PRETENDING
“Far away and yet so near us, lies a land where all have been,
Played beside its sparkling waters, danced along its meadows green,
Where the busy world we live in, and its noises only seem
Like the echo of a tempest, or the shadow of a dream.”
All the other dolls belonging to the pair led quiet, domestic lives,
into whose annals few things more eventful came than tea-parties,
christenings, funerals, and attacks of galloping consumption or heart
disease.
But Jennie and Suey, the two longest owned and most deeply cherished,
were called upon to enact every possible and impossible phase of the
romance with which the souls of those two little maids were bitten
through and through.
Both of the waxen creatures were of pallid complexion; their hair
was thin, their noses were worn down by the vicissitudes of years.
Sometimes they might be met clad in blue cashmere frocks, with
white muslin pinafores, shoes, stockings, and even a microscopic
handkerchief apiece. And it might then be known they were passing
through a calm period of existence, and were simply the daughters of
the pair, or such mild and admired characters from books as Ellen
Montgomery or Alice Humphreys.
But if you came across their attenuated forms swathed merely in pieces
of black velvet or crimson cashmere, you would know—that is, if the
scales could fall from your eyes, and the eager, wonderful second-sight
of under twelve be yours for half-an-hour—that all domesticity had
passed away and heroines lay before you.
Perhaps Virginia, walking blindly and happily to her lurid death,
or Flora Macdonald struggling through dangers to save her king, or
glorious Mary bowing her doomed head, or Lammermuir’s bride, or
Constance following Marmion to the wars.
There was hardly an adventure of hero and heroine of all the strange
miscellany of books devoured by the little pair that those unemotional
little dolls had not been through.
They had been lowered by knotted handkerchiefs from the highest windows
in the house, both as princesses running away with fairy princes, and
as heroines escaping from burning hotels. They had had their internal
sawdust badly congested by being forced to swim across the narrow ditch
of water that ran below the currant-bushes and formed an enchanted
castle’s moat. They had been hanged by the neck, shut up in a disused
bird-cage called the Bastille, buried up to their necks, plants for a
Nero’s eyes to gaze upon, placed in an arena to meet with fortitude the
Christian martyr’s death from ravening lions.
But hitherto, when eight o’clock came, Romance’s wings had always
fallen to, and fingers, merely loving and maternal now, had soothed and
comforted the racked bodies, clad them in night-gowns of most patient
work, and laid them to rest in the most elaborate and comfortable of
all the little beds.
This was the first night that when bedtime came Romance was still
soaring irresistibly. All the afternoon Joan of Arc and Grace Darling
had been making their way with unheard-of difficulties from the mines
of Siberia to St. Petersburg, to beg an audience of the Czar, in order
to rescue their aged parents from the life of toil.
When the tea-bell rang Dorothy picked Jennie up from the salt mine in
which she had taken refuge for an hour.
“Let’s ask if we may have waspberry jam for tea, Phyl,” she said,
tucking her heroine under her arm.
But Phyl’s eyes still held the fire and glory of the struggle.
“I’ll tell you,” she said; “let’s leave them here on this mountain till
bedtime—they never get any _real_ adventures; Grace and Joan didn’t go
in and sit by the nursery fire as soon as the tea-bell went.”
“O-oh,” said Dolly, clasping her dear one jealously. It was all very
well to have adventures when they themselves were actually on the spot
to see no real harm befell, but it seemed a horrible thing to go and
leave them unprotected, out-of-doors at night. “O-oh, Phyl,—I wouldn’t
like to leave Jennie where I couldn’t see her.”
“Grace’s and Joan’s mothers couldn’t see them,” Phyl said darkly.
“It might be wet,” said Dorothy, with an anxious look at the sky.
“No; it’s beautifully fine,” said Phyl; “at any rate Joan is going to
stay and brave it; p’raps Grace hasn’t got enough pluck, though.”
“Gwace is a lot bwaver than Joan,” protested Dolly, quickly fired. She
sprang across to the stones and laid her down recklessly. Phyl placed
Joan in an equally exposed position, and then with determined faces but
anxious hearts they ran in to tea, and left the heroines to struggle on
across Russia in the dark.
When bedtime came Dolly was ready to slip out and bring them in after
the long three hours.
But Phyl’s eyes were full of exultation, and drew her sister away from
Weenie, who tried thirstily to hear the whisper.
“Let’s let it be a really truly adventure this time,” she said; “let’s
let them go on struggling there till morning.”
Dolly’s heart swelled.
“They’d get dreadful colds, Phyl,” she pleaded, “and Jennie’s only just
getting over her menumia.”
“Oh!” said Phyl impatiently, “heroines can’t think about colds and
things,—I’ve decided to let Joan stay,—your cowardly little Grace
Darling can come to bed if she likes.”
Of course she did not like, and the result was both small maidens crept
unhappily into bed, and after long and wistful gazing at the window
dropped off at last into troubled sleep.
But who could wake and find it snowing,—an undreamed-of thing that fine
night,—and still leave two unfortunate heroines making their harrowing
way across the Steppes? There was no thought of Grace in Dolly’s mind
and none of Joan in Phyl’s in that midnight hour; it was little Jennie
and Suey who lay beneath the bitter sky, and their instantaneous rescue
had to be effected at all costs.
