The Rupa Book of Heartwarming & The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  'When I looked in, on my return home, she was as merry as usual, and as affectionate. I think she had no memory.

  'I am trying to give all the particulars I was able to gather from observation. In some things she was difficult, in others very easy to teach. For instance, I got her to learn in no time that she ought to wear her clothes, such as they were, when I was with her. She certainly preferred to go without them, especially in the sunshine; but by leaving her the moment she slipped her frock off I soon made her understand that if she wanted me she must behave herself according to my notions of behaviour. She got that fixed in her little head, but even so she used to do her best to hoodwink me. She would slip out one shoulder when she thought I wasn't looking, and before I knew where I was half of her would be gleaming in the sun like satin. Directly I noticed it I used to frown, and then she would pretend to be ashamed of herself, hang her head, and wriggle her frock up to its place again. However, I never could teach her to keep her skirts about her knees. She was as innocent as a baby about that sort of thing.

  'I taught her some English words, and a sentence or two. That was towards the end of her confinement to the kennel, about March. I used to touch parts of her, or of myself, or Bran, and peg away at the names of them. Mouth, eyes, ears, hands, chest, tail, back, front: she learned all those and more. Eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, kiss, those also. As for kissing (apart from the word) she proved herself to be an expert. She kissed me, Florrie, Bran, Strap, indifferently, one as soon as another, and any rather than none, and all four for choice.

  'I learned some things myself, more than a thing or two. I don't mind owning that one thing was to value my wife's steady and tried affection far above the wild love of this unbalanced, unearthly little creature, who seemed to be like nothing so much as a woman with the conscience left out. The conscience, we believe, is the still small voice of the Deity crying to us in the dark recesses of the body; pointing out the path of duty; teaching respect for the opinion of the world, for tradition, decency and order. It is thanks to conscience that a man is true and a woman modest. Not that Thumbeline could be called immodest, unless a baby can be so described or an animal. But could I be called 'true'? I greatly fear that I could not—in fact, I know it too well. I meant no harm; I was greatly interested; and there was always before me the real difficulty of making Mary understand that something was in the kennel which she couldn't see. It would have led to great complications, even if I had persuaded her of the fact. No doubt she would have insisted on my getting rid of Thumbeline—but how on earth could I have done that if Thumbeline had not chosen to go? But, for all that, I know very well that I ought to have told her, cost what it might. If I had done it I should have spared myself lifelong regret, and should only have gone without a few weeks of extraordinary interest which I now see clearly could not have been good for me, as not being founded upon any revealed Christian principle, and most certainly were not worth the price I had to pay for them.

  'I learned one more curious fact which I must not forget. Nothing would induce Thumbeline to touch or pass over anything made of zinc. I don't know the reason for it; but gardeners will tell you that the way to keep a plant from slugs is to put a zinc collar round it. It is due to that I was able to keep her in Bran's run without difficulty. To have got out she would have had to pass zinc. The wire was all galvanised.

  'She showed her dislike of it in numerous ways: one was her care to avoid touching the sides or tops of the enclosure when she was at her gambols. At such times, when she was at her wildest, she was all over the place, skipping high like a lamb, twisting like a leveret, wheeling round and round in circles like a young dog, or skimming, like a swallow on the wing, above ground. But she never made a mistake; she turned in a moment or flung herself backward if there was the least risk of contact. When Florrie used to converse with her from outside, in that curious silent way the two had, it would always be the child that put its hands through the wire, never Thumbeline. I once tried to put her against the roof when I was playing with her. She screamed like a shot hare and would not come out of the kennel all day. There was no doubt at all about her feelings for zinc. All other metals seemed indifferent to her.

  'With the advent of spring weather Thumbeline became not only more beautiful, but wilder, and exceedingly restless. She now coaxed me to let her out, and against my judgement I did it; she had to be carried over the entry; for when I had set the gate wide open and pointed her the way into the garden she squatted down in her usual attitude of attention, with her legs crossed, and watched me, waiting. I wanted to see how she would get through the hateful wire, so went away and hid myself, leaving her alone with Bran. I saw her creep to the entry and peer at the wire. What followed was curious. Bran came up wagging his tail and stood close to her, his side against her head; he looked down, inviting her to go out with him. Long looks passed between them, and then Bran stooped his head, she put her arms around his neck, twined her feet about his foreleg, and was carried out., Then she became a mad thing, now bird now moth; high and low, round and round, flashing about the place for all the world like a humming-bird moth, perfectly beautiful in her motions (whose ease always surprised me), and equally so in her colouring of soft grey and dusky-rose flesh. Bran grew a puppy again and whipped about after her in great circles round the meadow. But though he was famous at coursing, and has killed his hares single-handed, he was never once near Thumbeline. It was a curious sight and made me late for business.

