The Raft
cried and his father had frowned whenever babies were mentioned. Had it
not been for Peter, the little sister might have slipped God's memory.
Peter gave him no chance to forget. Every night, kneeling between the
bed-clothes with his lips against the pillow to muffle the sound, he
reminded God. He realized that this attitude was not respectful and
always apologized in his prayers. He did it because big people wouldn't
understand if they caught him kneeling beside the bed; it would be quite
easy to fall asleep there and get found.--So, of course, when she
came, she belonged to him. But her coming was not yet. He had no end of
trouble in getting her.
After he had heard the whistling, he tried to tell Grace about it. This
happened the very next morning. She had risen late and was dressing him
in a hurry in order to get him down in time for breakfast. She hardly
listened to him at all, but jerked him this way and that, buttoning and
tying and tucking.
“My, oh, my! There's only emptiness inside your little 'ead this
mornin'; you must 'ave left your brains beneath the pillow. What a lot
o' talk about nothin'.”
“It wasn't nothing, Grace. I really and truly heard it.”
“Now then, no false'oods, young man. God's a-listenin' and writin' it
all down.--There, Grice didn't mean to be h'angry! But you talk your
tongue clean out o' your 'ead.”
“But Grace, I did. I did. It was like this.”
He pursed his lips together; only a splutter came. Grace rubbed his face
vigorously with the flannel, leaving a taste of soap in his mouth.
“You should 'ear my new sweet'eart.” She was trying to create a
diversion. “'E can make a winder rattle in its frame; it's that loud
and shrill, the noise 'e do make. If you're a good boy, maybe I'll get
'im to teach you 'ow.”
He was bursting with his strange new knowledge; he was sure his mother
would understand. While his father was at the table he kept silent. His
father soon hurried away; the front-door slammed.
He plucked at his mother's skirt. “Last night God was in my cupboard.”
“But darling, little boys oughtn't to say things like that--not even in
fun, Peter.”
“I heard him, mummikins. An angel was with him, doing like this.”
He puffed out his cheeks; but he wasn't so clever as the angel. No sound
came.
His mother gazed long into the eager face, trying to detect mischief.
“Whistling--is that what you mean? But angels don't whistle, Peter.”
“This one did--in our cupboard--in my bedroom.”
He wagged his head solemnly in affirmation. Then he drew down his
mother's face. She was smiling to herself. “God was making our baby,” he
whispered, “and the angel was waiting to bring her.”
The rain came into her eyes--that was what Peter called it. “Hush, my
dearest. That's all over. You're my only baby now.”
She pressed him to her; he could feel her shaking. Just then, he knew,
nothing more must be said.
Many times he tried to tell her. One evening, while the angel was
whistling, she tiptoed into his bedroom. Looking up through the darkness
he saw her and seized her excitedly about the neck. “They're there,
mummy. Don't you hear her? She's whistling now.” He pronounced it
'wussling.'
“Why _her_, Peter?”
“I dunno; but listen, listen.”
She opened the cupboard door. “See, there's nothing.”
“She stopped when you did that.”
“Go to sleep, my precious. You're dreaming. If there was anything,
mother would have heard it as well.”
So he learnt to keep his secret to himself; no one seemed able to share
it. Every now and then, he would stop in his playing, with his head
on one side and his face intent; those who watched would see him
creep upstairs and peep into the big, dark cupboard. Strangely enough,
whatever he thought he heard, he did not appear frightened.
When the doctor was called to examine him he said, “A very imaginative
child! Oh dear no, he's quite well. He'll grow out of that fancy. Won't
you, old chap?”
At the back of his mother's mind was the terror that she was going to
lose him. She kept him always with her. When that dreamy look came into
his eyes and he turned his head expectantly, she would snatch him to her
breast, as though someone lurked near to take him from her. And Peter
lay still in her arms and smiled, for it seemed to him that the angel
leant over the banisters and whistled softly, “I'm coming. I'm coming,
little Peterkins.”
But Peter was anxious to make God hurry. It was Grace who taught him
how.
Her faith came in spasms. Although she beat the drum for the Salvation
Army her fervor had its ups and downs. She used to tell Peter. When her
love-affairs went wrong, she was overwhelmed with doubt and refused to
go on parade. “'E can carry the drum 'isself,” she would say, speaking
of her Maker. “If 'e don't look after me no better, I've done with 'im.
It's awright; I don't care. 'E can please 'isself. If 'e can do without
me, I can do without 'im. So there.”
These confidences made Peter feel that God was an excessively accessible
person. One evening, kneeling in his mother's lap with folded hands, he
surprised her by adding to the petition she had taught him, “Now, look
here, God, I'm tired of waiting. I wants----”
At this point he was stopped by a gentle hand pressed firmly over his
mouth.
“I can't think what's come to Peter,” she told her husband; “he speaks
so crossly to God in his prayers.”
“That's Grace,” said Barrington laughing, “you mark my words. You'd
better talk to her.”
“Oh, but I'm so frightened when he does like that. Billy, do you
think----”
He stopped her promptly. “No, I don't. The boy's all right.”
Seeing how her lips trembled, he took her in his arms. “You've never
grown out of your short frocks--you're so timid, you golden little Nan.”
