Part 8

You must not think that there was any harm in Gilbert. He was, I see now, a nice, polite little boy. My Aunt Angela said so. He was as nice a boy, I daresay, as Philip, who is—perhaps—to make Annabel’s acquaintance next Friday. But he was long and, as it was a fancy-dress ball, his mother had dressed him in greenery-yallery tights, and a doublet with moleskin at the neck and wrists. Now, when you are no older than Annabel and own a live mole which you keep in the ring-dove’s cage, you do not feel friendly to people who wear moleskin. (No, I don’t know what happened to the ring-dove, though I remember that she lived for some time in the kitchen in a straw-coloured wicker-work cage, and was incessantly laying eggs that wouldn’t hatch and croo-rooing over them in a lamentable voice which made the nursery feel that the whole bitter business was the nursery’s fault.)

It is not too much to say that from the moment I set eyes upon Gilbert I felt for him that unreasoning sick dislike of which only a child is capable, and which it never attempts to explain. I never said a word to my Aunt Angela about Gilbert, though I noted him with a prophetic shudder as I followed her across the shining, slippery floor. Indeed, nobody could help noticing Gilbert. It was not only that he was so much longer than anybody else, so prominent among the Joan of Arcs and Pierrots and Geishas, but that he was such a pervasive dancer: he seemed to be behaving beautifully with everybody at once. There was a horrible fascination in his smiling efficiency: he wasn’t shy like everyone else: he didn’t mind what he did: and he did it well. He was a handsome boy too, for my Aunt Angela said so. Indeed, I can best fix him for you by recalling the fact that when I saw Lewis Waller come upon the stage as Robin Hood I instantly, and for the first time in fifteen years, remembered Gilbert.

Before I could pull on my white silk mittens, my aunt (I knew she would) had caught Gilbert and introduced him to me, and he wrote his name on my programme and his own, and his moleskin wrist—his mole must have been an older and oilier mole than mine—rubbed against my bare hand. In the frantic subsequent attempts to scrub off the feel, I spilled water down my new frock, my fancy-dress of yellow satin petals over a green satin skirt, with three green satin leaves dangling from the neck; for I, in that hour, was a primrose.

But washing my hands and drying my frock only took up a dance and a half: Gilbert and his Berlin Polka were still to be faced.

I had an idea. I would anticipate Gilbert: I would have a partner of my own. I marked one down, a rosy, bewildered little girl in sparkles: a Snow-white—a Fairy queen—what did I care? I gave her her orders; for she was only four. She was to look out for me when number seven began. She was to refuse to dance with anyone else. She was dancing the Berlin polka with me—did she understand?—with me: and if a green boy with moleskin on his wrists asked her where I was, well—there I wasn’t! Did she quite understand?

I was still passionately explaining the situation when the music of number six struck up, and her partner, a Father Christmas smaller than herself, jogged her away. I can still see so clearly the bunchy little figure—we were not so particular about the cut of our clothes as is Annabel’s generation—and the alarmed dark eyes and hot cheeks as she looked back at me over her winged shoulder. As for me, I had to put in the perilous time somehow. I hid.

I found a beautiful place to hide in, a room with cane chairs and palms, and one or two screened recesses with two chairs and a table in each. I sat me down in the only empty recess and listened to the music, and wondered whether Gilbert had begun to look for me yet. Soon a young lady with bare shoulders and a young gentleman with an eye-glass arrived, looked in, departed, and shortly returned again. It was quite evident that they wanted my refuge. I wasn’t going to let them have it. I was terrified of them both, but I was still more terrified of Gilbert.

Said the young gentleman:

“What are you doing here?” and he called me “little girl!”

Said I, firmly, but I was on the edge of tears:

“I am waiting for my partner,” and felt that I lied, for I was not exactly waiting for Gilbert.

[Illustration: “HE STARED AT ME REPROACHFULLY”]

“Oh, indeed!” said the young gentleman, and stared again, and whispered to the young lady with the white shoulders, and the young lady whispered back. You cannot think how miserable I felt. They went away at last; but they, and my lie—a lie was a lie in those days—had ruined my haven. I slipped out as the music stopped, and instantly the young gentleman and the young lady got up from two chairs under a palm and sat down behind my screen, while—oh horror!—Gilbert’s green and questing length crossed and re-crossed the lighted swirling space on the other side of the draped doorway. I knew—who better?—whom he sought. I backed into the dark corner formed by the wall and the other side of the screen, too much occupied with Gilbert’s next move to attend to the murmurs on the other side of it. But the sitters-out were sensitive; or I, effacing myself as much as possible, must have pushed against the screen. Slowly, over the top, rose the head of the young gentleman. He stared down at me reproachfully and I, in a paralysis of embarrassment, stared up at him. You cannot think how tall the screen seemed, and how terrible the face of the young gentleman to the eyes of five. Nothing was said. How long he was prepared to stare at me I do not know, for his eye-glass was more than I could bear: at that moment even Gilbert was easier to face. I sidled back into the ballroom, worming my way as self-effacingly as possible in and out between mothers and empty chairs, till a familiar glitter caught my eye. It was my partner, my illegal partner, so soft, so rosy, so cosy, so blessedly harmless, so very much smaller than I. She was not pleased to see me (I realise now that I must have been as awful to her as Gilbert to me) but what did that matter? I grasped her hurriedly by a hand and a wing:

“One, two, three,” I prompted: and we put our feet into the second position. But fate was looking after the little girl in sparkles, not after me.

