THE WAXEN MAN
‘You know what Rupert was saying that day,’ said Charles one day when
Rupert as usual was down at Mr. Penfold’s, ‘about doing something real
with our magic?’
‘Like making her come alive,’ said Charlotte, looking up at the picture
of Dame Eleanour.
‘No, like making wax images of people and sticking pins in them. I
should like to do that. I feel as if the _Language Of_ was bust up,
somehow.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ said Caroline, pained.
‘Well, not for always, perhaps,’ said Charles kindly; ‘but we did give
the Uncle such a tremendous blow-out for his presentation, and we did
the leopard, and we sowed the F. of H.D., and anything else seems
rather piffling after that. I wish we could make a wax image of some
one.’
‘Not to stick pins in,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘That would be ink-black
magic, I’m certain. And very very wrong and unkind besides.’
‘No pins, I don’t mean,’ said Charles, ‘but just make one. We could
decide what to stick into it after we’d made it.’
‘Caro and I wouldn’t agree to sticking anything into it,’ said
Charlotte; ‘and, anyhow, you haven’t got any wax.’
‘Yes, I have,’ said Charles triumphantly; ‘so there! I’ve been saving
it up ever since he said that.’
‘Where from?’ asked the girls together.
‘The sticking-out bits of candles,’ said Charles, ‘and one or two ends
out of candlesticks in the morning when they are put on the boot-shelf
in the scullery to be cleaned. It’s a good big lump now. Shall I get
it?’
‘It would be fun to model something,’ Caroline admitted, and Charles,
falling flat on his front, felt behind the big books on the bottom
shelf and produced a large ball of a grey semi-transparent nature.
‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll tell you what I’ve thought. Only don’t
tell Rupert. We’ll do it first and tell Rupert afterwards. And then
he’ll have to believe.’
‘Well, what is it?’
‘We’ll make,’ said Charles slowly and seriously, ‘a wax image of the
Murdstone man, and we’ll make him hollow, his legs and arms needn’t be,
nor his head, but just his chest. And make his heart separate, and put
it in. And take out his heart and melt it every day. That would soften
his heart, and he would say he was sorry and Rupert would forgive him.’
‘“When hollow hearts shall wear a mask,”’ said Charlotte.
‘That’s only song-nonsense. People die if you take their hearts out,’
said Caroline with conviction.
‘Well, then, don’t let’s make him hollow. Let’s make him solid and then
think what to do.’
‘I know,’ said Charlotte; ‘but if he’s a pig, he’s a pig, however solid
you make him. What’s bred in the bone will come out in the wash. And if
we’re not to stick pins in him, what’s the good?’
‘Oh,’ said Caroline, ‘I think I know. Look here! We’ll make the wax
image and then be kind to it. You can tame wild beasts with kindness.’
‘It kills cats,’ said Charlotte.
‘No, it was Care killed the cat,’ Caroline reminded her, ‘and, anyway,
this won’t be a cat, even if it did. We’ll think of nice things to do
to it. Let’s make it now.’
‘Bags I!’ said Charles hastily. ‘It was my idea, and I collected the
wax.’
‘Like an old bee,’ said Charlotte. ‘All right, fire ahead.’
Charles had been warming the wax between his hands, and now, hardly
waiting for Caroline to fetch and spread a newspaper, he began to
divide the wax into six pieces.
‘One head, two arms, two legs, one body,’ he explained.
The girls watched with breathless interest. Charles rolled the smallest
piece of wax round in his hands till it was like a marble, and the
biggest piece till it was like a fives ball; the remaining four he
rolled lengthwise till they were like thick tobacco-pipes. Then he
stuck the four pipey bits and the round marble on to the fives ball and
held the whole thing out triumphantly.
‘I think it’s awfully like,’ he said, ‘especially the right arm that he
hit Rupert with. I _should_ like to stick just one pin in that.’
‘You mustn’t,’ said Caroline. ‘Yes, it’s awfully nice, but it hasn’t
any clothes. I know statues of Greek heroes don’t have any clothes. But
he’s not a Greek hero. And nowadays people have to have clothes even in
their statues. Look at Mr. Gladstone. And it would be more like real
if it had a nose and ears, wouldn’t it?’
‘I say,’ said Charlotte, ‘let’s get bits of bent twigs and pretend
they’re him, and then make wax clothes. Do let us help, Charles. It
does look so interesting to do. You shall do the first kind thing for
him if you’ll let us help make him.’
‘_I_ think he’s all right,’ said Charles, looking at the blobby thing
he had made, which was more like an imperfect octopus than a man; ‘but
if you promise me to do the first thing, I don’t mind.’