It was after Grace had been spoken to that she made it up with her
Maker. When this occurred, Peter was with her in the dimly lit hall
where the soldiers of Salvation gathered. She was sitting beside him
sulkily on the back bench nearest the door; suddenly she rose and dashed
forward in a storm of weeping. While the penitent knelt by the platform,
the man who was waving his arms went on talking. Peter was growing
frightened for her, when she jumped to her feet, seizing a tambourine
which she banged and shook above her head, and shouted, “I'm cleansed.
I'm cleansed.”
Partly because of her strength and partly because of her righteousness,
she was allowed to carry the drum again and march in the front of the
procession. Peter was impressed. After that when he had been impatient
with God, he would seek forgiveness by declaring himself _cleansed_.
He always thought that, following such confessions, the whistling came
louder from the cupboard.
But it was Uncle Waffles who completed his information. At intervals he
would come over to Topbury with Aunt Jehane. So far as the ladies were
concerned, the talk was usually about their children. Aunt Jehane would
rarely fail to mourn the fact that hers were both girls.
“Boys are different,” she would say; “you can turn them out to sink or
swim. But girls! Sooner or later one has to get them married. It's like
my fortune to have two of them--the luck was with you from the first.”
Perhaps that was Jehane's way of reminding Nan that she had given her
husband only Peter. Waffles seemed to construe it in that light for,
when she had repeated her complaint more than twice, he would tuck Peter
under one arm and Glory under the other, and steal away to some hidden
place where he could ask him funny questions. If he heard a cock crowing
he would stop and inquire, “Why does the Doodle-do?”
The little boy almost always forgot the proper answer. Uncle Waffles
would have to tell him, “Because he does, Peter.”
Peter soon learnt that Uncle Waffles had secrets as well, for, when he
talked in the presence of his wife, he would hold his chin in his hand,
so as to be able to slip his fingers quickly over his mouth if he found
that unwise words were escaping. If he were too late in slipping up his
fingers, she would say quite sharply, “Ocky, don't be stupid. You're no
better than a child.”
It was because Uncle Waffles was no better than a child that Peter took
courage to ask him, “How does people have babies?”
His uncle regarded him seriously a moment. “You're very little to ask
such questions. It's a great secret. If I tell you, promise to keep it
to yourself.”
When he had promised, his uncle whispered. And Peter knew that it was
true, for he remembered that someone had been lazy and had had breakfast
in bed before the coming of both Riska and Philip. So he learnt the last
piece of witchcraft by which babies are induced to come into the world.
From then on, until it happened, he was continually coaxing his mother
not to get up to breakfast. One morning she took his advice; then he
knew for certain that Uncle Waffles was very wise, even though Aunt
Jehane did call him stupid.
For some time the whistling had been growing bolder: it would come out
of the cupboard as though the angel were running; it would wander all
over the house and meet him in the most unexpected places. When he was
playing in the garden it would drift down to him from the tree-tops,
“Coming, Peterkins. Coming.” It had grown quick like that, as though it,
too, were impatient of waiting.
Two years had gone by since God had sent Philip and taken him back so
suddenly. It was within a few days of the anniversary and very close to
Christmas. All day the sky had been heavy with clouds. It was bitterly
cold outside; Peter had been kept in the nursery with a big, red fire
blazing. Everyone seemed busy; they opened the door now and then to
make sure that he was all right, and left him to play by himself.
Toward evening the clouds burst like great pillows, swollen with angels'
feathers; softly, softly, covering up bare trees, putting the world to
sleep beneath a great white counterpane, the snow came down.
He woke in the night; it was like a lark singing right beside his bed.
It was the old haunting little air that it sang, but so much quicker,
“Coming. Coming. Coming.” Sometimes it sank into the faintest whisper;
sometimes it would swell into a sound so loud and happy that even
Grace's sweetheart could not have whistled louder. Grace turned drowsily
and, seeing him sitting up, drew him down beneath the clothes, putting
her arms about him. No, she had not heard it.
In the morning his mother's breakfast was carried upstairs and his
father looked worried. Peter grew afraid lest he had done wrong and a
little sister was not wanted. So he hid himself in the big dark cupboard
in the bedroom and was not missed for hours.
Presently voices wandered up and down the house, sometimes sounding
quite near and sometimes quite distant, “Peter! Peter! Where are you?”
They seemed afraid to call louder.
Peter had his suspicions, so he kept quiet. They did not want her--and
they knew that he had done it.
Someone said “Shish!” The other voices sank into silence; now it was
only his father's that he heard. “Peter-kins, Peterkins, father wants
you. Don't be frightened. He's going to tell you something grand.”
So Peter came out; when he saw his father's face, he knew that he was
not angry.
“You did want her too--didn't you, didn't you, Daddy?”
“Of course I did, you rummy little chap. But how did you know? Who told
you?”
Although he coaxed and rubbed his scrubby chin against Peter's neck, he
never got an answer to that question. Where was the good of answering?
Either you had ears like Peter's or you hadn't.
CHAPTER IX--KAY AND SOME OTHERS
She filled all his thoughts; the world had become new to him.
Picture-books were no longer amusing; just to be Peter with a little
strange sister was the most fascinating story imaginable.