“My dance, I think.” Gilbert, cool, easy, adequate, even remembered to bow. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he said and he put out mole-skinny hands.

“I’m dancing with _her_,” I muttered. It was my last throw. But at that a new voice interposed:

“Oh, Mary, you mustn’t take the little girl away from her partner!” And the fairy queen, inexpressible relief in her eyes, pulled her hand out of mine and retired upon her mother.

I danced with Gilbert.

The last straw was hearing my Aunt Angela telling my mother, in the cab coming home, that it was pretty to see how the child had enjoyed herself.

Now I wonder how Annabel would have dealt with Gilbert? Her childhood is not my childhood. I read _Pickwick_ at five, while Annabel is satisfied with _Teddy Tail_: that fancy-dress ball was my first party, while Annabel goes to dances twice a week. Annabel’s emotions could never have been in the least like mine. And yet, five years old in the eighteen-nineties is nearer five years old in the nineteen-twenties than five years old will ever be to a contemporary aunt. If I ask my nice Philip Collins to tea—such a handsome boy!—such good manners!—how am I to be certain that I am not inflicting a Gilbert upon Annabel? On the other hand, Annabel might have liked Gilbert. He was a popular person that evening: and Annabel has never kept moles.

Annabel does not think me young. She asked me yesterday if I had ever spoken to Queen Elizabeth; but she likes to hear what I did in that Palæolithic age when I was little. I will tell her about Gilbert when I tuck her up to-night, and see what she says.

Jack and His Pony, Tom

H. BELLOC

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Jack had a little pony, Tom. He frequently would take it from The stable where it used to stand And give it sugar with his hand. He also gave it oats and hay And carrots twenty times a day And grass in basketfuls and greens And swedes and mangels: also beans; And patent foods from various sources And bread—which isn’t good for horses— And chocolate and apple-rings, And lots and lots of other things The most of which do not agree With Polo Ponies such as he, And all in such a quantity As ruined his digestion wholly And turned him from a Pono Poly —I mean a Polo Pony—into A case that clearly must be seen to, Because he swelled and swelled and swelled. Which, when the kindly boy beheld, He gave it medicine by the pail In malted milk, and nutmeg ale, And yet it only swelled the more Until its stomach touched the floor; And then it heaved and groaned as well And staggered, till at last it fell And found it could not rise again. Jack wept and prayed—but all in vain. The pony died, and, as it died, Kicked him severely in the side.

MORAL

Kindness to animals should be Attuned to their brutality.

Tom and His Pony, Jack

H. BELLOC

[Illustration]

Tom had a little pony, Jack: He vaulted lightly on its back And galloped off for miles and miles, A-leaping hedges, gates and stiles, And shouting “Yoicks!” and “Tally-Ho!” And “Heads I win!” and “Tails below!” And many another sporting phrase. He rode like this for several days, Until the pony, feeling tired, Collapsed, looked heavenward and expired. His father made a fearful row. He said, “By Gum! You’ve done it now! Here lies, a Carcase on the ground, No less than five and twenty pound! Indeed, the value of the beast Would probably have much increased. His teeth were false; and all were told That he was only four years old. Oh! Curse it all! I tell you plain I’ll never let you ride again.”

[Illustration]

MORAL

His father died when he was twenty, And left three horses—which is plenty.

[Illustration]

“Pigtails Ltd.”

WALTER DE LA MARE

How such an odd and curious notion had ever come into Miss Rawlings’s mind, not even Miss Rawlings herself could have said. When had it come? She could not answer even that question either. It had simply stolen in little by little like a beam of sunshine into a large room.

Not of course into an empty room, for Miss Rawlings had many things to think about. She was by far the most important person in the Parish, and everyone—from Archdeacon Tomlington and his two curates, Mr. Moffat and Mr. Timbs, down to little old Mrs. Ort the hump-backed charwoman who lived in the top attic of a cottage down by Clopbourne—or, as they called it, Clobburne—Bridge, everyone knew how _practical_ she was.

