THE CHILDREN
Jan made headway with Tony and little Fay. An aunt who carried one
pick-a-back; who trotted, galloped, or curvetted to command as an
animated steed; who provided spades and buckets, and herself, getting up
very early, took them and the children to an adorable sandy beach,
deserted save for two or three solitary horsemen; an aunt who dug holes
and built castles and was indirectly the means of thrilling rides upon a
real horse, when Peter was encountered as one of the mounted few taking
exercise before breakfast; such an aunt could not be regarded otherwise
than as an acquisition, even though she did at times exert authority and
insist upon obedience.
She got it, too; especially from little Fay, who, hitherto, had obeyed
nobody. Tony, less wilful and not so prone to be destructive, was
secretly still unwon, though outwardly quite friendly. He waited and
watched and weighed Jan in the balance of his small judgment. Tony was
never in any hurry to make up his mind.
One great hold Jan had was a seemingly inexhaustible supply of rhymes,
songs, and stories, and she was, moreover, of a telling disposition.
Both children had a quite unusual passion for new words. Little Fay
would stop short in the midst of the angriest yells if anyone called her
conduct in question by some new term of opprobrium. Ayah's vocabulary
was limited, even in the vernacular, and nothing would have induced her
to return railing for railing to the children, however sorely they
abused her. But Jan occasionally freed her mind, and at such times her
speech was terse and incisive. Moreover, she quickly perceived her power
over her niece in this respect, and traded on the baby's quick ear and
interest.
One day there was a tremendous uproar in the nursery just after tiffin,
when poor Fay usually tried to get the sleep that would partially atone
for her restless night. Jan swept down the passage and into the room, to
find her niece netted in her cot, and bouncing up and down like a
newly-landed trout, while Ayah wrestled with a struggling Tony, who
tried to drown his sister's screams with angry cries of "Let me get at
her to box her," and, failing that, vigorously boxing Ayah.
Jan closed the door behind her and stood where she was, saying in the
quiet, compelling voice they had both already learned to respect: "It's
time for Mummy's sleep, and how can Mummy sleep in such a pandemonium?"
Little Fay paused in the very middle of a yell and her face twinkled
through the restraining net.
"Pandemolium," she echoed, joyously rolling it over on her tongue with
obvious gusto.
"Pandemolium."
"She kickened and fit with me," Tony cried angrily. "I _must_ box her."
"Pandemolium?" little Fay repeated inquiringly. "What nelse?"
"Yes," said Jan, trying hard not to laugh; "that's exactly what it was
... disgraceful."
"What nelse?" little Fay persisted. She had heard disgraceful before. It
lacked novelty.
"All sorts of horrid things," said Jan. "Selfish and odious and
ill-bred----"
"White bled, blown bled, ill-bled," the person under the net chanted.
"What nother bled?"
"There's well-bred," said Jan severely, "and that's what neither you nor
Tony are at the present moment."
"There's toas' too," said the voice from under the net, ignoring the
personal application. "Sall we have some?"
"Certainly not," Jan answered with great sternness. "People who riot and
brawl----"
"Don't like zose words," the netted one interrupted distastefully (R's
always stumped her), "naughty words."
"Not so naughty as the people who do it. Has Ayah had her dinner? No?
Then poor Ayah must go and have it, and I shall stay here and tell a
very soft, whispery story to people who are quiet and good, who lie in
their cots and don't quarrel----"
"Or blawl" came from the net in a small determined voice. She could not
let the new word pass after all.
"Exactly ... or brawl," Jan repeated in tones nothing like so firm.
"She kickened and fit me, she did," Tony mumbled moodily as he climbed
into his cot: "Can't I box her nor nothing?"
"Not now," Jan said, soothingly. Ayah salaamed and hurried away. She, at
all events, had cause to bless Jan, for now she got her meals with fair
regularity and in peace.
In a few minutes the room was as quiet as an empty church, save for a
low voice that related an interminable story about "Cockie-Lockie and
Henny-Penny going to tell the King the lift's fallen," till one, at all
events, of the "blawlers" was sound asleep.
The voice ceased and Tony's head appeared over the rail of his cot.
"Hush!" Jan whispered. "Sister's asleep. Just wait a few minutes till
Ayah comes, then I'll take you away with me."
Faithful Ayah didn't dawdle over her food. She returned, sat down on the
floor beside little Fay's cot and started her endless mending.
Jan carried Tony away with her along the passage and into the
drawing-room. The verandah was too hot in the early afternoon.
"Now what shall we do?" she asked, with a sigh, as she sat down on the
big sofa. "_I'd_ like to sleep, but I suppose you won't let me."
Tony got off her knee and looked at her gravely.
"You can," he said, magnanimously, "because you brought me. I hate bed.
I'll build a temple with my bricks and I won't knock it down. Not
loud."
And like his aunt he did what he said.
Jan put her feet up and lay very still. For a week now she had risen
early every morning to take the children out in the freshest part of the
day. She seldom got any rest in the afternoon, as she saw to it that
they should be quiet to let Fay sleep, and she went late to bed because
the cool nights in the verandah were the pleasant time for Fay.
Tony murmured to himself, but he made little noise with his stone
bricks. And presently Jan was sleeping almost as soundly as her
obstreperous niece.
Tony did not repeat new words aloud as did his sister. He turned them
over in his mind and treasured some simply because he liked the sound of
them.
There were two that he had carried in his memory for nearly half his
life; two that had for him a mysterious fascination, a vaguely agreeable
significance that he couldn't at all explain. One was "Piccadilly" and
the other "Coln St. Aldwyn's." He didn't even know that they were the
names of places at first, but he thought they had a most beautiful
sound. Gradually the fact that they were places filtered into his mind,
and for Tony Piccadilly seemed particularly rural. He connected it in
some way with the duck-slaying Mrs. Bond of the Baby's Opera, a book he
and Mummy used to sing from before she grew too tired and sad to sing.
