A British writer known by the pen name Saki 14 страница
"That will do, my lad." The door shut, he sank back, he was alone...
And now that little ancient fellow was climbing down endless flights that led to a glittering, gay dining-room. What legs he had! They were like a spider's – thin, withered.
"You're an ideal family, sir, an ideal family."
But if that were true, why didn't Charlotte or the girls stop him? Why was he all alone, climbing up and down? Where was Harold? Ah, it was no good expecting anything from Harold. Down, down went the little old spider, and then, to his horror, old Mr. Neave saw him slip past the dining-room and make for the porch, the dark drive, the carriage gates, the office. Stop him, stop him, somebody!
Old Mr. Neave started up. It was dark in his dressing-room; the window shone pale. How long had he been asleep? He listened, and through the big, airy, darkened house there floated far-away voices, far-away sounds. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, he had been asleep for a long time. He'd been forgotten. What had all this to do with him – this house and Charlotte, the girls and Harold – what did he know about them? They were strangers to him. Life had passed him by. Charlotte was not his wife. His wife!
...A dark porch, half hidden by a passion-vine, that drooped sorrowful, mournful, as though it understood. Small, warm arms were round his neck. A face, little and pale, lifted to his, and a voice breathed, "Good-bye, my treasure."
My treasure! "Good-bye, my treasure!" Which of them had spoken? Why had they said good-bye? There had been some terrible mistake. She was his wife, that little pale girl, and all the rest of his life had been a dream.
Then the door opened, and young Charles, standing in the light, put his hands by his side and shouted like a young soldier, "Dinner is on the table, sir!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming, " said old Mr. Neave.
The Wind Blows
Suddenly – dreadfully – she wakes up. What has happened? Something dreadful has happened. No – nothing has happened. It is only the wind shaking the house, rattling the windows, banging a piece of iron on the roof and making her bed tremble. Leaves flutter past the window, up and away; down in the avenue a whole newspaper wags in the air like a lost kite and falls, spiked on a pine tree. It is cold. Summer is over – it is autumn – everything is ugly. The carts rattle by, swinging from side to side; two Chinamen lollop along under their wooden yokes with the straining vegetable baskets – their pigtails and blue blouses fly out in the wind. A white dog on three legs yelps past the gate. It is all over! What is? Oh, everything! And she begins to plait her hair with shaking fingers, not daring to look in the glass. Mother is talking to grandmother in the hall.
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"A perfect idiot! Imagine leaving anything out on the line in weather like this... Now my best little Teneriffe-work teacloth is simply in ribbons. What is that extraordinary smell? It's the porridge burning. Oh, heavens – this wind!"
She has a music lesson at ten o'clock. At the thought the minor movement of the Beethoven begins to play in her head, the trills long and terrible like little rolling drums... Marie Swainson runs into the garden next door to pick the "chrysanths" before they are ruined. Her skirt flies up above her waist; she tries to beat it down, to tuck it between her legs while she stoops, but it is no use – up it flies. All the trees and bushes beat about her. She picks as quickly as she can, but she is quite distracted. She doesn't mind what she does – she pulls the plants up by the roots and bends and twists them, stamping her foot and swearing.
"For heaven's sake keep the front door shut! Go round to the back," shouts someone. And then she hears Bogey:
"Mother, you're wanted on the telephone. Telephone, Mother. It's the butcher."
How hideous life is – revolting, simply revolting... And now her hat-elastic's snapped. Of course it would. She'll wear her old tam and slip out the back way. But Mother has seen.
"Matilda. Matilda. Come back im-me-diately! What on earth have you got on your head? It looks like a tea cosy. And why have you got that mane of hair on your forehead."
"I can't come back, Mother. I'll be late for my lesson."
"Come back immediately!"
She won't. She won't. She hates Mother. "Go to hell," she shouts, running down the road.
In waves, in clouds, in big round whirls the dust comes stinging, and with it little bits of straw and chaff and manure. There is a loud roaring sound from the trees in the gardens, and standing at the bottom of the road outside Mr. Bullen's gate she can hear the sea sob: "Ah!... Ah!... Ah-h!" But Mr. Bullen's drawing-room is as quiet as a cave. The windows are closed, the blinds half-pulled, and she is not late. The-girl-before-her has just started playing MacDowell's "To an Iceberg." Mr. Bullen looks over at her and half smiles.
