my picteres and evthing goodbye
your loving brother armen my dear Martha I love you very much i leave
you my garden my mice and rabets my plants in pots when I die please
take care of them my dear--” Catera desunt.
“Why, you 're not leaving me anything!” exclaimed Selina, indignantly.
“You're a regular mean little boy, and I'll take back the last birthday
present I gave you!”
“I don't care,” said Harold, repossessing himself of the document. “I
was going to leave you something, but I sha'n't now, 'cos you tried to
read my death-letter before I was dead!”
“Then I'II write a death-letter myself,” retorted Selina, scenting an
artistic vengeance: “and I sha'n't leave you a single thing!” And she
went off in search of a pencil.
The tempest within-doors had kept my attention off the condition of
things without. But now a glance through the window told me that the
rain had entirely ceased, and that everything was bathed instead in a
radiant glow of sunlight, more golden than any gamboge of mine could
possibly depict. Leaving Selina and Harold to settle their feud by a
mutual disinheritance, I slipped from the room and escaped into the open
air, eager to pick up the loose end of my new friendship just where I
had dropped it that morning. In the glorious reaction of the sunshine
after the downpour, with its moist warm smells, bespanglement of
greenery, and inspiriting touch of rain-washed air, the parks and
palaces of the imagination glowed with a livelier iris, and their
blurred beauties shone out again with fresh blush and palpitation. As
I sped along to the tryst, again I accompanied my new comrade along the
corridors of my pet palace into which I had so hastily introduced her;
and on reflection I began to see that it wouldn't work properly. I had
made a mistake, and those were not the surroundings in which she was
most fitted to shine. However, it really did not matter much; I had
other palaces to place at her disposal--plenty of 'em; and on a further
acquaintance with and knowledge of her tastes, no doubt I could find
something to suit her.
There was a real Arabian one, for instance, which I visited but
rarely--only just when I was in the fine Oriental mood for it; a wonder
of silk hangings, fountains of rosewater, pavilions, and minarets.
Hundreds of silent, well-trained slaves thronged the stairs and alleys
of this establishment, ready to fetch and carry for her all day, if she
wished it; and my brave soldiers would be spared the indignity. Also
there were processions through the bazaar at odd moments--processions
with camels, elephants, and palanquins. Yes, she was more suited for
the East, this imperious young person; and I determined that thither she
should be personally conducted as soon as ever might be.
I reached the fence and climbed up two bars of it, and leaning over I
looked this way and that for my twin-souled partner of the morning. It
was not long before I caught sight of her, only a short distance away.
Her back was towards me and--well, one can never foresee exactly how one
will find things--she was talking to a Boy.
Of course there are boys and boys, and Lord knows I was never narrow.
But this was the parson's son from an adjoining village, a red-headed
boy and as common a little beast as ever stepped. He cultivated
ferrets--his only good point; and it was evidently through the medium
of this art that he was basely supplanting me, for her head was bent
absorbedly over something he carried in his hands. With some trepidation
I called out, “Hi!” But answer there was none. Then again I called, “Hi!”
but this time with a sickening sense of failure and of doom. She replied
only by a complex gesture, decisive in import if not easily described.
A petulant toss of the head, a jerk of the left shoulder, and a backward
kick of the left foot, all delivered at once--that was all, and that
was enough. The red-headed boy never even condescended to glance my way.
Why, indeed, should he? I dropped from the fence without another effort,
and took my way homewards along the weary road.
Little inclination was left to me, at first, for any solitary visit to
my accustomed palace, the pleasures of which I had so recently tasted
in company; and yet after a minute or two I found myself, from habit,
sneaking off there much as usual. Presently I became aware of a certain
solace and consolation in my newly-recovered independence of action.
Quit of all female whims and fanciful restrictions, I rowed, sailed, or
punted, just as I pleased; in the Chocolate-room I cracked and nibbled
the hard sticks, with a certain contempt for those who preferred the
soft, veneered article; and I mixed and quaffed countless fizzy drinks
without dread of any prohibitionist. Finally, I swaggered into the park,
paraded all my soldiers on the terrace, and, bidding them take the time
from me, gave the order to fire off all the guns.