She filled all his thoughts; the world had become new to him.
Picture-books were no longer amusing; just to be Peter with a little
strange sister was the most fascinating story imaginable.
It was easy to keep him good; Grace had only to threaten that he should
not see her. See her! He lived for that. Early in the morning he was at
the bedroom door, waiting for the nurse to look out and beckon. As he
followed her in on tiptoe, his golden little motherkins would turn on
her pillow, holding out her hand. She was prettier than ever now. If
Peter had known the word, he would have said she looked _sacred_: that
was what he felt. And she seemed to have grown younger. She appeared
immature as a girl, so slim and pale, stretched out in the broad white
bed. Her hair lay in shining pools between the counterpane mountains.
“Pepperminta, you're no older than Peter,” he had heard his father tell
her; “you're a kiddy playing with dollies--not a mother. It's absurd.”
He knew from watching his father that, if they had loved her before,
they must love her ten thousand times better now. When he went for his
walks with Grace, he spent his pennies to bring her home flowers.
Everything in that room had been brightened to welcome the little
sister. It had a sense of whiteness and a soft, sweet fragrance. They
had to make the little sister feel that they were glad she had come and
wanted her to stay. So a fire was kept burning in the grate. They spoke
in whispers and walked on their toes, the way one does in church.
Climbing on a chair, he would seat himself at the foot of the bed while
his mother's eyes laughed at him from the pillow, “We've managed it this
time, little Peter.”
Presently the nurse would turn back the sheet and show him the stranger,
cuddled in his mother's breast; he would see a shining head, like fine
gold scattered on white satin.
“The same as yours, mummy.”
“And the same as yours, darling.”
When anyone found him in any way like her, Peter was glad.--If he waited
patiently, the blue eyes would open and stare straight past him, seeing
visions of another world.
“She sees something, mummy.”
“God, perhaps.”
Peter thought he knew better, for he heard quite near, yet so softly
that it might have been far away, the violinlike whisper of one who
whistled beneath her breath.
“Dearest, was Peter like that?”
“Peter and everybody.”
There were times when he was allowed to slip his finger between those of
the tiny fisted hand. When he felt their pressure, they seemed to say,
“I'm yours, Peter-kins. Take care of me, won't you?”
He was sure she knew that he had seen God make her.
He did not want to speak; he was perfectly content to sit in the
sheltered quiet, watching. He would listen outside the door for hours on
the chance of being admitted. If Grace missed him, she always knew where
he might be found.
As the little sister grew, he was permitted to see her bathed and
dressed. One by one the soft wrappings were removed and folded, and the
perfect little body revealed itself. No wonder God had taken so long;
he had put such love into his work. By and by she learnt how to crow
and splash. Her first recorded smile was given to Peter. But long before
that a name had to be chosen.
She was christened Kathleen Nancy and was called Kay, because that made
her sound dearer.
Peter was nearly seven at the time of her coming. Of all people, he and
his mother seemed to know her best. They had secrets about her; before
she could talk, they told one another what her baby language meant.
During her first summer on earth, they would sit beside her cradle in
the garden, believing that birds and flowers stooped to watch her.
“You're no older than Peter,” his father had said. But, when he came
home from the city, he would join them and seemed perfectly happy to
gaze on Kay, with Peter on his knee, holding Nan's free hand.
Even in those early days, it was strange the power that Peter had over
her. If she were crying, she would stop and laugh for Peter. She would
sleep for Peter, if he hummed and rocked her. When she began to speak,
it was Peter who taught her and interpreted what she said; that was
during her second summer, when leaves in the garden were tapping. They
grew to trust Peter where Kay was concerned. “He's so gentle with her,”
they said.
“Might be 'er father, the care 'e takes of 'er. It's uncanny,” Grace
told her sweetheart.
Her sweetheart was a policeman at this moment; his profession did not
make for sentiment. “Father, by gum! Fat lot o' care your father took o'
you, I'll bet.”
Grace's father was a cabby and was known to the Barrington household as
Mr. Grace--a name of Peter's bestowing. He drove a four-wheeler and
had a red face. His stand was at the bottom of Topbury Crescent, which
formed the blade to the sickle of which the Terrace was the handle.
When Kay was beginning to toddle, her cot was transferred from her
parents' to Peter's bedroom. Nan was none too strong and Barrington
could not afford to be roused at five in the morning--he worked too hard
and required all his rest. Had Peter's wishes been consulted, this was
just how he would have arranged matters. From the moment when the light
went out to the moment when his eyelids reluctantly lowered, he had Kay
all to himself. Throwing off the clothes, he would slip out and kneel
beside her cot, softying her with his face and hands. He had to do
this carefully lest he should be heard. Sometimes, in stepping out, the
mattress squeaked and a voice would call up the tall dim stairs, “Peter,
are you in bed?” An interval would elapse while he hurried back; then
he would answer truthfully, “Yes.” Often the voice would say knowingly,
“You are now.”
