CHAPTER XIII
TIME HESITATES
Meanwhile the coveted fortnight drew towards a close. It had begun on aFriday, and that left two full, clear weeks ahead. It had seemed aninexhaustible period--when it started. There was the feeling that itwould draw out slowly, like an ordinary lesson-week; instead of whichit shot downhill to Saturday with hardly a single stop. On lookingback, the children almost felt unfairness; somebody had pushed it; theyhad been cheated.
And, of course, they _had_ been cheated. Time had played his usualtrick upon them. The beginning was so prodigal of reckless promisesthat they had really believed a week would last for ever. Childhoodexpects, quite rightly, to have its cake and eat it, for there is notrue reason why anything should ever end at all. The devices arevarious: a titbit is set aside to enjoy later, thus deceiving Time andchecking its ridiculous hurry. But in the long run Time invariablywins. After Thursday the week had shot into Saturday without a singlepause. It whistled past. And the titbit, Saturday, had come.
Yet without the usual titbit flavour; for Saturday, as a rule, woresplashes of gold and yellow upon its latter end, being a half-holidayassociated with open air and sunshine, but now, Monday already insight, with lessons and early bed and other prohibitions by the dozen,hearts sank a little, a shadow crept upon the sun. They had agrievance; some one had cheated them of a final joy. The collapse wasunexpected, therefore wrong. And the arch-deceiver who had humbuggedthem, they knew quite well, was Time. He was in their thoughts. Hemocked them all day long. Clocks grinned; _Saturday, June_ 3, flaunteditself insolently in their faces.
"The day after to-morrow," remarked some one, noticing a calendarstaring on the wall; and from the moment that phrase could be used itmeant the day was within measurable distance.
"Aunt Emily leaves Tunbridge Wells" was mentioned too, sounding lessunpleasant than "Aunt Emily comes back." But the climax was reachedwhen somebody stated bluntly without fear of contradiction:
"To-morrow's Sunday."
For Sunday had no particular colour. Monday was black, and Saturday wasgold, but Sunday never had been painted anything. Though a buffer-daybetween a vanished week and a week of labour coming, it was ofuncertain character. Queer, grave people came back to lunch. There werecollects and a vague uneasiness about the heathen being unfed andnaked. There was a collection, too--pennies emerged from stainedleather purses and dropped clicking into a polished box with a slit inthe top. Greenland's icy mountains also helped to put a chill into thesunshine. A pause came. Time went slower than usual--God rested, theyremembered, on the seventh day--yet nothing happened much, and withtheir Sunday clothes they put on a sort of dreadful carefulness thatmade play seem stiff, unnatural, and out of place.
Daddy, too, before the day was over, invariably looked worried, theservants bored, Mother drowsy, and Aunt Emily "like a clergyman'swife." Time sighed audibly on Sunday.
"It's our last day, anyhow," they agreed, determined to live in thepresent and enjoy Saturday to the full.
It was then Uncle Felix, having overheard their comments upon Time,looked round abruptly and made one of his startling remarks."To-morrow," he said, "is one of the most wonderful days that was everinvented. You'll see."
And the way he said it provided the very thrill that was needed tochase the shadow from the sun. For there was a hint of promise in hisvoice that almost meant he had some way of delaying the arrival ofBlack Monday.
"You'll see," he repeated significantly, shading his eyes with bothhands and peering up at the sun.
Tim and Judy watched him with keen faces. They noticed that he said"to-morrow" instead of "Sunday." But before they could squeeze out asingle question, there came a remarkable interruption from below. Fromsomewhere near the ground it came. Maria, seated on a flower-pot whoseflower didn't want to grow, opened her mouth and spoke. As is alreadyknown, this did not often happen. It was her characteristic to keep itclosed. Even at the dentist's she never could be got to open her mouth,because he had once hurt her; she flatly refused to do so, and noamount of "Now open, please," ever had the least effect on her firmdecision. She was taken in vain to see the dentist.
This last Saturday of the week, however, she opened.
"I've not had _my_ partickler adventure," was what she said.
At the centre of that circle where she lived in a state of unalterablebliss, the fact had struck her, and she mentioned it accordingly.
Tim and Judy turned upon her hungrily, but before they could relievetheir feelings by a single word their Uncle had turned upon her too.Lowering his eyes from the great circular sun that moved in a circlethrough the sky, he let them fall upon the circular Maria who reposedcalmly upon the circle of the earth, which itself swung in anothercircle round the sun.
"Exactly," he said, "but it's coming. Your father told you a day wouldcome. It is!"
