IX

A strange company assembled in the Burnells’ washhouse after tea. Round

the table there sat a bull, a rooster, a donkey that kept forgetting it

was a donkey, a sheep and a bee. The washhouse was the perfect place

for such a meeting because they could make as much noise as they liked,

and nobody ever interrupted. It was a small tin shed standing apart

from the bungalow. Against the wall there was a deep trough and in the

corner a copper with a basket of clothes-pegs on top of it. The little

window, spun over with cobwebs, had a piece of candle and a mouse-trap

on the dusty sill. There were clotheslines criss-crossed overhead and,

hanging from a peg on the wall, a very big, a huge, rusty horseshoe.

The table was in the middle with a form at either side.

“You can’t be a bee, Kezia. A bee’s not an animal. It’s a ninseck.”

“Oh, but I do want to be a bee frightfully,” wailed Kezia.... A tiny

bee, all yellow-furry, with striped legs. She drew her legs up under

her and leaned over the table. She felt she was a bee.

“A ninseck must be an animal,” she said stoutly. “It makes a noise.

It’s not like a fish.”

“I’m a bull, I’m a bull!” cried Pip. And he gave such a tremendous

bellow—how did he make that noise?—that Lottie looked quite alarmed.

“I’ll be a sheep,” said little Rags. “A whole lot of sheep went past

this morning.”

“How do you know?”

“Dad heard them. Baa!” He sounded like the little lamb that trots

behind and seems to wait to be carried.

“Cock-a-doodle-do!” shrilled Isabel. With her red cheeks and bright

eyes she looked like a rooster.

“What’ll I be?” Lottie asked everybody, and she sat there smiling,

waiting for them to decide for her. It had to be an easy one.

“Be a donkey, Lottie.” It was Kezia’s suggestion. “Hee-haw! You can’t

forget that.”

“Hee-haw!” said Lottie solemnly. “When do I have to say it?”

“I’ll explain, I’ll explain,” said the bull. It was he who had the

cards. He waved them round his head. “All be quiet! All listen!” And he

waited for them. “Look here, Lottie.” He turned up a card. “It’s got

two spots on it—see? Now, if you put that card in the middle and

somebody else has one with two spots as well, you say ‘Hee-haw,’ and

the card’s yours.”

“Mine?” Lottie was round-eyed. “To keep?”

“No, silly. Just for the game, see? Just while we’re playing.” The bull

was very cross with her.

“Oh, Lottie, you _are_ a little silly,” said the proud rooster.

Lottie looked at both of them. Then she hung her head; her lip

quivered. “I don’t want to play,” she whispered. The others glanced at

one another like conspirators. All of them knew what that meant. She

would go away and be discovered somewhere standing with her pinny

thrown over her head, in a corner, or against a wall, or even behind a

chair.

“Yes, you _do_, Lottie. It’s quite easy,” said Kezia.

And Isabel, repentant, said exactly like a grown-up, “Watch _me_,

Lottie, and you’ll soon learn.”

“Cheer up, Lot,” said Pip. “There, I know what I’ll do. I’ll give you

the first one. It’s mine, really, but I’ll give it to you. Here you

are.” And he slammed the card down in front of Lottie.

Lottie revived at that. But now she was in another difficulty. “I

haven’t got a hanky,” she said; “I want one badly, too.”

“Here, Lottie, you can use mine.” Rags dipped into his sailor blouse

and brought up a very wet-looking one, knotted together. “Be very

careful,” he warned her. “Only use that corner. Don’t undo it. I’ve got

a little starfish inside I’m going to try and tame.”

“Oh, come on, you girls,” said the bull. “And mind—you’re not to look

at your cards. You’ve got to keep your hands under the table till I say

‘Go.’”

Smack went the cards round the table. They tried with all their might

to see, but Pip was too quick for them. It was very exciting, sitting

there in the washhouse; it was all they could do not to burst into a

little chorus of animals before Pip had finished dealing.

“Now, Lottie, you begin.”

Timidly Lottie stretched out a hand, took the top card off her pack,

had a good look at it—it was plain she was counting the spots—and put

it down.

“No, Lottie, you can’t do that. You mustn’t look first. You must turn

it the other way over.”

“But then everybody will see it the same time as me,” said Lottie.

The game proceeded. Mooe-ooo-er! The bull was terrible. He charged over

the table and seemed to eat the cards up.

Bss-ss! said the bee.

Cock-a-doodle-do! Isabel stood up in her excitement and moved her

elbows like wings.

Baa! Little Rags put down the King of Diamonds and Lottie put down the

one they called the King of Spain. She had hardly any cards left.