But the temptation was too great. It was so wonderful to touch her in
the darkness, to hear her stir, to feel her hand brush his cheek and the
warm sleepy lips turned toward his mouth.
“It's only Peter,” he would whisper; and, perhaps, he would add, “Little
Kay, aren't you glad I borned you?”
Oh yes, it was he who had contrived her birth. There, as a proof, was
the big dim cupboard where it had all commenced.
In the shadowy darkness of the room, before Grace came up to undress, he
lived in a world of fancy. Through the oblong of the doorway the faint
gold glimmered, made by the lowered gas. In the square of the window,
as in a magic mirror, all kinds of strange things happened. Great soft
clouds moved across it, like mountains marching. Presently they would
stand aside, giving him glimpses of deep lagoons and floating lands.
Stars would dance out, like children holding hands, and wink and twinkle
at him. The moon would let down her silver ladder, smiling to him to
ascend. He laughed back and shook his head. Oh, no thank you; Kay needed
his attention.
Beneath the sky was a muffled world, like a Whistler nocturne, of
house-tops and drowsy murmurs. It was a vague field of seething shadows
in which the blur of street-lamps was a daffodil forest. Dwellings
which were blind all day, in streets he had never traversed, now peered
stealthily from behind their curtains with the unblinking eyes of cats.
What did they do down there? Church bells in the Vale of Holloway would
try to tell him. Sometimes strains of a barrel-organ would drift up
merrily and he would picture how ragged children danced, beating time
with rapid feet upon the muddy pavement. Sometimes in the distance, like
a scarlet fear, a train would shoot across the murk and vanish.
But always from these wanderings his imagination would return to the
cot where the little sister nestled. Who was it put the thought into
his head? Was it some strange confusion between winking stars and the
Bethlehem story? Or was it Grace in one of her flights of poetry? Long
ago, he told himself, like this the Boy Jesus must have sat keeping
guard over a baby sister, while at the bottom of a tall steep house Mary
helped Joseph, making chairs and tables.
Once Peter gave things away completely by trusting too much to his
wakefulness; he was found asleep on the floor beside Kay's cot when
Grace came up to undress.
If the nights had their spice of adventure because such doings were
forbidden, the mornings were not to be sneered at. He would be wakened
by a small hand stroking his face and she would snuggle into bed beside
him. Years after, when he was a man, he remembered the sensation of her
cold feet when she had found him difficult to rouse.
But the greatest treat of all came rarely. When his father went away on
a journey, his mother could cast aside her habits. She would make her
home in the nursery and hirelings would be driven out. Grace would be
given an evening with her policeman, and Peter, and Kay, and Nan would
have each other to themselves. If it were winter, they would have supper
by firelight, after which they would sit and toast themselves while Nan
told stories of her girlhood. Kay would be taken into her lap and Peter
would sit on the rug, cuddling against her skirt.
“How did Daddy find you, Mummy?”
And when that had been told in a simplified version, “Mummy, should I be
your little boy, if you'd married someone else?”
Since there seemed some doubt, Peter made haste to assure her, “Dearest,
I'm so, so glad.”
In the dancing flames and shadows, Kay would be undressed and popped
into the tin-bath while Peter helped. Then, all warm and snuggly, she
would be carried to her mother's bed. In a short time Peter would follow
and fall asleep with his arms about her.
Toward midnight he would rouse; the gas was lit and someone was
rustling. Looking down the bed, he would see his mother with her gold
hair loose about her shoulders. “Hush,” she would whisper, placing her
finger against her mouth. So he would lie still, watching her shadow
on the walls and ceiling. Again the room was in darkness; his face was
hidden in her breast as she clasped him to her. He was thinking how
lucky it was that his father had found her.
In the morning Kay would wake them, climbing across their legs or losing
herself beneath the bed-clothes. Just to be different from all other
mornings, they would have their breakfast before they dressed. What an
adventure they made of it and what good times they had!
In after years, looking back, Peter realized what children he had had
for parents; they seemed anything but children then. His father was not
too old to be a lion on hands and knees beneath the table, trying to
catch him as he ran round. At last his mother would cry out, “Billy,
dearest, do stop it. You'll get the boy excited.”