But who could marvel that, even despite the cod-liver oil, Phyllida
awoke with laboured breathing, and even strong, rosy Dolly sneezed
and sneezed as she slipped on her clothes in the morning to run and
tell her mother the sorrowful news that Phyl’s Old Man of the Sea was
sitting on her chest?
“Oh dear! oh dear!” cried the mother, when after much questioning all
the story of the night was extracted. “What _am_ I going to do with
you? Phyl, Phyl, are you trying to break my heart again? Dolly, and you
promised to help me!”
“We didn’t think,” sobbed the little girls, heartbroken themselves to
have given such trouble.
“But you never do,” said the distracted young mother. “All these
dreadful, dreadful things that come into your heads,—you always do them
first, and then are sorry after.”
“If only you had forbidden us to do it,” wept Phyl; “we never do the
things you forbid, do we, mother?”
The mother was forced to admit this; their obedience to direct command
was unswerving, but how could any one circumvent wild proceedings by
laying an embargo on them before the wild young minds had conceived
them?
“How could I have dreamed you would do anything so mad?” she said.
“Didn’t you stay one moment to think how it would grieve me?”
“When we got back we did,” said Dolly, with streaming eyes, “and Phyl
ate ever so much cod-liver oil to please you.”
What was there to be done but scold and scold, and then beg and entreat
future carefulness?
“Write it down in the book, Dolly,” Phyl said, when the mother had gone
off to see about linseed poultices and hot drinks.
And Dolly got out a little book made of bits of paper stitched together
by themselves, and she made one new entry on the list of “Things we’re
not to do on any account.”
“Not to go out in the garden when it’s snowing in middle of the
night,” she wrote now in large plain letters.
The prohibitions on the preceding page or two were a little curious.
“Not to read any more of Sarah’s and Jane’s books in paper covers.”
“Phyl not to get her feet wet in the ditch, and D. not to let her get
them wet.”
“Not to tie Weenie to the table any more when she touches our things.
N.B.—Weenie not to touch our things.”
“Not to pretend we’re angels going up and down Jacob’s ladder.”
“Not to pretend Suey is Jael, and not to hammer nails in the table.”
“Not to pretend Bibel stories any more at all.”
“P. not to pretend Sarah is Sinbad when she is washing the floor, and
never to get on her back again.”
“D. not to give her best books to poor girls at the door any more.”
“What’ll we be to-day?” Dolly said, tucking the book of prohibitions in
a secret place between the skirting-board and the wall. “Tell you, I’ll
be Snow-White and you can be Rose-Red.”
Phyl considered.
“Well, out of the blue book,” she said. “The green with twirly letters
is stupid.”
The blue held Andersen’s versions, all other attempts to disguise or
dress up this immortal story being swiftly resented by the two.
Phyl was at a disadvantage, being confined to a prostrate position, and
could only make passes in the air, but Dolly moved about the room in a
slow, queer way, her arms outstretched and waving regularly.
At any hour of the day the two might be seen moving about the house or
garden in the same mysterious fashion, their arms tossing gently, their
eyes dreamy. But if they met any one their arms dropped guiltily to
their sides and their faces grew very red; to no one, not even their
mother, would they have confessed that they were fairies floating about
the earth.
Rose-Red, with a blissful smile on her face, was in the midst of a
conversation with the Prince when the steaming linseed poultice came to
interrupt.
“You must keep your arms under the blankets,” the mother said, tucking
the clothes well in.
“Oh, mother!” was Phyl’s dismayed answer.
“Wouldn’t it do if you tied some flannel round each arm?” said Dolly
anxiously.—How _was_ a fairy to “float” and be “wafted airily,” or to
“rustle musically,” with her arms smothered in bed-clothes?
“No,” said Mrs. Conway very decisively, “until the fire burns up much
better Phyl is to keep the clothes—faithfully—up to her chin. Remember,
I trust you, Phyl. Now I am going to see about your tray.”
“Oh!” began Dorothy with beseeching eyes.
The mother laughed resignedly.
“I suppose I must say yes,” she said, and went down to see that the
tray was laid for two bedroom breakfasts. She had long since found the
only way to induce Phyl to eat anything when she was ill was to allow
Dolly to have her meals with her.
Harriet came up with the two pink bowls of bread-and-milk.
“Serve you well right, Miss Phyl,” she said; “real bad girls, that’s
what you are! And people thinking you’re so good. Do you know what
Jane’s mother said when she first saw you?”
“No,” they answered, but they looked nervous; they were both very
sensitive to anything said about them.
“She sez to me, she sez, ‘What nice quiet little ladies yours look,
Harriet! They’d never give you any trouble, I’m sure,’ she sez. An’ do
you know what I sez to her?”
“No,” they said again, meekly.
“I sez, ‘Don’t you go judging by aperyances, Mrs. Barnes. For all they
look so quiet, they’re real downright bad,’ I sez. An’ so you are.”