He said no more than that, but it was enough to fill the remainder ofthe day with the recurrent thrill of a tremendous promise. Each hourseemed pregnant with a hint of exceptional delivery. There were signsand whispers everywhere, and everybody was aware of it. Uncle Felixlooked "bursting with it," as though he could hardly keep it in, andeven the Lesser Authorities had as much as they could do to prevent itflying out of them in sudden sentences. Jackman wore a curious smile,which Judy declared was "just the face she made the day Maria wasborn"; Mrs. Horton left her kitchen and was seen upon the lawn actuallypicking daisies; and even Thompson--well, when Tim and his sister cameupon him basking with a pipe against the laundry window, wearing adiscarded tweed coat of their father's, and looking "exactly like thePope asleep," he explained his position to Tim with the extraordinaryremark that "even the Servants' Hall 'as dreams," and went on puffinghis pipe precisely as before. But Weeden betrayed it most. They knew bythe smell--"per fumigated," as they called it--that he was in thepassages, watering the flowers or arranging new ones on thewindow-sills, and when Tim said, "Seen any more water-rats to pot at,Weeden?" the man just smiled and replied, "Good mornin', Master Tim;it's Saturday."
The inflection of his tone was instantly noticed. "Oh, I say, Weeden,how do you know? _Do_ tell me. I won't say a word, I promise." But theHead Gardener kept his one eye--the other was of glass--upon the spoutof his watering-can, and answered in a voice that issued from hisboots--"Because to-morrow's Sunday, Master Tim, unless something'appens to prevent it." He then went quickly from the room, as thoughhe feared more questions; he took the secret with him; he was nervousabout betraying what he knew. But Judy agreed with Tim that "his answerproved it, because why should he have said it unless he knew!"
Meanwhile, that fine morning in early June slipped along its sunny way;a heavy treacle-pudding luncheon was treated properly; Uncle Felix lithis great meerschaum pipe, and they all went out on the lawn beneaththe lime trees. The undercurrent of excitement filled the air.Something was going to happen, something so wonderful that they couldnot speak about it. They did not dare to ask questions lest they shouldsomehow stop it. It was a most delicately poised affair. The leastmistake might send it racing in the opposite direction. But theirimaginations were so actively at work inside that they could not helpwhispering among themselves about it. The silence of their Uncle piledup the coming wonder in an enormous heap.
"Something _is_ coming," affirmed Judy in an undertone for thetwentieth time, "but _I_ think it will be after tea, don't you?"
"Prob'ly," assented her brother, very full of treacle pudding. Hesighed.
"Or p'r'aps it's _somebody_, d'you think?"
Tim shrugged his shoulders carefully, conscious of insecurity within.
"I shouldn't be surprised, would you?" Judy insisted. Of course sheknew as much as he did, but she wanted to make him say somethingdefinite.
"It's both," he said grandly. "Things like this always come together."
"Yes, but it's _quite_ new. It's never happened before."
He looked sideways at her with the pity of superior knowledge.
"How could it?" So great was his private
information that he almostadded "stupid." But he kept back the word for later. He repeatedinstead: "However could it?"
"Well, but--" she began.
"Don't you see, it's what Daddy always told us," he reminded her withan air. And instantly, with overwhelming certainty, those WonderSentences of their father's, first spoken years ago, crashed in upontheir minds: Some day; a day is coming; a day will come.
Tim's assurance hurt her vanity a little, for it was only fair that sheshould know something too, however little. But the force of thediscovery at once obliterated all lesser personal emotions.
"Tim!" she gasped, overcome with admiration. "Is it really _that_?"
Tim never forgot that moment of proud ascendancy. He felt like a kingor something.
"Look out," he whispered quickly. "You'll spoil it all if _he_ knowswe've guessed." And he nodded his head towards Uncle Felix in hiswicker-chair. "It's Maria's adventure, too, remember."
Judy smiled and flushed a little.
"He's not listening," she whispered back, ignoring Maria's claim. Shewas not quite so stupid as her brother thought her. "But how on earthdid you know? It's too wonderful!" She flung the hair out of her eyesand wriggled away some of her suppressed excitement on the grass. Timheld his breath in agony while he watched her. But the smoke from hisUncle's pipe rose steadily into the sunny air, and his face was hiddenby a paper that he held. The moment of danger passed. The boy leanedover towards his sister's ear.
"Where it comes _from_," he whispered, "is what I want to know," andstraightened up again with the air of having delivered an ultimatumthat no girl could ever possibly reply to.
"_From?_" she repeated. She seemed a little disappointed. "D'you meanthat may stop it coming?"
"Of course not," he said contemptuously. "But everything must come fromsomewhere, mustn't it?"
Judy stared at him speechless, while he surveyed her with an air ofcalm omnipotence. To ask a thing no one could answer was the same asknowing the answer oneself.
"Mustn't it?" he repeated with triumph.
And, in the inevitable pause that followed, they both instinctivelyglanced up at Uncle Felix. The same idea had occurred to both of them.Although direct questions about what was coming were obviouslyimpermissible, an indirect question seemed fairly within the rules. Thefact was, neither of them could keep quiet about it any longer. Thestrain was more than human nature could stand. They simply _must_ findout. They would get at it that way.
"Try him," whispered Judy. And Tim turned recklessly towards his Uncleand drew a long, deep breath.
The Extra Day Page 13