And then there were those empty rooms at the top of the house to be
furnished. Peter's father led him all over London, visiting beery old
women and dingy old men, whose shops to the unpracticed eye were stocked
with rubbish. Oak paneling, bronzes, French clocks, canvases dim with
dirt, were discovered and carried home in triumph. For the canvases
frames had to be hunted out; the pursuit was endless. These treasures
were driven home in cabs, taking up so much room that Peter had to make
himself smaller. Nan would fly to the door as the wheels halted on the
Terrace.
“Peter, why did you let him? Oh, Billy, how extravagant!”
“But, my dear, it's an investment. I paid next to nothing and wouldn't
sell it for a thousand pounds.”
“Couldn't,” she corrected; but, as was proved later, she was wrong in
that.
When the empty rooms were furnished--the oak bedroom and the
Italian--the modern furnishings in other parts of the house were
gradually supplanted; even the staircase was hung with paintings which
Barrington restored himself. There was one little drawback to these
prowlings through London which Peter was too proud to mention: his
father as he walked would pinch his hand to show his affection--but it
hurt. He knew why his father did it, so he did not tell him. He bit his
lips instead to keep back the tears.
Four other people stole across his childish horizon like wisps of
cloud--the Misses Jacobite. They lived in an old-fashioned house in
Topbury and kept no servants. Peter got to know them because they smiled
at him coming in and going out of church. There was Miss Florence, who
was tall and reserved; and Miss Effie, who was little and talkative; and
Miss Madge, who was fat and jolly; and Miss Leah, a shadow-woman,
who sat always in a darkened room with pale hands folded, crooning to
herself.
People said “Poor thing! Oh well, there's no good blaming her now. She
wouldn't thank us for our pity; after all, she brought it on herself.”
Or they said. “You know, they were quite proud once--the belles of
Topbury. Two of them were engaged to be married. Their father was alive
then--the Squire we called him. But after Miss Leah----” They dropped
their voices till they came to the last sentence, “And the disgrace of
it killed the old chap.”
Even Grace, when she took Kay and Peter to visit them, left them if she
could on the doorstep. Her righteous mood asserted itself; she flounced
her skirt in departing, shaking off the dust from her feet for a
testimony against them. “Scand'lous, I calls it. If I wuz to do like
'er, yer ma wouldn't let me touch yer. But o' course, it's different;
I'm only a sarvant-gal. And they 'olds their 'eads so 'ighl Brazen,
I calls it. Before I walked the streets where a thing like that 'ad
'appened in my family, I'd sink into my grave fust--that I would. I 'ate
the thought of their kissing yer, my precious lambs.”
Peter was always wondering what it was that Miss Leah had brought
upon herself. Whatever it was, it stayed with her in the room with the
lowered blinds at the back of the house. She never went out; callers
never saw her. Her eyes were vague, as though she had wept away their
color. She spoke in a hoarse whisper, as in a dream; and her attention
had to be drawn to anything before she saw it. But it was her singing
that shocked and thrilled Peter, making him both pitiful and frightened.
Her song never varied and never quite came to an end; she repeated it
over and over. You could hear it in the hall, the moment you entered;
it went on at intervals until you left. She sang it with empty hands,
sitting without motion:
“On the other side of Jordan
In the sweet fields of Eden
Where the Tree of Life is growing
There is rest for me.”
Where were the “sweet fields of Eden”? Peter liked the sound of them and
would have asked her, had not something held him back. She must be very
tired, he thought, to be singing always about rest. Yet he never saw her
work.
He had been there many times and had only heard her, until one day, as
he was scampering down the passage with Miss Madge pursuing, the door
opened and a woman with dim eyes and hair as white as snow looked
out. She gazed at him without interest; but when Kay toddled up to her
fearlessly, she stooped and caught her to her breast.
Several things about the Misses Jacobite struck Peter as funny. They
divided the visit up, so that each might have a child for part of it
entirely to herself. Each would behave during that time as though she
were a mother famished for affection, returned from a long journey, and
would invent secrets which were to be shared by nobody but the child and
herself. Kay and Peter were carried off into separate rooms, and there
played with and cuddled by a solitary Miss Jacobite. Though the Misses
Jacobite were obviously poor, the children always went home with a
present; often enough it was a toy from the dusty, disused nursery.
When they met Kay and Peter on Sundays and people were watching, they
pretended to forget the other things that had happened.
“I wonder you let your children go there,” people said.
Nan smiled slowly and answered softly, gathering Kay and Peter to her.
“Poor things! They were robbed of everything. I have so much I don't
deserve. I can spare them a little of my gladness.”
“But, Mrs. Barrington, that's mere sentiment. How does your husband
allow it?”
One day Nan's husband spoke up for himself. “Did you ever hear of the
raft? I thought not. Well, Nan and I have.”