But once that sunny beam had begun to steal into Miss Rawlings’s mind and into her life, it had lightened up with its precious gold everything that was there. It was nevertheless a fantastic notion, simply because it could not possibly be true. How could Miss Rawlings ever have lost a little girl if there had never been any little girl to lose? Yet that exactly was Miss Rawlings’s idea. It had flitted into her imagination like a nimble, bright-feathered bird. And once it was really there, she never hesitated to talk about it; not at all.

“My little girl, you know,” she would say with a little emphatic nod and a pleasant smile on her broad face. Or rather, “My little gal”—for she always pronounced the word as if it rhymed with Sal—the short for Sarah. This, too, was an odd thing; for Miss Rawlings had been brought up by her parents with the very best education, and seldom mispronounced even such words as Chloe or Psyche or epitome or misled. And so far as I know—which is not very far—and apart from shall and pal and Hal, there is not a single word of one syllable in our enormous English language that is pronounced like Sal; for Pall Mall, of course, is pronounced Pell Mell. Still, Miss Rawlings did talk about her little girl, and she called her, her little gal.

It never occurred to anybody in the Parish—not even to Mr. Timbs—to compare the Little Gal to a gay little bird or to a beam of sunshine. Mrs. Tomlington said indeed that it was merely a bee in Miss Rawlings’s bonnet. But whether or not, partly because she delighted in bright colours, and partly because, in fashion or out, she had entirely her own taste in dress, there could not be a larger or brighter or flowerier bonnet for any bee to be _in_. Apart from puce silk and maroon velvet and heliotrope feathers and ribbons and pom-poms and suchlike, Miss Rawlings’s bonnets invariably consisted of handsome spreading flowers—blue-red roses, purple pansies, mauve cineraria—a complete little garden for any bee’s amusement. And this bee sang rather than buzzed in it the whole day long.

You might almost say it had made a new woman of her. Miss Rawlings had always been active and positive and good-humoured and kind. But now her spirits were so much more animated. She went bobbing and floating through the Parish like a balloon. Her _interest_ in everything seemed to have first been multiplied by nine, and then by nine again. And eighty-one times anything is a pretty large quantity. Beggars, gipsies, hawkers, crossing-sweepers, blind men positively smacked their lips when they saw Miss Rawlings come sailing down the street. Her heart was like the Atlantic, and they like row-boats on the deep—especially the blind men. As for her donations to the Parochial Funds, they were first doubled, then trebled, then quadrupled.

There was, first, for example, the Fund for giving all the little parish girls and boys not only a bun and an orange and a tree at Christmas and a picnic with Veal and Ham Pie and Ice Pudding in June, but a Jack-in-the-Green on May-day and a huge Guy on November the 5th, with Squibs and Roman Candles and Chinese Crackers and so on. There was not only the Fund for the Delight of Infants of Every Conceivable Description; there was also the Wooden-Legged Orphans’ Fund. There was the Home for Manx and Tabby Cats; and the Garden by the River with the willows for Widowed Gentlewomen. There was the Threepenny-Bit-with-a-Hole-in-It Society; and the Organ Grinders’ Sick Monkey and Blanket Fund, and there was the oak-beamed Supper Room in “The Three Wild Geese” for the use of Ancient Mariners—haggis and toad-in-the-hole, and plum duff and jam roley-poley. And there were many others. If Miss Rawlings had been born in another parish, it would have been a sad thing indeed for the cats and widows and orphans and organ monkeys in her own.

With such a power and quantity of money, of course, writing cheques was very much like just writing in birthday-books. Still you can give too much to any Fund; though very few people make the attempt. But Miss Rawlings was a practical woman. Besides, Miss Rawlings knew perfectly well that charity must at any rate _begin_ at home, so all this time she was keeping what the Ancient Mariners at the “Three Wild Geese” called a “weather eye” wide open for her lost Little Gal. But how, it may be asked, could she keep any kind of an eye open for a lost Little Gal, when she didn’t know what the lost Little Gal was like? And the answer to that is that Miss Rawlings knew perfectly well.

She may not have known where the absurd notion came from, or when, or why; but she knew that. She knew what the Little Gal looked like as well as a mother thrush knows what an egg looks like; or Sir Christopher Wren knew what a cathedral looks like. But as with the Thrush and Sir Christopher, a good many little things had happened to Miss Rawlings first. And this quite apart from the old wooden doll she used to lug about when she was seven, called Quatta.

One morning, for example, Miss Rawlings had been out in her carriage and was thinking of nothing in particular, just daydreaming, when not very far from the little stone bridge at Clobburne she happened to glance up at a window in the upper parts of a small old house. And at that window there seemed to show a face with dark bright eyes watching her. Just a glimpse. I say _seemed_, for when in the carriage Miss Rawlings rapidly twisted her head to get a better view, she discovered either that there had been nobody there at all, or that the somebody had swiftly drawn back, or that the bright dark eyes were just too close-together flaws in the diamond-shaped bits of glass. In the last case what Miss Rawlings had seen was mainly “out of her mind.” But if so, it went back again and stayed there. It was excessively odd, indeed, how clear a remembrance that glimpse left behind it.

