THE CHILDREN'S HOUR
Mr. Fox had a large house-party at Shortleas for a week's shooting, and
he asked Tom and Beatrice to come and bring Auntie May, and stay three
days. Beatrice wanted to accept, so Mrs. Gilmour agreed to stay and
look after the children.
'He doesn't ask Loki!' said Beatrice slily. 'Can you possibly do
without him for a week, May?'
'_I_ can take care of him,' said Rosamond eagerly, 'and he can sleep on
my bed, can't he?'
'And on mine too,' pleaded Amerye.
Kitty said nothing. She knew she wouldn't be trusted to have a cat or
anything else on her bed.
'We will take him on alternate nights, Amerye,' said Rosamond, and
so that was settled. Beatrice and Tom and Auntie May drove over to
Shortleas in the dog-cart. Auntie May looked far sorrier to leave me
than glad to go to stay with Mr. Fox. She has never liked him really
since he didn't bear to be in the same room with her cat.
Then the children solemnly took possession of me, and Rosamond
prevented them from hugging me and lifting me. She never allowed
anybody to do that but herself. She is a domineering little thing.
I lived in the schoolroom all day, and went up to bed with them at
eight. Miss Grueber went up too with them to their rooms, and they
had bed drill. It was very odd. They undressed by drill, they had
brushing-teeth drill, they had health-exercises drill. I wondered if
they would have prayers drill, but they did that alone, without Miss
Grueber, all kneeling down by the side of their beds, and tucking their
nightgowns carefully under their toes for fear I were to play with them
and distract them, which I certainly should have done, because they
were quite pink.
The brushing-teeth drill was very funny. One, pour water in the glass!
Two, lid off box of tooth-powder! Three, dip brush in glass! Four, dip
brush in tooth-powder! Five, scrub! Repeat five times! Then, Listerine!
They had separate beds, at least Kitty's was not much more than a
crib, she was so little. The moment Fraülein Grueber had gone they
all three got into the same--Rosamond's or Amerye's, there was a
different hostess each night. Then they babbled for an hour or so,
till they fell asleep. They called it an hour, but children always
exaggerate, and I don't believe it was more than twenty minutes. They
discussed everything, all the things that had been discussed before
them, and whispered before them, and said when they were out of the
room even--they seemed to have heard and to know everything. Rosamond
snubbed Amerye because she had been to stay in London with Auntie May
five times, while Amerye had only been three times. They both snubbed
Kitty because she had never been to London at all. They found her very
convenient, because she was supposed to want to know things, and gave
them a chance of talking about London. She knew that, and sometimes
teased them by saying that she didn't want to hear anything about the
horrid place where she had never been.
Amerye began like this:
'Do you know that when I was in London--?'
'Of course we know. Go on.'
'Well, when I was in London I went to _Everyman_.'
'Were taken, you mean.'
'Went to a play called _Everyman_, and I cried, and Auntie May cried,
and Mr. What's-his-name cried. They both said it made them feel so
wicked. It didn't make me feel wicked, only sad and hungry.'
'When I was in London,' said Rosamond, 'I went to see Henry Irving as
Faust, and I had to go away to the very back of the box.'
'Why?' asked Kitty. 'Petticoat coming down, or sick?'
'No, neither, but because I was nervous.'
'Nervous! Pooh! It was because you were afraid of the devil, you said
last time.'
'So I was, till I found out it was Sir Henry Irving, and then I liked
him and came back to the front seat again, and fell in love with him--'
'Fell in love with the devil? How could you?'
'Everybody does in London.'
'Now, Amerye, you tell us some more about London,' begged Kitty, whose
business it was to keep the balance true between them.
'Well, I went to lunch in a restaurant with Auntie May, and had
tournedos--that means turn your back.'
'What to?'
'The fire, of course, till they were done,' said Amerye quickly. 'They
were all seamed across in bars. I ate two.'
'And what did you drink?'
'Ah--oh--lemonade. Auntie May had champagne.'
'I've had champagne once--in London,' said Rosamond thoughtfully.
'How much?'
'Half a wine-glassful.'
'And how did you feel?'
'As if I should like to lay my head on somebody's shoulder and go to
sleep.'
'That's being drunk.'
'That isn't a nice word to use, Amerye.'
'It is not a nice thing to be,' said Amerye severely.
'Children! Children!' said Kitty. 'Tell us some more, Rosamond.'
'Last time I was in London,' began Rosamond eagerly, 'I sat to
grandpapa with Petronilla on my lap.'
'Did you sit still?'
'I did, but Petronilla didn't. She wiggled and wobbled and made my
hands simply ache. At last I got a ball of Auntie May's crewel wools
to hold scrumped up into the shape of Petronilla. That was when he was
doing my hands. I washed them first.'
'And is it like you--the portrait?'
'I don't know,' said Rosamond carelessly. 'Grandpapa keeps it in a
corner with a lot of old easels and things on top of it. He is going
to finish it, some day, when I'm altered. Now, Amerye, you can tell us
about the Zoo.'
