Beasts and Super-Beasts
with obvious stealth of purpose towards one or other of the doors, but
never able for a moment to evade the aunt’s watchful eye. As a matter of
fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the gooseberry garden,
but it was extremely convenient for him that his aunt should believe that
he had; it was a belief that would keep her on self-imposed sentry-duty
for the greater part of the afternoon. Having thoroughly confirmed and
fortified her suspicions Nicholas slipped back into the house and rapidly
put into execution a plan of action that had long germinated in his
brain. By standing on a chair in the library one could reach a shelf on
which reposed a fat, important-looking key. The key was as important as
it looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the
lumber-room secure from unauthorised intrusion, which opened a way only
for aunts and such-like privileged persons. Nicholas had not had much
experience of the art of fitting keys into keyholes and turning locks,
but for some days past he had practised with the key of the schoolroom
door; he did not believe in trusting too much to luck and accident. The
key turned stiffly in the lock, but it turned. The door opened, and
Nicholas was in an unknown land, compared with which the gooseberry
garden was a stale delight, a mere material pleasure.
Often and often Nicholas had pictured to himself what the lumber-room
might be like, that region that was so carefully sealed from youthful
eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered. It came up to
his expectations. In the first place it was large and dimly lit, one
high window opening on to the forbidden garden being its only source of
illumination. In the second place it was a storehouse of unimagined
treasures. The aunt-by-assertion was one of those people who think that
things spoil by use and consign them to dust and damp by way of
preserving them. Such parts of the house as Nicholas knew best were
rather bare and cheerless, but here there were wonderful things for the
eye to feast on. First and foremost there was a piece of framed tapestry
that was evidently meant to be a fire-screen. To Nicholas it was a
living, breathing story; he sat down on a roll of Indian hangings,
glowing in wonderful colours beneath a layer of dust, and took in all the
details of the tapestry picture. A man, dressed in the hunting costume
of some remote period, had just transfixed a stag with an arrow; it could
not have been a difficult shot because the stag was only one or two paces
away from him; in the thickly-growing vegetation that the picture
suggested it would not have been difficult to creep up to a feeding stag,
and the two spotted dogs that were springing forward to join in the chase
had evidently been trained to keep to heel till the arrow was discharged.
That part of the picture was simple, if interesting, but did the huntsman
see, what Nicholas saw, that four galloping wolves were coming in his
direction through the wood? There might be more than four of them hidden
behind the trees, and in any case would the man and his dogs be able to
cope with the four wolves if they made an attack? The man had only two
arrows left in his quiver, and he might miss with one or both of them;
all one knew about his skill in shooting was that he could hit a large
stag at a ridiculously short range. Nicholas sat for many golden minutes
revolving the possibilities of the scene; he was inclined to think that
there were more than four wolves and that the man and his dogs were in a
tight corner.
But there were other objects of delight and interest claiming his instant
attention: there were quaint twisted candlesticks in the shape of snakes,
and a teapot fashioned like a china duck, out of whose open beak the tea
was supposed to come. How dull and shapeless the nursery teapot seemed
in comparison! And there was a carved sandal-wood box packed tight with
aromatic cotton-wool, and between the layers of cotton-wool were little
brass figures, hump-necked bulls, and peacocks and goblins, delightful to
see and to handle. Less promising in appearance was a large square book
with plain black covers; Nicholas peeped into it, and, behold, it was
full of coloured pictures of birds. And such birds! In the garden, and
in the lanes when he went for a walk, Nicholas came across a few birds,
of which the largest were an occasional magpie or wood-pigeon; here were
herons and bustards, kites, toucans, tiger-bitterns, brush turkeys,
ibises, golden pheasants, a whole portrait gallery of undreamed-of
creatures. And as he was admiring the colouring of the mandarin duck and
assigning a life-history to it, the voice of his aunt in shrill
vociferation of his name came from the gooseberry garden without. She
had grown suspicious at his long disappearance, and had leapt to the
conclusion that he had climbed over the wall behind the sheltering screen
of the lilac bushes; she was now engaged in energetic and rather hopeless
search for him among the artichokes and raspberry canes.
“Nicholas, Nicholas!” she screamed, “you are to come out of this at once.
It’s no use trying to hide there; I can see you all the time.”
It was probably the first time for twenty years that anyone had smiled in
that lumber-room.
Presently the angry repetitions of Nicholas’ name gave way to a shriek,
and a cry for somebody to come quickly. Nicholas shut the book, restored
it carefully to its place in a corner, and shook some dust from a
neighbouring pile of newspapers over it. Then he crept from the room,
locked the door, and replaced the key exactly where he had found it. His
aunt was still calling his name when he sauntered into the front garden.
“Who’s calling?” he asked.
“Me,” came the answer from the other side of the wall; “didn’t you hear
me? I’ve been looking for you in the gooseberry garden, and I’ve slipped
into the rain-water tank. Luckily there’s no water in it, but the sides
are slippery and I can’t get out. Fetch the little ladder from under the
cherry tree—”
“I was told I wasn’t to go into the gooseberry garden,” said Nicholas
promptly.