Then again, Miss Rawlings, like her great-aunt Felicia, had always enjoyed a weakness for taking naps in the train, the flowers and plumes and bows in her bonnet nodding the while above her head. The sound of the wheels on the iron lines was like a lullaby; the fields trailing softly away beyond the window drowsed her eyes. Whether asleep or not, she would generally close her eyes and at least appear to be napping. And not once, or twice, but three separate times, owing to a screech of the whistle or a jolt of the train, she had suddenly opened them again to find herself staring out (rather like a large animal in a field) at a little girl sitting on the opposite seat, who, in turn, had already fixed _her_ eyes on Miss Rawlings’s countenance. In every case there had been a look of intense, patient interest on the little girl’s face.

Perhaps Miss Rawlings’s was a countenance that all little girls are apt to look at with extreme interest—especially when the owner of it is asleep in the train. It was a broad countenance with a small but powerful nose with a round tip. There was a good deal of fresh colour in the flat cheeks beneath the treacle-coloured eyes; and the hair stood out like a wig beneath the huge bonnet. Miss Rawlings, too, had a habit of folding her kid-gloved hands upon her lap as if she was an image. None the less, you could hardly call it only “a coincidence” that these little girls were so much alike, and so much like the face at the window. And so very much like the real lost Little Gal that had always, it seemed, been at the back of Miss Rawlings’s mind.

Not that there had ever been any kind of a ghost in Miss Rawlings’s family. Her family was far too practical for that; and her mansion was most richly furnished. All I mean is that each one of these little girls happened to have a rather narrow face, a brown pigtail, rather small dark brown bright eyes and narrow hands, and except for the one at the window, they wore round beaver hats and buttoned coats. No; there was no ghost _there_. What Miss Rawlings was after was an absolutely real Little Gal. And her name was Barbara Allan.

This sounds utterly absurd. But so it had come about. For a long time—having talked about her Little Gal again and again to the Archdeacon and Mrs. Tomlington and Mr. Moffat and other ladies and gentlemen in the Parish, Miss Rawlings had had no name at all for her small friend. But one still summer evening, there being a faint red in the sky, while she was wandering gently about her immense drawing-room, she had happened to open a book lying on an “occasional” table. It was a book of poetry—crimson and gilt-edged, with a brass clasp—and on the very page under her nose she had read this line:

“Fell in love with Barbara Allan.”

The words ran through her mind like wildfire. Barbara Allan—it was _the_ name! Or how very like it! An echo? Certainly some words and names _are_ echoes of one another—sisters or brothers once removed, so to speak. Tomlington and Pocklingham, for example; or quince and shrimp; or angelica and cyclamen. All I mean is that the very instant Miss Rawlings saw that printed “Barbara Allan,” it ran through her heart like an old tune in a nursery. It _was_ her Little Gal, or ever so near it—as near, that is, as any name can be to a thing, viz., crocus, or comfit, or shuttlecock, or mistletoe, or pantry.

Now, if Miss Rawlings had been of royal blood and had lived in a fairy-tale; if, that is, she had been a Queen in Grimm—it would have been a quite ordinary thing that she should be seeking a little lost Princess, or badly in need of one. But except that her paternal grandfather was a Sir Samuel Rawlings, she was but very remotely connected with royalty. Still, if you think about it, seeing that once upon a time there were only marvellous Adam and beautiful Eve in the Garden, that is in the whole wide world, and seeing that all of Us as well as all of the earth’s Kings and Queens must have descended from them, _therefore_ all of Us must have descended from Kings and Queens. So too with Miss Rawlings. But—unlike Mrs. Tomlington—she had not come down by the grand staircase.

Since then Miss Rawlings did not live in a fairy-tale nor in Grimm, but was a very real person in a very real Parish, her friends and acquaintances were all inclined in private to agree with Mrs. Tomlington that her Little Gal was nothing but a bee in her bonnet. And that the longer it stayed there the louder it buzzed. Indeed, Miss Rawlings almost began to think of nothing else. She became absent-minded, quite forgetting her soup and fish and chicken and French roll when she sat at dinner. She left on the gas. She signed cheques for the Funds without looking back at the counterfoils to see what she had last subscribed. She gave brand-new mantles and dolmens away to the Rummagers; ordered coals from her fishmonger’s; rode third class with a first class ticket; addressed a postcard to Mrs. Tomfoolington—almost every kind of absent-minded thing you can imagine.

And now she was always searching: even in the house sometimes; even in the kitchen quarters. And her plump country maids would gladly help too. “No, m’m, she ain’t here.” “No, m’m, we ain’t a-seed her yet.” “Lor’, yes’m, the rooms be ready.”