Before she lay so many hours in her long chair, before the big man he
called Daddie became so furtive and disturbing. Then Mummy used to tell
him things about a place called Home, and though she never actually
mentioned Piccadilly he had heard the word very often in a song that
somebody sang in the drawing-room at Dariawarpur.
Theatricals had been towards and Mummy was acting, and people came to
practise their songs with her, for not only did she sing herself
delightfully, but she played accompaniments well for other people. The
play was a singing play, and the Assistant Superintendent of Police, a
small, fair young man with next to no voice and a very clear
enunciation, continually practised a song that described someone as
walking "down Piccadilly with a tulip or a lily in his mediæval hand."
Tony rather liked "mediæval" too, but not so much as Piccadilly. A
flowery way, he was sure, with real grass in it like the Resident's
garden. Besides, the "dilly" suggested "daffy-down dilly come up to town
in a yellow petticoat and a green gown."
But not even Piccadilly could compete with Coln St. Aldwyn's in Tony's
affections. There was something about that suggestive of exquisite peace
and loveliness, no mosquitoes and many friendly beasts. He had only
heard the word once by chance in connection with the mysterious place
called Home, in some casual conversation when no one thought he was
listening. He seized upon it instantly and it became a priceless
possession, comforting in times of stress, soothing at all times, a sort
of refuge from a real world that had lately been very puzzling for a
little boy.
He was certain that at Coln St. Aldwyn's there was a mighty forest
peopled by all the nicest animals. Dogs that were ever ready to extend a
welcoming paw, elephants and mild clumsy buffaloes that gave good milk
to the thirsty. Little grey squirrels frolicked in the branches of the
trees, and the tiny birds Mummy told him about that lived in the yew
hedge at Wren's End. Tony had himself been to Wren's End he was told,
but he was only one at the time, and beyond a feeling that he liked the
name and that it was a very green place his ideas about it were hazy.
Sometimes he wished it had been called "Wren St. Endwyn's," but after
mature reflection he decided it was but a poor imitation of the real
thing, so he kept the two names separate in his mind.
He had added two more names to his collection since he came to Bombay.
"Mahaluxmi," the road running beside the sea, where Peter sometimes took
them and Auntie Jan for a drive after tea when it was high tide; and
"Taraporevala," who owned a famous book-shop in Medow Street where he
had once been in a tikka-gharri with Auntie Jan to get some books for
Mummy. Peter had recommended the shop, and the name instantly seized
upon Tony's imagination and will remain with it evermore. He never for
one moment connected it with the urbane gentleman in eyeglasses and a
funny little round hat who owned the shop. For Tony "Taraporevala" will
always suggest endless vistas of halls, fitted with books, shelves, and
tall stacks of books, and counters laden with piles of books. It seemed
amazing to find anything so vast in such a narrow street. There was
something magic about it, like the name. Tony was sure that some day
when he should explore the forest of Coln St. Aldwyn he would come upon
a little solid door in a great rock. A little solid door studded with
heavy nails and leading to a magic cave full of unimaginable treasure.
This door should only open to the incantation of "Taraporevala." None of
your "abracadabras" for him.
And just as Mummy had talked much of "Wren's End" in happier days, so
now Auntie Jan told them endless stories about it and what they would
all do there when they went home. Some day, when he knew her better, he
would ask her about Coln St. Aldwyn's. He felt he didn't know her
intimately enough to do so yet, but he was gradually beginning to have
some faith in her. She was a well-instructed person, too, on the whole,
and she answered a straight question in a straight way.
It was one of the things Tony could never condone in the big man called
Daddie, that he could never answer the simplest question. He always
asked another in return, and there was derision of some sort concealed
in this circuitous answer. Doubtless he meant to be pleasant and
amusing--Tony was just enough to admit that--but he was, so Tony felt,
profoundly mistaken in the means he sought. He took liberties, too;
punching liberties that knocked the breath out of a small boy's body
without actually hurting much; and he never, never talked sense. Tony
resented this. Like the Preacher, he felt there was a time to jest and a
time to refrain from jesting, and it didn't amuse him a bit to be
punched and rumpled and told he was a surly little devil if he attempted
to punch back. In some vague way Tony felt that it wasn't playing the
game--if it was a game. Often, too, for the past year and more, he
connected the frequent disappearances of the big man with trouble for
Mummy. Tony understood Hindustani as well as and better than English.
His extensive vocabulary in the former would have astonished his
mother's friends had they been able to translate, and he understood a
good deal of the servants' talk. He felt no real affection for the big,
tiresome man, though he admired him, his size, his good looks, and a way
he had with grown-up people; but he decided quite dispassionately, on
evidence and without any rancour, that the big man was a "budmash," for
he, unlike Auntie Jan, never did anything he said he'd do. And when,
before they left Dariawarpur, the big man entirely disappeared, Tony
felt no sorrow, only some surprise that having said he was going he
actually had gone. Auntie Jan never mentioned him, Mummy had reminded
them both always to include him when they said their prayers, but
latterly Mummy had been too tired to come to hear prayers. Auntie Jan
came instead, and Tony, watching her face out of half-shut eyes, tried
leaving out "bless Daddie" to see if anything happened. Sure enough
something did; Auntie Jan looked startled. "Say 'Bless Daddie,' Tony,
'and please help him.'"
"To do what?" Tony asked. "Not to come back here?"
"I don't think he'll come back here just now," Auntie Jan said in a
frightened sort of whisper, "but he needs help badly."
Tony folded his hands devoutly and said, "Bless Daddie and please help
him--to stay away just now."
And low down under her breath Jan said, "Amen."