They accepted the statement with a certain amount of relief, for they
had both secretly feared it was a worse charge that Mrs. Barnes had
brought against them. They would far rather have been termed “bad” than
“silly” or “romantic.”
“What dishes have the minions set before us?” said Phyl as the door
shut behind the hard speaker-of-truth.
“There are woc’s eggs, haunches of venison, pweserved woses, and almond
toffee,” responded Dolly.
“Then let us anon,” said Phyl. “Anon” was the last word that had struck
her fancy, and she dragged it into her conversation in all possible and
impossible places.
They had just emptied their heavy gold plates and laid down
their spoons, the handles of which were encrusted with priceless
diamonds, when the mother came in with another tray bearing cocoa,
bread-and-butter, and boiled eggs. Weenie followed with the salt, and a
look of envy on her face.
“I never det any colds,” she said forlornly.
After breakfast, when the tray had been taken away and the mother had
gone to her various duties, Dolly looked at Phyl, and Phyl looked at
Dolly, and then they both looked at Weenie.
“Oh,” the small one said entreatingly, very quick to interpret the
glances, “do let’s stay, Phyl—_please_, Dolly, let’s stay.”
Phyl looked at her impatiently. “Don’t begin to be tiresome, Weenie,”
she said; “you’re not nearly old enough for this game. Think how nice
it will be to have the nursery to yourself all day.”
“We’ll lend you the pink tea-set if you’ll be very careful with it,”
Dolly added consolingly.
But Weenie seemed entirely to fail to see the advantage of the sole use
of the nursery, even with the pink tea-set—which was not the very best
one—thrown in.
“I _will_ stay,” she said. “I shall stay. I will stay—I will stay.” She
wound her arms round the bedpost to prevent the forcible ejection that
so often overtook her.
“Take no notice of her,” whispered Dolly, “she’ll soon get tired of it
and go.”
They commenced waving their arms and talking in that strange tongue of
theirs again.
Within the space of ten minutes Dolly had been rescued from an
enchanted castle; turned into a swan to elude the pursuit of a wicked
step-mother; had danced at a ball on the waters of the lake, clad in a
garment made of sunset clouds studded with dewdrops; and now, seated on
a magnificent throne hewn out of a block of priceless jasper, arrayed
in royal purple robes sparkling with diamonds, she was a princess once
more restored to her own rights, and was extending a fairy-like foot in
a golden slipper for a prince to kiss.
But Weenie listened to the low buzz of talk, and watched the strange
actions with contemptuous discontent.
She was the most practical child in the world, and for her life
could see nothing of the cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces
wherein her sisters were dwelling. There was no glittering throne
for her eyes, no dazzlingly beautiful princess gracefully extending a
foot slippered in gleaming gold. There was merely Dolly to be seen,
rosy-cheeked, ordinary little Dolly with a long bath-towel trailing
from her waist, and the pincushion-cover on her head. And she was
just sitting on two pillows with a very silly look on her face, and
was stiffly sticking out a foot clad in a plain black stocking and
well-worn house shoe.
“Oh,” said the little weary one, “please, Dolly, isn’t zere a dog
in the story, and I could bark—or isn’t zere a drate bear and I
could roar?” Dolly was advancing now towards the washstand with her
arm crooked slightly, a small pocket-handkerchief hanging over her
curls, and an ineffable smile on her face. The prince was leading
her, a bride, up the rose-strewn church-path, and the air was full
of joy-bells and the happy voices of the villagers. Weenie caught
pleadingly at the black frock. “Or I could be ze wicked old woman, and
chase you,” she said.
“She’s been put in a spiked barrel, and is rolling down a mountain,”
Phyl said darkly; “her machinations are over.” She pronounced the word
“machine-ashones,” and her tongue lingered admiringly over it.
“Zen I’ll be ze little dog, and I’ll drink up your blood when your
head falls off,” said Weenie, undeterred. That and the character of
the “sullen headsman” were the only parts that took her fancy in the
frequently played drama _Mary Queen of Scots_.
Dolly turned from the washstand altar, her bouquet (the three small
toothbrushes) in her hand. There was a sound of tears in the forlorn
little sister’s voice that touched her conscience.
[Illustration: “Isn’t zere a dog in the story?”]
“We might play Wobin Hood for a little time—eh, Phyl?” she said,
unwillingly taking off her bridal veil and putting it back in her
pocket. There were opportunities for shooting, a lively work in this
game which led Weenie to tolerate it.
“All right,” Phyl said, also softened by the lonely tone in the small
sister’s voice.
Weenie scrambled energetically up a bedpost and hung there, showing her
small gleaming teeth.
“We’re playing Zoo,” she said, swift to take advantage of the
concession. “I am ze monkey, an’ Phyl can be ze effelunt, an’ Dolly’s
ze tross old zrinoceros.”
The room was in an uproar speedily, Dolly and Phyl playing their
allotted parts with great vigour and enjoyment. “We can be pwetending
we’re pwincesses, an’ have been changed into these shapes,” Dolly
seized a moment to whisper consolingly to Phyl. Then she swung herself
over the foot-rail of the bed and hung head downwards and growled,
which pleased Weenie’s ideas of realism even if it was hardly in
accordance with the character of rhinoceros.