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"Sit down," he says. "Sit over there in the sofa corner, little lady."
How funny he is. He doesn't exactly laugh at you... but there is just something... Oh, how peaceful it is here. She likes this room. It smells of art serge and stale smoke and chrysanthemums... there is a big vase of them on the mantelpiece behind the pale photograph of Rubinstein... á mon ami Robert Bullen... Over the black glittering piano hangs "Solitude" – a dark tragic woman draped in white, sitting on a rock, her knees crossed, her chin on her hands.
"No, no!" says Mr. Bullen, and he leans over the other girl, puts his arms over her shoulders and plays the passage for her. The stupid – she's blushing! How ridiculous!
Now the-girl-before-her has gone; the front door slams. Mr. Bullen comes back and walks up and down, very softly, waiting for her. What an extraordinary thing. Her fingers tremble so that she can't undo the knot in the music satchel. It's the wind... And her heart beats so hard she feels it must lift her blouse up and down. Mr. Bullen does not say a word. The shabby red piano seat is long enough for two people to sit side by side. Mr. Bullen sits down by her.
"Shall I begin with scales?" she asks, squeezing her hands together. "I had some arpeggios, too."
But he does not answer. She doesn't believe he even hears... and then suddenly his fresh hand with the ring on it reaches over and opens Beethoven.
"Let's have a little of the old master," he says.
But why does he speak so kindly – so awfully kindly – and as though they had known each other for years and years and knew everything about each other.
He turns the page slowly. She watches his hand – it is a very nice hand and always looks as though it had just been washed.
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"Here we are," says Mr. Bullen.
Oh, that kind voice – Oh, that minor movement. Here come the little drums...
"Shall I take the repeat?"
"Yes, dear child."
His voice is far, far too kind. The crotchets and quavers are dancing up and down the stave like little black boys on a fence. Why is he so... She will not cry – she has nothing to cry about...
"What is it, dear child?"
Mr. Bullen takes her hands. His shoulder is there – just by her head. She leans on it ever so little, her cheek against the springy tweed.
"Life is so dreadful," she murmurs, but she does not feel it's dreadful at all. He says something about "waiting" and "marking time" and "that rare thing, a woman," but she does not hear. It is so comfortable... for ever...
Suddenly the door opens and in pops Marie Swainson, hours before her time.
"Take the allegretto a little faster," says Mr. Bullen, and gets up and begins to walk up and down again.
"Sit in the sofa corner, little lady," he says to Marie.
The wind, the wind. It's frightening to be here in her room by herself. The bed, the mirror, the white jug and basin gleam like the sky outside. It's the bed that is frightening. There it lies, sound asleep... Does Mother imagine for one moment that she is going to darn all those stockings knotted up on the quilt like a coil of snakes? She's not. No, Mother. I do not see why I should... The wind – the wind! There's a funny smell of soot blowing down the chimney. Hasn't anyone written poems to the wind?... "I bring fresh flowers to the leaves and showers."... What nonsense.
"Is that you, Bogey?"
"Come for a walk round the esplanade, Matilda. I can't stand this any longer."
"Right-o. I'll put on my ulster. Isn't it an awful day!" Bogey's ulster is just like hers. Hooking the collar she looks at herself in the glass. Her face is white, they have the same excited eyes and hot lips. Ah, they know those two in the glass. Good-bye, dears; we shall be back soon.
"This is better, isn't it?"
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"Hook on," says Bogey.
They cannot walk fast enough. Their heads bent, their legs just touching, they stride like one eager person through the town, down the asphalt zigzag where the fennel grows wild, and on to the esplanade. It is dusky – just getting dusky. The wind is so strong that they have to fight their way through it, rocking like two old drunkards. All the poor little pahutukawas on the esplanade are bent to the ground.
"Come on! Come on! Let's get near."
Over by the breakwater the sea is very high. They pull off their hats and her hair blows across her mouth, tasting of salt. The sea is so high that the waves do not break at all; they thump against the rough stone wall and suck up the weedy, dripping steps. A fine spray skims from the water right across the esplanade. They are covered with drops; the inside of her mouth tastes wet and cold.
Bogey's voice is breaking. When he speaks he rushes up and down the scale. It's funny – it makes you laugh – and yet it just suits the day. The wind carries their voices – away fly the sentences like narrow ribbons.
