I would see a good deal of Hugh, sometimes going to stay with him at
Langton Weaver, and often, in London, dining with him at his house in
Charles Street, just he and I alone. It was very pleasant to know of a
quiet house in which I might now and then pass an evening talking, as
one always did with Hugh if one talked at all, of books and tapestries
and fine things. I never knew a man who had such a passion for the touch
of fine things as Hugh, and seeing him thoughtfully holding a little old
ivory figure in his hand one might almost think his skin was in love
with it.
But a few weeks ago, the last time I was ever to dine with my friend, it
instantly struck me that he was in quite a different mood. And
presently he told me about the garden and the tree. He didn’t preface it
with anything in particular, he was thoughtfully twisting the stem of
his port-glass when he said: “Nearly nine years since I have seen
Lamoir----”
I said vaguely: “Yes....” Never once, you see, in all those nine years,
had he so much as mentioned the name of Lamoir, and so I felt rather
stunned at first.
Hugh went on thoughtfully, not particularly to me: “And the first time I
saw her I was nine years old. She must have been seven.”
I said: “But I always understood that Lamoir passed her childhood in
India and never came to England until she was twenty or so! I’d no idea
you too were in India when you were little.”
“I wasn’t,” he said, and he smiled, I think out of shyness just because
he was talking about himself. “I wasn’t. That’s why, you see, it was so
funny----”
I was trying to imagine Lamoir seven years old. It was easy, of course,
as it always is easy with people one likes. Her curly grey hair would be
golden then, and maybe her grey eyes would be more blue than grey, and
they would look enormous in a tiny face. And she would be walking, very
still, making no noise at all, with two thin brown sticks for legs and
two blue pools for eyes, very thoughtful indeed, and all this would be
happening in a garden of red and yellow flowers with a long low white
house nearby. That was how Hugh first saw Lamoir, in a garden, and
nearby a long low white house with a broad flight of steps up to the
open doorway and tall, shining windows.
Dazzling white the house seemed to him, Hugh said, but that must have
been because there was a very brilliant sun that afternoon. There was no
noise, except just summer noises, and although he didn’t remember
actually seeing any birds there must have been a lot of birds about,
because he heard them. And simply masses of flowers there were in that
garden, red and yellow flowers, and over a grey wall somewhere there was
hung a thick curtain of flowers that may have been blue roses. And they
may very well have been blue roses, Hugh said. And bang in the middle of
all those flowers was Lamoir, staring at him as he came into the garden.
Hugh was so surprised, he said, that he didn’t know what to say or do.
He hadn’t, you see, intended coming into that garden at all. He hadn’t,
a moment before, known anything at all about that garden or whose garden
it was or even that there was a garden there at all. That is the funny
part about the whole thing, the way it just sprung out at him, garden,
Lamoir, blue roses and all, out of the summer afternoon. But there it
was, and there Lamoir was, staring at Hugh. Not that she looked a bit
surprised, Hugh said, although she was such a kid. She just stuck her
finger into her mouth and came towards him.
Hugh’s father’s place, Langton Weaver, lay on the slope of a low hill
not far from Hungerford, looking over the plain towards where the old
red Elizabethan pile of Littlecott lies embowered in trees. Hugh, that
bright afternoon, was kicking his heels about in the lane outside his
father’s gates, which was of course against all rules. But Hugh was
lonely that afternoon, he never had any brothers or sisters, and he was
wondering what he would do next, and he was hoping that someone would
come along to do something with--when, bang, there he was in that garden
and a little kid advancing on him with a finger stuck in her mouth. It
was very odd, Hugh said.
“Hullo!” she said. All eyes, that’s what she was.
“Hullo!” Hugh said. She was only a kid, after all. Hugh was nine.
“You’re a boy,” she said.
“Of course I’m a boy,” Hugh said, and he was going to add “just as
you’re a girl,” but a fellow couldn’t stand there arguing all day with a
slip of a thing like that. Then he suddenly remembered he didn’t know
where he was.
“I say,” he said, “I don’t know how I got here. What’s this place?”
She twisted her finger out of her mouth and stared at the wet thing.
Hugh remembered that it shone in the sun. And her hair shone in the sun,
too. Hugh said her hair shone even when they were in the shade. But of
course he didn’t attach any importance to that kind of thing.
“I say, where am I?” Hugh asked again. He must have sounded pathetic, in
spite of himself.
“You’re here,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Hugh,” he said. “But, I say, where’s here? I’ve never seen that house
before. My father’s got the biggest house round here, Langton Weaver.
My father’s Lord of the Manor, and when he’s dead I’m Lord of the
Manor.”
“Oo!” she said, staring.
Hugh said he felt frightfully let down. Any other kid would have exalted
the merits of her own house, but she just swallowed everything and
stared at you. Hugh said he felt as though he had been boasting.
“Our house doesn’t look so jolly clean as this,” he said. “Rather live
here, any day.”
And he suddenly realised he was speaking the truth. That was the amazing
part of it, Hugh said: suddenly to feel that he would much rather live
here than in his father’s house. With this kid. And from that moment,
somehow, he forgot every particle of his surprise at being in that
garden.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Not got a name,” the kid said. “No name.” All legs and eyes, that’s
what she was.
“But you must have a name!” Hugh cried. “Everyone’s got names, even dogs
and cats. We’ve got seven dogs and they’re all called after every day in
the week except one because you can’t call a dog Sunday, father says.”
“No name,” she said breathlessly. “I’m me.”