“Why don’t you call out, Lottie?”

“I’ve forgotten what I am,” said the donkey woefully.

“Well, change! Be a dog instead! Bow-wow!”

“Oh yes. That’s _much_ easier.” Lottie smiled again. But when she and

Kezia both had a one Kezia waited on purpose. The others made signs to

Lottie and pointed. Lottie turned very red; she looked bewildered, and

at last she said, “Hee-haw! Ke-zia.”

“Ss! Wait a minute!” They were in the very thick of it when the bull

stopped them, holding up his hand. “What’s that? What’s that noise?”

“What noise? What do you mean?” asked the rooster.

“Ss! Shut up! Listen!” They were mouse-still. “I thought I heard a—a

sort of knocking,” said the bull.

“What was it like?” asked the sheep faintly.

No answer.

The bee gave a shudder. “Whatever did we shut the door for?” she said

softly. Oh, why, why had they shut the door?

While they were playing, the day had faded; the gorgeous sunset had

blazed and died. And now the quick dark came racing over the sea, over

the sand-hills, up the paddock. You were frightened to look in the

corners of the washhouse, and yet you had to look with all your might.

And somewhere, far away, grandma was lighting a lamp. The blinds were

being pulled down; the kitchen fire leapt in the tins on the

mantelpiece.

“It would be awful now,” said the bull, “if a spider was to fall from

the ceiling on to the table, wouldn’t it?”

“Spiders don’t fall from ceilings.”

“Yes, they do. Our Min told us she’d seen a spider as big as a saucer,

with long hairs on it like a gooseberry.”

Quickly all the little heads were jerked up; all the little bodies drew

together, pressed together.

“Why doesn’t somebody come and call us?” cried the rooster.

Oh, those grown-ups, laughing and snug, sitting in the lamp-light,

drinking out of cups! They’d forgotten about them. No, not really

forgotten. That was what their smile meant. They had decided to leave

them there all by themselves.

Suddenly Lottie gave such a piercing scream that all of them jumped off

the forms, all of them screamed too. “A face—a face looking!” shrieked

Lottie.

It was true, it was real. Pressed against the window was a pale face,

black eyes, a black beard.

“Grandma! Mother! Somebody!”

But they had not got to the door, tumbling over one another, before it

opened for Uncle Jonathan. He had come to take the little boys home.

X

He had meant to be there before, but in the front garden he had come

upon Linda walking up and down the grass, stopping to pick off a dead

pink or give a top-heavy carnation something to lean against, or to

take a deep breath of something, and then walking on again, with her

little air of remoteness. Over her white frock she wore a yellow,

pink-fringed shawl from the Chinaman’s shop.

“Hallo, Jonathan!” called Linda. And Jonathan whipped off his shabby

panama, pressed it against his breast, dropped on one knee, and kissed

Linda’s hand.

“Greeting, my Fair One! Greeting, my Celestial Peach Blossom!” boomed

the bass voice gently. “Where are the other noble dames?”

“Beryl’s out playing bridge and mother’s giving the boy his bath....

Have you come to borrow something?”

The Trouts were for ever running out of things and sending across to

the Burnells’ at the last moment.

But Jonathan only answered, “A little love, a little kindness;” and he

walked by his sister-in-law’s side.

Linda dropped into Beryl’s hammock under the manuka-tree, and Jonathan

stretched himself on the grass beside her, pulled a long stalk and

began chewing it. They knew each other well. The voices of children

cried from the other gardens. A fisherman’s light cart shook along the

sandy road, and from far away they heard a dog barking; it was muffled

as though the dog had its head in a sack. If you listened you could

just hear the soft swish of the sea at full tide sweeping the pebbles.

The sun was sinking.

“And so you go back to the office on Monday, do you, Jonathan?” asked

Linda.

“On Monday the cage door opens and clangs to upon the victim for

another eleven months and a week,” answered Jonathan.

Linda swung a little. “It must be awful,” she said slowly.

“Would ye have me laugh, my fair sister? Would ye have me weep?”

Linda was so accustomed to Jonathan’s way of talking that she paid no

attention to it.

“I suppose,” she said vaguely, “one gets used to it. One gets used to

anything.”

“Does one? Hum!” The “Hum” was so deep it seemed to boom from

underneath the ground. “I wonder how it’s done,” brooded Jonathan;

“I’ve never managed it.”