  'By degrees she got to be very bold, and taught me boldness too, and (I am ashamed to say) greater degrees of deceit. She came freely into the house and played with Florrie up and down stairs; she got on my knee at meal-times, or evenings when my wife and I were together. Fine tricks she played me, I must own. She spilled my tea for me, broke cups and saucers, scattered my Patience cards, caught poor Mary's knitting wool and rolled it about the room. The cunning little creature knew that I dared not scold her or make any kind of fuss. She used to beseech me for forgiveness occasionally when I looked very glum, and would touch my cheek to make me look at her imploring eyes, and keep me looking at her till I smiled. Then she would put her arms round my neck and pull herself up to my level and kiss me, and then nestle down in my arms and pretend to sleep. By and by, when my attention was called off her, she would pinch me, or tweak my necktie, and make me look again at her wicked eye peeping out from under my arm. I had to kiss her again, of course, and at last she might go to sleep in earnest. She seemed able to sleep at any hour or in any place, just like an animal.

  'I had some difficulty in arranging for the night when once she had made herself free of the house. She saw no reason whatever for our being separated; but I circumvented her by nailing a strip of zinc all round the door; and I put one around Florrie's too. I pretended to my wife that it was to keep out draughts. Thumbeline was furious when she found out how she had been tricked. I think she never quite forgave me for it. Where she hid herself at night I am not sure. I think on the sitting-room sofa; but on mild mornings I used to find her outdoors, playing round Bran's kennel.

  'Strap, our fox-terrier, picked up some rat-poison towards the end of April and died in the night. Thumbeline's way of taking that was very curious. It shocked me a good deal. She had never been so friendly with him as with Bran, though certainly more at ease in his company than mine. The night before he died I remembered that she and Bran and he had been having high games in the meadow, which had ended by their all lying down together in a heap, Thumbeline's head on Bran's flank, and her legs between his. Her arm had been round Strap's neck in a most loving way. They made quite a picture for a Royal Academician; 'Tired of Play', or 'The End of a Romp' I can fancy he would call it. Next morning I found poor old Strap stiff and staring, and Thumbeline and Bran at their games just the same. She actually jumped over him and all about him as if he had been a lump of earth or stone. Just some such thing he was to her; she did not seem able to realise that there was the cold body of her friend. Bran just
sniffed him over and left him, but Thumbeline showed no consciousness that he was there at all. I wondered, was this heartlessness of obliquity? But I have never found the answer to my question.

  'Now I come to the tragical part of my story, and wish with all my heart that I could leave it out. But beyond the full confession I have made to my wife, the County Police and the newspapers, I feel that I should not shrink from any admission that may be called for of how much I have been to blame. In May, on the 13 of May, Thumbeline, Bran and our only child, Florrie, disappeared.

  'It was a day, I remember well, of wonderful beauty. I had left them all three together in the water meadow, little thinking of what was in store for us before many hours. Thumbeline had been crowning Florrie with a wreath of flowers. She had gathered cuckoo-pint and marsh marigolds and woven them together, far more deftly than any of us could have done, into a chaplet. I remember the curious winding, wandering air she had been singing (without any words, as usual) over her business, and how she touched each flower first with her lips, and then brushed it lightly across her bosom before she wove it in. She had kept her eyes on me as she did it, looking up from under her brows, as if to see whether I knew what she was about.

  'I don't doubt now but that she was bewitching Florrie by this curious performance, which every flower had to undergo separately: but fool that I was, I thought nothing of it at the time, and bicycled off to Salisbury, leaving them there.

  'At noon my poor wife came to me at the Bank distracted with anxiety and fatigue. She had run most of the way, she gave me to understand. Her news was that Florrie and Bran could not be found anywhere. She said that she had gone to the gate of the meadow to call the child in, and, not seeing her, or getting any answer, she had gone down to the river at the bottom. Here she had found a few picked wild flowers but no other traces. There were no footprints in the mud, either of child or dog. Having spent the morning with some of the neighbours in a fruitless search, she had now come to me.

  'My heart was like lead, and shame prevented me from telling her the truth as I was sure it must be. But my own conviction of it clogged all my efforts. Of what avail could it be to inform the police or organise search-parties, knowing what I knew only too well? However, I did put Gulliver in communication with the head office in Sarum, and everything possible was done. We explored a circuit of six miles about Wilsford; every fold of the hills, every spinney, every hedgerow was thoroughly examined. But that first night of grief had broken down my shame: I told my wife the whole truth in the presence of the Reverend Richard Walsh, the Congregational minister, and in spite of her absolute incredulity, and, I may add, scorn, next morning I repeated it to Chief Inspector Notcutt of Salisbury. Particulars got into the local papers by the following Saturday: and next I had to face the ordeal of the Daily Chronicle, Daily News, Daily Graphic, Star, and other London journals. Most of these newspapers sent representatives to lodge in the village, many of them with photographic cameras. All this hateful notoriety I had brought upon myself, and did my best to bear like the humble, contrite Christian which I hope I may say I have become. We found no trace of our dear one, and never have to this day. Bran, too, had completely vanished. I have not cared to keep a dog since.