“I told you not to, and now I tell you that you may,” came the voice from
the rain-water tank, rather impatiently.
“Your voice doesn’t sound like aunt’s,” objected Nicholas; “you may be
the Evil One tempting me to be disobedient. Aunt often tells me that the
Evil One tempts me and that I always yield. This time I’m not going to
yield.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said the prisoner in the tank; “go and fetch the
ladder.”
“Will there be strawberry jam for tea?” asked Nicholas innocently.
“Certainly there will be,” said the aunt, privately resolving that
Nicholas should have none of it.
“Now I know that you are the Evil One and not aunt,” shouted Nicholas
gleefully; “when we asked aunt for strawberry jam yesterday she said
there wasn’t any. I know there are four jars of it in the store
cupboard, because I looked, and of course you know it’s there, but she
doesn’t, because she said there wasn’t any. Oh, Devil, you _have_ sold
yourself!”
There was an unusual sense of luxury in being able to talk to an aunt as
though one was talking to the Evil One, but Nicholas knew, with childish
discernment, that such luxuries were not to be over-indulged in. He
walked noisily away, and it was a kitchenmaid, in search of parsley, who
eventually rescued the aunt from the rain-water tank.
Tea that evening was partaken of in a fearsome silence. The tide had
been at its highest when the children had arrived at Jagborough Cove, so
there had been no sands to play on—a circumstance that the aunt had
overlooked in the haste of organising her punitive expedition. The
tightness of Bobby’s boots had had disastrous effect on his temper the
whole of the afternoon, and altogether the children could not have been
said to have enjoyed themselves. The aunt maintained the frozen muteness
of one who has suffered undignified and unmerited detention in a
rain-water tank for thirty-five minutes. As for Nicholas, he, too, was
silent, in the absorption of one who has much to think about; it was just
possible, he considered, that the huntsman would escape with his hounds
while the wolves feasted on the stricken stag.
FUR
“You look worried, dear,” said Eleanor.
“I am worried,” admitted Suzanne; “not worried exactly, but anxious. You
see, my birthday happens next week—”
“You lucky person,” interrupted Eleanor; “my birthday doesn’t come till
the end of March.”
“Well, old Bertram Kneyght is over in England just now from the
Argentine. He’s a kind of distant cousin of my mother’s, and so
enormously rich that we’ve never let the relationship drop out of sight.
Even if we don’t see him or hear from him for years he is always Cousin
Bertram when he does turn up. I can’t say he’s ever been of much solid
use to us, but yesterday the subject of my birthday cropped up, and he
asked me to let him know what I wanted for a present.”
“Now I understand the anxiety,” observed Eleanor.
“As a rule when one is confronted with a problem like that,” said
Suzanne, “all one’s ideas vanish; one doesn’t seem to have a desire in
the world. Now it so happens that I have been very keen on a little
Dresden figure that I saw somewhere in Kensington; about thirty-six
shillings, quite beyond my means. I was very nearly describing the
figure, and giving Bertram the address of the shop. And then it suddenly
struck me that thirty-six shillings was such a ridiculously inadequate
sum for a man of his immense wealth to spend on a birthday present. He
could give thirty-six pounds as easily as you or I could buy a bunch of
violets. I don’t want to be greedy, of course, but I don’t like being
wasteful.”
“The question is,” said Eleanor, “what are his ideas as to
present-giving? Some of the wealthiest people have curiously cramped
views on that subject. When people grow gradually rich their
requirements and standard of living expand in proportion, while their
present-giving instincts often remain in the undeveloped condition of
their earlier days. Something showy and not-too-expensive in a shop is
their only conception of the ideal gift. That is why even quite good
shops have their counters and windows crowded with things worth about
four shillings that look as if they might be worth seven-and-six, and are
priced at ten shillings and labelled seasonable gifts.’”
“I know,” said Suzanne; “that is why it is so risky to be vague when one
is giving indications of one’s wants. Now if I say to him: ‘I am going
out to Davos this winter, so anything in the travelling line would be
acceptable,’ he might give me a dressing-bag with gold-mounted fittings,
but, on the other hand, he might give me Baedeker’s Switzerland, or
‘Skiing without Tears,’ or something of that sort.”
“He would be more likely to say: ‘She’ll be going to lots of dances, a
fan will be sure to be useful.’”
“Yes, and I’ve got tons of fans, so you see where the danger and anxiety
lies. Now if there is one thing more than another that I really urgently
want it is furs. I simply haven’t any. I’m told that Davos is full of
Russians, and they are sure to wear the most lovely sables and things.
To be among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn’t any oneself
makes one want to break most of the Commandments.”
“If it’s furs that you’re out for,” said Eleanor, “you will have to
superintend the choice of them in person. You can’t be sure that your
cousin knows the difference between silver-fox and ordinary squirrel.”
“There are some heavenly silver-fox stoles at Goliath and Mastodon’s,”
said Suzanne, with a sigh; “if I could only inveigle Bertram into their
building and take him for a stroll through the fur department!”