"Quicker! Quicker!"
It is getting very dark. In the harbour the coal hulks show two lights – one high on a mast, and one from the stern.
"Look, Bogey. Look over there."
A big black steamer with a long loop of smoke streaming, with the portholes lighted, with lights everywhere, is putting out to sea. The wind does not stop her; she cuts through the waves, making for the open gate between the pointed rocks that leads to... It's the light that makes her look so awfully beautiful and mysterious... They are on board leaning over the rail arm in arm.
"...Who are they?"
"...Brother and sister."
"Look, Bogey, there's the town. Doesn't it look small? There's the post office clock chiming for the last time. There's the esplanade where we walked that windy day. Do you remember? I cried at my music lesson that day – how many years ago! Good-bye, little island, good-bye..."
Now the dark stretches a wing over the tumbling water. They can't see those two any more. Good-bye, good-bye. Don't forget... But the ship is gone, now.
The wind – the wind.
A Suburban Fairy Tale
Mr. and Mrs. B. sat at breakfast in the cosy red dining-room of their “snug little crib just under half-an-hour’s run from the City.”
There was a good fire in the grate – for the dining-room was the living-room as well – the two windows overlooking the cold empty garden patch were closed, and the air smelled agreeably of bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. Now that this rationing business was really over Mr. B. made a point of a thoroughly good tuck-in before facing the very real perils of the day. He didn’t mind who knew it – he was a true Englishman about his breakfast – he had to have it; he’d cave in without it, and if you told him that these Continental chaps could get through half the morning’s work he did on a roll and a cup of coffee – you simply didn’t know what you were talking about.
Mr. B. was a stout youngish man who hadn’t been able – worse luck – to chuck his job and join the Army; he’d tried for four years to get another chap to take his place but it was no go. He sat at the head of the table reading the Daily Mail. Mrs. B. was a youngish plump little body, rather like a pigeon. She sat opposite, preening herself behind the coffee set and keeping an eye of warning love on little B. who perched between them, swathed in a napkin and tapping the top of a soft-boiled egg.
Alas! Little B. was not at all the child that such parents had every right to expect. He was no fat little trot, no dumpling, no firm little pudding. He was under-sized for his age, with legs like macaroni, tiny claws, soft, soft hair that felt like mouse fur, and big wide-open eyes. For some strange reason everything in life seemed the wrong size for Little B. – too big and too violent. Everything knocked him over, took the wind out of his feeble sails and left him gasping and frightened. Mr. and Mrs. B. were quite powerless to prevent this; they could only pick him up after the mischief was done – and try to set him going again. And Mrs. B. loved him as only weak children are loved – and when Mr. B. thought what a marvellous little chap he was too – thought of the spunk of the little man, he – well he – by George – he…
“Why aren’t there two kinds of eggs?” said Little B. “Why aren’t there little eggs for children and big eggs like what this one is for grown-ups?”
“Scotch hares,” said Mr. B. “Fine Scotch hares for 5s. 3d. How about getting one, old girl?”
“It would be a nice change, wouldn’t it?” said Mrs. B. “Jugged.”
And they looked across at each other and there floated between them the Scotch hare in its rich gravy with stuffing balls and a white pot of red-currant jelly accompanying it.
“We might have had it for the week-end,” said Mrs. B. “But the butcher has promised me a nice little sirloin and it seems a pity”... Yes, it did and yet... Dear me, it was very difficult to decide. The hare would have been such a change – on the other hand, could you beat a really nice little sirloin?
“There’s hare soup, too,” said Mr. B. drumming his fingers on the table. “Best soup in the world!”
“O-Oh!” cried Little B. so suddenly and sharply that it gave them quite a start – “Look at the whole lot of sparrows flown on to our lawn” – he waved his spoon. “Look at them,” he cried. “Look!” And while he spoke, even though the windows were closed, they heard a loud shrill cheeping and chirping from the garden.
“Get on with your breakfast like a good boy, do,” said his mother, and his father said, “You stick to the egg, old man, and look sharp about it.”
“But look at them – look at them all hopping,” he cried. “They don’t keep still not for a minute. Do you think they’re hungry, father?”
Cheek-a-cheep-cheep-cheek! cried the sparrows.
“Best postpone it perhaps till next week,” said Mr. B., “and trust to luck they’re still to be had then.”