  'Whether my dear wife ever believed my account I cannot be sure. She has never reproached me for my wicked thoughtlessness, that's certain. Mr Walsh, our respected pastor, who has been so kind as to read this paper, told me more than once that he could hardly doubt it. The Salisbury police made no comments upon it one way or another. My colleagues at the Bank, out of respect for my grief and sincere repentance, treated me with a forbearance for which I can never be too grateful. I need not add that every word of this is absolutely true. I made notes of the most remarkable characteristics of the being I called Thumbeline at the time of remarking them, and those notes are still in my possession.'

  The Room on the Fourth Floor

  RALPH STRAUS

  John Chester ought never to have gone in for politics. I am quite certain that he should have sat down at a desk and written romances, and become a 'best-seller', and built himself a marble house, and married a wife, and hired a press-agent. Instead, as everybody knows, he elected to be returned to Parliament twenty-five years ago, and there he has remained ever since, always upon the fringe of the Government, though never actually entering those extraordinary precincts.

  Probably succeeding Premiers have considered that Chester's duties as a raconteur at fashionable dinner-tables must for ever preclude him from undertaking anything else, though, I dare say he has refused office on his own account. He is just the kind of man to do such a thing—a man too keen about other people to look properly after his own interests.

  His appearance, as you know, is military. That white moustache suggests the field-marshal, and his clothes are obviously of the dragoon cut. Also, he has a figure which, to my knowledge has changed not an inch in the last twenty years. Some people call him a phenomenon and expect you to know exactly what they mean, and somehow you do. He knows everyone and goes everywhere. He has more friends than any other man in Europe. And he is the kind of man to whom people, even the discreet people, tell things, which possibly accounts for his amazing stock of stories.

  I was dining with him a week or two ago at the House of Commons. A world-famous ex-Minister was sitting in solitary state at the next table. Chester had been unusually silent, and I wondered what was troubling him; but when the great statesman hurried away, my host gave the peculiar chuckle which, with him, is the invariable introduction to some yarn or other.

  'The most remarkable man in England,' he began, looking in the direction of the now empty table.

  'So I am given to understand.'

  'He is the only man who guessed the Farringham riddle, you know. Guessed it at once, too. Most remarkable man. Yes. And yet…'

  He paused and looked at me as though I had contradicted him.

  'Sometimes,' he continued, twirling the white moustache, 'I wonder whether he knew more about the affair than he pretended. He might have heard of it, of course, in his official capacity.'

  'You mean when he was Prime Minister?'

  'Precisely.'

  'You pique my curiosity,' said I.

  John Chester emptied his glass. 'You have never heard of the Farringham case, then? No, well, in the ordinary way you wouldn't. So many of these things have to be hushed up. Besides, it is thirty years old now.'

  I lit a cigar and prepared for one of Chester's inimitable yarns.

  'Yes,' he began, 'Mrs Farringham was a beautiful widow with a passion for travelling in unusual places. She had plenty of money, and she moved from one continent to the next as you or I drive to our clubs. She never took a maid with her; but her daughter, I suppose, did much to fill the maid's place. I met them first in conference. I remember. The girl must have been about twenty then, Mrs Farringham nearly forty, though she scarcely looked older than her daughter.

  'She was entertaining some Italian prince who wanted to become her son-in-law or her husband—I couldn't make up my mind which, and didn't like to ask—and I was invited to call at her London house. I fully intended to go as soon as I returned home, but—well, you shall hear why I never had the opportunity.

  'It was in the year of the great Exhibition in Paris—1900. The Farringhams had been traveling in Russia and Turkey. They had spent a week in Constantinople—a detestable place—and had decided to make a tour through Asia Minor. But apparently for no reason at all Mrs Farringham suddenly took it into her head that she would like to buy new carpets for her London house, and the Asia Minor trip was indefinitely postponed.

  'The ladies visited Thomas Cook, and Thomas Cook in his best English told them how to reach home in the most comfortable manner. Incidentally, he advised a night or two in Paris. The Exhibition had just opened its gates. Now I don't suppose for one moment that Mrs Farringham cared in the least whether she saw the Exhibition or not, but her daughter had not seen so much of the world as her
indefatigable mother, and it was decided that twenty-four hours in Paris would make a pleasant break in a tiresome journey.

  'And so it happened that three days later the two ladies, rather tired and rather irritable, arrived at the Paris terminus. It was just eight o'clock in the evening. They had already dined in the train. A porter found their baggage—three large trunks and a green bag which had accompanied Mrs Farringham from the time she had first crossed the Channel and with the help of a cabman, succeeded in placing the four pieces on the roof of the cab. Before driving off, however, the cabman altered the position of the green bag. Apparently he had got it into his head that the green bag was the last straw to break his conveyance, and he put it beneath his feet on the box.

  'When they arrived at one of the big hotels—I forget for the moment which it was—the ladies asked for two adjoining rooms.

  'The politest of hotel managers shrugged his shoulders many times. "Paris," said he, "is full. It flows over with tout le monde. It is beyond me to give madame and mam'selle two rooms in the closest adjoinment. But if madame will take an apartment on the fourth floor—of the extreme comfort—it will be well." His manner implied that only madame's beauty had made such a favour possible.