Amerye began in a great hurry, for fear, I suppose, Rosamond took back
her permission.
'Well, when I was in London I was always asking Auntie May to take me
to the Zoo--teased her, _she_ said, and gave her no peace--and she kept
putting off and putting off, saying she was too busy. She never seemed
able to fix a day. But one afternoon when we were out paying calls--'
'I suppose she left you in the hall then? She did me sometimes.'
'Not often,' said Amerye, 'and if there were children in the call I
always went up to them. We got into a bus--'
'Is that a kind of trap?' said Kitty.
'All carriages are traps, but all traps aren't carriages, dear Kitty,'
said Rosamond. 'Don't interrupt till the end. Go on, Amerye.'
'We bundled along for many miles and then stopped at the garden gate of
a house, and got out and paid a shilling and a sixpence and went in.
It was a very railey garden with walks between, and I said, "Is it a
long walk up to the house?" and Auntie May said it was. There were some
long-legged birds walking in the grass beside us and some deer, but I
didn't notice them much, for I was anxious to find out if any children
were there. There were several gardeners in livery walking about. Then
we came to a cage with some owls in it bobbing up and down--'
'Like that dear brown one,' said Kitty, 'that lived in the crooked tree
for three months and then went to the devil, father said.'
'And I said to Auntie May, "Your friends seem very fond of animals,"
and she said, "Oh yes, perfectly mad on beasts, they are!" Then we went
under a low archway, and there we met two lots of children carrying
buns, and I must say I thought them very rude carrying away their
teas like that. But I said nothing out loud, only I hoped I should be
allowed to go up to nursery tea at the house, as there seemed quite a
lot of children about, and it would be fun--'
'Now you have gone on long enough,' said Rosamond. 'Tell her what it
was.'
'It was the Zoo. For I then saw a camel and a bear much too large for
any private house, and I said to Auntie May, "Oh, Auntie May, you have
brought me to the Zoo after all."'
'I love that story,' said Kitty. 'And then tell how a man gave you some
monstrous biscuits for the bears and Auntie May gave him sixpence. And
how then you met a man who was king of the Zoo!'
'Yes,' said Amerye, 'and he gave the bears some Nestlé's milk, and let
Auntie May have a baby wolf to hold in her arms. Its mother seemed a
very nice collie dog, like Meg. And then--and then'--(Kitty shrieked
with delight)--'he went into the cage beside a Snow leopard, a thing
just like a large cat--'
It was here that _I_ got so excited that I leaped up on to the bed on
to the top of them.
'Oh, here's dear Loki! Come up, Loki, and hear about the leopard. Make
yourself comfortable, and if you _must_ stick your claws in and out, do
it where the clothes are thickest, that is all we ask you. Go on, Amy.'
'This man went in and the leopard was asleep in a corner. He climbed
up a sort of tree and pulled its legs.'
'Brave man! Didn't he spoil his clothes and get scolded?'
'Yes, jolly well scolded by his wife who stayed outside. He said it
didn't matter, for this little game would soon have to come to an end,
for the leopard was getting a big boy now. It came after him rubbing
about like a cat, and it lay down all curly, and invited him to play
with it, and nipped the edge of his trousers, and he took it up all of
a piece, as we take up Loki, and it crowded all over him, but it was
happiest biting his legs and his hand. Then it got wilder and wilder
and wanted him to roll over too, and he got frightened and he came out,
and his wife dusted the sawdust off him.'
'Is that all the leopard?' asked Kitty.
'Yes, that is all. I wish there was some more for Loki's sake. I must
not tell you about the kangaroos with their children in their pockets
coming hopping across the ground up to us, it will bore poor Loki--oh,
I'll tell you about the cat-house, where I saw the very king of cats
that lived in Egypt and was praised.'
'How praised?' asked Kitty.
'Why, put on a high chair and said prayers to. That's praised. The man
and Auntie May were talking about them and saying that they were an
ugly breed of cats to be set above all the others--why, Kitty, you're
asleep! You _are_ rude!'
'No, I'm not,' said Kitty. 'I am only pretending.'
'Nonsense! You sound all bunged up with sleep,' said Rosamond, in a
queer smothery tone. 'This is my bed and I want it myself. Hoof her
out, Amerye.'
'I'll go of my own self,' said Kitty, 'because you're both getting
dull. Good-night, you _un_-lovers.'
She slipped out and went back to her crib.
'I _am_ rather tired, I see,' she said as she climbed in, dragging her
legs after her. (I was too tired myself to go after them.) 'I'm a bit
good-for-nothing, like mother. Good-night.'
Rosamond and Amerye had a fight as to which of them should have _me_,
but I settled that by slipping away and finding a nice high undraughty
place on the chiffonnier. They always absurdly imagine we want a bed.
As it was quite dark, and they weren't allowed matches, Rosamond and
Amerye gave up all hope of finding me, and went to sleep, and snored, a
sound which is more like our purring than anything else I ever heard.