Looking at him as he lay there, Linda thought again how attractive he

was. It was strange to think that he was only an ordinary clerk, that

Stanley earned twice as much money as he. What was the matter with

Jonathan? He had no ambition; she supposed that was it. And yet one

felt he was gifted, exceptional. He was passionately fond of music;

every spare penny he had went on books. He was always full of new

ideas, schemes, plans. But nothing came of it all. The new fire blazed

in Jonathan; you almost heard it roaring softly as he explained,

described and dilated on the new thing; but a moment later it had

fallen in and there was nothing but ashes, and Jonathan went about with

a look like hunger in his black eyes. At these times he exaggerated his

absurd manner of speaking, and he sang in church—he was the leader of

the choir—with such fearful dramatic intensity that the meanest hymn

put on an unholy splendour.

“It seems to me just as imbecile, just as infernal, to have to go to

the office on Monday,” said Jonathan, “as it always has done and always

will do. To spend all the best years of one’s life sitting on a stool

from nine to five, scratching in somebody’s ledger! It’s a queer use to

make of one’s... one and only life, isn’t it? Or do I fondly dream?” He

rolled over on the grass and looked up at Linda. “Tell me, what is the

difference between my life and that of an ordinary prisoner. The only

difference I can see is that I put myself in jail and nobody’s ever

going to let me out. That’s a more intolerable situation than the

other. For if I’d been—pushed in, against my will—kicking, even—once

the door was locked, or at any rate in five years or so, I might have

accepted the fact and begun to take an interest in the flight of flies

or counting the warder’s steps along the passage with particular

attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I’m like an

insect that’s flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the

walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do

everything on God’s earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the

while I’m thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it

is, ‘The shortness of life! The shortness of life!’ I’ve only one night

or one day, and there’s this vast dangerous garden, waiting out there,

undiscovered, unexplored.”

“But, if you feel like that, why—” began Linda quickly.

“_Ah!_” cried Jonathan. And that “ah!” was somehow almost exultant.

“There you have me. Why? Why indeed? There’s the maddening, mysterious

question. Why don’t I fly out again? There’s the window or the door or

whatever it was I came in by. It’s not hopelessly shut—is it? Why don’t

I find it and be off? Answer me that, little sister.” But he gave her

no time to answer.

“I’m exactly like that insect again. For some reason”—Jonathan paused

between the words—“it’s not allowed, it’s forbidden, it’s against the

insect law, to stop banging and flopping and crawling up the pane even

for an instant. Why don’t I leave the office? Why don’t I seriously

consider, this moment, for instance, what it is that prevents me

leaving? It’s not as though I’m tremendously tied. I’ve two boys to

provide for, but, after all, they’re boys. I could cut off to sea, or

get a job up-country, or—” Suddenly he smiled at Linda and said in a

changed voice, as if he were confiding a secret, “Weak... weak. No

stamina. No anchor. No guiding principle, let us call it.” But then the

dark velvety voice rolled out:

Would ye hear the story

How it unfolds itself. . .

and they were silent.

The sun had set. In the western sky there were great masses of

crushed-up rose-coloured clouds. Broad beams of light shone through the

clouds and beyond them as if they would cover the whole sky. Overhead

the blue faded; it turned a pale gold, and the bush outlined against it

gleamed dark and brilliant like metal. Sometimes when those beams of

light show in the sky they are very awful. They remind you that up

there sits Jehovah, the jealous God, the Almighty, Whose eye is upon

you, ever watchful, never weary. You remember that at His coming the

whole earth will shake into one ruined graveyard; the cold, bright

angels will drive you this way and that, and there will be no time to

explain what could be explained so simply.... But to-night it seemed to

Linda there was something infinitely joyful and loving in those silver

beams. And now no sound came from the sea. It breathed softly as if it

would draw that tender, joyful beauty into its own bosom.

“It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong,” came the shadowy voice of Jonathan.

“It’s not the scene, it’s not the setting for... three stools, three

desks, three inkpots and a wire blind.”

Linda knew that he would never change, but she said, “Is it too late,

even now?”

“I’m old—I’m old,” intoned Jonathan. He bent towards her, he passed his

hand over his head. “Look!” His black hair was speckled all over with

silver, like the breast plumage of a black fowl.

Linda was surprised. She had no idea that he was grey. And yet, as he

stood up beside her and sighed and stretched, she saw him, for the

first time, not resolute, not gallant, not careless, but touched

already with age. He looked very tall on the darkening grass, and the

thought crossed her mind, “He is like a weed.”

Jonathan stooped again and kissed her fingers.

“Heaven reward thy sweet patience, lady mine,” he murmured. “I must go

seek those heirs to my fame and fortune....” He was gone.