One day Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella came over from Chadwell Grange.
They were talking to Mamma a long time in the drawing-room, and when
she came in they stopped and whispered.
Roddy told her the secret. Uncle Edward was going to give her a live
lamb.
Mark and Dank said it couldn't be true. Uncle Edward was not a real
uncle; he was only Aunt Bella's husband, and he never gave you
anything. And anyhow the lamb wasn't born yet and couldn't come for
weeks and weeks.
Every morning she asked, "Has my new lamb come? When is it coming? Do
you think it will come to-day?"
She could keep on sitting still quite a long time by merely thinking
about the new lamb. It would run beside her when she played in the
garden. It would eat grass out of her hand. She would tie a ribbon
round its neck and lead it up and down the lane. At these moments she
forgot the toy lamb. It stood on the chest of drawers in the nursery,
looking off into the corners of the room, neglected.
By the time Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella sent for her to come and see
the lamb, she knew exactly what it would be like and what would happen.
She saw it looking like the lambs in the Bible Picture Book, fat, and
covered with thick, pure white wool. She saw Uncle Edward, with his
yellow face and big nose and black whiskers, coming to her across the
lawn at Chadwell Grange, carrying the lamb over his shoulder like
Jesus.
It was a cold morning. They drove a long time in Uncle Edward's
carriage, over the hard, loud roads, between fields white with frost,
and Uncle Edward was not on his lawn.
Aunt Bella stood in the big hall, waiting for them. She looked much
larger and more important than Mamma.
"Aunt Bella, have you got my new lamb?"
She tried not to shriek it out, because Aunt Bella was nearly always
poorly, and Mamma told her that if you shrieked at her she would be
ill.
Mamma said "Sh-sh-sh!" And Aunt Bella whispered something and she heard
Mamma answer, "Better not."
"If she _sees_ it," said Aunt Bella, "she'll understand."
Mamma shook her head at Aunt Bella.
"Edward would like it," said Aunt Bella. "He wanted to give it her
himself. It's _his_ present."
Mamma took her hand and they followed Aunt Bella through the servants'
hall into the kitchen. The servants were all there, Rose and Annie and
Cook, and Mrs. Fisher, the housekeeper, and Giles, the young footman.
They all stared at her in a queer, kind way as she came in.
A low screen was drawn close round one corner of the fireplace; Uncle
Edward and Pidgeon, the bailiff, were doing something to it with a
yellow horse-cloth.
Uncle Edward came to her, looking down the side of his big nose. He led
her to the screen and drew it away.
Something lay on the floor wrapped in a piece of dirty blanket. When
Uncle Edward pushed back the blanket a bad smell came out. He said,
"Here's your lamb, Mary. You're just in time."
She saw a brownish grey animal with a queer, hammer-shaped head and
long black legs. Its body was drawn out and knotted like an enormous
maggot. It lay twisted to one side and its eyes were shut.
"That isn't my lamb."
"It's the lamb I always said Miss Mary was to have, isn't it, Pidgeon?"
"Yes, Squoire, it's the lamb you bid me set asoide for little Missy."
"Then," said Mary, "why does it look like that?"
"It's very ill," Mamma said gently. "Poor Uncle Edward thought you'd
like to see it before it died. You _are_ glad you've seen it, aren't
you?"
"No."
Just then the lamb stirred in its blanket; it opened its eyes and
looked at her.
She thought: "It's my lamb. It looked at me. It's _my_ lamb and it's
dying. My _lamb's_ dying."
The bad smell came again out of the blanket. She tried not to think of
it. She wanted to sit down on the floor beside the lamb and lift it out
of its blanket and nurse it; but Mamma wouldn't let her.
When she got home Mamma took down the toy lamb from the chest of
drawers and brought it to her.
She sat quiet a long time holding it in her lap and stroking it.
The stiff eyes of the toy lamb stared away over its ears.