“But look here, how do they call you when they want you?” He thought
he’d got her there all right, Hugh said.
She giggled. “I just come,” she giggled. “I don’t need to be called. Oo!
Just come when I’m wanted. Did you want me? You did, didn’t you?”
He stared at her, he was so dumbfounded. Jiminy, hadn’t he wanted her!
Anyhow, hadn’t he wanted something to happen. But how had this kid known
that?
“Look here, no rotting!” he warned her.
“Not rotting,” she said, sucking her finger. “What’s rotting?”
“But what’s this place?” he asked almost frantically. “Hasn’t it got a
name either?”
“Oo, yes! Playmate Place.”
“It’s not!” Hugh cried. “Not Playmate Place! _You’re_ rotting now.”
Hugh says she took her finger out of her mouth, stamped her foot and
screamed at one and the same time. “It _is_ called Playmate Place and
Playmate Place and Playmate Place! So there!”
“Oh, all right!” Hugh said, and he didn’t let on any further about his
opinion of a house called Playmate Place. Hugh says a boy of nine would
rather die than live in a house called Playmate Place. It sounded so
soft. But she was only a kid, after all, and she couldn’t _know_
anything.
“I’m going to run now,” the kid said, standing on one leg and staring at
the other.
That was too much, Hugh said. She was going to run! As though she
_could_ run! “Beat you blindfolded,” he just said.
“Oo, you try!” she giggled, and she turned, and she flew. She just flew,
Hugh said. All brown legs and golden hair. He hadn’t a chance. But he
must have been quite a nice boy really, Hugh said, because he began
laughing at himself. He beat this kid!
She stopped, miles away, just under a tree. Hugh panted on. And they
must have run some distance, for the house and the blue roses were no
longer visible. Hugh couldn’t remember any of the particulars of where
they were now. There was a sense of flowers, he said, clean flowers, a
lot of flowers. And that tree, under which Lamoir was waiting for him.
Of course he didn’t know she was Lamoir then. That tree seemed to him a
big tree. Hugh said that when you touched it it smelt like a sort of
echo of all the good smells you had ever smelt.
But he hadn’t come quite up to her when she turned and, before you could
say “knife,” shinned up that tree!
“I say!” cried Hugh.
“Can’t catch me!” panted a little voice from among the leaves.
“Can if I want to,” said Hugh, looking up. All he could see between the
leaves was something white.
“Like you to want to,” piped the something white, and Hugh fell in love
for the first and last time in his life.
When he caught up with her, on a branch high up, she said “Oo!” and gave
him a damp kiss on his cheek. She didn’t giggle or anything, she was as
serious as a man playing cricket. Hugh felt rather ashamed.
“Look here,” he said, to say something, “what’s this tree called? Never
seen a tree like this before.”
“It’s a lovely tree,” she said, staring. “It’s called Playmate Tree, of
course.”
“That’s a soft word, playmate,” Hugh rashly said.
She stared at him with those big grey eyes, Hugh said, so that he began
to feel weak, just weak with meanness. And then she said “Yow!” and
wept. Well! She wept. Hugh didn’t know what to do, stuck up there on a
branch of a tree and this kid crying fit to break her kid’s heart. He
kept muttering, “I say, I’m sorry,” and things like that, and then he
found she was somehow in his arms, and he kissing her and kissing her
hair. Her hair smelt like the tree, Hugh said, so it must have been a
funny sort of tree.
“Kiss the tree now,” the small voice said. “You’ve hurt it.”
“Oh, I say!” said Hugh, but he did as he was told, and then they climbed
down the magic tree in silence, he trying to help her and almost
breaking his neck. They walked slowly back, hand in hand, towards where
the house was, through the sweet lush grass. There was music somewhere,
Hugh said. Or maybe there wasn’t and he only thought there was. And Hugh
said that he was happier at that moment than he had ever been since in
his whole life.
“Mustn’t laugh at words like playmate,” said the wise kid. “You’ll get
hurt if you do.”
“I say, I’d like to see you again,” Hugh said shyly, and he found
himself walking on the dusty lane towards Nasyngton! He was almost in
Nasyngton, he could see, down the slope, the thick old bridge over the
Kennet. He must have walked two miles or more while he thought he was in
that garden. Playmate Place. He stopped to wipe his face, wondering
passionately. He was simply streaming with perspiration. But what had
happened to that old garden, that’s what puzzled him. And that kid! That
jolly little kid. He rubbed his cheek, but he couldn’t be certain if
there still was a damp patch where she had kissed him. Anyhow, it would
have dried by then, and, anyhow again, he’d got so hot since.
When he got home Hugh told Hugh’s father the outline of his adventure,
and Hugh’s father told Hugh he had broken rules by being outside the
gates at all and that he must have been dreaming, but Hugh said
passionately that he was sorry he had broken rules but he hadn’t been
anything like dreaming, and Hugh’s father told Hugh not to be an ass,
and two years later Hugh’s father died.
Hugh did not see the garden of the white house again. Playmate Place.
Hugh, as he grew up, blushed to think of Playmate Place. He had blushed
at the time, and later on he blushed at the very thought of it. He
wouldn’t have dared let any of his friends at school even dream of his
ever having swallowed such a soft yarn as the Playmate Place one. But,
despite himself, the face of the kid whose name was to be Lamoir stayed
with him, and her silver voice, and her enormous eyes. And now and then
in his dreams, Hugh said, he would seem to hear the faint echo of an
“Oo!”