‘Right O! I’ll get the sticks.’
When the sticks had been found, the three children began to model
parts of the Murdstone man, but Caroline and Charles soon stopped
and were content to watch Charlotte. She really seemed to know what
she was about, which the others felt could not be said of them. She
chose suitable twigs, fastened them together with bits of wax, and
then began to clothe them with wax. She produced an arrangement not
at all unlike a jacket and waistcoat. The trousers were a failure.
The most accomplished sculptors have admitted that trousers are
difficult to treat artistically. But they remembered that, last time
they had seen him, the Murdstone man had worn knickerbockers, and in
these, revealing the shape of the stockinged human leg, Charlotte was
considered to have surpassed herself. The head was very difficult,
but even this was managed, the hair question being settled by a large
flat cap with a peak. The new model had a nose and mouth, ears large,
but still ears, and hands each with four fingers and a thumb. And when
Charlotte rolled up the tiniest bits of wax, flattened them and stuck
them on the coat and waistcoat for buttons, Caroline shouted, ‘Bravo!
You’re as good as Praxi—what’s-his-name!’ and even Charles said it
wasn’t half bad.
‘Now,’ said Charlotte, ‘the first nice thing to do for him is to put
him in a bed of rose leaves. That’s what they say when they mean a life
without a sorrow or care.’
‘And then burn incense. We can make the incense out of the proper
flowers,’ Caroline said.
‘Rose leaves are dull,’ Charles said, ‘and perhaps the Murdstone man
doesn’t like incense.’
‘The real one mayn’t. This one’s got to like what we want it to like,’
said Charlotte. ‘We made him and _we_ know what he’s got to like.’
‘Then we might make it so that he’d like having pins stuck into him,’
Charles suggested hopefully.
‘We might; only we shouldn’t be so silly. Come on, bring the _Language
Of_ and the Murdstone man. I’ll get a box and Caro can get the rose
leaves. We’ll go out and find a secret place in the wood.’
A cardboard box that had held Charlotte’s best shoes was filled with
sweet pink petals and the waxen image put in it. It looked better
standing up, but you don’t stand up in a bed, even of rose leaves. A
sort of pedestal was built of old bricks brought with some toil from
the ruins of the deserted lodge’s pig-stye. A flat stone, which took
all three to lift, was placed on top. And on this the box. But the
box, which said ‘Smarm and Simple’s Hygienic Footwear’ in blue letters
outside, troubled the girls because it was ugly, and Charles because it
was untruthful.
‘Whatever he is, he isn’t footwear,’ said Charles. ‘We could make it
true by trampling on him, but you won’t agree to that.’
‘No,’ said Caroline, ‘but look here. Let’s paste a bit of my green sash
on it, and then put moss round. That’ll make it more woodland-like.’
Cook provided the paste, and Caroline cut the sash. She paste-wetted
the first piece of silk so that it came out in wet spots, very messy
looking, as Charles did not fail to point out.
‘Never mind,’ said Caroline, ‘I’ll cut another bit—it’s much too
long—and use less paste.’
‘More paste less speed,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’ll cut mine. Then they’ll
be alike, just as they were before.’
This time the box certainly looked very rich, and the moss round it
looked very fresh and beautiful.
A smaller pile of bricks supported the lid of a cocoa-tin for incense.
_The Language of Flowers_, hurriedly consulted, informed them that
jasmine stood for amiability, St. John’s wort for animosity, Indian
pink for aversion, the pimpernel for change, sage for esteem, and the
hazel for reconciliation. Further, that the tamarisk stood for crime
and the potato for benevolence.
All these were found in the Wonderful Garden except the potato, and
none of the children knew what a potato looks like when it is growing,
and they did not like to ask any one, for fear they in turn should be
asked what they wanted it for.
‘Never mind,’ said Charles, ‘we can save one from dinner. I don’t
suppose it will matter its being cooked.’
That the potatoes that day should happen to be mashed, seemed to all a
mishap yet not a calamity. A quantity, deemed sufficient to influence
Mr. Murdstone through his waxen image, was secreted in the envelope of
a letter from Aunt Emmeline, and not more than an eighth of the potato
escaped into Charles’s pocket through the square hole where the Italian
stamp had been cut out for his collection.
‘We’ll arrange the things we want him to be round the box,’ said
Caroline, ‘and the things we want him not to be we’ll burn and call it
incense.’
Charles owned that he had been wondering what sort of incense you could
make out of mashed potato.