“Yes, perhaps that would be wiser,” said Mrs. B.
Mr. B. picked another plum out of his paper.
“Have you bought any of those controlled dates yet?”
“I managed to get two pounds yesterday,” said Mrs. B.
“Well a date pudding’s a good thing,” said Mr. B. And they looked across at each other and there floated between them a dark round pudding covered with creamy sauce. “It would be a nice change, wouldn’t it?” said Mrs. B.
Outside on the grey frozen grass the funny eager sparrows hopped and fluttered. They were never for a moment still. They cried, flapped their ungainly wings. Little B., his egg finished, got down, took his bread and marmalade to eat at the window.
“Do let us give them some crumbs,” he said. “Do open the window, father, and throw them something. Father, please!”
“Oh, don’t nag, child,” said Mrs. B., and his father said – “Can’t go opening windows, old man. You’d get your head bitten off.”
“But they’re hungry,” cried Little B., and the sparrows’ little voices were like ringing of little knives being sharpened. Cheek-a-cheep-cheep-cheek! they cried.
Little B. dropped his bread and marmalade inside the china flower pot in front of the window. He slipped behind the thick curtains to see better, and Mr. and Mrs. B. went on reading about what you could get now without coupons – no more ration books after May – a glut of cheese – a glut of it – whole cheeses revolved in the air between them like celestial bodies.
Suddenly as Little B. watched the sparrows on the grey frozen grass, they grew, they changed, still flapping and squeaking. They turned into tiny little boys, in brown coats, dancing, jigging outside, up and down outside the window squeaking, “Want something to eat, want something to eat!” Little B. held with both hands to the curtain. “Father,” he whispered, “Father! They’re not sparrows. They’re little boys. Listen, Father!” But Mr. and Mrs. B. would not hear. He tried again. “Mother,” he whispered. “Look at the little boys. They’re not sparrows, Mother!” But nobody noticed his nonsense.
“All this talk about famine,” cried Mr. B., “all a Fake, all a Blind.”
With white shining faces, their arms flapping in the big coats, the little boys danced. “Want something to eat – want something to eat.”
“Father,” muttered Little B. “Listen, Father! Mother, listen, please!”
“Really!” said Mrs. B. “The noise those birds are making! I’ve never heard such a thing.”
“Fetch me my shoes, old man,” said Mr. B.
Cheek-a-cheep-cheep-cheek! said the sparrows.
Now where had that child got to? “Come and finish your nice cocoa, my pet,” said Mrs. B.
Mr. B. lifted the heavy cloth and whispered, “Come on, Rover,” but no little dog was there.
“He’s behind the curtain,” said Mrs. B.
“He never went out of the room,” said Mr. B.
Mrs. B. went over to the window, and Mr. B. followed. And they looked out. There on the grey frozen grass, with a white white face, the little boy’s thin arms flapping like wings, in front of them all, the smallest, tiniest was Little B. Mr. and Mrs. B. heard his voice above all the voices, “Want something to eat, want something to eat.”
Somehow, somehow, they opened the window. “You shall! All of you. Come in at once. Old man! Little man!”
But it was too late. The little boys were changed into sparrows again, and away they flew – out of sight – out of call.
SIXPENCE
Children are unaccountable little creatures. Why should a small boy like Dicky, good as gold as a rule, sensitive, affectionate, obedient, and marvellously sensible for his age, have moods when, without the slightest warning, he suddenly went “mad dog,” as his sisters called it, and there was no doing anything with him?
“Dicky, come here! Come here, sir, at once! Do you hear your mother calling you? Dicky!”
But Dicky wouldn't come. Oh, he heard right enough. A clear, ringing little laugh was his only reply. And away he flew; hiding, running through the uncut hay on the lawn, dashing past the woodshed, making a rush for the kitchen garden, and there dodging, peering at his mother from behind the mossy apple trunks, and leaping up and down like a wild Indian.
It had begun at tea-time. While Dicky's mother and Mrs. Spears, who was spending the afternoon with her, were quietly sitting over their sewing in the drawing-room, this, according to the servant girl, was what had happened at the children's tea. They were eating their first bread and butter as nicely and quietly as you please, and the servant girl had just poured out the milk and water, when Dicky had suddenly seized the bread plate, put it upside down on his head, and clutched the bread knife.
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