Jasmine, with its white stars, bright Indian pinks, gay tufts of sage,
and the oval-ringed leaves of the hazel, arranged round the box, made a
charming tangle. ‘The silk wasn’t wanted, really,’ said Charles. ‘The
hygienic boots would never have shown through the flowers.’ But the
girls agreed that it was nice to know it was there.
The mashed potato and the rather faded pimpernel were carefully
concealed under the more attractive offerings.
‘It looks fine,’ Charles said, and what he said they all thought.
[Illustration: Nothing much happened except smoke.]
It is very hard to make small pieces of green things burn in a
cocoa-tin lid in the open air by means of a box of matches, and the
fragments of a potato-dampened envelope from an aunt in Italy. Nothing
much happened except smoke, and the head of a match burnt Charles’s
finger.
‘There’s no more paper,’ said he, ‘except the bit we’ve written his
name on.’
‘There’s the match-box,’ said Caroline; ‘let’s make a little bonfire
with twigs and then put the incense things on when it’s burnt up.’ This
they did; and the starry gold of St. John’s wort, the gay brightness of
Indian pinks, and the feathery greenness of the tamarisks twisted and
writhed amid flames and smoke.
‘Now we’ll leave it. Please, Murdstone man, let your crimes and your
animosity and your aversion be burnt away, and may you lie on beds of
roses really as soon as you are changed and amiable. Then when you
are truly benevolent, Rupert and us will esteem you, and the hazel is
for reconciliation. Now let’s go away and leave the incense to do its
healing work, and to-morrow we’ll come and put a fresh rose-bed and
burn new incense.’ Thus Caroline. The others agreed, and after having
put on the box the label with the Murdstone man’s name, so that Destiny
could not pretend to make any mistake as to who the witchcraft was
meant for, they went away through green coverts, in Indian file, to
build a wigwam in another part of the wood with three hop poles, three
red blankets, and their three mackintoshes.
‘I hope Rupert won’t ask a lot of questions about what we’ve been
doing to-day,’ said Charles. But Rupert did not ask any. He came home
singularly silent, and went to bed early, announcing that he was going
to spend the following day, also, with Mr. Penfold.
‘So we needn’t tell him,’ said Charlotte, ‘till the good work is done.
I’m glad of that.’
Next day, with a fresh armful of suitable flowers and some more
potatoes, fried this time and bearing heavy traces of their close
intimacy with the breakfast bacon, the children sought the secret spot
where they had laid the waxen image of Mr. Murdstone on its bed of
roses. The ashes of the incense bonfire were there, the pedestal was
there, the green-covered box was there, half filled with half-faded
rose leaves; but the waxen image was gone!
‘He must have fetched it away himself,’ said Charlotte, breaking an
awe-struck pause; ‘he must have felt what we were doing and made up his
mind to be benevolent. And he fetched it away so that we shouldn’t
waste any more good potatoes on him.’
‘I wish he’d do something to show that he’s changed into a Real
Good and what sort of Good he’s changed into,’ said Charles. And it
certainly is tiresome to work magic and then not to know exactly how
it has acted. That their magic had acted, the children were of course
quite certain. They had done magic too many times, as you know, to
entertain a moment’s doubt as to whether their spells were going to
work or not. And the fact that the spell they had worked was not worked
exactly as the book said, did not trouble them. For, as Caroline said,
‘If you can do harm to wax people, you can do good to them. More
really, I should think. Because one’s wrong and the other’s right.’
But it was a rather disappointed party that took its way through the
greenwood, leaving the secret spot with its trampled flowers and
scattered ashes. They came across their wigwam and spent the rest of
the morning there, and, when the dinner-bell rang, loaded themselves
with the mackintoshes and blankets which had been forgotten yesterday.
As they trailed out of the wood into the drive, Charles, who was first,
dropped his blanket and stopped short, blocking the view of the
others, who were following him down the narrow path.
‘What is it? what is it?’ they asked.
‘Shish!’ said Charles and backed into the hazel bushes, and the girls
pressed forward to see what there was to shish about. Then they in turn
backed into the green covert, and the bushes closed over them as they
stood there holding their breath as footsteps went by them along the
drive. When the footsteps had passed far enough away for the children
to dare to move, they backed with one consent into the wood, not
stopping till they came to an open glade where they could comfortably
look at each other and exclaim, ‘Well!’ They were past all other words.
For what they had seen was Rupert coming up the drive, looking pale but
not unhappy. And beside him, with his hand on Rupert’s shoulder, and
talking to him in the friendliest way, was—the Murdstone man!
‘Rupert will _have_ to believe now!’ was the first thing any one found
breath to say. It was Caroline who said it. The others still had not
breath enough for more than ‘Rather!’